Chicken Hawk Neocons Target Vice Admiral Joe Sestak

….Democratic candidate for the Senate from Pennsylvania (Specter’s seat).

Whether you call it the Israel Lobby or AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) or the Neocons, there’s no question that as a result of Sestak’s past criticisms of Israel, they are now an albatross around his neck. Check out this political ad paid for by a new (old) group of Washington pro-Israel Neocons just resurrected as the The Emergency Committee for Israel. If you ask whether Sestak is in the process of being AIPAC’ed just as Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) was several years ago, this time with the Neocons leading the way, it turns out to be a silly question. Of course. Watch the attack video just released by this Neocon group:

Chicken Hawk Neocons Target Vice Admiral Joe Sestak was MJ Rosenberg’s title for this story, but substitute AIPAC or the Israel Lobby and the result would be the same, and it would go on below the radar. The story, for example, was featured in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, but not at all by the mainstream American press. Thank heaven for the alternative press that comes to us by way of computer screens.

Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate for the United States Senate in Pennsylvania, is a former three-star Vice Admiral and the highest-ranking former military officer currently serving in Congress. But that does not make him a good enough patriot for the chicken hawk neocons. Nope. A new organization called The Emergency Committee has been established by Bill Kristol, Michael Goldfarb, Rachel (Mrs. Elliot) Abrams and other famous war heroes who think that Sestak is insufficiently loyal to…Bibi Netanyahu. (The Emergency Committee no doubt lists Rachel and not Elliot Abrams because he was convicted of lying to Congress on a national security issue. Even the neocons don’t like invoking that guy’s name!)

Bill Kristol says the new “organization” is the “pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community.” In other words, we aren’t just Israel-firsters. We are Israel firsters on steroids, not like those mealy mouths at AIPAC who actually cite US security needs (even if they get them wrong). The Emergency Committee For Israel could be headquartered in Romania or the Phillipines. Although its heart is in a West Bank settlement.

Anyway, check out the anti-Sestak ad (above) and spend a minute wondering how these neocons — whose only experience with war is lobbying to get other Americans to fight them — have the audacity to imply that a career spent in the US military is less American that careers successfully dedicated to getting US policy to conform to the concept of Great Israel. Unbelievable.

As noted, the ad also criticizes Sestak for signing a letter against Israel’s siege of Gaza while at the same time refusing to add his name to a defense of Israel letter circulated by powerful pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. The group also attacked Sestak for appearing at a fund raiser for the Council on American Islamic Relations, which it said was an “anti-Israel organization the FBI called a `front group for Hamas”. (What anti-Israel organization hasn’t the FBI, CIA, or the US State Department not listed as a ‘terrorist’ group?)

Wasn’t it Stephen Walt (The Israel Lobby co-author) who recently identified the Neocons as Israel-centric, with all of its past saber rattling against Iraq, and now Iran, as primarily focused on carrying out right wing Zionist goals?

5 Comments

shergald on July 16, 2010 at 4:01 pm

As it turns out Walt’s claim may be old hat. Ca 2003.

White man’s burden

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it’s possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical

Ari Shavit/Haaretz

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).

Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don’t think so. They continue to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments when you’re scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110

shergald on July 16, 2010 at 5:18 pm

You can always count on Phil Weiss to get into the inside of things and put them together:

`Emergency Committee for Israel’ is housed in `Liberation of Iraq’ offices

Philip Weiss
July 16, 2010

Remember all the folks who denied that there was any meaningful Israel agenda in the push for war with Iraq? Well here are Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton at lobelog covering the rollout of the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel, which has been getting so much mainstream media attention:

Some things are just too good to be true.

It seems that the new Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) is based out of the same office as the old Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), suggesting that, Yes, Virginia, the same people who led the march to war in Iraq are behind the new Emergency Committee, which, in its very brief existence to date, has attracted a lot of mostly critical attention in the blogosphere.

The link, Clifton shows, is to Randy Scheunemann, the man who schooled Sarah Palin in pro-Israel foreign policy as she was being rolled out two years ago. When will this network be exposed by the mainstream media? Before an attack on Iran, I pray.

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/emergency-committee-for-israel-is-housed-in-liberation-of-iraq-offices
.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feedburner%2FWDBc+%28Mondo
weiss%29

Oui on July 18, 2010 at 12:55 am

GOP Heavies Launch New Pro-Israel Group

(The Jewish Week) – … the group could represent a challenge to AIPAC, the lead pro-Israel lobby that Jewish doves say is an arch defender of the Israeli right — but which many on the right believe is far too cozy with the Democratic administration.

Colby College political scientist L. Sandy Maisel said the new group is more about partisan politics in today’s highly polarized environment than anything else — and that the effort to use Israel as a wedge issue with Jewish voters probably won’t work any better than it did in 2008.

“This kind of crude appeal — that if you label candidates anti-Israel, Jews will vote against them — just hasn’t worked,” he said. “Jewish voters are much too sophisticated for that.”

Jacques Berlinerblau, director of Georgetown University’s Program for Jewish Civilization, said Jewish voters may actually be beside the point.

“What this might be about is an effort to rally the disparate elements and wayward elements within the Republican Party around an issue on which they are generally in accord: Israel,” he said.

Increasingly, social conservatives like Bauer, old-line economic conservatives, hawkish neoconservatives and the wild card in the mix — the Tea Party movement — are pulling the GOP in different directions. The new committee, with Christian conservative Gary Bauer and neoconservative Bill Kristol at the helm, may be, at least in part, an effort to focus those elements on a single issue where there is plenty of common ground, he said.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

martini on July 18, 2010 at 7:30 pm

not sure which parts are spin, but from “the other side”, this: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001127.html

shergald on July 18, 2010 at 10:39 pm

In terms of credibility, the ‘other side’ is markedly deficient. I wondered if this was another site sponsored by the IDF or perhaps The Israel Project, a Likud agency which is well known here in the US.

I’ll stick if you don’t mind with UN orgs like UNWRA or any of the human rights orgs like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Malnutirition cannot be faked.

shergald on July 16, 2010 at 4:01 pm

As it turns out Walt’s claim may be old hat. Ca 2003.

White man’s burden

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it’s possible. But another journalist, Thomas Friedman (not part of the group), is skeptical

Ari Shavit/Haaretz

In the course of the past year, a new belief has emerged in the town: the belief in war against Iraq. That ardent faith was disseminated by a small group of 25 or 30 neoconservatives, almost all of them Jewish, almost all of them intellectuals (a partial list: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Kristol, Eliot Abrams, Charles Krauthammer), people who are mutual friends and cultivate one another and are convinced that political ideas are a major driving force of history. They believe that the right political idea entails a fusion of morality and force, human rights and grit. The philosophical underpinnings of the Washington neoconservatives are the writings of Machiavelli, Hobbes and Edmund Burke. They also admire Winston Churchill and the policy pursued by Ronald Reagan. They tend to read reality in terms of the failure of the 1930s (Munich) versus the success of the 1980s (the fall of the Berlin Wall).

Are they wrong? Have they committed an act of folly in leading Washington to Baghdad? They don’t think so. They continue to cling to their belief. They are still pretending that everything is more or less fine. That things will work out. Occasionally, though, they seem to break out in a cold sweat. This is no longer an academic exercise, one of them says, we are responsible for what is happening. The ideas we put forward are now affecting the lives of millions of people. So there are moments when you’re scared. You say, Hell, we came to help, but maybe we made a mistake.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110
shergald on July 16, 2010 at 5:18 pm

You can always count on Phil Weiss to get into the inside of things and put them together:

`Emergency Committee for Israel’ is housed in `Liberation of Iraq’ offices

Philip Weiss
July 16, 2010

Remember all the folks who denied that there was any meaningful Israel agenda in the push for war with Iraq? Well here are Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton at lobelog covering the rollout of the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel, which has been getting so much mainstream media attention:

Some things are just too good to be true.

It seems that the new Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI) is based out of the same office as the old Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), suggesting that, Yes, Virginia, the same people who led the march to war in Iraq are behind the new Emergency Committee, which, in its very brief existence to date, has attracted a lot of mostly critical attention in the blogosphere.

The link, Clifton shows, is to Randy Scheunemann, the man who schooled Sarah Palin in pro-Israel foreign policy as she was being rolled out two years ago. When will this network be exposed by the mainstream media? Before an attack on Iran, I pray.

http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/emergency-committee-for-israel-is-housed-in-liberation-of-iraq-offices
.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feedburner%2FWDBc+%28Mondo
weiss%29
Oui on July 18, 2010 at 12:55 am

.

GOP Heavies Launch New Pro-Israel Group

(The Jewish Week) – … the group could represent a challenge to AIPAC, the lead pro-Israel lobby that Jewish doves say is an arch defender of the Israeli right — but which many on the right believe is far too cozy with the Democratic administration.

Colby College political scientist L. Sandy Maisel said the new group is more about partisan politics in today’s highly polarized environment than anything else — and that the effort to use Israel as a wedge issue with Jewish voters probably won’t work any better than it did in 2008.

“This kind of crude appeal — that if you label candidates anti-Israel, Jews will vote against them — just hasn’t worked,” he said. “Jewish voters are much too sophisticated for that.”

Jacques Berlinerblau, director of Georgetown University’s Program for Jewish Civilization, said Jewish voters may actually be beside the point.

“What this might be about is an effort to rally the disparate elements and wayward elements within the Republican Party around an issue on which they are generally in accord: Israel,” he said.

Increasingly, social conservatives like Bauer, old-line economic conservatives, hawkish neoconservatives and the wild card in the mix — the Tea Party movement — are pulling the GOP in different directions. The new committee, with Christian conservative Gary Bauer and neoconservative Bill Kristol at the helm, may be, at least in part, an effort to focus those elements on a single issue where there is plenty of common ground, he said.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
martini on July 18, 2010 at 7:30 pm

not sure which parts are spin, but from “the other side”, this: http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/mideastdispatches/archives/001127.html
- shergald on July 18, 2010 at 10:39 pm
  
  In terms of credibility, the ‘other side’ is markedly deficient. I wondered if this was another site sponsored by the IDF or perhaps The Israel Project, a Likud agency which is well known here in the US.
  
  I’ll stick if you don’t mind with UN orgs like UNWRA or any of the human rights orgs like Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International. Malnutirition cannot be faked.

Chicken Hawk Neocons Target Vice Admiral Joe Sestak

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