OK. Let’s lay this out.
Israel is genociding Palestinians in Gaza. It has killed more civilians in three weeks than Ukraine and Russia have all war. Over 60% of casualties are children and women. They are deliberately flattening as many residential buildings as possible. They have bombed multiple hospitals, every single university and just hit the remaining water facility, while Palestinians have almost no water to drink.
Their end-goal is to force whoever survives into Egypt.
The US, may their empire collapse now, is sheep-dogging the Israeli genocide.
Senior U.S. Officials have reportedly been Warning the Iranian Government and Iranian-Backed Militias in the Middle East such as Hezbollah for several weeks now, both Directly and through Back-Channels in Countries like Turkey, that if they decide to launch a Significant or… pic.twitter.com/TizdWsk9kn
— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) November 6, 2023
Let me translate this.
America. “If Iran or Hezbollah try to stop the Israeli genocide of Palestinians, we will fuck up Iran and Lebanon to make sure Israel can keep mass-murdering civilians.”
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
Not 5% of people in political power aren’t, functionally, psychopathic mass murderers, any chance they can get.
I will not forget anyone who was for this. Anyone. At best every single person who had any power and supported this, including Justin Trudeau, Biden, etc… need to go to jail for the rest of their lives. All their wealth should be taken and given to their victims.
This has always been true, by the way. Our societies have been run by absolute scum, basically forever. Our system does not work. It promotes to the top of both private and public power the worst people in the world, people who make Jeffrey Dahmer look like a boy-scout. If their victim counts were as low as Dahmer’s, we’d live in a comparative paradise.
We need to figure out a better way to run our societies and don’t even start with “but democracy”. Our form of democracy is a complete failure, and those still alive in even 25 years will be entirely clear about that.
I don’t imagine Trump being any better (remember how he supported Israel), but I’ll never endorse Genocide Joe or any Democrat or Republican who voted to help Israel.
Enough.
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Tallifer
Now I understand intellectually why the Allies firebombed Germany and Japan, even though it still appalls me. Likewise the war crimes of Russia have a certain inexorable logic: might cannot make right without using all its might.
jump
You must be the Antichrist Ian. 😉
In this looking glass world, that is a compliment.
If irrationality and just plain evil doesn’t create enough chaos, throw in a good pinch of fanaticism. Armageddon is the goal for true believers.
StewartM
So true.
The people who ask “why can’t the Palestinians use peaceful means to protest?” conveniently forget the US’s anti-boycott laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Anti-Boycott_Act
Remember, economic pressure was a key in getting South Africa to change.
When you take away the peaceful means to bring about change, you fulfill JFK’s prediction that “those who makes peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”.
Eric Anderson
Thank you, Ian. This is the most concise an cogent piece I’ve read on the subject. Sharing widely.
Willy
But Democracy.
Personally, I don’t think any of the players involved with murdering innocent civilians (Israeli, Palestinian, or techno), are much into democracy. At least not the high-functioning kind. They seem more like the kind of guys who are always ruining things for everybody else. Our new system needs to keep that kind out of power.
ventzu
there is nothing more to say.
Soredemos
It’s surreal to see Israel go so mask off. This is what Zionism has always been, but it was better at hiding it in the past. It usually went slower and could massage the PR with hasbara.
Now it’s openly vindicating everything any critic has ever said about it and its endeavors. When Israeli officials call the whole world antisemites and wear yellow stars to the UN it validates everything people like Finkelstein have said about the holocaust industry.
As far as I can tell Israel figures since they burned all the bridges anyway they might as well keep going and just grab everything that can at once. UN and aid organizations are now essentially all openly hostile to Israel, because Israel is openly waging war on them and their workers. It’s amazing to see groups that habitually try to maintain neutrality and use restrained diplomatic language call Israel out directly. It’s simply open season on anyone whose job is to help. If you want to get bombed for certain, ride in an ambulance.
Neil
I agree with everything you wrote, but (as someone who admires you) you may need to meditate more, Dude.
Feral Finster
I’ll say it – Biden, as titular president, his enablers (Blinken, Nuland, etc.) and his buttbois (Trudeau, Sunak, Jonson, etc.) each deserves to be in the dock at Nuremberg.
Mark Level
I’m copy-pasting something I said at Naked Capitalism a few minutes ago:
The West, specifically the NeoCon captured US gov’t. has zero credibility with any Arab leaders, even with their bought off servant M. Abbas. Mercouris & Christoforou report that Blinken was openly jeered at by every official he met with! Blinken doesn’t do “diplomacy,” he probably doesn’t even know the word’s meaning, he just barks orders at his subordinates, but right now RoW (the rest of the world) is not impressed with US power & leadership, so he is ignored or ridiculed.
Everyone knows these people are war criminals; the only good news is that they are incredibly insane & incompetent ones. It is only going to end badly for the “indispensable” USA, & we will fall into Marx’s “ashcan of history.” And it’s about time, too.
