Stop Me Before I Vote Again

“We’'re not planning to diminish the war.... We just want to change the mix of the forces doing the fighting .... We’'re in the middle of a seven-year slog in Iraq....”

"Mr. Sharon had not only withdrawn from Gaza, he had started a new party with the purpose of continuing to push for peace," Clinton said. "All of us who believe in peace in the Middle East are in his debt, and so more than anything else, I pray for his health." ... His illness "puts yet another obstacle in the path of the peacemakers," Clinton said. "It's almost as if God were testing them one more time to rise again, to keep on."

Personally, I don't feel that I understand the Almighty very well, but I sure as hell understood Sharon. A peacemaker he was not, and never would be -- except in the rather specialized sense noted by Tacitus, a sense in which Sharon was very much the image of his imperial patron the US.

The emerging Reader's Digest capsule bio of Sharon reads something like this: tough old soldier, may have gone a little overboard from time to time, but lately he grew into a Man Of Vision. He stood up to the "extremists" on the Israeli right and with rare courage gave up Gaza as a down payment for "peace". He was in the process of founding a "centrist" party (sort of like the Democrats, hmmm?) when the King of the Universe, unable to deny Himself any longer the company of such a holy old soul, revoked his lease on life and called him home.

Deconstructing this myth would take a book, and somebody ought to write it. Suffice for the moment to observe that Israel's leaders have never really wanted Gaza; it was never more than a bargaining chip. (Those loopy settlers are another story, of course; but for the purposes of the Israeli state they fall into the category of useful idiots, or rather, temporarily useful idiots. More on this topic below).

The reason Sharon could give up Gaza unilaterally was that he had no intention of doing any bargaining, so a bargaining chip was useless to him. Sharon's own adviser Dov Weissglas spilled the beans on this topic in an interview last October in Ha'Aretz. Sharon meant to carve up the West Bank, penning the Palestinians into a few Bantustans and keeping the rest, all by fait accompli rather than negotiation.

His "courage" in standing up to the settlers -- or a few of them, anyway -- is cut from the same cloth as his devotion to peace. The settlers were useful as long as it was important to create "facts on the ground." Now that the facts are in place, and Sharon was ready to capitalize on them, these loons with their fantasies of red heifers and whatnot have served their purpose.

Indeed, Sharon's move to create his "Centrist" Kadima party is best seen as a move to isolate the loons in the rump of the Likud, and symmetrically isolate the "gentle souls" of Israeli liberalism in the rump of Labor. The serious-minded -- undistracted by quaint notions about divinity, or humanity -- would create a new institutional expression for what has always been a matter of practical consensus, between the leadership and core constituents of both parties, about Israel's destiny.

Hillary: “Until and unless Hamas renounces violence and terror, and renounces its position calling for the destruction of Israel, I don't believe the United States should recognize them, nor any nation in the world."

Schumer: "[Hamas is] a terrorist organization, which means they believe it is their right to murder women, children and innocent civilians to achieve their goals… It is unrealistic, unwise and even immoral to ask Israel to sit down with a government that contains people who have such beliefs…No other country would, why should Israel?"

("Murder women children and innocent civilians to achieve their goals"? Actually, that sounds a lot like the United States, Chuck. As memorably articulated by your fellow Democrat, Madeleine Albright. But I digress.)

Biden: "Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with a party that calls for its destruction, engages in terrorism and maintains an armed militia."

Fascinating, isn't it, how much of this exaggerated miming of horror turns on what Hamas has said, or is thought, correctly or incorrectly, to believe? Hamas are ineligible interlocutors because they "don't accept Israel's right to exist" or because they have "called for Israel's destruction." In what other political context would objections like these sound like anything other than the ravings of a lunatic?

Now you may or may not like Hamas. (I like their militance, personally, but think their world-view is a little crude.) Regardless what you think about Hamas, though, it's pretty clear that they have the Palestinians' mandate. And unless you're willing to declare the Palestinians nonpersons, with no rights a white man is obliged to respect -- which is, of course, precisely the view shared by Republicans and Democrats alike, in perfect bipartisan harmony -- then it follows that you have to accept them as interlocutors. And if peace in the Milddle East is thought to be in the interest of the American people -- and surely it is -- then are not our leaders duty bound to swallow their highly selective fastidiousness and sit down with the people the Palestinians have chosen to speak for them?

