The following AFP report turned up in today's Australian:
"US and Israeli intelligence services collaborated to develop a computer worm to sabotage Iran's nuclear efforts. Western intelligence and military experts said Israel had tested the effectiveness of the Stuxnet computer worm, which reportedly shut down a fifth of Iran's nuclear centrifuges in November in a bid to delay its ability to make nuclear weapons. The testing took place at Israel's heavily-guarded Dimona complex in the Negev desert, which houses the Middle East's sole - but undeclared - nuclear weapons arsenal, The New York Times reported yesterday. The push to create the Stuxnet worm was a US-Israeli project with the help, knowingly or not, of Britain and Germany." (Israel, US behind tech attack)
Another example of why, in relation to the Middle East, I often refer to USrael, Siamese twins joined at the hip. This is consistent with the imperial framework conceived by James Petras, referred to in my previous post.
In Petras' schema of the "Hierarchy of Empire" - A. Central Imperial Powers (CIP); B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP); C. Semi-Autonomous Client Regimes (SACR); D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR) - Israel is something of an "anomaly":
"Israel is clearly a colonialist power, with the fourth or fifth biggest nuclear arsenal, and the fouth biggest arms exporter in the world. Its population, territorial spread and economy, however, are puny in comparison with the imperial and newly emerging imperial powers. Despite these limitations Israel exercises supreme power in influencing the direction of US war policy in the Middle East via a powerful internal Zionist political apparatus, which permeates the state, the mass media, elite economic sectors and civil society. Through Israel's direct political influence in making US foreign policy, as well as through its overseas military collaboration with dictatorial imperial client regimes, Israel can be considered part of the imperial power configuration despite its demographic constraints, its near universal pariah diplomatic status, and its externally sustained economy." (Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants, 2007, p 64)
Implicit in USrael's development of the anti-Iranian Stuxnet worm is the complete subordination within the imperial system of the two CIP states mentioned, Britain and Germany (as well as those not mentioned), to the US's Israeli twin, a bizarre state of affairs surely without parallel in history.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Tunisia's Place in the US Empire
The hypocrisy! Notice how, when one of the US gang gets his backside well and truly whipped by those whose faces he's been grinding in the dust, the US acts as if it had no idea what had gotten into him. If only he'd behaved himself, he wouldn't be in that Saudi guesthouse today:
"The United States has warned its Middle Eastern allies to reform or be overthrown, as youths protesting against Tunisia's 50-year dictatorship clashed with police in the country's capital. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, ended a tour of the Gulf with a warning that leaders who failed to carry out political and economic reform risked being cast aside." (Change or fall, Clinton warns Mid-East leaders, Richard Spencer, Telegraph/Sydney Morning Herald, 15/1/11)
The word ally, with its suggestion of independent, rational choice, masks a grubby reality of winks, nods, bribes, arm-twisting and other unsavoury backroom dealings. Allies, such as Ben Ali's Tunisia, are more correctly described as client states in a US imperial system, subordinate but vital cogs in the machinery of US global domination.
In his book Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants (2007), James Petras refers to them specifically as Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR), and sums them up thus:
"At the bottom of the imperial hierarchy are the CCRs. These include Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States, Cental American and Caribbean Island states, the Axis of Sub-Saharan States (ASSS), namely Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana, Columbia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Eastern European states (in and out of the EU), former states of the USSR (Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia etc), the Philippines, Indonesia, North African states and Pakistan. These countries are governed by authoritarian political elites dependent on the imperial or Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP) states for arms, financing and political support. They provide vast opportunities for exploitation and export of raw materials. Unlike the Semi Autonomous Client Regimes (SACR), exports from client regimes have little value added, as industrial processing of raw materials takes place in the imperial countries, particularly in the NEIP. Predator, rentier, comprador and kleptocratic elites, who lack any entrepreneurial vocation, rule in the CCR. They frequently provide mercenary soldiers to service imperial countries intervening, conquering, occupying and imposing client regimes in imperial-targeted countries. The client regimes are thus subordinate collaborators of the imperial powers in the plunder of wealth, the displacement of peasants, the exploitations of billions of workers and the destruction of the environment." (p 62)*
Specifically:
a) "The Tunisian Government is an important ally for the US in its resource-driven colonial wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. A United Nations report on secret detention practices lists Tunisia as having secret detention facilities where prisoners are held without International Red Cross access. Intelligence services in Tunisia are coordinated with US efforts in the War on Terror and have participated in interrogating prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan and in Tunisia. Recent WikiLeaks diplomatic cables reveal that the US not long ago was concerned about the growing anger on the streets and the corruption of Ben Ali and the Trabelsi family (his wife's family) who treat everything in the country as theirs. A list of WikiLeaks cables from the US Embassy in Tunisia posted on The Guardian newspaper website indicate that the US considers Tunisia as a police state 'with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems', and the Ben Ali family as 'quasi mafia'. Nevertheless, the State Department boasts about the active support the Tunisian security forces receive from the US in spite of Ben Ali's government record of serious human rights violations. According to the State Department website: 'The US and Tunisia have an active schedule of joint military exercises. US security assistance historically has played an important role in cementing relations. The US-Tunisian Joint Military Commission meets annually to discuss military cooperation, Tunisia's defense modernization program, and other security matters'." (Tunisia: IMF 'Economic Medicine' has resulted in mass poverty & unemployment, Basel Saleh, globalresearch.ca, 31/12/10)
b) "[T]he Obama administration tried last year to give [Ben Ali] what would amount to a parting gift: $282 million worth of upgrades to Ben Ali's helicopter fleet. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency - which handles military hardware sales to US allies - informed Congress on June 30 [last] that it wanted to send 'equipment, parts, training and logistical support' to Tunisia for 12 SH-60F Sikorsky-made multimission helicopters. It's a twin-engine 'copter used - as the name suggests - for attacking targets as well as airlift. The navy uses them as the Seahawk. Tunisia's military supposedly was to use the SH-60s for 'over-water search and rescue capabilities'. It's unclear if the deal ever went through. The DSCA didn't return a request for clarification. But our pals at War Is Business report that since Ben Ali came to power in 1987, US military assistance to him has totaled $349 million - meaning the SH-60 sale represented a massive escalation in aid." (US had helo deal with ousted Tunisian dictator, Spencer Ackerman, wired.com, 14/1/11)
"The United States has warned its Middle Eastern allies to reform or be overthrown, as youths protesting against Tunisia's 50-year dictatorship clashed with police in the country's capital. The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, ended a tour of the Gulf with a warning that leaders who failed to carry out political and economic reform risked being cast aside." (Change or fall, Clinton warns Mid-East leaders, Richard Spencer, Telegraph/Sydney Morning Herald, 15/1/11)
The word ally, with its suggestion of independent, rational choice, masks a grubby reality of winks, nods, bribes, arm-twisting and other unsavoury backroom dealings. Allies, such as Ben Ali's Tunisia, are more correctly described as client states in a US imperial system, subordinate but vital cogs in the machinery of US global domination.
In his book Rulers & Ruled in the US Empire: Bankers, Zionists, Militants (2007), James Petras refers to them specifically as Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR), and sums them up thus:
"At the bottom of the imperial hierarchy are the CCRs. These include Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf States, Cental American and Caribbean Island states, the Axis of Sub-Saharan States (ASSS), namely Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Ghana, Columbia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Eastern European states (in and out of the EU), former states of the USSR (Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Latvia etc), the Philippines, Indonesia, North African states and Pakistan. These countries are governed by authoritarian political elites dependent on the imperial or Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP) states for arms, financing and political support. They provide vast opportunities for exploitation and export of raw materials. Unlike the Semi Autonomous Client Regimes (SACR), exports from client regimes have little value added, as industrial processing of raw materials takes place in the imperial countries, particularly in the NEIP. Predator, rentier, comprador and kleptocratic elites, who lack any entrepreneurial vocation, rule in the CCR. They frequently provide mercenary soldiers to service imperial countries intervening, conquering, occupying and imposing client regimes in imperial-targeted countries. The client regimes are thus subordinate collaborators of the imperial powers in the plunder of wealth, the displacement of peasants, the exploitations of billions of workers and the destruction of the environment." (p 62)*
Specifically:
a) "The Tunisian Government is an important ally for the US in its resource-driven colonial wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. A United Nations report on secret detention practices lists Tunisia as having secret detention facilities where prisoners are held without International Red Cross access. Intelligence services in Tunisia are coordinated with US efforts in the War on Terror and have participated in interrogating prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan and in Tunisia. Recent WikiLeaks diplomatic cables reveal that the US not long ago was concerned about the growing anger on the streets and the corruption of Ben Ali and the Trabelsi family (his wife's family) who treat everything in the country as theirs. A list of WikiLeaks cables from the US Embassy in Tunisia posted on The Guardian newspaper website indicate that the US considers Tunisia as a police state 'with little freedom of expression or association, and serious human rights problems', and the Ben Ali family as 'quasi mafia'. Nevertheless, the State Department boasts about the active support the Tunisian security forces receive from the US in spite of Ben Ali's government record of serious human rights violations. According to the State Department website: 'The US and Tunisia have an active schedule of joint military exercises. US security assistance historically has played an important role in cementing relations. The US-Tunisian Joint Military Commission meets annually to discuss military cooperation, Tunisia's defense modernization program, and other security matters'." (Tunisia: IMF 'Economic Medicine' has resulted in mass poverty & unemployment, Basel Saleh, globalresearch.ca, 31/12/10)
b) "[T]he Obama administration tried last year to give [Ben Ali] what would amount to a parting gift: $282 million worth of upgrades to Ben Ali's helicopter fleet. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency - which handles military hardware sales to US allies - informed Congress on June 30 [last] that it wanted to send 'equipment, parts, training and logistical support' to Tunisia for 12 SH-60F Sikorsky-made multimission helicopters. It's a twin-engine 'copter used - as the name suggests - for attacking targets as well as airlift. The navy uses them as the Seahawk. Tunisia's military supposedly was to use the SH-60s for 'over-water search and rescue capabilities'. It's unclear if the deal ever went through. The DSCA didn't return a request for clarification. But our pals at War Is Business report that since Ben Ali came to power in 1987, US military assistance to him has totaled $349 million - meaning the SH-60 sale represented a massive escalation in aid." (US had helo deal with ousted Tunisian dictator, Spencer Ackerman, wired.com, 14/1/11)
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Send in the Clown...
Don't bother, he's here:
Can you work this guy - Anthony Albanese, Minister for Transport - out?
Marrickville Council, part of Albo's fiefdom of Grayndler, has dared to make the BDS of Israel part of its practice. However, instead of lauding this perfectly correct, highly commendable and long overdue move, this alleged lefty MP has gone on the attack, presumably under orders from the prime minister. And in Murdoch's Australian of all places! (Local government goes beyond the pale with boycott of Israel, 14/1/11)
Among other things, Albo's accused the Marrickville councillors, both Labor and Greens, of "simplistic sloganeering." And he knows what he's talking about here, because his whining in Murdoch fishwrapper is full of it:
1) "I believe that engagement between peoples promotes understanding and tolerance..."
2) "Surely contact and engagement between Palestinians and Israelis is a precondition for a peaceful settlement."
3) "The inner west of Sydney is... a place where neighbours live in harmony regardless of religion or race."
What can such airy fairy nonsense possibly mean in a context where the vast bulk of Israelis are rusted on to the notion that Palestine is their exclusive domain, and either acquiesce in, or actively support, the colonisation of Palestinian lands (not to mention rejecting the right of Palestinians exiled in 1948 to return to their homes and lands)?
Maybe that should have been Send in the clowns... because in the same edition of Murdoch dropsheet comes this drive-by smear in a letter by Zionist academic Philip Mendes: "Any boycott of Israelis alone is discriminatory given that it is based on an ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis as evil, and is implicitly if not explicitly racist. It is only fascists and xenophobes who classify whole peoples as inherently bad or inferior."
Ever heard a peep from him about Israel's crippling blockade of Gaza*, the BDS measures once applied to apartheid South Africa (of which I assume he would have been in favour at the time), the vile, impoverishing sanctions regime applied by the US against Iraq** or those now in place against Iran?
[* "'As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (US embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without 'quite pushing it over the edge', one of the cables read." (WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse, Reuters, Haaretz, 5/1/11); ** 1991-2010]
Can you work this guy - Anthony Albanese, Minister for Transport - out?
Marrickville Council, part of Albo's fiefdom of Grayndler, has dared to make the BDS of Israel part of its practice. However, instead of lauding this perfectly correct, highly commendable and long overdue move, this alleged lefty MP has gone on the attack, presumably under orders from the prime minister. And in Murdoch's Australian of all places! (Local government goes beyond the pale with boycott of Israel, 14/1/11)
Among other things, Albo's accused the Marrickville councillors, both Labor and Greens, of "simplistic sloganeering." And he knows what he's talking about here, because his whining in Murdoch fishwrapper is full of it:
1) "I believe that engagement between peoples promotes understanding and tolerance..."
2) "Surely contact and engagement between Palestinians and Israelis is a precondition for a peaceful settlement."
3) "The inner west of Sydney is... a place where neighbours live in harmony regardless of religion or race."
What can such airy fairy nonsense possibly mean in a context where the vast bulk of Israelis are rusted on to the notion that Palestine is their exclusive domain, and either acquiesce in, or actively support, the colonisation of Palestinian lands (not to mention rejecting the right of Palestinians exiled in 1948 to return to their homes and lands)?
Maybe that should have been Send in the clowns... because in the same edition of Murdoch dropsheet comes this drive-by smear in a letter by Zionist academic Philip Mendes: "Any boycott of Israelis alone is discriminatory given that it is based on an ethnic stereotyping of all Israelis as evil, and is implicitly if not explicitly racist. It is only fascists and xenophobes who classify whole peoples as inherently bad or inferior."
Ever heard a peep from him about Israel's crippling blockade of Gaza*, the BDS measures once applied to apartheid South Africa (of which I assume he would have been in favour at the time), the vile, impoverishing sanctions regime applied by the US against Iraq** or those now in place against Iran?
[* "'As part of their overall embargo plan against Gaza, Israeli officials have confirmed to (US embassy economic officers) on multiple occasions that they intend to keep the Gazan economy on the brink of collapse without 'quite pushing it over the edge', one of the cables read." (WikiLeaks: Israel aimed to keep Gaza economy on brink of collapse, Reuters, Haaretz, 5/1/11); ** 1991-2010]
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Tunisian Intifada 2
Paris-based Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi* interviewed on the Tunisian intifada:
What news have you had from Tunisia over the last few days? Between 20 and 40 deaths following the most recent actions by the police. Demonstrations have broken out across the country, especially in the universities and schools, so lessons have been suspended until further notice, and Facebook is being partially censored. They have also fired the head of the army.
