Quote of the Century:
The quote below was sent to me by Nels Cook, a Finn fluent in English, son of a former colleague of mine (and Nancy’s) from our Finland days. I am hoping that he will consider writing a monthly column for this blog as his emails from Tallinn and Helsinki are filled with both historical and contemporary political wisdom, and furthermore are quite funny, a hard combination to achieve.
Concerning the quote of the century, there really are two from World War II that are up there for contention. There is the famous one by Rev. Neimoller about how first `they’ (choose your own `they’ – Bush, the Nazis, the FBI etc) came for the trade unionists and communists but no one did anything until, left all alone, he was easy to pick off.. ie – the best brief synopsis for why, what the old left used to call a `united front’, – people finding common political ground despite their differences – still resonates in a certain way.
Hermann Goering, WW 1 German flying ace, drug addict, thug extraordinaire and Hitler’s designated successor and commander of the Luffwaffe (Nazi Air Force) was condemned to death by the Nuremburg Trials. Instead he took the easy way out and committed suicide by swallowing cyanide pills the night he was to be hung. The quote below was from his trial. It rings true today. Obviously. Thanks Nels.
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1. `Corn Fed White Boys’
An interesting time in Denver some six weeks before the national Democratic Party Convention in late August, an event which Mayor Hickenlooper has described as `the most significant political event in the city’s history’. Perhaps. I do know that a number of my friends abroad are watching our presidential contests closely and have expressed frustration that they cannot vote in the our presidential elections and that if they could vote – from the Middle East, Belgium, France and Spain, have made it clear, and repeatedly – that they’d support Barack Obama..
Still, Blackhawk helicopters – even I can recognize them – fly overhead doing `exercises’ and it is rumored by some people in the peace movement that lots to hold large numbers of arrestees are being put together – although city officials deny that such things are in the offing. But since it appears most of the security for the convention is directed by different federal agencies who essentially take over the direction of local police forces, the city officials might be in some ways out of the loop. Strange phone calls on my cell phone (and those of friends) are becoming more frequent – as are a fair amount of racist text messages that are also increasing in number.
A number of us, for all practical purposes `out of the loup’ so to speak of the hard core protest organizing, have been followed around by unsavory types in s.u.v.s carrying walkie talkies, many of whom turn out to be, in the poetic words of one of my friends, `corn fed white boys’ – either working directly for one of the myriad of intelligence agencies that have swarmed into town, or hired on by the new private firms – Blackwater Lite – to follow us around.
Another indication of what lies ahead happened yesterday, when Carol Kreck, a 60 year old demonstrator, family friend and former Denver Post crime reporter was given a citation for trespassing on public property where she was protesting the visit of John McCain in Denver. (for the video of the incident click here). Kreck’s sign read McCain=Bush. For this she was arrested by the Denver Police – at the request of McCain’s staff – and forced to leave the premises of the city owned Denver Convention Center. Bob Ewegen, Cold War Dem current columnist for the Post whose been known to tip a few – writes well but has long been something of an intellectual bully (never got over his stint in the Marines) especially where it concerns anything lef of center, had to add his two cents about Kreck in one of his columns letting the public know that Kreck is not just a `sweet little librarian’ but a `pretty tough customer’ – as if that should circumscribe her free speech rights.
If `they’ are following my narrowing circle of burnt out obsolete leftist friends (speaking only of myself of course) and arresting a gentle soul like Kreck exercizing her democratic rights, imagine the amount of attention that is being given to those actually organizing protest events in their different well worn ways (spies, infitrators, taps, provocateurs, etc.)
These unsavory snoops, spend alot of time hanging in the vicinity the American Friends Service Committe office – which I would imagine ranks up there along with Common Grounds Coffee Shop in NW Denver – as one of the most bugged pieces of real estate in the nation for the next six weeks. They have been noticed sitting slouched in their air conditioned cars, motors running, walkie talkie in hand, reporting to some higher authority of the comings and goings at AFSC. One of the these gentlemen was noticed by one of my friends, who in a pre-emtive peace strike, – and to the great dismay of the intelligence trainee involved – took down the good man’s license plate number. A check with the local motor vehicle bureau resulted in the response that `the license plate no doesn’t exist’….but perhaps it does all the same. In another similar incident, another friend noticed that someone – in another s.u.v. – appeared to be following her. An enterprising type, she pulled over, let the car pass and proceeded to follow it – once again to the dismay of its driver – to a Denver police parking lot.
2. Obama: Waltzing To The Center-Right?
I expect that, despite all the media attention to probably protest demonstrations, the main action here in Denver will take place within the confines of the Democratic Party Convention downtown. What is shaping up?
– the rank and file of the Democratic Party has become increasingly vocal on three issues: peace (particularly the war in Iraq and not bombing Iran), civil rights (dismantling the Patriot Act, Guantanamo – and firmly and unabashedly condemning the Bush Administration’s rampant use of torture), and the economy (the need for a national health care program, reigning in the rampant financial speculation which has jacked up oil prices and triggered the housing criris), etc. And the Democratic Party base – like the rest of the nation – has finally reached the tipping point. They are calling for a new agenda in clearer and more angry voices. They want the `change’ Obama has vaguely promised us. Here in Colorado (and nationwide) this energized rank and file is – if you’ll pardon my language – scaring the sh** out of the party’s old guard.
– on the other hand, much of the `party leadership’, its old guard and worn out corporately controlled structures, especially those centering around the Democratic Leadership Council – which has `led’ the Dems to two presidential defeats in the past 8 years that they should have won – are doing all in their power to dampen these hopes for change and to keep them more symbolic than real….And they have that great dedicated army of lobbyists behind them. This includes doing more or less what they did to Gore and Kerry in the past: forcing them to move to the center politically and abandon their more liberal or left base. And we begin to see on a number of issues, Obama appears to be caving to the Clinton camp (whose base among Colorado Democratic politicos is quite strong). Obama appears to have accepted this fatal approach and – beginning with his groveling speech before AIPAC giving away that which is not his to give away – Jerusalem – he has moved a number of notches to the right. He’s done this on other issues too, such as his support for the NSA spy bill (even Hillary voted against!). Tactical necessity to win elections and keep the Democratic Party `united’…or lack of political principle? Tune in… It could have serious repercussions on his campaign.
3. R-68 or…`Way Down Deep, It’s Shallow, Superficial To The Core, Beneath Their Surface There’s Just More Surface, And Beneath Even More’*
In any event, Obama’s recent waltz to the center or right, almost assures that there will be alot of people outside the convention hall demonstrating – not only against the Bush policies, but also against mainstream Democratic Party complicity and cooperation in both domestic and foreign policy.