Well, of course, A child could see that. But don't expect to hear it from any Democrat.

I have a theory. (You knew I was going to say that, didn't you?)

In the context of his own party, McCain is a bit of a maverick. A lot of the True Believers think he's a RINO -- a Republican in Name Only, for those of you who have passed up the joys of the right-wing blogsphere. The fetus fanciers and rapturists don't think he's really one of them, and neither do the machine-gunners. So he is not going to be able to tap all the usual sources of Republican funding. Hmmm. Where to go with the candidate's begging bowl?

*Cartoon lightbulb over head* Hey! How about the Israel lobby? Why not grab some of those chips that usually end up on the Democratic side of the table?

Even more than with the Iraq war, the Iran nuke scare is a golem ginned up by the Israeli propaganda ministry. Nobody else much cares about Iran getting the Bomb; but a nuclear Iran would have the effect of diminishing (if not removing entirely) Israel's capacity to exert nuclear blackmail on its neighbors. So apart from McCain the people making the most noise about ayatollahs-with-nukes have been the usual AIPAC suspects: Hillary, Joe, Chuckie Schumer.

If I'm right about this, it suggests some interesting reflections. If McCain thinks he can tap funding sources that have historically leaned heavily Democratic, presumably he has some reason for believing that. Are pro-Israel donors starting to feel lately that Democrats aren't, perhaps, the best possible investment?

Well, nobody ever said they were dumb. But if it's true that even the Fort Zion lobby is getting restless in the Democratic tent, then that in turn suggests that the decline of the Democratic Party may be entering its terminal phase.

Not a minute too soon.

part three ...or is it four ???
in my series

"these too must die...."
-- figuratively speaking of course -- 

calling
        all know it alls out there
zooming
        the prog-sphere

bring me the  formula
to shrink the head
          of
tom lantos down to raisinette scale


yes
tom tom ... tom

   u must find a way
                  to rid me
        of this cotton topped
              fried clay faced double dip
                aipac buzzbomb           

  he's everything
  everything
         the jack ass party needs
to  put the torch  to

he's worse than rickets


worse than joan rivers and bill moyers

freddie needs to come  thru his bedroom window

now prove me right here

surely you coastal sand and ice  devils
can figure a way
to shiver  his re election   base
into beatable pieces

-- how the hell does this guy stay in office -- 

Apparently the thinking is that those wild-eyed radicals who throng the boardrooms of the United Arab Emirates will be staffing US port operations with dedicated "terrorists."

Anybody remember Abscam? No? Too long ago, too parochial, perhaps.

Anyway, the Chicken Little clucking and feather-fluffing of the Hill and the Upchuck et al. isn't surprising. It's important to keep the American corporate world from forming any more ties with, well, pardon the expression, Arabs. Jeez, the State Department is bad enough -- all those brainwashed bowtie twits who made the effort and learned the language and fell in love with the people who speak it. But these people who just want to make a buck are even worse, really -- if you don't watch 'em like a hawk, they'll be reclining in a tent, smoking a hookah, and swearing blood-brothership with some Emir. Can't have that!

What's slightly surprising in this story is that the point man seems to be Pete King, a Republican congressman from NY's third district, in Nassau County, Long Island. Ole Pete is bucking his President in objecting to this Dubai deal.

Indeed, Pete has distinguished himself recently by a vein of Arab-bashing that would be right at home in Commentary magazine. Long Island's Newsday reports:

Rep. Peter King said Wednesday he continues to believe that 85 percent of the mosques in the United States have "extremist leadership," and that while most Muslims are "loyal Americans," they are reluctant to come forward to cooperate with law enforcement when they hear anti-American rhetoric or plots.

King (R-Seaford) said Wednesday he based his belief on extensive conversations he has had with law enforcement officials, both in New York and Washington, D.C.. He said the issue crystallized for him in the weeks following Sept. 11, 2001. At a community "solidarity" meeting at Temple Beth-El in Great Neck, Dr. Faroque Kahn of the Islamic Center criticized America's foreign policy toward Arab and Palestinian communities, prompting some Jewish attendees to walk out.

