Pelosi and Dems Taken to Task by AIPAC, Cheney
Kurt Nimmo | 14.03.2007 10:09 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Iraq | World
It seems a neocon hysteria has washed over Congress, enveloping even Dems, who are presumably “liberal,” whatever that means. As it turns out, according to the “authoritative” Congressional Quarterly daily report, more than a few Democrats were opposed to Pelosi inserting language in an Iraq occupation spending bill that futilely attempted to prevent the neocons from launching their shock and awe campaign against the people of Iran.
No matter what Nancy Pelosi does, she cannot grovel enough before AIPAC. For instance, Pelosi attended the latest AIPAC confab, as should be expected of all Dems worth their salt—and mindful of their careers—but when she called the Iraq “war” a “failure on several scores,” she was roundly booed by the attendees. “Pelosi said the U.S. military campaign in Iraq had to be judged on three accounts: whether it makes the U.S. safer, the U.S. military stronger and the region more stable,” notes Ian Swanson.
Pelosi, of course, is merely stating the obvious, not that she is opposed to invading small countries enfeebled by criminal sanctions for well over a decade, but rather that the unitary decider and his neocon strangeloves have left the Dems out of the warmaking loop, a situation that irks Pelosi.
It seems a neocon hysteria has washed over Congress, enveloping even Dems, who are presumably “liberal,” whatever that means. As it turns out, according to the “authoritative” Congressional Quarterly daily report, more than a few Democrats were opposed to Pelosi inserting language in an Iraq occupation spending bill that futilely attempted to prevent the neocons from launching their shock and awe campaign against the people of Iran. According to “the CQ some of the same Democrats most vehement about ending the Iraq debacle are resisting denying the President unilateral authority to go to war on Iran,” M.J. Rosenberg wrote last week. “It is worth noting that the AIPAC conference begins in Washington this weekend with thousands of citizen lobbyists are being deployed to Capitol Hill to deliver the message that Iran must be dealt with, one way or another. This battle over the Pelosi language is part of the overall Iran effort.”
In other words, “some Democrats,” enough to render Congress into little more than a bridge club, are eager to ignore Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which reads “Congress shall have Power To… declare War.”
It should really come as no surprise AIPAC was instrumental in having removed “a provision from a bill that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval for war against Iran. A number of congressional sources confirmed that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backed dropping the provision from the Iraq war spending bill introduced Tuesday by Democrats…. AIPAC and a number of Democrats close to Israel said the provision would have hampered the president as he attempted to leverage Iran into backing down from its alleged nuclear weapon plans. Others said the provision simply reasserted the constitutional role of the U.S. Congress in declaring war that is believed to have been eroded by Bush during the Iraq war,” reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Naturally, AIPAC trumps the Constitution, although merely stating the obvious gets one pegged as an antisemite and a “Jew-hater,” as if attempting to prevent yet another invasion and mass slaughter of innocents, the squandering of a few hundred billion more dollars, and the as of yet untold sacrifice of American lives is analogous to hatred for Jews.
“AIPAC leaders have said about 6,000 of their members are in town for this week’s annual meeting, which ends today. Members are set to lobby individual lawmakers on the Hill for the rest of today. A priority for the group is to convince Congress to approve tougher sanctions on Iran, which is seen as a growing threat to Israel.”
Of course, AIPAC, infested with Likudniks and neocons, will never settle for mere sanctions—nothing short of decimating Iran with depleted uranium and nuclear bunker-busters will do. As we know, or should if we bother to pay attention, AIPAC is tightly integrated with the entire neocon infrastructure, from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and beyond.
AIPAC operatives, “set to lobby individual lawmakers on the Hill,” will be pushing for an attack, not for sanctions, although the latter prints nicely in newspapers.
Finally, Dick Cheney’s speech before AIPAC, brimming with emotional nonsense about the threat of manufactured terrorism—once again eliciting the name “al-Qaeda,” the defunct database—served as a strident warning to a handful of pathetic Democrats opposed to the Iraq occupation. In essence, Dick has sicced AIPAC on the mildly dissenting Dems, who are lukewarm or weak-kneed on the idea of forever war, lasting generations, long after a blood clot has migrated to Bush’s brain.
In fact, the above mentioned lobbying of Congress at the conclusion of the AIPAC confab is all about sending a message to Democrats.
Get with the program—or find another job.
Pelosi, of course, is merely stating the obvious, not that she is opposed to invading small countries enfeebled by criminal sanctions for well over a decade, but rather that the unitary decider and his neocon strangeloves have left the Dems out of the warmaking loop, a situation that irks Pelosi.
