"All Clark is saying, is give peace a chance."
Speaking in Code; Listening in Code
By Doris Lane, A Wes Clark Democrat
My fellow Wes Clark Democrat, Tom Rinaldo, on A Left Turn FOR CLARK has this to say today: "Wes Clark today is a lonely voice of reason in a rhetoric swamp of fear. While our President sends war ships steaming toward Iran, Clark says peace is still possible, and urges us to escalate the number of diplomats in the region."
Tom quotes Clark when he said on the campaign trail last year, "People will fight for what they believe in. So if we want a war with a billion Muslims, we can probably have one. I don't think we want one, we certainly don't need one, and we should do everything we can to prevent it."
Bush "moves beyond diplomacy," according to the New York Times, (this has to be code for something, since Bush hasn't been at diplomacy enough to move beyond it): "Moving beyond diplomacy" equals war with Iran, just like “surge” equals escalation of war. As General Clark also said, "We're being set up again, just like we were with Iraq, and what I've found in my life is, generally that if you want a war, you can have one."
The BBC reported yesterday that US troops raided the Iranian consulate in Northern Iraq. Der Spiegel: "As US President George W. Bush was promising to stem Iranian support for the Iraqi insurgency, US soldiers were raiding the Iranian consulate in Irbil, Iraq. The Iranians aren't happy." Is it war yet? Or are we still moving "beyond diplomacy"?
I was born and raised and spent almost all of my adult life in New York City, where "New York money people" is code for Wall Street WASP, not Jew, so when I posted about Arianna Huffington's run-in with a pissed off General Clark in DC, little did I expect the right wing blog spin machine would go into action and be making such a feast of it even days later. I imagine Clark's Jewish family, who proudly campaigned for him in 2004, must be surprised to learn that he is an anti-semite, if they are believing press reports, which I can't believe they would.
Not even Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, although concerned over Clark's use of language, believes it: “While we know [Clark] is a good friend of Israel and is not an anti-semite, he still engaged in inappropriate language by talking about how Israel and Jewish money will move this country to war on Iran.”
I understand Foxman has a job to do and a very important one, but I just don't believe Wes Clark used code for Jew. No way in hell. He says what he means. He was reacting to a UPI article about Israeli neocons who want the US to wage a war against Iran, and the American neocons who support those aims financially and otherwise, because they are neocons, not because they are Jews. They are not largely Jews in this country, in fact, but fundamentalist, right wing, Christian Republicans; the Bush/Cheney base.
One of the articles critical of Clark, linked above and published by the LA Times, was written by Zev Chafets, who also wrote the book, "A Match Made in Heaven: American Jews, Christian Zionists and One Man's Exploration of the Weird and Wonderful Judeo-Evangelical Alliance." Positively unholy.
The partisan nature of this statement is clear enough by the Republican Jewish Coalition: “This is yet another sign that the veiled and not-so-veiled anti-semitic sentiments that are rampant in the left-wing blogosphere are seeping into the ‘mainstream’ of Democrats’ political discourse." Democratic consultant Matt Dorf responded, “Instead of making such unsubstantiated charges, the Republican Jewish Coalition should be working with us to ensure that Iran does not succeed in becoming a nuclear power.” Now there's an idea.
I don't know personally a single Democrat who doesn't support Israel insofar as its right to survival as a nation and its right to protect itself. It is a small segment of the American left who does not, and they have rocks in their heads. No Jew I know personally is buying into this new (neo) con job by the right. Most share the view of blogger Mobius in a listing of mishegaas on Jewschool that "being pro-Israel doesn’t necessarily mean supporting a neoconservative agenda." The Jewish community, as Clark pointed out, is divided in its view of a possible war with Iran. Many Israelis are as sick to death of war as Americans are sick to death of war.
When the right says, "Wes Clark is anti-semitic," hear Wes Clark is trying his mightiest to bring another neocon rush to war to a screeching halt before we, uh, "move beyond diplomacy" with Iran: Let’s stop him now before he runs for President again. Joe Conason and Gene Lyons may well get a sequel out of this: "The Hunting of the General." Remember, this has all happened before, to Clinton, to Kerry and even to Clark himself.
- In 2003, Clark was telling the American media of the White House’s 5-year plan to wage war on Iran and Syria from Iraq.
- Clark was telling the American media the Bush administration had exploited 9/11 to justify its invasion of Iraq by inventing a connection to Saddam.
- Clark was demanding independent and congressional investigations of the Bush administration's use of intelligence before the Iraq war, calling it "twisted and possibly criminal.”
- Clark testified before Congress ahead of the Iraq invasion in 2002, “We need to be ready because if suddenly Saddam Hussein's government collapses and we don't have everything ready to go, we're going to have chaos in that region.”
- He said there would be needed a plan for urban warfare and a large military force, if the US were to invade and occupy Iraq.
- He said all avenues of diplomacy must be exhausted, because: "When you're talking about American men and women going and facing the risk we've been talking about this afternoon, and if you're talking to the mothers and the loved ones of those who die in that operation, you want to be sure that you're using force and expending American blood and lives and treasure as the ultimate, last resort; not because of a sense of impatience with the arcane ways of international institutions or frustration from the domestic political processes of allies."
- In the New York Times, September 24, 2002: “It's a question of what's the sense of urgency here, and how soon would we need to act unilaterally? So far as any of the information has been presented, there is nothing that indicates that in the immediate, next hours, next days, that there's going to be nuclear-tipped missiles put on launch pads to go against our forces or our allies in the region."
Here we are again, but it's another country, 'and besides, the wench is dead.' Next!
Clark wrote to Foxman: "My position on Iran should not be misinterpreted, defined out of context or used to create conspiracy theories about one group’s influence on U.S. foreign policy. There is no place in these critical policy debates for Anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that blame the Jewish community for the war in Iraq and for action against Iran."
I certainly agree.
However, we must also not be thrown by language Clark acknowledges could be misunderstood or manipulated; or distracted by concerted efforts by the right wing to make hay of it. Let's not have "anti-semitism" become code for "Shut up, Wes," because Wes knows what he's talking about, and because we may play straight into the hands of those who do not have Israel's, or our own, best interest at heart.
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Please see disclaimer.
