Last night ’60 Minutes’ did a piece on "Curveball," the Iraqi scientist who fled to Germany in the late 90s and in 2002 provided "intelligence" that Saddam was preparing chemical and biological weapons. Curveball claimed that a dozen technicians had died in an accident at the plant. In the runup to war, former Sec’y of State Colin Powell told the U.N. as much, disgracing himself forever. The plant was said to be an agricultural seed-purification plant; it turned out to be one.
’60 Minutes’ takeaway was that Curveball perpetrated one of the most costly "conjobs" in history.
This is like blaming a matchbook for the California wildfires. The U.S. Administration got conned because it wanted to get conned. It wanted war, and was happy to twist intelligence.
It is interesting that one of 60′s most reliable sources in this piece was Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson. Wilkerson is used to show how the CIA manipulated General Powell. It is unfortunate that ’60 Minutes’ doesn’t trust Wilkerson to talk about the larger issues here, the neocons’ drive for war, their bad ideas that propelled this disaster. When Walt and Mearsheimer’s paper on the Israel lobby first appeared in the London Review of Books, Wilkerson taught it at the two colleges he was teaching at then (and there was "pushback" against his doing so, he said). Powell himself has blamed the war ideas on the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (in Karen DeYoung’s bio). Too bad that CBS can’t place the blame for bad intelligence where it belongs, in the intellectuals who figured out that we could bring democracy by force to the Middle East, and who have always overlooked Israel’s problems with democracy…
Ron Paul with his little axe, shaking the moral tree in New Hampshire
I agree with most of this post, but I disagree that the main goal of the intellectuals at JINSA were really thinking that we should bring democracy to the Middle East. If you read the earlier "Clean Break" document for Netanyahu or the PNAC documents there isn't much talk about democracy. Is there a focus on this on pre-9/11 writings from within the Neoconservative movement?
I understand as well as everyone else that spreading democracy (as well as dealing with Iraq's "WMD" issue) became one of the selling points of the Iraq invasion, but as Wolfowitz said one these were the public justifications that worked best to sell the war.
It would be fascination to read a history of the neoconservative movement and the trends of thought within it and when each of those trends of thought emerged. My understanding is that the hawkish pro-Israel faction of the Neoconservatives were pushing for a remaking of the Middle East for years prior to the emergence of the idea that America should be "spreading Democracy."
Spread democracy is sort of difficult and prone to issues. This argument that spreading democracy too quickly and also by imposing in a "shock" fashion from the outside can lead to internal strife is well known within American academic circles. I think that this high risk strategy was undertaken only because it was something that could be sold to the public. But I haven't looked into it as deeply as I should.
One of the best books on this topic is: "World on Fire" by Amy Chua.
http://www.amazon.com/World-Fire-Exporting-Democracy-Instability/dp/0385503024
To sum up, I don't think the Neoconservative movement was simply about spreading democracy in the Middle East, this trend of thought appeared after it was already established within the right-leaning American elite thought (see PNAC) that the US should be more interventionist in the Middle East because of the oil reserves and after it was established in American pro-Israel circles (see the "Clean Break" document) that remaking the Middle East (i.e. ending Oslo, taking out Saddam, attacking Iran and Syria and Lebanon) is in Israel's interests.
You had me until you brought in the "Israel Lobby" article.
Again, the problem with the book and with the article is the degree in which they generalize about what the "Israel Lobby" consists of and does, while earlier speaking more specifically about individuals' or distinct organizations' actions.
Its the generalization that is dangerous.
I was "taught" Atlas Shrugged in a class in undergraduate, as an example, not as an advocate.
Does that make my progressive American studies professor (now deceased) a proponent of Ayn Rand?
This analysis fails to consider the multitude of factors, including but not limited to JINSA. Right wing neoconservatives want aggressive US military action in the middle east to protect and American access to oil and to strengthen Israel's position in the region? Duh. But there were a lot of non-Jewish, non-zionists also pushing for action in the region. Phil Weiss seems to be an idiot savant of some sort that latches on to one idea and can't help but see everything through that lens.
I was thinking about this a bit more this morning. My understanding is that the "Spreading democracy" line, while it was one of the public justifications for action in the Middle East, it was also more importantly something that resonated with George W Bush. Bush read Nathan Sharansky's book "The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror" and its message resonated with George W Bush. (And it is a rare book that Bush actually reads, thus this is extremely significant.) Getting Bush on side for these moves in the Middle East was necessary, and it was through this justification that Bush came to believe it was part of his mission to do this. The seeds of these ideas of democracy promotion were probably floating around before this book of Sharansky's in these circles, but it was Sharansky's book that brought it to the fore.
Sharansky is about as pro-Israel as you can get:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natan_Sharansky
Here is a piece on the intersection between George W Bush and the impact of Sharanky on him. I haven't taken the time to fully vet this piece, but if you don't like this one, there are many more available, just do another Google Search:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2005/0502sharansky.php
Too bad POTUS didn't at least read up a little on Wilson's failed attempt to "make the world safe for democracy" to supplement Sharansky's book before he attacked Iraq. Wilson's attempt caused the death of a quarter million American soldiers, tipped the balance, and planted the seeds for the rise of Hitler as everybody exept POTUS knows.
