The Specialization of Politics

To be successful, politicians must become specialized, that is, specialized in raising campaign money. This means, of course, that they must cozy up to the special interests, particularly the well-heeled Israel Lobby. The result is is that with regard to our foreign policy, which is destroying the country, there is no significant difference between the parties. It is the Republican whores vs. the Democrat prostitutes. One group wants to stay in Iraq on behalf of Israel, the other group, realizing that Israel's goal of trashing Iraq has been accomplished, wants to leave Iraq and attack Iran.

In his recent book, "Second Chance," former National Security Advisor Zbigniev Brzezinski grades the past three presidents. He notes that "only those in a state of self-serving denial" can claim that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn't ignite "widespread Arab hostility toward America." (p.191) With regard to Middle East policy he gives President Clinton a "D" (p.185), saying he "left office with Israeli/Palestinian relations in a worse condition," and that his policy was "contaminated by a domestic political calculus." (p.130) At Camp David II, Clinton's negotiating team was biased towards Israel. With upcoming elections, including that of Clinton's wife Hillary, Israel-Lobby-generated campaign funds were essential. (See previous blog "The Myth of the Generous Offer" 5-13-07.) Yet Clinton did better than President George W. Bush, who received an "F" on Brzezinski's presidential report card.

In my view, if one were to go back further, however, and grade presidents by their long-term legacies, President Harry S. Truman surely would rank near the bottom. The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, (dropped unnecessarily in the view of many), killed hundreds of thousand of innocent civilians. This was indeed terrorism on a grand scale. Then in 1948, with a tough presidential election coming up against Gov. Thomas E. Dewey, Truman aligned himself with the Zionist cause. "More important even than Jewish votes to the destitute Democrat party could be Jewish campaign contributions." (David McCullough's "Truman" p. 596) Secretary of State George Marshall and Secretary of Defense James Forrestal opposed this alignment foreseeing Middle East problems down the road. Indeed alternative plans involving UN peacekeepers were proposed to avoid war between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. Although Truman defeated Dewey in '48, his legacy is a Middle East in flames complicated by nuclear proliferation.

For Now We See Through a Glass, Darkly

America is hated around the world because of our foreign policy, the inner workings of which we are unaware. Now and then, we are afforded a glimpse, as in the case of a secret Downing Street memo. Appearing in London's Sunday Times 5-1-05, this memo recapped a briefing on 7-23-02 of Prime Minister Blair by Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Services, recently back from Washington. "Military action is now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." In other words, at least eight months prior to the Iraq invasion, it had been decided to concoct intelligence and facts to support unnecessary preemptive war. Indeed, for years before that we had tormented the Iraqi people with cruel sanctions and bombings. After 9/11, Osama bin Laden listed three reasons we were under attack: 1. our support of the Israeli occupation, 2. our troops in the Arabian holy land, 3. the inhumane sanctions on the Iraqi people. Scott Ritter, a leader of UN weapons inspections teams in Iraq from 1991-1998, reveals US ulterior motives in his book, "Iraq Confidential---The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein." The official UN policy was to lift sanctions once Saddam had disarmed. However, the US government was not interested in disarmament; it aimed to perpetuate sanctions with the ultimate goal of regime change. Saddam was aware of this and also of the inter-relationship between CIA and the inspectors. A CIA-attempted coup was foiled during this period. The UN inspections were finally halted in 1998 so that the US could carry out bombing missions. From the viewpoint of a British diplomat, Carne Ross describes in his book "Independent Diplomat--Dispatches From An Unaccountable Elite," the way sanctions were perpetrated even though they were killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children. Diplomats favoring sanctions prevailed at the UN by using one-sided arguments while summarily dismissing human rights evidence on the other side. The reality of the situation in Iraq played no role in these discussions. Ross compares this to the cherry-picking of intelligence to make the faulty case for war. And thus were the Iraqi people wronged by foreign governments who kept their own people in the dark.

