Hollings tells truth about reason for war

[Moses]

Hollings' remarks raise anti-Semitic charges

Senator defends opinion piece accusing Bush of using war in Iraq to get the Jewish vote

Staff and wire report

U.S. Sen. Fritz Hollings is defending statements he made in a newspaper opinion piece he wrote that President Bush went to war with Iraq to protect Israel and garner favor with Jewish voters in November.

Some South Carolina Jewish leaders criticized the statement, saying the senator from Charles-ton went too far in putting his statements in newspapers.

"Is he anti-Semitic? No," said Columbia Jewish leader Sam Tenenbaum, husband of Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Inez Tenenbaum. "Is the statement anti-Semitic? Yes," he said.

For a second day in a row, Hollings, D-S.C., on Wednesday declined to accept media phone calls about the column. Instead, he released a letter he sent to a constituent as his statement on the matter.

In the letter, Hollings wrote that he could provide quotes from Jewish leaders in the United States and Israel to support his position. He said characterizations of his comments as "anti-Jewish stereotyping or scapegoating is ridiculous."

Hollings' column appeared in three South Carolina newspapers this month, including The Post and Courier. He wrote: "With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel."

He said Bush "came to office with one thought -- re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together, and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats."

Abraham Foxman, president of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote Hollings asking him to retract his comments. "This is reminiscent of age-old, anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government," Foxman wrote. [sound familiar?]

It isn't the first time Hollings' comments have drawn criticism. In 38 years in the U.S. Senate, he has apologized for remarks that offended various religious and ethnic groups, including Jews, blacks and Japanese. For some, the comments could be seen as another case of Hollings being Hollings."To them, we say one doesn't take bigotry in stride," Foxman said. "He is one out of 100 (senators). These are 100 of the most prominent people in the country. To hear such crudeness, such ugliness, such classical anti-Semitism. It's sad."

State Democratic Party Chairman Joe Erwin did not return messages seeking comment. Local Jewish leaders were not immediately available for comment Wednesday.

Hollings voted in 2002 to give Bush permission to attack Iraq but later said he was misled and that the war is a mistake.

Inez Tenenbaum also released a statement saying Hollings was mistaken. [This is the SC DEMOCRATIC candidate for Senate]

"Sometimes I agree with Sen. Hollings," she said. "Sometimes I disagree. In this case I disagree and believe his statement was wrong."

Hollings' spokeswoman said the office had received about 30 calls on the matter, but only five came from South Carolina, and the issue ranked third as the hot topic of the day's calls coming in. Firing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ranked first, she said.

Sam Tenenbaum said Hollings has long had a reputation for offensive comments but said "I don't think people keep scorecards."

www.charleston.net/stories/052004/sta_20hollings.shtml

[Moses]

 <br> www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=14116&intcategoryid=3
BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Not so gentle rhetoric from the gentleman from South Carolina

By Matthew E. Berger

WASHINGTON May 21 (JTA) — Never known as genteel or soft-spoken, Ernest “Fritz” Hollings is ending his 38 years in the Senate with a typical bang — one that a number of Jewish groups could do without.

In a speech Thursday on the Senate floor, the South Carolina Democrat blasted the pro-Israel lobby for the second time this month and suggested that presidents and lawmakers for years have followed policy prescribed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“You can’t have an Israel policy other than what AIPAC gives you around here,” Hollings said. “I have followed them mostly in the main, but I have also resisted signing certain letters from time to time, to give the poor president a chance.”

Hollings, who is retiring this year at age 82, took to the floor to defend a column he wrote in a newspaper in his home state earlier this month, suggesting that the Bush administration went to war in Iraq on Israel’s behalf.

The comments come as Democrats are fighting to retain 3-1 support among Jewish voters and campaign donors. President Bush’s vigorous prosecution of the war on terrorism and his strong support for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon have made him unusually popular, for a Republican, with Jewish voters.

Several American Jewish organizations reacted strongly to Hollings’ column, suggesting he was scapegoating the Jewish community and providing ammunition for anti-Semitic attacks.

“I don’t apologize for this column,”[/color] Hollings said. “I want them to apologize to me for talking about anti-Semitism.”

And he reiterated his view that the Iraq war was fought for Israel.

“That is not a conspiracy. That is the policy,” he said. “Everybody knows it because we want to secure our friend, Israel.”

