The Republican Mind -- and Chomsky

I can't now think of a more frightening thing, but first:

Illustration: Keith Tucker's vision of the Republican approach to healthcare.  His site is at Http://www.whatnowtoons.com.  If you haven't visited it for a while, you are in for a treat.  Also an endorsement from Greg Palast!

So, one suggestion is that we go back to the barter system and giving the doctor a chicken is one of the suggestions some broad down south, deep in inbreedingland, made in her bid to become a Senator, I think.

Now really, she repeated it several times so there would be no mistake. 

I got to wondering about this.  Suppose you needed an operation and you made a deal with the surgeon, anesthesiologist, hospital, nurses, etc., and sent them chickens in advance.  Then, on the operating table, the doctor says "Those chickens you sent me all have the flu."  What are you going to say?

"Bullshit, you made the deal.  Now cut me up!"

"OK, gimme my scaple."

No, I just don't see it working.

Now really, Obama is craping out all over the place and these Republicans are acting like such laughable morons that he looks good!  He talks about a united Jerusalem, so Zionists protest him!  Is it time for Jews for Jesus to make a comeback?  Universities are considering divesting.

There is a senate bill, passed out of committee with some Republican support, but debate, amendments, etc., was filibustered by Republicans because the bill needed debate.  Now, that is what they say -- I'm reporting, you decide.  It is designed to stop bailouts like Georgie left us.  That's 102 filibusters so far -- more than double the previous record. 

ABC, the Micky Mouse network, got some "footage" of the underwear bomber practicing in Yemen, prior to his bombing attempt.  Nothing like having a scoop, eh?

Arizona's law encourages any resident to bring charges against any state official for NOT stopping someone who looks funny.  I only wish the law targeted those who think funny, or not at all.  I am anticipating boycotts by Major League Baseball as the Hispanic players are obviously not welcome there, and perhaps all the teams should refuse to play there.  Football teams as well.

Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are considered as "adding glamor" to the GOP, rhymes with POP.  Then they say something.  Anyway, I think they look more ugly every day.

The Senate is holding hearing on Wall-Street practices.  As Republicans can not discuss bad banking practices as the SEC executives need to see pornography on taxpayer-funded computers.  "Shitty" was a favorite word during the hearings on the Wall Street practices.

Obviously, I'm kind of loosing interest in this stupidity, so instead, here is Noam Chomsky and an excerpt from his latest book, courtesy of Tomgram of Nation:

Tomgram: Noam Chomsky, Eyeless in Gaza By Noam Chomsky Posted on April 27, 2010, Printed on April 27, 2010 http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175239/ [Note for TomDispatch Readers: I’m away on vacation this week and largely off the grid, so don’t expect answers to emails or requests until the first week of May.  In the meantime, here’s an excerpt adapted -- with a new TomDispatch beginning by the author -- from Noam Chomsky’s latest work, his must-read Hopes and Prospects, which can be preordered today, even as it wings its way toward local bookstores and Amazon.  The book is a deep dive into the bone-chilling waters of the first years of the twenty-first century, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In such phenomena as the democratic wave that has swept Latin America, however, Chomsky does see hope for our collective future -- and even on the subject of Gaza and the Palestinians, he sees possibilities, long blocked unfortunately by Washington and Tel Aviv.  He is, as always, a man to contend with.  Tom] A Middle East Peace That Could Happen (But Won’t) In Washington-Speak, “Palestinian State” Means “Fried Chicken” By Noam Chomsky The fact that the Israel-Palestine conflict grinds on without resolution might appear to be rather strange.  For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement.  In this case, it is not only possible, but there is near universal agreement on its basic contours: a two-state settlement along the internationally recognized (pre-June 1967) borders -- with “minor and mutual modifications,” to adopt official U.S. terminology before Washington departed from the international community in the mid-1970s. The basic principles have been accepted by virtually the entire world, including the Arab states (who go on to call for full normalization of relations), the Organization of Islamic States (including Iran), and relevant non-state actors (including Hamas).  A settlement along these lines was first proposed at the U.N. Security Council in January 1976 by the major Arab states.  Israel refused to attend the session.  The U.S. vetoed the resolution, and did so again in 1980.  The record at the General Assembly since is similar. There was one important and revealing break in U.S.-Israeli rejectionism.  After the failed Camp David agreements in 2000, President Clinton recognized that the terms he and Israel had proposed were unacceptable to any Palestinians.  That December, he proposed his “parameters”: imprecise, but more forthcoming.  He then stated that both sides had accepted the parameters, while expressing reservations. Israeli and Palestinian negotiators met in Taba, Egypt, in January 2001 to resolve the differences and were making considerable progress.  In their final press conference, they reported that, with a little more time, they could probably have reached full agreement.  Israel called off the negotiations prematurely, however, and official progress then terminated, though informal discussions at a high level continued leading to the Geneva Accord, rejected by Israel and ignored by the U.S. A good deal has happened since, but a settlement along those lines is still not out of reach -- if, of course, Washington is once again willing to accept it.  Unfortunately, there is little sign of that. Substantial mythology has been created about the entire record, but the basic facts are clear enough and quite well documented. The U.S. and Israel have been acting in tandem to extend and deepen the occupation.  In 2005, recognizing that it was pointless to subsidize a few thousand Israeli settlers in Gaza, who were appropriating substantial resources and protected by a large part of the Israeli army, the government of Ariel Sharon decided to move them to the much more valuable West Bank and Golan Heights. Instead of carrying out the operation straightforwardly, as would have been easy enough, the government decided to stage a “national trauma,” which virtually duplicated the farce accompanying the withdrawal from the Sinai desert after the Camp David agreements of 1978-79.  In each case, the withdrawal permitted the cry of “Never Again,” which meant in practice: we cannot abandon an inch of the Palestinian territories that we want to take in violation of international law.  This farce played very well in the West, though it was ridiculed by more astute Israeli commentators, among them that country’s prominent sociologist the late Baruch Kimmerling. After its formal withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Israel never actually relinquished its total control over the territory, often described realistically as “the world’s largest prison.”  In January 2006, a few months after the withdrawal, Palestine had an election that was recognized as free and fair by international observers.  Palestinians, however, voted “the wrong way,” electing Hamas.  Instantly, the U.S. and Israel intensified their assault against Gazans as punishment for this misdeed.  The facts and the reasoning were not concealed; rather, they were openly published alongside reverential commentary on Washington’s sincere dedication to democracy.  The U.S.-backed Israeli assault against the Gazans has only been intensified since, thanks to violence and economic strangulation, increasingly savage. Meanwhile in the West Bank, always with firm U.S. backing, Israel has been carrying forward longstanding programs to take the valuable land and resources of the Palestinians and leave them in unviable cantons, mostly out of sight.  Israeli commentators frankly refer to these goals as “neocolonial.” Ariel Sharon, the main architect of the settlement programs, called these cantons “Bantustans,” though the term is misleading: South Africa needed the majority black work force, while Israel would be happy if the Palestinians disappeared, and its policies are directed to that end. Blockading Gaza by Land and Sea One step towards cantonization and the undermining of hopes for Palestinian national survival is the separation of Gaza from the West Bank.  These hopes have been almost entirely consigned to oblivion, an atrocity to which we should not contribute by tacit consent. Israeli journalist Amira Hass, one of the leading specialists on Gaza, writes that “the restrictions on Palestinian movement that Israel introduced in January 1991 reversed a process that had been initiated in June 1967. Back then, and for the first time since 1948, a large portion of the Palestinian people again lived in the open territory of a single country -- to be sure, one that was occupied, but was nevertheless whole.… The total separation of the Gaza Strip from the West Bank is one of the greatest achievements of Israeli politics, whose overarching objective is to prevent a solution based on international decisions and understandings and instead dictate an arrangement based on Israel’s military superiority.… “Since January 1991, Israel has bureaucratically and logistically merely perfected the split and the separation: not only between Palestinians in the occupied territories and their brothers in Israel, but also between the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem and those in the rest of the territories and between Gazans and West Bankers/Jerusalemites. Jews live in this same piece of land within a superior and separate system of privileges, laws, services, physical infrastructure and freedom of movement.” The leading academic specialist on Gaza, Harvard scholar Sara Roy, adds: “Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers.… Gaza’s subjection began long before Israel’s recent war against it [December 2008]. The Israeli occupation — now largely forgotten or denied by the international community — has devastated Gaza’s economy and people, especially since 2006…. After Israel’s December [2008] assault, Gaza’s already compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible. “In Gaza today, there is no private sector to speak of and no industry. 80 percent of Gaza’s agricultural crops were destroyed and Israel continues to snipe at farmers attempting to plant and tend fields near the well-fenced and patrolled border. Most productive activity has been extinguished.… Today, 96 percent of Gaza’s population of 1.4 million is dependent on humanitarian aid for basic needs. According to the World Food Programme, the Gaza Strip requires a minimum of 400 trucks of food every day just to meet the basic nutritional needs of the population. Yet, despite a March [22, 2009] decision by the Israeli cabinet to lift all restrictions on foodstuffs entering Gaza, only 653 trucks of food and other supplies were allowed entry during the week of May 10, at best meeting 23 percent of required need. Israel now allows only 30 to 40 commercial items to enter Gaza compared to 4,000 approved products prior to June 2006.” It cannot be too often stressed that Israel had no credible pretext for its 2008–9 attack on Gaza, with full U.S. support and illegally using U.S. weapons. Near-universal opinion asserts the contrary, claiming that Israel was acting in self-defense. That is utterly unsustainable, in light of Israel’s flat rejection of peaceful means that were readily available, as Israel and its U.S. partner in crime knew very well. That aside, Israel’s siege of Gaza is itself an act of war, as Israel of all countries certainly recognizes, having repeatedly justified launching major wars on grounds of partial restrictions on its access to the outside world, though nothing remotely like what it has long imposed on Gaza. One crucial element of Israel’s criminal siege, little reported, is the naval blockade. Peter Beaumont reports from Gaza that, “on its coastal littoral, Gaza’s limitations are marked by a different fence where the bars are Israeli gunboats with their huge wakes, scurrying beyond the Palestinian fishing boats and preventing them from going outside a zone imposed by the warships.” According to reports from the scene, the naval siege has been tightened steadily since 2000. Fishing boats have been driven steadily out of Gaza’s territorial waters and toward the shore by Israeli gunboats, often violently without warning and with many casualties. As a result of these naval actions, Gaza’s fishing industry has virtually collapsed; fishing is impossible near shore because of the contamination caused by Israel’s regular attacks, including the destruction of power plants and sewage facilities. These Israeli naval attacks began shortly after the discovery by the BG (British Gas) Group of what appear to be quite sizeable natural gas fields in Gaza’s territorial waters. Industry journals report that Israel is already appropriating these Gazan resources for its own use, part of its commitment to shift its economy to natural gas. The standard industry source reports: “Israel’s finance ministry has given the Israel Electric Corp. (IEC) approval to purchase larger quantities of natural gas from BG than originally agreed upon, according to Israeli government sources [which] said the state-owned utility would be able to negotiate for as much as 1.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the Marine field located off the Mediterranean coast of the Palestinian controlled Gaza Strip. “Last year the Israeli government approved the purchase of 800 million cubic meters of gas from the field by the IEC…. Recently the Israeli government changed its policy and decided the state-owned utility could buy the entire quantity of gas from the Gaza Marine field. Previously the government had said the IEC could buy half the total amount and the remainder would be bought by private power producers.” The pillage of what could become a major source of income for Gaza is surely known to U.S. authorities. It is only reasonable to suppose that the intention to appropriate these limited resources, either by Israel alone or together with the collaborationist Palestinian Authority, is the motive for preventing Gazan fishing boats from entering Gaza’s territorial waters. There are some instructive precedents. In 1989, Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans signed a treaty with his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas granting Australia rights to the substantial oil reserves in “the Indonesian Province of East Timor.” The Indonesia-Australia Timor Gap Treaty, which offered not a crumb to the people whose oil was being stolen, “is the only legal agreement anywhere in the world that effectively recognises Indonesia’s right to rule East Timor,” the Australian press reported. Asked about his willingness to recognize the Indonesian conquest and to rob the sole resource of the conquered territory, which had been subjected to near-genocidal slaughter by the Indonesian invader with the strong support of Australia (along with the U.S., the U.K., and some others), Evans explained that “there is no binding legal obligation not to recognise the acquisition of territory that was acquired by force,” adding that “the world is a pretty unfair place, littered with examples of acquisition by force.” It should, then, be unproblematic for Israel to follow suit in Gaza. A few years later, Evans became the leading figure in the campaign to introduce the concept “responsibility to protect” -- known as R2P -- into international law. R2P is intended to establish an international obligation to protect populations from grave crimes. Evans is the author of a major book on the subject and was co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which issued what is considered the basic document on R2P. In an article devoted to this “idealistic effort to establish a new humanitarian principle,” the London Economist featured Evans and his “bold but passionate claim on behalf of a three-word expression which (in quite large part thanks to his efforts) now belongs to the language of diplomacy: the ‘responsibility to protect.’” The article is accompanied by a picture of Evans with the caption “Evans: a lifelong passion to protect.” His hand is pressed to his forehead in despair over the difficulties faced by his idealistic effort. The journal chose not to run a different photo that circulates in Australia, depicting Evans and Alatas exuberantly clasping their hands together as they toast the Timor Gap Treaty that they had just signed. Though a “protected population” under international law, Gazans do not fall under the jurisdiction of the “responsibility to protect,” joining other unfortunates, in accord with the maxim of Thucydides -- that the strong do as they wish, and the weak suffer as they must -- which holds with its customary precision. Obama and the Settlements The kinds of restrictions on movement used to destroy Gaza have long been in force in the West Bank as well, less cruelly but with grim effects on life and the economy. The World Bank reports that Israel has established “a complex closure regime that restricts Palestinian access to large areas of the West Bank… The Palestinian economy has remained stagnant, largely because of the sharp downturn in Gaza and Israel’s continued restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement in the West Bank.” The World Bank “cited Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints hindering trade and travel, as well as restrictions on Palestinian building in the West Bank, where the Western-backed government of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas holds sway.” Israel does permit -- indeed encourage -- a privileged existence for elites in Ramallah and sometimes elsewhere, largely relying on European funding, a traditional feature of colonial and neocolonial practice. All of this constitutes what Israeli activist Jeff Halper calls a “matrix of control” to subdue the colonized population. These systematic programs over more than 40 years aim to establish Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s recommendation to his colleagues shortly after Israel’s 1967 conquests that we must tell the Palestinians in the territories: “We have no solution, you shall continue to live like dogs, and whoever wishes may leave, and we will see where this process leads.” Turning to the second bone of contention, settlements, there is indeed a confrontation, but it is rather less dramatic than portrayed. Washington’s position was presented most strongly in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s much-quoted statement rejecting “natural growth exceptions” to the policy opposing new settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with President Shimon Peres and, in fact, virtually the whole Israeli political spectrum, insists on permitting “natural growth” within the areas that Israel intends to annex, complaining that the United States is backing down on George W. Bush’s authorization of such expansion within his “vision” of a Palestinian state. Senior Netanyahu cabinet members have gone further. Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz announced that “the current Israeli government will not accept in any way the freezing of legal settlement activity in Judea and Samaria.” The term “legal” in U.S.-Israeli parlance means “illegal, but authorized by the government of Israel with a wink from Washington.” In this usage, unauthorized outposts are termed “illegal,” though apart from the dictates of the powerful, they are no more illegal than the settlements granted to Israel under Bush’s “vision” and Obama’s scrupulous omission. The Obama-Clinton “hardball” formulation is not new. It repeats the wording of the Bush administration draft of the 2003 Road Map, which stipulates that in Phase I, “Israel freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).” All sides formally accept the Road Map (modified to drop the phrase “natural growth”) -- consistently overlooking the fact that Israel, with U.S. support, at once added 14 “reservations” that render it inoperable. If Obama were at all serious about opposing settlement expansion, he could easily proceed with concrete measures by, for example, reducing U.S. aid by the amount devoted to this purpose. That would hardly be a radical or courageous move. The Bush I administration did so (reducing loan guarantees), but after the Oslo accord in 1993, President Clinton left calculations to the government of Israel. Unsurprisingly, there was “no change in the expenditures flowing to the settlements,” the Israeli press reported. “[Prime Minister] Rabin will continue not to dry out the settlements,” the report concludes. “And the Americans? They will understand.” Obama administration officials informed the press that the Bush I measures are “not under discussion,” and that pressures will be “largely symbolic.” In short, Obama understands, just as Clinton and Bush II did. American Visionaries At best, settlement expansion is a side issue, rather like the issue of “illegal outposts” -- namely those that the government of Israel has not authorized. Concentration on these issues diverts attention from the fact that there are no “legal outposts” and that it is the existing settlements that are the primary problem to be faced. The U.S. press reports that “a partial freeze has been in place for several years, but settlers have found ways around the strictures… [C]onstruction in the settlements has slowed but never stopped, continuing at an annual rate of about 1,500 to 2,000 units over the past three years. If building continues at the 2008 rate, the 46,500 units already approved will be completed in about 20 years.… If Israel built all the housing units already approved in the nation’s overall master plan for settlements, it would almost double the number of settler homes in the West Bank.” Peace Now, which monitors settlement activities, estimates further that the two largest settlements would double in size: Ariel and Ma’aleh Adumim, built mainly during the Oslo years in the salients that subdivide the West Bank into cantons. “Natural population growth” is largely a myth, Israel’s leading diplomatic correspondent, Akiva Eldar, points out, citing demographic studies by Colonel (res.) Shaul Arieli, deputy military secretary to former prime minister and incumbent defense minister Ehud Barak. Settlement growth consists largely of Israeli immigrants in violation of the Geneva Conventions, assisted with generous subsidies. Much of it is in direct violation of formal government decisions, but carried out with the authorization of the government, specifically Barak, considered a dove in the Israeli spectrum. Correspondent Jackson Diehl derides the “long-dormant Palestinian fantasy,” revived by President Abbas, “that the United States will simply force Israel to make critical concessions, whether or not its democratic government agrees.” He does not explain why refusal to participate in Israel’s illegal expansion -- which, if serious, would “force Israel to make critical concessions” -- would be improper interference in Israel’s democracy. Returning to reality, all of these discussions about settlement expansion evade the most crucial issue about settlements: what the United States and Israel have already established in the West Bank. The evasion tacitly concedes that the illegal settlement programs already in place are somehow acceptable (putting aside the Golan Heights, annexed in violation of Security Council orders) -- though the Bush “vision,” apparently accepted by Obama, moves from tacit to explicit support for these violations of law. What is in place already suffices to ensure that there can be no viable Palestinian self-determination. Hence, there is every indication that even on the unlikely assumption that “natural growth” will be ended, U.S.-Israeli rejectionism will persist, blocking the international consensus as before. Subsequently, Prime Minister Netanyahu declared a 10-month suspension of new construction, with many exemptions, and entirely excluding Greater Jerusalem, where expropriation in Arab areas and construction for Jewish settlers continues at a rapid pace. Hillary Clinton praised these “unprecedented” concessions on (illegal) construction, eliciting anger and ridicule in much of the world. It might be different if a legitimate “land swap” were under consideration, a solution approached at Taba and spelled out more fully in the Geneva Accord reached in informal high-level Israel-Palestine negotiations. The accord was presented in Geneva in October 2003, welcomed by much of the world, rejected by Israel, and ignored by the United States. Washington’s “Evenhandedness” Barack Obama’s June 4, 2009, Cairo address to the Muslim world kept pretty much to his well-honed “blank slate” style -- with little of substance, but presented in a personable manner that allows listeners to write on the slate what they want to hear. CNN captured its spirit in headlining a report “Obama Looks to Reach the Soul of the Muslim World.” Obama had announced the goals of his address in an interview with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. “‘We have a joke around the White House,’ the president said. ‘We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East.’” The White House commitment is most welcome, but it is useful to see how it translates into practice. Obama admonished his audience that it is easy to “point fingers… but if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.” Turning from Obama-Friedman Truth to truth, there is a third side, with a decisive role throughout: the United States. But that participant in the conflict Obama omitted. The omission is understood to be normal and appropriate, hence unmentioned: Friedman’s column is headlined “Obama Speech Aimed at Both Arabs and Israelis.” The front-page Wall Street Journal report on Obama’s speech appears under the heading “Obama Chides Israel, Arabs in His Overture to Muslims.” Other reports are the same. The convention is understandable on the doctrinal principle that though the U.S. government sometimes makes mistakes, its intentions are by definition benign, even noble. In the world of attractive imagery, Washington has always sought desperately to be an honest broker, yearning to advance peace and justice. The doctrine trumps truth, of which there is little hint in the speech or the mainstream coverage of it. Obama once again echoed Bush’s “vision” of two states, without saying what he meant by the phrase “Palestinian state.” His intentions were clarified not only by the crucial omissions already discussed, but also by his one explicit criticism of Israel: “The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.” That is, Israel should live up to Phase I of the 2003 Road Map, rejected at once by Israel with tacit U.S. support, as noted -- though the truth is that Obama has ruled out even steps of the Bush I variety to withdraw from participation in these crimes. The operative words are “legitimacy” and “continued.” By omission, Obama indicates that he accepts Bush’s vision: the vast existing settlement and infrastructure projects are “legitimate,” thus ensuring that the phrase “Palestinian state” means “fried chicken.” Always even-handed, Obama also had an admonition for the Arab states: they “must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities.” Plainly, however, it cannot be a meaningful “beginning” if Obama continues to reject its core principles: implementation of the international consensus. To do so, however, is evidently not Washington’s “responsibility” in Obama’s vision; no explanation given, no notice taken. On democracy, Obama said that “we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election” -- as in January 2006, when Washington picked the outcome with a vengeance, turning at once to severe punishment of the Palestinians because it did not like the outcome of a peaceful election, all with Obama’s apparent approval judging by his words before, and actions since, taking office. Obama politely refrained from comment about his host, President Mubarak, one of the most brutal dictators in the region, though he has had some illuminating words about him. As he was about to board a plane to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the two “moderate” Arab states, “Mr. Obama signaled that while he would mention American concerns about human rights in Egypt, he would not challenge Mr. Mubarak too sharply, because he is a ‘force for stability and good’ in the Middle East… Mr. Obama said he did not regard Mr. Mubarak as an authoritarian leader. ‘No, I tend not to use labels for folks,’ Mr. Obama said. The president noted that there had been criticism ‘of the manner in which politics operates in Egypt,’ but he also said that Mr. Mubarak had been ‘a stalwart ally, in many respects, to the United States.’” When a politician uses the word “folks,” we should brace ourselves for the deceit, or worse, that is coming. Outside of this context, there are “people,” or often “villains,” and using labels for them is highly meritorious. Obama is right, however, not to have used the word “authoritarian,” which is far too mild a label for his friend. Just as in the past, support for democracy, and for human rights as well, keeps to the pattern that scholarship has repeatedly discovered, correlating closely with strategic and economic objectives. There should be little difficulty in understanding why those whose eyes are not closed tight shut by rigid doctrine dismiss Obama’s yearning for human rights and democracy as a joke in bad taste. Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of numerous books, including the New York Times bestsellers Hegemony or Survival and Failed States. His newest book, Hopes and Prospects, is out this week from Haymarket Books. [Note:  All material in this piece is sourced and footnoted in Noam Chomsky’s new book Hopes and Prospects.] Copyright 2010 Noam Chomsky © 2010 TomDispatch. All rights reserved. View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175239/