Much of the media attention here in Colorado – and now nationally – has focused around the group `Recreate 68′ or simply known here as `R-68′. A group of diverse anarchists and activists from a variety of small but active social movements here in Denver, they in turn have shared close relations with of Colorado AIM and a growing core of anarchists based in a multimilliion dollar compound southeast of Denver described in a recent article in Westword, a local weekly.
What has stood out about R-68 has been its absence of a program or a social base- and while they seem to be quite skilled at drawing media attention – its core (social base and program) is hollow. `Way down deep they’re shallow’ as John Foster sings it. But what they lack in support from social forces they compensate for in rhetoric. Among its leaders and supporters are a few who would like to fashion themselves as `tough working class radical types’ who take pleasure in crucifying (mostly on the internet) anyone who disagrees with them. However, the tough talk masks a shallow essence. Some of the blog entries have become more and more shrill dovetailing nicely with R-68 overall decline in influence.
Lacking much of a social base, R-68 has been most attractive to others in more or less the same situation: radicals either a part of small groups or individuals looking for an outlet for their (growing) protest energies both homegrown and national many of whom have become disillusiioned or even embittered by the relationship and pretty quickly at that.
At best what R-68 offers the protest movement is experience at media events shorn of much content. Among them, admittedly, are some experienced and talented left organizers, some of whom I fear will be used for what they are worth and then discarded at the proper moment when their services are no longer needed, among these a few I used to consider friends. But if they cannot see through all this unfortunately, that is their problem.
4. Shaping The Message And All That Stuff.
In any event, in an attempt to monopolize the opposition and become a focal point of national and international opposition likely to show up here in Denver – and precisely because their base is so small and narrow – R-68 began their protest organizing for the convention earlier than pretty much any other group. They made in enthusiasm and organizing strategy what they lack in substance.
A number of goals emerged early on:
– to monopolize as many public permits for rallies and demonstrations in the city, especially near the city’s center, as early as possible so as to pressure national and international organizations to cooperate with them. in a like manner they hoped to monopolize as many internet sites as possible that might have anything to do with the Democratic Party Convention. (Both efforts failed at least in part)
– to monopolize the media attention and shape and control the message – both local and media – of the `opposition’ to the Democrats and become the voice of that opposition – coopting the imput of more broad based oppositional forces that might show up in Denver. (They have been somewhat more successful here, but the impression I get is that on this front too, things are unraveling.)
In these ways R-68 hoped to `shape the message’ of the opposition in such a way so that it would be their voice that dominates the voice of those left of the Democratic Party, that is that voice – as if there is one voice – especially theirs – that speaks for us all. I would expect that as a part of this effort, at some point at the proper moment, that they would cart out some bizarre political retrograde like Ward Churchill, with whom many of the R-68 people are in contact (and who has been – or so it seems – rather quiet of late).
4. Punching The Tar Baby
Inspite of all the above, had R-68 adopted a different approach, more open, democratic, flexible, even slightly reasonable and respectful of the people they hoped to use, R-68 very well might have been able to achieve some of their goals and attract some support, build some genuine (and interesting) alliances. There is indeed no crime in being small, nor in being (mostly) anarchists, or for that matter, from where I am sitting, radical. But then in whatever might have resulted – but won’t – they would have had to make some compromises on both their vision and the practical matter of the types of events to be held. They chose not to.
Since they are so small and basically irrelevant in the larger scheme of things, R-68 has had to try harder and spend a considerable amount of energy to try to `tame’ other groups and elements that were initially attracted to work with them. Their operation has been from the beginning `top down’ with virtually no breathing room for other ideas. A line comes down from `somewhere’. It should not be surprising that because of its brittleness in its style of work, a fair number of people who were first attracted to R-68 broke way and did so with a considerable amount of bitterness, mostly from what I can tell, because R-68’s `council of elders’ offered them no role for their ideas, political visions. Interesting how many young radicals who really were not in the least either frightened or even put off by R-68’s surface radicalism (indeed they were probably attracted to it), broke away and broke away angry and disillusioned.
One of these splits is the group that calls itself `Alliance For Real Democracy’, but this is only the last in a whole series of splits from R-68’s initial core, leaving them even more narrow and `politically pure’ (and irrelevant) than they were previously. And as their ship starts to waiver, as different people from local social movements pulled away from R-68, some softly, others less so, R-68 (or those close to it), sore losers that they have always been – have stepped up personal attacks on those that have questioned its priorities and authority. These are little more than the cries of a movement starting to implode because of its own problems and isolation more than anything else. I would expect that these tactics will only intensify as R-68’s base shrivels and it blames its woes on everyone else but themselves.
Of course something else is going on – an attempt to redirect the energies of those, in the Alliance for Real Democracy and other formations who are pulling away from R-68 – from organizing for the convention to `punching the tar baby’ as one friend put it…to divert their attention to endless squabbles and internet attacks on individuals. Petty nonsense that at first seemed to temporarily divert the attention of some, but from which many are now starting to recover. The best approach is simply to avoid the polemics at this point and get down to the business of organizing. And to those who do, all the more power to them!
5. Footnote
It is not only every intelligence agency and gonzo journalist that are coming to Denver now from the world round, but also many bigger national social justice and peace organizations. They are getting a feel for the place and how they will participate in the Convention activities be it from the inside or outside. They’ll be here and find their own ways of making their agenda’s known to the delegates inside the convention and to the broader world. I’d be surprised if R-68 has much to do with their activities.
* ..(the words from a song by John Foster)
Rice -`I’m Proud of the Iraq Invasion’
For most of his life since departing as the Secretary of Defense who oversaw the US war against Vietnam, Robert McNamarra has been haunted by his leading role in helping direct an effort which took 3 million Vietnamese and 56,000 American lives before it ended, ignominously for the United States. McNamarra could never shake the shadow of that war and the collective horror it produced. Had there been a kind of Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal to deal with Vietnam, (there were informal hearings in Stockholm) it is likely that McNamarra who later had something of a political epithany and turn to the left, would have suffered the fate of Goebbels and Rosenberg.
And the war in Vietnam continues in a way.There are still, some 33 years after the humiliating US exit from that country, signs of war everywhere, from the deformed babies born in regions heavily bombed with agent oranged and napalm to the high cancer rates, to the millions who never got over the psychological shock of having more explosive power dropped on the country than was dropped on Nazi Germany in World War II.
