| Author | Message | | Alpha | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject: U.S. warns Iran to back down |
| U.S. warns Iran to back down
By JIM KRANE, Associated Press Writer 25 minutes ago
A second U.S. aircraft carrier strike group now steaming toward the Middle East is Washington's way of warning Iran to back down in its attempts to dominate the region, a top U.S. diplomat said here Tuesday.
Nicholas Burns, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, ruled out direct negotiations with Iran and said a rapprochement between Washington and Tehran was "not possible" until Iran halts uranium enrichment.
"The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region," Burns said in an address to the Dubai-based Gulf Research Center, an influential think-tank.
"Iran is going to have to understand that the United States will protect its interests if Iran seeks to confront us," Burns continued.
Iran is in a standoff with the West over its defiance of U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Iran says its atomic program is aimed solely at generating energy, but the United States and some of its allies suspect it is geared toward making weapons. The U.N. imposed limited sanctions on Iran last month.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said last week that Iran is "ready for anything" in its confrontation with the United States.
Iran conducted missile tests on Monday, the first of five days of military maneuvers southeast of Tehran.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the U.S. buildup in the Gulf was intended to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made America vulnerable.
The American aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and several accompanying ships are heading toward the Gulf to join an aircraft carrier group already in the region, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Stennis is expected to arrive in late February.
The Stennis's arrival in the Middle East will mark the first time since the U.S.-led Iraq invasion in 2003 that the United States has had two carrier battle groups in the region.
The U.S. Navy said Tuesday that the minesweeper USS Gladiator arrived in the Persian Gulf, one of six such ships — four American, two British — now plying the Gulf for anti-ship mines. U.S. officials have long said Iran was likely to block busy Gulf shipping lanes in a conflict.
Some among the audience of Dubai-based diplomats and analysts complained that American wars in the Middle East were already threatening the region's stability and asked Burns to sort out Iraq and the Israel-Palestinian conflict before turning attention to Iran.
"What we are not interested in is another war in the region," Mohammed al-Naqbi, who heads the Gulf Negotiations Center, told Burns. "Iraq is your problem, not the problem of the Arabs. You destroyed a country that had institutions. You handed that country to Iran. Now you are crying to Europe and the Arabs to help you out of this mess."
Burns' speech appeared to respond to similar comments by Iranian officials in Dubai and Bahrain last month. In December, Iran's top national security adviser, Ali Larijani, appealed to Gulf Arabs to shut down American bases on their soil and instead join Iran in a regional security alliance. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject: McCain says Bush listened to Cheney too much |
| McCain says Bush listened to Cheney too much (as if we didn't already know that!)
This story brought to you by Politico.com
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/01/23/08-war-candidate-mccain-_n_39352.html
http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=4B002C86-3048-5C12-00AE9F1E1C922D9D
McCain Bashes Cheney Over Iraq Policy
By: Roger Simon
January 22, 2007 11:40 PM EST
With his presidential hopes tied to an administration whose Iraq policy he supports but cannot control, John McCain for the first time blamed Vice President Cheney for what McCain calls the "witch's brew" of a "terribly mishandled" war in which U.S. forces are on the verge of defeat.
McCain also for the first time opened the door to the possibility of a U.S. troop pullback to the borders of Iraq should the president's planned troop surge fail.
Although McCain had once lavished praise on the vice president, he said in an interview in his Senate office: "The president listened too much to the Vice President . . . Of course, the president bears the ultimate responsibility, but he was very badly served by both the Vice President and, most of all, the Secretary of Defense."
McCain added: "Rumsfeld will go down in history, along with McNamara, as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history." Donald Rumsfeld served as President Bush's secretary of defense from January 2001 to December 2006. Robert McNamara was Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War.
McCain has long criticized Rumsfeld, but in July 2004 at a campaign rally in Lansing, Mich., McCain said he had "known and admired" Cheney for more than 20 years and described him as "one of the most capable, experienced, intelligent and steady vice presidents this country has ever had.''
But that was then and this is now, and now McCain is making clear his frustrations with the Bush administration, the Iraqi military and "bureaucratic resistance" in the Pentagon to a troop surge.
McCain said in the interview that the success of the American mission in Iraq "will be directly related to the ability of the Iraqi military to take up responsibilities. Their record is terrible." Also, he said, "There is still enormous bureaucratic resistance (to the troop surge) in the Pentagon, and it bothers me a great deal. The bureaucrats in the military are saying this is a terrible strain on the (National) Guard and the active duty forces, and it is. There is only one thing worse than an over-stressed military, and that's a defeated military. And we are on the verge of that."
McCain said that even the planned insertion of 21,500 new U.S. troops into Iraq, which he supports, may not succeed. "I don't know if this is enough troops or not," McCain said. "I can't guarantee success by doing this."
The Arizona Republican, whose 2008 presidential campaign is well under way even though he has not yet officially announced, is keenly aware of how his support for the Iraq war is making him increasingly unpopular.
"The irony of all this for me is that I am the guy that for three years -- more than three years -- has said, 'You don't have enough troops there! And you are not running this war right! And you've (ital) got (unital) to change!' " McCain said. "And now I find myself the object of scorn because I think we can't afford to leave."
But McCain also said a withdrawal of troops to the borders of Iraq could be an option if the troop surge fails.
"If this strategy doesn't succeed, we will have to devise another strategy," McCain said. "But I have to hasten to add there are no good options." One of those options, McCain said "is to withdraw to the borders (of Iraq) to try to keep other countries from interfering. Maintaining our bases in Kuwait and other places. There are a lot of scenarios." But he also said the current troop surge strategy "has to be given time."
