| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2002 9:37 pm Post subject: JEWISH INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS (JINSA) |
| Subj: JEWISH INSTITUTE OF NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS (JINSA)
Date: 11/24/02 9:23:54 AM Pacific Standard Time
Why no Catholic Institute of National Security Affairs? Presbyterian,
Baptist? Why is Jewish sectarianism deemed appropriate while any other form
of sectarianism deemed inappropriate in the arena of "national security."
Are Jews in America less secure than other Americans?
RN
THE MEN FROM JINSA
by Jason Vest
THE NATION
August 15, 2002
Almost thirty years ago, a prominent group of neoconservative hawks found
an effective vehicle for advocating their views via the Committee on the
Present Danger, a group that fervently believed the United States was a
hair away from being militarily surpassed by the Soviet Union, and whose
raison d'être was strident advocacy of bigger military budgets,
near-fanatical opposition to any form of arms control and zealous
championing of a Likudnik Israel. Considered a marginal group in its
nascent days during the Carter Administration, with the election of Ronald
Reagan in 1980 CPD went from the margins to the center of power.
Just as the right-wing defense intellectuals made CPD a cornerstone of a
shadow defense establishment during the Carter Administration, so, too, did
the right during the Clinton years, in part through two organizations: the
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for
Security Policy (CSP). And just as was the case two decades ago, dozens of
their members have ascended to powerful government posts, where their
advocacy in support of the same agenda continues, abetted by the
out-of-government adjuncts from which they came. Industrious and
persistent, they've managed to weave a number of issues--support for
national missile defense, opposition to arms control treaties, championing
of wasteful weapons systems, arms aid to Turkey and American unilateralism
in general--into a hard line, with support for the Israeli right at its core.
On no issue is the JINSA/CSP hard line more evident than in its relentless
campaign for war--not just with Iraq, but "total war," as Michael Ledeen,
one of the most influential JINSAns in Washington, put it last year. For
this crew, "regime change" by any means necessary in Iraq, Iran, Syria,
Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian Authority is an urgent imperative. Anyone
who dissents--be it Colin Powell's State Department, the CIA or career
military officers--is committing heresy against articles of faith that
effectively hold there is no difference between US and Israeli national
security interests, and that the only way to assure continued safety and
prosperity for both countries is through hegemony in the Middle East--a
hegemony achieved with the traditional cold war recipe of feints, force,
clientism and covert action.
For example, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board--chaired by JINSA/CSP
adviser and former Reagan Administration Defense Department official
Richard Perle, and stacked with advisers from both groups--recently made
news by listening to a briefing that cast Saudi Arabia as an enemy to be
brought to heel through a number of potential mechanisms, many of which
mirror JINSA's recommendations, and which reflect the JINSA/CSP crowd's
preoccupation with Egypt. (The final slide of the Defense Policy Board
presentation proposed that "Grand Strategy for the Middle East" should
concentrate on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic
pivot [and] Egypt as the prize.") Ledeen has been leading the charge for
regime change in Iran, while old comrades like Andrew Marshall and Harold
Rhode in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment actively tinker with ways
to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi governments.
JINSA is also cheering the US military on as it tries to secure basing
rights in the strategic Red Sea country of Eritrea, happily failing to
mention that the once-promising secular regime of President Isaiais
Afewerki continues to slide into the kind of repressive authoritarianism
practiced by the "axis of evil" and its adjuncts. Indeed, there are some in
military and intelligence circles who have taken to using "axis of evil" in
reference to JINSA and CSP, along with venerable repositories of hawkish
thinking like the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute,
as well as defense contractors, conservative foundations and public
relations entities underwritten by far-right American Zionists (all of
which help to underwrite JINSA and CSP). It's a milieu where ideology and
money seamlessly blend: "Whenever you see someone identified in print or on
TV as being with the Center for Security Policy or JINSA championing a
position on the grounds of ideology or principle--which they are
unquestionably doing with conviction--you are, nonetheless, not informed
that they're also providing a sort of cover for other ideologues who just
happen to stand to profit from hewing to the Likudnik and Pax Americana
lines," says a veteran intelligence officer. He notes that while the United
States has begun a phaseout of civilian aid to Israel that will end by
2007, government policy is to increase military aid by half the amount of
civilian aid that's cut each year--which is not only a boon to both the US
and Israeli weapons industries but is also crucial to realizing the far
right's vision for missile defense and the Middle East.
