A plutocracy is the opposite of democracy. To anyone claiming that the US is a democracy, this chart is a good proof it isn't.
In a plutocracy a tiny sliver of the populace get to decide policies and just about everything. The rest of society has no voice at all. And that once in four years dropping a ballot is inconsequential as all those who are elected are in essence in the pocket of big money.
Why pick on him using his late father's s.s benefits to pay for his education? Is there anything wrong with that? That's the only point I disagree with here.
That's true. It's a combination of European colonialism and a biblical conquest. A combination of Apartheid S. Africa and well.. don't even want to go there but they have reduced Palestinians to untermensch level.
As a Jew myself, I can tell you that in the grand scheme of things, when the Zionist state dissolves, it will be remembered as a stain on Judaism, much like the Crusader State and the Inquisition are on Christianity. It is the hijacking of the Jewish religion into a nationalist militant creed that has made me ashamed of being even associated with this psychopathic phenomenon.
The view throughout the Middle East is that Israel is not a legitimate state but a colonial implant created through the ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians and supported by the West. This is a legitimate view and it is shared throughout the Middle East, not only Iran.
In order to change this view, the West must force a true reconciliation (not a "peace/bantustan process") that will try to address the injustices of the past, including Palestinian refugees. That's the only way to remove Middle Eastern hostility towards Israel - not by using it as an imperialist proxies to "put down" the "natives" in this form of neo-colonialism.
Algeria 2.0 developing here. Let's also remind the world of that less known civil war in Algeria which cost the lives of 300,000 people. Unlike the civil war in Syria in which the US supports the rebels, in Algeria the US supported the military regime. The reason for the discrepancy, as is always the case with US foreign policy, is whether you kowtow to US hegemony or not. No other qualifications required.
There is a simple reason America CANNOT support democracies in the Middle East as democracies there will inevitably be anti-American and anti-imperialist. And the reason for that is that America supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, something which is at the heart of the Arab world and a daily reminder of imperial and colonial humiliation.
America supported the revolution? You must be kidding. I don't know where you got that idea. America supported Mubarak right up to the point where his fall seemed inevitable.
American has invested way too much in Egypt's military apparatus to let Egypt's leadership decided by voters. This coup d'etat, with a wink and a nod from Obama/Clinton, will keep Egypt squarely in the America column.
Cancellation and annulment of election results is a modus operandi of the American empire in its client states with a wink and a nod or sometimes even active participation. Iran, Algeria, Palestine and now Egypt. When democratic elections results don't fit the American plan for the Middle East, the clients simply cancel them and America winks and nods.
I am disappointed that they use the imported flawed method of "winner takes all". A candidate who doesn't win should be able to give his votes to whatever candidate he chooses to. The winner is the one who ends up with most votes.
The current system makes all votes to non-winning candidates get wasted and in particular the system is apparently flawed where two MB candidates are splitting the MB votes. It's a very bad system that guarantees that the elected candidate does not necessarily reflects the people's wishes.
I remember that during the second intifada, CNN's coverage had a custom of inviting Israeli and Palestinian interviewees on a split screen, thus letting both sides be heard.
It was a knock out and any observer would immediately notice that the Israeli position is untenable. Israel's response was to send a delegation to Time Warner (is it antisemitic to point that TW's management and ownership is in Jewish hands?) to urge them for a "more balanced" coverage, i.e. not to allow Palestinians be heard.
I am not sure what the result was but American media has inherently predisposes and biased towards the Israeli position, some because of Jewish/Zionist influence and some because of the Imperial West vs. East chasm.
Anyway, Palestinian Christians is kryptonite to Israel Hasbara (propaganda) as you noted, because most Americans, including Christian Zionists, are not aware that Palestinians are also Christian and it demolishes the myth of Judeo-Chritians against evil Muslims, which is the worldview pushed by Israel supporters and a key tenet of Zionist propaganda.
It's a bizarre Fatwa if not foolish. To leave the greatest weapon of deterrence in the hands of your enemies and abdicate your ability to deter them with the same weapons that they possess?
If anything indicating that Iran is insane is that it has NOT developed nuclear weapons, which is what every rational actor would do after being named as part of "the axis of evil" and after seeing what happened to your neighbor that was targeted by the Empire.
I honor your courage Juan. This is the most outspoken position you have ever taken and it's time to bring the truth to the mainstream in order to counter this incessant war propaganda that we are being fed by Israel's agents to push us into another illegal costly war in the Middle East in which the only beneficiary can be Israel.
1967 is not contested. The son of one of Israel's top commanders did a good job of dispelling this myth of "existential threat" and "pre-emptive war", as did many others. That's not to mention that the attack on Jordan, the one the took over the West Bank, was completely unprovoked.
Not only it was a war of aggression planned long before to complete the conquest of Palestine, but under the fog of war Israel carried out another round of ethnic cleansing, expelling about 250,000 civilians from their houses in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
One by one those myths have been debunked and we are left with a rather simple truth: a colonial aggressive state bent on expansion and the creation of a Jewish lebensraum in Palestine (and perhaps beyond) through the expulsion of the natives.
Nobody describes better this system of neo-colonialism than this brilliant polemicist:
"The European and American reaction to Iran’s nuclear program was that of Uncle Tom’s slaveowner, Simon Legree, on learning of an escaped slave: How does this dusky dare to touch the white masters’ toys?
Their empty talk of an “Iranian threat” is designed for the ignorant: Iran has never, ever attacked a European nation since the wars for Anatolia in the 5th century BC, whereas European imperialists have repeatedly occupied and controlled Iran – once recently in 1942, and then again in 1953, when they deposed the democratically-elected Mosaddeq and and placed their stooge in his place. Yes, the old colonialism is dead. England can’t rule over Iraq, nor France over Algeria, but the new collective colonialism – that of an imperialist core of highly industrialized Western nations over the rest of the world – is hardly any better. The old masters have decided to pool their resources and rule their erstwhile slaves together. They switched from the Athenian model – where each citizen had his slave – to the Spartan model – where all slaves belong to the State. In this new collective imperialist universe, the US is the ‘arm’ – the enforcer – of this new colonialism, while the ‘mind’ – the ideology – is supplied by a vast syndicate that unites and coordinates the majority of the world’s media outlets, both left and right, despite their pretensions of competition and rivalry."
"I can’t imagine a Hindu terrorist. It just seems like an oxymoron."
