Council for the National Interest is gathering an interesting group on Capitol Hill next week. Participants are–

-Dr. John Mearsheimer
-Uri Avnery
-Menachem Klein
-Honorable Edward Peck
-Honorable David Newton
-Honorable James Abourezk

http://www.cnifoundation.org/

Afghanistan is a just war, is that it? To "get Bin Laden"?

Seriously?

How can M&W discuss the Israel Lobby without a critical word about the military industrial complex in the U.S. since WWII? I mean what do people like Richard Perle really do for a living? (M&W won't say: they "occupy positions," "[are] signatories," "[are] among [USCFL's] major activists.")

It's just kinda funny because I don't know anyone who gets paid merely to "occupy [a] position", or for just signing things, or just being an "activist"… Certainly not on Perle's paygrade. (He has a vacation home in the south of France, unlike most activists and letter signers I know.)

What type of thing does Richard Perle actually do?

Sy Hersh, do you know?

"Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme's main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm's government connections prominently: "Three of Trireme's Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme's principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board." The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme's advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle's who handles matters in Trireme's New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as [Saudi Arabian arms broker and former BCCI client Adnan] Khashoggi and [Saudi Arabian industrialist Harb Saleh al-] Zuhair."

http://www.variant.randomstate.org/17texts/17seymorehersh.html

(The New Yorker has knocked the piece into the memory hole, I'm sure it was only an honest mistake.)

So ok, Richard Perle is making his money financing war, basically. Not unlike Abrams and Iran-Contra.

How can W&M discuss Israel without discussing the disastrous path of American militarism, the arms industry, the arms trade, Iran Contra and BCCI, all of these phenomena directly related to zionism's special relationship with the U.S.?

That's where the lobby-centric arguments kind of fall apart–zionism has gotten America the wars its military machine needs (lest it–god frobid–SHRINK a little!!!)

It's not just the lobby; the superpower too needs flogging.

M&W are too timid in the Israel Lobby, they don't want to expose the extreme immorality of American imperialism by calling zionism what it is, a colonial racket. They decide not to open the can of worms, maybe it's wanting to retain SOME vestige of establishment status, maybe it's K.I.S.S.

So they focus on the Israel Lobby solely, and then Jeffrey Goldberg can turn around and explain to the Richard Wittys of the world that W&M're against us, they're "vile."

The superpower is vile. The profiting off of war is vile. The neoliberal/neoconservative consensus masquerading as a representative democracy is indeed extremely vile.

We will know that the times have changed as Phil is predicting when that accusation will no longer be made.

"I'm worried that by November it's going to be too late," to stop Iran from gaining the ability to produce nuclear weapons, said Yossi Kuperwasser, the former senior intelligence officer for the Central Command of the Israeli Defense. On military action against nuclear sites in Iran, he said, "Just do it. For Christ's sake, do it and solve our problem."

Kuperwasser has chutzpah. He takes the Lord's name in vain while demanding the goyish American Christians attack Israel's enemies.

Admiral Fox Fallon and General Anthony Zinni were wise to these types. No doubt from studying at (Saint Thomas of) Villanova University in suburban Philadelphia.

http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/2008/05/23/norman-finkelstein-arrested-in-israel/

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/middleeast/news/article_1407232.php/US_political_author_Norman_Finkelstein_denied_entry_to_Israel

——————-

I prefer not to use ethnicity in evaluating the validity of ideas or arguments, but doesn't the ethnic composition of the group seem somewhat skewed?

Maybe someone like Rashid Khalidi, Hamid Dabashi, Nadia Abu el-Haj, Hamid Dabashi, Ali Asani, Mahmood Mamdani or Abdi Samatar was asked to participate, but I have the impression of exclusion.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/23/headlines

Below the latest article he published on his site. If he moves from fringe to mainstream, than of course he is much more dangerous.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1690

Accurate report in mainstream Jewish perioidical

A question of motives, not of legitimacy

05.16.2008 | JTnews.com
By Manny Frishberg
JTNews Correspondent

"but I have the impression of exclusion."

Why not? Would be interesting to watch. But in such honorable circles we probably won't be invited videowise. Dialogue is fine, Buber would tell you.

It is interesting that it really does not make much difference whether the finite being confronts the abyss like Heidegger or faces the eternal Thou like Buber.