NR Ignores “The Insidious Wiles of Foreign Influence”
by Tom Piatak
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Imagine the reaction at National Review and in other neocon precincts if Barack Obama had indicated that his chief of staff would be someone who had volunteered for the military of a foreign nation, but had never volunteered in the American military, if his father had been a member of a terrorist organization,and was unrepentant about it, and if it was widely expected that the new chief of staff would use his position in Obama’s White House to advance the interests of a foreign nation.
Actually, you don’t have to imagine, since Obama has named as his chief of staff Illinois congressman Rahm Emanuel, who volunteered in the Israeli Defense Force during the First Gulf War but has never served in the American military, whose father was a proud member of Menachem Begin’s terrorist Irgun organization, and whose father also forthrightly told the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv, “Obviously he will influence the president to be pro-Israel.”
When a “longtime liberal reader” wrote to Jonah Goldberg about how pro-Israel Emanuel was likely to be, Goldberg passed this information along to his readers as “an interesting point.” Andrew McCarthy then linked to Goldberg’s post and wondered “what if any significance is to be gleaned from Emanuel’s very strong ties to Israel given the pre-election speculation that Obama’s election would mark a decline of Israeli influence on American policy.”
Excuse me, but shouldn’t the goal of Americans be a White House in which foreign governments, including Israel’s, have zero influence? Isn’t this exactly what George Washington warned against in his Farewell Address? And what would our first president have said about the likes of McCarthy and Goldberg and others who are so blase about the prospect of foreign influence in the White House?
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1 Comment by Red Phillips on 7 November 2008:
So much for change.
2 Comment by Robert Bruce on 7 November 2008:
Yeah, no s#$%. Another dual citizen going to get his boss to get us into more protracted wars, including Russia probably.
3 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 7 November 2008:
Your logic is impeccable.
The pro-Israel side got hysterical because Obama had been socially friendly with Rashid Khalidi, who is American-born and has a record of pro-Palestinian sympathies, and Obama attended Khalidi’s farewell dinner when Khalidi went of to Columbia University.
It does appear that Obama is appointing Robert Malley as some kind of emissary on Middle Eastern matters. Malley is anathema to the Zionists because he talks to Syria and favors engaging Hamas.
But still, there was a time when service in a foreign army or voting in a foreign election automatically deprived one of American citizenship. If Emmamuel applied for a receptionist’s job at the CIA, he might well not get it–too many foreign ties.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”
4 Comment by Jon I. on 7 November 2008:
@ #2 Robert Bruce
I merely hope that Emanuel was chosen simply as a task master for a determined center-left administration. A war with Russia would result in the destruction of the entire Western world. I do not believe that China, India, and Bahrain are developed enough at this point to be the new homelands of the globalist oligarchy, though I may be wrong.
Basically, I believe that any major American attack on Russian territory would be met with severe, nuclear, East-European, white racial guerrilla resistance in every Western nation. The Russians still believe, as any sane nation-state would, that they have a right to exist at the expense of others if harmed.
What I am more worried about is the next administration whipping the sheep into a globalist frenzy and accepting what was put forth by the previous, shape-shifting neocon establishment. Namely, a North American Union and every loss of liberty and choice that goes along with it.
5 Comment by Mark Higdon on 7 November 2008:
By virtue of his stature, Runt Emanuel gets to sit, feet a-dangling, next to Robert Reich in the front row of a classroom full of Clinton administration alumni about to populate the Obama regime. Plus ça change? More like deja vu all over again.
6 Comment by Bob Johnson on 7 November 2008:
Tom,
You are of course correct that the hypocrisy is incomprehensible.
I want to make very clear to any neocons reading this that if Emanuel talks Obama into a unprovoked war with Iran, all men of courage, honor, and decency shall stand as one and say:
Let the tears
of the American Widows
And the blood
of the Iranian Women and Children
Be upon his head.
Let it be done to him
as it was done to Irv Rubin.
Let it be done to him
as it was done to Irv Rubin.
Let it be done to him
as it was done to Irv Rubin.
