I was getting so depressed after reading a deal about how Obama is far from even a liberal, not to mention a progressive, that it was with some relief that I read Stephen Zunes's piece below. It would be nice to think that the details he offers reflect a bit of reality. Who knows?
Two items.
1. The Zionist issue. Zunes has long been outed as an apologist for Zionism and just as (or even more) important, he follows the Chomsky line that the Zionist lobby is unimportant when it comes to determining US Mideast Policy. (In a speech in January, Chomsky repeated the bogus revisionist line that Israel [and the Lobby] didn't really want us to invade Iraq. He claimed they went along with Bush's plans but really wanted an attack on Iran.) So naturally Obama's cave in to the Zionists is not going to trouble Zunes.
And here I follow some of my friends in the movement who argue that Obama simply has no choice on this issue if he wants to be taken seriously. I know this is heresy, but that's the way reality is in this year of our Lord.
(I haven't gotten around to documenting the slime campaign going around in some communal circles that Obama is a closet Muslim. [JJ Goldberg of the Forward: shame on you!! What's the point of having a "liberal" editor if he's going to go the same depths as the most vicious of the right wing bunch?] But I've noticed that there's been pushback in some places. If Obama gets the nomination what are the odds of a return of the same canard in more mainstream outlets?)
Item Two: Every single Democratic nominee after LBJ with the exception of Clinton has run the sort of presidential campaign that indicated that he wasn't eager to take up, shall we say, the challenges of the presidency. Will Obama be any different? It's impossible to tell in advance, but if he gets the nomination, we'll know soon enough by the way he runs the campaign. If he didn't have race going against him, he'd just as likely slip by the weakness of McCain as a candidate and the Bush legacy, just as Jimmy Carter narrowly got by Ford. One of the few good things about the Clintons is that they want to win. Let's hope Obama does as well. Some of the people close to him would know.
Item 2.5
Zunes argues that Obama's advisors including or especially Brzezinski-- are less likely to go along with Zionist/neocon efforts to extend the war to Iran. We can hope.
Ronald
**
Seth wrote:
What made most impression upon me as I said was Clinton's cheerleading for the war 2002--7. That is not discussed here. It is why I concluded she is DP neo-con, or pretty close. Evidently she's still doing it. "Such confidence in the ability of the United States to impose its will through force is reflected to this day in the strong support for President Bush's troop surge among such Clinton advisors .... Perhaps that was one reason that, during the recent State of the Union address, when Bush proclaimed that the Iraqi surge was working, Clinton stood and cheered while Obama remained seated and silent. "
It's pretty clear that if Clinton got candidacy--as I said--there would be no debate with McCain on war--the war would be buried.SF
Behind Obama and Clinton
By: Stephen Zunes, Editor: John Feffer
February 11, 2008
Published February 4, on Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org)
Voters on the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are rightly disappointed by the similarity of the foreign policy positions of the two remaining Democratic Party presidential candidates, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama. However, there are still some real discernable differences to be taken into account. Indeed, given the power the United States has in the world, even minimal differences in policies can have a major difference in the lives of millions of people.
As a result, the kind of people the next president appoints to top positions in national defense, intelligence, and foreign affairs is critical. Such officials usually emerge from among a presidential candidate's team of foreign policy advisors. So, analyzing who these two finalists for the Democratic presidential nomination have brought in to advise them on international affairs can be an important barometer for determining what kind for foreign policies they would pursue as president. For instance, in the case of the Bush administration, officials like Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle played a major role in the fateful decision to invade Iraq by convincing the president that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat and that American forces would be treated as liberators.
The leading Republican candidates have surrounded themselves with people likely to encourage the next president to follow down a similarly disastrous path. But what about Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? Who have they picked to help them deal with Iraq war and the other immensely difficult foreign policy decisions that they'll be likely to face as president?
Contrasting Teams
Senator Clinton's foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton's administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor--and her likely choice for Secretary of State--is Richard Holbrooke. Holbrooke served in a number of key roles in her husband's administration, including U.S. ambassador to the UN and member of the cabinet, special emissary to the Balkans, assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs, and U.S. ambassador to Germany. He also served as President Jimmy Carter's assistant secretary of state for East Asia in propping up Marcos in the Philippines, supporting Suharto's repression in East Timor, and backing the generals behind the Kwangju massacre in South Korea.
Senator Barack Obama's foreign policy advisers, who on average tend to be younger than those of the former first lady, include mainstream strategic analysts who have worked with previous Democratic administrations, such as former national security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Anthony Lake, former assistant secretary of state Susan Rice, and former navy secretary Richard Danzig. They have also included some of the more enlightened and creative members of the Democratic Party establishment, such as Joseph Cirincione and Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress, and former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke. His team also includes the noted human rights scholar and international law advocate Samantha Power--author of a recent New Yorker article on U.S. manipulation of the UN in post-invasion Iraq--and other liberal academics. Some of his advisors, however, have particularly poor records on human rights and international law, such as retired General Merrill McPeak, a backer of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, and Dennis Ross, a supporter of Israel's occupation of the West Bank.