Hollings also said that his concern for Israel and the dangers he believes the war raised for the Jewish state — “I think, frankly, we have caused more terrorism than we have gotten rid of,” he said — made him speak out.

In his newspaper column, he cited Israeli experts as saying that pre-war Iraq posed little danger to the Jewish state.

Hollings has had a mixed record in his 38 years in the Senate, and some pro-Israel lobbyists say he has a poor voting record on Israel.

He also is known for putting his foot in his mouth, and in the past has apologized for remarks that offended blacks and Japanese.

But no one was prepared for his May 6 column in the Charleston Post and Courier, suggesting that a Jewish columnist and two Jewish advisers to President Bush beat the war drums, and that the war’s aim was to enhance Israel’s security.

Hollings named columnist Charles Krauthammer; Richard Perle, the former chair of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; and Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy secretary of defense, as leaders of a “domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel’s security is to spread democracy in the area.”

In his Senate speech Thursday, Hollings said he did not single out the three because they are Jewish but because their writings help prove his point that Bush was misled by mistaken advice.

Hollings also suggested that Bush agreed to the war plan to secure Jewish votes for his re-election campaign.

“He came to office imbued with one thought — re-election,” Hollings wrote. “Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.”

Several American Jewish organizations rebuked Hollings for his column.

“Regardless of whether one feels that America’s war on Iraq was justified, the charge that it is being fought by the U.S. on behalf of Israel grossly misrepresents the legitimate U.S. interests that are involved in the debate,” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, wrote in a letter to Hollings.

The Republican Jewish Coalition also called on Democratic leaders — including Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), the party’s presumptive nominee for president — to repudiate Hollings’ statements.

In an effort to garner Jewish votes, Republicans have been working to contrast President Bush’s support for Israel with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic comments by some notable Democrats. They’re likely to add Hollings to the list.

Democrats have adopted a similar tactic, pressing Bush to repudiate a close ally, Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, for suggesting recently that “Zionists” were behind terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia.

The National Jewish Democratic Council did not speak out against Hollings until two weeks after the column appeared. NJDC had won praise a year earlier when it was the first Jewish group to criticize Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) for suggesting that the Jewish community had pressed for the Iraq war.

Ira Forman, NJDC’s executive director, said his group had not spoken out because publicizing Hollings’ original comment might have fueled anti-Jewish sentiment.

“It’s patently absurd what Hollings said,” Forman told JTA Thursday, before NJDC’s statement was released. “The idea that Bush is going to take us to war with Iraq to swing 10 percent of 2 percent of the population is silly and stupid.” [It's not about the votes-- it's about the money and the plan to de-fund the opposition party]

A day later, Forman’s deputy, David Harris, said the NJDC had no problem speaking out against other Democrats who targeted Jews or Israel.

“Both parties have their outliers,” Harris said. “The only difference is we are more than happy to criticize our outliers.”

Hollings spokeswoman Ilene Zeldin told JTA that the senator stood by his floor comments and had no additional comments.

In his speech Thursday, Hollings specifically attacked AIPAC, suggesting that the organization manipulates American politics.

“I can tell you no president takes office, I don’t care whether it is a Republican or a Democrat, that all of a sudden AIPAC will tell him exactly what the policy is, and senators and members of Congress ought to sign letters,” he said. “I read those carefully and I have joined in most of them. On some I have held back. I have my own idea and my own policy. I have stated it categorically.”

AIPAC spokesman Josh Block would not comment on Hollings’ statement, referring questions to other Jewish organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

But some Democrats on Capitol Hill said Hollings was on the mark about AIPAC.

“Sen. Hollings eloquently stated what many members of Congress believe but are too afraid to say,” said one senior Democratic Hill staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Every letter or initiative pushed by AIPAC is not only not always in Israel’s best interest, but not in America’s best interest.”

The staffer said lawmakers fear they’ll lose re-election if they don’t support AIPAC. More likely, the staffer said, they’ll lose key fund-raising support or be deluged with calls and appearances from pro-Israel lobbyists and constituents.

“Sometimes it’s just easier to sign the letter,” the staffer said.

Hollings touched on a wide range of issues in the floor speech. He said his description of retired Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) a decade ago as the “senator from B’nai B’rith” was misunderstood.

He also suggested that the United States is no longer an evenhanded broker between Israel and the Palestinians, catering instead to Sharon.

“We are throwing over the United States-Israel policy of some 35 years insofar as negotiating the settlements and the refugees,” he said. “We are saying, ‘Forget about all of that, let Sharon keep bulldozing them.’ ”

Hollings’ bluntness may come from the freedom that beckons with retirement.

At one point, when asked to yield for a vote, he responded, “time is running out on me.”

[karpomrx]

"Sometimes it is just easier to sign the letter."
So the United States Senate resigns itself to policy by default. The senate, to which the POTUS is just an officeholder,The senate, one of the pillars of stability and watchdog over the passing office holders of the republic. It must be exhausting for the poor dears to have any ethical confusion to disturb their slumbers.
Once again, I believe in representative democracy...it's working.

[Moses]

This scum Farah isn't fit to be on the same planet as Hollings, much less the same country-- and Farah and his cohorts are turning our country to sh*t


worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38588


Old fool
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Posted: May 21, 2004
1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: The sensational new edition of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine,"THE PARTY OF TREASON," rips the veneer of civility and compassion off the Democratic Party and reveals how the party of Truman and Kennedy has been transformed into "the enemy within." [Note again the use of the BIG LIE-- knowingly projecting onto the opposition the very crime of which they are guilty]



There's something seriously wrong with America when an old fool like Fritz Hollings can be re-elected every six years to the U.S. Senate by South Carolina voters despite his mental lapses, despite his foot-in-mouth problems, despite his senility, despite his lack of sound judgment and grasp on the facts.

He should be an embarrassment to South Carolina, because he's certainly an embarrassment to the nation.



The latest senior moment for the senior senator from South Carolina came earlier this month when he wrote a column for a newspaper in his state in which he claimed:


* President Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Sept. 11. (He did not.)

* There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. (Some were found just this week.)

* The U.S. invaded Iraq to secure Israel and please American Jews. [Yes, this sums it up well and is the TRUTH]


Those are the central points. His incoherent rambling is further evidence the man is playing with a joker short of a full deck. He contends George Bush took office "imbued with one thought – re-election." [This is the absolute truth]

The easy way to be re-elected, Hollings asserts, was to start a war in Iraq to take the Jewish vote away from the Democratic Party. [No, it was about the money]

Now let's consider this: There are reasonable arguments against the war in Iraq. I have arguments myself with the way it was started, the way it has been conducted and with the ultimate goals for the country. But can any responsible, sane, rational American reasonably contend that a surefire scheme for re-election was to start a war in Iraq or anywhere else? [No, but Bush is in the control of those who made it part of the Republican drive to impose fascism here and abroad, which comes from the Likudnik traitors]

War is always risky business – they're much easier to start than they are to win. Everybody knows that.

Bill Clinton thought just the opposite was true. He conspired to withhold information from the American people about terrorist attacks on our soil – some of them involving Iraq – so he could purposely avoid politically risky foreign entanglements and responses to acts of war against this country. Politically speaking, he was probably right. He won re-election. But, strategically speaking, his irresponsible actions led directly to a series of escalating terrorist attacks on America and the inevitability of war for his successor. [So Clinton's foreign policy, not Bush's was based on political calculations, solely? This is a feature, of course, of the BIG LIE-- knowlingly project on your opponent the thing you are in fact guilty of ]

About Hollings' contention that Bush took action against Iraq to win favor with American Jews:

No. 1: The U.S. Jewish vote is very small. In fact, Israel gets far more support within the United States from evangelical voters representing between 30 million and 40 million people. [Yes, and that was part of the political calculus, too]

No. 2: I know of no polling data that suggests American Jews were broadly in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Hollings cites a few Jewish-sounding names among the architects of the plan to invade Iraq. He does not bother to cite any Jewish-sounding names among the many critics of the war – before it began or after. [Does Farrah think his readers are that ignorant? Farrah is taking a risk of losing readership here-- unless he wants to only herd those who haven't heard of Wolfowitz and PNAC, etc]

And that brings us to the central point.

Hollings is not only an old fool unworthy of sitting in the U.S. Senate – let alone casting votes on matters of life and death for U.S. troops and U.S. civilians – he is a blustering bigot.[This from the man who called for destroying Fallujah, etc, including the civilian population] He is a raving racist. He is an inartful anti-Semite . He is playing the old, thinly veiled anti-Jewish card to score political points in an election year. [Again, the BIG LIE-- projecting unto Hollings the very thing that Farrah and his cohorts are doing]

It's pathetic.

Not to mention the way he is adding to the demoralization of our troops bravely and heroically fighting right now for the liberation of Iraq and the defense of this nation against the terrorists who have attacked us repeatedly in the past and who will attack us repeatedly in the future.

For that he should be censured or summarily relieved of his duties by his colleagues.

But, don't hold your breath.

His colleagues in the U.S. Senate also continue to sit alongside even bigger disgraces – people like Sen. Edward Kennedy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The sensational new edition of WND's monthly Whistleblower magazine,"THE PARTY OF TREASON," rips the veneer of civility and compassion off the Democratic Party and reveals how the party of Truman and Kennedy has been transformed into "the enemy within." Get it while you can from ShopNetDaily.

[Moses]

Allen blasts Hollings' words

South Carolina senator denies that statements are anti-Semitic

BY PETER HARDIN
TIMES-DISPATCH WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
Friday, May 21, 2004

WASHINGTON - Republican Sen. George Allen blasted Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., this week for what he called anti-Semitic statements in a column Hollings wrote on Iraq. Hollings denied the charge.

"I denounce and deplore Senator Hollings' anti-Semitic, political-conspiracy statements," Allen, R-Va., said Wednesday. "I strongly repudiate and condemn Senator Hollings' intolerant assertions."

Yesterday, Hollings took to the Senate floor to defend himself, assail President Bush's handling of Iraq policy and expand upon the views that sparked criticism from Allen and some others.

"I don't apologize for this column," he said, portraying himself as "a big friend of Israel" with a "38-year track record." Before reading his column aloud, he told colleagues, "You'll find in it there's no anti-Semitic reference whatsoever."

In the column, published in three South Carolina newspapers this month, Hollings wrote that Bush went to war with Iraq to protect Israel and appease American Jews.

Hollings wrote, "With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel."

He added that Bush "came to office imbued with one thought - re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats."

The president of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, wrote Hollings asking him to retract his comments.

"This is reminiscent of age-old, anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government," Foxman wrote.

Allen heads the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a GOP arm pushing to increase the Republican Senate majority. He also leads a Foreign Relations Committee panel that has held hearings on the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe.

On the Senate floor yesterday, Hollings said he and Allen "are good friends. Maybe after this particular thing he might have a difference. But I know his role as the chairman of the campaign committee."

Contact Peter Hardin at [phone] or [e-mail]
The Associated Press contributed to this report.


This story can be found at: www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031775577435&path=%21news&s=1045855934842

[Moses]

www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=2621

May 21, 2004
Senator Hollings Is Right

It's all about Israel

by Justin Raimondo

Isn't it funny how politicians have to wait until just before going into retirement to say what they really think about Israel and its influence over Washington policymakers?

Congressman Lee Hamilton (D-Indiana), formerly the senior Democrat on the House International Relations Committee, waited until after announcing his departure from Congress to attend a symposium on the Middle East where he noted that his congressional colleagues are "not even-handed" when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "for political reasons." Rep. Hamilton went on to say:

"Israeli leaders understand our system very, very well [and] because they understand our system they can exploit it."

Rep. Sonny Callahan (R-Alabama) earned the ire of Tel Aviv's lobby by opposing "emergency aid" to Israel. In a speech on the House floor, a clearly angered Callahan lashed out at the Amen Corner:

"I am going to offer amendments as we go through the bill to strike all of the aid to Israel that was included here without any request from Israel, without any request from the administration, without any requests from anybody. But someone within this beltway decided since we were going to have a supplemental bill, they were going to get some pork in it for Israel."

Please note that Callahan did this only after announcing his retirement plans. Now Senator Ernest Hollings, whose legendary disdain for political correctness has gotten him in trouble before, has joined the ranks of the belatedly honest, and said what a few others – such as Michael Kinsley, Pat Buchanan, and myself – have said all along. In an op-ed piece first published in the Charleston Post and Courier, the senator, having just announced his retirement, took up the question of why are we in Iraq, and came up with this answer:

"Now everyone knows what was not the cause. Even President Bush acknowledges that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. Listing the 45 countries where al-Qaida was operating on September 11 (70 cells in the U.S.), the State Department did not list Iraq. Richard Clarke, in Against All Enemies, tells how the United States had not received any threat of terrorism for 10 years from Saddam at the time of our invasion. … Of course there were no weapons of mass destruction. Israel's intelligence, Mossad, knows what's going on in Iraq. They are the best. They have to know. Israel's survival depends on knowing. Israel long since would have taken us to the weapons of mass destruction if there were any or if they had been removed. With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush's policy to secure Israel."

Hollings goes on to identify "a domino school of thought that the way to guarantee Israel's security is to spread democracy in the area," naming deputy Defense Secretary and chickenhawk-in-chief Paul Wolfowitz, neoconservative hardliner and Francophile Richard Perle, and former psychiatrist and deranged warmonger Charles Krauthammer. He furthermore goes on to savage George W. Bush, whose sole thought since taking office, according to Hollings, has been reelection, with a radical tilt toward Israel by U.S. policymakers a key part of the game plan:

"Spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats. You don't come to town and announce your Israel policy is to invade Iraq. But George W. Bush, as stated by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and others, started laying the groundwork to invade Iraq days after inauguration. And, without any Iraq connection to 9/11, within weeks he had the Pentagon outlining a plan to invade Iraq. He was determined."

Hollings has been roundly denounced and his remarks attributed to "anti-Semitism" by Israel's amen corner in the U.S. But there is nothing secret about the open effort by the Republican party to capture the Jewish vote. The whole idea of politics, after all, is mobilizing various interest groups around a particular candidate and building a majority coalition. Pandering to ethnic blocs is a grand American political tradition: it comes with being a nation of immigrants, which is something we're all supposed to glory in. Every ethnic group of any numerical significance is pandered to, in some way, and politicians are always making ethnic-based appeals. The Republican party's outreach to the Hispanic community is pursued to the point where our President often bursts into long stretches of Spanish (perhaps because it makes him sound less inarticulate, at least to those who have no idea what he's saying). Why shouldn't he reach out to Jewish voters, too?

By calling attention to the obvious, Senator Hollings stands condemned as an "anti-Semite."

I'll tell you what else is obvious: the benefits accrued to Israel on account of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The annexation of significant portions of the West Bank, and now the attack on Gaza, have both received what amounts to the imprimatur of an American President. While Israeli "advisors" teach their American pupils the basics of running an occupation, the next target on Ariel Sharon's wish list, Syria, is hit with sanctions, and accusations that Damascus is aiding the Iraqi insurgency.

Hollings is absolutely on the mark about the real reasons for this war, even if his speculation about a GOP effort to go after the Jewish vote misses the real point. What Bush is after isn't primarily the Jewish voter, but holding onto and expanding the much larger "born again" Christian fundamentalist bloc, a significant proportion of which is fanatically devoted to Israel – even over and above American interests – for wacky theological reasons. When Hollings called Prime Minister Sharon "the Bull Connor of Israel," it wasn't the Jewish vote Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) was after when he demanded that Hollings apologize. South Carolina is Pat Robertson country, where the dispensationalist Christian heresy has deep roots – and even deeper political implications when it comes to this administration's foreign policy.

"Certainly, discussing and questioning policy is the right and duty of all responsible leaders. But when the debate veers into anti-Jewish stereotyping, it is tantamount to scapegoating and an appeal to ethnic hatred," says Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League.

But why shouldn't America's satellites avidly seek to manipulate and even control the Imperial Hegemon? After all, we hold their fate in our hands. That's what being an Empire is all about. Without American military and economic support, Israel could not and would not exist: one false move on the part of Washington, and the Jewish state would flounder and fall on the rocks of demographic reality and rising Arab nationalism.

Special interest groups of all ethnic and religious persuasions do their best to decisively influence U.S. foreign policy: why should Jews (and their "born again" Christian allies) be any different?

"This is reminiscent," raves Foxman, "of age-old, anti-Semitic canards about a Jewish conspiracy to control and manipulate government." If one so much as looks cross-eyed at Ariel Sharon, Abe Foxman is reminded of Kristallnacht, but the point is that, if I were Foxman I wouldn't pull this "age-old canard" business too often. Instead of fighting anti-Semitism, Foxman's weird insistence on re-imagining half-forgotten anti-Jewish caricatures can only encourage it. But, then again, if anti-Semitism went out of business, so would Foxman's organization. It's funny how that works….


(rest at link)