| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 12:22 pm Post subject: D.C. Notes: Wes Clark is Steamed & BORCHGRAVE |
| Smears for Fears
Wes Clark just got caught up in the rigged rules for discussing Israel-related issues in America.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12394
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/dc-notes-wes-clark-is-_b_37837.html
D.C. Notes: Wes Clark is Steamed
01.04.2007
At the packed-to-the-rafters brunch preceding Nancy Pelosi's formal swearing in, Melinda and I ran into Wes Clark (and I mean that literally; like I said, it was packed). Clark was really angry about what he'd read in this column by UPI Editor at Large Arnaud de Borchgrave**. In the piece, which Clark quickly forwarded to my BlackBerry from his Trio, de Borchgrave details Bibi Netanyahu leading the charge to lobby the Bush administration to take out Iran's nuclear facilities, and paints U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007/08 as all-but-a-done deal.
"How can you talk about bombing a country when you won't even talk to them?" said Clark. "It's outrageous. We're the United States of America; we don't do that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the military option is off the table -- but diplomacy is not what Jim Baker says it is. It's not, What will it take for you boys to support us on Iraq? It's sitting down for a couple of days and talking about our families and our hopes, and building relationships."
When we asked him what made him so sure the Bush administration was headed in this direction, he replied: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."
At one point Melinda reminded him that she was taking down everything he said (a fact that would have been hard to miss, since she was taking notes on a not-inconspicuous legal pad). His response: 'Yes, I know." For Clark, this is the biggest foreign policy issue facing the U.S. "I'm worried about the surge," he said. "But I'm worried about this even more."
-Arianna Huffington
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
**Analysis: Never again?
By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE UPI Editor at Large
WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Through history, rulers, despots, nations and empires have humbled and humiliated, and with the advent of Adolph Hitler, massacred Jews by the millions. From the Exodus from ancient Egypt to the First Crusade, which didn't distinguish between Jews and Arabs, to the Spanish Inquisition under Tomas de Torquemada, to Czarist pogroms, to the World War II Nazi genocide, some historians calculate that had Jews been treated like other citizens through the ages, they would number at least 200 million today. They now number less than 15 million. And from right to left, the five million Jews in Israel now feel threatened with extinction yet again.
In today's Israel, the overwhelming majority is now convinced Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is synonymous with a 2nd holocaust. "We stood idly by as we were led to slaughter in Hitler's concentration camps and gas chambers in the 1930s and 40s," is a refrain frequently heard in Israel these days, "but never again." In a New Year's Day message, superhawk and former Prime Minister Netanyahu Binyamin accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the kind of appeasement that threatened Israel's very existence.
Ahmadinejad recently held an international conference of holocaust deniers. And Israelis are now reminded daily that the Iranian president is a new Hitler who has to be terminated "with maximum prejudice" before a Persian nuclear weapon terminates Israel. The existential threat to Israel looms even larger, in Netanyahu's view, with the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. His critique's main points:
• The ISG report smacks of rank appeasement when it recommends talking to Syria and Iran at a time when Iran has been handed the whip hand in Iraq by the U.S. with a U.S.-facilitated, pro-Iranian Shiite-led government.
• ISG says a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a sine qua non to stabilizing the rest of the Middle East. The implied suggestion that it's now up to Israel to make further concessions to the Palestinians is yet another manifestation of appeasement. Israel must reject any perceived sign of weakness.
• In reality, if the problem of Iran, which Israel's enemies call "the strategic backbone of Hezbollah and Hamas," were solved by the forceful elimination of its nuclear facilities, or a highly unlikely voluntary return to nuclear power for peaceful purposes under U.N. inspection, the conflict with the Palestinians would become easier to tackle.
• Hezbollah and Hamas are rapidly arming themselves thanks to the Israeli government's decision to refrain from further action against them. Since the cease-fire was declared, dozens of Kassam rockets have been fired at targets in the western Negev.
• If Olmert's government reacts limply to Iran's statements about its intentions to destroy Israel, "why should we expect the world to act against them?"
• ISG says, "The majority of the political establishment in Israel has grown tired of a continuous state of a nation at war." When even Israel's leadership sends out a message of fatigue and weakness, "why should we be surprised that the world agrees?"
Netanyahu then said Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."
There are signs this is already happening in Washington. Before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika decided the ousting of Saddam Hussein had to become an integral part of the "war on terror." Eventually 60 percent of Americans thought Saddam was behind 9/11, even though there was no link between the two. Today, the Bush-Cheney team faces the same spin scenario: how to weave the global war on terror and the Shiite powers that be in Iran. This one is relatively simple: Iran trains and funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.
Anticipating the new line, Sen. Joe Lieberman (Independent-CT) referred to "Iran and al-Qaida" on Wolf Blitzer's Sunday program on CNN. That Iran is Shiite and al-Qaida Sunni becomes irrelevant in the new game plan that will most probably lead to U.S. air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2007/08. Can a Democratic Congress be bypassed under a blanket authorization already secured to hunt down transnational terrorists wherever they may be hiding?
The "neocons" who work closely with Netanyahu on what could be the next phase of a nascent regional war in the Middle East, say Bush has the authority to take out Iran's nuclear threat. Because it has only one purpose -- to take out Israel. One Hiroshima-type nuclear weapon and Israel ceases to exit.
There is little doubt president Bush's geopolitical legacy as it stands today is unacceptable to someone who identifies with Winston Churchill roaring against appeasement in the 1930s. Iraq is either an unmitigated or mitigated disaster. And year-end analyses widely published at home and abroad listed Bush among the four worst presidents in U.S. history.
And if Bush doesn't take on Iran, prominent Israelis are speculating that president Clinton 2 (Hillary) will do so. Oded Tira, the chairman of Israel's Association of Industrial Manufacturers, and former chief artillery office in the IDF, said, "Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party, which is conducting itself foolishly, and U.S. newspaper editors."
Writing in Ynet News (online Yedioth Ahronoth), Tira said, "We need to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure. Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party (must) publicly support immediate action by Bush again Iran."
As for target Iran, Tira voiced widespread belief in Israel that the Jewish state must coordinate strikes with the U.S. -- "and prepare for the Iranian response." Fearless forecast: It will be formidable.
