The following link is the URL for the 'Neo-Jacobins Push For World War IV' article by Paul Craig Roberts which I had mentioned to Thom Hartmann before he cut me off near the end of his broadcast yesterday:
Subject: Re: Mr. Hartmann, why aren't you addressing this about Cindy Sheehan? To: Thom Hartmann CC: Louise Hartmann
Mr. Hartmann,
You couldn't have been more disingenous with your diatribe after you cut me off before I could respond this morning when you said that the Iraq war had not been for Israel and that Cindy Sheehan had not written that PNAC Neocon paragraph in the 'Nightline' email which I had sent on her behalf (see after the following for what I conveyed about such in the prior email which you still have not responded to).
I can also assume that you haven't taken the time to read the 'Israel Lobby' paper by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt which is linked at the following URL (as I suggest you also read the UPI article at the beginning there as even Colin Powell conveyed for Washington Post editor Karen DeYoung's new bio book about him that the 'JINSA crowd' was in control of the Pentagon via JINSA/PNAC associated Dick Cheney - simply look up 'Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs/JINSA' in the index):
I was able to mention the Mearsheimer/Walt paper in the 'Q & A' of the Iraq war panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this past April at UCLA (simply click on the 'Iraq war' panel link after doing a search at www.booktv.org for 'LA Times Festival of Books' as it was unacceptable how the moderator cut me off there as well similar to what you did on your broadcast this morning before I even could mention the Mearsheimer/Walt paper in response to you).
You can find a write-up for the release (on September 4th, 2007) of the Mearsheimer/Walt book by going to amazon.com and doing a search there under 'Mearsheimer'. It is time for a reality check, Mr. Hartmann... You might also want to read about the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda on pages 261-269/318-321 of esteemed intelligence author/writer James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book via the following URL:
Even Chris Matthews (of MSNBC's 'Hardball' broadcast) hasn't had the courage to address the Mearsheimer/Walt paper (see the last part of the following article from the USC Daily Trojan newspaper as I had given him a copy of it last year):
You also might be interested in clicking on the 'What Motivated the 9/11 Hijackers' video short at the upper left of http://representativepress.blogspot.com to see my exchange with 9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton about the primary motivation for why we were tragicallly attacked at the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001 (and at the World Trade Center in 1993 as well). You can access the following URL to see the transcript of my exchange with Lee Hamilton:
Bamford also addresses such in 'A Pretext for War' (simply look up 'Israel as a terrorist motivation' in the index as the paperback version of 'A Pretext for War' includes an additional chapter on the AIPAC espionage case which the pro-Israel biased US media isn't covering either for the most part - Stephen Green is mentioned in the AIPAC chapter as he wrote the 'Serving Two Flags' article via the following URL):
You might be interested in seeing how the moderator of the terrorism 'expert' panel (also in association with the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA this past April) tried to cut off the 'Q & A' as seen via the following youtube video before I was still able to convey that US support of Israel was the motivation for 9/11:
Mr. Hartmann, I am the James Morris mentioned via the following piece about Cindy Sheehan - why aren't you asking her about how disingenuous she has been to include most recently on MSNBC's 'Hardball'?:
Here is a blog entry which just came out by the co-writer of the book about Cindy as it conveyed how disingenuous Cindy was on MSNBC's 'Hardball' broadcast recently:
I think you forgot to list "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf"
Your "Kampf" is incomplete without them.
I did click on some of the links and look what I found:
"Sheehan now says she never wrote that, insisting her e-mail was "doctored" by a "former friend who is anti-Israel and wants to use the spotlight on me to push his anti-Semitism." In fact, the man who sent Sheehan's letter to ABC, James Morris, has posted his own messages on-line, condemning the war in Iraq as "all about Israel." But Morris says Cindy Sheehan's letter was "in no way doctored."
"The email that Cindy Sheehan sent to me (which included a request to forward it to ABC's 'Nightline' on her behalf) was in no way doctored. I forwarded the original email (as received from Cindy this past March)to Emily Lenzner (who is handling the matter for ABC News) as she confirmed that she received it yesterday." - James Morris-
How interesting.
Why do I have a sense that someone is using Cindy (and everyone and everything)?
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Pat Buchanan (whom Paul Craig Roberts mentioned in his excellent interview with Thom Hartmann) has conveyed similar (see the following 'Whose War?' article of his):
Paul Craig Roberts also mentioned the following article by Buchanan which conveyed that there possibly will be an attack on Iran as early as next month:
One can see Christopher Hedges during the Iraq war panel discussion at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA in Los Angeles this past April.. To watch online, simply go to www.booktv.org and do a search for 'LA Times Festival of Books' in the search field there and click on the Iraq (war) panel.. Hedges was excellent in the following article as well.
AP Photo/Hatem Moussa Armed Palestinian women burn Israeli and U.S. flags during a protest against Israel’s operations in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
By Chris Hedges
Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid.
The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state.
Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since.
Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East.
Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.
The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them.
The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region’s first nuclear weapons program.
U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions.
There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration.
The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father.
Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq.
President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation.
"In Israel,” Bush said recently, “terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.”
Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side.
Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.
The key products and services,” as Naomi Klein wrote in The Nation, “are hi-tech fences, unmanned drones, biometric IDs, video and audio surveillance gear, air passenger profiling and prisoner interrogation systems—precisely the tools and technologies Israel has used to lock in the occupied territories. And that is why the chaos in Gaza and the rest of the region doesn’t threaten the bottom line in Tel Aviv, and may actually boost it. Israel has learned to turn endless war into a brand asset, pitching its uprooting, occupation and containment of the Palestinian people as a half-century head start in the ‘global war on terror.’ ”
The United States, at least officially, does not support the occupation and calls for a viable Palestinian state. It is a global player, with interests that stretch well beyond the boundaries of the Middle East, and the equation that Israel’s enemies are our enemies is not that simple.
"Terrorism is not a single adversary,” John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote in The London Review of Books, “but a tactic employed by a wide array of political groups. The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982). Moreover, Palestinian terrorism is not random violence directed against Israel or ‘the West’; it is largely a response to Israel’s prolonged campaign to colonize the West Bank and Gaza Strip. More important, saying that Israel and the US are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: the US has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around.”
Middle Eastern policy is shaped in the United States by those with very close ties to the Israel lobby. Those who attempt to counter the virulent Israeli position, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell, are ruthlessly slapped down. This alliance was true also during the Clinton administration, with its array of Israel-first Middle East experts, including special Middle East coordinator Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk, the former deputy director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, one of the most powerful Israel lobbying groups in Washington. But at least people like Indyk and Ross are sane, willing to consider a Palestinian state, however unviable, as long as it is palatable to Israel. The Bush administration turned to the far-right wing of the Israel lobby, those who have not a shred of compassion for the Palestinians or a word of criticism for Israel. These new Middle East experts include Elliott Abrams, John Bolton, Douglas Feith, the disgraced I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and David Wurmser.
Washington was once willing to stay Israel’s hand. It intervened to thwart some of its most extreme violations of human rights. This administration, however, has signed on for every disastrous Israeli blunder, from building the security barrier in the West Bank, to sealing off Gaza and triggering a humanitarian crisis, to the ruinous invasion and saturation bombing of Lebanon.
The few tepid attempts by the Bush White House to criticize Israeli actions have all ended in hasty and humiliating retreats in the face of Israeli pressure. When the Israel Defense Forces in April 2002 reoccupied the West Bank, President Bush called on then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to “halt the incursions and begin withdrawal.” It never happened. After a week of heavy pressure from the Israel lobby and Israel’s allies in Congress, meaning just about everyone in Congress, the president gave up, calling Sharon “a man of peace.” It was a humiliating moment for the United States, a clear sign of who pulled the strings.
There were several reasons for the war in Iraq. The desire for American control of oil, the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region, and a real, if misplaced, fear of Saddam Hussein played a part in the current disaster. But it was also strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States. Israel wanted Iraq neutralized. Israeli intelligence, in the lead-up to the war, gave faulty information to the U.S. about Iraq’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And when Baghdad was taken in April 2003, the Israeli government immediately began to push for an attack on Syria. The lust for this attack has waned, in no small part because the Americans don’t have enough troops to hang on in Iraq, much less launch a new occupation.
Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon. Israel’s iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place. The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed. It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States. It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal. It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East.
The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.
This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.
The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. The growing dependence on China has been accompanied by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances with many of the world’s major exporters of oil, such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. The Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide clash over dwindling resources.
The future is ominous. Not only do Israel’s foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq have all given an opening, where there was none before, to America’s rivals. It is not in Israel’s interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not in ours. But those who have their hands on the wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.
Paul Findley was also excellent with the following piece which appears in the latest issue of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (www.wrmea.com) as well:
THE HIGH COST OF SUBSERVIENCE TO ISRAEL (by Paul Findley)
In the greatest service of his long public life, former President Jimmy Carter warns of the grave consequences of America ’s phenomenal subservience to Israel . In his latest book and recent lectures, he focuses on how Israel ’s cruel occupation, made possible by massive and unconditional U.S. support, has subjected the Palestinian people to terrible suffering for forty long years. Beyond that grave human tragedy, candid observers must cite U.S. complicity in Israeli lawlessness as the major factor that prompted the horror of 9/11 and lured America into launching three costly, wrong-headed, and failing wars—Afghanistan, Iraq and the War on Terror The linkage is easily identified. America ’s support of Israel ’s brutality was the main motivation for 9/11. It was the ultimate expression of Arab fury over America ’s double standard that routinely ignores Israeli violations of Arab human rights. Nine-eleven would not have happened if any U.S. president in the last forty years had refused to finance Israel ’s humiliation and destruction of Palestine . Michael Scheuer, a former CIA analyst now a consultant to CBS News, recently told a congressional committee that “our unqualified support of Israel ” was the main reason for 9/11. Marine General Anthony Zinni, President George W. Bush’s first special envoy to the Middle East , has stated that the United States invaded Iraq for Israel and oil. Osama bin Laden repeatedly said it was payback for U.S. support of Israel ’s brutal treatment of Palestinians and other Arabs and for U.S. complicity in 1982 when Israeli forces used U.S.-donated munitions to massacre over 18,000 innocent Arabs in Lebanon . The U.S. acts of war in Afghanistan and the War on Terror were President Bush’s retaliation for 9/11. Israel —and only Israel —urged the United States to invade Iraq . Israel ’s lobby in Washington pushed hard and prevailed. To our foreign critics, these wars focus on killing people outraged by our pro-Israel bias. Our government has done nothing to redress the grievances of Israel ’s victims. Despite this grim record, U.S. subservience to the wishes of Israel ’s leaders does not change. Unconditional aid to Israel keeps flowing, as does Israel ’s savage treatment of Palestinians and other Arabs. Moreover, the Bush administration is fully and openly pledged to do whatever is necessary—even acts of war--to halt Iran ’s nuclear program even if its projects are lawfully limited to peaceful purposes. Israel is the only nation urging the United States to attack Iran . The lobby is pushing hard again. If the U.S. assaults Iran it will be on Israel ’s behalf. Congress, like the rest of America , is totally devoid of debate on the amazing role of this small nation in critical U.S. policy. Members are fulsome in public praise of the Jewish state, but no politician mentions the illegal behavior of Israel or the staggering burden it imposes on our country. How did Israel gain this influence? It all started 40 years ago. On June 8, 1967 , the U.S. commander-in-chief, President Lyndon B. Johnson, turned his back on the crew of a U.S. navy ship, the USS Liberty, despite the fact that the ship was under deadly assault by Israel ’s air and sea forces. The Israelis were engaged in an ugly scheme to lure America into their war against Arab states. They tried to destroy the Liberty and its entire crew, then pin the blame on the Arabs. This, they reasoned, would outrage the American people and immediately lead the United States to join Israel ’s battle against Arabs. The scheme almost worked. It failed because, despite the carefully-planned multi-pronged assault, the Liberty crew managed to broadcast an SOS over a makeshift antenna. When the appeal reached U.S. aircraft carriers nearby, the commanders immediately launched fighter planes to defend the ship. Informed of the launch, President Johnson ordered the rescue planes to turn back immediately. For the first time in history, forces of the U.S. Navy were denied the right to defend a Navy ship under attack. Johnson said, “I don’t care if the ship sinks, I am not going to embarrass an ally.” Those were his exact words, heard by Navy personnel listening to radio relays. The ally Johnson refused to embarrass was Israel . To him, saving Israel from embarrassment was more important than saving the lives of the Liberty crew. The day yielded infamy—deceit, lies and cover-up at the highest level. When the SOS reached the top military commanders in Israel , they immediately cancelled ousHous the assault, claiming it was a case of mistaken identity. ousHous At the White House, Johnson accepted Israel ’s claim, even though he knew it was a lie. Then Johnson magnified the day’s infamy by ordering a cover-up of the truth. Liberty survivors were sworn to secrecy. Even those in hospital beds and badly wounded were threatened with court martial if they told anyone what actually happened. The cover-up has been continued by every administration since Johnson’s. It proved to be a fateful turning point in Israel ’s power over U.S. foreign policy. The Liberty experience convinced Israeli officials that they could get by with literally anything—even the murder of U.S. sailors--in their manipulation of the U.S. government. Financial aid to Israel began to pour like a river, all of it with no stings attached. According to The Christian Science Monitor, this outpouring has now cost U.S. taxpayers over $1.4 trillion. Costs go far beyond money. Thousands of American families are blighted forever, with America ’s once high moral standing in shambles. Because of its unqualified support of Israel , Washington is hated worldwide as never before. The principal source of Israel ’s influence is the fear it seems to instill in every sector of our society. The most effective instrument of intimidation employed by its lobby is the reckless accusation of anti-Semitism, often leveled at anyone criticizing any aspect of Israeli behavior. Several organizations, fundamentalist Christian as well as Jewish, lobby for Israel , but the principal one is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC]. I can personally certify that for many years it has cast a blanket of fear over Capitol Hill and blocked any semblance of unfettered discussion. I unintentionally contributed to that fear in 1985 when my book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s lobby, was published. It reports in detail the efficiency of Israel ’s U.S. lobby, its history and tactics. Most of the text arose from my personal experience as AIPAC’s prime target during my last five years as a Member of Congress. It also details the lobby’s important role in the defeat of Senators Percy and Adlai Stevenson, and U.S. Rep. Paul “Pete” McCloskey. In a rare burst of public candor about its partisan activities, AIPAC claimed credit for defeating reelection bids by myself in 1982 and Senator Charles Percy in 1984. My book became a bestseller. I hoped it would inspire public officials and other citizens to revolt against the lobby’s influence on U.S. policy, but several of my former colleagues told me it had the opposite effect. One said, “After what AIPAC did to you and Percy, I vote with the lobby every time.” Israel ’s grip on America seems impervious. Two distinguished political scientists, John Mearshiemer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, strode resolutely into the Middle East minefield a year ago by co-authoring a paper on Israel ’s lobby. More recently, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, a book written by former President Carter, revered worldwide for his effective work on international conflict resolution, was published. These brave statements should have produced a groundswell of public protest demanding America ’s liberation from Israel . Although the professors and Carter have pursued the lecture circuit, no tide of outrage has developed. With few exceptions, America ’s major editors, producers, commentators, academics and politicians have given these courageous initiatives the silent treatment. Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill simply said, “Carter doest not speak for the Democratic Party.” Nationwide, the lobby’s influence is pervasive, sustained and deep, a phenomenon unprecedented in U.S. history. Because of that power, the “other” Israel is almost never discussed openly and candidly any place in America , even in private conversation. It is impossible to explain the silence except as a reflection of profound fear. The situation is highly dangerous. America has already paid a towering price for our subservience to Israel , and great additional burdens seem inevitable. If the United States is involved in acts of war against Iran , anti-American protest will rise to new heights, especially throughout the Islamic world. It will inevitably deepen the widely-held belief among Muslims that America seeks to undermine Islam. The outlook for reform is grim. Elected officials of both major political parties in Washington seem hopelessly captured by Israel ’s agents. So does every serious candidate for the presidency in 2008. A senior U.S. Senator told me recently that Israel cannot expect to experience true security until Palestinians are secure in an independent state of their own, but he spoke off the record and has not made that wise declaration in public. All U.S. citizens must accept a measure of responsibility for Israel ’s grip on America . Those of us who knew what was happening did not protest with sufficient force and clarity. Those who did not know should have taken their responsibility as citizens more seriously. They should have informed themselves. The scene is likely to improve only if U.S. elected officials are criticized so forthrightly from home that they fear a constituent revolt more than they fear Israel ’s lobby. This, of course, will not happen until the countryside benefits from a rigorous and edifying public debate about Israel ’s role in our national life.
Paul Findley, a U.S. Representative from Illinois 1961-83, resides in Jacksonville, Illinois. He is the author of five books, including the Washington Post seven-week bestseller, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby, Chicago Review Press [Lawrence Hill Books)
Yesterday I faulted the U.S. press for not doing surveys on American public opinion re Jews & Israel. Well, it turns out that Haaretz just published such a poll in Europe, conducted by the Anti Defamation League, showing that over half of Europeans think that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home nation. Also: [Abraham] Foxman [of ADL] said he was "especially concerned that the survey found a large percentage of all respondents, and a majority in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland, believe that American Jews control U.S. policy on the Middle East, an old canard that has been resurrected in mainstream America and bolsters existing European attitudes." This is of course the very canard that I as a leftwing Jew have done something to support. In fact, during my evening with the progressive Zionists a few weeks back, Dan Fleshler implored me not to make statements about dual loyalty. The Foxman tactic is, alas, something of a blackmail. We've reached a point in world events where a discussion of dual loyalty is inevitable. Michael Walzer's assertion that Jews have an "anomalous" citizenship that entails membership in the nation of Israel, Walt and Mearsheimer's forthcoming book, and John Judis's plaint in TNR online that dual loyalty is "inescapable" for American Jewish intellectuals -- Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty--the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma--and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism-- the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith. These statements make the dual loyalty question a serious one. And the neocons have made it a pressing one. When will such a poll be done by a reputable news organization, not the Israel lobby? When will it be done in the U.S.? (Thanks to Joachim Martillo for tip.) ------------------------------------------------
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/882922.html Last update - 15:08 17/07/2007 Poll: 50% in U.K. think Jews more loyal to Israel than home nation By Haaretz Service Half of the British public believes that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country, an Anti-Defamation League poll released in Tuesday showed. The survey of six European countries showed a rise in anti-Semitic attitudes. But it also indicated that positive views of Israel were also on the rise. Asked to respond to the statement "Jews are more loyal to Israel than their own country," the survey found that 50 percent of U.K. respondents replied "probably true," up from 39 percent two years ago. Questioned as to boycotts against Israel by U.K.-based organizations, 43 percent of British respondents said they opposed them, while 37 percent expressed support for them. The research showed that anti-Semitic attitudes were particularly marked in Hungary, where 61 percent of respondents said that it was probably true that Jesws have too much power in international financial markets, up from 55 percent in 2005, and that 60 percent believed that Jews have too much power in the business world. "Millions of Europeans continue to accept a wide range of traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes and conspiracy theories, including the charge that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "Despite the fact that individual governments and the EU have condemned anti-Semitism and sought ways to counteract it, these attitudes die hard and help incite and legitimize anti-Semitic acts, including violence against Jews," he said in a statement. Some 3,000 adults from six countries -Austria, Belgium, Hungary, The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom- participated in the poll commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and were asked questions on topics ranging from the Holocaust, to whether they believe Jews killed Christ. The poll results revealed an increase in anti-Jewish biases among respondents from a poll taken in 2005. Overall, half of those surveyed said they believe that Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their own country, with a majority of respondents in Austria, Belgium, Hungary and the United Kingdom saying they believe that this statement is probably true. In four of the six countries, Belgium, the Netherlands, Swizerland and the United Kingdom, respondents said they viewed Israel more favorably than in 2005. The favorability rating for israel dropped, meanwhile, in Austria and Hungary. In addition, the poll revealed a small decrease in respondents' identification with Palestinians in the wake of internecine struggles in Gaza, though support for Palestinians as a whole remained strong. Foxman said he was "especially concerned that the survey found a large percentage of all respondents, and a majority in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland, believe that American Jews control U.S. policy on the Middle East, an old canard that has been resurrected in mainstream America and bolsters existing European attitudes."
Is that the best the apparent Israel firsters can do in response again here..? Not debate the facts presented.. Only use classic smear tactics.. Not a surprise either though.
Posts: 198 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 24 July 2007
Originally posted by NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL: Is that the best the Israel firsters can do here.. No debate the facts presented.. Only use classic Zionist s mear tactics.. Not a surprise.
So, tell us more about Cindy and you.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
anna251, you are out of line accusing someone of "anti-Semitism" for making a statement that the Iraq war was perpetrated for Israel.
First of all, there is no good reason for the Iraq war and the official reasons are all clearly lies. Second, plenty of those who pushed for the war did so thinking it would benefit Israel. We know that there are criminals that pushed this illegal war and we know there were plenty of people who saw it as good for Israel: “Enthusiastic IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] Awaits War in Iraq,” screamed the headline in the respected Israeli daily Ha’aretz on Feb. 17, 2003."
On Sept. 10, 2002, Philip Zelikow asked, "Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?" Zelikow admitted, "I'll tell you what the real threat [is] and actually has been since 1990 -- it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dares not speak its name because...the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically because it's not a popular sell." - Philip Zelikow Executive Director for the 9/11 Commission on C-SPAN
And Israel and the Israeli agenda are not "the Jews," there are Jews who oppose these crimes although the media are reluctant to give them air time. You can't run around calling people anti-Semites for talking about the horrible Israeli agenda because the fact is, it is horrible. And the fact is there were people pushing for war thinking that such a thing served Israel's interests. What kind of manipulative garbage are you selling when you point to people trying to expose the fraudulent case for war and claiming that they are anti-Semites for merely talking about Israel supporter's influenes? And since when are all Israel supporters Jewish? YOU are the one pushing that view, NOT the person you are slandering. The war was a dirty agenda and it is a fact that greedy and dishonest people pushed for this war. We know some motive was oil and some was Israel. It certainly is not "anti-Semitic" to talk about the Israel motive and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing so.
Posts: 9 | Location: New York | Registered: 24 July 2007
Originally posted by representativepress: anna251, you are out of line accusing someone of "anti-Semitism" for making a statement that the Iraq war was perpetrated for Israel.
Really???????????????? Nice try.
Well, yesterday, I mention somewhere the FACT that Rockefeller brought the Nazis after WWII. Is today's invasion paid by the same forces? Oil/arms/Bush/Saudi crowd? Are they generous?
Ok. Bye for now (or preferably forever)
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
I also wanted to point out that the two motives I mentioned both overlap with the motive of greed. There is a lot of greed in the money that goes to Israel and then finds its way back, going into the pockets of those who own rich and powerful corporations.
For its part, Lockheed Martin is committed to 2.6 billion dollars worth of reciprocal procurements, of which 1.1 billion has already been made.
Funding for the contract comes from US military aid to Israel which totals around two billion dollars per year.
Anyone benefiting from this arrangement can gladly scream "Anti-Semitism" when their motives are questioned. There is no good reason to be supporting Israel's crimes. Stop spreading your propaganda lies that it is "the Jews" who support Israel when many immoral non-Jews support it and many Jews refuse to support it.
Posts: 9 | Location: New York | Registered: 24 July 2007
The following articles by Charley Reese are must reads as well:
July 17, 2007 Cracks in Zionism
by Charley Reese One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That's not true and never has been true.
Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and for decades struggled desperately. It wasn't God who created the modern state of Israel. It was British colonialism, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Zionists.
Only about a third of the world's Jews choose to live in Israel, despite nearly a century of efforts to persuade Jews to immigrate. There were many early Jewish critics of Zionism, and there still are, despite modern Zionists adopting fascist tactics to silence debate.
Joel Beinin, a Jewish liberal who has been on the receiving end of the campaign to silence critics of Israel, had this to say in a recent article reprinted on Znet:
"Organizations claiming to represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation, censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies. They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right or wrong.
"Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace.
"We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore a full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests."
Avigail Abarbanel, a native-born Israeli Jew who lived there 27 years before emigrating, has even harsher words:
"Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous.
"The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything.
"Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy."
You might want to send that paragraph to the next politician you hear repeating AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) propaganda that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."
Abarbanel is a psychotherapist, and her article appeared on the Web site ElectronicIntifada.net, which I highly recommend as a source of information about the Middle East.
America badly needs an open and frank debate, based on facts, with no name-calling. Our politicians are as timid as an introverted baby when it comes to Israel. The Israeli lobby likes to boast about defeating candidates who don't toe the Israel-right-or-wrong line. As a tip to the not-completely-gutless politicians, the way to handle that is to make AIPAC an issue in the campaign.
A group of Zionist leaders is meeting in Israel as I write this, worrying about an increase in criticism of them for stifling debate. They are not invincible. They can't silence any American unless the American succumbs to fear of being called names, and I learned as a child that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can't hurt you.
by Charley Reese Idiots in Israel, along with those American idiots in the punditocracy who can't see where they are going because their vision is blocked by Israeli backsides, are trying to pressure our idiots in the White House to commit an act of insanity.
That act of insanity is launching a military attack against Iran because the idiots and their followers believe, despite a total lack of evidence, that Iran is pursuing a nuclear bomb. If you think the Middle East is in turmoil now, just watch what happens if idiocy prevails.
Let's review a few facts. There is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon. Of course the Iranians put a lot of their nuclear facilities underground. After all, they saw the Israelis – in clear violation of international law and without any evidence that Iraq was building a bomb – attack and destroy a nuclear reactor in Baghdad without a peep from the U.S.
Given how the Israelis constantly rant against Iran, Iranians would have been fools not to put as much of it as possible underground.
Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Israel refuses to sign it. Iran allowed international inspectors. Israel never has. Israel has nuclear weapons – and apparently a lot of them. Iran doesn't have any, not one. If you are worried about an Islamic nuke, I remind you that Pakistan already has them. A Hindu nuke? India has them.
So Israel, Pakistan, and India all have nuclear weapons, all refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and all are warmly held allies of the idiots in Washington.
Here's another fact to stack against the clear evidence of insanity on the Potomac. Suppose Iran is lying about peaceful uses and does build a bomb (even the Israelis say it will take until 2009). So what? The world is full of nuclear weapons. My whole life, since the 1950s, has been lived 30 minutes away from nuclear annihilation.
People, especially in the press, tend to get hysterical about nuclear weapons. A nuclear bomb is, after all, a bomb. It has, whatever its size, a limited burst radius. Fallout is a captive of the wind. There have been lots of nuclear detonations on the ground and in the atmosphere, counting the two we dropped on Japan, plus all the nuclear tests conducted by us, the Russians, the French, and whoever else. So far as I know, the people around the world are still producing normal babies, and no giant spiders or ants have appeared over the horizon.
Furthermore, having five or six nuclear weapons does not make you a threat against a country with 200 nukes (Israel), much less the U.S., which has more than 3,000 nukes.
So let these facts settle into your head. Iran says it seeks to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, as it is legally entitled to do under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is no evidence to contradict that. Iran has said repeatedly that it has no desire to acquire a nuclear weapon. It has never – despite the propaganda based on a misquotation – ever threatened Israel or the United States, or, for that matter, anyone else.
So what's afoot? I'll tell you what I think. The neocons in the U.S. and their pet bully, Israel, intend to dominate the Middle East and its oil. That means any country not run by a servile suck-up (Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, etc.) must be weakened or destroyed.
We've pretty much destroyed Iraq and Lebanon, so that leaves Syria and Iran. I imagine the neocons plan on Israel taking out Syria while the U.S. carpet-bombs Iran. The neocons are not only idiots, they are evil. They show a complete disdain for peace, a callous disregard for human life, and utter contempt for the rule of law. If that ain't evil, the devil had better retire.
Blankfort recently sent out the following to his email list (was this the reason that Thom Hartmann cut off my call so abruptly yesterday?):
From: "Jeff Blankfort"
Date: Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:20:30 -0700 Subject: Zionist Takeover of Air America
"If some are perplexed about the Zionist-tilt on talk radio in defiance of what is found elsewhere in the media, perhaps some credit belongs to the persistence of Harrison, Hoenlein and the ongoing educational efforts of their America’s Voices for Israel."
What is found elsewhere in the media is the same pro-Israel garbage that Air America will be spilling out over the airwaves. Appropriately, Air America was the name of the CIA airline that flew opium out of Laos during the Vietnam war. As a drug, Zionism is certainly as deadly.-JB
Publisher of Talkers, Presidents Conference work around the dial.
Jonathan Mark - Associate Editor
The Jewish Week Thursday, July 12
Three years after Air America first came on the air, intended to be a leftist voice in the mostly conservative world of talk radio only to go bankrupt as ratings sank, it has been newly “relaunched” under former Democratic politician Mark Green on 64 stations (1600 AM, WWRL in New York).
Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, the leading industry publication for talk radio, told the Cybercast News Service that Air America Radio is “heading in the right direction ... You have to look at Air America in context. Too many people have said, ‘Look, it’s liberal. It failed,’ as if that’s why. The fact that they’re liberal or progressive is irrelevant to me. It has to do with talent and a good business plan.”
But whether talk radio, be it left or right, is fair to Israel, is, in fact, very important to Harrison. For the past five years, Harrison and his publication have been shepherding more than 50 talk show hosts to Israel in conjunction with America’s Voices for Israel (AVI), a group founded and presided over by Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Harrison, a member of AVI’s board of directors, recently devoted an entire glossy front page of Talkers to these Israel trips. And on one trip, several weeks ago, conducted in conjunction with United Jewish Communities, among the radio personalities traveling with Harrison was Lionel, the uni-monikered host newly hired as Air America’s 9 a.m. mid-morning slot.
Among the places in Israel where Harrison’s group ventured was Sderot, the daily target of Hamas’ rocket war against Israel. Unless the rockets stop, and Hamas says they won’t, it will be intriguing to hear how this will play out on Lionel’s show and elsewhere on Air America, considering that Sderot has not been on the leftist agenda until now, not even the Jewish leftist agenda. For example, the much-publicized Rabbis for Human Rights conference in December denounced Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes but did not even mention the rocketed demolition of Jewish homes in Sderot by Palestinian rockets, though by even last December hundreds of rockets had landed in Sderot, killing several and wounding many.
Also, the recently launched Middle East Bulletin, the thrice-weekly online news site—intended as a leftist option to the Daily Alert, the online news site e-mailed each morning by the Conference of Presidents—has almost entirely ignored Sderot, as well.
Since the Middle East Bulletin was launched May 7 — in conjunction with Americans for Peace Now, the Geneva Initiative, Israel Policy Forum, and New Israel Fund — Sderot has been mentioned only twice, once when “Israeli planes hit Hamas targets” (May 18), and once when “Southern Israeli residents protest government response to rocket fire” (May 21). By contrast, the Daily Alert has been mentioning the rocket attacks on Sderot well over a hundred times, just about every day since the rocketing began.
The Talkers-AVI group was not only taken to Israel’s medical and science facilities, as well as cultural showcases, but to “the areas under siege,” said Harrison, and Lionel was photographed with one of the Qassam rockets that have panicked Sderot. The experience seemed to have an impact on Air America’s new host, as Lionel told Harrison that he recognized that Israelis “live with the real and palpable specter of imminent war at a moment’s notice.”
Unlike those in Air America’s constituency who have severely criticized Israel as an “apartheid” state, Lionel added, “Israel is a testament as to how a people disparate in religion, culture, history and language somehow coalesce and coexist in a seemingly unfathomable harmony.”
Before he shifted to Air America from WOR, Lionel had the 13th-ranked talk show in the country. According to recent Arbitron ratings, the top five talk show hosts are each staunchly on the right and supportive of Israel’s conservative flank: Rush Limbaugh (13.5 million weekly listeners); Sean Hannity (12.5); Michael Savage (8.25); Dr. Laura Schlesinger (8); and Laura Ingraham (5).
If some are perplexed about the Zionist-tilt on talk radio in defiance of what is found elsewhere in the media, perhaps some credit belongs to the persistence of Harrison, Hoenlein and the ongoing educational efforts of their America’s Voices for Israel.
America’s Voices is chaired by George Rohr, one of the major philanthropists behind international Chabad, and vice chaired by Howard Jonas, another major Jewish philanthropist who also chairs Yeshivat Chovivei Torah, the rabbinical school founded by Rabbi Avi Weiss.
Not long after the Rabbis for Human Rights conference, Rabbi Weiss, from his pulpit at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, denounced the leftist group for protesting the Israeli destruction of Palestinian- owned olive trees and the conditions under which alleged terrorists are being held while totally ignoring Sderot and the Israeli soldiers being held captive without even the Red Cross visitations afforded prisoners at the oft-criticized Guantanamo.
Posts: 198 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 24 July 2007
Here is an excerpt from the excellent article below by James Petras (his lastest) as Petras' book on the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby in the USA can currently be purchased at the same time when the Mearsheimer/Walt book is pre-ordered/ordered via www.amazon.com as shipping is included if over 25 dollars is spent (I ordered his book and pre-ordered the Mearsheimer/Walt book as well - simply do a search for 'Mearsheimer' there to find it):
The Unopposed War Lobby
The US is the only country in the world where the peace movement is unwilling to recognize, publically condemn or oppose the major influential political and social institutions consistently supporting and promoting the US wars in the Middle East. The political power of the pro-Israel power configuration, led by the American Israel Political Affairs Committee (AIPAC), supported within the government by highly placed pro-Israel Congressional leaders and White House and Pentagon officials has been well documented in books and articles by leading journalists, scholars and former President Jimmy Carter. The Zionist Power Configuration (ZPC) has over two thousand full-time functionaries, more than 250,000 activists, over a thousand billionaire and multi-millionaire political donors who contribute funds both political parties. The ZPC secures 20% of the US foreign military aid budget for Israel, over 95% congressional support for Israel’s boycott and armed incursions in Gaza, invasion of Lebanon and preemptive military option against Iran.
US Middle East Wars: Social Opposition and Political Impotence James Petras July 4 2007
Are you (1 or 2) leaving? Oh no. How about Cindy? Tell us.
Just curious. How many forums you have to cover in a shift? By the way, you did a good job. We all are joining neo-Nazis in the afternoon. Bye, see you soon - I would guess right after Bandar's processing of his new countless multi billion dollar arms bribes.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
I think what you forget is that Israel is a democracy and people say whatever they want there. Even things that undermine the credibility of Israel.
Compare that with the freedom Egyptians or Syrians have. Suddenly you will realize why Israel gets blamed for every wrongdoing in the region, when in fact it is Syria that should be blamed.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Originally posted by Gnarlodious: I think what you forget is that Israel is a democracy and people say whatever they want there. Even things that undermine the credibility of Israel.
Compare that with the freedom Egyptians or Syrians have. Suddenly you will realize why Israel gets blamed for every wrongdoing in the region, when in fact it is Syria that should be blamed.
Good point about the democracy, Gnarl. I'll quibble with you though: Syria is a puppet state to Iran. I think the larger motivators in the region are the dueling banjo support we see from Saudi Arabia for Sunni extremists, and from Iran for Shi'a extremists. Iran has propped up Syria, which propped up Lebanon/Hamas, who previously propped up some terrorists. Saudi, along with their Persian Gulf micro-nation puppets (UAE, Qatar, etc) have more money than Dr. Evil, and fund Sunni extremism everywhere else.
Also, NORMORE and rep-press, you don't even take into account what I think most believe as the real motivators for the US there: oil, and power. Here was a chance for the U.S. to establish a strong military-political stronghold right in the middle of the Middle East, and to "secure" access to one of the larger oil resources. Considering the histories of Herr Shrub, Darth Cheeney, Evil Rove-bot, Bremer, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, etc......oil and power are pretty big motivators of them to do this.
Good point about Iran, Stark. Also a good point about the petroleum. The neocon crew in the white house might be Jews, but more than that they are greedy power mad despots. Israel really doesn't enter into the picture.
It seems like the OP doesn't realize there is every kind of Jew, but the only kind he recognizes is the greedy despotic ones. Oops, almost used the word anti-Semitic.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
There are things that we need to discuss. No censorship allowed. People like Philip Zelikow and Netanyahu in Israel had the idea that this clash of civilizations benefits Israel.
Good point about the democracy, Gnarl. I'll quibble with you though: Syria is a puppet state to Iran.
Just curious, stark, how did you come to that conclusion?
Syria is Sunni, Iran, Shia; Hizbullah in Lebanon are Shia, also supposedly puppets of Iran according the the U.S. foreign policy propaganda practitioners, Hizbullah are also portrayed as puppets of Syria. The geometry of that puppet show in this Middle East theater just fractures my mind!
I do agree with Gnarly, Israel is more of a bit player than the focus, or more like an important piece on a strategic game board.
quote:
Syria and Iran see themselves as "two states under siege, surrounded by adversarial regimes," Lasensky says. "The unified opposition against them reinforces the alliance."
....
"They have diverging interests when things are good in the region," (source)
This game is not so simple, it seems, as identifying puppets and puppet masters:
quote:
What is Syria’s role in the current crisis?
But by supporting Hezbollah action, which it knew would invite an Israeli counterattack, Damascus is "allowing Israel to destabilize Lebanon, which allows Syrian influence to grow again," Cook says. (source)
Or is that an accurate assessment?
quote:
Terms such as “proxy” and “client” are often used to characterize the power dynamic between Hizballah and its allies Iran and Syria. These states’ vital resources and indispensable political sponsorship elevated Hizballah to the position it enjoys today. They each played a central role in past decisions of momentous importance for Hizballah. Today, however, this image of Hizballah as a client of Iran and Syria has become obsolete due to the power base the Shi‘ite group has nurtured and expanded in Lebanon and the growing political capital it has acquired in the Middle East thanks to at least the perception of its military victories, be they real or not, particularly in the summer 2006 war against Israel. (source)
Stark, I am so surprised. I thought Stark would show up with: "Now we have many more wonderful links. It's so wonderful."
I am just curious whether it's one person or 2 or 3 (Free is obviously part).
Look who in power in this country. Can you imagine a Jew dictating anything to James Baker & Co. But, yes, a Jew can be used by them, like everybody else. This is a scary, fascist crowd and the old fascist/Bushies/Arab rulers axis. By the way, did you know that Baker has an office in the White House, from which he serves the Saudis by fighting the families of 9/11, and in many other ways. What's wrong with this picture?
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Democracy must be the most overused, misunderstood word in the English language. A good example is democracy in Israel that is used almost daily by the uninformed.
Imagine that the United States abolished its constitution, or perhaps had never had one to begin with. No Bill of Rights. No guarantees of things like free speech, freedom of assembly and due process of law.
And imagine if Congress passed a law stating that the US was from this point forward to be legally defined as a “Christian nation”. As such, Christians would be given special privileges for jobs, loans and land ownership, and Christians from anywhere in the world would be given preference in immigration, extended automatic citizenship upon coming to America.
Furthermore, imagine if political candidates espousing certain beliefs — especially those who might argue that the US should be a nation with equal rights for all, and not a “Christian nation” — were no longer allowed to hold office, or even run for election.
Imagine that laws were passed that had the effect of restricting certain ethnic and religious groups from acquiring land in particular parts of the country, and made it virtually impossible for members of ethnic minorities to live in particular communities.
And imagine that in response to perceived threats to America's internal security, new laws sailed through Congress, providing for torture of those detained for suspected subversion. This, on top of still other laws providing for the detention of such suspects for long periods of time without trial or even a formal charge against them.
In such a scenario, would anyone with an appreciation of the English language, and with the above definition in mind, dare suggest that we would be justified in calling America a democracy?
Of course not: and yet the term is repeatedly used to describe Israel — as in “the only democracy in the Middle East”. This, despite the fact that Israel has no constitution; despite the fact that Israel is defined as the state of the Jewish people, providing special rights and privileges to anyone in the world who is Jewish and seeks to live there, over and above longtime Arab residents. This, despite the fact that Israel bars any candidate from holding office who thinks the country should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for all. This, despite the fact that non-Jews are restricted in terms of how much land they can own, and in which places they can own land at all, thanks to laws granting preferential treatment to Jewish residents. This, despite that fact that even the Israeli Supreme Court has acknowledged the use of torture against suspected “terrorists” and other “enemies” of the Jewish state.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: Jim David,
Posts: 5 | Location: Georgia | Registered: 24 July 2007
Free: Netanyahu was unelected in fair elections. Which is more than I can say for out current American warmongering president.
