Antiwar.com Blog

Sorry I haven’t blogged anything in awhile, but this is something most of you will probably get a kick out of.

How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American

I normally try to excerpt the good stuff, but I’ll just reprint this in full and let all you anti-Semites chew on it (bolding mine):

Blame It on Neo
Don’t call me a “neocon” unless you are a friend.

BY JULIA GORIN

Last week Pat Buchanan appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” and liberal host Jon Stewart bonded with his paleoconservative guest over their mutual opposition to the liberation of Iraq. Mr. Stewart smiled and nodded while Mr. Buchanan derided “neoconservatives” four times in the course of the six-minute interview. In his efforts to promote his and his guest’s common agenda, Mr. Stewart didn’t ask Mr. Buchanan what he meant by “neoconservatives.” It was clear that the Jewish Mr. Stewart didn’t realize that Mr. Buchanan was using what has become an epithet for “Jews”–an epithet employed most often by the left.

One big culprit has been Air America. Tune in to the proudly liberal radio network, and you’ll hear actress-turned-activist Janeane Garofalo and other hosts frequently blast the “influence” of the “neocons” on the Bush Administration, then go on to name names such as Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams and Libby. Not a single gentile name makes the list, so it’s the Jewish influence to which the network takes particular exception.

Others have gotten in trouble for pointing this out, but let’s give up the charade. When a member of the enlightened classes, or Pat Buchanan, makes reference to a “neocon,” what he’s saying is “yid.” That’s right, “neoconservative,” particularly in its shortened form, when employed by a nonconservative (or by Buchananites) and therefore meant derogatorily, is the modern, albeit more specific, word for “kike” that the left can say–and it has been doing so liberally (no pun intended) ever since American conservatism became yet something else that Jews have managed to benefit from–the conquered, final frontier of that famous Jewish manipulation.

By “neocons,” the left means the Jewish subset of neocons. [MB: Please read that again. What the?] Witness Maureen Dowd’s column last year, titled “Neocon Coup at the Department d’Etat”: “The neocons have moved on to a vigilante action to occupy diplomacy. The audacious ones have saddled up their pre-emptive steeds and headed off to force a regime change at Foggy Bottom. . . . The president is not always privy to the start of a grandiose neocon scheme. . . . When the neocons want something done, they’ll get it done, no matter what Mr. Bush thinks. And they think Mr. Powell has downgraded the top cabinet post into a human resources job, making nicey-nice with the U.N. and assorted bad guys instead of pursuing the neocon blueprint for world domination.”

At first, Ms. Dowd’s neocon list of last names included only Wolfowitz, Perle, Kristol, Libby and their “Likudnik friends,” but later, as blogger “Silver Surfer” writes on IsraPundit.com, she amended the list to include Cheney, Woolsey and Gingrich. “In Ms. Dowd’s view,” he writes, “adding a few non-Jewish names to her ‘neo-cons’ list makes her conspiratorial story-line kosher. But it doesn’t. The result is a classical portrait of ‘neo-con’ (read: Jewish) advisors, who drip poison in the ears of their hapless gentile bosses, while they advance their global plot to subvert true American interests and take over the world–and, as Ms. Dowd is always quick to point out . . . thereby ‘advance the strategic goals of Israel.’ ”

For a while, I couldn’t tell whether the word was a euphemism or a slur, but from the resentful tone with which it was being employed by certain contingents (“pushy neocons” is another popular one), I could discern that the term’s usage was undergoing a transition. After all, ethnic slurs can start out as euphemisms (meant to avoid identifying anyone blatantly by nationality) before evolving into derogations. “Colored” was a way to avoid the N-word, but today it doesn’t go over very well itself. And a century ago Jews jokingly called one another by their Ellis Island designation “keikle” (Yiddish for “circle”)–until the joke was co-opted by those hostile to Jews.

As a new staple of mainstream American vocabulary, “neoconservative” warrants a reminder of the term’s beginnings, before it became chic newspeak. It originally referred to a movement of largely Jewish liberals who gave leftism an honest and protracted effort, who dutifully reviled every Republican president through Eisenhower, who did their time in inner cities, and who gave peace and social engineering a chance, until the real-world consequences of their good will forced them to acknowledge that what they were doing wasn’t working but in fact backfiring. At which point, these men (e.g., Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol) underwent a midlife epiphany and became conservative after the 1960s.

Today the word applies to anyone who undergoes such a transformation, Jewish or not. True, neoconservatives are not the same breed of conservative that made up the Republican Party of Barry Goldwater. The difference is the neoconservatives’ more interventionist foreign policy as opposed to vintage conservatism’s isolationism.

With today’s “post-9/11 omigod I think I may be Republican” Democrats, what we have in effect are neo-neoconservatives. Many of the Jews in this group might be more accurately described as Bush Democrats, but they’ve opted for the cachet of the label and call themselves neocons. But when Al Franken and other determinedly left-wing Jews use the term, they don’t mean it nicely, embarrassed as they are by their politically wayward fellow tribesmen.
So let’s go over the rules: Just because we call ourselves “neocons,” it doesn’t mean you can. Of course, if you’re right-leaning and don’t intend the word disparagingly, you get a pass. Just know that unless you’re aware that “neoconservative” also includes last names like Bennett, Kirkpatrick, Sowell, Kemp and Ashcroft, when you refer to someone as a neocon, you’re saying “Jew.” We might suggest reverting to previous, less codey expressions such as “Jewish conservative” or “Republican Jew”–especially since not every right-leaning Jew is neo. But not to worry: We neocons, Republican Jews, Jewish conservatives and Jews for Bush won’t take offense, since we don’t want American Christians to feel even more paranoid than they already do (particularly during “holiday” season).

As for our imperviously left-leaning fellow tribesmen, let them figure out for themselves how to handle their non-Jewish co-ideologists who say “neocon” angrily and freely in mixed company.

Yes, poor Richard Perle and Dick Cheney (oops, Douglas Feith) drinking at their segregated water fountains, “doing their time in inner cities” – why, my tears run down like waters, and my self-righteousness like a mighty stream.

A stinking tub of sh*t, that, and anyone who has ever abetted such foolishness should be embarrassed. At least Ms. Gorin calls herself a comedian, though she’s no Lenny Bruce.

Given the Bush administration’s fondness for failed Soviet initiatives, they may want to consider another one that has just come to light: putting a military base on the moon. From The Moscow News:

In the days of the Cold War Soviet commanders and their best scientists were working on a project to build military headquarters on the Moon, the Novaya Gazeta weekly reports. The paper writes that the lunar base project was developed thirty years ago and was only abolished because of its enormous cost.

The newspaper cited Aleksandr Yegorov, deputy general designer of the General Machine Building Design Bureau (the name of the bureau suggests that it deals with top secret military projects — MosNews) as saying that he personally took part in the development of the lunar base project.

Soviet scientists considered the Moon to be a very good place for a strategic headquarters as nuclear strikes on its surface would lose most of their destructive force. As the moon has no atmosphere, no shockwave could spread there and the radioactive dust would immediately fall out back on the surface without an atmosphere to carry it. …

The project was abolished only due to its enormous cost, Yegorov said. According to him, the Soviet project was “tens of times” more expensive than the Apollo project of the United States which cost $34 billion.

Well, cost has yet to prevent Bush from doing anything else, and occupying the moon would probably be a damn sight cheaper than occupying Iraq for the rest of eternity.

Is the US still holding Al-Douri’s wife and daughter hostage? The US admits to having two women prisoners and it is for these two women’s release that the Tawhil wal Jihad is currently beheading their American and Briton hostages. Scotsman.com reports that Dr Rihab Taha and Dr Huda Salih Mahdi Ammash are the only known women prisoners of the US. If so, what happened to Al-Douri’s family?

Just asking.

