President Trump Attacks Syria Again

In response to what he claimed were chemical weapon attacks against Syrian rebels, President Trump ordered missile attacks against targets in Syria. These bombings were done in concert with France and the UK on Friday night. The number of casualties and other damage is at this time unclear.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States, France and Britain launched military strikes in Syria to punish President Bashar Assad for an apparent chemical attack against civilians and to deter him from doing it again, President Donald Trump announced Friday. Pentagon officials said the attacks targeted the heart of Assad's programs to develop and produce chemical weapons.

Explosions lit up the skies over Damascus, the Syrian capital, as Trump spoke from the White House. Syrian television reported that Syria's air defenses, which are substantial, responded to the attack. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said there were no reports of U.S. losses in what he described as a heavy but carefully limited assault.

Trump said the U.S. is prepared to sustain economic, diplomatic and military pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons. "The evil and the despicable attack left mothers and fathers, infants and children, thrashing in pain and gasping for air. These are not the actions of a man; they are crimes of a monster instead," Trump said. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any use of banned weapons.

The decision to strike, after days of deliberations, marked Trump's second order to attack Syria. He authorized a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit a single Syrian airfield in April 2017 in retaliation for Assad's use of sarin gas against civilians. The strikes that hit early Saturday in Syria came hours before inspectors from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons were set to arrive to inspect the site of the apparent attack. LINK

President Obama Approval Ratings and Leadership

I am not a President Obama partisan. I supported other candidates. I think the President has been a more or less average President. I have been severely disappointed on his foreign policy and civil liberties moves. I think that by instinct and training the President is too often cautious when he should be bold. That aside, given the nature of the United States political economy one would have been foolish to expect any President, let alone the first Black President to have been a fire breathing transformative figure of justice for race, gender, class or any other issue that is near and dear to the Left. That's just not how things work, despite what Cornel West says. It's not original to me and I can't remember where I read it but just recently I perused something that claimed (perhaps jokingly, perhaps not) that just as soon as any US President is inaugurated he is shown an unreleased tape of the events in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963 and asked if he has any questions. I don't know about that but for whatever reason President Obama has been something of a disappointment to some notable progressive figures, most recently filmmaker Michael Moore. For some reason some white progressives always seem to be surprised and vaguely disappointed that not every black politician is Nat Turner Malcolm X the 3rd, a fire breathing reject from a 70s blaxploitation movie who's here to kick a$$ and stick it to the Man. I'm not entirely sure such a man would have been elected President. Nah, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been. But it's not just rotund Michiganians that the President has to worry about pleasing. His approval ratings for leadership have reached new lows just as he plans to address the nation this evening to discuss his strategy for dealing with the group ISIS.

Barack Obama’s rating for strong leadership has dropped to a new low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, hammered by criticism of his work on international crises and a stalled domestic agenda alike. With the midterm elections looming, Americans by a 10-point margin, 52-42 percent, see his presidency more as a failure than a success.

Just 38 percent now approve of Obama’s handling of international affairs, down 8 percentage points since July to a career low; 56 percent disapprove, a majority for the first time. Fifty-two percent say he’s been too cautious in dealing with Islamic insurgents in Iraq and Syria. And the public is ahead of Obama in support for a military response to that crisis, with 65 percent in favor of extending U.S. air strikes to Syria.  

LINK

Now you can always find reasons to blame the guy in the Big Seat before you for leaving you a big old s*** sandwich to chow down on. Almost every President does that, especially if the previous President was a member of the opposite party. Heck, even if the previous President was a member of your party, would be Presidents often find it prudent to distance themselves policy wise, just ask Hillary Clinton. I think that the Iraq war pursued by President Bush and the entire Mid-East policy pursued by previous Presidents have been utter failures. ISIS would not exist as it does now had the US not invaded Iraq and unwittingly released and restoked ethnic and religious tensions across the region. Unlike what Cheney and other neocons claimed, invading Iraq did not lead to peaceful multiparty democracies in the Middle East. But that's not important now. President Obama is in charge. He will have to convince people that he knows what he's doing and that he has a coherent and applicable foreign policy strategy. Ironically, Congress, which has the constitutional power to declare war and end funding for war, has been in hiding on the issue, scared to say yea or nay. It is much safer to effectively vote "Present" and then blame the President if things turn out bad or say you were with him all along if things work out. That's a failing in our system.

