Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the U.S.?
In Israel, a country stolen from the Palestinians, fanatics control the government. One of the fanatics is the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. Last week, Netanyahu called for "crippling sanctions" against Iran.
The kind of blockade that Netanyahu wants qualifies as an act of war. Israel has long threatened to attack Iran on its own but prefers to draw in the U.S. and NATO.
Why does Israel want to initiate a war between the United States and Iran?
Is Iran attacking other countries, bombing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure?
No. These are crimes committed by Israel and the U.S.
Is Iran evicting peoples from lands they have occupied for centuries and herding them into ghettoes?
No, that's what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for 60 years.
What is Iran doing?
Iran is developing nuclear energy, which is its right as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran's nuclear energy program is subject to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which consistently reports that its inspections find no diversion of enriched uranium to a weapons program.
The position taken by Israel, and by Israel's puppet in Washington, is that Iran must not be allowed to have the rights as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty that every other signatory has, because Iran might divert enriched uranium to a weapons program.
In other words, Israel and the U.S. claim the right to abrogate Iran's right to develop nuclear energy. The Israeli/U.S. position has no basis in international law or in anything other than the arrogance of Israel and the United States.
The hypocrisy is extreme. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed its nuclear weapons illegally on the sly, with, as far as we know, U.S. help.
As Israel is an illegal possessor of nuclear weapons and has a fanatical government that is capable of using them, crippling sanctions should be applied to Israel to force it to disarm.
Israel qualifies for crippling sanctions for another reason. It is an apartheid state, as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter demonstrated in his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid."
The U.S. led the imposition of sanctions against South Africa because of South Africa's apartheid practices. The sanctions forced the white government to hand over political power to the black population. Israel practices a worse form of apartheid than did the white South African government. Yet, Israel maintains that it is "anti-semitic" to criticize Israel for a practice that the world regards as abhorrent.
What remains of the Palestinian West Bank that has not been stolen by Israel consists of isolated ghettoes. Palestinians are cut off from hospitals, schools, their farms and one another. They cannot travel from one ghetto to another without Israeli permission enforced at checkpoints.
The Israeli government's explanation for its gross violation of human rights comprises the greatest collection of lies in world history. No one, with the exception of American "Christian Zionists," believes one word of it.
The United States also qualifies for crippling sanctions. Indeed, the U.S. is overqualified. On the basis of lies and intentional deception of the U.S. Congress, the U.S. public, the U.N. and NATO, the U.S. government invaded Afghanistan and Iraq and used the "war on terror" that Washington orchestrated to overturn U.S. civil liberties enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
One million Iraqis have paid with their lives for America's crimes, and 4 million are displaced. Iraq and its infrastructure are in ruins, and Iraq's professional elites, necessary to a modern organized society, are dead or dispersed. The U.S. government has committed a war crime on a grand scale. If Iran qualifies for sanctions, the U.S. qualifies a thousand times over.
No one knows how many women, children and village elders have been murdered by the U.S. in Afghanistan. The American war of aggression against the Afghan people is now in its ninth year, however. According to the U.S. military, an American victory is still a long ways away. Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, declared in August that the military situation in Afghanistan is "serious and deteriorating."
Older Americans can look forward to the continuation of this war for the rest of their lives, while their Social Security and Medicare rights are reduced in order to free up funds for the U.S. armaments industry. Bush-Cheney and Obama-Biden have made munitions the only safe stock investment in the United States.
What is the purpose of the war of aggression against Afghanistan? Soon after his inauguration, President Obama promised to provide an answer but did not. Instead, Obama quickly escalated the war in Afghanistan and launched a new one in Pakistan that has already displaced 2 million Pakistanis. Obama has sent 21,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, and already the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is requesting 20,000 more.
Obama is escalating America's war of aggression against the Afghanistan people despite three high-profile opinion polls that show that the American public is firmly opposed to the continuation of the war against Afghanistan.
Sadly, the ironclad agreement between Israel and Washington to war against Muslim peoples is far stronger than the connection between the American public and the American government. At a farewell dinner party last Thursday for Israel's military attache in Washington, who is returning to Israel to become deputy chief of staff of the Israeli military, Mullen, Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy and Dan Shapiro, who is in charge of Middle East affairs on the National Security Council, were present to pay their respects.