Founded in 1976 by neoconservatives concerned that the United States might
not be able to provide Israel with adequate military supplies in the event
of another Arab-Israeli war, over the past twenty-five years JINSA has gone
from a loose-knit proto-group to a $1.4-million-a-year operation with a
formidable array of Washington power players on its rolls. Until the
beginning of the current Bush Administration, JINSA's board of advisers
included such heavy hitters as Dick Cheney, John Bolton (now Under
Secretary of State for Arms Control) and Douglas Feith, the
third-highest-ranking executive in the Pentagon. Both Perle and former
Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey, two of the loudest voices
in the attack-Iraq chorus, are still on the board, as are such Reagan-era
relics as Jeane Kirkpatrick, Eugene Rostow and Ledeen--Oliver North's
Iran/contra liaison with the Israelis.
According to its website, JINSA exists to "educate the American public
about the importance of an effective US defense capability so that our
vital interests as Americans can be safeguarded" and to "inform the
American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role
Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the
Mediterranean and the Middle East." In practice, this translates into its
members producing a steady stream of op-eds and reports that have been good
indicators of what the Pentagon's civilian leadership is thinking.
JINSA relishes denouncing virtually any type of contact between the US
government and Syria and finding new ways to demonize the Palestinians. To
give but one example (and one that kills two birds with one stone):
According to JINSA, not only is Yasir Arafat in control of all violence in
the occupied territories, but he orchestrates the violence solely "to
protect Saddam.... Saddam is at the moment Arafat's only real financial
supporter.... [Arafat] has no incentive to stop the violence against Israel
and allow the West to turn its attention to his mentor and paymaster." And
if there's a way to advance other aspects of the far-right agenda by
intertwining them with Israeli interests, JINSA doesn't hesitate there,
either. A recent report contends that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
must be tapped because "the Arab oil-producing states" are countries "with
interests inimical to ours," but Israel "stand[s] with us when we need
[Israel]," and a US policy of tapping oil under ANWR will "limit [the
Arabs'] ability to do damage to either of us."
The bulk of JINSA's modest annual budget is spent on taking a bevy of
retired US generals and admirals to Israel, where JINSA facilitates
meetings between Israeli officials and the still-influential US flag
officers, who, upon their return to the States, happily write op-eds and
sign letters and advertisements championing the Likudnik line. (Sowing
seeds for the future, JINSA also takes US service academy cadets to Israel
each summer and sponsors a lecture series at the Army, Navy and Air Force
academies.) In one such statement, issued soon after the outbreak of the
latest intifada, twenty-six JINSAns of retired flag rank, including many
from the advisory board, struck a moralizing tone, characterizing
Palestinian violence as a "perversion of military ethics" and holding that
"America's role as facilitator in this process should never yield to
America's responsibility as a friend to Israel," as "friends don't leave
friends on the battlefield."
However high-minded this might sound, the postservice associations of the
letter's signatories--which are almost always left off the organization's
website and communiqués--ought to require that the phrase be amended to say
"friends don't leave friends on the battlefield, especially when there's
business to be done and bucks to be made." Almost every retired officer who
sits on JINSA's board of advisers or has participated in its Israel trips
or signed a JINSA letter works or has worked with military contractors who
do business with the Pentagon and Israel. While some keep a low profile as
self-employed "consultants" and avoid mention of their clients, others are
less shy about their associations, including with the private mercenary
firm Military Professional Resources International, weapons broker and
military consultancy Cypress International and SY Technology, whose main
clients include the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency, which oversees
several ongoing joint projects with Israel.
The behemoths of military contracting are also well represented in JINSA's
ranks. For example, JINSA advisory board members Adm. Leon Edney, Adm.
David Jeremiah and Lieut. Gen. Charles May, all retired, have served
Northrop Grumman or its subsidiaries as either consultants or board
members. Northrop Grumman has built ships for the Israeli Navy and sold
F-16 avionics and E-2C Hawkeye planes to the Israeli Air Force (as well as
the Longbow radar system to the Israeli army for use in its attack
helicopters). It also works with Tamam, a subsidiary of Israeli Aircraft
Industries, to produce an unmanned aerial vehicle. Lockheed Martin has sold
more than $2 billion worth of F-16s to Israel since 1999, as well as flight
simulators, multiple-launch rocket systems and Seahawk heavyweight
torpedoes. At one time or another, General May, retired Lieut. Gen. Paul
Cerjan and retired Adm. Carlisle Trost have labored in LockMart's
vineyards. Trost has also sat on the board of General Dynamics, whose
Gulfstream subsidiary has a $206 million contract to supply planes to
Israel to be used for "special electronics missions."
By far the most profitably diversified of the JINSAns is retired Adm. David
Jeremiah. President and partner of Technology Strategies & Alliances
Corporation (described as a "strategic advisory firm and investment banking
firm engaged primarily in the aerospace, defense, telecommunications and
electronics industries"), Jeremiah also sits on the boards of Northrop
Grumman's Litton subsidiary and of defense giant Alliant Techsystems,
which--in partnership with Israel's TAAS--does a brisk business in rubber
bullets. And he has a seat on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, chaired
by Perle.
About the only major defense contractor without a presence on JINSA's
advisory board is Boeing, which has had a relationship with Israeli
Aircraft Industries for thirty years. (Boeing also sells F-15s to Israel
and, in partnership with Lockheed Martin, Apache attack helicopters, a
ubiquitous weapon in the occupied territories.) But take a look at JINSA's
kindred spirit in things pro-Likud and pro-Star Wars, the Center for
Security Policy, and there on its national security advisory council are
Stanley Ebner, a former Boeing executive; Andrew Ellis, vice president for
government relations; and Carl Smith, a former staff director of the Senate
Armed Services Committee who, as a lawyer in private practice, has counted
Boeing among his clients. "JINSA and CSP," says a veteran Pentagon analyst,
"may as well be one and the same." Not a hard sell: There's always been
considerable overlap beween the JINSA and CSP rosters--JINSA advisers Jeane
Kirkpatrick, Richard Perle and Phyllis Kaminsky also serve on CSP's
advisory council; current JINSA advisory board chairman David Steinmann
sits on CSP's board of directors; and before returning to the Pentagon
Douglas Feith served as the board's chair. At this writing, twenty-two CSP
advisers--including additional Reagan-era remnants like Elliott Abrams, Ken
deGraffenreid, Paula Dobriansky, Sven Kraemer, Robert Joseph, Robert
Andrews and J.D. Crouch--have reoccupied key positions in the national
security establishment, as have other true believers of more recent
vintage. While CSP boasts an impressive advisory list of hawkish
luminaries, its star is Frank Gaffney, its founder, president and CEO. A
protégé of Perle going back to their days as staffers for the late Senator
Henry "Scoop" Jackson (a k a the Senator from Boeing, and the Senate's most
zealous champion of Israel in his day), Gaffney later joined Perle at the
Pentagon, only to be shown the door by Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci in
1987, not long after Perle left. Gaffney then reconstituted the latest
incarnation of the Committee on the Present Danger. Beyond compiling an
A-list of influential conservative hawks, Gaffney has been prolific over
the past fifteen years, churning out a constant stream of reports (as well
as regular columns for the Washington Times) making the case that the
gravest threats to US national security are China, Iraq, still-undeveloped
ballistic missiles launched by rogue states, and the passage of or
adherence to virtually any form of arms control treaty.
Gaffney and CSP's prescriptions for national security have been fairly
simple: Gut all arms control treaties, push ahead with weapons systems
virtually everyone agrees should be killed (such as the V-22 Osprey), give
no quarter to the Palestinians and, most important, go full steam ahead on
just about every national missile defense program. (CSP was heavily
represented on the late-1990s Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile
Threat to the United States, which was instrumental in keeping the program
alive during the Clinton years.)
Looking at the center's affiliates, it's not hard to see why: Not only are
makers of the Osprey (Boeing) well represented on the CSP's board of
advisers but so too is Lockheed Martin (by vice president for space and
strategic missiles Charles Kupperman and director of defense systems
Douglas Graham). Former TRW executive Amoretta Hoeber is also a CSP
adviser, as is former Congressman and Raytheon lobbyist Robert Livingston.
Ball Aerospace & Technologies--a major manufacturer of NASA and Pentagon
satellites--is represented by former Navy Secretary John Lehman, while
missile-defense computer systems maker Hewlett-Packard is represented by
George Keyworth, who is on its board of directors. And the Congressional
Missile Defense Caucus and Osprey (or "tilt rotor") caucus are represented
by Representative Curt Weldon and Senator Jon Kyl.
CSP was instrumental in developing the arguments against the Anti-Ballistic
Missile Treaty. Largely ignored or derided at the time, a 1995 CSP memo
co-written by Douglas Feith holding that the United States should withdraw
from the ABM treaty has essentially become policy, as have other CSP
reports opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Chemical Weapons
Convention and the International Criminal Court. But perhaps the most
insightful window on the JINSA/CSP policy worldview comes in the form of a
paper Perle and Feith collaborated on in 1996 with six others under the
auspices of the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies.
Essentially an advice letter to ascendant Israeli politician Benjamin
Netanyahu, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" makes for
insightful reading as a kind of US-Israeli neoconservative manifesto.
he paper's first prescription was for an Israeli rightward economic shift,
with tax cuts and a selloff of public lands and enterprises--moves that
would also engender support from a "broad bipartisan spectrum of key
pro-Israeli Congressional leaders." But beyond economics, the paper
essentially reads like a blueprint for a mini-cold war in the Middle East,
advocating the use of proxy armies for regime changes, destabilization and
containment. Indeed, it even goes so far as to articulate a way to advance
right-wing Zionism by melding it with missile-defense advocacy. "Mr.
Netanyahu can highlight his desire to cooperate more closely with the
United States on anti-missile defense in order to remove the threat of
blackmail which even a weak and distant army can pose to either state," it
reads. "Not only would such cooperation on missile defense counter a
tangible physical threat to Israel's survival, but it would broaden
Israel's base of support among many in the United States Congress who may
know little about Israel, but care very much about missile
defense"--something that has the added benefit of being "helpful in the
effort to move the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem."
Recent months in Washington have shown just how influential the notions
propagated by JINSA and CSP are--and how disturbingly zealous their
advocates are. In early March Feith vainly attempted to get the CIA to keep
former intelligence officers Milt Bearden and Frank Anderson from accepting
an invitation to an Afghanistan-related meeting with Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld at the Pentagon--not because of what the two might say about
Afghanistan, according to sources familiar with the incident, but likely
out of fear that Anderson, a veteran Arabist and former chief of the CIA's
Near East division, would proffer his views on Iraq (opposed to invading)
and Israel-Palestine (a fan of neither Arafat nor Sharon). In late June,
after United Press International reported on a US Muslim civil liberties
group's lambasting of Gaffney for his attacks on the American Muslim
Council, Gaffney, according to a fellow traveler, "went berserk," launching
a stream of invective about the UPI scribe who reported the item.
It's incidents like this, say knowledgeable observers and participants,
that highlight an interesting dynamic among right-wing hawks at the moment.
Though the general agenda put forth by JINSA and CSP continues to be
reflected in councils of war, even some of the hawks (including Rumsfeld
deputy Paul Wolfowitz) are growing increasingly leery of Israel's
settlements policy and Gaffney's relentless support for it. Indeed, his
personal stock in Bush Administration circles is low. "Gaffney has worn out
his welcome by being an overbearing gadfly rather than a serious
contributor to policy," says a senior Pentagon political official. Since
earlier this year, White House political adviser Karl Rove has been casting
about for someone to start a new, more mainstream defense group that would
counter the influence of CSP. According to those who have communicated with
Rove on the matter, his quiet efforts are in response to complaints from
many conservative activists who feel let down by Gaffney, or feel he's too
hard on President Bush. "A lot of us have taken [Gaffney] at face value
over the years," one influential conservative says. "Yet we now know he's
pushed for some of the most flawed missile defense and conventional
systems. He considered Cuba a 'classic asymmetric threat' but not Al Qaeda.
And since 9/11, he's been less concerned with the threat to America than to
Israel."
Gaffney's operation has always been a small one, about $1 million
annually--funded largely by a series of grants from the conservative Olin,
Bradley and various Scaife foundations, as well as some defense contractor
money--but he's recently been able to underwrite a TV and print ad campaign
holding that the Palestinians should be Enemy Number One in the War on
Terror, still obsessed with the destruction of Israel. It's here that one
sees the influence not of defense contractor money but of far-right Zionist
dollars, including some from Irving Moskowitz, the California bingo
magnate. A donor to both CSP and JINSA (as well as a JINSA director),
Moskowitz not only sends millions of dollars a year to far-right Israeli
settler groups like Ateret Cohanim but he has also funded the construction
of settlements, having bought land for development in key Arab areas around
Jerusalem. Moskowitz ponied up the money that enabled the 1996 reopening of
a tunnel under the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, which resulted in seventy
deaths due to rioting.
Also financing Gaffney's efforts is New York investment banker Lawrence
Kadish. A valued and valuable patron of both the Republican National
Committee and George W. Bush, Kadish helps underwrite CSP as well as
Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, an offshoot of conservative activist
William Bennett's Empower America, on which he and Gaffney serve as "senior
advisers" in the service of identifying "external" and "internal" post-9/11
threats to America. (The "internal" threats, as articulated by AVOT,
include former President Jimmy Carter, Harper's editor Lewis Lapham and
Representative Maxine Waters.) Another of Gaffney's backers is Poju
Zabludowicz, heir to a formidable diversified international empire that
includes arms manufacturer Soltam--which once employed Perle--and
benefactor of the recently established Britain Israel Communication and
Research Centre, a London-based group that appears to equate reportage or
commentary uncomplimentary to Zionism with anti-Semitism.
While a small but growing number of conservatives are voicing concerns
about various aspects of foreign and defense policy--ranging from fear of
overreach to lack of Congressional debate--the hawks seem to be ruling the
roost. Beginning in October, hard-line American Enterprise Institute
scholar Michael Rubin (to Rubin, outgoing UN human rights chief Mary
Robinson is an abettor of terrorism) arrives at the Pentagon to take over
the Defense Department's Iran-Iraq account, adding another voice to the
Pentagon section of Ledeen's "total war" chorus. Colin Powell's State
Department continues to take a beating from outside and inside--including
Bolton and his special assistant David Wurmser. (An AEI scholar and
far-right Zionist who's married to Meyrav Wurmser of the Middle East Media
Research Institute--recently the subject of a critical investigation by
London Guardian Middle East editor Brian Whitaker--Wurmser played a key
role in crafting the "Arafat must go" policy that many career specialists
see as a problematic sop to Ariel Sharon.)
As for Rumsfeld, based on comments made at a Pentagon "town hall" meeting
on August 6, there seems to be little doubt as to whose comments are
resonating most with him--and not just on missile defense and overseas
adventures: After fielding a question about Israeli-Palestinian issues, he
repeatedly referred to the "so-called occupied territories" and casually
characterized the Israeli policy of building Jewish-only enclaves on
Palestinian land as "mak[ing] some settlement in various parts of the
so-called occupied area," with which Israel can do whatever it wants, as it
has "won" all its wars with various Arab entities--essentially an echo of
JINSA's stated position that "there is no Israeli occupation." Ominously,
Rumsfeld's riff gave a ranking Administration official something of a
chill: "I realized at that point," he said, "that on settlements--where
there are cleavages on the right--Wolfowitz may be to the left of Rumsfeld."
There is another excellent article (which mentions this radical Zionist JINSA agenda) by Jason Vest (titled, "Turkey, Israel & US") which can be found via the following URL (as this JINSA agenda of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are pushing for the coming invasion of Iraq and then they will want to invade Iran, Syria, Lebanon and eventually Egypt all for Israel):
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1 | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2002 9:42 pm Post subject: Turkey, Israel and the US (JINSA) |
| Turkey, Israel and the US (JINSA)
by Jason Vest
In a 1996 Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies paper prepared for Binyamin Netanyahu, the authors---including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, now, respectively, chair of the Defense Policy Board and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy---advised Israel to "shape its strategic environment by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria," and to "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq--an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." It's all heady stuff, but perhaps the most interesting parts are references to realizing the "new strategy for securing the realm" by "working closely with" or working "in cooperation" with Turkey.
Not only have the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Center for Security Policy (CSP) been enthusiastic boosters in the service of assuring a constant flow of US military aid to Turkey, but JINSA/CSP advisers Perle and Feith have spent the past fifteen years--in governmental and private capacities--working quietly and deftly to keep the US arms sluice to Turkey open, as well as drawing both Turkey and Israel and their respective American lobbies closer together.
To Perle, Feith and other hawks, the importance of Turkey not just to the United States but to Israel is self-evident. As a secular Muslim state, Turkey has always been an attractive political and military ally to the Israelis; respectful of the close relationship between the US and Israel, over a decade ago the Turks began to appreciate the value for Turkish-US relations in being close with Israel, and have also grown to appreciate how useful an ally the American Jewish lobby can be against the Greek- and Armenian-American lobbies.
In fact, the idea of a strong Turkey-Israeli-US trifecta is nothing new. It was a cherished idea of Perle mentor and Committee on the Present Danger principal Albert Wohlstetter, the University of Chicago mathematician and RAND consultant who was key in drawing up the Pentagon's strategic and nuclear blueprints during the cold war. In classified studies written at the Pentagon's behest over the years, Wohlstetter was a serious Turkey booster; when Perle ascended to his post in the Reagan-era Pentagon, he began implementing Wohlstetter's vision, conducting regular meetings in Ankara and, in 1986, closing a deal for a five-year Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement with Turkey which the Financial Times characterized as "something of a personal triumph" for Perle. It wasn't so bad for Turkey, either: After Israel and Egypt, Turkey became the third-largest recipient of US military aid, and got a nice break on debts owed to the United States.
Perle left government service in 1987. In 1989, various Turkish press outlets reported that he had quietly started lobbying in Washington on behalf of Turkey. In short order, the Wall Street Journal confirmed it, reporting that he had "sold the idea for the new [lobbying] company to Turgut Ozal, Turkey's prime minister, at a meeting in New York last May," but that Perle wouldn't be registering as a foreign agent because Perle was merely "chairman of the firm's advisory board," which, the Journal noted, only consisted of one person: Perle.
Perle responded to the Journal revelation with a bizarre letter, on the one hand claiming that--despite years of media reporting on his Pentagon Turkey initiatives--he had had no responsibility for Turkey while he was a Pentagon official, but that he had, nonetheless, advocated for Turkey in the Pentagon; now in private life, he was going to do something about it--but only so much, as Doug Feith would be taking point, and Perle would simply be in the "advice business."
According to Foreign Agent Registration Act filings, Perle's advice counted for a lot--a total of $231,000 between 1990 and 1994. To help out Turkey, Feith also deployed legal associate Michael Mobbs--now a Pentagon adviser, most recently in the news after a federal judge decided his memo making the case for the detention of Yaser Esam Hamdi as an "enemy combatant" was insufficient. Feith also hired Morris Amitay, former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and current head of the pro-Israel Washington lobby, who took aim earlier this year at the Bush-appointed Jewish-American US ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, for Kurtzer's circumspect public criticism of Israel's settlements policy.
International Advisors, Inc. hit the ground running in 1989, flexing its lobbying muscle immediately by securing the defeat of Congressional efforts to keep Turkey's US military aid at a level lower than that of neighboring Greece. In addition to cementing the US-Turkey military-to-military relationship, IAI was also part of a joint 1989 Turkish-Israeli effort to quash a US Senate resolution marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks. "Quietly, Israeli diplomats and some American Jewish activists have agreed to help Turkey even as other Jewish leaders have complained they have no business intervening in such a sensitive matter," reported Wolf Blitzer, then the Jerusalem Post's Washington correspondent. Blitzer went on to quote a source who explained that "as a people which was itself a victim of genocide, we feel natural sympathy for the Armenians. But Israel wants to foster its relations with Turkey, which it views with great importance."
With the Pentagon's hawks girding for war with Iraq yet again, Perle and his ilk have been both wooing and talking up Turkey, which, at the moment, is on shaky economic and political ground--despite previous efforts of the Bush Administration, including an arranged $16 billion IMF bailout and a pending $228 million US aid package. In response to Turkish concerns about the potential for further political and economic destabilization in the wake of an attack on Iraq, Perle and others have proposed an expansive free-trade agreement between Turkey and the United States; a first step in that direction is already evident in the form of a Senate bill, sponsored by Senators John Breaux and John McCain and boosted by the recently formed, three-dozen-strong bipartisan American-Turkish Caucus on Capitol Hill, that would let Turkish textiles into the United States duty-free via Israel. According to a Pentagon source briefed on Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's recent trip to Ankara, the Turks have also indicated that they might be amenable to supporting an Iraq invasion in exchange for another military debt write-off to the tune of $5 million, as well as a free Patriot missile defense system.
But even with such measures--and despite the ministrations of Perle and Feith over the years--it's unclear what the future holds for US-Turkish relations. Turkish elections are scheduled for November, and right now the moderately pro-Islamist Justice and Development (AK) party appears to be leading at the polls, a situation causing handwringing in both Washington and Ankara. And, according to diplomatic sources in Washington, while the Turks have indicated a certain potential willingness to back a US invasion and restructuring of Iraq, they continue to voice serious concerns about overall regional destabilization, the financial cost to Turkey of war and the establishment of a Kurdish province in a post-Saddam, federal-style Iraq, which could mark the first step in a reinvigorated military campaign by Turkey's Kurds for total Kurdish independence--an effort that might be made easier if Kirkuk, an oil town in northern Iraq, comes under Kurdish control. "It's not exactly a volatile situation yet," says one Washington-based diplomat, "but let's just say a lot of people are keeping a very watchful eye on Turkey." | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sun Nov 24, 2002 9:59 pm Post subject: Zionist Richard Perle : 'Inspections Or Not, We'll Attack Ir |
| Zionist Richard Perle : 'Inspections Or Not, We'll Attack Iraq'
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12377231&method=full&siteid=50143
WAR, WHATEVER
Bush aide: Inspections or not, we'll attack Iraq
Exclusive By Paul Gilfeather, Whitehall Editor
GEORGE Bush's top security adviser last night admitted the US would attack
Iraq even if UN inspectors fail to find weapons.
Dr Richard Perle stunned MPs by insisting a "clean bill of health" from UN
chief weapons inspector Hans Blix would not halt America's war machine.
Evidence from ONE witness on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme will be
enough to trigger a fresh military onslaught, he told an all- party meeting
on global security.
Former defence minister and Labour backbencher Peter Kilfoyle said: "America
is duping the world into believing it supports these inspections. President
Bush intends to go to war even if inspectors find nothing.
"This make a mockery of the whole process and exposes America's real
determination to bomb Iraq."
Dr Perle told MPs: "I cannot see how Hans Blix can state more than he can
know. All he can know is the results of his own investigations. And that does
not prove Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction."
The chairman of America's defence policy board said: "Suppose we are able to
find someone who has been involved in the development of weapons and he says
there are stores of nerve agents. But you cannot find them because they are
so well hidden.
"Do you actually have to take possession of the nerve agents to convince? We
are not dealing with a situation where you can expect co-operation."
Mr Kilfoyle said MPs would be horrified at the admission. He added: "Because
Saddam is so hated in Iraq, it would be easy to find someone to say they
witnessed weapons building.
"Perle says the Americans would be satisfied with such claims even if no real
evidence was produced.
"That's a terrifying prospect."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace is patriotic!
Michael Santomauro
Editorial Director
http://RePortersNoteBook.com
New York City
Feel free to call anytime 24hours 212-787-7891
http://reportersnotebook.com/newforum/indexforum.html | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2002 12:26 am Post subject: Radical JINSA Zionist Group Mentioned by Fisk as Well: |
| Radical JINSA Zionist Group Mentioned by Fisk as Well:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011 | | | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2002 9:48 pm Post subject: JINSA ZIONIST WAR HAWK RICHARD PERLE PUSH IRAQ ATTACK |
| James, please find below full text of the story on Perle... his words are
very interesting.
EXCLUSIVE
By Paul Gilfeather, Whitehall Editor
GEORGE W. Bush's top security adviser admitted last night the US would
blitz Iraq - even if no weapons were found by UN inspectors.
Dr Richard Perle stunned MPs at Westminster by insisting that even a "clean
bill of health" from UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix could not halt
President Bush's war machine.
And he declared that evidence from just ONE witness claiming to have seen
Saddam Hussein's weapons programme was enough to trigger a fresh military
onslaught.
Last night furious Labour MPs lined up to blast Washington as the news cast
another dark cloud over the tense process.
Former defence minister and Labour backbencher, Peter Kilfoyle, told the
Daily Mirror: "What we have heard from Dr Perle is absolutely astonishing.
"America is duping the world into believing that it supports these
inspections. President Bush intends to go to war even if the inspectors
find nothing.
"This make a mockery of the whole process and exposes America's real
determination to bomb Iraq no matter what the outcome of these inspections
are."
Right-winger Perle dropped his bombshell during an all-party meeting of MPs
on global security.
The Pentagon adviser made clear the White House's total contempt for the
inspection process, which got underway on Monday.
The global community held its breath as inspectors landed in Baghdad,
believing that the results of the search could end in peace.
But last night Dr Perle made clear that nothing the 74-year-old Swede
reports would be enough to satisfy America's lust for war.
Dr Perle said: "I would not say that I don't believe what Hans Blix says.
"But I cannot see how Hans Blix can state more than he can know.
"All he can know is the results of his own investigations. And that does
not prove Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction."
Tory backbencher Peter Tapsell sought clarification, adding: "If no weapons
of mass destruction are found, what does Dr Perle think the actions of the
United States will be?"
The chairman of America's Defence Policy Board responded: "The
circumstances in which the weapons are not found matters.
"If Hans Blix issues his full authority and is able to invite Iraqis to
safety and they say there are programmes, we will have to take that very
seriously."
Dr Perle repeated that evidence from Iraqis could be enough evidence to
trigger a full-scale attack on Iraq.
"Suppose we are able to find someone who has been involved in the
development of weapons and he says there are stores of nerve agents?," he
added.
"But you cannot find them because they are so well hidden. Do you actually
have to take possession of the nerve agents to convince?
"We are not dealing with a situation where you can expect co-operation."
Mr Kilfoyle said last night that MPs would be horrified to learn that the
"say-so" of an Iraqi witness would be enough to overshadow the inspectors'
work.
He added: "Because Saddam is so hated in Iraq it would be easy to find
someone to say they witnessed weapons building.
"Perle says the American's would be satisfied with such claims even if no
real evidence was produced. That's a terrifying prospect."
ends | | | | Guest | | | | Alpha | | | | The Iconoclast | | Posted: Sat Apr 30, 2005 6:24 am Post subject: |
| | Goddamned bunch of Jew neocon draft-dodging cowards. They'll all fight to the last drop of your blood. | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
