The Deliberate Ambiguity of Occupation

Israel has a policy of deliberate ambiguity about whether its control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is 'occupation'. Every other country on Earth including their closest ally the US says it is an occupation, Israel coyly argues it both is and isn't depending on which definition gives them the most flexibility under international law in any given scenario. 

In practice this leaves the Palestinians dispossessed, discriminated against and in the West Bank without recourse to the law when bands of violent, fanatical settlers descend from their hilltop bandit nests to attack Palestinian homes and crops and savagely assault any Palestinians who resist. 

 The Israeli police stand and watch.

It's time to stop coddling this sleazy little semantics game.

Le Monde diplomatique argues giving them three more years to the 50th Anniversary of the Occupation to once and for all define what they are doing as occupation or not. If its an occupation they are legally required to begin the process of withdrawal, if its not an occupation they are legally required to give full and equal legal citizenship rights to all the population under their control.

They have been allowed to be vague on this subject for almost FIFTY YEARS.

No longer.

The Real Benghazi Scandal

For outside observers the spectacle of Republicans shrieking "Benghazi!" for the last few years has been so blatantly partisan propagandizing that you have to wonder how anyone falls for it.

There were more than a dozen attacks on US embassies and consulates under George W. Bush but despite that the Republican Party voted to slash $300 million from Embassy security over the strenuous objections of Obama and the Democrats.

Benghazi is a scandal. Its a Republican scandal.

Wait, what?

Am I the only one weirded out by the reaction of Americans to the shooting of 19 people at the New Orleans Mother's Day Parade? 

"OhGodOhGodOhGod!!!....wait it's just drug and gang related? Whew! We were worried for a second..."

What?

Keep Calm and Stay Strong

Muslims all over the world today woke up, read that the Marathon bombers had been tentatively identified as being from Chechnya, home of Russia's own simmering war with Islamist insurgents and thought some variation of 'aw, crap.'

Muslims are once going to be tarred with an ugly brush over this and an overwhelmingly loyal and law abiding American Muslim community is no doubt battening down the hatches and preparing themselves for a long national strip search.

 They will be accused of 'Not condemning terrorism' vociferously enough - were all white right wingers quizzed about their loyalty after Oklahoma City? Muslims from different regions, different ethnicities and different religious traditions will again find themselves conflated with the kind of extremists every faith produces and Jihad, a word with far ranging and subtly distinct definitions, primarily meaning to most Muslims a kind internal spiritual struggle to live up to the tenants of their faith will once again be bandied about as meaning nothing but terrorism and murder.

I'd like to believe Americans have been inoculated against the hate-mongers and divisive demagogues by the last decade - but I'm very much afraid that the terrorist goal of spreading division and fear and mistrust will be eagerly abetted by the same people who helped fan it last time.

 This week has kind of sucked.

Just a thought

Critics of Israel's actions in the Gaza are once again being tarred with the pro-terrorist, anti-Israel even anti-Semitic brush. Yes, during a prison riot the guards and the people living outside the prison have a right to defend themselves. It doesn't mean the reasons for the prison riot and the methods of quelling the riot AND the justification for the prison's existence in the first place aren't legitimate topics of discussion.

 Also it was just a few decades ago that critics within and without Israel were saying that seeking to undermine Yasser Arrafat and the PLO by promoting and supporting the Islamist opposition to the PLO was an immoral, short-sighted idea that would be bad for Israel in the long term. Hamas was essentially the creation of care and feeding by the Israeli government and people who opposed that creation were accused of being soft on terrorism, being anti-Israel even anti-Semitic.  Please note that the source link for that statement is that well known purveyor of lefty conspiracy theories The Wall street Journal.

 At some point, based on track record alone, maybe critics of Israel should be listened to rather than slurred.

Pandering to Hate

Throughout his career, whenever his job was on the line French president Nicolas Sarkozy has never shied away from pandering to the worst instincts of the French people.

With the polls showing that the French are abandoning the political center and that the more xenophobic have begin to flock to the far right, Sarkozy went into full pander mode echoing fascist party attacks on immigrants.

Is it any wonder the most violent and hateful would think they have been given the go ahead to consider immigrants legitimate targets?

Police in France are hunting three former soldiers who were fired for joining a suspected neo-Nazi gang in connection with three shootings near Toulouse which have left seven people dead.

The men, described by French media as "muscular and tattooed", were dismissed in 2008 after they were pictured giving a Nazi salute in front of a swastika flag.

Police have linked the men to the shooting of three soldiers from their former regiment, the 17th Parachute Engineers, on 15 March. Two soldiers died in the attack and a third was critically injured.

France’s Le Point news magazine said: “This is the first real lead the police have. [It is believed] there could be a link to the three soldiers dismissed from the army four years ago.

"The profile of these men corresponds to the scant information investigators have on the Toulouse killer, that is to say, muscular and tattooed.

"This lead is being followed up by both civilian and military authorities.

The shooting on 15 March followed another attack on 11 March, in which a soldier was shot and killed outside a gym in Toulouse.
All of the soldiers were reported to have been black or of north African origin.

Nicolas Sarkozy bears personal responsibility for this tragedy due to his despicable pandering to the worst parts of his people's natures.

Paul Krugman is 100% right

The Right have gone mad with rage at Paul Krugman's 9/11 post.  It's far too honest.

Is it just me, or are the 9/11 commemorations oddly subdued?

Actually, I don’t think it’s me, and it’s not really that odd.

What happened after 9/11 — and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not — was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.

A lot of other people behaved badly. How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

I’m not going to allow comments on this post, for obvious reasons.

The most specious complaint is the disrespect card, like Krugman I would argue its far more disrespectful to those who died that day and in the Neo-con wars of choice since to perpetuate the mythology that allowed them.

I have no time for the 9/11 'Truthers'.  I believe 9/11 happened because 19 pissed off Muslims with x-acto knives made it happen, where we agree is that the Neo-con regime in the White House did leap on the terrible events of that day to perpetuate their own ideological agenda at the expense of hundreds of thousands of lives since that day.

9/11 was used to perpetuate lies and death and torture and vanished freedoms.  It baffles me that there can even be any argument about any of this.

Right Wing Christianist Terrorism

My family heritage is Norwegian.  I'm actually glad my grandfather, a gentle first generation immigrant farmer didn't live to see what happened this month, it would have broken his heart.

What happened was an act of right wing Christianist terrorism.  An assault on pluralism, democracy and the political left.  The despicable Glenn Beck went so far as to insinuate the Norwegian Labour Party run summer camp full of murdered children was akin to the 'Hitler Youth'.  Bill O'Reilly and the rest of Fox News were quick out of the gate to insinuate that the massacres must have been perpetrated by Muslims, and just as quick to denounce any reference to the killers self pronounced Christian faith.

Remember its not terrorism unless its brown.

Another act of terrorism took place in the US this week, ignored utterly by the media and the political right.   Because remember, When Christianist right wingers fire-bomb Planned Parenthood clinics that certainly isn't terrorism. 

I'm tired of pretending.  Tired of protecting their feelings.  It's becoming increasingly clear that the conservative right wing impulse is fundamentally incompatible with pluralistic democracy.

Are all right wingers violent fanatics?  Of course not.  But how much self reflection and denouncing of the mentality behind Norway and the violent attacks on reproductive rights have you heard even from the moderates?  How many times have you heard even moderate conservatives attack the principals of multi-culturalism with much the same terminology in the 'manifesto' of Anders Behring Breivik?  They are quick to label all Muslims and the Islamic faith with the label of terrorism and equally quick to howl with outrage when the tables are turned.

The same impulse behind the absolute refusal to accept democracy if people vote the 'wrong' way behind the Tea Party's refusal to accept the election of a Democrat, the birthers refusal to accept a black President could possibly be a 'real' American, our own Conservatives labeling the basic rules of parliamentary democracy that allow coalitions as illegitimate - all evidence that to increasing swathes of the right wing Democracy only counts if it returns the 'right' result.

From now on the suspicion and stigma that the right insists Muslims and the Left be viewed with should be applied equally to the political right and fundamentalist Christianity.  After Oklahoma, doctor shootings, Norway... how many times do they have to demonstrate how dangerous they are?

UPDATE: Sabina at News of the Restless lays out the roll call of dishonour

al-Qaida bomber was working for CSIS

An al-Qaida operative accused of bombing two Christian churches and a luxury hotel in Pakistan in 2002 was at the same time working for British intelligence, according to secret files on detainees who were shipped to the US military's Guantánamo Bay prison camp.

Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili, an Algerian citizen described as a "facilitator, courier, kidnapper, and assassin for al-Qaida", was detained in Pakistan in 2003 and later sent to Guantánamo Bay.

But according to Hamlili's Guantánamo "assessment" file, one of 759 individual dossiers obtained by the Guardian, US interrogators were convinced that he was simultaneously acting as an informer for British and Canadian intelligence.

After his capture in June 2003 Hamlili was transferred to Bagram detention centre, north of Kabul, where he underwent numerous "custodial interviews" with CIA personnel.

They found him "to have withheld important information from the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service and British Secret Intelligence Service … and to be a threat to US and allied personnel in Afghanistan and Pakistan".

Scenes of Horror

Our government and right wing media worked overtime to whip up fear and contempt for the Tamils who huddled in a ship's hold for weeks in a desperate effort to escape from their former home to Canada. Some of you probably remember the Toronto Sun's inexcusable and unforgivable 'Lock and Load' editorial.  Most especially, every effort was made to avoid  giving any validity to considering Tamils escaping Sri Lanka refugees.  The preferred terms were criminals and terrorists.

Now, new footage has gotten out of the final war zone making it quite clear why desperate Tamils were willing to cram their whole families into a ships hold for an uncomfortable and dangerous flight to escape the clutches of victor's justice in Sri Lanka.  Warning the following footage is graphic and horrifying.



Doubtless conservatives will consider the source of the story, Al Jazeera, to be reason enough to discount it, but the pictures speak for themselves.

And they speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.

Victims of Crime, Victims of the State

It's almost beyond belief.  Politically active engaged citizens fighting to expose a cancer of white supremacist gangsters operating with impunity in their city, the hate crimes capital of Canada.  Assaulted in a vicious home invasion, very likely by members the violent far right organizations they are fighting to expose, and the state...

...comes into their homes and threatens to take their children if they don't cease their political activities.

No, really.

Words fail. Apparently the Devines, by engaging in anti-racist work, have been "asking for it." When they are attacked, Calgary Social Services steps in to blame them, rather than the bums who assaulted them. Perhaps--I wouldn't be surprised--they also go after the children of rape victims, threatening to apprehend the kids if their mothers insist on wearing "provocative clothing." - Hat Tip Dawg's Blog

Right wingers make a fetish of opposing oppressive state intrusions into the lives of Canadians.  Here we have brave Canadian citizens fighting to make their city a better place by exposing terrorists, and being subjected to vicious criminal assault as a result, and the government's response is to threaten to take away their children.

So much for concern for the victims of crime.  Or does that not include lefty activists fighting far right wing terrorists?

Update: In Jason Devine's words:

Social services have just visited the Devine' residence to investigate whether to remove the children into state custody. Jason, a grad student at the University of Calgary pointed out that "[I am], being condemned as a father for doing good work". Jason says "I will be calling on Calgary police protection of my home to satisfy social services concerns for the safety of my children." 

Someday...

...when the elites currently rattling sabers look back at a gigantic disaster in the rear-view mirror again and once again claim that 'no one could have known that attacking Iran would be such an utter disaster, so they should still be respected as wise experts on foreign policy' ... come back and re-read this New York Times article explaining why attacking Iran would be an act of criminal insanity.

