This should make things interesting:
Turkish investigators concluded Thursday that one of the nine people killed in an Israeli commando raid on a flotilla of ships heading for Gaza this week was an American citizen of Turkish descent, according to a senior government official.
If nothing else, it should be fun and entertaining to watch an American Vice-President provide a full-throated defense of Israel’s absolute right to kill Americans. And then watching the bobbleheads in the media agree.
mr. whipple
Citizen or not, this changes nothing. They’ve already been labeled as ‘terrorists’ and ‘extremists’. I saw it was alleged this victim took 4 to the head and one to the chest.
Comrade Javamanphil
Presumably the dead American is not a young blond woman so we can safely assume nobody in the media will care.
Scott
The media and politicians will probably never even mention the person’s name. Fox News and the affiliated blogger hive-mind will proclaim that person to be an enemy of Real America on a level with Adolf Hitler or — worst of all — Rachel Corrie.
MattMinus
Isn’t it a long established fact that Israel has the right to kill Americans without jeopardizing it’s “special relationship” with us? And since he was of Turkish descent, it’s not like he was a real American anyway.
Bill E Pilgrim
I love the wording in the article:
Yeah, I’ll say.
We shall now watch the US government compete in the Rose Mary Woods competition for advanced contortioneering.
The Israelis hate us for our
freedoms?Late monthly payments?Backbencher
If the President can already kill U.S. citizens without a trial then I don’t see why the Israeli government shouldn’t be accorded the same right.
Chyron HR
As our new visitors over the past few days have explained, Israel has the absolute right to kill the rest of the human race in the name of pre-emptive defense.
Luckily Israel isn’t a nuclear power or anything.
Cacti
Turkish descent = Brown Skin
They don’t count.
wilfred
I heard this might be the case early Weds. morning, hence my questions last night.
The Israelis were given plenty of lead time in the US press to smear the murder victims with the usual Hamas supporter/terrorist sympathizer, etc.
He asked for it.
tkogrumpy
After “we had to destroy the village to save it” anything’s possible.
Corey
Umm…look at his name. Does that sound like a real ‘Murcan to you?
burnspbesq
Turkey has us by the balls right now. All it has to do is mention the possibility of invoking Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, and it can get pretty much anything it wants from the United States in exchange for not putting us in a position where we are obligated to go to war against Israel.
Lolis
I really wish Joe Biden was off-script for that one, but I doubt he was. It is very disturbing seeing the AIPAC crowd rule US foreign policy, even when it is so clearly against our interests. Democrats started putting Obama on notice months ago that Israel cannot be criticized. Sadly, I think the message was received and internalized.
geg6
If Rachel Corrie getting mown down and crushed didn’t get anyone here in the good ol’ USofA motivated to tell Israel to get fucked, then another brown, anonymous dead American is not a big deal. Plus, he or she is obviously a terrorist as he or she is of Turkish ancestry. The IDF said they were terrorists, so they were. Ipso facto.
Bill E Pilgrim
It’s too bad in a way everyone already knows about this, I’d love to see the reaction of the wingnuts if someone posted the news:
“Hey, a bunch of armed Middle Eastern men jumped onto a boat in the Mediterranean and killed an American who was on board!”
FoxinSocks
His name was Furkan Dogan and he died from four bullets to the head and one to the chest. This is insane, just insane and yes, I fear the American media and many Americans will insist his death doesn’t count because he wasn’t a ‘real’ American, whatever the hell that means.
Nick
Hell the last administration, and this one, defended the AMERICAN government’s right to kill Americans and the bobbleheads in the media agreed.
Andy
@burnspbesq:
Dream on. The USA will dissolve NATO before it takes any action against Israel.
SenyorDave
I think this disappoints me more than anything Obama has done up to now. The Biden defense obviously came right from the White House. Obama has become a very much “business as usual president”. I understand that taking on the Israel lobby is tough, but this truly is a matter of national security. Every time the lunatics in Israel do shit like this it does affect our ability to conduct foreign policy in the Middle East.
I think Israel has slightly more credibility these days than Hamas.
I hope Turkey does start to play the NATO card, although I suspect the first thing out of the mouths of their defenders will be that NATO is full of Hamas sympathizers.
GregB
CNN just reported that “all 9 of the dead were Turks, but one had US citizenship”.
Wow.
