Painful, but important reading. Thank you for never looking away, and for your commitment to always show us the role we play in what happens in the world.
Chris, 2nd Para 3rd line I think should be International Court of Justice instead of Criminal Court. Although I think both can adjudicate on the countries and individuals perpetuating this genocide. With the stopping of aid to UNRWA I believe 18 or 19 countries now join in complicity in genocide, and flaunt the ruling of the ICJ to order Israel to let aid in to Gaza.
I don’t know what is worse about Blinken: if he was surprised that Israel refused the deal (it’s clear they want annihilation, not peace) or if he was not surprised (and he was simply buying more time for this mass starvation).
I’m picturing you now with tears streaming down your face and not knowing what to do next, and feeling nothing at all. You carry all the suffering imposed on those you’ve witnessed suffer. It’s too much for one man to bear. Know that we are sharing in your despair.
Yes, we are all sharing in your despair, Chris, and in the outrage and helplessness in the face of this endless brutal assault on the lives of all those in Gaza/Palestine. The priceless gift you give in every one of your posts is that from a lifetime's work of bearing witness to the worst suffering of countless martyrs caused, to my mind, most often by the voracious Western forces of greed and destruction, is of giving living words, horrific images based in experience and especially embodied feelings, passion and outrage to what the trapped Gazans are now enduring and to the helpless horror we are all experiencing in the pits of our stomachs. The danger of prolonged helplessness is of isolation and going numb. I feel such gratitude to you for providing this site, this hard earned container of your broad lived experience, that helps us all to continue to hold together the unimaginable suffering of our brothers and sisters in Gaza. As Mary says, it is much too much for one man to bear.
So long as the Men of the Resistance exist in the Tunnel Under-city, it matters not if the Vile Zionist Scum Starve, Bomb, etc., with Impunity: Palestine will Still be Free. & it will be Prosperous & it will Live. That said, Palestinians & their friends will not forget these Crimes & Vengeance will be enacted for said Barbarism, whether its perpetrators & collaborators like it or not.
OMG. We in the USA need to know the extent of the criminal war of Israel on what remains of Palestine, the already devastated Gaza strip. The USA Hegemonic country and allies are obvious murderers, along with all the countries who don't step forward to sanction and stop this crime are obviously criminal organizations who will not stop. Woe to them who perpetrate this evil. They and their ilk have no humanity as they kill our world by their actions. Thank you for exposing them, Chris. Not In Our Names.
When will humans ever learn. Never it seems. History is doomed to repeat itself over and over again in different generations, despite the history books. I hope Israel and the U.S. reap what they sow someday for what they have done.
This is an absolute scandal. A monstrous enterprise. A disgusting complicity in genocide. I am ashamed of being a Canadian. I can imagine the shame that some of you must feel of being an American. These events will change forever the course of my life.
I plan to include your graphic description of starvation in the email I send to biden et al tomorrow--I've already sent the one for today.
I never thought anything could top the soul-sucking horror of whatshisname's reign of terror and all that entailed, but this 24/7 livestreamed genocide and the official us response is so much worse. That's the best I can do, 'so much worse' bc there are no words to describe the horror of it all.
Reading your books and articles, watching your talks has made me understand what the phrase 'speaking truth to power' means.
It is horrible to watch this tragedy unfold and know that my government, the US government, bears significant responsibility for it. I felt that Biden was doing a fairly good job as President, until the Gaza war revealed who is actually is.
Long before he was obviously senile, he was one of the principal congressional architects of the War On Iraq, as well as sponsoring a bill back in the 1990s much like what was later adopted as the so-called "Patriot Act".
I'm glad you mention that Biden was already a full-fledged war criminal for being one of he main architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Here, from the horse's mouth, you can hear him using Bush's talking points to sell it to the Senate. I've never understood how Democrats, especially progressive ones, have been able to give him a free pass for that. Joseph Goebbels didn't fire a bullet or drop a bomb, and yet for helping create and propagate Hitler's crimes, he's considered one of the biggest war criminals who have ever live. So should Joe Biden, for Iraq and for being the main partner in the strategy of dropping high explosives on children in a concentration camp. https://youtu.be/Ru5djS2GSVk
Yes...Biden had pushed for the war in Iraq before Bush Jr did...he has always been a war monger.........Sad that Americans for the most part are more interested in entertaining them and get their news from the worthless main TV reporters. Look at how many in Congress has accepted $ from AIPAC and Joe Biden is at the top of the list.
