>You make a good point about the decline of left identification with
>cosmopolitanism as a potential source of antisemitism. But the change in
>the left's view of Israel and its relationship to the imperialist west is
>just a reflection of reality. Supporting Israel the way America does
>serves no imperial interest, conventionally defined. This conclusion is
>obvious to most people but strongly resisted by many on the left because
>it contradicts all the standard canons and paradigms (many of them taken
>from Noam Chomsky, actually).
I'll borrow from Dorene and say that, while I have not read up enough on this topic, this shall not stop me from barging in anyway.
Back in 2001, when I was reading a lot of neocon literature as part of my then job, I remember reading some lengthy for pol screed at PNAC. I've forgotten the author and too lazy to look. But what he wrote was something like: The reason why it's imperative that we have military bases in the Middle East is so that we can rid ourselves of dependence in Israel. Anathema to this author, was any type of dependence or alliance with _any_ nation. A sign of weakness! Bad.
Obviously, this is only one approach to an imperialist foreign policy, but why isn't this a view that expresses an imperial interest: the u.s. needs Israel as an ally in order to, as andie once put it long ago, to keep the u.s.'s finger on the carotid artery of the region. Get military bases in Iraq, no need to depend on Israel. p0wn Iraq, and therefore no dependency on Iraq -- cause the u.s. p0wns Iraq -- or so went their fantasy.
in the quoted passage, above, you use a condition for "imperial interests" and that was "conventionally defined." What are unconventionally defined imperial interests?
shag
"let's be civil and nice, but not to the point of obeying the rules of debate as defined by liberal blackmail (in which, discomfort caused by a challenge is seen as some vague form of harassment)."
-- Dwayne Monroe, 11/19/08
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