You with the face, I seem to remember you’re black, right?
So you’ve probably heard just about every racist idea white people might possibly have about black people. And even white people who don’t seem particularly bigoted can sometimes come up with the oddest ideas about black people. And the question then becomes, “Why the hell is this white guy picking on us again?”
And racial hatred probably isn’t the answer. Ignorance maybe.
So when somebody proposes a theory like “The Bell Curve” it can’t be taken as just another neutral scientific hypothesis. Yeah, in a perfect world we could have an honest discussion of whether blacks and whites and asians have innate genetic differences in intelligence, and how to measure that difference, and what evidence would support the hypothesis of genetic differences and what evidence would contradict it.
But you know and I know and the American people know that such scientific disinterest is impossible, and while anyone can claim to be “just raising questions”, the reality is that certain types of people are much more likely to be raising those questions. See what I’m talking about?
You wouldn’t cut any slack to a white scientist who claimed he could demonstrate statistically that white people are smarter than black people. And rightly so, because we know the history of such claims. To ignore the history of such claims is wrong. Maybe back in the 1700s such claims could be forgiven. But this is 2006, and anyone who claims they’ve got proof that blacks are dumber than whites isn’t doing so out of an honest love of scientific inquiry. Or maybe they believe they are…but are you going to take “I’m not a racist, but did you ever notice…” at face value?
So.
You might not be familiar with the history of anti-Semitism. So you might not realize that a question like, “Why can’t we have an honest discussion about whether Jews secretly get our country into wars to benefit world-wide Jewery?” is emotionally equivalent to “Why can’t we have an honest discussion about whether blacks are mentally inferior to whites?”
But it is. Accusations of jewish dual-loyalty, treachery, money-grubbing, war-mongering and back-stabbing are classic anti-semitic themes. Just like claims that blacks are stupid, lecherous, violent and lazy are classic American racist themes.
So, any a black person–and anyone else sensitive to the sorry history of white racism in this country–is sure to take offense at a person who “just wants to raise some questions” about black violence, or black sexuality, or black intelligence, or the black work ethic. So when people “innocently” raise questions about whether Jewish intellectual bankers steered America into wars to make money and benefit their Jewish brothers at the expense of America, well, that’s gonna raise some hackles.
So you’re going to have to do a lot more than “A Jew wrote a position paper supporting war with Iraq, therefore it is reasonable to question their loyalty to America”. It isn’t reasonable. It isn’t going to sit well. And there’s a steady stream of people coming out with evidence that Jews==bad, just like there’s a steady stream of people who come out with evidence that blacks==teh suxxor. So the existance of lots of people “raising questions” can NOT be taken at face value, “where there’s smoke it is reasonable to suspect fire”.
Now that’s a question that’s been steadfastly ignored for quite a few posts. Something tells me that the conspiracy theory supporters won’t be able to explain, any time soon, why they focus only on the Jews and the gentiles are free of any innuendo.
You simply neglect to mention the fact that it is the least plausible, as it relies upon a hidden agenda whose acceptance by people like Rummy and Cheney is never, ever, explained. If virtually the entire administration decided to betray America to benefit Israel, why would they do it? If it was only the PNAC members who happen to be Jewish, then how’d they put one over on the gentiles? That question has been dodged numerous times in this very thread.
Unlike anyother hypothesis, it deliberately ignores that we don’t ally with other nations out of charity, and we don’t put other the needs of any other country above our own. The conspiracy theory, again, fails to account for how the ‘zionists’ somehow managed to sneak their agenda past Rummy, Cheney, Bush, etc… is the vast majority of the entire US government dedicated to helping Israel and harming America? That’s what the OP’s cite claimed.
Unlike other hypotheses which may include explicit statements that they are simply guesses, the conspiracy theory goes right out and makes definite claims. The topic of the thread, by the way, was an artilce that was in full-on conspiracy mode, going as far as to suggest (again by insinutation and innuendo) that the Bush administartion might not only care more about Israel than our own country, but might only care about Israel and might not care about our country at all. Pure grade A Zionist Occupied Government brand tinfoil hattery.
The conspiracy theory is based, not just on innuendo and insinuation, but on a decree-by-fiat.
Of course, nobody could possibly believe that Iraq, Iran, and Lebanon at all tie in to American strategic interests. Nobody could possibly believe that, because even though there are differeing opinions of equal validity, the author handwaves them away and tells us that there are simply not US interests involved with Iraq, Iran, or Lebanon. We know this is true, because the author says so, by fiat. Since nobody could possibly hold an opinion different than the author, it’s perfectly reasonble to assume a Zionist Occupied Government that doesn’t care at all about our own country and only wants to benefit Israel.
The conspiracy theory, at evinced by the OP’s cite, maintains in one breath that Israel acts totally beyond US control, and that the only force on earth which can control Israel is the US.
6.The conspiracy theory reeks of the old “divided loyalties” slander. Rather than honestly postulating that there can be differences of opinion as to what is, and is not in America’s interst, and what we should and should not do to secure those interests, all that is handwaved away by fiat. There isn’t honest disagreement, there’s a Zionist Plot by a government that cares only about Israel and nothing about where they live.
