Friday, July 28, 2006

Israelis: A Lobby or An Executive Suite?

Q: Why is Israel destroying the entire infrastructure of Lebanon?
A: The short answer is to keep resupplies and reinforcements and escape unavailable to Hezbollah. The longer answer is that in addition to the Syria-Iran connection, Israel knows that Hezbollah is an indigenous Lebanese movement of the Shi'a community, a large plurality in the country, and not far from an absolute majority; thus, to truly suppress Hezbollah Israel must suppress the entire country of Lebanon.

Q: Did Israel deliberately kill those four UN observers? If so, why?
A: It certainly looks deliberate and the reason would be to eliminate witnesses. Israel has a history of committing atrocities and wants no unambiguous evidence of these crimes to exist. For example, in the 1967 war, begun by Israel as a preemptive strike against the Arabs (you thought the Bush foreign policy --bomb them afore they bomb us-- was original?) Israeli forces captured, through surrender, several hundred Egyptian soldiers and proceeded to execute (murder) them. This was a war crime by any definition or law or treaty. The USS Liberty, an NSA spy ship, was loitering off the Israeli coast in international waters in the Mediterranean, monitoring the war. Though the Liberty knew nothing of this Israeli war crime, and didn't even have that capability (see Body of Secrets by James Bamford, c. 2001, Doubleday), the Israelis took no chances and attacked the ship with torpedo boats and fighter jets, disabling it (nearly sinking it) and killed 34 Americans. Later Israel apologized for its "mistake" and even paid some monetary compensation. For Hezbollah there will be only death, not compensation. The Israelis intend to massacre a whole bunch of people.

The Israelis are clever, devious and rather amoral about these things. The biblical Hebrews were an aggressive, warlike people and now, well, only the technologies have changed. They are self-defined as god's chosen people, don't believe in an afterlife (that control mechanism of guilt used by the christian church) and even for those few who still await their messiah, the kingdom he is supposed to bring would be in the real here and now, not some nebulous heaven. Lebanese civilians, Palestinians, Egyptian soldiers, American sailors: the Israelis don't feel guilt about their victims; they do fear very real retribution. And so they attack their enemies at the first stirrings of resistance, demolishing their organizations, jailing or killing any who get in their way.

Q: Does the Israeli lobby control US foreign policy?
A: The short answer is that to a large degree, at least in the Middle East, yes. There is a longer answer. The question assumes that the Israeli lobby is an organization, or coterie of organizations and individuals that is separate from and outside of the US government. Wolfowitz, Abrams, Perle, the list is long. These people float through think tanks, quasi-governmental organizations and often in the government itself, almost exclusively in appointive, not elective, positions. Many, many of these influential people work for , with, even found institutions with an explicit pro-Israel bias. Most of the individuals are Jewish and most of their money comes from wealthy Jews. There are more Jews in the US than in Israel. A somewhat useful but "proceed with caution" generalization might be that not all supporters of Israel are Jews but all Jews support Israel. Yahweh's covenant with the Jews was work hard, follow the laws and successful rule will be yours. The Protestant work ethic can't hold a candle to drive for success of Jews.

Jews are disproportionately successful in our world and as individuals kudos to them and their efforts. But when they use their resources to influence or control politics, well, that is a different arena. Some Americans are displeased with what they consider liberal social policies; other Americans are worried about the influence of fundamentalist christians; so, it's not hard to imagine that some might fret about Jewish influence. And the really odd thing about this is that criticizing Jews is considered unacceptable. Cries of anti-Semitism immediately arise. Of course, Palestinians are Semites so being anti-Palestinian is equally anti-Semitic, or equally meaningless. And the pro-Israeli Jewish influence has, seemingly always, major influence in the mass media: newspapers, magazines, television. If a member of Congress strays from the fold and so much as expresses an open mind about Palestine or Lebanon the propaganda machine cranks up and that official is yanked back into line. Anyone running for Congress had best not say anything critical of Israel or the force of the publicity campaign will kill their election hopes. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that only minorities, mostly blacks, can get elected after criticizing Israel.

