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An angry Bob in middle America has no power to formulate plans for middle East invasions and then put them into action.
Many Americans wanted revenge for 9/11. The direction those emotions were guided in and the actions those emotions were used to justify were completely the work of neocons and zionists. To pretend those two movements are not extremely jewish goes beyond any reason.
The people in power most associated with the Iraq war were George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, and Condoleeza Rice, and John Bolton, not a Jew among them. No Jews on the entire National Security Council, either. The idea that none of these people actually wanted the war but were talked into it by the likes of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz is ridiculous. I could just as easily make an argument that the war was completely the work of blacks.
My guess is that if the Israeli government & certain key Jews in the USA had not wanted the USA to go to war with Iraq, then the Iraq war would not only have not happened, it wouldn't have even been seriously considered as an option. And if Israel had actively opposed the war, there is a ~0% chance that it would have occurred.
Roughly half of the key people with the Project for a New American Century were Jews, and they were advocating for regime change in Iraq at least as early as 1998- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Far more important, the Israeli government wanted the USA to go to war with Iraq- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/aug/17/iraq.israel1
(They were nearly the only government which wanted the USA to go to war in Iraq.)
The Israeli government represented the interests of way more powerful Jews than a handful of neocon Jews in Washington DC.
Also, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy". by John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt, covers many aspects of how Zionists sometimes twisted America's foreign policy against our own interests, as happened in Iraq. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Israel_Lobby_and_U.S._Foreign_Policy
(And, the authors argue, those Zionists often hurt Israel's interests as well).
Bush/Cheney and their other staffers also played their own absolutely crucial role. (I always thought that their main motivation for war in Iraq was to make money, and that's even more corrupt than any Jewish neocon's motivation).
And I think that most of the USA bears responsibility for buying into the lies & twisted associations used to sell the Iraq war to the American public (and many of those peddlers of lies were not Jews). The eagerness for vengeance among so many Americans, and their gullibility, made them pay a huge price, in blood and treasure.
Exploitative people generally need gullible people to go along with their schemes, and sadly most Americans are gullible and don't do their due diligence. And it seems like gullible people normally pay a larger price than exploitative people pay for their schemes.
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A hallmark of jewish controlled movements is non-jewish frontmen, as is noted in detail by Kevin MacDonald. But that's rather besides the point of what neo-conservatism and zionism are and where those things come from.
It's easy to make things sound far fetched and insane. As if a hooked nosed caricature from an A Wyatt Mann comic was whispering jewish lies into the ears of hapless Americans. But that's not how things necessarily work. And I don't know if I should insult your intelligence by explaining to you how belief in an ideology can influence peoples decision making, or if I can just ask you to stop pretending you don't understand that the Bush Jr administration was neo-conservative and zionist adjacent, that those movements are jewish, and that adherence to those ideologies exists as an expression of jewish influence insofar as they push it forward and adhere to it.
In absence of detail, this statement disproves your argument by making the hypothesis unfalsifiable. It is also a statement with the implication that every single political movement ever was controlled by the jews. That's not a reasonable argument, a high-effort argument, or even a functional argument.
Rov_Scam named a bunch of individuals who are broadly regarded as having pushed the US into the second Iraq War by making public (fallacious) claims about the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the involvement of Iraq in 9/11. I think a reasonable refutation would require naming a bunch of jewish individuals who are behind the alleged "non-jewish frontmen", and describing how they pushed the US into war. If you can't do that, then either you need to rethink the assumptions that led you into thinking the war was orchestrated by a jewish conspiracy, or you need to stop trolling.
It's not unfalsifiable, as Kevin MacDonald has given multiple examples of these movements, including neoconservatism. But even then there is no absence of detail for those who bother doing a cursory glance over even just the Wikipedia article on neoconservatism.
Rov_Scam names a bunch of senior officials who make decisions based on information given to them by advisors. When those advisors are neocons then I find the case rather cut and dry.
It's also rather annoying that the default of things is that they are just happening for no reason at all and US foreign policy revolving around the middle East and Israel goes unquestioned and any attempt at demonstrating why things happen at all is met with accusations of conspiracy, as if any government body wasn't a group of people scheming together to have things happen in the way they wanted. It makes me wonder what the affirmative positions contradicting my alleged 'conspiracies' are.
No really, where do these people get their ideas from? Was it not neoconservatism winning out over pragmatism in the Bush Jr White House?
