No one seemed as excited about the election of Joe Biden being the next President of the United States as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas. When all hope seemed lost, where Abbas found himself desperate for political validation and funds, Biden arrived like a conquering knight on a white horse and swept the Palestinian leader away to safety.
Abbas was one of the first world leaders to congratulate the Democratic President-elect on his victory. While Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, delayed his congratulatory statement in the hope that Donald Trump would eventually be able to reverse the results, Abbas suffered no such illusions. Considering the humiliation that the Palestinian Authority experienced at the hands of the Trump Administration, Abbas had nothing to lose. For him, Biden, despite his long love affair with Israel, still represented a ray of hope.
But can the wheel of history be turned back? Despite the fact that the Biden Administration has made it clear that it will not be reversing any of the pro-Israel steps taken by the departing Trump Administration, Abbas remains confident that, at least, the ‘peace process’ can be restored.
This may seem to be an impossible dichotomy, for how can a ‘peace process’ deliver peace if all the components of a just peace have already been eradicated?
It is obvious that there can be no real peace if the US government insists on recognizing all of Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘eternal’ capital. There can be no peace if the US continues to fund illegal Jewish settlements, bankroll Israeli apartheid, deny the rights of Palestinian refugees, turn a blind eye to de facto annexation under way in Occupied Palestine and recognize the illegally-occupied Syrian Golan Heights as part of Israel, all of which is likely to remain the same, even under the Biden Administration.
The ‘peace process’ is unlikely to deliver any kind of a just, sustainable peace in the future, when it has already failed to do so in the past 30 years.
Yet, despite the ample lessons of the past, Abbas has decided, again, to gamble with the fate of his people and jeopardize their struggle for freedom and a just peace. Not only is Abbas building a campaign involving Arab countries, namely Jordan and Egypt, to revive the ‘peace process’, he is also walking back on all his promises and decisions to cancel the Oslo Accords, and end ‘security coordination’ with Israel. By doing so, Abbas has betrayed national unity talks between his party, Fatah, and Hamas.
Unity talks between rival Palestinian groups seemed to take a serious turn last July, when Palestine’s main political parties issued a joint statement declaring their intent to defeat Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’. The language used in that statement was reminiscent of the revolutionary discourse used by these groups during the First and Second Intifadas (uprisings), itself a message that Fatah was finally re-orienting itself around national priorities and away from the ‘moderate’ political discourse wrought by the US-sponsored ‘peace process’.
Even those who grew tired and cynical about the shenanigans of Abbas and Palestinian groups wondered if this time would be different; that Palestinians would finally agree on a set of principles through which they could express and channel their struggle for freedom.
Oddly, Trump’s four-year term in the White House was the best thing that happened to the Palestinian national struggle. His administration was a jarring and indisputable reminder that the US is not – and has never been – ‘an honest peace broker’ and that Palestinians cannot steer their political agenda to satisfy US-Israeli demands in order for them to obtain political validation and financial support.
By cutting off US funding of the Palestinian Authority in August 2018, followed by the shutting down of the Palestinian mission in Washington DC, Trump has liberated Palestinians from the throes of an impossible political equation. Without the proverbial American carrot, the Palestinian leadership has had the rare opportunity to rearrange the Palestinian home for the benefit of the Palestinian people.
Alas, those efforts were short-lived. After multiple meetings and video conferences between Fatah, Hamas and other delegations representing Palestinian groups, Abbas declared, on November 17, the resumption of ‘security coordination’ between his Authority and Israel. This was followed by the Israeli announcement on December 2 to release over a billion dollars of Palestinian funds that were unlawfully held by Israel as a form of political pressure.
This takes Palestinian unity back to square one. At this point, Abbas finds unity talks with his Palestinian rivals quite useless. Since Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestine National Council (PNC), conceding any ground or sharing leadership with other Palestinian factions seems self-defeating. Now that Abbas is reassured that the Biden Administration will bequeath him, once again, with the title of ‘peace partner’, a US ally and a moderate, the Palestinian leader no longer finds it necessary to seek approval from the Palestinians. Since there can be no middle ground between catering to a US-Israeli agenda and elevating a Palestinian national agenda, the Palestinian leader opted for the former and, without hesitation, ditched the latter.
While it is true that Biden will neither satisfy any of the Palestinian people’s demands or reverse any of his predecessor’s missteps, Abbas can still benefit from what he sees as a seismic shift in US foreign policy – not in favor of the Palestinian cause but of Abbas personally, an unelected leader whose biggest accomplishment has been sustaining the US-imposed status quo and keeping the Palestinian people pacified for as long as possible.
Although the ‘peace process’ has been declared ‘dead’ on multiple occasions, Abbas is now desperately trying to revive it, not because he – or any rational Palestinian – believes that peace is at hand, but because of the existential relationship between the PA and this US-sponsored political scheme. While most Palestinians gained nothing from all of this, a few Palestinians accumulated massive wealth, power and prestige. For this clique, that alone is a cause worth fighting for.
On the second of December this year the Chinese representative to the United Nations General Assembly addressed the meeting on the topic of Palestine and more particularly on his country’s view of the ongoing disasters that daily inflict the Palestinians in that country. Unsurprisingly, the speech received no coverage in the Australian media. The continued support by the Australian government for Israel in that Assembly, typically with the votes of the United States, Canada, Israel and some pocket handkerchief sized neo-colonies in the Pacific, is one of the great unreported matters of Australian “diplomacy”.
The attitude of the Beijing government is to place the Palestinian cause “at the heart of the Middle East situation.” The Chinese vote in the United Nations in support of the Palestinian cause (along with the vast majority of member states) reflected the earlier statement on 1 December 2020 of Chinese president Xi Jinping. Speaking on that date in support of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people, Xi reiterated China’s firm support for the “just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights.” Those are words one would not expect to hear from an Australian politician, and particularly its present Prime Minister who has uniquely managed to put Australia-China relations in their worst position since Australia recognised the PRC Government in 1972.
Australia pays lip service to the notion of a two-state solution to the Palestine-Israeli issue, but effectively does nothing to promote it. Indeed, Australia has continued its unquestioning support for the Israeli position, as reflected in its United Nations General Assembly votes over many years, and in effect dismisses the Palestinians as a people without a legitimate argument. The refusal of the Australian mainstream media to even report the voting pattern of its government speaks volumes for the true stance of the politicians and the media.
