Why is Counterpunch vile?

[slimmouse]

whenever I read a post from solace and AD, I get the sense of a charge of destruction.

I have yet to hear any kind of coherent suggestion of even the remotest sense of creativity within anything that either of them write, albeit briefly , or copy paste.

I sometimes wonder that if this is tiresome for me, then what is it like for them?

[Belligerent Savant]

.

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You're allowing yourselves to be reeled in yet again, folks..

Interested in your perspective on what methods are involved in reeling in - and in alternative responses?

You and others have touched on those methods in this (and other) thread(s).

The title of this thread alone is clearly aimed to elicit 'charged' replies.

I've touched on this a few times in prior threads as well (viewtopic.php?p=549319#p549319), but more recently make an effort to ignore or remain dispassionate, challenging as that may be at times.

I'd only humbly suggest to minimize the amount of energy dedicated to a response, as it seems quite apparent by now that the impetus behind the initiator of such threads is not to engage in conversation, but to -- for lack of a better word -- instigate.

So it's instigation now to point out antisemitism, neonazism etc. Afraid we'll upset them? Can't have that.

Not what I stated at all, actually.

Well I apologize if I got it wrong but I do see the word "instigate," there and the suggestion that was the point of the OP'er rather than engaging "in conversation." Now most of the replies are by posters I have on ignore so I can't tell if they are engaging in conversation but prior encounters with them suggest no, they are likely just insulting people. In fact, WR quoted searcher so I saw that he was accusing me of being an AD sockpuppet. Some "conversation," but par for the course.

As to the title aimed to elicit charged replies, the title flows from the linked article and if making titles to elicit charged replies is a sin, we are in a sinners paradise, I 'm afraid.

briefly: "pointing out" antisemitism, neonazism, etc, is fair game, needless to say. What some disagree with is the methods employed, touched on by numerous folks on this board, that I care not to repeat but can surely be surmised from perusal of related prior threads.

Indeed, we may all be guilty of eliciting charged replies -- I for one am guilty as hell -- but again, there is an expected discourse among fellow members (engaging in conversation w/out casting aspersions, as merely 1 example) that most of us strive towards that appear to be lacking, generally, in AD's -- and by extension, your -- M.O.

[Searcher08]

.

You're allowing yourselves to be reeled in yet again, folks..

Interested in your perspective on what methods are involved in reeling in - and in alternative responses?

You and others have touched on those methods in this (and other) thread(s).

The title of this thread alone is clearly aimed to elicit 'charged' replies.

I've touched on this a few times in prior threads as well (viewtopic.php?p=549319#p549319), but more recently make an effort to ignore or remain dispassionate, challenging as that may be at times.

I'd only humbly suggest to minimize the amount of energy dedicated to a response, as it seems quite apparent by now that the impetus behind the initiator of such threads is not to engage in conversation, but to -- for lack of a better word -- instigate.

So it's instigation now to point out antisemitism, neonazism etc. Afraid we'll upset them? Can't have that.

Not what I stated at all, actually.

Well I apologize if I got it wrong but I do see the word "instigate," there and the suggestion that was the point of the OP'er rather than engaging "in conversation." Now most of the replies are by posters I have on ignore so I can't tell if they are engaging in conversation but prior encounters with them suggest no, they are likely just insulting people. In fact, WR quoted searcher so I saw that he was accusing me of being an AD sockpuppet. Some "conversation," but par for the course.

As to the title aimed to elicit charged replies, the title flows from the linked article and if making titles to elicit charged replies is a sin, we are in a sinners paradise, I 'm afraid.

I think Mr Savant's point is very well made.
This thread was not launched as a discussion about Counterpunch, it was set-up as a flamebait exercise. It was INSTIGATED.

American Dream organises his information by a metaphor of validity by association, not by truth. This is a type of contagion model. I contend that models like these are NOT USEFUL.

He admits that HE HIMSELF shares posts that IN HIS OWN WORLD are discredited.

SHOULD HE BE BANISHED TO THE OUTER DARKNESS FOR THIS VILE SIN?


Given AD's admission, surely Solace, to be consistent you must point the finger at this shocking neo-nazi behaviour, else you too will become contaminated!!!

[solace]

.

briefly: "pointing out" antisemitism, neonazism, etc, is fair game, needless to say. What some disagree with is the methods employed, touched on by numerous folks on this board, that I care not to repeat but can surely be surmised from perusal of related prior threads.

Indeed, we may all be guilty of eliciting charged replies -- I for one am guilty as hell -- but again, there is an expected discourse among fellow members (engaging in conversation w/out casting aspersions, as merely 1 example) that most of us strive towards that appear to be lacking, generally, in AD's -- and by extension, your -- M.O.

Fair enough.

[American Dream]

it only takes a very small amount of Rigorous Intuition to call bullshit on Israel Shamir, however the devil is in the details: What is he wrong about? Why is he wrong? Which perspectives are being neglected? What is the net effect of this line of "reasoning"?


http://louisproyect.org/2014/06/16/bloo ... el-shamir/

Blood, spirit, the family, and soil: a response to Israel Shamir

— louisproyect @ 6:53 pm

US Jews are divided on the Ukraine, as they were divided on Palestine. Friends of Palestine, people with a strong anti-imperialist record and sound knowledge of East European history – Noam Chomsky and Stephen F. Cohen — recognised and renounced the US attempt to sustain their hegemony by keeping brazen Russia down. A subset of people, Gilad Atzmon aptly called AZZ (anti-zionist zionists), Trots and other faux-Leftist shills for NATO like Louis Proyect – called for American intervention and brayed for Russian blood.

That was a paragraph in an articled titled “The Fateful Triangle: Russia, Ukraine and the Jews” from the inimitable Israel Shamir, a frequent contributor to what I would describe as the conspiracist sphere of the Internet. These are websites that see wicked plots everywhere and in Shamir’s case, those spun by Jews.


Israel Shamir

One of the most objectionable parts of Shamir’s paragraph was the reference to me as a “US Jew”. How in the world did I earn that designation? After getting bar mitzvahed in 1958, I stopped attending synagogue. I would have stopped sooner but I was under my observant father’s thumb. I guess that Shamir is referring to my “blood” but if that were the basis for his attribution, then I would claim to be Turkish rather than Jewish since I descend from the Khazars, a Turkic tribe that adopted Judaism in the 8th century AD mostly for economic reasons. But then there’s the question of where the Khazars came from. They were probably Mongols at some point and before that who knows? Not to put too fine a point on it, my “blood” probably can be traced back to the African sub-Saharan regions, where the rest of the human race comes from. For someone who is used to thinking in class terms and hopes for a worldwide socialist system in which national identity becomes as outdated as religion and other mystifications, it is jarring to encounter someone so deep into racial distinctions as Shamir. What an odd duck.

Beside the business about “blood”, Shamir also has a thing about “spirit”: “Communism won in the East – not because the East was backward, but because the East was the most spiritual part of the planet, less ruined by modernity and alienation.”

Gosh, it’s been a long time since I heard anybody blather on about the “spiritual”. Back in 1966, just before I joined the Trotskyist movement, I used to buy LSD from a neighbor in my Hoboken tenement who went on to become a top guy in the Hare Krishna movement. Eventually his old habits returned, as he became a coke addict and a gun nut. In “Monkey on a Stick”, a fine history of the Hare Krishnas, authors John Hubner and Lindsay Gruson describe my old supplier driving around downtown Berkeley blasting out the windows of car dealers with an M-16. And all along, even now, old Hans Dutta describes himself as very “spiritual”. As for me, I am having none of it.

If you can believe the Wikipedia entry on Shamir (much of it sounds like it was describing a character in a Thomas Pynchon novel), you’ll learn that he converted to Orthodox Christianity somewhere along the line. I wonder if this means that he goes to Church on Sunday morning. What a waste of time. Homer Simpson had that right. It is a much better use of your time to be watching football games on Sunday. I suspect his Orthodoxy shapes his views on the burning social questions of the day. Like Maoist cult leader Bob Avakian in the early 70s, Shamir doesn’t want the gays dividing the working class. He concluded that a French bill to legalize gay marriage and adoption bill amounted to a “neoliberal attack on the French family”. Frankly, I would vote for any bill that undermined the nuclear family but then again I am more influenced by Engels than the Holy Bible.

Some on the left are agitated by what they regard as Israel Shamir’s anti-Semitism. I tend not to worry so much about this since the Jews haven’t faced what they call an “existential threat” since the 1930s. For me, Shamir’s crude and stupid musings on world Jewry are much more of a social gaffe, akin to peeing on a toilet seat. I am disappointed to see so many people accepting him into polite society on the leftwing of the Internet, but maybe sitting down in someone’s pee doesn’t bothers them so much.

Mostly, the people today who have the most to fear are immigrants not Jews, especially those of color who are being attacked by neo-Nazis throughout Europe. As a socialist, I support open borders. As long as capital is free to cross borders, so are workers. Plus, speaking as a New Yorker, this city would be a lot less interesting without the steady influx of immigrants. Shamir feels otherwise, killing two birds with one stone: “The middle-class Gay International (a term of Joseph Massad) is on the forefront of support for immigration: one can explain it by their compassion, but one can also explain it by their own interests of having a pool of cheap and available sexual partners.” Yes, that makes perfect sense. The Gay International needs more kids from El Salvador–desperately trying to survive–because its hunger for sex partners is insatiable. What amazing social commentary from the 21st century’s De Tocqueville.

