Part of a longer post on Rachel Maddow’s new book Drift, at Rick Congress’s Politics, Music and Irony blog:
Maddow suggests restoring the balance between the executive and the legislative branches of government (take some power from the Presidency and give more to the House and Senate…somehow), banning private contractors like Blackwater from war making and having not so much secrecy. The odds of these things happening are, of course, slim to none. Why? Because Maddow’s own fellow Democratic Party liberals are just as much gung-ho for permanent US warfare, and military bases being spread around the world, as any Republican. Also because everyone is on the take from the military-industrial complex among other businesses.
Maddow herself is adrift: untethered to reality. The USA has been an imperialist, predatory nation from the beginning. “Manifest Destiny” was the watchword for the march across the continent and the wiping out of the Indians; which begat the 1848 theft of half of Mexico, the 1898 war with Spain that led to planting the flag in Puerto Rico and Manilla; which presaged a revolving door of US military attacks and occupations in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and on and on morphing in more recent history to funding and using the local military and oligarchs to put US puppet governments in power (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador among others). Then there is 1954 and reinstalling the Shah in Iran and then the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Guatamala, both of which were CIA capers. Democrats and Republicans collaborated on all of these interventions.
There is a seamless trail of US intervention in Vietnam from Truman,Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ and Nixon. The legislative branch has happily ceded it’s warmaking powers to the executive. Sometimes there is a ritual of pseudo democracy to rubber stamp executive imperialism.
There is no “drift.” There are a couple of centuries of policy: the US will dominate politically and economically whoever it can. If there’s no submission, then send in the Marines, or in our higher tech world, the drones. Mark Twain could figure this out. He participated in the Anti-Imperialst League,which opposed the US war of conquest in the Philippines over 100 years ago. Maddow can’t figure it out. The stark truth blows her whole rationale out of the water: the USA is good, good, good. But it makes mistakes that can be corrected…by Democrats.
The fact that Obama is far worse than Bush in committing war crimes and shredding democratic rights has escaped Maddow’s notice.
Some commentators have suggested that the neo-cons and their obsession with supporting Israel at all costs are behind all this interventionism, at least in the mid-east. We can’t point to The Weekly Standard or AIPAC as the motivating forces behind, say, the US marines occupation of Nicaragua from 1927 to 1933; but they have been enthused backers of the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and now Kenya and soon to be Mali.
The use of threats, bullying and military force is a longstanding tradition of the good ole’ USA and the latest mid-east wars fit right in. You could say that AIPAC and the neo-cons make everything more reducto ad absurdum and shrill. Also they do hamper the use of more flexible tactics by US imperialism by their “Israel firstism.” But in no way would US policy in the world be benign if they had no influence. This is a case of a falling out among thieves. The American people have no stake in what is euphemistically called our “National Interest.” National Interest is a code word for the interests of banks, mulit-national corporations, and their political operatives in both parties.
I feel like Richard Congress went into my comment archive and wrote this as a summary!! haha. THANK YOU RICHARD!! Very well done.
Semper Fidelis,
Dan
DAN CROWTHER- So this is a summary of your comments archive? Good for you! Count me in. Richard, Dan and Keith, the three Chomskyateers. Three cheers for Smedley Butler!
haha. Not a complete summary, but as it regards this topic, this is more or less how I feel. But you already knew that…. All For One and One for All!!
the 1898 war with Spain that led to planting the flag in Puerto Rico and Manilla;
Let’s not forget that little detour the Navy took en route to the Philippines to annex the Hawaiian Islands for use as a mid-Pacific fueling station and naval base. A group of US businessmen had overthrown Queen Lili’uokalani. The treaty of annexation with the US-installed provisional government failed to obtain the 2/3rds vote needed for ratification. So the Congress annexed the islands by Joint Resolution instead, a process that only required a simple majority in both houses.
Three cheers for Smedley Butler!
