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Bombs for a Better World: Syria, Surveillance and the Neo-Crocs

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In a sane world, the former “Chief Speechwriter for Tony Blair” would now be a fugitive from justice or serving a life sentence. But it’s not a sane world, so Philip Collins is receiving his thirty pieces of silver from the hostile elite. He has a well-paid post at the London School of Economics and writes for Rupert Murdoch’s London Times, where he displays all the intellectual power and anthropological expertise you would expect of a Blairite:

The most misunderstood book of recent times was lost in a play on words. When Francis Fukuyama called his book The End of History he was not making the foolish claim that history, as 1066 And All That nearly said, had come to a full stop. He was saying that no society better than liberal democracy would ever emerge.

With history unfolding all around us, it is a good moment to point out that Fukuyama was right. The people of Syria, like the people of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, do not wish to buy security at the cost of freedom. The Middle East will, in time, join the league of democratic nations, as Latin America has done since 1970. The fragile Government of Algeria cannot last. The limited reforms sponsored by the kings of Morocco and Jordan will buy a little time. But eventually the people there and the people in Iran will want some of what we have, they being people just like us. (Saving the people of Syria, reproduced in The Australian, 25th February, 2012)

It would be wrong to call those claims “half-witted.” No, “eighth-witted” is more like it. It took centuries for liberal democracy to evolve in Britain. Tony Blair went a long way towards destroying it in a decade. But Philip Collins thinks the Middle East will inevitably embrace it. After all, the Muslims there have no connection with their illiberal and undemocratic governments, which have presumably beamed in from Neptune or the Andromeda Galaxy. Collins thinks that Syrians, Tunisians, Libyans, Moroccans et al. are “people just like us.” Well, apart from a significantly lower average IQ and a long history of inbreeding, clannishness and corruption, that is. And a totalitarian religion that stands no nonsense about female rights and imposes the death penalty for offences like apostasy and blasphemy. Muslims in the Middle East wouldn’t have knighted Salman Rushdie the way Tony Blair did. No, they’d’ve quickly cut his head off. If he’d been lucky.

But apart from those details, Collins thinks that the Middle East is ready to “join the league of democratic nations” as “Latin America” did in 1970. He seems to be forgetting the dictatorships that flourished in Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and so on. You’d expect him to remember Chile, because Spain tried to have General Pinochet extradited when Pinochet came here for medical treatment during Blair’s premiership. But Blairites don’t like history: as someone once pointed out, the only certainty in Blairism was the golden future. The past was always changing.

In this, Blairites faithfully reflected their neo-conservative confederates. The neo-cons know no history, just as they know no shame. In a sane world, what happened in Iraq would have discredited them for ever, if not placed them behind bars. But it’s not a sane world and they’re still with us, still lying, still gasbagging, still beating the drums for slaughter. One of the British neo-cons, Norman Geras, called the eighth-witted maunderings of Philip Collins a “thoughtful column.” The quality of Geras’ own thinking is apparent here:

Of course, the whole world is not a death camp, and what is happening in Syria falls far short of the Nazi genocide. Yet the brutal murder of innocent people by a state bears some kinship with all crimes against humanity, of which it is itself one. (“Adolescent” revulsion and moral shame (over Syria), NormBlog, 27th February, 2012)

The Nazis, of course, are the gold standard of evil. Comparing the Syrian government to the Nazis is designed to elicit a reflexive warrant for military action.

But it would be wrong to dismiss Geras as an eighth-witted gasbag. In fact, he’s a bloodthirsty eighth-witted gasbag:

Since it is urgent that we respond somehow, out of solidarity, of our “common human heritage” with the victims, action must be taken even if it means meeting chaos with chaos and (by implication) that the chaos we cause turns out to be worse than the chaos we’re trying to bring to an end. (NormBlog)

Neo-con Norman “Gasbag” Geras

Neo-con Norman “Gasbag” Geras

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The Organized Jewish Community: Wall-to-wall Support for a Strike on Syria

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One of the self-deceptions of Jewish life is the belief that “two Jews, three opinions” — the idea that Jews are especially likely to disagree with one another. But on critical issues like Israel, immigration, multiculturalism and Christianity in the public square, the Jewish community speaks with one (very powerful) voice. A Bloomberg article illustrates the broad-based support among Jews for a strike on Syria (“Adelson New Obama Ally as Jewish Groups Back Syria Strike). The broad-based Jewish support for a military strike on Syria is breath-taking, especially considering that Congress is finding “record opposition” to an airstrike in the rest of America.