McCain's support for the Iraq war is unpopular with Democrats and Independents and is losing support within his own party, including among some of his fellow Republican senators. Sen. Chuck Hagel, Neb., has called the troop surge "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam, if it's carried out."
Without naming names, McCain said, "It is ironic that many of my colleagues who are now wavering were those who were down the line in support (of the war) and would come back from Iraq saying that everything is fine and the troops are wonderful and it's the media (that is the problem). And I came back from my first trip saying, 'You better get more boots on the ground! You better change this.' Now I am (ital) hung (unital) with it. It's fascinating!"
"Life isn't fair, as Jack Kennedy said," McCain added with his typical mordancy.
McCain will almost certainly announce his presidential candidacy soon, but he said, "This whole Iraq situation has really diverted most of my attention."
In the primaries, McCain is in danger of being whipsawed between Republican conservatives who think he is not really one of them and Republican centrists who are opposed to the war.
"There are still some elements of the party that are very skeptical about me," McCain acknowledged. "I think also, even amongst Republicans, there is a real concern about my position on the war in Iraq."
He did, however, give a peek at his game plan to gain the White House. "Most people in New Hampshire, South Carolina, Michigan, Arizona, people around the country know me rather well," he said. "It's not as if I am a blank slate out there. Most of them, I think, have confidence that I have the experience, knowledge and background that, even though they disagree with me on a specific issue, they think I will do the right thing. Or at least what I believe is right."
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Tue Jan 23, 2007 10:54 pm Post subject: |
| January 22, 2007
Intelligence vs. Evidence
The Axis of Deception is lying us into war – again
by Justin Raimondo
In his most recent peroration defending our escalating war of "liberation" in the Middle East, our Dear and Glorious Leader opined that Iran was stirring the Iraqi pot, and he strongly implied that they'd better back off – or else. Vowing to guarantee Iraq's borders and territorial integrity, the president declared:
"This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
These charges have been persistently pressed by this administration since the U.S. colonial administration set up shop in the Green Zone: first, the insurgency was said to consist primarily of "foreign fighters" and Ba'athist "dead-enders," as Rumsfeld put it. Later, however, as the popular character of the insurgency became undeniable, the party line shifted to pointing the finger at Iran and its ally Syria: the mullahs of Tehran are arming and funding the Sunni insurgency, as well as aiding and encouraging Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, a radical Shi'ite militia. Resistance to the Americans has nothing to do with the daily depredations and humiliations of an occupied people: Iraqis acting at the behest of "foreign" influences, i.e., the Iranians, are killing increasing numbers of American soldiers as well as their fellow Iraqis.
The British dispute this, with Defense Secretary Des Browne averring:
"I have not myself seen any evidence – and I don't think any evidence exists – of government-supported or instigated armed support on Iran's part in Iraq."
The British military backs him up. "It's a question of intelligence versus evidence," says Basra-based Brig. James Everard of Britain's 20th Armored Brigade. "One hears word of mouth, but one has to see it with one's own eyes."
This "intelligence" vs. evidence dichotomy is useful in understanding how we got dragged into Iraq in the first place. You'll recall that we had scads of intelligence coming at us, including on the front page of the New York Times, such that even most war opponents – present company excluded – conceded that Saddam undoubtedly did have "weapons of mass destruction," but that, for other reasons, we ought to at least delay attacking him. There was, however, as some of uspointed out at the time, no hard evidence of Iraq's fabled WMD. Like tales of the Yeti and the Loch Ness monster, breathless stories of the Saddam Bomb, ubiquitous since the early 1990s, turned out to be utterly false, imaginative narratives spun by Ahmed Chalabi and his fellow "heroes in error," with a little help from Judith Miller. I suppose it takes a libertarian to fully appreciate the irony of how American taxpayers paid for their own deception.
Once again, we are seeing the victory of "intelligence" over solid evidence, this time in the run-up to war with Iran. Wayne White, until 2005 the deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's Near Eastern Division, has this to say about allegations of Tehran's ties to Iraqi insurgent groups:
"I have no doubt whatsoever that al-Quds forces are on the ground and active in Iraq. That's about it. I saw evidence that Moqtada al-Sadr was in contact with Sunni Arab insurgents in western Iraq, but I never saw evidence of Iran in that loop."
The New York Sun piece in which this citation appears purports to reveal "Iran's Secret Plan for Mayhem" in Iraq, supposedly based on captured "secret documents" – and also reminds readers that "in 2003, coalition forces captured a playbook outlining Iranian intentions to support insurgents of both stripes, but its authenticity was disputed."
Yeah, I'll bet – not that the history of the gang that lied us into war would in any way cause us to suspect the authenticity of key documents and other "intelligence" produced by them. The same lie factory that churned out war propaganda based on lies, half-truths, and outright forgeries is being revved up once again, this time in the service of a new and even more dangerous war plan.
White, who worked as a top analyst for the State Department's own intelligence agency, has also revealed the frightening scope of this administration's war intentions:
"I've seen some of the planning. … You're not talking about a surgical strike. You're talking about a war against Iran that likely would destabilize the Middle East for years. We're not talking about just surgical strikes against an array of targets inside Iran. We're talking about clearing a path to the targets by taking out much of the Iranian Air Force, Kilo submarines, anti-ship missiles that could target commerce or U.S. warships in the Gulf, and maybe even Iran's ballistic missile capability."
Forget the Iraqi civil war: the consequences of a U.S. military confrontation with Iran could prove particularly deadly to our troops in Iraq, where they are sitting ducks for Iranian attacks. As White puts it:
"'I'm much more worried about the consequences of a U.S. or Israeli attack against Iran's nuclear infrastructure,' which would prompt vigorous Iranian retaliation, he said, than civil war in Iraq, which could be confined to that country."
Numerousreports that the president is determined to confront Iran, one way or another, before leaving the White House have to be taken seriously, and there are at least some indications that even the Democratic leadership in Congress is finally beginning to notice that we're headed for war with Tehran. Harry Reid has openly warned the administration that the president would need congressional authorization before unleashing American bombers, and others, including Joe Biden, have struck the same pose.
One wonders, then, why House Joint Resolution 14 – legislation recently introduced by Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) which explicitly forbids a U.S. attack on Iran, except in response to a "demonstrably imminent" attack on U.S. forces or interests – has yet to attract more than a dozen or so co-sponsors. Unlike the weak palliatives offered up on the Iraq question by the Democrats, the Jones resolution is a binding one.
Although I started making inquiries last week, I have yet to get an answer from Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office as to her position on H.J. Res. 14. It's now quite popular to be antiwar when it comes to Iraq, but Iran is a different story altogether. Hillary Clinton, who seems on track to grasp the Democrats' presidential nomination, has criticized the Bush administration for being too soft on Tehran, and Howard Dean takes the kooky "Objectivist" position that the Iraq war is a case of attacking the wrong enemy, the right one being Iran.
Unless the Democrats and the fast-rising antiwar faction of the Republicans in Congress are willing to go on record as explicitly forbidding an attack on Iran, the presidential exercise of the military option will hang over our heads like a veritable sword of Damocles.
Confronted with this obstacle to his war plans, will a president who believes he has absolute power in wartime assert his supremacy and provoke a constitutional crisis? Given the legendary cowardice of the Democrats on questions of war and peace, we may never get to find out.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10368
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January 23, 2007
The X Factor in 2008 – Iran
by Patrick J. Buchanan
After a weekend in which 29 Americans died and the 82nd Airborne deployed in Baghdad, what the Iraq war will mean to the politics of 2008 becomes clear.
Hillary Clinton's early Saturday announcement of her exploratory committee was brilliantly executed and captured front page, cable, and network coverage all weekend. But it was a decision forced upon her.
Barack Obama, the "rock star," has been poaching on Hillary's donor lists and offering Democrats, in the style of New York mayoral candidate John V. Lindsay in 1965 ("He is fresh, and they are all tired"), a post-Bush-Clinton-Bush politics that says, "Good-bye to all that."
John Edwards has pitched his tent in the Cindy Sheehan camp. The Sunday preceding Dr. King's birthday, he rose in New York City's Riverside Church, where King had denounced the Vietnam War, to decry President Bush's surge as "the McCain Doctrine," called for immediate withdrawal of 40,000-50,000 U.S. troops, and threw down the gauntlet to Hillary, declaring, "Silence is betrayal."
By midweek, Hillary was out with her own plan for redeployment.
The Democratic nominee will likely be one of these three. In every national or Iowa-New Hampshire poll, they are first, second, or third. But there is a wild card.
On Feb. 25, America will watch the Academy Awards, where the Oscar for best documentary will likely go to An Inconvenient Truth. If Al Gore wins the Oscar, addresses the nation for two minutes on global warming and the war, then appears on Oprah, Leno, Letterman, Stewart, and Colbert, a subsequent declaration of candidacy would put him in the top tier. And unlike Edwards and Hillary, Gore opposed the war in Iraq.
In the Democratic Party, the Iraq war is a lost cause that ought never to have been begun and any candidate who has not come to that position by February 2007 will not be in the hunt.
In the Republican Party, the war is less likely to bring about the unity Democrats will have achieved by year's end. For by summer's end, the surge will be over. While there may have been a temporary reduction in massacres by then, no one believes an additional 21,500 troops in a Texas-sized nation of 26 million can turn around a war Gen. Colin Powell says we "are losing" and Bush concedes "we are not winning."
Already, near a fifth of the Republicans in the Senate, including Chuck Hagel and presidential candidate Sam Brownback, have come out against the surge. The front-runners, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, however, still back the president.
But while McCain is far out in front in raising money and lining up support, he is also the single national figure, beyond Bush and Dick Cheney, most identified with the least popular war in U.S. history. If McCain wishes to be president, it would be best for him for this war to be in its final act, one way or the other, by 2008.
If the war has been lost by then, as many believe it is already, McCain can say: Rumsfeld lost it because he fought it the wrong way, and we shall never do that again. But if the war is still going on, it will be the issue of 2008, and it is hard to see America voting to continue or embrace the "McCain Doctrine" and escalate by sending in 100,000 more troops.
The GOP is thus looking at a situation in 2008 where the party will be as divided as Democrats were with Eugene McCarthy, Hubert Humphrey, Bobby Kennedy, and LBJ in 1968, while Democrats will be as united as the GOP was under Nixon. Had George Wallace, who got 13 percent, been out of the '68 race, Nixon would have won in a landslide.
Is there anything that might alter the course of events and affect the war picture by 2008? Indeed: a preemptive strike on Iran.
Should it occur, writes Wayne White, an intelligence officer at the State Department until 2005, "such action would likely involve not only taking out widely dispersed nuclear-related targets and nearby anti-aircraft defenses, but also portions of the Iranian air force assigned to defend these targets. And that's just for starters."