So, we see a pattern developing. If anything, Shamir is consistent. First there is blood, and then there is spirit, followed by the sacrosanct family unit, and topped off by soil. Blood, spirit, the holy family, and soil: a potent combination and far preferable to the epicene and deracinated socialist doctrines that are eroding mankind.

One can understand the appeal of blood, spirit, the family and the soil to large sectors of the left. We are living in a period when the appeal for joining forces between the left and the right is quite seductive. Ralph Nader has organized a conference in Washington that brings together his own brand of anti-globalization activists and those of the Rand Paul flavor. Somehow, this siren song is lost on me. I didn’t even resort to Odysseus’s trick of stuffing my ears with bee’s wax. I must have had some kind of genetic disposition against the siren song of a Rand Paul, a character whose bad hairdo and insistence that shopkeepers have the right to exclude Blacks always repelled me.

I suppose I should say a few words on the Shamir article itself and his accusation of me as a shill for NATO. In an email exchange with Shamir, he clarified his thinking. It was not as if I ever backed American military intervention but it was more a question of backing the EuroMaidan protests. His logic is that if you are critical of Russia, you automatically become a shill for NATO. This methodology has been around for quite some time. Despite his rather problematic stance on the blood and soil stuff, he also is capable of speaking as a kind of paleo-Stalinist:

By 1933, with the capitalist world deeply mired in a devastating economic crisis, unemployment was declared abolished, and remained so for the next five and a half decades, until socialism, itself, was abolished. The Communists produced social security more robust than provided even by Scandinavian-style social democracy, but achieved with fewer resources and a lower level of development and in spite of the unflagging efforts of the capitalist world to see to it that socialism failed. Soviet socialism was, and remains, a model for humanity – of what can be achieved outside the confines and contradictions of capitalism.

I should add that the mixture of paleo-Stalinism and the blood/soil/family stuff might not be that surprising given that the Communist Party in Russia has straddled Red and Brown positions for a number of years. I doubt that they will ever return to power with such a program but they seem content to campaign around such themes no matter how few Russians buy it. For the Brown crap, they can go straight to the rightwing nationalist parties. There were always be nostalgia for “the good old days” of the USSR but I suspect that for those who take their Marxism seriously, it will not be on the basis of describing Stalin’s USSR as a “model for humanity”. The Communist movement collapsed largely because of its investment in such a fiction and like Humpty-Dumpty there is nothing that will put it back together again. I suspect that Shamir writes a lot of outrageous stuff in order to get attention. Howard Stern has the same approach, but unlike Shamir, he is intentionally funny while Shamir is just funny.

To wrap things up, let me say a word or two about the main points in Shamir’s article. He makes the case that Putin is a good friend of the Jews and of Israel, even to the point of being friendly with Masha Gessen, a “Jewish Lesbian Putin-hater”. (Apparently Shamir is as obsessed with peoples’ sexual orientation as he is with their blood quotient.) Somehow, I doubt that Putin is friendly with a woman who wrote a blistering attack on him in “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin” but let’s leave it at that.

After much more smoke-blowing about the Jews, Shamir gets to his main point, namely that global Jewry has a hard core (including me) that is part of a vast conspiracy to undermine Mother Russia and its good-hearted allies: “Enemies of Putin in Russia, Ukraine, Europe and US do support Israel and are hostile to Palestine, to Syria of Bashar, to Venezuela of Chavez.” Well, I only speak for myself but I am quite capable of being opposed to the Baathists and supportive of the Chavistas at the same time, having written 28 articles over the years on behalf of Hugo Chavez’s movement as opposed to Shamir who has written none. He is more interested in writing about Jewville.

In terms of Syria and Palestine being litmus tests, this is a useful reminder of where things really stand. Based on Shamir’s litmus test, 83 percent of the Palestinians would be considered “NATO shills” as well. So I am in good company.

Palestinians in Palestine still overwhelmingly against Assad

June 4, 2014 by Talal Alyan

As Assad opts for a modest 88.7% win for his third term, the latest Pew Global Attitudes Survey reaffirms that the self-designated liberator of Palestine continues to be flatly rejected by Palestinian in Palestine. The survey found that 83% of Palestinians under occupation consider Bashar Al Assad “unfavorable”, 65% of which regard him as “very unfavorable”

Read full article http://beyondcompromise.com/2014/06/04/ ... nst-assad/

[seemslikeadream]

YOUR op is "Why is Counterpunch vile"

maybe you should edit your op

Is all of RI anti-semitic in your opinion or just one or two posters that you and solace think are anti-semitic?

Is all of CounterPunch vile or just one or two contributors?



FIGHT THE REAL ENEMY

[American Dream]

Hmmm- most of the dissonant voice on this thread are on my "ignore list"- and I think there are very good reasons for this. After many, many instances of banging my head against the wall till it sorely hurts, I have grown weary. There can be little doubt at this point that this is for the best...

