"...The U.S. administration has also been discussing with Israel the establishment of an investigative committee. Senior administration officials reportedly believe that Ban's proposal - a committee with an Israeli and a Turkish representative - includes very important components.
The officials said that such a committee could expose links between Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the IHH, a Turkish humanitarian aid fund with alleged terror connections, and thus bring out the real story and rehabilitate Israel's image internationally. The senior American officials said that a suitable mandate must be created in which Israeli soldiers are not questioned, but a committee of this nature is not a bad idea..."
As Jason Ditz notes, at Antiwar. com,
"Now administration officials are said to be demanding that the probe, if one happens at all, preclude any questioning of the behavior of Israeli soldiers, and instead focus on investigating the Turkish aid group responsible for the ships."
When faced with Republican "opposition" to health care legislation, Imp. Barack had no ability to twist arms or break counter coalitions.
But, when he needs to make sure that the "permanent aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean" stays staffed and funded, towards the needs of the Imperium, well, you know...
...it of course follows that the mildly less than traditionally secular Turkish PM will find himself linked to that most pre-eminent of fictions, Al Qaeda.
Ceteris paribus, the agitprop has served its purpose. Obama and Bibi verge on getting away with it:
"Only 19% of Americans believe Israel is to blame for clash aboard Gaza-bound aid ship Mavi Marmara last week.
Nearly half - 49 percent - of likely U.S. voters believe that pro-Palestinian activists were to blame for the deaths that occurred when the Israel Defense Forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last week, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Only 19 percent believe that Israel was to blame. Another 32 percent said they were not sure."
Nearly half - 49 percent - of likely U.S. voters believe that pro-Palestinian activists were to blame for the deaths that occurred when the Israel Defense Forces raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last week, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Only 19 percent believe that Israel was to blame. Another 32 percent said they were not sure."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25659.htm
Imperial Barack knows that upwards of 75% of Americans wanted some sort of public health insurance. That didn't move him. He had interests to serve, and serve them he did. Let's face it, the man knows who brought him. And he pays his debts, yes he does.
Now, though, that the corporate media/Israeli hasbara campaign has largely succeeded, trust that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will have their running dogs all over those figures.
Imperial Barack knows that upwards of 75% of Americans wanted some sort of public health insurance. That didn't move him. He had interests to serve, and serve them he did. Let's face it, the man knows who brought him. And he pays his debts, yes he does.
Now, though, that the corporate media/Israeli hasbara campaign has largely succeeded, trust that Barack Obama and Joe Biden will have their running dogs all over those figures.
4 comments:
Statistics can be revealing. Half of American voters re-elected Nixon, Reagan, and W. But when it comes to blaming activists for getting beat up by cops or murdered by soldiers, I suspect the figure is higher. Even without a disinformation campaign.
Agreed.
I had an employee who's son had a boot print put into his back by the local PD. In the winter. Which meant through a few layers of New England winter clothing.
I called my then Alderman (now mayor) and asked him to look into it.
He asked me what the kid did to make the police overreact.
You're right, I think. For a lot of people, the victim, by mere dint of being a victim, deserves whatever happens to her.
Thanks for turning me onto Information Clearing House, JC. I followed your link there a few months ago and have found vast swaths of information.
ICH (One of the best)---indeed.
What a sad story about your employee's son who had a boot print in his back from the local police. I'm sorry the poor boy had to go through that, and I'm sorry for the (typical) response of your now mayor.
Power corrupts, is it surprising that one corrupted public official (the mayor) is supporting another corrupted public official (the police officer)?
Why is it that those in positions of power who are supposedly there to "protect" so often do just the opposite?
I had a slightly similar experience: about 8 years ago, I was committed to a mental hospital by my parents, because I was a "danger to myself"---and I was. You'd hope that somewhere like that would be a place to heal; at least, that's what my parents thought when they executed the legal paperwork to involuntarily confine me there.
You'd be wrong, at least about this particular hospital.
Upon my initial arrival, I was upset at being there against my will, and so they pumped me full of drugs to make me "feel better"---rather, to put me to sleep as a punishment for being emotionally upset (crying) at being Baker Acted.
Well, the drugs backfired and made me belligerent instead of passive, and so they responded by dragging me into a padded room. There I was, a woman of 5' 6" and about 115 pounds at the time, and these two grown men, one holding each leg, brutally drug me across the floor on my back.
When all was said and done and I was in the padded room, I had abrasions on my head from where I had fallen when they pulled my feet out from under me, and my entire spine was torn up because my shirt had lifted as they drug me by my feet, exposing my flesh to the ground---and still they continued to drag.
You'd think that 2 very large grown men, one of whom had to weigh at least 300 pounds, could have found a more gentle way to carry a 115 pound woman into a padded room. Yes, I was belligerent from the medicine the hospital had given me, but these men were not interested in gentleness. They were interested in brutality.
The next day I called the state hot-line to report the abuse. A woman came out, photographed the abrasions on my head and my torn up spine, took my "side" of the story---as if the injuries didn't speak for themselves---and guess what happened after that? NOTHING.
NOTHING happened to that hospital, or those men, and so they kept their jobs and remained in a position to abuse other women in the future---and their abuse did not end that day when they dragged me, and went far beyond the physical, but that is another story.
This hospital was not a place to get better, it was a place where the cruel drugged up the mentally ill---many of whom were involuntarily confined to this hell---and abused them in whatever way they desired.
And the state let this happen.
Seems as if the state, as your mayor, found that I was the one at fault for making those large men "overreact."
There is a sickness in our culture, and it is everywhere, and that sickness is this: a person in a position of power, any position of power, whose job it is to protect the public, the weak, or the sick, often responds by abusing the people he or she is supposed to protect.
And if the abused complain, those in power who are responsible for evaluating the behavior of others in power blame the abused.
Andromeda,
That is a sad and sordid tale. If you can take any solace, at least know that you were not alone in it.
I was once a ward of the state, and as its legal property, had all manner of "loving" things done to my person, in the hopes of correcting youthful me.
There are many like us - and we remember. Always, I think, remember. To forget is to lose the quiet burning fire of necessary anger.
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