Ladeen in 2002 –
“We do not know how this will play out in the coming days and weeks, but one thing is already luminously clear: The Bush administration has missed an opportunity to strike a massive blow against the terror masters. If, instead of winking and nodding at various Iranian emissaries and back channels, we had
supported the Iranian people with money, effective radio and television, and modern communications gear, the regime could very well have been smashed this past weekend. We may well have similar opportunities in the future, even the near future, and it would be wise if the deep thinkers in Foggy Bottom started pondering how to fulfill our revolutionary tradition rather than how best to appease Iran’s oppressors.”

What happened upon Israel’s founding, while horrible for many a Palestinian Arab, was not remarkable at the time, considering the far greater attrocities that were occurring in terms of forced population transfers. That the problem still exists is not Israel’s fault, but the fault of the Arab nations who did not absorb populations as was widely deemed necessary to avoid a repeat of WWII.

Why don’t people get that Syrians, Jordanians, Lebanese are not the same culture as Palestinians? Why do people blindly accept this notion that “Arab nations”, which have completely different cultures and in many cases speak a foim of Arabic mutually unintelligible with Palestinian Arabic, should have “absorb”ed the Palestinians? Someone needs to call bullshit on this, so I guess it will be me.

Jews fleeing Naziism tried to get “absorbed” by Western nations and failed. Did that justify the Holocause? Because that’s what Israel is doing to the Palestinians: a Holocaust. Whether the “Arab nations”. whatever that is, dhould or should not have absorbed the Palestinians, the fact remains that Israel should not be rounding them up, building walls around them, cutting them off from movement to their jobs, homes, relatives in other countries.

This is an outrage, and it has nothing to do – nothing at all – with the “Arab nations” failing to “absorb” Palestinians in the 1940s. Get a frickin’ clue, DAS.

The only thing they like about America is it’s MONEY, which they love to steal in vast amounts.

In the final analysis, the whole “neocon”
label is just a phony cover for Corporatist thieves who see the U.S. treasury as a big ATM machine for their personal use.

I doubt there are ANY real neocon “believers” out there, except for the idiot citizens who support BushCo.

The bigwigs & pundits know it’s a phony label.
But hey, it works! It really is a good cover for their mass-larceny.

The Neocon bigwigs and RW pundits are the REAL traitors.

These actions are in no way directed to the security interests of any nation. Any government that chooses to use these actions as a pretext for harming relations with the United States will be doing so on its own responsibility and on its own initiative, and we will draw the appropriate conclusions. ”

30 April 1970, Washington, DC

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/richardnixoncambodia.html

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Conversations_with_Machiavellis_Ghost_Part_3_0320.html

RS): I want to revisit what we briefly touched upon with regard to the Iraq war and pre-war intelligence, but I want to continue from a different vantage point. Let’s begin with the attacks of September 11, 2001. Do you think the attacks could have been and should have been avoided? Were there enough warnings? If so, where did the failure, in your opinion, occur?

ML): Wrong war, wrong time, wrong way, wrong place. As I said at the time. The key to the terror structure was and is Iran, and we should have started by supporting democratic revolution in Iran, not invading any place. And even if you decided to ‘do’ Iraq first, it should have been political first, and military second-if-necessary. I proposed declaring the ‘no fly zones’ to be ‘free Iraq,’ and then dropping leaflets on the country urging Iraqis to go govern themselves, preparing for the fall of the regime.

RS): Why do you think we have failed in democratic endeavors with regard to Iran?

ML): I think the CIA is both incompetent and unwilling to find and report the truth about Iran. They are afraid some president will tell them to get active in Iran, and they don’t know where to start. To get the top al Qaeda people you would have to go into Iran, where most of them spend most of their time, and the CIA isn’t up to that.

We still have no Iran policy, and we are trying to win a regional war while playing defense in one country alone. That is a sucker’s game.

why is it that a few Jewish people I have run across are OUTRAGED at all of this too, to the point where they are VERY APOLOGETIC!

Comment by PLC
————–
PLC, All are teachers/learners,imo.
Often,though,not in the manner intended.

I guess this is particularly telling:

the state’s raison d’etre, expansion and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

That phrase, raison d’etre, I do not think it means what you think it means ( / Inigo Montoya ).

Zionism may have been callous to the Palestinian people; Israel may have been cruel. But Zionism is not some colonialist plot to extinguish the Palestinian people. I am not the sort to think any criticism of Israel or even Zionism is anti-Semitic, but I would question the motives of one who thinks that Zionism’s purpose is colonialism or genocide. If you believe that it is, you either are all too ready to believe the worst of Zionism (and why would that be? anti-Semitism perhaps?) or you must believe that Pakistan exists as a colonialist entity to liquidate Hindus, etc. What happened upon Israel’s founding, while horrible for many a Palestinian Arab, was not remarkable at the time, considering the far greater attrocities that were occurring in terms of forced population transfers. That the problem still exists is not Israel’s fault, but the fault of the Arab nations who did not absorb populations as was widely deemed necessary to avoid a repeat of WWII. It is crying wolf to claim anti-Semitism every time Israel gets blamed for things it’s done wrong — but it seems anti-Semitic to me to claim Israel is evil for doing the same things that were considered necessary to avoid WWIII when done by every other nation in the world who was attempting to force “destablizing” minorities into national boundaries with their ethnic kin — it may have been right, it likely was wrong and it certainly was horrific in terms of the human cost … but why the focus on Israel? How was Israel different than any of the other nations arising, e.g., out of the colonial rule whose emergence prompted population transfers (e.g. Pakistan, India, etc.)? It’s one thing to ask why we must have the soft-bigotry of low expectations we display when comparing Israel to every other country (which is why I wonder if some of the same Zionist types who complain Jews like me are self-hating are merely projecting their own self-hatred), but to single out and condemn Israel for normative practices of the time outside of the “Israel should have known better” rubric but rather in a rubric of “Zionism=inherently evil but we’ll ignore the pervasiveness of what we are claiming is a unique evil to Zionism” reeks to me of anti-Semitism. Why else single out Israel in that way? What else distinguishes Israel?

This state of acute political and social psychosis, manifested by power’s irrational application and self-dehumanizing behavior, betrays a deep-seated fear: while Israel possesses unequaled, sanctimonious power and its political/military class was historically confident of its ability to militarily prevail against Arab armies, the country is unceasingly, silently, troubled by the possibility of one day being abandoned by the United States. Without its patron, its power is as nothing, not necessarily militarily, but emotionally and psychologically.

The Pathology Of Israeli Power

Indeed, left-wing paranoia about a possible Iran invasion blinds us to dealing with some really important questions about national security — questions the raising of which would really strike a stake through the “Bush is tough on terrorism” meme.

(1) If Ladeen and his ilk realized that Iran was so important in promoting terror, why did they urge us to invade Iraq, which invasion has been a gift and a boon to both Al Qaeda and Iran? Were they too stupid to see what would happen in Iraq? I think not — the “flypaper” rhetoric as well as the very motivation for going into Iraq (to establish bases so we could appease Al Qaeda by polling out of Saudi Arabia as well as neutralizing an enemy of theirs) bespeaks perhaps a misjudgment about the ability to bog down terrorists (as if that sort of thing worked in ‘Nam), but it does indicate that the people planning the invasion knew that Al Qaeda would at least take what we were viewing as bait and they realized was food.

(2) But did people like Ladeen realize the benefits to Iran? If not, why should anyone take Ladeen and his ilk seriously? If so, why did we invade Iraq again?

(3) So, to make you really go hmmm … how many Bush & CO advisors and associates in pushing this Iraq war were involved in Iran/Contra?

It would be horrible if we did invade Iran. But let’s not let our fear that Cmdr. Cookoo Bananas may very well try to pull of such a thing blind us to some very real questions about the degree to which, at least de facto pro-Iranian influence exists on our foreign policy in practice. Some people may be talking a tough talk about Iran — a talk so tough it’s actually influencing Iran to be more militaristic and threatening … but something else is going on as well here …

Why are people who were so hot to go into Iraq, ostensibly as part of the global war on terror, actually opposing going into Iran? Are they smart enough to realize how suicidal such an invasion would be? I doubt it — there is something else going on and it stinks to high heaven (and it’s called having Team B Iran/Contra terrorist lovers in charge of our so-called war on terrorism). Let’s put on our tinfoil hats, so to speak, and focus — who are these people and why are they speaking out of both sides of their mouths?

OT

Comment by Jake — July 31, 2006 @ 10:33 am

The War Crimes Act of 1996 is NOT an obscure law. The administration’s fear is obviously that THEY might be accused and prosecuted for their crimes.

And now, your Daily Lieberman 2 Minute Hate.