Not to mention being the Chmn of Senate Foreign Relations, the last obstacle to the Iraq atrocities. He and Blinken cheerled that fateful Senste vote. Reward? For that slaughter? Biden gets the DNC-ushered presidency and Blinken? Sec of State.
As for dementia he related this week how he’d been talking to Mitterrand and Kohl, (sans oiuja board). He’ll be discussing his plans to invade Assyria any day.
Biden doesn't actually run the US. He was put in place by some shady cabal BECAUSE he has dementia and they know they can keep him in line. Maybe they promised him that he could have some pudding after he got up from his nap.
I think they promised him his son wouldn’t face a day in prison. They came through on that promise and he’s been exonerated on keeping classified documents because he’s too senile to bother to prosecute.
I believe the only reason we don't have absolute runaway inflation (yet) is Biden did the bulk of the bidding of our oligarch handlers and we spent $10+ of created funny money since March of 2020 (we now spend $2B a day to service our level of federal operating debt) just to keep our lips above the level of shit in the budget cesspool we have been wallowing in for the past 3 years. And Jerome thinks elected officials need to currently have an "adult conversation" about our level of debt. Ya think, Jerome?
I suppose you think Biden is not an elected official and is outside of Jerome's critique?? Well, come to think of it, based on all the voter fraud in 2020, he likely isn't.
Except Jerome is no better, either. Read “The Lords Of Easy Money” and learn about that dude and how he made his fortune at the Carlyle Group. Typical hedge fund pillaging. The Fed is a terrible revolving door, too. Nobody looking out for the masses….well, maybe Thomas Hoenig was trying, but they ensured he wasn’t heard.
I don't care for the Fed. Reserve cartel anymore than I do the Electoral College cartel. I think the U.S. Dept. of Treasury should continue to be able to print its own money and sell bonds, but should have to balance its budget every year by statute. I also, believe that it is high time the U.S. abolish its electoral college. Popular vote is sufficient members of Congress and Executives.
BTW, the masses should look out from themselves. Counting on governments or quasi government entities to do that for you is not have a Republic works...and a recipe for disaster. Doing that is simply another reason we have ended up where we are at today--$34T in the hole.
A heart-wrenching yet necessary piece of writing. I am sitting here thinking of the scenes that Chris Hedges describes, those nightmare scenes from his time in Sudan. His gloomy world-view can certainly be understood more than ever. Nothing changes; mankind wants to think they'll be better than before, better humans. But we're not. I say we because I haven't done much at all. Made some noise; made a bunch of phone calls, wrote letters, sent emails. Spoke to and encourages others to contact DC or their local Rep's and demand a permanent cease-fire. But the nightmare rolls on, as Netanyahu bares his dark soul and his blood-lust to the world with pride. He smugly and casually walks toward his killing machines every day and says, "more"; more killing, more taking more inhumanity, all because I say it's right. He and his fellow murderers say it's right. The US goes right along with him, and with the killing, justifying the horror show by reminding us how Israel is our friend. Our guilt over WW2 and the holocaust drives us to contribute to this holocaust. Misplaced guilt. But hey they're the dark ones, the "sub-humans", as Israel calls Palestinians. They don't matter. The corpses pile up. The bones pile up. Israel marches on smiling, from the river to the sea. America smiles with them. And I am ashamed.
Hedges has been pounding us with Gaza darkness for the past 4 months while completely ignoring "his" U.S. working class ... it only took me about a week after the OCT 7 attacks in Gaza to adequately understand what the fate of the Palestinians really was ... on the one hand, it is Hedges' right to comment on any issue he chooses ... but on the other, he has urged us to directly confront tyranny for the past two decades but has clearly deserted the U.S. working class since the MAR '20 lockdowns.
I agree. Arab countries too. They will of course all be deemed to be the financera if Hamas, just like South Africa is called Hamas’s lawyer…but at this point, who cares. But that is the problem isn’t it…information think the Arab countries or Russia or China actually care. Only Lebanon and Yemen (by their militant factions) have shown any support at all.
I think you’re talking about the Arab countries. I was impressed by their restraint too. But I don’t see how this ends without more violence. Israel won’t stop, any more than Germany would stop in WW2. And it’s not going to stop in Gaza. It will go on on throughout Palestine and into Lebanon and Jordan and Syria and Egypt. The Israelis have already talks about clearing out miles of Lebanon for their security.
Arab countries know this. So do western ones.
Nobody wants WW3. But who wants a world where Israel gets to eliminate whatever people they want? In 1939 and later in the 40s western counties said enough. But that was when Europe was under threat. No it’s wanted WW2 either. But Hitler didn’t leave many options…it was war or fall to Nazi occupation.
Now we are to believe its nuclear war or Israeli occupation.
There must be some alternative to WW3 that is not leaving the Palestinians to languish and die and Israel unpunished .
If not, is this world worth saving? And, if our leaders can’t come up with any l’alternative, then that sort of leadership will lead to the world’s demise sooner or later…if not through war, through climate catastrophe.
The time for real leadership is now.
I don’t see it coming from the west. I hope and pray it comes from the east and global south. We need it from wherever we can get it.
And let us not forget vengeance. Hundreds of thousands of German speaking civilians were shot, starved or otherwise murdered after the war by the citizens of the former occupied countries. Anyone thinks that this will not blow back upon us and the Israelis is ignorant.
Vengeance is a human reaction. But so is the will to contain it. It’s the internal battle between good and evil. We’d love to think those things are external, but I don’t think so. It’s in every one of us. We each have to decide which way we go. To be good is not so easy….i think it hurts a lot.
It may not be about "caring." It may be because many are relatively small, not backed by comparable Military-Industrial Complex Force or nuclear weapons, and have seen what happens to Middle Eastern and African countries with oil & resources who don't cooperate with U.S./Britain/Israeli/Western aims and "national interests" (for oil, natural gas, oil & weapons "pipelines," and other resources), like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, now Gaza, etc. etc..... As Jenny points out, if BRICS nations step in, couldn't that trigger WWIII? And it's surely obvious to them who would most suffer.
Also, those so-called "oil rich countries" are no longer so oil rich after a full century of gradual (and not so gradual) Western take-overs by U.S., Britain, Canada, NATO, Chevron, BP, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, etc. Those underdeveloped countries did not have the means and equipment to extract their own oil, so they naively or under threat made "bargains" that cost them their freedom - with OPEC, with the above nations/ oil industry conglomerates, becoming saddled with debt to the IMF, being swept into the U.S./Britain/France/Germany/NATO weapons pipeline as part of those deals. Basically, the Middle East has been "Balkanized" and divided, endured regime changes, destabilized, set against one another and live in fear that they might be next. These are just a couple of articles. There are many:
The Balkanization of our own minds by politically driven media and cultural controls is more subtle and pernicious and what we all need to stay vigilant to. Othering, not just the newest "terrorist," but that WE are more human than some, any, current OTHER. National structures of power are not the ordinary human beings who live and work, have gardens, farms, pets graduations, professions, dreams; who have lives just as we do within those national structures. And many of those unstable structures, again, like Israel and Palestine, or North and South Yemen, are the deliberate product of ongoing Colonialism that purposefully created and fomented tribal hatreds and national structures at odds with the populations they contain.
These deliberate distorted divisions the U.S. et al have perpetrated on the world are already coming back to bite us. "Divide and conquer" increasingly comes home as the rich become super-rich and the poor get poorer and more disenfranchised. The immigrants who put the food on our tables turned upon, modern slavery thriving under cover of prisons, ethnic groups especially brown and black skinned, and non-so called "Christian" religions targeted, the police increasingly militarized, merging with ICE, and hatreds fanned, the political take-over of women's creative bodies..... And we have two corrupt corporate political parties, represented by two sociopaths, Biden and Trump, and their chosen media outlets that fill the airwaves and our minds daily with incessant garbage designed to divide and inflame families and friends, cultivating tribalism, Us against Them.
