zondag 22 februari 2015

Henk Hofland en de Massa 7

14 juli 2012 berichtte de Volkskrant onder de kop 'Foto's zorgen voor felle reacties':

De publicatie van de executie-foto's afgelopen week in de Volkskrant heeft tot een hausse aan reacties geleid. Vrijwel alle media namen de foto's over en wijdden uitgebreid aandacht aan het fotomateriaal van de Enschedese soldaat Jacobus R…

Voor sommigen waren de foto's 'oud nieuws', bleek uit een column van Henk Hofland in NRC Handelsblad. Hij was in 1949 huzaar eerste klas, gedetacheerd bij de Leger Film- en Fotodienst, die hem had uitgeleend aan het Bureau Vaste Staven Troepenschepen. Hij draaide speelfilms af op de troepenschepen die de militairen van en naar Batavia verscheepten. 'Daar aan boord heb ik voor het eerst dergelijke gruwelfoto's gezien - niet een paar, maar ettelijke. Voor zover ik me herinner, werden ze me niet getoond met trots, maar als bewijzen van ervaring,' schreef hij deze week.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/dossier-archief/fotos-zorgen-voor-felle-reacties~a3286343/

http://www.volkskrant.nl/binnenland/eerste-fotos-ooit-van-executies-nederlands-leger-in-indie~a3284391/

http://www.hpdetijd.nl/2012-07-12/journalist-van-de-eeuw-mist-primeur-van-de-eeuw/

Met anderen woorden: 'Voor zover' opiniemaker H.J.A. Hofland het zich herinnert waren de foto's 'bewijzen' van datgene wat het internationaal recht oorlogsmisdaden betitelt, het standrechtelijk liquideren van burgers. De nestor van de polderpers blijkt meer dan 60 jaar lang gezwegen te hebben over zijn 'ervaring' met 'gruwelfoto's,' die verdacht veel leken op de misdaden waarvoor hoge nazi's in diezelfde tijdsperiode in Neurenberg ter dood werden veroordeeld. Op één redacteur van HP/De Tijd na verwonderde niemand van Hoflands 'politiek-literaire elite' zich over de opmerkelijke geheimhouding van de meest vooraanstaande Nederlandse opiniemaker. Zijn met zorg gekozen woorden dat het hier niet om 'trots' zou gaan, maar om 'bewijzen van ervaring,' zijn overigens niet online te lezen, in tegenstelling tot veel NRC-columns van Hofland. De ouwe rot in het vak was slim genoeg om niet te schrijven dat de 'gruwelfoto's' rondgingen om elkaar te laten zien hoe kordaat Jan Soldaat was geweest. Tegelijkertijd wist hij al die jaren dat het hier 'gruwel'-daden betrof waarover hij, als woordvoerder van de gevestigde orde, zoveel mogelijk diende te zwijgen. Althans, als Hofland zijn carrière niet in een vroegtijdig stadium de grond in wilde boren. De doorsnee Nederlander heeft voor deze motivering het volste begrip. Die drijfveer is kenmerkend voor het poldermodel, met zijn — wat Huizinga noemde — 'lichte graad van knoeierij of bevoorrechting van vriendjes.' Jan Soldaat deed niet meer dan wat van hem verwacht werd 'voor vrouw en kind en vaderland' en dit 'alleen van hogerhand.' In de ogen van het merendeel van de bevolking was er bovendien, na eeuwen koloniale onderdrukking, geen enkele sprake van een onafhankelijkheidsoorlog, maar van een simpele, brutale verstoring van de openbare orde. Vandaar dat deze oorlog in Nederland nog steeds 'politionele acties' heten.

De vraag is evenwel waarom de Nederlandse intelligentsia zich niet heeft verdiept in de oorzaak van Hoflands zwijgen over het bestaan van 'bewijzen' van 'gruwel'-daden. Immers, als 'journalist van de eeuw,' wordt Nederlands meest vooraanstaande opiniemaker algemeen gezien als uiterst betrouwbare bron van informatie. Hoe is het collectieve cynisme te verklaren in dit piepkleine land van 16 miljoen inwoners? Als voor de 'politiek-literaire elite' in de polder het zoeken naar waarheid geen drijfveer is, wat beweegt haar dan wel? Waarom worden zelfs deze vragen niet gesteld door al die betweters? Voor alle duidelijkheid: het gaat hier niet slechts om Henk Hofland, maar om allen die zich onderdeel achten van de Nederlandse intellectuele 'elite.' Een ander voorbeeld van het verzwijgen van de geschiedenis gaf professor dr. Marjan Schwegman, directeur van het NIOD/KNAW. Voor de niet-ingewijde: 'het NIOD is een kennis- en informatiecentrum over oorlog, Holocaust en genocide. Het instituut is een onderdeel van de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW).' De reden dat het NIOD pas na zes decennia op 19 juni 2012 aandrong op een 'nieuw, volledig onderzoek... naar geweld in Indie 1945-1949' was simpel: de Tweede Wereldoorlog was van alle denkbare kanten al onderzocht, dus was mevrouw Schwegman op zoek naar werk voor zichzelf en haar instituut. Samen met Piet Kamphuis, directeur Nederlands Instituut voor Militaire Historie (NIMH) en Gert Oostindie, directeur Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV), was zij van mening dat niet langer meer de oorlog in voormalig Ons-Indië verzwegen kon blijven. Een bijkomend argument was dat niemand meer politiek of juridisch aansprakelijk kon worden gesteld, omdat de Nederlandse oorlogsmisdadigers en hun politiek verantwoordelijke opdrachtgevers inmiddels dood waren. En tenslotte was er het argument dat professor Schwegman een jaar eerder, in januari 2011, als volgt had geformuleerd:

In geschiedschrijving van de oorlog kun je de moraal niet buiten de deur houden.

