There are three questions you need to ask about money like this (probably closer to $6 billion than $3 billion per year):
1) Have successive American administrations been simply delusional for more than thirty years about the usefulness of spending these amounts?
2) Are the anti-Semites right -- the machinations of the Jewish lobby are so irresistible that it can extort such sums? (And if so why didn't its writ run in '56?)
3) Is it simply a bad conscience about what the Nazis did sixty years ago that keeps America forking over these colossal sums year in and year out?
If the answer to all of these questions is No (and I think it is), then you have to explain the subventions. You suggest no reason for them. It seems to me the reason is not far to seek: US administrations, Republican and Democrat, think they are receiving value for money. They would not be paying these sums to the Jewish state, had it been founded in Uganda...
Israel's principal military usefulness to the US is of course in the Middle East. The participation of this deformed polity -- corrupted by American money into a warfare state, beyond the imaginings of Randolph Bourne ("War is the health of the state") -- in the genocidal campaigns of the US is incidental, a matter of convenience. (You seem to neglect the extent to which, in the Reagan wars in Central America or Carter's support for Cambodia-scale murder in Timor, the US "was hampered by political pressure at home.")
Chomsky suggests that the victory of imperialism in Iraq will only accentuate Israel's role:
"I agree with what I assume to be the thinking of White House planners and the Israeli government (which is very close to them now, with radical rightwing nationalists in charge in both countries, with longstanding links): after the US takes over Iraq, it will need its Israeli military base even more. One reason is that US invasion/occupation of Iraq is likely to incite turmoil and violence in the region, which the US (and its clients) will have to quell by force as long as they do not intend to take into account legitimate grievances, and in that stand, there is no detectable change. For running the region by force, Israel provides enormous advantages."
Regards, CGE
On Fri, 7 Mar 2003, Michael Pollak wrote:
>
> On Mon, 3 Mar 2003, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
> > Israel's military usefulness to the US is not limited to the Middle
> > East. In two of the worst examples -- campaigns in which the US
> > government was hampered by political pressure at home -- Israel carried
> > out the bidding of its patron. In the 1970s, at the request of the
> > Carter administration, Israel transferred war-planes to Indonesia to aid
> > in the suppression of the East Timorese, a massacre comparable to those
> > in Cambodia. In the 1980s, Israeli military advisors aided the Reagan
> > administration in genocidal campaigns in Guatemala (for which Clinton
> > later apologized, with monstrous inadequacy).
>
> It is true that Israel has done slimy favors for the US. But are they
> worth 3 billion dollars a year? No. They're worth about zero dollars.
>
> There are three questions you need to ask about events like these:
>
> 1) Is this really something the US couldn't have done on its own?
>
> 2) Is this something Israelis wouldn't have done for the US even if they
> weren't getting $3 billion a year? I.e., if they were only getting the
> normal arms for loans we give half the countries of the world?
>
> 3) Is this something that is still important with the end of the cold war?
>
> If the answer to any of these questions is No, then the example doesn't
> support your argument, no matter how shocking it may be on its own. And
> usually, as in the above case, you'll find the answer to all three is No.
>
> The US gave Indonesia all kinds of military assistance before, during and
> after the invasion of East Timor. This plane transfer was a minor finesse
> and one we could have launched through any other ally. In the case of
> Guatemala, do you really think the US needed instruction in how to turn
> Latin America into a torture chamber and charnel house? And for that
> matter, why do you think Israeli mercenaries wouldn't have worked for us
> on a contract basis? They did for every other bastard regime in the
> world. Mercenaries are like that.
>
> This argument by iteration doesn't hold any more water than the argument
> by citation (i.e., that Jesse Helms thinks it's true).
>
> Michael
>