I personally think most people are not so much capable of initiating true intentional Evil, which is its own category at the far reaches of the Human spectrum, relegated to those last two circles and the frozen pit of hell in Dante's vision, as they are of being traumatized and caste under spells, caught in sticky webs of lies and obfuscations, some starting in early childhood, that are a major tool of the forces of Power and Greed. Delusion and ignorance are more primary - it is no accident that increasing numbers of books are being banned, what can be taught in schools curtailed, and that we now have a stacked Supreme Court. Yes, those caught in these webs can be used by Power, but they are also more capable of transformation and waking up.
A valid and much needed question which I too ask...and I think the answer is, we simply can't learn. I don;t know what else to believe about this, except that mankind's "civilization" is greatly overrated, to say the least.
We need to learn that we cannot harm anyone without harming ourselves. We need to settle into love to reward the details, we have the emotional intelligence until we are being tortured and our senses have been robbed.
What makes you think you should be spared of any burden? Go to Al-Jazeera anytime to see it first hand for yourself. You're just a obligated as the next person. In fact, if you're a U.S. or Israeli citizen, then doubly so; these are the two countries that could stop the genocide tomorrow (by choice) without risking WWIII.
This article is a paradox in that while reading its content I think that words cannot describe the horrors yet you, Mr Hedges, did just that.
I hope all of us can muster the courage to confront the U.S. government officials, elected and appointed, who enable this killing field that was formerly Palestine when the opportunity presents itself.
Like you Robert I have been in a war zone in Sri Lanka. This is the truth of what is happening to the Palestinians. I have seen Sri Lankan soldiers watching an emaciated man grovelling to get food which was shoved in his face. Each time he reached out the soldiers moved back and laughed.
There are some real bastards in this world. No wonder the pop culture version of Hell is such a hit. It's almost impossible to hear stories like yours and Hedges' and not react in the moment with the thought, if only such monsters could burn in it, if only such people could be struck down by some sort of divine justice. If only...
Sometimes it's unfortunate being an atheist and not a full on Jesus-will-return-on-horse-with-flaming-sword-to-strike-down-the-infidels confused kind of Evangelical. I desperately need a better vocabulary of curses and insults for monsters like those soldiers.
I too am of no religion. Despite what I have seen (a lot of it still makes me cry) something in man just seems to crack and they become like savages. I have no idea why this happens! It's hard to be a bystander and not able to do anything.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. —Blaise Pascal" cited by Mr. Hedges in his essential book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America".
Yes BUT some of these atrocities by Israeli soldiers is something else entirely. Stripping people naked, then torturing is something else. It's like human depravity at it's worst. Social killing.
I consider it like the killing of heretics and witches that Cristians did long ago: after torturing the victims for a long time they burned them alive at the stake. The difference in Palestine today is that the Jews torture the Muslims and later drop an American bomb in top of them claiming some celestial land gift.
Painful, but important reading. Thank you for never looking away, and for your commitment to always show us the role we play in what happens in the world.
Chris, 2nd Para 3rd line I think should be International Court of Justice instead of Criminal Court. Although I think both can adjudicate on the countries and individuals perpetuating this genocide. With the stopping of aid to UNRWA I believe 18 or 19 countries now join in complicity in genocide, and flaunt the ruling of the ICJ to order Israel to let aid in to Gaza.
I don’t know what is worse about Blinken: if he was surprised that Israel refused the deal (it’s clear they want annihilation, not peace) or if he was not surprised (and he was simply buying more time for this mass starvation).
I’m picturing you now with tears streaming down your face and not knowing what to do next, and feeling nothing at all. You carry all the suffering imposed on those you’ve witnessed suffer. It’s too much for one man to bear. Know that we are sharing in your despair.
Yes Mary. I saw this and fixed it. Thanks.
Yes, we are all sharing in your despair, Chris, and in the outrage and helplessness in the face of this endless brutal assault on the lives of all those in Gaza/Palestine. The priceless gift you give in every one of your posts is that from a lifetime's work of bearing witness to the worst suffering of countless martyrs caused, to my mind, most often by the voracious Western forces of greed and destruction, is of giving living words, horrific images based in experience and especially embodied feelings, passion and outrage to what the trapped Gazans are now enduring and to the helpless horror we are all experiencing in the pits of our stomachs. The danger of prolonged helplessness is of isolation and going numb. I feel such gratitude to you for providing this site, this hard earned container of your broad lived experience, that helps us all to continue to hold together the unimaginable suffering of our brothers and sisters in Gaza. As Mary says, it is much too much for one man to bear.
So long as the Men of the Resistance exist in the Tunnel Under-city, it matters not if the Vile Zionist Scum Starve, Bomb, etc., with Impunity: Palestine will Still be Free. & it will be Prosperous & it will Live. That said, Palestinians & their friends will not forget these Crimes & Vengeance will be enacted for said Barbarism, whether its perpetrators & collaborators like it or not.
(For those interested)
If you wish to read (& listen!) to more of My commentary, here is my Main Stack:
https://thefallofthewest.substack.com
Thank You Kindly to everyone!
OMG. We in the USA need to know the extent of the criminal war of Israel on what remains of Palestine, the already devastated Gaza strip. The USA Hegemonic country and allies are obvious murderers, along with all the countries who don't step forward to sanction and stop this crime are obviously criminal organizations who will not stop. Woe to them who perpetrate this evil. They and their ilk have no humanity as they kill our world by their actions. Thank you for exposing them, Chris. Not In Our Names.
When will humans ever learn. Never it seems. History is doomed to repeat itself over and over again in different generations, despite the history books. I hope Israel and the U.S. reap what they sow someday for what they have done.
This is an absolute scandal. A monstrous enterprise. A disgusting complicity in genocide. I am ashamed of being a Canadian. I can imagine the shame that some of you must feel of being an American. These events will change forever the course of my life.
I hope you are aware of Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East. cjpme.org
Thanks for this link
I plan to include your graphic description of starvation in the email I send to biden et al tomorrow--I've already sent the one for today.
I never thought anything could top the soul-sucking horror of whatshisname's reign of terror and all that entailed, but this 24/7 livestreamed genocide and the official us response is so much worse. That's the best I can do, 'so much worse' bc there are no words to describe the horror of it all.
Reading your books and articles, watching your talks has made me understand what the phrase 'speaking truth to power' means.
It is horrible to watch this tragedy unfold and know that my government, the US government, bears significant responsibility for it. I felt that Biden was doing a fairly good job as President, until the Gaza war revealed who is actually is.
Biden has always been this way.
Long before he was obviously senile, he was one of the principal congressional architects of the War On Iraq, as well as sponsoring a bill back in the 1990s much like what was later adopted as the so-called "Patriot Act".
I'm glad you mention that Biden was already a full-fledged war criminal for being one of he main architects of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Here, from the horse's mouth, you can hear him using Bush's talking points to sell it to the Senate. I've never understood how Democrats, especially progressive ones, have been able to give him a free pass for that. Joseph Goebbels didn't fire a bullet or drop a bomb, and yet for helping create and propagate Hitler's crimes, he's considered one of the biggest war criminals who have ever live. So should Joe Biden, for Iraq and for being the main partner in the strategy of dropping high explosives on children in a concentration camp. https://youtu.be/Ru5djS2GSVk
Hell, Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Streicher never personally murdered a single Untermensch, yet both hanged at Nuremberg.
Yes...Biden had pushed for the war in Iraq before Bush Jr did...he has always been a war monger.........Sad that Americans for the most part are more interested in entertaining them and get their news from the worthless main TV reporters. Look at how many in Congress has accepted $ from AIPAC and Joe Biden is at the top of the list.
Not to mention being the Chmn of Senate Foreign Relations, the last obstacle to the Iraq atrocities. He and Blinken cheerled that fateful Senste vote. Reward? For that slaughter? Biden gets the DNC-ushered presidency and Blinken? Sec of State.
As for dementia he related this week how he’d been talking to Mitterrand and Kohl, (sans oiuja board). He’ll be discussing his plans to invade Assyria any day.
Biden doesn't actually run the US. He was put in place by some shady cabal BECAUSE he has dementia and they know they can keep him in line. Maybe they promised him that he could have some pudding after he got up from his nap.
He's not doing any job at all as president.
I think they promised him his son wouldn’t face a day in prison. They came through on that promise and he’s been exonerated on keeping classified documents because he’s too senile to bother to prosecute.
Yep. Just like they exonerated Reagan because they thought he was too popular to prosecute.
Significant responsibility!
He along with many countries is complicit in genocide.
"doing a fairly good job as President..."
You must be joking. How do you figure that?
I believe the only reason we don't have absolute runaway inflation (yet) is Biden did the bulk of the bidding of our oligarch handlers and we spent $10+ of created funny money since March of 2020 (we now spend $2B a day to service our level of federal operating debt) just to keep our lips above the level of shit in the budget cesspool we have been wallowing in for the past 3 years. And Jerome thinks elected officials need to currently have an "adult conversation" about our level of debt. Ya think, Jerome?
I suppose you think Biden is not an elected official and is outside of Jerome's critique?? Well, come to think of it, based on all the voter fraud in 2020, he likely isn't.
Except Jerome is no better, either. Read “The Lords Of Easy Money” and learn about that dude and how he made his fortune at the Carlyle Group. Typical hedge fund pillaging. The Fed is a terrible revolving door, too. Nobody looking out for the masses….well, maybe Thomas Hoenig was trying, but they ensured he wasn’t heard.
To be fair, I never inferred he was.
I don't care for the Fed. Reserve cartel anymore than I do the Electoral College cartel. I think the U.S. Dept. of Treasury should continue to be able to print its own money and sell bonds, but should have to balance its budget every year by statute. I also, believe that it is high time the U.S. abolish its electoral college. Popular vote is sufficient members of Congress and Executives.
BTW, the masses should look out from themselves. Counting on governments or quasi government entities to do that for you is not have a Republic works...and a recipe for disaster. Doing that is simply another reason we have ended up where we are at today--$34T in the hole.
A heart-wrenching yet necessary piece of writing. I am sitting here thinking of the scenes that Chris Hedges describes, those nightmare scenes from his time in Sudan. His gloomy world-view can certainly be understood more than ever. Nothing changes; mankind wants to think they'll be better than before, better humans. But we're not. I say we because I haven't done much at all. Made some noise; made a bunch of phone calls, wrote letters, sent emails. Spoke to and encourages others to contact DC or their local Rep's and demand a permanent cease-fire. But the nightmare rolls on, as Netanyahu bares his dark soul and his blood-lust to the world with pride. He smugly and casually walks toward his killing machines every day and says, "more"; more killing, more taking more inhumanity, all because I say it's right. He and his fellow murderers say it's right. The US goes right along with him, and with the killing, justifying the horror show by reminding us how Israel is our friend. Our guilt over WW2 and the holocaust drives us to contribute to this holocaust. Misplaced guilt. But hey they're the dark ones, the "sub-humans", as Israel calls Palestinians. They don't matter. The corpses pile up. The bones pile up. Israel marches on smiling, from the river to the sea. America smiles with them. And I am ashamed.
"Necessary"? ...
Hedges has been pounding us with Gaza darkness for the past 4 months while completely ignoring "his" U.S. working class ... it only took me about a week after the OCT 7 attacks in Gaza to adequately understand what the fate of the Palestinians really was ... on the one hand, it is Hedges' right to comment on any issue he chooses ... but on the other, he has urged us to directly confront tyranny for the past two decades but has clearly deserted the U.S. working class since the MAR '20 lockdowns.
Can other major governments like Russia or China make up UNRWA’s budget shortfall? I mean what’s a billion or two for these powers?
