The Absurd Times

ILLUSTRATION FROM KEITH TUCKER AT WWW.WHATNOWTOONS.COM

BP has finally gotten everything straight for the "small people". 

Of course, I'm wondering who those small people are.  In all the coverage of the attack on the gulf with crude oil, I have not seen one midget or dwarf.  They are, after all, the ones who want to be called the little people, but that's different from small people, I guess.  The big people are BP.  The small people is us.  I understand that, in Swedish, the term is not as demeaning.  So why is a Swede speaking for British Petroleum?  Globalization, that's it.

A R from Texass apologized for Obama's "shakedown" of BP.  Shame on you, Obama.  Or is it shame on Texass?

Recently, a statue of Jesus, fifty feet tall, with his arms reaching up into the sky as if signaling a field goal in football, was struck by lightening.  The insurance company called it an "act of God".  There is no information as to whether that meant it was covered or not.  More important, what are the theological implications?  It must have something to do with "graven images," although how graven the statue was is beyond us.

A man by the name of Green is the Senatorial candidate for the Democratic Party in South Carolina.  He won 60% of the vote in the primary by never saying a word.  He said a few words since, but they were meaningless.  His opponent is Vitters, I believe.  If Green continues not to say a word through November, he will be the elected Senator.  I think he will then be immune for the obscenity charges against him.  Maybe not. 

Rand Paul is the senatorial candidate from Kentucky.  He must take his first name from Ayn Rand, the dead, but still insane, authoress.  He claims to be a board-certified eye-doctor, but the AMA says it knows of no approved board that certified him.  Well, that means nothing.  All he had to do was put his hand on a board, look up into the sky, and say "I am certified".  That would be Ann Rand's advice. 

Since raw materials valued at over one trillion dollars was discovered in Afghanistan,  more NATO troops have died as well as civilians.  How did our raw materials get buried in Afghanistan?  Somebody had better keep better track of them.

A voice of reason

John Galtung

Today our General fainted while testifying to Congress.

On a serious not: 

Here is one of Galtung's statements, quietly and calmly put, about Obama after he announced the 30k troops to be sent to Afghanistan:  "Totally unrealistic and extremely badly informed, and that from such an intelligent, such a charming man with such a brilliant rhetoric."

Here Amy continues:



We turn now to the second part of my interview with Johan Galtung. Known as a founder of the field of peace and conflict studies, he’s spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. His latest book is The Fall of the US Empire – And Then What?: Successors, Regionalization or Globalization? US Fascism or US Blossoming? I spoke to him last week about his prediction of the collapse of US empire in ten years, by 2020. In this second part of our interview, Galtung discusses his assessment of President Obama, the US corporate media and more. But we began with the war in Afghanistan, where he has worked extensively in attempts at conflict resolution. [includes rush transcript]

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Guest:

Johan Galtung, founder of the field of peace and conflict studies. He has spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. His latest book is called The Fall of the US Empire, in which he predicts the collapse of the American empire in ten years, by 2020.
Rush Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN: We turn to part two of my interview with Johan Galtung. Known as the founder of peace studies, he spent the past half-century pursuing nonviolent conflict resolution in international relations. His latest book is The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What?: Successors, Regionalization or Globalization? US Fascism of US Blossoming?

I spoke to him last week about his prediction of the collapse of the US Empire in ten years, he says, by 2020. In the second part of our interview, Galtung discusses his assessment of President Obama, the US corporate media and more. But we began with the war in Afghanistan, where he’s worked extensively in attempts at conflict resolution.

      JOHAN GALTUNG: Now let’s look at it from a Washington point of view: pursuing a victory which will never happen. I’ll say why: 1.56 billion Muslims are dedicated to the idea of defending Islam when trampled upon. Some of them are traveling to Afghanistan. Some of them are doing it somewhere else in other ways. Those ways can become quite disagreeable, as you know.

      Point two, there is no capitulation in Islam to infidels. It doesn’t exist. To fight against Christians and Jews—you take the mini-empire of Israel, the regional empire—is not an invitation to a violent confrontation that will end with a capitulation. In other words, the time perspective of the Muslim community is unlimited. I don’t think the time perspective of Washington is unlimited. So you can say, of course, who has the longer time perspective will win. There may be some local capitulation, a white flag somewhere, but by and large the usual scenario of a tent, maybe, with a camping table, somebody diligently typing a couple of copies of a capitulation document and "please sign on the dotted line," forget about it. Forget about it. That’s not the way it happens these days.

      So, having said that, victory is out. Of course, the US will not be available for defeat, as, in a sense, it was in Vietnam in April 1975. So withdrawal is the likeliest thing, hoping desperately that the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police will take over the job, which they will, with my knowledge of the situation, not do. They will be aligning themselves with the next stage in Afghan history.

      But having mentioned this, there is of course a fourth possibility: United States participating in conflict resolution. So what we have been discussing here, Amy, in Washington in these sessions, have been the details of these five points and other points. And here I would like to enter with a basic point about mediation, we who mediate. I’m an NGO mediator. I’ve done this more than 120 times around the world, sometimes with some success, sometimes not, or to put it more optimistically, not yet success. OK, what we are trying to find out are the goals of the parties. What do they want? I mentioned the Taliban are dead against secularization. I find that legitimate. The US goal of a base, I find it illegitimate. The US goal of an oil pipeline and controlling it, I find it illegitimate, by means of war. But the US goal that no attack should come from Afghanistan, I find completely legitimate.

      I don’t think that’s what happened 9/11. I don’t think the attack came from Afghanistan, nor do I think Osama bin Laden’s role was very much important. I think it was essentially Saudi Arabian. It was a revenge for the oil treaty of March 1945, because it was totally against Wahhab perspectives on reality, that a good life is the life as lived at the time of the Prophet and, as the Prophet said when he expired in 632, "In this country there shall be no two religions." I’m, of course, in no way saying that all Saudi Arabians are of this opinion, but many are, even the royal house are divided down the middle. And if you then add to this, from 1990 onwards, staging US wars in the region, be it against the Saddam Hussein invading Kuwait, or be it against the Saddam Hussein—that was in 1991, February—the Saddam Hussein of 2003, 20 March, by Iraqi reckoning, staging it from Saudi Arabia, from the sacred land of the chosen people. Now, the US should know something about sacred land and chosen people, the metaphor that I took from Judaism, because at the time in 1620, at the time of the Mayflower, there was not much Zion on the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

      So, having said that, conflict resolution is the way. But that can only happen if you understand what the people want, legitimate goals in Afghanistan, and taking into consideration what, to my mind, is an absolutely legitimate goal from Washington—no attack shall emerge from Afghanistan. Even if it didn’t do so, and to best of my knowledge, in 2001, it could do it today, because the US has produced quite a lot of people who have reasons for hating the country. Now, having said that, I am not sure that the US is going to do this. And the reason for it is a limited US ability to see a conflict from the outside or from above, to take your intellectual helicopter and getting up above the conflict, see your own legitimacy and illegitimacy and the other side’s legitimacy and illegitimacy, starting thinking that maybe he has a point and then trying to see if there’s some reality that could accommodate all of it. Well, 243 military or political interventions since Thomas Jefferson—we are now perhaps at 245—this is not a US foreign policy talent, in spite of the fact that there are so many wonderful Americans in this fantastic country, where I have lived much of my life, that have a fabulous ability to handle conflicts well.

