Blockade ‘eased’ as Gaza starves more slowly
June 25th, 2010 § 1 Comment
‘Let Them Eat Coriander!’
by Jonathan Cook in Nazareth
As Israel this week declared the “easing” of the four-year blockade of Gaza, an official explained the new guiding principle: “Civilian goods for civilian people.” The severe and apparently arbitrary restrictions on foodstuffs entering the enclave – coriander bad, cinnamon good – will finally end, we are told. Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants will have all the coriander they want.
This “adjustment”, as the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu termed it, is aimed solely at damage limitation. With Israel responsible for killing nine civilians aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla three weeks ago, the world has finally begun to wonder what purpose the siege serves. Did those nine really need to die to stop coriander, chocolate and children’s toys from reaching Gaza? And, as Israel awaits other flotillas, will more need to be executed to enforce the policy?
McChrystal’s ‘counter-terrorism’ without McChrystal
June 25th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
In this clip, the host isn’t particularly well-informed about Afghanistan and some of his comments are plain silly. But some of Wilkerson’s commentary is interesting. As Gareth Porter has repeatedly pointed out, the war is rooted in domestic political consdierations. It has nothing to do with US strategic interests, Leftist conspiracy theories notwithstanding (which for some reason excuse the war’s present architects to always focus on Zbigniew Brzezinski, a man who has been advising against occupying Afghanistan for 9 years).
Lawrence Wilkerson: Overall objectives and basic strategy in Afghanistan are wrong – it’s time to leave.
That lean and hungry look
June 25th, 2010 § 1 Comment
by Tariq Ali
General Stanley McChrystal’s kamikaze interview had the desired effect. He was sacked and replaced by his boss General David Petraeus. But behind the drama in Washington is a war gone badly wrong and no amount of sweet talk can hide this fact. The loathing for Holbrooke (a Clinton creature) goes deep not because of his personal defects, of which there are many, but because his attempt to dump Karzai without a serious replacement angered the generals. Aware that the war is unwinnable, they were not prepared to see Karzai fall: without a Pashtun point man in the country the collapse might reach Saigon proportions. All the generals are aware that the stalemate is not easy to break, but desirous of building reputations and careers and experimenting with new weapons and new strategies (real war games are always appealing to the military provided the risks are small) they have obeyed orders despite disagreements with each other and the politicians.
Kenneth O’Keefe on BBC’s Hardtalk
June 24th, 2010 § 21 Comments
Kenneth O’Keefe talks about the israeli terrorist attack on the MV Mavi Marmara which killed 9 humanitarian activists.
Part 1 of 3
“Americans Don’t Flinch” – They Duck!
June 24th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson
June 24, 2010
Yesterday, accepting General McChrystal’s resignation, President Obama said that McChrystal’s departure represented a change in personnel, not a change in policy. “Americans don’t flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks.” he stated, “We persist and we persevere.”
Yet, President Obama and the U.S. people don’t face up to the ugly truth that, in Afghanistan, the U.S. has routinely committed atrocities against innocent civilians. By ducking that truth, the U.S. reinforces a sense of exceptionalism, which, in other parts of the world, causes resentment and antagonism.
While on the campaign trail and since taking office, President Obama has persistently emphasized his view that attacks against civilians are always criminal, unless the U.S. is the attacker, in which case they are justified. We heard this again, yesterday, as the President assured the U.S. people that we will persevere in Afghanistan. “We will not tolerate a safe haven for terrorists who want to destroy Afghan security from within, and launch attacks against innocent men, women, and children in our country and around the world.”
In considering the security of Afghan civilians, it’s crucial to ask why, on May 12, 2009, General McChrystal was selected to replace General McKiernan as the top general in Afghanistan. News reports said it was because he had experience in coordinating special operations in Iraq. That experience involved developing death squads, planning night raids, and coordinating undercover assassinations. McChrystal proved, since his appointment, that he could organize atrocities against Afghan civilians and simultaneously present himself as a protector of Afghan civilians. In doing so, he relied on collaboration and cooperation from Defense Secretary Gates, General Petraeus and President Obama. They are united in their culpability.
Taliban is a national insurgency, not an international terrorist movement
June 24th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Riz Khan interviews Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Afghan ambassador to Pakistan under the Taliban regime, and Jere van Dyk, author and journalist and one time captive of the Taliban.
In 2002, Pakistan violated diplomatic protocol to kidnap Zaeef and hand him over to the United States. He spent the next several years first at Bagram and then at Guantanamo Bay, constantly being tortured and abused. Jere van Dyk on the other hand is a US journalist who at one point was kidnapped and imprisonsed by the Pakistani Taliban. Here both recount their respective experiences under captivity and their views on Afghanistan’s future. Zaeef insists that the Taliban’s goals are regional, and they have no interest in picking fights abroad.
Our western privilege is the legacy of historical violence
June 24th, 2010 § 1 Comment
This is part of a debate occurring at Mondoweiss: part one, my response, David Bromwich’s response-to-me-that-wasn’t-a-response, Robin Yassin-Kassab’s response.
