In February 2018 on Fox News, Laura Ingraham ended her interview with former CIA director James Woolsey by asking him if the United States continues to “mess around in other people’s elections.” To which Woolsey, as though tasting the tasty lie in his mouth, replied: “Well, aum yum yum yum yum yum… only for a very good cause, in the interest of democracy.”
The United States has been interfering in foreign elections since World War II. And our government’s foreign policy has always been about sabotaging other people’s lives and their environment in furtherance of its geopolitical interests. Policy has not been aimed at furthering a “good cause,” and it certainly has not been “in the interest of democracy.”
For example, in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the Bush administration and the EU pumped millions of dollars into Fatah’s campaign to ensure its victory. Fatah lost that election and Hamas won. And before the dust had settled on that defeat of U.S. meddling, the Bush administration had already started making plans to overthrow the democratically elected Hamas government.
While we here in the U.S. were glued to our screens watching the first day of impeachment hearings looking into Trumpian extortion aimed at manipulating the 2020 election, news was coming in from Gaza of Israeli forces killing dozens including seven-year-old Amir Rafat Mohammad Ayad.
While we here in the U.S. were glued to our screens watching the first day of impeachment hearings looking into Trumpian extortion aimed at manipulating the 2020 election, news was coming in from Gaza of Israeli forces killing dozens including seven-year-old Amir Rafat Mohammad Ayad.
In a 2008 investigative article, Vanity Fair reported that it had “obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan [a Fatah strongman], and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power.”
The assault on Gaza has not waned. While we here in the U.S. were glued to our screens watching the first day of impeachment hearings looking into Trumpian extortion aimed at manipulating the 2020 election, news was coming in from Gaza of Israeli forces killing dozens including seven-year-old Amir Rafat Mohammad Ayad.
The following recipe is brought to you by Discomfort Foods. An explanation of the precise measurements will follow.
Im-Peach-Mint Quid Pro Quobbler
This is an updated version of an old-fashioned recipe for peach cobbler.
Quobbler filling ingredients:
1.687 cups warm water
4 teaspoons imli (tamarind)
1 teaspoon red chili powder
4.375 cups peeled and sliced peaches
1 teaspoon salt
Quobbler batter ingredients:
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup milk
Served with:
fresh mint leaves
vanilla ice cream or whipped cream
Cooking directions are provided at the end of the article.
Why I chose these ingredients in their respective measurements for the recipe design:
1.687 cups water equals 81 teaspoons, which conveys the findings of the assistant professor of international relations at the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong Dov Levin, who revealed that between 1946 and 2000, the United States participated in 81 “partisan electoral interventions” around the world. This of course does not include the country’s numerous coups and invasions.
The original recipe called for 3/4 cup granulated sugar. I substituted that with 4 teaspoons imli (tamarind) to convey the fact that this is the fourth impeachment hearing in the country’s history. I chose imli because the first two letters ‘im’ conveniently prefix peach; as a Hindi word, it symbolizes the United States’ own meddling in foreign elections past, present and future; and the imli fruit has a very sour taste, communicating the tart irony of today’s politics: that in the crimes under examination in the impeachment hearings, America finds itself a victim at home of the same kinds of crimes it has committed abroad.
4.375 cups of peaches equals about 70 tablespoons, which in the recipe conveys the roughly 70 years that the U.S. has spent interfering in other people’s elections.
The sweet quobbler batter making up the base remains true to the classic cobbler recipe, except I substituted granulated sugar with brown sugar to emphasize how almost always it’s the non-white people of this world who pay the price for our government’s intrigues. While baking in the oven, you can see the base slowly enveloping the im-peach filling, much like the predicament of our own ill-gotten and directly threatened democracy that is being artificially held together by a fake sense of sweet freedom.
What started off as Russiagate has quickly evolved into Ukrainegate, so I added a teaspoon each of chili powder and salt and a few sprigs of fresh green mint leaves to add a few more articles of tongue-twisting tastes to challenge the status quobbler.
We had some friends over for dinner yesterday and I served them the quobbler for dessert as we played some gin rummy. And here are some reactions I got:
“It challenges the senses. Pushes you into unchartered territory. It doesn’t coincide with any expectations. Unfamiliar.”
“The heat (from the chili powder) creeps up on you. Metaphorically speaking, we keep going through this impeachment thing and it keeps getting hotter and hotter in your throat.”
Cooking directions:
Soak the imli in the warm water for about 1/2 hour. Using your fingers or the back of a spoon, squeeze as much of the pulp as possible out into the water. Pour the imli water along with the chili powder into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to medium-low and cook (about 40 minutes), stirring occasionally till the sauce thickens and measures 1/4 cup.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Put the imli sauce, sliced peaches and salt in a saucepan and cook on medium-high heat for about 2 minutes, stirring.
Cut the butter into small pieces and add to a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Place the dish in the oven till the butter melts. Remove from oven.
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and sugar. Stir in the milk till just combined. Pour this mixture into the baking dish over the butter and spread it evenly to cover the bottom of the dish.
Spoon the peaches over the batter and bake for 35-40 minutes. Decorate with mint leaves and serve warm with a scoop of ice cream or whipped cream.
Enjoy over Im-Peach-Mint hearing discussions with friends and family.
Bon appétit!
Priti Gulati Cox
Independent Media Institute
This article was produced by Local Peace Economy, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
Priti Gulati Cox (@PritiGCox) is a political artist and creator of the Sidewalk Museum of Congress (SMoC) located outside @RogerMarshallMD’s office in Salina, Kansas.
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