Tag: US Foreign Policy

We Are Watching Another Catastrophic Iraq War Plan 3.0: We’ve Seen All This Before

As usual the US corporate media continues to march in lockstep with the atrocious lies currently spewed by the Trump administration in the aftermath of killing the Iranian leader Qassem Suleimani.

In this regard, President Trump is not the deplorable outlier that liberal pundits pretend him to be.  Rather, Trump is the latest in a long line of terrorist presidents whose actions have polished America’s reputation as the world’s greatest perpetrator of state-sponsored terrorism.

No, that title  does not belong to Iran, as the American public is repeatedly told. It actually belongs to the good old US of A, hands down.

Two key players in this latest terrorist outrage, besides Trump himself, are Vice-President Mike Pence and Secretary of Defense Mike Pompeo.

Both men claim to be Christians, evangelicals in fact.

Both men continue to flourish in shameful careers that bring disrepute to the church of Jesus Christ.

Both men make a mockery of the gospel and reveal in living color that they abandoned the Lord Jesus long ago.

Pence and Pompeo are living examples the failed “seed sown among thorns” described by Jesus in his parable of the sower in Mark 4:7, 18-19:

Others, like seed sown among thorns hear the word; but the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth and the desires for other things come in and choke the word, making it unfruitful.

The arid, war-mongering, anti-Christian lifestyles of these men are openly revealed as they blatantly lie America into another tragic war of American aggression.

Craig Murray has written an important article detailing the inexcusable lies of Trump, Pence and Pompeo. Mr. Murray is a former British diplomat turned human rights advocate.

Craig Murray, former UK diplomat turned human rights advocat

I have posted an excerpt of his article below, but I encourage you to read the entire piece  here:

In one of the series of blatant lies the USA has told to justify the assassination of Soleimani, Mike Pompeo said that Soleimani was killed because he was planning “Imminent attacks” on US citizens. It is a careful choice of word. Pompeo is specifically referring to the Bethlehem Doctrine of Pre-Emptive Self Defence.

Developed by Daniel Bethlehem when Legal Adviser to first Netanyahu’s government and then Blair’s, the Bethlehem Doctrine is that states have a right of “pre-emptive self-defence” against “imminent” attack. That is something most people, and most international law experts and judges, would accept. Including me.

What very few people, and almost no international lawyers, accept is the key to the Bethlehem Doctrine – that here “Imminent” – the word used so carefully by Pompeo – does not need to have its normal meanings of either “soon” or “about to happen”. An attack may be deemed “imminent”, according to the Bethlehem Doctrine, even if you know no details of it or when it might occur. So you may be assassinated by a drone or bomb strike – and the doctrine was specifically developed to justify such strikes – because of “intelligence” you are engaged in a plot, when that intelligence neither says what the plot is nor when it might occur. Or even more tenuous, because there is intelligence you have engaged in a plot before, so it is reasonable to kill you in case you do so again.

I am not inventing the Bethlehem Doctrine. It has been the formal legal justification for drone strikes and targeted assassinations by the Israeli, US and UK governments for a decade. Here it is in academic paper form, published by Bethlehem after he left government service (the form in which it is adopted by the US, UK and Israeli Governments is classified information).

So when Pompeo says attacks by Soleimani were “imminent” he is not using the word in the normal sense in the English language. It is no use asking him what, where or when these “imminent” attacks were planned to be. He is referencing the Bethlehem Doctrine under which you can kill people on the basis of a feeling that they may have been about to do something.

The idea that killing an individual who you have received information is going to attack you, but you do not know when, where or how, can be justified as self-defence, has not gained widespread acceptance – or indeed virtually any acceptance – in legal circles outside the ranks of the most extreme devoted neo-conservatives and zionists…

…Let us now move on to the next lie, which is being widely repeated, this time originated by Donald Trump, that Soleimani was responsible for the “deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans”. This lie has been parroted by everybody, Republicans and Democrats alike…

..Those [Americans killed] were US troops killed in combat during an invasion. The Iraqi Shia militias – whether Iran backed or not – had every legal right to fight the US invasion. The idea that the killing of invading American troops was somehow illegal or illegitimate is risible. Plainly the US propaganda that Soleimani was “responsible for hundreds of American deaths” is intended, as part of the justification for his murder, to give the impression he was involved in terrorism, not legitimate combat against invading forces. The idea that the US has the right to execute those who fight it when it invades is an absolutely stinking abnegation of the laws of war…

The final, and perhaps silliest lie, is Vice President Mike Pence’s attempt to link Soleimani to 9/11. There is absolutely no link between Soleimani and 9/11, and the most strenuous efforts by the Bush regime to find evidence that would link either Iran or Iraq to 9/11 (and thus take the heat off their pals the al-Saud who were actually responsible) failed. Yes, it is true that some of the hijackers at one point transited Iran to Afghanistan. But there is zero evidence, as the 9/11 report specifically stated, that the Iranians knew what they were planning, or that Soleimani personally was involved. 

Let’s Burn Our Neighbor’s House Down, Then Refuse to Give Him Shelter

In 2009 the Obama administration, led by the full-throated imperialist war-monger, Hillary Clinton, facilitated a military coup against the

Former Honduran president Manuel Zalaya

democratically elected, and wildly popular, Honduran president, Manuel Zalaya (see here, here, here and here).

Since then, Honduras has descended into a horrific maelstrom of drug-trafficking, gang warfare, murder, and economic collapse for the common people.

But little of this matters to the U.S. government because our hand-picked replacement for Zalaya, the current president Juan Orlando Hernandez, has implemented the malicious, neo-liberal economic practices well-suited to the expansion of American multi-national corporations.

Never mind that Hernandez and his family are all up to their eyeballs in the

Current Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez

drug trade. Together with his wife and brother, they have all been indicted by U.S. attorneys for drug trafficking (see here, here, here and here).

Under Hernandez’s watch, Honduran democracy has been crushed and the gates of hell-on-earth opened up.   It is now one of the most violent nations in the western hemisphere with a sky-rocketing murder rate.

The greatest factor driving this scourge of nation-wide violence is the shocking growth of drug-cartel related gang violence.  These brutal gangs literally run the country, at least for the average man and woman in the street.

So, the people literally flee for their lives, especially the lives of their children.

Honduran migrants take part in a caravan heading to the US, on the road linking Ciudad Hidalgo and Tapachula, Chiapas state, Mexico, on October 21, 2018. – Thousands of Honduran migrants resumed their march toward the United States on Sunday from the southern Mexican city of Ciudad Hidalgo, AFP journalists at the scene said. (Photo by Pedro Pardo / AFP) (Photo credit should read PEDRO PARDO/AFP/Getty Images)

And they flee to the United States, NOT as “illegal immigrants” (whatever you think of that label) but as legal asylum seekers.

What does America do — after we have destroyed their homeland?

We refuse to give them the humanitarian assistance that they deserve.

In other words, first we burn their house down, and then we refuse to give them shelter.

Instead, we take away their children, put them in detention camps or foster homes and lose track of where we put them.

Please watch the video links below for more information about the current immigration debate that rarely if ever receives the attention it deserves from the media or our politicians.  Have you ever heard an intelligent conversation or debate about our current immigration policies that included this issue of U.S. interference abroad?

I haven’t.

First, an interview with Pulitzer-Prize winning author/journalist, Sonia Nazario.  She describes her recent investigative visits to Honduras, and what she witnessed there (about 18 min.).

Hondudran gang members. Enforcers for drug cartels propped up by the U..S.

She describes Honduras today as “a narco-state supported by the United States.”

Second, a two-part interview (part 1, part 2) with former president Zalaya where he discusses the U.S. backed coup that forced him to flee the country.

He aptly describes Hillary Clinton as a “mafia boss.”

Everyone seeking refuge in our country after escaping the violent landscape

Clinton, the “mafia boss”

left to them by U.S. interventionism, deserves asylum here.

Christians especially ought to be knowledgeable and filled with empathy over the plight of those refugees who suffer because of American meddling in their homelands.

Include these crucial facts in your next conversation with anyone ignorantly chanting, “Send them back.”

Senate Shirks Responsibility and Primes the Pump for War with Iran

“Senate panel rejects requiring Congress sign off before Iran strike.” 

That is the headline at The Hill this afternoon.  Below is an excerpt:

“The Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday rejected a Democratic proposal to require congressional approval before the U.S. can take military action against Iran.
“The panel voted 13-9 against a proposal blocking the administration from using funding to carry out a military strike in or against Iran without congressional signoff, according to Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the committee. 
“Murphy and Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) said earlier Wednesday that they were going to bring up their proposal for a vote in the committee as an amendment to a Syrian foreign policy bill.
“‘Congress is a co-equal branch that has the sole authority to declare war – so we don’t have to sit around and watch this administration spiral us into another endless conflict in the Middle East,’ Udall said in a statement.  

“Murphy added that Congress should ‘remind this administration that they do not have legal authorization to launch a war against Iran without our consent and that no one else is responsible but Trump for putting us on this blind campaign of escalation with no off-ramp.'”

Every Republican member of this Committee, with the exception of Rand Paul, voted against this important Democratic proposal.  Here are their names:

If any of these politicians represent you, or if you simply want to speak out as an American citizen, please contact their offices and reprimand them. Scold them, first, for abdicating their congressional responsibilities, and second, for making it that much easier for men without conscience like John Bolton and Mike Pompeo to begin another cruel, disastrous, unnecessary war in the Middle East.

We’ve Got “Clowns and Baboons in Washington” Threatening War

Those of you who have read this blog for sometime will know that I try to keep track of Lawrence Wilkerson, his interviews, lectures and writings, as

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson

diligently as possible.

You may recall that Wilkerson is a retired Army colonel, former chief of staff to Colin Powell during the Bush Jr. administration.  He is now a regular contributor to The Real News Network.

He is a rare breed.  As far as I know, he is the only member of that administration to have promptly admitted to the wrongheadedness, stupidity, deception, illegality, and wholesale systemic, political failure that led up to the disastrous and immoral Iraq war.

The United States is now teetering on the brink of a major conflict, perhaps even an outright war, with Iran.  Those of you who have followed the recent history of US relations with Iran will not be surprised to hear Col. Wilkerson describe this administration’s current anti-Iran saber rattling as a repetition of the horrific boondoggle that led us into the Iraq war.

I won’t take the time to rehearse that sorry story-line here, rather I will simply quote a few of the more telling words from Col. Wilkerson in the hopes that you will be motivated to watch the entire 17 minute interview available here and here.

Below are a few gems from Wilkerson:

“I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that we [the US government] would manufacture another Gulf of Tonkin incident…” [Remember, the Gulf of

Vietnamese children fleeing their village; it had just been hit with napalm.

Tonkin incident was a fictitious “attack” on an American ship that became the official excuse for US military action in Vietnam.]

We are being governed “by clowns and baboons in Washington…”

“The world now sees the US as insane…warmongers…”

I believe that every follower of Jesus is called to be a pacifist. Consequently, the Christian’s public posture must always be in favor of peace, combating war and violence whenever, wherever it tries to raise its ugly head.

The necessity of public, anti-war protest is especially urgent when our “leaders” agitate for war on the basis of lies, misinformation and propaganda.

There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for the United States to see Iran as a hostile power, much less an enemy in need of a good bombing.

Know this: You and I are being lied to regularly by the MSM every time they discuss Iran.

I urge you to please do what I have done — call and/or write your elected officials and urge them to say NO to any and all efforts to attack Iran.

Only Congress has the Constitutional authority to declare war.  Tell your senators and representatives, at the very least, to insist on the enforcement of the War Powers Resolutions of 1973.

Julian Assange’s Arrest, Another Nail in the Coffin of a Free Press

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was arrested by British police yesterday after 7 years of refuge in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.

Julian Assange at Ecuadoran embassy

It’s another sad day for the freedom of the press worldwide, and one more example of the way the U.S. bullies other nations around the world, forcing them to do America’s dirty work. (Watch reports here, and here.)

The United States is undoubtedly seeking Assange’s extradition to this country where the Trump administration is eager to charge him with conspiring to hack U.S. computers and stealing military intelligence in 2010.

A number of pundits are also linking Assange to the debunked and moribund Russia-gate conspiracy because they apparently don’t have anything better to do with their useless careers.

The entire affair would all be a colossal joke were it not for the extraordinary abuse suffered by Mr. Assange and the horrendous consequences entailed for a free press.

Here are just a few of the problems:

To begin with, the Obama Justice department worked for years to dig up enough evidence to charge Assange with the very same crime that the Trump administration wants to charge him with today. Yet, they failed to discover a scrap of incriminating evidence.

Assange is the victim of an American vendetta. Wikileaks has embarrassed the world’s sole super-power, and super-powers don’t take their humiliations  lying down.

None of this should be happening. If Trump’s Justice Department has found the evidence that eluded all of the Obama administration’s best efforts, then they should make it public, pronto.

Furthermore, Assange is not an American citizen, so it’s impossible for him to commit “treason” against the U.S., despite the many accusations made by ignorant U.S. officials.

Assange is an Australian.

For the U.S. to put a foreign national on trial for supposedly breaking U.S. security laws would set a dangerous precedent to set. But then, no one has ever accused American politicians, including Donald Trump, of excessively long-range thinking.

Many American journalists regularly print stories that rely on the breach of foreign intelligence laws.  Is Trump, or any other president, going to hand U.S. journalists over to China or North Korea or Russia or whoever else wants them when that foreign country accuses them of printing stories that reveal their foreign state secrets?

I don’t think so.

Ahem….why, then, should an American president think he has the right to do this to an Australian who has never lived in the U.S.?

Wikileaks is a publication outlet for whistle-blowers around the world.  If you are unfamiliar with the types of materials they have published in the past, check out the the following report from RT with Dan Cohen to hear about only a few of the many valuable “secrets” that have been exposed through Wikileaks.

Both Assange and others who work with Wikileaks have always maintained that they are not hackers. Yet, the U.S. continues to accuse Assange of hacking, which he obviously denies. Naturally, he could be lying, but then why has no one ever produced the kind of evidence needed to prove Assange a liar?

Wikileaks has always described itself as a publishing clearinghouse, of

Assange taken from the embassy

sorts, for the documents obtained by whistle-blowers around the world.  It will accept such material, review it with the help of other intelligence agencies, make their own editorial decisions, and then release the (redacted) material for world consumption.

Their publications typically expose the corruption and criminality of governments and world leaders. In this regard, Wikileaks provides an extremely valuable service to the world.

This means that Wikileaks is a journalistic enterprise; it is a news outlet. As many others have pointed out, prosecuting Julian Assange and Wikileaks is the equivalent of prosecuting the New York Times or the Washington Post or Fox News for publishing and/or broadcasting government documents that have been “leaking” to them.

The establishment press’s insistence that Wikileaks is not a journalism organization is absolute rubbish, plain and simple. Many of these other journalists and newspapers have happily printed leaked intelligence information that was first handed over to them by Wikileaks.

If Assange is prosecuted, then the editors of all those newspapers, magazines and TV networks should be next in line, and the conservative pundits who actually believe that such prosecutions would be a good thing haven’t the foggiest notion of what it means to be truly “un-American.”

Both Assange and the numerous whistle-blowers from whom he has received documents over the years all insist that neither he nor anyone affiliated with Wikileaks have been involved in obtaining documents themselves by computer hacking.

The two best known whistle-blowers have been Edward Snowden and

FORT MEADE, MD – JULY 30: U.S. Army Private First Class Bradley Manning is escorted by military police as he leaves his military trial after he was found guilty of 20 out of 21 charges, July 30, 2013 Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. Manning, was found not guilty of aiding the enemy, was convicted of wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the internet, is accused of sending hundreds of thousands of classified Iraq and Afghanistan war logs and more than 250,000 diplomatic cables to the website WikiLeaks while he was working as an intelligence analyst in Baghdad in 2009 and 2010. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Bradley (now Chelsey) Manning. They both insist that Wikileaks received their hacked intelligence documents when they were offered to them but had nothing to do with taking the information from government computers.

Frankly, I view both Snowden and Manning as national heroes. The American public only knows about the U.S. government’s illegal, anti-Constitutional programs of warrantless, worldwide wire-tapping and surveillance because of the material Snowden handed over to Wikileaks and other outlets.

Similarly, we only learned the truth about U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan

Edward Snowden

and Iraq, including the astonishing levels of civilian casualties during the Iraq War, because of Manning’s communications with Wikileaks.

American citizens have a right to know about the crimes committed by their government.

Despite the repeated hue and cry about these whistle-blowers “having American blood on their hands,” no one has ever produced a single piece of evidence to show that these leaks actually put a single American life “at risk” anywhere in the world.  Sure, the accusation makes for a dramatic propaganda talking-point, but in the words of a well-known T.V. commercial, no one has ever been able to produce the beef.

The collaboration between conscientious whistle-blowers like Snowden and Manning together with publication outlets like Wikileaks, provide an essential service to all the people of the world who care about freedom, democracy, justice and accountability.

Finally, since Assange is being accused of conspiring to hack U.S. intelligence computers with Bradley Manning in 2010, let’s recall what all of that entailed.

Remember, first, that Manning has always denied any involvement by Assange. His military trial, where he was convicted, failed to produce any evidence to the contrary.

Manning was working with military intelligence in Iraq when his superior officers ordered him to investigate and arrest the Iraqi “insurgents” distributing anti-American, “terrorist” leaflets allegedly fomenting violence against the new U.S. backed government.

Child wounded by U.S. forces

When Manning had the leaflets translated, he discovered that they were not advocating terrorism or violence of any sort. They were actually political fliers offering legitimate criticisms of the new government.

Manning went to his superior officers with this information and informed them that the group was not threatening violence or terrorism. Rather, they were merely an opposition political party doing what politicians do in a democracy – arguing against the establishment. The leaflets were simply an example of democracy in action.

Manning’s superiors told him to be quiet and do what he was ordered to do; namely, find the critics, confiscate their materials, have them arrested and thrown into jail.

That was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Manning disobeyed his orders, downloaded a treasure-trove of classified material documenting American crimes, atrocities and mismanagement. He then handed it all over to Wikileaks.

One of the pieces of information released by Wikileaks was the now famous film from an Apache helicopter that came to be called the “Collateral Damage” video.  I used to show it to my classes at Calvin College.

“Collateral Damage” was filmed through a helicopter gun site. It shows the indiscriminate slaughter of over a dozen civilians, including two Reuters

** EDS NOTE GRAHPHIC CONTENTS ** This is an image obtained by The Associated Press which shows naked detainees with bags placed over their heads placed into a human pyramid as Spc. Sabrina Harman, middle and Cpl. Charles Graner Jr., above, pose behind them in late 2003 at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. (AP Photo)

journalists, walking in an Iraqi suburb. The film concludes with the murder of a father and child who were gunned down when the father stopped his van in order to pick up the wounded and take them to a local hospital.

The family’s van was riddled with bullets. Fortunately, one of the two children inside survived. You can hear the helicopter pilot talking with someone at ground control as he gets the van in his sights. After unleashing the storm of lethal bullets, one of them notes that the pilot had just shot an innocent family with children.

The pilot responds by saying, “Well, that’s what happens when you bring your kids into a war zone.”

The man’s callousness is stunning. His arrogance and stupidity, remarkable.

Never mind that it was actually America that brought the war zone into this family’s backyard; that this father was picking up his children from school when he saw strangers bleeding to death on the side of the road; that he was the Good Samaritan riddled with bullets by the heartless Pharisees of American imperialism.

The Collateral Damage video was only the tip of Manning’s iceberg of previously concealed U.S intelligence, demonstrating once again that both the secrecy and the national security designations are typically used to hide national embarrassments and conceal government crimes.

People like Chelsey Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange deserve medals of honor, not senseless, interminable persecution by abusive governments hell-bent on hiding their flagrant crimes against humanity behind a bogus curtain of national security.

Every world citizen who cares about democracy, truth and equal justice for all must protest and stand against Julian Assange’s illegal arrest.

Otherwise, Assange’s eventual trial and certain conviction on Trumped-up charges will be one more nail in the coffin of a free press.

How Typically American to Punish Poor Brown People Twice

In 2009 the Obama administration encouraged a military coup that overthrew the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel

The democratically elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya

Zelaya.  This fact is not in dispute.  Hillary Clinton, then Obama’s Secretary of State, admitted as much in a 2014 interview.

Together Obama and Clinton helped to install a right-wing dictatorship that continues to rule over the Honduran people to this day. Not only has this dictatorship overrun the civil rights of the Honduran people, it works hand-in-glove with the drug cartels terrorizing all of Central America.

Those cartels use local gangs of enforcers to extort protection money from poor and middle-class business owners, often driving them out of business and killing anyone refusing to cooperate. These gangs, operating with the

Honduran gang members

silent approval of government leaders, are the primary cause of Honduras’ skyrocketing murder rate.

So, guess what. The U.S. bears the lion share of responsibility for the problems facing Honduras today.

If this is not familiar to you, please take a few minutes to watch two video

Lucy Pagoada

explanations. The first features Lucy Pagoada, an Honduran immigrant explaining the situation in her native country, and why she fled to the United States.

The second is an episode of On Contact with Chris Hedges. He interviews Professor Dana Frank, author of the book The Long Honduran Night: Resistance, Terror and the United States in the

Prof. Dana Frank

Aftermath of the Coup. She poignantly explains America’s role in transforming Honduras into a failed state.

Now, President Trump is threatening to close America’s southern border. He refuses to receive any more applicants for asylum and is ending all foreign aid to Honduras, Guatemala and San Salvador (two additional nations where the U.S. has meddled with disastrous effect).

So, let me get this straight.  First, we intervene in these nation’s internal affairs. We help to overthrow the Honduran government and install a corrupt dictatorship.

