| Alpha | | Posted: Tue Nov 29, 2005 7:53 pm Post subject: Paul Findley on Capitol Hill, This Thursday, 2:30 pm |
| US Support of Israel is primary motivation of US terror problem:
http://representativepress.blogspot.com/2005/08/gorilla-in-room-is-us-support-for.html
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PRESS RELEASE
November 29, 2005
CNI Public Hearing
COMMON SENSE AND CLASHING CIVILIZATIONS:
Exiting Iraq, Engaging Iran and Syria
Featuring Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL)
U.S. Capitol Building,
Room SC-4
(North side of the Capitol Building)
Thursday, December 1st, 2005
2:30 to 4:30 PM
How can we prevent a "clash of civilizations"? As former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL) says, "If we fail to exit Iraq promptly, our nation and the world risk being engulfed in a wider, more grisly conflict that could suddenly degenerate into an enormous, costly clash of civilizations, Christendom versus Islam." At the hearing, Congressman Findley will present a new exit strategy for Iraq.
Paul Findley served in the U.S. Congress for 22 years, 1961 to 1983, on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. During his tenure on Capitol Hill, Mr. Findley was widely respected for his efforts to bring a fair and balanced American Middle East policy.
Joining him will be The Hon. Imad Moustapha, Syrian ambassador to the U.S. who will talk on “Syria, Challenge and Opportunity,” Prof. Lawrence Davidson and Janet Amighi, two recent visitors to Iran and Syria. They will present their analysis of current religious, economic, and political trends in the region based on their interviews, including several hours with Bashar al-Assad and his wife, and their own long involvement in the area.
Speakers include:
Paul Findley, Former Congressman from Illinois and Co-Founder, CNI
The Hon. Imad Moustapha, Syrian Ambassador to the United States
Lawrence Davidson, Professor of Middle East History, West Chester University, Pennsylvania, and Co-Author of "A Concise History of the Middle East"
Janet Amighi, Specialist on Iran and Author of books about Iran
E. Faye Williams, Moderator
Registration is required. Unregistered attendees will not be admitted. To RSVP please call 202-863-2951 or send an email to events@cnionline.org
Syrian Ambassador to US discusses 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/06/10/syrian-ambassador-mentions-a-clean-break-war-for-israel.php
US and Israel behind Hariri assassination?
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/03/13/hariri-killed-by-us-and-israel.php
JINSA/CSP/PNAC Neocons moving fast for action against Syria:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/10/21/jinsa-csp-pnac-neocons-moving-fast-for-action-against-syria.php
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Text of remarks prepared by former U.S. Rep. Paul Findley for delivery Thursday, December 1, 2005 during a panel discussion sponsored by the Council for the National Interest on Capitol Hill:
A Step-by-Step Exit From Iraq
by Paul Findley
We meet at a time of great peril to our nation, the most menacing I have known in my lifetime. I believe the invasion of Iraq is the worst U.S. blunder in a century, certainly the most menacing to the well-being of the America that I have cherished since childhood.
If we fail to exit Iraq promptly, our nation and the world risk being engulfed in a wider, more grisly conflict that could suddenly degenerate into an enormous, costly clash of civilizations—Christendom versus Islam. I choose my words carefully. I do not exaggerate.
I am distressed at President Bush’s failure to recognize this reality and change course. I am disgusted at the cavalier, superficial, almost comical way the Congress is responding to this gathering calamity.
When my service in Congress ended 22 years ago, Rep. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania Democrat decorated with Purple Hearts for his bravery in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, was already a respected voice for our nation’s military forces. Until recently, he strongly supported our war in Iraq.
Two weeks ago, choked with emotion and with tears in his eyes, Murtha surprised his colleagues by calling for an early exit from Iraq.
Sadly, his Republican colleagues responded with derision, contempt and venom. The Republican leadership displayed a warped sense of loyalty to the presidency--or perhaps simply juvenile malice—by arranging a legislative contrivance unheard of in my 22 years as a Member of Congress. The contrivance was the instant consideration of a bill that the leadership knew would be overwhelmingly defeated. It demanded the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, a reckless cut-and-run policy that Murtha and almost everyone else opposes.
Intended to ridicule Rep. Murtha, the mischief made the House leadership look foolish. Instead of embarrassing Rep. Murtha and trivializing the gravest challenge now confronting our government--the termination of our war in Iraq—the fiasco seems to have sparked a long-needed national debate on how to accomplish withdrawal.