Well, just look at the recent vote on bullying Iran pointed out by one of our vigilant commenters. This foolish and presumptuous bill includes, among other gems, the following:

(3) calls on all members of the United Nations Security Council, in particular the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, to expeditiously consider and take action in response to the report of Iran's noncompliance in fulfillment of the mandate of the Security Council to respond to and deal with situations bearing on the maintenance of international peace and security;

(4) declares that Iran, through its many breaches for almost 20 years of its obligations under the Safeguards Agreement, has forfeited the right to develop any aspect of a nuclear fuel cycle, especially with uranium conversion and enrichment and plutonium reprocessing technology, equipment, and facilities;

(5) calls on all responsible members of the international community to impose economic sanctions designed to deny Iran the ability to develop nuclear weapons; and

Against this exercise in the higher idiocy there were, in the House, four nays, count 'em, four, and one of those a Republican:

• Kucinich
• McDermott
• Paul
• Stark

• Abercrombie
• Capuano
• Kaptur
• Lee

• Berman
• Bishop (UT)
• Blumenauer
• Campbell (CA)
• Carson
• Cummings
• Davis (IL)
• Evans
• Hinchey
• Hinojosa
• Hunter
• McKinney
• Miller, Gary
• Osborne
• Rangel
• Simpson
• Wamp
• Wasserman Schultz
• Westmoreland
• Woolsey

Personally I'm pleased to see Frank and Sanders among the ayes, and no doubt MJS will be pleased to see Nadler there. Rangel at least dodged the bullet.

Columbia University students including the College Conservatives and campus Democrats plan to protest a speech Wednesday by a professor who has written that Jewish organizations exploit the Holocaust to deflect criticism of Israel....

Norman Finkelstein, an assistant professor of political science at DePaul University in Chicago, wrote in his 2000 book "The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering" that some Jews have used the Holocaust as an "extortion racket" to get compensation payments, and he has referred to Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel as the "resident clown" of the "Holocaust circus."

(Elie Wiesel and trophy wife, shown with the Cheneys)

[Finkelstein's] most recent book, "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History," is largely an attack on lawyer Alan Dershowitz's "The Case for Israel." In it he argues that Israel uses the outcry over perceived anti-Semitism as a bully weapon to stifle criticism....

Chris Kulawik, president of the College Conservatives.... and College Democrats membership director Josh Lipsky denounced Finkelstein in the campus newspaper last week, calling him "an anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, anti-America Holocaust revisionist and terrorist sympathizer."

From Ha'Aretz:

Under fire for his membership in a professional organization highly critical of Israel, Lord Richard Rogers, the British architect supervising the redesign of [New York City's] Jacob Javits Center, has cut ties to the group in an effort to salvage his role in the $1.7 billion project.

But that hasn't satisfied several elected officials, including New York state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Rep. Anthony Weiner, who have each demanded Rogers be dropped from the project. And Friday, the chairman of the state commission overseeing the Javits Center redevelopment summoned Rogers to New York to discuss the controversy....

Weiner, a Brooklyn Democrat, released a letter Friday to the Empire State Development Corp. calling for Rogers' contract to be rescinded. The ESDC is overseeing the Javits project and has based its planning on Rogers' design, which would almost double the size of the center.

Weiner.... said Rogers' stewardship of the Javits project would dishonor the memory of Javits himself.

"This is not just any project. This is a building that's named after one of the foremost fighters for the state of Israel," Weiner said in an interview.

Democratic New York state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is less well known, except among masochists who study the entrails of our Ruritanian state legislature, but along with the Governor and the Republican president pro tem of the state Senate, Joe Bruno, he is one of the triumvirate who essentially run the state. He represents a district in lower Manhattan and can be counted on to sell out the city every chance he gets; a few years back he was instrumental in doing away with NYC's commuter tax. (I remember this occasion well because it gave me one of the few openings I've had on the New York Times Op-Ed page.)

Silver, too, is of course a sedulous water-boy for Israel. One of his pet causes is the Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard; another is Hillary Clinton.

Amusingly, Republican Bruno, Silver's opposite number in the state legislature, recently called for withdrawal from Iraq, infuriating the White House and apparently prompting an angry phone call from Karl Rove to Republican Governor Pataki. The unfortunate shut-ins who monitor New York state politics agree that Bruno has never done anything out of conviction in his life; he is concerned for his Republican majority and perhaps even for his own seat.

