Dear Bill,
There is so much conflicting information regarding the Middle East that I feel compelled to take a second look at the available facts and circumstantial evidence in an effort to find the real reasons we are involved. We deserve better explanations than we are getting. Decisions of war and peace in Iraq have been based upon lies, apparently, so we can’t accept, without great skepticism, any statements issued from official Washington. Nor do the reasons given by the media add up, they are not consistent with common sense.
It is difficult to write dispassionately about our involvement because America has such a massive amount of its capital invested here –financial, military, moral and our standing in the eyes of the world. It is all in jeopardy. Too many questions go unanswered. What are we doing there and why? What can America gain from being there? Why should we feel responsible for Israel? Why should we feel greater sympathy for the Jews than for the Palestinians, sending billions to Israel and only a pittance to the Palestinians? Who has the most to gain from our presence and who has the most to lose if we were to leave?
Probably one of the greatest freedoms we have in this country is the freedom of speech including written speech, the press. The inspired patriots who fought for and developed our wonderfully crafted constitution recognized free speech one of the greatest bulwarks against tyranny. We have been granted the right to express our opinions even if no one agrees with us. Quite a privilege it is to be given the right to criticize the government that has granted that right in the first place. In keeping with that thought, there are so many inexplicable things going on in the Middle East I have come to the conclusion I am either badly out of touch or Washington is making one heck of a mess of things.
We had no significant problems in the Middle East prior to the advent of Israel. Our involvement came in the late 1940’s when the British, who had fallen “heir” to the Palestinian Region after the Ottoman Empire broke up, found themselves unable or unwilling to cope with the flood of Jewish refuges entering the area from Russia and Eastern Europe and turned the problem over to the United Nations. With “seed” money from the Rothschild family and the United States, David Ben Gurion declared a new state to be called Israel” in the area called “Palestine” and encouraged Jewish people to settle there. Initially, American money was sent as humanitarian aid, as it should, but, unfortunately, the aid took on a life of its own and became the source of funding for Israel.
As a result, the Christian Science Monitor reported in its December 9th 2002 issue, “The U.S. has spent 1.6 trillion dollars in support of Israel”, going on to say, “If divided by today’ population, that is more than $5,700 per person”. “So far”, the author of the article, Mr. Stauffer, continues, “the bill adds up to more than twice the cost of the Viet Nam War”. “Adjusting the official aid to 2001 dollars in purchasing power, Israel has been given $240 billion since 1973”.
The question of why and how America has become so involved in the affairs of Israel has not been well explained but a couple of reasons could explain it. One reason is the enormous political muscle employed by the Israeli lobbies and the other reason –and probably a more significant reason—is that almost all the American Media is Jewish owned--overwhelming and predominantly owned by Jews. (Serbian Defense League “Who Controls U.S. Media”) According to the Serbian Defense League, who have researched and published the names of the Jews who own the - newspapers, magazines television, radio, movies etc. present a convincing argument. One would expect that Jews, controlling the media, would mould our attitudes with a bias favorable to Israel.
The skillful use of propaganda is a well-recognized tool to influence public opinion and there is nothing new about that. Less well known, however, is how extensively it is used and what purpose is behind the Machiavellian minds that use it. What we do see are results and this offers the only reasonable explanation for the return of President Bush to the White House.
The British newspaper, the London Mirror, reflects my view, “How can so many people be so dumb?” or words to that effect. Bush’s record in office is like watching a demolition derby, leaving death, destruction, debt, confusion and social chaos behind, the only winner being the Israelis, who still have their “guy” in the White House. Only a skillfully managed and manipulated media could accomplish that.
As I sit here pondering our involvement tin the Middle East I am hearing for the zillionth time the tales of woe that Jews have experienced. The atrocities of the “Holocaust” and movies like “Shindler’s List” etc. are paraded before us incessantly, repeated over and over again with obvious intent to generate sympathy and influence our attitude. It works too. Without that steady drumbeat of “poor me “ propaganda, we would probably be less concerned about the Jews in Israel and more concerned about the genocide and famine in Africa.
