Many Israeli officials aren't taking the Obama administration's signals very well
by John Glaser, September 01, 2012
Some Israeli security officials are trying to downplay the Pentagon's decision to significantly scale back its participation in a US-Israeli military exercise, even though it was pretty clearly meant as a signal that Washington doesn't support Israel's march to war with Iran. "Israel has no idea why the Americans decided to reduce the number of troops it will send to the drill," one security official told the Jerusalem Post. "The ties between the US and Israeli armies are strong, and we would have known if the reduction had something to do with any tensions between Jerusalem and Washington." The exercise, scheduled to begin in September, will include only about 1,200 US troops, as opposed to the initially planned 5,000. Other Israelis clearly see the move for what it is. "Basically what the Americans are saying is, We don't trust you,'" another senior Israeli military official told Time magazine. "I think they don't want to insinuate that they are preparing something together with the Israelis against Iran that's the message," says Israeli analyst Efraim Inbar. A rift has been growing between the administrations of Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu over whether to launch an unprovoked war of choice against Iran for a nuclear weapons program it doesn't even have. "The US elections are in two months, and there is no doubt that President Barack Obama, if he is reelected, will make Netanyahu pay for his behavior," said an Israeli security cabinet member. "It will not pass quietly." http://news.antiwar.com/2012/09/01/israe...reelected/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Quote:Dempsey's DissentJoint Chiefs chairman stands up for America because Obama won't by Justin Raimondo, September 05, 2012 Print This | Share This
The President of the United States may not have the cojones to stand up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs does and he's doing it! When Gen. Martin Dempsey told British reporters he did not want the US to be "complicit" in an Israeli attack on Iran, the boys in Tel Aviv were crushed. For weeks Netanyahu & Co. had been telling anyone who would listen that the US would haveno choice but to be sucked into a devastating regional war in the event of an Israeli first strike on Tehran: their tone was almost gleeful. In the absence of a direct response from the White House, it looked like the Israelis had us over a barrel: the American giant, it seemed, was helpless in the face of the Israeli pygmy's deft manipulations. Then came Dempsey, whose comments put the kibosh on Israel's blackmail threats and threw Netanyahu's government into a panic: "Dempsey's stark comments made clear to the world that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was isolated and that if he opted for war, he would jeopardize all-important ties with the Jewish state's closest ally. "'Israeli leaders cannot do anything in the face of a very explicit no' from the U.S. president. So they are exploring what space they have left to operate,' said Giora Eiland, who served as national security adviser from 2003 to 2006. Dempsey's announcement changed something. Before, Netanyahu said the United States might not like (an attack), but they will accept it the day after. However, such a public, bold statement meant the situation had to be reassessed.'" "Dempsey's announcement changed something" it's the understatement of the year, perhaps the decade. Because this is the first time since the days of George Herbert Walker Bush that a major player has reminded that Shitty Little Country of its littleness. For months, the Israelis have been going around acting like they are the superpower, and we are a minuscule dependency relying entirely on our patron's generosity and endless forbearance. Or maybe not so endless, at least as far as the US military is concerned. You'll recall that in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, a number of high-ranking officers spoke out in public against the lunacy of believing we could march in and turn the place into an American suburb. They questioned the low-ball estimates of troop strength and other resources required for an extended occupation, and the neocons were telling them to get back into their barracks. They don't like Dempsey much, and after this they'll like him much less: in their eyes he's just a tool of the Obama administration. Yet even if this is true, and Gen. Dempsey is speaking out at the behest of the White House, haven't we come to a sorry pass when the President of the United States cannot speak in his own name and on his own authority about an issue vital to our national security? What a testament to the power of the Israel Lobby. Not bad for a pressure group that supposedly doesn't even exist. The real problem, however, is that Dempsey in all probability is speaking for himself, and didn't require any prompting from the White House. Nor is this the first time the military has signaled its opposition to striking Iran. With US military assets in the region vulnerable to an Iranian counterattack, I wouldn't be surprised if those alleged secret contacts between Washington and Tehran (via European intermediaries) were made at the military's insistence: the first instinct of a commander, after all, is to protect his troops. In effect, the Israelis, by constantly threatening a first strike at Tehran, are holding the tens of thousands of US military personnel in the region hostage because they will be likely targets of an Iranian counterattack. With the White House maintaining radio silence on this issue, Dempsey and the generals had no choice but to go public in order to protect their own. There was a time when the separation of the military and the civilian in politics was strictly observed. While a soldier can still be disciplined for speaking at a Ron Paul rally, the higher ups have a bit more leeway. In the age of empire, the dissolution of the bright line between the civilian and the military is only a matter of time: what's interesting, however, is that no would-be Caesar has arisen to personify the militarist spirit although I wouldn't rule it out. Instead, those military figures who have taken a public stance on these matters almost universally