I and others criticized Ron Kampeas for asserting that Richard Goldstone, who was chaperoned around Capitol Hill by the J Streeters, was/is not regarded as “Uncle Evil” in Israel. He offers a strange apology/retraction:
I based my perception on Israeli coverage at the time of the attempt by South African Zionists to keep Goldstone from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah, and from conversations I had with Israelis then. That burst of sympathy might well have receded and the aftereffects of the Goldstone report might prove more durable. My larger point was about self-inflicted wounds — how overkill can turn those who might sympathize with your view against you.
Really?! What level of sympathy did Goldstone ever attain in Israel, and on whom does Kampeas rely for insights into Israeli public opinion? So then his own views on Goldstone are not representative of either American Jewry or Israeli public opinion. Good to know. He concludes with this: “My larger point was about self-inflicted wounds — how overkill can turn those who might sympathize with your view against you.” I have no idea whom he is referring to. But it’s apparent that he’s rather lonely on the leftward limb he’s crawled out on.
Jeffrey Goldberg (who I’ve been rather tough on of late) has, unlike Kampeas, stopped donating his services to the Soros Street defense fund. He writes:
J Street should stop lying to reporters. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, is spinning madly these days, trying to convince his supporters that this scandal is the product of a right-wing conspiracy. It is not — the scandal flows from a series of decisions made by J Street to cover-up facts it deemed unpalatable. Let me put this another way: If it were discovered today that AIPAC, J Street’s nemesis, received more than $800,000 from a Hong Kong-based “business associate” — Ben-Ami’s words — of a prominent horse bettor, the people at AIPAC would be undergoing, by tomorrow, a journalistic colonoscopy like they’ve never experienced.
But then AIPAC does not have to rely on secret, foreign donors. AIPAC, after all, actually represents a large segment of pro-Israel Americans. And it also shares the views of the overwhelming majority of Israelis concerning Goldstone.
Really? I thought Georgie McBush had looked into Putin’s eyes and everything is OK….
But then, maybe the Russians are actually cooperating in ensuring westrn hegemony regionally since they are proposing to sell the Syrians and Iranians Russian arms? After all, perhaps Russian built air defenses will do for the Iranians what they did for the Syrians, or Russian aeronautical prowess will soar with an equal amount of success in the Middle East as they did in Georgia?
It’s all economics. Before any policy can be articulated,its source of funding has to exist. Dying Empires cause world class turmoil. One way to look at this meltdown:we survived the USSR’s meltdown by twenty years,but the costs of the cold war, did a gotcha on both of us.
RCAR, hilarious. Georgie McBush Mid-Eat incompetence has made Russia rich beyond its wildest dreams. Now we’re broke and they’re flush. Russia just saved Iceland’s financial system with a 5 billion Euro loan. Iceland went to Russia because no one else has money. Russia will get to use Icelandic airbases,, which are 3 hours from Boston. Congrats, McBush, a trail of destruction is your legacy.
The Russo-Icelandic alliance. Definitely one of the strategic cornerstones of 21st-Century geopolitics.
As Russia’s population declines from 150 million (20-30 years ago) to 90-100 million (40-50 years from now), it will be fascinating to see how its ability to project military force around the world is affected. And since — slowly but inexorably — the relative importance of oil to contemporary economies will decline, too, Russia’s financial hole-card will be a dwindling asset, too.
On the Right: ask Reagan where Rekavijk is, ask USAF & NORAD what a Russian base in the Greenland cone does to our air-defense posture
Russia had to close down their stock exchange. The global financial problem has killed them as well, overly leveraged with calls going out to cover bets. That is eliminating a great deal of the hard cash they intended to use for other more adventuresome activities. Of course as oil falls, it begins to hurt the revenue. You think that the run into Georgia was without practical risk for the Soviets, er, Russians? Watch the investment flows, Russia is falling as a desired investment site, just as they were beginning to create a market for significant outside investment.
And Smart, I agree that Bush’s comment was foolish, I wonder if he meant it or if it was just for public consumption. For what it is worth, Obama promises more of just that exact same thing. Scary.
I believe that so long as Iceland is in NATO, it will not host “a Russian base.”
Your Bush-hatred has led you astray this time.
Bush’s “looked into his soul” comment about Putin was stupid. So what? If Bush had never said that, does anyone really believe that Russia would *not* have invaded Georgia? That Iceland would *not* be seeking loans from wherever it could get them? That anything would be different today, from how it actually is?