It seems a neocon hysteria has washed over Congress, enveloping even Dems, who are presumably “liberal,” whatever that means. As it turns out, according to the “authoritative” Congressional Quarterly daily report, more than a few Democrats were opposed to Pelosi inserting language in an Iraq occupation spending bill that futilely attempted to prevent the neocons from launching their shock and awe campaign against the people of Iran. According to “the CQ some of the same Democrats most vehement about ending the Iraq debacle are resisting denying the President unilateral authority to go to war on Iran,” M.J. Rosenberg wrote last week. “It is worth noting that the AIPAC conference begins in Washington this weekend with thousands of citizen lobbyists are being deployed to Capitol Hill to deliver the message that Iran must be dealt with, one way or another. This battle over the Pelosi language is part of the overall Iran effort.”
In other words, “some Democrats,” enough to render Congress into little more than a bridge club, are eager to ignore Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which reads “Congress shall have Power To… declare War.”
It should really come as no surprise AIPAC was instrumental in having removed “a provision from a bill that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval for war against Iran. A number of congressional sources confirmed that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee backed dropping the provision from the Iraq war spending bill introduced Tuesday by Democrats…. AIPAC and a number of Democrats close to Israel said the provision would have hampered the president as he attempted to leverage Iran into backing down from its alleged nuclear weapon plans. Others said the provision simply reasserted the constitutional role of the U.S. Congress in declaring war that is believed to have been eroded by Bush during the Iraq war,” reports the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Naturally, AIPAC trumps the Constitution, although merely stating the obvious gets one pegged as an antisemite and a “Jew-hater,” as if attempting to prevent yet another invasion and mass slaughter of innocents, the squandering of a few hundred billion more dollars, and the as of yet untold sacrifice of American lives is analogous to hatred for Jews.
“AIPAC leaders have said about 6,000 of their members are in town for this week’s annual meeting, which ends today. Members are set to lobby individual lawmakers on the Hill for the rest of today. A priority for the group is to convince Congress to approve tougher sanctions on Iran, which is seen as a growing threat to Israel.”
Of course, AIPAC, infested with Likudniks and neocons, will never settle for mere sanctions—nothing short of decimating Iran with depleted uranium and nuclear bunker-busters will do. As we know, or should if we bother to pay attention, AIPAC is tightly integrated with the entire neocon infrastructure, from the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and beyond.
AIPAC operatives, “set to lobby individual lawmakers on the Hill,” will be pushing for an attack, not for sanctions, although the latter prints nicely in newspapers.
Finally, Dick Cheney’s speech before AIPAC, brimming with emotional nonsense about the threat of manufactured terrorism—once again eliciting the name “al-Qaeda,” the defunct database—served as a strident warning to a handful of pathetic Democrats opposed to the Iraq occupation. In essence, Dick has sicced AIPAC on the mildly dissenting Dems, who are lukewarm or weak-kneed on the idea of forever war, lasting generations, long after a blood clot has migrated to Bush’s brain.
In fact, the above mentioned lobbying of Congress at the conclusion of the AIPAC confab is all about sending a message to Democrats.
Get with the program—or find another job.
Kurt Nimmo
Homepage:
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=796
Comments
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14.03.2007 12:18
Antinazi
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14.03.2007 15:09
This patently absurd since Russia, France and perhaps even China are likely to veto any proposed resolutions that amount to military strikes. Bush's personal arselicker (Blair) is likely to do anything he's told to do. Russia has big interests in Iran. It even supplied them with a new missile defense system.
That leaves only illegal unilateral strikes as an option. I'd like to hope that the US is not stupid enough to seriously contemplate this. They must know it would likely trigger a regional-wide meltdown- Iran has pretty much promised them that already. The result of which Israel is likely to get hammered like it has never been before.
But hey, they were mad enough to invade Iraq illegally...
Then there is the question whether the US could financially support another war. They fucked things up in Iraq so badly that none of the oil money they were expecting to reimburse them has appeared (yet).
Apart from the that, Nimmo is a total fuckwit that actually believes Jews control the U.S. But his racist ignorance has overreached itself here.
So some Pro-israelis are lobbying Congress. Big deal! This would only be news if you thought that they could actually dictate policy. If they could as easily as Nimmo often suggests, then why the hell would they bother lobbying and not just issued a secret decree?
Remeber it is the US bankrolling Israel and not the other way around. Israel has no power of its own.
Why don't you stop wasting your time spamming this racists bullshit on here and get active demanding that IAEA inspect Israeli WMD sites? It'd be more useful and realistic.
Antisemitic conspiracy, irrelevant within a generation
Most Jews Oppose Zionist Extremism, Rendering Your Slander Useless
14.03.2007 23:53
No, this isn't even suggested by the article. The fact remains that they CAN, and HAVE, influenced people who are willing to sidestep the legal process to pursue war altogether.
