Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Age Of Fools” By William Cook – Stop Neocon & Zionist Palestinian Genocide, War On Muslims & War On Humanity”, Countercurrents, 03 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya031215.htm .
“Age of Fools” by William A. Cook (author, activist, poet and professor of English at the University of La Verne, California) should be read by everyone as a brilliant and passionate condemnation of the continuing US atrocities in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the US War on Muslims, and of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide by a nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, racist Zionist-run, democracy by genocide, demonocracy and neo-Nazi rogue state Apartheid Israel. “Age of Fools” employs poetry, prose and European literary traditions to excoriate the horrendous Bush America and Israeli crimes of the first decade of the 21st century, atrocities that are continuing today.
As outlined by William Cook in “Age of Fools” ([1], Chapter 25, pages 246-247), the term “Genocide” was coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944 [12] and is precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention thus: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [13]. Article 3 states that “The following acts shall be punishable: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide”; Article 4 states that “Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” [13].
In his Foreword to “Age of Fools”, William Cook describes the context of “Age of Fools” and how his book is divided into 3 parts, namely “Men of War”, “Ministers of the Gods” and “Retribution”: “Age of Fools offers a record of the first decade of the 21st century as the newly appointed administration of George W. Bush entered the White House and inaugurated a decade of deceit and destruction that catapulted the United States into a totalitarian dictatorship that ravaged the world at will … Within each area, poems inaugurate the concerns that will reveal and unveil who acted, why they acted, and the consequences and justifications of those actions. The poetry speaks through psalms, songs, and monologues, while the polemics testify to the actions set against the universal values gleaned from literature over the eons of time. Altogether the work reflects the need to record for all victims of these actions, a sense that justice should be levelled at those guilty of inhumane acts lest they pass forever without retribution” ([1], pages xvii- xviii).
Before reviewing “Age of Fools” in detail, it is important to summarize the horrendous dimensions of the US Alliance atrocities in terms of deaths from violence or avoidable deaths from violently-imposed deprivation in the Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide (1.4 million and 4.2 million, respectively, for a total of 5.6 million since 2001) [14], the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide ( 1.5 million and 1.2 million, respectively, for a total of 2.7 million since 2003) [15], and the Palestinian Holocaust and Palestinian Genocide (0.1 million and 1.9 million, respectively, for a total of 2 million since 1936) [16, 17].
One notes that whether a Muslim child dies quickly from violence via bombs or bullets or dies a slow, agonizing avoidable death from violently-imposed deprivation, that death is just as final, irreversible and horrible [11]. Indeed, since the US Government's false flag 9-11 atrocity [18], under-5 year old infant deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Occupied Palestinian Territories have totalled 4.0 million, 1.3 million and about 40,000, respectively, 90% avoidable and due to horrendous war crimes by the US Alliance occupiers in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention which state that an Occupier is obliged to provide the Conquered with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [19]. Thou shalt not kill children [20].
While “Age of Fools” is concerned with the crimes of the US Alliance and US-backed Apartheid Israel in the first decade of the 21st century, these crimes must be also seen in the context of horrendous avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation in the US-dominated world since 1950 (1,500 million) [11], in the Muslim world since 1950 (650 million) [11], and in 20 significantly or substantially Muslim countries subject to US Alliance invasion since 9-11 (27 million, to which we should add 5 million violent deaths for a total of 32 million deaths in a Muslim Holocaust exceeding in magnitude that of the WW2 European Holocaust) [21]. Indeed Iraq has been successively invaded by Western forces since 1914 (e.g. formerly UK lackey and now US lackey racist White Australia is now into its Seventh Iraq War in a century) and this century of Western war crimes has been associated with Iraqi deaths from violence or imposed deprivation totally 9 million, this including 1.9 million during the Gulf War (1990-1991) and Sanctions period (1990-2003) and 2.7 million during the Iraq War (2003-2011) [15].
Anti-racist Jewish British playwright Harold Pinter in his Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance speech (made in 2005 when post-invasion violent Iraqi deaths were already expertly estimated at about 100,000) stated: “The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading as a last resort all other justifications having failed to justify themselves as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice” [22]. I would assert: 32 million? More than enough, I would have thought.
A. Prologue. In his Prologue section , William Cook quotes from Sebastian Brant's 1494 masterpiece “Narrenschiff” (“Ship of Fools”) that inspired the title of his book, and quotes extensively from poems by like-minded, anti-violence, humane poets W.B. Yeats (“Easter 1916”), W.H. Auden (“September 1, 1939”) and himself. However he underestimates the cost of wars by the warmongering fools of the Bush Administration who, according to the US Center for Public Integrity, told 935 lies about Iraq between 9-11 and the invasion of Iraq [23]. The biggest lie of all was that the 9-11 atrocity was perpetrated by “men in caves” whereas numerous science, engineering, architecture, aviation, medical, military and intelligence experts conclude that the US Government did 9-11 with some concluding that Apartheid Israel, America's dirty tricks surrogate, must have also been involved [18].
