NEO-CONS, CAPITALISM, ZIONISM AND THE PROTOCOLS

HOW TO TALK ABOUT ISRAEL

By IAN BURUMA

August 31, 2003

The Jewish Problem pops up in the strangest places. In the winter of 1991, at the height of the first gulf war, I asked a right-wing Japanese politician who still wields considerable power in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to explain the Japanese role in the Middle Eastern conflict. After clearing his throat with some perfunctory remarks about oil supplies and United States-Japan relations, he suddenly stopped midsentence, gave me a shrewd look and said: ''Look, we Japanese aren't stupid. We saw Henry Kissinger on TV. We know how America operates. We're perfectly well aware that this war is not about Kuwait. It's about Jewish interests. It's all about Israel.''

Perhaps he had read too many books about Jewish conspiracies (Roosevelt was a Jew, Churchill was a Jew, Rockefeller was a Jew, etc.), for which the Japanese market seems to have an insatiable appetite. He was, in any case, not known for his intellectual finesse. BUT THE IDEA THAT ISRAEL OR JEWISH INTERESTS ARE SOMEHOW AT THE CENTER OF WORLD EVENTS, OR at the very least, at the center of American foreign policy in the Middle East is widely held, and not only outside the United States. No matter what the current American administration does to save the tattered ''ROAD MAP'' toward an end to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, sinister motives are still bound to be imputed.

They are very much at the Center of World Events. They ARE the Center of World Events.

Earlier this year, Representative James Moran, a Democrat, said that ''if it were not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this.'' In Britain, Tam Dalyell, a longstanding Labor member of Parliament, expressed a similar view. Tony Blair, he opined, was listening too much to A 'CABALl'' OF JEWS AROUND PRESIDENT BUSH that included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; an under secretary of defense, Douglas Feith; Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board; Elliott Abrams, director of Middle East Affairs in the White House; and the former presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer. ''Those people drive this policy,'' Dalyell said. Dalyell was ''worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik-Sharon agenda'' by British Jews close to Blair. He included among them Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, a Christian, whose rather distant Jewish family connections are very unlikely to make him a Likudnik.

The fact that James Moran had to apologize immediately, while the British M.P. was under no compulsion to do so, shows a profound difference between the United States and Europe, or indeed anywhere else in the world. Although Moran's opinion may be shared by other Americans, it is not something mainstream politicians can vocalize. Even legitimate criticism of Israel, or of Zionism, is often quickly denounced as anti-Semitism by various watchdogs. In European political discourse, not only is anti-Zionism quite acceptable, but so are vague allegations of too much Jewish influence in public life, especially across the Atlantic. And in the non-Western world, it's not even necessary to keep such allegations vague.

Rarely can such a tiny country as Israel, and such a relatively small minority as the diaspora Jews, have been assumed to exercise so much influence in world affairs. THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES, and the supposed dominance of ''Jewish interests'' in Washington, is by now encrusted with so many layers of mythology and bad faith that it has become very difficult to discuss Israel's role in American politics critically and dispassionately. Yet not to talk about it invites only more conspiracy theories. (continued)...

Here is the historical basis for The Protocols of Zion: Not simply Jews, but "Jews" and "Christians" together. This is the Mystery of Iniquity fulfilled. All of these capitalists and warriors, and the religious figures who support them, are men of Zion. But it is not a conspiracy against God's kingdom, or against God's plan in the universe as some would have it. These powerful men in the earth are oblivious to God, and are not even aware that God has a plan. They are in fact fulfilling God's plan by blindly bringing the Unfruitful Works of Darkness to their historical conclusions. It is through their conspiracies against men and nations, and against nature itself, that God shall complete the judgments of the Western world, and give birth to the world-to-come

"They pay no heed to the real hidden meanings of things, but divert themselves instead with all kinds of iniquitous arcane lore…They do not know the hidden meaning of what is actually taking place, nor have they ever understood the lessons of the past. Consequently, they have no knowledge of what is coming upon them, and have done nothing to save their souls from the deeper implications of present events.

This, however, will symbolize things for you. What is going to happen is, as it were, that all iniquity is going to be shut up in the womb and prevented from coming to birth. Wrong is going to depart before Right, as darkness departs before light. As smoke disappears and is no more, so will Wrong disappear forever. But Right will be revealed like the Sun. The world will rest on the sound Foundation. All who cling to rarified arcane lore will cease to exist. The world will be filled with knowledge, and ignorance exist no more.

The thing is certain to come. The prophecy is true, and by this you may know that it will not be revoked: Do not all peoples hate wrongdoing? Yet, is it not rampant among them all? Are not the praises of truth sung by all nations? Yet is there a single race or tribe that really adheres to it? What nation like to be oppressed by a stronger power? Or who wants his property plundered unjustly? Yet, is there a single nation that has not oppressed its neighbor? Or where in the world will you find a people that has not plundered the property of another?" The Dead Sea Scriptures, by. Theodor Gaster, p.429.

__________

(continued)...There are several myths to be considered. The first is the idea that the American or the British government is dominated or manipulated by Jews. In fact, none of President Bush's cabinet members are Jewish, and the last time individual Jews played a prominent part in any British government was under John Major. Straw, moreover, has spent more time and energy courting Iran than Israel. The well-being of Israel is not Blair's main concern either. In fact, an equitable deal for the Palestinians is more important to the British leader, who badly needs to rebuild his bridges with other European governments. That is why he wants Washington to push the Israelis harder to make peace with the Palestinians.

There is no doubt that Israeli lobby groups are well organized and well financed and have considerable clout in Washington. But then so do other lobbies. That is how the game is played. There was a time not so long ago when hefty books were written about the United States government falling into the hands of scheming Japanese lobbies. It is true that some people in the Pentagon, as well as influential organizations like the AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE and the PROJECT FOR A NEW AMERICAN CENTURY, have close relations with the Likud Party, and especially with Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is much more in tune with AMERICAN NEOCONSERVATISM than Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is. Douglas Feith and Richard Perle advised Netanyahu, who was prime minister in 1996, to make ''a clean break'' from the Oslo accords with the Palestinians. They also argued that Israeli security would be served best by regime change in surrounding countries. Despite the current mess in Iraq, this is still a commonplace in Washington. In Paul Wolfowitz's words, ''The road to peace in the Middle East goes through Baghdad.'' It has indeed become an article of faith (literally in some cases) in Washington that American and Israeli interests are identical, but this was not always so, and ''Jewish interests'' are not the main reason for it now.

Indeed, Israel enjoys a zealous following among some gentiles, PARTICULARLY CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS. (In electoral terms, Christian fundamentalists are more important to the Republican Party than Jews -- there are many more of them. The Christian Coalition is highly efficient and most Jews still vote for the Democrats anyway.) Even though Israel is often described as the only democracy in the Middle East, the Christian right's remarkable devotion to Israel is not necessarily driven by democratic principles. The ''Christian Zionists'' are convinced BY A LITERAL READING OF THE BIBLE that Christ will reappear only once the Jews HAVE REPOSSESSED THE HOLY LAND...

Ephraim Goes Backwards (again)...Chapter 10.

Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvellously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you...(Habakkuk 1:5; Acts 13:40,41 KJV)

...Their other conviction, that Jews will either die in an apocalypse or be converted to Christianity, is not so reassuring. Still, the Rev. Jerry Falwell declared on ''60 Minutes'' that evangelical Christians would make sure no American president would ever do anything to harm Israel. At a conference of the Christian Coalition held in Washington last year, there were more Stars of David than crucifixes.

Then there are the FOREIGN POLICY HAWKS for whom Israel has been a strategic inspiration. The notions of ''pre-emptive'' war and ''regime change'' were exemplified, if not exactly pioneered, by Israel. The Six-Day War of 1967 was launched by Israel in self-protection, admittedly in the face of far greater provocation than Iraq ever gave the United States. And the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 was part of an Israeli effort to install a more friendly government in Beirut. Both actions, deplored by critics of Israel all over the world, were seen as marks of admirable resolve by friends of Israel in the United States.

WHAT WE SEE, THEN, IS NOT A JEWISH CONSPIRACY, BUT A PECULIAR ALLIANCE OF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS, FOREIGN-POLICY HARD-LINERS, LOBBYISTS FOR THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT AND NEOCONSERVATIVES, a number of whom happen to be Jewish. But the Jews among them -- Perle, Wolfowitz, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, et al. -- are more likely to speak about freedom and democracy than about Halakha (Jewish law). What unites this alliance of convenience IS A SHARED VISION OF AMERICAN DESTINY and the conviction that American force and a tough Israeli line on the Arabs are the best ways to make the United States strong, Israel safe and the world a better place.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction shall come upon them, as travail upon a Woman with child, and they shall not escape...(1 Thessalonians 5:1-9).

Not all Americans agree with this hard line, to be sure: a recent campaign by American Jews to press Sharon into accepting a two-state solution shows this. In fact, he now accepts it in principle. Whether he will comply with American pressure to stop building a barrier to keep the Palestinians more or less imprisoned inside the occupied territories is doubtful, especially when Palestinian suicide bombers continue to blow up buses -- and the Israeli government continues to kill Hamas leaders. And there is no sign that President Bush will make a serious effort to make the Israelis dismantle, or at least stop building, Jewish settlements in Palesitinian areas.. THE IDEA THAT ISRAELI AND AMERICAN INTERESTS, AS DEFINED BY EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS, NEOCONS AND LIKUDNIKS, CONVERGE, AS IF BY FORCE OF NATURE, is not seriously challenged in the United States.

To judge from much of the world's media, especially in Europe and the Middle East, this was always true. In fact, it was not. The turning point was the Six-Day War. It was then that many Europeans took up the Palestinian cause and Israel could count, for the first time, on the almost unconditional support of the United States. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman did join the Soviet Union in backing the United Nations resolution THAT GAVE JEWS THE RIGHT TO FOUND A STATE IN PALESTINE. But he did so against the advice of State Department officials, who worried about antagonizing the oil-rich Arab nations. When Israelis fought for the survival of their state in 1948, the United States did nothing to help them. Both the Americans and the Soviets would later have good reasons for discretion about their respective attitudes AT ISRAEL'S DIFFICULT BIRTH...

Sing , o barren, thou that didst not bear (yet, out of due season); break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail (already) with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord...(Isaiah 54:1).

Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like a woman in travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the field, and thou shalt go, even to Babylon: there shalt thou be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies...(Micah 4:10).