By contrast, the Chinese government insists that “the two-state solution is a bottom line of international justice.” The latest Chinese statement went even further, saying that there was “no going back on the tide of history.” The two-state solution, the Chinese statement added, was “the basis for solving the Palestinian question, and should be duly observed and implemented”.
China’s position is unequivocal, as was also spelled-out in Xi’s message commemorating the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people on first December in which he referred to the “legitimate national rights” of the Palestinian people. Xi commended the Palestinians for their efforts in endeavouring to create a peaceful settlement of the Palestinian issue.
The Chinese United Nations statement went further. It referred to the two-state solution as being the “bottom line” of international justice. It went on to refer to the relevant United Nations resolutions as “important parameters” in the Middle East peace process and it called on an early solution to the problems associated with the border dispute, and went further in calling for further peace talks and to refrain from any action that might fuel the tensions.
The Chinese statement is important for a number of reasons. It marks an ever-increasing Chinese role in the Middle East, sparked in part by the continuing expansion of its Belt and Road Initiative. That initiative is seen in marked contradiction to the blatantly lawless killing of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakrizadeh, the most likely perpetrator being the Israelis, and certainly with the support of the United States. That killing was met with widespread condemnation throughout the region, including from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman who are not normally aligned with Iran on any issues.
The widespread condemnation of the Fakrizadeh murder also served to highlight the major difference between the Chinese and United States views of the Middle East. In the post-World War II period the United States has mounted multiple attacks upon countries in the greater region, from North Africa to many points south and east. None of those interventions have proven successful, and indeed they represent instead an increasingly clumsy level of intervention that has invariably turned those nations against the United States.
Even the dubious vows of Donald Trump to vacate many countries in the region have to be taken with a grain of salt. The withdrawal of United States troops is not widely accepted within the US military establishment. Afghanistan is a classic example. Trump has vowed to end the United States military intervention there, but even if that were true, it does not mean the end of United States involvement. There are, in fact, more private military contractors in Afghanistan than regular United States troops. Their fate remains unmentioned. Similarly, with the highly lucrative CIA control of the poppy fields and its attendant heroin production. It is a major source of CIA clandestine funding and the total absence on the fate of the crop from US discussions is deeply suspicious.
Again, in stark contrast to the Chinese mode of action, the United States is currently trying to create yet another military alliance, this time linking Japan, India and Australia with the United States. It is another blatantly anti-China exercise. It seems likely that only Australia will persist with this folly. Japan is steadily increasing its economic links to China, and India, notwithstanding some border issues with China, is nonetheless a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.
Only Australia, as evidenced by its recent economically suicidal behaviour toward China, is likely to succumb to the Americans. There are no prizes for guessing how that will be interpreted in Beijing. Australia seems increasingly destined to fulfil Lee Kuan Yew’s forecast of it becoming the “poor white trash” of Asia. Certainly, the present government, and the Labor opposition, shows no insight whatsoever into the perilous state they are placing the Australian economy by their mindless pursuit of American goodwill.
As Tony Kevin pointed out in a recent article, “Australia sabotaged its own interests in China relations” (8 December 2020) there were early signs of a determination to cripple Australia – Chinese engagement, and they have now seemingly won. The consequences of this monumental stupidity are already apparent with over $100 million of Australian exports to China already lost.
Meanwhile China, which until recently took almost 40% of Australia’s exports, is progressively extending its influence through an increasingly large number of countries, including formally staunch United States allies such as Saudi Arabia. The Chinese philosophy, despite western efforts to deprecate it, remains what Xi called win-win.
It is clearly a winning policy. Countries like Australia, which are turning their backs on the Chinese, risk being left in the dustbins of history.
Noam Chomsky is right when he says that, in the US, sports creates the necessary “fantasy world” required to shield people from understanding, organizing, and attempting to “influence the real world”.
Referring to sports commentary and phone-in shows, Chomsky, in an interview with AlterNet, marveled at the intellectual and analytical skills of people engaged in the sports culture. Ultimately, however, this culture “has no meaning and probably thrives because it has no meaning, as a displacement from the serious problems which one cannot influence and affect because the power happens to lie elsewhere,” he said.
This is largely true of the United States and Europe, where sports has become a most lucrative business; sportsmen and women are assigned financial values, like products to be bought and sold in an ever-thriving market.
However, the US and Europe do not represent the rest of the world. While in the economically privileged West it is relatively easy for people to knowingly disengage from politics – due to the general distrust of politicians or, sometimes, indifference to political outcomes – elsewhere, sports, especially football, carry much deeper and layered meanings that must be analyzed in an entirely different socio-economic and political context.
French author, Marc Perelman, has little patience for sports. He finds the entire exercise worthless, dangerous and unfixable. He is not alone. The expedient comparison that many intellectuals, especially on the left, find suitable is that the role of sports is similar to Karl Marx’s depiction of religion as the “opiate of the masses”.
While historically the claim is understandable, again within the Western cultural context, it is reductionist and, although often unwittingly, carries the air of ethnocentrism. Yes, the relationship between ardently capitalist Western societies and their ‘consumers’ – relatively marginalized, working-classes – deserves much scrutiny, but what applies to the US and Europe should not automatically apply to the rest of the world.
Italian anti-fascist intellectual, Antonio Gramsci, said about the intellect of the people: “All men are intellectuals, but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals.” Partly, this means that while intellectuals may function in society as a separate class – analyzing, deconstructing and offering their own wisdom – every man and woman, regardless of whatever function they fulfill in society, are capable of serving the role of intellectuals in their own capacity and different social contexts, even if they are not designated as such.
Gramsci was quite agitated with the role that European – specifically Italian – intellectuals have played in the early part of the 20th century. He chastised the conformity of some and the social detachment of others. He referred to the latter group’s thinking as ‘intellectualism’, men with ideas that ebb and flow within closed circuits, neither affected by outside stimuli nor able to influence outcomes outside their own intellectual cocoons.
For these ‘intellectualists’, it is convenient to perceive all the people in the world as one ‘mass’, unable to think or act outside the role assigned for them by the ‘system’. For Gramsci, however, the masses are far more complex and intelligent. They are not mere hamsters in a laboratory experiment, unable to find their own path or make their own decisions.
This is as relevant in sports as it is in other social contexts.
During the political and violent upheavals experienced by several Arab countries in the last decade, football fans shifted their role in society from being mere ‘sports fans’ to political agitators. In that painful transition, thousands were killed, tortured and imprisoned for daring to cross the imaginary line that was predetermined for them. Interestingly, in this case, football fans behaved as political agents, yet within the same social context of being football fans.
This phenomenon is not new, having expressed itself in South America, Africa and other socio-political spaces in the Southern hemisphere for many years.
An example that immediately comes to mind within the Western context is the solidarity displayed by fans of the Scottish Celtic FC team towards the Palestinian people and other national struggles around the world. The Celtic’s behavior can be truly appreciated when viewed from a historical perspective, as the Club was formed during times of upheaval, great suffering and untold racism that have afflicted Ireland, Scotland and England in the late 19th century.
Football stadiums are like social mirrors that reflect the collective mood in any given society. The physical condition of the stadium itself, the symbolism of the flags and the chants, the racism or camaraderie, the joy and the pain are all reflective of larger phenomena that are deserving of much scrutiny and study. None of this can be reduced to a few maxims and quick assumptions.
For many nations around the world, football is not a form of escapism. It is, rather, the only ‘political’ space in which they are able (read: allowed) to operate. While, on the outset, they may appear to be ‘fans’ of ‘meaningless’ sports events, quite often they are aware of the underlying political, if not socio-political, meanings of these events and of their own role, not as spectators, but as political agents and, at times, agitators.
This is why it is typical for Arabs or Indians to support the Cameroon or Nigeria national teams during the World Cup or for Celtic fans to raise Palestinian flags during their matches and so on. They do so because they have successfully identified and positioned themselves within class and racial orders that divide the world into first, second and third, colonists and colonized, privileged Whites and underprivileged ‘people of color’.
True, for ruling classes, football is often intended to be the “opium of the people”. But it would be naive to assume that the people, in their own ‘intellectual’ capacity, are unable to take ownership of that medium, as they have done in many other contested spaces.
In itself, football and sports are neither good nor bad. It is one of many other contested socio-political spaces that can be assigned all sorts of meanings, and can still be claimed by the people as an expression of their own culture, collective identity and political aspirations.
Right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has nothing to worry about as the man who will directly handle America’s foreign policy in the Middle East is a loyal friend of Israel. Crisis averted.
President-elect, Joe Biden’s appointment of Antony J. Blinken as his Secretary of State was a master stroke, according to the Biden Administration. Blinken is a State Department veteran, a strong believer in a US-led Western alliance and a true friend of Israel.
The immediate message that Biden wished to communicate through this particular appointment – and also the appointment of Jake Sullivan as the US’ new National Security Adviser – is that the United States will edge back to its default position as a global leader, and away from Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy agenda.
While the Europeans are excited to have their American benefactors back, Blinken’s appointment was geared mostly to appease Israel.
The defeat of Trump in the November elections led to much anxiety in Washington and Tel Aviv. The Israelis were nervous that Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’, which was essentially American acquiescence to all of Israel’s demands, would come to a halt. The Biden Administration, on the other hand, remains wary of the contentious relationship that Netanyahu had with the last Democratic administration under Barack Obama.
The selection of Blinken to fill the role of America’s top diplomat must have been considered within several political contexts: one, that Israel needed an immediate American reassurance that Biden will carry on with Trump’s legacy; two, that the new Secretary of State needed to match the love of Israel expressed by departing Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and three, that the Iran nuclear program file has to be handled with the utmost sensitivity.
Not only did Biden succeed in making the most opportune selection, but the Israelis are also absolutely delighted. Comments made by Israeli leaders from all main political parties have welcomed Biden’s gesture, declaring unanimously that Blinken is ‘good for Israel’.
Pro-Netanyahu politicians are particularly happy and eager to engage with a Blinken-led US foreign policy. Dore Gold, a close Netanyahu associate who also served as Israel’s Foreign Ministry director-general, told the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, that he was “impressed” with Blinken and “found him to be very professional and a good listener”.
Unlike the “simply difficult” attitudes of other officials in the Obama Administration, Gold found Blinken to be “very open”, without any “any kind of anti-Israel undertone”.
The meeting that Gold was referring to took place in the US State Department in 2016, when the top Israeli official concluded that Blinken “was a really good guy,” leading to the current opinion that Blinken “can be a very positive influence”.
Blinken left the meeting with similar amity. “In the face of unprecedented regional threats, affirmed ironclad support for (Israeli) security with Israel Foreign Ministry Director-General, Dore Gold,” Blinken tweeted at the time.
Other Israelis share the same sentiment as Gold, reflecting a collective understanding that Biden will not reverse any of the steps taken by his predecessor. Former Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, also expressed her optimism regarding the direction of US-Israeli relations. Like most Israelis, she had no qualms with the Trump-Pompeo generosity, and is now certain that the Biden-Blinken duo will be equally benevolent with Israel.
According to Haaretz, Livni believes that “Biden and Blinken will embrace and build on the steps taken by Trump that were ‘in accordance with Israel’s interests’.”
Since all pro-Israel measures taken by the Trump Administration were classified under the ‘Deal of the Century’, and remembering that Biden will unlikely reverse any of these measures, it follows that Trump’s political agenda will also be championed by the upcoming administration. While Israelis are reassured by this realization, the Palestinian leadership seems oblivious to it.
After speaking to Palestinian officials, TIME magazine summed up the Palestinian Authority’s expectations as merely technical and diplomatic gestures, such as the reopening of the Palestinian mission in Washington, the establishment of the US Consulate for Palestinians in East Jerusalem and the restoration of funding.
The Palestinian inability to appreciate the nature of the challenge was also reflected in the political discourse of Arab-Israeli politicians. Ayman Odeh, the leader of Israel’s large Arab political coalition, arrived at the conclusion that “Biden will take off the table the Deal of the Century,” although Odeh rightly points out that Biden will not put any pressure on Israel.
While it is true that Biden will unlikely borrow any of Trump’s divisive terminology, he will, most certainly, keep the spirit of the ‘Deal of the Century’ alive. The ‘Deal’ consisted of specific US measures aimed at validating Israel’s illegal claims over Occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and the delinking of Arab normalization with Israel from the subject of the Israeli occupation. None of this is likely to change even if the term ‘Deal of the Century’ is scrapped altogether.
This conclusion should not completely dismiss the possibility of a future clash between Tel Aviv and Washington. If a disagreement does take place, it will not be over Israel’s illegal actions in Palestine but over the likelihood that the US will restart talks with Iran regarding its nuclear program.
Regarding Iran, Netanyahu’s message to Biden is decisive and undiplomatic. “There can be no going back to the previous nuclear agreement,” the Israeli Prime Minister warned on November 22. That warning in mind, Blinken will find it extremely difficult to quell Israeli fears that, by diplomatically engaging Iran, the US will not be abandoning Israel. The American assurances to Israel are likely to come at the expense of Palestinians: a free Israeli hand in expanding illegal settlements, yet more cutting edge American weapons and unconditional US support at the United Nations.
Biden’s foreign policy is likely to be a continuation of Trump’s ‘Deal of the Century’, though under a different designation. It is baffling that the Palestinian leadership is unable to see this, focusing instead, on steering the US back to a failed status quo, where Washington blindly supported Israel while paying Palestinians off for their silence.
All too often, events occur that make me feel that I am living in ‘Bizarro World’. The recent talk and extensive US corporate media coverage about whether or not the US and/or Israel will soon attack Iran is one of these occasions. The alleged rationale for such an attack is the possibility that Iran might pursue the development of a nuclear weapon. This rationale ignores the religious ruling or fatwa issued by the Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei against the acquisition, development and use of nuclear weapons.
In its reporting on the possibility of the US or Israel attacking Iran, the US corporate-controlled media usually fails to mention that these threats are illegal under international law. Of course, illegality is not an issue for the media when these two countries are involved.
In addition, also seldom mentioned is the fact that the US is the only nation that has dropped atomic bombs on another country. The US is also a country that many nations claim has not complied with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Moreover, Israel is a country that has not even accepted the NPT and also has nuclear weapons. Also generally ignored is the fact that the US and Israel routinely violate international law with their unprovoked attacks on other nations. These are the two nations threatening Iran over the possibility that itmight developnuclear weapons. Such incredible hypocrisy and the media fails to call it out!
Note that Iran has gone the extra mile to demonstrate its willingness to reach a diplomatic resolution, but that is not enough for the US under President Trump and Israel under Prime Minister Netanyahu. For example, in 2015 Iran agreed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an agreement with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the US. This deal, also endorsed by the UN Security Council, restricted the development of Iran’s nuclear program. During the next few years, Iran was in full compliance with the agreement.
Even more bizarre, despite Iranian compliance, in 2018 the US pulled out of the agreement. The US then reimposed sanctions and imposed new sanctions on Iran. In an attempt to destroy the Iranian economy, the US also threatened nations that traded with Iran. These illegal and barbaric US sanctions, still in effect during the covid-19 pandemic, have tremendously harmed the Iranian people and the US image. Despite all of this, Iran continued to honor the agreement for a full year after the US withdrawal.
Note the US National Intelligence Estimate has repeatedly concluded Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons program. Many former high-ranking Israeli intelligence and military officials agree that Iran is not an existential threat to Israel. Thus, in a sane world, wouldn’t there be international pressure being placed on the US and Israel over their nuclear weapons and over their war crimes? Instead, in this ‘Bizarro World’, because the US and Israel demand it, the focus is on Iran and its attempted development of a nuclear energy option.
In addition, given this background of no credible evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program nor of an existential threat to Israel, maybe the real motivation for the US and Israel is not about an Iranian nuclear weapon. Perhaps the goal is for a change in leadership in Iran to someone more compliant with US and Israeli plans. The US has used its illegal unilateral sanctions to cause suffering among the Iranian people in a misguided effort to get them to reject the current Iranian leadership. Despite overwhelming evidence that this approach doesn’t work, the US continues to use this barbaric, illegal and flawed tactic.
Why do the US and Israel continue to play the risky game of needlessly provoking Iran? One possible reason is that Netanyahu would like to see Iran respond in order to draw in the US into a military conflict with Iran. His thinking may be that the US would so weaken Iran, something that Israel cannot do without using its nuclear weapons, that Iran could no longer prevent Israel from achieving hegemony in the Middle East. Perhaps the revenge motive drives Trump and the US neocons. They cannot forgive Iran for overthrowing the Shah and humiliating the US in 1979 as well as for Iran following its own interests.
The recent provocations may also serve domestic considerations for Trump and Netanyahu even if they don’t lead to a military conflict. For Netanyahu, this focus would distract from his criminal trial for fraud, bribery and breach of trust. For Trump, the provocations would make it more difficult for President-Elect Biden to rejoin the JCPOA. Who knows for sure in ‘Bizarro World’?
One crucial concern for the US and Israel is the relationship among Iran, Russia and China. How would Russia and China react if the US and Israel were to attack Iran? Might such an attack lead to a much larger conflict that could escalate to a nuclear war? Thus these needless US and Israeli provocations may be more risky than the dangerous duo of Netanyahu and Trump want to admit.
Ron Forthofer is a retired professor of biostatistics from the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston and was a Green Party candidate for Congress and also for governor of Colorado. Read other articles by Ron.
On Saturday 21 November 2020 Russia celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials which started on 20 November 1945 and lasted almost a year, until 1 October 1946. The Tribunal was given the task of trying and judging 24 of the most atrocious political and military leaders of the Third Reich.
For this unique celebration – so we shall never forget – Russian leaders and people of the Arts and History organized a Special Performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Requiem” at Moscow’s Helikon Opera Theatre. Daniel Hawkins, from RT, introduced this extraordinary event, as a journey through history, a journey through life and death, when some of – at that time – most genocidal people in history had to answer for their crimes.
This opera event was prepared for more than a year and was first performed in January 2020 for the Holocaust victims and the victims of the Nazi concentration camps in Leningrad. The Nuremberg Trials were conducted by an International Military Tribunal. They resulted in 12 death sentences.
The idea of the “Requiem” performance is “not just to appeal to emotions, but to reason. Because if we fail to learn from history, the tragedy could be repeated.”
This is precisely what Sergei Novikov, head of the (Russian) presidential directorate for social projects, intimidated. He says, “Despite of what we have seen happening 75 years ago – we do not seem to have learned a lesson. Today we seem to go down the same road, which is frightening.”
The musical performance interplays with theatrical realism – so memories are awake and moving – better than a museum. The educational impact of this celebration of remembrance is extremely important especially for the young people, who do not remember these events, but with this first-class performance, they may learn a crucial lesson, a lesson hardly talked about in history books and even less so in the west.
If we compare what has happened then – 75 years ago – actually the anti-Jewish demonstration in Berlin, known as Kristallnacht, on 9 and 10 November 1938, effectively the beginning of WWII, and look at today’s extremism in Europe, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, we know that we are not far from a tyranny we knew as “Nationalsozialismus”, a political Nazi-concept of the late 1930s and up to mid-1940s, that today can best be compared with extreme neoliberalism and merciless oppression of peoples’ rights by police and military.
In fact, we may be steps ahead of what Hitler and his crime and war cabinet had done, but again, today, like then, we are blind to it. There may be a time when we can no longer move, when we are in constant lockdown, masked with dismembered faces, so to speak, kept away from each other under the pretext of social distancing so that we cannot communicate with each other, all for reasons of public health, for the “good intentions” of our governments to protect us from an evil virus – the corona virus.
Today, this oppression is the result of a long-term plan by a small elite to implement The Great Reset (Klaus Schwab, WEF, July 2020).
*****
There is, of course, a good reason, why Moscow wants the world to remember what WWII meant and how eventually Nazi-Germany was defeated – yes, largely if not solely by enormous sacrifices of the Soviet Union. Some 25 to 30 million USSR soldiers and Soviet citizens had left their lives for salvaging Europe – and possibly the world – from an all invading fascism.
The United States, nominally an ally of the Soviet Union, had clandestinely funded the Third Reich’s war against the Soviet Union. One of the key purposes for the US getting “involved” in WWII, other than defeating the British Empire, was to defeat their arch-enemy, communist Soviet Union. The Rockefellers funded Hitler’s war machine by providing them with hydrocarbons, with petrol, the energy that drove the war.
On the other hand, the Federal Reserve (FED), via the Bank for International Settlement (BIS) – the pyramid tower still omni-present in Basle, Switzerland, near the German border – transferred gigantic monetary resources to the Reichsbank (at that time Hitler’s equivalent of a German Central Bank)
Verdi’s Requiem Performance in Moscow on 21 November is important to go back in history and open the “memory books” in front of our eyes. It is even more important, as we see the trend of fascism taking over the entire European continent and possibly also the United States.
Europe basically ignores the importance of the 75th Anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials which still, as of this date, provides precedents for international war crimes – except, these precedents are miserably ignored. If not, we would have multiple repeats of Nuremberg in our days and age with European and US leaders (sic) in “retirement’ but still with power. Our dystopian western world is beset by war criminals even to the point where they blackmail judges of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, not to touch their – the European and US – war crimes, or else…
That’s where we have arrived.
Since we are going back to the times when WWII and Nuremberg happened, we should take the opportunity to also look at the Big Picture, one that may be at the root of this new wave of fascism invading Europe. It is, in essence, a health dictatorship; it has become a Health Martial Law. Many countries have ratified, quietly, or rammed it through Parliament without the public at large noticing – a law allowing them switching from everyday life to an emergency situation; i.e., (health) Martial Law.
The Big Picture, though, is a diabolical plan of eugenics. Yes, it’s a term nobody wants to use, but it must be said, because it’s one of the fundamental principles that lies in all that is planned, the 2010 Rockefeller Report and the extremely important WHO Report “A World at Risk” – Annual Report on Global Preparedness for Health Emergencies, by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board – GPMB (September 2019).
Key members of this Monitoring Board include the World Bank, IMF, CDC and many more influential players, who have been concocting the “Preparedness” for a new epidemic since at least 2016, when the World Bank set up a special “Health Emergency Fund” to face the “next pandemic”.
Also, part of the SARS-Cov-2 preparedness and planned outbreak, was Event 201 (18 October 2019, NYC, sponsored by Gates, the WEF, and the Johns Hopkins School for Medicine (Rockefeller created and funded), which simulated the outbreak of a SARS-Cov-2 virus which curiously happened a few weeks later. The “outbreak” was actually officially announced on the dot of the beginning of the Decade 2020.
The Big Picture scheme also includes as an aftermath to covid, The Great Reset by Klaus Schwab, WEF, July 2020), a plan to implement the 4th Industrial Revolution and the enslavement of the remaining population. The Rockefellers and Bill Gates, Kissinger and many more have nurtured the idea of massively reducing the world population for at least the last 70 years.
Ever since the Rockefellers espoused the concept of the “Bilderberger Society” (a parallel organization to the WEF (World Economic Forum), with overlapping and an ever-moving memberships) their one and only continuous “project” was a selective population reduction. And they actually never made it a secret. See Bill Gates TedTalk in February 2010 – just about the time when the infamous 2010 Rockefeller Report was issued, the one that has us now in “lockstep” following all the rules and regulations, issued by WHO and supported by the entire UN system .
Why then was the eugenics agenda never seriously picked up by the mainstream, by the public at large? – Possibly, because nobody can even imagine people so evil – or allow me to call them non-humans – to actually want to make this reality. But these non-humanoids do exist. How they infiltrated themselves into human society is a mystery.
By the way, have you ever seen Bill Gates – with his obnoxious grin – wearing a mask? Or the Rockefellers, Kissingers, et al? How come they are always spared from this deadly virus, SARS-Cov-2? How come they get very old, but appear to be always in good health? What kind of life elixir are they using?
Back to the Eugenists. To implement such a massive plan on a worldwide scale, one needs a uniform approach to world health. In 1948, just a couple of years after the Nuremberg trials started, where war criminals like the Rockefellers should also have been indicted for supplying the enemy (German Nazis) with energy to drive their (anti-Soviet) war machine – back then, in 1948, Rockefeller created WHO, the World Health Organization.
The philanthropic Rockefeller Foundation (RF) has marked the field of health like no other organization. The oil magnate, John D. Rockefeller “to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world.” Hence, the RF created and provided the original funding to set up WHO in 1948. On 7 April 1948, WHO inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which had been an agency of the League of Nations. Twenty-six (out of then 58) UN members ratified WHO as a UN agency under the UN Constitution.
