Today’s a great day. George Bush’s crazily craven speech at the Knesset, a naked obeisance to the Israel lobby, has caused Chris Matthews to charge that Bush and Hillary, with her "obliterate Iran" talk, are competing for a "domestic political" constituency. Why is Israel the "Hyde Park" of American politics? Why is this issue "the podium of American politics?" he asked.
Good questions. He cannot ask them seriouslywithout having John Mearsheimer and Steve Walt, who advanced this subject more bravely than anyone else, on his show. If not now, a year from now.
Oh and let’s not forget Obama. He had a "longish" conversation with Marty Peretz on the telephone re Israel. And also provided slavish answers re Israel to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. It’s a party, come on down!
Wait– not you, you’re not invited.
P.S. Just now on NBC Nightly News, John Yang said the Bush speech was aimed at a "key" American "voting bloc."
Related posts:
- Has Obama Trapped the Israel Lobby? A Theory…
- Will Rising Political Temperature over Iran Compel Journalists to Look at the Israel Lobby?
- Obama Will Use Holbrooke as Cover for Prog Agenda as George W. Bush Used Colin Powell for Neocon One
- Did the First President Bush Lose His Job to the Israel Lobby?
- Mearsheimer: Like Bush and Clinton before him, Obama will fail at creating a viable Palestinian state
{ 12 comments }
I would encourage all readers to see Glenn Greenwald's take on this, 'Finding Obama Guilty of Insufficient Devotion to Israel,' also on Tom "Suck. On. This." Friedman, Chief War Proselytizer.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/index.html
As Gore Vidal put it, "the price of Freedom is eternal discretion."
BTW, Phil, nice article on Zbig (one of Jeffrey Goldberg's bogeymen raised during the Obama inquisition, along with James Baker). Had to laugh when I read this:
“In the Ford-Carter debates on Eastern Europe they got into details,” I said.
The hawklike head turned from the window to me for once. “Like what?”
“You called my bluff.”
Phil, don't you remember when Ford announced to a stunned world that Poland was a free state? "There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe," Ford declared, before heading to the links to celebrate his ending of the Cold War. What was left for Carter to say?
You left out this interesting tidbit regarding "Mr. Realpolitik:"
Carter's campaign advisor Hamilton Jordan had warned about Brzezinski prior to the election, stating: "If, after the inauguration [of Jimmy Carter] you find… Zbigniew Brzezinski as head of National Security, then I would say we failed and I'd quit."
Zbig, Jordan knew, was to be the power elite's watchdog in the Carter White House, making sure the peanut farmer didn't try to pull off any populist shenanigans.
Dancing Shlomos,
Thanks for the explanation of your thinking. It IS odd that NF and Chomsky can be so intelligent about some things and blind and deaf about others. This is what looks like intellectual dishonesty to me but I am coming to believe it is some sort of psychological mechanism. Some sort of torque that prevents some people from letting in the truth. In other words they are sincere and truly believe what they are saying. It IS weird as hell. The thing is , I KNOW people who are like this and they aren't members of a conspiracy. This topic sort of obsesses me actually. Phil said, "making black into white" (or something). Don't you think Witty believes what he is saying? Have you ever come across a narcissist who cannot admit the truth about themselves? I can only think it is similar.
There is some sort of psychological pressure that makes this happen. It makes me think of Richard Nixon in that TV interview with David Frost.
And Oarwell, can you provide a link to the Friedman "suck on this"?
Here's a classic.
http://www.observer.com/2008/obama-donor-loss-face-clinton-counterparts
"And Oarwell, can you provide a link to the Friedman 'suck on this'?"
peters, scroll down to the video:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/14/friedman/index.html
He picked it up from Atrios/Eschaton:
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2007_09_23_archive.html#7296722378059812109
peters, this haunts me too, although it seems unavailable on the net by now, ARI put it up for a while, and than claimed they had no longer the rights to do so. Which led ultimately to a dead link in Wikipedia:
Now it has gone everywhere it seems:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/index.php?s=Yaron+Brook
But here is the transcript of the relevant passage. I usually call it: "Passing(is overtaking English?) O'Reilly on the Right":
http://ariwatch.com/OReillyInterviewsYaronBrook.htm
O’Reilly, like Mr. Brook, was gung-ho about invading Iraq in March 2003, but even he has a problem with Mr. Brook’s “a lot more brutal” – though O’Reilly is more concerned about what the world will think than about the brutality –
O’R: All right, but if you do that, if you throw out the Geneva convention and throw out a lot of these rules of engagement that we have … then you alienate the whole world, you create more enemies, because Al-Jazeera [an Arab news agency – A.W.] and these people, they’re running wild now [they broadcast photos of the mayhem – A.W.], they’d ramp it up tenfold, so, you have to consider the cause and effect do you not?
YB: It’s the opposite, Bill. The weaker we are, the weaker we are portrayed, the more we prosecute soldiers for killing injured insurgents, the stronger the enemy becomes, the more confident they are, the more emboldened they are that they can actually defeat us …
O’R: That might be the micro-view there … but you’re not suggesting, Doctor, that U.S. soldiers execute captured Iraqis are you?
YB: I’m suggesting that we start bringing this war to the civilians, the consequences of this war, to the civilians who are harboring and helping and supporting the insurgents in Fellujah and other places.
O’R: By doing what?
YB: I would like to see the United States turn Fallujah into dust, and tell the Iraqis: If you’re going to continue to support the insurgents you will not have homes, you will not have schools, you will not have mosques …
O’R: But then we’d be Nazis. You know that’s what the Nazis d …
YB: No we wouldn’t be Nazis …
O’R: Well yes we would, [3] let me ask you thi …
YB: We’re the good guys, Bill, here. There’s an enormous difference, we are fighting …
O’R: The Nazis thought they were good guys too. All right, but look, that’s what the Nazis did …
YB: It’s irrelevant what you think you are, the question is what you truly are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaron_Brook
Do something:
http://jstreet.org/campaigns/thats-offensive-mr-president
Will someone with drawing power (not a nonentity like myself) please set the record straight publicly on the facts about "appeasement in the 1930s" and what the correct parallels are with our times:
1. Hitler claimed falsely that the Sudeten Germans were being denied their rights of self-determination in the new nation of Czechoslovakia. President Edvard Benes and the ruling CNSP protested that there was no truth in those allegations. (In 2002 George W. Bush claimed falsely that Saddam Hussein was developing WMDs. Saddam Hussein protested that those charges were untrue.)
2.The German threatened invasion and annexation unless a German-dominated Sudetenland was created and given substantial autonomy. (The US Administration threatened invasion and occupation unless the Iraqi government handed over all is WMDs and ceased its clandestine program.)
3. The PM of UK, Neville Chamberlain warned the Czech government that there was merit in Hitler's claims and that the Sudetens would have to be given autonomy. (The PM of the UK, Tony Blair warned Saddam that there compelling evidence gathered by British intelligence that Saddam possessed WMDs and he would have to hand them over or face the consequences.)
4. Munich Agreement (September 1938) handed over Sudetenland to the Reich; March 2003 the US military invaded and occupied Iraq.
So, reader, in yet another way we have entered an Orwellian (not Oarwellian) period.
Visal, read Paul Craig Roberts ('Lies of Aggression') on exactly this Orwellian inversion of "appeasement" for "diplomacy."
He notes that we are the aggressor in this conflict, not Iran:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts246.html
Here's the youtube link for the Friedman phallofascistfest:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOF6ZeUvgXs
For the link disinclined, a passage from the Robert's article:
"It is Bush, not Iran, who sounds like Adolf Hitler blustering and threatening. It is Bush’s American Brownshirts, the neocons, who express the view: "what’s the good of nuclear weapons if you can’t use them."
It is the US that is funding assassination teams inside Iran and using taxpayer dollars to fund dissident and violent organizations opposed to the Iranian government. Iran is doing no such thing here.
It is members of the Bush Regime and US generals who continue to lie through their teeth about Iranian support for insurgents, for which they can supply no evidence, and about Iranian nuclear weapons programs, for which the IAEA inspectors can find no sign.
It is the US print and TV media that serves the Bush Regime as propaganda ministry for its lies of aggression.
All the war crimes that are being planned are being planned by Bush and Olmert.
What would George Orwell make of the Bush Regime’s position that anything less than a direct act of naked aggression is appeasement?"
I am planning a new Mt. Rushmore, to be called Mt. Relaxmore (less imperialistic, doncha think?), which so far will include Chris Floyd, Glenn Greenwald, Scott Ritter, Paul Craig Roberts, Ron Paul, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, and maybe even Phil. Instead of being carved from rock, it will be built from mounds of discarded newspapers containing all the lies of the attack poodles that led us into this war and bark so madly for the next one. Out of the wilderness of those lies a few brave voices were heard, calling for a return of Truth, Justice, and the American Way.
Oarwell, nice.
Comments on this entry are closed.