Then we support that dictatorship even as it enriches itself at the people’s

Honduran anti-coup protesters arrested

expense by allying itself with violent drug cartels. We stand by and watch as the dictators’ neo-liberal economic policies exacerbate poverty, unemployment and violent crime because those policies benefit U.S. corporate interests.

Then when the poorest of the poor flee for their lives, seeking asylum and a better life in the U.S., our esteemed president stigmatizes them as criminals, rapists, the “worst of the worst.”

He takes away their children, locks them into cages, loses hundreds if not thousands of those children due to poor record keeping, and closes the

Honduran refugees tear gassed

border. For the coup de’grace he orders border patrol agents to shoot these helpless, refugee families with tear gas and rubber bullets.

All the while, President Trump continues his xenophobic rants insisting that this southern “invasion” – vast weaponized caravans of brown invaders intent on destroying the American way of life – is THE greatest national security threat facing our country today.

And many Americans listen.  Too many are persuaded.

They are persuaded because they have never bothered to follow the news. They are persuaded because don’t know anything about our history of

Children cry next to their mother in a caravan of Honduran migrants near Ciudad Hidalgo, Mexico. (CNS photo/Edgard Garrido, Reuters)

Central American interventions.

Worse yet, they don’t care to learn.

They are too busy gulping down the poisonous swill of U.S. exceptionalism to hear the cries of innocent Hondurans crushed beneath the colossus of American geopolitical power.

We are witnessing a textbook definition of oppression unfolding before our eyes. It is more than a national disgrace; it is wickedness incarnate.

America is the beast risen from the abyss.

The Trouble with Tropes and Sloppy Thinking

(This is the third in a series of posts discussing the popular confusion of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.  You can find the previous two posts here and here.)

I was unfamiliar with the word “trope” until I began following the recent attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar for her criticisms of the powerful Israel lobby in Washington D.C.  (See my previous posts on this controversy here, here, here, here and here. )

Rep. Omar objected to two well-attested lobbying dynamics in Washington politics.

First, she pointed out the powerful influence on policy decisions exerted by campaign contributions and similar “gifts” offered to our elected officials by pro-Israel lobbyists.  This gold-plated pipeline of pro-Israel political influence is well documented by such groups as The Center for Responsive Politics. Check their page providing a break-down of the nearly $15 million contributed to US politicians by the various instruments and individuals working with/for the pro-Israel lobby in 2018.  This page has a graphic showing which politicians received the most pro-Israel money.

The old adage “follow the money” remains as true today as ever when it comes to deciphering the voting records of our elected officials.

Second, Rep. Omar objected to the very real problem of American politicians developing “dual loyalties” as a result of the pro-Israel influence-peddling that makes our elected officials extremely pliable to the pressure of pro-Israel political PACs (i.e. political action committees).  Again, we all know that if we want to understand why our members of Congress vote as they do, you follow the money.  It’s that simple.

Furthermore, at no point did Rep. Omar offer any generalizations, derogatory or otherwise, about Jews as a group or of Judaism as a religion.

However, this did not prevent a host of people, both Jews and Gentiles, from jumping onto the “call out” bandwagon.

Omar was immediately called out, as they say nowadays, for using “well-known anti-Semitic tropes” in her speeches and Twitter statements. (I observe that this is a particularly popular way of making accusations against Omar on Twitter.)

Her fellow legislators repeatedly reminded us that accusing Jews of (1) controlling the government, banking system, etc. with their wealth and (2) being untrustworthy citizens because of their “dual loyalties” are both long-standing, anti-Semitic tropes.

Of course, both of those statements are true.  I have heard these tropes myself recently and have bluntly condemned them in a heart-to-heart talk with a bigoted friend.

But the problem in this current debate becomes evident as soon as you try to follow the logic from (a) the purported evidence of these two offensive “tropes” to (b) the conclusion that, because Omar referred to the problems created by a well-financed Israel lobby and the dual-loyalties fostered in those politicians who receive its money, that Omar must be speaking in anti-Semitic code.

The problem, however, is that the logic is fallacious and the conclusion is bogus.

But, then, nobody ever accused US politicians or the American public of possessing an excess of probity or clear-headed, logical thinking ability.

So, let’s dissect the numerous, illogical problems in these anti-Omar attacks.

We’ll start with the easiest one first, which I have already touched on in multiple posts.  Omar is an anti-Zionist.  (So am I.)  So are a good number of Jews in this country and around the world.

Anti-Zionism is not synonymous with anti-Semitism.  Many pro-Zionists are Christians and Gentiles. Rep. Omar (and I) includes them in her criticisms.  Many anti-Zionists are Jewish. Omar (and I) ally ourselves with them.

There is an intersection between Jews and Zionism, but they are not identical!

The consistent refusal of pro-Zionist/pro-Israel advocates to admit this obvious distinction is evidence of the continuing legacy of political Zionism’s deliberate confusion of the two terms for their own ideological, propaganda purposes.  (See my previous post on this subject.)

Second, not only did Omar never refer collectively to “Jews” in her statements; she never generalized about Jews or Judaism in any way at all.  But stereotypical generalizations are an essential ingredient in any racist, bigoted trope.

Omar, however, has only spoken specifically about the lobbying performed on behalf of Zionist, Israeli policies that create suffering for Palestinians.  The only generalizations appearing in the current debate are those being assumed and then imported into the conversation by Omar’s critics.  These people are seeing what they want to see, not what is actually there.

Third, we need to answer the question of what is a trope, and why has it become the favored term in this debate?

Trope has several definitions, but the most relevant sense for this conversation is its denotation of a commonly understood plot device or character used in story-telling.

So, the popular romantic-comedy story-line of boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy reunites with girl is an example of a popular movie trope.  Everyone has seen this plot-line many times before, but it helps the viewer/reader enter into the story and, if well done, its popularity does not detract from the enjoyment of seeing it dressed up in new clothes.

Tropes also appear in certain well-know characters that show up again and again: the gruff but gentle giant, the hero who chooses suffering over compromise, the anonymous stranger who delivers a town from a band of marauding outlaws.  These are common tropes in Western narratives.  We easily recognize these “tropeic” characters and immediately know something about how to fit them into the rest of the story.

This second sense of “character tropes” is the meaning of the word most relevant to the current debate over Omar’s words.

There is no doubt that images of “the rich, manipulative Jew” and “the secret, Jewish conspiracy to control the world” are age-old, hateful, paranoid, anti-Semitic character tropes.  Such mindless bigotry helped to fuel the Holocaust, and it deserves to be expunged once and for all from human history.

BUT, I will say it again.  Similarity is not identity.

For example, my dog and I both have two eyes, a nose and a mouth.  But those similarities do not make me a dog (though, perhaps I should defer to my wife here). Nor does it mean that my dog is really a human being.  We both have certain similarities, but those similarities do not prove we are of the same species.

Those traits are characteristic of both people and dogs, but they are not distinctive of either.  In other words, they are descriptively ambiguous.

For anyone to conclude otherwise would be an example of a logical fallacy called the Fallacy of Ambiguity.

Here is another example of the logical fallacy of ambiguity:

Premise – all dogs have four legs.

Premise – my cat has four legs.

Conclusion – therefore, my cat must be a dog.

Here the ambiguity appears in both of the premises.  Walking on four legs is characteristic of both dogs and cats, but it is not distinctive of either.  So it is descriptively ambiguous.

We are now in a position to see how this brand of illogical argument is being applied to Rep. Omar:

Premise – anti-Semitic tropes sometimes refer to rich Jews with dual-loyalties controlling government

Premise – Omar referred to the Israel lobby’s money creating dual-loyalty and influencing government

Conclusion – therefore, Omar must be using anti-Semitic tropes

It’s not hard to spot the ambiguity and, thus, the illogic.  Here the ambiguity appears in the first premise.  There are other ways to talk about Jews without reference to these tropes.  Such generalizations may be characteristic of all anti-Semites, but they are not distinguishing characteristics of all conversations about Jews or Judaism.

Isn’t it possible to talk about specific instances of Jewish (and Gentile) lobbying, money, national loyalties and influencing government without deploying anti-Semitic tropes? Of course, it is.

Can’t we speak with historical specificity (rather than generalities) without being accused of using bigoted generalizations and stereotypes?  The answer to these questions is obvious.

Perhaps you noticed that the effectiveness of this particular fallacy of ambiguity presupposes a related logical ambiguity that works similarly:

Premise – Israel declares itself to be the Jewish state that speaks for all Jews

Premise – Omar has criticized the state of Israel

Conclusion – therefore, Omar has criticized all Jews and Judaism (by using anti-Semitic tropes)

There is no need for repetition here.  The conclusion is obviously false.  The first premise hides the ambiguity of Israel’s claims to universally represent all Jews.  Many Jewish people reject that claim outright.

Thus, not only is this argument illogical on its face, but it is refuted by the evidence when you read and listen to Omar’s statements as well as the many statements offered by anti-Zionist Jews in her defense.

Finally, I want to close by mentioning one of the more trivial but nonetheless significant elements of the accusations brought against Rep. Omar.

Many of the posts calling her out for her anti-Semitic tropes include some reference to how “painful,” “hurtful,” or “damaging” her language has been, insinuating that hearing or reading Omar’s words have caused some sort of psychic trauma in the lives of her critics.

Unfortunately, this particular way of confusing the spoken/written word with acts of personal violence has become deeply rooted in modern American discourse.  But I don’t believe that means we should allow it to stand or to go unchallenged.  Instead, we all need to stand up and say,

“I’m sorry, but that’s rubbish.  Grow up, and stop with the emotional manipulation already!”

I strongly suggest that you read the recent book by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting up a Generation for Failure (Penguin, 2018).

For our current purposes, focus on chapters 1, 2, 4, 5 and 10.  Of particular interest here is the authors’ description of America’s growing “victimhood culture,” a culture having three distinct attributes:

First, individuals and groups display high sensitivity to slight; second, they have a tendency to handle conflicts through complaints to third parties; and third, they seek to cultivate an image of being victims who deserve assistance. (page 210)

Sadly, the US Congress is occupied by a large collection of these “coddled minds,” some of whom are happy to facilitate another person’s faux victim-hood.

This post is already too long.  But if you want to read an excellent exploration of the ways in which political Zionism and the state of Israel have sought to ingrain perpetual psychic trauma and victim-hood into Zionist identity, see Norman Finkelstein’s provocative book, The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering (Verso, 2015, second edition).

Also check out the brilliant book by Avraham Burg (a former member of the Israeli Knesset), The Holocaust is Over; We Must Rise from Its Ashes (St. Martins Griffin, 2016, second edition).

I hope that this post will help my readers to think through the inaccuracies, the illogic, and the injustice now being inflicted upon Rep. Ilhan Omar as the defenders of political Zionism pile onto this woman of great character.

Why Did Early Political Zionists Want to Confuse Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism?

(This is the second in a series of posts discussing the recent debate over anti-Semitism vs. anti-Zionism.  You can find the first post here.)

I have a favorite book shop in the Palestinian section of Jerusalem.  It’s only a short walk from our favorite hotel just down the road from the Damascus Gate of the Old City.

