War Without End

Alpha

Subj: Hollings Speaks for Many in Congress
Date: 5/20/04 1:06:36 PM Pacific Daylight Time

SENATOR SPOKE FOR MANY ON HILL WHEN HE BLAMED ISRAEL FOR WAR
Special to WorldTribune.com -- Thursday, May 20, 2004

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/breaking_3.html

A U.S. senator's charge that Israel is behind the Bush
administrations's decision to invade Iraq has rattled American Jewish leaders.

Sen. Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina Democrat, wrote a column that
appeared in several newspapers. The column asserted that the U.S. war
against Iraq represented a decision by President George Bush to protect
Israel and ensure American Jewish support for his reelection. The column
reflects a growing sentiment in the corridors of power in Washington
according to congressional sources. [
http://hollings.senate.gov/%7ehollings/opinion/2004506A17.html ]

The view attributes the U.S. war in Iraq to the so-called
neo-conservatives in the administration, particularly Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and former Pentagon adviser Richard Perle,
Middle East Newsline reported. Both men are Jewish.

"There is a strong fear among American Jewish leadership that the
whispering campaign that 'the Jews started it,' will become public," a
senior congressional staffer said. "We could be seeing others get on
Hollings' bandwagon."

"Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading
democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote
from the Democrats," Hollings said in a column first published on May 6
in the Charleston Post and Courier. "You don't come to town and announce
your Israel policy is to invade Iraq."

Congressional sources said Hollings was expressing a view that has
become increasingly prevalent in Congress and parts of the administration.

The column was reprinted on Hollings's website.

The administration has been debating a U.S. exit strategy from Iraq that
appears to pit elements of the Defense Department against the State
Department. The debate includes the affect of a short-term U.S. military
withdrawal from Iraq on Washington's allies in the Middle East,
particularly in the Gulf Cooperation Council. Such a U.S. withdrawal,
Pentagon officials warned, could threaten these Gulf Arab states.

"They [Arab leaders] are more worried that we will lose our patience
with the difficult tasks of stabilizing those places and will walk away
and come home and bring up the drawbridges and defend Fortress America,"
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid told the Senate Armed
Services Committee on Wednesday." "I reassured our friends that we are
tough, that we cannot be defeated militarily, and that we will stay the course."

For his part, Hollings said Israel has never claimed that Iraq
maintained a weapons of mass destruction arsenal. The senator, who later
refused to retract his statements,
said Wolfowitz's advocacy of a plan to promote democracy among Arab
states comprised an Israeli initiative.

"With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country?" Hollings asked.
"The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel. Led by Wolfowitz,
Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino
school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to
spread democracy in the area."

Hollings said Bush realized that he would be unable to bring about an
Arab-Israeli peace to help his reelection efforts. Instead, Bush started
laying the groundwork to invade Iraq days after his inauguration in 2001.

The senator said Wolfowitz persuaded Bush that the war against Iraq
would take a week. Hollings said Vice President Richard Cheney was
convinced U.S. troops would be greeted as liberators.

"In the Mideast, terrorism is a separate problem to be defeated by
diplomacy and negotiation, not militarily," Hollings said. "Here, might
does not make right – right makes might. Acting militarily, we have
created more terrorism than we have eliminated."

===============================================

A Neoconservative cabal (most of whom are Jewish Zionist racist extremists) have pushed the USA into an invasion/occupation (in Iraq and beyond if the cabal continues to get its way) which is not in America's interest:

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles114.htm

Losing Feith (of a 'A Clean Break' fame):

http://antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=2614

War for Israel?:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/04/22/a-war-for-israel.php

More on PNAC:

http://www.sundayherald.com/27735

War Conceived in Israel:

http://www.thornwalker.com/ditch/snieg_conc1.htm

Israel is the Problem (see the 'A Clean Break' document which is embedded as a
link at the following URL):

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j100603.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest

http://www.counterpunch.org/avnery04102003.html

http://www.nogw.com/warforisrael.html

http://www.nowarforisrael.com

http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/02/12/Counterpunch_1.html

http://www.vdare.com/misc/macdonald_neoconservatism.htm
Also see: A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm:
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm
and
http://www.thefourreasons.org/dirtywork.htm

and dont forget to (re)read: http://www.thefourreasons.org/PNAC/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Cowboy · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 6:29 am Post subject:

Excerpt from "First Things First" By U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings

Originally published in the Charleston Post and Courier, August 30, 2002

We have problems:

1. The Muslim extremists' attack on 9/11 starting the Terrorism War.
2. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
3. The Saudi Arabian and other Muslim support of terrorists.
4. At the same time, the need for Muslim support in the Terrorism War.
5. Iraq.

For the moment, the Iraq problem is easily solved. Our friend Israel, with its Mossad Intelligence, knows the Iraqi threat - nuclear, chemical, or biological. In 1981, they didn't wait for the nuclear plant to be completed in Baghdad. They knocked it out and today stand ready to knock out such a threat again. We can depend on Israel for this. But Israel must depend on America to get it out of its present fix. Prime Minister Sharon's approach to peace - bulldozing homes, sending in gun ships, and re-occupying Palestinian territories - is creating more terrorists than are being eliminated. We must put first things first. Secure Israel and deal later with Saddam.

...

Whining, "they hate us," we refuse to discuss or recognize the Palestinian cause. The cause must be confronted. "You can't kill an idea with a sword." The Terrorism War won't be won militarily. Our foreign policy must not be left to the extremes, Sharon and Arafat. Five years from now, ten years from now, fifty years from now there will be an Israel and there will be a Palestine. The only course is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to learn to live together. For this to occur, President Bush must personally meet with the Middle East leaders and work out a realistic step-by-step institution for the security of Israel and the State of Palestine. Only after that can America get the support we need around the globe for the Terrorism War and the overthrow of Saddam.

Alpha

The Zionist Cowboy fails to mention that Bin Laden warned US in 1998 that the USA would be attacked (on US soil) if the Zionist occupied US government continued to support Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians with the BILLIONS of US taxpayer dollars (see the link at the upper left of www.wrmea.com) when US states, Social Security and Medicare are going broke (see Bin Laden's warning via the following URL, but the 'protect Israel first' US press/media did not convey this warning to Americans to the extent that it should have):

http://www.investigate911.com/binladensez.htm

Even former Republican Congressman Paul Findley (an American patriot) mentions in the third edition of his 'They Dare to Speak Out' book that the vast US taxpayer financial support of Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinian people contributed to the tragic 9/11 attack.

Alpha

Senator Akaka (of Hawaii) asked General Miller during the hearing yesterday who the third country nationals ('John Israel' and others mentioned in the Taguba Report) were, and General Miller refused to answer... The answer is so obviously Israel:

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen05102004.html

May 10, 2004

The Israeli Torture Template
Rape, Feces and Urine-Dipped Cloth Sacks
By WAYNE MADSEN

With mounting evidence that a shadowy group of former Israeli Defense Force and General Security Service (Shin Bet) Arabic-speaking interrogators were hired by the Pentagon under a classified "carve out" sub-contract to brutally interrogate Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, one only needs to examine the record of abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in Israel to understand what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld meant, when referring to new, yet to be released photos and videos, he said, "if these images are released to the public, obviously its going to make matters worse."

According to a political appointee within the Bush administration and U.S. intelligence sources, the interrogators at Abu Ghraib included a number of Arabic-speaking Israelis who also helped U.S. interrogators develop the "R2I" (Resistance to Interrogation) techniques. Many of the torture methods were developed by the Israelis over many years of interrogating Arab prisoners on the occupied West Bank and in Israel itself.

Clues about worse photos and videos of abuse may be found in Israeli files about similar abuse of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners. In March 2000, a lawyer for a Lebanese prisoner kidnapped in 1994 by the Israelis in Lebanon claimed that his client had been subjected to torture, including rape. The type of compensation offered by Rumsfeld in his testimony has its roots in cases of Israeli torture of Arabs. In the case of the Lebanese man, said to have been raped by his Israeli captors, his lawyer demanded compensation of $1.47 million. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel documented the types of torture meted out on Arab prisoners. Many of the tactics coincide with those contained in the Taguba report: beatings and prolonged periods handcuffed to furniture. In an article in the December 1998 issue of The Progressive, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb reported on the treatment given to a 23-year old Palestinian held on "administrative detention." The prisoner was "cuffed behind a chair 17 hours a day for 120 days . . . [he] had his head covered with a sack, which was often dipped in urine or feces. Guards played loud music right next to his ears and frequently taunted him with threats of physical and sexual violence." If additional photos and videos document such practices, the Bush administration and the American people have, indeed, "seen nothing yet."

Although it is still largely undocumented if any of the contractor named in the report of General Antonio Taguba were associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services, it is noteworthy that one, John Israel, who was identified in the report as being employed by both CACI International of Arlington, Virginia, and Titan, Inc., of San Diego, may not have even been a U.S. citizen. The Taguba report states that Israel did not have a security clearance, a requirement for employment as an interrogator for CACI. According to CACI's web site, "a Top Secret Clearance (TS) that is current and US citizenship" are required for CACI interrogators working in Iraq. In addition, CACI requires that its interrogators "have at least two years experience as a military policeman or similar type of law enforcement/intelligence agency whereby the individual utilized interviewing techniques."

Speculation that "John Israel" may be an intelligence cover name has fueled speculation whether this individual could have been one of a number of Israeli interrogators hired under a classified contract. Because U.S. citizenship and documentation thereof are requirements for a U.S. security clearance, Israeli citizens would not be permitted to hold a Top Secret clearance. However, dual U.S.-Israeli citizens could have satisfied Pentagon requirements that interrogators hold U.S. citizenship and a Top Secret clearance. Although the Taguba report refers twice to Israel as an employee of Titan, the company claims he is one of their sub-contractors. CACI stated that one of the men listed in the report "is not and never has been a CACI employee" without providing more detail. A U.S. intelligence source revealed that in the world of intelligence "carve out" subcontracts such confusion is often the case with "plausible deniability" being a foremost concern.