Rather than discussing what impact Iran might have on America’s strategic goals, it is simply handwaved away. It’s not important. Anybody who believes it is really doesn’t care about America, and they’re just a Zionist pawn.
The conspiracy theory relies on PNAC documents, but deliberately ignores the fact that those same documents talk about regional stability and other ME nations. Conspiracy theorists ignore all those other stated factors, and focus only on Israel. If the PNAC says that propping up Israel and the moderate Arab regimes would enhance regional stability, and strengthen America’s position why, then, just ignore everything but the word Israel.
If someone brings up that PNAC stated they wanted to do all of this for purely selfish purely American interests, ignore it. If the other ME nations that we support for our own ends are mentioned, ignore those too.
Only focus on Israel, and pretend that a position paper about how to help American interests is ‘really’ about a pro-Zionist anti-American plot.
Most people notice the inherent absurdity of the claim that one can use a position paper about how to increase American power was were really trying to harm America and help Israel.
After all, as the conspiracy theory that the OP wanted discussed states:
But that’s what happens to idealogues like the author of that cite. Unable to conceive that anybody could possibly hold a viewpoint other than their divinely inspired truth, he believes that anybody who disagrees must by definition hold an anti-American political ideology and be a pawn of global Zionism.
The conspiracy theory ignores that as Iraq didn’t have WMD, and sanctions were working, that Israel wasn’t actually threatened by Iraq. So pretending that we invaded Iraq to benefit someone’s security concerns which weren’t threatened in the first place requires a massive leap of faith unsupported by any actual facts.
So, I suppose, if you just ignore that this hypothesis is the least rational, most fancifal, least factual, most ideologically motivated, least intellectually honest… it’s a great ol’ analysis of the situation.
Probably because it’s not a conspiracy theory that requires us to actually believe that there is only a small and impotent “pro-American” faction in American politics. :rolleyes:. Speculating about oil actually gets at the national interest in the region, and doesn’t require us to invent a conspiracy of Zionist pawns who care nothing about our own country.
No, one might call them a conspiracy theorist because, for instance, they believe in a hidden anti-American pro-Zionist conspiracy that controls almost the entire US government. Or because, by fiat, they’ve determined that nobody could possibly believe that nations like Iran pose valid concerns for American foreign policy, so not only can nobody disagree, but anybody who disagrees is just a part of the Zionist conspiracy.
You may not see the ‘controversy’ of saying “The administration believes that Iran threatens American interests. I do not. So, by fiat, the administration doesn’t believe it either, and is just the lapdog of the Zionist conspiracy.”
The Bush administration cronies and fellow travellers that were members of PNAC and in favor of invading Iraq are suspected of using American defense policy to benefit Israel.
Remove the emotionally loaded language and the unnecessary focus on Jewishness, and then tell me what is so ridiculous about this point of speculation. Because that is the issue of concern.
Why fear to go where the evidence leads you? In point of fact, it appears that the American Jewish Community by and large was opposed to the Iraq invasion. R-W is the minority position for that community.
That doesn’t alter the fact that a proportion of the invasions proponents are Jewish and of those many have reasons for support that are based on Israel. Charles Krauthammer, the PNAC and hate-speech propagandist David Horowitz for example. If the actions of such people reflect ill on the American Jewish Community, it is they that are responsible.
When it is shown, as here, that the US-Israeli relationship has a profoundly dishonest aspect then it is appropriate to consider why. When it is shown, as here, that the current US-Israeli relationship could not subsist if its terms and conditions were candid and widely known, then it is appropriate to end that relationship. These conclusions have nothing to do with race. Rather, the conversation about Israeli sympathies and influence in the US is a necessary one.
Sometimes, people do bad things like failing to actively and vigorously oppose Israel. When the evidence leads you to find that people have acted in that way, there is no resiling from it. It should be a matter of pride to the American Jewish community that only a minority embraced the Likud/PNAC agenda, notwithstanding its strong appeal to emotion.
Well, if we ignore the claim that “many have reasons for support that are based on Israel” is a lie, then yeah, I guess it’d be a good observation.
That you would use PNAC, which explictly states that its goals are for America’s benefit, to prove that it was based on Israel is such a palpable falsehood that it should be avoided. The PNAC’s position is that regional stability in the ME is in America’s best interest. Not “based on Israel”.
But if the truth doesn’t work, make something else up.
There is a difference between something real that is shown, and something imaginary that is invented.
Again, if the lies about the relationship weren’t lies, then it might just demonstrate that there was some unsavory secret agenda. But, as they’re lies, they’re not very convincing.
~snerk~
Indeed, one simply must assume a secret zionist conspiracy.
And it should be a matter of intellectual honesty to anybody reading this thread to see the PNAC’s actual position papers, and detect the lies and distortions which are used to mischaracterize those agendas.
Honestly, anybody reading along really should go to the primary source rather than believing lies cast about it after the fact. Look, for instance, at the 1998 letter to Clinton.
What are some of its actual claims?
What would a person without an agenda take away from that, for instance? Certainly not that it was ‘motivated by Israel or Zionist concerns’. Certainly not that other allies in the ME weren’t part of their concern. Certainly not that American interests weren’t at the forefront of their argument.
Why would someone so obviously make things up?
I’m not even going to attempt to answer that. Their deliberate distortion of the truth is enough, I don’t need to know why they do it.