But you can be sure there is a good portion of Israelis who regret unelecting him, since turning Gaza over the the Palestinians has proved to be such a mistake. Israel is likely to make a right turn in the next election. That's how democracies work.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
Originally posted by anna251: Stark, I am so surprised. I thought Stark would show up with: "Now we have many more wonderful links. It's so wonderful."
I am just curious whether it's one person or 2 or 3 (Free is obviously part).
Look who in power in this country. Can you imagine a Jew dictating anything to James Baker & Co. But, yes, a Jew can be used by them, like everybody else. This is a scary, fascist crowd and the old fascist/Bushies/Arab rulers axis. By the way, did you know that Baker has an office in the White House, from which he serves the Saudis by fighting the families of 9/11, and in many other ways. What's wrong with this picture?
Indicative of your apparent jump to a wrong conclusion about me. I've never made a statement against the Jewish "people", culture, or religion. I do quibble with policies of the Israeli government, which is my right, and the point of these boards (to debate issues). I address issues, not individuals here nor attack people in general across the world. You may have missed my comments on another thread about my support for the work of the Israeli Labor Party under Yitzak Rabin, and my sadness at his assassination, which I think was akin to the JFK assassination and ended a great hope for the Levant.
since turning Gaza over the the Palestinians has proved to be such a mistake.
I would beg to differ on that. Although bloody, I think good things are finally afoot in Palestine. At best it shows if let on thier own accord, they would eventually turn on themselves.
**** Disclaimer: The information in this weblog is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This weblog does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my owner. It is solely my own personal opinion. Inappropriate comments will be deleted at the authors discretion.***
"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
AFX News Limited Britain's Brown refuses to rule out military action against Iran (for Israel, of course!) 07.23.07, 3:50 PM ET
LONDON (Thomson Financial) - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday he expected a new UN resolution against Iran to make it toe the line on its nuclear programme, while also refusing to rule out military action.
'I firmly believe that the sanctions policy that we are pursuing will work, but I am not one who is going forward to say that we rule out any particular form of action,' Brown said at his first press conference as premier.
'But I firmly believe that the sanctions that we are imposing on Iran are sanctions that are having an effect already,' he told reporters at 10 Downing Street in London.
'We are going to have to consider what we do in future, there will probably be a third (UN Security Council) resolution in relation to Iran soon and I believe that that is a way forward that is working and will work,' he said.
'And again I appeal to the Iranian authorities to understand the fears that other countries have about the development of a nuclear weapons programme,' he said.
The UN Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions to get Tehran to cease enriching uranium and stop building a heavy-water reactor in Arak, along with cooperating fully with the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran has since April blocked inspectors visiting the heavy-water reactor. Such reactors produce plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. The other main atom bomb material is enriched uranium.
Iran has rejected any halt in its enrichment work, claiming a right to it under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
On July 13, the United States said it was sceptical of Tehran's agreement to allow IAEA inspections of the reactor.
Iran insists its nuclear programme is a peaceful effort to generate electricity, but the United States and Britain fear it is a cover for developing atomic weapons.
Iran and the IAEA are to hold a fresh round of talks in Vienna this week.
tf.TFN-Europe_newsdesk@thomson.com
Posts: 198 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 24 July 2007
Stark, There is problem with your thinking, I can't deal with it now, and maybe it's not the time, but if it's ok with you I'll explain point by point what's wrong with it. My problem with people like you is that each time someone explains to you where the problem is (and it was done here too) you reject an explanation, and repeat your nonsense.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
British premier stresses his pro-Israel credentials
Gordon Brown tells British Zionists he always loved Israel
By Redress Information & Analysis
18 July 2007
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has appointed Israel apologists to key positions and has been at pains to reassure British Zionists of his support and affection for Israel
If anyone had harboured illusions that Britain ’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, might adopt a less biased position towards Israel than his Zionist predecessor, Tony Blair, now is the time to dispel them.
To begin with, Gordon Brown has appointed Israel apologists to key positions in his government, with arch-Zionist James Purnell heading the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, which has oversight responsibilities for the British media, including the BBC, and Douglas Alexander, a recipient of Labour Friends of Israel hospitality, taking over the Department for International Development.
They are complemented by another Israel apologist, Jim Murphy, who has become minister of state for Europe with responsibility for the BBC World Service and the British Council. Mr Murphy served as chairman of Labour Friends of Israel during 2000-02 and has also been a member of the Anglo-Israeli All-Party Parliamentary Group.
In addition, Gordon Brown has appointed Simon McDonald, a former British ambassador to Israel and a man described by Israeli officials as "a true friend to Israel ", as his chief foreign policy adviser.
Another Israel fanatic, Meg Munn, becomes parliamentary under-secretary of state with responsibility for foreign affairs. Ms Munn is a former chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel and is a recipient of hospitality from the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Gordon Brown has also been at pain to stress his Christian Zionist credentials. In a speech to the Labour Friends of Israel annual fundraising dinner in April 2007, quoted by the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post, Brown described how his father, a Presbyterian preacher, had been a passionate supporter of Israel who had taken him to the racist Jews-only state at least twice a year for most of his adult life to show solidarity with the usurpers of Palestinian land. He said:
Many of you know my interest in Israel and in the Jewish community has been long-standing. .. My father was the chairman of the Church of Scotland's Israel Committee. Not only as I've described to some of you before did he make visits on almost two occasions a year for 20 years to Israel – but because of that, although Fife [Scotland], where I grew up, was a long way from Israel with no TV pictures to link us together – I had a very clear view from household slides and projectors about the history of Israel, about the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, about the enormous suffering and loss during the Holocaust, as well as the extraordinary struggle that he described to me of people to create this magnificent homeland.
Indeed, Gordon Brown made a strong impression on his Zionist hosts. Jane Kennedy, chairwoman of Labour Friends of Israel, said:
I have always felt that Gordon Brown is instinctively a good friend of Israel and I look forward to working with him. The combination of Gordon as prime minister and Tony Blair as Quartet Middle East envoy is a really exciting prospect and gives real hope for progress in the Middle East peace process.
We ourselves have never harboured any illusions about Gordon Brown. For those of our readers who have, we suggest you take comfort in the fact that, as far as international relations and the Middle East are concerned, neither the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland nor the Quartet are of any consequence whatsoever. While the has-been great power of bygone years is nothing but an appendage of the United States, the talking shop that has just appointed a war criminal as its peace envoy is no more than an international cover for US support for Israel.
As far as we are concerned, Britain , the Quartet, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are irrelevant.
Posts: 198 | Location: Los Angeles | Registered: 24 July 2007
Originally posted by anna251: Stark, There is problem with your thinking, I can't deal with it now, and maybe it's not the time, but if it's ok with you I'll explain point by point what's wrong with it. My problem with people like you is that each time someone explains to you where the problem is (and it was done here too) you reject an explanation, and repeat your nonsense.
Don't waste your time Anna. You're even newer to these boards than me, and perhaps miss the point that debate, dissent, and discussion are the purpose here. No one here answers to your judgement in any way (in spite of your claimed multiple degrees and languages and flat stomach), so save your efforts. I really don't care if you disagree with me (many have, that's called debate), but please do not levy personal complaints about me unless you have specific data to prove it, and then take it up with the monitors/administrators.
Don't waste your time Anna. You're even newer to these boards than me, and perhaps miss the point that debate, dissent, and discussion are the purpose here.
Beyond comical. I am old fashioned - I thought that one of the purposes of discussions (in addition to pleasure, etc.) is ... a search for truth. NO ???
Apparently, discussions are supposed to look this way:
a. I am so wonderful. I am for peace, love, more love, and more love. b. I am even more wonderful. I am for more peace, more love, and even more love.
These are post-1984 discussions.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
This is a longstanding debate in the US. Is Israel the tail that wags the dog (US) or does the US use Israel to pursue its own strategic interests? I just read the Buchanan article you linked, the Paul Craig Roberts one, and have recently read one by Jim Petras and another by Stephen Sniegoski, both of which asserted or implied that the war against Iraq was done for Israel. While I agree that a clique of reflexively pro-Israeli neo-cons have a lot of power over US foreign policy (Perle, Feith, etc.), I think it is simplistic and false to argue that "the (Iraq) war was for Israel." After reading numerous such articles by adherents of this belief, I can find no direct substantiation for the tail-wags-the-dog claim, so it appears to be simply an article of faith for some. Are you one of them? Note, too, I am not one of pro-Israeli types who is now going to reflexively suggest you are anti-Semitic. I have no interest in further discussion with such cretins, for whom rational discussion about Israel is impossible. They are best ignored. As for Buchanan, he is only pundit I can think of who regularly appears on corporate TV shows, e.g., the McLaughlin Group, who has the temerity and the knowledge to ACCURATELY and ARTICULATELY criticize Israel's excessive influence over US foreign policy, an influence that goes back to the founding of the Jewish state. But arguing that is one thing. Arguing that Israeli agents have infiltrated our government and are calling the shots about what countries we invade is another.
The war on Iraq had been planned from as early as 1991 by the neo-cons, who saw Bush I as a failure for not toppling Baghdad during the first Gulf War. That many of these neo-cons are Jewish doesn't establish that the war is a "war for Israel." There are other, equally if not more important motives for the war, as explained by William Clarke in the following article:
Although completely suppressed by the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is an oil currency war. The real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the `petro-dollar' and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The author advocates reform of the global monetary system including a dollar/euro currency ‘trading band’ with reserve status parity, and a dual OPEC oil transaction standard. These reforms could potentially reduce future oil currency warfare.
This is the point missed by Sniegoski and others who simplistically assert that US war plans are dictated from Israel. There has long been, however, a disquieting symbiosis between Jewish Israeli sympathizers in the US war establishment and US policymaking elite generally, and unquestionably the Israeli influence has reached its apex with the rise of the current neo-con gangsters in the Bush administration. I provide the link to Sniegoski’s article because he calls attention to this. However, he engages in reductionistic, straw-man arguments when considering Iraq as a “war for oil.” He criticizes Chomsky and others for believing “the war was about oil” as an act of faith. Yet Sniegoski, Petras and many others on the left and right seem to believe it’s a “war for Israel” as an act of faith. My contention is there was a confluence of interests that resulted in this criminal enterprise called the Iraq War. It is all about oil, but that doesn’t mean the invasion was done at the behest of Big Oil. Rather, it is about the geostrategic significance of oil at a time when global Peak Oil is imminent, and, crucially, the maintenance of US geostrategic hegemony through the petrodollar. So it is more about controlling access to the oil in a time of imminent oil shortages, and maintaining the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world. And that US interest, which was paramount, happened to coincide with hawkish Israeli advocates who wanted to take out Saddam’s regime.
I haven’t read the Mearsheimer report but heard a lot about it when it was published. I agreed with it of course. Anyone who points out the obvious fact of the inordinate influence of the AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobbies over US foreign policy and the corporate media will immediately be condemned as anti-Semitic by the cretins who engage in such ridiculous rhetoric because they are primarily emotion-driven people, incapable of thinking rationally about what is truly in the interest of Israel. Certainly folks like Ariel Sharon and his successor are not acting in the true interests of the people of Israel, and nor are Israel’s reflexive war mongering “supporters” here in the US – people like Perle and Wolfowitz and Feith.
But again, none of this is new. Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 and killed dozens of US servicemen, in an attack by air and sea that went on for hours, on a ship that was clearly marked as American and that subsequent transcripts of Israeli pilot transmissions proved conclusively was identified as American by Israeli pilots who strafed the ship. President Johnson covered the whole thing up, the corporate media was complicit in the cover-up, and there has been no justice to this day for that event. What other nation could get away with this kind of behavior without facing consequences? None. From its inception, Israel has been like the 51st state of the union.
And the US should have long since threatened to cut off aid to Israel unless it stopped building illegal settlements in the West Bank. It didn’t happen, because we have reached the sad and outrageous state of affairs where no one dares criticize Israel for fear their political career will be over if they do. Look what happened to Howard Dean in 2004 just for making the modest statement that US policy in Israeli-Palestinian dispute should be a little more balanced? He was set upon by AIPAC and its many media sympathizers until he had to back off of a statement that was perfectly reasonable. No one with an inkling of historical knowledge of US-Israel relations can credibly argue that ANY US administration, republican or democrat, has ever been an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Jimmy Carter made a similar plea to Dean’s in his recent book and was set upon by the same tiresome charges of anti-Semitism, being anti-Israel, etc.
I also believe it is not in our interests in getting bogged down in endless disputes about what was THE cause of the Iraq war. It is axiomatic that wars often have more than one cause. What we want is an end to the war. Check out my recent thread on the Philadelphia Emergency Anti-War Coalition, and/or go to their site at www.actindependent.org It is time for us to focus on what unifies us and get active for holding this lawless junta in Washington to account.
-------------------------- "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" - Sherlock Holmes
Also, NORMORE and rep-press, you don't even take into account what I think most believe as the real motivators for the US there: oil, and power. Here was a chance for the U.S. to establish a strong military-political stronghold right in the middle of the Middle East, and to "secure" access to one of the larger oil resources. Considering the histories of Herr Shrub, Darth Cheeney, Evil Rove-bot, Bremer, Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, etc......oil and power are pretty big motivators of them to do this.
Good point Stark, but it's more specific than that. The US already has a military political stronghold in the middle of the Middle East: Israel. See my post in this thread.
