Rumsfeld’s Crazy Foreign Policy Team

 

 

In the January 1975 issue of Commentary, Robert Tucker promoted the radical notion of invading Arab oil fields. It is worth noting that Commentary is a publication of the American Jewish Committee and is edited by Norman Podhoretz, one of the movers and shakers in the neo-conservative movement. The article was titled “Oil: The Issue of American Intervention”. Last week, a protg of Richard Perle urged the Pentagon to again consider the military conquest of Gulf oil fields.

The man who made the presentation at the Defense Department was Laurent Murawiecz, a French resident alien and a ‘security analyst’ with the Rand Corp. This ‘Middle East expert’ used to do research for LaRouche, a right wing cult figure who believes the queen of England makes her money in the cocaine trade. When Perle’s ‘expert’ urged the Pentagon to add Saudi Arabia to the axis of evil, he was just dusting off an old Yiddish supremacist plot to deprive the Arabs of their oil.  The ‘new’ idea was ‘leaked’ to the press to make sure that the Saudis got the essential message to worry less about Iraq or the Palestinians and concentrate on retaining their own vital assets.  No one needs to remind them that American bases are already firmly planted in the Kingdom to facilitate such a rapid takeover.

After accusing the Saudis of  “supporting our enemies and attacking our allies”, Murawiecz advised US officials to target Saudi Arabia’s economic assets should the Saudis refuse to comply with certain ultimatums, including a ban on Islamic charities and “anti-Israeli” writings.  Once the oil fields and Saudi investments in the United States were confiscated, the Saudis would be advised that their holy places were not immune and that “alternatives are being canvassed”.  According to Murawiecz’s recommendations, the United States should advise Muslim pilgrims to find another destination for their holy ritual, away from the precious oil fields. This particular Likudnik belongs to the ‘bomb Mecca and Medina’ faction in Perle’s Pentagon.

While the Pentagon was leaking out Richard Perle’s latest Gulf venture, Donald Rumsfeld was trying to score a few points with the Israeli Lobby by denying that there was any kind of Israeli occupation. Apparently the whole matter is a figment of Palestinian imagination. Sharon’s occupation goons are illusions, just boy scouts on a picnic in the Casbah.  Just because they murder twenty Palestinians a week and keep a million residents under curfew is no reason to deprive them of their ‘right’ to have a free hand in the  “so-called occupied territory”.  Rumsfeld also allowed that he didn’t have a problem with exclusive Jewish settlements and exclusive Jewish roads on confiscated Palestinian lands.

Now, what does Rumsfeld propose we call the occupied territories? What kind of vocabulary does he use to describe a place where a murderous foreign military force enforces a 100-day curfew against the entire population, except Jews? How does he describe a situation where children are deliberately starved and every aspect of economic life is assaulted? Does he have an opinion on the siege of Palestinian communities that has converted the West Bank into hundreds of isolated penal colonies?  In Rumsfeld’s dictionary, what are the correct words to use for Israeli collective punishment against the native population of the Holy Land?  Has he bothered to inquire about the fate of the 8,000 ‘administrative’ prisoners rounded up in the last few weeks?  Since he made it plainly clear that Israel should continue to hold onto the land, what does he suggest they do with the natives?  Does he subscribe to Richard Armey’s ethnic cleansing ideas? Does he approve of the notion that the Palestinians should be ‘transported’ off their ancestral lands? Where to? Or is Rumsfeld proposing that the Israelis annex the West Bank and Gaza and make the residents Israeli citizens? Is he for a bi-national state or just another ethnic cleanser? Since he has such a big mouth, why doesn’t he come forward with a few answers to some very basic questions? And where exactly is the American press corps or are they still busy covering Chandra Levy and the sharks.

Rumsfeld is and old hand on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Under the Reagan administration, he was a ‘special envoy’ to the Middle East. Back then, he didn’t think there was a problem with Israeli occupation and his actual mission was to do nothing about it. So, he meant what he said and he said it to rock the boat and let the world know that the United States is not going to do a damn thing for the Palestinians, except to finance and encourage Sharon’s expansionist visions.