That's probably the worst comment I read on juancole.com in a long time. The Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombings are Hindu. Terrorism is not limited to any religion and in fact has not much to do with religion but rather political situations.
India does not have anywhere near the same connections in the Western press and discourse that Israel has. That's how for decades managed to portray itself as "victim of Arab aggression" while in reality it was always an aggressive expansionist colonial enterprise bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.
Juan, the problem is that there is no evidence that they are targeting civilians. Al Jazeera itself is not that objective as it has proven to have ties with the CIA and have been the mouthpiece for foreign intervention.
Notice that one thing you haven't seen is peaceful demonstrations or peaceful demonstrators being shot at.
What you have there is opposition militia groups armed and trained by the CIA (the CIA does that for decades in just about every country that opposes US hegemony) in order to destabilize syria and isolate Iran. Yes, civilians do die when they get caught in the cross fire but there is absolutely no evidence that Assad gave an order to shoot unarmed civilians. Also, 2000 Syrian security forces have died already, just to show you these are not "peaceful demonstrators" but rather well armed and trained militias.
I do think that Assad for his own good should step down and allow for free elections but this is now a full fledged civil war, just like it was in Libya, so it is unlikely to happen. Also, our good old MSM - propagandists as they are as usual - forgot to mention yesterday that the streets of Damascus yesterday were filled with people greeting and cheering the Russian foreign minister Lavrov when he came to visit - a show of support against foreign intervention.
It's all one big propaganda ploy, a part of the US/Israel to impose their Middle East order by destabilizing and toppling regimes that oppose the Imperial design. It's been an enormous success so far on the propaganda level as I see many well intentioned people were fooled, including in the Arab world.
If you still don't believe this assertion, ask yourself: "how come there are no calls for intervention in Yemen? In Bahrain? In Saudi Arabia? Why do we hardly hear about any atrocities over there? How come there was complete silence when Saudi Arabia sent forces to crush demonstrations in Bahrain? Is that a coincidence that the two countries where you have these civil wars are the ones who oppose US hegemony - Libya and Syria?". The answer is that these countries were targeted long time ago by the US for "regime change" by arming and supporting opposition groups. They just used the Arab spring as an opportunity to trigger this plan.
The most obvious outcome of such an attack is that Iran will withdraw from NPT and accelerate its drive for nuclear weapons, even if there was none before.
I personally believe that the Middle East should be a nuclear-free zone but since that is not going to happen and Israel will not give up its nukes, the second best solution is to balance that with Iranian nukes. Iranian nukes will bring peace to the Middle East, as counter-intuitive as it may sound because it will force Israel to make real peace with its neighbors, curtail its military adventurism and abandon its dream of Nakba III - the invasion of Jordan in order to expel remaining Palestinians in order to achieve a Palestinian-free Palestine - the end game of the Zionist project (or at least a temporary goal until further expansion).
Don't expect anything from American politicians. They are a set of men without principles. I am quite sure they know there is another side of the story but that's what they are paid to say.
The US supported Apartheid S. Africa until almost the very end so it is not surprising to see even more support for S. Africa's evil twin sister, Israel.
The end of Israeli Apartheid will come through grass roots movement and the Palestinian themselves who should have long time ago given up the idea of Palestinian Bantustans and instead started fighting for equal rights.
Juan, I am disappointed you have resorted to adopting the politically correct habit of blaming the "Israeli right". These policies are not exclusive to the Israeli right. The Lavon Affair was not perpetrated by the Israeli right, the killing of scientists was not a policy initiated by the Israeli right. These are all policies that the Jewish State has followed since its founding.
The reason they do it is simple: they know they have full immunity. The worst that can happen is a little diplomatic embarrassment (such as the Pollard case) but there are no political repercussions for Israel as a whole, much like in the most recent case in the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai by Mossad agents using foreign passports.
There is nothing linking the "Israeli right" specifically to any of these policies but rather a general M.O. pursued by all Israeli governments with a realist assessment of possible repercussions.
There is only one explanation to the sanctions against Iran: neocolonialism. One law for us the enlightened, another law for the native savages. We're allowed to have guns, the natives are allowed to have bows and arrows.
Hypocrisy alone is not enough to explain how the country pushing for the sanctions against Iran is a country that is not a NPT signatory, possesses illegal nuclear weapons, has proliferated nuclear technology to S. Africa's Apartheid regime, is occupying its neighbors land and is practicing what can only be considered Apartheid. And then there's the US which has actually used nuclear weapons on a civilian population....
If this is not the old colonial rule "one law for us the enlightened, another for them the natives", I don't know what is.
The US has made itself ineffective by pursuing such a blatant double standard in the Middle East and more and more countries are becoming dissidents to US global hegemony. A ruler has to have a sense of justice in order to be accepted, not only raw muscle and bullying. By flouting international law, providing unconditional support and turning a blind eye on a nuclear armed apartheid state - the US has lost any moral high ground it may have had and undermined its own case.
Sanctions are a legitimate and effective measure against a government that is elected by the populace (as opposed to dictatorships).
The anger in the Middle East is not over sanctions per se but because of the blatant double standard that this form of neo-colonialism applies: one law for us the enlightened, another law for the natives. That is what enables this macabre situation when the country pushing for sanctions and war against Iran is one that is not signed on NPT and is holding an unsupervised nuclear arsenal. It is such chutzpa and is so blatant that everybody ignores it as if it is the natural order of things.
If you want to apply sanctions, do it evenly, not one law for the "enlightened" and another for the "savages".
I agree with almost everything you said, except that I believe you underestimate the importance of Palestine on the continuation of the American-Muslim conflict, which in large part is also responsible for the rejection of American imperialism in the Middle East.
By acting as Israel's unqualified supporter and enabler of its Apartheid / colonial policies, the US is uniting the entire Middle East against it in rejection of its hegemony. Since there is no end in sight of this conflict, the war between America and the Arab / Muslim world will continue and perhaps even get worse, if for that alone, for Palestine is the heart of the Arab world and a symbol of their humiliation by the neo-colonial West, and something which all Muslims, from Morocco to Indonesia, agree on.
Oh yes, add to my previous comment: the Western press of course is another tool: always keen on publishing unverified, well planted "atrocity stories" in unfriendly regimes, becomes part of the propaganda war. Notice that there are never "kidnapped / mutilated / tortured / female / gay bloggers" in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
Is this still an "Arab spring"? It sure looks like what started as popular protests is now used to advance an American / Zionist agenda and to remove all rulers and regimes which are not friendly to Israel / US. It's hard not to notice the hidden hand.