Chapter 1, “In the Beginning of the 21st Century: Promise and Loss” William Cook quotes 2 optimistic psalms he wrote for the new century before his hopes were dashed.
Chapter 2, “The Second Pearl Harbor” is about reactions to 9-11. William Cook opines in relation to US-backed oppression of the Palestinians: “Certainly we must pay attention to this falling man [the gut-wrenching image from 9-11] who epitomizes those caught in the merciless behaviour of uncontrolled power – selfish, arrogant, soulless, without remorse or compassion or respect or dignity for those they destroy. Ultimately that is what this falling man epitomizes, what our cry must be as his last breath, justice for all, by all, that it may prevail” ([1], page 9).
Chapter 3, “Armageddon” quotes William Cook's poem “Ground Zero” about Bush's use of 9-11 as an excuse for war. William Cook comments: “All we have even now, years beyond the attack are questions, unanswered questions that cry to the heavens for answers. No crime in human history has elicited so many enquires world-wide without response from the country that suffered that crime. Why? If there is no fear of finding answers to these thousands of questions, why not seek the truth? ([1], page 11).
B. Men of War. William Cook prefaces this section with a condemnation of the remorseless greed and depravity of Neo-Con fools : “All foods are cowards, unlike the clown who lives and acts garbed in outlandish garments that image a stereotype of human behaviour … Fools you will have with you always; but for them there would be peace throughout the world” ([1], page 20).
Chapter 4, “The War of Words: Living Without Morality – profit not peace: the fools path”, deals with the now dominant, Bush-espoused neoliberal (Neo-Conservative) paradigm of maximizing the freedom of the rich and advantaged to exploit natural and human resources and the determinism of the “School of Straussianism”: “[Leo] Srauss believed those who rule must realize that no morality exists, that nature alone determines who rules and who follows” ([1], page 27) . As described by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene” [24], altruism has evolved through genes (DNA) and memes (socially selected behaviours) but humanity is capable of overcoming our animal nature as exampled by social humanism that seeks to maximize human happiness, opportunity and dignity [25]. In relation to the “slow, systematic genocide taking place in Palestine”, William Cook quotes Israeli Professor Yehezkel Drot: “When Survival of the Jewish People is at stake, there's no place for morals: ([1], page 35).
Chapter 5, “Blinded by the Right (11/11/2002)” commences thus: “One year to the day following the second Pearl Harbor [9-11], we can feel the impact of this mindless act as it inaugurates a decade of destruction through manufactured deceit, the very essence of psychopathic behaviour, what I call “the ditch of fanaticism” ([1], page 37). The American exceptionalism of warmonger Bush found common cause with the genocidally racist exceptionalism of neo-Nazi Israeli Linkudniks like Ariel Sharon: “Would anyone have believed that in the year 2002 America would join forces with fanatics driven by fabricated myths more than 2500 years old as the basis for foreign policy?” ([1], page,42).
Chapter 6, “A World-wide Intifada? Why?” deals with the US War on Terror and deplorable but understandable violent non-state terrorist “blowback” responses to US imperialism and to the ongoing Palestinian Genocide by US-backed Apartheid Israel: “Few know that Palestinians are, in all legitimate ways, the indigenous population of the area; that in 1870, 98% of the population was Arab and only 2% Jewish; that in 1940, Palestinians accounted for 69% of the population even as Jews thronged to the area from Europe in an attempt to escape the Nazis; that in 1947, the year that the UN created Israel without the approval of the indigenous population, the Palestinians represented 65% and the Israelis less than 35% of the 1,845,000 who lived there; that Israel now occupies all but 22% of the Palestinian land , having taken it in the 1967 war and consistently refusing to return it to its proper owners” ([1], page 47). Today in 2015 the genocidally racist Israelis have ethnically cleansed 90% of Palestine by military takeover, “Jews-only” highways, the obscene Apartheid Wall and related barriers, village, farm and home destruction, and by illegal settlements; of 12 million Palestinians, 6 million are forbidden to step foot in their own country, 4.3 million exist without human rights as prisoners without charge or trial in the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp (1.8 million) or in West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (2.5 million), and only 1.7 million Palestinians Israelis (14% of Palestinians and 28% of Palestinian subjects of Apartheid Israel) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of Palestine, albeit as Third Class citizens under Nazi-style Apartheid laws. The annual per capita GDP is $2,900 for Palestine, 13 times lower than for Apartheid Israel ($38,000) that continues to steal land, steal water and impose a Nazi-style Apartheid regime on Occupied Palestinians of whom it kills 1,000 violently each year and kills 4,000 non-violently each year through imposed deprivation. Half the Palestinians are children and most of those in the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp are badly traumatized by repeated Israeli Gaza Massacres involving shelling, rocketing or bombing from IDF tanks, ships or planes. One notes that it is not just Occupied Palestinian and Palestinian Israeli children who are being violated and traumatized by child-abusing, neo-Nazi Apartheid Israelis – a recent survey of Israeli children provides shocking evidence that 48.5% have suffered physical psychological or sexual abuse, with 18% suffering sexual abuse [27]. Of course all decent people around the world – and notably anti-racist Jews – are utterly opposed to this US-backed Apartheid Israeli New Nazism and can respond effectively and peacefully by application of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against US-backed Apartheid Israel and its supporters (notably Apartheid America and its lackeys the UK, France and Apartheid Australia), just as boycotts were successfully used against Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa [16, 17, 27-33]. Pro-Apartheid Israel France has disgustingly criminalized advocacy of Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and the pro-Zionist Australian Coalition Government has declare that to will cut off Federal funding to any academics supporting BDS (this including anti-racist Jews who are strong critics of Apartheid Israel).
