Disregarding Law, Redefining Justice:The (Il)legality of Killing Osama, or "Bin There, Gun That"

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side...The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."

- George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism, May 1945


Much has already been written about the legality of the SEAL Team Six operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan. While there is little discussion or interest on the so-called "right" regarding such trivialities as international law and extrajudicial killing, some on the so-called "left" have seen the value of raising questions and attempting to answer them. While some suggest (or declare) that, based on the information available from the White House public relations team, Osama bin Laden was assassinated without requisite due process, others - like ThinkProgress' Matt Yglesias and American Prospect's Adam Serwer - have laid out evidence insisting that the raid and killing of bin Laden was perfectly legal.

Soon after MSNBC's resident blowhard Ed Shultz dismissively mocked "intellectual liberal hand-wringing" over the kill team's legality and appropriateness, Serwer posted a summary of his pro-legality arguments under the heading, "A Liberal's Guide To Why Killing Bin Laden Was Legal," in which he tries to "collect all the liberal arguments against the legality of killing Osama bin Laden in one place" and then address them one by one in a good faith effort "to make clear why killing bin Laden was legally justified."

Unfortunately, Serwer - who is an impressively prolific and astute analyst - doesn't do a very good job. His selective reading and application of international law and United Nations resolutions, as well as his inability to decide whether or not al Qaeda is a "criminal organization" or a "military target," does his smug declarations no favors. This is not to say that the determination of legality in this regard is an easy or uncontroversial one, but that Serwer's analysis is, at best, weak and unconvincing.

Earlier this year, Serwer wrote of his frustration with the Obama administration's continuance of the Bush "war on terror" policies (though, amazingly, he praised the Bush administration for constructing a narrative based on flat-out lies). He condemned the Bush policies of "torture, rendition, the use of black sites, a two-tier system of justice for suspected terrorists, and the prison at Guantánamo Bay" and lamented that "Obama has preserved the 'hybrid' legal system for suspected terrorists and has announced he will continue to hold 50 Guantánamo Bay detainees indefinitely" and described the policy as "lawless." The system he decries is one based on a false premise, pushed by the Bush administration, that the "war on terror" is a legitimate military operation - a real "war" - in which captured combatants and suspects are treated as prisoners of war (and therefore can be detained without prosecution until the "cessation of hostilities" - which translates into permanent incarceration without due process since any manufactured "war" against a tactic or ideology is inherently endless).

So, according to Serwer, the capture and torture of suspected terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who the 9/11 Commission called "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks," is "lawless," while the extra-judicial execution of Osama bin Laden, who has never stood trial for his crimes, is "legally justified." Oddly enough, in reference to the water-boarding of KSM and information obtained through torture, Serwer recently wrote in the Washington Post, "Effectiveness aside, torture wouldn't be morally justified even if it worked." So, again, torturing the 9/11 "mastermind" is unethical, whereas putting two bullets in the head of Osama bin Laden (read: not the 9/11 mastermind) and dumping his body in the ocean is, in Serwer's own words, "the most proportionate, legally and morally justified use of American state force against terrorism in a decade."

This hardly makes sense, unless you assume Osama bin Laden represents a singular, inhuman evil or believe his killing is required as a symbolic action of American triumph and commitment. If so, it follows that neither domestic nor international law has any meaning and that political assassination is legitimate so long as it might provide "closure" for someone, somewhere. American exceptionalism laid bare.

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The Killing of Osama bin Laden:Vengeance Has Been Done

It has taken a while for me to write anything regarding Barack Obama's announcement last Sunday night that members of the US Special Operations Forces (JSOC's Navy SEAL Team Six) had shot and killed Osama bin Laden in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The reason is primarily due to so many other excellent analysts beating me to the punch and voicing my own feelings far better than I could have myself (thus saving me the time and effort). My own reaction to the news lies somewhere within an amalgam of these articles by Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota in Salon, Chris Floyd from Empire Burlesque, Haim Baram in H'aretz, Cord Jefferson in Good, Chris Hayes in The Nation, Kai Wright of ColorLines, and this post by Will Wilkinson from The Economist.

With all the shifting versions of what really happened during the Abbottabad raid (prompting the White House to finally gag itself), one thing is clear: this was a kill mission.

The other day, Marc Ambinder, writing in National Journal, reported:

The White House made clear to JSOC that it strongly preferred to have bin Laden killed, rather than captured, because the administration had no good idea where to put him. Still, just in case bin Laden successfully surrendered, a contingency plan was created for taking custody of him. It involved flying bin Laden to a U.S. aircraft carrier in international waters, with decisions to be made later on where to take him after that. The half-formulated plan, of course, never had to be used. (emphasis added)

So, apparently, it's better to execute a wanted criminal than have the annoying task of actually bringing him to justice. I mean, it's such a hassle to figure out where to put him! And they had "no good idea" anyway. Imagine all the paper work! Far easier to shoot him in the face and dump him into the ocean. In strict accordance to Islamic principles, of course. Just like all Muslim sea burials.