Nevertheless whether it is "optics" as the President and his supporters dismissively term it or an actual "failure of leadership" as trained conservative critics bray on command, there does seem to me to be a certain hesitation, a certain reluctance, a willingness to "lead from behind" which can be somewhat offsetting to the American public. As pointed out in the ABC NEWS link though the saving grace for the President is that the Republicans in Congress and Congress in general are seen in an even worse light. Their constant "no" on everything and their embrace of racialized ugliness have left Republicans in a bad place, nationally. Also I think that people forget sometimes, in part because of the 24-7 news cycle and constant "scandal that fizzles out", that we do not live under a parliamentary system. Even if almost everyone thinks the President is the worst President ever and the Democrats get slaughtered in the midterms, absent impeachment and conviction, President Obama still has two years and change left in his term. He's not going anywhere.

Still, from a purely partisan perspective, it might help Democrats heck it might help the country, if the President could provide or be seen to provide some stronger leadership and clarity. I don't understand how he can claim he doesn't need congressional approval for war in Libya, turn around and say he probably does need it in Syria and now hint that he may not need it for Iraq and Syria. You have to give your supporters something to rally for, not just constantly say the other guys are worse. Although that may be true I'm not sure that gets people to the polls in November or helps your party keep the White House in 2016.

What do you think?

Do you think the President has provided strong leadership?

Do you have any serious disappointments with the President?

If you could talk to him what you like to him to say in his speech tonight? Will you watch his speech?

What policy changes would you ask him to make? What can he do to improve the public perception of his leadership?

On the oppression of male youth in Palestine and the US

Today's guest post comes to us from Temple University graduate, Michelle Zei. Michelle is a freelance journalist who recently visited the Aida Refugee Camp in Israel. Her experience gave her a unique perspective on the turmoil surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. 

During the summer, most Americans probably took vague notice that peace negotiations resumed in the Middle East. “Peace in the Middle East”, a phrase often thrown around allusively with little context, and a general attitude of futility. ‘There will never be peace,’ most people might think, ‘Why even try?’

“There's war on the streets and the war in the Middle East.” Tupac said it in the 90’s and it rings true today.

But approaching any situation as an endless conflict has never helped in the past and to take it a step further seeing the ‘Israeli- Palestinian Conflict’ as continuously hopeless doesn’t garner interest from the American public. 

The conflict that is portrayed as ageless is, in fact a military occupation dating back to 1948. There are not two equal parties at war but rather an indigenous group pushed inside narrow, shrinking borders under Israel’s on-going military rule. The occupation of Palestinian land and people, like other forms of colonialism, consists of the destruction of communities and culture: crippled economies, displacement of people, separation of families, millions of refugees, and the arrest of young males without warrant. Additionally, the arrest and disenfranchisement of so many men makes families and communities struggle for unity and economic strength. Women often bare immense burdens of maintaining households and trying to raise and protect their children- to teach them pride, strength and hope in the midst of a threatening reality. 

Many young Palestinian males share rights of passage of harassment and captivity similarly to young men of color in other parts of the world, even here. The U.S. injustices rooted in displacing natives, relying on slavery for economic growth, and later administering discriminatory laws under Jim Crow have put the U.S. in a place where black men have been systemically criminalized and assumed guilty until proven innocence. 

How can these people be innocent and receive empathy in a country where they’ve been pegged as violent aggressors without historical context (that includes them being the recipients of violence for generations)? Palestinians are faced with this dilemma as well. 

Under an oppressive judicial, police or military system, these young males are presumed as a threat before they even act. Even youth are suspects; building the foundation for them to be devalued and mistreated. Legal systems set the tone for how citizens view youth and adults.

In the U.S., we have the recent examples of Kimani Gray who was shot and killed by N.Y.P.D. officers and George Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin.

