Assault on the Free Gaza flotilla boat Mavi Marmara

Matt Friedman, writing for the AP, has the most detailed description of the assault on the Free Gaza flotilla boat Mavi Marmara that I’ve seen so far. Some interesting points:

• Israeli commandos boarded the boat from a low flying Black Hawk helicopter firing paintball guns. What? That’s right. They claim to have been using paintball guns with single side arms for backup. The other boats in the flotilla were easily taken over without incident.
• Some activists, reasoning that they were in international waters and had the right to defend themselves, put up a fight with metal rods and small knives.
• One soldier alone killed 6 people in response to seeing his men wounded.

I don’t know how to respond to this. I look at it as a cautionary tale for activists. If you’re on a nonviolent mission, get trained first and know that the rest of your team is trained in nonviolence. Did they have the right to defend themselves? That question leads to endless debate like this:

They were in international waters.

So what, these are freaking Israeli commandos! What did you think would happen.

They were afraid and acted rashly.

Yeah, so were the soldiers holding the paintball guns.

Their cause was just, why not assert themselves? Who wouldn’t get caught up in the heat of the moment?

These are the Israelis. They will freaking kill you and leave no one to tell the tale. And the US will let them investigate it themselves. You knew the drill when you signed up.

This back and forth solves nothing. The Rachel Corrie Free Gaza ship is on its way. Even after this they are heading forward. Not for Ashdod but for Gaza. What about it? I do not believe these activists are terrorists. The AP article points out that many other ships have either been seized without incident or have been allowed to get through. The point is to draw attention to the blockade. Israel claims that the blockade is necessary and humane. They claim enough aid gets through that things are tolerable in Gaza. I disagree strongly. Both the blockade and the occupation are illegal.

Does Military nation building really work?

Yesterday the US Army held a press conference  regarding its new field manual, The Stability Operations Field Manual, which essentially amplifies the new philosophy of military occupation as successful nation building. It's not simply the Army's job to forcefully enter a country and beat the bad guys, it is its job to create a new country in the shell of the old and see that it becomes a democracy. Well, James L. Payne, a political scientist and research fellow at the Independent Institute, says it's not that simple. 

"Pundits and presidents talk about nation building as if it were a settle technology, like building bridges or removing gall bladders. Huge amounts of government and foundation money have been poured into the topic of democracy building, and academics and bureaucrats have produced reams of verbose commentary. But still there is no concrete, usable body of knowledge."

In his article for the American Conservative, "Deconstructing Nation Building," he identifies 51 attempts at nation building by Britain and the USA and assesses whether they succeeded or failed. His research shines a light on what's really involved every time nations send in a military to make peace follow corruption. Does coercion make stability? Not so fast. Payne points out that a military has to actually leave the country for democracy to be deemed successful. So how does the military build the nation and leave at the same time? Not very easily. The US is eager to prove its work in Iraq a success, but at the same time can't quite say it's so successful that troops can leave. Is this nation building or military occupation?

Life Under the Gun

I can walk down the street here in Chicago and never see an armed soldier standing patrol. Every night on the news I see them though. Standing guard on the other side of the planet. Far enough away that I can choose not to think about it. But sometimes, like when a tornado destroys a town in Kansas, I hear that here at home the states suffer from a lack of vehicles in the event of crisis. Why? Because when the guardsmen go serve in Iraq they take the trucks and hummers with them. But usually I can go through a day and not think about it.

I remember driving up to the checkpoint at Bethlehem in the West Bank four years ago and seeing a young man playing with his fully automatic rifle as though it were a toy. I know that soldiers are people and not machines. They are taught to kill but also be entirely humane. They're taught to do a job, to be task oriented and follow orders, but then to also be responsible and make ethical decisions. A young soldier is handed a gun and asked to enforce a military occupation for an indefinite period of time. He (or she) is put in the position of policing, guarding, communicating, and patroling where innocent civilians just want to live their lives. These civilians would rather be like me and pretend that soldiers don't exist. But in Iraq and Palestine they don't really have that option. They learn to live with it, compensate, move themselves around and negotiate to survive, but in the end they are caught. They exist in an impossible political situation with an uncertain future. They feel abandoned by the world. They've stopped listening to the promises. When the promises come and then break for forty years (West Bank and Gaza) you learn not to expect much in the way of change.
But changes do come, usually not for the better. What stays the same are the soldiers. Children learn all the latest lines of weaponry and munitions. They learn what landmines and cluster bombs look like. They learn where not to play. And to the rest of the world it sounds like it's not their problem. But it is! Oh God it is! This Military Occupation thing is no isolated incident. Some political strategists firmly believe in it. Think its a great idea. We must speak out to stop them. Before we see little Iraqs everywhere. Personally, I doubt very much that a soldier can handle being a kindly killer. Soldiers are for war, not policing. It was George W. Bush who originally admitted he wasn't into nation building. Now his administration claims that Iraq is the dawn of a new democracy for the world. One in which Military Occupation is just and humane and has innocent civilians in mind. How much cognitive disonance like that can any people handle?

Do walls make us safe?

Disruptive Grace has a dead-on reflection regarding America’s need to build walls.

fascinating entry on military occupation

I hadn't seen this before but it's worth checking out. Great links. Good discussion starter.

Obama a Hardliner?

Well I can't say I'm too surprised, but I am disappointed. Ali Abuminah reports on Barack Obama's about face on Middle East politics in his article How Barack Obama learned to love Israel.

If disappointing, given his historically close relations to Palestinian-Americans, Obama's about-face is not surprising. He is merely doing what he thinks is necessary to get elected and he will continue doing it as long as it keeps him in power. Palestinian-Americans are in the same position as civil libertarians who watched with dismay as Obama voted to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act, or immigrant rights advocates who were horrified as he voted in favor of a Republican bill to authorize the construction of a 700-mile fence on the border with Mexico.

Those of us with Military Occupation at the forefront of our voting minds have no hope for this next American election. None of the potential party candidates are showing a new direction forward.

Tags: Barack Obama, Palestine, Israel, Palestinian-Americans

Ken Stein Interview

Steve Inskeep did his follow up interview with Ken Stein this morning. Comparing the two interviews, I have to say that the final one was a let-down, but a good one. Inskeep put Carter on the defensive and let him battle his way back. But in interviewing Stein, Inskeep just lets him talk--and Stein's accusations don't seem to hold enough weight to make it interesting.

Inskeep: A layman might ask: "Why not call it Apartheid?"
Stein: A layman would have every right to ask that question. That doesn't mean: "If it looks like a duck and it smells like a duck and it quacks like a duck its a duck."
Inskeep: and the difference to you is. . . .
Stein: the difference to me is that part of this problem is that the Palestinians have chosen to use terrorism. . . .

That gives you an idea of the logic here. If the Palestinians hadn't have used terrorism it would be Apartheid. Once again, the Israelis are more noble because they are the recognized State. Palestinians are savages because they are not. And here in the twenty first century we return to the reasoning of Thomas Hobbs in the sixteenth century. What stays the same is the fact that after forty years of Military Occupation in Palestine political theorists can't stop this Sovereign State from killing innocents, no matter the number of books written, interviews conducted, and peace negotiations gone right.

Tags: NPR, Steve Inskeep, Ken Stein, Israel, Palestine, Military Occupation

Thank You Jimmy Carter

**crossposted on A Desperate Kind of Faithful

I'm convinced that when you become President of the United States something happens to you as a human being. I don't see how it can't. You'd have to represent the most powerful nation in all the world. More than that you have to lead what it has become. Bear in mind that in modern Statecraft a nation is the sum of it's interests. While we're led to believe the democratic State is made up of the interests of its people, in this day and age the people don't care to know the nuts and bolts of how it all operates. So when and if you get to the top it must change you. Therefore, anytime a former President makes the mistake of telling it like it is, the media must yank him back into line.

On NPR's Morning Edition this morning I heard Steve Inskeep ask President Carter an awful lot of stupid questions. You should listen for yourself, but essentially the interview is set up with Carter on the hot seat regarding his book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. He gets a call right after his speech at Brandeis University. Stein wants to know if its true that the former president is losing his mind. Is he senile? Did he plagiarize his book? Did he lie? But the real burning question is "Was his use of language unfair to Israel?"

I love Ken Stein's question "How did you write your book?" President Carter's reply is directly to the question: "With a word processor, or computer." This is legendary journalism. Truthfully, in the fifteen years of NPR I've consumed this has got to be the worst interview--ever! And I heard the Fresh Air interview with KISS frontman Gene Simmons! That was at least entertaining. It proves that for as liberal as NPR claims to be, when it comes to the State of Israel, even liberal American journalists jerk to the right. Stein has to make scandal where there isn't any. President Carter is speaking facts about life in the Middle East as it is. What is truly shocking is that even in this day and age the media can't seem to face reality without spin. It needs to slow the world down, reword, rework and feed it back for the consumer.

I have not read Jimmy Carter's book. But at face value I have to tell you that he hasn't said anything out of the ordinary. Desmond Tutu noted the similarities between Israeli treatment of Palestinians and South African Apartheid back in 2002. The same voices that call Carter anti-semitic said that of Tutu back then. Let's look at this clearly people. Israel's use of Military Occupation hasn't worked for forty years. What it has set is a precident that the US is continuing in Iraq today. And we see how well it is working. If anything the occupiers are failing. The circle of hate and violence has spun out of control. The one President who has ever had the guts to admit that is called crazy, anti-semitic, senile---I'm waiting for someone to say UnAmerican.

Doesn't all this circle back onto what the public expects from a President? Carter's use of the word Apartheid together with Israel is brazen and shocking because the US is neck deep in a "war on terror." NPR can criticize George W. Bush all it wants, everyone is doing that, but what Israel has is somehow working. Somehow they're seen to be the stabilizing force in the region. To deny that in the interest of peace is just too much, even for the "liberal" media.

Tags: Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Israel, Palestine, Military Occupation, US Presidency, Steve Inskeep

The Case For Carter by Yossi Beilin

http://www.forward.com/articles/the-case-for-carter/

Tags: Military Occupation, Israel, Palestine, Jimmy Carter, Yossi Beilin

Dr. Elias Rishmawi on life under occupation