We are continually told that there is tension between Barack Obama and the leadership of Israel. Yet now we know that Bush's $30 billion deal with Israel is going to be replaced with a $50 billion deal. Obama:
I want to be very clear that we condemn in the strongest terms Palestinian violence against innocent Israeli citizens and I want to repeat once again that it is my strong belief that Israel has not just the right but an obligation to protect itself.So. Barack Obama -- a man whom most Israelis openly detest -- has nearly doubled aid to Israel. Why? Because the Israelis need to be protected from the most vulnerable and oppressed people on the planet.
Really? Seriously?
Not only that. We're giving the Israelis something more...
The U.S. is expected to provide several billion dollars extra in military aid as a reparations deal in compensation for the US supporting the Iran nuclear deal.Really? Seriously?
Reparations?
Let me get this straight: For one brief moment, America chose sanity over madness in our relations with Iran. For one brief moment, America chose not to do what the Israelis told us to do. And suddenly we owe those arrogant motherfuckers REPARATIONS?
We have never paid reparations to those countries we actually harmed: Vietnam, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran...oh hell, just read William Blum's Killing Hope: The list is long. Our actual victims get no recompense. Instead, we are paying reparations to the Israelis -- to a racist nation filled with condescending fascist bastards who despise us and who consider us to be no more than expendable hired muscle.
We need a new explanation for the stranglehold that Israel has over this country.
All of the usual cliches seem trite and insufficient. Everything I've said on this topic in the past just doesn't cut it. I can guess everything that you are dying to tell me right now. That doesn't cut it either.
There has to be something more. I know what Israel is: Israel is the thing that moves us. But how does it move us?
The neocons hated Bill Clinton, even though he gave them everything they wanted on Russia. So why does Hillary let so much of her foreign policy be dictated by the likes of the Kagan clan and Hof?
Why has John Kerry -- an American hero, a man I used to hold in the highest esteem, a man who inspired the creation of this very blog -- pursued a rabidly pro-neocon foreign policy? He once was a very different man from what he has become.
For all of his faults, Barack Obama does not seem to want war. The Iran deal proves as much, as did his refusal to go to war with Syria in 2013, despite almost insurmountable pressures to do so. So why has he allowed the neocons to dictate his place his history?
Why did Colin Powell (another decent man) make such a sudden switch? In mid-2001, he announced that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs. Not long after 9/11, he was saying something very different. Why? Why did he not quit instead of dishonoring himself?
Don't tell me that these people are in it for the money. That's not it. Most of these people are not motivated by coin. Kerry, the Clintons and the Bushes are wealthy. John Kerry married the ketchup lady: He can eat filet mignon (or better) every day for the rest of his life if he wants to.
Are the Kerrys and the Clintons and the Bushes motivated by the desire for power? Ridiculous. They already have power. Obama and Kerry will never attain greater heights: This year is the summit of their ambitions. Afterward, there is only retirement. So why is Barack Obama saying "Yes, Massa" to Bibi Netanyahu? Why abase himself now?
For some reason, the most powerful people in the United States of American have ceded their power. They act as if they have been cowed by something far greater than themselves. They tremble in fear.
How did this happen?
How did Israel gain such control over the ruling caste of the United States of America? What could possibly intimidate the leadership of the most powerful country in the history of the world? Why do our leaders act against their own personal interests and the interests of the nation?
Blackmail, some will say. Perhaps. I'm not sure, however, that members of our aristocracy have quite so many skeletons in their closets as the hoi polloi seem to believe.
For the past few days, I have been formulating an alternative theory -- a theory that involves nukes and the threat to use them. If you read my previous story on the Vela incident, you may be able to guess where I'm heading.
One thing's for sure: The power elite of this country -- some of them venal, some of them well-meaning -- have become cowards. Someone is holding a gun to their heads.
Identify that gun.
23 comments:
Seriously? To me it seemed to be an obvious extortion payoff, very likely after threats were made to replay their bombing of the Osirak reactor.
In my opinion the Israeli- palestine issue is a moral one. Anyone who condone what Israel stands for is on the wrong side of morality. Please no argument on the definition of morals. Wrong and right are clear. if you detest armed robbery and still support Israel then you have a problem. If you abhor mass murder and see nothing wrong with the genocide in palestine.. well. As I said there is no ambiguity there.
The same question could be asked of every nation currently under capture by the outlaw state, and I imagine the answer would be the same everywhere: a combination of bribery, extortion, intimidation, violence, assassination, and blackmail, up to and including nuclear in nature.
Go back and try to re-imagine or re-interpret your analyses as they pertain to many of the significant events throughout our nation's history through the prism of Zionist terrorism and infiltration and you might start connecting the dots to better understand exactly how we got to where we are and what steps we might take to extricate ourselves from their capture.
Start with JFK.
Also, as an addendum to my initial comment here I'll say this: the lynch pin to all of the global power accumulated by the Zionist movement is their monopolistic control over the creation and control of money. Removing that privilege from the cabal would be akin to pulling the curtain back on the Wizard of Oz.
This is an old canard, James, and it is heading toward familiar racist territory. We cannot oppose Israeli racism by tolerating another form of racism.
Jews do not control the creation of money: Nations do. Not just the United States: China, Europe, Japan. everywhere. Throughout history. Central banks are traditionally public/private hybrids in which the government holds ultimate power (and which, by the way, are NOT controlled by "Zionists"). You can't argue that Jews use money to control nations when nations, ultimately, create money.
That said, it is possible for someone, anyone, who controls a bank -- not "THE banks" but simply A bank -- to have quite an impact. This line of argument takes us back to Rupert Murdoch and the Nugan Hand bank (which was not run by Jews, incidentally). The Murdoch biographies I've consulted are oddly hazy when it comes to explaining why the banks kept funding this man's wildly ambitious enterprises.
I respectfully disagree, Joe. The Federal Reserve was imposed upon the United States as the result of parliamentarian trickery in 1913. If you haven't read it, I recommend a book called "The Creature from Jeckyll Island" as a good primer.
Parliamentary trickery? It was Woodrow Wilson's pet project and proudest accomplishment. It was prompted by the wild, fluctuating financial instability of the preceding decades -- a bit of history which a lot of people now tend to forget about. And the Federal Reserve is hardly the ONLY national bank.
G. Edward Griffin is a Bircher and a nut.
History may hold the answer to current events. The Israelis tried to sink one our Naval vessels and damned near succeeded. They got off the hook then and maybe now they have decided to threaten to use their nukes on much larger targets. Think U.S.S. Liberty writ large.
Son, this is an interesting line of inquiry, although the Liberty incident was a long time ago. And both LBJ and Nixon were, arguably, the most blackmailable people ever to sit in the Oval Office -- especially Johnson. Angleton had files on EVERYONE in DC -- basically, he had access to the eavesdropping operation that Hoover ran out of the Old Post Office Building -- and Angleton was tight with the Israelis.
But whatever it was that happened in 1967 does not really explain what is going on now. At least, not in my mind. Remember, we are not just talking about "controlling the narrative" within the United States. We're also talking about Europe and Australia.
Some other factor is at play here.
Threat of terrorism as "the gun"? Perhaps nuclear or biological? Those being threatened could theorerically not be the direct targets. If the premise is that Israel is the one in a position to threaten, maybe the direct target could be a site under Israeli control, but the threatened act would be one which would have negative effects on the US, EU, Australia.
How about, Israel has an "islamic bomb" from Pakistan (since its supposed to be possible to determine a nuke's origin) and could provide it to terrorists under plausible deniability. Hell, maybe the threat could be an ability to evoke a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan.
Just spitballing, not saying I endorse the theory.
Amazon is coming out with an original television show this month called "The Man in the High Castle" based on a Philip K. Dick novel of the same name. The story, as you probably know Joseph, is that the Axis powers actually won WWII as opposed to the Allies, and they divided the United States up into three basic sections: the west being run by Japan, the East being run by the Nazis, and the Rocky Mountains serving as a sort of demilitarized neutral territory.
I believe this idea should be expanded upon and might go a long way towards understanding the state of affairs in the world today, i.e. maybe the bad guys actually got exactly what they wanted out of WWII and are still in power. Maybe dropping the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was done not only to frighten the Soviets, but also the Americans, i.e. we did this to Japan and we can do it to you, too.
I know it sounds cliche and you'll give me a hard time, but there's a saying from "The Usual Suspects" that goes "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"...maybe that applies to our situation.
I'll say this, Hoarseface...people are perhaps too quick to concentrate on "The Bomb." The Vela incident was not the test of a bomb but of the hypersonic glider delivery system. What counts is not possession of that weapon but also the means to deliver it anywhere.
AND...
And conveying the perception that a nation's leader might be crazy enough to use such a weapon.
I agree that this outpouring of support for Netanyahu is nearly incomprehensible. However, the best explanation remains what it always has been which is the support of Israel by national level Democrats. This has been true going back to President Truman. American Jews have provided over half of the funds for Democrats in national level races. Among the billionaires, their donations are explicitly tied to support for the Israel government. I would suspect that Kerry and Obama are acting this way because they know that these big donations will cease if they fail to pay reparations today. I guess loyalty to the Democratic Party trumps any sense of shame and honor that survived in them after spending their lives in politics.
I think Mr. Svedberg has identified the "gun" being held on the Democrats.
Sheldon Adelson, for one, plays a similar role for the Republicans, as does the fact that the most numerous pro-Zionists in the USA are not Jewish-Americans but Fundagelicals, who believe that Baby Jeebus cries if Zionists are not allowed to murder Palestinian kids. Fundies are the backbone of the GOP electorate, so GOP politicians dare not offend the Fundies by putting any restraints on the Holy Israeli Empire.
