The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 14 No. 1…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 3, 2011

Intuit's Vibe

The War Is Over

By Phil Ochs

Silent Soldiers on a silver screen

Framed in fantasies and dragged in dream

Unpaid actors of the mystery

The mad director knows freedom will not make you free

And what's this got to do with me

I declare the war is over...It's over, it's over

Drums are drizzling on a grain of sand

Fading rhythms of a fading land

Prove your courage in the proud parade

Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made

And they're afraid that I'm afraid

I'm afraid the war is over...It's over, it's over

Angry artists painting angry signs

Use their vision just to blind the blind

Poisoned players of a grizzly game

One is guilty and the other gets the point to blame

Pardon me if I refrain

I declare the war is over...It's over, it's over

So do your duty, boys, and join with pride

Serve your country in her suicide

Find the flags so you can wave goodbye

But just before the end even treason might be worth a try

This country is too young to die

I declare the war is over...It's over, it's over

One-legged veterans will greet the dawn

And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn

And the gargoyles only sit and grieve

The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived

You only are what you believe

I believe the war is over...It's over, it's over

DISHing It Up Hot!

On a Dream

By Dot

I had a dream; it was a nightmare really. With my heart pounding, I awoke from its throes with the urge to scream. Rather than a vivid recall of the dream, I was left with vague images that faded even more when I turned on the bedside table lamp. I felt relatively safe - no monsters visible.

In the safety of light, I tried to recall what gave me such a fright. Dreams have a nasty habit of fading from memory; there is no total recall. I was left with only an impression, some words and a warning. Basically, my brain broadcast some residual. "There must be peace on Earth. Peace begins in ME (Middle East) - Bethlehem - birthplace of the Prince of Peace!"

Since that dream, I have been grappling with the notion of peace. Where do I begin working toward that heavenly state on Earth when my country, the greatest nation on the planet, is the chief warmonger?

With bases around the world, the US is at war on multiple fronts. While Americans have been told to believe the war in Iraq is "over," US military personnel are still there. Even the generals do not believe a military win is possible in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires, but the US keeps fighting the lie about denying terrorists a safe haven, when we all know that is a bogus excuse for attempting to occupy some of the world's most inhospitable terrain. The US is remotely killing people in Pakistan with drones; these targeted assassinations kill innocent men, women and children, even though the media report them as killing only terrorists. In the geographic middle of all this killing is Iran, which appears to be the next US target of aggression.

My dream was about the coming war - the one we must prevent. Preventing that war does not start with the internal affairs of Iran and preventing that country from acquiring nuclear weapons; it starts with achieving peace between Israel, a non-signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which already possesses nuclear weapons, and Palestinians.

My dream offered no specifics on how to achieve this peace. It is certainly fraught with obstacles. However, we can be certain that war with Iran will not result in peace on Earth; it may bring about a final solution, an end to human life as we know it.

News You Use

Hollywood and the War Machine

Aired on December 22, 2010, Empire, hosted by Marwan Bishara, sanguinely examines the intersection of Hollywood, the Pentagon, and war.

War is hell, but for Hollywood it has been a Godsend, providing the perfect dramatic setting against which courageous heroes win the hearts and minds of the movie going public.

The Pentagon recognizes the power of these celluloid dreams and encourages Hollywood to create heroic myths; to rewrite history to suit its own strategy and as a recruiting tool to provide a steady flow of willing young patriots for its wars.

What does Hollywood get out of this 'deal with the devil'? Access to billions of dollars worth of military kit from helicopters to aircraft carriers enable filmmakers to make bigger and more spectacular battle scenes, which in turn generate more box office revenue. Providing they accept the Pentagon's advice, even toe the party line and show the US military in a positive light.

So is it a case of art imitating life, or a sinister force using art to influence life and death - and the public perception of both?

Empire's guests appearing on the video: Oliver Stone, the eight times Academy Award-winning filmmaker: Michael Moore, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker; and Christopher Hedges, author and former New York Times Middle East bureau chief.

Program interviewees include: Phil Strub, US Department of Defense Film Liaison Unit; Julian Barnes, Pentagon correspondent, LA Times; David Robb, the author of Operation Hollywood; Prof Klaus Dodds, the author of Screening Terror; Matthew Alford, the author of Reel Power; Prof Melani McAlister, the author of Culture, Media, and US Interests in the Middle East.

This eye-opening installation of Empire is must see TV. Watch this episode of Empire and related video content at http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2010/12/hollywood-and-war-machine.

Bit of History

Tonkin Gulf Lie Launched Vietnam War

By Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon

"American Planes Hit North Vietnam After Second Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression", announced a Washington Post headline on Aug. 5, 1964. The New York Times reported: "President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and `certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam' after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin."

But there was no "second attack" by North Vietnam -- no "renewed attacks against American destroyers." By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the bloody Vietnam War.

A pattern took hold: continuous government lies passed on by pliant mass media...leading to over 50,000 American deaths and millions of Vietnamese casualties.

The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" in the Tonkin Gulf on Aug. 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a "deliberate attack" on a pair of U.S. ships two days later.

Rather than being on a routine patrol Aug. 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks on North Vietnam by the South Vietnamese navy and the Laotian air force.

"The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam...had taken place," writes scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were "part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964."

On the night of Aug. 4, the Pentagon proclaimed that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam. But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to "retaliate" for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened.

Prior to the U.S. air strikes, top officials in Washington had reason to doubt that any Aug. 4 attack by North Vietnam had occurred. Cables from the U.S. task force commander in the Tonkin Gulf, Captain John J. Herrick, referred to "freak weather effects," "almost total darkness" and an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat."

One of the Navy pilots flying overhead that night was squadron commander James Stockdale, who gained fame later as a POW and then Ross Perot's vice presidential candidate. "I had the best seat in the house to watch that event," recalled Stockdale a few years ago, "and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets -- there were no PT boats there.... There was nothing there but black water and American fire power."

In 1965, Johnson commented: "For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there." His deceitful speech of Aug. 4, 1964, won accolades from editorial writers. The president, proclaimed the New York Times, "went to the American people last night with the somber facts." The Los Angeles Times urged Americans to "face the fact that the Communists, by their attack on American vessels in international waters, have themselves escalated the hostilities."

The War Within: America's Battle Over Vietnam, begins with a dramatic account of the Tonkin Gulf incidents. In an interview, author Tom Wells told us that American media "described the air strikes that Johnson launched in response as merely `tit for tat' -- when in reality they reflected plans the administration had already drawn up for gradually increasing its overt military pressure against the North."

Why such inaccurate news coverage? Wells points to the media's "almost exclusive reliance on U.S. government officials as sources of information" -- as well as "reluctance to question official pronouncements on `national security issues.'"

Daniel Hallin's classic book The `Uncensored War' observes that journalists had "a great deal of information available which contradicted the official account [of Tonkin Gulf events]; it simply wasn't used. The day before the first incident, Hanoi had protested the attacks on its territory by Laotian aircraft and South Vietnamese gunboats."

What's more, "It was generally known...that `covert' operations against North Vietnam, carried out by South Vietnamese forces with U.S. support and direction, had been going on for some time."

In the absence of independent journalism, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution -- the closest thing there ever was to a declaration of war against North Vietnam -- sailed through Congress on Aug. 7. (Two courageous senators, Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska, provided the only "no" votes.) The resolution authorized the president "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression." The rest is tragic history. (Source: http://whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/CRASH/TWA/TONKIN.html. Originally published in 1994, the 30^th anniversary of the beginning of the Vietnam War. On December 31, 1970, the US Congress repealed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, the basis for the entire war which lasted until 1974 and took the lives of millions of Vietnamese and more than 50,000 Americans).

Hood Notes

Israel, Obama & The Bomb (Excerpts)

By Conn Hallinan

This past July, a nuclear-armed nation, in violation of an international treaty, clandestinely agreed to supply uranium to a known proliferator of nuclear weapons. China and North Korea? No, the United States and Israel.

In a July 8 article entitled 'Report: Secret Document Affirms U.S. Israeli Nuclear Partnership,' the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that the Obama Administration will begin transferring nuclear fuel to Israel in order to build up Tel Aviv's nuclear stockpile.