urge caution and restraint. With back to back deployments, and two wars without a victory, what does the Pentagon have to look forward to but a third war, one which promises to be regional in scope. Little wonder they're beginning to make their opposition known. Dempsey can't be the only soldier who resents taking marching orders from Netanyahu and dreads the onset of Netanyahu's war. This has got to be a restraining factor on the Obama administration, which prevents them from completely capitulating to Israeli demands. Let's hope the peaceniks in the Pentagon can hold the fort, because Obama and the Democrats raised the white flag of surrender to the War Party long ago. Here is the most recent edition of the Democratic party platform on the question of war with Iran: "The President is committed to using all instruments of national power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. … President Obama believes that a diplomatic outcome remains the best and most enduring solution. At the same time, he has also made clear that the window for diplomacy will not remain open indefinitely and that all options including military force remain on the table. But we have an obligation to use the time and space that exists now to put increasing pressure on the Iranian regime to live up to its obligations and rejoin the community of nations, or face the consequences." While the platform admits "the Iranians have yet to build a nuclear weapon" it goes on to assert they "cannot demonstrate with any credibility that [their] program is peaceful." Iran is guilty until proven innocent and the standard of proof is impossible. Because the Americans, egged on by the Israelis, will always be asking "How do we know you aren't hiding something from us?" As for evidence, it can always be manufactured, although the key question here is: evidence of what? The Israelis have set a new standard when it comes to Iran. They insist the red line must be the "breakout" capability, as estimated by Tel Aviv's strategists, of course: that is, the moment when Tehran can theoretically throw together a nuclear weapon of some sort on very short notice. The catch is that this point exists in theory only: there is no solid evidence the Iranians are pursuing nuclear weapons, and indeed the official US assessment is that they gave up all such attempts in 2003, and haven't resumed. There have been all sorts of rumors that a new intelligence assessment was in the works, but so far it hasn't surfaced. The clear implication is that, as in the Iraq misadventure, key elements of the intelligence community are refusing to drink the Israeli Kool-Aid: Dempsey's dissent is the first unequivocal and clear voice raised against the prospect of fighting an unnecessary war for Israel's sake.
ABSTRACT: LETTER FROM TEL AVIV about former Mossad chief Meir Dagan's opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike against Iran. Earlier this month, the liberal Israeli novelist David Grossman published an op-ed in Haaretz decrying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fevered declarations that he might soon order a unilateral strike on Iran and its nuclear facilities. Since early last year, Israelis have witnessed a dissidence of a variety almost unknown since the founding of the state. Even as Netanyahu and his Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, routinely speak of an imminent "existential threat" from Teheran, comparable to that of the Nazis in 1939, a growing number of leading intelligence and military officials, active and retired, have made plain their opposition to a unilateral Israeli strike. They include the Army Chief of Staff, the Commander-in-Chief of the Air Force, the heads of the two main intelligence agencies, the Mossad (Israel's C.I.A.) and Shin Bet (its F.B.I.), President Shimon Peres, and members of Netanyahu's cabinet. Apart from Peres, these men are anything but liberals. Recently, the writer met with Meir Dagan, who was the director of the Institute for Intelligence and Special Operationsthe Mossadfrom 2002 until January, 2011. Dagan is known as a ruthless agent; his career is said to have included operations of all kindscar bombings, poisonings, cyberwar. He was also the earliest and is arguably the most authoritative of the dissident security chiefs. Dagan was born in 1945, on the floor of a train, as his family was being deported from the Soviet Union to a Nazi detention camp in Poland. In 1950, his family sailed for Israel aboard a cattle boat, and they eventually settled in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. As a soldier, Dagan won the admiration of Ariel Sharon. In 1970, Sharon ordered him to create a special "elimination" unit, dedicated to hunting down suspected terrorists in Gaza. Dagan worked in various military and security jobs until 2002, when Sharon, then Prime Minister, appointed Dagan the director of the Mossad. Under his leadership, the Mossad was credited with a string of high-stakes operations. The singular focus of Dagan's work was Iran's nuclear program. Under Dagan's direction, and in coöperation with Western intelligence agencies, the Mossad is believed to have been involved in all the main efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear progress. Just days before stepping down as director of the Mossad, Dagan began what amounted to an extended public denunciation of Netanyahu's Iran policy. In the months that followed, he became increasingly frank in his opposition to an attack. This was astonishing. "An Israeli bombing," Dagan said, "would lead to a regional war and solve the internal problems of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It would galvanize Iranian society behind the leadership and create unity around the nuclear issue. And it would justify Iran in rebuilding its nuclear project and saying, Look, see, we were attacked by the Zionist enemy and we clearly need to have it.'" Dagan's view that a unilateral Israeli strike would intensify, not diminish, the danger posed by Iran is now the general view of the dissident politicians and security chiefs. Dagan believes that the West and Israel should do all they can to foment regime change in Iran by supporting the Iranian opposition. Discusses the fraught relationship between Netanyahu and the Obama Administration. Mentions Moshe Ya'alon.