Silver, a stalwart and not insignificant leader of the party Kosniks refer to as "us," has so far failed to follow Bruno's lead.

It's also quite funny, for those of us with long memories, to see two Democrats kowtowing to the memory of Jacob Javits. Javits was a "liberal" Republican who enabled the election of the aromatic Alfonse D'Amato to the US Senate. D'Amato beat Javits in the Republican primary, and then Javits ran a spoiler campaign on the Liberal Party line (if memory serves), pulling away enough loyalist-liberal votes from the Democratic nominee, Elizabth Holtzman, to allow D'Amato to squeak in.

But Javits was indeed, as Wiener with uncharacteristic accuracy says, "one of the foremost fighters for the state of Israel," and hey, that's all that counts, I guess.

Both Republican and Democratic leaders were at the podium, and as Democratic Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, who was last to speak, put it, support for Israel is not a matter for debate.

While many of the studies of the pro-Israel lobby are sound and full of awe-inspiring well- documented details about the formidable power commanded by groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) .... The arguments put forth by these studies would have been more convincing if the Israel lobby was forcing the United States government to pursue policies in the Middle East that are inconsistent with its global policies elsewhere. This, however, is far from what happens.... One could argue (and I have argued elsewhere) that it is in fact the very centrality of Israel to US strategy in the Middle East that accounts, in part, for the strength of the pro-Israel lobby and not the other way around.

Au contraire, says Michael Neumann:

America is a sap, a duped accomplice, not a co-conspirator. The enormous, ignored fact of the Palestinian story is that America is not, as the left so loves to think, pursuing some vital interest in its alliance with Israel. On the contrary, America is acting against its vital interests. And by America I don't just mean the wonderful, real-as-dirt Americans of Denzel Washington flicks. I also mean corporate America and the American government.

This used to be a conversation that you wouldn't hear in the "mainstream" of American political discourse, but come now Mearsheimer and Walt, presenting a view which is certainly quite novel for two such Establishment figures (Mearsheimer is a professor at that hotbed of radicalism, the University of Chicago, and Walt is the Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard):

Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? ... The thrust of US policy in the [Middle East] derives almost entirely from domestic politics, and especially the activities of the "Israel Lobby" .... Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq in March 2003, but it was critical. Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim. Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.

And in response to them, the biggest of big guns, Noam Chomsky:

[Mearsheimer and Walt] make as good a case as one can, I suppose, for the power of the Lobby, but I don't think it provides any reason to modify what has always seemed to me a more plausible interpretation.... For whom has [US] policy been a failure for the past 60 years? The energy corporations? Hardly. They have made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" .... and still do, and the ME is their leading cash cow. Has it been a failure for US grand strategy based on control of what the State Department described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? Hardly. The US has substantially maintained control -- and the significant reverses, such as the overthrow of the Shah, were not the result of the initiatives of the Lobby.

At the AJC annual convention today, I heard a couple of people talk about the issue of the Iranian nuclear program and most of it was fairly reassuring. Representatives from both Left and Right promised the audience that the threat will not be ignored. Not by a Republican administration - as was emphasized by Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon - nor by a Democratic one, as Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean promised in terms not at all different from those used by Bush, Cheney and Rice.

And Dean - wearing the badge of a leftist Democrat - was actually the one going into details in regard to Iran - Making the more forceful argument. The crowed demanded it from him in the short session of questions and answers. But even before that it was clear that he was coming with a decision that?s been made in advance: He was not going to leave any room for doubt or interpretation on this issue.

Something is changing in the United States. To be sure, it was only a few short years ago that prime minister Sharon's advisers could gleefully celebrate their success in dictating to U.S. President George W. Bush the terms of a public statement approving Israel's illegal settlements....

But whereas Israel has no choice but to look to America - it has no other friends, at best only the conditional affection of the enemies of its enemies, such as India - the United States is a great power; and great powers have interests that sooner or later transcend the local obsessions of even the closest of their client states and satellites. It seems to me of no small significance that the recent essay on "The Israel Lobby" by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has aroused so much public interest and debate....

The fact is that the disastrous Iraq invasion and its aftermath are beginning to engineer a sea-change in foreign policy debate here in the U.S. It is becoming clear to prominent thinkers across the political spectrum - from erstwhile neo-conservative interventionists like Francis Fukuyama to hard-nosed realists like Mearsheimer - that in recent years the United States has suffered a catastrophic loss of international political influence and an unprecedented degradation of its moral image. The country's foreign undertakings have been self-defeating and even irrational. There is going to be a long job of repair ahead.... And this reconstruction of the country's foreign image and influence cannot hope to succeed while U.S. foreign policy is tied by an umbilical cord to the needs and interests (if that is what they are) of one small Middle Eastern country of very little relevance to America's long-term concerns....

That essay is thus a straw in the wind - an indication of the likely direction of future domestic debate here in the U.S. about the country's peculiar ties to Israel. Of course it has been met by a firestorm of criticism from the usual suspects - and, just as they anticipated, the authors have been charged with anti-Semitism (or with advancing the interests of anti-Semitism: "objective anti-Semitism," as it might be). But it is striking to me how few people with whom I have spoken take that accusation seriously, so predictable has it become.

I'm not going to give it away -- but I will forearm you: it's nothing less than a general slogan for progress.

May 17, 2006

The Lobby and the Great Protestant Crusader

The NYT Confronts Mearsheimer and Walt--Not Quite Head On

By LENNI BRENNER

I've been a political activist for 54 years. During that time I've had plenty of chances to do stupid things and I've taken full advantage of the opportunities. But I've developed only one perversion: I not only read New York Times editorials, I collect them.

One thing is for certain. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" has made the big time. It's been discussed in the Times, read by the city's intellectuals and many others worldwide via its website, which 1.9 million individuals hit daily.

'Out of town' born residents may have wondered why "Essay Stirs Debate About Influence of a Jewish Lobby" was placed in the paper's 4/12 Metro section, reserved for stories about corruption trials of Brooklyn Democrats. But, while Jews are only ca. 2% of Americans, there is nothing more local than an attack on Zionism in a city where 8% of the total population, and 30% of all whites, are Jews.

Alan Finder told us that other "opinion journals" attacked the professors, "part of a group of foreign policy analysts, known as realists, who believe that international politics is fundamentally about the pursuit of power," as anti-Semitic. But he took no position on the contents of their critique. The Times hasn't taken a stand on the merits of their arguments for two reasons: Its record on Jewish issues before the creation of Israel in 1948 was shameful and got worse afterwards. A former executive editor spoke for it in the 11/14/01 issue. It's willful blindness to the holocaust was "surely the century's bitterest journalistic failure."

No news here, really, except that the Nation piece details the leading role that "progressive" Democratic congressman Jerrold Nadler played in this ideological mugging. This really took me back.

My own memories of Nadler date from twenty-five years and more ago, to the days when he was an 'umble state assemblyman from my West Side district. I was involved in the tenant movement -- there was one, then, kiddies, believe it or not. I got to know Nadler's schtick very well. Year after year, the state legislature would entertain a bill to do away with rent regulation in New York City (which is a state law rather than a local one, and thereby hangs yet another tale of Democratic mal- and non-feasance that would take me too far afield to include here). Year after year, we would get breathless, dramatic, spine-tingling, cliff-hanging bulletins from our stalwart representatives -- like Nadler -- about how hard they were fighting to keep us from sleeping on the sidewalk heating grates. Year after year, they would come home having "saved" rent regulation -- at the cost of a concession here, a concession there, which over the years have effectively gutted rent regulation.

Now Nadler is -- I don't know any kind way to say this -- a remarkably obese man:

He's about five-foot-six, as I recall, and if he's not well over three hundred pounds, then I'm Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. He would arrive at these little tenant-movement cell meetings, in some West Side apartment, swathed in a Brooks Brothers suit incorporating enough fabric to pup-tent a whole troop of Cub Scouts. He always made a beeline for the couch, and sagged into it, swabbing the greasy sweat from his brow with a handkerchief that looked very unhappy about its lot in life. He then gave us a breathless blow-by-blow account of the parliamentary maneuvers, the narrow escapes, the fiendish ingenutiy of the opposition and his own preternatural astuteness in foiling these Snideley Whipsnade tricks.

Well, stop the presses, you're thinking -- isn't this what politicians do?

Indeed it is, and I probably wouldn't remember these little séances with such hallucinatory clarity if it had only been a question of Nadler and his bodily fluids. But what amazed me even then -- and amazes me a lot more now, even though I've seen so much of it -- is the way his auditors hung breathless and admiring on his every word.

You have to understand who these auditors were. Most of them were highly intelligent, strong-minded, little old West Side Jewish ladies who, though they probably weren't actually in Spain during the civil war, would have turned the tide if they had been there. Franco, you little vontz! -- and that would have been that for Franco.

What a sad and baffling sight it was, to see these these ladies who could chew you up and spit you out and not think twice about it, treating this blubbery putz Nadler as if he were Mick Jagger and they had just found their inner groupie.

The problem, of course, was that the ladies were all Democrats -- people who had sagely decided, sometime in the Truman administration, that there was nulla salus extra ecclesiam -- no salvation outside the party. They wouldn't have been so slavish, or so easily impressed, the day after they made this fateful decision, or the year after; but year after year, decade after decade, of Babylonish captivity had taken their toll.

They ended up putting Nadler in Congress, where of course he has distinguished himself as a kind of Grand Inquisitor -- okay, a Petty Inquisitor -- on behalf of Israel. I must say it's droll to think at what a rate the moldy corpse of anti-Semitic old Henry Ford must be spinning in its unhallowed grave, to see the foundation that bears his name taking dictation from the likes of Jerrold Nadler.

We Minnesotans are a pretty thick-skinned bunch, so AIPAC must have done something moderately egregious to get up Betty McCollum's nose. From the state paper of record, the Minneapolis Star-Trib:

----------------------------------------------------

McCollum, Israel lobby at odds

The St. Paul Democrat says local activist Amy Rotenberg mischaracterized her April 6 vote on aid to Palestinians.

WASHINGTON - U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum says a Minnesota activist for Israel's leading U.S. lobbying group maligned her and she wants an apology.

Amy Rotenberg says she did no such thing and that the St. Paul Democrat's charge is "a serious distortion."

Word of the six-week-old flap hit the Internet on Friday, triggering about 150 phone calls and e-mails to McCollum's office.

The mini-tempest stems from McCollum's vote on April 6 as the International Relations Committee approved a bill that would sharply restrict U.S. aid to the new Hamas-led government in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

----------------------------------------------------

Normally I wouldn't go a micrometer out of my way to defend a democrat, but Betty McCollum has one of the better records (+362.5 out of a possible +580 on the Patrick Henry Think Tank's handy-dandy score chart) of a generally venial bunch. Trying to characterize her as 'a supporter of terrorism' is as ludicrous as calling Bret Ratner 'a talented director.' So what's going on with these heavy-handed tactics? Is AIPAC trying to kick errant congresscritters back into line?

Well, the latest migration of recently fledged interventionist zealots seems to be back toward the big-D Democrats, a return to home perch, so to speak.

Seems like the very palest of whiffs of the glory days when "give em hell" Harry and Dean Acheson led a vital center charging right over the 38th parallel, into two blood baths and 35 years' worth of military potlatch.

As the Gingrich forces remake the Republican Party, neoconservatism itself will most likely end up as a footnote in future histories of the Cold War, a relic of old battles as obscure as the struggles over the true nature of the Trinity in the waning days of the Roman empire.

Clinton could do worse than work to create a new vital center that steers a course between the Charybdis of left-wing isolationism and the Scylla of right-wing jingoism.

But this particular boiling pot -- the klan-donkery connection -- as an analogy to present day organized influences, seems to be my favorite hot tub these days. So here I go again.

If we're looking for a present-day analogy to the Klan's role in the Democratic party back in the bad old days, we really don't need to look any farther than... AIPAC et al. For anybody who still thinks the donkery can be made to play a constructive role again, these are the klaverns that really need to be purged in the next 4 to 6 years, as the Klan of old was purged in the high 60's.

So far as Uncle Sam's mideast policy goes, AIPAC embodies what the Klan meant to jim crow -- its vilest, most racist and violent, oppressive, expansionist, supremacist -- but you get the picture.

Either they've gotta go, or the progs gotta go, or the progs gotta stop being progs.

