No Kings, Here Or There

 

Question: If you facilitate a peace plan in the Middle East, but foment brutal reprisals against your political opponents at home and murder people in boats in international waters, do you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize? Because pacifying the Middle East has eluded prior presidents, it’s worth asking, despite those mitigating factors.

If the Trump-involved peace plan proves durable, and if displaced Palestinians find permanent, acceptable homes where they can thrive, hand him the prize.

Trump being Trump, he flew to Egypt and Israel to bask in praise, much of which he lavished on himself. Also being Trump, he glorified the area’s dictators, admired their unrestricted power, and disgorged his usual grievances about people he dislikes back home. Nevertheless, the exchange of 20 Israeli prisoners held by Hamas and about 2000 Palestinians held by Israel is an achievement for which Trump deserves credit, whatever his role within the team that pulled it off.

But, knowing Trump to be the grifter he’s been since his simulacrum of adulthood, there are justifiable concerns. In particular, the board of overseers created to supervise the redevelopment and management of Gaza, to be headed by Trump. It’s unknown whether or what he offered to the surrounding states that have signed onto the deal, but we know Trump et fils have been proposing Trump hotels and golf courses there for years, turning the area into a remunerative paradise. Grift я him. As proof, amidst it all, the “president” of the United States is hustling overpriced, low-quality watches like a carnival barker. It’s embarrassing.

It’s reasonable to assume Qatar, for one, will get a piece of the action for its $400 million high-flying gift, and after the Trump-approved military “facility” is completed in Idaho. We refer to the project about which Pentagon Pete exulted, “I’m also proud that today we’re announcing we’re signing a letter of acceptance to build a Qatari Emeri Air Force facility at the Mountain Home Airbase in Idaho. The location will host a contingent of Qatari F-15s and pilots...”

After the appropriately shocked response, even from MAGA, America’s highly qualified SecWar clarified: “... [T]o be clear, Qatar will not have their own base in the United States—nor anything like a base...” So, okay. Nothing like a base. A facility. Within an American military base. With planes and pilots. And buildings. Definitely not base-like, though. Welcome in, Hamas-funders but not Hispanic.

If, a year from now, peace prevails, Hamas is defanged, the rebuilding is something other than a cash cow for Trump, sheiks, princes, and emirs, and Palestinians and Israelis are happy and secure, I’ll nominate him if no one else will.

Now that he solved the world’s most enduring geopolitical problem, as opposed to its most existentially grave one, climate change, which he’s intentionally making worse, it’d be great if he’d devote the rest of his term(s?) to brokering peace within the United States, by ending his verbal and military attacks on Democrats and lies about liberals. A nice start would be to acknowledge that this weekend’s nationwide “No Kings” marches are Constitutionally protected, essentially American forms of protest. Even better, he could take its message to heart.

But that would require cerebral processing power; something it increasingly appears he’s lacking. Like when he posted that “the Biden FBI” placed 274 agents within the January 6 crowd at a time when it was he, not Biden, in office. A lie, or dementia? Does it matter?

Instead, we have Holy Mike Johnson, who takes directions directly from God, which means one of them is a liar and I’m guessing it’s Mike, characterizing the marches as “a hate America rally” run by “the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people.” Right. To advocate for free speech, fair elections, equal rights, unsuppressed education, and Constitutionally contained leadership is to hate America. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a comical downgrade from Pete Buttigieg, said they’re paid protestors. I’ll be there. Where do I get my paycheck? Or cash? Will George Soros be there, handing it out?

Declaring Antifa a terrorist organization, Trump, who is demonstrably working to overthrow the United States government, law enforcement, and our system of law, issued a proclamation stating, “Antifa ... explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.” Explicitly? Where? Is there a manifesto? Read us, Dear Leader, those explicit words. Where are the terrorists’ headquarters? Why haven’t they been raided?

Yes, there have been people dressed in black, mixed in with and far outnumbered by peaceful protestors, calling themselves Antifa. Some have done bad things. Some, according to the FBI when it was credible, were rightwing provocateurs. So some people call themselves Antifa. That doesn’t make it an organization by any definition, terrorist or otherwise.

America’s “president” is desperate to create violence to justify a permanent, military-backed, authoritarian takeover. Resistance, then, like “No Kings” marches, becomes a zero-sum game. It will end, one way or another.

Convergence

I was impressed with the speech.

Without doubt there are people in the world who would hate to see peace come to the Middle East. Osama bin Laden is one. And, if it were to happen on Obama's watch, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are others. With exceptions like those, I think it's fair to say nearly all Americans hope for peace, and see it as so important to our and the world's security that they'd not care which people or party got the credit, if such credit were due.

Presidents, popes, and potentates have tried for decades. As a foreign policy matter, Middle East peace is surely at the top of the importance list. Something, it's clear, needs to change, dramatically. And what could be a more dramatic a change of the dynamic than a US president named Barack Hussein Obama, who lived for a time in a Muslim country, whose father was a Muslim born in Africa? Such a president, willing to speak in Cairo about the unbreakable bond between the US and Israel, and of the suffering of Palestinians. Willing to talk tough with Israel about settlements. (Bush, as we have now learned, made secret side deals to allow them. A perfect example of saying one thing in private and doing another in public, which Obama decried in his speech.) And, yes, willing to admit that America has made mistakes.

People say it was only Nixon who could go to China. People say it took a charismatic man like John Fitzgerald Kennedy to assure people a Catholic president would not answer to the Pope. I have no idea if Barack Hussein Obama can change the dynamic in the Middle East. In fact, given the deeply rooted religious differences which, as we know, lead to the most deadly sort of intransigence, I'd guess not. Still, it seems to me that it's an amazingly propitious happenstance of fate that, at this most perilous of times, we have such a president.

What's so hard about admitting it? Why can't people like all the RWS™ and their fawning and credulous minions take a break? After years of frustration, of brokered and broken deals, we might be seeing a sea-change. Someone who literally stands astride both worlds, at least to a degree heretofore unseen. Someone able not only to say "enough is enough," but to command unique credibility in doing so. Can't we agree this is something clearly new, something with potential to lead to breakthrough? At least in theory? It might not happen; it probably won't. But isn't it clear that there are some unprecedented differences between Barack Obama and every other president who tried to make a difference? Isn't that something to relish, something for which all Americans could hope? As bad as things have been, isn't it time to try something different?

And yet, from the right wing there is reflexive and nearly unanimous condemnation. The fat addict says Obama and Osama are in a race to see who can destroy our country first. What more clear example is there of placing politics over country? It's like a drowning redneck rejecting a life raft because it was made in San Francisco. (Remember that motto before which so many Republicans stood? They don't.) Are the political considerations of the right wing so entrenched that it's literally impossible for them to say, hey, this could be an opportunity that will benefit the whole world? For them, if not to voice support, at least to shut the hell up? For a while? Enough to see if there are cracks in the wall?

Richard Nixon made my skin crawl, literally. But when he went to China I was impressed. Like Obama risking the support of parts of the Israel lobby, Nixon opened himself up to the rage of the hard right of his party, and it led, mostly, to good. Is there nothing Obama could do -- even moving the Middle East toward reconciliation -- that the right wingers might acknowledge?

Clearly, the answer is no. And what does that tell us? About them.
.