To their credit, Gen. Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, have testified that the only thing that can end the violence in Iraq is a political solution between the various parties. Crocker told Barack Obama today that the civil war there is "ethnosectarian competition for power and other resources."
I.e., it’s not a war on terror. We’re not up against Islamofascism.
This is the lesson we need to apply to Israel/Palestine. Whether you think it was a good thing or not, the Arabs have lost again and again in Palestine over the last 60 years. They started out with more than half of the territory under partition plans. They lost that in the ’48 War/Expulsion. Then after ’67, they were down to 22 percent. The settlements have whittled down their portion even more. "A kidney-shaped state, with Gaza on the side," as Saifedean Ammous puts it.
Yes, the Palestinians have responded with suicide terrorism. And Paul Berman called it Islamofascism. But the political scientist Robert Pape said suicide terrorism was about occupation with religious difference. Today Crocker has joined the Pape side: it’s not terrorism, it’s not good vs. evil. It’s a competition for resources.
"Today Crocker has joined the Pape side: it's not terrorism, it's not good vs. evil. It's a competition for resources."
Incisive post, Phil. To amplify your point, it's also not al-qaeda, and NOT a threat to U.S. national security. It's an internecine local struggle between militias, and the sooner we get out of the way, the better, both for our guys and their guys.
But that is not the plan. Petraeus (rhymes, yes, with "betray us?" A thought that, no doubt, has occured to one or more of our soldiers) said there'd be no troop draw-down until summer at earliest. A sick joke, in light of the recent U.S. election. Not only have we not ended the war, but Bush has increased troop levels and is basically doing it indefinitely. What rabbit will be pulled from a hat in summer '08 to mandate a prolongation of the post-surge levels, or even a further increase?
Fact: more U.S. troops died each month of 07 compared to the same months in 06.
Fact: the war has created more than 75,000 amputees, U.S. troops alone.
As Fred Reed, rapscallion expat, jibed, damn, it is Nam!
Reed also noted that you should never trust any officer above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, the rank at which most warriors retire. Anyone above that is usually a politician wearing a uniform.
As for me, I am backing Ron Paul's bid for presidency. I admire Mike Gravel for his courage during the Vietnam era, I admire Kucinich's politics and moxy, but Paul's the one, not only to end the war, but to remove our troops from the 110 countries where they are currently stationed. Massive cuts in defense spending, while remaining armed for defense. And an end, at long last, to entangling alliances, whether to Mexico or Britain or Saudi Arabia or China.
An American president who respects the rule of law, and will put American interests first. Is this some recipe for disaster?
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I am interested in this stuff because I think that Jews are in a better position to influence their fellows. I feel I would like to do something but don't know what to do.
If anyone has any ideas about this I'd like to hear them. I am not interested in sending money, writing letters, or signing petitions. I am too old and too self centered to want to go to Israel and get hit on the head or worse. I am not prolific enough to start a blog.
Don't know what else there is. Maybe I should try to forget about the whole thing.
Oarwell:
That was a good statistic about 75,000 amputees. I didn't know that. It should be played up more.
Ron Paul is great on foreign policy and civil liberty issues, but his economic policies are another matter entirely.
Paul would further dismantle the already shredded social safety net at a time when workers and seniors need it more than eve. He also wants to make the tax system even more regressive than it already is.
Oarwell:
Is it really 75,000 amputees? That would be a very substantial proportion of those who have seen combat.
Paul E–you're right. I saw that on a site I thought was legitimate, but it can't be that high. Global Security.org reports 27,000 casualties, but they're probably only reporting combat figures. I'll see if I can get a more comprehensive figure–sorry if 75,000 was incorrect.
Crimson–I think you're concerns are well-founded, but Paul has indicated that he would make his first priority cutting defense, not cutting social programs. It's clear that by cutting defense, bringing the troops home, ending the Empire, we would save enormous sums of money, which would be available to help Americans. At the same time, he is talking about abolishing the income tax. Remember, before 1913, government paid for its services through nominal tariffs on business. I'm not sure his model could be called regressive. Eliminating the IRS benefits everyone (except, in the short-term, tax accountants).
The problem with any other candidate (excepting, possibly, Kucinich), is that I'm afraid nothing will really change, and with a number of them things will be worse than they already are. Have Hillary or Barack come out and said that on their first day in office, U.S.-sanctioned torture will end? One wonders that they wouldn't. I guess '24' has worked its magic on the Mass Mind.
Tragic.
I got the 75,000 figure from Robert Steele's review of 'Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy:'
"After a while I tired of this book. I thought to myself that the author has done a good job on destroying Rumsfeld, but there is a great deal of context that is missing, including Cheney's more active role behind the scenes, and virtually no mention of the thousands of US dead and 75,000 amputees that Rumsfeld created for no good reason."
Steele was a former Intelligence analyst, but I should have checked before adding those 'facts.'
Glad to (probably)be wrong on that grim statistic. Again, sorry for the misinfo.
Excellent post, but for one factual mistake: the Arabs were not offered "more than half of the territory under partition plans." In fact, under UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the Jewish state was to receive 55% of mandate Palestine, and the Arab state would be 45%.
