Addressing the Israel lobby.....

[calitennis127]

Here are two good articles from Justin Raimondo and Michael Scheuer concerning the pernicious influence of organizations such as AIPAC on American foreign policy.

This throws a little bit of a monkey wrench in Britbox's contention that everything the U.S. does in the Middle East is oil-driven:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2014/11/23/israel-americas-biggest-frenemy/

http://non-intervention.com/

 

[britbox]

I didn't say everything the US does in the US is purely oil driven. I said every war is conducted on behalf of big business or for geopolitics as opposed to spreading democracy or humanitarian reasons. Oil fits into it like a glove but it's not the ONLY reason.

Certain lobby groups do have extensive disproportianate power over politicians... but ask yourself why? They fund a lot of US politicians and/or have control of business interests that (i.e. in the Jewish fraternity - media and banking, in particular) that have have a huge influence over the populace.

 

[britbox]

...and until elected officials start acting on behalf of the people of the United States of America before lobby groups and business you will be forever locked into perpetual war.

 

[DarthFed]

funny how anytime someone wants to complain about lobbyists they point to the Jewish one. AIPAC's funding amounts are miniscule compared to lobby groups like the NRA, and on top of that, a heavy majority of Americans have views consistent with AIPAC's. if you want to see the power of a lobby, look at the fact that 90% of Americans support limits on the number of bullets in a clip and the inability of Congress to address it.

also, Israel is hardly the only Middle Eastern group that lobbies in this country. the Saudis spend a ton, and other countries like Qatar fund think tanks that naturally put out pieces in support of their funders http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=0

 

[calitennis127]

funny how anytime someone wants to complain about lobbyists they point to the Jewish one. AIPAC's funding amounts are miniscule compared to lobby groups like the NRA, and on top of that, a heavy majority of Americans have views consistent with AIPAC's. if you want to see the power of a lobby, look at the fact that 90% of Americans support limits on the number of bullets in a clip and the inability of Congress to address it.

also, Israel is hardly the only Middle Eastern group that lobbies in this country. the Saudis spend a ton, and other countries like Qatar fund think tanks that naturally put out pieces in support of their funders http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/us/politics/foreign-powers-buy-influence-at-think-tanks.html?_r=0

I agree on the Saudi lobby, but Scheuer has repeatedly said that both the Israelis and Saudis dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East. Can you say that he is wrong about that?

 

[calitennis127]

I didn't say everything the US does in the US is purely oil driven. I said every war is conducted on behalf of big business or for geopolitics as opposed to spreading democracy or humanitarian reasons.

I disagree. I really do think that the Bush and Obama administrations have been heavily ideological in their actions and statements. The Bush administration really did believe that it could pull of a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

I didn't say everything the US does in the US is purely oil driven. I said every war is conducted on behalf of big business or for geopolitics as opposed to spreading democracy or humanitarian reasons.

I disagree. I really do think that the Bush and Obama administrations have been heavily ideological in their actions and statements. The Bush administration really did believe that it could pull of a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

Wow...if that is the case, he was a bigger idiot than I thought.

 

[calitennis127]

I didn't say everything the US does in the US is purely oil driven. I said every war is conducted on behalf of big business or for geopolitics as opposed to spreading democracy or humanitarian reasons.

I disagree. I really do think that the Bush and Obama administrations have been heavily ideological in their actions and statements. The Bush administration really did believe that it could pull of a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

Wow...if that is the case, he was a bigger idiot than I thought.

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

 

[Riotbeard]

I disagree. I really do think that the Bush and Obama administrations have been heavily ideological in their actions and statements. The Bush administration really did believe that it could pull of a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

Wow...if that is the case, he was a bigger idiot than I thought.

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

You can't just say Bush is a revolutionary leftist. It doesn't make any sense or jive with any mainstream definition of leftism. How do you keep roping me in Cali :ras:

 

[calitennis127]

Wow...if that is the case, he was a bigger idiot than I thought.

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

You can't just say Bush is a revolutionary leftist. It doesn't make any sense or jive with any mainstream definition of leftism. How do you keep roping me in Cali :ras:

On foreign policy, he absolutely was. Everything he said was directly in line with Woodrow Wilson. Examine his speeches.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

You can't just say Bush is a revolutionary leftist. It doesn't make any sense or jive with any mainstream definition of leftism. How do you keep roping me in Cali :ras:

On foreign policy, he absolutely was. Everything he said was directly in line with Woodrow Wilson. Examine his speeches.

Like when he said "God is on our side"?

 

[Riotbeard]

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

You can't just say Bush is a revolutionary leftist. It doesn't make any sense or jive with any mainstream definition of leftism. How do you keep roping me in Cali :ras:

On foreign policy, he absolutely was. Everything he said was directly in line with Woodrow Wilson. Examine his speeches.

Since when was Woodrow Wilson a leftist? It would be one thing if you could find one to one correlations between Eugene V. Debs and Bush... Here is a leftist foreign policy speech from the World War I era: http://gos.sbc.edu/k/keller.html

 

[CanIHaveYourRaquetErnie?]

I agree on the Saudi lobby, but Scheuer has repeatedly said that both the Israelis and Saudis dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East. Can you say that he is wrong about that?

I can absolutely say that is wrong. look at the Obama administration's stances on Israel over the past 6 years. Obama literally cut off missile shipments to Israel during the middle of its fighting in Gaza last summer. Nothing about it suggests Obama is being dictated to, certainly not by a country run by Netanyahu. As for Saudi Arabia, they're so angry about direction of the ongoing diplomatic track with Iran that they've vented about America in public.

The fact of the matter is American foreign policy is the way it is because of majority support, especially for Israel. Instead of simply accepting that Americans' broad support of Israel helps ensure politicians' broad support of Israel, people have to revert to conspiracy theories involving lobbyists.

 

[calitennis127]

I agree on the Saudi lobby, but Scheuer has repeatedly said that both the Israelis and Saudis dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East. Can you say that he is wrong about that?

I can absolutely say that is wrong. look at the Obama administration's stances on Israel over the past 6 years. Obama literally cut off missile shipments to Israel during the middle of its fighting in Gaza last summer. Nothing about it suggests Obama is being dictated to, certainly not by a country run by Netanyahu. As for Saudi Arabia, they're so angry about direction of the ongoing diplomatic track with Iran that they've vented about America in public.

The fact of the matter is American foreign policy is the way it is because of majority support, especially for Israel. Instead of simply accepting that Americans' broad support of Israel helps ensure politicians' broad support of Israel, people have to revert to conspiracy theories involving lobbyists.

What you say is true, but it hardly accounts for the entire picture. The Israelis always wanted war with Saddam, as did the Saudis. And that was a pretty significant decision, was it not?

 

[calitennis127]

You can't just say Bush is a revolutionary leftist. It doesn't make any sense or jive with any mainstream definition of leftism. How do you keep roping me in Cali :ras:

On foreign policy, he absolutely was. Everything he said was directly in line with Woodrow Wilson. Examine his speeches.

Like when he said "God is on our side"?

What president doesn't say something about God being on the side of the good guys? Why is that such a big deal?

I think the overwhelming content of Bush's words should be given more weight than a couple platitudes about how God supposedly loves the United States more than any other country.

 

[britbox]

I disagree. I really do think that the Bush and Obama administrations have been heavily ideological in their actions and statements. The Bush administration really did believe that it could pull of a democratic revolution in the Middle East.

Wow...if that is the case, he was a bigger idiot than I thought.

Don't believe me? Read this gem of a speech given in 2005 to the "National Endowment for Democracy". This is one of my favorites from Bush, for shear comedy. It came straight out of the mind of the little Yale poseur-boy David Frum, which shows just how much the educational standards of the West have collapsed in the last 50 years.

Broken should really read this so that he doesn't make the silly assertion that Bush was some kind of Christian militant anymore. This speech is pure Jacobinism. Bush was a revolutionary leftist, albeit not quite on the same intellectual level as many of his predecessors in that regard:

http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com/speeches/10.06.05.html

Don't equate what a politician says with why he acts out a certain scenario. The "says" part is a sales pitch to the populace and the "doing part" is acting out the wishes of puppet masters - namely big business and lobby groups who fund these people.

 

[CanIHaveYourRaquetErnie?]

What you say is true, but it hardly accounts for the entire picture. The Israelis always wanted war with Saddam, as did the Saudis. And that was a pretty significant decision, was it not?

I don't know why you think the Israelis always wanted war with Saddam. Aside from destroying the nuclear reactor Iraq was building at Osirik in 1981, Israel never targeted Iraq, even when Saddam lobbed Scud missiles at Israel during the First Gulf War. Israel didn't participate in either Gulf War, and while they had a general interest in removing a threat that Western intelligence agencies believed Saddam posed with WMDs, they had no greater dog in the fight than any of the actual countries involved in the coalition. In fact, the country that stood most to gain from Saddam's removal was Iran, which had already fought a major war with Iraq in the '80s and wanted a majority Shiite state freed from Saddam's Ba'athists.

 

[calitennis127]

What you say is true, but it hardly accounts for the entire picture. The Israelis always wanted war with Saddam, as did the Saudis. And that was a pretty significant decision, was it not?

