Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
US Aid to Israel: A Stark Truth
One does not normally see this truth stated so starkly in places like Time Magazine -- from Michael Scherer's interesting article on AIPAC's current strategy to "storm Congress":
The third "ask" that AIPAC supporters will make of Congress on Tuesday is to once again pass the $3 billion in U.S. aid provided annually to Israel. "It's a very tough ask this year," [AIPAC lobbyist Steve] Aserkoff admitted, noting the U.S. domestic budgetary and economic challenges. Among other major purchases, the Israeli government has announced plans to replace its aging fleet of F-16 fighter jets with new, American-made F-35 fighters, a major cost that Israel hopes will be substantially born for [sic] by American taxpayers.
Those would be the same "American taxpayers" who are now being told that they have to suffer cuts in Medicare and Social Security because of budgetary constraints, who are watching as the most basic social services (the hallmark of being a developed country) are being rapidly abolished (from the 12th Grade to basic care for children, the infirm and elderly), and are burdened with a national debt so large that America's bond ratings are being degraded by the minute. Why should those same American taxpayers bear the enormous costs of Israel's military purchases (as Israel enjoys booming economic growth)? Especially if the issue is presented as cleanly and honestly as Scherer did here, and especially if Israel continues to extend its proverbial middle finger to even the most basic U.S. requests that it cease activities that harm our interests, how much longer can this absurdity be sustained?
On a related note, a new Rasmussen Poll found that only 58% of Americans now view "Israel as an ally" -- down from 70% just nine months ago. The same poll found that 49% of Americans believe Israel should be "required" to stop building settlements, with only 22% disagreeing. That's why the primary objective now of AIPAC and its bipartisan cast of Congressional servants is -- as Scherer put it -- "to pressure the Obama Administration to avoid airing disagreements publically [sic]." Indeed: you can't have the American people knowing anything about the U.S./Israel relationship and the ways in which the interests of the two countries diverge.
Having these issues discussed openly and having the American citizenry be informed might shatter all sorts of vital myths, which is exactly what has happened over the last month, which has, in turn, led to this change in public opinion (that, along with the fact that the Israeli Government, by being viewed as the opponent of Obama, has incurred the wrath of large numbers of Democrats who are loyal to Obama and automatically dislike any of his critics or opponents). That's why their overriding goal is to hide all these differences behind a wall of secrecy -- "the Administration, to the extent that it has disagreements with Israel on policy matters, should find way[s] to do so in private," demanded Democratic Rep. Steve Israel -- because an open examination of this "special relationship," how it really functions, and the costs and benefits it entails, is what they want most to avoid. It's common in a democracy for government officials to openly air their differences with allies; why should this be any different?
- Posted in
53 Comments so far
Show AllOnce again, everybody:
Israel is NOT Americas's ALLY. Israel is America's CLIENT STATE.
No, not quite. Actually, America is Israel's BITCH.
"On a related note, a new Rasmussen Poll found that only 58% of Americans now view "Israel as an ally" --"
Ally?!? As the song goes ... "What have you done for me lately?"
No. Israel is America's Colony.
Suggestion: withdraw aid until a viable two state solution is realized.
Dream on. Israel would have to risk civil war with the violent settlers at this point if they tried to implement a two-state solution. Indeed they have allowed and encouraged the settlements precisely so there could never be a two-state solution. The sole remaining choice is one democratic state for all peoples living within its boundaries, or ethnic cleansing/genocide. Unfortunately most Israelis, and most of their backers abroad, Jewish and non-Jewish, prefer the latter, though they refuse to look it in the face, at least not in public.
Civil war in Israel would be a good thing -- that would be an excuse for the US to plant military 'security forces' there and directly take over the country...
Iraq didn't work out oo well, so we still want a military foothold in the region to serve our empire, and it would go right in line with what we do in other countries when the locals get uppity and ignore orders from the US. We even get a free nuclear arsenal.
So sure -- let's take over another country, and steal all their wealth -- Lord knows we can use the money, and we can set up sweat shops in Israel as well as in Haiti. There isn't much time left before the empire collapses anyway, so we might as well make best use of what time is left. We can move all the troops in Iraq to Israel -- we don't want to stay there anyway now that's it's full of radioactive contamination. Just think of the shocked look on the Knesset's faces when we announce Israel has been assimilated and now all their bases are belong to us -- that would be funny to watch.