The blueprint was laid long time ago in A Clean Break, a policy paper written by powerful policy makers, supporters of Netanyahu in the United States. Among their goals: regime change in Iraq, the destabilization of Syria which will enable the isolation of Iran and Hizballah and the removal of Gaddafi to a lesser extent. Iran is also slated for a regime change or outright destruction.
The main tools used are Al Jazeera and covert arming and training of insurgent / terrorist groups by the CIA in order to destabilize unfriendly regimes.
Notice that in "friendly" countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there are no civil wars. Not because they are better or more peaceful but because there is nobody fomenting civil strife.
It is indeed a very strange relationship. No democratically elected Arab leader can be a friend of the US because of its Middle East policy and its unbridled support for Israel's colonial policies. Trying to force the Zionist imposed Middle East order on the Iraqi government is just going to backfire in the form of popular backlash and its replacement with more representative leaders. Obama's attempt to break the natural bond between Iraq's majority Shia population and Iran (also, part of the Zionist plan for the Middle East) is also going to fail.
One should never underestimate the importance of Palestine and how the US stance on that issue has isolated it and antagonized 1.5 billion Muslims against it, something which makes its attempt to dictate and rule the Middle East futile.
Juan, I am surprised that you buy into this self-delusional Israeli propaganda. They are trying to portray it as a struggle between "good Jews" and "bad Jews", between liberal Israel and fascist Israel. But this is of course a facade and I am surprised that anybody would even buy into this. The settlers are not there on their own design. They are there because of Israeli government policy and with military protection. If Israel wanted to remove them, they could do it tomorrow by withdrawing their military from the occupied territories - something which they refuse to do for 44 years now. Instead they put on a show between "moderates" and "extremists". But we all know the settlements did not spring up by themselves - they were designed, planted and protected by the Israeli government, which is voted on by the Israeli public.
Maliki just gave the US an arms order to the magnitude of $3 billion, that's when they have daily power outages in Baghdad. And what about Karzai's miraculous election? How does he get "elected" in Afghanistan? You are naive to assume that there is no foreign intervention. It is done by filtering the candidates who are allowed to run so voters get to choose between two puppets who are sure to be friendly to the US and acquiesce with Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That's how the empire operates. They would never allow someone who is not friendly to the US to get elected, otherwise, what was that huge waste of lives and money for?
I would like to see an article by Mr. Cole detailing how the US friendly presidents/prime ministers in Iraq and Afghanistan get "elected" supposedly in "democratic" elections. It would be interesting to expose the gaming of the democratic system by the US occupation administrations which somehow always results in the election of hand picked puppets.
Perhaps it's because Fox News viewers tune in to their opinion shows rather than news. Who needs news when you can join the hate and anger fest against the "un-amerikun librals" with their communist conspiracies to debase and destroy Amerikah.
I disagree Juan. Gingrich will be limited by both the military (which is probably not interested in an Iran entanglement) and the left which would oppose such a war vehemently. On the other hand, a Democrat President faces no opposition when marching to war - it's always been the case.
Yes, and I doubt any draft age person knows who Barry Goldwater is.
Sorry you can't convince me with this argument that if I don't vote for Obama someone worse will be elected. That's the calculation Obama made when he decided to go for populist positions and alienating his core supporters. But don't worry, people like me are a negligible number. Centrists will be voting for him for killing Middle Eastern looking brown people with his drones..
Cain is just a reflection of the Republicans' desperation to find a candidate to run against Obama. Out of millions of people, they can't come up with a decent candidate and it looks like a Gingrich (the equivalent of Barry Goldwater from the 60's) is the only thing they can come up with. And that's in a year when they have backwind in the form of bad economy and a disgruntled populace...
I will not vote for Obama as he has betrayed the liberal cause but I don't see Romney or Gingrich beating him even without my vote.
A "Jewish State" on a land populated by non-Jews was always a recipe for conflict, dispossession, oppression and discrimination - which is what the Zionist project has boiled down to. If demographics eventually dissolve this discriminatory entity, it will be the best peaceful outcome, as the Jewish State in its current format is a flash point for WWIII and a source of never ending conflict.
All politicians are liars, what's the big deal? The only difference is that he is not a likeable person, at least in foreign eyes.
There is absolutely no difference between all Israeli P.M's in the last 20 years - they have all been selling the world a never-ending "peace process" (between an occupier and occupied no less, and mediated by the occupier's supporter...) while at the same time expanding settlements and doing everything they can to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Good meaning people around the world were duped, and it's time to admit it. Whether Netanyahu is replaced by some other more amicable Israeli P.M. will not make a difference whatsoever because the facts on the ground have already made a viable Palestinian state impossible. One just has to look at the map to understand that. The world should reject this Bantustan solution and start pushing for a one state and equality in all of historic Palestine. That is the only solution.
Gingrich is just going the demagogic way of Muslim bashing - that's in a nutshell. Portraying the upheavals in the Arab world as a war between religions is disingenuous and the hallmark of a scoundrel politician.
The US has made itself irrelevant (or its influence highly diminished) with its complete subjugation to the Zionist cause and its egregious double standard in the Middle East.
You need a certain moral high ground if you want to dominate world politics. Imposing crippling sanctions against Iran,a NPT signatory, while declaring "the unshakable bond" with Israel and ignoring its nuclear arsenal is not something that is lost on people throughout the world and many countries are not willing to kowtow to US demands anymore.
This is another adverse effect of AIPAC as Walt and Mearsheimer have noted.
Great analysis but you forgot the main point: What on earth does Iran have to gain from assassinating the Saudi Ambassador anywhere, let alone on US soil?
This story is one of those media bombs like the missing Syrian gay blogger, the babies thrown out of incubators, the Gulf of Tomkin, the mutilated Syrian woman, etc. etc. - which all turned out to be complete fabrication.
US officials are already banking on this stinker by calling to impose more sanctions on Iran.
I suggest we start using extra-judicial executions against alleged criminals in the US. After all, many more Americans die each year from murders than from terrorism. Let's just cover our skies with drones and bomb murderers and alleged murderers from the sky. If their families are killed in the same strike, it's all the better because it will prevent future murderers from being born.
And think about the message America sends to Palestinians. They have now the most lenient, compromising and co-operating Palestinian leader who has disavowed violent resistance, jailed Hamas activist, has turned his forces into Israel's security contractors, relinquished the right of return, etc. etc etc. yet Israeli settlements are expanding by the day and the US vetos his statehood.
What would you conclude if you were Palestinian? We all know that there is absolutely no intention on behalf of Israel or the US to allow for Palestinian statehood. At most they will get Bantustans with no control of their borders, air, sea or water.
As I wrote before, it's time for a paradigm change. Israeli Apartheid should end just like S. Africa's Apartheid: not by creating Bantustans through a 'peace process' but by equality for all in all of the land.
As you well know, prof. Cole, Israel is a de-facto Apartheid State. There are Jews and Palestinians living all over the land and there is one state with a unified grid of roads, electricity and control. As you also know, different laws apply to West Bank Jews than to West Bank non-Jews, which makes it Apartheid par excellence.
Apartheid ends by granting equality to all, not by creating Bantustans for the natives. It is time the world started changing the paradigm and instead of talking about a sham 'peace process' or a sham 'Palestinian statehood', we started adopting the model of equality, much like it was done in S. Africa. That has always been the only solution, as unpleasant as it is for supporters of the "Jewish State" paradigm, which has become a synonym for discrimination, dispossession and oppression.
The futile insistence on a "Palestinian State" which will amount to no more than a chain of enclaves without control of their air, water, sea or borders, is just a distraction from the true solution to discrimination: equality and democracy.
In a way, the Palestinian leadership is working against the true interests of Palestinians and despite their burning desire to rid themselves of Israeli oppression, they should not play into the hands of Israel by participation in the "peace process" game, which at the best will make them prisoners with slightly improved prison conditions. No worthy leader will lead his people to such existence and consider this an achievement.
Funny that you mention Lieberman. For an American, it is hard to imagine a Secretary of State who calls for the expulsion of hispanics from the United States to "preserve the white nature of America".
But this is exactly what the US is supporting in Israel and what Congress bows to subserviently when Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks.
It is a sad sad state of affairs indeed. And I don't see a way out.
You should have noted that the report is not an impartial "fact finding commission" but a political report that was meant to patch relations between Israel and Turkey. It gives each side a little bit. Thus the compromise: the blockade is "justified" but "excessive force was unnecessary".
Unfortunately, Turkey, with its desire to get an apology from Israel and put this incident in the past, played into the hands of Israel's right wing government.
The blockade, which collectively punishes 1.5 million impoverished stateless people (stateless because Israel prevents them independence yet denies them citizenship, thus resulting in a perpetual "limbo") and prevents them from importing or exporting and locks them in an open air prison where they have to dig tunnels like animals to smuggle in basic necessities, can only be considered "legal" if we go back to Biblical moral codes...
In addition, killing point blank execution style unarmed people in international waters described with the soft language of "excessive force" was another attempt by Turkey to appease Israel and receive an apology.
In the end, Turkey's appeasement of Israel not only did not result in the apology but has played into Israel by justifying its criminal policies. Turkey is mad and you can see why.
The lesson is clear: do not try to appease Israel. Everyone who has tried in the past, came later to regret it, including the US which now finds itself as an obedient servant to Zionist interests dictated by Tel Aviv, despite having spent well over $100 billion and its entire political capital.
I wonder why a single post on some obscure website got so much press exposure? Oh yes, because it's "radical muslims", the new bogeyman of Western Society. You had a bunch of tv talking heads not long ago calling for killing Julian Assange over the airwaves, not on some obscure website. I don't see them sitting in jail or investigated by the FBI.
It's really not worth your time to analyze what a deranged xenophobe thinks or believes. All we know that Islamophobia is a form of xenophobia and replaces the old antisemitism in Europe, which is no longer acceptable. The bigots of the world need someone new to hate and they found it in Muslims. Anti-muslim sentiment is unfortunately acceptable and politicians who espouse those views are not denounced like antisemites. Add to that Rupert Murdoch's network of propaganda channels that spew fear and hatred 24/7 and you will have every now and then someone who will heed the call and attack muslims or whoever he considers muslim-friendly.
Your idea wouldn't work for the simple fact that people are very price sensitive so any attempt to add to the price of a digital book will fail, unless people do it as a "donation" which is not a solid business foundation.
So if I see the book on the Borders app for $20 (say including $2 for borders), I would use my smartphone to go to Amazon and download the exact same book for $18. I also suspect that the donation for a physical store would have to be much larger to support real estate and a staff of employees.
Yes, record stores, video stores, book stores and possibly newspapers are going to be things of the past. Kind of hard to even imagine growing up without a record or a book store to go to but this is a new world. People will find other pastimes.
You can call it by name, Juan. Gaza has become a concentration camp (not an extermination camp, if you insist on accuracy) for the native Palestinians, run by Jews, who somehow claim the eternal victim title. The amazing thing is that unlike Germany, they are doing their evil deeds in peace time and with the entire so-called "civilized west",with the US foremost, turning a blind eye and in fact abetting this crime. Warsaw Ghetto didn't have a list of permitted food items and the shortages there stemmed from war-time shortages, just to show you that the Jews have in some ways exceeded their German torturers with their creativity, and you can imagine what they would do under the fog of total-war (Nakba II has always been a part of the Zionist blueprint. It's just a matter of timing and opportunity but unless the Arab world unites and stands on its feet, the Palestinians' fate has already been sealed.)
I think your comment about the Ten Commandments is superfluous as is engaging in theological debate. The original Ten Commandments are a tribal code for dealing with people of the Tribe. This is why the most famous of all, Though Shalt Not Murder, refers specifically to murder, not the misinterpreted and universal Kill. There is nothing in the Ten Commandments that forbids killing, stealing, etc. from other tribes, and as a proof, just read the book of Joshua, where God orders the stealing of someone else's land and the genocide of men, women, elderly, down to the babies and farm animals - for the only reason of having dwelt on a land that a real estate agent God has promised to his chosen tribe...
A plutocracy is the opposite of democracy. To anyone claiming that the US is a democracy, this chart is a good proof it isn't.
In a plutocracy a tiny sliver of the populace get to decide policies and just about everything. The rest of society has no voice at all. And that once in four years dropping a ballot is inconsequential as all those who are elected are in essence in the pocket of big money.
Why pick on him using his late father's s.s benefits to pay for his education? Is there anything wrong with that? That's the only point I disagree with here.