Clearly, this is what Obama meant by the "pride in what this nation stands for, and what we can achieve." He is aware that shooting an unarmed man is "a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people." Anyone who might think that the "rule of law and the rights of man" are what make America great would be wrong. Covert kill teams are what make us great. A decade of invasions, occupations, and hundreds of thousands dead in order to exact vengeance on one man, now that's dedication, American-style. It's how we "stand up for our values abroad." It is "the story of our history."

Apparently, when he declared "that America can do whatever we set our mind to" and affirmed that "there’s nothing we can’t do," the President really meant, "there's nothing we can't do except actually capture bin Laden alive in order to put him on trial and sentence him to death for his crimes like our Constitution demands we do, because, hey, I just have no good idea about where to put him." When, during his inaugural speech, Obama said, "In reaffirming the greatness of our nation we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less," he wasn't counting the short-cut of killing rather than capturing and the settling for revenge rather than justice. And when, in the same speech and many since, Obama rejected "as false the choice between our safety and our ideals" and assured his citizens, and the world, that the United States would not abandon those ideals "for expedience sake," he didn't mean having to spend time dealing with the irritating task of finding a suitable location to detain the country's most wanted man and irksome minutiae of due process.

Earlier in his fawning love letter to JSOC, Ambinder also noted,

Created in 1980 after the disastrous hostage-rescue mission in Iran, JSOC is part of the U.S. Special Operations Command that oversees the various special-operations commands of the Army, Air Force, Marines, and Navy. Over the past 10 years, JSOC units have been essential to U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. JSOC has fought a silent but successful proxy war against Iran's Revolutionary Guards—even, National Journal has learned, engaging directly with its soldiers in at least three countries. It has broken up nuclear-proliferation rings. JSOC has developed contingency plans to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear weapons in the event of a coup in that nation. Its intelligence unit helps Colombian commandos dismantle lucrative drug rings that finance Hezbollah operations around the world. (emphasis added)

One would hope that such assertions would be backed up by actual evidence or at least a link to a source, but nah, Ambinder and his editors don't think so. Isn't this major news? Armed combat with the troops of another country? And yet, it's just glossed over with the expectation that Ambinder's readers will just smile and move on, thrilled that our militarism and kill teams know no bounds.

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Iran Nuclear Scare Timeline Update XXXIII:Israeli Fear-Mongering about Iran Faces a Barak-lash

Over the past four months, I have been adding updates to my article, "The Phantom Menace: Fantasies, Falsehoods, and Fear-Mongering about Iran's Nuclear Program," whenever new predictions and allegations about Iran's nuclear program are released.

To read them all, click here.

Here's the latest:

UPDATE XXXIII: Israeli Fear-Mongering about Iran Faces a Barak-lash

May 4, 2011 - Sometimes Ehud Barak has trouble staying on message.

Last year in Herzliya, he warned of Israel becoming an apartheid state like South Africa, a usually verboten analogy among Zionist officials, unless a viable Palestinian state is created soon. "As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic," Barak said. "If this bloc of millions of ­Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state." Whoops.

This time around, however, Barak pulled the rug out from under Israel's favorite scare tactic. The former Israeli Prime Minister/current Minister of Defense/Deputy Prime Minister told Ha'aretz today that even "[i]f Iran succeeds in developing nuclear weapons, it is unlikely to bomb Israel," thereby undermining one of the Netanyahu administration's main propaganda lines that a nuclear-armed Iran (if one ever were to exist) would represent an immediate "existential threat" to the self-proclaimed Jewish state.

According to Ha'aretz, Barak voiced his opinion that "Israel should not spread public panic about the Iranian nuclear program and responded to a question about whether he thought Iran would launch a nuclear attack on Israel by saying, "Not on us and not on any other neighbor."

Just a few days ago, on May 1, both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli President Shimon Peres repeated their dire warnings and tired talking points about the supposed Iranian threat. Speaking at the opening ceremony of Holocaust Memorial Day at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to Jewish victims of Nazi genocide, Netanyahu and Peres both "stressed Iranian nuclear aspirations as an existential threat to Israel," with Netanyahu declaring that "Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas are working openly for the destruction of our people." He continued, "We cannot place our fate in the hands of others," and then warned that, "when Israel and the Israel Defense Forces say, 'Never Again,' they mean precisely that." Going for broke, Netanyahu just started making things up. "[T]oday, new enemies are rising, and as they deny the Holocaust, call for the destruction of our people," he said, "those wishing to destroy the Jewish state" are "arming themselves with nuclear weapons in order to realize those ambitions." Naturally, he threw in the "existential threat" canard: "The threat to our existence isn't a theoretical one, it cannot be minimized, it stands before us, before all of humanity, and it must be stopped," he bellowed.

