Waching C-Span just now, I caught some of Richard Perle's denial of neoconservatism's influence in an event at the Nixon Center yesterday and had a few impressions.
Perle said that the reason for the Iraq war was the Bush administration's fear post-9/11 that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and they would fall into the wrong hands. He said: You have to know what it felt like after 9/11 to have to worry about this.
That was his first deception. Because, actually, we all know what it felt like. We were there too. And Bush and the neocons invaded Iraq 18 months later. Plenty of time to think things over.
Jim Lobe of Inter Press almost got Perle pinned in the last minute or two, till the moderator cut things off. Lobe read from neoconservative ads that Perle had signed (from the Project for the New American Century) calling for regime change. Lobe pointed out that one ad spoke of grand plans for the Middle East. "Israel's fight is our fight." That ad is all about remaking the Middle East, Lobe said.
Perle is tough. He tried to smooth his way past Lobe's true statement of the ad's message. Yes it is our fight, Perle said. We were "plagued" by suicide bombing. "Suicide bombing achieved prominence, became the instrument of choice, in terrorist attacks against Israel." And when Israel was being attacked, "the rest of the world didn't take it seriously."
Israel was under attack from people who "believe the way to achieve their political objectives is to blow up women and children... and that's our war too."
I was struck by Perle's smoothness and dishonesty. Many things were deceptive about his statements. His insistence that Bush had done the thinking on Iraq is deceptive; Perle knows that Bush doesn't know how to think. And if our enemy is really the people who would blow up women and children to achieve their political goals, then our enemy is Sunnis in Iraq (who are now part of the government we're supporting) and lots of other people too. Suicide bombing was used first by Hezbollah against the U.S. and France in Lebanon. Then Hezbollah spread it to Israel, and it became the weapon of choice in Sri Lanka.
But Perle focused only on Israel. This betrayed the neoconservative obsession with Israel; because the neocons are by and large Zionists.
Blaming the neocons for the Iraq war is a conspiracy theory, Perle said (per the Washington Post). And I accept that: I believe the neocons functioned in a conspiratorial manner. One hallmark of their conspiracy was their failure to be transparent about their real concerns, concerns they nonetheless have revealed in countless ways (such as when they urged war on Iraq in 2002 because Israel is "an island of liberal, democratic principles -- American principles -- in a sea of tyranny, intolerance, and hatred"). Jim Lobe, a patient, thoughtful reporter, (who is Jewish), more than anyone has labored to expose that hidden agenda. That's my clearest impression of the event. Years after the Iraq disaster, an honest man asks honest questions, and Perle plays an intellectual shell game.
"Suicide bombing achieved prominence, became the instrument of choice, in terrorist attacks against Israel."
No, the Tamil Tigers were the first big users of
” rel=”nofollow”>suicide bombings.
Perle and this ilk just make this stuff up as they go along.
A comment attendant the referenced article by Phil:
"Lancet, the Medical Journal of the United Kingdom used established and normal assessments from information to conclude that there were at least 100,000 civilians killed early in the war. Those would not have happened if we had not invaded. We completely destabilized the country and then could not put it back together."
gkam is quite right, of course…though its impossible to determine, with certainty, how many Iraqis died, and the Neocon-dominated Bush government was dishonest about the Iraq war from start to finish, so nobody should trust their claims. Informed professional estimates of the dead range into the hundreds of thousands. Further, people actually killed are only one measure of how badly Iraq has suffered. Upwards of 4 million people were displaced from their homes, nearly half that number from the country. Imagine nearly ten percent of Americans driven into exile, and another ten percent fleeing from their homes, because of foreign invasion.
Then there are those who were not killed, but were crippled, maimed, disfigured or blinded by injuries. And those who were not injured themselves, but who suffered the loss of a loved one or shared the grief and hardship of their injuries. Do you imagine there is anyone in all of Iraq who has NOT suffered because of this invasion?
Its pretty certain that way too many Americans also suffered… killed, wounded, sometimes grievously and permanently, emotionally scarred (by what they saw or endured or did over there, or by losing someone else there). The bottom line is that it was not a war we ever had to fight. We should never have supported Saddam Hussein's government (as so many Bushites did, pre-Bush), but it was not our fight to depose him, either. We were deceived to persuade us to invade Iraq. ALL the costs, Iraqi, American, British, Spanish, whoever… were blood and treasure squandered by the Neocon-inspired adventure in Iraq.
If I were Perle (assuming I could resist simply hanging myself in shame) I'd probably be pretending there is no such thing as a Neocon, too!
Links to these low-lifes.
The armchair general
He's been beating the drums of war for a decade. Can Beltway hawk Richard Perle finally persuade the U.S. to wage war with Iraq? Sept, 2002
“>link to youtube.com
Neo Culpa
Just read the first paragraph
“>link to guardian.co.uk
An Open Letter to Richard Perle
chairman, Defense Advisory Board
http://www.counterpunch.org/kellyperle.html
slate.com August 23, 2002
Richard Perle – Washington's faceful bureaucrat
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020823-darkness.htm
Richard Perle Claims We’ve ‘Already Won’ The Iraq War But It’s Also ‘Far From Over’
link to slate.com
/>
New Deceptions
Iran Panic Induced By Lousy Reporting
Iran understates uranium stocks to IAEA!
Iran holds enough uranium for bomb!
Looks like the New York Times and others are trying to lie us into another war. Note the lies.
Furthermore, add in this article from Reuters.
No, at least from what can be surmised. Iran would face a series of technical hurdles, though none as difficult as producing quality nuclear fuel in industrial quantities.
These include:
* reconfiguring its existing centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz to reprocess LEU into weapons-grade HEU, or building clandestine facilities without the knowledge of U.N. inspectors
* converting HEU into metal and compressing it small enough to fit into the cone of a missile or other delivery vehicle
* designing a nuclear trigger mechanism
* mastering how to create a sustained nuclear chain reaction with an extra source of neutrons
* assembling the actual warhead
All this could take 2-5 years, depending on Iran's technical prowess, but probably much less time than the 20 years it took Iran to acquire enrichment equipment and knowledge from the nuclear black market and make it work.
ARE THERE OTHER RESTRAINING FACTORS?
Yes. It would be very hard for Iran to "weaponize" the enrichment process at Natanz without the IAEA noticing and sounding the alarm, since the plant is under regular surveillance by inspectors.
Iran has pledged to stick to enrichment for civilian energy only, under routine IAEA monitoring. It has said nuclear weapons are against its Islamic values although its record of nuclear secrecy and limiting IAEA access has raised suspicions.
Assuming Iran had a bomb agenda, which it denies, military diversions would more likely be carried out at a covert plant. That would be all but impossible for the IAEA to ferret out since Iran does not observe the agency's Additional Protocol allowing snap inspections beyond declared nuclear sites.
If Iran chose to weaponize enrichment at Natanz, it would probably kick out the IAEA and quit the Non-Proliferation Treaty, drastic steps that would almost certainly provoke Israeli or U.S. attacks to smash its nuclear facilities.
ARE ENRICHMENT AND A BOMB AGENDA THE SAME THING?
No, but it's not so simple. Iran says it will not refine uranium for anything else but electricity. Being able to enrich at industrial scale is not tantamount to seeking a nuclear weapon and is the sovereign right of NPT members as long as the work remains strictly for peaceful applications.
But the dilemma is that mastering enrichment technology provides a latent ability to build bombs at short notice. The distinction between latent capacity and weaponization can be virtually invisible in a vast country that limits the scope for U.N. non-proliferation inspections.
I am curious about the state of Perle's oil negotiations.
I also caught Perle's gig on c-span last night.
It confirmed for me what I have been seeing…that the neo's are trying to back out of their neocon identities in our changed enviroment so they can still have a seat at the table and not be political outcast.
It's like the switcharoo they pulled when Iraq went south and they stopped crowing about their hand in it and started laying it all on Bush.
Now they want to pretend they are just your average red, white and blue conseratives.
I noticed he also injected the jewsh neo thing,complaining that all the neo names were jewish and how that was just once again "scapgoating" the jews and looking for someone to blame. Hahahah.
Too late. We know who you are and what you did.
"I noticed he also injected the jewsh neo thing,complaining that all the neo names were jewish and how that was just once again "scapgoating" the jews and looking for someone to blame."
His ridiculous protests of innocence at long last only serve to draw attention to the fact that neoconservatism is fundamentally a Zionist creation. There is a pattern there, and there is a reason that there is a pattern there.
Perle's "smoothness" is indeed fascinating. I once watched him over here on TV.