It’s interesting reading, that directly speaks about American interests. Why, then, would someone claim that instead of, for instance, using Israel for American purposes, that it was really about using America for Israeli purposes?
Again it’s enough to ask the question, I don’t think we need to answer with the specific motivations of various people who distort the truth. Simply notice it. And remember their obfuscation the next time that the PNAC is cited as an anti-american group. (Or someone claims that the American government is anti-America and a bunch of Zionist pawns, because they’re associated with PNAC).
Hell yeah, this happens. But I also recognize the knee-jerkish impulses within myself and try to reign them in unless I have damn good reason to believe that someone is being racist.
And sometimes it’s neither one of them. Sometimes black people do things that are worthy of criticism. So does Israel. Sometimes what looks like unfair criticism is perfectly justified. Sometimes what seems like irrational opinion is actually a legitimate observation.
Yeah, but if someone came on this board touting it as fact, then for me to respond by screaming bloody murder and calling them a racist probably would make them come off looking a whole lot better than me. So I would probably choose to argue against them on rational, factual grounds and try to keep my emotions out of it.
It’s interesting, though, that you draw similarities between this and racism. I’ve noticed that many of the same posters who suggest that being called a racist is tantamount to having hydrochloric acid thrown in the eyes will not waste any time calling people anti-Semitic. The accusation flows so freely now that whenever I see someone fling it around, they automatically lose 20 credibility points for the lack of originality. It’s a double standard. Talk bad about Israel, you’re anti-Semitic. Make the claim that race is a predictor of a person’s character/behavior, and you can be called ignorant, stupid, bigoted, prejudiced, silly, mean-spirited…but never, ever, ever racist. Because that’s just too harsh. Race-card-Jesse-Jackson-blah-blah-blah.
But it’s also quite likely that “certain types” aren’t raising those questions, just people who want to explore all the unsolved mysteries that keep popping up. Why should they be labeled anti-Semitic? I can relate to your emotional responses while at the same time disagree that you should act upon them.
Again, if any scientist made that claim, I wouldn’t start off by attacking him. I’d attack the “science” behind his conclusion. If I couldn’t do that, then I wouldn’t trouble myself with him, because all I’d end up portraying myself as is a hysterical, emotion-driven juvenile which would proably make the fence-sitters more prone to believing him over me. That’s not what I want.
And I gotta say, every time the anti-Semitic card gets played when I see no signs that it’s warranted, I’m less inclined to listen to those who argue against the Israel theories. I’m more likely to pay attention to those who don’t project a strong bias and are able to appraise evidence objectively. Or at least with the same degree of objectivity they use when they debate claims about oil or Halliburton.
Of course I’m familiar with it.
The problem, Lemur, is that you keep painting the debate with sinister terminology. The words “trickery” and “Jewery” and “betray America” keep cropping up in your posts when no one else is saying all of that. What you’re doing is looking for a reason to call someone anti-Semitic instead of actually listening to what they are saying. At least that’s how you’re coming across. Either way, it doesn’t help your side fight the ignorance that you believe is there.
Is Bush war-mongering? Is he back-stabbing? Is he money-grubbing and treacherous? Does he have “dual-loyalty” (with oil)? I’d say yes to all five of these.
But is he Jewish? No.
Why can we describe the gentiles in the adminstration with these terms every single day, but never go there with Perle, Wolfowitz, etc? At what point will it become apparent that we are employing a completely different set of rules for one set of officials versus another set? We’ve heard scathing speculation about Bush and Cheney’s shady connections, but they were not the only people who played a part in the war. They are not the only ones with connections.
I’m sympathetic to any minority that feels that they are being unfairly scrutinized. I’m also sympathetic to people who are frustrated by efforts to stymie rational debate.
Suppose that the gentiles were subject to the same “innuendo”. Suppose Bush was called an pro-Israeli quasi-traitor. Would you still insist that Israel had nothing to do with the war?
Why is Bush always linked to oil but never Condi and Rummy? Probably because the evidence linking him to oil is lot stronger than it is for the other two. It’s not because he’s Texan and it’s not because he talks with a psuedo-southern accent like all Texas oil men do. It’s because the guy comes from an oil family, has ties to other oil families, and has made million of dollars from oil.
But all that aside, the fact that extra attention is placed on Jews has nothing to do with the plausibility of the claim that Israel may have had something to do with the war. These are two seperate issues. Bush’s oil connections gets a lot of attention while few people talk about all the oil money that might be flowing into Rummy’s pockets, but that still doesn’t change the fact that oil is but one of several plausible reasons why we went to war.
You say this with a matter-of-factness that is quite earnest but addresses nothing. What makes you think the administration believes that helping Israel goes against America’s interest?
Consider the possibility that Bush et al were in on the plan from the beginning. Kick out Saddam, seize oil, establish an America military presence near Israel, intimidate Iran and Syria, upset Arab control of the region, wave the Big Stick around, make a whole bunch of money through no-bid contracts, democratize the area so that capitalism will flourish and more money will come to the Kenny Boy types, yadda yadda yadda.
It doesn’t have to be the gigantic stealth conspiracy that you insist it is.
So you’re not able to explain, any time soon, why they focus is only on the Jews and the gentiles are free of any innuendo?