[seemslikeadream]

You only ignore when you don't feel like answering a question...duck if you wish ...it just tells so much about you..you are only tired when you don't have an answer

start a thread and then too tired to defend it...so like you

I know full well you are not ignoring me ..you know damn well what I posted you just don't feel like answering me...why? cause you can't defend your OP...starting a flame bait thread and then not having the courage to defend it is vile

Is Counter Punch vile? NO IT IS NOT

These are all VILE people AD?

Dave Lindorff.....Robert Fisk....Uri Avnery....Joe Bageant....Bob Fitrakis...... Harvey Wasserman.....Pam Martens.....David Swanson....Chris Floyd ......Jonathan Cook .....Andy Worthington.. Russ Fine.... Gary Leupp....SEN. Russell Feingold...Medea Benjamin.....VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY


you and solace reasoning for posting this was made extremely clear from the get go....because I link to CounterPunch ...the one and only reason you posted it

[Searcher08]

YOUR op is "Why is Counterpunch vile"

maybe you should edit your op

Is all of RI anti-semitic in your opinion or just one or two posters?

From my perspective there are two communication loops

Outward from AD
AD grabs megaphone and screams loudly about anti-Semitic / fascism /racist blah
Actual semitophile Person says "Stop yelling in my ear!"
AD decides they are anti-Semites and or fascists
Person gets fucked off
Person starts reading AD's Copy Pasta, considers it nonsense
Person deconstructs AD's associational arguments
Indirect accusations of by now a Satanic nature abound
Temperature rise. Hell breaks loose.

Into AD
AD posts dozens of posts by Anti-fa person of unknown provenance
Is asked about them (this *is* RI), and AD supplies no answers
Source is investigated and revealed as funded by Soros and working directly with
top level of Soros organisations
Soros 'antifa' organisations mapped and extensive direct connections to
Intel, Israeli right, US MIL, neocons and more.
Response: No reflection, consideration, engagement.
Tumbleweeds blow across the desert

Am much more interested in AI, exopolitics, RAW, magick, futurism, cybernetics, thinking skills and ancient civilisations - yet end up feeling I am at a Kafkaesque 'School of The Bollox Accusations' (Headmaster AD)

I have a resolution to spend much more of 2015 reading John Michael Greer and RAW than engaging in arguments with Israel-firsters who consider my affinity for MondoWeiss and the subjects discussed there (generally way more respectfully and cogently than here btw) as being a deeply offensive personal affront.

[seemslikeadream]

IS THIS VILE?....NO

Is Lawrence Davidson vile?.... NO

Is Medea Benjamin vile? ...NO

Is CounterPunch vile?.....NO

but.....who the fuck is Bill Weinberg......maybe he is?

MARCH 20, 2014

Will Anyone be Held Accountable?
Who Set Up Medea Benjamin?
by LAWRENCE DAVIDSON
For several months prior to March 2014 the peace organization Code Pink was in communication with Egyptian diplomatic representatives in the United States. The two sides were arranging for the arrival of approximately 100 women from around the globe who would come to Egypt, travel up to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza, and (if prevented from actually crossing into the besieged territory) hold a demonstration on International Women’s Day (March to show solidarity with the women of Gaza.

One of the principal organizers of this event was the well-known peace activist Medea Benjamin, winner of such awards as the Martin Luther King Peace Prize (2010), the Marjorie Kellogg National Peacemaker Award (2012), the Thomas Merton Center Peace Award (2012) and the Peace Foundation Memorial Award (2012). Benjamin is, as the Los Angeles Times put it, “One of the high profile leaders” of the American peace movement.

Here then was the situation: We had a nationally known personality traveling to Egypt for a publicly scheduled and well-advertised peace mission. The Egyptian government knew she was on her way and it is probable that the U.S. government also knew her plans.

The Set-Up

Benjamin, along with several other members of Code Pink, arrived at Cairo’s international airport about 8 p.m. on March 3. In her own words here is what happened next:

“I arrived at the airport. When I gave in my passport, I was taken aside, brought into a separate room, where I was held for seven hours without anybody ever telling me what was wrong. Then I was put into a jail cell at the airport, held overnight. And in the morning, five very scary-looking men came in and wanted to take me away. And I said, the [U.S.] embassy is coming. They were supposed to have arrived. Instead, the men dragged me out, tackled me to the ground, jumped on me, handcuffed my wrists so tight that they started bleeding, and then dislocated my shoulder, and then kept me like that grabbing my arm.”

In the meantime both the Code Pink members who had accompanied Benjamin to Egypt as well as those in the U.S. were pleading for help from the U.S. embassy in Cairo. They would continue to plead for some 13 hours. The embassy refused any assistance, telling the women that they “were on their own.”

To this day Benjamin has not received any explanation for the incident from either the Egyptians or the Americans.

