Monthly Archives: October 2011

More Iran Warmongering from the Usual Suspects

Posted by on 2011-10-29 No comments

The Standard Times again is raising a cri de guerre from Lawrence J. Haas, a man who never met a war he didn’t want the taxpayers to fund. I will again make the observation that readers are being treated to more of this syndicated rightwing fare than ever before.

Haas is one of a number of neoconservatives who believe the answer to a failed policy of trying to remake the Middle East in America’s image is more of the same. The Kagans, Raymond Tanter, various Republican presidential candidate’s advisors, and others have been on the warpath lately, calling for military strikes, bunker busters, or – in the case of Haas – “surgical strikes” on Iran. Were it only true that surgeons, rather than butchers, conducted wars.

The cockamamie story of a Texan-Iranian used car salesman and his supposed contacts within the Iranian government plotting an assassination and attacks on multiple embassies, as sketched out by Attorney General Holder and Secretary of State Clinton, has never been properly explained. The Texan-Iranian is an habitual offender with a penchant for drugs and domestic abuse. The missing man, Gholam Shaakuri, whom Haas and others claim is a member of the Iranian government, actually turns out to be a member of the Mujahadeen e-Kalq, the MEK – a terrorist organization which opposes Iran from exile. I wouldn’t expect the administration to show any proof because there is none.

We’ve gone down this road many times before, with the Gulf of Tonkin, in Central America, with exiled Cubans (Bay of Pigs), exiled Iraqis (non-existent yellowcake, fabled WMDs, thanks to Chalabi and others). Pretexts for war are an American tradition. Remember the Maine?

We would do well to get a grip and not let the shrill voices of militarism dictate entry into another war – especially when the only justification is ideological. After decades of wars and drone attacks in Iraq, Afganistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Libya, and now even Kenya, the head spins, and the only thing certain is that we are bankrupting ourselves and making yesterday’s friends into tomorrow’s enemies.

This was published in the Standard Times on November 15, 2011
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/article/20111115/opinion/111150307

Bring all the political prisoners home

Posted by on 2011-10-17 No comments

Gilad Shalit was released today. I posted the following essay more than a year ago. There are still roughly 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails whose families love them every bit as much as Shalit’s.

Tomorrow, June 25th, 2010, will be the fourth year that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit has remained in captivity. But it has also been over forty years since Palestinians in greater numbers have been imprisoned – many without ever receiving a trial.

All in a day's work for the IDF

For three generations, more than 20% of all Palestinians – and some estimate half of all Palestinian men – have see the inside of an Israeli prison sometime in their life.

In 2010, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported over 7,000 Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, 264 under administrative detention – indefinite imprisonment without trial.

Another day of the occupation

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel cites statistics noting that as of March 2010, 6631 Palestinians were imprisoned in Israel, 8 detained under the Illegal Combatants Law (7 of whom are from Gaza) and 237 were administratively detained. 35 were women; 337 were child prisoners, including 39 under the age of 16; and 773 were from Gaza.

Marwan Barghouti

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem detailed civil and human rights abuses in a report titled “Without Trial” and has called for an end to Israel’s illegal detentions: “Under international law, a state may detain a resident of occupied territory without trial to prevent danger only in extremely exceptional cases. Israel, however, holds hundreds of Palestinians for months and years under administrative orders, without prosecuting them. By doing so, it denies them rights to which ordinary detainees in criminal proceedings are entitled: they do not know why they are detained, when they will go free and what evidence exists against them, and are not given an opportunity to refute this evidence.”

Two weeks ago, blogger Richard Silverstein reported that “Yediot Achronot published a story about a Mr. X imprisoned in an Israeli jail.  The man was in solitary confinement. His jailers did not know who he was, did not share a word with him, no one came to visit him. No one seemed to know he was there. They didn’t even know what crime he had committed or how he came to be in the prison. His prison cell was completely isolated from other prisoners and he couldn’t communicate in any way with them.” Then the article was pulled from the paper and the story was censored. The story was picked up by the Daily Telegraph in the UK. The prisoner apparently shares the same treatment as Gilad Shalid.

Shalit

The Israeli Foreign Ministry lists seven Israeli soldiers either kidnapped or missing in action: Staff Sergeants Zecharya Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz – all missing since 1982 in a battle at Sultan Yakoub, in Lebanon; Major Ron Arad, who was captured on 16 October 1986, after his aircraft was shot down near Sidon, Lebanon; Guy Hever, who went missing on the southern Golan Heights in August 1997; Majdy Halabi, last seen hitchhiking in Dalyat El Karmel in May 2005; and finally Cpl. Gilad Shalit, who was abducted on June 25, 2006 near Kibbutz Kerem Shalom. Only for Shalit has there been any recent “proof of life” and Hamas acknowledges holding him.

For the last four years 23-year-old Shalit has been held in an undisclosed location and, like Israeli Prisoner X, even Red Cross visits have been denied. Lt. General Gabi Ashkenazi has gone on record that securing the release of Shalit is of the utmost importance to Israel. But Ashkenazi has clashed with the Netanyahu government over the degree of importance. For four years Israel and Hamas have rejected each other’s demands and offers. In 2009 a German-brokered deal collapsed after Hamas rejected additional Israeli requirements that released political prisoners go into exile.

the only 'unbreakable bond' there should be

Any father – Israeli, Palestinian, or American – feels the pain that Shalit’s father swallows when he talks about his son. I know I do. I understand Noam and Aviva Shalit’s desperation and frustration with both Hamas and their own government. And it deeply disturbs me that Shalit, who was still a teenager when he was captured, and his family are paying a steep personal price. But so are Palestinian families. The father in me appeals to both sides to settle the prisoner negotiations and let all political prisoners – Palestinians and the one Israeli – free. But neither the Hamas nor Likud and Beteinu extremists have ears for appeals to humanity.

