Never Again and Again and Again, by Mr. Fish; On Destruction of Gaza

Never Again and Again and Again - by Mr. Fish. From Chris Hedges,
Israel’s Genocide Betrays the Holocaust. By obscuring
and falsifying the lessons of the Holocaust we perpetuate the evil that defined it.

Shalala, Death Squad Supporters and Dems Target Bernie Sanders' Foreign Policy

Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Miami) hits Bernie Sanders
for foreign policy stand focusing on democracy,
human rights, diplomacy and peace. (Twitter)

No surprise to read Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Miami) is extolling the virtues of United States intervention in South America and Central America, and trying to blast Bernie Sanders in light of Sanders' expressed hesitation to invade Venezuela and his lifelong work for peace and human rights.

Shalala is hyping the newest invade-now-everyone-wants-to piece in Slate Magazine.

Shalala was never an opponent of death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Brazil, and Chile.

Shalala is close to the Queen of Chaos, Hillary Clinton, who ran against Bernie Sanders' foreign policy too, with Clinton championing Henry Kissinger.

We all lost the subsequent 2016 general election in which Trump actually endorsed peace over Clinton and her policy of invading, bombing and intervening in other countries.

Now, Shalala is promoting an attempted Sanders hit job in Slate Magazine, (always hot for an invasion and a war), in which Shalala tweets:

I’ll make it clear, @SenSanders does not reflect the majority of the Democratic Party and our support for Venezuela’s interim president @jguaido and the Venezuelan people. Maduro is a dictator and must go. https://t.co/Q1GDp9q2Tw #VenezuelaLibre

— Rep. Donna E. Shalala (@RepShalala) February 21, 2019

The piece Shalala promotes is written by León Krauze.

Krauze's thesis is: If a presidential candidate does not want to invade, bomb and destabilize another country today, then the candidate, Bernie Sanders, per force, has a "soft spot" for "three dictators" and all of the social defects of three respective countries—still recovering from decades of American intervention, intervention that is long opposed by Bernie Sanders and most of the American population.

Krauze has discovered that Bernie Sanders said, "I think the United States has to work with the international community to make sure that there is a free and fair election in Venezuela."

Get him. Stop Bernie Sanders! Bernie wants our country to be like Venezuelan socialism.

And, notes Krauze, Donald Trump has already spoken against socialism, so again we must stop Bernie Sanders.

Writes Krauze:

'Socialism has so completely ravaged this great country [Venezuela] that even the world’s largest reserves of oil are no longer enough to keep the lights on. This will never happen to us,' Trump said, continuing a theme he had broached during his State of the Union address. 

With decades of illegal intervention and human rights atrocities defining American foreign policy since post-World War II, Shalala, Clinton and Trump all assure us we need to intervene now.

And domestically: Stop the campaign of Bernie Sanders because somehow, someway Sanders is just like those socialist dictators, and Donald Trump, whom Hillary and the hawks bequeathed to America, is going to say the same things and Trump never makes a political miscalculation.

Concludes Krauze:

If he wins the nomination, Sanders’ old (and not so old) videos praising failed socialist experiments and tiptoeing around recent cruelties in Latin America will surely resurface, playing on a loop while Trump warns about the long-dreaded socialist takeover of the United States of America. This may be fearmongering, but Democrats dismiss its effectiveness at their own peril.

I'll let the reader unpack that (above) one because Krauze's piece, as hit jobs go, isn't that good.

It is just 17 years ago that former-Slate editor, Jacob Weisberg, dismissed another anti-interventionist, international-law-supporting peace movement socialist, Noam Chomsky, as a "malnourished left-wing straggler," suffering from "clinical symptoms that have been obvious to everyone else for years" in a better-written hit job.

Chomsky's illness? Chomsky warned about the consequences to civilians from the invasion of Afghanistan, and cautioned death and destruction, including catastrophe to the invader, were likely to follow.

As of October 2018, conservative estimates put the civilian death toll in excess of 200,000, over 2,400 U.S. deaths, 10,000s wounded, and Afghanistan is an unmitigated disaster.

In 2002, I wrote Chomsky about Weisberg's hit piece against the peace movement, echoed today in the liberal-corporatist-Democratic Party campaign against Bernie Sanders, who keeps criticizing armed insurrections and illegal American interventions.

