Posted April 25, 2003

Regarding "Putting America First" by Justin Raimondo:

Mister Raimondo's 21 April 2003 essay "Putting America First" which reviews the new Caxton Press book Defend America First, a collection of the stoutly antiwar and resolutely isolationist articles of the late 1930s and early 1940s from The Saturday Evening Post by the great self taught economic journalist Garet Garrett may just be the best piece I have so far read on this excellent internet site. A full decade Raimondo's junior I have idolized Garet Garrett since mid October 1982 when I read The People's Pottage in one sitting late the evening of the first John Birch Society meeting I attended after joining several weeks before. I have since read every thing by and about Garrett whereon I could lay hands which happens to be far more than I ever would have dared dream possible til Raimondo's own now out of print book Reclaiming the American Right swam into my ken; how long has it been since Laissez Faire Books had an explicit category for the American old right? Too long!

Though my vehement rejection of socialism and communism dates back to immediately after the 1968 general election which marked the start of my realization what was bravely opposed in Indochina and foully glorified on American streets and college campuses was as bad as the nazism, fascism and Japanese imperialism my maternal grandfather, second world war veteran of the Pacific theatre of operation care of the enlisted ranks of the army signal corps, described to me as vividly as he dared, I oddly accepted uncritically til seventh grade in February 1974 the FDR myth and the approved account of the morality, necessity and desperate imperativeness of the new deal. After breaking that barrier to clear thought I obdurately took til late 1985 to come to my senses re war and arrogant diplomacy but at least I had by then in the form of vintage old right literature itself far stronger validation and justification of my positions than impressions gleaned from reading between the lines of bombastic books on the invented menace of domestic reaction published from the mid 1950s to the early 1970s that had found their way to the public libraries I frequented. Despite being very busy reading much material which til then was new to me I significantly rereadThe People's Pottage in its entirety.

While the writing of the late great Garet Garrett means more to me personally and ideologically – though I am so obsessive I must admit that to me the personal is required to be the ideologic – than I can adequately express I can give an idea by stating that if I could have had but one old rightist's work back in junior high school to hurl in the faces of my socialist pseudo science teachers when ever they spouted their nonsense on de facto unitarism, domestic statism, drastic egalitarianism, self righteous war mongering, secular unilateral world missionary excursions and other usurpations against the republic perpetrated by FDR and his weird gaggle of new dealers I would have made it the work of valiant Mister Garet Garrett. May the Caxton Press' new book collecting his old editorial essays sell through several printings. Americans must answer for many sins but they have yet to do any thing bad enough to warrant withdrawal from their reach the stern lessons and firm example of this towering hero of principle. Excelsior!

~ Steven Smith

While your article’s intent was to expose your readers to an articulate position against U.S. involvement in World War II (Garet Garrett), your editorial makes no distinction between principled antiwar positions, and those that were driven by other factors. In effect, the activities of the American First Committee were glossed over. Some of its members undoubtedly were strictly against the war, but some were motivated by business interests or hatred. The American First Committee not only argued for a neutral position against the Nazis, but also advocated normal trade relations with them and a negotiated settlement once the war began.

It should be noted that a plethora of American corporations had commercial dealings with the Nazis. I encourage your readers to read a book like Trading With the Enemy by Charles Higham. He explores the appalling US support of the Nazi industrial and war machine and cites companies like Ford, General Motors, ITT, Dupont, Standard Oil, and Chase Manhattan Bank as perpetuating normal business relations with them.

Perhaps it was business as usual for these corporations. But for people who support the free market, and believe that corporations should behave ethically, no different than individuals, they were unethical and their transactions reprehensible.

Furthermore, some people misuse the nonaggression axiom for their arguments against intervention. No doubt this axiom is flawed, arbitrary, and leads to logical inconsistencies. But for the sake of this discussion, let us accept this libertarian or propertarian supposition and assume that “transgression against someone’s property is wrong” is an immutable law of nature. The axiom, as it applies to the conditions for warfare between disputing parties (nations), has two corollaries:

1) a nation under attack has the right to self-defense
2) a nation has the right to come to the defense of an attacked third-party if they ask for such support.

Clearly, a strong argument can be made that the Lend-Lease program, enacted in 1941, was designed to help arm an ally of ours that was under attack (starting with the bombings of England in 1940). The Nazis’ aggression against England was a sufficient reason justifying a response, consistent with the second corollary. And we were definitely attacked by Japan, regardless of advance US knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack, so a counter-response was justified by the first corollary. And please, no lame political metaphors about holding a gun to the poor, defenseless invaders. You’re not going to say that we forced those murderous regimes to attack us or our allies, are you?! Next thing you know, we’re going to have to blame it on “society.” By the way, it’s quite clear that Gulf War II does not meet the conditions of the above corollaries.

~ David Epstein

...When did America become imperialist? Let's start with the Napoleonic wars. We gave Napoleon several million dollars for "the Louisiana Purchase". What was this purchase?

It was native lands the French "claimed" in their imperialist adventures in the Americas. If you quizzed any native living in the lands claimed, I doubt any would even understand a place called "France" existed! This purchase was a back door method to give Napoleon money so he could fight the British empire.

We then marched in and using fire and sword and disease, we killed off most of the natives and the few remaining survivors were penned up brutally on reservations which were early models for Hitler's extermination camps. Ninety percent of the natives died this way.

We then took in colonizers from the European disorders to repopulate and control the rest of the North American continent. By the late 1800s, after a vicious civil war, we leaped across the oceans and began ruthless colonization and elimination of native populations, taking Hawaii, Alaska, the Philippines, etc.

We marched into China with the other Great Imperial powers of France, England, Russia and Germany. ...

Pretending we were not an empire except after World War II is really a poor reading of history. Even after World War I, we were militarily invading Central America and various Caribbean islands. At no point in time after 1812, has America ceased its endless imperial activities. Hardly a year passes, we are extending our empire. Ever hear of the Mexican War? It doubled the size of the USA even beyond the Louisiana Purchase! Happened in the economic global crisis of 1848.

During the Great Depression, we increased our grip on Cuba and Mexico and all the South American states. Both Germany and Japan did not challenge our imperial pretensions in the entire hemisphere except when they got desperate as we sided more and more with the rapidly dying English empire.

Isolationism and America Firstism is a dead idea based on a fake reading of history. I am an internationalist. I believe in spreading democracy. I despise Bush and I despised LBJ and Nixon because none of them were involved in spreading democracy, they were and are all into spreading the American Imperial troopers and our country is rapidly becoming the New Soviet Union without the health care and schools.

We support dictatorships that keep populations at bay. We did this in 1948. We did it in 1848. The disaster of the American Revolution was the need to keep slavery and that immediately warped the message of liberation. At no point in our history have we supported true democracy and liberation. ...

~ Elaine Supkis, New York

Regarding "Know Thine Enemy" by Christopher Montgomery:

In your article "Know Thine Enemy" you reference, as so many have for various and sundry reasons,"The Ugly American", and use the reference, I'm reasonably sure, as a simile (or metaphor?) for an "unattractive" display of Amerikan power. It's a small thing, but in the book The Ugly American, by William J. Lederer and Eugene Burdick (Fawcett Crest, pub.), the 'ugly American' of the title is one Homer Atkins, who is in fact portrayed very positively as opposed to the 'pretty Americans' of the development administrations and armed forces. So for whatever it's worth, the references to 'the ugly American' is sort of referenced backwards.

~ Mooser

Christopher Montgomery replies:

Must admit I had never heard of this book – my reference was to Dubya's excellent throwaway line to this effect during one of the 2000 presidential debates.

Regarding "Postwar Blues" by Alan Bock:

In the US, the Hamilton-Jefferson "thing" was only the decision to preserve slavery for another 60 years or so while falsely labeling Jefferson a believer in "freedom" or "democracy." The US did not really exist before the Civil War.

~ Fred Thayer

Alan Bock replies:

Gracious, but we would have a lot to discuss, hopefully civilly but probably with little agreement, if I were inclined to want to prolong the discussion, which I'm not. I'll only suggest that slavery was not a huge issue in the 1800 election that established the precedent for peaceful transfer of power, which was what I was discussing, while the Hamiltonian economic scheme was.

This is the first time I have read an article written by you, so I decided to read some others. Many of the points you make sound reasonable enough but, and here is my perpetual BUT, why do most Americans tend to picture the American people as innocent lambs which are insufficiently informed about world events in which USA has the leading hand? They are proud of their political and economical system to such an extent that they are always ready to support their government, no matter which you may pick for the last 50 years in their attempts to try and tell everyone else what should be done. Playing the role of "naïveté" suits their main purpose: profit from smaller or weaker countries and keep their living standard high, no matter how much innocent blood is spilt in the process of "helping" others.

We are always their "backyard", trampled on by the CIA, or the IMF who are always too eager to show us we are no good, and eventually every so many years they come up with a different economical theory to suit their interests. So, we were repressed and "disappeared" in case we wanted to try a more socially just model, then we had our armies trained at the "School of the Americas" in sophisticated methods of torture, and finally the IMF pressed their loans on the private sector only to nationalize the debt in the early '80s. So, they then tried the "trickling glass" theory, which never explained who was supposed to fill the glass that would eventually trickle and now we have the Free Trade agreements.

Sorry, our countries may be a mess but we are no fools, only we don't have the means to prevent the Americans from plundering our economies. But, if on top of all that, I have to feel sorry for the American taxpayers for financing cruel and obscene wars, it's too much asking. If they are not well informed, being the richest nation, is perhaps because they choose not to, as a way of alleviating their greedy consciences. There isn't such a thing as true democracy in the world, people are never consulted on important matters, the USA ignores every agreement regarding weather change, contamination, earth heating and the like but their people never press them to listen to others, they sit happily chewing their burgers and consuming oil, having their little girls play with their hooker-looking Barbies and boys aggressively pushing button of their deadly video games. So, I can't see any truly admirable civilization they want to impose on the rest and I don't for a moment believe in their being naive.

The Empire has developed a new rapacious subspecies which doesn't hesitate in letting ancient civilizations be destroyed, as long as they can fill their tanks at a lower price. All the rest is horse's feathers, to use an expression my old English teacher taught me when I was taking my first lessons of your language. I hope he did a good job and you can get to understand what I am trying to say because, as you may have guessed, I belong to a Third World country. Even language has been tinted by their euphemisms, such as Third World (I thought there was only one, belonging to all human race). Preemptive war (Let's destroy their country, just in case). Friendly fire (Oh, was that you, John, I'm so sorry, I took you for one of those poor bastards), collateral damage (a few hospitals, a bunch of civilians, a few museums, who cares anyway, those clay pieces are not written in English).

After having a few letters published by a "subversive" magazine, I received among many others, a letter which left me astonished but that helped me understand many things. It was written all in capitals, and it said: "WE RULE BITCH". That, at least proved they are not so naive as you choose to picture them.

~ María Luisa

Alan Bock replies:

Maria, you make a number of good points, and it may well be that some of the ignorance of Americans is semiconsciously intentional. But while most Americans can be roused to focus on as much information as intensive TV news gives them about a crisis currently in play, you might be surprised at the incuriosity of most Americans about foreign affairs and other countries. (I'm not necessarily critical of this; for most Americans it's a fairly rational attitude.) Only a small slice of Americans is interested enough to want to run other countries or even be concerned about ethereal concepts like security, prestige, power or empire. A slightly larger group has or thinks it has commercial or economic interests and seeks to manipulate government policy to their benefit. Those of us who are for some reason intensely interested in foreign policy and critical of the tendency toward empire are an infinitesimal slice of the intelligentsia, although we still think that we represent the best instincts of most Americans if and when they rouse themselves to consider such matters.

Am I being naive? Perhaps. But H.L. Mencken claimed that nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people, and "reality" TV may be only the latest validation of the quip.

In the light of Mr. Barganier's column, it is quite interesting that one of the loudest Neo-Con perpetrators, Michael Ledeen, has written a book on Gabriele d'Annunzio.

~ Joe Stromberg

Friday Sermon in Baghdad

With all the disinformation about what Iraqis want, can I recommend to your readers that they look at the text of last Friday's sermon delivered in Baghdad to over 100,000:

Here are some quotations:

"The United States we are seeing is not the one we knew"

"Every Iraqi has the right to freedom of belief and to have his own opinion on religious issues"

"No Iraqi person should accept a government unless it expresses his will, serves him and makes him useful"

"We should not allow the presence of a government that makes fools of us or subjugates us. From now on, we will not allow anyone to persecute us"

I think everyone outside of the US government will agree with these demands!

~ Michel Townsend

The Warlords

To me, the ignorance amongst Americans on the subject of US foreign policy is most readily depicted by what most Americans BELIEVE to be happening in Afghanistan versus what is really going on. Due to your section pertaining to news in Afghanistan, the people who read your site at least have an advantage most Americans don't – they can see that all is far from WELL in Afghanistan under US/UN occupation.

I read a recent news article linked to your site, – "Reigning in the Warlords," and it reminded me of a movie I saw on Canadian television (CBC) recently. It was a documentary called "Return to Khandahar." It showed that it seemed that the US preferred maintaining struggling regional/tribal warlords to a strong central Afghani government. We supply and fund the warlords directly.

Why?

This the documentary didn't weigh heavily on other than to say that the US must gain from the fragmentation of Afghanistan more than it would gain from funding and supporting a true central government.

I don't know if it is true. However, to me, it points out that either we are so lacking in comprehension of the region that we only contribute to existing problems or we understand exactly what is going on and, for our own purposes, contribute to the existing problems for our own benefit. Neither explanation bodes well for the situation in Iraq. I hope I am wrong. But given the fact that we haven't rebuilt Afghanistan as promised (in any way, shape or form despite all the RAH RAH coverage of SOME women walking without Bhurkas) and that most Americans believe Afghanistan is now quite better than before we blew up more of it, I find my hope is fragile and slight.

~ Donna Hilton

The UN Record

If one stops, and applies logic, to UN resolutions, one must abide by the precedent set. Otherwise the UN and its process, would be invalid. Despite the public theatrics, the US went out of its way NOT to involve the UN, in removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power.

Under the UN Charter, Iraq had seventeen resolutions passed against it. If under that pretext (denying UN resolutions and oppressing people), the UN can authorise force for regime change, any country with more than seventeen UN resolutions against it, is equally open for UN sanctioned regime change.

Considering Israel has sixty-four UN resolutions against it, (at last count), it is equally capable of having a UN backed regime change. That's if you are 'forced' to apply logic.

~ Malcolm G. Ratcliffe, Canada

Sanctions

Even the likes of Charles Krauthammer argue for the lifting of the UN Security Council mandated sanctions (their motives are of course another issue). Yet the sanctions were in principle directed against the effective government of Iraq – not the people of Iraq (yes, I know the arguments about sanctions). Some however did impact on Saddam and his retinue – freezing of all bank accounts, ban on foreign travel etc.

If anyone is in charge of Iraq and its alleged WMDs, it is Bush, Blair, Howard, Kwasniewski (if I've got the name of the Polish president wrong, pszepraszm) and of course the gallant Romanians, perhaps the Germans and the ever helpful Solomon Islanders – the forces of occupation. The whole coalition of the bribed and the bribers.

So the sanctions against the people of Iraq – oil for food etc – should go ASAP – they should never have been put in place anyway. The Security Council and its stroppier members can retain their bargaining chip – the sanctions against the sovereign powers in charge of Iraq – so justice and humanity will both be served. Of course, the UNMOVIC will have to inspect not only Iraq but the USA and all its bases, the UK etc. – there must be no room for fraud.

~ Jack Fogarty

Tinker, Tailor, Doctor, Spy

Everyone seems to have latched on to the fact that the Patriot Act allows the Feds to see what library books we've checked out. Has anyone read the privacy notification they've received from their doctor or insurance company? Buried in this long document which seems to be telling you how safe your medical information is, you'll find that the government can now compel your doctor or insurance company to hand over your medical records for "national security or intelligence purposes." What's more, although you are allowed to ask who has received your medical information, the disclosure won't include any submissions to the government for these purposes.

So unless you're a USA yes-man, be careful what you say in your next supposedly confidential doctor's appointment.

~ JM, Maryland

Regarding "Israeli Militarism At War" by Ran HaCohen:

I think Ran's analysis is excellent. The threat of "transfer" of the Palestinians is still on the agenda. Several years ago I asked Mark Regev from the Israeli embassy in DC a question at a public forum at Georgetown University. I pointed out that the Zionist dogma of "redemption" of the land used to justify the illegal settlements implies that Israel will never relinquish control over the West Bank and Gaza and that "annexation" would mean the end of the Jewish majority. I further pointed out that demographers predict a growing Israeli-Arab population which would mean the end of the Jewish majority control, perhaps within 3 or 4 generations.

My question was "How will Israel respond to these inexorable demographic realities?" His response was: "We will never relinquish the "Jewish character" of Israel?" I then asked him if he was suggesting "transfer" or "genocide of the Palestinians and he repeated his previous answer. It seems to me that if Regev speaks for the majority (and I believe he does) that Israel, if it is to remain a chauvinistic nationalist "state of the Jewish people" rather than a state of its citizens, has no option except the forcible ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.

When it becomes evident that the current campaign to force the "voluntary transfer" by creating a literal hell on earth in the Occupied Territories has failed, and that Bush's "Roadmap" to Palestinian "Bantustans" is rejected, Sharon and company (probably including significant sectors of the Labor Party) will not hesitate to act when the political situation permits.

I do have serious questions whether the Palestinian people will go quietly.

~ John Steinbach

Regarding "Hollywood revives McCarthyist climate by silencing and sacking war critics":

After reading the article 'Hollywood revives McCarthyist climate by silencing and sacking war critics' in the Independent, I perceive a need for some tools to be used by the antiwar movement specifically targeting entities such as Clear Channel, the TV networks, and others who are complicit in the direct or indirect campaigns against antiwar celebs and speech. A 'blacklist' of radio and TV stations, and companies to boycott and email might be a useful start. I recently discovered a boycott website based (I think) in Denmark listing US companies that support Bush and the war effort. It was tough to locate, and suffers from lack of marketing exposure.

A similar site could be done here. The goal should be to make it as simple as possible for antiwar proponents to contact offending companies and boycott them.

~ Carter Mitchell, Gurnee, Illinois

Regarding "Bush and Blair and the Big Lie":

Let me compliment you and the Antiwar.com staff on the timing of your decision to feature Eric Margolis's article, "Bush and Blair and the Big Lie," on the same day that peace activist and Labour MP George Galloway is being accused of being on the payroll of Saddam Hussein. Mr. Galloway, I suspect, is being framed by the same parties that were behind the Iraq war: the neocons and the Israelis. First of all, Mr. Galloway is an ideal target for the neocons and the Israelis to make an example of given his fervent opposition to sanctions and war upon Iraq. According to the Telegraph newspaper:

"For more than a decade, Mr. Galloway, MP for Glasgow Kelvin, has been the leading critic of Anglo-American policy towards Iraq, campaigning against sanctions and the war that toppled Saddam. He led the Mariam Appeal, named after an Iraqi child he flew to Britain for leukemia treatment. The campaign was the supposed beneficiary of his fundraising."

Furthermore, as Mr. Galloway rightly points out to the Telegraph, there have been no shortage of lies and forgeries from the people pushing for a US war upon Iraq:

"Maybe it's [the document alleging his guilt] the product of the same forgers who forged so many other things in this whole Iraq picture...It would not be the Iraqi regime that was forging it. It would be people like you [the war party media], and the Government whose policies you have supported."

Also take note of Telegraph reporter David Blair's account how he came across the document implicating Galloway in the Iraqi foreign ministry office:

"Four blue folders, each stamped with the Iraqi eagle, lay inside. Opening the first, I happened upon George Galloway's letter nominating Fawaz Zureikat as his representative in Baghdad. Another folder contained a letter from Sir Edward Heath thanking the Iraqi representative in London for attending a luncheon in Salisbury...They were piled inside a tiny room adjoining the foreign minister's office on the first floor. Nearby was a large room that must once have been the ministry's main archive. The metal frames of row upon row of folders still survive. Everything else has been burnt to a cinder and the paper contents of the folders have been reduced to white ash. Why the contents of the room with the box files survived is a mystery. Its walls are blackened by fire, yet most of the folders are intact...Like every government building in Baghdad, the foreign ministry has been pillaged to destruction. It also suffered an American cruise missile strike in the second week of the war. Almost every room has been stripped bare and bands of looters still roam its corridors. Documents are strewn across the floor of every story. Here, blowing in the wind are the crucial documents of a regime that was once among the most secretive in the world."

As David Blair himself notes, doesn't it seem fishy that the folders containing the document incriminating to Mr. Galloway are "intact," while the walls of the foreign ministry office are "blackened by fire" from apparently an American cruise missile strike? Couldn't someone posing as a looter easily plant a document incriminating to Mr. Galloway?

Finally, though the document implicating Mr. Galloway is purported to be from the "Chief of the Iraqi Intelligence Service," according to The Telegraph no signature is legible on the document!

~ GM

Robert Fisk

This is going to sound kind of dumb, probably, but I haven't seen anything from Robert Fisk in the past week or so. My limited research on the matter leads me to The Independent, where Fisk is no longer listed as a columnist. Has something happened to Robert Fisk, or am I just ignorant of some event that everyone else knows about?

~ Norris B.

Managing Editor Eric Garris replies:

Everyone is entitled to a brief vacation (except me). Fisk is still listed as the featured commentator at the top of the Independent's World Page. He has never been listed as a columnist, he is a commentator (I have no idea what the difference is, but the paper seems to make a distinction).

I'm a reader of your site and I have a question I wonder if you could help me with.

I have recently read that in some countries around the world (Greece, Brasil, Nicaragua) the reaction to the sep 11 disaster was one of rejoicing. Is this correct to your knowledge and does there exist data on which countries reacted this way?

~ Henry F.

Eric Garris replies:

There were some anecdotal reports of people rejoicing, but no such reports, even if true, reflect the feelings of most people in any country. I have seen opinion polls that people in some people in other countries feel that the US policies were responsible for 9/11, but not indicating any sort of approval. I have seen some verified reports of groups of Palestinians and Israelis cheering 9/11, but these are, of course, not reflective of most people. Arial Sharon, PM of Israel, was reported to say something to the effect: "Good, now the Americans will know what we go through." But this does not indicate approval either.

Regarding Ran HaCohen's reply to Ben Wing's letter posted April 20:

The point is this: if you demonstrate that you are willing to distort reality in certain circumstances, it indicates you are likely to do so in other circumstances, and the more likely am I or anyone else reading your reading to dismiss you out-of-hand as a left-wing extremist and not pay attention to anything you're saying. Yes, I could go verify for myself, but I have limited time, and I prefer to find people who I do trust.

As for giving the wider context, I agree that is a good idea, but only if you do it in a nonpartisan fashion!

Yes, you may personally believe that Israel is "actually run by the army behind an ever thinner fig-leaf of democracy" and maybe that Israel's very existence is bogus, but these are pretty extreme allegations. This is in no way "objective truth", and no one making such statements would possibly be considered an objective, disinterested observer currently. Yet from your words in the last paragraph of the column, you give the impression that you don't seem that you understand the distinction between "objective truth" and "opinion", and that's one of the reasons most people will distrust/ignore you.

If you're interested in having the maximum possible effect, you need to reach the maximum possible audience, which means you need to convince them that you are trustworthy. Distortion and misrepresentation are the fastest ways to lose your audience.

That means
(a) you understand the time and place when and when not to express your most extreme/ controversial/ etc. opinions, and
(b) you NEVER pass off your beliefs as objective truth, e.g. instead of what you said, try something like "in a time when the army is taking an increasingly powerful role in the government – and in fact, as I and many others believe, may actually be running the government, with democracy reduced to just a fig-leaf..."

This way you say the same thing, but rather than asserting your opinion as the one, true, only reality, you
(a) describe what is clearly true, and
(b) describe your own opinions, which may be true, but may not be, and you let the reader make up his own mind. This way you demonstrate that you are ethical – i.e. you know the difference between truth and opinion, and you're going to be careful to distinguish the two. ...

~ Ben Wing

Ran HaCohen replies:

I am afraid you confuse "objective truth" with "widespread belief". That Sharon is PM of Israel – this is an objective truth. But (e.g.) whether Israel is a democracy or not, is always a matter of belief: there is no absolute definition of democracy, nor an agreed procedure to establish whether a specific regime is democratic or not.

Now when somebody says, "Israel is a democracy", you don't write a letter asking her to stress that this is just her personal belief. Why? Not because it's "objective truth", but because it's a mainstream belief. It is only when you hear a dissident belief that you demand to mark it as "extreme", "controversial", "one's personal view" etc.

The consequence is clear: mainstream beliefs should go on spreading under the disguise of "objective truth", whereas dissident beliefs should get an earmark to weaken them. While many writers indeed act this way, I have chosen a different strategy: I state my beliefs with the same self assurance as the propaganda system states its own. It may have the rhetorical disadvantage you point at, but what you ask me is to undermine my own truth by putting a warning label on it, thus strengthening the official Israeli propaganda even further.