What wackiness to wake up to on a Sunday morning! On CNN’s State of the Union, Joe Lieberman tells Candy Crowley that the government should police the internet – taking China as an example!

A stunning example of the fact that, as I have written elsewhere, however different their regimes, and notwithstanding their external antagonisms, political leaders share a common attitude vis a vis their subjects.

But would internet security suddenly have become a burning issue had the cooperatively-run internet site Wikileaks – which, coincidentally, Wikipedia says was founded by Chinese dissidents some years ago – not recently show an American helicopter gunship deliberately targeting and killing a dozen civilians and wounding two children in Afghanistan? The footage, complete with the two-way ground-to-air conversation was leaked by an American soldier, who has been arrested, and a hunt is on for Julian Assange, the Australian who is the public face of Wikileaks, now and not for the first time, in hiding.

But let’s not lose the thread here: Senator Lieberman is proposing legislation that would authorize the White House to prevent use of the internet that could threaten our national security – as does China, a country which is officially Communist, and in any case recognized as an authoritarian regime. Yet Senator Lieberman, like most of his colleagues in the Congress, would not be caught dead recommending that the United States emulate in any way, shape or form, the social-democratic countries of Europe, which, as the world stands today, are widely considered to be the best that humans have achieved so far in terms of governance.

As for where the world stands today, an Arizona lawmaker proposes that birth certificates be denied children of illegal immigrants, never mind that according to the Constitution, any person born on U.S. soil is an American citizen; and Israelis of European origin demonstrate against having their children schooled together with those of Sephardic, usually North-African, origin.

More encouragingly, civilians around the world are increasingly adopting similar attitudes toward those that govern them, whether it be Americans on the Gulf Coast tired of waiting for government and BP to clean up the oil mess, college students voting to divest from companies doing business with Israel, West bank Palestinians boycotting settler products, South American Indians or Africans of the Niger Delta suing big oil for polluting their lands.

Americans are amazing: we have the best president since Franklin Roosevelt, and yet, even the so-called liberal media can’t stop finding fault. This is proof, if ever it was needed, that tv anchors are paid to provide suspense, not information. They speculate endlessly on what negative effect this or that policy decision, speech, or encounter will have on the 2012 election.

Their endless harping on President Obama’s “performance” feeds negative poll results. It’s no surprise that 52% of voters are dissatisfied with the President’s handling of the Gulf oil spill, when they hear nothing but criticism on TV! Questions to actors in the BP disaster have only one purpose: to elicit negative appraisals of the administration’s behavior.

President Bush failed by every criteria when Katrina struck, yet this was a natural disaster that had been waiting to happen (with insufficient protection for New Orleans); policemen shot people hovering under a bridge, the thousands that took refuge in a sports complex had no water for days, yet the only thing on the minds of officials was the possibility of looting. People clung to anything that floated til they were (sometimes) rescued. And “Brownie” was praised.

I think Americans have forgotten just how incompetent the Bush administration was. And ironically, because it was so incompe-tent, they expect nothing less than miracles from his successor. As the President would say, “Let’s be clear”: No human being has ever been responsible for the number of catastrophes and blunders this president inherited. The greatest economic debacle since 1929 began before he entered the Oval Office and is not over. He inherited two and a half wars in Southwest Asia – with two more looming in the Horn of Africa; is expected to finally end Israel’s war with the Palestinians, of which we are a part. Meanwhile, at home he’s facing a border/drug/arms crisis with Mexico, largely because the previous admi-nistration did not implement immigration reform.

And he should have made sure the rot in the Office of Minerals Management was dug out so that the greatest ecological disaster the country has ever known would not strike a still recovering Gulf Coast?! Even as other industrial disasters occur almost daily, and while the coal industry continues mountain-top mining of the most polluting substance?

Americans cursed and wrung their hands for eight years over the most inept AND crooked president the country has ever had (not to mention a Darth Vader vice-president), then, having managed to beat the skeptics and the racists and elect a man who is his exact opposite, who could produce the kind of outcomes most of us are desperate for, we feel betrayed because he doesn’t have a magic wand.