Recent polls already show little appetite among the American people for military intervention in Syria. A Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday found just 29 percent of Americans supported air strikes “in response to reports that the Syrian government used chemical weapons,” while a Washington Post/ABC poll out the same day had 36 percent of Americans in favor of air strikes. … Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), a vocal opponent of military strikes against the Syrian government, told reporters after Thursday’s briefing that a vote to use military force in Syria would fail. “The House doesn’t want it, the American people don’t want it. People here listen to their constituents,” Grayson said. “First of all, public opinion is entirely against it. Secondly, public opinion is vehemently against it.” (“U.S. Lawmakers Say Constituents Opposed To Syria Intervention, Cite Record Opposition“)

Morris Amitay, former head of AIPAC and who now heads of the Washington Political Action Committee (whose motto is “A strong and secure Israel is America’s best interest”) favors a military strike. Both the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Jewish Democratic Council advocate a military strike. The Bloomberg article also notes that the ADL and the and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are also on board.

One tactic is to point out that  Jews were gassed in WWII. The Simon Wiesenthal Center began its letter to all U.S. Senators and Representatives: “It was seventy-one years ago in August 1942, just a few weeks before Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, that Gerhard Riegner, the World Jewish Congress representative in Switzerland informed the US and British governments of the diabolical plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews using gas.” A group of 17 rabbis, “descendants of Holocaust survivors and refugees, whose ancestors were gassed to death in concentration camps” and spanning the Jewish religious spectrum endorsed a military strike.

Most importantly, the 800-lb. gorilla (AIPAC) not only released a statement supporting a military strike but now says it is mounting a full-scale campaign to get Congress to approve. 250 activists will descend on Washington to lobby every last senator and representative.

The amount of money the Israel Lobby is able to muster for an effort like this is staggering. The Bloomberg article notes:

The pro-Israel community contributed $14.5 million to federal campaigns for the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than the $11.1 million in donations by the defense aerospace industry, one of the biggest and most consistent political contributors.

It bears mentioning that the American aerospace industry is massively intertwined with Israel’s and that they both have a shared interest in getting Congress to cough up money for defense contractors. For example, the Arrow 3 missile is a joint venture between Boeing and Israel Aerospace Industries. David’s Sling, a short-range anti-missile system, was jointly developed by Raytheon and Rafael, another Israeli aerospace company. The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (“Securing America, Strengthening Israel”) advocates shared American-Israeli ownership of Iron Dome, which is already deployed in Israel.

Sheldon Adelson’s financial commitment is truly staggering:

While most of the Jewish groups’ donations lean Democratic, Adelson alone transformed the 2012 Republican primary when he and his wife used $15 million in private funds to sustain the unsuccessful candidacy of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then poured $53 million into groups advancing Republican nominee Mitt Romney. In all, Adelson and his wife donated $93 million to Republican causes in the 2012 campaign, center data shows.

Imagine if White advocacy had people like Adelson willing to commit $93 million to the cause.

Instead, Adelson, a board member of the RJC, will now be gearing up his millions for a military strike — no matter what the great majority of Americans want.

Bombas por um mundo melhor: Síria, Monitoramento e os Neocrocodilos — por Tobias Langdon para o Occidental Observer

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Tobias Langdon: Bombs for a Better World: Syria, Surveillance and the Neo-Crocs, The Occidental Observer, 8 setembro de 2013
Tradução e links: O Retrógrado Lusófono
Em um mundo são, o ex-“redator-chefe dos discursos de Tony Blair” seria agora um fugitivo da justiça ou estaria cumprindo pena de prisão perpétua. Mas este não é um mundo são, e assim, Philip Collins está recebendo suas trinta peças de prata das mãos da elite hostil. Ele tem um cargo bem-remunerado na London School of Economics e escreve para o London Times de Rubert Murdoch, onde demonstra todo o poder intelectual e erudição antropológica que se esperariam de uma Blairiette:

O livro mais mal-compreendido dos tempos recentes se perdeu em um jogo de palavras. Quando Francis Fukuyama chamou seu livro de The End of History [O fim da História], ele não estava defendendo a tese tola de que a História, como 1066 And All That [1066 e tudo mais] quase disse, tinha chegado a um ponto final. Ele estava dizendo que alguma sociedade melhor do que a democracia liberal jamais surgiria. 

