Friday June 17th 2005

Shame on Dana Milbank ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06
/16/AR2005061601570.html?sub=AR ) of the Washington Post for characterizing Rep. John Conyers Jr. as a child and the "long-suffering House Democrats" gathered in the Capitol basement yesterday as a "band of playmates" holding a mock "impeachment" proceeding against Bush the Lesser. Milbank knows damn well the meeting was an effort to get to the bottom of the Downing Street Memo, not specifically a prelude to an effort to impeach Bush, who will not be impeached, due primarily to the indisputable fact Bush owns Congress, much of the judiciary, and Washington itself, including the corporate media. Conyers has said repeatedly the meeting was an attempt to pole-vault over Bush’s stonewalling of the memo and get the administration to answer a few questions, as one would expect in a democracy, but this fact did not stop the Washington Post "journalist" from making snide comments and portraying Conyers as a silly six year old holding court in the basement while the adults upstairs dealt with more somber and serious issues.

In his attempt to dismiss and render childish those of us who are rightfully concerned about Bush’s plot to invade and occupy a sovereign nation—and violate international law, including the Geneva Conventions—Milbank said a bit more than he probably should have. In an effort to slam Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, Milbank writes: "[McGovern] declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration 'neocons’ so 'the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.’ He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

Milbank should have stopped there, since overt criticism of Israel, especially in the context of the invasion and occupation of Iraq—even used cynically to tar and feather Bush’s critics as kooks (all critics of Israel, no matter how mild, are naturally kooks and moonstruck mental cases)—usually does not make it in front line corporate newspapers such as the Washington Post. Instead, Milbank forged onward, attempting to portray McGovern as an anti-Semitic jerk:

"Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation," McGovern said. "The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic."

Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq’s threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his "candid answer."

Moran is considered to be a scurrilous anti-Semite for the unpardonable sin of telling the truth—for which he was seriously lambasted and stripped of his post as a Democratic regional whip in the House of Representatives—namely: the indisputable fact conniving Zionists and Strausscons hijacked the foreign policy of the United States and pushed for the criminal invasion of Iraq in the name of Israel. For this inexpiable misdeed the Washington Post enthusiastically called for Moran’s exile to the political wilderness.

"Why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us? I’ll tell you what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since 1990—it’s the threat against Israel," admitted Philip Zelikow ( http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=23083 ), who was the executive director of the "investigative body" set up to whitewash nine eleven. "And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don’t care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn’t want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it is not a popular sell."

U.S. Senator Ernest Hollings said as much in May 2004 when he declared the invasion was "to secure Israel," and "everybody" knows it. "He also identified three of the influential pro-Israel Jews in Washington who played an important role in prodding the U.S. into war: Richard Perle, chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary; and Charles Krauthammer, columnist and author," noted al-Jazeera ( http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/conspiracy_theory/fullstory
.asp?id=207 ). "Hollings referred to the cowardly reluctance of his Congressional colleagues to acknowledge this truth openly, saying that 'nobody is willing to stand up and say what is going on.’ Due to 'the pressures we get politically,’ he added, members of Congress uncritically support Israel and its policies."

Same with the corporate media—however, on occasion, shills like Dana Milbank, in an effort to diss those opposed to Bush’s invasions in the name of Israel, actually manage to tell the truth. If we can thank Milbank for anything, it is that he does not make us read too much between the lines, not this time anyway.