Iowa Votes for War

By Michael Hoffman

Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum together received 60,000 votes in the January 3 Iowa caucus compared with Ron Paul’s 26,000. Relentless media vilification of Rep. Paul did its job. Jennifer Rubin writing in the Washington Post:

"Several thousand votes behind the leaders was Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who seemed to lose momentum in the final week of the campaign....Maybe the coverage of his conspiratorial newsletters and loony foreign policy views dampened enthusiasm....Most relieved by Paul's somewhat disappointing finish is the Iowa Republican Party, which dreaded the vilification that would have accompanied a Paul victory, perhaps even threatening the state's hold on the first contest in the presidential primary process. The isolationist segment on the party took it on the chin. With the two front-runners both forceful advocates for a strong national defense, talk of the Republican Party dabbling with isolationism should be muted."

Romney and Santorum seek war with Iran according to Israeli policy dictates. Santorum, like Michelle Bachmann, is a self-proclaimed conservative Christian, who, in reality, is a creature of the rabbis of Orthodox Judaism. As Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senator he regularly pilgrimaged to New York to sit at the feet of the most odious Talmudists and receive their instruction in political chicanery and the need for America to go to war with the perceived Middle Eastern enemies of the Synagogue.

Rep. Ron Paul is the only peace candidate in the presidential contest. I wish there was someone else. Paul’s advocacy of “Austrian School” usury is a grave flaw. But there is no one else. He is the only candidate who sincerely advocates peace, something which the American people overwhelmingly supported from 1918 to 1941; throughout the presidency of Dwight David Eisenhower in the 1950s, and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War in the 70s and 80s, but no more. Having learned little from the killing and maiming of thousands of US troops and a trillion dollars in taxpayer money squandered on the messianic neocon mission of intervening in a thousand-year-old civil war between rival Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, Americans are still convinced (by the media) that the “Islamic threat” is best countered by a “strong national defense” consisting in maintaining our military meddling in Islamic affairs in faraway Afghanistan, Iran and Arabia; anything contrary to this policy is stigmatized as “isolationism.”

The horrible consequences of a U.S. war with Iran are almost never summoned by the media as a pressing issue for the presidential candidates. War with Iran will make the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan look like Teddy Bear’s picnic. An invasion of Iran will seriously damage America’s economy for decades, increase our thralldom to Red China and launch us into the permanent war footing which former Vice President Dick Cheney called for when he declared that the “war on terrorism” should proceed for generations. Imagine cursing our children and grandchildren with such a butcher’s bill!

This is the curse that is beginning to take shape as Ron Paul is rejected in favor of a consummate politician like Mitt Romney and a fanatical crypto-rabbi such as Rick Santorum. 

The quality of life in America will continue to decline as our “Homeland Security” police state and war economy sucks resources from education, medical care, Social Security and mass transit.

The people of Iowa and New Hampshire, along with Americans in general, have no clear idea what Talmudic Judaism is, what counterfeit “Israel” represents and how the Talmudic mentality deftly plays Right and Left for the self-destructive ends of an ideology predicated first and foremost on hatred of Jesus Christ and all gentiles. Romney and Santorum are the means for weaponizing that ideology on the international stage, as did George W. Bush to such devastating effect. We can’t afford these men, but perhaps we deserve them.

Michael Hoffman is the author of Judaism’s Strange Gods, published in November by Independent History and Research.

***

Read More

Bachmann, Beck and Palin increase their support for Israeli aggression

It took Republican congresswoman and Tea Party icon Michele Bachmann less than 24 hours after President Obama's Middle East address to launch an attack on him. On May 19, 150,000 residents in Iowa and South Carolina received robo-calls from Bachmann, accusing Obama of not standing up for Israel...

Within the Tea Party, Bachmann is at the forefront of those making Israel a key part of her agenda. In her speech at the high-profile Faith & Freedom Conference held in Washington in early June, Bachmann termed Obama's call for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict based on Israel's 1967 boundaries and mutually agreed land swaps "shocking." She followed up by buying ads on Jewish websites reiterating this message.

Bachmann is not alone. Attacks on Obama's Israel policy have come from former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, known as the Tea Party's biggest draw.

