Well-made world 37

Thanks to our friend John and Jewish Peace News for another couple of links on Gaza:

First, Gush Shalom tells us about a 1000-person spontaneous demonstration outside of the defense ministry in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Next, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) take the Israeli government at their word that the attack is an immediate response to Quassam attacks, but also discuss the ways in which Israel is unwilling to address the root of such problems--the fact that they are fight "a besieged and starving Gaza" after "41 years of increasingly oppressive Israeli Occupation without a hint that a sovereign and viable Palestinian state will ever emerge."

Next, Ravid Barak focuses on the planning of Operation "Cast Lead," a plan that dates back more than 6 months, but started coming to fruition over a month ago after dozens of Qassam rockets exploded in Israel.

Finally, we'll leave you with an excerpt from Zvi Barel's latest for Haaretz. Here, Barel delves a bit into the relationship between Israel's attack on a tunnel between Gaza and Egypt on November 6, killing at least six and violating the ceasefire. Increased rocket attacks after that date, Barel notes, were a result of this Israeli breach. According to Barel, Israel:

unilaterally violated [the cease-fire] when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire. Are conditions enabling the return of a ceasefire no longer available? Hamas has clear conditions for its extension: The opening of the border crossings for goods and cessation of IDF attacks in Gaza, as outlined in the original agreement. Later, Hamas wants the cease-fire to be extended to the West Bank. Israel, for its part, is justifiably demanding a real calm in Gaza; that no Qassam or mortar shell be fired by either Hamas, Islamic Jihad or any other group.

Essentially, Israel is telling Hamas it is willing to recognize its control of Gaza on the condition that it assumes responsibility for the security of the territory, like Hezbollah controls southern Lebanon. It is likely that this will be the outcome of a wide-scale operation in the Gaza Strip if Israel decides it does not want to rule Gaza directly. Why, then, not forgo the war and agree to these conditions now?

On the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time

By now, we've all heard about the recent attacks on Gaza, but just to re-cap: on Saturday at about 11:20am (when children were at school, employees were in offices, and aspiring police officers were in the middle of training), 60 Israeli F-16 fighter jets bombed 50 different sites in Gaza. This first bombardment took 3 minutes and 40 seconds, killed over 200 Palestinians, and injured nearly an additional 1,000. By Monday morning, several buildings at the Islamic University in Gaza had been leveled, tunnels between Gaza and Egypt were no longer functional, and more than 325 Palestinians were dead (as well as 2 Israelis since Saturday). At this point, as Gaza hospitals are running out of supplies and room for corpses (which they are forced to pile up on morgue floors right now), Israel is poised to embark on a ground invasion: tanks are lined up near the Gaza border and journalists have been forced to leave the area.

The US government has voiced near-unequivocal support of Israel's actions (actions which the UN called "disproportionate" in a frustratingly weak call for a cease-fire). In a statement on the situation in Gaza, Nancy Pelosi wrote: "When Israel is attacked, the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally." And on Meet the Press, Barack Obama's chief political strategist, David Axelrod, avoided anything like condemnation of the Israeli attacks as well, telling viewers: “There’s only one president at a time...The president speaks for the United States of America. We will honor that.”

On December 27, Richard Falk, United Nations special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Territories, issued a statement outlining Israel's war crimes in Gaza on Saturday, which include collective punshment, targeting civilians, and disproportionate military response.

Israel has called this an all-out war against Hamas because of quassam attacks that have killed about 18 people in 8 years, but as Neve Gordon writes in the Guardian, this attack has nothing to do with rocket attacks, which Israel could have prevented long ago. Instead, it has to do with a) the destruction of Hamas as a political entity (which, Gordon notes, is not going to happen, at least not through military means); b) to help Kadima and Labour defeat Likud and the abominable Netanyahu; c) to re-establish the Israeli military in the eyes of the world after its performance two summers ago; and d) to keep Abbas in power for a bit longer after his term ends on January 9. In Syria, the exiled political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, is calling for a 3rd intifada, a call which the Fatah leader clearly has no mind to heed. Meshaal said on Al Jazeera that Hamas had tried "all the peaceful options, but without results;" he is now pushing for more rocket attacks and considering the reinstitution of suicide bombings in Israel (which would be the first since 2005).

For more information on whats going on in Gaza, please see this article by Jennifer Loewenstein in Counterpunch, Hassan Haidar's piece for Dar Al Hayat on the timing and pre-meditation of the attacks, this first person account of the bombing on Saturday by Dr Eyad Al Serraj, a psychologist in Gaza City, this episode of Democracy Now, which features NE favorite Gideon Levy as well as an phenomenal discussion with one-state solution advocate Ali Abunimah. We'll leave you with an excerpt:

We have to go back to the Warsaw Ghetto or Guernica to find crimes in the modern era of the scale of the viciousness and of the deliberateness of what Israel is committing with the full support of the United States, not just the Bush administration, but apparently as well the incoming Obama administration. We have to recognize the complicity not just of the so-called international community, but also of the Arab regimes, Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak, the Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt. Tzipi Livni, when she issued her threats against Gaza, was in Cairo in the biggest Arab capital, and Aboul Gheit stood next to her silently.

Mahmoud Abbas is not a bystander, the so-called president of the Palestinian Authority. For two years since the elections, which Hamas won, he and his coterie have been collaborating with Israel and the United States, first to overthrow the election result and then to besiege Gaza. We have talked before of the Palestinian Contras, funded and armed by the United States, which sought to overthrow Hamas in June 2007 and had the tables turned on them. And now this. The complicity of Mahmoud Abbas is very clear and must be clearly stated. He does not have the authority, moral or otherwise, to call together the Palestinian people for anything. He has gone over to the other side. He has joined the Israeli war against the Palestinian people, and I choose my words very carefully.

