[wvns] Whatever AIPAC Wants, AIPAC Gets
"Whatever AIPAC Wants, AIPAC Gets"
Democratic Defectors and the Israel Lobby
By JERRY KROTH
July 10, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/kroth07102007.html
In November, the American electorate repudiated Bush's Iraq debacle
and established Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate
promising to bring this "flawed policy wrapped in illusion" to a
decisive end. Bush vetoed their withdrawal timetable, but voters urged
their leaders to hold the line and not be bullied. In the end, though,
37 Democratic senators capitulated and gratuitously gave the President
his $100 billion no-strings- attached blank check . . . enough money
to pay tuition and fees for 1.3 million college students for four
solid years!
Deep disappointment set in. Cindy Sheehan, the liberal icon, was so
demoralized she resigned and returned to private life. In June, a CNN
poll reported that "respect for Congress" plummeted to the lowest
level "ever recorded."
Bloggers called them "traitor Democrats", and the descriptor is
apropos. At the time of the vote, sixty-two percent of the American
people favored a time-table for a withdrawal, but, more significantly,
"seventy percent" of Democrats were so inclined. Voting against this
burgeoning tide of anger betrayed the will of the people and party
that put these Democrats in office.
Curiously, all of the traitor democrats were huge career recipients of
funds from the Israeli lobby. If we took ten Democratic apostates and
compared them to ten Democrats who stood by the voters, pro-Israeli
PAC contributions were "ten times" greater for the turncoats than
those who stayed with their constituencies ($322,000 versus $34,000 on
average).
To be specific: Carl Levin, outspoken critic of the war and, we
thought, a loyal supporter of the new regime to end it, defected and
blithely turned his back on his Michigan support base. Despite his
strident anti-war rhetoric, the Grand Rapids Independent reports Levin
has supported Bush all the way "consistently funding the war and not
introducing any meaningful legislation to bring it closer to an end."
Practically unknown to his constituents, Levin is one of the largest
beneficiaries of Pro-Israeli PAC funds collecting $600,000 in career
contributions according to the Washington Report on Mideast Affairs.
Barbara Boxer, Denis Kucinich, and Earl Blaumenauer, all opponents of
the war, collectively got $73,000, but turncoat-democrats, Dan Durbin,
Max Baucus, and Frank Lautenberg scooped up in excess of a million
plus untold benes like travel funds.
What comes out in the wash is the best PAC money can buy: Three months
before we invaded Iraq, a New York Times poll showed only 30 percent
of the American people favored an all-out invasion, but the Israeli
lobby (AIPAC) did, and it prevailed. Hardly a sprinkling of Americans
favored the "surge", a meager fourteen percent, but AIPAC did, and the
surge is surging as we speak. Fewer than thirty percent of Democrats
supported that no-strings-budget, but AIPAC did, and the conclusion
plays out another hackneyed chorus of "Whatever AIPAC wants, AIPAC gets."
In 1992, the director of the Israeli lobby, David Steiner, was
surreptitiously recorded bragging about playing a role in selecting
the Secretary of State and what he got for Israel: "Besides the $10
billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in
foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other
goodies that people don't even know about!" When the tape was made
public, Steiner resigned, but it underscored the incredible power,
access, and influence this lobby has.
Two professors, Mearsheimer and Walt, recently insinuated that
American democracy has been suborned by the Israeli lobby, echoing
Senator Fulbright's 1989 indictment that AIPAC had usurped the
electoral process and could "elect or defeat nearly any congressman or
senator that they wish." Such observations do not fall on deaf ears.
Over half the senate and a third of the congress obediently attended
the AIPAC annual convention (versus less than a dozen visiting the
NAACP's event). Non-attendance can suggest a lawmaker might be soft on
terrorism, or, god forbid, anti-Semitic.
Anti-war idealists might think that soon this American war crime, the
shock-and-awe carnage, the torture, and the renditions are coming to
an end, but the agenda of AIPAC seems bent on keeping American armies
in the Middle East as an Israeli first line of defense for the
indefinite future. Their major attack dog, Joe Lieberman, recently
gave a hint on Face the Nation as to might be next: " military
strikes" against Iran. . . all apparently to guarantee that Israel
will remain the only nuclear power in the Middle East.
So if you think you voted, or are planning to vote, to bring the
troops home and end this national embarrassment, some fool's gold
waiting for you at the end of that rainbow.
Jerry Kroth, Ph.D. is a professor of psychology in California and
author of Conspiracy in Camelot: the complete history of the
assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
He may be reached at anya @ sj.znet.com
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