(you all know how much I just want the US to be even-handed to the point that this is a litmus test for me)
Repeats the propaganda:
In the Middle East we've got an active guerrilla war between Israel and Palestine. It's a shame; it's a tragedy. I was with former prime minister Ehud Barak last weekend in San Antonio, and we talked about this. He made a bold strategic move. He restored legitimacy to Israel by pulling out of Lebanon. He called Arafat; he called his bluff. He said here it is, you can have everything you want; you can have part of Jerusalem; you can have the temple area and everything--you can have control of this. You can have the settlements here frozen until--but it wasn't enough.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004065----------------------------------------------------------------
Apologist:
<snip>
So Israel’s adversaries found a new way to fight. They used infantry (equipped with small arms, rocket-propelled grenades and antitank guided missiles). In response, Israel put mortars on its tanks and practiced seizing the high ground in order to bring fire against enemy infantrymen.
Then the Palestinians
inside Israel learned how to resist using nonlethal force, like rocks and clubs. It was a tactic aimed at exploiting world sensitivities,
forcing Israeli security forces to overreact. Occasionally the tactics were supplemented by armed men concealed among the rock throwers or by the use of terror bombings. This was the intifadeh.
((Warning Will Robinson, the Intifada did not happen inside Israel- did this Rhoads scholar flunk geography? This is hawkish settler talk!))So Israel developed new equipment, new forces and new tactics. To secure its borders, Israel deployed more heavily armored tanks and troop-carrying vehicles. Apache helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles and very long-range optics were procured. To protect itself internally, Israel issued its infantrymen plastic bullets and other riot-control gear. Special security forces were organized to help relieve the conventional Israel units of responsibility for keeping order inside Israel. When confrontation with hostile crowds was unavoidable, Israel used restrictive rules of engagement – and snipers to respond to armed opponents – in an effort to minimize losses and avoid dramatic scenes that could inflame world opinion.
<snip>
Israel’s riposte was tactically precise and strategically effective. The pinpoint strikes by armed helicopters on Thursday targeted Palestinian facilities associated with inciting the violence. Carefully giving advance warning to minimize civilian casualties, Israel drew a firm line. Enough. It was sharp and, in Israeli public opinion, satisfying. And as a clear escalation – reminding the world that local events could quickly grow into a major regional conflict – the Israeli move drew in diplomatic leverage from all sides.
<snip>
http://www.greatertalent.com/clark.shtml----------------
"I think Clark might just take the wind out of the sail of Dean's balloon," said lawyer Stuart Shorenstein, whose wife went to check out the general. "I wouldn't be surprised to see a lot of people gravitating over."
The idea that Clark would gain among Jewish voters at the expense of Dean was also promoted by Rep. Steve Israel, a New York congressman who was one of the first in the House to endorse Clark. "Oh yeah," is how Israel responded when asked whether Dean had hurt himself with recent remarks advocating a neutralist posture toward Arab-Israeli negotiations. Clark, meanwhile, garnered rave reviews when he spoke in Long Island a couple of weeks ago to the Long Island Foreign Affairs Forum, a group of 100 business leaders, Israel said.
"For Jewish voters who are concerned about terrorism and who want a president with a constructive and thoughtful strategy for dealing with terrorism, Wesley Clark is extremely appealing," Israel said. "No other candidate has a lock on New York's Jewish voters. I think General Clark has that opportunity."
Israel, who voted for the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, said he was unconcerned with conflicting statements Clark has made on the campaign trail about whether he would have voted for the resolution. Commentators have seized on the flip-flops as evidence that Clark was stumbling out of the gate, but Israel said arguments over the resolution were less about "substance" than about "timing."
<snip>
A hint of Clark's thinking on the Middle East is contained in a series of reports on the region by the International Crisis Group, a caucus of foreign-policy luminaries on whose board Clark sits. The reports, which can be viewed at the group's Web site (www.intl-crisis-group.org), argue for a comprehensive, rather than incremental, strategy to end the Arab-Israeli conflict that would involve "not only the Israeli-Palestinian track... but the Israel-Syria and Israel-Lebanon tracks as well."
<snip>
http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.09.26/news1.clark.html-----------------
What makes me really uncomfortable about Clark is that I noticed all the hawkish Lieberman supporters were the first ones to jump on his band wagon. That observation became disconcerting when I found out Clark was associated with the Brookings Institution
Saban CenterDirector: Martin S. Indyk
Director of Research: Kenneth M. Pollack
Senior Fellows: Philip H. Gordon, Shibley Telhami, Daniel L. Byman
National Security Fellow and Coordinator, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World: Peter W. Singer
Visiting Fellows: Shaul Bakhash, Muqtedar Khan, Flynt Leverett, Ömer Taspinar, and Ezzat I.M. Youssef
Center Administrator: Ellen McHugh
Research Analyst: Haim Malka
Senior Research Assistant: Garner Gollatz
Staff Assistant: Mitchell Wunsh
Martin S. Indyk
Director
Arab-Israeli conflict, Gulf security, U.S. policy
Ambassador Indyk served in several senior positions in the U.S. government, most recently as ambassador to Israel and assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs. He was also a founding executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has published widely on Palestinian-Israeli peace and other topics in Middle East policy, and is now working on a study of the Clinton Administration's diplomacy in the region.
Kenneth M. Pollack
Director of Research
Iraq, Iran, Gulf security, Arab military affairs
Dr. Pollack served as a CIA analyst and as the National Security Council's director for Persian Gulf affairs and for Near East and South Asian affairs. He is the author of two recent books, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq and Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 (both 2002). His current research focuses on postwar reconstruction and democratization in Iraq and future security arrangements in the Persian Gulf.
Philip H. Gordon
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the U.S. and France
Europe, transatlantic relations, Turkey, Middle East
Dr. Gordon previously served in the National Security Council as director of European affairs. He is the author of The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization (2001) and The Transatlantic Allies and a Changing Middle East (1998). He has published widely on such Middle East-related topics as Cyprus, Turkey, and the international crisis over Iraq. His current research focuses on U.S.-European relations in the Middle East.
Shibley Telhami
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Palestinian and Israeli politics, ethnic identity and conflict, Gulf and Arab politics
Dr. Telhami is Anwar Sadat Professor at the University of Maryland and author of The Stakes: America and the Middle East (2002). His many other publications on Middle East politics include Power and Leadership in International Bargaining: The Path to the Camp David Accords (1990). His current research focuses on the media's role in shaping Middle Eastern political identity and the sources of ideas about U.S. policy in the region.
Daniel L. Byman
Nonresident Senior Fellow
Middle Eastern terrorism, U.S. counterterrorism strategy, conflict management
Dr. Byman is assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University. His experience includes work on the Joint 9/11 Inquiry and Senate Intelligence Committees and as an analyst for the CIA. He is the author of two recent books, Keeping the Peace: Lasting Solutions to Ethnic Conflicts and The Dynamics of Coercion: American Foreign Policy and the Limits of Military Might (both 2002).
Peter W. Singer
National Security Fellow and Director, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World
Foreign policy, national security, U.S. relations with Islamic countries
Dr. Singer is the author of Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military History (2003) and a forthcoming book on the global problem of child soldiers, Caution: Children at War. Among other topics he has researched are U.S. Afghanistan policy, the politics of Islamic education in Pakistan, AIDS and national security, and American policy toward the Islamic world.
VISITING FELLOWS
Shaul Bakhash
Visiting Fellow
Iran, modern Islamic political thought
Dr. Bakhash is Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University. He is the author of Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution; Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy, and Reform Under the Qajars, 1858-1896; and The Politics of Oil and Revolution in Iran. He formerly worked as a journalist in Tehran. His current research focuses on the reform movement and the prospects for democratic change in Iran.
Muqtedar Khan
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World
Political Islam, Islamic thought, U.S. foreign policy, globalization
Dr. Khan is assistant professor of political science and director of the international studies program at Adrian College. His published work has addressed political Islam, U.S. foreign policy, religious and political identity, globalization, and various topics in Islamic political theory and philosophy. His current research aims to provide a revised framework for U.S. policy towards the Islamic world.
Flynt Leverett
Visiting Fellow
Syria, U.S.-Arab relations, counterterrorism
Dr. Leverett was senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, advising the White House on relations with Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Dr. Leverett previously served as a Middle East and counterterrorism expert on the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff and as a senior CIA analyst. His research focuses on Syria, the war on terrorism, and U.S.-Syrian relations.
Ömer Taspinar
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World
Turkey, political Islam, human rights, international economic policy
Dr. Taspinar is a Turkish political analyst and an adjunct professor of European and Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University. His research interests include Turkish politics, the European Union, political Islam, Kurdish nationalism, and human rights. He is currently working on a study of economic and educational outreach for the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World.
Ezzat I.M. Youssef
Visiting Fellow, Brookings Project on U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World
International Relations, U.S. Policy in the Middle East
Mr. Youssef, a Fulbright/APSA fellow, is a journalist at the foreign affairs desk of the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram. After his time at Brookings, he will spend nine months in the U.S. Congress as a Congressional Fellow. He edits al-Ahram's biweekly feature "The Agenda," presenting the latest views from international think tanks. His research interests include the role of think tanks and Congress in making U.S. foreign policy.
http://www.brook.edu/fp/saban/staff.htm I saved the best for last: PNAC ((Saban Center is part of the Brookings Institution btw))
Under the direction of
Vice President and Director James B. Steinberg, the Foreign Policy Studies program at the Brookings Institution seeks to meet these challenges through timely research and analysis designed to inform and shape the policy debate in the United States and abroad.
http://www.brook.edu/fp/information.htmThus, among the signers who have never before been associated with PNAC, are Robert Asmus, a former deputy secretary of state for Europe; Ivo Daalder, a prominent member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Robert Gelbard, a former U.S. ambassador to Chile and Indonesia;
Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Dennis Ross, his chief adviser on Palestinian-Israeli negotiations; Walter Slocombe, Clinton's top policy official at the Pentagon;
and, most important, James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser who now heads foreign policy studies at the influential Brookings Institution.http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0303pnacletter_body.htmlhttp://pnacrevealed.com/Participant at BILDERBERG 2003: VERSAILLES, PARIS
USA - Steinberg, James B. - Vice President and Director, Foreign Policy Studies Program, The Brookings Institution
http://www.propagandamatrix.com/bilderberg_2003.htmlI stopped looking but here's the google link:
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=James+steinberg+PNAC
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