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"AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran. AIPAC is the reason that no Democrats are coming out strongly against war with Iran. AIPAC's funding is extremely wealthy American Jews and AIPAC is pushing for war with Iran. So, when people go to Democratic politicians and they say "listen, I don't want you gettin' out in front and opposing war with Iran, particularly since you have national aspirations," they don't say it in the New York Times." - Eric Alterman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nch43wy8Zb8
http://www.zdd.se/zeb_zentralrat_europaeischer_buerger_suermeli_03092007.mp3
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran for Israel
We must not allow anyone to push us into a war with Iran. Wesley Clark told Arianna Huffington about the push for war on Iran, How can you talk about bombing a country when you wont even talk to them? said Clark. Its outrageous. Were the United States of America; we dont do that. When we asked him what made him so sure the Bush administration was headed in this direction, he replied: You just have to read whats in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers. For Clark, this is the biggest foreign policy issue facing the U.S. Im worried about the surge, he said. But Im worried about this even more., Huffington wrote on her blog. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna huffington/dc notes wes clark is _b_37837.html In his article, Eric Alterman warns about the push for President Bush to attack Iran. About Wesley Clarks concern that the attack is being pushed by New York money people, Alterman writes, I agree with Clark, but I agree that he also said what he said badly, though not anti Semitically. Alterman warns, The Bush administration is clearly attempting to create a pretext to attack Iran ... [this would result in] inciting worldwide terrorist attacks against Americans and their properties around the world, including inside the United States ... this being the Bush administration, you can count on it being done incompetently and dishonestly. Criticize the neocons for what they are actually doing or even use the word neocon and youre an anti Semite. That means they get to keep doing it even if it means they are acting on behalf of what they believe are Israels interests ... rather than Americas. We saw during the Lieberman primary that The Weekly Standard actually does care more about whats good for Israel than for America they said American Jews should behave that way, and so do Newsweeks embarrassingly crazy Rabbi Gelman and Mona Charen and a few others. If anyone on earth thinks Marty Peretz cares more about the fate of the goyim in America than the heroes in Israel, Ive never met him or her ... if you read this excellent New York Times Magazine piece on Abe Foxman, youll get a small inkling of how the system works. http://mediamatters.org/altercation/200701160005 On Bloggingheads, Alterman said, Wesley Clark, used probably some incautious language, when he said that New York money men, which many people interpret to mean Jews, were pushing us to war with Iran. However, Jews, in New York, who have a lot of money, are in fact pushing us to war with Iran. It was a factually true statement. AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran. AIPAC is the reason that no Democrats are coming out strongly against war with Iran. AIPACs funding is extremely wealthy American Jews and AIPAC is pushing for war with Iran. So, when people go to Democratic politicians and they say listen, I dont want you gettin out in front and opposing war with Iran, particularly since you have national aspirations, they dont say it in the New York Times. Wesley Clark and the anti Semitism charge
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Any supposed 'American' who is more concerned about the interests of a foreign country (Israel) has no business calling himself/herself a patriotic American from my perspective.. In his Farewell Address (which can be read at the bottom of www.astandforjustice.org ), Founding Father George Washington warned US against having a passionate attachment for any foreign country like we have for Israel today (via fifth columnist lobbying groups like AIPAC and similar). See the excellent Dutch documentary about AIPAC via the following URL (look what former assistant to Colin Powell Lawrence Wilkerson had to say near the end about WW III) :
Dutch documentary about AIPAC:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17525.htm
AIPAC and the Neocon (War for Israel) agenda (hardly any coverage in the pro-Israel biased US media about the ongoing AIPAC espionage case which had the fifth columnist AIPAC lobby pushing for US to attack Iran next for Israel like it did to get US to attack Iraq):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Rf16XjbOUs
Israel's influence of US policy & the Israeli lobby (Scott Ritter):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O125hGt9qt4&NR
A BUSH-SHARON DOCTRINE by Arnaud de Borchgrave:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/04/bombing-iran-for-israel.php
Bush's Rush to Armageddon:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/09/bush-s-rush-to-armageddon.php
Bush All Set to Attack Iran (for Israel): Report:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/02/18/bush-all-set-to-attack-iran-report.php
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From: "Jeffrey Blankfort"
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2007 07:38:28 -0800
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] Clark Says Pentagon Had Plan to Attack 7 Countries in Five Years
Gen. Wesley Clark Says Pentagon Had Plan in 2001 to Attack Seven Countries in Five Years
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2007-03-04 15:11. Evidence
This was pointed out by Kelly Gerling
This is an excerpt of Gen. Wesley Clark in a Democracy Now interview with Amy Goodman:
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I knew why, because I had been through the Pentagon right after 9/11. About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, "Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second." I said, "Well, you're too busy." He said, "No, no." He says, "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq." This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?" He said, "I don't know." He said, "I guess they don't know what else to do." So I said, "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?" He said, "No, no." He says, "There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq." He said, "I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments. " And he said, "I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, "Are we still going to war with Iraq?" And he said, "Oh, it's worse than that." He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, "I just got this down from upstairs" -- meaning the Secretary of Defense's office -- "today." And he said, "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran." I said, "Is it classified?" He said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Well, don't show it to me." And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, "You remember that?" He said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
AMY GOODMAN: I'm sorry. What did you say his name was?
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: I'm not going to give you his name.
AMY GOODMAN: So, go through the countries again.
GEN. WESLEY CLARK: Well, starting with Iraq, then Syria and Lebanon, then Libya, then Somalia and Sudan, and back to Iran.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/19200
Last edited by Alpha on Thu Feb 07, 2008 9:16 am; edited 8 times in total | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 1:20 pm Post subject: |
| For more on General Clark, you might want to take a listen to the Congressional hearing he had when he mentioned that he saw a plan for going after Syria and beyond. Also, the exchange between Richard Perle is worth listening to as well when Congressman Walter Jones was going after him (I have inside information that Jones had read Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book and had told Bamford that 'A Pretext for War' had been instrumental in turning him against the Iraq quagmire). One can listen to Clark and Perle via the following URL (click on the audio link there if you would like to):
http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/04/operating-off-different-agenda.html | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:43 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13527&print=yes
(01/12/2007)
Gen. Clark’s Controversy
Presidential contender’s comments about Israel lobby lead to fears
that
‘conspiracy theories’ are going mainstream.
James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent
Clark: Hints that "pressure" for war against Iran was "being channeled
from the New York money people to office seekers." Getty Images
After suggesting that Israel is pushing the United States into a war
with Iran, Wesley Clark, the retired general and contender for the 2004
Democratic presidential nomination, moved quickly this week to snuff
out
a fast-moving controversy that threatened to set back his rumored 2008
campaign before it formally started.
On Tuesday Clark, responding to an angry call from Anti-Defamation
League Director Abraham Foxman, issued a statement expressing his
opposition to "conspiracy theories" about the war in Iraq.
Still, the controversy was already providing fresh ammunition for
Jewish
Republicans —and worrying Jewish leaders who fear that the war in
Iraq
and the confrontation with Iran are resulting in the spread of
conspiracy theories about Jewish influence beyond a radical fringe.
In her online column last week, blogger Arianna Huffington reported on
an encounter with Clark at a brunch preceding the swearing in of Rep.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as House speaker.
Clark, she reported, was "really angry" about a column suggesting that
former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "leading the
charge" in lobbying for U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007.
Clark, who advocates negotiations with Iran, expressed concern about
what he believes is an administration plan to take military action
against that country’s nuclear facilities.
When asked how he knew the administration was planning an attack, he
said this: "You just have to read what’s in the Israeli press. The
Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being
channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."
That set off alarms in Jewish groups across the country.
Foxman, after a conversation with Clark this week, said the retired
general "didn’t deny that he said it, but said it wasn’t what he
meant."
The ADL leader told Clark that he had "bought into conspiratorial
bigotry" that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish
organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and
Iran.
Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of
the
context, coming in the wake of charges by former President Jimmy Carter
that Jewish groups are stifling debate over U.S. Mideast policy and a
book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel
of pushing for war with Iran.
And they come as the critique of the pro-Israel lobby by two respected
foreign policy scholars, who claim that the lobby pressed for war with
Iraq, gains traction in academic circles.
"While we know [Clark] is a good friend of Israel and is not an
anti-Semite, he still engaged in inappropriate language by talking
about
how Israel and Jewish money will move this country to war on Iran,"
Foxman said. "At a time when Jews are being accused of bringing about
the war in Iraq, that’s very disturbing. We know this is not the real
Clark — but he said it. We’re worried because these ideas seem to
be
moving into the mainstream. It’s not just David Duke anymore."