What mineral would we steal? Silicon?
Sand is actually listed as one of Israel's natural resources (along with potash, timber, copper -- a few other things -- not all that much)-- but maybe it's good for semiconductors and solar panels? (grin).
Still, there is some other wealth there, including a fair bit of manufacturing. It's hard to know what might yet be discovered, or revealed. Every little bit helps -- but I'd guess the main resource might be location, location, location. (And a large supply of well-trained propagandists.)
I disagree with you, clovis.
I stand by my position that the two-state-solution is the only safe, sane and sensible solution to this whole conflict, and that Israel must pull their troops and rightwing Israeli jewish settlers out of West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem right now, even if it means risking a civil war with the rightwing extremist Israeli Jewish settlers. With a one-state solution, they'd be trading off one civil war for another. Israeli Jews and Palestinians cannot live together in one state, as the violence indicates. Good fences, imho, make good neighbors, and the two-state solution is the only way to go.
I like the way defenders of Israel love to deplore, in the abstract, "the violence." No one is responsible, just human foibles.
That said, mr or ms independentminded, I too would be willing to accept a two-state solution, even if it would not be the fairest. It's that I've seen no indication on the part of Israel--NOT EVEN after Oslo, when they immediately started building new settlements--that they really want this. Nor have I seen ANY political will amongst that country's rulers to confront the messianic extremism of most of the settlers. It is simply on the basis of what I've observed over the course of my adult life that I think that the "two-state solution," all along, has only been a smokescreen and stalling tactic on Israel's part, as they continue to seize more land and resources.
I have a better idea. Instead of giving them three billion dollars, let's bulldoze them into the sea.
I HEARTILY second this suggestion made by shach!
And force AIPAC to register as a foreign agent with the U.S. State Department.
Good idea, schach. However, Israel should be warned, under no uncertain terms, of their aid being cut off, unless they begin withdrawing their troops and settlers from West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem...NOW, and stop the indiscriminate rough treatment of innocent Palestinian Civilians in those territories, and to allow an independent, sovereign Palestinian nation-state to emerge in the Occupied Territories (i. e. West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem).
Will my elected officials continue to spend my taxes and diplomatic cover for ethnic cleansing and genocide? Perhaps AIPAC as a foreign agent will try to vote next November for international criminality but I for one shall not.
Feudal systems, monarchies, empires and totalitarian political structures such as the soviet Union crumbled, in part, under the weight of their internal contradictions. What is well illustrated in this article are just such contradictions. We have many democratic freedoms in the US, yet when power is threatened, or feels the need to project itself, our system can be as totalitarian as any.
...
Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from the rest of the world to such an extent that it is easier for Palestinians in Israel or the West Bank to visit relatives in prison than visit a relative in Gaza. This is one conclusion of the 100-page report that B’Tselem and HaMoked publish today. One Big Prison documents the ongoing violations of human rights and international law resulting from Israel’s restrictions on the movement of people and goods between Gaza and the West Bank, Israel, and the rest of the world.
...
As a result of the economic siege on Gaza, more than 77 percent of Gazans (1,033,500 people) now live below the poverty line – almost double the number before the intifada. Some 23 percent of Gazans (over 323,000 people) are in “deep poverty,” meaning that they do not reach the subsistence poverty line even after receiving aid from international agencies.
The forced isolation of Gaza tears many Palestinians from their families, and in some cases even separates spouses. The report includes the testimonies of a woman whose husband was expelled from the West Bank to Gaza, and of a mother whose son has never seen his father.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/cur_sit/gaza-strangled.html
Israeli military reoccupation of the West Bank and Gaza—a system of military checkpoints splitting towns and villages into ghettos, curfews, closures, raids, mass demolition and destruction of houses (more than 60 000), and land expropriations—has made ordinary life impossible for everyone, and is driving Palestinian society and its institutions towards destitution. Moreover, Israel has been constructing a grotesque barrier that, when completed, will total over 400 miles—four times longer than the Berlin Wall. Extending up to 15 miles into Palestinian territory, the real purpose of the wall is permanently to lock more than 50 illegal Israeli settlements into Israel proper. This is expansive, aggressive colonisation, in defiance of the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the United Nations General Assembly resolution of last July.
