Is there a dimes' worth of difference between the two in the Middle East? That's been the whole point of everything I've said about the US intervention in that area of the world: Israel _is_ US imperialism: more precisely, it is the strategic anchor of US intervention in that region. It has been since the 1970's. Consequentially it is no surprise that the US adopts Israeli military methods. That means this intervention will have little to do with the familiar calculus of imperialism: oil, currency, balance of power, etc. Instead, it is an Arab-hunting expedition, a religious crusade against "Islam". That means we are dealing with a deeply criminal enterprise, at its heart genocidal in intent.
The counterpose of "US imperialism" with "Israeli influence" is pretty artificial, even with the slippery qualifier "more than". So there is "Israeli influence"? If so, where, in the Middle East, in the White House? Please specify (it would be absurd to say that there was no 'Israeli influence' in the Middle East). And is it really "Israeli", or is it more specific and political: the Likud. Or even more specific: the _American_ Likud!
The essence of the 'influence' could turn out to not have much to do with "Israel", though the Israeli wing has more combat experience (and it is here where Sharon "teaches"). The "influence" could turn out to be as American as apple pie. I think so. I think Israel's policies are home grown, Made in USA.
Well, you have Johnsons' quote. He clearly seems to think it is Likud political influence in the White House. So you ask him. Ask him where does he think this 'influence' comes from, "Israel", or is it indigenous to the US? Find out what he knows about the origins of the Likud and its political precursors. Is Johnson familiar with Nitzan & Bichlers' 'The Global Political Economy of Israel", which has some interesting references to those origins, and shows how Likuds' political rise to power is intimately bound up with the gradual incorporation of Israel into the center of US imperialisms' field of operations - primarily, but not only, in the Middle East.
I merely contend further that Louis Brandeis' uniquely American variant of Zionism (Liberal New Deal Zionism) eventually fused with the extreme nationalist-terrorist strands represented by the Irgun, etc., postwar.
I wonder if Johnson - or anybody else - has thought about that: Likudism as a _uniquely American phenomenon_. I mean, does a "developmental" colonial settler-state, deeply racist and armed to the teeth ring any history bells?
And Michael Mann, in "Incoherent Empire", is almost obsessive about the so-called 'Israeli' influence. But it is not the influence of a 'foriegn' state, but of an American idea about "Israel". It is an American ideology we are confronted with here.
A proto-fascist ideology and political movement.
-Brad
Brad Mayer wrote:
>Clearly not a "commie", but he sees the same forces at work as does
>Michael Mann and Emmanuel Todd:
>
>Chalmers Johnson Interview on Empire, Blowback and a daffy President
>
>"As for further war in the Middle East, the people who have been making
>policy, concentrated above all in the Pentagon around people like Paul
>Wolfowitz and under the influence of Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice, have
>certainly proclaimed their desire to carry the war further. They are
>also deeply influenced by the right wing in Israel, by the Likud Party,
>the party of Ariel Sharon."
I'm running a long interview with Johnson on my radio show this coming Thursday. He blames U.S. imperialism more than Israeli influence, which might disappoint Cde Mayer.
Doug