But there is a more pragmatic reason to resolve this issue now.

Israel has announced a relaxation of bans on certain humanitarian imports to Gaza in the wake of the flotilla attack. Flotilla organizers and the Turkish charity whose members were killed on the Mavi Marmara may have been accused of being Al Qaeda and Hamas operatives, but the incident has underscored the fact that Hamas remains in charge in Gaza and it represents governance in the besieged strip. While Israel and Hamas can both fume about Zionist or terrorist “entities,” it becomes clearer by the day: they have to start talking to each other. As diverse as the responses to the flotilla attack have been (suits against Israel in the EU versus an outpouring of Congressional resolutions s

upporting Israel in the US), there are two sides – and they must start talking.

Israel recently denied German development minister Dirk Niebel entry into Gaza. To Israel such visits only serve to legitimize Hamas. While this is somewhat ironic in light of Israel’s campaign against “Israel delegitimizers,” the snub of the German diplomat may also have been meant as a message to the international community to butt out of the Shalit negotiations and that talks with Hamas are off-limits.

Indeed, the issue of Hamas legitimacy has been the major stumbling block. Israel has an official policy of not talking to “terrorists.” Neither Israel, the PA, Egypt, nor the US want to acknowledge Hamas. For all its lofty verbiage, the Obama administration has also kept neocon ideology alive by refusing to talk to enemies. But Europe and the Arab and Muslim worlds are more pragmatic. Despite funding from Iran, the Arab League, Turkey, and the EU are willing to at least talk to Hamas. Hamas’ growing legitimacy has been observed by Americans. The New York Review of Books ran an interesting article on Hamas last year by Nicolas Pelham and Max Rodenbeck. Charlie Rose interviewed Khaled Meshaal in Damascus about a month ago. Pretending that Hamas does not represents 1.5 million people is as senseless as pretending that two Republican senators do not represent Idaho, a state with the same population as Gaza.

Acknowledging both elected governments (Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza) would force an accommodation with each other. But as long as “Palestinian unity” is a precondition for talks, there will be no peace, no end of hostilities between Israel and Hamas, and no resolution of a prisoner exchange.

But resolving a prisoner exchange – perhaps the simplest first step in restarting peace negotiations – would be in everyone’s interest.

It is in Israel’s interests to build on its gesture of relaxing Gaza imports by demonstrating flexibility it has not shown for some time. Now that Israel has been able to turn this gesture into a minor public relations victory and has indeed relaxed some import items, Shalit becomes slightly less valuable to Hamas as a tool to win import concessions from Israel. For Hamas, Shalit now has value only for a prisoner exchange. This would be a good time for Hamas to make some minimal concessions of its own in regard to Israel’s demands. Similarly, on the anniversary of Shalit’s capture, the Netanyahu government is under increasing pressure to bring him home. It would be a good time for Israel to make some concessions as well.

To both sides: Bring Gilad Shalit home. Bring all the political prisoners home.

Wishful Thinking

Posted by on 2011-10-16 No comments

Barney Frank has proposed cutting European allies’ military aid in order to reduce the total military budget by 25%. Frank has mentioned numerous European nations by name.

However, the U.S. actually provides very little military aid to Europe, as it turns out. According to U.S. Government statistics for 2009 which can be found at http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s1299.pdf, all European nations combined received a total of $210 million (with a little “m” and not a “b”). The following nations were included in this calculation: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom. Congressman Frank will be relieved that Denmark and Italy are not among them.

However, if we look at the 2009 recipients of more than $100 million in aid, the top eight were: Afghanistan (5.7 billion), Israel (2.38 billion), Egypt (1.3), Pakistan (429 million), Jordan (238 million), all of Europe combined (201 million), and Somalia (102 million).

The United States maintains a network of over a thousand military bases in 150 countries. This is where the costs rack up. For example, Germany receives nothing besides rent for permitting the U.S. to maintain the Landstuhl military hospital and base. However, the U.S. is unlikely to shut down Landstuhl because this is where KIA and injured service members from the Middle East are sent before returning to the U.S. It serves no purpose to Germans. And as several years of wrangling with Iraq attests, the military does not willingly shut down bases and a “patriotic” Congress does not have the guts to force it to.

Some of the money allocated to Europe also goes toward the U.S. commitment to NATO. Long after the Cold War has ended and the Soviet Union was dismantled, we are still unwilling to give up those bases and dismantle our own Cold War club.

So it seems to hold true that whenever the U.S. goes to war, which is often, military infrastructure grows but is subsequently never permitted to be reduced.

Afghanistan represents 53% of all American military foreign aid. Israel gets 22%. The rest of U.S. allies get the remaining 25%. Congressman Frank has steadfastly refused to look at cuts for Israel, but clearly it’s a notable, politically-motivated exception. And the Obama Administration has asked the Congressional Research Service to prepare estimates of spending in Afghanistan until 2021, and we haven’t heard enough Democrats complaining about these plans.

If we are serious about reducing frivolous foreign military expenditures, we need to close useless bases, cut aid to countries inflated to excess by special interests, and get out of Afghanistan now and not in another decade. The rest of Congressman Frank’s ideas may have some merit, but it seems to me he’s no different from the rest of Congress: he only wants to go on a low-armaments diet if all he has to do is throw the maraschino cherry on the sundae away.