text:
"Oh what a tangled web he weaved when at first he practiced to deceive."
In this C-SPAN interview from April 15th, 1994 Dick Cheney reveals the reasons why invading Baghdad and toppling Saddam Hussein's regime wouldn't be a great idea because it would have caused a regional quagmire by breaking up Iraq into three pieces, with Kurdistan threatening the territorial integrity of Turkey, Shia Iraq falling prey to the Iranians, and Western Iraq going to the Syrians.
He also stipulates that "not very many" American soldiers' lives were worth losing to take out Saddam during the Gulf War.
It's a shame that Cheney's 1994 words couldn't have been thrown in his face in 2002 and '03, before the invasion. Forcing him to explain why he no longer believed the war would lead to a quagmire would have been a useful exercise and why, when he became Vice President, appointed neocon Irving Lewis "Scooter" Libby as his Chief of Staff. It's nice that it's come out now, but at this late date it only confirms what most Americans believe about a vice president they detest and a war they no longer support.
Of course, the Neocons simply claimed that "9/11 changed everything".
What and who is a neocon you may ask? The in depth study/report below is the result of many hours of research in an attempt to answer the question.
The following is the result of research done on the internet, reading periodicals and books, viewing C-SPAN etc. which began one year prior to the invasion of Iraq. In doing the research it became apparently clear that a group of individuals within and outside of the U.S. government were influencing the direction of our foreign policy not to our benefit but for the benefit of a foreign country. Some allegedly profited from the war. Many of these individuals had dual loyalties, one to the U.S.(weak) and the other to a foreign nation (strong).
The irony of it all is that these individuals have not been brought to account for their complicity in taking us to war. Instead, they have either resigned from their government positions (Douglas Feith , Richard Perle) or been appointed to a new job such as the head of the World Bank(Paul Wolfowitz). Some have taken on a low profile while others, now that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq has met with insurmountable obstacles, are still appearing on TV talk shows, C-SPAN, writing Op-Ed pieces etc. trying to justify their positions on the invasion of Iraq and casting the blame for the failure on our military leaders. They cannot save their discredited and bloodstained ideology; they can only try saving certain individuals(Lewis Scooter Libby) from spending a good deal of time behind bars where they belong. If they succeed then justice will not have been served.
As one radio talk show host stated that these neocons should be held liable for their mistakes similar to a surgeon who recommends an operation and due to his incompetence makes a mistake and the patient either dies or is crippled for life. These neocons should be tried for dereliction of duty, malfeasance in office and manslaughter in the second degree .
Read the following and decide for yourself if what I have found does or does not support my thesis.
The genesis of the war on Iraq
How the neocons hijacked the "war on terror"
Last update 5 / 22 / 08
The war against Iraq has polarized Americans before the first shot was fired. And as the war was brought home with nonstop frontline images, the lines between pro- and anti-war have solidified, especially as U.S. and coalition forces began to take casualties in the "post war insurrection".
Polls show the sharpest dividing line between those who support U.S. policy in Iraq and those who oppose it is between Republicans and Democrats. The war in Iraq has divided America like nothing since Vietnam, and that the hate we once reserved for terrorists we are now spewing at one another.
We have spent a fortune attacking a country that had done us no harm, killing tens of thousands of its people and giving the United States a black eye as an aggressor that starts wars on the basis of lies and disinformation. Two years (3/20/2003) after the invasion of Iraq, discontent with America and its policies has intensified rather than diminished.
In an article in USA Today James Webb, a Marine platoon and company commander in Vietnam whom Ronald Reagan named as his secretary of the Navy wrote –" Bush arguably has committed the greatest strategic blunder in modern memory. To put it bluntly, he attacked the wrong target. While he boasts of removing Saddam Hussein from power, he did far more than that. He decapitated the government of a country that was not directly threatening the United States and, in so doing, bogged down a huge percentage of our military in a region that never has known peace."
And with criticism mounting as the conflict became more bloody, President Bush has found himself defending, time and again, on how the war on terror led to Baghdad.
The question is often raised as to-
Q: What role should U.S. citizens play?
A: It's really essential that Americans take an interest in learning about how this war began. That's really their citizenship duty; otherwise they may see their sons and daughters coming home in pine boxes. At the end of the day, though, it's the November elections that will determine the course of the war.
Hopefully those of you who take the time to read this web page will gain some insight as to who, what and why led this nation to war.
In tracing the roots of America's war in Iraq I decided to do some research on the Internet to try to learn the truth as to why and how president Bush and his administration arrived at making the decision to invade Iraq. I focused on a very influential group of individuals who were brought in to the administration by V.P. Dick Cheney who are often referred to as neoconservatives or "neocons". They said that the invasion would be a "cakewalk" and the Iraqis would greet our troops with flowers. How could such a small group of individuals wield so much power in influencing U.S. foreign policy? Individuals, many of whom, had as one of their primary reasons for the invasion, which was to protect the ally Israel, and not because Iraq was a threat to the U.S.
18. The wars' aftermath. Civil War or Civil Society?
19. Neocon whitewash?
20. The Generals Speak Out
21. Where Is the Exit Strategy?
22. The truth is finally being told. (Reporters with gullions!)
23. The "Israel Lobby" and its influence on U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis Israel
24. Post-war Iraq.
25. Postscript .
26. The Real Iraq We Knew .
27. Last Goodbye: US Soldiers from Iraq War .
The 1991 Gulf war
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Glaspie's response to Saddam Hussein
It is possible to ague, however (and many have done so), that Glaspie's statements that "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts" and that "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America" were interpreted by Saddam as giving tacit approval of his annexation of Kuwait. Since it is not now possible to know what was in Saddam's mind, this matter cannot be resolved. Saddam was a dictator who had never visited a western country, and who lived a in a world where disputes were routinely resolved by force. It is therefore quite possible that he wrongly interpreted Glaspie's remarks.
It seems unlikely that Saddam would have invaded Kuwait had he been given an explicit warning that such an invasion would be met with force by the United States, but Glaspie can only be criticised for not giving such a warning if it can be established that she knew that Saddam was planning an invasion. There is nothing in the transcripts to suggest this.
The most that can be argued is that, given the Iraqi troop build-up in the Kuwait border area, she should have been instructed by the State Department to give Saddam an explicit warning. Glaspie later testified that she had given Saddam such a warning, but no mention of this appears in the published transcripts. This is hardly surprising since these transcripts were released to further Iraq's ends.
Edward Mortimer wrote in the New York Review of Books in September 1991: "It seems [likely] that Saddam Hussein went ahead with the invasion because he believed the US would not react with anything more than verbal condemnation. That was an inference he could well have drawn from his meeting with US Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, and from statements by State Department officials in Washington at the same time publicly disavowing any US security commitments to Kuwait."
Iran, and September 11: A Chronology
by Jacob G. Hornberger, December 19, 2002
Glaspie had given Saddam a green light
The Iraqi Government still insists that April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein in 1990 before his invasion of Kuwait. Glaspie "...was informed of Iraq's plans and gave her de facto approval." America and April Glaspie flatly deny this accusation: "Obviously, I didn't think, and nobody else did, that the Iraqis were going to take all of Kuwait. -- Former Ambassador April Glaspie, in response to accusations that the U.S. invited Saddam Hussein to take Kuwait" 4
In a May 27, 1999 Christian Science Monitor article, Carleton Cole writes, "...from a translation of Iraq's transcript of the meeting, released that September, press and pundits concluded that Ms. Glaspie had (in effect) given Saddam a green light to invade."
"We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts," the transcript reports Glaspie saying, "...such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction...that Kuwait is not associated with America."
U.S. Ambassador Glaspie - We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960's, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America. (Saddam smiles)
On August 2, 1990 four days later, Saddam's massed troops invade and occupy Kuwait. _____
In war, some facts less factual
Some US assertions from the last war on Iraq still appear dubious.
| Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
September 06, 2002
More recently, in the fall of 1990, members of Congress and the American public were swayed by the tearful testimony of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only as Nayirah.
In the girl's testimony before a congressional caucus, well-documented in MacArthur's book "Second Front" and elsewhere, she described how, as a volunteer in a Kuwait maternity ward, she had seen Iraqi troops storm her hospital, steal the incubators, and leave 312 babies "on the cold floor to die."
Seven US Senators later referred to the story during debate; the motion for war passed by just five votes In the weeks after Nayirah spoke, President Bush senior invoked the incident five times, saying that such "ghastly atrocities" were like "Hitler revisited."
But just weeks before the US bombing campaign began in January, a few press reports began to raise questions about the validity of the incubator tale.
Later, it was learned that Nayirah was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington and had no connection to the Kuwait hospital.
She had been coached – along with the handful of others who would "corroborate" the story – by senior executives of Hill and Knowlton in Washington, the biggest global PR firm at the time, which had a contract worth more than $10 million with the Kuwaitis to make the case for war.
"We didn't know it wasn't true at the time," Brent Scowcroft, Bush's national security adviser, said of the incubator story in a 1995 interview with the London-based Guardian newspaper. He acknowledged "it was useful in mobilizing public opinion."
How the public relations industry sold the Gulf War to the U.S. -- The mother of all clients
US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana -- a conservative Democrat who supported the Gulf War -- later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.4 Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress.
Hill & Knowlton (H&K), then the world's largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. It's activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion. By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it. Nine days after Saddam's army marched into Kuwait, the Emir's government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent "Citizens for a Free Kuwait" (CFK) a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totaled $17,862 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK's budget -- $10.8 million -- went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.6
October 16, 2002
It's been about 40 years since a president's speeches didn't sound like infomercials. So George W. Bush's prime time sales pitch last week on slapping a "New Ownership" sign on Iraq was not surprising for sweating the manipulative bullets of sales pitches -- exaggerations, inflated sincerity, half-truths, outright lies. This isn't a Bush family specialty. Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson were terrific salesmen, each more or less made for television's blind spot for hucksters. But for sheer breadth of deception and implications to thousands of human lives, the Bush performance for a resolution authorizing Gulf War II can only be compared with Johnson's fabrication 38 years ago that uselessly condemned 57,000 Americans and more than a million Vietnamese -- the Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
The Iraq war resolution Congress approved with a mob-like majority last week is the Tonkin of our day. Like Bush with Iraq today, Johnson back then didn't have the facts to back up his demand for war on North Vietnam. So he invented them.
We are now faced with another administration urging another congressional resolution that will be used to authorize war. There will be many opportunities for "interpreting" alleged violations of agreements concerning disarmament inspections. And there will be many ways for the Bush administration to exaggerate, dramatize and publicize what may or may not be attempts to conceal weapons of mass destruction.
Former Pentagon insider: 'When we lie about stuff,' people perish
A former Pentagon insider talks about Iraq propaganda
"But then the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, and certain people saw a chance to turn a crisis into an opportunity. Specifically, neoconservative ideologues inside the administration--Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and others--could taste their dream of invading Iraq, but the existing intelligence didn't lend much support for a Mesopotamian adventure.
Enter the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. Conceived by Wolfowitz, the office grew out of the Near East South Asia directorate's Iraq desk and was officially launched in the summer of 2002--just as the administration was readying its big sales pitch for war."
This guy is a modern-day Hitler
The following is an excerpt from Norman Solomon's new book, War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death, just published by John Wiley & Sons.
Iraq II: The Comparison Fits Like an Old Shoe
When the second Bush administration returned Saddam Hussein to the center stage of U.S. foreign policy, it was time to reprise countless stories about his evilness, while again eliding the cozy relationship that Hussein had long enjoyed with Washington. (When I accompanied former U.N. assistant secretary-general Denis Halliday to a private meeting in Baghdad with Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz in late January 2003, Aziz glanced at the latest Time magazine, which Halliday had just given to him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was on the cover. "Rumsfeld has become quite a warmonger," Aziz said. "He did not seem so when he came and visited us in the 1980s.") The Iraqi dictator had not ordered an attack on another country since 1990, and his military capabilities had obviously diminished -- but comparing him to Hitler fit like an old shoe.
One of many politicians eager to keep putting it on was "moderate Republican" Christopher Shays, who repeatedly invoked memories of the Third Reich to justify an invasion of Iraq. Days before Congress passed the war resolution in October 2002, Shays went on MSNBC and used the Hitler analogy as part of a slick repertoire about Saddam.
