A good question with an even better answer..
A question has been asked over on the “Blacks for Bush” Blog spot; Is the American president an Israeli shill or is he a Saudi shill? On the surface it seem like he can not be both but when we take a closer look we can easily conclude that he is a shill for each of them for different reasons and thus I respond to the questioned posed by “Blacks for Bush” by writing the message below.
There will be no need to decide which one he is a Shill for, he can be both without these two paths ever crossing one another or contradicting one another. Saudi Arabia produces as many so called terrorist if not more than any nation in that region but the Saudi regime are capitalist at heart and Islam is secondary to them. Thus although they have a disagreement with the creation of the rogue State of Israel they will not allow that to affect their capitalist aspirations.
The United States is beholding to Israel for different reasons than they are beholding to Saudi Arabia. Israel has an extremely powerful lobby that are backed and supported financially and intellectually by Jewish men and women in position of power in America. Couple that with the religious right that include many Negro-Cons and Neo-Cons who believe Israel should be protected because of something they read in the Bible and you have all the makings of why the U.S. continue to support the welfare state of Israel.
That said, the U.S. is beholding to these rogue nations for two very different reasons and those reasons does not contradict or cross paths. Think of it this way, Saudi Oil is crack and Bush beholding to Israel is marijuana. Bush is a crack head that likes to smoke marijuana; the same is true of his predecessors. The crack dealers do not like or care for the weed man and would love to see him destroyed but he knows that his biggest customer (crack head Bush) also loves the weed man and support the weed man by selling him weapons to defend himself. There is no way the crack dealer (Saudi)will allow his hatred for the weed man (Israel) to mess up his relationship with his biggest crack head (the U.S.) and thus the crack head (Bush) can deal with both of them without a problem from either of them although they do not like one another. So we need not decide who Bush is a Shill to because he can be both at the same time.
posted by Faheem @ 8/21/2004 07:52:00 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
That is a terribly uninformed way of looking at the situation.
Bush is obligated to support both countries; in this sense you are fairly accurate. And they are supported for different reasons; you got that right too. But the reasons are widely off.
Israel, as you rightly pointed out, does have a lot of high-power lobbyists in the US. But you know what's interesting is that all these lobbyists are Americans. Americans and jewish. And rich. Why? Because after World War II, the United States took the position that there should be a Jewish state, which became Israel. It also became the only democracy (whatever you think of their democracy, it is one) in the middle East, although Turkey has joined it. So it's a democracy in an undemocratic area, it's a people that we defended in WWII, and they were good friends to us in the cold war against the USSR. Should we abandon a long-time ally? What signal would that send to the rest of our allies?
Saudi Arabia, of course, has always been a source of oil, which we always need. It is a drug, as you brusquely point out. But for many years, the Saudis cooperated with us economically and in the mid 1980s were making cultural exchanges with us to advance understanding between the two countries - witness Prince Sultan ibn Salman ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz Al Sa'ud riding on the Space Shuttle in 1985 - until the fundamentalists and Wahabbis started up with their anti-American rhetoric again. But that doesn't spoil the need for their oil.
Working with both is called "international relations", something that a lot of voters - especially conservative ones - do not seem to understand these days. the world is a much more complex place than Bush wants it to be, because it's not all about black and white definitions of good and evil. And that's why he's a lousy president.
I find it odd that you called my viewpoint uninformed and then proceed to state that over half of it is true only adding to it and not actually disputing it.
I do not think I disagree with any of what you said as you seem to not have disagreed with what I wrote, however to answer the question you asked "Should we abandon a long-time ally? What signal would that send to the rest of our allies?" If an ally causes America as many problems in the world as its relationship with Israel causes America than I say abandoning it is the only wise thing to do. Look at it like this, If America does abandon Israel that is close to four billion dollars a year that could be reallocated towards reparations for Black men and women in America and I know how much the Negro-Cons (read Keyes) movement support reparations.
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