De directeur van het NIOD heeft helemaal gelijk, vandaar ook het decennialange uitstel, want net als Hofland wil het establishment geen moreel oordeel over zijn eigen immoraliteit. Het zal dan ook niemand verbazen dat acht maanden later, op 13 februari 2013 het volgende bekend werd:

AMSTERDAM - Een groot onderzoek naar Nederlands militair geweld in Indonesië in de jaren 1945-1950 wordt stopgezet.

Dat melden de betrokken onderzoeksinstituten woensdag. Het besluit volgt op de bekendmaking dat de overheid geen extra geld voor het onderzoek wil uittrekken,

met als absurd excuus: 'omdat Indonesië dit onderzoek niet zou steunen.' En aldus kan de Nederlandse geschiedenis nog langer in de doofpot blijven, en hoeven nabestaanden niet financieel vergoed worden voor het leed dat Nederland hen aandeed. Niemand van Hoflands 'politiek-literaire elite' verbaasde zich over het feit dat meer dan 60 jaar na dato de academica Schwegman van het Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie zich moest afvragen: 'In welke situaties gaan militairen over tot excessief geweld?' Niemand van de zelfbenoemde 'elite' die verwonderd opkeek toen de zogeheten kwaliteitspublicatie de Volkskrant op dinsdag 10 juli 2012 meldde dat zij

voor het eerst in de geschiedenis foto's [publiceerde] van executies tijdens de politionele acties in voormalig Nederlands-Indië.

De Volkskrant-redactie vroeg een aantal zorgvuldig uitgekozen autoriteiten een reactie op het meer dan 60 jaar lang geheim gehouden beeldmateriaal van Nederlandse oorlogsmisdaden, onder wie de hooggeleerde Marjan Schwegman. Zij reageerde voorspelbaar met een aantal gewiekste opmerkingen:

Voor mij is de publicatie van de foto's een ondersteuning voor ons pleidooi voor een nieuw onderzoek. Je kunt hier aan zien dat er echt nieuwe feiten naar boven kunnen komen, en dat met het voortschrijden van de tijd nieuwe bronnen kunnen opduiken. Ik denk dat deze foto's bepaalde vermoedens bevestigen, maar dat je juist bij deze foto's te weten moet komen hoe wat je ziet geïnterpreteerd moet worden, in welke context we dat moeten plaatsen. In welke situaties gaan militairen over tot excessief geweld? Foto's als deze roepen dus meer vragen op dan dat ze beantwoorden. Of dat ook de kans vergroot op excuses van de Nederlandse regering, daar wil ik liever niks over zeggen. We willen juist uit sfeer komen van moraliseren en het aanwijzen van schuldigen. We hopen dat de Nederlandse regering erkent dat onderzoek noodzakelijk is, en dat financieel wil ondersteunen, maar we hebben nog geen antwoord.

http://m.volkskrant.nl/article/portal//3284455/Laten-de-executiefotos-ons-nu-eindelijk-het-verleden-onder-ogen-zien-.html

Geen enkele geschoolde Nederlander die de tegenwoordigheid van geest had om mevrouw Schwegman het volgende voor te leggen:

Professor, 0p de website van het NIOD kan men het volgende lezen: 'Het NIOD bestaat nu meer dan zestig jaar en is hét centrum in Nederland voor de kennis en de bestudering van Nederland (inclusief Nederlands-Indië) en de Tweede Wereldoorlog,'

http://www.niod.nl/

Als we afgaan op de beweringen in de Volkskrant zijn

bij het NIOD soortgelijke foto's onbekend, zegt René Kok. 'We hebben heel veel albums hier. Je zit te wachten op het moment dat zo'n foto opduikt en dat is nu. Eerder heb ik dit nooit gezien.'

Wanneer we uitgaan van het feit dat het Nederlands geweld in Indonesië een uitvloeisel was van de Tweede Wereldoorlog, die een tijdelijk machtsvacuüm had geschapen, dan is de vraag gerechtvaardigd waarom het NIOD niet al veel eerder serieus wetenschappelijk veldwerk heeft verricht naar de oorlog in 'Nederlands-Indië'? Uit de uitspraak van René Kok valt op te maken dat de medewerkers van het NIOD al vele decennia hebben zitten 'wachten op het moment dat' er iemand in Nederland het bewijsmateriaal voor hen desnoods uit 'een vuilcontainer' zou vissen. Pas daarna zou door 'hét centrum in Nederland' voor oorlogszaken de Nederlandse terreur kunnen bestuderen. Waarom hebben de NIOD-wetenschappers hun werk niet naar behoren gedaan en schijnen ze dit nu ineens wel te willen doen? Die vraag is belangrijk omdat ook u plotseling stelt dat een 'nieuw, volledig onderzoek nodig' is 'naar geweld in Indie 1945-1949.' Aangezien daar belastinggeld voor nodig is, lijkt het mij dat u verantwoording hierover dient af te leggen tegenover de Nederlandse bevolking en de volksvertegenwoordiging. Zolang dit niet is gebeurd, lijkt het niet verstandig dat het naar werk zoekende NIOD betrokken wordt bij mogelijk 'nieuw' en ditmaal 'volledig' onderzoek. Het feit dat u pleit voor een 'volledig' onderzoek impliceert dat dit eerder niet is gedaan. Waarom niet? Wiens belang werd daarmee gediend? En wiens belang werd daarmee geschaad?

