Showing posts with label Bombs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bombs. Show all posts

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Syria and "Mission Accomplished"



THE ABSURD TIMES





Syria and 'Mission Accomplished'

Just to counter the video we got from American Media, about 10 minutes or so into this clip is the faces of those liberated from American "Rebels" and their reaction.  Unfortunately, I could not just clip the one shot of about 2 minutes, but you can fat forward if you have the tools and resources. 


Now, for the transcript of the video: this is the most sane analysis or report on what is really going on there that I have been able to find anywhere.  It reminds me of what I might expect from Horkheimer or Adorno if they were around.  I am just going to post it without further comment:

As the United Nations Security Council holds an emergency session over the growing prospect of a war between Russia and the U.S., after President Trump threatened U.S. strikes in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma, we get response from Syrian-Canadian writer Yazan al-Saadi. "Let's remind everyone that the U.S. is striking Syria already. You have more than 2,000 soldiers on the ground. There are bases." He adds, "For me, as a Syrian, I see it as an occupation, just like how I see the Russians are an occupation on the country." Regarding the alleged chemical attack in Syria, he says, "This ignores the fact that most deaths are happening through conventional means," such as airstrikes.


Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Syria, where Syrian government forces have taken full control of the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, in a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad. The capture of Eastern Ghouta followed a Russian-brokered deal that saw the last remaining rebel fighters granted safe passage to a rebel-held area in northern Syria. Human rights groups estimate some 1,700 civilians were killed in heavy fighting, after Syrian forces, backed by Russia, launched an offensive on Eastern Ghouta in February. The U.N. says food, water and medicine are in short supply for those left behind. This is U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland.
JAN EGELAND: There is, by our count, still at least 100,000 people in Douma, and they need desperately our help. We have been prevented from going there. We have had very little supplies to there. And now, hopefully, there is finally an agreement between the armed actors.
AMY GOODMAN: Eastern Ghouta's fall comes as the U.N. Security Council is set to meet in an emergency session today over the growing prospect of a war between Russia and the U.S., after President Trump threatened U.S. strikes in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Douma last Saturday. This is Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya.
VASILY NEBENZYA: The immediate priority is to avert the danger of war.
REPORTER: Sir, you just mentioned that you want to avert the danger of war. The danger of war between the U.S. and Russia?
VASILY NEBENZYA: Look, we cannot exclude any possibilities, unfortunately, because we saw—we saw messages that are coming from Washington. They were very bellicose. They know we are there. I hope, I wish there was dialogue through appropriate channels on this to avert any dangerous—any dangerous developments.
AMY GOODMAN: This comes as President Trump tweeted Wednesday, quote, "Get ready Russia, because [missiles] will be coming, nice and new and 'smart!'" Then, on Thursday, Trump appeared to back off slightly from his aggressive stance, tweeting, "Never said when an attack on Syria would take place. Could be very soon or not so soon at all!" That last tweet came after Trump missed a self-imposed deadline of 48 hours to announce major decisions on Syria in the wake of an alleged chemical weapons attack on Douma on Saturday.
Those comments came as the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Russia has evidence the attack was fabricated. French President Emmanuel Macron has said he has "proof" that Syria's government carried out the attack. And NBC News cited two unnamed U.S. officials who said blood and urine samples taken from a victim and smuggled out of Douma show signs of poisoning from a nerve agent and chlorine gas.
On Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary James Mattis said the U.S. is still investigating the attack. This is Mattis being questioned by Hawaii Democratic Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard.
REPTULSI GABBARD: What would the objective of an attack on Syria be? And how does that serve the interests of the American people?"
DEFENSE SECRETARY JAMES MATTIS: I don't want to talk about a specific attack that is not yet in the offing, knowing that these are decisions—this would be predecisional. Again, the president has not made that decision.
AMY GOODMAN: For more on Syria, we go to Beirut, Lebanon, where we're joined via Democracy Now! video stream by Yazan al-Saadi, a Syrian-Canadian writer and researcher.
Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Yazan. Your response to all the latest developments in Syria?
YAZAN AL-SAADI: Thank you very much for having me. One thing I wanted to say is how surreal this is, even this interview, because, Amy, the first time I was on Democracy Now! was almost a year ago, this exact situation appearing. And so—so it just struck me, and I feel I have to say that Karl Marx was right: History repeats. And it was a tragedy, a farce, and it's even more absurd.
There's just so much to say. I mean, my first comment I would like to really point out is this weird discussion happening in the U.S. as if in attack on Syria hasn't happened by the U.S. and by others. Let's remind everyone that the U.S. is striking Syria already. You have more than 2,000 soldiers on the ground. There are bases. For me, as a Syrian, I see it as an occupation, just like how I see the Russians are an occupation on the country. So, I just find the whole discussion that's happening is so absurd.
And I feel like the hysteria that is being manufactured, in my opinion, by these politicians are just distracting from the core issues. And the core issues, at least to me, is accountability for Syrians. I mean, let's be honest. Whether the U.S. strikes Syria—and here, I believe people mean the Syrian military or the Syrian regime—how is this going to bring justice? How is this accountability in any way? Because it's not. And even then, what's next? What's the plan here? So I think the biggest issue that is really driving all of this is that this is another example of the complete dysfunctionality and failure of the international political and accountability system, that this is what we're witnessing again and again. And we're seeing it in Syria, and we've seen it in so many other places around the world. And it's just—it's become very absurd.
And it's become—and it's also, as human being, I mean, I just am so personally upset as a human, as I can. You know, I have to be empathetic here, because people are dying in the scheme of things. Men, women, children, they are being killed predominantly by the ones that have the most power, i.e. the regime and its allies, and they all are also being killed and harmed and abused by armed opposition groups, who are backed by other superpowers. So, that's where we're at.
And these theater plays, these things that happen over an alleged chemical attack—and I personally believe it happened, and I believe—I have my thoughts and my conclusions on who the culprit are, based on the evidence that we all have around. It's really—
AMY GOODMAN: Who do you believe—who do you believe launched this attack?
YAZAN AL-SAADI: Who do I think launched the attack? Based on the evidence that is around, based on trends, based on the history, based on context, I do think it was the Syrian regime. However, what does this change anything? Because, OK, the OPCW is currently investigating in the country, and they should start on Saturday. And I support that. I believe in an investigation. There has to be some sort of accountability here. I don't believe in a Western invasion and overthrow of the Syrian regime, because I don't think that leads to Syrian determination. However, how does this change anything? Because the OPCW has already said, in previous reports, that it has linked the Syrian regime to chlorine attacks, at least three of them. It has also pointed out there are links of ISIS using mustard gas. So, what are we arguing here? Are we arguing that chemical weapons are happening in Syria? Well, they are. People are using chemical weapons, are using chemical agents, whether it's chlorine or anything else. What changes? This doesn't—it ignores the fact that the most deaths are happening through conventional means. People are dying because of airstrikes, bullets, sieges. So this idea of chemical weapons is also—it's absurd.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Yazan, for people who aren't aware, OPCW is the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. But I wanted to go to Russia's foreign minister rejecting the allegations of the chemical weapons attack in Douma.
