Some day the left will have to answer for the fact that it harbored the neocons for years after the Iraq war proved to be a disaster. I believe this is in some measure a Jewish problem. Even leftleaning Jews like Carla Cohen of Politics and Prose bookstore have a core belief in protecting the Jewish state, and this has made if very difficult for them to drop the dime on neocons– who were motivated by concerns for the Jewish state of a more extremist order. Jewish defensiveness (the Forward's famous complaint of Walt and Mearsheimer, In Dark Times, Blame the Jews) caused Jews to want to keep this one inside the family; and prevented leftlib journalists from doing the simple work of exploring, Whose stupid ideas contributed to this mess, and how did they form those ideas? Even Jacob Heilbrunn, who assigned himself that very task, and who understood neoconservatism as a Jewish outsider movement, shied away cravenly in his book, They Knew They Were Right. While Daniel Lazare trashed Walt and Mearsheimer in the Nation, adopting the usual left line that the war was all about oil.
This left the hard job of fingering the Zionist agenda of the neocons to the right wing, to the realists and paleos, or to mavericks like myself and Michael Lerner. Thus, Mary-Kay Wilmers, the editor of the LRB, which published Walt and Mearsheimer, told me, I believe the American left is also claimed by the Israel lobby…
I recite this refrain here only because Scott McClellan's book is shaking loose some testimony. Here is Arnaud de Borchgrave's commentary in The Washington Times on the neocon planning for the Iraq War.
This reporter first heard about the inevitability of war a year before the invasion at a party given by Dick Cheney – "the magic man," writes Mr. McClellan – and his wife Lynne to celebrate the paperback edition of chief of staff Scooter Libby's book "The Apprentice."
The capital's top neocons were on hand and convinced dubious listeners that war with Iraq was now inevitable. They were persuasive when they corrected me for saying, "If there is a war."
….Mr. McClellan is correct when he writes senior administration officials began a campaign in 2002 to "aggressively sell the war," even as he and other officials insisted all options were on the table. Of course it was a war of choice, not of necessity, as he writes. The Bush administration's main motive for invading Iraq was to introduce "coercive democracy."
This, in turn, originated in a controversial 1996 White Paper titled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," which referred to Israel. It advised then incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to repeal the Oslo agreements for a Palestinian solution, keep Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli control, and establish democracy in Iraq by overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Democracy in Iraq, said "Clean Break," would then be followed by similar regime changes in Syria and Iran. Thus, Israel could begin to relax and look forward to real security for the indefinite future.
Among its principal authors were neocon theoreticians–
Good to see the Clean Break paper mentioned outside of IRMEP. As I've said before, some day Yivo will be having highbrow colloquia about the neocons, and Jews will soul-search about their role in the Iraq war. And let me add the caveat, I'm not saying Jewish neocons were the only ones who plotted this disaster. But they had an important part. I'm glad someone's pushing the conversation. And again I'd cite the scouring attitude that young Jews like myself and Geoff Garin (Hillary's aide) had back in the 70s when it came to accountability for the Vietnam disaster. Don't we owe this great country the same postmortem this time round?
Related posts:
- The Washington Post Identifies Iraq War as a Pro-Israel Cause
- Former Indiana Congressman Says Securing Israel Was Hidden Agenda for Iraq War
- ‘Washington Post’ Diplomatic Correspondent Says Iraq War Was to ‘Help Israel’
- Hollings Says Iraq War Was Launched in Large Part to Secure Israel
- Democracy in Iraq?
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More about the Clean Break document and its mentions by various commentators here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clean_Break:_A_New_Strategy_for_Securing_the_Realm
"And again I'd cite the scouring attitude that young Jews like myself and Geoff Garin (Hillary's aide) had back in the 70s when it came to accountability for the Vietnam disaster. Don't we owe this great country the same postmortem this time round?"
If we get this postmortem, will it be because Jews fell an affinity for the rest of the nation, or because Jews feel vulnerable?
Yes, yes I blogged about it but too lazy to post the link.
Or am I? (cue dramatic music):
"First, the A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm policy recommendation paper was written by Richard Perle and other neocons.