We fault him for bowing to the generals’ demand for a surge in Afghanistan after eight years of wasted efforts to turn a tribal country into a liberal democracy (which suddenly, turns out to have untapped precious minerals galore). The same explanation prevails for Obama’s failure to endorse calls in Copenhagen for serious action on climate change: one of his hands is tied by the military complex, the other by the industrial complex, and alas, he’s not Houdini.

The larger picture is this: pre-Reconstruc-tion Americans are determined to make America’s first black president pick up the tab for the disasters created by his pre-decessors, not only to ensure he cannot be reelected, but also to preclude another such crazy idea from entering the heads of voters – who might dare to back an Asian or Hispanic for president next time.

Friday, June 4th:I know that ore than half of the volunteers in the flotilla that tried to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza were Turks, but does that statistic explain why all of this killed were Turks? (One held an American passport but was of Turkish origin.) Would Turks stand out among fair-skinned Americans, British, French, etc. individuals on board the Turkish ship that was boarded in a pre-dawn raid last Monday?

One of the early Israeli reports said that its soldiers were surprised to hear ‘Arabic’ (more likely Turkish) being spoken on the ship. I have not heard anyone raise this issue. Why? Racial profiling isn’t an American monopoly.

Saturday: On today’s news, someone was suggesting that the Israeli attackers had a hit list. Maybe they didn’t have a list, but the idea would certainly suggest that they were instructed to use racial profiling.

After seeing the recent film “Inglorious Basterds” by Quentin Tarantino it occured to me that the Israelis are on a master race kick. In the film, a group of Jewish Americans inflict a series of vicious punishments on Third Reich combatants, ending with the assassination of Hitler and his entire general staff! Tarantino fans like the fact that the film is horrendously violent. As a film lover, I do not recommend it. Aside from that, I believe that it unapologetically represents a communal Israeli dream of being able to overcome even the most powerful enemies.

Israel’s handling of relief efforts for the people of Gaza would seem to confirm that the country is under a sort of superman spell. How long before it wakes up?

Although the American Heritage Dictionary refers to ‘entering’ or going aboard a vehicle or ship, the Israeli army’s reference to its troops ‘going aboard’ the Turkish ship carrying relief supplies does not evoke men rappelling down from a helicopter in full riot gear in the middle of the night.

How to be surprised that they were greeted with clubs and knives?

A ‘boarding party’ comes alongside a ship on another ship, and requests permission to come aboard. Usually in broad daylight.

Israel could have done this, in order to inspect the cargoes being carried, which could then have been ‘safely’ delivered to Gaza.

There is a famous French nursery rhyme that says “My heart cannot choose between the Christine and Brigitte.”

What transpired today, between endless chatter about the oil spill, and brief allusions to Israel’s attack on unarmed civilians in the high seas, is that the United States is going to have to choose between two long-time allies: Israel and Turkey.

To be sure, the nature of our relations with these two countries is not the same: Israel is a sixty-year old love story that grew out of the Second World War. Turkey was “the southern bulwark against the Soviet Union“ during the Cold War, and more recently, has been indispensable to our pursuit of military operations in Iraq. And now, at a time when, according to CNN, the U.S. needs Turkey’s support to pass a sanctions resolution against Iran, Turkey today declared that Israel had forfeited its right to be considered a respected member of the international community.

By late afternoon, it transpired that Turkey had gone further: it demanded that the United States join the Security Council’s condemnation of Israel. Imagine! A not-so-long-ago third world country demanding a certain behavior of the world superpower!

The full impact of this development has probably not dawned in Washington yet. Or if it, has, Washington will pretend nothing is amiss. But this is as significant a development as the Gulf oil spill: from now on, we can start keeping a record of the ways in which the world spells out for the United States the fact that it no longer calls the shots.

What a way for Israel to celebrate America’s Memorial Day! Did Lieberman take advantage of Bibi’s absence to commit murder? Did Bibi cancel his trip to Washington to avoid having his knuckles rapped?