Ik stel deze vragen omdat men de indruk krijgt dat u alles behalve wetenschappelijk waardevrij bent ten opzichte van dit onderwerp. Immers, zonder enig verantwoord onderzoek, stelt u nu al 'dat je juist bij deze foto's te weten moet komen hoe wat je ziet geïnterpreteerd moet worden, in welke context we dat moeten plaatsen.' U suggereert daarmee dat er een rechtvaardiging kan zijn voor het standrechtelijk doden van burgers. En juist dit is het aloude politieke argument om eigen terreur te legitimeren. Kortom, als uw uitgangspunt is dat het rechteloos doden van burgers gerechtvaardigd kan worden door een of andere 'context' dan bent u zeker niet de aangewezen autoriteit om een wetenschappelijk onderzoek te leiden. Kennelijk beseft u niet dat dit soort bloedbaden in strijd zijn met het internationaal recht, of die terreur nu werd gepleegd door nazi-troepen dan wel Nederlandse soldaten, hoe dit alles ook mogen worden 'geïnterpreteerd.' Zelfs als burgers in verzet zijn gekomen tegen een bezetter mogen ze volgens het oorlogsrecht niet standrechtelijk gedood worden. Nu kunt u wel vragen om een forse subsidie, maar laat dat belastinggeld dan niet naar uw instituut gaan, veel beter zou zijn wanneer een nieuw in te stellen werkelijk wetenschappelijke instelling, die los staat van politieke bemoeienis, dit wetenschappelijk onderzoek gaat verrichten. Ik stel dit vooral ook omdat zelfs na al het uitgebreid gedocumenteerde onderzoek dat wereldwijd is verricht en gepubliceerd, u als hoofd van het NIOD nog steeds niet lijkt te weten 'in welke situaties militairen over[gaan] tot excessief geweld.' Laat het wetenschappelijke onderzoek ditmaal aan deskundigen over.

Aangezien in de polder iedereen die een beetje meetelt iedereen kent, is er niemand van de Nederlandse 'intelligentsia' die kritische en dus controversiële vragen durft te stellen. Iedereen in het kleine kikkerland is afhankelijk van de ander, waardoor het poldermodel tot een corrupte houding heeft geleid, die overal in doordringt. Een volk dat zijn eigen geschiedenis niet wil onderzoeken, kent zichzelf niet. Een 'politiek-literaire elite' die weigert haar voornaamste opiniemaker te vragen waarom hij Nederlandse oorlogsmisdaden heeft verzwegen, kent geen intellectuele integriteit. De zelfgenoegzame betweterigheid typeert een houding, gespeend van waardigheid en zelfrespect. Die mentaliteit kent tevens geen logica. Men kan hier de ene dag iets met grote stelligheid beweren om de volgende dag precies het tegenovergestelde te poneren, zonder dat dit tot discussie leidt. De mallotigste opmerkingen worden opgevat als diepzinnige inzichten. Zo kon de alom bewonderde Henk Hofland in De Groene Amsterdammer van 21 januari 2015 schrijven dat:

De massa in de openbare ruimte een onvermijdelijk bijverschijnsel van onze samenleving [is] geworden.

Hoflands bewering negeert het feit dat Juvenalis al 2000 jaar geleden sprak van 'panem et circenses,' toen de Romeinse satirische dichter schreef:

Vroeger verkochten we onze stem aan niemand. Al een hele tijd heeft het volk de macht afgestaan. Het volk benoemde vroeger militaire bevelhebbers, hoge ambtenaren, legioenen, alles. Nu beperkt het volk zichzelf en hoopt alleen nog op twee zaken: brood en spelen.

Kennelijk beseft de nestor van de polderpers niet dat 'panem et circenses' de basis is waarop, vanaf het begin van de westerse cultuur, elke macht is gebaseerd. Brood en spelen om de troon niet te laten wankelen. Door de millennia heen zijn beide fenomenen onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden geweest. En voor het geval dit onvoldoende dreigt te worden, is er altijd nog de propaganda van -- voorheen -- de geestelijkheid en vandaag de dag van de mainstream-pers. Al in de achttiende eeuw schreef de Verlichtings-filosoof David Hume in zijn essay Of The First Principles of Government (1768), over 'the easiness with which the many are governed by the few' en 'the implicit submission with which the men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers,' om tot de conclusie te komen:

When we enquire by what means this wonder is brought about, we shall find, that as Force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is therefore, on opinion only that government is founded; and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments, as well as to the most free and most popular.

De macht moet zich elke dag weer legitimeren, zonder het volk heeft de koning geen macht. Vandaar de noodzaak van brood en spelen, én van voortdurende propaganda. Dat Hofland de redenen niet beseft van het feit dat 'De massa in de openbare ruimte' absoluut geen 'onvermijdelijk bijverschijnsel' is, maar juist de kern van elke samenleving, toont zijn fundamentele onwetendheid over zowel zijn eigen functie als propagandistische opiniemaker, als over de loop van de geschiedenis. Dat De Groene Amsterdammer dit niet beseft is illustrerend voor de onnozelheid van de polderpers.

Henk Hofland in 1964, ambitieuze journalist, die wist wat hij wel kon zeggen en vooral ook wat hij absoluut moest verzwijgen wilde hij carriëre maken.