Contrasting Issues
While some of Obama's key advisors, like Larry Korb, have expressed concern at the enormous waste from excess military spending, Clinton's advisors have been strong supporters of increased resources for the military.
While Obama advisors Susan Rice and Samantha Power have stressed the importance of U.S. multilateral engagement, Albright allies herself with the jingoism of the Bush administration, taking the attitude that “If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”
While Susan Rice has emphasized how globalization has led to uneven development that has contributed to destabilization and extremism and has stressed the importance of bottom-up anti-poverty programs, Berger and Albright have been outspoken supporters of globalization on the current top-down neo-liberal lines.
Obama advisors like Joseph Cirincione have emphasized a policy toward Iraq based on containment and engagement and have downplayed the supposed threat from Iran. Clinton advisor Holbrooke, meanwhile, insists that "the Iranians are an enormous threat to the United States,” the country is “the most pressing problem nation,” and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is like Hitler.
Iraq as Key Indicator
Perhaps the most important difference between the two foreign policy teams concerns Iraq. Given the similarities in the proposed Iraq policies of Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, Obama's supporters have emphasized that their candidate had the better judgment in opposing the invasion beforehand. Indeed, in the critical months prior to the launch of the war in 2003, Obama openly challenged the Bush administration's exaggerated claims of an Iraqi threat and presciently warned that a war would lead to an increase in Islamic extremism, terrorism, and regional instability, as well as a decline in America's standing in the world.
Senator Clinton, meanwhile, was repeating as fact the administration's false claims of an imminent Iraqi threat. She voted to authorize President Bush to invade that oil-rich country at the time and circumstances of his own choosing and confidently predicted success. Despite this record and Clinton's refusal to apologize for her war authorization vote, however, her supporters argue that it is no longer relevant and voters need to focus on the present and future.
Indeed, whatever choices the next president makes with regard to Iraq are going to be problematic, and there are no clear answers at this point. Yet one's position regarding the invasion of Iraq at that time says a lot about how a future president would address such questions as the use of force, international law, relations with allies, and the use of intelligence information.
As a result, it may be significant that Senator Clinton's foreign policy advisors, many of whom are veterans of her husband's administration, were virtually all strong supporters of President George W. Bush's call for a U.S. invasion of Iraq. By contrast, almost every one of Senator Obama's foreign policy team was opposed to a U.S. invasion.
Pre-War Positions
During the lead-up to the war, Obama's advisors were suspicious of the Bush administration's claims that Iraq somehow threatened U.S. national security to the extent that it required a U.S. invasion and occupation of that country. For example, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor in the Carter administration, argued that public support for war “should not be generated by fear-mongering or demagogy.”
By contrast, Clinton's top advisor and her likely pick for secretary of state, Richard Holbrooke, insisted that Iraq remained “a clear and present danger at all times.”
Brzezinski warned that the international community would view the invasion of a country that was no threat to the United States as an illegitimate an act of aggression. Noting that it would also threaten America's leadership, Brzezinski said that “without a respected and legitimate law-enforcer, global security could be in serious jeopardy.” Holbrooke, rejecting the broad international legal consensus against offensive wars, insisted that it was perfectly legitimate for the United States to invade Iraq and that the European governments and anti-war demonstrators who objected “undoubtedly encouraged” Saddam Hussein.
Another key Obama advisor, Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment, argued that the goal of containing the potential threat from Iraq had been achieved, noting that “Saddam Hussein is effectively incarcerated and under watch by a force that could respond immediately and devastatingly to any aggression. Inside Iraq, the inspection teams preclude any significant advance in WMD capabilities. The status quo is safe for the American people.”
By contrast, Clinton advisor Sandy Berger, who served as her husband's national security advisor, insisted that “even a contained Saddam” was “harmful to stability and to positive change in the region,” and therefore the United States had to engage in “regime change” in order to “fight terror, avert regional conflict, promote peace, and protect the security of our friends and allies.”
Meanwhile, other future Obama advisors, such as Larry Korb, raised concerns about the human and material costs of invading and occupying a heavily populated country in the Middle East and the risks of chaos and a lengthy counter-insurgency war.
And other top advisors to Senator Clinton--such as her husband's former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright - confidently predicted that American military power could easily suppress any opposition to a U.S. takeover of Iraq. Such confidence in the ability of the United States to impose its will through force is reflected to this day in the strong support for President Bush's troop surge among such Clinton advisors (and original invasion advocates) as Jack Keane, Kenneth Pollack, and Michael O'Hanlon. Perhaps that was one reason that, during the recent State of the Union address, when Bush proclaimed that the Iraqi surge was working, Clinton stood and cheered while Obama remained seated and silent.
These differences in the key circles of foreign policy specialists surrounding these two candidates are consistent with their diametrically opposed views in the lead-up to the war.
