Is Jeff Goldberg Of The Atlantic Loyal To The United States?
I will answer that question right off. As far as I know (and that is all that I can legitmiately comment on) he is.
The only reason I ask the question is because Goldberg, the Atlantic blogger, has joined with the usual neocons suspects to assert with ugly vehemence that the Iranian-American scholar, Trita Parsi, is not a loyal American but an operative of the loathsome Iranian regime.
Read this by Daniel Luban. And this by Spencer Ackerman (there are now a dozen similar pieces on the web) describing precisely who Trita is, what he stands for and what the neocons (now hell bent on an attack on Iran by the end of the year) are saying about him. Why Trita? Because he is the most effective advocate for diplomacy with Iran rather than listening to the Israeli hawks and their boys here.
Using Goldberg's standard, I could ask about his loyalties. How can an American who served in the Israeli army be a legitimate commentator on Arab-Israeli affairs? You know how many Americans join the Israeli army. Pretty much none. Even the most rightwing AIPAC kid in your high school or college never dreamed of fighting in the IDF because he or she is an American and we have our own army, navy and air force. A pretty good one too. (I never served in any army. Members of my immediately family served in various American war beginning with WW1 and ending with service in Vietnam. I would not serve in Vietnam because I opposed the war and because I did not want to be killed. One thing that never crossed my mind was choosing some other army to serve in.)
I think it is appropriate to ask any American who chooses to enlist in the Israeli, Brazilian, French, or Indonesian military: why, if you felt the call to national service in the military, did you not choose our military? Yes, some Americans, impatient, and rightly so, to fight the Nazis joined the Canadian army to get into the war faster. But that was because they knew that FDR was hamstrung by Congress in his effort to help the allies. The fought alongside the Canadians and Brits as Americans, in a war they knew American would soon join.
That is not the case with an American joining the IDF. Those few Americans who join the Israeli army are utterly devoted to Israel and its interests. That is fine. But one has to question if they should recuse themselves (1) from questioning the loyalty of Americans of immigrant background who are "guilty" only of their foreignness by birth and (2) from reporting on Middle East affairs period. If Israel is the passion of your life, write about Japan or Africa. Don't even pretend (and Goldberg barely pretends) that you come to Middle East issues with any sort of obectivity whatsoever.
Note: Trita Parsi was in exile in Sweden. He did not join the Iranian Army.
MJ: America really becoming the United State of Beck and Bachmann. Soldier on!
I've met Trita Parsi through our WAC. He is very nice, articulate, and has this "crazy" idea that the Iranians don't have horns and cloved feet.
One of our more ardent Zionists declared Parsi was "too Pro-Iranian." And some people think irony is dead?
November 3, 2009 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, MB, thanks. This is pretty disgusting and I think Goldberg is going to pay a price for this.
I don't post on my own blogs once the trolls appear (too much batshit crazy clutter) so I'm glad to say hey before the nuts fall out of the trees.
I'm in Juneau right now. Sarah Palin really is nuts. This town is great! Speaking at World Affairs Council. Funny. With the internets, folks out here in the wilds know as much about what's going on as the folks in Manhattan. I mean the TIMES is not only distributed in NY anymore.
Huge audiences here. Even the Jews agree the peace side. Even the AIPAC guy I talked to. Gaza did it.
November 3, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't even read the comments once the robots arrive. If you ever want to reach me, do it directly.
November 3, 2009 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess we know which troll emerged first from under the bridge.
Your thoughts are about as welcome as a fart in a crowded elevator.
November 3, 2009 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, that was meant for Spider below, my favorite breath of foul wind...
November 3, 2009 12:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, You should had written for Pravda. No trolls, no dissidents, no enemies of working people were allowed there.
November 3, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting...people will scream it's Anti-Semitism if someone says the same thing about dual loyalty for Jews...
Except that while people often do engage in horrid anti-Semetic charges of dual loyalty...being an American Jew with family or friends in Israel, and being critical of the government of Israel...doesn't land your friends or family in prison...they don't lose their jobs, their homes or their freedom to say what they think about their government...(now, if you have Palestinian friends...and you get on the Shabak's radar...that's a whole other story as the Isralie's are just as capable of being odious fascists as anyone else)
For Irnanians ("Persian" if you're against the Ayatolahs but not necessarily for the Sha, and "Iranian" if you're against the Sha but not necessarily in favor of the revolution) such is not the case...
