Jim Moran
and the Dixie Chicks: Never Say "Sorry," It Only Makes Things Worse;
Gridiron Hacks Laud "Unrivaled Might;" Hitchens and Horowitz Tie the
Knot
by
Alexander Cockburn
Dissident Voice
March 15, 2003
At last
the leaders of the Democratic Party have moved decisively, hauling out their
ripest comminations and hurling them at-no, not at George Bush. The man at whom
they've been leveling their fire this past week is 7-term US Rep James Moran of
Virginia. Moran, a former mayor of Alexandria, Va., is in hot water over his
head for having remarked in a March 3 town hall session with his constituents
that, as quoted in the Virginia-area Connection newspapers, "if it were
not for the strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we
would not be doing this. The leaders of the Jewish community are influential
enough that they could change the direction of where this is going, and I think
they should."
The House and Senate
Democratic leaders, Nancy Pelosi and Tom Daschle, promptly denounced Moran's
remarks, and six Jewish House Democrats have taken it upon themselves to advise
Moran that he not seek re-election in 2004. Should he do so, "we cannot
and will not support his candidacy." Moran has been forced to give up on
his positions as Democratic Party leader in the mid-Atlantic region, though not
as yet his committee posts on the Hill. The game plan is clearly what it was
with Hilliard of Alabama and McKinney of Georgia, both evicted from Congress last
year as conspicuous acts of retribution against critics of Israel: Breathe a
word about justice for Palestinians, and you'll lose your seat. Moran says
he'll certainly run again, and the decision will belong to the voters of his
district.
One reason Moran is getting
whacked so hysterically is that Jewish nerves are raw on precisely the point he
raised, the role of Jewish opinion here in pressing for the attack on Iraq.
It's one thing for Pat Buchanan to raise the issue of dual loyalty in the
American Conservative (as he has just done), but when Tim Russert starts
pressing Richard Perle to assure us that he's advocating an attack on Iraq in
the interests of the United States, not some other power, we know it's perched
squarely on the front burner. Suddenly researchers from Nightline (one called
me on the matter) and other mainstream outfits are rushing for copies of
"A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," the 1996
briefing plan for Benjamin Netanyahu prepared by such pro-Israel hawks as
Perle, Douglas Feith and others now high in the Bush Administration, advocating
attack on Iraq.
It's now OK for reporters
(Robert Kaiser in the Washington Post, for example) to describe the Jewish
neocon lobby for war, starting with Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith, and heading on
down the list to Elliott Abrams, now running the Israel-Palestine portfolio at
the National Security Council. The op-ed pages are beginning to vibrate with
predictable charges from people like Lawrence Kaplan of The New Republic that
all this talk of dual loyalty and Israel's agenda is nothing but rank
anti-Semitism. To his credit, Michael Kinsley, editor of Slate, ran a piece
(subtitle: "If You're Going To Be Jewish And Powerful, You Can't Whine
When Someone Notices It") saying that uproar raised by American Jews was
probably evidence that Moran was on the money, and that when it came to
testimonies to the power of the Jewish lobby, none was more publicly boastful
on the matter than AIPAC.
Moran is plummeting,
whirling in the familiar downward spiral of contrition and self-abasement. But
does his remark about "strong support" for attack on Iraq in the
Jewish community have any basis in reality? What about American Jewish
organizations?
Last fall the Forward
reported that some Jewish groups, such as the Workmen's Circle, were angry at
the way the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations had
been hijacked by the prowar faction and by its mad-dog president, Mort
Zuckerman, who was openly howling for war in his own publication, U.S. News
& World Report, as "the only appropriate and acceptable course."
In mid-September Michelle Goldberg began a piece on this topic in Salon with
"Once a pillar of the American peace movement, mainstream Jewish groups
and leaders are now among the strongest supporters of an American invasion of
Baghdad."