When an official at the Egyptian interior ministry, Brigadier Alaa Mahmoud, was asked about the incident by CNN, he replied, “Benjamin was not detained. She was denied entry because her stated reason for visiting Egypt was to make a trip to Gaza. Authorities explained to her that the crossing was closed and consequently refused to allow her to enter the country.” He denied that she was assaulted or that force was used on her.

Mahmoud did not explain how Benjamin ended up on a plane to Turkey with a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder. Further, he did not explain why many other Code Pink women coming to Egypt for the same purpose as Benjamin were allowed entry into Egypt? Maybe it was because CNN did not ask these questions.

Responsibility

Here is what I surmise happened. Medea Benjamin’s horrid treatment was not a mistake. It was not the action of a few rogue border officials. It was a premeditated act on the part of the military dictatorship that now passes for a government in Egypt. Who gave the orders? No doubt this plot started in Washington when someone, probably a security officer attached to the visa department at the Egyptian embassy, recognized Benjamin’s name. He alerted someone in Cairo that a major supporter of the Palestinians and someone who had spoken up for democracy across the region was coming to Egypt. Then someone in Cairo decided to make an example of her.

The next question is: Would you do that to a high-profile American activist without running the scheme by some relevant U.S. official? I guess that depends on just how cocky the Egyptian security folks have gotten. However, considering the reaction (or lack thereof) of the U.S. embassy personnel in Cairo, it sure looks like the U.S. government was in on the plot. And, if they were, one has to ask the question why.

After all, when an American embassy gets a call from a U.S. citizen who has just been assaulted and harmed to the point that they need hospitalization, the standard policy is to render assistance. If necessary an embassy representative is dispatched to the scene to ensure such assistance. To deny such aid is so counter to policy that any embassy employee doing so is putting their job in jeopardy. Unless, of course, someone higher up has explicitly changed the rules. That is unlikely to have been done on the spur of the moment by someone at the embassy in Cairo. Such a negation of policy would have had to come from someone relatively high up in the Department of State or perhaps the White House.

There is actually precedence for this flip-flopping of the rules, and it is found at the U.S. embassy in the country of Israel. As the American activist Rachel Corrie and others have found to their dismay, in Israel the denial of assistance to U.S. citizens in trouble is the rule, not the exception. That might now be the case in Egypt too.

As a matter of training and policy American diplomatic personnel are not supposed to cooperate with the hired thugs of Egyptian dictators or the military murderers of various regimes ranging from South and Central America to the Eastern Mediterranean. They are not supposed to conspire in the denial of the rights of American citizens just because they, or their bosses, disapprove of the political positions and actions of those citizens. To do so is to utterly trash the U.S. Constitution.

But we know that in practice our diplomats are quite capable of doing just this. And, while you will never get the bureaucrats to admit it, I am pretty sure that there are government officials both in Washington and the U.S. embassy in Cairo who conspired with the thugs now employed by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to drag the U.S. flag through the mire by turning their backs on Medea Benjamin. There should be consequences for such treason.

[Searcher08]

Hmmm- most of the dissonant voice on this thread are on my "ignore list"- and I think there are very good reasons for this. After many, many instances of banging my head against the wall till it sorely hurts, I have grown weary. There can be little doubt at this point that this is for the best...

Given that you have been receiving very similar feedback on your approach (which appears to me identical to that that exasperated the crap out of Op ED in 2009) surely this indicates you have spent the intervening years doing the same unsuccessful things repeatedly?

Why not try a different approach?

[seemslikeadream]

IS THIS VILE?....NO

Is Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity vile?.... NO

Is CounterPunch vile?.....NO

but.....who the fuck is Bill Weinberg......maybe he is vile one?

WEEKEND EDITION FEBRUARY 8-10, 2003

Re: War on Iraq
A Memo to Bush on Iraq
by Veteran Intelligence Professionals For Sanity
Secretary Powell’s presentation at the UN today requires context. We give him an “A” for assembling and listing the charges against Iraq, but only a “C-” in providing context and perspective.

What seems clear to us is that you need an intelligence briefing, not grand jury testimony. Secretary Powell effectively showed that Iraq is guilty beyond reasonable doubt for not cooperating fully with UN Security Council Resolution 1441. That had already been demonstrated by the chief UN inspectors. For Powell, it was what the Pentagon calls a “cakewalk.”

The narrow focus on Resolution 1441 has diverted attention from the wider picture. It is crucial that we not lose sight of that. Intelligence community analysts are finding it hard to make themselves heard above the drumbeat for war. Speaking both for ourselves, as veteran intelligence officers on the VIPS Steering Group with over a hundred years of professional experience, and for colleagues within the community who are increasingly distressed at the politicization of intelligence, we feel a responsibility to help you frame the issues. For they are far more far-reaching-and complicated-than “UN v. Saddam Hussein.” And they need to be discussed dispassionately, in a setting in which sobriquets like “sinister nexus,” “evil genius,” and “web of lies” can be more hindrance than help.