Pundit Glenn Beck, a vocal critic of the Obama presidency, has been devoting much of his airtime lately to the issue of Israel. He recently announced plans to hold a "Restoring Courage" rally August 20 in Jerusalem. At this gathering, modeled on his rally last summer that called for patriotic unity in Washington, Beck intends to call for Americans to "courageously stand with Israel."

These voices currently appear to be dominating discourse on Israel within the Tea Party, overshadowing the more isolationist views of such Israel critics as Rand Paul and his father, Ron Paul, a declared 2012 presidential candidate....

Source: Nathan Guttman, Forward newspaper (New York) June 14, 2011

***

Read More

$1 trillion in war debt not an issue in election campaign

You Want War? Then Pay for It!

(also see: “Low IQ Americans” by Michael Hoffman -- immediately following Margolis’ column)

by Eric Margolis

Oct. 29, 2010--I don’t ever recall seeing such an ugly, dim-witted, childish American election as this coming week’s mid-term vote.

A national frenzy has seized America. Fierce debate and name-calling has raged about job losses, the nation’s growing $12 trillion debt, mandatory health care, socialism – and even witchcraft. Sarah Palin, the patron saint of low IQ Americans, has hovered over this sordid contest like an evil Halloween wraith.

If we believe polls, the Democrats look like toast. President Barack Obama may be ready to join the ranks of the unemployed.

What did Democrats think would happen when they eagerly took over the monumental financial and military mess created by George W. Bush and the Republicans? No wonder Republicans are gleefully rubbing their hands. But now they may be next to get stuck with Bush’s Tar Baby.

Amidst all the low-brow invective, Tom Brokaw, the respected former national news host for NBC News, recently wrote a fine opinion column, “The Wars That America Forgot About.”

He (Brokaw) quite rightly asked why the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been ignored during the election race. After nine years of combat, 5,000 US dead and 35,000 seriously wounded soldiers, and expenditure of over $1 trillion – silence.

These longest and second most expensive wars in US history have dropped off the radar. Not even the latest WikiLeaks shocker, which revealed the US condoning death squads, torture and mass human rights violations in Iraq, became a campaign issue.

No one raised the scandalous fact that US-run Afghanistan and Washington’s political satraps there produce and export 94% of the world’s heroin. Russian drug authorities just claimed that Afghan heroin kills 10,000 Russians annually.

The Iraq and Afghan wars are ignored, Brokaw rightly says, because Americans are totally focused on high unemployment and economic insecurity. America’s wars have become irrelevant.

The US professional military represents less than 1% of the population, mostly working-class people from small towns in America’s rural, poorly-educated heartland. It’s not like Vietnam War days, when millions of Americans were drafted to serve in the war, creating huge public protests that eventually ended the war. The US has adopted Imperial Britain’s model of small, all-volunteer armies fighting in remote colonial wars to supposedly bring the light of Christianity and justice to benighted natives.

However, it now costs $1 million per annum to keep each of the 120,000 US troops in Afghanistan. The US has also deployed over 40,000 armed mercenaries in that nation.

Americans have become psychologically detached from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, even as the specter of stalemate or even defeat in both conflicts looms. Brokaw calls on Americans to re-engage and give their wars and politicians the public attention they urgently need. Waging stealth wars is undemocratic and unwise.

During World War II, America’s “Home Front” was engaged in the conflict by war taxes, rationing, buying war bonds, collecting clothing and metal, and accepting shortages of consumer products.

By contrast, President George W. Bush actually cut income taxes in wartime, the only time in US history this has happened. In an act of profound financial deception, instead of funding the Afghan and Iraq Wars through higher taxes, the Bush White House and subservient Congress financed the wars by “Emergency Supplement Requests,” which were supposed to be only used short-term for natural disasters and the like. Bush’s view appears to have been, “après moi, le deluge.” He raised the national debt to vertiginous levels, vastly expanded the size of government, increased military spending by 50%, on top of cutting taxes.

The first wave of the deluge came in 2007-2008, as a financial cataclysm hit America. More is on the way as the US stumbles from one financial crisis to another - the latest being bankrupt states and pension funds.

The real $1 trillion plus costs of the wars were quietly added to the $12 trillion national debt, America’s credit card. Funds to finance these huge war loans was borrowed from China and Japan, putting America ever deeper in thrall to the Asian powers, and undermining its finances. The Obama administration and Democratic-controlled Congress continued Bush’s dishonest method of war finance, hiding costs from the public.