In fact, the Taguba report does reference the presence of non-U.S. and non-Iraqi interrogators at Abu Ghraib. The report states, "In general, US civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc), third country nationals, and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib."

The Pentagon is clearly concerned about the outing of the Taguba report and its references to CACI, Titan, and third country nationals, which could permanently damage U.S. relations with Arab and Islamic nations. The Pentagon's angst may explain why the Taguba report is classified Secret No Foreign Dissemination.

The leak of the Taguba report was so radioactive, Daniel R. Dunn, the Information Assurance Officer for Douglas Feith's Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Policy (Policy Automation Services Security Team), sent a May 6, 2004, For Official Use Only Urgent E-mail to Pentagon staffers stating, "THE INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS REPORT IS CLASSIFIED; DO NOT GO TO FOX NEWS TO READ OR OBTAIN A COPY." Considering Feith's close ties to the Israelis, such a reaction by his top computer security officer, a Certified Information System Security Professional (CISSP), is understandable, although considering the fact that CISSPs are to act on behalf of the public good, it is also regrettable..

The reference to "third country nationals" in a report that restricts its dissemination to U.S. coalition partners (Great Britain, Poland, Italy, etc.) is another indication of the possible involvement of Israelis in the interrogation of Iraqi prisoners. Knowledge that the U.S. may have been using Israeli interrogators could have severely fractured the Bush administration's tenuous "coalition of the willing' in Iraq. General Taguba's findings were transmitted to the Coalition Forces Land Component Command on March 9, 2004, just six days before the Spanish general election, one that the opposition anti-Iraq war Socialists won. The Spanish ultimately withdrew their forces from Iraq.

During his testimony before the Senate Armed Service Committee, Rumsfeld was pressed upon by Senator John McCain about the role of the private contractors in the interrogations and abuse. McCain asked Rumsfeld four pertinent questions, ". . . who was in charge? What agency or private contractor was in charge of the interrogations? Did they have authority over the guards? And what were the instructions that they gave to the guards?"

When Rumsfeld had problems answering McCain's question, Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Central Command, said there were 37 contract interrogators used in Abu Ghraib. The two named contractors, CACI and Titan, have close ties to the Israeli military and technology communities. Last January 14, after Provost Marshal General of the Army, Major General Donald Ryder, had already uncovered abuse at Abu Ghraib, CACI's President and CEO, Dr. J.P. (Jack) London was receiving the Jerusalem Fund of Aish HaTorah's Albert Einstein Technology award at the Jerusalem City Hall, with right-wing Likud politician Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski in attendance. Oddly, CACI waited until February 2 to publicly announce the award in a press release. CACI has also received grants from U.S.-Israeli bi-national foundations.

Titan also has had close connections to Israeli interests. After his stint as CIA Director, James Woolsey served as a Titan director. Woolsey is an architect of America's Iraq policy and the chief proponent of and lobbyist for Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress. An adviser to the neo-conservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs, Project for the New American Century, Center for Security Policy, Freedom House, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Woolsey is close to Stephen Cambone, the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, a key person in the chain of command who would have not only known about the torture tactics used by U.S. and Israeli interrogators in Iraq but who would have also approved them. Cambone was associated with the Project for the New American Century and is viewed as a member of Rumsfeld's neo-conservative "cabal" within the Pentagon.

Another person considered by Pentagon insiders to have been knowledgeable about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners is U.S. Army Col. Steven Bucci, a Green Beret and Rumsfeld's military assistant and chief traffic cop for the information flow to the Defense Secretary. According to Pentagon insiders, Bucci was involved in the direction of a special covert operations unit composed of former U.S. special operations personnel who answered to the Pentagon rather than the CIA's Special Activities Division, the agency's own paramilitary group. The Pentagon group included Arabic linguists and former members of the Green Berets and Delta Force who operated covertly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan. Titan also uses linguists trained in the languages (Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Pashto, Urdu, and Tajik) of those same countries. It is not known if a link exists between Rumsfeld's covert operations unit and Titan's covert operations linguists.

Another Titan employee named in the Taguba report is Adel L. Nakhla. Nakhla is a name common among Egypt's Coptic Christian community, however, it is not known if Adel Nakhla is either an Egyptian-American or a national of Egypt. A CACI employee identified in the report, Steven Stephanowicz, is referred to as "Stefanowicz" in a number of articles on the prison abuse. Stefanowicz is the spelling used by Joe Ryan, another CACI employee assigned with Stefanowicz to Abu Ghraib. Ryan is a radio personality on KSTP, a conservative radio station in Minneapolis, who maintained a daily log of his activities in Iraq on the radio's web site before it was taken down. Ryan indicated that Stefanowicz (or Stephanowicz) continued to hold his interrogation job in Iraq even though General Taguba recommended he lose his security clearance and be terminated for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

In an even more bizarre twist, the Philadelphia Daily News identified a former expatriate public relations specialist for the government of South Australia in Adelaide named Steve Stefanowicz as possibly being the same person identified in the Taguba report. In 2000, Stefanowicz, who grew up in the Philadelphia and Allentown areas, left for Australia. On September 16, 2001, he was quoted by the Sunday Mail of Adelaide on the 911 attacks. He said of the attacks, "It was one of the most incredible and most devastating things I have ever seen. I have been in constant contact with my family and friends in the US and the mood was very solemn and quiet. But this is progressing into anger." Stefanowicz returned to the United States and volunteered for the Navy in a reserve status. His mother told the Allentown Morning Call in April 2002 that Stefanowicz was stationed somewhere in the Middle East but did not know where because of what Stefanowicz said was "security concerns." His mother told the Philadelphia Daily News that her son was in Iraq but she knew nothing about his current status.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He served in the National Security Agency (NSA) during the Reagan administration and wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II." His forthcoming book is titled: "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops, and Brass Plates."

Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com

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http://www.antiwar.com/justin

Who is John Israel?
He could be one of the secret masterminds behind the Abu Ghraib outrage