That's true. It's a combination of European colonialism and a biblical conquest. A combination of Apartheid S. Africa and well.. don't even want to go there but they have reduced Palestinians to untermensch level.
As a Jew myself, I can tell you that in the grand scheme of things, when the Zionist state dissolves, it will be remembered as a stain on Judaism, much like the Crusader State and the Inquisition are on Christianity. It is the hijacking of the Jewish religion into a nationalist militant creed that has made me ashamed of being even associated with this psychopathic phenomenon.
Excellent comment. Only the dissolution of the Zionist racist structure will transform Israel into a normal state at peace with its surroundings.
The view throughout the Middle East is that Israel is not a legitimate state but a colonial implant created through the ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinians and supported by the West. This is a legitimate view and it is shared throughout the Middle East, not only Iran.
In order to change this view, the West must force a true reconciliation (not a "peace/bantustan process") that will try to address the injustices of the past, including Palestinian refugees. That's the only way to remove Middle Eastern hostility towards Israel - not by using it as an imperialist proxies to "put down" the "natives" in this form of neo-colonialism.
If only transforming the third world was so easy...
And you know why? Because Fox News viewers really really care for women's rights in Egypt...
Algeria 2.0 developing here. Let's also remind the world of that less known civil war in Algeria which cost the lives of 300,000 people. Unlike the civil war in Syria in which the US supports the rebels, in Algeria the US supported the military regime. The reason for the discrepancy, as is always the case with US foreign policy, is whether you kowtow to US hegemony or not. No other qualifications required.
There is a simple reason America CANNOT support democracies in the Middle East as democracies there will inevitably be anti-American and anti-imperialist. And the reason for that is that America supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, something which is at the heart of the Arab world and a daily reminder of imperial and colonial humiliation.
America supported the revolution? You must be kidding. I don't know where you got that idea. America supported Mubarak right up to the point where his fall seemed inevitable.
American has invested way too much in Egypt's military apparatus to let Egypt's leadership decided by voters. This coup d'etat, with a wink and a nod from Obama/Clinton, will keep Egypt squarely in the America column.
Cancellation and annulment of election results is a modus operandi of the American empire in its client states with a wink and a nod or sometimes even active participation. Iran, Algeria, Palestine and now Egypt. When democratic elections results don't fit the American plan for the Middle East, the clients simply cancel them and America winks and nods.
I am disappointed that they use the imported flawed method of "winner takes all". A candidate who doesn't win should be able to give his votes to whatever candidate he chooses to. The winner is the one who ends up with most votes.
The current system makes all votes to non-winning candidates get wasted and in particular the system is apparently flawed where two MB candidates are splitting the MB votes. It's a very bad system that guarantees that the elected candidate does not necessarily reflects the people's wishes.
I remember that during the second intifada, CNN's coverage had a custom of inviting Israeli and Palestinian interviewees on a split screen, thus letting both sides be heard.
It was a knock out and any observer would immediately notice that the Israeli position is untenable. Israel's response was to send a delegation to Time Warner (is it antisemitic to point that TW's management and ownership is in Jewish hands?) to urge them for a "more balanced" coverage, i.e. not to allow Palestinians be heard.
I am not sure what the result was but American media has inherently predisposes and biased towards the Israeli position, some because of Jewish/Zionist influence and some because of the Imperial West vs. East chasm.
Anyway, Palestinian Christians is kryptonite to Israel Hasbara (propaganda) as you noted, because most Americans, including Christian Zionists, are not aware that Palestinians are also Christian and it demolishes the myth of Judeo-Chritians against evil Muslims, which is the worldview pushed by Israel supporters and a key tenet of Zionist propaganda.
It's a bizarre Fatwa if not foolish. To leave the greatest weapon of deterrence in the hands of your enemies and abdicate your ability to deter them with the same weapons that they possess?
If anything indicating that Iran is insane is that it has NOT developed nuclear weapons, which is what every rational actor would do after being named as part of "the axis of evil" and after seeing what happened to your neighbor that was targeted by the Empire.
We are determined to starve you and keep you in the 18th century but we have great love for you!
I honor your courage Juan. This is the most outspoken position you have ever taken and it's time to bring the truth to the mainstream in order to counter this incessant war propaganda that we are being fed by Israel's agents to push us into another illegal costly war in the Middle East in which the only beneficiary can be Israel.
1967 is not contested. The son of one of Israel's top commanders did a good job of dispelling this myth of "existential threat" and "pre-emptive war", as did many others. That's not to mention that the attack on Jordan, the one the took over the West Bank, was completely unprovoked.
http://mikopeled.wordpress.com/category/the-generals-son-by-miko-peled/
Not only it was a war of aggression planned long before to complete the conquest of Palestine, but under the fog of war Israel carried out another round of ethnic cleansing, expelling about 250,000 civilians from their houses in the West Bank and the Golan Heights.
One by one those myths have been debunked and we are left with a rather simple truth: a colonial aggressive state bent on expansion and the creation of a Jewish lebensraum in Palestine (and perhaps beyond) through the expulsion of the natives.
Nobody describes better this system of neo-colonialism than this brilliant polemicist:
"The European and American reaction to Iran’s nuclear program was that of Uncle Tom’s slaveowner, Simon Legree, on learning of an escaped slave: How does this dusky dare to touch the white masters’ toys?
Their empty talk of an “Iranian threat” is designed for the ignorant: Iran has never, ever attacked a European nation since the wars for Anatolia in the 5th century BC, whereas European imperialists have repeatedly occupied and controlled Iran – once recently in 1942, and then again in 1953, when they deposed the democratically-elected Mosaddeq and and placed their stooge in his place. Yes, the old colonialism is dead. England can’t rule over Iraq, nor France over Algeria, but the new collective colonialism – that of an imperialist core of highly industrialized Western nations over the rest of the world – is hardly any better. The old masters have decided to pool their resources and rule their erstwhile slaves together. They switched from the Athenian model – where each citizen had his slave – to the Spartan model – where all slaves belong to the State. In this new collective imperialist universe, the US is the ‘arm’ – the enforcer – of this new colonialism, while the ‘mind’ – the ideology – is supplied by a vast syndicate that unites and coordinates the majority of the world’s media outlets, both left and right, despite their pretensions of competition and rivalry."
"I can’t imagine a Hindu terrorist. It just seems like an oxymoron."
