It’s been eight days since Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israeli civilians, and Israel still hasn’t launched a ground offensive into Gaza. Israel has relentlessly pounded what they call Hamas targets inside Gaza and claims that six senior leaders of Hamas have been killed since Saturday, October 7. The New York times reported this afternoon that “Officials in Gaza said that 2,808 people had been killed.” So far, there has not been an estimate from either side on how many killed in Gaza were Hamas militants and how many were Palestinian civilians.
"It hasn’t helped that the U.S. still doesn’t have an ambassador to Israel because Republicans in the Senate have blocked the confirmation of Biden nominee Jack Lew. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas yesterday called Lew 'an Iran sympathizer' who 'helped Iran evade American sanctions, and he lied to Congress about it,' without providing any proof either claim was true." If Jack Lew is an "Iran sympathizer," he's the only Jewish "Iran sympathizer" on the planet.
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 26: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 26, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The difference between Senator Tom Cotton and a broken clock is at least the clock is right twice a day.
On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who we noted that during his military service, had to be court-martialed in 2004 because he went over the heads of his superiors and wrote an opinion editorial to the New York Times calling for the arrest of three of its reporters for reporting things happening during the War on Terror that he didn’t particularly like. This demand to deny the freedom of the press by ignoring those higher up in the chain of command apparently taught Tom Cotton nothing, as in 2015, he became the leader of the #47Traitors, which were himself and 46 Republican Senators who tried to sabotage ongoing negotiations between the State Department and Iranian diplomats to create a nuclear treaty by writing a letter to the leaders of Iran that claimed they would just ignore the treaty after the next president was elected (which they actually can’t do). Hundreds of thousands of people signed online petitions to see Sen. Cotton brought up on charges for violating the Logan Act, and he still didn’t back down, comparing the Obama administration’s effort to Neville Chamberlain appeasing Nazi Germany and saying that Secretary of State John Kerry “acted like Pontius Pilate”.
This is but the tip of the iceberg, as Tom Cotton is a dumbass in oh so many ways, including his belief that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had a role in planning 9/11 (he said as much in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN back in January of 2013, despite that idea being debunked by investigators a decade earlier), calling people on food stamps “addicts” who are “abusing taxpayer dollars”, tried scaring people away from signing up for the Affordable Care Act because “Russian mobsters will steal your identity”, and has no plans to do anything about the United States’ mass incarceration problem, criticizing efforts to reform our criminal justice system in a speech before the Hudson Institute where he said “If anything, we’re under-incarcerating.”
Oh, and after the mass shooting in Orlando, Democrats filibustered the Senate for a vote to keep individuals on the “no fly list” for being a known terrorist from being able to buy firearms and carry out mass shootings, but again, Sen. Cotton votes against the common sense measure, that nine out of ten Americans support. In July of, 2016, Tom Cotton spoke at a panel hosted by Politico at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and gives the alarming analysis that the United States can just intervene in Syria, and should any Russian jets intervene on behalf of their allies in the Assad regime, to just shoot them down, too, because of the AUMFs signed way back in 2001 and 2002 that were meant to fight the war on terror and hunt for Osama bin Laden would also apply to this situation. Were we not clear this guy’s a war hungry nut?
On February 22nd, 2017, Cotton hosted his first town hall since the election of Donald Trump, and seemed rather surprised at how many extremely pissed off people showed up, and that they began chanting “DO YOUR JOB!” at him. Cotton was humiliated after being dressed down by an 7 year old speaker who seemed distressed that Cotton would support funding for Trump’s $20-30 billion dollar border wall, but balk at only millions of dollars allocated to fund PBS. At one point, he sarcastically asked how many people had actually been positively affected by the Affordable Care Act to stand up and after hundreds of people in the room stood, dismissed them out of hand. That became harder, of course, when a 25 year old woman with a genetic disorder, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, who arrived in a wheelchair pointed out that even if Planned Parenthood funding provided to the Affordable Care Act was repealed that funds her regular cancer screenings, without hyperbole, that she would die. Cotton just assured her she’d be fine, and was booed, because no one was buying that bulls***. The positive side effect, though? Donations towards the woman’s healthcare spiked after the exchange, so at least someone there not named Tom Cotton had a heart. Because Cotton seemed to invest stock into the theory that the anger he faced was actually coming from paid protesters sent by anonymous left wing donors (a conspiracy theory peddled by Donald Trump), when he told the crowd, “I don’t care if anybody here is paid or not.” Two months later on April 17th, 2017, Cotton hosted another town hall, sends the crowd into a rage after failing to explain why he wouldn’t use his powers as a Senator to just use the evidence that was already known and subpoena Donald Trump’s tax returns, since he broke his promise to release them to the public, provoking them to begin chanting, “LOCK HIM UP!” at him.
Criticism is apparently something Senator Cotton cannot process, because he’s taken to actually sending “cease and desist” letters to constituents who dare to call his office in Washington, D.C. to complain. No, we’re not exaggerating, he’s this petty.
***** That ain't all, they's plenty more in the res' o' this hyar fine article, read it n' weep fer our country, Mr. Merlis!
Every damn time I think I've seen the "lower limits" some of these right-wing fanatics will stoop to, there's more! And very mindless and silly as well, a lot of it doesn't even make sense, assuming you were in support of their stated goals - it's filled with the empty rhetoric of hate and outright paranoia.
Dumas wrote about it. He knew all the characters in the monarchy of the French revolution and their arrogant "madyery-slave" mentality. Juicy reading !!
Richard, you've written a superb rundown of reasons why "CottonBrain" has no business in elected office, and yet there he is, in elected office. My guess is there are just enough mindless morons in Arkansas who will likely vote to keep him there.
Stan, any state which would elect Sarah Hucklebuck as Governor should tell you Arkansians have less brain cells than your average moron. OBTW the state just made it legal for 15 year olds to work in factories. Got to find someone to clean out those industrialized chicken coops Tyson owns.
Pandering to his richest constituents. While I don'ts assume anyone, including me, is "better" than the good ole boys whose accent I satirized, I think Cotton, Ted Cruz, and other southern senators get an Ivy League education more as a prop to bolster their credibility as legislators than to use it for helping their state and all of its people.
In a CNN interview shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Cotton denied that waterboarding is a form of torture. He said "tough calls" such as allowing it were an option Trump was ready to take: "If experienced intelligence officials come to the President of the United States and say we think this terrorist has critical information and we need to obtain it and this is the only way we can obtain it—it's a tough call. But the presidency is a tough job. And if you're not ready to make those tough calls, you shouldn't seek the office. Donald Trump's a pretty tough guy, and he's ready to make those tough calls". During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said the United States should resume the use of waterboarding.[69]
I actually ordered a copy and read Enhanced Interrogation : Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America (2016, Crown Forum / Penguin -Random House) by James E. Mitchell, PhD with Bill Harlow. Also
What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
I don't really comprehend how people like Cotton can still believe it isn't torture and thus barred by our treaties and arguably constitutional responsibilities to prisoners held in U.S. prisons, no matter who the prisoners are and where the prisons are located, so likely it's still more pandering.
Senator Cotton is too intelligent not to understand that, which only makes it all the worse.
What would change their minds about waterboarding? If they were subjected to it personally, and/or when a non-friendly nation started doing it to U.S. nationals.
Change the mind of James E. Mitchell, PhD - author of Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America? I have my copy near, let me see if....first cup of coffee here fight head cold, Susanna...maybe nothing would change his mind via your hypothetical second route? Because Mitchell is too far gone in commitment to a hare-brained theory: a paradigm case of intentionally inflicting extreme pain and suffering on a person to attain some goal or other ( divulge information about The Resistance, pour encourager les autres, https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/pour-encourager-les-autres-admiral-byng-voltaire-and-the-1756-battle-of-minorca/
gain status within your ultra-secretive organization...oh wait, that one functions routinely!)
Might be enough for others, but not the latest originators on behalf of the CIA - Mitchell could argue - with some plausibility, in fact - that U.S. nationals are already subjected to even worse torture when captured by fanatical ideologues, or even just garden variety psychopaths in a criminal gang, or lone wolf operators, so why back down on endorsing waterboarding on that basis?
That leaves the first possibility, but civilized human beings cannot exactly test that as stated, all we can do is argue by analogy, and a very strong argument it is, too! Sounds like what's been claimed to be the "original most authentic" version of the Golden Rule, "Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do to you."
Which avoids, at least superficially (because the conditional could be rephrased, but that's nit-picking of the worst kind) the riposte,
“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”
― George Bernard Shaw
Ok, so maybe the diehard exponents of using torture techniques are themselves diagnosed or undiagnosed sadists, it's another little mystery of not only how they end up in power, but remain, even after their traits as such are revealed - or not!
Only possible ultra-rare and incredibly unusual contingency when waterboarding a suspect would arguably be justified I can envision is one of the "ticking time bombs we know this scumbag has info about and he's resisted everything else" blah blah blah, which itself is so hokey, how often in all human history have "the good guys" ever had a suspect like that? Outside of this highly entertaining Hitchcock film:
Do you honestly believe the hostages are still alive? I’m very sad to say I do not. And I read a few really heartbreaking posts on FB by Israeli parents saying that it was a relief to know that their kidnapped children were finally reported as dead because otherwise they were being tortured raped and everything else. That tore my heart out. Just maybe the offensive not happening is part of the plan? Because I just couldn’t imagine Israeli defense is being stupid enough to fall into what was being constantly reported as a trap.
I think what is happening to the Palestinian people who are human shields for Hamas is really dreadful. Nobody deserves that kind of abuse having their lives ripped up. But never ever forget that there has never been a reality to the notion of peace between Israel and Palestine, because from its inception, which its charter makes it very clear, the goal of Hamas l is to annihilate the Jewish race.
And with what’s going on in this country, we really no longer have the High ground.
I just saw that. I think it couldn’t be more deranged and misguided. I don’t know what’s going on with any of these people anymore. I’ve mostly been concerned with the idea of Gym Jordan, a man who promoted the great election lie as speaker of the house, a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Bibi's claim that he alone could keep Israelis safe is looking a lot like TFG's claim that "I alone can fix it." Any scenario where he emerges looking like a peacemaker seems wildly delusional, but reality is looking more wildly delusional by the day so I'm not betting against it.
Thanks Lucian for your clear-eyed reporting and analysis, and, with our attention diverted by the noisy cannibalism being practiced in the House GOP, thanks for reminding us about the Trumpublican MAGAmites in the Senate. Those thanks extended to your reader Richard Turnbull, whose inclusion of Politico reporting makes clear that Senator Tom Cotton will never have a building at his Alma Mammy, Harvard, named after him. Wikipedia says Cotton's senior thesis at Harvard "focused on the Federalist Papers." After observing Cotton in action, I think his thesis may have been the shortest in the history of Harvard: "Federalist Papers? Burn them!"
LOL, thanks, I was partially trying to distract myself from a rotten cold / sinus situation only slowly getting better, with the Good Ole Boy lingo, but really, these powerful senators are no joke!
My sister and I concluded a little while ago that someone explained “war crimes” to Bibi and why the US cannot be a part of supporting them. Surely some members of his cabinet agree. Israel has a right to defend itself, but not the right to kill civilians for retribution. Perhaps every effort will be made to allow people to flee before the clean up campaign is launched.
Yahoo WANTS all Palestinians to flee so that he can rid himself of them. I imagine he’ll never let them come back to Gaza - if they can even get out. Israel won’t let them out even after telling them to leave.
They don’t want to harbor terrorists, nor do they want to aid Israel in a problem of Israel’s making. None of these countries want immigrants any more than Western countries.
Ok, but doesn't their religion, which is the basis of their hate of people other religions, teach them to take care of each other? I ask because I don't know. I was taught growing up in a Christian culture to be hospitable to strangers.
Kind of like the US is welcoming immigrants? Jordan helped Palestinians in the early days but it rebounded negatively. I don’t have all the details - but NO their religious beliefs of helping each other is weaker than their desire for internal peace of the citizens they already have. Egypt already has a big problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. And how does Egypt tell a peaceful Palestinian from a terrorist Palestinian?
Thank you Lucian for the information and your perspective. I have no idea about war anymore. And who are we Americans to take the moral high ground. Let’s remember that we essentially invaded South Vietnam and bombed the shit out of North Vietnam killing millions of civilians along the way in a country that posed no threat to the United States. I just can’t stand the human suffering anymore.
Well that last paragraph had some wish list. That would be great if they could make it work. However I fear the worst. During the bay of pigs crisis I was ten years old and didn't really grasp how close we came to disaster. Now I'm really worried this could blow up the world as we know it. Peace
Excerpt from deep into the article, you'll want to read the whole thing:
"Nor did President Kennedy have a firm hand on the Pentagon. "Certainly we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff," said Schlesinger, looking back at the Kennedy White House. It was a chilling observation, considering the throbbing nuclear tensions of the period. The former White House aide revealed that J.F.K. was less afraid of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's ordering a surprise attack than he was "that something would go wrong in a Dr. Strangelove kind of way" -- with a politically unstable U.S. general snapping and launching World War III.
Kennedy was particularly alarmed by his trigger-happy Air Force chief, cigar-chomping General Curtis LeMay, who firmly believed the U.S. should unleash a pre-emptive nuclear broadside against Russia while America still enjoyed massive arms superiority. Throughout the 13-day Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy was under relentless pressure from LeMay and nearly his entire national-security circle to "fry" Cuba, in the Air Force chief's memorable language. But J.F.K., whose only key support in the increasingly tense Cabinet Room meetings came from his brother Bobby and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, kept searching for a nonmilitary solution. When Kennedy, assiduously working the back channels to the Kremlin, finally succeeded in cutting a deal with Khrushchev, the world survived "the most dangerous moment in human history," in Schlesinger's words. But no one at the time knew just how dangerous. Years later, attending the 40th anniversary of the crisis at a conference in Havana, Schlesinger, Sorensen and McNamara were stunned to learn that if U.S. forces had attacked Cuba, Russian commanders on the island were authorized to respond with tactical and strategic nuclear missiles. The Joint Chiefs had assured Kennedy during the crisis that "no nuclear warheads were in Cuba at the time," Sorensen grimly noted. "They were wrong." If Kennedy had bowed to his military advisers' pressure, a vast swath of the urban U.S. within missile range of the Soviet installations in Cuba could have been reduced to radioactive rubble. "
***** And earlier, this:
"Young Jack Kennedy developed a deep, visceral disgust for war because of his -- and his family's -- experiences in it. "All war is stupid," he wrote home from his PT boat in the Pacific battleground of World War II. That war destroyed the family's sense of godlike invincibility. His older brother Joe -- a Navy pilot -- died in a fiery explosion over the English Channel after volunteering for a high-risk mission, and the young husband of "Kick" Kennedy, J.F.K.'s beloved sister, was also killed. As Jack wrote to Claiborne Pell in 1947, the war had simply "savaged" his family. "It turned my father and brothers and sisters and I upside down and sucked all the oxygen out of our smug and comfortable assumptions... Now, after all that we experienced and lost in the war, we finally understand that there is nothing inevitable about us."
Steven, I was a 17 year old student at George Washington University during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Been 61 years but I remember it like it was yesterday. The fear and terror we felt was almost unbearable because it was believed Soviet missiles could reach Washington, DC and even possibly my home town of NYC. So a group of us scared and underage NY guys and girls made and implemented a survival plan; we stayed in town and retreated to the bar at the Willard hotel to drink alcohol for much of the crisis.
My guess for the delay: There is a labyrinth of Hamas tunnels in northern Gaza. Israel needs time to locate and map these tunnels so that they can be precise in their strikes in Gaza. Mapping with LiDAR tech will probably take a couple of weeks. https://www.xmswiki.com/wiki/Lidar
A ground offensive is not in the best interest for all parties.
There are two reasons for the small military excursions that have less issues. Rescues of victims and elimination of Hamas leaders.
However
Israel's past history of Secret hunting and elimination has been highly successful. Time to start on the list of individuals I'm sure they have in their possession. I wonder if the Religious dude in charge of Iran is on that list,?
