Israel Matzav

The post-Bush era

Guantanamo Bay virtually closed; only the Republican Congress prevented it from really being closed in the archaic sense of actually being still open. Wanting to do something is far more important than mundanely doing it.

Predator targeted assassinations are as necessary and humane as three waterboarding incidents were not. I know that because Ivy League law deans are silent about, or have signed off on, the current targeted assassinations. After all, would you rather have water illegally poured down your throat, or legally be vaporized as if hit by lightning? We are not killing “terrorists” or “Islamists” in Waziristan; instead our “overseas contingency operations” are aimed at reminding Muslims that their own past contributions to science have led to breakthroughs like Hellfire missiles.

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No longer need we arbitrarily dub an Ahmadinejad, Assad, or a Chavez as “hostile” or a Colombia, India, Israel, Poland, or the Czech Republic intrinsically an “ally.” Easy labels are gone; sophisticated reset analysis is back — about what we would expect when we drop the nonsense about being “exceptional” and instead contextualize to the world our own past sins from slavery to genocide to dropping the atomic bombs.

No one now falls for “neocon” propaganda, so we wisely keep mum about Iranian protestors and their supposed “democracy” or Honduras justices and their talk of “constitutional government” — at least when authentic progressive leaders are in jeopardy from reactionary capitalists. After all, why wait 234 years for a revolutionary American president, and then when we finally get him, waste that historical occasion by not bonding with other revolutionary leaders?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:09 PM