Refrains from Bahrain describe growing menace to activists
By Dan Lieberman | Alternative Insight | May 4th, 2011
The media and world bodies have ignored the Bahrain protests, making it difficult to know what is happening. Emails from an activist in Bahrain illuminate some of the occurrences and highlight how the struggle has grown from seeking equality in life to receiving a punishing death.
Apr 6
Dear Friends,
Hope this email finds you well.
To update you on recent events in Bahrain:
Report by the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights: Thousands are subjected to dismissal of work as part of severe clampdown on all who joined or openly supported the protest movement. King’s son says: No escape for opponents of his father:
ILO Director-General sounds alarm on situation of workers in Bahrain:
“Policemen Murder Suspects Go On Trial before the Lower State Safety Court”
“Bahrain University Fires College Dean, 7 Teachers, 25Administrators and 62 Students”
“It has also sacked 25 administrators, 62 students and suspended 8 others for a whole academic year. Five other students enrolled at foreign universities for their PhD degrees had their state scholarships stopped.” It is important to note that the incident of the University of Bahrain was mentioned in the BCHR report on “Unfounded stories of sectarian clashes and violence by protesters”:
“Ministry of Social Affairs has decided to dissolve the Bahrain Teacher’s Society and suspend the Bahrain Medical Society today.” President of the Bahrain Teacher’s Society, was arrested today.
“The US officials expressed thanks and respect to HRH the Crown Prince praising the kingdom’s ongoing development march for the past tenors as well as Bahrain’s pioneering regional and international role.”
Apr 8
Dear Friends,
URGENT NEWS; A prominent human rights defender and former Mena director at Frontline defenders, Abdulhadi Alhkawaja has just been arrested along with two of his son-in-laws- Wafi Almajid and Hussein Ahmed. They broke the front door to the house and then beat them severely along with Mohammad Almasqati, the president of the Bahrain youth society of human rights. But they through Mohammad into a room and told him not to come out and then closed the door. Abdulhadi Alkhawaja was beaten so severely that the blood stain is still visible on the stair case. And when his oldest daughter, Zainab, tried to intervene she was beaten as well.
On their search for Abdulhadi Alkhawaja they went to his apartment first and didn’t find him there. They then went to his cousin’s house and he wasn’t there either but his cousin, Habib Alhalwachi, was and they arrested him. They finally went to the home of his daughter, Zainab Alkhawaja, and found him, arrested him and two others as mentioned above. Urgent pleas for intervention as all three are under arrest, high risk of torture, and their lives may be in danger.
Apr 9
Dear Friends,
Today the Ministry of Interior released news that two detainees died while in custody. The first, Ali Isa Saqer, who was charged with allegedly running over a policeman and killing him, was said to have “created chaos at the detention center and that led to the interference of security forces to bring situation to normal, but he resisted them and sustained various injuries in the process. He was referred to the hospital and died later.”
The second man, Zakariya Rashid Hassan, was allegedly “found dead on Saturday morning at the Detention Center.” The MOI alleges that he died due to sickle cell anemia. This is the second case of death allegedly due to sickle cell anemia in detention centers by Bahraini Authorities.All detainees (currently numbered at around 600, amongst them 25 women two of whom are pregnant) are at very high risk of torture, and their lives are at threat. I will be sending the updated list as soon as it is translated in English.
In an update on the Al-Khawaja case, Minister of foreign affairs wrote on twitter: “He (Alkhawaja) was arrested for charges to be brought against him legally . He violently resisted the arrest and had to be subdued” and then went on to say: “He (Alkhawaja) is not a reformer. He called for the overthrow of the legitimate regime”
You can read the details of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja’s arrest as told by his daughter who was present at the time to Human Rights Watch:
There are still ongoing protests and candlelit vigils which get attacked every night in different villages in Bahrain causing more injuries. Tens of people are staying at home despite serious injuries, some with shrapnel in their eyes, out of fear of going to the hospitals which are still under the control of the security forces.
Again, we call for urgent intervention as many lives are under threat.
