Danny Ayalon (left), the deputy foreign minister of Israel, with Senator Joseph Lieberman and Henry Kissinger (Photo: Kai Mörk)
Two more examples of the relentless, and successful, misinformation campaign about Iran's nuclear program were seen over the weekend. The principal component of this campaign has been to get people to believe that Iran has a nuclear weapon or is close to obtaining one and poses an imminent threat to Israel and the United States.
The culprits: Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut senator with neoconservative foreign policy views, and progressive darling Elizabeth Warren, who is running for a Senate seat in Massachusetts.
Lieberman's contribution was the more prominent. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Lieberman was asked what he thought about reports that Iran claims to have "reverse-engineered" the US drone they captured last year. His response (emphasis mine):
Look, it was not good for the U.S. when the drone went down in Iran, and not good when the Iranians grabbed it. I don't have confidence at this point that they are really able to make a copy of it. It's a very sophisticated piece of machinery and has served our national security well, including I would guess being used to look all over Iran; particularly, at areas where we have reason to believe that they are working on a nuclear weapon.
The New York Times quoted Lieberman in a piece on Iran's drone claims, but the paper of record didn't bother to question Lieberman's falsehood about Iran "working on a nuclear weapon."
Warren, the liberal hero who swallows the AIPAC line on foreign policy (as Max Blumenthal showed), was also asked about Iran yesterday by the blogger who runs the site "Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy" (h/t Glenn Greenwald). Here's the blogger's account of the chance encounter with Warren:
Yesterday morning, I was in line outside a Somerville, MA breakfast joint, and who should come around introducing herself to the queued patrons but Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Elizabeth Warren?
When she worked her way to where I was standing, I asked about her hawkish policies toward Iran, which are described thusly on her website...
I asked why her stand is that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, when even the Obama administration admits there is no evidence Iran is building nuclear bombs or has decided it wants to.
Warren said she thinks the data says they are working on nuclear weapons.
I repeated that, no, even the administration says there's no evidence of that.
She said she'd look into it, saying it's important that political statements not to add fuel to the fire
The big lie here, as the blogger above noted, is that Iran already has a nuclear weapon, or is working on one. From Leon Panetta to US intelligence to Israeli intelligence, everyone agrees that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon--nor are they on the cusp of developing one.
The fact that Warren, the subject of a large and favorable profile in The Nation recently, peddles the lie about Iran is more troubling. Lieberman's propaganda is, at this point, expected.
But the last time there was little partisan debate over a war, with the Democratic Party aiding and abetting the push to invade Iraq, the US destroyed a country that still lives with the searing consequences. Warren, who calls for getting out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, should remember that, or be tarred with the brush of having helped push another disastrous war in the Middle East.
So let me get this straight — the Iranians can make nuclear weapons but can’t replicate a drone?
Nukes have been around since the mid-1940s. It’s not difficult for a modern, industrial country to build a nuclear weapon if it has the fissile material.
A stealth drone is much more technologically complicated to create than a nuclear weapon.
Elizabeth Warren is a huge disappointment, but no surprise — many “progressive” Democratic women seem to be pro-war fascists and racists when it comes to Israel — Madeleine Albright, Susan Estrich, Hillary Clinton, Ann Lewis, Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harman, Dianne Feinstein, etc. Their self-contradictions trouble them not in the least.
Google [madeleine albright iraq children worth it]. Elizabeth Warren walks in the Democratic tradition of Madeleine Albright.
The truth of the matter is that Likud and AIPAC, through an elaborate system of carrots and sticks, bribes and threats, have acquired close to absolute control over the Democratic Party. Democrats need to go along with the Israel lobby to get along.
“many “progressive” Democratic women seem to be pro-war fascists and racists when it comes to Israel”
I’ve been screaming about the complete meaninglessness of “progressive” for years. Fer Christ’s sake, it’s the ‘family values’ of the left, and maybe even dumber.
Definitely dumber.
Yes, you can add Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota (currently up for re-election) to your list of Democratic war-hawks. She also has publicly pledged her “unbreakable bond” with Israel which I think is a kind of code term. The last I checked, there were 70 Senators signed onto Graham-Lieberman-Casey’s Sen. Res 380 that curtails diplomacy and makes war with Iran all but inevitable. “Barbara Lee Was Right! Amy Klobuchar Is Wrong!” link to huffingtonpost.com
How can you do this to Warren? She buys organic!! She loves whales! ( I think)
I don’t think Warren cares about Iran. Or Israel. Or Palestine.
Her issues are economic fairness, punishing those responsible for bank and Wall Street fraud, and other domestic concerns.
Western Sky,
You wrote:
“I don’t think Warren cares about Iran. Or Israel. Or Palestine.
Her issues are economic fairness, punishing those responsible for bank and Wall Street fraud, and other domestic concerns.”
Does Elizabeth Warren understand that disastrous US Mideast policies (like the Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, a possible Iran War, etc.) are capable of wrecking the American economy and undermining all the domestic social programs she cares about? Why isn’t she addressing these important issues in a forthright and informed way? Is she not a serious person?