Peres went even further, stating, "Iran's fanatic leadership is a danger to the entire world. It is not only a threat to Israel. It is a threat to any household, anywhere. It is a real risk to the fate of humanity."

Drawing a bogus parallel from Nazi intentions to Iranian ones has long been a mainstay of Israeli fear-mongering despite its obvious absurdity.

Meanwhile, during his Ha'aretz interview, Barak explained, "I don’t think in terms of panic," continuing,

"What about Pakistan, some political meltdown happens there and four bombs wind up in Iran. So what? So you head for the airport? You close down the country? Just because they got a shortcut? No. We are still the most powerful in the Middle East."

This is not the first time Barak has made such comments. In April 2010, Barak told Israel Radio, "Right now, Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. If Iran becomes nuclear, it will spark an arms race in the Middle East. This region is very sensitive because of the oil flow; the region is important to the entire world. The fact that Iran is not an immediate threat, but could evolve into one, means that we can't let ourselves fall asleep."

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Publishing Propaganda, Ignoring Facts:The NY Daily News puts the Lies in Editorialize

The following piece was co-written by myself and the outstanding journalist/blogger Alex Kane and was originally published on Mondoweiss under the headline: "Zuckerman rag prints bald-faced lies on upcoming flotilla to Gaza."

I have added some more of my own observations on the New York Daily News editorial below.

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Zuckerman rag prints bald-faced lies on upcoming flotilla to Gaza
by Alex Kane and Nima Shirazi

It comes as no surprise that a newspaper owned by Mort Zuckerman, an ardent Zionist, would be anti-Palestinian and that it would strongly oppose efforts to break the Israeli naval blockade by sending a flotilla of ships to Gaza. But a recent editorial printed by the Zuckerman-owned New York Daily News is a particularly egregious example of U.S. media's aversion to the facts on Israel/Palestine. The bald-faced lies--which follow recent Israeli pronouncements about the "terrorists" organizing the upcoming international flotilla to break the Israeli blockade--printed would be laughable only if it wasn't going to be read by thousands of people.

The editorial states:

Sponsors of the flotilla are happily playing with fire, as they did a year ago in sailing into the blockade under the guise of delivering medicines and the like to Gaza. In fact, some of those ships carried suicidal fighters instead of useful goods. Nine of the brigands died when Israeli commandos were forced to board and came under assault.

To claim that those aboard the Mavi Marmara were the aggressors is to completely invert reality. The attack was conducted in international waters after Israel cut off all communications from the ships and surrounded the flotilla with over 20 naval vessels and warships, along with multiple helicopters. In addition to the 45 highly-trained and heavily-armed commandos who rappelled onto the largest ship, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, murdering 9 civilians and wounding about 60 more, about 650 other Israeli troops, including surveillance and support troops alongside those who actually boarded the ships, took part in the illegal assault on the flotilla.

And then there's these howlers:

No one of any credibility disputes that Israel's blockade is legal under international law. In coordination with Egypt, Israel barred sea-going shipments into Gaza in 2009 after years of Palestinian mortar and rocket attacks on Jewish soil.

As a board of inquiry put it:

"Israel imposed the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip for military-security reasons, which mainly concerned the need to prevent weapons, terrorists and money" from entering.

The UN has recognized the blockade's legitimacy under international law. Now, it must prevent this perilous propaganda ploy.

First of all, the naval blockade has been in place since 2007, along with the land and air blockade--not 2009 as the editorial claims. The "board of inquiry" the Daily News refers to is the Turkel Commission, the name for the Israeli investigation into the flotilla events--hardly a neutral source of facts about the blockade of Gaza.

And finally, it appears that Zuckerman's newspaper likes to make up facts. The UN has not "recognized the blockade's legitimacy under international law." In fact, various UN reports have labeled the blockade illegal. The UN fact-finding mission on the 2008-09 Gaza conflict, known as the Goldstone report, stated that the blockade was a form of collective punishment and that it was therefore in "violation of the provisions of article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention." The UN report on the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara also clearly states that the blockade is illegal. In 2009, the Associated Press reported that "U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay has accused Israel of violating the rules of war with its blockade stopping people and goods from moving in and out of the Gaza Strip."

