American-Israeli Politics: Where Bullying is Called Self-Defense

“And I stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel as it defends itself against this shocking violence.” Senator Cory Booker

“Israel is entitled to take the steps necessary to protect itself from destructive rocket attacks from Hamas that are aimed at all Israeli civilians, regardless of their religion,” said Senator Charles Schumer

"We support Israel's right to self-defense.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

It was General William Tecumseh Sherman, whom after conducting his devastating campaign against Georgia’s civilian population and burning the city of Atlanta, who said, “War is Hell.” This statement is likely the most concise and appropriate description of war recorded in modern history since the publication of Carl von Clausewitz's great military-theoretical classic On War published in the 1873.  I despise war and the carnage it results in regardless of the factions involved. But what is next in line that I personally find as upsetting, is the cosmetic over simplification used by many, often the oppressor in these exercise, to sanitize what is barbaric brutality in its purest form.

The recent re-start of the incessant military engagement between Israel and Gaza (one that has been going on since 1949), has reared its ugly head again. And as usual, the result is the same, the mass slaughter of mostly innocent civilians, mainly women and children, which outside of newspeak, resembles ethnic cleansing more than a military engagement. However, as noted in the opening quotes, it is the retro chic position of the moment to describe Israel’s actions as SELF-DEFENSE. This misappropriation of the term SELF-DEFENSE defeats reason, logic and any operational definition used in the past to define this action.

By definition, a noun, self-defense refers to the use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm from the attack of an aggressor, if the defender has reason to believe they are in danger. Consequently, the force used in self-defense may be sufficient for protection from said perceived harm such to stop any danger from attack, but cannot be an excuse to continue the attack or the use of excessive force. Thus self-defense cannot include killing or great bodily harm to defend property or collective forms of punishment.

The present actions of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) do not meet any of the aforementioned operational definitions.  Even under the purview of “Just War Theory”, which asserts military personnel must take careful aim at his military target and away from nonmilitary targets, and one cannot kill civilians simply because he finds them between himself and his enemies. Simply not to intend the deaths of civilians is not the pragmatic objective in this sense, but rather paramount is to save civilian lives even if it means risking soldiers’ lives.

What is obviated from the discussion is that self-defense means that if the people of a nation are suffering aggression, oppression, or genocide, and are themselves capable of stopping it, they are morally entitled to respond militarily.  Unfortunately Israel cannot claim this position, given that aggression from another nation can only be described in self-defense if it is a last resort, which historically we hasn’t been the case (2012, 2008, etc.). In addition, the self-defense notion under the assumption of military action being a last resort cannot be met also because every other conceivable avenue outside of using military force has not been tried. Moreover, the kidnaping and murder of three innocent individuals, usually a police action cannot be perceived as a last resort or the impetus to start aggressive military action. But when these standards are not met, the result is Gaza: an innocent populous is the victim of a catastrophic attack

Another point of contention is that self-defense is virtuous and practical. What Israel is practicing is more like a George Zimmerman style of self-defense. Instead of self-defense, the actions of Israel are more akin to bullying. Bullying is unwanted, aggressive behavior that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullies intend to harm their targets and usually are continuous and sustained. This means that they (bullies) target their victims multiple times, frequently with the same act over and over. More importantly is that the bully intends to harm the target.

I say this because the assertion of self-defense avoids the historical reality of colonial occupation of Gaza by Israel which prevents effort on behalf of the Palestinians living in what has been described as an open air prison, the ability and human right to establish a proper, free society. If Israel was trying to avoid civilian deaths, they would and could, but this is not their desire. They are possessed with an evil dogma of annihilation similar to that we saw in South Africa during apartheid. Their objective is to destroy and kill all who are in the way of their imperialistic desire to control and occupy all of Gaza, inclusive of it rich natural gas and oil reserves. For example, it is a well-known fact that The IDF calculates the number of calories Gaza's civilian population needs to just survive on a daily basis and transports foods into Gaza accordingly. This is not self-defense, it is bullying with the objective to occupy territory accordingly break up the will and lands of the Palestinian people. Ironically, it closely the plan of Adolf Eichmann, the architect of ethnic cleansing, for Hitler. And anyone that cannot accept this, I’m cool, but facts are facts: Soweto 1976 is no different than Gaza 2014.