That's probably the worst comment I read on juancole.com in a long time. The Tamil Tigers who invented suicide bombings are Hindu. Terrorism is not limited to any religion and in fact has not much to do with religion but rather political situations.
India does not have anywhere near the same connections in the Western press and discourse that Israel has. That's how for decades managed to portray itself as "victim of Arab aggression" while in reality it was always an aggressive expansionist colonial enterprise bent on ethnic cleansing of the indigenous population.
Juan, the problem is that there is no evidence that they are targeting civilians. Al Jazeera itself is not that objective as it has proven to have ties with the CIA and have been the mouthpiece for foreign intervention.
http://rt.com/news/changed-us-stance-aljazeera-077/
Notice that one thing you haven't seen is peaceful demonstrations or peaceful demonstrators being shot at.
What you have there is opposition militia groups armed and trained by the CIA (the CIA does that for decades in just about every country that opposes US hegemony) in order to destabilize syria and isolate Iran. Yes, civilians do die when they get caught in the cross fire but there is absolutely no evidence that Assad gave an order to shoot unarmed civilians. Also, 2000 Syrian security forces have died already, just to show you these are not "peaceful demonstrators" but rather well armed and trained militias.
I do think that Assad for his own good should step down and allow for free elections but this is now a full fledged civil war, just like it was in Libya, so it is unlikely to happen. Also, our good old MSM - propagandists as they are as usual - forgot to mention yesterday that the streets of Damascus yesterday were filled with people greeting and cheering the Russian foreign minister Lavrov when he came to visit - a show of support against foreign intervention.
It's all one big propaganda ploy, a part of the US/Israel to impose their Middle East order by destabilizing and toppling regimes that oppose the Imperial design. It's been an enormous success so far on the propaganda level as I see many well intentioned people were fooled, including in the Arab world.
If you still don't believe this assertion, ask yourself: "how come there are no calls for intervention in Yemen? In Bahrain? In Saudi Arabia? Why do we hardly hear about any atrocities over there? How come there was complete silence when Saudi Arabia sent forces to crush demonstrations in Bahrain? Is that a coincidence that the two countries where you have these civil wars are the ones who oppose US hegemony - Libya and Syria?". The answer is that these countries were targeted long time ago by the US for "regime change" by arming and supporting opposition groups. They just used the Arab spring as an opportunity to trigger this plan.
The most obvious outcome of such an attack is that Iran will withdraw from NPT and accelerate its drive for nuclear weapons, even if there was none before.
I personally believe that the Middle East should be a nuclear-free zone but since that is not going to happen and Israel will not give up its nukes, the second best solution is to balance that with Iranian nukes. Iranian nukes will bring peace to the Middle East, as counter-intuitive as it may sound because it will force Israel to make real peace with its neighbors, curtail its military adventurism and abandon its dream of Nakba III - the invasion of Jordan in order to expel remaining Palestinians in order to achieve a Palestinian-free Palestine - the end game of the Zionist project (or at least a temporary goal until further expansion).
Don't expect anything from American politicians. They are a set of men without principles. I am quite sure they know there is another side of the story but that's what they are paid to say.
The US supported Apartheid S. Africa until almost the very end so it is not surprising to see even more support for S. Africa's evil twin sister, Israel.
The end of Israeli Apartheid will come through grass roots movement and the Palestinian themselves who should have long time ago given up the idea of Palestinian Bantustans and instead started fighting for equal rights.
Juan, I am disappointed you have resorted to adopting the politically correct habit of blaming the "Israeli right". These policies are not exclusive to the Israeli right. The Lavon Affair was not perpetrated by the Israeli right, the killing of scientists was not a policy initiated by the Israeli right. These are all policies that the Jewish State has followed since its founding.
The reason they do it is simple: they know they have full immunity. The worst that can happen is a little diplomatic embarrassment (such as the Pollard case) but there are no political repercussions for Israel as a whole, much like in the most recent case in the murder of a Hamas operative in Dubai by Mossad agents using foreign passports.
There is nothing linking the "Israeli right" specifically to any of these policies but rather a general M.O. pursued by all Israeli governments with a realist assessment of possible repercussions.
Even Apartheid S. Africa wouldn't have the chutzpah to cry wolf and lead the charge against a hypothetical Nigerian nuclear program.
There is only one explanation to the sanctions against Iran: neocolonialism. One law for us the enlightened, another law for the native savages. We're allowed to have guns, the natives are allowed to have bows and arrows.
Hypocrisy alone is not enough to explain how the country pushing for the sanctions against Iran is a country that is not a NPT signatory, possesses illegal nuclear weapons, has proliferated nuclear technology to S. Africa's Apartheid regime, is occupying its neighbors land and is practicing what can only be considered Apartheid. And then there's the US which has actually used nuclear weapons on a civilian population....
If this is not the old colonial rule "one law for us the enlightened, another for them the natives", I don't know what is.
The US has made itself ineffective by pursuing such a blatant double standard in the Middle East and more and more countries are becoming dissidents to US global hegemony. A ruler has to have a sense of justice in order to be accepted, not only raw muscle and bullying. By flouting international law, providing unconditional support and turning a blind eye on a nuclear armed apartheid state - the US has lost any moral high ground it may have had and undermined its own case.
Sanctions are a legitimate and effective measure against a government that is elected by the populace (as opposed to dictatorships).
The anger in the Middle East is not over sanctions per se but because of the blatant double standard that this form of neo-colonialism applies: one law for us the enlightened, another law for the natives. That is what enables this macabre situation when the country pushing for sanctions and war against Iran is one that is not signed on NPT and is holding an unsupervised nuclear arsenal. It is such chutzpa and is so blatant that everybody ignores it as if it is the natural order of things.
If you want to apply sanctions, do it evenly, not one law for the "enlightened" and another for the "savages".
I agree with almost everything you said, except that I believe you underestimate the importance of Palestine on the continuation of the American-Muslim conflict, which in large part is also responsible for the rejection of American imperialism in the Middle East.
By acting as Israel's unqualified supporter and enabler of its Apartheid / colonial policies, the US is uniting the entire Middle East against it in rejection of its hegemony. Since there is no end in sight of this conflict, the war between America and the Arab / Muslim world will continue and perhaps even get worse, if for that alone, for Palestine is the heart of the Arab world and a symbol of their humiliation by the neo-colonial West, and something which all Muslims, from Morocco to Indonesia, agree on.
