It Is time To Let Israel Stand On Its Own

Editor's note:  this article was first posted in Feb. 2009 on "World Impulse," the author's foreign affairs blog. Regrettably, it is even more relevant today.

Today, Amnesty International called for the United States to end foreign aid to Israel. The Author concurs, it is time to let this wealthy, nuclear-armed nation stand on its own.

Amnesty specifically called for a US reappraisal following the extensive and disproportionate use of American weapons in the recent Gaza operation which killed and injured countless civilians. It is, in fact, very likely that American weapons were used in the commission of war crimes.  Read the article here.

The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a current 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel.

"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights," said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme director. "To a large extent, Israel's military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the USA and paid for with US taxpayers' money."

The Author, however, is concerned with the over $80 billion of direct aid provided since 1949. It is important to acknowledge up-front that our national interests were well served by this support during the Cold War. Times have changed, and our continuing, one-sided support of Israel is costly in the region and the Muslim world. Further, Israel has not reciprocated our support like most loyal allies. It continues to authorize illegal settlements, conduct disproportionate military operations, collectively punish innocents and occupy disputed lands. The continuous flow of American taxpayer dollars have also not prevented Israel from spying on the U.S. on multiple occasions; attacking an American Naval vessel killing 34 (image above), and harboring terrorists accused of murdering American citizens.

That has been the subject of previous posts, it it not the focus of this one - which is to pose a single question.  Should the U.S. continue to pour taxpayer dollars into Israel? First some background.

According to an October 27 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report, cumulative aid to Israel from 1949 through fiscal year (FY) 2000 was $81.38 billion. This number is too low because it omits "hidden" funds. While it includes the $1.2 billion promised to Israel in the Wye River Memorandum, the old Food for Peace program, and the current subsidy for "refugee resettlement," it omits money from the DOD budget on the grounds that those funds are for research and development projects that benefit both the United States and Israel-a questionable premise. The CRS total also excludes estimated interest on the early disbursement of aid.

The Congressional Research Service report states that from FY 1994 through FY 1998, Israel received $29 billion in waived loans. (source)

According to Wikipedia, the U.S. currently has increased its annual military aid to Israel to the whopping sum of over $3 billion. We give this to a wealthy country with nuclear weapons. Our unconditional support for Israel was cited, among several other grievances, as grounds for the 9/11 attacks. We need to protect ourselves from terrorists, but we sure need to have a smart foreign policy that demands sacrifice from our friends whom we've supported for decades and offers all parties an honest path to peace. Perhaps reassessing our military aid to the state of Israel would make that position clearer to all the players concerned.

End Addiction to Plastic Water Bottles

It just doesn't make sense. On so many levels. Not the least of which is the phenomena is a clear prelude to corporate ownership of potable water. Now that's a horrifying prospect. Today's Daily Kos features a wonderful and comprehensive piece by MCJoan, one of the Internet's clearest voices. Her piece, which starts out with a thorough review of Sam Bozzo's new film: Blue Gold: World Water Wars, is point-on as usual. So read it. You won't be disappointed.

In this space I'm focusing on just one aspect of her piece, which I'm reproducing below. It addresses a particular, personal irritation: Plastic water bottles. I confess to drinking my share of San Pelagrino, from glass. What is so inscrutable is the willingness of the masses to fork-out hard-earned cash for "processed" city water. Consider:

The energy used each year making the bottles needed to meet the demand for bottled water in the United States is equivalent to more than 17 million barrels of oil. That's enough to fuel over 1 million cars for a year.

• If water and soft drink bottlers had used 10% recycled materials in their plastic bottles in 2004, they would have saved the equivalent of 72 million gallons of gasoline. If they had used 25%, they would have saved enough energy to electrify more than 680,000 homes for a year.

• In 2003, the California Department of Conservation estimated that roughly three million water bottles are trashed every day in that state. At this rate, by 2013 the amount of unrecycled bottles will be enough to create a two-lane highway that stretches the state's entire coast.

• In 2004 the recycling rate for all beverage containers was 33.5 percent. If it reached 80 percent, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions would be the equivalent of removing 2.4 million cars from the road for a year.

• That bottle that takes just three minutes to drink can take up to a thousand years to biodegrade.

Sources: Earth Policy Institute, As You Sow, Container Recycling Institute.

Water Portal: Wikipedia

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DEBKAfile: Bush Close to Attacking Iran

A couple of days ago, Israeli MilStrat site DEBKAfile reported that their Washington inside sources indicate that George Bush is leaning much closer to launching some kind of air attack on Iran.

Now that's just what we need. Uh-huh. Ignite the Middle East, set off Shiites around the world, and prove once and for all that the US is only capable of "cowboy diplomacy." A nightmare scenario from this writer's point of view. Given how badly we've misunderstood the Middle East to date, and how badly Bush has managed the unnecessary conflict he got us in to in Iraq, this is not happy news. Iran is very large, and very well prepared. Their proxies are also many and motivated. This is not the time, and this is not the manner in which to respond to percieved (but never documented) Iranian threats. The Author decects the hand of the evil Dick Cheney on this file. First of all, we can't afford it. In so many ways. Second, a limited air-strike is based on a bunch of suspect premises and virtually no evidence on the ground is ill-advised and imprudent. Third, our military is already stretched beyond reasonable limits and this could open up a brand new theater of conflict. Fourth, a president should never presume to start a war and involve our country when his personal approval ratings are the lowest in history. The people, in case you haven't noticed, are no long "with" George Bush. And finally, a new administration will take office in January that should be allowed to formulate its own approach to Middle East diplomacy and peace.
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Mission Accomplished? Not!

It has been five years since George Bush stood on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln under the now infamous banner declaring MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and announced victory and success in the Iraq war. Not!

Five years later and we've lost more troops, killed more Iraqi civilians, and spent our country into recession. Just today, the NYT reports that a car bomb in Bagdad killed nine. And this month alone, another 49 young Americans have died in this misguided conflict. Bush lied, people died. It really is that simple. You remember, there was incontrovertible evidence of WMD. Not! Then there was Al Qaeda, who it is now revealed came to Iraq only after we invaded. So countless lives and almost a trillion dollars later we're locked in a conflict that appears impossibly complex and difficult, with only the incompetent in both government and the military to lead us out of this Middle Eastern Hell. Proving once again that George Bush is without argument the most ignorant and clueless chief executive this great country has ever endured.

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Freedom Watch - Funding Fascism in America

By now you've probably seen a number of the pro-war, pro-administration ads that are running on nationwide television. You know the ones, featuring grieving family members exhorting us all to finish the job in Iraq. Juxtaposed against Alan Greenspan's recent public admission that the war is all about oil, one wonders just what job our young and talented troops are supposed to finish?

The war, in case anyone's forgotten, was started with a lie about WMD. Then, it morphed into a war against International terrorism, after the hostilities attracted every Jihadist on the planet that wasn't already committed to the Afghan conflict. Let's be totally clear about that: terrorists and foreign fighters came to Iraq after we did, to fight the occupation of an Arab and Islamic land by a western power in league with other oil consumers and Israel.

But I digress. I'm posting today to focus attention on Freedom Watch, funding the new fascism in America. Brought to you by Dick Cheney and the very neo-cons that promoted the Iraq war and promised a quick victory, Freedom Watch is underwriting the new ads. And according to this article in the New York Times, the group is just getting going. Funded by corporate hegemonists with very deep pockets, this propaganda arm of the uber-rich is busy readying ads promoting an attack on Iran. Like we need another war. Un huh.

Don't forget it was president Eisenhower, himself a retired five-star general and war hero, who warned about the consequences of an unbridled military industrial complex. That's right, if you leave the corporate interests to their own devices they're more than happy to make a profit on the excesses of war. And the more wars the better, it seems.

So what exactly is fascism? And what do we have to fear from it? Retired Columbia University professor Robert O. Paxton describes the essence of fascism this way: "......a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination'." (ref)

Sound familiar? I thought so. Fascism's threat is to the individual, and to the foundations of law and democracy itself. As Fascism progresses, individual rights, personal liberty and democracy recede until finally, they are no more. A totalitarian, police state is often the result.

What a great excuse to surf right over to Moveon.org; True Majority or Democracy for America and make a contribution. That's the thing about the net and the power of bottom-up politics. If enough of us make $25 contributions when asked by trustworthy, progressive orgs, we can counter the influence and effect of the very rich, American fascists seeking to maintain the status quo at all costs (it preserves their authority, revenue streams and makes their actuaries happy).

Robots Morph into Warriors

"More than 50 years after author Isaac Asimov argued in his classic novel "I, Robot" that a robot should never be allowed to do harm to people, the development of automated killers has become unstoppable," according to an article in Der Spiegel today.

Already deployed by the U.S. in Iraq and Israel in the Gaza, robotic enforcers, warriors, drones and airborne vehicles are everywhere. All the big guys; Honeywell, Northrup, Boeing and their ilk, are getting into the act. And then, there are the military nano-bots waiting in the wings. I've read stories about swarms of robotic bees and cockroaches capable of disabling jet engines, swarming into tunnels and operating as an integrated part of a multi-vehicle, robotic battle force. Now that's an image.

I'm conflicted about these developments. It certainly makes sense to sacrifice intelligent machinery rather than to spill human blood, but there's a nagging worry that the manufacturers and purchasers of these new killing machines will need an excuse to use them. Or that they could be turned on domestic opponents of a particular political regime. One newly deployed robotic enforcer is specially designed for "crowd control," which raises some hackles as well.

Once we're over the novelty and ultra-coolness of sleek and capable programmable machines, we need to consider the implications of these devices on things like the ease of establishing a police state. And that's just not my paranoia talking. Former Reagan advisor Paul C. Roberts is actually sounding the alarm about Bush's intentions in that regard.