Gaza Isn't Genocide Joe's First Rodeo

Although President Joe Biden is credited with ending the US war on Afghanistan, he didn't end the war at all. In fact, he escalated it by imposing such cruel economic sanctions on the Afghan people that tens of millions of them faced death by starvation in the winter of 2021-22.

His freeze of billions of dollars in Afghanistan Central Bank assets when the Afghan government collapsed, the US-installed puppet president absconded with bags full of loot,  and the Taliban took over was , according to one anonymous White House polcy aide quoted by The Intercept, "tantamount to mass murder."

Poor Biden just never gets the credit he deserves. People are way late  figuring out he's been Genocide Joe for longer than many of them have even been alive. His 90s crime bills alone, incarcerating more Black men than were enslaved before the Civil War, were tantamount to a slow genocide.

The famine in Afghanistan began within months of Biden ordering the funds frozen. The number of civilians at risk of death that winter far exceeded the total all those who were killed in the entire 20 years of U.S. occupation, according to the New York Times.

While Afghanistan has suffered from malnutrition for decades, the country’s hunger crisis has drastically worsened in recent months. This winter, an estimated 22.8 million people — more than half the population — are expected to face potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to an analysis by the United Nations World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization. Of those, 8.7 million people are nearing famine — the worst stage of a food crisis....

Across the country, millions of Afghans — from day laborers to doctors and teachers — have gone months without steady or any incomes. The prices of food and other basic goods have soared beyond the reach of many families. Emaciated children and anemic mothers have flooded into the malnutrition wards of hospitals, many of those facilities bereft of medical supplies that donor aid once provided.

Although the Times allowed that Biden officials showed "some flexibility" in allowing the UN and other agencies to deliver a bit of humanitarian aid, other countries were hesitant to help the Afghan people. They feared  that the US would impose sanctions on them, too, for aiding the Taliban "terrorists."

In the wake of the usual feeble criticism and the rescinding of strongly worded letters from Democrats professing to be upset that Biden was "flirting with genocide," in his enforced starvation of Afghan war victims, Biden decided in February 2022 to split the $7 billion assets between  relief agencies and the families of 9/ll victims  This cavalier order was greeted with outrage and derision from both the Afghan citizenry and even from some of the 9/11 families themselves.

It's all part of a sick pattern. Biden  and Bibi share the same mindset - that it's OK to kill innocents as long as the innocents committed the crime of living in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong leaders.

 A lot of Americans are now shocked, shocked that Biden -- good old kindly Uncle Joe who they voted for as a humane alternative to Donald Trump -- is now aiding and abetting the genocide of Palestinians.

 Nobody was out protesting in the streets for starving Afghan people  two years ago. So maybe Biden thought he could get away with his war crimes again.

If the propagandizing mainstream press has its way, maybe he can get away with it and maybe even win another term. But maybe not. The people are finally out in the streets and they're showing no sign of relenting. Biden flirted with genocide before, but he may be breaking up with it this time. If justice prevails, the outrage on the streets will spread to all the other perma-wars, that are being fought both with bombs and with economic sanctions. Maybe we'll perk up permanently and take notice of all the other invisible victims of US hegemony, wherever on this boiling planet that they may live.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Let me take the opportunity to thank all my readers for your continuing support and interest. I hope the US residents among you are having a good thanksgiving - or as  "Annenigma" put it in her comment below the previous post: Happy White Colonial Settlers' Day!

On that note, I will once again post this classic video clip:

Mass Empathy Rears Its Lovely Head

If we actually had to pay to see all the ads trying to sell us garbage, then no garbage could ever be sold. To that end, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post took the rare step of lifting its paywall so that as many non-rich people as possible could view President Biden's advertisement for the garbage product known as War Is Peace.

Once he gets all the jingoism and tired cut-and-pasted platitudes out of the way, Joe as much as admits that both the genocide in Palestine and the proxy war in Ukraine have the specific purpose of further enriching Jeff Bezos and the rest of the ruling class of billionaire oligarchs and predatory transnational corporations:

Just weeks before Oct. 7, I met in New York with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The main subject of that conversation was a set of substantial commitments that would help both Israel and the Palestinian territories better integrate into the broader Middle East. That is also the idea behind the innovative economic corridor that will connect India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, which I announced together with partners at the Group of 20 summit in India in early September. Stronger integration between countries creates predictable markets and draws greater investment. Better regional connection — including physical and economic infrastructure — supports higher employment and more opportunities for young people. That’s what we have been working to realize in the Middle East. It is a future that has no place for Hamas’s violence and hate, and I believe that attempting to destroy the hope for that future is one reason that Hamas instigated this crisis.

Biden thus repeats George W. Bush's explanation for 9/11: "They hate us for our freedoms."  Their definition of freedom is, of course, the ability of oligarchs and corporations ("us"), guarded and financed by a trillion-dollar military machine, to plunder, extract, enslave and oppress all those human beings whom capitalism considers so disposiable.

Biden thus casts the attack by Hamas on Israeli people as caused not by the desperation of imprisoned Palestinians in occupied Gaza, but by Hamas simply wanting to damage capitalism out of spite. Or, as Biden mindlessly called it, "nihilism and pure unadulterated evil." He said not one word about the ongoing genocide that his administration is financing and cheerleading. To the contrary, he praised the Israel government for graciously allowing Palestinians tiny windows of opportunity to voluntarily displace and ethnically cleanse themselves. (No matter that Bibi Netanyahu later reacted to the op-ed by refusing even a brief "humanitarian pause" in the genocide.)

How indeed would capitalistic depredations and mass murder survive unless the predators had installed their own democratically-elected White House simulacrum to conduct their marketing campaign for them?  I mean, can you imagine Jeff Bezos himself writing the following words as he sails his super-polluting mega-yacht around the world - a world whose borders only apply to poor people?

Will we relentlessly pursue our positive vision for the future, or will we allow those who do not share our values to drag the world to a more dangerous and divided place?

You'd think that the Masters of the Universe could come up with a better human shield than Joe Biden, wouldn't you? Then again, they can simply point out that he was democratically elected and it's on us, the lesser people. We're told we're to blame for the politicians who sold their souls to Bezos and his ilk so very long ago.

As The Guardian newspaper reports, a new Oxfam study reveals that these super-polluters don't need to spew lies and platitudes when a mere dirty dozen of them spew more carbon into the atmosphere than do two million homes.

Even if their current presidential rep loses his next election, it won't matter in the least to them.

 The only thing that will save us is if the people who are protesting the Gaza genocide all over the world stay in the streets and continue to accost the centers of financial and political power, and expand their protests into fighting genocidal capitalism itself. What really scares the rich and powerful is that these millions of people are exhibiting solidarity and empathy for fellow human beings whom they don't even know personally. That is simply not the consumerist way of doing things in the neoliberal ( cut-throat, every-individual-for-himself) order.

 Cooperation among powerless people is threatening to overtake the relentless competition homework that we've we've been assigned. We're literally sick unto death of their garbage.

Cops and Politicians Terrorized By Candle-Wielding Peaceniks

If there is one salutary consequence of the Israel-Gaza catastrophe, it's that the US-based media political complex can no longer so easily divide and conquer people by branding them as Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, coastal elite or heartland everyman.

It seems that people of all backgrounds and no particular party loyalty don't define democracy as dutifully voting every two and four years  for pre-selected candidates of the corporate duopoly. They're taking to the streets in record numbers. And they're terrifying the ruling class as well as their armed guards.

The New York Post, a right-wing tabloid whose main mission had been to castigate "radical socialist Democrats" in Congress as anti-police fanatics, now finds itself coming to the defense of these same liberal politicians as they were surrounded by "a swarm of hundreds of violent protesters" at a party at their Washington, D.C. headquarters on Wednesday night.

The anti-genocide protesters apparently hadn't gotten the message that police brutality is no longer anathema to Democratic leaders. When police attack American citizens, you see, they're simply exercising their right to defend themselves against terrorists. They didn't get their tactical training from the IDF for nothing, after all.

No matter that there were only about 150 people calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, and that their "violence" amounted to lighting candles and  locking arms in solidarity. According to the Post, six cops in riot gear were injured by pepper spray. That it was likely their own pepper spray wafting in the air is immaterial. Besides, police officers were also hurt as they tried to wrest unruly hands away from the metal barricades they were so aggressively clutching. And even more riot police were likely forced to wrench their backs as they were throwing people down the stairs.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said he was one of about 100 people — House leaders, lawmakers and Democratic candidates running for the House — attending a reception at party headquarters when they were ushered out of the building.

The Capitol Police “came in force” and directed lawmakers into a secure room in the basement, he said.

About seven lawmakers were huddled in the basement and loaded into police SUVs.

“Was just evacuated from the #DNC after pro-terrorist, anti-#Israel protestors grew violent, pepper spraying police officers and attempting to break into the building. Thankful to the police officers who stopped them and for helping me and my colleagues get out safely,” Sherman wrote on X.

Other media outlets were a bit more circumspect in their own coverage of this relatively small protest. It probably wouldn't have been covered at all had not the Democratic Party leaders overreacted and called the police in hopes, perhaps, of becoming stars in a theatrical reprise of the January 6th riot. What they ended up getting instead was a lot of Keystone Cops slapstick.

The rest of the mainstream media predictably framed the law enforcement aggression at DNC HQ as a "clash" between heavily armed  police and unweaponized civilians. CNN, at least, was honest enough to report that it was not the peaceful protest itself that had caused Democratic bigwigs to evacuate their building It was the provocative police action against peaceful protesters.

This bipartisan, corporate, fascistic characterization of antiwar activists as enemies of the state was also captured by The Grayzone journalist Aaron Mate earlier this week, as he politely tried to question Democratic Senator Chris Coons on a train, about whether he would support a ceasefire in Gaza.

Coons, obviously miffed at being accosted by a stranger on a train, demanded that Mate give his journalistic credentials. He also kvetched that the reporter was breaching decorum in the designated "quiet car" of the Amtrak train. Coons had the cops called, and Aaron was duly ejected not only from the car  but from the entire train, at the next stop. 

At least they waited till it stopped. At least they forgot to confiscate Aaron's phone. Chris Coons's cold dead stare will live on and on - unlike the Palestinian kids who he refuses to protect.  

A Humble Appeal To My Readers

It's been quite a long time since I last asked you for donations to this blog. I know that times are tough for many of you, but if you can contribute a few bucks to help me keep the lights on, I would be very grateful. You can  donate via the PayPal gizmo to your right. Or if you prefer to send a check, please email me at herecomestrouble665@gmail.com so I can give you my mailing address. 

Thanks, everyone, for you continuing interest in Sardonicky as we approach our Lucky 13th anniversary!

Little Bombs For Little People

In an apparent attempt to display how much they care about children, US officials have urged Israel to use "smaller bombs" to kill the Palestinians trapped in Gaza Hamas bad guys.  Why use 1,000 and 2,000-lb bombs on one Hamas leader when so many of the thousands of human bodies being destroyed are so little, so innocent and so defenseless? 

The use of tot-sized bombs is among the "concrete suggestions" in Secretary of State Antony Blinken's bag of "humanitarian" tricks. Itsy- bitsy bombs will, they seem to think, put a kinder, gentler face on the genocide that has so far killed an estimated 10,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

The use of two 2,000-lb bombs on a refugee camp near Gaza City was such a waste of weaponry, the usual anonymous US officials dished to the New York Times:

"American military officials say that the smaller bombs are much better suited to the dense urban environments of Gaza. But Israel has over the years built up stocks of larger bombs, intended mostly to target hardened Hezbollah military positions in Lebanon.

The United States is now trying to send more of the smaller bombs to Israel, said the senior military official. If the United States can get those smaller munitions to Israel, American officials hope Israel will use them to mitigate the risk to civilians."

"Trying to send" is an implicit warning to the small but increasing number of congress-critters who are demanding a ceasefire, while the more pro-Israel bipartisan majority are wasting time by bickering over whether to bundle military aid for Israel and Ukraine in one mega-war package. Unless these politicians can all come together, Israel will be forced to use its larger bombs. And then they won't be able to hide all those unsightly craters from the prying eyes of that pesky antiwar crowd.  

Meanwhile, the State Department, as required by law, notified Congress that Israel had purchased a huge arsenal of assault rifles directly from the US manufacturers of the weapons. The US is now pretending to demand that these assault weapons be reserved for the Israeli military and police, and that they not get into the hands of settlers to drive Palestinians away from their West Bank homes.

Given that Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvyr had already ordered 10,000 rifles to be distributed to Israeli civilians to aid in the government's  genocide, the concern-trolling by the White House and State Department is a pathetic joke, given that the malign purpose of the Weapons sale was publicly broadcast a full month ago by Ben-Gvyr:

"We  will turn the world upside down so that towns are protected. I have given instructions for massively arming the civilian security teams to provide solutions for towns and cities, and so as not to leave towns unprotected,” 

Back on the home front, Joe Biden finally traveled to Maine to concern-troll the latest mass shooting by an assault rifle-armed and mentally disturbed member of the United States military. Biden's repeated pleas for domestic gun control legislation are falling exceedingly flat, given that the US is by far the biggest arms dealer the world has ever known. And that Biden had bragged in his Oval Office speech about the boon to Wall Street and the weapons industry that his two wars provide.

As far as official concern for the children goes, let's just say it's as fake over here as it is over there. Here, we should consider ourselves lucky that for now anyway, most of us live under a de facto policy of eugenics, or Social Darwinism.

Since Biden officially declared the Covid public health emergency to be over last spring, more than two million American children have been kicked off their Medicaid health care coverage. That's on top of the millions of American families with children getting their emergency SNAP (food aid) benefits slashed while grocery prices keep surging higher every week.

In a few weeks, officials said, a minimum of three million American children will be uninsured. It's the highest rate of uninsured children in this country in many decades, and it's only expected to get worse.

It's one more reason for us to keep filling our streets with protest and outrage. All of us, all over this  world, are in this together. Cruelty is only a matter of degree. There is so much suffering, and so little time

Guilt-Tripping, the Obama Way

Barack Obama doesn't call his annual buck-raking confab in Chicago a "democracy forum" for nothing. He believes that everybody should have a fair and equal share of the blood on his hands. 

You can almost see the droplets flying like a fleet of Predator Drones in a line straight from his joystick of a scolding finger, right down to all those "complicit" people in his target audience. He doesn't call his media empire Higher Ground Productions for nothing, after all.  His empire even owns and controls the Pod Save America show where he  offered his remarks to his hosts, both of whom worked in his White House.

From flattery of his forum's attendees as the "future heroes" whose explicit assignment from Obama was to put a more "humanitarian" face on capitalism, Obama was forced by events to also make a quick, self-serving pivot to gaslighting mode. From Politico:

“If you want to solve the problem, then you have to take in the whole truth. And you then have to admit nobody’s hands are clean, that all of us are complicit to some degree,” he said in an excerpted interview with Pod Save America released Saturday.

Reflecting on his presidency, Obama posed the question, “Well, was there something else I could have done?”

He could have answered his own question by acknowledging what he had in fact done during his eight years as president. While paying lip service to the plight of the Palestinians, Obama did not admit his own direct role in the ethnic cleansing of Muslims. He didn't admit that he'd actually found inspiration and justification for his own drone assassination program from a group of Israeli lawyers who had preceded the full-scale genocide in Gaza by targeted assassinations of  Hamas members - and whatever civilians were in the vicinity at the time.

This targeted killing program, which got underway in the 90s in Israel in response to a wave of suicide bombings by Hamas, was roundly criticized by US officials at the time.

Then, of course, came the 9/11 attacks. It wasn't long before the War on Terror was proclaimed by the Bush administration, and killing anyone, at any time for any reason, became the de facto US policy. This especially held true for Muslims in so-called "tribal areas" and US-occupied war zones.

By the time Obama took office, targeted killings were the norm. Gone were the antiwar protests against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. There was little to no backlash from the public, even when the New York Times (with full White House approval) revealed the gruesome extent of the "Disposition Matrix" - Obama's own  project of piecemeal genocide by drone. All Muslim men in the prime of life were deemed to be "enemy combatants."

At a 2012 security conference in El Paso, Texas, Roel Elkabetz, a brigadier-general for the Israel Defense Forces, bragged to his US counterparts that "We've learned lots from Gaza...it's a great laboratory!"

Eric Holder, Obama's attorney general, went on to actually plagiarize the Israeli lawyers who had first laid out the case for episocic  drone and bomb attacks on Palestinians. One of these Israeli lawyers, as The Intercept reported in 2018, later became a professor of human rights and humanitarian law at Harvard University. Unlike Obama, this particular lawyer acknowledged her own direct role in having gotten the genocide ball rolling all those decades ago.  

Amos Barshad wrote in that article that Eric Holder, lifted verbatim from Israel the extra-legal rationale for what is the most infamous of all Obama's drone killings:

The  memo directly quotes the ILD’s argument in the PCATI (Palestine) case. “Although arrest, investigation and trial ‘might actually be particularly practical under the conditions of belligerent occupation, in which the army controls the area in which the operation takes place,’” the memo reads, “such alternatives ‘are not means which can always be used,’ either because they are impossible or because they involve a great risk to the lives of soldiers.” A U.S. drone killed al-Awlaki in September 2011 in Yemen.

For Obama to now chide his audience to talk to people they don't agree with -because otherwise you are just sloganeering and ignoring nuance - is cynical and hypocritical.  He certainly never conversed with Al-Awlaki, or even with Al-Awlaki's parents when they pleaded in vain for a meeting with him to try to dissuade him from his execution order. He certainly didn't talk to the teenage son of Al-Awlaki before one of his drones r killed the boy and some of his friends as they were innocently eating pizza.

To the extent that Obama has acknowledged his role as lord high executioner of the United States, he glosses over it with the usual "higher ground" rhetoric to excuse all manner of crimes, both his own and those of others in his global social, political and economic cohort.

Just as he now lectures the world on their alleged "complicity" in war and violence, he's also lectured the thousands of his own drone victims, actually trying to make them responsible for their own deaths. This grotesque passage in his "Promised Land" memoir particularly stands out:

I wanted somehow to save them—send them to school, give them a trade, drain them of the hate that had been filling their heads. And yet the world they were a part of, and the machinery I commanded, more often had me killing them instead."

It's a variation of the old Pontius Pilate excuse. Having disclaimed responsibility for murder, Obama doesn't even feel the need to wash his hands of murder on a much more epic scale. He merely flicks the guilt away at everybody else. 

Maybe Caroline Kennedy can give him another Profile in Courage award. Maybe the Nobel committee can give him another peace prize. Better yet, maybe the Hollywood that he so adores can give him an Oscar for best performance by a political actor iin the horror-fantasy genre. He also probably deserves the Most Valuable Player award in the world series of conflagration. He does, after all, have a very mean curveball. He pitches so fast and so loose that whenever his foul balls hit somebody in the head, they never even see it coming. And that is their own fault. They are complicit just for existing.