America’s wars should be fully funded through direct taxes. History shows great powers cannot long go on waging imperial wars on credit. Look at Spain, Holland, France, Britain, and the Soviet Union. Which empire do we think will be next?

A special war tax ought to be levied on all Americans to fully cover the mounting costs of Afghanistan and Iraq. We must pay for our wars and world hegemony.

It will be interesting to see how all the flag-waving Republican “patriots” will react when asked to pay for the wars they so passionately support from the safety of their sofas, and at no apparent cost. Make Americans actually pay for Afghanistan and Iraq and these wars would be ended in short order.

But if Republicans likely retake Congress, it is most unlikely a war tax – or any major new taxes –will be implemented. Republicans have gone from being the party of balanced budgets and pay as you go to a northern version of Argentina’s wild spending Peronista Party. Right-wing Republicans will press for more war, in more places – financed, of course, by the magic of credit. Few stop to think that this manic borrowing it wrecking America.

(Emphasis supplied)

Low IQ Americans and Our Republican Future

by Michael Hoffman

The war tax is with us, but it is hidden. It appears in the form of under-funded schools and colleges, much less money for infrastructure, roads, bridges, hospitals, parks, rail and mass transit; attacks on Social Security and Medicare. Bush’s wars have drained the quality of life out of America and led to the near-collapse of the usurious banking system.

The low-IQ crowd will back Republicans stripping the American people of quality schools, high speed rail and health care while they increase spending on wars to make the world safe for Israeli terror and dispossession.

It’s expensive to take on 800 million people; supposedly we sort out the good Muslims (neutral on Israeli genocide) from the evil fanatics (“holocaust-denying” devils). The equation still leaves several hundred million “bad” people we supposedly have to fight. Low-IQers can’t seem to fathom that such a fight will continue to be exorbitantly costly and make a mockery of all talk of fiscal responsibility from Republicans, who will skin poor and working class Americans to serve their racist, Talmudic Israeli masters.

Here in Coeur d’Alene almost the entire state government of Idaho met this past weekend under the auspices of the US Chamber of Commerce —Communist China’s agent in bankrupting working class America while making super-rich traitors even wealthier. The meeting was a self-congratulatory "states rights” and “patriot” extravaganza on the part of the “conservative Republicans” who rule Idaho.

You have to have a very low IQ indeed to imagine that the Republican party of War Zionism and mass export of US jobs to Asia is going to “balance the budget” or bring us peace and prosperity.

***

Read More

Norman Finkelstein: Israel is a Satanic state

American Jewish Professor Norman Finkelstein has heavily criticized Israel over its operation in Gaza. A son of Holocaust survivors, Finkelstein has been barred from Israel for 10 years and was denied tenure at DePaul University in Chicago because of his critical stance on Israeli policies.

According to Finkelstein, Israel, a state built on the ashes of the Holocaust, is now committing a holocaust against Palestinians in Gaza. In a telephone interview with "Today's Zaman," Finkelstein said Israel was a "terrorist state" created by the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in 1948. Praising Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Turkish people for their courage in supporting Palestinians, Finkelstein referred to Israel as a  "satanic" and "lunatic" state. Finkelstein's parents survived the Nazi camps in World War II and then immigrated to the US.

After his book “The Holocaust Industry,” in which he accused many prominent Jewish leaders of abusing the victims of the Holocaust, was published, Finkelstein was almost declared persona non grata by America’s influential Zionist circles.

What does Israel want to achieve with this operation?

Basically, Israel wants to achieve two goals: to restore what it calls its deterrence capacity -- that means to spread fear among Arab states about itself. This is a core principle of Israeli strategic doctrine. Arab states have to be afraid of Israel, afraid of its military might, and Arabs should do what Israelis want. They shall follow Israeli orders.

Israel’s military deterrence suffered a setback in May 2000, when Hezbullah succeeded to expel Israeli occupying forces from south Lebanon. Almost immediately in the aftermath of the failure, Israel planned another war with Hezbullah to re-establish its deterrence capacity. In 2006, after long preparation and using its air force, Israel suffered another ignominious defeat in Lebanon against Hezbullah.

