07/29/14 – Danny Muller – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys.
Welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm joined on the phone by Danny Mueller.
I know I can say he writes for Counterpunch.
Oh, here we go.
He has worked with Middle East Children's Alliance.
That's at mecaforpeace.org.
And worked also with Voices in the Wilderness there back in the 1990s.
Welcome to the show.
How are you doing, Danny?
Good.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
I really appreciate you joining us today.
And I got this email alert this morning from the Institute for Public Accuracy talking about your expertise on the question of water, clean water resources and related topics in the Gaza Strip.
So I appreciate you joining us very much to talk about this here.
First of all, can you give us the latest on the state of the infrastructure for water, sewage, electricity in the Gaza Strip?
Well, I'm saying the water situation has definitely worsened.
But before this, this bombardment has been going on for over three weeks.
But before this, there has been other targeting of sewage stations, wastewater plants, and water pipelines to deliver water throughout the Gaza Strip.
So this is a continuation of targeting of civilian infrastructure, which is an international war crime, as well as creating this very real and definitive humanitarian crisis.
You have over most recent reports minutes ago from Chris Guinness at the United Nations is that there are over 200,000 people taking shelter at 85 UN official UN shelters.
Some of those shelters in the past have been bombed.
But just try to imagine trying to get enough clean drinking water to those 200,000 people, let alone the other 1.6 million people who, you know, would not in any kind of location or locale that can provide it or safely deliver it.
Once you destroy things like water pipelines, you need the ability for maintenance crews to go out and be able to repair those things.
And with the status of the intensity of the bombings, there are not ways right now for people to make repairs to the most very basic things we would consider off limits in war like hospitals and water pipelines.
Man, well, you know, it just seems I don't know, it seems inconceivable to people that this could be deliberate, even though they say all day long, hey, we use the most precision guided weapons, we take the most care in our targeting.
We're the most moral military force ever.
We're so careful about what we bomb and how do they do they have excuses for this?
There's Hamas fighters shooting rockets from behind the water pipes or what the hell?
You know, I think it's to be honest, you know, I think I come at this from the perspective as you know, I'm an American citizen first.
So the reason I'm so critical about this is because it's US weapons that are being used by Israel.
And so, you know, and I also, you know, reject this argument of exclusivity, because unfortunately, as many of America's own veterans can tell you, the United States has targeted civilian infrastructure in every war since the World War Two, they destroyed over 75% of every standing building in Korea and Afghanistan after September 11, they ran out of targets and within 24 hours, they were taught in Iraq in both 1991 and 2003.
They, they directly targeted the civilian infrastructure.
And that was water and electric plants.
So this is the way that the West fights war.
It's the way that that we, you know, have this effect on civilian populations.
And then we wonder why people come back at us with anti American attitude.
It's very, very, unfortunately, very easy, even without electricity, you're going your smartphone in Gaza right now and go pick up a piece of shrapnel from an Israeli bombing and and find a piece that has a tracking number on it.
And you can type that into your phone and you can see that it was made in the United States, you can see when and where it was made.
So it doesn't take a lot of skill and savvy for people to put together that the United States is not an honest broker in this in this arrangement.
And we haven't been for a while we send over $3 billion in economic and military aid to Israel every year.
And, you know, there's people in Detroit with their water being shut off, and we're not sending $3 billion there.
So there's very much a need, I think, for people who are concerned about what's happening, for whatever reason, to take this to their own representative.
We got to take this break.
We'll be right back, y'all with Danny Mueller on the situation in the Gaza Strip.
All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
It's the Skull Horde Show.
We're talking about Benjamin Netanyahu's canned hunt, slaughtering children for fun and for land in Gaza.
The Daily Beast is reporting that Gaza's already shrunk by 40%.
How do you like that?
That buffer zone just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
They're ethnically cleansing the Gaza Strip.
I'm on the line right now with Danny Mueller.
He's worked with the Middle East Children's Alliance and written for Counterpunch.
And we're talking about the war on their infrastructure, their sewage, their water, their electricity, the war against the men, women and children of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza Strip prison.
And anyway, I wanted to tell you, Danny, that later on in the show, I'm going to be talking with Ken Klippenstein about this great piece he did really detailing the amount of American financial and military support for Israel.
And so we really got that covered today.
Even I want to try to get you back to the situation on the ground in the Gaza Strip as somebody who's been there, who's worked with these people, who's seen the aftermath of previous wars there and, you know, paint a picture my audience can see in their mind about what is really going on over there, and what it's like, especially for the children of the Gaza Strip, who are, of course, almost half the population, right about half the population of Gaza is under the age of 18.
It's an incredibly young, crowded place.
And the destruction has happened during these last three weeks, from all reports from people that I'm talking to by Facebook and by email and phone every day, it's way worse than it was in 2009, 2012.
When I was there, after both of those wars, I'm ready to even to call them wars, because, you know, it's not that Hamas doesn't have a standing army, it doesn't have a navy, doesn't have an air force.
It's this incredibly unbalanced onslaught with one of the most sophisticated militaries in the world against people firing rocket launchers, you know, I mean, it's not even comparable.
So the level of destruction, I can only say, you know, from being in places like Iraq and Gaza, that, you know, I'm there in the aftermath, I'm not there as it's going on.
So I can only imagine or try to imagine what it's like for families and children who are hunched away from windows, because they know that at any moment, those can blow out, hidden in the back room of an apartment, you know, trying to scavenge for supplies and keep their own, their own day to day needs taken care of, you know, you're talking about really basic things like getting water, or chronic medications, you know, become immediately unavailable for chronic disease.
And the level of fear that these children have to go through these effects, you know, when the ceasefire and if a ceasefire begins, the trauma that children feel and the entire population feel goes on for generations.
I mean, it's children who witness this incredible level of violence, if they lose a loved one, if they see someone injured or blown apart next to them, the types of symptoms that you see in the population are just, there's no other word for it, they're heartbreaking.
Children start to lose control of their bladders, they don't sleep, they have night terrors, they don't make eye contact, they refuse to, you know, speak or look at you or eat, you know, and mental health professionals will do what they can, but you're talking hundreds and hundreds of thousands of children now at this point, who for 23 days, have not had any sense of safety or security and are faced with very serious public health, you know, needs and a growing crisis.
If you are a seven-year-old in Gaza today, this would be your third war that you're going through.
So, you know, you can talk to people here and I can tell you about what that does to your brain development of a seven-year-old when you are that stressed for that period, long a period of time, that affects how your brain develops for your life.
And so, we are paying attention to Gaza now because what's happening is horrendous, but we have to think about the long-term impacts of where this is not going to go away if a ceasefire begins tomorrow.
Yeah, well, it's just a nightmare, you know, I guess it's a problem of mine now, Danny, that I'm just glued to Twitter and I just, all day long, the pictures of the dead kids and the screaming ones and the pile of rubble left without any of their family anymore and this kind of thing, I mean, it's very real to this suburban Austinite, you know, what it's like for those people over there, as close as I can be to it anyway, and it is an absolute nightmare and it's just no question, like you were referring to before, there's no mystery why terrorist groups, individuals join terrorist groups so that they can take out their rage over this kind of thing against the United States because of the degree to which we're in on it, and that's why it's so important, you know, there are a lot of different wars all over the world, well, there's not really that many, but, you know, you're right, the way you focus on, because you're an American, because our government is responsible for this to such a great degree, that's why it's so important that we focus on it, and so...
Yeah, and I mean, just to put someone there, you know, you can see these massive, massive explosions and to think, like, when I've been in any kind of situation like this, you know, you can't see, you're surrounded, and it's not just dust, you know, these are heavy metals in the air, it's the type of air you just can't breathe, I've been, you know, you're retching on, you know, you can't even think straight, you can be blinded by the blasts of these explosions, there are sonic waves that can give brain injuries, I mean, the sheer level of intensity means that people are operating on adrenaline and little else, and so there, you know, these pictures tell part of it, and, you know, we, as we said, we're both sitting in safe environments here, but, you know, what's happening non-stop, I mean, you're talking about leveling, you know, city blocks in one of the most densely populated places on the planet, so, you know, I think there really is a sea change, I think people, because so many people are getting their news now from the internet, they are paying attention to what's happening in a different way, and I would say, in the United States, there seems to be very much a sea change of people being shocked about what's happening, because they're seeing these pictures, and, you know, there isn't really an argument that holds up where someone tries to justify bombing a hospital, right, like, there has to be a baseline of agreement in a civilized society of where we can begin a conversation, and I think many, most rational people now are at the point where, okay, bombing a hospital is off-limits, bombing electrical and water treatment plants are off-limits, so that's off-limits, if that's wrong, then there needs to be legitimate criticism of Israel, which is doing that.
Yes, well, now, and back to the terror, I mean, obviously, people, young children bleeding to death and everything is that, but back to the terror and the shell shock, basically, that the children are suffering there, you know, maybe a good analogy would be September 11th.
It's long enough ago now, and it was exploited so cynically that people kind of, I think, you know, they rebel against their former emotions connected to that thing, but people remember back, I mean, the entire giant, very safe United States had mental health problems, mental trauma all over the place, right, numbers of people seeking professional counseling and that kind of thing just went absolutely through the roof over one very big attack in the U.S. back in 2001, but that really traumatized the hell out of the entire nation.
Well, just think about, you know, that kind of thing, only it just keeps going on and on.
They level Brooklyn, and then they level Philadelphia, right, you know, whatever, take down major buildings and downtowns all over America, and it goes on for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks in your town too.
I mean, man, that's what these people are going through there.
September 11th is happening to them on an hourly basis, on a quarterly, hourly basis.
And it's not just a destruction of homes, it's a destruction of memories.
You know, you think, because I'm from New York City, actually, so September 11th is, you know, I actually lost friends and family on September 11th in New York, and so, you know, it still affects me, and it was still horrendous, and the World Trade Center was a place that I had these childhood memories going as a kid.
It was part of my life, you know, it was part of my neighborhood that didn't exist anymore, so now what doesn't exist in Gaza?
There are playgrounds and hospitals and schools and mosques and places that don't exist where people have spent their lives, where they've gotten married, where they've had funerals, where they've given birth, and these places are being wiped off the map.
So there's this collective trauma, and we need to take some responsibility for it.
The need is just incredibly overwhelming, as one can imagine, but I can say at least there is something people can do.
The organization I work with, the Middle East Children's Alliance, is focusing on getting immediate short-term emergency aid for people in need, and long-term.
I've been doing it for over five years, called Let the Children Play and Heal.
We provide psychosocial support for children who've been traumatized by war.
So people who are interested in supporting this work and being involved in this work or learning more about it can go to meccaforpeace.org, M-E-C-A-F-O-R-P-E-A-C-E.org.
They can also search us on the web or find out more ways that they can support these incredibly important, urgently needed projects.
Yeah, thank you so much for saying that.
I'm sorry, I meant to give you more time to discuss contact information and how people can help out with these projects.
So, again, that's mecca, with one C, M-E-C-A, meccaforpeace.org.
Thank you very much for your time, Danny.
I really appreciate it.
Oh, my pleasure, Scott.
Thanks for having me on.
We'll be right back, y'all.on his own, making great coffee.
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