Com a História se desenrolando bem à nossa volta, é um bom momento para se apontar que Fukuyama estava certo. O povo da Síria, como o povo da Tunísia, da Líbia e do Egito não quer comprar segurança ao preço da liberdade. O Oriente Médio vai, com o tempo, juntar-se à liga das nações democráticas, como a América Latina tem se juntado, desde 1970. O frágil governo da Argélia não tem como durar. As reformas limitadas patrocinadas pelos reis do Marrocos e da Jordânia vão ganhar um pouco de tempo. Mas por fim, as pessoas lá e as pessoas no Irã vão querer um pouco do que nós temos, eles sendo gente igual a nós (Saving the people of Syria [Salvando o povo da Síria], reproduzido no The Australian, 25 de fevereiro, 2012).

Seria errado chamar estas alegações de “retardadas” [half-witted]. Não; estão mais para “retardadas-e-meio” [eith-witted]. A democracia liberal levou séculos para se desenvolver na Grã-Bretanha. Tony Blair percorreu um longo caminho rumo a sua destruição em uma década. Mas Phillip Collins acha que o Oriente Médio vai inevitavelmente adotá-la. Afinal de contas, os muçulmanos não têm nenhuma ligação com seus governos antiliberais e antidemocráticos. Collins acha que os sírios, tunisianos, líbios, marroquinos et al. são “gente igual a nós”. Quer dizer, exceto por um QI médio significativamente mais baixo e uma longa história de endocruzamento, tribalismo e corrupção. E uma religião totalitária que não suporta nenhuma bobagem a respeito de direitos das mulheres e impõe a pena de morte para infrações como apostasia e blasfêmia. Os muçulmanos no Oriente Médio não teriam dado o título de Cavaleiro a Salman Rushdie, como fez Tony Blair. Não; eles teriam cortado rapidinho sua cabeça. Se ele tivesse sorte.

How the media works: David Makovsky on the non-existent AIPAC 800-lb gorilla

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On my way into work today I was listening to an NPR promo spot with the catch phrase “no rant, no slant” — the implication being that NPR is above partisan wrangling that one sees on FOX News or MSNBC.  Well, that’s certainly refreshing.

The problem is that the programming then segued into an interview of David Makovsky by Renee Montagne. Makovsky is introduced simply as someone affiliated with the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. Unless the listener knows something about the 800-lb. gorilla of U.S. Middle East policy, he or she would not know that WINEP is a pillar of the Israel Lobby which is anything but even-handed when it comes to anything even remotely relevant to Israel. To say it is slanted would be to put it mildly.

As noted in my previous comment on the Israel Lobby and the Syria crisis,  WINEP has numerous articles advocating an aggressive posture on Syria aimed basically at regime change. I also mentioned an article co-authored by Makovsky on the website of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs—another pillar of the Israel Lobby. Makovsky’s JINSA article advocates a very destructive attack aimed at “sending a credible and menacing message” to the Syrian government. Not much question where he stands.

Makovsky was invited on to address this quote that appeared in the New York Times:

One administration official, who, like others, declined to be identified discussing White House strategy, called Aipac “the 800-pound gorilla in the room,” and said its allies in Congress had to be saying, “If the White House is not capable of enforcing this red line” against the catastrophic use of chemical weapons, “we’re in trouble.”

AIPAC an 800-lb gorilla? Definitely not news that’s fit to print (so the Times soon deleted it; see below). As an AIPAC lobbyist once noted, “A lobby is like a night flower: it thrives in the dark and dies in the sun.” Best to keep AIPAC out of public consciousness. Read more

The Israel Lobby and the Organized Jewish Community Want Regime Change in Syria

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President Obama is now saying his administration has decided to attack Syria but will seek Congressional approval before doing so. This sets up a really interesting situation if Congress doesn’t agree, as seems quite possible.

The idea of Obama ordering an act of war on Syria without significant international support and without a Congressional mandate always was a head scratcher. Here’s our far left president advocating yet another war in the Middle East after opposing the Iraq war when he was a senator. The same president who has a frosty relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and has repeatedly fallen short of the demands of the Israel Lobby.

Of course the rationale is framed in moral terms—like all American wars, but there was more than a touch of that in the run-up to the Iraq war as well. Here the case for the hawks is made more difficult because the WMD story turned out to be false. Lest we forget, this story was manufactured by strongly identified ethnically Jewish, pro-Israel operatives linked to the Office of Special Plans in the Department of Defense, including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Abraham Shulsky, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, David Schencker, and Michael Rubin, with the close cooperation of Israeli intelligence (see here, p. 47ff).

The Weekly Standard’s usual neocon suspects — including many of the same people who promoted for the Iraq war — are pressing for a very large U.S. involvement in Syria. It’s mind-boggling to read in the statement of these so-called “experts” that the president must act “to ensure that Assad’s chemical weapons no longer threaten America.” Shades of how Iraq under Saddam Hussein was going to destroy the U.S. with his WMD’s. How Assad is going to unleash his chemical weapons on America is anybody’s guess. Read more

O Lobby Israelense e a comunidade judaica organizada querem mudança de regime na Síria

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 Portuguese translation of Kevin MacDonald: The Israel Lobby and the Organized Jewish Community Want Regime Change in Syria, The Occidental Observer, 1 de setembro de 2012
O presidente Obama agora está dizendo que sua administração decidiu atacar a Síria mas vai buscar a aprovação do Congresso para fazê-lo. Isto cria uma situação realmente interessante se o Congresso não concordar, como parece bem possível.
A ideia de Obama ordenar um ato de guerra contra a Síria sem apoio internacional significativo e sem um mandado do Congresso sempre foi uma coisa espantosa. Eis aqui nosso presidente de extrema-esquerda advogando mais outra guerra no Oriente Médio depois de se opor à guerra no Iraque quando era senador. O mesmo presidente que tem um relacionamento gélido com Benjamin Netanyahu e repetidas vezes ficou aquém das exigências do lobby israelense.
A justificativa, claro, é apresentada em termos morais — como todas as guerras americanas, mas também houve mais que um toque disto nos preparativos para a guerra do Iraque. Aqui, a alegação dos falcões torna-se mais difícil porque a história das armas de destruição em massa revelou-se falsa. Convém não esquecer que esta história foi fabricada por agentes pró-Israel, com forte identidade étnica judaica, ligados ao Gabinete de Planos Especiais [Office of Special Plans] do Departamento de Defesa, incluindo Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Abraham Shulsky, Elliott Abrams, David Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, David Schencker e Michael Rubin, com a cooperação estreita da Inteligência israelense.

The Gas Cloud of Western Intervention

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“Gas! Gas! Gas! Nasty, wicked pois’nous gasssssssssss!!!!!!!”

There, is your knee-jerking yet? Have you started to salivate and get sweaty palmed and developed the requisite insatiable craving for moralistic war against the media designated demons responsible for such unbelievable, unique, and unprecedented evil?

No? Then, your conditioning will have to be continued, the voltage upped, so that, whenever necessary, your leaders and betters will be able to sell you another ugly little war in which the mighty hollow West can bomb some destabilized little patch of naturally-occurring chaos or tyranny back into tyranny or chaos again.

But why has gas been ascribed this holy, sanctifying, incense-like role in the lustrations of war? A little history is perhaps in order.

Although there may have been crude forerunners in more primitive times, its use in modern warfare and mass moral hysteria dates from WWI and the German attack on the French trenches at Ypres on April 22, 1915, when a cloud of creeping green gas, released from cylinders, caused thousands of casualties and created a four-mile gap in the front, which the Germans, alas, were unable to exploit due to a lack of reserves. Read more