=By= Professor Michel Chossudovsky

[Painting: Pieta of Syria by Selawer Omar. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)]

America is coming to the rescue of Al Qaeda under a humanitarian mandate. The unspoken agenda is to undermine the Liberation of Aleppo. 

The pretext and justification for these actions are based on America’s “responsibility to protect” (R2P) the “moderates” in Aleppo from Syrian and Russian attacks and bombing raids.

On October 3, the US State Department announced the suspension of bilateral relations with Russia pertaining to Syria (see document below), in response to which, France’s foreign Minister Jean Marc Ayrault was called upon to intermediate at the diplomatic level. 

Pointing his finger at Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Jean Marc Ayrault casually accused Moscow of crimes against humanity, “La France est indignée”  (France is  indignant).  

In turn, the Western media (including segments of the “Left” alternative media) went into overdrive, accusing Russia of killing innocent civilians, demonizing president Putin;, and more significantly ignoring the devastating impacts of  Obama’s (2014-2016) fake “counterterrorism campaign” implying extensive and routine bombings of both Syria and Iraq over a period of more than two years. 

Initiated in Summer 2014, Operation Inherent Resolve’s real objective is to “protect the terrorists”. 

Strategic Meeting at the White House

On October 5, a strategic meeting of the so-called Principals Committee  (tantamount to a War Cabinet) met behind closed doors at the White House. In attendance: senior officials (Secretary level) from the Pentagon, CIA, Joint Chiefs of Staff, State Department and top national security advisors of the White House.

On the agenda: a proposal earlier voiced by the US state Department to directly attack Syrian government forces and military facilities, inevitably implying the possibility of direct military confrontation with Russia as well as a process of escalation.

While Russian airstrikes are carefully targeted against the terrorists, Moscow is accused of committing extensive war crimes as well as supporting the terrorist organizations sponsored by the Western military alliance.

The media has built upon the humanitarian crisis triggered by Russian intervention against the [terrorist] “freedom fighters”.

What the media has  failed to investigate since the outset are US war crimes against the People of Syria and Iraq, which are amply confirmed by official US Department of Defense data.

The Figures Speak for Themselves 

1. The US-led coalition is protecting the terrorists

2. U.S. and Coalition Airstrikes (Pentagon data)

3. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars

4. The US-led coalition is providing the terrorists with large amounts of weapons 

1. The Airstrikes are intended to Protect the Terrorists

What we have witnessed is an ongoing drawn out campaign over the last two years of relentless  air raids and bombings, and the terrorist enemy is apparently still intact.

Let us examine the data regarding air strikes by the US and its coalition partners, all of which were allegedly directed against the ISIS-Daesh terrorists who crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in their Toyota pickup trucks in June 2014.

Toyota trucks and SUVs seem the vehicle of choice for ISIS. Collage: Controversial Files.)

What would have been required from a military standpoint to wipe out the ISIS Daesh convoy with no effective anti-aircraft capabilities?

If they had wanted to eliminate the Islamic State brigades, they could have “carpet” bombed their convoys of Toyota pickup trucks when they crossed the desert from Syria into Iraq in June. 

The answer is pretty obvious, yet not a single mainstream media has acknowledged it.

The  Syro-Arabian Desert is open territory (see map right). With state of the art jet fighter aircraft (F15, F22 Raptor, F16) it would have been  –from a military standpoint–  ”a piece of cake”, a rapid and expedient surgical operation, which would have decimated the Islamic State convoys in a matter of hours.

2. U.S. and Coalition Airstrikes

•  The total number of US and coalition sorties against Syria and Iraq is of the order of 111,000. This translates into an average of 147 sorties a day (over a period of 755 days).
• More than 8,300 strike sorties have been carried out against Syria according to US Department of Defense sources.
• The non-strike sorties have been used for the purposes of reconnaissance, logistics and coordination with terrorist commandos on the ground. 
• 31,900 targets in Syria and Iraq have been hit by US war planes (see table below) including public buildings, residential areas, economic infrastructure (all of which was waged under a fake campaign against ISIS- Daesh).

Its all for a good cause. None of these strikes were directed at the Syrian people, according to official statements.