President Obama is caught between multiples rocks and hard places: he can control neither the oil barons operating off our shores, nor the new crusaders who want to take over the Holy Land, and who, having killed thousands of Gaza civilians, thinks nothing of killing members of an international group committed to a humanitarian mission.

Yesterday, interviewing the BP operations manager on CNN, Candy Crowley appeared not to know that the American congress caved to the oil industry’s demand to free it from the obligation it has in the rest of the world to install an off-switch that would have prevented the Gulf disaster, while at the same time, perhaps, trying to get the oilman to confess.

Today the question is will President Obama will buy the unbelievably weak excuse announced by the Israeli ambassador according to which the Israeli attackers found weapons ready to use against them on the ship carrying relief to Gaza. (In other words, if you carry a defensive weapon, I will attack you!) The ambassador made no mention of arms being carried as cargo, and in fact the AP story on The Huffington Post mentions knives and clubs as the arms prepared by the convoy – a reverse David and Goliath situation.

The attack happened in international waters, another serious issue. And by the way, before ousting Fatah from Gaza militarily, Hamas won the June 2007 parliamentary election there. Hamas must have had in mind what happened in the Algerian election of 1992: when the Islamic party won a first round, the government in power, with the backing of France, cancelled the second round to prevent it from taking power, sparking years of violence.

The commander of the Israeli troops who rappelled to the Turkish lead ship from a helicopter stated that he was surprised to hear Arabic spoken on board, the implication being that only Arabs support the Gazans. This is willful ignorance on the part of supposedly sophisticated Israelis, similar to the assumption on the part of many Americans that Cuba, which receives thousands of foreign visitors, is isolated from the rest of the world.

Last but not least, while Turkey has been Israel’s most steadfast ally in the MIddle East, a Turkish charity played a lead role in organizing the humani-tarian flotilla, and Turkey’s Islamic government could do no less than recall its ambassador to Tel Aviv after its ship was attacked.

But the irony goes further: together with Brazil, Turkey recently finalized a deal with Iran to reprocess its nuclear waste. The diplomatic breakthrough by these two “second tier” countries annoyed Secretary Clinton, even though President Obama had previous stated that such a deal was desirable. During the recent financial meltdown Brazil’s highly popular president Lula da Silva stated bluntly that it had been caused by “people with blue eyes”; and Turkey, located between Europe and Asia, recently indicated it would reorient its diplomacy away from the EU and toward the Arab world.

By continuing to support “the only democratic country in the Middle East”, the one supposedly founded on Enlightenment principles, rather than recognizing “facts on the ground”, Washington, like Israel, continues its blind march to oblivion.



Today I’m hosting Israeli journalist Gideon Levy’s piece in the Isareli paper Haaretz:http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/gaza-flotilla-drives-israel-into-a-sea-of-stupidity-1.292959
Published 02:37 30.05.10

The Israeli propaganda machine has reached new highs its hopeless frenzy. It has distributed menus from Gaza restaurants, along with false information. It embarrassed itself by entering a futile public relations battle, which it might have been better off never starting. They want to maintain the ineffective, illegal and unethical siege on Gaza and not let the “peace flotilla” dock off the Gaza coast? There is nothing to explain, certainly not to a world that will never buy the web of explanations, lies and tactics.

Only in Israel do people still accept these tainted goods. Reminiscent of a pre-battle ritual from ancient times, the chorus cheered without asking questions. White uniformed soldiers got ready in our name. Spokesmen delivered their deceptive explanations in our name. The grotesque scene is at our expense. And virtually none of us have disturbed the performance.

The chorus has been singing songs of falsehood and lies. We are all in the chorus saying there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza. We are all part of the chorus claiming the occupation of Gaza has ended, and that the flotilla is a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty – the cement is for building bunkers and the convoy is being funded by the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. The Israeli siege of Gaza will topple Hamas and free Gilad Shalit. Foreign Ministry spokesman Yossi Levy, one of the most ridiculous of the propagandists, outdid himself when he unblinkingly proclaimed that the aid convoy headed toward Gaza was a violation of international law.

