Investigate the Neocons
Posted by Patrick Foy
on August 23, 2007
It is a good thing to be out of the loop; that's what a vacation is for.
Recently I attended an invitational croquet tournament in the New York
area.
Between playing and running off to various social activities, there was no
time left to think about the problems of the wider world. It helped that I
did not have a television in my room. In fact, the wider world, as well as
all issues related to health and personal finances, receded to virtual
invisibility. Is that why so many business and retired people play golf?
For
me, there is croquet and tennis. Somehow, though, between the matches and
the cocktail and dinner parties, I stumbled across a copy of the Financial
Times of London, the edition from Monday, July 23rd. There was an
important
guest editorial on page 7, which item does not seem to have shown up on
the
radar screens of the paleoconservative, anti-war and right-wing crowd with
whom I run, when off the croquet and tennis courts.
The article is entitled "America must pull out of Iraq to contain civil
war"
and was authored by Samuel Berger and Bruce Riedel. You no doubt recall
Sandy "sticky fingers" Berger, Bill Clinton's national security adviser
from
1997-2000. There must have been something very disturbing indeed in the
Clinton-era national security files at the National Archives, because in
2003 Berger decided to abscond and destroy certain, still unknown
documents
relating to terrorism, and he almost went to prison because of it.
Otherwise, Sandy Berger seems like a nice enough chap, except for his
professional association with Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross in the seven
year
fraud known as the Oslo "peace process" which culminated in the blowup at
Camp David in the summer of 2000, at the tail end of Bubba's reign.
It was at Camp David in July of 2000 that Tel Aviv and Washington found
out
that Yasser Arafat was not prepared to go down in history as a Quisling
who
enabled the perpetual military occupation of Palestine. Accordingly,
Arafat
was smeared and forthwith relegated to the outer void by Tel Aviv,
Washington and the EU, while a search for the next prospective Quisling
began. In the meantime, Ariel Sharon, G.W.'s new best friend, went to work
hammer and tongs in the occupied territories, as he had done years before
during the invasion Lebanon, where he is remembered as "The butcher of
Beirut". And then, the following summer of 2001, Uncle Sam got hit with
9/11, which terrorist atrocity was a direct, gigantic blowback from
botched
and blighted American foreign policies directed at the Middle East over
several decades. Is a pattern emerging here?
The near-treasonous shenanigans, proactive malfeasance and gross
nonfeasance
in Washington relating to the tragedy of Palestine by top level Washington
politicians and their "expert advisors" remains ongoing and unassailable.
It
is a national scandal, studiously ignored by the establishment press and
by
most everybody else. The so-called experts, in case you haven't noticed,
are
invariably little more than Likud fellow travelers and agents of AIPAC. In
this respect, it has been a revolving door at the White House, under both
Clinton and Bush, and every office holder on Capitol Hill as well as every
Washington reporter knows it. Why on God's good earth would Zionist
zealots
like Elliott Abrams and David Wurmser be placed in charge of U.S. policy
vis-a-vis Israel and the Arabs? It is insane. Inquiring minds would like
to
know the reason why. Could it have something to do with raw domestic
politics, campaign contributions, special interest groups and Washington
lobbies? What do you think?
As for Bruce Riedel, the co-author of the FT article, he is described as a
nonresident "senior fellow" at The Saban Center for Middle East Studies,
Brookings Institute. Riedel is a long-time CIA veteran who worked for
Clinton and then briefly in the Cheney Regency at the NSC from 2001-2002.
Surprisingly, he does not appear to be just another run-of-the-mill
Likudnik
on the Washington merry-go-round. I say surprisingly, because of his
association with The Saban Center, which outfit is such an obvious front
organization for the Israel Lobby.
The Center is bankrolled by the international media kingpin Chaim "I'm a
one-issue guy and my issue is Israel" Saban, a deep-pockets contributor to
Democrats and a bosom buddy of Bubba and Hillary and Howard Dean. Not too
long ago, Saban, who is headquartered in Los Angeles , took over the
largest
television news outlet in Germany, SAT.l Media. Welcome to the
benefactions
of globalism and thought control. The director of research at The Saban
Center is Kenneth Pollack, a prime propagandist for the invasion of Iraq,
best known for his slick, insipid and fatuous book, The Threatening Storm:
The Case for Invading Iraq, fulsomely praised in 2002. The subject matter
was Saddam Hussein and his cache of WMDs, supposedly threatening "America
and its interests". You see to what dead end such idiocy and hubris have
brought us. The aforementioned Indyk-suprise, surprise-is the Director of
The Saban Center.