Let us, we the people, support UNRWA. If our governments won’t act in accordance with humanity, then we will. https://www.unrwausa.org/donate
Thank you for the link ❤️
I agree. Arab countries too. They will of course all be deemed to be the financera if Hamas, just like South Africa is called Hamas’s lawyer…but at this point, who cares. But that is the problem isn’t it…information think the Arab countries or Russia or China actually care. Only Lebanon and Yemen (by their militant factions) have shown any support at all.
mary.
I am impressed with these countries you mention. They are holding back mainly I believe because they see a WW3
Not every country thinks like the US.
I think you’re talking about the Arab countries. I was impressed by their restraint too. But I don’t see how this ends without more violence. Israel won’t stop, any more than Germany would stop in WW2. And it’s not going to stop in Gaza. It will go on on throughout Palestine and into Lebanon and Jordan and Syria and Egypt. The Israelis have already talks about clearing out miles of Lebanon for their security.
Arab countries know this. So do western ones.
Nobody wants WW3. But who wants a world where Israel gets to eliminate whatever people they want? In 1939 and later in the 40s western counties said enough. But that was when Europe was under threat. No it’s wanted WW2 either. But Hitler didn’t leave many options…it was war or fall to Nazi occupation.
Now we are to believe its nuclear war or Israeli occupation.
There must be some alternative to WW3 that is not leaving the Palestinians to languish and die and Israel unpunished .
If not, is this world worth saving? And, if our leaders can’t come up with any l’alternative, then that sort of leadership will lead to the world’s demise sooner or later…if not through war, through climate catastrophe.
The time for real leadership is now.
I don’t see it coming from the west. I hope and pray it comes from the east and global south. We need it from wherever we can get it.
Our leaders are a bunch of 'chicken shit' pompous gasbags. I truly am disgusted that so few have come forward.
Why is it the so many people are horrified and not politicians.
This will come back to haunt them all.
And let us not forget vengeance. Hundreds of thousands of German speaking civilians were shot, starved or otherwise murdered after the war by the citizens of the former occupied countries. Anyone thinks that this will not blow back upon us and the Israelis is ignorant.
Vengeance is a human reaction. But so is the will to contain it. It’s the internal battle between good and evil. We’d love to think those things are external, but I don’t think so. It’s in every one of us. We each have to decide which way we go. To be good is not so easy….i think it hurts a lot.
One wonders why the oil rich gulf states, and the BRICS Nations, have not stepped forward to fill the void.
It may not be about "caring." It may be because many are relatively small, not backed by comparable Military-Industrial Complex Force or nuclear weapons, and have seen what happens to Middle Eastern and African countries with oil & resources who don't cooperate with U.S./Britain/Israeli/Western aims and "national interests" (for oil, natural gas, oil & weapons "pipelines," and other resources), like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, now Gaza, etc. etc..... As Jenny points out, if BRICS nations step in, couldn't that trigger WWIII? And it's surely obvious to them who would most suffer.
Also, those so-called "oil rich countries" are no longer so oil rich after a full century of gradual (and not so gradual) Western take-overs by U.S., Britain, Canada, NATO, Chevron, BP, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, etc. Those underdeveloped countries did not have the means and equipment to extract their own oil, so they naively or under threat made "bargains" that cost them their freedom - with OPEC, with the above nations/ oil industry conglomerates, becoming saddled with debt to the IMF, being swept into the U.S./Britain/France/Germany/NATO weapons pipeline as part of those deals. Basically, the Middle East has been "Balkanized" and divided, endured regime changes, destabilized, set against one another and live in fear that they might be next. These are just a couple of articles. There are many:
America, Oil, and War in the Middle East.
https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/99/1/208/854761
Yemen’s Tragedy: War, Stalemate, and Suffering
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/yemen-crisis
The Balkanization of our own minds by politically driven media and cultural controls is more subtle and pernicious and what we all need to stay vigilant to. Othering, not just the newest "terrorist," but that WE are more human than some, any, current OTHER. National structures of power are not the ordinary human beings who live and work, have gardens, farms, pets graduations, professions, dreams; who have lives just as we do within those national structures. And many of those unstable structures, again, like Israel and Palestine, or North and South Yemen, are the deliberate product of ongoing Colonialism that purposefully created and fomented tribal hatreds and national structures at odds with the populations they contain.
These deliberate distorted divisions the U.S. et al have perpetrated on the world are already coming back to bite us. "Divide and conquer" increasingly comes home as the rich become super-rich and the poor get poorer and more disenfranchised. The immigrants who put the food on our tables turned upon, modern slavery thriving under cover of prisons, ethnic groups especially brown and black skinned, and non-so called "Christian" religions targeted, the police increasingly militarized, merging with ICE, and hatreds fanned, the political take-over of women's creative bodies..... And we have two corrupt corporate political parties, represented by two sociopaths, Biden and Trump, and their chosen media outlets that fill the airwaves and our minds daily with incessant garbage designed to divide and inflame families and friends, cultivating tribalism, Us against Them.
I personally think most people are not so much capable of initiating true intentional Evil, which is its own category at the far reaches of the Human spectrum, relegated to those last two circles and the frozen pit of hell in Dante's vision, as they are of being traumatized and caste under spells, caught in sticky webs of lies and obfuscations, some starting in early childhood, that are a major tool of the forces of Power and Greed. Delusion and ignorance are more primary - it is no accident that increasing numbers of books are being banned, what can be taught in schools curtailed, and that we now have a stacked Supreme Court. Yes, those caught in these webs can be used by Power, but they are also more capable of transformation and waking up.
Because they don't want WW3. Which could go nuclear. They are taking their time but unfortunately this means more people will die.
Louis Béchard
AN OTHER LOW FOR HUMANITY! IT MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING SENSE!! WHY WON'T WE
LEARN??
A valid and much needed question which I too ask...and I think the answer is, we simply can't learn. I don;t know what else to believe about this, except that mankind's "civilization" is greatly overrated, to say the least.
We need to learn that we cannot harm anyone without harming ourselves. We need to settle into love to reward the details, we have the emotional intelligence until we are being tortured and our senses have been robbed.
Thank you, Chris Hedges, for taking up the burden of having seen these things, and telling us, so we are spared that terrible seeing.
What makes you think you should be spared of any burden? Go to Al-Jazeera anytime to see it first hand for yourself. You're just a obligated as the next person. In fact, if you're a U.S. or Israeli citizen, then doubly so; these are the two countries that could stop the genocide tomorrow (by choice) without risking WWIII.
This article is a paradox in that while reading its content I think that words cannot describe the horrors yet you, Mr Hedges, did just that.
I hope all of us can muster the courage to confront the U.S. government officials, elected and appointed, who enable this killing field that was formerly Palestine when the opportunity presents itself.
"when the opportunity presents itself" Elections are approaching but we can write to our leaders any day of the year.
Even Pol Pot in Cambodia didn't achieve this.
Like you Robert I have been in a war zone in Sri Lanka. This is the truth of what is happening to the Palestinians. I have seen Sri Lankan soldiers watching an emaciated man grovelling to get food which was shoved in his face. Each time he reached out the soldiers moved back and laughed.
There are some real bastards in this world. No wonder the pop culture version of Hell is such a hit. It's almost impossible to hear stories like yours and Hedges' and not react in the moment with the thought, if only such monsters could burn in it, if only such people could be struck down by some sort of divine justice. If only...
Sometimes it's unfortunate being an atheist and not a full on Jesus-will-return-on-horse-with-flaming-sword-to-strike-down-the-infidels confused kind of Evangelical. I desperately need a better vocabulary of curses and insults for monsters like those soldiers.
Hi Emma.
I too am of no religion. Despite what I have seen (a lot of it still makes me cry) something in man just seems to crack and they become like savages. I have no idea why this happens! It's hard to be a bystander and not able to do anything.
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. —Blaise Pascal" cited by Mr. Hedges in his essential book "American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America".
Yes BUT some of these atrocities by Israeli soldiers is something else entirely. Stripping people naked, then torturing is something else. It's like human depravity at it's worst. Social killing.
I consider it like the killing of heretics and witches that Cristians did long ago: after torturing the victims for a long time they burned them alive at the stake. The difference in Palestine today is that the Jews torture the Muslims and later drop an American bomb in top of them claiming some celestial land gift.