War Without End

Guest · Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 6:24 pm Post subject: Israelis Want IRAQ WAR

December 16, 2002

ON THE DOWNLOW

CONSULTANTS TELL ISRAEL'S AMEN CORNER: "PIPE DOWN!" BUT WILL
THEIR ADVICE BE TAKEN?

A group of pro-Israel political consultants, the Israel Project,
is telling partisans of the Jewish state to kindly shut up about
their fulsome support for Gulf War II – lest they give the show
away. A memo entitled "Talking About Iraq," directed at American
Jewish leaders, as well as Israelis, advises:

"Let American politicians fight it out on the floor of Congress
and in the media. Let the nations of the world argue in front of
the UN. Your silence allows everyone to focus on Iraq rather
than Israel."

"If your goal is regime change, you must be much more careful
with your language because of the potential backlash. You do not
want Americans to believe that the war on Iraq is being waged to
protect Israel rather than to protect America."

If you guys just keep quiet, those stupid Americans may not
notice that they’re fighting, dying, and paying for your wars.
After all, how many of them can locate Iraq on a map?
Geographically challenged, and naïve to a fault, most Americans
don’t realize that Saddam’s "weapons of mass destruction," if
they exist, haven’t got a range much beyond four-hundred miles.
Iraq’s rickety Scuds could barely reach Israel, and are no
threat to the U.S. Saddam’s target is Tel Aviv, not Toledo,
Ohio, but we are supposed to forget that there is any
distinction.

Israel’s fans in the U.S. would do well to watch their language,
but I’m afraid this good advice is wasted on them. Ever since
9/11, what Pat Buchanan calls Israel’s "amen corner" has been in
the ascendant: an unholy alliance of neoconservative policy
wonks who dream of "benevolent world hegemony" and
dispensationalist Protestant nutballs who see war in the Middle
East (with Israel at the center) as a fulfillment of Biblical
prophecy – and a necessary prelude to the Second Coming. This
union of maniacs, megalo- and mono, gained an important foothold
in the GOP during the Reagan years, and was perfectly positioned
to reap the full political benefits of 9/11 vis-à-vis U.S.
policy in the Middle East. Neoconservative calls for an invasion
of Iraq have been part of the background noise of American
politics for a decade, but 9/11 emboldened them to demand more.
They have been pushing hard for the goal of eliminating all of
Israel’s enemies, one by one, using America as their cat’s-paw,
and Ariel Sharon has hardly been subtle about demanding and
getting increased financial support, even as he increases the
weight of repression on the Palestinian people.

This game is getting so obvious that the Israel lobby’s own
political consultants – "led by Democratic consultant Jennifer
Laszlo Mizrahi," the Washington Post reports, "with help from
Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican pollsters Neil
Newhouse and Frank Luntz".—are telling them to knock it off, for
the moment at least, and lay low. The Post goes on to report why
this is unlikely to happen:

"An Israeli diplomat in Washington said the Israeli government
did not request or fund the efforts of the Israel Project and
that Israeli leaders were unlikely to follow all the advice.
‘These are professional public relations people," the diplomat
said. ‘There’s also a political-diplomatic side.’"

The politics of the War Party impose a certain form and style on
their activities, one that is driven by a need to keep the
troops happy – in Israel, as well as the U.S.

Within Israel, a growing radical rightist movement is energized,
in part, by a resentment of their country’s complete dependence
on American largess, and bitter opposition to U.S. efforts to
rein Israel in. To these elements, Sharon is a sell-out, and
even Netanyahu is soft: the expulsion of the Palestinians from
the occupied territories, the annexation of conquered lands, and
the consolidation of a Greater Israel – in the wake of the
intifada, and the breakdown of the peace process, these key
planks of the far-rightist platform have gained in popularity.
The upcoming Israeli elections show a massive shift toward
extremism, with the far-rightists exerting ever more influence
on Sharon’s Likud party. Sharon may have beaten back Netanyahu’s
challenge from the right in the party primaries, but the
militants gained the upper hand when it came to nominees for the
Israeli Knesset. Leslie Susser, writing in the Cleveland Jewish
News, points out Sharon’s dilemma:

"The Likud Party’s list of Knesset candidates, chosen in a party
primary this week, left Ariel Sharon’s campaign strategists
scratching their heads. With national elections approaching on
Jan. 28, they had meticulously laid out a centrist … It is in
the battle for the centrists that Israeli elections are won and
lost, experts say.

"The problem for Sharon’s spin doctors is that the list of
Knesset candidates elected by the Likud’s 3,000- strong Central
Committee on Sunday leans heavily toward the hawks."

Tzachi Hanegbi, Minister of the Environment and third-place
finisher in the Likud Central Committee poll, behind Sharon and
Netanyahu, hailed the primary results as "a vote against a
Palestinian state." Of all the prospective members of an
incoming Likud government, only Sharon supports the American
plan for a Palestinian state – or any plan other than continued
repression.

Israel – such a tiny country, with so few natural resources,
beleaguered on all sides by implacable enemies, nearly bankrupt,
and in need of constant transfusions of U.S. "foreign aid" to
keep it alive. Its publicists and professional apologists
certainly have their hands full, trying to keep up with Sharon’s
latest atrocities and smearing anyone who questions Israeli
policy as a closet Nazi. They must also juggle the different
factions of the pro-Israel lobby against the interests and
policies of Israeli hardliners, no mean feat. While the Israel
Project memo proffers advice to the American branch of the Likud
party, according to the Post, they also address the home office:

"Much of the guidance, however, appeared to have Israelis in
mind. ‘Demonstrate your historic willingness to compromise,
sacrifice on behalf of America,’ it said. ‘This may not play
well among some Israeli politicians but it will certainly play
well in the states.’ It advised leaders to say: ‘Like America,
Israel has a right to defend itself and our people.’"

But does Israel have the "right" to use the U.S. military as a
weapon in its war against the Arab-Muslim world? This
administration has been hell-bent on starting that war, over and
against the advice of its own generals, and the old guard
Bushies , including Bush 41. In driving the nation to war, Bush
43 is driven by the need to appease his political base – the
followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, among others, who
made the difference in Georgia and elsewhere this past election
season – and if Dubya doesn’t deliver, his base may desert him
for a more aggressive warmonger.

But Israel's supporters would do well, say the public relations
types, to refrain from openly displaying their political pull.
The Israel Project experts also called on the Israelis to "pipe
down," as the Post put it, about the "root causes" of the Middle
East conflict:

"The memo coached: ‘(A)s an Israeli, most certainly don’t talk
about why some Arab leaders and their people dislike the United
States. Americans don’t want to be told by an Israeli why we
have problems in the Middle East or why people hate us.’"

Leave that to the American Likudniks, who will gladly explain
why Islam is inherently evil, why Arabs are culturally prone to
violence and hostile to "modernity," and how we need to conquer
and "re-educate" a billion Muslims just like we did in Germany
and Japan – and for the same reasons.

We are supposed to be in the midst of a worldwide upsurge in
anti-Semitism, to hear Israel's apologists tell it: the Left, we
are told, is scapegoating Israel and imposing on it a standard
that no other Middle Eastern country has been asked to aspire
to. Israel is being "singled out" unfairly, but the reality is
that the Israelis and their international amen corner have
singled themselves out as the vanguard of the War Party.
Israel's most avid partisans in the U.S. have also been the most
enthusiastic proponents for war, and the reason for this is
plain enough: Israel will have the most to gain in the event of
war in the Middle East.

This war, if it comes, will not be contained within the borders
of Iraq. The conflict is sure to spread throughout the Saudi
peninsula, unseat the monarchy, and pave the way for a pro-Al
Qaeda coup in Riyadh. American-supported rulers from Egypt to
Pakistan and all points in between will be in fear of their
lives. Who benefits from this apocalyptic state of affairs?

Certainly not the U.S., as the last of our Muslim allies bites
the dust and Al Qaeda's recruitment drive goes into high gear.
Europe is rightly fearful of bearing the brunt of America's
mistakes, in the form of renewed terrorist attacks, and the
Russians look askance at being locked out of the Iraqi oil
business. Our allies are baffled at this sudden radical turn in
the "war on terrorism," not because they are anti-Semitic or
anti-American, but because the policy is so contrary to American
interests.

While Al Qaeda blows up the Macedonian embassy in Pakistan and
lurks, half-hidden, in the Balkans, the U.S. moves against –
Iraq, the most secular of all the petty Middle Eastern despots,
a regime Bin Laden volunteered to fight against to defend his
Saudi homeland, according to British journalist and author Peter
Bergen, and recently declared ought to be overthrown.

The Founders of the American republic distrusted the influence
of foreign lobbyists. George Washington warned that "a
passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a
variety of evils," and in our march to war we are witnessing
them all first-hand. The Father of our country knew that

"Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of
an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common
interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the
other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels
and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or
justification."

That this principle is operating today, in our frantic search to
find some sort of justification, however thin, for going to war,
shows that Washington's worst fears have been realized. Israel's
war has become our war; her enemies, our enemies, even as the
objective interests of the two countries diverge. The
U.S.-Israeli "special relationship" violates Washington's dictum
in other ways:

"It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of
privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the
Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with
what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy,
ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from
whom equal privileges are withheld."

What other nation shares the "privilege" of having its program
of ethnic cleansing and systematized repression of a subject
population paid for by American taxpayers? What other nation
benefits from a law passed by the U.S. Congress that makes it
illegal to boycott products made in Israel? Old George sure saw
it coming: Al Qaeda's "disposition to retaliate" ended in the
death of 3,000-plus, and the prospect of more to come.

No wonder the Israel Project's public relations experts are
telling their clients to go on the downlow, as they say.

What if Americans started examining the special privileges
afforded Israel by their compliant enablers in Washington –
would they begin to wonder about the true causes of the Middle
Eastern crisis? What if they actually started reading subversive
"isolationist" literature like the "Farewell Address," and came
across the following description of the evils of privileging one
nation above others?:

"And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who
devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or
sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium,
sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of
a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for
public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or
foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."

Washington's portrait of an American fifth column certainly has
a familiar ring to it. Ambitious, corrupted, deluded – the War
Party is all three. Certainly the neoconservatives, crying
"remember 9/11!", have campaigned for war exuding "a virtuous
sense of obligation." It is not for nothing that Bill Bennett is
the chosen instrument of their holy cause. Riding the wave of
popular hysteria – as if out of "a commendable deference for
public opinion" – the neocons want to start what they call
"World War IV," pitting the U.S. and Israel against the entire
Muslim world. Cui bono? Who benefits? It's funny you should
ask….

Oh, old Georgie sure hit the nail on the head when he portrayed
partisans of a foreign power as in thrall to a dangerous
"infatuation." It is a politically-driven love affair, one that
Karl Rove hopes will keep the President in the White House, just
as Sharon hopes it will keep him and his party in power. Like
all infatuations, however, it must inevitably cool, as the two
parties get down to working out the bothersome details of their
romance: the issue of exclusivity, of finances, the possibility
of marriage, all this and more must come to the fore. One party
– the Israelis – is making non-negotiable demands – war, now! –
while the other, wanting to please, is nonetheless disinclined
to make a total commitment. Every relationship, if it goes on
long enough, reaches a crisis point, in which one succumbs to
the dominance of the other, or some mutually acceptable
compromise is made.

But there is no compromise when it comes to war and peace: it is
one or the other. The President has chosen the long route to
war, via the United Nations, a process that could drag out for
many months – and still end inconclusively. Either the War Party
succeeds in somehow derailing this process, perhaps by creating
a Gulf of Tonkin-like incident, or the marriage of American and
Israeli interests, in effect since 9/11, is sure to wind up in
Divorce Court.

– Justin Raimondo

Guest · Posted: Mon Dec 16, 2002 8:49 pm Post subject:

Considering Saddam will let Iraqi kid starve so he can pay homocide bombers to kill Israelis, I would not be the least bit surprised if Israel wanted Saddam thrown out.

It's kind of like Afghanistan. The Taliban was supporting al_Qaeda, so we throew them out.

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 4:12 am Post subject:

Guest

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/15/sharon-threatens-global-nuclear-war.php

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 4:25 am Post subject:

1. If you back Saddam paying bombers $25,000 plus building Palestinian houses, then don't complain about Iraqis starving.

2. In George Washinton's time...

* People could not fly non-stop across the oceans in a matter of hours.
* People did not have instantaneous communication across the globe.
* A cannon was a WMD.
* National economies were not interlocked in global markets.
* The US population was pretty much homogeneous

For gosh sakes, the man had wooden teeth!

If Geo. Washington were alive today, he would have to think we would be pretty foolish to be following 226 year old advice.

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 6:00 am Post subject:

Guest

Washington's Zionist hawks to reshape Mid-East for Israel

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/10/25/washington-s-zionist-hawks-to-reshape-mid-east-for-israel.php

Guest

Zionist Richard Perle:'Inspections Or Not, We'll Attack Iraq

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk#bad-link

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 10:52 am Post subject: THE PRICE OF ISRAEL

THE PRICE OF ISRAEL

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk#bad-link645

Guest · Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2002 11:42 am Post subject: PUT UP OR SHUT UP

DEC. 16, 2002 (COL. 3)

PUT UP OR SHUT UP

BY CHARLEY REESE

President George Bush has to put up or shut up. If his administration has hard evidence

that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, he has to put that evidence on the table for

everyone to see. Otherwise his credibility and the credibility of the United States will be

zilch.

It's beginning to appear that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein isn't as stupid as the Bush

administration believed him to be. He has readmitted the inspectors, he's cooperating with

them, and he's made his declaration: We have no weapons of mass destruction; if the United

States and Great Britain have evidence to the contrary, give it to the international

inspectors.

So far, the Bush administration has done nothing but indulge in name-calling, like some

bratty kid on a schoolyard. It's not enough to keep calling Saddam a liar; it's time to prove

it. And if the United States lacks proof, as I personally believe, then it's time to shut up

or else confess the real motives for wanting to go to war. So far, the Bush administration's

credibility hasn't been that great itself.

Item: It made much to-do about Iraq having drone airplanes. The existence of these planes

was made public in 1998. The president even said they could be used in an attack against the

United States, which is patently absurd on its face.

Item: Great Britain recently released a dossier on human-rights violations in Iraq. Again,

it was all old stuff, 10 or 12 years old, and Amnesty International, which had collected the

information in the first place, severely criticized the British government for misusing a

report that the United Kingdom had ignored a decade ago when it was first issued.

Demonization and name-calling do not constitute evidence that Iraq is a threat to the

United States. The Bush administration has no hard evidence that Iraq was involved with

al-Qaida or any other kind of international terrorism. It has twisted the truth about Iraq's

involvement with the Palestinians, implying that Saddam subsidized suicide bombers. The fact

is that Saddam was giving a check to the families of any Palestinian killed in the intifada.

That, of course, included the families of suicide bombers, but the program was not

specifically directed toward them. Don't forget, the Israelis have killed nearly 2,000

Palestinians, most of them civilians. Unlike most Arab governments that only pay lip service

to the Palestinian struggle for independence, Saddam has put his money where his mouth is.

If it is true, as Richard Pearle, the chief warmonger in the Bush administration, has said

publicly, that Bush will go to war against Iraq even if there are no ties to terrorism and no

weapons of mass destruction, the American people had better start raising hell with the

administration. A war without justification can produce catastrophic consequences.

For one thing, with our economy in the shape it is in, much better use for $200 billion can

be found right here at home than to waste it on killing Iraqis. For another, the days when we

can inflict death and destruction on other people in other places without paying a price for

it are over. Making war against Iraq without justification and international support will

produce an enormous increase in terrorism directed at the United States and at Americans

everywhere. For still another, it will alienate allies all over the world.

If genuine, publicly exposed proof can be found that Iraq is in violation and if the United

States goes back to the United Nations Security Council for a second resolution, then all's

well and good. If the president decides to go it alone based on propaganda, he will be making

the mistake of his life. The trouble is it will be other innocent lives, both Iraqi and

American, that will pay for his blunder.

(Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802)

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Israelis Want IRAQ WAR