AIPAC Lobby Myth 3 – Preventing the Blush

Read Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse. I’m on my knees, hands clasped and begging. Ok, groveling. Please read it. If you want to test the waters before jumping in, you can start with Chris Hedges’ review. The book is about Vietnam where the USA killed 3 million Vietnamese and sacrificed 55 000 Americans. The Christian Americans were at least as vicious and violent as the Zionist Israelis of today. The Vietnam war ended four decades ago. Has America changed since then? Of course it has. It’s gotten worse.

Since Vietnam, particularly after the exposure of the My Lai massacre, psyops has grown from a unit of the military to one of its most powerful sectors.* Psyops stands for psychological operations. It’s often equated with modern propaganda, but propaganda is merely a part of the operations. It collects as well as disseminates information and engages in physical undertakings. Psyops can be seen as one of the two arms of the military. Troops and weapons are one arm aiming for the flesh, whereas psyops, the other arm, goes for the soul.

Hedges’s review names a group that was formed

to investigate the hundreds of reports of torture, rape, kidnapping, forced displacement, beatings, arson, mutilation, executions and massacres carried out by U.S. troops. But the object of the group was not to discipline or to halt the abuses. It was, as Turse writes, “to ensure that the army would never again be caught off-guard by a major war crimes scandal.”

!! Not “never commit war crimes”, but “never get caught.”

Michael B. Oren, former Israel Ambassador to USA writes in Power, Faith, and Fantasy, “Though founded in 1953, AIPAC had only now in the mid-70s, achieved the financial and political clout necessary to sway congressional opinion.”

Oren appears to be a sloppy writer. AIPAC didn’t achieve “financial and political clout”, its increased financial strength made the political clout possible. How come its finances improved so drastically after more than 20 years? Hmmm?

Global war crimes scandal > psyops grows > think-tank to prevent war crime scandal > AIPAC grows financial muscles > Israel goes from being USA’s unsinkable battleship to become the dictator of US foreign policy. Hhmmm?

Perhaps big money can help us out here. The CEO of Bank of America stood before a congressional committee in 1971 and explained how the Vietnam war was causing serious damage to the US economy. He wanted the US to cut its loses and get out. Something he said at the conclusion of his testimony remains entrenched in my memory, from which I quote:
“One more aspect needs mentioning. A tendency that is only a blush today can grow into a raging flame. The youth of our nation are losing faith in the institutions that govern us.”

The pieces fall into place. The birth of the I-lobby as a force “to sway congressional opinion” was part of the psyops to repair and maintain the image of the US as a good-guy nation and restore faith its institutions. From now on, as long as psyops did its job, the tail would wag the dog. Israel, which functions as the foremost military base of the empire, positioned at the port of a sea of oil, would take all the heat and the US would avoid any “major war crimes scandal.” It worked for the most part.

Take, for example, the present ferocious killing spree of the people trapped in Gaza. Most of the world knows who supplies Israel with the money, weapons, logistics and diplomatic support, but psyops keeps dropping I-lobby bombs as intensely as Israel bombs the hospitals, schools and homes of the Palestinians.

Can anyone imagine Israel doing anything, anything at all, that the US military doesn’t want done? Thinking of the US military and the I-lobby reminds me of Netanyahu and a very old joke. While a fly tries to fuck an elephant a coconut falls on the elephant’s head and it says, “Ow!” The fly looks up and asks, “Did I hurt you, dear?”

“Get your head out of your ass!” my US Army sergeant used to say when someone did something particularly stupid. This expression should be launched at the people claiming that the I-lobby controls the USA. The US military could crush Israel as easily as an elephant crushes a fly. They could exterminate the I-lobby rats in a week. Not only doesn’t Israel, with or without the lobby, have a chance against the military, they have no chance against the weapons industry, the oil industry, the farming industry or any number of power groups within the USA. Even many individuals and families could stop Israel dead in its tracks; Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, the Waltons, the Mars family and others.

Let’s rephrase the question. Is it the 1% or the I-lobby that controls the government (“sways congressional opinion”)? The tail doesn’t wag the dog. Israel is USA’s vicious beast on a leash. It’s very painful for American’s to accept, but the US of A bears as much responsibility for murdering the woman and children and grandfathers and lovers in Gaza as the demented Zionists in Israel. Who shoulders the responsibility for massacring the Vietnamese peasants, the US soldiers or the US government?

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism in the UK has collected the names of more than 700 people killed by drones in Pakistan alone. There’s a difference between murdering the Palestinians in mass under a short period with planes, tanks and snipers, and murdering the people in Pakistan, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yemen a few at a time under an extended period with drones. The murderers however are the same. The I-lobby has nothing to do with the drone killings, and they function merely as a diversion in the Palestinian holocaust. This tiny group of courageous people in Gaza awaken the rage of the empire because they can’t be bought, corrupted or split. They stand up to the monster and, by spitting in its face, expose the full extent of its horrible nature. The Palestinians are not only fighting for their survival, they are fighting for all of us.

A friend pointed out that the USA is taking a lot of heat because of Israel. Of course they are. But while some countries are calling home their ambassadors from Israel to protest against the atrocities, no one is calling home American ambassadors. It’s not a “major war crimes scandal” for the Yanks. And while many people boycott Israeli products, hardly anyone boycotts American products. Sure America is taking heat, but, as a 1%er might say, “It’s better that they stop buying oranges and soda stream from Israel than they stop eating at McDonalds and drinking Coke.”
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*(When referring to the military I mean the entire apparatus that consumes half of the national budget. Psyops, for all practical purposes, in this article particularly, includes the entire intelligence community.)

 

“It’s amazing how they manicure their smiles to hide the bloody fangs.”
Dartwill Aquila