      So, having said that, we come to alternative five for the US: to become irrelevant. Neither victory nor defeat, nor withdrawal, nor conflict resolution—becoming irrelevant. And that, of course, leads us to the question, who then is relevant? Countries in the region, Turkey. Turkey is led today by three people—the President, the Foreign Minister, and of course the Prime Minister—Davuto?lu, Erdogan, Gül—of an exceptional quality, I will call a team more in tune with what happens in the world than the people leading the United States of America at present. I’m not talking badly about Obama and Hillary Clinton; I’m just saying that those three, it’s very hard to come up to that level. Now, they are not becoming a regional power. They are now very high up on world diplomacy. They are not, as Washington Post is saying, turning against the West; they’re turning against the United States and Israel, turning against the US empire and the Israeli mini-empire after 1967, forty-three years ago, after the occupation, after the June War. You see, all over the region you find people saying that we can tolerate, we can live with—I mean, I talk with Hamas people, and I ask them, "Is there an Israel you can acknowledge, you can recognize?" And they say, by and large, 4 June, 1967, with some revisions. Well, Turkey is on that side, and they are making contacts now with Iran, with Afghanistan, Iran with Afghanistan, Iran with Turkey. So there you have a quite interesting triad coming up. Add to that Russia and China, not India. India is outside this game; it’s an unimportant country for the time being, in spite of its size, also now involved in a very deadly war and unable to find good solutions for the Naxalites—should learn from Nepal, although Nepal is also in difficulty of another kind. You can look at this, and then you can draw the conclusion: increasing US irrelevance. Well, you see, that’s how empires die. They die with a whimper, and usually not with a bang, as T.S. Eliot said.

      AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Johan Galtung, whose latest book is called The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What? He is known as the father of peace studies, a mediator around the world. Johan Galtung, I wanted to ask you about your assessment of President Obama, but first play a clip for you. This was President Obama speaking months ago at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he unveiled a plan to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. He gave this speech a week before he received the Nobel Peace Prize in the city, in the capital you were born, in Oslo.

            PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Now, the people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They have been confronted with occupation by the Soviet Union and then by foreign al-Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes. So tonight, I want the Afghan people to understand: America seeks an end to this era of war and suffering. We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens. And we will seek a partnership with Afghanistan grounded in mutual respect, to isolate those who destroy, to strengthen those who build, to hasten the day when our troops will leave, and to forge a lasting friendship in which America is your partner and never your patron.

      AMY GOODMAN: That was President Obama. Your response?

      JOHAN GALTUNG: Totally unrealistic and extremely badly informed, and that from such an intelligent, such a charming man with such a brilliant rhetoric. Look, to be realistic here, one has to understand that almost all Afghans, after having been invaded five times in recent history—three times by the English, once by the Soviets, Russians, and once by the Americans—are sick and tired, absolutely, of being invaded. The idea that the Taliban should lay down their arms before the Americans withdraw is outside reality. The idea of a partnership in a country fundamentally, and to some extent fundamentalist, Muslim, that you can have a partnership and you can come with technical assistance projects, development projects that have not been blessed by Allah, is a great misunderstanding. You will cater to a small group of Westernized people in Kabul and a couple of other places. That’s the only thing you will reach.

      Now, where is the Obama plan for canceling the Bagram base? Where is the plan for giving the pipeline back to the people it should belong to? And that is not Unocal. I hear nothing of the kind. Now, this is just a part of imperial politics.

      What I do hear, with sympathy, is the idea of parity. But, you see, parity, with so-and-so-many soldiers in one of the lands, with no soldiers from that land in your own land, is not parity. I find—when I talk with Afghans, I find three motives, and I mentioned them already: number one, anti-secularization; number two, anti-Kabul, in favor of a much more decentralized country; number three, and very importantly, anti-being-invaded. So we have so-and-so-many million Afghans, and you have three motivations. You have very many of them with plus-three. I think you have very few with zero motivation.

      Dear Obama, out of touch with reality.

      AMY GOODMAN: We have just—in Afghanistan, the war in Afghanistan has just entered its 104th month. I believe the Vietnam War, the US involvement in the US war in Vietnam, was 103 months, making this now, Afghanistan, the longest war in US history. Johan Galtung, how can it end now? And I also want to ask you about Iraq and the media’s coverage and the role the media plays in all of this.

      JOHAN GALTUNG: John F. Kennedy sent the first US military specialists in 1961, and it ended 30 April, '75. If you take fourteen years and multiply by twelve, you get a little bit higher figure, but let's leave that outside.

      I think it will end, by and large, the same way as Vietnam. That means United States becoming irrelevant. That means that others will, behind the scene, play important roles. There will be negotiations. We are probably coming into a period where Taliban, at some point, will meet Americans. They will not go to a place—the Taliban—where they can easily be captured. To find that place where they can meet will not be so easy. There will be something similar to the talks between North Vietnam and the Americans. And to quote one important exchange of words in that remark, one of the last commanders in Vietnam on the American side said to the top person in North Vietnam, "You were never able to beat us in any open battle." And the North Vietnamese response was "Correct, but it is irrelevant." You can be a superpower as much as you want. You’re up against a force, incidentally, which has enormous amounts of world support. That simply is superior. So, instead of playing it with a ladder up to a helicopter on top of the embassy, I would guess that the Obama double plan—on the one hand, 30,000 more in; on the other hand, withdrawal, an invitation for the Taliban to look at their watch and wait, of course—will play itself out in a way very similar to Vietnam.

      And in the meantime, others will be working. There were lots of non-governmental people working—Pugwash, for instance. I was a member of that one. I know a little bit about what happened. France played a certain role, no doubt about it. Russia played a role. China played a role. And what happened then, when the 30 April, 1975, was all over, was that the two Vietnams came together like that, and the thing handled itself. Afghanistan will handle itself. United States will have to receive a relatively high number of people who, after this is over, will find themselves on the wrong side of the divide. Many of them will, like good chameleons, change color in the meantime.

      I think much of the key to the solution is in a conference for the security and cooperation of Central Asia, modeled, if you will, on the Helsinki Conference that led to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. United States played a role in that one, but also sabotaged it by deploying its, I would say, ridiculous missiles back starting in the mid-’70s, and by the mid-’80s they had been deployed, thereby postponing the end of the Cold War, by the insight of most of the people that I know, by at least ten years. Well, there could still be sabotage actions from the US side. Could be. But this is more or less the scenario I would have. Vietnam is the model.


AMY GOODMAN: We’ll come back to our interview with peace studies founder Johan Galtung in a minute. This is Democracy Now!

