Category: News

Does the world face what some style as Armageddon because American pro-Israel groups still believe out-dated Israeli “public relations“?

According to Ha’aretz chief political columnist AKIVA ELDAR in an October 8, 2007 Democracy Now! interview, while the Israel lobby is “a very important instrument in order to pursue Israel’s policy… they’re a little bit behind the Israeli government and the Israeli people.” He clarifies: “We have seventy out of 120 members of the Knesset who support a two-state solution based on the ’67 lines.”

Then what’s the problem?

Says Eldar, “…if for forty years, you tell the [American] Jewish community that Israel cannot afford to give up the territories, they are important for Israel’s security, just overnight to tell [them], ‘Sorry, we were wrong. Now, we don’t need those territories,’ …It’s very difficult. I think that we are paying the price of having our PR doing a very good job for many years.”

The continuing “Palestinian problem” then, the core problem in the middle east which underpins the others according to The Iraq Study Group, Jimmy Carter and others, may be laid on the doorstep of too-effective Israeli “public relations,” especially as applied to the United States.

So the neocons, AIPAC, their amen corner, and other assorted groups, riding Israel’s coatails on to what some style Armageddon, are clutching a coat the bulk of Israeli society is no longer wearing.

And there’s an underlying anchoring sub-problem: As many Israelis have noted, it’s much easier for Israelis to criticize Israel and the Israeli government than it is for Americans and American Jews — who are likely labeled “anti-semitic” or “self-hating jews” — even have their livelihoods destroyed.

This roadblock to free and open discussion here in the United States endangers not only those men, women, and children living in the middle east, but people throughout the world.

So, the key to mid-east peace is already in the lock. But who in America has the cahones to turn it?

So there’s a running debate in libertarian circles about whether Randy Barnett’s a libertarian or not, and it’s getting old. This is a superficially free country; Barnett and his buddies can employ any nomenclature they like. Barnett does seem to be true blue on all the issues critical to neolibertarians — some pot for every chickenhawk and a meth lab in every garage — and perhaps anyone who bats above .500 on a given list of public policies should be called a libertarian. Hmm, he’s for a liberal application of the biggest, most destructive government program around — but he’s really solid on a toddler’s right to pornography, so we’ll call it even. Whatever floats your boat, dude.

What bothers me is the notion that Barnett’s recent Wall Street Journal piece credibly represents anything like libertarianism. Even putting philosophical matters to the side, I defy anyone who doesn’t watch Fox News 24/7 to read Barnett’s op-ed without wincing. At this moment, when most Americans have finally pulled their heads out of their hindquarters to oppose the Iraq war and occupation, Barnett counsels libertarians, the vast majority of whom have opposed the war all along, to jump on the pro-war bandwagon! For practical political reasons, no less!

It would be a shame if this misinterpretation [that libertarians uniformly oppose the war on libertarian grounds] inhibited a wider acceptance of the libertarian principles that would promote the general welfare of the American people.

Yes, it sure would suck if the majority of Americans suspected us of sharing their thoughts on a matter of great import.

And try holding down your breakfast as you witness the lap dance Barnett gives Rudy Giuliani:

During that debate, the riveting exchange between Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul about whether American foreign policy provoked the 9/11 attack raised the visibility of both candidates. When Mr. Paul, a libertarian, said that the 9/11 attack happened “because we’ve been over there. We’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years,” Mr. Giuliani’s retort–that this was the first time he had heard that “we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. . . . and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11”–sparked a spontaneous ovation from the audience. It was an electrifying moment that allowed one to imagine Mr. Giuliani as a forceful, articulate president.

Articulate? That thuggish, ignorant non-response was articulate?

If I were in my teens or early twenties and searching for a political identity, and I had a typical young person’s knowledge of political theory, this would send me running in disgust from libertarianism. Barnett’s op-ed merely confirms the left-right caricature of libertarianism as a trivia-obsessed offshoot of the GOP — and places support for a stupid, immoral, unpopular war front and center! What’s not to hate?

Well actually the headline is “Ethiopian army to stay in Somalia for weeks” — but those of us who have paid attention to Somalia over the past few years know what that really means in relation to what the UN has been insisting is Somalia’s government. This “government” consisted of a gaggle of warlords and former communist regime bureaucrats holed up in a Nairobi Hilton — and who were only finally forced to return to Somalia when the hotel finally evicted them out for nonpayment. Even then a few of them just holed themselves up in the southern town of Jowhar, where they were nothing more glamorous than internationally-recognized version of the same thugs that lord over nearly every city in Somalia.

Now that the Ethiopian Army has come to their rescue, the commies and warlords have seized control of the important parts of the country and are now attempting to assert their collective will — naturally the first thing they do is order a complete disarmament of the entire city without exception.

“Everybody will be disarmed. There will be no sacred cows,” Information Minister Ali Jama Jangali said.

But then tellingly, and not surprisingly, the reporter feels the need to mention:

However, at a collection point seen by Reuters, not one gun had been handed in by midday.

And this is with Ethiopian backup. There is no evidence that many Mogadishans are rooting for the so-called government, at least not one made up of these butchers and gangsters and thieves. The business community — allowed to flourish over the last 15 years in near-total freedom, at least compared to the rest of Africa — will have a lot of demands that will need to be met if the government is to have anything of value left off which to survive.

So time will prove me right or wrong but I’m willing to bet that within hours of the Ethiopians heading home the technicals will come a-raiding, and with the support of various Somali civilian factions will butcher and/or expel the self-proclaimed government from the country yet again, as they did in 1991.

The parable of David and Goliath has re-emerged on the world stage. Ironically, the most recent battle cast the Israeli State as the heavy. The “David” of the piece was decentralized “4GW” (4th Generation Warfare) as deployed by an estimated 3,000 Hezbollah fighters.

The outcome of that battle is a serious blow to central governments everywhere. If one of the most effective government militaries in the world can’t protect its people from 3,000 militiamen, what good is it? The inevitable outcome of the ill conceived U.S. Government action in Iraq will almost certainly deliver a second and much more lethal blow to Goliath.

“The central secret to Hezbollah’s success is that it trained its (global) guerrillas to make decisions autonomously (classic 4GW), at the small group level. In every area — from firing rockets to defending prepared positions to media routing around jamming/disruption — we have examples of Hezbollah teams deciding, adapting, innovating, and collaborating without reference to any central authority. The result of this decentralization is that Hezbollah’s aggregate decision cycles are faster and qualitatively better than those of their Israeli counterparts.” Global Guerrillas, Sunday, July 30, 2006 THE SECRETS OF HEZBOLLAH’S SUCCESS, Organizational Improvements

In fact, this effect — Goliaths being in trouble at the hand of more decentralized structures — isn’t limited to military operations. Lacking mercantilist links to governments in the current age, all economic structures (corporations, etc.) larger than justified by “economies of scale” are vulnerable.

Micro-power (termites of power) is spreading to all areas of human endeavour. Rather than the bi-polar world of the 20th century, we are entering a hyper-polar world — a world with hundreds, thousands of smaller centers of power. Central Banks used to call all the shots, but now there are hundreds of independent hedge-funds that limit central banks, for one example. I don’t know what the ultimate outcome will be and I don’t think anyone does. –Moises Naim, Venezuelan Minister of Industry, Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria, July 25, 2006, 12:21:36

Several years ago, when President Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, I sent an email to several people to explain that in the original German, it would be called “Heimatsicherheitsdienst. ”

Heimat is “Homeland” in German. Sicherheitsdienst means “Security Service.” The Third Reich had a Sicherheitsdienst – SD – and the German Democratic Republic had a Staatsicherheitsdienst – State Security Service. So parallel to Nazi Germany and Communist Germany, America now has a Heimatsicherheitsdient.

Yesterday I did a google search to see how many websites or blogs had a reference to “Heimatsicherheitsdienst” and 54 hits came up. Today I did the same search, and got 66 hits. Most hits were postings criticial of the Homeland Security agency on various libertarian or left-liberal blogs. But both yesterday and today, the final hit that came up on google was the official website of the Department of Homeland Security www.dhs.gov !

Try it yourself.

~ Gene Berkman, Renaissance Books.

I asked once before: “Is the United States a Terrorist State”?