Spain and the Erdogan Playbook

Over the past decade many have openly complained about the brutal and authoritarian political moves of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  From his alleged supplying of ISIS jihadist in their effort to assist in the overthrow of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his helping them to smuggle oil from Iraq and Syria to world markets, to the way in which he dealt with the failed coup attempt against him by arresting his opponents, and closing all their affiliated institutions. There is also the referendum he won to serve both as head of government and the head of state at the same time. However even before this, many came to learn and understand his ruthlessness through his interaction with the Kurdish minority of Turkey, their political representation the Halkların Demokratik Partisi (HDP) and more notably, the Kurdistan Workers, party.

Recently he detained two leaders of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP along with many others accusing them of being supportive of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) and spreading propaganda. Instead of addressing the vile hazardous actions of ISIS, Turkey under Erdogan has selected to go to war with the Kurds and has been on a continuous exercise attacking Kurdish militias in Syria and bombing Kurdish villages in the region. This is Turkey and how the Turks and Erdogan express their fear of Kurdish independence and self-determination for an ethnic group that make up between 15 and 25 percent of Turkey’s population (8 to 9 million) with an equally long and storied history. 

Now let us imagine a similar ethnic group both in number (6 to 7 million) and disposition with an equally long and storied history (1100 ACE), however they comprise 28 percent of the population. Like the Kurd’s they have their own language and seek to be independent, and practice self-rule. Moreover, as in the case with the Kurds, they have faced continuous opposition  for having such a desire and even more so for promoting the use of suffrage to determine such. This group of people since then has had many local elected officials arrested by the state government, with the regional police force under orders to arrest mayors if they refuse to appear for questioning by the state investigating their desire to hold a vote for independence.  In addition, the nation’s constitutional court has suspended the prosecutor of the region and central authorities have taken over all spending. Although this ethnic region of the nation is responsible for more than 20 percent of the more than 1 trillion-euro economy, the state central government has threatened to take away all its spending and budgetary authority.  This is Spain and this is how the central government in Madrid and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy express their fear of Catalonian independence and self-determination.

Historically, Catalonia is not a part of Spain just as Kurdistan was not a part of Turkey or Iraq.  This isn’t a new proposition for as in both cases war dictates who draws the boarders of conquered, occupied or colonialized nations. This was true with Catalonia as it was with Turkey, Iraq and Kurdistan after the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I and both nations’ modern borders being demarcated in 1920 by the League of Nations via the Treaty of Sèvres.  However, just as in Turkey, likewise the Spanish government consider holding an independence referendum illegal and that such a vote would be in violation of the Spanish Constitution. To accentuate his point, the federal authorities have arrested scores of local politicians, seized tens of thousands of ballots and are continuously trying to block the official web site for the independence referendum.

It appears as if Spain under the direction of Prime Minister Rajoy is following the script designed and practiced by Erdogan word for word and action by action. Just this week in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Turkish President Erdogan warned that an independence referendum among Iraqi Kurds would have serious consequences. He stated, “Steps such as demands for independence that can cause new crises and conflicts in the region must be avoided. We hereby call on the Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government to abort the initiative they have launched in that direction.”  Not to be out done in dictatorial prowess, Spanish Prime Minister Rajoy and his Constitutional Court has not only suspended the Catalonia and legislature but has also blocked all and any measures taken by the pro-independence Catalan government. These strong-armed tactics of intimidation did not end there. The Constitutional Court also levied fines of up to €12,000 a day on members of the Catalan electoral board and Prime Minister Rajoy defends detaining accused separatist politicians for promoting “civil disobedience” and acting “profoundly antidemocratic.” Rayjoy has also ordered all Catalan mayors to appear before the state to answer questions about the move toward independence, however the majority have declare exercised their right to remain silent before the court.

One consistent perspective presented by the Spanish authorities is that the referendum would be unconstitutional because all Spanish citizens would not be able to vote.  This is strange since the Spanish Government along with other western nations supported the 1991 Kosovo, Slovenia and Croatia referendums for independence in which Serbian’s were not allowed to vote, nor did they make this sort of argument when the South Sudan was created without all Sudanese not being allowed to vote. In fact, since this time, the Spanish Government has recognized 26 new states the majority which were established independently (a unilateral referendum) of the input of others since that time.

Then there is the issue of when did this become unconstitutional. Some have advocated that the Spanish Constitutional Court’s decision to strike down key elements of the 2006 Catalan statute of autonomy was the actual unconstitutional action that has resulted in what is happening between Spain and Catalonia presently.  Since then, like the big neighborhood bully, Spain has refused to even talk or discuss anything regarding politics (including possible Catalonian succession) with the people of Catalonia and instead forced its opinions and decisions on the citizenry of Catalonia by fiat (speaking of undemocratic).

I used to believe that one of the foremost tenants of democracy was self-determination. The people of Catalonia think in this vein or else they would not have (through their vote) given the Parliament of Catalonia a mandatefor a Proclamation of Independence. Spain and Rajoy may need to find another path of action, for the more they stay on this road, the more they become the mirror image of Turkey and Erdogan.

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Why Black Folks Need Confederate Monuments

Some may or may not know that one of my favorite books of all time is 1984 written by George Orwell. To be honest, since about ten years of age, I’ve must have read this book more than 20 times. Each time I read it I come away with something new. To refresh your memory, the main character in the book is a man named Winston Smith. Smith works in the Records Department in the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite history per the desires of the Party that runs the totalitarian government of Oceania. Specifically, he revises old writings, politically inconvenient facts and history to advance the propaganda interests of the Oceania government.  One tool Orwell invents for this purpose was the memory hole.

In 1984, Orwell describes a memory hole is an opening in a wall connected to a tube that is connected to an incinerator. It is employed to destroy any inconvenient or embarrassing fact on historical records that is no longer considered useful for politics. In addition, using the memory hole made it easier for the government to get people to engage in “duckspeak” (speaking without thinking), obviate “oldthink” (thoughts, beliefs or ideas enthused by past events, memories and history in the times before the revolution) and to encourage “blackwhite” (getting folks to believe that 2 + 2 is 5, or that white is black and black is white and to forget that one has ever believed anything different.