Does Elizabeth Warren understand that the same gang of neocons and neolibs appears to control both Wall Street and the military-industrial complex? That there is a connection between these endless foreign wars, Wall Street corruption and the decline of the American economy and quality of life?
One fears that the answer to all these questions is, no. She is as naive and ignorant about foreign policy as Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. The alternative: she is willing to go along with AIPAC to get ahead and without regard for the negative consequences for the American people.
Warren is courageous and astute on the Wall St-treasury revolving door issues; I bet she just took a recommendation for somebody to handle foreign affairs for her and has not even really looked into the connections with US foreign policy or Ike’s warning about the military industrial complex, etc. The recommendation(s) she took for foreign policy probably all came from AIPACers. In this sense she is like a secular Sarah Palin, very naive in foreign policy especially.
here’s the report from iran
link to english.farsnews.com
I don’t have confidence at this point that they are really able to make a copy of it. It’s a very sophisticated piece of machinery and has served our national security well, including I would guess being used to look all over Iran
also, remember when iran first announced they had the drone the US denied they thought it was true, so these latest denials by lieberman and ilk are just the same kind of false reassuring rhetoric.
Sounds like a negotiating tactic. If Iran is pressed too far by the U.S., she will give Moscow and Peking that information.
By the way, Obama issued a new executive order today that purports to punish Syria and Iran because their governments misuse information science against their own citizens in just the way the U.S. government does:
Iran has tested the reverse engineered drone.
During its first and only flight it wiped out a village of sheepherders, levelled a school then crashed.
The Iranian Engineering team pronounced it an authentic replica of the American model.
wiped out a village of sheepherders, levelled a school
please tell us this is a morbid joke
>> please tell us this is a morbid joke
It may be morbid to some, but “we think the price is worth it.”
:-)
Yup. Its a joke – authentic replica of the American model.
Brewer
:-)
It’s bizarre when the US press and our officials keep repeating this nonsense. Even the mainstream media in Israel and the Deputy Prime Minister admit that Iran never threatened to wipe Israel off the map. See “Meridor: Iran never called to wipe out Israel” link to ynetnews.com
Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft have coauthored an op ed in today’s Washington Post on further nuclear disarmament, Nuclear weapon reductions must be part of strategic analysis, that, although it does not name Israel, does seem, by implication, to call for a reduction in that country’s nuclear arsenal:
“It’s bizarre when the US press and our officials keep repeating this nonsense…”
Come off that, please. You mean these mass murderers should not lie? It’s OK for them to commit aggression, occupation, slaughter, torture, subversion of the rule of law, grand theft and sale of country to foreign powers, but lying? Knowingly? Oh no, not the straight bat, what? Tut-tut.
I’m opposed to all nuclear weapons but could someone explain why Isreal CAN have a nuclear bomb but Iran can’t. This whole situation is just about Isreal maintaining military dominance in the Middle -East.
If she is only concerned with domestic economics, then she should simply shut up and not spout ignorant words on Iran or Israel. I just wrote to her to ask her to get informed outside the MSM before she speaks, or else….she loses my vote.
“If she is only concerned with domestic economics, then she should simply shut up and not spout ignorant words on Iran or Israel”
–what a radical thought! :)
Anyone who does not take a serious interest in American foreign policy, and Mideast policy in particular, should not be running to serve in the US Senate. Politicians who take their marching orders from AIPAC are not looking out for the best interests of Americans.
Agreed – but that pretty much disqualifies any major party candidate – these people only know what they’re told. If you’ve reached the level of US Senate Candidate, backed by one of the two parties – you are by definition not an independent and critical thinker. Ya know? Go Team Go is hardly a very intellectually stimulating excercise….:)
And anyway, Scooter Brown is gonna win. He’s a local, went to Boston College, can chop wood and is a good looking dude – she’s got no chance
Actually, you don’t even need a highs school diploma to be a US Senator, as one said recently on TV or some video clip I saw, I forget which. Mmmm, was it in Bill Maher’s film on religion? Yeah, I think it’s in that film.
Which bring’s me sans not so much of a leap to this question: Is Bill O Reilly Liz Warren’s foreign policy advisor?
link to howthehellshouldiknow-wallyworld.blogspot.com
He ain’t getting my vote, that’s for sure, good looking dude or not. He’s actually an utter fake.
well so is she, an utter fake that is…… i dont have a dog in the fight, but i do think brown will win.
sensa, he drives a truck. he said so 10 times a day during his first senate campaign. if that doesn’t constitute authenticity, what does?
HAHAHA!! And he bails his own hay — hes in there like swimwear
Ah, liberals and their pretences. It’s time for those of us who care about equality and justice to separate ourselves from this most wounding ideology. As Hywel Williams wrote in The Guardian: “It’s a nice and convenient myth that liberals are the peace-makers and conservatives the war-mongerers. But the imperialism of the liberal may be more dangerous because of its open-ended nature – its conviction that it represents a superior form of life.”
Perhaps Beinart and paranoid liberal Zionists should read this, because this liberalism is entirely compatible with Zionism.
Time to move on to egalitarianism and bring a firm end to the language of oppression that I think is embedded within liberalism itself.