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal

This is available in audio or video as well, link is on the left column for headlines.  It has some information that too many people have no concept of.  One reason, as pointed out, is that we have a deal doing back to the Nixon era that Israel never admit to having these things.  We all know about Nixon's great contributions to humanity.


SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: President Obama concluded an international summit on nuclear security in Washington, DC Tuesday after securing pledges from dozens of nations to eliminate or safeguard all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years. The final statement from the forty-seven-nation summit agreed on a voluntary action plan to combat nuclear terrorism and promised greater efforts to block non-state actors from obtaining the building blocks for nuclear weapons. But the final communiqué glossed over whether to continue making weapons-grade uranium and plutonium and came up with no legally binding commitments or any mechanism to enforce the measures. In his closing remarks Tuesday, President Obama called for a, quote, “bold and pragmatic” effort and highlighted the, quote, "urgency” and seriousness of the threat posed by nuclear terrorism.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today we are declaring that nuclear terrorism is one of the most challenging threats to international security. We also agree that the most effective way to prevent terrorists and criminals from acquiring nuclear materials is through strong nuclear security, protecting nuclear materials and preventing nuclear smuggling.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: The two-day meeting is the largest international gathering hosted by an American administration since 1945. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided not to attend at the last minute, and Iran, Syria and North Korea were not invited to the summit.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on the nuclear security summit, we’re joined by John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University. He’s the author of Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda and the book Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. He joins us from Columbus, Ohio.

We welcome you to Democracy Now! Professor, lay out your criticism of what took place, this largest gathering of world leaders held by the United States since FDR.

JOHN MUELLER: Well, much of it, I think, is fine. Locking up fissile material, the uranium and plutonium, is certainly a worthy objective. But what I object to is sort of this sense that there’s this huge urgency. Terrorists are extraordinarily unlikely to be able to get a nuclear weapon, and certainly not in any time soon. As far as I can see, it’s about the same likelihood as the United States being hit by an asteroid, something like that, maybe one in three-and-a-half billion, to put it together. It’s very difficult.

So—and I’m also concerned about the general hype over nuclear weapons, and I’m afraid that’s going to be focused increasingly on Iran, in which, in order to worry about a worst-case fantasy in which Iran would somehow dominate the Middle East with the occasional nuclear weapon, we would launch military strikes which would kill tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, the same policy, of course, which was applied to Iraq in the ’90s and now in this century.

AMY GOODMAN: But Professor Mueller, why is it so hard for groups to get so-called “loose” nukes?

JOHN MUELLER: Well, mainly because they don’t exist. No one has really been able to find anything that’s a loose nuke. If you did actually buy or sell—buy or steal a nuclear weapon, what you’d find is that it’s got a lot of locks on it, and there’s very few people who know how to unlock it. In the case of Pakistan, for example, they keep their weapons in pieces, so you’d have to steal or buy one half, find—go to another secure location and buy or steal the other half, somehow know how to put tab A into slot B, and set it off. The number of people—as I say, the number of people who know how to set them off is very small. The people who designed them are not—do not know how to set them off. And the people who maintain them do not know how to set them off. So just getting the bombs—and they also have locks on them which will, if tampered with, will cause a conventional explosion, which will cause the weapon itself to self-destruct, effectively, in a conventional explosion. So the danger is extraordinarily small, it seems to me.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And John Mueller, you also say that terrorists exhibit only a limited desire to obtain these nuclear weapons, which goes contrary to what most intelligence reports are telling us. Why do you say that?

JOHN MUELLER: Well, I looked at those intelligence reports, and, of course, Obama said the same thing. The indication of interest is extraordinarily small. There is some interest. They sort of think about it. They have thought about it from time to time. But, for example, in Afghanistan, when there were some hotheads among al-Qaeda who wanted to develop weapons of mass destruction, mostly like chemical weapons, which actually aren’t weapons of mass destruction, bin Laden basically approved it but didn’t put any money into it. When they were—when they left Afghanistan after the invasion in 2001, we got a computer which indicated that their entire budget for weapons of mass destruction, mainly primitive work on chemical weapons, was about $2,000. And since that time, they certainly haven’t been in better position. There’s no indication they have anything resembling a competent technology team that could put anything together, maybe not even chemical weapons, much less nuclear ones.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, I want to turn to what President Obama had to say at yesterday’s news conference when he was asked about Israel’s nuclear program. He was questioned by Scott Wilson of the Washington Post.

SCOTT WILSON: You have spoken often about the need to bring US policy in line with its treaty obligations internationally to eliminate the perception of hypocrisy that some of the world sees— PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Right. SCOTT WILSON: —toward the United States and its allies. In that spirit and in that venue, will you call on Israel to declare its nuclear program and sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty? And if not, why wouldn’t other countries see that as an incentive not to sign onto the treaty that you say is important to strengthen? PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, Scott, initially you were talking about US behavior, and then suddenly we’re talking about Israel. Let me talk about the United States. I do think that as part of the NPT, our obligation as the largest nuclear power in the world is to take steps to reducing our nuclear stockpile, and that’s what the START treaty was about, sending a message that we are going to meet our obligations. And as far as Israel goes, I’m not going to comment on their program. What I am going to point to is the fact that consistently we have urged all countries to become members of the NPT. So there’s no contradiction there.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: That was President Obama speaking yesterday at the news conference. Well, last year, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas pressed Obama on nuclear weapons in the Middle East in a clear reference to Israel. The President tried to ignore that part of her question.