Palestinian youth also receive brutality and harassment from Israeli soldiers and citizens. For example, last year Jamal Julani, a Palestinian teen was attacked by Israeli teens in Jerusalem until he was left unconscious. This year in Aida refugee camp, 13-year-old MohammedAl-Kurdi and 15-year-old Ahmed Amarin were fatally shot by Israeli soldiers in front of a community center.

The power of social media led active community members to seek justice for Trayvon Martin. A change.org petition circulated and raised an overwhelming amount of support in favor of charging Zimmerman  and finally the state responded. Even when justice wasn’t served, adults and youth continued fighting to illuminate the legacy of racism and racial profiling- to advocate for young black men and stand in unity.

However much like Kimani Gray’s death, the deaths and imprisonment of many Palestinian youth go unreported and misunderstood in the U.S. media. We must challenge ourselves to learn the names and circumstances of those, local and internationally whose deaths and suffering never make headlines.

Minors behind bars

Just as many American activists from groups like Decarcerate P.A.  and the Youth Art & Self-Empowerment Project address issues of imprisonment and the charge of minors as adults, children as young as 12 are held in Israeli military detention without charge, for renewable, six-month periods. According to the UN, in 2011, 200 Palestinian youth were arrested per month.  

The double standard for how Palestinians are treated within the Israeli courts is just one facet of apartheid in Palestine-Israel, reminiscent of that in South Africa and Jim Crow south.

Respected figures in the civil rights movement like Alice Walker have long admonished the occupation and chosen to stand with the Palestinian people. Walker wrote Alicia Keys a letter to join the cultural boycott of Israel a couple months ago but her letter wasn’t understood or received by the public or perhaps Keys herself. 

In addition, Nelson Mandela’s friend Ahmed Kathrada who also was imprisoned for fighting against apartheid wrote a letter to Morgan Freeman, asking him to pull out of a fundraiser for HebrewUniversity.

Other public figures like Angela Davis and Lenny Kravitz have spoken out against the Israeli military occupation as well. These people recognize the importance of connecting local concerns and action to international solidarity and advocacy.

The fight for Palestinians to be recognized and have freedom is an ongoing struggle. Peace negotiations will inevitably resume at some point, with the U.S. playing referee. As American citizens, we often hear in political discourse that Israel is our biggest ally in the Middle East, a beacon of light and example of democracy. However as we know, young democracies built on the displacement of others are imperfect and in need of constant examination and changes so that more people can thrive and live in peace.

Many refugees and immigrants from Palestine, like other regions of the world are now American citizens, continuing life in a place with its own contradictions and injustices. Stories of pain and persecution are more often silenced than shared. Learning more about other countries, especially where the U.S. government has a large presence is a way to better understand our country, its people and influence.

I encourage you to look into the rich history and culture of the Palestinian people, learn the names of politicians, artists, and even innocent boys whose lives have been cut short by unpunished crimes.

Military Coup and Violence in Egypt

Imagine that the US Armed Forces, whose officer class generally tends politically conservative, lose patience with President Obama. The generals don't approve of what they see as his Constitutional end runs, his recess appointments, or his defense policies. Troops surround the White House, easily and casually disarm, subdue or eliminate any laughably outgunned loyalist Secret Service/FBI agents/DC police officers. They take the President and his associates into custody. The military shuts down unfriendly media. Liberal supporters lead marches or sit-ins but the military brass has given the green light. Protesters are arrested or killed by the dozens. The military also issues arrest orders for hundreds of other Administration supporters, who flee overseas or go underground. 

The military appoints John Boehner temporary President. But Boehner is a patsy. Reporters speak to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the real boss. The Chairman speaks vaguely of future elections but won't commit to a date. He won't even admit that he initiated a coup. He claims that his actions were necessary to save democracy. The Department of Justice finds new crimes with which to charge former President Obama. 

Undeterred, the deposed President's supporters organize a massive sit-in at the Washington Monument. They are surrounded by police and military personnel in tanks. After 10 days of peaceful protest, one morning without warning the military and the police move in. This time instead of dozens being killed, it's hundreds and possibly even thousands. People are gunned down from helicopters without regard to age, sex or actual threat. Snipers target protest leaders. Those who are lucky enough to get arrested face charges that could place them in prison for decades. There are then bloody revenge attacks on police, military and civilians who are believed, rightly or wrongly, to support the coup. Fox News, Investors Business Daily, The Washington Times, The WSJ, The National Review, and other "responsible" media speak of the need for stability and the necessity of fighting the liberal-socialist threat.

