Targeting civilians is immoral, no matter what the circumstances.

The cognitive dissonance is killing me!

Welcome to Bethlehem

Arik Sharon bellows something about how more civilian deaths on both sides will lead to greater security.

If we keep our voices down, they might not notice the stench of the bodies.

No, that’s not an anti-war radical crying out against the war on Afghanistan or the possible future attack of Iraq. It’s not some starry-eyed Nobel laureate peace organization. It’s Donald Rumsfeld, speaking with a completely straight face, on national television, asserting the United States’ position in support of the Israeli government’s war on Palestine. Irony is now officially dead.

Meanwhile, the tanks rolled into Bethlehem, with $2,400,000,000 of your and my tax dollars paying for gasoline. Assaults were launched against the Ayda and Dehaishe refugee camps, with massive tank fire, mortar fire, gun clashes, and F-16s flying overhead. The IDF has attacked Red Crescent and UN ambulances, television and communication stations, and journalists.

On the other side of the world, Our Fearless Leader sits back on his ass and opines that he’s doing enough already about this human rights catastrophe, that Israel has a right to defend itself and that Yasser Arafat should, somehow, be doing more to stop suicide bombing from his highly strategic position penned in his own basement and surrounded by tanks and barbed wire. Apparently the idea that Palestine might also have a right to defend itself from a brutal occupation and assault is lost on Bush. Lost on everyone in the mainstream political discourse, for that matter. This does not, of course, include a right to murder civilians in suicide bombings. But it does include a right to fight back against the brutal collective punishment assault being launched in the Occupied Territories as we speak.

Then again, perhaps I’m a bit late already for irony’s memorial service. After all, for a week now, Ariel Sharon has declared that he is out to defend the safety and lives of Israeli citizens… through a scorched-earth assault on Palestine which has driven Palestinians to commit 7 suicide bombings in 7 days. Since Sharon isn’t the one who has to bear the consequences of this blood-soaked war he’s launched, I suppose his safety is doing just fine. Meanwhile, however, a lot of people are dying on both sides precisely because of his actions.

For further reading:

• Jerusalem Independent Media Center for up-to-the-minute participatory media updates
• GT 3/16/2002: Occupation and Intifada: Oppression and Resistence, not "Violence"
• GT 2/14/2002: WAR IS PEACE
• GT 2/03/2002: He Thinks You’re An Idiot
• GT 1/31/2002: Sharon Threatens Arafat’s Life
• GT 3/07/2001: War Criminal Ariel Sharon Becomes Prime Minister

Your Secretary of Defense

According to CNN, Donald Rumsfeld has claimed that the Iranian government may have aided Taliban and al-Qaida agents to escape from Afghanistan into Iran, in a desperate attempt to justify Bush’s inclusion of Iran in the axis of evil with Iraq and North Korea.

What CNN has not reported, nor has the New York Times, nor TIME (who first broke the story), is that the Iranian government has angrily denied the administration’s allegations (this was reported in the British paper, the Guardian), and pointed out what our own press had been saying (TIME, MSNBC) earlier: Iran hates the Taliban and al-Qaeda and has no desire to have ties with them or help them out (We hated each other and we never had any commonalities, the head of Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, said Friday). Why? Because:

• Iran’s government, and most of Iran’s populace, are Shi’ite Muslims, whereas the Taliban and al-Qaeda are Sunni, and have participated in persecution and massacres of Shi’ites
• Iran’s strategic interests in Afghanistan have traditionally been head-to-head in conflict against those of Pakistan. Iran backed the Northern Alliance against the Pakistan-backed Taliban for years before the US ever got involved.
• Iran nearly went to war with the Taliban after ten Iranian diplomats and a journalist were murdered during the Taliban conquest of Mazar-i-Sharif

So, where did Rumsfeld get the ludicrous idea that Iran is helping out the Taliban and al-Qaeda? From that extremely reliable source, Ismail Khan, the brutal warlord of Herat province (see the TIME report). The main interesting fact of all this is that Khan has historically been backed by Iran, and took refuge in Iran twice while the Taliban was in power. However, Afghan Prime Minister Karzai wants to negotiate with Khan about concerns over Iranian influence [Afghan Radio]. Khan has long been in conflict with other powerful United Front anti-Taliban fighters such as Gul Agha Shirzai, the warlord of Kandahar, and Abdul Rashid Dostum, a northern warlord. There may be reason to believe, then, that Khan wants to solidify his position within the new government by cutting his ties with Iran, which have traditionally been a source of friction between him and the rest of the mujahedeen.

The real issue here is that Rumsfeld thinks we are stupid enough to swallow this ludicrous report. Or if the report does turn out to be true, he doesn’t think he needs to give any kind of explanation for such a bizarre turn of events. He just assumes people will think Oh, Iran, yeah, they’re terrorists, so naturally they’ll help out anyone else who commits terrorism against the US. And the US newsmedia are doing their best to help ensure that happens, since they refuse to report on Iran’s statements or to provide any background on the conflicts between Iran and the Taliban.

