banging the war drum

7/31/2019 Banging the War Drum

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Banging the War Drum: Iran and the Neo-cons

The Usual Suspects

Recently, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, Norman Podhoretz of Commentary, CharlesKrauthammer of the Washinton Post, Bill Kristol from the Weekly Standard and Thomas Friedman

of the New York Times have all clamored for an attack on Iran. The debate has been shaped. Dowe (or the Israelis) or dont we attack Iran to hinder their supposed nuclear programs. The usualsuspects from a war many have now seemed to forgotten, one we are still fighting. Here are fewexcerpts.

Kristol (The Weekly Standard)

In a speech to the House of Commons in late 1936, Winston Churchill warned, The era ofprocrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays is coming to itsclose. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.

Podhoretz (Commentary)

It now remains to be seen whether this President, will find it possible to take the only actionthat can stop Iran from following through on its evil intentions both toward us and toward Israel.As an American and as a Jew, I pray with all my heart that he will.

Goldberg (The Atlantic)

..a nuclear Iran poses the gravest threat since Hitler to the physical survival of the Jewish people.

Krauthammer (Washington Post)

..Iran, which is frantically enriching uranium to make a bomb, and which our own StateDepartment identifies as the greatest exporter of terrorism in the world.

Friedman (New York Times 2008)

How Obama should deal with Iran "a Dick Cheney standing over his right shoulder, quietlypounding a baseball bat into his palm."

Consequences

There are two questions we must ask before even beginning to discuss the Iranian nuclear problem.Why do we allow the same people who fought the ideological battle for the invasion of Iraq tocontinue to shape American foreign policy? From reading these gentlemens pieces you wouldthink the Iraq war were a success. Instead, it is the largest foreign policy blunder in our history.You would think these men would be shunned and stripped of the soapboxes considering thetremendous amount of blood they have on their hands. Let us not forget the consequences of thistragic, unprovoked war.

Iraqi Civilian Causalities - 97,176 est.US Military Causalities - 4,415

Iraqi Military Causalities - 15,000 est.

Total Dead 116,591


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This of course does not include wounded, homeless, the millions of Iraqi refugees or the $749billion that the war in Iraq has cost so far.

It is fascinating that one of the biggest debates we have today is not how we allowed AIPAC andthe neo-cons to manipulate the 9/11 tragedy into what many see as a proxy war for Israel. On thecontrary, they bang the drum for more bombing, death and destruction. This begs the question, aretheir any consequences for American journalists? If you tend not to agree with the specialrelationship between Israel and the United States there are.

When a journalist like Helen Thomas clearly states she is anti-zionist and does not believe Israelhas the right to create Jewish state the in the midst of a land historically occupied by Palestinians,she is banished, at the age of 89. Of course her choice of words was unfortunate, but in most casesa grateful country will give one of its most important journalists a break for a poorly wordedstatement at that advanced age. But not Helen Thomas, Ari Fleisher took time off from

representing Tiger Woods and Mark Macquire to lobby hard to have her fired.

Lets not forget some of Aris statements on Iraq.

Ari Fleisher

Press BriefingMarch 21, 2003

Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass

destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of

the operation, for whatever duration it takes.

Seems to many, that if someone was to call for the head of Helen Thomas, maybe someone with alittle less blood on their hands might have been more appropriate.

Octavia Nasr was CNN's Senior Middle East News Editor and had worked for the network for 20years. When Sayyed Mohammed Hussein, a very influential and beloved religous Shiite figuredied, she made the mistake of making this very contreversial Tweet ""Sad to hear of the passing ofSayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah . . . . One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." She wasfired within days.

Framing the Debate

What is most amazing about the ideological support for an attack on Iran is how we have not evenbegun to debate how and why we went into Iraq. During the 1970s the United States wentthrough a deep and painful period of introspection regarding Vietnam. Mysteroisly, the debate onIraq has simply morphed into a debate on Iran. Where is the national debate on how, why, andwho is to blame for this deadly, devastating debacle?

