The New Crusade also RE: Why U.S. supports Israel

[Carrol Cox]

Rahul Mahajan's explanation of the war on Afghanistan seems to me also
the most probable answer to the question of why U.S. supports Israel.
Sartre offered roughly the same explanation for the Vietnam War. Such an
explanation also undercuts those responses to the war, from the left or
right, that proclaim that on 9/11 "The World Changed."

Carrol

jacdon at earthlink.net wrote:
> 
> [clip]
> THE NEW CRUSADE
> 
> By Jack A. Smith
>  
> A recently-published Monthly Review Press book by Rahul Mahajan, “The
> New Crusade -- America’s War on Terrorism,” posits the thesis that “The
> most important reason for the war [in Afghanistan] is imperial
> credibility.”  And by inference, the author suggests the most important
> reason for the subsequent spread of the war to other countries is to
> extend Washington’s imperial reach.
> 
> “One must start with the fact that the United States is an empire,”
> writes Mahajan.  “It is not like the Roman Empire, based on direct
> military occupation and exaction of tribute, nor like the colonial
> empires of the 19th century, with their elaborate administrative
> apparatuses.  It is, nevertheless, an empire, maintaining its economy
> through the control and exploitation of the resources and labor of many
> countries.   In order to maintain and extend that control, purely
> economic mechanisms are insufficient; coups have been fomented and wars
> fought by the United States to create the current world economic system.
> 
> “But empires never rule stably.  There is always the danger of revolt in
> the provinces.  That danger is vastly multiplied if one area is seen to
> revolt and get away with it.[clip]