And no… accusing more people of an absurdity does not become okay just because you’ve stopped being intellectually dishonest in the presentation of the conspiracy theory. If you’re going to claim that PNAC involvement means that one is a zionist traitor, you might as well be consistent. Or does it only make certain people into zionist quislings?
In your Bush-oil analogy (as you present it), one has more reason to associate Bush alone with oil interests. Why, in this situation, would you choose only certain cherry picked PNAC members as being associated with zionist interests?
No, it doesn’t, it just shows that those who cite PNAC involvement, but then deliberately leave out the gentiles, are intellectually dishonest.
How many times, exactly , have you said or implied that the problem was with people putting another country before their own country’s national security? Now you’re saying that the default position should in fact be that the administration acted with purely American interests and national security in mind?
So you agree that the default assumption should be that our leaders were acting in what they believed to be the best interests of America? You agree that the conspiracy theory that the members of the administration were doing this “for Israel” is highly implausible at best?
No, but in that scenario, nobody has sold America out .
The agenda is one of increased American influence. And yes, economic resources go towards the strength, security, and economy of a nation.
The agenda is not one of putting any other country’s interests before our own.
The agenda ia about using other countries for our benefit.
So, if that’s the scenario, nobody has done anything ‘for’ Israel, as for Israel’s benefit but not America’s, or any other quisling-rhetoric. America has used Israel as a strategic ally to accomplish American goals in the ME (eg. a sphere of influence and a military presence).
Secondly, I already explained why this is so: many of the people who keep being mentioned happen to have the strongest ties to Israel as evident by their past activities. Did Bush, Cheney, et al write the strategy paper for Netanyahu that was cited in this thread? Perle, Feith, and Wurmser did. Wolfowitz’s work on Arab-Israeli issues is extensive, he lived in Israel for a period of time, his sister emigrated to the country, his father was supposedly a committed Zionist, and he was one of the PNAC members who wrote this letter to Clinton back in 1998, which claimed "current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War.” The letter went on to state that “the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil” was being jeopardized by the policy, and concluded that “removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power […] needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.”
What are we supposed to do with all this information? Ignore it because “gentiles are pro-Israel, too!!!” ? This is what I want to know.
Thirdly, people may be less likely to focus on the gentiles in the administration when it comes to Israel because their connections to other special interests are simply more pronounced. I believe Bush is pro-Israel, but I believe his attachment to oil far outweighs any allegiance to a country that he has no familial attachments, too. He may have some religious attachments to Israel, but only in that fundamentalist-apocalyptic-the-prophecy-will-be-fulfilled type of way. It’s the same way with Cheney and Rumsfeld; I think their special interest is money above all else. I think Rice’s special interest is pleasing her boss and not making any waves.
But even in spite of all that, I hear a lot of people talking about the overall pro-Israel position of the adminstration. Most of the people hellbent on protraying it as a Jewish thing seem to be those who wish to disregard any and every piece of evident which indicates possible Israel influence.
I said the problem was that we went to war for reasons that did not have to do with protecting the United States of America from attack. Those reasons may include oil, money, and yes, helping out Israel. I never said anything about one country above another country. That’s your spin. The powers-that-be probably saw all these reasons as generally helping our “national security”; the problem is is that that not a valid reason for launching a preemptive war. Call it a decree-by-fiat if you like, but the UN Charter backs me up (as do your past tirades on the subject). You don’t invade another country and kill thousands of people in order to play into Israel’s long-range strategic plans. You don’t do it to secure pipelines either. You do it for self-defense.
So again, I ask: Do you think we were justified to go to Iraq to “increase American influence” like this? I need clarification on your position because if you don’t agree self-defense is the only acceptable reason for launching an unprovoked attack against another soverign body, then there’s no use in debating with you in this thread. Not because I have a problem with dissenting opinions, but because it will probably give me a headache for reasons that I wish not to state.
No, you avoided answering this specific question with any specific answers by giving an analogy which was rather poor.
But much of the evidence you’re about to use applies to gentiles as well. You just happen to ignore it. Why might that be? Is there only so much blame to go around? If Rummy and Cheney are “Pro-Israel” as well, why can’t they be mentioned?
Is this a lazy conspiracy theory? We’re only going to look at the most glaring examples of the “strongest connections to Israel”, and ignore the rest? You are actually going to go on and cite a PNAC memo that has other administration members as signatory parties… but you’ll ignore them, and focus on the Jews. Because they have greater “connections” to it. So the question must be asked, are you really interested in finding those who you claim to have sold America out to benefit Israel, or just the Jewish ones, er, the ones with the greatest “connections” to Israel?
Did that paper anywhere declare that American interests should be sacrificed for Israeli ones, or is this simply part of the campaign of slander by innuendo? Besides the innuendo and insinuations, what did this paper actually say?
Yeah, sounds like it was a paper talking about how to help Israel at America’s expense alright. :rolleyes:
What, next are you going to be saying that if someone lived in Israel or had family that supported Israel, we should suspect them of being traitors?
Oh… you are.
Let’s look at these damning “connections” that enable us to accuse him of being a traitor.
-He “lived in Israel for a period of time” :
Yes, he lived in Israel for one year, when he was 14 years old, and his father had a teaching gig there. Obviously solid ammo for the innuendo campaign.
