Sunday, May 29, 2016

Atomic Hypocrisy, Nuclear Danger.

While President Obama was hugging a survivor of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, the US military was switching on the first part of its Aegis Ashore anti-missile system in Romania, prompting Russian president Vladimir Putin to warn that Romania (and Poland where the next deployment is scheduled) would be "in the cross hairs" of Russian rocketry.  


While Obama spoke eloquently in Japan about a "moral awakening" and called for "a world without nuclear weapons" his government was moving forward with a costly plan to renovate the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  The contradiction largely went unnoticed but Obama was roundly criticized by Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass) who wrote in an opinion piece that “The U.S. cannot preach nuclear temperance from a bar stool.”   


Obama has been pushing for a $1 trillion program to replace the U.S.’s entire stock of long-range strike bombers, cruise missiles, nuclear submarines and land-based missiles.  One has to wonder what is the purpose of such an enormous project.  There does not seem to be an imminent threat or even one in the foreseeable future.

Russia, understandably, feels very threatened by US actions.  It sees itself being surrounded by a hostile alliance (NATO).  Under the Aegis system the bases in Romania and Poland would become launch sites for US missiles (supposedly defensive).  Missiles launched from these sites would be within 30 minutes of major Russian cities.  Imagine what would happen if Russia were to attempt to establish a so-called missile defence system, with rocket capabilities, in say Venezuela or Nicaragua.  We saw how Soviet efforts to establish nuclear bases in Cuba led the world to the brink of a nuclear war.

But, says the US, the Aegis system is not aimed at Russia! No, its there to protect against the threat of nuclear missiles from Iran - notwithstanding the nuclear agreement that the Obama administration has recently reached with that country.   I wonder why they even bother with such pathetic justifications.  They wouldn't pass muster in a saloon bar or even a high school cafeteria.  It just reveals the level of cynicism of those who make such claims and in what low regard they hold their citizens.  

The hypocrisy of the United States position is lamentable and laughable, but the real issue is how dangerous this whole project is.  Russia has already warned that it will take retaliatory steps against the Aegis missile shield deployment.  Vladimir Putin yesterday voiced frustration that Russia's complaints about the missile shield had not been heeded.  "We've been repeating like a mantra that we will be forced to respond... Nobody wants to hear us. Nobody wants to conduct negotiations with us."  He didn't specify what actions Russia would take, but he insisted that it was not making the first step, only responding to moves by Washington. "We won't take any action until we see rockets in areas that neighbour us."

I think it would be foolish in the extreme to ignore Putin's warnings. Russia feels it is under threat from the West.  It has seen NATO pushing further and further east, in spite of promises made at the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the re-unification of Germany.  New NATO states include the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia), Poland, Romania and most recently (this month) Montenegro.  The former Soviet republics Estonia and Latvia share a border with Russia, and Lithuania and Poland abut long-time Russian ally Belarus.   In the south Romania is separated from Russia by Ukraine, now in a state of chaos, following a Western backed coup of questionable legitimacy.  Even more threatening to Russia is the stated intent of NATO to one day include Georgia and Ukraine.  If this ever happens Russia will be surrounded in its west and south by a hostile military alliance.  

One has to wonder why the US and NATO are pursuing this dangerous policy.  Russia does not seem to pose a particular threat. All of Russia's so-called 'aggressive' moves have been reactions to US/NATO actions.  It seems that the US military establishment and NATO need to generate enemies in order to justify their existence and huge budgets.  

I suspect that in Washington a plan has been developed to do to Putin's Russia what Ronald Reagan is somewhat fancifully believed to have done to the Soviet Union i.e. bring it to bankruptcy by forcing it to spend enormously on weapons systems to match the Western military developments.  In that way it is probably believed, there will be regime change, Putin will be removed to be replaced by a compliant client government.   Of course the fact that there will have to be enormous US and NATO expenditures (Obama's one trillion upgrade plan and more) on its own weapons systems and military is a proposition not difficult to sell in Washington, with its powerful complex of military and armaments lobbies.  So this plan will satisfy many of the important players in Washington.

But looked at in a dispassionate way from the point of view of American citizens and indeed citizens of the rest of the world, it seems a deluded and dangerous folly.  Why go to such expense and run the risk of nuclear war?   Not only is the cost astronomical and the risks incalculable but the outcome is far from certain.  Russia has experienced disastrous invasions from the West many times in its history.  It suffered far greater losses than any other combatant in the Second World War (and in the First World War).  But it never capitulated, and I don't see it capitulating again.   The road down which the US and NATO seem to be heading will likely lead to disaster. 

Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago when asked what was the most significant failure of US foreign policy in the past twenty-five years didn't choose the obvious answer - the 2003 Iraq invasion, with its huge cost in human life and wasted resources and the destabilization the Iraq, Syria and the wider Middle East, the emergence of ISIS etc. 

Instead Mearsheimer said that, in his opinion, there is a far greater disaster lurking and that is the total mismanagement of the relationship with Russia ever since the downfall of communism.  There is more on Mearsheimer's comments in the following article: 

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44737.htm

by Phil Giraldi, a former CIA Case Officer and Army Intelligence Officer who holds a Ph.D in Modern History from University of London.  

In the article Giraldi makes the following comment:
"It should also be noted that much of the negative interaction between Washington and Moscow is driven by the consensus among the western media and the inside the beltway crowd that Russia is again or perhaps is still the enemy du jour. Ironically, the increasingly negative perception of Russia is rarely justified as a reaction in defense of any identifiable serious U.S. interests, not even in the fevered minds of Senator John McCain and his supporting neocon claque. But even though the consequences of U.S. hostility towards Russia can be deadly serious, the Obama Administration is already treating Georgia and Ukraine as if they were de facto members of NATO. Hillary Clinton, who has called Vladimir Putin another Adolf Hitler, has pledged to bring about their admittance into the alliance, which would not in any way make Americans more secure, quite the contrary, as Moscow would surely be forced to react."

Perhaps this explains the extreme reaction from the Republican Party establishment to the now near certainty  of Donald Trump being the party's nominee for president.  For Trump, in spite of the many rash and incendiary things he has said, has taken a very sanguine view of relations with Moscow. He does not see Putin as a mortal enemy and thinks he could deal with him. Not so Hillary Clinton who no doubt would double down on the current confrontational approach.  

Perhaps Trump should be thought of as the idiot savant on this issue or perhaps as the little boy who could not see the Emperor's wonderful clothes.   

Saturday, May 7, 2016

Weaponising the Anti-Semitism Slur.



Do you find this offensive?  Do you consider it anti-semitic?  Perhaps before you decide it would be helpful to know the origins of this map and text.  

It was posted by Norman Finkelstein on his blog on August 4, 2014. Dr. Finkelstein is an American author and activist, with a PhD in Political Science from Princeton University. He is Jewish.  Both his parents survived both the Warsaw Ghetto and internment in concentration camps - his father in Auschwitz, his mother in Majdanek. He is certainly not someone to whom one would normally apply the term "anti-semite".  

But it was this post that caused the resignation from the British Labour Party of Naz Shah, an MP of Pakistani origin, and stoked the allegations of left-wing anti-semitism.  Ms. Shah's 'crime' was to share Finkelstein's post on Facebook in August, 2014, adding the comment that it might "save them some pocket money".  The cries of anti-Semitism reverberated through the press and political establishment, with Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron saying it was “extraordinary,” that she continued to hold the Labour whip, and accusing the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, of failing to get to grips with anti-semitisim in his party.  Corbyn and Shah crumbled under the assault, and Ms. Shah was suspended from the Labour Party.   

To me, rather than being anti-semitic, the post seems more to be a sardonic commentary on the Washington's  attitude towards Israel - about the way the US donates $3 billion annually for Israel's defence, and how its unyielding support for the Israeli government exacerbates conflict in the region affecting the price of oil and preventing any chance of peace and justice for the Palestinian people.   

Few people can withstand the public shaming that accompanies allegations of anti-semitism.   One who can, and has done before, is is the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who in defence of Naz Shah, in an impromptu interview, made the technically incorrect statement that "when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel.  He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews."  Of course Israel did not exist in 1932, so the statement is incorrect.  And certainly Hitler was no Zionist.  But nonetheless there is some truth in Livingstone's claim since there was an agreement (the Havaara agreement) signed in 1933 between the Zionist Federation of Germany, the Anglo-Palestine Bank (under the directive of the Jewish Agency) and the economic authorities of Nazi Germany to help facilitate the emigration of German Jews to Palestine.  Presumably this was the policy that Livingstone was referring to.  

But again the press, the Conservative Party, the Blairite wing of the Labour party and many Israel supporters and representatives of Jewish groups, jumped all over this, accusing Livingstone of anti-semitism.  Again pressure was put on Jeremy Corbyn and again he meekly folded and suspended Livingstone from the Labour Party. 

