In recent days, Dick Cheney and his Republican buddies have been claiming that President Obama not only refuses to say we are at war with terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, but won't even talk about terrorism at all. Their claim, however, has no basis in reality. In fact, as this brief compilation of video clips from 27 different Presidential speeches shows, the exact opposite is true.
Watch:
Keep in mind that while this video features snippets from over two dozen different speeches (including at least one from each month of Obama's presidency), it represents only a small fraction of what the President has said about terrorism and national security. In other words, Dick Cheney's claim that President Obama poses a threat to American security is every bit as accurate as his claim that Iraqi WMD posed a threat to the entire world.
In a report [.pdf] published this week, Amnesty International, Oxfam, Christian Aid and other leading aid agencies decried Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza. The siege amounts, they concluded, to the illegal “collective punishment” of a civilian population, and its effect is to
“systematically … [destroy] the hopes of Gaza’s people for social and economic development and of its business sector for growth and trade; and with them … the key foundations for a just and sustainable peace”.
During the massacre Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was systematically targeted. Entire residential areas were “almost completely flattened”, dozens of hospitals and clinics were severely damaged, hundreds of schools were destroyed or damaged and 700 private businesses were either partially or totally destroyed. In total a full third of all public buildings [.pdf] and perhaps 14% of all buildings [.pdf] in Gaza were affected.
Today, nearly a year later, the situation in Gaza remains desperate. The total ban on exports and the 80% reduction in imports, which are now restricted to only the most basic humanitarian and medical supplies, has taken its toll on the civilian population:
About 10% of children under five suffer from malnutrition (WFP)
Over 80% of Gaza residents depend on humanitarian food aid to survive (UN)
More than 120,000 jobs have been lost in the private sector (UN), Gaza’s entire industrial zone has been either demolished or crippled by the three- year blockade
The Red Cross (h/t lenin) reports that “[t]here has been scarcely any improvement in the situation since the end of the war in Gaza, mainly because of the tight closure, which is preventing reconstruction”. Israel has prevented the import of construction materials like concrete and glass to the Strip, making rebuilding on any significant scale impossible:
“since Operation Cast Lead, only 41 truckloads of construction materials for all purposes have been permitted into Gaza. Thousands of truckloads are required to rebuild all the houses destroyed. And this is to say nothing of all the remaining reconstruction desperately needed to put right damage to all the schools, hospitals, other buildings and water network because of previous military action or serious dilapidation caused by lack of repair materials due to the blockade.” [my emph.]
This amounts to “barely four trucks of construction material a month”, or 0.05% of pre-blockade monthly flows. As a result hospitals, schools, factories, farms, homes and other essential civilian infrastructure “remain in ruins”. 20,000 people are still displaced, some of them living in tents or relying on emergency mud brick huts built by the UN. It has been estimated that if the current pace of reconstruction continues, it will take 500 years to repair the damage from ‘Cast Lead’ alone. Then there’s the power network which, already “on the verge of collapse” due to the siege, suffered “extensive, long-term damage” during the massacre. “[U]rgent repairs” have “not been allowed to proceed”, and so the population of Gaza faces a difficult winter ahead with power cuts of four to eight hours per day and “frequent … gas and water shortages, seriously affecting daily life and public health”.
Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure is even worse shape. Decades of neglect, the siege and repeated Israeli attacks (during ‘Cast Lead’ wells and pumps were “bombed or bulldozed on a huge scale”) have meant that only 5-10% of Gaza’s water reserves meet international safety standards for drinkable water. Thousands of people are still without running water, and despite the “desperate need” for repair work Israel won’t even permit the entry of generators to power the wells. Earlier this year local authorities and UN agencies warned of a looming water crisis – already 12% of young deaths are caused by diarrhoea, an “easily preventable disease”.
The destruction meted out during ‘Cast Lead’ was thus anything but random. On the contrary: an EU study [.pdf] found that 84% of the structural damage was “inflicted on three key sectors: housing, agriculture and the private sector”. As the UN World Food Program reports, ”it was precisely the strategic economic areas that Gaza depends on to relieve its dependency on aid that were wiped out.” The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights similarly concluded that Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure was designed “to make Gaza go decades back“.