Right. Exactly.

It’s not the siege that is illegal, but rather the flotilla. It wasn’t enough to distribute menus from Gaza restaurants through the Prime Minister’s Office, (including the highly recommended beef Stroganoff and cream of spinach soup ) and flaunt the quantities of fuel that the Israeli army spokesman says Israel is shipping in. The propaganda operation has tried to sell us and the world the idea that the occupation of Gaza is over, but in any case, Israel has legal authority to bar humanitarian aid. All one pack of lies.

Only one voice spoiled the illusory celebration a little: an Amnesty International report on the situation in Gaza. Four out of five Gaza residents need humanitarian assistance. Hundreds are waiting to the point of embarrassment to be allowed out for medical treatment, and 28 already have died. This is despite all the Israeli army spokesman’s briefings on the absence of a siege and the presence of assistance, but who cares?

And the preparations for the operation are also reminiscent of a particularly amusing farce: the feverish debate among the septet of ministers; the deployment of the Masada unit, the prison service’s commando unit that specializes in penetrating prison cells; naval commando fighters with backup from the special police anti-terror unit and the army’s Oketz canine unit; a special detention facility set up at the Ashdod port; and the electronic shield that was supposed to block broadcast of the ship’s capture and the detention of those on board.

And all of this in the face of what? A few hundred international activists, mostly people of conscience whose reputation Israeli propaganda has sought to besmirch. They are really mostly people who care, which is their right and obligation, even if the siege doesn’t concern us at all. Yes, this flotilla is indeed a political provocation, and what is protest action if not political provocation?
And facing them on the seas has been the Israeli ship of fools, floating but not knowing where or why. Why detain people? That’s how it is. Why a siege? That’s how it is. It’s like the Noam Chomsky affair all over again, but big time this time. Of course the peace flotilla will not bring peace, and it won’t even manage to reach the Gaza shore. The action plan has included dragging the ships to Ashdod port, but it has again dragged us to the shores of stupidity and wrongdoing. Again we will be portrayed not only as the ones that have blocked assistance, but also as fools who do everything to even further undermine our own standing. If that was one of the goals of the peace flotilla’s organizers, they won big yesterday.

Five years ago, the noted Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who is a Jerusalem Prize laureate, after concluding his visit to Israel, said the Israeli occupation was approaching its grotesque phase. Over the weekend Vargas Llosa, who considers himself a friend of Israel, was present to see that that phase has since reached new heights of absurdity.

Last week’s Nation carried an important article by Amitai Etzioni. Leaving communautarian theory aside, Etzioni calls on progressives to adopt what he calls a common narrative. To agree on what brought us to this point, what or who will save us, and what is the end state we want to bring about: “What is our shining city?”

Etzioni believes that it is the fact that each group has its own priorities that prevents progressives from uniting. I am not sure that is true, be-cause the emails I get from a variety of “causes” seem to reflect the same concerns, even if the primary focus is on different aspects of our civili-zational crisis: war, poverty, health care, women’s or minority rights. However, I think Etzioni’s focus on communautarianism has given him a valuable insight into the left’s failing: we need to agree on the main lines, or what could be called a big picture.

His examples of what might have brought us to this crisis are enlighten-ing: “Is it the military-industrial complex”, he asks. “Wall Street? Capi-talism? The Christian right? Or…?”

I would suggest: Selfishness, greed, over-consumption, due to lack of education and information. Greed and selfishness result from a lack of education about others, which leads to over-consumption by one part of the population and underconsumption by the other.

In the end, it’s always about equity. We cannot escape that reality. And perhaps the overriding problem of the American left, is its belief that it can more safely talk about discrete aspects of that problem without organizing behind it.

Alas, it’s not a fairy tale, but an overwhelming reality that day by day is dismantling the American Fairy Tale of shining progress.

