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 The World as It IsPosted on Mar 10, 2008
By Chris Hedges War creates a world without empathy. Those who have empathy cannot, as did Palestinian gunman Alaa Hisham Abu Dheim, coldly murder students in a Jerusalem library. Those who have empathy cannot drop tons of iron fragmentation bombs on crowded Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza, killing more than 120 Palestinians in a week, of whom one in five were children and more than half were civilians. Those who have empathy do not, as Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai did, thunder at the Palestinians that they face a shoah, meaning catastrophe or holocaust. Those with empathy are unable to rejoice, as many leaders of Hamas did, over slaughter, as if the murder of the other’s innocents is justified by the murder of your innocents.
We live in a world, at home and in the Middle East, hardened and distorted by hate. We communicate in the language of fear and violence. Human beings are no longer viewed as human beings. They are no longer endowed in our eyes, or the eyes of those who oppose us, with human qualities. They do no love, grieve, suffer, laugh or weep. They represent cold abstractions of evil. The death-for-death means we communicate by producing corpses. And we are all guilty, Americans, Palestinians, Iraqis and Israelis. But we are not all guilty equally.
I and the public know
The long, slow drip of collective humiliation and abuse, along with the tiny and large indignities that go into transforming human beings into fanatics, is rarely understood by those on the outside. It ticks away like a clock until it suddenly explodes in our face. Because we do not know where it came from, it strikes us as incomprehensible, irrational, the product of a demented form of humanity. These killers, however, are not formed by the Quran or Islam or a culture that is morally inferior to our own. They are formed by a 40-year occupation, by the continued expansion of Jewish settlements, by the refusal to allow the return of expelled refugees, by the use of fighter jets to bomb squalid refugee camps and by an Israeli siege of Gaza that has blocked fuel, electricity and essential supplies and created a humanitarian crisis for 1.5 million Palestinians. It is what the Israelis have done to the Palestinians, what we have done to the Iraqis, that has brought us to this impasse. We unleashed this violence and only we can end it. Hamas was a nonentity, a tiny group of radicals who wielded no influence and had little following when in 1988 I first reported from Gaza. But the steady drumbeat of Israeli repression and violence, aided by the corruption and incompetence of Yasser Arafat, led to Hamas’ slow rise to supplant Arafat’s Fatah party. By 2006 Hamas was elected to power. This election, by all accounts free and fair, saw Jerusalem and Washington begin a covert effort to overthrow Hamas, according to documents obtained by Vanity Fair and the Guardian. The Fatah leader Muhammad Dahlan was, according to these documents, given cash, weapons and assistance through Egypt and Jordan to start a Palestinian civil war. Hamas stepped in to thwart the attempted coup. It drove Dahlan and Fatah out of Gaza. The current bifurcation of Palestinian territories, with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank, began. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, unable to break Hamas with the siege and frustrated by the Palestinians’ spontaneous rupture of the barricades that separate the Gaza Strip from Egypt, is trying to pound Gaza into submission. During the past three months of unrelenting Israeli strikes, over 300 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have died in Israeli attacks. The strikes have done nothing, however, to halt the rocket attacks on Israeli towns or end Hamas rule. Amnesty International, CARE International and Oxfam UK, along with other humanitarian aid groups, in a report last week said that living conditions in Gaza are at their worst point since Israel occupied the strip in 1967. The report estimated that 80 percent of the residents of Gaza are now dependent on food aid, compared with 63 percent two years ago. It noted that unemployment is about 40 percent among the general population and 70 percent in the private sector. The aid groups document power cuts to hospitals of as long as 12 hours a day, 50 million liters of sewage pouring into the sea daily, and water and sewage systems on the brink of collapse. The groups have called on the European Union and the British government to pressure Israel to open border crossings and begin negotiations with Hamas. Washington and Jerusalem have little interest in a peaceful settlement. They are blinded by their own military prowess. They do not grasp that a continuation of violence and a tightening of the siege will spur more desperate and embittered young men and women to acts of vengeance. The only route left is to hear the cries of all the victims, Israeli and Palestinian, to recapture empathy. Hamas’ offer to negotiate a truce, an offer backed by 64 percent of Israelis, is the only escape route. There is no option other than to finally give the Palestinians control over their lives and land. It is the only option that will, as well, save us in Iraq. The occupation of Palestinian territory, like the occupation of Iraq, is illegal, increasingly violent and counterproductive. I was in Gaza in 1993 after the Oslo peace accord was signed. It was as if, after years of suffocation, Palestinians and Israelis could breathe. But Oslo, in the hands of former Israeli Prime Ministers Benjamin Netanyahu and Ariel Sharon, was strangled and thwarted. Peace eludes us in Palestine, Israel and Iraq not because people do not want peace but because we are governed by moral and intellectual trolls. The Palestine Liberation Organization, headed by the Fatah party, was once considered a terrorist organization. It was illegal for an Israeli to have contact with the PLO. Those Israelis who called for negotiations with the Palestinian group were attacked and vilified. The Israeli government, however, under the pragmatism of Yitzhak Rabin, violated its own ban and began secret negotiations with the PLO. These negotiations led to the Oslo peace agreement. Fatah, today, is touted by Jerusalem and Washington as an ally in the war against Hamas and a partner for peace. The dynamics of power have changed. They will change again. Hamas is a reality that, however distasteful, is not going to go away. Any peace deal reached without Hamas is doomed to fail. The only question left is how many more people are going to die needlessly in Israel, in Palestine and in Iraq before Israeli and American leaders begin to deal with the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. Previous item: The President You Are Trying to Reach Is Unavailable Next item: Putting Clinton and Obama on the Grill Elsewhere: . CommentsAre you a Truthdig member yet? Login now, or register with Truthdig. |
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By Daniel, March 19 at 6:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Too many humans on this increasingly small planet!
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 15 at 10:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Consider if a bunker buster does go bust, and blows apart in a conventional explosion (this would be the dirty bomb scenario that Bushemada fabricated against Jose Padilla (a US CITIZEN), whom he then tortured into insanity while attempting to get him to admit to). The penetrator would disintegrate as it hit, say a thick basalt layer, at perhaps ten meters depth, and the splash ejecta from the explosion (carrying the vaporized radioactive core) could easily scatter highly radioactive powder over a wide area. That area would then be a no-mans land (virtually) forever. Come to think of it, that’s probably the plan. No more centrifuge activity there, whether there was any to begin with or not. Poison the land permanently, story over.
Remember the old joke about oxymorons and military intelligence? Well, the people who design and fabricate these grotesque weapons may be smart, but the people who use them are often even more dense than the rock layers they intend to penetrate. They believe that America can do no wrong technologically. Tell it to the crew of Challenger, or Columbia. Tell it to New Orleans. Tell it to the victims of 9/11 who should have been protected by a country that firehoses money on national security, but totally misses this threat that was screaming in their faces (that would be you Condoleeza Rice, Ms National Security Advisor!) for months in advance of the attack (a time when oddly, John Ashcroft stopped using public air transport, which as Attorney General, he is required to do).