Rick Taylor
Are Americans of foreign descent really considered Americans these days? It’s openly debated whether it’s appropriate to read them their Miranda rights, they have to keep papers with them to avoid being deported in one state, and the government can assassinate them, so long as it decides it has a good enough reason. I’d like to be proven wrong, but I doubt the fact he’s an American citizen will register in the public debate; it will be considered sort of a technicality, unimportant in matters of life and death. After all, regardless of his citizenship, he was obviously a terrorist thug, actively attempting to bring cement, building materials, and other weapons of mass destruction to Gaza.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@FoxinSocks: Michael Jackson was trying to become a real American, even though no real Americans would have accepted him. Which is why I actually want to see Michael Steele and Michelle Malkin’s faces when they are thrown into the Republican re-melanin-ization camps. I’ll rescue them after I have a good laugh.
wilfred
“
Charles Schumer made this astonishing comment to Politico back in April, to be greeted with deafening silence by the liberal blogosphere.
Next step, eh?
SGEW
@geg6:
This was my first thought too.
For those who have forgotten (or never knew), here’s Rachel Corrie’s Wikipedia page.
Here’s her memorial website.
A Guest
@Bill E Pilgrim: I had not read up on it before, but compare the USS Liberty entry in Conservapedia to the one in Wikipedia.
Rick Taylor
__
Joe Biden has a reputation for shooting off his mouth and saying unwise things. I would certainly not assume he was on-script. Regardless, the statements of the Vice President aren’t what is most important.
cleek
the way we’ll know Biden was on-script is when nothing changes.
which it won’t.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@GregB:
re: the US media and Israel.
I wonder if this is what it felt like to be listening to the news back in the old Soviet Union, knowing that everything except for the soccer scores was BS or an outright lie, and wishing the BBC/VOA/etc. would hurry up and broadcast something worth listening to, so you could at least make a guess at what was happening in the world. Somebody bury our press corpse already – the smell is disgusting.
brendancalling
@GregB: all nine were turks?
oy. THAT is not going to go over well.
Even Booman Tribune is freaking out about Biden’s statements, and that is a site that is very reluctant to criticize the Obama administration.
geg6
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Yep.
I’m thinking that we Americans need our own Voice of America. Perhaps the Swedes will consider creating one. They might be one of the few countries in the world I’d consider trusting.
p.a.
Time to inspect the deceased’s countertops for anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism (especially the self-loathing kind)
ericblair
@GregB:
I’ve noticed there’s a fair bit of lede-burying going on here. The AP article mentions it in an offhand oh-by-the-way fashion. MSNBC, though, titles theirs “US Citizen among Gaza convoy dead”, which is kinda what you’d historically expect when a US citizen gets killed by foreign forces.
We’ll learn. It’ll be like the Communist era: a Polish newspaper publishes a health article that says eating too many potatoes is bad for your health, and the intelligent reader figures out that the Polish government just sold half the year’s potato crop to the Ukrainians.
El Cid
It’s not just Rachel Corrie.
A young American woman just got her eye shot out in a protest in Israel. Nothing much happening there from U.S. authorities.
Last year there was this:
The U.S. foreign policy establishment doesn’t give the slightest, least shit when Americans are killed if they’re doing something with or for Palestinians, because that makes them by definition either enemies themselves or fellow travelers.
The same was true for all the Americans going down for solidarity work in Central America under the Reaganites. Maryknoll nuns, Dianna Ortiz, Ben Linder, etc.. The moment our allies kill them (or in the case of Guatemala, rape Ortiz and throw her into a dungeon full of dead bodies) the impetus becomes smearing and accusing the victims, as well as quickly establishing that this was all a big mixup and the security forces will assure us to get better on procedure.
AWJ
@A Guest:
The Conservapedia entry for “USS Liberty” is just a stub, and it’s positively sane by Conservapedia standards.
I am disappoint!
wilfred
.
We already have. A few years ago the slightest criticism of Israel was suicide. Even on this blog; ask John.
Eyes are opening. Critical thinking abounds. Who does that scare?
david mizner
Well, Obama has claimed the right to kill Americans — Shouldn’t our satellite state be able to do the same?
A Guest
@AWJ: That is actually my point.
JITC
As an American lefty liberal reform Jew, I hate this. I have always hated this. I hate that I support Israel and deplore so many of their policy decisions over the years. And I really hate that so few Americans have the guts to call Israel on their sh*ty policies.
