Venezuela: When the Counter-Revolution was Televised

The reported refusal (al Jazeera) of Venezuela's opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, to accept the presidential electoral victory of Nicolás Maduro reminds me of the documentary The Revolution will not be Televised, by Kim Bartley and Donnacha O'Briain. The whole thing is about an hour and a quarter long, but I found this section on Youtube which shows the counter-revolution in frighteningly close-up detail.


  

The coup was memorably described at the time by The Guardian's Duncan Campbell as Bush's Bay of Piglets and it was, of course, a miserable failure.

Viva democracia!

Obama visits

Barack Obama, Chief Marketing Officer of US Arms Inc., the greatest arms and war conglomerate history has ever known, visited the offices of the company's important subsidiary, Israel. The US spends over 50% of its discretionary public budget, about 5% of its GDP, on war and armed repression. With 41% of global "defense" expenditures (actually, money spent primarily on repression), and five time more than its nearest competitor, the US dominates the market of death. In global arms transfers to developing countries the US ranked first with $56.3 billions in 2011, over thirteen times more than its nearest competitor, Russia. All actual military conflicts take place in "developing" countries, which therefore account for nearly 80% of all weapon transfer agreements, and the US holds nearly 80% of that lucrative market. The biggest client is in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia was the recipient of $33.4 billions in arms transfers in 2011, mostly for good coin. Historically, the Middle East accounts for about 50% of all weapon transfers to developing countries. In both relative and absolute terms it is the most important "defense" market. And we didn't even mention oil. Oil money (namely primarily the money consumers and businesses in the rest of the world pay for energy), over and above the profits of the oil industry itself, is the source of income that funds practically all arms that get bought in the Middle East, and concomitantly the use and threat of use of these weapons helps keep the price of oil high and the profits flowing.

The President of the US is the man in charge of coordinating maintaining the health of American economy, of which a key component is the safety of these profits. So he came to the Middle East, which is the pivot area of these profits, and talked about peace. What did you expect that he talks about? Do you expect the chief officers of Big Tobacco to talk about cancer when they make public addresses? Do the expect the CEO of Apple to extol the virtues of working employees to the point of suicide? Naturally, the President spoke about peace. Peace is lovely.

If one likens the US to a company, Israel is reporting to the marketing department. Some big business make money in Israel, but in the larger scheme of things it is peanuts. Israel is less a profit center than a freebie that drives up sales in other departments. Iran is a case in point. Few if any policy makers in their right minds want to invade Iran. Plus, the Iranian rulers have no substantial disagreements with the US and have repeatedly sent feelers with offers to join the US dominated world. Their conditions, essentially, staying in power and having some security guarantees, are not significantly different than what every pro-US junta in the world expects. But it is obvious from the consistent blocking of every possibility of dialogue that the US prefers Iran to remain in a belligerent relation. In the words of Michael Axworthy, 'the US and other western countries are not yet willing to take yes for an answer.' All those arms the Saudi state buys must have a reason. And reason number one is the Iranian threat. Iran, however, builds its influence in the region, in particular its ability to threaten the cohesion of pro-American regimes, by hyping up its enmity with Israel and  supporting Hizbulla. Peace in Palestine might be the start of a chain reaction that ends, God forbid, with Saudi Arabia no longer needing so many weapons, and, just as worse, not having the oil revenues to pay for them. But I hope you won't lose sleep over such a nightmare scenario. Let me just point out how good US foreign policy has been at keeping the pot of war simmering on low heat with the occasional boil-over and spill. Just trust Obama. He obviously knows how to handle this.

It feels different to those in the simmering pot.

Obama came to Israel to manage the conflict, that is, to keep it simmering, while preventing it from boiling over. Netanyahu represents a tendency in Israeli society that is insensitive to the American preference for slow cooking. His key constituencies make both money and symbolic capital directly from the process of colonization. That has led to some stormy relations. But the US arms industry needs Netanyahu, because it is ultimately the heat that his policies generate that keeps the pot simmering. The problem is having the right "thermostat," control mechanisms to hold Netanyahu and the settlers behind him in check. That is where Israel's famous "peace camp" comes in. Israel's "peace camp" has no deep interest in peace. It represents the segment of Israeli society, affluent, Ashkenazi, that isn't invested directly in the on-going colonization and is most aligned with and attuned to American interests. Its own fortunes depends on the US, and even more so, on access to the Western world. A sour face by a US President can send Israel's "peace camp" into weeks of morbid self-doubt.

The White House was undoubtedly pleased that Netanyahu had been weakened by the last elections. It could have been better, but it could also have been worse. Obama did not come to Israel to advance peace, but to give a boost, a 'hang in there,' to the Israeli "peace camp." Every word he said, especially the tepid, allegedly "pro-Palestinian," parts of his speech, was, no doubts intentionally,  music to the ears of Israel's "peace camp," to assure them of their importance and to maintain and bolster their ability to serve as as brakes when the US needs to lower the heat. The message was not directed at Palestinians, except those few Palestinians who are the junior business partners in the peace industry, those who would be tasked with repressing any third intifadah, and are therefore as keen as their Israeli partners on acting as a thermostat for the US weapons industry.

There was however a message also for Palestinians and their supporters in the US and the world. Richard Silverstein called it "Drop dead," evoking New-York City Ford era debt crisis. This is inaccurate. To those that expected him to help them, namely, the PA and such, his message was the very opposite, to keep going on the same path that leads nowhere. The US cannot afford them quitting. But to those who have given up on the US or who understand what the US is really about, the message was different. It was not "drop dead," since, unlike the former, they had no expectations of help. It was more like 'don't even think about it.' Obama practically read aloud from Israel's declaration of independence, mentioning every item on the checklist of Zionist talking points, from the Biblical land rights of Jews, through the holocaust, and to the "villa in the jungle", that democratic oasis of techno-prowess in the blooming desert that Israel fancies itself. That Obama felt it necessary to spell out at length so much that is supposed to be taken for granted was a backhanded compliment to a decade of Palestinian activism that has succeeded in calling these talking points increasingly in question. Obama's 100% Zionism performance was a step into the breach, expressing a complete rejection of that radical critique of Israeli settler-colonialism. It was calibrated to demoralize.

In that, Obama continues the role he played from his very election, both domestically and internationally, as the hegemonic fixer following Bush's decade of naked power, coming to offer a soothing yet firm no to any thought of escaping the American juggernaut  To those who had their eyes opened by Bush's blunt indifference Obama offers a blue pill, extending an invitation to recreate the fantasy of a kinder US, with its "values" and its "principles" and its "vision," but with lowered expectations and no meaningful change. To those who refuse, there will be nothing but cold steel.

Rabeea Eid, the Palestinian student who bravely heckled Obama and confronted him with the truth of his policy, challenged that demoralizing performance:

"Did you really come here for peace or to give Israel more weapons to kill and destroy the Palestinian people? Did you happen to see the apartheid wall on your way here? There are Palestinians sitting in this hall. This state should be for all of its citizens, not a Jewish state only. Who killed Rachel Corrie? Rachel Corrie was killed by your money and weapons!” (EI)

As Eid said later, "the most important part is for this visit not to go on in a normal manner." This empire is not in the mood for compromise. Why would it, when repression not only defends profits but is profitable in itself?

For those fawning over Obama's empathy and vision while complaining of "the lack of substance," seriously, expecting the Chief Marketing Officer of US Arms Inc. to bring peace to the Middle East is like expecting Silvio Berlusconi to usher in a new age of gender equality. Get real!

__________
Ah, and then there is that circus elephant in the room, the famous Jewish lobby, which plays an important role, just like Obama, the Saudi Royals, Iran.  Everybody plays a role. Money doesn't flow naturally. It takes work. And that work isn't done by magical elves. it is done through various institutions that support and reflect each other and by people who actually intervene through them at various points to avert whatever risks bringing the system to a halt. It just doesn't play the kind of role that those invested in the fantasy of a pure, innocent America, subverted by foreigners, imagine it plays.