Mullen declared that the U.S. will always stand with Israel. No matter how many war crimes Israel commits. No matter how many women and children Israel murders. No many how many Palestinians Israel drives from their homes, villages and lands. If truth could be told, the true axis-of-evil is the United States and Israel.
Millions of Americans are now homeless because of foreclosures. Millions more have lost their jobs, and even more millions have no access to health care. Yet, the U.S. government continues to squander hundreds of billions of dollars on wars that serve no U.S. purpose. President Obama and McChrystal have taken the position that they know best, the American public be damned.
It could not be made any clearer that the president of the United States and the U.S. military have no regard whatsoever for democracy, human rights and international law. This is yet another reason to apply crippling sanctions against Washington, a government that has emerged under Bush-Obama as a Brownshirt state that deals in lies, torture, murder, war crimes and deception.
Many governments are complicit in America's war crimes. With Obama's budget deep in the red, Washington's wars of naked aggression are dependent on financing by the Chinese, Japanese, Russians, Saudis, South Koreans, Indians, Canadians and Europeans. The second this foreign financing of American war crimes stops, America's wars of aggression against Muslims stop.
The U.S. is not a forever "superpower" that can indefinitely ignore its own laws and international law. The U.S. will eventually fall as a result of its hubris, arrogance and imperial overreach. When the American Empire collapses, will its enablers also be held accountable in the war crimes court?
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Dr. Roberts is right on target with his Jeremiad. And while the US will not last forever as a world dominating superpower, it may last many more generations and leave a nuclear wasteland in its wake when it finally exits the stage of history. Many Israelis already have the mentality that they are entitled to destroy the entire world if they are threatened. Not for nothing did Seymour Hersh refer to the Israeli nuclear arsenal as "the Samson option". And there are also many Americans whose identity is so tied up with the US being "number one" that they would rather see all out nuclear war than a world in which the US peacefully assumed second or third place in power.
There must be a way to say this that doesn't sound like some liberal internationalist. Israel has illegal (?) nuclear arms? Huh? Illegal says who? Does a conservative really want to suggest that there is some supra-national power that can declare certain weapons illegal? He acknowledges that Israel is not a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Also, is the issue that the US and Israel seek to restrain Iran's rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty or that we are simply overstepping our bounds and infringing on a sovereign nation by presuming to tell Iran what weapons they can and cannot have at all?
Also, demonizing America to the extent he does is rhetorically counterproductive. If Joe Blow conservative war supporter reads this he will just dismiss it as an anti-American left-wing rant. It will be totally lost on him that PCR is a conservative. There has to be a better way to go about bringing the war supporters over to our side.
Red Phillips:
The USA no longer has the USSR as its adversary. Thus, the conservative synthesis is dissolved into its elements. We are back to the point that we are united only in the conflicts that divide us (to steal a line from T.S. Eliot). We seem to be a nation always on the lookout these days for an equivalent to the USSR. Iraq has failed us, Afghanistan will fail us---we'll be out of there in a year I expect--- even as the forces of "democracy" take hold (hah, hah) in that putative nation. We've become the successor to the old British Empire, without the talented ruling class that made that enterprise a success for nearly three centuries. Every four years we select the old gang of clowns or replace them with a new set, each succeeding gang worse than the previous. The war supporters, one suspects, define their conservatism in terms of support for the war on terror. Hard to imagine how they'll be brought to the same tent as, say, Justin Raimundo,or the typical Chronicles reader.
Dr. Phillips has hit it on the head as usual. His final point speaks to a bother of mine that I was trying rather poorly to address in other ways.
"Hard to imagine how they’ll be brought to the same tent as, say, Justin Raimundo,or the typical Chronicles reader."
Don't understimate both common sense and the long traditions Chronicles fights for. They are still there in people, even if the knee-jerk reaction is pro-war (or whatever). NeoCons have only won the day, but that day may be ending. As I believe Dr. Wilson pointed out some other place on the subject of typical, current Southerners (for example), they may have a certain reaction but are not deeply pro war when pressed.
I wonder if there is a niche for an online publication/forum that might be led by paleocons? It would serve as a clearinghouse for conservatism that comingles paleo, neo, and libertarians. To be useful, it would need to be dominated by paleo thought and writers/commenters. But to be more useful, it would need to introduce into the fold, honest libertarians and neocons (save the sarcasm against that statement). Some of these fights need to be taken outdoors. Chronicles can't do it all, and even if some of the excellent commenters here would hawk one other board, it could make a big difference.
As Dr. Fleming has lamented, these forums are only so useful. The good news is that they are much easier to maintain and run than an actual publication. Stand on the shoulder of giants, eh?
I concur, Dr. Phillips. But there are so many fallacies this article. Here some whoppers:
"In Israel, a country stolen from the Palestinians". absurd!
"Is Iran attacking other countries, bombing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure" not yet!
"The hypocrisy is extreme. Israel is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and developed its nuclear weapons illegally on the sly, with, as far as we know, U.S. help" so?
"Older Americans can look forward to the continuation of this war for the rest of their lives, while their Social Security and Medicare rights are reduced in order to free up funds for the U.S. armaments industry" utterly false
"It could not be made any clearer that the president of the United States and the U.S. military have no regard whatsoever for democracy, human rights and international law" absurd.
Conservatism does have a problem with militarism and wars, that much I can agree with PCR. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are sometimes declared as wars of choice but so was the Manifest Destiny. Buckley was of the opinon that the conservative way is not to engage in a situation where a response is not needed or warranted. Let's say it was not warranted. Let's say the existence of Israel is not warranted, which is what PCR seems to believe. What happens to that part of the world when we pull out?
As far as whether PCR is really a conservative, I am not so sure. A true conservative does not harbor false assumptions about the deviousness of capitalism.
What is so absurd about the first so called absurdity? PCR is rather blunt for sure, but what in the statement about the land called Israel being stolen from the Palestinians is absurd? Having to be forcibly moved from your homeland by decree of foreign entities(UK, UN) for something you had nothing to do with(Holocaust), on behalf of another group(Zionist international financiers), sure can be seen as theft to me, and especially the folks that had to leave their ancestral homeland.
As for that part of the world if we left? They will do what they please. If they want to go to civil war, etc that is their business as it is their politics, their nations, and their lives. Who are we to tell these people how to live? A third of the babies born in this country are out of wedlock, over 20,000 people will be murdered this year, rampant unemployment, STDs are at an all time high, kids are dumb as hell, etc. We obviously need to take care of busniess at home before we go around telling folks how to run their governments, communities, families. THe onlyt hing we have given those people over the last 18 years is death, destruction, and of course pro US puppet regimes. I am sure they couldn't do any worse if left to their own devices.
What is absurd, Bruce, is that it is no different from saying that the U.S. is a country and land stolen from Native Americans. The Jews fought their way into the Holy Land against powerful elements, i.e. the British and the Arabs, and American colonists fought wars against Native tribes and their British masters to establish their country. Neither case qualifies as murder or theft on the part of Americans or Israelis, they are merely the products of victory in a war.
Don't get me wrong, though, Israel is no saint. They should either give the Palestinians a state or drive them out to Iraq or Saudi Arabia. Otherwise, they are guilty of ruling over another nation of people, the definition of imperialism, if I'm not mistaken.
At this point, I simply do not care what happens in that region. I am only interested in eliminating the knee-jerk emotional influence that their interest groups have in North America and Western Europe.
I am sick and tired of the Westerners who act as if either side of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict supports them in international and domestic matters. As if they are dire to the survival of our own Civilization. What is being played is a sick game between American and West European Capitalists.
To be honest, it may not be the worse thing in the world if those two sides wiped each other out, or if one had a Pyrrhic victory. Perhaps the Holy Land could be resettled by peaceful peoples. Maybe a new homeland for the Afrikaners, Kurds, and the
Zoroastrians.
If the surrounding savages object, it would be high time for someone to put them back in their place, mineral wealth or not.
#7 - I think it is rather absurd to claim that seizing a people's land and driving them out of it in a war of conquest does not constitute theft and murder, but the only wrong-doing would be ruling over the conquered who survive. Yes, Israel has not done anything the US itself hasn't done and indeed most other countries have not done depending on how far back you want to go. That doesn't make it right and it certainly is not an argument to commit further aggressions and atrocities. The US should simply pull out its troops and end all aid and arms sales to the countries of the area. The Israelis possess enough nukes to destroy the entire Moslem world if they wish. If that is not enough to guarantee their survival and enable them to do as they wish with the hapless Palestinians, what else do the neo-cons and militarists want to do for them? Do they want the US to destroy Iran and save Israel the trouble of doing so? Probably yes.
#9. As a footnote, Palestine was a land roamed by nomadic tribes. Vast parts of Israel were also bought from Palestinians at inflated prices. The most compeling reason for US involvement is not mentioned by PCR. As Dr. Trifkovic warned, there is a worldwide Jihad that wants to establish the world Califate and they don't care how many Christians and Jews tehy need to kill. American pullout is the defeat for Christianity. This is very real and it is not just a Neocon excuse.
#8 "What is being played is a sick game between American and West European Capitalists.", #9 "what else do the neo-cons and militarists want to do for them". Again it is the vast Jewish banking conspiracy. These views are contrary to Conservativism and are based on liberal conspiracy theories that Obama voters believe in. They are based on the hatred of capitalism, Constitution and Liberty.
INstead of concentrating on the Marxist takover of America, that is happening on every level, PCR is running a false flag operation to keep the Conservatives confused and divided. NO word on the huge indoctrination project that is under way at Universities by the likes of Van Jones, the huge theft of budget funds to finance a horrendous 2012 re-elextion, that may lead to a civil war, the ongoing legislative fiasco, PCR wants us to be blinded with Cheney and the Neocons. I think not.
Dr. Phillips @2, great commentary as usual.
"The most compeling reason for US involvement is not mentioned by PCR. As Dr. Trifkovic warned, there is a worldwide Jihad that wants to establish the world Califate and they don’t care how many Christians and Jews tehy need to kill. American pullout is the defeat for Christianity."
It is truly a wonder that neoconservatives can muster the courage to get out of bed in the morning, what with all the boogeymen and New Hitlers they see around every corner. The defeat of Christianity will come about as a result of the labors of secular, liberal Westerners, and certainly not at the hands of some primitive rabble in the Middle East. The idea itself is absurd.
Toddard writes: "The defeat of Christianity will come about as a result of the labors of secular, liberal Westerners, and certainly not at the hands of some primitive rabble in the Middle East."
This is my thought as well. One point that needs to be made is that the Palestinian Christian population is on the wane in the Holy Land. At one time they were 25% of the palestine population and now probably 1% or 2%. One of the Christian artisans of Palestine recently visited our parish with his olive wood figures and religious art from the Holy Land. Their current plight is truly pathetic and rarely mentioned in any of the coverage of the Middle East, just as the utter destruction of some of the most ancient Christian communities some dating back to the Apostles, were rarely mentioned in the Iraq war. It deserves repeating:"The defeat of Christianity will come about as a result of the labors of secular, liberal Westerners, and certainly not at the hands of some primitive rabble in the Middle East."
12, 13, "The defeat of Christianity will come about as a result of the labors of secular, liberal Westerners, and certainly not at the hands of some primitive rabble in the Middle East.”
That certainly sounds pretty good, and it makes a point. But how are you using "Christianity?" It seems to me that the enemies of Christianity in the U.S. are a little different than the enemies of Christianity in the middle east. And who is the "primitive rabble"?
I would be cautious about underestimating any enemy. Thinking of "primitive rabble" is part of the arrogance of the "secular, liberal Westerners."
McCabe,
And who is the “primitive rabble”?
A good question and a fair question. For a more complete explanation I suggest the biography of Blessed Charles de Foucauld. For understanding why Christians,their clergy and residents of the Holy Land have a tough time getting work permits, visas and travel from one local to the other ask the policy makers in Tel Aviv and the PLO. My point was that the Israelis can be counted upon to look after their interests in the Holy Land and the Islamists can be counted upon to look after their interests inthe Holy Land, but other than The Vatican, who the hell is speaking on behalf of the Christians in Palestine? You and folks like you? I think not!
"It seems to me that the enemies of Christianity in the U.S. are a little different than the enemies of Christianity in the middle east"
The "enemies of Christianity" referred to earlier by Jack Bailey were, to use his words, proponents of a "worldwide Jihad that wants to establish the world Califate" [sic]. That such jihadis are far more than "a little different" than secular liberals hardly needs to be said.
S.L. Toddard wrote: The “enemies of Christianity” referred to earlier by Jack Bailey were, to use his words, proponents of a “worldwide Jihad that wants to establish the world Califate” [sic]. That such jihadis are far more than “a little different” than secular liberals hardly needs to be said.
Islam and its pursuit of a worldwide Califate is far less a danger to Christianity than Poppy Bush's "new world order." Islam is the danger we see. The "new world order," with the satisfaction of consumers' whims the highest demand is far more insidious, an unseen cobra lying in the grass, which will rob our souls and leave us empty husks. Islam is a danger that will at least quicken us and bring to the fore the best in us. This new world order with its pious worship of the "free market" and "democratic capitalism" will suck our vitality from us more assuredly than Islam could ever hope to, draining from us the finest of what makes us truly human.
In short, we have more to fear from the G-22, soon to meet in Pittsburgh, than we do from Al-Qai'da.
I find it interesting that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, about what this "mysterious conflict" in Israel with the Palestinians is all about.
Growing up, I was taught in public school, that the conflict was because Muslims were racists, and they just hated Jewish people. Not mentioned was the 1948 creation of Israel, and of course I never know who Count Bernadotte was. I was never taught what settlements were, and I remember believing they were towns on the edge of Israel and what remained of Palestinian land - I was quite surprised to find settlements were not only in the middle of Palestinian land, but *only* Jewish Israelis were allowed to live there.
It will be interesting to see people try to defend Israel in the upcoming years now that the media is finally starting (being forced) to talk about everything that is going on there and has gone on there.
20 years ago, I had to go into a library and go through obscure magazines and periodicals to figure out what was going on. It was a tremendous amount of work to overthrow what I was taught, because everything that contradicted what I knew meant I had to find it in several places from reliable sources. At the end I went on to discover the conflict was actually quite simply a conflict over land and a division of people that was imposed by Zionists, not the Arab population. Today, it's getting to the point you don't even have to search out the truth, it's finally just being told.
Taken long enough.
Mr. Gloriosus @ 17,
Gloriously said.
#10. Roberts running a deception to divert attention from "the Marxist takeover of America"? I would say rather you are the victim of a Republican deception to agitate about Marxism to divert attention from giving away billions to bankers and speculators.
@10# Comment by jack bailey
WeLl certainly the Islam has been our enemy for centuries, however as another poster said, the defeat of christendom won´t come at the hands of the rabble in the middle east but at the hands of the secular (dare I say Masonic?) elite, hellbent on destroying the last vestiges of humanity within us, indoctrinating our children so they can be servile and corrupted, thus being the forerunners of the coming new world order.
Look forward digital money and total replacemet of cash.
Apart from all this discussion about Israel and the occupied territories, does anyone think that Pomerania and Silesia should be returned to Germany; does anyone think the Russians should get out of East Prussia and return that German heartland to Germany. Or for that matter, should Silesia be returned to Austria from whence it was annexed (dare we say stolen?)? How is Israel's conduct in the OTs different from other annexations, most often a consequence of losing a war. Why don't we all insist that Turkey return Anatolia to Greece? (This does not mean to take any side, only to see how Israel's conduct is different from the conduct of other states at difference times in history.)
"but at the hands of the secular (dare I say Masonic?) elite"
Masonic? Come on.
@2: Thank you, Dr. Phillips. I cannot help but offer in addition that I am rather unsettled by the title: "Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the U.S.?" This sounds almost like an endorsement for the concept.
Critique the U.S., yes, but to wish for "crippling sanctions" on one's own patrie is to cross a dangerous moral line.
I think Dr. Roberts' point was that the US and Israel deserved crippling sanctions much more than did Iran. He was not advocating such sanctions. Much as I detest what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians, I don't advocate not doing business with them. I advocate not giving them 3 billion per year in mostly military aid and in fact I advocate cutting out aid and/or arms sales to any country. As far as sanctions against the US are concerned, if countries like China and Japan would stop lending money to the US government to finance out of control spending, they'd be doing the citizens of the US a big favor in the long run, despite some short term pain.