"In order to reduce Iran's ability to retaliate in the Persian Gulf, such a plan probably would also include taking out Iran's array of anti-ship missiles along the northern coast of the Gulf, its Kilo-class submarines, other naval assets, and even some targets related to Iran's long-range missile capacity."
Is such an attack being considered? Nick Burns, No. 3 at State, was at the Herzileah Conference this weekend. "Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon – there's no doubt about it," Burns told the Israelis. "The policy of the U.S. government is that we cannot allow Iran to become a nuclear weapons state."
Burns was cheered and echoed by ex-Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz: "The year of 2007 is the year of decisiveness. … The free world doesn't have the privilege to drag its feet on Iran and hope for best."
Democrats failed to stop this war. Can they stop the next one? Or do they suspect and support what they think is coming?
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=10378
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To: "rbleier" <rbleier@igc.org>
From: "Ronald" <rbleier@igc.org>
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2007 16:03:26 -0500
Subject: [IntelligentMinds] *D.Lindorff: Iraq war was no blunder: prelude to attacking Iran
Very important article. See my comments in double brackets and for those with html, in italics and in red.
Ronald
Thanks to JG for spotting this one.
http://bleiersblog. blogspot. com
http://desip. igc.org
.
Dave Lindorff wote:(excerpt)
So many apparently stupid decisions were made by people who should clearly have been too smart to make them, from leaving hundreds of tons of high explosives unguarded to cashiering all of Iraq's army and most of the country's civil service managers, that it boggles the mind to think that these could have been just dumb ideas or incompetence. (L. Paul Bremer, for instance, who made the "dumb" decision about dismantling the Iraqi army, prior to becoming Iraq's occupation viceroy, had headed the nation's leading risk assessment consultancy, and surely knew what all the risks were of his various decisions.)
Dave Lindorff: Was Iraq War a 'Blunder' or Was It Treason?
By
Created 01/22/2007 - 9:19am
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Published on BuzzFlash (http://www.buzzflas h.com/articles)
by Dave Lindorff, co-author of "The Case for Impeachment [0]"
New Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), is calling President Bush's invasion of Iraq a "stark blunder" and says that his new scheme to send 21,500 more troops into the mess he created is just digging the hole deeper.
I wonder though.
It seems ever more likely to me that this whole mess was no blunder at all.
People are wont to attribute the whole thing to lack of intelligence on the president's part, and to hubris on the part of his key advisers. I won't argue that the president is a lightweight in the intellect department, nor will I dispute that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and that whole neocon gang have demonstrably lacked the virtues of reflection and humility. But that said, I suspect that the real story of the Iraq War is that Bush and his gang never really cared whether they actually would "win" in Iraq. In fact, arguably, they didn't really want to win.
What they wanted was a war. [[They wanted permanent war. 911 was their vehicle. From the beginning they insisted that it was a WAR on terror, not a police action.]]
If the war they started had ended quickly with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that would have served their purposes, at least for the short term. Bush would have emerged from a short invasion and conquest a national hero, would have handily won re-election in 2004, and would have gone on to a second term as a landslide victor. But if it went badly, as it has, they figured he would still come out ahead. He would be a wartime president, and he'd make full use of that role, expansively misdefining his "commander in chief" title to imply authority over the Congress and the courts, to grab power heretofore unheard of for a president. [[At a certain moment, certainly by the time they cashiered their first pro-counsel, Jay Garner, they needed a rationale to stay, create permanent bases, and continue their overriding mission which was to destroy Iraq. They had two reasons.
1.They are about destruction. What does it mean to say that the Bush-Cheney (Rumsfeld) administration is about destruction? It means they are nihilists. That means they believe in destruction for its own sake. They pretend to believe that reconstruction will follow destruction. Their understanding of Year Zero is that first everything will be destroyed and then a new reborn society will follow. But their track record for reconstruction is what it is.
2.They wanted to ensure Israel's domination of the Middle East by crushing any possiblilty of a challenging Arab power.
This, I suspect, was the grand strategy underlying the attack on Iraq.
If I'm right, there may have been method to the madness of not building up enough troops for the invasion to insure that U.S. forces could occupy a destroyed Iraq and help it rebuild; method to the madness of allowing looters free sway to destroy the country's remaining post-invasion infrastructure; method to the madness, even, of allowing remnant forces of Hussein's to gather up stockpiles of weapons and even high-density explosives, so they could mount an effective resistance and drag out the conflict.
So many apparently stupid decisions were made by people who should clearly have been too smart to make them, from leaving hundreds of tons of high explosives unguarded to cashiering all of Iraq's army and most of the country's civil service managers, that it boggles the mind to think that these could have been just dumb ideas or incompetence. (L. Paul Bremer, for instance, who made the "dumb" decision about dismantling the Iraqi army, prior to becoming Iraq's occupation viceroy, had headed the nation's leading risk assessment consultancy, and surely knew what all the risks were of his various decisions.)
We expect a measure of idiocy from our elected leaders and their appointees, but not wholesale idiocy!
This disaster has been so colossal, it almost had to have been orchestrated.
If that's the case, Congress should be taking a hard look at not just the latest installment of escalation, but at the whole war project, beginning with the 2002 campaign to get it going. Certainly throwing 21,500 new troops into the fire makes no sense whatever. If 140,000 of the best-equipped troops in the world can't pacify Iraq, 160,000 aren't going to be able to do it either. You don't need to be a general to figure that out. Even a senator or representative ought to be able to do it. So clearly Congress should kill this plan.
Since it's not about "winning" the war, it has to be about something else. My guess would be it's about either dragging things out until the end of 2008, so Bush can leave office without having to say he's sorry. But of course, it could also be about something even more serious: invading Iran. [[Yes of course. Iran is next if Congress will allow him, but I'm afraid that train has already left the station. It's about permanent war. Their projected war against Iran will allow them to stay in Iraq and their war against Iran will allow them to stay in Iraq if a wider war against Russia and China -- not to mention other lesser powers has not already begun.]]
We know Bush is trying mightily to provoke Iran. He has illegally attacked an Iranian consulate in Iraq (an act of war), taking six protected consular officials there captive. He is sending a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and is setting up Patriot anti-missile missile bases along Iran's western border. This buildup has all the earmarks of a pre-invasion. All that's needed now is a pretext -- a real or faked attack on an American ship, perhaps, ala the Gulf of Tonkin "incident" that launched America into the Vietnam War.
The way I see it, either way the president is committing treason, because he is sending American troops off to be killed for no good reason other than for aggrandizing power he shouldn't have, and/or simply covering his own political ass.
[[Yes it's treason just like 911 and so many more of the crimes committed by this outlaw regime. But it's not about aggrandizing power: they already have all the power. It's about using their power to make war, to destroy. And it's not realpolitick or for any vicious but self serving reason. It's about destruction and suicide. All that is necessary to understand destruction as their motive is to consider the implications of endless war. Endless war means self destruction as well.]]
Treason is the number one impeachable crime under the Constitution, and we're at a point where Congress is going to have to act or go down in history as having acquiesced in the worst presidential crime in the history of the nation. [[It's even more than that. It's about survival. Once we attack Iran, the consequences could include nuclear war -- just as the Israelis have recently warned.]]
DAVE LINDORFF is co-author, with Barbara Olshansky, of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappe ning.net [1] and at www.counterpunch. org [2].
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Source URL:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/734
Links:
[1] http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
[2] http://www.counterpunch.org/
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Heads Up: US War Plans Versus Iran Updated:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/16/heads-up-us-war-plans-versus-iran-updated.php
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January 19, 2007
Stop the Next War
Before it starts. Support H. J. Resolution 14.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10353
by Justin Raimondo
The times, they sure are a-changin'! Why, I remember when you could count congressional opponents of the war on the fingers of one hand. Back then, it was just the likes of Ron Paul and Neil Abercrombie who were introducing resolutions trying to get us out of the Iraqi quagmire, but today there are no less than eleven such resolutions vying for attention. The great problem with most of them is that they are either unconstitutional – such as the Kennedy bill, that would prohibit the spending of war funding on Bush's "surge" – or non-binding resolutions, which have no effect except to distance Democrats who initially voted for the Iraq war from their own handiwork.
All these legislative initiatives deal with Iraq, with only one – House Joint Resolution 14 – confronting the key issue on the war-and-peace front: Iran. This is a binding resolution that forbids the President from ordering an attack on Iran absent military action against U.S. forces, or a demonstrably imminent threat of attack. Authored by Rep. Walter B. Jones, of North Carolina – the formerly pro-war Republican who did a dramatic turnaround long before it became fashionable to do so – the resolution has an impressively bipartisan list of co-sponsors, including GOPers John Duncan (Tennessee), Wayne Gilchrest (Maryland), and Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican congressman from Texas whose announcement of a presidential exploratory committee is causing muchexcitement in antiwar circles.
If H.J. Res. 14 ever sees the light of day on the House floor, it will be a miracle. Yet miracles have been known to happen. On the other hand, of all possible Speakers, Nancy Pelosi seems one of the least likely to let it come to a vote, let alone throw her support behind it. I had a call into her office early this [Thursday] morning, but, as we posted this piece – some 10 hours later – I had yet to hear from her representatives as to their position on the Jones resolution. The likely answer – given Pelosi's past position – is that she's opposed, just as she opposed a previous resolution by Lynn Woolsey (D-California), calling for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (now the official Democratic majority position). Can the Speaker be persuaded to evolve, as it were, and go with the flow, California-style, of her own party, the grassroots of which are undoubtedly opposed to war with Iran?
There is reason to doubt it. Madam Speaker, after all, co-sponsored a bill during the last session of Congress, introduced by Rick Santorum and Ileana Ross-Lehtinen, both Republicans, that not only tightened sanctions on Iran, but also made "regime change" in Tehran official U.S. policy. The measure was originally opposed by the President, and the Republican leadership, on the grounds that it would interfere with efforts to negotiate with Tehran, but the AIPAC lobby, in a show of bipartisan strength, forced the White House to accept a compromise bill, which was eventually passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.
Last year, the Israel lobby in the U.S. launched a major campaign to demonize the Iranians and ramp us up for a showdown with Tehran. The last AIPAC national convention, held in Washington, D.C., featured lurid exhibits detailing the horrors – and imminence – of a nuclear-armed Iran. Here is what Pelosi had to say about Iran to the 2006 AIPAC conference:
"The greatest threat to Israel's right to exist, with the prospect of devastating violence, now comes from Iran. For too long, leaders of both political parties in the United States have not done nearly enough to confront the Russians and the Chinese, who have supplied Iran as it has plowed ahead with its nuclear and missile technology. Proliferation represents a clear threat to Israel and to America. It must be confronted by an international coalition against proliferation, with a commitment and a coalition every bit as strong as our commitment to the war against terror."
As the Israelis, and their American lobby, push Washington to take action against Tehran, Pelosi and her fellow Democrats are meekly going along, just as they went along with the President in the run-up to war with Iraq.
The Democrats are trying to cover up their co-responsibility for the Iraq disaster by offering up all kinds of symbolic, non-binding resolutions disdaining the "surge," and calling for "phased redeployment" (which, one gathers, is distinct from simple withdrawal). This is pure show-boating. The only resolutions that matter are H.J. Res. 14, and H.R. 413, introduced by Rep. Sam Farr, which repeals the Iraq war resolution of 2002 outright, and requires the President to start withdrawing the troops. This one has zero co-sponsors – and that ought to tell us everything we need to know about our elected representatives' seriousness when it comes to stopping this war.
The irony is that the Farr legislation would have the plurality of votes if the various "antiwar" bills were submitted to a popular referendum. The Democrats, however, are not about to ride this horse, perhaps for fear it might throw them. The greater danger, however, is that they'll be trampled in the general stampede to get ahead of the issue as popular opposition to our crazed foreign policy increases by leaps and bounds.
The Farr resolution embodies what needs to be done as far as Iraq is concerned: it corrects the big mistake of 2002, and counterposes a course diametrically opposed to the escalation favored by the administration. If the Democrats had any brains, they would immediately embrace it – yet they are still stuck in the 2002 zeitgeist, which prevented them from halting or even delaying the rush to war.
The Jones resolution has the best chance of passing, and it is, at the same time, the most pressing. Iraq, after all, was yesterday: Iran is tomorrow. The time to stop a war is before it starts: the most we can do, at this particular moment, is to prevent the current war from spreading. And that is precisely what is behind the "surge," as I pointed out the other day: it's no accident that the "new" strategy being pushed by the President was announced in tandem with freshprovocations directed at the Iranians.
The groundwork for forcible "regime change" in Iran was laid by both parties: plans even now being hatched in the Pentagon were funded by Pelosi and her fellow Democrats, in alliance with the most pro-war Republicans. Now that the Democrats are in power, at least in Congress, they have no intention of reversing their stance. Democratic party chairman Howard Dean asserts that the great "tragedy" of our involvement in Iraq is that we aren't free to go after "the real enemy," which, says the Screamer, is Iran. And Hillary Clinton, the party's leading contender for the presidential nomination, out-neocons many Republicans when it comes to Iran:
"Let's be clear about the threat we face now: A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond. The regime's pro-terrorist, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric only underscores the urgency of the threat it poses. U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal. We cannot and should not – must not – permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons. In order to prevent that from occurring, we must have more support vigorously and publicly expressed by China and Russia, and we must move as quickly as feasible for sanctions in the United Nations. And we cannot take any option off the table in sending a clear message to the current leadership of Iran – that they will not be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons."
For those Kossacks and antiwar Democrats who have placed their hopes in Barack Obama, the supposed anti-Hillary expresses his view on the Iran war question in eerily similar language, averring that all options, including war with Iran, are "on the table." The leading Democrats are expending all their political capital on opposing Bush's "surge," and yet Michael Moran, in a piece posted on the Council on Foreign Relations website, identifies a "surge" of an entirely different sort than the one named in the Democrats' toothless resolutions. It is a surge "in the direction of Iran."
According to Moran, the USS Stennis, an aircraft carrier, and its attendant battle group, will meet the USS Eisenhower and its flotilla in the Arabian Sea in the first weeks of February. The Brits, too, have built up their naval forces in the area. Yet it isn't just the gathering of this armada that lends support to the view that the Bush administration means to attack Iran. Moran underscores the turnabout of newly-installed SecDef Robert Gates, who now opposes dealing with Iran and/or Syria in order to secure a political settlement for the entire region. "Gates agreed with that premise in 2004 when he co-chaired a CFR Independent Task Force on Iran," Moran notes. "CFR President Richard N. Haass reiterated it this summer in a CFR.org interview."
As the diplomatic option is being rapidly foreclosed by an apparent policy shift in Washington, the military option seems in the ascendancy. The movements of American and British forces, in tandem with the ratcheting up of the administration's bellicose rhetoric, are seen in the region as preparations for war with Iran, and Tehran is not sitting idly by.
The War Party hopes the mullahs can be lured by some provocation into making the first move, and Rep. Ron Paul has rightly warned against another "Gulf of Tonkin incident." Not a single Democratic, or Republican, presidential candidate, aside from Paul, has come out against the administration's warmongering when it comes to Iran. Yet the American people, in their overwhelming majority, oppose another war in the Middle East.
Isn't democracy wonderful?
So, you thought you voted for a new era of diplomacy as opposed to perpetual war? You've been bamboozled, and badly – so what are you going to do about it?
What's needed is a popular outpouring of support for H. J. Res. 14 – and you can do your part by calling the office of La Pelosi, urging her to let the House vote on the Jones resolution, and urging her to support it. That number is: 202-225-4965.
Find this article at:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=10353
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Walter Jones Meets Rudyard Kipling
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-pinkerton/walter-jones-meets-rudyar_b_39022.html
"If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied."
Those bitter words do not come from some folk-singing anti-war protestor. They come from a conservative Englishman, Rudyard Kipling, in his collection, "Epitaphs of the Great War." And those same words were heard today on Capitol Hill from Rep. Walter Jones, a conservative Republican of North Carolina.
When he spoke, Jones was thinking about the Iraq war--but he was also looking ahead to a possible war with Iran.
The Congressman from the Third District of North Carolina is a remarkable figure. In almost all respects, he is an orthodox Southern Republican; his lifetime vote-rating from the American Conservative Union, over his seven terms in Congress, is 93 out of a possible 100. And so it was no surprise that Jones was one of 296 Members of the House to vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution on October 10, 2002.
But three years ago, Jones had his own moment of epiphany. At the funeral of a Marine killed in Iraq, leaving behind a widow and three young children, Jones concluded that he had made a mistake in voting to authorize the war. Moreover, he concluded that he had been lied to by the Bush Administration. And he said so--frequently, publicly, loudly. The White House and the Republican Party establishment were not pleased, but since his Damascene conversion, Jones has been re-elected twice, by wide margins.
Now Jones has a new cause: making sure that the United States does not go to war with Iran without specific Congressional authorization. In other words, no "accidental" spillage of the fighting from Iraq into Iran. It's worth underscoring that Jones is no dove, nor even a Christian pacifist. He supported, and supports, the war in Afghanistan, and proudly represents the Marine bases at Camp Lejeune and Cherry Point, as well as Seymour Johnson AFB.
But the courtly Jones has chosen to put principle, as he sees it, ahead of partisan or personal loyalty. As he said at today's press conference at the House Press Gallery, "the Bible and the Constitution" guide him in all his actions. And so far, he said, with visible humility, the 600,000 people he represents agree with him as he prepares to challenge many of his fellow Republicans on the issue of presidential war powers.
Mindful of the war drums beating loudly--many from within the Executive Branch--in favor of a military confrontation with Iran, Jones makes a simple point: The White House must ask Congress for permission. To that end, Jones has authored House Joint Resolution 14, which would require the President to "receive specific authorization ... prior to initiating any use of military force against Iran." Six other Congressmen joined him today: Neil Abercrombie (D-HA), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), John Larson (D-CT), Marty Meehan (D-MA), Richard Neal (D-MA), Ron Paul (R-TX). The other four co-sponsors, who could not be in attendance, include Rep. John Murtha (D-PA).
But Jones is undeniably the leader of this particular effort. Representative Larson of Connecticut, who as Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus is the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, set a generous bipartisan tone by reaching across the aisle, figuratively, to say to Jones, "Walter, you deserve a great deal of credit, you have shown a great deal of courage." Then, Larson ripped into the Bush Administration for "doing away with 50 years of deterrence, diplomacy, and containment," leading to "the quagmire of Iraq."
Abercrombie of Hawaii was equally praising of Jones, and equally condemnatory of the White House. Abercrombie called the silver-haired North Carolinian "the conscience of the Congress," and then, like Larson before him, turned his rhetorical ire against "neoconservative ideologues promoting the agenda they had from the beginning--to go war with Iran and Syria."
Meehan of Massachusetts, who voted for the war five years ago, sounded a caustic note: The administration had "lied so many times," he declared, that Congress had no choice but to assert itself. Neal, also of Massachusetts, recalled the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, in which Congress authorized the escalation of the Vietnam War, as a mistake not to be repeated. The Bay State lawmaker reminded his colleagues, "Members of Congress don't serve under the President of the United States. They serve with the President."
Also speaking up for Constitutional procedure was Paul of Texas. One of just six Republicans who voted against the Iraq war resolution in 2002, Paul said it was "redundant," but nonetheless necessary, for Congress to assert its sole authority to authorize a war. "Isn't it sad," he lamented, "that we're introducing a resolution restating the Constitution?"
Gilchrest of Maryland, who earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star as a Marine in Vietnam, recalled being at boot camp at Parris Island when Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was approved. He and his fellow Marines simply assumed, he said, that politicians in Washington were wise and far-seeing. Since then, he added, he has learned to mistrust "end justifies the means" ideology.
The seven Members of Congress who assembled today agree on very little. Indeed, it's no sure bet that they would all oppose a hypothetical Iran war resolution; three of them, after all--Gilchrest, Jones, and Meehan--voted for the Iraq war resolution. Yet what brought these seven individuals together in support of House Joint Resolution 14 was their shared determination to make sure that the Executive Branch consults the Legislative Branch according to Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Of course, HJ Res 14 will not necessarily have an easy time becoming law. The Bush Administration will likely oppose any limitation on its war powers, and the Democratic leadership, for its part, seems reluctant to confront the President on Constitutional issues.
So that puts the burden on Jones & Co. And while Jones has relatively little power in the House, he has something that is nonetheless powerful: the courage of his convictions, steeled by the experience of signing thousands of condolence letters to those who have lost loved ones in Iraq. "I have hurt so badly," Jones said today, thinking back on the last five years since the pro-war vote that he now regrets. That intensity will keep him going, and it will surely inspire others.
And if the subject is inspiration, one's thoughts return to Kipling, to the same "Epitaphs of the Great War," which includes this sextain, entitled, "A Dead Statesman":
"I could not dig: I dared not rob/ Therefore I lied to please the mob/ Now all my lies are proved untrue/ And I must face the men I slew/ What tale shall serve me here among/ Mine angry and defrauded young?"
Whatever happens to Jones in the future, he seems sure of facing it with a clear conscience, unlike Kipling's Dead Statesman. Jones has cleared his conscience the only way he knows how--through prayerful repentance, followed by equally powerful determination. What Congress will do next, of course, is a far murkier question.
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http://queen-of-swords.dailykos.com/
The Jones Resolution for Avoiding War with Iran
by Queen of Swords
Tue Jan 16, 2007 at 04:21:16 PM PST
Patrick Buchanan had some good thoughts recently on both the Democratic efforts to end the war and a bit of resourceful and positive action now being taken by Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina.
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/cgi-bin/buchanan.cgi/Conservatism/Mr_Bush_Meet_Walter.html?seemore=y
Mr. Bush, Meet Walter Jones
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Mr. Bush: Meet Walter Jones
America is four years into a bloody debacle in Iraq not merely because Bush and Cheney marched us in, or simply because neocon propagandists lied about Saddam’s nuclear program and WMDs, and Iraqi ties to al-Qaida, anthrax attacks and 9-11.
We are there because a Democratic Senate voted to give Bush a blank check for war. Democrats in October 2002 wanted the war vote behind them so they could go home and campaign as pro-war patriots.
And because they did, 3,000 Americans are dead, 25,000 are wounded, perhaps 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives, 1.6 million have fled, $400 billion has been lost and America stands on the precipice of the worst strategic defeat in her history.
Yet, Sens. Clinton, Biden, Kerry and Edwards—all of whom voted to give Bush his blank check—are now competing to succeed him. And how do they justify what they did?
“If only we had known then what we know now,” they plead, “we would never have voted for the war.” They are thus confessing to dereliction in the highest duty the Founding Fathers gave Congress. They voted to cede to a president their power to take us to war.
Now they wash their hands of it all and say, “It’s Bush’s War!”
And now George Bush has another war in mind.
In his Jan. 11 address, Bush said that to defend the “territorial integrity” of Iraq, the United States must address “Iran and Syria.”
“These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.”
The city sat bolt upright. If Bush was talking about Iranian agents inside Iraq, he has no need of a second aircraft carrier in the Gulf, nor for those Patriot missiles he is sending to our allies.
But does Bush have the authority to take us to war against Iran?
On ABC last Sunday, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, while denying Bush intends to attack Iran, nonetheless did not deny Bush had the authority to escalate the war—right into Iran.
George Stephanopoulos: “So you don’t believe you have the authority to go into Iran?”
Stephen Hadley: “I didn’t say that. That is another issue. Any time you have questions about crossing international borders, there are legal questions.”
Any doubt how Attorney General Gonzales would come down on those “legal questions”? Any doubt how the Supreme Court would rule?
Biden sputters that should Bush attack Iran, a constitutional crisis would ensue.
I don’t believe it. If tomorrow Bush took out Iran’s nuclear facilities, would a Senate that lacks the courage to cut funds for an unpopular war really impeach him for denying a nuclear capability to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Bush’s lawyers would make the same case Nixon made for the 1970 “incursion” into Cambodia—and even a Nixon-hating Democratic House did not dare to impeach him for that.
Bush’s contempt for Congress is manifest and, frankly, justified.
Asked if Congress could stop him from surging 21,500 troops into Iraq, Bush on “60 Minutes” brushed aside Congress as irrelevant.
“I fully understand (the Congress) could try to stop me from doing it. But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward.” Asked if he had sole authority “to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants to do,” Bush replied, “In this situation I do, yeah.”
Is Congress then impotent, if it does not want war on Iran?
Enter Rep. Walter Jones, Republican of North Carolina.
The day after Bush’s threat to Iran, Jones introduced a Joint Resolution, “Concerning the Use of Military Force by the United States Against Iran.” Under HJR 14, “Absent a national emergency created by attack by Iran, or a demonstrably imminent attack by Iran, upon the United States, its territories, possessions or its armed forces, the president shall consult with Congress, and receive specific authorization pursuant to law from Congress, prior to initiating any use of force on Iran.”
Jones’ resolution further declares, “No provision of law enacted before the date of the enactment of this joint resolution shall be construed to authorize the use of military force by the United States against Iran.”
If we are going to war on Iran, Jones is saying, we must follow the Constitution and Congress must authorize it.
If Biden, Kerry, Clinton and Obama refuse to sign on to the Jones resolution, they will be silently conceding that Bush indeed does have the power to start a war on Iran. And America should pay no further attention to the Democrats’ wailing about being misled on the Iraq war.
To find out more about Patrick Buchanan, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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One can hear JINSA/PNAC Neocon Richard Perle basically lying to Congressman Walter 'Freedom Fries' Jones about his co-authoring of the 'A Clean Break'/war for Israel agenda via the audio link for their exchange at the following URL:
http://gorillaintheroom.blogspot.com/2005/04/operating-off-different-agenda.html
More about Perle's co-authoring of the 'A Clean Break' agenda which was the blueprint for the invasion of Iraq with Syria and Iran to come next is included at the following URL from pages 261-269/318-321 of esteemed US intelligence author/writer James Bamford's 'A Pretext for War' book:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2005/02/11/a-clean-break-from-james-bamford-s-a-pretext-for-war.php
Jim Bamford had mentioned that Congressman Jones had told him that his 'A Pretext for War' book had been instrumental in turning Jones against the Iraq quagmire.
Iran: The Next War (Bamford's article which appeared in the August 10th, 2006 of 'Rolling Stone' magazine):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/07/28/iran-the-next-war-for-israel.php
Scroll down to the 'Pro-Israel lobby under attack' UPI article at the following message thread URL:
U.S. Middle East policy motivated by pro-Israel lobby:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2006/03/17/u-s-middle-east-policy-motivated-by-pro-israel-lobby.php
Buchanan: Bush's ace up his sleeve (Attack Iran!):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/13/buchanan-bush-s-ace-up-his-sleeve-attack-iran.php
Raimondo: It's All about Iran:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/05/18/kucinich-jinsa-pnac-motivates-for-wider-war-world-war.php | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2007 3:19 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
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. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