How did this clash between the government and the people begin? The suicide of Mohamed Bou'azizi in Sidi Bouzid sparked everything. On 17 December, he set himself on fire out of pure despair. He was a young, unemployed graduate who sold vegetables on the street just to make ends meet, but the authorities confiscated them because he didn't have a permit. He didn't know where to turn. His was not the only case of self-immolation, several others did the same thing. One person electrocuted himself, another threw himself off a bridge. Since then, the people of the centre-west and south have risen up because those are the most economically neglected regions.
What do the people want? They're demanding the right to work, freedom of expression, and free elections. We want to move on to something new, to breath the fresh air of hope, to freely express ourselves. This is not just demagoguery. People are now saying, 'The morphine we've been injected with for the last 23** years is no longer enough to dull our pain'.
You were in Tunisia over the New Year, did you feel something was about to happen? Things were happening when I was there doing concerts, but we didn't really understand what was going on. We didn't think it was going to get this bad. I don't think anyone could have known. We were all taken by surprise.
From the outside, it seems to be a movement of young people. Is that the case? Yes, it's only logical because 48% of the population is under 35. But it's not only young people. Older people, men and women are also on the streets, expressing their anger.
The demonstrators have the support of the public? The movement is widespread, all over Tunisia, from the coast to the inland regions. Everyone is together in this. The solidarity took a long time coming, but I'm happy about this.
Is any opposition power structure emerging? There are a few opposition parties who've never really been able to do much because of the situation. Now, I think they've been overtaken by events. We hope that they'll take a position soon and present it to the people. We're counting on them.
Can an Islamist movement take advantage of the situation? I think that's always been the lie and the excuse that the government has used, with the support of the West. Tunisia is capable of changing from within without an Islamist movement taking advantage of the situation. We've had the proof since December 17. Long live a free and secular Tunisia!
How far do you think all of this could go? It can go a long way, and I hope it does! 'Akahaw/yezzi' (That's enough) as we say. It's time for Tunisia to change, and change radically. We need to move forward into a new era. We need transparent leaders who care about the people and can allow Tunisia to to regain its spirit and its freedom. (Tunisia. Emel Mathlouthi: 'The morphine we've been injected with for 23 years is no longer enough to dull our pain', mondomix.com, 12/1/11)
[* Emel/ Amel who? Check her out on YouTube (I recommend Amel Mathlouthi live a Bastille) and be blown away as I was; ** 1987, when the current dictator Ben Ali took over in a bloodless coup]
What news have you had from Tunisia over the last few days? Between 20 and 40 deaths following the most recent actions by the police. Demonstrations have broken out across the country, especially in the universities and schools, so lessons have been suspended until further notice, and Facebook is being partially censored. They have also fired the head of the army.
How did this clash between the government and the people begin? The suicide of Mohamed Bou'azizi in Sidi Bouzid sparked everything. On 17 December, he set himself on fire out of pure despair. He was a young, unemployed graduate who sold vegetables on the street just to make ends meet, but the authorities confiscated them because he didn't have a permit. He didn't know where to turn. His was not the only case of self-immolation, several others did the same thing. One person electrocuted himself, another threw himself off a bridge. Since then, the people of the centre-west and south have risen up because those are the most economically neglected regions.
What do the people want? They're demanding the right to work, freedom of expression, and free elections. We want to move on to something new, to breath the fresh air of hope, to freely express ourselves. This is not just demagoguery. People are now saying, 'The morphine we've been injected with for the last 23** years is no longer enough to dull our pain'.
You were in Tunisia over the New Year, did you feel something was about to happen? Things were happening when I was there doing concerts, but we didn't really understand what was going on. We didn't think it was going to get this bad. I don't think anyone could have known. We were all taken by surprise.
From the outside, it seems to be a movement of young people. Is that the case? Yes, it's only logical because 48% of the population is under 35. But it's not only young people. Older people, men and women are also on the streets, expressing their anger.
The demonstrators have the support of the public? The movement is widespread, all over Tunisia, from the coast to the inland regions. Everyone is together in this. The solidarity took a long time coming, but I'm happy about this.
Is any opposition power structure emerging? There are a few opposition parties who've never really been able to do much because of the situation. Now, I think they've been overtaken by events. We hope that they'll take a position soon and present it to the people. We're counting on them.
Can an Islamist movement take advantage of the situation? I think that's always been the lie and the excuse that the government has used, with the support of the West. Tunisia is capable of changing from within without an Islamist movement taking advantage of the situation. We've had the proof since December 17. Long live a free and secular Tunisia!