Over the past few years, a movement in the African American community has been afloat to remove all historical confederate reminders of the period in which the United States was engaged in a Civil War (1861-1865) and this scares me.  Not because I support the confederacy or do not support the confederacy, but because I support history and learning and pedagogy.  Removing these symbols will do nothing for black folk and make things a lot worse in my view.  First, this is just cosmetic, it will not mean nothing, since when do you get your feeling hurt by looking at a flag or a statue of a many you don’t know historically anything about? Robert E. Lee owned slaves sure, and he ran a plantation before the war, but he historically is no different than Thomas Jefferson or George Washington from this perspective.  Are you upset with the state of Virginia too? Will it be next? After all Virginia was named after the person who introduced slavery to America. Half of the folk so offended likely couldn’t tell you when the civil war was fought without the assistance of google nor have read any book about it or any other American wars for that fact.

I fear that without these historical reminders, being as lazy as we are with respect to reading and our penchant to watch TV more than we read, we will have forgot about this tragic and painful part of U.S. History and sleep walk back into a similar predicament in future generations. It isn’t like we discuss history with our children anyway especially with this most recent generation.  This is one reason why Marcus Garvey wrote “A people without the knowledge of their history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

Our incessant focus on memory holing history is idiotic and ridiculous.  Why is it that we put more time into complaining about statues and flags than our kids killing each other on the streets of Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans or Memphis every day? Why do we spend more energy on superficial actions when we can go around to any government public school and find more than half of the kids not proficient in ANY subject on grade level? Now these are worth attention, but nope, not sexy or dramatic enough (Deray trained yawl hypocrites well).  I’m not offended or traumatized by any statute or flag.  Why are we as black folk offended and traumatized by historical fact? Will removing them take the historical record away? Will it make more black folk richer? Will less of us live in poverty? Will we start more business? Will it lower STI rates in our community? NOPE – NOT ONE BIT. Because this is misdirected and misguided energy aimed at something that has no tangible impact on any black person in America unless you a puzzy with a soft as wet toilet paper mentally.

It seems as this fake synthetic outrage is becoming a contagious pandemic.  Baltimore City Council has voted to remove four Confederate monuments in the city. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus want to remove all Confederate statues from the Capitol. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), told the Hill that “Confederate memorabilia have no place in this country and especially not in the United States Capitol. These images symbolize a time of racial discrimination and segregation that continues to haunt this country and many African-Americans who still to this day face racism and bigotry.”  Can’t make this up, so now black folks are afraid of ghost and haunted by images and symbols? Even more comedic is that magically, by removing these images and symbols, the past “time of racial discrimination and segregation” will either be forgotten or vaporize and end. Simple ain’t it? Talk about historical revisionism and make-believe.

Bishop James Dukes, pastor of Liberation Christian Center, in Chicago is calling for the removal of a statue of statue George Washington and his and President Andrew Jackson’s name removed from Washington and Jackson parks respectively, because they owned slaves. I suspect cats will be going after all confederate cemeteries and even the Confederate monuments in Gettysburg National Military Park (although Park and State officials say they will never be removed)

What will be next, removing all members of the confederacy or former slave owners from history books? Removing said history books from the libraries’? Preventing people from even writing books on the confederacy or slavery because “these images symbolize a time of racial discrimination and segregation that continues to haunt this country and many African-Americans who still to this day face racism and bigotry?” Will John C. Calhoun, a former vice president and staunch supporter of slavery be next? What about the Dallas Cowboy football team whose blue star is from the Bonnie Blue Flag (a banner of the Confederate States of America at the start of the American Civil War in 1861).  Since many of us black folks do not read as much as previous generations, these two may be safe for as they say “to hide something from a nigg@, put it in a book.”

Yes, one day our kids will not know anything about US history, slavery, the civil war or the deeds of many, good or bad, for the fear of as then Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake noted in signs that confederate monuments were just “part of a propaganda campaign” to “perpetuate the beliefs of white supremacy. “Again, although I am a black man, I will likely be called a racist piece of uninformed white trash, or worse – described as not being woke - for not supporting non-substantive cosmetic actions under the guise of African American self-determination and empowerment. But like the Taliban who destroyed the historical largest standing Buddha’s, in the world in Bamiyan, who had been standing since the century. In Afghanistan, or ISIS, who destroyed the Temple of Baalshamin at the Syrian site of Palmyra because they found the offensive to Allah, similar suggestions about confederate monuments are equally claims of bull shit.

You do not have to agree with me but this is how I see it.  If you do not believe me, just try to take down Auschwitz, Dachau or Buchenwald: Jews will never let it happen because they do not want ANYONE to forget about what happened to them so it will never happen again.  Not us. They write and make documentaries incessantly on every aspect of the Holocaust and you will see at least one every day or weekly on TV around the world.  Whether is on the Kristallnacht or the  Nuremberg Laws or the Jews of Poland or the Jews of Lithuania or the human experimentation they tolerated, they telling their story. Not US.  Instead we get mad and formulate #Noconfederate because we too lazy to write and make our own and/or tell our own historical reality. Like I said. try to take down Auschwitz, Dachau or Buchenwald: Jews will never let it happen because they do not want ANYONE to forget about what happened to them so it will never happen again.  Not us.

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Qatar: Is it about Trump, Israel or Nascent Influence?

Now as most of my readers know, I voted for Donald Trump, as well as I voted for Barack Obama in 2008.  This is one reason I do not see a difference between democrats and republicans. Moreover, my voting for whomever doesn’t come with me supporting them just because they received my vote.  Rather, it requires I speak up objectively about policy and events that occur under their leadership that in my view I consider to be wrong-headed and generally fcked up. The recent severing of all relations with Qatar by Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates coincidentally after a visit from President Donald Trump in my opinion is such an event. Supposedly or at least based on media reports, because Qatar has relationships with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas and funds terrorism in the region. Iraq has indicated that they will not be taking sides on this issue.

Saudi Arabia has demanded that Qatar ends these relationships and this has left me scratching my head. Did Trump give a green light for this, knowingly or unknowingly? How far will this go? How will this impact any of the recent OPEC agreements? What could or would the worst-case scenario be? Why now? The fear of other area nations, namely Oman and Kuwait is that tensions may escalate and result in more unforeseen problems for all Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, maybe even a possible break-up of the GCC.

