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Dying for AIPAC

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | March 15, 2012

In ancient Greece and Rome the front line soldiers were drawn from the wealthiest class of citizens. That was partly because each soldier had to provide his own equipment and armor was expensive, but it was also due to the belief that men who had the most to lose would fight best. It also guaranteed that wars would be no more frequent than necessary, would be short in duration, and would be decisive in nature. America’s Founding Fathers clearly had similar ideas, envisioning only a small national army and much larger state militias where the local property owners would come out on weekends and drill with their weapons on the village green, developing the skills necessary to defend their homes.

I was thinking about the duties entailed in citizenship as I watched television coverage of the spectacle of the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). I wondered about the six thousand plus attendees at the conference and their hubristic sense of entitlement minus any sense of responsibility for what they advocate. The entire conference was dedicated to going to war with Iran, a war that is manifestly not in America’s interest. But there they were, welcoming more than half of Congress and a majority of Supreme Court Justices as well as the President of the United States, as they called for war on behalf of a foreign country.

I asked myself how many of those at AIPAC would pay any price at all for going to war with Iran? How many of them have children in the military? With a little searching I could only find ten members out of the 535 members of Congress having recently had sons or daughters in the military and I would imagine the numbers among other AIPAC attendees would be even lower. I would bet the percentage is miniscule. And how many of those at AIPAC will be contributing their wealth to support another absolutely senseless foreign war? None, most likely as America has become addicted to going to war on a credit card. Instead, the AIPAC attendees have learned that it is possible to start wars by using much smaller sums of money to buy influence and votes on Capitol Hill and compliant editorial writers in the media, meaning that AIPAC’s $65 million budget can easily translate into a war that costs the American taxpayer several trillion dollars, as occurred with Iraq.

AIPAC understands that there is no need to sacrifice one’s children or spend anything more than necessary when there are other people’s children out there who are ready, willing and able to die for your cause and for the foreign land that you hold most dear. It is a coward’s way to go to war without pain, without grief, and without cost to you personally, where fighting and dying by others is little more than an abstraction. It is one more powerful reason why groups like AIPAC, instead of being celebrated, should be placed under Justice Department supervision and strictly monitored as collaborative and subversive agents of foreign powers, which is precisely what they are. And when they step out of line by stealing secrets or suborning politicians it should mean hard time in prison. No one deserves to die in someone else’s fight, particularly in a bad cause, and no one should be able to start a war and escape the consequences.

Philip Giraldi is the executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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March 15, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Choices for Obama: War or More War

By Philip Giraldi | The Passionate Attachment | March 8, 2012

The United States is committing itself to a war on behalf of another nation and it is as if nothing is happening. Commentary on President Obama’s speech at AIPAC and his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been limited, apparently in the belief that if no one talks about it the war can begin on schedule. There has been plenty of coverage on Iran, however, all of it playing up the threat that the country allegedly poses. Some “thoughtful” commentary has been paying attention to Obama’s drawing a red line that is different from that of Israel, i.e. that military intervention should be dependent on preventing Iran’s actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon rather than its only having the capability to eventually develop one. Israel and its US lobby are seeking to make Iran’s technical ability to enrich uranium a casus belli rather than any proof of actual belligerent intent. That capability or “breakthrough” line has already been crossed which would suggest that the US should be at war with Iran already, precisely what Senators Graham, Lieberman, and McCain as well as their AIPAC sponsors would like to see. Obama is instead trying to delay the reckoning, until after elections in November if he can possibly manage it.

And the different red lines are really little more than a red herring. Obama has been drawn into supporting Netanyahu’s war whether he likes it or not. The American president did not bother to explain why Iran is a threat to the United States because it is clear that to attempt to make that argument would be to magnify the actual threat from Tehran far beyond reality. Iran does not threaten the United States and, given its puny economy and military budget, cannot do so. It would easily be contained even if it were to waste its limited resources on developing a crude nuclear device that it would be unable to deliver on target.

This pledge from Obama means that the US will actually be going to war on behalf of what the Israeli leadership considers to be a threat against itself, rightly or wrongly. Israel can defend itself if it feels threatened. It has a vast nuclear arsenal and the means to deliver the weapons on target to include ballistic missiles and submarines. It also has an extensive anti-missile defense system funded by the US taxpayer. Obama calls US support of Israel right or wrong as “having Israel’s back.” Why should the US have anyone’s back apart from those nations with which Washington has a defense treaty that clearly spells out the conditions for support? Who “has the back” of the American people against what Israel and Netanyahu might do?

Obama knows perfectly well that Congress and the media as well as his own financial backers from Chicago — the Pritzker and Crown families — would force the White House to join in any war on Israel’s behalf. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that too. Netanyahu can therefore have his war whenever he wants or he might opt to have his lackeys in the media and Congress crank up the pressure on Obama to produce regime change in the White House to bring in a pro-Israel nut case like Gingrich or Santorum, a guarantee that the United States will be at war with much of the rest of the world for the foreseeable future.

Philip Giraldi is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.

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March 8, 2012 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 3 Comments

Netanyahu Calls the Shots

By Philip Giraldi | The American Conservative | March 6th, 2012

There are several things missing from the march to war that we are seeing playing out at AIPAC this week. First is the complete absence of any casus belli. Media and political rhetoric aside, Iran has threatened neither Israel nor the United States and the intelligence agencies of both countries agree that Tehran has not made the decision to construct a nuclear weapon (if it indeed has the ability and resources to do so). Second is the “security threat” to the United States coming from Iran, cited by President Obama. What exactly is it and how does Iran, a backward country with an ailing economy and a military unable to project its power beyond its own borders threaten the US? How can it possibly endanger the United States to such an extent that a war which can have catastrophic economic and political consequences might be justified?

Obama, to give him his due, is holding out against immense pressure on many fronts from Israel and its friends to draw a “nuclear capability” red line that will mean war in fairly short order. He is supported by the Pentagon and the intelligence community in his resistance. But he has nevertheless turned over US foreign policy in a key part of the world to Israel, saying unconditionally that he has “Israel’s back” and that he guarantees its security. That means that no matter what Israel does, justified or not, the US will get involved, something that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands very well. It would be war with no concern for what the consequences might be for the American people because, after all, Netanyahu could care less about the US except insofar as it is a source of material and political support.

Obama has also opened the door to a replay of Iraq. He has pledged to use military force against Iran to “prevent” Tehran’s development of a nuclear weapon. Prevent is the key word as it means preemption. Preemption will be based on evidence that Iran is building a weapon. As with Iraq, evidence can be fabricated or planted to suit. There have already been instances of fabricated intelligence being generated to create the impression that Iran is not only seeking a weapon but is also advancing a project to be able to mount it on a ballistic missile. It is not hard for a sophisticated intelligence agency like Mossad to fake the necessary evidence, that will then be picked up by the usual suspects in the US media and in congress, to make the case for war.

We are seeing something awful unfolding before our very eyes – an essentially phony case for going to war being driven by a foreign country and its domestic lobby with the political class too terrified to say no and a complicit media beating the drum.

March 6, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | 1 Comment

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