Hell, spend one late night at a hooka bar with your gang of Persian friends and half the time they'll tell you stories about how everyone in their clique believes Mr. X is FBI, Ms. Y is CIA, and so-n-so is probably a mole for Iran's secret police...except when they're also playing both sides of the street for someone else...
Gosh, it sounds just like a Graham Greene novel...
But that's silly...imagine, Graham Greene being relevant to understanding Iran...
Next thing you know someone will be saying it's all a "wilderness of mirrors..." but why would anyone ever think that...
So it goes...
November 4, 2009 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Rosenberg wants to add a "loyalty" test to his list. He also thinks of himself as prime administrator of a "racist" test with which he labels so many of his opponents. How long will it take before Josh Marshall realizes Lenny Ben David was right about him?
November 3, 2009 12:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Is M.J. Rosenberg Loyal To The United States?
I will answer that question right off. As far as I know (and that is all that I can legitimately comment on) he is NOT. He is Israeli hate first.
November 3, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is choosing the IDF different from choosing to fight for Canada in the Second World War, exactly?
I'm with you on the rest, although I would characterize Trita Parsi as an activist rather than a scholar. Not that there's much difference for some people...
November 3, 2009 1:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your analogy is faulty. Canada fought with the rest of the British Empire and ultimately wiht America in a war against the Nazis.
We are not in a war with the Palestinians.
November 3, 2009 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Were were not in war with Germans, we were at war with German Government. We are not at war with the Palestinians, We are at war with Iran and its proxies such as Hamas.
November 3, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We" are not at war with Iran or its proxies. Are you incapable of distinguishing between the USA and the State of Israel?
Me thinks, not.
November 3, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are in the war with US.
http://infidelsarecool.com/2007/02/21/video-death-to-america/
November 3, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is worse,
a bunch of loud-mouth foreigners who repeat stupid rah rah rote chants against America while actually yearning for the chance to one day join relatives and friends in America
Or
a bunch of loud-mouths who repeat rote lies about how the interests of America are identical to the interests of a small lunatic fringe in a small foreign country, and use any and every immoral means necessary to continually shove their garbage down the throats of America's government.
November 3, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's not "a bunch of loud-mouth foreigners "
It's a President of Iran declaring a war against US
November 3, 2009 9:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
"a President of Iran declaring a war against US"
That is very fantasy of yours, "Anna," indicating nothing beyond your paranoid gullibility. The president of Iran visits America, talks at universities here. America and Iran are hardly on the best of terms, very far from it indeed, but there is no state of "war." Take it from me, as a genuine American, when we are at war, our president and Congress will make that very clear. They are incompetent in many ways, but America is not the Kleptomania Kaput Soviet Union of the 1980s.
November 4, 2009 5:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
You a total fool. There is a cold war between US and Iran and there is a hot war by proxies, Irans helps in killing American soldiers.
November 4, 2009 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are clutching at straws. A cold war is not a war, it is a cold war. America was in a cold war with the USSR for many decades. No American politician ever tried to claim that America was "at war" with the Soviet Union then. Only crazy right wing extremists used such language. Ones that would have difficulty reading the U.S. Constitution. It is a considerable stretch even comparing recent US-Iranian relations to the West-East Cold War.
November 4, 2009 1:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
All American politicians claimed that America was
at Cold War with the Soviet Union then.
November 4, 2009 3:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
"At cold war with" is an odd expression precisely because it blurs an otherwise clear distinction between a metaphorical "war" and a real one. Google "at cold war with" and "Soviet Union" and you will get 1000 times fewer hits than "in a cold war with" "Soviet Union." Why the difference? "At war" usually means the real "hot" war not the symbolic or metaphorical "cold" one.
Your fantasy about America being in a real war with Iran is further unsupported by this story in today's papers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html/
November 5, 2009 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"At cold war with" is an odd expression precisely because it blurs an otherwise generally clear distinction between a metaphorical "war" and a real war. Googling "at cold war with" and "Soviet Union"get 1000 times fewer hits than "in a cold war with" "Soviet Union." Why the difference? "At war" usually means the real "hot" war not the symbolic or metaphorical "cold" one.
