Op-Ed
Since the Soviet Union collapsed a decade and a half ago, nuclear
weaponry has been mostly relegated to back pages and mental back burners
in the United States. A big media uproar about nuclear weapons is apt to
happen only when the man in the Oval Office has chosen to make an issue
of them.
Sometimes a “nuclear threat” has been imaginary. During the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration went into rhetorical overdrive -- fabricating evidence and warning that an ostensible smoking gun could turn into a mushroom cloud. The White House publicly obsessed about an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program that didn’t exist.
In sharp contrast, North Korea really seems to have a nuclear warhead or two. And because the Pyongyang regime is apparently nuclear-armed, Bush isn’t likely to order an attack on that country, as he did against Iraq and as he has been not-too-subtly threatening to do against Iran.
By all credible accounts, Tehran is at least several years -- and probably more like a full decade -- away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. But America’s top officials and leading pundits have been sounding urgent alarms.
Sometimes a “nuclear threat” has been imaginary. During the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration went into rhetorical overdrive -- fabricating evidence and warning that an ostensible smoking gun could turn into a mushroom cloud. The White House publicly obsessed about an Iraqi nuclear-weapons program that didn’t exist.
In sharp contrast, North Korea really seems to have a nuclear warhead or two. And because the Pyongyang regime is apparently nuclear-armed, Bush isn’t likely to order an attack on that country, as he did against Iraq and as he has been not-too-subtly threatening to do against Iran.
By all credible accounts, Tehran is at least several years -- and probably more like a full decade -- away from acquiring a nuclear bomb. But America’s top officials and leading pundits have been sounding urgent alarms.
The reality that the Vietnam War was a hopeless catastrophe definitively penetrated the mass American psyche when CBS Nightly News Anchor Walter Cronkite---the "most trusted man in America"---faced the facts.
That was in 1968, shortly after the Tet Offensive shredded any pretence that an American victory (whatever that would mean) was possible in Southeast Asia. When Lyndon Johnson heard Cronkite had turned on the war, he knew it was over, and soon thereafter declined to run again.
Now Tom Friedman has done the same thing about Iraq and Southwest Asia. Has anybody noticed?
Friedman has long been the lead neo-liberal cheerleader for the American attack on Iraq. From his perch on the New York Times op ed page, Friedman has pontificated long and in earnest about the need for the US military to establish "democracy" in the land once run by Saddam Hussein, that horrific dictator installed by the US military, then fired in the wake of 9/11 attacks conducted by his bitter rival, Osama bin Laden.
That was in 1968, shortly after the Tet Offensive shredded any pretence that an American victory (whatever that would mean) was possible in Southeast Asia. When Lyndon Johnson heard Cronkite had turned on the war, he knew it was over, and soon thereafter declined to run again.
Now Tom Friedman has done the same thing about Iraq and Southwest Asia. Has anybody noticed?
Friedman has long been the lead neo-liberal cheerleader for the American attack on Iraq. From his perch on the New York Times op ed page, Friedman has pontificated long and in earnest about the need for the US military to establish "democracy" in the land once run by Saddam Hussein, that horrific dictator installed by the US military, then fired in the wake of 9/11 attacks conducted by his bitter rival, Osama bin Laden.
Through the actions of a lone man with an unstable mental history, the
Middle East wars have hit my community. Naveed Haq, from a middle class
Pakistani-American family in eastern Washington State, shot six women at
the Seattle Jewish Federation, in the city where I live. He killed one and
left three critically wounded, saying "I am a Muslim American, angry at
Israel." I've never been to the Federation offices, but I've worshipped at
affiliated Seattle synagogues, attended Federation-sponsored events, and met
one of the women who was critically wounded. So Haq's reprehensible attack
felt personal. Aside from the shooting of Jewish Defense League founder Meir
Kahane and an ambiguous 1994 incident involving a New York taxi driver and a
van of Hasidic students, this may be the first politically motivated killing
of an American Jew by an American Muslim in the past sixty years. As such,
it risks sharply increasing the level of fear in America's Jewish
communities, and with it the reflex support of even the most questionable
Israeli actions.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Do you think the Bush administration is going after the press? The San Francisco Chronicle says on the front page this morning, "Cameraman Jailed for Not Yielding Tape," whereas The New York Times is reporting, "U.S. Wins Access to Reporter Phone Records." I'm feeling like a bunny trying to outrun a pack of wolfhounds.
"Israel is doomed," said a friend of mine some months ago, returning to the United States after a trip to Israel. I asked him why, and my friend, who spent 20 years working in a high level position in the Pentagon, answered, "They've put in an Air Force man as chief of the General Staff."
He was talking about Dan Halutz, appointed chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces in February of this year.
My friend began his stint in the Pentagon in the middle Sixties, as one of Robert McNamara's "whiz kids." He'd spent long years listening to Air Force generals expounding the virtues of air power, and how their bombers would wipe out the Viet Cong without the need for any ground forces.
Those bombers never did wipe out the Viet Cong, though they destroyed vast forests while other USAF planes drenched the ground cover with poisons that plague Vietnamese and Americans to this day.
He was talking about Dan Halutz, appointed chief of the General Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces in February of this year.
My friend began his stint in the Pentagon in the middle Sixties, as one of Robert McNamara's "whiz kids." He'd spent long years listening to Air Force generals expounding the virtues of air power, and how their bombers would wipe out the Viet Cong without the need for any ground forces.
Those bombers never did wipe out the Viet Cong, though they destroyed vast forests while other USAF planes drenched the ground cover with poisons that plague Vietnamese and Americans to this day.