-------------------------- "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" - Sherlock Holmes
Stark - Don't waste your time Anna. You're even newer to these boards than me, and perhaps miss the point that debate, dissent, and discussion are the purpose here. No one here answers to your judgement in any way (in spite of your claimed multiple degrees and languages and flat stomach), so save your efforts. I really don't care if you disagree with me (many have, that's called debate), but please do not levy personal complaints about me unless you have specific data to prove it, and then take it up with the monitors/administrators.
Why waste your time Stark? As seen in the "Thom Errs" thread, some people (we know who I'm talking about) are simply incapable of rational debate about anything involving Israel. Instead they resort to ad hominems, sarcasm, rolling happy faces, and epithets to cover for their deficiencies in logic.
They are best ignored on these matters.
-------------------------- "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" - Sherlock Holmes
Look who in power in this country. Can you imagine a Jew dictating anything to James Baker & Co. But, yes, a Jew can be used by them, like everybody else. This is a scary, fascist crowd and the old fascist/Bushies/Arab rulers axis. By the way, did you know that Baker has an office in the White House, from which he serves the Saudis by fighting the families of 9/11, and in many other ways. What's wrong with this picture?
-------------------------------
Response:
Another smoke screen by Anna.. Look at who won out with the so called 'surge'. Not the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group's suggestion/recommendation of getting out of Iraq sooner rather than later.. But the AEI (JINSA/PNAC) Neoocon inspired 'surge' plan written by the Jewish AEI Neocon Fred Kagan who is associated with the other Jewish (JINSA/PNAC) Neocons based at the AEI.. It was transmitted to Bush via JINSA/PNAC Neocon associated Cheney whose wife is a research 'fellow' up at AEI as well (AEI is about six blocks from the White House in D.C.). Nice try, Anna (doesn't AIPAC give you better propaganda material than that?!). We saw where the 'surge' came from, and it wasn't from Baker-Hamilton..
PS: Fred Kagan is the brother of arch-neocon Robert Kagan who is mentioned in Pat Buchanan's 'Whose War?' article via the following URL:
Take a look at this excellent article by Robert Fisk which initially appeared in the London Independent newspaper for more about Cheney's association with JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs):
Why hasn't Thom Hartmann ever interviewed Jason Vest about that 'Men from JINSA and CSP' article? Vest is an American patriot as he and Robert Dreyfuss also wrote the 'The Lie Factory' article which is linked in the following piece about Feith who was involved with the 'cooking and manipulation' of the 'intelligence' used to get his long desired war for Israel underway in Iraq (Feith was associated with JINSA and co-wrote the 'A Clean Break/war for Israel document with fellow Jewish JINSA/PNAC Neocons Richard Perle and David Wurmser who is still in Cheney's office plotting even more war for Israel against Iran with even more Americans to die get horribly wounded as a result like they have in the Iraq quagmire):
Be sure to access the following URL (which I posted earlier in this message thread) for more on Feith's connection to the 'A Clean Break/war for Israel document as discussed on pages 261-269/321 of James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book:
[quote]Gnarlodious Posted 24 July 2007 09:23 Hide Post quote: Mordecai Vanunu Was clearly guilty of selling state defense secrets to the enemy.
Gnarlodious,
Wrong. He never sold anything. He just disclosed the fact that Israel had a nuclear program.
As to the comment on this thread about Gaza...
Sharon's dream
By Akiva Eldar
If Ariel Sharon were able to hear the news from the Gaza Strip and West Bank, he would call his loyal aide, Dov Weissglas, and say with a big laugh: "We did it, Dubi." Sharon is in a coma, but his plan is alive and kicking. Everyone is now talking about the state of Hamastan. In his house, they called it a bantustan, after the South African protectorates designed to perpetuate apartheid.
Just as in the Palestinian territories, blacks and colored people in South Africa were given limited autonomy in the country's least fertile areas. Those who remained outside these isolated enclaves, which were disconnected from each other, received the status of foreign workers, without civil rights. A few years ago, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema told Israeli friends that shortly before he was elected prime minister, Sharon told him that the bantustan plan was the most suitable solution to our conflict. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/871983.html
Posts: 34 | Location: PA | Registered: 24 July 2007
The neocon crew in the white house might be Jews, but more than that they are greedy power mad despots. Israel really doesn't enter into the picture.
To certain people who helped bring this war about, Israel was the central issue!! Stop denying it while they start to another one in Iran, Syria and Pakistan.
Kristol: Sense of mission.
White man's burden
By Ari Shavit
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical
1. The doctrine
WASHINGTON - At the conclusion of its second week, the war to liberate Iraq wasn't looking good. Not even in Washington. The assumption of a swift collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime had itself collapsed. The presupposition that the Iraqi dictatorship would crumble as soon as mighty America entered the country proved unfounded. The Shi'ites didn't rise up, the Sunnis fought fiercely. Iraqi guerrilla warfare found the American generals unprepared and endangered their overextended supply lines. Nevertheless, 70 percent of the American people continued to support the war; 60 percent thought victory was certain; 74 percent expressed confidence in President George W. Bush.
Washington is a small city. It's a place of human dimensions. A kind of small town that happens to run an empire. A small town of government officials and members of Congress and personnel of research institutes and journalists who pretty well all know one another. Everyone is busy intriguing against everyone else; and everyone gossips about everyone else.
In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments when you're scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.
2. William Kristol
Has America bitten off more than it can chew? Bill Kristol says no. True, the press is very negative, but when you examine the facts in the field you see that there is no terrorism, no mass destruction, no attacks on Israel. The oil fields in the south have been saved, air control has been achieved, American forces are deployed 50 miles from Baghdad. So, even if mistakes were made here and there, they are not serious. America is big enough to handle that. Kristol hasn't the slightest doubt that in the end, General Tommy Franks will achieve his goals. The 4th Cavalry Division will soon enter the fray, and another division is on its way from Texas. So it's possible that instead of an elegant war with 60 killed in two weeks it will be a less elegant affair with a thousand killed in two months, but nevertheless Bill Kristol has no doubt at all that the Iraq Liberation War is a just war, an obligatory war.
Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in his late forties. In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the White House to do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad. Sitting behind the stacks of books that cover his desk at the offices of the Weekly Standard in Northwest Washington, he tries to convince me that he is not worried. It is simply inconceivable to him that America will not win. In that event, the consequences would be catastrophic. No one wants to think seriously about that possibility.
What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that at one level it is the war that George Bush is talking about: a war against a brutal regime that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction. But at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle East. It is a war that is intended to change the political culture of the entire region. Because what happened on September 11, 2001, Kristol says, is that the Americans looked around and saw that the world is not what they thought it was. The world is a dangerous place. Therefore the Americans looked for a doctrine that would enable them to cope with this dangerous world. And the only doctrine they found was the neoconservative one.
That doctrine maintains that the problem with the Middle East is the absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows that the only way to block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is to disseminate democracy and freedom. To change radically the cultural and political dynamics that creates such people. And the way to fight the chaos is to create a new world order that will be based on freedom and human rights - and to be ready to use force in order to consolidate this new world. So that, really, is what the war is about. It is being fought to consolidate a new world order, to create a new Middle East.
Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a neoconservative war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies, laughing. But the truth is that it's an American war. The neoconservatives succeeded because they touched the bedrock of America. The thing is that America has a profound sense of mission. America has a need to offer something that transcends a life of comfort, that goes beyond material success. Therefore, because of their ideals, the Americans accepted what the neoconservatives proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over interests, but over values. They wanted a war driven by a moral vision. They wanted to hitch their wagon to something bigger than themselves.
Does this moral vision mean that after Iraq will come the turns of Saudi Arabia and Egypt?
Kristol says that he is at odds with the administration on the question of Saudi Arabia. But his opinion is that it is impossible to let Saudi Arabia just continue what it is doing. It is impossible to accept the anti-Americanism it is disseminating. The fanatic Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia engenders is undermining the stability of the entire region. It's the same with Egypt, he says: we mustn't accept the status quo there. For Egypt, too, the horizon has to be liberal democracy.
It has to be understood that in the final analysis, the stability that the corrupt Arab despots are offering is illusory. Just as the stability that Yitzhak Rabin received from Yasser Arafat was illusory. In the end, none of these decadent dictatorships will endure. The choice is between extremist Islam, secular fascism or democracy. And because of September 11, American understands that. America is in a position where it has no choice. It is obliged to be far more aggressive in promoting democracy. Hence this war. It's based on the new American understanding that if the United States does not shape the world in its image, the world will shape the United States in its own image.
3. Charles Krauthammer
Is this going to turn into a second Vietnam? Charles Krauthammer says no. There is no similarity to Vietnam. Unlike in the 1960s, there is no anti-establishment subculture in the United States now. Unlike in the 1960s, there is now an abiding love of the army in the United States. Unlike in the 1960s, there is a determined president, one with character, in the White House. And unlike in the 1960s, Americans are not deterred from making sacrifices. That is the sea-change that took place here on September 11, 2001. Since that morning, Americans have understood that if they don't act now and if weapons of mass destruction reach extremist terrorist organizations, millions of Americans will die. Therefore, because they understand that those others want to kill them by the millions, the Americans prefer to take to the field of battle and fight, rather than sit idly by and die at home.
Charles Krauthammer is handsome, swarthy and articulate. In his spacious office on 19th Street in Northwest Washington, he sits upright in a black wheelchair. Although his writing tends to be gloomy, his mood now is elevated. The well-known columnist (Washington Post, Time, Weekly Standard) has no real doubts about the outcome of the war that he promoted for 18 months. No, he does not accept the view that he helped lead America into the new killing fields between the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it is true that he is part of a conceptual stream that had something to offer in the aftermath of September 11. Within a few weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, he had singled out Baghdad in his columns as an essential target. And now, too, he is convinced that America has the strength to pull it off. The thought that America will not win has never even crossed his mind.
What is the war about? It's about three different issues. First of all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it is also sufficient cause in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq is being fought to replace the demonic deal America cut with the Arab world decades ago. That deal said: you will send us oil and we will not intervene in your internal affairs. Send us oil and we will not demand from you what we are demanding of Chile, the Philippines, Korea and South Africa.
That deal effectively expired on September 11, 2001, Krauthammer says. Since that day, the Americans have understood that if they allow the Arab world to proceed in its evil ways - suppression, economic ruin, sowing despair - it will continue to produce more and more bin Ladens. America thus reached the conclusion that it has no choice: it has to take on itself the project of rebuilding the Arab world. Therefore, the Iraq war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical experiment whose purpose is to do in the Arab world what was done in Germany and Japan after World War II.
It's an ambitious experiment, Krauthammer admits, maybe even utopian, but not unrealistic. After all, it is inconceivable to accept the racist assumption that the Arabs are different from all other human beings, that the Arabs are incapable of conducting a democratic way of life.
However, according to the Jewish-American columnist, the present war has a further importance. If Iraq does become pro-Western and if it becomes the focus of American influence, that will be of immense geopolitical importance. An American presence in Iraq will project power across the region. It will suffuse the rebels in Iran with courage and strength, and it will deter and restrain Syria. It will accelerate the processes of change that the Middle East must undergo.
Isn't the idea of preemptive war a dangerous one that rattles the world order?
There is no choice, Krauthammer replies. In the 21st century we face a new and singular challenge: the democratization of mass destruction. There are three possible strategies in the face of that challenge: appeasement, deterrence and preemption. Because appeasement and deterrence will not work, preemption is the only strategy left. The United States must implement an aggressive policy of preemption. Which is exactly what it is now doing in Iraq. That is what Tommy Franks' soldiers are doing as we speak.
And what if the experiment fails? What if America is defeated?
This war will enhance the place of America in the world for the coming generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will shape the world for the next 25 years. There are three possibilities. If the United States wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be a colossus that will dictate the world order. If the victory is slow and contaminated, it will be impossible to go on to other Arab states after Iraq. It will stop there. But if America is beaten, the consequences will be catastrophic. Its deterrent capability will be weakened, its friends will abandon it and it will become insular. Extreme instability will be engendered in the Middle East.
You don't really want to think about what will happen, Krauthammer says looking me straight in the eye. But just because that's so, I am positive we will not lose. Because the administration understands the implications. The president understands that everything is riding on this. So he will throw everything we've got into this. He will do everything that has to be done. George W. Bush will not let America lose.
4. Thomas Friedman
Is this an American Lebanon War? Tom Friedman says he is afraid it is. He was there, in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, in the summer of 1982, and he remembers it well. So he sees the lines of resemblance clearly. General Ahmed Chalabi (the Shi'ite leader that the neoconservatives want to install as the leader of a free Iraq) in the role of Bashir Jemayel. The Iraqi opposition in the role of the Phalange. Richard Perle and the conservative circle around him as Ariel Sharon. And a war that is at bottom a war of choice. A war that wants to utilize massive force in order to establish a new order.
Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist, did not oppose the war. On the contrary. He too was severely shaken by September 11, he too wants to understand where these desperate fanatics are coming from who hate America more than they love their own lives. And he too reached the conclusion that the status quo in the Middle East is no longer acceptable. The status quo is terminal. And therefore it is urgent to foment a reform in the Arab world.
Some things are true even if George Bush believes them, Friedman says with a smile. And after September 11, it's impossible to tell Bush to drop it, ignore it. There was a certain basic justice in the overall American feeling that told the Arab world: we left you alone for a long time, you played with matches and in the end we were burned. So we're not going to leave you alone any longer.
