Sunday Roundup - October 5, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at recent court decisions on voting rights, the Hong Kong protests, Syria, Israel's growing isolation, and Ebola.

Voting Rights (or lack thereof) 

As the US midterm elections draw near, voting rights proponents have sued in Federal court, contesting various voter suppression laws passed in Republican-controlled states.  With SCOTUS's gutting of the Voting Rights Act and their unleashing of unlimited campaign money by the Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions, the voter suppression laws are the third part of the shameful Troika of Plutocracy that promises to turn this year's election into the least democratic since the days of Jim Crow. As summarized by the Brennan Center for Justice: Since the 2010 election, new voting restrictions are slated to be in place in 22 states. Unless these restrictions are blocked — and there are court challenges to laws in six of those states — voters in nearly half the country could find it harder to cast a ballot in the 2014 midterm election than they did in 2010. The new laws range from photo ID requirements to early voting cutbacks to voter registration restrictions. Partisanship and race were key factors in this movement. Most restrictions passed through GOP-controlled legislatures and in states with increases in minority turnout.
Ohio - “There is no right more basic in our democracy than the right to participate in electing our political leaders,” Roberts wrote in the court’s main opinion in McCutcheon.  Evidently that right does not extend to minorities in Ohio without cash to throw into campaigns.  Think Progress reported on September 29:  ...the Supreme Court returned from its summer vacation for the “Long Conference,” the day when the justices consider the backlog of petitions asking them to hear cases that built up while they were away for the summer. Yet, despite the fact that the justices typically face hundreds of petitions that they must consider during this conference, five of them still found time on Monday to make it harder for Ohio residents to cast a vote. In a 5-4 decision that divided entirely along partisan lines, the Court allowed cuts to Ohio’s early voting days to go into effect. Notably, this decision came down just 16 hours before polling places were set to open in that state.
Wisconsin - The American Civil Liberties Union and other rights groups are bringing Wisconsin's voter ID law to the Supreme Court.  Arguing that one in ten voters already registered in Wisconsin may not actually get to cast their ballots this year, civil rights and citizens’ advocacy groups asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to bar a new requirement to produce a photo ID before voting.  By a vote of five to five, a federal appeals court has permitted enforcement for this year’s general election, already underway with absentee voting.  The plea for the Supreme Court to step in now was filed with Justice Elena Kagan, who handles emergency filings from the geographic area that includes Wisconsin.  She can act on her own, or share the issue with her colleagues. [SCOTUS blog, October 2]
North Carolina - Several provisions of North Carolina's harsh voter suppression laws were struck down by a three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.  It's now headed to the Supreme Court.  In a 2-1 ruling, a panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked provisions of a North Carolina voting law that would have ended same-day registration and eliminated the counting of votes cast outside one's precinct. But it left intact a lower court decision that affirmed the law's reducing the number of early voting days, expanding what can be done to challenge voters and eliminating the discretion of county election boards from adding an extra hour on election day in extraordinary circumstances. [Daily Kos, Oct 1]

Hong Kong

Photo is by AP and appeared in The Independent
The "Umbrella Revolution": Riot police launch tear gas into the crowd
 as thousands of protesters surround the government headquarters in Hong Kong

In another "democracy" story, the Hong Kong student protests sparked by the announcement of the 2017 election framework continued.  On Thursday the protesters were demanding the resignation of Hong Kong's Chief Executive Leung Chung-Ying as Beijing hardened its line on the protests.  Bolstered by a vote of confidence in the People's Daily, Leung shows no sign of resigning but has agreed to have a high ranking official in his administration meet with the protesters.  Speaking at the end of a fifth day of protests, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying refused to meet demonstrators’ demands to resign but said his top official, Carrie Lam, would hold a meeting with students to discuss political reforms...The protests represent the biggest challenge to Chinese rule over its special autonomous region since its handover from the UK in 1997. They were sparked by dissatisfaction over a framework handed down by Beijing for the election of Mr Leung’s successor in 2017. Under the model, candidates would have to achieve the support of at least 50 per cent of a 1,200-strong committee, which opponents say is stacked with Beijing loyalists.  [The Independent, Oct 2]  On Friday, The Guardian reported that  violent scuffles broke out in one of Hong Kong’s most famous and congested shopping districts..., as supporters of Chinese rule stormed tents and ripped down banners belonging to pro-democracy protesters.  [The Guardian, Oct 3]

