Iraqi War: who benefits more: the US or Israel?

"The men driving Bush to war are mostly former or still active pro-Israeli lobbyists. For years, they have advocated destroying the most powerful Arab nation. Richard Perle, one of Bush's most influential advisers, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and Donald Rumsfeld were all campaigning for the overthrow of Iraq long before George W Bush was elected--if he was elected--US President. And they weren't doing so for the benefit of Americans or Britons. A 1996 report, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm ( www.israeleconomy.org... ) called for war on Iraq. It was written not for the US but for the incoming Israeli Likud prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and produced by a group headed by--yes, Richard Perle. The destruction of Iraq will, of course, protect Israel's monopoly of nuclear weapons and allow it to defeat the Palestinians and impose whatever colonial settlement Sharon has in store.

Although Bush and Blair dare not discuss this with us--a war for Israel is not going to have our boys lining up at the recruiting offices--Jewish American leaders talk about the advantages of an Iraqi war with enthusiasm. Indeed, those very courageous Jewish American groups who so bravely oppose this madness have been the first to point out how pro-Israeli organisations foresee Iraq not only as a new source of oil but of water, too; why should canals not link the Tigris river to the parched Levant? No wonder, then, that any discussion of this topic must be censored, as Professor Eliot Cohen, of Johns Hopkins University, tried to do in the Wall Street Journal the day after Powell's UN speech. Cohen suggested that European nations' objections to the war might--yet again--be ascribed to "anti-Semitism of a type long thought dead in the West, a loathing that ascribes to Jews a malignant intent." This nonsense, it must be said, is opposed by many Israeli intellectuals who, like Uri Avnery, argue that an Iraq war will leave Israel with even more Arab enemies, especially if Iraq attacks Israel and Sharon then joins the US battle against the Arabs.

The slur of "anti-Semitism" also lies behind Rumsfeld's snotty remarks about "old Europe". He was talking about the "old" Germany of Nazism and the "old" France of collaboration. But the France and Germany that oppose this war are the "new" Europe, the continent which refuses, ever again, to slaughter the innocent. It is Rumsfeld and Bush who represent the "old" America; not the "new" America of freedom, the America of F D Roosevelt. Rumsfeld and Bush symbolise the old America that killed its native Indians and embarked on imperial adventures. It is "old" America we are being asked to fight for--linked to a new form of colonialism--an America that first threatens the United Nations with irrelevancy and then does the same to Nato. This is not the last chance for the UN, nor for Nato. But it may well be the last chance for America to be taken seriously by her friends as well as her enemies."

www.counterpunch.com...

the people most benifiting from any attack on iraq will be muslim extremists looking for justification in their ridiculous little war. unfortunately it is more than once that the cat slayed a dog. i mean look at the revolutionary war. britain had us whipped but we kicked their arses all over the place. it could possibly be a repitition of history. it could cause people to feel sympathy for the rebels and aid them. not necisarily in giving them guns and stuff. but giving them food and supplies and stuff like that.

the us is merely fighting for safety. someday that dude will have weapons capable of reaching the US. that and other more involving issues.

i dunno if israel has much to gain. it will just give the palestinians more cause to attack. israel will probably be a lot more oily once this is all over. if it ever ends or begins for that matter.

Well, BT to get to part of your drivel, , why wouldn't the US support the only democratic county in the ME. Arabs in Israel have more freedom than Arabs in Arab countries - am I wrong? I'd shutter to think of supporting SA or Egypt any more than we do.

While your boy Clinton was unable to fight for his country in 'Nam, he recently stated he'd grab a rifle and die for Israel.

This self-loathing, enemy of Freedom loving crap is getting nauseating. I see more suspicion of Bush than of Hussein, more excuses for Hussein than for Bush, and all coming from an American. The blind hatred would be at the level of sedition if only a clearly defined declarartion of war were made by Congress. You know, the same type the ones that would be subject to arrest for sedition demand be made before we defend ourselves from the enemy.

I agree, the "peace at any cost crowd" doesn't give a whit about anything except that it is anti-Bush.
They really don't care about Saddam other than that he's a pawn to bring about a communist overthrow of the United States.

-Mal