After more than two decades of representing a San Francisco area district in Congress, Tom Lantos was the ranking Democrat on the House International Relations Committee by the time an invasion of Iraq was on the near horizon. He was not to be outdone at conflating Baathist Iraq with the Third Reich, as though Saddam's forces were somehow comparable to Germany's Wehrmacht. In early October 2002, Lantos pulled out all the stops on Capitol Hill as he proclaimed: "Had Hitler's regime been taken out in a timely fashion, the 51 million innocent people who lost their lives during the Second World War would have been able to finish their normal life cycles. Mr. Chairman, if we appease Saddam Hussein, we will stand humiliated before both humanity and history."
(Iraq responsible for 9/11? Weapons of mass destruction. Neocons)
The real issue is how this administration manipulated the intelligence to make a case for war against Iraq and sold it to an ignorant public with the acquiescence of Congress. Senator Robert Byrd in his Senate remarks of Feb. 12, 2003 said
"To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.
Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent -- ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing."
Iraq was not responsible for 9/11. There were a number of individuals who would lead you to believe that it was, such as Laurie Mylroie, William Kristol and the rest of the so called neoconservatives who were advising the president. These individuals set the stage for invading Iraq by writing books and op ed pieces in newspapers, making presentations on the subject at seminars sponsored by think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.
As a C-SPAN junkie I remember when Mylroie appeared on C-SPAN's Book Notes to talk about her book Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, a book published by AEI in 2000. At the time I did not give it much thought but individuals such as Peter Bergen who referred to her as the neocons favorite conspiracy theorist was able to piece things together. Bergen wrote-
"Historians will be debating that question for years, but an important part of the reason has to do with someone the average American may well have never heard of: Laurie Mylroie. Mylroie has an impressive array of credentials that certify her as an expert on the Middle East, national security, and, above all, Iraq. She has held faculty positions at Harvard and the U.S. Naval War College and worked at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as well as serving as an advisor on Iraq to the 1992 Clinton presidential campaign. During the 1980s, Mylroie was an apologist for Saddam's regime, but reversed her position upon his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and, with the zeal of the academic spurned, became rabidly anti-Saddam. In the run up to the first Gulf War, Mylroie with New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a well-reviewed bestseller translated into more than a dozen languages.
Until this point, there was nothing controversial about Mylroie's career. This would change with the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, the first act of international terrorism within the United States, which would launch Mylroie on a quixotic quest to prove that Saddam's regime was the most important source of terrorism directed against this country. She laid out her case in Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, a book published by AEI in 2000 which makes it clear that Mylroie and the neocon hawks worked hand in glove to push her theory that Iraq was behind the '93 Trade Center bombing. Its acknowledgements fulsomely thanked John Bolton and the staff of AEI for their assistance, while Richard Perle glowingly blurbed the book as "splendid and wholly convincing." I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, is thanked for his "generous and timely assistance." And it appears that Paul Wolfowitz himself was instrumental in the genesis of Study of Revenge: His then-wife is credited with having "fundamentally shaped the book," while of Wolfowitz, she says: "At critical times, he provided crucial support for a project that is inherently difficult." Wolfowitz having read the book became convinced that Saddam and Iraq were responsible for 9/11 and made the invasion his top priority.
Her book was followed by books by William Kristol and Robert Kagan. In the book Present Dangers Kristol and Kagan's basic argument is that the US needs to exercise world domination, here spun as "benevolent global hegemony" and that there are a number of external obstacles which stand in the way and must be dealt with. These are Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China, the Middle East peace process and an independent Europe.
The one distasteful aspect of the book is the attempt to wrap the entire endeavor in the cloak of "American morality", understood as protecting citizen's liberties. This is breathtaking stuff from accomplices in the most extensive attempt to incinerate the Constitution in recent history.
In the book The War over Iraq Kristol and Lawrence Kaplan, a senior editor at the New Republic, cogently make the case for a U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Kristol is also Chairman of the Project for the New American Century, a non-profit think-tank established in 1997. As of May 20, 2008, The Project for the New American Century website was inoperable. A message saying that the account has been suspended and to contact the billing department was put on the sites page. Could it be that Kristol and his fellow NEOCONS are feeling the heat and are running scared?
In it's Statement of Principles the PNAC raises the question "Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?" I'm of the opinion that in Kristol's mind he substitutes the word Israel for American.
One of the four consequences listed in the S of P is " we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values". Again substitute Israel for democratic allies and Iraq, Iran, Syria for regimes.
Another book is The Threatening Storm by Kenneth Pollack. Pollack's chapter in which he justifies a U.S. invasion of Iraq is highly flawed, for a very important reason. Having stated convincingly why continued sanctions, and even strong inspections, would not be enough to topple Saddam, and having made the case that he must be toppled before he can truly menace the world, Pollack concludes that no course remained but a U.S. invasion.
Philip Zelikow is of the type of whom it is customarily said: "He has impeccable establishment credentials". He served as executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Between 2001 and 2003 he served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president. Before his appointment to PFIAB he was part of the Bush transition team in January 2001. And in 1995 he co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice.
It's recently been revealed that in 2002 he publicly stated that a prime motive for the upcoming invasion of Iraq was to eliminate a threat to Israel.
Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser urged him to "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power" as an "Israeli strategic objective." Perle, Feith, Wurmser were all on Bush's foreign policy team on 9-11.
In 1998, eight members of Bush's future team, including Perle, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, wrote Clinton urging upon him a strategy that "should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein.
On Jan. 1, 2001, nine months before 9-11, Wurmser called for U.S.-Israeli attacks "to broaden the (Middle East) conflict to strike fatally ... the regimes of Damascus, Baghdad, Tripoli, Teheran and Gaza ... to establish the recognition that fighting with either the United States or Israel is suicidal." "Crises can be opportunities," added Wurmser." Moreover, the majority of those in and out of government who were Middle East experts had grave concerns about the wisdom of invading Iraq and serious doubts about claims that Saddam's regime posed an urgent threat to American security. What, then, gave neoconservatives like Wolfowitz and Perle such abiding faith in their own positions?
Another person is revisionist historian Stephen Sniegoski. This is what he says about Laurie Mylroie and the Iraq war-
"The real threat, Wolfowitz insisted, was state-sponsored terrorism orchestrated by Saddam. In the meeting, says Richard A. Clarke, Wolfowitz cited the writings of Laurie Mylroie, a controversial academic who had written a book advancing an elaborate conspiracy theory that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
The Mylroie reference is very interesting. Mylroie is a neocon, and other neocons have picked up and trumpeted her Iraq-involvement thesis. While Saddam was still in power she claimed that al Qaeda was a front for Iraqi intelligence. And she emphasized Saddam's purported weapons of mass destruction. Her book was originally published by the American Enterprise Institute, a leading neocon think tank. Regan Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, released the book in paperback. HarperCollins is owned by pro-neocon/pro-Zionist Rupert Murdoch, who also owns the Fox News Channel, which, in turn, booked Mylroie as an Iraq expert during the build-up to the war. Fox News was the leading media cheerleader for the war, and Mylroie's commentary served the same war-propaganda purposes as Ahmed Chalabi's bogus intelligence." (See "Osama, Saddam, and the Bombs" by David Plotz, Slate, September 28, 2001.)
"The Republican attack machine is trying to paint Clarke as some kind of partisan Democrat — an unlikely characterization of a 30-year career in government at the highest levels, starting out in the Reagan administration. What we are witnessing here is yet the latest episode in an extraordinary series of whistle-blowing accounts by government insiders: Ambassador Joe Wilson, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, and now Clarke, all patriotic Americans pointing to a dangerous vulnerability."
During the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a hearing hosted by the House Committee on Government Reform on 12 September 2002. C-SPAN televised his remarks. He spoke about Conflict with Iraq - An Israeli Perspective. This was another example of Israel's complicity in support of the U.S. Iraq invasion.
The following is an excerpt from his talk.
"History's judgment should inform our own judgment today.
Did Israel launch that preemptive strike because Saddam had committed a
specific act of terror against us? Did we coordinate our actions with the
international community? Did we condition that operation on the approval of the
United Nations?
No, Israel acted because we understood that a nuclear-armed Sadaam would place our very survival at risk. Today, the United States must destroy that same regime because a nuclear-armed Sadaam will place the security of our entire world at risk."
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz's war on Iraq began before 1998 - now it's official.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz undertook a full-fledged lobbying campaign in 1998 to get former President Bill Clinton to start a war with Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime. They claimed that the country posed a threat to the United States, according to documents obtained from a former Clinton aide.
This new information begs the question: what is really driving the Bush Administration's desire to start a war with Iraq if two of Bush's future top defense officials were already planting the seeds for an attack five years ago?
In 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were working in the private sector. Both were involved with the right-wing think tank Project for a New American Century, which was established in 1997 by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, to promote global leadership and dictate American foreign policy.
While Clinton was dealing with the worldwide threat from al Qa'ida and Osama Bin Laden, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wrote to Clinton urging him to use military force against Iraq and remove Hussein from power because the country posed a threat to the United States due to its alleged ability to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Jan 26, 1998 letter sent to Clinton from the Project for the New American Century said a war with Iraq should be initiated even if the United States could not muster support from its allies in the United Nations. Kristol also signed the letter.
"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power."
"We urge you to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council."
Because the letters were written in 1998 it proves that this war was planned well before 9-11 and casts further doubt on the claims that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 terrorist attacks.
Bush Advisers Planned Iraq War Since 1990s
The George W. Bush Administration's intentions of removing Saddam Hussein from power are not a recent development by any stretch of the imagination. Top White House officials affiliated with conservative think tanks and past administrations have been developing strategies for removing the Iraqi leader since the 1990s.
The president's real goal in Iraq
Among the architects of this would-be American Empire are a group of brilliant and powerful people who now hold key positions in the Bush administration: They envision the creation and enforcement of what they call a worldwide "Pax Americana," or American peace. But so far, the American people have not appreciated the true extent of that ambition.
How We Got Into This Imperial Pickle: A PNAC Primer
The "outsiders" from PNAC were now powerful "insiders," placed in important positions from which they could exert maximum pressure on U.S. policy: Cheney is Vice President, Rumsfeld is Defense Secretary, Wolfowitz is Deputy Defense Secretary, I. Lewis Libby is Cheney's Chief of Staff, Elliot Abrams is in charge of Middle East policy at the National Security Council, Dov Zakheim is comptroller for the Defense Department, John Bolton is Undersecretary of State, Richard Perle is chair of the Defense Policy advisory board at the Pentagon, former CIA director James Woolsey is on that panel as well, etc. etc. (PNAC's chairman, Bill Kristol, is the editor of Rupert Murdoch's The Weekly Standard.) In short, PNAC had a lock on military policy-creation in the Bush Administration.
Beyond Osama: The Pentagon's
Battle With Powell Heats Up
Saddam in the Crosshairs
by Jason Vest
November 21 - 27, 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C.—The simmering conflict within the Bush administration over how to prosecute the next phase of the "war on terrorism" suddenly flared up last week as the Taliban fled Kabul. "Where to go next and how big it should be is what's being argued right now—and Baghdad is what's being debated at the moment," said a senior Pentagon official. "This is both an internal discussion at the Pentagon, and one between departments. Our policy guys are thinking Iraq.
By Zbigniew Brzezinski
Matters have not been helped by the evident, if unstated, endorsement by President Bush of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's notions of how to deal with both the Palestinians and the region as a whole The European press has commented more widely than the U.S. press on the striking similarity between current U.S. policies in the Middle East and the recommendations prepared in 1996 by several American admirers of Israel's Likud Party for the then-prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu.
That these admirers are now occupying positions of influence in the administration is seen as the reason the United States is so eager to wage war against Iraq, so willing to accept the scuttling of the Oslo peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and so abrupt in rejecting European urgings for joint U.S.-European initiatives to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Will Americans hold U.S. policymakers accountable?
Karen Kwiatkowski –
A high-ranking military officer reveals how Defense Department extremists suppressed information and twisted the truth to drive the country to war.