Wrote back Chomsky to me in 2002:

(L)iberal intellectuals have lined up in support of the war machine in the familiar style—discussed, for example, by Randolph Bourne in classic essays—and since they know they do not have the intellectual competence to deal with those who refuse to go along, resort to what comes natural to the educated classes: hysterical tantrums, lies, and abuse. Why become involved? There are more important things to do—such as continue to falsify their increasingly desperate claim that everyone is following them in their depraved subordination to power.

Today's propaganda offensives against Sanders evokes the campaign against the peace movement 17 years ago,

As Shalala says: "I’ll make it clear, @SenSanders does not reflect the majority of the Democratic Party ... ."

Actually, Shalala, Clinton, Trump, Krauze, and the whole bunch of liberal war hawks are wrong again.

Bernie Sanders, Noam Chomsky and the majority of the American people are correct. As Bernie put it on Feb. 20:

The U.S. must lead the world in improving international cooperation in the fight against climate change, militarism, authoritarianism and global inequality. I'm running for president because we need a foreign policy which focuses on democracy, human rights, diplomacy and peace.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) February 20, 2019

I'm going with Bernie Sanders.

If the United States is ever to reclaim a moral center in international relations, then we need to stop trying to overthrow elected foreign leaders, make human rights the basis for our foreign policy, and the Democratic Party must stop demonizing domestic human rights workers such as Noam Chomsky and Bernie Sanders.

Trump to Launch Missiles Somewhere and then Strut into World War

The American Sec. of Defense, Jimmy Carter, and CodePink
are united with the world, trying to talk Trump down.

A story this morning features military leaders warning about the war spasms of the cornered child in the White House.

"Defense Secretary Jim Mattis sought on Thursday to slow down an imminent strike on Syria, reflecting mounting concerns at the Pentagon that a concerted bombing campaign could escalate into a wider conflict between Russia, Iran and the West," (New York Times).

President* Trump remains a wanna-be dictator running from a federal investigation, looking for the American military to rescue him from his slow-motion suicide, as the Pentagon appears desperate to stop the nut from starting a world war.

The lunatic is making up policy day-by-day, without a clue, in a desperate gamble Trump can wag the dog and look presidential, supported by the British prime minister, but not his own Secretary of Defense, James Mattis.

Trump is a dangerous child, and the world awaits what destruction is wrought.

From Common Dreams:

Former President Jimmy Carter has added his voice to those urging President Donald Trump to refrain from launching an illegal military attack on Syria, warning of the serious dangers—including nuclear conflagration—that could result.

At this point reason and life do not matter in the White House, and Trump is just trying to stop the bleeding from his criminal enterprise about which we were all warned.

Forthcoming rightwing rallies, military strikes, insane tweets, a world mostly aligned against the nut will follow. But this is mere conversation as Donald Trump wants to destroy the Constitution, and start World War III.

Meanwhile, "a group of international law experts, noted in a statement, 'an act of violence committed by one government against another government, without lawful justification, amounts to the crime of aggression: the supreme international crime which carries with it the evil of every other international crime as noted by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg in 1946.'"

Nuremberg, Trump likely has likely seen a movie about NAZI Germany, his kind of people.

"It would be wrong for Congress to allow any president, on his own authority, to launch an attack on Syria that potentially puts the U.S. in conflict with Russia, Iran, or both. But granting that power to Trump—as he contemplates a second Saturday Night Massacre—is utter lunacy," writes Peter Beinart.

Usually, American liberals can be countered on to line up in "support of the war machine in the familiar style — discussed, for example, by Randolph Bourne in classic essays," noted Noam Chomsky presciently in 2002.

Not today. As Trump signals he will use the presidency for the objective of creating catastrophe, the world is lining up against him, only feeding Trump's paranoia and growing isolation.

Wall Street is pretending an adult is supervising, but that will not last.

🚨URGENT🚨 Sign and RT now to tell Congress to stop an unconstitutional strike on #Syria https://t.co/4JyKClU9pq pic.twitter.com/dGKfevdIPX

— CODEPINK (@codepink) April 11, 2018

Obama Acts Against War as GOP Screams: 'We Want War'

Support President Obama and the world and voice your support to your US senators in approving the Iran Nuke agreement

Stop Republican madness. Sign the leading anti-war coalition petition and tell Congress: Defend the Iran Nuke deal and stop Republicans from starting a war with Iran.

"The international agreement to ensure that Iran’s nuclear energy program stays peaceful is not just a victory for non-proliferation but part of a more realistic realignment of U.S. policy toward the Mideast, finally recognizing the bloody futility of 'full-spectrum dominance.'"

So reads ex-CIA official Graham E. Fuller's piece in ConsortiumNews supporting peace and security and rejecting war.