How far do you think all of this could go? It can go a long way, and I hope it does! 'Akahaw/yezzi' (That's enough) as we say. It's time for Tunisia to change, and change radically. We need to move forward into a new era. We need transparent leaders who care about the people and can allow Tunisia to to regain its spirit and its freedom. (Tunisia. Emel Mathlouthi: 'The morphine we've been injected with for 23 years is no longer enough to dull our pain', mondomix.com, 12/1/11)
[* Emel/ Amel who? Check her out on YouTube (I recommend Amel Mathlouthi live a Bastille) and be blown away as I was; ** 1987, when the current dictator Ben Ali took over in a bloodless coup]
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The Red Line
A red line runs through the mainstream media, a line which journalists cross at their peril. Which is to say, you don't, whatever you do, criticise Israel and expect to get away with it - ever.
Anyway, that was my thought as I looked at the Moir cartoon in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.
There was Obama strolling through a typical American city, reading a newspaper and muttering 'Why? Why? WHY?' in response to the latest US domestic massacre in Tucson. On either side of the street were cinemas, video stores and gun shops, all promoting bang bang.
Good one, Moir, I thought. What do Americans expect, living in a country where every lunatic has a gun and is prepared to use it, a country, moreover, that loves nothing better than invading other people's countries and turning them into toast with strawberry jam, especially if the people there happen to be brown, or, not to put too fine a point on it, brown & Muslim. (See my 11/11/09 post Remembrance Day)
Then I recalled Moir's pathetic misreading of Obama's US-sponsored Israel-PA 'peace' talks on December 15 last year: A poster of Obama with the word 'HOPE' is sitting on a wall in occupied Palestine. Below it, on the street, are two donkeys, one labelled Israel, the other Palestine, heading in opposite directions. Both are saying 'NOPE'.
In that cartoon, Moir misrepresents Obama as an honest broker, a bringer of peace and goodwill, without a hint whatever of his country's financial, military and diplomatic backing of Israel, and certainly none of its bizarre subservience to the agenda of the Israel lobby. Likewise, he misrepresents Israel and the Palestinians as two absolute equals, with no reference at all to the complete domination of one by the other. This lame caricature is just another sorry variation on an earlier effort by Moir, on the same theme and with the same cast, of September 2010. (See my 21/9/10 post Cartoon Corner)
So, it's acceptable for a cartoonist to portray an American president, who presides over a land that can't seem to get enough bang bang on the big or little screen, naively wondering why Americans are gunning one another down Tucson-style, but not an Israeli prime minister, who presides over the brutal occupation of another people, with troops and tanks and settler scum on hair trigger, naively wondering why the occasional Palestinian lashes out in a seemingly futile act of resistance.
Now Moir knows the red line well because when he inadvertently crossed it in August 2003 by drawing a comparison between Israel's West Bank wall and the Nazis' Warsaw Ghetto, he came under sustained attack from the usual suspects and was forced to issue a grovelling apology. (See my 24/1/08 post We Remember Warsaw)
Ever since then he hasn't gone anywhere near the red line, which is what makes his cartoons on the issue so utterly lame and irrelevant.
And isn't it curious how clueless Obama can be in a violent America, but oh so wise and all-knowing in a violent Middle East.
Anyway, that was my thought as I looked at the Moir cartoon in yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald.
There was Obama strolling through a typical American city, reading a newspaper and muttering 'Why? Why? WHY?' in response to the latest US domestic massacre in Tucson. On either side of the street were cinemas, video stores and gun shops, all promoting bang bang.
Good one, Moir, I thought. What do Americans expect, living in a country where every lunatic has a gun and is prepared to use it, a country, moreover, that loves nothing better than invading other people's countries and turning them into toast with strawberry jam, especially if the people there happen to be brown, or, not to put too fine a point on it, brown & Muslim. (See my 11/11/09 post Remembrance Day)
Then I recalled Moir's pathetic misreading of Obama's US-sponsored Israel-PA 'peace' talks on December 15 last year: A poster of Obama with the word 'HOPE' is sitting on a wall in occupied Palestine. Below it, on the street, are two donkeys, one labelled Israel, the other Palestine, heading in opposite directions. Both are saying 'NOPE'.
In that cartoon, Moir misrepresents Obama as an honest broker, a bringer of peace and goodwill, without a hint whatever of his country's financial, military and diplomatic backing of Israel, and certainly none of its bizarre subservience to the agenda of the Israel lobby. Likewise, he misrepresents Israel and the Palestinians as two absolute equals, with no reference at all to the complete domination of one by the other. This lame caricature is just another sorry variation on an earlier effort by Moir, on the same theme and with the same cast, of September 2010. (See my 21/9/10 post Cartoon Corner)
So, it's acceptable for a cartoonist to portray an American president, who presides over a land that can't seem to get enough bang bang on the big or little screen, naively wondering why Americans are gunning one another down Tucson-style, but not an Israeli prime minister, who presides over the brutal occupation of another people, with troops and tanks and settler scum on hair trigger, naively wondering why the occasional Palestinian lashes out in a seemingly futile act of resistance.
