Americans Are Paying a Massive Price To Maintain the Empire

by Matthew Hoh Posted onJanuary 25, 2024

Two press reports stood out to me this morning: the release of the names of two US Navy SEALs who drowned two weeks ago in the Arabian Sea and the Air Force’s production authorization for the B21 Raider bomber. Both stories symbolize an imperial inertia that defines American national security policies, an inertia that is damaging our democracy and jeopardizing futures.

The SEALs died taking part in a blockade mission against Yemen, a mission that dates back nearly a decade and is part of a two-decade-long history of US military action against Yemen (the US first launched a drone strike in Yemen in 2002). US policy towards Yemen is part of the larger, failed and counterproductive Global War on Terror, which itself is part of a larger, failed and counterproductive US Middle East policy. US Middle East policy, in its current form, goes back to the 1970s and is part of a larger, failed and counterproductive US militarized foreign policy. Can anyone go to the families of those two SEALs killed carrying out those policies and explain what their deaths were for without resorting to grotesque and false tropes of freedom and security, the same aspirational and patriotic fairy tales that have been used to justify 250-plus military operations by the US since 1991?

The other story relates to the authorization of production of the B21 Raider, which is set to replace the B1 and B2 bombers but not the 70-year-old B52s. That the youngest B52 was produced in 1962 and won’t be replaced, but the bombers built in modern times must be replaced, tells you a great deal about the strategy of the American weapons industry. This fleecing of the American taxpayers by the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) is nothing new. Both political parties have hollowed out the American economy to the benefit of weapons makers. If any citizen has the gall to ask their members of Congress why our living standards are so far below those of the world’s other wealthy nations, the answers come back as some variation of “we can’t afford those things.”

What’s new about the B21 is that the cost for years was classified, even to members of Congress. Budget figures, as well as contract details, production schedules and test results, are still being kept hidden. Reports say Northrup Grumman will produce 100 of the planes, and, with an estimated total program cost of more than $200 billion, keeping quiet about the price tag of $2 billion airplanes is a politically savvy move if not a democratic one.

Alongside the story of the B21 was a reference to the nation’s new intercontinental ballistic missile, the LGM-35 Sentinel, exploding in cost and years behind schedule. Both the Raider and the Sentinel are part of the $2 trillion modernization of American nuclear weapons begun during the Obama Administration. Cynically it is understandable why both the Pentagon and the weapons makers want to keep the B21 program hidden. MIC officials often speak of the lessons learned from the gross cost overruns, lengthy delays and failed testing of weapons systems like the F35, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Future Combat System, among many, many others, and those lessons seem to be: don’t let anyone know what’s going on. The roster of weapons that don’t work and have cost us trillions is seemingly infinite and, in a sanely functioning and non-corrupt democracy, Pentagon budgets would be decreasing, generals would be fired and defense industry share prices would be labeled as SELL. It would be far easier to write about the weapons the US taxpayers have funded that have performed as advertised and stayed within budget, but that would probably only amount to a tweet or two.

The only thing more likely than more American families continuing to lose loved ones to failed and counterproductive overseas wars will be a lack of any effective congressional resistance to US Middle East policy, most urgently Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. Likewise, the only thing more likely than the B21 being another poorly performing MIC cash cow will be the lack of meaningful political opposition to the overall MIC gravy train. The inertia of both a militarized foreign policy that, through its actions, creates a circular reality that justifies continued military action and a military-industrial complex that now says the American people don’t have the right to know how much our weapons cost demonstrate a dangerous reality of American democracy and a terrible path ahead.

Reprinted with permission from Matt’s Thoughts on War and Peace.

Matthew Hoh is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network. Matt is a former Marine Corps captain, Afghanistan State Department officer, a disabled Iraq War veteran and is a Senior Fellow Emeritus with the Center for International Policy. He writes at Substack.

 

Who Are the Houthis, and Why Are We Hearing From Them Now?

by Ted Snider Posted onJanuary 24, 2024

In 2011, as the Arab Spring dawned across the region, the people of Yemen rose up. On March 18, over 100,000 protesters gathered in the streets of the capital, Sanaa, demanding the resignation President Ali Abdullah Saleh. When Saleh resigned only to see Saudi Arabia, backed by the United States, slip in a reasonable facsimile, they felt their Arab Spring had been betrayed. The new government, headed by Saleh’s vice president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, excluded and marginalized the Houthis. The Houthis responded militarily, and Yemen’s latest civil war began.

The Houthis emerged in Yemen in the 1990’s. They are members of the Zaydi branch of Islam, which is a distinct branch of Shia Islam. A little over one third of Yemenis are Zaydi. During the protests against Saleh, the Houthis shared the anger of much of Yemeni society at the corruption and incompetence of the Saleh government. But they were also angry over the growing strength of the Saudi-led Salafist Islam that they saw as discriminating against and repressing their religious and cultural rights.