IT IS POSSIBLE (and IMO imperative) TO SUPPORT ISRAEL’S SOVEREIGNTY, RIGHT TO EXIST AND SAFETY AND CRITICIZE IT’S WORST DECISIONS.
I’m sorry to say that in this instance, Israel did have to send in those commandos. That one boat was picking a fight and got it. But Israel should never have allowed itself to be put in a situation where such a fight could so easily be picked. They had no good choice here and its their own fault.
Peter Beinart has it totally right here.
The hard-right and extreme religious groups have put Israel in a no-win situation. This happened in our own country. It took pressure from within and from other countries to force a change in leadership (and Obama is making changes, even if they aren’t as dramatic and quick as we’d like).
The U.S., and especially Jews in the U.S. do have influence on Israel. We need to let Israel know in no uncertain terms that criticizing their counter-active decisions (the blockade is NOT weakening Hamas but emboldening them) is not akin to criticizing the existence of Israel. Urging them to end bad policy that seems like it’s making the country safer but is actually making it less safe is GOOD for Israel, not anti-Israel or antisemetic.
Why were our liberal politicians so able to say “I love America, but George Bush sucks” and so unable to say “I support Israel but this blockade is ineffective?”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@david mizner:
Problem is, we and Israel don’t have the conventional relationship between the imperial metropolis and their subordinate client states. Did Bulgaria ask the KGB to shoot the Pope, rather than the other way around? But when it comes to Israel and the US, we dance to their tune, not they to ours. The only thing that Israel ever did at US’s behalf in recent memory was to stay out of the Gulf War at our request. That tells you just what sort of “ally” (scare quotes intentional) they are – the sort that, when we get into a fight we don’t want them in it with us, out of a well founded concern that their knife may end up in our back – conflicting agendas, accidents happen, etc. They are our little anti-NATO in the M.E. – all trouble and no help.
YellowJournalism
@geg6: That’s the first thing I thought of. I remember her being painted as a (race) traitor, a DFH, mentally unstable, and a commie. I overheard a conversation where one person called her stupid for not “getting out of the fucking way”.
mikeyes
How quickly we forget.
USS Liberty
Hiram Taine
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
No, because in the Soviet Union no one believed the media, everyone knew it was BS..
In “The Land of the Free” however it is different, the majority believes the media even when they say they do not trust them.
KXB
It’s funny that most people think Turks as being “brown”, when most of the Turks I met in B-school could be the same complexion as most Italians. It is probably true that in Turkey (as in other Middle Eastern nations), there is a higher percentage of light-skinned people at the top of the economic ladder than at the bottom. But I suppose their names make them foreign enough, not good ole’ all-American names like Yastremski & DiMaggio.
Jon H
Someone will probably suggest that his citizenship be revoked, posthumously.
benjoya
huh, i thought being born here and makes you an american. maybe holy joe can posthumously strip this guy of citizenship.
benjoya
@JITC:
i wonder where the video of the shot across the bow is.
Allan
No REAL Americans were harmed in the incident.
Nothing to see here, move on.
ruemara
He or she’s just an american of turkish descent. Not a Chosen Person™, so who cares. Israel bleeding bombed a US ship and nothing happened so why this would be an issue, I do not know.
MattMinus
@KXB:
Are you implying that Italians are white!?!?!?!
I say good day to you, sir.
dadanarchist
Reposting what I wrote last night on another thread:
The other truly depressing thing is the total unwillingness of the United States to protect its own citizens when they run afoul of Israel.
Look what just happened to Emily Henochowicz – she lost her fucking eye because a policemen fired a tear gas canister directly at her face (eyewitness reports said she was struck by two other canisters fired directly at her before the head shot). Rachel Corrie, Tristan Anderson, Brian Avery, the crew of the USS Liberty, the 11 Americans on the aid convoy…
Only Corrie’s congressman, Brian Baird, has gotten religion on this issue, but of course he is ignored and headed for retirement.
They all remember what happened to Paul Findley.
ruemara
And shooting an unarmed person 4 times in the head is fine because the glorious IDF showed such restraint in not shooting 20 times in the head.
dadanarchist
It reminds me of Mary McCarthy’s awesome put down of Lillian Hellman:
“Every word she writes is a lie, including and and the.”
Calouste
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
It’s pretty conventional relationship for a America and a client. America give the client piles of money and weapons, defends the client in the international arena and does some dirty work for them, and the client pays some lip service and does for the rest whatever the fuck they want and turns on America whenever they think it is better for them.