Can you name the one country on earth where the government can steal elections, strip away basic rights, spy on citizens, and launch wars based on lies, but where the people do not take over the nation's capital in protest?
If you said the United States, you'll be wrong on September fifth when Camp Democracy begins on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. http://www.campdemocracy.org
At long last, Americans are preparing to say "Enough is enough," and to do what Ukrainians, Mexicans, or any other people not drugged into acquiescence would do when things got this bad: occupy the capital city to demand peace, justice, and accountability.
If you said the United States, you'll be wrong on September fifth when Camp Democracy begins on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. http://www.campdemocracy.org
At long last, Americans are preparing to say "Enough is enough," and to do what Ukrainians, Mexicans, or any other people not drugged into acquiescence would do when things got this bad: occupy the capital city to demand peace, justice, and accountability.
I think Condi's right. As Israel wreaks biblical vengeance on Lebanon, we may well be witnessing, as she put it, "the birth pangs of a new Middle East." But the devil baby that crawls out of the wreckage will be one that makes even her boss pause mid-swagger.
God help us. The reckless cynics are in control. Just like that - hundreds dead, half a million refugees, a nation's infrastructure shattered. The perpetrators beat their chests and reload. The U.S. expedites its delivery of bombs to Israel, which is driving Lebanon "to the gates of hell and madness," as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said.
"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes, and I was scared because I thought there were so many. I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were the planes."
Birth pangs. Maybe the bombs that destroyed the home of the 8-year-old girl in the southern Lebanon village of Ayta Chaeb, quoted by an AP reporter from her hospital bed in Tyre, were autographed by little Israeli girls. Maybe they were decorated with hearts and Stars of David. Maybe they said "from Israel with love."
God help us. The reckless cynics are in control. Just like that - hundreds dead, half a million refugees, a nation's infrastructure shattered. The perpetrators beat their chests and reload. The U.S. expedites its delivery of bombs to Israel, which is driving Lebanon "to the gates of hell and madness," as Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said.
"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes, and I was scared because I thought there were so many. I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were the planes."
Birth pangs. Maybe the bombs that destroyed the home of the 8-year-old girl in the southern Lebanon village of Ayta Chaeb, quoted by an AP reporter from her hospital bed in Tyre, were autographed by little Israeli girls. Maybe they were decorated with hearts and Stars of David. Maybe they said "from Israel with love."
AUSTIN, Texas -- State of play in the Middle East: Lebanon, extensively damaged plus a half-million refugees; Syria, tired of being dissed; Israel, disproportionate. Are you kidding? Did it work last time they occupied Lebanon? Condi Rice, undercut by neocons at home? Iraq, completely fallen apart. Iran, only winner? Everybody else, mad at Bush. Most under-covered story, collapse of Iraq.
And what do I think this is? A media story, of course.
From the first day of 24/7 coverage, you could tell this was big. By the time Chapter 9,271 of the conflicts in the Middle East had gotten its own logo, everyone knew it was HUGE. I mean, like, bigger than Natalee Holloway. Then anchormen began to arrive in the Middle East and people like Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson -- real experts. Then Newt Gingrich -- and who would know better than Newt? -- declared it was World War III. Let's ratchet up the fear here -- probably good for Republican campaigning.
And what do I think this is? A media story, of course.
From the first day of 24/7 coverage, you could tell this was big. By the time Chapter 9,271 of the conflicts in the Middle East had gotten its own logo, everyone knew it was HUGE. I mean, like, bigger than Natalee Holloway. Then anchormen began to arrive in the Middle East and people like Anderson Cooper and Tucker Carlson -- real experts. Then Newt Gingrich -- and who would know better than Newt? -- declared it was World War III. Let's ratchet up the fear here -- probably good for Republican campaigning.
Syndicated columnist Richard Cohen declared in the Washington Post
on Tuesday that an-eye-for-an-eye would be a hopelessly wimpy policy
for the Israeli government.
“Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness,” he wrote. “For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy’s back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights.”
Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like “punch out your lights” as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.
In mid-November 1998, when President Clinton canceled plans for air attacks on Iraq after Saddam Hussein promised full cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors, Cohen wrote: “Something is out of balance here. The Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to punch out Iraq’s lights, and it did not do so.”
“Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that proportionality is madness,” he wrote. “For Israel, a small country within reach, as we are finding out, of a missile launched from any enemy’s back yard, proportionality is not only inapplicable, it is suicide. The last thing it needs is a war of attrition. It is not good enough to take out this or that missile battery. It is necessary to reestablish deterrence: You slap me, I will punch out your lights.”
Cohen likes to sit in front of a computer and use flip phrases like “punch out your lights” as euphemisms for burning human flesh and bones with high-tech weapons, courtesy of American taxpayers.
In mid-November 1998, when President Clinton canceled plans for air attacks on Iraq after Saddam Hussein promised full cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors, Cohen wrote: “Something is out of balance here. The Clinton administration waited too long to act. It needed to punch out Iraq’s lights, and it did not do so.”
AUSTIN, Texas -- Dear desperate Democrats,
Here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.
The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy.
Here's what we do. We run Bill Moyers for president. I am serious as a stroke about this. It's simple, cheap and effective, and it will move the entire spectrum of political discussion in this country. Moyers is the only public figure who can take the entire discussion and shove it toward moral clarity just by being there.
The poor man who is currently our president has reached such a point of befuddlement that he thinks stem cell research is the same as taking human lives, but that 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians are progress toward democracy.