Back to the FT article at hand, which I suspect was written by Riedel, who
truly is an expert, not a Zionist apparatchik. I found myself agreeing
with
most of his outlook and ideas, but wondering why the points made in the
article had not occurred to him earlier-say, before the invasion. Maybe
they
did, but were then tossed into the waste paper basket due to the stress
and
exigencies of the moment-meaning the heady, irrational atmosphere created
by
the frantic rush to war, led by those "useful idiots", Dick Cheney and
G.W.
Item: "None of Iraq's neighbors were eager for the invasion four years
ago.... All of them saw the US and UK occupation as inherently
destabilising...." Understood and agreed, Mr. Riedel. So why invade in the
first place?
Item: "Iraq is already a safe haven for al-Qaeda terrorists who have
attacked Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon...." Correct, the point being
that
it was not a safe haven before. So why did Washington invade, thereby
creating such a terrorist haven for attacks upon Jordan, Saudi Arabia and
Lebanon? Is that in America's best interests?
Item: "...it is imperative that the US make clear...we plan no permanent
military presence in Iraq, no bases and no special relationship. We want a
fully independent Iraq, not a client state." Do we? Are you joking, Mr.
Riedel? To what end is Cheney building the largest U.S. embassy in the
world
in the Green Zone? May I ask the simple question for the last time, why
was
it imperative to invade the country? Iraq under Saddam Hussein was fully
independent and not a client state of the US. Why create the inferno which
exists today? Would it not have been far wiser, more prudent and less
expensive simply to lift non-military sanctions on Iraq after 9/11, but
keep
an embargo on military supplies?
At all times please bear in mind that in 2002 there were no WMDs left in
Iraq, none whatsoever, and Saddam Hussein had no connection whatsoever
with
9/11. Iraq was no threat to anybody. The UN inspectors had arrived
essentially at that conclusion. It was only George Tenet's CIA-with lots
of
help from Douglas Feith's Lie Factory at the Pentagon and from
Mossad-which
manufactured unsubstantiated stories to the contrary. The FT article,
alas,
does not address such outstanding issues, which are related to
malfeasance,
influence peddling, and espionage.
That is why we urgently need an American Inspector Maigret to investigate
who was behind the decision to invade Iraq. The invasion was entirely
unnecessary, wanton and ruinous. On its face, it remains inexplicable.
America and the world have a right to know who was responsible for it, and
those responsible should be held accountable for their actions, if need be
with jail sentences. No cover-up and no pardons, please.
The whole subject deserves to be thoroughly investigated, starting of
course
with AIPAC and with the so-called "neocons", the intellectual outriders
for
AIPAC, whom Taki has referred to as "Fifth Column fanatics"; and then with
the front organizations like The Saban Center and The American Enterprise
Institute; next in line would be the Middle East, private-agenda "experts"
like the aforementioned Indyk, Ross, Pollack, Abrams, Feith and Wurmser,
among others. The American Maigret would have to be appointed by the
Senate
and the Congress, with full powers to follow the investigation wherever it
might lead. Can you imagine Maigret sitting down for a talk with Paul
Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Dick Cheney, "Scooter" Libby, Henry Kissinger,
Karl Rove, not to mention G.W.?
There is a long list of such dubious characters to be interviewed. There
is
a need to assess their conflicting motives and their level of
participation.
If it can be done, only an inscrutable, nonpartisan, nonplussable genius
like Maigret would be capable of unearthing what actually happened. The
problem is, at the end of the day could the politicians in Washington take
it? Could they handle the truth? Could the country at large? The answer
is,
probably not. Accordingly, the chances of an honest investigation into the
enterprise of Iraq are, realistically speaking, next to zero. The
powers-that-be would like us to think that this mad misadventure somehow
happened by accident.
Politics and campaign contributions rule. Washington cannot be expected to
investigate itself. The perpetrators have gotten away with it, and are
"moving on" to other ventures and venues. After all, their mission has
been
accomplished. It is Uncle Sam who is paying the price in blood, treasure
and
credibility. It is Uncle Sam who has been taken to the cleaners. The bill
grows momently more colossal. Is there no accountability?
Patrick Foy is author of The Unauthorized World Situation Report.
http://www.takimag.com/site/article/investigate_the_neocons/
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