Doha-Washington may be competing with Tehran-Moscow (with Damascus between them), and the point of both would seem to be to have a scourge, accidentally or deliberately, worth elimination and the claim of rescue.
Assad managed to turn an “Arab Spring” revolution toward democracy and modernity into a deeply medieval and polarized civil war pitting his “secular” regime against Islamic extremists. It didn’t start out that way — and missing from the fields of battle: about nine million displaced Syrians.
On the Sunni side of this geopolitical knot (a knot because the Soviet Union was not finished off but merely transferred to the KGB, which has pursued a deeply feudal and equally thieving — internally and externally — course) stands an apparently duplicitous alliance that started out intending to knock Iran out of Syria (taking care of Hezbollah on the way) and produce an updated Islamic.
Things are just not working out the way they seem to have been planned — and much of that planning may have been to promote one appearance or another of a version of political reality. Again: there’s too much of theater in the combat.
The tail isn’t wagging the dog.
The whole dog is wagging the dog, from the tip o’ the nose to the end o’ the tail, U.S.-NATO and perhaps a Sunni-aligned alliance on one side while on the other: Neo-Feudal Russia, today a KGB/FSB Dictatorship, and its familiar “Axis of Evil” partners, Khamenei-Setad, Bashar the Butcher, and assorted anti-American and national socialist whatnot worldwide.
And hanging over every inch of the latest lightning in this storm: the immense and darker cloud of a nuclear umbrella.
In Tehran, the deputy chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, Brigadier-General Massoud Jazayeri also denied any collaboration. Iran considered the US responsible for Iraq’s “unrest and problems”, he said, adding that the US would “definitely not have a place in the future of that country”.
The looters are criminals operating under the cover of a political cause, which is not unlike what kleptocrats are doing when they promote anti-Semitism throughout their states. There’s plunder in sight, dead ahead!
The facts of the matter:
“For more than three months, the grand jury — made up of seven men and five women, nine white and three black — heard evidence into the shooting. They met 25 times and heard from 60 witnesses, McCulloch said. They considered charges ranging from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter. In a criminal trial, jurors must decide a crime has been committed beyond a reasonable doubt. But here, those jurors needed only to feel there was probable cause that Wilson had committed a crime.”
At a 1930 Comintern conference in Moscow, a resolution was passed calling for the creation of a Soviet-controlled “Soviet Negro Republic” among America’s Southern states. That’s correct — the Soviet Comintern, working through American communists, crafted plans to create a segregated “separate Negro state” in the South. The Soviet goal was to foment an African-American uprising within the South, which, in turn, would join with a workers’ uprising in the North. When the revolution was deemed ripe, the two forces would seize and reconstitute America as a Soviet sister state.
As I write, the lead piece at People’s World, the flagship publication of CPUSA and the successor to the Soviet-funded and directed Daily Worker, is a promotion to rile up the American left for a Ferguson rally this weekend.
One hopes that it is a fringe industry and, in fact, driven by foreign agitation and domestic useful idiots. That makes it easier to more confidently (and rightly) wag the moralizing finger at a revanchist lawless Russian feudal estate pumping millions of dollars today into World Wide Web disinformation and local old line communist and poor-exploiting American agitprop.
However, a look up of the reflection that is The Occidental Observer may tell that the same appears to flourish as homegrown. Plainly, there is an extensive body of vicious xenophobic political thought left loose in America to promote ill will toward others on the basis of creed, race, or religion. Perhaps to the extent that either far left or right camps becomes active or growing, their reflections meet them in amplitude.
And yet, the Rev. Sharptons of the world flooded in, insisting, in effect, that Wilson was indeed guilty, and never mind the facts. (Even President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder encouraged resentment of the “injustice” perpetrated by a white police officer.)
These flame-throwers told folks to take the accusations against Wilson as fact and to protest until the day he was thrown in jail. Protest, you see, was essential — merely because a white cop had shot and killed a black teen. No other facts were needed.
But, because I have lately lapsed into a clinically confirmed paranoia, instantly I wanted to know if the parading demonstrators wanted to attack Jews.
So, I watched. Sure enough, along came a chubby and disagreeable-looking young man holding a hand-made placard that said, “Ferguson = Gaza = Wounded Knee,” which I took to be an endorsement of the goals proclaimed by Hamas, the renowned anti-civil rights organization. And I continued to watch. But the young man appeared to be alone.