And these humanitarian statements have never been challenged by the Western media.

The initiative was part of the “Global War on Terrorism”. It was in violation of  international law.

Source US Department of Defense, copyright US DoD

3. The Cost of Obama’s Air Campaign: 9.3 billion dollars

755 days, 12.3 million dollars a day since August 2014

These are the costs of destroying an entire country, killing tens of thousands of Syrians, triggering a refugee crisis. These costs are ultimately financed by tax dollars.

These 12.3 million dollars a day are the cost of destroying Syria and Iraq and killing their people.

In the table above the “official” breakdown is provided, the figures refer to US strikes against Syria and Iraq.

31,900 targets as part of a war on terrorism. Ironically, the number of terrorists has increased dramatically as a result of the “counter-terrorism” campaign, not to mention the NATO sponsored international campaign of recruitment of terrorists.

4. Weapons for the Terrorists

In turn, the US and its allies have since the outset of the conflict send in tens of thousands of tons of light weapons into Syria through illicit arms trafficking channels.

These shipments of weapons are not conducted through internationally approved weapons transfers. While they are the result of  a Pentagon (or US government) procurement, they are not recorded as “official” military aid. They use private traders and shipping companies within the realm of a thriving illicit trade in light weapons. 

Based on the examination of a single December 2015 Pentagon sponsored shipment of more than 990 tons, one can reasonably conclude that the amounts of light weapons in the hands of  ”opposition” rebels inside Syria is substantial and exceedingly large.  

For further details see  U.S. “Military Aid” to Al Qaeda, ISIS-Daesh: Pentagon Uses Illicit Arms Trafficking to Channel Enormous Shipments of Light Weapons into Syria, by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, October 02, 2016

The above data on air strikes, the smuggling of weapons confirm extensive US sponsored crimes against humanity 

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.  He has taught as visiting professor in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and Latin America. He has served as economic adviser to governments of developing countries and has acted as a consultant for several international organizations. He is the author of eleven books including The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003), America’s “War on Terrorism” (2005), The Global Economic Crisis, The Great Depression of the Twenty-first Century (2009) (Editor), Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011), The Globalization of War, America’s Long War against Humanity (2015). He is a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.  His writings have been published in more than twenty languages. In 2014, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Merit of the Republic of Serbia for his writings on NATO’s war of aggression against Yugoslavia. He can be reached at crgeditor@yahoo.com

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Nauseated by the
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Andre Vltchek
Itinerant Philosopher and Journalist

[Photo: Rodrigo Duterte]

Rodrigo Duterte, the outspoken President of the Philippines, has by now most likely, joined the concealed, prestigious and permanent hit list of the Empire.

The hit list is very long; it has been long for several decades. One could easily lose count and get confused: how many personalities have been marked and secretly condemned to death? How many of them actually died?

It reads like a catalogue of illustrious world leaders: Patrice Lumumba (Zaire), Mohammad Mosaddegh (Iran), Hugo Chavez (Venezuela), Sukarno (Indonesia), Juvénal Habyarimana (Rwanda), Salvador Allende (Chile) to Muammar Gaddafi (Libya), Al-Basheer (Sudan) and Fidel Castro (Cuba), to name just a very few.

Some were directly assassinated; others were ‘only’ toppled, while only a handful of ‘marked’ leaders actually managed to survive and to stay in power.

There were several grave crimes committed by almost all of them, very similar crimes. They include: defending the vital interests of their nations and people, refusing to allow the unbridled plunder of natural resources by multinational corporations, and standing against the principles of imperialism. Simple criticism of the Empire has also been often punishable by death.

Mr. Duterte is committing all those horrid crimes. He seems to be ‘guilty as charged’. He is denying nothing. He even appears to be proud of the charges that are being brought against him.

‘Is he bored with his life?’ some are asking. ‘Is he out of his mind? Is he ready to die?’

Is he a hero, a new Asian Hugo Chavez, or just an out of control populist?

He is definitely risking a lot, perhaps absolutely everything. He is now committing the most unforgivable sins in the eyes of the Western regime: openly insulting the Empire and its institutions (including the UN, NATO and the EU). He is even spitting in their faces!