This, mind you, was in spite of the fact that Arab population was over twice the size of the Jewish population, and that Arabs owned approx. 80% of privately held land. They would still get less than half. It's easy for us to say today that they should have accepted 181, but one can see how, at that time, it looked like a ridiculous offer.
If interested, here's a Jews Against the Occupation page:
link to jatonyc.org
Phil,
As an aside, is there any way for you to have a horizontal line or something to more sharply distinguish each comment posting? With the white background, it's difficult to immediately see where one comment ends and the other begins.
I'm with you, Oarwell, on supporting Ron Paul. (Although to be honest I can't say I'm backing him as a presidential candidate, as I don't think that's possible. But I'm backing his campaign to shake up the political discussion.)
On another topic, As'ad AbuKhalil has some comments on the Nadia Abu El-Haj battle–
"On the Pitfalls of Tenure"
link to angryarab.blogspot.com
"I was thinking about this. Of this, I am certain. If I were not a tenured professor now, and if I were on the job market (along with the Angry Arab affiliation), there is no way on earth that I would have obtained a job anywhere in the US. … I have certainly noticed that untenured professors are today far more cautious and nervous about political advocacy (in comparison to 20 years ago or more). I often hear people say to me: I will become outspoken on Palestine AFTER I obtain tenure. I always tell them: no, you will not. If you condition yourself to be silent and passive during the tenure process, you will be changed once you obtain tenure. And some after tenure, aim higher: they harbor ambitions to move to a more ‘prestigious’ college or university, and on and on. What people don't understand is that the tenure process is a conditioning process in which one learns how to dissimulate and how to stifle moral outrage. …"
There is an urge among the Islamic society (different emphasis among different movements) to expand, and to do so by combinations of force and persuasion.
Certainly there are Muslims and significant Muslim movements that thankfully regard war and force as repugnant.
The current war in Iraq is partially an attempt to fill a power vacuum. Now that Baathist pan-Arabism is removed, the contending side powers (those that would use violence to dominate) are fighting it out.
Is that a "civil" war in the sense that it is mutually valid popular movements contending, or is it more posturing among religious and political smaller elites?
Few on the left actually know what is going on there. It is easier for us to object, than to propose.
We don't bother, or can't possibly, get informed sufficiently to propose rather than ONLY oppose.
Murray Weidenbaum, who served as Ronald Reagan’s chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the early 1980s, noting that the true burden of defense spending had to be conceived of in terms of opportunity costs:
"The thousands of men and women pulled away (voluntarily or otherwise) from civilian pursuits, millions of man-years of industrial effort, millions of barrels of oil pumped from the earth, and thousands of square yards of planet space filled with equipment and debris. In short, the real cost of military activities should be measured in human and natural resources and in the stocks of productive capital absorbed in producing, transporting, and maintaining weapons and other military equipment. It is in the sense of alternative opportunities lost that military spending should be considered – the numbers of people employed by the military, the goods and services it purchases from the private sector, the real estate it ties up, and the technology devoted to it. Not only do we lose the opportunity for civilian use of goods and services, but we also lose the potential economic growth that these resources might have brought about."
Our crushing burden of taxation in large part goes to pay for our astronomical defense budget. Are Americans destined to forever remain helots of Empire? This issue is, clearly, about more than Iraq or Iran, about more than a few neocon zealots whose purposes dovetailed with Cheneyite imperialism. The best hope we have is for large, vocal segments of the American public demanding from their representatives a return to the constitutional restraints, the checks and balances, envisioned by the Framers. Otherwise, we will forever remain serfs on the imperialist's plantation, fed lip-service about "Liberty" and "Democracy" but denied the actual practice.
PS. Here's another mention of the 75,000 figure, also by Steele, in his review of "Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush:"
"There are many other notes from this book that I have, but rather than lay them out here I am going to simply say that this book moves to the top of my list of books on evaluating the Iraq misadventure that has given us a $2 trillion debt and 75,000 amputees whose lives are forever shattered…"
I wonder if he confused the figure with Kevin Site's estimate of the number of amputees from Vietnam.
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Meanwhile, Israel continues to display the same old disregard of international law she has shown for decades, violating the airspace of other countries, invading at will, starting wars and generally showcasing a unique understanding of how a nation should behave:
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- U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 — After days of silence from the Israeli government, American officials confirmed Tuesday that Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes inside Syria last week, the first such attack since 2003.
A Defense Department official said Israeli jets had struck at least one target in northeastern Syria last Thursday, but the official said it was still unclear exactly what the jets hit and the extent of the bombing damage.
Syria has lodged a protest at the United Nations in response to the airstrike, accusing Israel of “flagrant violation” of its airspace. But Israel’s government has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/world/middleeast/12syria.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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Now, it is well known that lunatics like Norman Podhoretz supposedly still think that Saddam's WMD were transferred to Syria – even though that's just neo-con BS. But it serves two purposes, it supposedly explains the embarrassment of the missing WMD and it also makes Syria look bad, which is really important since Israel has no intention to return the Golan Heights, so Syria has to join the axis of evil. Two birds with one stone.