Okay, so Jews have bad things happen to them, what does that have to do with us, here, in America? We have had absolutely nothing to do with the Jew’s historical problems in the Middle East, Russia, Eastern Europe or anywhere else in the world. That is a Jewish problem and we should not be involved with their problems. We should think in terms of what is best for our country, America, and with that in mind, we should extricate ourselves from the Middle East with as much dignity as we can and as quickly we can let the Jews and Arabs have their cat- fight. When the dust settles maybe they can all get along. Withholding our money would prompt a quick solution.
As noted above, in the late 1940’s, with the best of intentions, we helped the Jews fleeing Eastern Europe and Russia establish a new homeland in Palestine. Unfortunately, the Jewish state was established at the expense of the indigenous Arabs who were then forced to become refugees, fleeing into Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, understandably, raising the ire of all the Arabs in the Muslim world. This acquisition of land was done by force, largely with American arms; a power grab, apparently without any attempt to purchase the land or other amicable means—all this being made possible with American money and military hardware. We opened a real can of worms.
In spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the Media insists upon presenting us with an implausible picture. We are told the Iraqis feel warmly toward us and want us to stay in Iraq to help them establish a democratic government. This, as we watch our aircraft dropping bombs on their cities, destroying their cities and killing unknown numbers of innocent people—including many of own brave but hapless soldiers. So far over twelve hundred brave young American soldiers have become victims of snipers and car bombs-- so far. We are told they want us to stay.
Our presence has made life better for them than it was under Saddam. This, we are told this while looking at pictures of Iraqi streets teeming with outraged people—infuriated young people, apparently unemployed; some of them so angry and frustrated they willing to sacrifice their lives as human bombs in retaliation; human “smart bombs”, so enraged that nineteen Saudi Arabs were willing to kill themselves in a cooperative effort to attack and destroy us. It is totally bizarre what we are expected to believe
Even the official reason given for the urgency to attack Iraq is questionable-- the fear that Saddam would use weapons of mass destruction. This is not the true reason, in my opinion. Bad intelligence based upon lies, supposedly. That reason still lacks something to be convincing.
The real reason, I believe, is to be found when we examine a map of the Middle East showing Israel to be surrounded by angry neighbors. A defeated enemy, Egypt, lies to the South of Israel, sworn enemies, Lebanon and Syria lie to the North of Israel, thousands of angry Palestinian refuges who fled the invading Jews into Jordan lie to the East, (eager to get their land back), and Iraq, a hostile neighbor whose nuclear facility was once attacked and destroyed by Israel. Some very angry neighbors indeed surround Israel. It is in Israel’s best interest for us to stay in the Middle East, not America’s.
The map shows it to be closely linked with Israel’s security; it offers the only credible reason for our precipitous action into Iraq-- the urgency of it; why we couldn’t wait. If we had waited our excuse for making the pre-emptive attack into Iraq--that of an immediate threat by Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction-- would no longer be valid because there were no weapons of mass destruction. It was an excuse. (There was some sign of our hesitancy just before going in, as I remember).
Without quick intervention, the Americans might hesitate, having lost the only good reason to rush into war, re-consider what they are about to do-- think better of it-- and decide to go home thus leaving Israel weakened and vulnerable. But, now, with Americans mired down in the Middle East, Israel is secure under America’s military umbrella. That is the scenario that makes sense to me, based on the evidence I see.
As an aside, I find it curious that Israel has not been mentioned as a factor in the urgency for us to jump into Iraq. Interesting, also, is not seeing Israeli troops fighting along side us in Iraq. One would think, of all the people involved, they would be leading the charge.
In addition to the WMD excuse, the second reason that has been speculated upon for our entry was to capture the Iraqi oil fields for Halliburton and Co. That doesn’t seem quite plausible either because it begs the question, “Why invade and plunder Iraq’s oil—why not just buy it from them, as we did before our self-imposed embargo?” We buy oil from others in the region; why do we feel compelled to occupy Iraq and take the oil forcibly?
If our motive in Palestine is humanitarian, one would expect Washington to express more sympathy for the Palestinians than for the Jews for it is they who are victims of aggression not the other way around. Those are Palestinian houses we see being bulldozed, not Jewish houses—the Jews are doing the bulldozing with American bulldozers. To me, the real victims are the indigenous Arabs who, far back in early history as a nomadic people and more recently as an agricultural people, have always occupied the land being claimed by the Jews. It is Arab land being ravaged, not Jewish land; the biblical claim of Moses not withstanding.
