| Author | Message | | Guest-cdbc | | Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 9:08 am Post subject: What Does the Bush Imperial Maffia Really Want? |
| What Does the Bush Imperial Maffia Really Want?
by William Blum
Which is the more remarkable -- that the United States can openly
announce to the world its determination to invade a sovereign nation and
overthrow its government in the absence of any attack or threat of attack
from the intended target? Or that for an entire year the world has been
striving to figure out what the superpower's real intentions are?
There are of course those who accept at face value Washington's stated
motivations of "liberating" the people of Iraq from a dictatorship and
bestowing upon them a full measure of democracy, freedom and other eternal
joys fit for American schoolbooks. In light of a century of
well-documented US foreign policy which reveals a virtually complete absence
of such motivations, along with repeated opposite consequences, we can
dispense with this attempt by Washington to win hearts and mindless.
Presented here are some reflections about several of the causes that make
the hearts of the imperial mafia beat faster in regard to Iraq, which may be
helpful in arguing the anti-war point of view:
Expansion of the American Empire: adding more military bases and
communications listening stations to the Pentagon's portfolio, setting up a
command post from which to better monitor, control and intimidate the rest of
the Middle East.
Idealism: remaking the world in what the true believers see as America's
image, with free enterprise and Judeo-Christianity as core elements; here is
Michael Ledeen, former Reagan official, now at the American Enterprise
Institute (one of the leading drum-beaters for attacking Iraq): "If we just
let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we
don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this
thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do
very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Oil: the sine qua non of Middle East policy, yesterday, today and
tomorrow; to be in full control of Iraq's vast reserves, with Saudi oil and
Iranian oil waiting defenselessly next door; OPEC will be stripped of its
independence from Washington and will no longer think about replacing the
dollar with the Euro as its official currency; oil-dependent Europe may think
twice next time about being so uppity.
Globalization: Once relative security over the land, people and
institutions has been established, the transnational corporations will march
into Iraq ready to privatize everything at fire-sale prices, followed closely
by the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organization and the rest of the
international financial extortionists.
Arms industry: As with each of America's endless wars, military
manufacturers will rake in their exorbitant profits, then deliver their
generous political contributions, inspiring Washington leaders to yet further
warfare, each war also being the opportunity to test new weapons.
Israel: The men driving Bush to war include long-time militant supporters
of Israel, such as Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith, who,
along with the rest of the powerful Israeli lobby, have advocated smashing
Iraq for years. Israel has been playing a key role in the American military
buildup to the war. Besides getting rid of its arch enemy, Israel could use
the opportunity to carry out its final solution to the Palestinian question
-- transferring them to Jordan, (liberated) Iraq, and anywhere else that
expanded US hegemony in the Middle East will allow. Iraq's abundant water
could be diverted to relieve a parched Israel.
Written by William Blum, author of "Killing Hope: US Military and CIA
Interventions Since World War II" and "Rogue State: A Guide to the World's
Only Superpower" -- www.killinghope.org
The JINSA Zionist extremist cabal (of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith, Elliott Abrams, and John Bolton) has hijacked the Bush regime and is pushing US to its coming war on Islam (beginning with the invasion of Iraq) for greater Israel and oil (Robert Fisk of the London Independent mentions in the following article that Dick Cheney was on the board of advisors for JINSA before becoming Vice President and helped put the other JINSA Zionist extremists into power in the current Bush regime):
Zionist JINSA Group in Bush Regime Pushing Iraq Attack:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011
Included below is that "Men from JINSA and CSP" article from "The Nation" magazine which Mr. Fisk mentions in his article referenced above:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020902&s=vest&c=1
The Men From JINSA and CSP
by JASON VEST
[from the September 2, 2002 issue of "The Nation" magazine in the USA]
This Zionist extremist agenda of JINSA (which is pushing for the US to attack Iraq and then Iran, Syria and North Korea) is confirmed by what JINSAN John Bolton mentioned in Israel today (according to what is mentioned in the Israeli Haaretz newspaper article which can be accessed via the following URL):
JINSA Zionist Extremist John Bolton Confirms JINSA Agenda in Israel Today:
We'll deal with Syria, Iran after Iraq war - John Bolton:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/17/we-ll-deal-with-syria-iran-after-iraq-war-john-bolton.php
JINSA Zionist Extremists at Pentagon to Control Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/04/radical-jinsa-zionists-at-pentagon-to-control-iraq.php
JINSA Zionist Extremists (in Bush Regime) Pushing US to War for Israel and Oil:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php
Recent polling is showing that 59 percent of the US public would like the UN weapons inspectors to continue with their work in Iraq (instead of having the US launch an invasion of Iraq for greater Israel and oil), and 2/3 of the US public are against the coming invasion of Iraq (if it is to occur without UN approval). I have the Constitutional right as an American patriot to expose Israel firsters (in the US government) who are associated with the JINSA (Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs) Zionist extremist cabal of Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and Dick Cheney (who was on the board of directors for JINSA before becoming Vice President and helped put fellow JINSA Zionist extremists Mr. Wolfowitz and Mr. Perle into power in the current Bush regime as conveyed by Robert Fisk in his London Independent newspaper articles which are referenced below).