The AIPAC-to-the-max fantasy about America being in a real war with Iran is further unsupported by this story in today's papers:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/world/middleeast/05iran.html/
November 5, 2009 6:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
More than one American citizen fought in the Spanish civil war, defending the government against Franco, and then returned to the U.S. to defend the Soviet Union against its detractors.
If you had a brain you'd rise to the level of asshole.
November 3, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, troll, your post makes no sense.
Peanuts. Get your peanuts here!
November 3, 2009 5:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
These were Lefties, fighting for a Leftie cause in a foreign army, who came back to the U.S.A. not only to defend the same government they fought for, but the mother of all Leftie causes. And I've never heard Lefties - then or now - criticize them for doing so.
I think it is appropriate to ask any American who chooses to enlist in the Israeli, Brazilian, French, or Indonesian military: why, if you felt the call to national service in the military, did you not choose our military?
None of the Hollywood Ten, so celebrated in Leftie lore, fought for the United States. One of them served as an ambulance driver in WWI. Another fought in the Spanish Civil War. I guess they all "opposed [both WWI and WWII] and...did not want to be killed". Heroes of the Left. Terrific.
I can't see how someone as dumb or deliberately obtuse as you can be a trial lawyer. Texas justice, I guess, is a long, long, long way from perfect.
November 3, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Two wrongs don't make a right. Maybe you heard of that. It is the American way. If you don't like it you can move to the West Bank.
November 4, 2009 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Being called dumb by a dim bulb like you is high praise indeed.
Sadly, you can't see the circularity in your own argument.
November 4, 2009 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
How is being called dumb by a dummy praise? Honestly, how can a nitwit like you retain a license to practice law? Are you a member of an old family which pulls strings?
November 4, 2009 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Spider. You just aren't funny. Some people got it, others don't. You're part of the don't.
I suggest you focus on your strength, i.e., commenting on issues about which you know squat.
"...since I'm not willing to do the research, I'll never know."
--Spider's Credo
November 4, 2009 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
We weren't at war with the Germans at the time. Nor were we part of the British Empire. And the weapons Israel uses on the Palestinians were in large part bought with the money of United States taxpayers. Military support to Israel is a substantial fraction of U.S. foreign aid.
Actually, the situation during the "arsenal of democracy" period referenced by the O.P. isn't that different from our relationship with Israel. Indeed, our 60-year alliance with Israel has been more reliable than any relationship we had with the European powers in the 40's.
November 3, 2009 1:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You logic is faulty. We provide weapons to all sorts of country. However, that is a far cry from actually joining the military of a foreign country.
We sell weapons to Colombia, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and now Iraq. Do you think Americans should be joining those militaries too?
November 3, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No. I don't think they should be joining the IDF either (and I don't think they should have joined the Canadian military in the 40's).
My point was not that joining the military of another country is a good thing. My point was that joining the military of another country is joining the military of another country, and the O.P.'s statement about how great it was to join the Canadian military in the 40's vs. the IDF now was a distinction without a difference.
November 3, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's Goldberg speaking for himself;
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/
That's all I could find. If Rosenberg had any integrity at all, he'd have posted it.
Another noted American journalist who served in the Israeli army is Robert D. Kaplan. He also embedded himself with the American army in Iraq and has reported from many other dangerous places. Unlike Rosenberg, he's not a coward.
November 3, 2009 3:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, nothing like prominent American Zionists serving as "objective" witnesses for the IDF.
Spider, you suffer from a delusion of adequacy.
November 3, 2009 5:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
An asshole with a Palestinian wife has two strikes against him when claiming objectivity. Or do you admit to gross partisanship?
November 3, 2009 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely.
In fact, I've never hidden it.
November 4, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
In short, your comments, even on the rare times they are thought out and make sense, are not to be taken at face value.
November 4, 2009 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Another non sequitur?
So I say, the sky is blue. Is is true? Or does that depend on my pro-Palestinian bias?