"That leaves only illegal unilateral strikes as an option. I'd like to hope that the US is not stupid enough to seriously contemplate this. They must know it would likely trigger a regional-wide meltdown"
Yes, that's kinda the point. Zionist Extremism, and the Christian Fundamentalists they've aligned with hope this will happen. Zionists think it will enable "Greater Israel", and the rest hope Jesus will return.
"But hey, they were mad enough to invade Iraq illegally..."
Indeed.
"Then there is the question whether the US could financially support another war."
Not really, no. But remember, this is about fundamentally chaging the makeup of the country. A severe financial crisis would enable this.
"Apart from the that, Nimmo is a total fuckwit that actually believes Jews control the U.S."
No he doesn't. He knows that Zionist Extremists - who are actually opposed by a majority of American Jews, and Jews throughout the world - have an unprecedented level of influence, especially within this illegitimate, unelected Fascist Regime in DC.
"So some Pro-israelis are lobbying Congress."
No, the most powerful Lobbyists in the country, ideological counterparts with Bush/PNAC, are pushing for yet another illegal war, and destroying the opposition as well.
"This would only be news if you thought that they could actually dictate policy."
That's the point. With the people running the "Government" at present, they can, and have.
I guess telling the truth isn't allowed at AIPAC ... It is interesting to note who's clamouring for war (that they don't have to fight), while claiming those who point this out are somehow resentful of "the Jews", as opposed to pointing directly to the Zionists and other Extremists responsible for it.
Pelosi hears boos at AIPAC
By Ian Swanson
March 13, 2007
Members of the main pro-Israel lobbying group offered scattered boos to a statement by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that the Iraq war has been a failure on several scores.
The boos, mixed with some polite applause, stood in stark contrast to the reception House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) received minutes earlier. Most of the crowd of 5,000 to 6,000 stood and loudly applauded Boehner when he said the U.S. had no choice but to win in Iraq.
Pelosi and Boehner were speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual meeting. AIPAC has not taken a position on the war in Iraq or the supplemental spending bill to be considered this week by the House Appropriations Committee, but much of Boehner’s speech was about the future of the Iraq conflict.
Boehner sought to link the fight in Iraq to the future of Israel, as he said a failure in Iraq would pose a direct threat to Israel.
Pelosi said the U.S. military campaign in Iraq had to be judged on three accounts: whether it makes the U.S. safer, the U.S. military stronger and the region more stable.
“The war in Iraq fails on all three counts,” Pelosi said. Some of the crowd applauded before catcalls and boos could be heard. A spokesman for AIPAC argued the boos were in response to those clapping for Pelosi.
AIPAC leaders have said about 6,000 of their members are in town for this week’s annual meeting, which ends today. Members are set to lobby individual lawmakers on the Hill for the rest of today. A priority for the group is to convince Congress to approve tougher sanctions on Iran, which is seen as a growing threat to Israel.
thehill.com/leading-the-news/pelosi-hears-boos-at-aipac-2007-03-13.html
Actually, it's not, really. Zionist Fascists simply say this, because they have this whole war thing planned, and can't justify it honestly.
Olmert warns against U.S. quick departure from Iraq
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/13/content_5841559.htm
FM Livni: U.S. must stand firm on Iraq
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/836463.html
Democrats Capitulate to AIPAC, Drop Anti-Iran War Provisions From Bill
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070313/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq
Day After AIPAC Conference, Dems Abandon War Authority Provision
apnews.myway.com//article/20070312/D8NQU1SG0.html
March 5, 2007
A Horse of a Different Color
Obama, the Lobby, and the next war
by Justin Raimondo
It had to happen sooner or later, and Barack Obama's startling rise to near the top of the Democratic presidential pack made it sooner – I'm talking about his speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It starts out with a riff about his ride in an IDF helicopter and how this made him "truly see how close everything is and why peace through security is the only way for Israel." But of course the Palestinians are just as close to the Israelis as the Israelis are to them – and the Israelis have far more arms (provided by the U.S.) and are surely not averse to using them. So what is "the only way" for the Palestinians? Yet there can be no "peace through security" for the Palestinians, since there is no security from Israeli air strikes and repeated invasions of Palestinian territory.
The maudlin emotionalism of Obama's appeal is nowhere more apparent than in this speech, and nowhere more inappropriately one-sided. But, here, listen to Obama tell it:
"Our helicopter landed in the town of Kiryat Shmona on the border. What struck me first about the village was how familiar it looked. The houses and streets looked like ones you might find in a suburb in America. I could imagine young children riding their bikes down the streets. I could imagine the sounds of their joyful play just like my own daughters. There were cars in the driveway. The shrubs were trimmed. The families were living their lives."