That's really the only option that Israel can use that isn't both illegal under the law of armed conflict and the Geneva articles, because of the disproportional suffering and death for the civilians in Gaza, with not nearly enough of an ongoing existential threat being eliminated (no "ticking time bomb of threatened nuclear strike or chemical /bio-warfare, etc.) to"balance" those costs, and also more or less guaranteed to make things even worse for everyone, including Israel , particularly as the 24-hour deadline was farcically unrealistic.
At the moment I can’t come up with anything to add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said very well by others. The thought of the massive slaughter this godforsaken war could produce is turning my stomach. I keep telling myself that Israel is smarter than to allow itself to walk into this all too obvious trap Hamas has set. But I’m not convinced. Perhaps the presence of all the European and American worthies trying to talk sense to Yahoo will do more than just delay what I hope is not the inevitable. Their efforts should lead to a major international peacekeeping effort constructed to keep the two sides apart, and get the hostages released, assuming they are still alive. At this point in time we, the human race, have to be better than letting another grotesque spasm of primitive barbarity occur. A major ME war would poison the prospects for any sort of stable peace in the area for several more generations. Blessed are the peace makers, but where are they?
I pray that a more enlightened response ensues, one more in keeping with Jewish teaching. than that which Natanyahu has led us to believe will, and upon which Hamas is, of course counting.
It might.
It would be astounding if Israel seized this opportunity-born-of-crisis to initiate a comprehensive humanitarian mission in Gaza: occupy, provide health care/nutrition, shelter, and educational/cultural resources to all while performing hostage search and rescue missions.
Thank you Lucian for your reporting and analysis. Foreign press is reporting that Putin had a speech tonight offering to negotiate together with China on the release of hostages, but demanding that Israel de-occupy Gaza, and of course blaming the US for its support of Israel's extreme right government. He added that the world's leaders should negotiate leaving out the US. We don't hear about this in the US media. It is such a extremely volatile situation and the US is pushed from all sides. I trust that level heads prevail. Also, Jared Kushner was pushing to support Netanyahu's policies all along, which became part of US foreign policy in the Trump presidency, and enabled Kushner's deal for millions from the Saudis, and now we see what a mistake that was for our country. I pray and hope that the hostages are alive and will be released, and that innocent people will not be killed by indiscriminate missile attacks. Lucian, keep up your reports!
Concise, precise, yet expansive reporting, Lucian. I see the Israeli buildup around Gaza as a psych-op. Who needs to actually invade when you can instill such fear? I agree with elements of many commenters: I hope hostages are alive, and Israeli intelligence is pinpointing. If they are alive, it’s looking like a reverse of the previous Israeli position: releasing 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli captive. New strategy: return the now-estimated 200 hostages held by Hamas; in return, Israel will refrain from killing 200,000 in Gaza. It sounds insane, but everything is insane, nothing is impossible.
It IS very strange. There must be a ton of maneuvering going on behind the scenes that we are not generally privy to. And a lot of angling and jockeying. There are some known facts and many unknowables --
It costs Israel a ton of money in lost economic productivity to keep reservists under arms and at battle stations. So this can't go on indefinitely, one way or another.
Hezbollah has enormous capacity to inflict damage on Israel if it so chooses. Ans vice-versa, esp. if the US intervenes. And what is Iran preparing to do, or what will it do if backed into a corner?
Will other Muslim states sit back and allow Israel to destroy Gaza without endangering their own regimes?
Can Israel restrain itself from an indiscriminate attack on Gaza that echoes futile or counter-productive US responses to 9-11?
Can Hamas or the Palestinian Authority emerge as good-faith negotiators in an effort to curtail violence and could the Israelis respond in kind?
It all seems like the bitter, long-simmering antagonisms of Ireland/Northern Ireland over the last two centuries, turned up a thousand fold and encompassing all the surrounding countries.
I have no idea what's going to happen. I do have a deep weariness, if not soul sickness about the existential messes both abroad and at home. The disasters and destruction are, at their essence, pointless. They're about "strength" and dominance -- and destructive of both body and soul. And the crazy thing is the haters and the crazies seem to be ahead.
yes they were. So nice to be on Substack, reading people like yourself. So many kind, people with a deep understanding of history, and how it is the precursor to many of the problems we have now.
Substacks are becoming must reads for me. I feel simpatico with Mr. T.'s readers, more than the other writers I subscribe to. He also has a very active and large group of commenters. Some of my other subscriptions have nothing (or little) going on in the comments section.
"It hasn’t helped that the U.S. still doesn’t have an ambassador to Israel because Republicans in the Senate have blocked the confirmation of Biden nominee Jack Lew. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas yesterday called Lew 'an Iran sympathizer' who 'helped Iran evade American sanctions, and he lied to Congress about it,' without providing any proof either claim was true." If Jack Lew is an "Iran sympathizer," he's the only Jewish "Iran sympathizer" on the planet.
Well now, mebbe the Senatuh from Arkansas would think yer outta y'alls' cotton-pickin' mind fer not seein' the double-dealing chicanery of them Bidens, jes' look at Tom Cotton's history and tell me if you think he is playin' wif a full deck! https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/6/24/2036992/-Crazy-Stupid-Republican-of-the-Day
ORLANDO, FLORIDA - FEBRUARY 26: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference held in the Hyatt Regency on February 26, 2021 in Orlando, Florida. Begun in 1974, CPAC brings together conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders to discuss issues important to them. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The difference between Senator Tom Cotton and a broken clock is at least the clock is right twice a day.
On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, as well as 2020, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” published profiles of U.S. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who we noted that during his military service, had to be court-martialed in 2004 because he went over the heads of his superiors and wrote an opinion editorial to the New York Times calling for the arrest of three of its reporters for reporting things happening during the War on Terror that he didn’t particularly like. This demand to deny the freedom of the press by ignoring those higher up in the chain of command apparently taught Tom Cotton nothing, as in 2015, he became the leader of the #47Traitors, which were himself and 46 Republican Senators who tried to sabotage ongoing negotiations between the State Department and Iranian diplomats to create a nuclear treaty by writing a letter to the leaders of Iran that claimed they would just ignore the treaty after the next president was elected (which they actually can’t do). Hundreds of thousands of people signed online petitions to see Sen. Cotton brought up on charges for violating the Logan Act, and he still didn’t back down, comparing the Obama administration’s effort to Neville Chamberlain appeasing Nazi Germany and saying that Secretary of State John Kerry “acted like Pontius Pilate”.
This is but the tip of the iceberg, as Tom Cotton is a dumbass in oh so many ways, including his belief that Saddam Hussein and Iraq had a role in planning 9/11 (he said as much in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN back in January of 2013, despite that idea being debunked by investigators a decade earlier), calling people on food stamps “addicts” who are “abusing taxpayer dollars”, tried scaring people away from signing up for the Affordable Care Act because “Russian mobsters will steal your identity”, and has no plans to do anything about the United States’ mass incarceration problem, criticizing efforts to reform our criminal justice system in a speech before the Hudson Institute where he said “If anything, we’re under-incarcerating.”
Oh, and after the mass shooting in Orlando, Democrats filibustered the Senate for a vote to keep individuals on the “no fly list” for being a known terrorist from being able to buy firearms and carry out mass shootings, but again, Sen. Cotton votes against the common sense measure, that nine out of ten Americans support. In July of, 2016, Tom Cotton spoke at a panel hosted by Politico at the 2016 Republican National Convention, and gives the alarming analysis that the United States can just intervene in Syria, and should any Russian jets intervene on behalf of their allies in the Assad regime, to just shoot them down, too, because of the AUMFs signed way back in 2001 and 2002 that were meant to fight the war on terror and hunt for Osama bin Laden would also apply to this situation. Were we not clear this guy’s a war hungry nut?
On February 22nd, 2017, Cotton hosted his first town hall since the election of Donald Trump, and seemed rather surprised at how many extremely pissed off people showed up, and that they began chanting “DO YOUR JOB!” at him. Cotton was humiliated after being dressed down by an 7 year old speaker who seemed distressed that Cotton would support funding for Trump’s $20-30 billion dollar border wall, but balk at only millions of dollars allocated to fund PBS. At one point, he sarcastically asked how many people had actually been positively affected by the Affordable Care Act to stand up and after hundreds of people in the room stood, dismissed them out of hand. That became harder, of course, when a 25 year old woman with a genetic disorder, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, who arrived in a wheelchair pointed out that even if Planned Parenthood funding provided to the Affordable Care Act was repealed that funds her regular cancer screenings, without hyperbole, that she would die. Cotton just assured her she’d be fine, and was booed, because no one was buying that bulls***. The positive side effect, though? Donations towards the woman’s healthcare spiked after the exchange, so at least someone there not named Tom Cotton had a heart. Because Cotton seemed to invest stock into the theory that the anger he faced was actually coming from paid protesters sent by anonymous left wing donors (a conspiracy theory peddled by Donald Trump), when he told the crowd, “I don’t care if anybody here is paid or not.” Two months later on April 17th, 2017, Cotton hosted another town hall, sends the crowd into a rage after failing to explain why he wouldn’t use his powers as a Senator to just use the evidence that was already known and subpoena Donald Trump’s tax returns, since he broke his promise to release them to the public, provoking them to begin chanting, “LOCK HIM UP!” at him.
Criticism is apparently something Senator Cotton cannot process, because he’s taken to actually sending “cease and desist” letters to constituents who dare to call his office in Washington, D.C. to complain. No, we’re not exaggerating, he’s this petty.
***** That ain't all, they's plenty more in the res' o' this hyar fine article, read it n' weep fer our country, Mr. Merlis!
You would think the sheer stupidity of cotton would exhaust him back into the nest of swarmy imbeciles he came from. So much stupid. So much.
Every damn time I think I've seen the "lower limits" some of these right-wing fanatics will stoop to, there's more! And very mindless and silly as well, a lot of it doesn't even make sense, assuming you were in support of their stated goals - it's filled with the empty rhetoric of hate and outright paranoia.
Could not agree more. I’d say it was some cosmic farce but I doubt even Molière could imagine it.
Dumas wrote about it. He knew all the characters in the monarchy of the French revolution and their arrogant "madyery-slave" mentality. Juicy reading !!
Sorry...master-slave mentality
Cotton has cotton for a brain. And it's still filled with seeds from the field.
Is he up for re-election in 2024? Hopeless anyway, since they elected Sara I Heart Huckabee Sanders as their Guv!
2026.
Richard, you've written a superb rundown of reasons why "CottonBrain" has no business in elected office, and yet there he is, in elected office. My guess is there are just enough mindless morons in Arkansas who will likely vote to keep him there.
Stan, any state which would elect Sarah Hucklebuck as Governor should tell you Arkansians have less brain cells than your average moron. OBTW the state just made it legal for 15 year olds to work in factories. Got to find someone to clean out those industrialized chicken coops Tyson owns.
Always thought Cotton was a turd. Thank you, Richard, for explaining just how big a turd
Disgusted with Republicans!!!
Tom Cotton really is on a roll, isn't he.
Pandering to his richest constituents. While I don'ts assume anyone, including me, is "better" than the good ole boys whose accent I satirized, I think Cotton, Ted Cruz, and other southern senators get an Ivy League education more as a prop to bolster their credibility as legislators than to use it for helping their state and all of its people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cotton
In a CNN interview shortly after the 2016 presidential election, Cotton denied that waterboarding is a form of torture. He said "tough calls" such as allowing it were an option Trump was ready to take: "If experienced intelligence officials come to the President of the United States and say we think this terrorist has critical information and we need to obtain it and this is the only way we can obtain it—it's a tough call. But the presidency is a tough job. And if you're not ready to make those tough calls, you shouldn't seek the office. Donald Trump's a pretty tough guy, and he's ready to make those tough calls". During his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump said the United States should resume the use of waterboarding.[69]
I actually ordered a copy and read Enhanced Interrogation : Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America (2016, Crown Forum / Penguin -Random House) by James E. Mitchell, PhD with Bill Harlow. Also
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/08/hitchens200808
August 2008 Issue
Believe Me, It’s Torture
What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
By Christopher Hitchens
Photography by Gasper Tringale
July 2, 2008
https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/christopher-hitchens-admits-waterboarding-torture
I don't really comprehend how people like Cotton can still believe it isn't torture and thus barred by our treaties and arguably constitutional responsibilities to prisoners held in U.S. prisons, no matter who the prisoners are and where the prisons are located, so likely it's still more pandering.
Senator Cotton is too intelligent not to understand that, which only makes it all the worse.
Thanks for taking the time to put together all this extra detail on Cotton’s nefariousness.
Repubs keep adding to their pile of shit - & we know there’s no pony under all that.
What would change their minds about waterboarding? If they were subjected to it personally, and/or when a non-friendly nation started doing it to U.S. nationals.
Change the mind of James E. Mitchell, PhD - author of Enhanced Interrogation: Inside the Minds and Motives of the Islamic Terrorists Trying to Destroy America? I have my copy near, let me see if....first cup of coffee here fight head cold, Susanna...maybe nothing would change his mind via your hypothetical second route? Because Mitchell is too far gone in commitment to a hare-brained theory: a paradigm case of intentionally inflicting extreme pain and suffering on a person to attain some goal or other ( divulge information about The Resistance, pour encourager les autres, https://voltairefoundation.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/pour-encourager-les-autres-admiral-byng-voltaire-and-the-1756-battle-of-minorca/
gain status within your ultra-secretive organization...oh wait, that one functions routinely!)
Might be enough for others, but not the latest originators on behalf of the CIA - Mitchell could argue - with some plausibility, in fact - that U.S. nationals are already subjected to even worse torture when captured by fanatical ideologues, or even just garden variety psychopaths in a criminal gang, or lone wolf operators, so why back down on endorsing waterboarding on that basis?
That leaves the first possibility, but civilized human beings cannot exactly test that as stated, all we can do is argue by analogy, and a very strong argument it is, too! Sounds like what's been claimed to be the "original most authentic" version of the Golden Rule, "Do not do unto others what you do not want them to do to you."
Which avoids, at least superficially (because the conditional could be rephrased, but that's nit-picking of the worst kind) the riposte,
“Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.”
― George Bernard Shaw
Ok, so maybe the diehard exponents of using torture techniques are themselves diagnosed or undiagnosed sadists, it's another little mystery of not only how they end up in power, but remain, even after their traits as such are revealed - or not!
Only possible ultra-rare and incredibly unusual contingency when waterboarding a suspect would arguably be justified I can envision is one of the "ticking time bombs we know this scumbag has info about and he's resisted everything else" blah blah blah, which itself is so hokey, how often in all human history have "the good guys" ever had a suspect like that? Outside of this highly entertaining Hitchcock film:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saboteur_(film)
Downhill, hopefully.
Do you honestly believe the hostages are still alive? I’m very sad to say I do not. And I read a few really heartbreaking posts on FB by Israeli parents saying that it was a relief to know that their kidnapped children were finally reported as dead because otherwise they were being tortured raped and everything else. That tore my heart out. Just maybe the offensive not happening is part of the plan? Because I just couldn’t imagine Israeli defense is being stupid enough to fall into what was being constantly reported as a trap.
I think what is happening to the Palestinian people who are human shields for Hamas is really dreadful. Nobody deserves that kind of abuse having their lives ripped up. But never ever forget that there has never been a reality to the notion of peace between Israel and Palestine, because from its inception, which its charter makes it very clear, the goal of Hamas l is to annihilate the Jewish race.
And with what’s going on in this country, we really no longer have the High ground.
Thanks for this. What do you think about Schumer, Biden, Hochul . everyone heading over to Israel, like its an American political photo op.
I just saw that. I think it couldn’t be more deranged and misguided. I don’t know what’s going on with any of these people anymore. I’ve mostly been concerned with the idea of Gym Jordan, a man who promoted the great election lie as speaker of the house, a heartbeat away from the presidency.
Bibi's claim that he alone could keep Israelis safe is looking a lot like TFG's claim that "I alone can fix it." Any scenario where he emerges looking like a peacemaker seems wildly delusional, but reality is looking more wildly delusional by the day so I'm not betting against it.
Thanks Lucian for your clear-eyed reporting and analysis, and, with our attention diverted by the noisy cannibalism being practiced in the House GOP, thanks for reminding us about the Trumpublican MAGAmites in the Senate. Those thanks extended to your reader Richard Turnbull, whose inclusion of Politico reporting makes clear that Senator Tom Cotton will never have a building at his Alma Mammy, Harvard, named after him. Wikipedia says Cotton's senior thesis at Harvard "focused on the Federalist Papers." After observing Cotton in action, I think his thesis may have been the shortest in the history of Harvard: "Federalist Papers? Burn them!"
LOL, thanks, I was partially trying to distract myself from a rotten cold / sinus situation only slowly getting better, with the Good Ole Boy lingo, but really, these powerful senators are no joke!
My sister and I concluded a little while ago that someone explained “war crimes” to Bibi and why the US cannot be a part of supporting them. Surely some members of his cabinet agree. Israel has a right to defend itself, but not the right to kill civilians for retribution. Perhaps every effort will be made to allow people to flee before the clean up campaign is launched.
Yahoo WANTS all Palestinians to flee so that he can rid himself of them. I imagine he’ll never let them come back to Gaza - if they can even get out. Israel won’t let them out even after telling them to leave.
Why won't Egypt, Jordan, or Lebanon take them in ???
They don’t want to harbor terrorists, nor do they want to aid Israel in a problem of Israel’s making. None of these countries want immigrants any more than Western countries.
Ok, but doesn't their religion, which is the basis of their hate of people other religions, teach them to take care of each other? I ask because I don't know. I was taught growing up in a Christian culture to be hospitable to strangers.
Kind of like the US is welcoming immigrants? Jordan helped Palestinians in the early days but it rebounded negatively. I don’t have all the details - but NO their religious beliefs of helping each other is weaker than their desire for internal peace of the citizens they already have. Egypt already has a big problem with the Muslim Brotherhood. And how does Egypt tell a peaceful Palestinian from a terrorist Palestinian?
Let the Muslim religious court figure it out.
Thank you Lucian for the information and your perspective. I have no idea about war anymore. And who are we Americans to take the moral high ground. Let’s remember that we essentially invaded South Vietnam and bombed the shit out of North Vietnam killing millions of civilians along the way in a country that posed no threat to the United States. I just can’t stand the human suffering anymore.
Well that last paragraph had some wish list. That would be great if they could make it work. However I fear the worst. During the bay of pigs crisis I was ten years old and didn't really grasp how close we came to disaster. Now I'm really worried this could blow up the world as we know it. Peace
Read this!
https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/warrior-for-peace
Excerpt from deep into the article, you'll want to read the whole thing:
"Nor did President Kennedy have a firm hand on the Pentagon. "Certainly we did not control the Joint Chiefs of Staff," said Schlesinger, looking back at the Kennedy White House. It was a chilling observation, considering the throbbing nuclear tensions of the period. The former White House aide revealed that J.F.K. was less afraid of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's ordering a surprise attack than he was "that something would go wrong in a Dr. Strangelove kind of way" -- with a politically unstable U.S. general snapping and launching World War III.
Kennedy was particularly alarmed by his trigger-happy Air Force chief, cigar-chomping General Curtis LeMay, who firmly believed the U.S. should unleash a pre-emptive nuclear broadside against Russia while America still enjoyed massive arms superiority. Throughout the 13-day Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy was under relentless pressure from LeMay and nearly his entire national-security circle to "fry" Cuba, in the Air Force chief's memorable language. But J.F.K., whose only key support in the increasingly tense Cabinet Room meetings came from his brother Bobby and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, kept searching for a nonmilitary solution. When Kennedy, assiduously working the back channels to the Kremlin, finally succeeded in cutting a deal with Khrushchev, the world survived "the most dangerous moment in human history," in Schlesinger's words. But no one at the time knew just how dangerous. Years later, attending the 40th anniversary of the crisis at a conference in Havana, Schlesinger, Sorensen and McNamara were stunned to learn that if U.S. forces had attacked Cuba, Russian commanders on the island were authorized to respond with tactical and strategic nuclear missiles. The Joint Chiefs had assured Kennedy during the crisis that "no nuclear warheads were in Cuba at the time," Sorensen grimly noted. "They were wrong." If Kennedy had bowed to his military advisers' pressure, a vast swath of the urban U.S. within missile range of the Soviet installations in Cuba could have been reduced to radioactive rubble. "
***** And earlier, this:
"Young Jack Kennedy developed a deep, visceral disgust for war because of his -- and his family's -- experiences in it. "All war is stupid," he wrote home from his PT boat in the Pacific battleground of World War II. That war destroyed the family's sense of godlike invincibility. His older brother Joe -- a Navy pilot -- died in a fiery explosion over the English Channel after volunteering for a high-risk mission, and the young husband of "Kick" Kennedy, J.F.K.'s beloved sister, was also killed. As Jack wrote to Claiborne Pell in 1947, the war had simply "savaged" his family. "It turned my father and brothers and sisters and I upside down and sucked all the oxygen out of our smug and comfortable assumptions... Now, after all that we experienced and lost in the war, we finally understand that there is nothing inevitable about us."
Steven, I was a 17 year old student at George Washington University during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Been 61 years but I remember it like it was yesterday. The fear and terror we felt was almost unbearable because it was believed Soviet missiles could reach Washington, DC and even possibly my home town of NYC. So a group of us scared and underage NY guys and girls made and implemented a survival plan; we stayed in town and retreated to the bar at the Willard hotel to drink alcohol for much of the crisis.
Sounds like the only civilized thing to do. Cheers.
