The Living Horror That Is Gaza

This is how Deacon Muskrat, the hatefully hawkish cleric in Walt Kelly's great comic strip Pogo, put it years ago: "If I had the bomb, I'd force peace down their throats."

Once more, Israel is forcing peace down the throats of the beleaguered citizens of  Gaza.  And the blood of innocents flows and flows. Thirty-two of the 66 acknowledged victims of the latest bloodbath have been civilian men, women and children.

Never mind the numbers.  Bibi and his friends don't care.

One invites being labeled anti-semitic for thinking these thoughts.  And so I give you the son of a teacher of Hebrew, who visited  Gaza just before the latest reign of terror began:

" . . . it hardly takes more than a day in Gaza to begin to appreciate what it must be like to try to survive in the world’s largest open-air prison, where a million and a half people, in the most densely populated area of the world, are constantly subject to random and often savage terror and arbitrary punishment, with no purpose other than to humiliate and degrade, and with the further goal of ensuring that Palestinian hopes for a decent future will be crushed and that the overwhelming global support for a diplomatic settlement that will grant these rights will be nullified."

Noam Chomsky wrote that, even as Israel was calling up 70,000 more reserve troops to active duty, the better to force peace down the throats of the sick, starving, angry inhabitants of "the world's largest open-air prison."

Granted, diplomatic solutions do not come easy in the most troubled parts of this vale of tears, especially when tens, even hundreds of generations of ethnic and religious conflict have buried the last vestiges of human decency under layers of murder, terror, torture, rape and pillage. 

And so we -- most of us in the so-called civilized world, remote as we are from the worst of the ethno-religious horrors -- as Pete Seger musically laments, "live like an ostrich, bury our heads in the sand . . ."

When the U.N. sought to condemn Israel's latest ourages on the Gazans, the United States, Netanyahu's enabler, vetoed the resolution because "Israel has a right to defend itself."  What Chomsky disdainfully calls "the security pretext."  He quotes "the prominent military-political analyst Yoram Peri, who wrote that the Israeli army's task is not to defend the state, but 'to demolish the rights of innocent people just because they are Araboushim ("nigger," "kikes") living in territories that God promised to us.'" And so the people of Gaza have become Samid (steadfast), watching their homeland turned into a prison by brutal occupiers, able to do nothing but somehow "endure."

And we bury our heads in the sand.

Chomsky writes that after several days there his reaction "was amazement, not only at the ability to go on with life, but also at the vibrancy and vitality among young people, particularly at the university. . . But there too one can detect signs that the pressure may become too hard to bear. . . There is only so much that caged animals can endure, and there may be an eruption, perhaps taking ugly forms — offering an opportunity for Israeli and western apologists to self-righteously condemn the people who are culturally backward, as Mitt Romney insightfully explained.

"Gaza has the look of a typical third world society, with pockets of wealth surrounded by hideous poverty. It is not, however, 'undeveloped.' Rather it is 'de-developed,' and very systematically so, to borrow the terms of Sara Roy, the leading academic specialist on Gaza.

"The signs are easy to see, even on a brief visit. Sitting in a hotel near the shore, one can hear the machine gun fire of Israeli gunboats driving fishermen out of Gaza’s territorial waters and towards shore, so they are compelled to fish in waters that are heavily polluted because of US-Israeli refusal to allow reconstruction of the sewage and power systems that they destroyed. . .

"Water is severely limited. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which cares for refugees (but not other Gazans), recently released a report warning that damage to the aquifer may soon become 'irreversible,' and that without remedial action quickly, by 2020 Gaza may not be a 'liveable place.'

"All of this is part of the general program described by Israeli official Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after Palestinians failed to follow orders in the 2006 elections: 'The idea,' he said, 'is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.'