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: We return to my interview with Johan Galtung, the father of peace studies. He was born in Oslo. When the Nazis occupied Norway, his father—a physician, prominent politician, vice mayor of Oslo, and a member of the resistance—was sent to a concentration camp. I asked Johan Galtung for his assessment of the US media’s coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

      JOHAN GALTUNG: I would wish that Al Jazeera could be visible in the USA in a more prominent way than as channel 275 on Comcast. You see, what Al Jazeera does is the following. It is not left-wing, not at all. I’ve been interviewed a couple of times, three times. I know how they operate. It’s multi-angular. You don’t present anything unless you have that Afghan position, that Afghan position, that US position, that Iranian position, or that Turkish position. You present that. And it comes, and all the people who are being interviewed are grilled by very talented people—that also happens in other channels—and it is then left to the viewers to draw their conclusion.

      So what I find is that the discourse, as it’s cut by the US, is almost infantile. For instance, the figure terrorist. Look, I’m approaching eighty. The Germans came and occupied our country in 1940. I was nine. I still remember how our resistance movement was referred to as terrorist, Goebbels. Terrorist, terrorist, terrorist.

      AMY GOODMAN: The Norwegians.

      JOHAN GALTUNG: Yes, it was people not in uniform attacking him. That is true. It was our resistance. It’s very hard to see it otherwise.

      AMY GOODMAN: The Norwegians referred to as terrorists by the Nazis.

      JOHAN GALTUNG: Precisely. And, of course, it was true that some used tactics—it’s a tactic, terrorism is a tactic—that sometimes was unnecessarily violent. It’s also true that some of them were extremist communists. Very, very true. And they were hoping for the reward after the war that the people enthusiastically would vote them into government. No, they didn’t get that. But at the same time, they were respected for what they had done. So, that is one, if you will, stupidity that should stop.

      The other one is this inability to see the other side. Let us just look for a second into what happened on 9/11. I’ll give you in one sentence what about 100 dialogues around the world have led me to believe, including of course in countries very central to this. It was an extrajudicial execution of two buildings, probably heading for a third one—Langley, Virginia, CIA. Probably. Why? For having insulted Saudi Arabia, insulted economically by a pattern totally contrary to Wahhab visions of what is a valid economy, by having insulted the country militarily by the presence of nationals of totally different religions, infidels, and in the same time using the country for attacking another country, also Arab, also Muslim, a country that one can critique and criticize, but still a part of the ummah, the Muslim community.

      Now, if you look at this, look at it that way, then you suddenly start understanding why Osama bin Laden said in one of his famous speeches in October, after 9/11, said, "You are now suffering the humiliation we suffered more than eighty years ago." You take 2001, you subtract eighty, you come to 1921. But he said "more than," so let us subtract five more, as a maximum—1916, '17, ’18. Sykes-Picot; 1917, Balfour Declaration; 1918, the occupation of Istanbul. I remember I was eating in my apartment in Manassas, close to Washington, where my wife and I live in much pleasure much of our lives. I was hitting Googling to find out how many US media had picked up what happened more than eighty years ago. Amy, I found zero.

      Now, the US is not very good at history. So that ridiculous formula, that we were attacked because people are envious and they're envious our democracy and so on, was the one that went all over in the media and has been intoxicating and, I would say, making for the highly unintelligent analysis.

      Now, what do you do? Imagine that what I say now is correct. Imagine that is more or less what happened and that it is consistent with what we have been told, that fifteen out of the nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabians. Let’s imagine that’s correct. What do you do then? Maybe you go back to March 1945, and you look at the treaty. Maybe you have an Arabian-US commission to discuss it. Maybe at some point you don’t apologize. That is a tradition, which I don’t think so important. But maybe you say, for instance, that I wish it could be undone. Maybe you say that this was not the wisest thing we could have done onboard the aircraft carrier in the Suez Canal, with Ibn Saud, on the one hand, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, on the other—one of the last things before he expired on the 12th of April, 1945. Amy, you will now ask how can I remember that. That was the day my father was released from concentration camp, so it was a day with one shiny light and a very sad day. We admired and we loved Roosevelt, like most of the world loves America, but not US imperialism, you see.

      And since you asked me about the US media, look, this is a country with so many universities, so many educated people, brilliant people, charming people, wonderful people. I don’t understand why the mainstream media have to market that much stupidity.

      AMY GOODMAN: Johan Galtung, you dedicate this book, your latest book, The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What?, "to a country I love, the United States of America." You write, "You will swim so much better without that imperial albatross around your neck. Drown it before it drowns you, and let a thousand flowers blossom!" How—

      JOHAN GALTUNG: I mean every word of it. I can even tell you that when I give talks about this, many places in the US, I put hand on heart and say, "I love the US republic, and I hate the US empire." You see, to many people, this doesn’t make sense. It’s called anti-American. No, no, no. I’ve had, I’ll tell you, people coming up to me saying that that remark relieved them of an enormous problem, namely, "I have so much difficulties with our foreign policy, our economic penetration, our cultural arrogance, our political maneuvering and arms twisting, and yet I love my country." And what I try to say is that these are two different things, and the albatross is around your neck. Get rid of it. Give it up. Do the following four things. Very quickly.

      Economically, trade for mutual benefit, fine, but equal benefit. And that means to examine the impact of your economic deals down to the last bottom, not only in a third world country, but maybe also in your own. Maybe you need some retraining of your economists to do that.

      Militarily, pull your bases back. Eight hundred in 150 countries is madness. And instead of all that, conflict resolution, conflict resolution, conflict resolution. There are so many places in the US now where the young generation is being trained in it. They’re doing brilliant steps forward. A Department of Peace was suggested by Dennis Kucinich, and I think about sixty-four congressmen and women are behind it, something like that. A brilliant conception. And I’ll tell you one thing. If the US had that one and even permitted it to shine, as the famous castle up on the hill, all the love for the US around the world would return. It would be just fabulous.

      Now, third thing, politically, no more arms twisting. Negotiation with the cards on the table, no threats, no nothing. No secret call by the US ambassador to UN, or whatever it is, to call in somebody and tell them that "if you do this and that, if you insist on this as your bargaining position, we will do something," and so on. I know so many such stories.

      Point four, get down from the idea of having a separate mandate from God, even a mandate to kill. The word is dialogue. The word is simply to say we have something that we can contribute—and do you have from this marvelous, generous country. But others also have something. For instance, it seems that the Muslims have some good ideas about banking, like not lending more than 30 percent of your capital. Well, if your upper limit is 2,400 or something like that, then you’re a little bit high. And if that limit is considered too high and is abolished in 2004, and the sky is the limit, down it came. And it’ll come down again. US is today probably heading for a rather important crash and, in all probability, for a major devaluation of its currency.

      Well, let us leave that aside. Let us just say a new economic relations to other countries; conflict resolution instead of bases and invasions and interventions and Special Forces all around the world; negotiations with open cards, without tricks; and dialogue. Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. All of the Americans I know very well, and many of them Jewish Americans, have extremely good talents for this. Why couldn’t that be more the tone and the tenor of US policy?

      AMY GOODMAN: We have two minutes before the satellite ends. Johan Galtung, as you leave the United States, what do you want to leave US—people here in the US with? Your thoughts?

      JOHAN GALTUNG: We’re making the distinction between the empire and the republic and that the republic could do beautifully without the empire, like so many others have done before them. I can give you general public opinion studies around the world, let us say, in Muslim countries. About 85 percent love the United States of America, like I and my Japanese wife do. About 85 percent hate US foreign policy. You see, take that seriously. Just have a look at your military, economic, political and cultural foreign policy. They can be changed. It’s even relatively easy. Make yourself a normal country. No exceptionalism, please. A normal, wonderful country. Maybe you will find it in your interest to make North America a region, a Mex-US-Can, a Mexico, United States, Canada. That could also be a shiny light, with Mexico as a bridge to a Latin America which is now finding its own ways outside the Organization of American States, a Latin American region. Well, put your fingers in the earth, find out where you are, and you will find marvelous rounds forward for an ever-better American republic.


AMY GOODMAN: Johan Galtung, founder of peace studies. His latest book is called The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What? You can get a DVD of today’s broadcast at democracynow.org.

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Israel is Anti-Semitic

Well, we know that anything that works against the best interests of Israel is "Anti-Semitic," so here we are:

Tomgram: Juan Cole, Israel's Gift to Iran's Hardliners

By Juan Cole
Posted on June 10, 2010, Printed on June 10, 2010
http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175259/

[Note for TomDispatch Readers:  Check out Pepe Escobar’s “Infinite War” at Asia Times.  It’s a review of my new book, The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s (published next week).  Then, if you’re in the mood, consider pre-ordering it by clicking here.   And while you’re at it, Timothy MacBain, for his latest TomCast audio interview, has produced a wonderful stroll down memory lane, a “best of” selection from the growing TD audio archives.  It can be heard by clicking here or downloaded to your iPod by clicking here.  And remember, if you go to the iTunes store via the “podcast” icon at the main screen of this site -- scroll down looking to the right --  or via the above link, and purchase anything (the TomCasts themselves are free), we get a small cut of the proceeds!  Tom]
On May 24th, a piece headlined “U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast” appeared on the front page of the New York Times.  It clearly involved a leak of a key, previously unknown document, though not as far as a reader could tell by someone unfriendly to its policy implications; nor did the Obama administration make a fuss about it.  In fact, despite its front-paging, it vanished from the news with next to no commentary or follow up, and few expressions of surprise.
Too bad.  It should have been attended to.  According to the Times’ Mark Mazzetti, in September 2009 Centcom commander General David Petraeus signed a “secret directive” expanding the use of U.S. Special Operations forces throughout the Greater Middle East “and beyond” -- “to build networks that could ‘penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy’ al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to ‘prepare the environment’ for future attacks by American or local military forces...”
Among the most striking, if least discussed, aspects of this leaked story were the brief summaries of Centcom’s military policy towards Iran where, we were told, the seven-page directive “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, most likely to gather intelligence about the country’s nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive.”  The report -- too ho-hum for most Americans to concern themselves with -- was surely read with care in Tehran, for it offered a genuine gift to the present Iranian regime.  How useful to its hardline leaders to know that the U.S. military has already inserted, or is considering inserting, Special Forces teams into their country to “identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive.”
And there was more.  The piece quoted an unnamed “Pentagon official with knowledge of General Petraeus’s order” saying, “The Defense Department can’t be caught flat-footed” -- in the event, that is, “that President Obama ever authorizes a strike [on Iran].”
In fact, this sort of thing is little better than a poison pill for that country’s dissident Green Movement, reinforcing the claims Iranian hardliners find it so convenient to make -- that some reformist elements are proxies for foreigners, even paving the way for future U.S. military action.  From a purely practical point of view, this new policy is delusional, whether ordered only by General Petraeus or by President Obama himself, since -- despite raging fears on the left in the U.S. -- the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is functionally incapable of launching a military operation against Iranian nuclear facilities, no less the Iranian fundamentalist government, while it has two wars on its hands.  It is, however, remarkably typical of the blustering and blundering in Washington that has left Iranian dissidents saying, as one did in the Los Angeles Times recently, “Just leave us alone, please.”
Juan Cole, who runs Informed Comment, the blog that offers the single best running commentary on the Middle East available and whose most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World, considers other ways in which, on the first anniversary of the fraudulent Iranian elections and the rise of the Green Movement, both U.S. and Israeli policy moves have continued to backfire in Iran.  Tom

Iran’s Green Movement: One Year Later
How Israel’s Gaza Blockade and Washington’s Sanctions Policy Helped Keep the Hardliners in Power
By Juan Cole
Iran’s Green Movement is one year old this Sunday, the anniversary of its first massive demonstrations in the streets of Tehran.  Greeted with great hope in much of the world, a year later it’s weaker, the country is more repressive, and its hardliners are in a far stronger position -- and some of their success can be credited to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and sanctions hawks in the Obama administration.

If, in the past year, those hardliners successfully faced down major challenges within Iranian society and abroad, it was only in part thanks to the regime’s skill at repression and sidestepping international pressure.  Above all, the ayatollahs benefited from Israeli intransigence and American hypocrisy on nuclear disarmament in the Middle East.

Iran’s case against Israel was bolstered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s continued enthusiasm for the Gaza blockade, and by Tel Aviv’s recent arrogant dismissal of a conference of Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signatories, which called on Israel to join a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.  Nor has President Obama’s push for stronger sanctions on Iran at the United Nations Security Council hurt them.
And then, on Memorial Day in the United States, Israel’s Likud government handed Tehran its greatest recent propaganda victory by sending its commandos against a peace flotilla in international waters and so landing its men, guns blazing, on the deck of the USS Sanctions.  Yesterday's vote at the U.N. Security Council on punishing Iran produced a weak, much watered-down resolution targeting 40 companies, which lacked the all-important imprimatur of unanimity, insofar as Turkey and Brazil voted "no" and Lebanon abstained.  There was no mention of an oil or gasoline boycott, and the language of the resolution did not even seem to make the new sanctions obligatory.  It was at best a pyrrhic victory for those hawks who had pressed for "crippling" sanctions, and likely to be counterproductive rather than effective in ending Iran's nuclear enrichment program.  How we got here is a long, winding, sordid tale of the triumph of macho posturing over patient and effective policymaking.
Suppressing the Green Movement

From last summer through last winter, the hardliners of the Islamic Republic of Iran were powerfully challenged by reformists, who charged that the June 12, 2009, presidential election had been marked by extensive fraud.  Street protests were so large, crowds so enthusiastic, and the opposition so steadfast that it seemed as if Iran were on the brink of a significant change in its way of doing business, possibly even internationally.  The opposition -- the most massive since the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79 -- was dubbed the Green Movement, because green is the color of the descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, among whom losing presidential candidate Mirhossein Moussavi is counted.  Although some movement supporters were secularists, many were religious, and so disarmingly capable of deploying the religious slogans and symbols of the Islamic Republic against the regime itself.
Where the regime put emphasis on the distant Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Levant, Green Movement activists chanted (during “Jerusalem Day” last September), "Not Gaza, not Lebanon. I die only for Iran."  They took their cue from candidate Moussavi, who said he “liked” Palestine but thought waving its flag in Iran excessive.  Moussavi likewise rejected Obama administration insinuations that his movement’s stance on Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was indistinguishable from that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  He emphasized instead that he not only did not want a nuclear weapon for Iran, but understood international concerns about such a prospect.  He seemed to suggest that, were he to come to power, he would be far more cooperative with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The Israeli government liked what it was hearing; Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu even went on “Meet the Press” last summer to praise the Green Movement fulsomely.  “I think something very deep, very fundamental is going on,” he said, “and there's an expression of a deep desire amid the people of Iran for freedom, certainly for greater freedom.”
Popular unrest only became possible thanks to a split at the top among the civilian ruling elite of clerics and fundamentalists.  When presidential candidates Moussavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and their clerical backers, including Grand Ayatollah Yousef Sanaei and wily former president and billionaire entrepreneur Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, began to challenge the country’s authoritarian methods of governance, its repression of personal liberties, and the quixotic foreign policy of President Ahmadinejad (whom Moussavi accused of making Iran a global laughingstock), it opened space below.
The reformers would be opposed by Iran’s supreme theocrat, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who defended the presidential election results as valid, even as he admitted to his preference for Ahmadinejad’s views.  He was, in turn, supported by most senior clerics and politicians, the great merchants of the bazaar, and most significantly, the officer corps of the police, the basij (civilian militia), the regular army, and the Revolutionary Guards.  Because there would be no significant splits among those armed to defend the regime, it retained an almost unbounded ability to crackdown relentlessly.  In the process, the Revolutionary Guards, generally Ahmadinejad partisans, only grew in power.
A year later, it’s clear that the hardliners have won decisively through massive repression, deploying basij armed with clubs on motorcycles to curb crowds, jailing thousands of protesters, and torturing and executing some of them. The main arrow in the opposition’s quiver was flashmobs, relatively spontaneous mass urban demonstrations orchestrated through Twitter, cell phones, and Facebook.  The regime gradually learned how to repress this tactic through the careful jamming of electronic media and domestic surveillance. (Apparently the Revolutionary Guards now even have a Facebook Espionage Division.)  While the opposition can hope to keep itself alive as an underground civil rights movement, for the moment its chances for overt political change appear slim.
Nuclear Hypocrisy

Though few have noted this, the Green Movement actually threw a monkey wrench into President Obama’s hopes to jump-start direct negotiations with Iran over its nuclear enrichment program.  His team could hardly sit down with representatives of Ayatollah Khamenei while the latter was summarily tossing protesters in filthy prisons to be mistreated and even killed.   On October 1, 2009, however, with the masses no longer regularly in the streets, representatives of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany met directly with a representative of Khamenei in Geneva.
A potentially pathbreaking nuclear agreement was hammered out whereby Iran would ship the bulk of its already-produced low-enriched uranium (LEU) to another country.  In return, it would receive enriched rods with which it could run its single small medical reactor, producing isotopes for treating cancer.  That reactor had been given to the Shah’s Iran in 1969, and the last consignment of nuclear fuel purchased for it, from Argentina, was running out.  The agreement appealed to the West, because it would deprive Iran of a couple of tons of LEU that, at some point, could theoretically be cycled back through its centrifuges and enriched from 3.5% to over 90%, or weapons grade, for the possible construction of nuclear warheads.  There is no evidence that Iran has such a capability or intention, but the Security Council members agreed that safe was better than sorry.
With Khamenei’s representative back in Iran on October 2, the Iranians suddenly announced that they would take a timeout to study it.  That timeout never ended, assumedly because Khamenei had gotten a case of cold feet. Though we can only speculate, perhaps nuclear hardliners argued that holding onto the country’s stock of LEU seemed to the hardliners like a crucial form of deterrence in itself, a signal to the world that Iran could turn to bomb-making activities if a war atmosphere built.
Given that nuclear latency -- the ability to launch a successful bomb-making program -- has geopolitical consequences nearly as important as the actual possession of a bomb, Washington, Tel Aviv, and the major Western European powers remain eager to forestall Iran from reaching that status.  As the Geneva fiasco left the impression that the Iranian regime was not ready to negotiate in good faith, the Obama team evidently decided to respond by ratcheting up sanctions on Iran at the Security Council, evidently in hopes of forcing its nuclear negotiators back to the bargaining table.  Meanwhile, Netanyahu was loudly demanding the imposition of “crippling” international sanctions on Tehran.
Washington, however, faced a problem: Russian Prime Minister and éminence grise Vladimir Putin initially opposed such sanctions, as did China’s leaders.  As Putin observed, “Direct dialogue… is always more productive… than a policy of threats, sanctions, and all the more so a resolution to use force."  Moreover, the non-permanent members of the Council included Turkey and Brazil, rising powers and potential leaders of the non-permanent bloc at the Council.  Neither country was eager to see Iran put under international boycott for, from their point of view, simply having a civilian nuclear enrichment program. (Since such a program is permitted by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, any such Security Council sanctions on Iran represent, at best, arbitrary acts.)
By mid-May, Obama nonetheless appeared to have his ducks in a row for a vote in which Russia and China would support at least modest further financial restrictions on investments connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.  Many observers believed that such a move, guaranteed to fall far short of “crippling,” would in fact prove wholly ineffectual.
Only Turkey and Brazil, lacking veto power in the Council, were proving problematic for Washington.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey leads the Justice and Development Party, which is mildly tinged with Muslim politics (unlike most previous strongly secular governments in Ankara).  Viewing himself as a bridge between the Christian West and the Muslim world, he strongly opposes new sanctions on neighboring Iran.  In part, he fears they might harm the Turkish economy; in part, he has pursued a policy of developing good relations with all his country’s direct neighbors.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has led a similar charge against any strengthened punishment of Iran.  He has been motivated by a desire to alter the prevailing North-dominated system of international relations and trade.  Popularly known as “Lula,” the president has put more emphasis on encouraging South-South relations.  His country gave up its nuclear weapons aspirations in 1980, but continued a civilian nuclear energy program and has recently committed to building a nuclear-powered submarine.  Having the Security Council declare even peaceful nuclear enrichment illegal could be extremely inconvenient for Brasilia.
On May 15th, Erdogan and Lula met with Ahmadinejad in Tehran and announced a nuclear deal that much resembled the one to which Iran had briefly agreed in October.  Turkey would now hold a majority of Iran’s LEU in escrow in return for which Iran would receive fuel rods enriched to 19.75% for its medical reactor.  Critics pointed out that Iran had, by now, produced even more LEU, which meant that the proportion of fuel being sent abroad would be less damaging to any Iranian hopes for nuclear latency and therefore far less attractive to Washington and Tel Aviv.  Washington promptly dismissed the agreement, irking the Turkish and Brazilian leaders.
Meanwhile, throughout May, a conference of signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was being held in New York to hammer out a consensus document that would, in the end, declare the Middle East a “nuclear free zone.”  Unexpectedly, they announced success.  Since Israel is the only country in the Middle East with an actual nuclear arsenal (estimated at about 200 warheads, or similar to what the British possess), and not an NPT signatory, Tel Aviv thundered: "This resolution is deeply flawed and hypocritical… It singles out Israel, the Middle East's only true democracy and the only country threatened with annihilation… Given the distorted nature of this resolution, Israel will not be able to take part in its implementation."
The hypocrisy in all this was visibly Washington’s and Israel’s.  After all, both were demanding that a country without nuclear weapons “disarm” and the only country in the region to actually possess them be excused from the disarmament process entirely.  This was, of course, their gift to Tehran.  Like others involved in the process, Iran’s representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency immediately noted this and riposted, “The U.S… is obliged to go along with the world’s request, which is that Israel must join the NPT and open its installations to IAEA inspectors.”
A Windfall for the Hardliners: The Flotilla Assault
With the Tehran Agreement brokered by Turkey and Brazil -- and signed by Ahmadinejad -- and Israel’s rejection of the NPT conference document now public news, Obama’s sanctions program faced a new round of pushback from China.  Then, on May 31st, Israeli commandos rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish aid ship heading for Gaza.  They threw stun grenades and fired rubber-jacketed metal bullets even before landing, enraging passengers, and leading to a fatal confrontation that left at least nine dead and some 30 wounded.  An international uproar ensued, putting Israel’s relations with Turkey under special strain.
The Mavi Marmara assault was more splendid news for Iran’s hardliners at the very moment when the Green movement was gearing up for demonstrations to mark the one-year anniversary of the contested presidential election.  Around the Israeli assault on the aid flotilla and that country’s blockade of Gaza they were able to rally the public in solidarity with the theocratic government, long a trenchant critic of Israeli oppression of the stateless Palestinians.  Green leaders, in turn, were forced to put out a statement condemning Israel, and Khamenei was then able to fill the streets of the capital with two million demonstrators commemorating the death of Imam Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.
The flotilla attack also gave the hardliners a foreign policy issue on which they could stand in solidarity with Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and the Arab world generally, reinforcing their cachet as champions of the Palestinians and bolstering the country’s regional influence.  There was even talk of sending a new Gaza aid flotilla guarded by Iranian ships.  Because Turkey, the aggrieved party, is at present a member of the Security Council, this fortuitous fillip for Iran has denied Obama the unanimity he sought on sanctions.  Finally, the incident had the potential to push international concern over Tehran’s nuclear enrichment program and that country’s new assertiveness in the Middle East into the background, while foregrounding Israel’s brutality in Gaza, intransigence toward the peace process, and status as a nuclear outlaw.
In the end, President Obama got his watered-down, non-unanimous sanctions resolution.  There is no doubt that Netanyahu’s reluctance to make a just peace with the Palestinians and his cowboy military tactics have enormously complicated Obama’s attempt to pressure Iran and deeply alienated Turkey, one of yesterday's holdouts.
His election as prime minister in February 2009 turns out to have been the best gift the Israeli electorate could have given Iran.  The Likud-led government continues its colonization of the West Bank and its blockade of the civilian population of Gaza, making the Iranian hawks who harp on injustices done to Palestinians look prescient.  It refuses to join the NPT or allow U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities, making Iran, by comparison, look like a model IAEA member state.
Juan Cole is the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan and director of its Center for South Asian Studies.  He maintains the blog Informed Comment. His most recent book is Engaging the Muslim World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Copyright 2010 Juan Cole