This JINSA cabal (which has basically hijacked the current Bush regime) is pushing US to initiate a war on Islam (beginning with the invasion of Iraq) which has the potential to inflame the Middle East (as well as increase the risk of US experiencing further tragic terrorism). The Israel firster perspective may suit Likudite cronies in Israel (like General Sharon and Mr. Netanyahu as so eloquently conveyed by Mr. Fisk in his most recent article for the London Independent which is referenced first below), but it is not in the best interest of America:
Robert Fisk: The case against war: A conflict driven by the self-interest of America
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=378428
Cabinet Rallies to Blair as War Revolt Looms:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=379088
Zionist JINSA Group in Bush Regime Pushing Iraq Attack:
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=332011
JINSA Zionist Planned Iraq 'Regime Change' before Bush Presidency:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/31/bush-planned-iraq-regime-change-before-becoming-president.php
Washington's Zionist Chicken Hawks to Reshape Mid East for Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/10/25/washington-s-zionist-hawks-to-reshape-mid-east-for-israel.php
JINSA Zionist Extremist Richard Perle Does Not Speak for the Majority of Americans:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/05/every-patriotic-american-needs-to-access-this.php
War on Iraq: Conceived in Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/10/the-war-on-iraq-conceived-in-israel.php
Israeli sources say war imminent; Iran and Syria next:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/15/israeli-sources-say-war-imminent-iran-and-syria-next.php
The Threat of "Transfer" (Ethnic Cleansing) in Israel and Palestine:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/15/the-threat-of-transfer-in-israel-and-palestine.php
TOO MANY SMOKING GUNS TO IGNORE: ISRAEL, US JEWS, IRAQ:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/28/too-many-smoking-guns-to-ignore-israel-us-jews-iraq.php
UN REMARKS by Foreign Affairs Ministers of Syria and France (especially comments by Syria about US/UN double standard in not enforcing paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 against Israeli weapons of mass destruction as well):
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/14/un-remarks-by-foreign-affairs-ministers-of-syria-and-france.php
Iraqi Ambassador: UN/US Double Standard with Israeli Nuclear Weapons:
The UN (US) double standard for Israel with paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 against Iraq (which calls for the Middle East to be a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as mentioned below by the Iraqi UN Ambassador) is completely unjust (especially when it comes to Israeli weapons of mass destruction):
Iraq Turns Spotlight on Israel at U.N. Arms Body:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/31/iraq-turns-spotlight-on-israel-at-u-n-arms-body.php
The Return of Zionist Extremist Elliott Abrams:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/01/04/return-of-zionist-extremist-elliott-abrams.php
We'll give UN inspectors more time, says Blair:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=378501
Israeli Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth with 9/11:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/16/israeli-spy-rumors-fly-on-gusts-of-truth-with-9-11.php
HISTORY MADE AS MORE THAN A MILLION MARCH FOR PEACE:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12646938&method=full&siteid=50143
Kurdish Leaders Enraged by 'Undemocratic' American Plan to Occupy Iraq:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=379060
The following also appeared in the Daily Mirror in the UK:
HYSTERICAL? WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN
WHEN the Daily Mirror launched its campaign against the war on Iraq we were dismissed as lefty peaceniks, just opposing military action for the sake of it.
As the campaign continued the abuse intensified - we were accused of being 'hysterical, of "cynically chasing new readers, of over-reacting".
The crescendo of negativity reached a nadir with our BLOOD ON HIS HANDS front page, powerfully illustrating John Pilger's ferocious attack on Tony Blair for the impending slaughter of Iraqi civilians.
This was crass, offensive and way too personal, our critics said. Yet it was the exact same phrase Mr Blair used to denigrate the 1.5 million people who protested in London on Saturday.
What is now absolutely clear is that the Daily Mirror is right about this war. And Tony Blair is wrong. The Prime Minister is not a stupid man so he must realise in his astute head that he is beaten logically, politically and democratically.
The only support he has in this country is from a few lapdogs in the Cabinet - take a bow, John Prescott - the Tory leadership and newspapers owned by George W Bush admirers living in America.
Those one and a half million people who marched on Saturday are not the only ones who feel war would be wrong, needless and a total disaster. Each of them represents many more.
It was the biggest demonstration this country has ever seen. It rivalled the magnificent anti-Vietnam marches in the United States in the 70s.
In the past, protesters have been sneered at as long-haired hippies. That couldn't be said about Saturday's demonstrators. Young and old, working, middle, and upper class... Countless thousands of ordinary people united on one fundamental principle - war against Iraq at this time is wrong, wrong, wrong.
It is because Mr Blair knows he has lost the argument that he is lashing out. He claims to have scaled the moral high ground and accuses those who oppose his views of being as guilty as Saddam of murdering his victims.
Had the Prime Minister talked to the demonstrators, he would have found hardly any who supported the Iraqi tyrant - and the Mirror has no time for those who do.
Being against Saddam - or any other terrible regime - is a moral position to take. Sending in bombers to obliterate them, wiping out thousands of innocents in the process, is not part of most people's definition of morality.
If this sounds like hysteria, the Daily Mirror doesn't mind. If it takes obsessional, hysterical, head-banging to get over the message that this war must not happen, so be it. The option - though you wouldn't know this to listen to Mr Blair - is not between waging war and being obliterated by Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. There is a real, workable alternative - to control him through tough use of UN weapons inspectors. Which is the alternative backed by most countries and the vast majority of people in Britain.
Having lost the argument, it is Tony Blair who is plunging down the road of hysteria. Playing the morality card is not just offensive and ridiculous, but dangerous.
Where would it end? Having taken out Saddam, where would the US-British axis turn to next? Which other objectionable, tyrannical regimes would become targets for our bombs and invasion forces?
Will they be sent in to remove Zimbabwe's President Mugabe for driving his people into starvation? How about the terrible anti-human-rights record of the Chinese government - would we take on their immense population? Or what about the attitude of the Saudis to women and human rights? Or Israel's defiance of UN resolutions? It all smacks of one rule for Iraq and another for everyone else.
We should be told if we have just heard the Blair Doctrine - coming second-hand from the dangerous men who run today's White House - which will become our foreign and military policy at the start of the 21st century.
The world has one omnipotent power, whose military spending outstrips every other nation put together. That country, unlike those in Europe, has hardly suffered from attack. Yet this White House wants to bombard Iraq and then who-knows-where next. And it wishes to take the United Kingdom along on its coat-tails, a conspirator to mass slaughter.
If we are talking morality, perhaps Tony Blair could explain the morality in rigging reports of "evidence" to justify military invasion? Both America and the British government have done that in the past few days. Or maybe the Prime Minister could debate morality with some of the fundamentalists who threaten this country because they believe we live an immoral lifestyle.
Morality is the last refuge of a discredited politician. The final desperate hiding place of those who have lost the argument but refuse to accept defeat.
Tony Blair should ask himself if he is Prime Minister of a nation so steeped in immorality that one and a half million of its people will march to support their views.
Or whether the people of this country are desperately worried at the prospect of being dragged into a divisive, dangerous and murderous war.
There will not be blood on the hands of those who seek peace with strength. And we don't want there to be on Tony Blair's, either.
The Mirror will go on shouting that loudly, clearly, and if necessarily hysterically, until Mr Blair listens. | |  | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 10:17 pm Post subject: Israel's Proxy War? |
| Find this article at:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mshahidalam1.html
Israel's Proxy War?
by M. Shahid Alam
It has been apparent to all but the purblind ? a defect in understanding assiduously cultivated by America?s mass media ? that the war United States is ready to wage against Iraq has almost nothing to do with its security.
In an age when the people believe that their voices must be heard, the United States must sell its wars the way corporations sell their products. In the past, the people were asked to lay down their lives for visions of glory; now, governments appeal to their self-interest. The first Gulf War had to be fought to protect American jobs. If Saddam Hussain stayed in Kuwait, he would raise the price of oil, and Americans would lose their jobs.
The argument this time is different. It had to be weightier than any fear of losing jobs. This new war seeks regime-change; it involves greater risks. American forces must invade Iraq, defeat the Iraqi army, occupy Baghdad, and stay around, even indefinitely. Americans understand that "regime-change" is serious business. They would not back this war unless Iraq threatened American lives. That explains why the war against Iraq had to supersede the war against terrorism, and why Saddam replaced Osama as the new icon of America?s loathing.
This substitution was quite easily executed. Most Americans take the President at his word when he talks about foreign enemies; this trust comes more easily when a Republican occupies the White House. George Bush told Americans that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, and he had to be stopped before he could transfer them to Al-Qaida. (Why hadn?t he done this already?) For many Americans, it was an open and shut case. Saddam had to be removed.
The flaws in this argument did not matter. If Saddam hadn?t used WMDs during the first Gulf War ? when his army was being pummeled ? why would he use them now? The CIA warned that a war, or the threat of it, would increase the risk of Iraq using WMDs. Others, like Scott Ritter, a former chief weapons inspector for the UN, pointed out that Iraq did not have any WMDs that mattered. More than 90 percent had been destroyed by inspectors; if any escaped, they would be past their shelf life. At least initially, few Americans gave any credence to these doubts, though that has been slowly changing.
Why then is United States straining to go to war against Iraq?
The most popular theory on the left is that this war is about oil. According to one version of this theory, the White House, a captive of oil interests, wants to corner Iraq?s oil for American oil corporations. I do not find this credible. The power brokers in United States would not allow a single industry lobby, even a powerful one, to drag the country into a war which could hurt all of them, and perhaps badly, if the war plans went awry and produced a spike in oil prices. At the least, it is doubtful if oil interests, on their own, can account for the unobstructed rush to a mad war.
There is another oil theory. It argues that the American economy needs cheaper oil; this will save tens of billion dollars. Once Saddam has been removed, and Iraq?s oil supply restored to levels that existed before the first Gulf War, the oil prices will come down substantially. It is hard to reconcile this theory with a US-imposed sanctions regime that has drastically curtailed Iraq?s oil output for the past twelve years. If there were concerns that Saddam might use the oil revenues for a military build-up, that could be addressed by an inspections regime and selective economic sanctions.
There is also a third oil theory, one offered recently.[1] It maintains that this war preempts the Euro threat to the hegemony of the dollar. By pegging oil to the dollar, OPEC has been a key player in the arrangements that have maintained the dollar as the currency of international reserve. In October 2000, Saddam Hussein offered the first challenge to this system by switching Iraq?s dollar reserves to Euro. If OPEC follows Iraq?s lead it could spell trouble for the dollar. This can only be stopped by dismantling the OPEC, and this demands war against Iraq.
An OPEC challenge to the dollar sounds seems na?ve at best. This is hardly the kind of revolutionary action we can expect from an OPEC packed with client states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE; the oil price hike of 1974 could only occur in the backdrop of the Cold War. A precipitate dethronement of the dollar could produce consequences for United States and the world economy which would make the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 look like a storm in a teacup. Not even the EU would push for such results. On the other hand, there is a small chance that the war itself might validate this theory ? if it convinced OPEC that the war aims to dismantle the oil cartel.
If it isn?t oil, then, is this civilizational war, a war of the Christian West against Islam? This conjecture flies in the face of some obvious facts. First, this is America?s war. It is opposed by two key Western allies, France and Germany; and apart from Britain and Israel, the support of other Western countries lacks depth. More to the point, the overwhelming majority of Westerners outside the United States oppose this war. In United States itself, the anti-war sentiment has grown rapidly, and the most recent polls indicate a majority against the war if it happens without the support of the United Nations.
Is it then America?s war against Islamists? Even that is doubtful. Apart from the right-wing Christian extremists, led by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, nearly all Christian denominations have come out against the war. Everyone would agree that Al-Qaida constitutes the most serious Islamist threat to United States; they had proved it on September 11, 2001. And yet, we are ready to push this threat aside in order to wage war against one of the most decidedly secular of Arab states, one that spent ten years waging war against ?fundamentalist? Iran? Why not Wahhabi Saudi Arabia which supplied 16 of the 19 hijackers of September 11. Why not Shiite Iran? Their turn too will come, one hears neoconservative voices, to be followed by Syria, Egypt and Pakistan.
Why then is United States ready to wage this war against Iraq, ostensibly against its own best interests? Most sensible people agree that this is a war whose consequences cannot be controlled, or even foreseen. It may destabilize friendly regimes, bringing radical Islamists to power in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It may disrupt oil supplies, causing a price hike at a time when the global economy already weak and vulnerable to shocks. It may force Saddam to use his chemical and biological weapons ? if he has them ? leading United States to nuke Baghdad or Basra. It may fuel global terrorism for years to come, leading to attacks on American interests globally.
