The following excerpt from a “Letter to the Editor” recently published by a local paper illustrates the emotional core of stiff-upper-lipped worship for US-led occupations and micromanagement of the world:

Response to “Iraq’s welfare situation”…

Hmm, that’s funny. I thought we went to Iraq to get rid of a madman who was single-handedly responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of one single race; uh, I think that’s called genocide. Oh, but it’s all about the oil. I don’t think so. We are trying to clean up the mess that he left behind. We are trying to feed the people that he left to starve. We are trying to help a nation establish a strong democracy, so they will not be taken over by a bunch of tyrants, namely Iran, and Al Queda and many more mad men who are after control of the oil. What would we do if that happened?

I don’t believe that is “welfare.” I believe that is in the interest of human welfare. There is a big difference between the two. One statement that makes sense to me comes from a simple comic book called “Spiderman.” I know, it sounds odd, but I believe in this statement whole-heartedly. Are you ready? Here it is, “With great power comes great responsibility.” And we are a great nation, and it is our great responsibility to help those who are in need of help.

The reason Barack Obama, a right-of-centre humanitarian interventionist, can’t be viewed at the helm of the USS Security in the eyes of Americans like Ms. Blain is due to his pretension that the people it is “our great responsibility to help” can eventually be trusted to manage their own affairs.

Obama’s promise to leave troops behind to protect U.S. interests is no different than McCain’s plan to have the troops out by 2012 yet Obama besmirches the great sacrifice by reminding that he initially opposed the war. It is in the interest of helping weak and corruptible Iraqis achieve the freedom to respect if not love America that the permanent occupation must take place. It never mattered to supporters of war that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Lies were told to convince wafflers like Obama that the invasion was necessary.

This is the reason Obama’s foreign tour eroded his poll numbers. The military mindset is power through strength not peace through mutual respect and cooperation. To borrow a phrase from Queen, “We are the champions, we are the champions, of the world.” And don’t you forget it.

“To flirt with rescue when one has no intention of being saved…”

Wikipedia is an amazing interactive instrument of self-education. According to it, the thematic similarities of “We Are the Champions” to the following song may have been intentional:

Dorothy Naor, New Profile, 20 August 2008

This evening spouse and I went to see Avi Mugrabi’s new movie: Z32. Very strong, as are his documentaries generally. I recommend it should it come your way.

To me it was in some ways personal. Some years back my spouse and I translated a number of testimonies for Breaking the Silence (spouse did by far most of the work). Tonight’s story was about the conduct of one of the participants in one of the testimonies among those we translated. It was not emotionally easy to read when translating, nor is it when hearing it. It is mainly about the soldier’s feelings in retrospect, that is, of them at the time he performed the act. Now, some years later, no longer a soldier, he realizes that what he did was a war crime. But that is not the main point. The main point is that at the time that he committed the act of killing an innocent person, he saw nothing wrong with it. Why? Because he perceived Arabs to be the enemy rather than human beings. Thus when he killed, he did not feel that he was killing a human being.

Continue reading →

By Fidaa Abed, San Diego Union-Tribune, 15 August 2008

This article was originally was originally published by San Diego Union-Tribune and is republished with permission.

As a young Palestinian from Gaza, I had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to study at the University of California San Diego on a Fulbright scholarship. The chance to escape Gaza’s confines and immerse myself in an American education was deeply thrilling. With Israel controlling Gaza’s border exits, air space and sea access – notwithstanding its “pullout” of 2005 – I imagined the long, open roads of the United States and its people’s unchallenged freedom of movement.

I love my people and my homeland, but a young person needs opportunities. These are far more abundant in the United States than in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Last week, I landed in Washington, D.C., brimming with optimism. Upon arrival, I was whisked into a separate room. An American official informed me that he had just received information about me that he could not reveal. However, it required him to put me on the next plane home. I was shocked. And I was taken aback at the cruelty of snatching away my educational dreams at the last possible moment.

Continue reading →

Mark Nickolas, Political Base, 17 October 2008

The blogosphere is abuzz right now over the discovery that a POW story told by John McCain (R) at Saturday night’s presidential forum is eerily similar to one told by Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his famous book The Gulag Archipelago which chronicled his time in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s and 1960s.

Here’s what McCain told Saddleback Church’s Pastor Rick Warren last night — according to the unofficial transcript released by the church:

[Read the article]

Updated 21 August:

Continue reading →

NICOSIA, CYPRUS (18 Aug. 2008) – In a letter today to the Free Gaza Movement, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledged that the group of international human rights activists attempting to break the siege of Gaza were “humanitarian,” and stated that the Israeli government “assume[s] that your intentions are good.”

Greta Berlin, one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement stated that, “Since the Foreign Minister’s office responded to our invitation to join us, and said that we have good intentions, we now fully expect to reach Gaza.”

According to recent reports in the Israeli media however, the Israeli military is preparing to use force to stop the nonviolent campaigners from reaching Gaza. It’s not clear if the letter from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs signals a change of policy, or is simply an attempt to open up an official dialogue between the state of Israel and the Free Gaza Movement regarding the current blockade.

[Read the article]