Iran is not Syria, with no immediate capacity to retaliate against a surprise attack on its nuclear sites. Iran is a country of 70 million people, and its commanders, battle-hardened by a brutal eight-year stand-off with Iraq, have the ability and will to engage in a long, protracted war against Israel and American interests. Iran maintains a large military equipped with Russian-made weapons systems, surface-to-surface missiles, combat aircraft, unmanned drones and high-speed torpedo boats capable of destroying large warships.

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard has extended its reach from southern Lebanon to South America and maintains proxy forces — again, Hezbollah and Hamas — positioned in Israel’s back yard. They’ll force Israel to fight a war of attrition on multiple fronts.

Israel would likely be compelled to extend its military operations to include Lebanon. That would instantly plunge the entire region into war, likely bring a new intifada onto Jerusalem’s streets and place enormous pressure on leaders in Cairo and Amman to renounce their peace treaties with Israel. If Israeli planes use Saudi airspace, Iran has threatened to attack the kingdom, too.

The United States, for its part, could forget about the withdrawal of its forces from Iraq and the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan. There are up to 30,000 Iranian operatives in Iraq ready to do Iran’s bidding. And Iran enjoys significant loyalty from Afghan officials and warlords, particularly those in the trouble-prone region of Herat.

Iran has repeatedly said that it would, in the case of an attack, shut down the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 17 million barrels of oil pass every day, spiking oil prices and devastating America’s financial recovery.

All of this could engender a serious diplomatic crisis between the United States and Russia — respectively Israel’s and Iran’s patrons — at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are improving.

Netanyahu says Iran is led by “a messianic apocalyptic cult” and that failure to attack is appeasement. But surely not every year is 1938, not every statesman who fears the nemesis of war is Chamberlain.

In a time of Universal Deceit

Eric Margolis uses his last column at the Sun now that he's been purged for thought-crime to defend PTE Manning and Wikileaks.

George Orwell wrote: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

A true journalist’s job is to expose government wrongdoing and propaganda, skewer hypocrites, and speak for those with no voice. And wage war against mankind’s two worst scourges: Nationalism and religious bigotry. Not to lick the boots of government.

I’ve always felt kinship for free thinkers, rebels, and heretics.

That’s why I am drawn to the plight of Pte. Bradley Manning who apparently believed Ernest Hemingway’s dictum: “Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”

The 22-year-old U.S. Army intelligence analyst caused a worldwide furor by releasing to WikiLeaks secret military logs that exposed ugly truths about the brutal conflict in Afghanistan, including widespread killing of civilians.

To again quote Orwell: “During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

To Serve and Protect

Are We Not Brothers?

Gaza Flotilla activist Ken O'Keefe is a former US Marine, Gulf War vet, and now Irish and Palestinian citizen. He describes his treatment at Israeli hands here:

While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.
In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.

Seeing Both Sides

This blog and many others have been harshly critical of Israel of late. Expect this to continue.

But to those who argue Israel is unfairly singled out and Hamas is not criticized enough, let me be clear:

Hamas is a deeply unpleasant, extremist organization. Religious fanatics with ugly rhetoric, ugly behaviour and ugly allies. Their tactics have been criminal and counter-productive to the interests of the Palestinian people, which is very clearly shown by how much pressure has come to bear on Israel over the last few years from more peaceful tactics. Sanctions, criticism, divestment campaigns and international condemnation. More sympathy has been generated for the Palestinians from one obstructed blockade run than missiles and suicide bombs ever could. On both tactical and moral grounds the Palestinian struggle benefits from non-violent resistance.

Hamas should release Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held prisoner these last four years. They should do so immediately despite the - entirely valid - argument that Israel should also release many of it's Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners some held just as incommunicado and without charge. Those criticizing Israel and advocating for the Palestinians should join the chorus calling for this young man's release on both humanitarian and strategic grounds.
Doing so would return a young man to his family and his nation and remove a major rhetorical arrow in Israel's rhetorical arsenal.

