CounterPunchTells the Facts and Names the Names $2.50 October 16-31, 2005 Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair VOL. 12, NO. 18 DID LIBBY’S LIES COST The Core of Zionism KERRY THE WHITE BY MICHAEL NEUMANN HOUSE? ANSWER: NO! This month CounterPunch Books publishes Michael Neumann’s The Case Against BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN Israel, a bracing and tightly argued counterblast to the nonsense peddled by Alan Dershowitz in The Case For Israel. What follows is Neumann’s core thesis. We strongly AND JEFFREY ST. CLAIR encourage CounterPunchers to order this book. Call Becky Grant or Deva Wheeler at ow many times can the Democrats 800-840-3683 or email us. See the order form in the CounterPunch appeal, in this Hget away with saying, “Faked intel- newsletter. Incidentally, those CounterPunchers who thought that Dershowitz could ligence! We’re shocked, shocked! If we’d sink no lower after he proposed torture warrants may care know that Yes, the Prof. has only known that, why, we might have sunk deeper into slime. Only his nose now shows. For months he tried to suppress come out against the war in… in… well, Norman Finkelstein’s onslaught on his rotten book. Rewarded with failure, he claims maybe by November, 2004.” that Norman Finkelstein’s late mother, a concentration camp survivor, was a kapo [that The Democrats are now howling in is, a Nazi collaborator]! AC/JSC. Congress for yet another investigation into hat matters for an understand exhibited a form of racism that, though rep- the fictions the Bush administration engi- ing of the Israel/Palestine con rehensible, was not particularly virulent. It, neered to justify the attack on Iraq in 2003. Wflict is what the expression ‘a therefore, does not seem particularly fruit- This follows on their forcing of a “closed Jewish state’ would mean to any reason- ful to examine whether Zionism was racism. debate” in the Senate on the failure of able person. What, in particular, could the When a state is described in relation to Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas to deliver Palestinians reasonably expect when they the territory it controls, its ethnic character the second part of his report on intelligence heard that such a state was to be estab- is open. The French state is not necessarily failures before the invasion. lished in Palestine? a state for some ethnic group called French- We can understand why the Democrats The state itself – the human community men, just as the Belgian or Yugoslav or Ja- are spinning their wheels in what must by – is, everywhere in the world, an absolute maican state weren’t states for ethnic groups now be the most exhaustively documented dictator bound neither by morality nor by of that name. But a Catholic state would be chronicle of government deception in the law. Even in the most impeccable democ- a state run by Catholics; a black state would history of the Republic. These endless in- racy, there are ways to institute anything be a state run by blacks; a heterosexual state vestigations help them avoid the more humans can do to one another. Frequently, would be run by heterosexuals. This could challenging question of where they now as in the case of the democratic Weimar hardly be clearer: what would be Catholic stand on a war to which over 60 per cent Republic of Germany, just invoking emer- or black or heterosexual about a state not of the American people are now opposed. gency legislation is quite enough to open the run by at least some members of those As a matter of record, as readers of gates of hell. groups? CounterPunch well know, by the fall of For the Zionists to demand a state, any When, as in the post-World-War-I era, 2002 the fakery about Saddam’s supposed state, was therefore no small thing for any- the ideology of self-determination added to drive from the late 1990s to acquire nu- one – like the Palestinians – falling within the picture, the expectation develops further. clear weapons and the alleged alliance with its proposed boundaries. But what the Zion- Now it is that ethnic states would be run not Al Qaeda had been exposed as fictions. ists demanded was a Jewish state. Whether just by members of their ethnic groups, but By early 2003 the CIA/UNSCOM this was racism is not of any immediate con- in some sense by those ethnic groups them- debriefings of Saddam’s son-in-law, cern. For one thing, to say that something is selves. At the very least, such states would Hussein Kamel had surfaced in Newsweek. racist is not, for many people, immediately be governed in the name of those group In the 1995 debriefing in Amman, Kamel, to say that it is unjustified: there are those, members in the area. This would amount to the man who ran Saddam’s WMD pro- for instance, who accept affirmative action something more than a formality. Thus, an gram, detailed his compliance with as ’reverse’ racism yet still defend it. For Armenian state would be not simply have Saddam’s orders in the early 1990s to de- another, the project might have begun as Armenian rulers. These rulers would truly stroy everything in Iraq’s WMD arsenal. racist yet outgrown its racism by instituting govern in the name of Armenians. They The Clinton administration knew of these sufficient protections for non-Jews. Or it would not just claim to act for their Ar- (Libby continued on page 2) might not have outgrown it altogether, but (Zionism continued on page 3) 2/COUNTERPUNCH debriefs too, but simply tightened sanctions If Libby had simply told the truth, people like Rove, conceivably David and persisted in spreading the myth about Fitzgerald would have indicted Libby and Addington, who is known to be ferociously Saddam’s efforts to build up Iraq’s WMD Rove in a deluge of publicity that would have savage to those who oppose his view, or con- program. cost Bush the election. ceivably John Hannah.) All of this remains The Democrats plainly feel they can run The problem with this theory is that in the bosom of the future, of course. But if their current game of Gotcha! right through there’s no evidence that Fitzgerald would Fitzgerald was telling the truth about the to the midterm elections and maybe even have brought any indictments in late 2004 need to learn underlying purposes during an the trial of Scooter Libby, with Vice Presi- on the leaking of Plame’s name. He could investigation — and so far he has given the dent Cheney on the witness stand being have, and most likely would have, closed up impression of being one of the few involved grilled by Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. shop without even issuing a report. After all, in high level Washington matters who does Nixon’s White House lawyer, John a year later, there were no counts in Libby’s not prevaricate or lie — then there is bound Dean, is arguing somewhat persuasively indictment addressing the substantive mat- to be more to come. As the reporters say, from a close reading of the indictment and ter of breaches in the law, part of U.S. Title stay tuned. ensuing press conference that Fitzgerald 18, criminalizing the naming CIA employ- The indictment says that Libby’s law- has Cheney in his sights and his likely in- ees. Even though his indictment of Libby yer was present at two meetings in which tent to throw the Espionage Act at Cheney sketches out a conspiracy, Fitzgerald did not Libby was questioned by and lied to the FBI. for divulging to Libby, his chief of staff, avail himself of this legal lasso relished by Did Libby’s lawyer know the truth, sit there Valerie Plame’s employment by the CIA. all prosecutors. quietly while listening to Libby lie, and never Barely had Fitzgerald stepped away Fitzgerald may well have concluded that subsequently insure that Libby recanted his from the microphone after his press confer- the outing of Plame by Libby and Rove sim- lies? This is hard to believe because, if it ence the day his grand jury handed down ply wasn’t a crime, which means there would were true, the lawyer could be severely pun- the indictment of Libby before liberal col- have been no history changing indictments ished, conceivably even disbarred. umnists like Tom Oliphant of the Boston in late 2004. It was only by the fall of 2005 Or did the lawyer not know the truth? Globe and Robert Scheer of the Los Ange- that Fitzgerald got Cooper of Time maga- Had Libby lied to him too, or was the law- les Times were seizing on one of Fitzgerald’s zine and Judith Miller of the New York Times yer ignorant of the truth because he had not remarks that if Libby had not lied, his in- to testify to the grand jury. Indeed it was only even prepared Libby for the meeting with vestigation would have been over in Octo- when the New York Times turned over Mill- the FBI, had not demanded that Libby show ber of 2004, on the eve of the presidential er’s notebook the Libby’s indictment for per- him relevant documents, and did not know election. jury, lying and obstruction of justice became before the interview what Libby was going From this jumping-off point the column- a likelihood. to say? ists concoct the following scenario : Libby So you could argue that maybe the jour- If the lawyer had not prepared Libby, had lied and thus obstructed the investigation in nalists’ refusal to testify saved Bush-Cheney not determined what he was going to say order to drag Fitzgerald’s probe past Elec- in 2004.