The Republican Jewish Coalition — which ran ads during last year’s
congressional contests arguing that the Democrats, influenced by the
likes of Carter, are increasingly hostile to Israel — quickly put a
partisan spin on the controversy.
"This is another sign that the veiled and not so veiled anti-Semitic
sentiments that are rampant in the left-wing blogosphere are seeping
into the ‘mainstream’ of Democrats’ political discourse," said
Matthew
Brooks, the group’s director.
Jewish Democrats rejected the charge as partisan overkill.
"There is no evidence whatsoever that anti-Semitism has crept into any
part of the Democratic Party," said Matt Dorf, a leading Democratic
consultant. "Instead of making such unsubstantiated charges, the
Republican Jewish Coalition should be working with us to ensure that
Iran does not succeed in becoming a nuclear power."
On Tuesday Clark, writing to Foxman, restated his belief that there is
"still time for direct dialogue (with Iran), and the United States
should take the lead. There are no guarantees that such a dialogue
would
be successful; and the option to use force should not be taken off the
table. It has been my experience that diplomacy has always been
America’s most effective tool and that force should be used only as a
last resort."
But he also said that "my position on Iran should not be
misinterpreted,
defined out of context or used to create conspiracy theories about one
group’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. There is no place in these
critical policy debates for Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that blame
the Jewish community for the war in Iraq and for action against Iran."
…
Commentary magazine - the creator of Neoconservatism
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 2007 16:55:10 -0500 (EST)
http://hnn.us/articles/32047.html
12-11-06
Where Neo-Conservatism Was Born
By Nathan Abrams
Mr. Abrams, Ph.D., is Lecturer in American History at University of
Wales, Bangor. He is the author of Journal of Significant Thought and
Opinion: Commentary Magazine 1945-1959 (2005).
The roots of much of the now-discredited policies of the Bush
administration can be found in Commentary magazine over fifty years
ago.
Commentary was the vehicle (or ‘soapbox’ as the New York Times
called
it) for the conception, gestation, birth, and transformation of
neoconservatism from a small movement to a philosophy at the very
center
of government.
Launched in 1945 by the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the oldest and
most conservative Jewish defense organization in the United States
Commentary was designed ‘to meet the need for a journal of
significant
thought and opinion on Jewish affairs and contemporary issues.’
Commentary’s first editor, Elliot E. Cohen, was a Southern-born Jew
who
had gone to Yale and had previously edited the celebrated Menorah
Journal. Under Cohen, Commentary was a general and authoritative
journal
of the highest quality that was lively and relevant to the basic and
most pressing issues on the national and the world scene and which
reached a wide, if numerically small, audience. It covered matters of
both universal interest but also of specifically Jewish concern, in a
non-Zionist intellectual, broad-based Reform Jewish contemporary tone.
Cohen guided Commentary from a small, unknown periodical in 1945 into a
significant journal of opinion and influence that Norman Podhoretz took
over in 1960. He established its main concerns and set the precedent of
an intellectual and Jewish magazine that spoke to power for the first
time. But Cohen only hinted at the possibilities of an influential
policy magazine; it was Podhoretz who took the hint and turned it into
a
full-blown reality.
Uniquely for an institutionally-funded Jewish journal in the 1940s,
Cohen was granted editorial freedom. Although the philosophy of the
Committee was to be implicit in the magazine’s contents, it was not
intended to be a house organ. Rather it was to be nonpartisan with
regard to the Jewish community politics and neither factional or
parochial in its approach, but broad and far-ranging.
‘With a perspicacity rare in voluntary organizations, Jewish or
otherwise,’ wrote Podhoretz, ‘the AJC understood that unless the
editor
of the new magazine were given a free hand and protected from any
pressures to conform to the Committee’s own line, the result would be
a
pretentious house organ and nothing more.’ And which no one would
read.
The AJC had no intention of ‘doing anything that would parochialize
the
journal,’ or limit its appeal. It never explicitly intended the
magazine
to function as a public relations journal, or as a forum for its
philosophies.
According to Podhoretz, this editorial independence ‘consisted simply
in
this: no person except the editor or anyone he might voluntarily wish
to
consult could read articles in advance of publication or could dictate
what should or should not appear in the magazine.’ It meant that the
AJC
concerned itself only with Commentary’s budget, but did not interfere
with the contents of the magazine. The journal has been seen as an
exceptional enterprise in this respect: no other organization has so
generously sponsored a publication and then left it to operate
independently.
Taking full advantage of their editorial independence, Commentary’s
editors turned Commentary into extensions of themselves, and by doing
so
it became an indispensable journal, a crucible in which neocon
arguments, especially on foreign policy, were annealed and honed.
Commentary was the womb in which neoconservatism was conceived and
gestated.
Commentary was also the intellectual teat on which neoconservatism was
suckled. Its bedrock formed the basis of that movement: staunch
anti-Stalinism and liberal anti-Communism, pro-Americanism, pro-New
Dealism, pluralism and secularism, iconoclasm, anti-Jewish
Establishmentism, and, perhaps above all, confidence, because
Commentary
exemplified confidence. These provided the props for the
neoconservative
model.
In many of the current stories about neoconservatism, Commentary has
been overlooked. But the magazine has played a vital part in both
neoconservatism and the molding of Bush’s agenda. It was in
Commentary
that the props of Bush’s neocon foreign policy were refined. Once it
had
become clear that Saddam and Iraq would not be permanent enemies after
the first Gulf War, the magazine filled the vacated space by eagerly
evoking a new category of threats: radical Arab nationalism and Islamic
fundamentalism and terrorism, as well as their sponsors like Iran,
Iraq,
North Korea, and Syria.
It focused on the need to confront the new transnational enemy from the
East, what Charles Krauthammer called the ‘global intifada.’ As far
back
as 1989, Commentary argued that the terrorist threat posed by a
radical,
vengeful interpretation of Islam was the most urgent and ominous
security threat and called for an immediate, intensified, and global
confrontation of it. It warned of the threat Islamic militant
fundamentalists posed to Western values, as signaled by the Salman
Rushdie affair. It pointed out that Mohammed Aidid’s successful
defiance
of the United States in Somalia in 1993 might be only one small taste
of
things to come.
And following the bombing of the World Trade Center in February of
1993,
it characterized Islamic fundamentalism as the clearest present danger
and ominously predicted that, the fundamentalist struggle’s systemic
preaching of hatred would eventually produce violence. Even more darkly
prophetic was its observation: ‘Manhattan’s own nightmare could
recur…’
for the ‘World Trade Center bombing suggests, the conduct even of
those
fundamentalists who were once American allies and clients cannot be
predicted.’
The Wilsonian ideal of making the world safe for democracy found much
support and space in Commentary, which revived a Wilsonian streak long
before it became currently fashionable. Both during and after the Cold
War, Commentary sought to ensure that the United States continued to
play the part of a world power and remain involved overseas.
