OlsonOnline

Worth reading --health care, Iran, charter schools

A medical hiatus starting tomorrow means this is my last post for awhile.  So read these, if you please, during my absence.

On health care:

• Dave Lindorrf writes that Obama's "unwillingness to lead" on the issue of single payer health care will lead to his "Health Reform Waterloo."

• Pierre Tristam claims that Obama "...plays into the rhetorical ambushes of reform's enemies..." when he says stuff like this to the American Medical Association:

"...there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well. But I believe ... that it's important for our reform efforts to build on our traditions here in the United States. So when you hear the naysayers claim that I'm trying to bring about government-run health care, know this: They're not telling the truth."

In other words, Obama himself conflates "single payer" with "government run health         care."  

• Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS poll finds that most Americans "support" a "government-run health insurance option."  That means "single payer."

On Iran:

• Most discerning news readers know that the Khamenei -Mousavi stand-off in Iran does not herald the beginning of the overthrow of Iranian theocracy.  Mousavi was, after all, a principal player in the 1979 revolution that brought the mullahs to power. Phil Wilayto offers an economic -and class-- perspective to the conflict:

"Why is there so little discussion of the issue of class in this election? Is it because so many professional and semi-professional commentators on Iran are themselves from the same class as Mousavi's supporters, and so instinctively identify with them?"

What Wilayto means is that Ahmehdinijad appeals to poor Iranians, Mousavi to the wealthier and better educated.  He also points out that Mousavi is for more rapid privatization of the economy, which puts him in conflict with the Iranian Constitution.  It decrees that all "large scale industries", like oil and gas, should be owned by the state, which enables the government to "fund a vast social safety net" for the poor.

On charter schools:

• Another study shows that charters do worse than their traditional public school counterparts in raising the achievement of students.

• And Caroline Grannan, in a comment to my last charter school post, argues that charters, at least in California, serve a much smaller percentage of special needs students than traditional public schools.  And they often get more money per student than the publics.

That's it for now.

Dick Cheney and "Why they hate us"

'They' being Middle East Muslims, especially those who have taken up arms against the American presence in the region.  In his speech to the American Enterprise Institute (in defense of torture), Cheney explained the roots of Arab resentment:

"They have never lacked for grievances against the United States.  Our belief in freedom of speech and religion…our belief in equal rights for women…our support for Israel… — these are the true sources of resentment."

Not so, says retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, at least not entirely.   They hate not our freedoms, but our policies, particularly American  "support for Israel."   Cheney, McGovern says, got that part right, a deliciously odd admission coming from the man responsible for undermining so many of our vaunted freedoms and civil liberties.  

Not that those on the left haven't tried to convince the "they-hate-our-freedoms-crowd" of the damage done by American policy on Israel-Palestine.  The complaints of leftists, however, are cavalierly dismissed as rants from the "blame America first" fringe.

Even when terrorist masterminds like Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef explain that their animosity toward the U.S. is almost entirely due to its Israel policy, who takes them seriously?  They're terrorists.

But what if the same policy criticisms were voiced by the U.S. Department of Defense itself?  Would people then sit up and take notice?  Perhaps.  And therein lies the genius of McGovern's piece on Cheney.

McGovern, you see, has unearthed a U.S. Defense Science Board report written just two months after 9-11, and then sent directly to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004, two months before the fall presidential election.  Here's an extended quote from the report --page 48:

"American direct intervention in the Muslim World has ... elevated the stature
of and support for radical Islamists, while diminishing support for the United States to single-digits in some Arab societies.

• "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the ... support for ... tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.

• "Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that 'freedom is the future of the Middle East' is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World — but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.

• "Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim self-determination."

Sound familiar?

The report, now declassified, was suppressed by those in charge --and according to McGovern-- by the mainstream media. 

But hey!  We're still in Iraq.  We're still in Afghanistan and bombing targets in Pakistan.  We still support Middle Eastern kingdoms and dictatorships.  And... our policy toward Israel shows no signs of changing.

So maybe, just maybe, the conclusions in the report will, at long last, do some good. 

The Bible tells me so

I know Jesus loves me because, in the words of the children's hymn, "the Bible tells me so."