During the Russian war in Afghanistan, Saleh, encouraged, he said, by the U.S., organized and paid for thousands of Yemenis to be sent to join the mujahadeen in fighting the Soviet Union. When Yemen’s jihadists returned, Saleh gave them sanctuary in return for service. The fighters became al Qaeda, and al Qaeda helped Saleh control his enemies. Al Qaeda flourished in Yemen and became, perhaps, its fiercest franchise: al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Between 2004 and 2010, the Houthis launched six wars against Saleh. Saleh used al Qaeda forces, Saudi forces and funding, and U.S. trained and armed special operations forces to fight the Houthis. AQAP competed with the Houthis for influence in Yemen.

Though the web of alliances is convoluted and confusing, the Houthis might have been seen on our side as they fought the growing al Qaeda force in Yemen. But they weren’t. After an initial period of indirect ties with the ascending Houthi so the U.S. could continue drone strikes against AQAP, in the civil war that followed Saleh’s resignation, the U.S. backed the Saudi’s who supported Saleh’s successor against the Houthi.

Though the Houthis are attacking American ships now, it was the United States who first attacked the Houthis. In 2015, when Saudi Arabia led a coalition in the bombing and blockading of Yemen, the U.S. greenlighted and supported the Saudis. The U.S. provided the Saudis with weapons, logistical support and midair refueling for, and servicing of, the jets that were dropping the bombs.

There is an unbroken thread of claims that runs from Saleh to Joe Biden that the Houthis are an Iranian proxy acting on the Ayatollah’s behalf. But the thread is thin. From the earliest days of the Houthis, Saleh justified his offensives against them with the claim that he was doing America’s work in fighting the local end of a Houthi-Iran link. But, as Jeremy Scahill reveals in his book Dirty Wars, in a “classified cable, US officials acknowledged that the Houthis hadn’t attacked US interests or personnel since the fighting began in 2004 and raised serious questions about the extent of Iranian involvement.”

The Houthis belong to a branch of Shia Islam, but it is a very distinct branch from the Shia Islam of Iran. It was the war against Saudi Arabia that pushed the Houthis into a relationship with Iran, not Iran that pushed the Houthis into a war with Saudi Arabia. Iran does support and influence the Houthis, but the Houthis are not a simple proxy that acts at the will of Iran. Analysts have pointed out that Iran “bandwagons” on Houthis success as often as it causes it.

The U.S. has long known of the independence in the relationship. A 2015 NSC assessment said that “Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen.” U.S. intelligence agreed: “It is wrong to think of the Houthis as a proxy force for Iran,” a U.S. intelligence official told The Huffington Post.

Stacey Philbrick Yadav, the chair of international relations at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and the author of Yemen: in the Shadow of Transition, told Time in December 2023 that the Houthis “do have a relationship with and support from Iran, but are not a straightforward proxy of Iranian interests. They have their own locally defined interests and so I think that their actions in the past two months have reflected that.”

Stephen Zunes, Professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco and an expert on the Middle East, agrees. He told me after the Houthi attack on the Maersk Hangzhou that “If Iran didn’t like what they’re doing, they could probably stop it.” But, he added, it is also probable that the Houthis “initiated the attacks themselves.”

It is even possible that Iran lacks sufficient influence to stop the Houthis from carrying out actions of their choice. In 2014, as the Houthis advanced on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, Iran specifically urged them not to capture the city. The Houthis resisted the influence and captured the capital, effectively demonstrating Iran’s lack of control.

We are hearing about the Houthis today because we were not been listening before. After years of punishing war and an air and naval blockade that have led to a combined 377,000 deaths, the Houthis have emerged, not beaten, but stronger. They now control territory that is home to 70-80% of the population of Yemen and are negotiating a settlement with Saudi Arabia that would end their war and leave the Houthi as the official government of Yemen.

As they prepare to form a government in the poorest country in the Middle East, defending Palestinians and standing up to the United States is a potent way to gain legitimacy. In attacking ships in the Red Sea, the Houthis say  they are “performing their religious, moral and humanitarian duty in support and aid of those who have been wronged in Palestine and Gaza.” They promise to continue their operations in the Red Sea “until adequate supplies of food and medicine are allowed into Gaza.”

Aside from their own concern for the people of Palestine, Philbrick Yadav says that support for Palestine “is a way in which the Houthis can try to expand their appeal to Yemenis.” That appeal may not just be domestic. Zunes told me that the Houthis are likely “trying to gain legitimacy by supporting the Palestinian cause.” That legitimacy could solidify and enhance their status in the region.

The U.S. response to the illegal maritime threat coming from the Houthis has been to continue shelling Yemen, striking for the eighth time on January 22 in large-scale strikes of multiple targets coordinated with the U.K. in an operation now called Poseidon Archer. But after nearly a decade of the American-backed Saudi aerial assault, the Houthis have become very good at being bombed. The Houthis do not fear a U.S. attack. Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi went on T.V. to say that “the Yemeni people, are not among those who are afraid of America. We are comfortable with a direct confrontation with the Americans.”

Much of Yemen’s capacity to strike remains in tact. They have continued to strike ships in the Red Sea, and on January 15, the Houthis hit a U.S. owned cargo ship with a ballistic missile. On January 18, they targeted another. Though the U.S. strategy is unlikely to deter the Houthis, it is very likely to escalate the conflict with the Houthis and widen the war in Gaza: precisely the outcome the United States has been working so hard to avoid.

