U.S. Not Guilty of Double Standards

Some are saying that the U.S. is engaging in double standards by intervening in Libya and not in Bahrain or Yemen or Saudi Arabia.

I don't agree. For several reasons:

First off, we're way beyond "double standards" when it comes to US policy in the Mideast. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990 and the US government geared up its military machine against Iraq, some cried "double standard" at that time. After all, the U.S. continued to back Israel's gaining territory by war, as well as Turkey's having done so.

Despite attempts by Iraqis and Palestinians and others to prevent that war by suggesting negotiated solutions, the U.S. attacked Iraq and then imposed an unprecedented set of sanctions, no-fly zone restrictions and disarmament regimes on Iraq. When questions were raised about why other states, most obviously Israel, were not having their weapons of mass destruction similarly scrutinized, the fact that Iraq had lost a war was sometimes cited as the reason why Iraq should have more scrutiny put upon it while Israel should be let off Scott free. So double standards breed triple standards.

Eventually, the phony WMD charges against Iraq -- and that state's inability to prove a negative -- led to the phony pretexts for the invasion of Iraq altogether. Many blame George Bush for this, but it was in fact the logical concussion of long-standing U.S. policy and was backed by many of the same liberals who are backing the current Libya bombing.

Secondly, as Jeremy Scahill noted on his twitter feed recently, in a very real sense, there are no double standards. The U.S. government backs whatever it wants to when it wants to as determined by the perceived self interest of its elite. That's just standard operating procedure. Activists can't pick and chose when the U.S. government uses violence, it's not optional. It's standard. But also automatic.

Third off, the argument that the U.S. is somehow wrong by not intervening in Bahrain now is wrong. For one, the U.S. is already in Bahrain. That's where the Fifth Fleet is based. Which is likely part of the reason the U.S. is defacto backing the oppressive regime. Saudi troops moved into Bahrain on March 14 -- while many of us were grieving the horrific loss of life just after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan just a few days before. The oppressive monarch in Bahrain could no longer oppress his people enough with mercenaries it hired from Pakistan, so the Saudis moved in. The U.S. arms both the Saudi and Bahraini military with billions of dollars of arms sales, an extremely profitable endeavor for those who treasure money.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia and others of these hyper oppressive Gulf sheikdoms are bombing Libya, in the name of democracy.

Toby Jones, author of Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia, notes that the U.S. has been in Saudi Arabia since the 1930s, when Standard Oil of California (now Chevron) got a concession there.

Standard.

We're way beyond double standards, we're at triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple standards. It's standard.


From My Dad -- The (Army and Muslim Brotherhood) vs the Democracy Movement #jan25 #Egypt #Sidibouzid #Feb17

[I got this late last week from my dad, who is in Amman]: It is quite apparent that Mubarak had been sacrificed by the US administration to save the allied  military. The military had to be taken kicking and screaming to, at last today, to oust the  Mubarak installed shafic government. Can you imagine that the shithead Abul Geit was thrown out only to day as the Shafic govt was sacked.
It is evident to me that the military will continue to stall on real changes and continue this turtle pace cosmetic reform and will try to hand over the least possible amount of reforms, trying to keep the uprising semi content. The uprising has not properly focused its demands and never developed into a revolution that exactly knows what it wants and how to get there. It is going to be a long long delayed implementation of social reforms and freedoms before the upper rich Egyptian class will give up any of its privileges and power, trying to hold to gains acquired during the Mubarak regime.
It is a known by now that the Egyptian Islamic brotherhood is in bed with the military regime. Other opposition parties that were licensed are prone to make deals with the military. It looks like that the military is speeding up the upcoming election in an intent to give the brotherhood and few others the advantage over the Egyptian-youth leadership, especially that the brotherhood is the better organized and better mobilized, than the burgeoning uprising.
Re Libya..Some satellite commentators are pointing out that the US has been for some time on excellent terms with Gaddafi, even at the level of intelligence sharing, and as such are not serious about ousting Gaddafi, though they will continue to make limited moves pretending to; and Gaddafi will continue to claim that  Libya's enemies are Al Qaeda and the west!! The theater of the absurd.!

McCain’s “Interesting Time” w/Gadafi, Ignores Manning || Kerry on No-Fly Zone, Justifies Manning Treatment, “Yes” on Israeli Nukes

McCain Says Human Rights Concerns Were Behind his “Interesting Time” with Gadafi as he Refuses Questions on Torture and Manning


Q: “You tweeted in 2009: ‘Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his “ranch” in Libya – interesting meeting with an interesting man.’ What did you find interesting about Qadhafi?”