Apr 10
Dear Friends,
I am writing to you in urgency as we have pictures which now show that Isa Saqer, who’s death the Ministry of Interior announced yesterday, show torture marks on his body. The pictures are graphic. It is important to note that Zakaria alAsheri, who’s death was also announced yesterday, is a blogger who was arrested because of his responsibility for www.al-dair.net. Al Asheri’s family has informed us that Zakaria never had sickle cell anemia, which the authorities said was the cause of death. Again, all detainees are under high risk of torture and their lives are at threat.
There is still no news about Abdulhadi Alkhawaja or his sons-in-law. Their whereabouts are still unknown and lawyers have not been able to reach them. There is grave concern for his well-being and and his life. There is concern for Abdulhadi’s eldest daughter, Zainab, who has been talking to the media about her father’s arrest and has been working on documenting cases. She has already received death threats and threats of arrest from members of the royal family due to her speaking out. Zahra Alsingace, Abduljalil AlSingace’s 23 year old daughter, was arrested and interrogated today for a few hours then released. They made her open her facebook page and went through it. Her older brother Hussain remains in detainment as does her father, and her brother Hassan is in hiding as the authorities are looking for him.
Apr 10
Dear Friends,
After broadcasting the pictures I sent you of Isa Saqer and a video of him, the Ministry of Interior put news on their formal website that Nabeel Rajab was to be referred to the Military Public Prosecutor for allegedly having “published in his twitter account a fabricated image of “Ali Isa Saqer” who died on 9 April 2011″ We have reason to believe that he is at high risk of arrest. If Nabeel does get arrested, and after the arrest of Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, Mohammed AlMasqati and Sayed Yousif AlMuhafdah (who is in hiding) will be the only human rights activists left inside Bahrain.
Apr 17
Dear Friends,
Hope this email finds you well.
Defense lawyer Mohammed AlTajer was arrested by Bahraini authorities on the 15th of April. You can read the Human Rights Watch report about it here.
Zainab Alkhawaja’s health has deteriorated immensely and she was moved to a hospital where her family was told that if they give her IV they would have to inform the Ministry of Interior. She went home without receiving the IV. Thereabouts of her father Abdulhadi Alkhawaja and her family members are still unknown. Groups are launching a mass hunger strike starting tomorrow in Bahrain. There are also people around the world who have said that they will join the hunger strike as well.
Detained Women / Detained Men / Disappeared
# 30 women are being detained, 3 of them are reportedly pregnant;
# 571 men have been detained;
# An estimated 20-25% of those detained are under the age of 18 years old, with the youngest being 12 years old, Ahmed Ali Abbas Yahya Thamer;
# 40 people are listed as “missing” and not included in the numbers above;
# 17 doctors have been detained;
# Some of those detained were taken from their hospital beds worthy were being treated for injuries received;# Others were taken in the pre-dawn hours from their homes by masked and armed security forces who produced no ID’s, warrants or official charges;
# Most of those detained have been without contact with their familiar with legal counsel of any sort;
# At least 4 people have died during detention, and the govt claims they died from kidney failure or sickle cell disease, but families deny health conditions and clear indications of torture are present on their bodies; and
# The whereabouts of most of the detainees are not known.
Mr Fadhel Abbasof the National Democratic Assembly was not allowed to travel on the 15thof April when he tried to leave to Tunisia for a conference. No reason was given for his travel ban. I have attached copy of the letter sent to the Oxford Aviation Academy asking them to immediately send back certain Bahraini students.
Apr 20
Dear Friends,
Abdulhadi Alkhawaja called his wife today to let her know that he will be appearing before a military court tomorrow (21st April) at 8am (Bahrain time). He also asked for some clothes. No official charges have been declared against him yet. His sons in law also requested clothes to be brought to what is known as the “Qala’a”, the ministry of interior. His daughter Zainab ended her hunger strike today. Yesterday: “Seven people accused of murdering policemen Kashef Ahmed Mandhour and Mohammed Farooq Abdulsamad have today appeared before the Lower National Safety Court.”
University of Bahrain dismisses 200 students, academicians, admins, employees and security guards:
Amnesty International puts out an urgent appeal on detained defense lawyer Mohammed AlTajer who’s brother has now also been detained, Mohsin AlTajer. Several more arrests have taken place, amongst them a few women. The number of detainees until yesterday was 802, amongst them 52 women, not counting the arrests that took place today. There is still an ongoing campaign of demolishing Shiaa mosques and vandalizing “Matams” which belong to the Shia’a sect.
Apr 23
Dear Friends,
Hope this email finds you well.
Amnesty International: Ebrahim Sharif feared tortured
OMCT: Ongoing incommunicado and arbitrary detention of Mr. Abdulhadi Al Khawaja.
Alkhawaja’s family fears he is being subjected to torture as his voice was very weak when he called and he kept repeating “the oppression is great“. There is fear that Alkhawaja may be undergoing military trial without allowing him lawyers or contact with his family.
Important report by Physicians for Human Rights
A group of female students and teachers were rounded up at a governmental high school, interrogated and beaten, please read more at the bottom of this email. After Nasser bin Hamad promised on national television that “a wall will fall on the heads of all those who called for the fall of the regime”, and that they knew who was with them and who was against them; a loyalty campaign was started under his patronage telling people to sign a pledge of allegiance for the King.
Presence of security forces inside villages to terrorize residents.
27 Shia’a mosques have been demolished by security forces in Bahrain. Some of these mosques have important historical and religious context.
This is a video someone put together documenting the demolitions and some of the vandalizing acts against other religious Shia’a institutions .
More than 100 “Mudhayefat” (stands that are built usually for distribution of food and drink during Shia’a religious events) have also been taken down.
Video documenting some of the human rights violations in Bahrain:
I am alarmed that many governments around the world continue to stay silent about the massive human rights violations taking place in Bahrain. It is especially alarming to see those considered allies to Bahrain to continue to say nothing to their ally which is terrorizing it’s own people on a daily basis, and with 800+ detainees under high risk of torture. I urge all of you to do what you can to pressure your governments to take a stronger stand on the violations taking place in Bahrain. Silence about the violations in Bahrain will also give a green light to other oppressive regimes in far they can go in suppressing protests in their countries before international community will take a strong stand.
Apr 27
Dear Friends,
In alarming news, the military general prosecutor has called for the death sentence for 7 men charged with killing police officers.
More arrests are taking place on an almost daily basis. Authorities have announced today that they will be releasing 312 detainees, updated list of detainees will be sent out as soon as it is ready.
Apr 28
Dear Friends,
Death Sentence:
Ali Hassan AlSingace: 19 years old
Qasim Hasan Matar: 20 years old
Saeed Abduljalil Saeed: 19 years old
AbdulAziz AbdulRidha: 24 years old
Life Sentences:
Isa Abdulla Kadhem: 19 years old
Sayed Sadiq Ali: 19 years old
Hussain Jaffar: 19 years old
As taken from the Bahrain News Agency:
On the website (video 2) the “confessions” have been broadcasted, which seem to be the only “evidence” provided by the prosecution.
Manama, April 28 (BNA) — The National Safety Lower Court on Thursday condemned Ali Abdullah Hassan Al Singees, Qasim Hasan Matar Ahmad, Saeed Abduljalil Saeed and Abdulaziz Abdulridha Ibrahim Husain to death for their role in the killing of Policemen Kashef Ahmed Madhoor and Mohammed Farooq Abdulsamad.
The court also condemned Isa Abdullah Kadhem Ali, Sayyed Sadiq Ali Mahdi and Husain Jaafar Abdulkareem to life in prison for their role in the twin murders. The case of the murders by the seven men was referred to the court following an intensive investigation by the competent authorities. Lawyers have the right to appeal the verdict before the National Safety Court of Appeals. Present at the session during which the verdict was pronounced were journalists from the local media, representative from human rights organisations, relatives of the defendants, lawyers and the defendants. Kashef Ahmed Mandhoor and Mohammed Farooq Abdulsamad were murdered last month when they were deliberately hit by vans and run over in one of the most gruesome murders in Bahrain. The killing was captured on camera and displayed on TV networks and on social networks Facebook and You Tube. The defendants had all their legal rights in line with human rights standards and had lawyers representing them during the trial. They were also allowed to contact their families. The trial sessions were attended by representative from human rights organisations and relatives of the defendants.
~
Dan Lieberman can be reached at: alternativeinsight@earthlink.net
Venezuelan Government Demands End to U.S. Occupations Following Supposed bin Laden Killing
By Tamara Pearson – Venezuelanalysis.com – May 3rd 2011
Mérida – Following the announcement by the U.S. government that its forces had supposedly killed Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, in Pakistan, the Venezuelan government released an official statement, rejecting the use of “terror to fight terrorism”.
The statement criticises the “military operation carried out by U.S. forces in Pakistan without the knowledge of Pakistani authorities” and reminds the public that bin Laden was trained by U.S. intelligence before becoming a “pretext for the current wars against Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, assuming bin Laden’s announced death is true, demands an immediate stop to the occupation and violence provoked by the U.S. in Central Asia with the alleged intention of neutralizing bin Laden.”
“Considering the atrocities and illegal nature of the methods used by the U.S. government, the Venezuelan government is still convinced – as it warned in 2001 – that terrorism cannot be fought with more terror, nor can violence be fought with more violence. The Venezuelan government is convinced that respect for the people’s dignity and sovereignty is an indispensable condition to consolidate global peace and security,” the statement continued.
Venezuelan vice-president Elias Jaua criticised the celebration of the killing of bin Laden, as has been happening in the United States, and said, “I never cease to be surprised by how crime and murder has been naturalised, and how it’s celebrated.”
Legislator Celia Flores, speaking on behalf of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) at a press conference, agreed, saying her party “celebrates life not death,” and the party wanted to reaffirm its position against terrorism and for peace and an ending of all military aggression, globally.
Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV) legislator Carolus Wimmer also commented that “[U.S. President Barack] Obama is legitimising execution without trial as an imperialist policy”.
“This practice delegitimises…institutions that they [the U.S.] themselves created within the system of the United Nations…such as the International Criminal Court. What do such institutions exist for if execution is applied and the opposing party isn’t permitted any kind of defence,” he said.
“I think the peoples of the Middle East and of Northern Africa should request that the U.S. troops leave their territory…because this [bin Laden] was their main excuse for being there,” Wimmer concluded.
Flores also condemned the killing of the son and three grandchildren of Libyan head of state Muammar El Gaddafi after a bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Through a press release, the Venezuelan ministry of foreign affairs also commented on the Libyan events, saying, “This vile crime is particularly serious as it was preceded by the illegal bombing of the national Libyan television headquarters…just a few hours after the Libyan leader [Gaddafi] had put together a proposal for a negotiated solution to the crisis, clearly showing who wants war and who wants peace.”
The statement called the bombings “cruel and cowardly, that day after day massacres civilians of that sister African nation” and communicated Chavez’s condolences to Libya and the family of the victims.
The statement concluded affirming that “the Bolivarian government demands the United Nations condemn this act of war.”
Bahrain Charges Shi’ite Doctors for Treating Protesters
By Jason Ditz | Anti-war.com | May 03, 2011
The Bahraini regime has announced today that it intends to charge as many as 50 medical workers, including dozens of doctors, with “promoting efforts to bring down the government” and general charges of being involved in an “anti-state conspiracy.”
The Justice Ministry confirmed the charges included efforts to “create sedition within the kingdom” by providing medical treatment to protesters wounded in the regime’s crackdown. The doctors will be charged in the same secretive military court which sentenced four protesters to death last week.
Some of the doctors also face charges for reporting on the killings in the international media, and sending medicine out to wounded protesters who were unable to reach the hospital. The Bahraini state media insisted that the doctors “violated all humanitarian, religious, ethnical and genuine citizenship values and norms” in treating dissidents. … Full article
From Press TV:
… Physicians for Human Rights say doctors and nurses have been detained, tortured, or disappeared because they have “evidence of atrocities committed by the authorities, security forces, and riot police” in the crackdown on anti-government protesters. …
Palestinians sign unity agreement
Press TV – May 3, 2011
A long-awaited unity deal between Palestinian movements of Hamas and Fatah has been signed in the Egyptian capital city of Cairo.
The signing ceremony was held as representatives of 13 Palestinian factions were present on Tuesday, AFP reported.
Acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas attended the meeting.
“We signed the deal despite several reservations. But we insisted on working for the higher national interest,” said Walid al-Awad, a politburo member of the Palestine People’s Party.
“We have discussed all the reservations. Everyone has agreed to take these points into consideration,” he told Egyptian state television.
“Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank will be celebrating this agreement… We must now work to implement what was agreed in the deal,” he noted.
The two sides reached an understanding in Cairo last Wednesday to establish an interim unity government and hold presidential and legislative elections within a year.
The two factions have been at odds since the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006.
Following Hamas’s election victory, Fatah set up headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, thus limiting governance by Hamas to the Gaza Strip, a comparably smaller portion of Palestinian territories.
Bahrain Arrests Opposition Leaders After Public Criticism
By Jason Ditz | Anti-war.com | May 02, 2011
Following an interview on al-Jazeera TV in which he blasted the regime, opposition MP Mattar Ibrahim Mattar was arrested by the Bahraini government today, along with MP Jawad Ferooz, the Vice President of the Wefaq Party.
The two were key members of the Shi’ite Wefaq faction, which backed the public protests among Bahrain’s Shi’ite majority, and both resigned (along with every single opposition MP) to protest the crackdown against protesters.
The arrests came after Mattar told al-Jazeera that his faction was receiving threats from the regime since the crackdown ended the protests, including killing the detained brother of a Wefaq MP. He added that while the government backed off its proposed ban of Wefaq the group remains under intense pressure.
Human rights groups were quick to criticize the arrests, and expressed concern that the regime has not revealed where the two are being held. The Bahraini Interior Ministry confirmed the killing of the detained protester, insisting he was causing problems at the detention center.
Israeli occupation forces assault, injure 60 year old American woman
Ma’an – May 1, 2011
QALQILIYA — Israeli forces injured an American activist and detained three other foreign nationals Sunday, as they attempted to stop Israeli bulldozers from razing Palestinian agricultural land east of Qalqiliya, witnesses said.
International solidarity activists gathered in Izbat At-Tabib in the northern West Bank on privately-owned Palestinian property, which Israel seeks to confiscate for the construction of a wall around Jewish-only settlements in the area.
Soldiers pushed over a 60-year-old American woman with the Michigan Peace Team, who fell and was taken to hospital with a suspected broken wrist, witnesses said.
They added that Israeli forces detained two British activists and one Swedish activist.
A Ma’an correspondent said Israeli officials ordered a group of journalists to leave the area, threatening to arrest them for being in a closed military zone.
Residents said Israeli authorities had issued them warrants earlier in April informing them that their land would be confiscated.
An Israeli army spokesman said soldiers were in the area to secure the engineering team, but that it was border police who carried out the arrests.
A border police spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Egyptian youth call for million-man marches to support Palestinians
Middle East Monitor | April 28, 2011
A call for “million-man” marches in support of the Palestinians has been made by Egypt’s Coalition of the Youth of the Revolution. The first march, to be held in Alexandria on 13 May, will also demand the opening of the Egypt-Gaza border for food, medical and humanitarian aid; marchers will head for the Israeli Consulate in the city.
According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Shorouk, the protests will put pressure on the Zionist state by demanding that the Egyptian government stops exporting natural gas to Israel, as the Israelis use it to produce military equipment used against Palestinians. The protesters will also call for a review of the Camp David accords to remove the inbuilt favouritism towards the Zionist state.
The youth coalition said that it will coordinate with various political groups to prepare a number of aid and medical convoys to be sent to Gaza. Care will be taken to ensure that the protests are peaceful, especially any which gravitate towards the Rafah border crossing.
There is a risk, said a spokesperson, of a confrontation between the Egyptian Army, which is protecting the national borders, and the revolutionaries. Such a confrontation would distract participants from their main objective, which is “to pressure the ruling regime in Egypt to take a decisive stance on the issue of exporting natural gas to Israel, which can be important in weakening Israeli military power”.
Bernard-Henri Levy, philosopher and hypocrite
By Gilad Atzmon | Redress | 29 April 2011
What makes one a philosopher?
Probably, the capacity to aim at the essence of things, while celebrating the love of wisdom (philo-sophos).
Although Bernard-Henri Lévy presents himself as a French philosopher, he seems to lack that elementary capacity. Unlike a true philosopher, Levy engages in an endless spin, typical of a hasbara – Israeli propaganda – agent.
On 2 February the Huffington Post gave a platform to the so-called “philosopher” Levy.
Levy doesn’t approve of the Boycott, Disinventment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. He claims that the campaign is “anti-democratic”.
Levy the Israeli propagandist
I would have expected Levy eloquently to advocate freedom of speech and human rights, but the Zionist “intellectual” failed miserably. Levy followed the well-trodden Judaeo-centric Zionist template and spouted half-baked ideas that hardly form an argument. Pathetically, Levy’s ranting is mostly counter-productive to his own cause.
“First of all” he said, “one boycotts totalitarian regimes, not democracies… One can boycott Sudan, guilty of the extermination of part of the population of Darfur. One can boycott China, guilty of massive violations of human rights in Tibet and elsewhere. “
For some bizarre reason, Levy seems to be convinced that his beloved Jews-only state is an “exemplary democracy”. He says: “One does not boycott the only society in the Middle East where Arabs read a free press, demonstrate when they wish to do so, send freely-elected representatives to parliament and enjoy their rights as citizens.”
I guess that Levy either doesn’t know or pretends not to know that in the “Jews-only democracy” laws are racially orientated. The Law of Return, for instance, favours Jews and Jews only.
Levy should also learn about the case of Azmi Bishara, the Arab citizen of Israel and member of the Israeli parliament, who had to run for his life for suggesting that Israel should be transformed into a “state of all its citizens” based on equality for all.
But it actually goes much further.
Levy’s argument is totally flawed and counterproductive to his Zionist cause. It is actually democracies, rather than dictatorships, that should be subjected to humanitarian boycotts because in democracies the people are complicit in their governments’ crimes.
We must boycott Israel because in the Jewish state every citizen is culpable in the war crimes committed by the democratically-elected government. We must boycott Israel because 94 per cent of its Jewish population supported the Israeli armed forces’ genocidal tactics during Operation Cast Lead against the people of Gaza. We must boycott Israel because its state-terror policies are a reflection of the public’s true will as proven in opinion polls and democratic elections.
According to Levy, in a democracy the voters have the power to sanction, modify and reverse the position of their government. It would be fabulous if Levy could enlighten us and suggest how exactly the Jews-only democracy is progressing towards an acceptance of universal rights for all.
Apologist for racism
As with all hasbara agents, Levy is outraged by the attempt to delegitimize Israel, yet, the philosopher in him fails to tell us what is exactly so wrong in delegitimizing a racially-driven, murderous collective. I also wonder what is so unacceptable about delegitimizing a state that was illegitimate to start with.
Levy doesn’t approve of the “one-state” enthusiasts. He far prefers to divide the land into two states. Someone had better remind this lame mind that Israel is currently one state that is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
Those who support one state are actually far from being radical. They have their feet on the ground. They accept Israel as one state, with one international dialing code and one power grid.
However, the supporters of one state also realize that one-state Israel is dominated by Jewish Talmudic racism that is far more vicious than Nazi ideology. Proponents of the one state also realize that by the time Jewish racist ideology is defeated this one state between the river and the sea will become Palestine.
Levy is furious with one-state advocate Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, who, according to him, “does not hesitate to compare Israel to Nazi Germany”. It would be a little bit more useful if “philosopher” Levy is kind enough to suggest to us once and for all what is so wrong with comparing the Jews-only state with the Aryans-only state also known as Nazi Germany.
Towards the end of his Huffington Post article, Levy comes up with something that could almost pass for an argument. For Levy, the Western world should have hoped to be “cured of its worst criminal past”. It would be helpful and productive if Levy and other Zionists grasp that it is actually the West’s problematic past that shapes our criticism of the murderous Israeli present. It is our troubled past that makes us into enemies of racist Israel.
I was looking forward to read a Zionist “thinker” advocating for Israel. Levy obviously failed.
However, I admit that, as with Levy, I also have reservations regarding the BDS movement.
For instance, I believe that if the demand to boycott Israeli academics is valid, then we should also boycott academics and intellectuals who advocate Israeli policies and Zionism worldwide, because Israel is racist to the bone and racism must be opposed. If the BDS movement is taking itself seriously, then it should also demand the boycott of Levy, Alan Dershowitz, David Hirsh and many others.
On the one hand, this would underline the BDS movement’s integrity. But as an advocate of freedom of speech, I actually want Dershowitz, Hirsh and Levy to speak their minds. I believe that together with Mark Regev, they are the best promoters of Zionist tribal morbidity.
I’ll take the reactionary over the murderer, thanks
By Charles Davis | False Dichotomy | April 27, 2011
Ron Paul is far from perfect, but I’ll say this much for the Texas congressman: He has never authorized a drone strike in Pakistan. He has never authorized the killing of dozens of women and children in Yemen. He hasn’t protected torturers from prosecution and he hasn’t overseen the torturous treatment of a 23-year-old young man for the “crime” of revealing the government’s criminal behavior.
Can the same be said for Barack Obama?
Yet, ask a good movement liberal or progressive about the two and you’ll quickly be informed that yeah, Ron Paul’s good on the war stuff — yawn — but otherwise he’s a no-good right-wing reactionary of the worst order, a guy who’d kick your Aunt Beth off Medicare and force her to turn tricks for blood-pressure meds. By contrast, Obama, war crimes and all, provokes no such visceral distaste. He’s more cosmopolitan, after all; less Texas-y. He’s a Democrat. And gosh, even if he’s made a few mistakes, he means well.
Sure he’s a murderer, in other words, but at least he’s not a Republican!
Put another, even less charitable way: Democratic partisans – liberals – are willing to trade the lives of a couple thousand poor Pakistani tribesman in exchange for a few liberal catnip-filled speeches and NPR tote bags for the underprivileged. The number of party-line progressives who would vote for Ron Paul over Barack Obama wouldn’t be enough to fill Conference Room B at the local Sheraton, with even harshest left-leaning critics of the president, like Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, saying they’d prefer the mass-murdering sociopath to that kooky Constitution fetishist.
As someone who sees the electoral process as primarily a distraction, something that diverts energy and attention from more effective means of reforming the system, I don’t much care if people don’t vote for Ron Paul. In fact, if you’re going to vote, I’d rather you cast a write-in ballot for Emma Goldman. But! I do have a problem with those who imagine themselves to be liberal-minded citizens of the world casting their vote for Barack Obama and propagating the notion that someone can bomb and/or militarily occupy Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Libya and still earn more Progressive Points than the guy who would, you know, not do any of that.
Let’s just assume the worst about Paul: that he’s a corporate libertarian in the Reason magazine/Cato Institute mold that would grant Big Business and the financial industry license to do whatever the hell it wants with little in the way of accountability (I call this scenario the “status quo”). Let’s say he dines on Labradoodle puppies while using their blood to scribble notes in the margins of his dog-eared, gold-encrusted copy of Atlas Shrugged.
So. Fucking. What.
Barack Obama isn’t exactly Eugene Debs, after all. Hell, he’s not even Jimmy Carter. The facts are: he’s pushed for the largest military budget in world history, given trillions of dollars to Wall Street in bailouts and near-zero interest loans from the Federal Reserve, protected oil companies like BP from legal liability for environmental damages they cause – from poisoning the Gulf … and mandated that all Americans purchase the U.S. health insurance industry’s product. You might argue Paul’s a corporatist, but there’s no denying Obama’s one.
And at least Paul would – and this is important, I think – stop killing poor foreigners with cluster bombs and Predator drones. Unlike the Nobel Peace Prize winner-in-chief, Paul would also bring the troops home from not just Afghanistan and Iraq, but Europe, Korea and Okinawa. There’d be no need for a School of the Americas because the U.S. wouldn’t be busy training foreign military personnel the finer points of human rights abuses. Israel would have to carry out its war crimes on its own dime.
Even on on the most pressing domestic issues of the day, Paul strikes me as a hell of a lot more progressive than Obama. Look at the war on drugs: Obama has continued the same failed prohibitionist policies as his predecessors, maintaining a status quo that has placed 2.3 million – or one in 100 – Americans behind bars, the vast majority African-American and Hispanic. Paul, on the other hand, has called for ending the drug war and said he would pardon non-violent offenders, which would be the single greatest reform a president could make in the domestic sphere, equivalent in magnitude to ending Jim Crow.
Paul would also stop providing subsidies to corporate agriculture, nuclear energy and fossil fuels, while allowing class-action tort suits to proceed against oil and coal companies for the environmental damage they have wrought. Obama, by contrast, is providing billions to coal companies under the guise of “clean energy” – see his administration’s policies on carbon capture and sequestration, the fossil fuel-equivalent of missile defense – and promising billions more so mega-energy corporations can get started on that “nuclear renaissance” we’ve all heard so much about. And if Paul really did succeed in cutting all those federal departments he talks about, there’s nothing to prevent states and local governments — and, I would hope, alternative social organizations not dependent on coercion — from addressing issues such as health care and education. Decentralism isn’t a bad thing.
All that aside, though, it seems to me that if you’re going to style yourself a progressive, liberal humanitarian, your first priority really ought to be stopping your government from killing poor people. Second on that list? Stopping your government from putting hundreds of thousands of your fellow citizens in cages for decades at a time over non-violent “crimes” committed by consenting adults. Seriously: what the fuck? Social Security’s great and all I guess, but not exploding little children with cluster bombs – shouldn’t that be at the top of the Liberal Agenda?
Over half of Americans’ income taxes go to the military-industrial complex and the costs of arresting and locking up their fellow citizens. On both counts, Ron Paul’s policy positions are far more progressive than those held – and indeed, implemented – by Barack Obama. And yet it’s Paul who’s the reactionary of the two?
My sweeping, I’m hoping overly broad assessment: liberals, especially the pundit class, don’t much care about dead foreigners. They’re a political problem at best – will the Afghan war derail Obama’s re-election campaign? – not a moral one. And liberals are more than willing to accept a few charred women and children in some country they’ll never visit in exchange for increasing social welfare spending by 0.02 percent, or at least not cutting it by as much as a mean ‘ol Rethuglican.
Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum, for example, has chastised anti-Obama lefties, complaining that undermining – by way of accurately assessing and commenting upon – a warmonger of the Democratic persuasion is “extraordinarily self-destructive” to all FDR-fearing lefties.
“Just ask LBJ,” Drum added. The historical footnote he left out: That LBJ was run out of office by the anti-war left because the guy was murdering hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. But mass murder is no reason to oppose a Democratic president, at least not if you’re a professional liberal.
There are exceptions: Just Foreign Policy’s Robert Naiman has a piece in Truth Out suggesting the anti-war left checking out Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico who’s something of a Ron Paul-lite. But for too many liberals, it seems partisanship and the promise – not even necessarily the delivery, if you’ve been reading Obama’s die-hard apologists – of infinitesimally more spending on domestic programs is more important than saving the lives of a few thousand innocent women and children who happen to live outside the confines of the arbitrary geopolitical entity known as the United States.
Another reason to root — if not vote — for Ron Paul: if there was a Republican in the White House, liberals just might start caring about the murder of non-Americans again.
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Israel’s recurring use of terror on civilians
By Bob Finch | January 26, 2009
Insanely disproportionate use of violence against unarmed civilians… continue
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