The Republican Party wants war with Iran and has become a rogue political force in international affairs, aligning itself with the most destructive, lawless parties of Israel.

The Republican Party is perfecting willing to send American troops and Marines to die and destabilize, even now refusing to acknowledge the catastrophe their Iraq War lies inflicted onto the our country and the world.

The Obama administration deserves our support against the 'Three Amigos' idiocy of Sens. McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and kill-the-public-healthcare-option Joe Lieberman making the rounds calling for rejection of the World v. Israel and the Republican Party deal (Benen, MSNBC).

Support President Obama and the world and voice your support to your US senators in approving the Iran Nuke agreement.

Remember Scott Walker, a typical if more corrupt-than-usual Republican, said U.S. war with Iran on Inaugural Day, should Walker become president, is "very possible." (Nichols, The Nation)

This is madness. Sign the leading anti-war coalition petition and tell Congress: Defend the deal and stop Republicans from starting a war with Iran.

Rick Perry Bashes President Obama in Israeli Newspaper

Jews as seen by the religious right

Rick Perry is bidding for the political support of rightwing American Jewry by publishing an anti-Obama screed in the Jerusalem Post, attempting as well to fracture the Democratic Party coalition in which some 80 percent of Jews vote Democratic.

Attacking a sitting American president vis a vis Israel in this manner is an un-American pursuit no matter, as John Aravosis writes, it's simply Perry playing for votes:

Actually, Perry is trying to tick off American Jews and turn them against Obama. Of course, Republican religious zealots like Perry are only bff with Israel because they need Israel (to burn, actually) in order for the Second Coming of Christ to happen. Yeah, the far right running the Republican party don't often mention that fact - that Israel needs to exist so 2/3 of all Jews worldwide can die a horrible death in order to welcome Jesus back - when they're touting their support for Israel's right to exist.

If Perry is such a supporter of Israel, ask him if Jews are going to hell.

Perry doesn't care about Jews one way or another beyond the fact that the right is looking to chip away at President Obama's political support.

But the half-baked maneuver won't play out any better than Sarah Palin's wearing a Star of David pin suddenly convinced a multitude of Jews to get behind her campaign-like thing.

Republican strategists are hot on the topic for now, in their ignorance not realizing that progressive American Jews subscribe to ethical principles and not mythical notions of raciology or Old Testament metaphysics.

In Jonathan S. Tobin piece in Commentary published on 9/11, Tobin signaled Perry's move writing:

Though the Democrats are still in a relatively strong position vis-à-vis Jews, they know Obama is a weak incumbent who has already lost the trust of this community. Their only hope to extend their winning streak among Jews is to demonize their Republican foes.

How do you demonize a bunch of religious fanatics who think Jews are consigned to "rivers of blood"?

Tobin and Perry don't address the question.

Neither are serious writers on the topic, merely representative of the American rightwing.

Let's hope the question of Rick Perry, a presidential candidate, making common cause with those attacking a sitting American president in a foreign newspaper is addressed.

In the mean time it bears noting that Obama’s policy toward Israel is disappointing in that Israeli human rights violations have continued; an American citizen was murdered by Israel in international waters and Obama has not been sufficiently humanistic in challenging the Likud [and neo-fascist] parties' militarism, bigotry and massacres in the occupied territories

We Don't Torture Lie Continues

George W. Bush defended himself against revelations of a Justice Department opinion allowing torture by pushing the same “This government does not torture people” line that he has been saying for years.

In the face of any new evidence, the administration will simply convey its message repeatedly and then refuse to provide the documentation demonstrating the falsity of administration statements.

This track is leading into some upset people on Capital Hill.

The Times SHERYL GAY STOLBERG writes:

President Bush, reacting to a Congressional uproar over the disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions permitting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, defended the methods on Friday, declaring, “This government
does not torture people.”
... But his comments only provoked another round of recriminations on Capitol Hill, as Democrats ratcheted up their demands to see the classified memorandums, first reported Thursday by The New York Times. “The administration can’t have it both ways,” Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, the West Virginia Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a statement after the president’s remarks. “I’m tired of these games. They can’t say that Congress has been fully briefed while refusing to turn over
key documents used to justify the legality of the program.”
In two separate legal opinions written in 2005, the Justice Department authorized the C.I.A. to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological
tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.
... Administration officials have confirmed the existence of the classified opinions, but will not make them public, saying only that they approved techniques that were “tough, safe, necessary and lawful.”
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