Oh, please spare us! Does Mr. Obama really not know that there are – or were – similar communities in the occupied territories? Does he really not know that countless Palestinian villages – with "houses and streets like you might find in a suburb in America" – have been demolished by Israeli tractors? Can Obama imagine a young Palestinian child riding his bike down the street – can he imagine his joyful play? Can he imagine a car in the driveway, the shrubs trimmed – the families living their lives in the moment before the Israelis wiped it all out in their ruthless campaign of conquest and ethnic cleansing?
Of course he can't – if he wants to be president of the United States, that is. Israeli lives are more important, more valuable than Palestinian lives: that is what the occupant of the Oval Office must believe, or, if he doesn't quite believe it, then he must keep quiet about it and act as if he does. Otherwise, he'll never make it to the White House. Obama knows this, and therefore "forgot" to put the events in Kiryat Shmona into their proper context:
"Just six months after I visited, Hezbollah launched four thousand rocket attacks just like the one that destroyed the home in Kiryat Shmona, and kidnapped Israeli service members."
Oh, really? There seems to be something left out of this account – the Israeli re-invasion of Lebanon. A minor thing, really – after all, only 1,200 people, most all of them civilians, were killed by Israeli bombs – but, still, you'd think that a presidential candidate would know about these things, or, at least, have advisers who know. Of course Obama knows – yet he doesn't dare speak. The man who touts his early opposition to the Iraq war doesn't dare say the same about Israel's war on Lebanon.
As if that wasn't enough, he went on to endorse yet another prospective war, assuring his audience that he is willing to sign on to both prongs of the renewed Israeli-American aggression in the region. Obama touts his proposal for a "phased redeployment" (never say "withdrawal"!) from Iraq as giving us a chance to focus on the real threat to peace in the region: Iran. Bravely coming out against Holocaust denial – that Obama sure is a risk-taker! – this rising Democratic star delivered a truly Orwellian account of the Lebanese-Israeli war:
"When Israel is attacked, we must stand up for Israel's legitimate right to defend itself. Last summer, Hezbollah attacked Israel. By using Lebanon as an outpost for terrorism, and innocent people as shields, Hezbollah has also engulfed that entire nation in violence and conflict, and threatened the fledgling movement for democracy there. That's why we have to press for enforcement of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which demands the cessation of arms shipments to Hezbollah, a resolution which Syria and Iran continue to disregard. Their support and shipment of weapons to Hezbollah and Hamas, which threatens the peace and security in the region, must end."
Apparently when Israel was bombing factories, water facilities, Christian churches, and the barracks of the Lebanese army, this, too, was "self-defense." If the IDF attacked, say, Kazakhstan, on the grounds that the Kazakhs were supplying the Arabs with weapons, or whatever, Obama and the pro-Israel liberals would maintain that Israel has the "right" to "defend" itself by leveling that country to the ground. And, of course, the Lebanese have no right to defend themselves, no right to accept arms from anyone who will send them – but Israel has the "right" to unlimited military and economic aid from the U.S. (which Obama, naturally, supports).
"We should all be concerned," avers Arianna Huffington's preferred candidate, "about the agreement negotiated among Palestinians in Mecca last month" – after all, this means that the Palestinians won't be killing each other, that their democratically elected government may just be able to function, and that the ever recalcitrant Israelis may even have to negotiate with them (perish the thought!). We all know Israeli lives are worth more than Palestinian lives – so who cares if the Palies are slaughtering each other? It goes way beyond irony to see a black man exhibit such shameless racism – but, then again, I'm not surprised. What else do you expect from a Democratic Party hack, a world-class panderer, the product of the biggest, baddest, most notorious political machine in the country?
Obama quails at the very thought that the Palestinians would have a government that includes Hamas, but nowhere does he mention that Hamas was elected. Nor does the presence of the party of Avigdor Lieberman in the Israeli government raise so much as an eyebrow. Israel is praised by Obama for being "the only established democracy," but Palestinian elections and Israeli elections – like Palestinian lives and Israeli lives – are not to be equated.
We must, in Obama's view, "begin" all considerations of our policy in the region with "Israel's security," but of course we must ask for nothing for ourselves. According to Obama, we have no right to ask the Israelis anything in exchange for the billions we give them in "aid," or the political support we give to their most indefensible policies:
"In the end, we also know that we should never seek to dictate what is best for the Israelis and their security interests. No Israeli prime minister should ever feel dragged to or blocked from the negotiating table by the United States."
In the case of Israel and the United States, and their much vaunted "special relationship," the tail is truly wagging the dog. After all, what other country so dependent on American taxpayer dollars would we be afraid to pressure? What other nation on earth would be the recipient of so much U.S. largess and still be defiant when it comes to making concessions to American interests? And the Lobby isn't through yet. Israel and its American amen corner are pushing hard for a U.S. strike on Iran, and Obama is ready to push the button:
"The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy. And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons."