These anomalies quickly melt away if we are willing to entertain a seldom-aired hypothesis. This may not be America?s war at all, much less a war of the West against Islam or Islamists. Instead, could this be Israel?s war against the Arabs fought through a proxy, the only proxy that can take on the Arabs? This will most likely provoke derisive skepticism. Could the world?s only superpower be persuaded to fight Israel?s war? Is it even possible? Could the tail wag this great dog?
Consider first Israel?s motives. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan do not threaten the United States; but they are a threat to Israel?s hegemonic ambitions over the region. This conflict between Israel and her neighbors was written into the Zionist script. A Jewish state could only be inserted into Palestine by resort to a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. After such inauspicious beginnings, Israel could only sustain itself by keeping its neighbors weak, divided, and disoriented. It has since waged wars against Egypt in 1956; against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967; against Iraq in 1981; against Lebanon, since 1982; and against Palestinians continuously since 1948.
Israel?s contradictions have deepened since the mounting of the second Intifada. When the Palestinians rejected the Bantustans offered at Oslo, Israel chose Ariel Sharon, a war criminal, to ratchet its war against Palestinian civilians. Faced with Apaches, F-16s, tanks and artillery, in desperation, the Palestinians turned increasingly to suicide bombings. Sharon?s brutal war was not working, and Israel?s losses began to catch up with Palestinian casualties. In April 2002, Israeli tanks reoccupied the Palestinian towns, destroyed Palestinian civilian infrastructure, increasingly placing Palestinians under curfews, sieges, destroying their workshops, stores, hospitals, orchards and farms. This was the new strategy of slow ethnic cleansing through starvation.
This slow ethnic cleansing is only a stopgap. The most serious threat which Palestinians pose is demographic: their growing population could soon turn the Jews into a minority inside greater Israel. Since the Palestinians won?t live under an Israeli apartheid, the Likud, with growing popular support, is turning to Israel?s second option. If the apartheid plan were to fail, Israel would engage in large-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, more massive than the ones implemented in 1948 and 1967.
But Israel cannot do this alone. This ethnic cleansing can only be implemented in the shadow of a major war against the Arabs, a war to Balkanize the region, a war to bring about regime-change in Iraq, Syria and Iran, a war that only United States can wage. Israel needs United States to wage a proxy war on behalf of Israel.
It should be clear that Israel has the motive; but does it also possess the capability to pull this off? Is it possible for a small power to use a great power ? the only superpower, in this case ? to wage its own wars. Historically, great powers have often waged wars through lesser proxies; but that does not mean that this relationship can never get inverted.
What makes this eminently possible is the way an indirect democracy ? in particular, democracy in United States ? works. The demos elect candidates picked by powerful lobbies, ethnic, industry and labor lobbies; once elected, the officials work for the lobbies. By far the most powerful political lobby in this country works for Israel, led by American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC). There is scarcely a member of the Congress whose election campaigns have not been funded by AIPAC; several are funded quite heavily.[2] The power of the pro-Israel lobby in United States, however, does not start or end with AIPAC. The result of this massive power is a Congress packed with Israeli yes-men. No member of the Congress has dared to contradict Israeli interests and remained in office. Just last year, two members of Congress, Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKenny, were defeated by pro-Israeli money because they had stepped out of line.
Consider some of the achievements of the pro-Israeli lobby over the years. First, an estimate of the cost of Israel to US taxpayers. Since 1985, without debate or demurral, the Congress has sheepishly voted an annual foreign aid package of $3 billion to Israel, nearly two thirds of this in outright grants, and constituting one-third of all US foreign assistance. When estimated in 2001 constant dollars, the total foreign aid to Israel since 1967 adds up to $143 billion.[3] That amounts to a transfer of $28,600 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The official aid is only a small part of the cost of Israel to the US economy. We need to account for loan guarantees and write-offs, bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan in support of our Israeli policy, subsidies to Israel?s military R&D, boost in oil prices (attributed to US support for Israel in the 1967 war), losses due to trade sanctions imposed on Israel?s enemies, etc. When Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington, added up all these costs, he concluded that since 1973 Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion.[4] In per capita terms, this amounts to $320,000 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The US record on vetoes cast in UN Security Council constitutes another major achievement of the pro-Israel lobby. The US has cast 73 vetoes out of the 248 cast by all permanent members of the Security Council. On 38 occasions, these vetoes were cast to shield Israel from any criticism directed against its violation of human rights of Palestinians or the territorial rights of its neighbors. On another 25 occasions, US abstained from such a vote.[5] This does not include the votes cast by United States ? along with Israel, Tuvalu and Nauru ? against UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Israeli violations of human rights or Security Council resolutions. It would be difficult to maintain that the strategic interests of United States always demanded such a consistent voting record on Palestine.
I am aware that the notion of an Israeli proxy war against Iraq will be greeted with skepticism by not a few. I hope to have established that Israel possess in abundance both the motive and capability for such a war. There is some evidence that it has demonstrated this capability in the past also. In the words of Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of Britain, the Zionist leaders promised that if the Allies supported the creation of "a national home for the Jews in Palestine, they would do their best to rally Jewish sentiment and support throughout the world to the Allied Cause. They kept their word."[6] It is doubtful if Zionist influence now is weaker than it was in 1917.
This is not to argue that the pro-Israeli lobby is the only reason for the projected US war against Iraq. At present, there are several forces in United States that are pushing for this war. Prominent among these indigenous forces are the oil corporations, the arms manufacturers, the aerospace industry, and the right-wing Christian evangelists. However, it is doubtful if these indigenous groups, on their own, could have pushed United States so decisively towards the present catastrophic confrontation with the Islamic world. Certainly, the intellectual justifications for this hazardous confrontation have come almost entirely from the pro-Israeli lobby. And their intellectual input may have been vital.
Notes:
[1]http://www.sierratimes.com/03/02/07/arpubwc020703.htm
[2]http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm
[3]http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij1116.html
[4]http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
[5]http://middleeastinfo.org/print.php?sid=63
[6]Lilienthal, Alfred M., "What price Israel" (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953): 20-21.
