Letters to the Editor, Pages 5-6

Condemned to Repeat It?

President Obama would do well to reflect on the harsh lessons of Vietnam before committing more troops to Afghanistan. President Lyndon Johnson faced a similar dilemma and made the tragic mistake of responding all too quickly to his generals’ ongoing demands to augment troop levels. October was the bloodiest month for U.S. fatalities in Afghanistan. Thus far, we have squandered a staggering $223 billion and will continue to burn $65 billion every year, with no end in sight. Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his administration have been stained with charges of corruption and his recent “re-election” makes a complete mockery of democracy, fairness and the rule of law. Our Afghan policies defy logic. We continue to send billions of tax money to prop up this corrupt mega-warlord Karzai and his brother, Ahmad Wali, a known poppy dealer and CIA payroll recipient. Inexplicably, the CIA also funded a Karzai ally—Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum—who was responsible for the 2001 massacre at Dasht-e-Leili which killed 2,000 POWs.

The Global Post reported that 20 percent of all U.S. aid money is diverted to the Taliban to “discourage” construction workers from being attacked or killed.

Finally, The Washington Post deserves a stern rebuke for its earlier, unrepentant, role in sounding like a megaphone supporting the Bush-Cheney propaganda machine in the run up to the Iraq war. It is now calling for an escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

Tejinder Uberoi, Los Altos, CA

Americans truly have been poorly served by their “newspapers of record” and other mainstream media, which seem committed to omitting the adjective in the concept of “informed consent.” We also find it exceedingly curious that, after decades of fleeing any overseas involvement that had the merest hint of Vietnam, Washington now is about to repeat the trauma with a vengeance. For other perspectives, see “Four Views” on p. 10.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

I think for the past year or so I have been receiving e-mails from the Jewish Voice for Peace, even though I’ve never become a member nor have I donated any money to it.

Several weeks ago I received another e-mail asking me to complete a survey. Anyway, I went ahead with the survey and anwered their questions as honestly as I could. One question asked something like, “How do you keep informed about the Middle East?”

I answered by stating that I read the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and have been a subscriber for a number of years. I also confessed to having read the book, The Israel Lobby, by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt. I guess that really put the last nail in my coffin because I no longer receive any e-mails from that group.

I’m beginning to believe that freedom of speech is no longer viable in this country. I remember once having dinner with two acquaintenances, one being an attorney, and I was asked by this lawyer, “Have you read anything interesting lately?” I answered him, “Yeah, The Israel Lobby.” You would have thought I had spewed forth the most hateful anti-Jewish remark in the whole world. The conversation grew more heated when I tried to defend reading the book, and then mentioned your magazine. I told them about the story of the attack on the USS Liberty. Well, my attorney friend told me I shouldn’t be reading such stuff.

Most of my retired friends are college graduates, but when the talk gets to the connection between our government and Israel they seem to be really misinformed. I think they get most of their information from the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times which just follows the party line, “our only ally in the Middle East, etc.” The billions of dollars wasted and the lives lost over the occupaton of Palestine just don’t hit home with them. Of course, who do we have as senators, Richard Durbin and the other guy appointed by our alleged felon governor.

Donald P. Pollard, Chicago, IL

While there is much disinformation yet to overcome, we agree with Bob Dylan that “The Times, They Are A-Changin.’” (As does our Gaza correspondent, Mohammed Omer; see p. 20.) Things may take a little longer, however, in the Land of Lincoln, Paul Findley, Ali Abunimah, Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel. Just as Dick Durbin was the Lobby’s candidate to unseat then-Representative Findley (R-IL), author of They Dare to Speak Out and other groundbreaking tomes, the Lobby’s candidate to replace Roland Burris (and President Obama) as the next senator from Illinois is Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL). Kirk received $91,200 in pro-Israel PAC contributions for his 2008 House race alone, for a career total of $221,082—the third highest in the House. See the May/June 2009 Washington Report, p. 32, as well as the May/June 2006 issue, p. 31. Now’s the time to get the word out!

