I saw the following oped at the Boston Globe yesterday morning:
If Republicans won’t stand up to Putin, he won’t stand down in his threats to American interests
Helping Ukraine fight off Russia is not an act of charity. It is a vital investment in world security.
There’s so much to write about here. First, as Vice President Kamala Harris has already said, charity is now a bad or disreputable idea. Helping Ukraine is not about charity, apparently because that message doesn’t resonate strongly with Congress. So, what does resonate? The idea of war as “a vital investment.” Apparently, if the House approves $61 billion in more aid to Ukraine, the payoff will be “world security.” How can you argue against that, right?
Second, apparently Republicans who oppose another $61 billion in aid to Ukraine, on top of roughly $120 billion in aid already provided since the Russian invasion two years ago, are all Putin appeasers. They are weak, refusing to “stand up to Putin.” Apparently Democrats are strong because they are standing up to Putin.
In sum, if America wants to be smart and strong, it must “invest” in more war against Putin and Russia.
How about “investing” in more trench warfare? Such a “rich” history!
I’m sorry but I never see war as an “investment.” Perhaps I would if I were the CEO of Boeing or Raytheon, but I’m not. I see war as “all hell,” as Civil War general William T. Sherman famously said. It’s horrific, it’s wasteful, it’s the negation of humanity. Sorry: no “vital investments” in war for me.
The war isn’t going well for Ukraine. Russia currently has the edge, Ukraine is short on troops and ammunition, and now might be a propitious time for serious negotiations to end the killing, before Ukraine collapses. Yes, in seeking peace, Ukraine will probably have to cede territory. Yes, perhaps Putin will sell this as a Russian victory. But I very much doubt that Putin’s costly “victory” in Ukraine will embolden him to launch attacks on NATO countries. He knows he would risk total defeat and nuclear war if he did so, and Putin, whatever else he is, is no fool.
Meanwhile, the French are making noises about the possibility of European troops deploying to Ukraine to fight against Russia. This would be folly in the extreme, turning a regional Russia-Ukraine conflict into a more general European war on Russia, with echoes to World War II.
I love that term, “strategic ambiguity.” Is that a good idea, creating “strategic ambiguity” against Russia, a nuclear power with the ability to destroy the world? Macron was being recklessly idiotic here.
Forget about “investments” in more war and strategic ambiguity. Try charity and peace. It’s time to end the killing.
Mainstream Media Outlets Say No One Was Harmed in the Israeli Embassy while Denying the Reality of Genocide
A young Air Force airman set himself on fire outside the Israeli Embassy in DC to protest genocide in Gaza. Aaron Bushnell, 25, died after being taken to a hospital.
Aaron Bushnell before he set himself on fire. Mainstream media sites chose not to feature any images of Bushnell, focusing instead on the Israeli Embassy or “the crime scene”
This was an extreme and deadly act of political protest directed against the Israeli government’s killing and wounding of 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza and its ongoing war of annihilation there, a war abetted by the U.S. government’s political and military power. Bushnell shouted “Free Palestine!” as he burned.
Bizarrely, an officer at the scene pointed a gun at him as he burned before another first responder asked for fire extinguishers. How a man on fire posed a threat to others is unclear.
[Update 2/27, 0820 EST: Disgracefully, this was the headline of a story at the Washington Post on Bushnell: Airman who set self on fire grew up on religious compound, had anarchist past. At this link. It appears Bushnell grew up in a Christian society in Orleans on Cape Cod, that he joined the Air Force in 2020, served as a cyber defense ops specialist in Texas, and was interested in U.S. history, socialism, and anarchism. The Washington Post article is at pains to portray him as being raised by a weird, possibly abusive, Christian cult while putting a heavy stress on his interest in anarchism. He also liked cats and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, so you just know he was a misfit. In all seriousness, Bushnell seems to me to have been an unusually principled and sensitive man who acted out of strong moral conviction.]
Aaron Bushnell, an unusually principled, determined, and thoughtful young man
Coverage in the mainstream media is revealing. I checked three sites: NBC, CBS, and the Guardian in Britain. Let’s look at NBC first. NBC said that Bushnell’s act was an “apparent protest” against the “Israeli-Hamas war.” NBC later added that Israel’s “crackdown” in Gaza was termed a genocide by Bushnell. NBC itself stuck to the narrative that Israel is engaged in a defensive war, a “crackdown,” against Hamas.
Next, let’s look at CBS. CBS repeated the narrative of “an apparent protest of Israel’s actions in its war against Hamas.” CBS did mention that Bushnell’s stated motivation was that he could no longer be complicit in an ongoing genocide in Gaza, followed by a lengthy denial by Netanyahu and the Israeli government. Claims of genocide are “false” and “outrageous,” as CBS gave Netanyahu the last word.
Turning to the British Guardian, its first sentence is more blunt: An active-duty member of the US air force has died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, while declaring he will “no longer be complicit in genocide”.
It also included a key statement Bushnell apparently included on his Facebook page: “Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?’ The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”
Nevertheless, the Guardian downplayed the 100,000 killed and wounded in Gaza as numbers generated by the “Hamas-run health service” there.
The final site I’d like to consider is Antiwar.com, an example of alternative media, I suppose. This site gets it right, in my view, so I’m posting the article here in its entirety:
US Airman Sets Himself on Fire in Front of Israeli Embassy to Protest Gaza Genocide
The airman said he would ‘no longer be complicit in genocide’
An active duty US airman set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC to protest the US-backed slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
According to Talia Jane, an independent journalist who obtained the video of the incident, the airman, who was identified as Aaron Bushnell, 25, died of his wounds late Sunday night.
According to Axios, a video of the incident shows the airman saying he would “no longer be complicit in genocide” and that he was about to “engage in an extreme act of protest.”
“But compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal,” Bushnell said right before lighting himself on fire.
Washington DC’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department said in a post on X that the airman was transported to a hospital with “critical life-threatening injuries.” The department also said the officers who extinguished the fire were members of the US Secret Service.
The dramatic protest comes as the number of Palestinians killed in Gaza by the Israeli campaign is approaching 30,000, and over 69,000 have been wounded. About two-thirds of the casualties are women and children.
The International Court of Justice has ruled that it’s “plausible” Israel is committing genocide and decided to take up the case brought to the court by South Africa. Despite the massive civilian casualty rate and international pressure, the US continues to provide unconditional support for the slaughter.
Killing Russians and Palestinians–A Growth Industry for America
To sell the Biden administration’s $95 billion arms package (the big pieces are $60 billion to Ukraine and $14 billion to Israel), Democrats and Republicans alike are celebrating the fact that genocide in Gaza and more war in Ukraine will create jobs for Americans.
The honest (not used) slogan: Wars and genocide create jobs in America!
Of course, they don’t couch it quite this way. The $14 billion to Israel is touted as “defending Israel’s right to exist” and the $60 billion to Ukraine is sold as defending democracy in that country while thwarting evil Putin, a dictator “worse than Hitler.”
Yet, as an article in Politico put it back in October, as quoted in The Nation: “The White House has been quietly urging lawmakers in both parties to sell the war efforts abroad as a potential economic boom at home. Aides have been distributing talking points to Democrats and Republicans who have been supportive of continued efforts to fund Ukraine’s resistance to make the case that doing so is good for American jobs.”
Talk about a win-win! Creating jobs by killing and wounding Russians and Palestinians in large numbers. I’m finally proud to be an American, where at least I know I can profit prodigiously from other people’s pain and anguish.
Death—it’s a jobs program.
Sullivan and Blinken, more than willing to sell genocide and war as jobs programs
Selling this “jobs program” are diplomats and civilians like Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. I wrote about these two paragons of non-virtue soon after Joe Biden was elected president in November 2020. Here’s what I wrote then (citing some sharp-eyed critics):
At TomDispatch.com, Danny Sjursen gives a sharp-eyed summary of the typical Biden operative in the realm of military and foreign affairs. Here’s what Sjursen has to say:
In fact, the national security bio of the archetypal Biden bro (or sis) would go something like this: she (he) sprang from an Ivy League school, became a congressional staffer, got appointed to a mid-tier role on Barack Obama’s national security council, consulted for WestExec Advisors (an Obama alumni-founded outfit linking tech firms and the Department of Defense), was a fellow at the Center for New American Security (CNAS), had some defense contractor ties, and married someone who’s also in the game.
It helps as well to follow the money. In other words, how did the Biden bunch make it and who pays the outfits that have been paying them in the Trump years? None of this is a secret: their two most common think-tank homes — CNAS and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) — are the second- and sixth-highest recipients, respectively, of U.S. government and defense-contractor funding. The top donors to CNAS are Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and the Department of Defense. Most CSIS largesse comes from Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon.
With the news that Tony Blinken will be Biden’s Secretary of State, Caitlin Johnstone makes the following salient point:
Blinken is a liberal interventionist who has supported all of the most disgusting acts of US mass military slaughter this millennium, including the Iraq invasion which killed over a million people and ushered in an unprecedented era of military expansionism in the Middle East. So needless to say he will fly through the confirmation process.
Meanwhile, Julia Rock and Andrew Perez note the incestuous nature of this process, or how the national security revolving door keeps spinning:
On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that Biden has chosen his longtime aide, Tony Blinken, to serve as Secretary of State and will name Jake Sullivan, his senior advisor and a former Hillary Clinton aide, national security adviser. Former Obama Defense Department official Michèle Flournoy is considered the favorite to be Secretary of Defense.
After leaving the Obama administration, Blinken and Flournoy founded WestExec Advisors, a secretive consulting firm whose motto has been: “Bringing the Situation Room to the board room.” Flournoy and Sullivan have both held roles at think tanks raking in money from defense contractors and U.S. government intelligence and defense agencies.
Biden has been facing calls [Ha! Ha!] from Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocacy groups to end the revolving door between government and the defense industry. One-third of the members of Biden transition’s Department of Defense agency review team were most recently employed by “organizations, think tanks or companies that either directly receive money from the weapons industry, or are part of this industry,” according to reporting from In These Times.
