Approximately 15% of all aid to Israel is re-cycled to K-Street lawyers,
lobbyists, pr folk and - most especially - congressmen's campaign funds,
particularly those who head up international committees. IOWs, not all
reasons for the support of Israel are strategic. American Jews are
super-active politically (no average, white American ever pays much
attention to politics beyond local concerns - and that's part of the
national character, BTW), they are smart, organized and consistently
insistent. Bubba? He's in front of the TV drinking beer, and if he spots a
pol, he just shrugs at the b.s. momentarily interrupting the NBA game. This
is why AIPAC and other Jewish org.s target midwestern and western
congressmen with donations; though those pols have a miniscule number of
Jewish constituents they become huge supporters of Israel (Brownback, Hagel,
etc) - it's the only way they can get campaign donations. Nobody local wld
think to give money to some blowhard politican.-A.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralph Johansen" <michele@xxxxxxxx>
To: "Ralph Johansen" <michele@xxxxxxxx>
Cc: <Director@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <editor@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2004 6:13 PM
Subject: [A-List] Comment on a truthout.org/tompaine.com article by
RayMcGovern
*From All Mosquitoes, No Swamp; No Elephants Either by Ray McGovern,
appended below:
<Why is it that the state of Israel has such pervasive influence over
our body politic? No one denied that it does; most seemed genuinely
puzzled as to why. My embarrassment at my inability to answer the
question is somewhat attenuated by the solace I take in the thought that
I am in good company.>
************
What ex-CIA spook Ray McGovern overlooks or forgets in the article below
are the real reasons why the US and Israel are so tight. THAT'S the
elephant in the living room, not just the fact that they are close, that
the Israelis have an effective lobby in the US and that little or
nothing is written in the media concerning that affinity.
Do these guys read readily available and well-documented expositions in
the bookstores, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski's The Grand Chessboard, or
the writings of the Egyptian Samir Amin which are readily available
online? Or Noam Chomsky? Or do they only read each other? Or even at a
less probative but in its way equally revealing level, the cryptic
musings of Samuel Huntington, as in his The Clash of Civilizations?
I put the question contained in McGovern's paragraph set out above to my
wife Michele. Michele has been an English teacher for 23 years. She does
not pretend to any expertise on geopolitics. She replied that she was
astonished at that level of competence. She said, "These are experts on
the region? How can they not know that Israel is in the region to make
it easier for the US to control the oil there, without danger to
themselves? Anyone should be able to figure that out." But she also said
that she applauded people admitting that they don't know, if that was in
fact the truth. "But it is scary that they don't know".
So maybe for some among us a recitation is called for (apologies if this
is all old stuff to other than Ray McGovern and his roomful of experts).
The unspoken reason is that the Middle Eastern oil states must at all
costs be kept in a dependent position, in which they can't seize the oil
under their own land - to the disadvantage of the states in the north -
and whereby they are prevented from using their revenue to the full
benefit of their own people and to develop and broaden their own economies.
snip