http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2246

AIPAC's Power, or America's Cowardice?

Charley Reese – AntiWar.com September 13, 2004

It was 1996, and Bill Clinton was president. To give the rascal his due, he was laboring mightily to make the Middle East peace process work. That same year, three American neoconservatives produced a policy paper for the newly elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

The neocons were Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. Their policy paper recommended to Netanyahu that he abandon the peace process, reject "land for peace" and strengthen Israel's defenses in order to confront Syria and Iraq. The document said, "This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right." It also recommended that Israel use pretexts for preemptive attacks.

Now, if all of this sounds familiar – and it should – that's because Perle, Feith and Wurmser joined other neocons in the Bush administration. Perle was especially vocal in pushing the war on Iraq. They had two pretexts: the attack of Sept. 11, even though Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with it, and the mythical weapons of mass destruction.

Netanyahu, by the way, did abandon the peace process. And, at a cost of $200 billion and nearly 1,000 American lives, Israel did achieve its "strategic objective in its own right" – removing Saddam from power. Unless Perle and his buddies were paid for their advice, it didn't cost Israel one shekel or one life.

Furthermore, if you stretch your memory, you will recall that until Iraq blew up in its face, the Bush administration was laying the groundwork to attack Syria, the other country Perle and his crowd named as a target for Israel. It has already imposed sanctions on Syria despite the fact that, according to our own intelligence people, Syria had been cooperating with the war on terror. The other target of the Israelis – excuse me, the Bush administration – is Iran.

If you want more details on these neocons, I recommend Secrets and Lies, by Dilip Hiro, a distinguished Middle East scholar, and James Bamford's A Pretext for War.

When President Bush first started talking about terrorism, he use to say "terrorists with global reach" to distinguish between al-Qaeda and strictly local outfits with local agendas. That did not suit the Israelis and their American supporters. They wanted Israel's enemies to be our enemies, and so the distinction was soon dropped, and Israel's enemies were added to the official list of terrorist organizations.

The problem is that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are Palestinian organizations fighting for independence. True, they have used terrorist tactics, just as the Jewish organizations – the Stern Gang and the Irgun – did when they were fighting the British occupation of Palestine. But their target is the Israeli occupation, not us.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese organization that has also used terrorist tactics, including attacks against Americans in Lebanon, when it figured we were helping the Israelis in their occupation of Lebanon. But there again, its quarrel is with Israel.

I have long since given up the hope that Americans would wake up and resent the manipulation of their government by a foreign country. The Israeli lobby has been so successful in labeling any criticism of Israel, no matter how justified, as anti-Semitic that most Americans prefer to stick their heads in the sand. For sure, American politicians and much of the media seem to be terrified by the Israeli lobby, which says more about their cowardice than it does about the power of the lobby itself.

So, suit yourself. Go ahead and spend American blood and treasure for the benefit of Israel.

Just remember, the United States has one, and only one, legitimate interest in the Middle East, and that is buying oil that everybody who has it wants to sell. It doesn't matter whether we buy it from a dictator (we bought plenty from Saddam) or from a democratic government. It doesn't matter to us if the country that sells us oil likes or hates Israel.

This whole mess, including the war in Iraq and the terrorist attacks, is a result of the American government's involvement with Israel. It's a dangerous and unhealthy state of affairs that will not be cured until Americans find the courage to have an open and honest debate about our foreign policy in the Middle East.
www.antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=3551

Why has this story dropped entirely off the radar?

Are we all just trembling lickspittles afraid to even mouth the word "Jew"? I mean, a major foreign-spy scandal - during both a war and a Presidential election! - that speaks to the subversion of American power by sleeper agents insinuated in the highest corridrs of power...and every one of our two-fisted, flag-waving sages and wise men too 'polite' to point this out.

"Polite" being code for stupid, cowardly and unworthy of home-rule. Now that it's long past time for a Joe McCarthy to emerge and do the dirty job that no one wants to do but America can't survive without, it's as if everybody is too busy contemplating how Hymie has authored the Tailguinner's legacy, and thoughtfully cemented it into place, to break the glass and call in the fire alarm.

