Category: War

No One Has Done More

To be fair that whole quote is “I have done more for the Palestinians than anyone”.

That was a wildly inaccurate statement by Joe Biden in a recent interview…..seriously?

President Biden claimed in an interview published on Monday that he has done more for the “Palestinian community” than anyone else, comments that come after over nine months of his administration supporting Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“I’m the guy that did more for the Palestinian community than anybody,” he said on the YouTube show 360 With Speedy.

As an example of what he’s done for the “Palestinian community,” Biden said, ” I’m the guy that opened up all the assets, I’m the guy that made sure that I got the Egyptians to open the border to let goods and medicine and food through.”

However, Biden also backed the Israeli operation to capture the Rafah border crossing on the Egypt-Gaza border, and it’s been closed ever since.

Biden also appeared to suggest in the interview that he has only provided “defensive weapons” to Israel even though his administration has shipped tens of thousands of bombs and other types of munitions.

“I sent defensive weapons,” Biden claimed. “I denied them offensive weapons that they were using 2,000lb bombs and the rest because I made it real clear they cannot use weapons that we provide them to, in fact, use in civilian areas.”

While the administration did pause a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, it shipped 14,000 of them to Israel before that. Israel is still using heavy munitions on civilians, as Israeli officials told Axios that the military dropped five 2,000-pound bombs on the al-Mawasi camp over the weekend in a strike that killed at least 90 Palestinians, including many women and children. Israel said the strike targeted Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s senior military commander, but Hamas denied the claim, saying it was an excuse to massacre civilians.

In the interview, Biden expressed strong support for Israel and the idea of Zionism. “Do you know what a Zionist is? If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk. There’s a need for it to be strong and a need for Israel to be able to have, after World War II, the ability for Jews to have a place that was their own. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” he said.

Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish-American who resigned from the Interior Department over Biden’s support for the slaughter in Gaza, criticized Biden for frequently claiming that without Israel, Jews wouldn’t be safe. “Jewish safety cannot — and will not — come at the expense of Palestinian freedom. Making Jews the face of the American war machine makes us less safe,” Call said in her resignation letter.

(antiwar.com)

Defensive weapons……bombs are not defensive.

But then what has Biden done for the Palestinian people?

While the administration did pause a single shipment of 2,000-pound bombs, it shipped 14,000 of them to Israel before that. Israel is still using heavy munitions on civilians, as Israeli officials told Axios that the military dropped five 2,000-pound bombs on the al-Mawasi camp over the weekend in a strike that killed at least 90 Palestinians, including many women and children. Israel said the strike targeted Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s senior military commander, but Hamas denied the claim, saying it was an excuse to massacre civilians.

In the interview, Biden expressed strong support for Israel and the idea of Zionism. “Do you know what a Zionist is? If there weren’t an Israel, every Jew in the world would be at risk. There’s a need for it to be strong and a need for Israel to be able to have, after World War II, the ability for Jews to have a place that was their own. You don’t have to be a Jew to be a Zionist,” he said.

Lily Greenberg Call, a Jewish-American who resigned from the Interior Department over Biden’s support for the slaughter in Gaza, criticized Biden for frequently claiming that without Israel, Jews wouldn’t be safe. “Jewish safety cannot — and will not — come at the expense of Palestinian freedom. Making Jews the face of the American war machine makes us less safe,” Call said in her resignation letter.

An aid supply pier that did not work…..massive amounts of weapons to0 Israel…..rubber stamping anything and everything Israel did……is there more?

I would guess the Palestinian people would ask Biden to stop helping for he is killing them in droves.

This just Biden trying hard to get the genocide spotlight to dim a bit.

He has done NOTHING of substance for the Palestinian people…..so STFU about your imaginary accomplishment.

“cognito ergo me agitare”

What The Hell Is “Militainment”?

Now there is a word you do not see everyday….basically because the media and entertainment industries do not want the public equating stuff to war.

Hollywood has weaponized entertainment to promote war….some say as many as 2500 films and show are in that category.

“The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most people’s minds is to let it go through the medium of an entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are being propagandized,” explained Elmer Davis, a renowned CBS broadcaster, who had just been named director of the Office of War Information (OWI), a Pentagon program created on June 13, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Later in 1953, as the Cold War was in full swing, President Dwight D. Eisenhower commented on the burgeoning partnership between Hollywood and the Pentagon by stating that, “the hand of government must be carefully concealed and […] wholly eliminated,” adding that the engagement should “be done through arrangements with all sorts of privately operated enterprises in the field of entertainment, dramatics, music and so on.”

Thus, the president who coined the term “military industrial complex,” was, in fact, one of the first major proponents of what would later be called the military entertainment complex or the militainment industry.