And let me say this, as well, Amy, that Israel is trying to produce and promote the fiction that it is engaged in a war with a so-called enemy entity. What Israel is doing is massacring a captive population. You heard—you said in the headlines how Nancy Pelosi, our so-called progressive, liberal, antiwar Speaker of the House, gave her full support to these crimes. Obama has done the same through a spokesman. And that will not change. The United Nations issued a weak statement aimed at covering the backsides, let me say, of those who issued it, not aimed at changing the situation.

What are Palestinians calling for today? Yesterday, the Palestinian National Committee for the Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions reissued and reaffirmed its call on all international civil society in the United States, in North America, in Europe, everywhere, to redouble the efforts for boycott, divestment and sanctions modeled on the anti-apartheid movement. This is necessary. This is moral. This is the nonviolent resistance we can all participate in. And it is more urgent than ever. Let’s not look back at these crimes like we look at the Warsaw Ghetto and like we look at Guernica and we look at the other atrocities of the twentieth century and say, “We had the chance to act, but we chose silence and complicity.” The time to stop this is now.

And we also have to be clear that those who are accountable—Ehud Barak, his orders over the past few months to withhold insulin, chemotherapy drugs, dialysis supplies, all forms of medicine from the people of Gaza, were just as lethal and just as murderous as the orders to send in the bombers and warplanes to attack mosques, to attack universities. The Islamic University in Gaza is not a military site. It is a university with 18,000 students, 60 percent of them women. Last night, Israeli warplanes attacked a female dormitory in the Islamic University. This is what Israel is attacking. They attacked the fishing port. No food gets into Gaza. People can barely fish enough to sustain them, and Israel has attacked the fishing boats that sustains them. These are historic crimes, and we cannot be silent about them.

Gone so long

As you may have noticed, early this fall No Empires went into retirement. But now, faced with the devastation of Gaza, we've decided to decided to start writing again. So stay tuned for a long piece on the Gaza massacre as well as a round-up of some of the best news and opinion pieces on the subject.

But for now--for all New Yorkers, please head out to Herald Square this evening to protest Israel's actions in Gaza.

PAKISTAN

Today, as the American campaign in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province continues despite continued protests in Pakistan (protests which started after last Wednesday’s first publicly-acknowledged ground raid by American forces on Pakistani soil), a few notes on the current political situation in that country:

After some under-the-table dealings with the always-intrigue-inclined US ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, Benazir Bhutto’s widower, Asif Ali Zardari, has been sworn in as president of Pakistan. As Tariq Ali noted recently in an article for Comment is free, Zardari is poised to be a particularly pliant leader, the Pakistani equivalent of neocon favorite Hamid Karzai. Zardari is indebted, after all, to American neoconservatives (most notably, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad) not just for his new position as president but also for reversing the freeze on his Swiss bank accounts (the second richest person in Pakistan, Zardari’s accounts had been frozen due to pending corruption charges).

To be fair, as Graham Usher points out in this week’s Al-Ahram, none of the charges leveled against Zardari by Pakistani intelligence agencies (for which the new president spent eleven years in jail) have managed to stick in court, and moreover, following Benazir’s death last winter, Zardari did managed to form the largest coalition in the history of Pakistan, unseating a military ruler in the process. But Zardari’s shady financial dealings, not to mention his disdain for Pakistani lawyers and his reluctance to restore the country’s judiciary—his fear of the rule of law, as Usher calls it—still leave him one of the most loathed figures in Pakistan, particularly among intellectuals and the urban middle class.

***

At a talk given on 11 September at the London Review Bookshop--coinciding with the release of his latest book, The Duel: Pakistan on the Flight Path of American Power (Simon & Schuster, 2008), Tariq Ali offered a brief political history of Pakistan, as well as an analysis of the most recent developments--some, according to Ali, quite unprecedented--in Pakistani politics: last year's "forced arranged marriage" between Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf; Bhutto's assassination; the election of her widower (and current head of Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party), Asif Ali Zardari, as Pakistan's president; and the raids carried out in recent weeks by US Special Ops in the border regions of Pakistan, unsanctioned by the Pakistani government. Pakistan's dependence on the United States (coming mostly in the form of military aid) and the US's "partial dependence" on Pakistan as a regional ally dates back, Ali says, to the early 1950s, when the US was appealed to by Pakistani political elites to fill the vacuum left by the British on the eve of the creation of the Pakistani state. The US's interest in the region lay primarily in India, according to Ali, until India become a major player in the non-Aligned movement and the US, fearing a Vietnam-style "domino effect" in the region, began assembling a network of security pacts, including the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization, the Central Asian Trade Organization, and the Baghdad pact, all of which were buttressed by the United States and Great Britain. The years 1958-1969 saw a military dictatorship (that of Ayub), backed by Washington, until mass mobilizations in October 1968--calling for Pakistan's withdrawal from all security pacts with the West--toppled the regime, and eventually led to the secessionist movement in East Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. Ali was quick to point out that the 1968 insurrection in Pakistan was the only one of the fabled mass movements of '68 that actually succeeded. The dictatorship of Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, from 1977-1988 was, according to Ali, the darkest period of Pakistan's history to date; it "brutalized" the political culture of Pakistan, and brought religion to the forefront of Pakistani politics in a way that was unprecedented in the history of the state. During the Zia dictatorship, the state poured money into Islamic organizations, giving them control of education and communication ministries, which facilitated the spread of their anti-secularist and anti-radical messages. Mass purges of these elements in the country's political establishments ensued. As in Afghanistan, the money Washington gave to Pakistan's leadership during this time went toward funding those who are now denounced as terrorists, and Pakistan during this period (particuarly during the Afghan-Soviet war) was conceived of in Washington as a frontline in the war not on terror, but on communism.

