Newsflash: America is Not Israel
I just read this quote from John McCain over at
Digby's joint:
"The greatest single threat that we are facing right now to our national security is Iran," he said. "If they get that weapon, and they have the capability to deliver it, put yourself in the position of the government of the state of Israel. This could be one of the most unsettling and difficult challenges that we have ever faced."
But we're not the state of Israel. And this isn't a challenge "we" face. The challenges the U.S. and Israel face are distinctly seperate. Have the two nations' security now become permanently coupled to one another? As if they're one in the same? Someone needs to start calling politicians and talking heads on this. Yes, we should support Israel in the many ways that we already do, but as the blogger Billmon
coined it, that country really has become our 51st state. I would add that I don't think the fact that we supply them with an enormous amount of military goodies gets lost on the Arab world. Trust me, when Al-Jazeera shows American-made M1A1 Abrams tanks rolling into both Bahgdad
and Lebanon, it doesn't get lost on their audience. They get it (nevermind the supply of Blackhawk and Apache helicopters, and nuclear weapons).
I was watching Meet the Press a couple of weeks ago, and Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee,
had this to say (question included):
MR. GREGORY: It is very clear that this is going to be topic A in the midterm election. This is what another prominent Democrat, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, had to say about the legacy of the Bush years, particularly the war in Iraq. He said the following: “I fear many of our policies over the past five years have done more to inflame extremism than to diminish it. I believe the war in Iraq has diverted resources and undercut the Bush Administration’s ability to protect our people against a terrorist attack.” A view echoed in terms of money spent in the Iraq war by the 9/11 Commission’s co-chairman.
MR. MEHLMAN: I would say, with all due respect to Mr. Rockefeller, tell that to the families of the 241 people who were killed in 1983 by Hezbollah, the people that were in the East African Embassies that were bombed in the 1990s. The fact is, for a generation terrorists have made war on America. From the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich to Mogadishu to Beirut to the East African bombings, to the USS Cole...
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold it right there Kenny. Let's be clear here: no Americans were attacked at the Munich games in 1972. Not one. Yes, a Palestinian terrorist group did attack the Olympic compound, and they did kill athletes and take hostages. But they were Israelis, not Americans. I feel like I'm writing for a fifth grader here, and maybe Ken can get his ears around that, but Jeebus, this is common historic knowledge.
I keep hearing this more and more from prominent conservative figures, and not only is this faulty rhetoric, but it leads to bad policy. From the time Bush came into office, for decades America was seen as an honest broker in the Middle East. All to easily, the Bush administration, and conservatves in general, are throwing that notion out the window. If you listen to William Kristol enough, he'd have you believe America
is Israel.
This is not good for American
or Israeli security. There are many times when the interests of both nations converge, and where cooperation and support is necessary, but both countries need to draw a clear line when they don't. That line is quickly disappearing, and to the detriment of both nations. Here's the rub though; the Israelis have been paying the price for their national survival since their nation's birth, and as horrific as that's been, there's no reason to make it America's permanent problem. Dragging America into a seemingly intractable, endless, low-level war in the Middle East is a horrible drain on the U.S.'s long term security (Iraq being a different story, and a horrible one).
Given the Bush administration's reaction to the 33 day war, I'm not very hopeful. Maybe someday the neoconservatives will remember that Israel was the U.N.'s idea, and not solely born from some inkling of an endless tie to America.
[update: edited for spelling errors]
Listening to the Generals
Or, put another way: In stating we will not leave Iraq during his presidency, will George W. Bush stand by while our military degrades into "not combat ready" status? Here's why I ask, from
Think Progress:
The President has called up 2,500 inactive Marine reservists for involuntary duty to make up for manpower shortages. Even though many Marines have already served three tours in Iraq, the Marine Corps came up 1,200 volunteers short of its requirements. Defense commentator Fred Kagan from the conservative American Enterprise Institute put it bluntly: It is one of an avalanche of symptoms that the ground forces are overstretched by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. … This administration needs to understand this is not a short-term problem, and it really needs a systemic fix in the size of the ground forces.
But the Marines are not just short manpower. A report released today by the Center for American Progress shows that the war in Iraq is increasingly taking its toll on the equipment of the Marine Corps. Vehicles like the Humvee and M1A1 tanks built to last for 15 years or more are wearing out in less than five. The cost to replace and repair the equipment damaged and destroyed is enormous – more than $5 billion a year.
To make up for the equipment shortfalls, the Marines have been taking equipment from units outside of Iraq and from their strategic reserves. Unable to train with the equipment that they will be using in combat, the readiness of Marine Corps units outside of Iraq are suffering.
If it comes to a point when the Generals tell Bush, "we can no longer sustain the occupation of Iraq militarily", assuming one of them who is not retired would step forward and say such a thing, would Bush shift his stance, or hang onto his daft vision that we must hang on until his mission really is "accomplished"? I'd bet on the latter. Let's grab a little more from the article from someone who actually served in Iraq:
"You can send Marines back for a third or fourth time, but you have to understand you are destroying their lives," said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "It is not what they intended the all-volunteer military to look like."
I'd like to believe that Bush would not destroy our nation's military in order to say, "see, I told you so", but I'm losing confidence every day.
[On a personal note, it seems the military is accepting people up to the age of 42. Without revealing my age on this heavily trafficed website, I would actually qualify for service. In what I would think is sound judgement, I'm not going to sign up because I'm a smoker (and a geezer for Christ's sake) and would surely be more of a detriment than an asset. But that's just me. If I'm drafted, I'll serve.]
By the way, I'm really fucking pissed about what this is doing to our Marine Corps. Maybe I didn't make that clear...
A Glimpse into the Synagogue
I don't go to Synagogue because I'm not Jewish, but Eric Alterman does, and he shares this with us today:
I saw a marvelous movie the other night at Synagogue called “The Syrian Bride.” It was an Israeli film, released in 2004, about a Druze family on the Golan who must say goodbye to their daughter forever because she is marrying a Syrian. Once she crosses the “security zone,” she can never come back. Everybody in the place identified with the shame and hardships inflicted on these brave and proud people by the occupation—even though there was never any violence in the film. And yet in the very same room, weeks earlier, I felt like I would have been run out of town had I mentioned that Israel was killing innocent civilians for no good purpose. This sort of thing drives me crazy. Anyway, see the film if you can.
It drives me crazy too. And this is why I believe religion is hooey. I'm not sure anyone can ever convince me that all the good that religion does in this world is worth all the violence and destruction it causes. I'm pretty sure I won't see it in my lifetime, but I hope my son will see
The End of Faith in his.
Authoritarianism in America
Where are the new Conservative thinkers in America? I can't find them. I believe the whole project should be declared dead.
The only way conservative policies get adapted is by deceiving the public about their true intent, and when these policies fail, conservatives yell to the high heavens, "see, government doesn't work!". That's a pretty neat trick: destroy policies that will actually help the American people, and then piss and moan about how the government is incapable of helping anyone. Nice work if you can get it (I must admit, this not original thought at all. The evidence, however, is overwhelming).
The point here is, go read John Dean's new book:
Conservatives Without Conscience.
I hope to have much more on this soon...
Good for Israel?
Over at TPM Cafe, Josh Marshall asked
this question:
There are certainly a lot of other questions to ask about the invasion of Iraq. But because the 'Was It Good for Israel?' question is such a live on both for critics of Israel in the US and her staunchest defenders, I thought I'd return to it.
And basically along these lines, can any defender of this policy still claim with a straight face that the US invasion of Iraq hasn't been a pretty much unmitigated disaster for Israel?
I think the Israelis -- pretty much across the board -- understand that. Does the hawks in this country see that?
Here was my response:
I would argue that nothing the Bush administration has done from January 20th, 2001 on has been good for Israel.
From Day One, the anti-Clinton approach has yielded how many foreign policy successes in the Middle East (cue the crickets)?
If you look at where Cheney comes from, the whole approach seems to be: start all the wars and see who comes out clean on the other side. When you couple that with no understanding of the region whatsoever, then we're only right in the middle of this conflict. This Israel/Lebonan war is just a small blip in the "long war" Cheney keeps talking about.
I think it's pretty obvious where they think the end-game is, and that will only come with the resolution of many conflicts to come.
Isn't painfully obvious by now that it's war after war after war for this troupe, no matter how long it takes, and then things will magically shake out in America's favor? I can't discern any other way of thinking for this gang. And given that, isn't Israel's security just an afterthought?
We already know Cheney is contemplating air strikes on Iran. For me, hope of all hopes, that never comes to be. But if it does, do you think Cheney has Israel's security in mind? Or even the region's long-term stability?
When we all come to terms with the fact that when Cheney says he wants stability in the region, he actually means the opposite?
I've read all the hee-hee's and ha-ha's, and all the Orweillian comparisons, and guess what? I'm not fucking laughing anymore. Are you?
Yes, horrible form referencing my own writing, but I have a hard enough time posting stuff here.
Middle East Analysis
I'm no expert on the Middle East, but I have done quite a bit of reading on the subject. After all, I'm just a dummy with a blog. For some analysis I agree with, and I must say I don't agree with all of it, go check out
Billmon and
Juan Cole. Also, check out Eric Alterman's blog,
Altercation, on MSNBC.
There's plenty of stuff to chew on there, and you couldn't read smarter people on the subject.
Of the reams of stuff I've read recently on the subject, both good and bad, nothing comes closer to my view than Alterman's writing from July, 31st,
here:
It’s been a bad week for people —like George W. Bush— who seek to defend the Israeli invasion of Lebanon: an estimated 56 innocent people killed in one raid at Qana, most of them children, and then it refuses to hold to a mere 48 hour ceasefire allegedly hammered out by U.S. Secretary of State, demonstrating to the world that it will not be bound by its word, and that Bush is either a political weakling, a chump, or a liar. (“Why the false choice?” some might say?) The New York Times reported that Rice "wrung the first significant concession from Israel" but it was over before most people even picked up their paper off the sidewalk, here. That shouldn’t have surprised anyone, despite the credulous, pro-Bush reporting. "'There is no cease-fire,' a 'senior government source' told the newspaper Haaretz, adding, 'If they are associated with Hassan Nasrallah, we will hit them.'" And they weren’t kidding.Meanwhile, in addition to being a public relations catastrophe everywhere but the White House, the war is strengthening Hezbollah politically, as was predictable. The Lebanese prime minister, who the LAT notes has been no friend of Hezbollah's in the past, "'thanked' the Islamic militant group for its 'sacrifices'" and said: "We scream out to the world community to stand united in the face of Israel's war criminals."
The thing is, however horrific, it’s not going to change many people’s minds. It’s my experience that precious few people are actually interested in examining events related to Israel with an eye toward making an honest judgment. I found myself oddly depressed after dropping by synagogue on Saturday morning when a woman stood to ask the rabbi what she could say to her teenage daughter, who was watching the carnage on TV and could not understand how the mass killing of innocents could be justified. The Rabbi answered with nothing but bluster and bul**hit. Refusing to even engage the question, he trolled for applause from the congregation with chauvinistic argument that because the world had treated the Jews so badly for so many years, Israel should not be criticized no matter what it did. He even used the word "disproportionate" to refer to Palestinian attacks on Jews, when everyone knows that Israel has killed many, many more Palestinians than vice-versa since the conflict began. [*] It was the same old lugubrious interpretation of Jewish history that connects Pope Pius with Adolf Hitler with Hezbollah. The idea that the Israeli government might actually be mistaken in its judgments or that American Jews had the right to think for themselves, or that this (absent) young woman might actually have the right to ask a tough moral question about the behavior of the Jewish state was effectively ruled out of order. Many in the audience applauded. Another woman complained that “even Fox’s” coverage was unfair to Israel. A third blamed Hezbollah for putting its weapons in civilian areas. Nobody offered an ounce of evidence and none was demanded. It made me so angry I couldn’t even stay for the free food afterward. And remember, this took place in one of the most progressive areas in America. If Jews like this will never question Israeli behavior—even in a supportive manner that draws on mainstream opinion in Israel—then you can pretty much forget about it.
But people who oppose the invasion, save for a small minority, are not all that interested in evidence either as far as I can tell. MJ Rosenberg writes about the phenomenon here. The thing for me, however, is that nobody on the pro-Palestinian side of the equation understands the essential realist fact of this problem. There is never going to be any genuine statehood, or dignity, or peace or prosperity or even the opportunity to earn a decent living for the Palestinians unless they convince the Israeli public that they want to live alongside Israel in peace. There is no military option for the Palestinians save suicide. There is no possibility that the United States will ever “force” Israel to make peace. In the first place, I don’t know how you’d do it. In the second place, the Israel lobby is too powerful to let it happen and unwilling to challenge Israeli political leadership (except to undermine peace, as it did under Barak). That’s why anybody who does not attend to this essential fact is not doing the Palestinians any favors. And as long as the Palestinians have their present dysfunctional leadership crisis, as evidenced by their election of Hamas, no Israeli government can even imagine negotiating a peace agreement. That’s just commonsensical.
So therefore I don’t think the advertisement that appears in today’s Times signed by a bunch of pro-peace Jews is all that useful, since it does not address the inability of any Israeli government to make peace with these Hamas fanatics and corrupt Fatah-ists, particularly when they cannot make peace with themselves. And though I would have liked to—because I found their previous intervention so useful, I could not bring myself to sign this version of the "Open Letter from American Jews." In the first place, referring to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a “crime” is going to shut down most conversations with most supporters of Israel, however much they may also value peace and justice. In the second, whereas I agree that “Israel's ongoing occupation of Palestinian territories and massive human rights abuses against the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples are opposed by many Jews in Israel, the U.S., and throughout the world,” and that “attacks on civilians will not bring peace, security or justice to Palestinians, Israelis, or Jews anywhere,” every honest person must admit that these statements constitute at best, only half the story. The other, crucial half is that the Palestinians have given the Israeli public no indication at all that they are ready to live side by side with Israel. And if you ignore that, you’re ignoring the crux of the problem.
For me, the last point he makes is crucial. I'm going on retained writings here, but it's pretty well known that if Yassir Arafat had made
any agreements with Israel while the Clinton administration was making their drive towards a permanent solution, the Palestinian extremists would have murdered him as soon as he returned home. That points to an endless cycle of martyrdom and victimhood, of which there's always been plenty to spread around in that region of the world. Who is Israel supposed to negotiate with if that person, whomever that Palestinian may be, has an instant price on their head as soon as they touch down at home? And from their own people? I guess I just wanted to emphasize that portion of Eric's post. As for the rest, I couldn't agree more, and he's ten times the writer I'll ever be.
(As an aside, these are the same issues that brought war and tradgedy to Catholics and Protestants in Ireland and England
for centuries. Thankfully that waking nightmare is nearly over. I really can't see that being the case in the Middle East. In my son's lifetime, maybe.)
While I've never met Eric Alterman, he is an acclaimed author, scholar, journalist, and professor, and his writings paint the picture of a concerned and decent man, and man with a keen nose for bullshit and spin. I mention all this because he's been called some really vile and despicable names, and he's often misquoted and lumped in with other people that don't reflect any of his views. We as a nation ignore his words at our own peril.
A Nightmare Indeed
Via Josh Marshall, there's a
great op-ed from Ha'aretz today:
Ending the neoconservative nightmare
By Daniel Levy
Here's some snips to give you a taste:
In 1996 a group of then opposition U.S. policy agitators, including Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, presented a paper entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" to incoming Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The "clean break" was from the prevailing peace process, advocating that Israel pursue a combination of roll-back, destabilization and containment in the region, including striking at Syria and removing Saddam Hussein from power in favor of "Hashemite control in Iraq." The Israeli horse they backed then was not up to the task.
I've read the piece he notes here, and it's quite something. You can read a copy of it,
here. More from Levy:
The key neocon protagonists, their think tanks and publications may be unfamiliar to many Israelis, but they are redefining the region we live in. This tight-knit group of "defense intellectuals" - centered around Bill Kristol, Michael Ledeen, Elliott Abrams, Perle, Feith and others - were considered somewhat off-beat until they teamed up with hawkish well-connected Republicans like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Newt Gingrich, and with the emerging powerhouse of the Christian right. Their agenda was an aggressive unilateralist U.S. global supremacy, a radical vision of transformative regime-change democratization, with a fixation on the Middle East, an obsession with Iraq and an affinity to "old Likud" politics in Israel. Their extended moment in the sun arrived after 9/11.
Finding themselves somewhat bogged down in the Iraqi quagmire, the neoconservatives are reveling in the latest crisis, displaying their customary hubris in re-seizing the initiative. The U.S. press and blogosphere is awash with neocon-inspired calls for indefinite shooting, no talking and extension of hostilities to Syria and Iran, with Gingrich calling this a third world war to "defend civilization."
Disentangling Israeli interests from the rubble of neocon "creative destruction" in the Middle East has become an urgent challenge for Israeli policy-makers. An America that seeks to reshape the region through an unsophisticated mixture of bombs and ballots, devoid of local contextual understanding, alliance-building or redressing of grievances, ultimately undermines both itself and Israel. The sight this week of Secretary of State Rice homeward bound, unable to touch down in any Arab capital, should have a sobering effect in Washington and Jerusalem.
Here's the main point (at least I think so):
Israel does have enemies, interests and security imperatives, but there is no logic in the country volunteering itself for the frontline of an ideologically misguided and avoidable war of civilizations.
No logic whatsoever. But that's what Kristol, Krauthammer, Kagan, Perle, Feith, Wurmser, and Abrams want (there are others as well). And by extension, so do Cheney and Rumsfeld. This insanity must end, and these neoconservatives must not only be stopped, but shown the door permanently. Go check out the
rest...
Flowers For Algernon
Or something.
Charlie Sausagepants, the resident neoconservative yarn-spinner at the Washington Post, wrote
this today in his column titled "Isreal's Lost Moment":
America's green light for Israel to defend itself is seen as a favor to Israel. But that is a tendentious, misleadingly partial analysis. The green light -- indeed, the encouragement -- is also an act of clear self-interest. America wants, America needs, a decisive Hezbollah defeat.
See how easy that was? To Chuck it's always America=Israel, and Israel=America. He really meant "America's Lost Moment". More:
What have you done for me lately? There is fierce debate in the United States about whether, in the post-Sept. 11 world, Israel is a net asset or liability. Hezbollah's unprovoked attack on July 12 provided Israel the extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate its utility by making a major contribution to America's war on terrorism.
You could swap Israel for America in the text above and not lose any meaning, or steam, to chug Charlie's engine. They are one in the same, and by God, if the 51st State needs defending, Charlie's here to serve.
The respected Billmon snipped a different
bit from Charlie's column. And I agree there too. As for me, the descendant of an original American settler, a humble Menonite Bishop, I feel I have sufficient station to tell Chuck to go fuck himself. It may come as a shock to his system, but the fact is the U.S. doesn't need Israel. For anything. Who's leading whom by the nose hairs here?
Let's check in with
William Kristol from the Weekly Standard. He's the neoconservative on Fox News Sunday every week:
Anti-War, Anti-Israel, Anti-Joe
Really? So if I opposed the Iraq War, from the beginning, and I live in Connect-The-Dots, I'm Anti-Israel. Wow. That was news to me.
But at least we have a president who knows we are at war with jihadist Islam. And he is willing to stake his presidency on that fight, and to support others, like Israel, who are in the same fight.
For Charlie, and William Kristol and a host of others, Israel's emergencies are always America's. To them, action must be taken
now. To wait is to "appease". Neoconservatives always view yesterday as "the lost moment", and it never matters which yesterday that might be. Ask
Andrew Bacevich.
Israel shouldn't be a client state of the U.S., but it sure as fuck is, and it's about time to cut the ties. Americans piss and moan about the amount of foreign aid that goes out every year in the form of taxpayer dollars, but 3 billion a year to Israel sure isn't buying us much security. The path to peace and security for Jerusalem runs through Baghdad? I don't fucking think so...
