19, December 2019 India’s sliding into a dictatorship
Following in the footsteps of the US, the cancer of
intolerance has engulfed much of India. The new “howdy” Modi is rapidly
becoming “adios” Modi as India’s prime minister attempts to stifle growing
outrage over the anti-Muslim Citizenship bill.
Protests have erupted across India in response to
the Indian Parliament’s decision to give favored treatment to Hindu and other
non-Muslim migrants in India. Like most
autocrats, Modi has suspended access to the Internet for 60 million people
fearful that social media may amplify the outrage. Last year the internet was shutdown 134
times, and this year 93 times removing a bastion of democracy, free speech.
Much like “President Nixon’s enemy list” Modi has crafted an enemy list of
dissidents including prominent reporters. A climate of fear has gripped India
and the iron boots of India’s police and paramilitary has been unleashed on
protestors.
The shutdown of the
Internet has severely impacted small entrepreneurs who sell their products
online.
This new law follows on the heels of the highly
controversial decision revoking Kashmir’s autonomy, and rounding up thousands
of Muslims, many simply disappearing during the complete lockdown . Many Kashmiris have been jailed without
charge, journalists intimidated and negative economic news censored.
Repeated demands by prominent members of the
opposition Congress Party, including Shashi Tharoor,
a prominent member of parliament and a former diplomat, to visit
Kashmir on a fact finding mission have been denied. Sadly, India’s long
traditions of democracy and secularism are under assault and the country is
rapidly sliding into an authoritarian state.
13, December 2019 Vietnam Redux,
Afghanistan the Graveyard of Empires
According
to a trove of documents obtained by the Washington Post, senior U.S. officials deliberately
misled the American people throughout the 18-year campaign, making sunny pronouncements
they knew to be untrue and hiding unmistakable evidence the war was doomed to
fail.
Remember
Vice President Dick Cheney boasting “we have the Taliban on the run” mimicking
President Nixon’s oft repeated pronouncement “we see light at the end of the
tunnel,” misleading progress in the failed Vietnam War.
“We
didn’t know what we were doing, confessed General Lute, The White House’s
Afghan war czar during Bush and Obama’s administrations.
2,400
American lives lost, 20,589 wounded and thousands of innocent Afghan civilians
killed and maimed. Unable to cope with the horrors of war many US soldiers took
their own lives.
The
core failings of the war that persist to this day span three presidencies, Bush jnr, Obama and Trump.
Obscene
amounts of money were squandered in the mistaken belief that Afghanistan would
be crushed with America’s superior firepower ignoring the mistakes of Vietnam,
Iraq and so many other failed conflicts.
Sadly,
no government official will be held accountable for the appalling mistakes in
conducting the war or fueling runaway corruption and failing to put a dent into
Afghanistan thriving opium trade. This is also a damning indictment of Congress
which completely failed in its oversight duties. The CIA and military budgets
need to be drastically cut to halt these costly military adventures. Afghanistan really is the graveyard of
empires.
11, December 2019 Saudi’s military in the US
The recent Pensacola naval base shooting focuses much
needed attention on our continued relationship with the Saudi kingdom.
The leaders of Saudi Arabia claim they are devastated by
the deadly attack and intend to “help out” the families of those murdered.
It comes as a complete surprise to learn that we are we
training their military after the Saudi prince, MBS, planned the assassination
of Khashoggi and the dismemberment of his body.
Saudi Arabia
has never been a true friend of the United States because of its extremist
Islamic ideology.
Riyadh is a destabilizing force in the region; its repressive regime
has bred terrorists and supported radical Islamic groups World-wide. It has
funded $billions to religious schools which often serve as incubators for
suicide bombers. Its treatment of women is appalling. If found guilty of
adultery they can be stoned to death, Thieves can have their hands cut off
following the dictates of Sharia Law. According to Amnesty International,
security forces continue to torture and ill- treat detainees to extract
confessions to be used as evidence against them at trial. Recently, 32
defendants accused of spying for Iran were subjected to torture and forced
confessions.
Saudi Arabia’s royal family helped finance al Qaeda in the years just
prior to the 2001 terrorist attacks.
In its report on the still-censored “28 pages” implicating the Saudi
government in 9/11, “60 Minutes” reported the Saudi role in the attacks has
been “soft-pedaled” to protect America’s “delicate alliance” with the oil-rich
kingdom. Its enormous oil wealth has insulated it from public censure for its
rampant acts of international terrorism.
In complete violation of the Emoluments clause Trump and his family continue
to do business in Saudi Araba. The Saudis helped salvage Kushner’s investment
for his property, the Tower, at 666 5th Avenue with a massive
infusion of cash.
Americans should be very wary of our continued relationship
with Saudi Arabia still seeped in “stone age” traditions and customs. Saudi
military personnel are a clear and present danger and should leave the US
immediately.
7, December 2019 Donald Trump receives a dose of his
own medicine
Unprotected by the Republican sycophants in Congress
and his darling Fox and Friends. NATO leaders ridiculed Donald Trump for his
insulting behavior and to his customary barrage of insults. Crushed and
thoroughly humiliated Trump made a hasty retreat and returned home sniveling
and snarling exposing his razor thin-skinned vulnerability.