Since the 1990s, Israel has repeatedly failed to meet and even broke all of the conditions outlined in documented agreements with both parties.  They continue to play this shell game that gives them the privilege to ignore the natural human rights that Palestinians have like all other peoples in the world.  There is an aggression of the worse kind: one that indicates they will always be against a two-state solution, while knowing this is what the majority of Palestinians have agreed with and desire. They should just admit they desire to ethnic cleanse Gaza, and take thier oil and natural gas.

F*** you Pay Me (International Bankers Anthem)

There is a new law of the land that has the blessing of some of the most evil minds in the world – bankers. Along with their political flunkies, they have finally devised a way to get all of the money in the world not only from nation states but also the citizens of said nations. And the strange and sad part about it is that it was the bankers who created these problems. Like magic the result of their gross malpractice, out of thin air, similar to the manner in which the Federal Reserve Bank creates money, it has been decided that anyone who saves 100,000 euros is now considered rich. Thus a new era, an era in world finance and international banking where for the first time ever, a major banking system will take and steal from depositors to pay for the government/bank interactions that created the mess in the first place.

For an average mind such as mine, what has happened in Cyprus will not be a mere caduceus act, but eventually common practice. Eventually all citizens, of every nation with massive debt, no matter where you live, in particular in Europe, now no personal/private bank account anywhere in the world is safe. If the big wigs of the EU (Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), José Barroso, the president of the European Commission (EC) and Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council), can pull this off, you can best believe some similar folk of status are meeting around the United States in the board rooms of the twelve Federal Reserve banks.

The precedent set by the Eurozone to go for depositors is a reflection of how uncertain the world of derivatives and complex papers is. What we see, what we understand, are the images of long lines in front of ATMs and for what – all to save the institutions that gave us the economic downturn, just to save the banks. Around the world, just in the US the banks are what are important and not the people even if they are the criminals, they only get larger and are even beyond incarceration [see JP Morgan Note below].

NOTE: [The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control found that JPMorgan had illegally aided dictatorships in Cuba, Sudan, Liberia and Iran, including transferring 32,000 ounces of gold bullion for an Iranian bank. Not to mention misleading investors, making fake and false trades, wrongfully foreclosed on soldiers charged veterans hidden fees for refinancing, illegally increased their collection of overdraft fees by processing large transactions before smaller ones or by switching its fixed-rate debt to variable helping push Jefferson County, Alabama into bankruptcy.]

Although under the guise of a bailout, what we see in Cyprus is an indication of things to come worldwide. If another bailout is need for another EZ nation, the likes of Spain and Italy, then the savings accounts of the citizens in Spain, Italy and other countries will be raided. Now some will say its different because in Europe, many nations are way over leveraged and that they are taking these steps to preserve the Euro by aiding insolvent and failing banks. I will agree but would ask how that is any different from the situation with the US dollar and “too big to fail banks?”

As during the time of the great depression and what America is dealing with now, it is common knowledge that excessive leverage was one of the primary causes of both – folk buying stocks and other complex papers on margin. And excessive leveraging undermines financial stability because the goal of the banker is to always transfer credit risk to those better able to absorb losses. When it is impossible to do the aforementioned, the financial sector becomes weak and breaks.

Ironic that I just finished reading Richard Bookstaber’s “A Demon of our own Making.” He describes this so aptly. He notes that new forms of investment strategies like portfolio insurance, based on the Black-Sholes formula of making it possible to set a price on an option and features such as “greenmail” gave us the crisis of not only the past but today.

Today the US banking system as a whole is leveraged at 13-to-1 compared to about 26-to-1 for the Banks of Europe. The US Federal Reserve has about $2.8 trillion in assets and only $52 billion in capital, meaning the US Central Bank is leveraged at 53 to 1 – worse than Europe. Just keeping it on the level, a recent report from the Comptroller of the Currency, noted that four U.S. banks have $235 trillion of OTC derivative leverage. As a nation, all the US banks are estimated to have a total OTC derivative exposure of $250 trillion.

When banking systems are or become excessively-leveraged, the risk that a crisis in one country will spread to another dramatically increases. Meaning that the reality is that the US financial system could come tumbling down the hill at any time because it is mathematically impossible for just the continuous printing of money alone can go on forever.