Context is important and the context is that Hamas is very much the creation of Israel itself in a past short-sighted strategy of promoting religious groups that Israel thought would be less of a threat than secular groups like the PLO. The context is that the argument that Hamas is forever beyond the pale, can never be dealt with, never compromised with, never even acknowledged as any kind of legitimate representative of the Palestinian people are an exact repeat of the same arguments made about Fatah - which is now promoted as the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people.

Hamas leaders have made ugly eliminationist statements about Jews and refused to recognize the State of Israel. Israeli leaders have made ugly eliminationist statements about the Palestinians and all Arabs and refused to acknowledge the right of an independent Palestinian state to exist. Both sides have said and done exceedingly ugly things.

One side has all the power, the other has none.

Israel's defenders trot out the 'only real democracy in the Middle East' line repeatedly. The price of claiming that your nation has higher standards than your neighbours is that you are held to higher standards than your neighbours. That's the way it works.

The leaders of both sides are appalling, the citizens underneath them are the ones who suffer.

Execution on the High Seas

ISTANBUL — One of the nine people killed in an Israeli commando raid on a flotilla of ships heading for Gaza this week was a United States citizen of Turkish descent, officials in Turkey and Washington said Thursday.
...
The Cihan news agency reported that Mr. Dogan had one bullet in the chest and four bullets fired into his head from close range.

Bounty

Spotted at Thwap's Schoolyard, George Monbiot suggests the only recourse we have left against elite war criminals is citizen's arrest:

This site offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, for crimes against peace. Anyone attempting an arrest which meets the rules laid down here will be entitled to one quarter of the money collected at the time of his or her application.

Money donated to this site will be used for no other purpose than to pay bounties for attempts to arrest Tony Blair. All the costs of administering this site will be paid by the site’s founder.*

The intention is to encourage repeated attempts to arrest the former prime minister. We have four purposes:

- To remind people that justice has not yet been done.

- To show Mr Blair that, despite his requests for people to “move on” from Iraq, the mass murder he committed will not be forgotten.

- To put pressure on the authorities of the United Kingdom and the countries he travels through to prosecute him for a crime against peace, or to deliver him for prosecution to the International Criminal Court.

- To discourage other people from repeating his crime.

Lack of bias for us constitutes bias against us

Both the government of Israel and the leadership of Hamas angrily rejected the findings of the Goldstone report which found both sides were at fault and both sides committed war crimes during the recent Gaza conflict.

Richard Goldstone, a respected South African judge - who happens to be Jewish - took the job of doing the Gaza investigation to try to do the best thing for peace and for Israel said his daughter.

She added that her father wrestled with the decision to take on the task. "It wasn't easy [for him]," Nicole Goldstone said. "My father did not expect to see and hear what he saw and heard."

The even handed report that condemns both sides has prompted an all hands on deck response from the Israeli government, condemning it as 'propaganda, antisemitism and Israel bashing' but an investigation headed by a respected Jewish jurist who found both sides at fault will be difficult to dismiss.

Texas Police Terrorism

The Fort Worth police decide to send a message on the anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

One of those arrested during the raid, Chad Gibson, 26, remains hospitalized with bleeding on the brain, his sister Kristy Morgan said.

Gibson is not violent, and "for anyone to come back and say he did something to provoke this is ludicrous," she told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW.

Fort Worth police went to the Rainbow Lounge with Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents early Sunday as part of routine alcoholic beverage code inspections, said police Sgt. Chad Mahaffey. They first went to two other bars, where 10 people were arrested, he said.

Officers then went to the Rainbow Lounge, which had opened about a week ago. They encountered two drunk people who made "sexually explicit movements" toward officers and another who grabbed a TABC agent's groin, according to the police report.

No one was arrested for assault but about half a dozen people were arrested on charges of public intoxication, according to police records.

Police Chief Jeff Halstead said Gibson was the patron who grabbed at the agent's groin. Gibson was so drunk he was vomiting and struck his head when he fell, the chief said. Gibson was arrested, but was taken to the hospital instead of jail.

The Fort Worth police claim not to have known about the anniversary. If you believe that I have some dot com stocks to sell you.