National Security
Not every one of Clinton's foreign policy advisors is a hawk. Her team also includes some centrist opponents of the war, including retired General Wesley Clark and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
On balance, it appears likely that a Hillary Clinton administration, like Bush's, would be more likely to embrace exaggerated and alarmist reports regarding potential national security threats, to ignore international law and the advice of allies, and to launch offensive wars. By contrast, a Barack Obama administration would be more prone to examine the actual evidence of potential threats before reacting, to work more closely with America's allies to maintain peace and security, to respect the country's international legal obligations, and to use military force only as a last resort.
Progressive Democrats do have reason to be disappointed with Obama's foreign policy agenda. At the same time, as The Nation magazine noted, members of Obama's foreign policy team are “more likely to stress 'soft power' issues like human rights, global development and the dangers of failed states.” As a result, “Obama may be more open to challenging old Washington assumptions and crafting new approaches.”
And new approaches are definitely needed.
Stephen Zunes, a Foreign Policy In Focus analyst, is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco.
Copyright © 2004-2007 Progressive Democrats of America • All text available for public use with appropriate attribution.
Showing posts with label Chomsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chomsky. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Carl Lesnor: Robert Fisk on 9/11 Truth: Good Beginning
Robert Fisk on 9/11 Truth: Good Beginning
By Carl Lesnor
September 2007
Robert Fisk has written an article in the Independent entitled Even I question the Truth About 9/11 that has attracted a great deal of attention and a certain amount of controversy. [i] (http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece )
Fisk begins by complaining about the "ravers" as he calls them, who come to his lectures about the Middle East and accuse him of covering up the truth about the events of September 11. He usually replies that he is a Middle East correspondent and has no special knowledge of what happened to the World Trade Center, that he has "quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc., to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan.”
Still, he has questions. More questions than answers, but raising questions about the government's account on the part of a famous and respected journalist is a notable event. He concludes his column by repeating that he is not a "conspiracy theorist" but that he'd like to know the full story, not least because it was the trigger for the disaster in Iraq, Afghanistan, and much of the Middle East.
He has been taken to task, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, by people in the "truth movement" for being too ambiguous, for engaging in "doublethink" and by repeating in the last paragraph that he is not a "conspiracy theorist" (though he concludes by saying that he'd like to know more.)
Much depends on the words "conspiracy theory" and how it used. Let's begin at the beginning. Some of us are old enough remember that this expression dates from the time of the JFK assassination when, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the bullets came from two directions, the Warren commission claimed that they were all fired from the rear by a lone assassin. Thus the notorious "magic bullet" theory. Rejecting this theory automatically led to an inescapable conclusion: that if there were two or more assassins there was a conspiracy. That's how the law defines it. (Unless, of course, two lone assassins, unknown to one another opened fire at the same time.) If the magic bullet theory is true, the assassination can be explained in terms of psychology, but if it's false, then it becomes a political issue.
Naturally, the political implications of a conspiracy were enormous and inevitably led to speculation about the identities and motives of the conspirators. Much of the dispute was about these implications and people tended to take positions based on their political predispositions and to reason backwards. The trajectory of the bullets was determined not by ballistics, but by political beliefs and loyalties.
Those who trusted the government considered it disloyal to question its word.Those who considered Kennedy merely another servant of an omnipotent ruling class denied that its agents would have any interest in killing him. ([Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn maintain this position to this day.)*[ii]
Those who were relieved that the "Marxist" assassin was not being accused of acting on behalf of the Soviets or the Cubans, which they feared might lead to war, (like I.F. Stone) preferred to let sleeping dogs lie and not question the inconsistencies in the official story. Fortified by their devotion to this noble end, they had no compunction in attacking those who challenged the authorized version.
Those who were counting on the Kennedy family to challenge the Commission report took their failure to do as a reason to endorse it, though Robert Kennedy --as well as family friend, Arthur Schlesinger -- were careful to say that they "accepted" it, but hadn't actually read it. ([It has now been revealed that Robert Kennedy never believed it: see the review of Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot,just published) at (http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2565)
All of these people used the term "conspiracy theory" to discredit those who questioned the official findings and had no trouble some finding far-fetched theories as proof that all skeptics were the victims of paranoid delusions --- yet it is obvious that conspiracies have always existed and that no political history that rejects them a priori is possible.
The events of September 11, 2001 present an entirely different question, for in this case the official version is itself a conspiracy theory, and on its face quite an implausible one. To begin with there are the obvious questions of how such a vast operation could have succeeded in overcoming US defenses. If the government was completely taken by surprise by this conspiracy in the morning, unable even to mount a defence of the Pentagon hours after the first alert was received, how could it have known just who was behind it in the afternoon? The nature of the evidence it presented -- the incriminating documents left in the rental car and in the suitcase that never made it aboard the plane, the passport that came floating down at the crash site -- was enough to arouse suspicions. The accumulation of conflicting stories and implausible events in the following days only strengthened them. (For a list of seventy --but by no means all -- of the reasons to doubt the official story see: 70 reasons to doubt the offiical 9/11 story)
But implausible doesn't necessarily mean impossible and suspicions aren't always justified; more complete information can dispel them. But in this instance, the behavior of the government in refusing to provide such evidence, stonewalling appeals for investigations, lying, and destroying evidence could only increase them. As in the Kennedy assassination, the cover-up itself can be seen as part of the conspiracy and cannot fail to fuel suspicions which give rise to conflicting theories, theories that not only conflict with the official story, but inevitably with one another. Some of them might seem fanciful; some indeed are, but this cannot simply be ascribed to the "paranoia" of those who put them forward and used as an argument for accepting the government story. The government’s failure to provide an open investigation of this disaster is the real scandal; one colluded in by the American political oligarchy and the media that serves it.
