Commentary
Biden backs Israel’s ‘right’ to preemptive strikes
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Associate Editor


Jul 8, 2009, 00:22

Is it old Joe putting his foot in his mouth again or is it for-real administration policy?

It’s the latter, I’m afraid. The Voice of America reports Biden said, “Israel is entitled to decide for itself how best to respond to Iran’s growing nuclear capabilities. Mr. Biden also says America’s willingness to engage in dialogue with Iran is unchanged, despite Tehran’s violent crackdown on demonstrators following last month’s disputed presidential vote.

”Vice President Biden says Israel has the right to deal with foreign threats as it sees fit.” Lovely! How about China, Joe? Or Russia? Or Venezuela? No?

But “Israel can determine for itself, as a sovereign nation, what is in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran or anyone else,’ said Vice President Biden.” He added, “Any sovereign nation is entitled to do that.” Biden delivered these remarks on ABC’s This Week program.

The VOA said, “Israel has long insisted its right to self-defense includes preemptive strikes against looming threats in the region.” That, unfortunately, includes the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s uncompleted nuclear facility at Osirak, which fortunately had no fissionable material in it or it would have been a regional disaster.

In fact, this was the first strike ever on a nuclear facility, Menachim Begin’s brainchild, with US F-15s and 16s to guarantee both the site’s destruction and safe return for Israeli pilots. Iraq stated, as Iran has, that its reactor was for power-generating purposes, not for nuclear warheads for missiles, like Israel’s reactor at Dimona is, which boasts up to 200 missiles.

The Dimona plant has been chugging along sing the late 50s and became known to the US in the mid-60s and the world in 1986 when Mordechai Vananu, an orthodox Jewish technician at the plant, leaked photos and text concerning the plant in the London Times. Vananu got 18 years in solitary for that and went under house arrest when he spoke to a reporter exiting the prison. He now lives in Palestine as a Christian.

Of course, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was all for supporting diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program. But he also relishes a unilateral military strike against Iran.

Biden was round-heeling it for Obama who said during his campaign that he was in favor of diplomatic contact with Iran, not contact by the Israel military on Iran with weapons. The administration blames Obama’s about-face on the fact that the recent reelection of Ahmadinejad caused protests which were brutally put down, not to mention inspired by the CIA.

Obama’s American Exceptionalism allowed him to also forget George Bush’s two stolen presidential elections, with vote hacking duly noted as well in the interim elections, and the fact that he, Obama, had to put 5,000 lawyers in the field to guarantee his own sizeable majority in the national election.

But let us not accuse Obama of “a foolish consistency,” which according to Ralph Waldo Emerson, would be the “hobgoblin of little minds.” We must all assume that whatever the president has said or promised in the past is subject to change at any given time, like those credit card rates he complained about, or his position on not “torturing” prisoners during interrogations, or indicting the Bush administration lawyers and officials who claimed the illegal practice was legal, or dumping Wall Street’s illegitimate derivatives. But I digress.

While the Obama administration continued to back Israel’s right to random strikes to defend itself, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, speaking on CBS’s Face the Nation said, “I have been, for some time, concerned about any strike on Iran . . . I worry about it being very destabilizing -- not just in and of itself, but the unintended consequences of a strike like that.”

It’s funny how the military man is sounding like the diplomat and the so-called diplomat like a military hawk. Perhaps Mullen’s actually been to war and seen death rear its ugly head first hand, and, like President Eisenhower, knows the awful power of the military-industrial complex, which seems to be the only cadre that really profits from wars.

Mullen added that he does not believe Iran should have nuclear weapons. His said, “I worry about the proliferation of the technology. I worry about other nations in the region thinking that they might have to have that capability [as well].” Again, that was diplomatically well-spoken and soundly reasoned. Maybe we elected the wrong guy as president.

In a grand CYA gesture, while expressing his outrage over Iran’s suppression of protesters, Obama asserted that “the offer of dialogue with Tehran is unchanged. Vice President Biden reiterated that point, saying he believes the U.S. approach to Iran is in the best interests of the world, including Israel.” I guess since the administration has just given the Israelis about a nickel shy of $3 billion for military armaments, they have to throw Iran and the rest of us a bone. That’s it.

“The offer is on the table,” he said. “The Iranian government has a choice. They either choose greater isolation from the whole world, or they decide to take their rightful place [among] civilized great nations. That is the path they have to choose.” Iran is a civilized nation and has been one long before we, the keepers of slaves, or Israel were. A little respect would go a long way, Mr President.

But the administration has bowed once again to Israel’s claims, which deny that. This occurs while Israel embarrassingly challenges Obama’s order to halt the building of new settlements. It also continues with a program to literally starve the Palestinians, whose fishing boats are continually harassed by the Israeli Navy. Relief food and supplies have been denied entry.

In fact, former US Congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney was arrested and imprisoned by the Israelis. The boat she was sailing on with Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire, bringing relief suppllies to Gaza was commandeered on June 30 by the Israelis and all 21 aboard it were taken to Israel and jailed. The Israelis claimed the boat would not be permitted to enter Gaza’s coastal waters because of “security risks” in the area and an ongoing naval blockade. As of yesterday, McKinney, Maguire and other activists were released, reported Haaretz via a statement from the American Muslims for Palestine

So how far does Israel have to go to be unworthy of our billions, our military cover, and our endless well of war guilt? Somehow we can’t seem to remember it wasn’t Iran, or any Middle Eastern country that conducted the Holocaust, but a Western nation, Germany, who paid post-war reparations upwards of $50 billion, along with the Swiss who paid $1.25 billion in reparations. How deep is this ocean of perpetual victimhood? How high does its wall go, cutting Palestine into a collection of ghettos, refugee camps, and junk heaps, recreating Warsaw, Krakow and Lodz?

And where does the administration get the gall to give these marauders the right to “protect themselves” any time they feel they are threatened. They have felt threatened since before the Romans tossed them out of the area in 70 a.d. and renamed it Palestinia. Perhaps, as Shakespeare wrote . . .

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

Would that Netanyahu and Obama pondered the bard’s words.