David Bromwich has responded to my comment about non-violence and violence with a strong, textual case for non-violent mobilization. Engagement is welcome. There is space for tactical and conceptual clarification and discussion. First, though, several mistakes, misinterpretations, and mis-directions demand correction. Bromwich insists that “For Gandhi and for King non-violence was a principle,” and proceeds to lay out their ideas, appending a post-script with extended quotations. I do not know why Bromwich brought up King, who was anyway not the dogmatic pacifist he presents, and whose non-violent activism achieved its partial successes against the specter of violence in American urban centers and the threat of revolutionary militancy from the Black Panthers and the social spirit they stood for. Anyway, I did not bring King up. Here I will stick to Gandhi:
I do believe that where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence I would advise violence. Thus when my eldest son asked me what he should have done, had he been present when I was almost fatally assaulted in 1908, whether he should have run away and seen me killed or whether he should have used his physical force which he could and wanted to use, and defended me, I told him that it was his duty to defend me even by using violence
Bromwich placed this quotation at the end of the piece in which he insists that Gandhi’s non-violence was principled. Similar statements abound in Gandhi’s work. Clearly, Gandhi was not a principled adherent to non-violence in the sense that I used it, or in the vernacular sense that most would understand principled non-violence. If I say that non-violence is my principle, and then advocate punching someone, then the reasonable conclusion is that non-violence is not my principle. Principles that one deviates from are like quitting smoking between cigarettes. Non-violence as a principle I adhere to except when I don’t is not a principle, it’s a tactic that I sometimes advocate and sometimes don’t, sometimes practice and sometimes don’t. Bromwich and I can banter back and forth over what the phrase “moral principles” or the word “principles” mean, but it is pretty clear that we are both using it in the sense stipulated above.
Law of Boycott Prohibition
June 24th, 2010 § 5 Comments
Note: The following article ignores said law’s implications on Palestinians. To read a compressive article on that, I recommend Band Annie’s Weblog.
Israelis calling for support of the Palestinian call for BDS are under attack from all sides. Whether it be the media, private people in the name of some seriously disturbing organizations [Hebrew], government members, or as of late: Law makers taking fascism in Israel up a notch.
The Weapon of Mass Destruction Called “Email”
I’m a signed and active member of the group called BOYCOTT! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within. This group is a non-profit, non-governmental group of citizens of Israel (some Jews, some Palestinians). It’s what you might call a tactical, one-track group, that will probably break up (under this title) as soon as our goal is fulfilled.
What’s our goal? Well, contrary to what the common belief in Israel is, it’s not the isolation of Israel- that’s just the means. As we endorse the Palestinian call “as is”, the goals are clearly stated in the call:
- Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
- Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
- Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to try Gaza flotilla passengers
June 24th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Perusal of mass grave at Srebrenica reveals that victims were mainly Turkish jihadists employed by humanitarian NGO. (Photo: Amel Emric/AP)
A June 13 exclusive on Intelwire.com entitled “Gaza Flotilla Official Was Foreign Fighter in Bosnia War” purports to reveal the history of Osman Atalay, executive board member of İHH, the Turkish NGO instrumental in organizing the aid flotilla to Gaza intercepted on May 31 by Israeli commandos. Collateral damage from the interception included 9 Turkish humanitarian activists.
According to the Intelwire article, Atalay served in the Bosnian Army from 1992 until 1994. Lest readers fail to equate this act with terrorism, additional condemning evidence is thrown in for good measure:
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the September 11 mastermind, lived and worked in Sarajevo in late 1995, according to [a Bosnian intelligence] document, which says he was employed by a humanitarian organization called ‘Egipatska Pomoc’ or ‘Egyptian Help,’ believed to be a reference to the Egyptian Humanitarian Relief Organization (EHRA).”
The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism
June 24th, 2010 § 1 Comment
This review is part of a series PULSE is publishing of important reviews of
M. Shahid Alam’s work, Israeli Exceptionalism: The Destabilizing Logic of Zionism, New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009
by Stephen J. Sniegoski
This is an excellent book that dares to transgress the regnant taboos and myths in the American mainstream on the issue of Israel. The author, M. Shahid Alam, a professor of economics at Northeastern University of Pakistani nationality, is a published writer on contemporary social and political topics that far transcend his academic field. Due to his proclivity to write on controversial and taboo topics, he has attained a place in ultra-Zionist David Horowitz’s book, “The Professors: The One Hundred and One Most Dangerous Academics in America (2006).”
“Israeli Exceptionalism” lucidly encapsulates in its relatively short 220-page narrative the essential aspects of the Zionist movement, showing how it has been able to rapidly advance from its birth to regional dominance, and how, concomitantly, its amazing success has brought the United States, its powerful patron, into the cauldron of never-ending Middle East wars. While undoubtedly hostile toward Zionism, Alam manages to write rather dispassionate prose. And it is difficult to take issue with the validity of his arguments.
The author states that book’s “primary theme” is to “focus on the germ of the Zionist idea, its core ambition—clearly discernible at its launching—to create a Jewish state in the Middle East by displacing the natives. This exclusionary colonialism would unleash a deeply destabilizing logic, if it were to succeed. It could advance only by creating and promoting conflicts between the West and the Islamicate [the social and cultural complex historically associated with Islam]. Since its creation, this primordial logic has driven the Jewish state to deepen this conflict. Overweening ambition launched Zionism, but the destabilizing logic of this idea has advanced and sustained it.” (p. 3) Because of Zionism’s unparalleled influence over American policymakers, this “destabilizing logic” has mired the United States in a Middle East morass from which it is now politically unable to extricate itself.
