Is Sullivan the best? Yes. He is doing the hard labor of taking on the Israel lobby forcefully in the mainstream media, with unrivaled clarity and eloquence. Here he bats down a piece of thuggery from Jeffrey Goldberg, that Sullivan believes that "a group of warmongering Jews-- alone" is pushing World War III. Disgusting. Though Sullivan makes clear as he has again and again lately that the Israel lobby is unstraightforward about its agenda and that agenda is at odds with the American people's interests.
Not all neoconservatives are Jewish, and I have never claimed as such. Does Jeffrey think I don't know that Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin, for example, desperately want war with Iran? And, as you can readily see in the posts I have cited, I have long known and written about Sunni Arab autocrats' desire for Israel and the US to launch World War III against Iran for them. Jeffrey and I were at the same meeting two years ago when I directly challenged the King of Jordan on this very question. I was as passionate in defense of what I believe is in the interests of the West when debating a Sunni autocrat as when tackling the noble lies of the neocons. But that fact, which Jeffrey knows all too well, would muddy the smear that my position is some version of anti-Semitism. That same old lie. Always the same old lie...
[L]ook at what Jeffrey's war would actually mean. It would mean that the US would be allied with both Israel and the Sunni Arab dictators - against the mass of oppressed people in the Arab and Muslim world and against the Green Movement in Iran. Now try and square that with the neoconservative vision (circa 2001) that they key to defeating Jihadism is to win over the people of the Arab and Muslim world with democracy, and thereby help Iranians shuck off their disgusting dictatorship as well.
Their position now is almost 180 degrees from their position then, which is why I am so mad at myself for taking their arguments at face value then. They want the US to ally with the most repressive forces in the region against the Muslim and Arab and Persian masses. And they think that this will somehow serve the interests of the US. This is why my frustration with the neocons is so deep. None of it makes sense - unless it is about the short-term shoring up of Israel's power and nuclear monopoly, without Israel even offering the minimal concession necessary to construct a Palestinian state.
Sullivan’s follow-up to Goldberg slimy response to the piece above:
link to andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com
“which is why I am so mad at myself for taking their arguments at face value then. “
Which is why, Sully dear, I would never listen to another goddam thing you say, no matter what it is. You were a grown man, and you made your choice.
As a non-Jew like Sullivan (I’m a non-Christian UU), I learn more from reading his efforts in this arena than from many of my closest Jewish colleagues fighting the same battles. Andrew is a very patient man.
He strikes me as someone who really wants to learn more about just about anything, on a day-to-day basis. That’s an increasingly rare trait among modern so-called conservatives.
If he was fooled by Bush and the neo-cons, and if I remember aright, he was, he’s an idiot, with blood on his hands.
Could everybody please focus on what’s important:
So what if, as far as I know hypothetically speaking, every current warmonger happened to be Jewish?
As long as we focus on the warmongering part and not on the ancestry, they are fair game. Stop the warmongers, jail them, complain about racism afterwards.
Justice Please,
I like this. You captured exactly how I think.
As long as we focus on the warmongering part and not on the ancestry, they are fair game. Stop the warmongers, jail them, complain about racism afterwards.
I know I’m late, but thanks MRW.
One interesting idea here: the USA is pushed around (e.g., toward WW III starting in Iran) mostly by rich guys — rich American and mostly-Jewish guys — who own media and other corporations, usually, but also by “pundits”, together sometimes called “neocons” — and rich Arab guys (who are the autocrats, kings, dictators of various non-democratic Arab countries). And by the media and propaganda mills (“tink thanks”) the rich American guys own or control.
To be clear: the USA is pushed toward war (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Yemen) by a few very rich guys, not by the American populace as a whole and not by Arab peoples as a whole. “Democracy” in action.
Try this on for size Peter, have a read of this cable from the US embassy in Abu Dhabi, from the 24th of Feb this year. Summary:
UAE Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces convoked the Ambassador to request the urgent deployment of five U.S. patriot batteries in the UAE as an interim measure until the UAE’s own batteries are operational (anticipated in 2012). The UAE belief that an increasingly likely pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran would prompt quick retaliation on U.S. allies (foremost among them the very proximate UAE) prompted the request.
A second cable spells out some more details about the US/UAE alliance:
– The UAE is a cash customer with FMS [foreign military sales] sales in excess of $11 billion. Commercial sales have an equivalent value. An additional $12 billion of FMS cases are in development with approximately the same volume of commercial sales in the works.
– The UAE recently purchased nine Patriot batteries, and expects to move forward on the purchase of THAAD as the first non US customer.
…
The UAE leadership sees Iran as its primary external threat, and one that is existential in nature.
…
In other words, he sees the logic of war dominating the region, and this thinking explains his near obsessive efforts to build up the UAE’s armed forces.
The question is why does the UAE’s Crown Prince fear war with Iran so much? Iran is the UAE’s biggest trading partner, and there are several hundred thousand Iranians in Dubai alone. Iran hasn’t launched a war in several hundred years. The UAE doesn’t fear Iran itself, as a US ally they fear reprisal attacks AFTER Israel attacks Iran. So Israeli belligerence is bringing about huge investment by GCC states in US weapons systems – and probably Israeli systems also. The only country spending more on US weapons currently is Saudi Arabia who recently had approved that $60 billion deal to buy US weapons inferior to what the US is giving Israel.
It puts the $3 billion in aid to Israel (and the QME – Qualitative Military Edge) in a whole other light. If the return on $3 billion is more than $70 billion in weapons sales to Gulf states, the US has made a wise if completely immoral investment…
It’s my opinion that the War on Terror nothing more than a huge extortion racket designed to extract massive amounts of money from the US taxpayer. What I described above is just the export version of the same idea. It’s our money anyway right?
Duh. Yes, you nailed it, Sumud.
Unfortunately, “wise” and “immoral” are not mutually exclusive here, they often go together.
“City upon a hill”? Hmmm… I think “A darkness unto the nations” is a more apt description for the time being.