The "Clean Break" paper was written for then Israeli prime minister, Bibi Netanyahu, and stated that for Israel to be secure, Iraq, Iran and then Syria would have to be "taken out".
In that order."
"An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran"
"So lets not kid ourselves – Israel views the destabilization of Iraq, Iran and Syria as its national goals."
"So what happened after the "Clean Break" study, written by American Citizens for Israel?
Why, the Project for the New American Century was born.
Think about the dates.
"Clean Break" was written in 1996.
PNAC is founded by Jewish neocons in 1997.
PNAC is then, simply, an organization to carry out the "Clean Break" goals to make Israel more secure in the Middle East, by using American military and money to accomplish those goals."
I know, this is deep and Mr. Weiss might have trouble absorbing this info (as it is simply monstrous).
But this bears repeating:
"Think about the dates.
"Clean Break" was written in 1996.
PNAC is founded by Jewish neocons in 1997.
PNAC is then, simply, an organization to carry out the "Clean Break" goals to make Israel more secure in the Middle East, by using American military and money to accomplish those goals."
http://americangoy.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-popped-gasket.html
A Clean Break (as discussed by respected American intelligence author/writer James Bamford in his 'A Pretext for War' book):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/02/clean-break.html
Arnaud de Borchgrave on McClellan, Neocons & Clean Break:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=90368
Neocons Perle, Feith, Libby and others pushed for Iraq War (Arnaud de Borchgrave's article mentioned):
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/neocons-perle-feith-libby-and-others.html
Here is the youtube linked via clicking on the pic at the above URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3XBUbVhNx8&feature=PlayList&p=7E41C0ADDA1EDCDC&index=0&playnext=1
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUMgtbasByA&feature=PlayList&p=C96874279E78AD85&index=0
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/3w3e97
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel:
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/transparent-cabal-neoconservative.html
Here is a tiny URL for the above one:
http://tinyurl.com/69dqvf
Be sure to read Kevin MacDonald's 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' and 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement' which are both linked near the top of the following URL:
http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606
"I believe the American left is also claimed by the Israel lobby…"
Absolutely agreed. It's accompanied by a huge ideological and academic onslaught. The latest being the suggestion of a straight line from German left wing antisemitism and terrorism and the campus dissent on Israel.
I think that is why the American Jewish left needs the expression of solidarity and not the niggling that often goes on here. They are the group that is most heavily under ideological attack. That's what it feels like to me.
Why we should not quarrel now:
http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/?p=157
"If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it."
Gal Beckerman
"The Neoconservative Persuasion: Examining the Jewish Roots of an Intellectual Movement"
The Forward
Jan 6, 2006
Can I across post this to a democratic blog? PFF! and Booman?
"Jewish defensiveness (the Forward's famous complaint of Walt and Mearsheimer, In Dark Times, Blame the Jews) caused Jews to want to keep this one inside the family; and prevented leftlib journalists from doing the simple work of exploring, Whose stupid ideas contributed to this mess, and how did they form those ideas?"
Sounds like a description of a Jewish conspiracy to suppress the truth about the origins of a destructive, murderous doctrine. The truth about Jewish Bolshevism as the origins for murderous Communism were suppressed by a Jewish conspiracy in a similar fashion. No wonder so many Jewish operatives are attracted to media and academia: for control of the national and international narrative.
The American Left has attempted to maintain the fiction that Neoconservatism is "of the Right" since it was first identified and deconstructed, and like the Neocons themselves, has greeted the identification of Neoconservatism as a Jewish formulated doctrine, and the Iraq war as a Jewish-Zionist engineered enterprise, with shouts of “anti-Semitism” from the beginning. It's all about oil, Empire and war-profiteering, the Left insisted. But that was only part of the truth, and Leftists knew it.