"And the plan is being scrupulously followed. Sara Roy has provided extensive evidence in her scholarly studies. Recently, after several years of effort, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha succeeded to obtain a court order for the government to release its records detailing plans for the diet, and how they are executed. Israel-based journalist Jonathan Cook summarizes them: 'Health officials provided calculations of the minimum number of calories needed by Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants to avoid malnutrition. Those figures were then translated into truckloads of food Israel was supposed to allow in each day ... an average of only 67 trucks — much less than half of the minimum requirement — entered Gaza daily. This compared to more than 400 trucks before the blockade began.' And even this estimate is overly generous, UN relief officials report.

"Mideast scholar Juan Cole observes that “[a]bout ten percent of Palestinian children in Gaza under 5 have had their growth stunted by malnutrition ... in addition, anemia is widespread, affecting over two-thirds of infants, 58.6 percent of schoolchildren, and over a third of pregnant mothers.” The US and Israel want to ensure that nothing more than bare survival is possible.

"In one of the world’s leading medical journals, The Lancet, a visiting Stanford physician, appalled by what he witnessed, describes Gaza as 'something of a laboratory for observing an absence of dignity,' a condition that has 'devastating' effects on physical, mental, and social wellbeing. 'The constant surveillance from the sky, collective punishment through blockade and isolation, the intrusion into homes and communications, and restrictions on those trying to travel, or marry, or work make it difficult to live a dignified life in Gaza.' The Araboushim must be taught not to raise their heads."

Even as we bury our own in the sand.

Smoke, Catacombs and Partisanship

Once again in the nation's capital, blue smoke curls around black ops to make whitewash.

Someone -- Jimmy Hoffa? James Bond? Maybe even David Petraeus! -- was spirited through the catacombs of Congess and into a secret room, there to be interrogated by some of the best and brightest members of that bastion of intellect and integrity, the U.S. House of Representatives. Those servants of the people had sworn to "get to the bottom" of a complicated mess involving fatal violence at an American consulate in Libya and femmes fatales in the extra-marital embrace of at least one, and possibly more, high ranking members of our military and spying establishment. The someone they sneaked into their hidey-hole was thought to have all the answers to all their questions.

OK, for the record, let's just stipulate that the someone was, indeed, retired Gen. David Petraeus, the walking medal chest, military hero of our great conquests in Iraq, Afghanistan and countless other places great and small around this troubled globe. Not only did he appear before a panel of great minds from the House, he also talked to a group of Senators.

Some are reporting that he "testified," although he was not repeat not under oath.  Some testimony.

What did he say?

That depends upon whether you're being briefed by a Republican or a Democrat.  Their characterizations of what he said differ greatly.  Either he did or he didn't support the administration's version of events around the consulate in Benghazi that fateful day when an ambassador was slain.

What seems clear is that the questioning wasn't prosecutorial or probing.  Both Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) and Sen. Diane Feinstein (D.-CA.) indicated that out of respect for the tender sensibilities of the general and his family, there were no questions about his sexual pecadillos, and the questions that were asked were not "tough." 

Questioners on both sides of both panels seemed to agree that the focus was on "clarifying" what Petraeus had told Congress about Benghazi back when he was still director of the CIA  -- what we knew and when we knew it.  What he says now and what he said then seem still to be interpreted strictly along party lines, leaving us, the people, still in the dark.

Even before the blue smoke began wafting through the bowels of the Capitol yesterday, there were whiffs of gray smoke suggesting a deeper CIA involvement in what happened there than anyone has so far disclosed. I suspect this aspect was never raised in yesterday's questioning.

King and the Republicans seem satisfied that Petraeus gave them answers yesterday, answers that substantiate their charges that "politics" marred the intelligence the administration used in addressing the American public about the episode. Since semen spots on black dresses seem to excite Republicans more readily than suggestions of black ops, they'll probably let things rest where they are.

Is there any hope at all that the public will ever know the truth?  Perhaps that depends upon what the definition of is is.

Sex! Generals! A Cast of Thousands!

