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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Bob_01: [QB] "Bogle", [QUOTE]Yeh support from politicians (Dems and GOP) too scared of them as well as the media and the Christian right. No evidence Big Oil supported them in their push for war on Iraq. You still trying to push this Big Oil line like a stubborn child. LOL [/QUOTE]In a region that is clearly not US's primary region. It doesn't suggest that "Jews" run the show in America. I will let Noam Chomsky do the talking. Now that we got the cabal nonsense dealt (i.e. whites are equally criminals), let's move on: [QUOTE]The M-W thesis is that (B) overwhelmingly predominates. To evaluate the thesis, we have to distinguish between two quite different matters, which they tend to conflate: (1) the alleged failures of US ME policy; (2) the role of The Lobby in bringing about these consequences. Insofar as the stands of the Lobby conform to (A), the two factors are very difficult to disentagle. And there is plenty of conformity. Let's look at (1), and ask the obvious question: for whom has policy been a failure for the past 60 years? The energy corporations? Hardly. [b]They have made "profits beyond the dreams of avarice" (quoting John Blair, who directed the most important government inquiries into the industry, in the '70s), and still do, and the ME is their leading cash cow.[/b] Has it been a failure for US grand strategy based on control of what the State Department described 60 years ago as the "stupendous source of strategic power" of ME oil and the immense wealth from this unparalleled "material prize"? Hardly. [b]The US has substantially maintained control -- and the significant reverses, such as the overthrow of the Shah, were not the result of the initiatives of the Lobby. And as noted, the energy corporations prospered.[/b] Furthermore, those extraordinary successes had to overcome plenty of barriers: primarily, as elsewhere in the world, what internal documents call "radical nationalism," meaning independent nationalism. As elsewhere in the world, it's been convenient to phrase these concerns in terms of "defense against the USSR," but the pretext usually collapses quickly on inquiry, in the ME as elsewhere. And in fact the claim was conceded to be false, officially, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Bush's National Security Strategy (1990) called for maintaining the forces aimed at the ME, where the serious "threats to our interests... could not be laid at the Kremlin's door" -- now lost as a pretext for pursuing about the same policies as before. And the same was true pretty much throughout the world. That at once raises another question about the M-W thesis. What were "the Lobbies" that led to pursuing very similar policies throughout the world? [b]Consider the year 1958, a very critical year in world affairs. In 1958, the Eisenhower administration identified the three leading challenges to the US as the ME, North Africa, and Indonesia -- all oil producers, all Islamic. North Africa was taken care of by Algerian (formal) independence. Indonesia and the ME were taken care of by Suharto's murderous slaughter (1965) and Israel's destruction of Arab secular nationalism (Nasser, 1967).[/b] In the ME, that established the close US-Israeli alliance and confirmed the judgment of US intelligence in 1958 that a "logical corollary" of opposition to "radical nationalism" (meaning, secular independent nationalism) is "support for Israel" as the one reliable US base in the region (along with Turkey, which entered into close relations with Israel in the same year). Suharto's coup aroused virtual euphoria, and he remained "our kind of guy" (as the Clinton administration called him) until he could no longer keep control in 1998, through a hideous record that compares well with Saddam Hussein -- who was also "our kind of guy" until he disobeyed orders in 1990. [b]What was the Indonesia Lobby? The Saddam Lobby? And the question generalizes around the world.[/b] Unless these questions are faced, the issue (1) cannot be seriously addressed. [b]When we do investigate (1), we find that US policies in the ME are quite similar to those pursued elsewhere in the world[/b], and have been a remarkable success, in the face of many difficulties: 60 years is a long time for planning success. It's true that Bush II has weakened the US position, not only in the ME, but that's an entirely separate matter. That leads to (2). As noted, the US-Israeli alliance was firmed up precisely when Israel performed a huge service to the US-Saudis-Energy corporations by smashing secular Arab nationalism, which threatened to divert resources to domestic needs. That's also when the Lobby takes off (apart from the Christian evangelical component, by far the most numerous and arguably the most influential part, but that's mostly the 90s). And it's also when the intellectual-political class began their love affair with Israel, previously of little interest to them. They are a very influential part of the Lobby because of their role in media, scholarship, etc. From that point on it's hard to distinguish "national interest" (in the usual perverse sense of the phrase) from the effects of the Lobby. I've run through the record of Israeli services to the US, to the present, elsewhere, and won't review it again here. [b]M-W focus on AIPAC and the evangelicals, but they recognize that the Lobby includes most of the political-intellectual class -- at which point the thesis loses much of its content.