Posted April 23, 2002

Foreign Aid

RE: Justin Raimondo's article "Agents of Influence."

Once again Justin has scored a direct hit in exposing the lobbyists who help shape the foreign policy of the United States. Bill Bennett, like so many others in the D.C. lobbying game, has made a life's work of feeding at the public trough of Washington DC

The problem with foreign interventionism though goes beyond the malevolent influences of lobbyists. After all, it is man's nature to take what he can if it is there for the taking; and Washington DC has trillions for the taking. It is no wonder the vultures like Bennett and Co descend upon the empire's hub to grab at its pickings.

Mr. Raimondo touched upon the source of the intervention problem when he wrote:

...the reality is that the Israel Firsters are little more than a small somewhat wacky albeit vociferous fifth column whose influence is way out of proportion to their actual numbers. A Time-CNN poll shows that most Americans would reduce or completely eliminate aid to Israel if Sharon doesn't withdraw his troops from Palestinian areas. 60 percent would cut or eliminate aid; and a full 75 percent support America's diplomatic initiative...

Hey Americans! What about reducing or eliminating aid period? If you merely cut off aid from Israel you are only shifting the intervention problem elsewhere. The money for meddling is still there for the taking of the Bennetts and the like. Moving it to some other region like Kosovo, or Bosnia, or Korea does nothing to stop interventionism.

As for America's "diplomatic initiative," the lie to that was revealed the other day by Rush Limbaugh, a very close friend of George Bush, when he flatly stated that Andrew Sullivan was right in contending that the Powell mission was a planned failure to assuage American public opinion so that the Bush Administration could appear to be doing all it could to restrain Sharon, while actually giving him a free hand. As it has played out, Limbaugh was correct. In any case, how many "peace plans have there been for the Middle East in the last 100 years brokered by the United States?

Peace is not possible for the Middle East as long as it is brokered by a foreign power like the United States, using its agents of influence grasping at their own private interests. The one and only solution is to cut off the supply of aid to the agents of influence by extricating ourselves and our pocketbooks from the citadel of the empire in Washington DC

~ DW

Search Results

Below are the results of a Nexis.com search for Philip Zack in 'all newspapers'. A search for Assaad produced considerably more results.

~ Alan K.

Arafat's Goals

I just read Justin Raimondo's ... piece entitled 'Agents of Influence.'

As far as I can see, all of the statements Mr. Raimondo made were technically correct. Yes, Israel is occupying land on which Arabs live. Yes, they are killing Arabs every day in what seems to be a never-ending war of hate and pride.

But the problem with everything he wrote is that he portrays Israel to be the instigator, the aggressor, the initiator of the violence and ultimately the evil power denying innocent peoples of their right to live in peace.

Is Mr. Raimondo aware that Yasser Arafat founded the PLO in 1964, three years before Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan heights in a war of self-defense? Knowing this simple piece of irrefutable and ... unarguable history, can he answer for me, just exactly which Palestine needed to be liberated in 1964? It certainly was not the Palestine Arafat now purports to be trying to 'liberate' in the West Bank and Gaza.... These areas were then owned by oppressive dictatorships in Jordan and Egypt. The whole world is clamoring on today about how all the violence will most certainly end, if only Israel would just pull out of the 'occupied territories'. Do you really believe this? Have Arafat's goals of 'liberating' the Palestine of 1964 really changed?

That's a rhetorical question, Mr. Raimondo. They most certainly have not.

I am a military member myself, and, God knows, I appreciate the gravity of the situation, and of what it means to me and to those with whom I serve. I'm not saying Israel is blameless and righteously irreproachable in all that it does. I'm saying there's more to the story, and the truth should be told, not distorted.

~ Scott T., Delaware

Jenin

I must say all this talk of "massacre" at Jenin sounds very much like all the talk of "massacres" by Serbs in both Bosnia and Kosovo. Even some of the methods of the Israeli soldiers described by the Palestinians sounds identical. Considering how true the allegations were in the former Yugoslavia, I urge you to wait and see what investigators find before posting so many pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli articles on your website.

~ Marijana Ignjatovic, Chicago, Illinois

Learn from History

Somebody has to start talking positively; we should have learned from the history of this conflict and others that no conflict in the whole world has been solved 99% unless the solution has addressed all issues of the conflict, from all sides.... The main reason that we are not reaching a fair solution is that the Israelis see only their side of the conflict and the solutions for it, without addressing the problems of the Palestinian people; in all proposed Israeli peace plans there were thousands of new problems created for the Palestinians; to see these problems you need to see the maps on: http://www.d-n-i.net/al_aqsa_intifada/sld006.htm

The data and facts on this website show that since peace talks started, the increase in illegal settlement building was tremendous. We know that settlements are the number one problem and obstacle to peace (see the graph on page: http://www.d-n-i.net/al_aqsa_intifada/sld004.htm). Settlement policy is destroying Israelis' and Palestinians' lives.

President Reagan on September 1, 1982 called for settlements freeze as a confidence builder and declared that the U.S. would not support increased settlements during transition to peace. Israel stayed in defiance, President Bush (Sr.) in Madrid (1991) threatened to withhold aid if Israeli settlement activity continued. Israel stayed in defiance. These actions by Israel sent a clear and loud message to the Palestinian people that they are not serious about peace and they are in it only to buy time and for propaganda reasons only. The Arab people have put up a peace proposal which they have agreed on and sponsored by all of them. This is a historic moment, Israel should consider this proposal seriously; this will not happen again for a very long time, the hands of all Arabs are still there, reaching for all Peace-loving people in Israel to join to build a new Middle East with two countries side by side: Israel and Palestine. This Palestinian state has to be viable to exist and ... with ... continuously connected areas with no settlements inside it, and having its own international borders.

People of Palestine should enjoy the same type of liberty, rights, dignity, and freedom as the Israeli people. When both people share the same benefits and good fruits of prosperity and peace, they for sure will share all the bad things and try to prevent it from happening to them or to the other side. But peace agreements and term agreements such as the ones signed till now ... may achieve some gains to one side or the other, but for sure will not achieve peace for the side who thought that he gained most from these agreements; all past peace transitional agreements were the main ingredients in the recipe for what's happening now.

This recipe was written by Israel, served on the dinner party in the United States and the Palestinians eat it. Now we are seeing its results. For peace to be solid, genuine, and continuous it has to be a just peace for both sides. "Peace, and the retention of the occupied Arab territories, are incapable and impossible to reconcile and achieve." Israel has to build up the Arabs' confidence in its intentions of peace with actions and not words, and has to understand that Arab people are afraid of its intentions since all of them know that Israel is the only country in the region with nuclear weapons of mass destruction, and [that Israel] has the biggest and strongest army in the region.

~ Hadi Bahra, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Liked Rosomanov Article

I liked [Christopher Deliso's] article on Zoran Rosomanov and OBL. Yeah, you write well and it's easy to understand. I hope to read more articles by you -- on whatever you wish to write -- in the future.

~ Michael B.

Christopher Deliso replies:

Thanks a lot for the support -- it's my pleasure to be able to write on such topics for you and all the other interested readers out there!

Growing Stronger

It's funny how most of the media focused on the Arab-American aspect of Saturday's march. Maybe this was done to persuade every Smith and Jones that there is no broad American [opposition to] ... the War. Whatever the case, the fact that 50,000 to 100,000 demonstrators from every stripe of American life descended upon Washington and found common cause in peace cannot be changed. We are making contacts and growing stronger by the day.

(Not only were we all Palestinians yesterday, but apparently we were all Canadians also, as evidenced by the Bush Administration snub.)

~ Christopher Snively, University of Missouri -- St. Louis