Someone Take Away Thomas Friedman’s Computer Before He Types Another Sentence

By Matt Taibbi,

New York Press.

Posted January 22, 2009.

Reading Thomas Friedman is like listening to the man talking to himself. His latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, is no different.

When some time ago a friend of mine told me that Thomas Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, was going to be a kind of environmentalist clarion call against American consumerism, I almost died laughing.

Beautiful, I thought. Just when you begin to lose faith in America's ability to fall for absolutely anything -- just when you begin to think we Americans as a race might finally outgrow the lovable credulousness that leads us to fork over our credit card numbers to every half-baked TV pitchman hawking a magic dick-enlarging pill, or a way to make millions on the Internet while sitting at home and pounding doughnuts -- along comes Thomas Friedman, porn-'stached resident of a positively obscene 11,400-square-foot suburban Maryland mega-monstro-mansion and husband to the heir of one of the largest shopping-mall chains in the world, reinventing himself as an oracle of anti-consumerist conservationism.

Where does a man, who needs his own offshore drilling platform just to keep the east wing of his house heated, get the balls to write a book chiding America for driving energy-inefficient automobiles? Where does a guy whose family bulldozed 2.1 million square feet of pristine Hawaiian wilderness to put a Gap, an Old Navy, a Sears, an Abercrombie and even a motherfucking Foot Locker in paradise get off preaching to the rest of us about the need for a "Green Revolution"? Well, he'll explain it all to you in 438 crisply written pages for just $27.95, $30.95 if you have the misfortune to be Canadian.

I've been unhealthily obsessed with Friedman for more than a decade now. For most of that time, I just thought he was funny. And admittedly, what I thought was funniest about him was the kind of stuff that only another writer would really care about -- in particular his tortured use of the English language. Like George W. Bush with his Bushisms, Friedman came up with lines so hilarious you couldn't make them up even if you were trying -- and when you tried to actually picture the "illustrative" figures of speech he offered to explain himself, what you often ended up with was pure physical comedy of the Buster Keaton/Three Stooges school, with whole nations and peoples slipping and falling on the misplaced banana peels of his literary endeavors.

Remember Friedman's take on Bush's Iraq policy? "It's OK to throw out your steering wheel," he wrote, "as long as you remember you're driving without one." Picture that for a minute. Or how about Friedman's analysis of America's foreign policy outlook last May: "The first rule of holes is when you're in one, stop digging. When you're in three, bring a lot of shovels."

First of all, how can any single person be in three holes at once? Secondly, what the fuck is he talking about? If you're supposed to stop digging when you're in one hole, why should you dig more in three? How does that even begin to make sense? It's stuff like this that makes me wonder if the editors over at the New York Times editorial page spend their afternoons dropping acid or drinking rubbing alcohol. Sending a line like that into print is the journalism equivalent of a security guard at a nuke plant waving a pair of mullahs in explosive vests through the front gate. It should never, ever happen.

Even better was this gem from one of Friedman's latest columns: "The fighting, death and destruction in Gaza is painful to watch. But it's all too familiar. It's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: 'Who owns this hotel? Can the Jews have a room? And shouldn't we blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque?' "

There are many serious questions one could ask about this passage, but the one that leaped out at me was this: In the "title" of that long-running play, is it supposed to be the same person asking all three of those questions? If so, does that person suffer from multiple-personality disorder? Because in the first question, he is a neutral/ignorant observer of the Mideast drama; in the second, he sympathizes with the Jews; in the third, he's a radical Muslim. Moreover, after you blow up the bar and replace it with a mosque, is the surrounding hotel still there? Why would anyone build a mosque in a half-blown-up hotel?

Perhaps Friedman should have written the passage like this: "It's the latest version of the longest-running play in the modern Middle East, which, if I were to give it a title, would be called: 'Who owns this hotel? And why did a person suffering from multiple-personality disorder build a mosque inside it after blowing up the bar and asking if there was a room for the Jews? Why? Because his editor's been drinking rubbing alcohol!' "

OK, so maybe all of this is unfair. There are a lot of people out there who think Friedman has not been treated fairly by critics like me, that focusing on his literary struggles is a snobbish, below-the-belt tactic -- a cheap shot that belies the strength of his overall "arguments." Who cares, these people say, if Friedman's book The World is Flat should probably have been titled Thief. He had wanted the book's title to match its "point" about living in an age of increased global interconnectedness?

And who cares if it doesn't quite make sense when Friedman says that Iraq is like a "vase we broke in order to get rid of the rancid water inside?" Who cares that you can just pour water out of a vase, that only a fucking lunatic breaks a perfectly good vase just to empty it of water? You're missing the point, folks say, and the point is all in Friedman's highly nuanced ideas about world politics and the economy -- if you could just get past his well-meaning attempts to explain himself, you'd see that, and maybe you'd even learn something.

My initial answer to that is that Friedman's language choices over the years have been highly revealing: When a man who thinks you need to break a vase to get the water out of it starts arguing that you need to invade a country in order to change the minds of its people, you might want to start paying attention to how his approach to the vase problem worked out. Thomas Friedman is not a president, a pope, a general on the field of battle or any other kind of man of action. He doesn't actually do anything apart from talk about shit in a newspaper. So in my mind it's highly relevant if his manner of speaking is fucked.

But whatever, let's concede the point, forget about the crazy metaphors for a moment and look at the actual content of Hot, Flat and Crowded. Many people have rightly seen this new greenish, pseudo-progressive tract as an ideological departure from Friedman's previous works, which were all virtually identical exercises in bald greed worship and capitalist tent-pitching. Approach- and rhetoric-wise, however, it's the same old Friedman -- a tireless social scientist whose research methods mainly include lunching, reading road signs and watching people board airplanes.

Like The World is Flat, a book borne of Friedman's stirring experience of seeing an IBM sign in the distance while golfing in Bangalore, Hot, Flat and Crowded is a book whose great insights come when Friedman golfs (on global warming allowing him more winter golf days: "I will still take advantage of it -- but I no longer think of it as something I got for free."), looks at Burger King signs (upon seeing a "nightmarish neon blur" of KFC, BK and McDonald's signs in Texas, he realizes: "We're on a fool's errand."), and reads bumper stickers (the "Osama Loves your SUV" sticker he read turns into the thesis of his "Fill 'er up with Dictators" chapter). This is Friedman's life: He flies around the world, eats pricey lunches with other rich people and draws conclusions about the future of humanity by looking out his hotel window and counting the Applebee's signs.

Friedman frequently uses a rhetorical technique that goes something like this: "I was in Dubai with the general counsel of BP last year, watching 500 Balinese textile workers get on a train, when suddenly I said to myself, ‘We need better headlights for our tri-plane.' " And off he goes. You the reader end up spending so much time wondering what Dubai, BP and all those Balinese workers have to do with the rest of the story that you don't notice that tri-planes don't have headlights. And by the time you get all that sorted out, your well-lit tri-plane is flying from chapter to chapter delivering a million geo-green pizzas to a million Noahs on a million Arks. And you give up. There's so much shit flying around the book's atmosphere that you don't notice the only action is Friedman talking to himself.

In The World is Flat, the key action scene of the book comes when Friedman experiences his pseudo-epiphany about the Flat world while talking with himself in front of InfoSys CEO Nandan Nilekani. In Hot, Flat and Crowded, the money shot comes when Friedman starts doodling on a napkin over lunch with Moisés Naím, editor of Foreign Policy magazine. The pre-lunching Friedman starts drawing, and the wisdom just comes pouring out:

I laid out my napkin and drew a graph showing how there seemed to be a rough correlation between the price of oil, between 1975 and 2005, and the pace of freedom in oil-producing states during those same years.

Friedman then draws his napkin-graph, and much to the pundit's surprise, it turns out that there is almost an exact correlation between high oil prices and "unfreedom"! The graph contains two lines, one showing a rising-and-then-descending slope of "freedom," and one showing a descending-and-then-rising course of oil prices.

Friedman plots exactly four points on the graph over the course of those 30 years. In 1989, as oil prices are falling, Friedman writes, "Berlin Wall Torn Down." In 1993, again as oil prices are low, he writes, "Nigeria Privatizes First Oil Field." 1997, oil prices still low, "Iran Calls for Dialogue of Civilizations." Then, finally, 2005, a year of high oil prices: "Iran Calls for Israel's destruction."

Take a look for yourself: I looked at this and thought: "Gosh, what a neat trick!" Then I sat down and drew up my own graph, called "Size of Valerie Bertinelli's Ass, 1985-2008 Versus Happiness." It turns out that there is an almost exact correlation! Note the four points on the graph:

1990: Release of Miller's Crossing

1996-97: Crabs

2001: Ate bad tuna fish sandwich at Times Square Blimpie; felt sick.

