Obama Adviser Worries Israel Supporters [and Alan Dershowitz]

[Purveyor]

Barack Obama is outlining his views on the Iraq war in a major speech Wednesday in Iowa, and bringing along a gray-haired source of foreign policy gravitas: Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser, who says that Obama offers “a new definition of America's role in the world.”

With the gravity, though, comes some baggage.

Brzezinski, 79, stepped into the crossfire this summer when he published an essay in the summer issue of the journal Foreign Policy, defending a controversial new book about the power of the “Israel Lobby” in American politics.

--
“It is a tremendous mistake for Barack Obama to select as a foreign policy adviser the one person in public life who has chosen to support a bigoted book,” said Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, one of the most visible critics of the Walt and Mearsheimer volume, titled “The Israel Lobby.” (Dershowitz has contributed to the campaign of Obama’s leading rival, Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.)

---EOE---

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5783.html

[flpoljunkie]

1. Who cares what Alan Dershowitz thinks?

[Adelante]

22. My immediate reaction, too nt.

[jaysunb]

2. Here we go....

:evilfrown:

[Ninja Jordan]

3. Dershowitz is part of the demagoguing Israel lobby of which Brzezinski speaks.

[Totally Committed]

8. Let's just say it: he's an AIPAC Mouthpiece.

Pure and simple.

TC

[Joe Bacon]

31. Dershowitz loves torture too!

He's an awfully sick puppy.

And he loves to justify torture...

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc1303/article_1149.shtml

[sandnsea]

4. Dershowitz supports Hillary

Hillary is popular in the pro-Israeli community. No big secret why this article is coming out today. Too bad. Obama's Iraq speech was right on the money, right down the line.

[rateyes]

5. Alan Dershowitz is a bigot as well, IMHO. nt

[maximusveritas]

6. I'm not surprised Dershowitz is a Hillary supporter

His whole premise is wrong. Brzezinski was never selected as a foreign policy adviser by Obama as far as I know. Brzezinski merely endorsed Obama on his own terms.

[DURHAM D]

11. Brezinski is traveling with Obama and introduced him at

a rally today. In other words, he is officially working for/advising the Obama campaign.

[maximusveritas]

14. How do you know he's traveling with Obama?

I couldn't find any info on that. I know he introduced Obama today, but hardly makes him an adviser.
The only references I see to him being Obama's adviser are from Dershowitz and the NY Sun. Not exactly top-notch sources

[DURHAM D]

17. Ok - if he introduced him at a rally then he is traveling with him.

So what's the question?

With regard to the adviser status - it was in the news a few weeks ago the Brezzie had a hand in one of Obama's speeches on foreign policy. Don't remember which one exactly. Are you trying to create some sort of false separation between the two?

[stillcool]

7. I'll second the 'who cares?'

comment. My final viewing or reading of anything relating to Mr. Dershowitz was his debate with Noam Chomsky. What a shill...incapable of speaking in a rational tone, incapable of allowing anyone else to speak, incapable of answering a question without attempting to smear. Just like a republican hack.

[BeyondGeography]

9. Let's keep tippy-toeing around Israel...and walk in circles

[Imagevision]

10. Alan Dershowitz, Scott Peterson's attorney? - O.J.'s attorney?

[DURHAM D]

12. Most importantly - Klos von Bulow. eom

[DURHAM D]

13. Personally I can't stand Alan most of the time.

However, he did a good job of calling out the Supremes when they selected GWB to be the President. Alan is vocal, speaks out for a particular politically active group and has a big following.

I thought Obama showed an absolute political tin ear when he allowed Brzezinski to become a part of his campaign. He (or his advisers) should have realized he was polarizing. Perhaps they did and thought his presence would be a good political decision. If so, it really makes me wonder if Obama is ready for the big show. This could have been and should have been avoided.

[jillan]

15. Like it of not, Israel is our ally.

And we do not have many friends in that part of the world.

[harun]

24. One should still be critical of our allies when they deserve it (n/t)

[Donald Ian Rankin]

26. Those two facts are probably not unconnected. NT.

[jmp]

27. I would love to see a cost/benefit analysis of that alliance.

I would like an explanation of how we benefit from it.

[truebrit71]

30. No Israel is our bought-and-paid-for girlfriend in that area...

...you want lasting peace in that region, you want to get Israel to start making sense and get to the negotiating table? Simple, have the US Sugar Daddy pull their allowance until they sit down, shut the fuck up and work things out....until then nothing will change...

[Enrique]

16. Dershowitz is so full of shit I can hardly stand it

[sniffa]

18. dershowitz is a shitbag

and i can happiLy and moraLLy oppose aLmost everything he says/writes.

[Prince Paul]

19. lmao

[zulchzulu]

20. The torture...the torture...the torture never stops....Mr. Dershowitz

"If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."

- Alan "Torture Boy" Dershowitz

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/03/cnna.Dershowitz/

Check out how Chomsky shows how much Dershowitz, a lawyer defending our dear friend OJ Simpson, is an absolute asshat deluxe:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=10891

[Ninja Jordan]

21. So you would rather let tens of thousands die than to torture one individual in order to save them?

just wondering

[Solon]

23. Its a bullshit premise based on omniscience, an impossible scenario...

the "Ticking Bomb" scenario is nothing more than an intellectual exercise based on fantasy, not reality. The reality would involve more than one individual being torture, and most of them being INNOCENT as well. This is the reason why torture was internationally banned in the first place, too many innocent people get tortured.

ON EDIT: Also, to put it even more succinctly, AFTER the torture, you would have two choices, to kill the person who was tortured, or set them free, and the second choice is NOT going to happen.

SECOND EDIT: First subject line made no sense.

[Cameron27]

28. I thought it was established

that torture didn't work; that you couldn't trust the veracity of any information you got from torturing anyone.

[Ninja Jordan]

32. However impossible you believe the scenario to be, you still haven't answered the question.

Just ranted and raved.


To quote Judge Posner, "If torture is the only means of obtaining the information necessary to prevent the detonation of a nuclear bomb in Times Square, torture should be used—and will be used—to obtain the information. ... no one who doubts that this is the case should be in a position of responsibility."

[Solon]

34. Judge Posner posed a scenario so unlikely...

I'm more likely to get struck down by a small micrometeorite in the next 5 minutes than that scenario ever happening in any of our lifetimes. First, it is again, assuming certain facts that are NOT certainties. Namely that the bomb is in Times Square, I assume they know WHEN it'll go off, and the person they have in custody, ready to torture, actually knows where it is.

Let's assume all of this actually happened, and that the prisoner actually knows where it is. Let's give the ultimate timetable, 24 hours till detonation. OK, so you torture the suspect, 24 hours pass, and New York City is a cinder. Torture is notoriously unreliable, and if the suspect in question is a fanatic(a distinct possibility), then you will never get the information in time. The suspect would misdirect you, sending you on wild goose chases, etc.

The fact is that if you have to resort to torture to get some time sensitive information of this magnitude, the chances of you actually preventing a catastrophe using this method is zero. You failed.

There are more reliable and humane methods to preventing such catastrophes that do not involve torture. Good old fashioned detective work comes to mind, as just one method.

Your question is irrelevant in the real world, its a false question, because there is no answer to it. Its no different than, when questioned by Bush about the Iraq war, he shoots back with "Why do you hate freedom?"

ON EDIT: The 5 minutes is up.

[ripple]

33. Torture is ineffective for obtaining accurate information

So it's a nonsensical premise to begin with.

[Poll_Blind]

35. Indeed! n/t

PB

[Ninja Jordan]

36. Assume it is, and assume it is the only method left for obatining information necessary to prevent

an attack. THEN would it be OK?

[Odin2005]

25. Dershowitz can go fuck himself.

[truebrit71]

29. Alan Douche-o-Witz can go pound sand...

..if he loves Isreal that much he should go fucking live there...

[killbotfactory]

37. That's a surprise

An AIPAC mouthpiece deriding everyone critical of AIPAC, while throwing around accusations of bigotry. Never thought I'd live to see the day.