HELEN THOMAS: Mr. President, do you think that Pakistan and—are maintaining the safe havens in Afghanistan for these so-called terrorists? And also, do you know of any country in the Middle East that has nuclear weapons? PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, I think that Pakistan—there is no doubt that in the FATA region of Pakistan, in the mountainous regions along the border of Afghanistan, that there are safe havens where terrorists are operating. And one of the goals of Ambassador Holbrooke, as he is traveling throughout the region, is to deliver a message to Pakistan that they are endangered as much as we are by the continuation of those operations and that we’ve got to work in a regional fashion to root out those safe havens. With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don’t want to speculate. What I know is this: that if we see a nuclear arms race in a region as volatile as the Middle East, everybody will be in danger. And one of my goals is to prevent nuclear proliferation generally. I think that it’s important for the United States, in concert with Russia, to lead the way on this.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, in addition to John Mueller, we’re also joined from Washington, DC by author and activist John Steinbach, who just wrote a paper on Israel’s nuclear weapons program, published by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, John Steinbach. Can you talk about what President Obama has said in those two clips we just played and your paper on Israel’s nuclear weapons program?

JOHN STEINBACH: Yes. Good morning.

Well, we need to go all the way back to the early 1970s, when it became obvious that Israel had a nuclear weapons program and, in fact, by then had perhaps a dozen nuclear weapons. It became a difficult political situation, and Nixon met with Prime Minister Golda Meir, and they made a deal. And the deal was that the United States would stop pressing Israel about its nuclear weapons program, and in return, that Israel would never acknowledge publicly that it had nuclear weapons. So this policy has continued to this very day. And when Obama talks about Israel’s—not wanting to speculate about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, everybody knows that this is—that Israel has a large nuclear arsenal. Hans Blix last year said everybody knows Israel has about 200 nuclear weapons. It’s not a secret.

AMY GOODMAN: John Steinbach, what about the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, not showing up at this largest gathering of world leaders since FDR that’s hosted by the United States?

JOHN STEINBACH: Well, the excuse was that if he went there, that he would be questioned by Israel—by Egypt and Turkey about the nuclear weapons program. But Israel has been challenged in every conceivable international venue by Turkey, Egypt and many, many other nations in the world. This is nothing new. The world knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. Ehud Barak last year let loose that it has the nuclear weapons.

We have incontrovertible evidence, because Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician, back in 1986 released several hundreds of photographs to the Sunday London Times. It was examined by Frank Barnaby and Ted Taylor, high-ranking Manhattan Project scientists. They concluded twenty-five years ago that Israel had a hundred sophisticated nuclear weapons. And Frank Barnaby said they had the hydrogen bomb. So I think that it speaks for itself.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And John Steinbach, you write that Israel’s nuclear monopoly in the region provides the impetus for other nations in the region to—the impetus for the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Explain that.

JOHN STEINBACH: Well, let me give you an example. About eighteen months ago, the Arab League had a meeting, and they made a public statement saying that if Israel ever publicly acknowledges that it has nuclear weapons, that the Arab League would be forced to develop its own nuclear weapons. And Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, immediately took exception to that and took the Arab League to the woodshed. And he said, “Look, you know, everybody knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. We want Israel to acknowledge their nuclear arsenal. We want Israel to bring that to the table. And we want to proceed to negotiate a nuclear-weapons-free treaty in the Middle East. And unless Israel acknowledges its program and comes to the table, that’s not going to happen.” And statements such as the Arab League made are not helpful.

And I think we need to contrast this situation, this absurd situation. All the nations in the Middle East have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran, which is technically not part of the Middle East, has also signed it. Iran, over the last ten years, has undergone the most intensive scrutiny by the IAEA of any nation in the entire world. And in the meantime, on the basis that it might be trying to acquire nuclear weapons, in the meantime, you have Israel that not only has hundreds of nuclear weapons, but it has a very powerful, very sophisticated delivery system that includes submarines, missiles and bombers.

AMY GOODMAN: John Mueller, do you think that the gathering in Washington, this largest gathering the US has ever hosted of world leaders since FDR, was completely unproductive? You say that countries, not to mention groups, will not use nuclear weapons. The US used nuclear weapons, right? They bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

JOHN MUELLER: Yeah, I don’t think it’s completely unproductive, but what it does is sort of speed up a process that’s been going on for at least twenty years—in fact, many, many years, in fact, sixty years. That is, to make sure that nuclear weapons are secure and the materials that you need to make a nuclear weapon are also secure. It’s not a very complicated process. It will take a while. It’ll take a remarkably small amount of money, overall. And I think that’s basically good.

I think the probability that a terrorist could get or make a nuclear weapon is extremely small. But inexpensive measures to make that probability even lower are fine with me. What I’m concerned about is expensive measures to do so—for example, starting wars against Iraq or Iran, or doing things like inspecting every cargo ship, every container that comes into the United States, which is an extremely expensive process in itself, plus the disruption to the economy. So minor efforts to reduce the probably are fine, and some of that’s going to come out of this summit.

Can I add one thing, by the way, about the Obama statement this morning that’s really quite remarkable? He said basically that we can’t do anything about the situation between Israel and Palestine until they get their act together. And that’s one of the most realistic things I ever heard by a president say. Basically, it’s hopeless, and maybe we should just sort of let it—stop bashing their head against that particular wall for a while and let the two parties try to work things out. If not, there are other things to worry about.

AMY GOODMAN: John Mueller, I want to thank you for being with us, political science professor at Ohio State University. His book, Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda. And John Steinbach, longtime activist and nuclear expert, published a paper on Israel’s nuclear weapons program for the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research.

The Wisdom of Steven Wright

One of you sent this series of great quotes.  Especially with Stephen Wright, I find them very funny, but then forget them.  Others have mentioned the same problem.  Well, here they are:

All those who believe in psychokinesis raise my hand.
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
OK, so what's the speed of dark?
How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked
something.
Support bacteria - they're the only culture some people have.
When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.
Shin: a device for finding furniture in the dark.
Many people quit looking for work when they find a job.
I intend to live forever - so far, so good.
Join the Army, meet interesting people, kill them.
If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.
When I'm not in my right mind, my left mind gets pretty crowded.
Boycott shampoo! Demand the REAL poo!
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
I used to have an open mind but my brains kept falling out.
I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.
Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
If at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.
A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
The colder the X-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
The severity of the itch is proportional to the reach.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is
research.
You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7th of your life.
The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up. (this is
one of my long time favorites)
A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried
before.
Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.
A fool and his money are soon partying.
Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.
Drugs may lead to nowhere, but at least it's the scenic route.
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
Borrow money from pessimists-they don't expect it back.
Half the people you know are below average.
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