Listening this morning to NPR (that bastion of "liberal" thought) I heard an interview with the director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Robert Satloff. His was a typical NPR interview on foreign affairs: speak with someone from a think tank for an "objective, unbiased" review. Of course, this is not what Mr. Satloff or his organization represent; their position is for US-Israeli domination of the Arab Middle East. To that extent they are bipartisan; they don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat, only that you support Israel, Bush and ExxonMobil. The remarkable thing, to me, about the interview was the attitude evinced and how the interviewer, Renee Montagne, didn't call him on it. To quote from the NPR website: "Satloff says the conflict in southern Lebanon will be resolved only when Hezbollah is disarmed." The problem, in a nutshell, is Arabs. Mr. Satloff claimed that "we" (meaning Israel and the US) had "allowed" the situation to get out of hand. Saddam's Iraq, the Mullahs' Iran, Assad's Syria, Palestine's Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah: all have been allowed to grow into the current problem. The imperialistic chauvinism dripped from every word. It was akin to last week's McLaughlin (the only thing worse than a Jesuit is an ex-Jesuit) Group on PBS where Tony Blankley (an eft to the Newt) said that when Israel was founded the land was virtually empty, almost nobody lived there! Now that was a WHOPPER and he looked as though he expected someone to call him on it. On that show, of course, no one did.

The pro-Israel bias in the US is so pervasive and reflexive that we don't even think about it. It's second nature. Israel in the Middle East, the US throughout the world, want no opposition. That is a silly fantasy but they are going out of their way to destroy any regime that opposes them, from Venezuela to Iran to Russia. And they intend massive jails and mass murder for the resistance groups that arise. That's what 4th generation warfare is about: we no longer fear states, the enemy of the future is the people! You'd think that if Dubya wants our help and complicity in war crimes he'd at least offer us a carrot, things like rising incomes, good jobs, a safe and clean environment. The really funny thing is that Dubya and his cronies are not patriots; they don't care about the United States or its citizens. Dubya cares about money and wealth and power and control for him and his buddies. In my book, the regime is populated by traitors.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Will The Fundamentalists Have Their End of Days?

Watching, as is not my custom, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer Friday night on PBS I found the analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war astounding. The entire discussion was about Hezbollah: who are they, what do they want, who supports them, etc? And no mention of Israel's attitude and actions at all. Israel is bombarding the Beirut airport on the other end of the country from the Hezbollah heartland. It is bombing the roads and bridges to Syria. It has a naval blockade off Lebanon's coast. It is attempting to cut off the entire country from the outside world. Of course, it is also bombing Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon. I've listened to an official Israeli spokesman and Prime Minister Olmert himself say that Hezbollah must and will be disarmed and nothing else will satisfy Israel. Our fearless Leader was quoted as saying that Israel has the right to defend itself and he won't try to dictate military tactics to them but he hopes they will try to minimize civilian casualties! Yet not a word about this in an "analysis" on the News Hour.

I found the stated Israeli position fairly clear and I take them at their word. To me it seems that Israel intends, here and now, to eliminate Hezbollah and that will mandate mass killings. Hezbollah will not surrender; in fact, their leader, in response to Israeli demands, more or less said 'bring it on.' I have to think that, minimally, Israel informed the US regime in advance. It's possible, perhaps likely, that US collusion is also involved, including satellite imagery and communications intercepts to aid Israel's attempts to kill Hezbollah leaders. This could be part of a larger plan for Israel to destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and the Syrian military as well, while the US bombs Iran. For months people have thought that Bush and his minions were on the defensive since Iraq isn't going so swimmingly, popular reaction to snooping is negative and even the Supreme Court ruled against military tribunals. The difficulty is that the regime is made up of true believers with a long term view and resistance only raises their hackles and makes them press on even more fiercely. We may think the regime has been weakened but Bush is secure in his "mission from god" and will not be deterred. This is the big time and as the old saw has it: Eagles don't hunt flies.