Why does the Left want to suppress the whole truth? Because the whole truth blows a hole in the concept of statist-engineered multicultrualism and “victim” veneration as transcendent and utopian (Jews aren’t the only tenacious "victims" and tribalists; indeed, as the tribal warfare going on in the Democrat party suggests, tribalism is innate, and can only be overcome on a mass scale through Christianity, which most on the Left hate — something they have in common with most Jews). And the truth also shows up Marxist doctrine, from which the American Left still draws its world view and inspiration, as yet another Judeo-engineered scam that purports to be universalist but that in reality is just another Jewish tribal power grab originally designed to serve Jewish interests.
The implications of all of this are earth-shattering for the Democrats in the same way that the realization that Republican Christian Zionists and supporters of the Iraq war and the “war on terror” are mostly dupes and useful idiots being played by Jewish Zionists and war-profiteers has been earth-shattering for the GOP.
As with the GOP, the denial is strongest in the Democrat Party amongst the most stubbornly ignorant and ideologically committed. And of course, among those who are financially profiting from the scam, or stand to profit from tribal scams like it.
"Neoconservatism is "of the Right" since it was first identified and deconstructed, and like the Neocons themselves, has greeted the identification of Neoconservatism as a Jewish formulated doctrine, and the Iraq war as a Jewish-Zionist engineered enterprise, with shouts of “anti-Semitism” from the beginning."
Chris, dear, I consider this perception management. If you look deeper you'll find both high interests in religion (as a controlling force), economy with a peculiar dislike of e.g. Sweden (haven't gotten to the source yet) and a deep disdain for the 68 movement. And that means a firm believe in authority as the ultimate tool to keep people in line. For the neocons it's all about power, their power, not the power of the masses.
The firm believe in authority vs the demand of the many is for me strictly the right. And please don't tell me anything about the social element in National Socialism, it was a means to an end, utter control with a few goodies. My left outlook has a strong dose of good old liberalism; in many ways liberalism would get the upper hand. But not neoliberalim!
I am aware that it is slightly more complicated in the US and that the GOP has a more enlightened history. But I just don't see it anymore. And I don't see it anymore for quite some time now. From my perspective the neocons are nothing more than a peak in a longer development. That's why they find so many gentile helpers: Cheney, Addington …
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/03/060703fa_fact1
Authoritarianism not leftism in my book:
http://www.antiwar.com/prather/?articleid=12956
What "intelligence information"?
Well, recall that in the summer of 2002, President Bush ordered Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to prepare a National Intelligence Estimate he could use to "justify" to Congress the war of aggression against Iraq which, we now know – thanks to the Downing Street Memos – he had already decided to launch.
By law, the constitutional powers of the president to "introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities" are limited, and can only be exercised "pursuant to; (a) a declaration of war, (b) specific statutory authorization, or (c) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces."
So, DCI Tenet hurriedly prepared the "slam dunk" NIE on "Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction," which was central to gullible Congresspersons passing, within days of its receipt, the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq" Resolution of 16 October, 2002.
The real problem is the American Left has been passively beaten into submission within the Christain and Jewish communities to accept the virtue of Zionism.
It should be noted, that ZIONISM is decadent and violent and certainly evil. The definition of ""ZIONISM"" is to create an exclusive state of one ethnic tribe, the Zionist Jews.
This has always been the definition of Zionism, to create one Israel or super Israel future which is exclusively for Zionist Jews or Zionists.
What that entails means the expulsion of all other people from the entire state as well as removal of their civil rights. That means no others can live there, no Palestinian Muslims, Jews or Muslims are allowed to live near the state of Israel. If they are allowed to live at all, they are forced to be second class citizens.
There is a great disturbance in the community of the Churches that has been denying this plain, undoubtable reality. This is why the leftist neo-Zionists were allowed to destroy the Republican party, to kill off McCain & Bush and everyone else with clearly idiots like Cheney….and to destroy conservative values!!!!
Nancy Pelosi is an ardent Zionist!!!! The left is FULL of Zionists who fundamentally agree with the neo-Zionists, they just want to do it a different way. Their indifference to the reality caused the migration and forming of the neo-Zionist regime taking over the Republican party.
Now there is no choice left. Its clear as day to see that the Israel Lobby is absolutely in the wrong. Ron Paul is right. The Jews/Christains must face the truth: They are not a flock of Zionists, what the Israel lobby has done is evil period, and the Israel lobby must be reigned in.
It MUST have its worst people be arrested.
http://www.truthout.org
http://www.anti-neocons.com
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
Her whole entire LIFE has been classified, just simply because fools mostly religious fools don't want to face the truth about Zionism/imperialism.
http://letsibeledmondsspeak.blogspot.com
She foresaw everything before anybody else in the world did, the truth about the Turkish embassies.
Do YOU WANT YOUR POLITICIANS "CONTROLLED" and self-serving the military complex of Turkey? Do you want these turkish embassies like the Israel lobby, forcing everyone to dance to their agenda?
Liberalism is a manifestation of Christian free will, and only tenable on an ongoing basis within Western (Christian) civilization so long as Western civilization does not stray too far from its Christian roots.
It is typical of their narcissim and ingratitude for Jewish left-liberals to spit in the face of the basis of the civilization in which they prosper, and typical of Jewish conservatives to attempt to co-opt the credit and credibility of Western liberalism and its fruits by designating their anti-Western, Judaic construct, Neoconservatism, as representative of the West, and using their media to propagate this lie.
Let's get something straight once and for all: political Judaism is incompatible with Western civilization. Those religious Jews who want to pursue political Judaism should move to Israel; those religious Jews who do not should remove themselves from public policy questions and decisions as their ongoing religious indoctrinations makes them incapable of determining what is in the best interests of sustaining Western (Christian) civilization, and actually compels them to destroy it (whether they are aware of it or not). Only ethnic Jews who have divorced themselves from organized Judaism, including Zionism, should be allowed to contribute to the formulation of public policy within Western civilization. The same rules should apply to Christian Zionists, Muslims and other organized racial/religious groups who inevitably seek to subordinate Western governments and government policy to their tribal, narcissistic, selfish pursuits and desires.
Western civilization cannot sustain itself and survive as a patchwork of selfish tribes each pursuing their own narrow, selfish interests, notwithstanding the intoxicating kool aid that left-liberals sell and drink that produces delusions otherwise.
'I'm not saying Jewish neocons were the only ones who plotted this disaster.'
They were a necessary but not sufficient ingredient. So were the energy crowd, the military empire mavens, the intel/security boondoggle bonanza, the Rove/RNC's goal of permanent ascendancy… etc. No one element was capable of bringing it off alone, and the firm opposition of any of them would have derailed it.
The whole point is that each interest group saw a once in a generation opportunity to advance their agenda, and saw also that all the other necessary ingredients felt the same way, giving the enterprise an irresistible momentum. This bred an incredible hubris that has only recently been punctured in the corridors of real power.
Unfortunately, one interest group, the wider American public (and all the rest of us in your Western 'diaspora'), wasn't involved in these machinations.
I get irritated by analyses that plump for one 'reason' or other – all such efforts are doomed to failure by a narrowness of focus. The real world is a lot messier.
The dismissal of oil as a factor is especially silly. There is possibly 30 trillion of reserves under Iraqi land, which makes a 3 trillion price tag and a generation of opprobrium a small price to pay if you're Dick Cheney, with China and Russia's challenge to US dominance permanently in the back of your mind.
Just add Lobby control of Congress and the media, Rovian direction of the political troops, and hey presto! A splendid little war, over in a flash, all stakeholders grinning from ear to ear, some of them laughing all the way to the bank too.
Unfortunately, none of them saw a train called Reality as it came round the corner and knocked them off their horses. Iraqis resist a brutal occupation? Who'd have thunk it?
Actually, many if not most of the riders remain on their mounts, but some surely are heading for a fall.
AIPAC does not speak for the community so it is okay to revolt or protest against them
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/204500/index.php
None can be silenced!! Today that you see Hotel Managers and Guards threaten people for protesting AIPAC, shows just how crazed this society's fascism has become.
Boycotts against the AIPAC may be necessary, they do not speak for most Jews or Christains!
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/204500/index.php
Walt & Mearshmier's essay is unimpeachable. The AIPAC group/Israel lobby has attempted to silence all dissent in America illegally.
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