Chapter 7, “An Open Letter to Osama bin Laden” commences with a clear statement about the US War on Terror that has so far been associated with 27 million Muslim avoidable deaths from deprivation in 20 countries invaded by the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted US Alliance since the 9-11atrocity (3,000 deaths) [21] that many experts believe was executed by the US Government itself, with some asserting Israeli involvement as a US dirty tricks surrogate [18] : “”A World-wide Intifada” [chapter 6] provides understanding of why America is seen as a belligerent state willing an capable of invading and devastating nations around the world. With the invasion of America by unknown assailants on 9/11, those who own America driven by those who hijacked its government by means of the Bush Administration, used this second Pearl Harbor to devastate Afghanistan and attack Iraq. They declared Arabs responsible for the attacks, identifying and blaming Osama Bin Laden as their leader. To this day the government has not been able to present direct evidence that links Bin Laden to the attack” ([1], page 56). The US has invaded 70 countries (50 since WW2), subverts all countries, has 737 bases in foreign lands and has military personnel in 156 of 193 countries [34]. By way of comparison, the British have invaded 193 countries [35], Australians 85 [36], the French 82 [37], Germany 38, Japan 30, Russia 24, Canada 24, Apartheid Israel 12 and China 2 [38]. One notes that months before she was assassinated in 2007 former Pakistan PM Benazir Bhutto made it clear that Osama bin Laden was dead - yet he was supposedly killed in an extrajudicial killing by Obama in 2011 [39]. The US-installed and unelected former Afghan President Karzai recently described the presence of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan as a “myth” and declared that he knew of no evidence that Al Qaeda was responsible for the 9-11 atrocity, a view he shares with some top German, US, Italian, Russian and Iranian military intelligence figures [18].
C. Minister of the Gods. In this lengthy part of “Age of Fools”, William Cook excoriates fundamentalist American Christian Zionists, racist Jewish Zionists in the US, Apartheid Israel and around the world, the Zionist-subverted US Democrat and Republican political Establishment and those I describe as R4s – the racist religious Right Republicans. Put simply, these racist, religious right fanatics are dangerously deluded psychopaths who have immense power in a Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted West dominated by neoliberal One Percenters. William Cook asserts that “Life is not for the few; what this creation offers belongs to all. Love, Sharing, Empathy must be our mantra to harmony in this life” ([1], page 67). Indeed Professor Walter Davis' “Death's Dream Kingdom. The American Psyche since 9-11” is about how sensible humans attempt to understand themselves (through earnest, honest, painful introspection) and others (through empathic internalizing and analyzing of the suffering of others) – as compared to the psychotic, “ideology-driven” simplicity of “compulsory happiness”, “endless demand”, “axiomatic rightness”, “certainty- and guarantee-demanding”, denial, avoidance of empathy and introspection, and violent externalizing of inner fears by both the racist Religious Right Republicans and by contemporary, Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted Capitalist America [40, 41].
Decent, sensible people are enraged by primitive religious clap-trap being foisted on children, and regard this as constituting egregious intellectual child abuse. How infinitely more egregious and evil is invasion, devastation, brutal subjection, remorseless humiliation, mass murder and genocide imposed on the Palestinian people by the neo-Nazi Zionists who justify this by the obscene, genocidally racist spoutings of genocidal barbarians of 2,500 years ago who asserted that their God had chosen them as his Chosen People and instructed them to destroy all others. Thus the Old Testament declares in Deuteronomy chapter 9: “1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; 2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them: 3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. 4 For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. 5 But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For thou art an holy people unto the LORD thy God: the LORD thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth” [42]. And it has become even worse as the anti-Arab anti-Semitism of the racist Zionists has been adopted by a Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted and subverted US and US Alliance and generalized to generate what must be called a Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide that in the post-9-11 era has been associated with 27 million Muslim avoidable deaths from imposed deprivation in a swathe of substantially or significantly Muslim countries from Mauritania on the Atlantic to the Philippines in the Pacific [21]. The Christian Zionists, the racist Jewish Zionists and their Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted supporters are not just fools but are utterly evil fools who should be sidelined from public life as have been like racists such as the Nazis, neo-Nazis, Apartheiders and the Ku Klux Klan. America needs de-Nazification.
