|
|||||||||
Posted December 27, 2001
The Point
Re.: "Who Are The Real Traitors?" by Richard Hill, Ph.D., December 22, 2001:
Sorry to get involved in somebody [else's] publication, but I strongly feel ... the author of the above article missed the whole point.... [For instance, he wrote]:
"...They would say that despite the fact that the first Bush Administration always admitted that it fought that war, primarily and fundamentally, in order to secure European and Japanese access to Arabian oil. That was the 'New World Order.' That was the only justification that the US Government could ever offer, since the US itself is not and never has been economically dependent on Arabian oil. It is, rather, our European and Japanese 'allies' who are. Every economic study has shown conclusively that the US military protection of Arabian oil never made economic sense from the perspective of American consumers. It has only ever made sense from the perspective of European and Japanese consumers..."
The real American point is to control the Arabian oil to control the European Union, economically. For me, it seems so obvious. ...The US is acting in a paternalistic way towards the EU, and threatening Iraq with a war, thereby isolating the renegade Iraqi government [and preventing Iraq] from selling their own oil to the EU below the (US controlled) OPEC price. Just to summarize ... : the US isolates Iraq from the EU/Japan, [by] imposing sanctions, bombing it weekly; this limits the EU/Japan's energy imports, so the US can stay ahead of their economies.
Richard Hill replies:
If I understand Mazsom correctly, he is arguing that the U.S. can undermine the E.U. by inflating OPEC's prices. Is Mazsom aware that there is only one world market price for oil? This is true whether it comes from OPEC or non-OPEC sources, or whether it goes to the E.U. or the US Is Mazsom arguing that OPEC somehow treats the E.U. differently than it treats the US? The only difference I am aware of is that the US pays for the military defense of most of OPEC, while the E.U. does not, which makes the E.U. free riders. Who then, is exploiting whom?
Mazsom also argues that US foreign policy is being carried on for the benefit of OPEC. Is Mazsom saying that OPEC's interests and the real US national interest are identical? If not, then this US foreign policy is being carried on for the benefit and in the interests of foreign nations, and not the US That was "whole point" of my article.
It appears that Mazsom cannot bring himself to believe that the US would carry on a foreign policy that was not, somehow, in its own national interest. I would just ask him to look at any or all of the expansionist imperial powers in history. Would he not agree that at least some of them carried on foreign policies that were really not in their own self-interest? Would he not agree that sometimes the empire's ruling majority behaves stupidly and suicidally?
The Integrity of Fox News
[Regarding Justin Raimondo's column of December 22, "Now You See It, Now You Don't":]
Taking Justin's advice – here is the note I wrote to Fox news, begging for the life of the Israel spy story, and for the integrity of Fox news, sadly enough:
"Please don't spike the Carl Cameron series on Israel spies. Even friends of Israel can't afford to witness the spectacle of this story being killed, because people will fill in the blanks themselves, and believe the worst. The truth will not be as bad as what will be inferred if the story is killed. Please please go for the truth. Can you honestly believe that a country as powerful as Israel, which relies on US support so much, would not have covert operations in the US. Is anyone that dumb. Honestly if I was an Israeli, I would mount such an effort. But I'm not, and as the target of such, I would like to use the one weapon available, and that is exposure in the press. The government itself does not have enough guts to confront AIIPAC http://www.aipac.org/ The long knives are still out for Buchanan after his 'amen corner' speech. This leave the press, with guts, to go after the truth. Cameron is not a zealot. He wants the truth exposed. Show some backbone. If you don't then you feed the zealots who will fill in the blanks with their fiction, and who could blaim them. Cover up nothing. Just be fair and honest."
Spy Networks
For the most part, I enjoy "Behind the Headlines." However the recent focus on Israeli spies leaves me a little nonplused. Are we actually surprised that allied governments spy on each other? Is it beyond our comprehension that Israel, as well as, in all probability, France, the UK, Australia, and any number of other nations, would have intelligence networks in the sole superpower on the globe? Does this not come with the territory? Is this any more unimaginable than the spy networks that we likely maintain in all of the above-mentioned countries? Why does it follow that a spy network for any one country would necessarily lead to complicity in Sept. 11? So far as foreign intelligence networks are concerned, is this not yet another example of the "blowback" which Raimondo decries? Where our perceived interests collide with those of other nations, we should expect their attempts at intelligence-gathering – even if they are our allies.
Two Leaders
[Regarding
"Barak,
Netanyahu and Mainstream Thinking in Israel,"
by Gershon Baskin, Ph.D., December 21:]
Reading the thoughts of these two leaders – one of whom may, disastrously, return to power – is extremely depressing. All the discussions surrounding a potential peace settlement are framed entirely in the favor and the mindset of Israelis, who have forgotten, it seems, that they were handed over territory by the UN without consultation or agreement with the then inhabitants and now control 78% of what, by property right in 1948, they did not own but were given by a guilt-ridden world. Arafat's failure is to be exposed as a dishonest broker who fooled the world into thinking, up to the 11th hour when Barak called his bluff, that he would accept 1/4 of what was once the entire territory of Palestine. The niggardly and mean-spirited conduct of negotiations since 1967 and the cynical expansion of settlements by zealots only ensure a long duration to inter-generational dislike and increasingly ensure that Israel is seen as an obstinate oppressor in the region from which nothing can be expected but injustice. I am very pessimistic about the chances of settlement between the Israeli state and Palestinians, not simply because it seems ingrained in the participants to yield nothing but because the assumptions on which negotiations are founded – that Palestinians should be happy to have the leftovers of Israeli conquest – are never revisited or questioned. The world will pay a hard price for the injustices so liberally planted and watered by decades of misguided and unjust Israeli and American policy.
Parading
How in the hell does the Pentagon expect us to believe that Al-Qaeda/Taliban would go from hiding in caves to parading down a highway to Kabul in a 12-truck convoy? And firing on our jets?
The Right to Annihilate
It is indeed disgraceful that this country that has become so powerful by threatening not only its own citizens into being subservient to the government, but every other country in the world – that if they are not like us, nor do what we want, since we are the undisputed mightiest military might around, that we can just blow them off the face of the earth. What and who gives us the right to annihilate any one else, either the civilians in Hiroshima, or Afghan civilians?
It has taken who knows how many bombs and 3 months or so, and the entire US military to try and catch one man who walks with a cane, and we still cannot find him. I am no longer proud to be an American for not just this but a myriad of other reasons. Why don't we become like Switzerland? They do not bother anyone else, and no one bothers them.
~ DL