He is sitting in a large rectangular room in the offices of The New York Times in northwest Washington, on the corner of 17th Street. One wall of the room is a huge map of the world. Hunched over his computer, he reads me witty lines from the article that will be going to press in two hours. He polishes, sharpens, plays word games. He ponders what's right to say now, what should be left for a later date. Turning to me, he says that democracies look soft until they're threatened. When threatened, they become very hard. Actually, the Iraq war is a kind of Jenin on a huge scale. Because in Jenin, too, what happened was that the Israelis told the Palestinians, We left you here alone and you played with matches until suddenly you blew up a Passover seder in Netanya. And therefore we are not going to leave you along any longer. We will go from house to house in the Casbah. And from America's point of view, Saddam's Iraq is Jenin. This war is a defensive shield. It follows that the danger is the same: that like Israel, America will make the mistake of using only force.
This is not an illegitimate war, Friedman says. But it is a very presumptuous war. You need a great deal of presumption to believe that you can rebuild a country half a world from home. But if such a presumptuous war is to have a chance, it needs international support. That international legitimacy is essential so you will have enough time and space to execute your presumptuous project. But George Bush didn't have the patience to glean international support. He gambled that the war would justify itself, that we would go in fast and conquer fast and that the Iraqis would greet us with rice and the war would thus be self-justifying. That did not happen. Maybe it will happen next week, but in the meantime it did not happen.
When I think about what is going to happen, I break into a sweat, Friedman says. I see us being forced to impose a siege on Baghdad. And I know what kind of insanity a siege on Baghdad can unleash. The thought of house-to-house combat in Baghdad without international legitimacy makes me lose my appetite. I see American embassies burning. I see windows of American businesses shattered. I see how the Iraqi resistance to America connects to the general Arab resistance to America and the worldwide resistance to America. The thought of what could happen is eating me up.
What George Bush did, Friedman says, is to show us a splendid mahogany table: the new democratic Iraq. But when you turn the table over, you see that it has only one leg. This war is resting on one leg. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks he can defeat George Bush had better think again. Bush will never give in. That's not what he's made of. Believe me, you don't want to be next to this guy when he thinks he's being backed into a corner. I don't suggest that anyone who holds his life dear mess with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush.
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts. It's not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25 people hijacked America. You don't take such a great nation into such a great adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and another five or six influential columnists. In the final analysis, what fomented the war is America's over-reaction to September 11. The genuine sense of anxiety that spread in America after September 11. It is not only the neoconservatives who led us to the outskirts of Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American combination of anxiety and hubris.
Sharon told him that the bantustan plan was the most suitable solution to our conflict.
You'll have to take that up with the UN and the Arab League. Two state option was their idea, long before Sharon.
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"I stand or fall on my own words."
Posts: 7253 | Location: PORTLAND | Registered: 07 November 2005
Originally posted by memory_hole: NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL,
This is a longstanding debate in the US. Is Israel the tail that wags the dog (US) or does the US use Israel to pursue its own strategic interests? I just read the Buchanan article you linked, the Paul Craig Roberts one, and have recently read one by Jim Petras and another by Stephen Sniegoski, both of which asserted or implied that the war against Iraq was done for Israel. While I agree that a clique of reflexively pro-Israeli neo-cons have a lot of power over US foreign policy (Perle, Feith, etc.), I think it is simplistic and false to argue that "the (Iraq) war was for Israel." After reading numerous such articles by adherents of this belief, I can find no direct substantiation for the tail-wags-the-dog claim, so it appears to be simply an article of faith for some. Are you one of them? Note, too, I am not one of pro-Israeli types who is now going to reflexively suggest you are anti-Semitic. I have no interest in further discussion with such cretins, for whom rational discussion about Israel is impossible. They are best ignored. As for Buchanan, he is only pundit I can think of who regularly appears on corporate TV shows, e.g., the McLaughlin Group, who has the temerity and the knowledge to ACCURATELY and ARTICULATELY criticize Israel's excessive influence over US foreign policy, an influence that goes back to the founding of the Jewish state. But arguing that is one thing. Arguing that Israeli agents have infiltrated our government and are calling the shots about what countries we invade is another.
The war on Iraq had been planned from as early as 1991 by the neo-cons, who saw Bush I as a failure for not toppling Baghdad during the first Gulf War. That many of these neo-cons are Jewish doesn't establish that the war is a "war for Israel." There are other, equally if not more important motives for the war, as explained by William Clarke in the following article:
Although completely suppressed by the U.S. media, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is an oil currency war. The real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the `petro-dollar' and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The author advocates reform of the global monetary system including a dollar/euro currency ‘trading band’ with reserve status parity, and a dual OPEC oil transaction standard. These reforms could potentially reduce future oil currency warfare.
This is the point missed by Sniegoski and others who simplistically assert that US war plans are dictated from Israel. There has long been, however, a disquieting symbiosis between Jewish Israeli sympathizers in the US war establishment and US policymaking elite generally, and unquestionably the Israeli influence has reached its apex with the rise of the current neo-con gangsters in the Bush administration. I provide the link to Sniegoski’s article because he calls attention to this. However, he engages in reductionistic, straw-man arguments when considering Iraq as a “war for oil.” He criticizes Chomsky and others for believing “the war was about oil” as an act of faith. Yet Sniegoski, Petras and many others on the left and right seem to believe it’s a “war for Israel” as an act of faith. My contention is there was a confluence of interests that resulted in this criminal enterprise called the Iraq War. It is all about oil, but that doesn’t mean the invasion was done at the behest of Big Oil. Rather, it is about the geostrategic significance of oil at a time when global Peak Oil is imminent, and, crucially, the maintenance of US geostrategic hegemony through the petrodollar. So it is more about controlling access to the oil in a time of imminent oil shortages, and maintaining the US dollar as the reserve currency of the world. And that US interest, which was paramount, happened to coincide with hawkish Israeli advocates who wanted to take out Saddam’s regime.
I haven’t read the Mearsheimer report but heard a lot about it when it was published. I agreed with it of course. Anyone who points out the obvious fact of the inordinate influence of the AIPAC and other pro-Israeli lobbies over US foreign policy and the corporate media will immediately be condemned as anti-Semitic by the cretins who engage in such ridiculous rhetoric because they are primarily emotion-driven people, incapable of thinking rationally about what is truly in the interest of Israel. Certainly folks like Ariel Sharon and his successor are not acting in the true interests of the people of Israel, and nor are Israel’s reflexive war mongering “supporters” here in the US – people like Perle and Wolfowitz and Feith.
But again, none of this is new. Israel attacked the USS Liberty in 1967 and killed dozens of US servicemen, in an attack by air and sea that went on for hours, on a ship that was clearly marked as American and that subsequent transcripts of Israeli pilot transmissions proved conclusively was identified as American by Israeli pilots who strafed the ship. President Johnson covered the whole thing up, the corporate media was complicit in the cover-up, and there has been no justice to this day for that event. What other nation could get away with this kind of behavior without facing consequences? None. From its inception, Israel has been like the 51st state of the union.
And the US should have long since threatened to cut off aid to Israel unless it stopped building illegal settlements in the West Bank. It didn’t happen, because we have reached the sad and outrageous state of affairs where no one dares criticize Israel for fear their political career will be over if they do. Look what happened to Howard Dean in 2004 just for making the modest statement that US policy in Israeli-Palestinian dispute should be a little more balanced? He was set upon by AIPAC and its many media sympathizers until he had to back off of a statement that was perfectly reasonable. No one with an inkling of historical knowledge of US-Israel relations can credibly argue that ANY US administration, republican or democrat, has ever been an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians. Jimmy Carter made a similar plea to Dean’s in his recent book and was set upon by the same tiresome charges of anti-Semitism, being anti-Israel, etc.
I also believe it is not in our interests in getting bogged down in endless disputes about what was THE cause of the Iraq war. It is axiomatic that wars often have more than one cause. What we want is an end to the war. Check out my recent thread on the Philadelphia Emergency Anti-War Coalition, and/or go to their site at www.actindependent.org It is time for us to focus on what unifies us and get active for holding this lawless junta in Washington to account.
From: "Stephen Sniegoski" To: "'James Morris'"
Subject: RE: Steve, this guy was critical of your article here Date: Tue, 24 Jul 2007 15:21:28 -0400
Jim, This writer doesn't seem to fully read my articles when he states: "This is the point missed by Sniegoski and others who simplistically assert that US war plans are dictated from Israel."
I have said that the neocons shaped American policy and that their war agenda meshes with the Likudnik goal of destabilizing Israel's enemies. Never have I said, however, that the neocons follow orders from the Israeli government. Rather, I have written that the neocons view American policy through the lens of Israeli interest, as Israeli interests are perceived by the Likudnik Right.
And I don't simply focus on Big Oil. I point out that the American foreign policy establishment--Bush the elder and his cronies, Brzezinski, CFRers, the CIA, the State Department---were opposed, or at least cool, to the war on Iraq and they oppose a war on Iran--Baker Commission. The writer doesn't cite any names to prove otherwise.
The positions of the neocons/Likudniks and the traditional US foreign policy establishment are about the opposite on the Middle East.
The fundamental position of the foreign policy elite has been stability in the Middle East to facilitate the flow of oil, whereas Likudnik Israel seeks the instability and fragmentation of Israel's enemies.
Best,
Steve Sniegoski
-----Original Message-----
From: James Morris Sent: Tuesday, July 24, 2007 2:03 PM To: Steve Sniegoski Subject: Steve, this guy was critical of your article here
Originally posted by anna251: Stark, I am so surprised. I thought Stark would show up with: "Now we have many more wonderful links. It's so wonderful."
I am just curious whether it's one person or 2 or 3 (Free is obviously part).
Look who in power in this country. Can you imagine a Jew dictating anything to James Baker & Co. But, yes, a Jew can be used by them, like everybody else. This is a scary, fascist crowd and the old fascist/Bushies/Arab rulers axis. By the way, did you know that Baker has an office in the White House, from which he serves the Saudis by fighting the families of 9/11, and in many other ways. What's wrong with this picture?
What's wrong with this picture is that nobody in the mainstream media bothered to disclose Baker's obvious conflicts of interest. I phoned Hartmann's show and read through a list of them. Thom added that Baker also help fix the 2000 election for Bush, but nothing makes the media.
I don't know the answer only to keep active about calling media newsrooms, I do a lot, political reps I do sometimes and talk to people and challenge them, I also do a lot.
It's going to take a lot of work to undo the propoganda that TV has delivered right into our living rooms.
Sniegoski: I have said that the neocons shaped American policy and that their war agenda meshes with the Likudnik goal of destabilizing Israel's enemies. Never have I said, however, that the neocons follow orders from the Israeli government. Rather, I have written that the neocons view American policy through the lens of Israeli interest, as Israeli interests are perceived by the Likudnik Right.
And what US administration in the last fifty years has NOT viewed American policy through the lens of Israeli interest? It does not follow that they view it ONLY through the interests as perceived by the Likudnik Right. If Mr. Sniegoski is not being reductionistic the headline for his article should be changed. It is titled "War on Iraq: Not Oil, Israel." The clear implication is that the Iraq war is for Israel and has nothing to do with oil. That implication is what I contest, and it remains totally unproven by Mr. Sniegoski.
quote:
And I don't simply focus on Big Oil. I point out that the American foreign policy establishment--Bush the elder and his cronies, Brzezinski, CFRers, the CIA, the State Department---were opposed, or at least cool, to the war on Iraq and they oppose a war on Iran--Baker Commission. The writer doesn't cite any names to prove otherwise.
I agree with this, and much of what Sniegoski writes. What I disagree with is the bald statement that the Iraq war is a war for Israel, and not about oil. The US has its own interests in this war that have nothing to do with the mad geopolitical schemes of the Likudniks.
Also, Sniegoski doesn't even mention probably THE main reason for the US invasion of Iraq, and that is maintenance (not expansion) of US geostrategic hegemony through preservation of the petrodollar standard.
I'm not trying to defend the Iraq invasion, I just think we ought to be clear what it was about, and not resort to simplistic and reductionistic reasons, e.g., it was a war for Israel. No one has established that this was a war undertaken ONLY for Israel.
-------------------------- "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?" - Sherlock Holmes
It's going to take a lot of work to undo the propoganda that TV has delivered right into our living rooms.
Something is deeply disturbing. Whenever Bandar or a relative summons Cheney or Baker they show up immediately waging their tails, and nobody talks about it. The problem is not only mainstream propaganda, but obviously the so called alternative propaganda whose function seems to be more an more to direct attention from the Bush crime family (as they become uncomfortable) to ... well Jews. Someone is paying ($$$$$) for it. I think it's actually the obvious suspects.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
The very same petroleum shiekdoms that Bush consorts with are simultaneously subsidizing propaganda against Israel AND terrorism against the United States.
Unbelievable world we live in.
-- The only time we see the middle of the road is as we run from side to side. R.O.Clark
Posts: 3959 | Location: Santa Fe | Registered: 11 June 2003
It's pretty clear what's happening. Considering the obvious love, love, love affair between the Bushies and the Saudis, one would expect the left to look closely at ... well ... the Saudis. This doesn't happen - it suffice to glance at any of so called progressive forums to see what's happening. The situation is not natural, and the explanation can be only one: someone is paying. In the past, the payer for the far left "positions" (which actually looked more natural) was the Soviet Union; I doubt they continue now; so logically far left and ugly populists are paid now at least in part by petrodollars.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
anna251 posted: "It's pretty clear what's happening. Considering the obvious love, love, love affair between the Bushies and the Saudis, one would expect the left to look closely at ... well ... the Saudis. This doesn't happen - it suffice to glance at any of so called progressive forums to see what's happening. The explanation is unbelievably simple. In the past, the payer for the far left was the Soviet Union; I doubt they continue now; so logically far left and ugly populists are paid at least in part by petrodollars."
You sure about that, anna251? You're saying the House of Saud is financing socialists? Prove that, if you could. And considering how terrified the House of Saud was of Nasser (who was populist, not socialist) this would be quite a change for them.
Maybe some petrodollars from Venezuela, but even Chavez gives only material (fuel) support to anyone in the U.S.
Thom Hartmann himself will admit that there is far more debate in mainstream media in Israel itself as regards Israeli government policy than there is in the US media. Seems maybe Thom had a weak moment and fell into the pattern of stifling this debate as regards this caller to his show.
And it's safe to say that the neocons are closely allied with Likud or conservative Kadima (Olmert). No anti-semitism there- just stating the fact, as many of the neocons worked for Netanyahu during the Clinton years. Added to this most Dems are not much in disagreement with the neocons on this issue.
George Bush says: "Hamas must recognize Palestine's legit gov't." Who won the elections?
For the years 1989-2006, US Sen. Wyden, D-OR, received over $733K contributions from pro-Israel PACs, second only to money received from lawyers' PACs.
Bet there are a lot of Dems with this type of contribution history in the US Congress.
Well, I want data, or at least a discussion who is paid by Bandar. No, I won't buy the answer that not a single ugly populist or far left antisemitic freak is not paid by the Saudis, for example. No, I won't buy the answer that not a single congressman is not paid by petrodollars. Yes, it's antisemitic to single out Jewish contributions, yes, it's antisemitic to single out Israel for non-stop scrutiny, yes, it's antisemitic to blame the Jews for someone else's crimes, etc., etc, etc. I don't think that only the Congress matters, actually I am sure that those who manipulate people online are at least equally important. Why there is silence. Is everyone bought? Is everyone brain dead? Is everyone a scoundrel?
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Brett, I don't consider socialists to be far left.
Now, in red letters.
It's responsibility of Israeli citizens to deal with their government and its policy, and they seem to be responsible. Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD. It's your responsibility to deal with your government and its policy, and you don't seem to be responsible.
The obsession with Israel is a paid obsession of antisemites. Now, accuse me.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Well, Israel certainly wants war! But that is Israel. Why would the US Congress, which supposedly exists to serve the will of the AMERICAN people, be obeying the will of Israel? Well, maybe because Israel's lobbying/spying organization, AIPAC, is PAYING THEM TO!
You heard me. Members of AIPAC, the organization suspected of spying for Israel, donate vast sums of money to the members of US Congress. And the US Congress has sold our young men and women in uniform to go off and fight and die in wars Israel has created.
Millions of Americans have marched in the streets of all of the major US cities opposing wars in the Mideast. Yet the US Congress, which supposedly exists to represent the will of the people, refused to listen. Instead, they voted the President the authority to take this nation to war. More recently, and despite the exposure of the President's justifications for war as fiction, Congress again voted for more war by voting against legislation intended to end US involvement in Iraq, introduced by Kucinich, Abercrombie, and Woolsey. So, the US Congress isn't listening to the people. They are listening to someone who WANT more war.
According to al-Watan, Israel made it clear that it would only be able to wait until a certain date next year and would strike at Iran if no progress is made by that time.
Well, Israel certainly wants war! But that is Israel. Why would the US Congress, which supposedly exists to serve the will of the AMERICAN people, be obeying the will of Israel? Well, maybe because Israel's lobbying/spying organization, AIPAC, is PAYING THEM TO!
You heard me. Members of AIPAC, the organization suspected of spying for Israel donate vast sums of money to the members of US Congress. http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_Aug_2004/0407027.html And the US Congress has sold our young men and women in uniform to go off and fight and die in wars Israel has created.
So, here is what you need to do. You need to call all of your congressional representatives and tell them they can either work for AIPAC, or they can work for you, but you will not tolerate a Congress that accepts money from suspected spies of a foreign government and then quite obviously proceeds to serve the will of that government. Tell them that not only will you never again vote for any Congressman that accepts money from Israeli agents but that you intend to work for and support their opposition next election. Tell them better no government at all than a government that serves a foreign power.
Get angry.
Who is Congress listening to? It is time to make certain Congress listens to you!
Run for your lives, they've brought in the professionals.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
Originally posted by anna251: Brett, I don't consider socialists to be far left.
Now, in red letters.
It's responsibility of Israeli citizens to deal with their government and its policy, and they seem to be responsible. Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD. It's your responsibility to deal with your government and its policy, and you don't seem to be responsible.
The obsession with Israel is a paid obsession of antisemites. Now, accuse me.
You may be violating the Terms of Service, specifically #8. Please stop.
I don't like what NOMORE and others are saying either, but it's not your place to stifle debate, and not on such grounds.
(edited my post, had clicked to post it accidentally before finished.)
This is in violation of my personal terms of service.
The rest of it was OK.
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
Posts: 8264 | Location: Fl | Registered: 05 July 2001
anna251, you are out of line accusing someone of "anti-Semitism" for making a statement that the Iraq war was perpetrated for Israel.
I had advised anna against such accusations in another thread, but nowhere on this thread does she even hint at what you just accused her of. Misquoting someone is also against the rules here, so please let this serve as a warning that your statement is in violation of our "terms of service"
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
Originally posted by anna251: Brett, I don't consider socialists to be far left.
Now, in red letters.
It's responsibility of Israeli citizens to deal with their government and its policy, and they seem to be responsible. Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD. It's your responsibility to deal with your government and its policy, and you don't seem to be responsible.
The obsession with Israel is a paid obsession of antisemites. Now, accuse me.
Okay, your comment to Free was warranted, but what about anna's post I'm quoting here? "Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD." Does that mean that anyone here who discusses different viewpoints on Israeli politics is anti-semitic? I have expressed a couple times my support for the work of Yitzak Rabin, which was in conflict of the aims of the opposing parties like Likud. Does discussing that make me antisemitic? I personally abhor the rank anti-Israeli and anti-semitic posts that may be coming from some other people, but I'm also really fed up with anna trying to stifle any discussion with wild accusations. It's become a hostile environment to even write the word Israel.
It seems anna is being bombarded here. Using our terms of service as a debate weapon isn't what it was designed for, free obviously started the whole accusatory situation this thread has degraded to so why doesn't everyone forget about accusing other members of anything on this thread and just try to stick to the isssues.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
Originally posted by bill king: It seems anna is being bombarded here. Using our terms of service as a debate weapon isn't what it was designed for, free obviously started the whole accusatory situation this thread has degraded to so why doesn't everyone forget about accusing other members of anything on this thread and just try to stick to the isssues.
Right on, Bill. So long as the rules are enforced, and done so fairly, the boards can function. I went throught the appropriate channels to highlight what I thought was misconduct, prior to your 19:41 post. Like most, I just wanna be able to debate without being accused.
"Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD."
It means that arguments like "You see, even Israelis criticize their government," or "You see even not all Israelis like each other" are classically antisemitic, dehumanizing Jews. When you find a country where everyone loves everyone, or convince me that it's responsibility of citizens just to applaud their government, I might change my view. So long, friends. I have not intention to spend more time.
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Poll: 71% of Israelis want U.S. to strike Iran if talks fail
By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent
Fully 71 percent of Israelis believe that the United States should launch a military attack on Iran if diplomatic efforts fail to halt Tehran's nuclear program, according to a new poll.
The survey, commissioned by Bar-Ilan University's BESA Center and the Anti-Defamation League, found that 59 percent of Israelis still believe the war in Iraq was justified, while 36 percent take the opposite view.
Some 65 percent believe that the United States is a loyal ally of Israel, with only 11 percent saying the opposite. A slightly higher proportion, 73 percent, described U.S. President George W. Bush as friendly. Forty-eight percent attributed U.S. support for Israel to strategic considerations, while 30 percent credited American Jewry and 17 percent cited shared values and a shared democratic tradition.
Regarding America's importance to Israel, there was near consensus: 91 percent said that close relations with the U.S. are vital to Israel's security. Some 51 percent of respondents predicted that the U.S. will ultimately impose an agreement on Israel and the Palestinians, while 43 percent disagreed.
In addition, 52 percent of respondents described American Jewish support of Israel as "sufficient," while 33 percent did not. About half of all Israelis believe that American Jewry is in danger of disappearing due to assimilation, the poll found.
Posts: 8 | Location: USA | Registered: 24 July 2007
anna251, you are out of line accusing someone of "anti-Semitism" for making a statement that the Iraq war was perpetrated for Israel.
I had advised anna against such accusations in another thread, but nowhere on this thread does she even hint at what you just accused her of. Misquoting someone is also against the rules here, so please let this serve as a warning that your statement is in violation of our "terms of service"
Bill, are you serious? Anna wrote, "I think you forgot to list "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" Your "Kampf" is incomplete without them." And you are telling me that nowhere on this thread does she even hint at calling someone anti-Semitic? Bill, when someone writes "I think you forgot to list "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" Your "Kampf" is incomplete without them" they are MORE than hinting, they are accusing the person of anti-Semitism. Do you really not know what "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" are? You must have overlooked or misread what she actually wrote because what you are saying doesn't make sence.
Posts: 9 | Location: New York | Registered: 24 July 2007
Bill, are you serious? Anna wrote, "I think you forgot to list "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" Your "Kampf" is incomplete without them." And you are telling me that nowhere on this thread does she even hint at calling someone anti-Semitic? Bill, when someone writes "I think you forgot to list "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" Your "Kampf" is incomplete without them." they are MORE than hinting, they are accusing the person of anti-Semitism. Do you really not know what "The Protocols" and "Mein Kampf" are? You must have overlooked or misread what she actually wrote because what you are sying doesn't make sence.
OK admittedly she did hint at it, but didn;t say it. I supose it was her way of expressing her displeasure without actually calling you antisemitic. I already warned her so I don't want her to feel threatened by others in the manner you accused her. She is Jewish and obviously takes any negative comments on Israel personally. Knowing this, I think you guys went a over the top on pounding your points home to her.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
From: Jeff Blankfort Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2007 1:09 AM Subject: McGovern: John Conyers Is No Martin Luther King
John Conyers's betrayal of King's legacy like his betrayal of the voters who put the Democrats in office should come as no surprise. Conyers is the longest serving member of the House Negro Caucus, as defined by Malcolm X, the majority of which did not have the guts to publicly protest and call for sanctions against Israel when it was breaking the anti-apartheid boycott and selling arms to South Africa. Those who had the courage to challenge Israel and its friends in the US, admittedly not an easy task, have long since been driven from Congress by the Jewish Zionist establishment/lobby that controls Congress and which the HNC expects to pay their campaign costs and provide free rent on what should be called "The Invisible Plantation" provided the HNC members remember their boss's identity and instructions. The lobby is against impeachment. Conyers, its loyal servant, is only obeying orders.-JB
What do Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, chair of the House Committee on the Judiciary, and President George W. Bush have in common? They both think they can dis Cindy Sheehan and count on gossip columnists like the Washington Post's David Milbank to trivialize a historic moment.
I'll give this to President Bush. He makes no pretence when he disses. He would not meet with Sheehan to define for her the "noble cause" for which her son Casey died or tell her why he had said it was "worth it."
Conyers, on the other hand, was dripping with pretence as he met with Sheehan, Rev. Lennox Yearwood and me Monday in his office in the Rayburn building. I have seldom been so disappointed with someone I had previously held in high esteem. And before leaving, I told him so.
Throwing salt in our wounds, he had us, and some 50 others in his anteroom arrested and taken out of action as the Capitol Police "processed" us for the next six hours.
As we began our discussion with Conyers, it was as though he thought we were "born yesterday," as Harry Truman would put it. With feigned enthusiasm he began, Let's hold a Town Hall meeting in Detroit so we can talk about impeachment. Get out my schedule; let's see, we need to hear from everyone about this.
Been there, done that, I reminded the congressman.
On May 29, 2007, Col. Ann Wright and I were among those who flew to Detroit for a highly advertised Town Hall meeting on impeachment, because we were assured that John Conyers would be there.
That Town Hall/panel discussion was arranged by the Michigan chapter of the National Lawyers Guild less than two weeks after the Detroit City Council passed a resolution, cosponsored by Conyers' wife Monica Conyers--calling for the impeachment of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. We had hoped that Monica's clear vision and courage might be contagious.
I had to remind the congressman that he did not show up for the Town Hall.
Apparently, that incident was of such little consequence to the congressman that he had completely forgotten about it. Small wonder, then, that he has apparently forgotten the oath he took to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Selective Alzheimers? I don't know. What was clear was that he had forgotten a whole lot.
When I raised James Madison's role in crafting a Constitution that mentions impeachment no fewer than six times, he replied: Madison did not say Conyers has to impeach every one. Why, if I had to impeach everyone for high crimes and misdemeanors, that's all my committee would have time to do.
I learned in Rhetoric 101 the name of that technique: reductio ad absurdam.
How about just Bush and Cheney, we suggested.
Conyers protested that he would need 218 votes in the House and complained that the votes are not there. His priorities showed through in his loud lament that if he fell short of the 218 votes, the Republicans and Fox News would have a field day.
There was no getting through to Conyers, who seemed astonished at the direct questions we were posing.
In reflecting on this later, the dictum of my father, also a lawyer, began to ring in my ears: "When you reach the age of `statutory senility,' you do everyone a favor if you retire."
He followed his own example, when he retired as Chancellor of the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York, long before senility--statutory, or otherwise--set in for him.
Septuagenarian Conyers (and, for that matter, 80-year-old Senator John Warner, R-Virginia, who has also forgotten his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution) would do well to heed that advice.