Oh yes, add to my previous comment: the Western press of course is another tool: always keen on publishing unverified, well planted "atrocity stories" in unfriendly regimes, becomes part of the propaganda war. Notice that there are never "kidnapped / mutilated / tortured / female / gay bloggers" in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia or Yemen.
Is this still an "Arab spring"? It sure looks like what started as popular protests is now used to advance an American / Zionist agenda and to remove all rulers and regimes which are not friendly to Israel / US. It's hard not to notice the hidden hand.
The blueprint was laid long time ago in A Clean Break, a policy paper written by powerful policy makers, supporters of Netanyahu in the United States. Among their goals: regime change in Iraq, the destabilization of Syria which will enable the isolation of Iran and Hizballah and the removal of Gaddafi to a lesser extent. Iran is also slated for a regime change or outright destruction.
The main tools used are Al Jazeera and covert arming and training of insurgent / terrorist groups by the CIA in order to destabilize unfriendly regimes.
Notice that in "friendly" countries such as Bahrain, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, there are no civil wars. Not because they are better or more peaceful but because there is nobody fomenting civil strife.
It is indeed a very strange relationship. No democratically elected Arab leader can be a friend of the US because of its Middle East policy and its unbridled support for Israel's colonial policies. Trying to force the Zionist imposed Middle East order on the Iraqi government is just going to backfire in the form of popular backlash and its replacement with more representative leaders. Obama's attempt to break the natural bond between Iraq's majority Shia population and Iran (also, part of the Zionist plan for the Middle East) is also going to fail.
One should never underestimate the importance of Palestine and how the US stance on that issue has isolated it and antagonized 1.5 billion Muslims against it, something which makes its attempt to dictate and rule the Middle East futile.
Juan, I am surprised that you buy into this self-delusional Israeli propaganda. They are trying to portray it as a struggle between "good Jews" and "bad Jews", between liberal Israel and fascist Israel. But this is of course a facade and I am surprised that anybody would even buy into this. The settlers are not there on their own design. They are there because of Israeli government policy and with military protection. If Israel wanted to remove them, they could do it tomorrow by withdrawing their military from the occupied territories - something which they refuse to do for 44 years now. Instead they put on a show between "moderates" and "extremists". But we all know the settlements did not spring up by themselves - they were designed, planted and protected by the Israeli government, which is voted on by the Israeli public.
Maliki just gave the US an arms order to the magnitude of $3 billion, that's when they have daily power outages in Baghdad. And what about Karzai's miraculous election? How does he get "elected" in Afghanistan? You are naive to assume that there is no foreign intervention. It is done by filtering the candidates who are allowed to run so voters get to choose between two puppets who are sure to be friendly to the US and acquiesce with Israel's ethnic cleansing of Palestine. That's how the empire operates. They would never allow someone who is not friendly to the US to get elected, otherwise, what was that huge waste of lives and money for?
I would like to see an article by Mr. Cole detailing how the US friendly presidents/prime ministers in Iraq and Afghanistan get "elected" supposedly in "democratic" elections. It would be interesting to expose the gaming of the democratic system by the US occupation administrations which somehow always results in the election of hand picked puppets.
Perhaps it's because Fox News viewers tune in to their opinion shows rather than news. Who needs news when you can join the hate and anger fest against the "un-amerikun librals" with their communist conspiracies to debase and destroy Amerikah.
I disagree Juan. Gingrich will be limited by both the military (which is probably not interested in an Iran entanglement) and the left which would oppose such a war vehemently. On the other hand, a Democrat President faces no opposition when marching to war - it's always been the case.
Yes, and I doubt any draft age person knows who Barry Goldwater is.
Sorry you can't convince me with this argument that if I don't vote for Obama someone worse will be elected. That's the calculation Obama made when he decided to go for populist positions and alienating his core supporters. But don't worry, people like me are a negligible number. Centrists will be voting for him for killing Middle Eastern looking brown people with his drones..
Cain is just a reflection of the Republicans' desperation to find a candidate to run against Obama. Out of millions of people, they can't come up with a decent candidate and it looks like a Gingrich (the equivalent of Barry Goldwater from the 60's) is the only thing they can come up with. And that's in a year when they have backwind in the form of bad economy and a disgruntled populace...
I will not vote for Obama as he has betrayed the liberal cause but I don't see Romney or Gingrich beating him even without my vote.
A "Jewish State" on a land populated by non-Jews was always a recipe for conflict, dispossession, oppression and discrimination - which is what the Zionist project has boiled down to. If demographics eventually dissolve this discriminatory entity, it will be the best peaceful outcome, as the Jewish State in its current format is a flash point for WWIII and a source of never ending conflict.
This is the man who got 27 standing ovations from both houses of Congress!
All politicians are liars, what's the big deal? The only difference is that he is not a likeable person, at least in foreign eyes.
There is absolutely no difference between all Israeli P.M's in the last 20 years - they have all been selling the world a never-ending "peace process" (between an occupier and occupied no less, and mediated by the occupier's supporter...) while at the same time expanding settlements and doing everything they can to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Good meaning people around the world were duped, and it's time to admit it. Whether Netanyahu is replaced by some other more amicable Israeli P.M. will not make a difference whatsoever because the facts on the ground have already made a viable Palestinian state impossible. One just has to look at the map to understand that. The world should reject this Bantustan solution and start pushing for a one state and equality in all of historic Palestine. That is the only solution.
Gingrich is just going the demagogic way of Muslim bashing - that's in a nutshell. Portraying the upheavals in the Arab world as a war between religions is disingenuous and the hallmark of a scoundrel politician.
The US has made itself irrelevant (or its influence highly diminished) with its complete subjugation to the Zionist cause and its egregious double standard in the Middle East.
You need a certain moral high ground if you want to dominate world politics. Imposing crippling sanctions against Iran,a NPT signatory, while declaring "the unshakable bond" with Israel and ignoring its nuclear arsenal is not something that is lost on people throughout the world and many countries are not willing to kowtow to US demands anymore.
This is another adverse effect of AIPAC as Walt and Mearsheimer have noted.
Great analysis but you forgot the main point: What on earth does Iran have to gain from assassinating the Saudi Ambassador anywhere, let alone on US soil?
This story is one of those media bombs like the missing Syrian gay blogger, the babies thrown out of incubators, the Gulf of Tomkin, the mutilated Syrian woman, etc. etc. - which all turned out to be complete fabrication.
