They're Back! Walt, Mearsheimer, and AIPAC!

post from TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed on 30 August 2006 10:21:17 AM. © TPMCafe - The Coffee House feed

I don't usually link to the New Republic (nutty Likud on Israel but not bad on US politics) but Jason Zengerle's piece is worth looking at.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/theplank?pid=34735

Also worth reading is the snarky Dana Milbank piece from yesterday's Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2006/08/28/AR2006082801178.htm

I have a big problem with Walt-Mearsheimer. They seem to have been invented by AIPAC to discredit legitimate criticism of the organization. They deal in overstatements and half-truths and their rhetoric suggests serious anti-Israel animus.

Don't get me wrong. People are entitled to be anti-Israel. People are entitled to be anti-American, anti-French or anything else.

But effective criticism of AIPAC has to come from those who are not perceived as anti-Israel, who believe that Israeli-Palestinian peace is good for the US, the Palestinians and Israel, too.

I don't know that M&W do not feel that way but they sure paint with a broad brush. For instance, they lump Wolfowitz and Feith together as two Likudniks who got us into the war in Iraq for Israel's sake.

Not true. Wolfowitz is no Likudnik and, as far as I know, has never been involved with Israel. He is Jewish. That's it. But his disastrous policy recommendations stemmed not from his Judaism or Zionism but from an utterly wrongheaded view of US interests. His foreign policy obsession before Iraq was Indonesia, not Israel. He's wrong but no foreign agent.

Conflating these two gets Doug Feith off the hook. Feith is the guy who ran the operation to mislead the American public, Congress and maybe even Bush about Iraq.

He comes from a right-of Likud background. He wrote policy papers before the current administration came to power urging Israel to repudiate Oslo (he had only contempt for Rabin and company), urging Clinton to go to war with Iraq, and urged Netanyahu to do the same "to secure the realm." (By which he meant the West Bank).

While Wolfowitz is a multifaceted guy, with many concerns and interests, Feith has only one: that Israel hold on to the territories forever. (The question arises. How did he get a security clearance to be the #2 at DoD).

Feith is obsessively anti-peace and anti-Palestinian. Wolfowitz spoke at a pro-Israeli rally on the Mall in 2003 and was booed by the huge crowd for calling for a Palestinian state. He has endorsed the Beilin-Yassir Abbed Rabbo Geneva Initiative).

Bottom line. M&W don't know the scene or the players. They have no credibility as AIPAC critics.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/tpmcafe-main/~3/17667995/theyre_back_walt_mearshei
mer_and_aipac

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Chumps

post from Eschaton on 30 August 2006 10:21:00 AM. © Eschaton

From the Ted Strickland campaign:

On August 20th, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that a Republican named Nathan Estruth showed up at a Clermont County Democratic rally to give Ted a chance to persuade him.

Link

In a county that proudly paints itself political red, where about 70 percent of voters backed President Bush in 2004, Nathan Estruth showed up at a park Saturday morning to hear the blue people.

In particular, he wanted to listen to Ted Strickland, the Democratic candidate for governor who, with U.S. Senate candidate Sherrod Brown, was headlining a three-day bus tour promoting the party's statewide ticket in some of Ohio's most Republican counties.

Estruth, a father of four who typically votes Republican, milled in the back of a partisan crowd of about 100, one of just a handful of people not wearing a shirt promoting a Democratic candidate. At the urging of a friend, he came to give the Democrats, who have been out of power in Ohio for more than a decade, a chance to win his vote.

"It's just common sense that we need change," Estruth said at Veterans Memorial Park in Union Township. "Frankly, it's about change for change's sake."

Unfortunately, Mr. Estruth said he wasn?t convinced.

After the 40-minute rally, Estruth said he was not ready to vote Democratic. He was put off, he said, by their harsh rhetoric.

"I wanted to see if he was an executive with clear plans for fixing the state," he said about Strickland. "What I got was partisan talk. He confirmed my worst fears."

However, there might be another reason that Mr. Estruth wasn?t ready to vote Democratic. Via Buckeye State Blog, we learn that he happens to be the president of Common Sense Ohio, a Blackwell-supporting group that?s been running hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising across that state attacking Ted.

The BSB post: http://buckeyestateblog.com/node/2592

Common Sense Ohio: http://www.commonsenseohio.org

Common Sense Ohio?s ads began running on August 16th. The president of the group is on the record alleging to be a Republican just ?checking out? Ted Strickland at a rally held on August 19th.

Wouldn?t it just be common sense that the president of a group spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to destroy Ted Strickland had already made up his mind?

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_08_27_atrios_archive.html#115694773017619745

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Cheney tried to use CIA in 2004 to mislead the
American public about Iraq

post from AMERICAblog on 30 August 2006 10:10:00 AM. © AMERICAblog

I'm just finishing up Ron Suskind's excellent book, "The One Percent Doctrine." It contains lots of infuriating scoops, including the following on pp. 340-341:

"In mid November 2004, a few weeks after the President's reelection... Cheney wanted a portion of a particular CIA report declassified and made public. [CIA analytical chief Jami] Miscik knew the report –- it was about the complex, often catalytic connections between the war in Iraq and the wider war against terrorism. The item the Vice President wanted declassified was a small part that might lead one to believe that the war was helping the broader campaign against violent Jihadists. The report, she knew, concluded nothing of the sort…. To release that small segment would be willfully misleading. She told the briefer to tell Cheney that she didn't think that was such a good idea. The Vice President expressed his outrage to Porter Goss."

Porter Goss then had one of his deputies call the analyst and tell her "Saying no to the Vice President is the wrong answer."

So many things at work here. First, Cheney is caught red handed trying to falsely link Iraq to the larger war on terror (something he'd done repeatedly). And second, when he gets caught doing it, Cheney still pushes ahead.

At what point will Dick Cheney be held responsible for intentionally misleading the American public about the war in Iraq and the overall war on terror? Is this nothing more than a propaganda war to the Bush White House?

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http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Americablog/~3/17665651/cheney-tried-to-use-cia-in
-2004-to.html

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WHY DUMPDOOLITTLE IS SO NECESSARY

post from DownWithTyranny! on 30 August 2006 10:06:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

by Marlene Rose(I've been trying to get Marlene Rose, who lives way up in northern California near the Oregon border, to write a piece about her detestible congressman, John Doolittle for months. Something finally seems to have struck a nerve.- HK) It is amazing the many ways Congressman John Doolittle has managed to fleece the American taxpayer. His latest came disguised as campaign

Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/08/why-dumpdoolittle-is-so-necessary.htm
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Katherine Harris and the Ten Commandments

post from Crooks and Liars on 30 August 2006 09:55:36 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Last week, Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) raised a few eyebrows by insisting that voters had to elect Christians to avoid "legislating sin," calling the constitutional separation of church and state a "lie," and arguing that God did not intend for the United States to be "a nation of secular laws."Since then she backed away from [...]

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http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/katherine-harris-and-the-ten-commandment
s/

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Glenn Greenwald Discusses FISA on the Alan Colmes
Show

post from Crooks and Liars on 30 August 2006 09:52:45 AM. © Crooks and Liars

Gleen Greenwald was on the Alan Colmes show yesterday and got into a rather hefty debate with former deputy undersecretary of defense (under Bush 41), Jed BabbinPart 1 (mp3) Part 2 (mp3)Babbin gets really nasty and says on the air that Glenn has "no god damn idea what he’s talking about". Babbin tries to say [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/08/30/glenn-greenwald-discusses-fisa-on-the-al
an-colmes-show/

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Morning Thread

post from Eschaton on 30 August 2006 09:43:00 AM. © Eschaton

Enjoy.

Read The Full Article:
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_08_27_atrios_archive.html#115694543695355789

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VIDEO: Rumsfeld Compares Iraq War Critics To
Hitler Appeasers

In a speech to the American Legion yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continued his blistering attack on critics of the administration’s Iraq war policy. Rumsfeld compared critics of his policies to people “in the decades before World War II” who believed Hitler “could be appeased” and “argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated — [...]

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http://thinkprogress.org/2006/08/30/rumsfeld-war-critics-2/

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Collateral Damage

Sources close to Richard Armitage have confirmed for the NYTimes that he was, indeed, the source not only for Bob Novak, but also for Bob Woodward and another journalist as well who did not write about Valerie Plame Wilson. (Any guesses on that[...]

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http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/08/30/collateral-damage/

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Political Fib of the Day - As (Un)Civil a War as
Can Be...

I defer (again) to the wit & wisdom of Rummy:

...it seems to me that it is not a classic civil war at this stage.
It certainly isn't like our Civil War. It isn't like the civil war in a number of other countries.

Is it a high level of sectarian violence? Yes, it is. And are people being killed? Yes. And is it unfortunate? Yes.

Because, apparently, people have to wear the correct colors to be a civil war...Or be white...

And with sectarian violence like this happening, you've got to wonder where it will end.

Go
For
Treatment -
Find Your Death...
Iraq's Hospitals
Now Sectarian Killing Fields...

Unbelievable.

Earl E Hart III
GnostiNews

Read The Full Article:
http://cernigsnewshog.blogspot.com/2006/08/political-fib-of-day-as-uncivil-war-as
.html

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