Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire...Baker Again

Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire...


by Gerald A. Honigman

I must be dreaming...a nightmare, at that.

Solid intelligence has shown large truck convoys leaving Iraq for Syria just prior to America’s assault, largely over the WMD issue. This was confirmed by former political and military leaders, both at home and abroad.

Arab insurgents, hell-bent on stopping the spread of the democratic disease, have freely moved back and forth across the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Syria, to this date, still does not recognize an independent Lebanon....and never really has. And it has continuously assassinated--or had assassinated by its stooges--one Lebanese politician after another who believed otherwise...one just days ago. Not to mention its involvement in killing hundreds of Americans and others in Lebanon and elsewhere as well.

For decades, Damascus--which largely instigated the June ‘67 Six-Day War which lost them the Heights--bombarded Israelis from the Golan...which, by the way, were actually to be part of the original 1920 Mandate of Palestine after WWI, but wound up in Syria’s hands after some imperial trading between the Brits and the French. Indeed, over the centuries, the Heights traded back and forth between many different rulers--including Jews.

Yes, it must be just a bad dream...

After all, the Arab butchers in Damascus are simply peas of the same pod of the latest Arab butcher of Iraq who--thanks to us--was dragged out of his hole in the ground and is now scheduled to meet his seventy or so virgins in Islamic Paradise. Among other things (including massacres and forced Arabization of Kurds), Assad the First sired the Hama Solution--which killed far more of his Arab enemies in a month than Israel killed in all the years of fighting intifadas, Hizbullah, Fatah, Hamas, etc. and so forth.

So, I’m hoping to wake up to hear that I was just imagining reading that James A. Baker III, who is now back on the front burner after working continuously for decades behind the scenes, has proposed to solve Iraq’s woes by rewarding Syrian Arabs for “their cooperation” by delivering the Jews to them on a silver platter...and shafting the Kurds once again to boot.

So what, pray tell, is this nightmarish price, that I hope I’m just dreaming, for Syria stopping its murderous, hegemonic behaviors?

Well, for starters, it expects that Baker’s former promise to Assad the First while Secretary of State to his close friend, Pappa Bush, will indeed materialize. Israel will be squeezed to return to the days when Syria freely shelled Jews below on kibbutzim, in the Sea of Galilee, and so forth. Baker, with Dubya and Condi’s approval, will pressure the millennial Jewish Suffering Servant to cave in to enemies sworn to its demise.

America, Great Britain, and so forth can topple governments and/or go to war thousands of miles away from home in the name of their own national security interests (what was the overthrow of Noriega in Panama or the Falklands War really all about?), but an Israel that one needs a magnifying glass to find on a world map is expected to simply return to the status quo ante and turn its other cheek...something good, predominatly Christian nations surely don’t do. And rightly not...nobody should be expected to commit personal or national suicide.

Yet, keep in mind that Israel had earlier indeed agreed to such a virtual withdrawal.

Not long ago, an Israeli Prime Minister offered (and not the first time) an almost complete return of the Heights. The exception would cover a tiny stretch of land protecting Israel’s water sources. But, of course, this was too much to ask of a Syria still dedicated to Israel’s destruction, as are most Arabs.

Well, bad news...

I woke up with a horrendous headache...made worse when I read that I wasn’t dreaming after all.

Baker’s Commision recommendations to pull America’s--especially Republicans’--chestnuts out of the open fire in Iraq (just in time for the Christmas season, for those familiar with the late Mel Torme’s song) are evidently set to shaft both Jews and Kurds yet again for Arab interests...something the State Department, unfortunately, has a long history of doing.

But the American people are not stupid and have, on the whole, a good code of ethics--regardless of what Borat says.

They know that the one place in Iraq where folks aren’t constantly blowing others apart is in the Kurdish north. Many now also know that some thirty million Kurds don’t even have one state yet let alone the almost two dozen that Arabs already have, largely by conquering non-Arab peoples and the latters’ lands. And they know that that Kurdish north far more exemplifies American values and is aligned with American interests far more than any of Baker’s law firm’s Arab clients are.

A sense of fair play must put the birth of an economically viable Kurdish state--which was indeed promised after WWI, but aborted largely on behalf of British petroleum and Arab interests--ahead of creating yet other ones for Arabs at both the Jew of the Nations and the Kurds’ expense. Yet that’s what Baker is up to again...evidently with Dubya’s blessing.

George II (whom I voted for) would be wise to work to restore a sense of morality to American foreign policy. Many Republicans, let alone others, are not too happy with him these days.

