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December 11th, 2020 
Awake Goy 
Meet General Lloyd Austin
President-elect Joe Biden is set to nominate retired Army general Lloyd Austin as Defense Secretary. After retiring from the military in 2016, Austin joined the board of Raytheon. The defense manufacturer has sold billions of dollars worth of weapons to the Saudi coalition that’s been pummeling Yemen with bombs for years.
“After the Yemen war began in 2015 and the Obama administration made a hasty decision to back the Saudis, Raytheon booked more than $3 billion in new bomb sales, according to an analysis of available U.S. government records,” reported the New York Times earlier this year, “Intent on pushing the deals through, Raytheon followed the industry playbook: It took advantage of federal loopholes by sending former State Department officials, who were not required to be registered as lobbyists, to press their former colleagues to approve the sales.”
Before joining Raytheon, Austin seemingly couldn’t make heads or tails of the Yemen conflict. When it began he was the commander of CENTCOM. During a Committee on Armed Services hearing, he admitted that he didn’t know what Saudi Arabia’s goals were and couldn’t say what success in the region would look like. Here’s his exchange with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand:
Sen. Gillibrand: What’s your assessment of the likelihood of success?
General Austin: In Yemen?
Sen. Gillibrand: Yes.
General Austin: Again, Senator, I don’t currently know the specific goals and objectives of the Saudi campaign. And I’d have to know that to be able to assess the likelihood of success.
Senator Gillibrand: Well, I do hope you get that information sooner than later, because, you know, more than $500 million in U.S. military assistance to Yemen can no longer be accounted for and has fallen into the wrong hands. We have a role in Yemen that we have to have much greater accountability for.
I’m guessing he has at least determined what Raytheon’s objectives in the country are since this exchange.
The situation in Yemen is already considered the worst humanitarian crisis in the world by the United Nations, but the Trump administration is set to potentially make it even worse before leaving office. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo might designate the Houthis as a terrorist organization, making it even harder to get aid into Yemen. “While the Biden administration can reverse this, the damage done in the interim will be deadly and will add a massive burden to the already overstretched response,” Oxfam America’s Scott Paul told the Huffington Post.
It’s unclear whether Biden will actually reverse course on Yemen, but the Austin pick shows that the war machine will continue to be led by the very people who have profited from it.
Georgia Race
We’re less than a month away from Georgia’s Senate runoff elections. Rev. Raphael Warnock continues to try to distance himself from a 2018 sermon in which he condemned Israel for killing unarmed protestors. Sen. Kelly Loeffler has repeatedly attacked Warnock for the sermon and the fact he once signed a letter referring to Israel as an apartheid state. Here’s what he said during a Jewish Democratic Council of America Zoom call this week:
“As you might imagine, I’m a pastor. I preach every Sunday — I preach a lot of sermons. And I think that — as I recall that sermon — I was speaking to the issue of activists and human rights and the ability of people to be heard. At the same time, I have an increasing recognition of Hamas and the danger that they pose to the Israeli people. And so it’s a complicated situation. It’s one that I will always engage as a principled and honest broker, who both affirms humanity, human rights, and at the same time trying to get us to a place where Israel can exist alongside its neighbors in peace.”
“I will always affirm the right of people to protest non-violently. But at the same time, I condemn BDS [for] its refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.”
Warnock’s backpedaling was enough to inspire an endorsement from Democratic Majority for Israel. The lobbying group that spent $2 million trying to save Eliot Engel cited Warnock’s opposition to BDS as one of the reasons they were backing him.
“What a disgrace,” tweeted Palestinian-American activist and DNC delegate Zeina Ashrawi Hutchison, “Reverend Warnock went from preaching freedom and justice for the Palestinian people to throwing our rights and lives under the bus by embracing and empowering a racist, dangerous and hateful anti-Palestinian group.”
The Sudan Deal
The Trump administration has been pushing normalization efforts between Israel and Sudan, which actually involves protecting the African country from any future lawsuits over terrorism. This deal has predictably generated anger among families of 9/11 victims, as the Sudanese government allegedly helped Al-Qaeda back in 2001.
Barak Ravid reported on the story at Axios: “Israeli diplomats in Washington have started stressing to senators and members of Congress in recent days that if the immunity bill doesn’t pass, it could have negative implications not only for the normalization process with Sudan, but also for future normalization deals with other Arab countries, Israeli officials told me.”
Trump’s State Department has offered to set up a $150 million fund for victims of the 1998 embassy bombings, but that obviously doesn’t address the concerns of the 9/11 families. Facing pressure from their constituents, Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez have both tried to block the bill. Schumer and Menendez have effectively been pressured to impede Israel’s lobbying efforts. What a year it’s been.
Odds & Ends
🇮🇱 Last week Israeli forces murdered Ali Abu Alia, who had just turned 15, at a protest. According to Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP), he’s the fifth Palestinian minor from the West Bank to be killed by the IDF using live ammunition this year.
Alia was killed with a Ruger rifle, a gun that’s manufactured in the United States. There’s been calls for investigations for the United States government to investigate his death. Israel is allegedly already doing that, but there’s virtually no chance anyone will be held accountable. “I began working at DCIP in January 2013,” tweeted Brad Parker, “In that time we’ve documented 155 Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces with live ammo or crowd-control weapons. Israeli investigations are a PR move. Systemic impunity is the norm. We must force accountability. RIP Ali.”
🇹🇼 The United States has sold over $5 billion in weapons to Taiwan this year.
🇦🇫 There’s been a lot of talk about the Trump administration withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. It’s safe to say that less attention will be paid to a new Brown University study which shows that civilian deaths in the country have dramatically risen over the last four years. The number of civilians killed by international airstrikes has gone up by about 330% since 2016.
🇺🇸 US Representative-elect Cori Bush has been appointed Deputy Whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
🇦🇪 The Senate failed to block Trump’s $23 billion arms deal with the UAE.
🏛️ Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum entered a piece by Gideon Levy on the killing of Ali Abu Aalya into the congressional record, along with her own statement condemning it. “What would you think of a regime that allows the shooting of children, that abducts them in their sleep and razes their schools?,” reads Levy’s piece. “That’s exactly what you must think of the regime here in our country.”
Stay safe out there,
Michael
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