So far the Saudi royal family has imposed a naval blockade stopping most if not all of its  maritime trade and more importantly Qatar’s ability to export Liquefied natural gas is natural gas and oil. They have also closed their borders with Qatar, which immediately led to a run-on food the Qatari capital of Doha and suspended the license of Qatar Airways and ordered its banks to sell tall Qatari currency.  The Saudi’s have also ordered their citizens out of Qatar and gave Qataris abroad 14 days to return to Qatar. Now Saudi Arabia has given Qatar 24 hours to fulfill 10 conditions given to Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jaber Al Sabah, who is operating as a mediator between Saudi and Qatar. If Qatar does not conform to the Saudi’s request, will a military operation be on the table for Riyadh?

President Recep Erdogan of Turkey has come out in support of Qatar and questions the validity of the Saudi’s allegations and their effort to isolate Doha. But this isn’t too much of an unexpected position for Erdogan to take, since the ruling AKP party is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate and both have provided support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and groups currently fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Erdogan has also decided to deploy troops to Qatar after the 24-hour Saudi ultimatum was made. As part of an agreement signed in 2014 Turkey set up a military base in Qatar like the US base in Qatar. In his most recent statement about the growing tensions, Erdogan noted he did not consider sanctions against Qatar as being a good idea and added that in his view, the other nations were trying to impose a “guardianship over Qatar, which is in itself a violation of its sovereignty, and is rejected outright."

Honestly it is a weak argument for the Saudi’s and their supporting cast and Trump needs to seriously monitor and evaluate this situation. Saudi Arabia calling another nation out for funding terrorism is like the pot calling the kettle black. Although Saudi Arabia has provided no proof to support its claims against Qatar, the history books do confirm that the Saudi’s have remained as being one of the biggest sources of funding to so-called jihadi groups going back decades. Notwithstanding that nine of the fifteen 911 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia. So, there must be something else behind this.

Maybe it is Israel.  We all know they have been trying for decades to drive a wedge between the Arab states. True, Israel has worked with Doha and maintains amenable relationships but they have also let it be known of how their authentic feelings about the small nation. Israel may see this as an opportunity to drive a wedge between the Arab states (if the words of defense minister Avigdor Lieberman reflect the position of the Netanyahu administration and their views of all the Sunni Arab countries except for Qatar) who do not see a nuclear Iran as the number one threat in the middle east).

We know there has been bad blood between the Saudi’s and Qatar for decades most likely starting with overthrow of the former Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani by his son. Plus, there are a few other events over the past 20 years have seem to support this position. If I were asked, I’d say this was about the future of the middle east and energy resources. Doha doesn’t agree with the Saudi view of how the middle east should be.  In fact, they have openly shown how the despise the tyrants and dictators in the region including Saudi, Egypt and the Emirates and Qatar is on record for being willing to negotiate with Iran. The Saudi clique on the other hand see a single direction for the middle east which could shape it for many years to come.  They are against and move toward democratic rule which is one reason they hate the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas (which regardless of being terrorist or not, push for bottom up government).  This is something the monarch's fear and a reason why some suggest Saudi pushed for Present Egyptian President El-Sisi to take over Egypt. The Saudi’s have also given the world Salafism and Wahhabism and have been funding every Islamic fundamentalist ultra-conservative movement in support of jihad since the beginning of OPEC. Without the Saudi’s we would have never had Osama bin Laden or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

SiSi served as Egypt’s military attaché in Riyadh before returning to Egypt. Evidence supports that he was and remains paid and supported by the Saudi government, who used him to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Egypt Mohamed Morsi (again, they fear popular democratic rule and to stop such in Egypt, the had to overthrow the leader the people elected). One could say that it is the desire for the Saudi’s to stop all and every democratic movement in the region and maintain their feudalistic political domination, even if that means war as is evident for their support for bombing even other Sunni nations like Yemen and Syria.  Qatar was very critical of Sisi killing thousands of civilians during his Coup while Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Emirates were silent. Qatar is also anti secularist, dictatorships and unaccountable royals pushing their weight around and they express this openly.

This is about punishing Qatar not terrorism, so what is going on and why now? Qatar is a major energy producer and has become the single biggest natural gas supplier in the region. The offshore North Field, the world’s largest liquid natural gas reservoir which they share with Iran, may also be a causal factor for Saudi Arabia’s new stance. This may be why the Saudi’s acted so abruptly (it can no longer be a step-child of Saudi Arabia based on its increasing financial influence alone). Then there is the little item of Qatar removing a self-imposed ban on working with Iran to work jointly in operating the North Field.  This not only angers the Saudi’s but Israel equally, and only worsen the fact that the government in Doha has refused to sign on to the Saudi-Israel alliance (against Iran).

If the Trump team is smart, they may be able to take advantage of the good relationship the US military has with Qatar to squash this nonsense. As it stands, no one knows were Trump stands other than a few tweets which in my observation are just pouring gasoline on an already burning part of the globe. First Trump applauded the actions against Qatar, but later stressed the need for unity by the GCC during a phone call with Saudi King Salman. Moreover, Qatar is the location of al-Udeid air base, the U.S. largest airfield in the region were all missions for Syria are originated.

So, I don’t have the answers, but it interesting to think about and I would rather occupy my mind with this than nonsensical Russia Trump collusion BS.  I feel that Qatar will be alright and that nations including but not limited to Iran, Russia, China, and Turkey will jump to fill the void. I also see this as a fight among two versions of extreme Islam and as the Saudi’s overtly showing their fear for a Shia dominated middle east. I worry about Saudi military intervention in Qatar but do not fear of any Saudi annexation and occupation of Qatar: Qatar shares largest natural gas field in the world with Iran, and they won’t allow an occupation or invasion to happen.

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After Mosul, Will it be Erdogan or The Kurds?

