Townhall: The Good, The Ham and The Harpy - Caroline Glick
Being born in the United States must surely count amongst the most felicitous of birth-accidents. However, if a Jewish American elects to make Israel their home one is sure that the majority of their fellow Americans would respect their decision, and wish them well in their new life.
However, some folks who make that journey just can't stay away from the opinion pages of the American conservative press. The New York City-born P. David Hornik is an ever-present fixture at The American Spectator, for example; as is the Philadelphia-born rabid Arabophobe Steven Plaut at Front Page Magazine.
Townhall's resident Americo-Israeli is Frank Gaffney acolyte Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post. Yesterday, she posted a piece describing Israel as 'America's Irreplaceable Ally'.
In it, she acknowledges that Israel sold Harpy aerial drones to China. This outburst of candour is in the midst of a piece in which she asserts that the USA is imperilling Israeli security and insulting not only Israel but also buyers of Israeli weapons like Singapore and India by seeking to regulate its arms sales, and that,
"... what Israel's cultivation of its own bilateral strategic ties with countries like Singapore and India shows is that when Israel is behaving in a strategically responsible way, it is also advancing America's strategic interests. This is the case because, at the end of the day, the two countries share the same enemies and therefore are drawn to the same potential allies. "
She then goes on to make the case of the defence for Larry Franklin, words which may hopefully yet come back to haunt her.
If, as Glick says, the USA and Israel share the same enemies, then the logical next question is, where are the Israeli troops in Iraq? The number of suicide attacks within Israel proper seems to have diminished in the last few months (I have my own theory why), and the imminent withdrawal from Gaza should not necessarily mean that Israeli forces in the West Bank will need immediate re-inforcement; indeed, as Israeli commentator Ran HaCohen has recently pointed out, that one's pretty much covered.
Some of the more strident critics of US foreign policy point to a document prepared in 1996 for the Likud Party entitled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', as the root of the Iraq War. Co-authored by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, all of whom later assumed office in the Bush Adminsitration, it began,
"We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent."
It's pretty shocking to see what the Founding Fathers might have described as a 'passionate attachment' to another nation being expressed by not one but several future members of a Republican administration. It continued,
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions".
1,500 dead American soldiers and zero dead Israeli soldiers later, one can now assume that at the very least the Israeli strategic objective has been fulfilled.
Russell Beeston was 26 years old when he was killed in August 2003, the 50th British fatality in the Iraqi theatre of operations. He came from the Govan area of Glasgow. Beeston was sent to serve in Iraq on the basis of the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a lie I am ashamed to admit I was happy to repeat. The difficulties of the Middle East are a million miles away from the mundane sights and places of Beeston's home, like Broomloan Road, Helen Street, The Pearce Institute and the great red-brick wall of the Kvaerner shipyard, still called 'Fairfields' by Glaswegians of a certain age.
If Russell Beeston and every other soldier killed in Iraq lost their lives because the war was concocted to suit the purposes of one political faction in Israel then an accounting will have to be given by those responsible either in this world or in the next.
And America's real Irreplaceable Ally? Why, the British of course - the one that's so willingly provided Richard Perle with cannon-fodder.
However, some folks who make that journey just can't stay away from the opinion pages of the American conservative press. The New York City-born P. David Hornik is an ever-present fixture at The American Spectator, for example; as is the Philadelphia-born rabid Arabophobe Steven Plaut at Front Page Magazine.
Townhall's resident Americo-Israeli is Frank Gaffney acolyte Caroline Glick, deputy managing editor of the Jerusalem Post. Yesterday, she posted a piece describing Israel as 'America's Irreplaceable Ally'.
In it, she acknowledges that Israel sold Harpy aerial drones to China. This outburst of candour is in the midst of a piece in which she asserts that the USA is imperilling Israeli security and insulting not only Israel but also buyers of Israeli weapons like Singapore and India by seeking to regulate its arms sales, and that,
"... what Israel's cultivation of its own bilateral strategic ties with countries like Singapore and India shows is that when Israel is behaving in a strategically responsible way, it is also advancing America's strategic interests. This is the case because, at the end of the day, the two countries share the same enemies and therefore are drawn to the same potential allies. "
She then goes on to make the case of the defence for Larry Franklin, words which may hopefully yet come back to haunt her.
If, as Glick says, the USA and Israel share the same enemies, then the logical next question is, where are the Israeli troops in Iraq? The number of suicide attacks within Israel proper seems to have diminished in the last few months (I have my own theory why), and the imminent withdrawal from Gaza should not necessarily mean that Israeli forces in the West Bank will need immediate re-inforcement; indeed, as Israeli commentator Ran HaCohen has recently pointed out, that one's pretty much covered.
Some of the more strident critics of US foreign policy point to a document prepared in 1996 for the Likud Party entitled 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm', as the root of the Iraq War. Co-authored by Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, all of whom later assumed office in the Bush Adminsitration, it began,
"We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent."
It's pretty shocking to see what the Founding Fathers might have described as a 'passionate attachment' to another nation being expressed by not one but several future members of a Republican administration. It continued,
"Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions".
1,500 dead American soldiers and zero dead Israeli soldiers later, one can now assume that at the very least the Israeli strategic objective has been fulfilled.
Russell Beeston was 26 years old when he was killed in August 2003, the 50th British fatality in the Iraqi theatre of operations. He came from the Govan area of Glasgow. Beeston was sent to serve in Iraq on the basis of the lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, a lie I am ashamed to admit I was happy to repeat. The difficulties of the Middle East are a million miles away from the mundane sights and places of Beeston's home, like Broomloan Road, Helen Street, The Pearce Institute and the great red-brick wall of the Kvaerner shipyard, still called 'Fairfields' by Glaswegians of a certain age.
If Russell Beeston and every other soldier killed in Iraq lost their lives because the war was concocted to suit the purposes of one political faction in Israel then an accounting will have to be given by those responsible either in this world or in the next.
And America's real Irreplaceable Ally? Why, the British of course - the one that's so willingly provided Richard Perle with cannon-fodder.
posted by Martin at 3:55 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home