While insisting that the U.S. does not want war or a conflict of any kind with Yemen, The Washington Post reported on the day of the seventh missile strike that the Biden administration “is crafting plans for a sustained military campaign targeting the Houthis in Yemen.”

In the absence of exploring a diplomatic resolution with the Houthis, something the Biden administration will not do because of their resistance to the Houthis demand, there seems to be no choice but to continue a failed policy that risks undermining Washington’s foreign policy objective to contain the war. When President Joe Biden was asked on January 18 whether the air strikes on Yemen “are working,” he answered, “Well, when you say working, are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they going to continue? Yes.”

Ted Snider is a regular columnist on U.S. foreign policy and history at Antiwar.com and The Libertarian Institute. He is also a frequent contributor to Responsible Statecraft and The American Conservative as well as other outlets. To support his work or for media or virtual presentation requests, contact him at tedsnider@bell.net.

US Confirms It’s Entering Talks That Could Lead to US Withdrawal From Iraq

Reports indicate the US is also discussing the idea of withdrawing from Syria

by Dave DeCamp January 25, 2024 at 7:14 pm ET CategoriesNewsTagsIraq, Syria

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed on Thursday that the US and Iraq will start talks on the future of the US military presence in Iraq in the “coming days,” which could result in a US withdrawal.

Baghdad has been calling for an end to the presence of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition in response to recent US airstrikes in Iraq. Tensions are soaring as Iraqi Shia militias have been attacking US bases in both Iraq and Syria due to President Biden’s support for the Israeli slaughter in Gaza.

Austin said the two countries will convene a meeting of the US-Iraq Higher Military Commission (HMC), which was formed last summer. Signaling that the US wants to maintain some sort of presence in Iraq, Austin said the HMC will “enable the transition to an enduring bilateral security partnership between the United States and Iraq.”

There are about 2,500 US troops in Iraq as part of the anti-ISIS coalition, known as Operation Inherent Resolve. In recent years, the US presence in Iraq has been more about pushing back against Iran’s influence in the country as ISIS has been reduced to small remnants.

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has said that Iraq’s security forces can handle ISIS without the US. Austin said the “transition” in the US presence depends on three factors: “the threat from ISIS, operational and environmental requirements, and the Iraqi security forces’ capability levels.”

There have been reports that indicate the US is also considering ending its military occupation of eastern Syria. There are about 900 US troops, and the US is able to control about one-third of Syria’s territory by backing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Sources within the Pentagon and State Department told Foreign Policy that the White House “is no longer invested in sustaining a mission that it perceives as unnecessary.” Al-Monitor reported that the Pentagon floated a plan for the SDF to partner with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, which is under crippling US sanctions.

US officials told POLITICO that a withdrawal from Syria or Iraq is not imminent but did acknowledge there are conversations within the Biden administration about pulling troops out of Syria. However, another US official told CNN that the US was not considering leaving Syria.

Neocon Freak-Out as Biden Contemplates Iraq/Syria Withdrawal

by Daniel McAdams Posted onJanuary 26, 2024

Neocon heads like the Middle East Institute’s Charles Lister’s are exploding with the news today that the Biden Administration may be considering withdrawing from its illegal occupations in both Syria and Iraq.

First on Syria. As Lister opines in Foreign Policy:

…four sources within the Defense and State departments said the White House is no longer invested in sustaining a mission that it perceives as unnecessary. Active internal discussions are now underway to determine how and when a withdrawal may take place.

Lister, an early and stalwart supporter of the al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgency against Assad in Syria, warns of “the catastrophic effect that a withdrawal would have on U.S. and allied influence over the unresolved and acutely volatile crisis in Syria,” adding that, “it would also be a gift to the Islamic State.”

Ah. ISIS. Remember them? We haven’t heard anything from them in awhile. That moveable feast. From not long after Syria’s Assad invited Russia in to rescue the country as it teetered on the verge of total takeover by the US-backed “freedom fighters.”

But… suddenly and if on cue… they’re BACK! Just when after more than a hundred recent attacks on the US occupation bases have convinced even Biden and his “Middle East experts” that it’s only a matter of time before lots of American blood is shed, ISIS suddenly comes roaring back for the neocons to use in attempt to justify Washington’s continued presence in the region.

Very convenient.

But perhaps someone has reminded Biden that it’s an election year and voters might start questioning just why and under what authority American troops are stationed in Iraq and Syria. Especially as the “resistance” rockets (and missiles?) are getting closer.

Similarly to what Lister is panicking about regarding US occupation of Syria, CNN is reporting today that “US and Iraqi governments expected to start talks on future of US military presence in the country.”

Writes CNN’s deep state mouthpiece Natasha Bertrand, “The US and Iraq are expected to soon begin talks on the future of the US military presence in the country, according to sources familiar with the matter, amid public calls from the Iraqi government for the US to withdraw its troops.”

Bertrand quotes several denizens of DC’s “think-tank-topia” who warn that pulling out US “trip-wire” troops from Iraq and Syria could negatively effect their plans for war with Iran…er…could um…embolden ISIS!

Bertrand quotes MIC-funded CSIS “deep thinker” Jon Alterman:

Still, rumblings of a potential US change in its force posture in Iraq would be a victory for Iran, Alterman said. ‘Any sign that this is the beginning of the end would be widely celebrated in Iranian corridors.’

Ah yes! Should the US end its illegal occupation of Syria and Iraq, Iran would celebrate! Those dastardly mullahs! How dare they celebrate no hostile troops on their border!

You know who else would celebrate? Every single mother, wife, husband, and relative of those American troops being forced to sacrifice their very lives for an occupation that has zero to do with the US national interest.

Is Biden a cynical and bloodthirsty monster? No doubt. Is he (or his puppet masters) only concerned about keeping that ring in his hands for four more years? Absolutely. But would I celebrate and praise any decision by the Biden Administration to do the right thing and get the hell out of the Middle East, starting with the occupations of Iraq and Syria? You’re damn right!

As neocon loon Michael Ledeen famously said…”faster please!”

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute.

Daniel McAdams is Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity and co-Producer/co-Host, Ron Paul Liberty Report. Daniel served as the foreign affairs, civil liberties, and defense/intel policy advisor to U.S. Congressman Ron Paul, MD (R-Texas) from 2001 until Dr. Paul’s retirement at the end of 2012. From 1993-1999 he worked as a journalist based in Budapest, Hungary, and traveled through the former communist bloc as a human rights monitor and election observer.

US Troops in Iraq Are a Tripwire for War With Iran

by Scott Horton Posted onJanuary 23, 2024

The New York Times Monday noted the increasing likelihood that U.S. troops will be killed by mortars or rocket fire from Shi’ite militias in Iraq or Syria as they have been attacked and wounded repeatedly in the past three months as locals take revenge for Israel’s violence in Gaza. (AQI/ISIS sure have motive to attack and frame the Shi’ites too, btw.)

As Gen. Mattis said years ago:

“I paid a military security price every day as the commander of CentCom because the Americans were seen as biased in support of Israel, and that all the moderate Arabs who want to be with us, they can’t come out publicly in support of people who don’t show respect for the Arab Palestinians.”

The point is that as Israel escalates against Hezbollah and Syria, and the U.S. escalates in Syria and Iraq (they assassinated a Shi’ite militia leader with a drone strike in Baghdad two weeks ago, leading the government to demand US withdrawal) and against the Houthis in Yemen, the danger of a real regional war against all the Shi’ite countries and substate militias and terrorist groups is quite high.

The Times says the Biden regime says that if Americans are killed in Iraq, they will feel the political necessity to expand the war to Iran with at least what they consider limited strikes.

At that point it seems very likely it would be all bets off and the Ayatollah would go to war and urge the rest of the so-called Axis of Resistance, or Shi’ite Crescent, to join them.

Even if Russia and China do nothing but watch, the costs to the United States would be enormous. U.S. troops, airmen, sailors, etc. would be at risk in Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Saudi, along with an empire worth of equipment based in Qatar and Bahrain, home of CENTCOM and the center of American air power there, as well as the home of the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet.

Iran has thousands of missiles that can reach these targets, as well as air defenses which would be capable of destroying many air force and navy planes before air dominance over Iran could be achieved if it ever could at all, which may be a big assumption.

The Iraqi government and army would also virtually certainly take Iran’s side and join up with the militias to march on Iraqi Kurdistan and force U.S. troops out; same for Syria.

(Nevermind the danger of Hezbollah type groups wreaking havoc across the EU and hopefully not the U.S. too, nor the threat that U.S. Sunni client monarchies and dictatorships in the region could fall and be replace by who-knows-what.)

So then what is Biden supposed to do? Unleash our entire navy and air force (possibly even army, marines, SOCOM) against Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran at the same time — and all to continue to abet Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza?

In 2007, the Chiefs told W. Bush, No way. They don’t want to fight unless they know they will have “escalation dominance” over every stage of the conflict, and here they know they would not have it.

I move for a vote of no confidence in President Biden’s leadership.

Scott Horton is editorial director of Antiwar.com, director of the Libertarian Institute, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from ScottHorton.org. He’s the author of the 2021 book Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and the editor of the 2019 book, The Great Ron Paul: The Scott Horton Show Interviews 2004–2019. He’s conducted more than 5,500 interviews since 2003. Scott’s articles have appeared at Antiwar.com, The American Conservative magazine, the History News Network, The Future of Freedom, The National Interest and the Christian Science Monitor. He also contributed a chapter to the 2019 book, The Impact of War. Scott lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna Horton. He is a fan of, but no relation to the lawyer from Harper’s. Scott’s Twitter, YouTube, Patreon. View all posts by Scott Horton

How the Gaza War Can Be Big News and Invisible at the Same Time

by Norman Solomon Posted onJanuary 23, 2024

Zen wisdom tells us that the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon. Yet it’s easy to fall into the illusion that when we see news about the Gaza war, we’re really seeing the war.

We are not.

What we do routinely see is reporting that’s as different from the actual war as a pointed finger is from the moon.

The media words and images reach us light years away from what it’s actually like to be in a war zone. The experience of consuming news from afar could hardly be more different. And beliefs or unconscious notions that media outlets convey war’s realities end up obscuring those realities all the more.

