Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

[Aggrad02]

The U.S. was involved by making sure Israel had the means to turn off all Syria's air defenses. Everything in the Middle East geo-politically speaking has U.S. involvement or is heavily influenced by same.

--Brant

That is true, but the whole reason that we support Israel in the first place, is because of their centrality in the oil region. So it still comes back to oil.

--Dustan

[BaalChatzaf]

Then what do you propose that we should do? Killing our enemies in sufficient numbers has an elegance and simplicity to it, in spite of some of the difficulties. If we do not slaughter our enemies, then what should we do about them? I like the idea of killing. It is straightforward.

How about creating more friends and less enemiess. Or how about making our enemies our friends by leaving them the hell alone.

Can't we all just get along? -- Rodney King

We cannot leave the militant Muslims alone. They are out to get us. Their religion DEMANDS that the dar al Harb be subjugated. The Militants are like the Black Knight in -Monty Python and the Holy Grail-. The only reasonable thing to do is to either kill them or chop off all their limbs so they can no longer do anything. We would also have to cut out their tongues so they could not corrupt their youth.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

The article is discredited for me when he wrote the following:

The Objectivist view of foreign policy derives from its view of morality. Just as each person should pursue his rational self-interest in his personal matters, so should a proper government uphold the interests of its citizens in its conduct toward other nations

--Dustan

A proper government should protect the individual rights of its citizens at home from domestic criminals and foreign invaders. It can go abroad with diplomacy and force if necessary to deal with certain strategic military, not economic, threats. The above quoted material is not Objectivism.

--Brant

Edited September 22, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Brant Gaede]

The U.S. was involved by making sure Israel had the means to turn off all Syria's air defenses. Everything in the Middle East geo-politically speaking has U.S. involvement or is heavily influenced by same.

--Brant

That is true, but the whole reason that we support Israel in the first place, is because of their centrality in the oil region. So it still comes back to oil.

--Dustan

We support Israel because of Israeli political, economic and cultural influence in the U.S. and because Great Britain dumped the Middle East onto the U.S. after it had made a grand mess of things in the most self-serving, arbitrary ways. If it was just oil Israel wouldn't exist, for the U.S. would be cavorting and sleeping with its enemies from A to Z. You can argue that the U.S. uses its Israeli influence as a back-pocket threat against various regimes to help secure Middle Eastern oil, but that would be secondary to the basic, historically evolved situation.

--Brant

[Aggrad02]

We support Israel because of Israeli political, economic and cultural influence in the U.S.

Most of this political/economic influence arose only after we started to back Israel. I just bought The Israel Lobby , by Mearsheimer and Walt to learn more about this.

If it was just oil Israel wouldn't exist, for the U.S. would be cavorting and sleeping with its enemies from A to Z. You can argue that the U.S. uses its Israeli influence as a back-pocket threat against various regimes to help secure Middle Eastern oil, but that would be secondary to the basic, historically evolved situation.

--Brant

Isn't that what we do? We support Saudi and their Madrases, we support Jordan, We give money to the Palestinians. We supported Saddam Hussein. And before 9/11 Egypt received the second most Military aid behind Israel. This is the way that you control a region/people. You divide them up. Muslims vs Jew keeps the populace from seeing that the US is heavily influencing their leaders and policies. If the entire region was Muslim then they would have kicked their despots to the road, but by focusing their attention on Israel the leaders keep order.

Also Israel was strategic in the cold war as well. There was a great fear that communism was going to get a foothold in the Middle East (Iran, Afghanistan) and we needed allies there to keep the commies at bay. The biggest reason being that we didn't want them to get the oil.

Just my observations.

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

We support Israel because of Israeli political, economic and cultural influence in the U.S.

Most of this political/economic influence arose only after we started to back Israel. I just bought The Israel Lobby , by Mearsheimer and Walt to learn more about this.

It goes back further than that--to before the creation of Israel. Study what Justice Brandeis et al. did to get the U.S. into WWI. What was the purpose of the Balfour Declaration of 1917? It was more than a "Thank you" to the Zionists for influencing the American entry into the war.

In fairness to the Zionists, the U.S. almost certainly was fated by its imperial, expansionist nature, to enter WWI regardless of their conniving. The great irony is WWI led to WWII and the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust. One might state that the U.S. has an interventionist, collectivist imperial foreign policy that has helped make the world, especially in the Middle East, a huge mess. The U.S. is a bigger, but more attenuated version of Israel (because it is less Jewish and socialist). Israel is compressed by its small size and population surrounded by enemies like the plutonium in its nuclear bombs that it could well use in the near future as a result of that pressure. The irony for the bad guys is that if they were patient or semi-rational, they would just let Israel be destroyed demographically, but they need that locus point of an enemy--and the U.S. would rather that locus be on Israel than itself.