In fascinating study done by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris, subjects are asked to watch ashort video of a group people passing a basketball between them and are told to count the numberof passes. A person dressed in a gorilla suit walks through the screen. After the test, the subjects

are asked if they saw anything out the ordinary. Amazingly, 50% of the subjects did not see thegorilla.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030321-9.htmlhttp://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030321-9.html


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The sacred cows, or taboos, are the gorillas. Our media, politicians, and academics tell us to watchthe ball (bombings, surges, draw downs, new generals, old generals, what Obama said, whatLimbaugh says, what Biden said, what Fox said, what CNN said) but what we should focus on iswhat they dont say. What they dont mention, talk about, is exactly the gorilla. And the gorilla inthis case is the special relationship with Israel. When it is brought up, we are told to focus onanother ball, ant-Semitism, anti-zionism etc. As soon as someone asks the very simple question,

why do we, as a nation focus on Israel, what do we get out of it, they are told to look at the ballcalled anti-Semitism.

The real debate, the logical debate, is off limits. That is why we cant really talk about why wewent into Iraq in the first place. When anyone begins to connect the dots: Neo-Cons, AIPAC,Israel, The Project for a New America, and it becomes clear that this war was a grossmanipulation of the fear caused by 9/11 in an effort to somehow marry Israels foreign policy goalswith Americas. But no major media outlet ever broaches the taboo. From Fox to CNN, from the

New York Times to the New Republic, the New Yorker to the Weekly Standard, Obama to NewtGingrich, all agree, America most have a special relationship. Our foreign policy must ensure thesafety and well being of Isreal. (see The End of the Republic for more on this topic). The real

problem for the Republic is really not even what our foreign policy is, the real cancer is that thereis no debate at all about it.

The Nukes and Ahmadinejad

Admadinejad is certainly an unsavory character, and his holocaust denying, the stonings, hangingsand anti-semetic rants are pitiful and abhorrent. But then again, the United States has no moralfooting at all to question Irans democratic credentials after the CIA orchestrated coup tooverthrow of the the democratically-elected government ofIranian Prime MinisterMohammadMosaddegh in 1953. The US can thank itself for the radical regime in Iran now.

The western media has made much of the opposition movement to Ahmadinejad but few havereally investigated who one the elections there.

Though widely ignored by the major American news media, a recent study by the Program onInternational Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland found little evidence tosupport allegations of fraud, nor to conclude that most Iranians view President Ahmadinejad asillegitimate.

PIPA analyzed multiple polls of the Iranian public from three different sources, including somebefore the June 12 election and some afterwards. The study found that in all the polls, a majority

said they planned to vote for Ahmadinejad or had voted for him. The numbers ranged from 52 to57 percent just before the election to 55 to 66 percent after the election.

What is the threat to the United States if Iran get an nuclear weapon? The most pessimisticpredictions for a Iran to have a fully operational weapon are at least three years. A deal wasworked out between Turkey, Brasil and Iran in which to Erdogan and Lula da Silva convincedAhmadinejad to agree a deal originally proposed by the Obama administration to ship 2,640

pounds of Irans low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for higher-enriched uranium thatcould only be used for peaceful medical uses.

When the deal was announced, Washington and the neo-con media was not happy. Friedman in

the New York Times
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022710.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Democratically-elected&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeghhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeghhttp://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022710.htmlhttp://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/652.php?nid=&id=&pnt=652&lbhttp://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022710.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Democratically-elected&action=edit&redlink=1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeghhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddeghhttp://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022710.htmlhttp://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/652.php?nid=&id=&pnt=652&lb


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I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Irans president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,joining his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, RecepTayyip Erdogan, with raised arms after their signing of a putative deal to defuse the crisis overIrans nuclear weapons program all I could think of was: Is there anything uglier than watchingdemocrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweakthe U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?

No, thats about as ugly as it gets.

I wonder if Mr. Friedman has looked at any photographs from Iraq lately?

Washington also balked. Hillary Clinton Every step of the way has demonstrated clearly to theworld that Iran is not participating in the international arena in the way that we had asked them todo and that they continued to pursue their nuclear program,

So what is the real agenda? A negotiated deal or regime change. The similarities to Iraq arestriking but no alarms are going off. Why?

Israels Nukes

Israel has close to 100 nuclear weapons stored at its Dimona facility yet no American president hasever mentioned Israels nuclear weapons. At the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the final statement criticized Israel for not

joining the Non Proliferation Treaty. The double standard rose its ugly head. Obamas statementat the close of the treaty.