I spent 21 years in the military, including long stints in various positions on USAF Major Command and DoD Unified Command Operations and Planning staffs. I came to admire Smedley Butler’s writing skills, including the clever use of guarded understatement to protect the reader’s tender sensibilities, while dispelling their misconceptions about the true nature of US foreign policy and global interventionism in defense of all of the struggling “democracies”.
DC: “I feel like Richard Congress went into my comment archive and wrote this as a summary!!”
Well Dan, would I be right in saying the bottom line of your joint thesis is that everyone is on the take from the MIC and AIPAC et al are wasting their money as it would continue to be business as usual if they packed in their lobbying and funding?
If that’s the case, then I have to say I find Ranjit Suresh’s first post below more convincing than your entire comment archive, all 1950 posts worth. Because Ranjit intuits what you seemingly can’t, that the rise of Jewish American influence in the US establishment has coincided with the repurposing of American power towards the Middle East in a manner that favours Israel. Except it’s no coincidence, its the product of a great deal of effort and money.
haha, i knew libra was gonna come callin’ — no worries, i was more talking about my lobby related comments, not the entirety, but you’re probably right in any event.
My view of the subject is really simple – the NY Yankees have had some good owners, some bad owners, some good managers, some bad managers – but the goals are always shared, they want to dominate baseball. And just like with becoming the owner of the yankees or one of their managers, you first have to buy in to “the yankee mystique” – I think US foreign policy is quite similar as it regards its stewards.
The neo-cons certainly represent the “bad managers,” but the fact of the matter is, they passed through all of the filters, their views are shared and given sanction by ownership. If we, as fans, want different management, we can not go to games, not watch on TV – but if you are going to bitch about management, but then go to games, watch on TV, buy merchandise and so on, you’re only going to drive yourself crazy, and ownership and management are gonna know they have you in their pocket and wont take you seriously. Cubs fans can attest to this. And I think the same is true of most “progressives” they know a thing or two about not being taken seriously – and I think its largely because at root, they too buy into “the yankee mystique” (american exceptionalism) only they have their own arbitrary definition of what that means to them.
The neo-cons will do anything to win, and they’ve proved it – this is a language americans understand and appreciate, so long as they buy into the mystique. It becomes a question of who really means it, and with the neo-cons you can tell they really mean it, unlike with most management level progressives, who pay lip service to the mystique, but dont engender a lot of confidence in the fans.
So, my point is, if you are going to talk in the language of nationalist sports fandom– “Our Government has been taken over by Zionists”/ “My team is being run into the ground” — you should realize the game being played. If winning at all costs isnt for you, dont be a yankee fan, and if american dominance isnt for you, stop talking about the goverment like its “yours.”
haha, i knew libra was gonna come callin’
I wouldn’t worry too much Dan if Libra finds comfort in Ranjit Suresh’s views. Every Marine ought to know that our foreign policy planted the flag on the shores of Tripoli before there was any such thing as a banana republic.
U.S. isolationism meant periodic interventions in Caribbean and Central American Banana Republics and Pacific island outposts.
In fact our foreign policy was conducted by trade consuls that reported to the US Bureau of Foreign Commerce. They represented business interests that favored the application of armed force and the principle of servitude, which entailed all of those 99 year leases or perpetual rights to lands, natural resources, the Panama Canal, Guantanamo, & etc.
Those arrangements deprive other states of any real sovereignty and were based upon any convenient excuse at hand: level of civilization, protection of Christian missions, threat from communist intervention, or a functional utility with benefits that accrued to a particular speculator or business interest.
By the time the United Fruit Company signed their 99-year land lease in 1936 with President Ubico of Guatamala, the US Government had already negotiated America’s share of the Mesopotamian and Arabian oil fields through the post-War treaty conferences held in San Remo and Lausanne. By 1928 American government and oil industry representatives had endorsed the Red Line Agreement that created an international oil cartel in the former Ottoman territories of Asia.