Failing Tonkin Gulf Test on Ukraine

February 21, 2015

Exclusive: As the Ukraine crisis worsens, Official Washington fumes only about “Russian aggression” — much as a half century ago, the Tonkin Gulf talk was all about “North Vietnamese aggression.” But then and now there were other sides to the story – and questions that Congress needed to ask, writes Robert Parry.

Many current members of Congress, especially progressives, may have envisioned how they would have handled the Tonkin Gulf crisis in 1964. In their imaginations, they would have asked probing questions and treated the dubious assertions from the White House with tough skepticism before voting on whether to give President Lyndon Johnson the authority to go to war in Vietnam.

If they had discovered what CIA and Pentagon insiders already knew – that the crucial second North Vietnamese “attack” on U.S. destroyers likely never happened and that the U.S. warships were not on some “routine” patrol but rather supporting a covert attack on North Vietnamese territory – today’s members of Congress would likely see themselves joining Sens. Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening as the only ones voting no.

President Lyndon Johnson announces “retaliatory” strike against North Vietnam in response to the supposed attacks on U.S. warships in the Gulf of Tonkin on Aug. 4, 1964. (Photo credit: LBJ Library)

Bravery in hindsight is always easy, but things feel quite different when Official Washington is locked in one of its pro-war “group thinks” when all the “important people” – from government to the media to think tanks – are pounding their chests and talking tough, as they are now on Russia and Ukraine.

Then, if you ask your probing questions and show your tough skepticism, you will have your patriotism, if not your sanity, questioned. You will be “controversialized,” “marginalized,” “pariahed.” You will be called somebody’s “apologist,” whether it’s Ho Chi Minh or Vladimir Putin.

And nobody wants to go through that because here’s the truth about Official Washington: if you run with the pack – if you stay within the herd – you’ll be safe. Even if things go terribly wrong – even if thousands of American soldiers die along with many, many more foreign civilians – you can expect little or no accountability. You will likely keep your job and may well get promoted. But if you stand in the way of the stampede, you’ll be trampled.

After all, remember what happened to Morse and Gruening in their next elections. They both lost. As one Washington insider once told me about the U.S. capital’s culture, “there’s no honor in being right too soon. People just remember that you were out of step and crazy.”

So, the choice often is to do the right thing and be crushed or to run with the pack and be safe. But there are moments when even the most craven member of Congress should look for whatever courage he or she has left and behave like a Morse or a Gruening, especially in a case like the Ukraine crisis which has the potential to spin out of control and into a nuclear confrontation.

Though the last Congress already whipped through belligerent resolutions denouncing “Russian aggression” and urging a military response – with only five Democrats and five Republicans dissenting – members of the new Congress could at least ascertain the facts that have driven the Ukraine conflict. Before the world lurches into a nuclear showdown, it might make a little sense to know what got us here.

The Nuland Phone Call

For instance, Congress could investigate the role of Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt in orchestrating the political crisis that led to a violent coup overthrowing Ukraine’s constitutionally elected President Viktor Yanukovych a year ago.

What was the significance of the Nuland-Pyatt phone call in early February 2014 in which Nuland exclaimed “Fuck the EU!” and seemed to be handpicking the leaders of a new government? “Yats is the guy,” she said referring to her favorite, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, with Pyatt musing about how to “midwife this thing”?

Among other questions that Congress could pose would be: What does U.S. intelligence know about the role of neo-Nazi extremists whose “sotin” militias infiltrated the Maidan protests and escalated the violence against police last February? [See Consortiumnews.com’s “NYT Still Pretends No Coup in Ukraine.”]

And, what does U.S. intelligence know about the mysterious snipers who brought the crisis to a boil on Feb. 20, 2014, by opening fire on police apparently from positions controlled by the extremist Right Sektor, touching off a violent clash that left scores dead, including police and protesters. [A worthwhile documentary on this mystery is “Maidan Massacre.”]

Congress might also seek to determine what was the U.S. government’s role over the next two days as three European countries – Poland, France and Germany – negotiated a deal with Yanukovych on Feb. 21 in which the embattled president agreed to Maidan demands for reducing his powers and accepting early elections to vote him out of office.

Instead of accepting this agreement, which might have averted a civil war, neo-Nazi and other Maidan militants attacked undefended government positions on Feb. 22 and forced officials to flee for their lives. Then, instead of standing by the European deal, the U.S. State Department quickly embraced the coup regime as “legitimate.” And, surprise, surprise, Yatsenyuk emerged as the new Prime Minister.

What followed the coup was a Western propaganda barrage to make it appear that the Ukrainian people were fully behind this “regime change” even though many ethnic Russian Ukrainians in the east and south clearly felt disenfranchised by the unconstitutional ouster of their president.

A U.S. congressional inquiry also might ask: Was there any internal U.S. government assessment of the risks involved in allowing Nuland and Pyatt to pursue a “regime change” strategy on Russia’s border? If so, did the assessment take into account the likely Russian reaction to having an ally next door overthrown by anti-Russian extremists with the intent to put Ukraine into NATO and potentially bring NATO armaments to Russia’s frontyard?

Since the entire crisis has been presented to the American people within an anti-Yanukovyh/anti-Moscow propaganda paradigm – both by the U.S. mainstream news media and by the U.S. political/academic elites – there has been virtually no serious examination of the U.S. complicity. No one in Official Washington dares say anything but “Russian aggression.”

Post-Coup Realities

Beyond the events surrounding the coup a year ago, there were other pivotal moments as this crisis careened out of control. For instance, what does U.S. intelligence know about the public opinion in Crimea prior to the peninsula’s vote for secession from Ukraine and reunification with Russia on March 16?