Another concern I have is that less than two years ago, all the banks of Europe were given stress test, which by all accounts were way harder than the stress test given to US big banks by the Treasury, and all the banks of Cyprus passed with flying colors. Now within the last two weeks we see such wasn’t the case since Cyprus’ two largest banks, the Bank of Cyprus and the Cyprus Popular Bank (the Laiki Bank), which hold half of all bank deposits in the country are the worse of the bunch, and if this is the case what can we interpret from the weak azz stress test the US Treasury implemented some few years back as well?

In addition to the math, the behavioral antecedents are clear as well – it’s all about the banks, fuck the people and the workers and the average family. The precedent of Cyprus is clear - nothing is safe from being seized by the state, no savings account, but also no house or apartment. The Germans experienced this after World War II, when they were charged an extra real estate tax in the form of compulsory mortgages. Governments have even banned the possession of gold during currency crises, forcing citizens to exchange the precious metal for the national currency.

Even with the aforementioned, the Federal Reserve, Wall Street and Washington Politicians always want to point the finger at the average citizen. Ben Bernanke let it out the hat when he advocated for the elimination of all reserve requirements: “The Federal Reserve believes it is possible that, ultimately, its operating framework will allow the elimination of minimum reserve requirements, which impose costs and distortions on the banking system.”

The simple reality is that no matter what happens, the majority of people will be significantly poorer. As it stands, not only in the US, but around the globe the continuous transfer of wealth from the bottom into the pockets of the wealthiest is a reality unavoidable. Here in America consequently, we must not be fooled by leaders regardless of party affiliation and their words of addressing economic equity because their actions never fit the actual goals they promulgate via their illustrious oratory. No matter what Obama for example says on the political stump, his policy continues to add to the economic inequity in America. For example, no matter what he says his policy will always aid in the disparity for example of the average CEO’s hourly wage of $5000 per hour compared to $7.00 an hour. The point is if in Europe, Cyprus to be more exact, any level of personal savings decided upon by bankers for confiscation, is basically the same as just stealing money from people’s bank accounts.

On top of all of this (and I won’t mention our debt to China) China and Brazil just signed a trade, currency deal ahead of BRICS summit that will allow them to bypass using the dollar by agreeing to trade in their own currencies the equivalent of up to $30 billion per year, moving to take almost half of their trade exchanges out of the US dollar zone. Thus there is a new world post the 1950s, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan when the US Dollar became the de facto global reserve currency.

Like the Euro, the reality is that the global exposure to the US Dollar remains by default rather than design and the global (at least European) sovereign debt crisis is placing the US Dollar at risk for the future. Just looking at Cyprus, it should be clear that oligarchs and plutocrats, who are protected by the elected elite, will always be considered over the average citizen. The Bankers (not the people or elected leaders) have decided that citizens, who had nothing to do with the national debt as individuals, will be forced without choice to pay for the faults of the elected elite which sets a truly alarming precedent for other debtor (all nations) around the world.

I am just asking the question and using basic match to formulate a possible answer. I mean there is only one answer, albeit multiple solutions to solve any equation. I just think this may become banking versions of reality TV, and if that show had a name, it would likely be called “F*** you, pay me (the international bankers anthem.)

From Eisenhower to Obama: War is Money

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid Galilee of its Arab population."

The above statement is attributed to David Ben-Gurion, the founding father of the State of Israel and First Israeli Prime Minister taken from Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar (May 1948). I am not a historian, but such transgressions aside, it is not too farfetched to suggest that history often repeats itself. Especially when it pertains to presidential politics and nations like Israel, the United States, Syria, Turkey and Iran. Even considering smaller yet significant events ranging from the slaying of Crispus Attucks during the Boston Massacre in 1770 to the signing of the “Southern Manifesto” by Strom Thurman and a hundred plus democratic members of the house, to the operations run by Kermit Roosevelt that caused a coup in Iran in 1959; to even Eisenhower himself and his conundrum regarding Nasser of Egypt inclusive of France, Israel and the Aswan Damn.

This is a week or more after the first Presidential debate and I am willing to bet most black folk are still talking about it. Subsequently, given that most are caught up with that circus called the Presidential debate, truth be told it is immaterial and all that I mention prior are (albeit) past history more important than the debate when we look at the global predicament and war and our relationship with Israel. You see, although the US has laws that require foreign interests to register as foreign agents, these laws are not equally or always applied to all Israeli lobby groups, such as AIPAC.

Unless you have been behind a rock, you would know that besides the criminal industrial complex, the big industry money maker in America is war. Yes, war drives the economy and amounts to more than all of our allocated GDP spent when compared to all other programs in the United States that is if you don’t include international aid in the form of grants to nations like Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even as one reads this, Syria is being attacked inside by NATO funded Al Qaeda “Rebels,” China and japan are at each other throats, Shells fly each and every day in the Sudan and Mali is in the middle of a serious conflict.

For a while now, much has been made in political forums of addressing Iran and their quest to become nuclear sufficient (strangely enough by nations who have nuclear weapons - US and Israel). Meaning that regardless of what is being spoken in public, behind closed doors activities show how involved this issue is in both political and economic capital. The US, via NATO and the Saudi’s are funding dozens of training camps that have been set up to prepare for the fight against President Bashar al-Assad’s military. Both US and Saudi millions and Special Forces expertise are engaged covertly in training Al Qaeda terrorist (FSA Syria's rebels) into a disciplined military force. The FSA or “The Free Syrian Army” didn’t exist until Israel, NATO and the US decided that the powers that be needed a war, a major war, to make money and to topple the Syrian leader as well as the state bank of Syria. In fact the same ploy that is being used to break Iran and their independent state bank via the Libyan blue print for the same is being replicated in Syria.

Seems as if those of us in the West, limited by our ignorance and overshadowed by our obsessive ranting on freedom and democracy, cannot comprehend what democracy would mean to a non-Western world dominated by a belief in Islam. We look at what has happened in Libya and what is currently happening in Syria as being singularly about democracy and the development of a secular ideology that includes a pluralistic society run according to democratic principles while those on the ground see it about something completely different - espousing fundamentalism directed exclusive against western aggression and hegemony.

Another issue of concern is confounded when Middle Eastern Nations question the nationalistic approach of the West to their region. For example, the overt hypocrisy of US leadership under President Obama concerned about repression I Syria and Libya but not Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. They wonder how the US continue to evaluate all issues from state perspectives and a monolithic Islam versus Alawite, Sunni and Shī'ah sects of Islam. On the one hand he supposedly is operating a multi-front war, in secrecy against Al Qaeda {Islamic fundamentalism}, particularly in Africa and the Middle East – as evident by the increase in size of the U.S. military's Special Forces Operation Command and the CIA's strike expansion capabilities in the region in places including Kenya, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and the Seychelles islands in the Indian Ocean off East Africa – while at the same time asserting that they do not desire a conflict with Islam. This albeit our policy pursues wars presently on three fronts: Syria, Lebanon and Iran, and Afghanistan.

We have seen this all before when President Gamal Abdel Nasser's, who had come to power in the 1953 nationalistic revolution in Egypt. Nasser's wanted to construction dam at Aswan, to form a massive lake that would aid to control the annual flooding of the Nile, crucial to Egypt's agriculture, as well as generating vast amounts of electricity. First he was offered economic support by Britain and US to finance the Aswan dam. But then the West backed out.

This led to Britain and France to build up their forces in the Mediterranean, with the secret understand that Israeli troops would move into the Sinai Peninsula. Trying to present a position of peace the European nations asked that both move away from the region and when Egypt disregarded, against the ruling of the UN Security Council and general assembly, Britain and France begin bombing Egyptian airfields. This was under Eisenhower, who although in the open refused to join Britain, France and Israel in an invasion of Egypt, had approved of and knew about such behind closed doors.

Yes the methods of Eisenhower are similar to the methods of Obama presently and well, the role of Israel as agent provocateur is the same – making up a threat that doesn’t exist because a nation attempts to exist in a self-determined fashion. Only difference is that then it was a damn in Egypt and now it is Nuclear power in Iran.

Another common denominator was economics. Then, it pertained to vital shipping routes today; it deals with the Middle East, West Africa as emerging vital oil-producing, mineral rich zones including arable farmland. Then after the US denied funding Egypt, they went to Russia for military support which was granted. Today, the same is happening in Syria, Iran and also Pakistan. In fact, Pakistan-Russia ties are growing under Russian President Vladimir Putin’s who is expected to make the first visit by a Russian president to Pakistan ever supposedly to sign multiple MOU’s (Memorandums of Understanding) on development and investment in the steel and energy sectors of Pakistan. Syria’s central role in the Arab gas pipeline is also a key to why Israel, NATO and the US wants Assad out, in addition to having a direct path to Iran (just as the Taliban in Afghanistan because they are in the way of the Unocal pipeline).

