Douglas Feith refused to appear before a congressional committee yesterday, apparently because Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was also set to testify. And Wilkerson has been sharply critical of the neocons.
I'm amazed that Feith even has the status that he does. His rise and inclusion in foreign-policy councils is testimony to the tremendous people-moving abilities of the neoconservative movement, which transformed the Washington establishment and allowed loons to become respectable. This is the thesis of Stephen Sniegoski's fine new book, The Transparent Cabal. I'm on page 40 and it's superb, calm, analytical, slightly hackademic, to use Avi Shlaim's expression. Sniegoski's achievement thus far is showing how the neocons left the Democratic Party, which of course was mother's milk to all Jews, and joined the Republicans over the issue of an aggressive foreign policy; and then performed a great service to Reagan: made Reagan's craziness (I remember those days) seem respectable in establishment east coast circles, by giving him the imprimatur of intellectuals with fancy degrees and media connections. Wonderful, true. And thus the neox' virulent non-conservative foreign-policy agenda, of militant transformation, got its nose under the camel's tent. You know what I'm saying. Then when they were in, the tough old battlescarred neocons gave position and status and jobs to effete young escargot-quaffing armchair neocons.
I also like how straightforward Sniegoski is about the neocons' Jewishness and Israel-centric agenda. Of course they're Jewish, though there have been plenty of fellow travelers from across the religious aisle, he says. And Israel is not the be-all and end-all of their vision of foreign affairs, he says in fairness. But when it comes to the Middle East, they're completely Israelcentric, and Likudnik. And so they placed American behind the colonization of the West Bank, for unexamined religious-nationalist reasons. Radical Menachem Begin's putsch, after 30 years in the desert, transformed our politics too.
I'm enjoying Sniegoski's calm dissection. His work is far braver than Jacob Heilbrunn's They Knew They Were Right, which while wonderful on the Jewishness of the neocons' daddies, quails when it comes to the Iraq war plans. And Sniegosi is more intellectually-honest about these issues than Glenn Greenwald's book, A Tragic Legacy, which went after the good-vs-evil mentality of the Bush administration. Real smart guy, Greenwald, but he took the conventional line, holding fire on the Israel-centric character of the neocons (a theme that he had hit in his blog) out of the sort of mainstream-soapbox prohibition that Sniegoski is flouting. Greenwald and Heilbrunn are merely emblematic of a great river of journalism that has skirted the tilting oak of the Israel question. I'm stunned that we have had no open discussion–i.e., media lynchmob–of these Jacobins who hijacked our foreign policy. I wonder whether Sniegoski will get on "Fresh Air," with Terry Gross, or on any NPR show. I feel that his last name will hurt him. There is prejudice against people who Jews believe are Polish. Just ask Zbig Brzezinski. Uri Avnery has written that Walt and Mearsheimer were "boycotted… by the Jewish establishment" in the U.S. Amazing, true. And it took an Israeli to understand this. I feel that Sniegoski will face the same boycott….
Related posts:
- More Mainstream Voices Use ‘Cabal’ to Describe Neocons
- ‘J Street’ Begins Right Where It Should, By Attacking Neocons
- Glenn Greenwald on “Israel-centric” Neocons
- Neocons Don’t Have Time for Golf. Or Didn’t. Maybe Now They Do?
- Lawrence Summers to Stephen Walt: ‘You Could Have Been National Security Adviser, Now It’s All Over’
{ 15 comments }
Don't diss my man Glenn Greenwald. He is doing an ENORMOUS service to this country with his writing, dissecting with clinical precision the hypocrisies, mendacity, and cognitive dissonances of our media and political elites. If he chooses to hold fire on a topic that you, Phil, have decided to (bravely) subspecialize in, it might be a matter of strategy winning out over tactical considerations. Better for us all that he sticks to constitutional issues. His work on Telcom amnesty has been nothing short of phenomenal, and was in part (I think) translated into yesterday's NYT editorial, 'Bush vs. the Bill of Rights.'
