Posted on 07/25/2006 1:40:24 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
The old adage, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" does not apply to Americans, who have shown that they can be endlessly fooled.
Neoconservatives deceived Americans into an illegal attack and debilitating war in Iraq. American neoconservatives are closely allied with Israel's Likud Party.
In the past, some neocons lost their security clearances because of "mishandling" of classified information. According to Insight Magazine (online version, June 26, 2006), "the Pentagon has banned security clearance to Americans with relatives in Israel. Government sources and attorneys said the Pentagon has sought and succeeded in removing security clearance from dozens of Americans, mostly Jews, who either lived, worked or have relatives in Israel."
Despite questions of dual loyalties, neocons hold high positions in the Bush regime. Ten years ago these architects of American foreign and military policy spelled out how they would use deception to achieve "important Israeli strategic objectives" in the Middle East.
First, they would focus "on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." This would open the door for Israel to provoke attacks from Hezbollah.
The attacks would let Israel gain American sympathy and permit Israel to seize the strategic initiative by "engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon."
Today, this neoconservative plan is unfolding before our eyes.
Israel has used the capture of two of its soldiers in Lebanon as an excuse for an all-out air and naval bombardment against Lebanese civilian targets. However, a number of commentators have pointed out that such a massive attack requires weeks if not months of preparation that could not be done overnight in response to the capture of the soldiers.
Regardless, in the first two days of the Israeli military attack on Lebanon more than a hundred civilians, including Canadians, have been killed by Israeli bombs (gifts from U.S. taxpayers).
The International Airport in Beruit has been repeatedly bombed, as have residential neighborhoods, roads, bridges, ports, and power stations.
Soldiers are a legitimate military target. Civilians, civilian neighborhoods, tourists, and international airports are not. Under the Nuremberg standard used to sentence Nazi war criminals to death, the Israeli government is clearly guilty of war crimes.
Meanwhile the Israelis are committing identical war crimes in Gaza.
Again Israel's excuse is the capture of an Israeli soldier. However, the distinguished Israeli professor, Ran HaCohen, said that the Israeli army "had been demanding a massive attack on Gaza long before the Israeli soldier was kidnapped."
By blocking U.N. Security Council action against Israel for its massacre of civilians in Gaza, the Bush regime has made itself complicit in these monstrous war crimes. Just as Germans who supported Hitler were deemed to be complicit in his war crimes, Americans who support Bush are complicit in Bush's war crimes.
Hezbollah is not the Lebanese government. It does not rule Lebanon. Hezbollah is the militia organization founded in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah defeated the Israeli army and drove out the Israeli invaders six years ago.
According to the BBC, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nassrallah said that the two Israeli soldiers "were captured to pressure Israel to release the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in its jails," especially the women and children.
The BBC also notes that although Hezbollah operates "from Lebanese territory and the militant group has two ministers in the Lebanese government, central government is almost powerless to influence the militant group." (Note that the BBC applies the loaded word "militant" to Hezbollah but not to Israel.) Hezbollah, reports the BBC, "is also very popular in Lebanon and highly respected for its political activities, social services, and its military record against Israel."
The prime minister of Lebanon, who was installed with President Bush's approval when Syria, under Bush's pressure, recently withdrew its troops from Lebanon, has twice appealed to Bush to pressure Israel to stop its criminal attacks.
Our great moral democratic Christian leader has twice rebuffed the appeal from the legal representative of the Lebanese people.
Instead, Bush is willingly going along with the 1996 neocon script. Bush is laying the blame on Syria and Iran, exactly as the neocon script calls for him to do.
When Bush demands that Syria "stop Hezbollah attacks," he forgets that he was the one who forced Syria out of Lebanon (to enable Israel to attack Lebanon). If Americans were attentive, they would be ashamed to witness "their" president as Israeli propagandist.
Fox "news," CNN, and the rest of the Bush propaganda ministry are echoing the lie that innocent Israel is under attack from the "terrorist states" of Syria and Iran through their surrogate, Hezbollah. Americans, who are sick of the Iraq occupation and want the troops home, are being fooled again and set up for wider war in the Middle East.