Now Moir knows the red line well because when he inadvertently crossed it in August 2003 by drawing a comparison between Israel's West Bank wall and the Nazis' Warsaw Ghetto, he came under sustained attack from the usual suspects and was forced to issue a grovelling apology. (See my 24/1/08 post We Remember Warsaw)
Ever since then he hasn't gone anywhere near the red line, which is what makes his cartoons on the issue so utterly lame and irrelevant.
And isn't it curious how clueless Obama can be in a violent America, but oh so wise and all-knowing in a violent Middle East.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
We're All Going to Die!
Zionism's foot soldiers seldom miss a trick. Here, for example, is grizzled veteran, Daniel Lewis, seizing on supposed "threats" to Coptic churches in Australia to sound the alarm and tell us all how the "Australian Jewish community" has to spend serious money on security measures for its 'threatened' institutions:
"The Australian Jewish community spends millions of dollars a year on securing its synagogues, schools and kindergartens with armed guards to protect itself from Islamic terrorism. Now we learn that the Australian Coptic community faces similar threats from Islamist groups. If something isn't done about this now, the only houses of worship which won't require guards and metal detectors in due course, will be mosques." Daniel Lewis, Rushcutters Bay, NSW (Letter to The Australian, 10/1/11)
Very much a rough-end-of-the-pineapple situation you might have thought. Unless, of course, you'd read something like this:
"Speaking at Beth Rivkah Ladies College on Tuesday [27/7/10], Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor had to compete to be heard over the sound of hammers banging and drills drilling. A very positive noise, he said. And Beth Rivkah is not alone. Over the next few months, Jewish schools across the country will be opening new classrooms, canteens, music rooms, arts centres and staff areas, all partially funded by the [government's $16 billion] stimulus package. The government also announced $15 million more to pay for capital improvements that will secure schools at risk of attacks motivated by race or religion. The Coalition has also committed to the funding if elected... That money is essentially $15 million that schools can now direct to education and support programs, rather than security costs. It is money that has been welcomed by every Jewish school in the country, all of which have already benefited from the original $20 million program, a program the Coalition did not support. Terrorism is a real fear and the Jewish community is an easy target. That is why we have guards outside community institutions, including schools, synagogues and offices, large fences and CCTV. It is a harsh reality that both parties have recognised and they should be thanked for doing so." (Money matters, editorial, The Australian Jewish News, 30/7/10)
Now despite Daniel's failure to indicate the source of the sauce, so to speak, we should not blind ourselves to the very real peril in which Australia's Jewish community now finds itself. For a truly chilling report of fear & loathing at the front lines of the Clash of Civilizations down under, I suggest you read We're All Going to Die at yourjc.wordpress.com, 29/7/10.
"The Australian Jewish community spends millions of dollars a year on securing its synagogues, schools and kindergartens with armed guards to protect itself from Islamic terrorism. Now we learn that the Australian Coptic community faces similar threats from Islamist groups. If something isn't done about this now, the only houses of worship which won't require guards and metal detectors in due course, will be mosques." Daniel Lewis, Rushcutters Bay, NSW (Letter to The Australian, 10/1/11)
Very much a rough-end-of-the-pineapple situation you might have thought. Unless, of course, you'd read something like this:
"Speaking at Beth Rivkah Ladies College on Tuesday [27/7/10], Minister for Home Affairs Brendan O'Connor had to compete to be heard over the sound of hammers banging and drills drilling. A very positive noise, he said. And Beth Rivkah is not alone. Over the next few months, Jewish schools across the country will be opening new classrooms, canteens, music rooms, arts centres and staff areas, all partially funded by the [government's $16 billion] stimulus package. The government also announced $15 million more to pay for capital improvements that will secure schools at risk of attacks motivated by race or religion. The Coalition has also committed to the funding if elected... That money is essentially $15 million that schools can now direct to education and support programs, rather than security costs. It is money that has been welcomed by every Jewish school in the country, all of which have already benefited from the original $20 million program, a program the Coalition did not support. Terrorism is a real fear and the Jewish community is an easy target. That is why we have guards outside community institutions, including schools, synagogues and offices, large fences and CCTV. It is a harsh reality that both parties have recognised and they should be thanked for doing so." (Money matters, editorial, The Australian Jewish News, 30/7/10)
Now despite Daniel's failure to indicate the source of the sauce, so to speak, we should not blind ourselves to the very real peril in which Australia's Jewish community now finds itself. For a truly chilling report of fear & loathing at the front lines of the Clash of Civilizations down under, I suggest you read We're All Going to Die at yourjc.wordpress.com, 29/7/10.