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Alex Kane, a freelance journalist based in New York City, blogs on Israel/Palestine and Islamophobia in the United States at alexbkane.wordpress.com. Follow him on Twitter @alexbkane.

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UPDATE:

In addition to the points made above, the Daily News editorial is littered with deliberate falsehoods, absurd implications, and libelous accusations. Even the most cursory research reveals the shameful ignorance and heavy propaganda of the authors and their despicable intent.

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Ayn Rand vs. the Right-Wing Idiots Who Love Her

The right-wing's obsession and idolization of Ayn Rand is curious. It's also ridiculous considering that many of her own beliefs directly contradict many of what her most ardent followers themselves profess.

Ayn Rand was a self-avowed, proud, and unequivocal atheist. She saw religion as immature and ignorant philosophy, developed by ancients lacking in sophisticated awareness and insufficient respect for reason.

Rand herself believed, "Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought." In the right's beloved Atlas Shrugged, Rand wrote, "If devotion to truth is the hallmark of morality, then there is no greater, nobler, more heroic form of devotion than the act of a man who assumes the responsibility of thinking...the alleged short-cut to knowledge, which is faith, is only a short-circuit destroying the mind." During a March 1964 interview with Playboy, Rand stated, "Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason." Four years later, in March 1968, Rand wrote a piece entitled "Introduction to The Fountainhead," in which she stated that "religion has pre-empted the field of ethics, turning morality against man, so it has usurped the highest moral concepts of our language, placing them outside this earth and beyond man's reach."

The most important of the three theological virtues in Christianity, as articulated in 1 Corinthians 13:13, is charity. In her 1964 Playboy interview, Rand made clear her feelings about charity, saying, "My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue." It would be a gross understatement to think that Jesus, St. Augustine, or Thomas Aquinas might disagree with her on this.

Unless Rand hadn't been clear already, a letter she wrote entitled "Thought Control" condemned "religion" not only as an ideology that "holds sex as such to be evil" and "that is the source and cause of anti-obscenity censorship," which she abhorred, but primarily as one that "opposes man’s enjoyment of his life on earth."

Leonard Peikoff - the world's leading Randian Objectivist, founder of the Ayn Rand Institute, and heir to the Rand estate - has this to say about religion:

Every argument for God and every attribute ascribed to Him rests on a false metaphysical premise. None can survive for a moment on a correct metaphysics...

Existence exists, and only existence exists. Existence is a primary: it is uncreated, indestructible, eternal. So if you are to postulate something beyond existence - some supernatural realm - you must do it by openly denying reason, dispensing with definitions, proofs, arguments, and saying flatly, “To Hell with argument, I have faith.” That, of course, is a willful rejection of reason.

Objectivism advocates reason as man’s sole means of knowledge, and therefore, for the reasons I have already given, it is atheist. It denies any supernatural dimension presented as a contradiction of nature, of existence. This applies not only to God, but also to every variant of the supernatural ever advocated or to be advocated. In other words, we accept reality, and that’s all.

Furthermore, regarding the Religious Right's contention that "scientific evidence" will soon prove the existence of god, Peikoff had this to say about the subject in an essay called "Maybe You’re Wrong," written 30 years ago:

It has often been noted that a proof of God would be fatal to religion: a God susceptible of proof would have to be finite and limited; He would be one entity among others within the universe, not a mystic omnipotence transcending science and reality. What nourishes the spirit of religion is not proof, but faith, i.e., the undercutting of man’s mind.

Considering its supposed populist nature, the Tea Party's enthusiasm for Rand is also strange insofar as she strongly believed that ordinary people were "savages," "refuse," "inanimate objects," and "imitations of living beings," as opposed to her beloved rich people, who she saw as "really alive." As her heroic pirate Ragnar Danneskjöld says of Robin Hood in Atlas Shrugged, "He was the man who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Well, I'm the man who robs the poor and gives to the rich – or, to be exact, the man who robs the thieving poor and gives back to the productive rich." Is this the kind of person the right-wing believes should be idolized and emulated? Do they believe, as does Rand, that "money is the root of all good" (Atlas Shrugged) and that "every ugly, brutal aspect of injustice toward racial or religious minorities is being practiced toward businessmen" ("America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business," Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal)?  Apparently.

Is the right-wing aware that Ayn Rand was staunchly and unapologetically pro-choice when it came to abortion rights?

In The Voice of Reason, Rand wrote, "Abortion is a moral right - which should be left to the sole discretion of the woman involved; morally, nothing other than her wish in the matter is to be considered. Who can conceivably have the right to dictate to her what disposition she is to make of the functions of her own body?"