How then can we strike a balance between on the one hand reacting viscerally to the images from Ferguson, which point to the long and constantly replenished history of police assaults on black bodies, and the images of Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza, an assault continuous with Israel’s history of oppression and persecution of an entire people, while on the other hand resisting drawing too quickly an immediate, provocative, but inexact parallel?
The author delivers envenomed language in passing (” . . . Israel’s murderous rampage in Gaza . . . .”) with the confidence of a show trial’s jailer, judge, jury, and executioner.
We have so many dead black bodies in this country, Megyn, not because cops are shooting them, but because other black people are shooting them. And the left is selling a false narrative pretending that the opposite is true.
Another reprehensible outcome, which shocked even those of us accustomed to battling anti-Israel sentiment and anti-Semitism, was that many anti-Israel activists drew parallels between the situation in Ferguson and that in Gaza, and co-opted the tragedy, joining demonstrations to push their own agenda. Sadly, the opinion that it was all part of a shared struggle gained some traction and was also shared by an NFL player recently on social media. I don’t expect that I must explain that there are absolutely no parallels between the two scenarios: Israel is not on trial, and it is especially not being put in the dock by people who seek its very destruction. These events, which have now been reinforced with a second lack of indictment in the death of Eric Garner in New York, do expose the shameless hijacking of the tragedies and struggles of other people to demonize Israel by so-called pro-Palestinian groups.
We work for America as Americans and whether in private industry or government, we and every neighbor is in one or the other, Main Street to Wall Street, police station to military barracks in the far reaches of the world.
Hate America, undermine America, blame America — look in the mirror.
When aid to Pakistan, domestic and military, reaches Pakistan, it’s in Pakistani hands to spend. If much of that spending gets lost, goes without audit, does not make it to The People of Pakistan, does not improve security or domestic qualities in living, we didn’t spend it: we gave it.
Secrets-keeping governments naturally inspire conspiracy thinking and paranoia. Knowing this, in the U.S., we divulge our secrets, many, most, and all across time. Some decades may pass between act and acknowledgement but the truth (here) always surfaces. Our real armies don’t wear uniforms. Sometimes they don’t even get out of their jeans and sweatshirts, but they’re up to their elbows in historical research that may be and will be examined by peers and third parties and very possibly by God Almighty himself. That knowledge tends to make everyone responsible.
Such as ISIS love ambivalence, doubt, and weakness in targets, and the degree to which the same will sacrifice others not for God but for plunder and the merciless dominance of others is breathtaking.
If you think Iraq was a mistake, look over Saddam’s palaces built on the backs of his people. Ask the Marsh Arabs about the destruction of their timeless way of life. Ask the Kurdish people about what it’s like to be gassed en masse by an implacable tyrant. Speak to the Shiite about serving the Baathist “cause”.
Really hate the west: stop taking our money, time, resources, ingenuity, and available spending. The “west” for its part could and should do better to encourage better ecological and labor practices in its trading partners plus greater insistence on democracy and human rights. Beyond that, we give — Pakistan spends. If the state has problems with itself, swap out the politicians in the next round of elections.
Whether through the sewage pumped out by the solidarity movements are loose souls wandering in the shadows of one fascist past or another, there are global “Hate America First” crowds.
When cozy, they talk, inventing words that never existed, but it makes some feel good to have a central fixture for pelting with verbal stones.
Sound like something of which you may be aware?
Well, that’s language for you. It has echoes, ghosts, mirage, murmurs, and reminders, and while it may be easy to go with so many programs that create ideas and relationships in our heads, we sometimes stop to think a moment about Iraqi poverty in the age in which Saddam Hussein maintained his palaces, and then we say “wait a minute — let’s have a closer look at how that works.”
That’s all it takes sometimes: a closer look at gross inequality, injustice, implacable will, and the numbing cruelty that accompanies them.
Yours Truly: Obama has given MB plenty of room for operating and for being observed. As he is not a President for Life, the stronger elements that comprise our government will survive him and probably be able to use the knowledge gained during his tenure. I would fear as much a flip toward the extreme Right in America. We really need a central, progressive, and prudent politics, and the zealots in politics have really skewed the conversation away from the middle ranks. That needs fixing, so I am becoming a Passionate Moderate Liberal.