On October 11 the Forward
reported that a draft resolution of the fifty-two-member Conference supported
"measures necessary to ensure Iraqi disarmament." Jack Rosen,
president of the American Jewish Congress, was quoted by the Forward as saying
"the final statement ought to be crystal clear in backing the President
having to take unilateral action if necessary against Iraq to eliminate weapons
of mass destruction." Abe Foxman of the ADL called the resolution "a
consensus document," and the Forward cited him as saying he would support
a position that backs the President in "whatever he decides he needs to
do."
Of course there are Jewish
groups, not least in the big peace coalitions, that are strongly and
effectively antiwar. In January the American Jewish Committee released a poll
claiming that a majority of American Jews-59 percent-approve of US military
action against Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Thirty-six percent
opposed such action. These findings, the AJC also emphasized, were comparable
to the attitudes of the general American population.
It's at the elite level that
the Jewish voices one hears are overwhelmingly pressing for war. The Forward
for October 18, 2002 reported that on the resolution granting GWB license to
conduct a war against Iraq, which passed 296-133 on October 10, 81 Democrats
supported it, 126 opposed and one abstained. Of 23 Jewish Democrats in the
House, 16 voted in support of the resolution, while seven voted "no,"
In recent weeks, fearing backlash, some Jewish groups have been carefully
downplaying their support for Bush and the war. Some probably think the
assaults on Moran may have been too much of a good thing. Who needs Colin
Powell on tv denying that the war is being pressed in Israel's interests.
Back once more to Moran.
What is the nature of his supposedly "anti-Israel" record that the
rabbis in his district are now seeking to avenge? In a speech to the American
Muslim Council, Moran, who has traveled extensively in the Middle East, said
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was coming to Washington "probably
seeking a warrant from President Bush to kill at will with weapons we have paid
for." True enough.
In a 1996 Jerusalem Post
op-ed, Moran described an Israeli border policeman beating an unarmed
Palestinian. "The unarmed youth was held on the ground while police
officers armed with guns and clubs climbed over each other's backs to land
their own blows on his body," Moran wrote. "Most of the witnesses to
this scene said it happens all the time. When Israeli police and Palestinians
are concerned there is no justice or fair play. Might makes right. I witnessed
the police laughing and making self-congratulatory gestures after the beating."
How encouraging to know that an elected US representative has the sinew to
describe such a scene. How chastening to realize that such indignation, in
Nancy Pelosi's words about Moran's recent remarks in Virginia, has "no
place in the Democratic Party"-or, given the broader Christian evangelical
alliance with Sharon, in the Republican Party either.
Dixie Chicks Don't Blink
Moran, now being put through
the never-ending rituals of self-abasement should take a leaf from the songbook
of the Dixie Chicks. The Chicks are getting stick from some in the country
music crowd after lead singer Natalie Maines stuck it to Bush in some remarks
to a London audience last week.
"Just so you
know," Mains said, "We're ashamed the president of the United States
is from Texas." The group later released a statement Thursday saying they
have been overseas for several weeks and "the anti-American sentiment that
has unfolded here is astounding. While we support our troops, there is nothing
more frightening than the notion of going to war with Iraq and the prospect of
all the innocent lives that will be lost."
In a separate statement
Thursday, Maines, said, ``I feel the president is ignoring the opinion of many
in the U.S. and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in
frustration, and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to
voice your own point of view.'' Way to go, Natalie, who went to UC Berkeley for
a year. She knows how to keep it short and simple. It doesn't even sound as
though her manager rushed in some fancy lawyer to draft her statement.
The Dixie Chicks will kick
off a U.S. tour in support of their multi-platinum album "Home'' on May 1
in Greenville, South Carolina, not noted as a bastion of antiwar sentiment, at
least when I was there a couple of months ago. CounterPuncher Jim Fahey of Arcata
writes, "I'd love to see this group pick up support from unexpected
sources, since it's a cinch they're going to lose a lot of their expected
support."