Rand, who often wrote that "a human being's life begins at birth," was appalled by those who opposed a woman's right to choose, writing in an 1981 essay, "I cannot project the degree of hatred required to make those women run around in crusades against abortion." She elaborated:

Hatred is what they certainly project, not love for the embryos...I would say that it is an issue of self-esteem and that their fear is metaphysical. Their hatred is directed against human beings as such, against the mind, against reason, against ambition, against success, against love, against any value that brings happiness to human life. In compliance with the dishonesty that dominates today’s intellectual field, they call themselves "pro-life." By what right does anyone claim the power to dispose of the lives of others and to dictate their personal choices? ("The Age of Mediocrity," The Objectivist Forum, June 1981)

The "pro-life" claim that "an embryo has a 'right to life,'" was deemed "vicious nonsense" by Rand, who wrote that "by ascribing rights to the unborn, i.e., the nonliving, the anti-abortionists obliterate the rights of the living: the right of young people to set the course of their own lives." In her letter entitled, "A Last Survey," she explained her position:

The task of raising a child is a tremendous, lifelong responsibility, which no one should undertake unwittingly or unwillingly. Procreation is not a duty: human beings are not stock-farm animals. For conscientious persons, an unwanted pregnancy is a disaster; to oppose its termination is to advocate sacrifice, not for the sake of anyone’s benefit, but for the sake of misery qua misery, for the sake of forbidding happiness and fulfillment to living human beings.

According to an analysis by the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, "a pregnant woman, like every other individual, has the right to determine her own destiny and the destiny of her body, to choose what constitutes her own best interest and private happiness and to work for its achievement, so long as she respects the same rights in others."

The report, entitled "Abortion: An Absolute Right," affirms: "These rights, and all rights, are absolute by their nature. It cannot be proper to negotiate moral principles. It cannot be proper to allow a man only a portion of the freedom he requires by his nature." Continuing, it finds that "the function of the law is to protect rights--not to dictate moral issues which involve no violation of rights," and concludes that "the Supreme Court should affirm abortion as a right that cannot be invaded or compromised."

Oh yeah, Rand was also a raging hypocrite when it came to government largesse and collectivism.  In 1972, she wrote, "Morally and economically, the welfare state creates an ever accelerating downward pull."  As Alternet's Josh Holland explained earlier this year, Rand - who he aptly dubs a "schlock novelist" - wrote books containing "wide-ranging parables of 'parasites,' 'looters' and 'moochers' using the levers of government to steal the fruits of her heroes' labor. In the real world, however, Rand herself received Social Security payments and Medicare benefits under the name of Ann O'Connor (her husband was Frank O'Connor)."

So, do these beliefs mesh with what the Right thinks it knows about Ayn Rand and her adolescent pseudo-meritocratic ideology? Perhaps a better question would be, are those who champion a 'World According to Rand' reformation aware of any of her actual writing or beliefs...or have they just been told about them from loud-mouthed, right-wing ideologues who want them to think that they would be one of the brilliant elites benefiting from Rand's ideal capitalist society, instead of what they actually are: the common, working "savage" who Rand loathed more than anything?

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UPDATE:

In 1961, Gore Vidal wrote a perfectly scathing assessment of Randian philosophy in Esquire:

She has a great attraction for simple people who are puzzled by organized society, who object to paying taxes, who dislike the 'welfare' state, who feel guilt at the thought of the suffering of others but who would like to harden their hearts. For them, she has an enticing prescription: altruism is the root of all evil, self-interest is the only good, and if you're dumb or incompetent that's your lookout.

He adds:

Ayn Rand's 'philosophy' is nearly perfect in its immorality, which makes the size of her audience all the more ominous and symptomatic as we enter a curious new phase in our society. Moral values are in flux. The muddy depths are being stirred by new monsters and witches from the deep. Trolls walk the American night. Caesars are stirring in the Forum. There are storm warnings ahead.

Such prophesy wasn't heeded half a century ago and the dark clouds are still gathering.

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The Call Bob Dylan Won't Heed:BDS, Bullies, and Blowing Wind

A recent letter by the Israeli peace and justice group "Boycott From Within" (BfW) implores legendary singer-songwriter Bob Dylan to heed the Palestinian call for BDS and therefore not perform in Israel. The letter follows reports of Dylan's 2011 summer tour, during which he will perform at Ramat Gan Stadium on June 20th.