Well that is what has been going on in Egypt over the past six weeks. Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, was heading down a political path that was unpopular within broad segments of the country, though it's unclear whether the majority wanted him out. Unfortunately for Morsi however, what he saw as reforms or political consolidation, was seen as unacceptable by the military, who overthrew him on July 3. Defense Minister General Abdel Fatah-el-Sisi gave the order. I do not wish to defend Morsi or the Muslim Brotherhood. I don't care one way or the other about them. But whether the US liked it or not Morsi was the freely and fairly elected President of Egypt. There is a system by which Morsi can be checked and/or removed from office. Military intervention should not be part of that system.

US law clearly indicates that US military aid is not supposed to go to a nation which has had a coup. In a move that is sadly typical, the Administration has claimed that although that may be the law, it is not required to determine if a coup has taken place. Additionally Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the generals were "restoring democracy".

This weak response may well have emboldened the Egyptian military establishment to give the orders for the latest bloody assault on the protesters and also for the apparent murder of 36 prisoners who were alleged to support the deposed President Morsi. At least 1000 people have died so far. Most of them were apparently demonstrators.

CAIRO — The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces had killed 36 Islamists in its custody on Sunday, as the country’s military leaders and Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The deaths were the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time so many had died while in government custody.The news of the deaths came on a day when there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that had claimed more than 1,000 lives since Wednesday, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces.

The Islamists took measures on Sunday to avoid further confrontations, including canceling several protests over the military’s ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.

While confirming the killings of the detainees on Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners. But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and said that the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of a locked prison van.

Both the country of Israel and Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States have lobbied the US not to cut off military aid. The second group has even offered to make up any loss in aid to Egypt out of its own pocket. After all the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia wouldn't want its own subjects to look at successful democracy in Egypt and start to get big ideas about political changes. There are also US interests to consider. These include favorable access to the Suez Canal, overflights and refueling over Egyptian airspace, as well as concerns about the nature of the state that Morsi or other Muslim Brotherhood backed politicians might seek to run. I mean, judging by some of their supporters' actions, religious freedom and safety for minority points of view or minority public safety don't appear to be high on their agenda.

So there aren't any good answers. But there is a right answer. The US simply can't try to gin up support for the overthrow of Syrian President Assad by piously claiming "He's killing his own people" when Egyptian generals are doing the same thing. The US can't claim to support democracy and lecture other nations on free and fair elections and then turn a blind eye to a military coup. The lesson that the US and its Arab client states are teaching opposition movements is clear. Elections don't matter. If you win we will try to get rid of you via other means, including violence. So opposition movements will not try to engage in electoral politics, rationally deciding that such things are meaningless. This means more radicalization and violence in the long term. Now this is good if you happen to be the world's largest arms dealer like the US, but I'm not sure it's actually good for living beings who aren't weapons merchants. The US should follow the law and suspend the military aid (which is frankly a subsidy to US military contractors) Also I don't think it's in the US interest to let any client state dictate what our response should be. The tail doesn't get to wag the dog.

Thoughts?

The UN welcomes Palestine as Observer State

As discussed the Palestinians want independence. They tried and failed to get the UN Security Council to recognize Palestine as a state. So roughly a year after this effort failed in the Security Council the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas tried again in the General Assembly where there is no veto. And this time despite threats of bad consequences from Israel, the United States and a few other nations, the bid for recognition as a state finally passed!

UNITED NATIONS — More than 130 countries voted on Thursday to upgrade Palestine to a nonmember observer state of the United Nations, a triumph for Palestinian diplomacy and a sharp rebuke to the United States and Israel.

But the vote, at least for now, did little to bring either the Palestinians or the Israelis closer to the goal they claim to seek: two states living side by side, or increased Palestinian unity. Israel and the militant group Hamas both responded critically to the day’s events, though for different reasons.

