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Piercing the Veil of Terrorism: Unmasking AIPAC
by William A. Cook
 In asking his question, Ray Suarez implies that our Senators capitulated to the desires of AIPAC, knowing their vote negated the expressed will of the American people.
Gravel, once a Senator from Alaska during the Vietnam War period, answers unhesitatingly, “yes,” the short answer is yes.
Ray Suarez (PBS News Hour Reporter, October 2, 2007):
“You’re
saying that the national legislature of this country, rather than doing
the will of the citizens of the United States, passed that Iran
resolution, sanctioning the Republican Guard, because of the
American-Israeli Political Action Committee?”
Mike Gravel (Democratic Presidential Candidate):
“Wait
a second. There’ll be some information coming out about how this thing
was drafted. So the answer is yes, the short answer. ... This is what’s
at stake with this resolution. And it’s the height of immorality,
irresponsibility, and the United States Senate, with the Democrats in
charge, voted for the passage of this resolution. It doesn’t get any
worse than that, Ray.” - (As reported at philipweiss.org)
The obvious follow-up question would appear to be:
“Why do
you think that our Senators would vote against the expressed wishes of
their constituents in favor of a special interest lobby?”
It was never asked.
Fortunately, Sy Hersh, in an interview with
Amy Goodman that same day, responded to a question posed by Goodman, a
question drawn from a Gravel criticism of Hillary Clinton for having
voted for this resolution.
Goodman pointed to the 76 votes in favor, both Republican and Democrat, asking Hersh to respond to Gravel’s critique:
“This
is fantasy land... we’re talking about ending the war. My god, we’re
just starting a war right today. There was a vote in the Senate today.
Joe Lieberman, who authored the Iraq resolution, has authored another
resolution, and it is essentially a fig leaf to let George Bush go to
war with Iran.
And I want to congratulate Biden for voting
against it, Dodd for voting against it, and I’m ashamed of you,
Hillary, for voting for it. You’re not going to get another shot at
this, because what’s happened, if this war ensues, we invade, and
they’re looking for an excuse to do it.”
Goodman’s question is simple enough, why would 76 senators vote for such a resolution.
Hersh’s response:
“Money.
A lot of the Jewish money from New York. Come on, let’s not kid about
it. A significant percentage of Jewish money, and many leading American
Jews support the Israeli position that Iran is an existential threat.
And I think it is as simple as that. ... That’s American politics circa
2007.”
Gravel understands the consequences of
giving Cheney and Bush the freedom to attack Iran’s Republican Guard as
a terrorist organization rather than as the legally constituted
military of the state existing to protect the citizens of that state.
They need no act of Congress to attack a terrorist organization and,
citing the Encarta encyclopedia description of terrorism, “These
violent acts are committed by non-governmental groups or individuals –
that is by those who are neither part of or officially serving in the
military forces – ...,” they have defanged the definition of terrorism
as it cannot be applied to a nation state.
Cheney and Bush are
now free to invade Iran to wipe out the terrorist organization harbored
by that country. Why pretend that an established arm of the government
of Iran is a terrorist organization when the opposite is so evident?Because Cheney and Bush and their Neo-con/AIPAC alliance have not been
able to convince the American people of the threat to the US should
Iran eventually acquire nuclear capability.
The Kyl-Lieberman
resolution gives this administration license to attack Iran using the
original resolution passed by the Congress for the invasion of
Afghanistan since Iran now harbors terrorists that threaten America.
How
serious is this possibility we might ask. Newsweek carried an article
in the October 1 issue about Israel’s “secret” raid on Syria. In it,
Sam Gardiner, a former Air Force Colonel, seen as an expert in
simulation of military exercises, makes this observation: “Even if
Israel goes it alone (attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities), we will be
blamed (the United States). Hence we would see retaliation against U.S.
interests.”
In short, the United States is tied to Israel and
its interests by an umbilical cord that determines how and when we go
to war and with whom. Iran is Israel’s primary nemesis as well as its
primary target.
The “mysterious raid deep in Syria” magnifies this
point; only the media control created by “a nearly impenetrable wall of
silence around the operation” has kept the American public from
understanding the potential consequences of the Kyl-Lieberman
resolution that passed October 2, only a month after Israel’s “raid.”
Should
Syria have responded to this unwarranted aggression by a missile or
bomb attack on Israel, the U.S. Congress would have been forced to
determine how to respond. With the Kyl-Lieberman resolution in place,
only Bush has to respond by citing the Iranian terrorist organization’s
ties to Syria and especially to Hezbollah. A threat to Israel is a
threat to the U.S.
It is this reality that makes the recent
study by Mearsheimer and Walt so dangerous to the Israeli lobbies,
especially AIPAC. Indeed, they define AIPAC by encompassing the
multitude of Jewish lobbies under that umbrella while adding in
non-Jewish Neo-cons, Christian evangelicals of the far right and other
sympathizers.
Gravel’s awareness of this threat as expressed
to PBS represents the rare occurrence when the reality of our total
support for Israel’s interests is aired in public. An objective
consideration of the “raid” of September 6, 2007 by the Israeli Air
Force against Syria as it would have been reported in the American
press had it been Syria attacking Israel would not have been headlined
“The Whispers of War.”
Indeed that report did not focus on
Israel’s disregard for international law or its consequences, but
rather on how Israel can deliver nuclear or standard bombs as far as
Iran. It went further to turn this unprovoked operation to Israel’s
cause by noting how that state’s very existence is threatened by one
atomic bomb, thus presenting Israel as the potential victim not the
perpetrator of an action contrary to the United Nations’ charter.
Had
Syria attacked Israel, the explosiveness of such an unprovoked and
uncalled for attack against an innocent country would have made front
page headlines and the cover of all our news magazines. Yet Israel’s
unprovoked and uncalled for attack on Syria is presented in U.S. News
as “Israel takes a swipe at Syria,” hardly an item that would make the
American people aware that they were at risk for their ally’s illegal
action against a neighbor.
And as if that were not enough, the
significance of one nation bombing another without provocation becomes
only the 10% hike in Ehud Olmert’s ratings as opposed to the death and
destruction caused by this illegal action with an accompanying photo,
not of the death and destruction, but of Olmert giving blood for his
countrymen.
No outcry follows this despicable behavior by the Teflon
state – not from the United States, not from the United Nations, not
from the EU, not from NATO. Only silence.
Consider for example
the consequences of Israel using its United States’ gifts of nuclear
bunker buster bombs on Syria or Iran, both possible scenarios as this
“raid” ( the name of an insect repellent) makes clear: “... huge
amounts of radioactive material will be lofted into the air to
contaminate the people of Iran and surrounding countries ... This
fallout will induce cancers, leukemia, and genetic disease in these
populations for years to come, both a medical catastrophe and a war
crime of immense proportions,”(Dr. Helen Caldicott, Nuclear Power Is
Not the Answer.)
No outcry, only silence. Why?
What does AIPAC’s control of our Congress mean for the American people?
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Arguably,
that influence propelled the U.S. into war against Iraq with its
inevitable consequences in death, destruction and debt leaving the
nation bereft of a resolution.
-
It has solidified perception
around the world that Israel’s defiance of the UN resolutions demanding
that it obey international law regarding right of return for
Palestinians and return of occupied territory is not just condoned by
the U.S. but is the policy of the U.S., making the United States a
co-partner in international crime.
-
It has made Israel’s
illegal treatment of the Palestinians in its indiscriminate killing of
children and women, in its use of extrajudicial assassination, in its
imprisonment of a whole people resulting in extreme poverty,
malnutrition, and disease, in its total control of the lives of these
people who have no recourse to overcome the occupation since they have
no means to do so, practices condoned by the United States, and turned
the U.S. from a compassionate and morally responsible nation to one
that is amoral and hypocritical.
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And, in absolute despair,
it has placed America on the thresh hold of one more devastating war
against a people that has done nothing against the United States, has
not occupied another nations’s territory, has not invaded another
nation, and has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, all
actions that are diametrically opposed to those of our client state,
Israel.
Such is the sell out by our representatives of their
constituents as they grovel, unlike Mike Gravel, before the insidious
lobby that controls our fate.
No outcry, only silence. Why?
Ultimately
the question comes back to why those 76 senators voted for a resolution
that “wipes the desires of the American people off the map,” to borrow
an intentionally falsified and reiterated translation of the Iranian
President’s message to his people.
But those 76 are not alone.
Virtually
everyone of our representatives are subservient to the same lobbies,
passing on average 100 resolutions per year favorable to Israel and
written by the lobbyists, obsequiously fawning before AIPAC’s annual
meeting where its very existence is touted as of “significant benefit
for both the United States and Israel,” and where no one dares to
question or criticize the state of Israel lest they suffer the fate of
those who have, and lose their seats in Congress.
This one
might argue is coercion. Can it be documented?
One need only research
the congressional and senate races that put Paul Findley, Cynthia
McKenny, Charles Percy and the few other renegades that dared to be
critical of Israel out of their positions. “The handful of members of
Congress who have been critical of Israel over the last 40 years have
been publicly chastised with a figurative dunce cap or, worse, lost
their seats to AIPAC-backed opponents” (NewsMax.com, May 1, 2006.
“Israel the Third Rail of American Foreign Policy,” Arnaud de
Borchgrava, Editor at large of the Washington Times).
Interestingly,
the United States defines terrorism (18 USC 2331) as “violent acts or
acts dangerous to human life that ... appear to be intended (i) to
intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the
policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; (iii) to affect the
conduct of a government by assassination or kidnaping.”
Could
one not make a case that our Congress in its total support for Israeli
policies regardless of their negative impact on the country and its
disregard for the expressed desires of its citizens as the
Kyl-Lieberman resolution demonstrates is “influenced” by “intimidation
and coercion” by these lobbies?
Add to this reality the
influence they wield in our media where they limit the perception of
the public to the lies and mythologies they present that justifies the
actions of the Israeli state, and the pervasiveness of the lobbies
prevents the American people from controlling their own destinies. Does
that not make them terrorists residing on K street in our nation’s
capitol?
Isn’t it obvious today that the direction of
America’s policies regarding Iran, and our almost certain to be
pre-emptive invasion of this nation on behalf of Israel, is directed by
the same coterie of men who pushed us into the disastrous war against
Iraq — Podhoretz, Wurmser, Perle, Feith, Crystal, Kagan, Krauthammer,
Abrams and others too numerous to mention, the hounds of war that find
no guilt in sending the sons and daughters of others to fight the wars
they wage so eloquently in their heads as they sit in front of their
computers guiding to their deaths those they never met.
The Hounds of War are gathered round
To forge the battle plan,
They pat each other on the back,
And grasp their fellow’s hand.
To battle stations they disperse
To carry on the fray,
These warriors of the word sublime
That makes us weep or pray.
They swing behind the keyboard now
That spits out their deceit;
Their goal, the end they desire,
That makes their life complete.
These victors suffer no regrets
As they pen brilliant epithets,
And so they ply their lonely craft,
And carve another’s epitaph.
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