Rep. Murtha joined a trio of federal legislators who have been bravely speaking out. It consists of two Republicans, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, and another Democrat, Cynthia McKinney of Georgia. They are great heroes whose appeals will, I fervently hope, bestir a significant shift in both public and official positions in favor of an early and complete exit from Iraq.
None, unfortunately, has set forth a step-by-step plan to accomplish the exit. In these remarks I hope to fill that void.
We must face grim reality. Our massive combat assaults in Iraq are unavailing. They have increased, not diminished, the insurgency.
Much of Iraq is now a killing field and our government—our president and our Congress—are held responsible for the slaughter. In his latest statements, President Bush admits no error and offers no change in doctrine or tactics. In a troubling statement, he says military operations will continue until Iraq is free of insurgents and until freedom and democracy are established, no matter what the cost or how long it may take. In assessing the war’s cost, we must include its broad and bloody impact on the local population. The families of fallen U.S. military personnel, while profound in number and anguish, are not the only ones forever blighted. As our war machines turn Iraqi cities and villages into rubble, uncounted Iraqi civilians are killed or maimed. Some estimates put the death toll over 100,000. Each new casualty breeds anti-American passion.
Iraqi distrust remains our forces greatest handicap. Many, if not most, of the Iraqis who fight back see our forces as an occupying power, not a liberating one. Iraqis fear that our troops, like those of past colonial powers, will stay indefinitely, manipulating the policies, both foreign and domestic, of the new government. They have reason to be suspicious. Item: at least a dozen permanent-appearing U.S. military bases now exist in Iraq. Item: senior U.S. officials occasionally predict that our forces will remain for as long as a decade, until Iraq is at peace at home and with all its neighbors. Does this mean the new government will be pressured into a treaty with Israel that will end Iraq’s long support for Palestinian rights?
These fears must be laid to rest. I must add an item that should concern President Bush. As things stand now, he faces the certainty of a bleak entry when the history of this stormy era is written. He can eliminate both of these grim prospects if he quickly announces plans for a total U.S. exit by a date certain.
His announcement must include these elements:
* A presidential order for the immediate cessation of combat initiatives within the borders of Iraq by U.S. troops and other coalition forces.
They must limit any further fire to legitimate self-defense. No more Fallujahs. No more assaults on villages and cities.
* He must promise in precise, unambiguous terms the total withdrawal of all U.S. military, diplomatic and contractor personnel soon after the new directly-elected government takes power, except for a normal diplomatic complement and Marine guards.
The deadline must be precise. I suggest nine months after the take-over. The promised withdrawal must be total. Anything short of that will leave Iraqis uncertain of President Bush’s real intentions.
* The president must specify a procedure under which certain U.S. units can be exempt from withdrawal. He should promise to exempt any U.S. units that are precisely requested by the new Iraqi government and approved by the UN Security Council.
Council approval is important because it will convey a sanction of great importance, namely, international endorsement of any continued U.S. presence in Iraq.
* The president must pledge generous U.S. funding of reconstruction projects the new government may undertake in years immediately ahead.
This announcement would effectively end U.S. involvement in Iraq in less than a year, but its provisions would avoid any onus of a cut-and-run nightmare. The plan offers the possibility, remote as it may be, of a continued U.S. presence if circumstances lead the new government and the Security Council to endorse it.
The announcement must be devoid of ambiguous words and phrases. If crystal clear, it will, I believe, inspire an immediate reduction in anti-American insurgency and go far in dismissing the widely-held belief that U.S. forces invaded Iraq mainly for Israel and oil, not to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.
These fears may be groundless, but even false ones can lead to awful consequences like suicide bombings that are intended to punish U.S. “occupiers” and the Iraqis who are viewed by insurgents as Quisling-like collaborators.
A recent scholarly study shows that most suicide bombers are motivated to this reprehensible act by fierce hostility to the presence of foreign troops. When the troops leave, suicide assaults almost always cease immediately.
Iraq may be the exception. Perhaps the U.S. invasion started a political avalanche in Iraq that must run its course. It must be noted that Sunni and Kurdish citizens fear oppression if the Shiite majority gains firm political control, but this fear is a reason for U.S. troops to depart promptly. Ultimately, Iraqis will have to solve their own internal conflicts. If civil strife is inevitable, the departure of U.S. forces by a date certain should mercifully shorten the misery
My greatest fear is that President Bush does not yet grasp the enormity of the peril at hand and will persist in his quest for a military victory. Our best hope is that a rising tide of public and congressional protest will change his mind.