The BfW letter hits all the right notes and speaks truth. It asks Dylan "not to perform in Israel until it respects Palestinian human rights," explaining that "a performance in Israel, today, is a vote of support for its policies of oppression." The letter speaks of ethnic cleansing, land theft, martial law, air strikes, and massacres. It beseeches the folk legend, who has "been part of a civil rights movement," to stand with the oppressed against the aggressor. BfW writes that "BDS is a powerful and united civil initiative in the face of a brutal military occupation and apartheid. It's a nonviolent alternative to a waning armed struggle and it has reaped many successes and instilled much hope, in the past six years."

A Ha'aretz article proudly notes that the Dylan concert will be held "where Leonard Cohen and Elton John recently performed," and is being promoted by "Marcel Avraham, the promoter who organized the Leonard Cohen and Elton John concerts - as well as the upcoming Justin Bieber concert that will be held over Passover."

So, will Bob Dylan - the man who wrote "Masters of War" and "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in 1963 - heed the call? Of course not. Although Dylan would appear to be the perfect political ally, his human and civil rights bona fides have faded over time - to the point of non-existence.

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Israel’s War on Palestinian Memory

Today's Los Angeles Times has a piece entitled "Israel and Palestinians have conflicting visions for village's future," which describes recent efforts to build "212 luxury apartments, a hotel and retail shops" over the remnants of Lifta, the "last intact pre-1948 Palestinian town in Israel," which has been abandoned since 1948. The story, written by Edmund Sanders, speaks of the Nakba in historical terms (and even uses the word Nakba), not as some debatable or disputed occurrence. He writes of "mass displacement," confiscated land, and the "hundreds of similar Palestinian communities [that] were razed after residents fled during Israel's 1948 war for independence."

Sanders doesn't beat around the bush:

"During the creation of Israel and the subsequent attack by neighboring Arab nations, 700,000 Palestinians became refugees when they fled the fighting or were chased from their homes by Jewish militias that prevented them from returning. Some Israelis say Palestinians left voluntarily and therefore gave up rights to their land.

"Today those towns exist only as dots on Palestinian maps and in the stories of aging refugees. Though many mosques were preserved, most of the homes, shops and roads were torn down to build Jewish cities. Other villages were turned into forests and parks, which explains why hikers sometimes stumble upon what appear to be abandoned mosques in the middle of nowhere."

He writes of Palestinian fears that "much of the last surviving evidence that Palestinians once occupied much of what is now Israel." He writes of the Israeli government seizing legal titles to Palestinians homes "under an absentee landownership law passed in the 1950s." He writes of the terror campaigns of the "Jewish militias Haganah and the Stern Gang." He references Ilan Pappe.

Even more amazing, perhaps, is his distillation of what he terms "one of the most intractable issues in Mideast peace talks," namely, "whether Palestinians should have the right to return to ancestral homes inside Israel and what this would mean for Israel's survival as a Jewish state."

Just that one sentence lays bare how offensive Zionism actually is, how dismissive of the indigenous population it is, how ethnosupremacist it is, and how clearly unjust it is.

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Scare Raids & Square Tactics: HasbarArt Comes to NYU

A mock bomb shelter was set up in Washington Square Park Monday afternoon by a number of local Zionist groups in an attempt to demonstrate the terrorized lives of innocent Israelis living under the menacing specter of Palestinian rocket attacks (with no mention ever made of ethnic cleansing, collective punishment, military occupation, illegal blockade, or constant F16, drone, and Apache air strikes, of course). I attended the multi-media installation, which was produced in conjunction with a few New York graffiti artists with connections to the Zionist outfits, and had some lengthy talks with a number of Israel-supporters. Though definitely frustrating, the conversations were by and large calm and non-combative.*

The single most repeated statement I heard from the young Zionists was: "Israel has shown unprecedented restraint and has never ever targeted civilians." Any mention of the Goldstone Report and its findings, along with all other presentation of the basic facts of the occupation, Israeli/Palestinian history, or Israeli military protocol (such as the Dahiya Doctrine, for example) was met with incredulity and dismissed with a scoff.

"War is hell" was another repeated message, along with the notion that, since Jews had successfully "conquered" the land, it was theirs to do with as they wished. The loss and denial of Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination was all a "sad fact of history." No mention of international law, Geneva Conventions or otherwise, swayed anyone's thinking.

I also heard that "at some point or another in history, everyone has been occupied and oppressed," which was said as a way to justify the suffering of the Palestinians without any hint of remorse or empathy. When the Holocaust was brought up in an effort to make an analogy about human suffering, ethnic cleansing, and military aggression (as well as resistance with regard to the Warsaw Ghetto), the young Zionists refused to accept the comparison. "It's totally different," they said.

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Gingrich's D'oh!MA Moment

In response to the Obama administration's recent decision to "no longer defend the constitutionality of a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage," Idiot Asshole-in-Chief Newt Gingrich said today that such a move demonstrated "a dereliction of duty" by the president and "a violation of his constitutional oath."

