Giuliani's Foreign Affairs

In truth, Giuliani is currently involved in only one foreign affair, i.e. with Israel. Giuliani has been Israel's favorite candidate, (see previous blog "The Two Great Myths" 1/29/07), based on his refusal to accept a $10 million donation for 9/11 victims from a Saudi prince. This refusal was because the prince wanted to explain that the attack was related to our foreign policy, especially our support of the Israeli occupation. Giuliani echoed this in his response to Ron Paul in the 5/15 debate; clearly, Giuliani is incapable of entertaining the notion that our foreign policy could inspire Islamic terrorism. He must be blind as to the positive effect of the Iraq occupation on Al Qaeda recruitment.

Certainly, when Giuliani cleaned up New York City, he was justified in viewing crime in black and white, "good vs evil" terms. Law-abiding citizens are not to blame for muggings. Yet a knowledge of history does provide an understanding of why Americans are hated in the Arab/Muslim world. (See previous blogs"Why They Hate Us Parts 1-4" 1/05-1/08 /2006.) Sadly, Giuliani's knowledge comes from the neocons.

As pointed out by Peter Boyer in "The New Yorker" August 20,2007, p. 60, Giuliani has chosen as a senior foreign policy advisor arch-neocon Norman Podhoretz, who recently in "Commentary," "made the case for a unilateral American air assault on Iran." In "Foreign Affairs" Sept./Oct. 2007, Giuliani describes his foreign policy views. He, like Podhoretz, believes we are engaged in World War IV, a long war just beginning, in which we must destroy all enemies. He apparently believes that we should still be fighting in Vietnam: the problem was that we didn't stay long enough. He thinks that withdrawing from Lebanon in 1983 was also a mistake. Obviously he does not know that we were merely aiding Israel's invasion as well as entering into the Israel-induced civil war. (See previous blog "Iraq and Lebanon" 4/10/06.) He no doubt believes, along with the neocons, that we should have joined in Israel's repeat performance invasion of Lebanon last summer.

Patrick Buchanan ("Where the Right Went Wrong" p.51-52) lists the numerous countries that the neocons, including Podhoretz, regarded as "targets for destruction by America" and notes that the destruction list is identical to that compiled by Douglas Feith and Richard Perle in their strategy paper for Israel, "A Clean Break." (See previous blogs "Why Iraq? Parts 1-7" 1/15-1/21/06.) Finally, of course, Guiliani thinks we should forget about creating a Palestinian state. Rather than reading Podhoretz's book "World War IV," Giuliani should, as Ron Paul suggested, read "The 9/11/Commission Report" as well as "The Iraq Study Group Report."

Why We Deposed Saddam Hussein

Despite all the false excuses given for our invasion of Iraq, the truth is that we deposed Saddam Hussein because he was a strong supporter of the Palestinians. He provided money to those whose homes were bombed or bulldozed by Israel in retaliation after a member of the extended family had become a suicide bomber.

Historically, he had been a ruthless dictator, but he had been our ruthless dictator. We supported him in his invasion of Iran and provided battlefield intelligence, satellite imagery, advisers, etc. A 1994 report by the US Senate Banking Committee showed that the US government approved shipments to Iraq of materials which could be used for biological and chemical WMD. (See Robert Fisk "The Great War For Civilisation" pp. 211-212) Even knowing that he was gassing his enemies, we continued diplomatic ties. (See previous blog entry "Attack Iran? Part 2" 2/8/07)

Before his invasion of Kuwait, our ambassador April Glaspie reportedly told Saddam that this issue was an "Iraqi-Kuwaiti matter." (See Fisk p. 589) In other words, we did not warn him adequately of the dire consequences or explain that this was different from the previous invasion which we backed. Once there, Saddam offered to end his occupation of Kuwait if Israel would end its occupation of Palestine. (See Fisk, p.590) Instead, we massacred his army which was trapped in the desert trying to retreat from Kuwait. Then we encouraged the Iraqi Shiites to revolt, and Saddam's not unexpected retribution resulted in the mass graves we discovered after our invasion.

Although President Bush claims that Saddam tried to kill his father, the evidence for this is not complete. The physical evidence was in question and defendants may have been tortured. Seymour Hersh suggested that "the Kuwaitis might have concocted the plot or at least its connection to the Iraqi government" (See James Bamford "A Pretext for War" p. 259)

In the June 5 debate, Mitt Romney falsely claimed that if Saddam had allowed IAEA weapons inspectors into Iraq and if they had found no WMD, our invasion would have been unnecessary. Of course we all know that Saddam did allow these inspectors in, with free access everywhere. The inspectors found no WMD, but President Bush ordered them to leave since our invasion was predetermined, and WMD were irrelevant.

Excuses, excuses

Even after Ariel Sharon 's Temple Mount performance triggered the second intifada, as Yassir Arafat had feared, and even after Sharon was then elected Israeli prime minister, Arafat still pleaded for peace talks to continue, but Sharon said no. Now, seven years later, Israel still chooses permanent occupation instead of peace, as shown by the multitude of excuses they think up in order to avoid serious peace talks. For years, Israel and the US Israel Lobby have insisted that there must be an end to all violence before serious peace negotiations take place, but of course, only a fair and just peace will end all violence. Then they have insisted that the Palestinian government be free of all corruption, as if either the Israeli or US governments are corruption-free. Then they claim that the current Israeli and Palestinian governments are too weak to negotiate the serious final solution issues, such as borders, status of Jerusalem, and refugee question. Yet peace discussions are meaningless without addressing these issues, and it is the lack of peace which makes their governments weak. It is in this spirit of never-ending incrementalism (see previous blog entry) that the international envoy Tony Blair is prohibited from tackling these final status peace issues, even though he is a famous peace-maker. Most recently, the excuse is that a premature discussion of final issues could unleash violence if talks break down. After forty years of occupation, it is clear that talks should never break down. Until peace is achieved, negotiations must continue despite everything, including the additional excuses which will surely materialize along the way.