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TechnoratiBush's Last War Crime?
The Israeli invasion of Gaza, launched Saturday, might very well be George W. Bush's last and final war crime. For eight years, Bush has coupled unparalled ignorance of the Middle East with supreme arrogance. It is precisely that deadly combination of ignorance and arrogance that is on display now, as a politically motivated Israeli invasion of Gaza unfolds with the full support of the Bush administration.
In his weekly radio address, delivered as Israeli tanks and armor rumbled into the Gaza Strip, Bush declared:
"This recent outburst of violence was instigated by Hamas -- a Palestinian terrorist group supported by Iran and Syria that calls for Israel's destruction. ... Another one-way ceasefire that leads to rocket attacks on Israel is not acceptable. And promises from Hamas will not suffice -- there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end. I urge all parties to pressure Hamas to turn away from terror."
A more sweeping endorsement of Israel's action is hard to imagine. Writing in the Post, columnist Jim Hoagland, a reliable, neoconservative-allied scribbler, describes it this way:
"He did not just give Israel a green light to inflict as much damage as possible on Hamas once that radical movement foolishly renounced a six-month-old truce. Bush knocked down the traffic light post and waved the Israelis through the intersection."
Personally, I find Hamas despicable. It is a right-wing Islamist group with open terrorist inclinations, motivated by a fanciful notion that it can defeat Israel with its pinprick attacks. I've also written extensively, including in my book, Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, how Israel created Hamas systematically and deliberately during the 1970s and 1980s, building up the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmed Yassin's proto-Hamas movement as a counterweight to Fatah.
But Israel could easily have absorbed the rockets launched by Hamas, nearly all of which crash harmlessly in remote areas, if it had truly sought to work out an accommodation with the Palestinians. Most important, Israel could have endorsed and supported efforts by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others to create a lasting accord between Hamas and Fatah. Instead, Israel did the opposite, meeting each of Hamas' acts of violence with far greater violence of its own.
As I've written in this space earlier, the outcome of Israel's action is likely to be to strengthen, not weaken, Hamas. It will also have the following collateral effects: it will undermine the moderate wing of the Palestinian movement, perhaps fatally. It will weaken the government of Egypt, boosting the power of the radical-right Muslim Brotherhood there, to the point where Egypt's regime could collapse, with incalculable consequences. It will boost radicalism across the region, especially its Islamist variant, in Lebanon and Iraq in particular, and help Iran gain traction among otherwise unreceptive Arab populations.
Hamas is unlikely to seek a deal now. Having watched Israel blunder into Lebanon two years ago, in a futile effort to eradicate Hezbollah, only to see that movement emerge victorious and take control of part of Lebanon's own government, Hamas is not going to sue for peace. In that, they may be wrong, since Gaza is not Lebanon. In Gaza, Hamas has no access to resupply its armaments, and the territory on which it operates is extremely limited. So it is going to suffer severe military losses and vast casualties against the lethal Israeli Defense Forces.
Israel's objectives aren't clear. Israeli hawks, including Bibi Netanyahu -- appearing Sunday on CNN's Late Edition -- insist that Israel cannot stop its action until Hamas is utterly defeated, whatever that means. In the New York Times, two top Israeli leaders are quoted to the effect that Israel's objective is regime change and the elimination of Hamas. Foreign Minister Livni put it this way:
"There is no doubt that as long as Hamas controls Gaza, it is a problem for Israel, a problem for the Palestinians and a problem for the entire region."
And Haim Ramon, the vice premier, said:
"What I think we need to do is to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern. That is the most important thing."
But in trying to eliminate Hamas, Israel will revive Hamas, which has been losing popularity dramatically until the current explosion. With Barack Obama maintaining his sphinx-like silence, it's the Bush-Cheney-Rice administration that remains in charge. They clearly have no intention of intervening, unless Israel gets into trouble and requests help. The Swampland blog at Time suggests that Obama's approach might be different from Bush's:
"No doubt, the Israelis want the operation to be over before the Obama inauguration--it's not neighborly to present your most important potential ally with a crisis at his moment of ascension. But it is very easy to get to stuck, and hurt, in alley-fighting. I hope that Israel is working as hard behind the scenes to arrange a quick cease fire as it is fighting on the ground. It would be nice if we had a President of the United States with the credibility and ingenuity to make it happen. Perhaps we soon will."
I'm not convinced. So far, at least, Obama has given no indication that he'd do anything different. I'd like to think he would. Some of his advisers, before the election, told me that they thought Obama would talk to Hamas. Let's hope so.
46 Comments so far
Show AllThe real terrorist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1EXKLVgEx0
Yeah, I've seen that video before! Awesome stuff! Everybody needs to watch this. Trust me. Thanks for the link, KYHillbilly.
these war crimes will continue as long as the zionists control our currency and our government.