In regards to the above comment: Mr. Keating, have you read Germany's Aims In The First World War, by Fritz Fischer? And, for that matter, Germany's Drive To The West, by Hans W. Gatzke? They might raise a few eyebrows among progressives.
The 60 Minute "Curve Ball" segment fits with the current Lobby spin to the effect that the Iraq debacle was due merely to incompetence and bad luck. At least 60 Minutes allowed Tyler Drumheller very briefly to point out that if there had been no Curve Ball, another excuse for war would have been found. Obviously there was abundant unvetted fake intel from which the neocons, hellbent on war, could cherry-pick. Re the spreading of democracy: As all intelligent informed people knew at the time, America was (and is) one of the worst agents for this endeavor because of our association, especially in the minds of those in the Muslim world, with the abhorrent Israeli occupation. Indeed, "spreading democracy" under these circumstances is a Machiavellian neocon scheme designed to foment civil wars in the lands of Israel's Muslim enemies.
I can see some logic in Eleanor Lambertson statement when she writes "Indeed, 'spreading democracy' under these circumstances is a Machiavellian neocon scheme designed to foment civil wars in the lands of Israel's Muslim enemies."
I have read before that the neo-conservatives favored "creative destruction" in the Middle East, destroy the existing structures with the hope that what emerges better suits Israel's security needs. This type of thinking is evidence in the "Clean Break" document from 1996. Although the use of the phrase "creative destruction" may have been used/introducted by a critic or analyst of these types of ideas, rather than one who is promoting these strategies.
"When Walt and Mearsheimer's paper on the Israel lobby first appeared in the London Review of Books, Wilkerson taught it at the two colleges he was teaching at then (and there was "pushback" against his doing so, he said). "
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"Lawrence Wilkerson: There is an enormous, very, very, powerful, machine out there, that notes immediately when someone takes anti-Israeli positions, and moves out, on the attack.
I'll give you a very concrete example.
I had mentioned the Mearsheimer/Walt study, once, in a seminar, at one of the universities where I teach, and within 48 hours, I had an email from Alan Dershowitz.
Question: Who is he?
Wilkerson: Alan Dershowitz is a Harvard professor who protects the Jewish lobby in America like an attack dog.
I had an email from him, and the email essentially said, he didn't think I was doing justice, to the American-Israeli relationship, to Israel's existence in the world, etcetera, by citing the Walt/Mearsheimer report, because it was so heavily flawed, mistaken, and so forth.
And he even attached his own attack on the Walt/Mearsheimer report, and advised me to use it as counterbalance in my seminar.
Well, I wasn't even using the report in my seminar, I simply had mentioned it as evidence of some peoples' ire, if you will, with the lack of discussion, the lack of debate, on these issues, in America.
And within 48 hours I had one of the attack dogs, for the Jewish lobby, coming after me.
Question: But how could he know this?
Wilkerson: There are people all over America, on campuses, all across America, who are set up to do just what he did. To protect the interests of Jewish Americans, and particularly the interests of Israel, in America.
In that sense, the Jewish lobby is probably more organized, and more able to move swiftly, against any potential threat, than any other lobby."
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"The Israel Lobby" (VPRO TV, Daylight, "Tegenlicht," Netherlands, April 2 2007):
link to tinyurl.com
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link to balder.org
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Video (at 15:37-17:56): link to vpro.nl
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(sb:36.5mb.asf):
mms://media.omroep.nl/meeko07/0/id/VPRO/serie/AUTO_TEGENLICHTPLAATSDESOORDEELS/VPRO_1122452/sb.20070402.asf
(bb:178mb.asf):
mms://media.omroep.nl/meeko07/0/id/VPRO/serie/AUTO_TEGENLICHTPLAATSDESOORDEELS/VPRO_1122452/bb.20070402.asf
In the 2005 book "Neo-Conned Again," there is an essay by Stephen Sniegoski, PhD, entitled "Neoconservatives, Israel, and 9/11: The Origins of the US War on Iraq" wherein Sniegoski describes an article "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" by Oded Yinon, which appeared in the World Zionist Organization's publication "Kivunin" (Directions) Feb 1982. Yinon advocated Israel's bringing about the fragmentation of the neighboring Arab states thus creating powerless ministates. Yinon believed that fomenting civil wars would be easy due to intrinsic ethnic/religious factions within each state. The Yinon article can be found at
A War for Israel? Colin Powell seems to think so:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=61128
CBS '60 Minutes' refusing to cover Mearsheimer/Walt book:
link to itszone.co.uk
Note the mention by Colin Powell 's former assistant Lawrence Wilkerson near the end of the following documentary about WW 3 if Iran is attacked next – for Israel
AIPAC's Push for War with Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6SQ02gqqao
Colonel Wilkerson mentioned in the following article as well:
Teflon Alliance with Israel:
link to
Re: AIPAC is Pushing US to War with Iran for Israel (see the Scott Ritter youtubes in the comments section for how he mentioned AIPAC and that nukes might be used on Iran as well):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2007/10/re-aipac-is-pushing-us-to-war-with-iran.html
'Invade and Bomb With Hillary and Rahm'
Why war with Iran is likely
link to antiwar.com
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AIPAC, Espionage, and Legal Sabotage
Has the AIPAC spy trial been derailed?