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<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Barack Obama and Joe Biden: both on their knees for AIPAC. Obama keeps
saying that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region> must
not allow <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> to develop a
nuclear weapon and threaten <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Biden has admitted to being a Zionist. What more do you want? There are people
on this list who are hell bent on voting for the Obama/Biden ticket while
saying they support Palestinians. I call you out on that! It’s utter
bullshit! If you support indigenous Palestinians and their absolute right of
return to their homeland to live in peace under a true democracy then you
absolutely cannot support an Obama/Biden ticket. Obviously, you cannot support
a McCain/Palin ticket, either. So, you have a choice to make don’t you?
You can either sit at home on Election Day or you can cast a protest vote for <st1:City
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">McKinney</st1:place></st1:City> or Nader. Your
choice shouldn’t be a tough one unless you are afflicted with a case of
cognitive dissonance which I have mentioned on this list before. <o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Some of you may feel I am “going negative” all the time.
People, I am being truthful. I am not trying to be smug or hateful. I am simply
posting articles I believe to be truthful, and we could all use a good, strong
dose of the truth for a change.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'>Kris<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><a href="http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/08/obama-courts-the-lobby/">http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/08/obama-courts-the-lobby/</a><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
<h1><b><font size=4 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:14.0pt'>Obama
Courts the Lobby<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></h1>
<p class=byline><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>by Gary Leupp / August 29th, 2008<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I will
tell you having visited <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
just a month and a half ago, their general attitude is, ‘We will not
allow <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region></st1:place>
to get a nuclear weapon.’ My job as president would be to try to make
sure we are tightening the screws diplomatically on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>,
that we mobilize the world community to go after <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s nuclear program in a
serious way. … We have to do it before <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> feels its back is against
the wall.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>–
Barack Obama, August 25, 2008 <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
candidate of “change,” having just selected the ultimate <st1:State
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Washington</st1:place></st1:State> insider as
his running mate, again makes clear how thoroughly he embraces the Lobby and
the foreign policy establishment. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>He might
have said: <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Well, as
I understand it, the National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007, which
represents the consensus of 16 <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
intelligence agencies including the CIA, stated with a high degree of
confidence that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
does not have a nuclear weapons program. Some Bush administration officials,
especially those around Vice President Cheney, act as though they know that
there is one and it threatens the whole world. But they’ve pulled that
act before, haven’t they?–scaring us all about Saddam’s
weapons of mass destruction which, it turned out, didn’t exist. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I visited
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> a month and a half
ago, and I know there are some people there who see <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region> as their main enemy.
They’d like the <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
to bomb <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
But I frankly question their judgment. My foreign policy will be based upon my
administration’s assessment of America’s interests, which do not
include antagonizing more Muslim nations or reinforcing the perception that the
U.S. gives Israel everything it wants, even as it ceaselessly expands illegal
settlements on the occupied West Bank and— let’s speak
frankly—treats Palestinians as blacks in South Africa were treated under
apartheid. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>I’d
like to remind you that in the summer of 2003 the Iranian government through
the Swiss ambassador to <st1:City w:st="on">Tehran</st1:City> proposed talks
with the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
The Iranians were willing to exchange support for the Arab League proposal for
a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine, withdrawal of military support for
Hamas and Hizbollah, and resolution of U.S. concerns about its nuclear program
in exchange for normalized diplomatic and trade relations with the U.S.
Although Secretary of State Colin Powell was interested in the offer, Vice
President Cheney rejected it out of hand. The initiative was not even reported
in the press at the time. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>We need
to revisit that moment. We need to engage the Iranians. We need to question the
neocon propaganda machine which, having circulated so much disinformation about
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> is now doing the same
about <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
We need to call these guys out on their fear-mongering, their wild references
to World War III and a ‘nuclear holocaust.’ Some say we need to
‘tighten the screws’ diplomatically. But we really need to question
the premises behind the sanctions we’ve enacted to date. There hasn’t
been any debate in this country about how to relate to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>. It
hasn’t been possible, politically, to say: ‘Maybe <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> is not a threat to <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
security.’ It hasn’t been popular to point out the obvious: <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> supports the al-Maliki government in <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>, just as we do, and the Karzai government
in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
just as we do. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Rational
analysts point out that even if the entire <st1:country-region w:st="on">U.S.</st1:country-region>
intelligence community is wrong, and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>
is poised to acquire nuclear weapons soon, it wouldn’t use them against <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>. <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region> is a long ways from <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>, has no territorial issues with <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>, no national interest in attacking <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Reports