Now that we have become embroiled in Israel’s affairs we have lost our “good guy” image and are as hated as the Jews, seen in the Muslim world as a bully intent upon taking over the Middle East. Not a very good trade-off. Our continuing financial and military support of Israel has become a monstrous problem, a financial, military and diplomatic disaster. Who and what is next? Iran? Syria? Washington seems totally at the disposal of Israel and The American Jewish Political Action Committee; Washington legislators respond like members of the Jewish Knesset. We put up with this bizarre and costly situation without even a whimper of official protest; where is our indignation and sense of America first?
It is hard to accept that we must continue to send the same people back to Washington to “serve” us knowing how badly they have abused our trust and will probably continue to disappoint us. Under Bush’s leadership, Congress has meekly acquiesced to wage an unwanted and needless war in Iraq, incurring a monstrous debt, putting our economy and country at risk. By his mindless actions he, with Congress’ blessing, has created intense hatred toward America and has succeeded only in infuriating the entire Muslim world. Now Europe is disgusted. Only experienced and skilled lawmakers backed by big money could jerk us around like that and get re-elected.
As a result of arrogant Bush – Rumsfeld leadership, we now have guerrilla warfare to contend with-- unprepared for, and our expensive military hardware rendered almost useless by people so enraged and desperate they are willing to use themselves as human bombs. How do we counter such a weapon? The immense power of the United States --and the destiny of our country—is now in the hands of incompetent politicians and we are helpless to do anything about it.
When looking for reasons to explain why we have turned the “keys over” to Israel, we find a couple of reasons that could explain it. One, there are a disproportionate number of Jews in Congress, relative to the Jewish population in America. One would be naïve to think that was not significant. Another reason, dual citizenship in both Israel and America is available to some Jews so the implication of split loyalty is present and hard to ignore. Whatever the reason, it appears that Americans have lost control of a Congress now acting in Israel’s best interest not America’s.
Israeli lobbies illustrate the most egregious and most blatant example of how the moneyed relationship between a special interest and incumbent lawmakers can—and has resulted in a an essentially useless election process. In recent elections up to 96% of the incumbents are returned to Washington indicating how nearly impossible it is to affect change at the ballot box. It is wishful thinking to believe we can replace legislators with our vote if they and their sponsors want them to remain in power.
Note the record of failed attempts to improve things with campaign funding reform and term limits, the two most frequently mentioned means to cure the problem. Why? Obviously these reforms would be against the self-interest of incumbent lawmakers, the only people who could implement them. The question remains, “What can we do about it?”
“We have the vote” we often hear and most of us accept that as the ultimate solution. Unfortunately it is not that easy and, looking at the record, may not even be true. Most of the time we can’t vote them out. Commenting on this issue of returning incumbent legislators to congress, in The Christian Science Monitor of October 20, 1998 they note, “ For all their professed disgust with congress, most Americans will send the same representatives back to their old offices on Nov. 3. Only 40 of 435 house seats—fewer than 10% --will be close enough to watch down to the final count. The rest are uncontested or virtual blowouts”.
I find this curious, the contradiction between voter’s “disgust” and the sending of “the same representatives back to their old offices”. One would think if the voters were “disgusted’ they would not do that. The Reader’s Digest published essentially the same report in the October 2004 issue.
Also, in a recent issue of Time Magazine, (Feb 2, 2004), commenting on the effectiveness of lobbies, they observed, “One reason the industry (drug) does so well in the capitol is it’s potent lobby. It maintains more than 600 lobbyists—more than one for every member of Congress”. The impact of lobbies on government officials cannot be overstated because it probably provides the key explaining the bad performance of Congress and the total disregard for public opinion. Some argue they just lobby legislators to gain favorable consideration for their particular cause, and we all do that in one way or another, so what is wrong with that?
Here is where it gets sticky. We find that legislators love their job, with its financial security and perks of power but they need massive amounts of money to remain in office. Apparently, they find the required money available to them from special interest groups and, having access to this money—for expensive television ads and other media coverage--; they can overwhelm opposition candidates at the polls and win elections—repeatedly.
They have now become the “incumbents” we hear about, so difficult for challengers to replace that in last November’s election 94% of them were returned to office. Apparently, as long as they continue to be nice to their sponsors they can remain in office as long as they wish. That means our national elections are only 6% effective and 94% useless when attempting to vote someone out of office. How else could one explain voters being “disgusted” and then “voting” them back into office? .