"...since I'm not willing to do the research, I'll never know."
--Spider's Credo
November 5, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the comments, Mythbuster. Pity that MJ cannot simply ban irrelevant propaganda-regurgitating posters, because it would be nice to talk to him (but he can't be bothered to sort through the "troll" droppings, and it's hard to blame him for that). I don't know beans about Mr. Trita Parsi, who probably appreciates the anti-AIPAC-BS statements of MJ et al, but who I rather suspect is also a big enough boy to know about sticks and stones, simple reference to which would save a lot time (except of course for people who have nothing better to do than to waste it).
November 3, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, in your world, what Goldberg actually said is "irrelevant propaganda". I can never understand how dopes like you can think yourselves intelligent.
November 3, 2009 6:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Becase he is a fool.
November 3, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't talking about Goldberg. I agree that we don't really know what Goldberg said, because Rosenberg didn't give us a link or a quote. But that doesn't matter, I was not talking about Goldberg regurgitating propaganda.
November 4, 2009 5:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr Rosenberg,
Sen. Joseph McCarthy, were he still alive, would be very proud of you for questioning the loyalty of someone with whom you disagree.
November 3, 2009 8:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
George Orwell would not be proud of you for getting the McCarthyites and non-McCarthyites backwards here.
November 4, 2009 5:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Those feeding trolls are enablers.
I wonder about the timing of the attack on Parsi. It's not like he's new on the scene. Are there rumors afloat that Obama might be reading Parsi's book about the cooperation between Israel and Iran? Or could there be someone within range of the president's ear who find an American Iranian more credible on Iran than American Zionists are? Horrors.
Speaking of Iran, the settlers' Anglo mouthpiece Arutz Sheva has cheerful article about the enhanced military cooperation between the IDF and US:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/134215
November 3, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
That can be interpreted in both ways: (1) the USN is helping protect Israel in case of an IAF attack on Iran; or (2) the USN is helping protect Israel in exchange for no IAF attack on Iran.
Time will tell.
November 4, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
RE: Even the most rightwing AIPAC kid in your high school or college never dreamed of fighting in the IDF because he or she is an American and we have our own army, navy and air force.
APPARENTLY NOT SO EVERYWHERE: Imran Garda reports from Johannesburg.
...Efforts to prosecute those who may have committed war crimes in Israel's war on Gaza have spread beyond the Middle East. A lawyer in South Africa has identified 75 South African nationals who he says were fighting with the Israeli army in the war earlier this year. Feroze Boda, based in Johannesburg and working on behalf of two local pro-Palestinian organisations, says the soldiers should face court action for their involvement....
..."We believe that there is prima facae evidence against all of them. We have informants from South African police stations, whose identity we are currently protecting for their safety, who have pinpointed which of their fellow South African police force reservists went to Gaza to fight in the war. We have pictorial evidence as well."...
...Even if war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot be proven, there is another more obvious charge for South Africans who fought for Israel. A South African law, the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, bars any citizen from fighting for a foreign force without express government permission...
VIDEO(3:43)@YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlyV-tUr3sw
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/10/200910298247857309.html
November 4, 2009 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
What about Dennis. He's on fire here!
See http://pulsemedia.org/2009/11/04/rep-dennis-kucinich-blasts-operation-cast-doubt/
November 4, 2009 9:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't we start with American veterans of all wars, who ALL committed war crimes according to your standards?
November 4, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
RE: Why don't we start with American veterans of all wars, who ALL committed war crimes according to your standards? - AnnaA
SINCE YOU APPARENTLY CANNOT READ
VIDEO(3:43) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlyV-tUr3sw
...Even if war crimes and crimes against humanity cannot be proven, there is another more obvious charge for South Africans who fought for Israel. A South African law, the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act, bars any citizen from fighting for a foreign force without express government permission...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/10/200910298247857309.html
November 5, 2009 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wasn't it shown that Parsi is not an American, but in the U.S. on a Green Card?
While we're at it, has anyone ever checked to see whether Parsi's buddy and J Street founder Daniel Levy has U.S. citizenship? His father was knighted in Great Britain where he served with distinction as Tony Blair's tennis partner.
November 22, 2009 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink