Forest for the Trees

"We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. You know why? 'Cause it's show business. That's why I'm here." —Robert De Niro, Wag the Dog. It's been a while since we'd had a sex-related scandal in the White House. I suppose it's a testament to how interconnected the clique of society's upper crust is that both of these lecherous presidents are connected to the same indicted pedophile: Jeffrey Epstein. Recently, as the media machine unearthed more details and photos of Trump's friendship with Epstein, Trump issued a statement calling for the Washington Commanders, an American football team, to revert back to their old moniker: The "Redskins," an outdated pejorative for Native Americans. While the exact origin of the term is debated, it was used pejoratively by settlers. Early settler colonies and states, or sometimes private trade companies, would offer bounties to kill Native Americans. Their bloody corpses—“red skins”—would have to be delivered as proof- of-kill to receive payment. In 1863 for example, the government of Minnesota announced: “The State reward for dead Indians has been increased to $200 for every red-skin sent to Purgatory. This sum is more than the dead bodies of all the Indians east of the Red River are worth,” so it’s a good deal. Killing Indians was a good way to earn some money; there were plenty of settlers willing to pay for their red skins. Professional punditry has been largely unanimous in calling Trump’s statement a distraction—a desperate move by the president to distract from his quickly- unraveling scandal. In 1998, Bill Clinton faced a similar accusation. On August 20, the day that Monica Lewinsky was set to testify before the Senate, Clinton ordered an air strike on a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, the most important one in the region. The state narrative was that the Al-Shifa medical plant had been manufacturing chemical weapons for al-Qaeda. But that didn't pass the smell test. The facility was widely known, since it was a crucial factory producing live-saving medication that was build by the well-regarded Sudanese Baaboud family. Henry Jobe, the American designer of the factory, and Tom Carnaffin, a British engineer who oversaw Al- Shifa’s construction, both said the plant couldn’t have been used to make chemical weapons, since it would “need things like airlocks” which Al-Shifa didn’t have. The German ambassador to Sudan, Werner Daum, also immediately called out the US assertions. “One cannot describe the Al-Shifa plant as a chemical factory, even with the best will,” Daum telexed to Berlin on the day of the strike. “Shifa produced mostly human medicine such as antibiotics, antimalarials, medicine to treat diarrhea, infusion fluids and some veterinary drugs.” But the US government insisted that al-Qaeda was developing chemical weapons of mass destruction there. The government of Sudan felt quite differently. They demanded an UN investigation. If there were chemical weapons being manufactured, prove it. The US blocked that investigation on the convenient grounds that the area wasn't safe to inspect, due to the definitely real chemical weapons that would have contaminated the site after being blown up. When the investigation later did happen, and no evidence was discovered of chemicals being weaponized, the US admitted the strike was a “mistake.” Something didn't add up. "What was the rush?" asked Christopher Hitchens, writing for The Nation. "A chemical plant still could not have been folded like a tent and spirited away in a day or so. And the United States has diplomatic relations with Sudan. ... Was there a Démarche made between the State Department and the Sudanese regime? (We want to see inside this factory right away and will interpret refusal as a hostile act.) There was not." "Well then," Hitchens asked, "what was the hurry?" His conclusion, like many others, was that "Clinton needed to look 'presidential' for a day." So he acted with "complete disregard for international law, and perhaps counted on the indifference of the press and public to a negligible society like that of Sudan, and killed wogs to save his own lousy Hyde." For the record, I don't believe this to be Clinton's motivation (or at least I'm skeptical). This just seems like standard imperial practice to me. After all, this was an action carried out by the entire US government apparatus, which habitually bombs places without justification or UN approval. Specifically in this case, it was a punishment for the al-Qaeda bombings of two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. What better way to punish the whole region for being a hotbed of rebellion than to smash their source of medicine. But whatever the case, Hitchens did conclude by making a prescient point: "This is why I agree with those who say that we must put Monica behind us and stop our comic obsession with sex (or "sex," as the President's filthy-minded and incompetent lawyers are still compelled, for perjurious reasons, to call it in their briefings). It's not the cigar, stupid. It's the cruise missiles launched to cover the shame." While most Americans, indeed most people in the West, don't even remember the strike, the lack of available medication caused “several tens of thousands of deaths,” according to Werner Daum. Shouldn’t that be the scandal? Isn’t the attack on Al- Shifa more outrageous than the president’s extramarital affair? This one strike—which blends in with hundreds of other similarly capricious and murderous attacks that are routine for the United States—killed a far greater number of people than the 9/11 attacks. Yet this one is never mourned or mentioned, not even remembered. Those tens of thousands of Africans that died of perfectly treatable ailments are to the Empire mere ants squished under their boot. Meanwhile, as that catastrophe was befalling Africa, the United States was debating whether the president should be impeached for having an affair with a young intern—that was a scandal. The president being an unrepentant mass murderer is fine, though getting a blowjob in the Oval Office is clearly beyond the pale. This event serves to highlight an important dynamic in our political discourse: The worst crimes presidents commit are legal, but it's only their corrupt actions that become scandals, despite being comparatively minor. Another example comes from Trump's first term, when he was impeached by the House for extorting the Ukrainian president. During what Trump called his "perfect phone call" with Volodymyr Zelensky, he demanded a quid pro quo: The US would only sell weapons to Ukraine and invite Zelensky to the White House, if he could provide dirt on Joe Biden, Trump's political opponent. That is illegal. But only because Trump tried to personally benefit. If he had told Zelensky that the US would only sell weapons if Ukraine agreed to a trade deal or a defense pact, Trump's actions would not only be legal, they would be routine. Such political maneuvers are