"Time's glory is to...unmask falsehood and bring truth to light...To wrong the wronger till he render right." - William Shakespeare

A few months ago, I was in Washington, D.C., working as an extra in a movie. Hollywood loves to shoot films in the nation’s Capital because of its ambiance. Robert De Niro, a brilliant actor, was directing the flick called, “The Good Shepherd.” It has to do with the origins of the CIA. (1) In any event, when I was on a break in Georgetown, where they were filming, I got a chance to walk into a local store. The TV was on. There on the screen was that repulsive Neocon, William Kristol, his head looking larger than ever. (2) He was blabbing away about some supposed “present danger” or another that the country faces. I wanted to take my shoe off and toss it at the set. Here’s, Kristol, a rabid warmonger and fear merchant, who, with others, helped push this country into the unjust, illegal and immoral Iraqi War. (3) Yet, as Jeffrey Blankfort, correctly pointed out: because the Neocons and the Israeli Lobby have "paid no price for it [their Iraqi warmongering]...They are preparing to do the same with Iran.” (4) In light of the recently published Harvard Study on the enormous influence over U.S. policies of the Israeli Lobby, (which includes the cunning Neocons), Blankfort's opinion was validated. (5)

Unfortunately, Iran isn't the end of it. Russia is now being put on the defensive, too, by the War Hawks. While attending a conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, on May 4, 2006, the ultra-Neocon, Dick Cheney, accused Vladimir Putin's Russia of "unfairly and improperly" restricting the rights of its people and of using oil and gas as "tools of intimidation or blackmail" against neighboring countries. "Russia has a choice to make," Cheney barked menacingly. (6) Whether his crack about “restricting the rights of its people,” had anything to do with pressuring the Kremlin to relax the stiff punishments meted out to the Zionist Oligarchs, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who were caught attempting to loot the country, is anyone’s guess. Trillions of rubles may have be been stolen by this grasping clique, according to former Russian Premier, Mikhail Gorbachev. (7) The idea, too, that a half demented Cheney, a serial shredder of the U.S. Constitution, and a crony of Jack Abramoff, Halliburton and "Big Oil," publicly lecturing the Russians on the meaning of "democracy" is truly laughable. If there were any justice on this planet, Cheney would be in the dock as a defendant, along with George W. Bush Jr., at the World Court, for his role in unlawfully invading and destroying the nation of Iraq.

Pundit Jim Lobe, in covering Cheney's ugly rant, revealed how another Neocon, Robert Kagan, is pushing a similar get-tough line on Russia. Kagan's wife, Victoria Nuland, Lobe said, once worked as Cheney's deputy national security advisor. She is now the U.S. Ambassador to NATO. Of course, Irving "Scooter" Libby was in Cheney's office, too. Doesn't all of this make you wonder: Who has been representing the interests of the vast majority of the American people in the White House for the last six years?

Incredibly, Noam Chomsky, a leading Left ideologue, continues to blame "Imperialism," which may have some analytical relevance, instead of focusing on the Neocons and the Israeli Lobby for their roles in getting us into the war. (8) If a mugger were loose in the neighborhood, it wouldn't make any sense to indict "Poverty" for his offenses. He needs to be captured and punished for his deeds, otherwise he will simply repeat his crimes. It's the same with the Iraqi War. If you stick to the particulars, you can easily find out the names of the individuals, and groups, who instigated this war, which was based on lies, (9) and also, hopefully, prevent those creeps from starting another one. (10) However, the underlining question still remains: Who is running America? (11)

Kagan accused Russia, and China, too, of being "protectors of an informal league of dictators." Naturally, Iran is in that group, along with Venezuela, whose feisty leader, Hugo Chavez, has told the Bush-Cheney Gang to take a hike. Lobe underscored how the warmongering Kagan was the cofounder of the Zionist-dominated "Project for the New American Century," (PNAC), along with Kristol, who is the editor of the "Weekly Standard," a right wing rag funded by media mogul, Rupert Murdock. Kagan insisted that "Al-Qaeda may not be the only challenge liberalism faces today, or even the greatest." Lobe believes that the real reasons for the recent verbal assaults on Russia and China is that they are the "two biggest obstacles to Washington's (and Israel's, too, in my opinion) drive to impose U.N. Security sanction against Iran, the administration's current top foreign policy priority." He cautioned that such a Russia/China bashing policy, also "risks driving them further together in opposition to U.S. geo-strategic designs, particularly isolating Iran and asserting more control over the flow of oil and gas out of Central Asia and the Caucasus." (12)

Getting back to Kristol. I'm sure he likes it when critics of the Iraqi War blame an abstraction for the blood stained conflict. Why not? It gives him and his fellow Neocons "a pass." Meanwhile, the Israelis have extracted $140 billion from our treasury, since 1948; murderously assaulted the USS Liberty in 1967; bulldozed Rachel Corrie to death in 2003; cheered and "danced" when the WTC collapsed; and continue to oppress the Palestinians and to make more enemies for America. Yet, some apologists still insist that Zionist Israel is acting as "our" agent in the Middle East. When Kristol made an appearance on "The Colbert Report," on April 29, 2006, he was gasping for air. There, the comedian, Stephen Colbert of "Comedy Central," ripped him a new you-know-what, especially on the issue of his membership in the warmongering PNAC. Colbert did with Kristol, what others have failed to do: Confront the evildoer! Some of the exchange went like this:

"Colbert: How’s that Project coming?
Kristol: Well... it’s...(stammering)
Colbert: How’s the [Project for] New American Century? Looks good to me!
Kristol: Ah...ah...I think…hehe...yea...I’m speechless.
Colbert: Really?
Kristol: Yea…we’ve sort of…the Project for the New American Century is just a few people...
Colbert: Come on, it’s a terrific New American Century, right?
Kristol: Well I think we do OK.
Colbert: You Rummy, Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle, Feith, all you guys right?" (13)

Another party to speak up and confront an evildoer, in the best tradition of Cindy Sheehan, is Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst at the CIA. He has, literally, been in Secretary of Defense's Donald Rumsfeld's face about his serial lies over the reasons for the Iraqi War. Like Kristol, "Rummy," is a Neocon. (14)

Finally, I've been going to Anti-Iraqi War rallies, since Oct. 26, 2002. (15) On occasions, I have seen a sign, poster or banner, spotlighting the roles of the Israeli Lobby and the Neocons in that conflict, along with "Big Oil" and the Military-Industrial Complex. (16) I'd like to see a huge poster with the image of a Paul Wolfowitz, a William Kristol or a Richard Perle, or others in the Neocon Mob, at the next rally that I go to. Then I will know that the people are truly getting the message. We now know for sure that some of the miscreants who got us into this chaos are now agitating for war with Iran and threatening Russia and China. We can't let them get away with it. It would be great if the protesters also carried another banner, a really immense one, which read: "STOP THE NEOCONS FROM DIGGING OUR GRAVES!"

Notes:

1. In one scene on a bus, Robert De Niro nodded to me to straighten out the tip of my 1950-styled fedora. I thought about replying to him: “You talking to me?” Then, wisely, I let that thought pass. I mean, who wants to mess with “The Raging Bull?”
2. www.batr.net/neoconwatch/
3. www.tvnewslies.org/html/kristol_clear.html
4. sf.indymedia.org/print.php
5. ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
6. “U.S. Warns Russia,” Washington Post, 05/05/06
7. Moscow News, June 6, 2005, "Oligarchs Should Return Plundered Wealth."
8. www.chomsky.info/articles/20050704.htm.
9. www.afterdowningstreet.org/
10. For more perspective on Noam Chomsky's theories, check out these critical two pieces: www.uruknet.info/ www.leftcurve.org/LC29WebPages/Chomsky.html
To read an author, who does subscribe to a conspiracy view of history and of covert politics, look at the books of Peter Dale Scott on JFK, Oil, Drugs and War. See for background on his views: socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/index.html
11. Dr. John Coleman's "Conspirators' Hierarchy: The Committee of 300." He dares to name names, re: The New World Order.
12. www.antiwar.com/lobe/
13. www.gnn.tv/threads/15300/Colbert_Report_and_PNAC_s_Bill_Kristol
14. www.afterdowningstreet.org/rumsfeld
15. For videos and photos of some of those Anti-Iraqi War rallies, go here: homepage.mac.com/bhughes2/Menu8.html
16. "Sorrows of Empire," by Chalmers Johnson, concluded that the confluence of the interests of the Military-Industrial Complex, the Israeli Lobby and "Big Oil," propelled the U.S. into the Iraqi conflict.

© William Hughes 2006.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘’No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes-AT-comcast.net.