An interesting look at the militarisation of the US economy from Nick Turse. While the US has long been a permanent war economy, the consumer dimension of the corporate overlap has not–until recently–been highlighted.

War’s shopping cart

Pepsi, Apple, Krispy Kreme and other consumer firms profit from Iraq too.

By Nick Turse | LA Times

Last month, a review of 2006 congressional financial disclosure statements by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics found that lawmakers have as much as $196 million “invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war.” An Associated Press article on the report, however, offered a caveat: “Not all the companies invested in by lawmakers are typical defense contractors. Corporations such as PepsiCo, IBM, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson have at one point received defense-related contracts.”

But the Associated Press is wrong. The fact is that corporations such as PepsiCo, IBM, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson are, indeed, typical defense contractors. To suggest that such firms, and tens of thousands like them, only receive defense-related contracts at the odd, aberrant moment is specious at best. Read the rest of this entry »

Les Jeux Sont Fait

Day Three - The Chess Match: Nasrallah opens with a Knight
Next move: Bush

Street Notes and Findings from Beirut’s Hamra District: May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
Beirut

“Where did they come from?”, the desk clerk at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Rauche by the sea near Hamra wondered out loud. “I have been on duty all night and saw nothing. Suddenly they are everywhere!”

Of course this observer wondered the same thing. The time was around 8:30 am, having ducked into the Hotel to escape a flash shower before the sunny morning returned.

This observer left Haret Hreik neighborhood in Dahiyeh by motorcycle around 6:45 am this morning and headed toward the airport road near the Jnah/Ouzai round-about. Dahiyeh is quiet. Essentially normal. (Around 1 pm returning from Hamra I did notice that none of the Haret Hreik guys were playing football at the local athletic fields—it dawned on me where they were). Read the rest of this entry »

Hundreds of military checkpoints, and no goods — or people — allowed in or out if you live in the Gaza Ghetto, under brutal siege. Need medical attention and care? Pregnant? Want to visit family? Need to go to work? Get fuel? Too bad. All this operates with Israeli regime impunity, who have been choking Gaza — the world’s largest open-air concentration camp — as well as “exporting” its apartheid model: see, in particular, Naomi Klein.

The graphic above was made by a wise fourteen-year-old (Adam) after hearing stories of the difficulties of life in Abu Dis in Palestine. H/T thanks to DesertPeace, originally sourced from WorldPressNetwork. Read the rest of this entry »

Graphic: Carlos Latuff.

That, of course, is the idea, the result of a deliberate strategy and as a direct consequence of Israel’s prevailing self-definition and worldview. As surely as our cosmology informs our sociology, the abhorrent siege of the Gaza Ghetto continues, the result of the internal logic of Israel’s continued existence as an apartheid expansionist state, producing policies of continued ‘low-intensity’ ethnic cleansing, divide and rule and genocide as Ilan Pappe and others have described. Zaid Khan’s words are worth quoting again:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part V: Hezbollah’s part of the bargain

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“Nobody can impose terms on us, or commit us to anything we do not believe in. Let me be clear: Israel won’t get through politics what it didn’t get through war, even if the UN resolu­tion gave this to Israel. What they couldn’t do through war, they want to do by peaceful means? It doesn’t work like that.”

—Hezbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, Al-Manar television, 15 August 2006

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr (”just call me Joe–anything but Sue” as he does his Johnny Cash imitation) Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and twice Presidential Candidate, is a friendly, loquacious, decent and knowledgeable fellow. Having served on that Committee for nearly a quarter century and traveled widely, Biden thinks of himself as someone who can be confronted with ‘deal breakers’ at the negotiation table and work out mutually acceptable solutions. “I’m the real deal bridge builder!”, he sometimes kids with his devoted staff, as he shadow boxes and mimics his favorite boxer, Evander “the real deal” Holyfield. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part IV: Bait, Hook and Switch: the US offer and the quid pro quo

Franklin Lamb
Dahiyeh

“Absolutely not! Without a credible deterrent force, there is no real Lebanese sovereignty. Israel came very close to getting nearly all it wanted with the 1983 May 17th agreement. Had Hezbollah not prevented this, Lebanon today would be colonized with near confederation status with Israel. The Bush administrations democracy and ’save the Christians’ crusade back-fired when each election resulted in Islamist victories while his war in Iraq and support for Israel is making refugees of a high percentage of Christians. It is now Hezbollah and its allies who are protecting the Christians and want free elections in the Middle East, not the Bush administration”.

– American student interviewed as part of a survey of 27 Lebanese institutions of higher education on whether Hezbollah should immediately disarm

Disarming Hezbollah: the Bush administration will not insist

As noted previously, the US government is not obsessed by Hezbollah’s deterrent capability. It appears prepared to back off from this issue and signal to Hezbollah that it can keep its weapons if they use them only in legitimate self defense against a foreign attack. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part III: the CIA and the Pentagon weigh in

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“Those bastards [the Israeli military] know the rules and what the US Arms Export Control Act requires! The CBU 58’s are decades out of date! We [the US] have not even had them in our weapons inventory since we last used them in 1991 during Desert Storm. They are now complete junk and I am amazed that any of them after 35 years even detonated. By using them this time in Lebanon, Israel was illegally dropping landmines.”

–Pentagon official commenting on Israel’s use of American weapons against civilians in Lebanon during the July 2006 war (chap. II, The Price We Pay)

Ridicule of Israel’s 2006 performance by US Intelligence and Military agencies creates pressure for the White House to engage with Hezbollah

It has been a fact that, since at least 1982, perhaps the harshest and most frustrated American critics of Israel are those who work in Langley, Virginia, at CIA Headquarters and especially those across the 14th Street Bridge from the White House, on the banks of the Potomac River, who work at the Pentagon. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part II: Why the Bush administration wants to negotiate now with Hezbollah

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“These fools do not learn from their past mistakes. When they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody. Had they released them when they left Lebanon, there would not now be a ‘prisoner issue’ between Lebanon and the enemy. They opened the door for us.”
– Hassan Nasrallah, January 2004, during a welcome home ceremony for Lebanese and Arab detainees as a result of a Hezbollah-Israel swap.

Creating the proper atmosphere to do ‘business’

As discussed below, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the Bush administration is prepared to concede that Hezbollah keep its weapons. Even though it encourages its marionettes to foment this issue, and does so itself publicly, the Bush Administration knows that Hezbollah is not going to disarm until the Question of Palestine is settled to the satisfaction of the Palestinians. Yet it feels that focusing on Hezbollah’s militia is still a good pre-negotiation bargaining chip. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part I: Historical context and current posturing

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“The Bush administration parking a flotilla from its US 6th fleet off the coast of Lebanon was made necessary, it claims, to demonstrate Washington’s ‘commitment to stability in the region’. This provocation, aimed at Hezbollah and also Syria, is the equivalent of a Sicilian fish wrapped in newspaper with a white rose—left on a doorstep: “This is business. It is not personal. Here is an offer you cannot refuse“.

– Italian officer seconded to UNIFIL outside his Tebnine HQ, South Lebanon

Background to the Offer: the writing on the wall

Recent US back channel feelers to Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah’s decision makers are sometimes present, reflect US calculations that given current trends in the Middle East, Hezbollah will play a major regional role.

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the efforts to date have run tepid and less ‘qualitative’ than informal Iran-USA contacts. US diplomat Thomas Pickering has revealed that he has been a participant in secret Iran-US ‘back channel’ discussions for the past five years. The subjects discussed include Iran’s nuclear program, the broader relationship between the two and US relations with Hezbollah. Other participants include former US diplomat William Luers and MIT nuclear expert Jim Walsh. While “unofficial”, the discussions, organized by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the UN Association of the USA, are thought to be useful.

Dismissive of Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s pledge to “drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon”, serious US officials want to engage the Lebanese Resistance partly because they are concerned with Israel remaining a Jewish state in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Two excellent videos. The first offers an on-the-ground look at what is going on in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, militarily occupied by Israel: youngsters and civilians being terrorised and several foreigners being deliberately targeted and killed to discourage the outside world scrutinizing the Israeli regime’s actions. This is an eyewitness report from Dispatchers Reporter Sandra Jordan on the unconscionable Israeli violence in Gaza directed both at Palestinian civilians as well as international aid volunteers and foreign reporters.

Produced by Rodrigo Vasquez and broadcast by Channel 4 in the UK (one could not imagine its equivalent broadcast in the USA, not even PBS), this 2006 report is, sadly, one of the best I have seen in terms of showing the daily impact of shocking Israeli violence on Palestinians, at a human level.

Within hours of arriving Sandra and Rodrigo are shot at and tear-gassed by Israeli troops breaking up a memorial service for Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist crushed by an Israeli Army bulldozer two days before—deliberately. Tom Hurndall and James Miller, a British peace protester and British cameraman were also both shot by the IDF, leaving one in a coma,and the other shot dead. While this is disturbing, it is a raw and important window into the levels of violence to which Palestinians are daily subject, particularly in but not limited to Gaza.

Following this, having just passed the sixtieth anniversary of the Deir Yassin massacre, a timely reflection from Deir Yassin Remembered on the pivotal event of the Nakba and what it means for Israelis and Palestinians today.

Dispatches: The Killing Zone (49 minutes)
Read the rest of this entry »

What really leapt out in this Guardian piece from Geoffrey Robertson is that the English Fabian Socialists, almost always looked up to by many of us in the labour movement and culturally lionised, were eugenicists who advocated the assimilation or “humane eradication” of what they saw as “lesser races”. It is surprising that George Bernard Shaw, who I otherwise quite like as a playwright and political commentator from that era, is among this group that includes Sydney and Beatrice Webb, Virginia Woolf, DH Lawrence and others. Even making allowances for the prevalent modes of thought of the time in which they lived, this is a revelation. As late as 1934, a British Department of Health report recommended compulsory sterilisation of the “feeble-minded’, as Robertson points out. Ironically, he adds that it was opposition from Labour MPs that quashed the recommendation, “who feared that working-class people would be the real victims of the Fabian intelligentsia.” Read the rest of this entry »

Quotables from the Israeli government’s current (c)harm offensive

While you may have read about the first, Israeli Minister Sheetrit’s revealing outburst was by no means the only recent one. These are just a few picked up from a couple of news pieces, and seem unfortunately indicative of how the Israeli government public discourse has further degenerated, reflecting its actions on the ground.

• Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit: “We must take a neighborhood in Gaza and wipe it off the map“ (see also here; here and here)

• ”We need to topple the Hamas regime,” Tzachi Hanegbi, chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told Israel Radio ahead of Barak’s briefing. ”We need to assassinate its leaders without any artificial differentiation between those who wear explosive vests and those who wear diplomatic vests.“

• Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters after the cabinet meeting, “There is no hope for the Palestinian people with Hamas. There is no hope for any kind of peace or the vision of a Palestinian state which includes the Gaza Strip without a real change on the ground.” (read: usual ‘never a partner for peace’ and attempting to dictate who governs and the shape of a future Palestinian state, which is to say, actively preventing one)

• Olmert’s Deputy, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, said he expected Hamas, which seized control in June, to be forced out within the year. “I believe a combination of steps against Hamas in Gaza will bring an end to the Hamas regime in Gaza,” Ramon said. “It will take a few months, maybe it will take a year.” Hamas sources said Hamas leaders were keeping a low profile, apparently to avoid assassination attempts. Asked who Israel could be targeting, minister Shaul Mofaz said: “Everyone, without exception.” Read the rest of this entry »

In his wonderful style, Swami Beyondananda, aka Steve Bhaerman, delivers his heartfelt and wise State of the Universe address for 2008, following his excellent 2007 Address. Take a moment to check out his site. This delightful political humorist has also written with his characteristic wit about topics such as the US corporate media, impeachment and the Israel Lobby, well worth a read.

2008 State of the Universe Address

Swami Predicts Heart Times Ahead

Every year at this time, I am asked to make predictions, and each time I politely refuse because I don’t want to jeopardize my nonprophet status. But this year is different. With 2012 just one quantum leap year away, we humans might finally be ready for a quantum leap of our own. The message is coming in loud and clear. Time to shift or get off the pot.

In order to upshift our karma into surpassing gear, however, we must shift our awareness downward from the static of the head to the ecstatic of the heart. If we are to have an awakening instead of a wake, I predict heart times ahead. Read the rest of this entry »

A short and succinct letter to the editor in today’s Sydney Morning Herald from Zaid Khan puts things into perspective:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Zaid Khan

What is to be done? Chances are that if you reading this, you already have a good grasp of what is happening. Also avail yourself to first hand accounts from residents in Gaza, such as Tabula Gaza, Raising Yousef–A Mother From Gaza and Dr Mona El Farra’s blog. Spread the word and discuss it with people who may not even know all this is happening or who may uncritically accept the Israeli neocon worldview propagated in some of the major media outlets. Israel is committing slow genocide and ethnic cleansing. A simple yet powerful letter like the one above can ricochet around the world.

Here are some other ways you can help: Read the rest of this entry »