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Bill Moyers Accuses Israel Of “State Terrorism” In Its Conduct Of Gazan War

Posted on January 11, 2009 by Mike Bock

Bill Moyers says that by pursuing the war in Gaza, Israel is “waging war on an entire population,” and that such Israel’s use of brute force in Gaza can be seen as “state terrorism.”

Moyer compares what Israel is doing in Gaza to “what the U.S. did in Vietnam with B-52s and napalm and again in Iraq with shock and awe.” Moyers says, “By killing indiscriminately – the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals — Israel did exactly what terrorists do and exactly what Hamas wanted. It spilled the blood that turns the wheel of retribution.”

Excerpt from Moyers’ comment on his PBS program, Bill Moyer’s Journal:

“Yes, every nation has the right to defend its people. Israel is no exception, all the more so because Hamas would like to see every Jew in Israel dead.

“But brute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism. It’s what the U.S. did in Vietnam, with B-52s and napalm, and again in Iraq, with shock and awe. Hardly had Israeli tank fire killed and injured scores at a UN school in Gaza than a senior Hamas leader went on television to announce, ‘The Zionists have legitimized the killing of their children by killing our children.’ Already attacks on Jews in Europe are escalating — a burning car crashes into a synagogue in Southern France, a fiery object is hurled through a window in Sweden, venomous anti-Semitic graffiti appears across the continent, and arsonists strike in London.

“What we are seeing in Gaza is the latest battle in the oldest family quarrel on record. Open your Bible: the sons of the patriarch Abraham become Arab and Jew. Go to the Book of Deuteronomy. When the ancient Israelites entered Canaan their leaders urged violence against its inhabitants. The very Moses who had brought down the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ now proclaimed, ‘You must destroy completely all the places where the nations have served their gods. You must tear down their altars, smash their pillars, cut down their sacred poles, set fire to the carved images of their gods, and wipe out their name from that place.’

“So God-soaked violence became genetically coded. A radical stream of Islam now seeks to eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. Israel misses no opportunity to humiliate the Palestinians with checkpoints, concrete walls, routine insults, and the onslaught in Gaza. As if boasting of their might, Israel defense forces even put up video of the explosions on YouTube for all the world to see. A Norwegian doctor there tells CBS, ‘It’s like Dante’s Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.’

“America has officially chosen sides. We supply Israel with money, F-16s, winks and tacit signals. Our Christian right links arms with the religious extremists there who claim divine sanctions for Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. Our political elites show neither independence nor courage by challenging the consensus that Israel can do no wrong. Although one recent poll found Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive by a 24-point margin, Democratic Party leaders in Congress nonetheless march in lockstep to the hardliners in Israel and the White House. Rarely does our mainstream media depart from the monotonous monologue of the party line. Many American Jews know, as Aaron David Miller writes in the current Newsweek, that the destruction in Gaza won’t do much to address Israel’s longer-term needs.

“But those who raise questions are accused by a prominent reform rabbi of being ‘morally deficient.’ One Jewish American activist told me this week that never in 30 years has he seen such blind and binding conformity in his community. You’d never know,’ he said, ‘that it is the Gazans who are doing most of the suffering.’

“We are in a terrible bind — Israel, the Palestinians, the United States. Each greases the cycle of violence, as one man’s terrorism becomes another’s resistance to oppression. Is it possible to turn this mindless tragedy toward peace? For starters, read Aaron David Miller’s article in the current Newsweek. Get his book, The Much Too Promised Land. And pay no attention to those Washington pundits cheering the fighting in Gaza as they did the bloodletting in Iraq. Killing is cheap and war is a sport in a city where life and death become abstractions of policy. Here are the people who pay the price.”

Posted in Special Reports | Tagged bill moyers, gazan war, state terrorism | 8 Comments

Paul Krugman Is Disappointed With Obama’s Economic Plan, Says It Is Not Adequate

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Mike Bock

Paul Krugman, writing in he New York Times, “The Obama Gap,” says he is disappointed in Obama’s economic plans. Krugman says, “the Obama plan just doesn’t look adequate to the economy’s need.”

Excerpts from the article:

This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump. But Mr. Obama’s prescription doesn’t live up to his diagnosis. The economic plan he’s offering isn’t as strong as his language about the economic threat. In fact, it falls well short of what’s needed.
A huge gap is opening up between what the American economy can produce and what it’s able to sell. And the Obama plan is nowhere near big enough to fill this “output gap.”
To close a gap of more than $2 trillion — possibly a lot more, if the budget office projections turn out to be too optimistic — Mr. Obama offers a $775 billion plan. And that’s not enough.
Only about 60 percent of the Obama plan consists of public spending. The rest consists of tax cuts — and many economists are skeptical about how much these tax cuts, especially the tax breaks for business, will actually do to boost spending. (A number of Senate Democrats apparently share these doubts.) Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center summed it up in the title of a recent blog posting: “lots of buck, not much bang.”
The bottom line is that the Obama plan is unlikely to close more than half of the looming output gap, and could easily end up doing less than a third of the job. Why isn’t Mr. Obama trying to do more?
Is the plan being limited by fear of debt? There are dangers associated with large-scale government borrowing — and this week’s C.B.O. report projected a $1.2 trillion deficit for this year. But it would be even more dangerous to fall short in rescuing the economy.
Is the plan being limited by a lack of spending opportunities? There are only a limited number of “shovel-ready” public investment projects — that is, projects that can be started quickly enough to help the economy in the near term. But there are other forms of public spending, especially on health care, that could do good while aiding the economy in its hour of need.
Or is the plan being limited by political caution? Press reports last month indicated that Obama aides were anxious to keep the final price tag on the plan below the politically sensitive trillion-dollar mark. There also have been suggestions that the plan’s inclusion of large business tax cuts, which add to its cost but will do little for the economy, is an attempt to win Republican votes in Congress.
Whatever the explanation, the Obama plan just doesn’t look adequate to the economy’s need. To be sure, a third of a loaf is better than none. But right now we seem to be facing two major economic gaps: the gap between the economy’s potential and its likely performance, and the gap between Mr. Obama’s stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan.

Posted in Special Reports | Tagged obama economic plan, paul krugman | Leave a comment

Joe Klein Says Bush’s Decision To Approve Torture Was His Most Despicable Act

Posted on January 9, 2009 by Mike Bock

Joe Klein, writing in Time Magazine, says that the most despicable act of the Bush administration occured on Feb. 7, 2002, “ when Bush signed a memorandum stating that the Third Geneva Convention — the one regarding the treatment of enemy prisoners taken in wartime — did not apply to members of al-Qaeda or the Taliban.”

Klein says that it was this act by Bush that led directly to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay. “It was his single most callous and despicable act, “Klein says, “It stands at the heart of the national embarrassment that was his presidency.”

Klein refers to a book by Jane Mayer: “The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals”

In her book, Mayer writes about Bush’s decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions: “For the first time in its history the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment U.S.-held captives, making torture the official law of the land in all but name.” In the book, the author “meticulously demonstrates” that the Administration, fully aware that as many as a third of the detainees in Guantánamo may have had no connection to terrorism, still proceeded with medieval treatment that the Red Cross warned was ‘categorically’ torture.