FYI, 85 percent of the land that the government of Guatemala expropriated from the United Fruit Company for the use of the country’s poor people had never been placed under any kind of cultivation. So the backlash that the Eisenhower administration unleashed under the pretense of fighting communism was aimed at protecting the perceived value of the company. It’s difficult to pretend that our policy in Iran was unrelated. The very same United Fruit Company board directors and employees held the highest positions in the US government and helped engineer the overthrow of the government of Dr. Mossadegh in Iran to protect the British and US influence over the Iranian oil industry while pretending to fight the threat of communism. The list from mohammadmossadegh.com speaks for itself:
John Foster Dulles and the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell had been the legal counsel for the United Fruit Company for decades.
John Foster and Allen Dulles both were also major shareholders in the company.
General Robert Cutler, the head of the National Security Council, was the former Chairman of the Board of United Fruit.
Thomas G. Corcoran was a paid consultant for United Fruit while working for the CIA.
Ann Whitman, the wife of The United Fruit Company’s publicity director, was Eisenhower’s personal secretary.
John Moor Cabot, the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American affairs was a major shareholder in United Fruit. His brother, Thomas Dudley Cabot, the director of international security affairs in the State Department, had been United Fruit Company’s president.
John J. McCloy, the president of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was a former board member.
Walter Bedell Smith, the director of the CIA until 1953 and Robert Hill, the Undersecretary of State, were both on the Board of Directors of United Fruit during their retirement.
link to mohammadmossadegh.com
Pakistan is no longer treated as a sovereign state thanks to a US-imposed servitude. The US no longer requests permission to send troops into its territory or to conduct armed attacks there. It still is strenuously objecting to proposals for an Iranian gas pipeline deal that would compete directly with the US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India TAPI gas pipeline project that would benefit US oil interests. Pakistan must also accept the use of its territory for NATO supply routes.
From the outset of both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US government officials in the commodities trading industry, the petroleum and natural gas industries have openly tried to obtain concessions or to exploit existing ones to either suppress competition from national industries in the region or to impose pipeline routes or reconstruction projects from US-backed suppliers, while pretending to conduct a war on terror, e.g.
*http://tribune.com.pk/story/337737/iran-afghan-presidents-arrive-of-peace-talks-pipelines-and-regional-solutions/
*http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm
This post from Hostage gets my vote for all-time Mondoweiss Comment.
DAN CROWTHER- I’m hurt. Oh, I’ll admit that Hostage is impressive, but, unlike me, when has he ever made a compelling argument without resort to facts?
Dan the declassified documents that are available reveal Jewish Cabinet members are just as likely as their Gentile counterparts to consider Israelis in Israel as their pawns. They view Jewish community leaders here in the US as a problem, but have routinely advised “biting the bullet and ignoring the Jewish community to avoid having a hundred million Arabs hating the United States”.
If you’d like to see examples of the factors that drive our foreign policy, i.e. 1) servitude regarding the resources of other states, 2) level of civilization; 3) corporate interests, and 4) the threat or use of force, Document 363 Memorandum of Conversation, November 29, 1973 regarding the Arab Oil Embargo is a typical example. The Participants were:
*Dr. Henry A. Kissinger, Secretary of State and Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
*Dr. James R. Schlesinger, Secretary of Defense
*William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence
*Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
*Amb. Kenneth Rush, Deputy Secretary of State
*Major General Brent Scowcroft, Deputy Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs
The two Secretaries are persons of Jewish descent. If you read the FRUS, both men were fairly indifferent, and at times hostile to the positions taken by Israel. They were ready to show some US muscle and send in the Marines to take pressure off ARAMCO and keep the Soviets from driving the US out of the Middle East. In fact, a footnote explains that Schlesinger had briefed the NATO Nuclear Planning Group that the U.S. Government contemplated using military force to secure the oil fields in the Middle East, including launching airborne troops to seize the fields in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Abu Dhabi. Dr Kissinger complained that it was ridiculous that “the civilized world was being held up by 8 million savages” and that he had just spent three hours with King Faisal. Kissinger explains that whenever France, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union press for progress, the US must use Israel to stall and prove that only it can deliver a settlement for the Arabs. This is all about maintaining US domination and control, not about Zionism. See the memo starting on page 1035 of 1278 in the Foreign Relations Of The United States, 1969–1976, Volume Xxv, Arab-Israeli Crisis And War, 1973 (pdf) link to static.history.state.gov
P.S. Hang in there.
KahaneSmedleyChomsky was right!Keith– HAHAHA!!!!!
Awesome.
Cheers to you as well, Hostage.
OK Robert Kagan!
Actually, everything here is true. Kagan’s book Dangerous Nation has a point. But I would still like to cling to the myth that the Philippines marked a turning point. It’s one thing to expand in a continent, even at the shameful expense of American Indians. But it’s another thing to exercise imperialism halfway around the world. I don’t think we should be so quick to blur this distinction.
Exactly what is the distinction? I think that Bradley’s “Imperial Cruise” does a good job of laying out that the same racism which caused the continental imperialism was at the heart of the trans-oceanic imperialism. (And details alot of the racism of Teddy Roosevelt which has been whitewashed from the all-too-often sycophantic media and academic attention he’s been given.) I think that the US as a society has drunk so deeply of the koolaid of “Manifest Destiny” that we can’t intuitively grasp the fact that it was one of the top crimes in human history.
Man proposes and God disposes. Teddy roosevelt described the non ASWP ,no Teutonic races as beast and mongrels .He offered most vicious bigoted explanations of the disappearances of numerous past civilizations .Essentially he claimed all these civilizations (Indian,Egyptian,Chinese,Arab,Roman) were Teutonic white in nature who succumbed to defeat for allowing intermarriages between non-Teutonic and Teutonic but current ASWP would survive for it did not and would not allow the non white ,non Christians to live,marry,procreate or stay alive in any form or shape on this planet. His theory was wrong but emotion and destructive racism was real. Ask the Mexicans, Hawains, Phillipinos and Peurto Ricans.
.He did not survive to hear that non white has taken over the white in birth rate and the intermarriages is surging ahead.
“But in no way would US policy in the world be benign if they had no influence.”
The war ended in many parts of the world inlcuding in Phillipnies and Vietnam and n Korea for Americans were fighting for their interest and losing peopel who were Americans.cost became too much. In a paroxical world of parasite -host relationship , this equation does not hold up to the weight of the reality. In ME wars American have lost war,lost people and its business have suffered, despite this, it continues on same path.It does not know when to stop for the war-managers from Tel Aviv does not lose people and does not lose money while accumulating all the benefits. The only explanation is the stranglehold Israel enjoys over the Congress ,finances,and the media. Americans dont know that they have been losing money,people,and the wars.
“Maddow herself is adrift: untethered to reality.”
All of our political ‘industry’ is untethered from reality.
BWTTGASO.
American imperialism precedes Zionism, but today the two are almost synonymous. America’s Middle Eastern-centric foreign policy and strategic doctrine is incomprehensible without the Israel Lobby.
Not to provide apologies for it, but America’s original imperialism was Western Hemisphere and Pacific oriented. U.S. isolationism meant periodic interventions in Caribbean and Central American Banana Republics and Pacific island outposts. America’s rise as a world, rather than hemispheric power, largely coincides with the ascendance of American Jewry. Today the Obama administration makes noises about returning to an Asia-Pacific focused foreign policy, but in fact Syria, Iran, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc. seem more important than ever to American policy makers and defense establishment.
America as a super power was clear to the world in 1945, same as Stalin’s Russia. The internal collapse of the USSR left the USA the sole super power. The deterioration of this earned status was initiated by Bush Jr when he unilaterally attacked Iraq, when his personal quest to stick it to Saddam H for “messin” with my Daddy” combined with neoconic PNAC ‘s agenda, which had originated as a plan to benefit Israel. Bush Jr also relearned the 1948 Truman Zionist lesson his Daddy had forgotten, and was punished for. China (& to some extent India) has been the long term happy beneficiary, along with Israel, of US foreign policy coupled with international banking, although Iran benefited for a short while too.
The US Navy is growing in Asia, not just in the ME, yet the US is greatly in debt to China, and Israel is a parasite and anchor. There’s a reason why Israel is constantly courting China.
Somebody should send her an old copy of Marine officer Smedley’s book, War Is A Racket, yes? And give her a copy of The Israel Lobby too.
“America’s Middle Eastern-centric foreign policy and strategic doctrine is incomprehensible without the Israel Lobby.”
Our economy is utterly dependent on continuity in the ME. What happens on a daily basis in Egypt and the Gulf States is vitally important to every single American as it has an immediate impact on our economy, and the world economy. The only incomprehensible thing about our “Middle Eastern-centric foreign policy” is that it’s centered on Israel, and yes the Israel Lobby is responsible.
America’s original imperialism was Western Hemisphere and Pacific oriented.
The Barbary Treaties 1786-1816 confirm the fact that our interest in commerce already extended to the Ottoman coasts of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers.
link to avalon.law.yale.edu
The US established its first trade consulate in Palestine in 1832 and added offices in various cities over the years, including Jerusalem, Haifa, Acre, and Jaffa. –See Ruth Kark, American consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914, Wayne State University Press, 1994
In 1849 the US Navy carried out an Expedition to the River Jordan and the Dead Sea led by Commander W. F. Lynch link to history.navy.mil
The US didn’t declare War on the Ottoman Empire, but it demanded a share in the post-war settlements including the oil concessions in Turkish Asia. The San Remo Conference was mainly devoted to the squabbling over the oil fields in Mesopotamia, not to the allocation of mandates. Volume 1 of the League of Nations Yearbook reported that:
–link to books.google.com
That agreement was later remodeled to accommodate US oil interests during the Lausanne Conference of 1923, which dealt with the cession from Turkey and superseded the Treaty of Sèvres. There were further modifications in favor of other interests that resulted in the so-called Red Line Agreement of 1928. It established the international Middle East Oil Cartel. During WWII the US experienced shortages, established the strategic reserve, and entered into an agreement with the Cartel members. In the early 1950s the State Department reported that the US could no longer be energy self-sufficient and requested that the Federal Trade Commission not draw attention to the fact that a cartel controlled world oil prices. The editors of the 1943 FRUS cited a copy of the agreement in the possession of the Congress and a few of its details:
Our role in the 1950s in overthrowing the government of Iran, occupying Lebanon, assisting Great Britain in putting down opposition to the Hashemites in Jordan are all well known, together with our continuing involvement in Saudi Arabia and Gulf.
The Israel Lobby is certainly very, very, influential. It skews the hell out our policies on Jerusalem, illegal settlements, the Palestinians, arms sales, refugees, and relations with the other states in the region. But lobbying efforts have had failures and mixed results too. Its decade-long effort to get the US to rein-in the Iranians are a good illustration. The US still won’t agree to adopt the AIPAC agenda or desiderata. So the Lobby is obviously not always a deciding factor in the conduct of our foreign policy.
In general, the problem is that Maddow has a very shallow understanding of the topics that she covers and a severe lack of intellectual insight.
And her show is nothing but a dog and pony parade of witty criticisms that lack an intellectual anchor. It’s as though she is a stereotypical 14-year-old blogger, throwing around memes and regurgitating quotes by mainstream figures.
Right on Rachel. No understanding of why she has a show. Her often insipid and snarky comments are, indeed, those of a somewhat obnoxious teenager with lots of strong opinions, but little understanding.
I’ll never forget her making fun of pop Japanese aesthetic sensibilities called Kawaii. The more she went on trying to sound smart and witty, the more ignorant and shallow she showed herself to be. It was awful.
I’ll say it here: she is absolutely unbearable.
You’re right about Rachel, Ellen. The creator of Small Furniture and HBO’s Girls is a rabid fan of Rachel, as are her working partners. That should tell us all something. Recall when Rachel strolled around in Iraq in psuedo Arab-GI style, and she thrilled to her own firing of an M-16? She had it all filmed and shown on TV–including, near the end, where she bought a hand-made Arab rug for her mother. Just disgusting.
Rachel is adored by the likes of the creator of Small Furniture and HBO’s Girls. Did you see her in her semi-Arabic-US Marine stylish mode waltzing down that street in Iraq with that US soldier? She got to fire an M-16, then she bought a hand-woven Arab rug for her Mom, and went home. So cute. So feminist. So PC U could just die!
Maddow’s father was an Air Force officer.
She talks way to fast. Those millions that she is making must have set her ‘”adrift” her very selective human rights stances are especially revealing.
Maybe Maddow (not well known in the UK) cherishes an unduly rosy view about American history and about some American institutions. Still, if she is here and now opposed to militarism and all or even some of its works, some of her heart is in the right place and some of her ideas are sensible. She wouldn’t be the only one (might be in the same boat myself) to see a problem but have no realistic idea of how to put it right. She might still do some good. Not that (from what people here have said before) she is prepared to give any realistic attention to Palestine.
Well now, MHughes976, that’s the problem–just ask Zbigniew Brzesinski. He was interviewed early this year on the Diane Rehm Show, and again on CSPAN recently by Brian Lamb. He says how the US is handling Iran and the I-P conflict is the worse possible thing for the US and the World. The only thing equally threatening domestically and to the world –& there’s a connection, is gross selfish materialism as key political motive–American cultural decline as a model for everyone.
And there’s a connection between how American politicians are handling Iran and the I-P conflict and the prevailing motivation of gross selfish materialism. Ask AIPAC.
Thanks for reference to Zbig – must have a look at what he is saying.
empire usa from its inception, but right now with the the apartheid entity israel appearing to be the tail that wags the dog. and whether true or not perceptions do matter, which means that undoing the u.s.-israel special relationship could destabilize empire, in that it would have to justify more than a half century of multiple wars in support of a rogue apartheid entity. and what a grand opening this would present to progressives, what with my country right or wrongers frantically searching for explanations and scapegoats in order to absolve themselves of blame. a chance, perhaps, that the public, so as never again having to repeat such tragedies as have befallen us this past century, will be open not only to the possibility of another world, but eager and ready to create it.
Eventually boys and girls, eventually…..governments will have to give way to their citizens opinion, new leaders will be elected……the Israelis accelerate the world’s disgust with them every day.
link to bbc.co.uk
German unease
”President Gauck denied it – “I completely agree with Angela Merkel on this issue.” But the fine debate over the finest hint of a scintilla of nuance illustrates the sensitivity.
As well there might be. A poll conducted by the respected Forsa institute just before the visit indicated rising German unease with Israeli government policy.
According to the poll, 60% of Germans believe that their country has no special responsibility toward Israel because of the Holocaust, in contrast to only 33% of those questioned who thought that Germany does have a special responsibility.
On top of that, the poll indicated that 70% of Germans believe Israel pursues its interests without consideration for other peoples. ”
Yes, American. Recent polls do indicate what you say about German perception on the street. Also, consider that all the Germans who took any part in WW2 are either dead or retired. The government of Germany today has no Nazi past, nor do the great majority of its citizens. Yet they literally pay, and pay–to the Israeli government, most notorious in the world for accounts receivable coming in totally fungible. Every poll in the world points out that of all countries, Israel is always pinpointed as the country that has no consideration for other peoples. Duh, people really do look at deeds, not merely creeds. Well, actually, Israel’s creed is itself annoying to the world, to say the least.
The wiping out of the Indians
“Defender Wilson was raised on the Standing rock reservation in North Dakota. Among recurring themes in the old stories shared by Defender Wilson is the human being’s continual need for balance. ..Ancient wisdom remains vital especially in the areas where our primal needs still hold sway- food, anger, group pressure and sex”
I’ll take the native Americans over the evangelicals any day
Richard Congress wrote:
“The stark truth blows [Maddow's] whole rationale out of the water: the USA is good, good, good….”
Ah yes, another Chomsky at heart heard from, suckling endless self-congratulation at the finery of their own morals and ethics with their single-minded—and of course whiggish—obsession with America as the fount of all evil.
Truly interested in solving problems? Moving Americans to some perceived finer ground? Ha! It’s indeed the desire to *differentiate* themselves from that stinking hoi polloi that’s their internal combustion process, hence their oeuvre being the utterly unbalanced, total sliming of any and every aspect of American history, hoping to insult even the last remnant of patriotism that might be found in anyone’s breast.
America the unique monster; indeed the *only* monster worth talking about, with all monstrous roads leading to her. Hitler? Ah, supported and made possible by … Ford and American big business and anyway of course using capitalism as his launch-pad and enabler! Communism and Lenin and Stalin and Mao and their 100 million? Poor provoked agrarian reformers! Like Ho Chi Minh! Just *had* to whack those 50,000 landlords! Like Pol Pot for awhile for good old Noam too, although he had to dial that back eventually, didn’t he? Gotta sometimes throw an ideological chum overboard once in awhile for the sake of the cause I suppose.
Yeah, this’ll all move the American people in the right direction in the Mideast: Tell them how endlessly, thoroughly beneath disgust their country is and always has been and above all else demonstrate your love of spitting upon any and every conception of their patriotism for it….
Right….
Thank you, Richard Congress!!
Some people talk as if the Israel Lobby acted alone, thwarting an otherwise-benign US foreign policy. If you think that US policy in the Middle East is drastically different from US policy in the rest of the world, then there must be an explanation for this anomaly – and maybe the explanation is the influence of the Israel Lobby.
On the other hand, if US policy in the Middle East isn’t so different from US policy in the rest of the world, then there is no anomaly that needs to be explained.
The Lobby exists, of course. And it has a lot of clout. But the Lobby is pushing US policy in a direction that it naturally wants to go anyway.
Has Iran overthrown the Shah (pro-US dictator) and tried to leave the US empire?
The US responds with economic sanctions, threats of war, and a strategy to return Iran to the role of a US client state that it had before 1979.
Is there another similar case?
Look at Cuba, which overthrew Batista (pro-US dictator) and left the US empire.
The US responds with economic sanctions, an attempted invasion (Bay of Pigs), and a long-term economic siege. Yes, the Cuban exiles in Miami have some political influence, but even if they didn’t the US ruling would want to thwart the Cuban revolution.
Consider Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, who attempts to take Venezuela on a non-capitalist path, and encourages other Latin American countries to leave the US empire. The US responds with an attempted military coup (failed), an anti-Chavez referendum (failed), and general hostility to Venezuela.
Readers of MondoWeiss should consider the wise views of Joseph Massad, professor at Columbia University, who asks whether the Israel Lobby is solely responsible for the US policy in the middle East. Massad says absolutely not, US imperialism is the problem. Massad is hardly one to underestimate the power of the Israel Lobby, because the Israel Lobby tried very hard to stop him from being tenured at Columbia.
“[T]he [Israel] lobby is powerful in the United States because its major claims are about advancing US interests and its support for Israel is contextualised in its support for the overall US strategy in the Middle East.” (Source: Wikipedia page on Joseph Massad)
Amen, brother Massad!!
Massad missed the glaring differences over the nature and extent of the sanctions imposed on Cuba,Venezuela,or Azerbaizan by US compared to the one imposed on Iran by US and rest of the world under pressure of Israel through US.
Ned, Massad is new to me but here is his fuller version of his thesis which is remarkable similar to the views of Richard Congress.
He says this about the Israel Lobby:
The fact that it is more powerful than any other foreign lobby on Capitol Hill testifies to the importance of Israel in US strategy and not to some fantastical power that the lobby commands independent of and extraneous to the US “national interest.”
So he’s saying that Israel Lobby is the most powerful because it reflects the intrinsic importance of Israel to US strategy. Perhaps Ned you can explain what this central strategic importance is? Because I don’t find Massad’s explanation at all clear or convincing.
Well, yes, Nevada Ned, the US congress folk in each state always support the War business since they produce lots of jobs locally, so why not, they say to themselves, also support Israel since that’s a guarantee of military jobs in their state? The increasing enmeshment of US military and IDF just makes for the usual profitable business for both those congress folks and Israel. Nobody considers anything else.
Empire may have three functions. One is to secure raw materials and markets, lebesraum, this kind of stuff. Nowadays militarization fails to deliver on those counts. The second function is mesmerizing the lower classes into so-called “Grand Vision”. For examples, in XIX century British workers were often voting for Tories, and most recently, GOP had big electoral successes in the aftermath of 9/11 and glorious adventures of our troops. That does not work too well either. And lastly, oversized military provides jobs and fortunes. That still works.
But the ridiculously large US military needs missions. Just to defend US territory against a combined attack from Canada and Mexico AND a Chinese armada we need a small fraction what we have. Europe, however decrepit, is not under any threat. Australia, Japan, Singapore etc. may need some help to face China more boldly, but that does not require much resources either. So missions conceived with Israel in mind, against “radical Islam”, containment of Iran etc. are badly needed.
Even so, funding our adventures by borrowing from China makes little sense. Without a lobby that vigorously advocates that stupidity, we could follow the example of Great Britain or France that do not have empires anymore (except for few inexpensive vestiges).
i’ll add my criticism of congress’s screed, which shouldn’t be interpreted as a defense of that ignoramous maddow. congress complains about the superficiality of maddow’s analysis, then reduces 200 years of US history to the ‘relativist/same-ist’ argument that we hear incessantly from defenders of israel. no, US intervention in colombia or guatemala for United Fruit/Chiquita isn’t a ‘good thing’, nor is US intervention in afghanistan, but they are not the same thing at all. the interventions were motivated by differing US/international interests, and US intervention in central/south america does not inevitably lead to an invasion and occupation of iraq. thus the objectively reasonable argument that this particular ongoing intervention is a net negative for US business/oil interests. there is no way around it: the weakening and splintering of emerging ME powers is of greatest benefit to israel. US business had done just fine for 60-or-so years managing the various dictators and degenerate tyrants running things from libya to iraq, with the US tax payors assistance of course.
John McCain has just been blathering on bbcR4. He says we should be arming the Syrian opposition, setting up a militarily protected safe haven for them, but NOT intercepting arms deliveries to Assad & co, nor destroying them. Seeme to imply he’d rather see a long drawn out civil war than something short.
Incredible post. The truth hurts
“The USA has been an imperialist, predatory nation from the beginning. “Manifest Destiny” was the watchword for the march across the continent and the wiping out of the Indians; which begat the 1848 theft of half of Mexico, the 1898 war with Spain that led to planting the flag in Puerto Rico and Manilla; which presaged a revolving door of US military attacks and occupations in Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and on and on morphing in more recent history to funding and using the local military and oligarchs to put US puppet governments in power (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, El Salvador among others). Then there is 1954 and reinstalling the Shah in Iran and then the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Guatamala, both of which were CIA capers. Democrats and Republicans collaborated on all of these interventions.”
Reality can bite
What’s the evidence that Democrats participated in the 1953 coup in Iran? No doubt some “liberals” in the CIA were involved, but remember, Truman had refused to cooperate with Churchill’s Tory government in the overthrow of Mossadegh.
Kathleen
Try to tell above to any average american and you may just get your dental works rearranged!
They are so duped, that they still think we are the greatest democracy on Earth, god gave us this land, we are the land of the free and brave and all those wars are to liberate people and bring them democracy.
During 1976 I just happened to be in Buenos Aires as the military took over and could not understand all that hate against their own compatriots. Our CIA laundrymen did a great brainwashing, or was it financially motivated?
Could this ever happen in the USA?
I say yes, if you look at this nation with open eyes, the constant hate between different groups of people, religion, south against the north, etc.