...In 1956, during the Suez crisis, the United States actively opposed Israel's interests. It was an interesting little war in light of today's fashionable cliches about dovish anti-Zionist Europeans and hawkish pro-Israeli Americans. Israel's biggest supporter and arms supplier in the 1950's was not the United States, but France. That is how Israel got its nuclear bomb. Britain was more ambivalent and tended to lean toward the Arabs. But when President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, often depicted in the European press as an Arab Hitler, nationalized the Suez Canal, thus cutting out the British and French corporate owners, the British joined the French in an attempt to grab it back. They enlisted the Israelis in this enterprise by encouraging them to attack Egyptian ''terrorists'' in the Sinai, after which Britain and France would order both sides to withdraw from Suez. The inevitable Egyptian refusal would then be followed by a short, sharp conflict and possibly even a ''regime change'' in Cairo. All went well until the Soviets threatened to intervene on behalf of the Egyptians and President Dwight D. Eisenhower forced France and Britain to back off and the Israelis to get out of the Sinai.

The French remained Israel's staunchest allies until 1967, when Gen. Charles de Gaulle decided to withdraw his favors. Having only just divested France of its last colonial possessions in North Africa, de Gaulle decided to cultivate the Arabs. He called the Israelis a ''domineering'' people and warned them against going to war. As he put it to the Israeli foreign minister, Abba Eban: ''You will be considered the aggressor by the world, and by me. You will cause the Soviet Union to penetrate more deeply into the Middle East, and Israel will suffer the consequences. You will create a Palestinian nationalism, and you will never get rid of it.'' De Gaulle was not totally wrong on any of these counts.

Until 1967, Israel was a great liberal European cause. Almost everyone on the left supported it. The promised land of kibbutzim and open-shirted pioneers represented, after all, a socialist dream. Conservatives supported Israel, too, especially the type of people who thought that Jews were all very well as long as they stuck to their own kind. This attitude was not new. Arthur Balfour, the British foreign secretary whose famous declaration in 1917 opened Palestine to Jewish immigration, was against Jewish immigration to Britain and told Chaim Weizmann, the Zionist leader, that he shared the ''anti-Semitic postulates'' of certain well-known Jew-baiters.

Guilt, too, had a great deal to do with European good will toward Israel in the 50's and early 60's. This was a time when Jewish characters in German novels took on a saintly air and anti-Semitic remarks (in public) were treated as a kind of blasphemy. Anti-Semitism didn't disappear, of course, but open expressions of it were frowned upon, at least in Western Europe. If the word ''Jew'' had to be uttered at all, people lowered their voices, as if embarrassed by the very sound of it. Britain, never having been under Nazi occupation, was less vexed. Having grown up in guilt-ridden Holland, I can remember how shocked I was, sometime in the mid-60's, to hear a young lawyer in London make disparaging remarks about Jews.

Philo-Semitism is better than pogroms, to be sure, but there was something unreal, and even a little unsettling, about this dutiful sense of collective guilt. It was as if Jews, including Israeli Jews, once again were not treated in the same way as other human beings, which can quickly lead to resentment, not among Jews so much as among gentiles. Zvi Rex, an Israeli psychoanalyst, once put his finger right on this sorest of points. ''The Germans,'' he said, ''will never forgive the Jews for Auschwitz.'' This harsh analysis applies to some extent to non-Jews all over the European continent. Nobody likes to be made to feel guilty, especially for the sins of his father.

So it was with a certain sense of relief, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, that the European left, led by Communist publications like L'Humanite in France, could point its finger at Israelis AND CONCLUDE THAT JEWS, FAR FROM BEING SAINTLY, WERE BEHAVING JUST AS BADLY AS EVERYONE ELSE AND, INDEED, PERHAPS WORSE. Once it became clear that the Israelis were not going to give back their conquered territories, the Palestinians became the prime victims to be protected from persecution, and the Jews became the Nazis. Here is L'Humanite on July 20, 1967: ''Six million Jews were not slaughtered by the Nazis so that young sabras could on occasion behave like young Hitlerites.''

Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do so in the land (in the State of Mind) whither ye go to possess it.

Keep therefore and do them: for this is your Wisdom and your Understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear of these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a Wise and Understanding people...(Deuteronomy 4:5,6).

...In fact, Europeans, especially on the left, had a double guilt complex. One complex concerned the widespread collaboration in the destruction of European Jewry; the other was about the colonial past. France's war in Algeria ended only in 1962, after eight years of torture, terrorism and a near civil war in France. Israel had backed France in this last stand for European colonial rule. Taking up the cause of Palestinians, Vietnamese and other postcolonial peoples fighting for their ''liberation'' was a way to atone for past European sins. And because Western imperialism, since the late 60's, was largely associated with Israel and the United States, ANTI-ZIONISM AND ANTI-AMERICANISM CAME TO MEAN THE SAME THING. In this respect, if in little else, the editors of L'Humanite and General de Gaulle were entirely on the same wavelength.

The Eden - Palestine Axis

The United States and Israel are both Zionists states. Both have the same sense of their own existence, and have made the same mutual claims to being Manifest Israel. And this because both nations lie on the same plain of historical events as the other.

...THE UNITED STATES, meanwhile, BEGAN SUPPLYING ISRAEL WITH FIGHTER JETS in 1968 and became an ever more reliable friend. But Zionist lobbies were not the main reason. It was the politics of the cold war that paved Washington's road to Jerusalem. Even though President Lyndon Johnson liked the macho Israelis, some of his closest advisers, including Vietnam hawks like Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Walt Rostow, a national security adviser, argued against supporting Israel's 1967 war. But Johnson decided that the United States had to stand by Israel to thwart Soviet designs on the Middle East.

If American Jews had anything to do with this, it was because many of them criticized the war in Vietnam, and Johnson needed something to appease these loyal Democratic voters. Since Israel, by then, was becoming a primary focus of Jewish identification -- AS RELIGION, YIDDISH AND OLD WORLD MEMORIES WERE FADING. (continued)...

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my Right hand forget her cunning.

If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy...(Psalm 37:5,6).

Statement by Dr.Thomas Klestil, Federal President of the Republic of Austria, on the occasion of unveiling the Memorial on Vienna's Judenplatz Square on Wednesday, 25 October 2000:

Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

WHAT IS THE TIME SPAN OF OUR RECOLLECTIONS? WHAT PERIODS OF THE PAST CAN WE STILL REACH WITH OUR KNOWLEDGE, OUR THOUGHTS AND OUR FEELINGS? DO THE NARRATIONS AND JUDGMENTS OF OUR ANCESTORS STILL REACH US? CAN WE STILL READ FROM THE STONES OF EARLIER TIMES? And another question: how long do times past last?

We have gathered here in a place where we face the checkered history of our country in a very special way, and which relates to us stories of suffering and joy, of supreme cultural achievements and unfathomable hatred. Here, on Vienna's Judenplatz Square, IT ALSO BECOMES VISIBLE THAT THE PAST AND THE PRESENT ARE CLOSELY LINKED TO ONE ANOTHER; here we come to realize that it is only on the basis of the past, which we cannot change anymore, that we can create a better future. THIS IS WHAT HISTORY TEACHES US.

We, Austrians, like to of think of ourselves as the successors and bearers of a great cultural tradition that - to this very day - enables us to achieve great accomplishments in this field. But if something applies to the bright side in our country, SHOULDN'T IT ALSO APPLY TO THE DARK SIDE AS IT? Shouldn't we, as heirs and successors, also face up to the tremendous barbarity of our history?

Let me briefly illustrate this ambivalence in our history: Here, on Vienna's Judenplatz Square, stands the house where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote his opera "Cosi fan tutte", with Lorenzo da Ponte, his librettist, who was the son of a Jewish craftsman from Venetia, coming to see him frequently in house number four. Here, on Vienna's Judenplatz Square, many Jews gathered for their common prayers, as early as the late Middle Ages. However, we also find here evidence for many centuries of hatred against the local Jewish population. We are standing now on the foundations of that synagogue where, more than 500 years ago, the repeatedly flaring phases of expulsion, persecution and killings of Jews in Vienna culminated in their desperate act of self-conflagration. And we come to realize that - here again - THERE IS A LONG CHAIN OF INTERACTION AND INVOLVEMENT WHICH WE MUST ACCEPT, IN SORROW AND WITH HUMILITY, AS PART OF OUR HISTORY, AND WHICH RUNS THROUGH THE CENTURIES LIKE A STIGMA. (Like a Stigmata)? However, we must KNOW in order to be able to ACKNOWLEDGE.

Here, on Vienna's Judenplatz Square, you also see a statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, the German poet, whose "Ring Parable" has remained alive to this day, as a forceful symbol for tolerance. For us, a plea attaches to his person, namely that - time and again - we must find the strength to actively and courageously stand up for tolerance and to accept those who are different and are strangers. Here, on Judenplatz Square, finally, we will unveil a memorial today, which is dedicated TO THOSE AUSTRIAN JEWS WHO BECAME THE VICTIMS OF THE GREATEST INHUMANITY OF THE PAST CENTURY. If I use the expression inhumanity this is, in fact, not correct. After all, human beings devised, planned and consistently implemented this virtually industrial extermination of millions of their fellow men and women. There were many Austrians among those who let the flame of hatred burn so high in their hearts as only human beings are capable of admitting. And they were human beings – acquaintances, colleagues, neighbours, or even friends who were prepared, or had been moved, for the most diverse motives, TO TAKE PART IN THE GREATEST CRIME THAT HAS EVER BEEN COMMITTED AGAINST THE JEWISH PEOPLE: THE SHOA.

Matthew 24:15; Luke 21:7-22; Revelation 9:11.

And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the City, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof.

And to others he said in mine hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity:

Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women, but come not near any upon whom is the mark; AND BEGIN AT MY SANCTUARY. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house...(Ezekiel 9:4-7).

If we have come here today to unveil the memorial that Rachel Whiteread, the British artist, has designed and which seems fit - like no other monument - to describe that which cannot be described, then we must also admit that many Austrians share in the blame of having committed the crimes of the Nazi regime. And we must also insist and demand anew THAT WE MUST REJECT AND FIGHT AGAINST ANY FIRST SIGN OF ANTI-SEMITISM AND RACISM IN AUSTRIA TODAY. There is no way around it, nor any looking to the side. There must be no compromise, nor concession.

The same holds true when addressing the question of returning expropriated belongings to deportees or their descendants, or of finding the best possible way to compensate them for the injustices that they have suffered. Austria adopted restitution laws which stipulate that the Government must take the iniative and examine ownership relations. Austria's federal museums and art galleries have already returned to their lawful owners a great many works of art which were unjustly in their possession. As you may know, several bilateral agreements were signed yesterday in connection with the issue of slave and forced labour. And we are also making efforts to find a solution, acceptable to both sides, regarding "aryanizations". The negotiations relating to this issue began yesterday.

THIS GRADUAL COMING TO TERMS WITH THE PAST– also in a legal sense – was neglected for a long time – for too long, in fact. As a result, there has been a strain on this so very important relationship with our fellow Jewish citizens and their descendants. It must therefore be in our all interest to make up for these omissions. We also want the Jewish community in Austria to know that their contribution to the cultural life of this country is a very valuable, even inalienable component of how we see ourselves in this country. AUSTRIA AND, IN FACT, EUROPE, OWES MANY DIFFERENT AND IMPRESSIVE ELEMENTS TO JUDAISM. We must therefore continue to promote and protect Jewish life.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Perhaps you may say: Haven't we known that all for a long time? Aren't these matters obvious? – Let me reply by also asking a question: Doesn't it also happen in Europe today that fire bombs are thrown at synagogues? Doesn't it happen time and again that Jewish cemeteries are desecrated? To be on the alert and to show personal courage are therefore the dictates of the hour. Together, let us be vigilant guardians of these virtues!

Of course, we can hear time and again questions like "Shouldn't we make a clean break with the events of the past? Shouldn't we stop looking back on the past all the time? Let me react by saying very clearly: It is only by remembering the victims that we are able to mould our future. That is the lesson that Simon Wiesenthal, the initiator of this Memorial, has taught us and followed as a model throughout his life. I would therefore like to thank Simon Wiesenthal most cordially - he who has been a great teacher for Austria when the issue at stake was to let the truth prevail. He has always regarded himself as a self-sacrificing admonisher. He has often been misunderstood; YET, HE NEVER GAVE UP FEELING COMMITTED SOLELY TO THE HISTORIC TRUTH. HARDLY ANY OTHER PERSON BUT HIM KNOWS so well how difficult it is to make it possible for others to experience our memories AND TO MEASURE, IN ALL THEIR DIMENSIONS AND COMPLEXITY, THE QUESTION I ASKED AT THE BEGINNING: WHAT IS THE TIME SPAN FOR OUR RECOLLECTIONS? How long do times past last? Richard Beer-Hoffmann, the Jewish poet, gave his answer to the questions in his very forceful verses when he wrote:

"All are within us. Who feels alone? You are their life – their life is yours."

(continued)...American support for Israel was a popular move among Jews. And besides that, Israel was not only more democratic than America's client states in Southeast Asia but a much brighter military success to boot.

The steady alignment of American interests with Israel made it possible for American Jews to be good Jews, good Democrats AND GOOD AMERCAN PATRIOTS TOO. THIS SAME PERIOD GAVE BIRTH TO NEOCONSERVATISM, IN WHICH ISRAEL PLAYED A MAJOR ROLE. The career of Norman Podhoretz might serve as an illustration. He was once a man of the left who wondered, when ''thinking about the Jews,'' whether ''their survival as a distinct group was worth one hair on the head of a single infant.'' But, as he explained in a speech on the occasion of his retirement as editor of Commentary in 1995, HE BEGAN TO CHANGE HIS MIND in the 60's, when he became ''much more aggressive in defense of Jewish interests in general and of Israel in particular.'' One reason was a sense of shock when defeat in Vietnam threatened to turn THE UNITED STATES into a demoralized, enervated, even isolationist power, WHICH WOULD NO LONGER STAND UP FOR GOOD AGAINST EVIL IN THE WORLD...

Let every soul be subject to the Higher Powers (THE POWERS OF THE EAST). FOR THERE IS NO POWER BUT OF GOD: THE POWERS THAT BE ARE ORDAINED OF GOD.

Whosoever therefore resisteth the Power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil...(Romans 13:1-7).

(Of course now the die is cast, and the whole world is full of wickedness and terror...It is all the judgments of God)

...The other came roughly at the same time. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories made radical leftists in the United States as receptive as Europeans to Arab and Soviet depictions of the Zionists as neo-Nazis. Disgust with this kind of ''liberalism,'' as well as with A PERCEPTION OF AMERICAN WEAKNESS, PUSHED FORMER LEFTISTS, like Podhoretz and Irving Kristol, managing editor of Commentary, TO THE RIGHT. Convinced of ''THE INEXTRICABLE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE SURVIVAL OF ISRAEL AND AMERICAN MILITARY STRENGTH,'' Podhoretz began to see American dovishness in foreign affairs as a direct threat to Israeli survival. This feeling may be shared by some European Jews too, but without the swagger that goes with being a superpower citizen. Ruth Wisse, a professor of Yiddish literature at Harvard, remarked about Podhoretz that ''because of the national confidence that America nurtured in him, HE IS IMMUNE TO SELF-DOUBT and apologetics THAT EAT UP SO MANY OF HIS CO-RELIGIONISTS FROM INSIDE.''

This confidence is what Podhoretz and other neoconservatives sought to save from the wreckage of Vietnam. One of their most powerful political allies in this enterprise was Senator Henry (Scoop) Jackson, mentor of Richard Perle, among others. Jackson, a gentile, a Democrat AND A STAUNCH COLD WARRIOR, was the perfect bridge ON WHICH FORMER LEFTISTS COULD CROSS OVER TO THE RIGHT, without actually joining the Republican Party. Henry Jackson was a founder of the America-Israel Friendship League. Israel, to him, was not a sentimental issue but an essential part OF HIS VISION OF THE UNITED STATES AS A NATION DESTINED TO FREE THE WORLD FROM TYRANNY. ARAB NATIONALISM AND SOVIET COMMUNISM WERE SEEN AS EQUALLY DANGEROUS in this rather Manichaean view of A WORLDWIDE BATTLE BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL...

And MINE ARMS (One extended into Russia, and the other extended into the realm of Islam) shall judge the people; the isles shall wait upon me, and on Mine Arm (My strong Right Arm) shall they trust...(Isaiah 51:4,5). .

...IT GOES WITH MANICHAEISM (WHICH IS, OF COURSE, WHAT APPEALS TO CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS TOO) THAT BATTLES ARE NOT ONLY STRATEGIC BUT ALSO EXISTENTIAL. AND IN THE EYES OF MANY NEOCONS, IS WHAT PUTS ISRAEL AND THE UNITED STATES IN THE SAME BOAT...

(The great difference that exists between those on the political and religious Right, and those on the liberal, intellectual Left--which essentially makes them the same--is that those on the Right imagine that God is on their side, while those on the Left are not much concerned about the idea of God at all, and believe that they themselves and their generally-humanistic agenda are all-sufficient).

Podhoretz again: ''Just as the fervent wish of the Arab world to wipe the Jewish state off the map derives not from anything Israel has done or failed to do, BUT RATHER FROM ITS EXISTENCE ALONE, so we'' -- the United States -- ''are hated not because of our policies but because of who and what we are.''

The roots of neoconservative disillusion with liberalism and the almost OBSESSIVE PROMOTION OF AMERICAN POWER go deeper than Vietnam, however. In Podhoretz's case it goes back TO HIS CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES ON A SCHOOL PLAYGROUND IN BROOKLYN, where he was bullied by his black schoolmates. Blacks, he had always been told, in good liberal fashion, were poor and persecuted, while Jews were rich and powerful. Neither rich, nor powerful, young Norman grew to hate the boys that beat him up with such ease. As he explained in a famous essay, ''My Negro Problem -- and Ours,'' he hated them, but also admired them, for ''they were tough; beautifully, enviably tough, not giving a damn for anyone or anything. To hell with the teacher, the truant officer, the cop; to hell with the whole of the adult world that held us in its grip and that we never had the courage to rebel against.''

Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: LET THE WEAK SAY I AM STRONG...(Joel 3:9-14).

...This is highly revealing. What Henry Jackson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Ariel Sharon, Benjamin Netanyahu and George W. Bush have in common is that they enabled bookish men TO FEEL TOUGH, beautifully, enviably tough. Too much can be made of the connection between the Chicago philosopher Leo Strauss and officials in the current Pentagon, but one aspect of Strauss appears to have rubbed off on them. Born in Germany, Strauss was a liberal rationalist in his youth. He had hoped, he said, that anti-Semitism would end WITH JEWISH ASSIMILATION IN A LIBERAL DEMOCRACY. The Nazis taught him otherwise. By the 1920's he began to regard liberals as weaklings, powerless to stop the violent mob. If one thing ties neoconservatives, Likudniks, and post-cold-war hawks together, it is the conviction that liberalism is strictly for sissies.

By the time Israel was attacked by Egypt and Syria in October 1973, it could no longer be doubted which side the United States stood on, but the size of American largess increased enormously. Before the Yom Kippur War, Congress agreed to an annual loan to Israel of more than $500 million. After the war, this was increased to $2.1 billion in loans and grants, much of which went into purchasing American military hardware. Again, the influence of Jewish lobbies can be easily exaggerated. President Nixon was not known for his warm feelings toward Jews, and most Jews did not vote for him, but he saw Israel as a vital pawn in the great game with the Soviets, especially when they were supplying Egypt with arms.

Once Egypt made peace with Israel in 1979, and switched patrons from Moscow to Washington, challenging the Soviets was no longer a major American concern. But the revolution in Iran, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, produced another enemy to confront. AND THIS NEW CONFRONTATION OUTLASTED THE COLD WAR. For Khomeini's brand of revolutionary Islam inspired others. Among the Palestinians, who had always been relatively secular, Islamist extremism gradually merged with Palestinian nationalism. The intifadas began with throwing stones, but degenerated into suicide attacks on Israeli citizens, organized by Palestinians with support from parts of the Arab world. Seen from a particular perspective in America, then, ESPECIALLY AFTER 9/11, Israel and the United States, bound together by cold-war concerns in the 60's and 70's, were now thrown together in an existential ''war against terrorism.'' This shaped a climate in which it is not just potentially anti-Semitic to be critical of Israeli policies, but downright unpatriotic, too...

And there shall be upon every high mountain (every great nation), and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters, WHEN THE TOWERS FALL.

Moreover the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun, AND THE LIGHT OF THE SUN SHALL BE SEVENFOLD AS THE LIGHT OF SEVEN DAYS, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound...(Isaiah 30:25,26).

...If political perspectives have become muddled in the United States by an identification with Israel that is too rarely critically examined, NON-AMERICANS ARE MOSTLY INCAPABLE OF SEPARATING WHAT THEY THINK OF ISRAEL FROM WHAT THEY THINK OF THE UNITED STATES. That is why the Japanese politician I interviewed during the first gulf war automatically identified American policy with ''Jewish interests.'' Japan, like much of the modern world, feels uncomfortably dependent on American economic and military power. When people need to invent a malevolent face for this overwhelming might, they often reach for the prejudices of a hateful past. The Japanese politician may never have heard of the 19th-century Russian forgery ''THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION,'' but it was widely read in prewar Japan and is enjoying a popular revival in the Middle East today.

It is perfectly possible, of course, to take a critical view of Israeli policies, and of their support in Washington, without being anti-Semitic. It is equally possible to be critical of American policies without being irrationally and emotionally anti-American. Just so, you can be opposed to CAPITALISM, or ''GLOBALIZATION,'' without wishing to unleash or condone suicide attacks on Manhattan. What is disturbing, however, is the way these views now increasingly come together in a hostile cocktail. Most mass demonstrations in Europe, and elsewhere, against the war in Iraq contained banners in support of the Palestinians, even the religious extremists of Hamas, and against THE GLOBAL SYMBOLS OF CAPITALISM. For some people on the left, being opposed to Israel, or Zionism, goes beyond specific policies in Gaza or the West Bank; Israel is seen as the colonial Western presence in an Arab world, AN AMERICAN CLIENT STATE LOCKED INTO GLOBAL CAPITALISM. Even if the Israelis treated the Palestinians with the most scrupulous generosity -- WHICH THEY DO NOT -- this impression would persist.

Not every demonstrator against Ariel Sharon's government or American imperialism is an anti-Semite, to be sure, but the ready identification of Jewish interests with the United States or, in the past, with Britain is old and loaded with prejudice. Since the early 19th century, many Europeans associated the City of London, as Wall Street is today, with financial power, materialist greed and economic imperialism. To ethnic nationalists in Germany and elsewhere, Britain and France, with their relative openness to immigrants, were seen as mongrel nations, where citizenship could be bought for a crock of gold.

This is what Hitler meant WHEN HE CALLED FRANCE, BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES "JEWIFIED.'' He took the view, popularized by all manner of third-rate scribblers, THAT A JEWISH CABAL WAS MANIPULATING WESTERN POWERS BEHIND THE SCENES. French universalism and Anglo-Saxon capitalism, so it was believed, threatened the unique values of culture and race. And behind all this were the Jews, pulling strings in their cosmopolitan network of banks, newspapers and movie companies.

THE UNITED STATES IS NOW THE BIGGEST CAPITALIST POWER IN THE WORLD...

And they worshipped the dragon (the great serpent--the collective Lower Self) which gave power unto the Beast (the American political, economic and religious order); and they worshipped the Beast, saying Who is like unto the Beast? (Who is like unto America)? who is able to make war with him?...(Revelation 13:4).

...To the extent that it is an empire, it is driven by economic interests, but also, these days, by A MISSION TO SPREAD "AMERICAN VALUES,'' as if they were universal. Hollywood is seen in the outside world as part of this, and so are Wall Street, the Pentagon and the International Monetary Fund. This, alas, is precisely the kind of thing anti-Semites have always associated with Jewish conspiracies. And since Israel is America's most favored ally in the Middle East, and the Palestinian cause has become the universal litmus test of liberal credentials, the idea that Jewish interests are driving American foreign policy is even more widely believed, if not always openly stated. American foreign policy and ancient prejudices ARE REINFORCING EACH OTHER IN A VICIOUS CIRCLE.

For Israel, the American embrace is an ambiguous advantage. Although perhaps vital for the nation's survival, it also makes Israel the hub of global hostility toward the United States. It is, in any case, doubtful that the fate of Israel is best served by its dependence on an alliance WITH CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISTS AND PEOPLE ON A MISSION TO LIBERATE THE WORLD WITH MILITARY FORCE. It may well be that Israel's interests coincide with those of the United States for the moment, but this should not be a given, never to be examined or reassessed...

He will keep the Feet of His saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; FOR BY STRENGTH SHALL NO MAN PREVAIL.

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; OUT OF HEAVEN (out of the East) SHALL HE THUNDER UPON THEM: The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth; AND HE SHALL GIVE STRENGTH UNTO HIS KING, AND EXALT THE HORN OF HIS ANOINTED...(1 Samuel 2:1-10).

...The first condition for a reasoned examination would be to disentangle Israel's politics from all the anti-Semitic myths and other leftovers of a murderous past. This is not so easily done, since Israeli leaders have too often abused history themselves. The Israeli bomb attack on an Iraqi nuclear installation in 1981 might have been justified in many legitimate ways, but to say, as Prime Minister Menachem Begin did, that it was to protect ''the children of Israel,'' asking foreign reporters, ''Haven't you heard of one and a half million little children who were thrown into gas chambers?'' is to dangerously confuse the issue. The same was true when Prime Minister Sharon warned the United States last year not to repeat the mistakes of 1938 and sell out Israel like Czechoslovakia. Such false analogies serve only to invite equally odious comparisons from Israel's critics.

Disentangling American and Israeli interests and government actions is, if anything, even harder. To see Israel as nothing but a cat's paw of American imperialism in the Middle East is a crude distortion. And to hold Washington responsible for every Israeli action against the Palestinians is equally misguided. But it is neither anti-Semitic nor blindly anti-American to point out that the United States could have done much more to stop Israel from humiliating the Palestinians BY TURNING THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES INTO A KIND OF WILD EAST OF GUNSLINGING SETTLERS AND HOUNDED NATIVES

Finally, the politics of the Middle East may be murderous, but it is not helpful to see them as an existential battle between good and evil. As long as such a view persists, among zealots in Washington, Jerusalem and Nablus, the struggle between Jews and Arabs will be forever obscured by a fog of noxious myths and fantasies. RELIGIOUS FANATICISM IS CONFONDING THE POLITICS OF ISRAEL, AS WELL AS THAT OF ITS ENEMIES. And its influence is felt in the United States as well. Americans are right to support Israel's right to exist in peace, but criticism of Israeli policies should not be stifled by Christian VISIONS OF ARMAGEDDON, right-wing zealotry or memories of the culture wars in Brooklyn. This would not be good for America, and it is certainly not good for the Jews.

Ian Buruma lives in Oxford and New York. He is a Luce Professor at Bard College and the author, most recently, of ''Inventing Japan.''

ENDGAME

THE GRAND CHESSBOARD

Zbigniew Brzezinski's Latest Blueprint For American Foreign Policy

By Bernard Gwertzman

(Of course the Bush administration has its own strategy--Full Force--and is presently moving its pieces in its own way across the board. His pawns and knights [and his bishops at home], having already checkmated one king in the Middle East, are now preparing for the next match. The Great King, however--the grandest Chessmaster of them all--is still hiding behind His own forces, and has yet to loose them out of the North and the East. He is drawing the American pieces out across the Great Chessboard, extending them, entangling them, and will move before the game is over to check and checkmate).

Since the end of the cold war and the collapse of Communism, the United States has accepted the "victory" and, for better or worse, has had collective amnesia about global issues. After some 50 years during which foreign affairs commanded the highest priority in Washington and on television and the front page, the subject has virtually disappeared for most Americans. (And this was true in a sense, until September 11th, 2001. Nevertheless the neo-cons of the Reagan-Bush administrations were not asleep at their posts during the Clinton years, and were cleverly devising and inciting the very global strategy that is unfolding before our eyes at this present time).

This is true from top to bottom. President Clinton clearly pays as little attention to foreign affairs as he can get away with...For many in the foreign policy establishment, this means the public cares less and less about what they have to say. But they keep saying it anyway. And some are saying with increasing alarm: Wake up, America, before its too late.

One of those most troubled by the sudden turn in American attitudes is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who from 1977 to 1981 was President Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, and who has for years been one of the more provocative thinkers about foreign affairs, particularly those dealing with the former Soviet bloc. What has bothered Brzezinski is that as a result of the Soviet collapse, the United States is the unquestionable world leader, unchallenged for the moment by any other power. But American democracy does not lend itself well to the running of empires. This has frustrated Brzezinski, who has now provided another scholarly blueprint for what he believes the United States should do in the coming years to further American interests, maintain the hegemony it commands and prevent global anarchy. For Brzezinski this is a strategic game, not unlike chess, TO OUTWIT POTENTIAL RIVALS, and hence the title of the book: "The Grand Chessboard."...

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

Then shall He speak unto them in His wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure (Recall that Brzezinski's grand strategy was laid down well before September 11th...Deuteronomy 32:16-22; Isaiah 30:25. KJV)...(Psalm 2:4,5).

This is not the first time Brzezinski has touched on this theme. Eleven years ago he published "THE GAME PLAN: A GEOSTRATIGIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE CONDUCT OF THE U.S.-SOVIET CONTEST." And just four years ago, in the aftermath of the Soviet disintegration, he wrote: "Out of Control: Global Turmoil on the Eve of the Twenty-first Century," which many saw as a counter to the optimistic view of the future in "The End of History and the Last Man," by Francis Fukuyama...

Brzezinski, who writes convincingly if a bit inelegantly, describes a very forbidding situation in the years ahead if the United States does not make more permanent the dominance it now has over a vast area of the world. "This huge oddly-shaped Eurasian chessboard--extending from Lisbon to Vladivostok--provides the setting for the game," Brzezinski says. "IF THE MIDDLE SPACE CAN BE DRAWN INCREASINGLY INTO THE EXPANDING ORBIT OF THE WEST (where America preponderates), if the southern region is not subjected to domination by a single player, and if the East is not unified in a manner that leads to the expulsion of America from its offshore bases, AMERICA CAN THEN BE SAID TO PREVAIL...

He concludes bluntly that "the time has come for the United States to formulate and prosecute an integrated, comprehensive and long-term geostrategy FOR ALL OF EURASIA...

How the United States manages this chessboard , he says, "will be critical to the longevity and stability of America's global primacy."..."In brief," he writes, "the U.S. policy goal must be unapologetically twofold: to perpetuate America's own dominant position...and to create a geopolitical framework that can absorb the inevitable shocks and strains of social-political change while evolving into the geopolitical core of shared responsibility for peaceful global management." New York Times Book Review.

They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world (this present world that is about to pass away), and the world heareth them...(1 John 4:5).

The Protocols -- A NeoCon Manifesto
By Simon Jones
Dissident Voice
8-23-03

I have to confess. The outrageous in-your-face behavior of the neocons finally got to me - AS ARMAGEDDON APPROACHES, after seeing more and more references to it (albeit usually wacky), I recently downloaded the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Guiltily, mind you, as if it were Mein Kampf or porno. I bet you haven't dared (or bothered) to read it.

So, what is this best-selling political tract of the 20th century, the reading of which carried the death penalty in Stalinist Russia, lauded by the likes of Henry Ford and Winston Churchill, and then loudly condemned for the past 60 years since it was briefly declared an anti-Semitic forgery (in a Swiss court in 1935 overturned by the Appeals Court in 1937)?

The bile aside, it is in fact an series of 24 mostly articulate, well-argued lectures outlining a plan for world capitalist domination, with sharp political and social analysis, lots of Machiavelli and a Marxian sophistication in ITS UNDERSTANDING OF CAPITALISM AND HISTORICAL PROCESSES. Briefly, it outlines a plan of world conquest by first establishing world government by consent. As with any brilliant political analysis, it has been denounced, dismissed, misinterpreted and banned. And made very good use of by those lusting for world power.

WHAT IMMEDIATELY STRUCK ME WAS THAT WITH A LITTLE DUSTING OFF, ABRIDGING AND UPDATING, IT COULD EASILY BE THE HANDBOOK OF THE NEOCONS. With the wonders of modern computers, you can download a free copy from the Internet, CLEANSE IT OF ANTI-SEMITISM BY REPLACING "FELLOW JEWS" WITH "NEOCONS" and make sense of what's happening in the world today.

Mysterious origins? Not really

Though its origins are still unknown, it was clearly inspired by the French revolution and its aftermath, the then-popular Masonic order, and most of all the nascent 19th century Zionist movement. All that we know is that it was written in France and brought to Russia, supposedly in 1884. It first appeared in print in St Petersburg in 1903, but reached the West only after the Russian revolution. It caused an immediate sensation, originally crudely interpreted as foretelling the Bolshevik revolution as the crucial link in a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. As such, it was admired by the likes of Churchill and Ford, both confirmed anti-communists and anti-Semites.

True, it has the prescience to allow for an anti-capitalist revolution on the way to its final goal, but there's nothing even vaguely socialist in it. IT IS FIRMLY FOUNDED ON A PLAN FOR CAPITALIST DOMINATION THROUGH JEWISH CONTROL OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE and just happened to appear at the very moment of the founding of the Zionist movement, with its goal of establishing as soon as possible a Jewish state in Palestine, backed by powerful worldwide Ashkenazy Jewish economic interests.

It's as if an especially ruthless and well-read 19th c Zionist, inspired by the Rothschilds and other great Jewish financiers of the time, wrote it or most of it, as I am sure is the case. Really, it reads as if it were written by the Jungian shadow of the likes of Zionism's founder, Theodore Herzl, or any of Israel's notables from Ben Gurion to Ariel Sharon. Its anti-goyim callousness certainly indicate it was not written for public consumption, and after Hitler, it was relegated to the Forbidden Shelf in ALL libraries along with Mein Kampf and naked bottoms. But it is very hard to believe that it is a spoof or a mere provocation, as it is just too impressive in detail and understanding of the logic of late 19th c capitalism.

Did Hitler read it? I bet the Nazis read it carefully. They certainly followed much of its advice, FROM HOW TO USE THE PRESS, TO HOW TO MANIPULATE BOTH POLITICIANS AND THE MASSES consolidating their political hold. It's also clear why destruction of the Jews became Hitler's tragic obsession. His New World Order (NWO) would have to exclude a group even remotely connected with such a scheme for world domination. As the neocons warn today: "You are either with us or against us."

Many paths - but they all lead to Rome (eh, that would be America).

The trouble with the Protocols is that it has been interpreted since it was published to suit the prejudices of the moment. In pre-revolutionary Russia, it provided fuel for the already widespread Russian anti-Semitism. In post-WWI Europe and America, it provided fuel against the Russian revolution. In the post-WWII world, it became the Bible of American isolationists and racists who see the poor UN as the dreaded "World Government," backed by the Soviet Union and 3rd world revolutions. Now it is read by Muslims as proof of the conspiracy by US imperialism to destroy them.

Another problem is that there have been many variations on the theme of the NWO ever since the collapse of the Roman Empire. The French revolution and Napoleonic conquests, the Masonic lodges, imperial Germany and England all have had their own NWO fantasy. The Russian revolution was the most radical attempt at a NWO, and even can be distinguished for the large number of Jews who took part, but despite the fact that the Protocols was first published in Russia and strictly banned during the Soviet period, the Soviet experiment was not even remotely the final World Government of the Protocols, as it was anti-capitalist in its essence.

The red herring in it is of course 'Jewish', which is supposed to refer to a race. The Jews referred to in the Protocols are the European Ashkenazy Jews, who had been traditionally usurers and who were in the 19th century becoming increasing wealthy and part of the mainstream European culture. From them sprang THE ZIONISTS, WHO TRANSFORMED A RELIGION WHERE GOD IS TO BRING THEM TO THE "PROMISED LAND" SOMEDAY INTO AN ACTIVE PLAN TO SEIZE PALESTINE based on their growing international economic and financial might...

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation, HE THAT BELIEVETH SHALL NOT MAKE HASTE...(Isaiah 28:16,17).

So it is this group that is the real inspiration behind the Protocols and not some amorphous Jewish RACE. Think of the authors as the neocons of the day. For by the 19th century, usury was the norm, AAND THE RAPID SPREAD OF CAPITALISM MEANT THAT THE WESTERN WORLD EFFECTIVELY BECAME JEWISH, as Marx put it, and adopted the Jewish idea of success.

Yet another problem. It is loudly dismissed as a forgery. Hello? It was anonymous, so how can it be a forgery. Who forged what? No wonder the Swiss Appeals Court threw the case out. In that case we can dismiss the Bible as a forgery. And who cares who wrote the Psalms anyway? They stand on their own merits, as does the Protocols stripped of a few provocative phrases here and there, which could have been slipped in by anyone.

You may well protest: "The Protocols attributes the conscious machinations of Jews to be behind all historical developments. I don't believe the Zionists are either so powerful, or so far-sighted." In answer: It's not necessary for our actions to be premeditated. THE LOGIC OF WORLD CAPITALISM SWEEPS US ALONG, WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT. SOME PLAYERS ARE MORE CONSCIOUS (AND RUTHLESS) THAN OTHERS. They become the Herzls, the Wolfowitzes, the Sharons. The rest of us get swept along, either yielding to, or fighting the current: the Bushes and the Schwartzeneggers or the goyim. THE PROTOCOLS (or its original, if it is indeed a forgery) WAS INSPIRED BY THE NEW ECONOMIC SYSTEM SWEEPING THE WORLD, and composed by the 19th century equivalent of the neocons. It hasn't played itself out yet, just as capitalism hasn't played itself out. WE IGNORE IT AT OUR PERIL.

Arise, ye prisoners of starvation?

Contrast the Zionist movement with the other great attempt at a NWO from the 19th century on -- the world socialist movement. It is far weaker, split by nationalism and hundreds of ideological splinters, and motivated by social justice, a far less competitive motivation that money, wealth and power-for-its-own-sake. The Protocols is quite clear about this: "OUR TRIUMPH HAS BEEN RENDERED EASIER BY THE FACT THAT IN OUR RELATIONS WITH THE MEN WHOM WE WANTED WE HAVE ALWAYS WORKED UPON THE MOST SENSITIVE CHORDS OF THE HUMAN MIND, UPON THE CASH ACCOUNT, UPON THE CUPIDITY, UPON THE INSATIABILITY FOR MATERIAL NEEDS OF MAN: AND EACH ONE OF THESE WEAKNESSES, TAKEN ALONE, IS SUFFICIENT TO PARALYZE INITIATIVE, FOR IT HANDS OVER THE WILL OF MEN TO THE DISPOSITION OF HIM WHO HAS BOUGHT THEIR ACTIVITIES."

There is no fear of the dangerous effective of democracy: "THE ABSTRACTION OF FREEDOM has enabled us to persuade the mob in all countries that their government is nothing but the steward of the people who are the owners of the country, and that the steward may be replaced like a worn-out glove. It is this possibility of replacing the representatives of the people which has placed them at our disposal, and, as it were, given us the power of appointment." (I)

Socialism never had a chance against this corrosive Machiavellianism, though, just in case, the Protocols had a plan: "The hour strikes when, not for the sake of attaining the good, not even to win wealth, but solely out of hatred towards the privileged, the lower classes of the goyim will follow our lead against our rivals for power, the intellectuals of the goyim." (IV) This is the only reference to the use of a revolt of the masses, which was seized upon to associate the Protocols with the Russian revolution. Rather slim pickings, and it reveals the strategy is to undermine the "intellectuals of the goyim", i.e., the socialist opposition to world capitalism.

On the contrary, the Russian revolution seemed to really shake the very foundations of the plan for world capitalist domination. Curiously in its first 30 years the SU had the Zionists split. Why? Well, no doubt partly because many rank-and-file Zionists were socialist by persuasion, truly wanted the SU to succeed and hoped for a socialist Israel as a bonus (Herzl's utopian novel depicts a socialist Israel). But for the Zionist fanatics of the Protocols, their fence-sitting was because achieving their own state was the main priority, and required the support of both the communist and capitalist camps.

And as for the softer versions of socialism which have surfaced occasionally in the West, their headway has always been kept well in check, and social democratic reforms were rolled back very easily after the collapse of the SU, via the tactics envisaged in the Protocols. So the plan of the Protocols should not be confused with the many variations on a socialist/ communist NWO.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em

The Protocols also lauds "the successes we arranged for Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzscheism." Why promote such radicals? Because of the "disintegrating importance these directives have had upon the minds of the goyim." Just how central to Marx's success these Zionists were is debatable.

But it's become clear to me that Zionists have penetrated and tried to control all the NWO fantasies, from left to right, to further their own cause. It is not surprise then that they have been at the center of the present neocon insurgency from the start. And as for the EU-as-NWO, Sharon even suggested Israel should join the EU since 'we share common ideals'. In spite of Israel's loathing for the UN, it is at the very heart of THAT beleaguered, clumsy organization too (with a stake in hand just in case, it can be argued). It has recently been revealed that Zionists are even involved with extreme right anti-Semitic movements in Europe and with the creation of Hamas. After all, anti-Semitism is the Zionist's best defense. "The Jewish group has thrived on oppression and on the antagonism it has forever met in the world." (Albert Einstein, Collier's Magazine, November 26, 1938)

True, anti-Semitism got out of control under Hitler and it even looked like it was touch-and-go for a while for the Ashkenazy Jews of Europe, but fascism was in turn destroyed by a capitalist-communist alliance, with Zionists at its heart, as the Protocols so brilliantly foretold: "For a time perhaps we might be successfully dealt with by a coalition of the goyim of all the world: but from this danger we are secured by the discord existing among them whose roots are so deeply seated that they can never now be plucked up." Divide and rule!

The Holocaust gave the fanatical Zionists their long-sought state, which allowed them to discard any socialist pretensions and nurture the capitalist-Zionist alliance essential to the goal of world domination. THE DEFINING MOMENT IS PERHAPS THE TRIUMPH OF THE NEOCONS UNDER REAGAN IN THE 1980s. The Zionists had consolidated their hold on American foreign policy under Democrat Carter, and were ready to make the alliance official under Republican Reagan. It is at this point that the very term Zionist and even Jew can be discarded. As I have argued elsewhere, 'We are all Jews now.' (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles4/Jones_Palestine.htm) And with the Bush coup in 2000, we all (for the present at least) have become neocons (or goyim). As the opposition grows weaker, with the shield of the Holocaust at the ready, the neocon-Zionist alliance has begun to act more and more brazenly to consolidate its hold on the world and destroy the last meaningful resistance - the Islamic world.

The ultimate trump card

Not only was the Holocaust and the way to defeat it foreseen in the Protocols, but, like the anti-Semitism that gave rise to it, it has been turned into the ultimate defense of the Zionist cause. A kind of perverse win-win situation for the Zionists. It transformed important anti-Semites into Judeophiles overnight. While Churchill was an enthusiastic reader of the Protocols before WWII, he became an enthusiastic supporter of the foundation of Israel after, and shifted his anti-Semitism onto the Arabs. Stalin, also a confirmed anti-Semite, provided the key vote at the UN to approve the foundation of Israel and supplied crucial arms via Czechoslovakia to the beleaguered state, foolishly thinking he could ultimately manipulate. Ha, ha! Finally it became the linchpin in consolidating today's neocon-Zionist alliance, and a brilliant defense for all manner of Zionist crimes: "We can do anything to defend ourselves after the Holocaust!"

The icing on the cake is the impressive Holocaust museum which blends in tastefully with the Lincoln and Washington memorials in the heart of Washington, D.C. (Note: There is no museum to the Holocaust against the native peoples or the blacks.)

A crack in the wall?

While 'Old Europe' has made some noises about this lethal NWO, the governments are nonetheless beholden to it, and can do little but try to carve a slightly bigger piece of the pie. No, the only meaningful remaining resistance to the neocon-Zionist NWO is the as yet unbrainwashed goyim of the world - the peace movement and the Islamic world, strange bedfellows at best. However, there are some disturbing ripples in the NWO waters. Bush/ Sharon have chosen the warpath, while the Soros branch, which includes Europe, wants a more peaceful transition. The reckless policies of the erstwhile "servile administrator" in Washington are quite possibly endangering the very economic foundation of the NWO. The Protocols foresees such chaos, THOUGH IT PRESUMES TO BE IN CONTROL OF IT: "We shall soon begin to establish huge monopolies, reservoirs of colossal riches, upon which even large fortunes of the GOYIM will depend to such an extent that they will go to the bottom together with the credit of the States on the day after the political smash...."

SUCH A COLLAPSE OF THE PRESENT WORLD FINANCIAL SYSTEM IS NOT AT ALL BEYOND THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY. AND IF IT COMES IT COULD TAKE DOWN THE US GOVERNEMENT AND THE NEOCONS WITH IT. It is here that the PROTOCOLS begins to unravel. The Protocols assumes the corporate financial cabal controlling the world economy will be invited to take over bankrupt governments with their World Government, as indeed has been happening under the guise of IMF restructuring programs and more recently by direct invasion. But the bankrupt and invaded countries, such as Argentina, most of Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq for starters are proving to be problematic, more than the cabal can digest.

MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, THE NEOCONS' GAMBLE WILL TRIP THEM UP before they reach the finish line and they will end up along side the despised GOYIM at the bottom. A switch to a gold dinar in the Muslim world and oil-euros for the rest would seriously endanger the NWO, as would a massive ecological disaster, natural or man-made.

The mild neocons (Soros etal) see this clearly and are scurrying to minimize collateral damage. Theirs is a strategy closer to the spirit of the Protocols - no overt wars, a careful amassing of power through education and the control of the press, no dangerous splits in the capitalist-Zionist alliance, achieving victory through financial and trade blackmail. Have a look at the Protocols yourself. It's all there.

So, are these cowboy jackboot high jinks a momentary glitch in the triumphal march to the neocon-Zionist paradise? Will a Howard Dean, urged on by Soros, put the out-of-control steamroller back on its proper path? Or has the Protocols played itself out? IS OUR PRESENT APOCALYPTIC SCENARIO INSTEAD A CRACK THAT GIVES US HOPE OF EMERGING FROM THIS NIGHTMARISH PLOT?

After two days will he revive us: in the Third Day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight...(Hosea 6:1-3).

Rational racism?

I don't know about the Elders, the Symbolic Snake, the actual killing off of the goyim, WHETHER THE LINE OF KING DAVID WILL BE RE-ESTABLISHED TO RULE THE WORLD, the importance of the Masons, or whether the French Revolution "was wholly the work of our hands". There's surprisingly little of such bile for a work of such notoriety, and it can be easily edited out so as not to distract from the sharp analysis. Perhaps it was added by an anti-Semite as a provocation. Who knows? As for the Masons, come to think of it, the popularity of them, the Yale Skull and Bones, and other such Monty-Pythonesque groups shows a stubborn inclination by would-be GOYIM leaders to voluntarily (i.e., consciously or unconsciously) make themselves part of a world conspiracy, however idiotic.

That's not so much the problem. The major flaw behind the logic of the Protocols is its basic premise - that there is a Jewish race. There is only one race - the human race. Just have a look at Israeli society if you think there is a racial basis to Judaism. But hey! Scientists are discovering that there are genes which are responsible for skin color, that define risk-takers or those susceptible to various diseases. MAYBE THERE'S A GENE FOR THESE WOULD-BE ELDERS OF ZION. Perhaps the NY Times will post the following soon: The Zionist-neocons now welcome to their fold those who share their lust for capitalist world domination. All those with gene DN145, please sign up here. We are all equal before Mammon. MBA schools will go crazy.

The Masonic lodges, Skull and Bones fraternities, the Jewish 'race' itself are just foils in this march of world capitalism, gathering in like-minded wanabes as it makes its final push for total control. It is somehow fitting that the once reviled Jew should sit one day on the world's golden throne surrounded by his neocon minions. That is the Protocols' vision of the end of history. Eat your heart out Fukuyama!

Simon Jones is a Canadian freelance journalist living in Uzbekistan. He writes for Peace Magazine (Toronto) and has published pieces in Counterpunch and YellowTimes.org. He can be contacted at sj958@yahoo.com

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles7/Jones_Protocols-Neocons.htm

THE NEOCONS AND WOODROW WILSON

By PHILIP GOLD

Sunday, May 11, 2003. I know from neocons. Midge Decter, the movement's grande dame, introduced me to journalism in 1981. She and neocon"godfather" Irving Kristol helped get me the grant for my first book. Throughout the '80s and much of the '90s, while living in Washington, D.C., I worked with neocons, wrote for them, attended their conferences, appeared with them on panels and occasionally drank their whiskey. I still read their stuff and, for the most part, I like them as people. But I also know that, in three critical ways, Joshua Muravchik's description elides some unflattering truths.

First, neoconservatism is a multigenerational movement that has never really been conservative or fully accepted by the mainstream, let alone the fringes. At its best, it was a valuable aberration. Today, it's maligned. Second, although the younger neocons, the Boom X generation, are Republicans, THEY DRAW THEIR DEEPEST SPIRITUAL INSPIRATION FROM WOODROW WILSON. That's a dangerous liaison. And third, there's the matter of neocon "influence" -- an issue that, sadly, cannot be divorced from the tawdry subject of anti-Semitism and its present real and/or alleged reinvigoration.

NEOCONSERVATISM, as Muravchik notes, AROSE IN THE 70s AS A REACTION TO THE 60s. IT WAS AT FIRST A NEW YORK PHENOMENON AND MOSTLY, though far from entirely, JEWISH. It reflected the sensibilities of a unique generation of intellectuals, often starting out as the poor children of immigrants, who made the long march from Brooklyn and City College of New York and FDR for some and Trotsky for others, to that literary section of Manhattan where they take their politics and their cocktail parties -- and their book reviews -- very, very seriously. These were people of ideas, always articulate and often brilliant, who'd also known depression, war, discrimination and lives of unrelenting effort. They had struggled and succeeded. They were, in short, full dues-paying members of the Greatest Generation.

And neoconservatism was as much their personal journey, their midlife crisis, as a political movement. Irving Kristol, a founder of "The Public Interest," and Norman Podhoretz, former editor of "Commentary" and author of "Making It," have written movingly of this. THEIR BREAK WITH THE LEFT WAS PAINFUL AND COMPLEX, BOTH A FAREWELL TO THEIR OWN GENERATION AND A REPUDIATION OF THE 1960s NEW LEFT EXCESSES that their former friends' children had wrought. The children they chided for their tantrums and immaturity, the parents for their excessive tolerance and flaccidity in the face of barbarisms both foreign and domestic.

Midge Decter's "Liberal Parents, Radical Children" can still be read with profit here. Indeed, many saw liberalism's greatest failure AS A MATTER OF "WILL" AND "NERVE," two favorite neocon value-words, especially when dealing with communists and kids. AND WHEN THEY TOOK UP RONALD (WILSON) REAGAN, it was his steady anti-communism that they found most attractive. All in all, they were the right people at the right time. THEY HELPED FASHION THE "WILL" AND THE "NERVE" THAT BROUGHT THE SOVIETS DOWN.

Nor are their children lacking in will, certainly not in the chicken hawk sense -- an unfair epithet, but not entirely inapt, APPLIED TO THOSE WHO URGE WAR and pander to bellicosity BUT NEVER SERVED, OR WILL SERVE, THEMSELVES. What they are lacking is their parents' depth and life experiences. And perhaps it is not too much to suggest that the current leadership of the movement shows more than a trace of the arrogance imputed to Boomer and Generation X left radicals, and of the infatuation with their own theories that only those who've never been smacked upside the head by reality (poverty, unfriendly fire, hard bigotry) can indulge.

What theories? Today, the Boomer/Generation X neocons invoke icons of steadfastness such as Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan, even Winston Churchill. But neocon writer and former Wall Street Journal editor Max Boot caught it best some months ago WHEN HE DESCRIBED THEIR PREFERRED FOREIGN POLICY AS "HARD WILSONIANISM"-- making the world safe for democracy, THIS TIME WITH THE WILL AND THE NERVE AND THE POWER TO MAKE IT STICK. Whatever else this may be, it is not conservatism, which holds these truths to be self-evident:

History does not begin anew with us. We cannot force people to be free. Evil is real and, therefore, best we take a modest, exceedingly modest, view of our ability to change human nature. And speaking of human nature, power corrupts. It corrupts those who wield it. And it corrupts those who seek to influence those who wield it. WHEN WOODROW WILSON SAILED FOR THE VERSAILLES PEACE CONFERENCE IN 1919, HE TOOK WITH HIM A TRAVELIING THINK TANK KNOWN AS "THE INQUIRY." He exhorted these young intellectuals, some of whom wrote for and most of whom read The New Republic: "TELL ME WHAT'S RIGHT AND I WILL FIGHT FOR IT!"

WE'RE STILL TRYING TO CLEAN UP THE MESS THOSE INTELLECTUALS MADE. And in some ways, from "The New Republic" then to "The Weekly Standard" now, not that much of a change.

Which brings us to the subject of influence. Muravchik is right. Some of President Bush's policies "resemble things advocated by neocons," but "Who knows how Bush decides?" (Does Bush always know?) And anyway, as Midge Decter wisely warned me, influence can never be claimed. It can only be bestowed by those who are influenced. What is bestowed can be taken away. Even the appearance of influence can lead to an unpleasant backlash.

And if you're Jewish, and high-visibility, and associated with controversial policies and perilous actions, if your name is Kristol (Irving or son Bill) or Podhoretz (Norman or son John) or Kagan or Perle or Wolfowitz or Frum, backlash can get ugly. Is this happening? It's hard to say. It's expected that the Arab press would run articles headlined, "PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF NEOCON." It's not surprising when neocons such as David Brooks complain in print about anti-Semitic e-mails and phone messages. It's business-as-usual when segments of the far right and the farther left find themselves accused of bigotry masquerading as anti-Zionism, or anti-neoconism. But it's something else entirely to hear, as I have, military officers speak openly and contemptuously of "the Likudniks in the E-Ring" (Likud being Ariel Sharon's party, the E-Ring the Pentagon corridor where the senior leadership hangs out).

And it's scary to realize that the United States has undertaken to remake the Islamic world in our own image and to our own satisfaction, by military conquest and occupation and the making of examples, in order to encourage the others. And harder still to know that the most prominent advocates of THIS NEW WILSONIAN IMPERIALISM are a small group of public intellectuals with no significant political or cultural base and scant knowledge of the nation beyond the Beltway or the world beyond their abstractions. And it would be tragic, were a movement that did some good once, to be remembered -- mostly for its part in marching the nation toward folly.

Philip Gold is president of Aretéa, a Seattle-based policy and cultural affairs center. He can be reached at aretean@ netscape.net.

ARE THE ISRAELIS WILLING TO START WORLD WAR III?
Exclusive to American Free Press
By M. Raphael Johnson
11-8-03

According to a recent article by veteran British military analyst Joseph Vialls, Russia has sent the most advanced and feared missile in the world, owned only by Russia and China, the P270 Moskit, also known as the 'Sunburn,' to Damascus and Tehran. This can only be understood as a counter to the Israeli threats to use nuclear weapons against their enemies. The Sunburn flies at an altitude of 60 feet and is nearly impossible to defend against. A few fired at Israel could make that state 'history.'

Add to this a new Russian air force installation near the Kyrgystan/Russia border, coupled with a Chinese base just over their western border with Kyrgystan, and Armageddon may be on the horizon. All Russian jets at this new base just outside of Bishkek are equipped with Sunburn missiles.

Vialls writes: The gloves are off, and with America and Israel still unable to steal any oil from Iraq because someone keeps blowing the pipelines, Russian and Chinese firepower buildup suddenly slammed the door firmly shut on Caspian oil reserves in the old Soviet republics. For more than a decade American oil multinationals have been conducting 'joint ventures' in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea, with the stated intent of pumping stolen crude oil out through Turkey, then on to western markets. Now this route has been blocked permanently, and America is in no position to do anything about it, because a large part of the U.S. conventional army is currently bogged down in Iraq, being shot at and killed on a daily basis.

For many who have been watching this region as a confrontation between the United States and Israel versus Russia largely over the control of the biggest gas and oil deposits in the world, a new front has been opened. As a response to this checkmate, Sharon recently visited Putin on Nov. 3 to meet with him concerning the nuclear issue in Iran. Quickly, Sharon permitted Palestinians to return to their jobs and eased their travel restrictions.

Since the end of the Gorbachev era, the Russian oligarchs, nearly all Jewish by ethnicity (with the noticeable exception of Vladimir Potanin), have controlled nearly all key sectors of the Russian economy. This, of course, includes Russia's major ace-in-the-hole, oil and gas. The giant YUKOS conglomerate is presently one of the largest oil companies in the world, valued at about $40 billion. YUKOS is the result of a 'loans for shares' deal brokered through the semi-coherent Boris Yeltsin in 1995. Here, the liberal Russian government swapped loyalty from the oligarchs in exchange for privatization at prices far below that of the market. This $40 billion giant was bought for about $300 million, thus looting the entire Russian economy for the benefit of a handful of Israeli citizens living in Russia.

When YUKOS' chair, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was arrested at the end of last month, the American capitalist establishment went orbital. Forgetting the 1999 New York Times's expose on massive money laundering and fraud from YUKOS, the conservative establishment began to lionize oligarchy and, specifically, Khodorkovsky. Recently, The Financial Times weighed in with a giggly piece from Chrystia Freeland, which referred to the oligarch as a 'democratic activist.' About a paragraph later, the writer said - without irony - that the oligarch's model for economics is the robber baron factories of the early American 20th century. Fox News, on Nov. 3, referred to YUKOS as the most progressive corporation in Russia.

According to a Nov. 3 Agence France-Presse story, Khodorkovsky made a deal with Jacob Rothschild this year that control of the YUKOS giant would pass to Rothschild in the event of Khodorkovsky's arrest. However, the Russian government has frozen all YUKOS assets for the time being. It is significant that YUKOS's liberal pressure group, the Open Russia Foundation, is completely controlled by Rothschild now that its founder is in jail. As their official mission statement reads, "The motivation for the establishment of the Open Russia Foundation is the wish to foster enhanced openness, understanding and integration between the people of Russia and the rest of the world."

Their board of trustees includes Rothschild and Henry Kissinger. The Washington, D.C. launch of the organization included Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Librarian of Congress James Billington, one of the leading voices against Russian traditionalism in the academic establishment. Significantly, the Open Russia Foundation recently provided Yale University with substantial grants to study the Russian economy as well as providing the Carnegie Foundation with 3 percent of its entire operating budget. It seems that the drive to control the globe's energy is progressing. The American empire's battles in Serbia, Central Asia, Iraq and Chechnya are one and the same war. Other than fighting Israel's enemies, these adventures are also wars to control Central Asian oil and natural gas (one of the main pipelines from the Caspian Sea went straight through Serbia). The control of this wealth by the United States and Israel necessitates bypassing Russian channels. This means that the Jewish oligarchy in Russia would become the central actor in world politics.
The Israeli/CIA complex was using Khodorkovsky to sell off the assets of YUKOS to Exxon/Mobil (as well as a smaller piece to Texaco), hence bringing Russia's pipelines into the hands of the western powers. The Nov. 5 New York Times also indicated that the Bush family's Carlyle Group was involved.

It was not long after Putin began threatening the YUKOS conglomerate that neo-conservative pundits such as William Kristol and Ariel Cohen began calling Putin a 'communist,' 'another Stalin' and 'tyrannical.' The basis of these wild accusations, of course, is the fact that Putin stands in the way of Zionist domination. From this, the roles of several other variables and players develop clearly. The State Department/Harvard University alliance was meant to 'deregulate,' or 'privatize' much of the Russian economy precisely to keep the Russian state out of the equation. Therefore, pro-Israel oligarchs (that is, Israeli citizens living in Russia) then benefited, placing most of the economy in their hands, and, by extension, Israel's.

Russia's response has been to clamp down on further foreign penetration into defense and other sensitive industries, and specifically, to target those believed to be working for both the CIA and Mossad and attempting to control Central Asian oil. It needs to be reiterated that where the (CIA goes, Mossad goes as well. Israeli and American interests have come together in the dominance of the Central Asian region and therefore, so have liberal ideology, the Beltway set, neo-conservatism, Ivy League eggheads, Christian Zionism, the Rothschilds and the American media.) Afghanistan through the Caspian Sea through to Georgia, Azerbaijan and into the Balkans (not to mention pipelines leading to oil-hungry China), have become one single theater of war over trillions of dollars in oil and gas wealth, incorporating every single power center in global politics. The battle against the New World Order is being decided in Moscow.

Therefore, all anti-Russian alliances in the region, from Islamic fundamentalism to Slavic separatism to the George Soros 'Open Society' Foundation, are in the interests of the CIA/Exxon/Ivy League/NWO complex. In Azerbaijan, for example, American elites have pushed for a 'democratic' state, that is, a state not under the control of pro-Moscow Heydar Aliev, thus leaving the country open to U.S. oil investment. Aliev, of course, is promoting Russian interests in the region, and thus, has become a ãtyrantä in the Beltway mind. The American response to this situation within this region is to create the GUAAM pact, including, Georgia, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Moldova.

Cohen gives us a clue as to why this entity was brokered under NATO auspices: "The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline will export up to 1 million barrels per year of high quality Caspian crude oil by 2005." In other words, billions of dollars of oil are slated to be pumped through this region very soon, and the economic/military alliance of GUAAM is the means to ensure American control over it. This connects the Serbian, Afghan and Iraqi wars. Russia's response to Israel's terror threats against most of the Islamic world is fully understood as both a political and economic question. Further, increasing cooperation between Russia and India, as well as China, are clear markers that Putin, one of the few actually competent leaders in world politics, is building an anti-imperialist and anti-NATO alliance with the aim of countering American/Zionist moves for the world's oil and gas wealth.

The interests, however, go even further than Zionist control over American foreign policy decision-making. Vialls writes on another topic: that the existence of the American/Zionist empire is based on the victory of American forces over the Russian and Islamic. Of course, both in Bosnia and Chechnya, the Mossad/CIA operatives have not hesitated to assist fundamentalists in fighting Slavic nationalism, largely because Slavicism is a greater threat with Putin firmly in the saddle. Islam, divided and leaderless, with a history of centuries of defeat and colonialism behind it, is only a potential force in world politics.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/11_07_03/
Countdown_to_Armageddon/countdown_to_armageddon.html

Is Bush Doomed?

by Paul Craig Roberts

January 17, 2004

Fear must be coursing through President Bush's veins as he realizes the Iraqi trap in which the neocons have placed him. Bush is caught between an Iraqi civil war and a wider insurgency. Desperate to extricate himself from the weekly carnage well before the November election, Bush can neither deliver on his promise of democracy via direct elections nor impose his plan for an Iraqi assembly elected indirectly by caucuses.

If Bush delivers on his democracy promise, the Shi'ites with 60% of the population will be elected, and the country will break out in civil war. If he tries to water down Shi'ite representation with his plan for an assembly elected indirectly by caucuses, the so far peaceful Shi'ites are likely to join the violence.

If the Shi'ites become violent, the insurgency would be too large to be contained by our present occupying force. Moreover, the outbreak of a general rebellion in Iraq would spill over throughout the Middle East where unpopular secular rulers are sitting on a smoldering Islam. Our puppet in Pakistan would likely bite the dust. Israel would then face countervailing Muslim nukes.

If you think more US troops are needed now in Iraq, imagine how many more would be required to deal with a wider conflagration. Where would they come from? The US military is already so thinly stretched that soon 40% of the occupying troops will be drawn from the National Guard and reservists, resulting in tremendous disruption in the affairs of tens of thousands of families. Pilots and troops are shunning the cash bonuses offered for reenlistments. The troops recognize a quagmire even if their neocon overlords cannot. The only source of troops is the draft.

A Shi'ite insurgency that brought back the draft would deprive Bush of reelection. A civil war with the prospect of a Kurdish state would bring in the Turks. On January 14 Turkish prime minister Erdogan said that Turkey will intervene in the event of Iraq's disintegration. The Shi'ites and the Turks are forming an alliance as both have the same interest in maintaining the geographical integrity of the Iraqi state. The US could come dangerously close to military conflict with a NATO ally. All of this was perfectly clear well in advance of the ill-considered invasion. If Bush wasn't smart enough to see it, why didn't his National Security Advisor or his Secretary of State? How did a handful of neocon ideologues hijack US foreign policy?

Bush did not campaign on a neocon policy of conquest in the Middle East. There was no public debate over this policy. The invasion of Iraq was the private agenda of the neocons. Why have the neocons not been held responsible for their treason in abusing their presidential appointments to substitute their personal agenda for America's agenda? Bush has been the neocon's puppet for so long that he is now stuck with responsibility for their horrible mistake. With no way of his own to get out of his trap, his arrogance toward the "irrelevant" UN and our doubting allies has disappeared. Come bail me out, he pleads.

Bush, desperate to be extricated before doom strikes him is experiencing a reality totally different from the chest-thumping of neocon megalomaniacs, such as Charles Krauthammer, who declared the US so powerful as to be able to "reshape, indeed remake, reality on its own." Bush now knows that he lacks the power to deal with the reality of Iraq. Indeed, Bush cannot even deal with his own appointees.

WEAPONS OF MISDIRECTION
By Tom Barry
Guerrilla News.com
3-9-04

Getting out of the political quicksand of Iraq, or at least burying the bloody occupation as an embarrassing daily news item, is mission number one for the Bush campaign. Extricating U.S. troops and political capital from the mess the Bush administration created in Iraq may be mission impossible. But the president's political and ideological handlers have proved adept at spinning the administration out of scandals and misadventures. Their operating principle, which they enshrined as official national security strategy, seems to be: the best defense is a good offense.

When you are down in the polls and the "bring em on machismo no longer seems to get the patriotic rise it first did, the Bush team doesn't retreat. It advances with more tough words backed by military muscle and missionary zeal. The Bush administration still has an itchy trigger finger, and is in search of another evildoer to confront.

Even before the U.S. occupation forces settled into Saddam Hussein's palaces in Baghdad, the neoconservatives who have set the direction of the Bush presidency's radical foreign and military policies were looking TOWARD SYRIA. Before the month is out, it's likely that President Bush will announce new sanctions against Syria--accusing the northern neighbor of Israel, Lebanon, and Iraq of many of the same offenses that were leveled against the Hussein regime in Iraq. The charge list includes developing biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, condemning the U.S. occupation of Iraq, supporting international terrorism, and succoring anti-U.S. and anti-Israel guerrilla forces.

Immediately before the Iraq invasion, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security traveled to Israel and promised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that "it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran, and North Korea afterwards. In April 2003 Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz warned: "There's got to be a change in Syria."

THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS

The road to Damascus, which is at the center of the Bush administration,s roadmap for restructuring the Middle East, doesn't run directly from Baghdad. Its starting points are in Washington, Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, and Beirut--charted by the neoconservative think-tanks, the Christian Right, and the right-wing Zionists who move easily back and forth between Capitol Hill and the Middle East.

THE NEONCONSERVATIVES HARBOR A DEEP SENSE OF HISTORY--ONE THAT IS SHAPED, THEY SAY, BY THE FORCES OF GOOD AND EVIL and the righteous and the appeasers. For the neocons, history also teaches the virtues of certain political strategies, such as the necessity of establishing bipartisan front groups and establishing the legislative foundation for their agendas.

One of the key figures who has set Washington on the road to Damascus is Ziad K. Abdelnour, an expatriate INVESTMENT BANKER from Lebanon who, together with neocon supporters of Israel's Likud Party and the Christian Right, established the U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) in 1997. The USCFL describes itself as the "cyber-center for Pro-Lebanon Activism. USCFL was one of the leading proponents of the "Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which calls for a series of sanctions against Syria and which President Bush signed on December 12, 3003.

Like Ahmad Chalabi, chief of the London-based and U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress (INC), the USCFL,s Abdelnour is an expatriate investment banker. He has lobbied the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress for a U.S. foreign policy that mirrors the hard-line position of Israel's Likud Party. Working closely with neocon supporters on Capitol Hill in the late 1990s, Chalabi helped persuade Congress to pass the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which provided support for the Iraqi National Congress and other anti-Saddam Hussein forces. The Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 set the bipartisan foundation for a military-induced regime change in Iraq. In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, necon polemicists such as Richard Perle, William Kristol, and Bruce Jackson created the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI) to consolidate bipartisan support for the preventive war.

The neoconservatives, strongly backed the right-wing Zionist lobby through such groups as the Orthodox Union and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, have followed a similar strategy to advance their agenda for political transformation in Syria and Lebanon. In much the same way that they moved forward their agenda for regime change in Iraq step by step, the neocon advocates for a radical transformation in the Middle East have in the case of Syria and Lebanon also formed a "front group--USCFL--and supported bipartisan legislation that establish the political base for sanctions against Iraq--and eventual U.S. military action. USCFL's page of "selected links recommends just three lobbying organizations: Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Christian Coalition of America. (4) USCFL, a self-described "non-profit, non-sectarian think tank, states that it aims to rid the Middle East of "dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons of mass destruction and to do so while abiding with the tenets of the Charter of the United Nations.

(5) (6) USCFL's core supporters,WHICH IT CALLS ITS "GOLDEN CIRCLE," include several members of the Bush administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paula Dobriansky, Michael Rubin, and David Wurmser. Other prominent neocons in the Golden Circle include Daniel Pipes (Middle East Forum and U.S. Institute for Peace), Frank Gaffney (Center for Security Policy), Jeane Kirkpatrick (AEI) , Michael Ledeen (AEI), David Steinmann (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), and Eleana Benador (Middle East Forum). Also included in this circle of those who have donated $1,000 or more to USCFL is Rep. Eliot Engel (R-NY), the congressional representative who was the main sponsor of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003.

The USCFL lists Amin Gemayel, who as Lebanon's president in 1983 signed an aborted peace treaty with Israel, as a leading supporter. Although there are a few Muslims in USCFL's Golden Circle, most of the Lebanese-Americans associated with USCFL are Christian, including Abdelnour. In its selected links, USCFL includes THE GUARDIANS OF THE CEDARS, a fascistic Christian Right Lebanese organization that has a military wing. The large majority of USCFL supporters, however, are Jewish-Americans.

USCFL may be "non-sectarian, but its list of core supporters and the "pro-Lebanon groups listed on its website signal its neoconservative and pro-Likud sympathies. Among the organizations interlocked with USCFL's Golden Circle include Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Project for the New American Century (PNAC), Center for Security Policy (CSP), Middle East Forum, Hudson Institute, and Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).

In 1999 Abdelnour founded the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), which is the USCFL,s monthly online publication. Michael Rubin is on the editorial board and Gary C. Gambill, an associate with the Middle East Forum and Freedom House, is the editor. In 2002, Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum (MEF) became a co-publisher of MEIB. The MEIB concentrates on "internal political developments in the Middle East, especially those that are thinly covered in other English-language publications. (In 2000 Pipes coauthored a jingoistic report with Abdelnour that advocated the use of U.S. military action to force Syria out of Lebanon and to disarm Syria of its alleged weapons of mass destruction. Virtually all 31 signatories of this MEF report, which was used to persuade Congress to introduce and pass the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act in 2003, are USCFL members, and several became high officials or advisers in the Bush foreign policy team, including AbramsPerle, Feith, Dobrianksy, and Wurmser.

The 2000 report by Pipes and Abdelnour concluded that that "Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct opposition to American ideals." It strongly criticized Washington's policy of engaging Syria rather than confronting it. The Lebanon Study Group of the Middle East Forum advocated harsh economic and diplomatic sanctions. "The Vietnam legacy and the sour memories of dead American Marines in Beirut notwithstanding," the group observed, "the United States has entered a new era of undisputed military supremacy coupled with an appreciable drop in human losses on the battlefield." Finally, said the report, "If there is to be decisive action, it will have to be sooner rather than later."

The Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003, which received overwhelming support in both the House and the Senate, is a public law that aims: "To halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon, stop its development of weapons of mass destruction, cease its illegal importation of Iraqi oil and illegal shipments of weapons and other military items to Iraq, and by so doing hold Syria accountable for the serious international security problems it has caused in the Middle East, and for other purposes. It is designed to punish Damascus for its alleged links to terrorist groups and its alleged efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. It bans all transfers of "dual-use technology to Syria. In addition, the act recommends an arsenal of sanctions against Syria, including: reducing diplomatic contacts with Syria, banning U.S. exports (except food and medicine) to Syria, prohibiting U.S. businesses from investing or operating in Syria, restricting the travel of Syrian diplomats in the United States, banning Syrian aircraft from operating in the United States, and freezing Syrian assets in the United States. Although the bill obligates the executive branch to enact at least two of the recommended sanctions, it does permit the president to waive the sanctions if it is determined that they would harm U.S. national security.

USCFL commended Rep. Engel for his leadership in moving the bill through the House, and also expressed its special appreciation for the strong support provided by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) "for pioneering it in the Senate. (1) The appointment of David Wurmser, a long-time advocate of U.S. military action against Syria, to the staff of Vice President Cheney in September 2003, followed by the president,s signing of the Syria Accountability act in December were widely regarded as another signal that the U.S. regional restructuring crusade might soon be embarking on the road to Damascus. If the president imposes sanctions against Syria rather than attempting to engage it through diplomatic channels, it,s likely that the Syrian regime will be painted with the same fear-mongering brush used to justify the invasion of Iraq. With Osama bin Laden still on the lam and bedlam in occupied Iraq, the Bush administration needs to refocus public attention on another evildoer--which, not so coincidently, is also the next preferred target of the Likudniks in Israel.
Tom Barry is Policy Director of the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC).

Notes:
(1) "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, Right Web Profiles, January 2004.
(2) United States Committee for a Free Lebanon: Home Page
(3) Daniel Pipes and Ziad Abdelnour, Ending Syria,s Occupation of Lebanon: The U.S. Role? Middle East Forum, 2000
(4) Jim Lobe, "Calls to Attack Syria Come from a Familiar Choir of Hawks, Foreign Policy in Focus, April 16, 2003
(5) "Syria Accountability and Lebanese Restoration Act
(6) Ian Williams, "Road to Damascus, Foreign Policy In Focus, November 24, 2003

Published by the Right Web Program at the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC). ©2004. All rights reserved. Republished with permission. To discuss this Article and other issues please visit the Guerrilla News Forum http://www.guerrillanews.com/war_on_terrorism/doc4063.html

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The Vulcans

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