I'm not going to read your link. It's 50 to 60 printed pages long. I skimmed the first 2500 words, and the gist of it seems to be that the neoconservative movement was an academic movement supported by majority-Jewish media, and took a pro-Israel foreign policy stance. That's fair, and I will concedie that the most prominent neoconservatives on that list were intellectuals of Jewish ancestry. However, looking on Wikiepedia it seems that most of the prominent American neoliberals on Wikipedia are also Jewish. Can we name an American political movement from the past 20 years which was not dominated by Jewish intellectuals? Do Jewish intellectuals just originate all (American) political movements?
Also, you still need to make the very important causal link from this academic movement to the actual war in Iraq. From the unfinished Gulf War, it is likely that Rumsfeld and Bush had a vendetta against Sadam from 1991, and from the Bush/Cheney oil business it is likely that the war was motivated by the capture of oil fields. Did these neocons originate the invasion, or were they merely providing a convenient rationalization for it? (And why was the supermajority of the American public in support of the Iraq war, when the American public is not Jewish?) You (and Kevin McDonald) admit that the "frontmen" were not Jewish, so you don't get to strip them of agency and culpability for what happened without a very well-articulated causal model.
I don't think so. But even if that were the case, our incredulity toward that fact, if true, would not make it any less true.
Neoconservatives pushing for war predates the Gulf War. And as I stated in a prior comment, according to prominent neocon White House insider William Kristol, neoconservatism was the driving force behind the war:
“I think you could make a case that on September 10th, 2001, that it’s not clear that George W. Bush was in any fundamental way going in our direction on foreign policy.”
He had similar remarks towards Cheney
“Cheney is a complicated figure and, obviously, a very cautious and reticent figure, so hard to know what he thinks in his heart of hearts. I think he had feet in both camps, so to speak.”
Both camps referring to the tug of war between neocons and 'pragmatists' within the White House at the time. A tug of war that the neocons ultimately won. It's not a claim of mine and mine alone that there is a causal link. But beyond neoconservatives taking credit for it at the peak of their influence and confidence, it is an accepted belief on both sides of the 'fringe' political spectrum:
https://mondoweiss.net/2012/01/neoconservative-responsibility-for-the-iraq-war/
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2016/august/23/the-neoconservatives-the-war-on-iraq-and-the-national-interest-of-israel/
Beyond that I don't know how to further argue the point. Neoconservatism had been gunning for war in the middle East for a long time. They move to positions of influence and power and at a flashpoint the US goes to war with Iraq. Arguing the more specific agitating factors surrounding that is the subject of multiple books like The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservative War. And though I'm not imploring you to read a book as an argument, I would present the existence of the book, along with the existence of a host of other similar material as evidence for the plausibility of the causal link.
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I suppose if you think that the only alternative to your account is that events "are just happening for no reason at all", then your position will seem painfully reasonable to you. That doesn't mean that your position is reasonable.
As for the examples you give, that's far from showing that they pushed the US into war, as opposed to being part of a movement that led the US into war. That doesn't evince that neoconservativism was a Jewish-controlled movement or that the gentile neocons were "frontmen".
I think that's the only alternative to a slough of deconstruction that proposes no alternative.
If "they" are neocons and zionists then it shows exactly that.
The link provided to Kevin MacDonalds analysis shows in detail how neoconservatism is a jewish movement. Did you even click it?
No, "they" are the Jews you mentioned.
Yes, it provides evidence that Jews are very influential in neoconservativism, states as much in the conclusion, and has a title "Neoconservativism as a Jewish Movement". That's not the same as establishing that neoconservativism is a Jewish movement.
The only jews I mentioned were neocons and zionists.
Now we are just moving the goalpost of definitions to suit our needs. That might be fine except you give no definition to live up to even after you reject mine.
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Democracy means that everyone is responsible for what happens. Especially everyone which was in favor of the choice that was made. Sure, a guy in middle America wouldn't have been able to change anything himself, but it would have made a huge difference if a lot of angry Bob in middle America had opposed the war, instead of being in favor of it. The jews weren't a majority of the Bush electorate, and it's pretty clear that the Bush electorate supported the war.
People were angry. They wanted a war. So they are not completely innocent. Moreover, the problem of the war in Irak was more the war than the fact that it happened in Irak. All the other possible targets of the "revenge" were even worse: Pakistan has nukes, Saudi Arabia has oil. Other countries had no responsibilities in 9/11. They could have argued for peace, but you know very well that it wouldn't have worked. Some people have tried (some of them jewish), but they have never been heard. So the neocons provided you with what you wanted: the best (or the least bad) target they could find. That was not the main problem. The problem was that an angry mob was asking for blood. Being dumb and emotional is no excuse.