MARIA ZAKHAROVA: [translated] Doctors, chemical defense specialists have been to Douma, where chemical weapons were allegedly used, but they found no traces of such use, no casualties or victims of this mythical chemical attack. The West stubbornly refuses to listen to a heap of information.
AMY GOODMAN: France says they have evidence that it was the Syrian government. But today the German foreign minister, Heiko Maas, said Western countries must increase pressure on Russia in order to solve the crisis in Syria.
HEIKO MAAS: [translated] We want these people to be held criminally responsible internationally, and there remains a lot to be done. The repeated use of chemical weapons, which is internationally prohibited, cannot come without consequences. You cannot just continue with the daily agenda. This now needs to be discussed with our Western partners.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Germany says they wouldn't get involved with Britain and France and the United States with an attack. And, Yazan, your response to the Russians saying it's not them?
YAZAN AL-SAADI: Yeah, I'm not surprised that the Russians would take this line, just like I'm not surprised about the Western governments' line. I mean, you know, a lot of people point to the example of what happened with Iraq. And I agree that, you know, what happened with Iraq is criminal, and this idea of manufacturing evidence.
But there are two things I want to point out. Does this mean that if the U.S. was actually telling the truth and there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq—does this justify the killing of over a million Iraqis and the destruction of Iraq? Is this what people are arguing? Because that's what I'm hearing.
Secondly, the position of manufacturing or victim blaming isn't really new. All regimes, whether they are the Russians, the Syrians, the Israelis, the Saudis, the Americans, say the same thing, and they've said the same thing throughout history. A lot of people say, "Remember Iraq." I also say, "True, and I agree: Remember Iraq. And also remember things like Guernica, where the fascist government at the time, during the Spanish Civil War, completely denied what happened to Guernica, and said it was fabricated and that the anarchists and leftists were bombing and burning themselves." So, this is—this is the situation, let's all agree. And let's be frank: They are all lying in many ways to us. They are all lying.
AMY GOODMAN: You know, it's interesting you raise Guernica. The famous painting by Pablo Picasso of what happened in Guernica well over 75 years ago, the banner of a tapestry of that painting, famous painting, that is known around the world, hangs outside the U.N. Security Council. Today, the U.N. Security Council will be meeting on Syria. So, what do you think is the solution, Yazan? You are a Syrian. You have seen your country destroyed. You now—don't you have actually Russian soldiers and U.S. soldiers on the ground in Syria?
YAZAN AL-SAADI: Yeah, we have everyone on the ground. It's a buffet. So, what do I think? And I can only—and I am going to say this very clearly: I am speaking for myself; I'm not representing, you know, Syrians or Syria, because there's a whole wide range of views.
What I think I believe the solution is: accountability. I believe the only way and the only way we, as Syrians, could move on and build a sustainable—a sustainable, coherent country is to move for accountability, accountability against every crime inflicted on every Syrian body over the course of seven years. I mean, if the regime—and I know that the regime has committed crimes. They should go—they should be taken to court, and then they should be put in prison. Same thing with the armed opposition. Same thing with the Americans, who have devastated places like Raqqa. Same thing like the Russians, who have devastated places around Syria. They should all be held to account.
And the only way to do that is not resorting to the international legal, political mechanisms, because they are failing. They are dysfunctional, and they are not made to help us citizens of the world. I believe, or I think, I should say, the best thing we can do—me and you and whoever else is listening or watching—is that we need to build a movement, because the movements today, whether it's Stop the War or the so-called mainstream left, they are abysmal, and they are failing just as well, because not only are they not stopping the wars, they are reproducing narratives that are harming people on the ground in the end—no different from the neocons and the Orientalists and anyone else that are warmongers.
The solution, or the idea, in my mind, is a better discourse, as well. For example, if one says that Assad is a criminal, this does not mean automatically Western intervention. And we shouldn't think that. At the same time, Western intervention cannot be presented as the only solution to dealing with Assad. Neither are correct. Both of them are terrible. And the Syrian people, like many other communities in the world, deserve better discourse and movements. Our bodies are being devastated, just like bodies are being devastated in Iraq, in Palestine and in Yemen. And we all need help. And that requires, really, an international mobilization of people, because everything else is horrendous. Don't you think so?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Yazan, let me ask you a last question. President Trump making this decision as he is embroiled in various sex scandals, accusations of—the special counsel, Robert Mueller, is moving in on him. His lawyer's, you know, home and hotel room and offices have been raided. Apparently there are recordings of his lawyer that have also been taken by the authorities. Now, why raise this as you're dealing in Syria with a possible chemical weapons attack, the number of people killed over these years, is because this decision might not actually be made because of what's happening on the ground in Syria, but the internal politics of what's happening here in the United States and wanting to distract attention.
YAZAN AL-SAADI: That could be certainly so. I mean, whatever Trump does, he can do. But let's not forget that behind Trump is a whole system in place, right? There is—it's not just Trump. We're talking about a political military system within the United States, just like within other countries, that makes these decisions. So, I have no faith in that, and I have no faith in Trump.
And there's one thing. The tweet that Trump had—it was yesterday—where he ended that people should say "thank you" to America. You know, I have something to say, and I'm going to say it in Arabic: Kol khara, which basically means—you can tell him it means "thank you." Because, in the end, what Trump is doing and all this hullabaloo that we also hear from, let's not forget, France and the U.K., who are no better and who are embroiled in a lot of crimes and supportive of repressive regimes in the region—how can I expect them to save me? They are no different from the Russians, in my opinion, you know, in terms of—will they bring me self-determination? Are they actively working to help me and my society and our neighbors? No, they're not. Let's not forget that the three main countries that are gung-ho to start, you know, launching attacks are also—you know, the U.S., the U.K. and France—are also the three main countries that deny the rights of Syrian refugees to enter their lands. So how can I take them seriously? I cannot.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Yazan al-Saadi, I want to thank you for being with us, Syrian-Canadian writer and researcher, speaking to us from Beirut, Lebanon.
This is Democracy Now! When we come back, President Trump railed repeatedly against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. It was one of his first acts in office to pull out of any such agreement. He is now saying he wants to rejoin the TPP. We'll speak with Public Citizen's Lori Wallach. Stay with us.
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Friday, April 14, 2017

