Tag: MIC

The US Military Industrial spiderweb, with the Pentagon trillion dollar budget at its disposal, makes the Israel lobby look like a corner shop. Nearly every US state hosts significant MIC plant and associated jobs -.no potential or incumbent political candidate can afford to ignore this. The Pentagon is enmeshed incestuously with the armaments and associated industries.

As Andrew Sullivan relates:

“In some years, the move from general staff to industry is a virtual clean sweep. Thirty-four out of 39 three- and four-star generals and admirals who retired in 2007 are now working in defense roles — nearly 90 percent. And in many cases there is nothing subtle about what the generals have to sell — Martin’s firm is called The Four Star Group, for example. The revolving-door culture of Capitol Hill — where former lawmakers and staffers commonly market their insider knowledge to lobbying firms – is now pervasive at the senior rungs of the military leadership.”

It is in the interests of US defence industries, though not the US people, to provoke conflict between nations and within civil societies including within the US itself. In the US, covert rule by the military industrial plutocracy seems accepted as a bearable consequence of imperial dominance – the military and its ventures are a primary focus for super-nationalistic reverence. Americans are conditioned to support their troops without questioning whose bidding they are actually doing and for what ends. Sometimes, those in denial of the involvement of wealthy WASPs, the ‘Establishment’ and the Pentagon in the MIC plutocracy blame the Israel lobby or “the jews”.

Yet there is no contradiction between the interests of the US and Israeli ruling classes. US and Israeli society are both diseased with militarism. While Israel is voraciously expansionist with designs for regional preeminence, the US is preoccupied with maintaining ‘global security’, code for strategic placement of military force at 900 plus bases and several conflict zones to support current or potential resource exploitation and contain the rise of any competing power. The US has not relinquished the doctrine of full spectrum dominance.

Despite Netanyahu’s protestations that he, and Israel, are for peace, Israel’s ruling Likud party retains its opposition to a Palestinian state within its platform.

Self-Rule

The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river.

The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel’s existence, security and national needs.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz. The government firmly rejects attempts of various sources in the world, some anti-Semitic in origin, to question Jerusalem’s status as Israel’s capital, and the 3,000-year-old special connection between the Jewish people and its capital. To ensure this, the government will continue the firm policies it has adopted until now:

No diplomatic activity will be permitted at Orient House. The government stopped the stream of visits by heads of state and ministers at Orient House, begun under the left-wing government.

The presence of the Israeli police in eastern Jerusalem will be increased. This in addition to the new police posts and reinforcements in the neighborhoods.

The Likud government will act with vigor to continue Jewish habitation and strengthen Israeli sovereignty in the eastern parts of the city, while emphasizing improvements in the welfare and security of the Arab residents. Despite protests from the left, the Likud government consistently approved the continuation of Jewish living within the Old City and in ‘City of David’.

The Jordan River as a Permanent Border

The Jordan Valley and the territories that dominate it shall be under Israeli sovereignty. The Jordan river will be the permanent eastern border of the State of Israel. The Kingdom of Jordan is a desirable partner in the permanent status arrangement between Israel and the Palestinians in matters that will be agreed upon.

Security Areas

The government succeeded in significantly reducing the extent of territory that the Palestinians expected to receive in the interim arrangement. The government will insist that security areas essential to Israel’s defense, including the western security area and the Jewish settlements, shall remain under Israeli rule.

Israeli expansionism in the form of land theft in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Negev is facilitated further by associating the peace process facade with Palestinians toward a fictitious two state solution with an equally fictitious ‘existential threat’ from Iran. The rightwing and extremist settler dominated Knesset continues to pass oppressive, racist laws which undermine the prospect for human rights and peace. The PA and Hamas are both tasked by Israel with official and unofficial de facto collaboration respectively for security in the West Bank and Gaza. Thus both major Palestinian factions support the Israeli Occupation and ensure the Israeli milsec incubator is perpetuated.

Military industrialism is a common, complementary denominator between Israel and the US. Israel’s manufactured conflict with the people of Gaza and occupation in the West Bank incubates imported US and local milsec which is then used in barrios and on reservations in the US. Israel also serves as a milsec incubator for other countries, including “China, which imports Israel’s methods of propaganda and repression”.

The number one export for the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy is armaments – and as David Cronin documents, the EU is in bed with the Israeli arms industry alongside the US.

… senior EU figures have consistently shown “cowardice” in refusing to pursue the Israeli military for the cost of European-funded infrastructure projects which have been damaged or destroyed in repeated Israeli invasions. “Privately, EU officials acknowledge that the aid policies they are implementing have become hugely problematic. ‘Are we subsidizing activities that should fall on Israel as a consequence of its responsibilities as an occupying power?’ a well-placed Brussels source said to me. ‘The answer is unquestionably yes,'” writes Cronin.

While the EU’s continued aid to the PA is said to be part of a “tacit division of labor” with the US, whereby Washington holds the political reins and Europe the financial ones, Cronin provides examples of US refusal to allow joint donor statements which criticized Israel for damage to donor-funded projects illustrating the EU’s junior role in that relationship. In the meantime, the EU’s “aid” is also revealed by Cronin’s writings — both in the book and for The Electronic Intifada — to include the far-from-benign training given by European police organizations to PA security forces.

With its snout well and truly in the military industrial trough, the global ruling class is an auto-immune disease of human society.

UPDATE

Considering Israel’s nuclear posture, pursuant to a release from the British archives revealing that the British feared Israel would nuke the Arabs, Paul Barratt, past Secretary of Defence, Primary Industries and Energy Departments in Australia shared some insights:

@phbarratt : Israelis mobilised nuclear force in ’73. Americans petrified, airfreighted previously unreleased weapons out of Wiesbaden. #

@phbarratt : That is something US has had to weigh up ever since whenever Israelis demand access to latest weaponry. #

@Jinjirrie : so in essence, the qualitative military edge law is just icing on the cake #

@phbarratt : Alternative to unconditional US guarantee of Israeli security is more ready reliance by Israel on its nuclear force. #

@phbarratt : You will not that US does not get anything by way of gratitude, acknowledgement or cooperation for this guarantee. #

@Jinjirrie : how realistic though really is the samson option? any use of nukes by israel will blowback on them hard #

@Jinjirrie : physically as well as metaphorically #

@phbarratt : Nuclear weapons a very blunt instrument. Israel and Iran have gone for studied ambiguity – implied deterrence all round. #

@Jinjirrie : Threats make better threats when implied 🙂 i see israeli nuke posture as defiant symbolism against europe as well #

@Jinjirrie : yes, implied deterrence plays into militarisation by other means in the region, suits US/EU defence industries fine #

Story Related Links

Australian Defence White Paper 2009 Appraisal
Clausewitz vs. Sun Tzu
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute – Arms Trades
Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from Iran and Iraq
Andrew J. Bacevich on Douglas Feith
Exercises – Central Command
Choke Point : The Straits of Hormuz
Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz
International Security
Military Resistance 9A 2 : “Why We Fight”
WikiLeaks cables: Mauritius sues UK for control of Chagos islands
The Big (Military) Taboo
The Tyranny of Defense Inc. (Andrew J. Bacevich)
The US Senate is a complete joke (and what to do about it)
Lockheed Martin’s Shadow Government
“Washington Rules” is a tough-minded, bracing and intelligent polemic against some 60 years of American militarism.
The Tyranny of Defense Inc.
U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel Jeremy M. Sharp, Specialist in Middle Eastern Affairs, September 16, 2010