And not directly related to Dagan's position re Iran but very interesting historical note.
Quote:What covert ops did former Mossad chief lead in Lebanon prior to 1982 invasion?
A well known method which Israeli reporters use to bypass the military censorship is to take the story to the foreign press, (at the price of losing exclusivity, but sometimes journalists just want to get the stuff out). In the New Yorker profile of formar Mossad head Meir Dagan, this paragraph appears:
Far from everything is known about Dagan's career. Two reporters for Yediot Ahronot, Yigal Sarna and Anat Tal-Shir, once investigated a story that, before Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which was aimed at rooting out Yasir Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Dagan led a secret unit across the border whose mission was to instigate terrorist events that would justify an incursion. Military censor killed the story, Sarna told me. Dagan acknowledges the censorship but denies the thrust of the story.
I posted this paragraph in Hebrew on my Facebook wall. Sarna commented: Indeed, the censorship [on these stories] has been on for years. Horrifying things were done there, not just planned. http://972mag.com/what-covert-ops-did-fo...ion/55211/
"The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it." Karl Marx
"He would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies. When asked in court whether she knew that Lord Astor had denied having sex with her.
“I think it would be a good idea” Ghandi, when asked about Western Civilisation.
Israeli Sharpens Call for United States to Set Iran Trigger
By DAVID E. SANGER and ISABEL KERSHNER
WASHINGTON Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel inserted himself into the most contentious foreign policy issue of the American presidential campaign on Tuesday, criticizing the Obama administration for refusing to set clear "red lines" on Iran's nuclear progress that would prompt the United States to undertake a military strike. As a result, he said, the administration has no "moral right" to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own.
Mr. Netanyahu's unusually harsh public comments about Israel's most important ally, which closely track what he has reportedly said in vivid terms to American officials visiting Jerusalem, laid bare the tension between him and President Obama over how to handle Iran. They also suggested that he is willing to use the pressure of the presidential election to try to force Mr. Obama to commit to attack Iran under certain conditions.
He appeared to be responding to a weekend statement by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton that the United States was "not setting deadlines" beyond which it would turn to a military solution.
Mr. Netanyahu, speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, said, "Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel."
In another sign of tensions, the Israeli Embassy in Washington said late Tuesday that the Obama administration had declined a request from Mr. Netanyahu's office for a meeting with Mr. Obama when the Israeli leader attends the United Nations General Assembly this month. The Obama administration said the decision was due to a scheduling problem and had been conveyed to Israel long ago. (Emphasis mine - AE)
On Tuesday night, Mr. Obama called Mr. Netanyahu to try to calm the situation. The two talked for a full hour, hashing through the Iran confrontation and their misunderstandings.
"President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu reaffirmed that they are united in their determination to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and agreed to continue their close consultations going forward," the White House said in a statement after the phone call.
The White House also tried to tamp down controversy over the request for a meeting, saying that after a possible New York encounter was ruled out, Mr. Netanyahu did not request a meeting in Washington. "Contrary to reports in the press, there was never a request for Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with President Obama in Washington, nor was a request for a meeting ever denied," the statement said.
The United States says it has no evidence that Iranian leaders have made a final decision to build a bomb. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency's latest report says the country has amassed a stockpile of low- and medium-enriched uranium that, with further enrichment, could fuel as many as six nuclear weapons.
The United States concluded several years ago that Iran had suspended its nuclear weapons development program at the end of 2003, though there has been evidence of sporadic work since. The Israelis say Iran is quietly reconstituting a much larger effort.
In demanding that Mr. Obama effectively issue an ultimatum to Iran, Mr. Netanyahu appeared to be making maximum use of his political leverage at a time when Mr. Obama's Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, has sought to make an issue of what Mr. Romney says is the administration's lack of support for Israel.
It is not clear what level of development in Iran's nuclear program would constitute a "red line" in Israeli eyes. Dore Gold, president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a research institute, and a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview last week, "It is very important to draw a line about the quantities of enriched uranium and the levels of enrichment."
One option that has been widely discussed among experts advising the United States government is capping Iran's uranium enrichment at a reactor-grade level. Also, Iran would be permitted to stockpile no more than 1,764 pounds of that uranium, less than is required, if further enriched, to make a single bomb.
Mr. Netanyahu, who is highly attuned to American politics, seemed to be using his comments to pressure Mr. Obama to specify at which point the United States would be prepared to take military action against Iran, perhaps at the United Nations General Assembly opening this month.
The Israeli ambassador to the United States, Michael B. Oren, echoed Mr. Netanyahu in an interview in Washington on Monday night and said the Israeli leadership wanted Mr. Obama and the leaders of other nations to agree on clear limits for Iran.
"We know that the Iranians see red," Mr. Oren said. "We know they can discern the color red. We know that the redder the line, the lesser the chance that they will pass it."
Mrs. Clinton publicly rejected that approach over the weekend. In an interview with Bloomberg Radio, she avoided discussion of Iran's stockpile and said, "We're not setting deadlines" for military action. It was that statement that appeared to have set off Mr. Netanyahu.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly argued with the support of some leading Israeli officials that the United States and Israel have closer security cooperation now than at any other point in history. The United States provided much of the Iron Dome missile defense system for Israel, and for the past five years the two countries worked closely on a major covert operation against Iran called "Olympic Games," an effort to sabotage Iran's enrichment capability with cyberattacks.
But Mr. Obama has stopped well short of saying he would prevent Iran from developing the capability to produce a bomb. He has said only that he would not allow Iran to obtain a weapon; Mr. Netanyahu has said that is not enough.
Depending on how one defines the term, Mr. Obama's aides and former aides acknowledge that Iran may already have that capability. It possesses the fuel and the knowledge to make a weapon, but that would take months or years, and Mr. Obama has argued that allows "time and space" for a negotiated solution.
Mr. Romney had no immediate comment about Mr. Netanyahu's challenge to Mr. Obama, and one of his informal advisers on the Middle East said, "It's probably better at this point to let Netanyahu make the point because it's more powerful that way." The adviser said he was not authorized to speak on the record.
But the Netanyahu comments play right to the Republican nominee's critique of Mr. Obama. On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Mr. Romney declared that the progress of Iran's nuclear program was Mr. Obama's "greatest failure" in foreign policy.
"The president hasn't drawn us any further away from a nuclear Iran," he said.
There is little doubt that the Iranian effort has progressed. When Mr. Obama took office, Iran had produced enough fuel to make, if enriched further, about one bomb, compared with five or six in the International Atomic Energy Agency's current calculation.
But Mr. Romney's proposals have also steered clear of describing with any precision how far Iran could go before he would use force to stop its program. Like Mr. Obama, he has not said how much progress he would allow Iran to make toward a weapons capability before he authorized a strike.
Instead, he has insisted that Mr. Obama was late to the task of placing "crippling sanctions" on Iran. Yet those sanctions have begun to strike at the heart of Iran's greatest source of national revenue oil sales something that the Bush administration shied away from.
Mr. Netanyahu has been dismissive of sanctions. They are an indirect form of pressure, he has argued, and have not forced Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to scale back the country's nuclear program.
In recent days, the Israelis had appeared to be dialing down the pressure on Washington, with the Israeli news media reporting that Ehud Barak, the defense minister, was rethinking the wisdom of an attack in the coming months. There was speculation that Israeli officials feared that the long-term jeopardy to Israel's relationship with Washington was not worth the short-term gain of setting back, but probably not destroying, Iran's capability.
A number of American officials, in trips to Israel, have argued that an Israeli attack would only drive the nuclear program underground and most likely result in the expulsion of international inspectors, who are the best gauge of the program's progress.
But Mr. Netanyahu revived the tough talk of the past few months and the message that time is running out for Israel.
"So far, we can say with certainty that diplomacy and sanctions haven't worked. The sanctions have hurt the Iranian economy, but they haven't stopped the Iranian nuclear program," Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, "The fact is that every day that passes, Iran gets closer and closer to nuclear bombs."
David E. Sanger reported from Washington, and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem. Elisabeth Bumiller and Peter Baker contributed reporting from Washington, and Rick Gladstone from New York.
Obama Rebuffs Netanyahu on Setting Limits on Iran's Nuclear Program
By MARK LANDLER and HELENE COOPER
WASHINGTON President Obama on Tuesday rejected an appeal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to spell out a specific "red line" that Iran could not cross in its nuclear program, a senior administration official said, deepening the divide between the allies over how to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions.
In an hourlong telephone conversation, this official said, Mr. Obama deflected Mr. Netanyahu's proposal to make the size of Iran's stockpile of close-to-bomb-grade uranium the threshold for a military strike by the United States against its nuclear facilities.
Mr. Obama, the official said, repeated the assurances he gave to Mr. Netanyahu in March that the United States would not allow Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon. But the president was unwilling to agree on any specific action by Iran like reaching a defined threshold on nuclear material, or failing to adhere to a deadline on negotiations that would lead to American military action.
"We need some ability for the president to have decision-making room," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the talks. "We have a red line, which is a nuclear weapon. We're committed to that red line."
Israeli officials, however, say this guarantee may not be enough for Israel, which Iranian leaders have repeatedly threatened with annihilation. Diplomatic talks, the Israelis say, have done nothing to slow Iran's nuclear program nor have economic sanctions, though they have inflicted significant damage on the Iranian economy.
The telephone conversation came after a day that seemed to epitomize the frequently crossed wires between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu. It began with angry comments by the prime minister that the Obama administration had no "moral right" to restrain Israel from taking military action on its own if it refused to put limits on Iran. It continued with reports in the Israeli news media that the White House had rebuffed a request by Mr. Netanyahu's office for a meeting with Mr. Obama during the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month. The White House denied those reports, citing more mundane scheduling problems. Finally, on Tuesday evening, Mr. Obama called Mr. Netanyahu.
The source of the conflict is the belief by Mr. Netanyahu that Iran, having continued to stockpile uranium enriched to 20 percent, is nearing the point at which Israel will no longer be able to prevent it from making a bomb.
Administration officials contend that the United States will still be able to detect, and prevent, Iran from passing that point. Nor does the administration have evidence that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has even made a decision to build a bomb. Iran, for its part, insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful energy purposes.
Israel's latest burst of anxiety about Iran comes in the midst of the American presidential election, leading some analysts to argue that Mr. Netanyahu is trying to use political leverage on Mr. Obama to stiffen his position. His Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, has accused Mr. Obama of not doing enough to protect a close ally.
Israeli officials flatly deny that Mr. Netanyahu is playing election-year politics. They said the prime minister was deeply frustrated by a recent interview with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in which she said the United States was "not setting deadlines."
People with close ties to Israel say Mr. Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are also frustrated because the Americans do not appear sufficiently concerned about Iran's growing stockpile of medium-enriched uranium. In its latest report, the International Atomic Energy Agency says the Iranians have amassed enough low- and medium-enriched uranium that, with further enrichment, could fuel as many as six nuclear weapons.
Basing a military judgment on Iran's stockpile of medium-enriched uranium could be tricky, however, because while the overall amount of this material has increased, the amount that can be readily used to fuel a bomb has declined since Iran converted some of it into plates to be used in a research reactor in Tehran.
"The Israelis are worried that once Iran accumulates a bomb's worth of 20 percent-enriched uranium, it's an easy dash to get weapons-grade nuclear fuel," said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, who met recently with Israeli officials. "Before they decide they're on their own, I think they want to know that they and Washington see eye-to-eye that this is a red line that cannot be passed."
Indeed, Israeli officials appear reluctant to act without the backing of the United States. Mr. Netanyahu faces deep divisions within his own country about the wisdom of a military strike. On Thursday, Israel's deputy prime minister for intelligence and atomic affairs, Dan Meridor, appeared to undercut Mr. Netanyahu, saying in an interview with Israeli Army radio, "I don't want to set red lines or deadlines for myself."
The Libya Fiasco and the Folly of Intervention
By Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.)
September 16, 2012 "The Hill" -- The attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya and the killing of the U.S. ambassador and several aides is another tragic example of how our interventionist foreign policy undermines our national security. The more the U.S. tries to control the rest of the world, either by democracy promotion, aid to foreign governments, or by bombs, the more events spin out of control into chaos, unintended consequences, and blowback.
Unfortunately what we saw in Libya this week is nothing new.
In 1980s Afghanistan the U.S. supported Islamic radicals in their efforts to expel the invading Soviet military. These radicals became what we now know as al-Qaeda, and our one-times allies turned on us most spectacularly on September 11, 2001.
Iraq did not have a significant al Qaeda presence before the 2003 U.S. invasion, but our occupation of that country and attempt to remake it in our image caused a massive reaction that opened the door to al Qaeda, leading to thousands of US soldiers dead, a country destroyed, and instability that shows no sign of diminishing.
In Libya we worked with, among others, the rebel Libyan Fighting Group (LIFG) which included foreign elements of al-Qaeda. It has been pointed out that the al-Qaeda affiliated radicals we fought in Iraq were some of the same groups we worked with to overthrow Gaddafi in Libya. Last year in a television interview I predicted that the result of NATO's bombing of Libya would likely be an increased al-Qaeda presence in the country. I said at the time that we may be delivering al-Qaeda another prize.
Not long after NATO overthrew Gaddafi, the al Qaeda flag was flown over the courthouse in Benghazi. Should we be surprised, then, that less than a year later there would be an attack on our consulate in Benghazi? We have been told for at least the past eleven years that these people are the enemy who seeks to do us harm.
There is danger in the belief we can remake the world by bribing some countries and bombing others. But that is precisely what the interventionists be they liberal or conservative seem to believe. When the world does not conform to their image, they seem genuinely shocked. The secretary of state's reaction to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was one of confusion. "How could this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction," she asked.
The problem is that we do not know and we cannot know enough about these societies we are seeking to remake. We never try to see through the eyes of those we seek to liberate. Libya is in utter chaos, the infrastructure has been bombed to rubble, the economy has ceased to exist, gangs and militias rule by brutal force, the government is seen as a completely illegitimate and powerless U.S. puppet. Is anyone really shocked that the Libyans do not see our bombing their country as saving it from destruction?
Currently, the U.S. is actively supporting rebels in Syria that even our CIA tells us are affiliated with al Qaeda. Many of these radical Islamist fighters in Syria were not long ago fighting in Libya.
Doesn't it seem strange to anyone that this week the head of Al Qaeda, Zawahri, released a video calling on all Muslims to back the rebels in Syria, saying the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad would bring them closer to the ultimate goal of defeating Israel?
We must learn from these mistakes and immediately cease all support for the Syrian rebels, lest history once again repeat itself. We are literally backing the same people in Syria that we are fighting in Afghanistan and that have just killed our ambassador in Libya! We must finally abandon the interventionist impulse before it is too late.
I sincerely hope that we may finally have learned something in the aftermath of the tragedy in Libya. I hope it might finally serve as a wake-up call that our interventionist foreign policy is causing us real harm. It is bankrupting our economy and it is turning the rest of the world against us.
Paul is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
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This bi-partisan resolution, reasserts the power of Congress to declare war, and
states that any President who circumvents Congress, unless the United States is
attacked, will face an article of impeachment.
(If you may remember, Congress did not declare war in Vietnan. This action in the Cpngress appears to be a sincere effort to restrain any rush to war by restoring the power to declare war to Congress, as specified in the US Constitution. - AE)
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.â€
Buckminster Fuller
Adele Edisen Wrote:(If you may remember, Congress did not declare war in Vietnan. This action in the Cpngress appears to be a sincere effort to restrain any rush to war by restoring the power to declare war to Congress, as specified in the US Constitution. - AE)
Adele
??????????
The US Congress is making a sincere effort to restrain any rush to war?
Are we living on the same planet?
It is quite bizarre. In Israel a war crazy Prime Minister and in America a President trying to restrain a war crazy legislature.
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