This past week President Tayyip Erdogan had a meeting with President Trump. As observed before when he met with President Obama, once again his goons took to beating up and violently attacking protestors.  But this is not important for the time being, what is pertains to the Trump administration plans for after the Mosul offensive and even ridding Syria of IS.  This is valid for my main botheration with Obama was his failure to plan for what was to occur after the implementation of any of his foreign policy escapades from Yemen to Syria to the South Sudan and especially in Libya.

Unlike the prior administration, I can note that Trump seems to be engaged with the issues but I am not so certain that he grasps the seriousness of a fallout between Erdogan and Turkey and/or the US and the Kurds.  Something must give and I am not at rest that President Trump, as Obama before him, is ready for this. And he is the one who opened this can of worms when his administration announced that the U.S. would back, arm and support the Kurds in their effort against the Islamic State and to show he was about that life, the Trump Defense Department immediately sent military vehicles with American flags to the YPG fighters engaged in combat activities on the Syrian side of the border.

As expected Erdogan was not happy and expressed such through one of his many mouth pieces this time being one of his top foreign policy advisers İlnur Çevik. Cevik expressed succinctly the differences between Washington and Ankara over the U.S. military’s partnership with Kurdish military organizations in Syria by hinting that American troops could be targeted alongside their Kurdish allies in the country since U.S. forces have teamed up with members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and since Turkish fighter’s patrol along the border region with Syria frequently bombing the YPG who they see more of an enemy than IS. Specifically, Cevik stated that if the U.S. troops would "go to far, our forces would not care if American armor is there, whether armored carriers are there" adding that “Suddenly, by accident, a few rockets can hit them.”

It was a simple choice for Trump based on all he has been talking about wiping the Islamic State off the face of the planet. Easy also because the YPG have shown themselves to be one of the most effective forces on the ground in the fight against IS next to the Syrian Defense Forces. Moreover, most Kurds are Sunni Muslims, however, they consider themselves Kurds first, and Muslims second, and don't want to be absorbed into a universal caliphate or equally any affiliation with Sharia law. Also of importance is that the Kurds are the most pro-American people in the entire Middle East and believe and acknowledge equal right for women.

The fact is northern Syria  has a large Kurdish population which for decades, Turkey has viewed a major political threat due to the mounting influence of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the region.  Erdogan was hoping the US-YPG alliance which President Barack Obama started would be discontinued under Trump. But it has not and he made this clear in an interview in which he stated that seeing US military vehicles operating close to the border with Syrian Kurdish fighters "seriously saddened" him.

The Kurdish and US soldiers who support them are during an offensive to take Raqqa, ISIS’s Syrian capital, and have recently made significant gains against the extremists in the region but recent attacks by Turkey against Kurdish areas in Syria are hampering the offensive against ISIS. Erdogan doesn’t want the YPG or the PYD to be the leading powers in Syria’s Kurdistan region and sees both as part of the PKK.

To understand this one must understand the Kurds in the region (Iraq, Syria and Turkey). Erdogan’s forces are fighting the Turkish Kurds (The PKK or Banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party led by Abdullah Ocalan who was jailed in 1999 with the help of U.S. CIA) and Erdogan is extremely hostile with the Syrian Kurds (the PYD or Democratic Unity Party) who are aligned with the PKK and have their own militia called the YPG. Last there are the Kurds in Iraq who have established a Kurdish Regional Government since the US invasion/occupation of Iraq and who have their own military forces called the Peshmerga. All three Kurdish areas are fighting IS, but all are considered problems to Erdogan. The Turks want to destroy the PKK and its affiliates, as well as the YPG.  They consider them to be the same or equal to ISIS – terrorist. This is what the U.S. and Russia equally must syphon through because Erdogan sees the possible defeat of IS in Raqqa by the Kurds and U.S. forces as major political leverage for the YPG.

When the Turkish State was founded in the aftermath of WWI, the Kurds were promised the creation of an independent state as part of the treaty of Sevres in 1920. Unfortunately for them, this part of the treaty was never ratified and Turkey has refused to recognize the existence of a separate Kurdish ethnic community within its borders.  Upon which several major Kurdish rebellions occurred in Kurdish strongholds in Turkey during the 1920s and 1930s. Since then the Turkish ruling class began viewing a separate Kurdish identity as a threat to the nation-state - Turkification.

Now, Turkey has become one of the world's largest and most powerful Muslim fundamentalist states. I say this because it is well known that Erdogan’s administration (maybe with the exceptions of the Saudi’s) is the main state sponsor of ISIS. Add to this that Erdogan is an Islamist that embraces Muslim fundamentalism to the level of even destroying the last bits of democracy in Turkey to eradicate all Kurdish people so that he can establish a new Ottoman Empire for Turks and only Turks.  Now, it is estimated that around fifteen million individuals of Kurdish origin live in Turkey who under the present leadership of the Republic, have been treated worse than a second-class citizenry.

Trump and Putin know that they NEED the YPG to continue with its fight against the Islamic State. Although the U.S. has maintained good relations for the past seven decades, the war on ISIS has led the Pentagon to decide that it is the best interest of the U.S. to work with Kurdish forces if the objective is to defeat ISIS. Thus, the conflict: the U.S. want to work with the Kurds on the ground in Syria effort to take Raqqa (the headquarters of ISIS) but Turkey doesn’t want this thinking that it with give them more clout with the current U.S. administration.

Like Obama (called Erdogan a trusted friend), Trump underestimates Erdogan's hatred of the Kurdish minority and the level of his support of ISIS.  Trump must decide if its relationship with the Kurds in Syria is a temporary relationship of opportuneness until IS is defeated or is the beginning of something new? Something new that could lead to an independent Kurdistan? Erdogan wouldn't be happy about it, but he'd accept this from the U.S. and I believe that is his main concern. After all, we saw what he did after the strong electoral might of the Kurdish party that prevented a parliamentary majority of Erdogan's AKP in June's election. 

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Bush, Obama & Trump Middle East Policy is one in the same

I have attempted to stay out of the fray regarding what has just happened in Syria.  It is almost as if Obama is still in Office and as if Trump has turned into Obama in the same fashion Obama turned into Bush. For all I know Trump is putting together a secret “kill list” like his predecessor and continuing Obama’s drone strike assassination program. I have read some interesting perspectives on this topic and agree with many of them.  For example, Norman Solomon’s suggesting that all this incessant Russian bashing may have been used to ‘bait’ Trump to bomb Syria, with or without evidence. I also agree with MIT professor of Science, Technology, and International Security Dr. Theodore Postol in his assessment of the White House report noting that it provides no evidence that the Sarin came from or was dropped from an Airplane and that without being on the ground at the time such a position is impossible to prove given Assad’s advantage in his battle against IS and other western supported terrorist proxies. For lack of a better statement, to use the words of Mike Whitney, “You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the case against Syrian President Bashar al Assad is extremely weak.” Or as the free-thinking cats at MOA have pointed out, the White House “assessment” begins with "The United States is confident that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapon attack, ..." noting that “The U.S…. does not have"proof" - it is just "confident".” And returning to Dr. Postol, he was also correct in 2013 when he disproved the Obama Administration uninformed position that Assad was responsible for a chemical nerve agent attack in Damascus.  My question is will Trump be another Obama with respect to Foreign policy in West Asia and use his war powers even out there past Obama? Will he engage in even more unjustified and clandestine wars in the same way Bush and Obama did by targeting even more majority-Muslim countries?

Let us begin with some historical perspective. The west has had its eye on Syria for decades now.  Although many would assert it started with a 1949 coup attemp timplemented by the CIA just 3 years after Syria became an independent country, I would suggest it started after WW1 in 1919 and continued up until the Franco-Syrian war initially. Specifically, after the implementation of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916 - which cut up what was left of the Ottoman Empire between France and Britain. The war itself happened in 1920 ending in a victory for the French and the formation of a new pro-French government. This resulted in Syria being divided in to several regions according to religion. This is an important historical event because it appears the object of current western interference and the call for regime change in the nation has a similar objective.

In addition, history shows us that the objective of these efforts was to dominate and control the rich natural resources (oil and natural gas) in the region. As early as 1957 President Eisenhower and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan were making plans to establish and support financially the establishment of what they called a “Free Syria Committee” for the singular purpose of regime change in Syria to try and control the oil fields of not only Syria but also Iraq. There was no real geopolitical reason for this other than the desire of the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) to build a Trans-Arabian Pipe Line (TAPLINE) from Saudi Arabia to the Mediterranean via Syria through to Turkey. This required a “Syrian right-of-way” to be agreed upon without input from the Syrian people of course.

Unfortunately, the efforts of the west resulted in making a divide between Shiite and Sunni that has been going on since the seventh century even worse especially if one considers that Shiites are the majority in Iran and Iraq, and are the largest Muslim group in Lebanon and their lands include what many consider the richest oil fields in the entirety of the Middle East. 

These efforts have only increased and intensified over the past few decades with regime change in Syria being priority. First a unified Syria stands in the way of policy objectives in the region to numerous and nuanced to discuss (US interests both in Lebanon and preventing the establishment of an Iraq’s pipeline to the Mediterranean for example). We know this because recently unclassified documents show that the CIA even made plans to use Iraq, Israel and Turkey as proxies in 1983 to pressure the Syrian government by using covert military actions just to establish a pipeline. Although this didn’t manifest, it did not prevent the CIA from continuing to try for in 1986 they drew up some more ideas to overthrow Syria by provoking sectarian tensions (does this sound familiar?). The same policy goals were desired again in 1991 and in 2001.

What we see now - with the supposed “civil war” in Syria - has been years in the making and the recent efforts of ISIS and other terrorist extremist (all supported by the West and Saudi Arabia) may have finally come to fruition after hard work put in by the British government according to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas who is on record saying that he got it from the horse’s mouth that “top British officials” were in the process of arming Sunni nationals “to invade Syria” in 2009 – two years before the anti-Assad protest. Then there is what then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in 2012: that the best way to help Israel deal with Iranis to help overthrow Bashar Assad.

So it seems that President Trump is no different than Obama or Bush or his democratic opponent Hillary Clinton and their desire to use any excuse to make bankers and oil giants the benefactors of the wealth to be generated by a divided Syria without Assad at the helm.  Chemical weapons like WMDs in Iraq, was contrived as an excuse to justify their goals.  I mean we know that Turkey supplied Sarin gas to Syrian rebels in 2013in order to frame the Syrian government. We also know that independent Humanitarian organizations have documented that ISIS has used chemical weapons, including Sarin, chlorine and sulfur mustard agents, at least 52 times on the battlefield in Syria and Iraq since 2014.

We also know that just like the Bush Administration, Hillary Clinton and Obama cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government to fund and arm clandestine operations designed to take down Iran and its ally Syria  by encouraging Sunni extremist groups that not only champion a militant view of Islam but are also are anti-America and sympathetic to ISIS and Al Qaeda. All which seem to be from extremist Islamic fundamentalist groups with origins in or connections to Saudi Arabia. 

In all sincerity, the west, as in Yemen, is backing the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria, Sunni’s who are an openly admitted group that considers the U.S. and of Israel as lifelong enemies. By bombing Assad, we are basically s one writer put it serving as the ISIS/Al Qaeda Air force. This in my opinion, is no different that when Barack Obama invaded Libya without Congressional approval in 2011.  Trump clearly is no different and seems to take his marching orders from the neoconservatives and neoliberals who won’t be happy until a major U.S. military intervention happens in Syria (and other places) even if it means a confrontation with Russia and/or China. You may question my analysis but for what it is worth, NSC adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster is no dissimilar than Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland, or Nuland’s husband – Robert Kagen on this matter.

Again as I asked in the beginning of this essay, is Trump any different than Bush or Obama? I suspect not. As one writer pointed out: “I don’t think that anybody seriously believes that Assad or anybody else in the Syrian government really ordered a chemical weapons attack on anybody.  To believe that it would require you to find the following sequence logical: first, Assad pretty much wins the war against Daesh which is in full retreat.  Then, the US declares that overthrowing Assad is not a priority anymore (up to here this is all factual and true).  Then, Assad decides to use weapons he does not have.  He decides to bomb a location with no military value, but with lots of kids and cameras.  Then, when the Russians demand a full investigation, the Americans strike as fast as they can before this idea gets any support.  And now the Americans are probing a possible Russian role in this so-called attack.  Frankly, if you believe any of that, you should immediately stop reading and go back to watching TV.”