There is profound irony in the fact that while the U.S. and some of its allies are threatening military action against Iran for enriching uranium, Washington is bypassing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while aiding Israel's nuclear weapons program, the only country in the world that has actually helped another nation construct and test a nuclear device.

The saga starts with a box of tea that arrived in South Africa in 1975. This past May, researcher Sasha Polakow-Suransky uncovered declassified South African documents indicating that in 1975 the Israeli government offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime. Israeli officials apparently tried to block the declassification of the documents, but failed.

According to the Guardian, then Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres-currently president- negotiated with Pretoria to supply South Africa with nuclear warheads for Israel's Jericho missile. Peres dismissed Polakow-Suransky's book-'The Unspoken Alliance: Israel's Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa'-as having 'no basis in reality for the claims.'

But, according to Allister Sparks in Business Day (South Africa), the Israeli offer 'to sell nuclear warheads to SA during apartheid is almost certainly correct - despite denials by key figures in both countries.'

According to declassified documents uncovered by Polakow- Suransky, Israel also saw South Africa as an ally. ..At the time, South Africa was widely reviled for racist policies that denied full citizenship to the vast bulk of its population. Peres - with significant help from France - was a key figure in the establishment of the Israel's nuclear weapons industry.

The U.S. media focused on the warhead charge, while ignoring the far more destabilizing proliferation issue. The warheads were never sent, but the box of tea was, and the result was a nuclear explosion by a renegade regime. Since the fall of apartheid, South Africa has foresworn its nuclear weapons program.

Israel refuses to sign the NPT-indeed, refuses to admit it has nuclear weapons at all-thus making it ineligible to buy uranium on the world market. Article I of the Treaty explicitly forbids supplying nuclear material to a non- signatory country, which in the case of Israel makes the US in violation of the NPT.

But in Washington's efforts to line up allies against China, the U.S. has agreed to supply fuel for India's nuclear power industry, even though India also refuses to sign the NPT. In theory, the U.S. uranium is only supposed to fuel India's civilian sector, but in practice it will allow India to redirect all of its modest domestic uranium supplies to weapons systems. Pakistan's request for a similar deal was rebuffed. Thus the U.S. has put aside its treaty obligations in the interests of pursuing allies in the Middle East and Asia.

Sparks argues that, 'mutual collaboration' between Israel and South Africa 'enabled both countries to develop nuclear weapons.' Now the U.S. has replaced South Africa in aiding Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal-thought to be around 100 warheads-and in the process has undermined the NPT.

Not only is the U.S. in clear violation of Article 1, the Treaty's Article VI requires member states to end the nuclear arms race, but the Obama Administration has just committed $85.4 billion to 'modernizing' its nuclear arsenal. This is not what the Treaty's designers had in mind, and, while it may not violate the letter of the NPT, it certainly runs against its spirit.

U.S. actions around Israel and India not only weaken the NPT, they make a mockery of Washington's concern about 'proliferation' and bring into question President Obama's pledge to seek 'peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.' Diplomatic chess moves are check mating a noble sentiment. (Source: dispatchesfromtheedgeblog.wordpress.com)

Politics Y2K11

Palestinians Want UN to Censure Settlements

By Tobias Buck

The Palestinians and their allies are pressing ahead with plans to table a draft resolution at the UN Security Council condemning Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Officials say the draft resolution, which poses a particular dilemma for US diplomacy, could be introduced as early as February.

The move forms part of a broader diplomatic effort by a Palestinian leadership determined to exploit Israel's growing political isolation and increase pressure on the Israeli government.

The campaign - which is aimed at winning international recognition for a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders, which includes the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem - reflects rising disillusionment in the Arab world with the US-led peace process.

"As far as the settlements are concerned, we are going to go to the Security Council," Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, told journalists. He conceded that the US might use its veto to block the draft resolution but added: "We urge the Americans not to stand in our way."

The text, Mr Erekat said, stated that Jewish settlements were "illegal and an obstacle to peace". It is likely to repeat language used in statements by western governments, including the US. This approach is designed to make it more difficult for anyone to veto the proposal.

Palestinian officials admit that their efforts are unlikely to have a direct impact on Israel's 43-year occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But they hope that clear condemnation of settlements by the international community, and formal backing for a Palestinian state on their terms, will improve their negotiating position once a new round of talks takes off.

Most analysts and officials believe that the Palestinian drive is starting to bear fruit and point to a string of small but potentially meaningful diplomatic victories for the Palestinians.

Over the past few weeks several Latin American countries, including Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Bolivia, have formally recognized an independent Palestinian state according to its 1967 borders, or promised to do so in the immediate future. Officials said they expected others to follow suit.

In Europe, Norway upgraded the diplomatic status of the Palestinian representation in Oslo from a "general delegation" to a "diplomatic mission".

According to Mr. Erekat, 10 more European countries are preparing to do the same, mirroring action taken by Spain and France earlier in the year. Such upgrades make little difference in practice but offer a symbolic boost to the Palestinian claim of statehood.

Among the countries considering the diplomatic upgrade is the UK, where the Foreign Office issued a statement last week saying it was "aware" of the moves by other European countries. "We are also looking into this in accordance with our long-standing commitment to a two- state solution," it added.

The diplomatic offensive poses a dilemma for the US, which has spent the past year in a futile attempt to restart direct peace talks between Israel and Palestinians.

The US has long used its Security Council veto to halt resolutions critical of Israel, and it is expected to continue. US criticism of Israeli settlement policy could make it harder to explain its veto use in this case.

The Israeli government has sharply condemned both the Palestinian efforts and the expressions of diplomatic support. It argues that formally recognizing a Palestinian state according to its 1967 borders prejudges the outcome of peace talks between the two sides. Israeli officials also said such moves encourage the Palestinian leadership to shun direct negotiations.

"The real question is: Do the concerned countries want to contribute something concrete to peacemaking, or do they want to acquit themselves with a gesture that will provide Palestinians with quick satisfaction but nothing beyond that. The real work cannot be done other than within the framework of direct negotiations," the Israeli foreign ministry said. (Source: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/387a91b0-11db-11e0-92d0-00144feabdc0.html#axzz19LRQ3rFk)

Venue for an Artist

Morgenthau's Final Prediction (Excerpts)

By Francis A. Boyle

By shamelessly exploiting the terrible tragedy of 11 September 2001, the Bush Jr. administration set forth to steal a hydrocarbon empire from the Muslim states and peoples living in Central Asia and the Persian Gulf under the bogus pretexts of (1) fighting a war against international terrorism; and/or (2) eliminating weapons of mass destruction; and/or (3) the promotion of democracy; and/or (4) self-styled "humanitarian intervention." Only this time the geopolitical stakes are infinitely greater than they were a century ago: control and domination of two-thirds of the world's hydrocarbon resources and thus the very fundament and energizer of the global economic system - oil and gas. The Bush Jr./ Obama administrations have already targeted the remaining hydrocarbon reserves of Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia for further conquest or domination, together with the strategic choke-points at sea and on land required for their transportation. In this regard, the Bush Jr. administration announced the establishment of the U.S. Pentagon's Africa Command (AFRICOM) in order to better control, dominate, and exploit both the natural resources and the variegated peoples of the continent of Africa, the very cradle of our human species.

This current bout of U.S. imperialism is what Hans Morgenthau denominated "unlimited imperialism" in his seminal work Politics Among Nations (4th ed. 1968, at 52-53):

The outstanding historic examples of unlimited imperialism are the expansionist policies of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Arabs in the seventh and eighth centuries, Napoleon I, and Hitler. They all have in common an urge toward expansion which knows no rational limits, feeds on its own successes and, if not stopped by a superior force, will go on to the confines of the political world. This urge will not be satisfied so long as there remains anywhere a possible object of domination--a politically organized group of men which by its very independence challenges the conqueror's lust for power. It is, as we shall see, exactly the lack of moderation, the aspiration to conquer all that lends itself to conquest, characteristic of unlimited imperialism, which in the past has been the undoing of the imperialistic policies of this kind….

On 10 November 1979 I visited with Hans Morgenthau at his home in Manhattan. It proved to be our last conversation before he died on 19 July 1980. Given his weakened physical but not mental condition and his serious heart problem, at the end of our necessarily abbreviated one-hour meeting I purposefully asked him what he thought about the future of international relations. This revered scholar, whom international relations experts generally consider to be the founder of modern international political science in the post World War II era, responded:

Future, what future? I am extremely pessimistic. In my opinion the world is moving ineluctably towards a third world war--a strategic nuclear war. I do not believe that anything can be done to prevent it. The international system is simply too unstable to survive for long. The SALT II Treaty is important for the present, but over the long haul it cannot stop the momentum. Fortunately, I do not believe that I will live to see that day. But I am afraid you might.

The factual circumstances surrounding the outbreaks of both the First World War and the Second World War currently hover like the Sword of Damocles over the heads of all humanity. It is imperative that we undertake a committed and concerted effort to head-off Hans Morgenthau's final prediction on the cataclysmic demise of the human race.

About Me: International law and human rights scholar, Dr. Boyle received a J.D. degree, A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law in Illinois, he taught at Harvard and served as an associate at its Center for International Affairs.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.ontheissuesmagazine.com...Feminist Human Rights vs. the Conning of Patriotism...By Kathleen Barry...Although more women are joining the military than ever before and some are seeing combat, women's primary role, as far as the military is concerned, is patriotic. Not just any kind of patriotism is expected of women; they are expected to eagerly send their sons and husbands and lovers and partners and fathers off to combat. Then women are to turn away and not see what actually occurs in combat. Under cover of sacrificing their lives for the USA, their loved ones are killing randomly, without remorse, otherwise known as murder. That is how they are trained, actually brainwashed. "Collateral Murder," the WikiLeaks video, allegedly leaked by Pfc. Bradley Manning, is what remorseless killing looks like. As civilians are mowed down from a hovering helicopter, the soldiers are joking and cheering. In research for Unmaking War, Remaking Men, I found that random killing is everyday life for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a feminist, it is not difficult to see how the military exploits masculinity for war. Regardless of the gender of the soldier dropping the bomb or pulling the trigger, violent, aggressive masculinity underpins the military's amorality of remorseless killing, institutionalizes it and rewards it.

Email www.indybay.org...WikiLeaks 'struck a deal with Israel' over diplomatic cables leaks ...A number of commentators, particularly in Turkey and Russia, have been wondering why the hundreds of thousands of American classified documents leaked by the website Wikileaks last month did not contain anything that may embarrass the Israeli government. The answer appears to be a secret deal struck between the WikiLeaks "heart and soul", as Julian Assange humbly described himself once, with Israeli officials, which ensured that all such documents were 'removed' before the rest were made public. According to the Al-Haqiqa sources, Assange met with Israeli officials in Geneva earlier this year and struck the secret deal. The Israel government, it seems, had somehow found out or expected that the documents to be leaked contained a large number of documents about the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza in 2006 and 2008-9 respectively. Indeed, the published documents seem to have a 'gap' stretching over the period of July - September 2006, during which the 33-day Lebanon war took place. Is it possible that US diplomats and officials did not have any comments or information to exchange about this crucial event but spent their time 'gossiping' about every other 'trivial' Middle-Eastern matter? Following the leak, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a press conference that Israel had "worked in advance" to limit any damage from leaks, adding that "no classified Israeli material was exposed by WikiLeaks." In an interview with the Time magazine, Assange praised Netanyahu as a hero of transparency and openness!

Email www.salon.com...Judith Miller: From the Times to the nuts...Judith Miller used to be a superstar. She was a major reporter at the New York Times for decades -- at the DC bureau, in Cairo, in Paris, special correspondent to the Persian Gulf, embedded with a special unit in Iraq. She had the best sources. She had amazing scoops. Now she's writing -- on contract, not full-time -- for Newsmax, a goofy right-wing magazine where conservatives you've never heard of (and John Stossel, apparently) report, constantly, that Barack Obama is bad and unpopular. It's a steep fall, and it couldn't have happened to a worse journalist. Since her early days at the Times, when she inserted CIA misinformation into a piece on Libya, she's always been a tool of power. She was the voice of the Defense Department, embedded at the Times. She was hyping bullshit stories about Iraq's WMD capabilities as far back as 1998, and in the run-up to the war, her front-page scoops were cited by the Bush administration as evidence that Saddam needed to be taken out, right away.