Don't be jealous. Applaud this mensch.
(Disclaimer: I haven't read 'Tragic Legacy,' but admit that when I first saw the "good vs. evil" subtitle I thought it a tad overwrought in its assumption that Manicheanism is what made the Bush executive so odious. The "us v. them, smoke 'em out" simple-mindedness of the Bushoids always struck me as simply part of the propaganda drill, the routine demonizing of "the other" that takes place prior to the bloodletting.)
I agree with Raimondo's statements yesterday about Russert (highlighting the process where the White House leaked bullshit intel to Judy Miller and Michael Gordon, then Cheney goes on Russert's show and says golly it's in the NYT, and Russert the GE courtesan prompts him ("aluminum tubes, my master?")), but hey, we read it first in Greenwald's blog.
Thanks for the book recommendation.
"boycotted… by the Jewish establishment" in the U.S. Amazing, true. And it took an Israeli to understand this. I feel that Sniegoski will face the same boycott…."
Then the issue is two fold, it isn't just what the Israel lobby did in the Middle East, but what the Jewish lobby is doing in the West. It just can't go on.
I am 100% with you Oarwell, it's all about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Division_of_labour
Glenn does a good job, in looking into the standard "good vs. evil" meme. And, Phil, he watches the whole story via the prism he is trained for: law.
And whoever you are that don't want "us" Germans comment here, I spare you the latest complications of the German Axis of the Gord frontman with the headline: In doubt against freedom = Im Zweifel gegen die Freiheit.
"I wonder whether Sniegoski will get on "Fresh Air," with Terry Gross, or on any NPR show. I feel that his last name will hurt him. There is prejudice against people who Jews believe are Polish."
This reminds of a comment Paul Gottfried made on a Takimag string today: “The larger problem is that the neocons, save for their gentile hangers-on who are merely contemptible, would be ideological nutcases with a wide range of hostilities even if Israel never existed. They seem to fall into rage syndrome as soon as Germans, Russians, or the burden of Southern history become discussion themes.”
http://www.takimag.com/sniperstower/article/are_the_neocons_actually_neoconservative/
Russians, Europeans, Southerners, Arabs, Persians…is there any racial group (other than their own) that Jewish ideologues DON’T hate?
When it comes to the Apartheid State who doesn't hold their fire?
If Israel Bombed Pearl Harbor…Would The American Media Report It?
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/06/if-israel-bombed-pearl-harborwould.html
Maybe they serve some sort of Darwinian environmental function like preventing over-population or something. Wars seem to follow them around like bad karma.
"But when it comes to the Middle East, they're completely Israelcentric, and Likudnik. And so they placed American behind the colonization of the West Bank, for unexamined religious-nationalist reasons. Radical Menachem Begin's putsch, after 30 years in the desert, transformed our politics too."
I used to put Neocons/Jabotinskians into the religious nationalist category until I had a fairly long chat with Harvard Professor Herb Kelman about Jabotinsky and then went back to read Jabotinsky in the original.
Neocons/Jabotinskians are ethnic fundamentalists (see The Nazi Conscience by Koonz) and they are part of the intelligentsia (i.e., mobilized intellectuals) of the Zionist Virtual Colonial Motherland, which runs a full-blown imperial system, within which the USA is a dependant and intimidated client state.
Of course, "Israel is not the be-all and end-all of their vision of foreign affairs, Sniegoski says in fairness," but State of Israel is the keystone of the system, whose raison d'etre is increasing the wealth, status, and power of the Jewish political economic oligarchy and of its intelligentsia.
I agree with the comments about Glenn Greenwald. Just because he has not picked up THAT hot potato is not a criticism. He has done so much more, he deserves a little slack on this issue.
i am unaware of anyone complaining about germans posting. however i did post " what is with the germans? does anyone know?" the german posts are generally sort of mystifying to me, including the one above by kraut. i don't know if it is a language problem or i am out of the loop.
also i am not sure if i have detected a trend among the german posters of being apologists for israel. since it is hard to understand the language i may have that wrong. i thought it was sort of a fascinating issue. is there some sort of conditioning going on over there? i thought one of the genuises here had some information.
i also want to distinguish myself from peter who posts here. we seem to be quite different.
The German government almost invariably puts itself at the disposal of Zionism.
Here is a typical Goethe Institute activity this Sunday in Boston.
June 22, 2008
Come hear from Israel's FrontLineHospital, treating Israeli and Palestinian victims of Hamas
A first-hand account of the situation on the ground.
The Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon serves Sderot and areas surrounding Gaza. Hospital Spokesperson, Lea Malul, will describe what is happening and what her hospital is doing to help.
In the past year, over 3000 rockets and mortar bombs have been fired from Gaza into Israel. Support the people of Sderot and the surrounding areas. Don't miss this important opportunity!
When:
THIS Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 5 – 6:30 PM
Where: Boston's Goethe Institute
170 Beacon Street
Boston, MA
(Green Line "Copley" stop)
Sponsored by:
GesherCity Israel and Healthcare Clusters
Consulate General of Israel to New England
JCRC Israel Action Center
USD/Hagshama
Combined Jewish Philanthropies
—–
The people in Sderot are interlopers and thoroughly enmeshed in the genocidal Zionist system. I have real difficulties in feeling sympathy, but if the German government really wants to involve itself in a useful, a seminar on the siege of Gaza, Jewish extremism, racism, fanaticism, and the similarities of Zionist and German Nazi ideologies would be helpful and ethically required, for the German government is under a categorical imperative to take a stand against ethnic fundamentalism wherever it takes root.
Supporting the latest expression of Jewish genocidalism is not atonement for the crimes of German Nazis and makes the current generation of Germans guilty with far less in the way of mitigating circumstances.
peters said:
"i also want to distinguish myself from peter who posts here. we seem to be quite different. "
Lol, I will try to differentiate myself even more by adding "D" to my posts from now on. Peters, I don't know you enough and am not sure I followed your comments attentively enough to figure out if there are major differences between the two of us. The fact that we both hang around here and seem to be mostly supportive of this blog and the ideas it promotes suggests to me that we might not be that different after all.
Posted by liberal white boy: "If Israel Bombed Pearl Harbor…Would The American Media Report It"?
———————————–
THE DAILY NEWS
never, ever too much information
"Hawaii wiped off the map"
by Kimberly Addington-DuPree A/P
As the glorious sun first began to glimmer across the placid Pacific Ocean to the east of Hawaii this morning, the islands were abruptly engulfed in a maelstrom of blinding light and insufferable heat. After what seemed like an eternity, the inferno dissipated and where the islands had once been there remained nothing but a wisp of steam wafting from the ocean.
According to Heather Schlussel-Malkin, spokesperson for Homeland Security, immediately prior to the holocaust having occurred, a squadron of bomber-like planes piloted by "Middle Eastern-looking men" were spotted approaching Hawaii from the direction of Iran…….
Dr. Stephen Sniegoski's 'The Transparent Cabal' book was mentioned at the following URLs as well (click on the pics at each one to access the youtubes too):
The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel – See Video Tinyurl.com/3w3e97 :
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/transparent-cabal-neoconservative.html
Scott McClellan Questioned about Neocon Push for Iraq War
http://neoconzionistthreat.blogspot.com/2008/06/scott-mcclellan-questioned-about-neocon.html
Phil Weiss' piece also appeared in Israel News:
http://www.israelenews.com/view.asp?ID=2416
Phil Weiss discussed his
view of these issues in The American Conservative:
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_06_04/feature.html
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http://NEOCONZIONISTTHREAT.BLOGSPOT.COM
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