As far as recent developments go, Ali finds that the mobilizations in favor of the embattled judiciary that consumed Pakistan during the last 18 or so months of Musharraf's rule as the most pivotal, and heartening, events in recent memory in Pakistan--though notes that these were so little reported on in the Western press because of Pakistan (and Musharraf's) perceived status as allies of Washington and Britain. He laments the ease with which the PPP accepted that Benazir's son should inherit leadership of the party, with her widower at the helm until her son comes of age. Calling Asif Ali Zardari "the most corrupt politician even in Pakistan's chequered history", he notes that if it comes out that Zardari had prior knowledge of Bush's secret order authorizing raids into Pakistan, his time as President will surely be cut short. Ali also remarked on the unpredecented warning the head of Pakistan's military gave to Washington, saying that if American forces do mount an invasion into the sovereign territory of Pakistan, they will be resisted. And though he is loath of conspiracy theorizing, Ali did wonder whether or not the recent raids, aimed at creating a "mini-war" situation in Pakistan, were designed to bolster the campaign of John McCain. Ali ultimately finds an "incredibly grim situation" in Pakistan at the current moment, with little to no alternative for a population caught between the military and political corruption that have been part and parcel of Pakistan virtually from its founding. With the war in Afghanistan going horribly (and with the vast majority of the Pakistani population being fundamentally opposed to NATO actions in the region), Ali says that the next weeks and months in Pakistan are critical; yet he admits that more innocent people can be expected to die as Washington toys with the idea of opening a new front in its sorrowful "war on terror". The solutions for Pakistan are land reforms, to modernize the countryside and bring the poor peasantry of Pakistan into a national political dialogue, as well as a regional solution involving India, Iran, Pakistan, and Russia (because NATO and the West are so completely mistrusted), aimed at bringing about at least twenty years of peace so that the Pakistani population might have time to psychologically recover, and so that social reconstruction might be given a chance.

Works Consulted #12

• Roland Barthes, The Rustle of Language (University of California Press, 1989)

• David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (Penguin, 1985)

• Michael Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics (Palgrave, 2008)

• Christine Korsgaard, The Sources of Normativity (Cambridge, 1996)

Check back soon for a long overdue follow-up post on PAKISTAN.

G-E-O-R-G-I-A

This has been an especially tough situation to get a hold of for those of us (read: most of the American media, as well as the authors of this blog) who have not spent the last twenty years studying the former Eastern Bloc, the Balkans, the National Endowment for Democracy, post-Soviet Russian politics, etc. A few simple facts: In 2003, the US and the National Endowment for Democracy backed the so-called Rose Revolution in Georgia, ousting Eduard Shevardnadze and installing current Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili committed 2,000 Georgian troops to Iraq, wants in on NATO and the US design for a missile defense shield over Eastern Europe, along with Poland and the Czech Republic. Georgia hosts a stretch of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline, which runs (as its name suggests) through Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, connecting the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas--which is co-owned by BP, Chevron, and others (though no Russian oil companies), and is a concentrated attempt to subvert Russian influence in the region by having a major pipeline that lies in no Russian soil and over which the Russians have no control. Georgia is, in short, of great 'strategic interest' to the United States, with the added bonus of being a former Soviet satellite, so that a cozy political relationship that benefits largely only the US can be presented as the triumph of "democracy" over authoritarianism.

A November 2006 referendum in South Ossetia, with 91% of the population participating, voted in a 99% majority for union with North Ossetia and Russia. The US and Russia ignore the results of the referendum. In July of this year (July 15-31), Georgia and the US hold the "Georgian-US Immediate Response 2008" military exercises in Georgia. During the first week of August, Saakashvili moves into the South Ossetian capital, Tshinkavali, killing several Russian peacekeepers (there under international agreements) and displacing upwards of 35,000 civilians, who flee across the border into North Ossetia, where they are welcomed by the Russian government. Russia sees the Georgian military move as a deliberate provocation.

We in no way wish to even appear to condone the deliberate use of violence against civilians, and it would be difficult to argue that the Russian response has not been disconcertingly aggressive. But the hypocrisy of American politicians and media has been in full swing. It's almost laughable to hear John McCain say that "in the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations." It's similarly ridiculous for Zbigniew Brzezinski to compare Putin to Hitler--the same Brzezinski who, as Jimmy Carter's National Security advisor, helped the CIA develop its Afghanistan policy and fund Osama bin Laden's jihadis against the Russians in Afghanistan in 1979. A Cold War mentality still infects the US media's perception of Russia's every move, as Seamus Milne shows in today's Guardian.

Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out a few facts that would be germane to any nuanced understanding of an immensely complicated situation. And, as Foreign Policy in Focus's Michael Klare points out, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan oil pipeline that runs through Georgia (owned and operated by, among others, Texaco and Chevron) is a crucial "fact on the ground".

Stay tuned...

Works Consulted #11

rosemary ashton- george eliot: a life. london: penguin, 1998.

samuel beckett - the unnamable. new york: grove press, 1958; l'innomable. paris: les editions de minuit, 1953; disjecta: miscellaneous writings and a dramatic fragment. london: john calder, 1983

lauren berlant - the anatomy of national fantasy: hawthorne, utopia, and everyday life. chicago: u chicago press, 1991.

robin blackburn - the overthrow of colonial slavery. london: verso, 1988.

maurice blanchot - the infinite conversation (trans. susan hanson) minneapolis: univ of minnesota press, 1993.

pascale casanova - samuel beckett: anatomy of a literary revolution. london: verso 2006.

anthony cronin - samuel beckett: the last modernist. london: harper collins, 1996.

charles dickens- our mutual friend. new york: penguin, 1997.

frederick engels- socialism: utopian and scientific. new york: international publishers, 1989.

fredric jameson - a singular modernity: essay on the ontology of the present. london: verso 2002.

james knowlson - damned to fame: the authorized biography of samuel beckett. london: bloomsbury, 1996.

jenny uglow- george eliot. london: virago, 2008.

raymond williams- marxism and literature. new york: oxford university press, 1977.

