Mukasey, Podhoretz and Pipes

Mukasey, Podhoretz and Pipes. What do they have in common? For one thing, they all are advisers to the Giuliani campaign.

Norman Podhoretz, who is still with Commentary, formerly published by the American Jewish Committee, is a neocon hawk who favors bombing Iran and who sees questions about 9/11 as obviously nothing but the work of an anti-Semitic conspiracy.

Daniel Pipes, an influential U.S. professor who promotes a Zionist view of Israel, strongly backed the Iraq war, even though he was well aware of the potential for a fratricidal mess. He sees Israel as besieged on all sides, charging that Syria is developing chemical weapons and that Iran is aiming to become a nuclear power. He is worried that too many Muslims in America may prove dangerous to American Jews.

Mukasey, as New York described him, is a graduate of an Upper East Side yeshiva who believes that national security courts should try terrorism cases in secret. Mukasey lived for some time under 24-hour guard stemming from his role as a judge in terrorism cases. He is known as a law-and-order judge.

The fact that Mukasey teams up with two of the most notable voices of the hard-right Israel lobby is quite revealing.

By supporting Giuliani, one must conclude that Mukasey is a hawk who believes that there is a war against terrorism that the United States must wage at full throttle. By joining with Podhoretz and Pipes, Mukasey indicates that he does not wish to face the overwhelming and irrefutable evidence of treason on 9/11 -- a standard position of the Israel lobby. Hence, we can expect that, as attorney general, Mukasey will find ways to rationalize all sorts of "war" measures that vitiate basic American freedoms.