The second goal was to defeat the Palestinian peace offensive. This has been another basic principle of Israeli doctrine: You do not negotiate with Arabs. You give them orders. The Palestinian organization Hamas was becoming too moderate; it was transmitting, giving the signal that it was ready to go along with the two-state settlement based on pre-1967 borders. The leadership of Syria and the West Bank have also been making statements like this. So Israel started to get worried that it would be obliged to negotiate a settlement which the international community has been supporting for the last 30 years.

Those who are against this settlement are the US or Israel, backed by the US. So when Hamas was becoming moderate and holding to the cease-fire it agreed in June 2008, it was showing herself to be a credible negotiating partner. Hamas was standing by its word. In the meantime, Israel has neglected another core principle of cease-fire, namely easing the blockade. So Israel had to defeat this Palestinian peace offensive. It always does this. It provokes Palestinians into reacting, and it wants to either destroy Hamas or inflicts so much damage that Hamas will have to say it will never negotiate with Israel. That is exactly what Israel wants. Israel never wants a moderate negotiating partner because if there is one, pressure on Israel will grow. Hamas is willing for a settlement; Hamas stands by its word. But Israel does not want to negotiate.

What you are basically saying is that Israel is not interested in peace at all.

Israel wants peace in its terms, and its terms are that West Bank should belong to their state.

Will the operation be successful?

First of all, we have to use proper language. There is no operation, and there is no war. What is happening is a slaughter, a massacre. When you have 200 to 300 kids killed, that is not a war. When you have a strong military going in against a defenseless population, that is not a war. When you shoot a fish in a barrel, we do not call it a war. As an Israeli columnist put it, it does not need too much courage to send jets and helicopter gunships to shoot inside a prison. What just happened was not a war. One-third of the casualties were children. It was not a war; it was a just a massacre.

In terms of the Israelis’ goals, you have to say it was successful. It inspired fear among Palestinians and Arabs generally that Israel is a lunatic state and that you have to follow its orders. No. 2, it destroys Hamas as a negotiating partner. You now hear from Hamas that it will not negotiate peace. That is what Israel wanted.

On your Web site, there is an argument that the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by the Nazis. Do you agree with that?

I think Israel, as a number of commentators pointed out, is becoming an insane state. And we have to be honest about that. While the rest of the world wants peace, Europe wants peace, the US wants peace, but this state wants war, war and war. In the first week of the massacres, there were reports in the Israeli press that Israel did not want to put all its ground forces in Gaza because it was preparing attacks on Iran. Then there were reports it was planning attacks on Lebanon. It is a lunatic state.

But do you agree with the characterization?

Look at the pictures and decide for yourself. I am not going to tell people what they should think about it. But what I say is they should look at the pictures and decide for themselves. (For the pictures go to: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2510)

Why have you been barred from entering Israel for 10 years? As the son of Holocaust survivors, you cannot enter Israel.

Let’s be clear on a certain point. I was not entering Israel; I have no interest in going to Israel. I was going to see my friends in the occupied Palestinian territories. And Israel blocked me to go and see my friends in the West Bank. Under international law, I do not think they have any right to do that. I was not posing any security threat to Israel. The day after I was denied entry to Israel, the editorial of "Haaretz" was asking, “Who is afraid of Norman Finkelstein?” They were also saying that I was not a security threat. I do not have any particular interest to go and visit that lunatic state.

There are Jewish intellectuals who now call Israel a “terrorist state.” Is that a correct description?

I am not sure how you cannot agree with that. The goal of the operation was to terrorize the civilian population so that Palestinians would be afraid of Israel. This is the dictionary definition of terrorism. The dictionary definition of terrorism is targeting a civilian population to achieve a political goal. The goal of this operation or rather massacre was to terrorize the civilian population and to wreck and destroy as much civilian infrastructure such that the Palestinians would submit. When you attack schools, mosques, ambulances, hospitals, UN relief organizations, what is that? If this is not terrorism, then what is terrorism?

In your famous book, The Holocaust Industry, you argue that the state of Israel, one of the world’s most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, cast itself as a victim state in order to garner immunity to criticism. Have we seen this during the Gaza operation?

