Tag: perpetual war

Debate Debacle: Our Bleak Foreign Policy Future

The first presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump presented a bleak picture of the future of U.S. foreign policy no matter who wins in November. On the most urgent and important foreign policy issue of the year, the war and genocide in Gaza, Harris repeated empty platitudes about a “two-state solution” and Trump fell back on tired “pro-Israel” rhetoric. Neither candidate offered voters any hope that there would be a meaningful change from Biden’s policy of unconditional support for the slaughter and starvation of Palestinians.

Trump absurdly said that Harris hates Israel, but aside from her perfunctory expression of support for Palestinian self-determination there was unfortunately very little to distinguish the two of them on this issue. Like Trump, Harris backs Israel to the hilt, and the main difference is that she pays lip service to Palestinian rights while doing nothing to protect them. She says some of the right things about the need for a ceasefire, but the Joe Biden administration isn’t willing to use its leverage to secure one and Harris refuses to call for the halt to U.S. arms transfers that U.S. law requires.

Harris has had many opportunities in the two months since Biden dropped out to separate herself from the president on this issue. She squandered them all by sticking to the official administration line. The vice president would rather tout her support from the likes of Dick Cheney than try to win the support of antiwar voters across the country. Harris has been catering mostly to hawks this summer, and she prefers attacking Trump for being “weak” instead of using his policy failures against him.

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Undebatable: What Harris and Trump Could Not Say About Israel and Gaza

Kamala Harris won the debate. People being bombed in Gaza did not.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times home page – “Harris Puts Trump on Defensive in Fierce Debate” – was accurate enough. But despite the good news for people understandably eager for Trump to be defeated, the Harris debate performance was a moral and political tragedy.

In Gaza “now an estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead,” an ABC News moderator said. “Nearly 100 hostages remain… President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?”

Vice President Harris replied with her standard wording: “Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must when, end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out.”

“End immediately”? Anyone who isn’t in fantasyland knows that the only way to soon end the slaughter of Palestinian civilians would be for the U.S. government – the overwhelmingly biggest supplier of Israel’s armaments – to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Meanwhile, a pivot to advocating for a cutoff of weapons to Israel would help Harris win the presidency. After the debate, the Institute for Middle East Understanding pointed out that the need to halt the weapons is not only moral and legal – it’s also smart politics. Polls are clear that most Americans want to stop arming Israel. In swing states, polling has found that a large number of voters say they’d be more likely to cast a ballot for Harris if she would support a halt.

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October 7th and September 11th

The eleven month anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attacks on Israel passed two days ago and in two more days we will reach the twenty-third anniversary of the September 11th Attacks on America.

Both these events have become so infamous that they are now among the tiny handful that can easily be identified merely by the date on which they occurred, and they are both likely to be remembered for their world historic significance. The 2001 attacks unleashed a long series of devastating Middle Eastern wars, and last year’s Hamas attack now threatens to do the same, perhaps drawing in the United States. There are differences as well as some significant parallels, but taken together they may have combined consequences that are too controversial to be widely discussed.

From almost the first hours after the huge October raid by Gaza militants, Israeli officials and their media allies had declared that the attack was Israel’s own 9/11, and I believe that in many respects that analogy is a very apt one.

Back in 2001, the newly installed administration of President George W. Bush had paid little attention to foreign affairs and almost none to the Middle East, with its focus overwhelmingly upon domestic political projects. Bush had actively courted Muslim support during his 2000 campaign while promising Americans that he would pursue a “humble” foreign policy. All of these plans were transformed in a single day as tens of millions of Americans watched the towers of our World Trade Center collapse and the newscasters reported that the Pentagon had also been attacked and seriously damaged.