Once again, the Arab world is demanding an apology from the Bush administrations for what Rumsfeld said and for what the Pentagon ‘expert’ said. In fact, they should be grateful to Rummy for revealing the actual policy of the United States, as opposed to the deceptive official mantras.

If the United States had wanted to end the Israeli occupation, it would not have lasted thirty-five years. It took the first Bush administration only seven months to get Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.  If America were opposed to the illegal Jewish settlement project, they would not have passed thirty-five budgets with generous funding for the Israeli occupation army and every last brick in every last settlement. Every single American administration since the Johnson administration has turned a blind eye to systematic human rights violations in the occupied territories. The US government has a full inventory of every house demolition, every murdered child, every acre of confiscated land, every assassination, every roadblock, every siege and every Israeli war crime. The Bush administration is fully aware of the systematic destruction of vital infrastructure, including power grids, schools and even churches and mosques. The American intelligence community has an uncensored file of every single war crime committed by  Ariel Sharon, from Qibya to Sabra and Shatilla to Jenin, Nablus and Gaza.  But they continue to hand over American tax money to Israel and they continue to give Sharon green lights to pulverize and decimate the Palestinians. From day one, their policy has been to “let them bleed”.  Of course, both Sharon and Bush counted on the Palestinians to do all the bleeding and the Palestinians would not oblige.

To understand American policy, it is worth probing the character of the policy makers who design Rumsfeld’s foreign policy. The three architects of American foreign policy are Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. They will go down in Palestinian history as the true ‘axis of evil’. Wolfowitz and Perle are card carrying Yiddish supremacist Israel Firsters with a resume that entitles them to the highest ranks of the fanatical expansionist wing of the Likud party.  Their current strategy is to divert attention from the Palestinian struggle for freedom by beating the war drums for an assault against Iraq.  Their real agenda is to allow Sharon more time to ‘win’ against Palestinian resistance to Israeli repression. Like Sharon, they believe that there is a level of repression that can be continually and permanently inflicted on the Palestinian people to force them to capitulate to every Likudnik real estate fantasy.

Why is Rumsfeld so belligerent against the Palestinians and the Arabs? Why did he assemble a team of “Middle East experts” from the extremist fringe of the Yiddish Supremacy movement Well, Because Perle and Wolfowitz are haters and that jives with Rumsfeld’s core emotions, which are a quilt designed from a fabric of ethnic hate.   He is comfortable with his Yiddish supremacist advisers because his whole history suggests a personality that is quite at ease with racist dogma. In four terms as a US congressman from Illinois in the 1960s, his voting record earned a perfect 100 per cent rating from conservative groups.  A rating like that means he didn’t vote for the Civil Rights bill. Conservative Illinois in the 1960s is a place that meant his father probably belonged to the Klu Klux Klan and that Rumsfeld got elected with Klan support.  Rumsfeld is the kind of guy who grew up going to Klan rallies with his daddy. I don’t know how he felt about lynching back then, but if he wants to see some hard core racist Israeli goons that will make him wet his white sheet, he can go hang around the ‘so-called occupied territories’ for a few days with his war criminal paramour, Ariel Sharon.

Gerald Kaufman, a Labour Member of Parliament, had the best description for this administration.  In a recent Spectator article, he called Bush “the most intellectually backward American President of my lifetime”. And he described Bush’s advisers as a team  “whose bellicosity is exceeded only by their political, military and diplomatic illiteracy”. His remarks were mainly targeted at Rice and Rumsfeld. I wonder what he has to say about Rumsfeld’s adviser, Richard Perle, who depends on a LaRouche French resident alien, Laurent Murawiecz, to give Pentagon slide shows on invading Saudi oil fields and relocating Mecca and Medina.

Mr. Ahmed Amr is Editor of NileMedia.com in Seattle and a regular contributor to Media Monitors Network (MMN).