Naz Sha's Facebook post appeared in 2014, so one has to ask the question of why these dubious allegations of anti-semitism in Labour's ranks have arisen at this time?  It surely could not have been a coincidence that local elections were due to be held across Britain a week or two after the affair exploded (in fact they were held yesterday, May 5th.).  And furthermore the key race for the mayor of London was between a Muslim of Pakistani origin (Sadiq Khan for Labour) and a British Jew (Zac Goldsmith for the Conservatives). Goldsmith has been accused of stirring up divisive ethnic tensions by claiming that Khan had shared the stage at some meetings with supporters of Islamic terrorism.  So allegations of anti-semitism in the Labour ranks might be expected to help the Conservative party.  But there is also a sizeable portion of the Labour Party, especially its MPs, who have never been comfortable with Corbyn assuming the leadership.  It has been claimed that this Blairite faction in the party, would be happy to see Labour taking a pounding in the local elections, setting the stage for a parliamentary coup against Corbyn.  This faction has been very uncomfortable with Corbyn's successful bid for the leadership last year, and ever since that time there have been murmurings about Corbyn's supposed anti-semitism.  This no doubt arises from Corbyn's stated support for the Palestinian cause.  Unlike Tony Blair and George Brown he has not fallen into line with the establishment position of one hundred percent support for Israel, no matter how egregious its behaviour.  

Is there anti-semitism on the left?  I don't know, but there is certainly anti-Zionism, which is not the same thing, although the government of Israel and its supporters would like to confound the two.  This can be seen in the struggle to hinder the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) movement, the global campaign to put pressure on Israel to obtain for justice for the Palestinians.  For example under pressure from wealthy Jewish donors with political influence, the Board of Regents of the University of California has issued a statement linking anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.  Hillary Clinton has said  "We need to repudiate efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people. The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement known as BDS is the latest front in this battle."  

But to follow the line of argument put forward by those who equate anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, any criticism of Israel is off-limits and beyond the pale.  We have seen too much of this bullying and intimidation of Israel's critics.   Remember Judge Richard Goldstone, a South African jurist of international repute, who issued a UN report condemning Israel (and Hamas) for war crimes in one of its attacks on Gaza.  He was so maligned and criticized within his own Jewish community that he later recanted and issued a new version of his report, much less critical of Israel.  

Also, believe it or not, Hillary Clinton, back in the days when she was First Lady believed in justice for Palestinians. In 1998 she said that she supported a Palestinian state.  Then, the following year, she kissed Suha Arafat after the Palestinian leader’s wife accused Israel of using “poison gas” against Palestinian children.  But then she ran for Senator in the state of New York, and soon realized that political power and influence lay with the supporters of Israel and not those of the Palestinians.  She was taught a very sharp, severe lesson and ever since has been a major champion of Israel, through thick and thin.  

Another person who the pro-Israel faction tried to bring into line was Norman Finkelstein, with whom we started this discussion.  Dr. Finkelstein has had more than his share of vilification from fellow Jews, not least for his book The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering, in which he claims that the Holocaust is used as an "ideological weapon" to enable the State of Israel, "one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, [to] cast itself as a victim state" thereby providing Israel with "immunity to criticism".   

His career has been ruined by his political opponents.  He was a Professor at De Paul University from 2001 to 2007, but fell out of favour with the university after a public spat with Alan Dershowitz, over the latter's book The Case for Israel. Finkelstein was placed on administrative leave after being denied tenure.  Matthew Abraham author of Out of Bounds: Academic Freedom and the Question of Palestine, described the Finkelstein tenure case as "one of the most significant academic freedom cases in the last fifty years", claiming the case demonstrated "the substantial pressure outside parties can place on a mid-tier religious institution when the perspectives advanced by a controversial scholar threaten dominant interests."

When Dr. Finkelstein went to Israel in 2008, he was detained in Ben Gurion airport for twenty-four hours and then put on a plane back to Amsterdam, whence he had arrived.  He was subsequently banned from entering Israel for ten years.  

Israeli cabinet minister Naftali Bennett has claimed of Binyamin Netanyahu that "The prime minister is not a private person, but the leader of the Jewish state and the whole Jewish world."  Of course this is an absurd claim.  Netanyahu is a political leader - prime minister of the State of Israel.  He is not a religious or spiritual leader.  He has no claim to be leader of Jews in other countries - if so we have a serious problem of divided loyalties.  But I think it is this attitude that helps blur the line between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism.  Suppose the claim were true, in some part.  Then could Bennett or Netanyahu object if those who condemn Israel for its illegal occupation and for its inhumane treatment of the Palestinians, likewise condemn all Jews as responsible?   If Israel represents all Jews, then all Jews are responsible.  It makes no sense, and I suspect that Israel's leaders know it makes no sense.  But they are not concerned with justice or reasonable behaviour, only ways to stifle criticism of their illegal and immoral actions.   


PS.  Zadiq Khan  won the London mayoral election and Labour didn't do too badly over all, except in Scotland where the SNP swept the field. So the smear tactics don't seem to have been too effective.  In fact Zac Goldsmith is now facing criticism for the campaign he ran, and for his dog-whistle attempts to stir up Islamophobia.