To make matters worse, he is not only chatting; he is taking decisive actions! He is trying to help the poor in his country, he is flirting with the Communist Party and with the socialists, and on top of it all he is basically asking China and Russia for assistance.

Duterte (Get Real Philippines)

The sparks are flying. Periodically people and institutions like Obama, Pope, the US, the EU, and the UN get advised to go to hell, or are re-christened as son-of-a-bitches or son-of-a-whores! Duterte is serving up a steady stream of invective.

And the people of the Philippines absolutely love it. Duterte won elections with tiny margins, but his latest approval rating towers at an astounding 76%. Some would therefore argue that if ‘democracy’ is truly the ‘rule of the people’ (or at least it should be reflecting the will of the people), then all is exactly as it should be in the Philippines.

*

While Eduardo Climaco Tadem, Professorial Lecturer of Asian Studies (University of the Philippines Diliman), is critical of Duterte’s ‘un-presidential’ speech writing, and for him “scoring negatively on the issue of civil and political human rights”, he is clearly impressed by his achievements in several other spheres. As he recently wrote to me in a letter:

“Positive initiatives on other fronts have been taken. The appointment of Communist Party cadres to cabinet positions for agrarian reform, social work and development, and anti-poverty programs is good. Other left wing and progressive personalities occupy other cabinet positions in labor, education, health, science, and environment. More important, positive initiatives have been taken on moving land distribution forward, ending labor contractualization, reaching out to and learning from Cuba’s health programs, and curtailing the environmentally destructive operations by big mining corporations. Moreover, peace negotiations with both the CPP and the MILF/MNLF have been revived with initial steps that are looking good.

An independent foreign policy has been announced and Duterte no longer kowtows to the US and Western powers, unlike previous presidents before him. He is also mending fences with China and taking a different and less belligerent track in resolving the territorial disputes in the South China Sea…”

That is all ‘bad’, extremely bad as far as Washington, London and Tokyo are concerned. Such behavior never goes unnoticed and unpunished! The response of the Empire came almost immediately this time. On September 20, 2016, the International Business Times reported:

“The Philippines government has claimed that a coup d’état is being masterminded against President Rodrigo Duterte and said the administration is cracking down on the suspected plotters. A government spokesperson said some Filipino-Americans in New York are planning to oust the abrasive leader.

Without revealing the names of the suspected plotters or their plans, the Philippines government Communications Secretary Martin Andanar said those conspiring against Duterte should “think twice… ‘I have received information from credible sources in the United States. Yes, we have names but I don’t want to mention it. We are looking [at] it seriously. We are investigating it,’” said the senior government official.

The coups and the assassination plots: Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, Paraguay, Honduras, and Sudan, half of Africa… all in just the few last years…and now the Philippines? Bravo, the Empire is accelerating! The work ethic of its cutthroats is clearly improving.

*

President Duterte has it all figured out. As mentioned above, he has already defined President Obama as a ‘son-of-a-bitch’, ‘son-of-a-whore’, and recently suggested that ‘he go to hell’. That is even tougher than what President Hugo Chavez used to say about George W Bush, also known as “Señor W”. And President Chavez, according to many Latin American analysts, ended up paying for his open antagonism towards the Empire and imperialism in general, with his own life.

The truth is that the Empire never forgives those who show it a mirror. It kills mercilessly for the tiniest signs of disobedience or rebelliousness. Its propaganda apparatus and its right hand – the mass media – always manage to craft a suitable explanation and justification for its brutal reprisals. And the public in both North America and Europe is fully complacent, indoctrinated and passive. The mass media only defends the Empire’s own narrow interests; never the victim, especially if the victim is from some far-away country inhabited by ‘un-people’.

The great Indonesian President Sukarno was overthrown and destroyed for shouting publicly at the US ambassador (among other things): “To hell with your aid!” …And of course, for defending the interests of his people against the Empire. Patrice Lumumba was assassinated for daring to say that Africans had no reason to be grateful to the colonizers.