(Read "Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons" to see how out of touch with reality Norman Podhoretz – considered to be the grandfather of the neoconservative movement – really is and to also get an idea of what neocons and their fellow travelers really say when chatting amongst themselves. Highly recommended:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece)
Using the same theme and in order to rationalise this new display of bullying outlawry and outright provocation, some anonymous "administration official" decided to surpass even Baghdad Bob:
"One Bush administration official said Israel had recently carried out reconnaissance flights over Syria, taking pictures of possible nuclear installations that Israeli officials believed might have been supplied with material from North Korea. The administration official said Israeli officials believed that North Korea might be unloading some of its nuclear material on Syria.
“The Israelis think North Korea is selling to Iran and Syria what little they have left,” the official said. He said it was unclear whether the Israeli strike had produced any evidence that might validate that belief."
[From the above NYT article]
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Right!
It is truly incredible what those people will say to the increasingly uncritical – if not outrightly cooperating – US media. Remember, this is the New York Times. God help us all.
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Above link of the Independent article doesn't work because it was in parenthesis, so here it is again:
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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece
Ship of fools: Johann Hari sets sail with America's swashbuckling neocons
The Iraq war has been an amazing success, global warming is just a myth – and as for Guantanamo Bay, it's practically a holiday camp… The annual cruise organised by the 'National Review', mouthpiece of right-wing America, is a parallel universe populated by straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republicans.
By Johann Hari
Published: 13 July 2007
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Highly recommended!
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How Israel operates:
link to christopherketcham.com
http://www.christopherketcham.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/Gerald%20Shea%20Memo%20to%20the%209-11%20Commission.pdf
Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a Public Inquiry
Obama Distances Himself From Controversial Book on U.S.-Israeli Relations (WaPo)
"Like many in Washington, Barack Obama is running as fast as he can from the authors of a controversial new book on U.S.-Israeli politics. And in doing so, he's taking a distinctly different path than one of his highest-profile supporters in the foreign policy establishment, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
After being alerted by a reporter for the New York Sun, the Obama campaign raced yesterday to take down a small ad for the campaign's Web site that appeared as one of several "sponsored links" on the Amazon.com page for "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, a professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. The book argues that a highly influential assortment of pro-Israeli politicians, journalists and academics have succeeded in pushing U.S. policy in the Middle East in directions that do not necessarily serve America's best interests. And, like an article by the authors that appeared last year, the book has caused a considerable stir — critics have accused the authors of anti-Semitism, admirers have praised them for needed candor, and several institutions and organizations have turned down or canceled appearances by the authors, including the Graduate Center at the City University of New York and, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs."
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2007/09/11/post_69.html
Hilary takes more hawkish position than Israeli government–
link to jta.org
Hilary ranked #1 for Israel–
link to jta.org
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LA Times reviews M&W–
"Israel's Lobby As Scapegoat"
link to latimes.com
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As the title suggests, Tim Rutten detects "antisemitism".
Mr. Rutten has a well-developed nose for "antisemitism". It was he who complained of the same thing in the recent biography of Colin Powell, where our Secty. of State spoke of a "JINSA crowd" in our government.
link to observer.com
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Yes Cooper is right on this one. Info in the Shea memo is the greatest story never told. Look at the maps at the end of Shea's report plotting the addresses of the Mossad's Urban Moving Company employees and the addresses of the highjackers living in New Jersey.(map #3)Then check out where the rest of highjackers were living in and around Hollywood Florida.(map 1) Guess who was living next door? None other than the Israeli DEA Mossad art students spies documented in the DEA investigation leaked to the press. How did Mossad know where all the highjackers were and about the 9/11 plot? You can find the answer in of all places a Fox news report. Israeli telecommunication companies. Israel was spying on us long before the NSA.link to youtube.com
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Perhaps our shock and awe should have been directed at Tel Aviv.
I have never thought for a moment that the Mossad was behind 9-11, but I have often thought that both Israel and Russia had clear motives to keep their mouths shut if they had any asset infiltrated in Al Qaeda and thus had prior knowlege.
If you remember at the time both Chechnya and the Intifada were in full swing and 9-11 took all the heat off of both Sharon and Putin… If you don't think either of this pair is capable of letting a few thousand innocent people get killed to further their interests, than let me show you this bridge, not far from Ground-Zero, which I am forced to sell at a very low price.
I minor quibble about Pape's theory. Suicide terrorism comes from occupation by a foreign Army of a different religion … and also of a democracy.
The point is to make the voters demand withdrawal because they can't stand the blood when they have no real interest in the conflict.
Suicide terrorism does not work against dictators, they solve the problem by extreme measures, including collective punishment
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Oarwell: Thanks for your comment that "This issue is, clearly, about more than Iraq or Iran, about more than a few neocon zealots whose purposes dovetailed with Cheneyite imperialism". I have to wonder if my psychohistorical bent may be misplaced, and if the primary motive behind our belligerence is not simply the MIC.
Alan: Thanks for the 'ship of fools' link.
General thanks also to David and David Seaton, and to John for the link to JATO.
Happy holidays to all.
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