Israel snuggles up to China

I was first told of this over a week ago but I didn't think too much of it.  Israel and China have often co-operated in the past, not least by way of China supplying something like slave labour to the illegitimate entity, but the level of military co-operation planned between Israel and China is chilling when you consider China's position as the only serious prospect for a single state challenge to US global hegemony.  What am I talking about?  See this from (by now lots of places but my friend sent it from) the China Digital Times:

China and Israel are taking steps to thaw a frosty relationship with a visit between the two countries’ chiefs of staff. From the Washington Post:

The improved ties have been highlighted by this week’s visit to Beijing by Israel’s military chief and a training mission to Israel by the Chinese paramilitary force that, among other things, polices the restive Tibetan and Muslim Uighur regions. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to China in the coming weeks.

[...] Chen told the official China Daily that China “attaches importance to the ties with the Israeli military and is willing to make concerted efforts with the Israeli side to deepen pragmatic cooperation.”

In a statement released by the Israeli military, Gantz mentioned a commitment to developing the relationship, including “joint courses that are scheduled to take place.” It did not elaborate.

Such comments are a remarkable turnaround from just a few years ago, when ties deteriorated after the failed arms deals.

In recent years, China has often found itself in the middle of tensions between Israel and Iran, which has bought Chinese military technology despite objections from the U.S. and other countries.

Now China is on one side of those tensions: the zionist side.

US Medal of Freedom for neighbourhood bullies

See, it's right there in the USA Today headline:

Bob Dylan, John Glenn Among Medal of Freedom Winners

Hmm, that can't be right. I've never heard anything about John Glenn singing or being a neighbourhood bully.  But my headline says "bullies".  Now Bob Dylan wrote a nasty hasbara song called Neighbourhood Bully so he must be one of them.  


But what's this Medal of Freedom all about?

From civil rights to government service, from the author of Beloved to the composer of The Times They Are A-Changin', President Obama honored 13 individuals on Tuesday who have made singular contributions to national life.

And who else is on the list?

Some of recipients are well-known cultural icons. Nobel Prize-winning writer Toni Morrison, author of Beloved, Jazz, and Song of Solomon, has a new book on the best seller lists: Home, the story of a Korean War veteran who returns to his racially segregated town in Georgia.

So that's three so far and only one under the heading neighbourhood bully. So any more?

Other pioneers honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom included Madeleine Albright, the first female Secretary of State.....


Other recipients: John Paul Stevens, the third longest-serving justice on the Supreme Court, who wore his trademark bow tie of the ceremony; William Foege, a physician who led the charge to eradicate smallpox during the 1970s......


Attorney John Doar represented the government in some of the toughest civil rights cases of the 1960s, from murders in Mississippi to the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march in Alabama.....

Dolores Huerta helped organize migrant farm workers along with Cesar Chavez..... 

Three of this year's Medal of Freedom honorees are deceased.


Two of them defined heroism during World War II: Gordon Hirabayashi, who defied the U.S. internment of Japanese citizens, and took the government to court; and Jan Karski of Poland, who delivered one of the first eyewitness accounts of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews.


Obama also honored Juliette Gordon Low, who founded the Girl Scouts a century ago this year.

Ok, we're populating our list of 13. We even have some who could qualify as neighbourhood bully. How many have we now?  I make it eleven. So who else:

The sports world was also honored: Pat Summitt, the Tennessee women's basketball coach who retired this year after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease.

Well Madeleine Albright did a good bit of bullying in her time but not usually in her own neighbourhood and we still only have twelve recipients of this presidential award for "individuals .... who have made singular contributions to national life." So who is this neighbourhood bully, number 13 on the list? Who is this person who has made a "singular contribution to national life" worthy of a US Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Israeli President Shimon Peres, lauded for his efforts to find Middle East peace, is another recipient of the Medal of Freedom. Peres did not attend the ceremony because of obligations back home.

Or maybe the USA is flirting with universal jurisdiction. USA Today had more to say about the racist war criminal, Peres:

Israel President Shimon Peres -- An ardent advocate for Israel's security and for peace, Shimon Peres was elected the ninth President of Israel in 2007. First elected to the Knesset in 1959, he has served in a variety of positions throughout the Israeli government ... Peres served as Prime Minister from 1984-1986 and 1995-1996. Along with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, Peres won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for his work as Foreign Minister during the Middle East peace talks that led to the Oslo Accords."

Ok, all very interesting but how does any of that count as a "singular contribution to national life" in the USA?

Cause and effect in MidEast nuclear arms race

Here's a letter which appeared in The Independent last week. I missed it at the time but caught it in The Week magazine:

So let me get this right. William Hague warns that Iran acquiring nuclear weapons would start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Where is the sense of history? Fifty years ago, John F Kennedy was firmly opposed to Israel acquiring nuclear weapons for precisely that reason. By that measure, hasn't the good Mr Hague got cause and effect interchanged?

PH Ladbrooke

Cambridge

Tbe Independent headed the letter, Blind to history whereas The Week headed it, Nuclear muddle. There's no reference to the original article or letter to which PH Ladbroke was responding. I'm guessing it was this from Feb 18.

The death of a master signifier

"Osama Bin Laden," the master signifier of the US war on terror, is dead. The frail proper body that used to be attached to that signifier was assassinated in an imperial US military operation in a foreign country, Pakistan. That body is not important. The Master Signifer Osama bin Laden had only a passing and insignificant, literally, relation to that body. Rather, It represented the Middle Eastern subject, the rebellious native, the child who rejected the authority of the father, to America the Beautiful.

The operation was carried out among a people who despises the US for decades of misery that the US inflicted of them. It was the very kind of operation that convinced a much young Osama Bin Laden that killing lots of Americans is the only way to go. He was wrong. There are better ways. And his idea of liberty was kooky. But that is as much as one can say against him. The number of people he killed is pathetically small by the standards of US presidents. If Bin Laden merited a bullet, then Emperor Obama deserves to be quartered and drowned. As for Bush and Blair, if we set to punish them honestly we would need the sadistic creativity of the Olympian Gods. There is no human punishment that would be horrible enough to match their culpability.

Nevertheless, the death of a Master Signifier is a cause of celebration. It is appropriate that it happened in such close proximity to the Wedding of the Century, an opulent spectacle of violence in the name of the Holy right to violence, matching an opulent spectacle of looted wealth celebrating its God given right to loot. Death and Marriage, as Freud might have hummed one spring afternoon, go together like horse and carriage. The death of the master signifier puts into play the knowledge of God's love for his people. It is not, of course, "America" that knows. America knows nothing at all. Except that it knows that the Middle East knows it for it. On the occasion of his visit to Bin Laden's territory, Bernard Henri Levy already explained how the knowledge of race and the knowledge of God's election exchange fluids.

“The Taliban weren’t just defeated, they were defeated without a fight. …the image of these defeated fighters, lionized by the Arab street from Baghdad to Damascus, the image of these salahudins who were supposed to !bring America to its knees, and who, at the first shot, fled like chickens, could only astound those who identified with them.”

Out of the labor carried out by this Arab knowledge of America emerges what Jacques Lacan calls a "surplus-of-joy". The people of the US are jubilant. So I hear. I am not sure if that covers also the people whose houses were foreclosed in the last three years. But it is possible that they too are jubilant today. It is Purim in America today. The evil Haman is dead. Millions of his kins have been murdered in advance.

Only a doubting Thomas would fail to see here the ultimate proof that God loves America, England, and, of course, the Queen.

Gaza and Libya: compare and contrast

Some interesting letters in The Guardian today:

When Israel bombed Gaza at the end of 2008 in a brutal action which killed 1,300 people and destroyed 20,000 buildings, there was no question of the US allowing the UN to impose a no-fly zone over Gaza to protect its people, 50% of which are children. Those who support the UN security council's authorisation of a no-fly zone over Libya (Britain, France and US line up for air strikes against Gaddafi, 18 March) need to reflect on the selective nature of UN intervention throughout the world and in the Middle East in particular.

The UN will not be intervening in the Libyan revolution to protect civilians from Gaddafi's brutality. It will go in to further the interests of the world's major powers in the region. It will be an imperialist action, not a humanitarian one. After the bloodshed it produced in Serbia, Iraq and Afghanistan, the doctrine of "humanitarian military intervention" should be discredited beyond rehabilitation. The west is a major source of the problems of the Middle East and north Africa. It's not part of the solution, even when its troops wear blue helmets.

Sasha Simic

London

The others are worth a look at too.

OECD collaborates with the occupation but don't tell anyone

I think that's the position. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is holding a tourism conference in Jerusalem which is bang out of order when you think about it because the international consensus is that Israel is illegally occupying Jerusalem and the OECD is an official international body. Well typically the Israelis have started bragging that the situating of the conference in occupied territory means the conferment of legitimacy which of course seems to be a correct interpretation. Well this has caused some embarrassment to the General Secretary of the OECD. Here's Ha'aretz:

Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), sent a harsh letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warning that due to comments made by Tourism Minister Stas Misezhnikov (Yisrael Beitenu), the decision to hold a tourism conference in Jerusalem could be hindered.

Misezhnikov said in an interview with Haaretz on Monday that although some countries have cancelled their participation in the OECD conference to be held in Jerusalem later this month, the fact that most countries have not cancelled their participation is a show of support for Israel's territorial claims in Jerusalem.

It's interesting that the OECD is so put out by this because by holding their conference in Jerusalem they are clearly poking even minimalist Palestinian aspirations in the eye but the OECD still wants to play ball with Israel:

Gurria wrote in the letter that he demanded clarifications regarding Misezhnikov's comments and claimed that the OECD had made it known to Israel that their decision to hold the conference in Jerusalem was not meant to have political implications.

The Secretary-General protested the fact that Misezhnikov had linked the conference to political issues and said that the incident could hinder the planning of future conferences in Israel.

Now I don't know how often these conferences take place but with 30 members why do they have to be considering now whether or not to hold future conferences in Jerusalem? It would appear that the spectre of not holding future conferences in Jerusalem is a gambit to go ahead and support Israel's claim on Jerusalem whilst appearing to take action against it. Unless Israel digs in and embarrasses the OECD still further, the scheduled conference will take place in Jerusalem and the location of future conferences will be largely forgotten.

I hope I'm wrong of course and, according to the Ha'aretz article, the UK and Spain are actually boycotting the conference this time around specifically because it is being held in Jerusalem.

Children NATO liberated in Afghanistan

Mubarak pays homage to his liege lord in Washington

I guess Obama's ecstatic demeanor is the result of hearing how $2 billion of U.S. monies every year are used to detain bloggers, arrest and torture political activists (as well as the merely unlucky) and suppress democracy. With the health reform in the U.S. falling under the knives of the insurance industry and his voters slowly realizing that he too is, as Isaiah once called Egypt, a "staff of this broken reed"--a description that is still fitting Egypt as well although in a different context--Obama might consider that Mubarak has much to teach him about keeping a disaffected public under the leash.

Not that we should be surprised:

Obama's choice to address Muslims around the world from a country run by a dictator has not only shown us that he is hypocritical when promoting democracy, but even worse - he has given Mubarak both the assurance and the green light to continue ruling. (Khouloud Khalife)

Honduras resistance call for international solidarity and boycott

Call from the National Front against the Coup d'Etat in Honduras to the Worldwide Working Class

This comes from the

..."National Front against the Coup d'Etat" which unites all of the social and political expressions of the popular movement and is driving the national movement towards the defeat of the dictatorship. This front is made up of worker, peasant and other peoples organizations, as well as by the left and center parties and movements who have declared themselves against the coup d'etat.

A few quotes (with my emphasis):

Behind the coup is the business leadership, the four political parties of the bourgeoisie, (Liberal Party, National Party, Christian Democratic Party and Party of Social Democratic Innovation and Unity), the leadership of the Catholic and Evangelical churches, as well as the main owners of the media. All of them made a counter-revolutionary alliance for fear that the popular poll of the 28th of June would give power to the people and especially to the working class and poor peasantry to start the construction of a new society, where the privileges of the bourgeois class and the landowners would be eliminated.

It is also necessary to say that behind this coup d'etat is the hand of North American imperialism and the Latin American ultra-right, who are seeing it as an opportunity to stop the advance of the left in the Central American region and the influence of the Venezuelan revolution, after the recent electoral triumphs of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) in El Salvador and the Sandinista Front in Nicaragua.

The international reaction was forceful from a diplomatic point of view: Except for the Zionist regime of Israel, no other country in the world dared to recognize the military-business dictatorship imposed in Honduras.

The only government that always had an ambiguous policy towards the usurping government was the North American government led by Barack Obama.

The Honduran working class, which since the beginning actively responded to the popular resistance, organized in the third week a unified mobilization through its own methods of struggle: la general strike and the takeover of work centers, starting with a 48 hour stoppage by the three central unions of the country (CUTH, CGT and CTH) this past 23rd and 24th of July, which was repeated again the 30th and 31st of the same month. In solidarity with them friends from the popular organizations of El Salvador and Nicaragua cut of the customs to stop the entrance of exit of merchandise from Honduras. Immediately the business associations of Honduras and Central America, who are in solidarity with the usurpers, screamed to the sky because that boycott implied losses of millions for their companies. This means that the strike and the commercial boycott are effective weapons to wear out the economic base of the coup-makers, more than formal declarations

Because of all of this, the National Front Against the Coup d'Etat makes a call to working class organizations world wide to organize and carry out militant solidarity with the working class and the people of Honduras, carrying out boycott actions of all products that enter or come out of Honduran ports, with the goal of economically asphyxiating the dictatorship; do protests in repudiation of the dictatorship in front of the U.S. and Honduran embassies, do political and cultural actions in solidarity with the struggle of the Honduran people, and in general carry out action that strengthens the struggle of the Honduran people and its working class to get us out of this oppressive regime and reach a new society.

Israel appeals to white solidarity

It is common for Israeli apologists to ask why Israel has become such a symbol of imperialism. The implication is that this is due to antisemitism. An alternative explanation is to note just how transparent Israeli support for racism is, not just against Palestinians but in general.

Here's the latest. Breaking the Silence, an Israeli organization of former Israeli soldiers that publicizes the atrocities committed regularly by the IDF through soldier testimonies, receives funding from a number of European governments, including the U.K., Spain and the Netherlands. That is great. The Israeli government is not happy, which is understandable. The Israeli Foreign office is now using is friendly relations in the Netherlands to try to cut the funding of the group.

According to sources familiar with the situation, Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen - considered one of Israel's staunchest supporters in the European Union - did not know that the embassy in Tel Aviv was funding Breaking the Silence. He learned about it after the organization's funding sources were published in an article in The Jerusalem Post.

Sources say Verhagen reproached senior figures in the Dutch Foreign Ministry upon learning this and gave instructions to launch an internal investigation on the matter. It showed that the embassy in Israel gave Breaking the Silence 19,995 euros to help put together its 2009 report, which discusses Operation Cast Lead and was released earlier this month.  (Haaretz, July 26, 2009)

Nobody should be surprised that Israel has plenty of European politicians willing to do their bit to help cover up its crimes. What is interesting is the logic of Israel's appeal to the Dutch Foreign Minister.

According to a senior Israeli official: "A friendly government cannot fund opposition bodies. We are not a third world country."

There you have it. States of white people can fund "oppositional" groups in states of dark people, but not in other states of white people. Everybody understands this global demarcation, but only Israeli diplomats are unselfconsciously racist enough to express it so blatantly.

Abbas doing his best

to satisfy the marching orders he received from Emperor Obama last week in Washington. And his best is killing Palestinians who refuse to take orders from Washington.