Obama in Jerusalem

On the occasion of Senator Barack Obama's recent world travels (which brought him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied West Bank, and Germany, and will soon see him in Britain and France), we point you to an editorial written for the Guardian by the Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah. Pressure from the Israel lobby (in the form, as always, of Alan Fucking Dershowitz) has caused Obama to distance himself even from someone as "establishment" as Zbigniew Brzezinski--do we detect the long arm of a rejuvenated (and sadly ignored) Jimmy Carter and his calls for a "new role" in the world for America? On his visit to Israel--which included the better part of one hour spent with Mahmoud Abbas in occupied Ramallah--Obama sought to reassure Ehud Olmert, Shimon Peres and the Israeli public that his commitment to the safety, security, and right to "self-defense" (that old reality-twisting litany) of the State of Israel ought not to be doubted. The obligatory references to the dangers of a nuclear Iran (despite a recent "slap in the face" of Israel delivered by America) were also made. Nothing, as Abunimah points out, about a freeze on settlements, dialogue with Hamas, or negotiation of the refugee problem.

In a separate editorial, the Guardian points out that while Obama's visit may have done some good for his shaky reputation as "friend of Israel," it did nothing nothing for peace in Israel/Palestine. And, as the New York Times reports, not many people in the Arab World expect this to change.

Late add: Nicholas Kristof offers this uncharacteristically lucid, accurate, and politically practical editorial in today's New York Times, saying that what Israel needs from Obama is "tough love."

2008

As the Senate passes George Bush's domestic eavesdropping program, 2+ years after it was introduced, and with the new-found support of Senator Barack Obama--who had once claimed he fully intended to vote against it, rejecting the false dualities of the "strong on terror" discourse--we'd like to take a minute to reiterate something we've found that the ultra-left in America has failed repeatedly to understand. We do understand ("appreciate" is not the best word) that, in running a national campaign, Obama ought to be expected to hover somewhere around the center. Any policy statement that radically breaks from the mainstream would torpedo his candidacy months before the general election. And Obama does represent a yearning among the bulk of American voters for radical change. That he will inevitably disappoint those blindly expecting a radical transformation is also something that must be accepted. However, in supporting an unprecedented expansion in the Executive's spying capabilities, as in, for example, calling for East Jerusalem to remain the undivided capital of the State of Israel (to take examples from Obama's recent domestic and foreign policy stances), Obama seems to go above and beyond the call of a mediocre "centrist" politics. And his going out of his way yesterday to remind his supporters--who are increasingly uneasy with his recent moves--that he is "no doubt" a "progressive"--is simply no consolation whatsoever.

Aijaz Ahmad: What Would a Rational U.S. Foreign Policy Look Like?

In a two-part analysis for The Real News, Aijaz Ahmad considers the working assumptions behind U.S. foreign policy decisions, assumptions that can often seem intractable, the unchangeable "way of the world." Starting with "the most basic assumption of U.S. foreign policy...that the United States is, and must remain, the world's most powerful, preeminent country," and moving to the question of why the U.S. finds it unquestionable that it have military bases around the world, Aijaz offers a concise and coherent projection for what a "rational" American foreign policy just might look like.

Part I



Part II

Well-Made World 36

al-Ahram's Khaled Amayreh reports on the impending reconciliation talks between Hamas and Fatah, preparations for which have seen the previously-unlikely release of a number of Hamas supporters from Palestinian jails or the custody of Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority. Most significant in this attempted rapprochement is the likelihood that any joint statement of agreement issued by the two factions will be based on the so-called Prisoners' Statement of 2006, which originally called for a release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and Israel's full retreat from lands occupied in 1967.

Ilan Pappe, now at Exeter, offers to the Inter-Press service some general thoughts on the current state of Israeli-Palestinian affairs, the 2008 election in the US, and the prospective role of Islam in the daily lives of Palestinians.

Patrick Cockburn fills in some details of a new Iraqi-American security agreement. George Bush wants it signed by 31 July; Moqtada al-Sadr sees in it a ploy to put "an American in every house."

As reported earlier this week, John McCain and Barack Obama find themselves both supporting the FISA amendment, which would not only legalize the Bush administrations warrantless wiretaps but would obscure entirely the breadth and scope of the program since it was instituted after 11 September. This constitutes a stark reversal of position for both men. Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, speaks to The Real News's Zaa Nkweta.

'The presumptive Democratic candidate for President, Barack Obama'

More than the disingenuousness of his previous foreign policy statements, Barack Obama's speech at this year's AIPAC conference the day after securing the Democratic nomination for President highlights the inevitable rightward shift that his campaign, at least in tone, will continue to make as November approaches. Below, in two parts, Aijaz Ahmad unpacks Obama's statements to the Israel lobby.

No one ought to be surprised by Obama's unequivocal stance; as even Jon Stewart points out, "you can't say anything remotely critical of Israel and still be elected president." Of particular interest for us is the reaction of the Palestinian leadership to Obama's speech, notably that of Fatah negotiator Saeb Erekat. Erekat has the audacity to say that Obama's speech was "the worst thing to happen to Palestinians" since the Six Day War, thus completely obscuring his own Fatah party's comprador role in the years since Oslo, not to the deepening political and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Moreoever, as Aijaz notes, Gaza is likely to be conveniently forgotten when the borders of the putative "cohesive and contiguous" Palestinian state are drawn.

In the second video below, Aijaz further analyzes Obama's language at the AIPAC conference, which includes the suggestion that Iran, not Iraq, would have been the 'right war,' and a call for greater unilateral action, 'outside of the United Nations,' on the part of the United States. As Aijaz tells us, 'with liberalism like this, no one needs the neo-cons.' Videos are below.

AS the transformation of Barack Obama nears its completion, Uri Avnery finds that last week's AIPAC spectacle confirms in full even the most "extreme" conclusions drawn by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their seminal The Israel Lobby, published late last year--a book that Obama had already denounced for its critique of the increasingly "special" relationship between the State of Israel and the US.
Part I


Part II

Return of the Rat

The weather's getting warmer and it's made us inattentive! At least that's the official excuse we'll give.