Guess what I am saying, to repeat myself is that without war, America’s economy would already be in the grave as opposed to on its death bed. War is good economics, no matter if it is in the Middle East, China, the Far East or Africa. The question is will we be able to make money before we realize we may not have the financial ability to carry out such efforts? As we speak, The United States military has secretly sent a task force of more than 150 specialists to Jordan be in place in case the turmoil in Syria expand into a wider conflict.

Unfortunately, it is a fallacy to think or believe that America can be taken out of economic crisis via more and more wars given that the most productive part of the US economy has been moved offshore in order to increase corporate profits and capital gains to equity owners. It is not the American people who are at the center of such policy efforts, like I said; historically it is the war machine and the oligarchy of private interests. More wars that we can only afford to pay with debt is trouble. It is just like having a gallon of gasoline, and pouring a half gallon of water into it doesn’t change the fact of how much gasoline remains. Borrowing more debt, quantitative easing, or printing more loot is the same thing as the above example. It is an invisible tax that just steals tax payer’s money through inflation. Simply because basic math wins out in the end and shows that because the act of printing money doesn’t create any more jobs than one already has.

Now, in light of Obama’s “neoliberalism, the federal government is just borrowing more loot from itself, loot it doesn’t have because the Federal Reserve can print as much as it wants and buy government bonds with the new money it has printed. Such practices in concert with America’s "Ad hoc global 'counter-terrorism' efforts that began under President George W. Bush. The way I think it, this means that what can be anticipated in the future is that either the Obama Administration or Romney Administration will in my estimation, by 2013, have the U.S. at war with Iran just because it is the penchant of Israel and its nuclear program will be used as a reason for this attack. Although it is well know that Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. We already see posturing visa via Turkey being used as a NATO proxy to get to Syria on a direct path to Iran. As well as evidence that the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is slowly evaporating before our eyes apart. Although we say we desire the impossible dream of secular Islamic or secular Islamic states all across the region that includes a pluralistic society run according to democratic principles, it won’t happen, now given what has manifested in Syria as I stated earlier.

For decades, the Americans indulged and propped up pro-Western dictators in the interests U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Over the last 18 months, four of these dictators have fallen to pro-democracy uprisings, leaving U.S. strategy cold war-esque. And since we broke and can’t make loot via cold war, we will continue to engage in efforts to spark wars around the world, for whatever reason even if they are as petty as what transpired in Egypt and France and Britain – even if we have to adopt the position of David Ben-Gurion, and use terror just to accomplish such.

Obama’s Neoliberalism Bites him in the Libyan Ass

As I write, this, I already anticipate a backlash from the mass of Obama felatio administrators within the African American community, but I know all too well as Huxley wrote, “facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored and that one cannot argue with an idiot for they will beat you down with experience and win every time.

The situation which the US find’s itself in Syria was all our doing and 99.9 percent of the blame can be placed at the feet of the current Administration, President Barack Obama in particular. For it is President Obama's incoherent and fatuous policy in Libya based on the use of force when he wants to when US national security is not even in jeopardy that got Ambassador Steven’s killed.

It all started last year. First when President Obama ignored the Constitution and decided without Congressional approval, albeit he didn’t agree with such when the same thing was done by former President George W. Bush just four years ago. In fact while a Senator Obama when being interviewed by the Boston Globe said: “The president does not have the power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. History has shown us time and again…that military action is most successful when authorized and supported by the legislative branch.”

The fact is that this same man singlehandedly committed the US to war against Libya, ignoring that the US had neither been attacked by nor was in danger from Libya and had no constitutional reason for any military intervention at all. I repeat, the President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.

But it was clear that being a constitutional scholar, he was not concerned about this. In an address to the nation delivered from the National Defense University in March 2011, a day before the military effort against Gaddafi’s forces, the President spoke of US military action in Libya and indicated that NATO would be taking the lead from the US adding that Americas’ role in Libya would be to defend those under attack by Gadhafi’s forces. This he said although the U.S. runs NATO, finances 22 percent of NATO’s budget and is the nation that gives all the marching orders. In essence Obama unilaterally decided to invade a sovereign nation as Bush did before him. Strangely enough, based on his assertion that military action in Libya was in the vital interest of the US. This was his position albeit Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted that the events in Libya were not in the “vital national interest to the United States.”

Despite Obama’s incessant statements suggesting that the operation is only to protect civilians, the military intervention aid the rebel factions in their advance against the African leader. Although he will not admit to such, President Obama is interventionists who on the one hand stated he had no desire for US military intervention in Libya, noting that the US will not use military invention, yet imposed a no-fly zone which in fact is “direct military intervention.”

What the President called US “humanitarian intervention” directed at a nonexistent US aggressor, undermined the concept of collective security, international law and worse of all is arbitrary. Obama’s Libyan policy was historically the same as his predecessor and allowed him, on behalf of America, to exploit weaknesses and divisions in the nations they interfere with all Willy nilly.

His prose had continued to justify these actions. He said, “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.” But words and fancy slogans do not make up for the observation that he had never considered the ramifications of such actions. The question remains Mr. President if this was an issue of US national security, did your actions in Libya make America safer?

Attacking Gaddafi got him lynched and one wonders if the administration ever asked or thought if this outcome would endear and make Libyan thankful for this? A nation which is already hated in which view America as constantly attacking Islam and taking their oil. Not to mention, was there any after thought that what has just occurred with the attack on the US mission, that killing or attacking Gaddafi’s without destroying his regime is just asking for increased terrorism against Americans? Or whether or not replacing him with insurgents who include other sponsors of terrorism, namely al Qaeda really a good idea?

This is the backward neoliberal foreign policy logic that Obama uses and was adopted and modified based on Bush’s neoconservative policy. We support dictator in Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and say nothing, yet maintain a different standard for the same actions as it pertains to Libya and currently Syria.

Obama policy in Libya in concert with the senseless deaths of Libyan people is what created this opening for those who would love to nothing more than destroy America. The recent events even give more substance to the position of China and Russia regarding Libya then and Syria now which was: “If you try to impose anything on others, the result will be disastrous.”

 Obama’s foreign policy, for a man who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is the antithesis to the concept of state sovereignty, for it appears that state sovereignty is only problematic to the US when it is applied to places like Libya or Syria. Notwithstanding nations who have had decades of general peace, which Obama policy has now replaced with war and violence and instability. The Obama Administration’s foreign policy is typical of US progressive Presidents who take any self-selected event or issue as a reason to self-invite the U.S. to enter conflicts it has no reason to join, especially if national security is the standard (Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt).

Obama said “Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries. The United States of America is different. And as president, I refused to wait for the images of slaughter and mass graves before taking action.”

Are we different Mr. President? Again are we safer Mr. President? Aren’t the images of slaughter still occurring? or have you asked the mainstream media not to report on them?

The Two face Hypocrisy of US Foreign Policy

I have been writing and expounding on US foreign policy since the early 1980s. My first or one of my earliest essays was called “Israel’s fascist Penumbra” which was published in the Black Students Association Journal at Memphis State University in 1985.

It addressed the “do anything” for Israel mentality and our traditionally mistaken monolithic conviction of Arabs and Africans worldwide, that we often dissemble under the shadow of peace and agoraphobia. What is common regarding now and then and even times prior is the “do as I say and not as I do” legacy of colonialist and imperial belief orientations that place all European in origin at the summit of rational behavior and what is deemed to be acceptable.

On the one hand we vilify the Arab and African States for their desire for governments to run as theocracies, yet we do the same here. Promulgating policies based on religious beliefs and biblical guidance. Our own founding as a nation saw the assertion that Africans were less valuable and more akin to live stock than human beings. An edict that presented itself in policies from slavery to Jim Crow and segregation. In Oklahoma, a law was recently passed that bars courts from considering Shariah law when deciding cases was put on hold. And we are well aware of the tense debate facilitated via the discussion of abortion.

We condemn terrorist for their no holds barred attacks on America, yet we support going to Somalia and just killing everyone in sight as if their lives are less important than ours to avenge the deaths of four Christian Missionaries who were not asked to come to their country in the first place. We support invading and occupying Afghanistan and Iraq and manufacture policy and war to remove leaders we label tyrants and dictators and autocrats yet give similar men billions in aid annually and historically and invite them to the Whitehouse for dinner pretending as if their blood is not on our hands from the tanks and fighter we give them.

We supported Chiang Kai-Shek’s ROC government from the 1930s to 1949 in a civil war that saw the murder of tens of thousands. In Chilie we funded General Augusto Pinochet who murdered and tortured thousands from 1973 to 1990. Then there was Suharto in Indonesia and Papa and baby Doc in Haiti.

But it is to only be expected for unfortunately we too are a nation of terrorist and celebrate such resonantly. In Mississippi, there is an attempt to venerate Nathan Bedford Forrest, a man whose image on horseback I road past almost daily in my home town of Memphis, Tennessee. Yes, 150 years after the start of the Civil War people want to celebrate a murderer who founded a terrorist organization called the Ku Klux Klan. An organization from its inception main goal was to conduct inordinate acts of violence solely on African Americans in the South eventually including the bombing deaths of four girls attending Sunday school in a Church in 1963.

This man was also known for what he did on April 12, 1864 at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, when General Nathan Bedford Forrest captured the fort with his 1,500. In the process, according to eyewitness accounts like General Kilpatrick (USA), Forrest “nailed Negroes to the fences, set fire to the fences, and burned the Negroes to death.” More than 300 African American Union troops were massacred then.

But let me not digress, the point is that US foreign policy is the result of constructs that are two-faced. For if other did to us what we did to them we would be extremely upset and throwing hissy fits. We are so shallow, self-centered and heedless. Yes we are hypocrites and this hypocrisy may be what destroys us, just as it leads to behaviors that spoliated ancient Rome.

Obama Backsteps Made in USA Foreign Policy for Egypt

As the Egyptian people take to the streets of its cities against decades of repression, increasing poverty and unbearable food prices, the Obama administration is in an admitted quandary of either supporting the requested demand for democratic reform of the people or the stable support of a corrupt dictator. The longer he waits to decide in pursuit of his request for an “orderly transition” to democratic reform as stated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the more his hopes of modeling changes as those that occurred in Turkey, the more likely what happened in Iran in 1979 will come to fruition. The conundrum is that he as president in the past has been in bed with Mubarak and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia too long to adapt or alter American political policy in the region. This in fact is worse than the BP oil spill or the mid-term election losses the democrats suffered this past November.

The citizenry of Egypt know more of the US support of Mubarak’s three decades than the average American and of the $1.5 billion annually gives to his totalitarian regime. This is an overshadowing sticking point since cutting off this aid would likely make the Israeli government uneasy. But being on the wrong side of the history could proffer even more hazardous for President Obama: for again it may result in leadership similar to that in Iran after the overthrow of the shah via popular revolt – but I seriously doubt it.

Yet it could. We have already lost face validity for even asking a man who has ruled for nearly 30 years to be in charge of the democratic conversion of an autocratic state. I would be more fearful of an anti American state more so than an Islamic fundamentalist state that hates the West. I remember seeing the murder of Anwar Sadat on television and remember it was not by Islamic fundamentalist but rather folk who hated the fact that he dealt with the west, particularly the United States and Israel. I also recall that our most hated enemy, Al Zawahiri was forced to leave his home of Egypt because of Mubarak’s preventing such men from being a part of the political process. Thus it is not unlikely that these young secular democracy seeking, twitter and facebook users may be pushed by Obama inaction to hate the US as much or as equal as Mubarak.

Obama seems to need to brush up on his history or risk another Khomeini. The truth is we back step when folk desire liberty and democracy after we talk it up as did the President in his address at the American University in Cairo in 2009. We go after the Saddam Hussein’s of the world while kicking it with the Mubarak’s and King Abdullah’s of the world. This is what creates Islamic fundamental extremist that desire to fly planes into our architecture. Seeing we have not learned anything after support Augusto Pinochet in Chile, Chiang Kaishek in Tiawan or Mobutu Seko in Zaire. Obama needs to face the fact that we support such openly, especially in the case of Mubarak and the sad thing is that we do so for Israel (who just sent three Israeli planes landed at Cairo's Mina International Airport on Saturday carrying hazardous equipment for use in dispersing and suppressing large crowds)not America. I mean we seem to speak more of the Suez canal and what Egypt thinks and feel that the people of Egypt.

Obama has a tough task ahead. He holds the baggage of American foreign policy. This will make it complicated for him to urge a transition from a US supported government that has abrogated any and all other organized political alternatives and elides political freedom. Maybe we should rethink Afghanistan for what we see in Tunisia and Egypt tells us that it does not require a bloody and bellicose illegal invasion and occupation to overthrow a dictator. So get your practice on Mr President, Jordan is likely to be next - so don't blow it.