They tried to use the Holocaust; it was funny in a very sick way. The leader of the American Jewish Committee, David Harris, wrote an article, and he said it is no coincidence that this war in Gaza is occurring around Jan. 27, which is Holocaust Remembrance Day. He wants to pretend some connection. In fact there is a connection, and the connection is Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza. But that is not the connection he had in mind. He wanted to play the Holocaust card; I think that it is not working very much anymore. It was clear that during this last massacre in Gaza, liberal Jewish public opinion turned against Israel. If you look at the petitions, demonstrations, letters, support to Israel, not only in the international community but also among the Jewish community, is diminishing. So the Holocaust card, the anti-Semitic card, is not working as efficiently as it was working once.

You will probably be called anti-Semitic as well.

I do not think this propaganda is successful anymore.

In your book Beyond Chutzpah, you argue that Israel was created after the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, but the question whether it was premeditated remains to be answered. If it is premeditated, then can it be called genocide?

Well, it was premeditated, and I think the record is pretty clear. Even Israel’s former minister of foreign affairs, Shlomo Ben-Ami, in his book published several years ago called “Scars of War,” said that it was quite clear that it was a premeditated expulsion in 1948 and it was anchored in the Zionist philosophy of transfer. Ethnic cleansings are ethnic cleansings, and they are war crimes.

Why do you think US media is so one-sided and so pro-Israeli?

I think it has two components. First of all, Israel serves American interests in the region and American media always give a free pass to those states that serve American interests. That is the overall picture and not much different from other parts of the world. The horrendous governments like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, they also get free passes in the American media. This is the larger context.

And there is, of course, the secondary factor, which is the ethnic element. In many of these newspapers and the media in general, there is a large Jewish presence, and there is a sense of Jewish ethnic solidarity, which plays a role. But I think we have to qualify the secondary factor in two ways. We should not lose sight of the primary factor, which is Israel is the client state of US.

No. 2: In this past war, the liberal Jewish population mostly under the age of 40 completely defected from the war, the massacre. They have been opposed to the massacres from the first day.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been very critical of Israel on Gaza, and some American circles lambasted him in return. What do you think about his stance?

I wish he had gone further. I wish he had gone as far as Qatar, Mauritania, Bolivia and Venezuela in breaking diplomatic relations with that lunatic state. But as far as he has gone, the point on which he stands, has been terrific. And I was glad to see Hamas respected the gestures of the Turkish government and said they would be willing to have Turkish troops stationed on “our border.” That is a very high praise for the Turkish government.

Turks are showing Palestinians compassion, decency and justice. All the Turkish people should take pride in this stance, as was the case on the eve of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. It was the Turkish people and government who showed courage. Ninety-six percent of the Turkish people opposed the war in Iraq. The Turkish government refused to give Americans use of their land to attack Iraq. Now Turkish people and the Turkish government are redeeming themselves again by standing on what is right, what is decent and what is just. I say the highest praise for Erdogan and the Turkish people.

How do you feel about Israel’s operation in Gaza personally as the son of Holocaust survivors?

It has been a long time since I felt any emotional connection with the state of Israel, which relentlessly and brutally and inhumanly keeps these vicious, murderous wars. It is a vandal state. There is a Russian writer who once described vandal states as Genghis Khan with a telegraph. Israel is Genghis Khan with a computer. I feel no emotion of affinity with that state. I have some good friends and their families there, and of course I would not want any of them to be hurt. That said, sometimes I feel that Israel has come out of the boils of the hell, a satanic state. Ninety percent of the population continues to cheer, to exalt and feel proud and heroic. They send a Sherman tank to a playground and torch children. Is this heroism? Is this courage?

You were not allowed to teach at DePaul University despite a very good academic record and also had some problems in getting your Ph.D. from Princeton. Why?

Well, I had some problems. I really cannot discuss my problems in the face of what is going on in Gaza. It will be so silly, trivial and stupid. Three hundred or so children -- they were incinerated to death; phosphorus bombs were thrown indiscriminately over Gaza. Everything these people wanted to rebuild was destroyed again. This Israeli state invaded in 1978, again in 1982, again in 1993, again in 1996, again in 2006, and 2008, and it always destroys, destroys and destroys. And then these satanic narcissistic people throw their hands up in the air and ask, “Why doesn’t anybody love us? Why don’t our neighbors want us to be here?” Why would they?

Interviewed by
SELÇUK GÜLTASLI

"Today's Zaman" (Turkey) Jan. 19, 2009

***

Read More