-His “sister emigrated to the country.”
What else do we need to know? My brother is a lawyer, obviously I am secretly pro-lawyer at the expense of my own intersts. More solid ammo for the innuendo campaign.
-His “father was a commited Zionist”.
Well, that settles it. If his father was a Zionist, then he is obviously a Zionist pawn who sold out US intersts to benefit Israel.
Oh, and of course, most damning, he might be described as an expert on Arab-Israeli issues. Obviously we can’t have any of them in the administration working on policy. They’d obviously be traitors, especially if they had family who lived in Israel.
Do you honestly hold a single one of these standards?
I’m sure you’ve spent lots of hours looking at all the members of the government to see who else has family members living abroad, or who lived anywhere abroad, or who’s written on other nations? You are, right? This isn’t an intellectually dishonest witch hunt, you’re honestly curious? And you’re about to investigate Rummy and Cheney fully, because even though they don’t have the same level of “connections” as the others, by gum, they’re major players at PNAC. Right? It is the truth that you’re after, yes? Not something else?
Can you differentiate this, in any way, from the old divided-loyalties slander? I mean, there’s a reason that Jews with family in Israel are highly suspect but WASPs with “connections” to britain don’t trouble you, at all?
This is where the intellectual dishonesty of your argument gets up and shines. And you’ve ignored my previous challenge, evidently hoping that repitition will trump intellectual integrity.
Who else signed that document? Why, Bolton, Armitage, and Rummy. But the conspiracy theory is a lazy one, and it can’t be bothered to accuse them of being traitors because they don’t have family in Israel?
Is this evidence, or not? Do you care about what this “evidence” “shows”, or not? You can not honestly pick and choose among signatory parties and pretend that you’re actually trying to figure out what happened. You’re just looking for data-points to help you build a story.
Yet more intellectual dishonesty and cherrypicking.
You ignore three major signatories of the document and handwave them away, all while pretending that the document is some form of damning evidence. And then you ignore what the document is actually saying.
Just as you scoffed at us going to war to benefit other allies and friends, you deliberately and wilfully ignore that the letter you just quoted mentions Israel only in conext of helping our other allies and securing ME oil.. But do you say that this was a war for oil? Or a war to help Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc…?
No, you scoff at those.
And, you focus on Israel.
Why might that be?
Why aren’t you looking for “divided loyalties” of administration members who support Egypt’s government? Or Europe? Surely some of the administration members have spent some time in Britain, or have family who are in Europe? Why aren’t you looking for a conspiracy of Monarchists who put British interests above American security?
Curious, that.
So as long as you cherrypick information, ignore what the memo actually said, accuse only those who you care to while still saying that the memo is some form of damning evidence… yeah, you’ve got a strong case for your innuendo campaign. Sorta. Kinda… if someone else takes the same intellectually dishonest steps.
What information? What “evidence” do you think you could possibly have? You’ve got some people who proposed a strategic relationship between Isreal and the United states which specifically called for Israel to be self-reliant. And you’ve got someone else who studied and worked on ME affairs and ~gasp!~ had Zionist relatives.
Then you’ve got a letter to clinton whose content you have to deliberately ignore in order to make your point, whose signatory parties you deliberately have to cherypick to make your conspiracy theory, and whose sister publications, like the magnum opus I linked to, go completely ignored.
This is not intellectually honest research. This is not rational debate. This is a game of connect-the-dots when you have to deliberately ignore that half of the dots are really squares. This is a game of ‘proof by innuendo’.
It is elucidative that you really seem not to understand why focusing only on the Jews and ignoring other people, when you’re using some of the same exact evidence that applies equally to both, reeks of filtering information through your own bias.
If, for instance, you were actually claiming that oil was the motivation for the war, then, if you were honestly curious about how that happened, that you wouldn’t ignore key members of the administration simply because they didn’t work for oil companies. You’d actually want to know who did what, and why.
But you don’t want to know that in this situation, and are content to stop looking.
I’m not sure what strength you believe an intellectually dishonest, cherrypicked campaign-of-inneudo has in terms of proof… but something tells me that you oppose Bush’s claims of WMD based on their intellectually dishonest, cherry picked innuendo. I guess when it works for you, go with it?
So we’re back to a lazy conspiracy theory.
Evidently finding all the Zionist traitors in our government isn’t your first priority. Only some of them.
Are you interested in the truth, or the easiest whispering campaign?
And that the Jews’ just happens to be Israel above all else. Neat. So even if Bush, Rummy, Cheney, etc… all support Israel, for the exact same publically stated reasons as the Jews, you’ll just handwave them away and ascribe different motivations to them. Very convincing.
First off, only by imagination and innuendo do these pieces of evidence speak to ‘possible Israel influence’. You’ve shown even with your own quotes that you wilfully and deliberately ignore refrences to other ME countries and oil, as well as other signatories of the document. And, instead, use a damning evidence of ‘connections’ things like Zionist relatives, a year spent in Israel at 14 years of age, and someone actually knowing about his field of study.
Second, you can give no convincing reason as to why we should only focus on those who have these greater “connections” to Israel. Sure, you can refuse to take the effort to get at what you see as the truth, but if your conspiracy theory is too lazy to even look for the truth, what good is it?
