President George W. Bush’s reply to a reporter’s question about whether Iraq had anything to do with 9/11: "Nothing!"

Washington, D.C. - On two consecutive days this week, the Israel Lobby, aka “The Lobby,” took direct hits from opponents. On Monday, Aug. 28, 2006, two distinguished scholars, authors of the “Harvard Study,” Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, showed up at the National Press Club, near the White House. (1) The Professors, who are both Jewish, ably demonstrated how the Lobby used its enormous influence, with the U.S. Congress and the Bush-Cheney Gang, to help give the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) a “green light” to bomb Lebanon back to the Stone Age during the recent, horrific 33-day war. That immoral conflict took the lives of around 1,183 Lebanese, (many of them children), displaced over 970,000 innocent people and caused damages worth billions of dollars to the infrastructures of that sovereign and democratic state. It also created more enemies for America in the Islamic World. (2)

The original report of the two scholars evidenced the fact that the Lobby had been exercising “unmatched power” over the foreign policy of the U.S., persuading it to do things that weren't in the “national interest.” It also revealed that it had extracted $140 billion-plus from our national treasury to feed to the Israeli hawks. They have used much of that money to brutally oppress the Palestinian people. (3)

On Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, across town, at the Palestine Center, Grant F. Smith, ripped into the Neocons, like: Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others, for their role in formulating the “Clean Break Plan,” which was a 1996 blueprint for “destabilizing” the Middle East. (4) This scheme presaged a military attack on Iraq and “regime change” in that unfortunate country, along with the assault on Lebanon. The Neocons are a small, but significant, part of the Lobby’s massive apparatus found in all of the 50 states. (5) One friend of mine from New York City put it this way when talking of the Lobby’s omnipotence: “They watch over us like we’re in intensive care!”

Smith also took to task Paul Wolfowitz, the ex-Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense, chief architect of the Iraqi War, and pusher of the “Preemption Doctrine.” He said that Wolfowitz, who was “kicked upstairs” to the CEO of the World Bank, was “guilty of plenty of bad thinking.” Smith is the director of the “Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy,” located in this city. His hard hitting presentation, entitled "The Clean Break Plan: A Conspiracy of Theories," was like watching someone give a left jab to the Lobby’s nose, followed by a sharp right cross to its chin. Smith is also the author of the insightful book, “Deadly Dogma: How the Neoconservatives Broke the Law to Deceive America.” His informative talk is available in a transcript format. (6)

Also, noteworthy, is an important court case, involving the Lobby, and in particular, two ex-honchos of the powerful American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee, (AIPAC), Kenneth Weissman and Steven Rosen. They stand charged with passing classified information to an Israeli diplomat. The matter is slowly making its way through the federal criminal process at the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA. Smith cited it, at length, it in his one hour lecture. He praised the presiding trial jurist, the Hon. TS Ellis, III, for his rulings to date in the vigorously disputed case. (7)

Getting back to the National Press Club conference of Aug. 28th-it was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). The group deserves kudos for putting it on. (8) I was deeply impressed by the presentation of both professors. In a word, they were-brilliant! Professor Walt repeatedly underscored that “without 9/11, you don’t get a war with Iraq." It then jumped out at me at a gut level: 9/11 had to be “an inside job!” I agree with the skeptics who assert: “The wildest 9/11 conspiracy theory is actually the one endorsed by the Kean Commission, ‘that 19 fanatical Arabs, directed from a cave in Afghanistan, caught the whole of the U.S. military intelligence, the whole of U.S. political and diplomatic establishments, and NORAD completely off guard.’" (9) I've also never found credible the government's explanation for the highly suspicious antics of those "five dancing Israelis" arrested over in New Jersey on the morning of the WTC inferno. Also, I think that the response of the Israeli Hard Rightist, ex-P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu, on the morning of 9/11, somehow fits into this puzzle. He reportedly said about the attack: "It's very good...Well, it's not good, but it will generate sympathy (for Israel). (10) Keep in mind, too, that the "Clean Break Plan" was prepared by the Neocons for him. (4) Solving the mystery of 9/11 should be priority No. 1 for all truth-seekers and for all of those who demand full justice for the victims of 9/11.

Professor Mearsheimer told the nearly packed audience in the Holeman Lounge: "It seems intuitively clear that Israel's destructive campaign in Lebanon violated the laws of war." He added that the principal reason the U.S. backed the IOF's vicious blitzkrieg in Lebanon of terror and death, which included over 7,000 air sorties and an "additional 2,500 bombardments" from its navy, "while the rest of the world criticized it, is the Israel Lobby." Mearsheimer also strongly suggested that Israel planned the war "before the July 12th events" and that it had briefed the U.S. on its evil plot. He also concluded, (unlike the dubious theories posited by the ideologue Noam Chomsky in similar situations), that Israel was not acting "as a client state" of the U.S. in this bloodstained matter. (11)

Finally, up in Connecticut, the Lobby’s favorite Iraqi warmonger, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, is fighting for his political life. He went down in flames in the Democratic primary, losing to challenger Ned Lamont. Now, the slippery Lieberman has switched parties and is running as an Independent. If Connecticut had a “Truth-in-Campaigning” law, he would have been forced to run in the General Election under the banner of the Likud Party, since his Hard-Right views on the Middle East are so closely allied with it. The coming Connecticut election is a real test of the present power of the Lobby. If Lieberman wins in November, it will show to other aspiring candidates for public office that the Lobby, although wounded, remains an unassailable force within the realm of the national political arena. If he loses, it may encourage others to come out of the closet and speak out about the baleful effects the Lobby is having over the workings of our Republic.

Notes:

1. ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/rwp/RWP06-011/%24File/rwp_06_011_walt.pdf
2. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13104/index.php
3. www.pchrgaza.org/
4. www.iasps.org/strat1.htm
5. batr.net/neoconwatch/archives/2004_12_01_neoconswatch_archive.html
6. www.irmep.org/Defaults.asp and www.thejerusalemfund.org/images/fortherecord.php
7. www.answers.com/topic/aipac-espionage-scandal
8. www.cair-net.org/
9. www.vancourier.com/issues06/084206/opinion/084206op2.html
10. www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html
11. usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/30636

© 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.