Gridiron Singsong
While the Chicks were
standing tall for peace, the Washington Press corps was lauding
"unrivalled might". This year's Gridiron dinner ended with the white-tied
guests rising to their feet (at the request of the host) to sing a song written
by journalists covering the Washington scene. The tune was that of Do You Hear
the People Sing? from the Broadway production of Les Miserables. The lyrics
were written by the members of the Gridiron Club. The closing stanza read: DO
YOU HEAR THE PEOPLE SING? AMERICA'S SONG FOR ALL MANKIND IT IS THE MUSIC OF OUR
NATION ONCE UNITED WE WILL FIND HOW TO USE UNRIVALLED MIGHT TO STOP THE BEATING
OF THE DRUMS SO THAT THE WORLD WILL LIVE IN PEACE WHEN TOMORROW COMES.
The Washington Post
described this as "a moving anthem" and those singing it sang it with
their right hand on the heart, with the exception of a few churlish foreigners
who failed to stand. (And we all know where THEY can go...)
Hitchens: The Jampot Files (Just Another Middle-Aged
Porker of the Right)
The long-awaited nuptials
took place Friday morning, March 14. On that solemn day Hitchens was the guest
of the Wednesday Morning Club in Hollywood, a front for David Horowitz's Center
for the Study of Popular Culture. Its web site is part of the Center's web site
and has links both to his old magazine, Heterodoxy, to his website FrontPage,
and to something called the Individual Rights Foundation. Out of curiosity
CounterPuncher Jeffrey Blankfort called the number to make reservations for the
breakfast with 323-556-2550, "and ask for Tony." He reached
Horowitz's Center for the Study of Popular Culture and the Individual Rights
Foundation.
This is from its web site:
"The Wednesday Morning Club seeks to bridge the gap between Hollywood and
Washington by introducing entertainment community leaders to national political
leaders in an environment conducive to intellectual growth and understanding.
"The Wednesday Morning
Club's guest speaker list is unequaled by any other Hollywood political group.”
"The idea for the Wednesday Morning Club was conceived the morning after
the 1992 elections, hence the name. The Wednesday Morning Club does not
necessarily meet in the morning, nor on Wednesday." Some of its past
speakers: Bill Kristol, Fred Barnes , William Bennett, Judge Robert Bork, Joe
Lieberman, Trent Lott, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Larry Elder, Newt Gingrich, Dore
Gold, Henry Hyde, Ben Wattenberg, J.C. Watts.
On the topic of the Barstool
bombardier we are in receipt of a note from James Graham of Lexington,
Virginia, advising caution on the matter of Hitchens
and Korsakoff's Syndrome, noting that "it is a relatively rare and
very severe neurological disorder that appears in 'chronic' alcoholics, people
so far gone in the addiction that they are long since incapable of functioning
in society. It would not be found in a person who makes frequent appearances on
television. He could not find his way to the studio." Graham suggests
"temporary amnesia" as typical of boozers in the early and
middle-stages of their drinking careers. Graham also sent his book
"Vessels of Rage, Engines of Power: The Secret History of
Alcoholism", which we've been dipping into. One central thrust: big
boozers have a very great need for ego satisfaction, which is certainly true of
Hitchypoo. Eric Fine noted in a review of the book that Graham is correct in
noting that "when alcoholics stop drinking, many of their symptoms persist
including, in many, the pathological need for power. Unless significant changes
are made in the personality, particularly the ego, many alcoholics remain
severely problematic." This brings us back to G. Bush.
Perry Anderson's War Talk
Amid mounting world ridicule
for US arguments for war, the barstool bombardiers are gratefully passing from
hand to hand the London Review of Books, which contains New Left Review editor
Perry Anderson's disingenuous hailing of Bush's rationales for attacking Iraq
as "ironclad", and his haughty put-downs of the antiwar movement for
loose argument, (although Anderson fails to provide any antiwar ammunition
matching his own exacting standards). We are very proud to feature Peter Linebaugh's
eloquent riposte to Anderson on this site this weekend. Peter is one of our
favorite historians, and the Many-Headed
Hydra, coauthored with Marcus Rediker should be at every CounterPuncher's
elbow.