The State Department portrayed the referendum as a “sham” but more objective observers acknowledge that the vote – although hasty – reflected a broad consensus inside Crimea to bail out of the failed Ukrainian state and rejoin a somewhat more functional Russia, where pensions are about three times higher and have a better chance of being paid.

Then, there was the massacre of ethnic Russians burned alive in Odessa’s trade union building on May 2, with neo-Nazi militias again on the front lines. Like other topics that put the U.S.-backed coup regime in a bad light, the Odessa massacre quickly moved off the front pages and there has been little follow-up from international agencies that supposedly care about human rights. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ukraine’s ‘Dr. Strangelove’ Reality.”]

The next major catastrophe associated with the Ukraine crisis was the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17. Again, the State Department rushed to a judgment blaming the ethnic Russian rebels and Russia for the tragedy that killed all 298 people onboard. However, I’ve been told that some U.S. intelligence analysts had a very different take on who was responsible, finding evidence implicating a rogue element of the Ukrainian government.

However, following the pattern of going silent whenever the Kiev coup regime might look bad, there was a sudden drop-off of interest in the MH-17 case, apparently not wanting to disrupt the usefulness of the earlier anti-Russian propaganda. When a Dutch-led inquiry into the crash issued an interim report last October, there was no indication that the Obama administration had shared its intelligence information. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Danger of an MH-17 Cold Case.”]

There also is little interest from Congress about what the MH-17 evidence shows. Even some progressive members are afraid to ask for a briefing from U.S. intelligence analysts, possibly because the answers might force a decision about whether to blow the whistle on a deception that involved Secretary of State John Kerry and other senior Obama administration officials.

This sort of cowardly misfeasance of duty marks the latest step in a long retreat from the days after the Vietnam War when Congress actually conducted some valuable investigations. In the 1970s, there were historic inquiries into Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal, led by Sen. Sam Ervin, and into CIA intelligence abuses by Sen. Frank Church.

A Downward Spiral

Since then, congressional investigations have become increasingly timid, such as the Iran-Contra and October Surprise investigations led by Rep. Lee Hamilton in the late 1980s and early 1990s, shying away from evidence of impeachable wrongdoing by President Ronald Reagan. Then, in the 1990s, a Republican-controlled Congress obsessed over trivial matters such as President Bill Clinton’s personal finances and sex life.

Congressional oversight dysfunction reached a new low when President George W. Bush made baseless claims about Iraq’s WMD and Saddam Hussein’s intent to share nuclear, chemical and biological weapons with al-Qaeda. Rather than perform any meaningful due diligence, Congress did little more than rubber stamp Bush’s claims by authorizing the Iraq War.

Years afterwards, there were slow-moving investigations into the WMD intelligence “failure” and into the torture practices that were used to help fabricate evidence for the fake WMD claims. Those investigations, however, were conducted behind closed doors and did little to educate the broader American public. There apparently wasn’t much stomach to call the perpetrators of those abuses before televised hearings.

The only high-profile foreign-affairs hearings that have been held in recent years have been staged by House Republicans on the made-up scandal over an alleged cover-up of the 2012 attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, a hot-button issue for the GOP base but essentially a non-story.

Now, the United States is hurtling toward a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia over Ukraine and this congressional ineptness could become an existential threat to the planet. The situation also has disturbing similarities to the Tonkin Gulf situation although arguably much, much more dangerous.

Misleading Americans to War

In 1964, there also was a Democratic president in Lyndon Johnson with Republicans generally to his right demanding a more aggressive military response to fight communism in Vietnam. So, like today with President Barack Obama in the White House and Republicans demanding a tougher line against Russia, there was little reason for Republicans to challenge Johnson when he seized on the Tonkin Gulf incident to justify a ratcheting up of attacks on North Vietnam. Meanwhile, also like today, Democrats weren’t eager to undermine a Democratic president.

The result was a lack of oversight regarding the White House’s public claims that the North Vietnamese launched an unprovoked attack on U.S. warships on Aug. 4, 1964, even though Pentagon and CIA officials realized very quickly that the initial alarmist reports about torpedoes in the water were almost surely false.

Daniel Ellsberg, who in 1964 was a young Defense Department official, recounts – in his 2002 book Secrets – how the Tonkin Gulf falsehoods took shape, first with the panicked cables from a U.S. Navy captain relaying confused sonar readings and then with that false storyline presented to the American people.

As Ellsberg describes, President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara announced retaliatory airstrikes on Aug. 4, 1964, telling “the American public that the North Vietnamese, for the second time in two days, had attacked U.S. warships on ‘routine patrol in international waters’; that this was clearly a ‘deliberate’ pattern of ‘naked aggression’; that the evidence for the second attack, like the first, was ‘unequivocal’; that the attack had been ‘unprovoked’; and that the United States, by responding in order to deter any repetition, intended no wider war.”

Ellsberg wrote: “By midnight on the fourth, or within a day or two, I knew that each one of those assurances was false.” Yet, the White House made no effort to clarify the false or misleading statements. The falsehoods were left standing for several years while Johnson sharply escalated the war by dispatching a half million soldiers to Vietnam.

In August 1964, the Johnson administration also misled Congress about the facts of the Tonkin Gulf incident. Though not challenging that official story, some key members worried about the broad language in the Tonkin Gulf resolution authorizing the President “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression … including the use of armed force.”

As Ellsberg noted, Sen. Gaylord Nelson tried to attach an amendment seeking to limit U.S. involvement to military assistance – not a direct combat role – but that was set aside because of Johnson’s concern that it “would weaken the image of unified national support for the president’s recent actions.”