Now some of the leading architects of the US war in Iraq, both in the Clinton and Bush administrations find they too cannot so easily escape from their past. Although she has apologized for saying that the sanctions that killed up to a million Iraqis from 1991 through 2003 were `worth it’, Madelaine Albright’s reputation will forever be tarnished by such a cold remark (and the policies that went along with it). Hillary Clinton’s support for the war in Iraq despite her `if-I-knew-then-what-I-know-now’ self defense cost her the Democratic presidential nomination as much as any other factor. Colin Powell’s defense of the invasion of Iraq – his outright lies before the United Nations – destroyed his political aspirations for the presidency nurtured over a lifetime in less than half an hour.
In a similar spirit and probably with similar results, Condoleeza Rice tries to justify her record with the Bush Administration. Like Albright, Clinton, Powell and so many others, Rice is going about the business of accomplishing the impossiblie – brushing up her image, and this six months before retiring! She will undoubtedly try to cultivate the image of what she was not: a sobering and more rational element among otherwise more war-mongering neo-cons.
Indeed she has been one of the least effective secretaries of state in recent memory, an intregal part of the Bush team, who supported the president’s polices across the board and whose role in the Middle East was marred by a profound lack of understanding of the region. Although it remains to be seen, my sense is that history will be rather harsh on her and deserving ly so.
Colorado’s own – she grew up in Denver and went to DU – Condoleezza Rice said on Friday that she was “proud” of the US decision to invade Iraq. Defying both gravity and reality `Condy’ – as her former DU profs and friends still call her – said the Middle East had improved since President George W. Bush took office.
Perhaps she was confusing East Asia with the Middle East? With US directed wars going badly in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan slipping daily into chaos and ready to explode, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict going nowhere but downhill and the spectre of a US and/or Israeli attack on Iran looming over the region, such a level of self denial suggests delusional qualities.
One has wonder if as a student at D.U., she didn’t stumble upon some extraordinary weed – there are rumors, of course unsubstantiated, that such things exist at DU – which permanently filtered her intellectual growth just enough to make her attractive to the Bush White House.
Of course she’s an integral part of a team whose starting point for analyzing global realities has always put idelogy before reality as a matter of principle. Still it’s pathetic but not surprising to see a woman of such talents sink to such intellectual depths.
Her effort to suggest that the world is better off now than it was when George Bush first came to power eight years ago only adds to the delusional argument. Speaking of a world in which the United States has experienced one of the more dramatic declines in respect and power in modern history , she looks with difficulty for a silver lining she carts out North Korea and China as examples.
In an interview with Bloomberg television, Rice also cited progress in North Korea and China as evidence that the Bush administration, which has just seven months left in office, had made strides over the past eight years. But the reality is actually a little different. After labeling N. Korea as a part of the axis of evil – which means it was scheduled for `regime change’ – the Bush Administration was forced to eat crow onn its North Korea policy and negotiate.
As for China – its position visavis the United States has strengthened considerably. Bush Administration attempts to vilify and politically isolate China have failed to date.
But Rice’s remarks about the world being `a better place’ lose all sense of reality when addressing the results of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
“I am proud of the decision of this administration to overthrow Saddam Hussein. I am proud of the liberation of 20 million Iraqis,” Rice was quoted as saying yesterday in an interview taped earlier in the week to mark the July 4th holiday. In statememt that defies logic she argues:
“Iraq has been very tough. Tougher than any of us had dreamed We can never replace the people who have been lost. We can never do anything to soothe the pain of the family and friends that they have left behind, but we are seeing a change in Iraq for the better. ” Rice did admit that in the effort to `save’ Iraq that more than a million Iraqi have been killed but she neglected the 3-4 million made refugees either inside the country or in the neighboring states. since the US-led invasion of Iraq first took place.
The US occupation has also resulited in the the deaths of more than 4,000 US soldiers and a vastly larger number of wounded.
Rice, 53, ruled out any such political aspirations for herself, saying that she may write a book and return to work in education after Bush’s term expires in January 2009. I can only hope she is not considering returning to D.U. There are rumors that she might.
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Finally, after a long period of silence or simply outright complicity led by the New York Times as much as Fox News to spoon-feed the American people the Bush Administration’s spin on the subject, significant voices in the mainstream media are beginning to look with a critical eye at US and Israeli plans to attack Iran.
The following two pieces are indicative of a more widespread trend shaping up:
– the LA Times July 3 editorial (click here) `No Proxy War With Iran’ is an unambiguous call for the US not to attack Iran and not to encourage Israel to do so
– the Christian Science Monitor July 2 op ed (click here) by Shlomo Ben Ami and Trita Parsi (the first a former Israeli foreign minister, the second an Iranian-American) argues that neither Iran or Israel are going to disappear and that they should accept each other as key players in the Middle East. Negotiations not war makes more sense. It is so logical that under normal circumstances it sounds trite, obvious. But then these are not normal circumstances.
These editorials from such important papers are helpful. They come as the rhetoric for war against Iran (especially among the neo-cons and AIPAC) has been reaching alarming proportions. I also read yesterday on the internet that some elements in the peace movement here in Denver are calling for a demonstration on Aug 2 against attacking Iran. i believe they are a part of a national effort. Good for them. Every little bit helps. Nationally (and here in Colorado) major peace organizations have focused on the Iran situation for some time and intend to make opposing an attack on Iran an issue at the upcoming Democratic and Republican national conventions. Even the new joint chiefs has come out against such an attack. The fact that words of caution are finally starting to appear on Iran is only for the better. This ingredient – a major discussion in the mainstream media has long been missing. Such a discussion makes such an attack more difficult if only because it cannot be done in a `stealth’ manner. The more people who are discussing it it the better.
It also suggests that newspapers like the Los Angeles Times and Christian Science Monitor take the possible threat of an attack – either by the US or Israel – very seriously. Finally. They undertand the profoundly negative consequences such military adventures can wreak on the Middle East and the world. Of couse having so vilified Iran and magnified `the Iranian threat’ now much of the mainstream media will have a hard to time to de-construct the images that they have so carefully and so long cultivated, fear and hatred of Iran being especially pronounced in the mainstream Jewish Community in this country.
Will this be enough to derail the momentum towards war? I don’t know, but it is encouraging. On the other hand, to give a sense of the tone of the war talk in the halls of Congress, US Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) recounts how his colleagues there openly talk about wanting to use tactical nuclear weapons agaisnt Iran and bemoaning the fact that they probably can’t (click here). So nothing is sure.
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Petition To Obama Not To Bomb Iran
Text:
Dear Senator Obama,
We the undersigned may have different views on U.S. foreign policy with respect to Iran. We all, however, are deeply concerned about the stories in the press in the past few weeks suggesting that the Bush administration might be considering a military strike on Iran, that it might give a green light to such an attack by Israel, or that it might engage in other acts of war, such as imposing a blockade against Iran.
We welcomed your stand against the war on Iraq in 2002. And we were encouraged by your early campaign statements emphasizing diplomacy over military action against Iran. Today, you have an opportunity to forestall a repeat of the tragic Iraq war. We hope you will use that opportunity.
We agree with the conclusion of Muhammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, that “A military strike … would be worse than anything possible. It would turn the region into a fireball…” A military attack, he said, “will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessing of all Iranians, even those in the West.” (Reuters, June 20, 2008.)
We don’t know, of course, whether an attack on Iran is in fact being considered, or if there are serious plans to initiate other acts of war, such as a blockade of the country. But we call on you to issue a public statement warning of the grave dangers that any of these actions would entail, and pointing out how inappropriate and undemocratic it would be for the Bush administration to undertake them, or encourage Israel to do so, in its closing months in office.
An attack on Iran would violate the UN Charter’s prohibition against the use or threat of force and the Congress’s authority to declare war. Moreover, the public right to decide should not be foreclosed by last-minute actions of the Bush administration, which will set U.S. policy in stone now.
We were heartened by your earlier comments suggesting that an Obama administration would act on the understanding that genuine security requires a willingness to talk without preconditions (something Iran has offered several times to no avail), and that threats and military action are counterproductive. We hope you will follow through on these commitments once in office, but also that you will speak out now against any acts of war by the Bush administration.
Sincerely,
Partial List of Signators:
Please join these signatories and sign below
(organizations listed for identification purposes only)
Michael Albert ZNet
Cathy Albisa exec. director, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative
John W. Amidon U.S. Veterans for Peace
Stanley Aronowitz Professor of Sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY
Rosalyn Baxandall Distinguished Teaching Professor, SUNY Old Westbury
Phyllis Bennis Institute for Policy Studies
Stephen Eric Bronner Professor (II) of Political Science, Rutgers University
Charlotte Bunch exec. director, Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers Univ.
Noam Chomsky Institute Professor (retired), MIT
Ray Close retired CIA Middle East specialist; Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Rhonda Copelon Professor of Law, CUNY Law School
Hamid Dabashi Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia Univ.
Lawrence Davidson Professor of Middle East History, West Chester Univ.
Ariel Dorfman author
Stuart Ewen, Distinguished Professor, Hunter College & the Graduate Center, CUNY
John Feffer co-director, Foreign Policy in Focus
Bill Fletcher, Jr. exec. editor, BlackCommentator.com
Libby Frank Women’s Internat’l League for Peace & Freedom, Philadelphia
Arthur Goldschmidt Professor emeritus of Middle East History, Penn State Univ.
Tom Hayden author
Doug Henwood Left Business Observer
Doug Ireland journalist
James E. Jennings exec. director, U.S. Academics for Peace
Nikki Keddie UCLA (emeritus), historian, Iran specialist
Janet Kestenberg Amighi v.p., CDR (sponsor of Holocaust child survivor research)
Rabbi Michael Lerner chair, The Network of Spiritual Progressives; editor, Tikkun mag.
Mark LeVine Prof. of Modern Middle Eastern History, Culture and Islamic Studies, U. Cal., Irvine
Manning Marable director, Center for Contemporary Black History, Columbia Univ.
David McReynolds former chair, War Resisters Internat’l
Rosalind Petchesky Distinguished Prof. of Poli. Sci., Hunter College & the Graduate Center, CUNY
Rachel Pfeffer interim exec. director, Jewish Voices for Peace
Katha Pollitt writer
Danny Postel No War on Iran Coalition, Chicago
Matthew Rothschild editor, The Progressive magazine
Stephen R. Shalom Prof. of Poli. Sci., William Paterson Univ.
(Rev.) David Whitten Smith Univ. of St. Thomas, Minnesota (emeritus)
Meredith Tax writer; president, Women’s WORLD
Michael J. Thompson editor of Logos
Chris Toensing editor, Middle East Report
Cornel West Professor, Princeton University
Stephen Zunes Professor of Politics, Univ. of San Fr
to add your name click here
(note: to go directly to the New Yorker article click here. You can also read a copy of the same piece – if the New Yorker link does not work – by clicking Hersh Piece On Iran
Kazerooni and Prince on KGNU (Metro June 24, 2008) (on the danger of US and/or Israeli attack on Iran)
Note:
1. Click on `Metro June 24, 2008′ above
2. On the KGNU menu – click on 06-24 Metro
3. The interview begins 9.5 minutes into the podcast
U.S. Says Exercise by Israel Seemed Directed at Iran
(note: below is a piece from today’s NY Times written by Michael Gordon and Eric Schmitt. Although he somehow escaped getting fired, Gordon with his journalistic cohort Judith Miller, were largely responsible for publishing Bush Administration spin before the outset of the invasion of Iraq that exaggerated the Iraqi `threat’ of weapons of mass destruction. Interviewed by Amy Goodman on `Democracy Now’, Gordon remained unrepentant. He’s still at it. rjp)
By MICHAEL R. GORDON and ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON — Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Several American officials said the Israeli exercise appeared to be an effort to develop the military’s capacity to carry out long-range strikes and to demonstrate the seriousness with which Israel views Iran’s nuclear program.
More than 100 Israeli F-16 and F-15 fighters participated in the maneuvers, which were carried out over the eastern Mediterranean and over Greece during the first week of June, American officials said.
The exercise also included Israeli helicopters that could be used to rescue downed pilots. The helicopters and refueling tankers flew more than 900 miles, which is about the same distance between Israel and Iran’s uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, American officials said.
Israeli officials declined to discuss the details of the exercise. A spokesman for the Israeli military would say only that the country’s air force “regularly trains for various missions in order to confront and meet the challenges posed by the threats facing Israel.”
But the scope of the Israeli exercise virtually guaranteed that it would be noticed by American and other foreign intelligence agencies. A senior Pentagon official who has been briefed on the exercise, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the matter, said the exercise appeared to serve multiple purposes.
One Israeli goal, the Pentagon official said, was to practice flight tactics, aerial refueling and all other details of a possible strike against Iran’s nuclear installations and its long-range conventional missiles.
A second, the official said, was to send a clear message to the United States and other countries that Israel was prepared to act militarily if diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from producing bomb-grade uranium continued to falter.
“They wanted us to know, they wanted the Europeans to know, and they wanted the Iranians to know,” the Pentagon official said. “There’s a lot of signaling going on at different levels.”
Several American officials said they did not believe that the Israeli government had concluded that it must attack Iran and did not think that such a strike was imminent.
Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli defense minister who is now a deputy prime minister, warned in a recent interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot that Israel might have no choice but to attack. “If Iran continues with its program for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack,” Mr. Mofaz said in the interview published on June 6, the day after the unpublicized exercise ended. “Attacking Iran, in order to stop its nuclear plans, will be unavoidable.”
But Mr. Mofaz was criticized by other Israeli politicians as seeking to enhance his own standing as questions mount about whether the embattled Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, can hang on to power.
Israeli officials have told their American counterparts that Mr. Mofaz’s statement does not represent official policy. But American officials were also told that Israel had prepared plans for striking nuclear targets in Iran and could carry them out if needed.
Iran has shown signs that it is taking the Israeli warnings seriously, by beefing up its air defenses in recent weeks, including increasing air patrols. In one instance, Iran scrambled F-4 jets to double-check an Iraqi civilian flight from Baghdad to Tehran.
“They are clearly nervous about this and have their air defense on guard,” a Bush administration official said of the Iranians.
Any Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities would confront a number of challenges. Many American experts say they believe that such an attack could delay but not eliminate Iran’s nuclear program. Much of the program’s infrastructure is buried under earth and concrete and installed in long tunnels or hallways, making precise targeting difficult. There is also concern that not all of the facilities have been detected. To inflict maximum damage, multiple attacks might be necessary, which many analysts say is beyond Israel’s ability at this time.
But waiting also entails risks for the Israelis. Israeli officials have repeatedly expressed fears that Iran will soon master the technology it needs to produce substantial quantities of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
Iran is also taking steps to better defend its nuclear facilities. Two sets of advance Russian-made radar systems were recently delivered to Iran. The radar will enhance Iran’s ability to detect planes flying at low altitude.
Mike McConnell, the director of national intelligence, said in February that Iran was close to acquiring Russian-produced SA-20 surface-to-air missiles. American military officials said that the deployment of such systems would hamper Israel’s attack planning, putting pressure on Israel to act before the missiles are fielded.
For both the United States and Israel, Iran’s nuclear program has been a persistent worry. A National Intelligence Estimate that was issued in December by American intelligence agencies asserted that Iran had suspended work on weapons design in late 2003. The report stated that it was unclear if that work had resumed. It also noted that Iran’s work on uranium enrichment and on missiles, two steps that Iran would need to take to field a nuclear weapon, had continued.
In late May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran’s suspected work on nuclear matters was a “matter of serious concern” and that the Iranians owed the agency “substantial explanations.”
Over the past three decades, Israel has carried out two unilateral attacks against suspected nuclear sites in the Middle East. In 1981, Israeli jets conducted a raid against Iraq’s nuclear plant at Osirak after concluding that it was part of Saddam Hussein’s program to develop nuclear weapons. In September, Israeli aircraft bombed a structure in Syria that American officials said housed a nuclear reactor built with the aid of North Korea.
The United States protested the Israeli strike against Iraq in 1981, but its comments in recent months have amounted to an implicit endorsement of the Israeli strike in Syria.
Pentagon officials said that Israel’s air forces usually conducted a major early summer training exercise, often flying over the Mediterranean or training ranges in Turkey where they practice bombing runs and aerial refueling. But the exercise this month involved a larger number of aircraft than had been previously observed, and included a lengthy combat rescue mission.
Much of the planning appears to reflect a commitment by Israel’s military leaders to ensure that its armed forces are adequately equipped and trained, an imperative driven home by the difficulties the Israeli military encountered in its Lebanon operation against Hezbollah.
“They rehearse it, rehearse it and rehearse it, so if they actually have to do it, they’re ready,” the Pentagon official said. “They’re not taking any options off the table.”
Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Colorado Wins: 32,000 State Employees Unionize. Kind of.
1. Remembering Ellen Lavroff
Truth be told, I don’t think that often these days of my old friend and companera Ellen Lavroff – one of my first colleagues to die young. So much has happened since – most of it negative – that has forced me to concentrate my attention elsewhere.
Hailing from Minnesota, Ellen was a highly cultured woman with a phd in Spanish, a chain smoker. After a short and disappointing marriage, she divorced from an abusive Russian husband whose last name she kept. She succumbed to lung cancer about ten years ago shortly after she retired from 30 years of teaching. I had seen her a few months prior to her death. As seems to happen all too often with lung cancer, by the time the condition was diagnosed, it was too late and Ellen’s journey from this world to the next happened quickly. So died one of the better, effective more progressive Colorado labor organizers of the past quarter century. And – again – if truth be known – we didn’t and don’t have very many of them in this state.
Ellen was long time the president of the state community college local of the American Federation of Teachers in a state where the AFT has always been dwarfed by a much larger and better organized National Education Association state apparatus. She was also the president for a few years of the Colorado Federation of Teachers, and managed the state union’s affairs well, and although the union never really grew that much, from what I could tell, that wasn’t Ellen’s fault. Objective conditions – as they say – just weren’t ripe then.
At times our little community college local had as few as 10 members, but there was a moment of near-glory in the late 1970s when the union movement essentially forced an election on the state community college system. Fearing the collective power of the state’s 1000 or so community college teachers and employees, the state board of the time, made up mostly of business interests, broke the system up into 8 little separate units in the name of `local autonomy’ and then proceeded to gut the system of its best programs a few years later. I’ve written about it elsewhere in this blog. Then the state legislature was taken over in the early 80s by neanderthal `Reagan (counter) Revolution’ types, like oil lobbyist and soon to be governor, Bill Owens.
The new shift to the right – corresponding to Colorado Springs emerging as a national center for the wacko Christian right, a more aggressive oil and gas lobby and the ever present military corporate interests in the state – took matters further. They declared a rather dubious state `fiscal emergency’ and used that as an excuse to purge the community college – and other state social based programs – of funds and faculty…including yours truly. I was laid off three times from 1982-1985, but thanks to our little union and especially Ellen’s unfailing efforts, was able to win back my job twice giving credence to the adage (which I just made up) that even a tinsy-winsy union is better than none. And one of 32,000, despite some limitations opens up all kinds of possibilities not only for the labor movement but for the political complexion of the state.
2. Nothing Like It Before In Colorado History
Sitting last night among some 200 of those 23,000 new union members, Ellen’s memory came back to me so vividly. Another 9,000 are expected to vote union in the next few weeks. Although they don’t know it, the people sitting at the `Colorado WINS’ dinner are standing on her shoulders and those of union organizers like her. Too bad she didn’t live to see the day the conditions for which she helped shape!
In some ways the evening was what I thought it would be – dinner, peppered with some union pep talk. We had to hear the `new approach’, how this wasn’t `the last century’ (thanks for telling us what century we’re in), how what Colorado Wins had `won’ was not collective bargaining rights but `a partnership’ with the governor. I’ve heard this kind of public relations talk before, and don’t take it too seriously. We’ll see how long it takes for the `partnership’ to morph into more traditional forms of class struggle and what shapes they take. This state, Colorado, is a very anti-union, pro-business state and with almost as many anti-union Democrats as Republicans.
There are many `qualifications’ to the victory.
Among the two most significant ones…
+ the right to negotiate – the term collective bargaining is carefully avoided – was not approved by the legislature but by an executive order of the governor.. A future governor (or this one) could rescind this order just as easily. And this hangs over the process as a kind of unspoken guillotine, – ie if the unions ask too much, there is the danger that the whole process itself will be quickly rescinded, and state workers forced back into their former relations. It also means that the Colorado WINS has a vested interest in electing Democratic governors who will maintain the relationship, a tendency that the Republicans in the state were quick to note – and with good reason as they understand well the political consequences of this election.
+ the relationship between the governor and Colorado WINS is something less than collective bargaining where the two sides `negotiate’ and try to come to some agreement. No. Colorado WINS will make requests to the governor and he will decide, without any negotiations or meetings, what he is willing to accept and reject. While undoubtedly this could entail some pressure from labor in some forms, it is a much weaker than collective bargaining.
Add the no strike clauses and other limitations and there are some real questions as to what it was that Colorado state employees actually won.
To deny the limits of the new arrangement however, is not grounds for writing off the arrangement as irrelevant – or worse – retrograde. Something positive happened here. As a friend wrote `it [the partnership song and dance] sounds like a crock’ but perhaps that is too harsh. What happened here in Colorado is the playing out of a national union strategy that’s being tried out—somewhat successfully by SEIU—in “right-to-work” states where there’s no union density, as a way to somewhat level the playing field and get a foot inside the door. And at first glance, the strategy seems to have worked here and well at that.
There is something else to temper cynicism and that is the degree that this effort was cooperative between different unions with long histories of squabbling with one another over turf. Instead the Colorado Association of Public Employees (CAPE) – the old state workers association – joined forces with AFSCME, the AFT and SEIU in a common effort in what was described last night – and aptly too `as the largest successful union organizing effort in Colorado history’. This is neither exaggeration nor hype from what I can tell. The vote was historic and the margins – in many of the sectors – for the union were above 80%, the highest being in the healthworkers section where it reached an 87% approval rate. The local media made much of the fact that only 30% of those eligible voted, but in fact that is a high percentage for this kind of election.
I suppose we’ll see in time whether or not the strategy is a creative and appropriate way to strengthen the labor movement in this state or something less than that. Regardless it will undoubtedly strengthen the impact of labor in Colorado state politics and especially in the Democratic Party (where `NAFTA-free traders’ seem to abound). Sitting among Colorado Dept of Transportation workers, nurses from the Colorado State Veterans Home, from the state tax office, from the Ridge Home…to be in a room of working class people almost all, who have for so long been beaten down by the captains of capital in their different forms, and to realize that modest as it might have been, these people had won something…it was no small thing.
And now let’s see how we can strengthen this movement, which in its heart and soul – despite some occasional lapses – has always been by its very nature democratic, for civil rights and human dignity. For all its warts and limitations, nothing much progressive happens in this country with out the influence of the labor movement. And now – in a small way in a small state, it’s appears to be coming back after a long pause. Ellen Lavroff’s spirit was in that room – there she was smiling, still puffing on a cigarette, saying. `ok – let’s get on with it’.
(Note: Mamoun lives in Boulder. Falk, internationally acknowledged international law scholar teaches on occasion at the University of Denver’s Joseph Korbel Institite of International Studies. I have posted another article by Mamoun `Israel At 60′ on the May 14, 2008 edition of the blog below)
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A Conversation With Richard Falk By Linda Mamoun
June 17, 2008
In the course of a scholarly life that has spanned more than five decades and includes fifty-four books and dozens more articles, Richard Falk has received a great deal of criticism–from the right and from the left. Falk, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton, is considered one of the world’s most prominent critics of US interventionism. This distinction alone would explain why he is disliked by many foreign policy hawks. But some of Falk’s positions in recent years–such as his support for the US invasion of Afghanistan and his call for an independent investigation of 9/11–have also drawn the ire of those on the left. More controversial than anything, perhaps, has been his criticism of Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza. Our conversation addressed all of these issues, homing in on Falk’s appointment in March by the United Nations to be the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Linda Mamoun: One of the world’s most prominent critics of US interventionism talks about his new post as UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories.
Falk is the very model of a distinguished academic. He has a habit of carefully nodding his head as he talks. There is a measured cadence in his speech, which suggests a sense of calm. Falk knows that he won’t be The Decider in future peace negotiations, but he hopes that his investigation of Israel’s occupation policies will provide the international community, and the next administration, with information that will support those negotiations. Looking ahead, Falk remarked, “The new American President will be challenged by the legacy of the Bush approach to the Middle East but also presented with opportunities to move forward–but only if future policies are based on respect for international law.”
In addition to serving on a UN Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian Territories in 2001, Falk has been a visiting distinguished professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This past year he also held the Leo Block Professorship at the University of Denver Korbel School of International Studies. I spoke with him after a series of lectures in Denver on academic freedom, global governance and the occupation of Iraq.
LM: Last year you wrote a widely circulated article, “Slouching Toward a Palestinian Holocaust.” Since the article’s publication you have been assailed for using “extraordinary language” in criticizing Israeli policy, most recently in a BBC interview.
RF: The BBC interview as it was broadcast eliminated some things I said that were qualifications. The references to the Holocaust and to the Nazi policies were not meant to be literal comparisons but were intended to show that the policies being pursued, in Gaza in particular, had holocaustal implications if they were not changed. And the mind-set of holding an entire people responsible for opposition and resistance embodies a kind of collective punishment psychology that was very characteristic of the way the Nazis justified what they did to the Jewish people. But my intention was based on the feeling that you have to shout to be heard, and perhaps that was not the best way to make the argument. I would be quite prepared to abandon that terminology but not prepared to alter my concern about the character of the policies being pursued.
L.M. In your role as special rapporteur, you will report to the new UN Human Rights Council. How do you respond to those who say that this agency is, to quote the April 24 issue of The Economist, “just as politicised, and just as intent on one-sided Israel-bashing, as its predecessor”?
RF: The question implies that John Dugard, the prior special rapporteur, was engaged in “one-sided Israel bashing.” But Dugard, a distinguished professor of international law, is admired throughout the world for his nonpartisan professionalism. It is being objective to report the facts as they are and then to interpret them from the perspective of international humanitarian law. If these facts point to the persistent violation of international rules, then their legal interpretation is bound to be one-sided and critical of the violator. It’s diversionary to dismiss a critical account of contested behavior because it is not “balanced.” If the reality is unbalanced, so must its assessment be.
LM: So you’re saying that Dugard’s reports were balanced. Is the UN’s global approach balanced? More specifically, has the Human Rights Council established itself as an organization that investigates human rights abuses in a broad range of conflict zones, or is there some truth to the assertion that it singles out Israel?
RF: The Human Rights Council is often accused of being overly selective, too critical of Israel, too lenient with respect to a variety of Third World countries. There is no doubt that any political institution will establish priorities based on the concerns of its membership. From this perspective it’s not surprising that a focus should be placed on Israel and the Palestinian plight. After all, the UN has a special responsibility for Palestine that goes back to its effort to partition the mandate for the territory in 1947. From the UN perspective this unconsummated effort to address the future of both Palestinians and Israelis is, in a sense, the greatest unresolved issue on the UN agenda. Beyond this, the prolonged Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is unprecedented in international experience and has produced immense Palestinian suffering. It should also be noted that the HRC has appointed special rapporteurs for other situations of severe human rights concern, including North Korea and Myanmar.
It would be unforgivable if the Human Rights Council overlooked charges of Israeli violation of international humanitarian law. Limitations of resources, geopolitical pressures and blind spots help explain why some other situations involving serious human rights abuse are not addressed with comparable seriousness. But my experience suggests that the HRC entrusts its special rapporteurs with complete freedom to report on a given situation and demands that they adhere to professional canons of impartiality in the discharge of their official duties.
L.M.: In April Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Arye Mekel, reacted to your appointment as special rapporteur, saying, “If he already believes Israel is like the Nazis, how fair will he be?” But the Israeli government and the Bush Administration routinely liken Hamas to the Nazi regime. Just recently, the Bush Administration compared dialogue with Hamas to appeasement of the Nazis. The irony of these statements has not been lost on those witnessing Israel’s siege of Gaza, a siege that bears a striking number of similarities to past sieges widely condemned.
R.F: Israel has been long relying on various forms of collective punishment to carry out its occupation policy. Collective punishment is not just a response to the Hamas victory in the elections of 2006. It’s an extension of that. And it definitely seems in the Gaza case to have the intention of creating a set of political effects that, at minimum, destroy Hamas as a political movement and possibly, more ambitiously, induce Palestinians to give up their struggle by provoking feelings of abject humiliation and helplessness.
L.M: What do you hope to achieve as special rapporteur?
R.F: My hope, and the reason I accepted what I knew to be a difficult assignment, is to try as best I can to portray the human impacts of the policies being pursued by Israel in the course of the occupation, and to assess those policies by reference to applicable standards of international humanitarian law. And to do this as honestly and objectively as I’m capable of doing. Israel’s official response to my appointment is to declare that it will not allow me to enter Israel or the Palestinian territories. This constraint, if it remains in effect, will, of course, limit my exposure to the direct realities. But I think it’s quite possible to perform this role without that exposure. Barring my entry complicates my task but doesn’t make it undoable.
LM: Do you think that Israel’s decision will change?
RF: Well, I hope it will change, but I don’t have any present reason to expect the Israeli government to change its position.
LM: This brings us back to the many challenges of global governance. How does the investigation of Israeli policies in the occupied territories fit into the construct of global governance?
RF: Well, I think that it’s part of what I would call the normative architecture of world order. There is an attempt to monitor, from a human rights and international humanitarian law perspective, certain sensitive conflict zones in the world. One of the most sensitive conflict zones, perhaps the most sensitive conflict zone, is occupied Palestine. In that sense, one could argue that this is a minimal effort to expose a wider segment of the world to the realities of what this occupation entails.
Global governance is a construct that is understood in many different ways. Certainly one aspect is the assessment of compliance with international humanitarian law. I suppose one way of describing my role is to monitor that compliance or identify areas of violation or noncompliance.
Certain UN organizations seem to be much more successful than others. The World Food Program and the World Health Organization, for instance, have been extremely successful over the years. But human rights efforts, particularly with respect to Israel and Palestine, have historically been quite unsuccessful. Is that a direct result of US influence?
Yes, there is no question that the UN is at its weakest when it encounters important geopolitical opposition, and the United States is responsible for organizing that geopolitical opposition in relation to Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So it does expose the UN to vulnerability. A kind of geopolitical veto power exists that definitely limits what the UN can effectively do within its mandate to uphold international human rights.
At the same time, a lot of political developments have occurred that defy the political will of the United States and defied expectations of observers of the global scene. No one anticipated the peaceful transformation of South Africa. No one anticipated the defeat of the United States in the Vietnam War or its defeat in the current Iraq War. It’s important not to make the opposite error, which is to view history as a mere creature of these geopolitical forces. Popular resistance has altered the course of history. The decolonization movement, the antiapartheid movement, the movements to free the peoples of Eastern Europe from Soviet domination–all are examples of struggles that seemed to defy the geopolitical structures that existed. So I think it’s important to appreciate the obstacles but not to be too intimidated by them.
LF: Do you see a fair resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict within your lifetime?
RF: I couldn’t predict a just solution for the Palestinian self-determination struggle within my lifetime. On the other hand, some of these historical developments that I’ve mentioned, I couldn’t have predicted either. So I’m quite aware of the limitations of historical foresight. And therefore I believe the struggle to achieve a more just resolution of the conflict is worthwhile precisely because we don’t know what will shift the balance of opposed forces in such a way as to make possible what had seemed unlikely, if not impossible, from an earlier point of view.
It’s not out of the question for there to be developments in Israel that will make its leadership more receptive to a genuine solution. A lot can happen in a situation as complicated as this that defy our pessimism about what is possible at the present. This doesn’t mean that we have any basis for being unduly optimistic. It just means that there is sufficient uncertainty and many reasons to be disturbed by the present set of circumstances. So there is a strong case to be made for doing all that is possible to ensure a better future for the Palestinians and the Israelis.
Although there doesn’t seem to be much cause for optimism here in the United States, many of us are wondering if the next administration will forge a new path in its policy toward Israel and Palestine.
I don’t see very many positive prospects. Despite the pretensions of being a constitutional democracy, we’ve basically created a structure of affinity with Israel that disallows mainstream political figures to question that affinity even in constructive ways. So I don’t have the political imagination to see how any of these candidates will, when they occupy the presidency, have either the courage or the incentive to challenge this very constraining public opinion. But America is not the world, and there’s much more open debate elsewhere, including even in Israel. And one shouldn’t underestimate the degree to which the furious response to Jimmy Carter’s efforts to engage Hamas is partly an acknowledgment of the importance of what he’s saying and doing. One shouldn’t endow the hostile reactions with supremacy over the public discourse. And Carter hasn’t entirely been shut out in the mainstream media. He was interviewed by Larry King. He was given a lot of coverage in op-eds for the New York Times and the Washington Post. So the reaction to what he’s been doing and saying is a much more mixed one, I think.
There is growing uneasiness underneath this unconditional support for Israel. There is a kind of uneasiness that US policy isn’t really in America’s national interest, and it’s not a just policy. This has made the organized pro-Israel forces very nervous, so they are extremely reactive to any sign that the American consensus, on an official level, is being challenged. But I wouldn’t exaggerate their success in dominating the public space.
LM: Because of your own statements in the public sphere over the years, you have the honor of being included in David Horowitz’s list of the 101 Most Dangerous Academics. Would you say that your statements have had the desired effect?
RF: Well, I hope that they have allowed more people to appreciate some of the neglected and controversial aspects of what is taking place. To the extent that I consider myself a person dedicated to knowledge and to a scholarly life, my statements are guided by a commitment to truth-seeking, both within the university and within society. And this extends especially to issues that are not being addressed truthfully by the media or by the governmental institutions that are responsible for forming national policy.
LM: One such issue: you have said that there is reason to question the government’s official explanation for 9/11. How has the left reacted to your skepticism?
RF: I think that there is a great deal of suspicion directed at anyone who is skeptical about the official explanation for 9/11. I have not, in fact, been very much involved with the so-called 9/11 truth movement. By coincidence, I happen to be a longtime friend of a man named David Ray Griffin, a much-respected philosopher of religion, who has become convinced that the official explanation is false. I have a lot of respect for him, and I wrote the foreword to his original book, The New Pearl Harbor. But that’s really the extent of my involvement. I don’t have an independent view on how best to understand the 9/11 attacks. I haven’t looked at the evidence sufficiently to say more than that the 9/11 Commission didn’t do a good job of dispelling the several plausible grounds for suspicions that exist. There are unanswered questions that deserve to be answered, and the public should have the benefit of that kind of clarification.
The left particularly is nervous about being seen as supportive of conspiracy theory. And to the extent that there is an incentive to discredit my role–partly because of the Israel/Palestine context– there’s also a tendency to exaggerate my involvement with this set of issues. But if you look carefully at what I’ve been writing and what I’ve been doing, you’ll see that I’ve really had very minimal contact, and I’ve not been involved in the 9/11 movement at all. Some people have tried to get me involved, and I’ve resisted, not because I don’t think it’s important to raise these issues but because they’re not my own priorities.
LM: Your current priorities, I assume, involve the monitoring efforts in Palestine. In your lectures, you have suggested that a prerequisite for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the resolution of the US war in Iraq.
RF: I wouldn’t say that the resolution of the Iraq War is a prerequisite so much as it provides a better atmosphere for diplomacy addressing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Closer to a prerequisite is a change in the political climate in Israel, particularly a change in the leadership. As far as I can tell, the Palestinian leadership, even the more radical Palestinian leadership associated with Hamas, would be receptive to Israeli diplomatic moves that combined a withdrawal from the occupied territories with the establishment of a long-term cease-fire. Conditions are, in many respects, ripe for creating a better short-term reality for both peoples and better long-term prospects for security and peace.
LM: Last question: how does Afghanistan fit into the geopolitical picture, and is it correct to say that your position on Afghanistan has changed since the US invasion?
RF: As far as Afghanistan is concerned, I wrote some articles after the 9/11 attacks that supported the belief that the Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan posed a continuing threat. In my opinion, this provided the United States with a reasonably convincing rationale under international law for attacking Afghanistan, particularly given the very limited legitimacy that the Taliban government possessed. It was only recognized by three governments in the world, and two of them withdrew their recognition after the 9/11 attacks. The one country that maintained a diplomatic connection, and that only for the sake of convenience, was Pakistan. Other Islamic states had no diplomatic relations with Afghanistan, including Iran. That said, I think the way the war was prosecuted was very disturbing–legally, morally and politically. And I now think that the quick embrace of a war paradigm by the US government in response to 9/11 was a very fundamental mistake in responding to the threats posed by the attacks.
In a broader sense, Afghanistan launched the neoconservative post-9/11 grand strategy. It’s important to appreciate that this strategy was not focused on counterterrorist objectives but seemed to focus on establishing American control over the Middle East for reasons of oil, nonproliferation policies, long-term protection of Israel and containment of political Islam. These goals depended on victory in Iraq, which now seems unlikely.
Future policy should promote a regional security framework that includes Israel and Iran, and should be based on a prohibition of all weapons of mass destruction, including those currently possessed by Israel. The policy should move toward a far more balanced approach to peace between Israel and Palestine, an approach that either envisages a single democratic state for both peoples or two equally sovereign states that could come into being only after the Israeli settlements were substantially dismantled and the Israeli security wall totally removed from Palestinian territory.
Of course that is good news that a major offensive against Gaza is off as the Israeli government and media have been hyping the possible offensive for some time. Then suddenly a change of tone and course. Olmert will let the Egyptian negotiations with Hamas run its course. Fine.
But why?
Are we on the verge of a peace breakthrough with the Israelis now simultaneously negotiating with Hezbollah through Germany, Hamas through Egypt and Syria through Turkey… or is all this, as in basketball `faking to the left, while moving to the right’, ie concentrating their military energies on a possible major strike (US and/or Israeli) against Iran this summer. Leave the smaller fish alone and go for `the big one’?
I hope it’s the former but fear it’s the latter. Indeed, although not a betting man – other than wagering repeatedly successfully against the Rockies – I’d bet on it.
Note From Jim Abourezk
(note: just below is an email from Jim Abourezk, a response to mine about the Jefferson Jackson Day dinner 30 years ago referred to below. The congressowoman to whom he is referring is Pat Schroeder, the Jewish newspaper undoubtedly the Intermountain Jewish News)
Dear Rob:
Thanks for your letter. I remember that escapade well. I also remember The Congresswoman’s craven groveling before the Zionists after that meeting. She was quoted in the Jewish newspaper that “Abourezk shouldn’t have done what he did.” I wrote her, telling her that someone was going around, using her name, kissing ass with the Zionists.” I never heard from her again.
Thanks again.
Jim Abourezk
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 