Syria 

April 2014 Photo is from The Independent

The Syrian Civil War has been raging for 3-1/2 years. As of the end of August, more than 191,000 Syrians had been killed in the conflict.  More than 3,000,000 Syrians have sought refuge in other countries and 6,500,000 have been internally displaced.  Neither the government nor the rebels have been able to defeat the other side and the continuing flow of arms to both sides has only prolonged the conflict.  In a massive display of ignorance, the US Congress recently voted $500 million to arm and train the Syrian rebels.  Military experts and others warn that arming the rebels will embolden and inadvertently aid ISIS.  Writing in the Huffington Post on September 17 prior to the Congressional vote, Kate Gould and (retired) Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson warned "If Congress signs this check for the FSA, IS will help cash it. For years, IS has recruited former FSA fighters and seized weapons funneled to Iraq and Syria from the U.S. and other countries."  That this aid to the rebels will worsen the civil war is an obvious and foregone conclusion.  The organization Win Without War adds: "After more than a decade of war, it's clear that military force will not stop extremism in the region. Instead of dumping additional weapons into Syria, Congress should support alternatives to combat the threat of ISIS and to end the Syrian civil war."  The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) published an article by Yezid Sayigh that argues that, in the face of the growing power of Islamic State, now is the time to seek a truce in the Syrian Civil War.  Specifically Sayigh recommends that the two sides observe independent truces implemented in parallel.  This approach would not require a formal diplomatic agreement, just robust endorsement and timely coordination by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Iran—the government’s and the opposition’s external backers that are most engaged in Iraq...Now is the moment for [these] three outside actors in particular...to pressure the regime and rebels alike to commit to separate unilateral truces, coordinating the process indirectly to ensure these are implemented in parallel.  A major advantage of this approach is that it sidesteps tortuous discussions about political preconditions and the status of the Syrian parties of the sort that rendered the otherwise commendable Geneva 1 communiqué of June 2012 stillborn.

Israel
Following on the heels of its brutal, war-crime-ridden assault on the Gaza Strip, the right-wing Israeli government announced its largest appropriation of Palestinian land in 30 years in September. Located as it is in the sensitive East Jerusalem area, the proposed settlement is one more indication of this government's lack of commitment to a just two-state solution and a viable Palestinian state.  Even the United States may have finally had enough of this intransigence.  Following a Wednesday meeting between President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in which the 2600 home settlement was discussed, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said "The United States is deeply concerned by reports the Israeli government has moved forward" with planning for settlements in a "sensitive area" of East Jerusalem...Earnest said Israel would send a "very troubling message" by following through with the settlement project, and in noticeably blunt language said that the step was contrary to Israel's stated goal of negotiating a permanent final status agreement with the Palestinians.  "This development will only draw condemnation from the international community, [and] distance Israel from even its closest allies," Earnest said.  He added that it would also "poison the atmosphere" - not only with the Palestinians but with "the very Arab governments" with which Netanyahu had said he wanted to build relations.  All Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory are illegal under international law  [Al Jazeera, October 2]

The EU likewise condemned the Israeli plan, calling it “highly detrimental” to diplomatic efforts for Israeli-Palestinian peace.  Brussels called on Israel to “urgently reverse” actions leading to settlement expansion in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make the capital of a future state alongside Israel.  “This represents a further highly detrimental step that undermines prospects for a two-state solution and calls into question Israel’s commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the Palestinians,” the EU’s diplomatic service said.  The housing units, which have been slated for construction since 2012 in the neighborhood of Givat Hamatos, were given final approval last week, according to the Peace Now watchdog. [Al-Arabiya/Agence France-Presse, October 3]

