And why must we necessarily talk in terms of betrayal? Suppose, by whatever dark pathology, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz sincerely believed that the policies they were advocating were truly in the best interest of the USA. And, by a happy coincidence, the sunny serendipity that is so rarely seen in the dark, grim world of realpolitik…equally beneficial to Israel, if not more so! Well, happy day!
What if the issue of overriding their loyalty to the US is moot, and no such conflict need arise? In that case, “betrayal” or “treason” doesn’t enter into it.
Not like the case of Jonathon Pollard, an American of Jewish heritage who spied for Israel, South Africa, and others. But it wasn’t political or religious, he did it for money. The lesson to be drawn here is you can’t trust Americans, they value money too highly.
**
elucidator** is more than capable of fending for himself, but suffice to say that in your haste you seem to have greatly mischaracterized what he said, so as to better assault a position he wasn’t taking.
Is “him” correct? For some reason I thought “her”. Since people often guess wrong from my sn, I like to get at least that right.
In what way specifically did I “mischaracterize”? I asked for a definition, I was told it was already there and afict, it wasn’t. If you see his(?) definition of Zionism please share.
If you see why alleging that the religion aspect of it is only important up to 50% of the time, I wonder much why that is helpful to his position at all.
As for Elucidator’s specific example of a spy, what is the point of that? That Jews can’t be trusted, or that a crime was noticed, investigated, and stopped? Aren’t there spies that aren’t Jews? What are we to infer from this example?
While we are on the topic, this KimStu post that came up in a thread I am reading also seems to indicate that s/he understand full well the power of a misplaced metaphor that is a trope for racism and why it is best avoided:
One reason Finn and I (and others) have to repeat ourselves over and over is because the responses give minimal clue as to what the misunderstanding or objection are, and so we cover things in as much detail and step by step as possible.
If you want less, then try to grasp the intent please, and be prepared to offer more specific questions or objections that “huh?”, OK?
To take a swag at it, negotiations take place in many forums public and private, and diplomacy is no different. This is Negotiation 101, as well as PR 101, and Marketing 101, so I don’t think I will be going into the details of these courses in general here, OK? But I will gamble that google can find you lots of explanations if you are willing to look for course materials and similar.
Your post has no mental or conceptual relation to what I stated. Mr. Straw’s comment has only one clear interpretation and I’m not willing to entertain or acknowledge this lame attempt at re-interpretation along the lines of “if only we knew more about it but we dont so you must be wrong”.
Libby is one of the US officials whose participation in sensitive diplomatic matters was guided by other goals than alignment with US policy; in fact, he was instrumental in influencing it for benefit of Israel. After all, his imprisonment for participation in outing CIA agent can be also viewed as activity to derail the truth about Iraqi WMD (and thus keep the war charade going).
I was merely putting an example. Debate should be how to prevent such situations.
One thing you have to understand is that newcomer is very stupid, and doesn’t like to let facts get in the way of his anti-Israel narrative.
For instance, just a few days ago he drew a Warning in GD because he was spewing some 9/11 Truther nonsense about how Mossad was behind the attack and I pointed out that the same cites he was using specifically said that there was no connection to the attack, so he went berserk and accused me of lying. Because the facts showed he was wrong, they must be out to get him.
Later on, he claimed that the Al Jazeera’s recently released Palestine Papers showed that the PA made a great offer and Israel still decided to say ‘no’ to them.
I pointed out, with cites, that what actually happened was that Abbas suspended negotiations. A couple other posters provided, IIRC, three other cites for two other times Abbas suspended negotiations. So newcomer said I was lying. He actually whined about how pointing out the facts of a situation is invoking “pseudocomplexity” that just gets in the way of his conclusions.
Later, when he again claimed that it was “true that Israeli side rejected (repeatedly) the most favorable peace offer in a long time” and I again pointed out that negotiations were ongoing until Abbas suspended them, newcomer decided that the facts meant that he was being trolled.
So he’s a Truther with a hardon for Israeli conspiracy theories, who doesn’t let facts get in the way of his bullshit. Trying to drill rationality into his skull is a bit like trying to teach a cat to knit.
We of Team Dim believe that **Not A Lice **is genuinely cognitively spasticated, and is not offering some cloying pretense of thickness as a means to annoyance, vexation and irritation.
We of Team Dim recognize that ours is not the last word on the subject, and we fully expect a response from Team Dick, shortly. To which we pledge to offer polite attention.
to you perhaps. But then I forced to conclude you are neither a producer or sophisticated consumer of these sorts of messages, and take that into account in the future when reading your posts.
Not at all. I already suggested that what one says in public may not be what one says in private, and there may be good reasons for that. this is really a surprise to you? Even in your own personal life, you don’t do this or experience it from others?
Debate is about making one’s point as clearly as possible if one wishes to persuade and not getting upset when asked for clarification.
How was Libby going against U.S. policy? The policy of the US government at the time–Bush and Cheney–was to go to war with Iraq. Libby was acting in accordance with that policy. I’m no fan of Libby but the idea that he was some sort of Jewish operative, cleverly manipulating US Policy behind the scenes while Bush and Cheney stood helpless to stop him is absurd. We’ll never know the whole truth but the Plame outing was almost certainly done at Cheney’s behest, with Libby falling on his sword once it came out.
The only thing that was proved there was that people with a chip on their shoulder should learn to rein in their withchunter tendencies before posting. Nobody appointed them as political commissars.
At least Kneadtoknow acknowledged that and didnt display even a fraction of the accusatory mode you and Finn seem to enjoy so much.
Still following along (although I’m skipping over the copious general abuse) and you’ve lost me here on the bolded bit. By saying “mythical” are you asserting that there is no pro-Israel lobby in Washington (which is clearly false) or that the abovementioned people have created a separate strawman unrelated to the likes of AIPAC*?
*I am aware there are other American pro-Israel PACs, notably J Street, but AIPAC is the big money, big influence fish in this particular pond and far more relevant to the sort of politics being discussed.
Underlined item 1: Never claimed that. The discussion was about establishing if at least 2 of the guys on the top of the van on Sept-11 were Mossad operatives. There was no movement of discussion beyond that from my end. Ergo, you just made it up for effect.
Underlined item 2: The tale of unrelated events where, in fact, one is independent of the other. It is seriously dishonest to avoid debate on one by pretending that the other is the real debate due to causal effect. As mentioned in that thread, nobody reads Papers as you do. Which is throwing mud to see if anything stick.
Underlined item 3: See Item 2. Just a note to the author, repetition won’t make it right. As challenged, find me one commentator who gets same conclusion (but you won’t Google because even the Google cannot make stuff up).
And a side note – just because you are in the Pit there is no need to espouse your true nature. Leave it for GD.
There’s a fundamental difference between identifying AIPAC in this fashion (and taking issue with its goals/tactics), as opposed to targeting a shadowy all-powerful “Israel Lobby”. The latter, as dramatized by Mearsheimer/Walt, is held up as a specter of manipulative power along the classic lines of They Control The Media/Government.
What those who support or tolerate attacks on the [del]disloyalty[/del] Dual Loyalty of Jews and the [del]Jewish stranglehold on media and government[/del] Israel Lobby should really be asking themselves is, have these been effective tactics? It strikes me that both have been failures at drumming up public support for anti-Israeli/pro-Palestinian positions (apart from gratifying the flagrant bigots in your midst*).
As an alternative to demonizing the disparate groups that lobby for a despised cause, has there been any real progress towards creating effective lobbyist groups to counter their influence? Haven’t seen it. Are They just too powerful, or is there perhaps a problem with your message?
Have assaults on the patriotism of Jews furthered the goals of Palestinian independence and prosperity? Seems to me they’ve just turned off potential allies and hardened the opposition.
Part of this failure is, I think, the general sense of helplessness engendered by propagating conspiracy theories. I see this in forums devoted to CTs. Apart from juicy gossip and mud-slinging, after awhile these folks appear to give up on any sort of positive action. After all, if you believe that your government is thoroughly evil and its agents have infiltrated all major institutions, what can the citizenry, even if they are In The Know possibly do?
If pointless yammering* *and stirring up shit are the goal, keeping to the tactics described above will do just fine. If you really want to sway opinion, not so much.
*“Bigots In The Mist” would make a good documentary title.
**I know, it’s in the Mission Statement.
Holy shit, did it actually work? Is **Finn **actually starting to put some more thought into his posts instead of just spamming the same handful of hot-button words? I… I think I might cry.