Terry usually steps across the street to shop for children’s books while I search the long rows of “alternative” books on the history of Palestine, Israel, Zionism, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the political debates fueled by the post-Zionist movement, and much much more.

I never cease to be amazed at the ready availability (at least, if you know where to look) of anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian literature in the heartland of ethnocratic, political Zionism.  I suspect that I could never find these titles in anything but the most exotic, well-hidden American bookstore.

My regular pilgrimage to this wonderful, mental oasis — owned and operated by a most congenial Palestinian family, whose children can operate the cash register as easily as their parents — always concludes as I carry away arm-loads of new books to devour during our stay.

I like to read as many of these titles as possible while we are living with our Palestinian family in the refugee camp.  It allows me to share what I am learning and ask questions of my friends, Ayed and Ghada, to compare their personal knowledge with the things I am reading.

One of the books I read this past November was State of Terror: How Terrorism Created Modern Israel, by Thomas Suarez, published by Olive Branch Press, 2017.  I encourage you to read it.

Suarez’s work is built upon extensive research in various national archives, and is bolstered with copious citations from these first-hand sources.

The esteemed Israeli historian Ilan Pappe wrote about this book:

The book is the first comprehensive and structured analysis of the violence and terror employed by the Zionist movement, and later the state of Israel, against the people of Palestine.

A German, Jewish physicist, Wolfgang Yourgrau had emigrated to Palestine but decided to abandon the Zionist project in 1948.  On the front-piece of

Wolfgang Yourgrau

his book, Suarez quotes Yourgrau from the February 1943 edition of the Orient.  Yourgrau wrote:

The growth of Fascism in Palestine at a time when the liberated nations will put it into its grave is a tragi-comedy.

These two citations will give you a sense of the story-line waiting to unfold when you pick of a copy of State of Terror. It’s a book that makes for horrific reading, especially for anyone not already familiar with the revolutionary, nationalist-racial movement known as Zionism.

Heck, I’ve studied this story extensively, and I still found myself horrified by the new things I learned while reading Suarez.

David Ben-Gurion

One of the themes Suarez documents is the efforts of men like David Ben-Gurion (Israel’s first prime minister) and his circle of cronies to identify anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Weaponizing the charge of anti-Semitism so that it could be lobbed like a hand-grenade at anyone critical of early Zionism and their methods was a deliberate rhetorical strategy devised by Zionists in public debate.

Ben-Gurion and his comrades were shrewd.  People were especially sensitive to accusations of anti-Semitism before and during the Second World War.

Defenders of Zionism knew they could get away with such slanderous smears with minimal push-back in the era of Adolf Hitler.

But more importantly there was an important ideological basis for this particular word game.

The early Zionists insisted that their new state of Israel would become THE

Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the AIPAC policy conference, 2011

national homeland for all of world-wide Jewry.  Even today, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, can insist that when he opens his mouth, he speaks “not just as the prime minister of Israel but as a representative of the entire Jewish people.”

As the author of this piece in Haaretz (Feb. 12, 2015) says, the leader of Israel readily claims to “speak for all Jews whether they like it or not.”

Ben-Gurion and his cohorts believed what they wanted to believe: Israel was going to represent all Jews everywhere.  All Jews everywhere were automatic citizens, whether or not they had ever set foot in Palestine.  Zionist Israel would become the global, collective “Jew” standing astride the world stage.

By this logic, if you accept it, wittingly or unwittingly, criticizing Israel is transmogrified into criticizing Judaism and all Jews.  Anti-Zionism becomes anti-Semitism because there is no longer an independent concept of Jewishness apart from the life, health and prosperity of the new Zionist nation-state.

Consequently, from its very early days, Zionist leaders worked to exacerbate anti-Semitism (real or imagined) whenever and wherever possible in order to motivate immigration to the Promised Land — the only place for all Jews to properly belong.

Many people do not realize that before Israel was officially established, Zionist leaders refused to assist European Jews escaping the Holocaust unless they first pledged to settle in Palestine.  If you were a refugee fleeing the Nazis and you wanted passage to Canada or American, for example, David Ben-Gurion happily left you to your fate in Auschwitz.

Early Zionism also fomented anti-Semitism in order to encourage increased in immigration through fear.  Suarez provides documentation describing the well-known Zionist bombing of an Egyptian movie house for the sole purpose of stirring up anti-Jewish sentiment.  The resulting Arab attacks against Egyptian Jews prompted a sizeable increase in Jewish emigration from Egypt into Palestine.

In fact, Suarez documents internal conversations confirming that early Zionist leaders depended on something they called “the eternal crisis” of global anti-Semitism.  The never-ending threat of this “eternal crisis” became an important means of fueling the perpetual fear and insecurity that Zionists could exploit in motivating people to immigrate to Palestine, the only land where they could ever “be safe.”

Fortunately, many people, both then and now, have seen through the web of lies and illogic at the root of Zionism’s language games.  The Jewish authors mentioned in my previous post well describe how to untangle this web of misrepresentations.

Israel does not represent all Jews or all of Judaism.

Zionism is not the same as Jewishness or Judaism.

Orthodox Judaism can be thoroughly anti-Zionist

In fact, the earliest and most vocal anti-Zionists were orthodox rabbis and their congregations who saw the identification of a nation-state with the aspirations of their revered religion as nothing short of blasphemy.

Anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism.

They are not synonyms.  They are two separate things all together.

It’s not hard to see how the ghosts of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Menachim Begin live on in the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the current crop of pro-Israel spokespeople attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar.