Ellsberg wrote, “Several senators, including George McGovern, Frank Church, Albert Gore [Sr.], and the Republican John Sherman Cooper, had expressed the same concern as Nelson” but were assured that Johnson had no intention of expanding the war by introducing ground combat forces.

In other words, members of Congress failed to check out the facts and passed the fateful Tonkin Gulf resolution on Aug. 7, 1964. It should be noted, too, that the mainstream U.S. media of 1964 wasn’t asking many probing questions either.

Looking back at that history, it’s easy for today’s members of Congress to think how differently they would have handled that rush to judgment, how they would have demanded to know the details of what the CIA and the Pentagon knew, how they wouldn’t let themselves be duped by White House deceptions.

However, a half century later, the U.S. political/media process is back to the Tonkin Gulf moment, accepting propaganda themes as fact and showing no skepticism about the official line. Except today, Official Washington’s war fever is not over a remote corner of Southeast Asia but over a country on the border of nuclear-armed Russia.

[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s “President Gollum’s ‘Precious’ Secrets”; “NYT Whites Out Ukraine’s Brownshirts”; and “Nuclear War and Clashing Ukraine Narratives.”]

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/21/failing-tonkin-gulf-test-on-ukraine/

zaterdag 21 februari 2015

Charlie Hebdo 47

Charlie Hebdo: When Freedom of Speech Isn't

Paramount

Tuesday, 17 February 2015 00:00 By Niall McLaren, Truthout | Op-Ed

Before people start leaping to the ramparts, shouting "Freedom of speech is paramount" or "Devotion must prevail," let's start with some very general statements about societies and work toward the specifics to see if we can gain a clearer picture. (Photo: Valentina Calà)

The concept of a civil society depends on far more than simply unrestrained freedom of speech.

Now that Dominic Strauss-Kahn's sordid adventures have replaced the attack on Charlie Hebdo in the headlines; now that the millions of supporters of freedom of speech have gone home, including such liberals as the King of Jordan, the Turkish president and the prime minister of Israel, it is perhaps time to examine the broader social context of this tragic event.

I appreciate that many people feel the headlines said it all, that brutality does not require analysis, and that more war, more police and fewer civil rights will prevent any further attacks. However, I believe that would miss some critically important points.

1. We are social animals living in an increasingly crowded world in which the limited necessities of life are inequitably distributed. An ordered society depends on all citizens adhering to certain standard rules. Without such basic agreement, human society cannot exist.

2. It used to be that a society's fundamental rules were directed at stability, even at the cost of condemning the majority of its members to miserable lives, but now we want broader, more liberal sets of rules so that people gain some degree of fulfillment from their lives.

3. The only authority for these rules is human; they come from, are justified by and enforced by humans. All rules are matters of opinion, not of fact. As long as there are humans with opinions, there will be humans with differences of opinions. Claims such as "Freedom of speech trumps all" or "Religion is beyond criticism" are just opinions. Arguing over matters of opinion is pointless: There's no accounting for taste.

4. To avoid constant dispute, it is necessary for human groups to agree upon methods of settling differences of opinion. I accept there are people like Adolf Hitler and Dick Cheney who believe there is room for only one set of opinions, theirs, and they have the weapons to prove it. Nonetheless, the great majority of people do not accept that we can build a civil society on the notion of Macht hat Recht, that might is right.

5. Humans have a strong, innate sense of fairness. This competes (often unsuccessfully) with other innate drives, such as territorialism, the urge to form dominance hierarchies, the thrill of aggression, the pleasure of sex, etc. Rationally balancing these drives sometimes requires diligent and self-denying effort. As Edgar Doctorow said: "After all, why compose fiction when you could be devoting your life to your appetites? Why wrestle with a book when you could be amassing a fortune? Why write when you could be shooting someone?"

6. All societies depend on their members accepting restraints on their behavior. If we wish to live meaningfully in a group, we can't always do what we like. We agree to limit our behavior even though there is constant debate over where those limits should be drawn. To at least some extent, rules must be defined and then obeyed, otherwise society will collapse: "Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right to do what we ought." (Lord Acton).

7. As a matter of psychology, humans have beliefs, some of which serve to define their self-perception. These are known as core beliefs; empirically, assailing a person's core beliefs results in intense distress. Prolonged intense distress is unendurable, but people react to it in different ways. Some cry; some drink; some run away; some abandon their beliefs and identify with the aggressor and some retaliate. The concept of a civil society says that submitting people to intense distress for no particular reason is unacceptable.

8. Most people take their religion very seriously because religious beliefs lie close to core of the individual's self-perception. Part of the concept of taking an idea seriously is reacting negatively when those ideas are repeatedly assailed, especially for no good reason. Most people agree that taking one's religion seriously is virtuous. Most believers want nonbelievers to treat their beliefs with a degree of respect.

9. Many people also agree that, as a matter of fairness, affording your neighbor's religious beliefs and practices a degree of respect is part of the concept of living in an ordered society that offers individuals the best chance of self-actualization.

10. Part of the concept of an enlightened rule-governed, ordered society is the notion that the powerful should not regard the weak simply as a resource to be abused or plundered. Responsible citizens understand the notion that repeatedly assailing your neighbor's core beliefs for no good purpose is likely to destabilize the society in a manner which will not benefit individuals or the larger society. The victims of such attacks are those least able to protect themselves; the strong always protect their own core beliefs.