Speaking to the lunatic right-wing website Newsmax, Gingrich presented the following thought experiment regarding Obama's DOMA position:

"Imagine that Governor Palin had become president. Imagine that she had announced that Roe versus Wade in her view was unconstitutional and therefore the United States government would no longer protect anyone’s right to have an abortion because she personally had decided it should be changed. The news media would have gone crazy. The New York Times would have demanded her impeachment."

In short, the major problem (one of many) with Newt's ignorant analogy is that Roe v. Wade isn't actually unconstitutional, while DOMA certainly is.

DOMA institutionalizes discrimination based on an archaic religious doctrinal definition of "marriage" as being inherently heterosexual. This definition - which, in effect, denies the right of a US citizen to enter into a marriage with a partner of one's choice, regardless of gender - is actually a violation of both the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thus, it is unconstitutional and should not be upheld.

Roe v. Wade, on the other hand, lawfully protects women's rights against the very same kind of religious doctrine that DOMA wrongfully enforces. The right of a woman to choose is, in fact, constitutional. The legality of the ruling can be found in the Ninth Amendment (people's rights) as well as the Privileges or Immunities Clause and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

To deem Roe v. Wade unconstitutional would be a wholly incorrect application of law, whereas to deem DOMA unconstitutional is totally correct.

Furthermore, it really should be pointed out to poor Newt that Sarah Palin is a former beauty pageant contender, sportscaster, and half-term governor who attended five different mediocre colleges over five years (University of Hawaii - Hilo briefly in 1982, Hawaii Pacific University for a semester in 1982, North Idaho College for spring and fall semesters if 1983, University of Idaho in fall 1984 and spring 1985, Matanuska-Susitna College in the fall of 1985, and returned to the University of Idaho in the spring of 1986) to finally receive a bachelor's degree in communications with an concentration in journalism in 1987. Her opinion or understanding of the unconstitutionality of anything wouldn't hold much weight even if she had been elected to an office for which she wasn't even running (as Gingrich would have us imagine).

Meanwhile, Barack Obama attended Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before transferring to Columbia University, where he received a B.A. in political science with a concentration in international relations in 1983. After working at a consulting firm, an NGO, and as a community organizer over the next five years, he went to Harvard Law School where he became president of the Harvard Law Review during his second year. He earned his J.D. from Harvard Law in 1991 and graduated Magna Cum Laude. From 1992 through 2004 - a span of twelve years - Obama was a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago Law School. Obama's opinion and understanding of the unconstitutionality of DOMA makes a whole lot more sense than Palin's theoretical decision-making regarding the legality of Roe v. Wade.

It should be noted that Gingrich also claimed Obama, during his swearing in, took an oath affirming that "he would uphold the Constitution and enforce the laws of the United States." Gingrich, as usual, is wrong. Obama never took took that oath. No president in the history of this country has. The Presidential Oath of Office, as set forth in Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight of the United States Constitution, is clear and is as follows:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Nothing in there about "enforc[ing] the laws of the United States," as Gingrich suggested. He just made that up.

That and everything else.

*****

It's Pretty Easy Being Green in Iran:A Photographic Rebuttal to Michael Ledeen's Lies

Claims that the Iranian government attempted to ban the color green (which had been appropriated by those opposed to the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) have yet to disappear completely from the public discourse. Just this week, a comment posted on Cyrus Safdari's excellent Iran Affairs blog asked,

"If the Green Movement was not a real movement that posed a fundamental threat to this regime then why did they BAN THE COLOR GREEN FROM THE FLAG? The continuing concern about the Green Movement by the regime PROVES the green movement's relevance and importance." (emphasis in original)

In addition to being patently absurd in its conception, the accusation that Iranian officials would feel so threatened by the protests and demonstrations which followed the June 2009 election that they would resort to chromatic censorship is completely devoid of fact.

Nevertheless, the claim was repeated again and again, but never more ridiculously than by career warmonger Michael Ledeen. In early March 2010, during a debate at the Atlantic Council alongside Flynt Leverett, Ledeen suggested that the prime example of the Iranian government's "charming wackiness" was that it "is now committed to the obliteration of 'green.' Very bad for Kermit the Frog."

Seemingly making it up as he went along, Ledeen continued:

"And so green is now banned from Iran. The opposition was writing revolutionary slogans on the money in green ink – that is banned. You can't wear green. I'm wearing green today as a sign of solidarity with them.