commonplace. Meanwhile, Trump bombed and raided Yemen, carried forth the war in Afghanistan, conducted numerous illegal assassinations—including that of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani—and supported the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. Domestically, he employed the National Guard and Homeland Security to roughhouse protesters, spiriting them away in unmarked vans as an intimidation tactic. He separated kids from their parents on the southern border, some of whom have never been reunited—something Nuremberg prosecutor Ben Ferencz called “a crime against humanity.” Trump and his party gave the biggest tax break to the richest Americans in the country’s history. And he pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords. Those ought to be the scandals. If Trump is going to be punished for anything, these should be top of the list. Extorting Zelensky for some political leverage is nothing compared to the wanton violence that typifies not just Trump's, but every US administration. Now, this time around, I understand the charges are a lot more serious. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is a worthy one. One of the most prolific sex-traffickers of women and children, connected to some of the most powerful people in the Western world. From the CIA director and Israeli prime ministers, to the English monarchy and two American presidents. Considering Trump's own lascivious past and the evidence already exposed about the kind of friendship he and Epstein had, the prospect of Trump having benefited from, or been involved in, Epstein's trafficking operation is beyond possible—it's probable. Like I said, it's a worthy scandal. It ought to be investigated. But keep this in mind: Donald Trump is guilty of genocide. He has openly proposed a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. He has bombed Yemen (again) and Iran. He has launched a domestic war against immigrants—both documented and undocumented—which has involved grotesque, and at times lethal, police violence. Not only has Trump’s administration deported hundreds of innocent Venezuelans to a concentration camp in El Salvador, the Republicans have also constructed their own penal colony in the Florida Everglades where prisoners are subjected to inhuman conditions. The place is infested with mosquitos. So many that it's preventing people from sleeping, which is already difficult because the lights are on twenty-four-seven; that also ensures that no one can tell the time in the windowless camp. Inmates are served half-rotten food infested with maggots, and they have no air conditioning or clean water. The budget of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has also just been expanded, making ICE technically one of the largest militaries in the world; bigger than the Israeli or Turkish armed forces. That bill also imposed record-setting levels of austerity on the country's poorest citizens, which is simply theft, and it's being given to the wealthiest class of Americans in the form of a gargantuan tax break. To further pay for that tax break, the bill also gutted Medicaid—depriving around 12 million Americans of health insurance by 2034—as well as SNAP, which is food assistance. These cuts will kill poor people. There is no way around that. These cuts will kill poor people. Also in the bill, a massive cut to clean energy initiatives, furthering the capitalist destruction of the human race. This should also be viewed as a major crime against humanity. If Trump should appear before a people's court, the most severe crime he’ll be charged with is the genocide in Gaza. And then, everything else I just described. Near the bottom of the list, should the evidence emerge, would be his involvement in Epstein's sex trafficking operation. Several pundits have likened the Epstein scandal to Watergate. I actually think that’s even more apt than it first appears. The Watergate exposés happened to coincide with another set of exposures, that of the FBI's COINTELPRO program. It was a program of domestic subversion, the Bureau's efforts to undermine the New Left. It was aimed at Vietnam War protesters, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, the student movements, and, perhaps most importantly, the Civil Rights movement. Undercover FBI agents would infiltrate leftist groups and identify the members. Agents would then compile "dirt" to use as blackmail or spread false rumors among the group to sow division. Or the Bureau would target their livelihoods by contacting their employers trying to get them fired. Among COINTELPRO's crowning achievements was the political assassination of Fred Hampton, the deputy chair of the Black Panther Party. The FBI had already tried to spread violence and paranoia among the Chicago-based street gangs that the Panthers united in the Civil Rights struggle. They had sent fake letters, for instance, to the leader of the Blackstone Rangers, alleging that the Black Panthers were planning a "hit" on him. Declassified documents showed the Bureau hoped to provoke "retaliatory action"—i.e. violence. This was part of J. Edgar Hoover’s orders to “Prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify, and electrify, the militant black nationalist movement.” On December 4, 1969, an FBI informant, William O'Neal, drugged Fred Hampton in preparation for the planned police raid. Early in the morning, the Chicago Police Department broke down the door of Fred Hampton's Chicago apartment and immediately fired about 100 shots into the room. They severely injured four Panthers and killed two others, one of them Hampton. He was shot in his bedroom with his pregnant fiancée sleeping next to him. She survived. The cops knew where to shoot into the bedroom, having been provided a sketch of the apartment's layout by the FBI informant—for which O'Neal was paid a bonus. When the shooting stopped, two officers walked into Hampton's bedroom. "Is he still alive?" one of them asked. Two gunshots rang out. "He's good and dead now," the other officer said. The autopsy report details two close-range gunshot wounds to Hampton’s skull. In 1971, a group called the Citizens' Commission to Investigate the FBI broke into their Pennsylvania office and confiscated documents about the COINTELPRO program. At the same time these crimes were exposed, the Watergate break-in happened. That was the scandal, COINTELPRO was not. The president surveilling his political rivals—half of the US ruling class—was clearly unacceptable. Whereas a domestic subversion program that went as far as assassinating dissidents was barely worth mentioning. Another Civil Rights "messiah" targeted by the FBI, Martin Luther King Jr., once wisely said, "Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal." Amidst all the hysterics about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, please remember this: The worst crimes Trump and the Republicans commit are not against the law. The real scandal is everything they are shamelessly doing in the open.