I remember the Gulf of Tonkin and other major U.S. lies to justify war like the one in 1970 when our government lied to the American people and said, “We didn’t cross the border going into Cambodia” when in fact we did. Former UK ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, was correct in his assessment equally when he said like Libya, Syria will "implode" if President Assad was removed from office period. Not to mention bombing Syria does nothing to provide humanitarian relief and merely distracts the world from the West supported atrocities in Yemen, Mosul and the South Sudan.

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The Stasi Has Returned and it is American

The sudden resignation of National Security Adviser and retired General Michael Flynn and the unprecedented leaks pouring out to damage and even destroy the Trump presidency is a throwback to what I recall other nations (namely autocratic or communist regimes) did when the political status quo felt threatened. Likewise, they often emerged as a consequence of actions taken by top members in state sponsored intelligence operations.

There are several possibilities for this including oscitant retribution proffered by folk like former CIA director John Brennan and former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, or even a backlash by career officials (Democratic politicians and, more importantly, theintelligence community) in an effort for whatever reason, to keep Trump from instituting his foreign policy agenda.

Sadly many in the elite east coast press and large numbers of Democrats support these actions while failing to accept and admit that for unelected officials to go around the constitution and imped policy efforts of a democratically elected official, whether you support that official or not, is seditious and boarders on actions of former governments run by police apparatus like the Stasi of East Germany.

The Stasi was a shorthand term used to describe the East German State Security "Staatssicherheit." It was a combination of the United States FBI, CIA and NSA for lack of a better description, meaning they had policing, investigating and uninhibited surveillance powers. The Stasi was responsible for hundreds of thousands of perceived political opponents being tried without due process, imprisoned and even murdered in an effort to suffocate political dissention against all the tenants of conventional democratic standards.

Most people they imprisoned and executed where charged with specific acts such as engaging in "propaganda hostile to the state," interfering in “activities of the state or society" orthe "treasonable relaying of information." In addition to domestic surveillance, the Stasi was also responsible for foreign surveillance. Through the use of wiretapping (it is illegal to wiretap the U.S. President) and anonymous unsourced claims unaided by any evidence (sounds familiar), for more than four decades, the Stasi operated unfettered and without remorse until the collapse of Communist East Germany and the opening of the borders with West Germany in 1989. These type of energies seem to have been put into action inside the Beltway as it regards the Trump administration.

It is obvious that there is a real fear or hatred for Trump as he goes about his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” and dismantle the bureaucratic system of politics including the FBI, CIA and NSA and their historic abuse of unfettered power that they feels places them over the elected government. Also clear, is that even before Hillary Clinton ran, highbrow member of the Washington political establishment, including assets of the U.S. intelligence apparatus, were supporting her hook, line and sinker. From former acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Gen. Michael Hayden who served in the capacity of both director of the NSA and CIA under George W. Bush. Both men, without evidence or proof asserted that Trump was a “useful fool” and Russian agent being influenced by Putin.

Upon which, immediately rumors started to be thrown into the political ether. In particular when then candidate Trump continuously rejected the establishment narrative of the media and intelligence community that under the direct orders of Putin, Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chair John Podesta emails in order to interfere with the election on the side and behalf of the Republican nominee. This was followed by a pile-on by the Democratic Party which since then have willingly encompassed this effort to disrupt the elected President who they gave no chance of winning.

Since then we have had the Trump “dossier” which was produced by a former member of the British intelligence agency MI6 and hired first by a never-Trump super Pac and then the Democratic Party to find some dirt on Trump. This report fell apart, although the media tried to establish a narrative that it was true, when it was proven that unlike the dossier stated as fact, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had never secretly traveled to Prague in August to meet with Russian officials or had ever been to Czceh Republic..

Why would the intelligence establishment take this path? Well even a blind person can see that their preferences for Clinton was in line with all of their desired policy objectives: Trump wants to work with Putin to destroy ISIS and Clinton wanted to go deeper into Syria in an effort to get Assad out of office as she did Gadhafi in Libya. For this reason if my logic is tenable, targeting Trumps security executives would be paramount.  More than likely, Flynn was planning to try and reform and change the mindset of the national security state in America. Such would have surly been an economic loss the military industrial complex could not afford to take a chance on.  It has been said that all wars are banker’s wars and we are well aware that banks dole out large sums of money to the US military and intelligence apparatus.

The short of the story is that the East Germany Stasi, even if not in body, in action is alive in the administrative halls of Washington, DC.  Like the Stasi, elements in the U.S. intelligence community are essentially committing treason against the Office of the President of the United States by leaking classified material to the press. This is also without a doubt happening with the urging and assistance of former Obama administration appointees because anonymous leaks without any evidence at all is speculation, guessing and/or gossip. Unfortunately, the democrats and mainstream media flunkies are more than giddy to run with any claim, substantiated or not to bring down Trump and his administration. This is the most probably scenario given from the Obama years, we know the immense powers the U.S. intelligence community has through the leaks (not anonymous) of Edward Snowden alone and that he gave them even more powers days before leaving office. As one writer noted: “Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what policestates do."

Any assertion regarding Russia’s interference in U.S. elections as been presented based on guess and without evidence. The charges with Flynn began with the remnants of the Obama Department of Justice when then acting attorney general Sally Yates told the White House counsel that Flynn was not telling the truth with respect to talking about sanctions with the Russian ambassador. How did she know this and who authorized wiretapping Flynn’s communication? Still, we do not know if this was true since the phone transcripts have not been released. All I can state is that these attacks against the President and his administration were planned and contrived in what I perceive as a hidden effort to thwart the will of the American people by elements representative of the Democratic Party, the U.S. intelligence establishment and mainstream media.

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Puzzy Lemonade Outrage or Do Blacks Care About Anything Besides Beyoncé?