From Abbas Kadhim’s blog:

The residents of Baghdad do not agree with al-Sha’lan and al-Alusi about their #1 enemy. Here are the numbers in response to the only question in the survey, “Whom do you think is Iraq’s #1 enemy”:

1. Israel 32%
2. USA 23.2%
3. Extremist Islamic groups 12.3%
4. Saddam and his supporters 11.4%
5. Iran 8.8%
6. Al-Qa’ida 8%
7. Al-Zarqawi 4.3%

Reportedly 3 Kurds labeled as “KDP party members” have been beheaded and the video posted on the web. At the same time, it is reported that 25 “Iraqi National Guard members” have also been abducted. Considering that the “Iraqi National Guard” which fought alongside US forces in Fallujah, Najaf and Tal Afar were almost completely made up of Kurdish peshmerga, it is possible that these 25 abducted Iraqis are Kurds.

After the bloody siege and assault on Fallujah, Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Karl Vick reported in the Washington Post:

Guerrillas coming out of Fallujah have complained bitterly that Kurdish militiamen known as pesh merga are deployed against them. The Kurds are members of the 36th Battalion of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps built from several exile-based militias that supported the U.S.-led campaign against Saddam Hussein. Commanders of another, overwhelmingly Arab Iraqi arm battalion refused to fight alongside the Marines.

“Worse than pigs, thieves and tramps,” read lines a poem circulating on fliers in Kirkuk, a city in northern Iraq where Kurds are accused of pushing Arab families off land claimed by both groups. The fliers condemned the leaders of Iraq’s two Kurdish parties. It is not known who produced the fliers, which were also seen in Baghdad.

The Kurdish leaders were condemned in chanting that followed Friday prayers at a major Sunni mosque in Baghdad.

“When the fighting is over in Fallujah, I will sell everything I have, even my home,” said a resistance fighter who gave his name as Abu Taif Mashhadani. He wept as he recalled his 8-year-old daughter who he said was killed by a U.S. sniper in Fallujah a week ago. “I will send my brothers north to kill the Kurds, and I will go to America and target the civilians. Only the civilians. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. And the one who started it will be the one to be blamed.”

During the attack on Najaf, London based Asharq al-Awsat reported:

An assistant to Muqtada al-Sadr, Husam al-Moosawi, yesterday threatened to attack US troops violently if they enter Najaf. He also accused Kurdish peshmerga fighters of helping the US troops. Moosawi described a barrier built by the Americans between Kufa and Najaf as a provocative step aiming at isolating the two cities. “Any American patrol in Najaf is liable to attacks because we consider this an encroachment upon the holy city. We have the right to defend ourselves, the religious authorities, and the cities,” said Moosawi, who added that he had hard evidence of Peshmerga participation with US forces near Najaf. He said Peshmerga elements are in Najaf’s al-Askari quarter.

After the siege of Tal Afar, Patrick Cockburn writes:

The Americans claim that Tal Afar is a hub for militants smuggling fighters and arms into Iraq from nearby Syria. Turkish officials make clear in private they believe that the Kurds, the main ally of the US in northern Iraq, have managed to get US troops involved on their side in the simmering ethnic conflict between Kurds and Turkmen.

“The Iraqi government forces with the Americans are mainly Kurdish,” complained one Turkmen source. A Turkish official simply referred to the Iraqi military units involved in the attack on Tal Afar as “peshmerga”, the name traditionally given to Kurdish fighters.
[…]
There has been tension, sometimes boiling over into gun battles, between the Kurds and the Turkmens since last year. As Saddam Hussein’s regime fell apart Kurdish troops, aided by the US air force, advanced to take Kirkuk and Mosul. The Kurds felt they at last had a chance to reverse 40 years of ethnic cleansing which had seen their people massacred or driven from their homes.

Both Arabs and Turkmen fear ethnic cleansing in reverse. In Tal Afar, a poor city with high unemployment, there was friction from the beginning. Days after the fall of Saddam the Kurdistan Democratic Party appointed its own mayor called Abdul Haleq in the city. He ran up a yellow Kurdish flag outside his office. He was told by local people to take it down or die. He refused and was killed the following day. His office, along with the yellow flag, was burned by an angry crowd.

This, of course, was the danger inherent in the US’s use of peshmerga against Arab Iraqis, as I have tried to point out as these developments became known. The Israeli involvement in Kurdistan, as reported by Seymour Hersh, surely would not help matters.