I'm not going to censor such comments, and people are free to make them, but just for the record, there will never be any posts here (and I hope not many comments) attempting to refute such charges. It's a waste of time, and at this point, I think the accusation has been so debased by overuse that it's not worth bothering about. In fact, you can't talk frankly about Israel or the Israel lobby without being called an anti-Semite, and so if there weren't some of this chaff in the air, I'd be worried.

I think the most fascinating result of the [Mearsheimer-Walt] paper is that the great sages of Middle East policy and Israel-US relations (Chomsky, Finkelstein, Neumann, Massad and the Christisons to name a few) came to such varying conclusions over the actual influence of the Lobby on U.S. foreign policy. It seems to me though, that if you take all these myriad analyses, you get something close to the reality of the situation.

To be sure, Israel has its own interests in the Middle East - the most important of which is the realization of the Zionist project (i.e. a Jewish state in the holy land with an undivided Jerusalem as its capital). The Israel lobby has been exceedingly successful in bringing American military, economic and political might to bear in furthering this primary goal. U.S. material support - in it's numerous forms - to Israel has been indispensable in helping the Zionists to vanquish and or marginalize all those who dare to oppose their plan (in the Middle East and here at home) and the Lobby has worked hard to make sure that tap of material support doesn't run dry.

That said however, the Israel lobby is obviously only one of many lobbies vying to craft U.S. foreign policy in a way that advances their interests. The counterveiling influence of corporations/multinationalscertainly cannot be discounted. They have certainly had their hands on the reigns of the U.S. foreign policy war horse far longer than Israel has. I mean has anyone here ever read Smedley Butler's famous anti-interventionist tract, War is a Racket? That was written back in 1935, yet if one were to read it now, he or she might easily believe it was published yesterday!

Nevertheless, there should be no doubt in anyone's mind that sometimes - perhaps even many times - the interests of the various lobbies happen to converge to form a single mutually-benefitting policy. For instance, one might easily imagine that toppling Saddam was desirable for the Israeli government and Exxon-Mobile. Saddam was a bitter enemy who allegedly sponsored Palestinian terrorism against Israel and he was a quota buster, pumping oil far too liberally for companies that thrive on oil scarcity and the attendent high prices.

At its peak it didn't represent any part of China proper -- only a former Japanese colony off its coast, where the former Chinese regime still held sway. And yet, till 1970 or so -- about the time the Israel lobby really started hitting its stride -- this "China" lobby was the tyrant of all it surveyed on Capitol Hill -- until, that is, it got whipped like a poodle by one of its own former champions, name of Richard M. Nixon (we'll get back to that).

The lobby originated way back, during the Sino-Japanese war of the late 30's, and continued uninterrupted through a subsequent nation-wide, regime-changing civil war, and both of our own East Asian misadventures (Korea and Vietnam). Throughout this entire interval the lobby's mission remained unchanged -- get Uncle Sam to unconditionally support the regime of clownissimo Chiang, in all ways possible, at all times, and despite any counteracting influences. In this it succeeded, and grandly, for over 30 years.

Looking at its internal elements -- its roots here among us Americanos -- one might note that in addition to the usual corporate players, like arms merchants, bankers, and sundry foreign bullropers, the domestic arm of this "it girl" of the Cold War lobbies had a very significant missionary component. Goo-goos for Christ, and their trueheart pals like Pearl S. Buck, gathered about the China lobby, wanting to help the suffering benighted yellow masses, like pickpockets on new years eve.

Well, as I've said, the rig was mighty successful until, pop! someone named Mao Tse-tung figured out the best way to end the cold war as we knew it, which led through a trail awinding to our prezdick flying straight through the front door to the People's Republic, and stabbing his old old friends in the lobby square in the back.

Lesson?

There are no tails that can wag their dogs for ever. No one remains that useful as a fig leaf. But my story is far from over -- didn't a second Han tail soon grow out of Uncle's backside? This one too had a simple mission -- open the US up like a sardine can for a massive "co-prosperity" invasion.

... to be continued.

JS --

The Saddam topple was the neocons' 9/11.

All these idiots running around frantic about what's next, what's next -- hey, has there been anything here since the towers toppled? There won't be anything out of the neocons either.

Well, that may be a little too hasty. We may be overdue for another 9/11, but I'm sure we'll have to wait till we elect a Democrat to the Oval Office before topple talk can reignite at the neocon Berchtesgaden.