Toward the end of the meeting, Conyers showed uncommon chutzpah in referring to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That was too much for me.
You're no Martin Luther King, I found myself wanting to say. Instead, I quoted a portion of Dr. King's famous address at Riverside Church almost 40 years ago:
"We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak....there is such a thing as being too late....Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity....Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: `Too late.'"
I used that quote in a letter I left with Conyers' aides on Monday, in which I tried to express why my colleagues in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity feel it is URGENT to find some way to apply the Constitution to restrain a run-away Executive.
The text of that letter follows:
############
A Note to Congressman John Conyers: On Impeachment and the Edmund Pettus Bridge
Dear John,
We each have our favored crime for which President Bush and Vice President Cheney should be impeached. Many of us have several.
But the real challenge is to look AHEAD. What are Bush/Cheney likely to do in the coming months if the impeachment process does NOT begin?
One often hears, Oh, they will do what they want anyway, impeachment process or not. Not true.
If we the people and our representatives in Congress choose the course given us by our Founders and impeachment proceedings begin, important swaths of our body politic AND military will be less likely to follow illegal orders from the White House.
These important constituencies will become sensitized to the peril into which this administration has brought us and to the extra-constitutional orders they may be asked to carry out.
NEW ELEMENT: Even the Scaife-owned newspapers have begun to question Bush's MENTAL STABILITY.
What could be more important at this juncture?
We Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been applying all of our analytical techniques to assess the Bush/Cheney administration. We have helped to establish the long record of abuses and usurpations of the past. What about the future?
Iraq is going to hell in a hand basket. A Tet-type incident becomes more and more likely. The Green Zone is being hit by mortar fire more frequently than before. It may be just a matter of time before the Resistance gets lucky and lobs a shell onto our spanking new $600-million embassy, killing a bunch of Americans in the process.
What then? Will Cheney tell the president the US military has found Iranian markings on the shell fragments and we need to retaliate...and, actually, while we're at it, let's implement Plan A and hit all Iranian nuclear-related facilities.
With Congress voting resolution after resolution against Iran, how would the president react to such a suggestion from Cheney?
Many of us intelligence analysts have found utility in relying, in part, on short studies applying psychoanalysis to develop profiles of foreign leaders. (This marriage of psychoanalysis and intelligence work actually goes back to the early 1940s, when the OSS commissioned such studies on Hitler.) We called them "at-a-distance personality assessments."
Three years ago Justin Frank, M.D., a psychiatrist here in Washington, wrote a book "Bush on the Couch" in which he provided keen insights into the president's mode of thinking--or not thinking.
Eager to use every tool at our disposal, VIPS recently asked Dr. Frank to update his observations, with a view to forecasting, to the extent possible, how Bush is likely to react to the building pressures of the coming weeks and months. We will issue, perhaps as early as this week, Dr. Frank's latest analysis, fortified by our own input. But we already have his preliminary analysis; there is no other word for it: Scary.
In a quick note to us this morning [July 23], Dr. Frank noted we are "dealing with a potentially cornered man [who] could lash out, and it is possible that the best way would be to bomb Iran.... Whatever the root causes of Bush's pathology, we have a dangerous man running things...grandiose and unchecked."
Some snippets from the Memorandum that Dr. Frank is drafting for issuance under VIPS auspices:
"George W. Bush is without conscience...and destructive, willfully so. He has always likes to break things...most shocking is the way he is breaking our armed forces.
"He doesn't care about others, is indifferent to their suffering...He is almost constitutionally missing the ability to sympathize or empathize...More indifferent to reality than out of touch with it, he makes up whatever story he wants.
"Ultimately, he is psychologically unstable...His goal is to destroy things [and he can do that] without experiencing anxiety or a sense of responsibility. An equally important goal is to protect himself from shame, from being wrong, from being found small and weak."
So what do we do?
At a similarly critical juncture, Dr. King was typically direct: "We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak.... there is such a thing as being too late.... Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with lost opportunity.... Over the bleached bones of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: `Too late.'"
There is today another Edmund Pettus Bridge to cross, John. And it has fallen to you to lead us across.
Originally posted by Jim David: Democracy must be the most overused, misunderstood word in the English language. A good example is democracy in Israel that is used almost daily by the uninformed.
Imagine that the United States abolished its constitution, or perhaps never had one to begin with. No Bill of Rights. No guarantees of things like free speech, freedom of assembly and due process of law.
And imagine if Congress passed a law stating that the US was from this point forward to be legally defined as a “Christian nation”. As such, Christians would be given special privileges for jobs, loans and land ownership, and Christians from anywhere in the world would be given preference in immigration, extended automatic citizenship upon coming to America.
Furthermore, imagine if political candidates espousing certain beliefs — especially those who might argue that the US should be a nation with equal rights for all, and not a “Christian nation” — were no longer allowed to hold office, or even run for election.
Imagine that laws were passed that had the effect of restricting certain ethnic and religious groups from acquiring land in particular parts of the country, and made it virtually impossible for members of ethnic minorities to live in particular communities.
And imagine that in response to perceived threats to America's internal security, new laws sailed through Congress, providing for torture of those detained for suspected subversion. This, on top of still other laws providing for the detention of such suspects for long periods of time without trial or even a formal charge against them.
In such a scenario, would anyone with an appreciation of the English language, and with the above definition in mind, dare suggest that we would be justified in calling America a democracy?
Of course not: and yet the term is repeatedly used to describe Israel — as in “the only democracy in the Middle East”. This, despite the fact that Israel has no constitution; despite the fact that Israel is defined as the state of the Jewish people, providing special rights and privileges to anyone in the world who is Jewish and seeks to live there, over and above longtime Arab residents. This, despite the fact that Israel bars any candidate from holding office who thinks the country should be a secular, democratic state with equal rights for all. This, despite the fact that non-Jews are restricted in terms of how much land they can own, and in which places they can own land at all, thanks to laws granting preferential treatment to Jewish residents. This, despite that fact that even the Israeli Supreme Court has acknowledged the use of torture against suspected “terrorists” and other “enemies” of the Jewish state.
General (Ret) Jim David (who made the above post) is mentioned on the cover of former Republican Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book (the third edition) about the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC and similar) on the US political system and media. You can see the cover of 'They Dare to Speak Out' in the right margin of the following URL about Cindy Sheehan (regarding how she lied about the 'Nightline' email situation):
Cindy Sheehan may say that she does not blame the death of her son on Israel, but you are judged by the friends you keep (“Anti-war Activist Addresses Congregation,” October 14). She is a close associate of Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and frequent supporter of Gold Star Families for Peace whose agenda is to blame the war in Iraq on three things: oil, Israel and logistics. She supports him and travels with him, and should therefore be judged by the company she keeps with him.
Sheehan is disingenuous and is speaking out of both sides of her mouth.
Allyson Rowen Taylor
Associate Director
American Jewish Congress, Western Region
Santa Monica, Calif.
Posts: 8 | Location: USA | Registered: 24 July 2007
I already warned her so I don't want her to feel threatened by others in the manner you accused her. She is Jewish and obviously takes any negative comments on Israel personally. Knowing this, I think you guys went a over the top on pounding your points home to her.
Bill,
Making excuses for people like Anna in this country is the reason the US is endangered today. She attacks forum members just like Bill Kristol attacked Kos and Eric Edleman attacked Hillary. I'm American and I take attacks on my country and LOYAL American citizens personally. The truth hurts. It is long past time that the points be made so the FACTS are known.
Posts: 34 | Location: PA | Registered: 24 July 2007
Gnarl- So that must have been a public trial for Vanunu, since you are so clear about the facts. Does Israel have an obligation to sign the non proliferation pact? Does the rest of the world have a right to know about there atomic program?
Posts: 462 | Location: California | Registered: 24 April 2007
Making excuses for people like Anna in this country is the reason the US is endangered today. She attacks forum members just like Bill Kristol attacked Kos and Eric Edleman attacked Hillary. I'm American and I take attacks on my country and LOYAL American citizens personally. The truth hurts. It is long past time that the points be made so the FACTS are known.
Really??????????????? Oh, my beloved Orwell, where are you when we really, really, really need you? I am not sure whether the above text is a translation from Russian or German, and "my country" is a translation of Vaterland or Rodina-Mat'. It looks like the last paragraph is taken literally from Pravda letters (We, the Soviet Patriots demand ... ). This is Soviet style. The plot thickens. Friend, your style isn't American.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: anna251,
Posts: 371 | Location: New York | Registered: 01 July 2007
Originally posted by anna251: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Free:
Really??????????????? Oh, my beloved Orwell, where are you when we really, really, really need you? I am not sure whether the above text is a translation from Russian or German, and "my country" is a translation of Vaterland or Rodina-Mat'. It looks like the last paragraph is taken literally from some Soviet classic. This is Soviet style. The plot thickens. Friend, your style isn't American.
Oh,moderator Bill!!
She's attacking forum members again done and doesn't address the issue.
Speaking of the Soviets...He knows that the ideologs who attack those of us who dissent are the really crazy ones.
Solzhenitsyn accuses West of trying to sideline Russia, hails Putin
MOSCOW: Nobel laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn has accused the West of trying to ignore and sideline Russia and hailed President Vladimir Putin for rebuilding the country.
The 88-year old author, who documented the murderous Soviet prison camp system based on his own seven-year experience as a prisoner of the gulag, said the Western criticism of Russia was often unfair, according to a sprawling interview with Der Spiegel magazine that was republished Tuesday in the Russian daily Izvestia.
"Of course, Russia is not a democratic country yet, it is only starting to build democracy and it's all too easy to take it to task with a long list of omissions, violations and mistakes," Solzhenitsyn was quoted as saying. "But did not Russia clearly and unambiguously offer its helping hand to the West after Sept. 11? Only a psychological inadequacy, or a disastrous shortsightedness can explain the West's irrational refusal of this hand."
Putin welcomed the U.S. deployment to the formerly Soviet Central Asia for operations in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 2001 terror attacks — an unprecedented gesture that helped boost relations but Washington. But the bilateral ties worsened again quickly amid differences over the war in Iraq and other international crises, Washington's concerns about the Kremlin's backtracking on democracy and the Kremlin's opposition to U.S. missile defense plans.
Solzhenitsyn chided Washington for failing to show good will in response to Putin's friendly moves. "After accepting our vital assistance in Afghanistan, the United States immediately started making new demands to Russia," he said.
Today in Europe Sarkozy heads to Libya to deepen political and commercial tiesBritain still reeling from worst flooding in decadesTurkish opposition demands secular president "And Europe's claims to Russia are clearly rooted in its energy fears, unfounded at that," he added in a reference to the European Union's concerns about growing dependence on Russia's energy supplies and fears that Moscow may use them for political ends.
"Isn't it a too big luxury for the West to push Russia aside, especially in the face of new threats?" Solzhenitsyn said.
He added that an admiration of the West shared by many Russians after the Soviet collapse quickly gave way to disenchantment.
"The perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has given way to the disappointing conclusion that Western policies are build on pragmatism, often cynical and selfish," Solzhenitsyn said. "For many Russians it was a hard experience, a collapse of ideals."
Returning to Russia in 1994 to find a country in deep disarray, Solzhenitsyn's dismal view of 1990s Russia, along with his nationalism and hope for a resurgence of his country, has aligned him with Putin, who has presented his time in office as a period of recovery following economic and social turmoil at home and weakness on the world stage that Russia suffered after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Solzhenitsyn has appeared infrequently in public in recent years, looks frail and is believed to be ailing. In rare print or broadcast interviews, he has lamented the state of Russian politics and the government, but also has praised Putin despite the president's KGB background.
Last month, Putin honored Solzhenitsyn with a State Prize for "humanitarian activity."
Pressed by Spiegel on how his gulag experience could be combined with praise for Putin, a 16-year old KGB veteran, Solzhenitsyn answered by saying that Putin's service in the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB set him aside from the repressive domestic secret police.
"Vladimir Putin — yes, he was an officer of the special services, but he was not a KGB investigator, nor was he the head of a camp in the gulag," Solzhenitsyn said. "And foreign intelligence is not negative in any country, sometimes it even draws praise. George Bush Sr. was not much criticized for being the former chief of the CIA."
Solzhenitsyn scathingly criticized Putin's predecessors, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Russia's first President Boris Yeltsin for conducting ill-planned reforms and kowtowing to the West.
"The West was celebrating its victory after the exhausting Cold War," Solzhenitsyn said. "While observing the 15-year-long anarchy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin and surrendering of all positions abroad, the West quickly got accustomed to the idea that Russia had become almost a Third World country and would remain that forever. When Russia began to strengthen its economy and statehood, the West perceived that, perhaps on a subconscious level, with panic."
Posts: 34 | Location: PA | Registered: 24 July 2007
anna251 posted: "It's responsibility of Israeli citizens to deal with their government and its policy, and they seem to be responsible. Using any disagreement, any conflict in Israel by outsiders is antisemitic. PERIOD. It's your responsibility to deal with your government and its policy, and you don't seem to be responsible.
The obsession with Israel is a paid obsession of antisemites."
I would say it's ridiculous to say the US has no responsibility as regards Israeli gov't policy ($5 bil. aid per year and advocacy in favor of). And it's not ridiculous to say the US should mean what it says and recognize the democratically-elected gov't of Palestine.
Call me antisemitic all you want. I want a secure Israel within the bounds on international law (UN Res 242 & 338). Is Jimmy Carter an anti-semite?
As Chomsky says, it's not that type of advocacy which really endangers Israel. It's the Likud-US neocon-US religious Right "Greater Israel" idea which will backfire against Israel.
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