Palestinians medical sources reported on Sunday at dawn that six Palestinians were killed in Qalqilia, in the northern part of the West Bank, during clashes that took place between Palestinian security forces and a group of fighters of the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas.

Three Palestinian security officers were killed on Sunday at dawn; two of them were identified as Shaher Abu Al Tayyib, Abdul-Rahman Yassin, both were members of the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces, while the third is a security officer of the National Security forces.

Also, two members of the Al Qassam Brigades were killed after barricading themselves in a building during clashes with the security forces. They were identified as Samir Yassin and Mohammad Al Samman.

The owner of the building, Abdul-Nasser Al Basha, was also killed in the clashes.

The initial clashes took place after midnight as some members of the Al Qassam Brigades reportedly opened fire at security forces surrounding a building the fighters barricaded themselves in. (IMEMC)

In a really surreal twist, Mahmoud Abbas, reading from the IDF spokesperson's boilerplate press releases during the assault on Gaza, accused the victims of his U.S. trained security forces of "storing explosives in mosques."

“The security agencies will not allow anyone to endanger or risk the lives of innocent citizens, or to store weapons and explosives in the homes of citizens or mosques,” said Abbas. (PNN)

As Mondoweiss points out, this comes directly out of Emperor Obama's orders against reconciliation with hamas:

President Obama went out of his way in their joint press conference to remark that Abbas "has been under enormous pressure to bring about some sort of unity government and to negotiate with Hamas. And I am very impressed and appreciative of President Abbas' willingness to steadfastly insist that any unity government would have to recognize the principles that have been laid by the Quartet." (Mondoweiss)

The Obama administration follows in the imperial footsteps of its predecessor: bribe, repress, and murder; and if they resist, bribe, repress and murder some more. There is no other playbook.

Biden to Lebanon: how would like to be destroyed?

In a week or so, people in Lebanon go to the polls in an important elections that pits the parties that want to carry water for Washington against Hizbullah and its allies. Naturally, the U.S. has an opinion on how the people of Lebanon should vote; and they'd better listen or else...

Following the gross disniformation attempt against Hizbullah, courtesy of Der Spiegel, U.S. Vice President Biden visited Lebanon to lay down the law. (Here below you can see Bidden standing in front of a Korea War Howitzer, but I'm told the next shipment will also include battering rams and longbows.)

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Friday Washington would assess its aid to Lebanon depending on who won next month's election, but denied taking sides in a vote pitching a Western-backed coalition against Hezbollah.
...
"I urge those who would think about standing with the spoilers of peace not to miss this opportunity to walk away from the spoilers," Biden added in a veiled reference to Hezbollah, which opposes U.S. efforts to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict.
...
"We will evaluate the shape of our assistance program based on the composition of the new government and the policies it advocates," Biden declared.

Hezbollah criticized Biden's visit, which followed one by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in April, as meddling in Lebanon, and denounced U.S. support for Israel. (Reuters)

So, here are the choices:

If the elections goes to the Hizbullah, Washington is going to stop sending useless weapons to the Lebanese army (useful weapons it refuses to send anyway, as they might piss Israel off. Thus antiquated tanks, which can only realistically be used against refugee camps, are O.K., but anti-aircraft defense is verboten). Probably that would be followed by increasingly nasty rhetoric, calls for economic sanctions, pressure on banks to stop dealing with Lebanon, etc. Lebanon could find itself in the same situation as Iran and Syria. Eventually there would be another Israeli invasion.

If the elections goes to the pro-U.S. parties, Washington is going to funnel a lot of money to this government on condition that it uses the money to buy useless weapons and to create a corrput network of economic dependency and clientelism that would forever bind the top 1% of Lebanese society to the U.S. udder while letting the rest of the people sink ever deeper in poverty. Lebanon will become more and more like other U.S. client states, Egypt, Mexico, etc. However, given the existence of an armed population, the more likely outcome would be another civil war.

Not a pleasant choice.

I would expect the most likely impact of Biden's words would be to add a few more votes to Hizbullah. And that's a good thing.