The destruction of Gaza’s agricultural industry, which used to employ 13% of Gaza’s workforce, is a case in point. In the course of ‘Cast Lead’ crops, livestock and agricultural infrastructure were extensively targeted. Taking into account both the direct damage caused by Israeli tanks and missiles and Israel’s subsequent unilateral extension of the ‘buffer-zone’ along the border, which put between a third and a quarter of Gaza’s agricultural beyond the reach of Palestinian farmers, “an estimated 46% of agricultural land has been put out of production”. The UN inquiry [.pdf] into the massacre chaired by Prof. Richard Goldstone concluded that
“in the destruction by Israeli armed forces of private residential houses, water wells, water tanks, agricultural land and greenhouses there was a specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance to the population of the Gaza Strip.”
In short, the strategic objectives that led Israel to force the closure of 98% of industrial operations in Gaza before ‘Cast Lead’ were the same strategic objectives that led Israel to bomb hundreds of factories during the massacre. The objectives that led Israel to bomb Gaza’s only power station back in 2006 were the same objectives that led Israel to extensively target Gaza’s power infrastructure during ‘Cast Lead’ and prevent its reconstruction afterwards. The objectives that led Israel to destroy 20 of Gaza’s 29 ready mix concrete plans, including its only cement packaging and storage plant, during ‘Cast Lead’ are the same objectives motivating its refusal to permit concrete and other building materials to be imported into Gaza now. The siege and the periodic military assaults on Gaza are part of the same overarching, long-term policy to impoverish and isolate Gaza, undermine Hamas and permanently eliminate any potential for economic development – what Harvard specialist Sara Roy has termed “de-development” [.pdf]* or, as one Israeli officer described his mission, “no development, no prosperity, only humanitarian dependency” [.pdf].
International complicity
The aid agencies’ report accuses world powers of having “betrayed” the population of Gaza by failing to genuinely challenge Israel’s siege:
“They have wrung hands and issued statements, but have taken little meaningful action to attempt to change the damaging policy that prevents reconstruction, personal recovery and economic recuperation.”
Despite its “continuing and devastating” humanitarian impact – which, the report emphasises, is no accident but “a matter of policy” – the siege has effectively been “accepted” by the international community, which has failed to back up its words with meaningful action and has generally sought “little more than small concessions” from Israel.
The report focuses in particular on the EU, which as Israel’s largest export market could apply real pressure on Israel to end the closure (the US’s leverage over Israel is, of course, even greater). While the EU has taken some positive steps – notably the strong criticism levelled against both the occupation and the siege by new EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton – it has, as a result of pressure from some member states (Britain undoubtedly one of them), failed to brand the siege “collective punishment” or even a violation of international law. Despite the freeze on a formal upgrade of EU-Israel relations instituted consequent to the Gaza massacre, the EU “continues to extend new economic and trade privileges to Israel”, most recently in the form of a November agreement to liberalise agricultural trade.
Indeed, as David Cronin reports, the much-hyped tension between the EU and Israel has been largely “superficial“:
“While there may have been the occasional angry word exchanged on the diplomatic front, the EU’s political and economic ties with Israel have been strengthened over the past few years to such an extent that Javier Solana, who stepped down as the Union’s foreign policy chief in late November, has remarked that Israel is an EU member state in all but name.
[...]
Israel’s effective integration into the EU has coincided with a marked reluctance on the part of the Union to denounce acts of aggression against the Palestinians. Although some individual EU representatives have described the blockade of Gaza as an act of “collective punishment” against 1.5 million civilians, no statement criticising the blockade as contrary to international humanitarian law has been issued by the 27-member bloc in its entirety.
Furthermore, all of the EU’s most populous countries – Germany, France, Britain, Italy, Spain and Poland – either opposed the Goldstone report or abstained when it was considered by the UN’s General Assembly in November. (In that report, the retired South African judge Richard Goldstone and his fellow investigators found there was no justifiable military objective behind almost every attack on Gaza’s civilians undertaken by Israel in late 2008 and the beginning of this year).”