There is no easy answer to the peril in which America finds itself, but I believe the step-by-step process recommended here is the best path to follow. It accomplishes full withdrawal in a way that should reduce, if not eliminate insurgency, and without causing region-wide instability. It will elicit applause from the Arab and Muslims world.
The suggested presidential announcement will also curb speculation about an emerging U.S. empire, help refurbish America’s worldwide moral standing, and end the ugly U.S. role in Iraq’s killing fields. -0-
__________________
[Paul Findley served as a Representative from Illinois, 1961-83, and is the author of three books on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the latest being Silent No More: Confronting America’s False Images of Islam. He resides in Jacksonville, Illinois].
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Lecture by former U.S. Rep. Paul Findley, sponsored by Students for Palestinian Justice, at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA on 12-1-05
JUSTICE, ONLY JUSTICE
by Paul Findley
It is an honor to discuss human rights with students dedicated to justice. Since I first found myself in the thicket of Middle East politics over thirty-five years ago—just imagine thirty-five years!—I have done little else than seek justice for the Palestinians.
I am a curiosity. At 84, I sometimes feel old enough to have heard God when he instructed Moses with these words, “Seek justice, only justice.” That command remains my watchword. My eyes are dimmer, my hearing declining. I usually speak without notes, but tonight, lest I lose my train of thought, I have a manuscript before me.
Nothing bodily works as well as it used to, but my belly still burns with the fire for justice. Like it or not, America is the main battleground in the campaign for justice for the Palestinians, and in I trust that in this audience are those who will keep aloft the flambeau of justice.
Palestine is the real ground zero and will continue to be. Our government’s failure to recognize this reality is the main reason for our invasion of Iraq and ensuing terrible season of bloodshed, fury and gathering region-wide calamity.
Because of longstanding, misguided, gross bias in U.S. foreign policy, the world teeters on the precipice of another awful, widening conflict, this time focused—sadly, unnecessarily, dangerously—on religion: Christendom versus Islam.
The world’s best chance to pull back from this precipice is by pulling our military forces back from Iraq, but, sadly, President Bush shows no sign of changing course.
To my dismay, under the Bush administration, the U.S. government emerges as a self-proclaimed imperial power and policeman.
I am not an isolationist. The world needs a policeman, but no nation-state should attempt to fill that role. World policing is the proper and urgent responsibility of a multinational organization which our government should help create.
Foreign observers cannot ignore the fact that the gathering assault against Iran’s nuclear facilities is the work of the United States, the nation possessing the world’s mightiest nuclear arsenal and the only nation that ever exploded nuclear weapons for hostile purposes. In an ominous decision, President Bush has set free the nuclear genie once again by authorizing production of America’s own new nuclear weapon, not as a laboratory experiment but for battlefield use in America’s coming wars.
How can we expect complacency and trust when our nuclear-armed president proclaims war as a ready instrument of presidential policy—not in its traditional role as an instrument of last resort?
In effect, our government tells the world it must accept our use of nuclear weapons but it does not trust others, except Israel, to acquire them. For more than thirty years, we have imposed a double standard that outrages people beyond our borders. The world knows that our government has never demanded that Israel destroy its nuclear bombs. In fact, early on, our government secretly helped Israel create nuclear weapons.
I use plain language. I may say things that you will not like, but in these perilous times I must speak the truth as I believe it to be.
Few Americans seem to recognize the peril that lies before us. Despite the wonders of the information age, most Americans do not know the truth about how our flawed policy in the Middle East came into being. Almost everyone who knows the truth is afraid to speak out.
U.S. Middle East policy is not designed by U.S. government officials. It is made by two peculiar but powerful religious communities here in America.
Both have a deep seated, passionate attachment to the State of Israel. Both are represented powerfully in Washington and throughout our society by efficient, disciplined political activists for Israel. Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. secretary of state, made a profound observation three years ago when she said the United States has an Israel-centric foreign policy. Ponder those words: an Israel-centric foreign policy.
She did not elaborate, but I will. Jewish and Christian zealots for Israel have established a suffocating level of political influence in Washington and throughout the nation. They are aided and abetted unwittingly by radicals who profess to be Muslims, people who engage in reprehensible suicide bombings and thus violate the rules of Islam by taking their own lives and the lives of innocent people.
