Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
March 20: CLEVELAND, United States (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said he hoped to resolve the nuclear dispute with Iran with diplomacy, but warned Tehran he would "use military might" if necessary to defend Israel.
AIPAC Offensive: Ah what a sublime concept. "Defense". On the same day, news spread of a report by two high-octane professors of international studies criticizing the United States' alliance with Israel, and a detailed dissection of how AIPAC intimidates all opposition to Israeli government policies on Capitol Hill. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt are big wheels in the international politics arena, and not doctrinaire liberals, nor terrorists. Of course Justin Raimondo at Antiwar has his take on this.
This is a pretty big ol' bombshell to put in the beginning: "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," (PDF, 70+ pages)
"The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state?"
I won't spend any more time on that now. But it's a certainly a big deal, and we will stick around the AIPAC case to see what turns up. Also worth considering: WHY IRAN WANTS THE BOMB.
Corporate media sucks: 1) Chris Matthews is taking corporate cash to speak places. Wow, big surprise that MSNBC is in awash in corporate cash. 2) The WaPo really uses sloppy terms a lot, such as:
For months the Democrats have resisted calls from their liberal base to more aggressively challenge President Bush.
...as a way to defuse what Feingold is saying and discredit the majority of the country that doesn't believe in White House policies. And to suck at the Teat. At least the Christian Broadcasting Network has the guts to go with their fanaticism properly.
The WaPo gave this young rightwing RedState jackass a blog on their site. Some negative reactions from the liberal side, since this guy is apparently allowed to pretty much make shit up all day long.
From the sphere of friends with websites: PBG has some new stuff up at InfantFoundation.com. I liked this photo. Something about those gay atheist liberals, via the Norman.
For the occasion of the Fourth Year of the war, it is good to look back and remember the insane propaganda we lived in, that sparked the whole fucking mess in the first place. Fortunately, Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting pulled together: "The Final Word Is Hooray!" Remembering the Iraq War's Pollyanna pundits:
"Tommy Franks and the coalition forces have demonstrated the old axiom that boldness on the battlefield produces swift and relatively bloodless victory. The three-week swing through Iraq has utterly shattered skeptics' complaints."
(Fox News Channel's Tony Snow, 4/27/03)
"The only people who think this wasn't a victory are Upper Westside liberals, and a few people here in Washington."
(Charles Krauthammer, Inside Washington, WUSA-TV, 4/19/03)
"We had controversial wars that divided the country. This war united the country and brought the military back."
(Newsweek's Howard Fineman--MSNBC, 5/7/03)
"We're all neo-cons now."
(MSNBC's Chris Matthews, 4/9/03)
And it goes on and on. And for reasons that escape me, these people still control the fucking debate. DAMN IT.
Some random bits: well, conservatives are skittish right now. Duh. Pundits suck. Duh. In an interview, ABC Nightline refuses to acknowledge that Billy Graham's son Franklin is a fanatical hater of Islam.
Antiwar.com, some goodies: How to fix the intelligence process by Charles Peña. Also "Why Libertarians Should be Critical of War," Raimondo: "American Megalomania"; TomDispatch: "Reprogramming the Infinite Loop: The NSA Spying Debate", Solomon: "War-Loving Pundits".
Check out the DailyKos straw poll of 2008 presidential candidates. Feingold's kickin ass!!
It's not impossible: Jim Webb, a conservative Democrat running for Congress, says: “The Reagan Democrats” – and how to get them back. A general criticizes Rummy's total incompetence.
Points in Case: Ten things to believe in. Way to go, Keith Olbermann.
Nasty neocon Max Boot suggests that George Clooney has been pimping the neo-con line throughout his career, noting that Three Kings provides a neocon-certified Moral Basis for attacking Iraq in 2003 (not really true but it reads well), and The Peacemaker alerted people to the hazards of WMD attacks and such.
Bush White House overdoes 'manliness'. But the problem is that they are sort of gay, but weird about it.
Something called the Iraq Study Group has been set up, with a bunch of mostly shady Washington insiders and defense contractors, etc., who are probably going to attempt to whitewash aspects of the war policy, and perhaps some fake intelligence after lunch and tea. And for some of them, keep selling lots of weapons to the government.
Helen Thomas on the Lap Dogs of the Press. Her recent press conference moment with Bush was pretty badass.
Even more random: Top 10 weirdest animals.
A Franz Ferdinand kinda place? Milosevic's death has afforded hawks an opportunity to reminisce about how warm and fuzzy it made them feel to bomb Serbia and stop the ethnic cleansing, although oddly, it seems that the mass graves in Kosovo never really turned up in the kinds of numbers we were led to believe at the time.
Of course, the Kosovo intervention was mainly about gaining more American control over the oil and gas energy pathways leading west from the Black Sea (and the surrounding political structures). The AMBO pipeline (Albania-Macedonia-Bulgaria) and the massive Camp Bondsteel in Southern Kosovo were the two major products of the war in Kosovo. Aside from these goodies the US doesn't much care what happens over there.
Israel Goodies: "Settlers, you have failed" by Aluf Benn. Good to hear. Guess what? Israel has its own dickhead spoiler politician named Lieberman, and better yet, Avigdor Lieberman is a fanatical settler and is the leader of the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu Party. Apparently National Union, pretty much a fascist party that essentially supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, once had a coalition with Yisrael Beiteinu, but they split up a while ago. They are messing around with Netanyahu and maneuvering to his right. "Right-wing parties mull ways to contend with rise of Lieberman". Joe and Avigdor are apparently distant cousins.
Also "Of love and anger" as young Israelis, some of them born and raised ex-Gaza settlers, raise doubts about whether or not the IDF can still be an instrument to bring about the return of the messiah.
Here is a funny story that indicates that "Syria was ready for peace" in the mid-1990s. Bishara acted as Syria-Israel mediator in 1990s talks. Also funny: Saddam Hussein maintained pretense of chemical arms to prevent Israeli attack. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Netanyahu says the next Israeli election will be a kind of referendum on the whole damn mess. "A referendum indeed" by Uzi Benziman. and The cynicism of Olmert and Lieberman By Israel Harel. Nerds for Netanyahu? Augh.
On the left side of the spectrum, see the interview with Meretz leader Yossi Beilin in "'Not afraid of 'autonomy' By Nurit Wurgaft." (there's a bit about Lieberman's ethnic cleansing plans at the end) And don't forget the Israeli Arabs! Not pawns on the board By Nurit Wurgaft.
Some cool thoughts on Islamic Archaism from one of Islam's best writers. I lost the link to a Haaretz story about Lafif Lakdar, but check out: Why the Reversion to Islamic Archaism? (also featured here), and The modern schizophrenia of Islamic integralism. On AnarchistNews.org see the links to "Islam and (communist) Anarchism" as they term it, (far be it from me to try to control their semiotics). And InfoShop.org's page on Iran.
Well that was some stuff I had piled up. Sorry, no pictures. You can enjoy that for the weekend, I think I just want to go watch movies the whole time.
Posted by HongPong at March 24, 2006 10:00 AM