Meanwhile, D. Monroe writes
to us as follows:
Perry Anderson's "Are We Sure We Can Get Away
With It This Time?" is truly strange.
It is, on the face of it, a plea to anti-war activists
to find a more "principled" set of arguments for opposition to War
Plan Iraq. To illustrate why this is necessary, Mr. Anderson takes us carefully
through a series of arguments, counter-arguments and alternative arguments.
He assures us that we'd best find a better reason for
protesting than the possibility of disaster because ".war, if it comes,
will not be like Vietnam. It will be short and sharp".
This is not unreasonable; there are moral reasons for
opposing war (or, more generally, uninvited intervention of any sort) that have
nothing to do with whether or not it will succeed or fail.
Nevertheless, Mr. Anderson's apparent confidence that
the war will be brief and the occupation error free - even resulting in the
reconstruction of Iraq - is truly strange, and gives me pause regarding the
value of his observations overall.
Indeed, at various points in his essay, he (speaking
ostensibly through the voice of a Bush Admin official answering anti-war
arguments but seemingly Mr. Anderson's POV as well) tells us that terrorism is
not really all that important an issue - this is only represented by Al Qaeda
and "its leadership [was] killed off in Afghanistan" so nothing to
worry about there - Israel has prevailed over the Palestinian uprising and
Afghanistan is being rebuilt by the UN.
These are truly extraordinary claims, indicating a
nearly complete lack of attention to the situation we face. Just to take
Afghanistan as an example, if, as Mr. Anderson seems to believe, the UN is
doing such a marvelous job of rebuilding the country, why did Mr. Hamid Karzai
recently travel to Washington to plead that Congress not forget his people?
You would think all the clinic constructions, road
re-building ceremonies and school openings throughout the country would have
kept him too busy to travel and too confident of his international friend's
generosity to feel a need to travel. Sadly, the President of Kabul appears to
have a calendar free of too many such events.
Mr. Anderson appears to know nothing of this.
Yes, he makes some interesting points but, all in all,
the underlying premise of his position is that US power is unchallenged and
unchallengeable - so, if you're going to argue with it, you'd best have a
nicely packaged, logical and "principled" argument because any
discussion of potential disaster will look foolish once our armed forces
succeed.
As they've done spectacularly across the globe to
international acclaim.
I cannot take his arguments seriously if he can't even
see the disastrous consequences that are in plain view.
D. Monroe
And since we're burrowing
through our mailbag, this just in from the United Kingdom.
To CounterPunch:
While knowledge is power, the ignorance of the many
enables the corrupt few to amass absolute power. Thus the few who own and
control the general media shape our perceptions. Thus it appears from this (UK)
side of the Atlantic that George and Donald speak and act for the whole
American people. How refreshing then to find a website such as yours, that
presents an alternate to the hysterical rhetoric favored by much of the media
and the government.
Your site provides much needed counterbalance and
intelligence in an otherwise homogenous and shallow debate. It does credit to the
American people and to the freedoms that you cherish that is under assault from
the right.
In turn, let me assure you that Tony does not speak
for us. He has proved to be a right-wing cuckoo usurping the cradle of liberal
democracy that is the Labour party. The vast majority of the British people
seek a peaceful disarmament, not only of Iraq, but also of Israel and North
Korea. I have little doubt that common sense will prevail and we will ditch
"the poodle" in due course.
Yours Faithfully,
Raquib Shamsad
Alexander Cockburn is the author The Golden
Age is In Us (Verso, 1995) and 5 Days That Shook the World: Seattle and
Beyond (Verso, 2000) with Jeffrey St. Clair. Cockburn and St. Clair are the
editors of CounterPunch, the nation’s best
political newsletter, where this article first appeared.