When challenged on what they’re doing to end the siege, government officials typically point to the large amount of aid (over $4bn in total) pledged to help reconstruct Gaza. In fact, as the aid agencies’ report notes, the aid has largely failed to materialise, far less made any substantive difference on the ground, because of the Israeli blockade. As the EU report linked above (sigh [.pdf]) notes, “access is a precondition for any recovery activity in the Gaza Strip”. The big danger of humanitarian reports like this is that they can inadvertantly encourage a focus on Gaza as a purely humanitarian problem, stripped of its fundamentally political causes. Indeed, as Prof. Avi Shlaim has observed, one of Israel’s aims in Gaza is precisely to “ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood”. The World Bank [.pdf] has been consistent in warning against this “illusion that economic prosperity can be de-coupled from a political horizon”, adding that
“real reconstruction of Gaza – one including some revival of the moribund private sector — entails not only the opening of the crossings for building materials and cash, but also enabling external trade so that the revitalized private sector can continue to mend and flourish”.
What we can do
In the face of this refusal by governments to adhere to and enforce international law, it falls to us as citizens of those governments to act. This means organising to pressure our representatives to end state support for Israeli crimes. More concretely, the Gaza Freedom March is planned for December 31 and it needs our support. Some 1,300 activists from around the world will converge on Gaza and then march alongside tens of thousands of Palestinians towards the Erez border crossing in an attempt to nonviolently break the siege.
As I’ve previously written, if it is successful this effort has the potential to be a real game-changer, in terms of both ending the closure and establishing a powerful precedent for the successful use of mass nonviolent resistance to oppose Israel’s occupation.
Unfortunately the Egyptian government, which is itself heavily complicit in the siege, has declared that it will not allow the international activists to enter Gaza through Rafah. The march’s organisers are confident that if enough people send emails and make calls to their nearest Egyptian embassy demanding that Egypt let the marchers through then the demonstration will be permitted to proceed – so get on it.
More generally Israel is suffering badly from what Netanyahu calls the “Goldstone threat“, namely the PR catastrophe that resulted from the brutality of ‘Cast Lead’ and the Goldstone inquiry’s subsequent condemnation of Israel’s actions as ‘war crimes’. As an Israeli journalist known for his establishment connections recently wrote in Ma’ariv,
“Israel’s diplomatic status is undergoing a rapid collapse, whose like we have never known before. We did undergo crises during the first Lebanon War, the First Intifada and on other occasions – but never did we fall from a such great height to such a low depth, and the bottom is still far down.”
With the relentless colonisation of the West Bank continuing apace and nonviolent Palestinian activists facing an increasingly brutal campaign of repression by the Israeli military, now is no time to ease up the pressure.
______
* A UN report leaked in September described “a process of de-development in the Gaza Strip, which potentially could lead to the complete breakdown of public infrastructure and further deterioration in the economy.” As far back as 2007 the World Bank warned of potentially “irreversible” economic collapse in Gaza.
On December 27, 2008, Israel began one of the bloodiest attacks on Gaza Since 1948. The three week assault killed some 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. One year later, little to no rebuilding has taken place and the siege in Gaza continues.
Speaking in Watertown, Massachusetts on December 6, 2009, linguist and social critic Noam Chomsky delivered a talk entitled “Gaza: One Year Later.”
Dale Robertson, a Tea Party activist who operates TeaParty.org, is getting stung for an old photo — taken at the Feb. 27, 2009 Tea Party in Houston — in which he holds a sign reading “Congress = Slaveowner, Taxpayer = Niggar.”
After the ResistNet listerv promoted “Liberty Concerts” to be held by TeaParty.org, a source passed on this photo of Robertson, after the jump. UPDATE: Josh Parker of the Houston Tea Party Society tells me that Robertson was booted out of the event for this sign.
I emailed Robertson’s group for comment, but haven’t heard back yet. Here’s the email that was sent from ResistNet to members of its list.