Once you have “Global Health” under one roof, the WHO, funded primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the pharmaceutical industries (predominantly GAVI – Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization – also created by Bill Gates in 2000) and you also have the predominant donor, Bill Gates, an obsessed vaxxer (and eugenist) without any medical training, choose WHO’s Director General – Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a buddy of Gates and former Board Member of GAVI – it is relatively easy to make the foundation of WHO’s health policies based on vaccination.
That’s what we see today. As we have heard from Gates’ TedTalk (2010 see above), vaccination seems to lend itself perfectly to reduce the world population. It has the further advantage, that if anything goes “wrong” – no vaccine company can be held responsible, let alone being sued. For example, if people get seriously ill or die from the vaccinations – which would not be a surprise, after the Covid-19 are planned to be administered in warp speed – the vaccine pharmaceuticals cannot be sued.
In fact, vaccine companies do not bear any liability risk. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA) of 1986 (42 U.S.C. §§ 300aa-1 to 300aa-34), was signed into law by US President Ronald Reagan on November 14, 1986. NCVIA’s purpose was to eliminate the potential financial liability of vaccine manufacturers due to vaccine injury, since lawsuits led many manufacturers to stop producing the vaccines, a lame argument, but that shows once more the lobbying power the pharma industry commands.
That’s where we stand today. Any sinister vaccination agenda, no matter how hurtful to the public, is home free. Today we are at this crucial point of massive forced vaccination. Many governments; i.e., UK’s Boris Johnson and Australia’s Scott Morrison, have already advanced the idea of a vaccination-pass. Without it you are banned from flying and from just about every public event. That’s promising.
And one might ask what does that have to with public health? What is the real agenda behind it?
Again, returning to the Nuremberg Trials, aren’t we in the midst of a world tyranny to which all 193 UN member countries subscribed, or were coerced into – a tyranny that has already been genocidal, in as much as it destroyed the world economy, creating countless bankruptcies, unemployment – untold poverty and misery and death, and now a potentially genocidal massive vaccination campaign, the effects of it might be death in the medium to long term, but “untraceable”, or too late by the time the cause is discovered.
A world tyranny inflicted by all 193 UN member countries – whatever their motivation – all these governments and the heads of WHO and the entire UN system belongs before a new Nuremburg-type Tribunal – where the same legal principal would be applied as 75 years ago in 1945.
Who says this will not happen? We can make it happen. We, the People, are the 99.99%. They are only 0.01 %. We have the power to resist – and we will prevail.
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. Read other articles by Peter.
Once again, Europe’s top diplomats expressed their ‘deep concern’ regarding Israel’s ongoing illegal settlement expansion, again evoking the maxim that Israeli actions “threaten the viability of the two-state solution”.
This position was communicated by EU Foreign Affairs Chief, Josep Borrell, on November 19, during a video-conference with Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki.
All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and should be rejected in words and action, regardless of whether they pose a threat to the defunct two-state solution or not.
Aside from the fact that Europe’s ‘deep concern’ is almost never followed with any substantive action, articulating a legal and moral stance in the context of imaginary solutions is particularly meaningless.
The question, then, is: “Why does the West continue to use the two-state solution as its political parameter for a resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine while, at the same time, failing to take any meaningful measure to ensure its implementation?”
The answer lies, partly, in the fact that the two-state solution was never devised for implementation, to begin with. Like the “peace process” and other pretenses, it aimed to promote, among Palestinians and Arabs, the idea that there is a goal worth striving for, despite it being unattainable.
However, even that goal was, itself, conditioned on a set of demands that were unrealistic at the outset. Historically, Palestinians have had to renounce violence (their armed resistance to Israel’s military occupation), consent to various UN resolutions (even if Israel still rejects those resolutions), accept Israel’s “right” to exist as a Jewish state, and so on. That yet-to-be-established Palestinian State was also meant to be demilitarized, divided between the West Bank and Gaza, but excluding most of occupied East Jerusalem.
Yet, while warnings that a two-state solution possibility is disintegrating, few bothered to try to understand the reality from a Palestinian perspective. Fed up with the illusions of their own failed leadership, according to a recent poll, two-thirds of Palestinians now agree that a two-state solution is not possible.
Even the claim that a two-state solution is necessary, at least as a precursor to a permanent one-state solution, is absurd. This argument places yet more obstacles before the Palestinian quest for freedom and rights. If the two-state solution was ever feasible, it would have been achieved when all parties, at least publicly, championed it. Now, the Americans are no longer committed to it and the Israelis have moved past it into whole new territories, plotting the illegal annexation and permanent occupation of Palestine.
The undeniable truth is that millions of Palestinian Arabs (Muslims and Christians) and Israeli Jews are living between the Jordan River and the Sea. They are already walking on the same earth and drinking the same water, but not as equals. While Israeli Jews represent the privileged, Palestinians are oppressed, caged in behind walls and treated as inferior. To sustain Israeli Jewish privilege as long as possible, Israel uses violence, employs discriminatory laws and, as Professor Ilan Pappe calls it, ‘incremental genocide’ against Palestinians.
A one-state solution aims to challenge Israeli Jewish privilege, replacing the current racist, apartheid regime with a democratic, equitable, and representative political system that guarantees the rights for all peoples and all faiths, as in any other democratic governance anywhere in the world.
For that to take place, no shortcuts are required and no further illusions about two states are necessary.
For many years, we have linked our struggle for Palestinian freedom with the concept of justice, as in ‘no justice no peace’, ‘justice for Palestine’, and so on. So, it is befitting to ask the question, is the one-state solution a just one?
Perfect justice is not attainable because history cannot be erased. No truly just solution can be achieved when generations of Palestinians have already died as refugees without their freedom or ever going back to their homes. Nevertheless, allowing injustice to perpetuate because ideal justice cannot be obtained is also unfair.
For years, many of us have advocated a one-state as the most natural outcome of terribly unjust historical circumstances. However, I – and I know of other Palestinian intellectuals, as well – have refrained from making that a cause celèbre, simply because I believe that any initiatives regarding the future of the Palestinian people must be championed by the Palestinian people themselves. This is necessary to prevent the kind of cliquism and, as Antonio Gramsci called it, intellectualism, that wrought Oslo and all of its ills.
