| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 12:04 am Post subject: Defend Cong. Moran from AIPAC Media Attacks (Updated) |
| Defend Cong. Moran from AIPAC Media Attacks (Updated)
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
Wed Sep 19, 2007 at 11:51:55 AM PDT
We ask you to contact Congressman Hoyer and Congressman Cantor to let them know your feelings about the issues below (call (202) 224-3121 and ask for their offices, and then call Congressman Jim Moran at (202) 225-4376) to indicate your support for his stance in Tikkun). Your call to these people will actually make an impact!
Update: We have just learned that Congressman Waxman is circulating a petition demanding Congressman Moran apologize for his comments in Tikkun. Please call Waxman at (202) 225-3976 voicing your support for Moran!
It took tremendous courage for Congressman Jim Moran to tell Tikkun magazine of the power and influence of AIPAC and other sections of the Israel Lobby. AIPAC is often described in the media as the most powerful lobby in Washington, D.C., so it is no surprise that its friends and supporters are now mobilizing to vilify Congressman Moran's comments in the Sept/Oct issue of Tikkun.
Rabbi Michael Lerner's diary :: ::
In the last few days major media have been publishing attacks on Congressman Jim Moran, distorting what he said. Now that attack has been joined by a leader of the Republican party and a leader of the Democrats in Congress, and their distortions are even more incredible. House Republican Chief Deputy Whip Eric Cantor likened Congressman Moran to Adoph Hitler on September 18th. "Unfortunately, Jim Moran has made it a habit now to lash out to the American Jewish community. I think his remarks are reprehensible, I think his remarks are anachronistic, and hearken back to the day of Adolph Hitler, of the others, Mein Kamp, of the protocols of the elders of zion, other sources that have become reference to now, I'm sorry to say, a resurgent anti-semitic sentiment world wide." And House Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer issued a statement which seemed to add to the witch hunt by stating that Moran had claimed that "the Jewish community controls the press, the media, the Congress, and other institutions" and that therefore Moran "certainly oughtta retract remarks, and indicate he believes that he was inaccurate on the facts."
Congressman Moran said no such thing.
You can read what he did say at Tikkun as part of my article on The Israel Lobby in the Sept/Oct issue of Tikkun magazine. Congressman Moran never made any statement about "the Jewish community," but only accurately described the power of one section of the Jewish community which has immense influence in the media and in Congress--AIPAC. And we can watch now as that influence is mobilized to isolate and demean the one Congressperson with the courage to say publicly what many have consistently said to all the Jews who support the Israeli peace movement are told: "We don't dare criticize these policies publicly, lest PACs and other forces aligned with the Israel Lobby attack us and make us politically vulnerable."
Steny Hoyer, who defeated anti-war Congressman John Murtha for the Democratic leadership post he now holds, and who is reportedly one of the major forces inside the Democratic leadership rejecting any serious attempt to withhold funds for the war in Iraq and limiting what Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi might otherwise try to do to challenge Bush's war, is a perfect example of the power of the Israel Lobby to shape public discourse. It is incredible that this is the one thing that Democrats and Republicans can unite on in Congress: blind allegiance to the Israel Lobby.
Or, actually not that incredible, because they demonstrate exactly what anyone who speaks out against Israeli policy toward Palestinians has faced for years. Jews who support the peace camp are described as "self-hating" Jews, and non-Jews are told that they are anti-Semites.
What's new is that now that same McCarthyism (which labeled as "anti-American" anyone who criticized U.S. policies around the world, tactics actually first developed by the Stalinists all around the world who called "anti-socialist" anyone who criticized the brutal dictatorship of the Soviet Union), is now being used not on someone criticizing Israel, but on someone who dares criticize an American organization (AIPAC) that has played a leading role in defending the most right-wing policies of the State of Israel. As former Israel Minister of Justice Yossi Beilin points out in an interview in Tikkun magazine, AIPAC does not defend and support the Israeli government's policies when Israel tried to move toward peace under Yitzhak Rabin—in fact, he reports, they actually sought to undermine Rabin's peace efforts.
In his interview in Tikkun, Congressman Moran goes out of his way to assert that his criticisms of the role played by AIPAC and other conservative voices in the organized community is not representative of the vast majority of American Jews. Moran affirmed what polls of American Jews have consistently revealed since 1991—that the leadership of Jewish organizations is far more conservative than the majority of its members, and the members of the organized Jewish community is far more conservative than most American Jews.
And in a detailed study released in early September by Steven M. Cohen and Ari Kelman, the authors reveal that there ahs been a decline attachment to Israel itself fron one generation to the next, a consistent increase in alienation in each younger generation of American Jews. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, predicted in his 1994 best-seller Jewish Renewal, predicted that the insistence in the Jewish world that one give blind loyalty to the policies of the State of Israel toward Palestinians would lead to alienation from younger Jews, and that is now being confirmed. Now, in the Sept/Oct issue Lerner warns against "Jewish political correctness" forcing many non-Jews into silence about Israeli policies that they know to be both immoral and destructive to the best interests of Israel itself. Lerner warns that this will eventually lead to deep resentments that will explode in (unjustifiable but nevertheless pervasive) anti-Semitism.
If ever there was proof of the Israel Lobby's immense power, it has been the response to Congressman Moran. Within days of Tikkun being on the newsstands (and quickly sold out of many places where it normally sells), the attack began, with media sources from the Washington Post to CNN making this into a significant news item. Needless to say, when other Jewish journals or newspapers attack the progressive voices in the Jewish peace movement, there is no similar media attention. The media attends to AIPAC because it is so deeply aligned with AIPAC and is quick to publish false and defamatory statements about those who dare criticize AIPAC. This same process has faced Tikkun Magazine ever since we began criticizing Israel's response to the Intifada. Despite the fact that Tikkun was one of the very few Jewish magazines that is explicitly pro-Judaism (and now, also, explicitly pro-Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism etc as it has morphed into an interfaith voice) and often runs supplements advising readers on how to make the Jewish holidays more spiritually alive (most recently its "Repentance in Time of War" supplement for the 2007 Jewish High Holidays), the Israel Lobby and its friends described it as "radical" or "self-hating Jews" or "marginal" (though it had more readers than most Jewish magazines in the U.S.).
And this same defamatory process is now facing Professors Mearsheimer and Walt in response to the publication of their book The Israel Lobby (the thesis of which Tikkun has both praised and also criticized in part).
In Solidarity,
Rabbi Michael Lerner
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America is at stake (especially with AIPAC's push to get US to attack Iran next - again please scroll down to the Eric Alterman youtube URL via the 'DC and de Borchgrave' link which is included again below as well):
D.C. Notes: Wes Clark is Steamed & BORCHGRAVE:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/01/09/d-c-notes-wes-clark-is-steamed-borchgrave.php
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Congressman Under Fire for Mentioning AIPAC
U.S. House Democrat Said Pro-Israel Lobby Promoted War
By Amy Gardner
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 15, 2007; B05
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) has again come under fire from local Jewish organizations for remarking in a magazine interview that the "extraordinarily powerful" pro-Israel lobby played a strong role promoting the war in Iraq.
In an interview with Tikkun, a California-based Jewish magazine, Moran said the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is "the most powerful lobby and has pushed this war from the beginning. I don't think they represent the mainstream of American Jewish thinking at all, but because they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power."
Moran's remarks were criticized by the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and the National Jewish Democratic Council. Ronald Halber, executive director of the first group, said Moran's remarks are anti-Semitic and draw on ugly stereotypes about Jewish wealth, power and influence.
"He uses several age-old canards that have been used throughout history that have brought violence upon Jews," Halber said this week. "He uses clearly anti-Semitic images such as Jewish control of the media and wealthy Jews using their wealth to control policy."
Ira N. Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said in a published statement that there is nothing wrong with criticizing the pro-Israel lobby but that Moran's statements go beyond that to defamation by making a "phony" connection between AIPAC and the Iraq war.
"Rep. Moran's comments are not only incorrect and irresponsible," Forman said. "They are downright dangerous."
In an interview last night, Moran said he was dismayed at the reaction to his remarks, which he stands by. The pro-Israel lobby has not represented mainstream U.S. Jewish opinion in recent years, he said -- most notably with its Middle East policies, which he characterized as directly aligned with those of the Bush administration.
"The problem with addressing the groups who have argued strongly in favor of a long-term American military presence in the Middle East is that they raise arguments that are not related to the point," Moran said. "I would like to have a reasonable, objective discussion about AIPAC's foreign policy agenda. But it's difficult to do that because any time you question their motives, you are accused of being anti-Semitic."
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun also defended Moran's position in the article, which appear in the magazine's September-October issue http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0709/frontpage/israellobby .
"It's the kind of statement I would have made to any religious community, or to any labor movement audience, citing their own failures to act as a critical factor in why we had gotten involved," Lerner wrote in the article.
Halber said he welcomes criticism of AIPAC's policies, but he said Moran is wrong that the advocacy group supports the war in Iraq. Most American Jews oppose U.S. involvement in Iraq, he said, and AIPAC has remained neutral.
According to the organization's Web site, AIPEC supports U.S. military aid to Israel but does not openly support U.S. intervention in the Middle East.
"I think Mr. Halber's being disingenuous in suggesting that the AIPAC board has not been strongly supportive of military involvement in Iraq and now in Iran," Moran said yesterday.
Although hailed for forging ties with the region's Muslim community, Moran has gotten into trouble with the local Jewish community before. In 2001, he angered groups by saying in an appearance before the American Muslim Council that then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was coming to Washington "probably seeking a warrant from President Bush to kill at will with weapons we have paid for."
The next year, Moran returned $2,000 in political contributions from a Muslim activist with ties to the anti-Israeli groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
And in 2003, at an antiwar forum in Reston, Moran said: "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think they should."
Said Halber this week: "There are only so many mistakes he can make before it's fair to call him an anti-Semite."
© 2007 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091402171_pf.html
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Jim Moran's Mouth, Again
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/14/AR2007091401542.html?sub=AR
justicequest2000 wrote (in the comments section associated with the above Op-Ed appearing in the Washington Post today):
Can I assume that Mr. King hasn't even read the new book (The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy - see israellobbybook.com) by respected political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about the power/influence of the pro-Israel lobby (AIPAC, JINSA, etc) and how it pushed for the attack on Iraq and has been doing similar to get US to attack Iran. Can I assume that Mr. King also hasn't read the third edition of former Republican Congressman Paul Findley's 'They Dare to Speak Out' book either. Mr. King might be interested in accessing the following URL as well which conveys how CBS '60 Minutes' is refusing to do a segment about the Mearsheimer/Walt book:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/wake-up-america-your-government-is-hijacked-by-zionism/2007/09/06/walt-mearsheimer-book-mentioned-to-gao-head-david-walk.php | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: |
| http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5925.html
Dems slam Moran's tying AIPAC to Iraq war
By: Josephine Hearn
September 19, 2007 09:55 PM EST
Sixteen of Democratic Rep. Jim Moran’s House colleagues rebuked him in a withering letter Wednesday for saying last week that the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, “pushed [the Iraq] war from the beginning.”
It was the Virginia congressman’s latest dust-up over Israel — and one that brought a demand for a retraction by the House Democratic leader, Rep. Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland.
Moran’s colleagues — led by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), a powerful committee chairman with close ties to the majority leadership — called the remarks of the Virginia congressman in the progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun inaccurate and “deeply offensive.”
“The idea that the war in Iraq began because of the influence of Jewish Americans is factually incorrect and unfortunately fits the anti-Semitic stereotypes some have used historically against Jews,” wrote the group of Jewish Democrats.
Moran, nonetheless, stood his ground.
“I appreciate the concerns of my colleagues, and I regret any efforts to misconstrue my position and long-standing support for Israel,” he said. “I have been and remain firmly of the view that diplomatic leadership, rather than military aggression, is essential for peace in the Middle East.”
In a statement, his spokesman Austin Durrer said that, while Moran “may have been unnecessarily harsh,” his comments were directed at a lobbying organization, “not a community of people.”
“Anyone attempting to mischaracterize his words as targeting the broader Jewish community rather than AIPAC’s leadership is being purposely misleading,” Durrer said.
Moran has found himself in trouble before for similar comments. In 2003, then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ousted him from a minor leadership position after he said the United States would not be at war in Iraq “if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community.”
With his more recent comments, he has again drawn the ire of his leadership. On Tuesday, Hoyer took to the microphone at a press conference and, despite having been asked a different question, called on Moran to retract his remarks.
“They are inaccurate, wrong and unfortunate,” Hoyer said.
On Wednesday, Waxman said he had drafted the pointed letter to Moran to show “how offended even his colleagues were about” his remarks.
“As Jewish colleagues, we don’t understand your hostility to AIPAC or your determination to embarrass yourself with this series of inaccurate, illogical and inflammatory comments,” the letter said.
Moran clearly knew as he was making the comments to Tikkun that they would ignite a firestorm.
“The reason I don’t hesitate to speak out about AIPAC’s influence — notwithstanding the fact that I’ll be accused of being anti-Semitic every time I suggest it — is that I don’t think AIPAC represents the mainstream of American Jewish thinking,” he told the magazine.
The Tikkun article, authored by Rabbi Michael Lerner, was sympathetic to Moran’s views. And Lerner has stood by Moran in the ensuing controversy.
Still, nearly every Jewish Democrat approached by Politico was upset about Moran’s words.
“It’s disappointing when people lash out like that,” said Rep. Ron Klein (D-Fla.). “It feeds people’s inaccurate views of Israel.”
Klein raised the issue of whether Moran could lose additional leadership positions. “Up here, as the leadership positions come into play, everyone is subject to review and evaluation by their peers.”
Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), who hosts an annual “deli fundraiser” with many Jewish foods, said the comments were “uncalled for.” But at the same time, he didn’t think they represented Moran’s real views.
“His utterances are very out of character. He doesn’t come off as a person who says these things. It’s puzzling,” Ackerman said after the House chaplain, Father Daniel Coughlin, wished him a happy new year. “I’ve traveled with him in the Mideast, and he has advocated for Israel in many other countries.”
The House’s only Jewish Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, was less forgiving.
“For Mr. Moran to again suggest that Jews are responsible for the war in Iraq and that they somehow strangle American foreign policy is as senseless as it is bigoted,” Cantor said in a statement.
TM & © THE POLITICO & POLITICO.COM, a division of Allbritton Communications Company
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You might want to read the following article from Haaretz after reading what Congressman Waxman and Congressman Cantor say via the 'Politico' piece above:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=280279&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
White man's burden
By Ari Shavit
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical
1. The doctrine
WASHINGTON - At the conclusion of its second week, the war to liberate Iraq wasn't looking good. Not even in Washington. The assumption of a swift collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime had itself collapsed. The presupposition that the Iraqi dictatorship would crumble as soon as mighty America entered the country proved unfounded. The Shi'ites didn't rise up, the Sunnis fought fiercely. Iraqi guerrilla warfare found the American generals unprepared and endangered their overextended supply lines. Nevertheless, 70 percent of the American people continued to support the war; 60 percent thought victory was certain; 74 percent expressed confidence in President George W. Bush.
Washington is a small city. It's a place of human dimensions. A kind of small town that happens to run an empire. A small town of government officials and members of Congress and personnel of research institutes and journalists who pretty well all know one another. Everyone is busy intriguing against everyone else; and everyone gossips about everyone else.
In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).
Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don't think so. They continue to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments when you're scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.
2. William Kristol
Has America bitten off more than it can chew? Bill Kristol says no. True, the press is very negative, but when you examine the facts in the field you see that there is no terrorism, no mass destruction, no attacks on Israel. The oil fields in the south have been saved, air control has been achieved, American forces are deployed 50 miles from Baghdad. So, even if mistakes were made here and there, they are not serious. America is big enough to handle that. Kristol hasn't the slightest doubt that in the end, General Tommy Franks will achieve his goals. The 4th Cavalry Division will soon enter the fray, and another division is on its way from Texas. So it's possible that instead of an elegant war with 60 killed in two weeks it will be a less elegant affair with a thousand killed in two months, but nevertheless Bill Kristol has no doubt at all that the Iraq Liberation War is a just war, an obligatory war.
Kristol is pleasant-looking, of average height, in his late forties. In the past 18 months he has used his position as editor of the right-wing Weekly Standard and his status as one of the leaders of the neoconservative circle in Washington to induce the White House to do battle against Saddam Hussein. Because Kristol is believed to exercise considerable influence on the president, Vice President Richard Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, he is also perceived as having been instrumental in getting Washington to launch this all-out campaign against Baghdad. Sitting behind the stacks of books that cover his desk at the offices of the Weekly Standard in Northwest Washington, he tries to convince me that he is not worried. It is simply inconceivable to him that America will not win. In that event, the consequences would be catastrophic. No one wants to think seriously about that possibility.
What is the war about? I ask. Kristol replies that at one level it is the war that George Bush is talking about: a war against a brutal regime that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction. But at a deeper level it is a greater war, for the shaping of a new Middle East. It is a war that is intended to change the political culture of the entire region. Because what happened on September 11, 2001, Kristol says, is that the Americans looked around and saw that the world is not what they thought it was. The world is a dangerous place. Therefore the Americans looked for a doctrine that would enable them to cope with this dangerous world. And the only doctrine they found was the neoconservative one.
That doctrine maintains that the problem with the Middle East is the absence of democracy and of freedom. It follows that the only way to block people like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden is to disseminate democracy and freedom. To change radically the cultural and political dynamics that creates such people. And the way to fight the chaos is to create a new world order that will be based on freedom and human rights - and to be ready to use force in order to consolidate this new world. So that, really, is what the war is about. It is being fought to consolidate a new world order, to create a new Middle East.
Does that mean that the war in Iraq is effectively a neoconservative war? That's what people are saying, Kristol replies, laughing. But the truth is that it's an American war. The neoconservatives succeeded because they touched the bedrock of America. The thing is that America has a profound sense of mission. America has a need to offer something that transcends a life of comfort, that goes beyond material success. Therefore, because of their ideals, the Americans accepted what the neoconservatives proposed. They didn't want to fight a war over interests, but over values. They wanted a war driven by a moral vision. They wanted to hitch their wagon to something bigger than themselves.
Does this moral vision mean that after Iraq will come the turns of Saudi Arabia and Egypt?
Kristol says that he is at odds with the administration on the question of Saudi Arabia. But his opinion is that it is impossible to let Saudi Arabia just continue what it is doing. It is impossible to accept the anti-Americanism it is disseminating. The fanatic Wahhabism that Saudi Arabia engenders is undermining the stability of the entire region. It's the same with Egypt, he says: we mustn't accept the status quo there. For Egypt, too, the horizon has to be liberal democracy.
It has to be understood that in the final analysis, the stability that the corrupt Arab despots are offering is illusory. Just as the stability that Yitzhak Rabin received from Yasser Arafat was illusory. In the end, none of these decadent dictatorships will endure. The choice is between extremist Islam, secular fascism or democracy. And because of September 11, American understands that. America is in a position where it has no choice. It is obliged to be far more aggressive in promoting democracy. Hence this war. It's based on the new American understanding that if the United States does not shape the world in its image, the world will shape the United States in its own image.
3. Charles Krauthammer
Is this going to turn into a second Vietnam? Charles Krauthammer says no. There is no similarity to Vietnam. Unlike in the 1960s, there is no anti-establishment subculture in the United States now. Unlike in the 1960s, there is now an abiding love of the army in the United States. Unlike in the 1960s, there is a determined president, one with character, in the White House. And unlike in the 1960s, Americans are not deterred from making sacrifices. That is the sea-change that took place here on September 11, 2001. Since that morning, Americans have understood that if they don't act now and if weapons of mass destruction reach extremist terrorist organizations, millions of Americans will die. Therefore, because they understand that those others want to kill them by the millions, the Americans prefer to take to the field of battle and fight, rather than sit idly by and die at home.
Charles Krauthammer is handsome, swarthy and articulate. In his spacious office on 19th Street in Northwest Washington, he sits upright in a black wheelchair. Although his writing tends to be gloomy, his mood now is elevated. The well-known columnist (Washington Post, Time, Weekly Standard) has no real doubts about the outcome of the war that he promoted for 18 months. No, he does not accept the view that he helped lead America into the new killing fields between the Tigris and the Euphrates. But it is true that he is part of a conceptual stream that had something to offer in the aftermath of September 11. Within a few weeks after the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, he had singled out Baghdad in his columns as an essential target. And now, too, he is convinced that America has the strength to pull it off. The thought that America will not win has never even crossed his mind.
What is the war about? It's about three different issues. First of all, this is a war for disarming Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. That's the basis, the self-evident cause, and it is also sufficient cause in itself. But beyond that, the war in Iraq is being fought to replace the demonic deal America cut with the Arab world decades ago. That deal said: you will send us oil and we will not intervene in your internal affairs. Send us oil and we will not demand from you what we are demanding of Chile, the Philippines, Korea and South Africa.
That deal effectively expired on September 11, 2001, Krauthammer says. Since that day, the Americans have understood that if they allow the Arab world to proceed in its evil ways - suppression, economic ruin, sowing despair - it will continue to produce more and more bin Ladens. America thus reached the conclusion that it has no choice: it has to take on itself the project of rebuilding the Arab world. Therefore, the Iraq war is really the beginning of a gigantic historical experiment whose purpose is to do in the Arab world what was done in Germany and Japan after World War II.
It's an ambitious experiment, Krauthammer admits, maybe even utopian, but not unrealistic. After all, it is inconceivable to accept the racist assumption that the Arabs are different from all other human beings, that the Arabs are incapable of conducting a democratic way of life.
However, according to the Jewish-American columnist, the present war has a further importance. If Iraq does become pro-Western and if it becomes the focus of American influence, that will be of immense geopolitical importance. An American presence in Iraq will project power across the region. It will suffuse the rebels in Iran with courage and strength, and it will deter and restrain Syria. It will accelerate the processes of change that the Middle East must undergo.
Isn't the idea of preemptive war a dangerous one that rattles the world order?
There is no choice, Krauthammer replies. In the 21st century we face a new and singular challenge: the democratization of mass destruction. There are three possible strategies in the face of that challenge: appeasement, deterrence and preemption. Because appeasement and deterrence will not work, preemption is the only strategy left. The United States must implement an aggressive policy of preemption. Which is exactly what it is now doing in Iraq. That is what Tommy Franks' soldiers are doing as we speak.
And what if the experiment fails? What if America is defeated?
This war will enhance the place of America in the world for the coming generation, Krauthammer says. Its outcome will shape the world for the next 25 years. There are three possibilities. If the United States wins quickly and without a bloodbath, it will be a colossus that will dictate the world order. If the victory is slow and contaminated, it will be impossible to go on to other Arab states after Iraq. It will stop there. But if America is beaten, the consequences will be catastrophic. Its deterrent capability will be weakened, its friends will abandon it and it will become insular. Extreme instability will be engendered in the Middle East.
You don't really want to think about what will happen, Krauthammer says looking me straight in the eye. But just because that's so, I am positive we will not lose. Because the administration understands the implications. The president understands that everything is riding on this. So he will throw everything we've got into this. He will do everything that has to be done. George W. Bush will not let America lose.
4. Thomas Friedman
Is this an American Lebanon War? Tom Friedman says he is afraid it is. He was there, in the Commodore Hotel in Beirut, in the summer of 1982, and he remembers it well. So he sees the lines of resemblance clearly. General Ahmed Chalabi (the Shi'ite leader that the neoconservatives want to install as the leader of a free Iraq) in the role of Bashir Jemayel. The Iraqi opposition in the role of the Phalange. Richard Perle and the conservative circle around him as Ariel Sharon. And a war that is at bottom a war of choice. A war that wants to utilize massive force in order to establish a new order.
Tom Friedman, The New York Times columnist, did not oppose the war. On the contrary. He too was severely shaken by September 11, he too wants to understand where these desperate fanatics are coming from who hate America more than they love their own lives. And he too reached the conclusion that the status quo in the Middle East is no longer acceptable. The status quo is terminal. And therefore it is urgent to foment a reform in the Arab world.
Some things are true even if George Bush believes them, Friedman says with a smile. And after September 11, it's impossible to tell Bush to drop it, ignore it. There was a certain basic justice in the overall American feeling that told the Arab world: we left you alone for a long time, you played with matches and in the end we were burned. So we're not going to leave you alone any longer.
He is sitting in a large rectangular room in the offices of The New York Times in northwest Washington, on the corner of 17th Street. One wall of the room is a huge map of the world. Hunched over his computer, he reads me witty lines from the article that will be going to press in two hours. He polishes, sharpens, plays word games. He ponders what's right to say now, what should be left for a later date. Turning to me, he says that democracies look soft until they're threatened. When threatened, they become very hard. Actually, the Iraq war is a kind of Jenin on a huge scale. Because in Jenin, too, what happened was that the Israelis told the Palestinians, We left you here alone and you played with matches until suddenly you blew up a Passover seder in Netanya. And therefore we are not going to leave you along any longer. We will go from house to house in the Casbah. And from America's point of view, Saddam's Iraq is Jenin. This war is a defensive shield. It follows that the danger is the same: that like Israel, America will make the mistake of using only force.
This is not an illegitimate war, Friedman says. But it is a very presumptuous war. You need a great deal of presumption to believe that you can rebuild a country half a world from home. But if such a presumptuous war is to have a chance, it needs international support. That international legitimacy is essential so you will have enough time and space to execute your presumptuous project. But George Bush didn't have the patience to glean international support. He gambled that the war would justify itself, that we would go in fast and conquer fast and that the Iraqis would greet us with rice and the war would thus be self-justifying. That did not happen. Maybe it will happen next week, but in the meantime it did not happen.
When I think about what is going to happen, I break into a sweat, Friedman says. I see us being forced to impose a siege on Baghdad. And I know what kind of insanity a siege on Baghdad can unleash. The thought of house-to-house combat in Baghdad without international legitimacy makes me lose my appetite. I see American embassies burning. I see windows of American businesses shattered. I see how the Iraqi resistance to America connects to the general Arab resistance to America and the worldwide resistance to America. The thought of what could happen is eating me up.
What George Bush did, Friedman says, is to show us a splendid mahogany table: the new democratic Iraq. But when you turn the table over, you see that it has only one leg. This war is resting on one leg. But on the other hand, anyone who thinks he can defeat George Bush had better think again. Bush will never give in. That's not what he's made of. Believe me, you don't want to be next to this guy when he thinks he's being backed into a corner. I don't suggest that anyone who holds his life dear mess with Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush.
Is the Iraq war the great neoconservative war? It's the war the neoconservatives wanted, Friedman says. It's the war the neoconservatives marketed. Those people had an idea to sell when September 11 came, and they sold it. Oh boy, did they sell it. So this is not a war that the masses demanded. This is a war of an elite. Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.
Still, it's not all that simple, Friedman retracts. It's not some fantasy the neoconservatives invented. It's not that 25 people hijacked America. You don't take such a great nation into such a great adventure with Bill Kristol and the Weekly Standard and another five or six influential columnists. In the final analysis, what fomented the war is America's over-reaction to September 11. The genuine sense of anxiety that spread in America after September 11. It is not only the neoconservatives who led us to the outskirts of Baghdad. What led us to the outskirts of Baghdad is a very American combination of anxiety and hubris.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Mon Oct 01, 2007 10:11 pm Post subject: |
| Forwarded:
“Moran had told Tikkun magazine that AIPAC "has pushed this war from the beginning" and that "they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power."
The [AIPAC] delegation told Moran his comments were "false and offensive," but the meeting ended without Moran promising a retraction.”
I’d really like to know: In what way are Moran’s assertions “false and offensive”? Didn’t AIPAC call for war on Iraq? Aren’t they trying to persuade Congress that Iran must be bombed? Anyone who doubts this can visit their website to see them brag about their influence over Washington: http://www.aipac. org/about_ AIPAC/default. asp (before they also took responsibility for making Congress take on Iraq, but they must’ve updated this page since)
KL
http://www.jta. org/cgi-bin/ iowa/breaking/ 104424.html
AIPAC members repudiate Moran
Published: 10/01/2007
AIPAC members met with a Democratic congressman who blamed the lobbying group for the Iraq war.
Six members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee met for two hours with U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) on Sept. 20, The Washington Post reported on Sept. 27. Five members of the delegation were also constituents of Moran in his northern Virginia district, the Post reported.
Moran had told Tikkun magazine that AIPAC "has pushed this war from the beginning" and that "they are so well organized, and their members are extraordinarily powerful -- most of them are quite wealthy -- they have been able to exert power."
The delegation told Moran his comments were "false and offensive," but the meeting ended without Moran promising a retraction.
Top Democrats in Congress have repudiated Moran for the remarks, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a statement last week, Pelosi said, "I disagree and reject Congressman Moran's characterization of AIPAC. AIPAC did not lead us into this disastrous war in Iraq. President Bush and Vice President Cheney did." | | | | Alpha | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