The End of Hypocrisy?


 

 

THE ABSURD TIMES

 


 


[Editor's introduction]  Since the article below was written, the specifics seem to obscure the universal or general meaning (as is the case in most analysis of contemporary events).  For example, the 9/11 fiasco of the Bush Cheney era received stark resurrection in the recent mugging and beating of a United Airlines passenger who was about to "fly the friendly skies".  Corporate forces took such advantage of the situation that freedom on the airplanes has been reduced to a strictly regimented and more importantly profitable system of "passenger control."  Protection is the lowest interest involved and profit the overwhelming one. As it turns out, with the losses incurred by United so far, it would have been far cheaper to buy Dr. Dao a private jet of his own and supply him with a pilot. 


 


Despite all the attempts to discredit him, all of which would be inadmissible in court, he remains with his present attorney a possibility of generalizing this experience to reflect on the entire domination of the individual by corporatism.  For example, one lame attempt to discredit him with a segment of the population was to claim that he said he was being discriminated against because he was Chinese.  In fact, he is Vietnamese and one of the "boat people" who fled Vietnam.  He also said that the experience was more terrifying than being lost in the ocean on a boat.  Furthermore, the discussions that he returned to the plane become simply an affirmation of the damage done by concussions, as he has no memory of that particular part of the event.  Other characterizations of Dr. Dao going back as far as ten years were publicized within two hours of the event being broadcast.




The same obtains in relations with Russia.  Although it makes sense to have good relations with Russian authorities, we first have to decide how good it is for business and profit.  Indeed, that is the only reason the presence of Rex Tillerson in Moscow may have prevented nuclear confrontation, at least costly changes in our economy. 



Recent activities in Northern Korea, while presenting a universally acceptable villain, also forced a reassessment of the Chinese manipulation of currency.  When Trump stated that perhaps the dollar was valued to high, it's value on the exchange declined steeply, almost in a perpendicular line.  The remarks have since been retracted and thus the dollar recovered somewhat, along with recent and unexpected praise of Yellen. 



The language used in our media demands careful attention.  For example, a headline announces the dropping of the largest "Non-Nuclear" bomb on Afghanistan, leaving open a plausible question: so there were larger nuclear bombs dropped on Afghanistan?  The target was given as tunnels, although about 36 terrorists were killed (fortunately no people were hurt?)  The activity will now lend credibility to ISIS or Isilanity and increase recruitment and imitation.



There was considerable amusement when the "President" said "Nobody ever knew how complicated this health care stuff was."  We are now ready for him to say "Nobody knows how complicated this foreign stuff is."]

 


The Elimination of Hypocrisy?




By

BORIS BADENOV



Trump's rule has freed us from hypocrisy.  Although the illustration above indicates the similarities of justification for the killings and attacks, and both justifications and attacks were hypocritical, to a much greater extent Trump's administration has carefully managed to emerge as the eventual triumph of the Corporate State without any moral cover.  A recent blunder by Sean Spicer comparing Assad to Hitler merely illustrated the public relations or advertising truism that any comparison to Hitler to anyone else's disadvantage is doomed to failure. 



There are, in fact, many similarities extant in the present administration, but they all seem doomed to failure as a condemnation.  All that is obvious is that the same policies continue with the exception of providing moral justification for them – they are simply good for profit and, you should believe, therefore good for the people.  That is what democracy is all about.



There is sufficient reason for this right-wing administration to eliminate the hypocrisy: the base is too stupid an uneducated to see though it.  In other words, the policies are not only intensified, but approved.  The U.S. has been bombing hospitals, apartments, and civilians for some time now.  This did not start with Trump.  However, the general base does not approve of killing civilians.  The right-wing base does.  The electoral college that was first instituted to prevent this sort of take-over was eliminated by reducing its role to that of a stamp of approval. 



The Senate filibuster that was once the refuge of racism eventually became a hindrance to ruthless corporatism and capture of the legislative branch and hence was eliminated.  The court is now firmly corporate centered.  There is a danger that some elements of the Democratic party with rise up through the electoral process despite legislative construction of voting districts, but that will eventually be addressed.  A recent election in Kansas almost had a democrat elected to the House, for example.



On the other hand, Trump may be adapting to professional politics and learning hypocrisy.  He claims, for example, that he sent those missals to attack an airbase because he felt so angry at seeing the "beautiful, itty bitty, babies" or words to that effect.  He has said that yes, he did say that NATO was outdated, but now it isn't.  Additionally, Russia originally knew about the chemicals, to it is possible that Russia might have known. 