The Trollumnist
"It used to be that to get your own column in a broadsheet, you needed to add some value. Expertise, skill in interpreting social and political developments, or a distinguished history as a journalist were rewarded with a bit more space in the paper. There, you could spin out a longer-form piece analysing burning issues in a little more depth, or you could even act as an advocate for things that weren't on the public radar. As the newspaper business model heads south, though, we've been subjected to the rise of what we might christen the 'trollumnist' - the writer who simply trolls in a multichannel, multimedia environment... Whereas a true columnist might make controversial arguments or challenge common sense, trollumnists merely provoke outrage in order to sell papers, draw links and capture increasingly scarce reader attention. The beauty of it all is that it doesn't take much training to do it, and as media content goes, it's cheap as chips. Any fool can offend people given a reasonably prominent platform... It's not just Fairfax [Miranda Devine and Catherine Deveny are cited], of course - in News Limited's broadsheet, The Australian, for trollumnists like Janet Albrechtsen or David Burchell, one regularly gets the sense that the content of any particular piece is far less important than axe-grinding, and the blunt provocation that gets the bloggers fuming and the tweets ricocheting around the tubes." ('If I make you angry enough, maybe you'll keep reading', Jason Wilson, newmatilda.com.au, 2/11/09)
If Wilson is right about this journalistic mutation, and provoking outrage, like radio shock-jocks, is what it's all about these days, then yesterday's trollumn, That convenient scapegoat, Israel, by The Australian's seriously weird trollumnist, David Burchell, is another fine example of the genre, though essentially rehashing the provocations of his earlier trollumn on the Gaza flotilla massacre, Flotilla rallies terror cheer squad (7/6/10):
"This view of Israel as a kind of devil-state, the spirit of evil made incarnate in the world..." (7/6/10)
"... the never-ending Israel obsession which envelops us all, whether on Cairo's streets or among the self-styled anti-Zionist sophisticates of the contemporary West." (11/1/11)
"At that time [late 60s] the logic of Israel-hatred [by the Western Left] seemed clear enough. The Palestinians were the archetypal injured traveller on the highway... " (7/6/10)
"In all likelihood 2011 will see the apogee of Western Israel-loathing, eclipsing even the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Israel's victories over the Arab armies led to the invention of an imaginary people, the saintly and unstained Palestinians, who forever lie bereft by the side of the road waiting for their Good Samaritan." (11/1/11)
"Of all the signs of the moral decomposition of the progressive intelligentsia in my lifetime, none is more depressing or more shameful than the furtive, dishonest embrace of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood's terrorist arm, by thousands of otherwise intelligent, thoughtful people; people who probably imagine themselves as friends of civilisation and basic human decency. It was observable, first, in those supposed friends of the Palestinian people who began to speak with pity - and then soon enough with admiration - of Palestinian suicide bombers, even as they heard fervent mothers speak of strapping their teenage sons into suicide vests." (7/6/10)
"Hamas, that strange freak of nature which, rather than sustaining its offspring with its blood, actually feeds upon its supporters' blood for its own succour, swells in strength as its international respectability grows. (Why, even now Western activists are assembling funds for a new flotilla in its aid.)" (11/1/11)
I did say seriously weird, didn't I?
And how's this for factual accuracy from someone whose other job is teaching history (at the University of Western Sydney)?
"... when new Israeli prime minister Golda Meir toured Moscow in autumn 1948..." Golda Meir was Israeli PM from 1969-1974.
"... the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who headed a Muslim division of the Waffen SS... " Shouldn't that have been 'recruited'?
At least shock-jock Jim Ball hasn't been unleashed on Australian university students.
The interesting thing about our trollumnist is that, in a previous life, he was the last editor of the Communist Party of Australia's monthly journal The Australian Left Review (1966-1992), albeit voicing the then-fashionable intellectual position that ideology and left/right divisions had passed their use-by date.
By 2004 Burchell was writing in the Australian Financial Review of Australian opposition to the war in Iraq that "In the burbs people are preoccupied with their financial and personal security. How well-heeled professional types who've been trading up through the property-market to their heart's content could grossly underestimate the political importance of interest rates is a mystery best left to the realms of psychoanalysis. How people obsessed with bloodshed in Iraq could ignore the fear of related bloodshed closer to home is equally hard to fathom." (Two Cultures, 13/10/04, previousleigh.wordpress.com).
Frankly, I'm thinking of another use for psychoanalysis.
Six years later, he's writing in Murdoch's Australian that "It would be hard to imagine a simpler or more self-evidently good cause than Afghanistan. There is scarcely another country on earth where human dignity has been so deliberately and disgracefully trampled upon, or where the progress of one-half of humankind, probably the most signal advance of the past two centuries, has been more casually routed." (M*A*S*H, public sentiment & the war in Afghanistan, 25/10/10)
There is scarcely another country on earth where human dignity has been so deliberately and disgracefully trampled upon. Oh, really? Try Palestine, goose!