Evangelical "Christians" are part of the propaganda show. Three thousand of them under the lead of the Rev. John C. Hagee, are heading to Washington for a "Washington/Israel summit" to demand, needlessly, that the neocon Bush regime show "stronger support for Israel."
It is difficult to see how Bush could show any stronger support without using the U.S. military to assist Israel in its attacks, which is, of course, what the "Christian" Rev. Hagee intends when he declares: "There's a new Hitler in the Middle East [he doesn't mean Bush or Olmert]. The only way he will be stopped will be by a pre-emptive military strike in Iran."
Present at Rev. Hagee's "Washington/Israel Summit" will be Israel's former Minister of Defense, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon, and the Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, along with Republican Sens. Sam Brownback and Rick Santorum and the Rev. Jerry Falwell and Gary Bauer.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the most powerful lobby in Washington, expressed its thanks to Rev. Hagee for demonstrating "the depth and breadth of American support" for Israel.
Recently, AIPAC has been under investigation as a suspected nest for Israeli spies.
David Brog, former chief of staff for Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, has gone to work for Rev. Hagee. Brog, who is Jewish, says he works for Hagee's evangelical enterprise because "we're bringing into a pro-Israel camp millions of Christians who love Israel and giving them a political voice. Israel's enemies are our enemies, and this group instinctively understands that."
Brog goes on to say that Hagee's evangelicals understand that they are not supposed to talk about Jesus, only about saving Israel: "Christians who work with Jews in supporting Israel realize how sensitive we are in talking about Jesus. They realize it will interfere with what they are trying to do."
Gentle reader, is this an admission that evangelicals have set aside Jesus for war? Do these bloody-minded evangelicals really believe they will be wafted to Heaven for helping Israel involve the United States in more war?
Have evangelicals forgotten that "an eye for an eye" is Old Testament? "Turn the other cheek" is New Testament.
On July 14, Reuters reported that alone among Christians, the "Vatican condemns Israel for attacks on Lebanon."
Whose delusion is the greatest - the evangelical "rapture" delusion, the neocon delusion about American power, or the Zionist delusion? The three together mean disaster for America, Israel and the world.
One of the great evangelical/Zionist/neocon myths is that "tiny Israel" armed with 200 nuclear weapons is threatened by Muslim Middle Eastern countries.
In actual fact, Egypt and Pakistan, which have the bulk of the Middle Eastern Muslim population, are ruled by American puppets. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates are totally dependent on U.S. protection and, thereby, are also under the American thumb.
Iran is Persian, not Arab, and has no common borders with Israel. Hezbollah was created when Israel tried to seize Lebanon in 1982. Hamas is a Palestinian response to the atrocities Palestinians have suffered for a half century at Israel's hands.
Israel's land-stealing policy is the source of Middle Eastern instability. America is hated because American money and weapons are what enable Israel to steal Palestine from Palestinians.
As numerous Middle East experts have pointed out, what is decried as "Arab terrorism against Israel" is, in fact, the only tactic Muslims have for calling the world's attention to the plight of the Palestinians, about which Americans are generally ignorant.
It is absurd for Bush to condemn Syria for not behaving as an American puppet and for not fighting Israel's battles by taking on Hezbollah.
Syria and Iran (and Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion) are the only Middle Eastern countries independent of American control. It is far beyond the boundaries of reason and morality to expect these two remaining independent countries to give up their independence in order to enable Israel to steal Palestine and southern Lebanon.
It is the refusal of Syria and Iran (and Hussein's Iraq) to stand with Israel against Palestine that has targeted them for American attack. Neocons have total control of U.S. foreign policy in the Bush regime, and they have morphed U.S. strategic interests into Israel's.
As the neoconservative architects of Bush's wars revealed in 1996, their concern lies with "Israeli strategic objectives."
COPYRIGHT 2006 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
I can't believe this guy used to be Undersecretary of the Treasury. How'd he swing that?
PCR believes there was a govt conspiracy to blow up the WTC.
Ah, the "plight of the Palatinians". You know there are only two countires on Earth where Palastinians can vote. The United States....and Israel.
And what about NewsMax? Aren't editors supposed to catch that sort of thing, take the author aside, and whisper something? Anything? How about the folks at Creators Syndicate? Don't they have a vested interest in inspecting their product?
Does he really? Why, then, isn't he confided to some hot dingy fly-infested mobile home to write his sweaty little screeds in his underwear?
In the proper hands, this campaign could result in not only great stability for the area, but a major defeat for Iran.
First of all, southern, and even eastern Lebanon needs an army of occupation to insure that Hezbollah stays out and the Lebanese government asserts control--but not so unacceptable to the Shiites that they launch another civil war.
The answer to this is either or both an Egyptian and/or Jordanian army (Sunni) occupation force.
Both are at peace with Israel. Both nations are disturbed at the Iranian/Syrian/Shiite efforts in the area. Both are disturbed by the "conversion" of Iraq from Sunni to Shiite.
And both nations have reputations of managing Shiite minorities without abusing them too much.
On top of that, Syria is ruled by the Alawite Shiite sect that is only 10% of the population (about the same as the 10% that is Christian.) They rule over Sunni Arabs and Kurds. Both Egypt and Jordan would be thrilled if Syria became majority ruled. And that would be the end of Syrian friendship with Iran.
So what is the bottom line? The Paleos would be cut off from most of their arms supplies. The Sunnis of the region would be happy and peaceful. Israel would no longer be attacked from Lebanon or maybe Syria, too. Iran would be locked out and lose its only major ally.
- "My Epiphany" Paul Craig Roberts, February 2, 2006.
Complete and utter raving lunatic.
He's not a member of the looney left, he's a libertarian.
I stand corrected but don't tell me he isn't looney. :-)
CNN, and the rest of the Bush propaganda ministry are echoing the lie that innocent Israel is under attack from the "terrorist states" of Syria and Iran through their surrogate, Hezbollah.
bwhhaahahahahahahahahah
CNN spins for Bush
hahahahahahahahahahaha
The question’s been asked more than once, as far as I know without an answer.
In retrospect, I gave Roberts too much credence when he was a conservative. He would show how every wiggle in the economy was the result of this or that tax cut or rise. He took every anti-Clinton story as gospel truth including stuff that had very little evidence.
Back then, Roberts was saying what I wanted to hear, so I didn't take the time to place his ideas in a critical light. But now having seen the other side of Roberts, I look back on his old columns and realize that his arguments were usually pretty weak.
So many words, so little time. It's not so much what he says, as what he neglects to say.
Saying that a libertarian is looney is redundant.
Thank you, I think.
Yes Carl, I'm still wondering why you won't answer this simple question: Why is Paul Craig Roberts allowed to commit treason with the cooperation of your website? Grow a pair and come answer, would you?
Below is my post from the thread where PCR proclaimed America to be a terror-sponsoring state and also blamed us for killing 500,000 Iraqi children. I've included it for context.
Could you please come over here and explain why your website is being used to transmit this treasonous bilge?Imagine if in 1945 the NYT had reported on how many GIs were being prosecuted for raping civilians in the European theater, and then blamed FDR for the rapes, called him a rapist (after all, poor Germany would have left us alone if he hadn't cozied up to Britain so much) and said he was the same as Hitler.
I don't see any difference between Roberts' comments here and that scenario. I also don't see how the Commander in Chief could be a terrorist but the troops under his command aren't. In other words, Mister Roberts is saying my nephew and my friends are terrorists, and he's doing it on your dime.
Don't give me any jazz about "Free Speech" or tell me how patriotic you are. NewsMax is a private enterprise that gets to decide what content it carries, and one of your columnists is giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Give me a reason any conservative, or any other patriotic American, should ever visit NewsMax again. Tell me why your site should not dry up from lack of traffic and die with a whimper because of this treason.
Anyone who voluntarily associates with treasonous filth like Roberts doesn't deserve the support of patriotic Americans.
You're too kind.
New tagline.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.