"Contemplating", of course, being code for soiling themselves uncontrollably with fear-diarrhea. Easier by far for the pundit class - draft-duckers one and all - to demand third-party verification on every combat medal earned in Vietnam 35 years ago....

Reliable Ally Strikes Again



August 31, 2004

Not again.

The FBI says it has found a Pentagon employee who has been slipping secrets about Iran to the Israelis. The Israelis deny everything, as usual, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) likewise denies serving as the conduit.

There are many reasons to be skeptical of these denials. Here are just a few.

The state of Israel — “our only reliable ally in the Middle East,” as they say — has a long record of spying and technology theft against its allies, especially the United States. New Zealand has recently charged two Israeli nationals with spying.

In 1985 the Israelis insisted that the espionage of Jonathan Pollard was a “rogue operation.” Yet they promoted Pollard’s handler, set aside a pension for Pollard himself, and have persistently demanded Pollard’s release from an American prison, where he is serving a life sentence. They have neither returned nor identified the documents he stole, many of which were apparently passed along to the Soviet Union and China. Today Pollard is a national hero in Israel.

The Pentagon employee now under scrutiny, Lawrence Franklin, was stationed at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv for two years and is said to be strongly pro-Israel and anti-Iranian.

Franklin works for Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, a supporter of and advisor to the Likud Party, an admirer of the radical Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, and of course a hawk in the current war. Long before the state of Israel was founded, Jabotinsky urged the creation of a much larger Jewish state, on both sides of the Jordan — a dream his disciples still cherish; a recent biography of him thanks Feith in the acknowledgments.

Perhaps most damning — and certainly most amusing — is that the New York Times has found a character witness, identified as “a friend of Mr. Franklin”: none other than Michael Ledeen, one of the most fervent, not to say fanatical, neoconservatives in Washington. Having Ledeen vouch for your patriotism is a bit like having Alger Hiss swear that you aren’t a Soviet agent. You have to wonder if the Times story quoting Ledeen was meant as a bit of deadpan humor.

Franklin, in short, would appear to be part of the Zionist network that has enjoyed a free rein in the Bush administration, just as the old Soviet network did in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration.

Dante reserves the lowest circle in Hell for those who betray their benefactors. That would seem to cover the Israelis’ contempt for the United States. But an Israeli spokesman says his country wouldn’t do such a thing to its “cherished friend,” never mind that it has often done so before.

Moreover, it has done so with impunity. And that’s the real problem. Our rulers, from Lyndon Johnson to Bush, including the U.S. Congress, have taken no punitive action when the Israelis have treated America treacherously. There wasn’t even a congressional inquiry when the Israelis made a murderous attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, nor when Pollard was found to have stolen a huge cache of secrets two decades later.

Now, when George W. Bush has put the highest priority on national security, it appears that the Israelis are still helping themselves to such secrets, expecting to get away with it as always. The individual agent who is caught may, like Pollard, pay a stiff price; the Israeli government, never. Franklin is reportedly cooperating with the FBI; but he may still go to prison. Billions in U.S. aid to Israel, however, will continue, as will the pro-Israel policies that have made us so many enemies around the world, helped provoke the 9/11 attacks, and are sure to bring us more grief.

Will any American president ever stand up to the Israelis? Not likely. All the men who have come within shouting distance of the presidency in the last few years have been shamefully obsequious toward Israel, including John Kerry, Al Gore, and John McCain. Even Howard Dean quickly backed away from his call for a more “even-handed” policy in the Middle East.

Even-handed? Why not a simply pro-American policy that puts American interests ahead of Israeli interests? Unthinkable. When the two countries’ interests clash, American interests must yield. Gore and McCain have actually told Jewish audiences that the United States must stand prepared to go to war — to sacrifice American blood — to defend Israel.

Such amazing declarations don’t even rate news reports. But if a presidential candidate promised he would never sacrifice American lives for Israel, he would achieve instant notoriety.

Joseph Sobran

Will any American president ever stand up to the Israelis? Not likely

Charley Reese said much the same not a week ago.

About time to start the national deathwatch?