It was part of a group of academics, intellectuals, and commentators
who
styled themselves as ‘democratic internationalists,’ who emphasized
the
necessity of American leadership in a newly unipolar world to create
the
conditions for peace and security through the defense and advance of
democracy, and who were skeptical of international organizations and
institutions. They saw the post-Cold War task of the United States was
to defend democratic allies and resist aggression by fanatical states,
promoting democratic transitions where possible, and supporting
democratic consolidation elsewhere. After the first Gulf War, in
particular, Commentary pushed the United States to encourage
liberalization and democratization in the Middle East in order to
prevent the rise of another Saddam. It called for a refashioned
American
crusade for world democracy in which America would be globally active.
Thus, only by looking back to the past, to the magazine that Elliot
Cohen created and which Norman Podhoretz inherited can we really come
to
a true understanding of the development of neoconservatism and the
roots
of the current malaise..
James D. Besser - Washington Correspondent
Clark: Hints that "pressure" for war against Iran was "being channeled
from the New York money people to office seekers." Getty Images
After suggesting that Israel is pushing the United States into a war
with Iran, Wesley Clark, the retired general and contender for the 2004
Democratic presidential nomination, moved quickly this week to snuff
out
a fast-moving controversy that threatened to set back his rumored 2008
campaign before it formally started.
On Tuesday Clark, responding to an angry call from Anti-Defamation
League Director Abraham Foxman, issued a statement expressing his
opposition to "conspiracy theories" about the war in Iraq.
Still, the controversy was already providing fresh ammunition for
Jewish
Republicans —and worrying Jewish leaders who fear that the war in
Iraq
and the confrontation with Iran are resulting in the spread of
conspiracy theories about Jewish influence beyond a radical fringe.
In her online column last week, blogger Arianna Huffington reported on
an encounter with Clark at a brunch preceding the swearing in of Rep.
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as House speaker.
Clark, she reported, was "really angry" about a column suggesting that
former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was "leading the
charge" in lobbying for U.S. air strikes against Iran in 2007.
Clark, who advocates negotiations with Iran, expressed concern about
what he believes is an administration plan to take military action
against that country’s nuclear facilities.
When asked how he knew the administration was planning an attack, he
said this: "You just have to read what’s in the Israeli press. The
Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being
channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."
That set off alarms in Jewish groups across the country.
Foxman, after a conversation with Clark this week, said the retired
general "didn’t deny that he said it, but said it wasn’t what he
meant."
The ADL leader told Clark that he had "bought into conspiratorial
bigotry" that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish
organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and
Iran.
Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of
the
context, coming in the wake of charges by former President Jimmy Carter
that Jewish groups are stifling debate over U.S. Mideast policy and a
book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel
of pushing for war with Iran.
And they come as the critique of the pro-Israel lobby by two respected
foreign policy scholars, who claim that the lobby pressed for war with
Iraq, gains traction in academic circles.
"While we know [Clark] is a good friend of Israel and is not an
anti-Semite, he still engaged in inappropriate language by talking
about
how Israel and Jewish money will move this country to war on Iran,"
Foxman said. "At a time when Jews are being accused of bringing about
the war in Iraq, that’s very disturbing. We know this is not the real
Clark — but he said it. We’re worried because these ideas seem to
be
moving into the mainstream. It’s not just David Duke anymore."
The Republican Jewish Coalition — which ran ads during last year’s
congressional contests arguing that the Democrats, influenced by the
likes of Carter, are increasingly hostile to Israel — quickly put a
partisan spin on the controversy.
"This is another sign that the veiled and not so veiled anti-Semitic
sentiments that are rampant in the left-wing blogosphere are seeping
into the ‘mainstream’ of Democrats’ political discourse," said
Matthew
Brooks, the group’s director.
Jewish Democrats rejected the charge as partisan overkill.
"There is no evidence whatsoever that anti-Semitism has crept into any
part of the Democratic Party," said Matt Dorf, a leading Democratic
consultant. "Instead of making such unsubstantiated charges, the
Republican Jewish Coalition should be working with us to ensure that
Iran does not succeed in becoming a nuclear power."
On Tuesday Clark, writing to Foxman, restated his belief that there is
"still time for direct dialogue (with Iran), and the United States
should take the lead. There are no guarantees that such a dialogue
would
be successful; and the option to use force should not be taken off the
table. It has been my experience that diplomacy has always been
America’s most effective tool and that force should be used only as a
last resort."
But he also said that "my position on Iran should not be
misinterpreted,
defined out of context or used to create conspiracy theories about one
group’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. There is no place in these
critical policy debates for Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that blame
the Jewish community for the war in Iraq and for action against Iran."
Last edited by Alpha on Mon Jan 15, 2007 12:49 pm; edited 1 time in total | | | | Alpha | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 2:40 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=12394
Smears for Fears
Wes Clark just got caught up in the rigged rules for discussing Israel-related issues in America.
By Matthew Yglesias
Web Exclusive: 01.23.07
Print Friendly | Email Article
Retired General Wesley Clark is, like me, concerned that the Bush administration is going to launch a war with Iran. Arianna Huffington spoke to him in early January and asked why he was so worried the administration was headed in this direction. According to Huffington's January 4 recounting of Clark's thoughts, he said this: "You just have to read what's in the Israeli press. The Jewish community is divided but there is so much pressure being channeled from the New York money people to the office seekers."
This, of course, is true. I'm Jewish and I don't think the United States should bomb Iran, but Thursday night I was talking to a Jewish friend and she does think the United States should bomb Iran. The Jewish community, in short, is divided on the issue. It's also true that most major American Jewish organizations cater to the views of extremely wealthy major donors whose political views are well to the right of the bulk of American Jews, one of the most liberal ethnic groups in the country. Furthermore, it's true that major Jewish organizations are trying to push the country into war. And, last, it's true that if you read the Israeli press you'll see that right-wing Israeli politicians are anticipating a military confrontation with Iran. (For example, here's an article about the timing of the selection of a new top dog in the Israeli Defense Forces; Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted as saying that the new leader "will have to straighten the army out, rebuild Israel's deterrence and prepare the defenses against threats, first and foremost, against Iran.")
Everything Clark said, in short, is true. What's more, everybody knows it's true. The worst that can truthfully be said about Clark is that he expressed himself in a slightly odd way. This, it seems clear, he did because it's a sensitive issue and he worried that if he spoke plainly he'd be accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism. So he spoke unclearly and, for his trouble, got … accused of trafficking in anti-Semitism.
James Taranto, who writes the hack "Best of the Web" column for the online version of The Wall Street Journal's hack editorial page, likened Clark's views on this to the notorious anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Scott Johnson of the influential and moronic right-wing Power Line blog argued that "Clark's comments are not simply 'anti-Israel,'" and asked "[i]s it a only a matter only of parochial concern to American Jews that they are now to be stigmatized without consequence in the traditional disgusting terms -- terms that used to result in eviction from the precincts of polite society -- by a major figure in the Democratic Party?"
Needless to say, Clark did not stigmatize American Jews. Indeed, he went out of his way to note that the American Jewish community is divided on the issue. Michael Barone's sneering attack on Clark also managed, almost incidentally, to reveal Barone's own understanding that Clark's remarks are substantially correct. Barone observed that it's "interesting to see a Democratic presidential hopeful denounce 'the New York money people,' people whom Clark spent some time with in 2003-04."