Brave Souls

In contrast to the presidential candidates who have lost their souls to the Israel Lobby, (see previous blog entry), there were a few brave souls at the recent debates. At the first Democratic debate on 4/26, Mike Gravel declared that other candidates frighten him. "When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, --that's code for nukes, nuclear devices!" He reminded us that "the entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain, and they're dying in vain right now this very second. And you know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain, it's more soldiers dying in vain." He also noted that "we are mischaracterizing terrorism. Terrorism has been with civilisation from the beginning, and it will be there till the end." He explained that we have to change our foreign policy: the Iraq invasion created terrorists. Dennis Kucinich stated, "The global war on terror has been a pretext for aggressive war. As president of the US, I intend to take America in a different direction, rejecting wars as an instrument of policy.....I'd also put on the front of the agenda peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians because I can play an evenhanded role in reaching out to bring those peoples together." In the second Democratic debate on 6/3, Kucinich spoke out against state-sponsored assassination, "I don't think that a president of the US who believes in peace and wants to create peace is going to be using assassination as a tool." In the second Republican debate on 5/15, Ron Paul pointed out that we were attacked on 9/11 as blowback from our foreign policy. Later he referred to "The 9/11 Report" as confirmation of this fact. In the third Republican debate on 6/5, answering a question as to what is the most pressing moral issue in the US right now, Paul said, "it is the acceptance just recently that we now promote preemptive war. I do not believe that's part of the American tradition. We had in the past always declared war in defense of our liberties or to go to aid somebody, but now we have accepted the principle of preemptive war. We have rejected the just-war theory of Christianity, and now tonight we hear that we're not even willing to remove from the table a preemptive nuclear strike against a country that has done no harm to us directly and is no threat to our national security. I mean we have to come to our senses about this issue of preemption and go back to traditions and our constitution and defend our rights but not think that we can change the world by force of arms and to start wars."

Lost Souls

Due to Nazi policies of invasion, occupation, and death camps, Germany lost its soul. Similarly, Israel has lost its soul under policies of invasion, occupation, and deathly persecution of Palestinians. As America morphs into Israel, (see previous blog "Morphing into Israel" 1-25-06), our politicians have also lost their souls, as evidenced in the recent debates. Candidates for US president now endorse torture, nuclear preemptive strikes, and targeted assassinations with deaths of innocent civilians. One would think they were campaigning to become godfathers of the Mafia. Of course, given their financial dependence on Israel Lobby-generated campaign funds, this is not surprising. Furthermore, just as the Lobby lies about history to give Israel a good name, our politicians follow suit. For instance, in the 6-5-07 Republican debate, Mitt Romney claimed that the Iraq war was necessary because Saddam Hussein would not let UN weapons inspectors into Iraq. Yet anyone who was awake at the time knows that in the fall of 2002, Saddam did allow inspectors back in. They were forced to leave the following spring so that we could administer shock and awe. Continuing on the subject of lies, candidates favored pardoning convicted liar Scooter Libby. Lying is, of course, eminently pardonable, since it was part of Libby's job description as a member of the administration which lied us into war.

Muslim vs Muslim Wars

The Israel lobby's neocons have been very successful in fomenting civil wars to benefit Israel. (See previous blog "Civil War Advocates" 4/15/06) For instance, adding to the civil wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have been arming Fatah so as to bring about civil war against Hamas in Palestine. Furthermore, Seymour Hersh reports that we are bolstering militant Sunni extremist groups in Syria and Lebanon which are sympathetic to Al Qaeda. (The New Yorker, 3-5-07) In Syria these groups are being armed for the purpose of attacking the Syrian government. In Lebanon they are being armed in order to fight Hezbollah. Interestingly, one of these Sunni extremist groups is Fatah al-Islam, located in the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. Currently, the Lebanese Army, also armed by us, is attacking this group within the camp, as usual killing innocent civilians in the process. This is reminiscent of the Iran-Iraq War where we also provided arms for both sides as Henry Kissinger famously said that it was too bad both sides couldn't lose. (See previous blog "Somaliization" 1/11/07) There's apparently nothing that makes the Israel Lobby happier than Muslim vs Muslim wars. Indeed promoting such wars is part of the Lobby's strategy for countering Muslim resistance to Israel's never-ending occupation of Palestine.