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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35578 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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Let's look at raw political power. Donald Trump was perhaps the biggest cheerleader of Israel of any US president. He was actually Grand Marshal of the Salute to Israel, a ritual which really sounds like something a vassal state does to show homage to its overlord. He made these rather mask-off comments about how 10-15 years ago, Israel rightfully controlled Congress and now that control is slipping. Then he went on to complain about how Jews weren't voting for him, despite doing so much for Israel when he was in office.

Cannot be more pro-Israel than George .W Bush , who used Israel as a pretext for war. At least Trump was trying to end the wars

George .W Bush , who used Israel as a pretext for war

I remember him using as pretexts for war, in order, WMDs, vague insinuations of Iraq's culpability for 9/11, fighting terrorists there so we don't have to fight them here, and democracy being on the march. I don't recall him ever naming Israel as a reason to invade Iraq. I think the notion that defending Israel's interests were the motivation came largely from looking at the backgrounds of the people who ran Project for a New American Century, and who brought that agenda with them as they accepted cabinet positions in the W. Bush's administration. Other motivations likely included some sort of ill-planned view that we'd get their oil, and some daddy issues (combination of reliving his dad's glory days in the Gulf War and avenging Saddam's attempt on his dad's life in 1993). But the Israel part wasn't spoken out loud, as far as I can remember.

One of Bush's arguments was that Hussein had a documented history of funding terrorism--specifically, providing funds to the families of dead Palestinian terrorists. "Iraq contributed to 9/11" wasn't an administration argument; they pointed to Hussain funding Palestinian terrorism and having at least diplomatic relations with AQ higher-ups, and then argued that those starting points could lead to closer collaboration in the future to the detriment of America and the West in general.

In the US, Bush's arguments were WMD, funding terrorism, and genocide/human rights abuses. At the UN, the Bush administration focused on the WMD angle, because non-proliferation of nuke/bio/chem was the strongest argument (both practically and legally) for getting one or more resolutions through the Security Council.

I'd argue that Bush was used by Israel rather than a user of Israel (though he obviously still bears enormous responsibility for the war and bringing warmongers to power). Israel had a fairly obvious interest in getting rid of Saddam Hussein - he hated them and they hated him. He fired some missiles at them in the first Gulf War. Saddam was an obvious threat to Israeli security but not American security. America is on the other side of the world to Iraq.

At a key meeting with Bush at Camp David on September 15, 2001, Wolfowitz advocated attacking Iraq before Afghanistan, even though there was no evidence that Saddam was involved in the attacks on the United States and bin Laden was known to be in Afghanistan. Wolfowitz was so insistent on conquering Iraq that five days later Cheney had to tell him to "stop agitating for targeting Saddam."According to one Republican lawmaker, he "was like a parrot bringing [Iraq] up all the time. It was getting on the President's nerves.

Israel was the only country outside of the United States where a majority of politicians and the public enthusiastically favored war. A poll taken in early 2002 found that 58 percent of Israeli Jews believed that "Israel should encourage the United States to attack Iraq."4 6 Another poll taken a year later in February 2003 found that 77.5 percent of Israeli Jews wanted the United States to invade Iraq

Philip Zelikow, a member of the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001 - 03), executive director of the 9/11 Commission, and counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (2005 - 06) , told a University of Virginia audience on September 10, 2002, that Saddam was not a direct threat to the United States. "The real threat," he argued, is "the threat against Israel." He went on to say, "And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat . . . And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell.

General Wesley Clark, the retired NATO commander and former presidential candidate, said in August 2002 that "those who favor this attack now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they are afraid that at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel." In January 2003 , a German journalist asked Ruth Wedgwood, a prominent neoconservative academic and a member of the influential Defense Policy Board (chaired by Richard Perle), why the journalist should support the war. I could "be impolite," Wedgwood said, "and remind Germany of its special relationship with Israel. Saddam presents an existential threat to Israel. That is simply true." Wedgwood did not justify the war by saying that Iraq posed a direct threat to Germany or the United States.

In mid-May, Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister now serving as foreign minister, appeared on CNN , where he said that "Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden," and the United States "cannot sit and wait" while he builds a nuclear arsenal. Instead, Peres insisted, it was time to topple the Iraqi leader

Trump himself had a rather schizophrenic foreign policy. He was supposedly trying to withdraw from the Middle East - but kept US troops in Syria to 'seize the oil'. US troops are still there today, keeping the conflict frozen and unending. He assassinated a high-ranking Iranian general, not an obviously dovish tactic. I think he was listening to hawkish, fanatically pro-Israeli voices like John Bolton. Or perhaps killing Iranian generals was just part of his general pro-Israel stance. He tore up the Iran nuclear deal as well.

I literally just cited a poll that showed broad Israeli support for the war. A bunch of US insiders admitted that it was to support Israel:

Former Senator Ernest Hollings made a similar argument in May 2004 . After noting that Iraq was not a direct threat to the United States, he asked why we invaded that country.7 "The answer," which he said "everyone knows," is "because we want to secure our friend Israel."

Hollings, Clark, Zelikow admitted it. Wolfowitz was such a warmonger he had to be restrained by Cheney of all people!

They bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, they considered Iraq an enemy. If they could somehow get rid of him without taking on the cost themselves they'd leap at the opportunity.

In fact, Haaretz reported on February 2 6 , 2001, that "Sharon believes that Iraq poses more of a threat to regional stability than Iran, due to the errant, irresponsible behavior of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Sharon wanted Saddam toppled, along with war in Iran. There was an early period where they thought maybe the US would only fight one war and maybe they might prefer targeting Iran to Iraq but then they changed their minds. Gung ho in favor of war with Iraq.

A few weeks later, Ra'anan Gissen, Sharon's spokesman, told a Cleveland reporter that "if Saddam Hussein is not stopped now, five years from now, six years from now, we will have to deal with an Iraq that is armed with nuclear weapons, with an Iraq that has delivery systems for weapons of mass destruction.

In mid-May, Shimon Peres, the former Israeli prime minister now serving as foreign minister, appeared on CNN , where he said that "Saddam Hussein is as dangerous as bin Laden," and the United States "cannot sit and wait" while he builds a nuclear arsenal. Instead, Peres insisted, it was time to topple the Iraqi leader.

On August 12, 2002 , Sharon told the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of the Knesset that Iraq "is the greatest danger facing Israel

They also provided some false intelligence to the US, to go along with all the false intelligence the US and UK were producing on their own.

Haaretz, for example, ran a story on February 17, 2003, titled "Enthusiastic IDF Awaits War in Iraq," which said that Israel's "military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq.

I personally am repulsed by this attitude. They were all gung-ho about the war others would fight, advancing their interests. But they don't send a single soldier to fight. No skin in the game.

Mearsheimer & Walt have a pretty interesting blow by blow of the ideation phase of the Iraq War starting on p233 of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy:

In short, Israel did not initiate the campaign for war against Iraq. As will become clear, it was the neoconservatives in the United States who conceived that idea and were principally responsible for pushing it forward in the wake of September 11. But Israel did join forces with the neoconservatives to help sell the war to the Bush administration and the American people, well before the president had made the final decision to invade. Indeed, Israeli leaders worried constantly in the months before the war that President Bush might decide not to go to war after all, and they did what they could to ensure Bush did not get cold feet.

The Israelis began their efforts int he spring of 2002...

Cannot be more pro-Jewish than George .W Bush , who used Israel as a pretext for war. At least Trump was trying to end the wars

This was not the case. The official, public reasons of war were:

1/ WMD

2/ WMD

3/ WMD

4/ bringing freedom and democracy

5/ TL;DR legal arguments

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