© 2010 TomDispatch. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175259/

Requiem For a Journalist -- Helen Thomas

Illustration:  Helen Thomas

Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas has retired amid a firestorm of criticism over comments she made on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Widely known as “the dean of the White House press corps,” Thomas is the most senior White House correspondent and has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. In a brief video interview with the website RabbiLive.com, Thomas said her message to Israelis is to "get the hell out of Palestine." Thomas also suggested Israeli Jews should return to Poland, Germany or the United States. Thomas later issued a statement saying, "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon." We speak to former Senator James Abourezk, the first Arab American in the Senate. [includes rush transcript]

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Guest:

James Abourezk, former Democratic senator and congressman from South Dakota. The first Arab American in the Senate, he’s also the founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

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AMY GOODMAN: Veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas has retired amidst a firestorm of criticism over comments she made on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Widely known as "the dean of the White House press corps," Helen Thomas is the most senior White House correspondent and has covered every president since John F. Kennedy.

She made the controversial comments on May 27th, when she was questioned in an impromptu interview by Rabbi David Nesenoff, who was at the White House for a Jewish heritage celebration. Nesenoff eventually posted the video on his site, RabbiLive.com.

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Any advice for these young people over here for starting out in the press corps? HELEN THOMAS: Go for it. You’ll never be unhappy. You’ll always keep people informed. And you’ll always keep learning. The greatest thing of the profession is never stop learning. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Today they’re covering the Jewish Heritage Month. Any— HELEN THOMAS: Are they going to meet the President? RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Yeah, and any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today. Any comments on Israel? HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Ooh, any better comments than that? UNIDENTIFIED: Helen is blunt. HELEN THOMAS: Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, and it’s not Poland. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So where should they go? What should they do? HELEN THOMAS: They could go home. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Where is their home? HELEN THOMAS: Poland, Germany— RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So the Jews—you’re saying Jews should go back to Poland and Germany? HELEN THOMAS: —and America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See? RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Now, are you familiar with the history of that region and what took place? HELEN THOMAS: Very much. I’m of Arab background. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: I see.

AMY GOODMAN: The video was widely circulated. Ari Fleischer, President George W. Bush’s first press secretary, whom Helen Thomas had grilled many times, led the campaign for her ouster over the weekend, emailing journalists who might have missed her remarks, this according to the Washington Post.

Helen Thomas issued a statement saying, quote, "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she wrote.

By Monday morning, Helen Thomas had been dropped by her public speaking agency. At his daily news briefing, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs condemned the comments, calling them "offensive and reprehensible." Helen Thomas, who has had a front-row seat in the briefing room for many years, was not present. Shortly afterwards, Hearst Newspapers announced Helen Thomas was retiring, effective immediately. They wrote, quote, "Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet."

Helen Thomas’s retirement comes after nearly sixty years as White House correspondent for United Press International. She was known for asking tough, critical questions in the White House briefing room. She resigned from UPI in 2000 to become a columnist for Hearst. Helen Thomas was a trailblazer in the world of journalism. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She turns ninety this August.

For more, I’m joined on the telephone by former Senator James Abourezk. He’s the former Democratic senator and Congress member from South Dakota, the first Arab American in the Senate. He’s also the founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Senator Abourezk, welcome to Democracy Now! Your thoughts on the resignation of Helen Thomas?

JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, Helen has gotten more coverage over this than the killing of the nine Turkish aid workers who were killed by the Israeli commandos. I don’t really understand that disparity in coverage, but I kind of know how that goes, because I’ve been the target of Israeli propaganda myself over the years.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think that her comments, for which she apologized, were problematic?

JAMES ABOUREZK: No, I don’t, to be very honest with you. If you understand what Helen was trying to say, is that there are Palestinians sitting in refugee camps all over the Middle East who cannot get back into Israel yet. Ashkenazi Jews from all over Europe are able to come freely, and from America, too, and I think that’s what she was referring to. They’re calling Helen a racist. There’s no way that she’s a racist. She never has been, never will be.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go back and play when Helen Thomas actually said, because I just want to be clear. People have heard it different ways. It has been represented different ways on the internet. But we’re going to go back right now to what Helen Thomas said on May 27th.

RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Any advice for these young people over here for starting out in the press corps? HELEN THOMAS: Go for it. You’ll never be unhappy. You’ll always keep people informed. And you’ll always keep learning. The greatest thing of the profession is never stop learning. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Today they’re covering the Jewish Heritage Month. Any— HELEN THOMAS: Are they going to meet the President? RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Yeah, and any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today. Any comments on Israel? HELEN THOMAS: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Ooh, any better comments than that? UNIDENTIFIED: Helen is blunt. HELEN THOMAS: Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land. It’s not Germany, and it’s not Poland. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So where should they go? What should they do? HELEN THOMAS: They could go home. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Where is their home? HELEN THOMAS: Poland, Germany— RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: So the Jews—you’re saying Jews should go back to Poland and Germany? HELEN THOMAS: —and America and everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries? See? RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: Now, are you familiar with the history of that region and what took place? HELEN THOMAS: Very much. I’m of Arab background. RABBI DAVID NESENOFF: I see.

AMY GOODMAN: So, what Helen Thomas was saying is the Jews should go back—I presume it would be Israeli Jews; she said "they"—the Israeli Jews should go back to Poland, to Germany, to the United States. Senator Abourezk?

JAMES ABOUREZK: Yes. You have a question?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, the question of whether Jews should be able to live in Israel.

JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, Jews ought to be able to live in Israel, but not in the Occupied Territories, because that’s what the Palestinians have offered, is a peace—and all the Arab countries—is a peace agreement, if the settlers be taken out of the West Bank and if Gaza and the West Bank were allowed to be part of a Palestinian state. Now that’s the long and the short of it. I don’t believe Helen really said get them out of the other parts they’ve already taken, but I think—I’ve talked to her before. I think she’s in favor of a—and myself—of a two-state solution, or if that won’t work, back to a one-state solution.

But the point is, I’m talking about parity of coverage here now, Amy. There were nine people killed on that flotilla by the Israeli commandos, and that has gotten much less criticism than—you know, at least by a US press corps—than what Helen said. And she didn’t kill anybody, and she’s not about to kill anybody. So there’s really a disparity here. I just—I hate to see the whole thing turned toward Helen Thomas only, because there’s a lot more going on in the Middle East.

Look, the Israelis destroyed the USS Liberty back in 1967. They killed thirty-four American sailors, wounded 170 more. And there was no coverage, simply because the US government at that time put a clamp on the verbiage of the sailors sailing. Since they’ve left the Navy, they’ve tried to get their point across, but they were not allowed to talk at that time, so that was to protect what—the crimes that Israel committed against the US Navy. There’s just a disparity. That’s my complaint.

AMY GOODMAN: But on this issue of Jews going back, she didn’t say they should go back to Israel and other places; she said they should—she didn’t use Israel as an option. And, of course, she was saying "they," not "Israeli Jews" or "Jews," but it was clear she was referring to them. And that gave people the impression she was saying that—

JAMES ABOUREZK: Now, that’s an offhanded remark. I mean, the guy caught her unawares. She probably hadn’t thought that much more about it. But I understand what she really meant: they’re taking the place of Palestinians who cannot return to Palestine, their home. That’s basically what she was trying to say. And I don’t think she ought to be hammered because of that. Look, she lost her job. She lost her position in the Press Club. She lost her position in the White House press corps. That’s punishment over-the-top for what she was really intending to say there.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, throughout the two terms of the George W. Bush administration, Helen Thomas asked some of the most critical questions in the White House press newsroom. She challenged the Bush administration on issues including the Iraq war, the threat of an attack on Iran, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan, the administration’s support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. I want to just play a few of the highlights.

HELEN THOMAS: The United States is not that helpless. It could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon. We have that much control with the Israelis. TONY SNOW: I don’t think so, Helen. HELEN THOMAS: We have gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine. TONY SNOW: No, what’s interesting, Helen— HELEN THOMAS: And this is what’s happening, and that’s the perception of the United States. TONY SNOW: Well, thank you for the Hezbollah view, but I would encourage you— HELEN THOMAS: Nobody is accepting your explanation. What is restraint? You call for restraint. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Now, I will be glad to answer a few questions, starting with Ms. Thomas. HELEN THOMAS: Mr. President, you started this war, a war of your choosing, and you can end it alone, today, at this point, bring in peacekeepers, UN peacekeepers. Two million Iraqis have fled their country as refugees. Two million more are displaced. Thousands and thousands are dead. Don’t you understand? You have brought the al-Qaeda into Iraq. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Actually, I was hoping to solve the Iraqi issue diplomatically. That’s why I went to the United Nations and worked with the United Nations Security Council, which unanimously passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. That was the message, a clear message to Saddam Hussein. He chose the course. HELEN THOMAS: Didn’t we go into Iraq— PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: It was his decision.

AMY GOODMAN: Helen Thomas has continued to ask tough, critical questions of the Obama administration, as well, on issues including Israel-Palestine, the expansion of the war in Afghanistan, nuclear weapons and torture. Here are some of those highlights.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: All right. Helen? This is my inaugural moment here. I’m really excited. 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. HELEN THOMAS: When are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are we continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse? And don’t give us this Bushism: if we don’t go there, they’ll all come here. PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, Helen, the reason we originally went to Afghanistan was because that was the base from which attacks were launched that killed 3,000 people. And I’m going to get to your question, I promise, but I just want to remind people we went there because the Taliban was harboring al-Qaeda, which had launched an attack that killed 3,000 Americans. ROBERT GIBBS: Obviously, as we have said before, we are concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and continue to work with the Israelis and international partners in order to improve those conditions. And as the UN Security Council statement says, obviously it’s an untenable situation. . HELEN THOMAS: Our initial reaction to this flotilla massacre, deliberate massacre, an international crime, was pitiful. What do you mean you regret when something should be so strongly condemned? And if any other nation in the world had done it, we would have been up in arms. What is this sacrosanct, ironclad relationship, where a country that deliberately kills people— ROBERT GIBBS: Well, again, Helen, I— HELEN THOMAS: —and boycotts, and we aid and abet the boycott? ROBERT GIBBS: Well, look, I think the initial reaction, regretted the loss of life, as we tried and still continue to try to gather the relevant— HELEN THOMAS: Regret won’t bring them back. ROBERT GIBBS: Nothing can bring them back, Helen. We know that for sure, because I think if you could, that wouldn’t be up for debate. We are—we believe that a credible and transparent investigation has to look into the facts. And as I said earlier, we’re open to international participation in that investigation. HELEN THOMAS: Why did you think of it so late? ROBERT GIBBS: Why did we think of...? HELEN THOMAS: Why didn’t you initially condemn it? ROBERT GIBBS: Again, I think the statements that we released speak directly to that.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Helen Thomas questioning Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesperson; before that, Presidents Obama and President Bush. Finally, Senator Abourezk, what do you think the White House press room will be like without Helen Thomas right there in the front row?