Yet decent Humanity (and most notably anti-racist Jews ) oppose this genocidal hatred and carnage that is accompanied by remorseless Zionist mendacity – it is appropriate that an anagram for ISRAEL is e-LIARS. Thus the Orthodox Jewish position is that Jews cannot return to Zion (Jerusalem) until the Moschiach (the Messiah) arrives and reveals the glory of Adonai (the Lord) to the whole world. Thus the Orthodox Jewish Neturei Karta on the blasphemy of the Zionist State: "The founding of the Zionist State is in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Torah, which forbids the establishment of a Jewish State and commands Jews to remain in exile until released from that exile by G-d Himself without any human intervention. At which time all Nations of the world will live together in peace” [43]. The outstanding anti-racist Jewish American scholar Professor Jared Diamond in his best-selling book "Collapse” (Prologue, p10, Penguin edition) enunciated the "moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people" – an injunction grossly violated by racist Zionist (RZ)-run Apartheid Israel and its racist, genocide-committing and genocide-ignoring US Alliance backers [44]. Anti-racist Jewish Canadian activist and writer Naomi Klein: “There is a debate among Jews - I'm a Jew by the way. The debate boils down to the question: "Never again to everyone, or never again to us?... [Some Jews] even think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free card...There is another strain in the Jewish tradition that say[s], 'Never again to anyone.”” [45]. Numerous outstanding, anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish humanitarians condemn racist Zionism, Israeli Apartheid, anti-Arab anti-Semitism, the Palestinian Genocide, the Iraqi Genocide, the Afghan Genocide and the Muslim Genocide [27-33, 43-46].
The following chapters (based on previous writings of William Cook) have titles that are mostly self-explanatory given the above analysis :
Chapter 8, “Vengeance Is Not a Virtue, Nor Is Superstition Truth”.
Chapter 9, “When Logic Dies (3/13/2003)”.
Chapter 10, “Sins of Omission: Hiding Truth (4/5/3003)”.
Chapter 11, “Of Pariahs & Pre-Emptive Strikes (4/6/2003)”.
Chapter 12, “The Scourge of Hopelessness”.
Chapter 13, “Ministers of War”.
Chapter 14, “Faith-Based Fanatics”.
Chapter 15, “Israel: America's Albatross”.
Chapter 16, “The No-Choice Election (4/24-25/2004)”.
Chapter 17, “Violence Disemboweled of Law (6/1/2004)”.
Chapter 18, “Turning Myths into Truth (10/14/2004)”.
Chapter 19, “Killing for Christ (10/22-24/2004)”.
Chapter 20, “Reflections of Times Past (1/10/2005)”.
Chapter 21, “Imperial Zealotry” (2/22/2003)”. William Cook concludes: “This s a world gone mad, driven by psychopaths who have anointed themselves gods, free to act as they will in total impunity because they were disciples of a little mind that understood victimhood, how to create it … ” ([1], page 213).
D. Retribution. This final section of William Cook's book is about the immense crimes of the US, the US Alliance and of Apartheid Israel in the first century of the 21st century that have been white-washed by complicit Mainstream journalists, politicians and academics (presstitutes) and as a consequence are continuing and widening. History ignored yields history repeated. The Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted, mendacious presstitutes of the Western Mainstream media have a lot to answer for – as I see it, in the first century of the 21st century alone, the Sanctions against Iraq that killed 1.7 million people, half of them children, only ceased when the US, UK and Australia invaded Iraq in 2003; the continuing Iraqi Genocide (2.7 million Iraqi deaths from violence or violently-imposed deprivation, 2003-2011) [15]; the 9-11 atrocity in 2001 that was almost certainly due to the US Government itself, with possible Israeli involvement [18]; the Afghan Genocide (5.6 million deaths from violence or violently-imposed deprivation since the war criminal invasion in 2001); the Apartheid Israel occupation of much of Lebanon that ceased in 2000 but which was followed by the war criminal Israeli devastation of Lebanon and of the Gaza Concentration Camp in 2006 ); the continuing brutal occupation of Palestine and the violation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Occupied Jerusalem that precipitated renewed Intifada in 2000; the widening of the War on Terror from about 2004 onwards with US drone attacks (targeted by Australia's Pine Gap joint US-Australia electronic surveillance base in Central Australia) expanded to currently hit Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan [36]; and, meanwhile, the worsening climate emergency that kills 7.5 million people each year through climate change (0.5 million) and from pollutants from fossil fuel burning (7 million) while the US Alliance polluters (notably the US, Canada, the UK and Australia) invest in killing millions of Muslims rather than in tackling the climate crisis [47-51]. The essence of each chapter is indicated by the title in view of the above analysis:
Chapter 22, “The Legacy of Deceit (7/6/2004)” deals with the economic debt of war and US state terrorism and ultimate loss of confidence in the dollar: “That could be disastrous for America, resulting in the worst tangible legacy of all: an economic depression of incalculable consequences” ([1], page 226). US state terrorism and the violent killing of perhaps 4 million Muslims and the passive killing of 27 million Muslims from deprivation to date in the Zionist-backed US War on Terror have been associated with a long-term accrual cost of $7 trillion, and accordingly this gross fiscal perversion is inescapably linked to about 1.7 million preventable American deaths each year and 23 million preventable American deaths since 9-11. 6,900 American military personnel have been killed in post-9-11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 100,000 US military personnel have suicided since 9-11. This huge asymmetry between 3,000 deaths on 9-11 and the subsequent 23 million American preventable deaths inescapably fiscally linked to horrendously expensive US military responses to 9-11 should elicit outrage and resolute political action from ordinary Americans [39].