Last year a UN rapporteur concluded that Gaza and the West Bank were "on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe." The World Bank estimates that 60% of the population are subsisting at poverty level (£1.12; $2; 1.6 per day), a tripling in only three years. Half a million people are now completely dependent upon food aid, and Amnesty International has expressed concern that the Israeli army has been hampering distribution in Gaza. Over half of all households are eating only one meal per day. A study by Johns Hopkins and Al Quds universities found that 20% of children under 5 years old were anaemic, 9.3% were acutely malnourished, and a further 13.2% chronically malnourished. The doctors I met on a professional visit in March pointed to a rising prevalence of anaemia in pregnant women and low birthweight babies.
The coherence of the Palestinian health system is being destroyed. The wall will isolate 97 primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the populations they serve. Qalqilya hospital, which primarily serves refugees, has seen a 40% fall in follow up appointments because patients cannot enter the city. There have been at least 87 documented cases (including 30 children) in which denial of access to medical treatment has led directly to deaths, including those of babies born while women were held up at checkpoints. The checkpoint at the entrance to some villages closes at 7 pm and not even ambulances can pass after this time. As a recent example, a man in a now fenced in village near Qalqilya approached the gate with his seriously ill daughter in his arms, and begged the soldiers on duty to let him pass so that he could take her to hospital. The soldiers refused, and a Palestinian doctor summoned from the other side was also refused access to the child. The doctor was obliged to attempt a physical examination, and to give the girl an injection, through the wire.
There are consistent reports of ambulances containing gravely ill people being hit by gunfire, or detained at checkpoints while drivers and paramedics are interrogated, searched, threatened, humiliated, and assaulted. Wounded men are abducted from ambulances at checkpoints and sent directly to prison. Clearly marked clinics are fired on, and doctors and other health workers shot dead on duty.
quoted in:
http://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/publish/article_409.shtml
Thank you for the historical information and a willingness to share details that so many refuse to look at.
Many thanks, mcoyote, for posting all of this.
You know what is ironic in this tragedy? Israel is doing to Gaza basically what Germany did to Warsaw.
More context:
...
Rabbi Gedalya Liebermann exposes how, in WWII and even after, humanitarian rescue efforts to rescue Jewish lives were consistently "subverted to narrow Zionist interests":
...
"No Shame"
President Roosevelt convened the Evian conference July 6-15 1938, to deal with the Jewish refugee problem. The Jewish Agency delegation headed by Golda Meir (Meirson) ignored a German offer to allow Jews to emigrate to other countries for $250 a head, and the Zionists made no effort to influence the United States and the 32 other countries attending the conference to allow immigration of German and Austrian Jews.
On Feb 1, 1940 Henry Montor executive vice-President of the United Jewish Appeal refused to intervene for a shipload of Jewish refugees stranded on the Danube river, stating that "Palestine cannot be flooded with... old people or with undesirables."
It is an historical fact that in 1941 and again in 1942, the German Gestapo offered all European Jews transit to Spain, if they would relinquish all their property in Germany and Occupied France; on condition that: a) none of the deportees travel from Spain to Palestine; and b) all the deportees be transported from Spain to the USA or British colonies, and there to remain; with entry visas to be arranged by the Jews living there; and c) $1000.00 ransom for each family to be furnished by the Agency, payable upon the arrival of the family at the Spanish border at the rate of 1000 families daily.
The Zionist leaders in Switzerland and Turkey received this offer with the clear understanding that the exclusion of Palestine as a destination for the deportees was based on an agreement between the Gestapo and the Mufti.
The answer of the Zionist leaders was negative, with the following comments: a) ONLY Palestine would be considered as a destination for the deportees. b) The European Jews must accede to suffering and death greater in measure than the other nations, in order that the victorious allies agree to a "Jewish State" at the end of the war. c) No ransom will be paid. This response to the Gestapo's offer was made with the full knowledge that the alternative to this offer was the gas chamber.
These treacherous Zionist leaders betrayed their own flesh and blood. Zionism was never an option for Jewish salvation. Quite the opposite, it was a formula for human beings to be used as pawns for the power trip of several desperadoes. A perfidy! A betrayal beyond description!