Now that public opinion in Palestine is shifting, mainly against the two-state solution, but also, though gradually, in favor of a one-state, one is able to publicly take this stance as well. We should support the one democratic state because Palestinians in Palestine itself are increasingly advocating such a rightful and natural demand. I believe it is only a matter of time before equal rights within a one-state paradigm become the common cause of all Palestinians.
Advocating dead ‘solutions’, as the Palestinian Authority, the EU and others continue to do, is a waste of precious time and effort. All attention should now focus on helping Palestinians obtain their rights, including the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees and holding Israel morally, politically and legally accountable for failing to respect international law.
Living as equals in one state that demolishes all walls, ends all sieges and breaks all barriers is one of these fundamental rights that should not be up for negotiations.
The US finally appointed an ambassador to Venezuela after a decade hiatus and in the runup to the Venezuelan National Assembly elections. The new ambassador, James Story, was confirmed by US Senate voice vote on November 18 with Democrats supporting Trump’s nominee.
Ambassador Story took his post in Bogotá, Colombia. No, this is not another example of Trump’s bungling by sending his man to the wrong capital. The US government does not recognize the democratically elected government in Caracas.
Impasse of two Venezuelan presidents
US hostility to Venezuela started when Hugo Chávez became president in 1999 and continues to this day, according to Adán Chávez, the late president’s older brother and vice-president of the PSUV, the ruling socialist party in Venezuela. “For the last 21 years,” he commented, “the empire has been perfecting its attacks” on Venezuela.
The elder Chávez, spoke at an international online meeting with the US Chapter of the Network of Intellectuals, Artists and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity on November 19. Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, he explained, was not initially socialist, although it was against neoliberalism. The traditional parties in Venezuela in 1998 had lost their appeal to the voters. Hugo Chávez ran and won, looking for a “third way” that was neither capitalist nor socialist. What the revolution discovered was that there was no third way: either socialism or barbarism.
When in 2013, Venezuela elected President Nicolás Maduro and not the US-backed candidate, the US declared that election fraudulent and refused to recognize the winner. In the 2018 when Maduro was reelected, the US – not taking any chances – proclaimed fraud four months in advance of the vote.
Then in January 2019, US Vice President Pence telephoned the newly installed president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Juan Guaidó. The following morning Guaidó declared himself president of Venezuela on a Caracas street corner. Almost immediately Donald Trump recognized him as Venezuela’s de facto president.
Guaidó’s claim to the national presidency was based on being third in constitutional succession, overlooking that neither the Venezuelan president nor vice-president had vacated their offices. At the time, the 35-year-old was unknown to 81% of the Venezuelan people, according to a poll by a firm favorable to the opposition. Guaidó was not even a leader in his own far-right party, Popular Will. He had never run for national office and his previous “exposure” was just that. A photograph of his bare behind made the press when he dropped his pants at a demonstration against the government. The person, whose butt may have been better known than his face, only got to be president of the National Assembly by a scheme which rotated the office among the parties in the legislature.
But Juan Guaidó had one outstanding qualification to be the US-anointed puppet president of Venezuela – he was a trained US security asset.
Guaidó’s parallel government has named ambassadors without power and has colluded with the US to loot Venezuelan national assets, some $24 billion. His former attorney is now on the legal team working to take over CITGO, the oil company in the US owned by Venezuela.
“As time went on,” Mission Verdad reported from Venezuela, “support for Guaidó faded and his childish image became a laughable anecdote of Venezuelan politics.” After several failed coup attempts, corruption, embezzlement, resigning from his own party, and losing the presidency of the National Assembly, Guaidó’s last shred of legitimacy – his National Assembly seat – will be contested on December 6 with elections to the unicameral legislature.
US interference and sanctions on Venezuela
The extraordinary level of US interference in Venezuela’s electoral process highlights their importance. The US government has preemptively declared the upcoming National Assembly elections fraudulent. Guaidó’s political party and others on the far right have dutifully obeyed Trump’s directive to boycott the contest.
However, other opposition elements have broken with the US strategy of extra-parliamentary regime change and are participating in the elections. They have also distanced themselves from Guaidó’s calls for ever harsher sanctions against his people and even for US military intervention.
To maintain discipline among the moderate opposition, the US has sanctioned some opposition party leaders for registering to run in the parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, 98 opposition parties and nine Chavista parties (supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution) will be contesting for 277 seats in the National Assembly.
Following the US’s lead, the European Union rejected the upcoming election and an invitation to send election observers. A long list of international figures including Noble Prize winners and former heads of state petitioned the EU: “This election represents, above all a democratic, legal and peaceful way out of the political and institutional crisis that was triggered in January 2019 by the self-appointment of Juan Guaidó as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela.”
The Council of Electoral Experts of Latin America (CEELA) and other internationals will be observing the election on December 6. CEELA Chairman Nicanor Moscoso noted: “We, as former magistrates and electoral authorities in Latin America, have organized elections and also participated in over 120 elections…Our aim is to accompany the Venezuelan people.”
Communists normally would not get favorable ink in The New York Times. But when there are splits on the left, the empire’s newspaper of record exploits them: “They championed Venezuela’s revolution – they are now its latest victims.” The paper reports: “The repression is partly an outcome of Mr. Maduro’s decision to abandon the wealth redistribution policies of his late predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in favor of what amounts to crony capitalism to survive American sanctions [emphasis added].”
The key to deconstructing the Times’s hit piece is the phrase, “to survive American sanctions.” As Alfred de Zayas, the United Nations Human Rights Rapporteur on Venezuela, had observed even before the pandemic hit, the US sanctions on Venezuela are causing “economic asphyxiation.” Compromises have been necessitated.
President Maduro has survived a drone assassination attempt, mercenary invasions, and abortive coups. In this context, the ruling party realistically feels under siege.
Although running independent candidates, Communist Party leader Oscar Figuera states “we see imperialism as the main enemy of the Venezuelan people.” And on that the Chavista forces are united.
National Assembly elections as a referendum on the Venezuelan project
Venezuela’s Vice Foreign Minister Carlos Ron characterized the election as a referendum against the “brutal blockade” imposed by the US and its allies and against their effort to undermine Venezuela’s democracy by trying to prevent the election from being conducted. He spoke from Caracas in a webinar produced by the US Peace Council and others on November 18.