2008: Barack Obama elected

That was so much fun, I drew another one! This one is called "American Pork Belly Prices Versus What Midgets Think About Australia 1972-2002."

Or how about this one, called "Number of One-Eyed Retarded Flies in the State of North Carolina Versus Likelihood of Nuclear Combat on Indian Subcontinent."

Obviously this sounds like a flippant analysis, but that's more or less exactly what Friedman is up to here. If you're going to draw a line that measures the level of "freedom" across the entire world and on that line plot just four randomly selected points in time over the course of 30 years -- and one of your top four "freedom points" in a 30-year period of human history is the privatization of a Nigerian oil field -- well, what the fuck? What can't you argue, if that's how you're going to make your point?

He could have graphed a line in the opposite direction by replacing Berlin with Tiananmen Square, substituting Iraqi elections for Iran's call for Israel's destruction (incidentally, when in the last half-century or so have Islamic extremists not called for Israel's destruction?), junking Iran's 1997 call for dialogue for the U.S. sanctions against Iran in '95, and so on. It's crazy, a game of Scrabble where the words don't have to connect on the board, or a mathematician coming up with the equation AB-3X = Swedish girls like chocolate.

Getting to the "ideas" in the book: Its basic premise is that America's decades-long habit of gluttonous energy consumption has adversely affected humanity because: a) while the earth could support America's indulgence, it can't sustain 2 billion endlessly copulating Chinese should they all choose to live in American-style excess, and b) the exploding global demand for oil artificially subsidizes repressive Middle Eastern dictatorships that would otherwise have to rely on tax revenue (read: listen to their people) in order to survive, and this subsidy leads to terrorism and a spread of "unfreedom."

Regarding the first point, Friedman writes:

Because if the spread of freedom and free markets is not accompanied by a new approach to how we produce energy and treat the environment … then Mother Nature and planet Earth will impose their own constraints and limits on our way of life -- constraints that will be worse than communism.

Three observations about this touching and seemingly remarkable development, i.e. onetime, unrepentant free-market icon Thomas Friedman suddenly coming out huge for the environment and against the evils of gross consumerism:

1. The need for massive investment in green energy is an idea so obvious and inoffensive that even presidential candidates from both parties could be seen fighting over who's for it more in nationally televised debates last fall;

2. I wish I had the balls to first spend six long years madly cheering on an Iraq war that not only reintroduced Shariah law to the streets of Baghdad, but radicalized the entire Islamic world against American influence -- and then write a book blaming the spread of fundamentalist Islam on the ignorant consumers of the Middle American heartland, who bought too many Hummers and spent too much time shopping for iPods in my wife's giganto-malls.

3. To review quickly, the "Long Bomb" Iraq war plan Friedman supported as a means of transforming the Middle East blew up in his and everyone else's face; the "Electronic Herd" of highly volatile international capital markets he once touted as an economic cure-all not only didn't pan out, but led the world into a terrifying chasm of seemingly irreversible economic catastrophe; his beloved "Golden Straitjacket" of American-style global development (forced on the world by the "hidden fist" of American military power) turned out to be the vehicle for the very energy/ecological crisis Friedman himself warns about in his new book; and, most humorously, the "Flat World" consumer economics Friedman marveled at so voluminously turned out to be grounded in such total unreality that even his wife's once-mighty shopping mall empire, General Growth Properties, has lost 99 percent of its value in this year alone.

So, yes, Friedman is suddenly an environmentalist of sorts.

What the fuck else is he going to be? All the other ideas he spent the last 10 years humping have been blown to hell. Color me unimpressed that he scrounged one more thing to sell out of the smoldering, discredited wreck that should be his career; that he had the good sense to quickly reinvent himself before angry gods remembered to dash his brains out with a lightning bolt. But better late than never, I suppose.

Or as Friedman might say, "Better two cell phones than a fish in your zipper."

Masters of Defeat: Retreating Empire and Bellicose Bluster By James Petras*

Sept 11, 2008

Washington is forced to watch other powers shape events
Financial Times August 25, 2008

Introduction

Everywhere one looks, US imperial policy has suffered major military and diplomatic defeats. With the backing of the Democratic Congress, the Republican White House’s aggressive pursuit of a military approach to empire-building has led to a world-wide decline of US influence, the realignment of former client rulers toward imperial adversaries, the emergence of competing hegemons and loss of crucial sources of strategic raw materials. The defeats and losses have not dampened militaristic policies nor extinguished the drive for empire building. On the contrary, both the White House and the Congressional incumbents have embraced a hardening of military positions, reiterated a confrontational style of politics and an increased reliance on overseas, bellicose posturing to distract the domestic populace from its deteriorating economic conditions. As the economic and political cost of sustaining the empire increases, as the Federal government allocates hundreds of billions to the crises-ridden financial sector and cuts tens of billions in corporate taxes, avoiding collapse and recession, the entire economic burden is borne by the wage and salaried class in the form of declining living standards, while 12 million immigrant workers are subject to savage police state repression.
The overseas failures and domestic crises however have not led to progressive alternatives; the beneficiaries are overseas competitors and the domestic elite. In large part where public opinion majorities have expressed a desire or clamored for progressive alternatives, they have been thwarted by political representatives linked to militarist ideologues and the corporate elites.
Paradoxically the defeats and decline of US military directed empire building has been accompanied by the retreat of the anti-war movements in North America and Western Europe and the sharp decline of political parties and regimes opposing US imperialism in all the advanced capitalist countries. In other words, the defeats suffered by the US Empire have not been products of the Western Left, nor have they led to a ‘peace dividend’ or improved living standards for the working classes or peasants. To the extent that there are beneficiaries, they are found largely among the newly aspiring economic imperial countries, like China, Russia and India, among the oil rich countries of the Middle East, and especially among a broad swath of large agro-mineral export countries like Brazil, South Africa and Iran, which have carved out important niches in their region’s.
The growth and overseas expansion of the new economic empire building countries and their agro-mineral-financial ruling classes (with the possible exception of Venezuela) have greatly benefited a tiny elite, comprising not more than twenty percent of the population. The relative decline of US military imperialism and the rise of new economic imperialist powers have redistributed wealth and market share between countries but not among classes within the ascendant powers. While the militarists-Zionists-financial speculators rule the US Empire, the new billionaire manufacturers, real estate speculators and agro-mineral exporters rule the emerging economic empires.
The second paradox is found in the fact that the political forces militarily defeating the US military-centered empire are not the forces benefiting from the struggle.
While the Iraqi and Afghan resistance has imposed almost a trillion dollar cost on the US Treasury and tied down over 2 million rotating US troops over the past six years, it is the Chinese, Indian, Russian, European, Gulf Oil and financial ruling classes which have reaped the benefits from massive US non-productive expenditures. While the new economic beneficiaries are, in large part, secular, imperial and elitist, the politico-military forces undermining and defeating the US military empire are religious (Islamic), nationalist and mass-based.
The contemporary defeats of US military empire building are not a product of Western, secular, mass leftist movements. Nor do they result in a progressive, egalitarian society. Instead we have fast-growing highly unequal economies, led by ruling classes promoting their own ‘national’ versions of free market/neo-liberal strategies, which maximize profits through economic exploitation of labor, resource extraction and pillage of the environment. Until the mass movements, intellectuals and activists of the West break from their passivity and blind allegiance to the existing major parties, the defeat of US militarism will be a costly burden assumed by the masses of the Third World while the benefits will accrue to the rising new billionaire economic imperialists.