Correspondent: Unfortunately, your fears aren’t baseless. After the communist revolution in Russia in 1917 and many other countries 1919, 1920 where it failed, extreme right came to power, including Nazis in most devastated Germany. That’s why from the very beginning the idea of European Union was not to go separate ways, to keep together, thereby not allowing a fascist regime to surface in a singly taken country. Still, fascists raise their head in Hungary, Greece… I think drastic economic changes bring drastic political changes and false expectations… Only the ability to realistically analyze them, or rather inability, can bring extreme regimes into power. Once installed they cannot be peacefully removed, that has to be remembered. The main lesson of WWII perhaps should be that many countries that could do something to prevent the appetites of the Nazi Germany did simply nothing for wanting to be left in peace. Want to be left in peace, from many lazy western countries, isn’t that what helps bring all sort of criminals to power nowadays? If the progressive world media would together denounce Hamas and ISIS, what chance of survival would they have? Close to none, I think.
The Muslim Brotherhood, who took power in Egypt following the Arab Spring, were recently ousted by the Egyptian military and declared a terrorist organization.
Even still, they have been embraced by President Obama, invited into his administration, placed on a “hands off” list protecting them, and are even setting up their own official political party here in the United States.
I leave room for the Obama Administration to have been adventurous, curious, experimental, observing in attempting to integrate into the democratic process such as Mohamed Elibiary, who has been enjoying this week his share of “right-side” press for tweeting remarks about the inevitability of the global Islamic caliphate, for example:
Mohamed Elibiary was until last week a senior member of DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC). After years of controversy about his status at DHS, Elibiary announced his final day with the department on Twitter earlier this month and said he would remain close to the agency.
Media outlets have raised questions about the circumstances surrounding his departure, speculating that his provocative comments about the “inevitable” return of the Muslim “caliphate” may have played a role.
Although organizing Arab support in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria may amount to showbiz with an Administration and within an international political environment deeply invested in image — the wars for detectives and poets may turn out one day to have been wars for psychologists too, lol — the institutional memory Elibiary will leave behind will also inform this and successive governments in regard to the al-Qaeda-type assortment of Islamist challengers bent on acquiring power beneath the banners of Islam and with themselves conflated — by themselves — with God Almighty.
Temple is a major university in the USA, home of the brave, land of the free-where Lady Liberty holds her light high inviting all who are in need to her shores. And yet, and yet, a Jewish student, Daniel Vessal, was physically and verbally attacked-for being Jewish, at this place of higher learning.
It isn’t that he was sucker-punched and verbally abused. It was that it was treated… lightly.
According to the IDF caption beneath the above video:
Published on Mar 24, 2014 — Yesterday the Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, gave a feverish speech in front of thousands of supporters at Saraya Square in the Gaza Strip. The message: Palestinians should not and will not stop fighting through terrorist acts against the State of Israel. Haniyeh encourages Palestinians to attack innocent Israelis and he explicitly outlines a new plan to use tunnels on an offensive against Israel. His speech also refers to striking Tel Aviv as thousands of supporters cheer him on.
Never mind that.
Take another look at the crowd and the lime-vested crowd controllers.
Listen again to the voice of the “Great Leader” Ismail Haniyeh.
Attend also the beating of the drum.
* * *
Behind the scenes:
“Of course, the developments in the region have accelerated the return of relations between Hamas and Iran,” the source added. “Perhaps the most important [of those developments] is Hamas’ harsh break with Egypt after the coup and the tension between Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The [tension] has helped warm the relationship between Doha and Tehran, and that has cast a shadow over Hamas in a positive way.”
You heard him, but just in case you prefer reading (0:00 –> 0:16):
This is only the first step, but it is a first step that guarantees that while you take the second step, and move towards a comprehensive agreement, Iran’s fundamentals of its program are not able to progress.”
Up top: Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh rouses his controlled crowd to a murderous pitch. “Hamas is the canon and we are the ammunition!”
Down below in the blue sport coat and the pink tie, Mr. Kerry on the deal with Iran, which statement his mouth turns out in gobbledygook: ” . . . while you take the second step . . . Iran’s fundamentals of its program are not able to progress.”
Carter taught Christian students in Plains Georgia that Judaism teaches Jews to feel superior to non-Jews, that Jewish religious practices are tricks to enhance wealth, and that current Israeli policy toward Palestinians is based on these “Jewish” values and practices.