Duterte says much more. He is bitter and he has countless reasons to be. The United States murdered more than one million Philippine people, most of them at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century. In recent history, it has turned this once proud and promising nation into a doormat, into a humiliated semi-colony, fully dependent on Washington’s whims. Capitalist and totally pro-American, the Philippines has evolved, like Indonesia, into a ‘failed state’, a social disaster and an intellectual wasteland.

*

President Duterte has managed to put in place a determined cabinet of like-minded intellectuals and bureaucrats.

As RT reported recently:

“Duterte’s foreign secretary, Perfecto Yasay, who has at times tried to downplay his boss’s comments, released a statement on Facebook titled “America has failed us” in which he says that, while there are many “countless things that we will be forever grateful to America for,” the US has never fully respected Philippine independence.”

“After proclaiming in July 4, 1946 that the Filipinos had been adequately trained for self-determination and governance, the United States held on to invisible chains that reined us in towards dependency and submission as little brown brothers not capable of true independence and freedom,” the FM said in the statement.”

Such statements very rarely appear in the pages of Western mainstream media publications, where Duterte and his cabinet are continuously demonized and ridiculed.

This is how the latest headlines on the Philippines read:

‘Drug-dealing daughter of playboy baron Antony Moynihan is shot dead in the Philippines’ (Daily Mail).

‘The president of Philippines has been accused of feeding a man alive to a crocodile’ (The Journal.ie via Yahoo UK & Ireland News)

‘Special Report – in Duterte’s war on drugs, local residents help draw up hit list’ (Reuters)

‘Duterte killed justice official, hitman tells Philippine senate’ (AFP)   

Nothing about the fight for social justice! Nothing about the battle against Western imperialism.

The war on drugs…

Yes, many people in the Philippines are genuinely concerned that the ‘bodies are piling up’, and the approach of this government could be defined as too heavy-handed, even intolerable. However, the situation is not that simple. This is not Europe. This is Asia with its own cultural dynamics and problems. In the Philippines, the crime rate has reached grotesque heights, unseen almost anywhere else in Asia Pacific. Much of the criminality is related to drugs, and people are genuinely fed-up. They demand decisive action.

For many years, Mr. Duterte served as the Mayor of Davao, a city on the island of Mindanao. Davao used to be synonymous with delinquency; a tough place to live, and many say an almost impossible place to govern.

Mr Duterte is honest. He openly admits that he could not have lasted long as a mayor of Davao, if he ‘was following the 10 Commandments’. Perhaps no one could.

He is extremely sensitive to criticism of his human rights record. Whether it comes from the UN or EU or the US, his reply is mostly defiant and consistent: “Fuck you!” While that is what usually gets reported in the West, what is omitted is that Rodrigo Duterte repeated explanation which goes something like:

“You think you have the right to talk to me about human rights? What about those millions you are killing all over the world, including recently in Iraq, Libya and Syria? What about the Filipino people that you slayed? And what about your own people, African-Americans, who are being slaughtered by police every day?”

He does not hide his deep allergy to Western hypocrisy. For centuries, the United States and Europe have been killing millions, plundering entire continents, and then they reserve the right to judge, criticize and boss others around – directly, or through institutions they control, like the United Nations. Again, his reply is clearly Sukarno-esque: “To hell with you! To hell with your aid!”

But you will not read this on the pages of the The New York Times or The Economist. There it is all about the ‘war on drugs’, about the ‘innocent victims’, and of course about the ‘strongman’ Duterte.

*

The situation is evolving rapidly.

Recently, President Duterte ordered a halt to a military drill dubbed as the ‘Philippines Amphibious Landing Exercise’ (Phiblex). It began on 4th October and was scheduled to run for more than one week. Around 1,400 Americans and 500 Filipino troops were involved, and part of the exercises were dangerously close to the waters of the disputed islands in South China Sea.

According to several leading Filipino intellectuals, the US has been using the Philippines for its aggressive imperialist ambitions in the region, consistently antagonizing and provoking China.

Duterte’s government is determined to move much closer to China and away from the West. It is very likely that in the foreseeable future the Philippines and China will be able to resolve all disagreements. That is, if the US will be out, kept permanently at bay.

To demonstrate its goodwill towards China, and to show its new independent course, Manila is planning to cancel all 28 annual military exercises with the United States.