Money Talks

Thank you for publishing on p. 27 of your November 2009 issue the very informative disclosure of how much money Members of Congress spent in August 2009 during an eight-day trip to Israel sponsored by an AIPAC-affiliated group. The biggest spender at $22,211.50 is Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson (37-CA), who spent an average of nearly $2,500 per day! It should not be surprising then, that she voted “yes” on H. Res. 867 calling on the U.S. to basically ignore the fact-based U.N. Report on Gaza authored by Dr. Richard Goldstone and endorsed by former President Jimmy Carter. On a separate issue regarding Richardson’s alleged unethical behavior, recently the House Ethics Committee voted unanimously to place her under investigation.

Elected officials such as Laura Richardson must be held accountable by voters at the ballot box! To have a viable/successful campaign in order to elect good people who will help bring much-needed positive change to our troubled nation, it is urgent and very critical that your readers and the American people—the majority by far who support policies of human rights and peace “with liberty and justice for all,” and who oppose all taxpayer-funding of unjust wars/occupations, torture, renditions, etc.—make much-needed campaign donations in the near future to help elect congressional candidates such as myself who are willing to stand up and support such policies. Please encourage them to do so as soon as possible. Thank you,

Nicholas (Nick) Dibs, Independent candidate for Congress, 37th District of California, P.O. Box 17554, Long Beach, CA 90807-7554; <www.DibsForCongress.com>; FEC # C00454256

You seem to be suggesting that members of Congress spent their own money visiting Israel—heaven forbid! No, this largesse—totaling more than $800,000—was bestowed on the 56 U.S. representatives and congressional staff members by the American Israel Education Foundation, the “charitable organization” affiliated with AIPAC.

We wish you luck in your challenge to Representative Richardson, and echo your call for voters to support in every way possible candidates who put the interests of Americans ahead of those of a foreign country.

Secret Ballot Fan

When the United States last sought a seat on the old U.N. Human Rights Commission, there were four candidates for three seats from its regional group. With all U.N. member states voting secretly, the United States, unsurprisingly, lost. Having learned its lesson, when the United States recently deigned to present its candidature for the new U.N. Human Rights Council (so as, in the words of U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, to fight “the anti-Israeli crap”), it muscled aside one of the other candidates in its group via “voluntary” withdrawal so as to ensure that the number of candidates in its group matched the number of seats up for election (the only way it could hope to be elected, with its human rights record now far worse than at the time of its prior defeat).

I am a big fan of secret ballots. I would like to see this procedure, permitting as it does honest rather than terrorized expressions of opinion, introduced in the U.N. Security Council and the U.S. Congress. If it were, one could expect to see radically different—and vastly better—results produced by these institutions.

John V. Whitbeck, via e-mail

Secret ballots, eh? Now there’s a concept!

Goldstone Report Bias

Readers should be aware that the Goldstone Report on the Gaza attacks was shamefully biased in favor of Israel. As U.N. Special Rapporteur Richard Falk noted, Goldstone allowed Israel its claim of “self-defense” despite the fact that Israel had broken the agreed-upon cease-fire with Hamas in early November 2008 and then rejected what should have been Hamas’s acceptable terms for a new ceasefire. That was a huge gift, because in reality there was no such excuse for the gratuitous attacks on Gaza.

Karin Brothers, Toronto, Canada

Israel has amassed a long history of breaking cease-fires over the years. One might almost think it doesn’t truly desire to live in peace with its neighbors. We can’t help but note, however, that Goldstone’s very “bias” toward the Jewish state makes his findings that much more damning of—and hence threatening to—Israel.

The Balfour Declaration

Jack Polhemus (December 2009 Washington Report, p. 13) is nice reading, but on the Balfour Declaration he sure swallowed the Zionist spiel, hook and sinker. The Balfour Declaration never said “you can have it” to the Jews, even if was later interpreted that way. It said (direct quote): “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people…it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine…” The Zionists lie when they claim that “the U.N. gave them Palestine.” If memory serves, the U.N. gave the Jewish minority some 55 percent of the Palestinian land (which the U.N. didn’t own) and the Jews promptly stole about 25 percent of the land that the U.N. had left to the Arabs, starting the first of many wars.

C. Seeber, Denver, CO

We’ll cite poetic license on behalf of cartoonist Polhemus (see p. 23 of this issue). And we note as well that, because the U.N.’s November 1947 resolution partitioning Palestine was passed by the General Assembly, it was “non-binding” in the first place!