Tea Party Taking The Next Step
“We are setting the tone for taking back America with Liberty Concerts. We are not waiting until the first quarter of the year, we have already begun.” Dale Robertson, President and Founder of the Tea Party – TeaParty.org
‘Liberty Concerts’ is a venue designed to be the key to create a model for our Nation to Take Back America. The Tea Party does not intend to waste their time simply rallying. The Plan is to optimize the events, they will be fun and Citizens will be asked to run for office, with the focus of Restoring America, and thus, putting it on the Conservative track.
The goal is to shift attendees from being merely a presence at a rally, into involved Patriots recognizing the need to be engaged in the process of Self-Governance.
The Tea Party is gearing up for action. Robertson has a developing strategy to bring the Republic back under the control of ‘We The People.’ He is asking for thousands of Patriots across America, to run for office.
Robertson stated: “Even though the likelihood of their success is diminished by the lack of experience or financial support; the knowledge will be invaluable for the next election cycle and a point of pride for the American People.”
The Tea Party’s number one imperative, is to have candidates on the ballot. The second priority is to get out the vote, especially in Texas where Robertson lives and the home of over 800,000 members of the Tea Party . . .
Robertson is molding the Tea Party events to empower Citizens so they will make a difference in the November 2010 elections. The ongoing tactics are to prioritize States, creating a durable model for ballot access, voter eligibility, precinct chair/county chairs, and candidate awareness. The Tea Party is actively seeking candidates that represent Conservative Constitutional Values. It appears the Major Parties can’t get in step with such a complex idea as Conservative Constitutional Values; therefore, the Tea Party will make it easy for the Independent Parties to break the glass ceiling and get on the ballot.
The ‘Liberty Concerts’ event taking place in Stafford, Texas is a developing prototype, which when successful, will allow the Tea Party to create a thriving event not in months but days. We will be quick on the draw, sure fired and ready to rock in a matter of only a few days. This Tea Party formula will work against incredible odds and will be nothing short of a miracle, but Robertson believes with all his heart all the pieces will fall into place.
Does the Tea Party really believe it can make a difference in November? “Some say, “talk is cheap” but 2 years ago when I started the modern day Tea Party no one believed it could work now 7 million strong, the world is listening and America is hoping, we will not fail.” Dale Robertson – TeaParty.org
It seemed that when Obama first arrived on the political scene, everyone was quite excited. Here was someone who seemed special. Youthful. Idealistic. Sincere. By election day, huge numbers of the voting population were beyond excited. They were lost in some messianic delusion that someone has emerged to save us from our enemies, and ourselves. They seemed so enamored as to forget that he was about to step into a huge political machine that has been well oiled for decades.
Soon, it became clear. Obama was only a man. A mere human. He is not our political Jesus, after all. And so, we are disappointed. Many are angry and feel cheated, having been so delirious as to think that any one person, whether visionary, or not, was going to walk into the White House and wipe out the corruption and elitism that has governed for so long. There is an old saying, "You can't knock city hall". This holds true even if you are the mayor. City hall is not a building. City hall is the embodiment of corruption, power-grabbing self-servers, and slaves to corporate financing. Messianic mayors need not apply.
The religiosity of hope, so deeply entrenched in the collective mind, still wants a Messiah to emerge. Someone so supernaturally large as to single-handedly undo years of misdeeds characteristic of world politics. A deliverer who will absolve us of our irresponsibility, and magically straighten everything out. Some James Bond, or Spartacus, or Jesus to take charge, and give us back our lives of self-indulgence. The nice thing about messianic hope is is that it requires little personal commitment other than a fervent belief that somebody else will take care of the problem, all I have to do is believe.