There are so many levels of hypocrisy and bad faith here that one could write volumes exploring them all, but this will have to suffice: Although Iran, which is a signatory to the Nonproliferation Treaty, has the right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses, Israel, which has not signed the treaty, is allowed to possess nukes. Iran is a "radical theocracy" – but Israel, a nation founded on religion (by terrorists) is not. For a moment, there, Obama must have gotten confused and thought he was running for prime minister of Israel. Other politicians have gone to AIPAC, made the required noises, and hoped for the best, but this is really an oath of fealty quite beyond what even the vehemently pro-Israel Hillary Clinton has been willing to say. The difference is that Obama, unlike Clinton, frames the issue in ideological and religious terms: Iran, says Obama, is a "radical theocracy," and those crazy Muslims can't be trusted with a nuclear program, even for ostensibly peaceful purposes.
When push comes to shove, Obama is ready to attack Iran – if "aggressive diplomacy" (i.e., punishing economic sanctions and endless provocation) fails to do the job. This is a reality Obama's liberal "antiwar" supporters must come to grips with, and somehow rationalize, before they sign on with his campaign.
Now that the war in Iraq is quite obviously a disaster – even to this guy – those in the Democratic Party who held their opposition close to the vest or else openly supported the invasion are now rushing to the exits, declaring that they had doubts all along. It's easy to be antiwar these days, at least when it comes to the present war. The real danger, however, is the next war, as I've pointed out before. And there are blessed few who are fighting that fight, because the Lobby is hell-bent on the U.S. attacking Iran.
As Wesley Clark, Matt Yglesias, and others have pointed out, the big Democratic contributors are hard-liners when it comes to pursuing Israeli interests. Iran represents a threat to Israel, therefore Iran must be destroyed – and the U.S. alone is capable of doing it. It's as simple as that. And woe unto those who don't agree…
Obama went before AIPAC, skillfully executed the ritualized gestures of obeisance without too brazenly defying his antiwar constituency, and in this way proved his mettle. The exact meaning of this ceremony was prefigured in "The Israel Lobby," a Harvard University study by Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt:
"The goal is to prevent critical comments from getting a fair hearing in the political arena. Controlling the debate is essential to guaranteeing U.S. support, because a candid discussion of U.S.-Israeli relations might lead Americans to favor a different policy."
The Democratic candidates have all prostrated themselves before the Lobby and pledged their undying fealty to a foreign policy distorted by its pro-Israel bias. This distortion was given full voice by Obama, who declared that our interest in the region "begins with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel." Yes, begins – and ends. That has been the story for far too long, and a major cause of our troubles with the Muslim world. Obama has just signaled that this will not change under his leadership. How his antiwar supporters will take this – especially Obama's stated willingness to go to war with Iran – is an open question, but my guess is that many are bound to be sorely disappointed.
Far be it from me to disparage anybody who touts a presidential candidate rather more than is deserved just because they're hopeful that someone will rescue us from the consequences of a reckless and increasingly dangerous foreign policy. My preferred objects of undue affection are nearly always Republicans or third-party candidates: I admit to being harder on Democrats, if only because they promise so much more and deliver so much less.
But Obama is a horse of an entirely different color, and, no, I'm not talking about his skin color. He is not an alternative to the still hawkish Democratic Party establishment – hawkish, that is, compared to the average American voter – but only the appearance of one. He's all form and no content – a perfect replica of rebellion for the new millennium: slick, bromidic, and phony as all get-out. He's the Democrats' Wendell Willkie, the man who came out of nowhere, a public relations creation. Obama will disarm the Left on account of his color and overwhelm the Right on the sheer strength of his star power. Or so his strategists dream. In the end, however, our foreign policy will remain pretty much the same: aggressive, arrogant, and the cause of our ultimate undoing.
antiwar.com/justin/
AIPAC and Espionage: Guilty as Hell
Pentagon analyst plea bargains, threatens to expose Israel's Washington cabal
by Justin Raimondo
The plea bargain struck by former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin – charged with five counts of handing over classified information to officials of a pro-Israel lobbying group, who passed it on to Israeli diplomatic personnel – has delivered a body blow to the defense of the two remaining accused spies. Steve Rosen, who for 20 years was the chief lobbyist over at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and Keith Weissman, AIPAC's top foreign policy analyst, befriended Franklin and pumped him for top-secret information – including sensitive data about al-Qaeda, the Khobar Towers terrorist attack, Iran's weapons program, and attacks on U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Now they face the likely prospect of Franklin testifying to their treason in court.