No, that’s a lie, or more to the point, two lies.
You argued that a war was waged for reasons other than national security. Now you want to pretend that national security only involves protecting America from immediate attack, which is again a decree-by-fiat that deliberately ignores alternate political viewpoints. If someone believes that American security is enhanced by increased influence in the ME, or by keeping our economy strong, or by maintaining strong alliances, then national security is their goal. That you want to handwave it away by fiat doesn’t mean that it wasn’t their motivation.
Second, even your own evidence presented such as the paper to Netanyahu and the 1998 letter to Clinton are about protecting America’s interests as well. So even if we trust that these policy papers were the gospel truth of why we waged the war, you have still deliberately distorted them and wilfully cherrypicked only the information that fit your conspiracy theory, while purposefully ignoring all information to the contrary.
No, that’s a lie.
Talking about how some people had their own interests which weren’t America’s interests, and how those were a ‘conflict’ of interest. Now you wish us to believe that putting your own intersts in a place that causes a conflict with America’s intersts isn’t putting another country above your own.
Stating that the US was not supposed to benefit from the war, but Israel was. Now you wish us to believe that benefiting Israel and not benefiting, or even harming the US is not putting another country above your own.
Stating that instead of having America’s intersts first and foremost, “they” got us into this prediciment for other reasons. Now you wish us to believe that disregarding national security and persuing another country’s interests instead isn’t putting another country above our own.
This is the problem with an innuendo campaign based on cherry picked information and insinuations of traitorous behavior; it’s mighty hard to keep the house of cards straight in your mind. “Who am I slyly suggesting but not proving did something, and for what reason am I alluding to, excatly, without evidence? Damn… now I have to re-read the thread…”
And back to the argument via fiat. If they saw these actions as helping American interests, if that was their motivation, then the problem is that by fiat you’ve decided that it isn’t a valid motive, so we need to look for people with “Israel connections.”
Awwwww, past tyrades. How cute! Unfortunately, again, you seem not to understand that we are not discussing my political views, or yours, but what the administration did. I’m not sure if you honestly don’t understand the distinction, or if you do, and you’re deliberately trying to sabotage honest discussion with these red herrings.
You are again arguing an irrelevancy. Whether or not it was justified in some people’s minds does not change what the motivation was in the administration’s eyes. And the fact that you view it as “unacceptable” does not mean that people in the administration did. Nor does it mean that if national security was the goal, that because you view its means as “unacceptable”, that it’s valid to postulate a ‘conflict of interest’ with Israel.
And now your conspiracy theory has jumped the shark. Nowhere, anywhere, have you shown a shred of evidence that we invaded another country “in order to play into Israel’s long-range strategic plans.” And by the way, this again puts the lie to your claims that you’ve never accused anybody of putting Israel above the United States. If we went to war, not in order to secure our own interests, but in order to play into’s Israel’s plans (Mwahahahah! :dubious: ), then you are indeed acussing people of being Zionist pawns.
No, you keep having this problem. You wouldn’t wage a war for those reasons. The administration might have. And national security is not necessarily the same thing as immediate self defense. Nor is a country’s economy divorced from the concerns of national security.
All you want to do is handwave away any other possible reason, by fiat. If you wouldn’t do it, the administration obviously couldn’t possibly. And if the administration wouldn’t do it, then they must have fallen into the Zionist trap!
Oy vey.
You’ve asked, and gotten an answer several times.
:rolleyes:
Partisan politics at its finest. “If you don’t agree with me, there’s no use in debate.”
And, honestly, why exactly do you keep using this red herring? Who do you think you’re fooling? What does your political philosophy, or mine, have to do with the administration’s motivations? If I think we should invade whoever we please at any point, does that mean that the US government invaded Iraq because of an “Israel connections”? If I believe that war is never justified ever in any circumstances, does that mean that the US government did not invade Iraq because of “Israel connections”
Do your, my, or anybody else’s political philosophy have anything to do with what the administration members believed, what their motivations were, and why they did what they did?
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with that. Nothing, at all, right?
One might even call out such red herrings as obfuscatory and intellectually debate, eh?
So you can’t discuss the actual issues of this thread, those being the administration’s actions and philosophy, without knowing totally irrelevant facts. Or you’ll get a headache, due to a dissenting opinion. Not that dissenting opinions have anything to do with it. And there’s “no use” debating an issue with someone if they don’t agree with you on an unrelated issue that has nothing to do with the debate.
Good post Finn. You seem to love beating your head against these kinds of walls. I can only sit back and watch such torture with admiration and sympathy.
I think you meant intellectually (dishonest) debate here. I would agree, and FWIW I think you’ve done a good job in showing it too.
An assertion made with no substantiation. Show me that Bush, Cheney, and others have as deep of a paper trail connecting them to Israel like Perle, Feith et al and I will gladly concede you have a point.
You’re building strawmen. Who said “sacrifice” is the operative word here? Did the decision-makers know that American interests were being “sacrified” when they decided to invade Iraq for the pursuit of oil? If not, why would they assume the same with Israel?
Read it.
The “WASPs” trouble me for plenty of other reasons, as I’ve enumerated already, but continue to pretend as if Bush and Cheney never get called out as war-mongering, greedy, liars if it pleases your sensibilities.