When America fails, it fails in spectacular ways...and this insane gambit is a guaranteed failure in the making. The sheer number of required targets that ALL have to be taken out with “surgical” precision (like doing surgery with a chain saw) in a very short time, boggles the mind. And truth be told, they don’t know where a lot of what they want to target actually is! But that never stops Lord High Inquisitor Bushemada! He is the master of ignorant arrogance, and I am certain he intends to prove that again very shortly. And he will fail, as he did in Afghanistan, and as he did, and continues to do, in Iraq.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 14 at 9:46 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Consider if a bunker buster goes bust, and blows apart in a conventional explosion. This would be the dirty bomb scenario that Bushemada claimed Jose Padilla was planning, that he tortured him into insanity for. Have the penetrator break up in a thick basalt layer, and have this happen ten meters down, and the splash of ejecta from the explosive impact would atomize the warhead core and scatter the powder over a wide area. That area would then be no-mans land (virtually) forever. Come to think of it, that’s probably the plan. That’s also how depleted uranium rounds work...but that’s another story.
Remember the old joke about oxymorons and military intelligence? Well, the people who design and fabricate these grotesque weapons may be smart, but the people who use them are often as dense as the rock layers they intend to penetrate. They believe that America can do no wrong technologically. Tell it to the crew of Challenger, or Columbia.
When America fails, it fails in spectacular ways...and this insane gambit is a guaranteed failure in the making. The sheer number of required targets that ALL have to be taken out with “surgical” precision (like doing surgery with a chain saw) in a very short time, boggles the mind. And truth be told, they don’t know where a lot of what they want to target actually is! But that never stops Lord High Inquisitor Bushemada! He is the master of ignorant arrogance, and I am certain he intends to prove that again very shortly. And he will fail, as he did in Afghanistan, and as he did, and continues to do, in Iraq.
However, most Americans can’t grasp the concept that they aren’t the omnipotent master race that can never fail if it just throws enough resources at the problem (hey...we landed on the moon!). Regardless of the US press, we are normal human beings who screw up a LOT...Bushemada’s Presidency being a prime example of that concept. This may be our last failure though, before the shit hits the fan...and when it does, it’ll be duck and cover time all over again, one way, or another.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 14 at 3:52 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Exceptional anti-war book, and movie.
“Johnny Got His Gun” is also a stunning anti-war book, and move. It was written in 1938 by Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted by the HUAC in 1950 and spent 11 months in prison (for, of all things, CONTEMPT OF CONGRESS). One of my favorite films he wrote the screenplay for (among many great films) was “The Brave One” in 1956. It was shot in Mexico because he was still under the blacklist and couldn’t work in the US.
Report thisBy Sandy Q, March 14 at 9:59 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
The article sys half of those killed in Gaza by fragmentation bombs were civilians. What were the others? Does Palestine have an army?
Report thisBy GrammaConcept, March 13 at 7:03 pm #
to those who have time to read novels, the 1929 masterpiece by Remarque:
......."All Quiet On The Western Front”.......
God Is love; all war is always hell…
Report thisStrive On, Friends.
By Louise, March 13 at 5:39 pm #
Thanks for that info, guntotinganglion!
Given the administrations success rate on their previous “guess work based on assumptions” I think we’re in a shit-load of trouble!
By the way, does Congress know this?
OK, stupid question. Does Congress know anything?
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 13 at 5:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I’m adding one more thought that just can’t be avoided in this discussion. If the US, uses first strike nukes against a non-nuclear state, we will go down in history as the most evil nation in history. And, when a man like Bush, refers to these as “weapons of mass murder” and then uses them, what does that make him? Even Howard can add 2 + 2. He uses weapons of mass murder (HIS WORDS), he is by definition, a mass murderer. He said it, not me.
Is there any way to put this more simply? Perhaps only that (even considering) the use of these monstrous weapons is a sin, and a crime against humanity.
I know Bush was a “history major”, but clearly he learned nothing whatsoever from history. The holocausts that were ignited over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, should have ended any discussion of future use, since so many innocent people died so horrifically. The US became a terror state when it used those weapons of terror and mass murder, especially since they were unnecessary, since the Japanese were defeated, and all the US had to do was wait them out. That act was specifically meant as the starting gun for the Cold War, and it’s only purpose was to warn the Soviets against trying to tangle with the US...and we see how well that went.
First strike will seal the fate of this country, because the entire sane world will turn against us. Insane states like Israel will applaud, but they will also face the wrath of the world as a whole. Using nukes against the USSR was always considered to be MAD, and it was accepted that it should NEVER happen, by sane human beings anyway. And they could hit back. Iran has no such defense, they can’t hit back. But, they can do other things that will change this world in profound ways.
I hope doomsday isn’t around the corner, but we have a doomsday President who thinks it would be “cool” to use the one weapon he’s been denied...weapons of mass murder. And if he does, history will remember him as the mass murderer that he is.
Report thisBy Xenophon, March 13 at 4:16 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Hi, psychos! Check this out…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5JtxrR6msg
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 13 at 2:49 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I have read some about the bunker buster nukes, and they assume certain geologic conditions for effective penetration. Hit a strata of granite, or perhaps an unknown basalt layer, done. Hit some high density boulders on the way through sediment layering, dead stop. Penetrator design, by definition, is an incomplete science...unless you have accurate seismic data (from test explosives) that can very precisely characterize the specific target. Otherwise, it’s guess work based on assumptions.
The g-forces acting on the penetrator warhead are insane. I am not schooled in this, or even truly knowledgeable, but basic physics says you have to hit the ground at a very high speed to make penetration possible, and those high speeds produce very high g-forces at impact. Hard to imagine how robust a warhead’s internals have to be to survive the initial impact, and survive to operational depth (30-50 meters??...maybe?). I’d assume that impact velocity has to be above mach 3...but that’s a total guess.
My interest in this area is more about use in planetary missions, purely for science, and the two times that this was done, at Mars, during the Mars 96 Russian mission and the US Mars Polar Lander mission in 1998, the two penetrators (on each mission) were total failures! After years of preparation, the penetrators went in, and were never heard from again.
If they do this, first and foremost their going to plunge the world into a true world war, and second, it will fail. They aren’t even sure where all the targets are, and the indication is, they’ll have to have about a thousand successful hits to keep this whole thing from blowing up in their faces...or more appropriately, in OUR faces. We are the ones who’ll pay the price for this insanity.
This is Doctor Strangelove (or how I stopped worrying and learned to love the Bomb) shit...purity of essence, POE...POE...POE...YEEHAAWWWW...nookler combat toe to toe with the Islamofascists! Can you see Cheney riding a bomb down, waving his cowboy hat all the way???? Goin’ out with a BANG!!!
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 13 at 1:39 pm #
I agree, however there needs to be a leap of faith from both parties of this tragedy. To fail to recognize a bully who kicks your ass daily is a bit....shortsighted.
Report thisBy Louise, March 13 at 12:19 pm #
cyrena, March 11 at 11:52 pm #
“Louise, on this:
“…and believe it or not I think they are all smart enough to realize if they set off that bomb, they’ll be caught in the blow-back.”…
***
Actually I do mean blow-back! I read somewhere the bunker buster has never actually been adequately tested, particularly with a nuclear war-head and the possibility of real blow-back, in other words, the nuclear explosion forcing back above the surface is very real. Sorry I cant provide a link. I don’t have time to find it now, but I will.
***
Winston, March 13 at 7:16 am #
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949), I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men.
Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
***
Thanks for that reminder.
***
AwakeAndAriseOrg, March 13 at 4:36 am #
“LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball in 1976, not speaking favorably of his own “flock” and people, nor of the United States in that Bicentennial year said this:
“When I review the performance of this people..., I am appalled and frightened.”
***
Thanks for that too. I’ve wondered for some time why the LDS Church has been silent on the current state of affairs. Perhaps there is still hope they will re-discover their voice.
***
PatrickHenry, March 12 at 3:26 pm #
“The Pals and the remainder of Arab countries should all recognize Israel’s right to exist as a precursor to establishing permanent borders thru negotiations.”
***
Seems a little pointless to establish permanent borders now, since there is so little left of Palestine other than the “Prisons”
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6761/palastinianlan dloss8tz.gif
I think the real problem Israel has is figuring out how to get the rest of those Palestinians off the land Israel wants, and/or has walled in.
How does one do genocide without it looking to the world like genocide?
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 13 at 11:32 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Ignore the H man, he doesn’t converse, he only lectures.
Report thisBy Maria Martinez, March 13 at 7:48 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Great comment. Including the story of 90% of the current “jewish” population would be interesting, though you make your point without it. Thanks.
Report thisBy Winston, March 13 at 7:16 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949), I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men.
Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”
-- Captain G. M. Gilbert, Army psychologist assigned to interview and analyze the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials
Report thisBy Maria Martinez, March 13 at 7:09 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Right on. Unfortunately, most gentile westerners have no idea just what they’re dealing with when it comes to Israel, world class liar “evolved” in the art beyond the pale.
Report thisBy AwakeAndAriseOrg, March 13 at 4:36 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
LDS Church President Spencer W. Kimball in 1976, not speaking favorably of his own “flock” and people, nor of the United States in that Bicentennial year said this:
“When I review the performance of this people..., I am appalled and frightened.
“We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:
“ ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
“ ‘That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven’ (Matthew 5:44-45). “
The quote is found in a Youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlYobkSPpE0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlYobkSPpE0
Report thisBy cyrena, March 13 at 1:15 am #
MANY of the ones who wound up in Latin America, (compliments of the CIA) went on to commit the same crimes and establish the same totalitarian regimes that had originated in the Eras of Hitler and Stalin.
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Peru all suffered similar fates.
If the actors themselves were not identical, they were certainly products of the same mentality, and assisted by the CIA in establishing their regimes of terror.
Expat is so write. The US has been the backbone of multiple terror regimes that have perpetrated so many crimes against humanity.
The more I learn, the sicker I get, and the more I throw up.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 12 at 3:29 pm #
They are likely dead now and went to hell.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 12 at 3:26 pm #
Valid Point.
The Pals and the remainder of arab countries should all recognize Israels right to exist as a precursor to establishing permanent borders thru negociations.
They’re all a pain in my wallet.
Report thisBy weather, March 12 at 3:07 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
howard, I’ve read your posts, you’re in full flight from reality.
If Israel ever wanted to even remotely get close to telling the truth, they’d have absolutely no idea where to begin. - and pls. leave America out of Israel’s dark [plans and designs, they’re toxic.
Report thisBy Howard, March 12 at 1:50 pm #
The truth is that Israel/USA do want peace? But with whom in Gaza ? Hamas’s charter and leaders state that the destruction and elimination of Israel is their goal.
Very hard for Israel. To egotiate about your death and destruction of your country.
Report thisBy WriterOnTheStorm, March 12 at 11:50 am #
Kudos to Chris Hedges for this heartfelt plea for even-handedness in the Middle East. His is a voice of compassion in a seeming desert of hatred, greed, religious/tribal fervor, racism, and manifest destiny.
Chris dares to speak the unspeakable truth when he states that Israel/US have little interest in a peace settlement. However, Chris’ call for Israel to negotiate with Hamas dances around the point. Israel’s strategy is to negotiate with Fatah, fully knowing that Hamas will not accept or accede to terms. Hamas’ rejection of any negotiation will then give Israeli leaders the pretext to brand Hamas as radical and intransigent, and to justify stepped-up military action in Gaza.
There are no doubt some Israelis who view a radicalized and militarized Palestine as a necessary evil. Evil because it takes innocent lives and gives false hope to a haggard oppressed people, and necessary because it, even more than their “Eretz Yisrael” religious mantra, justifies the expansion of their colonial project.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 12 at 8:57 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Many were protected by the CIA, and given new lives in the US, for their information on the Soviet Union. A prime example is General Reinhard Gehlen.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm
Operation Paperclip is one to look at if you’re interested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip
This all involves the end justifying the means, i.e. protecting and using known mass murderers (of Jews, Gypsies, Poles etc) who had as much anti-communist zeal as the US. Gehlen had a vast intelligence network on the Eastern Front, and it was his database on the Soviets that kept him from having his life terminated at the end of a rope...which is what he deserved, because he was a mass murderer.
On the other side of the world was another charmer that the US took in and protected. Shiro Ishii, one of my personal favorites in terms of cold blooded, inhuman butchers. Unit 731 was his team that was put together to create biological and chemical weapons. They carried out the most vile and deeply evil experimentation on humans, most of whom were Chinese, but during the war they also did live dissections (without anesthesia) on Australian and US prisoners. They also experimented on men, women and children, removing organs to see how long it would take them to die. Injecting drugs, toxins, biotoxins, pathogens...a wide variety of substances into the bodies of their victims to see the results. Shiro Ishii died peacefully at home in Japan in 1959...after having been protected by US intelligence (CIA et al) because of his research and database on bio and chemical weapons development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
I only mention these, to illustrate the amoral nature of the upper levels of the US government. Our illustrious CIA has quite a history, and most of it is like this. And the concept of the end justifying the means continues, in the Middle East and elsewhere.
And then there was Prescott Bush...and his direct connection to the Nazi war machine. But we’ll leave that for another time…
Report thisBy Howard, March 12 at 5:06 am #
After fertility treatment, Iman Shafii, 32, finally became pregnant. After two of the four small embryos died, the two remaining embryos became increasingly fragile. “You have to go to Israel,” the doctor told her. She reached Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon just in time, giving birth on Feb. 25, by Caesarean section, to a girl, Bayan, and a boy, Faisal. Today is the first day she is permitted to hold her babies in her arms. As the tears well up in her eyes, Shafii says, “If the children had stayed in Gaza, they would not have survived.”
In Ashkelon, Shafii is encountering, for the first time, victims of the acts of terror committed by her own people. One of them is nine-year-old Yossi. A steel frame holds his left shoulder together after it was fractured by shrapnel from a rocket that landed in Sderot. “The people in Sderot are suffering just as we are in Gaza,” she says.
Dr. Shmuel Zangen, the director of the hospital’s neonatal unit, notes, “It certainly is odd that we take care of Palestinian children while they shoot at us.” On the second day after the birth, a Grad rocket landed on the hospital grounds. Shafii says, “I heard it hit, 200 meters away.”
“The groups that are firing the rockets are not fighting a just war,” says the Palestinian mother, adding that they are not abiding by what the Prophet Muhammad said: that wars may only be waged between soldiers, but not against civilians.
In Beit Lahia in Gaza, her husband, Ashraf Shafii, describes how masked men repeatedly set up their rocket launchers under the cover of houses. “They shoot at Israeli civilians, which is completely unacceptable,” says Shafii. “And they put us Palestinian civilians in grave danger, because the Israelis shoot back.”
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,54068 9,00.html
Report thisBy Expat, March 12 at 3:59 am #
^ around the world; incluing the U.S., Argentina, Brazil, Central and South America. Some were given new identities by the U.S. government. It’s not a pretty sight. As usual, we have been complicit for decades in many crimes against humanity.
Report thisBy Howard, March 12 at 3:05 am #
They’re still there in Germany. Just gave up the Nazi Party when Germany surrended. Just like one can’t find anyone who voted for Pres Bush, no one admits they joined the Nazi party when it was the “thing” to do. Which was a large majority of the citizenry.
Only a handful of high-level party leaders were tried at Nuremberg. Lots hanged; some with prison sentences.
Report thisBy weather, March 12 at 1:15 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
rowman, you sad and empty little man. Hate doesn’t motivate the critics, you simply hate what they say.
I urge you to move to Israel and fix it, its made America very sick.
Report thisBy cyrena, March 12 at 12:12 am #
Hi Outraged,
When there’s more time, I’ll try to search down where the ‘masses’ of the Nazis went. But, just as a sort of ballpark view, many of them were actually done in by Hitler himself, before the final fall. It’s actually sort of typical of totalitarian regimes, that they begin to eat their own, or otherwise toss them to the dogs. Such was the case with many of Hitler’s Nazis, as well as with Stalin’s crew.
Other’s of course manage to escape and blend into the background, exiling themselves or otherwise ‘hiding out’. Every once and a while, one surfaces even here, having escaped and taken on new identities.
But with Hitler and his gang, it’s important that at least the leaders were held accountable at the Nuremburg Tribunals, and it was that course of legal/universal action that determined or made the law/principle that it didn’t matter that one was allegedly ‘following orders’. IOW, ‘following orders’ to torture or kill or whatever, didn’t absolve them of their crimes.
Now of course that should have set the standard for wars to come, but as we see, it hasn’t stopped the Dick Bush Cabal. They aren’t worried. They should be though. Pinochet was eventually ‘gotten’ although the dirty bastard died before we could see him rot in jail.
Ok…the search for the masses of the Nazis could take a while, so I’ll have to save that part for later. OR, now that I think about it, I know a couple of folks who may have already researched it. I’ll check with them during ‘standard hours’ and get back.
Report thisBy cyrena, March 11 at 11:52 pm #
Louise, on this:
“…and believe it or not I think they are all smart enough to realize if they set off that bomb, they’ll be caught in the blow-back.”…
One of the terms here is ‘mutually assured self-destruction’. (at least that’s how the International lawyers refer to it…the older ones.) We just call it blow-back. Results are the same of course.
So, everybody other than the US and apparently Israel seem unaware of this obvious ‘catch’ to the nuclear option. Use yours, and you are pulling the trigger on your own head.
• “….I think we miss the boat by not paying more attention to what the madmen in the White House are doing ... and why.”
Why indeed…Do you suppose that these madmen still haven’t figured out that if the rest of the world and the Middle East are blown to smithereens, (or even if it’s restricted to the Middle East) that they don’t stand a chance either?
I mean the small collection of them can certainly escape to wherever they already have plans…Bush for Paraguay, and Cheney to wherever, (since I don’t know how safe Dubai is gonna be either), but that isn’t going to be enough to protect their ‘interests’ which is the US corporate/elite ruling class. So, it just continues to be totally amazing to me, that they don’t seem to be at all worried about their own demise, even if it’s delayed until after the rest of us have been thrown to the abyss, and already crash landed in collapse.
OK, if I’d read further, I’d see that you did mention this..
• “I’m sure it’s never occurred to them we might get hurt.”
So, that answers my question, even though I don’t think they much give a damn if WE get hurt. If that were the case, we wouldn’t have had 9/11. It’s just that I’m thinking they don’t get that at the end of the day, SO WILL THEY!!
Yes...very, very, very stupid. But then, they aren’t alone.
Here’s the piece on Fallon, which may be the same as one that hammo cited. I’m not sure..didn’t take time to scroll to do the matchup.
Fallon’s “No Iran War” Line
Angered White House
An Admiral Takes on the White House
By Gareth Porter
Inter Press Service
Tuesday 11 March 2008
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031108R.shtml
It’s an excellent piece, since Fallon makes some observations that apply everywhere, including to posters on this blog…
He says something to the effect of “I wasn’t TALKING about the White House”. (in reference to his diplomatic efforts with other nations in the Middle East, in assuring them that we were NOT going to blow up Iran).
The ‘white house’ of course, ONLY thinks that it’s ALL about THEM, and ONLY about them, ALL of the time.
Report thisBy Outraged, March 11 at 11:08 pm #
Where did the Nazis go? After WWII, “famous” Nazis were hunted down for many years, but what about the rest....where did they go..? I’ve read things to the effect that they “scattered”. Can anyone enlighten me? Where did the “masses” of Nazis go?
Report thisBy Howard, March 11 at 5:47 pm #
Likewise.
Report thisBy Howard, March 11 at 5:45 pm #
You mean 9/11 was NOT Caused by the wackos from Saudi arabia? At least 9 of them cowards were. How old are you to buy into someting else? 12 years old?
Assests from Iran, maybe. Mam, mia. get hold of yourself.
Report thisBy Louise, March 11 at 4:11 pm #
One does tend to feel hopeless sometimes. But it’s not over till it’s over.
I enjoyed Chris’s article, but I would make one minor change. The first sentence.
People without empathy create a world of wars.
And of course people like Howard appear to lack empathy, if in fact he wants more war. Because no-one wins ... ever. Everybody loses ... always.
And now we have the specter of nuclear war hanging over us. Not from Iran. I doubt they have a nuclear weapon. I also doubt they are stupid enough to use one if they did. After all, the Middle East is a relatively tight land mass, where Israel sits nervously twitching the switch on their nukes, as does Pakistan, as does India. And believe it or not I think they are all smart enough to realize if they set off that bomb, they’ll be caught in the blow-back. Well, with the possible exception of Israel.
That tiny Nation State that has allowed itself to be totally consumed with fear. A fear that has created a government and a military and a spy agency that all function on knee-jerk governing by paranoia, well nourished by fear. A truly dangerous combination.
Speaking of which, the greatest threat to peace in the Middle East [or anywhere else for that matter] is us. The good old US of A.
Or at least our government. The most excellent collection of paranoid, fear mongering, knee-jerk government, war loving, empathy lacking, totally amoral folks in suits that ever did grace the planet. So while I would love to see a peaceful resolution in Palestine and Israel, I think we miss the boat by not paying more attention to what the madmen in the White House are doing ... and why.
Because while some really slow thinkers, like Howard, may think just eliminating Palastine will end the conflict, saner heads [including the majority population in Israel] know, if Bush attacks Iran things can only get worse for them. It’s easy for people with duel citizenship here, to postulate on what needs to happen there. After all, they aren’t going to get hurt, right?
So lets focus on the bad guys at home. They are the ones who really want to start World War Three. And they are so completely lacking in empathy, not to mention morals, I’m sure it’s never occurred to them we might get hurt.
Did I mention they are also really stupid? Well they are. Because anyone with the sense God gave a carrot would know, using a nuclear war head bunker buster in Iran [Bush can’t wait to try out his new toy] will blow up in his face, or somebody’s face, litterally. And that will be the absolute end of any chance the man may have of being remembered as anything but an evil man.
The evil man who changed the world forever! Folks related to him will have to change their names. Kinda like all the Hitlers in Germany who suddenly became Meyer’s. That’s the kind of legacy he promises to deliver to his family.
Of course Admiral Fallon, commander of US Mideast forces, had to resign. The option given him was probably death by “suicided.” That’s happened a lot since Bush and Blair first wiggled out from under their respective rocks.
Report thisBy Hammo, March 11 at 3:28 pm #
News today of Adm. Fallon’s (forced) retirement is an ominous sign that the Bush-Cheney-neocon bunch will attack Iran.
Fallon is an honorable officer who stood up to these warmongers and war profiteers.
See the articles:
“Will Bush, Cheney Attack Iran? When and Why?”
Truthout.org
02 February 2007
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/020207A.shtml
-----
“Military Draft Needed for War With Iran and Syria?”
Truthout.org
20 September 2006
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6 4/22754
Report thisBy P. T., March 11 at 2:19 pm #
The Khazar converts, from whom eastern European Jews descended, were a Turkish people. So they are really Turks.
Report thisBy Howard, March 11 at 1:02 pm #
The situation in Gaza is indeed miserable. That is not the fault of the Israelis, but the fault of the Gazans/Palestinians themselves. In 1948, the UN proposed that “Palestine” be divided into an Arab and into a Jewish sector, with Jerusalem becoming an “internationalized” city. The Jews reluctantly accepted this partition plan. The Arabs rejected it out of hand and invaded the newly-born Jewish state with the armies of six nations. Had the Arabs accepted the partition plan or any of the many Israeli offers of conciliation, they would now have had their own state for sixty years and would enjoy prosperity and economic success just as Israel. Instead, focused exclusively on the destruction of Israel and the killing of the hated Jews, Gazans are living in misery, totally depending on the dole of Israel and on the support of the world.
Report thisBy Howard, March 11 at 12:58 pm #
Pure unadulterated nonsense !
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 11 at 12:58 pm #
It is fortunate for Israel that it doesn’t have to go against a first rate army. If any connection to 9/11 was ever made involving Israeli assets, the backlash against that country by the U.S. would be tremendous.
The Israeli soldier is not as impressive as the media would have you think....after all who controls that media.
Report thisBy PatrickHenry, March 11 at 12:51 pm #
Very good post Louise. A much needed history lesson for many of the pro-Israel posters here.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 11 at 12:50 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Thank you for this post. Most enlightening. Greatly appreciated.
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, March 11 at 12:26 pm #
Thus usurping the term “semite”, the Jews have usurped the rights of ALL those peoples in the region, Louise...... and, as usual, are assidiously lying about it all!!!
While it has little bearing on the substance of the political discussion in the U.S., the words “anti-Semitism” and “anti-Semitic” are, in fact, semantic misnomers. Jews constitute no more than 10 percent of the world’s Semites. The overwhelming majority of Semites are Arabs. Furthermore, most Jews today could not trace their ancestry back to the Holy Land and, therefore, are not true Semites at all. Ninety percent of the world’s Jews are descended from converts to Judaism, mostly the Khazars in what is now the southern USSR. The Khazars accepted Judaism as their monotheistic faith. They did not have the remotest connection with the Semites of the Holy Land.......
The Zionists can muster not merely the threat of the Jewish vote and the no-less important Jewish financial and organizational skills, but also the blackmail of attacking anyone who opposes their political aims for Israel, as anti-Semitic.....
Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust can for a time be exploited to obscure the realities and complexities of the Middle East problem. But in the long run this can prove disastrous. If American policy for the Middle East can be manipulated solely by raising the spectre of a man who died 41 years ago in a bunker in Berlin, and with total disregard for those who are dying every day in the Middle East, we all, American Jews and Gentiles alike, are in deep trouble......
American tolerance toward separatism ceases, however, when group thought and group action run counter to the mores and interests of the country in which they live..... If the political problems of Israel become the political responsibility of American Jews, disaster will eventually follow… http://www.alfredlilienthal.com/antisemite.htm
Report thisBy Louise, March 11 at 11:53 am #
Semite:
Originally one of a people believed to be descended from Shem, son of Noah. Later the term came to include the following peoples: Arabs; the Akkadians of ancient Babylonia; the Assyrians; the Canaanites (including Amorites, Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Phoenicians); the various Aramaean tribes (including Hebrews); and a considerable portion of the population of Ethiopia.
The Semites were largely nomadic pastoralists, although some settled in villages. At least as early as 2500 B.C., the Semites had begun to leave the Arabian peninsula in successive waves of migration that took them to Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean coast, and the Nile delta. They were organized into patrilineal tribes, occupying defined territories and ruled by hereditary leaders, or sheiks.
In Mesopotamia, Semitic people from the earliest times were in contact with Sumerian civilization and with the rise of Sargon of Agade (Akkad) and Hammurabi of Babylon were able to dominate it completely.
In Phoenicia the Semitic population developed a widespread maritime trade and became the first great seafaring people.
That group of Hebrews that had been diverted through Sinai into the Nile delta settled at last with other Semitic inhabitants in Palestine. These southern or Judean Hebrews became the leaders of a new nation and religion (see Jews and Judaism).
See W. R. Smith, History of the Semites
So as you can clearly see, the Israelis who discriminate against the Arabs, and most specifically their Palestinian brothers who were there with them from the beginning of history, are in fact the anti-Semites.
They not only threaten to destroy their own legitimacy and heritage, but they discriminate in a most violent manner against all Semites in the region. They are the son in the family who would destroy the rest of the family.
The son without empathy or conscience. The son who lusts after whatever his brothers have. The son who see’s all those around him as tools to be used in his personal march to power.
http://img100.imageshack.us/img100/6761/palastinianlan dloss8tz.gif
Report thisBy P. T., March 11 at 11:45 am #
Israel, Hamas in Ceasefire Talks
In Israel and the Occupied Territories, violence in the Gaza Strip has eased amidst Israeli-Palestinian talks for a ceasefire. Egyptian officials are reportedly mediating the discussion between Israeli officials and members of Hamas. Palestinians are calling for an end to Israeli military attacks and the lifting of the intensified Gaza blockade.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 11 at 11:18 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Pinpoint targeting? Like when IDF troops destroyed an entire block of homes, killing EVERYONE, because one militant ran into a single house? Precision collective punishment is what we’d have to call it, huh? Sieg Heil mein Herr!
Are you incapable of reading anything that doesn’t mindlessly follow Zionist propaganda? It’s obvious that NONE of the thoughtful posts here have had any effect on you at all. You simply continue with the mindless pro-Zionist propaganda campaign. If you were capable of a conversation, I’d want to engage you, but that’s obviously a complete waste of time. Keep posting...keep parroting...others can respond, but I won’t waste my time again.
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, March 11 at 10:49 am #
Well said, Expat, but empathy is neither a “pretence” nor is it merely “circumstantial”.
Rather, empathy is as the heart of family relations, the very foundations of society. It is as natural as emotions and having feelings.
Happiness is the natural human state and empathy forms part of it in any successful social structure. However, society is not successful nor is it happy.
Thus human fulfilment is forever being thwarted. The need for physical survival need not cause unhappinesss. It is a false construct designed to deprive and to impoverihs.
Report thisBy Howard, March 11 at 10:09 am #
For Israelis, the abandonment of Gaza was also a trial balloon to assess what the relationship with a nascent Palestinian state would be. They got a quick and decisive answer. Almost from the very first day of their “liberation,” the Gazans launched daily rocket attacks on Israel. Fortunately, so far “only” about fifteen people have been killed and “only” about 300 injured by those relatively unsophisticated weapons. But it is only a matter of time until one of those rockets – whose range and effectiveness are being constantly improved – hits a school, a large housing complex or a hospital.
In the meantime, Israel responds with pinpoint volleys on the launching pads of those rockets. But they are easily movable and purposely located in heavily populated neighborhoods. It is thanks only to Israeli respect for human life that tens of thousands of Gazans have not perished in Israel’s response to those barrages. We must ask ourselves what our country would do if Mexico were to launch thousands of rockets into San Diego. The answer is perfectly clear: We would retaliate in full force.
Report thisBy P. T., March 11 at 9:39 am #
From the Sydney Morning Herald, click http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11& ar=1563
Report thisBy Ryan Hartman, March 11 at 7:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Chris Hedges is a writer whose articles should be on page one of every major newspaper. When that day comes, we will all wake up.
Report thisBy thebeerdoctor, March 11 at 7:45 am #
Your statements about cluster weapons are the most important reason why I could never in good conscience vote for Hillary Clinton. In her zeal to gather AIPAC support she spearheaded efforts to restock Israel’s supply of cluster bombs, after they used in six weeks in Lebanon, what the U.S. military used in Iraq in year. As the late Howlin’ Wolf would say: “that’s evil going on”.
Report thisBy Jimbo, March 11 at 6:25 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I claim nothing. I just have one question:
If Hamas stopped sending rockets into Israel, wouldn’t the counter-attacks and the block of fuel and supplies to Gaza stop as well?
(This is a real question. I am actually curious what different people have to say.)
Report thisBy Expat, March 11 at 3:43 am #
When government (any government), regardless of its form, is ruled by morally bankrupt humans, corrupt humans (the very definition of most politicians), then nothing benevolent can come from their governance. When the governed fail in their personal responsibilities by allowing themselves apathy, hedonism, ignorance, greed, self interest over community, fiscal irresponsibility, and fear; then the politicians have won and the masses will consider they can no longer afford the pretense of empathy. History is full of examples of empathy by people in the worst possible situations of war and poverty, and it crosses race and culture. True empathy is not common among people but it exists in all peoples of the world. Even the worst despots can never eliminate it. Many of the posters here exhibit empathy, but we are surely a minority. If the opposite were true, then there would have been no reason or need for Chris Hedges article. My point is; empathy is or is not: It is not circumstantial.
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, March 11 at 1:49 am #
Actually, its the ultimate negative expression, sunzen.
Nothing positive can ever come from it. It is not healing but destruction. It is not creation but anihilation.
And the reuult is negative karma which then eventually engulfs the oppressor. ALL empires eventually FAIL - and all for virtually the same reasons - the results of their own actions, uhh.
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, March 11 at 1:45 am #
By cyrena: “Do you suppose that if you tell these lies often enough, (to people who actually KNOW what’s been going on in Gaza and the West Bank) that you can make them as delusional as you are...”
Great coming from you cyrena - especially with your wearisome attachment to Obama and The Ring, uhh......
Report thisBy Douglas Chalmers, March 11 at 1:38 am #
Actually, troublesum, the IRA were knee-capped by the McCartney sisters after their brother was murdered..... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/03/16/eveningnews/ main681058.shtml
Report thisBy i,Q, March 10 at 9:13 pm #
If you feel so strongly about Israel’s moral rectitude and continued assault from outside forces, perhaps you should go to Israel and join their army to defend it instead of insisting on convincing a bunch of online junkies that “Israel good, Palestine bad.”
If i had to guess, i’d say the point of the article was to point out that it is the follies of government which result in the diminished conditions of life which result in blind violence against both sides by people who (again on both sides) want to achieve a level of security for their families and future. Furthermore, it is the continued insistence by each side that they are right and the other is wrong which gets in the way of real progress. This attitude is evident in your posts as well. You don’t seem to be willing to listen to the other side of a dialogue because your position is already entrenched. Is it possible that there is merit on both sides of an argument?
Perhaps you can enlighten me on your contention that Israel has a right to exist. i don’t have an opinion one way or the other, i’m genuinely curious. Does this go all the way back to Moses for you?
Would you support the recreation of a latino nation in Texas along the Gulf Coast based on claims of historical right of ownership? What if the nation was created by use of military force with assistance from say… Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin? Would you support their right to exist even as it displaced the majority of US citizens who lived along the Gulf Coast?
Or how about the Native American movement? Do the Navajo have a right to a nation-state with more autonomy and resource than a small plot of beautiful dust in northwestern Arizona? Or does America’s right to exist trump those wishes because we do exist and by use of overwhelming force have almost entirely ended the dispute over territory?
i’m not advocating any of these things, and i’m certainly not prepared to give my house and land back to the Ute people who lived in this valley as late as five generations ago. i live here now and have my whole life. The issue of territorial rights is only compounded when personal convictions (i live in this house) are at odds with cultural convictions (this is our land and always has been).
Report thisBy i,Q, March 10 at 8:31 pm #
Excellent point, there is more than enough blame to go around, and standing around pointing insistent fingers at each other solves nothing. This is like trying to moderate a dispute between two irate four year olds on a long car trip.
Our governmental system here in the US is also suffering from a similar phenomenon, so caught up in the blame game that the decision to get down to business and solve the actual problems is lost in the fray.
Report thisBy i,Q, March 10 at 8:24 pm #
Don’t let a few comments by people who are ruled by their emotions distract from rational discourse.
There is just no talking to some people. Despite the popular notion that changing one’s mind is “flip-flopping,” it is in truth the inflexible mind which is the weaker and cannot see the forest for the trees because they have stared too long at propaganda on a piece of paper.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 10 at 7:38 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Israeli’s hide behind civilians as well. Military installations are positioned in civilian areas. Odd too, that during the Lebanese slaugher last year, the “surgical” precision of the Israeli weapons produced FAR more civilian casualties than the Qassam rockets ever did. Also, the Qassam rockets amazingly, considering they were unguided, consistently hit near Israeli military installations that just happened to be in civilian areas. So...apparently it doesn’t go both ways. If the Lebanese, or let’s just call them all Dr. Evil...if Dr. Evil has a rocket launcher near homes, he’s using human shields, but if Dr. Good (Israel) has tanks and launchers within civilian areas, it’s what? Never human shields...cause the honorable IDF would never do that. Dr. Evil is evil, Dr. Good is good, it’s just that simple....minded.
Pull your head out...it’s a frightening world, but it’s best to see it as it is, rather than the cartoonish hellscape you make up in your mind.
Should we discuss the half a million cluster weapons that the brave IDF scattered across southern Lebanon in the closing hours of that conflict? These weapons kill far more indiscriminately than the Qassam rockets. And these weapons bear a remarkable resemblance to a similar terror weapons deployed by the Nazi’s over London during the blitz. They purposefully designed them to look like toys, and were designed to be unexploded ordinance...they weren’t meant to explode, at least not at first. They were designed to attract children, who would then take the small interesting looking “toys” home with them, and play with them, until they were jostled just so, and blew the child to pieces. This is what the high dud rate in cluster weapons is for...to terrorize innocent populations, and to spread fear and terror far and wide, and to tie up medical infrastructure when grievous injuries are survived! And these terror weapons were deployed far and wide across southern Lebanon as the time was running out, and the “brave” IDF knew their last hope was terror. So, they used artillery pieces to fire these hideous weapons over cities and towns, in fields and streams, in trees and bushes, for children to find, take home, and blow themselves and their families apart. Most of the time however, they simply died when they touched them. Israeli’s should be very proud. Their amoral superiority is complete.
These are weapons of pure evil. And, they are banned by international law. That of course doesnt’ stop Israel, and never has, and never will, as long at the brutes who are running things now remain in power!
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 10 at 7:18 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
What other country on Earth has claimed the “right to exist”. Name one that has made this a legally binding concept. I’d like to know, seriously.
Report thisBy guntotinganglion, March 10 at 7:12 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Howard, are you blind? Can you not see the world around you? Both sides are committing acts of brutality, but Israel is killing FAR MORE Palestinians than the other way round. The eight Torah students were murdered, how many innocent Palestinian civilians were murdered that same day, or the day before, or the day after? Your ethical blindness, and many others, is why this butchery continues on both sides.
The attitude that “they” “...celebrate death, despise democracy and seek Israel’s destruction” sounds a lot like, “they hate us for our freedom!”. It sounds a lot like the justifications that have gone on for thousands of years, made manifest by cartoonishly caricaturized bad guys, who are pure evil and can never be reasoned with. Did you NOT read Christopher Hedges article? Both sides are populated by human beings, who are THE SAME in every respect, other than the circumstances of their birth. If you shoot a man’s brother, he will attempt to hurt or kill you, and on, and on, and on it goes, as it always has gone. War’s to end wars never end wars, they only further the brutality of the NEXT wars. And turning your “enemies” into cardboard cutouts without humanity, justifies their killing...and this statement applies in BOTH directions, to Israelis and Palestinians alike!
I’m not sure why I’m trying. Your mind is obviously sealed, but as Hedges says, there’s a dearth of empathy in this world, and unfortunately, I have empathy for both sides in an awful, endless reign of brutality. And in this reign, Israel is the all powerful in it’s own mind, and in it’s military might provided greatly by the Unites States. No such advantage goes to the Palestinians. They fire blind, Israel uses “smart” weapons with so called surgical precision...and the damn patient dies every time! These surgically precise weapons in reality, have all the effectivity of a chainsaw for a brain surgeon!
I guess the final question is, would you support a “final solution” to the Palestinian “problem”? Vilnai apparently would. Would you cheer, as the murderers of the Torah students did, as a mushroom cloud rises over Gaza? This may well be the future, and if it is, Israel will have damned itself for all eternity. It’s time for peacekeepers to find peace, and warmakers to find the door. These are not cardboard cutouts they putting holes in, these are men, women, children, babies and the unborn, who NEVER HURT ANYONE!!! The people you vilify, are the tiniest fraction of the 1.5 million people being starved in Gaza.
Will this insanity never end? Where’s Solomon when you need him? Can reason ever hold sway? History seems to indicate not. I hope history is wrong, for the sake of the innocents on both sides of this expanding bloodbath.
Report thisBy Howard, March 10 at 5:41 pm #
Israel is always told to retreat to the 1967 borders. The two places where it has done this - southern Lebanon and Gaza - have been disasters for Israel and have not produced peace. The 1967 borders only work for Israel if its neighbors don’t make war on Israel any more. There is no indication at all that either Hamas or Hizbullah, or indeed Iran, which soon enough will possess nuclear weapons, is on a trajectory towards accepting Israel’s right to exist.
Report thisBy cyrena, March 10 at 5:27 pm #
Curious that you mentioned me rowman, since I’d not even commented on this thread. I only JUST got around to reading the piece, which I find to be another excellent piece from Chris Hedges.
Your comments continue to prove rowman, that you are totally consumed with hate, and there is no hope for you.
Report thisBy cyrena, March 10 at 5:20 pm #
Howard,
Do you suppose that if you tell these lies often enough, (to people who actually KNOW what’s been going on in Gaza and the West Bank) that you can make them as delusional as you are?
Why do you say that Israel has left Gaza, when the fact of the matter is that Israel has NOT left Gaza? Do you know how many people, IN GAZA the IDF has imprisoned?
Do you think the Palestinians in Gaza are keeping THEMSELVES in prison? How about the VERY ‘structured’ Israeli Military Court System, whose ONLY purpose is to ‘try’ and convict Palestinians in GAZA and the West Bank? It is the ONLY purpose of the ISRAELI MILITARY COURT SYSTEM! It doesn’t operate in Israel, and it has nothing to do with Israelis. It is a MILITARY COURT SYSTEM, RUN BY ISRAEL and the IDF, in GAZA and the West Bank.
Howard, HOW has Israel left Gaza? THEY HAVE NOT. And how or why do YOU think that YOU (or Isreal) can ‘give’ Gaza to Egypt? You’re nuts Howard. But then, we knew that.
Howard, for the record..ISRAEL HAS NOT LEFT GAZA. Israel CONTROLS EVERYTHING the lives or dies or moves in GAZA and the West Bank.
Howard, for the record, I repeat. ISRAEL HAS NOT LEFT GAZA! Not 2 years ago, not EVER since they occupied the territory over 40 years ago.
So please stop lying and denying Howard. Facing the truth, and ACCEPTING the Hamas offer of a truce, and allowing ALL of the Palestinians the sovereignty that is due them as human beings native to that land, based on UNIVERSAL LAW, is the ONLY way that Israel can survive. It’s that simple Howard.
Israel can get OUT of the occupied territories, (for real) and allow the Palestinians to go about their lives. When that happens, there will be no need for the rockets that are currently being directed at OCCUPIED territory as well. If Israelis were not LIVING on the occupied land, and preventing the Palestinians from living anywhere, then they wouldn’t be subjected to the rockets.
Those rockets are directed at land belonging to the Palestinians. If the Israelies weren’t there, they wouldn’t be subjected to rocket attacks.
Again. How simple is that?
Report thisBy Howard, March 10 at 5:20 pm #
Rockets and missiles for over 2 years on daily basis into Israel is the cause. Careful efforts to get rocket crews and avoid civilian casualties in Gaza is the Israeli position. In contrast, the Hamas regime targets indiscrimanetly Israei citizens. Big big difference. And the militants hide behind the civilians.
Report thisBy cyrena, March 10 at 4:57 pm #
WOW!! Mr. Hedges…great work on this one!
• Peace eludes us in Palestine, Israel and Iraq not because people do not want peace but because we are governed by moral and intellectual trolls.
No way to dispute this.
• The only question left is how many more people are going to die needlessly in Israel, in Palestine and in Iraq before Israeli and American leaders begin to deal with the world as it is, not as they wish it to be.
How many more? And, can we not ask this same question of our political people? ALL of them, but specifically the contenders for president. More specifically, HRC and John McCain.
Why is John McCain on his way to Jerusalem, Paris and London, and not Iraq? Why is he taking Lieberman with him?
I know, stupid questions.
Report thisBy troublesum, March 10 at 4:48 pm #
The conflict in Northern Ireland was solved when both sides agreed that there was more than enough blame to go around to cover them all. One side could no longer point a finger at the other as “terrorists”. When the IRA was given a place at the negotiating table, the killing stopped.
Report thisBy Howard, March 10 at 4:40 pm #
Eight Israeli Torah students were gunned down in Jerusalem last Thursday. The world cannot make allowances for such an act. It was cold-blooded murder and must be condemned, unconditionally and with no excuses. The international community must not be manipulated into arming murderers with credibility.
Israel, as a democracy under fire, is facing a daily terrorist threat from extremists who celebrate death, despise democracy and seek Israel’s destruction. These extremists target Israeli civilians as a strategy, the product of a mindset that values death at all costs. It is the mindset that leads a man to unload an AK-47 at point blank range into children studying in a library. It is a disturbed mindset that allows a Hamas spokesman to describe that massacre as “the heroic operation in Jerusalem “.
Report thisBy Crimson Ghost, March 10 at 3:19 pm #
Back in 1994 when fanatic Zionist Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 praying Palestinians in a mosque he was hailed as a hero by many on the Israeli far right. Too during the recently Israel slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza I distinctly remember that six of the victims were Palestinian police killed while they were praying.
But now a that few far right disciples of those who hail Baruch Goldstein have met the same fate he dished out to “Moslem scum” we hear a deafening roar of denunciations in the Zionist controlled mainstream media.
All killing of defenseless people is a crime but let’s face it—what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Given the fact that the Israeli murder machine has been killing Palestinians on an almost daily basis for many years is this not a case of chickens coming home to roost?
Report thisBy omop, March 10 at 2:51 pm #
If Israel’s claim to the high road were to include the following:
1. removing ALL its military from the occupied areas.
2. Acceding to an honorable return of all refugees in Lebanon.
3. And the alignment of Jerusalem.
AND THE PALESTINIANS CONTINUED TO THROW ROCKS AND MISSILES AT ISRAEL THEN ISRAEL WOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO OBLITERATE THE PALESTINIANS.
Otherwise israel is and will continue to be the only one responsible for what ever actions the Palestinians or friends of the Palestinians feel are appropriate for them in pursuit of getting the Israelis back to the original boundaries as in the original UN Resolutions of 1948.
Up till now israel has had her way. Claiming she has the right to defend herself A RIGHT THAT is also applicable to the Palestinians. In simple terms its up to Israel.
As the guy in the ad. claimed “you can pay now or pay later”.
No American in his right mind now stuck with a bill of $12 billion a month in Iraq and Afghanistan is going to subjugate themselves to Israeli demands. Them days are gone for ever.
Period.
Report thisBy Seltzer, March 10 at 2:21 pm