JAMES ABOUREZK: Well, it’ll be an empty suit, because—simply because she has done what good journalists are supposed to do. And what the—the White House press corps, the most supine press corps I’ve seen in years, have refused to challenge any of these presidents the way she does. So, eventually, they got her, you know, because—and she makes people uncomfortable. That’s her job, to make people be uncomfortable, and to answer truthfully questions that are asked of them. But because the other reporters don’t do that—they’re afraid to do it or whatever—they finally got her, as did the establishment, the political establishment got her, too. They were just waiting, I suppose, for some misstep that they can pounce upon to get rid of her.

I might tell you that I was listening to that part about Bush saying they were working diplomatically. Did you know that in 1998 Clinton took the weapons inspectors out of Iraq? So he wanted to bomb Iraq, so he got them out of there. Then the press later on, a couple years later, started saying, well, Saddam Hussein kicked the weapons inspectors out. Well, after 9/11, I went over a year later to Iraq, and I met with Tariq Aziz. And I said, "Look, Bush is going to start a war, and unless you get—remove his excuse, by letting the weapons inspectors back in, you’re going to get a war. So do something for yourself and the people of the world by not allowing war to happen." So he agreed to it. When I was there to ask him that, he agreed to it. They let the weapons inspectors back in, which was one of the demands that Bush was making, and it didn’t do any good. And that’s what Tariq Aziz said. The words used were "We’re doomed if we do, doomed if we don’t." Do you know, Amy, that while I was meeting with him, he said, "They were making a big stir about getting into the palaces here, so we finally let them into the palaces. What did they do? But they brought their GPS systems in to target—target these palaces. We knew what they were up to, and that scared us"?

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Senator Abourezk, I want to thank you very much for being with us, a former Democratic senator from South Dakota, founder of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Again, Helen Thomas will no longer be in the front row of the White House. Her comments posted on her website: "I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon," she said.

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A Word From Our Readers

Actually, this is from a few readers.  Running a site has its strangeness.  A lot of comments are meaningless or spam, but there are many that are right on point.  I am suprised, sometimes, to find a comment on something I posted months ago suddenly show up,  but these are recent:

This is the longest:

I know what you mean!  When I start talking ( cautiously at first) about the occupation, I get a range of 

reactions from complete indifference like "yeah sure, we should fix all the world's problems, Rwanda, Darfur, 

Somali pirates, and especially fuck those lousy French ingrates!..." to "Israel has every right!  Those Hamas people want to push 

them into the sea for pete's sake!". I couldn't believe old tired looking Charlie Rose asked Khaled  Meshaal if he

really wanted to drive Israel into the sea.

Oh of course not!  And the Warsaw Ghetto Jews loved to invite stormtrooper in for bagels and lox, which they didn't

tell the troopers was made from raw rat filets with garlic für den Schmecke, nicht?.  

i'm eating a sandwich while typing this and almost threw up, oi veh.

Charlie R. kept at it, as if to say 'you really hate these ----in' Hebes, don't you, don't you? c'mon admit it.  But Khaled sat

relaxed as a used car manager closing a sale with a paranoid customer, nice smile and all.  

C'mon you hate us Hebes, everyone else in the world does, and you've got more cause, a really just cause.

I'm finding it harder and harder not to go there, rolling a gutter ball diplomatically speaking, no longer in the sweet 

spot that leads to a score of some kind.

It's so easy to hate the murderous IDF, especially now, that all the 'pro-israel' peace organizations I joined are driving me nuts with

their moderate bullshit.

If I were Obama, I think I'd have a few beers with Nitwityahoo and say "look Ben, how about this as a radical but easy solution.  We've

got tons of land that looks a lot like the Holy Land, it's called Nevada.  Your people will just love it, and we'll even build you some casinos

and a new city that will be an exact replica of Jerusalem, except with 5 star hotels and gambling.  Now Ben, don't give my any shit about

your people not liking to gamble or not liking 5 star hotels, hunh, hunh?

We've already got full scale replicas of parts of Venice in 'Vegas, you been there?  Hey,  look, I got a lot of buddies, they'll comp you

anytime.  Sure, kosher meals too, the wife and kids, the whole magilla, just let me know.

So we can build Las Jerusalem or something catchy.  A lot of Jews are already in place out there, and 'Vegas was built by your fellow landsmen

like those mensches Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky and Mo Green, all swell guys. They knew how to get things done, like you Ben, just like you....

No friggin' coastline to protect, hell, we'll build you a lake, divert Hoover Dam for a while, leave it to me Ben,,,,

No taxes to pay, free gambling money, well, we'll take a cut for a while, c'mon it's only fair ( mutual laughter).

Tell you what, bring out here all your full bore LIkud cocksuckers, you know, the paranoid ones with that Nazi mania

to conquer the whole freakin' world.  We'll give 'em a good time in 'Vegas, trust me on that, huhn huhn?  ( Obama winks and makes female

curve shapes with his hands and both men explode in hilarity, they've each had 5 beers by now...)

Ok, ok Barry, but those LIkud bastards ( he looks around to make sure no-one is listening) will want blondes and ( whisper) black girls, you know

real nigger whores, no offense, ok?  

Man oh man Ben, you know how to hurt a guy, and a president too!  But hey, we have no color lines here in the White House, a ho' is a ho',

and the black ones are gooood. Confidentially man, well, never mind, we'll talk more when you come back!"

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Here is a link to Boycott Israel and another to enjoy the insanity from Glenbeckistan:

glennbeckbulletin.wordpress.com PoliticalWiz55@aol.com 67.242.47.10	2010/06/03 at 3:12 pm You may enjoy my blog, The Glenn Beck Review, at http://sharethisurlaboutglenbek.wordpress.com You may enjoy my blog, The Glenn Beck Review, at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://sharethisurlaboutglenbek.wordpress.com">http://sharethisurlaboutglenbek.wordpress.com</a> PoliticalWiz55@aol.com glennbeckbulletin http://glennbeckbulletin.wordpress.com 0 ApproveUnapprove | Reply | Quick Edit | Edit | Spam | Trash	From the Nation 0 #
	Jim Edwards jedgaronomous@yahoo.com 99.238.217.129	2010/05/21 at 9:10 pm http://lmgtfy.com/?q=boycott+Israeli+products <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lmgtfy.com/?q=boycott+Israeli+products">http://lmgtfy.com/?q=boycott+Israeli+products</a> jedgaronomous@yahoo.com Jim Edwards 1 ApproveUnapprove | Reply | Quick Edit | Edit | Spam | Trash

Tomorrow, Helen Thomas.