Carlos Ron lamented that the Venezuelan opposition does not play by the rules. In the 24 national elections held since the election of Hugo Chávez, only the two that have been won by the opposition were deemed truly legitimate by them. Yet this is the electoral system that former US President Jimmy Carter proclaimed to be “the best in the world.”
Margaret Flowers of Popular Resistance spoke in the November 18 webinar calling for the US government to end the illegal coercive economic measures, including unfreezing Venezuela’s assets. Flowers called for reestablishment of diplomatic relations with the legitimate government of Venezuela based on peace and mutual respect.
Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace spoke at the webinar of the necessity to protect the Venezuelan project as the “gateway to the transformation of the entire region,” which is also why the US sees Venezuela as a threat. He cautioned that Joe Biden has the same regime-change policy as Trump. Our responsibility, Baraka concluded, is to build a clear anti-imperialist movement.
Reveal digs deep – and gets results. By mining data from 31 million records, we discovered a pattern of routine mortgage loan denials to applicants of color in more than 60 U.S. metropolitan areas. Our story led to attorneys generals’ investigations and lawmakers’ demands for accountability at the federal, state and city levels. It also led to thousands of questions from you, our listeners. Our reporters answered a handful of them.
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In 2008, a small-time scam artist transferred a Beverly Hills mansion to Donald Trump for $0. Reveal reporters Lance Williams and Matt Smith tried to figure out why. The people involved in the deal say it was all a mistake. Real estate experts have never seen anything like it. Join us for a stranger-than-fiction tale on this special Reveal podcast.
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Federal law requires colleges and universities to track and disclose sexual assaults on campus. It’s different for kindergarten through 12th grade, where there are no similar requirements for cases involving assaults between students. In elementary, middle and high schools across the U.S., the Associated Press found a shocking level of sexual violence among students. The AP also uncovered a new dimension to the problem – on U.S. military bases.
A mere two days after millions of people marched around the word with and in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington, President Donald J. Trump announced the “Global Gag Rule,” a major blow to women’s rights and human rights worldwide.
Trump’s Global Gag Rule prohibits U.S. international aid to groups that so much as educate their communities on safe abortion. Even if an organization is using non-U.S. funding for such activities, they will lose their U.S. funding if they offer counseling, advocate for legal reform, provide abortions, or even provide referrals at any time.
Foreign NGOs and clinics, many of whom depend on U.S. funding to deliver life-saving healthcare, must choose between two impossible choices: 1) take the funding they depend on but deny the services their communities need and deserve, or 2) refuse U.S. funding and struggle to keep clinics open, offer services, and advocate for laws that reduce unsafe abortions.
This is not the first time the U.S. has imposed such restrictions on foreign aid. Under George Bush, implementation of such policies did not decrease the number of abortions, but increased abortion rates. It also resulted in a sharp decline in availability of contraceptives, and increased rate of maternal death, and increased rate of closed health clinics.
The policy allows for exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment, but not for health endangerment or severe or fatal fetal impairment, both mandated by international law as the baseline standards for when abortion must be accessible. What’s more, it’s unclear if services are ever provided under these three exceptions for fear of losing U.S. foreign aid. Trump’s Global Gag means that women and girls who depend on U.S.-funded health facilities may not even hear about the options that may save their lives.
We’ve seen what a lack of access to safe and legal abortion means: in Latin America and the Caribbean, for example, where multiple countries have severe abortion restrictions, including total bans, unsafe abortions and maternal death have spiked, and women could face up to 50-years in jails for miscarriages.
Trump’s Global Gag Rule, in essence and in practice, negates human rights standards for women — mostly poor and rural women — who depend on international aid-funded clinics, healthcare facilities, and organizations. The consequences of Trump’s Global Gag rule are not theoretical: this curtailing of women’s rights will have devastating impacts on women and girls worldwide — from a lack of contraception to an increase of unsafe abortions and maternal death.
It’s a telling sign that only 48 hours after a global outcry for human rights, especially women’s rights, one of the first moves of the Trump administration is to undermine women’s rights worldwide. Now more than ever we must stand up for human rights and against human rights abuses.
Join us, and demand President Trump to choose human rights.
By Ann Burroughs, Chair of AIUSA’s Board of Directors
Donald Trump has made it clear he wants bring back torture. “We should go much stronger than waterboarding,” he said last year, calling it “your minor form” of torture.
Now he’s picked Rep. Mike Pompeo to head the CIA – an individual who called the CIA’s program of torture and disappearing under the Bush administration “within the law” and “within the Constitution.”
We can’t let Trump bring back the CIA torture program. Trump’s pick for CIA chief must reject torture – and commit to upholding the law.
That’s why this week, Amnesty International USA’s Board of Directors wrote the Senate Intelligence Committee urging senators to seek Pompeo’s explicit commitment to upholding U.S. and international law on torture and other ill-treatment.
The fight against torture under the Trump administration starts with you – Take action.
Our letter points out that four of the individuals most recently confirmed to direct the CIA—Porter Goss, Leon Panetta, General David Petraeus and John Brennan—used their confirmation hearings to condemn torture as morally reprehensible and inconsistent with U.S. values and legal commitments. “These are values we have fought for, that Americans have died for over the course of decades and centuries,” General Petraeus testified.
But this isn’t about whether Trump or Pompeo agree with us that torture is wrong. Regardless of their personal views, torture is a crime. It violates unequivocal U.S. and international law, including laws long supported by members of both parties. Here are just a few examples:
The U.S. led in the negotiation of the UN Convention Against Torture, and President Ronald Reagan, who signed it in April 1988, wrote that its ratification “will clearly express [U.S.] opposition to torture.”
Federal law makes torture and ill-treatment illegal without exception—no matter where a person is held (at Guantánamo, in secret prisons—wherever).
Federal law also bans the CIA, the military and other agents from specific abusive “techniques” like waterboarding, forced nudity and other sexual abuse, hooding, mock executions and beatings. That’s thanks to a law championed by torture survivor John McCain and Dianne Feinstein.
Bottom line: Torture is not a policy options to debate on the merits, but an illegal practice.
Tell your senators you expect them to speak up – and demand Pompeo commit to upholding the law. Take action.
Human rights are non-negotiable under every president, including President-elect Trump. More than ever, it is important that all of us in this country seek to stand between the torturer and the tortured.