11. The strong may despise the weak (consider Mitt Romney's "47 percent"), but the concept of a stable society requires that the core beliefs of the weak be afforded something approaching respect. It is a two-way process because that's what society means: We all agree to abide by a common set of rules. If the strong continue to assail the weak, then there will come a point at which the weak react; the society will be overturned and many will suffer.

12. Pure self-interest aside, it is virtuous for the strong to avoid assailing the religious and other core beliefs of the weak. By virtuous, I mean that because of the asymmetry of power in their relationship, there are certain things that the strong ought to do, and others they ought not to do. For example, if I find a lost kitten, I ought to care for it while I make arrangements for its welfare. I ought not to dip it in petrol then set fire to it for a laugh, just because that is bad. If, however, we have an innate drive to virtue, it is weak; in general, we are better at recognizing lack of virtue directed at ourselves than we are at acting virtuously toward others.

13. There is no truly rational society. Every rule we make involves compromise, conciliation, agreement to disagree, a delicate balancing of one sectoral interest against another - in a word, politics. When balancing opposing opinions, the question will always be: Where do we draw the line? There is no formula to tell us. We have to use common sense and a sense of fair play.

14. The overwhelming Western reaction to the Charlie Hebdo murders was that freedom of expression is sacrosanct, that it always overrides opinions such as the right to protect one's core beliefs. However, that is an extremist position. Freedom of expression always comes with conditions, qualifications, hedges and fudges. We are all familiar with the argument that one is not free to run into a crowded theater and shout "Fire." Individuals need to be protected; in particular, the weak need to be protected against the strong because that is what the civil in civil society means.

15. Is there a moral case to restrict freedom of political expression? This is an incredibly complex issue involving a delicate balance of individual and social rights and obligations. I believe there is a strong case for a civil society to have laws against slander, calumny and willful offense because without them, the society won't last. The "cartoons" that provoked so much trouble in France and earlier in Denmark cannot be published in this country, and I don't believe my life is any the worse for it.

16. After January 7, is it possible to say the editors of Charlie Hebdo were advancing an important social debate, albeit by unconventional means, or were they acting as irresponsibly as the man shouting "Fire"? Were they just immature people making fun of others for selfish reasons and wallowing in the self-generated publicity? Or were their motives more sinister, profiting from using their position of strength to assail disempowered people by attacking their core beliefs, hiding behind the power of the state they affected to despise, all the while knowing there was nothing their targets could do to respond? Was, indeed, Charlie Hebdo just another face of the capitalist monster, determined to smash any and all potential sources of authority that might get in its way of devouring the defenseless?

17. It avails Hebdo's many defenders naught to say the editors were not part of the power structure. But go to the banlieues and ask the unemployed, under-educated and dispossessed Muslim youths who held the power in their "relationship" with the editors. Ask whether they were ever offered the right of reply. It is a fact of life that educated, socially sophisticated, middle-aged, upper-middle class white males, like myself, have power; we must take responsibility for how we manage that power. The concept of a civil society demands that asymmetrical levels of power be balanced by asymmetrical levels of responsibility.

18. Charlie Hebdo points to the endless moral dilemma of the "reasonable man": How does a reasonable person deal with unreasonable people without resorting to their methods? The victim of repeated religious abuse is forced either to pretend it didn't happen, thereby failing his religious and personal duty and having to live with that failure, or to try to do something about it, thereby hoping to retrieve his sense of self-worth. But what can he do? By definition, the social power structures in a hierarchical society are tipped against him: That's what hierarchy means.

19. It behooves all of us to examine our daily actions in terms of power structures. Educated and sophisticated people should not use their asymmetrical power to attack and humiliate the dispossessed. I do not believe that repeated, carefully directed, violent attacks upon the core beliefs of a dispossessed minority will benefit anybody. It is certainly not virtuous. While I don't believe the violence of the retaliatory attacks was justified, given the circumstances, it was about as unexpected as tomorrow's sunrise. And, as I have warned before (here and here), if we keep up the vitriol, there will be more attacks. Extremism breeds extremism.

20. The deceased editorial director of Charlie Hebdo, Stéphane Charbonnier, believed with fanatical (extremist religious) intensity in publishing anything and everything he fancied. He had the power to put his belief into practice and the means: When one journal was forced to close, he had the contacts to start another. He had been warned and warned about his provocative behavior, even from the prime minister's office. Invariably, his response was to publish more and more offensive material, on the basis that he would "rather die on his feet than live on his knees."

21. His many millions of supporters around the world, apparently including a considerable number of repressive and/or tyrannical governments, should not complain if a couple of orphaned, unemployed Muslim men with few prospects in life felt the same way.

NIALL MCLAREN

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic, although not necessarily in that order.

U.S. War Fever

Drums Along The Potomac: How This Country Never Learns Anything

The country seems to be sliding down some very familiar tracks into a military engagement in the Middle East.

Quite frankly, this has been one of the more depressing weeks we have seen in a very long time. The country seems to be sliding down some very familiar tracks into a military engagement in the Middle East -- an engagement that, at the moment, seems to be cloudy in its objectives, vague in its outlines, and obscure on the simple fact of what we are supposedly fighting for, and who we will be fighting with. Can we fight the Islamic State generally without help from (gasp!) Iran? Can we fight the Islamic State in Syria without a de facto alliance with Hafez al-Assad, who was Hitler only a year or so ago? And the most recent polling seems to indicate that all the institutions that are supposed to act as a brake on war powers within a self-governing republic are working in reverse again. The Congress is going to debate how much leeway it should give the president to make war, not whether he should be allowed to do it at all. The elite media, having scared Americans to death by giving the barbarians and their slaughter porn the international platform the barbarians so desired, is jumping on board with both feet. (To cite only one example, Chris Matthews is suiting up again.) The country has been prepared to give its children up again. At the very least, public opinion on what we should do is a muddle, which means that any plan that looks "bold" likely will carry the country with it, unintended consequences be damned.With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans.

Amid more executions by the militant group ISIS, Americans increasingly see the group as a threat to the U.S. Now, 65 percent of Americans view ISIS as a major threat - up from 58 percent in October - while another 18 percent view it as a minor threat. Majorities of Republicans (86 percent), Democrats (61 percent) and independents (57 percent) view ISIS as a major threat. Support for sending U.S. ground troops to fight ISIS has risen among all partisans, but particularly among Democrats and independents. Back in October, 56 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of independents disapproved of using ground troops - now 50 percent of Democrats approve and 53 percent of independents favor using ground troops.

You can see the logical canyon, can you not? The Islamic State is no more an actual threat to the United States than it was in October. But there have been more garish executions and more events elsewhere, so the perceived threat -- real or not -- has begun to work its dark magic on the national imagination, the way that aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds once did. The more bellicose of our leaders are openly shilling for a general engagement on the ground; the inevitable John McCain inevitably has called for a "mere" 10,000 ground troops, and he wants those troops to help fight against both the Islamic State and Assad. Because...do something!

You develop a strategy and elements of the strategy are American boots on the ground and not the 82nd Airborne, the president keeps setting up these straw man saying we want to send in masses of American troops, we don't, but we need to have American..air controllers, special forces, many others. I'm talking about about ten thousand in Iraq. Then we need to say our objective is to eliminate Bashar Assad as well as ISIS in Syria and we recruit a other Arab nations with Americans but not too many to fight against ISIS and Bashar Assad in Syria and coordinate those movements with air power guided by air controllers.

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Out On The Weekend

So the mission already is creeping; hell, Congressman Ed Royce, who only chairs the House Foreign Relations Committee, wants the proposed authorization for the use of military force to include Iran. And god only knows what happens if the Islamic State grabs a couple of those 10,000 American ground troops and uses them for another snuff film.

The mission already is creeping. I wonder if anyone else notices how similar Royce's request is in spirit to that contained in the famous notes taken by Donald Rumsfeld in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks: "And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." - meaning Saddam Hussein - "at same time. Not only UBL" - the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden. Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld. "Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." The mission already is creeping.

The more bellicose -- and the more desperate -- of our presidential aspirants also are openly shilling for a general engagement; Marco Rubio says that, if we'd only listened to Marco Rubio, we wouldn't be in this mess today, and how we simply cannot have a rookie like Jeb (!) Bush learning foreign policy on the job.

The Florida Republican senator, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, is beginning an aggressive effort to sell voters on his judgment and foresight on matters like Syria, Iran, Libya, Russia and Ukraine, making the case there should be no doubt he has the wherewithal to lead the country at a time of war. It's a necessary push for a first-term senator and potential presidential hopeful who is trying to convince GOP voters that he isn't a policy lightweight lacking executive experience, but rather a deep thinker who is fully engaged in complex foreign affairs and can manage the country's sprawling national security apparatus...As you look around the world," Rubio said at the time, "you start to see the need for American leadership."

Leadership! Deep thinking.

The mission already is creeping. I wonder if anyone else notices how similar Rubio's vainglory is in spirit to all those members of Congress, young and old and of both parties, who voted as though they believed all those neocon fairy tales about how the wildfire of democracy would spread throughout the region if only the United States would "lead" by overthrowing Saddam Hussein, thereby sweeping it all up. And I wonder if anyone else notices how similar it is in spirit to the position taken by presidentially ambitious Democratic politicians, like the last two Secretaries of State, one of whom was the party's nominee in 2004 and the other of whom is the odds-on favorite to be the party's nominee next year, who didn't want to be left behind by the glory train when it rolled through Baghdad. The mission already is creeping.

There is only one difference that I can see, and that is the guy in the White House. The president wants his AUMF to face the regional threat, it is true. But he wants a limitred one, and he has been consistently against a general engagement. He has been resolute against the rising and distasteful call for an authentic "clash of civilizations" motive for American action. (So, to be fair, was the last guy. It perhaps was the only thing he did right.) The pressure for him to do so is growing overwhelming; Rudy Giuliani is only the most garish member of the rising chorus. He has stood firm on the nonsensical "controversy" about what he should call the activities of the Islamic State.

But it may not be enough. The next presidential election is gearing up, and what is going on in the Middle East has changed the dynamic of that race utterly. People may be running for president with American troops in harm's way, whether the engagement there is general or not. The opinion of the country has been manufactured again to demand a war with no clear goals and no clear endpoint. Voices of reason and moderation -- Hi, Marie Harf! -- are being shouted down by conservatives and only tepidly supported by liberals. Nearly 100 years ago, rising in the Senate to oppose the entry of the United States into World War I, Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin called the bluff of every hawk who ever called for a blind punch at a designated enemy.

We should not seek to hide our blunder behind the smoke of battle to inflame the mind of our people by half truths into the frenzy of war in order that they may never appreciate the real cause of it until it is too late. I do not believe that our national honor is served by such a course. The right way is the honorable way.

The ground already is prepared, the soil tilled. The mission already is creeping.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a33248/drums-along-the-potomac-how-this-country-never-learns-anything/

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