Democrat Puppets Continue to Back War for Israel Despite Public Outrage
How the Israel lobby has played the Democrats for fools
(By Chris Moore, LibertarianToday.com) -- Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who recently bragged of being âa master in calculation and tabulationâ whose âdouble proofâ formulas showed the US wouldnât wage war on Iran, may want to recheck his figures and compare them with Pat Buchananâs assessment of the chances for such an attack.
On MSNBC on Monday, August 27, and in his follow up columns of August 28 and September 1, Pat Buchanan hit the nail on the head in identifying the powerful forces pushing for a US war against Iran, a war that Buchanan believes might be met (at least initially) with public approval.
As Buchanan noted on MSNBC: âI think if you took polls of the American people, they would put Iran right up at the top of America's enemies list.â
The recent US public paranoia over Iran, of course, isnât based on reality, but rather on the latest neocon media campaign claiming anti-US machinations by Iran in Iraq, and portraying Iranâs ongoing nuclear power program as an imminent WMD âthreat.â The propaganda has effectively allowed the Bush administration to scapegoat Iran for Americaâs self-inflicted Middle East wounds, and portray Iran as on the cusp of developing renegade nuclear weapons, which is a lie.
Buchanan continues: âSo I think in the Democratic Party, of course, you've got the -- with due respect, you've got the Israeli Lobby and Israel, and you've got the hardline like [Sen. Joe] Lieberman, and you've got the Neoconservatives, and you've got a lot of evangelical Christians and others who think this is a real menace and you ought to hit them.â
Translated from PC-speak, what Buchanan is correctly conveying here is that the Democratic Party is in the grip of the Israel lobby not only in the form of groups like AIPAC and the office of âhardline Joe Lieberman,â but also in the form of other members of the Congressional Jewish nationalist caucus, which includes left liberal Jewish Zionists such as Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer, Tom Lantos, Gary Ackerman, Howard Berman, Carl Levin, Steve Rothman and Barney Frank, among others.
On the other side of the aisle, Buchanan says, youâve got a GOP hierarchy heavily influenced by âevangelical Christiansâ and providing it cover for war. What Buchanan really means is, not all evangelicals, but rather fanatical Christian Zionist dispensationalists, who make up only a percentage of evangelicals, but who are as committed to putting Israeli interests ahead of American interests as are the Jewish ethnic nationalists in the Democratic Party, but for different political, cultural and theological reasons.
In his follow up columns, Buchanan continues to drive all these points home: âWho is pushing for attacks on Iran? Israel and its lobby. Vice President Cheney. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who has been calling for air strikes on al-Quds camps for months. And a War Party facing lasting disgrace for having lied the country into an unnecessary war, and for having assured the American people it would be a "cakewalk."'
In its rush to ape the GOP, Buchanan says, the Democratic Congress has basically destroyed its own ratings on the war issue--and this just months after it was swept into power on a huge American backlash against Bushâs incompetent management of the Iraq war:
âIncredibly, only 3 percent of the nation gives Congress a positive rating on its handling of the war,â Buchanan notes.
Why didnât the Democrats simply continue to ride the anti-war tidal wave all the way to another big victory over the wounded, discredited GOP? Again, due to the Jewish nationalist influence over party leadership:
âLast spring, Nancy Pelosi herself, after a call from the Israeli lobby, pulled an amendment that would have forced Bush to come to Congress for specific authorization before attacking Iran,â writes Buchanan. âBefore the August recess, the Senate voted 97 to zero for a resolution sponsored by Joe Lieberman to censure Iran for complicity in the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq.â
As blogger Arthur Silber observed, this vote has put the Democrats on record as supporting âan amendment that accuses Iran of committing acts of war against the United States. Thus, if we were to attack Iran, we would purportedly only be acting defensively, and in response to what Iran has already done. This amendment, based entirely on unproven, propagandistic, intentionally warmongering allegations, was pushed in large part by Lieberman. Democrats (and progressive bloggers) may condemn the former Democrat all they wish: the fact remains that every Democratic Senator who voted on this measure voted for it. When the wider war begins, they will have no serious basis on which to object.â
So what were the Democrats supposed to do, ask party partisans, cede the national security issue to the GOP by opposing the Liebermanâs censure?
Well, going back to the amendment that could have been used to stop a Bush attack on Iran that was killed by Nancy Pelsoi at the behest of AIPAC, (and from a sane, war-opposed perspective inline with the overwhelming majority of educated Americans), the Democrats could have done the following: