by Dan Eden

Someone wrote and asked me, "Why are there Israeli- but not Mexican-American Dual Nationals?"

Well, here's my take on this. I'd also like your views and opinions.

Unless we are Native American Indians, all Americans have their origins in some other country. Both of my parents were from England. They were proud to be "British" but they were most proud of achieving their American citizenship. Sure, we had pictures of the Queen and nick-nacks with the Union Jack on them. My mother even celebrated the traditional 4 o'clock tea time and was good at making Yorkshire Pudding. In the late 60's my older brother served in the US Army and did his tour in Viet Nam. When it came down to "allegiance," we were all patriotic Americans. Period.

The word "allegiance" means that we promise loyalty. It also carries with it the expectation that this loyalty will be exclusive and unrestrained. In the case of a declared war or real threat or conflict, for example, our allegiance to America should preclude any other interest, be it another country or political ideology.

When they took their oath to become American citizens, my parents had to pledge their "allegiance" exclusively to America and renounce their allegiance to "any and all foreign governments." That included Great Britain, one of our strongest allies.

Before Viewzone asked me to research the meaning of "dual citizenship," I had never heard of the term. How could someone be a citizen of two countries at the same time? But I was just ignorant. Dual nationalities and citizenships are quite common.

From my internet research, I learned that in 1997, a French Canadian with a U.S. passport ran for mayor of Plattsburgh, N.Y. He argued that the incumbent spoke French too poorly to be running a city so close to Quebec. He lost. Also in 1997, a retired top American official for the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) ran for president of Lithuania. He was inaugurated in February to a burst of fireworks!

In 1996, Dominicans from New York not only could vote in the Dominican Republic's presidential elections for the first time, they could vote for a fellow New Yorker. Multiple nationalities have become so commonplace that some analysts fear the trend is undermining the notion of nationhood, particularly in the place with the most diverse citizenry on Earth: the United States.

Debate over the issue intensified in the late 1990s, when Mexico joined the growing list of poor nations that say it's OK for their nationals to be citizens of the countries to which they have migrated. Under the law that took effect in 1998 Mexicans abroad -- most of them in the United States -- will be able to retain Mexican citizenship even if they seek U.S. citizenship. And naturalized Americans of Mexican descent will be able to reclaim their original citizenship. The Mexican government stopped short, for now, of giving expatriates the right to vote.

Security Issues

Since citizenship carries with it a responsibility to be exclusively loyal to one country, the whole concept of dual citizenship and nationality raises questions about which of the dual citizenships have priority. This is extremely important when the two countries have opposing interests. It can be a deadly problem when a dual citizen is in a high position within our American government.

Can one imagine a Japanese citizen serving in the Pentagon during WWII? Or how about a citizen of the Soviet Union holding a cabinet position in the White House during the Cold War?

Today's conflicts are centered in the Middle East. America needs to balance foreign policies towards oil producing Arab nations with our goal being peace and stability in the region. This places a burdon on our government to be even-handed in our dealings with the Arab world and Israel. While the Iraq War was waged on lies about Weapons of Mass Destruction and revenge for 911, the real reason has emerged as a well designed global plan to improve the power and leverage of Israel. Added to this policy is yet another potential blow to American interests and security -- the impending War with Iran. This war will be waged for the security of Israel and will be paid for by the blood of American soldiers and the hard-earned money of American citizens whose quality of life is inversely tied to the cost of petrolium.

Recently, in their much lauded paper, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, Harvard professor, Stephen Walt, and University of Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer, focused attention on the strong Israeli lobby which has a powerful influence over American foreign policies (see BBC article). They detail the influence that this lobby has exerted, forming a series of international policies which can be viewed as in direct opposition to the interests and security of the American people. These acts and policies are more often than not carried out by US government appointees who hold powerful positions and who are dual American-Israeli citizens. Since the policies they support are often exclusively beneficial to Israel, often to the detriment of America, it has been argued that their loyalties are misdirected.

A few classic examples can be cited here.

Jonathan Jay Pollard was an American-Israeli citizen who worked for the US government. He is well known because he stole more secrets from the U.S. than has any other spy in American history. During his interrogation Pollard said he felt compelled to put the "interests of my state" ahead of his own. Although as a U.S. Navy counter-intelligence specialist he had a top-secret security clearance, by "my state" he meant the state of Israel.

Literally tens of thousands of Americans holding U.S. passports admit they feel a primary allegiance to the state of Israel. In many instances, these Americans vote in Israeli elections, wear Israeli uniforms and fight in Israeli wars. Many are actively engaged both in the confiscation of Palestinian lands and in the Israeli political system. Three examples come to mind:

One is Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the militant Jewish Defense League in the U.S. in the 1960s, then emigrated to Israel where, eventually, he was elected to the Knesset. Until he was shot and killed at one of his U.S. fund-raising rallies in 1990, the Brooklyn-born rabbi shuttled between Tel Aviv and New York, where he recruited militant American Jews for his activities in Israel against Palestinians. He claimed to be a "dual citizen" of America and Israel.

Another Jewish American, James Mahon from Alexandria, Virginia, reportedly was on a secret mission to kill PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat when he was shot in 1980 by an unknown assailant. When he was shot, Mahon held an American M-16 in his hand and a U.S. passport in his pocket.

Then there was Alan Harry Goodman, an American Jew who left his home in Baltimore, Maryland, flew to Israel and served in the Israeli army. Then, on April 11, 1982, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, he walked, alone, to Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem's most holy Islamic shrine, where he opened fire, killing two Palestinians and wounding others. Both the U.S. and Israeli governments played down the incident, as did the media.

Most recently, US Navy Petty Officer, Ariel J. Weinmann, while serving at or near Bahrain, Mexico, and Austria, "with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation (Israel), [attempted] to communicate, deliver or transmit classified CONFIDENTIAL and SECRET information relating to the national defense, to a representative, officer, agent or employee of a foreign government." Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 after being listed as "a deserter by his command," according to the US Navy. The information he gathered was supplied to Israel.

BREAKING NEWS -- April 22, 2008, Ben-Ami Kadish, a Connecticut-born U.S. dual citizen who worked in New Jersey was arrested and charged with giving top secret nuclear information and details about the US Patriot Missile to an Israeli agent -- the same agent involved with the Jay Pollard case. The espionage charges reportedly stem from acts committed in the 1980s. These activities, like the ones with convicted spy Pollard, were immediately denied by Israel (Pollard pleaded guilty in 1986). It is further reported that Israeli officials instructed Kadish to lie to US investigators. Kadish is scheduled to be arraigned on Tuesday afternoon [April 22, 2008] at U.S. District Court in Manhattan, authorities said. More details coming soon.

The examples of Kahane, Mahonm, Goodman and Weinmann raise the question of when a U.S. citizen ceases to be, or should cease to be, a U.S. citizen. U.S. Law at one time clearly stated that an American citizen owed first allegiance to the United States. A U.S. citizen should not fight in a foreign army or hold high office in a foreign country without risking expatriation. What the heck happened?

The 1940 Nationality Act

Section 401 (e) of the 1940 Nationality Act provides that a U.S. citizen, whether by birth or naturalization, "shall lose his [U.S.] nationality by...voting in a political election in a foreign state."

This law was tested many times. In 1958, for instance, an American citizen named Perez voted in a Mexican election. The case went to the Supreme Court, where the majority opinion held that Perez must lose his American nationality. The court said Congress could provide for expatriation as a reasonable way of preventing embarrassment to the United States in its foreign relations.

But then something very odd happened.

In 1967 an American Jew, Beys Afroyim received an exemption that set a precedent exclusively for American Jews. Afroyim, born in Poland in 1895, emigrated to America in 1912, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1926. In 1950, aged 55, he emigrated to Israel and became an Israeli citizen. In 1951 Afroyim voted in an Israeli Knesset election and in five political elections that followed. So, by all standards he lost his American citizenship -- right? Wrong.

After living in Israel for a decade, Afroyim wished to return to New York. In 1960, he asked the U.S. Consulate in Haifa for an American passport. The Department of State refused the application, invoking section 401 (e) of the Nationality Act -- the same ruling that had stripped the American citizen named Perez of his U.S. citizenship.

Attorneys acting for Afroyim took his case to a Washington, DC District Court, which upheld the law. Then his attorneys appealed to the Court of Appeals. This court also upheld the law. The attorneys for Afroyim then moved the case on to the Supreme Court. Here, with Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas, Lyndon Johnson's former attorney and one of the most powerful Jewish Americans, casting the swing vote, the court voted five to four in favor of Afroyim. The court held that the U.S. government had no right to "rob" Afroyim of his American citizenship!

The court, reversing its previous judgment as regards the Mexican American, ruled that Afroyim had not shown "intent" to lose citizenship by voting in Israeli elections. Huh?

While Washington claims it has a "good neighbor" policy with Mexico, the U.S. does not permit Mexicans to hold dual nationality. The US makes them become either U.S. or Mexican -- you can't be both. But the U.S., in its special relationship with Israel, has become very sympathetic to allowing Israeli-Americans to retain two nationalities and allowing U.S. citizens not only to hold public office in Israel, but to hold US government positions as well! No other country holds this special exception to our laws of citizenship.

So, you might ask, are there any other dual Israel-American citizens who hold US government positions that could compromise American security? Yes. Consider the following list that I obtained on the web:

Michael Mukasey
Recently appointed as US Attorney General. Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001.

Michael Chertoff
Former Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, at the Justice Department; now head of Homeland Security.

Richard Perle
One of Bush's foreign policy advisors, he is the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktanks, the AEI. Perle is one of the leading pro-Israeli fanatics leading this Iraq war mongering within the administration and now in the media.

Paul Wolfowitz
Former Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle's Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz is a close associate of Perle, and reportedly has close ties to the Israeli military. His sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz came from the above mentioned Jewish thinktank, JINSA. Wolfowitz was the number two leader within the administration behind this Iraq war mongering. He later was appointed head of the World Bank but resigned under pressure from World Bank members over a scandal involving his misuse of power.

       

Lawrence (Larry) Franklin
The former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst with expertise in Iranian policy issues who worked in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and reported directly to Feith's deputy, William Luti, was sentenced January 20, 2006, "to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat" and members of the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Franklin will "remain free while the government continues with the wider case" and his "prison time could be sharply reduced in return for his help in prosecuting" former AIPAC members Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, [who] are scheduled to go on trial in April [2006]. Franklin admitted that he met periodically with Rosen and Weissman between 2002 and 2004 and discussed classified information, including information about potential attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq. Rosen and Weissman would later share what they learned with reporters and Israeli officials." (source: sourcewatch.com).

Douglas Feith
Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He is a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel. Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work is representing Israeli interests. His firm's own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith "represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturer." Feith basically represents the Israeli War Machine. Feith also came from the Jewish thinktank JINSA. Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, are campaigning hard for this Israeli proxy war against Iraq.

Feith was investigated by the FBI under suspicion of leaking classified information to Israel, being that he was Larry Franklin's boss when Franklin leaked those documents to Rosen and Weissman of AIPAC. For that he was forced to leave the National Security Council. Feith was also investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee for sexing up 'intelligence' that was used to justify invading Iraq.

Edward Luttwak
Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq and Iran.

Henry Kissinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger's evil past, read Seymour Hersch's book (Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House). Kissinger likely had a part in the Watergate crimes, Southeast Asia mass murders (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), Installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet, Operation Condor's mass killings in South America, and more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor. He consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Unfortunately, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. It's like picking a bank robber to investigate a fraud scandal. He later declined this job under enormous protests.

Dov Zakheim
Dov Zakheim is an ordained rabbi and reportedly holds Israeli citizenship. Zakheim attended Jew's College in London and became an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in 1973. He was adjunct professor at New York's Jewish Yeshiva University. Zakheim is close to the Israeli lobby.

Dov Zakheim is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and in 2000 a co-author of the Project for the New American Century's position paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses, advocating the necessity for a Pearl-Harbor-like incident to mobilize the country into war with its enemies, mostly Middle Eastern Muslim nations.

He was appointed by Bush as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as mentioned, was buried under 9-11's rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim's watch. We can only guess where that cash went.

Despite these suspicions, on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense.

Judicial Inc's bio of Dov tells us Zakheim is a dual Israeli/American citizen and has been tracking the halls of US government for 25 years, casting defense policy and influence on Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Judicial Inc points out that most of Israel's armaments were gotten thanks to him. Squads of US F-16 and F-15 were classified military surplus and sold to Israel at a fraction of their value.

       

Kenneth Adelman
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle, and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supported going to war against Iraq. Adelman frequently is a guest on Fox News, and often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. Through his racism or ignorance, he actually called Arabs "anti-Semitic" on Fox News (11/28/2001), when he could have looked it up in the dictionary to find out that Arabs by definition are Semites.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Vice President Dick Cheney's ex-Chief of Staff. As chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, it helps explains why Cheney is so gun-ho to invade Iran. Libby is longtime associate of Wolfowitz. Libby was also a lawyer for convicted felon and Israeli spy Marc Rich, whom Clinton pardoned, in his last days as president. Libby was recently found guilty of lying to Federal investigators in the Valerie Plame affair, in which Plame, a covert CIA agent, was exposed for political revenge by the Bush administration following her husband's revelations about the lies leading to the Iraq War.

Robert Satloff
U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Israeli lobby's "think tank," Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Many of the Israeli lobby's "experts" come from this front group, like Martin Indyk.

Elliott Abrams
National Security Council Advisor. He previously worked at Washington-based "Think Tank" Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Adminstration, Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year's probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Reagan Administration's State Department.

Marc Grossman
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Grossman is one of many of the pro-Israel Jewish officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush has promoted to higher posts.

Richard Haass
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He is also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the first Bush (Sr) Administration who sat on the National Security Council, and who consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Haass is also a member of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.

Robert Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He is also one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Bush (Jr) Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of the country in order to set up a Vichy-style puppet government. He consistently advocates going to war against Iran.

Ari Fleischer
Ex- White House Spokesman for the Bush (Jr) Administration. Prominent in the Jewish community, some reports state that he holds Israeli citizenship. Fleischer is closely connected to the extremist Jewish group called the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidics, who follow the Qabala, and hold very extremist and insulting views of non-Jews. Fleischer was the co-president of Chabad's Capitol Jewish Forum. He received the Young Leadership Award from the American Friends of Lubavitch in October, 2001.

James Schlesinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Schlesinger also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supported going to war against Iraq. Schlesinger is also a commissioner of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.

David Frum
White House speechwriter behind the "Axis of Evil" label. He lumped together all the lies and accusations against Iraq for Bush to justify the war.

Joshua Bolten
White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Bolten was previously a banker, former legislative aide, and prominent in the Jewish community.

John Bolton
Former UN Representative and Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton is also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktank, AEI. He recently (October 2002) accused Syria of having a nuclear program, so that they can attack Syria after Iraq. He must have forgotten that Israel has 400 nuclear warheads, some of which are thermonuclear weapons (according to a recent U.S. Air Force report).

David Wurmser
Special Assistant to John Bolton (above), the under-secretary for arms control and international security. Wurmser also worked at the AEI with Perle and Bolton. His wife, Meyrav Wurmser, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, co-founded the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri),a Washington-based Israeli outfit which distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light.

Eliot Cohen
Member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor. Like Adelman, he often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. More recently, he wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal openly admitting his rascist hatred of Islam claiming that Islam should be the enemy, not terrorism.

Mel Sembler
President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. A Prominent Jewish Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries, specifically those with financial problems.

Steve Goldsmith
Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush's Jewish domestic policy advisor. He also served as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President. He was the former mayor of Indianapolis. He is also friends with Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and often visits Israel to coach mayors on privatization initiatives.

Adam Goldman
White House's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community.

Joseph Gildenhorn
Bush Campaign's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community. He was the DC finance chairman for the Bush campaign, as well as campaign coordinator, and former ambassador to Switzerland.

Christopher Gersten
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS. Gersten was the former Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Husband of Labor Secretary.

Mark Weinberger
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs.

Samuel Bodman
Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.

Bonnie Cohen
Under Secretary of State for Management.

Ruth Davis
Director of Foreign Service Institute, who reports to the Office of Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).

Daniel Kurtzer
Ambassador to Israel.

Cliff Sobel
Ambassador to the Netherlands.

Stuart Bernstein
Ambassador to Denmark.

Nancy Brinker
Ambassador to Hungary

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">Frank Lavin
Ambassador to Singapore.

Ron Weiser
Ambassador to Slovakia.

Mel Sembler
Ambassador to Italy.

Martin Silverstein
Ambassador to Uruguay.

Lincoln Bloomfield
Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs.

Jay Lefkowitz
Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Ken Melman
White House Political Director.

Brad Blakeman
White House Director of Scheduling.

I don't know about you, but dual citizenship is fine with me for an ordinary citizen. But if you hold an official position that demands that you put American interests above all else -- if you should look transparent and fair to the rest of the world regarding your formation of Middle East foreign policies, then this is a dangerous trend. Even if there were no pro-Israeli agenda, the fact that decision makers have a bias or an allegiance to one of the parties involved in the current conflict should have raised red flags long before now.

If you think we're being unfair here, ask yourself: How you would react to the Head of Homeland Security if he or she were a dual national with citizenship in Iran, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia? Ask yourself why you don't feel the same about Israeli dual citizenship. Then you will understand how powerful the Israeli lobby has been in "adjusting" your acceptance of their special status.

Hey, I could be way off on this. Let's hear from you.

UPDATE: December 4, 2007

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reports that Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz has been rewarded with a new position in the Bush administration which will allow him to oversee classified intelligence and inform policies on WMD issues.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. "We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job," said one senior official.

[Editor's comment: You couldn't make this stuff up!]

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Viewzone || Comments?

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Comments:

Dear Sir:

I am a survivor of the deliberate attack on the USS Liberty, June 8, 1967 during the Six Day War. I think dual citizenship has a lot to do with the reason that the surviving crew cannot get the U.S. Government to look at our "War Crimes Report". This is an act by the Israeli Defense Force that has never been investigated by Congress. There was a Naval Board of Inquiry and it was found by that board that the attack was an accident. If you will look on the USS LIberty web site you will find that former Captain Ward Boston who was the counsel for the board has made a statement that he was forced to make the outcome appear to be an accident and that Robert McNamara and LBJ forced him into doing just that. We have not been able to get even a Congressional Investigation into this attack because we are being stopped by those in our government with what I believe to have dual citizenship. Having a high position in our government and maintaining dual citizenship is wrong, and no one should be allowed to do this if they can't give their complete loyality to one country.

Ronald G. Kukal www.ussliberty.org

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In answer to all, irrespective of which side of the argument they fall on, the issue is not being Jewish, it is being Zionist. When a political movement masquerades as religion and says they can do whatever they do because "god" is on their side, therefore they cannot be wrong, it gives a different tenor to the whole situation.

Incidentally, I do not want to have Wahhabis in a position in our government (the US of A) to determine foreign policy as regards Saudi Arabia, either. I get rather bloody minded when some official of Mexico tells us how to run our immigration policy. I would be more so were we to put a dual national in charge of policy at ICE.

Oh, and I do think that some of what we have now is about guilt because we know that what we did before and during WWII when we deliberately hindered the exit of Jews from Europe from emigrating was morally and ethically reprehensible. We could have given them Idaho or one of the Dakotas, they would have been saved, and the settlement of the Middle East issues, and Jerusalem would have been in "god's" province. The presumption that humans can manipulate this religious issue reeks. Human stupidity. If "god" exists, I am sure that if He is all religion says He is, He doesn't need us to manage it for Him!

In the meantime, those who work for our government need to be loyal to us, and to no other country.

As for passports, if a US passport isn't good enough for Americans to travel where they want, tough. I see having multiples of passports in a government official's hands as a way to sneak around to do something underhanded. Same goes for private citizens on business or whatever. I also know that most officials traveling on government business, diplomatic passports are available. CIA excepted - they are in a separate class, but their job requirements may not be usual, either. I know that sometime the diplomatic passports are even issued to enlisted GIs. So, no problem, but this is an either or thing as regards loyalty.

Those who emigrate and are nationalized take an oath. Those who are born here are born to the oath, or we can leave.

sharra_r

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This was a real eye-opener. I began to have my suspicions when Mukasey's confirmation was approved by swing votes from Schumer and Feingold, despite his objectionable views on torture, which Democrats allegedly oppose. You know, I read that Jews make up only 2% of the American population. Why don't we see more Blacks (12.8%), Irish (12%), Italians (8%), Asians (4.3%), Mexicans (14.4%) or even Arabs (3.8%) in government positions? Why always from the same group?

H.J. San Diego

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I fully support the State of Israel and their right to exist. I do, however, see problems when the US is transparently pro-Israel with regards to its policies and UN vetoes. This created distrust in the rest of the world and complicates the progress for peace. In the end, it is self-destructive.

M.B.

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The State of Israel grants citizenship to all Jews who have maternal Jewish heritage. It's not only the politicians you have cited in your article. Having dual citizensip or a dual nationality does not automatically mean that one will favor Israel over America. It is wrong to suggest that.

D. DeG.

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Hey "D. DeG"--
I also support Israel but it is not wrong to suggest it when the evidence supports it. Check the record of sanctions issues by the United Nations against Israel which are ALWAYS vetoed by America. Check the amount of foreign aid that goes to Israel every year against the amounts going to other countries. Check the immigration visas granted to Israel or the number of Jews in our prison system vs. other races... Almost any parameter you check will open your eyes to something called "Sayanims." Google it. Yes, there's problem. And it needs to be discussed.

BryanAnt

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Check this out! The so-called "Americal Al Qaeda," Azzam the American, who is featured on many al Qaeda tapes and videos is an American-Israeli Jew.

Concerned

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What a punch to the gut. How many war mongers are on that list? How many spies? How many on that list are now clamoring for the U.S. to fight another war for Israel, this time against Iran.

Like Mel Sembler and Brad Blakeman, who helped finance the Bush 2000 Florida recount and is backing the pro-war, let's bomb ALL of Israel's "existential" enemies, Freedom's Watch.

Maybe we should change the "Pledge of Allegiance" to reflect this New World of Order in D.C.

I pledge allegiance to the Star of David of the Apartheid State of Israel, and to the Racism for which it stands, one World, under our Talmud, with liberty and justice only for the Jews.

Greg Bacon>
Ava, MO

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You forgot ambassador Feltman(Jeffrey)since 3 years head of mission in Lebanon,dual citisenship ,very close to Sharon and now Olmert Bonzai.

Brunella H

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To add to the nightmare: U.S. Nuclear Weapons Being "Guarded" by Israel.

Jim Hartley

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A note about dual citizenship I think you should know. Sovereign nations have the authority to issue citizenship to whomever they wish and stipulate whatever conditions they want. No country can prevent you from holding citizenship of another country because it is not in their power. If you apply for naturalization within the United States, while technically you are supposed to swear allegiance, not all countries will recognize your repudiation. For example, as a Canadian citizen, by being naturalized in the US, I am still a citizen of both countries. If my grandmother were German, I would be entitled to German citizenship regardless of whether I have been there or not. Ireland is another country where you can never repudiate your citizenship.

Now on to Israel. The modern state of Israel was conceived as a Jewish homeland, and, naturally, grant the right of return to anyone who is Jewish. The fact that as a Jew, they are entitled to citizenship shouldn't be construed as a threat to national security. In most cases people opt to take up dual citizenship for ease of travel and work. As a citizen of Israel you are entitled to be there, whether just visiting relatives or whatever. That a number of government officials also hold Israeli citizenship reflects an effective strategy to keep their own close. But there is nothing stopping other countries, say Great Britain, from promoting citizenship among the descendants of the English.

The simple fact is, there is nothing the United States can do to prevent other countries offering citizenship to whomever they wish.

Nels Erickson

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Um... As an American citizen... I'm completely surprised by your anti- semitism.

Truck Mac

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The above dual citizenship group looks like a rogues gallery of key neocon warmongers who pushed the US into numerous wars in my lifetime. Many of them also appeared on Sebil Edmonds web page when she recently went public with high crimes she found when working as an FBI translator.

Why does America stand for such duplicity? The Bush/Cheney/neocon wars alone have cost each and every faimily in the US over $20,000 and counting, just in direct dollar costs. And it is beyond counting the damaged done to our future. Lets not wait til they get their war on Iran!

Impeach Now!

Tim

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I am a US-Israeli dual citizen, and I live in Israel. Most of my family is in the US, and I grew up in the US. Just because someone is a dual citizen, doesn't mean that they are acting perniciously or have a conflict of interest. What you attribute to some sort of conspiracy is in reality most of the time just sincere convictions people have. Congress and many Americans in general support Israel because in their (and my) opinion it is the right thing to do. They also sincerely believe that is in the US interest to do so as well. There are strong arguments to be made for that position, whether you agree with it or not. If you look at some of the history of it, you will see that it is not a new thing to come up with Jewish conspiracy theories. There were pograms in Europe over hundreds of years based on popular paranoia of such things. In reality, the "conspiracies"were often enough cooked up by other parties who stood to benefit by deflecting people's paranoia and suspicion onto the Jews. The most famous documented example of this is the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which was forged by the government in Czarist Russia, but has been used as justification for the murders of countless innocent Jews, and is still popular in many parts of the world, particularly the Arab Middle East, to this day. This is not even to mention the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

There are many Jews who have some connection to Israel who also are "right-wing" when it comes to American foreign policy, at least in the Middle East. There are actually just as many American Jews who are very left-leaning in the same area though. Those who are right wing ("neo-cons") are often accused as in your article of immorally acting based on mixed loyalty- but this is again not a fair accusation unless you can substantiate that they are actually doing something concrete against US interest. It is more likely that based on their experience and knowledge of the middle east (Israel has been on the front line against terrorism and Arab rejectionism of the West for more than half a century) they have come to the conclusions they have. If they do in fact have a connection to Israel, all the more so if they are knowledgable about Israel's military and strategic position and history in the ME, they happen to be a great deal more informed about the region than your average person.

It's not fair to cast aspersion on people who are likely trying to fulfill the duties of their positions honestly and sincerely just because you disagree with their politics, which is what this boils down to. There are isolated instances (such as Pollard, etc) where people did in fact act unethically relative to their duties to the US, but that is not the case in most of the people mentioned in your article. And anyway, you will find such examples for any nationality or creed. Despite the "hype" to the contrary, Jews are still one of the smallest minorities in the world, and it's scary when people accuse us of conspiracies and the like, especially given our collective experience over the course of history.

Yosef D.

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Very, very good article. Well-researched, and brings it all together.

A quick challenge for those that say things like "I fully support the State of Israel and their right to exist." What precisely is the right to the land? Their occupation of Palestine is a result of the Balfour Declaration, which was (among other things) an agreement between Zionist Jews and England to bring the US into the war in exchange for the creation of a "uniquely Jewish state." Since today's Askenazi Jews are demonstrably not semite (as any Jewish Dictionary will confirm, along with their own scholarship) any pretense of a "biblical right" to the land is fundamentally flawed. Fueling the "return to their homeland" craze is mainstream Christianity, which largely holds to an eschatology that erroneously declares prophetic significance to the creation of Israel by UN decree in 1948.

Brad Stone

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An eye opener that should be more in the mainstream media. Our country is being lead by idiots like GW that think God has ordained them to protect Israel due to a fringe interpretation of the Old Testament, and radical Jewish dual citizens rush in to fill in the ranks of their officers! I think I'll move to China!

MD11DRIVER

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The word 'anti-semite'does not mean against semites,it really means against Jews who are not semites at all.Read the 'Thirteenth Tribe',by Arthur Koestler. Check out the term in a high quality dictionary. BILL Caucasians are also classified as a semitic people although the evidence is obfuscated for very obvious reasons.

Bill Van Foeken

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I just read (a bit late, I know) your article on dual citizenship and elected, as well as other high-level government official. I'm glad to let you know that on the most part, I agree with the points you raise.

I read in the article about "...in 1997, a retired top American official for the U.S. EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) ran for president of Lithuania. He was inaugurated in February to a burst of fireworks!". That official was/is Valdas Adamkus. While I understand you used him as an example to make a point, I feel his situation is much different than the other examples you raise.

Valdas Adamkus was actually born in Lithuania, and immigrated to the United States. Before that, he fought the soviets in Lithuania before eventually finding his home in the US. From the re-establishment of the Republic of Lithuania, the Lithuanian government, and the people of Lithuania wanted to allow ALL persons of Lithuanian descent (ie citizens of the first republic of Lithuania and their families) to return to their homeland as things had changed, and the constitution preserved their Lithuanian citizenship. Thus, Adamkus was a Lithuanian citizen while he worked at the EPA, but also a "refugee" of the soviet union, in some sense.

While Adamkus ran for President of Lithuania, he still held US citizenship. At this time Lithuania had a much different version of dual citizenship than it does presently. He formally renounced his citizenship before US consular officials before he was allowed to be President.

Now, as I believe it, there is a presidential directive (from Carter, I believe) allowing US citizens to become citizens of another country, without losing their US citizenship. This is because the US government believes that no one would really want to give up their citizenship, and that sometimes people are pressured to do so. The directive rules that one must renounce their citizenship through a special process in front of a US official. There is precedent allowing dual citizenship of the US. Of course, this could change at any time, if some "decider" decides it so.

Renunciation of US citizenship is not something someone can easily do, and is impossible to do inside the US.

Thanks for the article,
Mike Carey

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I guess I should have been thrown out of this country a long time ago, as I have never felt any national pride as a result of citizenship by birth. I give credit to the immigrant in swearing allegiance to his new-found country, no matter how misdirected his reasons for emigrating might be. I don't believe that the gifts of this nation would have been withheld from me in any other country I might have chosen to live in, granting those gifts were available. The nation-state has never been anything but an impediment to world peace and an equal distribution of wealth and will continue to prevent the world's citizens from achieving harmony in the future. In michiu kaaku's imaginary journey through the universe, he points out numbers of former planets, now turned to lifeless cinders and claims them to be planets that failed to achieve world government. How I feel about dual citizenship doesn't seem to be the case here, so much as how I feel about American citizens becoming political operatives of a foreign country.

This can only end in political advantage moving in one direction and is a failure to the rest of the population. We must, for every obvious reason become citizens of the world or the whole thing is doomed to fail.

kitchenrat

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yosef d..

why don't you tell us about eh bolsheviks eh? was that a conspiracy theory?

K.Oke

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I am an Iranian American citizen and firmly support the constitution of United State above any other law or form of government in the world. If the Iranian or any other government attack US or declare war against US I will be supporting and defending the United State to preserve this democracy and the constitution I mean US constitution not Israel or any other countries.

But when it is so clear that only one ethnic group have so much power in the government of the US to advance a separate agenda that clearly is promoting and considering the Israel benefit over the US.Then, it is time to activate the law that no one with dual citizenship should be allowed to hold any government office, I mean influential policy effecting position not US Post Office or low level government jobs.

Remember former head of CIA, I believe his name was John Duech who was under treason allegations and investigations for passing the CIA secret information to Israel consulate, and was pardoned by Bill Clinton that after that Sunday his name was never mentioned in the media.

Thanks for very informative and thorough article.

Hamid

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I am a Jew, an American citizen, and I hold dual citizenship - not with Israel. I'd like to make two points on your article. First, I'm glad you recognize the right and utility for a regular citizen to have dual citizenship. To be perfectly honest, as a frequent traveler, I would love to have global citizenship and feel that I already do my best to defend the interests of ALL people. I would also like to work for the U.S. government one day, not as a high-ranking official but as a translator or language teacher, and I don't see how having dual (or multiple) citizenship would in any way prevent me from making accurate translations or teaching effectively.

Second, regarding the number of Jews in positions of power in the United States, you are absolutely right - the proportion is quite high. However, before attributing this to some sort of conspiracy, please take a look at the proportion of Jews with college or graduate degrees - that is also quite high, and is not a result of conspiracy. You see, the Jewish history is one of persecution and forced migration, and the only thing that you can be sure to bring with you when you're forced out of your home or country is your brain. As a result, Jewish parents historically invested heavily in their children's education, and continue to do so now.

I'll also bring up an example from my own life. When I was a child, my father always told me that, as a Jew, I had to be better than everyone in my class if I wanted to get anywhere in life. Growing up in the Soviet Union, because of government-imposed quotas, Jews had to be EXCEPTIONAL in order to get into college or find a job. Ask a psychologist or an education specialist, and they will tell you that children who face high expectations tend to preform better. Now, you take this small minority group of Jews with their culture of education and high expectations, and you put them into a capitalist society like the United States. What happens?

Despite anti-semitic conspiracy theorists may lead you to believe, "the Jews" are not a cohesive community where every member can rely on connections to rise to the top of society. To be honest, the propaganda I read on the Internet makes me truly bitter - life would be much easier if my Jewish-ness would entitle me to some sort of special rights or connections. My parents have no connections and earn little more than minimum wage - my mother has to work 3 jobs at the age of 60 to make ends meet. But, as a Jew and a recent immigrant, I have struggled all my life to excel, especially in the realm of education. That alone, I hope, will allow me to succeed this year as I graduate and enter the work world. The challenge is to see that connections are not the privilege of Jews but that of the wealthy. Wealthy Englishmen, wealthy Frenchmen and wealthy Mexicans have all the privileges of wealthy Jews and maybe more, while poor Jews (yes, they do exist) struggle just like everyone else.

I apologize for the deficient writing. This topic is too close to my heart. I hope the message gets through.

Lyuba

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Did you know that by law the US guarantees israel's oil supply - no matter what?

Under a 1975 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) the USA guaranteed all Israel's oil needs in the event of a crisis. This Memorandum of Understanding is quietly renewed every five years. It commits U.S. taxpayers to maintain a strategic U.S. reserve for Israel, equivalent to $3 billion in 2002 dollars. Special legislation was enacted to exempt Israel from restrictions on oil exports from the USA. Moreover, the U.S. government agreed to divert oil from the USA, even if this causes domestic shortages. The U.S. government also guaranteed delivery of oil in U.S. tankers if commercial shippers become unable or unwilling to carry oil from the USA to Israel.

This is just an example of how f***ed up things have gotten.

Josh

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Why are so few Jews not calling for the Israeli Govt. to stop killing Palestinians, & stop knocking down their homes and facilitating stealing their land? Or, criticized the Lebanon invasion/murders or threatening Iran etc? Why do we see NO fair plans to settle Palestinian et al disputes? The current & past crimes of the Govt. of Israel (& their operatives WITH or WITHOUT USA passports) are amongst the most evil in history let alone 2008 (& of course all Jews of don't support them) ? But why are so many Jews & others silent about "planed ethnic cleansing" & stealing & virtual forced labor LIKE THE NAZIS?..... Remember it's not what people say it's what they do.....And what any of us allow a relatively small group of "collaborating warmongering thieves" (composed of ALL religions?) to do to ANY others we are "facilitating" them to do to us & ours at a later time, perhaps via a "terrorist" label "someone" puts in a computer & that is subject to NO PUBLIC JUSTICE whatsoever. How long before all "dissenters" or people with Òalternate proposed solutions to problemsÓ are on a list? Or get picked up & disappear? What is TRULY horrific is we are ALL allowing these crooks &/or brainwashed supremacists to torture, scrap Habeas Corpus/JUSTICE and have "NO TRIA" & "secret trials"......This is a huge danger to all Jews as well all as others? Prosecute corrupt politicians those that bribe, and Media lies that kill, not protesters.

Billy Field

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Great Article,

Thanks for taking the time to write your article, I do not think all Jews are bad, but any Jews or other race that think the atrocities committed to children females and unarmed civilians of Palestinian decent or any other country must also justify the acts that took place during the

Holocaust.

As a young man learning History I felt very bad about what happened at the Holocaust. But now as I hear what happens in Palestine and other countries with no oil or other kind of wealth, and I do not hear this from US media, I feel just as bad, The US should invest more in looking for a peaceful resolution to the problems instead of supporting the Bully.

The UN should be the guardian for peace in the World and all countries should support it equally, the US should support the UN and push for fairness, instead of supporting the strong and those with political ties to our government.

FJF

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God Bless The Jew; God Damn The Zionist

Lots of excellent talking points in your column, Mr. Eden, as well as from your many readers. Not mentioned was Dov Zakheim's interest in a aeronautic company that made remote controlled aviation devices at the time of 911 attack. Zakheim was serving as a top Pentagon official, the man in charge of the money (YOUR tax dollars) during which time you mentioned $2.3 Trillion went missing. Which begs the question: WHY wasn't any investigation done into this high (Treason) crime? Oh, right, of course; we had the 911 attack.

NO, I emphatically DO NOT believe anyone should possess dual citizenship and hold high office in the USA. That is, no higher political office than say, mayor of Carmel or Jackson Hole. Then local citizens might recall, indict and incarcerate them if found quilty. Instead too many dual citizens hold lifelong tenure and immunity in Washington DC.

Are ALL Jews guilty of disloyalty----What the heck, let's call it treason--- in high places? Nope. But many powerful players are. But then so are many rich and powerful Christian WASPS. Are they secretly Jewish? No, technically they are Zionists, and there is a huge difference. Just Google Professor Norman Finkelstein or read Rense.com.

Seems politics makes strange bedfellows, and obscene profits tempt traitors too, whatever their so-called loyalties.

Sam Mule Adams

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Thank you for this article. I just yesterday left a comment on a blog regarding exactly this list. You have done an excellent job of flushing out the information that was not provided on the other list. It is a shame that so many have been brainwashed into believing the holocaust hogwash which has been thoroughly disproven scientifically and by eyewitness accounts. It has been way overused and has outlived its usefulness. So have most of the dual citizenship traitors who occupy our government offices.

ItÕs true that all Jews are not bad people. The problem is Judaism, specifically Zionism, and every other ideology in existence. But Zionism/Judaism in particular is the only one that is self glorifying, separatist, elitist, and teaches that other races are only slightly above camel dung. Of course they deny that that philosophy is any longer taught and most references have been removed from public texts. However, I have it on pretty good authority that it is still taught verbally.

We need to cast off all ideologies in order to bring the world into better harmony. Spirituality is not a function of ideology, politics are. We are all ONE. ItÕs time we all started acting like it. We need to start by purging Washington and getting back to the founding principles of our nation. Apparently the only candidate that has offered to do that is Ron Paul. Viva la Revolution!

James Stephens

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It's sickening what a few Zionists have done to this planet and it's occupants including 150 million Jews.

Wayne

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Good article. As for the comments, . . . let's abandon pretense. This country is now run by a coup. Elements of the coup are extremely pro-Zionist. In order to loosen the death grip this coup has on this country we are going to have to abandon niceties and risk calling things as they are in spite of labels such as "anti-Semitic." Of course these officials have bias for Israel. Of course there is evidence of anti-American activity by them. I have Jewish friends who are effectively Sayanim in spirit if not in deed, just like some of the Commenters. Why such a strong sense of duty to Israel and such a lack of awareness of any duty to America?

To understand how precarious a situation we Americans are in, see if you can find Solzhenitsyn's work on the Jewish Bolsheviks. You can perhaps read it in the Russian. A Nobel Laureate's work is banned in the West. Why? Because he tells the story of how many Jews ran the Cheka (Secret Police) and how Jews supervised the deaths of tens of millions in the Soviet Union. For a time up until Stalin's purges it could be said that the Soviet Union was the first (modern) Jewish State. Is Solzhenitsyn fabricating this out of whole cloth? No, the Soviet Archives were opened when the government fell. He is not the only researcher who has touched on this, although perhaps the most prominent. The proof is there. It's just politically incorrect to discuss it.

The problem is not that we have NeoCons. The problem is that they're not New and they're not Conservatives. They are philosophical Trotskyites. And referring back to Solzhenitsyn, Trotsky's actual name was Leiba Bronstein. Irving Kristol has stated that there is no philosophical basis for individual liberties. Do you understand? The NeoCon position clears the way for the manipulation of an inner circle elite. They believe in the will to power, not the American doctrine of God-given rights of the individual. You, dear reader, believe you are electing or seeing the appointment of Americans and this is not so. It is a coup by philosophical foreigners in every sense of the word. The gap is of Grand Canyon proportions. Yet we are informed that "what is" has no right so to be. We must ignore. We must not see. We are the "not see"'s, . . . ironically.

If we cannot loosen the grip of the pro-Israel Zionist hand on our throats, how are we ever to get to those Americans with no such split allegiance who are even more culpable because they are simply involved in high treason?

The pathway to a remedy in this country is solidly blocked by the NeoCons. Only by disempowering this sacrosanct "sacred cow"ism of anti-Semitism can we move beyond. For it is launched every time we get near to a correction. For instance, consider the irony. How appropriately American is it to have the son of the first woman Mossad agent in charge of Homeland Security? What was "for dinner" at the Chertoff home? Did she practice interrogation techniques if he didn't eat his spinach? How characteristically American was the response to Hurricane Katrina? There are still camps of detained Katrina evacuees. How does that contrast with the release of some 600 Israeli suspects detained after 911, many before questioning? The best answer is we don't know where Chertoff's allegiances really lie but there are compelling grounds for concluding they're not even close to being American.

Support of Israel is apparently one of the strongest narcotics that exists. It numbs moral sensibilities and conscience, and blinds us from perceiving objectively. If you have a survival instinct left, drop the opiate now. Leave it and move on. Learn from the Russian experience! Visualize! How does the world look post-NeoCon?