I only got past the first paragraph of this missive, before I realized that this is but one more of PlainOl's "Patriot/Militia/TaxProtest/The Highwaymen/TheIlluminatiAreComingAfterUsAlongWithTheTriLateralistsBilderbergs" kind of post.
First, Israel is an important ally, they are the only bastion in the Middle East that resembles Western Civilization. Whether we like it, or we don't like it, oil is an important commodity to the world, and the region is unstable, with, or without Israel.
Second, right there neck-in-neck with the aid that we give to Israel, is Egypt. Allies in and of themself. At least this week. The last time I looked, Egypt wasn't all that Jewish.
So, the point being? Maybe it has to do with logistics and locale, and not so much Judaism. I think just as important, it has been our Nation's policy since 1947, that Israel is going to be a Nation-State, and will exist. I don't necessarily have a problem with this decision, but I do have a problem in that we didn't enfoce UN Resolution 242 (and others) that mandated there would be a separate, equal Palestine. Today, Israel totally rejects this notion, and until such time as Israel starts skipping our rope, then all foreign aid should be cut off.
I do agree with the writer in one aspect. I am sick and tired of anyone who questions Israel's foreign policy, or our foreign policy toward Israel, as being somehow Anti-Semitic. There are a number of questions regarding why we have supported Israel's foreign policy, when it was blatantly in violation of UN Resolutions, that should be asked.
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 9:29 PM, plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> wrote:
foreign-policy makers have become Washington's leading con men. Even----
though Whiz Kids and Dream Teams have dragged America into one debacle
after another
American foreign policy since the end of the cold war has been focused
primarily on the Middle East and to an alarming extent on the defense
and promotion of Israel. Why has Israel become so central to our
foreign policy and what advantages does the United States gain from
the relationship?
Israel is not an important trading partner for the United States, in
20th place, behind Venezuela and Thailand. Israel has no significant
natural resources, nor is Israel an important defense ally. None of
its neighbors pose any significant threat to the United States or
American interests. There is not an important Israeli American
population. If we equate American Jews as somehow "Israeli" because
of the fact that Israel is a Jewish state, than we are still only
talking about a population of 6,444,000 approx. (2007) 1.7% – 2.2% of
the US population. This is less than the number of Polish Americans,
approximately 10,000,000 people and well below the number of Irish
Americans, over 30,000,000.
Yet Ireland never received anywhere near the attention that Israel has
in the media, in political debates, in foreign aid or in foreign
policy efforts, even when a full blown civil war was occurring in
Ulster.
The attention Israel receives in the United States is completely
disproportionate to its strategic, commercial, or political
importance. For example, in reference to the 2008 presidential
elections, Shmuel Rosner at Slate wrote,
"in the vice-presidential debate, Israel's name was mentioned 17
times. China was mentioned twice, Europe just once. Russia didn't come
up at all. Nor Britain, France, or Germany. The only two countries to
get more attention were Iraq and Afghanistan—the countries in which
U.S. forces are fighting wars…. A week earlier, in the first McCain-
Obama debate, Israel was mentioned seven times, fewer than Russia but
still more than China or Japan or any country in Europe, Latin
America, or Africa."
In regards to American foreign aid, the amounts are striking.
According to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt,
"Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a
level of support dwarfing that given to any other state. It has been
the largest annual recipient of direct economic and military
assistance since 1976, and is the largest recipient in total since
World War Two, to the tune of well over $140 billion (in 2004
dollars). Israel receives about $3 billion in direct assistance each
year, roughly one-fifth of the foreign aid budget, and worth about
$500 a year for every Israeli. This largesse is especially striking
since Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita
income roughly equal to that of South Korea or Spain."
It's fascinating to compare American foreign policy in Mexico, a
country of over 100,000 million people (Israel's population is around
7.5 million) and a very important trading partner with the US. Issues
like immigration and drug trafficking with Mexico have palpable daily
effects on the lives of Americans, yet Mexico receives less the 2% of
the foreign aid that Israel gets, less than 40 million dollars
compared to Israel's almost 3 billion. And the over 28 million
Americans who are of Mexican ancestry? They are apparently, for
politicians, much less important than the less than 7 million Jewish
Americans.
In the sphere of politics the tone and attitude of US politicians
sounds as if their careers depend on how they speak of Israel. Joe
Biden during the Vice Presidential debate,
"Gwen, no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend to
Israel than Joe Biden. I would have never, ever joined this ticket
were I not absolutely sure Barack Obama shared my passion."
And Sarah Palin,
"But I'm so encouraged to know that we both love Israel, and I think
that is a good thing to get to agree on, Sen. Biden. I respect your
position on that."
And President Obama this summer said, according to the New York Times,
"that he is committed to Israel's security but does not believe it is
essential for him to avoid all disagreement with the Jewish state."
This type of language can only be considered pandering. Why are they
pandering to Israel? During the 2008 presidential election, John
McCain said he would not sit down with the Spanish government because
of the way they pulled their troops out of Iraq. It caused a minor
stir, but never became an issue of any importance. Do you think
either Obama or McCain could have been elected if either had said that
they would not sit down with Israeli leaders due to continued new
settlements in the West Bank?
Israel is considered to be a nuclear power. Few if any deny that
Israel has nuclear weapons, as well as other weapons of mass
destruction. Why does Israel receive no pressure at all from the
United States to become a non-nuclear power? Would this not be an
excellent bargaining chip with Iran? Iran is a country of over 70,000
million people with a tremendous history and culture, yet they are not
allowed to have nuclear weapons, but Israel is? It is easy to
understand the Iranian objection to this double standard. It's very
unfortunate that Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, continues to
spew ridiculous, anti-Semitic diatribes that completely distract the
attention of the world from the real issues of the Middle East and
reduce his country's credibility. Again, Mearshimeimer and Walt
write,
"Washington also provides Israel with consistent diplomatic support.
Since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical
of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other
Security Council members. It blocks the efforts of Arab states to put
Israel's nuclear arsenal on the IAEA's agenda."
Why is it impossible to have a sensible, open debate in the United
States regarding our relationship to Israel? The clearest example of
why it is not possible occurred in 2006 when John Mearsheimer of the
University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard published a white
paper about the power of AIPCAC, the principal Israeli lobby in the
US. The ensuing debate was not centered on the issues of the white
paper, quite the contrary; both academics were accused of everything
from lack of professionalism to anti-Semitism. The White Paper made
very clear arguments about the power of AIPAC and their silencing of
Israel's critics. Mearsheimer and Walt pulled no punches,
"For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in
1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its
relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for
Israel and the related effort to spread 'democracy' throughout the
region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only
US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation
has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been
willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies
in order to advance the interests of another state?"
The authors received a drubbing and were quickly silenced. Alan
Derschowitz as well as Eliot Cohen of John Hopkins both accused
Mearsheimer and Walt of anti-Semitism and bigotry.
When Jimmy Carter came out with his book about the Israeli-Palestinian
question, Palestine Peace Not Apartheid, the debate again became about
him, not the plight of the Palestinians.
Increasingly, the war in Iraq is being attributed to the Neo-
Conservative wing of the Republican Party that had a very influential
role in the Bush administration. For most of the world this has been
obvious, but in the US it has been a taboo topic. Michael Kinsley is
quoted as saying "the connection between the invasion of Iraq and
Israeli interests had become 'the proverbial elephant in the room.
Everybody sees it, no one mentions it.'" The Neo-Cons had for years
been itching to invade Iraq. The general theory was that by changing
the regime in Iraq, regime change would occur in Iran and Syria,
clearing the way for a new Middle East and a much friendlier
atmosphere for Israel.
What occurred on 9/11 gave them the opening they had been looking for,
and they cunningly convinced the US population that somehow Iraq had
some connection to 9/11. This was a blatant falsification of the
facts advanced with the help of AIPAC and important supporters of
Israel in the media. The Israeli angle for the war in Iraq is the
mainstream explanation in much of the world but rarely discussed in
the US.
America must be able to openly debate what has become the main focus
of our foreign policy, and our largest benefactor of foreign aid. At
the moment we are not able to do so. When academics or politicians
question Americas support for Israel, they are branded as anti-
Semitic. No member of either party is willing to openly question our
relationship with Israel out of fear. Our academics are branded as
anti-Semitic when they question the power of AIPAC. Something
undemocratic has taken over a part of our government, and the most
important part of our foreign policy. America has lost and continues
to lose credibility in the world as many see US foreign policy in the
Middle East as under at least partial control of Israel.
Let us imagine that the United States had 'divorced' Israel 20 years
ago, considering it a foreign policy liability. Would we have much
better relations now with the Arab world? Would 9/11 have been
avoided? Would we have avoided entering the Afghanistan and Iraq
Wars? Would Israel have been forced to make an equitable deal with
the Palestinians out of fear of being ostracized from the
international community? Would the US have focused much more energy
at the end of the cold war on improving relations with the nations of
the former Soviet Union including Russia? Would the world be a better
place?
The United States foreign policy has been hijacked, and our leaders
and thinkers have been intimidated by a foreign government and its
apologists. Somehow, discussion of the special American relationship
with Israel has become taboo. This has been carried out by supporters
of Israel who use the media and AIPAC to intimidate politicians,
journalists and intellectuals. Our thinkers and leaders are afraid to
openly discuss the US relationship with Israel out of fear of being
branded anti-Semitic and being ostracized. This is a form of
McCarthyism that must be immediately rooted out like the cancer that
it is. American has lost part of its freedom of expression, our most
sacred gift from our founding fathers, the cornerstone of our republic
and our prosperity. It must be taken back.
On Apr 14, 12:57 pm, MJ <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> April 14, 2011War is the Biggest Power Grab of AllAmerica's Know-Nothing PolicymakersBy JAMES BOVARD
> The United States is attacking Libya based on vague hopes that peace will triumph after the NATO bombing ceases. There are plenty of reasons to doubt whether a few hundred cruise missiles will beget harmony in the Libyan desert. But one of the biggest mistakes would be to assume that U.S. government policymakers understand what they are doing.> Cluelessness is a constant in U.S. foreign-policy making. In 1967, the Pentagon ordered top experts to analyze where the Vietnam War had gone wrong. The resulting study consisted of 47 volumes of material exposing the intellectual and political follies that had, at that point, already left tens of thousands of Americans dead. After the study was finished, it was distributed to the key Johnson administration players and federal agencies, by whom it was completely ignored, if not forgotten.New York Timeseditor Tom Wicker commented that "the people who read these documents in theTimes[in 1971] were the first to study them." Daniel Ellsberg, who wrote a portion of the papers and leaked them to the Times, noted that the papers reveal "a general failure to study history or to analyze or even to record operational experience, especially mistakes. Above all, effective pressures for optimistically false reporting at every level, for describing 'progress' rather than problems or failure, concealed the very need for change in approach or for learning."
> The American media have already uncorked "surprises," such as the facts that the Libyan opposition is a ragtag mob, not an army, and that Qaddafi's opponents include organizations formally labeled as terrorists by the U.S. government. But this is only the tip of iceberg of official idiocy.
> The latest follies are part of a long bipartisan tradition. In the decades since John F. Kennedy's inauguration, foreign-policy makers have become Washington's leading con men. Even though Whiz Kids and Dream Teams have dragged America into one debacle after another, the media and politicians still defer to the latest batch of "Best and Brightest" professors and appointees.
> The U.S. invasion of Iraq was based on little more than a few phrases backed up by almost boundless ignorance. Paul Bremer, the chief of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority, admitted in his memoirs "that he didn't know anything about Iraq when stepping down from Kissinger Associates to become America's proconsul," Georgetown University professor Derek Leebaert observed in his new book,Magic and Mayhem. Adam Garfinkle, who worked as a speechwriter for both Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, said in 2007, "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."
> The Pentagon's recent record is not much better. The U.S. military floundered in Iraq and Afghanistan because, as Leebaert notes, "the army not only forgot everything it had been bloodily taught about counterinsurgency in Vietnam, but in Vietnam, it had forgotten everything it had learned about counterinsurgency in Korea as well."
> U.S. foreign-policy makers perennially talk as if the world is a clean sheet that they can mark up as they please. Shortly before Obama's televised speech on March 28 on Libya, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters, "We don't get very hung up on this question of precedent. We don't make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent." Rather than being a high-minded resolve, that attitude practically guarantees that the U.S. government will repeat the same mistakes in perpetuity.> Governments routinely bury information that undermines their power grabs and war is the biggest power grab of them all. We cannot expect the Obama administration to be more prudent on Libya than the Bush administration was on Iraq, or the Clinton administration was on Kosovo, or the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon administrations were on Vietnam. Americans cannot afford to assume that this war is smarter than it seems.James Bovardis a policy advisor forThe Future of Freedom Foundationand is the author ofAttention Deficit Democracy,The Bush Betrayal,Terrorism and Tyranny, and other books.http://www.counterpunch.com/bovard04142011.html
> Foreign policy has been a long series of blunders, in part because the American media tolerate deceits by high-ranking government officials. "Presidents have lied so much to us about foreign policy that they've established almost a common-law right to do so," George Washington University history professor Leo Ribuffo observed in 1998. From John F. Kennedy's lying about the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba; to Lyndon Johnson's lying about the Gulf of Tonkin resolution; to Richard Nixon's lying about the secret bombing of Cambodia; to Jimmy Carter's lying about the shah of Iran's being a progressive, enlightened ruler; to Ronald Reagan's lying about terrorism and Iran-Contra; to George H.W. Bush's lying about the justifications for the first Gulf War, entire generations have come of age since the ancient time when a president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the public.
> WikiLeaks has revealed that U.S. foreign policy is far more deceptive than the Beltway portrays it. From Hillary Clinton's machinations to heist the credit card numbers of foreign diplomats, to the U.S. government's prodding Ethiopia to invade Somalia, to the covert supply of arms to the Yemen government, charades have come fast and furious. Much of the American political establishment has reacted as if WikiLeaks violated government's divine right to delude the governed.
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