I am noticing that every time an article's headline contains ANY reference to America, there are far more posts than when it doesn't. Neve Gordon's article would for example have merited more attention. But it wasn't about America!!!
So you think that you are so unlike Bush?
No, you are not. The basic parochial mind-set is the same. Aka pathetic navel-gazing. Precious American ego being commented on by someone will always be more interesting than any article actually reporting about something that has been instigated by America but isn't actually ABOUT Americans' incredibly precious egos!!
I believe there are special Op agents logging on fulltime and trying to muddy the waters with doubts about realities seen/read exclusively here. They may focus against anti-Americanism.
Some appear to be progressives but often psychologically suggest we, as if they represented the voice of rationality, put the brakes on our radicalism.
I have accused, and will continue to accuse, certain bloggers whose interests seem more aligned with the will of the nation than its people. I say Humanity First, then country. They, McCain, and the vast majority agree, chant "Country First" as if it were in some holy scriptures.
With two weeks left, there is still enough time to bring down all of humanity in a final cataclysmic conflict--be very concerned.
Poet
This genocidal slaughter of Gaza has been in the works ever since the Bush/Cheney/Rice/Olmert genocidal slaughter in Lebanon became an embarrassing disaster for the Zionists. Bush's last war on women and children seems to be fully supported by our elected officials. Obviously they all pledge allegiance to the flag of Israel and not to the USA. America provides the aircraft, weapons, bombs, bullets and diplomatic cover in the United Nations to assure the extermination of as many citizens in Gaza as we have already put to death in Iraq. This will assure that the genocidal label will stick to Israelis and Americans for the New American Century. It's time for the United States of America to disband for the sake of humanity. Repeal UNGA Resolution 181.
United States will NEVER dispand as long as I live but purhaps you will.
If this situation gains in intensity and we become involved military wise will George Bush invoke Presidential Directive 51 and become a dictator ??
arcing
I don't think GW WANTS to be president anymore. He's pretty much dropped the reins on everything except passive moves. In fact, I think all along he wanted the glory but certainly not the work that being president entails. We know he's aware that America and the world think he's a failure, since he and Cheney are desperately trying to re-write history and claim things that aren't true.
He may be as glad to leave the White House as we are to see him go.
No Barack Obama (aka Bush-lite) will.
Poet
"there must be monitoring mechanisms in place to help ensure that smuggling of weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza comes to an end." - Bush
While we are at it, why not put in some sort of monitoring mechanism that ensures that getting weapons to terrorist groups, such as the IDF, outside the Gaza strip also is prevented?
Terrorism is the act of causing death and destruction to civilians in order to frighten them into actions against their own self-interests. Whether or not the people doing the acts of terrorism are wearing uniforms or not is completely and totally irrelevant. The trials post WWII stated that clearly and irrevocably. What the IDF is doing in the Gaza cannot be classified as anything else but terrorism, the same as what the US did in Fallujah. Collective punishment is established as a war crime. For the Israelis to deliberately make life impossible for the Palestinian civilians in order to undermine their support for Hamas is clearly collective punishment. It is also counterproductive and stupid.
There's something very obvious here that is not mentioned in the mainstream press and is regrettably also not being mentioned by Dreyfuss. When I post it as a comment on Yahoo or the Wash Post it gets deleted.
If we put aside whether the Hamas government is bad, wrong or reactionary, and just look on them as the leaders of a people who are under military assault, and we then look at their actual terms for an end to the rocket-fire in the light of whether they are acting for the interests of the people of Gaza, they do not look so crazy. This invasion is occurring in the context of a siege which has been going on for 16 months, has reduced the people of Gaza to desperation and is confronting them with death by starvation and disease. Hamas has said that one of their conditions for stopping the rocket fire is that the blockade be lifted. Indeed why should they - Hamas or the people of Gaza - want to return to their previous state of quietly dying while the world ignores them? They were facing mass death already. But no one else is talking about this demand, or even reporting it for the most part.
We don't have to like the Hamas leadership of Gaza, but there can be no understanding or rational thought about the situation if we aren't allowed to hear and consider what they have to say, and don't even realize that we aren't being allowed to hear it. In this way the "free press" is knowingly and probably deliberately abetting genocide. But Dreyfuss should know better.
Chris Horton
Yes, and right now Palestinians are fighting for their lives as much as they can after being starved, no medical aid, no water, no electricity, no supplies, and no shelter now for many. Did I see that some people are eating grass to survive? I've concluded Israel's attack this time is genocidal, further victimizing the victims of their illegal blockade. It's like shooting fish crowded into a small barrel.
I am sorry, although I am generally opposed to the invasion, Israel is, according to what I see on TV, sending food supplies to Gaza every day. They seem to send 80 or so trucks into the strip each day. Not a lot, the whole thing is a crime anyway and just a vehicle for winning the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections. But let's just mention all the facts nevertheless.
We don't want to be like the Israelis and just mention everything that proves MY side's points, after all!
It's for show, Araquin. Do you know how many people live in Gaza? You probably do, but for the record, it's 1.6 million. 80 truckloads of food isn't going to reach many people. And it isn't daily -- it's once in a while, when reporters can be there.
http://www.freedom4um.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=93256
Ah, shoulda' known. It wasn't Israel who supplied those 80 truckloads of goods, which included food, fuel, and some medical supplies.
It was Egypt:
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90777/90854/6562979.html
Israel opened its borders for the delivery for one day on Friday. I suspect the world outcry against the invasion is making Israel be a little more careful about their PR image.
The point of aid to Gaza should be viewed in this light:
For anyone who has worked in a Wal-Mart or supermarket (especially on the night shift), consider how many trucks are unloaded in a week. Now, while it is positive that these shipments are entering the territory, the aid is not enough to sustain the population. Couple this with the fact that there is little fuel to distribute supplies, almost zero electricity and intense ground fighting that makes anyone trying to hand out or gather these items a target. This comes at the tail of a year and a half of a near total blockade of necessities, so even if there was free movement the paltry amounts crossing the border would do little to alleviate the situation.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
~Mark Twain
One more war crime for the road.
The leaders of Israel have certainly expressed their hatred for the Palestinians and all Arabs, making their intentions CLEAR through the decades. Posted in another thread but relevant here, too:
=====
Addressing his General Staff in 1948, David Ben-Gurion explained his plan for the region: "We should prepare to go on the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, TransJordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Muslim regime is artificial and easy to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we shall smash the Arab legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan. Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on to take Port Said, Alexandria, and Sinai." There were no suicide bombers against Israeli civilians in 1948, as Ben-Gurion aimed to smash Lebanon, TransJordan, and Syria, and seize parts of Egypt.
Nor were there any Palestinian suicide bombers against innocent Israeli civilians in 1967, when Israel occupied more Palestinian land; simply the belief, articulated by Joseph Weitz in Diaries and Letters to the Children, that "It should be clear that there is no room for both peoples to live in this country... Not one village, not one tribe must remain. They must be moved to Iraq, Syria, or even Trans-Jordan." "Not one tribe must remain" certainly sounds like ethnic cleansing, and so does "rid[ding] the Galilee of its Arab population," which Israel Koenig, then Northern District commissioner, wrote in a secret report to then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and where he explains: "We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population." Ethnic cleansing, terror, and assassination were Zionist policy long before the first Palestinian suicide bomber first saw the light of day, under occupation, as a refugee in his own land.
Nor were there any Palestinian suicide bombers in 1982, when, having driven millions of Palestinians into neighboring countries, Israel invaded Lebanon in order to kill thousands more, then living in the utmost squalor in camps outside of Beirut. There were no suicide bombers in 1982, when Menahim Begin, in a speech to the Israeli Knesset during the invasion, claimed the Palestinians "are two-legged beasts." There were no suicide bombers when Rafael Eitan, chief of staff of the Israeli "Defense" Forces, explained a few months later: "We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours."
These statements, all made before the first Palestinian suicide bombing against innocent Israeli civilians, reveal the virulent racism of the Zionist founders and leaders of the Jewish state. Thus when Interior Minister Uzi Landau claims, in April of 2002, that "we are not facing human beings, but rather beasts," he is not driven to such a statement by the ferocity of the latest suicide bombing against innocent Israeli civilians in Israel. Rather, he continues in a long line of Israeli politicians who have made similar statements since the creation of Israel.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3693/is_200208/ai_n9142320/pg_1
jean98765
Being somewhat antique I have read the history of this part of the world and followed a lot of the story. It has been a crime but for many years.
A thing that seems to never get mentioned is that it was NOT THE PALESTINIANS who gassed or incinerated the Jewish people. The country that did the horrendous acts is now a wealthy country, doing well and accepted by the world community. The Palestinians have paid the price for many decades, right from the inception of Israel. They lost everything, many of them spending their lives in refugee camps.
And this looks to be Obama's first war crime too.
Israel may not be our 51st state but we sure are part of Israeli occupied territory. It matters not if we approve or disapprove of what Israel does.
Hoa binh
jean98765
It's difficult to figure out which is the tail and which is the dog. Who is calling the shots?
Hey, the man's got another couple of weeks left. There's still time for a premptive strike agianst Iran. Who knows what his 'dog' will tell him to nuke in the next little while...
Since "W" has speech patterns like a dyslexic child...
And he has claimed to hear "God" telling him what to do...
Maybe Barney should be tried in the Hague as well as the mastermind of the GWOT...
When Nancy Pelosi stated that "impeachment is off the table" in November 2006, Dubya's license to steal and murder no longer had an expiration date.
Dubya will therefore be able to continue to commit crimes without fear of consequeneces...forever !
If Nancy Pelosi were my wife, I'd have battered her so tough and rough that she'd regret the day she was born. I can't believe San Francisco was filled with dumb fuck voters who blindly chose her over Sheehan !
Sioux Rose
DENNIS: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Advocating violence/battery at a wife/Pelosi is hardly a progressive or humane perspective. Most of us in this forum are angry and in despair over the lack of political muscle on the part of the so-called opposition party, but the machismo reflected in your post is chilling, too.
My apologies for getting too angry and violent but I can't stand her doing this kind of backstabbing. It's too much for me to digest. Sorry.
You have stepped way over the line with this comment Dennis.
"I know not with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." - Albert Einstein
I didn't want to be this pissed off but you can thank Peelowsick and her blind sucker voters for my anger. Go hit them instead.
Today I read that the US has provided Israel with 140 Billion Dollars in aid since the 1950's!!
Again I ask the non-rhetorical question: can anyone name ONE benefit that the US has gained from providing Israel with all that aid?
Oh Oh! I have one!
That's 140 billion that didn't go directly to bail out the CEO's of the banking industry!
Launching rockets from built up civilian centers against completely undefined targets in Israel is NOT a war crime?
You are absolutely correct!
And so is running airplanes loaded with people into buildings in the United States.
But guess what! as we have seen in both cases, Armies are wholly ineffective at solving this kind of Problem.
Indeed, as the article rightly points out, armies of occupation give such organizations that rush to marginalize themselves a huge shot in the arm of legitimacy.
And then we find out today that Israel has targeted a hospital with two shells.
And they have been systematically targeting civilians as well.
Again, does this kind of shit solve the 'Problem' of radical Islam? Or does it create another thousand years of enemies and hatred? Hitler understood this very well, which is probably why he adopted the only solution that works where killing is involved...you have to kill them all. I am only waiting for the moment when the Israeli pundits start talking about an ultimate solution to the Palestinian Problem......and the MSM will take it spoon fed and be almost oblivious to what is being planned.
Anyway.
I can tell you that if I was in Gaza and forced to suffer the way these people have suffered for 41 years I'd be supporting ANYONE who was striking a blow against the Israelis....even if they were assholes and bandits. And I'm not even religious!
Every single child they kill creates a whole new generation of people willing to embrace evil because they hate the evil done to them so very much.
As my mother always used to tell me.
Two wrongs do NOT make a right.
"Two wrongs do NOT make a right."
Your mom was correct. However . . . two Wrights DO make an airplane. : )
Did anyone else here the NPR interview of representatives from both Israel and Palestine, last week I believe?
The Palestinian representative claimed the rockets fired into Israel that evidently started this, was a false flag operation. I believe him. This whole incident sounds precisely like a false flag operation.
But which kind of false flag operation...?
One where Israelis dress up as Hamas militants and fire rockets at empty targets...?
Or one where Israelis train and arm a proxy organization like Hamas, knowing they will attack Israel...?
Precision bombing is another oxymoron. Just like military intelligence.
The Israelis have alrady admitted that they have been planning this assault on the civilians of Gaza for a year.
Ain't democracy great?? It is if the people of a country vote the way the US and its 51st state, Israel, want them to. If they don't, woe be to them.
Kitty Lady
how Israel created Hamas systematically and deliberately during the 1970s and 1980s, building up the Muslim Brotherhood and Ahmed Yassin's proto-Hamas movement as a counterweight to Fatah.
*Israel needed to have a perpetual enemy so it could keep saying no to arab peace deals.
Just like the US needs the perpetual enemy of Al-qaeda to help legitimize it's continuous war. Al-queda was created by the CIA in the 80s, and it continues to play it's role as client to this day.
Osama bin Laden = Immanuel Goldstein ("1984")
Good point...
See comments under the top article about White Phosphorus. ursa gives links to US government and I link to Dahr Jamail on what he saw in Iraq,including white phosphorour results. There is also, via ursa, a link to the ANSWER Coalition march/demonstration this Sat.,Jan.10 in Washington DC. http://answer.pephost.org/ (Am older, slow tech learner, but figured out the url)
Bush is lying, as usual. Israel broke the cease-fire leading to the retaliatory rockets and then this "let's pound some sense into them" approach. Destroy Hamas and another similar type of organization will rise up. The children of Palestine are not only being slaughtered, the survivors are brooding on vengeance. The underlying causes must be addressed.
Here's some clear information and background:
http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20090101212318310
Excellent link!
"Bush's Last War Crime?"
Did you expect anything less from Smirky? And why shouldn't he, since he knows he'll never be held to account.