Inherent limitations on what journalism can convey are compounded by media biases. In-depth content analysis by The Intercept found that coverage of the Gaza war by the New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times “showed a consistent bias against Palestinians.” Those highly influential papers “disproportionately emphasized Israeli deaths in the conflict” and “used emotive language to describe the killings of Israelis, but not Palestinians.”

What is most profoundly important about war in Gaza – what actually happens to people being terrorized, massacred, maimed and traumatized – has remained close to invisible for the U.S. public. Extensive surface coverage seems repetitious and increasingly normal, as death numbers keep rising and Gaza becomes a routine topic in news media. And yet, what’s going on now in Gaza is “the most transparent genocide in human history.”

With enormous help from U.S. media and political power structures, the ongoing mass murder – by any other name – has become normalized, mainly reduced to standard buzz phrases, weaselly diplomat-speak and euphemistic rhetoric about the Gaza war. Which is exactly what the top leadership of Israel’s government wants.

Extraordinary determination to keep killing civilians and destroying what little is left of Palestinian infrastructure in Gaza has caused extremes of hunger, displacement, destruction of medical facilities, and expanding outbreaks of lethal diseases, all obviously calculated and sought by Israeli leaders. Thinly reported by U.S. media outlets while cravenly dodged by President Biden and the overwhelming majority of Congress, the calamity for 2.2 million Palestinian people worsens by the day.

“Gazans now make up 80 per cent of all people facing famine or catastrophic hunger worldwide, marking an unparalleled humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip amid Israel’s continued bombardment and siege,” the United Nations declared this week. The UN statement quoted experts who said: “Currently every single person in Gaza is hungry, a quarter of the population are starving and struggling to find food and drinkable water, and famine is imminent.”

Israel is waging a war toward extermination. But for the vast majority of Americans, no matter how much mainstream media they consume, the war that actually exists – in contrast to the war reporting by news outlets – remains virtually invisible.

Of course, Hamas’s Oct. 7 murderous attack on civilians and its taking of hostages should be unequivocally condemned as crimes against humanity. Such condemnation is fully appropriate, and easy in the United States.

“Deploring the crimes of others often gives us a nice warm feeling: we are good people, so different from those bad people,” Noam Chomsky has observed. “That is particularly true when there is nothing much we can do about the crimes of others, so that we can strike impressive poses without cost to ourselves. Looking at our own crimes is much harder, and for those willing to do it, often carries costs.”

With the U.S.-backed war on Gaza now in its fourth month, “looking at our own crimes” can lead to clearly depicting and challenging the role of the U.S. government in the ongoing huge crimes against humanity in Gaza. But such depicting and challenging is distinctly unpopular if not taboo in the halls of government power – even though, and especially because, the U.S. role of massively arming and supporting Israel is pivotal for the war.

“For the narcissist, everything that happens to them is a huge deal, while nothing that happens to you matters,” scholar Sophia McClennen wrote last week. “When that logic translates to geopolitics, the disproportionate damage only magnifies. This is why Israel is not held to any standards, while those who question that logic are told to shut up. And if they don’t shut up, they are punished or threatened.”

Further normalizing the slaughter are the actions and inaction of Congress. On Tuesday evening, only 11 senators voted to support a resolution that would have required the Biden administration to report on Israel’s human-rights record in the Gaza war. The sinking of that measure reflects just how depraved the executive and legislative branches are as enablers of Israel.

The horrors in Gaza are being propelled by the U.S. war machine. But you wouldn’t know it from the standard U.S. media, pointing to the moon and scarcely hinting at the utter coldness of its dark side.

Norman Solomon is the national director of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books including War Made Easy. His latest book, War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine, was published in 2023 by The New Press.

 

May His Like Never Be Seen Again

Scott Morrison Departs

by Binoy Kampmark / January 24th, 2024

His type should never be seen again.  Born from the dark well of swill and advertising, former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was always the apotheosis of politics’ worst tendencies: shallow form, public service for private interest, and, ultimately, the scrap for survival at the expense of the grand vision.  Get the vote, keep the seat.  Get the party in, forget the intellectual or social picture.  Bugger the broader society with a hefty stick, sod the beastly populace, betray your colleagues and everybody else besides: there is only me, Scomo, the man who will reliably fail you at every turn and stab you in the front, given a chance.

In a January 23 Facebook post, Morrison announced his decision to – and here, his priorities are clear – “leave parliament at the end of February to take on new challenges in the global corporate sector and spend more time with my family.”  Making the announcement now would “give my party ample time to select a great new candidate who I know will do what’s best for our community and bring fresh energy and commitment to the job.”

This was the sort of thing he should have done months ago, along with a few other former Coalition MPs.  Depart, disappear, vanish into history’s chronicles on refuse.  But Morrison is fastidious about soiling venerable institutions on his terms.  He does not so much dismantle as vandalise them in his own inimitable way.  Given the chance, he is likely to head off with his host’s toilet seat.

As a federal member for the seat of Cook, his lack of attention to the burghers must surely have been noted after his electoral defeat in May 2022.  Local representation, if taken seriously, is a grind, a series of constituency concerns, attending events and yawning at meetings.  It’s hard to tend to such things if you are on the payroll of the Hudson Institute being praised for countering “an increasingly assertive China in the Indo Pacific and beyond” or spending time in Israel praising that state’s execrable efforts in quashing aspirations for Palestinian statehood.