Meanwhile, defense executives have been boasting about their close relationship with Biden and expressing confidence that there will not be much change in Pentagon policy.
Please forgive the “Ha! Ha!” parenthetical, but all this was predictable based on Biden’s record and his statement that nothing would fundamentally change in his administration …
Progressives have essentially no power in the Democratic Party. Look at who the Speaker of the House is! Nancy Pelosi, once again, the ultimate swamp creature.
Expect no new ideas from this bunch, meaning grim times are ahead…
My prediction in November 2020 that “grim times are ahead” was hardly a moment of psychic power. Sure, we didn’t know we’d have an ongoing genocide in Gaza and a godawful war of attrition in Ukraine, but we knew some bad decisions were going to be made by the likes of Biden, Blinken, and Sullivan. And so they have been made.
Yesterday, I appeared on Podcast by George. George Clark and I discussed the Russia-Ukraine War, Gaza, and the military-industrial-congressional complex. Here’s the video:
As George and I discussed America’s constant state of (very expensive and deadly) war, it occurred to me, not for the first time, that my country lost the Cold War that we allegedly won in 1991.
How so? After that “victory,” America was supposed to cash in on its peace dividends, becoming a normal country in normal times, to cite Jeanne Kirkpatrick. Instead, America doubled down on empire and the idea of imperial dominance. Militarism, not democracy, became a leading feature of our society, especially after the trauma of the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. government today remains shrouded in secrecy; those who would expose imperial war crimes, like Julian Assange or Daniel Hale, are imprisoned, even tortured.
The national security state, the MICIMATT,* is a colossus, far more insidious and invasive than anything even President Dwight D. Eisenhower imagined in his farewell address against the military-industrial complex in 1961. “Peace” is a word rarely heard in Washington, and the State Department has become a tiny branch of the Pentagon, bragging about weapons sales and shipments overseas rather than embracing diplomatic solutions to increasingly deadly conflicts. Even genocide in Gaza is dismissed as the Biden administration embraces Israel’s right to defend itself—against women and children in Gaza.
Courtesy of John Whitbeck, here’s a handy (and devastating) chart showing the damage inflicted on Gaza:
Chart prepared by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor available at this link:
*MICIMATT: military industrial congressional intelligence media academe think tank complex. We might also add Hollywood and the sports world to the complex, since both are so eager to celebrate war and “our” troops.
Democracy doesn’t die in darkness. It dies from constant warfare, as James Madison warned us about. It’s worth repeating his words:
Of all the enemies of true liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debt and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manner and of morals, engendered in both. No nation can preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare …
The Russia-Ukraine War Enters Its Third Year with No End in Sight
Russia launched its “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24th, 2022. Russia and Ukraine had been feuding since 2014, with U.S. meddling in Ukraine exacerbating the tensions. NATO expansion to Russia and Ukraine’s borders, along with calls to incorporate Ukraine into NATO at some future date, also led to increased tensions with Russia. The result has been a costly and enduring war in which Ukraine has lost roughly 20% of its territory in the east; both sides have suffered high casualties in horrendous conditions that recall the trench warfare of World War I.
At the moment, Russia appears to have the edge. Ukraine recently lost the city of Avdiivka. Manpower in Ukraine is stretched thin. The average age of troops at the front for Ukraine is 43 even as I’ve seen stories touting the recruitment of young women for the front as well as 17-year-old teenagers. Artillery ammunition is in short supply; $60 billion in weapons, munitions, and other military aid from the United States is frozen in Congress. A path to military victory for Ukraine is unclear.
Nevertheless, the Biden/Harris administration is fully behind the Ukraine war effort. I take the title of this article from Vice President Kamala Harris and her recent vow that the U.S. will support Ukraine for “as long as it takes.” The word “it” apparently refers to a complete victory by Ukraine over Russia by force of arms, i.e. the expulsion or withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukrainian territory. Since it is unlikely Vladimir Putin will withdraw his troops voluntarily, the U.S. government has signed up to support Ukraine until it is able to defeat Russian forces on the battlefield, whether that takes one year, five years, or forever and a day.
Zelensky and Harris recently in Munich, together for “as long as it takes”
Such an open-ended commitment by the U.S. requires some explanation. The conventional narrative goes something like this: Putin is a bully and a thug. He is the next Hitler, or even worse. If he’s allowed to win in Ukraine, he will be emboldened to strike at NATO countries in Europe. Meanwhile, other authoritarian dictators around the world will see Russia’s victory as permission to strike at U.S. interests globally, undermining democracy and the “rules-based order.” Supporting Ukraine with vast sums and amounts of weaponry and munitions, therefore, is necessary to stop worldwide aggression by Putin and those who would emulate him. This is, in essence, the narrative of the Biden administration.
I believe this narrative is wrong. I see no evidence that Putin has plans to invade NATO countries; indeed, his invasion of Ukraine has strengthened NATO and led to its expansion. Russia is bogged down in a costly war in Ukraine, and while its forces have generally performed better recently than they did two years ago when they first invaded, the outcome of this war remains unclear. The Russian economy isn’t strong; an enduring war in Ukraine isn’t beneficial to Putin or the Russian people.
So far, “diplomacy” seems to be the hardest word in this conflict. Negotiation seems to be seen as capitulation. There’s evidence to suggest the U.S. and Great Britain have discouraged—even sabotaged—talk of ceasefires and settlements. To my knowledge, there are no efforts by the U.S. to seek a truce or some kind of armistice or other agreement that would end the war with all its suffering and devastation. The war must go on, full stop.
More than a stated fear of Putin as the new Hitler is involved here. Domestic politics are critical. In the U.S., Democrats are using Republican opposition to $60 billion in more aid to Ukraine to accuse GOP members of favoring Russia and of sabotaging Ukraine’s noble and heroic war effort. If the Republican-controlled House doesn’t approve the $60 billion aid package and Ukraine suffers a serious setback this year, Democrats will accuse Republicans of having “lost” Ukraine, of having become Putin-appeasers. Facing this possibility, it’ll be interesting to see if Republicans eventually cave and provide the $60 billion in aid.
Meanwhile, the military-industrial-congressional complex continues to profit from this war. The U.S. State Department recently boasted of a 56% increase in foreign arms sales in 2023, much of that going to Ukraine. More and more, the State Department is simply a tiny branch of the Pentagon, “negotiating” through arms sales and shipments and boasting of profits from the same.
War may be the health of the state of the self-styled “arsenal of democracy,” but it’s very unhealthy for the people of Ukraine and Russia and indeed for the planet. The New York Times, consistently on the side of Ukraine and more war, recently referred to the heavy troop losses of both sides and the “relentless devastation” of a war being fought on Ukrainian territory. Recent articles in publications like Reuters and The New Yorker pose the question, “Can Ukraine Still Win?” Their conclusion seems to be “possibly,” but not in 2024, and not without massive aid from the U.S., and even then, “victory” by feat of arms is increasingly unlikely.
Meanwhile, I keep seeing articles that favor more offensive and destructive weaponry for Ukraine, most recently long-range missiles to strike at Russia. Recall that U.S./NATO aid to Ukraine first focused on defensive weapons such as Stinger and Javelin missiles. Very quickly, aid escalated to armored vehicles, including main battle tanks (Challenger, Leopard, and Abrams), heavy artillery, rockets, and now F-16 fighter jets. Tank ammunition included depleted uranium shells; artillery rounds included cluster munitions. All these weapons have increased the deadliness of the battlefield, ensuring a blasted, dangerous, and toxic environment for generations to come without delivering decision on the battlefield for Ukraine.
The outlook for 2024 seems dire. Ukraine, outgunned and outmanned, is facing another bleak year of war. Optimism about a decisive Ukrainian counteroffensive (that was supposed to come in 2023) is long gone, with U.S. advisors having pointed fingers at Ukrainian leaders for their alleged hesitancy in absorbing large casualties on the offensive. An increasing number of American voters are questioning whether a war costing them roughly $180 billion in two years (assuming the Biden aid package is approved) is truly in their national interest, even as Members of Congress tell them that much of that money provides good-paying jobs to Americans making bullets and bombs to kill Russians.
Is America an arsenal of democracy, or just an arsenal?
Having served in the U.S. military for 20 years during the end of the Cold War, I remember a time when U.S. leaders talked to their Soviet counterparts. Kennedy talked to Khrushchev, Nixon talked to Brezhnev, Reagan talked to Gorbachev. Agreements were reached; crises were deescalated; wars were avoided. Courage and resoluteness aren’t shown through more weapons and war; they’re shown by reducing weapons and putting an end to war. Why can’t Biden talk to Putin?
“Blessed are the peacemakers” is a sentiment that shouldn’t be limited to the New Testament. If only this nation’s leaders would work to pursue peace “for as long as it takes.” Sadly, war always finds a way, especially when it’s sold as stopping the next Hitler.
Early in the 19th century, Alexis De Tocqueville famously wrote “Democracy in America.” Early in the 21st century, that title is more appropriate for a fictional or even fantasy work on America.
How so? A BV reader sent along an article from the American Prospect: “America is not a democracy,” by David Dayen. Based on that article and a few reflections of my own, here’s how and why democracy is dead in the USA:
Big money in politics. Members of Congress chase the money and are obedient to it. So are presidents. So too are even SCOTUS justices. Indeed, SCOTUS basically said corporations are citizens and that money is speech in the infamous Citizens United decision. Those with the most money have the most speech in America. Those with no money are essentially mute and powerless.
Gerrymandering. Both Democrats and Republicans draw district lines to inhibit real electoral competition. Thus most seats in Congress are “safe,” dominated by a single party.
Voter Suppression. There are all sorts of tactics to depress voter turnout among the “unwashed.” Unnecessary voter ID laws. The closing of polling stations. Dropping people from the polling lists. Holding the vote on a work day. Even the presence of police officers and “voting monitors” at the polls.
Corporate Ownership of the Mainstream Media: The MSM touts corporate-friendly candidates from the two major parties. Third-party candidates are almost entirely ignored when not openly vilified and condemned as “spoilers.”
For the presidency, the electoral college. Presidents aren’t elected by popular vote; what matters is winning the electoral college. As a result, this year’s election will likely come down to roughly 500,000 voters in six “swing” states.
For the senate, the persistence of the filibuster. Both parties conveniently use the filibuster as an excuse for why they can’t get things done for workers and the middle class.
The decline of unions. Workers only have power when they organize and stand together as one, flexing their muscles with strikes and other actions. The decline of unions has largely neutered the working classes.
Constant wars overseas. As James Madison noted, constant warfare is the enemy of democracy and the friend of authoritarianism and corruption.
Obstacles to third-party challengers. Republicans and Democrats share a contempt for third-party challengers, erecting obstacles via lawsuits and similar activities. Just ask Ralph Nader or RFK Jr.
Sham primaries. The RNC and DNC are private institutions. The DNC is controlled by so-called superdelegates. Neither party is interested in the will of voters; they serve the whims of the owners and donors.
There are several words you can use to describe America’s system of government. Oligarchy, rule by the few, applies. Plutocracy, rule by the rich, applies. Kleptocracy, rule by the greedy and corrupted, applies. Even kakistocracy, rule by the worst, has some applicability. The word that doesn’t apply is democracy.
Well, it’s an idea …
This is not news to my readers, of course. Consider the Princeton Study from 2014, which reached the following conclusions:
When a majority of citizens [in the USA] disagrees with economic elites and/or with organised interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favour policy change, they generally do not get it.
The study concludes:
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.
Sure, we have regular elections, but who’s excited by this year’s likely choice of Biden/Trump for the presidency? And do we really have freedom of speech? Try protesting in DC against genocide in Gaza, especially in the hearing rooms of Congress.
America is an oligarchy ruled by powerful interests such as the military-industrial-congressional complex, Wall Street, Big Pharma, the banks, health insurers, the billionaire class, and indeed any entity with deep pockets that can transmute its gold into political reach and speech. All legal, of course!
We’d like to think America is a land of decent George Baileys and small-town egalitarianism like Bedford Falls, but America’s owners and donors much prefer Pottersville USA, where the rich and powerful call the shots. And so Pottersville it is.
P.S. People ask me, OK, smartypants, how do we change this? As they say, power concedes nothing without a demand. A demand backed up by the power of the masses. Specific steps are easy to state, difficult to achieve. Get big money out of politics. End the filibuster. Eliminate the electoral college. End gerrymandering and voter suppression. Revive unions. End wars. And so on. In a word, fight.
Kamala Harris at Munich tells you what America is and isn’t about
Yesterday, in her remarks before the Munich Security Conference, Vice President Kamala Harris made some remarkable claims while speaking a bold truth about what U.S. foreign policy is all about.
First, let’s turn to the bold truth:
And please do understand, [Vice President Harris said,] our approach is not based on the virtues of charity. We pursue our approach because it is in our strategic interest.
I strongly believe America’s role of global leadership is to the direct benefit of the American people. Our leadership keeps our homeland safe, supports American jobs, secures supply chains, and opens new markets for American goods.
I bolded the key phrase: America’s approach to the rest of the world isn’t charitable in any way. It’s about jobs, supply chains, and new markets. It’s about dominance and profits and “the homeland.” End of story.
It put me to mind of a passage in the Bible (Corinthians) about the inestimable value of charity:
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (KJV; 1 Corinthians 13:2)
The U.S. can certainly move (or remove) mountains with its nuclear weapons; it certainly thinks it has a gift of prophecy with all its surveillance and spy agencies; but unless it has charity toward those less fortunate, it is nothing. It’s good to hear the Vice President avow so clearly that the U.S. approach to the world isn’t in any way charitable or even well-meaning.
Charity? Nope. “Our approach is not based on the virtues of charity”
The remarkable claims came as Harris attacked the Republicans and Trump but without specifically naming them. Here’s what she said about them:
However, there are some in the United States who disagree. They suggest it is in the best interest of the American people to isolate ourselves from the world, to flout common understandings among nations, to embrace dictators and adopt their repressive tactics, and abandon commitments to our allies in favor of unilateral action.
Let me be clear: That worldview is dangerous, destabilizing, and indeed short-sighted. That view would weaken America and would undermine global stability and undermine global prosperity.
President Biden and I, therefore, reject that view.
Are Trump and his followers arguing that America should isolate itself from the world? That America should embrace dictators? That America should betray its allies? That America should be a repressive autocracy? This is a misleading and disturbing caricature of Republicans as it accuses them of treason to the U.S. Constitution.
Perhaps some believe that Trump and MAGA truly are this malevolent. But should these accusations be made before foreign leaders at a summit in Munich, Germany?
Something is seriously wrong with America’s leadership. Without charity, they are nothing.
Since 2007, I’ve been writing for TomDispatch.com. Recently, Tom Engelhardt and I got to talking about war, American-style. I mentioned to Tom that I thought America’s presidents were appeasers, not in the Neville Chamberlain at Munich sense, but in the sense of kowtowing to the military-industrial-congressional complex and favoring more weapons and always more war. It got me thinking as well about our mutual affection for toy soldiers, how we as kids so innocently (and foolishly) played at war. Combining that with recent events in the Middle East led to this piece posted today at TomDispatch.
Like many American boys of the baby-boomer generation, I played “war” with those old, olive-drab, plastic toy soldiers meant to evoke our great victory over the Nazis and “the Japs” during World War II. At age 10, I also kept a scrapbook of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and its various Arab enemies in the Middle East. It was, I suppose, an early sign that I would make both the military and the study of history into careers.
I recall rooting for the Israelis, advertised then as crucial American allies, against Egypt, Syria, and other regional enemies at least ostensibly allied with the Soviet Union in that Cold War era. I bought the prevailing narrative of a David-versus-Goliath struggle. I even got a book on the Yom Kippur War that captivated me by displaying all the weaponry the U.S. military had rushed to Israel to turn the tide there, including F-4 Phantom jets and M-60 main battle tanks. (David’s high-tech slingshots, if you will.) Little did I know that, in the next 50 years of my life, I would witness increasingly destructive U.S. military attacks in the Middle East, especially after the oil cartel OPEC (largely Middle Eastern then) hit back hard with an embargo in 1973 that sent our petroleum-based economy into a tailspin.
Here’s the book I was fascinated with, published soon after the Yom Kippur War
As one jokester quipped: Who put America’s oil under the sands of all those ungrateful Muslim countries in the Middle East? With declarations like the Carter Doctrine in 1980, the U.S. was obviously ready to show the world just how eagerly it would defend its “vital interests” (meaning fossil fuels, of course) in that region. And even today, as we watch the latest round in this country’s painfully consistent record of attempting to pound various countries and entities there into submission, mainly via repetitive air strikes, we should never forget the importance of oil, and lots of it, to keep the engines of industry and war churning along in a devastating fashion.
Right now, of course, the world is witnessing yet another U.S. bombing campaign, the latest in a series that seems all too predictable (and futile), meant to teach the restless rebels of Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and possibly even Iran a lesson when it comes to messing with the United States of America. As the recently deceased country singer Toby Keith put it: Mess with this country and “We’ll put a boot (think: bomb) in your ass.” You kill three soldiers of ours and we’ll kill scores, if not hundreds, if not thousands of yours (and it doesn’t really matter if they’re soldiers or not), because… well, because we damn well can!
America’s leaders, possessing a peerless Air Force, regularly exhibit a visceral willingness to use it to bomb and missile perceived enemies into submission or, if need be, nothingness. And don’t for a second think that they’re going to be stopped by international law, humanitarian concerns, well-meaning protesters, or indeed any force on this planet. America bombs because it can, because it believes in the efficacy of violence, and because it’s run by appeasers.
Yes, America’s presidents, its bombers-in-chief, are indeed appeasers. Of course, they think they’re being strong when they’re blowing distant people to bits, but their actions invariably showcase a distinctive kind of weakness. They eternally seek to appease the military-industrial-congressional complex, aka the national (in)security state, a complex state-within-a-state with an unappeasable hunger for power, profit, and ever more destruction. They fail and fail and fail again in the Middle East, yet they’re incapable of not ordering more bombing, more droning, more killing there. Think of them as being possessed by a monomania for war akin to my urge to play with toy soldiers. The key difference? When I played at war, I was a wet-behind-the-ears 10 year old.
The Rockets’ Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air
No technology may be more all-American than bombs and bombers and no military doctrine more American than the urge to attain “peace” through massive firepower. In World War II and subsequent wars, the essential U.S. approach could be summarized in five words: mass production enabling mass destruction.
No other country in the world has dedicated such vast resources as mine has to mass destruction through air power. Think of the full-scale bombing of cities in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in World War II, ending in the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Think of the flattening of North Korea during the Korean War of the early 1950s or the staggering bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in the 1960s and early 1970s. Or consider the massive use of air power in Desert Shield against Iraq in the early 1990s followed by the air campaigns that accompanied the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003 (and never quite seemed to stop thereafter). The butcher’s bill for such bombing has indeed been high, quite literally millions of non-combatants killed by America’s self-styled “arsenal of democracy.”
And indeed, as you read this, another country is now faithfully following America’s example. Israel is systematically destroying Gaza, rendering it essentially uninhabitable for those Palestinians who survive the ongoing rampage. In fact, early in its war of annihilation, Israeli leaders cited the Allied destruction of the German city of Dresden in 1945 in support of their own atrocious air and ground campaign against the Palestinians.
Looking at this dispassionately as a military historian, the Dresden reference makes a certain twisted sense. In World War II, the Americans and their British allies in their “combined bomber offensive” destroyed German cities indiscriminately, seeing all Germans as essentially Nazis, complicit in the crimes of their government, and so legitimate targets. Something similar is true of the right-wing Israeli government today. It sees all Palestinians as essentially members of Hamas and thus complicit in last year’s brutal October 7th attacks on Israel, making them legitimate targets of war, Israeli- (and American-) style. Just like the United States, Israel claims to be “defending democracy” whatever it does. Little wonder, then, that Washington has been so willing to send bombs and bullets to its protégé as it seeks “peace” through massive firepower and genocidal destruction.
Indeed, of late, there has been considerable debate about whether Israel is engaged in acts of genocide, with the International Court of Justice ruling that the present government should strive to prevent just such acts in Gaza. Putting that issue aside, it’s undeniable that Israel has been using indiscriminate bombing attacks and a devastating invasion in a near-total war against Palestinians living on that 25-mile-long strip of land, an approach that calls to mind the harrowing catchphrase “Exterminate all the brutes!” from Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness.
In a sense, there’s nothing new under the sun. Certainly, the Old Testament itself provides examples of exterminatory campaigns (cited by Bibi Netanyahu as Israel first moved against the Palestinians in Gaza). He might as well have cited a catchphrase heard during America’s war in Vietnam, but rooted in the medieval crusades: “Kill them all and let God sort them out.”
America’s Unrelenting Crusade in the Middle East
In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush got into trouble almost instantly when he referred to the “war on terror” he had launched as a “crusade.” Yet, as impolitic as that word might have seemed, how better to explain U.S. actions in the Middle East and Afghanistan? Just consider our faith in the goodness and efficacy of “our” military and that all-American urge to bring “democracy” to the world, despite the destruction visited upon Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen over the last several decades. Or go back to 1953 and the role the CIA played in the overthrow of Iran’s legitimate democratic ruler and his replacement by the brutally repressive regime of the Shah.
Try to imagine such events from the perspective of a historian writing in the year 2200. Might that future scribe not refer to repeated U.S. invasions of, incursions into, and bombing campaigns across the Middle East as a bloody crusade, launched under the (false) banner of democracy with righteous vengeance, if not godly purpose, in mind? Might that historian not suggest that such a “crusade” was ultimately more about power and profit, domination and control than (as advertised) “freedom”? And might that historian not be impressed (if not depressed) by the remarkable way the U.S. brought seemingly unending chaos and death to the region over such a broad span of time?
Consider these facts. More than 22 years after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. still has at least 30,000 troops scattered across the Middle East. At least one Navy carrier strike group, and often two, dominate the regional waters, while striking numbers of military bases (“Little Americas”) are still sprinkled across countries ranging from Kuwait to Bahrain, from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates and beyond. So many years later, about 900 U.S. troops still illegally occupy part of Syria (not coincidentally, where that country produces most of its oil) and 2,500 more remain in Iraq, even though the government there would like them to depart.
Yankee Go Home? Apparently Not in My Lifetime
Meanwhile, American military aid, mostly in the form of deadly weaponry, flows not only to Israel but to other countries in the region like Egypt and Jordan. Direct U.S. military support facilitated Saudi Arabia’s long, destructive, and unsuccessful war against the Houthis in Yemen, a conflict Washington is now conducting on its own with repeated air strikes. And of course, the entire region has, for more than two decades now, been under constant U.S. military pressure in that war on terror, which all too quickly became a war of terror (and of torture).
Recall that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 led to the death of roughly a millionIraqis and the displacement of millions more as refugees. How could that not be considered part of a “crusade,” even if a fitful and failing one? Yet, here’s the rub: just as those Catholic crusades of the Middle Ages weren’t entirely or even primarily about religion, so today’s American version isn’t motivated primarily by an anti-Muslim animus. Of course, there is indeed an inescapably religious aspect to such never-ending American war-making, but what drives those wars is largely naked greed, vengeance, and an all-American urge both to appease and amplify the military-industrial-congressional complex.
Of course, as was true in the years after 9/11 and is still true today, Americans are generally encouraged to see their country’s imperial and crusading acts as purely defensive in nature, the righteous responses of freedom-bringers. Admittedly, it’s a strange kind of freedom this country brings at the tip of a sword — or on the nosecone of a Hellfire missile. Even so, in such an otherwise thoroughly contentious Congress, it should be striking how few members have challenged the latest bombing version of this country’s enduring war in the Middle East.
Forget the Constitution. No Congressional declaration of war is believed necessary for any of this, nor has it mattered much (so far) that the American public has grown increasingly skeptical of those wars and the acts of destruction that go with them. As it happens, however, the crusade, such as it is, has proven remarkably sustainable without much public crusading zeal. For most Americans, those acts remain distinctly off-stage and largely out of mind, except at moments like the present one where the deaths of three American soldiers give the administration all the excuse it needs for repetitive acts of retaliation.
No, we the people exercise remarkably little control over the war-making that the military-industrial-congressional complex has engaged in for decades or the costs that go with them. Indeed, the dollar costs are largely deferred to future generations as America’s national debt climbs even faster than the Pentagon war budget.
America, so we were told by President George W. Bush, is hated for its freedoms. Yet the “freedoms” we’re allegedly hated for aren’t those delineated in the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Rather, it’s America’s “freedom” to build military bases across the globe and bomb everywhere, a “freedom” to sell such bellicose activity as lawful and even admirable, a “freedom” to engage in a hyperviolent style of play, treating “our” troops and so many foreigners as toy soldiers and expendable props for Washington’s games.
