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This evening's music features the master of the single entendre Bo Carter. Enjoy!

"Retribution often means that we eventually do to ourselves what we have done unto others."

-- Eric Hoffer

News and Opinion

‘Correct a black mark in US history’: former prisoners of Abu Ghraib get day in court

The first trial to contend with the post-9/11 abuse of detainees in US custody begins on Monday, in a case brought by three men who were held in the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The jury trial, in a federal court in Virginia, comes nearly 20 years to the day that the photographs depicting torture and abuse in the prison were first revealed to the public, prompting an international scandal that came to symbolize the treatment of detainees in the US “war on terror”.

The long-delayed case was brought by Suhail Najim Abdullah Al Shimari, Salah Al-Ejaili and As’ad Al-Zuba’e, three Iraqi civilians who were detained at Abu Ghraib, before being released without charge in 2004. (A fourth man, Taha Yaseen Arraq Rashid, was dismissed from the case in 2019.) The men are suing CACI Premier Technology, a private company that was contracted by the US government to provide interrogators at the prison. The company has fought for 16 years to get the case thrown out, ultimately losing its last appeal in November.

“This is a historic trial that we hope will deliver some measure of justice and healing for what President Bush rightly deemed disgraceful conduct that dishonored the United States and its values,” said Katherine Gallagher, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, or CCR, which brought the case on behalf of the former detainees.

The suit was filed under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows foreign nationals to file cases in US courts for violations of international law; the plaintiffs are seeking damages. Al-Ejaili, who now lives in Sweden, will be the first torture survivor to testify about his treatment while in US custody from inside a US federal court. The other two men will testify remotely from Iraq as they were not granted visas to travel.

Is Regional War at Stake as Israel Weighs Response to Iran?

Israel on high alert as it weighs response to Iranian attack

Israel is weighing its response to Iran’s unprecedented missile and drone assault on its territory, signalling on Sunday night that it would not immediately act alone, but insisting its forces remained on high alert and that the leadership had approved both “offensive and defensive action”. Washington warned it would not take part in any Israeli counter-offensive against Tehran, whose large-scale attack on Saturday night involved about 300 missiles and drones, almost all of which were intercepted before they could land in Israel.

Two members of Israel’s three-man war cabinet made statements suggesting they were taking a longer-term view of the response to Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israeli soil. But the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had not declared a formal decision by late on Sunday. ... The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, said the successful interception against the attack by the country’s air force and several allies was an opportunity for a new “strategic alliance” against Iran.

Gallant’s remarks followed a statement from Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s wartime unity government, who said: “[Israel] will build a regional coalition and exact the price from Iran in the fashion and timing that is right for us.” However, R Adm Daniel Hagari, the chief military spokesperson, added later on Sunday: “Over the last few hours we approved operational plans for both offensive and defensive action.”

Biden and his officials have sought to convince Netanyahu and his cabinet that the success of Israel’s missile defences, aided by the US, UK and other allies, in blocking the attack represented a victory in itself, demonstrating the unquestionable military superiority of Israel and its allies, and that a counterattack against Iran would be strategically unwise.

Biden also made it clear in a call to Netanyahu in the early hours of Sunday morning that the US would not take part in any such offensive on Iranian territory. “We are committed to defending Israel. We would not be a part of any response they do. This is a very consistent policy,” a senior administration official said. “Our aim is to deescalate regional tensions. We do not want a broader regional conflict. Our focus has been to contain this crisis.”

You'd never guess from this biased headline that Israel just bombed Iran's embassy. https://t.co/lxKiQ5kWhQ

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) April 12, 2024

Iran and Israel; Pressure to escalate and de-escalate

US Declines Israel’s Invitation To Start WW3 (For Now)

Iran has carried out its long-promised retaliation for Israel’s attack on its consulate building in Damascus, launching a massive barrage of drones and missiles which it claims hit and destroyed Israeli military targets, while Israel says they dealt only superficial damage with a few injuries. The US and its allies reportedly helped shoot down a number of the Iranian projectiles.

Just as we discussed in the lead-up to the strike, the western political-media class are acting as though this was a completely unprovoked attack launched against the innocent, Bambi-eyed victim Israel. Comments from western officials and pundits and headlines from the mass media are omitting the fact that Israel instigated these hostilities with its extreme act of aggression in Syria as much as possible. Here in Australia the Sydney Morning Herald write-up about the strike didn’t get around to informing its readers about the attack on the Iranian consulate until the tenth paragraph of the article, and said only that Iran had “accused” Israel of launching the attack because Israel has never officially confirmed it.

In any case, Iran says the attack is now over. Given that we’re not seeing any signs of massive damage, Iran’s reported claim that its retaliation would be calibrated to avoid escalation into a full-scale regional war seems to have been accurate, as does Washington’s reported claim that it didn’t expect the strike to be large enough to draw the US into war.

A new report from Axios says Biden has personally told Netanyahu that the US will not be supporting any Israeli military response to the Iranian strike. An anonymous senior White House official told Axios that Biden said to Netanyahu, “You got a win. Take the win,” in reference to the number of Iranian weapons that were taken out of the sky by the international coalition in Israel’s defense. Apparently helping to mitigate the damage from the Iranian attack is all the military commitment the White House is willing to make against Iran at this time.

And thank all that is holy for that. A war between the US alliance and Iran and its allies would be the stuff of nightmares, making the horrors we’ve been seeing in Gaza these last six months look like an episode of Peppa Pig.

But Washington merely declining to get involved is nowhere near enough. As the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi quipped on Twitter, “Biden needs to PREVENT further escalation, not just declare his desire to stay out of it.”

Not significant enough.

Biden needs to PREVENT further escalation, not just declare his desire to stay out of it. https://t.co/KQ0paadDtY

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) April 14, 2024

Indeed, Israel has already made it clear that it is going to be moving forward with an escalation against Iran. Israel’s Channel 12 cites an unnamed senior official saying the Iranian counter strike is going to receive an “unprecedented response”.

“Israel has already informed the Americans and governments in the region that its response is inevitable,” The Economist reports. “Its military options include launching drones at Iran, and long-range airstrikes on Iran, possibly on military bases or nuclear installations.”

It’s unclear at this time how much the latest message from the Biden administration will affect the calculations of this position, but the mass media are reporting that White House officials are worried Israel is getting ready to do something extremely reckless that could draw the US into a war it would rather avoid.

NBC News reports the following:

“Some top U.S. officials are concerned Israel could do something quickly in response to Iran’s attacks without thinking through potential fallout afterward, according to a senior administration official and a senior defense official.

“Those concerns stem in part from the administration’s views of the approach Israel has taken to its war against Hamas, as well as the attack in Damascus.

“President Joe Biden has privately expressed concern that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to drag the U.S. more deeply into a broader conflict, according to three people familiar with his comments.”

People have been raising this concern for some time now. Earlier this month Responsible Statecraft’s Paul Pillar wrote up a solid argument that Netanyahu stands a lot to gain personally from drawing the US into a war with Iran to help him with his legal and political troubles and take the focus off of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. 

Whether that’s the case or not it’s pretty absurd for the Biden administration to just sit around passively hoping this doesn’t happen as though it wouldn’t have a say in the matter, and as though there’s nothing it can do to prevent such an occurrence right now. Biden has had the ability to end this insane cycle of escalation in the middle east since it started six months ago by demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and demanding that Israel rein in its murder machine, just as US presidents have done successfully in the past.

Biden could end all this with one phone call. The fact that he doesn’t means he’s a monster, and no amount of mass media reports about how “concerned” and “frustrated” he is regarding Israel’s actions will ever change that.

Biden Tells Netanyahu ‘Take the Win’ And DO NOT ESCALATE After Thwarted Iran Attack On Israel

Alastair Crooke: Is Peace Possible?

Well worth a full read:, but this point is worth consideration on its own:

Iran Refuses to Bow — Can it Afford to Stand?

[T]he timing of the Israeli strike is telling in the extreme, coming as it did just days after the Joe Biden-Benjamin Netanyahu phone call during which the U.S. president reportedly laid down the law to the Israeli prime minister after an Israeli drone strike killed seven aid workers, six of them citizens of U.S. Western- allied countries.

In other words, was the Israeli airstrike on Iranian sovereign diplomatic territory in Damascus Netanyahu’s direct and withering riposte to a Biden administration that had “dared” to become overtly vocal in its criticism of the way the Israeli Defense Forces has been conducting its offensive in Gaza? The answer would seem to be implicit in the question.

What is unfolding now is a high stakes game of chess between both allies and adversaries. With this in mind, Biden’s “ironclad” guarantee of an American response should Iran mount an attack on Israel, which he announced immediately after Israel’s airstrike, has to all intents confirmed that Netanyahu has succeeded in snapping Biden back into line.

In so doing, Netanyahu has deftly weaponised a U.S. presidential election year in which a resurgent Donald Trump is hovering in the background as a putative hawkish alternative.

Nicaragua takes on Germany over Gaza genocide: an interview with Carlos Argüello Gómez

'Genocidal Actions' Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow

A week after Israeli officials promised the Biden administration they would open a border crossing and a port to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, relief organizations and the United Nations reported Friday that life-saving supplies are still being blocked, and warned that the White House must take more decisive action to force Israel to stop starving Palestinians.

The U.N. reported that just 212 aid trucks entered Gaza on Tuesday, far lower than the 467 reported by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who promised to "flood Gaza with aid" after a tense phone call between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden last Thursday.

The phone call came in response to Israel's bombing of a World Central Kitchen aid convoy that killed seven aid workers. On the call, Biden reportedly threatened to halt weapons deliveries unless a surge in humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza.

But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.

Netanyahu lied to Biden about the Erez crossing and the Ashdod port. They have not been opened to humanitarian aid for Gaza as he said they would. https://t.co/1CJp497dcK

— Frances 'Cassandra' Coppola (@Frances_Coppola) April 12, 2024

"Netanyahu scammed Biden again: A week after he promised to open the Erez crossing and Ashdod port to increase aid to Gaza, the [Israel Defense Forces] & port authorities say they NEVER received any instructions of this nature," said Muhammad Shehada, communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, citing reporting from Israel's N12 channel.

The Guardian reports that Israel has set an ultimate target of 500 aid trucks per day to enter Gaza—the same amount that delivered relief to residents before the Israeli bombardment rendered the enclave's food system, healthcare facilities, and other public services inoperable.

"The call for 500 trucks, with a combination of commercial and humanitarian shipments, is the absolute minimum," Juliette Touma, communications director for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told The Guardian. "Probably what Gaza needs is at least 1,000 trucks a day."

The U.N. found that just 141 aid trucks entered the enclave on Wednesday. The Washington Post reported that Israeli authorities have blocked aid deliveries containing items such as chocolate croissants, maternity kits, sleeping bags, stone fruits, and oxygen cylinders.

Jamie McGoldrick, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator, said Friday that "very limited" aid deliveries have continued to contribute to low birth weights in babies who have been born in northern Gaza in recent weeks.

"It's very easy for Israel to say, 'We've sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'" McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints "for hours" and that many roads are not open to deliveries.

"At no point in time in the last month and more have we had three or even two of those roads working at the same time simultaneously," said McGoldrick.

The news that Israel has not allowed a "flood" of aid into Gaza since Biden threatened Netanyahu with an end to weapons transfers came days after Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) that reports of famine in parts of Gaza are now "credible."

Save the Children confirmed on April 2 that at least 27 children have died of starvation and disease as a result of Israel's blockade, and U.N. agencies said in February that 5% of children under age 2 were acutely malnourished.

At least 33,634 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israeli forces since October, with U.S. weapons used in much of the bombardment.

At Foreign Affairs on Friday, Refugees International's president, Jeremy Konyndyk, and vice president for programs and policy, Hardin Lang, wrote that "as negotiations about a second cease-fire and hostages-for-prisoners swap gain steam, the United States has a crucial opportunity to press Israel to change course and allow a major famine-prevention effort."

Namely, they said, Biden must make good on his threat to cut off Israel's military aid—of which the U.S. is the largest international provider.

"The United States is likely the only outside power that can ensure a famine is avoided, given the leverage it has with its ally Israel," they wrote. "U.S. President Joe Biden must act now to make famine prevention a top priority and be prepared to deploy meaningful U.S. leverage—including pausing arms sales—if the Israeli government does not comply. Famine would not only constitute a humanitarian cataclysm; it would also represent a geopolitical failure that would damage U.S. credibility in the Middle East for years to come."

Konyndyk and Lang's call was echoed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which said Power's comments must push the president to take action.

"Inducing a famine by besieging an entire population and slaughtering innocent civilians are acts which no one can ignore, let alone justify," said CAIR national executive director Nihad Awad. "President Biden and his administration are enabling this famine and the deliberate cruelty targeting the Palestinian people in Gaza. He must take action to prevent further atrocities by demanding an immediate cease-fire, securing full access to humanitarian aid, ending all weapons transfers and other funding for Israel, and holding the war criminals in the Netanyahu government accountable for their genocidal actions."

Also on Friday, a U.S. coalition of groups including the Working Families Party, the Service Employees International Union, and the National Education Association wrote to Biden and urged him to enforce the Foreign Assistance Act, which bars the government from providing military support to countries that restrict humanitarian aid deliveries.

Ending arms transfers "will send a clear message that the Netanyahu government is not above the law and that the U.S. will not stand by while the war kills innocent Palestinians and continues to drive escalation throughout the region," reads the letter. "U.S. law is unequivocal: Countries that obstruct U.S. humanitarian aid cannot receive U.S. military aid under the Foreign Assistance Act or the Arms Export Control Act."

Larry Johnson: Will Biden Stick With Israel?

Biden’s renewed embrace of Israel threatens to deepen Democratic divide

“Ironclad,” said Joe Biden. “Ironclad,” said Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary. “Ironclad,” said the Senate leader Chuck Schumer, the House leader Hakeem Jeffries and the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer. In the wake of Saturday’s attack by Iran, Democrats united around a single word in expressing their commitment to Israel’s security. It was a sentiment that papered over, at least for now, cracks in the party over Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.

But Biden’s renewed embrace of Israel could deepen further a row over US support for Israel’s war in Gaza that has engulfed the Democratic party and pitted the White House against its progressive wing – a split that could sap Biden’s support in November’s crucial presidential election. These have been trying weeks for the US president. As Gaza’s death toll climbs and famine looms, criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war has been growing from the left and even the centre, with some calling for an end to US arms supplies. ...

This pressure, and the recent deaths of World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza, seemed to finally prompt a shift in Biden’s tone. Last week he branded Israel’s handling of the war a “mistake”. Even then he remained passive-aggressive, declining to impose any tangible consequences.

Then, on Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel on Saturday night in response to a suspected Israel attack on Iran’s Syria consulate on 1 April. Biden, cutting short a weekend stay at his Delaware beach house to meet with his national security team at the White House, was back in his instinctive comfort zone. His entire political career has been shaped by the view of Israel as a vulnerable ally in a hostile neighborhood that needs unequivocal US support. ...

Republicans seized on the attack to accuse Biden of weak leadership, claiming that only Trump could restore peace and stability to the world. Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee called for “aggressive retaliatory strikes on Iran”. If they succeed in shifting the terms of the debate, it will be even harder for the president to signal a break from Netanyahu. Amid the drumbeat for rallying against a common foe, Democrats who call for military aid to be conditioned will be accused of tone deaf appeasement.

US natsec honchos admit Ukraine is lost

China reaffirms ties with North Korea in high-level meeting

A top ranking Chinese official reaffirmed ties with North Korea during a meeting in Pyongyang on Saturday with the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, China’s state media reported, in the highest-level talks between the allies in years. The visit by Zhao Leji, who ranks third in the ruling Communist party hierarchy and heads the ceremonial parliament, came as North Korea has test-fired missiles to intimidate South Korea and its ally, the US.

The Xinhua news agency reported that Zhao told Kim at the meeting concluding his three-day visit that China, North Korea’s most important source of economic aid and diplomatic support, looked forward to further developing ties, but made no mention of the political situation on the peninsula or the region. Since the establishment of diplomatic ties 75 years ago, China and North Korea have been “good neighbours and struggled together to attain a common destiny and level of development”, Xinhua quoted Zhao as saying.

China fought on behalf of the reclusive communist state against the US and others during the 1950-1953 Korean war, and in recent years has helped prop up its weak economy, allegedly in violation of UN sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme, which Beijing had endorsed.

Zhao met his North Korean counterpart Choe Ryong-hae on Thursday and discussed how to promote exchanges and cooperation in all areas, the official North Korean central news agency reported.

Cornel West VP: 'RACIST' To Be Taylor Swift Fan

Biden closes gap on Trump but third-party candidates pose danger, polls show

Multiple new polls show Joe Biden strengthening slightly in the US presidential election, but suggest third-party candidates could present a risk to his chance of carrying the White House in November.

According to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Saturday, Biden has whittled down the four-point lead Donald Trump held in February, with Trump leading Biden 46% to 45% among registered voters. ...

Asked a follow-up question that added the independent candidates Robert F Kennedy Jr, an environmental lawyer and vaccine sceptic, the Harvard professor Cornel West, and the Green party figure Jill Stein, Biden took the greater hit to his support, leveling with Trump at 38%.

With Kennedy at 11%, West at 2%, and Stein at 1%, Jones calculated that Kennedy’s presence siphoned off five points of Biden’s support to Trump’s two.

Trump ENDORSES ‘Genocide Joe’ Chant At Rally: ‘They’re Not Wrong’

‘Grownup’ leaders are pushing us towards catastrophe, says former US climate chief

Political leaders who present themselves as “grownups” while slowing the pace of climate action are pushing the world towards deeper catastrophe, a former US climate chief has warned. “We are slowed down by those who think of themselves as grownups and believe decarbonisation at the speed the climate community calls for is unrealistic,” said Todd Stern, who served as a special envoy for climate change under Barack Obama, and helped negotiate the 2015 Paris agreement.

“They say that we need to slow down, that what is being proposed [in cuts to greenhouse gas emissions] is unrealistic,” he told the Observer. “You see it a lot in the business world too. It’s really hard [to push for more urgency] because those ‘grownups’ have a lot of influence.” But Stern said the speed of take-up of renewable energy, its falling cost, and the wealth of low-carbon technology now available were evidence that the world could cut emissions to net zero by 2050. “Obviously it’s difficult – we’re talking about enormous change to the world economy – but we can do it,” he said.

Stern would not name any world leaders, but he said the UK was in “retrenchment” over climate issues. Rishi Sunak and Claire Coutinho, the energy secretary, made several U-turns on climate policy last year, and have repeatedly said climate policies imposed “unacceptable costs on hard-pressed British families” and that by slowing such action they were “being pragmatic and protecting family finances”. Stern said that, in fact, delaying action to cut greenhouse gas emissions was leading to disaster, given the rapid acceleration of the climate crisis, which he said was happening faster than predicted when the Paris agreement was signed. “Look out your window – look at what’s happening,look at the preposterous heat. It’s ridiculous.” Leaders who claimed to be grownups by saying the pace of action had to be slowed had to be honest about the alternatives, he said.

Strasbourg court’s Swiss climate ruling could have global impact, say experts

A landmark legal ruling at the European court of human rights could open the floodgates for a slew of new court cases around the world, experts have said. The Strasbourg-based court said earlier this week that Switzerland’s failure to do enough to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions was a clear violation of the human rights of a group of more than 2,000 older Swiss women. The women argued successfully that their rights to privacy and family life were being breached because they were particularly vulnerable to the health impacts of heatwaves.

It was the first time the court, which is responsible for interpreting the European convention on human rights, a treaty signed by all members of the Council of Europe, had ruled on a climate change-related matter.

Lawyers, academics and campaigners will be poring over the 250-page judgment for months to come. But it is already clear that it marks a significant shift in the role that courts will play in addressing the climate crisis and how states will have to respond.

“The court really recognised that it cannot be that because everyone is affected no one has the right to seek justice for climate harm,” said Nikki Reisch, climate and energy director at the Center for International Environmental Law. “And it acknowledged that because of the clear impacts of climate change on human rights there is a basis for victims to make claims.”

The 17-judge panel did not prescribe exactly what Switzerland should do to address the problem, leaving it to the Council of Europe’s committee of ministers to come up with a solution. But it did lay out minimum governance standards that states should have “due regard” to, such as setting carbon budgets and interim targets, keeping these updated and based on the best available evidence, and being transparent about how well they are being met.

Oil and gas firms must pay more to drill on public lands under new Biden rule

Oil and gas companies will have to pay more to drill on public lands and satisfy stronger requirements to clean up old or abandoned wells, according to a final rule issued on Friday by the Biden administration. The interior department’s rule raises royalty rates for oil drilling by one-third, to 16.67%, in accordance with the sweeping 2002 climate law approved by Congress.

The previous rate of 12.5% paid by oil and gas companies for federal drilling rights had remained unchanged for a century. The federal rate was significantly lower than what many states and private landowners charge for drilling leases on state or private lands.

The new rule does not go so far as to prohibit new oil and gas leasing on public lands, as many environmental groups have urged and as President Joe Biden promised during the 2020 campaign. But officials said the proposal would lead to a more responsible leasing process that provides a better return to US taxpayers.

The plan codifies provisions in the climate law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as the 2021 infrastructure law and recommendations from an interior department report on oil and gas leasing issued in 2021.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Getting Gaza Right Is The Absolute Bare Minimum Requirement

Empire Managers Keep Acting Like Iran Is About To Attack Israel Without Provocation

MOA - Iranian Missiles Hit Israel

Yanis Varoufakis: My Berlin Speech on Palestine That German Police Entered the Venue to Ban

Will the American Oligarchy Accept Limits or Choose World War Three?

South Korea - DP wins resounding majority in crushing defeat for PPP

Chris Hedges: Requiem for The New York Times

‘Solar powered vacuum cleaners’: the native plants that could clean toxic soil

Israel is exporting its genocide regime. Who will stop them?

Gaza exposes US political class delusions like never before

A Little Night Music

Bo Carter - Banana In Your Fruit Basket

Bo Carter - Let's Get Drunk Again

Bo Carter - The Law Gonna Step On You

Bo Carter - Please Warm My Weiner

Bo Carter - All Around Man

Bo Carter - Beans

Bo Carter - I Want You to Know

Bo Carter - Pussy Cat Blues

Bo Carter - Cigarette Blues