Antiwar.com Blog

From the Sunday Montgomery [Ala.] Advertiser:

Davis Tops List for Perk Trips

Rep. Artur Davis, D-Birmingham, accepted trips from special interests that cost nearly $13,000. Davis flew to Israel, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Pittsburgh. Davis’ weeklong trip to Israel in August was valued at nearly $6,000. It was paid for by the American Israel Education Foundation, which is associated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful lobbying organization.

Davis represents district 7, which included my hometown prior to the last redistricting. The 7th is an exercise in racial gerrymandering, an effort to create a slam-dunk for an African-American/Democratic candidate. It’s extremely poor and almost completely rural, save for a slice of inner-city Birmingham. And I guarantee you that Israel is the last thing on its voters’ minds. I’ll bet that 99% of voters in the 7th, regardless of race or income, could not locate Israel on a map.

And yet… the Israel lobby bought the 7th’s congressman. From 2002:

Artur Davis may want to thank New York for his stunning win over five-term Rep. Earl Hilliard in a mostly poor Alabama congressional district that has little in common with the Big Apple.

Davis, a 34-year-old attorney trounced by Hillard two years ago, financed his campaign with a flood of donations from out of state – especially from New York, where Davis received money linked to his pro-Israel stance.

Of the $306,482 Davis received in individual donations, nearly $189,000 came from New York state – $134,000 of that from New York City, according to FECInfo, a Web site that tracks political money. …

On the other side, Hilliard received support from Arab-Americans, who liked his call for a balanced U.S. policy toward the Mideast.

Jim Zogby, president of the Washington-based Arab American Institute, said Hilliard received many donations from Arab-Americans in response to a column he wrote discussing the way Jews were backing Davis.

A pro-Palestinian group posted a Web site backing Hilliard, and Arab-Americans were among Hilliard’s campaign workers.

Another cost of empire: the importation of conflicts from all around the world.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Speaking of the “capture” theory, Daniel McCarthy sends in this item from the print version of National Review, Jan. 26 issue:

Former Marine Corps general Anthony C. Zinni is a critic of the Iraq war.
Saddam Hussein “was contained,” Zinni told the Washington Post in a recent
interview. “He had a deteriorated military. He wasn’t a threat to the
region.” That is a view – a wrong one. But Zinni, who thinks it both right
and obvious, must then explain why the Bush administration does not espouse
it. “The more I saw, the more I thought that this was the product of the
neocons who didn’t understand the region . . . Somehow, the neocons captured
the president. They captured the vice president.” But George W. Bush
identified Iraq, along with Iran and North Korea, as a dangerous rogue state
when he was campaigning for office in 1999 (then he thought their missile
programs would be threats). So why does Zinni think Bush was “captured”?
Could it be because Bush and Cheney are Chr******s, while neocons are J**s?
Is Zinni d**b, or worse?

Was I just dreaming, or did I see David Frum, Richard Perle, and David Byrne together on CNBC last night? OK, they weren’t together, but they were all guests on the comely Maria Bartiromo’s program. Frum & Perle were promoting their new foray into children’s literature, An End to Evil. Byrne, the great eccentric who told us not to worry about the government, came on right after Perle’s segment to discuss his new PowerPoint-themed project. Bartiromo asked Byrne about Frum, Perle, and Paul O’Neill’s revelations, but he seemed a bit nervous commenting. (Perhaps it was the stress of being face-to-face with the object of Joey Ramone’s affections.) There was no mention, however, of what may be the most fateful slide presentation in world history, Laurent Murawiec’s “Iraq is the tactical pivot” PowerPoint.

With all the talk of neoconservative influence, it’s important to remember that neoconservatism is only one of many ingredients in Bush foreign policy–an important ingredient, worth discussing, but it sometimes overshadows everything else. Some antiwar conservatives who are generally sympathetic to the president act as if the thought of invading the Middle East never would have crossed Dubya’s mind were it not for Paul Wolfowitz. Kevin Phillips challenges that belief with an enlightening look at the Bushes:

Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we’re certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it’s crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president’s family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.

Read the whole thing.

While neocon heavies certainly do exert enormous influence in the government, it seems to me that far from “capturing” the president, the president (ie, Dick Cheney) selected them to provide intellectual cover for policies he was going to pursue anyway.

(Gracias to Cursor for the link.)

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