It’s something I captured unintentionally five decades ago with those toy soldiers of mine from an imagined glorious military past. But after a time (too long, perhaps) I learned to recognize them as the childish things they were and put them away. They’re now long gone, lost to time and maturity, as is the illusion that my country pursues freedom and democracy in the Middle East through ceaseless acts of extreme violence, which just seem todrone on and on and on.
History teaches that you can have genocide without war, you can have war without genocide, and you can have war and genocide together. In Gaza today, the right-wing Israeli government is clearly engaged in a war on the Palestinian people that amounts to a genocide.
The horrific face of genocidal war
Of course, Israeli leaders claim they are engaged in a war against Hamas, and Hamas alone. Events, however, prove they are engaged in a genocidal war of annihilation.
A few harrowing data points: Israeli forces have already killed or wounded 100,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Journalist Chris Hedges reports that Israel:
has damaged or destroyed all 12 of Gaza’s universities. Some 280 government schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools have also been destroyed or damaged, often resulting in dozens of fatalities. About 133 remaining schools are used to shelter those displaced by the assault. More than 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes amid continued Israeli ground and air offensive that has killed more than 25,000 [now more than 28,000] people, including 10,000 [now more than 12,000] children.
Clearly, Israeli leaders are using war as a means of genocide, an excuse for it, as well as a form of camouflage for it. Don’t be deceived. War and genocide can and do coexist and feed off each other, as did the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews during World War II. As Israeli leaders readily admit to war while dissembling about genocide, at least they can be justly accused of war crimes while being held to international agreements governing the conduct of war, such as the Geneva Conventions.
Israel’s genocidal war, if left unchecked, will eliminate Gaza and its people. That is the stated intent of the Netanyahu government, which spouts the worst kind of eliminationist rhetoric, rhetoric that amounts to a “final solution to the Palestinian question.”
Any country that arms Israel in its genocidal war is complicit. Guess which country is clamoring to send another $14 billion in weaponry to Israel so it can pursue its war/genocide in Gaza? Yes: The United States of America.
In Gaza, both Hamas and Israel may act savagely and cruelly, but only one side truly has the means at its disposal to slaughter the other, and that side is Israel. Meanwhile, the mainstream media reserves words like “slaughter” for Hamas, even as Israeli forces kill Palestinians on a massive scale.
Clearly, the current strategy of the Israeli government is to destroy Gaza, making it uninhabitable, forcing the Palestinians in Gaza to leave or die.
When Israel is done in Gaza, they will turn to the West Bank. As Netanyahu said, Israel’s goal is to dominate Palestine “from the river to the sea.” Palestinians “in the way” are being killed, or starved, or expelled, or (if lucky) reduced to subjects under intolerable conditions of apartheid.
The Israeli government is getting away with this because it has the legal, military, and propaganda cover of the U.S. and much of Europe as well. The Biden administration complains about the worst excesses of Israel’s genocide while sending its leaders the weapons they need to continue the killing. Members of Congress like Nancy Pelosi suggest that earnest Americans calling for a ceasefire in Gaza are the useful idiots of Vladimir Putin.
It seemingly never occurs to Biden and Pelosi that they are the useful idiots of Bibi Netanyahu.
Stop the war in Gaza. Stop the genocide.
Postscript: The “Words About War” Team have posted ten suggestions for writing and talking more clearly, honestly, and accurately about Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza. Please go to https://www.wordsaboutwar.org/gaza.html.
The U.S. Senate Once Again Serves the Military-Industrial Complex
The U.S. Senate has worked tirelessly to pass a bill for $95 billion for more weapons and war. Surprise! Roughly $61 billion will go to Ukraine to continue that ghastly and largely stalemated war, $14 billion will go to Israel to facilitate the ongoing genocide in Gaza, roughly $9 billion will go to humanitarian aid, and roughly $5 billion will go to Taiwan and other countries in the region to stir up trouble with China.
Isn’t it nice to know the U.S. Senate has our backs? That senators have heard the cry of the American working classes and are going to help them by shipping more weapons overseas for more war?
Just think: Another $14 billion to Israel to produce more scenes like this in Gaza
I had to laugh when I saw this assertion from Heather Cox Richardson: “The fight over U.S. aid to Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and the other countries with which we have made partnerships is not about saving money—most of the funds for Ukraine are actually spent in the U.S.” Yes! It’s not about “saving money”! After all, most of the money will go to major weapons contractors, America’s merchants of death. So pay no attention to this, peasant. You’re getting a bargain.
In her article, Richardson mentions Dwight D. Eisenhower and the year he took office as president, 1953, which made me think of these famous words said by Ike in 1953:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
Richardson is having none of this. The Senate’s $95 billion is not “a theft from those who hunger and are not fed,” but rather a wise investment that will pay dividends—as it will, for America’s vast military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC).
Fortunately, it appears the Senate’s $95 billion handout to the MICC (remember: don’t worry about saving money here!) is unlikely to survive the House of Representatives. Still, it is indicative of the total moral bankruptcy of the U.S. Senate and its supine obedience to the weapons makers.
Video bonus: Here I am, talking about the military-industrial complex, trying to channel a tiny bit of Ike and his wisdom:
The video link above is courtesy of the Merchants of Death Tribunal.
Bracing Views 