The new status will give the Palestinians more tools to challenge Israel in international legal forums for its occupation activities in the West Bank, including settlement-building, and it helped bolster the Palestinian Authority, weakened after eight days of battle between its rival Hamas and Israel.

But even as a small but determined crowd of 2,000 celebrated in central Ramallah in the West Bank, waving flags and dancing, there was an underlying sense of concerned resignation.

“I hope this is good,” said Munir Shafie, 36, an electrical engineer who was there. “But how are we going to benefit?”

Still, the General Assembly vote — 138 countries in favor, 9 opposed and 41 abstaining — showed impressive backing for the Palestinians at a difficult time. It was taken on the 65th anniversary of the vote to divide the former British mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab, a vote Israel considers the international seal of approval for its birth.

“The question is, where do we go from here and what does it mean?” Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, who was in New York for the vote, said in an interview. “The sooner the tough rhetoric of this can subside and the more this is viewed as a logical consequence of many years of failure to move the process forward, the better.” He said nothing would change without deep American involvement.

Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.”

LINK

Rice's contemptuous declaration is of a piece with other similar statements she's made in the past about the Palestinians and similar to what Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, had to say about consequences for the Palestinians seeking status upgrade. "As you know we also have money pending in the Congress for the Palestinian Authority, money that they need to support their regular endeavors and support administration of the territories. So obviously if they take this step it's going to complicate the way Congress looks at the Palestinians".

In other words...Nice little shop you got here Mahmoud.You've got a wife, some kids, a good little business. Now you wouldn't want any accidents to happen, right? So you'll wise up and do the right thing, right? The Don has always thought of you as a friend.

The US, Israel and some other countries tried to prevent the Palestinian Authority from receiving observer state status and having failed to do that then tried to extort assurances from the Palestinian Authority that it would not try to join the International Criminal Court or join other UN agencies or that it would reopen negotiations with the Israelis. The Palestinian Authority turned down all of those "requests". What the US and nations who voted against the resolution failed to realize is that for better or worse the Palestinians need a win. Pride and human dignity demand it. It is simply not possible to keep people under military occupation for 45 years and not have attempts at removing the occupation. Israel has refused to stop settlements in the West Bank or Jerusalem. And at the time of this writing Israel just announced plans for expanded settlements in East Jerusalem. This is of course punishment for the Palestinian Authority's move.

A senior Israeli official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said on Friday that the decision was made late Thursday night to move forward on “preliminary zoning and planning preparations” for housing units in E1, which would connect the large settlement of Maale Adumim to Jerusalem and therefore make it impossible to connect the Palestinian cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem to Palestinian neighborhoods of East Jerusalem. Israel also authorized the construction of 3,000 housing units in other parts of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the official said.

As we've discussed before you simply can't have a two-state solution and have ongoing settlements. They cancel each other out. I still believe that a one-state solution, which no one will like initially, remains the best way out of a bad situation. If South Africa and Rhodesia could come to accept that the state included more than whites then the Israelis and Palestinians will as well. Eliminationist fantasies on either side will need to be put down. One state, equal rights for all, and special rights for none. What's wrong with that?

A more canny US and Israel would have welcomed a Palestinian "state" on the West Bank since as is obvious such a state would be one in name only. But the need to continually humiliate Abbas and the Palestinian Authority meant that Abbas had nothing to lose by going to the UN. This was especially important in recent times as the Palestinian Authority had nothing to show for "good behavior" except more settlements while Hamas was seen to be fighting back. If you tell people they're going to lose no matter what, often people would rather go down swinging. 

So what does this all mean? As new announcements of settlements show, not a whole lot right now. But whether it's through violence or non-violence, the Palestinians intend to resist the narrative that they don't matter or that they should just fade into irrelevance. There will be renewed spotlight on the occupation and increasing diplomatic pressure to create some sort of solution. The US has done itself a disservice by continuing to enable the most right-wing elements of the Israeli body politic. The Palestinian Authority will seek to make the occupation cost Israel more than it has in the past. Will they be successful? The future's a devious thing to predict. But things that can't go on forever don't. And the occupation is one of those things.