Ayoon Wa Azan (“Chickenhawk”)

What’s in common between Hosni Mubarak, King Abdullah II, King Hamad bin Isa and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, as well as Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and Prince Khaled bin Sultan? They are all military men who graduated from Staff Colleges and served in the armed forces of their countries, yet they all hate war and sought and continue to seek to avert it. But before an all too eager reader claims that I am “glorifying” Arab rulers, I want to state that I am neither praising nor criticizing the Arab leaders I mentioned above, but only stating what I know about them personally. Indeed, those who know the horrors of war, having studied the extent of destruction that accompanies it, do not seek it. I then ask what is in common between Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and John Bolton. They are all American Jews and Likudnik neocons, and they all evaded military service in Vietnam or elsewhere. They then all lobbied for American wars in which America’s prime are killed in the service of Israel’s interests, to the detriment of “their country’s” interests. Outside of the Israel gang of Likudnik traitors, the leaders of the gang were Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who both evaded military service and then endorsed every war to impose an American empire on the world. And above all, George W. Bush had evaded military service in Vietnam, and served instead in the U.S. National Guard in Texas. Recall that Bush and Cheney, who were both too cowardly to fight, had attacked the voting record of the Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry in what concerns military affairs in the Senate. This is despite the fact that Kerry had served in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart military decoration three times. By contrast, all that Bush Junior did in Texas was get his teeth fixed. Americans call those who dodge military service then support wars fought with other people’s lives “chickenhawk”. To elaborate further, a “chickenhawk” has a hawk’s cry but the backbone of a chicken. There is an American joke that goes like this: Question: what do you get when you combine a chicken with a hawk? Answer: a Quayle. This is a pun on Dan Quayle, the Vice President who evaded military service in Vietnam and then went on to support war as Bush Senior’s Vice President. Today, American history is repeating itself, although it is recent history. The ordinary American continues to pay the price for this every day, with the lives of American soldiers and tens of thousands of returning disabled soldiers, and with the destruction of the U.S. –and global – economy. The contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, with the exception of the M.D. Ron Paul who served in Vietnam even as he was married and had two children, all support a war against Iran. The adulterer and buffoonish extremist Newt Gingrich, for instance, is not content with air strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, but wants a war and regime change to end Iranian influence in Iraq. Governor Rick Perry, for his part, called for the military to return to Iraq to drive out the Iranians and then station U.S. troops there. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney accused the Obama administration of appeasement because it does not confront Iran. Then everyone announced their full commitment to Israel, which is led by a fascist government that passes racist, Nazi-like laws, and engages in occupation, expulsion and killings. As there had been in the Bush Jr., or Bush the kid’s, administration, there is a gang in the media and the think tanks that support wars, a gang that is also essentially a “chickenhawk”, as its members evaded military service, and yet they insist on sending America’s youths to die in racist wars. Among these are William Kristol, who is as vile and extreme as his father Irving, and Jonah Goldberg, Michael Ledeen and Daniel Pipes, the son of Richard Pipes, and David Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav (I consider them Israelis), in addition to Frank Gaffney and Max Boot, Robert and Frederick Kagan, the sons of Donald, James Woolsey, and Norman Podhoretz, and with them the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. This is not to forget Sen. Joe Lieberman, whom I consider to be a representative of Israel and no one else in the Senate, and who also did not serve in the U.S. military. They are all “chickenhawks”, and the Americans are paying the price, along with the whole world.