See: Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Manuel Noriega, Ho Chi Min (who was supported by the OSS against the French) and probably quite a few others.
drkrick
This is exactly the kind of thing that was said about slavery in the antebellum South – along the lines of “If you Yankees would stop stirring things up, we could treat the slaves better. But our honor demands we respond to your insults by showing you who’s boss, and besides your agitation makes them more dangerous and we have to crack down harder on them.”
Needless to say, it was bs then and led to tragedy. Good thing we’re sure that won’t happen again.
Calouste
More false equivalency and propaganda from Israel BBC link:
Yes, there is demand for an international inquiry because the incident happened in international waters, with one country boarding vessels registered with other countries. Which isn’t exactly the same as an occupation force shooting some of the inhabitants of the country they are occupying. Unless Israel now claims that their territorial waters extend to Gibraltar.
BombIranForChrist
It’s all 94324th dimensional chess. You’ll see. This is good for Murka.
KXB
@MattMinus:
Well, growing up Indian in a mostly Italian neighborhood – some were lighter than me, and some were not. In retrospect, the oddest-looking Italian one was red-haired & freckled. But any doubts were erased when I saw him wearing an 8-ball jacket and red Reeboks, as was the required school uniform for Italians and blacks in the early 90s.
kay
@Calouste:
Not a single concession to the US.
Ever.
This is some friendship, I gotta tell you.
mnpundit
Why would this be a problem? Rachel Corrie is widely thought in DC to have gotten what she deserved.
Steve R.
The Gaza “war” aka massacre was conducted by a “moderate” Israeli government. It is true that Netanyahu and friends have taken the stupid up a notch, but on the brutality scale it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
D-Chance.
As long as we, as a “Christian” nation, continues to believe that the Jews are “God’s chosen People”, then we’ll forgive every single fucking atrocity they commit, and do so shamelessly.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
His name was Furkan Dogan and he died from four bullets to the head and one to the chest
I suspect that the sequence was one in the chest, pause, then four in the head. Bastards.
mclaren
Various people have expressed astonishment at America’s unwillingness to “protect American citizens living abroad,” which seems silly.
The U.S. government has firmly committed to kidnapping without charges, imprisoning without trial and torturing U.S. citizens, and now just recently Obama gave the green light to assassinate U.S. citizens…so why on earth would the U.S. government have any interest in protecting U.S. citizens?
To the U.S. government, American citizens are now like cockroaches — insects to be killed whenever they feel like it.
Obama needs to embrace this bracing new realpolitik worldview in his next press conference. Obama should line up a bunch of American citizens, kneel ’em down in front of a slit trench in the Rose Garden, and pull out a luger.
“I believe in the sanctity of human life,” Obama can intone, and then shoot one of the Americans in the head. As the corpse tumbles into the slit trench, Obama then walks down the line, continuing to address the press.
“In America, we follow the constitution,” Obama can explain, while he shoots another American in the head. As that corpse falls into the slit trench, he can then elaborate: “America stands for freedom and individual dignity,” and then he shoots anther American in the head. As the corpse slumps into the slit trench, Obama can give full expression to the values of the constitution as he looks into the cameras with dignity and gravitas: “America was founded on the principles that we have inalienable rights” [BANG: another corpse tumbles into the slit trench] “and in America, the government is the servant of the people, not the master.” [BANG: Obama cocks the pistol and shoots another American in the head.]
This kind of press conference would give full expression to the kind of value the Obama administration places on the constitution and the life and liberty of individual U.S. citizens. The White House press corps would give a standing ovation, naturally.
Kyle
That one boat was picking a fight and got it.
Yes, they were asking for it, floating in the Mediterranean when Israeli helicopters started raking it with ‘suppressing fire’ and tear gas in the middle of the night, killing at least two people before commandos attacked.
As for America’s gutless bought politicians, Israel could nuke Miami and I have doubts as to which side they would come down on. Lieberman I know would say we deserved it.
Michael Finn
You know it’s odd…
From the other side, the Israeli’s think that they are being kowtowed to the Americans.
They know that their troops, if given permission, could go off in Gaza and finish the other side off immediately but of course that will never happen. They hate the fact that their leaders are under the control of the United States because of the protection that it is given to them.
So while we see ourselves as doing whatever Israel wants, they see themselves as seeing as doing whatever America wants.