Flouting UN Resolutions

The key question is whether Iraq’s flouting of a UN resolution justifies war. This is the question the world is asking. Secretary Powell’s presentation does not come close to answering it.

One might well come away from his briefing thinking that the Iraqis are the only ones in flagrant violation of UN resolutions. Or one might argue that there is more urgency to the need to punish the violator of Resolution 1441 than, say, of Resolution 242 of 1967 requiring Israel to withdraw from the Arab territories it occupied that year. More urgency? You will not find many Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims who would agree.

It is widely known that you have a uniquely close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. This presents a strong disincentive to those who might otherwise warn you that Israel’s continuing encroachment on Arab territories, its oppression of the Palestinian people, and its pre-emptive attack on Iraq in 1981 are among the root causes not only of terrorism, but of Saddam Hussein’s felt need to develop the means to deter further Israeli attacks. Secretary Powell dismisses this factor far too lightly with his summary judgment that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction are “not for self-defense.”

Containment

You have dismissed containment as being irrelevant in a post 9/11 world. You should know that no one was particularly fond of containment, but that it has been effective for the last 55 years. And the concept of “material breach” is hardly anything new.

Material Breach

In the summer of 1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia. In 1984 President Reagan declared it an outright violation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. At an ABM Treaty review in 1988, the US spoke of this continuing violation as a “material breach” of the treaty. In the fall of 1989, the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate the radar at Krasnoyarsk without preconditions.

We adduce this example simply to show that, with patient, persistent diplomacy, the worst situations can change over time.

You have said that Iraq is a “grave threat to the United States,” and many Americans think you believe it to be an imminent threat. Otherwise why would you be sending hundreds of thousands of troops to the Gulf area? In your major speech in Cincinnati on October 7, 2002, you warned that “the risk is simply too great that Saddam Hussein will use instruments of mass death and destruction, or provide them to a terror network.”

Terrorism

Your intelligence agencies see it differently. On the same day you spoke in Cincinnati, a letter from the CIA to the Senate Intelligence Committee asserted that the probability is low that Iraq would initiate an attack with such weapons or give them to terrorists..UNLESS:

“Should Saddam conclude that a US-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.”

For now, continued the CIA letter, “Baghdad appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical/biological warfare against the United States.” With his back against the wall, however, “Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a weapons-of-mass-destruction attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him.”

Your Pentagon advisers draw a connection between war with Iraq and terrorism, but for the wrong reasons. The connection takes on much more reality in a post-US invasion scenario.

Indeed, it is our view that an invasion of Iraq would ensure overflowing recruitment centers for terrorists into the indefinite future. Far from eliminating the threat it would enhance it exponentially.

As recent events around the world attest, terrorism is like malaria. You don’t eliminate malaria by killing the flies. Rather you must drain the swamp. With an invasion of Iraq, the world can expect to be inundated with swamps breeding terrorists. In human terms, your daughters are unlikely to be able to travel abroad in future years without a large phalanx of security personnel.

We recommend you re-read the CIA assessment of last fall that pointed out that “the forces fueling hatred of the US and fueling al Qaeda recruiting are not being addressed,” and that “the underlying causes that drive terrorists will persist.” That CIA report cited a Gallup poll last year of almost 10,000 Muslims in nine countries in which respondents described the United States as “ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased.”

Chemical Weapons

With respect to possible Iraqi use of chemical weapons, it has been the judgment of the US intelligence community for over 12 years that the likelihood of such use would greatly increase during an offensive aimed at getting rid of Saddam Hussein.

Listing the indictment particulars, Secretary Powell said, in an oh-by-the-way tone, that sources had reported that Saddam Hussein recently authorized his field commanders to use such weapons. We find this truly alarming. We do not share the Defense Department’s optimism that radio broadcasts and leaflets would induce Iraqi commanders not to obey orders to use such weapons, or that Iraqi generals would remove Saddam Hussein as soon as the first US soldier sets foot in Iraq. Clearly, an invasion would be no cakewalk for American troops, ill equipped as they are to operate in a chemical environment.

Casualties

Reminder: The last time we sent troops to the Gulf, over 600,000 of them, one out of three came back ill-many with unexplained disorders of the nervous system. Your Secretary of Veterans Affairs recently closed the VA healthcare system to nearly 200,000 eligible veterans by administrative fiat. Thus, casualties of further war will inevitably displace other veterans who need VA services.

In his second inaugural, Abraham Lincoln appealed to his fellow citizens to care for those who “have borne the battle.” Years before you took office, our country was doing a very poor job of that for the over 200,000 servicemen and women stricken with various Gulf War illnesses. Today’s battlefield is likely to be even more sodden with chemicals and is altogether likely to yield tens of thousands more casualties. On October 1, 2002 Congress’ General Accounting Office reported “serious problems still persist” with the Pentagon’s efforts to protect servicemen and women, including shortfalls in clothing, equipment, and training. Our troops deserve more effective support than broadcasts, leaflets, and faulty equipment for protection against chemical and biological agents.