Who have I accused of being a traitor?
I never denied Bolton, Armitage, and Rummy signed the document, but they don’t have the other ties to Israel that Wolfy does. I was trying to show you why Wolfy appears on the radar when Israel is being discussed.
At what point are you going to address the real issue, which is that Israel may have been a factor behind our decision to go to war? The fact that Rummy and others signed this document in 1998 does nothing to support your denials. If anything, it shows that there were plans long in the making to go to war and Israel was a consideration in those plans. Why do you overlook this?
You’re a poor debator, Finn. You know what my complaint is, you just continue to play these “you’re a liar” gotcha games so that you can continue to evade my questions.
I take issue with the fact that we started an unprovoked war with Iraq for reasons that are not vital to our national security; meaning, we started a preemptive war for reasons that had nothing to do with self-defense.
Can you please answer my question now? Do you think an aggressive war for any reason other than self-defense is acceptable? I don’t care what “some would argue”. That is the coward’s way of defending a position that they are too scared to claim as their own. At least three times, I asked you this question and you skirt it.
I must have missed it underneath all your hysterical screaming and ad hominems. Can you repeat it? A simple yes or no will suffice.
You are filtering things through YOUR perceptions and politics here. YOU don’t think Iraq provoked the war. YO udon’t think that there was a vital reason for the invasion, or that the invasion of Iraq was perceived to be in the best interests of our national security. YOU think that a preemptive war in Iraq had nothing to do with our self-defense.
However YOU aren’t in power, YOU aren’t part of the administration, etc…are YOU? The thing here is, that YOU are trying to instill your own perceptions, and what you think is right or wrong, touching or not touching on our national security…i.e. you are trying to use your own yardstick to measure these things. Fair enough. However, when your yardstick doesn’t match that of the Bush et al and the administration, you then jump to the conclusion that THEY agree with you…so therefore they must have had some other REAL motive for their invasion (i.e. your ridiculous assertion that we invaded Iraq to help out Israel). Get it?
Sorry, but using my own Occam’s Razor on this, I have to say that oil would be a much more key point wrt US’s national security than you seem to think it is. Securing the oil and influencing the ME IS in our national security. That the adminstration and Bush bungled it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t their primary motivation…or that they secretly agreed with you, and that their real motivation was to invade to help out Israel.
You betcha. I believe Iraq was the worst move the country has made since Vietnam.
Well, gee. I guess that means I should just shut up then and go with the flow. Because I’m not in power. You’re right. What ever was I thinking.
What?
So do you have a problem starting wars with other nations so that you can get their oil? Call me a crazy bleeding heart, but I have a big problem with that.
How do you get this from what I wrote? Do you really not understand what I was getting at? Or do you have some other motive for posting this tripe?
Seems clear to me. What part are you having trouble grasping? Its really easy…your world view is not equal to that of Bush or the members of his adminstration. Which part of this concept is giving you trouble?
:smack: I can’t ask you the obvious question here, since this is GD and its not allowed. So, giving you the benifit of the doubt, I’ll assume you really don’t get it.
MY view on whether or not there is a problem with starting wars with other nations to get (or secure access too) their oil is irrelevent. Its the administrations view on it that is key to this particular debate point. In point of fact, I DO believe that nations need to protect their interests abroad. I don’t particularly think that invading Iraq was helpful in this regard, but MY VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT ARE MEANINGLESS AS I’M NOT GW BUSH! Get it? You are trying to project your viewpoint on Bush, then when he does something contrary to what you think is right, you are hunting for motives for his actions…since they are against your own viewpoint. See the circular nature here? See the flaw in your argument?
Of course not. Which probably has something to do with why he started the war in the first place!
It might have something to do with you repeatedly stating the mind-numbingly obvious as if the fact that I’m not in power has anything to do with the validity of my opinions about the war and our motivations for war. Perhaps you can make your points a little clearer in the future because if this wasn’t your point, it sure seemed like it was.
So essentially I was right then. My opinion on the war is not worth much because I’m not Bush. Thanks for straightening that out.
What?!!? The administration thinks they can do no wrong, so of course they think going to war for oil is justified! If they wanted to go to war to get Krispy Kreme donuts, they’d find a way to tie into national security. Since when did our yardstick for acceptability become dependent on what the administration wants? Did I miss a memo?
Just in case you didn’t know, we live in a democracy. That means that we don’t just leave all the decisions to administration and assume that they know what they are doing. Rather, it means the opposite. A democracy doesn’t function if the people assume that the powers-that-be know what is best. Our opinions are relevant. If they weren’t relevant, we’d be living in dictatorship.
No, I don’t “get it” and I pray to God that I never will. The stupidity in this statement is even clearer when it’s in all caps.
You can’t possibly be confused when you use a PNAC document as evidence, and then feign ignorance as to why it’d be evidence for anybody who co-signed it.
It is an assertion proven by your own cites. Do you not read them? Is PNAC involvement a “paper trail” for Jews, but not for gentiles?
No, you’re lying, again, when I just quoted you. Why on earth do you think your lies will fool anybody?
You did.