Furthermore, as the missals landed, corporate media was exuberant, saying that "this day, Donald Trump finally became Presidential."  In other words, more of the same.  Well, further analysis of this possibility is either boring to those who get the point or useless to those who do not, and will not, so we will abandon it.



It is difficult to explicate in just so many words, but here is a longish interview that explains the key points:


As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Russia to talk about the war in Syria and other issues, we spend the hour with the longtime investigative journalist Allan Nairn. For decades, Nairn has covered the impact of U.S. foreign policy across the globe in East Timor, Guatemala, El Salvador, Indonesia and other countries. Democracy Now! spoke to Nairn on Monday, discussing the escalation of U.S. military operations across the Middle East, as well as the unique danger Trump poses both abroad and at home. We began by asking Allan Nairn about last week's U.S. attack on a Syrian air base.


TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meets with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in Russia to talk about the war in Syria and other issues, we spend the hour with the longtime investigative journalist Allan Nairn. For decades, Allan has covered the impact of U.S. foreign policy across the globe—in East Timor, Guatemala, El Salvador, Indonesia, as well as other countries. I spoke to Allan Nairn Monday, and we discussed the escalation of U.S. military operations across the Middle East, as well as the unique danger Trump poses both abroad and at home. I began by asking Allan Nairn about last week's U.S. attack on a Syrian air base.
ALLAN NAIRN: It was an attack on an old U.S. partner, old U.S. torture partner, Assad. The chemical attack was a monstrous atrocity, but it wasn't the most monstrous atrocity that was done in Syria probably that week or that month. The Assad regime routinely massacres civilians using conventional weapons. And also, the forces backed by the Gulf states and Turkey—Turkey of NATO, the Gulf States, U.S. allies—for a number of years were also using tactics that involved attacks on civilians. And some of them ended up morphing into ISIS.
This particular attack on the Syrian airfield, I don't think, is going to save any lives in Syria, in terms of its effect on the conflict. It may save Trump, to a certain extent, politically. It was mainly an act of political theater. The U.S. establishment is an organism. And that organism, in an important respect, has a temperament that is similar to that of Trump. It gets satisfaction from displays of aggression. And if you look at the press coverage, you see that this attack has made them feel good, has made them feel better about themselves as leaders of the United States establishment. But it's not saving lives in Syria. In fact, this particular U.S. attack was—was probably far—not the most deadly attack in Syria that the U.S. staged that week, that the U.S. staged last week. Although many people were calling for the U.S. to do this air attack on Syria, many apparently didn't realize that the U.S. was already bombing Syria. In Syria and in Iraq, just over the recent weeks and months, U.S. air attacks have hit mosques, schools, apartment complexes, and killed many, many hundreds of civilians, so much so that the people who monitor this, like the Airwars group, have estimated that the U.S. has now surpassed Russia in its killing of civilians by bombing raids. So, this was—this was more of a symbolic strike.
As to the deeper issue of what can be done to stop this carnage, I'm not a pacifist. I think sometimes, unfortunately, tragically, force is necessary. Even violence is necessary to prevent more violence. If there were a military action that could stop this mass slaughter in Syria, I would support it. But there isn't. Contrary to myth, most decisions regarding foreign policy are not hard. They're easy. They're easy. Don't support the murderers. Don't create a bureaucracy that, in order to survive, has to keep on killing in order to justify its own existence. But occasionally, now and then, you will get a situation where the choices are hard. And that is Syria today, because—in important part because of the inexcusable actions of various outside forces, including the U.S., Russia, Iran, the Gulf states, Turkey. Syria has reached a state of such collapse that there really is no clear, immediate way to stop, or at the moment even mitigate, the mass civilian killing. But, although it would be extremely difficult, you can imagine some steps that could be constructive—for example, getting all these various foreign powers out, stopping the influx of arms—even, on the dealmaking level, which the U.S. establishment likes and which Trump likes, even a deal between the U.S. and Russia, where, on the one hand, the U.S. agrees to stop the NATO expansion and the pressure on Russia, which is a violation of the agreement that Bush Sr. made with the Russians, in exchange for Russia cutting loose the Assad regime. Things like this could at least, perhaps, edge things in the right direction. But more airstrikes will not.
The fact that the U.S. bombed—U.S. bombs hit mosques, hit schools, hit apartment complexes, even, in some cases, hit wedding parties, such as in one famous massacre carried out by the forces of General Mattis, the Mukaradeeb wedding massacre, who's now the defense secretary, within the U.S. system—
AMY GOODMAN: In?
ALLAN NAIRN: That was in Iraq, on the border near Syria. Within the U.S. system, those killings of civilians are excused, because the U.S. was not targeting those civilians per se. They just happened to be next to the targets, so they died in the explosion. So the U.S. system says it's OK. That makes us morally different from Assad, from ISIS, from the Russians, etc. The Pentagon uses calculations, algorithms, before they make these airstrikes. They calculate how many civilians they predict will die by accident. So, in a certain sense, it's an accident. But in another sense, if you were applying domestic criminal law standards, it wouldn't be considered an accident. They could be charged with criminally negligent homicide. They could be charged with various kinds of manslaughter. And they make these calculations, and they say, "OK, if we drop this bomb, X number of people will die." It used to be, during the attack on—the Bush attack on Iraq, that the standard was somewhere in the mid-twenties. Roughly 25 civilians could be—it would be OK to do an airstrike if it would only kill roughly 25 civilians. Now the calculations have changed. One thing that Trump, with the support of General Mattis, has done is he's encouraged the Pentagon to say, "Oh, well, even if it's more than 25, no problem. We will still go ahead with this—with this airstrike." So, with those standards, some of which, by the way, were inspired by the Russian example, what the Russians call Grozny rules, just unrestrained bombing.
AMY GOODMAN: Investigative journalist Allan Nairn. We'll be back with him in a minute to talk about Iraq, Yemen, the Trump administration and more. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: "Andar Conmigo," "Walk with Me," by Raza Obrera. The group's singer, Juan Manuel, is currently imprisoned and on hunger strike with hundreds of others at the GEO Group-owned Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