The United States has long supported such a [nuclear-free Middle East] zone, although our viewis that a comprehensive and durable peace in the region and full compliance by all regional stateswith their arms control and nonproliferation obligations are essential precursors for itsestablishment. We strongly oppose efforts to single out Israel, and will oppose actions that

jeopardize Israels national security,

But Israel is different, they would never proliferate nuclear weapons, they are Americas bestfriend, the only democracy in the Middle East. Well, they are a democracy if you werent born inwhat is now Israel as a Palestinian. And the Guardian reported recently on how recentlydeclassified apartheid era documents show how Israel tried to sell nuclear weapons to SouthAfrica. Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to theapartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidenceof the state's possession of

nuclear weapons.

Interesting to see the spin the story was given in the New York Times.

Israel Denies It Offered South Africa Warheads

JERUSALEM The office ofIsraels president, Shimon Peres, strongly denied Monday that Mr.Peres, as Israels defense minister, offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa in 1975, asreported by The Guardian.

Hard to make that case that Iran is the evil one if Israel is proliferating nuclear weapons.

The Real Debate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-documentshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-documentshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nuclear-weaponshttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/israel/index.html?inline=nyt-geohttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/shimon_peres/index.html?inline=nyt-perhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/southafrica/index.html?inline=nyt-geohttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/24/israel-shimon-peres-nuclear-weaponshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israelhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-documentshttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/nuclear-weaponshttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/israel/index.html?inline=nyt-geohttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/shimon_peres/index.html?inline=nyt-perhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/southafrica/index.html?inline=nyt-geohttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/24/israel-shimon-peres-nuclear-weapons


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Instead of debating the pros and cons of another war against a country that has done us no harm,nor has said it will, we should focus on why we are so entangled in the Middle East in the first

place.

Is it oil? Less than 20% comes from the Middle East, and only Saudi Arabi represents animportant part of our oil needs.

Crude Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries)(Thousand Barrels per Day)Country May-10 Apr-10 YTD 2010 May-09 YTD 2009

CANADA 1,997 1,883 1,937 1,746 1,860

MEXICO 1,290 1,134 1,110 1,088 1,174

SAUDI ARABIA 1,093 1,245 1,068 996 1,079

VENEZUELA 1,011 851 918 1,228 1,025

NIGERIA 1,004 1,092 986 552 608

ANGOLA 423 508 401 493 555

IRAQ 394 490 480 254 487

RUSSIA 358 288 250 416 266

ALGERIA 352 292 306 126 249

BRAZIL 312 289 274 380 349

COLOMBIA 295 364 306 227 250

KUWAIT 219 278 201 93 170

ECUADOR 160 179 177 187 229

CONGO(BRAZZAVILLE)

89 116 90 74 49

NORWAY 78 88 39 92 70

Finding new sources for 20% of our oil needs through diplomacy, alternative energies and moreimproved efficiency seems like a much more practical strategy than bringin democracy to theMiddle East.

The other argument is that Israel is Americas best ally, the only democracy in the Middle East.First of all, American foreign policy has never put a big premium on democracy ie Chile, Iran,Indonesia, the Philippines etc. United States foreign policy always has been about its on interests.Israels military is ranked 11th in the world, yet they are ranked 40th in GDP, so it is safe to say theyare armed to the teeth, and have an important nuclear arsenal.

It is strange to think that Israel receives around $3 billion dollars in US aid per year when theyhave a per capita GDP of around $30,000, almost the same as Italy. Could you imagine the uproarif Nancy Pelosi and Rudy Guliani somehow finagled sending Italy $3 billion dollars a year in aid?Israel does not need American foreign aid or military aid. They are a wealthy country with anextremely potent military.

So why does the US spend so much of its foreign policy capital on Israel? The US population isless the 2% Jewish, and the vast majority of which have no roots in Israel. The two main culpritsare AIPAC and the neo-cons. The power of AIPAC is frightening.

In the latest spat between Jerusalem and Washington, AIPAC wrote a letter implicitly rebukingthe Obama Administration for its confrontational stance toward Israel. It was signed by 76Senators (33 Democrats) who normally cant agree on the time of day.


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