Marble Composition

Is This America's Foreign Policy?

This Iraq War? It's a good question. I've long thought that America's foreign policy has been led astray by the political influence emanating from Israel. This piece by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt that appeared in the London Review of Books spells out the history, the trends, and the consequences of the United States' unquestioned support of Israel over the last three decades.

For a condensed version, you can go over to the ever-indispensable James Wolcott's site. He breaks it down very nicely.

It's a long piece, but I highly recommend it in its full form.

Now, am I an anti-Semite? Absolutely not. Go read the article; it addresses those charges head on in a way I concur with wholeheartedly. Those kinds of charges get hurled around by prominent national columnists whenever anyone looks for the roots of this failed policy, and just whom might have had any real influence in getting us into this seemingly endless war.

I can feel the tug of nationalism when reading articles like these, and that's because my family has been in this country since 1604 (I'm not boasting, it's just a fact). We, as Americans, need to take a really close look at the people, and more importantly, the money, that are influencing the foreign policy decisions that will effect us for decades.

Update: [4/05/2006: 09:25:00 PM] Ooo, Backlash. The AP put out this piece tonight. That link will be dead soon, so let's get some quotes from the article. Here's the first sentence and quote from the article:

Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke calls their work "A Modern American Declaration of Independence!"

This really sets the tone for the whole AP article: a famous rascist loves it, so in turn, that means it's nothing but a nasty hit-job; a device to attack Jews:

Since "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" was published as a "working paper" on the John F. Kennedy School of Government Web site late last month, accusations from shoddy scholarship to outright bigotry have been leveled at the academics. Walt is the Kennedy school's academic dean.

If you read the whole piece, the authors saw this coming, and they addressed it right here:

No discussion of the Lobby would be complete without an examination of one of its most powerful weapons: the charge of anti-semitism. Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle Eastern policy – an influence AIPAC celebrates – stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israel Lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-semitism, even though the Israeli media refer to America’s ‘Jewish Lobby’. In other words, the Lobby first boasts of its influence and then attacks anyone who calls attention to it. It’s a very effective tactic: anti-semitism is something no one wants to be accused of.

As expected, we get this:

"A classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control," was the Anti-Defamation League's assessment.

"It's David Duke with footnotes," said Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz.

I call Shenanigans: Back it up Alan, or fling your dung elsewhere. Oh, there's more:

The paper describes what it says is "unwavering" support by the U.S. for Israel, economically and militarily, and rejects the moral or strategic cases for such backing.

The authors contend that a powerful "Israel Lobby" — a loose coalition of groups, including Christian evangelicals, pro-Israel lobbyists and mainstream media — pressures lawmakers and opinion makers to adopt policies that help Israel, but often hurt U.S. interests.

Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for instance, the paper says, "Thanks to the Lobby, the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israeli expansion in the Occupied Territories, making it complicit in the crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians."

The authors also write: "The U.S. has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around."

The quote I've highlighted there is the ugly truth that the American political establishment will not even entertain.

To be fair, we need to excerpt this part of the article where Derschowitz responds:

Dershowitz said the paper's claims are "recycled garbage" that have been forwarded by hate groups for years. A paper he wrote to expose what he said are the paper's numerous factual and logical errors was posted Wednesday on the Kennedy school's Web site.

Nowhere, in the entire AP article, is there any solid evidence that refutes the argument put forth by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt? It's all name-calling.

I realize that the AP churns this shit out at a furious rate, so maybe we can cut Jay Lindsay some slack, but do some ground work, you asswipe. To Jay's credit, he gets one thing right: Duke and Dershowitz are both intolerable, fucking rascists. Paint their stripes whichever way you want.

(Name-calling's fun, eh?)

posted by FuzzFinger @ 4/04/2006 07:33:00 PM