Assuming that Israel intends to make Hezbollah "vanish" the killing would be massive enough to outrage world opinion, particularly Islamic opinion - and there are one and one half billion Islamic opinions in the world - and would probably precipitate intervention from the Arab or Persian community, a possibility that Isreal, maybe even the US administration, are counting on to "justify" attacks against Syria and Iran. Fifty-eight years ago, in a fit of imperial hubris, the West decided to solve the holocaust residue by establishing Israel in Palestine. Unfortunately, they didn't ask the resident Palestinians and ever since pushing the Arabs out of desired areas Israel has continued encroachment into Palestinian lands and treated those people like dirt, actually worse than dirt as food, not dissension, grows in soil. If the Palestinians fought back they were terrorists; if the Israelis fired guns or dropped bombs they were merely defending themselves. The public presentation of the issues to western audiences was, and is, based on a fundamental (and absurd) asymmetry: Israelis are good people and Arabs are bad people.

By Sunday morning Israel's actions and intentions had sunk in. The Lebanese President condemned Israeli aggression and appealed to the UN to work towards a cease fire. Israel justified its destruction of Lebanese infrastructure by claiming that they are responding to a state of war between sovereign states, not terrorism, that since the Lebanese government had not eliminated the "private" Hezbollah militia, the sovereign country of Lebanon is accountable. Listening again to NPR and watching TV programs such as Face the Nation on CBS opinions were united in some ways:

  • everyone is worried about a regionwide expansion of war;
  • everyone defends Israel;
  • everyone condemns Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran;
  • not even one person on these shows was an Arab or capable and willing to represent the "other side's" views.
When listening to Americans officials, such as Condaleeza Rice, there's lots of blather about democracy and terrorism, as though these issues are simplistically obvious to everyone. If you had been working at the Beirut International Airport when Israeli bombs fell you would have felt terrorized and having found out later that they were "official" Israeli Air Force jets and not caused by some small, non-descript group of "official terrorists" would have been a distinction without a difference. What we have been indoctrinated into believing about the "look" of terrorism is only a small subset of the dangers we face. In fact, what the US government labels terrorism is mostly attacks by the weak and poor. That's why they use small bombs in mostly small places: if they had the resources they'd probably use ICBMs.

One of the difficulties of loosely throwing around a word such as democracy is that ordinary people might start thinking about it. Do "average" Americans think changes in tax laws that have benefitted the wealthy, indebted the country, and helped impoverish themselves are democratic? Do "ordinary" Americans think that the export of jobs and whole industries and the totally free play of capital are democratic? Do John and Jane Q. think that spying on them by "their" government is the action of a free, open and democratic society? I heard Martina Navratilova interviewed on the radio on Saturday and she said that the US, her adopted country (paraphrase from memory: I've been here for three decades and am as American as one can be) is becoming very like the Czechoslovakia she fled 31 years ago.

At bottom, and thought of simply, democracy should be about people in-the-large choosing how to organize their own societies and how to live their individual and collective lives. (Mr. Bush seems to think it means he gets to decide how other peoples live their lives!) So the Palestinians elected Hamas. Now, elected representatives of Hamas to the Palestinian parliament have been kidnapped and are in Israeli jails. I've learned that in Lebanon governmental representation is "confessional" according to religion within a very diverse population. Hezbollah represents the Shia Islamic community and that community is highly underrepresented, that Shias are 45% of the population and if Hezbollah, as one commentator put it, played their trump card and demanded one man = one vote, Hezbollah would likely dominate the Lebanese government. In such a case a private militia might become the official army. It's worth remembering that Hezbollah was born in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 24 years ago when Ariel Sharon earned the sobriquet of the "Butcher of Shatilla." That was a Palestinian refugee camp and Sharon's troops provided the "blockers" as their allies, the Christian Falangists entered the camp and massacred thousands of Palestinians. Israel's intent was to destroy Al Fatah and kill Yassir Arafat. But Arafat and his council had fled to Tunis and we know the past 20 years. Hezbollah was born and grew and eventually got Israel out of Lebanon along the way killing 241 US Marines in their barracks in 1983. Those were the days of Iran-Contra; was the presence of those Marines part of pay to Israel for their central role in that affair? (Any readers that can increase my knowledge, or correct my mistakes, are invited to comment. I, and we, need an accurate and comprehensive path of knowledge and understanding of this past if we are to plan our futures.) When Bob Schieffer of CBS pressed Ms. Rice about diplomacy she said that we had high officials in the region, including Elliot Abrams! Mr. Abrams was convicted, and later Presidentially pardoned, for felonies he committed during Iran Contra and like that proverbial bad penny he's baaaack! Lord help us.

Are Muslims a threat to the West? Does such a question even make any sense? Was the USSR ever a true threat to the West? If it were so evil and expansionist why did it collapse in a whimper? (One line of thought is that as a socialist country, everyone, akin to noone, owned industry and capital; thus, they had nothing to fight for. I seriously doubt ordinary Rooskies foresaw what was about to befall them, just as few Americans look some moves ahead to forecast where god's messenger, Dubya, is leading them.) Like crime in our streets we want protection but fearing our neighbors is no solution. Criminals will perhaps always be with us but we don't have to increase their numbers by driving more and more people into poverty and desperation. I've read that to investors fully 1 in 6 of the world's people are superfluous! The favelas or barrios or slums of the world are growing and more are headed our way. If a person can work he deserves a job, a job with a living wage. Mr. George Dubya Bush speaks of an ownership society but with his policies more and more of us are unable to "own" anything. We, ourselves, in the wealthy West are rapidly heading into superfluity. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world less because of his growing wealth than because Sam Walton died and his $90 billion dollar fortune is now divided among 9 heirs. That's one way to increase the number of billionaires: die and multiply. I read that the annual expenditure from Warren Buffet's philanthropy will exceed the spending by large UN agencies. Philanthropy sounds good. What would sound even better is societies and peoples so ennabled as to not need charity.

When attacked, defend. But don't go on offense, threatening peoples throughout the world and among large self-identified constituencies. We need deals, not death. We need to listen as well as to speak. We need to accept as well as to reject. And if we favor democracy then we cannot dictate. Dubya prances about talking of democracy even as he establishes an autocracy in his homeland. He rains down death, destruction and terror wherever he goes. If his is a mission from a god I reject that god. And good riddance.

Fundamentalist Christians await the Second Coming. This necessitates the Jews to be in Israel and Armageddon for the forces of light to prevail. (This also requires the Jews to convert.) If the "paranoid" scenario above turns out to be true, with attacks against Syria and Iran by both the US and Israel they may get their Armageddon. As to the forces of light prevailing and any fantasized second arrival, believers could be disappointed, as with the comet Kahoutek. Even the destruction of Hezbollah alone, with many thousands of deaths, may be enough to cause a real conflagration throughout the region and worldwide. And if you're worried about terrorism you may find yourself wishing that our dear Leader had spent a few more dollars protecting our coastlines and ports and fewer dollars reading our emails.

Will The Fundamentalists Have Their End of Days?

Watching, as is not my custom, the News Hour with Jim Lehrer Friday night on PBS I found the analysis of the Israeli-Hezbollah war astounding. The entire discussion was about Hezbollah: who are they, what do they want, who supports them, etc? And no mention of Israel's attitude and actions at all. Israel is bombarding the Beirut airport on the other end of the country from the Hezbollah heartland. It is bombing the roads and bridges to Syria. It has a naval blockade off Lebanon's coast. It is attempting to cut off the entire country from the outside world. Of course, it is also bombing Hezbollah in the south of Lebanon. I've listened to an official Israeli spokesman and Prime Minister Olmert himself say that Hezbollah must and will be disarmed and nothing else will satisfy Israel. Our fearless Leader was quoted as saying that Israel has the right to defend itself and he won't try to dictate military tactics to them but he hopes they will try to minimize civilian casualties! Yet not a word about this in an "analysis" on the News Hour.

I found the stated Israeli position fairly clear and I take them at their word. To me it seems that Israel intends, here and now, to eliminate Hezbollah and that will mandate mass killings. Hezbollah will not surrender; in fact, their leader, in response to Israeli demands, more or less said 'bring it on.' I have to think that, minimally, Israel informed the US regime in advance. It's possible, perhaps likely, that US collusion is also involved, including satellite imagery and communications intercepts to aid Israel's attempts to kill Hezbollah leaders. This could be part of a larger plan for Israel to destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and the Syrian military as well, while the US bombs Iran. For months people have thought that Bush and his minions were on the defensive since Iraq isn't going so swimmingly, popular reaction to snooping is negative and even the Supreme Court ruled against military tribunals. The difficulty is that the regime is made up of true believers with a long term view and resistance only raises their hackles and makes them press on even more fiercely. We may think the regime has been weakened but Bush is secure in his "mission from god" and will not be deterred. This is the big time and as the old saw has it: Eagles don't hunt flies.

Assuming that Israel intends to make Hezbollah "vanish" the killing would be massive enough to outrage world opinion, particularly Islamic opinion - and there are one and one half billion Islamic opinions in the world - and would probably precipitate intervention from the Arab or Persian community, a possibility that Isreal, maybe even the US administration, are counting on to "justify" attacks against Syria and Iran. Fifty-eight years ago, in a fit of imperial hubris, the West decided to solve the holocaust residue by establishing Israel in Palestine. Unfortunately, they didn't ask the resident Palestinians and ever since pushing the Arabs out of desired areas Israel has continued encroachment into Palestinian lands and treated those people like dirt, actually worse than dirt as food, not dissension, grows in soil. If the Palestinians fought back they were terrorists; if the Israelis fired guns or dropped bombs they were merely defending themselves. The public presentation of the issues to western audiences was, and is, based on a fundamental (and absurd) asymmetry: Israelis are good people and Arabs are bad people.

By Sunday morning Israel's actions and intentions had sunk in. The Lebanese President condemned Israeli aggression and appealed to the UN to work towards a cease fire. Israel justified its destruction of Lebanese infrastructure by claiming that they are responding to a state of war between sovereign states, not terrorism, that since the Lebanese government had not eliminated the "private" Hezbollah militia, the sovereign country of Lebanon is accountable. Listening again to NPR and watching TV programs such as Face the Nation on CBS opinions were united in some ways:

  • everyone is worried about a regionwide expansion of war;
  • everyone defends Israel;
  • everyone condemns Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran;
  • not even one person on these shows was an Arab or capable and willing to represent the "other side's" views.
When listening to Americans officials, such as Condaleeza Rice, there's lots of blather about democracy and terrorism, as though these issues are simplistically obvious to everyone. If you had been working at the Beirut International Airport when Israeli bombs fell you would have felt terrorized and having found out later that they were "official" Israeli Air Force jets and not caused by some small, non-descript group of "official terrorists" would have been a distinction without a difference. What we have been indoctrinated into believing about the "look" of terrorism is only a small subset of the dangers we face. In fact, what the US government labels terrorism is mostly attacks by the weak and poor. That's why they use small bombs in mostly small places: if they had the resources they'd probably use ICBMs.

One of the difficulties of loosely throwing around a word such as democracy is that ordinary people might start thinking about it. Do "average" Americans think changes in tax laws that have benefitted the wealthy, indebted the country, and helped impoverish themselves are democratic? Do "ordinary" Americans think that the export of jobs and whole industries and the totally free play of capital are democratic? Do John and Jane Q. think that spying on them by "their" government is the action of a free, open and democratic society? I heard Martina Navratilova interviewed on the radio on Saturday and she said that the US, her adopted country (paraphrase from memory: I've been here for three decades and am as American as one can be) is becoming very like the Czechoslovakia she fled 31 years ago.

At bottom, and thought of simply, democracy should be about people in-the-large choosing how to organize their own societies and how to live their individual and collective lives. (Mr. Bush seems to think it means he gets to decide how other peoples live their lives!) So the Palestinians elected Hamas. Now, elected representatives of Hamas to the Palestinian parliament have been kidnapped and are in Israeli jails. I've learned that in Lebanon governmental representation is "confessional" according to religion within a very diverse population. Hezbollah represents the Shia Islamic community and that community is highly underrepresented, that Shias are 45% of the population and if Hezbollah, as one commentator put it, played their trump card and demanded one man = one vote, Hezbollah would likely dominate the Lebanese government. In such a case a private militia might become the official army. It's worth remembering that Hezbollah was born in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon 24 years ago when Ariel Sharon earned the sobriquet of the "Butcher of Shatilla." That was a Palestinian refugee camp and Sharon's troops provided the "blockers" as their allies, the Christian Falangists entered the camp and massacred thousands of Palestinians. Israel's intent was to destroy Al Fatah and kill Yassir Arafat. But Arafat and his council had fled to Tunis and we know the past 20 years. Hezbollah was born and grew and eventually got Israel out of Lebanon along the way killing 241 US Marines in their barracks in 1983. Those were the days of Iran-Contra; was the presence of those Marines part of pay to Israel for their central role in that affair? (Any readers that can increase my knowledge, or correct my mistakes, are invited to comment. I, and we, need an accurate and comprehensive path of knowledge and understanding of this past if we are to plan our futures.) When Bob Schieffer of CBS pressed Ms. Rice about diplomacy she said that we had high officials in the region, including Elliot Abrams! Mr. Abrams was convicted, and later Presidentially pardoned, for felonies he committed during Iran Contra and like that proverbial bad penny he's baaaack! Lord help us.

Are Muslims a threat to the West? Does such a question even make any sense? Was the USSR ever a true threat to the West? If it were so evil and expansionist why did it collapse in a whimper? (One line of thought is that as a socialist country, everyone, akin to noone, owned industry and capital; thus, they had nothing to fight for. I seriously doubt ordinary Rooskies foresaw what was about to befall them, just as few Americans look some moves ahead to forecast where god's messenger, Dubya, is leading them.) Like crime in our streets we want protection but fearing our neighbors is no solution. Criminals will perhaps always be with us but we don't have to increase their numbers by driving more and more people into poverty and desperation. I've read that to investors fully 1 in 6 of the world's people are superfluous! The favelas or barrios or slums of the world are growing and more are headed our way. If a person can work he deserves a job, a job with a living wage. Mr. George Dubya Bush speaks of an ownership society but with his policies more and more of us are unable to "own" anything. We, ourselves, in the wealthy West are rapidly heading into superfluity. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world less because of his growing wealth than because Sam Walton died and his $90 billion dollar fortune is now divided among 9 heirs. That's one way to increase the number of billionaires: die and multiply. I read that the annual expenditure from Warren Buffet's philanthropy will exceed the spending by large UN agencies. Philanthropy sounds good. What would sound even better is societies and peoples so ennabled as to not need charity.

When attacked, defend. But don't go on offense, threatening peoples throughout the world and among large self-identified constituencies. We need deals, not death. We need to listen as well as to speak. We need to accept as well as to reject. And if we favor democracy then we cannot dictate. Dubya prances about talking of democracy even as he establishes an autocracy in his homeland. He rains down death, destruction and terror wherever he goes. If his is a mission from a god I reject that god. And good riddance.

Fundamentalist Christians await the Second Coming. This necessitates the Jews to be in Israel and Armageddon for the forces of light to prevail. (This also requires the Jews to convert.) If the "paranoid" scenario above turns out to be true, with attacks against Syria and Iran by both the US and Israel they may get their Armageddon. As to the forces of light prevailing and any fantasized second arrival, believers could be disappointed, as with the comet Kahoutek. Even the destruction of Hezbollah alone, with many thousands of deaths, may be enough to cause a real conflagration throughout the region and worldwide. And if you're worried about terrorism you may find yourself wishing that our dear Leader had spent a few more dollars protecting our coastlines and ports and fewer dollars reading our emails.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Are Bombs Aliens?

Twelve million! That's how many illegal immigrants members of Congress say are in the United States. Our Leader wants them welcomed; businessmen want that low wage work force, one which by nature of their status, have no legal remedies. It's been printed that only 1 in 20, 5%, of ship-borne cargo is inspected at our ports. Who knows what percentage of incoming tractor trailers get thoroughly checked? I would guess that if a terrorist were going to bring a "suitcase" nuke to our shores it would get here that way: a boat into a harbor. So, open borders for people, open ports for ships. Are our Leader and his minions that incompetent or just not serious about protecting us from terrorism? Why not both? It's known and been written that the threat of terrorism, as well as the reality, is worse since the invasion of Iraq, and it was known and prophesied beforehand, even within the regime, that the invasion would increase it. So Iraq hasn't helped protect us (knock on wood). And I suppose that is the point. If our Leader truly cared about citizens he would work to change the health care system and to provide well-paid jobs for all and use that pea brain of his to turn enemies into friends instead of creating new ones and trying to kill them all. But judging by the record, the regime's interests are only to increase their business friends' wealth and American domination of the world. Terrorism just provided a convenient excuse for foreign excursions and control of the home front. In Philadelphia, a Senate-convened immigration forum had the New York Mayor claiming we need foolproof national ID cards. Since they cannot and have not been able, or willing, to control illegal aliens who currently have no proper ID such national cards would only serve to control us, the citizenry. That is what the newly developing Pentagon strategy is all about, the so-called Fourth Generation Warfare.

Wars these days are forecast to be against non-state groups, those our Leader is pleased to call terrorists. But dear Leader's words in threatening Iran, and in reading the "riot act" to the Iraqi government, amount to terroristic threats. War itself is terrorism. In the lexicon of the administration and its apologists terrorists are those they don't like. It's as simple as putting domestic opponents into the enemy camp and that is precisely where all this is headed. For more than a generation our local police forces have been becoming militarized and they frequently respond to incidents with their own version of the "Powell Doctrine:" overwhelming force. Watch your local nightly newscasts for examples. And our "real" military is being honed to become policemen. It seems we will no longer fight the armies of nation-states but more amorphous groups. Get used to Iraq, just as we seem to have become used to Israel/Palestine. These days it's all about being occupiers. They need only find some group(s) to demonize and some fears to inflame and people will go along with living in occupied territory. They won't like it but they'll be too isolated, disorganized and fearful to step out of line.

After 9/11, it was easy to arouse passions for expeditions against Muslims just as it's not too hard to whip up hysteria about criminals in an ethnically divided America. When the day comes, perhaps not far in the future, that the state's guns and jails are turned against the majority Anglo population, then people may start to grasp that "terrorism" was only a shell concept, the response of the weak to the powerful. When the day comes that America is occupied territory, with Green Zones for the wealthy and favelas for the vast majority, people will wonder what happened and how and where did it all start? Frankly, it's been going on for centuries and an America "occupied" by Americans is a logical outcome. Since 9/11 and the whipping up of a retrograde patriotism we're supposed to put our interests ahead of any others' simultaneously hating ourselves and sacrificing our rights (as well as our soldiers). Remember the nasty portrayal of the French, even though most Americans probably couldn't find France on a map of Europe.

Bush's answer to turmoil is "bombs away!" As he said at West Point in 2002: "America has, and intends to keep, military strengths beyond challenge." Let's hope he doesn't get too carried away in proving that strength. We don't need nukes falling on Iran. I read that the Mexican election is close and in dispute. We could lend them our Supreme Court to help their decision. After the 2000 election here I read, more than once, a quotation supposedly from Stalin: what matters is who counts the votes. I tried to check up on that (there are even online resources for Stalin!) but the search was unsuccessful. Recently, while reading about the history of nuclear weapons I ran across another supposed Stalin quote when he was queried about America's nuclear weapons. It's also most likely apocryphal but given the troubles in Iraq, so reminiscent of troubles in Viet Nam (and we know how war that turned out) that, true or not, might be apposite now. Supposedly, Stalin said: "Bombs don't win wars; people win wars."