of anti-Semitism in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
appear exaggerated, for political reasons. (<st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>’s
Jewish community is the largest outside of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
in the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place> and has representation in
the Iranian parliament.) <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
unlike <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is a nuclear power. Unlike <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
it hasn’t signed the Nonproliferation Treaty and refuses IAEA
inspections. It has about 200 nuclear weapons that could respond to an Iranian
attack with apocalyptic ferocity. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Frankly I
think the Israeli leaders are hypocritical in saying that they
‘can’t allow’ <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iran</st1:place></st1:country-region>
to get a nuclear weapon. Whoever allowed them to get theirs? They may feel that
their backs are against the wall, but how do you suppose the Iranians feel,
when the Bush administration has been saying for years it reserves the right to
attack them, even using nukes? <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Advocates
of a ‘preemptive’ attack on Iran charge that Iranians are somehow
suicidal, irrational, willing to suffer millions of deaths of their countrymen
in order to annihilate Israel. But this is an irrational and indeed racist
characterization of the Iranian people. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>My job as
president will be to make a clean break with the Bush administration’s
foreign policy based on lies and fear-mongering. I would do our Israeli friends
no favor if I capitulated to the propaganda and paranoia and continued this
disastrous neocon strategy of regime change throughout the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle
East</st1:place>. I stand for change in foreign policy, change in how we think
about foreign relations. I stand for mutual respect and dialogue, not the
arrogance of the Bush White House summed up in Cheney’s statement,
‘we don’t negotiate with evil, we defeat it.’ <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>We have
to humbly understand that many people around this world think the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is evil–for going to war and killing hundreds of thousands for no good
reason. We need to understand that Iranians and Russians a whole lot of other
folks think their backs are up against the wall because of reckless,
provocative <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">U.S.</st1:place></st1:country-region>
actions. As the candidate of change, I repudiate the strategy of aggression and
culture of lies that have undermined American democracy. I ask you to vote for
me as the candidate of peace.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>Of course
he can’t do that. Because in this “democracy” his hands are
tied. No powerful news editor in the mainstream media, employed by General
Electric, Time-Warner, Murdoch, Verizon or Disney would treat such a statement
as anything other than an expression of wild-eyed leftwing extremism (if not
anti-Semitism). Real debate is not possible outside the catacombs of the
internet. It’s an iron law of the system: any candidate of change, having
acquired an enthusiastic mass base through the raising of false hopes, has to
at some point become the standard-bearer of the status quo. The candidate flushed
with victory cynically expects serious supporters to stay on board the
program—even as the program looses all but symbolic and rhetorical
content. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>The
ultimate message: <em><i><font face="Times New Roman">Voting for me is the best
you can do. Forget any immediate withdrawal from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region>, which I see as a strategic
blunder, but not a war crime. Forget any rapprochement with <st1:country-region
w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>, or rethinking of Middle East policy,
because I, like my vice presidential nominee Joe Biden, am intimidated by the <st1:country-region
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place></st1:country-region> Lobby.
Settle for a Bush Lite administration—no surprises, nothing radical, more
troops to the real war in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region>
and maybe <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Pakistan</st1:place></st1:country-region></font></i></em>.
<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>This is a
country of 300 million people, many of us really paying attention to events.
We’re presented with a choice. One presidential candidate who’s
unable to answer a question about how many homes he owns; states publicly that
Iran is supporting al-Qaeda; and surrounds himself with neocon advisors who
want a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq, want to bomb Iran, and want to
provoke conflict with Russia. Another candidate (there being two, under our
system) who boasts that he opposed the Iraq War but hedges on the issue of
withdrawal, talks hawkish on Afghanistan, threatens to assault Pakistan, wants
to “further isolate Russia,” and keeps an Iran attack “on the
table” because he thinks Israel’s back is against the wall. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>In fact
it’s we, the American people, who have our backs against the wall. The
screws are tightening on us—we who get screwed every four years,
routinely. The candidate of “change” and the candidate of
“country” stand together in pledging allegiance to a conception of
reality the Israel Lobby endlessly promotes although it clashes at every turn
with the actual world. Candidates cannot say what needs to be said. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>There is
something fundamentally wrong here. We are in one of those “times of
universal deceit” in which, as George Orwell put it, “telling the
truth becomes a revolutionary act.” You just can’t do it if
you’re running for election, urging the masses to observe the voting
rite, demanding they cast their ballots as a statement of compliance and
acceptance, while offering us such meager choice. If the goal were democracy,
we could do so much better. There’s no way Obama’s going to be
accused of being revolutionary, no way the Congress is going to investigate and
punish the liars whose hands are covered in blood, no way the mainstream press
is going to acknowledge near term what for so many of us are obvious truths. It
falls to others to tell the truth and act against the universal deceit. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=author><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Gary Leupp is a Professor of History, and Adjunct Professor of
Comparative Religion at <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Tufts</st1:PlaceName>
<st1:PlaceType w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place>, and author of
numerous works on Japanese history. He can be reached at: <a
href="mailto:gleupp@granite.tufts.edu">gleupp@granite.tufts.edu</a>. <a
href="http://www.dissidentvoice.org/author/GaryLeupp/">Read other articles by
Gary</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><b><font size=2 color=black face="Comic Sans MS"><span
style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS";color:black;font-weight:
bold'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></p>
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