Years ago there was a little girl, she operated a lemonade and candy stand, her name was Heaven Sutton. She isn’t with us anymore because she was gunned down in her front yard.  Now years later the names of children killed by senseless gangland (or any form) violence in places like Chicago are too numerous to name.  Acen King, Ja'Quail Mansaw, Cylie and Caden McCullum, Payton Benson

Antonio Smith Jr., Tiana Ricks and Londyn Samuels are just a few, but you don’t know their names or even know who they are.  They were never romanticized with hashtags like #remeberhername or #sayhisname or #bringbackourgirls because although they were black there death's were not sensational enough for the retro chic political narrative of the day.

If they were killed by police or an idiotic white lunatic, they would be known and remembered and we would cite their names with the likes of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown.  But they have no value in the eyes and minds of social justice warriors because mentioning or remembering their names does not help to enable their goals of getting rich off of racial and identity politics and obtain fake fame by receiving television air time for pretending to be “woke.”

The artificial pretense of the so-called woke culture is metastasizing like a cancer, especially with the election of Donald Trump.  It is as if black folk can only attend to complaining about him and police shootings and nothing more.  Not the pathetic state of our inner cities. Or our failing government public schools or increasing rates of poverty (all of which by they have been happening in places that have been run by democrats since the 1940s in most cases and problems Trump had nothing to do with). The fake outrage at the election of Donald Trump that I have written about before will never manifest into true honest civic outrage for real problems that confront us daily like the deaths of the little children or the economic constraints I mentioned previously. 

These same folk, especially the black ones will protest against Trump and his ban on seven specific nations but were silent when Obama was bombing families of the same innocent women and children in the same nations with his drone wars which he dramatically increased when compared to George W. Bush after giving his 2009 Nobel Peace prize acceptance speech: wars that the former president conducted with impunity in places like Somalia, Libya, South Sudan, Afghanistan and Syria that created his current migrant-refugee crisis to begin with. They are loud when they are not allowed within the U.S. proper but were quiet when they were being slaughtered religiously on the orders of America’s first black president. It is as if they say it is cool to kill them, I can get with that but it is a problem when we try to improve criterion for entry to the U.S.

For the life of me I cannot figure this out – being open to individual and personal acquiesce to murder but opposed to none murderous acts to an option of personal choice.  Likewise, there was no outrage when Obama stopped Iraqis from immigrating to the U.S. for 120 days.  Clearly politics and not protest in the name of basic dignity is hey problem or issue.

At Berkeley we saw this in action. Incantations of divide and conquer. Destroying property and setting vehicles on fire has nothing to do with protest based on what is called for to stand on the side of righteousness regarding human dignity or else they would affirm the nonviolent approaches of Gandhi, King and Mandela.  This is all show and mechanically contrived vexation.  They do not really care, they just want attention; and they do not seek change, rather they only want to define what is acceptable or should be tolerated as meaning you have to agree with me or else you are wrong and my speech is more important than your speech. What I am paying attention too is more important than anything else. But where were they before this?

For example, cities and states all around the nation have been finding funds available to deal with litigious actions that may be pending for illegal aliens under asserted or proposed Trump planes to deal with the issue.  You got black folk even out on the front lines of this fictitious battle.  Mind you that for decades we have been trying to get the same cities and states to hire more public defenders for the many of our fellow men and women locked behind bars but the response was always “we do not have the money for such.” Yet there were none of these adamant protestors standing next to us when we made this request but we stand with them. And all of a sudden places like LA can magically come up with $10 million for this but no funds for additional public defenders to defend people born in America.

It is as if we are living in an alternate reality where all injustices are equal when evidence dictates they are not.  There were only one specific people designated as slaves in America who did not have a choice to come him but rather was forced to by a combination of the Bible and the barrel of a gun. Still opaquely innocent and manipulated we go along with the flow when it makes no logical senses and supersedes our own collective interest.  We hail the arrival of Muslim immigrants without out the consideration of the fact that if they are terrorist, they will kill us too, and want to kill us too.  Liberal or conservative they do not care, they will set you on fire and chop your head off with the quickness for things we call liberties (sexual orientation, wearing revealing clothing if you are a woman, drinking alcohol, being a Christian or having an abortion).

That they do like beating women and condemning homosexuals to death don’t outrage us, nor what they believe.  It is this myopia that believes we are justified not to speak up on behalf of the children I mentioned earlier because they do not meet our narrative.  But don’t let it be an award show, or you will have protest and outrage out the azz.  There would be #oscarssowhite or the recent #grammyssowhite because Beyoncé didn’t win album of the year.  This is an issue although WORLDWIDE the woman she lost too sold waaaaaaaay more albums than she did. Now let that sink in, cats are so mad that a millionaire didn’t win an award while sitting in a room filled with other millionaires outfitted in $5,000 or more worth of sartorial splendor, that they are willing to express emotional disdain.  But let a two-year get shot in the head the result of a gangland hit, and they won’t say jack. But it makes sense, after all these rich Hollywood cats are oppressed too, with their body guards with automatic weapons, drivers and walled-in mansions.

Have we lost our way? Are we so caught up in self-absorbed mindless celebrity twaddle that we can be eaisly paraded about like a puppet by presentations of what Juvenal called “bread and circuses?” Do we even know what we are upset by, angered by or protesting against?  I don’t think so and I don’t think for those who are black, really have have any interest in improving our conditions collectively as a people, if they were, they would know of Lavontay White, Takiya Holmes or Kanari Gentry Bowers. Unfortunately they don’t, they just know Beyoncé didn’t win a Grammy for Album of the year and that it takes precedence above all else.

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Manufactured Synthetic Outrage

The veil of hypocrisy is best seen when one looks in the mirror.  It is opaque and empty until we accidentally see it while we are putting on our makeup, or a tie to adorn our image. Our hypocrisy is so consistent, especially here in America that it should be used like a scientific constant similar to Planck’s or Avogadro’s number.

It seems as that President Trump’s recent announcement of a temporary ban on immigration from several specific countries got a lot of folk upset, 99 percent of them who presented no real outrage to the policy or even the ban, but rather the man who implemented it.  They are out in mass protesting at airports on behalf of these individuals as if their life depended on it.  Now I too disagree with Trump’s implementation but not the policy. But unlike most, I am rational and have been consistent, in my views from president to president, but I will never evince the fake and cosmetically contrived outrage band wagon revolutionaries show whenever they get their feelings hurt or do not get their way.