This is what our dear Hendryk M. Broder, on Feb/10/2003, a defender of Bush and the War on Terrorism (he wore a US flag jacket as a guest in the German talk-shows from the US during Bush's reelection) reported about the event:
Even Richard Perle, conservative adviser to the U.S. government, and the brain behind Bush, so to speak, hat to express, as could be expected, something critical about the position of the Federal German Government. He did it just as badly behaved American children have to be called to order: he first lauded the mischief. He declared it wonderful that the Germans pleaded for peace and that the Federal Government followed a sovereign policy, the only problem was that in Germany you have to know who you are dealing with and keep the consequences in mind. Pearl even enjoyed, how "passionately Claudia speaks" who responded to this charm offensive: "I am very influenced by America!" – Something that surely will not make her more popular in her own party (The Greens – seems he forgot Kosovo and the Greens)
shit happens: had – not hat
Did not catch the pearls of pearle interview but read a report on it, which brought to mind a little mentioned, odd historical fact: many, if not all, the neocons came out actually from the democratic party consensus. They veered to the right when it was opportune, meaning that, yes, they (and I use the term loosely, since not all neocons are created alike), were more opportunist than true republicans – or as some used to refer to them – neoliberal. If I recall, the shift towards the republican mode started happening just as the PNAC document was trickling out, probably because that's where this line of thought found a welcoming arm. Interestingly, that shift also just happened to coincide with the steady movement in israel ever rightward. Coincidence?
sadly for true conservatives (which the neocons were not), in the process many a true conservative heart was hijacked in the process, and the party is not likely to recover anytime soon. Just watching their present day contortions and endless flailing over mythical tax-cut-cures-for-all (the modern day version of witches brew) should be proof enough.
Since it's not possible to ever kill the spirit of a neocon (all the wooden stakes in the world do not suffice for that), we should expect their reemergence as neoprogressives, making a beehive for the heart of the democratic party. Luckily for good democrats everywhere (and their secret libertarian bretherns) the left has more vigilant guardians, intellectually speaking – seeing as it's full of nimble jewish wit. Not that the left lacks naivite (what with the kumbaya choirs are ever waiting in the wings), just that it's not known for serious unilateral thinking tendencies in any sphere.
Still, watching the indomitable, reality-quenching pearle should be a must-see training exercise for all incoming progressives, including me (and i'm off to get the U-tube clip…)
Did not mean to misspell Perle's name. "Pearle" is just imprinted in my brain software for some reason. Gotta be more vigilant…
The neocons wish to now appear as Obama regime neocoms.
Watcher.
You're right. The neocons mocked Obama's candidacy in 2007 convinced that Hillary would win. Now they are playing catchup. And Perle is looking for a new landing.
"…if our enemy is really the people who would blow up women and children to achieve their political goals, then our enemy is…"
The United States of America has blown up more women and children in order to achieve political goals than all the "terrorist" organizations combined.
Israel has also blown up more women and children in order to achieve political goals than all the "terrorist" organizations combined.
Therefore, if our enemy is really the people who would blow up women and children to achieve their political goals, then our enemy is the United States of America and the State of Israel.
"Suicide bombing was used first by Hezbollah against the U.S. and France in Lebanon."
Not so. The Tamil Tigers introduced suicide bombing, and are still its most prolific users.
Weren't the Japanese Kamikaze a form of suicide bombing? if so, they predate the Tamil Tigers, I believe.
My first visit for a few days, because I saw this on Info Clearing House and was struck by the hypocrisy of it. "Perle plays an intellectual shell game", obviously, not a subtle one, but so does Jim Lobe, somewhat more subtly, and so do you, Phil, more subtly still. The thing concealed by the shells that Jim Lobe and you, Phil, use, is liberal imperialism, as opposed to Perle's deliberately obvious reactionary imperialism, which was a very popular product a decade or so ago.
"…if our enemy is really the people who would blow up women and children to achieve their political goals, then our enemy is…"
The United States of America has blown up more women and children in order to achieve political goals than all the "terrorist" organizations combined.
Israel has also blown up more women and children in order to achieve political goals than all the "terrorist" organizations combined.
Therefore, if our enemy is really the people who would blow up women and children to achieve their political goals, then our enemy is the United States of America and the State of Israel.
Posted by: Shirin | February 21, 2009 at 07:40 PM
Facts speak louder than rhetoric
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/06/19/bombings-glance.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3256858.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/4127886/70000-Iranian-students-volunteer-to-carry-out-suicide-bombings-in-Israel.html