One religious group is headed by Israel’s formal U.S. lobby, based on Washington and named the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The acronym is AIPAC. It consists almost exclusively of U.S. citizens of the Jewish faith who, for various reasons, are passionately attached to the State of Israel. My book, They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby,” explains in detail the origin, history, and techniques of this lobby.
[Cite fast reaction in FA committee]
[Cite ammo for 20 mm cannon]
Ultra-Orthodox Jews believe their messiah will not come until Greater Israel-- biblical Israel-- comes into being, and that requires the incorporation of the entire West Bank and East Jerusalem into Israel proper. In both Israel and the United States, such Jews exert political power far beyond their numbers. In Israel, they are the primary force that establishes and expands the Jewish settlements, making the West Bank look like a piece of Swiss cheese, a process that goes forward on an accelerated basis this very day.
The other religious group is the fundamentalist Christian community that has its own peculiar interpretation of the Bible’s Book of Revelations. It is not as tightly organized as Israel’s Jewish lobby, but it consists of more than seventy million citizens, and it attained great political power in recent years. The disciplined solidarity of Christian fundamentalists was the key to Bush’s reelection to the presidency.
The two groups make strange bedfellows. Jewish doctrine makes no mention of Jesus Christ, and Christian fundamentalist doctrine calls for the destruction or conversion of all Jews during the second coming of Jesus.
But the groups are bound together by an immediate interest--the survival of a strong, expanding Israel as an essential precondition for the arrival on earth of their own separate messiahs.
These two religious groups effectively control U.S. policy in the Middle East through their influence in both the legislative and executive branches of our government. They are so powerful that Congress dutifully appropriates money that fulfills Israeli demands without any serious discussion, much less real debate. No mention of the grave harm this gross bias imposes on vital U.S. national interests.
For 35 years, our government has maintained this heavy bias despite Israel’s humiliation and destruction of an entire Palestinian society that is mostly Muslim. Year after year, our government enables Israel to defy the rules of international law and the provisions of the United Nations charter by engaging in military conquest, assassinations, wholesale destruction of lives, homes, and means of livelihood. People worldwide, especially Muslims, watch this bias with mounting anti-American fury.
What is the real reason for the war in Iraq?
U.S. General Anthony Zinni, once the president’s special emissary to the Middle East, spoke the truth recently when he said Israel and oil are widely accepted in Washington, D.C., as the real reasons Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq. And any close observer of the scene would know that the comfort of Israel was by far the stronger of the two reasons.
The war in Iraq is essentially a war for Israeli interests, not American. If we commit acts of war against Iran and/or Syria, these too will be basically to help Israel.
Today’s worldwide anti-American fury should surprise no one who reads foreign newspapers or listens to BBC. In televised statements long before 9/11, Osama bin Laden, believed by U.S. authorities to have masterminded 9/11, cited U.S. complicity in Israel’s destruction of Palestinian society and its 1982 massacre of 18,000 Lebanese civilians as the principal motivations of Al-Qaida’s lethal violence.
The war in Iraq and the plight of Palestinians are two sides of the same coin. How can we expect Iraqis to trust our promises of justice and democracy while, a few miles away, we maintain our abject complicity in Israel’s denial of these rights to Palestinians?
The best way to stop the anti-American insurgency in Iraq is for the U.S. government to change course in both Iraq and Israel. We should suspend U.S. aid until Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon starts dismantling illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, instead of building new ones there at a mad pace.
In Iraq, our president should announce the total withdrawal of the U.S. presence in Iraq by an early deadline.
In a speech two weeks ago, U.S. Rep. John Murtha, a leading hawk, made a powerful case for an early exit of our forces from Iraq. His call was strengthened on November 22 when leaders of Shiia, Sunni and Kurdish factions in Iraq issued a joint statement urging a withdrawal timetable and declaring that Iraqi citizens have the inherent right to resist foreign military forces and should not be accused of terrorism for doing so.
Our withdrawal must be complete to be credible. To be credible, it must include all U.S. military and civilian personnel, including all U.S. contractors, except for units specifically requested by the new Iraqi government and approved by the UN Security Council.
A presidential announcement to this effect should end direct U.S. operations in Iraq in less than a year, but its provisions, by offering the possibility of exemptions, avoid the onus of a cut-and-run nightmare
There is no easy answer to the peril in which America finds
itself, but I believe this is the path to follow in Iraq. At a bare
minimum, presidential announcement I recommend will curb
speculation about an emerging U.S. empire, help refurbish
America’s worldwide moral standing, and end the ugly U.S. role in
Iraq’s killing fields.
If crystal clear, it will, I believe, inspire an immediate reduction in anti-American insurgency and go far in dismissing the widely-held belief that U.S. forces invaded Iraq mainly for Israel and oil, not to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people.
These fears have led to awful consequences like suicide bombings that are intended to punish U.S. “occupiers” and the Iraqis who are viewed by insurgents as Quisling-like collaborators. A recent scholarly study shows that most suicide bombers are motivated to this reprehensible act by fierce hostility to the presence of foreign troops. When the troops leave, suicide assaults almost always cease immediately.
In four visits to Iraq, I became acquainted with many well-educated, experienced citizens who seemed competent to handle their own destiny.
How did America get into this mess? It started on Capitol Hill a half-century ago. Due to the influence of Israel’s U.S. lobby, open discussion of the Arab-Israeli conflict has been non-existent in our government for almost forty years. I have firsthand knowledge, because I was a member of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee for 17 years beginning in 1967 and to this day maintain a close watch on Congress.
The lobby began its existence in the mid-fifties when a small band of U.S. partisans for Israel marshaled self-discipline and commitment. Their goal was to assure the unconditional support of Israel by the U.S. government. The horrible consequences that lay ahead were, I believe, unintended and unexpected.
But, in seeking massive, uncritical aid for Israel, they rigorously stifled dissent and intimidated not just the entire Congress but the entire nation. They still do. They defeat legislators who criticize Israel. Senators Adlai Stevenson and Charles Percy, and Reps. Paul “Pete” McCloskey, Cynthia McKinney, Earl Hilliard, and myself were defeated at the polls by candidates heavily financed by pro-Israel forces. Of the victims, only McKinney returned to Congress.
Congress behaves as if it is a subcommittee of the Israeli parliament. Nationally, not just on Capitol Hill, the State of Israel is treated as sacrosanct. It is rare when a word critical of Israel is expressed even in private conversation. This is true in the media, academia, social circles, and the business community. Most of those who know the truth about U.S. complicity in Israel’s misdeeds keep quiet. Almost everyone can provide an excuse for remaining silent. They are afraid-- yes afraid--to speak out.
With hardly a murmur of protest, the Congress recently approved resolutions saluting the prime minister of Israel for building high walls and fences that keep Palestinians penned up like cattle on their own land. For nearly 40 years, the U.S. government has been complicit in Israel’s awful scofflaw conduct.
Here is the stark truth as I believe it to be.
Nine-eleven would not have occurred if the U.S. government had refused to support Israel’s humiliation and destruction of Palestinian society. Moreover, the State of Israel would long ago have come to peaceful compromise with its Arab neighbors.
Any U.S. president during the past 38 years could have brought peace to the Middle East by suspending all U.S. aid until Israel withdrew from the Arab land it seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.
Although Israel’s U.S. lobbies are powerful, any president—even President Bush this very day—could prevail in Congress and win overwhelming public support for the suspension of aid by laying the truth before the American people: Few express this conclusion publicly, but many believe it is the truth.
My greatest fear is that President Bush does not yet grasp the enormity of the peril at hand and will persist in his quest for a military victory in Iraq and his abject support of scofflaw Israel. Our best hope is that a rising tide of public and congressional protest will change his mind.
You can help by campaigning for an early and complete U.S.
withdrawal from Iraq and the suspension of U.S. aid until Israel
starts dismantling the ugly walls by confine Palestinians like cattle
and stops building new illegal settlements that encroach on
Palestinian rights.
You can also help correct the false images of
Islam that are now widely held in America. This correction is
vitally needed. These false images are a major barrier to the
correction of our bias in Middle East policies. Dismissal of these
false images is the proper responsibility of all citizens, not just
Muslims.
These causes demand your attention. They deserve your
support. Will you help? Will you join with me in this noble
cause? I promise you that I will never give up, and I hope you too
will never give up. Never, never, never give up. -0-
Last edited by Alpha on Thu Dec 01, 2005 1:34 am; edited 3 times in total | |