Note: "Jeebus", of course, refers to the Bizarro World caricature of Jesus Christ, whom the Fundies confuse with the actual Jesus Christ.
I thought little j would be here defending everything Israel does with insane arguments. Instead, I get rational people, offering rational explanations.
What is the world coming to!
M
joseph is not insane, and he is welcome here. I'm actually a little more concerned to have a book by a John Bircher flogged in these comments.
I think that many American Jews are torn as they watch Israel become ever more indefensible. I can imagine how my Italian-American ancestors felt when they read about Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia.
Joseph, I'll bounce in here on your Aussie claim (I'm one). The Anglo 5-Eyes has included Israel for quite some time. Obviously unidentified leadership elements within that group set the tone and direction of US foreign policy for all of them. They tend to march lock step -- Vietnam, Indonesia, Iraq, Ukraine, Syria -- and this is especially true here in wealthy and safe Australia. Ever since the quiet CIA coup of Nov 11, 1975 (see also here) Australians have been defenseless against the compelling tides of US propaganda. Wars, neoliberalism, the hate speech against the US enemy de jour. The fact that Murdoch owns almost all of the media outlets in our major cities completes the takeover. We haven't been as cursed as Canada with its unbelievable Stephen Harper but there are no appreciable cultural defenses against US-Anglo-Israeli elite leadership hegemony.
I say this in order to emphasize that there is little fear in our diplomatic relations with the US, no threats in the wings. They don't have to. We are amiable, docile and owned. Measures of our disgraceful servility do peak through though: our own government's hostile treatment of Julian Assange, it's mainstream rejection of journalist John Pilger all speak to a fundamental national immaturity on international political issues and the denial of any disturbing facts. (It's why, for instance, our own foreign minister Julie Bishop so stupidly lead the US charge a few months ago at the UN, calling for criminal proceedings against Russia over MH17. Tons of passion, all of it ill-informed and out of touch with the politics or the facts.) It's still a wonderful country to live in but there is little overt US threat.
On the other hand your account of US abasement before Israel is deeply disturbing. I think you're right. There's more going on here than mere personal blackmail.
The Russia demonization is getting pretty polished these days. I've been reading the latest MSN propaganda about the Russians adopting "conspiracy" explanations for the downing of Flight 9268. It cites a group I had never heard of before -- the Legatum Institute, with a membership made up of JP Morgan, the US defense Department and Radio Free Europe, among others. It was founded by Legatum Limited, a private investment firm headquartered in Dubai which runs a fund "to help abolish modern-day slavery". (Nice touch.) They're libertarians, of course.
The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, launched the Legatum Institute's "Prosperity for All" manifesto so they have influence.
Here's their interview with Zhanna Nemtsova, daughter of murdered Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov. A quick review of their events and publications marks them out as Russian regime change agents.
And Legatum has a publishing deal with foreignpolicy.com. This is propaganda at its smooth, corporate best.
What do we make of the many good-willed, educated people in these groups who aren't neocons but who so gullibly subscribe to the cheap psychological caricatures of Putin as malevolent, and to the equally idiotic line that once he is deposed we will have all sweetness and light? I'm reminded of that nut job Timothy Garton Ash.
I just went exploring and was blown away...
Jeffrey Gedmin is a Senior Fellow, Georgetown University, and Senior Fellow, Institute for Strategic Dialogue. He was President and CEO of the Legatum Institute in London from 2011 to 2014 and the former President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty from 2007 to 2011,
He is also listed as one of the Pollicy Council Members of the Henry Jackson Society.
And he is listed as a Forum Research Council Member at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Rightweb -- "Gedmin was executive director of the right-leaning New Atlantic Initiative of the American Enterprise Institute. He is also a founder of Project for the New American Century, a major proponent of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq."
And this is just too much...
"In a Nov. 20, 2006, article in the neoconservative magazine the Weekly Standard, Gedmin asks, 'Will George W. Bush ever get his due?' and writes that the president 'has forever changed the conversation about democracy and the Middle East to the benefit of humankind.'"
If it's all right with you, fred, I'd like to publish this research in a post.
Joseph, I would be honored if you would do so. It would be a small thank you on my part for your invaluable contribution on so many issues. Fire away!
Here's one more bit to go with it -- Jeffrey Gedmin's publications at the Atlantic Council.
When do these guys sleep?
Apologies for the scrappy multiple posts, Joseph. There's also these that may interest you:
http://www.iwp.edu/faculty/detail/paul-goble-3
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_A._Goble
http://windowoneurasia2.blogspot.ru/2015/11/putin-needs-victory-and-annexing.html
Joseph,
I didn't say j was insane. As I have noted before, he makes great comments on everything except Israel. His comments about Israel can not be categorized as anything but biased bordering on ridiculous.
And as I noted in my comment, I was looking forward to hearing from him, not advocating his ban from this site.
I enjoy the comments on this site almost as much as your posts because you have very smart readers.
M
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