Chapter 23, “A Controlled Press & A Multitude in Mental Darkness: Bush's Security Barrier (9/28/2005)” deals with the refusal of US Mainstream media to tell the truth about appalling atrocities by Apartheid Israel and the US Alliance.
Chapter 24, “Voices from Behind the Entombment Wall: Crying in the Wilderness (10/4/2005)” gives shocking testament to the blighted lives of Occupied Palestinians in walled-in ghettoes on the West Bank.
Chapter 25, “Hope Destroyed, Justice Denied: The Rape of Palestine”. William Cook attests to the indignation of anti-racist Jews who decry the ongoing Palestinian Genocide and concludes “Sharon has created an anti-Semitic state by destroying the very foundation of Judaism as it survived over the centuries, a foundation built on tolerance for all peoples and their beliefs… Should this ravishment of the Palestinians go unattended, this rape of Palestine, then the words of Jeremiah will ring again across the hills and valleys of Palestine, the land where the ancient prophets admonished the Jews of old, where Christ called upon the people to love one another, to indeed love thy enemy, and the Prophet's words will once again warn of impending doom, .. “Behold I will make thee a terror to thyself, and to all thy friends”. The Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-perverted US Alliance and Apartheid Israel are genocidally anti-Arab anti-Semitic through mass murder of Muslims and are also anti-Jewish anti-Semitic through falsely identifying decent, anti-racist Jews with these appalling crimes [29].
Chapter 26, “The True State of Terrorism” deals with the convenient US, US Alliance and Israeli classification of “people they don't like” as “terrorists”. The US state terrorists, US Alliance state terrorists and Israeli state terrorists all list Hamas as a terrorist organization, yet in 2006 it won the only democratic elections ever held anywhere in Palestine. All terrorism is repugnant whether non-state terrorism (like the quite barbarous ISIS) or state terrorism (like the vastly more barbarous US state terrorism responsible for 40 million deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation in post-1950 US Asian wars from Palestine, Iraq and Syria to Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Korea) [11]. Muslim-origin non-state terrorists have killed about 2,000 Westerners in the last half century (this excluding 4,000 racist Zionist invaders killed in Palestine since 1920 and the 3,000 killed in the US false flag 9-11 atrocity) [18]. The US- and Zionist-dominated Mainstream media revile indigenous defence groups like Hamas and Hezbollah as “terrorists” while utterly ignoring the reality of 32 million Muslim deaths from violence (5 million) or deprivation (27 million) in the post-9-11 War on Terror and variously involving war criminal state terrorism – US Alliance state terrorism, US state terrorism, UK state terrorism, French state terrorism, German state terrorism, Apartheid Israeli state terrorism, Egyptian state terrorism, Qatari state terrorism, Saudi Arabian state terrorism, Canadian state terrorism, and Australian state terrorism.
Chapter 27, “Desire, Fulfilment and Regret (7/17/2006)” deals with the 2006 Gaza Massacre by Israeli war criminal Olmert and concludes: “But now Olmert leads the Jews into the Land of Darkness as he becomes the gatekeeper that denies life and destroys it. Ultimately he and his nation will regret infliction of such pitiless suffering on the weak and powerless as he stamps a legacy of unforgiving force and unnatural remorse on the state of Israel” ([1], page 279).
Chapter 28, “The Power of Evil (7/29/31/2006)” declares of Apartheid Israel that “This is the Israeli state of demonocracy, a state in which evil rules … Evil exists in the delusion that grows from ignorance and alienation, necessary ingredients in a state of demonocracy. Peace is possible when openness proliferates and people remove the barriers that isolate and separate them from each other” ([1], pages 281 and 285). Apartheid Israel is a democracy by genocide and a genocidal, neo-Nazi demonocracy.
Chapter 29, “The State without Shame” excoriates the mendacious official Apartheid Israeli spin before the world community. It is so appropriate that an anagram for ISRAEL is e-LIARS. William Cook makes the connection between Apartheid Israel's Palestinian Genocide and Kurz's declaration of “Exterminate all the brutes” in Joseph Conrad's “Heart of Darkness”. Indeed “Exterminate all the brutes” is the title of a brilliant book by Sven Lindqvist that explores genocidal racism of Western colonialism that reached its most appalling expression after the Congo (10 million Congolese murdered by the Belgians for rubber and ivory) in the industrial genocide of 30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies by Nazi Germany for more lebensraum (living space) [52].
Chapter 30, “A State without Mercy (10/21/2006)” slams US support for Apartheid Israel and concludes: “It is precisely because this government supports an apartheid state that employs draconian and manifestly illegal laws in areas it occupies that has turned Arab countries of the Mid-East and, with an ever growing hostility to America's arrogant hypocrisy in its support of Israel, the nation states of the EU and Asia against the United States” ([1], page 299).
Chapter 31, “Investing in Hate (12/6/2006)” condemns the illegal supply of $3 billion per annum military aid to Apartheid Israel in contravention of “the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, Sections 502B and 116(a) that states: No assistance may be provided under subchapter 1 of this chapter to the government of any country that engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights, including torture or cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment” ([1], page 308).
Chapter 32, “Deception as Truth: The Myth of Mid-East Peace (11/22/2007)”. The half century “peace process” for a 2-state solution has been utterly fraudulent. Indeed with 90% of Palestine now ethnically cleansed of Indigenous Palestinians a 2-state solution is impossible, and the only options are (1) further Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, (2) continuing Israeli Apartheid or (3) a just, totally secure, unitary (possibly Federal) state with full human rights for all with peace, justice and reconciliation on the post-Apartheid South African model.
Chapter 33, “Seeking Victory in Defeat: The Ultimate Deceit (1/13/2008)” reviews the genocidal disasters of US wars in the Muslim world and asks “How does he or she [a future pro-peace President] convince the countries of the Mid-East that we are no longer supportive of the criminal acts perpetrated against Arabs [sic; Muslims] in Afghanistan , Darfur, Sudan, Somalia and Palestine [now in 2015 plus Burkina-Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte D'Ivoire, Djibouti, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Libya,. Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Philippines, Syria and Yemen][21] . Bush's successor, serial war criminal Barack Obama, won the Nobel Peace Prize and then greatly expanded US Alliance Mid-East Wars from Mauritania to the Philippines [21] . Indeed Obama has just now in December 2015 sent a US expeditionary force to fight in Iraq on the ground.
Chapter 34, “Advancing the civilized state: Inch by Bloody Inch (2/7/2008)” considers the appalling living conditions that Apartheid Israel inflicts on the 36% of its subjects who are Occupied Palestinians, compares this with the German Nazi “experiment” on its conquered populations, and concludes, “The will to endure , in time, conquers the conqueror” ([1], page 334). 3,000 under-5 year old Palestinians infants die each year under Apartheid Israeli rule, 90% avoidably and due to horrendous war crimes by the Israeli occupiers in gross violation of Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention which state that an Occupier is obliged to provide the Conquered with life-sustaining food and medical requisites “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [19]. Thou shalt not kill children [20]. Apartheid Israel passively murders about 4,000 Occupied Palestinians each year, half of them children, through imposed deprivation [11].
Chapter 35, “A Christmas Curse: Retribution Time” considers the awful human cost of American wars and Apartheid Israeli genocide but unfortunately underestimates the carnage and, apart from the US war dead, ignores the deadly impact on American society of the fiscal perversions of genocidal wars and backing Apartheid Israel and its ongoing Palestinian Genocide. Thus the following horrendous realities (ignored by Mainstream media) that (1) 9-11 was a Zionist-complicit US Government false-flag operation [18]; (2) US Governments lied and obstructed post-9-11 investigations (as pointed out by William Cook) [18]; (3) 27 million Muslims have been passively killed by deprivation and a further 5 million killed violently in the $7 trillion long-term accrual cost post-9-11 US War on Terror [21]; and (4) 23 million Americans have died preventably since 9-11 linked to this huge fiscal perversion of committing $7 trillion on killing 26 million Muslims abroad instead of trying to keep 23 million Americans alive at home [21, 39]. It gets worse - the horrendous financial cost of Israel to Americans has now reached a gigantic $50 trillion in today's dollars. However the human cost involves the preventable deaths of millions of Americans – passive mass murder of Americans in an American Holocaust inflicted by the fiscal perversion of traitorous Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenters committing $8-10 trillion to ethnic cleansing and active and passive mass murder of 32 million Muslims abroad in support of Apartheid Israel instead of keeping 23 million Americans alive at home post-9-11. Zionist-subverted American Government support for Apartheid Israel in circa 2008 dollars totals about $50 trillion, the breakdown being (1) $3 trillion (1948-2003), (2) $4-6 trillion (Zionist-promoted Iraq and Afghan Wars), (3) $0.7 trillion (Value of a Statistical Life- or VOSL-based cost of 102,000 US veteran suicides since September 2001) and (4) about $40 trillion (one quarter of the VOSL-based cost of 23 million preventable American deaths since September 2001 at $7 million per person). Indeed, this is an under-estimate because it does not consider the millions of preventable American deaths before 9-11 linked to Zionist subversion and perversion of America [53]. Of course this American Holocaust is unknown even to the victims because it is well hidden by the mendacious Mainstream media of traitorous Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenters running America [53]. William Cook makes a valuable suggestion: “This is my vision. Every year from now and in perpetuity , we hold a world-wise Day of Lamentation on the penultimate day of the year, just in time to force reflection annually on what bestiality humans inflict on their own” ([1], page 329).
In an Afterword William Cook concludes in relation to what I call the genocidally racist and mass murdering Neocon Americans and Zionist Imperialists (NAZIs): “Perhaps these destroyers of human kind [the Neo-Cons and racist Zionists] may join the legions of literary figures of the past that mirror the evil resident in our species, since they are now residents of the :Age of Fools… we can understand the ultimate damnation of Fools who destroy their fellows and must find solace in being inhuman, since they suffer no remorse for the plight of their brothers; indeed, to revel in being non-human is their heaven” ([1], page 348).
Summary.
William Cook's “Age of Fools” should be read by everyone as an outstanding literary condemnation of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide by the US-backed, nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, racist Zionist-run, democracy by genocide, neo-Nazi rogue state, and demonocracy Apartheid Israel, and of the Zionist -backed US War on Muslims and US War on Terror of which the Palestinian Genocide is a part.
However William Cook is a poet and professor of English, and not a demographer (one who studies populations) nor a thanatologist (one who studies the causes of deaths). Further, like all of us, he is a victim of the extraordinary mendacity of the Mainstream media of the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenters running America and much of the world. Mainstream media lying ensures that Americans and Westerners in general are unaware of full extent of the horrendous cost of genocidal US, US Alliance and Apartheid Israeli militarism: (1) 2 million Palestinians killed through violence (0.1 million) or violently-imposed deprivation (1.9 million) in the US-backed Apartheid Israeli Palestinian Genocide [16]; (2) 32 million Muslim deaths from violence (5 million) or from violently-imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government's 9-11 false flag atrocity (3,000 killed) [21]; (3) 23 million American preventable deaths since 9-11 that are inescapably linked to the fiscal perversion of a $7 trillion long-term accrual cost of the Zionist-promoted US War on Terror and US War on Muslims [39, 53], and of a $50 trillion real, long-term accrual cost of America supporting Apartheid Israel; and (4) the perversion of democracy and the right to be informed in a Plutocracy, Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy, Corporatocracy, Dollarocracy and Demonocracy United States of America that permits these atrocities to be largely ignored, notwithstanding the courageous deeds of people like Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange.
As indeed suggested by Jewish Hungarian American investor and philanthropist George Soros, America needs de-Nazification. Not just the 30% of African-Americans who live in poverty, but all Americans who cling to “All men are created equal and have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” - arguably America's greatest gift to the world - must take collective action to re-establish the humane American decencies promulgated in inspirational American literature from a host of great American writers from the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Faulkner, Mark Twain, Henry James and Carson McCullers to Harper Lee, James Baldwin, Phillip Roth, Toni Morrison and Barbara Kingsolver. Lord Kelvin is correct that numbers are crucial for scientific argument but William Cook's “Age of Fools” and the wonderful humane American literary tradition attest to the power of words to move humanity.
William Cook has made the powerful suggestion of a Day of Lamentation on “the penultimate day of the year” (30 December) as a global counter to the prevailing Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenter perversion. In the 1960s and 1970s when decent folk opposed the Vietnam War, we chanted “Hey , hey, USA, how many kids did you kill today?” but unfortunately today under serial war criminal Obama the answer is about 1,000 [54]. 17 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year, half of them children, on Spaceship Earth with the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenters in charge of the flight deck [11], and I have suggested that the Fourth of July become Independence From America Day [34].
Poetical and literary works are crucial for inspiration but what should the mass of humanity do to counter the genocidal evils of the twin demonocracies of Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-ruled America and Apartheid Israel? Decent people everywhere must (a) inform everyone they can (e.g. both marching on Washington and posting handbills as in Carson McCullers' “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter”) ; (b) sideline the racist Zionists and their supporters from public life, as has been done already to like racists such as the Nazis, neo-Nazis, Apartheiders and Ku Klux Klan (indeed both JFK and Robert Kennedy tried, unsuccessfully, to get the Zionists listed as agents of a foreign state); and (c) urge and apply Boycotts Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel, its supporters, and against all people, politicians, parties, companies, corporations, collectives and countries complicit in the Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI) One Percenter War on Muslims, War on Humanity and War on Terra.
References.
[4]. Gideon Polya (1998), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, 2008 edition that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .
[5]. Gideon Polya (1995) "The Forgotten Holocaust - The 1943/44 Bengal Famine": http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com.au/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html .
[6]. Gideon Polya (2011), “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”, Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm .
[7]. Norman G. Finkelstein, “The Holocaust Industry. Reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering”, Verso, London, 2000.
[8]. Martin Gilbert, “Jewish History Atlas”, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1969.
[9]. Martin Gilbert, “Atlas of The Holocaust”, Michael Joseph, London, 1982.
[10]. Gideon Polya, “UK Zionist Historian Sir Martin Gilbert (1936-2015) Variously Ignored Or Minimized WW2 Bengali Holocaust”, Countercurrents, 19 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190215.htm .
[11]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, this including an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality_05.html .
[12]. Raphael Lemkin, “Axis Rule in Occupied Europe”, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, 1944.
[13]. UN Convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, UN: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html .
[14]. “Afghan Holocaust Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .
[15]. “Iraqi Holocaust Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .
[16]. “Palestinian Genocide” : http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .
[17]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .
[18]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .
[20]. “Thou shalt not kill children”: http://thoushaltnotkillchildren.blogspot.com.au/search?updated-min=2008-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2009-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=1 .
[21]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115A.htm .
[22]. Harold Pinter, “Art, Truth And Politics”, Countercurrents, 8 December, 2005: http://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm .
[23]. “Study: Bush, aides made 935 false statements in run-up to war”, CNN, 24 January 2008: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/23/bush.iraq/ .
[24]. Richard Dawkins, “The Selfish Gene”, Oxford University Press, 1976.
[25]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Social Humanism. A New Metaphysics” By Brian Ellis - Last Chance To Save Planet?”, Countercurrents, 19 August, 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190812.htm .
[26]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28nominal%29_per_capita .
[27]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Pro-Zionist, Zionist And Apartheid Israeli Child Abuse Exposed”, Countercurrents, 21 April, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210414.htm
[28]. “Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration .
[29]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .
[30].“Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .
[31]. “Nuclear weapons ban , end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .
[32]. “Apartheid Israeli state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/apartheid-israeli-state-terrorism .
[33]. “Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.
[34]. Gideon Polya, “The US Has Invaded 70 Nations Since 1776 – Make 4 July Independence From America Day”, Countercurrents, 5 July, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050713.htm .
[35]. Gideon Polya, “British Have Invaded 193 Countries: Make 26 January ( Australia Day, Invasion Day) British Invasion Day”, Countercurrents, 23 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya230115.htm .
[36]. Gideon Polya, “As UK Lackeys Or US Lackeys Australians Have Invaded 85 Countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm .
[37]. Gideon Polya, “President Hollande And French Invasion Of Privacy Versus French Invasion Of 80 Countries Since 800 AD”, Countercurrents, 15 January, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150114.htm .
[38]. Gideon Polya, “Appalling Paris Atrocity – Non-State Terrorist Blowback For US Alliance And French State Terrorism Atrocities”, Countercurrents, 16 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya161115.htm .
[39]. Gideon Polya, “West Ignores 11 Million Muslim War Deaths & 23 Million Preventable American Deaths Since US Government's False-flag 9-11 Atrocity”, Countercurrents, 9 September, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya090915.htm .
[40]. Walter Davis, “Death's Dream Kingdom. The American Psyche since 9-11” , Pluto, London, 2006.
[41]. Gideon Polya, “Book Review: “Death's Dream Kingdom. The American psyche since 9-11” by Walter Davis", Gideon Polya Writing, 2006-8-15: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/2006-8-15 .
[42] The Holy Bible (King James Version).
[43]. Neturei Karta, “Israeli Independence Day”: http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20090429IID.cfm .
[44]. Jared Diamond, "Collapse”, Penguin, London, 2011.
[45]. Naomi Klein quoted in Yotam Feldman, “Naomi Klein: oppose the state not the people”, Haaretz, 2 July 2007: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097058.html .
[46]. Michael Selzer (editor), “Zionism reconsidered. The rejection of Jewish normalcy”, Macmillan, London, 1970.
[47]. “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths
[48]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
[49]. “Nuclear weapons ban , end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .
[50]. "Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
[51]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[52]. Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate all the brutes” , The New Press, 1997.
[53]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, Millions Of Untimely American Deaths And $40 Trillion Cost Of Israel To Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .
[54]. Gideon Polya, “One day in the life of Barack Obama” (a poem), MWC News, 12 February 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/videos/594-one-day-in-the-life-of-barack-obama.html .
Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003). He has published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript
) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .