Posted on 05/24/2004 7:23:03 PM PDT by SJackson
Senior Jewish Pentagon officials have come under attack from former special US envoy to the Middle East, General Anthony Zinni, in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview to be broadcasted Monday night.
Although Israelis remember Zinni as Secretary of State Colin Powell's would-be broker of an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, he served before that as commander-in-chief of the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000 and was in charge of all US troops in the Middle East.
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Zinni has recently become a major critic of the Bush administration's Iraqi war, specifically the Pentagon's failure to advise the President properly.
"There has been poor strategic thinking in this," Zinni said. "There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to 'stay the course'; the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure."
Zinni specifically aimed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, National Security Council member Eliot Abrams, and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby - a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" whom he claims saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel.
"I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington - has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do," says Zinni.
"Because I mentioned the neo-conservatives, who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, it's unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested."
Zinni said he believed their strategy was to change the Middle East and bring it into the 21st century.
"All sounds very good, all very noble. The trouble is the way they saw to go about this is unilateral aggressive intervention by the United States - the take down of Iraq as a priority," Zinni added. "And what we have become now in the United States, how we're viewed in this region is not an entity that's promising positive change. We are now being viewed as the modern crusaders, as the modern colonial power in that part of the world."
Zinni said Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz should accept responsibility for the Iraqi impasse and resign. "60 Minutes" said Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz had declined a request to respond to Zinni's remarks.
Several days ago, Senator Ernest Hollins accused President Bush of embarking on the Iraqi war to buy the Jewish vote. In a speech to the sentae last week, Hollins refused to retract his words and attacked the Jewish lobby AIPAC.
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No. They have a different type of voter in mind.
This is the schmuck whom Bush appointed as his envoy to deal with the problem with the so-called palis and Israel, right?
Yes. Scum.
by their own definition and identification. Which the Paleos can endlessly tell you about in reliving their ideological turf battles of the 70's and 80's.
However now it is 95% a code word for "jew." For example, Wolfowitz, a self-identified liberal democrat, is called a "neo con".
Just think, no one asks these fold if they are a "neocon". The bigoted slant would be deflated.
I got it this time!!!!! Sometimes I are just a little slow....
Bingo.
I have no respect for a military person who dishonors their uniform and sells out their troops for political purposes (USS Cole).
Why is this moron serving in this administration?
S'okay; we're cool. :)
Diversity quotas.
:)
I think it was Mark Steyn who defined "neo-con" as word derived from the abbreviations "con," meaning "conservative," and "neo," meaning "Jewish."
A neoCon is a conservative who is not antiSemitic.
Not to a majority by any stretch. Maybe a few percentage points.
But I believe in incrementalism.
After all, as entrenched as some segments of society are in their voting habits, any swing to the right side of the aisle should be considered a victory.
With Jessie Jackson/Farakhan/Hollings/Byrd/McKinney/JimMoran/Zinni and countless others (Check out DemocratUnderground) blaming Israel and (by default) American Jews for terrorism, it's hard to imagine that the tide will not begin to move eventually.
What's so important about Jewish votes? The Jewish population of the US is about 2.5%, and if we have a one-vote-one-person democracy, then numbers count for what they are. Unless, of course, we have some other factors obscured by the phrase "Jewish vote."
Allegations by right-wing extremists and anti-Semitic organizations about Jewish "control" of the media, politics, etc. in America are steadfastly discarded and denied by public officials and the media.
I believe that they are ill-founded allegations and that they are false and sinister. By the same token, I also believe that the jewish vote counts no more than 2.5% of the total vote and that makes it less than the importance some tend to assign it.
What exactly are you implying?
Have you ever been to Israel? Didn't think so.
I respect Dhimmicrats like Zell Miller and Ed Koch, but they are very rare men.
I have no respect for a military person who dishonors their uniform and sells out their troops for political purposes (USS Cole).
Amen.
It's a malleable term. Given some theories, every senator who voted for the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 could be a "neocon." Including Kerry.
LOL! Just FReepmail me all your best collected tidbits, all at once; it'll make stealing it that much easier for me, really. :)
Sorry, I'm too busy stealing them myself. ;-)
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