Gilbert Achcar has voiced his recent thoughts on the longer history/effectiveness of the 'surge' in US troops in Iraq over the last eighteen months. Achcar not only locates a great deal of support for the surge in the Baker-Hamilton report, but finds that the US's greatest success has not been a reduction in violence, but a classic colonial power play that has torn the fabric of Iraqi Sunni society.

Franklin Lamb offers a street-level report from West Beirut, currently under Hezbollah and Amal control. What the next move might be for Lebanon's deeply besieged government is unclear; what is clear is the necessity of Hezbollah's involvement in any dialogue meant to bring an end to the crisis of leadership in Lebanon.

Over at Supervalent Thought, her very own 'research blog,' the University of Chicago's Lauren Berlant is putting up some really interesting short pieces on love, queerness, detachment, and (in)fidelity to the political in America. A recent two-parter--"Other People's Optimism" and "Looking For Mr. (W)Right)--laments the unbridled cynicism and fear of the political as evidenced by the 'noise' surrounding the 2008 Elections.

Close to home

Counterpunch's lead article today concerns protests in Queens after Friday's verdict in the Sean Bell killing reached New Yorkers. Interspersed with chants from Friday's march, JoAnn Wypijewski's piece touches on the horror of the incident and other racially-motivated killings by police officers, noting that no matter who is running for president in this country, racism and the oppression like this is as prevalent and dangerous as ever.

Carter in Israel/Palestine

A brief post about recent happenings in Israel/Palestine. Carter's trip to Palestine continues to make headlines as Israel's ambassador to the UN calls Carter a "bigot" for meeting with Khaled Meshal in Syria. Also an editorial from Haaretz from two weeks ago on Israel's "debt" to Carter.

And finally, just to keep things in perspective, is an article by Khaled Amayreh for Al-Ahram detailing once again the continued suffering on the part of Palestinians in the West Bank under blockade, just in time for Israel's dismissal of Hamas's proposed 6-month truce in Gaza. Israel's reasoning? A truce, the Israeli government claims, would do "nothing more" than allow Hamas to recover from recent Israeli attacks.

Well-Made World 35

As you may have noticed, we've decided to embed daily video updates from the Real News Network. The RNN has an intrinsic value as a serious non-corporate journalism service, their editorializing is top-notch, and they generate a ceaseless amount of new multimedia content. (They'd insert their pitch for monetary contributions here). We go to their video updates with such frequency that we thought to just cut out the middle man. The video updates are always good. Watch them!

***
As you can see, to the right, Jimmy Carter is in the Middle East and scheduled to meet with Hamas's Khaled Meshal. Ignoring displeased voices in Washington and Tel Aviv, Carter aims to facilitate negotiation between the Hamas leadership and both Israel and Fatah.
This concludes Azmi Bishara's three-part analysis of the present conjuncture of Israeli statehood and the Palestinian right to self-determination.

Uri Avnery sees no small amount of hypocrisy in recent flame-centric conflagrations over Tibet--no matter how justified Tibetan grievances are--and this year's Olympics in Beijing. Once you get past his assertion that the CIA is without a doubt coordinating anti-torch protests, Avnery points out how appeals to freedom in Tibet shows up the highly selective nature of Western governments' support for national liberation struggles.

Ryan Crocker and the New York Times continue to fuel the Bush administration's eagerness to go to war with Iran.

Well-Made World 34

In the first two (ONE TWO)of a three-part editorial installment on the historical trajectory of the project of Palestinian national liberation, Azmi Bishara cites a 'contrived complexity' that has been built up around the Palestinian cause that not only decisively limits public discourse on the topic but serves Israeli interests perfectly. Lamenting the fact that the so-called Palestinian question has lost its pan-Arab quality, Bishara aims to take account of the historical forces that have allowed Israel to pursue what was as of late an unpredicted course; not that of the one- or two-state solution, but of Israel as 'crusader state'.

Paul Craig Roberts finds something ominous in Dick Cheney's recent schedule, as it suggests a strong possibility of an attack on Iran. The culprits responsible for enabling such an attack, says Roberts, would primarily be the American media, the electorate in the US, and the Democratic Party.

Gettin' fancy with the Real News

You like?

Barack Obama and Race in America

Barack Obama's speech on race relations in America, given last week in Philadelphia, had the misfortune of being overshadowed by, or cast as a reaction to, publicized comments made by Obama's long-time spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Obama's speech was one of the most honest and necessary interventions into American mainstream political discourse in years; obviously, that ought not shield it from critique.This will take you to a reaction piece to Obama's speech featuring contributions by the editorial board of The Black Commentator.

Also, the Real News's Paul Jay focuses on Obama's loudly-demanded 'denouncing and renouncing' of Wright, in conversation with Prof. Dwight Hopkins at the University of Chicago's Divinity School. This can be found in that neat mini-video-library from the Real News at the top of this page.

Paging Cohn-Bendit, Bensaid

For the Guardian, Tariq Ali reflects on the various irruptions in progressive politics that took place between 1965-75, on this, the anniversary of the founding of the 22 March movement in Nanterre in 1968. We're generally wary of nostalgic evocations of '68, as well as its totemic status in Western left politics; Ali's piece, however, is analytic rather than elegiac.

Winter Soldier

Here's a crucial video from the Real News regarding US media reporting of both casualties suffered by American troops in Iraq and the catastrophic acts carried out by some of those troops. They also show a few clips from a news conference conducted by Iraq Veterans Against the War, highlighting the 'Winter Soldier' program, in which Iraq War veterans testify as to the nature of their actions, and those of their commanders, while serving.

Works Consulted #10

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Norton Critical Editions
Frank Norris, McTeague, Oxford World Classics
Lauren Berlant, 'Slow Death: Sovereignty, Obesity, Lateral Agency', Critical Inquiry 33, Summer 2007; and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship, Duke University Press, 2002
Elizabeth Grosz, Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies Routlege, 1995
JM Coetzee, Diary of a Bad Year, Harville Secker, 2007

Vacation's over

For today, just a few articles on the devastation of US economy brought to our attention by our dear friend JL.

The first is from NE favorite and ex-Reagan administration official Paul Craig Roberts, who discusses in this article the position of the US as a bankrupt superpower, outlining US financial dependence on foreign countries that will, he projects, grow increasingly unwilling to cover for the superpower in its fiscal irresponsibility. Along similar lines, here are few about the impending federal bailout of the US financial system: one from Paul Krugman, another, more detailed assessment from Pam Martens (which includes a commentary on the Spitzer fiasco that, frankly, we at No Empires can't quite get on board with).

Undoubtedly, there were be more to come on this front.

The death of Rachel Corrie, and the invasion of Iraq, five years on

A brief update from northern Paris.

Five years ago today, International Solidarity Movement activist Rachel Corrie was crushed under an Israeli/American Caterpillar bulldozer in Gaza. As Tom Wright and Therese Saliba report, Rachel Corrie's parents are in Israel this week to ttend the first Arabic-language production of My Name is Rachel Corrie, an immensely powerful one-woman play (we've mentioned it before) brought to New York last year thanks to the courage and tenacity of Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner. Cindy and Craig Corrie come against the backdrop of an utter lack of accountability regarding the circumstances of their daughter's murder; neither Caterpillar, Inc. nor the Israeli government/IDF seem to face any danger of prosecution, and they certainly haven't made any efforts to appear contrite.

RIP, Rachel.

Another (almost anniversary) sees the lead opinion piece in this weekend's Observer making the claim that

Whatever the tragic consequences of the Iraq war, we must learn from them, and when the circumstances are right, not flinch from using all the power at our disposal.

Earlier in the piece it is stated that no one could have foretold the catastrophe that eventually unfolded in Iraq, despite an overwhelming amount of journalistic evidence and political opinion to the contrary. The UK's 'liberal' newspapers continue to lose their way...

A 'bombshell' from Vanity Fair

We urge you to take the time to read this investigative piece from Vanity Fair's David Rose, which lays bare the machinations behind the US's unflagging support of Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, and presents Hamas's takeover of Gaza last summer as the only way for Hamas to pre-empt a Fatah coup that could have happened at any time.

Following Hillary Clinton's recent and crucial primary victories, Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair see only nastiness ahead as Clinton aims to discredit Barack Obama no matter the cost. This, they say, bodes extremely well for John McCain, and could also lead to an increasing rate of attrition among young Democratic voters as Obama's message of "hope" is trampled.

phase ii

Kathleen and Bill Christison are strongly and eloquently endorsing the Nader candidacy, citing Barack Obama's indebtedness to the Israel lobby and ambiguousness on the role of the US Army in Iraq. Crucially, they implore pro-Obama democrats not to seek to limit voters' choices in the 2008 election.

Israel, meanwhile, has withdrawn troops from the Gaza Strip, threatening further operations at any time. Missing Links, a great blog that does a round-up of interesting items from the Arab press, features a long post on various reports on this most recent attack on Gaza--as well as connections that large numbers of people in the Arab world are making between Israel's assault and the arrival of the USS Cole in the waters off of Lebanon.

Well-Made World 33

Of note in Israel this week was a remark by Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai, in which he threatened a 'shoah' in Gaza if Qassam rocket attacks do not cease; the word is rarely used other than to refer, of course, to the Holocaust. The situation in Gaza worsens, with nearly 40 Palestinians--including civilians, and, of those, nine were children--dead in the past few days. The physical attenuation of Gaza's population continues. Electronic Intifada's Ali Abunimah with reaction.

An interesting article from former Israeli journalist Yonatan Mendel on the coextensiveness between the Israeli press and the Zionist project. Mendel looks in particular at the curiosities and double-standards of language that are scattered throughout Israeli journalism.

America's Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, noted Thursday that the security situation in Afghanistan is worsening, with President Karzai controlling not even a third of the country. Karzai, the Guardian notes, denies the American intelligence assessment (which itself echoes earlier, more critical reports by various think-tanks), claiming that his government in fact controls a vast majority of the country. Declan Walsh finds the explanations given by Nato commanders curious. Those commanders claim that the steady increase in suicide bombings is evidence that the Taliban is being "worn down." This claim--which hints at the fact that suicide bombing is an act marked significantly by desperation--is one never heard with regard to suicide bombings in Israel, which are discursively framed as proof of a larger looming (pan-) Arab threat. Walsh also credits the safe haven offered to Taliban fighters in Pakistan with playing a huge role in the Taliban's resurgence.

In his latest piece for Counterpunch, Patrick Cockburn discusses Turkey's bold-faced invasion of Northern Iraq (the only part of the country, he notes, that was at peace until last week), comparing Turkey in their hunt for PKK Turkish Kurd Gorillas to Israel in their repeated incursions into Gaza. He points out that this most recent development in Iraq weakens the state of the Kurdish Regional Government, which, according to Cockburn, was "one of the few concrete achievements of the US and British invasion of Iraq five years ago." Cockburn goes on to provide another useful counter-narrative to the relatively cheery reporting on the "surge" offered by the Times and its cohorts.

Well-Made World 32

The improbable Ralph Nader comes into play yet again. We must give Nader credit for unflaggingly believing in the potential and importance of oppositional third-party (left) politics in America for damn near forty years. It's disheartening, though predictable enough, to see all debate around Nader's surprise entry into 2008 Presidential politics framed in the language of presumed deciding role in Al Gore's 2000 defeat. Talk about Nader the 'spoiler' end up harming and diminishing discourse around American third-party politics in general, an obvious collective loss. It can be argued that the Green Party leadership should start shifting downwards in terms of the age and dynamism of their figureheads--and, it should be said, Nader can be downright infuriating--but we like seeing at least some suggestion that mainstream electoral politics still reacts to a 'third way.' We'll let Nader speak for himself.