Traditionally, it has taken a strong American executive to resist the Arabists who too often call the shots at Foggy Bottom...from President Truman onwards. There’s lots of money to be made via the revolving doors of businesses tied to Arab wealth and government. Baker is just one of too many cases in point over the decades.

George II must not allow Baker’s and his own family’s huge financial ties to Arab petrodollars (and hiding behind the American flag won’t work...again, Americans are mostly moral and are not stupid) to dictate foreign policy in this volatile region.

While a Michael Moorish/Jimmy Carter Democratic alternative won’t cut it either, most Americans rejected this long ago...so it’s not the model to follow. Yet, on this topic, Dubya, Condi, Baker, Moore, and Mr. Peanut all seem to agree.

Jews, Kurds, and America’s soul and reputation deserve something far better.

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Baker's Mission To The Mid East—Conflict Of Interest?

Conflict of Interest?

by Gerald A. Honigman

James A. Baker III, close friend and confidant of the Bush family and Secretary of State under George the First, is back in the news again.

Lest we forget, this is the same Baker who, when Israel wasn’t caving in to his State Department’s demands fast enough (such as his promise to Hafez al-Assad, Saddam’s twin butcher in Syria, of a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan--from which Syria regularly bombarded Israelis below), responded “ F_ _ _ the Jews, they don’t vote for us anyway ! “

He regularly referred to his “Jew boys,” who he had do his bidding for him at Foggy Bottom. It’s great to have a Jew stick it to other Jews in Israel.

And regarding Israel, he was quoted as seeing it in the eyes of a hunter stalking a wild turkey.

Baker has been in the background for decades, especially since his close friends, the Bushes, gained ascendancy in American politics. His law firm represents Saudi Arab interests in this country and typifies how people move through the revolving doors of businesses tied to Arab interests back and forth into government positions--especially those in Foggy Bottom. Baker’s law partner, Robert Jordan, was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia by President Bush in 2001. Currently, among other things, his law firm is defending Saudis (who provided most of the suicide bombers) in a law suit filed by survivors and families of 9/11 victims.

Baker & Co. (including the Bush clan) have gotten very rich off of Arab oil wealth.


And they know full well, in the Arabs’ own words, that the latter would view the long overdue birth of Kurdistan as “another Israel"-- i.e., how dare anyone else but Arabs claim political rights in “their” region.

So, pardon me if I smell a fish when I hear that Baker is back on center stage regarding plans for a future Middle East.

The man is tied up to his eye balls to Arab interests.

In other words, Jim is an Arab’s dream.

In the wake of America’s problems in Iraq, George II has sent Baker there as part of the Baker-Hamilton Commission. Their main goal will be to find a way out for the United States without totally losing face.

America’s overthrow of one of the worst of the Arabs’ all-too-many Hitlers was noble...even if it came a bit too late. George the First earlier told the Shi’a and Kurds to revolt and then, along with Baker, did nothing while tens of thousands of them were slaughtered.

But America never learned the Brits’ earlier lesson over a half century ago, when millions of native Kurds, who lived in the area millennia before the Arabs’ own conquest of it, were denied independence and forcibly tied to a newly created Arab Iraq to appease British petroleum interests and Arab nationalism...causes close to Baker’s own heart.

The Arabs revolted against them anyway--as foreign imperialists. Of course, without the Brits help, they never would have gotten the oil wealth in the Kurdish north. But, as Janet Jackson’s song asks,"What Have You Done For Me Lately ?” And, after all, if it’s not the Arabs’ own particular conquering and subjugating brand, imperialsim is nasty.

So, America is in a similar pickle barrel now, reaping what was sown after World War I when a united nation was formed that never should have been.

Iraq is the Yugoslavia of the Middle East, with hostile groups thrown together largely for others’ interests. And it will likely follow Yugoslavia’s same fate. As the latter’s days were numbered after the death of its strongman, Marshal Tito, Iraq’s days are numbered as well with Saddam out of the picture. And that’s not a bad thing...

By the way, America led that dissolution of Yugoslavia--which was undergoing at the time
much the same as what we’re seeing happening right now in Iraq.


As for potential problems with the Turks, read this author’s own “Talking Turkey About Turkey,” “State Department Math,” Horsefeathers,” and/or “So What’s Your Plan B?” for that response.

So, what does this all have to do with Baker?

Well, if the early reports I’ve seen about the recommendations of Baker’s Commission are correct, it’s going to be, “F_ _ _ the Kurds, they don’t vote for us anyway ! “

A recommendation to divide Iraq into three highly autonomous federal states looks good on the surface. But, as Dr. Rashid Karadaghi points out in the Kurdish Media ( “ The World According To Baker,” 11/5/06), it appears that oil-rich Kirkuk will be handed over to Baker’s Sunni Arab buddies to insure their economic position.

To hell with the fact that Kirkuk is as Kurdish as Mecca is Arab, and Kurds lived there and ruled there since Biblical times, thousands of years before the first Arab arrived during the Arabs’ own imperial caliphal conquests.

To hell with the fact that many Arabs only live there now because of a forced Arabization policy in that economically important and strategic area...while they were slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Kurds over the past century.

America has acted this way too often before when non-Arab interests were involved--especially those of the Kurds and Jews. Both have too often been expected to cave in to Arab interests and demands, despite the predictable bloody consequences. Almost two dozen states on over six million square miles of territory is still not enough for Arabs. They have to deny everyone else any piece of the pie...no matter how small.

Thirty million Kurds in the region remain stateless and victimized by those in whose countries they now live.

It’s their turn now for center stage.

The economic viability of that newly-proposed Kurdish federal state needs the oil wealth of its own lands to succeed. Perhaps a way to share the oil from the south and the north can be arranged. That would be acceptable.

But make no mistake about it...Kirkuk is as Kurdish as London is English. Many other folks may live in Great Britain now--including lots of Arabs and other Muslims--but that doesn’t change the fact any.

While representing Arab interests has made Baker a very wealthy man, this gives him no right to wield such power over the fate of a people far more in tune with American values and interests than any of his Arab clients are.

While Arabs blow each other apart to the south, the Kurdish region is the one example of pride and success that America can point to right now.

America has shamefully used and abused these people too often in the past.

It’s time to atone for those sins...not to repeat them.

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Horsefeathers...Condi's "Noble Cause"

Horsefeathers

by Gerald A. Honigman

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice recently gave a speech in which she said something to the effect that there would be no greater cause than the birth of Palestine.

Horsefeathers...

While my own limited Arabic, Turkish, and so forth from my own doctoral studies’ days has grown all too rusty over the decades, Condi better stick to her Russian expertise for sure. And relying on the Arabists who too often run the show at Foggy Bottom doesn’t change this for the better either. Together, on this topic at least, they all behave as if they are deaf, dumb, and blind to what is happening on the real Planet Earth. The sad reality is that they do know better...yet don’t hesitate to stick it to the Jews anyway. Recall that Condi’s crew fought President Truman over the very rebirth of Israel in the first place. But as Truman himself also said, “the buck stops here.” So President Bush must agree with what’s going on.

Now think about Dr. Rice’s statement long and hard...

Nothing could be more deserving or noble than the Arabs gaining their 22nd state, and second one in “Palestine” (Jordan having already emerged in 1922 on some 80% of the original April 25, 1920 Mandate)?

Really?

How about this for starters?

If the Arabs hadn’t constantly demanded that only they be granted political rights in the region with the break up of the Ottoman Turkish Empire after World War I (which controlled much of the area for about five centuries)--at the expense of scores of millions of native non-Arabs, including one-half of Israel’s Jews who were refugees from what Arabs claim as “purely Arab patrimony"-- they could have had that additional state they demand over a half century ago...and many other times ever since.

They rejected the ‘47 partition which would have given them roughly one half of the 20% of the territory left after Arabs had already been granted the lion’s share with the creation of what would later be renamed Jordan. And they repeatedly rejected similar plans...including one under a liberal Democratic President Clinton’s watch at Camp David and Taba not long ago which would have given them some 95% of the disputed territories and a $ 33 billion virtual slush fund to sweeten the pot. Ambassador Dennis Ross, another liberal Democrat, was on the spot and put to the lie current Arab excuses for why they rejected this.

The sad fact is that the reason that Condi’s “most noble cause” has not yet materialized is that the Arabs still demand that their additional state be born to take the place of--not live peacefully side-by-side with--the sole, miniscule, resurrected State of the Jews. 

The West’s darling, Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, ran on a platform for Israel’s destruction--but by “more acceptable” means (though he’s been quite willing to allow hundreds of rockets to rain down on Israel proper from Gaza--land now totally under Palestinian Arab control after Israel’s withdrawal over a year ago--and then complains when the Jews finally are forced to move in to try to stop these attacks themselves). Abbas still insists that he’s going to deluge Israel proper with millions of alleged Arab jihadi refugees (when I’m elected Pope). And he represents the “noble” (read as more dishonest) half of the Arab good cop/bad cop team Israel faces. At least Hamas doesn’t hide its true, genocidal intentions.

