The Lobby Like No Other Wants a War Like No
Other
By Michael Scheuer
14/08/08 "Antiwar"
-- - Having watched John McCain and Barack Obama resolutely
pledge their allegiance – and their countrymen's lives and
treasure – to the defense of Israel via AIPAC, the media, and
personal meetings with Israeli leaders, it is worth asking what
could possibly drive these men to so ardently commit America to
participation in other people's religious wars. This question is
particularly important today as the Bush administration and the
Israel-firsters continue to push for an unprovoked U.S. attack
on Iran.
Let me say that I harbor no resentment over the actions of
Israel's leaders. For more than 60 years, they have knowingly
made their country a pariah in the Arab and Islamic worlds, just
as the Palestinians have made themselves pariahs in much of the
West. This is, of course, the right of both parties, but neither
seems to want to face the consequences of their decisions. With
demographic realities and increasingly radical, well-armed Arabs
making them panicky about Israel's security, Israel's leaders
naturally to try to lock down as much U.S. support as possible.
Having consciously – if unwisely – put all their eggs in the
U.S. basket since the 1973 War, Israel's leaders must do
everything possible to protect their relationship with
Washington.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq, it seems, was not enough for the
Israel-firsters. Now, according to Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a
U.S.-launched war on Iran is needed because "the threat that the
U.S. and Israel face from the Islamic Republic of Iran is today
greater than ever." Though based on the fantasy that
Ahmedinejad's tin-pot regime is a threat to the world's only
superpower, this is a perfectly commonsense position for Israel
and its U.S.-citizen backers in AIPAC to champion. In their
view, U.S. wars with Muslims are the ultimate good for Israel.
Recall, if you will, the perfectly accurate April 2008, words of
Benjamin Netanyahu, likely Israel's next prime minister: "We
[Israel] are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack
on the twin towers and the Pentagon, and the American struggle
in Iraq." These wars, Netanyahu said, have "swung American
public opinion in our favor." How much more must Netanyahu and
AIPAC believe that a U.S. war with Iran would add to this
"swing" in Israel's favor?
My own anger falls not on Israel, then, or on Palestine, for
that matter; as I have written elsewhere, America would do just
fine and would be better off without either or both. It falls
rather on the lobbying efforts of AIPAC, that organization's
blatant purchasing of fealty from U.S. politicians in both
parties, and the media's obsequious parroting of specious
canards about "Israel's right to exist" and "the duty of
Americans to support an island of democracy in the Middle East."
While few would question the right of AIPAC leaders to lobby
U.S. politicians, legally bribe them with campaign
contributions, or limit their right to speak as they please in
public, not matter how scurrilous or libelous their words, I
sometimes wonder if Americans have focused on what AIPAC lobbies
for and what its acolytes in politics and the media support.
It is a commonplace to say that lobbying is a pervasive activity
in U.S. politics at all levels of government, especially at the
federal level. People lobby for tax advantages for business or
tax breaks for individuals; for the right to own guns or laws to
ban them; for subsidies for agriculture or vouchers for private
schools; for universal health care or smaller government. Across
this diverse array of lobbyists there are two common threads:
(A) None are working to push the United States to participate in
other peoples' wars; and (B) All are arguing for things that
will – from their perspective – improve America, whether by
making it richer, better protected, more competently educated,
healthier, freer, etc. The anti-gun lobby, for example, is no
less confident than the NRA and its affiliates that they are
working for the best interests of Americans. One or the other is
wrong, but their activities are shaped by their perception of
what is best for America.
It is this last point that separates the lobbyists working for
and with AIPAC – most of whom are U.S. citizens – from almost
all other U.S.-based lobbyists. AIPAC does not lobby, bribe, and
libel to make Americans and America better off. It lobbies
solely, forthrightly, and cynically to make Israel richer,
better protected, and able to do as it pleases in its relations
with Muslim states. AIPAC makes no pretense of doing things
meant to benefit America; rather, its members take pride in
seeking a goal that runs directly counter to the economic
welfare and physical security of almost all other U.S citizens
by seeking to keep them involved in a religious war in which no
U.S. national interest is at stake.
Now, there are a few other similar anti-American lobbies – those
for Armenia, Lebanon, Greece, etc. – but AIPAC is clearly primus
inter pares in this dastardly group. And given that every AIPAC
success is a net loss for U.S. security and the U.S. Treasury,
it seems odd that our so-called political leaders take orders
and funds from this fundamentally anti-U.S. organization. Odd or
not, however, that is the reality. Senators Obama and McCain
have become AIPAC poster boys, each strengthening his support
for Israel over the course of the current presidential campaign.
Obama's position, in fact, has changed so drastically in a
pro-Israel direction that the Illinois senator appears to have
no mind of his own on this issue. He has simply and obsequiously
adopted the Democrats' traditional abject subservience to their
small but powerful pro-Israel constituency.
McCain is an Israel-firster of the deepest hue. Coached by Joe
Lieberman – who argues there is a U.S. duty to ensure God's
promise to Abraham about Israel is kept – McCain is now
considering Republican Congressman Eric Cantor for his running
mate. Rep. Cantor, needless to say, is eager to spend American
blood and treasure to secure Israel. Speaking in Israel, Cantor
pushed the same false assertion that is the staple of U.S.
leaders in both parties. "What befalls Jerusalem," Cantor said,
"threatens the security of the United States and its allies
worldwide. That's because Jerusalem and Israel are Ground Zero
in the global battle between tyranny and democracy, radicalism
and moderation, terrorism and freedom."
This, of course, is nonsense of a high order, and Lieberman and
Cantor know it. Both men are committed to Israel as a religious
idea, not because it has anything to do with U.S. security.
According to Lieberman, "The rabbis say in the Talmud that a lot
of rabbinic law is to put a fence around the Torah so you don't
get near to violating it. Well, McCain has a series of very
clear-headed policies toward terrorism and Islamic extremism
[that put] extra layers behind his support for Israel." He also
told a conference of Christians United for Israel that he was
pleased they recognized it was America's duty to defend Israel,
blithely lying to them that "President Washington and the
Founding Fathers" would support America fighting Israel's wars.
Cantor, playing to both the Israel-firsters and their U.S.
evangelical allies, also has made clear where his primary
loyalty lies:
"Jerusalem is not merely the capital of Israel but the spiritual
capital of Jews and Christians everywhere. It's the site of the
First and Second Temples, which housed the Holy of Holies, and
it's the direction in which we Jews face when we pray. This
glorious City of David is bound to the Jewish people by an
undeniable 3,000-year historical link."
My own view is that if God promised Palestine to the Israelis,
God is perfectly capable of keeping that promise, and America is
no way committed to expend the lives of its soldier-children in
a war over conflicting interpretations of God's word. The
Israelis and the Muslims should be perfectly free to fight over
whether Yahweh and Abraham or Allah and Mohammed are right, and
Americans should be perfectly free to draw the correct
conclusion, that the United States does not have a dog in this
fight. In addition, there is a genuine constitutional question
of church-state separation on this issue. Why should American
taxpayers have their earnings and children's lives spent to
defend a theocracy in Israel or, for that matter, to protect an
Islamic theocracy in Saudi Arabia.? (Imagine the howls of
protest and torrents of church-state separation rhetoric from
the media and both parties if a congressman introduced a bill
calling for the U.S. to designate that an amount equivalent to
what's spent to protect Israel and Saudi Arabia be sent to the
Vatican – a nation-state like Israel and Saudi Arabia – to
improve its defenses against the now well-articulated threat
from al-Qaeda and other Islamists.)
Objectively, three realities are clear: (1) U.S. survival is not
at stake in the Israeli-Muslim war; (2) the taxes of Americans
should not be spent to defend theocratic states; and (3) holy
books are insane tools to use as guides for U.S. foreign policy.
In America, however, these realities lie unspoken because of the
lobbying efforts of AIPAC and the pro-Israel mantras of the
politicians it purchases with campaign contributions and
promises of media exposure, including McCain and Obama. By their
consistent anti-American actions, AIPAC and the U.S. politicians
who do its bidding have fully validated the words of the real
George Washington – not the figment of Washington painted by Joe
Lieberman. "Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence,"
President Washington wrote in 1796, "the jealousy of a free
people ought to be constantly awake, since history and
experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most
baneful foes of republican government."
Michael Scheuer
is a 22-year veteran of the CIA and the author of
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror.
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