It is hard to overstate the importance of this and the implications have been over looked. It means that if a person were to consider running for office, he would have only a very slim chance of winning—and over a 90% probability of losing—not very good odds and not many contenders would bet the farm on it by putting their money at risk; not unless they were using someone else’s money in which case they would be corrupted before taking office. This probably accounts the bad apples and the uncontested seats. Not many can enter the halls of Congress without being contaminated by money.
To document the increasing numbers of “uncontested” seats and the ramifications of that (the lack of serious contenders willing to challenge an incumbent), in the 7/1/98 Washington publication, “The Hill”, it reported, “ in the 1998 elections the number of uncontested seats were 83 -–that’s almost five times the number of uncontested incumbents—18 members—just two years ago”. These numbers are huge and we find ourselves, in a very real sense, captive to our own government.
Although dimly aware of the situation, as voters wishing to do something about it, we are helpless because our voting power has been pre-empted at the voting booth by the very people we would vote out. Fanciful? Check the numbers again. Washington politicians did not fear voter repercussions when they rubber-stamped the President’s ill-advised decision to go to war in Iraq in spite of loud protests from the public; incumbents in congress acted as they wished, they simply ignored the protesters and did the bidding of their moneyed sponsors. The rest is history.
It is commonly believed, since we have the power of the vote, everything will work out, which is deceptive. As just noted, voting has failed at the national level-- although at lower levels of government conventional voting seems to be working— at township, precinct, city, county and State government levels where it can be more closely monitored by the “home folk” but at the national level our government is so distant from meaningful control and so corrupted by money that it has become resistant to change through our voting process.
What I propose as a solution may seem radical to some but since we value our Jury System so highly why not expand this resource to find our Congressmen? As long as we are dreaming--why not rethink the function of the House of Representatives? The Senate is empowered to perform all the duties of the House-- with the exception of printing of money-- so really the House needs only to approve Senate Bills before sending them on to the President. Why must we have two houses empowered to introduce the same legislation? It is redundant, clumsy and expensive.
Up to me, I would have the Senate generate the necessary legislation and have the House just weigh the merits of whatever is being proposed—have the House function as an expanded jury, if you will. Legislation filtered through the collective wisdom of 435 “jury members” could save us a bundle of money to say nothing of preventing things like the idiotic war in Iraq. What better use for the House of Representatives and who better equipped to pass judgment than people such as you and I?
We say that we would like our legislators to be uncorrupted by money or influence. And we want term limits. A lottery would do that and more. Not knowing in advance who the new candidates would be, they could not be corrupted by money or influence prior to the drawing--all the all the elements we want would be present. Term limits would be automatic, party affiliation with its inherent split loyalty between party and country would also be gone. No more party system in the House of Representatives. A numbered ticket would be assigned to each qualified voter wishing to participate and the holder of the winning ticket would have the option to serve a term as a Congressman. Elections Committees whose current task is to certify elected people would operate the lottery—an honest and easily understood process.
To someone never aspiring to be a legislator, of course it would be an awesome and intimidating prospect to be suddenly asked to, or at least have the option to go to Washington D.C. and serve in government. Most of us, if called upon to serve, would have no concept of what would be involved—what would we do and what would be expected of us? How could we possibly be effective in this strange situation? I would address that by pointing out, since we can’t be skilled at all things, at home, if we need skilled help we call upon someone who is skilled. When we need a plumber we call plumber. If we need an electrician, we call an electrician.
By the same token, if unskilled in government, we could call upon someone who is skilled. For example, if we were hesitant or intimidated at the prospect of presenting a Bill on the floor of the House, or unfamiliar with Robert’s Rules Of Order, we could easily find a mentor to help us-- one who would not only be skilled but pleased and honored to help; a retired legislator perhaps. The city abounds with former officials who remain in Washington just because they like the city.
Most of us are uninformed and mystified by the Washington goings-on, (including elected officials) so it is not surprising we have self-doubts about our abilities. We tend to accept the premise that politicians have some mystical skills and knowledge that are beyond our capabilities even if they do not. Better still, as previously mentioned, let the Senate introduce legislation and use the House as an expanded jury of concerned people. When both houses are in agreement, pass it on to the President.
Donald Wedin