None of this bothers the departing Morrison as being inconsistent.  He can still say in his official statement of departure that he was “able to deliver new and upgraded sport and community infrastructure, such as major upgrades to our local surf clubs and new artistic installations and visitor facilities being provided at Cook’s landing site at Kurnell.”  And let’s not forget the charity work, the grants programs, and the activities he had a minimal hand in.

That remains Morrison’s talent: greased enough to wriggle out of failure; an opportunist determined to take credit for the successes of others.  Take one example.  Australia’s attempts to prevent the transmission and spread of COVID-19 during the global pandemic was mostly aided by the variable policies of the country’s states and territories.  The Commonwealth merely turned off the tap to visitors and, scandalously, Australian citizens desperate to return to their homeland.  Stranded, often impecunious, and left without resources in countries being ravaged by the coronavirus, such citizens were demonised rather than aided.

Morrison’s sole obligation, at that point, was to make sure that vaccines being developed would be made available to the public in due course.  Instead of ensuring standard, ready supply when the time came, the rollout, as it was termed, was a stuttering affair.  But the then Australian PM had a familiar retort: global supply lines had been “choked”.  Again, he wasn’t to blame.

The list of errors and stumbles is extensive, showing varying degrees of callousness and indifference.  When parts of Australia were being incinerated by bush fires in the latter part of 2019, he thought it wise to take an unannounced holiday to Hawaii.  He was forced to admit “regret” for “any offence caused to any of the many Australians affected by the terrible bushfires by my taking leave with family at this time”.

Like a walking advertisement of anachronism, he loved the fossil fuel industry with such passion he brought a lump of coal into Parliament to assure fellow lawmakers that they need not fear it.  He issued directives that the words “climate change” would not feature in environmental talks Australian diplomats would participate in.  He scorned the Pacific Island states for worrying about disappearing under the sea because Australia was not pulling its weight in cutting green-house gas emissions.

As a proponent of cruelty and plain sadism, Morrison’s true Pentecostal spirit was also on show.  As immigration minister, he presided over the “turn back the boats” policy of the Abbott government, treating the naval arrival of refugees and asylum seekers as a national security threat.  Towing boats out to sea, bribing traffickers to return, and sending broken, traumatised people to such Pacific prison outposts as Manus Island and Nauru, were all cloaked in the secrecy of Operation Sovereign Borders.  When the New York Times interviewed Morrison after becoming prime minister, the paper noticed that, “His office features a model migrant boat bearing the proud declaration ‘I Stopped These’.”

His qualifications as a dinner circuit speaker, boring lecturer, tedious advisor, and outrageously paid consultant, are next to nil.  But near the universe of zero, the cusp of talent’s infinite absence, opportunities bloom.  The corporate entities and think tanks, many keen to ensure the enduring power of the US imperium, will barely notice the man’s colossal ignorance, his cultural insensitivity, his lack of education.  What mattered was that he could be Washington’s stalking horse in the Indo Pacific.

Eventually, the member for Cook proved to be more than just that.  He would go so far as to sell off Australian sovereignty for a song via the AUKUS security agreement promising nuclear powered submarines, leaving the Australian taxpayer in bondage to Washington for the next half-century.  What a triumph that was, and if Samuel Johnson was right in calling patriotism the last refuge of the scoundrel, he would have had someone like Morrison in mind: the figure who uses patriotism as a guise for his own scoundrel cunning.Facebook

 Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

 

What If Our Society Valued Civics as It Does Entertainment?

by Ralph Nader / January 22nd, 2024

A teacher once said to me: “A society pays for what it values.” If so, our society values commercial entertainment, including spectator sports, orders of magnitude more than it values civics defined as the rights and duties exercised by citizens in a democracy.

What if we lived in a society that valued both equally?

1. Possibly the most visible event would be an annual Academy of Civic Heroes Awards viewed by tens of millions of people. The glitter would shine not on the winner’s wardrobes, but on their victories of justice and on their groundbreaking documentaries, books and features. The acceptance remarks would not be gushing flurries of thank yous, but concise evocations of their hard-earned struggles for, and portrayals of, a just society.

2. The school curriculum in our elementary, secondary and higher education institutions would provide academic parity for civics and civic skills with courses on business and science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

3. The media would provide significant space and time for citizen activities as they do for sports and the arts/movies. Presently the New York Times has a daily special Arts Section but not a special civic activity section. You know how much space is devoted to sports in the Times. Even NPR and PBS networks are heavy on entertainment and hardly feature any civic leaders or doers, whether to interview (they prefer to interview themselves or academics) or to report local or national civic actions.

4. Celebrities attract audiences and supporters. The media creates entertainment and sports celebrities. Except for a few years in the 1960s and 1970s, the media rarely highlights emerging civic leaders’ or their proven achievements. Therefore, these priceless advocates have difficulty attracting audiences or supporters.