Today, this militainment industry is thriving. From Top Gun to the Marvel franchise and even shows like Extreme Makeover, the Pentagon has been able to shape the narratives of more than 2,500 movies and TV shows. No one knows this better than Roger Stahl, the University of Georgia’s Communications Studies Department Head, and author of Militainment Inc. With University of Bath lecturer and Workers Party Candidate Matthew Alford, investigative journalist Tom Secker, and others, Stahl created “Theaters of War,” a concise 87-minute documentary in which he methodically dissects our modern militainment industry, showing the behemoth it has become.

Responsible Statecraft talked to Stahl, Alford, and Secker about the ways our TV screens are weaponized through the Military Entertainment Complex’s oversight over and control of Hollywood scripts and production agreements.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/theaters-of-war/

Do not get me started on the Pentagon and the patriotism of pro sports teams…..I know you have seen the ‘Patriot’s Day” or the Vets appreciation Day, or a salute to the armed forces….all that is not out of the desire to show their appreciation but rather a paid event by the Pentagon.

In the past few years, the Pentagon spent $6.8 million to pay for patriotic displays during the games of professional sports teams.

That’s according to a joint oversight report released by Arizona Republican Sens. John Flake and John McCain on Wednesday.

The senators found that since 2012, the Pentagon has signed 72 contracts with teams in the National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, and Major League Soccer that amounted to “paid patriotism.”

For example, taxpayers paid $49,000 to the Milwaukee Brewers to allow the Wisconsin Army National Guard to sponsor the Sunday singing of “God Bless America.” In another contract, the New York Jets were paid $20,000 to “recognize one to two New Jersey Army National Guard soldiers as hometown heroes.”

USA Today reports that NFL teams received the biggest slice of the pie — $6 million, according to the report. The newspaper adds:

“The Atlanta Falcons received $879,000; the New England Patriots, $700,000; and the Buffalo Bills, $650,000. The Atlanta Braves received $450,000, the most of any Major League Baseball franchise, while the Minnesota Wild were paid $570,000, the most of any National Hockey League team.

“The Atlanta contracts included a 2013 event during which a roaring crowd cheered as the Falcons welcomed 80 guard members who unfurled an American flag across the Georgia Dome’s turf.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/11/05/454834662/pentagon-paid-sports-teams-millions-for-paid-patriotism-events

Keep in mind that cash is your money, taxpayer cash…..it is bad enough that we must fund every goddamn war on the planet but we also have to pay overpriced athletes to be patriotic?

Did you know patriotism has a price?

Go Team!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“cognito ergo me agitare”

More US Interventions?

Iraq is waning…Afghanistan is….well Afghanistan!

The US has its hands full with Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, but somewhere the next big test is brewing.  But where?

Could it be Sri Lanka?

Further evidence has emerged confirming that top-level discussions are underway involving Washington, Colombo and New Delhi over an American-led military intervention in northern Sri Lanka on the pretext of evacuating civilians trapped by the island’s civil war.

Speaking to a group of South Asian journalists last weekend, US Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Richard Boucher was asked about press reports in Colombo revealing plans for a marine expeditionary brigade attached to Pacific Command (PACOM) to be sent to Sri Lanka.

While deliberately vague on detail, Boucher did confirm that talks were taking place. “We had some people there to look at the situation to identify what the possibilities might be. We could do whatever we can to help these people,” he said.

Is that Mexico calling?

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen briefed President Barack Obama over the weekend on the so-called drug war in Mexico and the prospect of increased US military involvement in the conflict south of the border.

Mullen had just returned from a six-day tour of Latin America, which took him on his last and most important stop to Mexico City. There he held meetings with Mexico’s secretary of national defense and other top military officials and discussed proposals for rushing increased US aid to Mexico under the auspices of Plan Merida, a three-year, $1.4 billion package designed to provide equipment, training and other assistance to the Mexican armed forces.

How about Sudan?

Washington has welcomed the charges against Bashir. The US ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, declared, “Those who committed atrocities in Sudan, including genocide, should be brought to justice.” US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “Governments and individuals who either conduct or condone atrocities of any kind, as we have seen year after year in Sudan, have to be held accountable.”

There are many indications that the Obama administration is taking a more aggressive stance toward Sudan than that which prevailed under the Bush administration. Writing in the Washington Post on March 5, the former Air Force chief of staff and co-chair of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, General Merrill McPeak, called for the establishment of a no-fly zone over Sudan and hinted that it could be the first step toward a bombing campaign. Referring to Yugoslavia in the 1990s, he wrote, “[W]e ultimately saw that more vigorous action was needed to end that conflict. The same conclusion holds now for Darfur.”

Where will the next test be?  The chest thumping has begun…where will it end?