In the spring of 2002, I was a cynical but willing staff officer, almost two years into my three-year tour at the office of the secretary of defense, undersecretary for policy, sub-Saharan Africa. In April, a call for volunteers went out for the Near East South Asia directorate (NESA). None materialized By May, the call transmogrified into a posthaste demand for any staff officer, and I was "volunteered" to enter what would be a well-appointed den of iniquity
The education I would receive there was like an M. Night Shyamalan movie -- intense, fascinating and frightening. While the people were very much alive, I saw a dead philosophy -- Cold War anti- communism and neo-imperialism -- walking the corridors of the Pentagon. It wore the clothing of counterterrorism and spoke the language of a holy war between good and evil. The evil was recognized by the leadership to be resident mainly in the Middle East and articulated by Islamic clerics and radicals. But there were other enemies within, anyone who dared voice any skepticism about their grand plans, including Secretary of State Colin Powell and Gen. Anthony Zinni.
From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. This seizure of the reins of U.S. Middle East policy was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.
I saw a narrow and deeply flawed policy favored by some executive appointees in the Pentagon used to manipulate and pressurize the traditional relationship between policymakers in the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
I witnessed neoconservative agenda bearers within OSP usurp measured and carefully considered assessments, and through suppression and distortion of intelligence analysis promulgate what were in fact falsehoods to both Congress and the executive office of the president.
While this commandeering of a narrow segment of both intelligence production and American foreign policy matched closely with the well-published desires of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of us in the Pentagon, conservatives and liberals alike, felt that this agenda, whatever its flaws or merits, had never been openly presented to the American people. Instead, the public story line was a fear-peddling and confusing set of messages, designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses, and a war one year later Americans do not really understand. That is why I have gone public with my account.
The following report is worthwhile reading since it offers another point of view about our invasion of Iraq from an Indian perspective. Note month and year.
Behind the Invasion of Iraq
The Real Reasons for the US Invasion of Iraq—and Beyond
Nos. 33 & 34, December 2002
The United States' current strategic agenda is of staggering proportions. It is not secret: rather, it is being discussed openly in the American press and academia; various documents reflecting it, official and semi-official, are in circulation; and the US is implementing that agenda at breakneck speed. By the time this article is published, the US will have begun its bombing and invasion of Iraq, the second third world country to be attacked in less than two years.
Given the massive imbalance of forces, the immediate military success of the current US mission is not in doubt. But its medium and long term prospects hinge not only on the US's unrivalled military strength, but on three other factors: the US's own underlying economic condition, which is weakening; the position of other imperialist powers, which is tenuously balanced and may turn into active opposition; and the stance of the world's people — growing conscious opposition in the advanced world and, crucially, popular explosions and resistance battles in the targeted third world.
The Issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction
Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East (Iraq was not alone)
Israel's Dimona nuclear facility
. Israel started the construction work at the Dimona site sometimes in early 1958, but it took the United States intelligence community almost three long years to "discover" the site for what it was, namely, a nuclear site under construction.
Vanunu spent 18 years in an Israeli prison—11 and a half of them in solitary confinement—for providing evidence of Israel's nuclear arsenal to a British newspaper in 1986. "I acted on behalf of all citizens and all of humanity," said Vanunu.
In October 1986, Vanunu, a nuclear technician who had worked at the Dimona Nuclear Power Plant in the Negev Desert for 10 years, traveled to London and gave photographic evidence to The Sunday Times that Israel was secretly developing nuclear weapons. Two months earlier he had converted to Christianity while traveling in Australia.
Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Subsequent to George W. Bush's assumption of the presidency in January 2001, the U.S. made it clear that it would not accept what had become the status quo with respect to Iraq - a country ruled by Saddam Hussein and free to attempt to reconstitute its assorted weapons of mass destruction programs. As part of their campaign against the status quo, which included the clear threat of the eventual use of military force against the Iraqi regime, the U.S. and Britain published documents and provided briefings detailing their conclusions concerning Iraq's WMD programs and its attempts to deceive other nations about those programs.
Where really are the weapons of mass destruction?
WMDs were weapons of mass deception that became the pretext for
the grand design. As was a much ballyhooed, and later discredited, park bench
meeting in Prague between an Iraqi intelligence agent and Mohamed Atta, the
September 11, 2001, Saudi kamikaze
The amateur strategists in the neo-con camp knew a lot more about Israel and its need for peace than they did about the law of unintended consequences, writ large in Iraq, and in the Arab world beyond.
President Bush's Statements On Iraq's Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Readers may not recall exactly what President Bush said about weapons of mass destruction; I certainly didn't. Thus, I have compiled these statements below. In reviewing them, I saw that he had, indeed, been as explicit and declarative as I had recalled.
Bush's statements, in chronological order, were:
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
United Nations Address
September 12, 2002
"Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons."
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
Radio Address
October 5, 2002
"The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."
"We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas."
"We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using these UAVS for missions targeting the United States."
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his "nuclear mujahideen" - his nuclear holy warriors. Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons."
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
October 7, 2002
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
US news media admits promoting lies about Iraq's WMD
Two of America's most respected newspapers
have admitted that their editors knowingly "resisted" publishing
information that challenged the official excuse for invading Iraq.
There was no evidence to support the allies' claims that Iraq possessed stockpiles of WMD. Meanwhile, there was ample evidence to prove that the politicians were lying, and clear ulterior motives to explain why. The Washington Post concedes: "We should have warned readers we had information that the basis for this was shakier". The New York Times confess that their coverage "was not as rigorous as it should have been".
How the 'Washington Post' Promoted a War
Editors now admit its news coverage during the run-up to the attack on Iraq was terribly one-sided. But the editorial page was even worse.
By Greg
By the paper's own admission, in the months before the war, it ran more than 140 stories on its front page promoting the war, while contrary information "got lost," as one Post staffer told Howard Kurtz.
Paul Wolfowitz: Not just any optimist
Nov. 17, 2002
Trudy Rubin writes the Worldview column for the Philadelphia Inquirer
This week I had the chance to sit down with someone who's an optimist about Iraq.
Not just any optimist. I refer to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, the administration's most persistent advocate of ousting Saddam Hussein.
Wolfowitz' worldview helps clarify the thinking behind the administration's obsession with the Iraqi leader. (At this delicate moment in the Iraq saga, with the administration currently committed to U.N. arms inspections rather than military action, much of our conversation was on deep background.)
Yes, the administration worries about Saddam's biological and chemical weapons, the possibility he may get nukes, and the chance he might pass them off to terrorists. But the goal of changing the Iraqi regime is part of a much larger project - and I don't mean grabbing oil or protecting Israel.
The creation of a new Iraq is central to the administration's vision of the role America should play in the post-9/11 world.
Back in 1992, then-Undersecretary of Defense Wolfowitz (who served under Reagan and Bush père) supervised the draft of an ambitious new defense doctrine. It proposed that the United States should prevent the rise of any new superpower that could rival U.S. primacy around the world. The United States would convince would-be competitors that its dominance was so beneficial it wasn't worth challenging.
When news of the doctrine leaked to the press, it was watered down. But its essence has become the core of the Bush administration's new national security doctrine. And Wolfowitz is the administration's pre-eminent intellectual.
Where does Iraq fit into the doctrine? Post 9/11, the challenge to U.S. supremacy comes not so much from states as from international terrorists - and states who aid them. The biggest threat originates in Muslim countries, including the Mideast.
A U.S. triumph in Iraq would send a dramatic message. "If we can defeat a terrorist regime in Iraq, it will be a defeat for terrorists globally," Wolfowitz said in a speech on Oct. 16. Moreover, "[Saddam's] demise will open opportunities for governments and institutions to emerge in the Muslim world that are respectful of fundamental human dignity and freedom...."
In other words, Iraq not only could become a democracy but could be the launch pad for transforming the entire Mideast.
Only an a utopian dreamer could put forward such a vision.
Wolfowitz has little patience with arguments that war with Iraq could encourage Muslim jihadists. Not for him the worry that Arab satellite television will inflame the masses with endless scenes of dead Iraqi civilians and Palestinians suffering under Israeli curfew. He has repeatedly waved aside fears that Saddam's fall from power will cause instability in the region.
Part of his confidence stems from the belief that TV cameras will show Iraqis dancing in the streets of Baghdad on The Day After, as Afghans did in Kabul
"It is entirely possible that in Iraq, you have the most pro-American population that can be found anywhere in the Arab world," Wolfowitz told me, for quotation.
Iraqi opposition activists say U.S. troops may indeed be welcomed right after they enter Iraqi cities (provided a war is short and Iraqi civilian casualties aren't large). But they also say that old suspicions and resentments linger - at past American betrayals of Kurds and Shiites, and sanctions - and that the warmth may fade quickly if the troops stay very long.
And then there is the danger that Iraqis will collapse into struggles among tribes, ethnic groups and religious confessions over who gets what share of power and oil. Wolfowitz doubts the likelihood of such chaos. But, he says, "If there is a real fear about what happens after Saddam goes, you would want the American army there when he goes."
The problem here is that the burdens for resolving the chaos would then fall on the shoulders of U.S. forces. If you take over a country, you own it, unless you can hand off to locals pretty fast.
To be fair, administration officials, with some key exceptions, seem aware of the danger of long-term occupation. They are familiar with the warnings of the noted Mideast scholar Bernard Lewis, who cautions that Israelis were welcomed at first by local Lebanese Shiites in South Lebanon. The Shiites were happy to see the departure of the Palestine Liberation Organization. But Israeli troops stayed on for years and soon were viewed as occupiers. They were bloodied by guerrilla attacks and ultimately pulled out.
Wolfowitz doesn't advocate the Japan model of U.S. occupation (as some administration officials have done). In Japan, a six-year U.S. presence and the proconsulship of General MacArthur created a democracy in a non-European nation after World War II. This definitely wouldn't work in Iraq.
Yet how else can one envision the establishment of democracy in a country that has known only autocracy and brutal dictatorship?
"If you're looking for a historical analogy," the soft-spoken, professorial Pentagon official suggested, "it's probably closer to post-liberation France [after World War II]."
That one threw me for a bit, but I think I get it. Led by Gen. Charles de Gaulle, the Free French were looked down on when they were based in London, but the general became a hero-leader when the war was over. The Wall Street Journal suggested a parallel this week between de Gaulle and the exiled Iraqi opposition leader Ahmed Chalabi, of the Iraqi National Congress.
The parallel is pretty dicey. De Gaulle was a charismatic general directing organized resistance on the ground. He came home after five years of exile to a mono-ethnic France untroubled by interfering neighbors. Germany was prostrate, the United States was the overlord of Europe. France, a European nation with (admittedly spotty) experience of democracy, didn't need U.S. tutelage.
No Iraqi exile has anything like de Gaulle's legitimacy at home. Certainly not Chalabi, for all his capabilities. Once in Baghdad, U.S. officials would have to mediate among Kurds, Shiites, Sunnis, Turkmen, Assyrians, secularists, Islamists, tribal leaders, leftover Baath party officials, and Iraq's anxious neighbors who will want to intervene.
At best, we will be the long-term referee behind the scenes, blamed for what goes wrong, suspected of myriad conspiracies against Iraqis and their oil. Better than Saddam, no doubt. But a democracy - before, at best, another two decades - is unlikely.
Call me a pessimist. But if the rosy view of Iraq's potential as role model for the region is driving a desire for an early war, it is very misguided. If we have to go after Saddam's weapons, let's do it with eyes wide open.
Otherwise we may wind up like Israel in Lebanon.
The above column by Trudy Rubin was very prophetic indeed. In my search for a balanced view of the Iraq war Rubin by far has been the most accurate of all the reporters writing for major newspapers.
Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq
By Trudy Rubin, Worldview Columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer
This collection of Trudy Rubin's columns on Iraq covers the period from July 2002 through June 2004. Read back as her columns predicted with uncanny accuracy before the war what would happen in Iraq if the Bush administration failed to plan for the real Iraq as opposed to the Iraq of its imagination. Rubin's predictions were on the mark. As the situation developed, she outlined steps that might ameliorate the situation. Few have been taken. In the conclusion, Rubin looks at what must be done to prevent Iraq from deteriorating into a terrorist haven and to enable the United States to drawn down its troops.
This book draws on the author's extensive knowledge of the Middle East based on thirty years of covering the region, including six years stationed in Jerusalem and Beirut as a foreign correspondent. Rubin has written continuously on Iraq for the last two years and taken three lengthy trips to Iraq since the fall of Baghdad. She has extensive contacts with members of the new Iraqi government, Iraqi clerics and a broad range of ordinary Iraqis. Whether familiar with Rubin's columns or not, this book is an excellent way to revisit the events surrounding the Iraq war and to understand what our nation must do to call the endeavor a success.