You are saying that the war wasn’t supposed to really benefit the US, but Israel. That means sacrificing US interests for Israel’s. Why are you not admitting to your own words?
Not only did I read it, I quoted it in the post you’re responding to. And showed that you were lying when you claimed it was evidence of someone going to war to ultimately benefit (“really”) Israel rather than our own country.
It seems that it’s doubtful that you read it, just as it looks unlikely that you actually read the 1998 memo rather than cherrypicking to find the word “Israel”.
Show me the number of times you’ve said a single word about “WASP connections” to Europe. You can’t, because you haven’t. You don’t hold anybody else to the standards that you hold the Jews of the administration to. You are not looking for members of the administration with family in other countries, or who lived there, or who wrote about strategic alliances with other nations. No matter how much you pretend that calling someone out for oil connections is the same as slandering them as traitorous pawns of foreign powers.
I’d ask you to ponder just why you use such mutable and intelletually dishonest standards to prove a point based on nothing more than innuendo and slander, but I don’t think you’re interested in the truth, at all.
I’m not “pretending” that, you’re lying about what I’ve said.
You’re also deliberately ignoring, with pure intellectual honesty, what my point actually was.
In case you want to stop feigning ignorance, my point was that Bush, Cheney, et all, never get called out for “WASP connections” when they have some of the same “connections” that the Jews have to Zionism.
They also rarely get called out for “Israel connections”, even when people, like you, use the same exact evidence to slander Jewish members of the administration and ignore gentiles.
When will you have the courage of your convictions? Or is this simply a campaign of slime and slander by innuendo and insinuation? You’re just going to suggest things like our government “really” going to war to ultimately benefit another nation at our own expense, and then cower when someone correctly states that you’re calling people traitors?
:rolleyes:
Will you please drop this bullshit? His “connections”? He’s got a relative there! His father liked it! He’s studied it! Oh boy, what solid evidence to start a slimey campaign of slander and innuendo.
You evidently can’t argue this with any intellectual honesty, at all. If the document is evidence of the charges you keep making and then coyly pretending you didn’t make, then it’s evidence for everybody. Someone dedicated to helping Israel at our expense, as “proven” by a document that you cherrypicked to get a dishonest reading of, would be dedicated to that reglardless of other “Israel connections”.
Or just admit that co-signing that PNAC memo isn’t evidence, of any form, you’re blowing smoke, and all you really have is bullshit like someone having a family member in Israel.
Or continue with the intellectual dishonesty, and pretend that co-signing a PNAC memo means that you’re in leage with Israel, but only if you’ve got family in Israel or once wrote a paper stating how America and Israel could form a mutually benificial relationship.
Yes, you showcased your intellectual dishonesty quite well, thank you.
At what point will you stop lying and admit that I’ve not only been discussing that the entire thread, but trying to get you to stop your attempts at diverting the topic into a discussion about general political philosophies that members of the administration don’t even have?
That you lie about what that document actually said, does.
You have the nerve and blatant hypocrisy to ask that, after your entire spiel about this is based on cherrypicking and ignoring what the memo actually said? You going to start accusing administration members of being Pro-Egypt any time soon? :dubious:
Contrary to your willful distortions, the memo showed that maintaining regional strategic alliances was thought to be in our best interest. If one were being honest about the content of the memo, they would admit that Israel was given the same importance as our other regional allies and friends, that all of it was cast in the light of the US’ naked self-interest, and that other nations were only a considering precisely to the degree to which we could use them for our own ends.
Luckily national security isn’t limited to a single meaning of self-defense. But you don’t have the intellectual honesty to deal with that little fact, and look at what the administration actually did, and why. You can’t untangle your own beliefs with external reality.
And it isn’t exactly a well throught out position that handwaves away strategic alliances and the US economy as unrelated to national security.
Am I writing in Greek or something?
Print the next line out, and refer to it next time you want to ask me the same question I’ve refused to answer for the same reasons close to a half dozen times now.
“Fuck no I won’t answer your irrelevant, obfuscatory red herring bullshit question. What I believe has nothing to do with what the administration believed, what their motivations were, or what their actions were.”
I know you don’t care about that, your argument is intellectually dishonest. Who cares what the administration members would argue, it’s not like this thread is about what the administration members would argue.
If you want to call me a coward again, at least Pit me.
I’m not going to comment on your newish conspiracy theory, except to point out that you are yet again engaging in an intellectually dishonest smear campaign based on your own active imagination.
I’d also point out that you’re lying, and that I’ve never defended the administration’s position on the war. But you already know you’re lying about that, so I doubt my pointing out that you’re a liar will make you stop.
Seriously, print this out, and tape it to your computer:
“Fuck no I won’t answer your irrelevant, obfuscatory red herring bullshit question. What I believe has nothing to do with what the administration believed, what their motivations were, or what their actions were.”
Wow, you can hear text? Does text normally scream when you read it? Do you know what the color blue tastes like, too?
And, please stop this absurd hypocrisy. You’ve cast too many ad hominem fallacies at me to count, including just a few lines up when you accused me of having this position because I was a coward and too afraid to admit that I really support Bush . :rolleyes:
“Fuck no I won’t answer your irrelevant, obfuscatory red herring bullshit question. What I believe has nothing to do with what the administration believed, what their motivations were, or what their actions were.”