As long as we have Cheney in there, newly sober and sore and gut-popped, mumbling sotto-voce "Let's take it step by step this time" -- the world's probably temporarily safe from the further spread of democracy.

The unprovoked attacks on innocent Israelis and the killing and abduction of Israeli soldiers by the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah are dramatic escalations of violence against Israel. The United States must stand by Israel as she defends herself.

Belle of the liberal ball Barbara Boxer has apparently suggested, on CNN, that war criminal Madeleine Albright ought to be sent as a special envoy to the Middle East. I would agree, with the proviso that Albright must parachute into South Lebanon and make her way on foot to Jerusalem. -- Well, okay, she can hitchike, if anybody will give her a lift. I know I wouldn't.

I can't seem to find a direct link to the Boxer-Albright story, but Googling around I did come up with this forgotten gem, from the year 2000. Boxer is on the Larry King show, being asked about the choice of Joe Lieberman for the vice spot on Gore's ticket. Here's what she had to say:

I was surprised, and I might say happily surprised. I think not only was this a bold choice, because when you bring down barriers, you have to be bold. So thank you, Al Gore, for being bold.

But also I think it's a winning choice. He's gone to the mainstream of our party. I think he's gotten a wonderful running mate.

The Israeli attack on Lebanon with apparent American blessing only reinforces that view [i.e. negative attitudes toward the US], said Muqtedar Khan, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a periodic adviser to the White House.

"The way we have abandoned Lebanon, I'm not very sure if any moderate Muslims will be able to take a risk (and move toward democracy,)" he said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., disputed that point, saying the Israeli attack was a result of Hezbollah's aggression, and Iranian patronage.

U.S. Sen. Russ Feingold today defended Israel's right to protect itself... saying, "I don't think any country is going to let their soldiers be kidnapped, transported, killed ... without a serious response.... I do think Israel has not only a right but also a responsibility to respond to the Hezbollah attack."

...[H]e argued that Israel had been acting constructively in recent years and blamed Hezbollah, Iran and Syria for provoking the current crisis.

"They are facing a two-front war now, and it's a tiny country," Feingold said of Israel.

Feingold posted a statement on his Web site Friday saying, "I stand firmly with the people of Israel and their government as they defend themselves against these outrageous attacks."

Both chambers of the US congress were working on drafts of resolutions expressing support for Israel in its war against the Hizbullah. The House of Representatives was expected to vote Wednesday on their version of the resolution, which is sponsored by majority leader John Boehner (R-OH) and minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

The Senate unanimously passed a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Israel on Tuesday.

The resolution was sponsored by Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and minority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and was approved by unanimous consent.

Peace activists... rallied outside the office of Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Wednesday night.

"We wanted to have a local response to tell, certainly Congressman Sanders and other people in the region, that we don't support our government giving money to Israel to be bombing civilians indiscriminately," said [a demonstrator].

The group criticized Sanders for his support of Israel, saying Israel had used American funding on arms used to attack Arab civilians.

Rep. Sanders was not in Burlington Wednesday night, but his staff released a statement to reporters. Sanders said his goal is to see a "two-state solution to the problem of Palestine," ... But he says as long as Hamas governs the Palestinian Authority and calls for war with Israel, "there will be no negotiations and no peace in the Middle East."

...[O]ur leaders, including Vermont’s own Bernie Sanders, continue to cast votes in Congress that run counter to our nation’s best interests as they keep an ear cocked toward their vocal and well-financed Israel-first supporters.

House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) approached Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the floor Tuesday evening to see if she would attach her name to the most recent version of a joint resolution supporting Israel in its battle with two militant Islamic groups.

... Pelosi... wanted Republicans to include language asking the two sides to limit civilian casualties.

Boehner... told the minority leader he would bring the resolution to the floor with or without her support.

Pelosi then told him that she would back the measure, and even make a floor statement supporting it....

Of course, when she didn't get anything to tell them, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, in essence, Oh well, fuck 'em. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Anyway. You wait long enough and sooner or later a guy will show you why you had a Doctor Fell response to him. Bill has finally come through:

... watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit.... on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition.... There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on....

.... the feeling I've had watching Israel defend herself and a US president defend Israel [is]... I LOVE being on the side of my president, and mouthing "You go, boy" when he gets it right.