Rogue State

As Mehdi Hasan has written in The Guardian, Israel has become a rogue state, having exempted itself from any modicum of civilized behavior. If the last twelve months haven’t proven this to the world, the past few weeks should.

Israel just murdered the mayor of a city in Lebanon. Two cabinet ministers recently used out-and-out genocidal language. Gaza has been deprived by Israel of humanitarian aid to such an extent that even Milquetoast Blinken is using stronger language with Israel.

Having said that, the time for more than words has long passed. Biden and his team have been 100% complicit so far, threatening the US moral standing in the world (if we still have any), and making the election of Donald Trump more likely .

I expect that Hasan’s idea if expelling Israel from the UN, however compelling, would never fly with Zionist Biden, but the US could at least start by following through on withholding further aid. Time to stop talking and start acting.

Things I Don’t Care About

If I see the news stories about Gaza or the Middle East that begin with these phrases, I just assume that whatever follows is bullshit:

• Israel is investigating….

• Antony Blinken (or Jake Sullivan or any other State Department spokesperson) says ….

• Israel accuses….

• Israel is not targeting….

Forever Wars (continued)

The Biden Admin is now bombing in Syria. That means the US is involved in armed conflicts in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria, as well as firing on UN troops. (Did I forget any?) Biden is also silent on the American journalist detained by Israel. The US is fully committed to Forever War, independent of the party in power. Crickets from Kamala Harris.

Days are running out until election day. I don’t know how but she needs to separate herself from this travesty. She will have only herself to blame.

Quote of the Day - October 9

 Headline from Ahmad Moor's piece in The Nation today. The sad truth.

The One Guaranteed Winner in 2024: American Empire

Democrat or Republican, the next presidency will still mean death for others in faraway places.

Biden's Legacy

I have never been a huge fan of Joe Biden. One of the ironies of his attempt to ease student debt burden is that he was a major sponsor of the legislation in the mid-aughts that made it essentially impossible for sturdent debt holders to declare bankruptcy. He was a Senator from Delaware, where a legislator's main duty is to look out for the interests of banks and credit card companies. And he delivered.

He also was a supporter of W's Iraq War, and was on the weapons-of-mass-destruction bandwagon. His record on tough-on-crime stuff was pretty bad.

I voted for Biden in 2020. He's done some pretty good things as president on the domestic front. Other than his withdrawal from Afghanistan, however, his foreign policy has been pretty bad, pretty much run-of-the mill Cold War stuff.

But the tragedy of his presidency is that his legacy will be that he was in full support of a genocide in Gaza, which is now becoming a regional war. All through this, Biden and his foreign policy team have been all in, with the flow of money and weaponry from American war profiteers increasing.

LBJ did some equally cool things domestically. But his legacy is forever tarnished by the Vietnam War. Biden will deserve the same kind of scorn. If Harris is elected, maybe this will be reversed. I am hopeful, but not optimistic.

 

 

One-Liners

• Melania Trump declares her support for reproductive rights. Who cares?
• Emmanuel Macron ain't no leftie, but I applaud his call for a halt in arms sales to Israel.
• Waiting for actions rather than words from the Biden-Harris Administration re:Gaza.
• Note to Harris: How many voters at this point are actually teetering between voting for a reasonably sane center-left candidate and a raving maniacal narcissistic neofascist?
• Tacking to the right is not the solution to the immigration issue that Dems should be pursuing.
• Simple and obvious truth: Chicago (where I live) always seems able to find plenty of money for cops, but never for schools and housing.

 

 

 

Bipartisan Foreign Policy Blunders

Excellent piece by Peter Beinart in today's Guardian. I quote one paragraph below that is a chilling and damning description of the constant failures of American foreign policy during the seven-plus decades of my life, once again repeated in today's Middle East.

The problem with this dynamic is that ruinous foreign policy decisions often enjoy bipartisan support, at least initially. The 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted Lyndon Johnson the authority to escalate America’s intervention in Vietnam, passed the Senate 88-2 and the House 416-0. In 2002, many prominent congressional Democrats – including Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Tom Daschle, then Senate majority leader, and Richard Gephardt, then House minority leader – voted to authorize George W Bush’s invasion of Iraq. And after 7 October, Biden and his Republican opponents vied to show who supported Israel’s war more emphatically.