The blithering, the blathering, the pontification, and the grandstanding – that about describes the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings on the Abu Ghraib filth-fest. The Democrats were so hot to link Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directly to the scandal, and the Republicans were so busy defending their man (and the war) that neither bothered much to mention the key culprits, as identified in the Taguba report:
"I find that there is sufficient credible information to warrant an Inquiry UP Procedure 15, AR 381-10, U.S. Army Intelligence Activities, be conducted to determine the extent of culpability of M[ilitary] I[intelligence] personnel, assigned to the 205th MI Brigade and the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center (JIDC) at Abu Ghraib (BCCF). Specifically, I suspect that COL Thomas M. Pappas, LTC Steve L. Jordan, Mr. Steven Stephanowicz [sic], and Mr. John Israel were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and strongly recommend immediate disciplinary action as described in the preceding paragraphs as well as the initiation of a Procedure 15 Inquiry to determine the full extent of their culpability."
Even when General Taguba went up to Capitol Hill and testified, along with the shifty-eyed undersecretary of defense for intelligence, Stephen A. Cambone, the senators spent so much time listening to the sound of their own voices, and scoring brownie points off one another, that the subject of the "private" contractors and the intelligence community's involvement in all this only came up briefly, like lightning illuminating a cloud-clogged sky.
It came up at the start of the hearing, but Senator John Warner, who even looks like a hawk – the beakish nose, the hooded eyes, the predatory glint in his eye – approached the subject gingerly:
SEN. WARNER: "I ask the same question to you. In simple laymen's language, so it can be understood, what do you think went wrong, in terms of the failure of discipline and the failure of this interrogation process to be consistent with known regulations, national and international? And also, to what extent do you have knowledge of any participation by other than U.S. military, namely Central Intelligence Agency and/or contractors, in the performance of the interrogations?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, as far as your last question, I'll answer that first. The comments about participation of other government agencies or contractors were related to us through interviews that we conducted. It was related to our examination of written statements and, of course, some other records. With regards to your first question, sir, there was a failure of leadership..."
The media has focused on this last phrase, probably because it not only seems to indict Rumsfeld but also because it's a made-to-order headline. But the first part of Taguba's answer is the most pertinent. Warner, obviously not eager to have the general go into detail in public, then answered his own question, referring to the over 1,000 pages of documentation submitted to the committee. In short, the answer to the senator's question was clearly yes, and the details were to be found in the classified documents that only members of the committee and other privileged characters would read.
So they blithered, and they blathered, and struck poses, and not until it came Senator Daniel K. Akaka's turn was any further light shed on the dark corners of this investigation. The Hawaii Democrat looked affable enough, and he was smiling, but his questions, when they came, cut straight to the heart of the matter:
SENATOR AKAKA: "General Taguba, in your report you reference the lack of supervision over U.S. civilian contractor personnel, third country nationals and local contractors within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During your investigation, did you determine how many civilian contract personnel were working there? Who supervised these individuals? And can you describe what you observed in terms of type of access these individuals had to the detainee areas?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, we did not make a determination of how many civilian contractors were assigned to the 205th MI Brigade and operating at Abu Ghraib. I personally interviewed a translator and I also personally interviewed an interrogator, both civilians, contractors. There was also a statement, and substantiated by the witnesses that we interviewed, of another translator, a third-country national in fact, that was involved. And there was another third- country national who was acting as a translator for the interrogators that was involved in one of the interrogation incidents where dogs were used. Their supervision, sir, from the best that we could determine or discern from the information that we gathered, was they were under the supervision of the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center, the JIDC, who is then under the supervision of one, a lieutenant colonel, who was also supervised by the brigade commander, the MI brigade commander. That was the chain, sir."
Third country nationals, eh? So what third country are we talking about? Britain? Canada, perhaps? I guess we can probably rule out Monaco.
The only translator identified in the Taguba report is John Israel, supposedly a "contract translator" employed by the Titan Corp. Mr. Israel is furthermore described as not having a security clearance, an unusual condition for someone in his position – unless, of course, he's not an American, in which case it would be perfectly understandable.
So far, very interesting. But then it got even more interesting:
SEN. AKAKA: "General Taguba, your report finds that two contractors were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Were either of these contracted personnel supervising soldiers or in a position to direct soldiers to take specific actions?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, they were not in any way supervising any soldiers, MP or otherwise. However, the guards, those who were involved, looked at them as competent authority as in the manner by which they described them, as the MI or by name or by function."
A reasonable interpretation of Taguba's somewhat garbled answer is that, yes, the MPs and soldiers who committed sadistic outrages against detainees acted under the influence and at the instigation of those they believed to be intelligence officers, some of whom were "third country nationals."
Senator Akaka follows up with a question for Secretary Cambone: "What kind of training," he wanted to know, "did the U.S. civilian contractors have prior to going to Iraq?"
The look on Cambone's face made the whole dreary procedure worth it, I thought his eyebrows were going to fly right off.
It is no secret that the Israelis have been "advising" the Americans on how to run the occupation: after all, they have so much experience in the matter, and are more than eager to impart their hard-won expertise. The methods employed by Israeli security forces are quite different from those utilized by the U.S. military: the use of "limited" torture is okay by them, and the Palestinians are no strangers to the sort of treatment meted out to the inmates at Abu Ghraib. So when Senator Akaka asked Cambone what kind of training the contractors had received, my first thought was: The very best!
The Mossad is rightly feared throughout the Middle East, and the world, as the most ruthless (and daring) intelligence agency of them all. Only the KGB ever rivaled its reputation. That they would not hesitate to employ the sort of interrogation methods used to "soften up" the prisoners of Abu Ghraib is beyond dispute: just ask the Palestinians – and Human Rights Watch. That we have imported them, along with their methods, into Iraq seems altogether likely.
But, hey, wait a minute, how is it that American soldiers were taking orders from civilian contractors, never mind "third country nationals"? Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) cleared that up when he put the question to Taguba pointblank:
SEN. GRAHAM: "Part of the defense that we're going to be hearing about in these court martials is that the people that we're charging are going to say this system that we see photographic evidence of, was at least encouraged if not directed by others. Do you think that's an accurate statement?"
GEN. TAGUBA: "Sir, I would say that they were probably influenced by others –"
SEN. GRAHAM: "Okay –"
GEN. TAGUBA: " – if not necessarily directed specifically by others."
As U.S. and, in all likelihood, Israeli intelligence officers looked on approvingly, Trailer-Park Lynndie and her ex-prison guard boyfriend, with the active collaboration of the other MPs, systematically abused and degraded the inmates. So much of this nightmare scenario – the hooded prisoners forced to engage in behavior looked on with utter horror in Muslim society – seems like such a gift to Osama bin Laden that the revelation of Israeli involvement gives the whole affair a surreal quality.
For the role of CIA overseer, I nominate Steven Stefanowicz, the 34-year-old ex-Navy reservist, now a civilian interrogator supposedly employed by CACI International, who emigrated to Australia, before 9/11, and worked in "information technology" in the city of Adelaide, where – he says – he became engaged to be married. As detailed in my last column, Stefanowicz alleges he underwent a transformation after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and returned to the U.S. determined to get in on the fight, though in what capacity was never quite clear. Now it turns out he had bragged to his friends that he had joined the CIA, according to a piece in the Philadelphia Daily News:
"The Philadelphia-area native at the center of the Iraq torture scandal has reportedly told friends he wants to get out of there right away and return to Australia, where he claimed three years ago he was joining the CIA. 'It's safe to say I've seen enough for a lifetime here in Iraq, and it's definitely time to come home,' Steve Stefanowicz reportedly said in an e-mail to a friend in the southern Australian city of Adelaide. He apparently meant Adelaide and not Telford, the Montgomery County, Pa., suburb where he was reared.
"Meanwhile, another Australian friend told the Daily News in an e-mail that in fall 2001 'Steve announced to all of his friends that he was leaving Adelaide to return to America to work for the Central Intelligence Agency.'"
Alas, the Australians don't seem all that eager to have him. Justice Minister Chris Ellison said Stefanowicz "would not be welcome in Australia," according to the Herald Sun newspaper:
"'We do not hold Australia out as a haven for anyone who has broken the law and is trying to evade it,' Senator Ellison said. He said he was not aware of the details of the case but Australia would be prepared to help the U.S. in any investigation into Mr. Stefanowicz. 'We would receive any request for assistance sympathetically,' he said."
Yeah, well if I were Senator Ellison I wouldn't hold my breath. This is one refugee from the law that many in Washington would just as soon see the back of. The same goes for the mysterious John Israel, about whom next to nothing is known – except that, according to the London Telegraph,
"Mr. Israel has left Iraq while Mr. Stefanowicz is 'on leave' pending inquiries that could lead to criminal charges being brought against them."
Mr. Israel has skipped town for parts unknown, and Stefanowicz is trying to get to Australia, where he supposedly is going to marry a woman he describes as his fiancée. Except that she isn't. This news story describes Joanna Buttfield as an "former girlfriend" coming to Stefanowicz's defense. Another Australian account also refers to their relationship in the past tense, and cites this very interesting tidbit from Ms. Buttfield:
"Mr. Stefanowicz had refused to discuss details of his life as a U.S. Army reservist, she said. 'We both made a conscious decision not to talk about it because there was so much he couldn't talk about,' she said. 'It was the source of some frustration. He'd say, 'I can't talk about that'."
For a CIA guy, however, he sure sounds like a bit of a loser, and not exactly low-profile. His Australian friends are coming out of the woodwork, and talking to the newspapers:
"'The events of 9/11 had nothing to do with his motivation to return to the U.S. ,' South Philadelphia native Sam Krupsky, now an executive with the Australian Rail Track Corp., wrote [to the Philadelphia Daily News]. "He was out of work and out of luck, and left because he had no prospects here.'
"…Krupsky, the Australian rail-track worker who was born in Philadelphia and who moved to Adelaide in the mid-1970s to play semi-pro basketball, cast doubt on Stefanowicz's skills. 'Steve tried hard for a couple of months to find a job here, but was always unsuccessful because he kept freaking out all of his potential employers,' Krupsky wrote. He said Stefanowicz had boasted to friends on his arrival in Australia that he'd turned down a job offer from the CIA."
After 9/11, did he take them up on their offer – and proceed to "freak out" his new employers to a degree that not even the catty Krupsky could have imagined?
If Stefanowicz is employed by the CIA, then he certainly didn't try to keep it very secret. He was very visible, even prior to his notoriety, due to the efforts of his mother who founded a chapter of the Blue Star Mothers in their home town, and was featured on the DoD's "Defend America" website, invoking her son as a kind of patriotic model. In the wake of the scandal, a number of accounts have been published of his early history and the course of his career, both here and in Australia. We know he graduated from Souderton Area High School in 1988, and that, in 1998, he joined a Naval Reserve program. We also know that, for whatever reason, after 9/11 he quit his job in Australia as an "information technology recruiter" and went back to the U.S., where he volunteered for active duty. The Washington Post reports that "he served in Muscat, Oman, for most of 2002, and his rank is listed as intelligence specialist 3rd class. Stefanowicz, who received a number of military awards, including a medal for meritorious service, left his last post, at Willow Grove, Pa., last September." Friends of the family say he became a civilian to take a job with CACI. Of the key role Stefanowicz played in the torture chambers of Abu Ghraib, the Taguba report is unequivocal. According to General Taguba, Stefanowicz:
"Allowed and/or instructed MPs, who were not trained in interrogation techniques, to facilitate interrogations by 'setting conditions' which were neither authorized and in accordance with applicable regulations/policy. He clearly knew his instructions equated to physical abuse."
However, the General gets a bit murky when it comes to detailing the specifics against John Israel, who, in addition to not having a security clearance, is found to have
"Denied ever having seen interrogation processes in violation of the IROE, which is contrary to several witness statements."
And that is it.
While we know plenty about Stefanowicz, what's extremely odd is that nothing comparable has come out about the other civilian contractor named by General Taguba as having "direct or indirect" responsibility for the Abu Ghraib house of horrors. We don't know how old "John Israel" is, where he lives, where he was born, or what he looks like – nothing.
We don't even know where he is. All we know is that, according to the Telegraph, he's flown the coop. Gee, I'll bet Army Specialist Jeremy Sivits, who faces court martial, a stiff jail sentence, and worldwide calumny as the "torturer of Abu Ghraib," wishes he could do the same.
If the Israelis are involved in this maelstrom of evil to some extent, then the U.S. is taking the fall for them. Just as Sivits and the others are taking the fall for the intelligence officers who directed the Abu Ghraib horror show – and are so far getting away with reprimands, and relative anonymity.
– Justin Raimondo

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following URL (link) will take you right to Seymour Hersh's latest article for the New Yorker magazine which is a must read at your earliest convenience:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact

Amy Goodman did an excellent interview with Seymour Hersh this morning on the 'Democracy Now' radio program that she hosts (as you can listen to the interview via clicking on the link for it after accessing the following URL as Hersh discusses his article - the one which is linked above):

Rumsfeld Knew: Iraq Prison Abuse Part of Pentagon-Approved Black Ops Program:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/17/1431219

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looks like the Israeli association to the intelligence/torture is completely being white- washed for Israel (read former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book to see why) as the following article (URL) also conveys how closely tied the US is to Israeli 'anti-terror' tactics:

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=
3446

Israeli link possible in US torture techniques
By Ali Abunimah
Special to The Daily Star
Tuesday, May 11, 2004

In exchange for interrogation training, did Washington award security
contracts?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Israeli lessons for the US in Iraq:

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/C182D988-28E3-4D48-ADFC-F15D6509B0EC.htm

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NEOCON PENTAGON OFFICIAL CLASHES WITH GENERAL TAGUBA:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/12/officials-clash-on-roles-at-iraq-prison.php

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Is Israel behind the orders for the tortures in Iraq?:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/09/is-israel-behind-the-orders-for-the-tortures-in-iraq.php

Jason Vest had earlier written the 'Men from JINSA and CSP' article
( http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest ) for 'The Nation' about the JINSA/PNAC Neocon cabal at the Pentagon as he just came out with the following article for 'The Nation' as well which connects the neocons to the torture in the Iraqi prison (s). You can also listen his excellent interview about such on the 'To the Point' national radio program from earlier today on your computer via the following URL:

http://www.moretothepoint.com/cgi-bin/db/kcrw.pl?show_code=tp&air_date=5/18/04&tmplt_type=Show

Jason Vest's latest article can be found on the web at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040531&s=vest2

PENTAGON NEOCON CABAL ORDERED IRAQ PRISON TORTURE:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/05/17/pentagon-neocon-cabal-ordered-iraq-prison-torture.php

Alpha

Head of Sept. 11 Commission Said Iraq War for Israel:

http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2004/04/03/head-of-sept-11-commission-said-iraq-war-for-israel.php

Alpha · Posted: Fri May 21, 2004 8:21 pm Post subject: The Jewish Faction

http://www.sobran.com/articles/faction.shtml

The Jewish Faction
(Expanded from SOBRAN’S, May 2004, pages 3–6)

Text dropped from the print edition or modified solely for reasons of space appears in blue.

Jews in America are often spoken of as a “minority.” So they are, in more than a numerical sense, as I will explain. But despite their small numbers they are also a powerful faction, though the term faction is rarely applied to them.

In Federalist Number 10, James Madison gave a famous and useful definition of the word: “By a faction I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”

The organized Jewish faction is what I call the Tribe. It’s a bit more specific than “the Jews”; but it includes most Jews, who, as many opinion polls show, overwhelmingly support the state of Israel and, furthermore, overwhelmingly favor “progressive” causes like legal abortion, “sexual freedom,” and “gay rights.”

What is striking about the Tribe is not that its positions on such matters are necessarily wrong, but that they are anti-Christian. They are even anti-Judaic, in that they contravene the moral code of Moses. Jews today define themselves formally by descent (or, less politely, race, though the term is taboo) rather than by religion; and, less formally, by antagonism to Christianity. It would be inaccurate to say that the Tribe adopts certain social attitudes and political positions even though these are repugnant to most Christians. It adopts them chiefly because they are repugnant to Christians.

Within the Tribe, one of the worst sins a Jew can commit is to become a Christian, as witness Jewish hostility to Jews for Jesus. An irreligious or atheist Jew may claim Israeli citizenship at any time, but a Jew who has converted to Christianity may not. This antagonism is so predominant that the Tribe opposes not only government endorsements of Christianity, but even the public exaltation of the Old Testament (as in displays of the Ten Commandments on public property) because Christians have adopted it too. The “Judaeo-Christian tradition” is a sentimental myth, treasured by many Christians but by very few Jews.

The Tribe has no pope or authoritative body defining its creed, but its attitudes aren’t hard to discern. As Samuel Johnson says, a community must be judged non numero sed pondere — not by numbers, but by weight. And the preponderance of Jewish sentiment is clear: it loathes Christianity and Christian influence in public life. It resents Christian proselytizing, one of the first Christian duties (virtually banned in Israel). It considers the Gospels the very source of what it calls anti-Semitism. In fact, the very word anti-Semitism is basically a Tribal synonym for Christianity.

This was all spelled out for even the most naive observer by the fierce Tribal reaction to Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ. The barely concealed hatred of Christianity came roaring forth long before the movie was even finished. The columnist Charles Krauthammer spoke for many Jews when he wrote that the story of Christ’s Passion had “resulted in countless Christian massacres of Jews, and prepared Europe for the ultimate massacre — six million Jews systematically murdered within six years — in the heart, alas, of a Christian continent.” Alas indeed!

That Christianity caused the Holocaust, along with “countless” other Christian persecutions of Jews “for almost two millennia,” was a given for Jews commenting on the film. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, along with other Jewish leaders, flatly predicted that Gibson’s film would cause hatred and violence against Jews — implying, of course, that Christians are fully capable of such rabid conduct even now, though it would be directly contrary to Christian doctrine. William Safire of the New York Times virtually blamed the Holocaust on Christ himself, citing the words “I come not to bring peace, but a sword” as evidence of Christianity’s inherent violence.

Since the allegations about the past are never more definite than Krauthammer’s unspecified “countless” (would that be more, or less, than six million?), we are dealing here not with genuine historical memory, but with a mythological caricature of Christian history that still obsesses the Tribal mind, both shaping and expressing its present feelings. So much for “interfaith dialogue.” As Rabbi Jacob Neusner has observed, for most Jews today Auschwitz has replaced Sinai as the definitive moment in the Jewish past. And Auschwitz is projected all the way back to Calvary.

It’s now a Tribal article of faith that until the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Catholic Church taught that all Jews were “Christ-killers.” This is of course false, as older Catholics know first-hand and as anyone else can easily ascertain. The notion that the Church “reversed” this supposedly ancient teaching displays modern ignorance of the way the Church does business: It assumes that she can arbitrarily make and unmake doctrines, like a contemporary dictator changing the Party line overnight. She acts slowly and deliberately precisely because she can never repudiate a settled teaching while claiming infallibility. Even Catholic children used to grasp that.

When I joined the Church in 1961, the only Jews I knew personally were some quite amiable neighbors. If anyone had told me that the Halman family down the street bore special responsibility for the Crucifixion, I would have been utterly mystified. So bizarre an idea would have been an impediment to my conversion: it simply wouldn’t have made sense. And it never occurred to my Catholic mentors; they didn’t need a new Church council to tell them that it was nonsense. They didn’t speak nonsense. It had nothing to do with loving or hating Jews as such. I was far more inclined to hate Protestant heretics at that point, but I never even thought of blaming them for, say, Communist persecution of Catholics. It would have been about as rational as blaming Julius Caesar for Pearl Harbor.

The Tribe, however, embraces the mythical charge of “Christ-killing” in order to reverse it: Christians are Jew-killers. And it all began, by implication, with Christ himself, whose followers, immediately after his death, naturally began implementing his principles of charity by persecuting Jews, a course they have persisted in “for almost two millennia.”

Astute readers will sense a discrepancy here. Christians were in no position to persecute anyone for nearly three centuries, until the conversion of Constantine in A.D. 313. Meanwhile, they suffered some pretty severe persecution themselves. According to the Acts of the Apostles, it began with the Jews who rejected Christ and tried furiously to exterminate the infant Church. We also know this from the testimony of one of the persecutors themselves, the turncoat Saul of Tarsus, whom we know as St. Paul. Paul himself died as a result of charges brought by the Tribe before Roman officials, just as Christ had.

The Tribe’s cohesion and survival over the two succeeding millennia has often seemed miraculous, even to Christians. By a fine irony, the Talmud claims “credit” for Christ’s death beyond what the Church has actually taught: It says that “our sages” justly condemned him to death as a sorcerer, not even mentioning a Roman role in the event. The Gospel of John merely says that “his own received him not” and the creeds say that he “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” passing up golden opportunities to affix Tribal guilt at the outset.

At any rate, Christians knew from the start how the Tribe felt about them, and nothing has changed since then except that today’s Christians have become remarkably naive about it. Christ tells us to forgive our enemies, but he doesn’t ask us to pretend that they are our friends. He predicted persecution as the natural price of discipleship; hence we are to be “wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.” Christians have often failed on both counts, but the guidelines are clear enough. In fact, Church officials have often condemned popular Christian outrages against Jews, the worst of which occurred during the Black Death of the fourteenth century. Not only Christian charity but worldly common sense could see that the Jews were being victimized by a superstitious fury, a madness brought on by an inexplicable calamity.

Anyone who concentrates on the Tribe risks losing his sense of proportion. This includes, preeminently, the Tribe itself. If the history of Christian Europe is the history of persecution of Jews, the first question that naturally arises is why the Jews have chosen to live in Europe for so many centuries. If you were wanted for murder in Detroit, why would you choose to move to Detroit, of all places on earth? Why have “Diaspora” Jews persistently settled in Christian lands, instead of rushing en masse to their “homeland” in the Middle East, the Holy Land itself? “Next year in Jerusalem”? Why, as Dodger fans used to say, “wait till next year”?

May I utter here, in the privacy of my own newsletter, the dark and reactionary suspicion that the perpetually plaintive Tribe was actually content to live in Christian lands? Even today, more Jews choose to live in Christian America than in the state of Israel, typically attacking Christians for supposed bigotries they harbor instead of thanking Christians for their long record of tolerance and benevolence.

Again, the Tribe seems, by its own account, to have a long and puzzling tradition of migrating to anti-Semitic countries. Or rather, “anti-Semitism” is the explanation it gives for its own perpetual unpopularity, and at the root of anti-Semitism, it insists, is Christianity (though a new explanation has to be found for its unpopularity in the Muslim world).

Enough already. It’s time to face the possibility that Jewish problems are sometimes due to Jewish attitudes and Jewish behavior. My father once remarked to me that the Jews are disliked everywhere they go because of “their crooked ways.” Though, as I later learned, Dad had been an altar boy, he said nothing about Christ-killing; he’d long since left the Church and he didn’t particularly care who had killed Christ. As a matter of fact, he didn’t particularly dislike Jews; but he did think it was their ethics, not their biblical record, that had earned them their low reputation.