The Geography of Imperial Failures and Retreat
Middle East: Iraq and Iran

The ascendancy of military-directed empire building in the US has once again put into evidence its utter incapability to impose a new imperial order. After six and a half years of war and occupation in Iraq, the US has suffered enormous military casualties and over half a trillion in economic losses, without securing any political or military or natural resource gains. The losses from the war have generated domestic opposition to US military intervention, undermining current and future imperial military capacity. Even the US designated puppet ruler in Iraq, Al Maliki, has demanded a set date for US withdrawal. US client Afghan President Karzai has called for greater oversight over US military operations which have killed thousands of non-combatants and civilians, thus deepening and extending support for the national resistance which now operates throughout the country.
For those in the US, particularly on the ‘Left’ who mistakenly argued that the invasion of Iraq was a ‘War for Oil’ (rather than a war in support of Israeli hegemonic ambitions), Iraq’s signing of a $3 billion dollar oil contract with the China National Petroleum Corporation in late August 2008 (Financial Times August 28, 2008) demonstrates the contrary, unless one wishes to revise the slogan to ‘US War for Chinese Oil’. In the 6 years since the US invaded Iraq, US oil companies have still failed to secure major oil deals.
On October 4-5, 2008, Shell, one of the world’s biggest petroleum multinationals and OMV, an Austrian energy corporation will sponsor a conference in Teheran under the auspices of the National Iranian Gas Export Company to promote ‘gas export opportunities and potentials of the Islamic Republic of Iran’. This conference is simply one more example of the role of major petroleum companies attempting, through peaceful means, to build their overseas holdings (‘economic empire’). The major opposition to this ‘oil for peace’ move on the part of Shell Oil came from the leading Jewish-Zionist promoter of US engaging in Middle East wars for Israel – the Anti-Defamation League, which criticized Big Oil. According to its two principle leaders, Glen Lewy and Abe Foxman, “…these two companies are co-sponsoring a conference with the state-owned energy company of the leading state-sponsor of terrorism and human rights violator. Bu promoting one of Iran’s strategic industries, natural gas, OMV and Shell are hindering the effort of responsible states (sic) and corporations to isolate Iran.”
The conflict between Shell/OMV and a leading American Zionist-Jewish organization highlights the fundamental conflict between economic-centered empire building and military-centered empire building. The fact that Shell and OMV went ahead with the Iranian conference shows that at least some sectors of the oil industry are finally beginning to challenge the stranglehold that Zionist-militarists have over US Middle East policy. After having lost tens of billions of dollars in lucrative oil contracts thanks to Zionist-dictated policies , the oil companies are finally taking the first tentative steps toward formulating a new policy.
By pursuing the Israeli-US Zionist agenda of sequential wars and sanctions against oil-rich Muslim countries, Washington has lost access, control and profits to global economic competitors in a strategic region.

Africa

In the African nation of Somalia Washington opted for military intervention via the proxy Ethiopian dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi to bolster the discredited and defeated pro-US puppet regime of Abdullah Yusuf. After almost 2 years the Ethiopian and the puppet regime only control a few blocks of the capital, Mogadishu, while the rest of the country is in the hands of the Somali resistance. According to the Financial Times (August 28, 2008), the Ethiopian regime “expressed a desire to curtail its military engagement in Somalia”. The US surrogate has been militarily and politically defeated; the US failed to secure support for its proxy occupation from the African Union. Throughout Africa, China, the EU, Japan, Russia and to a lesser degree India and Brazil all have made inroads in securing joint ventures in oil, raw materials export markets and large-scale, long-term infrastructure investments, while the US backs armed separatists in the Sudan and subsidizes the corrupt Mubarak regime in Egypt for over a billion dollars a year. Not only has the US empire lost out economically to its global competitors, it has suffered a major military-diplomatic defeat in Somalia and severely politically and financially weakened its Ethiopian client.

South Asia

In South Asia, the US strategic puppet ruler, Pakistani dictator Mushareff has been forced to resign – and the weak and divided electoral coalition which has replaced him has not been able to match the military, diplomatic and intelligence support for the US war in Afghanistan which Mushareff provided. The Pakistan-Afghan border is virtually open territory for cross border attacks, recruitment and military supplies by Afghan resistance organizations. The empire’s loss of Mushareff further undermines US efforts to impose an outpost in Afghanistan.
Through frequent ground and air attacks on Pakistan regions bordering Afghanistan, the US-NATO ‘coalition’ has multiplied, deepened and made massive civilian political and armed opposition throughout the country. The ‘election’ of the US client and convicted warlord and thug, Asif Ali Zadari, as President of Pakistan, will not in anyway contribute to the recovery of US influence outside of very limited elite political and military circles. Washington’s pursuit and extension of military imperialism from Afghanistan to Pakistan has led to even more severe political defeat among a much wider population in South Asia.
Top NATO generals and officials have recognized that the ‘Taliban’ has reorganized and extended its influence throughout the country, controlling most throughways to the major cities and even operating in and around the capital Kabul. Repeated US bombing and missile strikes of civilian housing, cultural events and markets have alienated vast numbers of Afghans and led to widespread opposition to US client ruler Karzai. The promises of both US presidential candidates to vastly expand the US occupation forces in Afghanistan upon taking office, will only prolong the war and deepen the weakening of the economic empires and its domestic foundations.

Caucasus

Washington’s attempt to extend its sphere of influence in the Caucasus through a territorial grab by its authoritarian Georgian client, President Mikheil Saakashvili, led instead to a profound defeat of the local satrap’s regional ambitions. The political break and integration with Russia of South Ossetia and Abkhazia represents the end of unrestricted expansion of the US and EU in the region – and a rollback in contested terrain. The rash adventurism and subsequent destruction of the Georgian economy by Saakashvili has provoked widespread internal unrest. Worse still, Georgia, the US and its Eastern European clients call for ‘sanctions’ against Russia, threatens to undermine Western European strategic energy supply lines, as well as end Moscow’s collaboration with US military policies in Afghanistan, Iran and the Middle East. If Washington escalates its military and economic threats to Russia, the latter can provide Iran, Syria and other US adversaries with powerful middle range ultra-modern anti-aircraft missiles. Equally important Russia can dump over $200 billion in US Treasury notes, further weaken the US dollar and set in motion a global run in the currency.
In Georgia as elsewhere, US military-centered empire building gives priority to a failed marginal land grab by a third rate client over lucrative strategic economic and military relations with one of the world’s global oil and gas powers and a crucial collaborator in its ongoing military operation in the Middle East. While US economic relations with Russia crumble in the wake of its aggressive military encirclement of Moscow—military bases in the Czech Republic, Poland, Georgia, Bulgaria, Rumania – Western European empire builders resist making military threats in favor of harsh rhetoric and ‘dialog’ in order to sustain strategic energy ties.
Middle East: Israel and the Arabs
In the Middle East, the US unconditional backing of Israeli military aggression in Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, and US backing of weak and ineffective Arab clients has led to a sharp decline in US influence. In Lebanon, since the defeat of the Israeli invasion in 2006, Hezbollah literally rules the southern half of the country – and holds veto power within the national government, reversing US client rule.
In Gaza, US and Israeli military attempts to seize power and oust Hamas via its client Abbas and Dahlen were rounded defeated and the independent nationalist movement led by Hamas consolidated power.
Washington’s effort to regain its influence and improve its image among conservative and moderate Arab rulers by ‘mediating’ a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine in Annapolis in November 2007 was utterly destroyed by Tel Aviv’s open and total repudiation of all the basic conditions set forth by the Bush Administration. Washington has no influence on Israel’s colonial expansion. On the contrary, the US Middle East policy is totally subject to the Israeli state through the Zionist Power Configuration and its control over Congress, Presidential selection, the mass media and major propaganda ‘think tanks’. The Zionists demonstrated their power by even dictating who could or could not even speak at the Democratic National Convention with the unprecedented censoring of former President James Carter because of his humanitarian criticism of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians. Zionist-Israeli usurpation of US Middle East policy has led to strategic losses of investments, markets, profits and partnerships for the entire multi-national oil and gas industry.
The political fusion of imperialist militarists confronting Russia at the cost of strategic economic relations and Zionist-militarists pursuing Israeli regional power has led to multiple failed military adventures and tremendous global economic losses.

The Western Hemisphere

The application of the militarist strategy as well as the relative decline of economic hegemony has led to strategic defeats and failures in the Western Hemisphere. In late 2001, Washington challenged and threatened to take reprisals against President Chavez for refusing to submit to Bush’s ‘war on terror.’ Chavez at the time informed a bellicose representative of the State Department (Grossman) that, “We don’t fight terror with terror.” Less than 6 months later in April 2003, Washington backed a failed military coup and between December 2002 to February 2003, a failed bosses lockout. The failure of the US militarist strategy devastated Washington’s military and ruling class clients, and radicalized the Chavez Government. As a consequence, the Venezuelan leader proceeded to nationalize oil and petrol sectors and develop strategic ties with countries that compete with or oppose the US Empire, such as, Cuba, Iran, China and Russia. Venezuela signed strategic economic agreements in Latin America with Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba and Nicaragua. While Washington poured over $6 billion dollars in military aid to Colombia, Venezuela signed petrol and gas investment and trade agreements with most of the Central American and Caribbean countries, severely challenging Washington’s influence in the region.
High commodity prices, booming Asian markets, unacceptable US tariffs and subsidies led to the relative independence of Latin America’s ‘national capitalist’ regimes, who embraced ‘neo-liberalism’ without the constraints of the IMF or the dictates of Washington. In these circumstances the US lost most of its leverage – except Colombia’s military threats – to pressure Latin America to isolate Chavez – or even Cuba. Washington’s military strategy led to its self-isolation.

Overseas Consequences of Failed Military Strategies

Isolation in Latin American can not be overcome because Washington’s pursuit of empire via prolonged military aggression - in the rest of the world and in Latin America –can not compete with the profits, wealth, investment and trade opportunities offered to the ruling classes of Latin America by the new markets in Russia, the Middle East, Asia and by oil rich Venezuela.
Washington’s militarist imperial strategy is evident in its dual policies: Prioritizing the spending of $6 billion in military aid to repressive Colombia while sacrificing $10 billion in trade, investments and profits with oil rich Venezuela. Washington has spent over $500 billion in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; billions are spent in war preparations against Iran; over $3 billion annually for Israel’s military; all the time losing hundreds of billions of dollars in trade and investment with Latin America.
The most striking aspect of this historical contrast is that the military spending embedded in military-centered empire building has failed even its minimum goal of gaining political control, military outposts and strategic resources for war. In contrast, global market competitors have secured access and control over strategic economic resources, and signed lucrative political co-operation agreements without costly military commitments.

Domestic Consequences of Failed Military-Driven Empire Building

The cost of military-Zionist driven empire building to the domestic economy has been devastating: Competitiveness has declined, inflation is eroding living standards, employment with stable living wages is disappearing, unemployment and loss of jobs is skyrocketing, the financial system is disconnected from the real economy and on the verge of collapse, home foreclosures are reaching catastrophic levels and taxpayers are being bled to death to bail out the trillion dollar home mortgage debt speculators. Political malaise is widespread. In the midst of system-wide crisis, an emerging police state has taken hold: thousands of legal and undocumented immigrant workers have been seized at their factories and detained in military camps away from their children. Muslim and Arab associations are raided and prosecuted on the bases of paid informers, including hooded Israeli ‘witnesses’. The federal and local police practice ‘preventative detention’ of activists and journalists prior to the Presidential conventions, seizing protestors before they can exercise their constitutional rights and systematically destroying the cameras and tapes of citizens attempting to document abuses. Failed military imperialism brings in its wake a burgeoning police state – backed by both political parties – in the face of economic crises which threatens the political and social foundations of the empire.

Conclusion

The economic crisis in the run up to the Presidential elections has not led to the emergence of a mass based progressive alternative candidate. Both the Democratic and Republican contenders promise to prolong and extend the imperial wars and submit to unprecedented Israeli-Zionist military dictates with regard to Iran.
Crises and military defeats have not led to a re-thinking of global economic and military commitments. Instead we witness a right-wing radicalization, which seeks to escalate confrontations with China, Russia and Iran. The US draws in its wake the client regimes of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus and Baltic regions to counter Western Europe’s emphasis on ‘economic-centered’ empire building.
The reality of a multi-polarized economic world however undermines US efforts to impose a bipolar military confrontation. China holds $1.2 trillion dollars in US debt. Western Europe, in general, depends on over one-third of its energy for its homes, offices and factories from Russia. Germany relies on Russia for almost 60% of its gas. The economies of Asia: Japan, India, China, Vietnam and South Korea all depend on oil from the Middle East and not on the Middle East war plans of the Israeli-American militarists.
Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Venezuela and Iran are essential to the functioning of the world economy. In the same way that the US-Israel-United Kingdom cannot support their empire on the bases of failed military strategies abroad and economic disaster and police state policies at home.

Mick's Mojo

Aren't older men a riot? I mean much older men. Former pop icons such as Mick and Paul. And I don't mean Jones and Weller. I mean Jagger and McCartney. What are they in it for? Evolutionary psychologists will have their explanations, I suspect. And in all probability, these researchers will be on to something. But when does it all stop these days?

Defending Israel to the End Times By Bill Berkowitz

These are busy days for Christian Zionists. While President Bush recently returned from his trip to the Middle East “optimistic” that a peace agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians could be reached by the end of the year, Pastor John Hagee’s Christian United for Israel (CUFI) is setting forth plans to put the kibosh — if not on the entire peace process — on any agreement that would sanction the division of Jerusalem. And Dr. Mike Evans has launched a “Save Jerusalem Campaign” while Joel C. Rosenberg’s Joshua Fund is planning a major celebration in Jerusalem in honor of Israel’s 60th anniversary.

CUFI, the pro-Israel lobbying group launched in February 2006 to provide support for Israel, believes that “‘Jerusalem must remain undivided as the eternal capital of the Jewish people’ (meaning no portion of it should be turned over to the Palestinians),” Sarah Posner, writes in her new book God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters (PoliPointPress, 2008).

Hagee, who heads up an 18,000-member Pentecostal congregation in San Antonio, Texas, “inject[s] . . . the charged rhetoric of biblical prophesy into contemporary foreign policy,” Posner writes, “[which] has catapulted him to the forefront of an American Christian Zionist movement that has become the darling of conservative Israel hawks in Washington and neoconservatives yearning for regional war in the Middle East.”

Last week, while Bush was still in the Middle East, Pastor Hagee sent the following e-mail to his supporters, a message that Posner characterized in an e-mail as a “pretty clear biblical directive to his followers, but . . . not very political”:

As world leaders attempt to decide the future of Israel and Jerusalem during diplomatic visits in an endeavor to create peace in the Middle East let remain focused on the Word of God and what is says about the future glory on Zion.

Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; he will come and save you. Isaiah 35:4

The Word clearly speaks of the future house of God,

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

Many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:2-3

In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Micah 4:1-2

Over at the CUFI blog, David Brog, the organization’s Jewish executive director, issued a message of his own. In announcing its third annual Washington, DC Summit — scheduled for July 21 to July 24 — Brog asked supporters to “think about” three things:

1) President Bush is committed to completing a Middle East peace agreement by the time he leaves office. Our Summit will likely provide a final opportunity to influence this process in what may well be its final, fateful days.

2). We’ll be meeting in Washington less than four months before the 2008 Presidential election. Our Summit will be a last opportunity to impact the debate before this campaign hits the home stretch.

3). When we go up to Capitol Hill to visit with our representatives, there will be only a few working months left in this session of Congress. Once Congress adjourns, every bill before Congress that has not received a final up-or-down vote will die and we will need to start from scratch in the new Congress that is sworn in during January, 2009. Our Summit will be a final opportunity to secure passage of important pro-Israel legislation currently before Congress.

Another item that will likely be on CUFI’s agenda is Iran. On the organization’s homepage Hagee doesn’t mince words: Ignoring the recent National Intelligence Estimate which found that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and is unlikely to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a bomb until at least 2010, Hagee insists on calling President Ahmadinejad of Iran “a new Hitler in the Middle East … who has threatened to wipe out Israel and America and is rapidly acquiring the nuclear technology to make good on his threat. If we learned anything from the Holocaust, it is that when a madman threatens genocide we must take him seriously.”

Mike Evans’ “Save Jerusalem Campaign”

Meanwhile, in a media-savvy move on the first day of Bush’s trip, Dr. Mike Evans used the front page of the heavily trafficked online website, the Drudge Report, to advertise for his Save Jerusalem Campaign.

Evans, the head of the Jerusalem Prayer Team, the author of the New York Times bestseller The Final Move Beyond Iraq, and the publisher of the online Jerusalem World News, is angry with president Bush for “moving full-speed ahead with his Annapolis Road Map plan to have a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital before he leaves office.”

In a recent report titled “Betrayed: The Bush Conspiracy to Divide Jerusalem,” Evans argued that the Road Map, proposed by the international Quartet — the U.S., the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations — “has become corrupted by Saudi Arabia and other fundamentalist Islamic forces into a plan to divide Jerusalem and make east Jerusalem — the home of Christianity — the capital of a Palestinian state and force Israel to return all lands reclaimed in 1967.”

In an e-mail to supporters dated January 22, Evans wrote that he was “completely outraged when [he] heard that [Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert, whom I have known for 26 years, stood next to President Bush and declared that he would work to fulfill the final status solution to the Road Map to Peace. In essence, this means the division of Jerusalem (with all Christian Holy Sites being under Islamic rule of law) and Judea and Samaria turned over to the Palestinians.”

Rosenberg’s Crusade

Another longtime Christian Zionist, Joel C. Rosenberg, has a rather nuanced view of the peace process. Rosenberg, the founder of The Joshua Fund — whose operating motto is “Pray for peace, but prepare for war” — maintained on his blog that despite the previous failures at reaching an accord, “we should not write off this possibility [of peace] too quickly.”

Rosenberg, a Jew who converted to Christianity more than 30 years ago, was a mostly behind-the-scenes figure in the conservative movement until his first novel, The Last Jihad, became a New York Times bestseller. Over the years, he has worked for former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli politician Natan Sharansky, US business magazine magnate Steve Forbes, and right-wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. He is also a former Heritage Foundation staffer.

Rosenberg appears to believe that if peace deal is concluded, it will not contradict Biblical prophesy: “While . . . Matthew 24 and Luke 21 indicate that there will be wars, rumors of wars and revolutions in the Middle East in the last days, Ezekiel 38 also indicates that for a season at least the Jews will be living ’securely’ in the land prior to the apocalyptic War of Gog & Magog (the Russian-Iranian alliance to destroy Israel).”

In early January on his blog, Rosenberg characterized Olmert as “a man who seems almost desperate for a peace deal with the Palestinians, even if that means dividing Jerusalem (a terrible idea we should strongly oppose).” And in an entry dated January 23, Rosenberg seems buoyed by the possibility that Olmert’s government “is increasingly in danger of collapse.”

Netanyahu’s Resurgence

“Meanwhile,” writes Rosenberg, the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu, a close ally/friend of U.S. Christian Zionists, “is waiting in the wings, talking tough on Gaza and Iran, saying Olmert should strike hard and fast with ‘disproportionate force’ against Palestinian terrorists.” Netanyahu said that “In a war of attrition the enemy strikes and you react, the enemy strikes harder and you retaliate harder. This gradual increase in violence is the antithesis of deterrence….Deterrence always means using disproportionate force. We need to move from a concept of attrition to one of tough deterrence that will eventually lead to the removal of the Hamas regime, because as long as it exists it will continue arming itself and continue its attacks.”

Most importantly for Rosenberg, Evans, and CUFI is that “Netanyahu is also warning against dividing Jerusalem or giving away the West Bank and thus creating potential bases for Iran,” according to Rosenberg. “We must not repeat this mistake [of the South Lebanon and Gaza withdrawals,’” Netanyahu said on January 21, “This time we’re going to have an Iranian base facing Jerusalem and the Dan Bloc, which includes Tel Aviv. We have to prevent Iran’s armament and not let it establish new bases on our territory.”

While possibly going against the desires of Christian Zionists regarding Jerusalem, on his trip Bush continued to throw them a bone, hammering away at Iran. At a stop in Abu Dhabi, the president called Iran “the world’s leading state-sponsor of terror.” Bush said that Iran threatens all nations and the U.S. was “rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late.”

Rosenberg’s Joshua Fund is organizing a conference slated for April 10 in Jerusalem to celebrate Israel’s 60th anniversary. According to Rosenberg, the purpose of the conference is “to educate people as to the serious threats facing the Jewish State and their neighbors, mobilize Christians around the world to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and provide humanitarian relief to the poor and needy and those suffering from war and terrorism.”

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His column, "Conservative Watch," documents the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.

Jewish Joke

"Moishe, have you lost your mind? Why are you reading an Arab newspaper?" Moishe replies, "I used to read the Jewish newspaper, but what did I find? Jews being persecuted, Israel being attacked, Jews disappearing through assimilation and intermarriage, Jews living in poverty. So I switched to the Arab newspaper. Now what do I find? Jews own all the banks, Jews control the media, Jews are all rich and powerful, Jews rule the world. The news is so much better!"

The Pro-Israel Lobby: The Debate between James Petras and Norman Finkelstein

Hosted and produced by Hagit Borer for the SWANA (South and West Asia and North Africa) Collective of KPFK

February 8, 2007

Hagit Borer: There is little question in anybody¹s mind about the special relation between Israel and the United States. Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid to the tune of more than $3 billion dollars a year, plus miscellaneous additions like surplus weaponry, debt waivers and other perks. Israel is the only country that receives its entire aid package in the beginning of the fiscal year allowing it to accrue interest on it during the year. It is the only country which is allowed to spend up to 25% of its aid outside of the United States, placing such expenditures outside US control. Apart from financial support, the United States has offered unwavering support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine and for the ongoing oppression of the Palestinians, and has systematically supported Israel¹s refusal to make any effective peace negotiations or peace agreements. It has vetoed countless UN resolutions seeking to bring Israel into compliance with international law. It has allowed Israel to develop nuclear weapons and not to sign the nuclear anti-proliferation treaty and most recently it strongly supported Israel¹s attack on Lebanon in July of 2006. Support for Israel cuts across party lines and is extremely strong in Congress where criticism of Israel is rarely if ever heard. It also characterizes almost all American administrations from Johnson onwards, with George W. Bush being possible the most pro-Israel ever.

What is the reason for this strong support? Opinions on this matter vary greatly. Within strong pro-Israeli circles, one often hears that the reason is primarily moral: the debt that the United States owes Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust; the nature of Israel as the sole democracy in the Middle East; Israel as the moral and possible strategic ally of the United States in its War on Terror. Within circles that are less supportive of Israel and which are less inclined to view Israel and Israel¹s conduct as moral, opinions vary as well. One opinion stems from the position of Israel being a strategic ally of the United States ¬ its support is simply payment for services rendered coupled with the stable pro-American stance of the Jewish Israeli population. Noam Chomsky, among others, is a proponent of this view. According to the opposing view, the United States¹ support for Israel does not advance American aims, it jeopardizes them. The explanation for the support is to be found in the activities of the Israel Lobby, also known as the Jewish Lobby, or as AIPAC (the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), which uses its formidable influence to shape American foreign policy in accordance with Israeli interests. The opinion as most recently been associated with an article published in the London Book Review, co-authored by Professor Merscheimer of the University of Chicago and Professor Walt of Harvard University.

This debate is the topic of our program today.

Let me introduce our guests: Norman Finkelstein is a professor of political science at De Paul University. Welcome to our program, Norman.

Norman Finkelstein: Thank you.

Hagit Borer: Professor Finkelstein is the author of several books on the history of Zionism and the role of the Holocaust in present day Israeli policies. His latest book, published in 2005, Beyond Chutzpah, on The Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History.

Our second guest is James Petras. James is an Emeritus Professor of sociology at SUNY Binghamton. Welcome to our program, James.

James Petras: Glad to be here, Hagit.

Hagit Borer: Professor Petras is the author of numerous books on state power and the nature of globalization in the context of the US and Latin America, and most recently in the Middle East. His latest book, published in 2006, is titled The Power of Israel in the United States. Perhaps starting with you, James, perhaps you could tell us by way of a short opening statement where you would place yourself on this issue of a debate on the source of the United States lasting and enduring support for Israel.

James Petras: Well, I think I would probably argue that the pro-Israel lobby, the Zionist Lobby, is the dominant factor in shaping US policy in the Middle East, particularly in the most recent period. And I think one has to look at this beyond AIPAC. I mean, we have to look a whole string of pro-Zionist think tanks from the American Enterprise Institute on down, and then we have to look at a whole power configuration, which not only involves AIPAC, but also the President of the Major American Jewish Organizations, which number 52. We have to look at individuals occupying crucial positions in the government, as we had recently with Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and others. We have to look at the army of op-ed writers who have access to the major newspapers. We have to look at the super-rich contributors to the Democratic Party, Media moguls etc. And I think this, together with the leverage in Congress and in the Executive, is the decisive factor in shaping US foreign policy in the Middle East. And I want to emphasize that.

Hagit Borer: James, just to stop you and maybe we can also have some kind of an opening statement from Norman.

Norman Finkelstein: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I would say that I situate myself on the spectrum somewhere towards the middle. I don¹t think it is just the Lobby which determines the US relationship with Israel. And I don¹t think it is just US interests which determine the US relationship with Israel. I think that you have to look at the broad picture and then you have to look at the local picture. On the broad picture, that is to say, US policy in the Middle East generally speaking, the historical connection between the US and Israel has been based on the useful services that Israel has performed for the United States in the region as a whole. And that became most prominent in June 1967, when Israel knocked out the main challenge, or potential challenge, to US dominance in the region, namely Abdul Nasser of Egypt. So, on the broad question of the US-Israel relationship that is the regional relationship, I think it is correct to say that the alliance has been based fundamentally on services rendered. On the other hand, it is very clear from looking at the documentary record, that the US was euphoric when Israel knocked out Egypt or knocked out Nasser and Nasserism, it is also clear from looking at the documentary record, that the United States has never had any big stake in trying to maintain Israel¹s control over the territories it conquered in the June 1967 war, that is to say, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, the Syrian Golan Heights and, at that time, the Jordanian West Bank and Jerusalem. The US clearly had no stake in it and already from July 1967, wanted to apply pressures on Israel to commit itself from fully withdrawing. It was pretty obvious, if you look at the record again, that Israel, at that point, was able to bring to bear the Lobby. In 1967-68 it meant principally the forthcoming Presidential election and the Jewish vote. It was to bring to bear the power of the Jewish vote to resist efforts to withdraw. And since ¹67, the Lobby has been very effective, I think, in raising the threshold before the US is willing to act and force an Israeli withdrawal pretty much like the withdrawal it forced on Indonesia in 2000 to leave Timor. The two occupations begin in roughly the same period: in 1974, Indonesia invades Timor with the US green light and in 1967, Israel conquers the West Bank, Gaza and so forth with the US green light. And so the obvious question is: Both occupations endured for a long period. The Indonesian occupation was infinitely more destructive, killing more than one-third of the East Timorese population. But it is true to say come 2000 the US does order Indonesia to withdraw its troops. Why hasn¹t it done so in the case of the Israel-Palestine occupation? And there I think its true to say, “It’s the Lobby”.

Hagit Borer: I have a feeling that one of the things we really need to start with when we try to address this issue is: What is it that we recognize, if we could recognize, on more or less a global level, as “American Interests”? Such that we can say that they have so some degree systematically characterized different US Administrations. This is because it seems to me that it would be very difficult to evaluate to what extent policies that are going on with respect to Israel aren¹t compatible with American interests, if we don¹t talk a little bit about what we perceive to be “American interests”. So James, would you like to talk about that a little bit?

James Petras: Yes, I would. As a matter of fact, on that question, we have to be clear if we are talking about the US government and corporate interests in the Middle East, in particular, or if we are talking about what should be US interests.

Hagit Borer: Let¹s talk about what they are. Let¹s say, what the aims of various administrations are as opposed to what is in the best interest of either the American or the Israeli people, which may be very different.

James Petras: Very good. On that count, I think it is very clear that US policy is directed toward empire-building, extending its political, economic and military control over the world as a whole and, in particular, in the Middle East. And it pursues that policy, either through military means or through market mechanisms, such as the expansion of corporations, the capture of pliant client regimes, etc. And if we look at the Middle East, in particular, the US has been very successful in securing agreements with most of the oil-producing countries, except Iraq and Iran, and even there it is mainly because of its own rejection of relations with both those countries. US oil companies have done extremely well through non-military means. They have expanded their commercial ties- Goldman Sachs has just signed a big agreement with the biggest Saudi bank. Britain is organizing a secondary market in Islamic bonds. Wall Street is very interested in that. None of the oil companies supported a war in Iraq. And it is part of the rubbish that has been peddled ¬ that the war was about oil. The oil companies were doing fabulously before the war and were very nervous about getting involved in a war. This, I think, leads us to the whole question of “why then” if it was prejudicial to the major US economic interests. As we can see, there were many US military people who were opposed to going into Iraq because they felt it would prejudice the US overall military capacities to defend the Empire ¬ just like the war in Viet Nam prejudiced the capacity of the US to intervene in Central America against the Sandinistas, against the overthrow of the Shah, etc. So from the point of view of global imperial interests, the war in Iraq was certainly not on the behest of the oil companies. I have looked at all the documents, I¹ve done interviews with oil companies, I¹ve looked at their publications for the five years in the run-up to the war and there is absolutely no evidence. On the contrary, if you pursue research on the various members of the Zionist power configuration in the United States, which I think is a conceptually more correct way of talking about this, rather than “the Lobby”, you will find that people of dubious loyalties, like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Elliott Abrams ¬ the felon, that had an agenda of furthering Israel¹s interests.

Hagit Borer: James, maybe we should go on with this: Basically if I understand what your are saying, your are suggesting that up to the point of getting involved militarily with Iraq, you would characterize American policies in the Middle East ¬ you know, the Lobby notwithstanding, as extremely successful. So, I am just wondering--

James Petras: It’s what we call “market imperialism”.

Hagit Borer: Yes. Norman, do you want to comment on this?

Norman Finkelstein: Well. You have to look at the interests at many different levels. And unfortunately it becomes murky and complicated, where one would prefer a simple picture, I don¹t think it is all that simple when you try to figure it out. Number one, you have to look at the interests in terms of who is defining them. And, I agree, I think it is fairly obvious certainly to your listeners that there are different interests that are being defined by corporate power, or are being defined democratically by the desires and choices of ordinary people in any democratic system. So, lets limit ourselves to the first ¬ the question of the corporate interests, since obviously they are playing the dominant role in determining US policy. Or it should be obvious, not that it always is.

Hagit Borer: Let¹s assume it is fairly obvious.

Norman Finkelstein: It¹s playing the determinant role. Then you have to look at “how do they conceive the best way to preserve and expand their interests.” Now the way they perceive it may seem to a person like you and me to be irrational. It¹s that they are pursuing policies which are actually hurting them. But the fact that they may seem irrational to us, does not mean that that is the way they perceive these as the best way to
preserve their interests. So you take the concrete case at hand. It may be the case that it was irrational for the US to go into Iraq because there are other ways to control the oil, or as some people have argued, that the market mechanisms are such that, on a world scale, you no longer need to control a natural resource in order to make sure you get the lowest price or make sure it is flowing at the lowest price. Control isn¹t all that important anymore in the modern world. It is not like when Lenin was writing his Imperialism. Now that may be rationally correct and maybe there is a good argument for making it. But that doesn¹t mean that those in power aren¹t making decisions to further their own interests, which may seem irrational to us. In the case of Iraq, if you look concretely at what happens: Number 1 ¬ There is no evidence, whatsoever, that people like Wolfowitz or the others were trying to further an Israeli agenda.

Hagit Borer: Let me interrupt. What would be the Israeli agenda, if there was one?

Norman Finkelstein: There is an Israeli agenda, and I am not disputing it. The Israeli agenda is basically the following: Israel does not care which country you smash up in the Middle East, just so long as, every few years and, sometimes, every few months you smash up this or that Arab country to send a lesson or to transmit the message to the Middle East that we are in charge and whenever you get out of line we are going to take out the Œbig club¹ and break your skull. Now, it happens that in the late 1990¹s that Israel would have preferred the skull that was cracked would have been the Iranian one. There was no evidence that Iraq was upper most on the Israeli agenda. In fact, all of this talk about the famous document that was written up by these neo-cons to attack Iraq ¬ that famous document ¬ was handed to Netanyahu when he came to office to try convince him to put Iraq at the top of the agenda. It¹s not as if Israel passed that document to the neo-cons, who then plotted to get the US government to attack Iraq. It was the opposite. Israel would have preferred to attack Iran. However, once those in our government, maybe for misguided reasons for all I know, decided to fasten on to Iraq ¬ that is to attack Iraq ¬ Israel was of course Œgung ho¹ because Israel is always Œgung ho¹ about smashing up this or that Arab country. That has always been its policy for the last hundred years ¬ since the beginning of Zionism. The most common place, the cliché of Israeli power is ŒArabs only understand the language of force¹. So, when the US embarked on its campaign against Iraq, the Israelis were gleeful ¬ but they are always gleeful. It doesn¹t mean that people like Wolfowitz, let alone people like Cheney, are trying to serve an Israeli agenda. There is no evidence for claims like that. Its pure speculation based on things like ethnicity.

Lets take a simple example, that, I¹ll call him James, I don¹t usually call people by their first names, but Jim Petras mentionedŠLet¹s take the case of Elliott Abrams. These are interesting cases. Elliott Abrams is the son-in-law of Norman Podhoretz. And Norman Podhoretz was the first big neo-conservative supporter of Israel, the editor of Commentary , the magazine. But if you look at people like Podhoretz, you look at their history, I¹ll take a book which I am sure Jim is familiar with, in 1967 Podhoretz publishes his famous memoir called Making It. It¹s how he succeeded and made it in American life. He was a young man and the editor of Commentary Magazine. You read that book, his celebrated memoir written two months before the June 1967 war, there is exactly one half of one sentence in the whole book on Israel. People like Podhoretz, Midge Decter, all the neo-consŠI have gone through the whole literature on the topic and have read it quite carefully. Before June 1967, they didn¹t give a Œhoot¹ about Israel. Israel never comes up in any of their memoirs, in any of the histories of the period. They become pro-Israel when Israel is useful to them in their pursuit of power and fortune in the United States. Elliott Abrams is as committed to Israel as his father-in-law, Norman Podhoretz, was committed to Israel: When it is convenient and when it is useful. This idea of trying to serve an Israeli agenda, especially coming from somebody as sophisticated as Jim Petras, strikes me as absurd. He knows as well as I do that powerŠ

Hagit Borer: Lets me just interrupt to let JamesŠ

James Petras: Its very strange that one says Wolfowitz was not influenced by the Israeli agenda when he was caught passing documents to Israel in the 1980¹s. And Douglas Feith lost his security clearance for handing documents to Israel. Elliott Abrams has written a book calling for maintaining the Œpurity¹ of the Jewish raceŠ

Norman Finkelstein: I know. They write that crapŠand you believe them? Jim, do you think they careŠ?

James Petras: Its not a question of believing them, it¹s a question of looking at the documentary evidence of uncritical, support for Israel in all of its policies - A position that is taken by the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations. They give unconditional support!

Hagit Borer: Let me perhaps interject here a little bit. I think that there a couple of things. One isŠI am wondering, for instance, I don¹t know whether you would agree, James, with the particular Israeli interest that Norman had identified with respect to the invasion of Iraq. But assuming that you would agree that the Israeli interests is precisely that, namely to smash some Arab country mainly because it is a Œgood idea¹Š

James Petras: I think that¹s very superficialŠ

Hagit Borer: The question is alsoŠhas it been in American interests? So we have seen America go after countries, which are sometimes, in terms of their power, are otherwise really quite negligible ¬ just so as to make a point that anybody who dares to stand up to American power is just a bad example and needs to be smashedŠ

Norman Finkelstein: I totally agree with thatŠ

James Petras: Israel was running guns to Iran as late as 1987 during the infamous Iran-Contra ScandalŠTo say that they weren¹t interested in destroying Iraq as a challenge to Israel¹s hegemony and Iraq¹s support for the Palestinians, particularly funding the families of assassinated Palestinian leadersŠthat¹s absurd. And I think Š Norman Finkelstein: Oh lookŠ

Hagit Borer: Could I stop you at this particular pointŠbecause we need to take a station breakŠ

James Petras: I want to answer your questionŠ

Hagit Borer: We will come back to itŠAt this point I think we should try to shift the topic a little bit andŠ

James Petras: Let me finish my last comment. I think when the Pentagon offices are flooded, like a crowded bordello on Saturday night, with Israeli intelligence officers, crowding out even members of their own Pentagon staff ¬ full of Mossad, full of Israeli generals, in the making of Iraq policy, I don¹t think you can say that they are Œjust any old Pentagon officials¹. I think you can¹t dismiss the fact that Feith, Wolfowitz, Elliott Abrams have a lifetime commitment to putting Israel¹s interests as their prime consideration in the Middle East. I think it is absurd to think that somehow they just happen to be right-wing policy makers that happen to support a militarist policy. Wolfowitz designed the program. Feith put together the Office of Special Plans, the policy board that fabricated the information for the Iraq war. They were constantly consulting on a day-day, hour-to-hour basis with the Israeli government. This has absolutely been documented a hundred times and I think it is impossible to deny this and say ŒWell, you can¹t deduce policy from ethnic affiliations.² Yes, you can! When that ethnic group puts forward a position that puts the primacy of a foreign government at the center of their foreign policy and prejudices the lives of thousands of AmericansŠits economic interests in the areaŠthen it¹s absurd to say, ŒThese are a bunch of irrational policy-makers.¹

Hagit Borer: James, let me pursue this and actually go into a slightly different point. That is: Wouldn¹t it be possible, you know, it¹s a question for both of you, for instance to think about whatever the neo-con group isŠit¹s not a group that represents Israeli interests, it¹s a group which represents interests which Œhappen¹ to perhaps coincide for both countries and which represent alliances of particular politicians in both countries with one another, and particular power configurations in both countries with one another ¬ but not by any means ¬ all Israeli politicians or the entire Israeli power structure ¬ or all American politicians or all American power structures.

James Petras: Absolutely.

Hagit Borer: So in that case, these are not really American interests. These are just interests of a particular group of people, which is just as interested in bringing to effect in the United States as it is in Israel. Its just basically, if you wish, a wonderful symbiotic relationship. What would you say, Norman to something like that?

Norman Finkelstein: I¹ve said in my remarks at the beginning that there is an overlapping of interests in a regional level for reasons for which, in part you suggested earlier. You said that the United States often goes after weak regimes as a kind of demonstration effect of its power and Israel also has a desire for demonstrating its power. Often there is an overlapping, or confluence, of interests. I think, however, its also true to say on the specific question on the occupation ¬ there is a conflict of interests. Were there not a Lobby, its quite likely that the US would have exerted the kinds of pressures needed to force an Israeli withdrawal. On questions like Iraq and Iran, I don¹t see any evidence whatsoever, of its being driven by cloak in dagger type of operations in the Pentagon. These operations, which Jim mentions, are so trivial ¬ next to the very high level planning that goes on between the United States and Israel, conscious, legal high-level planning on a daily basis. High level planning and high level coordination. You don¹t have to conjure up Œcloak and dagger¹ tales, many of them true, going on inside the Pentagon, in order to demonstrate there is collusion, planning and coordination between the United States and Israel. The question is not whether that goes on, the question is Œwhose interests are being served by it?¹ There is this notion that somehow they are managing to distort and deform US policy in a crucial region, on a crucial resource, doesn¹t, in my opinion, have any basis in fact. It defies any kind of reason or any kind of common sense reasoning ¬ especially coming from, in my youth, I used to be a student of James Petras at SUNY Binghamton from 1971-74 and he used to be a Marxist and at that time he would tell you how people in power act from interests, which spring from Ša basis in which they are the main beneficiaries.

Hagit Borer: Norman, let me ask you Š

Norman Finkelstein: Just a secondŠMr. WolfowitzŠ, Mr Feith and all the othersŠtheir power springs from the American state. If Israel gets stronger, their power does not increase. If the United States gets weaker, their power decreases. So now we are having this weird phenomenon of people, due to their ethnic loyalties, are willing to strengthen another state and thereby weaken the sources of power from which their power comesŠthat doesn¹t sound believable.

James Petras: This is a convoluted thinking. I am sure Norman didn¹t take that logic from my classes. I¹m afraid he has gone off the track somewhere ¬ despite some very good books he has written on the Zionist Œshakedowns¹, on the Holocaust and the refutation of the plagiarism of Dershowitz. I am afraid that when it comes to dealing with the predominantly Jewish lobby, he has a certain blind spot, which is understandable. In many other national and ethnic groups ¬ where they can criticize the world but when it comes to identifying the power and malfeasance of their own groupŠ.

Hagit Borer: I think maybe we should allŠperhaps we can move away from this topic. OK?

James Petras: Let me finish my sentence. There is nothing Œcloak and dagger¹ about the multiplicity of pro-Israel groups, that have pressured Congress, that are involved in the executive body in shaping American policy in the Middle East. The US does not support any other colonial power, it has opposed colonial occupation/imperialism since World War II. They opposed the British occupation of the Suez in 1956/1955. They have been pushing these countries of Europe and other countries out in order to establish US hegemony through economic and military agreements. The policy with the Israelis is very different from the policies the US follows everywhere else in the world. It¹s the only country that gets $3 billion dollars a year for 30 years. This is not just something that happens because of Œcloak and dagger¹. This is the result, as Norman knows ¬ as a very brilliant analyst, from organized power, an organized power that openly admits and states very explicitly that Israel is their major concernŠand Œwhat¹s good for Israel is good for the United States¹. They say that, Norman.

Norman Finkelstein: I know that. But regardless of what they sayŠ

Hagit Borer: Let me interrupt you. I need to do a station ID and maybe we could change the topicŠ

James Petras: OK. Norman was a good student of mine.

Hagit Borer: I think that at this point we can agree that you guys have a lot of mutual respect for each other. But obviously you do not agree on some topics. I wanted to move on to the question of whether there are in fact cases that show that when there are conflicts of interests, say between the US and Israel, that there are instances where the United States does in fact pressure Israel to at least in some cases to act in ways which are against what Israeli wishes would be. Because it seems to me that if we don¹t find cases along these lines, then basically the discussion becomes one of Œthe eyes of the beholder¹. We see a lot of cooperation, a lot of joint interest, but they could be coming from either side. If there are cases where perhaps there are interests, which part ways and where we can see in fact there is a discord that we can talk about. Norman, since you are the one who believes that this is a possibility, could you talk about that?

Norman Finkelstein: Well, the thing is: I don¹t want to make the argument that these kinds of individual cases can prove one side or the other. You pick up a book by Steve Zunes, and he is going to demonstrate that the US government always gets its way. You pick up something by somebody on the other side, and they are going to demonstrate that it¹s Israel that always gets its way when there are conflicts of interests. And each side can give a list of examples ¬ to demonstrate his or her case. I don¹t think you can prove anything by citing a handful of cases on one side ¬ Professor Chomsky will cite the recent case where Israel was severely reprimanded by Bush for trying to sell technology to China -and then you will find cases on the other side. Even though it¹s important to look at the empirical record, I don¹t think the empirical record ¬ in and of itself-- resolves the question. Let me give you a couple of examples of how I think it works: Let¹s take two prime examples. Let¹s start with 1948. Why did President Truman recognize Israel? There are all sorts of debate about that question. One claim that is constantly made was/is the role of the Jewish lobby. Namely Truman was heading for elections and wanted in particular, the New York voteŠand the Democratic Party wanted Jewish money. It was due to the Jewish lobby of its time that Truman quickly recognized Israel, even though he was bound to alienate Arab interests which were very hostile to Israel¹s founding. What does the record show? I have gone through the record very carefully. The records shows: Number 1 ¬ our main interest at that time was in Saudi oil and the US enters into discussions with the Saudis: ŒWhat will you allow the US government to do regarding the founding of the state of Israel?¹ And the Saudis basically said the following: ŒWe will let you recognize Israel, but if you supply arms then there is going to be trouble. They are referring to arms after Israel was founded when there was an imminent war. What does the US do? It recognizes Israel, that is to say, it goes the limit. Truman goes the limit, because he wants that Jewish vote and he wants Jewish money. But he immediately slaps an arms embargo on the region. And the Secretary of State, Marshall, at the time says: ŒIt looks like Israel is going to lose the war.¹ That is what our intelligence tells us. We were wrong, but that is what US intelligence said at the time. So they were willing to let Israel be annihilated, because that¹s what our intelligence told us, if the price was losing the support of the Saudis. It is true that Truman went the limit ¬ the limit was Œrecognizing Israel¹ to get the Jewish vote, but he never went beyond the limit of alienating a prime US interest in the region, namely the Saudis. Let¹s take 1956, which Jim mentioned, but I don¹t think he knows what happened. In 1956, it¹s true ¬ the United States told Britain, France and Israel ¬ they had to get out of Egypt. And its true, we looked very anti-colonial. But the only reason the United States did that was because the British, the French and the Israelis acted behind the back of the United States. The very moment the tri-partite invasion of Egypt occurred, the US was plotting to overthrow the government of Syria. And the US wanted to knock-out Nasser, but they didn¹t like the timing ¬ because the timing was not the US choosing but rather the British, French and Israelis behind our backs. Once again it was the US interests that determined US policy, not any commitment to anti-colonialism or crap like that. It was the US interest.

James Petras: He¹s had five minutes already. I demand equal time. He¹s been giving us long lectures. If you look at US policy toward Israel, the US alienates practically the whole world in favor of a tiny country, which has practically no economic value to the United States, which is a diplomatic albatross and has its own hegemonic, military and political interests in dominating the Middle East. We go into the United Nations and we alienate the whole of Europe and the Third World when Israel destroys Jenin, when it engages in genocidal policies in the Occupied Territories, when it violates the Geneva Agreements. The US backs it and totally discredits itself before anyone seriously concerned with international law, with the niceties of international relations. I am not just talking about Moslem opinion, Arab opinionŠI am talking about world opinion. Secondly, to say that the United States has overlapping interests with Israel is totally Œoff the wall¹, I mean ¬ I don¹t know where Norman¹s head is. The United States gets involved in countries to set up neo-colonial regimes. They are not into occupying and setting up colonial governments. They¹d prefer local clients. And they had one in Lebanon ¬ with the President (Fouad) Sinoria ¬ who was receiving US backing when Israel attacks Lebanon, presumably to attack Hezbollah ¬ but totally undermines the US puppet. Is that is US interests?

Norman Finkelstein: Yes.

James Petras: And when you talk about the fact that Israel is taking measures, overlapping with US policy-makers, you are overlooking the fact that most of the US generals were opposed to the war in Iraq and the Israeli agents in the United States, and that¹s what they are and they should register themselves as agents of a foreign power, were attacking them (the generals) as wimps, attacking them because they wouldn¹t follow the war precepts of the Zionists in the Pentagon. There is a whole string of military officials and conservative politicians who were opposed to going into Iraq. And if you look at the data Šif you look at Cheney, Cheney was getting his from Irving (Scooter) Libby ¬ another landsman, another member of the fraternity linked to Wolfowitz. He¹s a protégé of Wolfowitz.

Norman Finkelstein: I think Cheney can think for himself.

James Petras: Look, if you are trying to set up a matrix of power, dealing with US policy-making in the Middle East, to simply say that this is Œshared interests¹ without looking at the fact that the Israelis blew up a US surveillance ship, killing scores of US sailors and get away with it and continue to get US economic aid and the US officers that were wounded or murdered by the Israeli warplanes, with US flags flying over the ship, and sayŠthat¹s overlapping interests. That¹s chutzpah! That is really chutzpah. And it is very revealing that you went into a detailed explanation, or purported to be explanation, about the Suez, that you leave out that in 1967 the Israelis are the only country in US history that bombs a US ship and doesn¹t even have to apologize ¬ and receives no retaliation from the United States. Now that is Œpower¹ for you. That¹s Œinfluence¹ for you. And I thank to deny these realitiesŠand say: Œthis is just overlapping interests, the Zionists have no power in the US government or if they are Zionists then they are not tied to Israel etc..¹ That¹s a strange kind of Zionist that doesn¹t have allegiance to the state of Israel.

Hagit Borer: We have only five minutes left. I want to ask you about a couple of things that I want the cover. Maybe the most important one has to do with the fact that this debate, about the Israel Lobby in general has broken surface into the mainstream in the last year or so. Of course, a lot of it had to do with the Mearsheimer and Walt article, and subsequently, let¹s say, by the attacks on Carter¹s book. There were attacks before and reviews and debates about the role of the Lobby before. But they never made it too the mainstream and they were never reviewed by, lets say, the New York Review of Books, and they were never discussed by major outlets in the United States. In fact the Mersheimer and Walt article originally was turned down for publication by the Atlantic Magazine that had commissioned it. So maybe you can comment a little bit about why this debate is finally breaking surface and why is it that it is now a much more legitimate thing to debate within American mainstream circles.

James Petras: I¹ll give your three fast reasons: One, because of the disaster in Iraq, the public is open to discussion, particularly with the prominence of Zionists in bringing about the war ¬ so I think you have public opinion open because of the discontent with the war and their concern about who got us into the war and into this mess. Second reason is that there is an inter-elite fight in the United States, between sectors of the military, sectors of the Congress, conservatives versus the pro-Israel crowd, the pro-war crowd. And the third reason is the arrogance and bullying by the Zionists, in particular, their organizations that go around trying to prevent this discussion has backfired and I think people are fed up with the Zionist banning (the play about Rachel) Corie in New York and elsewhere ¬ so I think these are the reasons.

Hagit Borer: James, we have to move on. We have only a few minutes. We have only a minute and a half. So Norman, could you say some final words?

Norman Finkelstein: Well, I agree with the reasons -- maybe I wouldn't state them the same way as Jim does. Its clear that the debacle in Iraq forms the overall framework for the opening up of discussion. In my opinion, that¹s probably not the most positive result because its going to end up with, I think, creating a Œscapegoat¹ for disastrous war by the US. I think the second reason is that the Israeli approach which seemed to have been successful since 1967, the approach of simply applying force to every break in conformity with US policy, of applying overwhelming force, plainly is not working. And so there are questions about the "usefulness" of Israel¹s guidance and instruction in how to control the Middle East. It has not worked in Iraq and it proved to be a disaster in Lebanon this summer (July-August 2006). So there is a question about the Œeffectiveness¹ of the Israeli approach, in addition to the effectiveness of Israel itself as a Œstrategic asset¹, which is very different than it was in 1967. And the third reason, it seems to me is that, Israel is becoming more and more what you might call a Œbloated banana republic¹ with scandals daily and this kind of squandering of resources and that being the case ¬ it has alienated large sectors of American "liberal" Jewish opinion.

Hagit Borer: I thank you very much, James and Norman. I think on this point of accord between you, we need to end. Thank you so very much for being here.