McCain: “Well I found it interesting that he was one of the more erratic individuals I have ever seen. He reacted very unfavorably to our conversations concerning human rights. And it was at that time that there was the talk of the release of the fellow [an apparent reference to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi] who was apparently almost dead, he’s had a miraculous recovery apparently. We’ve made it clear, as we have in other countries, our advocacy and support of human rights.”

This claim of concern for human rights led directly to my second question, about the apparent torture of Bradley Manning (the alleged source for the WikiLeaks cables that have helped destabilize tyrannical regimes) who is being subjected to solitary confinement and forced nudity. But McCain refused to take the question — “I’d like to take the next question. I’d like to take the next question. I’d like to take the next question” — insisting on giving the floor to another reporter. I attempted repeatedly to ask about Manning, but McCain refused. He schmoozed with tourists and a Ben Franklin look-alike at the Newseum as I periodically asked “Is Private Manning being tortured?” I talked briefly to McCain’s assistant, noting the irony of McCain’s silence given that he has written regarding his experience in Vietnam: “It’s an awful thing, solitary. … It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.” The assistant confirmed that McCain has said nothing about Manning.

(As for the claim that the U.S. was pressuring Gaddafi on human rights, see Andy Worthington’s recent piece: “Revolution in Libya: Protestors Respond to Gaddafi’s Murderous Backlash with Remarkable Courage; US and UK Look Like the Hypocrites They Are,” where he writes about the al-Libi case and other cases pointing to collusion between the U.S. and Libya on torture. Stakeout had asked Colin Powell about the al-Libi case in May 2009 — a few months before McCain met with Gaddafi: “Powell Denies Knowledge of Torture-War Link.”)

Kerry: Authorization for No-Fly Zone “Would be Better”


Following up on another reporters question on Libya and no-fly zones, Stakeout asked Kerry: “Does the U.S. need authorization by the Security Council or by the Congress to do a no-fly zone?”

Kerry: “It would be better to have that authorization. It’s always better to have some sort of international approval. And frankly to have allies and others taking part in the effort, I hope that can be achieved.”

Kerry Backs Claims that Manning’s Treatment for His Own Good

Noting that Kerry promised constituency to look into the Manning’s treatment, Stakeout asked: “What are you doing on the Bradley Manning case?”

Kerry: “There are concerns about what is happening, but a strong argument is being made that they’re trying to preserve his safety, they don’t want him harming himself, and using his own clothing to hang himself, or do something like that. That’s happened in prison before.”

Q: “Why the solitary confinement, if they’re –?” (See: Glenn Greenwald’s “Bradley Manning’s forced nudity to occur daily.”)

Kerry: “To protect him, I think, and there are some legitimate reasons to believe that that may be true also. But I think that a lot of people are now reviewing this very, very closely, people have weighed in, myself included, I think that analyses are being made. There was a big article in the newspapers today examining it. And I’m convinced that there will be real scrutiny with respect to that issue.”

Question: “Are you planning to visit him, he’s like 30 miles from here.”

Kerry: “It’s not my job, no. I’m not planning to visit him.”

Kerry Acknowledges Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

Kerry claimed regarding the Iraq war: “I didn’t vote for the Iraq war. I voted to give the president authority that he misused and abused. And from the moment he used it, I opposed that.” [If true, this would mean that Kerry is claiming that he opposed Bush's use of force in Iraq in March of 2003. Well worth confirming as it would have been politically devastating to do so at that time.]

Q: “Do you know that Israel has a nuclear weapons program?”

Kerry: “Sure. Everybody — it’s common knowledge and commonly understood.”

Q: “Why won’t the administration acknowledge that?”

Kerry: “I don’t know what the administration policy is on that.”

Stakeout has asked a number of officials about Israel’s nuclear weapons. Negroponte, Edwards, Pawlenty, Cornyn, Indyk, Pence, Pickering all refused to answer meaningfully. Finegold and Gingrich gave affirmative responses, but wavered. Kerry is the first to outright acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, but it’s rather remarkable that he states he doesn’t know what the administration policy is given that he is chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

– Sam Husseini

Video production by Alchymedia

[originally published on Washington Stakeout on March 6, 2011; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]