I don't know why you think the Israelis always wanted war with Saddam. Aside from destroying the nuclear reactor Iraq was building at Osirik in 1981, Israel never targeted Iraq, even when Saddam lobbed Scud missiles at Israel during the First Gulf War. Israel didn't participate in either Gulf War, and while they had a general interest in removing a threat that Western intelligence agencies believed Saddam posed with WMDs, they had no greater dog in the fight than any of the actual countries involved in the coalition. In fact, the country that stood most to gain from Saddam's removal was Iran, which had already fought a major war with Iraq in the '80s and wanted a majority Shiite state freed from Saddam's Ba'athists.

All good points, but Saddam did once declare himself "The New Nebuchednezzar" for a reason.

Why do you think Wolfowitz and Perle - two undisputed Likudniks through and through - wanted war with Iraq so badly?

 

[CanIHaveYourRaquetErnie?]

Why do you think Wolfowitz and Perle - two undisputed Likudniks through and through - wanted war with Iraq so badly?

I love how people pick out two Jews in the Dept. of Defense and hold them out as the ones responsible for the invasion of Iraq. Last I checked, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were their bosses and are ultimately the ones to blame for the war, but since they're not Jews, somehow it's the two Jewish assistants Wolfowitz and Perle who are responsible for the invasion.

I already explained to you why the Republican administration and its allies wanted war with Iraq so badly. Western intelligence agencies were convinced Saddam had reconstituted his WMD programs, and there was a sense of unfinished business when the Coalition didn't invade Iraq during the first gulf war. By claiming Wolfowitz and Perle supported neocon positions only because they were Likudniks, you are essentially accusing them of being more loyal to Israel than their own country, a typical anti-Semitic trope. Believe it or not, it was possible for people to think the Iraq war benefited America regardless of their support of Israel.

Also, the Coalition involved dozens of countries. Was Tony Blair a Likudnik doing Israel's bidding too? Same with the Aussies?

 

[calitennis127]

Why do you think Wolfowitz and Perle - two undisputed Likudniks through and through - wanted war with Iraq so badly?

I love how people pick out two Jews in the Dept. of Defense and hold them out as the ones responsible for the invasion of Iraq. Last I checked, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld were their bosses and are ultimately the ones to blame for the war, but since they're not Jews, somehow it's the two Jewish assistants Wolfowitz and Perle who are responsible for the invasion.

When did I ever say that they were the only ones to blame? They had a part in it but so did others.

I already explained to you why the Republican administration and its allies wanted war with Iraq so badly. Western intelligence agencies were convinced Saddam had reconstituted his WMD programs, and there was a sense of unfinished business when the Coalition didn't invade Iraq during the first gulf war.

In 2000, Bush said during his campaign that he wanted America to act on a more "humble foreign policy". Then 9/11 happened, and suddenly he became very interested in Iraq again. Why was that? Because he had no clue how to handle the situation and keener minds than his began to influence him. He felt that he had to do something, so he felt some kind of military action was necessary. Saddam was an easy target because he had long been vilified. And the fact is, Wolfowitz and Perle played a major role in the U.S. going to war against Iraq. They did not account for the entire reason that the U.S. went to war, but they certainly played a role in it. No one is saying they are the entire problem, but they are certainly part of it.

You also are conveniently omitting how Bush was influenced by the book of Israeli politician Natan Sharansky called "The Case for Democracy". I believe it was perhaps the second book Bush had read in his life, and it made him convinced that the world worked a certain way. The Iraqi people just needed to vote to be happy, according to Sharansky and Bush. So Bush invaded Iraq and helped the enlightened Shia women dip their fingertips in the voting ink, which is what has helped Iraq become the modern paradise that it is. Thanks Natan for your profound political philosophy!

By claiming Wolfowitz and Perle supported neocon positions only because they were Likudniks, you are essentially accusing them of being more loyal to Israel than their own country, a typical anti-Semitic trope.

Which you do not disprove by simply hurling an epithet at it.

Look, just like the Jewish historian Peter Nozick (University of Chicago) pointed out with his excellent book in 2001, the fact that the Holocaust happened doesn't make people of Jewish ancestry perfect human beings who can't be criticized of bias or wrongdoing. How much sense would it make if Novak Djokovic said "hey, tens of thousands of my co-religionists were murdered by the Soviets, please don't accuse me of being pro-Serbian or pro-Orthodox. That is just so low and primitive of you. Please don't go there."

Nowadays, if you accuse a Jewish person of having loyalties to their own people, you are somehow an anti-Semite. So I guess the logic there is that if you say that a person is loyal to a group they belong to, then you are a bigot. That really waters down the negative connotations, doesn't it?

Also, the Coalition involved dozens of countries. Was Tony Blair a Likudnik doing Israel's bidding too? Same with the Aussies?

I have never argued that the Israel lobby is the entire problem with American foreign policy. I do believe though that it has a highly deleterious influence. What other country has a lobby group in D.C. (i.e. AIPAC) that can get a foreign prime minister to speak to Congress and tell the president what he should do like Netanyahu just did?