And, indeed, it is interesting, for demonstrating the bizarre rules of the road in discussing America's Israel policy. If you're offering commentary that's supportive of America's soi-disant "pro-Israel" forces, as Barone was, it's considered perfectly acceptable to note, albeit elliptically, that said forces are influential in the Democratic Party in part because they contribute large sums of money to Democratic politicians who are willing to toe the line. If, by contrast, one observes this fact by way of criticizing the influence of "pro-Israel" forces, you're denounced as an anti-Semite.
Needless to say, the increasingly ridiculous Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League, was swiftly located in order to ply his trademark tactic of accusing people of anti-Semitism that he knows perfectly well aren't anti-Semites. As The Jewish Week reported, "The ADL leader told Clark that he had 'bought into conspiratorial bigotry' that increasingly sees Israel, Jews and American Jewish organizations as the driving force behind U.S. involvement in Iraq and Iran." What's more, "Foxman said Clark’s comments are particularly worrisome because of the context, coming in the wake of," among other things, "a book by former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who accused Israel of pushing for war with Iran."
The context, I would say, is worrisome. "Israel" is not a unitary actor, but clearly some Israelis are pushing for war with Iran. More to the point, many American Jewish organizations are pushing for war with Iran. And before Foxman comes to lock me up, he might want to check out his own outfit's website, complete with a section on "The Iranian Threat." Meanwhile, over on AIPAC's site we can learn about the "escalating threat" from Iran. A group called The Israel Project has an Iran Press Kit page, linking only to alarmist takes on the Iranian nuclear issue and to a hawks-only set of expert sources. (Shockingly, none of these organizations are especially concerned that Israel won't join the Non-Proliferation Treaty Framework.)
For another example, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs gave Senator John McCain its "Scoop" Jackson Award in December; in his remarks accepting the award, McCain argued that "[t]he path to future success for Israel will not be an easy one, and there will be a number of difficult issues. Foremost on many minds, is, of course, Iran." He characterized "Tehran’s continued pursuit of nuclear weapons" as "an unacceptable risk" -- language clearly designed to lay the groundwork for war.
With this last bit, we not only see the accuracy of Clark's remark, but, once again, the stunning hypocrisy of the anti-anti-Semitism brigades. It's clear that McCain, just like Clark, sees American Jewish organizations as key players in the Iran-hawk movement in the United States, and also that he sees concern for Israeli security as motivating those groups. Nobody, however, is going to label McCain a Jew-hating conspiracy theorist -- because, of course, McCain wants to help these groups push the United States into a military confrontation with Iran. Thus, McCain gets an award, and Clark gets called an anti-Semite.
Since Clark would like to have a future in the politics game, he ended up backing down from his remarks, explaining he didn't mean what he said. Mission accomplished for those who smeared him. But would I ever suggest that Democrats have been unduly timid on the Iran issue because they fear crossing powerful "pro-Israel" institutions? Never. Only anti-Semites think stuff like that.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 5:56 pm Post subject: Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran |
| Pentagon Whistle-Blower on the Coming War With Iran
http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070227_pentagon_whistleblower_on_the_coming_war_with_iran/
Posted on Feb 27, 2007
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (ret.), a veteran of the Pentagon with firsthand experience of the administration’s cherry-picking of intelligence, reveals why Bush thinks he can win a war with Iran, why few politicians are serious about withdrawal and why “when they call Iraq a success, they mean it.”
Listen:
Download MP3 audio file (running time: 32:41 / 29.9 MB)
Transcript:
JAMES HARRIS: This is TruthDig. James Harris sitting down with Josh Scheer, and on the phone we have a special guest. She is a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, formerly working for the Pentagon, The National Security Agency. Needless to say, she knows a lot about intel and a lot about what took place and what went on before we went into Iraq and what went on with that intel. Many questions have been asked in recent weeks, obviously in recent years about what we knew, what was fabricated, what was made up. On the phone we have somebody who has been vociferous in her effort to out the wrongdoings of people like Douglas Feith and people like Donald Rumsfeld. So, Karen Kwiatkowski, welcome to TruthDig.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Thanks for having me.
JAMES HARRIS: It’s our pleasure. I want to start, not talking about Douglas Feith, but I want to get your opinion about Iraq. We know that British troops and Tony Blair have decided that they’re out. We’ve seen the commitment of other nations drop by 17 countries and our biggest partner, England, is now out. Why do you think they’re out and Bush is still in? Well we know why Bush is still in. Why now?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: It is towards the end of Tony Blair’s long, long term of duty there as the Prime Minister. And the other thing is, the British very much oppose, in spite of the fact that there are some Murdoch newspapers in Great Britain, some conservative papers, pseudo conservative I should say, not truly conservative. Truly conservatives, true conservatives have opposed this venture form the beginning. But in spite of the small, loud pro-war faction in London, most people in Britain recognize this for what it is. They have some experience in this kind of thing with, both in Middle East, particularly in Iraq years ago when they left in dishonor. LAUGHS Another time when they tried to occupy Baghdad, years and years ago, and also their experience with terrorism and movements of independents or what have you with Ireland, much more recent memory for many of the people in Great Britain. I don’t think Britain’s economy can afford it. Certainly they see the writing on the all, why get, why not get out now while George Bush is still there than be stuck with, stuck holding the bag when a Democratic president takes over and pulls the troops out abruptly in 2008, 2009. So I think there’s many reasons why they’re doing it. Some people say it is, it is because of Tony Blair’s concern over his legacy. If he doesn’t bring the troops home, his legacy will be that he left Britain in a quagmire. They are in a quagmire now and maybe he doesn’t want to leave office with that being on his record. Mainly it’s the right thing to do, the people of Britain want those troops home. And I guess their government is listening. Unlike ours.
JAMES HARRIS: The highly speculative people have said they’re out because we’re going into Iran. You might’ve read the news…
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well yeah, I don’t… I had not seen that connection made, but I certainly am alarmed at the daily signs that indeed this country is getting ready to instigate an attack on Iran. All the signs are there, the suggestions that Iranian bombs are killing American soldiers, that’s not true, but it’s certainly been made in, I think every American newspaper, the suggestion that Iran is somehow killing Americans. The suggestion that Iran has nuclear weapons, is imminently close to nuclear weapons. That is not true but that’s been, those claims are made, even by this Administration. The idea that we have two carrier battle groups currently in the region and in fact I just saw today, Admiral Walsh, one of the big guys in the Navy said that we’re very concerned about what Iran is doing even more so than Al Qaeda. So there, all the signs are there that we are being, we’re going to wake up one morning soon, very soon, and we will be at war with Iran. We will have bombed them in some sort of shock and awe campaign destroying many lives and setting back US relations even further than we’ve already done it with Iraq.
JOSH: I want to continue on Iran. You spent obviously many years in the military and you talk in those kind of terms that many people maybe not know about. Can we not just politically, and not just in the region, but can we support another war in another country? Right now we’re in Afghanistan, we’re in Iraq. Can we feasibly actually go into Iran, or is this going to be a shock and awe campaign?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: You know, I think the, one of the big reasons that Bush and Cheney think they can do Iran is that they believe, what they’re hearing from the Air Force and the Navy, two of the three main branches of our military, the two that have been left out of the glory of Iraq, you see. And those guys want a piece of the action, and so they’re advertising to the Administration and publicly, I mean you can read it for yourself, the Air Force and the Navy have targets they believe they can overwhelmingly hit their targets, deep penetration, weapons, possibly nuclear weapons, I mean, nothing is off the table as Dick Cheney is off the table, Dick Cheney says “nothing is off the table.” And the delivery of these weapons, whether they’re conventional or nuclear will be naval and Air Force. They’ll be Navy from the sea and Air Force form long range bombers and some of the bases that we have around the… so I don’t think, certainly, I don’t know, I’m not in the Army, wasn’t in the Army, I was in the Air Force, I don’t think the Army could support any type of invasion of Iran and they wouldn’t’ want to. I’m sure that they’ve, they’ve had enough with Iraq and our reserves are in terrible condition. We’ve got huge problems in the Army and in the Reserve system. So I don’t think there’s any intention to go into Iran, but simply to destroy it and to create havoc and disruption and humanitarian crisis and topple perhaps the government of [Ahmadinejad]. We want to topple that government. Yeah, we’ll do it with bombs from a distance. I don’t know if you call that shock and awe, we’ve been advertising it for a long, long time. It will not be a surprise to the Iranians if we do it.
JAMES HARRIS: That was your former boss, the shock and awe campaign. I’m still shocked and I’m awed.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: [laughs] He shocked and awed all of us.
JAMES HARRIS: As a means of understanding the level of deceit that you claim took place and I agree took place before the war. Because it, the things that are going on in and around Iran sound a lot like the things that went on in 2002…
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Sure do.
JAMES HARRIS: And I always note Scott Ritter, because I spoke to him, and I couldn’t believe that we didn’t take the advice of people like him that were saying that there’s nothing there, there’s nothing. Can you describe for us a typical day, if we went in around March, we’re approaching that anniversary, we went in around March of ‘03. What was it like in The Pentagon?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well, I worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and up until mid February I was in Near East South Asia, which is the office that owns the Office of Special Plans, they were our sister office. And so Iraq is one of the areas. And there’s a great degree of excitement, there’s a, we didn’t know when we would invade Iraq, and many people thought it would be in February, late February, early March and it actually was like I think march 23 is when we actually conducted that attack on Baghdad and that kind of thing. Most people in the Pentagon, there’s 23,000 people worked in the Pentagon. Most of those people were as in the dark as any of the Americans. They believed what they read in the papers, and what they read in the papers, particularly The New York Times and The Washington Post had been, for the most part, planted by The Administration. We know this now, the whole Congress knows this now, they’ve had a number of hearings publicly faltered, I think even the DODIG just recently faltered, Doug Feith and his whole organization for planting and mis-, providing misleading stories, many of which were later leaked on purpose to the press. A friendly press, of course, Judith Miller was not, was not hostile to the intentions of this administration. They wanted to go into Iraq, and they intended to go into Iraq. We did go into Iraq, and all that was really needed was to bring onboard the American people, and to bring onboard the Congress. But not necessarily to declare war. Congress has never been asked to declare war on Iraq. And they won’t be asked to declare war on Iran even though we will conduct that war. These guys had an agenda. In fact, one of the things that I did learn as a result of having my eyes opened in that final tour in the Pentagon is that neo-conservatives, their foreign policy is very activist, you could say that’s a nice way to say it, very activist, it’s very oriented towards the Untied States as a benevolent dictator, a benevolent guiding hand for the world, particularly the Middle East. And it’s very much a pro-Israel policy, and it’s a policy that says, we should be able to do whatever we want to do, if we see it in our interest. Now, Americans don’t see any value, most Americans, 75 percent of Americans want the troops home now. They don’t see any value to having our troops in Iraq. They didn’t see any value in that in 2002. But, they had a story sold to them, which was of course that Saddam Hussein somehow was involved with 9/11, had WMDs, and was a serious threat, an imminent threat, a grave threat to the United States.
JAMES HARRIS: For those people that think somehow that government officials, even though you work for the government, were complicit in this effort to move into Iraq. I want you to be clear, as a worker there, you were doing what you thought was right at the time. Is that a safe thing to say?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: We were doing, I’ll tell ya, there’s two parts of how the story is sold, how the propaganda was put forth on the American people, and how it’s been put forth on them today in terms of Iran. You have political appointees in every government agency, and they switch out every time you get a new president, and that’s totally normal. Usually those, the numbers increase after every president, they always get a few more. So Bush was no different. He brought in a number of political appointees: Doug Feith, certainly Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. But also a number of political appointees at what you would call a lower level, like my level - Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel level. And they’re not military officers, they’re civilians. And they’re brought in, and this is where the propaganda was kind of put together, this is where the so-called alternative intelligence assessments were put together by the civilian appointees of the Bush Administration. Most of which, in fact, probably all of the Pentagon shared a neo-conservative world vision, which has a particular role for us, and that included the topping of Saddam Hussein, and it includes the toppling of the leadership in Tehran. These guys are the ones doing it, they’re doing it. They’re putting all the propaganda, they’re spreading stories, planting stuff in the media. They’re doing that to people in The Pentagon, the civil, the Civil Service core in The Pentagon, which is about half of them, and the other half which are uniformed military officers serving anywhere from three to four, five years, sometimes tours in The Pentagon. We’re looking at regular intel, we’re looking at the stuff the CIA and the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency produces. And that stuff never said, that stuff never said Saddam Hussein had WMDs, had a delivery system, was a threat to the United States. It never said that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with 9/11 or that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda. That intelligence never said that.
JAMES HARRIS: Did they tell you to shut up?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Absolutely! [Laughs] That’s a funny thing, and of course, here’s how it worked. Once the Office of Special Plans was set u formally, now they were informally set up prior to the fall of 2002, but formally they became an office with office space and that whole bit. And the first act to follow that setup of the Office of Special Plans, we had a staff meeting, and our boss, Bill Ludy, who was the boss of Special Plans technically, not in reality but on paper. And he announced to us that from now on, action officers, staff officers such as myself and all my peers, at least in that office, and I presume this went all the way through the rest of policy, but we were told that when we needed to fill in data, putting it in papers that we would send up, doing our job, as we did our daily job, we were no longer to look at CIA and DIA intelligence, we were simply to call the Office of Special Plans and they would send down to us talking points, which we would incorporate verbatim no deletions, no additions, no modifications into every paper that we did. And of course, that was very unusual and all the action officers are looking at each other like, well that’s interesting. We’re not to look at the intelligence any more, we’re simply to go to this group of political appointees and they will provide to us word for word what we should say about Iraq, about WMD and about terrorism. And this is exactly what our orders were. And there were people [Laughs] a couple of people, and I have to say, I was not one of these people who said, “you know, I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna do that because there’s something I don’t like about it, it’s incorrect in some way.” And they experimented with sending up papers that did not follow those instructions, and those papers were 100 percent of the time returned back for correction. So we weren’t allowed to put out anything except what Office of Special Plans was producing for us. And that was only partially based on intelligence, and partially based on a political agenda. So this is how they did it. And I’ll tell you what, civil servants and military people, we follow orders, okay. And we buy into it. And we don’t suspect that our leaders are nefarious, we don’t suspect that. They, they quite frankly have to go a long way to prove to us that they are nefarious. That’s how it worked, and I imagine it’s working much the same way there in terms of Iran.
JAMES HARRIS: Obviously you’ve been in the military for quite a while. Has this every happened to your knowledge in any other Pentagon, where a political appointees have the power to just control the…
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Sure, well sure, Vietnam is filled with examples. And Daniel Ellsberg’s information and his Pentagon paper that he released factual information that contradicted what political appointees at the top of the Pentagon were saying to Congress and saying to the American people. Yeah, this is typical of how it works. Now, having said that, most people who serve and wear the uniform or give a career of service to the military, whether civilian, civil service or military, we don’t think that our bosses will do that. We don’t think that our military will do that. But in fact history is full of examples of bald-faced lies being told to sell particular agendas. Often times those agendas include war making, certainly in Vietnam they did, under LBJ and a few other presidents. Look at the thing that Reagan did. I mean, I actually don’t dislike Reagan, he deployed very few troops overseas, but when he went in to that little island down there… what is the name of that island that he invaded, Grenada. [Laughs] Remember that? Remember the Invasion of Grenada.
JOSHUA SCHEER: All eight hours?
JAMES HARRIS: It was a short one.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: I mean, God, shortly thereafter, come to find out, well actually, some of the stuff they said about the threat and the Cubans and all that wasn’t really true. So politicians and their politically appointed military leaders will lie, historically do lie when it has to do with making war, particularly making a war that they want. And what has happened in the Bush Administration is the war that they want was Iraq. And the war that they want is Iran, and the war that they want is Syria, okay? That’s the war they want. They don’t want Vietnam. I don’t know why, they don’t want Vietnam, they want these places, this is what the neo-conservatives are particularly interested in. So we have war. And they make up stories and we’re seeing the exact same thing in terms of Iran, which is quite alarming because it seems as if we can’t stop this, we can’t prevent this.
JOSH: You were talking about these political appointees and pushing us into war. Why haven’t people like Paul Wolfowitz, I mean these guys seem to feather their own nests.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: [Laughs] That’s an understatement.
JOSH: They lead us into war, Mark Zell, Doug Feith’s partner was in bed with Chalabi. It falls apart and then it seems that these guys disappear into the woodwork. What happens?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well, a big part of what happens is these guys have top cover, the names of the top cover are Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. These guys like what Wolfowitz has done. And here’s the other thing. While we as American citizens do not like being lied to, particularly being lied to into a stupid quagmire that makes no sense. We don’t’ like being lied to. Congress doesn’t like being lied to. However, many in Congress, and certainly in this administration agree, and this is Democrats and Republicans, like the idea that we have gone into Iraq, we have built four mega bases, they are complete. Most of the money we gave to Halliburton was for construction and completion of these bases. We have probably, of the 150,000, 160,000 troops we have in Iraq probably 110,000 of those folks are associated with one of those four mega bases. Safely ensconced behind acres and acres of concrete. To operate there indefinitely, no matter what happens in Baghdad, no matter who takes over, no matter if the country splits into three pieces or it stays one. No matter what happens, we have those mega bases, and there’s many in Congress and certainly in this administration, Republican and Democrat alike that really like that. Part of the reason I think that we went into Iraq was to reestablish a stronger foothold than we had in Saudi Arabia, but also a more economical, a more flexible, in terms of who we want to hit. If you want to hit Syria, can you do it from Iraq? Of course you can. And now you can do it from bases that will support any type of airplane you want, any number of troops in barracks. I mean we can do things from Iraq. And this is what they wanted. So, yeah, we don’t like being lied to. But quite frankly, many people in the Congress, and certainly this administration, when they call Iraq a success, they mean it, and this is why.
We’re in Iraq to stay. And can we strike Iran from Iraq? Well, I don’t know if we’ll do that next week, but we can.
JAMES HARRIS: We’re there to stay in the sense that even, let’s say somebody takes office in await, do you think that we’re gonna be occupying those bases still?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Absolutely! And we don’t even have status of forcive agreements with any legitimate government in Iraq to support those bases. They are illegal bases, okay. But yes, they’re gonna stay, absolutely, they’re gonna stay. And I’ll tell you, there are guys that have been with this administration for awhile, people, in fact one of the guys was an Air Force General that was involved with the Kurds ten years ago, he’s retired now, but he was actually the guy, his name escapes me for the moment, but he was Jerry Bremer’s predecessor (Jay Garner?) for a short period of time. And he was fired, and Bremer came in and took over in Baghdad as part of the reconstruction phase. This is in the Spring of 2003. And this guy gave an interview in Government Exec Magazine, February 2004, he said “we will be in Iraq, and the American people need to get with this program, we will be in Iraq like we were in the Philippines for anywhere from 20 to 30 more years. That’s the time frame that we’re looking at. And that is the life span of the bases that we’ve constructed there. Yeah, we are not leaving these bases, and a Democratic president, I don’t care who they are, will keep those basses there. They will justify them and they will use them and we love that. We love it. So it’s not about what the American people think is right or wrong, it’s not about if we got lied to, what matters is, they did what they wanted to do, and as bush says, and as Cheney says, “it’s quite the success.” And this is very frightening. Because none of this has ever been admitted to the American people, it’s only been hinted at by people that know. And of course the facts speak for themself. The facts are, we are in Iraq, we have the finest military installations in the world, the newest military installations in the world, and we’re not leaving them. We’re not turning them over to a Shiite government, we’re not turning them over to a Sunni government, we’re not turning them over to a Kurdish government. We’re not doing that. They are American bases. We’ve got our flag there. And this is kind of the way they used to do things, I guess back in the Middle Ages. Maybe the Dark Ages. A king decided he wanted to go do something, he went and did it. And this is George Bush. We call him an elected president. I mean, he’s operating much as kings have operated in the past.
JAMES HARRIS: You called him “the war pimp” in your essay. “He’s behaving,” as you put it, “a lot like a pimp would treat a prostitute, ‘you do like I tell you to do.’”
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: that’s right, and over the money. “Get back to work.” We’re using these, we use these bases, we use these people, the country, it matters not one whit to us.
JAMES HARRIS: With all we see in the news on a daily basis, is there any reason to hope? Every day I lose more and more sleep, about soldiers who are dying. You’re talking about being there another 30 years. How many more soldiers are going to be injured and killed? How much more money is this war going to cost?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Well the money, yeah, sure, the money’s a problem. The number of soldiers being killed will probably actually reduce in many ways because we will withdraw to our bases and we will not interface with Iraqis who hate us. This idea of what they’re doing right now, this so called three-block program, let’s meet more Iraqis so they’ll like us, that’s totally for show. The more Iraqis meet us, the more they hate us. So I actually do think though, over time, fewer Americans will die, and look how easily, look how easily this country has accepted the loss of those 3,200 soldiers that have died. I think something like 90 women, maybe more have died, mothers [Laughs] mothers of children. They’ve died, and America has eaten it up, we have not complained one bit. They’re spread out over 50 states, hey, it’s no big deal. So I think we can certainly, as a country, accommodate future deaths and I think the death rate will drop. The problem is, it’s immoral, it’s illegal, it engenders hatred for Americans, contempt for Americans. It makes every American in the world a target for terrorism. It’s just plain wrong, it’s unconstitutional. I mean, there’s a lot of problems with it. Dead Americans, unfortunately doesn’t seem to be the problem for most of us, which is a shame. We don’t like looking at ugly people, I will say that. And we’re seeing a lot of folks come back pretty deformed, mentally and even more obviously physically, deformed from their experiences in Iraq. And I think that could, that might give, I hate to say give hope, but realize the real moral price that we’re paying for this, that that can help. But quite frankly, I have no hope of us leaving Iraq. I think the intention was for us to put bases there, to stay there, operate militarily from there. And I think that’s what we’re going to do, Democrat, Republican, Independent, I can’t imagine anybody but Ron Paul, if you elect Ron Paul as president, those bases will be closed down. Otherwise…
JAMES HARRIS: Or Dennis Kucinich.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Or Kucinich, there you go, Kucinich would do it too. So these are the guys we are able to elect, but chances are, I hate to say, the machine is not behind these men. So yeah, we got a problem. Now is there anything optimistic? Yeah. I’m a God fearing Christian. God has the power. How He might express that, I don’t know. But yeah, can the average American do anything about it? I’m just not, I’m pretty not very, I’m not optimistic, I’m pessimistic that any single American can do much to prevent what seems to be going to happen here, attacking Iran and also this terrible thing we’ve done to Iraq which I think will continue to go on for many years. It will fester, fester for many years.
JAMES HARRIS: I’m one that believes the price of terrorism, I’m interested to get your perspective on this as one who watched us engage on this terrorist enemy, an enemy like we’d never seen before, at least from a military standpoint. I look at terrorism, and I see it tearing us apart. And in a lot of ways I look at it and say, we’ve already lost this war because we now have a president who’s bending the Constitution. We’re looking over our shoulders. We question our whereabouts. This whole thing that went on in Boston with the advertisement, “is it a bomb?” There’s always that question. Perhaps the goal of Osama, perhaps the goal of these people was to make us afraid, and they’ve succeeded at that. My question to you is, in your mind, what is the true price of terrorism been for you?
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: The military has been broken in most respects into the extent that it worked, it worked because it’s a mercenary force. We were so contracted out, we hired people that are beyond the law, that are not accountable to rules of war. And that’s how we function. So the whole military system, the idea of a defensive force, forget it, that’s done with. Constitution has been hurt by many presidents, but this president has done huge damage to understanding of the Constitution, its idea that it should restrain presidential power, that we should be conservative, small “c” conservative when we go out and engage in these adventures, the Congress has the right to declare war, we’ve ignored that for many decades. Just continued down that path. Te idea that the Bill of Rights is an option, the Bill of Rights is a set of suggestions has become almost mainstream belief. And this is terrible, this is a terrible thing. But I don’t think Osama Bin Laden did that. Terrorism is, obviously it has a political intent, but terrorism almost always, in fact I think in every case, when the political solutions are offered, when the politics change, when the people themselves change, terrorism stops. Terrorism to the extent that it is a crime, should’ve been treated like a crime, but instead we made it a war. Well there is no war with terror, terrorism is a tactic, you don’t make war against a tactic. So yeah, a lot of things have happened, I don’t think Osama had much to do with it, quite frankly, I think this administration, many of the people in Washington are quite comfortable with reduced freedoms for America and this is a good way to get those reduced freedoms, to basically break down and deconstruct the Bill of Rights and say, “well we didn’t mean that, we didn’t mean this.” It’s a problem. Our country has changed, and I think what people have to do now is kind of stand up and separate themselves from a government to the extent that they don’t agree with it and prepare themselves for real battle. Because we are gonna need to stand up very, I can use the word “vociferously,” I think that’s what we have to do, cause our own country is at risk, but not from terror, not from buildings being knocked down, that’s not what our country is at risk from, it’s at risk from our politics, from our abandonment of the Constitution, our devaluing of the Bill of Rights. We’ve lost our freedom. Osama probably couldn’t have dreamed that George Bush would help him out so much. I don’t think even that was his intention, I don’t think Osama could care less about our freedom, Osama’s issues have to do with Islam and the Holy land, Saudi Arabia, his issues are much more narrow than anything that he’s so called achieved. And I think George Bush has achieved this in a very weak and LAUGHS debased Congress has achieved this for this country. And so, it’s a big problem. I’m quite depressed about it. I don’t really have a solution or a remedy. I think we just need to wake up and see what’s being done, and then we need to decide if we want to be a part of it. It’s like that old thing, I’m not a child of the 60s, but you’re either working to fix the problem or you are the problem.
JAMES HARRIS: Why have the neo-cons been allowed, they’re not, to me, they don’t seem like the Republicans that I grew up with.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: No, no, they’re not. And if you look at the history of neo-conservatism, it really traces its roots, well back to Trotsky, but if you go more recent, back to who was the guy, Senator from Boeing (Henry Jackson) they used to call him… big Democratic, 30 year Senator out of Washington State. And Richard Perle was on his staff, Wolfowitz I think was inspired by him. And he was a Democrat during the Cold War. And he was a pro, or I should say strongly anti-Communist democrat, kind of a strong defense democrat. And these guys migrated, particularly after Jimmy Carter, because Jimmy Carter, remember, what was he doing, he was trying to make peace. Remember that, somebody got a Peace Prize out of it, I don’t know what it was, some kind of approach between Arabs and Israelis, and Carter was part of that. And that alienated a great many of these folks who now we know as neo-conservatives because they have two things that they care about, one is strong defense, for whatever reason they like that, an activist foreign policy, and pro-Israel, no questions asked policy. So many of these conservative, pro-defense democrats, anti-Communist democrats abandoned the democratic party at the time of Jimmy Carter, particularly after the time of Jimmy Carter and his summit working on Middle East peace. And they came over to eth Republican party, and of course they came over with a great deal of money and a great deal of political influence and a great deal of voters. So now they’re in the Republican party, and absolutely, this happened, late 1970s. so it is not, these are not the Republicans that we grew up thinking about, but they are in the Republican party now. Of course the Republican party now isn’t anything like what I thought it was, it’s certainly no Goldwater party, it’s a party of big spending, it’s a party of corruption. What do you want me to say? They love big government, they haven’t seen a big government plan they didn’t write.
JAMES HARRIS: Henry “Scoop” Jackson was the guy you were looking for. As we continue to search for the truth, and that’s pretty much the motto of TruthDig, we don’t believe we have the answer, but we believe that we should at least be looking for the answers. So as we approach that truth around the issues that take place in Iraq and perhaps Iran, we think you might be a good friend to have close to the TruthDig family so we’d like to check in from time to time.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Sure, I’d be delighted, it’s great fun talking. And hopefully maybe in a couple of months some of these negative things I think are going to happen, maybe they won’t happen.
JAMES HARRIS: Maybe we’ll all be proven wrong… whatever the case…
JOSH: I’m praying for it.
JAMES HARRIS: We’re both praying, even though Josh is not a religious man.
JOSH: Excuse me, I am a religious man.
KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: Maybe we’re in a foxhole together. You know what they say, there are no atheists in a foxhole, and I think in political sense, many true conservatives and classical liberals, people that love freedom, unlike George Bush, people that really love freedom, we are in a foxhole. We are threatened. And so we gotta call on every possible help we can get.
JOSH: I believe in God, I don’t believe in big religion, just like I don’t believe in big government.
JAMES HARRIS: There you go, we’re in a foxhole, so we’re on the same team.
abc.net.au
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Open Door Policy (Israeli generals visited JINSAN Douglas Feith's office at the Pentagon like they owned the place):
http://www.amconmag.com/2004_01_19/article1.html
Bush's Rush to Armageddon:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/09/bush-s-rush-to-armageddon.php
Bush All Set to Attack Iran (for Israel): Report:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/02/18/bush-all-set-to-attack-iran-report.php | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