It is comedy at its best and more life-like than anything Hermippus or Eupolis could have ever written.  And I say this honestly, because although I have been pained by the refugee crisis for more than six years now, I was more upset at the Obama administration for its continuous bombing and destruction of these humans homes and murdering their families, for creating this outcome from Libya to the South Sudan and equally the lack of concern partisan progressive neoliberals, allowed him to carry out his inhuman slaughter without protest.

You see, when Obama was droning weddings in Afghanistan, or providing Saudi Air force with targeting direction to drop US supplied cluster bombs and White Phosphorus on schools, hospitals and Yemeni markets using US F-15s, few of the many at the airports across American cities currently said a single world.  Since it was Obama, it was “all good.” Even still, there was nothing said when in 2011, then President Barack Obama and the Clinton state department stopped processing Iraq refugee requests for six months imposing a similar ban as Trump’s. I say similar because if you take the time to read the EO (as I have) it is nothing like these idiot pundit talking heads describes it as being.  Instead, they play the herd-like public, so distraught with emotional indignity and desecration so eager to accept what they see from TV without question.  A more accurate representation of the EO is that it specifically focuses in on Syrians (Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are not even declared, stated, cited or listed in the EO specifically). If they were, we can thank the past administration for this policy shift for these visa restrictions for these seven nations exactly, which was put in place by the Obama administration in 2015 for cats who had been in said nations after 2011 (ironically it was in March 2011 when a multi-state NATO-led coalition began a military intervention in Libya and at the same time the Obama administration instigated the civil war in Syria).

In all accuracy, if one read it, the only mention of the other nations are as follows: “For the next 90 days, nearly all travelers, except U.S. citizens,traveling on passports from Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Somalia, Libya, and Yemen will be temporarily suspended from entry to the United States.“  It also goes on to state: “I hereby proclaim that the entry of nationals of Syria as refugees is detrimental to the interests of the United States and thus suspend any such entry until such time as I have determined that sufficient changes have been made to the USRAP to ensure that admission of Syrian refugees is consistent with the national interest.”

If you read the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington post (and I can only imagine mainstream TV/cable  news), all I am seeing is messaging pushing the narrative that seven mostly Muslim nations are targeted from entering the US over the ninety day period.  But this isn’t true.  Don’t believe me, again read the EO yourself.

So when Democrats like Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth “full-blooded Indian” Warren, or media pundits whom proclaim to be objective journalist yet clearly do not know how to read or either comprehend processes that allow for the extraction of semantic meaning from words, express their OFFENDEDNESS at President Trump's action, I have to question their sincerity, as I do with all these protestors.

I question if they care so much, then where have they been and why have they been silent.  As I noted earlier, they didn’t mind when Obama did it for a period of 120 days, nor complained when upon leaving office ending a privilege bestowed among Cuban migrants and immigrants of being allowed to enter the U.S. without a visa—and to remain with benefits. They were uncommunicative and closed-mouth even prior to this for when Obama  approved policy designed to destabilize governments (neoliberal interventionism’s), allow for the bombing countries (undeclared wars of aggression),  and arming  jihadist extremists , no one complained then even when we saw the massive outflow of people from Niger, Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria among others. If you never complained about the Obama administration accelerated/enhanced drone policy, you are really in no moral or ethical position to complain about Trump's refugee policy. Look in that mirror and ask yourself, what's worse: Trump not allowing refugees to enter the US or Obama droning and bombing  these peoples’ into oblivion and creating an environment for fundamentalist cats that cut off heads, enslave women and girls, and burn people alive in an effort to control their communities? But no now we have a responsibility to refugees.

It is nothing wrong with caring and having compassion for others, but when it is phony and falls along partisan lines it borders on fascism.  Such hypocrisy has no moral footing to stand unless you are willing to take these migrants in your home or have refugee camps built across from where you live, but I doubt you have that much care and sincere interest to go that far. I mean we have homeless people right here in America who many of the anti-Trump EO protestors drive past, don’t help and even lock their doors and roll up their windows when they approach their car. Take San Francisco for example.  Liberal democrats all over the city protesting for affordable houses but when plans were made to put that housing in their liberal democratic neighborhood they fought and still are fighting against it. I guess it is okay to protest for affordable housing for the poor and homeless as long as it isn’t put next door to me

Clearly these protesters like to say it is an all-out Muslim ban when fact dictates these nations only account for 12 percent of all Muslims in the world – nations that have had similar bans against Israel but proffered no protest.  But this is cool, but some aspects are not.  For example, Starbucks announced it plans to hire 10,000 refuges but when it comes to former inmates or young black youth in America, they are content with them remaining unemployed. But like I said before, where was this activism when Obama & Hillary were creating refugees by dropping bombs on the homes they once owned in the places in which they hail from? And don’t forget about the celebrity Hollywood cats that politicize the #Muslimban yet never mentioning that in the majority of their movies they portray Muslims as terrorist (which can be interpreted as progressives protesting under the claim that they are tolerant, but they are not).  Tolerance for them only means accepting views comparable to theirs for reason and compassion is thrown out the window when you disagree with them. One can only speak your mind if you tow the same ideological line.

Something must change, it is as if you don’t agree with someone, instead of listening and using reason and pragmatism, folks would rather just yell, call names and argue.  This isn’t productive. I will not point fingers but there is enough hypocrisy to go around feed the world indefinitely.  Strange there's so much outrage over Trump's refugee ban compared to Obama's disastrous regime-change policies in Libya, Syria and Yemen. I know what trump did was idiotic, stupid and in American but for you fake outrage and not put in work in your back yard is equally stupid. This is what I meant by such being comical for the hilarity of the herd mentality cannot be ignored.  And this is sad because as one writer pointed out describing all of the anti-Trump protest: “…marchers aren’t waiting for the policy fog to lift. Their anger is directed at people, not policies. [These] protests [are] intended,above all, to express the protesters’ moral superiority to the president and those who voted for him…. Why complain now, when no decision has been made? It delegitimizes the future protests and exposes the bias of the opposition. . . .An opposition focused on personality.”

I just ask, is this you? Are you as loud when Israel already has a wall?

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