The US Congress is powerfully haunted by the illogic, deceit and deliberate misconceptions planted by pro-Zionist apologists.  As Mark Twain said, A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is still lacing up its boots.

However, that only means that those who know and speak the truth, people like Ilhan Omar, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Phyllis Bennis and numerous orthodox rabbis will need frequent encouragement never to give up.

I pray that my readers will join their ranks and defend the universal principles (applicable to all people in all nations) of human rights, dignity and justice for all, without discrimination.

 

Yes, AIPAC is Much Too Powerful

Yesterday the New York Times published an article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg entitled, “Ilhan Omar’s Criticism Raises the Question: Is Aipac Too Powerful?”

Her article offers a clear answer to the question.  You can read an excerpt

Israel’s prime minister speaks to the annual AIPAC convention

below (all emphasis is mine). You can read the full article by clinking the title above:

“When Representative Ilhan Omar landed a coveted seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stephen Fiske began working the phones to Capitol Hill.

“Alarmed by messaging that he saw as anti-Semitic and by Ms. Omar’s support for the boycott-Israel movement, Mr. Fiske, a longtime activist with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, began texting and calling his friends in Congress to complain. He is hoping Aipac activists will punish Ms. Omar, a freshman Democrat from Minnesota, with a primary challenge in 2020.

“On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders will mete out one form of punishment: Spurred by outrage over Ms. Omar’s latest comments suggesting that pro-Israel activists ‘push for allegiance to a foreign country,’ they will put a resolution condemning anti-Semitism on the House floor.

“”Many other people involved in the pro-Israel community, a lot of Aipac-affiliated members, there’s a lot of concern; there’s a clarion call for activism,’

A bi-partisan meeting of Congressional leaders with Israel’s prime minister, hosted by AIPAC

said Mr. Fiske, who is the chairman of a political action committee that backs pro-Israel candidates…

“’It is so disingenuous of some of these members of Congress who are lining up to condemn these questioning voices as if they have no campaign finance interest in the outcome,’ said Brian Baird, a former Democratic congressman from Washington State, who became a vocal critic of Israel, and Aipac, after a constituent of his was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer in Gaza while protesting the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003.

“’If one dares to criticize Israel or dares to criticize Aipac, one gets branded anti-Semitic,’ Mr. Baird added, ‘and that’s a danger to a democratic republic…’

“Mr. Fiske’s Florida Congressional Committee is one of a string of political action committees with anodyne names — NorPac in New Jersey, To Protect Our Heritage PAC outside Chicago, the Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens outside Baltimore, among others — that operate independently of Aipac but whose missions and membership align with it.

“Countless individual Aipac members and other pro-Israel donors give on their own — including megadonors like the billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a onetime Aipac backer who has started a harder-line rival to the group…

“[I]n a recent article in The Nation, M.J. Rosenberg, who worked for Aipac in the 1980s and is now a critic of the organization, described how ‘Aipac’s political operation is used precisely as Representative Omar suggested,’ including during policy conferences, when members gather ‘in side rooms, nominally independent of the main event,’ to raise money and ‘decide which candidate will get what.’…

“In 1982, Aipac activists organized to oust Paul Findley, an Illinois House member who had embraced the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat. The To Protect Our Heritage PAC, run by Aipac activists in Skokie, Ill., backed Richard J. Durbin, according to Marc Sommer, a PAC official.

“Two years later, Aipac activists mobilized to replace Senator Charles Percy, then the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a backer of a deal allowing the sale of sophisticated military planes called Awacs to Saudi Arabia, with the Democrat Paul Simon. Mr. Simon wrote in his memoir that Robert Asher, an Aipac board member in Chicago, asked him to run.

“The back-to-back victories established Aipac as an organization not to be trifled with. In the more than three decades since, Aipac has helped create and maintain a staunchly pro-Israel Congress…”

Representative Ilan Omar is One of My New Heroes

The infamous, vile and ignorant poster place in a West Virginia gathering of Republicans

Rep. Ihan Omar receives death threats and is publicly humiliated on a Republican poster placed in the West Virginia House of Delegates crudely identifying her with the attacks on 9/11, yet according to both the Republican and Democratic leadership, she remains the problem.

I have never seen such cowardice and shameless pandering — actually, I take that back; we see it all the time — before the Zionist lobby in our nation’s capitol.

I intend to write one or two posts in the near future about the ways in which political Zionism has weaponized charges of anti-Semitism in order to shut down any and all debate about Israel’s apartheid regime in Palestine.

Rep. Omar is an intelligent, brave soul who is speaking truth to power.  And the power of the Zionist lobby in this country can be ruthless.  It does not hesitate to destroy careers, reputations and businesses.

Omar is saying what others know but are afraid to declare, and she is paying the price of genuine leadership.

I pray for Rep. Omar’s safety, as well as that of her children and extended family.

Rather than write more today, I offer a selection of good articles discussing the current situation.  Each one is well worth your time.

“As Ilhan Omar Endures Anti-Muslim Racism, Most Lawmakers in Congress Remain Silent, by Elham Khatami at ThinkProgress.

“Israel Lobbies Slam Ilhan Omar Even as They Try to Bankrupt Small Leftist Arkansas Paper Over Israel Boycott,” by Juan Cole at Informed Comment.  Please go to the bottom of the piece and watch the 9  minute video of Omar explaining herself at a public meeting.  You may also see it here on YouTube.

“The Best Congress AIPAC Can Buy,” by Michael Hager at Foreign Policy Journal.

“AIPAC Doesn’t Contribute Directly to Candidates. Which Pro-Israel Groups Do?” by Raymond Arke at Open Secrets News.