5. We would celebrate anniversaries, in a broader fashion, beyond those remembering wars or other major acts of violence, natural disasters or revered presidents. Apart from the holiday in honor of citizen Martin Luther King Jr., little is formally remembered of the citizen leaders who built the edifices of justice for our country—for instance in the abolition of slavery, voting rights for women, and livelihoods and dignity rights for workers and farmers. Sure, they are sometimes mentioned in textbooks without much context or drama—but how many national civic leaders do you know in America today? They’re not covered on the degraded television/radio evening news.

6. The number of civic lobbyists would far outnumber those pressing for corporate privileges. Instead, companies from the drug, oil & gas and Silicon Valley businesses swarm over Capitol Hill with their promises of campaign money.

7. Parity would mean that big radio stations like WTOP in Washington, D.C. (news, weather and sports) could devote time to local civic activities as it does by giving free advertisements to opening businesses or movies. Business and entertainment have their slots by the hour or day while civic conferences and marches (as with ‘Poor People’s Campaign’) are regularly ignored.

As is routine with these stations, WTOP declined to mention or report the most expansive convention in American history of civic leaders, doers and thinkers over six days at the Constitution Hall in 2016. None of the 161 stalwart presenters, except Patti Smith, were athletes or entertainers.

8. Just as there is regular data on the number of engineers, scientists, accountants and others, there would be data on how many full-time citizens there are and how many are graduating with a major in “civil practice” (which does not exist, with very few exceptions).

9. Just as famous athletes’ and other entertainers’ clothing, equipment and autographs are selling for big money in the collectibles market, societal parity would have similar markets for citizen advocacy memorabilia which could help raise needed funds.

10 Parity of fund-raising or investment would mean hundreds of billions of dollars raised to fund tens of thousands of full-time civic groups—local, state and national—having a seat at the table where important decisions are now being made unilaterally, often in secret, by the few for the many. Civic society monies would pay for democracy’s own media—TV, radio/newspapers, magazines, and social media, owned and used by the people, not beholden to commercial advertisers.

There would be legions of knowledgeable full-time civic communicators and advocates taking knowledge to action that addresses the many serious perils—some rising to Omnicidal levels (see my January 12, 2024 column: “Five Omnicides Facing Our Unprepared World“)—that are now worsening and being ignored by a plutocratic/oligarchic corporate state.

As they do now for Wall Street and Silicon Valley riches, the young would rush to strengthen and lift up the structures of justice—“Justice is the great interest of man on earth” as Daniel Webster asserted. Regular civic engagement makes a democracy function productively and presciently for its citizenry and its posterity. Markets would be our servants, not our masters.

Alas, growing up corporate conditioned by the omnipresent values of aggressive commercialism over civic/democratic values is the lot of people indentured to choiceless lives shaped by merciless corporatism.

As corporations are increasingly raising our screen-addicted children by harmful direct marketing undermining parental authority and knowledge day after day, more and more people, regardless of their political labels, are realizing that this can no longer be tolerated. The people of good will and the tools of democratic transformation are available or attainable but mostly latent in our existing civic institutions.

My small example-rich paperback—Breaking Through Power: Its Easier Than We Think (City Lights, 2016) will encourage you to champion civic values.

Ralph Nader is a leading consumer advocate, the author of The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right, among many other books, and a four-time candidate for US President. Read other articles by Ralph, or visit Ralph's website.

 

The Green Mafia

Temperature and repression of dissent are on the rise around the world. In Italy, right-wing government forces are now branding nonviolent eco-activists as terrorists

THE FBI HAS BEEN DOING THAT SINCE 9/11

by Alexandria Schaner / January 23rd, 2024

Rivers turn green to denounce the failure of COP28. Banners: The government speaks, the earth sinks. | XR Italia – 9 Dec 2023

Rome, Venice, Milan, Turin, Bologna, & Bari, Italy

In a dimly lit room at the back of a little independent bookstore, two dangerous radicals, members of the notorious Green Mafia, plot against the fossil-capital regime:

Johnny Frontline: [panicking] “Godfather, I don’t know what to do…there’s a climate and ecological emergency and the government refuses to act. It’s still just blah blah blah. I don’t know what do.”

Don Vito Climatone: “You can start by acting like a rebel!” [smacks Johnny across the face] “What’s the matter with you?! You gonna just cry?! “Oh, what can I do? What can I do?” Listen, you look terrible. I want you to rest. I want you to eat. In a month from now, this government big shot’s gonna give us what we want…”

Johnny Frontline: [shakes head dejectedly] “It’s too late. They start drilling in a week.”

Don Vito Climatone: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse: tell the truth, act now, go beyond politics.”

End scene.

How much more oil must pass under the bridges? | XR Italia – Rome, 9 Dec 2023

If Extinction Rebellion Italy were to release this sketch it might be pushing the boundaries of creative messaging towards the absurd. Yet this flight of fancy didn’t need to be dreamed up by a young activist on TikTok – it was inspired by the rather more stodgy creatives over at the Government of Italy.

In a disturbing trend that has become the new normal in Italy, peaceful eco-activists are being branded a “danger to security and public order”, served with specious charges, banned from cities without trial, and criminalized under anti-terrorist laws intended to prosecute the Mafia.

While repression of dissent has been on the rise globally, from the use of terrorism (RICO) charges to intimidate Stop Cop City activists in Atlanta, Georgia to Milei’s anti-demonstration decrees in Argentina, right-wing forces within the Italian government are raising the bar, criminalizing any people who take to the streets to denounce the inability of governments to tackle the climate crisis.

Italy’s crackdown is no longer directed solely at the likes of Ultima Generazione, part of the A22 Network that includes Just Stop Oil and other vanguard direct action groups. Members of these smaller yet highly active groups have been continually hounded with illegitimate charges and regularly prosecuted to the maximum of penalties – and now the government’s tolerance for eco-activism of any sort continues to narrow.

Here’s the most recent example of what the Italian government considers so dangerous: On Dec 9 in a coordinated day of action, members of Extinction Rebellion turned the rivers of six cities green with a harmless dye to denounce the inaction of COP28, and used climbing gear to suspend themselves from bridges to show how life is hanging by a thread.

Papier-mâché houses were displayed sinking into the waters, while participants played music, made speeches, distributed leaflets, and engaged with curious pedestrians. Excited tourists flocked around with smartphones snapping selfies. The Don would be impressed with this level of brutal intimidation and hardcore criminal activity.

But this is no joke, especially for the Venice Police Commissioner. In line with right wing politicians like Venice’s Mayor Brugnaro and Infrastructure Minister Salvini, who has publicly stated that all activists should go to prison, the Venetian police claim they are defending the city from “a danger to security and public order”. In other words, people who simply participate in demonstrations are unilaterally deemed guilty of very serious crimes, formally designated “dangerous people” under the law, and are banned from entire cities.

Lotti, a young activist, plays her double bass under the Ponte di Rialto in Venice. She was arrested, and the instrument was confiscated by the police. | XR Italia – 9 Dec 2023

During the action in Venice, 28 people were arrested, including a random tourist and members of the press. They were held for eight hours with no outside communication. Cameras, musical instruments, and other equipment were confiscated. 27 charges and five city bans lasting 4-years were served, though the police were forced to revoke one expulsion order because it illegally banned a student from attending her university. To top it off, two additional “DASPO” bans were served – these are bans from public areas originally enacted to prevent repeatedly violent soccer fans from accessing sporting events.

Quite a response for combatting some tracing dye, a bit of papier-mâché, and a cello.

The police overreaction caused a public outcry. Fifty teachers from Ca’ Foscari University wrote an open letter calling the response an “intimidating and unhealthy act for a democratic society”. In Turin, a petition signed by 2500 people, including many professors, asked the government “to guarantee maximum freedom of demonstration and to avoid the criminalization of dissent”.

Deaf to the voices of the community they supposedly serve, the Venetian police continue to dig in their heels. Two weeks later, everyone identified with the Grand Canal action was summoned for an “oral warning”, a prelude to special state surveillance usually reserved for members of the Mafia. Days later, two more city bans were served, also based on illegitimate legal grounds.

“These complaints are a clear attempt to scare, intimidate, and isolate those who express dissent,” explains one of the activists expelled from Venice. “They are trying to redirect us towards fighting off charges instead of fighting against climate change.”

The Italian government is attempting to construct a narrative that defines those who join climate movements as eco-terrorists and criminals. Yet the more the government bears down on this strategy, the more ridiculous and transparent the Orwellian doublespeak becomes.

For example, when Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro condemned the protest, claiming that public transportation had been halted as a result, he failed to appreciate the irony of his own statements and received significant backlash on Twitter from citizens more concerned with rising sea levels flooding Venice than with banners on bridges.

While the government talks, we’re hanging by a thread. A gondola passes under XR activists “hanging by a thread” in protest of COP 28’s inaction. | XR Italia – Venice, 9 Dec 2023

“Due to the acrobatics of self-styled eco-activists, or rather eco-vandals, we had to interrupt the public transport service and navigation in the Grand Canal,” Brugnaro wrote in a statement released by Venice city hall. “Venice is a fragile city, to be loved and above all to be respected. Enough is enough,” he added.

Right, enough is enough. Venice, like the rest of our planet, is fragile. For eco-activists, and increasingly for all citizens, that’s exactly the point.

Last year, Venice was hit by such an extreme drought that it was impossible for gondolas, water taxis and ambulances to pass through some canals. And as the sea level rises more and more, activists in Italy are asking their government: who will you accuse when the Grand Canal is truly blocked because the sea has invaded Venice?

Nicholas Klein, a trade union activist, once said in a 1918 speech, “First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you”. For decades, eco-activists have been ignored, mocked, and now more and more, attacked. Authorities beholden to uphold the status quo, which is simultaneously burning and drowning the planet, have become so reactive to civil disobedience and public demonstration precisely because it threatens their control. They’ve got it right that eco-activists are dangerous, but dangerous to who?

Such activism threatens only to expose the truth and mobilize demand for real change. This is the great crime of the Green Mafia against the henchmen of extinction. Their disruption is pushing the justice system and can end when the police do their job – stop criminalizing ordinary people and start investigating the real criminals fueling climate change.

Alexandria Shaner (she/her) is a sailor, writer, & organizer. She is a staff member of ZNetwork.org and active with Extinction Rebellion, Caracol DSA, & the Women’s Rights & Empowerment Network. Read other articles by Alexandria.