Fran Shor, however, can only shrug her shoulders.

In this vein, Frank Rich riffs on comparisons between the Bush Administration's pre-Iraq war planning and Hillary Clinton's spectacular misfortune on the campaign trail.

Columbia's Hamid Dabashi finds limits to Barack Obama's purportedly innovative political imagination, citing a picture which is (for us) one of the iconic, if well-hid, images of Barack Obama's political career: Obama and wife Michelle dining in Chicago with Edward and Mariam Said.

The Washington Post reports that many Israelis now support a widespread ground campaign in Gaza. So much for disengagement...

Well-Made World 31

Dear February,

No more, thank you. Really. It's been quite enough.

Love,
NE
***
Again we go to the real news for a dialogue with Institute for Policy Studies' Phyllis Bennis. The Iraqi Parliament has recently passed three sweeping laws aimed at reconciliation between Shia and Sunni factions, including a potential amnesty deal for thousands of Iraqi prisoners. Bennis considers the extent to which the passing of these laws represents true compromise and a step forward--or whether they simply postpone more bitter wrangling in the months to come.

In a piece for Comment is Free, Haifa Zangana examines the gap between rhetoric and reality in the American government's frequent proclamations on Iraq.

From the West Bank, Khaled Amayreh reports that any hopes for peace in Israel/Palestine in 2008 ought to be scrapped; meanwhile, settlement-building in East Jerusalem has just been jumpstarted once again.

And finally, now that William Kristol has settled comfortably into his new perch at the New York Times, Znet has felt compelled to remind everyone of his, er, legacy.

Un monde bien fait, numero trente

First to Ali Abunimah's recent piece for the Electronic Intifada, in which he examines what Israel considers the "next logical step" for the country's military in Palestine--assassinations of high-ranking members of the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

Next, check out the Realnews website for new interviews with Aijaz Ahmad--we'd particularly recommend this one, in which Ahmad discusses President Bush's State of the Union address.

that's all for now, stay tuned for another update tomorrow.

Works Consulted #9

Bishop, Elizabeth. Collected Poems, London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Coetzee, J.M. Elizabeth Costello, New York: Penguin: 2003.
--The Nobel Lecture in Literature, 2003, New York: Penguin, 2003.

Gaskell, Elizabeth. North and South (1855). New York: Penguin, 2003.

Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time (trans. Joan Stambaugh). New York: State University of NY Press, 1996.

Hemingway, Ernest. In Our Time (1925). New York: Scribner, 2003.

Stora, Benjamin. Histoire de l'Algerie coloniale, 1830-1954, Paris: Editions le Decouverte, 1991.

18-1

Bye, Bye Hegemony

Good news! According to the New York Times Magazine, Gramsci is on the skids: American hegemony is a thing of the past.

For 2016, Parag Khanna predicts a trilateral system of world domination, split between
the states, China, and the EU, with the power of the US in continuous, steady decline; American 'soft power'works no longer, as foreign investment and even domestic pop music capital go outre-mer. So-called 'second world'--nation-states (Venezuela, Vietnam, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are examples) that, for Khanna, cannot simply be called 'Third World', and whose geopolitical positioning grants them considerable leverage--will come to dictate the world's balance of power for years to come. Chavez looms large in Khanna's article, in which the author also speaks of a 'new Arabism' among Middle Eastern states more concerned with distributing oil wealth locally rather than in American banks. This 'new Arabism', while having echoes of Nasser, seems unsurprisingly unconcerned about Palestine.

Works Consulted #8

Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist. Oxford: 2003.

Johnson, James Weldon. The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man (1912). Dover: 1995.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. Hackett: 1987.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo (trans. Kaufman). Vintage: 1989

Well-Made World 29

We know what you're thinking: after all that talk about more updates, we at NE have flaked once again. But we promise, it's not our fault. We were ill. It was gross and scary.

But we're back just in time for the death of Heath Ledger, not to mention recent goings-on in Gaza, where yet another Israeli siege continues, and the wall at the Egyptian border in Rafah has been leveled, sending tens of thousands of Palestinians into Egypt in search of basic supplies. Karen Koning AbuZayd, the head of UNRWA*, writes in the Guardian that 'a new hallmark of Palestinian suffering' has been reached in Gaza. Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz's Chief US correspondent, has posted letters from John McCain and Barack Obama on the situation in Gaza, and notes that both McCain and Obama regard Israeli security as a paramount concern (both believe, for example, that Israel has been 'forced' by Hamas to invade Gaza), and a worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza an afterthought. Rosner also points out the obvious, namely that, as Obama's presidential hopes have been formulating, he's been increasingly vocal in his blanket support of Israeli government policy regarding Palestine. Scroll further down the page and you'll learn that Jon Voight supports Rudy because he's good for Israel! This is almost--almost--as good as seeing Chuck Norris on the stump for Mike Huckabee.

In a more serious vein, we go to Amira Hass. While some of her phrasing is unfortunate ("amnesia, shortsightedness, disorientation and learning disabilities," she remains one of the most important and insightful Israeli voices sounding off on Gaza.

We're a bit out of our comfort zone here, but we should touch on the disaster that was this past week in the world of finance, which, according to Paul Craig Roberts has put the lie to the "free trade delusions" that have dominated American economic policy for the better part of three decades.

*Short for the clunky United Nations Relief Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East.

Money Money Money

Not too much time right now for a long introduction, but try and take a look at this crucial piece by John Lanchester for LRB about credit economy and banking.