Meanwhile, Netanyahu was blaming the Israeli peace organization Peace Now for the United States' position on the new settlements, and he was appearing before the UN trying to conflate Hamas with ISIS.  It didn't work.  Nathan Brown, in a September 30 op-ed piece for CEIP, "Netanyahu's Convenient Lies About ISIS and Hamas", writes: Speaking at the General Assembly this week, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu repeated a refrain he has sounded for three decades (since his days as Israeli ambassador to the U.N.) — that all forms of terrorism are different sides of the same coin and have civilization as their target...But is it accurate? Well, yes of course — in the same sense that France’s François Hollande, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un and Israel’s HaPoel Tel Aviv all spring from the same socialist movement. It’s not clear how such claims aid understanding, analysis or policy.  I'm not sure how to define terrorism.  Perhaps we should look at the number of civilian deaths, all of which are inexcusable and should be considered war crimes.  1462 civilians in Gaza were killed by Israeli firepower.  6 civilians were killed by Hamas' flying pipe bombs (referred to in the press as "rockets").   Seems that the IDF assault against Gaza did a pretty good job of terrorizing the impoverished and blockaded enclave.

Ebola
[Mother Jones, October 1] On Tuesday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the first case of Ebola diagnosed in the United States; the infected patient was a man who traveled from Liberia to visit family in Texas. It's the latest development in the ever-worsening outbreak of the virus, which so far has sickened more than 6,500 people and killed more than 3,000. The United States government has pledged to send help to West Africa to help stop Ebola from spreading—but the main agencies tasked with this aid work say they're hamstrung by budget cuts from the 2013 sequester.  Sequestration caused budget cuts in the National Institute of Health's budget affecting every area of medical research.  Cuts to international aid budgets and to USAID totaling $700 million affected the detection and containment of the disease.  Dr. Beth Bell of the CDC testifying before a Senate committee, argued that the epidemic could have been stopped if more had been done sooner to build global health security... "If even modest investments had been made to build a public health infrastructure in West Africa previously, the current Ebola epidemic could have been detected earlier, and it could have been identified and contained."
Update: On Friday, the World Health Organization reported the latest Ebola figures: 3,431 people killed by the disease out of 7,470 confirmed or suspected cases in west Africa

Sunday Roundup - March 9, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Pentagon budget, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Netanyahu's visit with President Obama, the Ukraine, the Central African Republic, and climate change.

The Pentagon Budget 
TomDispatch contributor Mattea Kramer writes about the Pentagon's phony budget war.  Washington is pushing the panic button, claiming austerity is hollowing out our armed forces and our national security is at risk...Yet a careful look at budget figures for the U.S. military -- a bureaucratic juggernaut accounting for 57% of the federal discretionary budget and nearly 40% of all military spending on this planet -- shows that such claims have been largely fictional. Despite cries of doom since the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration surfaced in Washington in 2011, the Pentagon has seen few actual reductions, and there is no indication that will change any time soon.  Kramer analyzes the positioning of the military-industrial-political-complex in an excellent March 6 post at TomDispatch.  "Ike" must be turning over in his grave.

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
The original time frame for the current Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is rapidly approaching with no visible progress to report.  Former Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Ishtayeh doesn't believe there is much hope for an extension of the April 29 deadline for a framework deal.  “What we have seen in the talks is that the gap is growing, rather than narrowing,” said Mr. Ishtayeh, who resigned as a negotiator in November to protest accelerated Israeli settlement building.  For the Palestinians, the biggest obstacle is a new demand ... that they accept Israel as a Jewish state, he said. The Palestine Liberation Organization recognized the state of Israel when peace efforts began two decades ago and Mr. Abbas has argued this is sufficient.  Mr. Abbas cannot “under any circumstances” recognize Israel as a Jewish state because this would restrict the return options of Palestinian refugees...Israel’s land demands pose another serious obstacle.... Israel wants to annex these “settlement blocs,” but never has presented a detailed border proposal. The Palestinians say these blocs add up to about 12% of the West Bank. Israel also wants a long-term military presence in the Jordan Valley, which makes up 28% of the West Bank. [National Post/Associated Press, March 6]