The popular verb jew would seem to bear him out. So do countless ethnic jokes about Jewish sharp dealing and devious conduct. So, in fact, do Talmudic passages authorizing Jews to relieve gentiles of their property, if they can do it without incurring anger against Jews in general. These are the sorts of things that actually irritate (and sometimes amuse) non-Jews. Has anyone ever heard a joke about Jews killing Christ?

The Tribe’s obloquy long predates the Third Reich’s propaganda. Government libel campaigns, a feature of the modern world of mass communication, rarely succeed for long; even popular myths die out over time. But a durable reputation, lasting over many centuries, is hard to account for unless it contains some truth confirmed by experience. Few Christians have said that the Jews killed Christ; they have always said that the Jews rejected Christ, as indeed Jews still do. The Tribe itself makes rejecting Christ a defining feature of Jewishness, even more than adhering to Judaism.

Where does the charge of Christ-killing show up in Christian culture? I have done a bit of spot-checking in English literature during the Christian era, in three famous stories about Jews.

“The Prioress’s Tale,” in The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, is a pious fable about a small boy whose throat is cut by malicious Jews, who then throw the little corpse into a pit. The story is designed to put the Jews in a bad light, by contrasting Christian piety with inhuman Jewish cruelty; yet it says nothing about the Jews’ having killed Christ.

The most famous and fascinating Jewish character in secular literature is Shakespeare’s Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. He is a villain, but he also speaks his piece so eloquently that readers are still divided over his creator’s attitude toward him. Is he more victim than villain? At any rate, one thing is clear: Though Shylock’s Christian enemies call him a bloodthirsty usurer, a “wolf,” “misbeliever,” “cutthroat dog,” and so forth, none of them, even in their most violent vituperation, suggest that he is guilty of killing Christ. The idea of Jewish guilt for the Crucifixion, which Krauthammer insists obsessed Christians “for almost two millennia,” never even crosses their minds!

More important for our purposes, Shakespeare doesn’t connect Shylock with the Crucifixion either. Shylock speaks of Christ and Christians with brusque contempt, he is tortured by his daughter’s elopement with a Christian, but, for all his cruelty, he never adverts to the Crucifixion. The play assumes enmity between Christians and Jews, but not the sort the Tribe’s rhetoric would lead us to expect.

An even more telling example is another play of the period, The Jew of Malta, usually ascribed to Christopher Marlowe. Its chief character, Barabas, is an uninhibited exaggeration of the villainous Jew: He walks abroad at night poisoning wells for the sheer, gleeful pleasure of it; he poisons his own daughter for becoming a Christian nun. His cunning malice, comic in its sheer extremity, knows no bounds; in contrast to Shylock, Barabas is robustly implausible. Yet nowhere in the play is there any hint of the theme of Christ-killing. That would be beyond even this absurd Christian fantasy of the hate-crazed Jew.

And of course Charles Dickens created an unforgettable Jewish villain: Fagin in Oliver Twist. Though far from inhuman, he is certainly disreputable, teaching urchins to pick pockets and receiving stolen goods. Dickens usually refers to him simply as “the Jew.” But again, there is no hint that this Jewish rascal bears any guilt for the Crucifixion.

Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, two of the greatest Catholic writers of the last century, were often critical of the Jews — each wrote a book about them — and today are routinely referred to as anti-Semites. Neither of them accused the Jews of killing Christ. In fact, both sought solutions to the “Jewish problem” which would be fair to Christians and Jews alike; Chesterton was pro-Zionist, Belloc anti-Zionist, and both spent many pages defending the Jews against common charges. But neither of these alleged bigots thought the accusation of deicide was worth mentioning, either to assert or to refute.

In truth, the charge of “Christ-killing” is hard to find anywhere, outside of schoolyard taunts. Yet the Tribe “remembers” it, just as innumerable baseball fans used to “remember” seeing Babe Ruth’s legendary (and apocryphal) “called shot” in the 1932 World Series, the most famous home run never hit. Such non-happenings are a regular feature of Tribal memory, as witness the many testimonies of “Holocaust survivors” that have turned out to be delusions or outright forgeries. A large proportion of the Tribe is still absolutely convinced that Pius XII was “Hitler’s Pope,” despite mountainous, and mounting, evidence to the contrary. (Hitler’s media called Pius “the Jews’ mouthpiece.”)

Similar bogus memories of victimization surround the state of Israel. Far from facing extinction in 1948, Zionist Jews enjoyed great military superiority to the Arabs and ruthlessly drove the native Palestinians from their homes with liberal applications of terrorism. Since then the Jewish state has behaved according to the harshest Jewish stereotypes, deceitfully, parasitically, and cruelly. It was supposed to provide Jews with a safe haven from persecution, where they could at last be self-sufficient; instead, it has depended for its survival on foreign aid, chiefly American. Proclaiming democracy and equality, it has imposed racial tyranny of the sort the Tribe roundly condemns everywhere else.

And it has failed in its whole original purpose of ensuring Jewish safety. Despite its military power and nuclear arsenal, it has engendered such hatred among Arabs that Jews are afraid to go there and fret for its survival — even as they fret about nonexistent Christian anti-Semitism in pro-Israel America. As the Good Book says, “The guilty flee when no man pursueth.” Zionism has vividly shown that the Tribe is perfectly capable of making enemies without the help of the Christians it still, after almost two millennia, loathes.

What is the source of this deep enduring hatred of Christianity? No doubt there are several; an obvious one is the Church’s claim to be the New Israel, a spiritual one, supplanting the old ethnic one. Even many secular Jews resent “supersessionist” Christian theology; it’s apparently an affront to be replaced as God’s Chosen People even if you no longer believe in God. This offense is avenged by blaming Christians, especially popes, for the Holocaust, any doubt of which the Tribe treats as heresy. In many Western countries the Tribe has succeeded in criminalizing the expression of such doubts.

Moreover, Christianity’s universality has given it a worldwide appeal that Judaism by its nature can never enjoy. This consigns the Tribe to a permanent minority status, confounding its proud expectation that with the coming of the Messiah it would rule all nations. Worse, Christians take it for granted that their ethic is immeasurably superior to that of the Jews; this isn’t even debatable, for the Tribe can find no ground for persuading Christians that the Jewish ethos is better. Just as the dwarf is obsessed with height in a way people of normal size can hardly imagine, the Tribe is obsessed with its marginal minority status, which it experiences as victimization, imagining slights and insults — “anti-Semitism” — even when none are intended. Its inverted pride expresses itself in claims of persecution. The Jews are still “chosen,” if only for a singular Christian hatred. The emergence and military power of the Zionist state have partly assuaged this ressentiment, while Arab hatred and Western disapproval have also reinforced the feeling of persecution.

A subtle twist on this theme is offered by John Murray Cuddihy in his book The Ordeal of Civility. For the Jews, argues Cuddihy, adapting to the modern West has indeed been an “ordeal,” as they have found themselves regarded as backward and “crude” against the “refined” standards of Western Christian man. Such Jewish ideologies as Marxism and Freudianism are disguised apologias for the Jews, denying the superiority of Western standards. For Marx, capitalism boils down to mere greed; while for Freud, romantic love boils down to mere lust. Both view Western manners as mere hypocrisy, self-deluding airs put on by the goyim. Marxist and Freudian reductionism have had tremendous attraction for Jewish intellectuals, and not a few gentiles who feel alienated from the Christian world.

The exaltation of alienation has been the distinctive achievement of the Tribal intellectual. To be alienated is to be superior, “chosen.” There is something richly symbolic in the creation of the state of Israel, where an alien population has claimed the right to dispossess the native one. Here is the psychic Tribal drama played out in the real world, with the usurpers of Palestine brazenly calling their regime a “democracy,” while feeling victimized by the angry population they’ve robbed and murdered.

President Bush sometimes says that minority children suffer from “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” They get the message that nobody expects them to achieve anything, so they don’t even try. The very term minority now signifies a group not only recognized as having what Cuddihy nicely calls “accredited victim status,” but felt to be incapable of meeting normal standards of conduct. Polish-Americans, for example, are a numerical minority, but not a “minority” in this subtly condescending sense.

One might also speak of a “soft” anti-Semitism of low moral expectations. Most gentiles respect Jews for their intelligence and ability, but they have also come to take certain kinds of Jewish misbehavior for granted. Israeli racial supremacism is assumed as inseparable from “Israel’s right to exist”; loose Jewish charges of anti-Semitism, especially against Christians, are likewise so predictable as to cause little surprise or outrage. In public life, at least, the Tribe has embraced this baneful form of “minority” status and the implicit contempt that goes with giving up hope of normal civility.

As with other “minorities,” the Christian habit with the Tribe is simply to pretend not to notice obvious and distressing things. This, we assume, is just their nature; they aren’t going to change; maybe they can’t help being this way.

This is what “interfaith dialogue” has come to: Christian despair and surrender.

Joseph Sobran

Alpha

Subj: [Fwd: Interview w/ Mahatir Mohammmed]
Date: 5/21/04 12:55:56 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Interview w/ Mahatir
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 13:18:49 -0700
From: "Jeffrey St. Clair"
To: CP <counterpunch-general@counterpunch.org>

Excerpts of interview with former Prime Minister of Malaysia Tun Dr
Mahathir Mohamad with Guy Sharett of Channel 10 TV Israel,
April 6, 2004.

Q: UNTIL now, you have never really spoken to the Israeli media, so
why did you say yes this time?

A: I have met Israeli journalists at Press conferences, but this time
I feel I must explain myself to the world and to the Israelis because
I have been misinterpreted, labelled as anti-Jew, anti-Israel, etc.
So I saw this interview as an opportunity to make some corrections.

Q: You are the leader of a Southeast Asian country where there are
hardly any Jews. There used to be a Jewish community in Penang but
not anymore. Why are you so interested in Jewish people?

A: We are not really interested in Jewish people. We are interested
in the fate of the Palestinians, and the loss of their country. They
have been expelled from their own country and to us, this is not a
religious issue between Jews and Muslims; it is a territorial issue.

You have taken somebody else's land and they want to have it back. In
the process, they have lost (more land) each time because Israel has
the backing of Europe and America.

Q: Who was the first Jew you met?

A: A fellow student who was with me in Singapore, Yahya Cohen. I have
met many others: Lord (Arnold) Weinstock, the English Jew, the former
head (managing director) of a big company there (GEC). I know quite a
lot of Jews and am friends with many of them.

Q: Did some of them tell you off after your remarks about the Jews?
What was their reaction?

A: On the contrary, they defended my stand and said I was not anti-
Jew. That is why the reaction of the Jewish community, including
members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, was mild
compared to the reaction of the Jewish community elsewhere.

Q: For Islamic countries, is the negation of Jews a unifying factor?
It seems the OIC (Organisation of the Islamic Conference) deals more
with Israel and Jews than with human rights in Syria, in Egypt,
freedom of the Press, etc. Does the Jewish conspiracy provide instant
answers for anything that goes wrong in the Muslim world?

A: No, it does not provide instant answers. Of course, we are
concerned about human rights everywhere but by comparison, the fate
of the Palestinians at the hands of Israel is something we consider
so severe and serious that we have to look into this. We are not as
serious about Syria, about so-called Press freedom, because we don't
believe there is any Press freedom at all. But we are concerned about
the fate of the Palestinians, the Chechens and other Muslim
communities.

Q: Do you understand why Israel arrests militants of Hamas before
they launch terror attacks?

A: Yes, if you know something is about to happen and you have to take
action, you have the right to do so, to detain them. We do the same
thing here as it is provided for by the law.

Q: You condemned before the Palestinian suicide bombers and you were
condemned after that.

A: I do not think it solves any problem. It is a question of revenge,
because you kill my people I will kill your people and because your
people are killed, you kill my people. And it keeps on like that and
I told them at the OIC conference that it does not solve any problem
or achieve any objective. It is far better for them to sit down and
think. And there I made the comparison with 2,000 years of Jewish
history in Europe, where you were massacred but you did not react in
kind. Instead you worked out a way of overcoming that. It has taken
you time but apparently you have succeeded.

Q: You acknowledge what happened in the holocaust during the Second
World War but still the (movie) Schindler's List was not allowed to
be shown here in Malaysia.

A: Because it is biased. It shows only one side of the story. I don't
believe that what Hitler did was right at all. We condemn it. I used
to feel very strongly about what happened to the Jews in the past but
you cannot use that as an excuse to attack other people or to kill
other people, or that people should not criticise Israel simply
because of the Holocaust.

Q: What is your definition of Jews?

A: When we talk about the Jews, principally we mean those who are
very supportive of Israeli intransigence. We know there are Jews
living in Muslim countries. Even in Iran they still have Jews and
these people do not, outwardly at least, support the activities, the
atrocities mounted by the Israelis. There used to be a division
between Zionists and Jews and we still believe the division is
pertinent. There are Jews who are ultra-nationalistic and think only
of the interest of Israel, but there are other Jews in England and in
other countries who are very rational.

Q: Why are you actually talking about Jews and not condemning Israel
as a State?

A: We have condemned Israel as a State but the fact remains that
there are many Jews living in America who are supportive of Israel
irrespective of what it does.

Q: Is there such a thing as a Jewish conspiracy?

A: Well, we would not blame everything that goes wrong with the
Muslim world on the Jews, but there are some, not very many of them,
who apparently have a way of directing the very small number of
Jewish people in a way that has given them tremendous influence over
the world.

Q: In Malaysia, race issues are considered very sensitive. You have
the Malays, Chinese and Indians and you need to maintain the social
harmony you talk about often. Don't you think that by singling out
one group like the Jews and speaking about them, saying, for example,
that they are "so arrogant they defy the whole world", you hurt the
social harmony of the world?

A: They were not like that before. Jews used to live in Muslim
countries. Historically, whenever there were pogroms in Europe, the
Jews preferred to migrate to Muslim countries. That is why in Morocco
there were a million Jews at one time and (also) in many other parts
which were ruled by the Turkish Ottomans, for example. So I am not
condemning all Jews all the time, but at present what you are doing
is something we cannot just not link with being Jewish. That is why
we single out (the Jews) at this moment, but it does not apply to
every Jew.

Q: To those Jews offended by your remarks, would you like to
apologise or to clarify or to say anything to them directly?

A: I say what I feel should be said, and I have said the same thing
about Muslims. But in my speech at the OIC, the Jews preferred not to
notice at all that I condemned terrorism, that I told the Muslims to
stop it. That is totally ignored. The only focus was on what I said
about the Jews indirectly controlling the world.

Q: Did you meet the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and could you
tell us about the letters he wrote you?

A: Yes I met Rabin when I was in Paris. We wrote to each other. I
have written to other Jewish Prime Ministers as well. I thought Rabin
was sincere in his desire to put an end to the Israeli-Palestine
conflict. But unfortunately he was assassinated.

You know when Rabin was in power we actually brought Jewish children
to Malaysia to show them that Muslims were not bad people. Of course
their encounters with Palestinians had given them the wrong
impression but they came here and mixed with our children (and) they
found us normal. I also allowed the Israeli cricket team to play here
at the risk of being condemned, but I thought it was a move to show
that when you do something positive, we should show our appreciation
in a very tangible way.

Q: Why are there Israeli embassies in Amman and Cairo, two countries
that were at war with Israel and now have a peace treaty, but there
is no Israeli representative in KL?

A: Well there is no Israeli diplomatic representation in many Muslim
countries. At the moment, Muslims generally feel that they cannot
have diplomatic relations with Israel because what is happening there
is affecting us.

Q: Malaysia does not have diplomatic relations (with Israel) but
according to the Ministry of Trade and Commerce of Israel, in 2003,
trade between the two countries amounted to US$300 million. Isn't
this a contradiction?

A: No, we do not trade directly with Israel. We export a lot of our
products to Singapore, then Singapore sells those products to other
countries. This also happened when we banned Malaysian exports to
South Africa during the apartheid period, but when we export to
Singapore or Rotterdam they then re-export to other countries. That
is beyond our control. But in our figures on trade, there is not a
single dollar that we trade with Israel.

Q: Isn't that turning a blind eye?

A: We have no means of knowing where the final destination is.

Q: If a Malaysian businessman would like to export things to Israel
can he do that directly?

A: At the moment, no.

Q: What is the regulation?

A: The regulation is that we have no diplomatic relations. We
consider Israel an unfriendly country and we do not do business with
Israel.

Q: Do you have any recommendations for Israel and Palestine to end
the conflict?

A: I think it is time Israel and Palestine recognise that this is not
a religious conflict. It is not a conflict between Muslims and Jews
or followers of Judaism. It is a territorial problem. Palestine had
lots of Arabs living there together with Jews when the Europeans
decided together with the Zionists to create the state of Israel.

You created the state of Israel, you expelled the Palestinians, you
took their land, their farms, their houses. Now, what they want to do
is to get back what they owned before.

It is like any other country. If you say Texas should be excised from
America and given to the American Indians as settlement, I am quite
sure America is going to fight and it is the same in Malaysia.

You try to take any of our land we will fight, and the same with the
Palestinians. They want back their land.

Q: What do you think of the fence being built by Israel?

A: Well, it is fine if you want to build a fence but build it in your
territory. We have a fence built between Malaysia and Thailand to
stop smuggling. It is built in Malaysia. You can walk outside the
fence and still be in Malaysia because we purposely built it within
our country to protect us from smugglers. So your fence should be in
bona fide Israeli territory.

Q: What do you think of Sheikh Ahmad Yassin's assassination?

A: I think it is an act of terror because you are killing a man who
was sick and incapable of defending himself. Now if we go around
fighting a war and killing sick people I think we would have
descended to a very low level indeed.

Q: Israel says that this sick man actually sent suicide bombers to
attack civilians in Israel.

A: Yes, true. But one can (also) say that when President Bush allows
rockets to be fired at Baghdad killing innocent people, then, Iraqis
can kill Bush because they are killing somebody who sent rockets at
them.

Q: Are you in touch with Arafat these days?

A: I can contact him if I want to. I telephone him sometimes but we
don't talk to each other that often. He has visited Malaysia. I have
discussed the problem with him and I think he is in a very desperate
situation now.

Q: Will you travel to Israel and to the Palestinian Authority to
advocate peace and to see the conflict with your own eyes?

A: If it is going to yield positive results, yes. But if it is merely
propaganda to show my interest, no.

Q: Do you think Malaysia has a role to play in propagating peace in
the Middle East?

A: Yes, we have a role, that is why we held a conference here on
terrorism, on defining terrorism. I am afraid our definition was not
acceptable to the Palestinians and to a lot of other people.

But we want to be very clear about this: When we fight against
terrorism we want to know who the terrorists are. We show a great
interest in this because it affects us now. There are now Malaysians
who have been motivated to overthrow the Government by force of arms.

Q: What is your message to Israelis?

A: We wish the Israeli people and the Jewish people peace, hopefully
in their lifetime. But to have peace they should also look at other
people's problems, not just their own. And I hope there will be
charity in the hearts of the Israeli people to resolve this without
resorting to outterrorising the terrorists.

Q: Do you see Malaysia and Israel having diplomatic relations in the
future? If so, what could be potential fields of cooperation?

A: It is not impossible. I think if you resolve your problem with the
Palestinians and people's emotions cool down, it is possible for
diplomatic relations to be established. Malaysia is a trading nation,
our trade is twice our Gross Domestic Product.

We are always looking for markets and Israel has lots of technology
we hope to be able to share.

Alpha

Subj: J.Raimondo: Hollings is right: It's all about Israel
Date: 5/21/04 4:21:54 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: rbleier@igc.org
To: rbleier@igc.org
Sent from the Internet (Details)

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2621

(Note: Visit the website for links in the text to related articles.)

May 21, 2004

Senator Hollings Is Right
It's all about Israel

by Justin Raimondo

Isn't it funny how politicians have to wait until just before going into retirement to say what they really think about Israel and its influence over Washington policymakers?

Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Illinois), formerly the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, waited until after announcing his departure from Congress to attend a symposium on the Middle East where he noted that his congressional colleagues are "not even-handed" when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "for political reasons." Rep. Hamilton went on to say:

"Israeli leaders understand our system very, very well [and] because they understand our system they can exploit it."

Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Alabama) earned the ire of Tel Aviv's lobby by opposing "emergency aid" to Israel. In a speech on the House floor, a clearly angered Callahan lashed out at the Amen Corner:

"I am going to offer amendments as we go through the bill to strike all of the aid to Israel that was included here without any request from Israel, without any request from the administration, without any requests from anybody. But someone within this beltway decided since we were going to have a supplemental bill, they were going to get some pork in it for Israel."

Please note that Callahan did this only after announcing his retirement plans. Now Senator Ernest Hollings, whose legendary disdain for political correctness has gotten him in trouble before, has joined the ranks of the belatedly honest, and said what a few others – such as Michael Kinsley, Pat Buchanan, and myself – have said all along. In an op-ed piece first published in the Charleston Post and Courier, the senator, having just announced his retirement, took up the question of why are we in Iraq, and came up with this answer:

"Now everyone knows what was not the cause. Even President Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Listing the 45 countries where al-Qaida was operating on September 11 (70 cells in the U.S.), the State Department did not list Iraq. Richard Clarke, in Against All Enemies, tells how the United States had not received any threat of terrorism for 10 years from Saddam at the time of our invasion. … Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. They are the best. They have to know. Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since would have taken us to the weapons of mass destruction if there were any or if they had been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel."

Hollings goes on to identify "a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area," naming deputy Defense Secretary and chickenhawk-in-chief Paul Wolfowitz, neoconservative hardliner and Francophile Richard Perle, and former psychiatrist and deranged warmonger Charles Krauthammer. He furthermore goes on to savage George W. Bush, whose sole thought since taking office, according to Hollings, has been reelection, with a radical tilt toward Israel by U.S. policymakers a key part of the game plan:

"Spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy is to invade Iraq. But George W. Bush, as stated by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the groundwork to invade Iraq days after inauguration. And, without any Iraq connection to 9/11, within weeks he had the Pentagon outlining a plan to invade Iraq. He was determined."

Hollings has been roundly denounced and his remarks attributed to "anti-Semitism" by Israel's amen corner in the U.S. But there is nothing secret about the open effort by the Republican party to capture the Jewish vote. The whole idea of politics, after all, is mobilizing various interest groups around a particular candidate and building a majority coalition. Pandering to ethnic blocs is a grand American political tradition: it comes with being a nation of immigrants, which is something we're all supposed to glory in. Every ethnic group of any numerical significance is pandered to, in some way, and politicians are always making ethnic-based appeals. The Republican party's outreach to the Hispanic community is pursued to the point where our President often bursts into long stretches of Spanish (perhaps because it makes him sound less inarticulate, at least to those who have no idea what he's saying). Why shouldn't he reach out to Jewish voters, too?

By calling attention to the obvious, Senator Hollings stands condemned as an "anti-Semite."

I'll tell you what else is obvious: the benefits accrued to Israel on account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The annexation of significant portions of the West Bank, and now the attack on Gaza, have both received what amounts to the imprimatur of an American President. While Israeli "advisors" teach their American pupils the basics of running an occupation, the next target on Ariel Sharon's wish list, Syria, is hit with sanctions, and accusations that Damascus is aiding the Iraqi insurgency.

Hollings is absolutely on the mark about the real reasons for this war, even if his speculation about a GOP effort to go after the Jewish vote misses the real point. What Bush is after isn't primarily the Jewish voter, but holding onto and expanding the much larger "born again" Christian fundamentalist bloc, a significant proportion of which is fanatically devoted to Israel – even over and above American interests – for wacky theological reasons. When Hollings called Prime Minister Sharon "the Bull Connor of Israel," it wasn't the Jewish vote Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was after when he demanded that Hollings apologize. South Carolina is Pat Robertson country, where the dispensationalist Christian heresy has deep roots – and even deeper political implications when it comes to this administration's foreign policy.

"Certainly, discussing and questioning policy is the right and duty of all responsible leaders. But when the debate veers into anti-Jewish stereotyping, it is tantamount to scapegoating and an appeal to ethnic hatred," says Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

But why shouldn't America's satellites avidly seek to manipulate and even control the Imperial Hegemon? After all, we hold their fate in our hands. That's what being an Empire is all about. Without American military and economic support, Israel could not and would not exist: one false move on the part of Washington, and the Jewish state would flounder and fall on the rocks of demographic reality and rising Arab nationalism.

Special interest groups of all ethnic and religious persuasions do their best to decisively influence U.S. foreign policy: why should Jews (and their "born again" Christian allies) be any different?

"This is reminiscent," raves Foxman, "of age-old, anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government." If one so much as looks cross-eyed at Ariel Sharon, Abe Foxman is reminded of Kristallnacht, but the point is that, if I were Foxman I wouldn't pull this "age-old canard" business too often. Instead of fighting anti-Semitism, Foxman's weird insistence on re-imagining half-forgotten anti-Jewish caricatures can only encourage it. But, then again, if anti-Semitism went out of business, so would Foxman's organization. It's funny how that works….

Jonah Goldberg, who is obviously engaged in some kind of contest with Foxman to see who can do the best Al Sharpton imitation, notes the names Wolfowitz, Perle, and Krauthammer, and whines:

"Funny how the only names are Jewish. What? Jeanne Kirkpatrick doesn't count? Jack Kemp? Bill Bennett? I wonder why."

Perhaps because Kirkpatrick is a figure from another era, and only played a supporting role in the propaganda campaign that lied us into war. Jack Kemp was never a major figure, and his views on Iraq seem decidedly ambivalent, at best. As for Blackjack Bill, his reputation would certainly not have encouraged Americans to take his advice and gamble on committing our troops to a risky occupation, and so, understandably, he didn't take center stage in the prewar debate.

Wolfowitz, on the other hand, is not only a high government official but also the intellectual author of this administration's policy of preemptive global hegemony. As Richard Clarke and Bob Woodward reveal, the Deputy Secretary of Defense was the earliest and most persistent advocate of war with Iraq: Wolfowitz wanted to take Baghdad before bothering with Kabul.

As for the legendary Richard Perle, the neocon "Prince of Darkness," his style – and the numerous scandals in which he's been embroiled, all of them very high profile and exceptionally smarmy – ensures his prominence. A spotlight seems to follow him about, like a shadow.

Is it really necessary to point out the reasons for Krauthammer's prominence? Surely his was one of the loudest and most militant voices raised in support of this war, and certainly his position on the op-ed page of the Washington Post automatically lends his words a certain weight. In concert with Bill Safire and David Brooks over at the New York Times, Krauthammer constitutes a crucially important link in the neocon Iron Triangle of the American punditocracy.

If all these names are Jewish, then so what? Just as many Jews, if not more, figure prominently in the antiwar camp. Goldberg, being a clever chap, realizes this, and so falls back on trying to switch the blame from the War Party to the Bushies:

"Fritz Hollings is defending himself saying that he can provide quotes from Jews in America and Israel to support his position. I'm sure he can to some extent. But so what? His charge isn't that Jews support democracy in the Middle East to secure Israel's security (and because they support democracy). His charge is that Bush went to war to placate those Jews. The quotes he needs to prove his point aren't from Jews in Tel Aviv, they're from White House officials in Washington."

If the idea is to prove Washington's willingness to go along with Ariel Sharon in spite of American interests, how about quotes from the President of the United States and U.S. government officials in response to Israel's outright annexation of parts of the West Bank, and the IDF's current rampage through Gaza? Having endorsed the Israeli Lebensraum (marketed to world opinion as a "withdrawal," albeit a partial one), our President couldn't bring himself to condemn an Israeli attack on a peaceful Palestinian demonstration that killed 10 children and wounded 50, aside from urging "restraint." Bush has consistently referred to Israel's "right of self-defense" to excuse each and every bloody incursion into Palestinian territory, no matter how brutal – and no matter how much it ratcheted up tensions between the American army of occupation and its sullen Iraqi charges.

As Israel rampages through the Holy Land with unholy determination to dominate and drive out any who stand in her way, and the promise of a pipeline from Iraq's oil fields in Mosul to Haifa comes closer to reality, the key question, qui bono? – who benefits? – demands an answer. Last year, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, now Finance Minister, told a group of British investors:

"It won't be long when you will see Iraqi oil flowing to Haifa. It is just a matter of time until the pipeline is reconstituted and Iraqi oil will flow to the Mediterranean."

Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, now a partner in Cannistraro Associates, writes in the current issue of The American Conservative that "There are rumors that the deservedly moribund pipeline project to send Iraqi oil to Haifa may again be on the table."

But the oil is just the gravy on the meatloaf, or perhaps the dessert that comes after the main course, which is Israel's improved geopolitical position as a result of the Iraq war. Syria is outflanked, and now under U.S. sanctions, while the rest of the Arab world is psychologically demoralized, politically destabilized, and militarily defeated. Bush and Sharon – or, from the Arab viewpoint, Sharon and Bush – are masters of all they survey. Arab democrats, secular nationalists, and moderates in the region are more isolated, and even more powerless, than ever: only Osama bin Laden's followers are overjoyed to see that their leader's warning of an invasion of "Crusaders and Zionists" has proved prescient.

What irks American patriots, not a few conservatives among them, is that Sharon and the Israelis have shown no restraint: they are utterly heedless of the effect of their policies on the ground in Iraq. We undertook a vast project of social and political engineering in Iraq largely on Israel's behalf, only to see that they don't feel the least bit obligated to spare us the consequences of their actions. Surely such ingratitude contributes to rising resentment against the catalytic role of Israel's supporters – both in and out of government – in dragging us into Iraq.

Senator Hollings is right: this war was, and still is, all about protecting Israel's security and plans for expansion – at our expense. Not surprisingly, the catcalls are coming from the same people who say any reference to "neoconservatives" – up until recently a word that had entered the American political lexicon (sometime in the 1970s) without a hint of ethnic overtones – is really a "code word" for Jews. What they hope to accomplish is to close down all debate on a question the War Party would just as soon not see raised. But that question – why are we in Iraq? – is one that urgently requires explaining. Jonah Goldberg may persist in applying rules of political correctness that he would never otherwise invoke, but I would urge critics of Israel to take some solace in the words of John Derbyshire, Goldberg's colleague at National Review, who invokes what he calls:

"Derbyshire's First Law": Anything – anything whatsoever – that a Gentile says about Jews or Israel will be taken as rabidly antisemitic by somebody, somewhere."

Cowboy · Posted: Sat May 22, 2004 12:05 am Post subject:

You like Hollings?? Then you should understand that Hollings, who voted for the Senate resolution approving military action in Iraq, is actually on record for achieving security for Israel and the overthrow of Saddam.

Excerpt from "First Things First" By U.S. Senator Ernest F. Hollings

Originally published in the Charleston Post and Courier, August 30, 2002

We have problems:

1. The Muslim extremists' attack on 9/11 starting the Terrorism War.
2. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
3. The Saudi Arabian and other Muslim support of terrorists.
4. At the same time, the need for Muslim support in the Terrorism War.
5. Iraq.

For the moment, the Iraq problem is easily solved. Our friend Israel, with its Mossad Intelligence, knows the Iraqi threat - nuclear, chemical, or biological. In 1981, they didn't wait for the nuclear plant to be completed in Baghdad. They knocked it out and today stand ready to knock out such a threat again. We can depend on Israel for this. But Israel must depend on America to get it out of its present fix. Prime Minister Sharon's approach to peace - bulldozing homes, sending in gun ships, and re-occupying Palestinian territories - is creating more terrorists than are being eliminated. We must put first things first. Secure Israel and deal later with Saddam.

...

Whining, "they hate us," we refuse to discuss or recognize the Palestinian cause. The cause must be confronted. "You can't kill an idea with a sword." The Terrorism War won't be won militarily. Our foreign policy must not be left to the extremes, Sharon and Arafat. Five years from now, ten years from now, fifty years from now there will be an Israel and there will be a Palestine. The only course is for the Israelis and the Palestinians to learn to live together. For this to occur, President Bush must personally meet with the Middle East leaders and work out a realistic step-by-step institution for the security of Israel and the State of Palestine. Only after that can America get the support we need around the globe for the Terrorism War and the overthrow of Saddam.

Alpha

Subj: JTA: Hollings Tells it like is about AIPAC's Power, but....
Date: 5/21/04 3:49:14 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: jblankfort@earthlink.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

...will those who claim to be supporting Palestinian rights, while
denying the lobby's power, pay him any attention? I'm not holding my
breath.

Jeff B
http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=14116&intcategoryid=3

Hollings blasts AIPAC

BEHIND THE HEADLINES
Not so gentle rhetoric from the
gentleman from South Carolina
By Matthew E. Berger

WASHINGTON May 21 (JTA) — Never known as genteel or soft-spoken, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings is ending his 38 years in the Senate with a typical bang — one that a number of Jewish groups could do without.
In a speech Thursday on the Senate floor, the South Carolina Democrat blasted the pro-Israel lobby for the second time this month and suggested that presidents and lawmakers for years have followed policy prescribed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“You can’t have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here,” Hollings said. “I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor president a chance.”

Hollings, who is retiring this year at age 82, took to the floor to defend a column he wrote in a newspaper in his home state earlier this month, suggesting that the Bush administration went to war in Iraq on Israel’s behalf.

The comments come as Democrats are fighting to retain 3-1 support among Jewish voters and campaign donors. President Bush’s vigorous prosecution of the war on terrorism and his strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have made him unusually popular, for a Republican, with Jewish voters.

Several American Jewish organizations reacted strongly to Hollings’ column, suggesting he was scapegoating the Jewish community and providing ammunition for anti-Semitic attacks.

“I don’t apologize for this column,” Hollings said. “I want them to apologize to me for talking about anti-Semitism.”

And he reiterated his view that the Iraq war was fought for Israel.

“That is not a conspiracy. That is the policy,” he said. “Everybody knows it because we want to secure our friend, Israel.”

Hollings also said that his concern for Israel and the dangers he believes the war raised for the Jewish state — “I think, frankly, we have caused more terrorism than we have gotten rid of,” he said — made him speak out.

In his newspaper column, he cited Israeli experts as saying that pre-war Iraq posed little danger to the Jewish state.

Hollings has had a mixed record in his 38 years in the Senate, and some pro-Israel lobbyists say he has a poor voting record on Israel.

He also is known for putting his foot in his mouth, and in the past has apologized for remarks that offended blacks and Japanese.

But no one was prepared for his May 6 column in the Charleston Post and Courier, suggesting that a Jewish columnist and two Jewish advisers to President Bush beat the war drums, and that the war’s aim was to enhance Israel’s security.

Hollings named columnist Charles Krauthammer; Richard Perle, the former chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; and Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy secretary of defense, as leaders of a “domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel’s security is to spread democracy in the area.”

In his Senate speech Thursday, Hollings said he did not single out the three because they are Jewish but because their writings help prove his point that Bush was misled by mistaken advice.

Hollings also suggested that Bush agreed to the war plan to secure Jewish votes for his re-election campaign.

“He came to office imbued with one thought — re-election,” Hollings wrote. “Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.”

Several American Jewish organizations rebuked Hollings for his column.

“Regardless of whether one feels that America’s war on Iraq was justified, the charge that it is being fought by the U.S. on behalf of Israel grossly misrepresents the legitimate U.S. interests that are involved in the debate,” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a letter to Hollings.

The Republican Jewish Coalition also called on Democratic leaders — including Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the party’s presumptive nominee for president — to repudiate Hollings’ statements.

In an effort to garner Jewish votes, Republicans have been working to contrast President Bush’s support for Israel with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic comments by some notable Democrats. They’re likely to add Hollings to the list.

Democrats have adopted a similar tactic, pressing Bush to repudiate a close ally, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, for suggesting recently that “Zionists” were behind terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

The National Jewish Democratic Council did not speak out against Hollings until two weeks after the column appeared. NJDC had won praise a year earlier when it was the first Jewish group to criticize Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) for suggesting that the Jewish community had pressed for the Iraq war.

Ira Forman, NJDC’s executive director, said his group had not spoken out because publicizing Hollings’ original comment might have fueled anti-Jewish sentiment.

“It’s patently absurd what Hollings said,” Forman told JTA Thursday, before NJDC’s statement was released. “The idea that Bush is going to take us to war with Iraq to swing 10 percent of 2 percent of the population is silly and stupid.”

A day later, Forman’s deputy, David Harris, said the NJDC had no problem speaking out against other Democrats who targeted Jews or Israel.

“Both parties have their outliers,” Harris said. “The only difference is we are more than happy to criticize our outliers.”

Hollings spokeswoman Ilene Zeldin told JTA that the senator stood by his floor comments and had no additional comments.

In his speech Thursday, Hollings specifically attacked AIPAC, suggesting that the organization manipulates American politics.

“I can tell you no president takes office, I don’t care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat, that all of a sudden AIPAC will tell him exactly what the policy is, and senators and members of Congress ought to sign letters,” he said. “I read those carefully and I have joined in most of them. On some I have held back. I have my own idea and my own policy. I have stated it categorically.”

AIPAC spokesman Josh Block would not comment on Hollings’ statement, referring questions to other Jewish organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

But some Democrats on Capitol Hill said Hollings was on the mark about AIPAC.

“Sen. Hollings eloquently stated what many members of Congress believe but are too afraid to say,” said one senior Democratic Hill staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Every letter or initiative pushed by AIPAC is not only not always in Israel’s best interest, but not in America’s best interest.”

The staffer said lawmakers fear they’ll lose re-election if they don’t support AIPAC. More likely, the staffer said, they’ll lose key fund-raising support or be deluged with calls and appearances from pro-Israel lobbyists and constituents.

“Sometimes it’s just easier to sign the letter,” the staffer said.

Hollings touched on a wide range of issues in the floor speech. He said his description of retired Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) a decade ago as the “senator from B’nai B’rith” was misunderstood.

He also suggested that the United States is no longer an evenhanded broker between Israel and the Palestinians, catering instead to Sharon.

“We are throwing over the United States-Israel policy of some 35 years insofar as negotiating the settlements and the refugees,” he said. “We are saying, ‘Forget about all of that, let Sharon keep bulldozing them.’ ”

Hollings’ bluntness may come from the freedom that beckons with retirement.

At one point, when asked to yield for a vote, he responded, “time is running out on me.”

War Without End

The global war against terror, news about the illegal invasion of Iraq, the corporate puppet presidents, the war criminal Tony Blair, September 11th 2001, the USS Liberty and New World Order crimes against humanity.

SENATOR SPOKE FOR MANY WHEN HE BLAMED ISRAEL FOR WAR