For months, AIPAC's defenders have been bruiting it about that this prosecution is persecution, that the whole thing is a "setup." What Rosen, Weissman, and Franklin are accused of is routine, said their defenders – "everybody does it" – and the decision to go after AIPAC is thinly disguised anti-Semitism, the 21st century American equivalent of Kristallnacht. They have impugned the FBI as some sort of neo-Nazi outfit, exonerated the accused before even hearing the charges, and engaged in a smear campaign against anyone who wonders why it is that a purportedly American organization is engaged in an intelligence-gathering operation involving the transfer of top-secret information to a foreign government.
Now the man they portrayed as being a persecuted victim is admitting that, yes, he spied for Israel, and, furthermore, the clear implication of this apparent plea bargain is that he is prepared to expose the spy ring that Israel was – and perhaps still is – running inside AIPAC, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington.
This case has received relatively little publicity in relation to its importance. It isn't just the fact that, for the first time in recent memory, Israel's powerful lobby has been humbled. What is going on here is the exposure of Israel's underground army in the U.S. – covert legions of propagandists and outright spies, whose job it is to not only make the case for Israel but to bend American policy to suit Israel's needs (and, in the process, penetrate closely-held U.S. secrets).
Particularly fascinating is the apparent longevity of the ongoing investigation: the implication of the latest indictment [.pdf] is that FBI counterintelligence officials have been looking into Israel's covert activities in the U.S. since at least 1999, when Rosen apparently was observed telling a "foreign official" that he (Rosen) had "picked up an extremely sensitive piece of intelligence" identified as "codeword protected." At this meeting, the indictment avers, Rosen handed over this information – regarding "terrorist activities in Central Asia" – to the foreign official.
The AIPAC spy nest has been burrowing deeply into Washington's official secrets without regard for propriety or party. The indictment describes the duo's extensive contacts with a wide range of U.S. government officials, Israeli diplomats, and other individuals, none of them identified by name. However, two have been subsequently outed in the media by sources close to the investigation: they are David Satterfield, a deputy assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs and now the second most senior U.S. government representative in occupied Iraq, and Kenneth Pollack, who served on the National Security Council in the Clinton administration. Said Pollack: "I believe I am USGO-1," identified in the second indictment as having met with Rosen and Weissman on Dec. 12, 2000. Pollack handed over classified information about "strategy options" against an unidentified "Middle Eastern country."
Pollack, a key Democratic Party foreign policy adviser, authored an influential book, The Threatening Storm, which convinced many liberals to jump on board the pro-war bandwagon. "If we observe how we were lied into war with Iraq, and by whom," I wrote in May, "the whole affair looks more like an Israeli covert operation by the day." The AIPAC spy scandal is confirming this in spades – and much else, too. It is also showing that the Israelis were not about to stop with Iraq, but were – and are – lobbying furiously for more military action in the Middle East, this time aiming for regime change in Tehran. The indictments issued against Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman describe a systematic attempt by Israel's fifth column in Washington to garner top-secret U.S. intelligence about Iran, its weapons program, and U.S. deliberations about what action to take.
The chief beneficiaries of the conquest of Iraq, and subsequent threats against both Iran and Syria, have been, in descending order, Israel, Iran, and Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda has used the invasion as a recruiting tool and training ground for its global jihad against the United States. Iran has extended its influence deep into southern Iraq and has penetrated the central government in Baghdad. In the long run, however, Israel benefits the most, as a major Middle Eastern Arab country fragments into at least three pieces and the U.S. military is ineluctably drawn into neighboring countries.
While the U.S. imposes an occupation eerily reminiscent of Israel's longstanding occupation of Palestinian lands and prepares to deal with Israel's enemies in the region, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon makes major incursions into the West Bank, even while supposedly "withdrawing" from Gaza. In the meantime, the political and military bonds between the U.S. and Israel are strengthened, as the two allies present an indissoluble united front against the entire Muslim world.
Except the alliance is far from indissoluble, as the AIPAC spy scandal reveals. The U.S.-Israeli relationship, often described as "special," is rather more ambiguous than is generally recognized, both by Israel's staunchest friends and its most implacable enemies. This has come out in Israel's funneling American military technology to China, and the threat of American sanctions, but was also made manifest earlier by indications that Israel was conducting extensive spying operations in the U.S. prior to 9/11 – suspicions that are considerably strengthened by the AIPAC spy brouhaha.
Israel's secret war against America has so far been conducted in the dark, but the Rosen-Weissman trial will expose these night creatures to the light of day. Blinking and cursing, they'll be confronted with their treason, and, even as they whine that "everybody does it," the story of how and why a cabal of foreign agents came to exert so much influence on the shape of U.S. foreign policy will be told.
In the course of bending American policy to the Israelis' will, they had to compromise the national security of the United States – and that's what tripped them up, in the end.
The blogger Billmon succinctly summed up how this case throws a new light on the real contours of U.S.-Israeli relations and puts an entirely different face on the "special relationship":
"While the marriage may look like perfect conjugal bliss from the Washington end, the Jerusalem end has a different point of view – and always will. The Israelis understand, even if their American patrons do not, that they live in another country, one with its own national interests, its own strategic ambitions and its own enemies, none of which necessarily overlap with America's.
"They don't even make much of an attempt to hide it, as this writer for David Horowitz's Frontpage (to Israel what the Daily Worker once was to the Soviet Union) makes clear: 'A more independent Israel is determined to make its own mark on the world – questioning U.S. authority more frequently in order to establish its own autonomous relations with other countries.'
"A good idea. It's just a shame our own political lap dogs and their media water carriers won't do likewise."
The Soviet analogy is very apt, The success of both the KGB and the Mossad in Washington, albeit at different times, was in both cases enabled by an alliance born of political necessity as well as military utility. Our World War II alliance with the Soviets made the KGB's job a lot easier, allowing them to set up a network based on ideological loyalty that later reaped intelligence dividends. In addition, there was a lot of domestic political pressure to give the Russians what they wanted, as the Communists took the lead in dragging us into war in order to save Stalin's "workers' paradise" from Hitler's legions. America's longstanding relationship with Israel similarly gave the Israelis the basic structure of a very efficient and increasingly bold spying apparatus in the U.S., the tentacles of which reached into the upper echelons of the U.S. government, including the Pentagon. AIPAC functions simultaneously as a lobbying group – one whose will is rarely defied by legislators – and as a key link in the chain of espionage that binds us to the Israelis in a very "special relationship."
Israel's legendary Mossad intelligence service, with its reputation for both efficiency and ruthlessness, reportedly shadowed the 9/11 hijackers on American soil as they prepared to launch the biggest terrorist attack in our history. Multiple sources reported a large-scale surveillance operation directed at U.S. government buildings, including offices of the Drug Enforcement Agency, the FBI, U.S. courthouses, and some military bases and research facilities. The AIPAC spy cell in Washington was the brain, and the "Israeli art students" – whose movements shadowed the hijackers in Florida and elsewhere – were the arms and feet of a subterranean creature whose dimensions we are only just beginning to discover.
www.antiwar.com/justin/
Iran: The Next War
Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran.
BY JAMES BAMFORD
I. The Israeli Connection
A few blocks off Pennsylvania Avenue, the FBI's eight-story Washington field office exudes all the charm of a maximum-security prison. Its curved roof is made of thick stainless steel, the bottom three floors are wrapped in granite and limestone, hydraulic bollards protect the ramp to the four-floor garage, and bulletproof security booths guard the entrance to the narrow lobby. On the fourth floor, like a tomb within a tomb, lies the most secret room in the $100 million concrete fortress—out-of-bounds even for special agents without an escort. Here, in the Language Services Section, hundreds of linguists in padded earphones sit elbow-to-elbow in long rows, tapping computer keyboards as they eavesdrop on the phone lines of foreign embassies and other high-priority targets in the nation's capital.
At the far end of that room, on the morning of February 12th, 2003, a small group of eavesdroppers were listening intently for evidence of a treacherous crime. At the very moment that American forces were massing for an invasion of Iraq, there were indications that a rogue group of senior Pentagon officials were already conspiring to push the United States into another war—this time with Iran.
A few miles away, FBI agents watched as Larry Franklin, an Iran expert and career employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency, drove up to the Ritz-Carlton hotel across the Potomac from Washington. A trim man of fifty-six, with a tangle of blond hair speckled gray, Franklin had left his modest home in Kearneysville, West Virginia, shortly before dawn that morning to make the eighty-mile commute to his job at the Pentagon. Since 2002, he had been working in the Office of Special Plans, a crowded warren of blue cubicles on the building's fifth floor. A secretive unit responsible for long-term planning and propaganda for the invasion of Iraq, the office's staffers referred to themselves as "the cabal." They reported to Douglas Feith, the third-most-powerful official in the Defense Department, helping to concoct the fraudulent intelligence reports that were driving America to war in Iraq.
Just two weeks before, in his State of the Union address, President Bush had begun laying the groundwork for the invasion, falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had the means to produce tens of thousands of biological and chemical weapons, including anthrax, botulinum toxin, sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. But an attack on Iraq would require something that alarmed Franklin and other neoconservatives almost as much as weapons of mass destruction: detente with Iran. As political columnist David Broder reported in The Washington Post, moderates in the Bush administration were "covertly negotiating for Iran to stay quiet and offer help to refugees when we go into Iraq."