A television performer named Krya Phillips is the latest addition to the cast of the tragic-comic farce playing out around Gen. David Petraeus, who resigned abruptly last week as head of the CIA.

Phillips, of Headline News Network, disclosed that she had a discussion with Petraeus recently about the episodes that have titillated Washington and the media.  "I've had a very good professional relationship with General Petraeus," she said. "I've kept in touch with him ... we've always had a great measure of respect for each other. Needless to say, I'm shocked by his behavior.

"We didn't even talk about Benghazi at the beginning," she said. "It was more, 'oh my God, I'm in shock, I'm sick about this, what the hell happened.'" She said Petraeus told her that he had made a huge error, that he had not passed on classified information, and that his resignation had nothing to do with the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Drawing on my own experience as a journalist in Washington, dealing with the city's spooks (as we always referred conversationally to people who worked for the intelligence-gathering agencies), I infer the following from Phillips's remarks:

Her relationship with Petraeus was cozier than "professional," classified information did  seep from him to a paramour, and his resignation was all about the Benghazi affair, in which an American ambassador and two CIA operatives were killed.

I infer also that Petraeus was the direct source of bad information --possibly intentionally bad information -- fed to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and the White House regarding Benghazi.
We are told that Petraeus himself will be called to testify as our brilliant representatives in Congress empanel themselves to "get to the bottom" of all this.  Maybe the truth will out, but don't bet the house on it.

Republicans will go haywire over the sex details, as they did with Monica Lewinsky and William Jefferson Clinton.  The saliva of anticipation of erotic detail is running deep in every hallway in the Capitol. 

Democrats will have to be careful about whose ox they gore.  Petraeus is, as more than one academic has noted, America's most political general since MacArthur. He has meddled deeply in electoral politics and, indeed, built his entire career on political skills rather than military ones.

Despite what his worshipful media cult writes and broadcasts, he is far from a military genius.  He wears a chestful of medals and ribbons not one of which was earned in combat.  He is vain, arrogant and manipulative.  But he is the darling of the military-industrial complex and President Obama loves his drone warfare concept.

A strong case can be made, I suspect, that Petraeus and Obama and former President Bush and many other most senior government officials of the last 12 years committed what under international law are war crimes.

Angry as Obama might be that Petraeus's leaks and misinformation played into the hands of the Romney campaign late in the recent electioneering, he can't afford to have too deep a probe into Petraeus, the CIA and the FBI.

Where there are spooks, there will be blood and dirt.  The more ambitious, political and powerful the spook, the greater the amount of blood and dirt. You can bet the house on that.

Will a Progressive Posse Ride in the Senate?

If there is a spark of life left in liberalism in these United States, the last, best hope for rekindling it lies in the newly elected Senate.

There, one can pray, women like Tammy Baldwin and Elizabeth Warren might rally around Bernie Sanders to form a Progressive Posse, perhaps attracting New Mexico's new Senator Martin Heinrich and a few other lefties to come out of the closet and grow some cojones.

Such a posse could have a profound effect on policy.  But it would have to coalesce fast or all will be lost and Dr. Kidglove's second term will be a worse disaster than his first.

John Boehner's Teapot House will be as delusional in its next incarnation as it has been for the last two years.  Sanity, if any, in the legislative branch has to come from the Senate.

A Progressive Posse's first order of business should be to send a message to President Obama that if he nominates Erskine Bowles to succeed Timmy Titmouse Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, they will lead the fight against his confirmation.  Bowles's name is floating all over Washington as the likely nominees for Geithner's post.  Bowles, a sleazy tool of the corporatocracy, has called Paul Ryan's Disneyworld Fantasy budget plan "serious and sensible."

Just as Geithner's own nomination signaled what a farce of surrender Obama's first term would be, so the Bowles nomination, if it happens, would signal the magnitude of the disaster Term Two would become.