--Brant

Edited September 22, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Aggrad02]

It goes back further than that--to before the creation of Israel. Study what Justice Brandeis et al. did to get the U.S. into WWI. What was the purpose of the Balfour Declaration of 1917? It was more than a "Thank you" to the Zionists for influencing the American entry into the war.

In fairness to the Zionists, the U.S. almost certainly was fated by its imperial, expansionist nature, to enter WWI regardless of their conniving. The great irony is WWI led to WWII and the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust. One might state that the U.S. has an interventionist, collectivist imperial foreign policy that has helped make the world, especially in the Middle East, a huge mess. The U.S. is a bigger, but more attenuated version of Israel (because it is less Jewish and socialist). Israel is compressed by its small size and population surrounded by enemies like the plutonium in its nuclear bombs that it could well use in the near future as a result of that pressure. The irony for the bad guys is that if they were patient or semi-rational, they would just let Israel be destroyed demographically, but they need that locus point of an enemy--and the U.S. would rather that locus be on Israel than itself.

--Brant

Thanks I will try and look some of it up.

--Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I would like to add the common sense reason for supporting Israel.

The Holocaust was too horrible to allow to ever happen again. Ever. The only reason it got as bad as it did is because Jews had nowhere to go back then. They couldn't get out. Jews are perfectly entitled to have a country so they do not get obliterated off the face of the earth. Mankind has already shown that some people want to and will do precisely that if conditions permit.

There are many interests (and many conflicted ones), but one of the big honking reasons the USA is backing Israel is to prevent that kind of disgrace from ever getting a chance to happen again.

On this point, I am fully committed to the policy of protecting Israel.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

I would like to add the common sense reason for supporting Israel.

The Holocaust was too horrible to allow to ever happen again. Ever. The only reason it got as bad as it did is because Jews had nowhere to go back then. They couldn't get out. Jews are perfectly entitled to have a country so they do not get obliterated off the face of the earth. Mankind has already shown that some people want to and will do precisely that if conditions permit.

There are many interests (and many conflicted ones), but one of the big honking reasons the USA is backing Israel is to prevent that kind of disgrace from ever getting a chance to happen again.

On this point, I am fully committed to the policy of protecting Israel.

Michael

So what other groups should we give and defend a country for? :baby:

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

I would like to add the common sense reason for supporting Israel.

The Holocaust was too horrible to allow to ever happen again. Ever. The only reason it got as bad as it did is because Jews had nowhere to go back then. They couldn't get out. Jews are perfectly entitled to have a country so they do not get obliterated off the face of the earth. Mankind has already shown that some people want to and will do precisely that if conditions permit.

There are many interests (and many conflicted ones), but one of the big honking reasons the USA is backing Israel is to prevent that kind of disgrace from ever getting a chance to happen again.

On this point, I am fully committed to the policy of protecting Israel.

Michael

As with most altruistic endeavors, the more the U.S. helps Israel the weaker its position is. Our aid helps it keep its socialism. Being its big brother in foreign policy means it forgoes more effective dealings with its neighbors. Etc.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

This is not altruism. There was an attempted genocide and there still are threats of it. Staying genocide is not altruism.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

This is not altruism. There was an attempted genocide and there still are threats of it. Staying genocide is not altruism.

Michael

Staying genocide may not be altruistic, but that does not mean it is moral to do so.(This is a very complex moral problem as we all know). But the main problem with monetary/military aid to Israel is that it is not staying off genocide. If we just wanted to stay off genocide we could have brought all of the Jews to the United States/other western countries.

How is it moral to take my money by force and give it to Israel to protect them?

How is it moral to send soldiers into combat and have them give their lives in the defense of Israel?

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

This is not altruism. There was an attempted genocide and there still are threats of it. Staying genocide is not altruism.

Michael

How is the U.S. staying genocide?

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

How is the U.S. staying genocide?

Brant,

Simple. By helping to keep Israel in existence and not allowing those who want to push the Jews off into the sea and kill them.

Dustan,

As I mentioned, there are many values operating (and several do conflict). I only focused on one of them (genocide), but it is legitimate value and concern given mankind's history. How staying it is implemented in parallel with all those other values is another story.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

How is the U.S. staying genocide?

Brant,

Simple. By helping to keep Israel in existence and not allowing those who want to push the Jews off into the sea and kill them.

Michael,

Israel is a nuclear power. It has the bombs and missiles. The U.S. is more involved to prevent Israel from using these than to prevent another Holocaust against Jews. As a U.S. welfare recipient, Israel is being weakened from the inside out.

--Brant