President Duterte knows perfectly well what is at stake. To mark his 100 days in office, he has given several fiery speeches in which he acknowledges the West may try to remove him from the office, even kill him:

“You want to oust me? You want to use the CIA? Go ahead… Be my guest. I don’t give a shit! I’ll be ousted? Fine. (If so) it’s part of my destiny. Destiny carries so many things. If I die, that’s part of my destiny. Presidents get assassinated.”

Indeed they do often get assassinated.

But recently, one after another, countries all over the world are joining the anti-imperialist coalition. Some are prevailing; others get destabilized (like Brazil), economically devastated (like Venezuela) or fully destroyed (like Syria). All defiant nations, from Russia to China to the DPRK and Iran, are demonized by Western propaganda and its mass media.

But it seems that the world has had enough. The Empire is crumbling; it is panicking. It is killing more and more, but it is not winning.

Are Filipinos joining this alliance? After only 100 days in the office, it seems that President Duterte has made up his mind: No more servitude! No coming back!

Is he going to survive? Is he going to stay on his course?

How tough is he, really? One has to have nerves of steel to confront the Empire! One has to have at least nine lives to survive the countless intricate assassination plots, elaborate propaganda schemes, and trickeries.  

It will be an uphill struggle. It already is. Is he ready for all this? It appears that he is.

While the elites of his country have fully sold out to the West (the same as those of Indonesia and to a great extent, Thailand and Malaysia), the majority of his nation is behind him. For the first time in modern history, Filipino people may have a chance to take control over their own destiny.

And if the West does not like what is pouring out from Manila President Duterte doesn’t care. He has declared that he has already prepared plenty of counter-questions. And if the West cannot answer them:

“If they are unable to answer, son of a whore, go home, you animal. I will kick you now. Do not piss me off. It cannot be that they are brighter than me, believe me!”

Most likely, they are not; they are not brighter than him. But they are definitely more ruthless, more brutal.

What are they accusing him of? Of a ‘war on drugs’, that has taken around 3,000 lives?

How many lives has the West (or those ‘son-of-whores’, as many would call it these days in the Philippines) taken after the end of WWII, all over the world? Is it 40 or 50 million? Depends how it is calculated, ‘directly’ or ‘indirectly’.

The Empire will almost certainly try to murder President Duterte, most likely soon, very soon.

In order to survive, to keep on going, to keep fighting, to defend his battered and exploited country, he will most definitely have to permanently forget all about the 10 Commandments.

*

(First published by NEO)

Andre Vltchek

Philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist, Andre Vltchek has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are revolutionary novel “Aurora” and two bestselling works of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and  “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. View his other books here. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Al-Mayadeen. After having lived in Latin America, Africa and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
Had enough of their lies, escapism,
omissions and relentless manipulation?

=By= Moon of Alabama

[PHOTO: “Guided missile destroyer USS Nitze (DDG 94) has launched Tomahawk missiles against Yemen’s Houthi fighters …” (Naval Today)]

Yesterday (10/13/16) the U.S. openly attacked Yemen by firing cruise missiles against old Yemeni radar stations. This, allegedly, in response to four missiles fired on two days against a U.S. destroyer at the Yemeni coast. The U.S. Navy said the missiles fell short. They were unable to reach the ship. No one but the navy, especially no one in Yemen, has seen or reported any such missile launches – short or long.

The U.S. is in alliance with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other countries in bombing Yemen for 18 month now. They totally blockade the coast of the country that depends on imports of food and medicines. The actively fighting countries are heavily supported by the U.S. military. This has been widely admitted by U.S. officials and in military reports. The U.S. government even feared of being help legally responsible for the carnage it causes.

But since the launch of the cruise missile U.S. media have totally forgotten all of this. Now the U.S. “has been attacked”, without any recognizable reason, and is only “defending” itself. No legal consequences are to fear now. Anyone who believes that the U.S. is somehow responsible for the at least 10,000 dead and the many starving people in Yemen must somehow believe in a mysterious conspiracy.

Just consider this New York Times headline, from today, after the U.S. attack on Yemen.

Yemen Sees U.S. Strikes as Evidence of Hidden Hand Behind Saudi Air War.