Not since the Pearl Harbor attack of 1941 had America suffered such an enemy assault on its own soil, and nearly 3,000 Americans were dead, so major military retaliation was inevitable. But with our top leaders reeling in dismay and confusion, uncertain exactly how to respond, a tight network of fervently pro-Israel Neocons situated in various sub-Cabinet positions quickly sprang into action. These individuals took advantage of the sudden, unexpected crisis to convince their superiors to undertake a long-planned agenda of regime change operations and wars across much of the Middle East and other portions of the Muslim world, a project largely intended to reshape that region for the benefit of Israel.

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New Lebanon War Kicks Off As IDF Pounds Hezbollah Positions Overnight

The Israeli Defense Force struck at least 16 targets overnight against Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, as the focus of The Jewish State turns from Gaza to the north of the country.

In four different areas in southern Lebanon: the IDF attacked about 30 launchers and military infrastructure of the terrorist organization Hezbollah that posed a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel, reported the IDF press office.

Air Force fighter jets attacked during the night in the areas of Al Jabin, A-Nakura, Deir Sirin and Zabkin in southern Lebanon, about 30 launchers and military infrastructures of the terrorist organization Hezbollah, which posed a threat to the citizens of the State of Israel.

Also, IDF forces attacked with artillery in the A-Dahira area in southern Lebanon.

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It’s Time to End Biden’s Yemen War

Hal Brands is annoyed that the U.S. isn’t making its illegal, pointless war in Yemen even more destructive:

The core issue is that Washington has hesitated to take stronger measures — such as sinking the Iranian intelligence ship that supports the Houthis, or targeting the infrastructure that sustains their rule within Yemen — for fear of inflaming a tense regional situation.

That approach has limited the near-term risk of escalation, but allowed Tehran and the Houthis to keep the showdown simmering at their preferred temperature. It also reflects the underlying fatigue of a US military that lacks enough cruise missiles, laser-guided bombs, strike aircraft and warships to prosecute the campaign more aggressively without compromising its readiness for conflicts elsewhere.

The real problem with this war is that the U.S. and its allies have been trying to compel the Houthis through a bombing campaign that could not realistically succeed. The U.S. chose to escalate the conflict in January without having any idea of how it would achieve its stated goals. Now it is stuck with an ongoing conflict that it isn’t winning but that it refuses to end out of pride and stubbornness. Further escalation would destabilize the region more and expose more U.S. forces to attack, but it would not solve the main problem that the war has never been worth fighting.

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Nuland Admits US Discouraged Ukraine From Signing Russia Peace Deal At Moment It Was ‘Really Close’

There’s never a dull moment when former high-ranking State Department official Victoria Nuland goes on the record for a new tell-all. She’s certainly never shy about broadcasting her role in anti-Moscow covert maneuvering and machinations.

Indeed, many already know her as Victoria-‘Fuck the EU’-Nuland and for essentially running foreign policy in Europe stretching back through the Obama years as then Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, where many of the problems which sparked the disastrous and tragic Russia-Ukraine war were first set in motion.

Exiled Russian journalist Mikhail Zygar recently sat down with her for a new interview published to YouTube earlier this month. The most interesting part of the interview was when he pressed Nuland on widespread reports saying that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson actively encouraged President Zelensky to back out of a potential peace deal with Moscow early after the Feb.2022 Russian invasion. There was a possible chance to end the war and perhaps avoid hundreds of thousands of deaths. But the West apparently convinced Zelensky to fight it out.

But a deal was on the table, and Russia was demanding a full commitment to Ukrainian neutrality regarding NATO. Nuland laid out that it was “relatively late in the game” when Kiev started seeking guidance on the peace deal from Washington and its allies. Zygar said there were statements from foreign leaders privy to the negotiations saying both sides were “really close” to achieving a deal.

“The Ukrainians began asking for advice on where this thing was going, and it became clear to us, clear to us and the Brits, clear to others, that Putin’s main condition was buried in an annex to this document that they were working on. And it included limits on the precise kinds of weapons systems that Ukraine could have after the deal,” Nuland introduced in response.

