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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL
LOBBY
Former top
CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers
the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful
it is. Read
how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated
by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton
to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing
of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send
full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security
Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a
true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier,
exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch
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About 2500 US known dead, give or take
a corpse or two Untold tens of thousands of Iraqis. A new and
more repressive crackdown in Iraq's capital city titled, rather
lamely, Operation Forward Together. No Iron Fist this time.
No Desert Storm. Just Forward Together into the fog or perhaps
the abyss.
No one really seems to know
any longer yet the commander-in-chief in Washington and his sycophantic
henchmen both in and out of uniform continue to insist that their
soldiers and the people whose country they are destroying will
stay "until victory." Like most wars, such victory
is vaguely defined. However, even the US adventure in Korea
looked more purposeful to US residents than this one in Iraq.
The recent murder of Zarqawi
and the current crackdown in Baghdad serve well as metaphors
for the entire nature of this war. An overkill of US military
power with results that mean virtually nothing in the longer
term.
So what--they killed Zarqawi?
Does that bring an end to the war any closer?
So what--the newest Prime Minister
of the Green Zone, a man whose reliance on Washington's firepower
already seems to rival that of Ayad Allawi (DC's first handpicked
man), announces a giant security sweep of Baghdad. Under Washington's
direction, he tells the city's residents (and the compliant US
press) that there will be over 70,000 US and Iraqi more troops
in their city setting up checkpoints to harass them, take their
guns (always a popular move in Iraq), breaking into their homes
at night, arresting men on minimal suspicions, and just irritating
and disrupting their already wartorn lives.
Will it end the war? Of course
not. Like other such operations before it, Forward Together
is another public relations exercise whose primary audience is
the US public and whose primary targets are any Iraqi that gets
in the way of the troops swaggering through their streets and
homes. It won't amount to a hill of beans.
Talking about hills of beans,
how about Congress? Now that there are 2500 dead US soldiers
and many thousands more permanently wounded, those fine men and
women are debating whether or not they should hold a debate about
the war in Iraq.
As of this writing, the decision
to hold such a debate has yet to be made. They had to get their
pay raise passed first, not to mention the ever-important vote
on same-sex marriage. Oh yeah, one can't forget the pressing
national question of drug use by professional baseball players!
Even without holding that debate about the war, both houses
passed with nary a whimper a $94 billion supplementary appropriations
bill--$66 billion of it going to continued murder and mayhem
in Iraq and Afghanistan. Speaking of Afghanistan, does one
needed to be reminded that the war there is heating up again,
with two more coalition soldiers killed on June 14, 2006 and
another Afghani child killed by a US soldiers driving a truck?
I can't help but be reminded of the Creedence Clearwater song
"Fortunate Son." For those that don't know the song,
here are the relevant lines:
Yeah, some folks inherit star
spangled eyes,
ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, how much should we give,
oh, they only answer, more, more, more, yeah
More blood, more money, and
more time. In Iraq, in Afghanistan and in every other country
that the US empire's machine wishes to extend its reach. Whether
it's prisons or airports that enable secret kidnappings known
as renditions in Europe or the US version of Great Britain's
H-Block in Guantanamo Bay where hundreds are held without charges.
Guantanamo Bay, where dozens of these prisoners are on a hunger
strike and two recently hung themselves in what a US official
callously described as a publicity stunt.
Let's get something clear here,
George Bush's visit to Baghdad on June 13, 2006 was a publicity
stunt. George Bush's strolling onto that aircraft carrier in
a flight suit so many moons ago was a publicity stunt. Threatening
war on Iran because it wants to go its own legal way on nuclear
development is a publicity stunt (hopefully).
Two men hanging themselves
out of despair in a prison is not. Unless, of course, the deaths
of 2500 US soldiers in a war for power and profit are publicity
stunts, too.
Now
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
CounterPunch
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