The only thing I can add to this is that some months back, a good friend of mine was claiming that the US government would likely incinerate the whole planet over their pre-determined failure in the Ukraine proxy war. I found that a bit hyperbolic. But with something as “precious” (in Gollum’s sense) as Israel, the bulked-up “U.S. Aircraft Carrier in the Middle East” & the exemplary Settler-Colonialist, “kill all the brutes” stand-in for U$A, well I am far less sanguine currently that we won’t see a nuclear war if the Arab states bloody the Empire’s nose too badly in the coming months.
Ian Welsh
Neil,
first time i’ve lost my temper over a political issue since 2015 and the Syriza’s capitulation to European austerity and looting.
Twice in 8 years is OK by me, and unlike in the pre 2014 era, I may get angry on occasion, but i don’t stay angry.
Soredemos
Syriza’s giving up was tragic, but they were always doomed. They had no leverage, and their attempts to fight only my got them an even worse bargain when they finally submitted.
EGrise
Ian, your anger mirrors my own. Thank you for expressing it, it helps to hear it from people I admire.
VietnamVet
This post is the truth.
But WaPo responds to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D) who states Joe Biden is supporting genocide by saying that “Vladimir Putin is trying to wipe the Ukrainians off the map….The fires of extremism and rage are burning, and Tlaib is grabbing the gasoline”.
Global corporate-states exist simply to exploit human labor and extract the earth’s resources to enrich the wealthy. To do this requires compliant neo-colonial governments usually ruled by radical minorities or “Big Men” who need mercenary militaries (the Empire) to stay in power and get their cut of the money. This inevitability pits one ethnic group against the other and stolen land. The huge contradiction is that the elite and the managers must believe the kumbaya finale of the Mad Men TV Show; Madison Avenue’s “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke”. They truly believe that they are not bad guys. In fact the establishment kills humans to stay rich.
If there is anything that is sure is that this blood sucking global capitalistic system is toppling due to the forever wars, pandemics and pollution. If any remnants of civilization remain on earth, depends on the good luck of avoiding a nuclear holocaust, and the restoration of good government run by and for the people.
anonone
It is long past time to stop using the sexist cliché of grouping “women and children” together as if women are the helpless equivalent of children.
Men and women are equal adult human beings, and bleed the same way.
Obama’s genocide was in Yemen where American weapons were used to slaughter tens of thousands of children and adults, but it never made the headlines.
Biden’s genocide is in Gaza.
William H. Slavick
Joe Biden was one of the last racists in Congress regarding desegregation. He is clearly an unchristian Catholic regarding Palestinians, knowing Catholic social teaching but not a practitioner. Opposing a ceasefire as the Netanyahu slaughter topped 1000 day after day has made clear for some days that he should resign, likely now unelectable again, even if running against Trump in a jail cell! Ditto silent or acquiescent Kamama. I could not vote for him in 2020 and will not in 2024. Bernie in 2020, likely Bernie again.
Eric Anderson
Cliche’, I know, but anger is a secondary emotion to sadness and fear. In this case, sadness. Bitter disappointment to have to share the name “human” with monsters. Shame, even. Understood properly, anger is a tool. Which is why, to dwell in it, is harmful. Like Thoreau said, we become the tool of our tools — and that is never healthy in any context.
As Ian intimates, but doesn’t really spell out, there is a time and place for anger. My writing I’ve recognized over time, my voice, very often proceeds from a place of anger. It’s calculated, based on the fact that I firmly believe people don’t change their minds based on facts and logic. They do so from observing the intensity and passion of other people’s conviction. It’s really one of the greatest insights of organized religion — hit people where they “feel.” Not where they think.
From my point of view, more needs to be written from voices of anger and outrage. Save the dispassionate analysis for the research papers and courtroom. We have giant problems to contend with at this point in history — straight up existential nightmare scenarios. And, if we don’t figure out how to change more minds and penetrate the lassitude endemic to our consumer malaise culture?
We’re cooked.
I’ve been up to my nose in “legal” over the past few months. Working hard to create space for a 5-day civil jury trial coming the end of November. But when I’m through? Expect some bangers I’ve been sitting on for some time.
Carborundum
I would normally be pretty skeptical of the notion that the US is sheep dogging in the sense of fully backstopping Israeli actions here (much more likely to be useful idiots in my experience – Charlie Brown to the Israeli Lucy).
However, this: https://knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/news/us-military-deploys-aircraft-to-greece-for-evacuation-contingency has me more contemplative. The systems and capabilities mentioned are a bit off for even a large scale admin evac mission. Follow on since this reporting includes significant additional assets from CONUS, specifically including a fair volume of airborne refueling capability. This doesn’t necessarily mean an American strategic air campaign, but it could be contingency for things like no-fly zones or support for IAF actions (they are a little light on refueling assets).
Eric Anderson
Carborundum:
Or staging for an Iran invasion.
Carborundum
Force positioning reported above is wrong for an anti-Iran operation. This is all about operations in the eastern Med (they have used this basing for Ukrainian CONOPs, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here).
Recent reporting has the Eisenhower battle group and an SSGN finishing their transit of Suez, presumably en route to positions in the Arabian Sea (the Gulf is a small lake for a former boomer). That’s about the right level for CONOPs, likely focused on deterrence, force protection or even diplomatic evacuation. If they were thinking more offensively, I would expect to see forward basing – specifically to include some pretty exotic platforms – at DG.