[/b] They also have a highly selective use of evidence (and much of the evidence is assertion). Take, as one example, arms sales to China, which they bring up as undercutting US interests. [i]But they fail to mention that when the US objected, Israel was compelled to back down: under Clinton in 2000, and again in 2005, in this case with the Washington neocon regime going out of its way to humiliate Israel. [b]Without a peep from The Lobby, in either case, though it was a serious blow to Israel.[/b][/i] There's a lot more like that. Take the worst crime in Israel's history, its invasion of Lebanon in 1982 with the goal of destroying the secular nationalist PLO and ending its embarrassing calls for political settlement, and imposing a client Maronite regime. The Reagan administration strongly supported the invasion through its worst atrocities, but a few months later (August), when the atrocities were becoming so severe that even NYT Beirut correspondent Thomas Friedman was complaining about them, and they were beginning to harm the US "national interest," Reagan ordered Israel to call off the invasion, then entered to complete the removal of the PLO from Lebanon, an outcome very welcome to both Israel and the US (and consistent with general US opposition to independent nationalism). The outcome was not entirely what the US-Israel wanted, but the relevant observation here is that the Reaganites supported the aggression and atrocities when that stand was conducive to the "national interest," and terminated them when it no longer was (then entering to finish the main job). That's pretty normal. Another problem that M-W do not address is the role of the energy corporations. They are hardly marginal in US political life -- transparently in the Bush administration, but in fact always. How can they be so impotent in the face of the Lobby? [b]As ME scholar Stephen Zunes has rightly pointed out, "there are far more powerful interests that have a stake in what happens in the Persian Gulf region than does AIPAC [or the Lobby generally], such as the oil companies, the arms industry and other special interests whose lobbying influence and campaign contributions far surpass that of the much-vaunted Zionist lobby and its allied donors to congressional races."[/b] Do the energy corporations fail to understand their interests, or are they part of the Lobby too? By now, what's the distinction between (1) and (2), apart from the margins? Also to be explained, again, is why US ME policy is so similar to its policies elsewhere -- to which, incidentally, Israel has made important contributions, e.g., [b]in helping the executive branch to evade congressional barriers to carrying out massive terror in Central America, to evade embargoes against South Africa and Rhodesia, and much else.[/b] All of which again makes it even more difficult to separate (2) from (1) -- the latter, pretty much uniform, in essentials, throughout the world. I won't run through the other arguments, but I don't feel that they have much force, on examination. The thesis M-W propose does however have plenty of appeal. The reason, I think, is that it leaves the US government untouched on its high pinnacle of nobility, "Wilsonian idealism," etc., merely in the grip of an all-powerful force that it cannot escape. It's rather like attributing the crimes of the past 60 years to "exaggerated Cold War illusions," etc. Convenient, but not too convincing. In either case. [URL=http://www.chomsky.info/articles/20060328.htm]Link[/URL][/QUOTE][b]Israeli services to the United States[/b] [QUOTE] By 1958, the CIA advised, I'm quoting, that "a logical corollary" of opposition to Arab nationalism "would be to support Israel as the only reliable pro-Western power left in the Middle East." According to this reasoning, Israel could become a major base for US power in the region. Now that was proposed but not yet implemented. It was implemented after 1967. In 1967, Israel performed a major service to the United States - namely, it destroyed Nasser, destroyed the virus. And also smashed up the Arab armies and left US power in the ascendance. And at this point essentially a tripartite alliance was established - Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia technically was at war with Iran and Israel but that makes no difference. Saudi Arabia has the oil - Iran and Israel (and Turkey is taken for granted) were the military force; that's Iran under the Shah, remember. Pakistan was part of the system too at that time. That was very clearly recognized-both by US intelligence specialists, who wrote about it, and also by the leading figures in planning. So for example Henry Jackson who was the Senate's major specialist on the Middle East and oil - he pointed out that Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia "inhibit and contain those irresponsible and radical elements in certain Arab states, who, were they free to do so, would pose a grave threat indeed to our principal sources of petroleum in the Middle East" (meaning, as he knew, primarily profit flow and a lever of world control). Saudi Arabia does it just by funding, and by holding the greatest petroleum reserves by a good measure. Iran and Israel, with the help of Turkey and Pakistan, provided regional force. They're only the local "cops on the beat," remember. So if something really goes wrong, you call in the big guys-the United States and Britain.[URL=http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20010304.htm]Link[/URL][/QUOTE][b]Implications with regards to Iraq[/b] [QUOTE]Yeah, but that's inside Saudi Arabia, and that happens to be where most of the oil is. They have been excluded by the US and Saudi leadership, but they're not going to be likely to accept that if there is a sovereign, democratic Iraq next door. It's really a Shiite-dominated Iraq. And it's already beginning to happen. Well, you know, that'll lead towards a situation in which most of the world's oil would be under the control of a relatively autonomous Shiite alliance. The US won't tolerate that for a moment. The next thing that would happen in a sovereign Iraq is that they would try to resume their very natural position as a leading state in the Arab world. They're the most educated country, the most advanced and so on. In many ways, it should be the leader in the Arab world. Actually, those are factors that go back to Biblical times. And they'll try to resume that position, which means they'll try to rearm. They will confront the regional enemy, namely Israel, which has virtually turned into a US military outpost. They may even develop weapons of mass destruction as a deterrent against Israel's overwhelming advantage, both militarily and in weapons of mass destruction. Those are very natural developments to be expected. Can you see the US accepting any of this? I mean, those are the likely consequences - not certain, but likely consequences - of a relatively sovereign, more or less democratic Iraq. It's a nightmare for the United States. It's no wonder it tried to prevent elections in any possible way, and is now trying to undermine the results. What happens is gonna be on a terrain of plenty of struggle, and we have a role in it. US public opinion can be highly influential during the outcome. We don't live in a dictatorship; we have plenty of freedom if we want to use it. It can be used to help the Iraqis regain control of their own society. [URL=http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20050311.htm]Link[/URL][/QUOTE] [QUOTE]What the f!ck are you talking about "seats", do you even know what youre saying? LOL Jews are an economic elite in EU and America, has nothing to do with being merely a minority. [/QUOTE]More opportunities as a smaller population vs. a larger window. Jews do over represent American socio-economic institutions. Do you have evidence suggesting that Jews are higher income-wise than the dominant Anglo-Saxon whites? [QUOTE]Source? According to Eurostat Spain is in the top five in EU. Man do you know how stupid you sound arguing Spain and S.Korea aren't "necessarily wealthy" nations?? LOLOLOLOL [/QUOTE]Go look up nominal GDP per capita on wikipedia. Ignore this point, regardless. Seems rather irrelevant, to be honest. Let's move on... [QUOTE]Not according to the experts. Your views as frustrate Jew apologist to the contrary mean 7sh!t. Sorry. The rest of your paragraph is the usual bullsh!t rambling without sources, as I said, this is a very one sided exchange. [Roll Eyes] I dont want your views and rambling come with sources. [/QUOTE]Despite having cited Chomsky, I will post another source. Continuing on with errors that still persist: [QUOTE] [b]I would also remind you that Israel's defense is $13 billion.[/b] Two billion represents a [i]fraction[/i] of that, but it's clear that it's designed to compete with neighbors within the Middle East. [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures][b]Saudi Arabia's[/URL] defence budget is $30 billion, while Iran is around $7 billion despite being a nation with a significantly lower labor and manufacturing costs.[/b] The aid, which even goes to Egypt (lower, though), is designed to enhance US's depth in the region. Of course it isn't beneficial, but that's generally a common amongst states. They become too drunk with power and wound up pathological. [/QUOTE]Israel's defense budget is $13 billion. Saudi at $30 billion despite having much lower labor costs. $2 billion is obviously present to maintain depth in the region. [QUOTE]Umm..how about $2 billion means nothing to South Korea's [URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures]$30 billion dollar[/URL] defense budget? Not just that, but a nation that largely manufactures their military assets at home significantly reducing costs that are much higher when imported. [/QUOTE]Point that was ignored: [QUOTE]They would have more "normalized" relationships, but remember, these firms also had [b]nothing to lose regardless of the result.[/b] These oil rich states are highly corrupt (including Iraq) and sooner-or-later are going to see a violent, indigenous, regime change. Iran wasn't the last, it was the first nation. [b]Saying that, US was the primary nation, along with UK, involved in operation Ajax in Iran.[/b] That coup d'etat did not involve Israel since the AIPAC wasn't even around at that time. Israel is a pest in a region, but so were the larger Western predecessors that are the main reason why the region is in shambles. The West maintains despotic regions and Israel represents a outpost for those nations.[/QUOTE] [/QB][/QUOTE]
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