Suppose A retrospective of the last decade
By Dee Newman
Suppose the chad-hanging electoral
Debacle at the outset of this past decade
Had not occurred; that David Boies’ oral
Arguments had not been just a charade;
That a majority on the Supreme
Court had let the Florida votes be
Counted; that Al Gore was deemed
The winner and allowed to assume the
Office he most assuredly won,
Becoming a White House resident,
Rather than George H.W. Bush’s son,
Who became our nation’s worst president,
9/11 may not have occurred that morning,
Bush and Company would not have been there
To disregard warning after warning
About impending attacks from the air;
Rice wouldn’t’ve been head of the NSA,
And those huge files on al-Qaeda’s plots,
(Long before the attacks were underway)
Would have been read in time to connect the dots,
Instead of months later; the assiduous
Presidential Briefing, with the title,
“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”
Would have certainly been seen as vital
Intelligence, warning of the hijacking
Of airlines and other suspicious actions,
Plans, and preparations for attacking
Certain New York buildings and attractions;
Hundreds of billions of dollars that now line
The pockets of a few at our expense
Would not have been misspent on that asinine
War in Iraq, but on our own defense;
The disgraceful and deadly chain of events
Would never have had to be suffered;
The economic despair that torments
This nation would never have occurred;
5,000 US troops would still be alive
And well and emotionally stable;
And 50,000 more would not be deprived
Of a limb and permanently disabled;
There would have never been an Abu Ghraib,
Guantánamo, or the rank idiocy
To be lured into bin Laden’s web
And "bled to the brink of bankruptcy"
As he said he would do. Perhaps, bin Laden
Would’ve been caught, “dead or alive,” long ago
As Bush boasted he would do – with "God on
Our side." Oh, what an inflated ego!
So now, as we suffer the rescissions
Of our Rights due to the Patriot Act
And all the other imprudent decisions
Of Bush and Company, in spite of the fact,
We voted for and elected Al Gore,
We’re still left, once again, with the aggravation
Of mopping up the mess of yet one more
Failed Republican administration.
Look, the war on terror was clearly botched.
The facts are certain; they’re not obscure.
9/11 happened on Bush’s watch.
It was his administration’s failure.
The headline of the editorial
Should read, If not for their Egomania, Perhaps, there would be no memorial In New York, D.C., and Pennsylvania.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Aung San Suu Kyi on Non-Violence
In 1990, the military junta in Burma called a general election, which the National League for Democracy Party won by an overwhelming 82% of the votes. Aung San Suu Kyi was the NLD's candidate for Prime Minister. Unfortunately, the results of the election were nullified, and the military junta refused to hand over power. This resulted in an international outcry.
Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest at her home on University Avenue in Rangoon. During her arrest, she was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990, and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Since then she has remained under house arrest in Myanmar for almost 14 out of the past 20 years.
Her sons Alexander and Kim accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on her behalf. Aung San Suu Kyi used the Nobel Peace Prize's (1.3 million) prize money to establish a health and education trust for the Burmese people.
In response to international pressure, encouraging the Burmese military government towards democratic reform, the junta has recently granted Aung San Suu Kyi varying degrees of freedom. It is still unclear if she will be released in time for the upcoming Burmese general election.
A successful general election would be an indicator of the Burmese government’s sincerity towards eventual democracy.
To read more about Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma click here.
The progress of social justice is slow and measured. Its growth depends on an increasing number of us becoming aware of the truth and consequences of our actions.
I believe that it is morally wrong to allow our wanton desires to interfere with the basic needs and interests of other sentient beings.
I believe the physical and psychological abuse – confinement, social deprivation, mutilation, genetic and reproductive manipulation, and profit exploitation – imposed by us on other animals is morally wrong.
I believe the suggestion that the exploitation of other sentient beings by humans can be achieved without cruelty, violence, or injustice is false and misleading.
As an advocate for all life, committed to compassion and justice, I refuse to take part in the exploitation of other sentient beings or to collaborate with those caught up in such injustice.
I pledge to do my best to live a life that conveys a clear, sincere and uncompromised message that is free of resentment, fear, exploitation, anger, cynicism, and manipulation.
Furthermore, I pledge to continue to support a broad range of nonviolent initiatives and programs that will hopefully one day eliminate the needless pain and suffering we inflict upon all the many wonderful creatures with whom we share this planet.
