March 2023: “While the US has many vital national interests,” Florida governor and 2024 presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis wrote in response to a questionnaire from Tucker Carlson (as of that time still a Fox News host), “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”

As of October 2023, DeSantis takes a different approach: “Now is the time to defend Israel’s right to defend themselves to the hilt” and  “[w]e must stand with Israel as they eradicate Hamas.”

Inquiring minds want to know:

How is meddling in a territorial dispute between former Soviet kleptocracies in eastern Europe “not a vital national interest” for the United States, while meddling in a territorial dispute between tribal Middle East garrison states is a “must?”

In general, if you have to ask why, the answer is “money.” In American presidential politics specifically, if you have to ask why, the answer is usually “cynical political calculation.”

While American Jews tend to vote for Democrats — estimates of 2020 results range from 60% to 77% of “the Jewish vote” going to Joe Biden — millions of evangelical Christians are “pro-Israel” and consider the issue important. Donald Trump knocked down 75-80% of that voting bloc in both 2016 and 2020.

Additionally “pro-Israel” individuals and groups, religious and secular, direct large sums to congressional and presidential campaigns, and to lobbying efforts, to ensure the continued flow of US aid (nearly $4 billion last year). One donor alone, the late casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, ponied up $424 million to support Trump and other Republican candidates between 2016 and 2021.

Where “national interest” in Middle East affairs is concerned, one stock response is a need to ensure the free flow of oil … but that one doesn’t pass the smell test.

In fact, the opposite is more likely true. The US is a net oil exporter. It doesn’t need Middle Eastern oil.  Producers in the US (where oil production is more expensive due to regulation and the higher costs of extracting it from shale) benefit from a foreign policy that IMPEDES the free flow of oil from, for example, Iran, to maintain profitability. Those US oil producers are, by the way, also generous campaign donors and lavish lobbying spenders.

Ron DeSantis is at least as slavishly devoted to Israel (even signing a law requiring state contractors to swear a loyalty oath to that foreign power — so much for “America First”) as US Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been to the Egyptian regime (which he was recently indicted for allegedly accepting bribes from) and the Cuban-American voter demographic, for the same reasons: Because that’s where their money and votes come from.

US meddling in the region doesn’t just cost Americans money. It also costs Americans their lives when it inevitably results in things like the Beirut barracks bombing, the 9/11 attacks, and foreign wars of choice.

When American politicians put Israel, or any other foreign country, ahead of you — and Ron DeSantis is the rule, not the exception, in that regard — they further discredit the already implausible term “national interest.”

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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Complaining of “media bias,” Hamas spokesperson Dr. Basim Naim denies allegations that its members intentionally murdered civilians and non-combatants in their assault on Israel last week. The operation “targeted only the Israeli military bases and compounds,” he says, and Al Qassam Brigades commanders ordered their troops to “avoid targeting civilians or killing them.”

Given the details, as best we can know them, those claims ring hollow.

So, too, do claims that the Israeli Defence Forces — among whose members  t-shirts illustrated with a picture of a pregnant Arab woman in rifle crosshairs and the caption “1 Shot 2 Kills” popped up during a previous military confrontation with the Palestinian Arabs —  constitute “the most moral army in the world.” In declaring a “complete siege” of Gaza — with the intent to cut off food, fuel, and electricity to, while engaging in massive airstrikes on, the Arab enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants —  Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant referred to the people he wants murdered as “animals.”

The same is true of the numerous claims by numerous governments and armed forces, in conflicts around the world, that murders of civilians and non-combatants are mere accidents or asides for which they bear no responsibility.

Three moral premises seem fairly basic to me:

First, we’re individually responsible for what we do.

Second, we’re jointly and severally responsible for for what we collude with others to do.

Third, we’re at least partially responsible for the actions of others when we accept positions of authority from which we may order, allow, forbid, excuse, or punish those actions.

Phrases like “collateral damage” or “mistakes were made” or “they did it first” or “I was just following orders” don’t magically relieve us of responsibility for our individual, collaborative, or organizational actions.

Nor does the claim that one is acting as, or on behalf of, a government. The pernicious doctrine of “qualified immunity” notwithstanding, when a cop guns down a nonviolent citizen or a drone operator launches a missile into the middle of a wedding party, it’s murder and nothing else.

When you pull a trigger, or order that trigger pulled, you’re responsible for the consequences. Period. And if your action or order results in injuries or deaths among civilians or non-combatants, there are no acceptable excuses. You should be charged, tried, convicted, and punished for your actions.

Unfortunately, that seldom happens. And when it does happen, it’s usually just for show, with lower-level killers getting thrown under the bus while generals, presidents, and prime ministers skate off to comfortable retirements, the laurels of “statesmen” resting ostentatiously upon their botox-tightened brows.

Ultimately, the only way to do away with war crimes is to do away with war. And that requires us to first abolish the state.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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On October 9, Republican presidential hopeful Nikki Haley called for the government she seeks to eventually head to “[f]reeze Iranian access to the $6 billion in Qatari banks and send that money to Israel instead.”

That’s a terrible idea, and garners Haley big points in her quest to win the Tom Knapp Whack-a-Doodle of the Quarter-Decade Award (she previously took the lead with her public John Birch Society style meltdown, in the second GOP presidential primary debate, over TikTok).

The $6 billion she refers to comes from Iranian oil revenues previously stolen by the US government pursuant to its “sanctions” schemes, and returned to the Iranians as part of a “prisoner swap” deal in which the US government released five Iranian hostages, and the money, in return for the release of six American hostages held in Iran.

Note: Yes, hostages. Both governments (and others) routinely abduct and imprison citizens of other countries, then swap them with each other like baseball cards.

Let’s take a moment to ruminate on the likely effect of stealing that $6 billion for a second time after giving it back in return for American hostages.

Will the Iranian government remain willing to part with American hostages quite so easily in the future? As George W. Bush might say, “fool me with disappearing funny money that you stole from me in the first place once, shame on you. Fool me … you can’t get fooled again.”

And what about American hostages in, say, Russia or China or Gaza or anywhere else? Word does get around, you know.

As for giving the re-stolen money to Israel, that country’s government already collects billions of dollars in US taxpayer funded welfare checks every year, allowing it to throw its weight around in ways that periodically and inevitably result in things like its current, very ugly, war with Hamas.

Adding $6 billion of Iranian money to that mix would be throwing gasoline on the Palestine fire while simultaneously rubbing salt in Iran’s wounds.

Haley’s proposal, in summary: Perpetuate the captivity of American hostages and flush the US government’s credibility deeper into the untrustworthiness sewer — if that’s even possible — in order to perpetuate mutual murder in the Middle East.

The whole idea is insanity on a PCP-and-grain-alcohol-cocktail level, and puts letting Nikki Haley anywhere near nuclear launch codes or an unlocked Air Force One cockpit door atop my 2024 List of Evil and Stupid Ideas … for the moment, anyway.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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