The NYT tweeted the piece with this text:

New York Times World @nytimesworld
For the U.S., it was retaliation; for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, it confirmed a long-held belief nyti.ms/2e9mKyb
6:30 PM – 13 Oct 2016

Wow. The Houthi rebels “believe” in a “hidden hand”. Must be crazy people. They unreasonably attacked. And they deserve such strikes.

The NYT piece reads:

WASHINGTON — For the United States, it was simple retaliation: Rebels in Yemen had fired missiles at an American warship twice in four days, and so the United States hit back, destroying rebel radar facilities with missiles.But for the rebels and many others in Yemen, the predawn strikes on Thursday were just the first public evidence of what they have long believed: that the United States has been waging an extended campaign in the country, the hidden hand behind Saudi Arabia’s punishing air war.

How could the Houthis come to “believe” of such a “hidden hand”? Was it really because the strike was the “first public evidence”? Or was it because the NYT and all other media reported many times over that the U.S. actively supports the Saudi attacks? Did the Houthi probably read yesterday’s NYT piece on Yemen written by the very same main authors?

Up to now, the Obama administration put limits on its support for the Saudi-led coalition, providing intelligence and Air Force tankers to refuel the coalition’s jets and bombers. The American military has refueled more than 5,700 aircraft involved in the bombing campaign since it began, according to statistics provided by United States Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East.

So the “first evidence” of the “hidden hand” were, unlike the NYT today claims, not yesterdays strikes but official reports on the public CentCom website? Maybe frequent discussions of the war on Yemen the U.S. Congress held since a year ago also count as evidence? Various public reports over the last 18 month detailing the enormous amount of ammunition the U.S. openly sells to the Saudis were also just sightings of “hidden” hands?

Such reporting as in today’s NYT is just laughable. It flies in face of all reports of the last 18 month as well as extensive evidence given by the U.S. and other governments. The strikes on the radar sites were just “retaliation”. They have no larger context. This is a typical reflection of the U.S. myth of “immaculate conception” of U.S. foreign policy. According to that believe the U.S. always only reacts to being “attacked” or “threatened” for completely incomprehensible reasons when it bombs this or that country and kills thousands or even millions of foreign people.

That is even more evident in the reports by CNN and others. These reports only mention the 18 month of extensive U.S. support for the Saudi campaign down in the middle to end of their pieces. For any but a thorough reader the alleged “missile attacks” and all Yemeni enmity against the U.s. has no history at all. It comes from unreasonable and hostile people who willfully misunderstand U.S. well-meaning.

Thus no U.S. attack is ever unjustified or just a cruel continuation of decades of U.S. insidiousness, hostility and greed. It is always the other side that initiates the fight.

It is easy for the U.S. government propaganda to make such false claims. And U.S. media don’t report such but perpetrate anticipatory stenography. They write what the U.S. government wants and U.S. imperialism demands even when not directly ordered to. That is no longer astonishing.

Astonishing is how easy the U.S. public swallows this without any self awareness and protest.

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Nauseated by the
vile corporate media?
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=By=
Gary Corseri

I voted today. …
I voted for peace and justice and sanity
In an insane world of violence and injustice.
I voted.

I voted for clear streams, rivers, and seas;
Bright stars in a cedar-scented night-sky;
Whale-songs heard in unpolluted oceans.
Not for the lesser of two evils,
But for the greatest good for the greatest number—
For nothing less, I voted.

I voted for climate-change victims;
And for those torn apart by war;
Against the Empire, and for the planet;
For the hungry and forgotten,
For the terrified and abused–
I voted.

Against the military-industrial-media complex
And for the dream of MLK–
I voted.

I voted for Iraqi mothers and Afghani;
For Pakistani mothers, and around the world—
Because each of them is my mother, also,
Weeping like Rachel for her lost children.

For Kathy Kelly and Rachel Corrie,
For Cindy Sheehan and Cynthia McKinney,
Jill Stein, Helen Caldicott and Chelsea Manning–
For standing against madness and lies,
Opportunism and exploitation—
For all of them, I voted.

For brothers in exile I voted;
For the martyred, the betrayed, the abandoned—
Ishmael, Aguinaldo, Sandino and Guevara;
Tashtunka Witco, Tecumseh, Snowden and Assange—
For this council of leaders, I voted.

Against slavery and wage-slavery;
Sexploitation, television and bad food;
The corruption of Art; mis-education;
The torture of humans and animals;
Our prison-work-complex and sham democracy;
Citizens United; the Electoral College;
And every meme kicked down the road
By glutinous politicians and their corporate masters—
Against all of this, I voted.

To pass from these Dark Ages
To a Renaissance of Reason,
To a New Age of Enlightenment–
I voted.

That truths may be reclaimed;
For the wisdom to discern;
That children may be honored
With cleanliness and virtue,
With books and venerable teachers;
That all may be protected
From the ravenous and greedy—
I voted.

To see the planet whole;
To know our place upon it;
To nurture and restore it;
To abide in moderation,
With compassionate humility;
That the arts might consecrate us—
I voted.

For the best that lies within us;
For the fortitude to harness;
For the healing grace that’s needed.
For the courage to continue–

Gary Corseri has published and posted articles, fiction and poems at hundreds of venues, including, The Greanville Post, Cyrano’s Journal Online, Uncommon Thought Journal, The New York Times, Village Voice and Redbook Magazine. He has published 2 novels and 2 collections of poetry, and his dramas have been produced on PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has performed his poems at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum, and he has taught in universities in the US and Japan, and in US public schools and prisons. Contact: Gary_Corseri@comcast.net.

Source: (Note: An earlier version of this was first posted at CounterPunch.org in 2012.)

---

 

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The Convoluted Discourse: Was The Women’s Boat to Gaza an Existential Threat?

Ramzy Baroud, PhD
Politics for the People

Members of the Freedom Flotilla Project, Women’s Boat to Gaza.

The Israeli official narrative regarding its conflict with the Palestinians is deliberately confounded because a muddled up discourse is a convenient one. It allows the narrator to pick and choose half-truths at will, in order to create a falsified version of reality.

For instance, this is part of what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the United Nations on September 22:

“Ladies and Gentlemen: Israel fights this fateful battle against the forces of militant Islam every day. We keep our borders safe from ISIS, we prevent the smuggling of game-changing weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, we thwart Palestinian terror attacks in Judea and Samaria, the West Bank, and we deter missile attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.”

In just a single paragraph, Netanyahu has chosen to create an alternate reality, despite the fact that: ISIS’ main victims, thus far, have been Muslims, never Israelis; Hezbollah, which is embroiled in a sectarian fight in Syria is a Lebanese movement that is also at war with ISIS; the uprising in the West Bank has been largely led by desperate youth who were born under violent Israeli military Occupation and have no trust in their own leadership; Hamas has not lobbed any homemade rockets at Israel since the destructive Israeli war of 2014, which killed 2,251 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

While Netanyahu’s statements are not outright lies, the selection of these statements, not keen on dates, devoid of context and lacking in any Israeli accountability or even introspection, makes them simply untrue. Needless to say, utterly confusing as well, especially for those who rarely understand the nature of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians and its other Arab neighbors.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s language at international forums are quite typical, if not predictable. Not only typical of him as a statesman, but of generations of Israeli leaders, past and present. Former Israeli Prime Minister and President, Shimon Peres, who died late September, mastered this Israeli style, bar none. Although he was the architect of the Middle East’s first and only nuclear bomb, he was eulogized by western governments and media, including many in the Left, as a peacemaker, a heroic figure and statesman.

But Peres was the last of the ‘founders of Israel’ generation. That generation’s approach to war and diplomacy was unique and cannot be repeated. They were mostly foreign-born; spoke various languages; followed a unified blueprint in politics and had clear, decisive goals.

In contrast, Netanyahu is the first Israeli Prime Minister to be born in the country, after its establishment on the ruins of Palestine in 1948. His diplomacy is as violent as is his conduct on the ground. He seems fearless insofar as his confidence in his benefactors – namely the United States government, which has recently pledged to Israel another $38 billion dollars in unconditional military aid over the course of ten years.

With no legal or political accountability whatsoever, and with unwavering US backing of Israeli actions, no matter how destabilizing or destructive, Netanyahu’s logic, however lacking, will always prevail.

But considering that Israel is achieving precisely its intended goals – expanding its illegal settlements, sustaining its Occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, constantly building up its armament and advancing its strategic interests at the expense of its neighbors, and escaping any possibility of legal culpability, why does it always feel as if Israel is besieged and embattled?

Netanyahu’s words give the impression that his country’s very existence is imperiled. In fact, this is the same language that is constantly emanating from most Israeli circles – official, media, academic and even ordinary people. This perception has continued even after Israel expanded its borders by occupying the rest of historic Palestine following the disastrous war of 1967; even when Israel claimed massive swathes of Jordanian, Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian territories.

It seems that the stronger Israel becomes, the larger in size and more destructive in its military capabilities, the weaker and more threatened it perceives itself.

Even with their tactless approach to diplomacy, the new generation of Israeli leaders is still pushing the same mantra: that of a besieged country facing an existential threat.

In 2015, following the signing of the Iran nuclear deal between Iran and the US – along with other countries –  Israel was denied the central component of its ‘existential threat’ discourse. With an Iranian ‘nuclear holocaust’ averted – although never convincingly from the Israeli viewpoint – other imagined threats were pushed to the very top of the Israeli agenda.

Besieged, bombed out and impoverished tiny Gaza maintained its standing as a major cause for alarm and one of the greatest threats to Israel’s security. But, strangely, the civil society-led non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), was quickly pushed to the top of the ‘existential threat’ pyramid.

Modeled around the anti-Apartheid South African boycott movement, BDS aims at isolating the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, and, using non-violent means, ending it.

The language used against Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and others is now being utilized against BDS. In a conference organized by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in New York last month, Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, called BDS a ‘terrorist organization.’

“BDS is the new face of terror,” she said. “While in Gaza (terrorists) are digging underground tunnels into Israel, the BDS movement is digging tunnels to undermine the foundations and values of Israel. We have to stop these tunnels as well.”

Like Netanyahu, Shaked too claimed to be “fighting Islamic extremism”, although BDS supporters come from many countries and profess no particular religion.  In fact, many of them are Jewish activists.

Yet, that does not matter. It never did, because the enemy, for now, has to remain “Islamic terrorism”, even if it is neither Islamic nor terrorist.

In a response to the Israeli navy interception, arrest and deportation of a group of women who attempted to break the Israeli siege on Gaza by using a small boat, Israel’s Defense Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, spun his words to connect the non-violent activists with something else entirely.

“We will not accept any (rocket) fire, any provocation, against the citizens of Israel by whoever it might be, or any attack on Israel’s sovereignty. Not rocket fire, and not a flotilla,” Lieberman said in an army ceremony on October 07.

The activists atop the boat, included Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mairead Maguire, of Northern Ireland. In Lieberman’s logic, Maguire’s act to end a decade-long blockade on a poor region is equivalent to the firing of a rocket.

Regardless of the type of criticism Israel faces and the tactics used to end its Occupation of Palestine, Israel will always connect the proverbial dots to produce the same outcome: Israel’s existence is at stake, all acts of resistance, however symbolic, are terrorist, and Israel has to do whatever it takes to defend itself from looming destruction by rogue terrorists.

Nonetheless, unlike Shimon Peres and his generation of leaders, the Israeli story as told by Israel’s new leaders is no longer selling. Gaza, which is rendered uninhabitable by the United Nations come 2020, hardly threatens the existence of Israel, nor are BDS activists, who demand accountability, vile terrorists. Needless to say, a group of women atop a small boat, carrying a symbolic amount of supplies to impoverished Gaza, were not about to take the Middle East’s only nuclear power down.

“The Israeli army then took over the boat. The women showed no resistance as they wanted to emphasize that their mission was peaceful. The women cried because they could not reach Gaza,” Al Jazeera reported.

‘Terrorists’, indeed.  

 

Ramzy Baroud, PhD

Has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include ‘Searching Jenin’, ‘The Second Palestinian Intifada’ and his latest ‘My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’. His website is: www.ramzybaroud.net.

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