"But the funniest is that there are streets in Tehran – as I'm sure you've seen – which have green stripes on them to tell you where you can park and where you can't, and there are now teams of people out spraying black on top of the green because you can't have green. That is not a self-confident and stable regime, Flynt. These are people who are scared to death even of a bit of colored paint on a sidewalk."

Quite simply, Ledeen, who currently lends his aggressive Islamophobia and Israel-apologia to the neoconservative D.C. think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies as its "Freedom Scholar" (whatever that means), was lying. During the debate, Ledeen referred to himself as "an historian" and claimed that "the Islamic Republic is based on hatred of America; a desire to destroy or dominate us along with all the other infidels," neither of which are true, but demonstrate clearly both Ledeen's high opinion of himself and contempt for Iran and its revolution.

To his credit, Flynt Leverett, who had recently returned from a trip to Iran, addressed Ledeen's bogus assertions. "I can tell you, just back from Tehran, I don't know where these stories about green being banned in Iran come from," he said. "Excuse me, green is one of the colors of the Iranian flag. There is no shortage of green in Tehran or in the Islamic Republic. We can tell stories; we can take comfort in certain kinds of stories; but look at facts. Look at on-the-ground reality."

Less than a month after that debate, I was lucky enough to explore that very on-the-ground reality myself when I spent three outstanding weeks traveling around Iran that Spring. To say that there is "no shortage of green" in Iran is a gross understatement. The color is ubiquitous, as is seen in some of the pictures I took in various Iranian cities.

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Hos(ni) Before Bros:Tony Blair's Unapologetic Policy of Wretchedness

Former British Prime Minister and current unpunished war criminal Tony Blair has been on a roll lately. On January 21, 2011, Blair revealed to the Iraq Inquiry, led by Sir John Chilcot, that he felt no personal responsibility for the millions of lives affected and destroyed by the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. "I regret deeply and profoundly the loss of life, whether from our own armed forces, those of other nations, the civilians who helped people in Iraq or the Iraqis themselves," Blair told the panel, as if the majority of the dead had lost their lives due to a smallpox outbreak or polar bear attack rather than an unprovoked, illegal, calculated, and devastating military assault.

As a result of his belief that the "calculus of risk" regarding threats posed by so-called rogue states had been forever changed by the attacks of September 11, 2001, Blair made the decision in 2002 to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with the Bush administration's revenge fantasies and imperial designs on the Middle East (including being "up for" the invasion and overthrow of Iraq). As of December 2008, the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Forensic Medicine reported that, due to the invasion and occupation led by US and UK forces, two and a half million Iraqis had been killed.

Additionally, various Iraqi ministries have reported that, since 2003, over four million Iraqi children have been orphaned, over a million Iraqi women have been widowed, four and a half million Iraqi refugees have fled the country, and there are two and a half million Iraqi refugees displaced inside Iraq. According to the Iraqi Ministry of Health, there were 114 registered cases of AIDS in Iraq before the occupation; just under five years later, that number had skyrocketed to over 76,000 registered cases.

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Anchors Away!The 'Stability' of U.S. Puppet Dictatorships

I've been beating up on State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley lately, first over his disingenuous support for freedom of the press as the U.S. cracked down on WikiLeaks and more recently over his amazing ability to say nothing while being asked direct questions about the illegality of Israeli colonization of the Palestinian land.

So why stop now?

Speaking on Al Jazeera English today, Crowley addressed the massive protests seen in Egypt over the past few days. Crowley urged "restraint on both sides," which has been a boilerplate refrain for State Department spokesmen and their boss, Hillary Clinton, when addressing turmoil all over the world, from China to Israel and Palestine. Recently, during a January 7, 2011 press briefing, Crowley stated that the United States wanted "to see restraint on all sides" in Tunisia. A week later, Clinton released a statement concerning the "several weeks of demonstrations and popular unrest" in Tunisia which "condemn[ed] the violence and urge[d] restraint on all sides."

Unsurprisingly, however, the State Department did not urge protesters and rioters in Iran to show restraint in the wake of President Ahmadinejad's June 2009 re-election.

Yesterday, in a press conference, Secretary Clinton said, "We support the fundamental right of expression and assembly for all people and we urge that all parties exercise restraint and refrain from violence," adding, "But our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people."

In his televised interview today, Crowley also repeatedly referred to the Egyptian government as "an ally and friend of the United States," as well as a "partner" and "stabilizing force in the region."

Yet, one thing Crowley said stuck out among the repetitions. At one point, he called the Mubarak government "an anchor of stability in the Middle East." This phrase is strikingly reminiscent of what President Jimmy Carter said thirty-three years earlier with regard to the unflinching U.S. support, both vocal and material, of the Shah of Iran's brutal dictatorship.

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