7 Comment by David Collins on 8 November 2008:
Who is Irv Rubin?
8 Comment by Leo on 8 November 2008:
I believe Irv Rubin was the JDL terrorist who jumped or was pushed to his death while doing time in a California(?) prison.Whatever,his unpleasant experience in prison(I’m told) was a result of not having many friends among his fellow inmates.Seems his white,black and brown fellow convicts could all agree on hating Rubin and his JDL.Seems like the races can sometimes cooperate if the cause is just.I have a dream.
9 Comment by Harold Crews on 8 November 2008:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irv_Rubin
Can’t vouch for the accuracy.
10 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 8 November 2008:
@9 Harold
I guess Rubin “got what he deserved.” Those who live by the sword die by safety razor. Interesting how the family immediately tried to sue the government in order to grub some money from the loss of their criminal kid.
As the old Chinese curse goes, “May you live in interesting times.”
11 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 8 November 2008:
@6 Bob
How many men of courage, honor, and decency will that be? And will the guttersniping reporters heap scorn and derision on them with Two Minutes Hate?
Oh evil day!
12 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 8 November 2008:
@5 Mark
Roght on!
Rabbi Daniel Lapin said of Clinton’s staff, “look like America? It lokks more like Tel Aviv.”
Perhaps Lil’ Smokin” Barry feels that Slick Willie didn’t go far enough with the white, self-loathing, breast-beating. Our first mohammedan president might just pick the historic very first non-Christian White House. It’s entirely possible that David Frum will get a job in this administration as Minister of Propaganda (or Truth.)
13 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 8 November 2008:
As Orwell said, “Some animals are more equal than others.”
14 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 8 November 2008:
Irv Rubin got whacked in jail while awaiting trial for a “conspiracy” which was the product of an FBI informant and which Rubin probably had nothing to do with as the published transcripts seemed to indicate that he was on to the informant and avoiding the attempt at entrapment. The out for the government was to allow or encourage some local gang bangers to murder him in jail before he could embarress the Feds at trial, and then cover his death up as a suicide. He was alleged to have slit his own throat AND jumped to his death off a ledge. How many “suicides” like that has anyone heard of?
15 Comment by Mark Higdon on 8 November 2008:
According to certain American historical apocrypha, in the old South, they sometimes used lots of chains and a deep lake for similar “suicides.”
16 Comment by KMarx on 8 November 2008:
It is an outrage to appoint anyone who has more allegiance to another country than to the country within which he lives and makes his living. This applies not only to Rahm Emanuel but to Joe Lieberman as well. At this moment Lieberman is trying to hatch a plan to ally himself with the Republican Party to further his own agenda. He will stop at nothing to further that agenda even if it hurts America’s interests.
17 Comment by Miles Gloriosus on 8 November 2008:
Kurt Higdon@14 wrote: “He[Irv Rubin] was alleged to have slit his own throat AND jumped to his death off a ledge. How many “suicides” like that has anyone heard of?
No doubt we’ll shortly hear of many more.
18 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 8 November 2008:
Tom Piatak asks us to imagine National Review’s reaction to BO’s appointment of Emanuel to a position of such great importance and influence.
We don’t have to imagine it. NR and its AIPAC-dominated staff won’t make the slightest peep about this hideous appointment. They won’t praise it (that might blow their cover as faux-conservatives) and they won’t attack it (that would get their Commentary allies mad).
If anything, we’ll get the usual amorphous and gaseous rhetoric that NR now specializes in–that is, talk about “globalist imperatives” and “strategic geopolitics” and “the spread of democratic ideals,” ending (no doubt) with the ringing assertion that Emanuel is a “man of vision and steely determination.”
It will, of course, be interesting to hear what that snivelling little twerp Rich Lowry will have to say. This is the fellow who, in a recent column about our financial mega-disaster, bleated about how important it was that we have unlimited and easy credit in this country, and that is why is was fine that the government should bail out failing banks and businesses and mortagage holders to the tune of billions of dollars.
These guys are “conservatives”? Yeah, tell me another one.
19 Comment by Leo on 8 November 2008:
Who misses Irv Rubin?The JDL remains a virulently anti-Christian organization.Alex Odeh ,the individual that Rubin was suspected of murdering,was a Christian.From Kahane to Rubin and on,the JDL openly calls for the expulsion of all non-Jews (that means Christians,too)from Eretz Israel.I have many friends who are Zionists but I do not tolerate the JDLers.Apparently, neither did his fellow inmates.
20 Comment by robert on 8 November 2008:
Tom Piatak,
Mr. Piatak is there any truth at all in the beltway rumor that Mr. Obama has discussed offering Pat Buchanan the position of America’s ambassador to the Vatican ? Someone said his sister, Bay, was discussing this very real possibility with George Stephanopolous and that other democratic guru, Paul ???? — of all people!! And even Chris Mathews was said to have asked Pat about it at MSNBC. Now of course I can’t believe it and don’t believe it, but then maybe Obama really is trying to work to find “common ground” with even those who didn’t support him. And it isn’t like Pat went all out for McCain or has any loyalities inside the current administration.
21 Comment by M.A. Roberts on 8 November 2008:
Rahm Emanuel also is the globalist who spearheaded NAFTA through Congress.
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/View_art.asp?Prod_ID=3075
22 Comment by I am not Spartacus on 8 November 2008:
Excellent, Mr. Piatak. After what the Mulatto’s minions did to Joe the Plumber for just asking a simple question, I assume this post must mean you have faithfully and fully complied with all IRS rules and you have no desire to apply for a Federal Grant
23 Comment by Michael Kenny on 8 November 2008:
“[S]houldn’t the goal of Americans be a White House in which foreign governments, including Israel’s, have zero influence?
That certainly is the kind of America Europe wants to see, but it was always obvious that Obama was the Israel Lobby candidate. After the Berlin speech, “Bomb the Serbs” Biden, the election night speech, Rahmbo and God knows what else to follow, I would guess that the European elite has no illusions.
24 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 8 November 2008:
I considered Irv Rubin a friend although I met him only a few times duing the decades when both of us lived in Los Angeles. I once had quite a long argument with him over the commonly held view that Pope Pius XII was morally negligent in not doing enough to help the Jews during the massacres of WW II. After I had presented Irv with a good deal of evidence on how much Pius had done to help the Jews, he conceded he was wrong and apologized for any statements he had made against the Pontiff. Willingness to change your opinion in accord with the evidence and admit error are the mark of an honest man and not a fanatic.
Rubin was never a suspect in the Odeh murder – never even arrested, let alone tried or convicted. A married couple who were JDL members were suspects; neither of them was convicted of the murder. Rubin did make the deplorable statement that Odeh got what he deserved, the same comment made in this forum by Mr. Gervaise concerning Rubin himself.
The larger issue here is the government use of informers and provocateurs to entrap political and religious extremists (and sometimes ordinary criminals) and the sanctioning and use of murder when convictions cannot be obtained against them. In addition to Rubin, his JDL colleague Earl Krugel was also murdered in prison when his conviction was being appealed. White separatist Randy Weaver was entrapped by a Federal agent on a bogus firearms charge and his wife murdered by a federal sniper when he missed a court appearance. And then you have the wholesale massacre at Waco. Some of the so-called terrorist plots by so-called Muslims are probably also the concoction of Fed provocateurs and this may well be also the case with the skinhead “conspiracy” to kill Obama. Those who are opponents of the incoming Obama regime should be more hesitant than any to applaud abuse of police powers and convenient jailhouse murders.
As for Irv Rubin, I continue to pray for his soul as I have since his death.
25 Comment by Tom Piatak on 8 November 2008:
Mr. Higdon,
Thanks for your very informative post about Irv Rubin, a man about whom I know virtually nothing. I have no use for the JDL or similar organizations, but I share your skepticism of the tactics used by overly aggressive prosecutors and law enforcement officials. Prison murders and rapes are also far too common, and should not be tolerated by the authorities or condoned by the public. A man sentenced to prison is sentence to serve a period of time being incarcerated, not to be killed or sodomized.
26 Comment by pablo H on 8 November 2008:
I’m less concerned with Rahm’s dual citizenship than I am with his globalist outlook. He’s a big supporter of NAFTA, immigration (naturally), and every other internationalist position. But then so is John McCain and NRO.
As for Israel, Rahm simply is up front about his support for Israel and his putting America second. LBJ wasn’t an Israeli but he had no problem covering up the attack on the USS Liberty. Frankly, I think Israel could have killed a couple thousand US sailors before it ruffled LBJ.
And people need to read more on Goldberg & NRO. Goldberg has made it clear he would prefer Obama to Buchanan or any other “nationalist”.
27 Comment by J. Meng on 9 November 2008:
Gentlemen, this matter of Israeli influence in the American government (only for the sake of Israel, by the way) has been going on officially since the first half of 1948, when President Truman, under great Zionist pressure, caved in and recognized the terrorist state of Israel in May. From that day to this, the encroaching power of Israel within our government (as well as the vituperative influence of anti-
Christian-seething-NGOs like the Southern Poverty Law Center, American Defense League, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Jewish Defense League), has only become more firmly entrenched. And, as we hurl invectives against men of dual loyalties in our government and those who appoint them; as we flail the air in angry arm-waving against the continued abuse of the common good of our nation and the withering of our national freedom, let us realize there is nothing we can do about it as long as we whine and play the same bogus political game year in and year out.
28 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 9 November 2008:
If there are any Iranians reading this blog, then here is my recommendation. Annouce that your atom bomb is ready to be tested. Any reports to the contrary are nothing more than zionist propaganda. Tell the world that their spies are little more than common criminal scum and terrorist agents of Satan. And then issue a press release promising that the test date will be announced after January 20, 2009. We paleos will stand up for your right to defend yourselves. The citizens of America have no grievance with either the people or the leadership of Iran. We believe that you have no interest in attacking us. Any desire to hurt the US is held by Mossad and its anti-Christian group followers at ACLU, People for the American Way, American Trial Lawyers Assoc., etc. ad nauseam.
29 Comment by John Willson on 9 November 2008:
All of this is very interesting about Mr. Rubin or this or that. It seems to me that Tom Piatak’s point is so much simpler: We have a hard Left president who has given his first major appointment to a man whose whole life has been dedicated to the exact Israel-First-globalist policies that got us where we are in the Middle East. John Bolton said this morning on Fox News that he thinks that the Bush administration will bomb Iran’s “nuclear” facilities before the Obama administration is sworn in. Given the Emanuel appointment, can any sane person believe that the president-elect will do anything to prevent it from happening? Or take any action to soften our imperial ambitions in the Levant or the world?
30 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 9 November 2008:
#29 – No doubt Bolton hopes that Bush will bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran before Obama is sworn in, but it seems to me that for the past year or so, the ruling inner establishment of US politics has been reining in its errant son. And if the appointments of promoters of Israel first globalist policies are evidence of a “hard left president”, Obama has a long way to go to prove himself as hard left as Bush, though with the Emanuel appointment, he is off to a good start.
31 Comment by roho on 10 November 2008:
Great observation and article!
32 Comment by D Simmons on 10 November 2008:
You might notice the parallels of Frum’s screeds to that of Fareed Zakaria (The Camp of Saints come to life) and his book about America being a defeated nation in need of muslim immigrants.
33 Comment by Tom K on 12 November 2008:
It seems Emanuel was a civilian volunteer who worked on an Israeli military base:
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=6207491&page=1
While various readers will attach their own significance to the distinction, I believe it is inaccurate to say that he “volunteered for the military of a foreign nation” or served “in the Israeli Defense Force”.
I know Mr. Piatak (from his work only) to be scrupulous with his facts, so I hope he may regard this information as helpful.
34 Comment by Evan McLaren on 16 November 2008:
Loyalty? George Washington? Tom, when will you stop being such a hopeless and irrelevant anachronism?