M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. His last book, "Poverty from the Wealth of Nations," was published by Palgrave in 2000. | | | | Guest-cdbc | | Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2003 11:15 pm Post subject: It's Not Just the Oil |
| It's Not Just the Oil
By Stanley Heller (bio below)
Does a boxer fight with one hand tied behind his back? Why is the anti-war movement reluctant to talk about all the reasons for the drive to invade Iraq? Yes, major reasons for the permanent war drive are corporate greed for oil, dreams of political domination, and the lust to test weapons. But there's another one. Extreme right-wing forces from a foreign country and their powerful American backers are pushing the U.S. to invade Iraq and many other countries. I'm, of course, talking about Israel.
On November 12 Zev Chafets wrote an incredibly revealing article in the New Haven Register. In an article headlined,"Disarming Iraq is only a start in Middle East" he explained that the Arab and Iranian cultures were "irrational" and that nothing could be done to "improve the collective mental health of Arab societies". He proposed "giving the Arabs and Iran a stark choice .they can have sovereignty or jihad (in its secular or religious forms), but not both". He says "disarming" but of course he means invading the "Middle East's most hostile and deranged regimes".
Now, who is Zev Chafets? He was originally from Michigan, but went to Israel in 1967 and fought in their army and became director of the government press officer under Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He's now a columnist for the New York Daily News. He's ideas reflect the desires of Likud, the Israeli ruling party, one variant of extreme Israeli right wing opinion. The current party head, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is delirious for the war. In his mind, with Iraq leveled the Palestinians will give up hope and he then can go on to his other objectives, destroying the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
How is this influencing the U.S.? It's not blatant. When you go to the Anti-Defamation League site you see nothing calling for war with Iraq. Sharon doesn't have to engage in noisy public appeals. The forces that demand the Iron Fist as the answer to all problems (the Neo-Cons) are at the highest levels of the U.S. government. When I was in Hebrew School I remember the teachers railing at the State Department for being filled with "Arabists" who hated Israel. Nobody rational would say that today. The top officials and advisors to Bush are all rabid Neo-Cons. Some like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser actually worked for Israeli think tanks, writing grand papers for (Likud) Prime Minister Netanyahu on how the U.S. and Israel should take apart and reconstruct the Middle East.
Do we have to talk about Congress? Just a few days ago the House voted near unanimously to congratulate the Israeli government on its wonderful fair election. Here's a government that is in material breach of the Security Council "demand" that it remove its forces from the Palestinian cities and Congress offers it hugs and kisses. Is it any wonder? The Israel Apartheid lobby just knocked off a four term Congresswoman (McKinney) as it has done to Senators and Congressmen so many times in the past. Years ago a wit called Congress "Israeli Occupied Territory". The joke is still right on the mark.
Are we giving aid to anti-Semites by denouncing Likud-Neo-con influence? Not at all. In no way are we advancing the loony nazi charge that "the Jews" run the country. Sure, many neo-cons are Jews. Jews are also the leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement. The biggest Jewish organizations are backing Sharon, but most Jews don't support them. According to a 1995 survey by the American Jewish Committee only 22% of American Jews consider themselves Zionists. Most American Jews don't give a dime to the ADL or any other Israel boosting organization.
A small group of U.S. Jews are fanatical supporters of Israeli Apartheid and they shower it with money. But even though they seem to have the world by a string, it isn't so. When Israeli interests clash with American ruling class interests the tail does not wag the dog. [Ask Jonathan Pollard who's sitting out a life term in Danbury prison] The U.S. ruling class is overwhelmingly Christian and the fundamentalism that inspires it is Pat Robertson's evangelism, not Jewish Orthodoxy.
Our argument is angry but precise. When the Left denounces Sharon we mean Sharon. When we assail an obvious foreign influence we're not alleging some all-powerful secret plot. When we condemn Israeli apartheid we denounce a Jewish superiority state, not the idea that Jews should live in Israel and enjoy every human right.
With that said we owe it to Americans to tell them the whole truth, that part of the war drive is being fueled by a wacko militarist clique from Israel and its interlocking bands of American Jewish and Christian supporters.
We're told not to bring up Israeli influence on the U.S. because it would split our supporters. Well, who would it alienate? It would tick off a certain group of Jews, those Jews who are schizophrenic politically, people who can be liberal or radical on every cause except Israel. They learned democracy in school, but they're still intimidated by their grandmothers.
An example is Rabbi Michael Lerner. While at times he makes sharp criticisms of Sharon when it comes down to a critical moment he's on the wrong side. When Palestinians were making progress explaining the Right to Return he got into the editorial page of the New York Times denouncing the mass return of people to their homes. While he will criticize human rights abuses he does not call for any effective action, i.e. boycotting Israel goods or suspending Israeli foreign aid. Hundreds of Israeli Jewish activists are warning that Sharon might force mass deportation of Palestinians during the Iraq invasion, but Lerner calls it anti-Semitic to make a connection between Israel and the drive for an Iraq invasion. ("Singling out Israel in the context of a war rally about Iraq is racist." -Tikkun website 2/17/03). Lerner's vocabulary is that of a chauvinist. He uses terms like "pro-Israel" or "anti-Israel". He is constantly brandishing charges about "Israel bashing" and "anti-Semitism".
I will say this. It was wrong to ban him from speaking at the San Francisco demo because he criticized ANSWER. We all have a right and duty to make criticisms. I have plenty problems with the politics of ANSWER, and I wrote about it on Counterpunch. [Yet far from being anti-Semitic on January 18 ANSWER bent over backwards and made no connection between the Iraq war and Israeli government.]
We don't need Lerner. We don't need the American Friends of Peace Now who support Sharon's attempt to grab $12 billion more in American tax dollars. Include these types in your coalitions and you will waste hours and hours talking about the politically correct way to describe Israel. We do need Jews who are fully committed to equality and democracy, but they won't be angered by exposures of the Likud-Neo-cons.
Most importantly we need to be honest and tell the whole truth to Americans. They need to know of all the reasons behind the drive to conquer Iraq. Some of us used the following chant in NYC. I recommend it at your next rally. "Bush and Sharon, they say War. We say, No!, We say No!"
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Stanley Heller has been chairperson of the Middle East Crisis Committee (New Haven) since 1982. He is a moderator of al-Awda-Unity, a division of the Right to Return movement intent on encouraging Jewish activism. He can be reached at mail@TheStruggle.org | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:22 am Post subject: Israel's Proxy War? |
| Find this article at:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mshahidalam1.html
Israel's Proxy War?
by M. Shahid Alam
It has been apparent to all but the purblind ? a defect in understanding assiduously cultivated by America?s mass media ? that the war United States is ready to wage against Iraq has almost nothing to do with its security.
In an age when the people believe that their voices must be heard, the United States must sell its wars the way corporations sell their products. In the past, the people were asked to lay down their lives for visions of glory; now, governments appeal to their self-interest. The first Gulf War had to be fought to protect American jobs. If Saddam Hussain stayed in Kuwait, he would raise the price of oil, and Americans would lose their jobs.
The argument this time is different. It had to be weightier than any fear of losing jobs. This new war seeks regime-change; it involves greater risks. American forces must invade Iraq, defeat the Iraqi army, occupy Baghdad, and stay around, even indefinitely. Americans understand that "regime-change" is serious business. They would not back this war unless Iraq threatened American lives. That explains why the war against Iraq had to supersede the war against terrorism, and why Saddam replaced Osama as the new icon of America?s loathing.
This substitution was quite easily executed. Most Americans take the President at his word when he talks about foreign enemies; this trust comes more easily when a Republican occupies the White House. George Bush told Americans that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, and he had to be stopped before he could transfer them to Al-Qaida. (Why hadn?t he done this already?) For many Americans, it was an open and shut case. Saddam had to be removed.
The flaws in this argument did not matter. If Saddam hadn?t used WMDs during the first Gulf War ? when his army was being pummeled ? why would he use them now? The CIA warned that a war, or the threat of it, would increase the risk of Iraq using WMDs. Others, like Scott Ritter, a former chief weapons inspector for the UN, pointed out that Iraq did not have any WMDs that mattered. More than 90 percent had been destroyed by inspectors; if any escaped, they would be past their shelf life. At least initially, few Americans gave any credence to these doubts, though that has been slowly changing.
Why then is United States straining to go to war against Iraq?
The most popular theory on the left is that this war is about oil. According to one version of this theory, the White House, a captive of oil interests, wants to corner Iraq?s oil for American oil corporations. I do not find this credible. The power brokers in United States would not allow a single industry lobby, even a powerful one, to drag the country into a war which could hurt all of them, and perhaps badly, if the war plans went awry and produced a spike in oil prices. At the least, it is doubtful if oil interests, on their own, can account for the unobstructed rush to a mad war.
There is another oil theory. It argues that the American economy needs cheaper oil; this will save tens of billion dollars. Once Saddam has been removed, and Iraq?s oil supply restored to levels that existed before the first Gulf War, the oil prices will come down substantially. It is hard to reconcile this theory with a US-imposed sanctions regime that has drastically curtailed Iraq?s oil output for the past twelve years. If there were concerns that Saddam might use the oil revenues for a military build-up, that could be addressed by an inspections regime and selective economic sanctions.
There is also a third oil theory, one offered recently.[1] It maintains that this war preempts the Euro threat to the hegemony of the dollar. By pegging oil to the dollar, OPEC has been a key player in the arrangements that have maintained the dollar as the currency of international reserve. In October 2000, Saddam Hussein offered the first challenge to this system by switching Iraq?s dollar reserves to Euro. If OPEC follows Iraq?s lead it could spell trouble for the dollar. This can only be stopped by dismantling the OPEC, and this demands war against Iraq.
An OPEC challenge to the dollar sounds seems na?ve at best. This is hardly the kind of revolutionary action we can expect from an OPEC packed with client states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE; the oil price hike of 1974 could only occur in the backdrop of the Cold War. A precipitate dethronement of the dollar could produce consequences for United States and the world economy which would make the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 look like a storm in a teacup. Not even the EU would push for such results. On the other hand, there is a small chance that the war itself might validate this theory ? if it convinced OPEC that the war aims to dismantle the oil cartel.
If it isn?t oil, then, is this civilizational war, a war of the Christian West against Islam? This conjecture flies in the face of some obvious facts. First, this is America?s war. It is opposed by two key Western allies, France and Germany; and apart from Britain and Israel, the support of other Western countries lacks depth. More to the point, the overwhelming majority of Westerners outside the United States oppose this war. In United States itself, the anti-war sentiment has grown rapidly, and the most recent polls indicate a majority against the war if it happens without the support of the United Nations.
Is it then America?s war against Islamists? Even that is doubtful. Apart from the right-wing Christian extremists, led by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, nearly all Christian denominations have come out against the war. Everyone would agree that Al-Qaida constitutes the most serious Islamist threat to United States; they had proved it on September 11, 2001. And yet, we are ready to push this threat aside in order to wage war against one of the most decidedly secular of Arab states, one that spent ten years waging war against ?fundamentalist? Iran? Why not Wahhabi Saudi Arabia which supplied 16 of the 19 hijackers of September 11. Why not Shiite Iran? Their turn too will come, one hears neoconservative voices, to be followed by Syria, Egypt and Pakistan.
Why then is United States ready to wage this war against Iraq, ostensibly against its own best interests? Most sensible people agree that this is a war whose consequences cannot be controlled, or even foreseen. It may destabilize friendly regimes, bringing radical Islamists to power in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It may disrupt oil supplies, causing a price hike at a time when the global economy already weak and vulnerable to shocks. It may force Saddam to use his chemical and biological weapons ? if he has them ? leading United States to nuke Baghdad or Basra. It may fuel global terrorism for years to come, leading to attacks on American interests globally.
These anomalies quickly melt away if we are willing to entertain a seldom-aired hypothesis. This may not be America?s war at all, much less a war of the West against Islam or Islamists. Instead, could this be Israel?s war against the Arabs fought through a proxy, the only proxy that can take on the Arabs? This will most likely provoke derisive skepticism. Could the world?s only superpower be persuaded to fight Israel?s war? Is it even possible? Could the tail wag this great dog?
Consider first Israel?s motives. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan do not threaten the United States; but they are a threat to Israel?s hegemonic ambitions over the region. This conflict between Israel and her neighbors was written into the Zionist script. A Jewish state could only be inserted into Palestine by resort to a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. After such inauspicious beginnings, Israel could only sustain itself by keeping its neighbors weak, divided, and disoriented. It has since waged wars against Egypt in 1956; against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967; against Iraq in 1981; against Lebanon, since 1982; and against Palestinians continuously since 1948.
Israel?s contradictions have deepened since the mounting of the second Intifada. When the Palestinians rejected the Bantustans offered at Oslo, Israel chose Ariel Sharon, a war criminal, to ratchet its war against Palestinian civilians. Faced with Apaches, F-16s, tanks and artillery, in desperation, the Palestinians turned increasingly to suicide bombings. Sharon?s brutal war was not working, and Israel?s losses began to catch up with Palestinian casualties. In April 2002, Israeli tanks reoccupied the Palestinian towns, destroyed Palestinian civilian infrastructure, increasingly placing Palestinians under curfews, sieges, destroying their workshops, stores, hospitals, orchards and farms. This was the new strategy of slow ethnic cleansing through starvation.
This slow ethnic cleansing is only a stopgap. The most serious threat which Palestinians pose is demographic: their growing population could soon turn the Jews into a minority inside greater Israel. Since the Palestinians won?t live under an Israeli apartheid, the Likud, with growing popular support, is turning to Israel?s second option. If the apartheid plan were to fail, Israel would engage in large-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, more massive than the ones implemented in 1948 and 1967.
But Israel cannot do this alone. This ethnic cleansing can only be implemented in the shadow of a major war against the Arabs, a war to Balkanize the region, a war to bring about regime-change in Iraq, Syria and Iran, a war that only United States can wage. Israel needs United States to wage a proxy war on behalf of Israel.
It should be clear that Israel has the motive; but does it also possess the capability to pull this off? Is it possible for a small power to use a great power ? the only superpower, in this case ? to wage its own wars. Historically, great powers have often waged wars through lesser proxies; but that does not mean that this relationship can never get inverted.
What makes this eminently possible is the way an indirect democracy ? in particular, democracy in United States ? works. The demos elect candidates picked by powerful lobbies, ethnic, industry and labor lobbies; once elected, the officials work for the lobbies. By far the most powerful political lobby in this country works for Israel, led by American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC). There is scarcely a member of the Congress whose election campaigns have not been funded by AIPAC; several are funded quite heavily.[2] The power of the pro-Israel lobby in United States, however, does not start or end with AIPAC. The result of this massive power is a Congress packed with Israeli yes-men. No member of the Congress has dared to contradict Israeli interests and remained in office. Just last year, two members of Congress, Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKenny, were defeated by pro-Israeli money because they had stepped out of line.
Consider some of the achievements of the pro-Israeli lobby over the years. First, an estimate of the cost of Israel to US taxpayers. Since 1985, without debate or demurral, the Congress has sheepishly voted an annual foreign aid package of $3 billion to Israel, nearly two thirds of this in outright grants, and constituting one-third of all US foreign assistance. When estimated in 2001 constant dollars, the total foreign aid to Israel since 1967 adds up to $143 billion.[3] That amounts to a transfer of $28,600 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The official aid is only a small part of the cost of Israel to the US economy. We need to account for loan guarantees and write-offs, bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan in support of our Israeli policy, subsidies to Israel?s military R&D, boost in oil prices (attributed to US support for Israel in the 1967 war), losses due to trade sanctions imposed on Israel?s enemies, etc. When Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington, added up all these costs, he concluded that since 1973 Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion.[4] In per capita terms, this amounts to $320,000 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The US record on vetoes cast in UN Security Council constitutes another major achievement of the pro-Israel lobby. The US has cast 73 vetoes out of the 248 cast by all permanent members of the Security Council. On 38 occasions, these vetoes were cast to shield Israel from any criticism directed against its violation of human rights of Palestinians or the territorial rights of its neighbors. On another 25 occasions, US abstained from such a vote.[5] This does not include the votes cast by United States ? along with Israel, Tuvalu and Nauru ? against UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Israeli violations of human rights or Security Council resolutions. It would be difficult to maintain that the strategic interests of United States always demanded such a consistent voting record on Palestine.
I am aware that the notion of an Israeli proxy war against Iraq will be greeted with skepticism by not a few. I hope to have established that Israel possess in abundance both the motive and capability for such a war. There is some evidence that it has demonstrated this capability in the past also. In the words of Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of Britain, the Zionist leaders promised that if the Allies supported the creation of "a national home for the Jews in Palestine, they would do their best to rally Jewish sentiment and support throughout the world to the Allied Cause. They kept their word."[6] It is doubtful if Zionist influence now is weaker than it was in 1917.
This is not to argue that the pro-Israeli lobby is the only reason for the projected US war against Iraq. At present, there are several forces in United States that are pushing for this war. Prominent among these indigenous forces are the oil corporations, the arms manufacturers, the aerospace industry, and the right-wing Christian evangelists. However, it is doubtful if these indigenous groups, on their own, could have pushed United States so decisively towards the present catastrophic confrontation with the Islamic world. Certainly, the intellectual justifications for this hazardous confrontation have come almost entirely from the pro-Israeli lobby. And their intellectual input may have been vital.
Notes:
[1]http://www.sierratimes.com/03/02/07/arpubwc020703.htm
[2]http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm
[3]http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij1116.html
[4]http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
[5]http://middleeastinfo.org/print.php?sid=63
[6]Lilienthal, Alfred M., "What price Israel" (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953): 20-21.
M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. His last book, "Poverty from the Wealth of Nations," was published by Palgrave in 2000. | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:36 am Post subject: 'The Axis of Evil' |
| 'The axis of evil'
By Hasan Abu Nimah in Jordan Times - Wednesday, February 19, 2003
WE LIVE in a world that has never lived without a natural or man-made catastrophe in one or other of its corners. We have come to accept that some of these disasters are simply inevitable. But that is not the case when a superpower decrees that we must have a war for the most unconvincing, fabricated reasons, for an openly imperialistic ideology, for power and greed, and for distraction from other, glaring, failures. These reasons, and nothing more, lie behind the US drive for an attack on Iraq, supported primarily by the United Kingdom and Israel.
The irony is that more and more people in the world, especially in the Middle East, are starting to see these three countries acting together as the true “axis of evil”. Haaretz confirmed that Israel's “military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq”. (“Enthusiastic Israeli army awaits war in Iraq”, Haaretz, Feb. 17, 2003)
Israel's leadership hopes that the destruction of Iraq will lead to the total subjugation and defeat of Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Israel also hopes to benefit from deep divisions about Iraq among the United States and its European allies. According to the Israeli newspaper: “There is also excitement in the Israeli army's planning department over the stand-off between the US and its NATO allies. A paper distributed to the army's upper echelons even spoke of an opportunity to remove the pro-Palestinian Europeans from the Middle East. A senior source said Saturday that the US will punish the Europeans for their back-stabbing on the road to Baghdad, and will no longer ask them for input regarding Israeli concessions.”
This zeal for war and destruction is supposed to lead to an outcome where a defeated Arab world and a marginalised Europe cannot stand in the way of Israel, backed by an increasingly extremist and isolated United States, imposing any settlement it wants on the Palestinians. At best, what the Palestinians can hope for is direct Israeli rule with all their civil and national rights cancelled. This will be Israel's “generous” alternative to what many in Israel's leadership really want, which is the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Looking back, this is no more than an attempt to achieve what was tried — but failed — more subtly after the 1991 Gulf War. The main difference is that the first war was widely seen as justified by Iraq's clear transgression of invading and occupying Kuwait. What followed was essentially not different from what is planned this time. The 1991 war created “convenient” circumstances for an Arab-Israeli settlement. The PLO was severely weakened politically and hard hit financially, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians working in Gulf states were expelled and governments cut off their assistance to the leadership. The PLO was not even accepted as a direct participant in the October 1991 Madrid conference, and the talks which followed in Washington.
With Israel's position thus strengthened, and unlimited American diplomatic support (except for token and temporary US resistance to aid for Israel's colony-building on Palestinian land), Israel did not respond to any of the far-reaching Palestinian compromises offered for peace, including full recognition of Israel in advance and full acceptance of the two-state solution. Rather, Israel took advantage of the weakness and desperation of the PLO and, behind the backs of the Washington negotiators, hatched the secret Oslo agreement which must go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. This disaster simply laundered, with full PLO approval, all of Israel illegal war gains, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Negotiations were dragged on indefinitely in order to allow Israel the necessary time to achieve de facto annexation of all of the conquered territory.
By imposing, by brute force, a scandalously unjust and humiliating deal on the Palestinians, entirely denying their political and national rights, and by reducing the PLO to nothing more than a South Lebanon army-like police force for the Israeli occupation, Israel laid the grounds for the present Intifada and did not achieve the “peace” of the strong that it hopes for.
The warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv believe that this time round they can get it right, having failed twelve years ago, by going all the way. Once they impose “total defeat” on the Palestinians and Arabs, they believe a golden age will open for Israel, which will face no obstacles before it. This will not happen.
It is quite possible that an attack on Iraq will destroy that country and produce immense political pressure on Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is also possible that Israel, while world attention is focused on Iraq, will further intensify its campaign of war crimes against the Palestinians. It is even possible that by raising the level of atrocities even higher, Israel will claim to have imposed some sort of order on the situation, to have “defeated” the Palestinians. None of this will succeed. Israel, instead, will be guaranteed only more unrest, more determined resistance, more bloodshed and more horror.
The planned war against Iraq is an idea of a small group of ultra-pro-Israeli hawks who hatched it in the mid-1990s when they were advising the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Today, this same small group has hijacked American policy at the Pentagon. This group, that gathered around figures like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, is not concerned with Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”, human rights or terrorism. Their concern is the pure pursuit of power. For this group, there is no difference between American interests and the interests of Israel as defined by the most extreme elements. They have an obsession with the Arab and Muslim world that borders on hatred.
While it is easy to trace the growing influence of this group on an American establishment that has always allowed Israel to set the agenda for US policy in the Middle East, the UK's slavish commitment to this group is more puzzling. The British people are clearly concerned about how their prime minister seems to have transformed himself into America's deputy secretary of state in pursuit of an agenda that holds nothing positive for Britain. The UK always calculated that by forging a “special relationship” with the United States, it would gain influence both in America and in Europe. Prime Minister Tony Blair's foolish policies have done the opposite. The Americans simply take British support for granted, while Britain's position in Europe is worse even than it was under Thatcher. And for what? Blair claims that the UK is in danger from global terror. Maybe so, but many of his people answer that his dangerous policies are exposing the country to such terror rather than dealing effectively with any threat.
The voices of the tens of millions who marched for peace all over the world are sending a loud message to the United States, Britain and Israel, the three pillars of this new axis, if not of “evil”, then at least of raw, dangerous power and colonialism. These are voices of truth and reason. They are voices which bridge the gulf of misunderstanding, fear and suspicion between the West and the rest of the world, that figures like Bush, Blair and Sharon are fuelling. Let us hope that the millions who came out will act as an urgently needed check on the forces who relish war and use words like “justice” and “peace” only to mock them. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
