Bush Adviser: Iraq War Launched to Protect Israel

[G_j]

http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0329-11.htm
Published on Monday, March 29, 2004 by Inter Press Service

Iraq War Launched to Protect Israel - Bush Adviser
by Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON - IPS uncovered the remarks by Philip Zelikow, who is now the executive director of the body set up to investigate the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 -- the 9/11 commission -- in which he suggests a prime motive for the invasion just over one year ago was to eliminate a threat to Israel, a staunch U.S. ally in the Middle East.

Zelikow's casting of the attack on Iraq as one launched to protect Israel appears at odds with the public position of President George W. Bush and his administration, which has never overtly drawn the link between its war on the regime of former president Hussein and its concern for Israel's security.

The administration has instead insisted it launched the war to liberate the Iraqi people, destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and to protect the United States.

Zelikow made his statements about ”the unstated threat” during his tenure on a highly knowledgeable and well-connected body known as the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president.
...more..

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Iraq war launched to enrich right wing campaign donors

Everything else is fluff including this issue..whether it's WMD's, Israel, terrorism, the fact is.....it was planned with these socalled threats in mind only as alibis...not as issues.

[ex_jew]

2. And you'll say the same thing when it's Syria's turn ?

[aquart]

5. Ex-Jew?

PNAC wants the Middle East: Iraq, Iran, Syria. Afghanistan. A few other stans. The Caspian Basin oil.

Now, it seems easy for some people to believe that Jews would be in favor of the massacre of millions of Muslims, which is WHAT IT WOULD TAKE TO GAIN CONTROL OF THE MIDDLE EAST.

Me, I've been against that kind of thing since I found out how my grandmother's family died. But that's just me. I was pretty gung ho for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo because the Serbs were murdering Muslims and tossing hundreds into mass graves. Maybe I'm unusual.

This kill Muslims take control of their oil thing. I dunno. Feels a lot more Texas than Jewish to me.

[K-W]

7. What's good for the goose etc.

Israel and the US have a deal. Isreal acts as a proxy for us in the middle east, in exchange, the US backs up Isreal and protects it.

This isnt about Jewish voters in the US, it is about foreign policy. We didnt go into the vietnam war because of the vietnamese americans, we did it because we wanted a US friendly government there.

I dont think this makes Isreal safer in reality. If the US controls Iraq, Isreal becomes expendable, but it is very possible that Isreal felt very threatned and pushed for a greater US prescence in the Region. If there was a percieved fear that Isreal would lose its power there, then the US would have been desperate to support thier influence, thus in a way of looking at it, the war was done to protect isreal.

[G_j]

3. I think a lot of motives intersected

in Iraq, but first and foremost was the desire to have a WAR. Iraq had 'decent targets', oil and all. I tend not to believe this was the major factor as he seems to be saying.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

8. I agree

and on the issue of Perle...he is a war profiteer first and foremost.

[aquart]

4. Thank you. What a load of crap.

Israel seem safer to anybody?

Israel is the size of New Jersey. Has no wealth. Jews in America are barely 2% of the population and do not vote in a bloc despite the fantasies of politicians.

But Israel is directing US foreign policy?

Well, that sure lets the greedy corporatist so-called Christians off the hook, doesn't it?

And how easy it was to do.

[ex_jew]

6. Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Feith

Do these names mean anything to you ? JINSA or PNAC ? I suppose it's all a concidence that Israel wanted Saddam gone and now he's gone. As to whether Israel is really safer, of course they aren't. But that doesn't mean their supporters weren't glad to remove an annoyance.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

9. Of course but as a security issue it is grabbing and the left seems

to be using it for scapgoating purposes...Bush USED Israel not the reverse.

[pop goes the weasel]

10. no

It puts the rightwingnut Christians *on* the hook. Israel plays a major part in their sick and twisted theology, and it isn't the part most Jewish people envision for Israel. The only thing more sick and twisted are the Israeli rightwingnuts who think they can use the rightwingnut Christians without it biting them on the butt. Shoot, the whole thing is sick and twisted, what with one group of rightwingnuts thinking they are using some other group of rightwingnuts for their own purposes. And the rest of us aren't supposed to notice? We have to notice, because the rest of us, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist, whathaveyou, are expendable to the rightwingnuts. Your point about Israel not being any safer simply demonstrates that the current policy is only going to get decent people killed.

[ConsAreLiars]

11. it is called geopolitics

The Sharon faction wanted US forces behind Syria et al to discourage attacks on Israel in its drive for a greater Israel. The PNAC cabal wanted to position its military strategically for its own goals, thus buttressing the role of Israel as their forward base in the region. With Afghanistan bases controlling the outflow of oil from the 'stans and neutralizing Iran, they hoped to achieve through military force what previous gov'ts had tried to accomplish through carrot-stick "diplomacy."

That the people of the region, Of Israel and of the US are no safer as a result should come as no surprise.

[K-W]

12. Its always scary when you realize,

that alot about our lives is decided by delluted elites playing a game of risk with the globe.

[ConsAreLiars]

15. And that is exactly what it is.

A game of power and greed, rationalized and sold by empty words about democracy or divine right or free trade or nationalism or simple-minded good-vs-evil hate-mongering. Whatever works.

Do they believe it when they say these things? Are "they" deluded? Maybe, some of them. But they are Cons, and they will "believe" whatever works their con most efficiently. And "they" are tools, controlled by the law and mechanics that flow from the principle of the continuous increase of capital.

[G_j]

13. I think that sounds pretty accurate

it's the PNAC chess game. It has more to do with "buttressing the role of Israel as their forward base in the region" than "Protecting Israel". This and the fact that they 'needed a good war' somewhere in the ME.

[K-W]

14. Which under the right spin means "protecting Isreal".

Isreal has been losing international popularity for a while over the Palastinian conflict. They are and have always been in an incredibly vulnerable situation in the Middle East and the increasing global scrutiny of thier actions must have made them feel even less comfortable. They want the US to get more forces in the Middle East so that Isreal is less vulnerable.

The US sees Europe gaining more of a foothold economically in the middle east and wants a New American Century, so we want more than just Isreal in the middle east.

Desperate moves by desperate men. The Middle East is a rapidly changing region. Change they do not themselves effect is the conservatives worst enemy.