On the other hand, you have different fingers. -- Steven Wright

I was sad because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.
So I said, "Got any shoes you're not using?" -- Steven Wright
My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. -- Steven Wright
Someone sent me a postcard picture of the earth.
On the back it said, "Wish you were here."
-- Steven Wright
Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country.
-- Steven Wright
I spilled spot remover on my dog. Now he's gone. -- Steven Wright
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
-- Steven Wright
"Did you sleep well?" "No, I made a couple of mistakes." -- Steven Wright
My dental hygienist is cute. Every time I visit, I eat a whole package of Oreo
cookies while waiting in the lobby. Sometimes she has to cancel the rest of
the afternoon's appointments. -- Steven Wright
My socks DO match. They're the same thickness. -- Steven Wright
Officer, I know I was going faster than 55MPH, but I wasn't going to be on the
road an hour. -- Steven Wright
I have two very rare photographs.
One is a picture of Houdini locking his keys in his car.
The other is a rare photograph of Norman Rockwell beating up a child.
-- Steven Wright
I stayed up all night playing poker with tarot cards.
I got a full house and four people died.
-- Steven Wright
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory.
You couldn't park anywhere near the place.
-- Steven Wright
I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape
of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included.
-- Steven Wright
I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues
that are in all the other museums. -- Steven Wright
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it.
-- Steven Wright
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time.
-- Steven Wright
What's another word for Thesaurus? -- Steven Wright
When I get real bored, I like to drive downtown and get a great parking spot,
then sit in my car and count how many people ask me if I'm leaving.
-- Steven Wright
When I was crossing the border into Canada, they asked if I had any firearms
with me. I said, "Well, what do you need?" -- Steven Wright
You can't have everything. Where would you put it? -- Steven Wright
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me, I'm afraid of widths.
-- Steven Wright
If you were going to shoot a mime, would you use a silencer?
-- Steven Wright
I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
-- Steven Wright
I made a chocolate cake with white chocolate. Then I took it to a potluck. I
stood in line for some cake. They said, "Do you want white cake or chocolate
cake?" I said, "yes". -- Steven Wright
My aunt gave me a walkie-talkie for my birthday. She says if I'm good, she'll
give me the other one next year. -- Steven Wright
I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, "What for?"
I said, "I'm going to buy some sugar." -- Steven Wright
I eat swiss cheese from the inside out. -- Steven Wright
I had amnesia once or twice. -- Steven Wright
I bought a million lottery tickets. I won a dollar. -- Steven Wright
I got a chain letter by fax. It's very simple. You just fax a dollar bill to
everybody on the list. -- Steven Wright
I plugged my phone in where the blender used to be. I called someone. They
went "Aaaaahhhh..." -- Steven Wright
My friend Sam has one leg. I went to his house. I couldn't go up the stairs.
-- Steven Wright
The sun never sets on the British Empire. But it rises every morning. The sky
must get awfully crowded. -- Steven Wright
I brought a mirror to Lovers' Lane. I told everybody I'm Narcissus.
-- Steven Wright
You know how it is when you decide to lie and say the check is in the mail, and
then you remember it really is? I'm like that all the time.
-- Steven Wright
How many people does it take to change a searchlight bulb?
-- Steven Wright
I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said "pet supplies". So I did.
Then I went outside and saw a sign that said "compact cars".
-- Steven Wright
The sky already fell. Now what? -- Steven Wright
I wear my heart on my sleeve. I wear my liver on my pant leg.
-- Steven Wright
I still have my Christmas Tree. I looked at it today. Sure enough, I couldn't
see any forests. -- Steven Wright
If you can wave a fan, and you can wave a club, can you wave a fan club?
-- Steven Wright
When I was in boy scouts, I slipped on the ice and hurt my ankle. A little old
lady had to help me across the street. -- Steven Wright
If you write the word "monkey" a million times, do you start to think you're
Shakespeare? -- Steven Wright
You know how it is when you're reading a book and falling asleep, you're
reading, reading...and all of a sudden you notice your eyes are closed? I'm
like that all the time. -- Steven Wright
My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment
somewhere. -- Steven Wright
Smoking cures weight problems...eventually... -- Steven Wright
I had fried octopus last night. You have to be really quiet when you eat it.
Otherwise, it emits a cloud of black smoke and falls on the floor.
-- Steven Wright
Yesterday I told a chicken to cross the road. It said, "what for?"
-- Steven Wright
I xeroxed my watch. Now I have time to spare. -- Steven Wright
I took a course in speed waiting. Now I can wait an hour in only ten minutes.
-- Steven Wright
I eat swiss cheese. But I only nibble on it. I make the holes bigger.
-- Steven Wright
I moved into an all-electric house. I forgot and left the porch light on all
day. When I got home the front door wouldn't open. -- Steven Wright
I got a garage door opener. It can't close. Just open. -- Steven Wright
You know how it is when you go to be the subject of a psychology experiment,
and nobody else shows up, and you think maybe that's part of the experiment?
I'm like that all the time. -- Steven Wright
I went over to the neighbor's and asked to borrow a cup of salt. "What are you
making?" "A salt lick." -- Steven Wright
There aren't enough days in the weekend. -- Steven Wright
My friend Sally is a nudist. I went to her house. The closets have no doors.
The walls are covered with see-through wallpaper. -- Steven Wright
Sally plays strip poker. Whenever she loses, she has to put something on.
-- Steven Wright
The sky is falling...no, I'm tipping over backwards. -- Steven Wright
Droughts are because god didn't pay his water bill. -- Steven Wright
Is "tired old cliche" one? -- Steven Wright
If you had a million Shakespeares, could they write like a monkey?
-- Steven Wright
If you tell a joke in the forest, but nobody laughs, was it a joke?
-- Steven Wright
It only rains straight down. God doesn't do windows. -- Steven Wright
When I get bored I go to a Seven-Eleven and ask for a two-by-four and a box of
three-by-fives. -- Steven Wright
The sign said "eight items or less". So I changed my name to Les.
-- Steven Wright
Yesterday I saw a chicken crossing the road. I asked it why. It told me it
was none of my business. -- Steven Wright
I rented a lottery ticket. I won a million dollars. But I had to give it
back. -- Steven Wright
In school, every period ends with a bell. Every sentence ends with a period.
Every crime ends with a sentence. -- Steven Wright
I xeroxed my watch. Now I can give away free watches. -- Steven Wright
I xeroxed a mirror. Now I have an extra xerox machine. -- Steven Wright
I took a course in speed reading. Then I got Reader's Digest on microfilm. By
the time I got the machine set up, I was done. -- Steven Wright
Yesterday I found out what doughnuts are for. You put them on doughbolts.
They hold dough airplanes together. For kids, they make erector sets out of
play-dough. -- Steven Wright
I went to a haunted house, looked under the kitchen table, and found spirit
gum. -- Steven Wright
I went to a garage sale. "How much for the garage?" "It's not for sale."
-- Steven Wright
I went to San Francisco. I found someone's heart. -- Steven Wright
I know the guy who writes all those bumper stickers. He hates New York.
-- Steven Wright
A beautiful woman moved in next door. So I went over and returned a cup of
sugar. "You didn't borrow this." "I will." -- Steven Wright
I had my coathangers spayed. -- Steven Wright
I washed a sock. Then I put it in the dryer. When I took it out, it was gone.
-- Steven Wright
The Bermuda Triangle got tired of warm weather. It moved to Alaska. Now Santa
Claus is missing. -- Steven Wright
I went to a fancy french restaurant called "Deja Vu." The headwaiter said,
"Don't I know you?" -- Steven Wright
Last week I forgot how to ride a bicycle. -- Steven Wright
I took lessons in bicycle riding. But I could only afford half of them. Now I
can ride a unicycle. -- Steven Wright
I had some eyeglasses. I was walking down the street when suddenly the
prescription ran out. -- Steven Wright
I got food poisoning today. I don't know when I'll use it. -- Steven Wright
I put my air conditioner in backwards. It got cold outside. The weatherman on
TV was confused. "It was supposed to be hot today." -- Steven Wright
I was in a job interview and I opened a book and started reading. Then I said
to the guy, "Let me ask you a question. If you are in a spaceship that is
traveling at the speed of light, and you turn on the headlights, does anything
happen?" He said, "I don't know." I said, "I don't want your job."
-- Steven Wright
I was in the first submarine. Instead of a periscope, they had a kaleidoscope.
"We're surrounded." -- Steven Wright
I went camping and borrowed a circus tent by mistake. I didn't notice until I
got it set up. People complained because they couldn't see the lake.
-- Steven Wright
When I turned two I was really anxious, because I'd doubled my age in a year.
I thought, if this keeps up, by the time I'm six I'll be ninety.
-- Steven Wright
Sponges grow in the ocean. That just kills me. I wonder how much deeper the
ocean would be if that didn't happen. -- Steven Wright
I put instant coffee in a microwave oven and almost went back in time.
-- Steven Wright
It's a fine night to have an evening. -- Steven Wright
Even snakes are afraid of snakes. -- Steven Wright
I can't stop thinking like this. -- Steven Wright
This isn't all true. -- Steven Wright
You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top,
and you think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time.
-- Steven Wright
I put hardwood floors on top of wall-to-wall carpet. -- Steven Wright
Tinsel is really snakes' mirrors. -- Steven Wright
Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and
looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years
later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their
deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, "So.
What did you think?" -- Steven Wright
My grandfather gave me a watch. It doesn't have any hands or numbers. He says
it's very accurate. I asked him what time it was. You can guess what he told
me. -- Steven Wright
I spent all my money on a FAX machine. Now I can only FAX collect.
-- Steven Wright
What are imitation rhinestones? -- Steven Wright
If a word in the dictionary were mispelled, how would we know?
-- Steven Wright
If God dropped acid, would he see people? -- Steven Wright
In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often
I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a
woman in Madagascar. She said, "Cut it out." -- Steven Wright
It's a good thing we have gravity or else when birds died they'd just stay
right up there. Hunters would be all confused. -- Steven Wright
I wrote a few children's books...not on purpose. -- Steven Wright
I wrote a song, but I can't read music so I don't know what it it. Every once
in a while I'll be listening to the radio and I say, "I think I might have
written that." -- Steven Wright
"So, do you live around here often?" -- Steven Wright
I got up one morning, couldn't find my socks, so I called Information. She
said, "Hello, Information." I said, "I can't find my socks." She said,
"They're behind the couch." And they were! -- Steven Wright
When I was a little kid we had a sand box. It was a quicksand box.
I was an only child....eventually. -- Steven Wright
[Referring to a glass of water:]
I mixed this myself. Two parts H, one part O. I don't trust anybody!
-- Steven Wright
A friend of mine once sent me a post card with a picture of the entire planet
Earth taken from space. On the back it said, "Wish you were here."
-- Steven Wright
I'm moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes... -- Steven Wright
It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to have to paint it. -- Steven Wright
Cross country skiing is great if you live in a small country. -- Steven Wright
I went to the bank and asked to borrow a cup of money. They said, "What for?"
I said, "I'm going to buy some sugar." -- Steven Wright
I saw a bank that said "24 Hour Banking", but I don't have that much time.
-- Steven Wright
I went to the museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues
that are in all the other museums. -- Steven Wright
I like to go to art museums and name the untitled paintings...
Boy With Pail... Kitten On Fire. -- Steven Wright
I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered
French Toast during the Renaissance. -- Steven Wright
I went to this restaurant last night that was set up like a big buffet in the
shape of an Ouija board. You'd think about what kind of food you want, and the
table would move across the floor to it. -- Steven Wright
I went to a general store. They wouldn't let me buy anything specifically.
-- Steven Wright
I worked in a health food store once. A guy came in and asked me, "If I melt
dry ice, can I take a bath without getting wet?" -- Steven Wright
I went to a 7-11 and asked for a 2x4 and a box of 3x5's. The clerk said,
"ten-four." -- Steven Wright
I was in the grocery store. I saw a sign that said "pet supplies". So I did.
Then I went outside and saw a sign that said "compact cars". -- Steven Wright
I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery. When I got there, the guy was
locking the front door. I said, "Hey, the sign says you're open 24 hours." He
said, "Yes, but not in a row." -- Steven Wright
I love to go shopping. I love to freak out salespeople. They ask me if they
can help me, and I say, "Have you got anything I'd like?" Then they ask me
what size I need, and I say, "Extra medium." -- Steven Wright
I saw a small bottle of cologne and asked if it was for sale. She said, "It's
free with purchase." I asked her if anyone bought anything today.
-- Steven Wright
I met this wonderful girl at Macy's. She was buying clothes and I was putting
Slinkies on the escalator. -- Steven Wright
There was a power outage at a department store yesterday. Twenty people were
trapped on the escalators. -- Steven Wright
I bought my brother some gift-wrap for Christmas. I took it to the Gift Wrap
department and told them to wrap it, but in a different print so he would know
when to stop unwrapping. -- Steven Wright
For my birthday I got a humidifier and a de-humidifier...I put them in the same
room and let them fight it out. -- Steven Wright
Ever notice how irons have a setting for *permanent* press? I don't get it...
-- Steven Wright
I couldn't find the remote control to the remote control. -- Steven Wright
I invented the cordless extension cord. -- Steven Wright
I saw a close friend of mine the other day... He said, "Stephen, why haven't
you called me?" I said, "I can't call everyone I want. My new phone has no
five on it." He said, "How long have you had it?" I said, "I don't know...
my calendar has no sevens on it." -- Steven Wright
I plugged my phone in where the blender used to be. I called someone. They
went "Aaaaahhhh..." -- Steven Wright
Today I dialed a wrong number... The other person said, "Hello?" and I said,
"Hello, could I speak to Joey?"... They said, "Uh... I don't think so...
he's only 2 months old." I said, "I'll wait." -- Steven Wright
I don't like the sound of my phone ringing so I put my phone inside my fish
tank. I can't hear it, but every time I get a call I see the fish go like this
<<<>>><<>><<<<. I go down to the pet store -- "Gimme another ten guppies, I
got a lotta calls yesterday." -- Steven Wright
My roommate got a pet elephant. Then it got lost. It's in the apartment
somewhere. -- Steven Wright
I installed a skylight in my apartment...The people who live above me are
furious! -- Steven Wright
All of the people in my building are insane. The guy above me designs
synthetic hairballs for ceramic cats. The lady across the hall tried to rob a
department store...with a pricing gun. She said, "Give me all of the money in
the vault, or I'm marking down everything in the store." -- Steven Wright
In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often
I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a
woman in Germany. She said, "Cut it out." -- Steven Wright
Doing a little work around the house. I put fake brick wallpaper over a real
brick wall, just so I'd be the only one who knew. People come over and I'm
gonna say, "Go ahead, touch it...it feels real." -- Steven Wright
In my house on the ceilings I have paintings of the rooms above...so I never
have to go upstairs. -- Steven Wright
One time the power went out in my house and I had to use the flash on my camera
to see my way around. I made a sandwich and took fifty pictures of my face.
The neighbors thought there was lightning in my house. -- Steven Wright
All the plants in my house are dead---I shot them last night. I was teasing
them by watering them with ice cubes. -- Steven Wright
I have a microwave fireplace in my house...The other night I laid down in front
of the fire for the evening in two minutes. -- Steven Wright
Winny and I lived in a house that ran on static electricity...If you wanted to
run the blender, you had to rub balloons on your head. If you wanted to cook,
you had to pull off a sweater real quick. -- Steven Wright
I bought a house, on a one-way dead-end road. I don't know how I got there.
-- Steven Wright
I went to the hardware store and bought some used paint. It was in the shape
of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included. So I had
to buy them again. -- Steven Wright
My house is made out of balsa wood, so when I want to scare the neighborhood
kids I lift it over my head and tell them to get out of my yard or I'll throw
it at them. -- Steven Wright
The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my car
keys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a while. I was
speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, "right
here, officer". Later, I parked it on the freeway, got out, and yelled at all
the cars, "Get out of my driveway!" -- Steven Wright
My house is on the median strip of a highway. You don't really notice, except
I have to leave the driveway doing 60 MPH. -- Steven Wright
For a while I didn't have a car...I had a helicopter...no place to park it, so
I just tied it to a lamp post and left it running...[slow glance upward]
-- Steven Wright
I hooked up my accelerator pedal in my car to my brake lights. I hit the gas,
people behind me stop, and I'm gone. -- Steven Wright
I replaced the headlights in my car with strobe lights, so it looks like I'm
the only one moving. -- Steven Wright
I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really
fast, and stick it out the window. I put a new engine in my car, but forgot to
take the old one out. Now my car goes 500 miles per hour. The harmonica
sounds *amazing*. -- Steven Wright
I watched the Indy 500, and I was thinking that if they left earlier they
wouldn't have to go so fast. -- Steven Wright
I had to stop driving my car for a while...the tires got dizzy.
-- Steven Wright
My neighbor has a circular driveway...he can't get out. -- Steven Wright
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the
place. -- Steven Wright
I have an answering machine in my car. It says, "I'm home now. But leave a
message and I'll call when I'm out." -- Steven Wright
Last year we drove across the country. We switched on the driving...every half
mile...We had one cassette tape to listen to on the entire trip...I don't
remember what it was. -- Steven Wright
I saw a sign: "Rest Area 25 Miles". That's pretty big. Some people must be
really tired. -- Steven Wright
A cop stopped me for speeding. He said, "Why were you going so fast?" I said,
"See this thing my foot is on? It's called an accelerator. When you push down
on it, it sends more gas to the engine. The whole car just takes right off.
And see this thing? This steers it." -- Steven Wright

Collateral Damage]

THE ABSURD TIMES

This is a transcript of a video taken by our armed forces.  What is particularly offensive is that this is the sort of thing that goes on regularly.  The link is provided in the second sentence so you can see the entire thing if you are up to it.  I see no need to comment further other than it exposes lies that we have known were lies.  It is just more graphic this way.

AMY GOODMAN: The US military has confirmed the authenticity of newly released video showing US forces indiscriminately firing on Iraqi civilians. On Monday, the website WikiLeaks.org posted footage taken from a US military helicopter in July 2007 as it killed twelve people and wounded two children.

The voices on the tape appear to believe their targets are carrying weapons, but the footage unmistakably shows some of the victims holding camera equipment. The dead included two employees of the Reuters news agency, photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

The Pentagon has never publicly released the footage and has previously cleared those involved of wrongdoing. WikiLeaks says it managed to de-encrypt the tape after receiving it from a confidential source inside the military who wanted the story to be known.

In a moment, we’re going to hear from WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, who oversaw the video’s release. But first we turn to the footage itself. For our television audiences, some may find these images disturbing. This clip captures the moments leading up to when US forces first opened fire.

US SOLDIER 1: See all those people standing down there? US SOLDIER 2: Stay firm. And open the courtyard. US SOLDIER 1: Yeah, roger. I just estimate there’s probably about twenty of them. There’s one, yeah. US SOLDIER 2: Oh, yeah. US SOLDIER 1: I don’t know if that’s— US SOLDIER 3: Hey Bushmaster element, Copperhead one-six. US SOLDIER 2: That’s a weapon. US SOLDIER 1: Yeah. Hotel two-six, Crazy Horse one-eight . US SOLDIER 4: Copperhead one-six, Bushmaster six-Romeo. Roger. US SOLDIER 1: Have individuals with weapons. Yep, he’s got a weapon, too. Hotel two-six, Crazy Horse one-eight. Have five to six individuals with AK-47s. Request permission to engage . US SOLDIER 5: Roger that. We have no personnel east of our position. So you are free to engage. Over. US SOLDIER 2: All right, we’ll be engaging. US SOLDIER 1: Roger, go ahead. I’m gonna—I cant get ‘em now, because they’re behind that building. US SOLDIER 3: Hey Bushmaster element, Copperhead one-six. US SOLDIER 1: He’s got an RPG! US SOLDIER 2: Alright, we got a guy with an RPG. US SOLDIER 1: I’m gonna fire. OK. US SOLDIER 2: No, hold on. Let’s come around. US SOLDIER 1: Behind building right now from our point of view. US SOLDIER 2: OK, we’re going to come around. US SOLDIER 1: Hotel two-six, I have eyes on individual with RPG, getting ready to fire. We won’t—yeah, we got a guy shooting, and now he’s behind the building. God damn it! US SOLDIER 5: Uh, negative. He was right in front of the Brad, about there, one o’clock. Haven’t seen anything since then. US SOLDIER 2: Just [expletive]. Once you get on, just open up. US SOLDIER 1: I am. US SOLDIER 4: I see your element, got about four Humvees, out along this— US SOLDIER 2: You’re clear. US SOLDIER 1: Alright, firing. US SOLDIER 4: Let me know when you’ve got them. US SOLDIER 2: Let’s shoot. Light ‘em all up. US SOLDIER 1: Come on, fire! US SOLDIER 2: Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’. Keep shootin’. US SOLDIER 6: Hotel, Bushmaster two-six, Bushmaster two-six, we need to move, time now! US SOLDIER 2: Alright, we just engaged all eight individuals.

AMY GOODMAN: The video now shows around eight Iraqis lying on the ground, dead or badly wounded. The soldiers again claim the victims have weapons and now laugh about the shooting.

US SOLDIER 1: We saw two birds. We’re still firing. US SOLDIER 2: Roger. US SOLDIER 1: I got ‘em. US SOLDIER 3: Two-six, this is two-six, we’re mobile. US SOLDIER 2: Oops, I’m sorry. What was going on? US SOLDIER 1: God damn it, Kyle. US SOLDIER 2: Sorry, hahaha, I hit ‘em—Roger. Currently engaging approximately eight individuals, KIA, RPGs and AK-47s. Hotel two-six, Crazy Horse one-eight. US SOLDIER 1: Oh, yeah, look at those dead bastards. US SOLDIER 2: Nice. Good shootin’. US SOLDIER 1: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: Reuters driver Saeed Chmagh survived the initial attack. Here he’s seen trying to crawl away as the helicopter flies overhead. A voice from the cockpit hopes that Saeed brandishes a weapon to justify more shooting.

US SOLDIER 2: One individual appears to be wounded, trying to crawl away. US SOLDIER 3: Roger, we’re going to move down there. US SOLDIER 2: Roger, we’ll cease fire. US SOLDIER 1: Yeah, we won’t shoot anymore. He’s getting up. US SOLDIER 2: If he has a weapon, though, in his hand? US SOLDIER 1: No, I haven’t seen one yet. I see you guys got that guy crawling right now on the curb. Yeah, I got him. I put two rounds near him, and you guys were shooting over there, too, so we’ll see. US SOLDIER 3: Yeah, roger that. US SOLDIER 4: Bushmaster three-six Element, this is Hotel two-seven. Over. US SOLDIER 3: Hotel Two-Seven, Bushmaster Seven. Go ahead. US SOLDIER 4: Roger. I’m just trying to make sure that you guys have my turf. Over. US SOLDIER 3: Roger, we got your turf. US SOLDIER 2: Come on, buddy. All you gotta do is pick up a weapon.

AMY GOODMAN: The US forces notice a van pulling up to evacuate the wounded. They again open fire, killing several more people and wounding two children inside the van.

US SOLDIER 1: Where’s that van at? US SOLDIER 2: Right down there by the bodies. US SOLDIER 1: OK, yeah. US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse. We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly picking up bodies and weapons. US SOLDIER 1: Let me engage. Can I shoot? US SOLDIER 2: Roger. Break. Crazy Horse one-eight, request permission to engage. US SOLDIER 3: Picking up the wounded? US SOLDIER 1: Yeah, we’re trying to get permission to engage. Come on, let us shoot! US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight. US SOLDIER 1: They’re taking him. US SOLDIER 2: Bushmaster, Crazy Horse one-eight. US SOLDIER 4: This is Bushmaster seven, go ahead. US SOLDIER 2: Roger. We have a black SUV—or Bongo truck picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage. US SOLDIER 4: Bushmaster seven, roger. This is Bushmaster seven, roger. Engage. US SOLDIER 2: One-eight, engage. Clear. US SOLDIER 1: Come on! US SOLDIER 2: Clear. Clear. US SOLDIER 1: We’re engaging. US SOLDIER 2: Coming around. Clear. US SOLDIER 1: Roger. Trying to— US SOLDIER 2: Clear. US SOLDIER 1: I hear ‘em—I lost ’em in the dust. US SOLDIER 3: I got ’em. US SOLDIER 2: Should have a van in the middle of the road with about twelve to fifteen bodies. US SOLDIER 1: Oh yeah, look at that. Right through the windshield! Ha ha!

AMY GOODMAN: Video footage from a July 2007 attack on Iraqi civilians by US troops, released Monday by the website WikiLeaks.org.

Well, we’re joined now by two guests. Julian Assange is the co-founder of WikiLeaks.org, oversaw the release of this top-secret US military footage. He’s joining us from Washington, DC. And by video stream from Brazil, we’re joined by Glenn Greenwald, the constitutional law attorney and blogger for Salon.com. We called the Pentagon and the US Army, but they didn’t respond to our request for them to be on the broadcast.

Julian Assange, tell us how you got this footage.

JULIAN ASSANGE: We got this footage sometime last year. We don’t disclose precise times for reasons of source protection. When we first got it, we were told that it was important and that it showed the killing of journalists, but we didn’t have any other context, and we spent quite some months after breaking the decryption looking closely into this. And the more we looked, the more disturbing it became.

This is a sequence which has a lot of detail and, I think, in some ways covers most of the bad aspects of the aerial war in Iraq and what we must be able to infer is going on in Afghanistan. So we see not only this initial opening shot on a crowd, which is clearly mostly unarmed. There may be some confusion as to whether two people are armed or whether there’s a camera or arm, but it’s clear that the majority of the people are in fact unarmed. And as it later turns out, two of those people are simply holding cameras. But we go on from there into seeing the shooting of people rescuing a wounded man, and none of those people are armed.

What’s important to remember is that every step that the Apache takes in opening fire is authorized. It does pause before shooting. It explains the situation, sometimes exaggerating a little to its commanders, and gets authorized permission.

These are not bad apples. This is standard practice. You can hear it from the tones of the voices of the pilots that this is in fact another day at the office. These pilots have evidently and gunners have evidently become so corrupted, morally corrupted, by the war that they are looking for excuses to kill. That is why you hear this segment, “Come on, buddy! Just pick up a weapon,” when Saeed, one of the Reuters employees, is crawling on the curb. They don’t want him for intelligence value to understand the situation. The man is clearly of no threat whatsoever. He’s prostate on the ground. Everyone else has been killed. They just want an excuse to kill. And it’s some kind of—appears to me to be some kind of video game mentality where they just want to get a high score, get their kill count up. And later on you’ll hear them proudly proclaiming how they killed twelve to fifteen people.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian, how has the Pentagon responded to this footage?

JULIAN ASSANGE: It’s very interesting. So yesterday, the Pentagon stated that the original investigation that it did into whether the acts broke the rules of engagement, the rules that soldiers must obey before shooting, they came to the conclusion then that there was no violation of those rules, that all the pilots, in fact, acted properly, and gunners. They reiterated that last night, that in fact it was their view that that original investigation came to the right conclusion and that they would not be reopening the investigation. However, we hear that that may be about to change. That hasn’t been confirmed yet, but our sources in CENTCOM say that there may be a change.

Also, late last night, the Pentagon suddenly decided it liked the Freedom of Information Act, after all. Reuters put in the Freedom of Information request for this video in August 2007 and did not receive any response whatsoever for over a year and never has received, to our knowledge, the video. But yesterday, the Pentagon released on the CENTCOM website six files relating to this event. There is one that is the most important, which is the investigative report into whether this action broke the rules of engagement, really quite a telling report. So the tone and language is all about trying to find an excuse for the activity. I mean, this as if your own lawyer wrote a report for you to submit to the court. It’s very clear that that is the approach, to try and find any mechanism to excuse the behavior, and that is what ended up happening.

Something that has been missed in some of the press reportage about this is that there is a third attack, just twenty minutes later, by the same crew, involving three Hellfire missiles fired onto an apartment complex where the roof was still under construction. We have fresh evidence from Baghdad that there were three families living in that apartment complex, many of whom were killed, including women. And we sent a team down there to collect that evidence. So that is in the full video we released, not in the shortened one, because we didn’t yet have that additional evidence. Innocent bystanders walking down the street are also killed in that attack.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you know who these Apache helicopter teams—what this unit is?

JULIAN ASSANGE: We don’t have the names of the teams. However, we have details about the unit, and there was a chapter, or half-chapter, in a book called The Good Soldiers by a Washington Post reporter released late last year that does cover the ground unit that moved in to collect the bodies and was the unit who also called in the Apaches to that area.

Important thing that we know from classified documentation is that there were reports of small arms fire in the general vicinity. This was not an ongoing battle. The Pentagon released statements implying that this was a firefight and the Apaches were called in, into the middle of a firefight, and the journalists walked into this firefight. That is simply a lie. At 9:50 a.m. Baghdad time, Pentagon—sorry, US military documentation states that there was small arms fire in the general vicinity, in the suburb somewhere of New Baghdad, and that there was no PID, there was no positive identification of who the shooter was. So, in other words, some bullets were received in a general area, no US troops were killed, or they were heard, could have even been cars backfiring. There was no positive identification of where those shots were coming from. And the Apaches were sent up to scout out the general region, and they saw this group of men milling around in a square, showing the Reuters photographer something interesting to photograph. So the claim that this was a battle and the Reuters guys were sort of caught in the crossfire, or it was some kind of active attack that it needed an immediate response by the Apaches, is simply a lie.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to come back to this discussion and, well, what’s happening to WikiLeaks.org, not only as a result of releasing this, but other sensitive documents. Julian Assange is our guest, co-founder of WikiLeaks. Also Glenn Greenwald will join us, who has been writing about this. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, has just posted on WikiLeaks.org this 2007 footage from the helicopter gunships that opened fire on Iraqi civilians in Baghdad.

I want to play another clip, this the voices of the cockpit laughing as a Bradley tank drives over the dead body of one of the Iraqi victims.

US SOLDIER 1: I think they just drove over a body. US SOLDIER 2: Did he? US SOLDIER 1: Yeah!

AMY GOODMAN: And here the cockpit learns from soldiers on the ground that the victims include children. One voice says, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids to battle.”

US SOLDIER 3: I’ve got eleven Iraqi KIAs . One small child wounded. Over. US SOLDIER 1: Roger. Ah, damn. Oh, well. US SOLDIER 3: Roger, we need—we need a—to evac this child. She’s got a wound to the belly. I can’t do anything here. She needs to get evaced. Over. US SOLDIER 1: Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle. US SOLDIER 2: That’s right.

AMY GOODMAN: After discovering the wounded children, a soldier on the ground says they should be taken to a nearby US military hospital, but an order comes in to instead first hand the children over to Iraqi police, possibly delaying their treatment.

US SOLDIER 3: Negative on evac of the two civilian kids to Rusty. They’re going to have the IPs link up with us over here. Break. IPs will take them up to a local hospital. Over.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks, explain what happened to the children, the children that you show in the video footage by circling their heads, that they are in the van.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yeah, something important to remember is that the video we obtained and released is of substantially lower quality than what the pilots saw. This is because it was converted through many stages to digital. But even so, we can just see that there are in fact two children sitting in the front seat of that van. And subsequent witness reports also confirm that.

So those children were extremely lucky to survive. The Apache helicopter was firing thirty-millimeter shells. That’s shells this wide, normally used for armor piercing, and they shoot straight through buildings.

Those children—the medic on the scene wanted to evacuate those children to the US military base at Rustamiyah, approximately eight kilometers away from the scene. The base has excellent medical facilities. Higher command denied that. We don’t know the reason. Perhaps there was a legitimate reason, but it seems like the medic would be the person best placed to know what to do. Instead, he is told to meet up and hand the children over to local police.

We don’t know what happens then. But our team that was in Baghdad, we partnered with the Icelandic state broadcasting service, RÚV, found the children over the weekend, this weekend, and interviewed them and took their hospital records, and we have photographs of the scars of the stomach wounds and the chest wounds and arm wounds for those children. The boy, in particular, was extremely lucky to survive. He had a wound that came from the top of his body down his stomach, so very, very, very lucky.

The mother says that she has been offered no compensation for the death of her husband, who was the driver of that van, and no assistance with the medical expenses of her children. And she says that there are ongoing medical expenses related to the daughter.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, what is happening now to WikiLeaks.org? What kind of response have you gotten? Can you talk about surveillance or possibly attempting to shut you down?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Well, a few weeks ago, we released a 2008 counterintelligence report from the United States Army, thirty-two pages, that assessed quite a few articles that I had written and some of the other material we had released—so that includes the main manuals for Guantánamo Bay, which revealed falsification of records there and deliberate hiding of people from the Red Cross, a breach of the Geneva Conventions, and psychological torture, many other things, and a report we released on the battle of Fallujah, once again a classified US military report into what happened there—and clearly concerned that we were causing embarrassment to the US military by exposing human rights abuses and some concern—doesn’t seem to be legitimate, but some concerns that the fine details of some material that we were releasing could, in theory, when combined with other detail, pose a threat to soldiers if insurgents got hold of that information. So that report sort of looks at different ways to destroy WikiLeaks.org or fatally marginalize it.

And because our primary asset is the trust, that sources have enough—we have a reputation for having never had a source publicly exposed, and as far as I know, that reputation is true—it looks to see whether they can publicly expose some of our sources, prosecute US military whistleblowers—and, in fact, it uses the phrase “whistleblowers,” not people who are leaking indiscriminately—but prosecute US military whistleblowers in order to destabilize us and destroy what it calls our “center of gravity,” the trust that the public and sources have in us.

It also looks at some other methods—again, it’s careful to fine-tune the language, but says that perhaps we could be hacked into and destabilized that way, or perhaps we could be fed information that was fraudulent, and therefore our reputation for integrity could be destroyed. The report is careful on these last two to suggest that maybe other governments could do this. It seems like it’s some kind of license for their claims. They speak about how Iran has blocked us on the internet and China has blocked us on the internet and other governments of a similar type have condemned us, and it lists Israel. And it also lists the case that we had against a Swiss bank in San Francisco in February 2008, a case which we conclusively won.

But in the production of this video in Iceland, where most of the team was over the last month, we did get a number of very unusual surveillance events. So we—I personally had people filming me covertly in cafes, who, when confronted, run off so scared that they even drop their cash, and not Icelanders, outsiders, although there also was some surveillance from Iceland.

Our feeling is now that that surveillance may not have been related to this video. It may more likely have been related to leaks from the US embassy in Iceland that we released. We’re not sure of that. But there was—appears to have been a following of me on an Icelandic air flight out of Iceland to an investigative journalism conference in Norway. We’re not sure that—there are records of two State Department employees on that plane with no luggage. Our suspicion is these are probably the Diplomatic Security Service investigating a leak at the embassy.

We did have a volunteer arrested for some other reason and asked questions in Iceland about WikiLeaks, but there are now two sides to this story. So our volunteer says that they asked questions about WikiLeaks, and the police say that they asked questions about WikiLeaks, but the police say this was because of a sticker on a laptop. Volunteer says that this wasn’t true. And at the moment, we’re unable to confirm whether the police had inside information about the video or whether the volunteer is not telling the truth.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined, Julian Assange, by Glenn Greenwald, blogger for Salon.com. He’s a constitutional lawyer. Glenn, the significance of what this videotape is showing, from the helicopter gunship, of the helicopter gunship opening fire on Iraqi civilians?

GLENN GREENWALD: I think, in one sense, that WikiLeaks has done an extraordinarily valuable service, because it has exposed what it is that war actually is, what we’re actually doing in Afghanistan and Iraq on a day-to-day basis.

My concern with the discussions that have been triggered, though, is that there seems to be the suggestion, in many circles—not, of course, by Julian—that this is some sort of extreme event, or this is some sort of aberration, and that’s the reason why we’re all talking about it and are horrified about it. In fact, it’s anything but rare. The only thing that’s rare about this is that we happen to know about it and are seeing it take place on video. This is something that takes place on a virtually daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where we invade and bomb and occupy. And the reason why there are hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq and thousands of dead in Afghanistan is because this is what happens constantly when we are engaged in warfare in those countries.

And you see that, as Julian said, in the fact that every step of the way they got formal approval for what they wanted to do. And if you read the Defense Department investigations, which cleared the individuals involved, in every sense, and said that they acted complete [no audio]—

AMY GOODMAN: We may have just lost—

GLENN GREENWALD: —operating procedure.

AMY GOODMAN: There it is. Go ahead.

GLENN GREENWALD: And you see that this is standard operating procedure. The military was not at all concerned about what took place. They didn’t even think there were remedial steps needed to prevent a future reoccurrence. They concluded definitively that the members of the military involved did exactly the right thing.

This is what war is. This is what the United States does in these countries. And that, I think, is the crucial point to note, along with the fact that the military fought tooth and nail to prevent this video from surfacing, precisely because they knew that it would shed light on what their actual behavior is during war, and instead of the propaganda to which we’re typically subjected.

AMY GOODMAN: And then the attacks on WikiLeaks, the surveillance of WikiLeaks, Glenn?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, the problem, of course, is that there are very few entities left that actually provide any meaningful checks or oversight on what the military and intelligence communities do. The media has fallen down almost completely. There’s occasional investigative reports and journalism that expose what they do, but media outlets, for a variety of reasons, including resource constraints, are hardly ever able to perform these kind of functions, even when they’re willing. Congress, of course, which has principal oversight responsibility to ensure things like this don’t happen, and that they see the light of day when they do, is almost completely impotent, by virtue of their own choices and desires and as well as by a whole variety of constraints, institutional and otherwise.

And so, there are very few mechanisms left for figuring out and understanding as citizens what it is that our government and our military and our intelligence community do. And unauthorized leaks and whistleblowing is one of the very few outlets left, and WikiLeaks is providing a safe haven for people who want to expose serious corruption and wrongdoing. And so, of course the Pentagon and the CIA sees them as an enemy and something to be targeted and shut down, because it’s one of the few avenues that we have left for meaningful accountability and disclosure.

AMY GOODMAN: Julian Assange, you have video of Afghanistan that you have yet to release?

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes, that’s correct. We have a video of a May 2009 attack which killed ninety-seven in Afghanistan. We are still analyzing and assessing that information. We—

AMY GOODMAN: Last comments, Julian? Go ahead.

JULIAN ASSANGE: Yes. I must agree with Glenn, and I’d also like to speak a little bit about the media focus on this. We have seen some straw manning in relation to this event. So quite a few people have simply focused on the initial attack on Namir, the Reuters photographer, and Saeed, the other one, this initial crowd scene, and gone, “Well, you know, camera, RPG, it can look a bit similar. And there do appear to be two other—two people in that crowd having weapons. A heat-of-the-moment situation. Even if the descriptions were false previously, maybe there’s some excuse for this. I mean, it’s bad, but maybe there’s some excuse.” This is clearly a straw man. We can see, over these three events—the initial attack on the crowd; the attack on the people rescuing a completely unarmed man, themselves completely unarmed; to the Hellfire missile attack on an apartment complex, which killed families—all in the course of one hour, that something is wrong.

And the tone of the pilots is another day at the office. This is not, as Glenn said, an extraordinary event. This outlines that this is an everyday event. It’s another day at the office. They get clearance for everything that they do from higher command before they do it.

There was an investigative report in response to Reuters, so it’s not a minor incident. There was pressure from Reuters to produce an investigative report. There was an investigative report. It cleared everyone of wrongdoing. You can read that report that was released. It is clearly designed to come to a particular conclusion, the suppression of the FOI material, non-response to Reuters. And now we hear yesterday from the Pentagon an attempt to keep the same line, that everything was done correctly.

I don’t think that can hold, but I think it gives important lessons as to what you can believe. Even the number—everyone was described initially as insurgents, except for the two wounded children. A blanket description. It was only from pressure from the press that changed that number to there being civilians amongst the crowd. But we also see that the total death count is wrong. There were people killed in the buildings next to this event who were just there living in their houses. There were additional bystanders killed in the Hellfire missile attack, and those people weren’t even counted, let alone counted as insurgents. So you cannot believe these statements from the military about number of people who were killed, whether people are insurgents, whether an investigation into rules of engagement was correct. They simply cannot be believed and cannot be trusted.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, after the footage was released, Nabil Noor-Eldeen, the brother of the slain Reuters cameraman Namir Noor-Eldeen, spoke out in an interview with Al Jazeera.

NABIL NOOR-ELDEEN: Is this the democracy and freedom that they claim have brought to Iraq? What Namir was doing was a patriotic work. He was trying to cover the violations of the Americans against the Iraqi people. He was only twenty-one years old. Other innocent colleagues and other innocent people, who were just standing out of curiosity when they see a journalist in a scene, and they were all killed. This is another crime that should be added to the record of American crimes in Iraq and the world. Is the pilot that stupid, he cannot distinguish between an RPG and a camera? They claim he was carrying an RPG. When was the RPG this small, small as a camera? He was carrying a small camera. An RPG is more than one meter long. Yes, it was an RPG because it shows the acts against Iraq and its people that still suffer from their crimes. We demand the international organizations to help us sue those people responsible for the killings of our sons and our people.

AMY GOODMAN: Nabil Noor-Eldeen is the brother of the photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen—and his driver Saeed Chmagh, they both worked for Reuters news agency. The overwhelmingly sad tributes to them online are very important. I want to thank Julian Assange, co-founder of WikiLeaks.org. Glenn Greenwald, stay with us, because we want to go quickly to that story on Afghanistan, which we will also talk about tomorrow.

This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. And we’ll talk about the worst mining disaster in twenty-five years, in West Virginia. Stay with us.

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