Franklin—a devout neoconservative who had been brought into Feith's office because of his political beliefs—was hoping to undermine those talks. As FBI agents looked on, Franklin entered the restaurant at the Ritz and joined two other Americans who were also looking for ways to push the U.S. into a war with Iran. One was Steven Rosen, one of the most influential lobbyists in Washington. Sixty years old and nearly bald, with dark eyebrows and a seemingly permanent frown, Rosen was director of foreign-policy issues at Israel's powerful lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Seated next to Rosen was AIPAC's Iran expert, Keith Weissman. He and Rosen had been working together closely for a decade to pressure U.S. officials and members of Congress to turn up the heat on Tehran.
Over breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton, Franklin told the two lobbyists about a draft of a top-secret National Security Presidential Directive that dealt with U.S. policy on Iran. Crafted by Michael Rubin, the desk officer for Iraq and Iran in Feith's office, the document called, in essence, for regime change in Iran. In the Pentagon's view, according to one senior official there at the time, Iran was nothing but "a house of cards ready to be pushed over the precipice." So far, though, the White House had rejected the Pentagon's plan, favoring the State Department's more moderate position of diplomacy. Now, unwilling to play by the rules any longer, Franklin was taking the extraordinary—and illegal—step of passing on highly classified information to lobbyists for a foreign state. Unable to win the internal battle over Iran being waged within the administration, a member of Feith's secret unit in the Pentagon was effectively resorting to treason, recruiting AIPAC to use its enormous influence to pressure the president into adopting the draft directive and wage war against Iran.
It was a role that AIPAC was eager to play. Rosen, recognizing that Franklin could serve as a useful spy, immediately began plotting ways to plant him in the White House—specifically in the National Security Council, the epicenter of intelligence and national-security policy. By working there, Rosen told Franklin a few days later, he would be "by the elbow of the president."
Knowing that such a maneuver was well within AIPAC's capabilities, Franklin asked Rosen to "put in a good word" for him. Rosen agreed. "I'll do what I can," he said, adding that the breakfast meeting had been a real "eye-opener."
Working together, the two men hoped to sell the United States on yet another bloody war. A few miles away, digital recorders at the FBI's Language Services Section captured every word.
www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/10962352/iran_the_next_war
Stop Fascism
can a mere
15.03.2007 12:49
Of course, you don't have to respond - it's your[sic] website after all - just though you might have a go at justifying your actions to the great unwashed hoards outside the loop.
... I won't embarrass you by making you hide your function of ?c=all this time!
Oh, I just did.
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
Jackslucid
15.03.2007 13:47
1) a response to a hidden comment (unfortunately the original offending post stayed up)
2) We still are not a bulletin board - for a whole heap of reasons.
Why don't you set up a bulletin board for these discussions if thats what your heart desires?
ftp
mealy mouthed nonsense
15.03.2007 19:51
The evidence that supports these claims is within your own response to my question; you state openly your disregard for the original post (naming it 'the offending post') and regard this site and its facilities as 'belonging' to those that moderate it (suggesting that those that do not have the moderators 'ear' go elsewhere and that this newswire is not as bullitin board.)
This site has the facility for people to add news of their own and for others to comment on it. Fact.
This site is used by people to do just that.
The idea that 'we' have to be moderated by 'you' is precisley the reason given by every news outlet that has ever sought to spin or oblitorate information.
Truth can not be moderated and does not need kid gloves to survive.
I believe that most of the moderators are good people with good intentions, but you do not serve truth and justice very well by turning away those that would come here for open debate.
The very fact that in order to read the hidden comments, one has to have good eyes (discrimination) and that even reference to the very facitlies within this site, whereby those who CHOOSE, can look at these censored comments is removed from discussion indicates a certain neurosis in purpose.
Posts of mine (and others I notice) mentioning ?c=all have been censored. Ask yourself whether this serves the interests of those that come here to use this site, or whether it serves the interests of those that think they own this site?
If, as you suggest, 'we' go away and start our own sites and that 'you' continue to ban and hide reference to whatever information that we use on those sites as well as direct reference to those sites here - who benefits?
With all opinions divided off into their own little sphears of influence - who is there left to debate with? These schisms fracture the possiblity of consensus and de-motivate people in challanging what they think they know. In other words, those 'left' here (ie those that do not offend the increasingly invisible moderators inner circle - the 'owners' - and those not put off by the incessent 'cleaning' of the wire of any contentious opinions etc) have become a tight knit cadre of imcuksters ... ie a cult!
Truth ain't pretty and justice does not flow from desire alone ... truth sometimes hurts the very soul, rips at the heart and numbs the mind ... justice more than often has to be fought for every inch of the way. Every loss only lengthens the battle.
There is no room for a neurotic ideology and no time left for all the old mistakes to be made again.
Or haven't you read the news lately?
Love and peace very much at yer ...
jackslucid
e-mail:
jackslucid@hotmail.com
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