Where is the nobility in a cause which sees justice only for itself?

I believe Condi also claimed to have seen polls proving that most Arabs just wanted a state prepared to live in peace with its Jewish neighbor.

Horsefeathers again.

I’ve seen many of the polls. And they all say the same thing.

Most Arabs openly state that if Israel was to withdraw from every inch of disputed territory, they would still support continuous terrorism against the Jew of the Nations anyway. Of course, in Arab minds, all of Israel is disputed territory.

So, why doesn’t Condi & Co. acknowledge this? I asked the question...unfortunately knowing the answer. Please don’t tell me that she and her Arabist buddies at State--and Dubya too, for that matter-- don’t have access to Abbas’s own websites, maps, insignias, textbooks,publications, etc. and so forth which show their proposed state taking the place of Israel--not coexisting with it.

So, Dr. Rice...do you want a truly noble cause to endorse?

How about a Roadmap for Kurdistan?

Unlike the Roadmap your attempting to force down the Jews’ throats, the Kurds aren’t out to deny anyone else their rights. And they were promised a state after World War I but got shafted largely by the collusion of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. Instead of partiton in the Mandate of Mesopotamia (as occurred in the Mandate of Palestine, first with the creation of today’s Jordan and later offers to the Arabs as well), a purely Arab-controlled Iraq was born. And Kurds pre-dated the Arab conquest of that area by millennia.

While Arabs blow each other apart and will do so even more upon America’s exit from Iraq (and I supported the overthrow of Adolph--er Saddam--Hussein), the one region where American values, stability, and such now exist is in the Kurdish north. You know, those folks, like the Jews, who also asked for a slice of justice in the age of nationalism and who have been butchered, gassed, subjugated, Arabized, and so forth to the tune of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, just by the Arabs alone over the past century...with similar goings on at the hands of Turks and Iranians as well, in response.

So, Dr. Rice, why is the cause of the birth of the Arabs’ 22nd state, dedicated to the destruction of the Jew of the Nations (regardless of who is at the helm), “most noble” but the cause of thirty million truly stateless, used and abused (including by our own State Department) Kurds not even worth your mention?

Pardon me...

You did mention them, and when you did a while back at an earlier conference, you rudely shot down the question and demanded that the Kurds live amongst those have continuously murdered, subjugated, and forcibly Arabized them.

Why almost two dozen states for Arabs and none for Kurds?

And please don’t bring up the Turks regarding this (and I’m a stong supporter of good, but realistic, ties with Ankara).

Let’s put things into the broader perspective...

Israel has a population of roughly 6 million people, of whom about 20% are Arab. Among the latter are some very hostile elements, some even serving in Israel’s Knesset. Israel’s territory is about 20,770 sq Km.

Turkey has a population of about 68 million people, of whom about 20% are Kurds. Turkey’s territory is about 780,580 sq Km.

About 38 Israels would fit into Turkey.

Despite Israel’s miniscule size, Condi & Co. have no problem demanding that Israel allow the creation of another Arab state, dedicated to its destruction (that “noble cause"), right in its own very backyard.  Ignored are the open proclamations by even the so-called Arab “moderates” that any so-called “peace initiatives” are but hudnas (temporary ceasefires) and “Trojan Horses,” steps along the way in the Arabs’ post-’67 destruction in phases strategy for Israel.

Now, how will the fifth of miniscule Israel’s population that is Arab react to this adjacent potential development?

Yet Condi and even Israel’s alleged “best friend, Dubya, seem not to be worried about any murderous and destablizing effects when Jews are involved.

Those same folks who declare that Israel must grossly endanger itself so that yet another Arab state might be born (after all, over six million square miles of territory, mostly conquered and forcibly Arabized from native non-Arab peoples, is apparently not enough) insist that Kurds must remain forever stateless because of some potential problems their freedom might cause to a Turkey nearly forty times Israel’s size in territory and over eleven times its size in population...and with the same 80% to 20% mix of potential “headaches.”

The reality is that the Kurds are not stupid and would not encourage Turkey’s or America’s wrath after gaining independence.

American bases would be welcome in Mesopotamian Kurdistan and could help to soothe both parties regarding these matters. Again, with Arabs blowing each other apart to the south, and Shi’a big brother Iran waiting in the wings for the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iraq, an American-supported Free Kurdistan becomes ever more attractive. An arrangement can also be worked out to share Kurdistan’s oil wealth in the historically Kurdish Mosul and Kirkuk areas as well--including with the Turks, who lost out on the Mosul Question in 1925.

Let’s turn the clock back to the first half of the 20th century to see how one great Jewish leader explained what the stakes here are really all about in his Evidence Submitted To The Palestine Royal Commission in London in 1937.

Still recovering from the murderous pogroms and massive Jewish refugee problem which accompanied them just a bit earlier, it had by now become evident that even worse was yet to come. Let’s listen to how this Zionist leader dealt with all of this:

Three generations of Jewish thinkers...have come to the conclusion that the cause of our suffering is the very fact of the Diaspora, the bedrock fact that we are everywhere a minority...The phenomenon called Zionism may include all kinds of dreams...but all of this longing for wonderful toys of velvet and silver is nothing compared with that tangible momentum of irresistible distress and need by which we are propelled and borne…

Whenever I hear a Zionist...accused of asking too much...I really cannot understand it...Yes we do want a State; every nation on earth...they all have States of their own...the normal condition of a people. Yet, when we, the most abnormal of peoples, and therefore the most unfortunate, ask for only the same...then it is called too much...We have got to save millions, many millions. I do not know whether it is a question of one third...half...or a quarter (indeed, one third of world Jewry would be eliminated within just a few years of his remarks).

I have the profoundest feeling for the Arab case, in so far as that case is not exaggerated...I have also shown to you...that...there is no question of ousting the Arabs. On the contrary, the idea is that Palestine on both sides of the Jordan should hold the Arabs...and...Jews. What I do not deny is that in that process the Arabs of Palestine will become...a minority...What I do deny is that that is a hardship.

It is not a hardship on any race, any nation possessing so many National States now and so many more National States in the future. One fraction, one branch...and not a big one, will have to live in someone else’s State: Well, that is the case with all the mightiest nations of the world...That is only normal and there is no “hardship” attached to that. So when we hear the Arab claim confronted with the Jewish claim, I fully understand that any minority would prefer to be a majority.

It is quite understandable that the Arabs...would also prefer Palestine to be the Arab State No. 4, No. 5. or No. 6...but when the Arab claim is confronted with our Jewish demand to be saved, it is like the claims of appetite versus...starvation.


The presenter of this evidence was Ze’ev Vladimir Jabotinsky, the patron saint of Israel’s modern Likud Party. And, as can be seen above, unlike too many other Zionist thinkers, he was a realist regarding what could and what could not be expected in the Jews’ relationships with Arabs.

As Jabotinsky correctly forecasted, Arabs made out quite well after the break up of the Turks’ centuries’-old Empire at the end of World War I. To date, they have almost two dozen states. And, again, most of those had been conquered and forcibly Arabized from millions of Berbers, Copts, Kurds, Jews, Assyrians, native Semitic but non-Arab Lebanese, black Africans, and other non-Arab peoples.

Appetite, indeed, Mr. Jabotinsky...and at everyone else’s expense.

One more time...

Arabs declared the region to be purely Arab patrimony, frequently outlawed others’ languages and cultures, and killed anyone who stood in their way...millions to date, and still going on at this very moment--and not only in Darfur and the Sudan.

No, Dr. Rice...there’s nothing noble in such a self-centered, murderous cause.

As in Jabotinsky’s day, now, and before, this conflict has never been about Jews wanting to deny Arabs their just rights.

On the contrary, it’s always been about Arabs not allowing any one else--be they Kurds, Jews, Berbers, black African Sudanese, or others--even a tiny sliver of those very same rights they so fervently demand for themselves. There’s nothing noble about this. It is at the very least ruthless, genocidal, racist, imperialistic, and so forth...

Despite the passage of time, Jabotinsky’s basic truths do not change.

The Arab-Jewish (or Arab-Kurdish, Arab-Berber, Arab-black African Sudanese, and so forth) conflict is still all about Jabotinsky’s appetite versus starvation...a conquering, subjugating appetite on the part of the Arabs to deny any one else besides themselves their own share of justice in the region.

So, Dr. Rice, despite your Department’s pipedreams or deliberate undermining of Israel (with the apparent blessing of your leader--whom I voted for--and not that the Democrats would be any better and would probably, in fact, be worse), the basic truths of this struggle do not change.

The Arab-Jewish conflict is still all about appetite versus starvation.

And there is nothing noble in forcing the most persecuted nation and people this planet has ever seen into taking steps towards suicide so that Arabs can have their 22nd state.

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