US officials are already banking on this stinker by calling to impose more sanctions on Iran.
Cui Bono?
I suggest we start using extra-judicial executions against alleged criminals in the US. After all, many more Americans die each year from murders than from terrorism. Let's just cover our skies with drones and bomb murderers and alleged murderers from the sky. If their families are killed in the same strike, it's all the better because it will prevent future murderers from being born.
And think about the message America sends to Palestinians. They have now the most lenient, compromising and co-operating Palestinian leader who has disavowed violent resistance, jailed Hamas activist, has turned his forces into Israel's security contractors, relinquished the right of return, etc. etc etc. yet Israeli settlements are expanding by the day and the US vetos his statehood.
What would you conclude if you were Palestinian? We all know that there is absolutely no intention on behalf of Israel or the US to allow for Palestinian statehood. At most they will get Bantustans with no control of their borders, air, sea or water.
As I wrote before, it's time for a paradigm change. Israeli Apartheid should end just like S. Africa's Apartheid: not by creating Bantustans through a 'peace process' but by equality for all in all of the land.
As you well know, prof. Cole, Israel is a de-facto Apartheid State. There are Jews and Palestinians living all over the land and there is one state with a unified grid of roads, electricity and control. As you also know, different laws apply to West Bank Jews than to West Bank non-Jews, which makes it Apartheid par excellence.
Apartheid ends by granting equality to all, not by creating Bantustans for the natives. It is time the world started changing the paradigm and instead of talking about a sham 'peace process' or a sham 'Palestinian statehood', we started adopting the model of equality, much like it was done in S. Africa. That has always been the only solution, as unpleasant as it is for supporters of the "Jewish State" paradigm, which has become a synonym for discrimination, dispossession and oppression.
The futile insistence on a "Palestinian State" which will amount to no more than a chain of enclaves without control of their air, water, sea or borders, is just a distraction from the true solution to discrimination: equality and democracy.
In a way, the Palestinian leadership is working against the true interests of Palestinians and despite their burning desire to rid themselves of Israeli oppression, they should not play into the hands of Israel by participation in the "peace process" game, which at the best will make them prisoners with slightly improved prison conditions. No worthy leader will lead his people to such existence and consider this an achievement.
Funny that you mention Lieberman. For an American, it is hard to imagine a Secretary of State who calls for the expulsion of hispanics from the United States to "preserve the white nature of America".
But this is exactly what the US is supporting in Israel and what Congress bows to subserviently when Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks.
It is a sad sad state of affairs indeed. And I don't see a way out.
You should have noted that the report is not an impartial "fact finding commission" but a political report that was meant to patch relations between Israel and Turkey. It gives each side a little bit. Thus the compromise: the blockade is "justified" but "excessive force was unnecessary".
Unfortunately, Turkey, with its desire to get an apology from Israel and put this incident in the past, played into the hands of Israel's right wing government.
The blockade, which collectively punishes 1.5 million impoverished stateless people (stateless because Israel prevents them independence yet denies them citizenship, thus resulting in a perpetual "limbo") and prevents them from importing or exporting and locks them in an open air prison where they have to dig tunnels like animals to smuggle in basic necessities, can only be considered "legal" if we go back to Biblical moral codes...
In addition, killing point blank execution style unarmed people in international waters described with the soft language of "excessive force" was another attempt by Turkey to appease Israel and receive an apology.
In the end, Turkey's appeasement of Israel not only did not result in the apology but has played into Israel by justifying its criminal policies. Turkey is mad and you can see why.
The lesson is clear: do not try to appease Israel. Everyone who has tried in the past, came later to regret it, including the US which now finds itself as an obedient servant to Zionist interests dictated by Tel Aviv, despite having spent well over $100 billion and its entire political capital.
I wonder why a single post on some obscure website got so much press exposure? Oh yes, because it's "radical muslims", the new bogeyman of Western Society. You had a bunch of tv talking heads not long ago calling for killing Julian Assange over the airwaves, not on some obscure website. I don't see them sitting in jail or investigated by the FBI.
It's really not worth your time to analyze what a deranged xenophobe thinks or believes. All we know that Islamophobia is a form of xenophobia and replaces the old antisemitism in Europe, which is no longer acceptable. The bigots of the world need someone new to hate and they found it in Muslims. Anti-muslim sentiment is unfortunately acceptable and politicians who espouse those views are not denounced like antisemites. Add to that Rupert Murdoch's network of propaganda channels that spew fear and hatred 24/7 and you will have every now and then someone who will heed the call and attack muslims or whoever he considers muslim-friendly.
Your idea wouldn't work for the simple fact that people are very price sensitive so any attempt to add to the price of a digital book will fail, unless people do it as a "donation" which is not a solid business foundation.
So if I see the book on the Borders app for $20 (say including $2 for borders), I would use my smartphone to go to Amazon and download the exact same book for $18. I also suspect that the donation for a physical store would have to be much larger to support real estate and a staff of employees.
Yes, record stores, video stores, book stores and possibly newspapers are going to be things of the past. Kind of hard to even imagine growing up without a record or a book store to go to but this is a new world. People will find other pastimes.
You can call it by name, Juan. Gaza has become a concentration camp (not an extermination camp, if you insist on accuracy) for the native Palestinians, run by Jews, who somehow claim the eternal victim title. The amazing thing is that unlike Germany, they are doing their evil deeds in peace time and with the entire so-called "civilized west",with the US foremost, turning a blind eye and in fact abetting this crime. Warsaw Ghetto didn't have a list of permitted food items and the shortages there stemmed from war-time shortages, just to show you that the Jews have in some ways exceeded their German torturers with their creativity, and you can imagine what they would do under the fog of total-war (Nakba II has always been a part of the Zionist blueprint. It's just a matter of timing and opportunity but unless the Arab world unites and stands on its feet, the Palestinians' fate has already been sealed.)
I think your comment about the Ten Commandments is superfluous as is engaging in theological debate. The original Ten Commandments are a tribal code for dealing with people of the Tribe. This is why the most famous of all, Though Shalt Not Murder, refers specifically to murder, not the misinterpreted and universal Kill. There is nothing in the Ten Commandments that forbids killing, stealing, etc. from other tribes, and as a proof, just read the book of Joshua, where God orders the stealing of someone else's land and the genocide of men, women, elderly, down to the babies and farm animals - for the only reason of having dwelt on a land that a real estate agent God has promised to his chosen tribe...