The Evil of War

 

The Evil of War

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

April 22, 2024

 

 

 

On April I, Israel launched an attack on an annex to the Iranian embassy in Damascus. The attack killed a leading Iranian general. In retaliation, Iran launched a missile attack on Israel the following Saturday night, going into Sunday morning. Although the US and Israel shot down most of the missiles, there is reason to think that the attack did more damage than has been reported in the mainstream press. If Israel answers back with another attack, especially a nuclear attack, this could lead to a thermonuclear war that could destroy the world.

I hope that you noticed an anomaly in the first paragraph. Why was the US involved in shooting down the Iranian missiles? Why are we financing the Israeli defense system, including the famous Iron Shield? Why are we giving massive military and economic aid to Israel? Doing this enables Israel to continue its savage and genocidal attack on Gaza. Instead, we should return to our traditional foreign policy of non-intervention, ably championed in our times by Murray Rothbard and Ron Paul.

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First, let’s look at what Israel has done in Gaza. Eric Margolis describes some of the damage:

“There is widespread disgust and anger at the US government over your decision to give Israel’s new far right government carte blanche to massacre rebellious Palestinians in the open prison of the Gaza Strip.  The death toll is now over 31,000 killed and at least 70,000 seriously injured, not counting the long-term effects of malnutrition and even starvation.  Most victims are women and children.

All of Gaza’s hospitals have been wrecked by Israeli bombs and tank fire. The Biden administration has thoughtfully rushed tank shells to Israel’s armored forces.  Large stores of arms and supplies, supposedly provided by the US to Israel for an emergency situation, have been offered up to Israel to continue its massacre of Gaza.  Such action violates US law – which bars the use of US-supplied arms against civilians.  Dropping 2,000 lbs bombs on residential buildings is, according to Israeli spin doctors, ‘counterterrorism.’ The rest of the world does not think so.

Except of course the US, Canada and Britain, where the media is totally dominated by supporters of Israel’s now governing far right.  And Washington, which is paralysed by pre-election fever.  Palestinian ‘terrorists’ are purposely running into Israeli tanks, shells and bombs just to discredit Israel.  Big money financial donors are terrorising major US and British educational institutions.  Writers who dare challenge Israel’s party line on Gaza are blacklisted. Those honorable Jews who denounce Israel’s brutal policies in Gaza are denounced as ‘self-hating Jews.’

We are not told that Gaza’s terrified civilians originally came from areas around Gaza and Galilee from whence they were driven into the prison camp of Gaza from their historic homes by ethnic cleansing and massacres after 1948.  Their lands were seized by the Israeli government or far-right settlers, many from the US.

Israel’s governing far right – was described by the late, great Israeli writer Uri Avnery as ‘Jewish fascists.’ They clearly intend to grind Gaza and its people into dust.  There are large numbers of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, some of whom were gunned down this week. The objective of Israel’s far right is to expel these Arabs from the entire West Bank that Israel seized in the 1967 War and shove them into the arid Jordanian desert.  Israel has long had its eye on southern Lebanon and its Litani River waters.” See this.

But does this policy qualify as genocide? The great Ron Unz says that it does. Israel seems intent on destroying the civilian population in Gaza, and the amount of bombing on civilian targets has been horrendous.

“From the beginning I’ve been extremely reluctant to characterize the Israeli attack on Gaza as being a “genocide” because use of that term has become so wildly inflated and distorted in recent years, converted by dishonest Western governments and their mainstream media lackeys into a propaganda-weapon used to vilify countries whose governments they seek to undermine.

One obvious problem with a very expansive definition of “genocide” is that it includes far too many historical cases. Used in such a broad fashion, there may have been many dozens or even hundreds of different “genocides” around the world over the last decade or two, and if everything is a “genocide” then nothing is a “genocide,” with the powerful political term drained of any impact.

However, despite all those serious concerns, I do think that the Israeli military actions in Gaza have been so extreme, so indiscriminate, and so massive that they fall into an entirely different category. Nearly 70% of the Gazans killed have been women or children, a demographic profile very close to that of the general Gaza population. Since Hamas consists entirely of adult males, this indicates that nearly all the deaths have been those of unarmed civilians, which is almost unprecedented in military conflicts over the last few decades.

However, such carnage is hardly surprising given Israel’s enormously heavy bombardment of that very densely populated urban center with the largest unguided bombs in its arsenal. After less than one month, the Israelis had already dropped more explosives than the tonnage corresponding to the nuclear weapons used at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they have accelerated their attacks since then, destroying 100,000 local buildings and rendering nearly two million Gazans homeless.

By early December, the Financial Times reported that the destruction inflicted upon defenseless northern Gaza after just seven weeks of Israeli attacks was similar to that suffered by the worst-hit German cities after years of Allied carpet-bombing during World War II, an astonishing comparison.

The obvious Israeli intent has been to render Gaza totally uninhabitable and kill enough Gazans to drive them out into the Sinai desert, thereby allowing the Israelis to annex the land as many of their political leaders have proposed. The South African legal case filed before the ICJ included 90-odd pages quoting numerous top Israeli political and military leaders who publicly declared their explicitly genocidal plans towards the Palestinians of Gaza, and their attacks over the last four months have certainly amounted to the greatest televised slaughter of helpless civilians in the history of the world.

Under such a combination of facts, I think it was very reasonable for the near-unanimous ICJ ruling that there was strong evidence that the Gazans were at serious risk of suffering a potential genocide at the hands of the Israelis. The Israeli government itself appointed one of the ICJ judges hearing the case, selecting a former chief justice of the Israeli Supreme Court, but he voted along with the other justices that the Israeli government must take all measures to prevent and punish incitement to genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza.” See this.

The Israeli campaign puts Iran in a difficult position. It wants to help the Palestinians, but it doesn’t want a war with Israel. In spite of much urging by many, Iran did not directly send arms to the Gazans, much less launch its own attack, Israel then escalated the situation by its attack on Iran’s embassy in Damascus. This was a blatant violation of international law. A story in the New York Times discusses this violation:

“On Monday, Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, killing seven people, including Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who oversaw Iran’s covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon, and two other senior generals.

For centuries, diplomatic premises have been afforded special protections. Diplomats get immunity from prosecution in their host country, and embassy buildings are often viewed as a sanctuary for their nation’s citizens — they cannot be entered by the host country’s police without the permission of diplomatic staff, and often become refuges for expatriates in times of war.

So attacks on diplomatic compounds carry particular weight, both in law and in the popular imagination.” See this.

In response, Iran attacked Israel with missiles and drones. Many of these were shot down or didn’t do much damage, but the attack was much more effective than we have been led to believe. Here is a statement released by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Council on the strike:

“Iran has conducted a successful large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel, the Revolutionary Guard Corps has said in a statement published by IRNA news agency. The Islamic Republic’s military managed to hit and destroy “important military targets,” it added without providing further details.

The strikes were a response to what Tehran called “numerous crimes” committed by West Jerusalem, including an alleged Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus. The attack, which took place on April 1, killed seven officers of the IRGC’s Quds Force, including two generals.

Iranian media published several short clips on social media purportedly showing the moments the missiles hit their targets in Israel. One was said to be from a settlement in the Negev desert in the southern part of the country.

The videos show what appear to be several missiles striking targets in a settlement. RT could not independently verify the clips.

In a statement, the IRGC warned the US that any support it provides to Israel that harms Iran’s interests would be met with a “decisive response.” Tehran considers Washington “responsible for the evil actions” of West Jerusalem, the statement added. Iran also warned its neighbors against assisting the US or Israel in potentially attacking the Islamic Republic.” See this.

You might think this was just a conflict between Iran and Israel, but you would be wrong. The US shot down more than 70 of the Iranian drones and missiles:

“US forces engaged and shot down more than 75 of the missiles and drones that Iran fired at Israel this weekend, marking its biggest air-defense battle of the six-month-long Middle East crisis.

Iran and its proxy militias launched a barrage of 170 attack drones, 120 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles at Israel in a massive and unprecedented attack on Saturday night local time, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

It was the first-ever direct attack on Israel from Iranian soil. About 99% of the threats were intercepted by Israel and its partners, the IDF said, and most of them did not even cross into Israeli territory — a remarkable air-defense success.

US forces in the region eliminated more than 70 of the Iranian munitions, a senior US military official told reporters on Sunday.

Two US Navy destroyers operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea — the USS Arleigh Burke and USS Carney — engaged and destroyed between four and six ballistic missiles, and a Patriot air-defense system shot down one ballistic missile above Iraq, an official said.

US fighter jets also shot down more than 70 Iranian one-way attack drones, the American military official said. They would not say how many aircraft were involved in the interceptions.” See this.

In addition to this, the US has funded Israeli’s famous Iron Dome protective shield. In 2022, another billion dollars were added to this support:

“After months of delay due to internal political disputes, the US House of Representatives on Wednesday approved an additional $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system.

The money will fund interceptor missiles for the system, many of which were used to defend the country during last year’s conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian terror group fired over 4,300 rockets at Israel in the space of 11 days, and Iron Dome reportedly intercepted 90 percent of those heading to populated areas. It was also used in previous rounds of fighting with Gaza.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett expressed his gratitude to Congress for its “overwhelming commitment to Israel’s security and for passing the critical security package — including the replenishment of the life-saving Iron Dome.”

Defense Minister Benny Gantz hailed the approval and thanked US President Joe Biden for his “unwavering support for the security of the State of Israel.”

“Thank you to the US House of Representatives for passing critical security and missile defense funding for Israel in the spending package,” Gantz wrote. “Iron Dome replenishment and missile defense will ensure Israel’s military edge, secure our citizens, and bolster US-Israel cooperation” War Crimes Against Sou... Cisco, Walter Best Price: $11.46 Buy New $39.91 (as of 03:13 UTC - Details)

Gantz also thanked US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “for his steadfast commitment to the extraordinary US-Israel ties and defense cooperation.” See this.

Supplying arms to Israel could result in thermonuclear war. Instead, we should return to our traditional American foreign policy of non-intervention in foreign disputes. The foremost libertarian thinker of the twentieth century, Murray N. Rothbard, put it well:

“The libertarian position, generally, is to minimize state power as much as possible, down to zero, and isolationism is the full expression in foreign affairs of the domestic objective of whittling down state power. In other words, interventionism is the opposite of isolationism, and of course it goes on up to war, as the aggrandizement of state power crosses national boundaries into other states, pushing other people around etc. So this is the foreign counterpart of the domestic aggression against the internal population. I see the two as united.” See this.

The greatest living American, Dr. Ron Paul, agrees with Murray:

“Those who called Hamas’s attack on Israel “Israel’s 9/11” were more accurate than they realized. Just as the US reacted to 9/11 by fulfilling Osama bin Laden’s wish that the US would get bogged down in no-win wars, Israel’s reaction to the Hamas attack fulfills Hamas’s likely goal of radicalizing more Palestinians. The result of Hamas’s attack will be to strengthen the most extreme elements on both sides of the conflict.

Given the strong support for Israel among both major political parties it is not surprising that, following the attacks, many politicians rushed to microphones to proclaim their support for US assistance for Israel. President Biden announced the US would send military aid to Israel, while Congress is drafting legislation providing about two billion dollars in “emergency” military assistance to Israel. Even most of the growing number of representatives who oppose military aid to Ukraine will support spending “whatever it takes” to defend Israel. This is why the Biden administration and some in Congress want to combine aid for Israel and Ukraine into one legislative package.

Spending billions more to support military action in the Middle East and Ukraine will benefit the military-industrial complex. However, it will harm most Americans by accelerating the growth of the government’s over 33 trillion dollars debt. As the debt increases, the Federal Reserve will push interest rates lower and monetize the debt. This will lead to increased price inflation, combined with economic stagnation and high unemployment — in other words, stagflation.

Concerns over the government’s debt and the Federal Reserve’s enabling of that debt with easy money and low interest rates will lead to more challenges to the dollar’s world reserve currency status. Increased resentment over US hyper-interventionist foreign policy will also lead to changes to the dollar’s reserve currency status. Saudi Arabia could even stop using dollars for its international oil trade. The end of the petrodollar would be the final nail in the coffin of the dollar’s world reserve currency status.

The end of the dollar’s world reserve currency status would mean the US government could no longer run an empire abroad and an authoritarian welfare state at home. The question is not will the American empire end but when and how. It should end deliberately, with Congress starting the process of restoring limited constitutional government by ending all foreign aid and bringing our troops home.” See this.

Let’s do everything we can to stop brain dead Biden and his gang of neocon controllers from embroiling us into a confrontation with Iran that could end the world.

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.