In 1944, at the time of the Hungarian deportations, a similar offer was made, whereby all Hungarian Jewry could be saved. The same Zionist hierarchy again refused this offer (after the gas chambers had already taken a toll of millions).
The British government granted visas to 300 rabbis and their families to the Colony of Mauritius, with passage for the evacuees through Turkey. The "Jewish Agency" leaders sabotaged this plan with the observation that the plan was disloyal to Palestine, and the 300 rabbis and their families should be gassed.
On December 17, 1942 both houses of the British Parliament declared its readiness to find temporary refuge for endangered persons. The British Parliament proposed to evacuate 500,000 Jews from Europe, and resettle them in British colonies, as a part of diplomatic negotiations with Germany. This motion received within two weeks a total of 277 Parliamentary signatures. On Jan. 27, when the next steps were being pursued by over 100 M.P.'s and Lords, a spokesman for the Zionists announced that the Jews would oppose the motion because Palestine was omitted.
On Feb. 16, 1943 Roumania offered 70,000 Jewish refugees of the Trans-Dniestria to leave at the cost of $50 each. This was publicized in the New York papers. Yitzhak Greenbaum, Chairman of the Rescue Committee of the Jewish Agency, addressing the Zionist Executive Council in Tel Aviv Feb. 18 1943 said, "when they asked me, "couldn't you give money out of the United Jewish Appeal funds for the rescue of Jews in Europe, I said NO! and I say again, NO!...one should resist this wave which pushes the Zionist activities to secondary importance." On Feb. 24, 1943 Stephen Wise, President of the American Jewish Congress and leader of the American Zionists issued a public refusal to this offer and declared no collection of funds would seem justified. In 1944, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People called upon the American government to establish a War Refugee Board. Stephen Wise testifying before a special committee of Congress objected to this proposal.
During the course of the negotiations mentioned above, Chaim Weizman, the first "Jewish statesman" stated: "The most valuable part of the Jewish nation is already in Palestine, and those Jews living outside Palestine are not too important". Weizman's cohort, Greenbaum, amplified this statement with the observation "One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Europe".
And then, after the bitterest episode in Jewish history, these Zionist "statesmen" lured the broken refugees in the DP camps to remain in hunger and deprivation, and to refuse relocation to any place but Palestine; only for the purpose of building their State.
In 1947 Congressman William Stration sponsored a bill to immediately grant entry to the United States of 400,000 displaced persons. The bill was not passed after it was publicly denounced by the Zionist leadership.
...
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/antisemitism/holocaust/gedalyaliebermann.cfm
I would like to know more about the AIPAC attendees and the roles they play in local, state and federal government, and the power that they might wield in commerce, medial and education.
The AIPAC website had an agenda for the meeting on its website prior to the meeting including listing all the speakers, if that helps, however, that doesn't include the attendees. I don't know if the agenda is still posted.
Our nat'l debt is now over $12 trillion. I can't seem to find figures on israel's nat'l debt. Perhaps they don't have one? Is there a nat'l surplus? Should they be giving us foreign aid? How much aid have we given them in the past? Imagine what we could have done with that money.
Yes, I believe Israel does have a surplus, though I can't presently document that.
Zionism is the enemy of peace in the Middle East. America should cease supporting Zionism.
Providing weapons to Israel is against both US and International laws. By the way, all of the white phosphorus shells dropped on the Gaza civilians were made in the USA.
International law? lol!
That's a good one!
Can this be why the U.S. has joined Israel in calling the Goldstone Report "faulty?"
If we were to admit the truth of the Goldstone Report, we, too, could be charged with war crimes because we supplied a war criminal state with the means to wage war against unarmed civilians.
...58% of Americans now view "Israel as an ally" -- down from 70% just nine months ago.
------------------------
A mafia has no allies, only lieutenants.
In this case, however, I'm not sure which country is the 'Don'.
Now that Gneral David Petreaus, Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have made it abundantly clear that Israel's intrnsigence with respect to resolving the Mideast conflict not only fuels Arab/Islamic anger but puts Americans at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq, how is it that the Secretary of State can say that "When we strengthen Israel's security we strengthen American security?" - Say that when right now the settler-state's brutal siege of Gaza is stoking the violence that's taking the lives of our soldiers in Afghanistan? What she should be saying, instead, is that unless the settler-state calls off this latest land grab in East Jerusalem by the day after tomorrow, there'll be a cutoff of all U.S. aid, military as well as financial. And when the Israeli PM insists that the status of Jerusalem is for Israel alone to decide and not an American concern, the Secretary of State's response has to be something like "Contrariwise, Mr. PM, being that it effects the lives of our loved ones in Afganistan and Iraq as well as our nation's security, what happens in Jerusalem, indeed, is of great concern to America. For this reason the special relationship between our two countries is hereby ended, such that, no longer will the tail be wagging the dog.
If any lobby can exert greater pressure than AIPAC, it would be the U.S. military. Unfortunately, the military concerns have more to do with fulfilling geopolitical missions elsewhere than they do with the Israeli-Palestinian situation as such. Any "band-aid" thus seems likely to be more cosmetic than curative.
How in the world can 58% of Americans view Israel as an ally? Are Americans the dumbest people on earth?
Israel slaps America in the face when we try to start peace talks and somehow, zionist Clinton still vows sanctions to Iran at AIPAC meetings instead of any threat against Israel. I guess I answered my own question. If 'leaders' are so stupid, how can I expect every day Americans to be any different?
It sometimes does seem that many Americans can be pretty dumb about a lot of things. But not really any dumber than other humans on average, I don't think. It might be more charitable to look at it as a tribute to the U.S. propaganda machine. Joseph Goebbels could have taken lessons -- and did to some extent.
Even the Russians regarded it with considerable admiration. There was an old saying in the USSR about the major difference between the two peoples: the Russians generally knew that their government was always lying. Indications that Americans may be waking up to that same reality are relatively recent.
It's also noteworthy with regard to Israel in particular that their own media are more freely critical than U.S. counterparts. Compare Faux News with some Haaretz items on the subject, for example. Americans can more justly be criticised for overwhelming introversion in general, thus depriving themselves of much critical examination of the facts on the ground from a global perspective.
[It sometimes does seem that many Americans can be pretty dumb about a lot of things. But not really any dumber than other humans on average, I don't think. ]
Quite right. In fact I'd argue that all of us are utterly ignorant about at least one thing, most of us are ignorant about a lot of things. Not all of humanity knows how to do everything and becoming an expert on any single issue means that you have less time or energy to learn something else. Heck even the dumbest person I ever met knew a heck of a lot more about hockey than I've ever given a damn about. (no insult or disrespect meant towards any hockey or other sports fans...)
As for the article, man. It hurts to think that Israel wants to get the best fighter the US has in production (well, the newest. Might be a flying lemon.) and to get it without paying anything for it. That's just nuts. In fact, you might argue that those who think that should happen are even dumber than the dumbest guy I've ever met.
As a Canadian I can attest to the fact that in general Americans are no dumber than Canadians. The propaganda machine is a world wide phenomenon.Every western nation has conditioned their citizens to not only support but to clamor for policies that are harmful to them and their families.
However I have noticed that more people are starting to realize this. Some of the people who called me loony and mad whenever I broached the subject are now starting to listen and a few even have come around and now are wide awake.
Mrs. C's not dumb; she's prepping action against Iran. Just because the US does not wish to open another active front right now (I hope and expect), does not mean that they do not plan to take over eventually, cheaply if possible but by direct invasion if necessary.
Part of the American problem is that we suffer from a severe over-representation in the US Senate with twelve Jewish Senators. Note that only three percent of the US population is Jewish. This means that they are over-represented by a factor of four. How many Muslim Senators do we have? Zero. The Muslim population in America is several million. How many black Senators do we have? One. What percent of the US population is black? About 12%. Severe under-representation...
It has been claimed that:
[Quote]
Part of the American problem is that we suffer from a severe over-representation in the US Senate with twelve Jewish Senators. Note that only three percent of the US population is Jewish. This means that they are over-represented by a factor of four. How many Muslim Senators do we have? Zero. The Muslim population in America is several million. How many black Senators do we have? One. What percent of the US population is black? About 12%. Severe under-representation...
[End Quote]
There are a few problems with this statement. One problem is that the author doesn't seem to realize that the Senate is not a body that represents by population count, but by state... two senators each. Another problem is in the idea that it's somehow wrong for the makeup of an elected body not to completely mirror that of the general population. (Or is the author only meaning to focus on ethnicity... specifically Jewishness?) Yet another problem is that, apparently, the people who elected this overabundance of Jews were somehow wrong to do so.
What exactly is the author's point here?
$$ to Israel will require little public support in the US because the government supports it.
U$ corporations that want to expand in the Middle East find Israeli violence and prejudice mostly convenient. It fuddles a good part of their Jewish critics in the States and draws public fire from their own atrocities across the world.
The day Washington finds Israel inconvenient, we'll see how the tail wags apart from the dog.
The thing that bothers me the most about this article is the fact that Israel wants to get their hands on the F-35 stealth fighter. This is not a defensive weapons system, it is a first strike aircraft. You can bet your last dollar that within a year of Israel obtaining the F-35 from the U.S. they would launch strikes against Syria and Iran.
If Israel does get the F-35, it would not be surprising to hear that the U.S. is also selling the Israeli's aircraft with inflight refueling capabilities, possibly the KC-130.
Otherwise the Israeli's would need to have their fighters refueled by the U. S. Military en route to Iran, due to the fact that the F-35 can't make the round trip flight loaded with ordinance to Iran and back witout at least two IFR's.
So anyway you look at it the U.S. would be complicit in any Israeli attack on Iran.
Conveniently, the U.S. redefinition of self-defence to include pre-emptive attacks makes the distinction between defensive and offensive weapons somewhat elusive, especially when it's defined solely by the aggressor.
"Why should those same American taxpayers bear the enormous costs of Israel's military purchases (as Israel enjoys booming economic growth)?"
Funny, that an intellectually gifted and thoughtful person like Glen Greenwald should ask such a question ...
Let me help you out here, Glen:
Where does most of the "US aid" to Israel eventually end up? On the books of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and other producers of sophisticated (and deadly) weapons of course, so most of the money is in effect recycled back into the US war economy.
It is a sad fact, that perhaps the last (standing) successful manufacturing sector in the US economy (which provides jobs "with a future") are the "merchants of death".
Their immoral cousins in Wall Street also reap huge benefits of course, because as the US is completely broke, all the "aid" must be financed with debt-money, so if you add the compound interest on 3 billion each year, a staggering amount of debt is created for the benefit of the ruling elite of two gangster-states who do not give a shit about human rights, international law or anything else that stands in their way to "Full Spectrum Dominance" and the forcible creation of "Eretz Israel" ...
The greater crucial context here is the neo-liberal religion (liberal in the European usage, meaning the market-cult ...) an insane economic ideology that passes off as rational because its hidden mechanisms of mind-control are never discussed, let alone understood ...
Americans, (that includes Glen Greenwald or Chris Hedges)
if you want to dig deeper (a painful experience) and understand why (and HOW) corporations now dictate the conditions of your life (e.g. health insurance, education, energy policy, increasingly unfair income distribution and social injustice, destruction of the public domain in the name of market "freedom", force you to pay the gambling debts for the insane crooks of Wall Street and the likes of Enron ..) try this video (the title may be misleading but in my view this is a MUST SEE VIDEO to understand what America has become and why there is an "unbreakable bond" between the US and Israel ...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18188
For a written analysis try this:
The Obama Crossroads: Neo-Liberal Coup or Responsible Government
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12120
For those of you, who are still interested in finding out what really happened on 9/11, I recommend this video (an Italian documentary revealing some astounding facts
Pls go to google video and search for:
ZERO.Investigation.Into.911.avi
Excellent post, toqueville. And I agree that ZERO is a superb documentary. I wept when I watched it.
"Limitless accumulation of private capital is the highest moral duty"
Leo Strauss (former member of the NSC and a pivotal figure for the political "right" (is there any other?)in the US ...
"Corporations have been enthroned by the war and an era of corruption in high places will follow.
The money-power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed."
Abraham Lincoln, shortly after the Civil War (5 weeks later he was assassinated ...)
To get a better understanding of the context and relevance of these quotations to the current sad state of the world, watch the video I mentioned in my earlier post ...(at globalresearch)
Someone here mentioned Goebbels, try Edward Bernays (Goebbels had his book on his desk ...)...
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html
US military aid to a country that's segregated on the basis of religion and that accords greater rights to members of a particular religion seems to be an establishment of religion, prohibited by the Bill of Rights. Is there any legal authority for the proposition that aid to a country with s state religion isn't an establishment of religion and a violation of the First Amendment? Who would have standing to litigate this issue?
"On a related note, a new Rasmussen Poll found that only 58% of Americans now view "Israel as an ally" -- down from 70% ... The same poll found that 49% of Americans believe Israel should be "required" to stop building settlements, with only 22% disagreeing. " –(Glenn Greenwald)
Pray tell, so what?
Greenwald, in pure and perennially fashionable left-liberal innocence or ignorance, (take your pick), misses the forest for the trees as is his wont. Does he actually expect his readers to believe that such polling data amounts to anything except the dried blood of the Gaza dead?
Polling figures in America, regarding Israel, are irrelevant to anything of importance, and only reveal Greenwald's astigmatic fealty to a silly belief that democracy actually exists in America, and what Americans think, or even vote on, actually matters. It does not: AIPAC and its procured death minions ride high saddle in America, despite any micro tremors in the Kabuki theatric of its ridiculous polls.
For all the good work Greenwald does in articulating the far parameters of a jejune left liberalism, his arguments, invariably fall into a bad faith sentimentality. This self censoring naïveté is all too typical of its ideological practitioners.
The Israel problem is not dependent in the slightest in variances of what a fascistic and ignorant American public thinks; the problem, to wit, is in the very existence of the criminal state itself, both the imperial host and its evil spawn.
For the person who said that our "military transfers" to Israel end up as profit on the books of our military machine: (therefore, Israel is providing a huge service to Americans for buying our armaments)...Duh!
This maybe would be true if Israel ever paid for those military transfers. As they ultimately become "gifts" from us, it is "We the People, American Taxpayers" who are footing the bill once again for "gifts" to Israel, even if we subsidize our own defense contractors in the process.
I heard this very same argument in Europe years ago regarding American contributions to NATO.
We don't need alliances like these any longer.
Bring America Back !!!!
**I highly recommend a reading of the book: Those Who Dare
To Speak Out....by a former congressman, Paul Findley--a
while back but the devastating operations of AIPAC, the ADL,
and all their subsidiaries is the same and much worse and
widespread at the present day !!
**When Israeli Mossad agents were apprehended dancing, celebrating, partying, taking pictures of the burning Twin Towers from the NJ side of the Hudson on 9/11, an FBI Agent said that if they (FBI Agents) come up with info or facts derogatory to Israel, their careers as Agents come into
immediate Jeopardy.
**It is amazing that VP Biden's embarrassment in Israel over housing settlements is causing a US uproar, when one year ago the Zionist Genocide at Gaza caused not so much as a
whimper from King George, Team Obama, or the Sec of State!
Those 1500 dead Gazans included 300 or 400 dead innocent
children, yet not one official tear could be shed over the
Trajedy. Our fearless leaders can cry and storm over housing real estate, but not for poor, dead innocent kids !
(See CD 1/22/2010: 'The First Mistake==Obama's Silence
Over Gaza ) !!!!!!! Our hapless Nation cannot really say much about a Genocide in which our own Military assisted and planned with the Zionists.
**Just this week, just behold how our Officials run to the altar of AIPAC to give their eternal homage, and worship at the feet of Big Buck campaign contributors.
So how can our Lawmakers even consider withholding our annual 3 Billion $$$$ charitable contribution to Zion, when political campaigns of the future hang in the balance ?
****And they are just itching to drop some big ones into
Iran==the next big pre-emptive war that little sister Israel
will be dragging the US Sheeples into !
It is a sickening situation when the murderous nation of Zion has to be recognized as the best friend and ally of the USA. They keep earning and deserving the title they earned so well in Lebanon, as the Butchers of Beirut !!
Message to CL readers: post these Mideast/Aipac links to your facebook page (preferably the original site, such as Salon, etc). We may not get this chance again - we have to carpet bomb the internet with these articles.