No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is irrefutable or undeniable. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond violations of Resolution 1441, and beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic.

[Sounder]

At some point more folk may be forced to conclude that AD's approach achieves just what that approach is trying to achieve.

If so, he will not change.

[American Dream]

Unfortunately, this article is indeed relevant to Counterpunch's very mixed legacy:

September 19, 2011

Jew-Hatred Appears in Conspiracy Theories, Anti-Americanism, Lesser-Evilism, and Single-Issue Thinking
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We are compelled to denounce the ancient practice of blaming Jewish people for the world’s ills, because anti-Semitism (as prejudice and discrimination against Jews is commonly called) has been rearing its ugly head—within the U.S. Left. The incident we just experienced began August 29, when the administrator of a feminist email list sent around a virulently anti-Semitic video which, in the process of supporting ousted Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi, blamed global poverty and injustice on the Rothschild banking family. Only a few of the 100 people on the email list responded, even after we immediately pointed out and denounced the content of the video. Then we were shocked again by the tepid nature of some of the responses.

For centuries, racism against Jews has been integral to the cultures of Europe, many Muslim-majority countries, and the Americas. It waxes and wanes, but is especially strong in times of economic woes, for which Jews are always a convenient scapegoat. They are “outsiders” to the dominant religions, nationalities, and ethnic groups; Jewish merchants make visible targets; and Jewish “cosmopolitans” are portrayed as the agents of capitalism and modernity. For the same reasons, anti-Semitism has been a mainstay of conspiracy theories for centuries––conspiracies in which Jews secretly run the world.

Throughout the racist history of the U.S., Jews have been associated with Afro-Americans and gays for attack. Today, common misconceptions persist that all Jews are rich and that they control the U.S. media and Hollywood. However, overt anti-Semitism is seen infrequently outside the racist Right, at least as compared to the number of physical attacks on Jews and synagogues that occur regularly in France, Germany, Argentina, and elsewhere. And we do not expect the Left to find it acceptable. (For information about Left anti-Semitism today, see http://leftantisemitism.wordpress.com/ and the sources listed there).

We are well aware that the Left can turn into the Right, as happened in Nazi Germany, and that racism, including anti-Semitism, flourishes in times like these. We urge the Left to expose and oppose anti-Semitism, along with all forms of racism and xenophobia, and to root them out of Left thought, along with the theories that support them.

The Feminist Email List Incident

Here is what happened recently: At a Left Forum conference a few years ago, we signed up to be on an email list for a “Left Feminist Conference,” which, as far as we know, never took place. The list was commonly used for announcements and commentaries. On August 29, the list moderator sent an email with the subject line, “FWD: LIBYA – Thoughts?” The email message said, “Please watch this video!”
Apparently British-made, the video shows Qaddafi riding through the streets with his head and torso poking through the open rooftop of a vehicle. He is pumping his fists. The people he passes on the streets are waving. The dubbed soundtrack is dreamy synthesized music. A written narrative is superimposed. The opening verbiage cites Qaddafi’s alleged humanitarian and economic accomplishments for his countrymen. It then goes on to say (emphasis added):

“The Libyan Central Bank is state owned and unlike ALL banks in the west is not owned by Rothschild and issues debt free money.”

We cringed at this mention of Rothschild, as anti-Semites have long used “Rothschild” as code for “Jews.” (The Rothschilds are a European Jewish family that has owned financial institutions since the 18th century, and grew very rich.)

The video’s verbiage then states that Libya was falsely accused of the bombing of PanAm Flight 103 (and killing 270 people). It continues as follows:

“One of the first acts of the Libyan ‘rebels’ was to create a new central bank . . . to one that was owned by Rothschild, just as ours in the west are. The Rothschild family are estimated to own over half the world’s wealth. Rothschild owned banks create money out of thin air and sell it to the people at interest. This means we never have enough money to pay back what is ‘owed,’ so we and our unborn children are made debt slaves to Rothschild banking interests. Unlike our leaders, Cameron, Obama, Sarkozy, et. al., Qaddafi refused to sell his people out. Libya was DEBT FREE! Are you beginning to see why Qaddafi gets this response from his people and who is behind the NATO bombing of a free and sovereign people? Libyans had much that we do not have in the UK, USA & EU. They have a leader who has integrity and courage and who worked in their best interests and not the Rothschilds’ best interests. Libyans shared in the wealth of their country free from the shackles of usury and Rothschild banking interests. Without the tyranny of Rothschild control over the issuance of money, we could all live as wealthy people. We have been literally robbed of trillions of Pounds/Dollars/Euros by Rothschild bankers and their rent boy politicians.”

The term “rent boy” could be construed as a slur against gay men.

The video ends with obscenities against NATO, the U.N., and “the New World Order.”

That last term is code for “international Jewish conspiracy to run the world.” The Rothschilds have frequently been the subject of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. These take differing forms, such as claims that the family belongs to the “Illuminati,” a purported organization that acts as a shadowy worldwide government dedicated to establishing the “New World Order.” You can easily find instances of the continuation of these myths, which proliferate on the internet.

Continues at: http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.or ... ought.html

[seemslikeadream]

IS THIS VILE?....NO

Is Russ Feingold vile?.... NO

Is CounterPunch vile?.....NO

but.....who the fuck is Bill Weinberg......maybe he is?

FEBRUARY 08, 2006

Congress Has Lost Its Way, If It Doesn't Hold Bush Accountable
Bush’s Warrantless Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional
by Sen. RUSSELL FEINGOLD
As prepared for remarks on the Senate floor.

Last week the President of the United States gave his State of the Union address, where he spoke of America’s leadership in the world, and called on all of us to "lead this world toward freedom." Again and again, he invoked the principle of freedom, and how it can transform nations, and empower people around the world.

But, almost in the same breath, the President openly acknowledged that he has ordered the government to spy on Americans, on American soil, without the warrants required by law.

The President issued a call to spread freedom throughout the world, and then he admitted that he has deprived Americans of one of their most basic freedoms under the Fourth Amendment — to be free from unjustified government intrusion.

The President was blunt. He said that he had authorized the NSA’s domestic spying program, and he made a number of misleading arguments to defend himself. His words got rousing applause from Republicans, and even some Democrats.

The President was blunt, so I will be blunt: This program is breaking the law, and this President is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.

How is that worthy of applause? Since when do we celebrate our commander in chief for violating our most basic freedoms, and misleading the American people in the process? When did we start to stand up and cheer for breaking the law? In that moment at the State of the Union, I felt ashamed.

Congress has lost its way if we don’t hold this President accountable for his actions.

The President suggests that anyone who criticizes his illegal wiretapping program doesn’t understand the threat we face. But we do. Every single one of us is committed to stopping the terrorists who threaten us and our families.

Defeating the terrorists should be our top national priority, and we all agree that we need to wiretap them to do it. In fact, it would be irresponsible not to wiretap terrorists. But we have yet to see any reason why we have to trample the laws of the United States to do it. The President’s decision that he can break the law says far more about his attitude toward the rule of law than it does about the laws themselves.

This goes way beyond party, and way beyond politics. What the President has done here is to break faith with the American people. In the State of the Union, he also said that "we must always be clear in our principles" to get support from friends and allies that we need to fight terrorism. So let’s be clear about a basic American principle: When someone breaks the law, when someone misleads the public in an attempt to justify his actions, he needs to be held accountable. The President of the United States has broken the law. The President of the United States is trying to mislead the American people. And he needs to be held accountable.

Unfortunately, the President refuses to provide any details about this domestic spying program. Not even the full Intelligence committees know the details, and they were specifically set up to review classified information and oversee the intelligence activities of our government. Instead, the President says ­ "Trust me."

This is not the first time we’ve heard that. In the lead-up to the Iraq war, the Administration went on an offensive to get the American public, the Congress, and the international community to believe its theory that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction, and even that he had ties to Al Qaeda. The President painted a dire ­ and inaccurate ­ picture of Saddam Hussein’s capability and intent, and we invaded Iraq on that basis. To make matters worse, the Administration misled the country about what it would take to stabilize and reconstruct Iraq after the conflict. We were led to believe that this was going to be a short endeavor, and that our troops would be home soon.

We all recall the President’s "Mission Accomplished" banner on the aircraft carrier on May 1, 2003. In fact, the mission was not even close to being complete. More than 2100 total deaths have occurred after the President declared an end to major combat operations in May of 2003, and over 16,600 American troops have been wounded in Iraq. The President misled the American people and grossly miscalculated the true challenge of stabilizing and rebuilding Iraq.

In December, we found out that the President has authorized wiretaps of Americans without the court orders required by law. He says he is only wiretapping people with links to terrorists, but how do we know? We don’t. The President is unwilling to let a neutral judge make sure that is the case. He will not submit this program to an independent branch of government to make sure he’s not violating the rights of law-abiding Americans.

So I don’t want to hear again that this Administration has shown it can be trusted. It hasn’t. And that is exactly why the law requires a judge to review these wiretaps.

It is up to Congress to hold the President to account. We held a hearing on the domestic spying program in the Judiciary Committee yesterday, where Attorney General Gonzales was a witness. We expect there will be other hearings. That is a start, but it will take more than just hearings to get the job done.

We know that in part because the President’s Attorney General has already shown a willingness to mislead the Congress.

Russell Feingold is the US senator from Wisconsin.