The history of Palestinians was something I was familiar with as well, only because in high school, my friend’s parents were Moroccan Jews with staunch right-wing Zionist views. They’d go on about how Palestinians were worth shit and how they were sucking off the land they stole, and how they were not from Palestine, but Jordan. Truth be told, my friend’s parents’ passion about their ‘homeland’ made me sick. As a black person living in the United States, I could not relate to their love for their proclaimed homeland because I never had one. My ancestors were captured from various regions of Africa and forced onto ships bound for the Americas. Therefore, when questioned about the geographic origins of my ancestors, my answers were as vague as Africa is big.
It appears the young celebrity creating his celebrity flew to Israel on The Carter Center’s dime (“In the weeks preceding my departure from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to Tel Aviv, I received travel warnings from The Carter Center, the organization responsible for sponsoring my trip”) with a reactive and retributive attitude forged in self-righteous alienation, never mind that, for example, about 1.7 million Israelis live in the same funky poverty for which he would claim to stand in the interest of social justice.
Our worlds are as small or as large as the information we acquire about them, and they are also as false or honest as the methods we use to comprehend whole issues and the integrity and curiosity with which we pursue them.
I get a little “Jewed out” myself, sometimes, and somewhere between the ever present clouds of the Holocaust and constant distributed cheerleading (deserved) and defense (also deserved) of Israel. Nonetheless, riding beside my own brand of international humanism (thanks, Felix Adler and Abraham Maslow — two more Jews), Judaism itself and its call to conscience (yo, Jimmuh: Jesus was Jewish!) remains for me an integral part of seeking social justice and what is good in living individually and communally.
* * *
Despite months of lobbying by anti-Israel activists and a desperate last minute petition drive, the 141st APHA annual meeting and exposition held in Boston. defeated an anti-Israel resolution by 74 to 36 votes. The resolution was discussed by the association’s Joint Policy Committee. The anti-Israel campaign was led by activists of BDS, the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, which was initiated by Palestinians in 2005 and is coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee established two years later.
The forces of Jew Hate, a term earthier and less sanitized than “anti-Semitism”, have created on-campus and political bubble environments sufficient to enclose the “open-minded”, who may not be as much so as presumed, nor more cagey than vulnerable.
* * *
As I stood in line at JFK waiting to be interrogated by security agents prior to boarding a flight to Tel Aviv last January, I thought of all the reasons why I didn’t belong there. I’m only half Jewish, for starters – and it’s the wrong half. I only know a couple of Hebrew words. I have a lot of what an Un-Jewish Activities Committee might call “Palestinian sympathies.”
Jewish ethnicity and the embrace and expression of faith may vary quite within the Jewish community, but it may not be possible these days to escape the influence of the wisdom of Hillel the Elder, himself quite possibly the elder contemporary of Jesus, from any contemporary stance. One might also go back a little farther in time to “The Akedah” and the undefined test given Abraham, a test either of obedience, which children believe without question, or of conscience, which adults may perceive with penetration – and perceive as Abraham failing (God never speaks to him again; an emissary in the form of an angel has to intercede in the murder; a substitute ram is made to appear for the knife Abraham would have too willingly used on Isaac: had he only spoken up, or, in the modern vernacular, spoken truth to power on behalf of Isaac and Sarah).
Israel provides a broad suite of basic services, including the training of Abbas’s police force, to the generations of refugees who remained on the land after the Arab war of annihilation in 1948. When the hate recedes, when the threat of violence against Jews fades on to the pages of history, the Jews and other Israelis — Christians, Muslims, and others — will prove as helpful as can be, but those days seem always set farther away by smears.
Mr. Carter’s underdog obsession is what motivated him to legitimize Fidel Castro and take his side in a bio-weapons dispute with the United States and to praise North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung with the words: “I find him to be vigorous, intelligent,…and in charge of the decisions about this country.” This is the Korean dictator who, together with the tyrannical son who succeeded him, starved to death about 3 million of their own people. Carter added absurdly, “I don’t see that they [the North Koreans] are an outlaw nation.” He also hailed Marshal Joseph Tito as “a man who believes in human rights,” and said of murderous Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, “Our goals are the same: to have a just system of economics and politics . . . We believe in enhancing human rights.” Carter told Haitian dictator Raul Cédras that he was “ashamed of what my country has done to your country,” which made most Americans ashamed of Jimmy Carter.
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