Traumatized by the looming impeachment, Trump he had
sought comfort from British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, telling him that his
letter to Ukraine’s president was flawless. A thoroughly exasperated Johnson
told him he didn’t care a “Brexit” about his problems.
Mr. Trump, if you can’t take the heat, get out of
the kitchen, stay home don’t shatter America’s declining image any further. You
have done enough damage.
Mr. Trump has burnt all his bridges with his uncouth
behavior and threats. Alas, he has only two friends, Vladimir Putin and the
Saudi prince, MBS, who seems to enjoy decapitating his opponents. Perhaps one
day with the release of his tax returns we will all learn the true nature of
his friendship with Putin. Is there a
quid pro quo with the wily Putin? Why are Mr. Trump and his super hero, Giuliani, trying
to promote a bogus theory of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election? Is it
to deflect attention away from Russia? Are the chickens finally coming home to
roost?
5, December 2019 Mike Pompeo
It is a pity that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who had so much
potential hitched his wagon to the thoroughly disgraced President Trump putting
his professional career ahead of the welfare of his staff.
He seemddefend paralyzed with fear as he witnessed, an outstanding
Foreign Service officer, Marie Yovanovitchwas being railroaded and trashed by
his boss.
The ever petulant and insecure Trump lashed out after Yovanovitch who felt
bullied calling her “bad news”.
The dark shadow of special agent, Rudy Guliani orchestrated the smear
campaign that ended her carrer. In a just world, Gulliani should be on the FBI
most wanted list. In a rare moment of truth, Pompeo’s deputy secretary of
state, John Sullivan admitted that Yovanovitch had discharged her duties “admirably and capably” and postured that
Guliani was befind her removal.
It is time Guliani is summoned before the House to expain his nefarious
activities. He is a clear ? and present danger to the survial of our crumbling
democracy.
A
warning to all U.S. dimplomats, watch your bback”if you fall afoul of the
twitter-in-chief, your boss Pomeo will be MIA.
Pompeo
will remain hopelessly mute if the Twitter knife ends your careers.
2, December 2019 Bogus charges of anti-Semitism in
the UK
British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has again
condemned anti-Semitism,
to dispel charges levelled at him by Britain’s chief
rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, who accused Corbyn and his Labor Party of anti-Semitism
ahead of national elections on December 12.
What has incensed Mirvis is Corbyn’s criticism of
Israel’s military occupation and siege of Gaza. Accusations of anti-Semitism is
a familiar playbook to silence critics of Israel’s apartheid policies.
Mirivis’s criticism is a blatant effort to tilt the December 12 election in
favor of Boris Johnson.
Contrary to Maris’s criticism, Corbyn has spent his entire political
career as a fierce critic of racism, and has an unblemished record of activism
as a backbencher. The Labor Party has traditionally taken the political lead in
combating racism and colonialism.
By speaking out as the voice of British
Jews, Mirvis
has drawn unwanted attention on Britain’s Jews and made them much less safe.
Much like the strong position taken by
Senator Bernie Sanders, a Jew, Corbyn’s Labor party has promised in its latest
manifesto to stop selling weapons to Israel (and Saudi Arabia) which have been
used to slaughter innocent men, women and children in Yemen and Gaza.
Mirvis falsely believes that by wounding
Corbyn he can help propel a benevolent Tory party ignoring Tories long history
of promoting trade over concerns for human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia and
Israel.
Mirvis’s flagrant intervention in the
election campaign actually bolsters the cancer of antisemitism that is rapidly
making inroads into the Conservative party. Mirvis seems to have forgotten the
actions of arch-anti-Semite Arthur Balfour who signed off the Balfour
Declaration of 1917 that sought to end Britain’s “Jewish problem” by
encouraging European Jews to migrate to the Middle East displacing e
Palestinians who had lived in Palestine for centuries.
The pro-business weekly, the Economist,
declared that those identifying as “very right-wing”, were three and half times
more likely to support Johnson and support hostile attitudes towards Jews and
non-whites especially blacks and Muslims.
The Labor Party has long history of
opposing colonialism, a dark stain on Britain’s history.
Nations who were finally granted
independence from Britain found themselves fragmented and impoverished. India
and Cyprus were prime examples of states, often with borders imposed out of naked
imperial interest that left them divided and feuding.
The west helped engineer both the ethnic
cleansing of Palestine and Israel’s creation. Israel acquired nuclear
technology with the help of Britain and the US ensuring the Palestinians were
made Israel’s serfs in perpetuity.
Efforts to shame Israel for its gross human
rights violations with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction campaign which is
modeled on South Africa’s apartheid policies have been vigorously opposed by
powerful British and American Jewish organizations.
Billions of dollars have been diverted
from impoverished and homeless Americans to prop up Israel.
Many critics accuse Israel and Mirvis of
“spiting g on the grave of their ancestors” by using the anti-Semitic crimes of
the Holocaust to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