The death toll from a recent U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul has risen to nearly 300 civilians, including many children. The Los Angeles Times has described the March 17th strike as among the deadliest incidents in decades of modern warfare. I asked investigative journalist Allan Nairn to talk about the airstrike in Mosul.
ALLAN NAIRN: Various U.S. defenses after that mass killing of civilians by the U.S. was reported were things like "It was an accident" or "We were targeting ISIS" or "ISIS was using civilians as human shields" or "We meant"—maybe most revealingly, "Yes, we meant to bomb the apartments, but we didn't realize that ISIS had rigged them with explosions—with explosives. So when we deliberately bombed the apartment, that touched off the explosives, and that made the killing of the residents of the apartment complex even more extensive than we had—than we had planned on." So, all those—all those defensive defenses turn on the idea that as long as you're not targeting the civilians per se, it's still permissible to kill civilians in mass.
And these are—if you go back in history, you find these justifications repeatedly. These are the same justifications that Israel used during their various assaults on Gaza, as they were bombing apartment buildings deliberately in Gaza, because, they would say, "Oh, well, yeah, we bombed that apartment building. But there was a Hamas guy in apartment 3B. Therefore it's justified." The human shield concept. Well, think of domestic police procedure. Let's say there's a hostage situation, there's a criminal. They've just robbed a store, and they've grabbed the store clerk, and they're holding them, and they're holding a gun to the clerk's head. Well, what do the police do? They don't—they're not supposed to throw a grenade and kill both the criminal and the hostage. They're supposed to seek a way that will allow the hostage to go free. But what the U.S. military doctrine does is precisely the opposite. They say, "Oh, well, yeah, all these civilians died, but it wasn't our fault, because they were being used as human shields by by our targets."
Now, these standards I just described are long-standing U.S. standards. These standards were under effect under Obama, under Bush, all the way back. But with Trump—and this is the thing to be clear about—we've entered a new era, because now those kinds of rather intricate rationales no longer—no longer really apply. Under Trump, the military and the CIA are being encouraged, first, to make their own decisions on the ground as to where and when to bomb and drone, because, under Obama, many of these decisions were run through the White House bureaucracy, and there were lawyers, Obama lawyers, actually sitting there evaluating these various bombing plans, applying the criteria I just described, the criteria that, yes, allowed the killing of civilians, but that placed certain limits on it. Now, under Trump, they're saying, "Don't worry about the limits. Don't worry about the lawyers. If you feel you need to bomb somewhere, go for it." And therefore, the only constraint on these bombings is the feelings and the doctrine of the military commanders.
And it so happens that the man at the top of the Pentagon pyramid is General Mattis, who is famous for, among other reasons, one, doing the wedding massacre I just mentioned and, two, constantly articulating a doctrine that when you're going after the bad guys, it's fun to kill. You should kill with zest. If you go online, you can see a list of famous quotes from Mattis, that, it's said, have endeared him to much of the military—and to both the Democrats and Republicans, by the way. In fact, it's interesting. During the presidential election, Mattis was invited to speak at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, and he was, for a while, the preferred presidential candidate of the "Never Trump" people, the Bill Kristol anti-Trump Republicans. So he's a consensus man of the establishment.
And Trump takes an approach that is even more unconstrained than that of Mattis. And—but we should say, in fairness, that it's not just Trump who takes that approach. During the campaign, the Republican candidates were competing with each other to see who could sound more bloodthirsty. You know, Trump was always talking about bombing the hell out of them, but it was Ted Cruz who said he was going to make the desert glow with his bombings. And, you know, each one would try to top the other. And that's where we are now.
So, this is going to give a license both to the U.S. military, also to law enforcement personnel within the United States, local police, people within ICE, people from the various police and Border Patrol unions, who in their public and political statements clearly represent, among law enforcement, the most racist, the most prone to violence, of these—of the law—the various law enforcement communities. They, plus U.S. clients overseas, in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in country after country after country after country around the world, because the U.S. has military and client relationships with more than a hundred countries around the world, depending on how you calculate it. Some could argue up to 170 countries around the world. The new message, the new U.S. guideline, is kill more, and don't worry about criticism or occasional cutbacks in your aid from the U.S., because, as the press people ecstatically said after the Syria bombing run, there's a new sheriff in town in the White House.
AMY GOODMAN: When you look at Syria, in response to what he saw on the ground in Syria, still he stands by his ban, his executive order, though judges have stopped it, that would not allow one Syrian refugee into the United States.
ALLAN NAIRN: I think it may well be true that in terms of Trump's own emotional wiring, his mental wiring, maybe, you know, he did see those disgusting, gruesome videos of the tear gas attack, and maybe he said, "OK, we've got to attack Syria." I can believe that. But I'm sure Trump also saw some other very famous images, like the one of the little boy, the refugee from the Mediterranean, face down on the shore as he had just drowned to death because the boat he was riding failed to reach shore in Europe, and countless, countless other images. And the policy response—I don't know about the emotional response of Trump, but the policy response of Trump to that drowned boy on the shores, to say, "Screw the refugees"—in fact, to make that hatred toward the refugees one of the very pillars of, A, his presidential campaign and, B, his new government.
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Since taking office, Trump has rapidly expanded U.S. military operations in Yemen. Last month, the U.S. reportedly launched more than 49 strikes across the country—more strikes than the U.S. has ever carried out in a single year in Yemen. The U.S. has also resumed some weapons sales to the Saudis, after the transfers were frozen by President Obama amid concerns about mounting civilian casualties in Yemen. For more, we speak with longtime investigative reporter Allan Nairn.


TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: With the attacks, from Syria to Mosul in Iraq to Yemen, it wasn't—what?—eight days before—after Donald Trump was inaugurated that the U.S. Navy SEAL strike happened in Yemen. Something like 25 civilians were killed, many of them children. And perhaps the reason we know about it is because a U.S. Navy SEAL was killed. That U.S. Navy SEAL's father, William Owens, refused to meet President Trump, who surprised Owens when he came to Dover Air Base with his daughter Ivanka, his son's body brought to the base. He was harshly critical of the raid. Mr. Owens said, "Why did he have to do this now, to move so quickly in his administration?" Can you talk about that first attack, if it was the first attack, and what it means to talk about these attacks as presidential initiation rites?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, first, the particulars of that attack, that attack was aimed to be targeting al-Qaeda, a local al-Qaeda affiliate. It's worth noting that in Syria many of the rebels, who the U.S. has been backing and arming and training, often conduct joint operations with al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria. And, indeed, a good number of them have joined up with al-Nusra. But on this raid, it took place in a context of a broader war and a broader assault, which on—on Yemen, on the Houthi armed rebel movement in Yemen, by Saudi Arabia. And in these raids, the Saudis are using U.S. planes. They're using U.S. bombs. There are actually U.S. personnel sitting in the Saudi Air Force headquarters, helping them with targeting. And the Saudis are systematically targeting Yemeni civilians. After one particularly egregious and especially widely reported massacre on a funeral gathering, the U.S. admonished the Saudis. They criticized them. They temporarily froze and pulled back a bit of their aid. But now, under Trump, again, it's full speed ahead with assaults on civilian targets by the Saudis in—in Yemen.
And if you look at the press, including outlets like MSNBC, various press outlets that are considered to be liberal, one of the main arguments they make is that a U.S. action is good when it pleases the Saudis. They always—there's this constant line of criticism, which has been going on for decades, criticism against U.S. presidents who are considered to be too soft at a given moment. And that criticism is: You're letting down our Middle Eastern allies, i.e. you're letting down the Saudis. The journalists will say, "I've just been in the Middle East, and I've been talking to our allies there," i.e. the Saudis, the Gulf states, "and they're very unhappy, because they think the U.S. is not showing enough credibility. We're letting them down"—i.e. the U.S. isn't being violent enough. And that's the context in which this attack on Yemen by the Special Forces took place.
As to why Trump authorized it in that way, I think a very important motivating factor, that is really underestimated by people, especially scholars, is the extent to which, when you have power, when you're the king, a lot of the motivation for violence, for war, it's not just interest. A lot of the motivation is fun, is thrill, is getting a charge out of ordering violence, and thrilling the public, exciting the courtiers around you, exciting the press around you. The recent reaction to the Syria attack is a very good example of that. I think to really understand how big powers operate, when it comes to going out and killing people, I mean, don't just study their concrete interests, like, you know, mineral exports and geopolitics. Also study Shakespeare. Study the the whims of kings, because that's what a lot of it is about. And if you look back at the debates in the campaign between Clinton and Trump, when they were talking about the violent system, they they did not disagree at all about the U.S. right to commit aggression, about the U.S. right to kill civilians. What they did disagree about was how those decisions would be made. Clinton invoked the traditional establishment criteria that I discussed before of, yes, you can bomb, but you can only kill up to 25 civilians with your bombing run. Trump invoked a different standard, saying, "I'll attack whenever the hell I feel like it." Both of them allow the killing of civilians, which is a crime.
AMY GOODMAN: And Trump saying, "I was just continuing what President Obama started"?
ALLAN NAIRN: In that sense, Trump does have a point, because it was Obama who started the support of the Saudi attack on—in Yemen and the general policy of U.S. sending—doing its own military-CIA strikes in Yemen. And, of course, U.S. support for the Saudi order and dominance in the region and for their violence goes back for many decades. And it's also the case that Clinton would probably have done this strike on the Syria airfield, just as Trump did. In fact, a day or so before, she gave an interview to The New York Times where she was recommending strikes on the Syrian airfields.
AMY GOODMAN: No, actually, the interview that Hillary Clinton did was with Nicholas Kristof, and it was in the Women in the World conference. It was several hours before the attack took place.
ALLAN NAIRN: Just hours, uh-huh.
AMY GOODMAN: And that video clip of her saying, "Why doesn't he bomb an airfield?" or "I would bomb an airfield," was played before the attack took place.
ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. In fact, come to think of it, the way Trump operates, maybe Trump saw that—if that was publicly available—
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
ALLAN NAIRN: —maybe Trump saw that clip. That's exactly the kind of thing that would set him off, say, "Oh, my god. I've got to at least match her, and maybe top her." But this gets back to the more fundamental point that it's really important to understand, which is, U.S. has this violent system, which is criminal, and it has had it for decades. It is willing to commit aggression and kill civilians in country after country after country. And all of those responsible for it should be judged by the same standards that we judge domestic killers. And by those standards, they should all be in prison, including the living U.S. presidents, including Hillary Clinton.
But Trump—now, that all said, Trump makes it even worse. Trump is bringing in a doctrine and a group of people who are in the process of and are definitely going to commit even more killings of civilians, even more aggression. And that's why it was such—one of many reasons why it was such a catastrophe that Trump and the radical-right Republicans won, because it will make it even worse. And the argument which you hear going around, especially in some circles on the left, that, "Oh, they're all bad. They're equally bad," it's insane, and it's irresponsible, given that now even more people are going to suffer as a result.
AMY GOODMAN: Award-winning investigative journalist Allan Nairn. We'll be back with him in a minute, as he talks more about his assessment of the Trump presidency. Stay with us.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, as we continue our conversation with award-winning investigative journalist Allan Nairn. I asked him to talk more about his assessment of the opening months of the Trump presidency.
ALLAN NAIRN: It's not just the Trump presidency. It's a right-wing revolution, which has captured control, up to this moment, of the presidency, the House, part of the Senate and now the Supreme Court. And if they abolish the legislative filibuster in the Senate, which they may, then they will have total, absolute control of all branches of government and will enter a radically new phase beyond anything that's happened so far, because there will be absolutely no constraints on what they can do. The only constraints could be if they trip over themselves, as they have on some occasions up to now.
Trump brought in a collection, a coalition, of broadly rightist elements—racists, neofascists, the Republican establishment, the Koch brothers, oligarchs, all sorts of elements with their own very well-defined agendas for radical change in the U.S. Now, some points of those agendas clash, so that's caused some of the problems—for example, on the repeal of Obamacare. But on 80 percent of things they agree, and they're moving forward. They've already systematically started repealing constraints on pollution, constraints on police forces, that have been—had previously been placed under federal supervision because their involvement in killing of civilians, often with racist motivations. They are moving to give Wall Street and corporations complete license to commit crimes. Under the Obama-Clinton establishment, these corporate figures, when they committed crimes, would often end up having to pay a big settlement. They'd have to pay some billions of dollars to the Justice Department. Under Trump, not only will they not be criminally prosecuted, they won't have to pay civil settlements, and they'll be encouraged to do their worst. A very effective part of Trump's campaign was saying—linking Clinton to Goldman Sachs. The Trump White House and government is stocked with Goldman Sachs people as no government ever before, even exceeding the Clinton team, which is—which is saying a lot.
On the international front, it's not as if Trump is being digested by the security establishment. It's that Trump is pushing the security establishment to become even more violent, to use cruder, less subtle tactics. Already, he has moved away from one key element of U.S. policy overseas, which is hypocrisy. The U.S. has always supported—the basic U.S. policy for decades has been, in country after country, to support the military and security forces as the primary U.S. interlocutors, but then, on top of that, to also support, when it's convenient, when there's no dangerous candidate, an elected government that can give some veneer and also some local social stability, and also, while on the one hand handing arms and training and political cover and intelligence to the armies and the security forces and the death squads, using the other hand to admonish them, saying, "Oh, that massacre you just did, using our weapons, using our training, you shouldn't have done that massacre. That was a little—little bit excessive." This is one reason why you often find resentment from U.S. clients regarding this hypocritical approach of the U.S., which is, after all, fundamentally supporting them. Trump strips away the hypocrisy. He continues to give the arms and the training and the intelligence and the political cover. But he does away with the aspect that the Obama administration, in particular, specialized in, was the hypocrisy, the criticism.
For example, when el-Sisi and the army seized power in Egypt, after two massive massacres of opponents, supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, roughly a thousand people in each massacre, John Kerry said that they had moved to implement democracy. After the army and el-Sisi seized power in Egypt and did two massacres of roughly a thousand people each, of opponents and supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, John Kerry said they had moved to implement democracy. The Obama administration continued military and intelligence aid to the el-Sisi government, but they cut some of it back, in protest of these massacres, and they made some human rights criticisms of the government.
Trump comes in, and he changes the approach. He revokes the criticisms. He fully restores and says he intends to increase the military aid, and he welcomes el-Sisi to the White House, embraces him, says they agree. And he does this, by the way, three days before he criticizes Assad, who for years worked with the CIA. The CIA would send abductees to Assad for interrogation and torture. Trump criticizes Assad and said he's going after him, and then later he does bomb Syria. But Trump welcomes el-Sisi to the White House, and giving him the message, "Go for it. The U.S. is totally behind you. We are not going to criticize you."
It's the same approach to Israel. One reason why Israel and the Netanyahu administration is so delighted with Kerry—with Trump. Obama pushed through a massive, largest-ever weapons and aid and training package for the Israeli military, as the Israeli military was in the midst of tightening the repression in the West Bank, after they had, not too long before, done a massive slaughter with their air attack on Gaza. Obama did that. But at the same time he wagged his finger at Israel on certain issues, like settlements. Trump comes in and says no more finger wagging, and, to boot, we're going to try to increase the military aid that props up the Israeli state even more, and we're going to align politically with the elements in Israel, the settler elements, who are constantly attacking and berating Netanyahu for being too soft on the Palestinians. That's who Trump's new ambassador to Israel represents. And in country—
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, David Friedman was approved. He was his bankruptcy lawyer. He now is the new U.S. ambassador to Israel. And he raised money for the settlements.
ALLAN NAIRN: And he openly aligns with the political elements in Israel who want expulsion and even more killing of the Palestinians. And this is the new Trump policy in country after country after country around the world.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, can you talk specifically about the environment? I mean, talk about the Trump Cabinet, from Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, being secretary of state, to the Oklahoma attorney general—Oklahoma, which is now rocked by earthquakes—
ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —which it never had in its past. It's this—now has become the state of fracking. But the Oklahoma attorney general, Scott Pruitt, who sued the EPA 14 times, now head of the EPA, to Governor Perry, head of the Energy Department, who sat on the board of Energy Transfer Partners, that owns the Dakota Access pipeline.
ALLAN NAIRN: Right. Well, Trump has essentially sent subversives into the Cabinet, atop the agencies, to dismantle, destroy the agencies. In the words of Steve Bannon, to—how did he put it? To deconstruct the administrative state. Gorsuch, the new Supreme Court justice put in by Trump, his mother, Anne Gorsuch, was Reagan's EPA administrator. She was one of two such Cabinet appointees sent in by Reagan to dismantle their respective departments. The other was the head of Interior. When I say "dismantle," I mean dismantle all aspects of their work and regulations that run counter to the interests of corporations and polluters and may be favorable to the interests of what are seen as liberal or Democratic interest groups. Reagan only did that with two agencies: EPA and Interior. During the—when Rick Perry ran for president, he got in trouble, because, although he was openly touting similar dismantling of various government departments, including education, unfortunately for him, he couldn't remember the whole list, so everybody laughed at him.
Now, with Trump in—and not just Trump, but Trump and the whole radical Republican rightist establishment—they're trying to do it with every department, every department that has within its mission any kind of service to the poor, service protecting the rights of working people, protecting the rights of protesters, protecting the rights of women, or that has within its work any kinds of projects or regulations that inconvenience corporations and rich oligarchs. This administration is trying to dismantle those functions of government across the board. It is systematic. It is sweeping. And Bannon is entirely right when he makes the claim that it's revolutionary. You know, he compared himself to Lenin, kind of a Lenin from the other direction, from the radical right. And it's true. They are engaged in a truly revolutionary project. And it has to be stopped.
What you might say is the good news is that history is moving in a much faster pace now. Events have speeded up. Bigger change is possible faster than it was before. So it is conceivable that if there's enough resistance from the streets, if there's enough activism within the many corners of the system where concessions can be won, especially at the state and local level, especially within the Democratic Party, that's backed up by mass disruption from below, it might be possible to reverse some of these revolutionary steps from the right, perhaps sooner than would have been the case in the slower historical conditions that prevailed before Trump.
But we're in the midst of this massive crisis. And, you know, the damage assessment is months from coming in. We have just seen a tiny fraction now of the people in this country and overseas who are going to die preventable deaths as a result. For example, they're going after programs run by the Agriculture Department and others that feed hungry kids in the United States. They want to kill them. They're also going after programs in the U.S. foreign aid budget that feed starving people overseas. Now, the U.S. government does lots of bad things, but it's also the case that the U.S. still is, to a certain extent, a democracy. And over years and years of struggle, activists have won certain concessions. And there are thousands upon thousands of passages in laws and programs within government that are the result not of corporate dictates, but of pressure from below, pressure from racial justice and labor and human rights and women's rights activists, consumer rights, environmental justice. There have been victories won over the years, very hard-fought. And lots of these are put into legislation. They're put into the functions of departments. And what Trump and the Republican coalition are trying to do is rip them out systematically, dismantle them systematically. And that's what's underway now. And many, many thousands of extra people will die in the U.S. and overseas as a result.
AMY GOODMAN: You have an enormous irony, where here you have President Trump accusing the Obama administration, President Obama himself, of surveilling him, of wiretapping him, yet, at the same time, in Congress, they roll back privacy protections, the whole internet privacy act that has now been written into law. Can you talk about the significance of this, which would seem to join right and left?
ALLAN NAIRN: Yeah. I'm actually a little surprised that the—what I guess is the—maybe the majority of the population, or at least the majority of younger people in the United States, who essentially live their lives online, are not completely up in arms about this, are not storming Washington about this, because what they've done is they've made it easier for online private, profit-making corporations to sell the most intimate details of your life. You'd think people would object to that.
But what it also shows is that much of this new government's agenda is strictly corporate. Strictly corporate. Now, the Democratic Party is, of course, also dominated, at its elite level, by corporations and the rich, but the Democratic Party also has as its base all sorts of working and poor and activist constituencies that are against those corporate interests and the rich. And they fight it out. And the outcome of those fights is Democratic policy. In the new order, with this Trump Republican administration, it is straight corporate. And the only resistance that those corporations get is if some aspect of their agenda happens to clash with, impinge on the program of, say, the racists or the neofascists or a rival corporate faction. For example, the Kochs have disagreements with other oligarchs on various issues. But those are the only constraints on corporations. There is absolutely no constraint within this new Republican governing coalition from working people or poor people, even though Trump is making a big play to working people by addressing, in a way that the Democrats should have, but they never did, the realities that the U.S. working class has been gutted by the decades upon decades of bipartisan neoliberalism that was embraced by Obama and Clinton.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, can you talk about Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, their position in the White House, what they represent, the talk of the infighting between them and Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law?
ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Bannon comes from Goldman Sachs. Miller comes from the most openly racist part of the anti-immigrant movement, and after that, from the office of then senator, now attorney general, Jeff Sessions, one of the most openly racist—racist politicians in Washington. I was actually a little—I've actually been a little surprised that Bannon has lasted this long, not for any political reason, but just because a few weeks back they put him on the cover of Time magazine, and they started talking about him as the real president, and you wouldn't think Trump would tolerate that kind of thing. Whether he stays or goes matters in a certain sense, because he's obviously a very powerful adviser, but all it really matters for is the balance of the competing radical-rightist interests within the administration. So, for example, if the Bannon and the neofascist, racist people are edged aside a bit, maybe that means more power for the Koch brothers' philosophy. Or maybe that means more power for the mainstream Goldman Sachs philosophy. Or maybe that means more power for the radical, intolerant religious right faction. Or maybe that means more powerful for whichever company or foreign interest made the biggest indirect payoff to Trump and his family that particular week. Whatever.
But the point is—the larger point is that that's what this administration, and this Republican group that now controls Congress, consists of. All of these radical factions that mean increased suffering and increased death for the majority of people in this country and overseas, they are now in there. They are now inhabiting the state. And they sometimes clash among themselves. But whoever wins those internal clashes, the loser is poor people, working people, people who are targets of discrimination. And also, another loser is the chance to reverse these radical changes they're making, because they're—they're very strategic. They're trying to set it in stone. And now with a majority on the Supreme Court and perhaps the impending lifting of the legislative filibuster in the Senate, they will have the power to set it in stone, and a near absolute power within the federal establishment system.
AMY GOODMAN: Longtime, award-winning investigative journalist Allan Nairn has won many of the top honors in journalism, including the George Polk Award for his coverage of Haiti, as well as the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting for his coverage of East Timor, as well as the duPont-Columbia Award. He's written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Nation, the New Republic, The Progressive. To see his conversation with Julian Assange on Democracy Now!, go to our website, democracynow.org.
And that does it for our show. We begin the Democracy Now! "Covering the Movements Changing America" tour Sunday, April 23rd, when I'll be speaking in Princeton, New Jersey, then on Monday, April 24th, at Wesleyan College in Middletown, Connecticut. That evening, I'll be conducting a public interview with Noam Chomsky in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then we're on to New Haven, Connecticut; South Hadley, Massachusetts; then to Vermont from April 26th to 29th. We'll stop in Middlebury, Montpelier, Bennington, Burlington. And then we'll be going on to Washington, D.C.; Raleigh, North Carolina; Miami, Florida; Tampa, Florida; and beyond. Go to Democracy Now! to see our 60-cities-in-30-days tour at democracynow.org.
A very happy birthday to Anna Özbek!
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