Postscript: For those really interested in trampled dignity: "Amer wrote me this (I cite it with his permission): 'I just saw a documentary on Al-Jazeera about a Palestinian man whose house is in the Jewish enclave in Nablus. He has to cross, on foot, 3 different checkpoints every day to get to his house. It takes a couple of hours. Settlers regularly throw stones and eggs at him and his kids, and spit on them. He cannot find employment with his diploma and works as a coffee seller. He relies on international donations and food rations to feed his family. [The settlers] offered him $20 million for his father's house, but he refuses to sell.' Just remember: in dealing with the terrorist state of Israel and all its supporters, never forgive and never ever forget." (As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com, 11/1/11)
If Wilson is right about this journalistic mutation, and provoking outrage, like radio shock-jocks, is what it's all about these days, then yesterday's trollumn, That convenient scapegoat, Israel, by The Australian's seriously weird trollumnist, David Burchell, is another fine example of the genre, though essentially rehashing the provocations of his earlier trollumn on the Gaza flotilla massacre, Flotilla rallies terror cheer squad (7/6/10):
"This view of Israel as a kind of devil-state, the spirit of evil made incarnate in the world..." (7/6/10)
"... the never-ending Israel obsession which envelops us all, whether on Cairo's streets or among the self-styled anti-Zionist sophisticates of the contemporary West." (11/1/11)
"At that time [late 60s] the logic of Israel-hatred [by the Western Left] seemed clear enough. The Palestinians were the archetypal injured traveller on the highway... " (7/6/10)
"In all likelihood 2011 will see the apogee of Western Israel-loathing, eclipsing even the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Israel's victories over the Arab armies led to the invention of an imaginary people, the saintly and unstained Palestinians, who forever lie bereft by the side of the road waiting for their Good Samaritan." (11/1/11)
"Of all the signs of the moral decomposition of the progressive intelligentsia in my lifetime, none is more depressing or more shameful than the furtive, dishonest embrace of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood's terrorist arm, by thousands of otherwise intelligent, thoughtful people; people who probably imagine themselves as friends of civilisation and basic human decency. It was observable, first, in those supposed friends of the Palestinian people who began to speak with pity - and then soon enough with admiration - of Palestinian suicide bombers, even as they heard fervent mothers speak of strapping their teenage sons into suicide vests." (7/6/10)
"Hamas, that strange freak of nature which, rather than sustaining its offspring with its blood, actually feeds upon its supporters' blood for its own succour, swells in strength as its international respectability grows. (Why, even now Western activists are assembling funds for a new flotilla in its aid.)" (11/1/11)
I did say seriously weird, didn't I?
And how's this for factual accuracy from someone whose other job is teaching history (at the University of Western Sydney)?
"... when new Israeli prime minister Golda Meir toured Moscow in autumn 1948..." Golda Meir was Israeli PM from 1969-1974.
"... the grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who headed a Muslim division of the Waffen SS... " Shouldn't that have been 'recruited'?
At least shock-jock Jim Ball hasn't been unleashed on Australian university students.
The interesting thing about our trollumnist is that, in a previous life, he was the last editor of the Communist Party of Australia's monthly journal The Australian Left Review (1966-1992), albeit voicing the then-fashionable intellectual position that ideology and left/right divisions had passed their use-by date.
By 2004 Burchell was writing in the Australian Financial Review of Australian opposition to the war in Iraq that "In the burbs people are preoccupied with their financial and personal security. How well-heeled professional types who've been trading up through the property-market to their heart's content could grossly underestimate the political importance of interest rates is a mystery best left to the realms of psychoanalysis. How people obsessed with bloodshed in Iraq could ignore the fear of related bloodshed closer to home is equally hard to fathom." (Two Cultures, 13/10/04, previousleigh.wordpress.com).
Frankly, I'm thinking of another use for psychoanalysis.
Six years later, he's writing in Murdoch's Australian that "It would be hard to imagine a simpler or more self-evidently good cause than Afghanistan. There is scarcely another country on earth where human dignity has been so deliberately and disgracefully trampled upon, or where the progress of one-half of humankind, probably the most signal advance of the past two centuries, has been more casually routed." (M*A*S*H, public sentiment & the war in Afghanistan, 25/10/10)
There is scarcely another country on earth where human dignity has been so deliberately and disgracefully trampled upon. Oh, really? Try Palestine, goose!
Postscript: For those really interested in trampled dignity: "Amer wrote me this (I cite it with his permission): 'I just saw a documentary on Al-Jazeera about a Palestinian man whose house is in the Jewish enclave in Nablus. He has to cross, on foot, 3 different checkpoints every day to get to his house. It takes a couple of hours. Settlers regularly throw stones and eggs at him and his kids, and spit on them. He cannot find employment with his diploma and works as a coffee seller. He relies on international donations and food rations to feed his family. [The settlers] offered him $20 million for his father's house, but he refuses to sell.' Just remember: in dealing with the terrorist state of Israel and all its supporters, never forgive and never ever forget." (As'ad AbuKhalil, angryarab.blogspot.com, 11/1/11)
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