Similarly, we "know" that the land of Palestine, all of it, belongs to the Israelites because God promised it to them.  It belongs to the Jewish people alone, not the Arabs, because the "Bible tells us so."

That raises a vexing question that few American political leaders seem willing to confront, let alone answer:  Whether you're a believer or a non-believer (many Israelis are thoroughly secular), should any foreign policy be based on the Bible?

For most sane people, religious or otherwise, the answer is clearly no. 

So why does the United States, then, with its tradition of separation of church and state, back the Israeli demand that Palestinians acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a "Jewish" state as a condition for peace?  "Jewish" has both religious and ethnic connotations.  Religious and ethnic homogeneity, or "purity", as an intentional cornerstone for the creation of a modern state, flies in the face of all accepted notions of democracy.

In an open letter to President Obama, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire pleads with the President to broaden his vision and to acknowledge the well-documented suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israeli government. 

It's time, writes Maguire, to "say to Israel ‘enough is enough'."

Closer to home, Hala Gores writes in today's Oregonian, in response to an earlier commentary in defense of Israeli "perceived sins," that history tells a different story:

"...the expulsion in 1948 of more than 750,000 Palestinian men, women and children... -- and the killing and maiming of thousands more -- because they were not Jewish, is not a 'perceived sin.' It is a historical fact documented by many, including Israeli historians. It is the core injustice of the region and one that occurred within the lifetimes of many people still living today. Moreover, Israel's continuation of this ruthless policy of ethnic exclusion is at the center of today's conflict."

Whether ones calls it "ethnic exclusion" or "ethnic cleansing,"  the Israeli persecution of Palestinians in pursuit of a "Jewish" state is an injustice that begs acknowledgment by Israel's greatest benefactor, the United States of America.  Without a change in the carte blanche American acceptance of any Israeli atrocity, there will never be peace in the Middle East. 

Obama is wrong in his opposition to the prosecution of those responsible for torture

You know where I stand, but here are the latest voices urging Obama to confront the crimes committed by those linked to torture.

First, (via Glenn Greenwald) there's Ronald Reagan:

"The core provisions of the Convention [against torture] establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."

Then there's former Reagan official Bruce Fein speaking on Bill Moyers Journal Friday:

"How he [Obama] can justify not moving forward with an investigation when we have a former President and Vice President openly acknowledging they authorized water boarding, what he has described as torture, is a crime.

"Or in the alternative, if he thinks that there are mitigating circumstances, and there's body language suggests that, then he should pardon them like Ford did Richard Nixon."

A pardon implies an admission of guilt.  Failing to act, whether to investigate and prosecute, or to pardon those guilty of acknowledged war crimes, is not an option for the leader of a country which signed on to the convention against torture.

So says Fein.

Finally,  Gary Kamiya argues it's time for America to face its "day of reckoning"--its "necessary dark night of the soul":

"Those opposed to reopening the book on the Bush years argue that doing so would tear the country apart. They're right -- but they forget that the country is already torn apart. ...

"This may be our great teachable moment, our one chance, Democrats and Republicans alike, to look clearly at our country and what it became under Bush. Already, people's attention is wandering, ennui is setting in, and a banal mood of easy acceptance is taking hold. If we don't act now, the chance may be lost. And then, the next time there is a terrorist attack, a cunning ideologue could once again lead America down the same primrose path."

Friedman pulls a Broder

Insufferable columnist Tom Friedman agrees with the insufferable David Broder that sanctioning torture should NOT be prosecuted as the crime that it clearly is under both international and domestic law.  He therefore applauds Obama for saying that the torture policy crafted by the Bush administration was a "mistake", not a crime warranting investigation and prosecution.

In short, Obama is doing precisely the right thing.  Friedman's reasons?  Prosecuting Bush would "rip the country apart."  Friedman also argues that Al Qaeda is such "a unique enemy" that it remains "undeterred by normal means."

What does that mean?  As near as I can tell, it means that any detainee associated with Al Qaeda deserved to be tortured, and to hell with the laws and international treaties that prohibit it.

Glenn Greenwald begs to differ: 

"Obama is currently and simultaneously advocating these positions:

* Bush officials ordered torture.

* Torture is a crime.

* Nobody is above the law.

"Unless you're David Broder, Fred Hiatt, Peggy Noonan or Tom Friedman, those premises of Obama's, as a matter of logical reasoning, all necessarily lead to one conclusion (hint:  it's not:  'This is a time for reflection, not retribution')."

I prefer Greenwald's logic to Friedman's 'tortured' reasoning. 

The most consistent critic of Obama's refusal to acknowledge torture as a crime has been Rachel Maddow regular and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.  Turley has said that not only is torture a crime, but that there is no option but to investigate and then, if evidence warrants, to prosecute those responsible for initiating the torture policy. 

Obama's "tortured" politics

The case for investigating the torture of 'detainees' and prosecuting those responsible is clear and irrefutable.  Here's U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak in an interview with Glenn Greenwald:

"The United States of America is a party to the United Nations Convention Against Torture from 1984, which clearly contains the obligation to make torture a criminal offense under domestic law... . ...

"...whoever practices torture shall be brought before an independent criminal court and be held accountable. That is, the torturer, him or herself, but also those who are ordering torture practices, or in any other way participating in the practice of torture. This is a general obligation, and it applies to everybody; there are no exceptions in the Convention."

Those opposed to "looking backward" call the prosecution of war criminals --e.g. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld-- a political exercise in vengeance.  David Broder in today's Oregonian, for example, asks of the Obama administration:  "Do they now go back and investigate or indict their predecessors?

No, he says:

"That way, inevitably, lies endless political warfare. It would set the precedent for turning all future policy disagreements into political or criminal vendettas. That way lies untold bitterness -- and injustice."

"Policy disagreements?"  No, David Broder.  The authorization of torture is no simple policy disagreement.  It's a criminal violation of both domestic and international law.  The United States is obligated to investigate and then, if evidence of criminal wrongdoing is found, prosecute those responsible.

There is no morally acceptable alternative.

So what's Obama afraid of?  The collapse of bipartisanship?  What bipartisanship?  The Republicans will oppose Obama no matter what he does, so why bother with the charade?

I think the real issue for Obama is the fear of these guys, nominally Democrats, but otherwise quite conservative on most of the issues that matter to Obama (health care is a big one.) 

My advice to Obama is to do the right thing.  Let the Congressional committees hold their hearings on torture.  Let the justice department investigate.  If it comes to it, allow without objection the appointment of a special prosecutor. 

In other words, Mr. President, take the moral high road.  Ignore the 'advice' of the insufferable David Broder*. 

*(Glenn Greenwald, who may be the best online columnist/blogger out there, called Broder's op-ed piece a "truly wretched screed":

"The very same pundits and establishment journalists who today are demanding that we forget all about it, not look back, not hold anyone accountable, are the very same people who -- like Broder -- played key roles in hiding, enabling and defending these crimes."

Piracy and karma

In many respects I consider Obama "Lincolnesque" in his politics, and I mean that in a good way.  Just as Lincoln threaded a centrist path between the radical sentiments of Republican abolitionists and the reactionary venom of Democratic secessionists, Barack Obama has chosen, almost in emulation of Lincoln, centrist policies criticized by the both the left and the right. 

Lincoln was a master politician, in a way that most would say redounded to the benefit of the country.  One day Obama may be regarded as Lincoln's equal --a cautious politician keeping the best interests of his country foremost in mind.

However, although it's too early in his career to know, I fear, along with many other leftists, that Obama has placed politics, in the baser sense of the word, above sound policy.

Consider the pirates of Somalia.

In a thoughtful piece on Obama's reaction to the attempted hijacking of an American ship and the abduction of the ship's captain, Jeremy Scahill asks three key questions about the killing of the Somali pirates, the second of which concerns:

"The political decision to kill them in light of long term potential consequences... ."

The immediate consequences have been clear.  Somali pirates commandeered four more commercial ocean liners since the killings, and assaulted another American vessel as well.  Call it what you will, but actions have consequences, many of them unintended.

Gunboat diplomacy invites karmic payback.

The phrase "political decision" is more intriguing.  Scahill implies that the "decision" may have been prompted by criticism from the right that Obama is "weak on terror."  What the Obama administration decides to do with the fourth pirate, now in U.S. custody, may be more revealing about the motives for Obama's decision.  Will he be sent to Guantanamo? Bagram?  Or will he be tried openly in criminal court?

That decision may tell us more about the nature of Obama's "Lincolnesque" political strategies.

Let me be clear that I reserve judgment.  Like Lincoln, who seldom spoke in open reaction to his critics, Obama may well be working behind the scenes to ensure his policies succeed. 

We'll see. 

Of pirates and pollution

So what's with all these modern day Somali pirates preying on cargo ships in the Indian Ocean?  Are they cutthroats like the pirates of old?  Islamic terrorists bent on disrupting world trade?  Or are they some new breed of ruthless mercenary taking advantage of the plunder to be had off the coast of the strategically located Horn of Africa?

According to Johann Hari in a must read essay published on Common Dreams, there's a simpler explanation.  Somali pirates are mainly just fishermen trying to make a living denied to them by the depredations of Western countries who have over-fished --and polluted-- their waters.

Polluted with nuclear waste.

"Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the [Somali] government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. ... Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died. ...Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to 'dispose' of cheaply."

The combination of pollution and overfishing --the West saw its opportunity when Somalia became a "failed state"-- created Somalian piracy.  

The great question is, what do we do about it?  Or as Hari asks,

"Once again, our great imperial fleets sail in today - but who is the [real] robber?"

Netanyahu's ploy

From Uri Avnery in TiKkun:

"FROM THE beginnings of Zionism, its leaders have known that their vision necessitates a large measure of make-belief. It is impossible to take over a country inhabited by another people without disguising the aim, diverting attention, hiding the acts on the ground behind a screen of flowery words.
...
"BUT DECEIVING, like dancing the tango, takes two: one who deceives and one who wants to be deceived.

"Netanyahu believes that Obama will want to be deceived. Why would he want to quarrel with Israel, confront the mighty pro-Israel lobby and the US Congress, when he can settle for soothing words from Netanyahu? ...

"Is Obama ready to play, like most of his predecessors, the role of the deceived lover?"

As I've written before, what America does is more important than what the anti-peace Israeli government does.  So what will Obama do?

For those interested in the long term prospects for settled relations in the Muslim world, as we all should be, Avnery's piece is not only worth reading, it's a "must read."

More on the perils of Zionism

From a letter to Jimmy Carter written by a "Jew born in Palestine in 1941":

"As numerous Zionist leaders have openly expressed, they consider assimilation of Jews, such as mixed marriages, as the main threat to Judaism, comparable to the Holocaust: Both significantly reduce the number of Jews. To [equate] the love felt by a person of Jewish descent to another person of gentile descent with mass murder testifies to the pathologic nature of Zionist thinking. It also underlines the hysterical approach of Zionists to the phenomenon of assimilation."

                                                                        --Elias Davidsson
On the OpEdNews website, the voluble --and outspoken-- Stephen Lendman calls Zionism indefensible:

"Zionist ideology is extremist, undemocratic, and hateful. It claims Jewish supremacy, specialness, and uniqueness - God's 'chosen people.' It harms Jews and non-Jews alike."

Zionism by definition is "undemocratic".  I also fully agree that Zionism ultimately harms Jews.  Unless the Israelis want to remain in a perpetual state of war, they must eventually abandon the Zionist "ideal".

In a thoughtful article written for Tikkun, Joel Kovel asks a series of questions about the fruit of Zionism:

"What, then, is the real character of the Israeli state and the Zionism of which it is the fruit? What are we to call a project which, though it boasts of being a 'democracy,' reserves 92% of its land for Jewish people? Where one who converts to Judaism or has a Jewish great-grandmother is automatically given full rights to the land while those others whose families merely happened to have lived there for centuries are at best second-class and landless?"

He answers with another question:

"Is there any word for this except racism, institutionalized at the most fundamental level of the state?"

Of course, this post is all about the inevitability of a one state solution in Israel/Palestine, the only obstacles to which are entrenched Zionism and the continuing support of the United States for a two-state solution, which has no chance of acceptance by Palestinians given the current conditions in the West Bank. 

As the 2004 Olga Document puts it:

"Whoever has eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the choice is between another 'hundred years of conflict' ending in annihilation, and a partnership among all the inhabitants of this land. Only such a partnership is capable of turning us, the Jews of Israel, from foreigners in their country to its real inhabitants."

Peruse these articles for a better understanding of the one state solution.