How much power does some random person actually have? It’s really unlikely that anyone in America could have stopped a war the elites wanted to have, or really any other decisions those elites wanted to make. Democracy isn’t about giving the unwashed masses a real say, especially in imperial matters. You might ge5 a say in whether a lane gets added to a local highway, or a Walmart being built nearby, but in matters the elite care about, our oligarchy is not really that different than any other historical empire. No average Joe ever gets the kind of say that would make him morally responsible for wars.
A random person has not much power. But if the media were all agreeing about war, it's not because they are jewish, but because there was no market fir opposing war. The media could have opposed the war as much as they could, people would have looked at other media. They had as much appetite for anti war media as a AOC supporter for looking Tucker Carlson show. So after that blaming the media and the establishment is ridiculous. Just like it would be ridiculous for Bush to blame it on the people.
The American media is explicitly pro-regime as unless they sufficiently report the news as the regime wants it reported, they don’t get access to the leadership of the regime. And so, essentially, the appearance of consent is often manufactured. I would consider most of the statements of “support” for regime positions as selective polling used to create support, not as dispassionately reported unbiased facts.
Then you have to explain why it fails sometimes, eg Vietnam and pentagon papers
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Correct, and there is no excuse for catering to "dumb and emotional". What, were the Democrats going to run a pro-invasion candidate in '04? I suppose it's possible given that Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act in the first place but it strikes me as rather unlikely.
US foreign policy is somewhere between loosely controlled by elections (Democrats and Republicans differed in the 2010s over our our approach to Iran, for example.) and not at all. The Bush administration didn't invade Iraq because Americans were mad (Afghanistan, yes. Ron Paul of all people voted for that AUMF. Even today I don't think there are many who criticize the initial invasion, more that it mission-crept into a failed attempt at nation building.), but because they'd been wanting to invade Iraq for years. Neocons exploited anger over an unrelated event and stoked fears over nonexistent WMDs to get what they'd wanted all along.
Sure, because Americans do not care. If it did matter to them, it would be controlled by elections. But in this particular case it somewhat mattered to them, yet they agreed with the government.
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If you want to say that, that's nice. I don't think it necessarily does mean that in some ideological abstract, but hey, maybe it does. But much less would I consider modern 'democracies' in general or America in particular in any way related to ideological abstracts of what 'democracy' "means".
The public can only be as informed as the institutions that inform it. To that end the Pentagon had launched a massive media campaign to propagandize people into wanting war with Iraq. As detailed by David Barstow. That's on top of every other media element, many of whom jewish, who pushed relentlessly for war.
The electorate were angry because of 9/11. They were then fed a mass media cycle that fueled that anger. This anger was then directed towards a war with Iraq. This was done intentionally. I just made this argument in the my prior post. Please don't ignore it and restate the argument it just responded to. It's tedious.
As for the rest of your post, you are trying to weave a narrative that the war was a consequence of the wants and will of Bob and I can't take it seriously. Bob is angry all the time and no one in power cares. Bob asks for things all the time and no one in power even listens. Everyone knows Bob has no power. In this case Bob was angry and the powers that be saw they could use that anger to their advantage to get what they wanted. Invading Iraq was insane. The pretense for the invasion a lie, and its supporters either useful idiots or neo-con zionists thinking only of Israel. The neocons didn't give anyone what they wanted except themselves. They crafted a media narrative based entirely on lies and deceit that was designed around taking advantage of Bob and his emotions so he would send his children to die for Israel.
The problem with your theory is that the american jews have not really been in favor of the war:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/26677/among-religious-groups-jewish-americans-most-strongly-oppose-war.aspx
https://forward.com/news/1797/poll-70-of-jews-oppose-iraq-war/
https://www.jewishaz.com/issues/story.mv?051223+poll
How is that a problem with 'my theory'? Why would it need a majority of jews in favor of the war?
When you say that "the jews" are responsible for something, it's a requirement that at least a majority of them were wanting for it to happen.
That's not what was said, so I repeat my question.
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I already quoted in the thread George Soros, one the vilest Jews in the consciousness of American right:
or
While Zionists are predominately Jewish, blaming Jews for Iraq is like blaming Italians for Mafia, because Five Families are predominately Italian (and then there are plenty of non-corrupt people of Italian descent serving in police force).
What exists in the consciousness of the American right holds no relevance to who is responsible for the actions taken post 9/11. The existence of jews who were or are against those actions changes nothing about who is responsible for those actions. Those actions were taken by neo-cons and zionists. Two of the most jewish movements in American politics.
If the anti-war, peace loving, only good, never bad, constantly doing what's best for the goyim jews I keep hearing about from jew-apologists were in charge I would have nothing to talk about. But they are obviously not. And even assuming they exist in any relevant number, their powerlessness and uselessness when it comes to fighting back against all the jew made crap in the modern world is not an argument in favor of jews in general or an excuse for those jews in particular who keep doing things that are bad for Europeans.
Jewish Americans opposed the Iraq War more than any other group in America, by a more than 3-1 margin. As the previous poster said, even Jews the right claims are behind all acts of villainy like George Soros opposed the war. The Prime Minister of Israel opposed the war, and warned Bush against it. These are not 'marginal' Jews.
And again, as Rov_Scam writes above, the decisionmakers on the Iraq War were:
So again, most Jews were opposed, many elite Jews were opposed (we can't say 'most' only because polling doesn't exist, but I think it likely), and the major decisionmakers were gentiles, including the President who had a familial vendetta against Saddam Hussein dating back 15 years.
Which is all completely irrelevant to the fact that the neoconservative and zionist movements were jewish. Most Italians had no hand in the Italian mafia. Was the Italian mafia not Italian?
Which would not explain why, according to William Kristol, Bush Jr was not on board with the idea until after 9/11.
"OUR" of course, referencing the neocon side, as opposed to the pragmatist side within the White House at the time. He had similar things to say about Cheyney
The neocon faction, led by Paul Wolfowitz had been agitating for war for a long time and they finally found the right conditions to push it forward. That's on the back of all the events that inspired the 9/11 attacks in the first place.
The Cosa Nostra are overwhelmingly Sicilian. Are neocons overwhelmingly Jewish?
Neoconservatism as a movement is jewish. Just like the Italian Mafia is Italian despite the barman being Spanish or the guy driving the concrete truck being from Algeria.
I don't think that the President of the US in the neoconservative movement was analogous to a barman or a truck driver in a mafia.
The point being made is that a group or a movement does not need to consist of only one category of people to still be considered primarily of one category.
To that end neoconservatives like William Kristol did not consider Bush a neoconservative on foreign policy:
"our" referring to the internal tug of war within the White House between neoconservatives and "pragmatists".
Or in the words of Stephen J. Sniegoski:
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You are allowed to rail about Da Joos, but you still have to dial down the antagonism and not engage in strawmanning like this. Even if you really believe "Jews" are a single unit, the fact is that there are Jews here (probably on both sides of any given argument) and you need to address them (yes, you are addressing posters here on the Motte when you talk about Jews) as individuals. If you want to speak about what The Jews are doing, either make sure you can defend the claim that it applies to any given Jew, or stop using such broad generalizations. (And no, "Of course I don't mean literally every single Jew, just 99% of them" is not sufficient.)
I mean, I'm not really allowed to "rail about Da Joos". Nigh every single time I make a critical point about expressions of jews you are here wearing your mod hat being antagonistic and sneering at me. Going so far as to strawmanning my argument just after you accused me of doing so.
This is antagonistic sneering. I am not "railing" against anyone. That's not a fair summation of what I wrote. And always referring to a critical statement with regards to jews as being about 'Da Joos' is disrespectful and childish. I mean, can I refer to any pro communist argument as 'gommunism'? Oh, I didn't know you were one of those who liked 'crapitalism'. Oh, is that a 'shitlib' argument? No really, what are you doing?
This is a strawman. I don't. How you could gleam that from me arguing about distinctions between jews is beyond me.
I am at a loss at what you are referring to. No jew came forward with their own beliefs, nor is the belief of any individual in question, nor did I insinuate that any jew had to have a specific belief if they were not neoconservative or zionist. Like, can you quote where I went wrong?
I made specific claims regarding specific institutions and movements. I am sure I can defend the claim that neo-conservatism and zionism are jewish. And so far no one has bothered pretending they are not since everyone knows they are. Perhaps it's my error in assuming people would know the difference between recognizing that just because the Italian Mafia is Italian doesn't mean that referring to it as such means every Italian is a mafioso. Maybe it's a jewish thing.
Transparently false. You post about Jews all the time, and only occasionally do you get carried away and have to be modded.
I'm sure you don't think you're railing. You are free to disagree with my subjective opinion about the quality of your arguments. You are not free to make pejorative generalizations about your outgroup.
By the same token I would have thought that your personal subjective opinion did not warrant you being antagonistic and sneering towards others. Considering I did not make pejorative generalizations about my outgroup, but you did antagonize and sneer, I am not sure what you are doing here.
I am issuing a mod warning for your pejorative generalizations about your outgroup. If you think I am in error, or that my own posts need review, you've been around long enough to know who to appeal to about it.
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