'Can it be we are not free? It might be worth looking into.'**

Though we're currently down on Alexander Cockburn, his brother Andrew does not disappoint with his latest piece for Counterpunch, critique of the politics surrounding 'official' estimates/reporting on the downright horrifying number of Iraqi civilian casualties since the 2003 invasion. In contrast to the most recent Johns Hopkins findings, placing the number of Iraqi murders at 665,000, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) (which, we should point out, excludes many of the country's most dangerous destinations--Baghdad, Anbar province, and two other areas deemed too unsafe to visit) recently published a far lower number: 151,000. Despite the fact that the two estimates quantify totally different death tolls (the NEJM report is interesting strictly in civilian casualties, while the Hopkins report compares death rates since the invasion with years before), the NEJM estimate has been touted by everyone from George Bush to The New York Times as the more accurate of the two; however, Cockburn draws attention to sloppy reporting and misleading statistical rhetoric in NEJM report, rightly taking the journal to task for lending a hand in attempts to downplay the devastating effects of the American invasion.


In other news, Gabriel Piterberg has written a fascinating article for the New Left Review, in which he analyzes and, in a sense, unearths, Hannah Arendt's political opposition to the Zionist project in Palestine. Recognizing the real danger of anti-Semitism, Arendt rejects the notion of a racially-exclusive Jewish state and attempts to find other solutions to the infamous 'Jewish question'. And finally, if you can get past the awful new layout at one of our go-to websites, ZNet Communications, you'll find a recent interview, conducted by Stephen Shalom, with our friend Bashir Abu-Manneh, in which the latter touches on the significance of 2007 and 2008 being, respectively, the 40th and 60th anniversaries of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and the establishment of the State of Israel. Bashir also speaks about congruity between present-day Hamas and pre-1982 Fatah, as well as the history and current state of the Left in Palestine.

**Samuel Beckett, Molloy, 1955

The New Hampshire Blues

Our New Year's resolution: we'll get better than this once-a-week thing, give you more frequent updates and broadened 'coverage.' For now, let's deal with the ridiculous theatrics of electoral politics in America.

Uncharacteristically for Alex Cockburn, this piece he coauthored with Jeffrey St Clair is seriously fucking boring and poorly written, but is as good a place as any to start engaging with the Iowa/New Hampshire caucus/primary nonsense. Looking to characterize Obama as somehow separate from the Democratic party 'elite'--to us, though, he may not be a former First Lady, but he is sure as shit among the cream of the party crop--Cockburn/St Clair spend most of their time attesting to Obama's ability to expand the American electorate, particularly among young voters. We can't argue that this isn't, ultimately, a positive effect, but in this video for The Guardian Ken Silverstein points out something that has been bugging us for months now: what is it about him, aside from, say, his name, that makes Obama so opposed to the democratic mainstream? Yes, he's smart and charismatic, and he is clearly, for many Americans, a figure for change--but what no one seems to be asking is what does that change represent for Obama himself? We'd also like to call your attention to two articles that try to answer that question: one is on his outlook regarding a long-standing blindspot for both the Democratic and Republican parties. The other is about his assertion that American military intervention in Pakistan should not be taken off the table is being used as justification for such action by the Bush administration. (See, also, Aijaz Ahmad on this possibility, and on recent developments in Pakistan in general.)

But Cockburn and St Clair's embarrassing leniency with the other victor in the Iowa caucus, Mike Huckabee, is perhaps a worse offense. Citing Huckabee's 'tolerance' towards immigrants (something he shares, of course, with George W Bush) and 'compassion' against convicted criminals, they ignore Huckabee's noted rejection of the scientific theory of evolution, as well as his declared intent to seek a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, which are just two of his most terrifying positions. Cockburn has recently been softly defending Huckabee's candidacy, shrugging off complaints from the Left that his outspoken evangelism may prove just a bit problematic as mere 'bigotry' or misguided 'hee-haws'.

Huckabee, taking after the Israelis, is on the record: supporting a border wall between the US and Mexico and no amnesty for illegal immigrants; insisting that his faith 'defines' his life; maintaining that America must support Israel as 'the only fully-functioning democracy in the Middle East', with no mention whatsoever of the Palestinians under occupation; that the war in Iraq is part of a 'generational' and 'ideological' struggle against terrorism, that a timeline for withdrawal is not in US interests (with the corollary that withdrawal would result in a humanitarian catastrophe for Iraqis, as if this didn't already exist); that Fidel Castro is indeed the Bogeyman; that the Second Amendment is a backbone of American democracy; that progressive taxation is, in effect, economic discrimination against the rich; claiming that the US is engaged in a 'world war' with radical Islam (hence going further than even George Bush was willing to) and must as such engage 'moderates' in the Middle East and South Asia. We'll stop there but you're welcome to check mikehuckabee.com for more information.

Alexander Cockburn: quit defending Huckabee as representative of some sort of new-fangled 'populism'. You're too smart to be so completely blindsided.

Oh, and Hillary, for all her tears, is most certainly going down.

oh

and, um, happy new year.

in commemoration of the event, take a look at this article by Alexander Cockburn on political events of the past year, from the death of Gerald Ford (whom Cockburn considers the best American president of the twentieth century) , to troop escalations in Iraq, the (attempted) character assassination of Jimmy Carter, the indictment of Michael Vick, and, of course, the recent surge in popularity of Republican presidential nominee Mike Huckabee.

Ron Paul and Chomsky

For the past few months, No Empires could not help but notice proliferations of Ron Paul paraphernalia just about everywhere. Posters and stickers bearing the libertarian presidential candidate's imprint have been spotted by No Empires constituents in airports, businesses, and restrooms, and on telephone poles and chalked sidewalks across the Northeast and the Midwest. We admit the man has been somewhat charming in republican debates, but we still want to know: who is this guy, and what is his appeal? For a start, we direct you to a blog interview with Noam Chomsky, where the linguist points out a few problems with what to many are Paul's most appealing positions, highlighting (perhaps most importantly) the ethical implications of his ultra-nationalist stance on US foreign affairs.