Palestine / Israel Links for Today

Rotim Settlers Seize Land Near Tubas; Minister Arrested in Hebron
Hatem, 17, was shot in the head while purchasing strawberries to sell at market in the Gaza Strip, about 800 metres from the border fence with Israel.
Israel’s Qassam strikes on Gaza : Amira Hass
Several rabbis from Tiberias have called for a boycott of the Poriya hospital following a decision by the hospital to establish a mosque on its campus
Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the most senior deciders of Jewish law in religious Zionism, has determined that Jewish women are not allowed to obtain a sperm sample from non-Jewish men. Rabbi Lior said that the resulting infant would suffer adverse genetic traits.
Ex-President Katsav guilty of two counts of rape and sexual assault
Israeli society is falling into a deep, dark pit of racism and xenophobia
A report by the Central Bureau for Statistics shows that the school drop-out rate of students in the South is 16% higher for Arabs than for Jewish students. However, the report also shows a 20% fall in the drop-out rate of Arab students from schools between 1980 and today.
Israeli leftists have a racist past, too
Knesset Member Yariv Levin (Likud), chair of the Knesset Committee, has proposed a new law that would permit the Minister of the Interior to expel from Israel any foreign citizen who calls for the boycott of Israel of of anything produced in a settlement, and any person who calls for international trials for soldiers who will be involved in carrying out war crimes. Under the proposal, the Minister of the Interior will be able to bar such people from entering the country or expel them from Israel.
Gaza Youth Breaks Out
Diamond Exchange expels member over blood stones
Warped EDL psycho incites violence towards a Pro-Palestine protest.
Book Review: Europe’s Alliance with Israel
Shlaim shills for empire
SJP statement on FBI intimidation: ‘We live in an age in which silence is not only criminal but suicidal – we shall, therefore, make as much noise as we can’
British feared Israel would nuke Arabs: archives
Selective Law Enforcement Against Activist for Bedouins
Israeli Troops Arrest Seven Overnight, Allegedly Beat Woman
Am I allowed to be a Palestinian Jew?
Judaization of Jerusalem includes “defacing walls of the Old City”
Palestine Today: A Reality of Justice Denied

Wikileaks Links for Today

Sweden, Assange and the USA : It is almost a certainty that the editor of WikiLeaks will be turned over to the United States if he is extradited to Sweden [.pdf]
From Ion Cannon to BotTorrent: Potential new paradigm in hactivism
2010-12-30 Updated New Whistleblowing Sites and Games
Corruption combating online project is officially released
Untouchables swoop on Anonymous network
The Julian Assange Investigation — Let’s Clear the Air of Misinformation
Omar Bongo pocketed millions in embezzled funds, claims US cable
Leaked: Cuban Government Fears Bloggers More Than Activists
How Is Leaking Like Getting a Job?
2010-12-29 Amnesty: Sweeping new media law threatens freedom of expression in Hungary
NPR Apologizes for WikiLeaks Mistake; Nina Totenberg and Teena Marie
Christmas With Julian
[AFP] WikiLeaks seulement à “un cinquantième” de sa mission selon Assange

Other Links for Today

Poll: Vast Majority of Americans Oppose Attacking Iran
US refuses to co-operate in probe over alleged CIA secret prisons
‘Pentagon enjoys US unemployment’
Australia’s Business Council self-defines as anti-democratic
Davis resigns Ivory Coast contract
US military investigates ‘death squad’ accused of murdering Afghans
Tunisia : Arabic Pinochet Government Respond to Peaceful Protests by Live Ammunition Orchestrating AlJazeera and Seizing AlMowqef Newspaper
Israel: the next war : The US’s failure under Barack Obama to impose peace between Israel and the Palestinians makes a new war likely
No country should be immune from war crimes prosecutions, including Sri Lanka
Britain always sees its role as imperial power
The “Family” – Who Really Is Behind This Secret Organization?
Research links rise in Falluja birth defects and cancers to US assault
The Final Chapter… : Poem by Layla Anwar
End human rights imperialism now
Israel is not able to endure a long war with a powerful regional opponent due to its geographical restrictions, Director of IGA (Institute for [Persian] Gulf Affairs) Ali al-Ahmed says.