The Mearsheimer and Walt Effect
July 30, 2008
In just two years John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have had more of an impact on the debate over US Middle East policy than the so-called Left has in the past twenty (Mostly because with few exceptions, the left studiously avoids specifics in favour of dogma-sanctioned generalities; slogans and rhetoric in place of analysis). The space that they have created has not only empowered others to speak out, but has also put enough heat on the lobby that some of its erstwhile fellow-travelers feel compelled to decry its excesses, if only to make its influence sustainable over a longer term. So it was that we had Joe Klein — an avowed Zionist, and author of the Clinton election roman a clef, Primary Colors – come out indicting the Jewish neoconservatives with ‘divided loyalties’ for leading US into the war in Iraq. Denunciations were issued from the usual quarters led predictably by the ubiquitous Abe Foxman of the ADL. Klein refused to back down. And now we have one of the war’s boosters, Jeffrey Goldberg, interviewing Klein where despite his generally hawkish Zionist views, he speaks out against the possibility of a new neoconservative misadventure.
Philip Weiss, by far the finest blogger, has already done a fine job of parsing the interview and offering his insights.
Klein and Goldberg Establish Code for Critiquing Neocons’ Religious Agenda: 1, Be Jewish…
Jeffrey Goldberg has a great interview with Joe Klein on his blog, remarkable for a few things. First you see Klein unbound. He’s really smart. He stands by his criticism of Jewish neocons as having dual loyalties and then sounds the realist when he says that Iran is seeking nukes as a deterrent against western threats
I think that my reading on the nuclear issue is, given the level of threats that they’ve been getting from the United States, and from Israel, it’s a logical thing for Iran to want nuclear weapons as a deterrent. I don’t think they’d ever actually use it. First of all, they don’t actually have it, but if they did have it, they’d contaminate at the very least the third most holy site in Islam, and they’d kill a hell of a lot of Muslims.
Brilliant. Klein also opens up the essential conversation that I have been calling for for years, for non-neocon Jews to dime out the neocons’ religious agenda in the Middle East.
Dubya is…The Dark Knight!
July 30, 2008
![[What Bush and Batman Have in Common]](http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-BX473_oj_kla_20080724191516.jpg)
So I am not the only one drawing this analogy. It appears the Murdoch press has also seen the parallels. Andrew Klavan tells readers of the Wall Street Journal ‘What Bush and Batman Have in Common‘. (via TruthDig)
A cry for help goes out from a city beleaguered by violence and fear: A beam of light flashed into the night sky, the dark symbol of a bat projected onto the surface of the racing clouds . . .
Oh, wait a minute. That’s not a bat, actually. In fact, when you trace the outline with your finger, it looks kind of like . . . a “W.”
There seems to me no question that the Batman film “The Dark Knight,” currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war. Like W, Batman is vilified and despised for confronting terrorists in the only terms they understand. Like W, Batman sometimes has to push the boundaries of civil rights to deal with an emergency, certain that he will re-establish those boundaries when the emergency is past.
Acts of War
July 29, 2008
‘The war between the US and Iran is already on,’ writes Scott Ritter.
The war between the United States and Iran is on. American taxpayer dollars are being used, with the permission of Congress, to fund activities which result in Iranians being killed and wounded, and Iranian property destroyed. This wanton violation of a nation’s sovereignty would not be tolerated if the tables were turned and Americans were being subjected to Iranian-funded covert actions which took the lives of Americans, on American soil, and destroyed American property and livelihood. Many Americans remain unaware of what is transpiring abroad in their name. Many of those who are cognizant of these activities are supportive of them, an outgrowth of misguided sentiment which holds Iran accountable for a list of grievances used by the U.S. government to justify the ongoing global war on terror. Iran, we are told, is not just a nation pursuing nuclear weapons, but is the largest state sponsor of terror in the world today.
Much of the information behind this is being promulgated by Israel, which has a vested interest in seeing Iran neutralized as a potential threat. But Israel is joined by another source, even more puzzling in terms of its broad-based acceptance in the world of American journalism: the Mujahadeen-e Khalk, or MEK, an Iranian opposition group sworn to overthrow the theocracy in Tehran. The CIA today provides material support to the actions of the MEK inside Iran. The recent spate of explosions in Iran, including a particularly devastating “accident” involving a military convoy transporting ammunition in downtown Tehran, appears to be linked to an MEK operation; its agents working inside munitions manufacturing plants deliberately are committing acts of sabotage which lead to such explosions. If CIA money and planning support are behind these actions, the agency’s backing constitutes nothing less than an act of war on the part of the United States against Iran.
War Meets Values on Campaign Trail
July 29, 2008
‘Will the Big Winner of 2008 Once Again Be a Conservative Culture-Wars Narrative?’, asks Ira Chernus (from TomDispatch)
By Ira ChernusWhile the Iraq war has largely faded from our TV screens, some 85% of all voters still call it an important issue. Most of them want U.S. troops home from Iraq within a couple of years, many of them far sooner. They support Barack Obama’s position, not John McCain’s. Yet when the polls ask which candidate voters trust more on the war, McCain wins almost every time.
Maybe that’s because, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press, nearly 40% of the public doesn’t know McCain’s position on troop withdrawal. In a June Washington Post/ABC poll, the same percentage weren’t sure he had a clear position. When that poll told voters that McCain opposed a timetable for withdrawal, support for his view actually shot up dramatically. It looks like a significant chunk of the electorate cares more about the man than the issue. Newer polls suggest that McCain’s arguments against a timetable may, in fact, be shifting public opinion his way.
McCain’s Only Chance: Values-plus Voters
Pundits and activists who oppose the war in Iraq generally assume that the issue has to work against McCain because they treat American politics as if it were a college classroom full of rational truth-seekers. The reality is much more like a theatrical spectacle. Symbolism and the emotion it evokes — not facts and logic — rule the day.
In fact, the Pew Center survey found that only about a quarter of those who say they’ll vote for McCain base their choice on issues at all. What appeals to them above all, his supporters say, is his “experience,” a word that can conveniently mean many things to many people.
The Military-Industrial Complex
July 27, 2008
‘It’s Much Later Than You Think,’ Chalmers Johnson reminds us. (from the excellent TomDispatch)
Most Americans have a rough idea what the term “military-industrial complex” means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. “Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime,” he said, “or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea… We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications… We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”
Although Eisenhower’s reference to the military-industrial complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its “unwarranted influence” has, I believe, largely been ignored. Since 1961, there has been too little serious study of, or discussion of, the origins of the military-industrial complex, how it has changed over time, how governmental secrecy has hidden it from oversight by members of Congress or attentive citizens, and how it degrades our Constitutional structure of checks and balances.
From its origins in the early 1940s, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was building up his “arsenal of democracy,” down to the present moment, public opinion has usually assumed that it involved more or less equitable relations — often termed a “partnership” — between the high command and civilian overlords of the United States military and privately-owned, for-profit manufacturing and service enterprises. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is that, from the time they first emerged, these relations were never equitable.
Charging Bush With Murder
July 27, 2008
Dennis Kucinich has been heroic in his quest to bring Bush and Cheney for the catastrophe they have wrought on Iraq. He has finally succeeded in getting the house judiciary committee to hold hearings on the subject. Among his expert witnesses is Vincent Bugliosi, a prosecutor who known for never having lost a case. Here he presents evidence to indict Bush in a delightfully combative fashion.
Kucinich Gets His Day
July 26, 2008
Since June 9, 2008, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has pushed for impeachment proceedings against President Bush. Last week, in an effort to placate Kucinich, the House Judiciary Committee finally agreed to hold a hearing July 25, 2008. The night before the hearing, Kucinich sat down with ANP in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
Rumsfeld
July 26, 2008
Here are two in depth interviews with Andrew Cockburn based on his excellent book on Rumsfeld. It is one of the best political biographies to have come out in the past year, and I hope to post my own review here soon.
Andrew Cockburn, author of Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall and Catastrophic Legacy, discusses Donald Rumsfeld’s flawed personality, and history of intrigue, naked ambition, torture and war.
Antiwar Radio Exclusive: Revealed by Andrew Cockburn April 18, 2007: When Secretary of State Madeline Albright announced, on March 26, 1997, that Iraqi sanctions would stay in place despite the UN inspectors success it was an effort to preempt UN inspection chief Ralf Ekeus’s pending announcement that Iraq was to be certified “free” of “weapons of mass destruction.” (at 22:40)
This, as Cockburn explains, led Saddam to decide there was no further point in allowing the inspectors access to his palaces. (Former UN inspector Scott Ritter has maintained, including to this radio host, that the only purpose for the inspections after 1996 was to allow American spies the opportunity to assassinate Saddam Hussein.) This allowed Bill Clinton to falsely claim that Saddam had kicked them out of the country, launch his “Operation Desert Fox” bombing campaign (on the day the full House of Representatives were to begin debating Articles of Impeachment against him), and for the War Party to claim to this day that there must have been weapons there.
Also: Cockburn and General Anthony Zinni’s belief that the neocons’ plan B after installing Chalabi as dictator fell through was to deliberately destroy Iraq (that is, all this “failure” is on purpose), the suffering of the Iraq people, Rumfeld’s bogus “transformation” of the military and more…
Andrew Cockburn is a writer and lecturer on defense and national affairs, and is also the author of five nonfiction books. He has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, Playboy, Vanity Fair, and National Geographic, among other publications. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.
What Obama missed in the Middle East
July 23, 2008
‘Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and Palestine this week seemed designed to appease pro-Israel groups in the US’, writes Ali Abunimah.
When I and other Palestinian-Americans first knew Barack Obama in Chicago in the 1990s, he grasped the oppression faced by Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He understood that an honest broker cannot simultaneously be the main cheerleader, financier and arms supplier for one side in a conflict. He often attended Palestinian-American community events and heard about the Palestinian experience from perspectives stifled in mainstream discussion.
In recent months, Obama has sought to allay persistent concerns from pro-Israel groups by recasting himself as a stalwart backer of Israel and tacking ever closer to positions espoused by the powerful, hard-line pro-Israel lobby Aipac. He distanced himself from mainstream advisers because pro-Israel groups objected to their calls for even-handedness.
Like his Republican rival, senator John McCain, Obama gave staunch backing to Israel’s 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the blockade and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling them “self defence”.
No U-Turn
July 22, 2008
‘Obama’s Stance on Iraq Is Chillingly Consistent,’ writes Sami Ramadani.
As November’s American presidential elections approach, Barack Obama’s message on Iraq is being widely interpreted as “flip-flopping” and a “retreat” from a previously unequivocal stance of fully withdrawing the US occupation forces. This is to misunderstand Obama, who is not someone who shoots from the hip. There is much more to his words than cursory reading could unravel.
His remarks before the 2003 invasion resonated well within the American antiwar movement. His scathing references to the Bush administration’s folly and his demands for “ending the war” were probably decisive in winning him the Democratic party nomination against Hillary Clinton, whose vote for war in 2003 ultimately crippled her credibility as the commander-in-chief who would bring it to an end.
Obama himself has reacted angrily to claims of a policy U-turn: “For me to say I’m going to refine my policies is I don’t think in any way inconsistent with prior statements and doesn’t change my strategic view that this war has to end and that I’m going to end it as president.” Earlier this month he resorted to an op-ed article in the New York Times to emphatically state: “On my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.”