The Russians certainly under the last two czars, Alexander 111, and Nicholas 11, who Putin seems to be emulating; were rather violently anti-semitic and nationalist. The likes of Pobedonostev, and Count Dimitry Tolstoy, organized the Okhrana, Trepov and Ignatieff, Stolypin and Plehve, fanned the flames of what would become the Kishinev and other pogroms. So this seems in character, you would think Olmert and Tzipi, whose origins were in Begin’s party, formed in part reaction to the outrages of the early 30s in the Ukraine would know this.
We still need to find out more about Rick Davis/John McCain’s lobbying for Putin in the Balkans(Montenegro) & the Ukraine. Somebody who knows the facts,please fess up.
Only if we are weak-minded and make an invalid assessment of our own capabilities will we lose a confrontation with Russia.
One of our biggest problems is that we so seldom think clearly about what WE want. It’s not enough to oppose what Russia wants. It’s also basically stupid to define our national security interests as “opposing Russia [or insert your maybe-evil nation of choice here].”
Russia is right; so is Iran: we do have hegemony of the Middle East today. Developments over the last couple of years should remind us of why we regard that posture as necessary, from increasing piracy in the Gulf of Aden, to Hizballah’s apsiration to put Chinese coastal missiles — supplied by Iran — on the Lebanese coast, to Iran’s repeated threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. Not one paragraph of human history should give us hope that we can leave the Middle East to other hegemons, and expect the trade we depend on to still flow freely through it — or expect that its instabilities and pathologies will NOT reverberate outward across its perimeter in all directions.
George W. Bush has had one positive idea of America’s objectives in the Middle East: promote democratic government, and thereby cultivate stability, prosperity, and outward-looking connections in the realms of culture and trade.
If we intend to repudiate this objective, we had better have another one lined up to take its place. Russia, China, and Iran all have objectives to rush into a US-left vacuum with. Too many of us think that we would like it better if we “just came home” than if we stayed to maintain a Pax Americana in the Eastern hemisphere. Such people have no concept of history, or any idea what they are talking about. The world is with us now, late and soon; there is no turning back the clock. If we do not exert the great power we still have, and impose an order that fosters political and economic freedom for as much of the world as possible, an order that we cannot endure will be imposed on us. Fighting to throw off that order will not be preferable to preventing its imposition in the first place. No: it will be far, far worse.
RCAR, you might be interested in my comments at Gordon Chang’s piece on the Uighurs, re McCain Davis, and Deripaska.
J.E. Dyer Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 12:14 PM
RCAR, you might be interested in my comments at Gordon Chang’s piece on the Uighurs, re McCain Davis, and Deripaska.
Your comments were very interesting,and even though you made the best case possible for McCain/Davis,the word “Troubling” was in evidence. This might explain why the debate was so Tepid last night,maybe if McCain says Ayers,Obama says Conflict of Interest in Montenegro.
Demonizing Russia, Putin, etc. is no substitute for policy. In the end, we will have sit down with the Russian leaders and deal. (“It’s morally unacceptable!!!” Why not?) Putting it off will only make the deal worse.
Bush’s “looked into his soul” comment wasn’t stupid, in the context of the times. The subsequent American policy toward Russia, was.
RCAR — you may be right about why McCain isn’t hitting the Obama-Ayers connection hard.
There remains no evidence that McCain accepted any campaign contributions from Deripaska (or any other Russian), or that he improperly gave assurances about his vote to a foreigner who would use that to choose his business invesments. The accusations in the Nation piece about Rick Davis, Russia, and Montenegro are, frankly, just silly. Only someone who doesn’t know anything about Russia, Russian business, the former Yugoslavia, and Montenegro in particular, could draw the conclusions of the Nation’s correspondent. Davis was a hired hand, not a kingmaker, in Montenegro’s transition to independence. (It’s also pretty funny, given the Nation’s editorial stance, to see the implied horror about — eek! — Russians! — developing major business interests in Montenegro. I would say, rather, that (a) that’s not even close to the worst thing Russia has been doing lately, and (b) OF COURSE Russia has been developing these interests. More power to them. The Nation could only possibly think this is an evil development because it can draw a connection to McCain’s campaign manager.)
But it was really stupid of McCain to attend a birthday party for himself on Deripaska’s yacht. Whatever may have happened or not happened, such activities are the poster child for “special-interest influence” and graft. When a candidate’s legislative history and personal narrative are all about honor and ethics, even an innocent party-on-a-yacht-with-Russian-billionaires is a black eye. And, in my view, correctly so. Just Say No, shipmate.