Someone needs as well to stiffen the President's spine to stand pat on the brink of the so-called financial cliff until Boehner and his cockeyed cronies come to grips with reality and accept a permanent extension of the Bush middle-class tax cuts, along with an agreement in principle on increasing taxes for the very rich.  Warren and Baldwin, a budget stalwart in the House, are ideal candidates to lead the spine-stiffening campaign.

The Progressive Posse could also submit its own list of proposed nominees to succeed Lady Macbeth as Secretary of State.  Obama would make a long overdue down payment on his undeserved Nobel Peace Prize if he nominated someone for Foggy Bottom who has less blood on his or her hands than Hillary.  Inasmuch as Bibi Netanyahu was Mitt Romney's offstage campaign manager, Dr. Kidglove really doesn't have to cater to the Israeli leader's whims this time around.  What's wrong with having a Secretary of State who might spend a few minutes in cabinet meetings suggesting peace alternatives?

A country without an effective left cannot be a democracy.  The democratic republic we called the United States of America  died along with the victims of the planes that crashed into those twin towers eleven years ago, because liberalism went up in the smoke.

Chris Hedges, the brilliant journalist and social critic, says the American left cannot be revived.  Part of me fears that he is right.   Another part hopes that somehow there will arise in the Senate the seed  of rebirth.

"I didn't run for the Senate to make history," said the openly lesbian Ms. Baldwin, "I ran to make change."

You go, girl!

The High Cards Are in the West Wing

We'll find out right quick if the electoral college landslide for Barack Obama stiffened his spine.

Did we re-elect Dr. Kidglove or a real President?

John Boehner obviously thinks he's still dealing with Kidglove.  The Republican Speaker of the House, in his first public comment on the election results, was still telling the President what to do about the nation's finances.

Today, there's a hint from Vice President Joe Biden that there might be a real President somewhere in the West Wing.  In a press briefing today, Biden said " . . . it appears is that, on the issue of the tax issue, there was a clear sort of mandate about people coming much closer to our view about how to deal with tax policy."  Since "our view" is that people earning $250,000 a year or more need to pay a higher tax rate, Biden seemed to be sending a signal to Boehner that he's not sparring with Kidglove any more.

But, whoa! Biden also said, "We are prepared to work with Republican leadership to actually deal with the two overarching problems right now. One is the whole sequester piece, and the other is the tax piece. It's possible you can bifurcate them. It's possible, there's all kinds of potential to be able to reach a rational, principled compromise."

There's that dirty word again.  "Compromise."  Kidglove's version of compromise is to give away the farm, and then open "negotiations."

But Obama and Biden hold the high cards between now and the swearing-in of a new Congress, if only they'll play out the hand that way.

Obama should quickly follow up the opening volley by his Vice President by ignoring Boehner and Mitch McConnell and talking directly to the American people who just re-elected them.

Simply by standing pat, the administration can let the Bush tax cuts for the filthy rich expire, increasing revenues; the payroll tax holiday for wage-earners expire, resuming normal funding for Social Security; and the mandatory ten per cent cut in war spending take place, a first step toward reducing the deficit.  These are all positive things. They will have an immediate effect on people's lives.

The President, who can be an articulate and persuasive speaker when he chooses to be, should use the bully puplpit to applaud these inevitable results of previous skirmishes but lay out in broad, general terms a plan for realistic tax reform, in which corporations and very wealthy individuals begin to pay their fair share of our nation's expenses, and for bold national spending on direct job-creating government initiatives to repair and improve the infrastructure.  He should pledge to flesh out these plans with specific legislation when a new, more progressive Senate is seated along with a House whose Republican majority has been slightly reduced, largely by the defeat of a handful of its most extreme right-wing financial policy whackos.

That's what a real President would do.

Let's see if we re-elected one.

The Kidgove of the first term gave away too much before the work on health care reform even began. He bailed out the financial industry, saving the bonuses of fat cat bankers.  President Obama bailed out the automakers, saving thousands of workers' jobs.

It's time now to bail out the people who re-elected him.