She went on to describe that Washington didn’t like that the end result of the deal would leave Ukraine “neutered” as a military force while at the same time the same limits weren’t imposed on the Russian military. “People inside Ukraine and people outside Ukraine started asking questions about whether this was a good deal, and it was at that point that it fell apart,” Nuland admitted.

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From the Arsenal of Democracy to an Arsenal of Genocide

During World War II, American leaders proudly proclaimed this country the “arsenal of democracy,” supplying weapons and related materiel to allies like Great Britain and the Soviet Union. To cite just one example, I recall reading about Soviet armored units equipped with U.S. Sherman tanks, though the Soviets had an even better tank of their own in the T-34 and its many variants. However, recent news that the United States is providing yet more massive arms deliveries to Israel (worth $20 billion) for 2026 and thereafter caught me off guard.  Israel quite plainly is engaged in the near-total destruction of Gaza and the massacre of Palestinians there.  So, tell me, how over all these years did the self-styled arsenal of democracy become an arsenal of genocide?

Israel, after all, couldn’t demolish Gaza, killing at least 40,000 Palestinians in a population of only 2.1 million, including thousands of babies and infants, without massive infusions of U.S. weaponry. Often, the U.S. doesn’t even sell the weaponry to Israel, a rich country that can pay its own bills. Congress just freely gifts body- and baby-shredding bombs in the name of defending Israel from Hamas. Obviously, by hook or crook, or rather by shells, bombs, and missiles, Israel is intent on rendering Gaza Palestinian-free and granting Israelis more living space there (and on the West Bank). That’s not “defense” — it’s the 2024 equivalent of Old Testament-style vengeance by annihilation.

As Tacitus said of the rampaging Romans two millennia ago, so it can now be said of Israel: they create a desert — a black hole of death in Gaza — and call it “peace.” And the U.S. government enables it or, in the case of Congress, cheers on its ringleader, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

Of course, anyone who knows a little American history should have some knowledge of genocide. In the seventeenth century, Native Americans were often “satanized” by early colonial settlers. (In 1994, a friend of mine, the historian David Lovejoy, wrote a superb and all-too-aptly titled article on exactly that topic: “Satanizing the American Indian.”) Associating Indians with the devil made it all the easier for the white man to mistreat them, push them off their lands, and subjugate or eradicate them. When you satanize an enemy, turning them into something irredeemably evil, all crimes become defensible, rational, even justifiable. For how can you even consider negotiating or compromising with the minions of Satan?

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Cheney Backs Harris: The War Hawk’s Blessing Reveals Continuity in Foreign Policy

If there is one eternal rule in Washington, it is that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.” If you were to presume twenty years ago, that former Vice President Dick Cheney would one day endorse a progressive Democrat from California for president, you would be sent to an insane asylum. The idea that a diehard neoconservative and perhaps the biggest war criminal in recent American history would one day endorse someone like Kamala Harris would have been laughable. But due to the prevalence of “Trump derangement syndrome” amongst many neoconservatives, this has become the political reality.

As someone who generally considers himself a member of the political left and who does not support Donald Trump, “Trump derangement syndrome” is not a term I use flippantly. Nevertheless, I cannot seem to find any other phrase to describe the type of voter who would view an endorsement from Dick Cheney for Kamala Harris as a positive. Former Vice President Cheney’s support of Harris is emblematic of a deeper, unsettling continuity in American foreign policy that transcends partisan boundaries.

Dick Cheney is not the only member of his family who has thrown their support behind Harris. His daughter, former Rep. Liz Cheney, has also endorsed Kamala Harris after voting for Trump in 2020. In a recent episode of System Update, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald pointed out that Liz Cheney – whose entire political career revolved around her defending her father’s depraved imperialism – has become a useful idiot for the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. This shift is par for the course, as proponents of military adventurism have increasingly found a home in a Democratic Party committed to providing endless military aid to both Israel and Ukraine.

This is not surprising as the GOP has moved towards isolationism, ostensibly at least in Ukraine, with Vice Presidential candidate J.D. Vance, stating that “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.” But both Liz Cheney and her father “care” about Ukraine, as they have an ideological interest in spreading the tentacles of American imperialism across the world. But in the modern Republican Party under Donald Trump, the Cheney family likely believes they have no tenable political future. Dick Cheney is a decrepit reminder of a time long ago, and Liz Cheney lost in the Republican primary for her district by 32 points.

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Most Americans Want to Stop Arming Israel. Politicians Don’t Care.

When Kamala Harris sat down with CNN’s Dana Bash last month, Bash asked a question: “Would you withhold some U.S. weapons shipments to Israel? That’s what a lot of people on the progressive left want you to do.” 

Harris sidestepped the question, talked about a ceasefire, and ultimately said that she would not change course from the Biden administration’s policy of arming Israel as its war on Gaza enters its 11th month. 

But polls of the American voting population show that she’s ignoring more than just the “progressive left”: A majority of voters support ending arms transfers to Israel, and support for an arms embargo is growing.

“The reality is that the public is far more in favor of stopping arms sales to Israel than opposed,” Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel Program at Arab Center Washington D.C., told The Intercept. He pointed to a June poll from CBS that showed 61 percent of all Americans said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel, including 77 percent of Democrats and nearly 40 percent of Republicans. 

Poll results have been consistent for months. 

Since the start of the war in Gaza, a majority of Americans have expressed support for some form of restrictions on the U.S. sending weapons to Israel in repeated public surveys. Americans are even more overwhelmingly in favor of a ceasefire.

Among the most consistent string of polls on the issue of weapons transfers to Israel has come from CBS News, which partnered with YouGov to carry out its survey. About two weeks after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, as Israel’s bombardment had already killed more than 2,000 civilians in Gaza, a CBS poll of more than 1,800 Americans found that 52 percent of American adults said the U.S. should not send weapons to Israel. The totals included large majorities among both Democrats and independents, and 43 percent of Republicans. 

In April, CBS News/YouGov asked the same question in a new poll and found that an even larger number of Americans (60 percent), including 68 percent of Democrats, said they felt the U.S. should not send arms to Israel. The poll was conducted days after an Israeli strike killed seven aid workers in a clearly marked World Central Kitchen convoy. 

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Exposed: The US and Canadian Funding Behind Israeli Soldiers Accused of Rape

Cuffed and blindfolded 24 hours a day. Confined to animal pens. Attacked by dogs. This is reportedly the treatment of Palestinian detainees at Sde Teiman, an Israeli military base in the Naqab desert. While claims of torture and abuse at the facility began circulating in December, the Israeli military did not open an investigation into the allegations until July 29, when 10 Israeli soldiers were detained on suspicion of sexually abusing a detainee.

In response to the soldiers’ detention, a mob of right-wing extremists stormed Sde Teiman and later broke into the Beit Lid military base, where the detained soldiers were being held. Among those detained were soldiers from the Force 100 unit, which was resurrected at the onset of the war and has been responsible for guarding the detainees at Sde Teiman. Masked soldiers, wearing black shirts emblazoned with the unit’s logo—a snake inside the Jewish Star of David—were seen participating in the protests.

Several Israeli lawmakers took part in the riots, including Otzma Yehudit’s (Jewish Power) Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, Religious Zionism member of parliament, Zvi Sukkot, and parliamentary members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, Nissim Vaturi and Tally Gotliv.

Protests have continued to erupt in support of the soldiers, including, most recently, outside an Israeli High Court hearing on the case on August 7, 2024.

As allegations of torture and sexual abuse at Israel’s Sde Teiman detention facility escalate and Israeli Military Police prepare to conclude their investigation and file indictments against the suspects, MintPress uncovers the financial and political infrastructure, including from the U.S. and Canada, backing these soldiers through tax-exempt organizations and crowdfunding platforms. This marks a disturbing shift in global support for human rights violations, now extending even to those implicated in the Israeli military’s acts of sexual violence.

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