And then when the WMD's
were not found the reason du jour to
invade became "Regime Change","Freedom","Democracy"
Regime Change and Introducing Democracy to Iraq
The neoconservatives around George Bush are crazy. They actually believe the United States can run about the world, overthrowing governments by force and establishing democracies in their place.
The deceit behind the Bush WMD "Investigation"
Mr. Bush is expected to announce
within days the make-up of the panel to investigate why intelligence on which
he said his administration based its claims about Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction did not match what has been found on the ground in Iraq. Brent
Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser in Mr. Bush's father's
administration, has been tipped to head the inquiry.
Mr. McGovern said that there was outrage among intelligence professionals that they were being used as scapegoats. He said that intelligence provided by the CIA and other intelligence agencies was used selectively by the administration to support a political decision that it had already made to go to war with Saddam.
"Especially earlier on, the intelligence they were getting was accurate: [CIA director] George Tenet stood up to them. But after he was told that Bush was going to war he caved in," Mr. McGovern said. "There is a sense of outrage among analysts, at least the good ones. The good ones are leaving. There are a lot of mid-level managers who are leaving."
What of the charge that It's About Oil?
Well… maybe
During World War I (1914-18), strategists for all the major powers increasingly perceived oil as a key military asset, due to the adoption of oil-powered naval ships, new horseless army vehicles such as trucks and tanks, and even military airplanes. Use of oil during the war increased so rapidly that a severe shortage developed in 1917-18.
The strategists also understood that oil would assume a rapidly-growing importance in the civilian economy, making it a vital element in national and imperial economic strength and a source of untold wealth to those who controlled it. Already in the United States, John D. Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil Company, was the world's richest person.
The French government was not satisfied with its secondary role in world oil, fearing the might of the big British and US companies. In an effort to strengthen and "liberate" France, the government in Paris set up the Compagnie Francaise des Pétroles in 1924 to take up the French share in Mesopotamia – now a British colony(2) renamed Iraq
Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq
It will not come as news to anyone that the US dominates the world economically and militarily. But the exact mechanisms by which American hegemony has been established and maintained are perhaps less well understood than they might be. One tool used to great effect has been the dollar, but its efficacy has recently been under threat since Europe introduced the euro.
Oil from Iraq : An Israeli pipedream?
16 April 2003
stands to benefit greatly from the US led war on Iraq, primarily by getting rid
of an implacable foe in President Saddam Hussein and the threat from the
weapons of mass destruction he was alleged to possess. But it seems the
Israelis have other things in mind
An intriguing pointer to one potentially significant benefit was a report by Haaretz on 31 March that minister for national infrastructures Joseph Paritzky was considering the possibility of reopening the long-defunct oil pipeline from Mosul to the Mediterranean port of Haifa. With Israel lacking energy resources of its own and depending on highly expensive oil from Russia, reopening the pipeline would transform its economy.
Have 1,000 U.S. Souls Died for Oil?
September 13, 2004
Ivan Eland
The tragic milestone of 1,000 U.S. deaths in the Iraqi quagmire should cause introspection about why the United States really went to war and whether it has been worth it. While the Bush administration's public justifications never really added up, evidence exists that there was a hidden agenda behind the invasion of Iraq: securing oil.
This unique volume compiles in one place a history of US intervention against Iraq and the devastating consequences for the people and the region. It shows the ways in which war today is a continuation of that history, but also a radical leap to more direct military control in Iraq and around the world. The "Bush Doctrine" is both built on our imperial history and yet new and far more dangerous.
The Real Reasons for the War With Iraq
Although completely unreported by the U.S. media and government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is in large part an oil currency war. One of the core reasons for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves.
Iraq: The Last Republican Hurrah
An invasion of Iraq is likely the most thoughtless action in modern history. It has the support of only two overlapping small groups: neoconservatives infused with the spirit of 18th century French Jacobins who want to impose American "exceptionalism" on the rest of the world, and foreign policy advisers who believe that the primary aim of U.S. foreign policy is to make the Middle East safe for Israel.
The Bush neocons tried to connect Iraq to the 9/11 terrorism in order to justify an attack but couldn't get it done, however much they kept implying that Saddam was complicit. When they failed, they moved on to the WMD lies. Their strenuous searching for a justification for attacking Iraq indicates that their fallacious WMD claims were not the result of error. In the end they got exactly the results they wanted. The neocons promoted much of the most extreme WMD propaganda through their Office of Special Plans and their touting of the deceptive Ahmed Chalabi. In short, all of the "intelligence errors" enabled the neocon war party to mount the attack on Iraq that they had so ardently sought for so long."
Neoconservatives a.k.a. neocons. Who are they? Their influence on U.S foreign policy
The word neoconservative was a term that I was not familiar with before delving into the issue of whether we were justified in invading a sovereign country. The more I searched the more I became convinced that many of these individuals by their actions appeared to show more allegiance to a foreign country than they did to the U.S.A.
During the 2000 presidential election recount in Florida one Democratic congressman seemed to monopolize the TV limelight. Robert Wexler was on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC 24/7 accusing the Republicans of manipulating and stealing the election.
His opinion of President Bush changed after 9/11 when he became a staunch supporter for the invasion of Iraq. His turn about piqued my curiosity. Why would a died in the wool Democrat be so supportive of the president's foreign policy of pre-emption? Was it because he was a Jewish/American who believed that invading Iraq would eliminate a country which was more of a threat to Israel than to the U.S.?
Wexler's Travels
South Florida's bellicose congressman carves up the Middle East
New Times Broward-Palm Beach
The Democrat, whose district spreads from north Broward County to parts north of West Palm Beach, has been one of the strongest supporters in Congress for military action in Iraq.
To really understand Wexler's motivations, though, you must know about Turkey's relationship with Israel. Any friend of the Jewish state is a friend of the 41-year-old Wexler's.
Because of its own interests in the region, principally oil and Israel, America has helped foster the Ankara-Jerusalem alliance. And, lest our politicians lose interest, Israel is pushing its key supporters in Congress -- like Wexler -- to advocate for Turkish interests in the United States. Wexler has performed dutifully in that respect, sponsoring and cosponsoring numerous pro-Turkey bills. The American Jewish establishment is also doing its part: Just this past December 18, nine major Jewish groups -- including the American Jewish Congress, B'nai B'rith International, and the Anti-Defamation League -- wrote President Bush a letter asking that the administration provide Turkey "debt forgiveness, trade concessions, and/or further International Monetary Fund relief." In July, Congress authorized Bush to give the country $228 million in aid.
Money is one thing; propaganda is another. In July, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another devout backer of Israel, traveled to Ankara and made this amazing declaration: "I think a real test of whether a country is a democracy is how it treats its minorities. And actually it's one of the things that impresses me about Turkish history, the way Turkey treats its own minorities."
Here Wolfowitz proves he's not willing to let the truth get in the way of a good war. He must be familiar with Turkey's early-20th-century oppression of the Jews. And for the past 80 years, Turkey has repressed its 15 million Kurds in horrendous ways, not the least of which has been to ban their language and culture. When Kurdish rebels rose against the military in 1984, the Turks beat down the uprising during the next 15 years, killing 30,000 Kurds, destroying more than 3,000 Kurdish villages, and leaving 3 million Kurds homeless, according to generally accepted figures.
Wexler, in his bullish bid to help Israel and the West dominate the Middle East, seems oblivious to such realities. In May 2001, when the congressman traveled to Turkey on a diplomatic mission, he had war on his mind. "As Iraq's northern neighbor," he said, "there cannot be an anti-Saddam Hussein strategy without the full involvement of Turkey."
In July, the House International Relations Subcommittee on Europe passed a Wexler-sponsored resolution to commend Turkey and Israel. Wexler hailed it in a press release, in which he called upon the Middle East "to follow the example set by these two nations in promoting democracy, peace, and tolerance."
Hawking for Israel
South Florida reps push for war. But who are they pushing for?
New Times Broward-Palm Beach
Wexler isn't a new convert to Bush -- he's just an old loyalist to Israel, a country that, along with a powerful Washington, DC., lobbying group called the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), is pushing the war on Iraq with a vengeance. In essence, the Israeli lobby is urging big brother America to come out, flex its military muscles, and make the Israel-American alliance the dominant power in the Middle East.
An orthodox Jew, Wexler has always been a Zionist hard-liner and has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from pro-Israel interests during the past six years. And he's picked up a big stick for the fight against Iraq. A member of the House committee on international relations, lately he's been spending an inordinate amount of time traveling around the country and the world promoting Israel and the war on Hussein.
So last week, I asked Wexler the obvious question: Who, as you prepare to send U.S. soldiers to war, are you really representing: South Florida or Israel?
"Let's get this straight," he answered. "I'm American. I'm 100 percent American. I bleed American. Am I proud of my heritage? Yes. I support the state of Israel and wholeheartedly support an unbreakable bond between the U.S. and Israel... but there is nothing about my policy that is anything other than American. It is not driven by Israel. At this point, it is supportive of President Bush."
I too believe in a strong alliance between the United States and Israel, but I also believe that Israel's narrow interests have far too much influence on our foreign policy. We need a balanced approach in the Middle East. If America continues to tie itself almost solely to the tiny Jewish state as it thrashes about in a sea of Muslim Arabs, we're asking for long and widespread warfare in the region.
Unfortunately, Wexler and several other Jewish Democrats in Congress, led by Connecticut's Sen. Joe Lieberman and a gaggle of representatives from California and New York, are spoiling for that fight. And because these same politicians can usually be counted on to anchor the Democrats' opposition to Bush, they have helped to destroy any hope of the party's reining in Dick Cheney's dogs of war. Of course, a few Jewish members of Congress -- California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chiefly -- have opposed the invasion.
Broward County's own Jewish Democrat in Congress, Rep. Peter Deutsch, is another near-fanatical, pro-Israel politician who expects to vote for military action in Iraq and has publicly backed it. But he recently told me that Bush hasn't yet met his "three-pronged test" for an invasion. Deutsch won't support war until the president has proven that Saddam has nuclear weapons, expects to use them on the United States, and is developing a delivery system to carry out such an attack.
No such proof has been disclosed, but Deutsch says he fully expects it will be soon.
The Washington, D.C.-based Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel has put both Deutsch and Wexler in its "Hall of Shame" for their pro-Israel voting records. Powerful lobbying groups like the American Jewish Congress and AIPAC have "hijacked the agenda" with millions of dollars in campaign contributions and powerful backers, alleges JPPI founder Josh Ruebner, adding that politicians like Wexler are "representing the government of Israel, absolutely. Most American Jewish members of Congress are guilty of that."
And it's a dangerous policy, according to Nidal Sakr, a Muslim political activist from Miami Beach. Wexler and other liberal Jewish hawks are "clearly serving foreign interests rather than the national interest they are supposed to be serving," says Sakr, who runs a group called March for Justice. "The U.S.-Israeli relationship is the largest threat to our national security and the safety of our citizens. Our support for Israel and its crimes against Palestinians that have been denounced again and again by the international community and the United Nations fuels the anti-American sentiments and feelings of hatred that are being compounded around the world."
New Times Broward-Palm Beach
The people don't want to attack Saddam, but our elected representatives sure do
The other two Democrats from Broward and Palm Beach counties, Peter Deutsch and Robert Wexler, didn't surprise anyone when they supported the Toxic Texan. Both are pro-Israeli hard-liners and high-flying hawks when it comes to the Middle East (see "Hawking for Israel," September 26). They weren't alone among Jewish House Democrats: a whopping 17 of 24 jumped on the Bush-Cheney war machine.
Moran Said Jews Are Pushing War
The Poisoning of American Politics
Patrick J. Buchanan
March 17 2003
Moran Said Jews Are Pushing War," ran the headline on page one. "Apology denies Anti-Semitism" ran the subhead on the story.
Even a glance at that Washington Post, and one knew Jim Moran, bad boy Irish congressman from Alexandria – who has had more than his share of brawls, personal and political – had stepped into it, big time. But while the headline was stark, what Moran said and the context in which he said it, seem far less inflammatory.
Apparently, at an antiwar gathering of 120 folks at St. Anne's Episcopal Church on March 3, a woman arose, identified herself as Jewish, and noted that while Christian churches opposed to war on Iraq were represented there, her own faith was not.
Moran picked up on that and responded, "If it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
Now about this comment, it is, first, wrong. We are going to war because Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell are convinced we must disarm Baghdad – and regime change is the only way to effect it. Second, according to polls, the Jewish community is only about as hawkish as the rest of the nation, with 59 percent supporting war.
But how was Moran's statement "anti-Semitic"? According to my Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, an anti-Semite is "one who is hostile to or discriminates against Jews." Moran says he answered as he did because the lady identified herself as Jewish. Indeed, he went on to say to her, "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."
An exaggeration, sure. But where is the hatred or hostility toward the Jewish people in Moran's statement? Seeking moral clarity, I waited for the Post's exegesis of Moran's remarks.
It did not disappoint. Rather than pour oil on troubled waters, the Post editorial headline screamed, "Blaming the Jews."
Moran is "unfit for office," ranted the Post, as he is "perpetuating a stereotype of Jews as a unified bloc steering the world in its own interest and against everyone else's." The Post then put Moran's moral atrocity into a larger historical context:
"Over the centuries anti-Semites have used this libel to distract attention from their own failings and to instigate violence and discrimination against Jews. Mr. Moran's comment will be used to concentrate the poison of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world where it remains virulent and dangerous."
Oh, come off it. What Moran said was wrong and insensitive – and he has apologized repeatedly – but from reading the Post, one would think he was over at St Anne's passing out the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" and recruiting for the Black Hundreds.
As with Trent Lott, it is pile-on time. Moran's own Democratic leaders, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Tom Daschle, denounced him. Six Democratic colleagues, all Jewish, have urged his defeat. Six rabbis called for his resignation. Sophie Hoffman, president of the Jewish Community Council of Washington, called his words, "reprehensible and anti-Semitic." Rabbi Jack Moline of Alexandria accused Moran of echoing "the most scandalous rhetoric of the last century."
Such remarks about any minority group in America," roared Moline, "whether African-Americans, Hispanics, Muslims or others, are beyond inappropriate in the rhetoric of a member of Congress."
But hold on. Would it really be outrageous to say that were it not for the Cuban community in Miami, America would be easing the embargo on Cuba? Would it really be anti-Christian to say that were it not for the Christian Right, the GOP would have abandoned its pro-life and anti-cloning positions?
Is it really outrageous, reprehensible and anti-Semitic to say that were it not for the power and influence of the Israeli lobby and Jewish community, Israel would never have gotten $100 billion in foreign aid in the last three decades?
The United States is about to launch a pre-emptive war on a nation that has not attacked us, in accord with a "doctrine" this president never declared while campaigning. This war may lead to what its crazed enthusiasts are calling "World War IV," the "war on militant Islam."
The American people have a right to know, before we are dragged into an Armageddon against Islam, who is pushing for this war and what their motives, open or hidden, may be. And it is not Jim Moran who is trying to stifle that debate It is a power elite who use smears like "anti-Semite" to censor and blacklist anyone who stumbles too close to the truths they seek to conceal.
Embattled Rep. James Moran is apologizing for claiming that the Jewish community was pushing the country into war. But the Virginia Democrat's apology failed to allay the increasing fears in some circles that Jews will be blamed for a war against Iraq.
Moran, a seven-term congressman representing a heavily Muslim and Arab-American district in Washington's northern Virginia suburbs, made his controversial remark March 3 during a speech in front of 120 people. He was condemned by the White House and several congressional Democratic leaders. Six area rabbis and a Washington Post columnist called on him to resign.
The controversy comes at a time when Jewish community leaders are increasingly alarmed by the willingness of mainstream media pundits to discuss the influence of Israel and American Jews on the White House's Iraq policy. In particular, pundits have highlighted the key role played by several Jewish hawks in the Bush administration, the lobbying activities of Jewish groups and the president's strong relationship with Prime Minister Sharon.
AIPAC, the most influential pro-Israel group in Washington, lobbied last fall in favor of Bush's successful efforts to obtain congressional authorization to use force against Iraq. Several other Jewish organizations, responding to press queries at the time, expressed support for the president's efforts to obtain a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military action to disarm Iraq. Still, staffers in several congressional offices told the Forward that they had not heard recently from Jewish groups on Iraq.
Edward I. Koch
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Yesterday, I responded to an article in The Washington Post which reported that Congressman James P. Moran, D-Va., had told his Virginia constituents he held the Jews responsible for the impending war against Iraq. My letter to him and to Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi follow. Anti-Semitism must be crushed with all our energy and in the same way we seek to crush racism.
Senator Hollings stands by his column
Hollings, who retires in January after 38 years in the Senate can tell it like it is without fear of being intimidated by AIPAC and ADL.
"Led by Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Charles Krauthammer, for years there has been a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area.
With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel."
"U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings took to the Senate floor Thursday to defend himself against charges he had written an anti-Semitic newspaper column.
"I won't apologize for this column; I want them to apologize to me," the Charleston Democrat said of his critics. "Talking about 'anti-Semitic.' They're not getting by with it."
Hollings, who retires in January after 38 years in the Senate, went on to blame President Bush for the war in Iraq. He said U.S. policy in the Middle East had unfortunately put Israel in "terrible jeopardy."
The Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish civil rights group, had taken Hollings to task for writing that Israel and President Bush's desire to court Jewish voters were the reasons for the war in Iraq."
Gen. Zinni: 'They've Screwed UP
Zinni says he blames the Pentagon for what happened. "I blame the civilian leadership of the Pentagon directly. Because if they were given the responsibility, and if this was their war, and by everything that I understand, they promoted it and pushed it - certain elements in there certainly - even to the point of creating their own intelligence to match their needs, then they should bear the responsibility," he says.
Zinni is talking about a group of
policymakers within the administration known as "the
neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize
American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They
include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of
Defense Douglas
Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle;
National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President
Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq.
"I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do," says Zinni.
"And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested."
So what is the story?
Magazine sparks outcry by 'outing' Jewish neo-cons
'Why won't anyone say they are Jewish?' article asks
Scott Stinson
National Post
KALLE Lasn insists he is not anti-Semitic. The editor-in-chief of Adbusters says he knew an article that purports to "out" a large number of leading U.S. neo-conservatives as Jewish would be provocative, but he did not expect the "visceral" reaction that has seen the B.C.-based anti-consumerism magazine deluged with demands to cancel subscriptions.
"This has made me feel like I am the victim," Mr. Lasn said in an interview from his Fraser Valley home, adding he has never seen "this level of threatening phone calls, this level of swearing, this level of cancelled subscriptions" in his risk-taking company's 15-year history.
The flashpoint for the anger is an article Mr. Lasn wrote in the current issue of Adbusters. "Why Won't Anyone Say They Are Jewish?" posits that a disproportionate number of leading U.S. neoconservatives are Jewish, a fact Mr. Lasn says is relevant because "neo-cons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influences their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East."
The implication is the United States is pro-Israel because many of Washington's policy-makers are Jewish. Readers and critics have taken particular umbrage at an accompanying list of what Adbusters calls "the 50 most influential neo-cons in the U.S.," such as Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz (left, with flag). Twenty-six, including Mr. Wolfowitz, have black dots next to their names to denote they are Jewish.
"It's an old tactic," said Ed Morgan, the Ontario chairman of the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). "They were counting the number of Jews in the U.S. Communist party back in the '50s. But it's still startling to see a list and see an asterisk next to Jewish names. "Jewishness and a particular political position do not equate," Mr. Morgan said. "The point is to address issues of policy on their merits. Ethnicity is beside the point."
Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B'nai Brith Canada, said Adbusters "must have been short of news to look at that kind of a thesis." He noted the administration of former president Bill Clinton had several Jews in positions of influence, yet that administration "bent over backwards" to appease Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
Mr. Lasn, however, is unrepentant. The Adbusters Web site includes the original article, a selection of positive and negative responses from the public and a follow-up piece from the editor-in-chief that says if the list
"were a list of dentists or firefighters ... that would indeed be offensive",but because the neo-cons "are the most influential [sic] political/intellectual force in the world right now" it is "necessary to put them under a microscope."
Expanding on that theme over the telephone, Mr. Lasn said the U.S. neo-cons "are the most powerful group of people in the world. They are intellectual thugs who have the power to start wars and stop wars. So because this group is so powerful, we decided it's OK to point out ... how it's 50% Jews."
Daniel Pipes, (right) director of the U.S. think-tank Middle East Forum, is on the Adbusters list, with an asterisk. He said the magazine's project is absurd "because of the implication that religion defines politics." "There are plenty of leading Jews against the war in Iraq. There are plenty who are neo-cons. It's no guide whatsoever to a person's political leanings."
He also said the list is inaccurate, both in identifying neo-conservatives and Jews. Lists that point out "dangerous" high-profile Jews are nothing new, Mr. Pipes said, adding he has found his name on many such compilations posted on the Internet. But it is unusual for a magazine with the profile of Adbusters, which boasts a circulation of 120,000 copies monthly -- two-thirds in the United States -- to undertake such an endeavor.
Mr. Dimant said he is particularly concerned that Adbusters purports to have shed light on the "Jewishness" of its subjective list of influential Americans -- a notion reminiscent of decades-old hatemongering theories about secret Jewish cabals that control the media and world governments. "It's very hard to run the world banking system and the foreign press from my little office in Toronto," he said. Mr. Lasn dismisses such talk. "We are not going to censor ourselves. We are not going to worry about people comparing it to unsavory things from the past. "Our goal was to launch a debate. We hope it gets even bigger than it is now." Mr. Morgan said the CJC will have a formal response, although, "we have not determined what course of action we're going to take"
Dennis Prager
Some Americans apparently believe that we are going to war with Iraq "because of the Jews." Having written a book explaining anti-Semitism (Why the Jews? The Reason for Anti-Semitism, Simon & Schuster , all I can do is marvel at the durability of anti-Semitism and the eternality of the charge that the Jews are responsible for everything anti-Semites fear.
In all fairness, individuals such as Prager should be concerned since-
US Jews Could Pay High Price for Iraq War
by Ira Chernus
No one will ever know for sure whether these neo-cons (notably Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith) really promoted war with Iraq primarily to help Israel. It is not very likely, as Keller say. If a war in Iraq "goes bad," though, the truth will not matter. Americans will look for scapegoats, and the organized Jewish community may be near the head of the line.
It won't be just the organizations who will be blamed; it will be "the Jews." That is certainly unfair. The organizations and their leaders are more conservative than the whole Jewish population, especially on Israel and the Middle East. While nearly all the leaders support a war in Iraq, polls show that 40% or more of U.S. Jews are hesitant, at best, about war. But the organizations and leaders always claim to speak for all American Jews. Why shouldn't most American non-Jews believe them and assume all Jews are to blame?
These Jewish groups and leaders have struggled hard to gain their enormous influence on Middle East policy. They have largely achieved their aim. They, and the many Jews who do support them, have had a free ride. They wield great clout without any noticeable increase in anti-Semitism. Here's the irony. If we have the war they want, and it "goes bad," the Jewish community might pay a steep price in rising anti-Semitism. Are U.S. Jews really willing to take this risk?
on Ilana Mercer's 'Blame the Jews'
By Kevin MacDonald
There is nothing inherently implausible about hypothesizing that minority activist movements like neo-conservatism would be willing to recruit some majority group members. It makes excellent marketing sense to have at least some spokespeople who resemble the target audience.
Mercer also argues that the elected and senior appointed Bush administration officials, in the main not Jewish, ought to be held responsible for the "administration's blunders." This is true, but it does not in the least delegitimize consideration of what motivated the administration's neoconservative members and friends – who generally are Jewish.
Alan Cooperman
Buchanan denies that his views are anti-Semitic and has not apologized for them. "We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's interests. . . . What these neoconservatives seek is to conscript American blood to make the world safe for Israel," Buchanan wrote in the March 24 issue of the magazine he edits, the American Conservative.
Do you know what they're saying already? That the war in Iraq is being planned by a cabal of extremist Jews. That it is the first part of a Zionist conspiracy to redraw the map of the Middle East. That Israel stands to be the prime beneficiary of this war. And it's not just the marginalized skinheads who are saying this either. It's also mainstream folks who would swear up and down that they don't have an anti-Semitic bone in their bodies.
Are you an anti-Semite if you criticize Israel or the U.S, policy towards Israel or point to the connection of Jewish/American neocons with U.S. policy vis a vis Israel and their support of the invasion of Iraq?