This doesn't mean that all who accepted, persuaded themselves to accept, or thought it prudent to accept the official story are equally culpable; many refused to listen to conflicting evidence for fear of its implications. Shortly after the attack on the twin towers I attended a talk given at Columbia University by a noted British radical, Tariq Ali, who spoke about its political implications. During the question period he was taken aback by the widespread disbelief in the official account on the part of his New York audience. When asked whether he actually believed it, he replied that he didn't want to think about it. In addition to this fear, which was shared by many, we might add the fear of ridicule, the fear of being discredited by being seen as embracing "irresponsible" speculation.
Refusal to open Pandora's box, disinclination to isolate oneself, to risk undermining one's political credibility for fear of being branded a "loony"--all this might not be admirable, but it is certainly understandable. Fisk's emerging doubts, however guarded and tentative, should be welcomed, for the question is not whether or not he is waffling, but finding out what happened. If we welcome his first step on the road to truth, we can ask him to be consistent and take the next step.[iii]
Fisk gives the impression of trying to allay his increasing doubts by pulling the well-worn but comforting blanket of "incompetence" over his head.[iv] This is the last refuge of the denier of conspiracies, for it is undeniably true that government officials -- as much as, or more than others -- often produce disasters through mere incompetence and "stupidity." But this argument only goes so far: taken to its logical extreme, it can be used to deny any and all purposeful action. That there are unintended consequences doesn't mean that there are no intended ones. This becomes painfully obvious when Fisk writes:
"My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?
Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11."
The obvious objection to his last sentence is that the U.S. claim is not an error, but a lie. Surely Fisk understands that there's a difference between what a military spokesman claims and what he actually believes. After spending a lifetime listening to them he cannot possibly believe them honest but dimwitted. Similarly, his assertion that the administration has screwed up everything it has tried to do in the Middle East rests on the assumption that the stated reasons for its intervention were the real reasons. (Or else that he has discerned what the 'real' reasons are, but that they, too, conflict with what Cheney-Bush have brought about.) The poor man is suffering; he would like to be able to get back to sleep, but the incompetence comforter isn't going to succeed in shutting out the light. He would like to believe it "a clincher," but he already knows that it isn't.
The End
-------
Notes
[i] Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11 (August 2007) Here’s the first paragraph of Fisk’s article:
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver."
For an open letter responding to Fisk’s article see H.Fenton: Open Letter to Robert Fisk re 911 Truth or Conspiracy, published on 911blogger.com.
[ii] Cockburn still believes in the Warren Commission and its 'magic bullet.' He makes his political motives quite clear: "These days a dwindling number of leftists learn their political economy from Marx..." a fact he deplores. If they had they would have been able to resist the "diffuse, peripatic (sic) conspiracist view of the world that tends to locate ruling class devilry not in the crises of capital accumulation, or the falling rate of profit, or inter-imperial competition, but in locale (the Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg, Ditchley, Davos) or supposedly "rogue" agencies, with the CIA still at the head of the list."
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11282006.html
As he makes very clear, his refusal to examine the evidence is rooted in his a priori view that everything can and ought to be explained in terms of Marxist theories of vast anonymous forces such as capitalist accumulation and the falling rate of profit. Conspiracies, he thinks, are more to the taste of "the libertarian and populist right" which "mistrusts government to a far greater degree than the left..." Obviously, after mastering Volume Three of Capital, one has no need of empirical evidence, even if Marx never did get around to writing his book on the State. Cockburn -- as well as Chomsky -- know in advance that all US presidents are all equally servants of ruling class interests and that therefore it wouldn't make any political sense to assassinate them, ergo an assassination is merely a fait diversr [current event], devoid of political significance, ergo the bullets all came from the sixth floor of the Book Depository. Cockburn also asks: What do we make of Osama taking credit for the attacks? That he's still on the CIA payroll?" The fact is that Osama explicitly denied having anything to do with the attacks and indeed condemned them. http://www.robert-fisk.com/usama_interview_ummat.htm After denying and condemning it publicly, he then is supposed to have made a private video, claiming credit for what he publicly denied, and condemned, and somehow allowed it to fall into the hands of the Americans.
[iii] He might begin by going back to his interview with Bin Laden, where he encountered a man seemingly cut off from what was happening in the world (he devoured a two-week old newspaper that Fisk was carrying in his backpack). Is it possible to reconcile that with the idea that such a man could have been the "mastermind" of this complicated and ramified plot. (He might also care to reread the interview with Bin Laden referred to above.
[iv] Cockburn goes him one better: After flinging the word "idiocy" against David Ray Griffin's claim that..."In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them," Cockburn goes on to claim: "A central characteristic of the conspiracists is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous belief in American efficiency. Many of them start with the racist premise--frequently voiced in as many words in their writings -- that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission."
It is hard to recognize in such gratuitous accusations of "idiocy" and "racism" any sign of genuine conviction or dedication to finding the truth. Rather such name calling appears to be a desperate attempt to discredit the motives of those who differ.
By Carl Lesnor
September 2007
Robert Fisk has written an article in the Independent entitled Even I question the Truth About 9/11 that has attracted a great deal of attention and a certain amount of controversy. [i] (http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2893860.ece )
Fisk begins by complaining about the "ravers" as he calls them, who come to his lectures about the Middle East and accuse him of covering up the truth about the events of September 11. He usually replies that he is a Middle East correspondent and has no special knowledge of what happened to the World Trade Center, that he has "quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc., to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan.”
Still, he has questions. More questions than answers, but raising questions about the government's account on the part of a famous and respected journalist is a notable event. He concludes his column by repeating that he is not a "conspiracy theorist" but that he'd like to know the full story, not least because it was the trigger for the disaster in Iraq, Afghanistan, and much of the Middle East.
He has been taken to task, sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, by people in the "truth movement" for being too ambiguous, for engaging in "doublethink" and by repeating in the last paragraph that he is not a "conspiracy theorist" (though he concludes by saying that he'd like to know more.)
Much depends on the words "conspiracy theory" and how it used. Let's begin at the beginning. Some of us are old enough remember that this expression dates from the time of the JFK assassination when, in the face of overwhelming evidence that the bullets came from two directions, the Warren commission claimed that they were all fired from the rear by a lone assassin. Thus the notorious "magic bullet" theory. Rejecting this theory automatically led to an inescapable conclusion: that if there were two or more assassins there was a conspiracy. That's how the law defines it. (Unless, of course, two lone assassins, unknown to one another opened fire at the same time.) If the magic bullet theory is true, the assassination can be explained in terms of psychology, but if it's false, then it becomes a political issue.
Naturally, the political implications of a conspiracy were enormous and inevitably led to speculation about the identities and motives of the conspirators. Much of the dispute was about these implications and people tended to take positions based on their political predispositions and to reason backwards. The trajectory of the bullets was determined not by ballistics, but by political beliefs and loyalties.
Those who trusted the government considered it disloyal to question its word.Those who considered Kennedy merely another servant of an omnipotent ruling class denied that its agents would have any interest in killing him. ([Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn maintain this position to this day.)*[ii]
Those who were relieved that the "Marxist" assassin was not being accused of acting on behalf of the Soviets or the Cubans, which they feared might lead to war, (like I.F. Stone) preferred to let sleeping dogs lie and not question the inconsistencies in the official story. Fortified by their devotion to this noble end, they had no compunction in attacking those who challenged the authorized version.
Those who were counting on the Kennedy family to challenge the Commission report took their failure to do as a reason to endorse it, though Robert Kennedy --as well as family friend, Arthur Schlesinger -- were careful to say that they "accepted" it, but hadn't actually read it. ([It has now been revealed that Robert Kennedy never believed it: see the review of Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years by David Talbot,just published) at (http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=2565)
All of these people used the term "conspiracy theory" to discredit those who questioned the official findings and had no trouble some finding far-fetched theories as proof that all skeptics were the victims of paranoid delusions --- yet it is obvious that conspiracies have always existed and that no political history that rejects them a priori is possible.
The events of September 11, 2001 present an entirely different question, for in this case the official version is itself a conspiracy theory, and on its face quite an implausible one. To begin with there are the obvious questions of how such a vast operation could have succeeded in overcoming US defenses. If the government was completely taken by surprise by this conspiracy in the morning, unable even to mount a defence of the Pentagon hours after the first alert was received, how could it have known just who was behind it in the afternoon? The nature of the evidence it presented -- the incriminating documents left in the rental car and in the suitcase that never made it aboard the plane, the passport that came floating down at the crash site -- was enough to arouse suspicions. The accumulation of conflicting stories and implausible events in the following days only strengthened them. (For a list of seventy --but by no means all -- of the reasons to doubt the official story see: 70 reasons to doubt the offiical 9/11 story)
But implausible doesn't necessarily mean impossible and suspicions aren't always justified; more complete information can dispel them. But in this instance, the behavior of the government in refusing to provide such evidence, stonewalling appeals for investigations, lying, and destroying evidence could only increase them. As in the Kennedy assassination, the cover-up itself can be seen as part of the conspiracy and cannot fail to fuel suspicions which give rise to conflicting theories, theories that not only conflict with the official story, but inevitably with one another. Some of them might seem fanciful; some indeed are, but this cannot simply be ascribed to the "paranoia" of those who put them forward and used as an argument for accepting the government story. The government’s failure to provide an open investigation of this disaster is the real scandal; one colluded in by the American political oligarchy and the media that serves it.
This doesn't mean that all who accepted, persuaded themselves to accept, or thought it prudent to accept the official story are equally culpable; many refused to listen to conflicting evidence for fear of its implications. Shortly after the attack on the twin towers I attended a talk given at Columbia University by a noted British radical, Tariq Ali, who spoke about its political implications. During the question period he was taken aback by the widespread disbelief in the official account on the part of his New York audience. When asked whether he actually believed it, he replied that he didn't want to think about it. In addition to this fear, which was shared by many, we might add the fear of ridicule, the fear of being discredited by being seen as embracing "irresponsible" speculation.
Refusal to open Pandora's box, disinclination to isolate oneself, to risk undermining one's political credibility for fear of being branded a "loony"--all this might not be admirable, but it is certainly understandable. Fisk's emerging doubts, however guarded and tentative, should be welcomed, for the question is not whether or not he is waffling, but finding out what happened. If we welcome his first step on the road to truth, we can ask him to be consistent and take the next step.[iii]
Fisk gives the impression of trying to allay his increasing doubts by pulling the well-worn but comforting blanket of "incompetence" over his head.[iv] This is the last refuge of the denier of conspiracies, for it is undeniably true that government officials -- as much as, or more than others -- often produce disasters through mere incompetence and "stupidity." But this argument only goes so far: taken to its logical extreme, it can be used to deny any and all purposeful action. That there are unintended consequences doesn't mean that there are no intended ones. This becomes painfully obvious when Fisk writes:
"My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?
Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11."
The obvious objection to his last sentence is that the U.S. claim is not an error, but a lie. Surely Fisk understands that there's a difference between what a military spokesman claims and what he actually believes. After spending a lifetime listening to them he cannot possibly believe them honest but dimwitted. Similarly, his assertion that the administration has screwed up everything it has tried to do in the Middle East rests on the assumption that the stated reasons for its intervention were the real reasons. (Or else that he has discerned what the 'real' reasons are, but that they, too, conflict with what Cheney-Bush have brought about.) The poor man is suffering; he would like to be able to get back to sleep, but the incompetence comforter isn't going to succeed in shutting out the light. He would like to believe it "a clincher," but he already knows that it isn't.
The End
-------
Notes
[i] Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11 (August 2007) Here’s the first paragraph of Fisk’s article:
Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver."
For an open letter responding to Fisk’s article see H.Fenton: Open Letter to Robert Fisk re 911 Truth or Conspiracy, published on 911blogger.com.
[ii] Cockburn still believes in the Warren Commission and its 'magic bullet.' He makes his political motives quite clear: "These days a dwindling number of leftists learn their political economy from Marx..." a fact he deplores. If they had they would have been able to resist the "diffuse, peripatic (sic) conspiracist view of the world that tends to locate ruling class devilry not in the crises of capital accumulation, or the falling rate of profit, or inter-imperial competition, but in locale (the Bohemian Grove, Bilderberg, Ditchley, Davos) or supposedly "rogue" agencies, with the CIA still at the head of the list."
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11282006.html
As he makes very clear, his refusal to examine the evidence is rooted in his a priori view that everything can and ought to be explained in terms of Marxist theories of vast anonymous forces such as capitalist accumulation and the falling rate of profit. Conspiracies, he thinks, are more to the taste of "the libertarian and populist right" which "mistrusts government to a far greater degree than the left..." Obviously, after mastering Volume Three of Capital, one has no need of empirical evidence, even if Marx never did get around to writing his book on the State. Cockburn -- as well as Chomsky -- know in advance that all US presidents are all equally servants of ruling class interests and that therefore it wouldn't make any political sense to assassinate them, ergo an assassination is merely a fait diversr [current event], devoid of political significance, ergo the bullets all came from the sixth floor of the Book Depository. Cockburn also asks: What do we make of Osama taking credit for the attacks? That he's still on the CIA payroll?" The fact is that Osama explicitly denied having anything to do with the attacks and indeed condemned them. http://www.robert-fisk.com/usama_interview_ummat.htm After denying and condemning it publicly, he then is supposed to have made a private video, claiming credit for what he publicly denied, and condemned, and somehow allowed it to fall into the hands of the Americans.
[iii] He might begin by going back to his interview with Bin Laden, where he encountered a man seemingly cut off from what was happening in the world (he devoured a two-week old newspaper that Fisk was carrying in his backpack). Is it possible to reconcile that with the idea that such a man could have been the "mastermind" of this complicated and ramified plot. (He might also care to reread the interview with Bin Laden referred to above.
[iv] Cockburn goes him one better: After flinging the word "idiocy" against David Ray Griffin's claim that..."In light of standard procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes not one of these planes should have reached its target, let alone all three of them," Cockburn goes on to claim: "A central characteristic of the conspiracists is that they have a devout, albeit preposterous belief in American efficiency. Many of them start with the racist premise--frequently voiced in as many words in their writings -- that "Arabs in caves" weren't capable of the mission."
It is hard to recognize in such gratuitous accusations of "idiocy" and "racism" any sign of genuine conviction or dedication to finding the truth. Rather such name calling appears to be a desperate attempt to discredit the motives of those who differ.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Michael Worsham (1997) Cockburn, Chomsky (and I.F. Stone) Pass on JFK Conspiracy
JFK CONSPIRACY: THE INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY AND COWARDICE OF ALEXANDER COCKBURN AND NOAM CHOMSKY
by Michael Worsham
When JFK came out in 1991, I felt Oliver Stone hit the nail on the head. During 1992, some progressive/liberal writers, including Alexander Cockburn of The Nation, criticized Stone, and said there was no conspiracy, and even if there was, it did not matter because Kennedy, despite his great personal charisma, dynamic speaking, etc., was underneath, the same as all the other power-hungry and money-loving capitalists.
I asked Alexander Cockburn about JFK when he visited TAMU in 1992 (with the help of Danny Yeager and The Touchstone), but he seemed bored talking about Kennedy. As I sat and chatted with Mr. Cockburn along with the rest of the Touchstone gang (as it existed back in 1992) around a table at a local College Station restaurant, I was extremely puzzled and just could not understand how someone as educated, well-read, and perceptive about so many national and world affairs as Mr. Cockburn could really believe a complete load of crap like the Warren Commission report. It just did not make sense.
I learned a little later that Noam Chomsky also took the position that there was no conspiracy. Most of what I know about Mr. Chomsky is what I read in his occasional editorials in the now-defunct Lies Of Our Times magazine, and through the movie Manufacturing Consent (a biography of Mr. Chomsky worth watching, especially for the section on the N.Y. Times and East Timor).
Now, an answer as to why these and other progressive writers smart enough to know better, support (at least publicly) the Warren Commission has surfaced in the Jan-Feb issue of Probe (the newsletter of Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination, http://www.webcom.com/ctka).
According to a Probe article by Ray Marcus, back in early 1969 Mr. Chomsky met with several Kennedy experts and spent several hours looking at and discussing assassination photos. Mr. Chomsky even cancelled several appointments to have extra time. There was a followup meeting with Mr. Chomsky, which also lasted several hours. These meetings were ostensibly to try to do something to reopen the case. According to the Probe article, Mr. Chomsky indicated he was very interested, but had to give the matter careful consideration before committing.
After the meeting, Selwyn Bromberger, an MIT philosophy professor who had sit in on the discussion, said to the author: "If they are strong enough to kill the President and strong enough to cover it up, then they are too strong to confront directly . . . if they feel sufficiently threatened, they may move to open totalitarian rule." According to the author, Mr. Chomsky had given every indication that he believed there was a conspiracy at these meetings. However, Mr. Chomsky never got involved with trying to reopen the case.
The same Probe article mentions that (the late) I.F. Stone, another leading progressive writer of the past, also took a position supportive of the Warren Commission in I.F. Stone's Weekly for Oct. 5, 1964.
Alexander Cockburn now writes for CounterPunch, a solid bi-weekly newsletter associated with the liberal Institute for Policy Studies. CounterPunch is fine, and worth reading, although its articles are never authored. CounterPunch also overly dwells on Washington D.C. politicians, like the tabloids, except that CounterPunch emphasizes financial instead of sexual misdeeds—i.e., it follows the money. (Recently CounterPunch was also the only organization of about 20 which refused my renewal check, subject to a simple agreement not to release my name or pester me with junk mail—more on this in a future issue of The Touchstone).
It has now become clear to me that leading progressive/left/liberal thinkers and writers like I.F. Stone, Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn will only criticize the monied and powerful to the extent that they think it is safe for them to do. This is no different in principle from what the mainstream news media does: critiques are within a constrained margin of what is acceptable and not acceptable to the powers that be.
The only difference is that Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn have much wider margins than ABC (now owned by Disney), NBC (owned by General Electric), CBS (owned by Westinghouse), The Washington Post (with long ties to the intelligence community), and the N.Y. Times (so biased that the previously mentioned Lies Of Our Times was created to combat the rampant disinformation).
Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn are also really no different than Dan Rather. Mr. Rather publicly supports the Warren Commission, but has a private position on the assassination we have not heard. On specials about Kennedy, Mr. Rather will spout some mealy-mouthed nonsense like "The mystery of the assassination burns like an eternal flame" while the camera pans over Rather's shoulder to the Kennedy torch that burns at Arlington Cemetery.
To some extent Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn practice what the Kennedy research community is often accused of—they have created a cottage industry—standard left-wing/liberal criticisms of power. Their critiques are well-meaning and accurate, and provide a comfortable if not wealthy living, but don't really make a substantial dent in the problems they write about. Mr. Chomsky has been writing for over 30 years now, yet how many people have even heard of Noam Chomsky—even after the feature film about him (Manufacturing Consent) was produced? Has corporate power been reigned in any? How many Americans know about East Timor?
I hope these and all progressive writers will develop the courage to speak all of the truth that they know, or at least be honest about it, because even repeated, sharp, and direct-to-the-point criticisms of power, are not worth much if they are deliberately mis-aimed against the most important and critical problem: That forces in the supposedly constitutional democracy of the U.S. will murder democratically elected leaders like John F. Kennedy (and progressive leaders like Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and get away with it.
by Michael Worsham
When JFK came out in 1991, I felt Oliver Stone hit the nail on the head. During 1992, some progressive/liberal writers, including Alexander Cockburn of The Nation, criticized Stone, and said there was no conspiracy, and even if there was, it did not matter because Kennedy, despite his great personal charisma, dynamic speaking, etc., was underneath, the same as all the other power-hungry and money-loving capitalists.
I asked Alexander Cockburn about JFK when he visited TAMU in 1992 (with the help of Danny Yeager and The Touchstone), but he seemed bored talking about Kennedy. As I sat and chatted with Mr. Cockburn along with the rest of the Touchstone gang (as it existed back in 1992) around a table at a local College Station restaurant, I was extremely puzzled and just could not understand how someone as educated, well-read, and perceptive about so many national and world affairs as Mr. Cockburn could really believe a complete load of crap like the Warren Commission report. It just did not make sense.
I learned a little later that Noam Chomsky also took the position that there was no conspiracy. Most of what I know about Mr. Chomsky is what I read in his occasional editorials in the now-defunct Lies Of Our Times magazine, and through the movie Manufacturing Consent (a biography of Mr. Chomsky worth watching, especially for the section on the N.Y. Times and East Timor).
Now, an answer as to why these and other progressive writers smart enough to know better, support (at least publicly) the Warren Commission has surfaced in the Jan-Feb issue of Probe (the newsletter of Citizens for Truth about the Kennedy Assassination, http://www.webcom.com/ctka).
According to a Probe article by Ray Marcus, back in early 1969 Mr. Chomsky met with several Kennedy experts and spent several hours looking at and discussing assassination photos. Mr. Chomsky even cancelled several appointments to have extra time. There was a followup meeting with Mr. Chomsky, which also lasted several hours. These meetings were ostensibly to try to do something to reopen the case. According to the Probe article, Mr. Chomsky indicated he was very interested, but had to give the matter careful consideration before committing.
After the meeting, Selwyn Bromberger, an MIT philosophy professor who had sit in on the discussion, said to the author: "If they are strong enough to kill the President and strong enough to cover it up, then they are too strong to confront directly . . . if they feel sufficiently threatened, they may move to open totalitarian rule." According to the author, Mr. Chomsky had given every indication that he believed there was a conspiracy at these meetings. However, Mr. Chomsky never got involved with trying to reopen the case.
The same Probe article mentions that (the late) I.F. Stone, another leading progressive writer of the past, also took a position supportive of the Warren Commission in I.F. Stone's Weekly for Oct. 5, 1964.
Alexander Cockburn now writes for CounterPunch, a solid bi-weekly newsletter associated with the liberal Institute for Policy Studies. CounterPunch is fine, and worth reading, although its articles are never authored. CounterPunch also overly dwells on Washington D.C. politicians, like the tabloids, except that CounterPunch emphasizes financial instead of sexual misdeeds—i.e., it follows the money. (Recently CounterPunch was also the only organization of about 20 which refused my renewal check, subject to a simple agreement not to release my name or pester me with junk mail—more on this in a future issue of The Touchstone).
It has now become clear to me that leading progressive/left/liberal thinkers and writers like I.F. Stone, Noam Chomsky and Alexander Cockburn will only criticize the monied and powerful to the extent that they think it is safe for them to do. This is no different in principle from what the mainstream news media does: critiques are within a constrained margin of what is acceptable and not acceptable to the powers that be.
The only difference is that Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn have much wider margins than ABC (now owned by Disney), NBC (owned by General Electric), CBS (owned by Westinghouse), The Washington Post (with long ties to the intelligence community), and the N.Y. Times (so biased that the previously mentioned Lies Of Our Times was created to combat the rampant disinformation).
Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn are also really no different than Dan Rather. Mr. Rather publicly supports the Warren Commission, but has a private position on the assassination we have not heard. On specials about Kennedy, Mr. Rather will spout some mealy-mouthed nonsense like "The mystery of the assassination burns like an eternal flame" while the camera pans over Rather's shoulder to the Kennedy torch that burns at Arlington Cemetery.
To some extent Mr. Chomsky and Mr. Cockburn practice what the Kennedy research community is often accused of—they have created a cottage industry—standard left-wing/liberal criticisms of power. Their critiques are well-meaning and accurate, and provide a comfortable if not wealthy living, but don't really make a substantial dent in the problems they write about. Mr. Chomsky has been writing for over 30 years now, yet how many people have even heard of Noam Chomsky—even after the feature film about him (Manufacturing Consent) was produced? Has corporate power been reigned in any? How many Americans know about East Timor?
I hope these and all progressive writers will develop the courage to speak all of the truth that they know, or at least be honest about it, because even repeated, sharp, and direct-to-the-point criticisms of power, are not worth much if they are deliberately mis-aimed against the most important and critical problem: That forces in the supposedly constitutional democracy of the U.S. will murder democratically elected leaders like John F. Kennedy (and progressive leaders like Robert F. Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) and get away with it.
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