Obama's Message to Netanyahu
Meanwhile Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington speaking with President Obama.  Juan Cole's March 5 Informed Comment opinion piece called Netanyahu’s visit even more of a disaster for him than might have been expected...It did not help that the Crimea crisis had broken out.... Most observers in Europe and even some in the US could see the hypocrisy of the US denouncing Russian troops in Crimea but supporting Israeli troops in Hebron.  Prior to his meeting with Netanyahu, Obama had been interviewed by Jeffrey Goldberg for Bloomberg.  Obama had a strong message for the Israeli Prime Minister on the peace process (see below).  Juan Cole called Obama's words more candid than those of any sitting president since the 1970s.  Cole's take on the President's statement is that Obama is trying to tell Netanyahu that we can see him...that the world is deciding that the Israelis intend to keep the Palestinians stateless and to constrain their lives with checkpoints and arbitrary arrest and property theft virtually forever...What Obama was...saying was that the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement to respond to Israeli colonialism against the Palestinians is unfolding in other venues where the US government doesn’t have a veto. The US cannot force the European Union states to disregard EU law. It cannot forestall lawsuits by Palestinian concerns in Europe against European companies involved in helping occupy them. Moreover, ...Palestine [as] a non-member observer state at the UN...could take Israel to the International Criminal Court over criminal Israel actions in the Occupied territories. Obama was simply observing that as the scales fall from the world’s eyes, Israel will be subject to sanctions, and the US government cannot do anything about it.

Ukraine
Crimea declared its intent to rejoin Russia after the demonstrations that removed President Viktor Yanukovich from office.  Russia Times reported on March 7: Over 65,000 people gathered on Friday for a demonstration in central Moscow to support residents of Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea. 

Juan Cole in an Informed Comment March 7 post noted the hypocrisy of US politicians for opposing the Crimean decision as a violation of international law.  He points to Yugoslavia, the Sudan and Iraq as countries where US politicians supported breaking up countries and suggests that George Mitchell’s careful agreement [for Northern Ireland]...would be a good model for keeping Crimea in Ukraine while recognizing Russian interests there.

Central African Republic
The Central African Republic, a land-locked nation of about 4.6 million people, is one of the world's poorest countries.  The Human Development Index,  a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income, places it in 179th place of the 187 countries with data.  These facts make the sectarian violence engulfing the country even more senseless and tragic.  The CAR has been in chaos since Muslim rebels seized power a year ago and then lost it around December as Christian militias fought back...Since then, revenge attacks on the Muslim minority community, including summary executions, torture and looting, have become more common. [The Economist, Feb 15]  A new president, Catherine Samba-Panza, has pledged to put a stop to the violence and to bring reconciliation to the country.  She took office on an interim basis in January but so far the violence has not abated.  Muslims are fleeing to neighboring countries, French troops are trying to maintain some semblance of order and the UN is considering bringing in a large peace-keeping force. With the mass exodus, the Bangui economy has gone into rapid decline, made worse by violence on the roads into the capital that has all but cut the city off from outside supplies.  A recent statement by Oxfam and Action Against Hunger highlighted the increased threat of food shortages in a country where 1.3 million are already in dire need of food. [The Guardian, Feb 14]
(Image of children in refugee camp at Bangui airport is by Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images and appeared in The Guardian Feb 21)

Climate Change
The world's oceans play a major role in maintaining our climate.  They convey heat from warm regions to cold and vice versa.   A disruption in the "thermo-haline" conveyors of the world's oceans and seas can lead to severe, and possibly abrupt, climate change.  Temperature (thermo) and salt (haline) content determine the density of ocean water.  Differences in ocean water density drive this (literally) world-scale conveyor belt.  If this conveyor belt receives a big enough shock - for example, large amounts of fresh water from melting glaciers or increased precipitation - the oceans will experience a decrease in salt content and density.  This will interfere with or shutdown the ocean conveyor belt.  The result would be somewhere between the Younger Dryas event (10-20 degree F. temperature drop) and a return to a full-blown glacial period.  If this catastrophe does occur, the change will be very quick - on the order of a decade.  Now a recent study reported at Smithsonian.com concludes that a surge in freshwater at the surface may have shut down mixing of water layers in the Weddell Sea in the Antarctic or in the more dramatic words at the Daily Kos website - The Antarctic Half of the Global Thermohaline Circulation is Collapsing - adding that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models have not considered the effects the collapsing production of Antarctic Bottom Water and political policy has not kept up with the IPCC. We are moving rapidly into uncharted waters as the Arctic melts. Global political policies are not keeping up with the rate of change and our models have, to date, underestimated the rate of change. We are witnessing a total failure of global leadership to deal with changes we caused that are spiraling out of control.

Related Links

Obama's Interview with Jeffrey Goldberg: Time Is Running Out
In an hour long interview Thursday in the Oval Office, Obama, borrowing from the Jewish sage Rabbi Hillel, told me that his message to Netanyahu will be this: “If not now, when? And if not you, Mr. Prime Minister, then who?” He then took a sharper tone, saying that if Netanyahu “does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach." He added, "It’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible....There comes a point where you can’t manage this anymore, and then you start having to make very difficult choices,” Obama said. “Do you resign yourself to what amounts to a permanent occupation of the West Bank? Is that the character of Israel as a state for a long period of time? Do you perpetuate, over the course of a decade or two decades, more and more restrictive policies in terms of Palestinian movement? Do you place restrictions on Arab-Israelis in ways that run counter to Israel’s traditions?” [Bloomberg View website, Jeffrey Goldberg, March 2]

Central African Republic
Can Catherine Samba-Panza save the Central African Republic? [The Guardian, March 2]

President Eisenhower's Warning About the Military-Industrial Complex
You-Tube of the warning given in his Farewell Address (1961)

Ten Good Things

Politics have been absent from this blog for about a month now. I really didn't want to talk about the lack of progress on so many fronts. I still don't. Instead, this post will lay out 10 good things that have happened in the past couple of months or so.

1. On April 2, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve "the first treaty on the global arms trade, which seeks to regulate the $70 billion business in conventional arms and keep weapons out of the hands of human rights abusers." [Reuters] There were 22 abstentions but only three nations voted "no" - Iran, Syria and North Korea. The massive and poorly regulated global trade in arms feeds conflicts like those in Mali, Syria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

Also see: Oxfam America Webpage

2. On March 15, Maryland became the 18th state to abolish the death penalty since it was reinstated by the Supreme Court in 1976. The repeal was proposed by Governor O'Malley. The NAACP and the Catholic Church were among the groups that organized to end executions in the state. Nationwide, death sentences have declined by 75% and executions by 60% since the 1990s, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. [Mansfield News Journal]

3. On April 4, Gov. Malloy of Connecticut signed what many are calling the strongest and most comprehensive gun legislation in the nation. Connecticut joins New York and Colorado to become the 3rd state to pass tough gun control legislation in the wake of the Newton shootings.

4. On March 21, President Obama delivered a speech in Jerusalem to Israeli students. In addition to stating his support for Israel, he appealed to the students to consider the plight of the Palestinians and emphasized the need for a just peace and for a Palestinian state: "Put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes. It is not fair that a Palestinian child cannot grow up in a state of their own. Living their entire lives with the presence of a foreign army that controls the movements not just of those young people but their parents, their grandparents, every single day. It’s not just when settler violence against Palestinians goes unpunished. It’s not right to prevent Palestinians from farming their lands; or restricting a student’s ability to move around the West Bank; or displace Palestinian families from their homes. Neither occupation nor expulsion is the answer. Just as Israelis built a state in their homeland, Palestinians have a right to be a free people in their own land."  The students burst into applause 5 times during this brief portion of Obama's speech. 

 

Link to complete text of President Obama's Speech in Jerusalem

 

5. On April 2, the Dow Jones industrial average hit two new records: an intraday high of about 14,684, and a record close at 14,662. Also, in spite of the "sequester", 88,000 jobs were added in the US in March and unemployment inched down to 7.6%.

 

6. Anything that increases our understanding of the universe is a good thing. In March after extensive data analysis, CERN scientists announced that they were increasingly certain that they had indeed discovered the elusive Higgs boson in July of 2012. The Higgs boson was the only particle in the Standard Model that had not yet been discovered. The Standard Model of Physics (aka the "Big Bang Theory") is the prevailing theory of the creation of our universe. About a week after that announcement, the European Space Agency Planck Mission fine-tuned the date of the Big Bang. It is now considered to have occurred about 13.82 billion years ago, making the universe about 100 million years older than the last estimate.

 

See also: The Left Bank Cafe Post of March 18  [Higgs boson] and Slate post of March 21 [age of the universe]

 

7. On March 13, the College of Cardinals elected Pope Francis. His humility (he asked that the two hundred thousand or so that had gathered at St. Peter's first pray for him before delivering the traditional blessing of a new Pope), his pastoral bent (his riding public transport in Argentina and his active concern for the poor), and his openness towards the role of women in the Church are good things. In his first Easter Sunday message, Pope Francis "passionately called for 'peace in all the world,' urging Israelis and Palestinians to 'resume negotiations to end a conflict that has lasted all too long,' calling for an end to the civil war in Syria, and promoting a 'renewed spirit of reconciliation' on the Korean Peninsula." [New York Times]

 

8. On March 22, as President Obama was leaving for home, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu voiced regret for the loss of life in the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, apologizing for any mistakes that led to the death of eight Turkish nationals and one American national. (For those of you who have forgotten, on May 31, 2010, Israeli commandoes boarded a flotilla of six Turkish ships trying to bypass the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. Nine civilians were killed by the commandoes.)

9. Jim Wallis has authored a new book. I like Jim Wallis - he's one of the designated "Essential Links" for this website [look to the right of this post]Taking its title from Lincoln's quote, On God's Side is subtitled "What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned About Serving the Common Good". I haven't read it yet but Wallis wrote this during the 2012 election cycle - fed up, I imagine, by the incivility of the country's politicial debate. "A commitment to the common good could bring us together and solve the deepest problems this country and the world now face: How do we work together? How do we treat each other, especially the poorest and most vulnerable? How do we take care of not just ourselves but also one another?" [Time.com]

 

10. Finally, click on this link to a video of an act of kindness caught on tape. Sort of reaffirms your belief in the basic goodness of people.  The young man in this video and the students in Obama's Jerusalem audience are a couple of reasons to be hopeful for the future. 

 

 

Romney. the Neocons, and Iran

Remember how “W”, advised by the Neocon cabal, took us to war and invaded a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, absolutely no Al-Qaeda presence, and absolutely no weapons of mass destruction?

Well, watch out if the Mittster is elected. Many of these same Neocons are whispering in Romney's ear about Iran. His rhetoric over the past couple of weeks has made it clear that the nation would have to be crazy to elect this man to lead the country. (Of course, if the Republicans can effectively deny five million voters their basic democratic right to vote, he may just pull it off.) Besides taking hundreds of billions of dollars from domestic programs for military weapons that even the armed forces don't want, Romney has given every indication of letting the right wing Israeli leader Netanyahu call the shots on the timing of “military action” against Iran regardless of how damaging that would be to the United States. His political posturing and criticism of Obama's handling of the attacks on American embassies were totally offbase and show him unfit to lead this country in any capacity.

I've criticized Obama for staying in Afghanistan, for taking too long to extricate the US from Iraq, and for being played like a fiddle by Isreal's right wing leader Benjamin Netanyahu on the Palestinian – Israeli peace process. But at least Obama has finally gotten the troops out of Iraq and set a date when US combat forces will be out of Afghanistan. He appears to be making a good faith effort to negotiate a solution to the Iran nuclear program. In addition, Israeli overreaction to Palestinian actions has been relatively muted with nothing to date to compare with the devastating incursion into Palestinian territority at the end of the Bush's second term that more than 1000 Palestinians dead, many or most of the victims civilians. Can you imagine Romney putting any kind of restraint on Netanyahu? Yes that same Netanyahu who said earlier this week, in the middle of the election cycle in an effort to try to force Obama's hand, that if the Obama administration was unwilling to set fixed red lines that Iran could not cross, it “has no ‘moral right’ to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own” ?

Bad as his domestic policies would be, Romney's foreign and defense policies would bring about the same loss of US influence and respect seen during the Bush years. Combined with his tax breaks for the very wealthy and his deregulation, another costly war would be the crowning blow to the United States economy. We'd be worse off than with Bush. To say Romney knows nothing about foreign affairs may have been a mistatement on my part. If he really believes the garbage that's been coming out of his mouth recently, he would be downright dangerous.

Stop Stumbling into War Now

Inconceivable as it may be after the recent disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the midst of the ongoing economic problems in this country, the US may find itself in a war with Iran in the near future.  With increasingly belligerent talk and accusations against Iran from Israel's Netanyahu and with Israeli and American drones in the area, there is an increasing sense of a mindless drift towards war. 

Charles Mutede's February 14 post on The Stranger blog summarizes the situation with Israel's right-wing leader:  "Netanyahu apparently feels, however, that he can manipulate right-wing Israeli influence on American politics to make it impossible for Obama to stay out of an Israeli war on Iran. He has defied the Obama administration by refusing to assure Washington that he would consult them before making any decision on war with Iran." 

Frankly who the f**k does Netanyahu think he is?  Even George Bush would not be convinced to tolerate and support an Israeli strike against Iran. 

Hopefully Obama will not be forced into an Iran war by the right-wing lunatics and neocons in Congress and in the Republican Party in this election year.  Hopefully he will take the only path to peace possible and publicly warn Netanyahu that if he institutes any such attack against Washington's wishes, he is totally on his own for the duration. 

And hopefully, Obama was just grand-standing in his State of the Union when he said that he "will take no options off the table to achieve [the] goal [of preventing Iran from gaining nuclear weapons capability]".  As noted in today's Huffington Post, there is little enthusiasm in the military for any such war.  Quoting Gen. Martin Dempsey's comment to the National Journal last month,  a war with Iran "would be really destabilizing ... I personally believe that we should be in the business of deterring [war] as a first priority."  Dempsey is the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  So at least there is sanity at that spot.

As for the presence of US ships near Iranian waters and US drones near the Iranian border, Rep. Dennis Kucinich asks how would we react if an Iranian aircraft flew near our coast?  Maintaining the peace requires an all-out effort in diplomacy, not provocations against Iran's national sovereignty.  Kucinich suggests if we want to deter Iranians from nuclear energy, we should show them the cost of such energy and that there are better ways to power a nation.  If we want to deter them from developing nuclear weapons capability, the US should take the lead in nuclear disarmament.  As Kucinich says in the linked video , "Don't we have enough wars that we're fighting in the United States? Do we need another war? Did I miss something that we somehow ran out of wars?"

Noam Chomsky in a HuffingtonPost/TomDispatch co-post notes another diplomatic path to solve the nuclear weapons issue.  He sites overwhelming international support for undertaking "meaningful steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East, including Iran and Israel (and applying as well to U.S. forces deployed there), better still extending to South Asia."  This fuller solution (Middle East plus South Asia) would have the advantage of bringing Israel, Pakistan and India under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  These three countries are the only ones to never have signed the NPT and they all have nuclear weapons. (It should be noted that North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003.) 

There is some hope that world peace can be maintained and that we will not stumble into another disastrous war in the Middle East.  It is going to take hard diplomatic work, creative solutions, and the courage and political will to stand up to those who would clamor for that war or try to lure us into it.