My guess for the delay: There is a labyrinth of Hamas tunnels in northern Gaza. Israel needs time to locate and map these tunnels so that they can be precise in their strikes in Gaza. Mapping with LiDAR tech will probably take a couple of weeks. https://www.xmswiki.com/wiki/Lidar
A ground offensive is not in the best interest for all parties.
There are two reasons for the small military excursions that have less issues. Rescues of victims and elimination of Hamas leaders.
However
Israel's past history of Secret hunting and elimination has been highly successful. Time to start on the list of individuals I'm sure they have in their possession. I wonder if the Religious dude in charge of Iran is on that list,?
That's really the only option that Israel can use that isn't both illegal under the law of armed conflict and the Geneva articles, because of the disproportional suffering and death for the civilians in Gaza, with not nearly enough of an ongoing existential threat being eliminated (no "ticking time bomb of threatened nuclear strike or chemical /bio-warfare, etc.) to"balance" those costs, and also more or less guaranteed to make things even worse for everyone, including Israel , particularly as the 24-hour deadline was farcically unrealistic.
At the moment I can’t come up with anything to add to the discussion that hasn’t already been said very well by others. The thought of the massive slaughter this godforsaken war could produce is turning my stomach. I keep telling myself that Israel is smarter than to allow itself to walk into this all too obvious trap Hamas has set. But I’m not convinced. Perhaps the presence of all the European and American worthies trying to talk sense to Yahoo will do more than just delay what I hope is not the inevitable. Their efforts should lead to a major international peacekeeping effort constructed to keep the two sides apart, and get the hostages released, assuming they are still alive. At this point in time we, the human race, have to be better than letting another grotesque spasm of primitive barbarity occur. A major ME war would poison the prospects for any sort of stable peace in the area for several more generations. Blessed are the peace makers, but where are they?
I pray that a more enlightened response ensues, one more in keeping with Jewish teaching. than that which Natanyahu has led us to believe will, and upon which Hamas is, of course counting.
It might.
It would be astounding if Israel seized this opportunity-born-of-crisis to initiate a comprehensive humanitarian mission in Gaza: occupy, provide health care/nutrition, shelter, and educational/cultural resources to all while performing hostage search and rescue missions.
https://youtu.be/u-pP_dCenJA?si=k_lTDimwSVfjp1Ov
Thank you Lucian for your reporting and analysis. Foreign press is reporting that Putin had a speech tonight offering to negotiate together with China on the release of hostages, but demanding that Israel de-occupy Gaza, and of course blaming the US for its support of Israel's extreme right government. He added that the world's leaders should negotiate leaving out the US. We don't hear about this in the US media. It is such a extremely volatile situation and the US is pushed from all sides. I trust that level heads prevail. Also, Jared Kushner was pushing to support Netanyahu's policies all along, which became part of US foreign policy in the Trump presidency, and enabled Kushner's deal for millions from the Saudis, and now we see what a mistake that was for our country. I pray and hope that the hostages are alive and will be released, and that innocent people will not be killed by indiscriminate missile attacks. Lucian, keep up your reports!
Concise, precise, yet expansive reporting, Lucian. I see the Israeli buildup around Gaza as a psych-op. Who needs to actually invade when you can instill such fear? I agree with elements of many commenters: I hope hostages are alive, and Israeli intelligence is pinpointing. If they are alive, it’s looking like a reverse of the previous Israeli position: releasing 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli captive. New strategy: return the now-estimated 200 hostages held by Hamas; in return, Israel will refrain from killing 200,000 in Gaza. It sounds insane, but everything is insane, nothing is impossible.
It IS very strange. There must be a ton of maneuvering going on behind the scenes that we are not generally privy to. And a lot of angling and jockeying. There are some known facts and many unknowables --
It costs Israel a ton of money in lost economic productivity to keep reservists under arms and at battle stations. So this can't go on indefinitely, one way or another.
Hezbollah has enormous capacity to inflict damage on Israel if it so chooses. Ans vice-versa, esp. if the US intervenes. And what is Iran preparing to do, or what will it do if backed into a corner?
Will other Muslim states sit back and allow Israel to destroy Gaza without endangering their own regimes?
Can Israel restrain itself from an indiscriminate attack on Gaza that echoes futile or counter-productive US responses to 9-11?
Can Hamas or the Palestinian Authority emerge as good-faith negotiators in an effort to curtail violence and could the Israelis respond in kind?
It all seems like the bitter, long-simmering antagonisms of Ireland/Northern Ireland over the last two centuries, turned up a thousand fold and encompassing all the surrounding countries.
All the pieces gathering on the chessboard.
I have no idea what's going to happen. I do have a deep weariness, if not soul sickness about the existential messes both abroad and at home. The disasters and destruction are, at their essence, pointless. They're about "strength" and dominance -- and destructive of both body and soul. And the crazy thing is the haters and the crazies seem to be ahead.
Well said Margo, my feelings as well. One exception, I have always felt the crazies seemed to be ahead. Even before I was in High School.
I regret that you have been burdened with this fort so much longer than I.
Mine was the Vietnam War, seeing friends lose their Brothers. What is happening now, seems the same, but far worse.
Ah, but then the crazies were called "the best and the brightest." No one ever seems to lesrn
yes they were. So nice to be on Substack, reading people like yourself. So many kind, people with a deep understanding of history, and how it is the precursor to many of the problems we have now.
Substacks are becoming must reads for me. I feel simpatico with Mr. T.'s readers, more than the other writers I subscribe to. He also has a very active and large group of commenters. Some of my other subscriptions have nothing (or little) going on in the comments section.