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More Hypocrisy
On Feb. 15, Clinton continued giving hypocrisy a bad name, with her GWU speech regarding the importance of governments respecting peaceful dissent. Five short paragraphs after she watched me snatched out of the audience Blackwater-style, she said, "Iran is awful because it is a government that routinely violates the rights of its people." It was like something straight out of Franz Kafka.
Today, given the growing instability in the Middle East -- and Netanyahu's strident talk about Iran's dangerous influence -- it may take yet another Herculean effort by Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen to disabuse Netanyahu of the notion that Israel can somehow provoke the kind of confrontation with Iran that would automatically suck the U.S. into the conflict on Israel's side.
At each such turning point, Secretary Clinton predictably sides with the hard-line Israeli position and shows remarkably little sympathy for the Palestinians or any other group that finds itself in Israel's way.
It is now clear, not only from the WikiLeaks documents, but even more so from the "Palestine Papers" disclosed by Al Jazeera, that Washington has long been playing a thoroughly dishonest "honest-broker" role between Israel and the Palestinians. But those documents don't stand alone. Clinton also rejected the Goldstone Report's criticism of Israel's bloody attack on Gaza in 2008-09; she waffled on Israel's fatal commando raid on a Turkish relief flotilla on its way to Gaza in 2010; and she rallied to the defense of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak this month when Israeli leaders raised alarms about what kind of regime might follow him.
Just last week, Clinton oversaw the casting of the U.S. veto to kill a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Israel to stop colonizing territories it occupied in 1967. That vote was 14 to 1, marking the first such veto by the Obama administration. Netanyahu was quick to state that he "deeply appreciated" the U.S. stance.
Silent Witness
In the face of such callous disregard for what the Founders called "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind," words failed me -- literally -- on Feb. 15. The op-eds, the speeches, and the interviews that others and I have done about needless war and feckless politicians may have done some good but, surely, they have not done enough. And America's Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) is the embodiment of a Fourth Estate that is dead in the water.
I counted about 20 TV cameras at the Clinton speech and reporters galore. Not one thought to come outside to watch what was happening to me, and zero reporting on the incident has found its way into the FCM, save a couple of brief and misleading accounts.
A Fox News story claimed that "a heckler interrupted" Clinton's speech and then "was escorted from the room." Fox News added that I "was, perhaps, trying to hold up a sign." CNN posted a brief clip with a similar insistence that I had "interrupted" Clinton's speech, though the video shows me saying nothing until after I'm dragged away (or "escorted") when I say, "So this is America." There also was no sign.
Disappointing, but not surprising. But I guess I really do believe that the good is worth doing because it is good. It shouldn't matter that there is little or no guarantee of success -- or even of a truthful recounting of what happened.
Jail
One of my friends, in a good-natured attempt to make light of my arrest and brief imprisonment, commented that I must be used to it by now. I thought of how anti-war activist Dan Berrigan responded to that kind of observation in his testimony at the Plowshares Eight trial 31 years ago. I feel blessed by his witness and fully identify with what he said about "the push of conscience":
"With every cowardly bone in my body, I wished I hadn't had to do it. That has been true every time I have been arrested. My stomach turns over. I feel sick. I feel afraid. I hate jail. I don't do well there physically."But I have read that we must not kill. I have read that children, above all, are threatened by this. I have read that Christ our Lord underwent death rather than inflict it. And I'm supposed to be a disciple.
"The push of conscience is a terrible thing."
As Friend Berrigan clearly understood, the suffering of the victims of war is so much worse than the shock and discomfort of arrest.
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