Ever since Iran revolted against the US-installed Shah in 1979 and established an anti-US government, many on the Right have been chomping at the bit to conquer Iran and install a new pro-US government. Here is their perfect opportunity. If they can make this story stick, the Bush administration has a sure-fire reason to insist that Iran is a state which harbors terrorists the United States is trying to apprehend — the same reason they used to wage war on the Taliban. And the Right-wing hawks have a sure-fire way of expanding the war on terror into Iran.

Don’t let Rumsfeld take you for a fool. Contact the Department of Defense and demand further explanation of the basis for their allegations against Iran. Contact national media outlets, particularly CNN, and demand that they do responsible research into the background of claims made by the Department of Defense and Afghan warlords, particularly when another war is on the line and everyone is asking where we will start bombing next.

Read the rest of He Thinks That You’re An Idiot …

War criminal Ariel Sharon has enhanced his sterling reputation as a leader for peace in the Middle East by saying he’s sorry he didn’t have Yasser Arafat killed [NY Times] during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s, which he led (this is the same invasion in which he surrounded the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps with Israeli troops, and then let in Phalangist militia who slaughtered and tortured thousands of unarmed Palestinian civilians).

The two-facedness of Sharon’s policy is sometimes simply stunning. Sharon has repeatedly demanded that Israel will not negotiate with the Palestinians for peace while Israel is under fire and the threat of terrorism (all the while maintaining military assaults on the illegally occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip). And now he turns around, and, as head of a government with an established policy of assassinating suspected Palestinian militants, starts talking like a New York mafioso:

There was an agreement in Lebanon not to liquidate Yasir Arafat, he said. Actually, I am sorry that we did not liquidate him. An Israeli sniper is said to have had Mr. Arafat in his sights as the Palestinian leader boarded a ship to leave Beirut for Tunis, but he did not receive the order to fire.

Now how, exactly, is Arafat to be expected to work for peace while under a clearly implied threat on his life?

Meanwhile Israeli and US leaders [NY Times] condemn Yasser Arafat for attempting to import heavy weapons into the Palestinian Authority. Christ, they are being militarily assaulted by Israeli tanks and helicopter gunships, and you act all surprised when they import weapons to defend themselves against invasion? If we started classifying all the weapons Israel buys and builds as enhancing terror (George W.’s words), then Israel would be considered one of the single biggest terrorist states in the world. Oh, but wait, Israel receives $2,040,000,000 every year from US tax dollars for direct military aid, and $720,000,000 more in economic aid. The Palestinian weapons, at least, were not purchased on your and my dime.

Now, listen. I don’t like Yasser Arafat. He deserves credit as a military leader resisting the Israeli occupation, but as a governor he has proven to be dictatorial, corrupt, sometimes two-faced, and has sold out the Palestinians on a number of issues. The Palestinian people deserve better than him. But this is simply absurd. If Yasser Arafat had made a comment like this, Israeli government officials and President Bush would both be on every news program in the world screaming bloody murder. But Ariel Sharon says it, and all the State Department spokesperson has to say is, Remarks like these can be unhelpful.

For further reading:

• GT 2001/03/07: War Criminal Ariel Sharon Becomes Prime Minister

Our Fearless Leader and Dick Cheney have conclusively proven that they really have nothing to hide at all, cross their hearts hope to die, in the Enron debacle, by refusing to turn over documents from secret meetings with Enron executives during Dick Cheney’s energy task force proceedings [New York Times]. Quod Fearless Leader:

We’re not going to let the ability for us to discuss matters between ourselves to become eroded, the president said this afternoon at a session with reporters. It’s not only important for us, for this administration, it’s an important principle for future administrations.

George, I hate to break it to ya, but not only is this just making you look like you’re dirty as hell, but it’s also offensive to basic principles of democratic governance. As a private citizen you have every right to secretive, closed-door meetings. As the President of the United States, however, you have a responsibility to conduct your affairs openly, under complete public scrutiny. Your ability to conduct meetings in smoke-filled rooms with your big-time campaign contributors is not more important than the American people’s right to open and democratic governance.

I can’t believe these idiots are probably going to waste the Supreme Court’s valuable time over this idiocy. If G.W. seriously thinks he’s going to avoid dirt coming out on his administration because of this, I have a few hundred documents in Houston I’d like him to shred.

The award for best summary of the Enron debacle and the administration’s stonewalling goes to Gary Trudeau of Doonesbury:

I did not have political relations with that man!

Despite their continuing slide into uselessness, Salon has put out a very important article that you don’t need their premium service to access. Janelle Brown writes on the struggle of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) against the Taliban regime and their brutal gender apartheid. RAWA continually risks torture and execution defying the Taliban through underground girls’ schools within Afghanistan, videotape footage and photographs documenting Taliban atrocities to the outside world, and other direct action against the regime. Sadly, the United States is currently deciding to side with the thugs of the Northern Alliance – a mishmash of the old Mujahedeen and pro-Soviet thugs who blew Afghanistan to hell for two decades with their occupations and civil wars – rather than with RAWA. Last time we propped up the Mujahedeen, we got the blood-soaked mess that Afghanistan is in now; is it too much to ask that we learn from obvious mistakes within the past 10 years?