Let's look at the example of former Illinois Congressman Paul Findley who during the 1980's began to doubt the wisdom of United States policy in the Middle East. He tried to broker an agreement between Yasser Arafat under which the PLO would live in peace with Israel. For his attempts at seeking a peaceful settlement to the Palestinian/Israeli problem he was branded a "practicing anti-Semite"
AIPAC, the powerful Israeli lobby was instrumental in Findley's defeat in the next election. Findley dared to speak out and he paid with his political future.
Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby
by Paul Findley
The Washington Post
"Straightforward and valid."
Book Description
Exposes the degree to which pro-Israeli groups are able to suppress free debate, compromise national secrets, and shape American foreign policy. Findley focuses on individuals who have stood up to the pro-Israeli forces and brings out their statements and observations on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
The Holocaust is being invoked to squelch criticism of Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel. The leading Jewish/American neocons who promoted the Iraq war will eventually find protection behind this façade (fence) as conditions in Iraq deteriorate.
Read "The Holocaust Industry" Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering
Professor Norman G. Finkelstein in an iconoclastic and controversial new study moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel's evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America's Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters.
Edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
"How did a term, once used accurately to describe the most virulent evil, become a charge flung at the mildest critic of Israel, particularly concerning its atrocious treatment of Palestinians? Edited by Cockburn and St. Clair, the print and online journal Counterpunch has become a must read for hundreds of thousands a month who no longer believe anything they read in the mainstream press beyond the sports scores. And on the subject of Israel and Palestine, of the Israel lobby in the US, the current middle east crisis, and its ramifications at home and abroad, Counterpunch has been unrivalled. Herein you'll find 18 of the finest essays and articles (from 9 Jews and 9 Gentiles!). A lot of the names will be familiar - Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Norman Finkelstein, Lenni Brenner, Uri Avnery, plus the editors. Then, there's former CIA analysts Bill and Kathy Christison, the trenchant and witty philosopher Michael Neumann, seasoned Capitol Hill staffer George Sutherland, Will Yeoman's path-breaking essay on Israel and divestment, Shaheed Alam who became a target of the fanatical Daniel Pipes and Israeli journalist Yigal Bronner. Plus Kurt Nimmo, Bruce Jackson, Jeffrey Blankfort and more. This, the first in the new Counterpunch series from AK Press, is a timely anthology on how silence and complicity in crimes against a betrayed people has been enforced."
Ran HaCohen
September 29, 2003
The eve of the Jewish New Year is an excellent occasion for what Jewish tradition calls Kheshbon Nefesh, or soul-searching on so-called "anti-Semitism", which has now become the single most important element of Jewish identity. Jews may believe in God or not, eat pork or not, live in Israel or not, but they are all united by their unlimited belief in anti-Semitism.
rise of Jewish Anti-Semitism in Israel (I)
By Steven Plaut
September 13, 2004
One of the great ironies of Jewish history is that the secular Zionism of the nineteenth century was formulated precisely for the purpose of offering an alternative to the assimilationism and Jewish "self-hatred" of the Diaspora.
Zionism arose as a response to both assimilationism and anti-Semitism. Who then could have dreamed that the fulfillment and realization of Zionism would be accompanied by the emergence of the most malignant manifestations of Israeli self-hatred and Jewish anti-Semitism, this in the state of Israel and the land of Zion.
My thesis that the invasion of Iraq was supported, influenced and promoted by the neocons who had the interests of Israel in mind should be looked at in the context of the Palestinian / Israeli conflict and the role that Zionism and it's adherents have played in the years leading up to the founding of Israel and to the present time.
(Unless the Israel / Palestinian conflict is not resolved there will never be peace in the Middle East. With the death of Yasser Arafat, Pres. Bush has a golden opportunity to play an important role in the peace process.)
Since some of these neocons have Zionist leanings it is important to learn something about Zionism in order to understand what is happening in the Middle East and why we invaded Iraq. The following links attempt to shed some light on the subject
Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
This site aims to provide authoritative information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without polemics. On the theory that less is more, we've scoured the web and selected the best articles, maps and other materials. Links are organized by subject and annotated, so you can find what you need quickly.
Middle East > Politics > Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Has Israel made an honest effort to seek peace with the Palestinians? The author of the following book lists the many obstacles that the Israeli government has placed in the way on the road to a peaceful settlement. Read the "Background" excerpts. By all means buy the book if you are seeking the truth and the other side of the story that the US media is afraid to tell.
and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict
by Norman G. Finkelstein
"To resolve what was called the 'Jewish question' - i.e., the reciprocal challenges of Gentile repulsion, or anti-Semitism, and Gentile attraction, or assimilation - the Zionist movement sought in the late nineteenth century to create an overwhelmingly, if not homogeneously, Jewish state in Palestine.! Once the Zionist movement gained a foothold in Palestine through Great Britain's issuance of the Balfour Declaration, the main obstacle to realizing its goal was the indigenous Arab population. For, on the eve of Zionist colonization, Palestine was overwhelmingly not Jewish but Muslim and Christian Arab.
Across the mainstream Zionist spectrum, it was understood from the outset that Palestine's indigenous Arab population would not acquiesce in its dispossession. 'Contrary to the claim that is often made, Zionism was not blind to the presence of Arabs in Palestine', Zeev Sternhell observes. 'If Zionist intellectuals and leaders ignored the Arab dilemma, it was chiefly because they knew that this problem had no solution within the Zionist way of thinking. In general both sides understood each other well and knew that the implementation of Zionism could be only at the expense of the Palestinian Arabs.' Moshe Shertok (later Sharett) contemptuously dismissed the 'illusive hopes' of those who spoke about a "'mutual misunderstanding" between us and the Arabs, about "common interests" [and] about "the possibility of unity and peace between the two fraternal peoples.'" 'There is no example in history', David Ben-Gurion declared, succinctly framing the core problem, 'that a nation opens the gates of its country, not because of necessity but because the nation which wants to come in has explained its desire to it."
'The tragedy of Zionism', Walter Laqueur wrote in his standard history, 'was that it appeared on the international scene when there were no longer empty spaces on the world map.' This is not quite right. Rather it was no longer politically tenable to create such spaces: extermination had ceased to be an option of conquest. Basically the Zionist movement could choose between only two strategic options to achieve its goal: what Benny Morris has labeled 'the way of South Africa' - 'the establishment of an apartheid state, with a settler minority lording it over a large, exploited native majority' - or the 'the way of transfer' - 'you could create a homogenous Jewish state or at least a state with an overwhelming Jewish majority by moving or transferring all or most of the Arabs out."
War and expulsion (transfer)
Stephen Sniegoski
To understand why Israeli leaders would want a Middle East war, it is first necessary to take a brief look at the history of the Zionist movement and its goals. Despite public rhetoric to the contrary, the idea of expelling (or, in the accepted euphemism, "transferring") the indigenous Palestinian population was an integral part of the Zionist effort to found a Jewish national state in Palestine. Historian Tom Segev writes:
The idea of transfer had accompanied the Zionist movement from its very beginnings, first appearing in Theodore Herzl's diary. In practice, the Zionists began executing a mini-transfer from the time they began purchasing the land and evacuating the Arab tenants.... "Disappearing" the Arabs lay at the heart of the Zionist dream, and was also a necessary condition of its existence.... With few exceptions, none of the Zionists disputed the desirability of forced transfer — or its morality.
However, Segev continues, the Zionist leaders learned not to publicly proclaim their plan of mass expulsion because "this would cause the Zionists to lose the world's sympathy." [4]
The most monumental cover-up in media history may be the one I'm about to describe. In my entire experience with American journalism, I have never found anything as extreme, sustained, and omnipresent.
Three and a half years ago, when the current Palestinian uprising began, I started to look into Israel and Palestine. I had never paid much attention to this issue before and so – unlike many people – I knew I was completely uninformed about it. I had no idea that I was pulling a loose piece of thread that would steadily unravel, until nothing would ever be quite as it had been before.
When I listened to news reports on this issue, I noticed that I was hearing a great deal about Israelis and very little about Palestinians. I decided to go to the Internet to see what would turn up, and discovered international reports about Palestinian children being killed daily, often shot in the head, hundreds being injured, eyes being shot out. And yet little of all this was appearing in NPR reports, the New York Times, or the San Francisco Chronicle.
There was also little historic background and context in the stories, so this, too, I began to fill in for myself, reading what has turned into a multitude of books on the history and other aspects of the conflict. I attended presentations and read international reports.
The more I looked into all this, the more it seemed that I had stumbled onto a cover-up that quite possibly dwarfed anything I had seen before. My former husband had been one of the founders of the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR), an institution known for its powerful exposés. He and CIR have won numerous well-deserved awards from Project Censored from the very beginning of its creation. Nevertheless, the duration and violence of the injustice I was discovering, and the extent of its omission and misrepresentation – even in Project Censored itself, seemed unparalleled.
Robin Miller, a freelance writer in New Orleans, writes with integrity, clarity and passion on issues of social justice. Visit his web page to learn more about the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict.
For many American Jews, anyone who writes disapprovingly of the policies of Ariel Sharon and of his Dionysian neo-conservative backers in Washington is evidence of "classic anti-Semitism." The mere reference to "neo-cons" is interpreted to mean an attack against a "Jewish cabal."
Zionism and Judaism – Let Us (NETUREI KARTA) Define Our Terms
first we must ask a simple question. Why has the lie, which equates Judaism and
Zionism, triumphed? Why, has what is so demonstrably false, captured the
citadels of Western public opinion? And, in the end, what can we do about it?
History is invariably written by those who emerge victorious from its
struggles. In the case of the Zionist/Palestinian struggle of the past century
this factor immediately places the Israeli state, its
propagandists and international apologists, in the ideological driver's seat.
Second, the suffering of the Jewish people in the Second World War in Europe created extraordinary sympathy among the peoples of the earth and it was this sincere and commendable sympathy that has been
incessantly exploited by the Zionist propaganda machine since 1945.
Last, Zionist propagandists are always given to bullying tactics and censorship. It is very helpful in this regard to read former Congressman Findley's book, They Dared to Speak Out. It is the sorry record of the immense resources that the Zionist lobby invested in destroying the careers of politicians all across the United States who had voiced some qualms about this nation's subservience to Israel.
So, let's explore some web pages on the
topic of neocons so you can decide if the
evidence is anecdotal or is it factual.
Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate
September 13, 2004
And common sense tells that we didn't attack Iraq because Saddam is a brutal dictator. He was a brutal dictator back in the days when we played footsie with him as he fought Iran. (Do a Google image search for Rumsfeld and Saddam, and you'll find pictures of Rummy and Saddam shaking hands.)
Historically, the United States has always been friendly with brutal dictators if it's to our financial advantage. Currently, there are other dictators afoot; Saddam wasn't the only one.
And anyone who can read knows that Saddam had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
So why did we go to war with Iraq?
The short answer is "oil." But that's not the whole story.
Briefly, we went to war with Iraq because an influential group of conservatives (now known as "neo-cons") convinced President George W. Bush that it was in America's best interests to conquer Iraq as a first step toward dominating the oil-producing nations in the Middle East and eventually the world.
Not insignificantly, these same neo-cons wanted to eliminate Iraq as a threat to their darling ally, Israel. Their plan is laid out in detail on the Web at newamericancentury.org.
So we invaded Iraq not to save ourselves from weapons of mass destruction, not to rid the world of a brutal dictator and not to avenge the murders of Sept. 11. We invaded Iraq because Bush and his pals think America should rule the world.
That's why we can't win. The rest of the world isn't going to let us win. The rest of the world might admire us, but they do not want to be dominated by us.
And that's why we should get out of Iraq today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not a year from now, but today.
Try as we may, we are not going to turn Iraq into a model democracy. The Sunnis don't want democracy. The Shiites don't want a democracy. The Kurds don't want a democracy.
The Saudis do not want a new democracy as a neighbor. Nor do the Kuwaitis. Nor do the Syrians. None of the countries in that region with despotic rulers want us to succeed. And don't think for a moment they're above slipping terrorists into Iraq to kill Americans.
The plan to conquer Iraq was half-baked from the start. Our troops were not properly trained or equipped to do the job given them. (Sent to the desert in jungle fatigues? Not given body armor? Completely untrained in handling prisoners?)
There was no "exit plan" because we never intended to exit. The plan was, and is, to build military bases in Iraq and stay there forever as cock of the walk in the Middle East.
Many of our European friends, who have a sense of history, knew better than to get involved in such a fool's mission
Bush may be the idealist other people think he is, but his grandiose plan for controlling the world has at least one fatal flaw: it depends, childlike, on the good will of all involved.
Yet, not even the U.S., the alleged "good guy" in this mess, has demonstrated purity. Our leaders see Iraq as a place to make money. So Bush & Co. have set up their friends to cash in on the rebuilding of Iraq, a job that should be done (for pay) by the people who built it in the first place: Iraqis.
We can't win in Iraq. Hardly anybody wants us to. The longer we stay there, the more Iraqi children end up maimed or dead, the more of our young men and women die.
Clearly, our government lied to us, and to the world, to get us into this war. That alone should tell us it's wrong.
More neocon background:
PNAC - Project for the New American Century. Neocon foreign and defense policy think tank. Includes: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Abrams, and Podhoretz.
JINSA- The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs is committed to explaining the link between US. national security and Israel's security. Served on Advisory Board: Cheney (1994), Wolfowitz, Feith, Perle.
Rumsfeld- Cheney's pick for Secretary of Defense
Wolfowitz- Earliest critique of Bush I's decision to leave Saddam in Power. Time magazine's "godfather" of the 2nd Iraq war. Served under Cheney in first Iraq war.
Wurmser- Cheney's Middle East advisor
Feith- Undersecretary of Defense (to Wolfowitz) for policy
Perle- Rumsfeld's pick for chairman of Defense Policy Board. Forced to step down as chairman, but still on the Board.
Libby- Cheney's Chief of Staff. Wrote controversial "Defense Planning Guidance" with Wolfowitz in 1992 for Cheney. Wolfowitz and Libby were upset that Bush 1 did not remove Saddam.
Abrams- Top Mideast advisor on the National Security Council. Author of Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America. Son-in-law of Podhoretz. Pled guilty to making false statements to Congress.
Podhoretz- Now retired editor of Commentary, the magazine of the American Jewish Committee. Received Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, Current focus is the war on terrorism. Calling it world war four, he predicts it will last for generations.
They are specifically represented by Richard Perle, Bill Kristol & Richard Brooks (WEEKLY STANDARD), Paul Wolfowitz, Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, Charles Krauthammer, Frank Gaffney (former aid to Richard Perle and WASHINGTON TIMES columnist), Robert Kagan (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), columnist Cal Thomas, a dispensationalist, and others.
Most neoconservative defense intellectuals
have their roots on the left, not the right
The weird men behind George W Bush's war
[Neocons] are products of the largely Jewish-American Trotskyite movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history. Their admiration for the Israeli Likud party's tactics, including preventive warfare such Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, is mixed with odd bursts of ideological enthusiasm for "democracy" They call their revolutionary ideology "Wilsonianism" (after President Woodrow Wilson), but it is really Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution mingled with the far-right Likud strain of Zionism. Genuine American Wilsonians believe in self-determination for people such as the Palestinians.
Serving Two Flags: Neocons, Israel and the Bush Administration
Since 9/11, a small group of "neoconservatives" in the administration have effectively gutted—they would say reformed—traditional American foreign and security policy. Features of the new Bush doctrine include the pre-emptive use of unilateral force, and the undermining of the United Nations and the principle instruments and institutions of international law...all in the cause of fighting terrorism and promoting homeland security.
Some skeptics, noting the neo-cons' past academic and professional associations, writings and public utterances, have suggested that their underlying agenda is the alignment of U.S. foreign and security policies with those of Ariel Sharon and the Israeli right wing. The administration's new hard line on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict certainly suggests that, as perhaps does the destruction, with U.S soldiers and funds, of the military capacity of Iraq, and the current belligerent neocon campaign against the other two countries which constitute a remaining counterforce to Israeli military hegemony in the region—Iran and Syria.
One might wonder how, with security histories like these, Messrs. Bryen and Ledeen have managed to get second and third chances to return to government in highly classified positions.
The explanation is that they, along with other like-minded neoconservatives, have in the current Bush administration friends in very high places. In particular, Bryen and Ledeen have repeatedly been boosted into defense/security posts by former Defense Policy Council member and chairman Richard Perle (who recently quietly resigned his position), Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith.
As previously mentioned, in 1981 Perle, as DOD assistant secretary for international security policy (ISP), hired Bryen as his deputy. That same year, Wolfowitz, then head of the State Department Policy Planning Staff, hired Ledeen as a special adviser. In 2001 Douglas Feith, as DOD Under Secretary for Policy, hired or approved the hiring of Ledeen as a consultant for the Office of Special Plans.
Pro-Israel Lobby Has Strong Voice
It's worse than you thought: pro-Israel influence on US policy
In 2003, the organization reported spending $1.28 million on lobbying.
The Bush Administration's Dual Loyalties
by KATHLEEN and
former CIA political analysts
"Dual loyalties" has always been one of those red flags posted around the subject of Israel and the Arab-Israeli conflict, something that induces horrified gasps and rapid heartbeats because of its implication of Jewish disloyalty to the United States and the common assumption that anyone who would speak such a canard is ipso facto an anti-Semite. (We have a Jewish friend who is not bothered by the term in the least, who believes that U.S. and Israeli interests should be identical and sees it as perfectly natural for American Jews to feel as much loyalty to Israel as they do to the United States. But this is clearly not the usual reaction when the subject of dual loyalties arises.)
Foxman using the "AS" words to hide behind when the issue of "Dual Loyalties" is brought up.
Dual-loyalty bias worries US Jews
Some Jewish officials are more concerned about the US authorities' apparent interest in snaring two America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) staffers in an alleged spy scandal than with the future of AIPAC or their own efforts in Capitol Hill.
"There are a lot of questions to ask: Why all this energy, all this effort?" said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), relating to the disclosures that Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin allegedly shared top secret intelligence information with two high-level AIPAC staffers. "It's a very broad investigation in terms of the persons interviewed. Why engage in a sting vis- -vis Jewish institutions? There are a lot of questions unanswered."
Foxman suggested that the FBI's interest in AIPAC may point to underlying bias, and a suspicion among US authorities that Jews in America are more loyal to Israel than to the US. That is especially troubling to the ADL, because the dual-loyalty charge carries with it anti-Semitic overtones for many American Jews.
"One out of three Americans believes that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States. That's a classic anti-Semitic attitude," Foxman said. "Washington is not immune."
Indeed, Foxman and Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations suggested, this might factor into decisions to reject US Jews for foreign-service jobs – something American Jews have complained about for some time.
Hoenlein said he gets complaints all the time from Jews claiming they've been denied access to security-sensitive posts because they are Jewish.
"There have been reports of people being denied security clearance again, and whether it's related to this or not we can't tell," Hoenlein said.
FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said the bureau had no comment.
When AIPAC brought 5,000 supporters to its annual policy conference in Washington three weeks ago, the organization sought to demonstrate publicly that its work would not be hampered by the controversy surrounding the two ex-AIPAC officials caught up in a spy scandal.
And to all outward appearances, it seemed that the group was not suffering much fallout from the disclosure that Franklin allegedly handed over intelligence information to AIPAC research director Steven Rosen and Iran analyst Keith Weissman.
AIPAC moved quickly to fire the two, paid for lawyers to defend them against any possible espionage charges and announced to conference delegates that, in the words of executive director Howard Kohr, "Your presence here today sends a message to every adversary of Israel, AIPAC and the Jewish community that we are here and here to stay."
But behind this veneer of strength, officials at Jewish groups that work with Capitol Hill say they are monitoring closely a situation that could change if Rosen and Weissman are indicted. There is some concern that if they are criminally charged, a high-profile espionage trial, similar to the Jonathan Pollard case, could stoke fears among some in America, including US officials, that American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the US.
"Things did not turn out exactly as predicted," said Neil Goldstein, executive director of the American Jewish Congress. "They said there is nothing to it; it'll all go away. Clearly, they've taken actions now that belie that, and clearly there are things that are still going on."
"What can I tell you? It has us all nervous," said David Zweibel, executive vice president for government and public affairs at Agudath Israel of America.
"It is in general a time of some nervousness about our relationships on Capitol Hill and, more generally, in federal Washington," Zweibel said. Nevertheless, he allowed, "There has not yet been any tangible sign of pulling back or reluctance or anything in terms of ongoing relationships."
For now, Jewish organizational officials insist that AIPAC's troubles have not really affected them or their work.
"We have not been impacted, to the best of our knowledge," said Foxman. "Nothing has changed vis- -vis Congress. We meet on many issues, including the Middle East."
Hoenlein echoed that sentiment. "Operationally, I would say that it has not impacted in any way that we can discern," he said. "I think the community should stand by AIPAC and Rosen and Weissman, who have served the community and made great contributions."
Even if the two are indicted – which some news reports based on anonymous sources have suggested is imminent – that should not change anything, he said.
"Indictments are not convictions," Hoenlein said. "From what we know, it would be very hard to convict somebody for what has been said so far."
Underlying Jewish groups' continued support for AIPAC is the conviction many share that Rosen and Weissman were set up in an FBI sting operation that hinged upon the cooperation of a Pentagon analyst who already was in trouble with the law for disclosing top secret information related to America's national defense.
The analyst, Franklin, was arrested in May, posted bond and had a preliminary hearing in his case on Thursday.
He is charged with leaking top secret information to two men – said to be the AIPAC staffers – at an Arlington, Virginia restaurant on June 26, 2003, as well as with breaking FBI rules on the handling of classified documents. The information Franklin allegedly shared with the AIPAC staffers – who are not mentioned by name in any of the indictments against Franklin – related to potential attacks on US and Israeli agents in Iraq by Iranian-backed forces.
While Franklin, a 25-year veteran of the Department of Defense, seems to have broken the law by disclosing classified information that could be used "to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation," it is not at all clear that Rosen and Weissman broke any laws by receiving it.
Even though they reportedly relayed that information to an Israeli Embassy official – so far, the most damning piece of information against them – they also notified the White House and reportedly have said that they were unaware the information was classified.
AIPAC officials say they have been reassured that the organization is not being investigated.
"It's been told consistently it's not a target of this," said Nathan Lewin, the Washington lawyer AIPAC hired to deal with the case. "Whatever the government does with regard to this investigation, it is not directed at AIPAC."
The word "neoconservative" originally referred to former liberals and leftists who were dismayed by the countercultural movements of the 1960s and the Great Society, and adopted conservative views, for example, against government welfare programs, and in favor of interventionist foreign policies. A group of today's "neocons" now hold key positions in the Pentagon and in the White House and they even have a mole in the State Department.
It is really a conflict between the neoconservatives, who are largely responsible for getting us into the war against Iraq, and those they disparagingly call the "realists," who tend to be more cautious about the United States' efforts to remake the Middle East into a democratic region.
In the context of the United States, it refers to a right-wing movement of former political leftists. As Michael Lind has observed, "Most neoconservative defense intellectuals have their roots on the left, not the right. They are products of the influential Jewish-American sector of the Trotskyist movement of the 1930s and 1940s, which morphed into anti-communist liberalism between the 1950s and 1970s and finally into a kind of militaristic and imperial right with no precedents in American culture or political history.
Jun 19th 2003
From The Economist print edition
A strange waltz involving George Bush, ancient Greece and a dead German thinker
FROM the moment George Bush moved into the White House, the search has been on for the man (or woman) who is pulling his strings. Is the puppeteer Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld? Karl Rove or Condoleezza Rice? Big Oil or old-time religion? Each has had their spell in the spotlight. But now all are forgotten in the fuss about the most surprising suspect of all: Leo Strauss, a political philosopher who died in 1973 and wrote such page-turners as "Xenophon's Socratic Discourse".
Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception
By Jim Lobe,
AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.
Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.
What would you do if you wanted to topple Saddam Hussein, but your intelligence agencies couldn't find the evidence to justify a war?
A follower of Leo Strauss may just hire the "right" kind of men to get the job done -- people with the intellect, acuity, and, if necessary, the political commitment, polemical skills, and, above all, the imagination to find the evidence that career intelligence officers could not detect.
The "right" man for Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, suggests Seymour Hersh in his recent New Yorker article entitled 'Selective Intelligence,' was Abram Shulsky, director of the Office of Special Plans (OSP) -- an agency created specifically to find the evidence of WMDs and/or links with Al Qaeda, piece it together, and clinch the case for the invasion of Iraq.
Leo Strauss, Conservative Mastermind
By Robert Locke
FrontPageMagazinecom | May 31, 2002
IN CONTEMPORARY American intellectual life, there is only one school of conservative intellectuals that has taken root in academia as a movement. They are the Straussians, followers of the late Leo Strauss (1899-1973). The hostile New Republic referred to Straussians as "one of the top ten gangs of the millennium." Strauss is an ambiguous, sometimes even troubling, figure, but he is essential to the conservative revival of our time and he offers the intellectual depth we are so desperately in need of.
Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
They call themselves, self-mockingly, the Cabal—a small cluster of policy advisers and analysts now based in the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. In the past year, according to former and present Bush Administration officials, their operation, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, has brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts, who began their work in the days after September 11, 2001, have produced a skein of intelligence reviews that have helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq.
Neocons' plans for global domination top the annual list of stories ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media.
The neoconservative blueprint for U.S. military domination is hardly a secret. A group called the Project for a New American Century--a think tank founded by hawks who now hold prominent jobs in the White House--released a version of it three years ago
None of the major news media in this country have reported on this document or on the fact that Bush is so closely following its script.
While many of the hawks are under the wing of Wolfowitz, several conservatives hold influential positions in Cheney's office and in the State Department. During the Clinton administration, many of them served with far-right, defense-oriented think tanks such as the Center for Security Policy and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.
Conservatives' Uncivil War Over Iraq
Frum "repeatedly refers to his own Jewishness. It is hard to recall any previous presidential aide so engrossed with his own ethnic roots. Frum is more uncompromising in support of Israel than any other issue, raising the inescapable question of whether this was the real reason he entered the White House."
Invading Iraq: Converging u.s. and Israeli Agendas
Key people in Bush administration are on record as strong supporters of Israel and of regime change in Iraq, among them: Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Doug Feith, Under Secretary, Arms Control and International Security, John R. Bolton, senior director on Middle Eastern affairs on the National Security Council, Eliot Abrams.
"Like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, a pair of rightist factions in the Bush administration are hoping to take the United States on the road to Baghdad. Unlike the beloved Hope-Crosby 'road' pictures, however, the adventure in Iraq is not going to be funny."
Were Neo-Conservatives' 1998 Memos a Blueprint for Iraq War?
Years before George W. Bush entered the White administration of House, and years before the Sept. 11 attacks set the President George W. direction of his presidency, a group of influential Bush. neo-conservatives hatched a plan to get Saddam Hussein out of power.
The group, the Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, was founded in 1997. Among its supporters were three Republican former officials who were sitting out the Democratic presidency of Bill Clinton: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz.
In open letters to Clinton and GOP congressional leaders the next year, the group called for the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power and a shift toward a more assertive U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the use of force if necessary to unseat Saddam.
And in a report just before the 2000 election that would bring Bush to power, the group predicted that the shift would come about slowly, unless there were some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.
Americas Neoconservatives
Neoconservatives are former liberals (which explains the "neo" prefix) who advocate an aggressive unilateralist vision of U.S. global supremacy, which includes a close strategic alliance with Israel. Let's start with one of the founding fathers of the extended neocon clan: Irving Kristol. His extensive resume includes waging culture wars for the CIA against the Soviet Union in the early years of the Cold War and calling for an American "imperial" role during the Vietnam War. Papa Kristol, who has been credited with defining the major themes of neoconservative thought, is married to Gertrude Himmelfarb, a neoconservative powerhouse on her own. Her studies of the Victorian era in Britain helped inspire the men who sold Bush on the idea of "compassionate conservatism."
Inter Press Neo - Con Archives
The overall IPS mission
Its main objective shall be to contribute to development by promoting free communication and a professional flow of information to reinforce technical and economic co-operation among developing countries.
Contrary to appearances, the neoconservatives do not represent a political movement, but a small, exclusive club with incestuous familial and personal connections.
What do William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Robert Kagan have in common? Yes, they are all die-hard hawks who have gained control of U.S. foreign policy since the 9/11 attacks. But they are also part of one big neoconservative family -- an extended clan of spouses, children, and friends who have known each other for generations.
The U.S. Media…… Objective or Subjective in reporting the news?
The complicity of the media in supporting the neocon Iraq agenda can be understood in light of it's support of Israel in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in the Middle East.
As can be seen from this list of lists, the entire anti-Israel contingent of the punditocracy does not add up to a single George Will or William Safire, much less a Wall Street Journal or US News. It remains to be seen whether unqualified support for all of Israel's actions is really in that tortured nation's best interest in the long run. Sometimes the bravest and most valuable advice a trusted friend can give is: "STOP."
The Neocon line up
The following names were entered in a GOOGLE search using key words "name – neocon – Iraq – war" or "name-neo conservative"
You will soon notice a pattern of association of these Jewish Americans with neocon thought i.e.; invading Iraq and support of Israel. Granted, that some of the Google search links are of a questionable source but select those that are not considered extremist.
Click on the names
Jeffrey Bergner
Eliot Cohen
Midge Decter
Aaron Friedberg
Jeffrey Gedmin
Reuel Marc Gerecht
Eli S. Jacobs
Donald Kagan
Robert Kagan
Frederick Kagan
Charles Krauthammer
Martin Peretz
Norman Podhoretz
Randy Scheunemann
Gary Schmitt
William Schneider, Jr.
Richard H. Shultz
Henry Sokolski
Stephen J. Solarz
Leon Wieseltier
David Frum
Daniel Pipes
Bernard Lewis
Phillip Zelikow
Kenneth Adelman
Elie Wiesel
Judith Miller
A number of Washington think tanks and organizations have been complicit in following an agenda in their support of invading Iraq.
Top Neoconservative Think Tanks
Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA),
JINSA has a Two-Fold Mandate:
1. To educate the American public about the importance of an effective U.S. defense capability so that our vital interests as Americans can be safeguarded; and
2. To inform the American defense and foreign affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
JINSA Advisory Board Note the number of ex US military brass
Lt. Gen. Anthony Burshnick, USAF (Ret.)
General James B. Davis, USAF (ret.)
Adm. Jerome Johnson, USN (Ret.)
LTG Paul G. Cerjan, USA (Ret)
David P. Steinmann, Chairman
More on JINSA (Disinfopedia)
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI)
Although MEMRI's viewpoint is pro-Israel, it is not the case that it contains no criticism of Israel or is monolithically anti-Arab.
A very influential organization with the Center for Security Policy is the Center's National Security Advisory Council, whose members hold senior positions with the Bush administration.
Google Search Results Keywords"Center For Security Policy"
Herman Kahn (1922 - 1983) was founder of the Hudson Institute.
by Samuel Francis
August 5, 1996
Not only at Commentary and The Public Interest, but also at National Review, The American Spectator, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic and the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, as well as at the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and other leading conservative think-tanks, neo-conservative influence became routine.
Neo-conservatives also began taking over the tax-exempt foundations that had provided funding for most of the conservative organizations. These foundations, smaller than the Establishment liberal giants like the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, had been established by wealthy conservative families to serve philanthropic goals. But in the 1980s neo-conservatives succeeded in taking over many of their administrative functions, using their positions to re-direct the funds which the foundations dispensed - turning off the spigot to conservative groups they deemed not "credible" and turning it on for those they favored.
Pro Israel lobby that has an inordinate amount of influence on U.S. foreign policy vis a vis the Palestinian / Israeli crisis.
President Speaks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee AIPAC
May 18, 2004
AIPAC is doing important work I hope you know that. In Washington and beyond, AIPAC is calling attention to the great security challenges of our time. You're educating Congress and the American people on the growing dangers of proliferation. You've spoken out on the threat posed by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons. You've always understood and warned against the evil ambition of terrorism and their networks. In a dangerous new century, your work is more vital than ever.
More often than not, the politician who tried to face down the American Israel Public Action Committee came out the worse for it.
Speaking Out
Blow to Pro-Israel Lobby in U.S. by Paul Findley
By anyone's standard, AIPAC is one of the most powerful and intimidating lobbies in Washington and certainly the most influential in foreign policy. In practical terms, it exists for one purpose: to assure the enactment of legislation favorable to Israel. To that end, it helps elect supporters of Israel and defeat its critics. It is as thoroughly political as Congress itself.
PAC Contributions to 2006 Congressional Candidates
2005-2006 Cycle
Iraq a historical perspective
The question has been asked why did the president's advisors fail to consult with historians who specialized in Arabic studies to learn about the history of the region before making the decision to invade. What is troubling is that Britain had suffered a defeat in Iraq after world war one trying to bring peace to the region. One would only have to GOOGLE key words to learn about Iraq such as was done below.
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
My son will be twelve on September 27. If he had been born in 1964, the year of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, he would have turned eighteen in 1970, the height of US troop strength. My son, unlike the son of George I, would have been drafted to fight in a war that most recognize as illegitimate. Americans who fought bravely and died in the rice patties of Southeast Asia were betrayed by the President, the Congress and the People of the United States in 1964. All three had a patriotic duty to question the lies of the day, but they sat by and did nothing.
I hope that Americans learn their history. I do not want my son to die in an unjust quagmire without end.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Iraq: a century of war and rebellion
Since the state of Iraq was created early this century, the working class in the area have suffered brutal exploitation and repression at the hands of the rival ruling class groups competing for power. As if dealing with these home grown gangsters wasn't enough, they have also faced the bullets and bombs of the global capitalist powers (especially Britain and America) seeking to control the oil wealth of this part of the world.
Meanwhile opposition political organizations such as the Iraqi Communist Party and the Kurdish Democratic Party have consistently made deals with both Iraqi regimes and the global powers at the expense of those who they claimed to be leading in resistance to the state. Despite all this, the working class has shown itself a force to be reckoned with, toppling governments and sabotaging war efforts. This brief chronology charts some of the key moments in a century of war and rebellion.
The Great Iraqi Revolution 1920
Local outbreaks against British rule had occurred even before the news reached Iraq that the country had been given only mandate status. Upon the death of an important Shia mujtahid (religious scholar) in early May 1920, Sunni and Shia ulama temporarily put aside their differences as the memorial services metamorphosed into political rallies. Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting, began later in that month; once again, through nationalistic poetry and oratory, religious leaders exhorted the people to throw off the bonds of imperialism. Violent demonstrations and strikes followed the British arrest of several leaders.
Britain Tried First. Iraq Was No Picnic Then.
The public, the distinguished military analyst wrote from Baghdad, had been led "into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor."
"They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information," he said. "The Baghdad communiqués are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows."
He added: "We are today not far from a disaster." Sound familiar? That was T. E. Lawrence — Lawrence of Arabia — writing in The Sunday Times of London on Aug. 22, 1920, about the British occupation of what was then called Mesopotamia. And he knew. For it was Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence and the intrepid British adventuress Gertrude Bell who, more than anyone else, were responsible for the creation of what was to become Iraq. A fine mess they made of it, too.
Iraqi Whispers Mull Repeat of 1920s Revolt déjà vu all over again
Published on Tuesday, January 27, 2004
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Whispers of "revolution" are growing louder in Baghdad this month at teahouses, public protests and tribal meetings as Iraqis point to the past as an omen for the future.
Iraqis remember 1920 as one of the most glorious moments in modern history, one followed by nearly eight decades of tumult. The bloody rebellion against British rule that year is memorialized in schoolbooks, monuments and mass-produced tapestries that hang in living rooms.
The territory of modern Iraq is roughly equivalent to that of ancient Mesopotamia, which fostered a succession of early civilizations. The history of Mesopotamia began with the civilization of the Sumerians, who emigrated from the highlands of Iran and northern Anatolia in about 3000 BC. Two kingdoms, Sumer and Akkade, combined in about 2350 BC to form one nation under King Sargon of Agade. In about 2000 BC the Amorites assumed control. Their king, Hammurabi, made Babylon a famous city (see Babylonia), though he is best known for his code of laws. After his death came invasions by the Hittites and then by the Kassites, who formed the Kingdom of Assyria about 1350 BC. The Kassites originally had their capital at Ashur, but they moved it in 720 BC to Nineveh, opposite the modern city of Mosul.
Did Saudi Princess Give Money to 9/11 Hijackers?
Since 1979, the Wahhabi establishment has spent an estimated $70 billion on Islamist missionary work, ranging from the funding of some 10,000 madrassas in Pakistan to the construction of thousands of mosques and seminaries and community centers all over the Muslim and Western worlds. Jihad, or holy war, against Western heathens was the fundamentalist creed.