Like the hero of the musical “Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, BP’s greed has not kept up with its capabilities, and now it can only run to and fro trying to stop the damage from the forces it has unleashed.

But that’s not all: the mouse BP calls its human employees “little piggies”, applying a cost/benefit analysis to the provision of safe as opposed to hazardous buildings for them to work in, oblivious to the fact that if the pigs decide to get together, they would be able to whip the mice into line.

Smarmy Democratic congressmen are starting to compare the president’s response to the Gulf Oil catastrophe to President Bush’s handling of Katrina. This is so unfair that it’s hard to believe: maybe they’re trying to take the wind out of any sails the Republicans might still have.

Senators who believe the congressional dome imbues them with special wisdom call for “the government” to take over the rescue of the Louisiana and Florida coasts: but as the Coast Guard talking head admitted yesterday, the government is not in possession of the necessary technology. In the words of the lady White House environmental advisor stuck with responding, it can only provide “the best brains”.

Meanwhile, no pundit can afford to state the obvious: we’ve gone from being the slaves of technology to being its victims.

After five decades of assuming that President Eisenhower’s warning about the military-industrial complex was mainly about the military, we now awaken to the fact that the industrial complex is perfectly capable of wrecking havoc on the world all on its own.

The Gulf oil disaster gives President Obama yet another sterling (sic) occasion to break with his handlers and chart a new course before it’s too late. Worse than the facts on the ground is the knowledge that this cannot happen. It calls for a wide-ranging discussion on the role of government in our times.

At various times since I began this blog, more than three years ago, I’ve suggested that America’s days as the dominating world power are numbered. Though I may have been one of the first to perceive this, the notion is spreading.

A recent blog on the site , by two Washington insiders, is entitled “Iran, the Post-American World and the Security Council’s Looming Legitimacy Crisis”. Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett note that by offering to refuel Iran’s research reactor, Turkey and Brazil, “two rising economic powers from what we used to call the ‘Third World’ have now asserted decisive political influence on a high-profile international security issue.” Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan is even questioning the Security Council’s credentials for dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue.

Sir Brian Urquhart is probably one of the few surviving persons who has been intimately involved in framing and constructing the U.N. since 1945, and he has just given me a great gift.

In the current issue of the New York Review he traces the history of the world body, whose problems have formed the basis of a generalized distrust. But he dares to say what no critics have done, as far as I am aware: the U.N. must become the matrix of a world government.

Giving a boost to the work of Professor Thomas G. Weiss, who has been associated with the UN Intellectual History Project Series, Urquhart traces the history of national sovereignty, whose dotage is at the root of opposition to world government, to the oft-cited Treaty of Westphalia which, in 1648, put an end to the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. Quoting Weiss: “This venerable institution remains a hearty enough virus. It is a chronic ailment for the United Nations, and perhaps a lethal one for the planet,” Urquhart adds: “One can only wonder which of the great global problems will provide the cosmic disaster that will prove beyond doubt, and probably too late, that our present situation demands a post-Westphalian international order.”

Echoing what I have written in A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness, Urquhart notes that although there are 100,000 peacekeeping soldiers in many parts of the world, “no progress has been made toward a standing UN rapid deployment force, which, in an ideal or even rational world, would be the obvious way to provide for the speedy deployment of well-trained troops and civilians in an emergency.”

Noting the weakness of the concept of governance ‘a word used in the absence of any overarching political authority’ Weiss, Urquhart tells us, 
‘makes a stirring argument for dropping the current coyness about steps that might lead, in the distant future, to world government and for start-ing to discuss seriously what is needed to establish a stable, peaceful, and unthreatened international society in an age of potentially terminal global problems”.

According to Urquhart, who is ninety-one years young, “what is needed is not to abolish national sovereignty but to reconcile it with the demands of human survival and decency in the astonishingly dangerous world we have absentmindedly created.”

While Obama’s best and brightest struggle to keep all the plates in the air, including those represented by the Tea Partiers’ RINOS, it seems that dinosaurs are not necessarily to be found where we think they are.