[Marxism] (no subject)

[Fred Feldman]

Some introductory comments by myself (including a response to Joaquin
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2009w16/msg00004.htm) and a
digression on Palestine and anti-Semitism:

Below is a report on the latest blast by former Vice President Richard
Cheney against President Obama's current course in foreign policy, including
his repeated warning that this course could lead to another massive 9/ll
style terrorist attack. He seems to be suggesting that it may take another
such attack to rescue the nation from the course Obama is pursuing in
international affairs.

Bipartisan debate opening up
There seems to be so far general agreement about counter-insurgency in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama has no plans for conciliatory visits to the
latter two, and had to sneak in and out of Iraq in the customary manner of
high US officials. He seems to have been popular among the US troops,
however, because of his indications that many of them might soon be
withdrawn.

But despite the indications of accord on the war zones, it seems to me that
the dispute over US imperialist foreign policy in the ruling circles is
heating up sharply.  This is a bipartisan dispute, even though Democrats
like Lieberman (and others) who clearly disagree are  cautious in openly
criticizing him.

The debate is not limited to Latin America, but seems to take in such
questions as dealings with Russia and Iran. And by way of Iran it is
accelerating the drift toward sharper debate with the government of Israel,
although the Obama administration has remained faithful to the centrality of
Israel's role as an imperialist regional guard-dog and oppressor of the
Palestinians in the region. Albeit with formal reaffirmations of support to
the endless and, for the Palestinians, so far fruitless "peace process."  US
support to Israel also remains a vital link in the attempt to hold an
ideological line against the decline of Anglo, European, North American
(which, don't kid yourself, still means white) superiority and supremacy
against the disorderly and often confused and vulnerable  struggles of the
rest of humankind.

The more "liberal" opposition to the course pursued by Obama has been voiced
cautiously by the Washington Post. I tend to assume the New Republic is on
board here. (Maybe it is time for me to resubscribe.)

Obama administration divided?
Within the administration itself, Hilary Clinton and General James Jones
seem to be on board with Obama, while Gates, Dennis Ross, and General
Petraeus seem at least uncomfortable. Rahm Emmanuel seems a board so far and
may continue to do so unless the administration becomes genuinely
pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel which cannot happen under present
conditions. For the US to genuinely abandon support to Israel, the Zionist
state would have to be, if anything, even closer to disintegrating than
South Africa was under the apartheid regime by 1990 or so. 

In any case while the ongoing struggle for Palestine remains of very great
importance, lineups are not being determined solely by that question.
Involved is a broader course of US foreign policy, particularly since Bush
was defeated in 1992, in part by his declining (along, at that time, with
Cheney and others) to take the risks involved in toppling Saddam and taking
over Iraq after the Gulf War of 1991.

Leading the charge against Obama is not only Cheney, but the powerful
network of lobbies, committees, and the strata of bureaucrats that built up
over the last 16 years over the "hard cop" foreign policy.

The "Israel Lobby"
The "Israel Lobby", (too often these days used as a name for the entire
foreign policy machinery politically committed or simply used to operating
on the Clinton-Gore, Bush-Cheney line) has been a key cog in this. It is
important to keep in mind that this has never been a primarily Jewish
organization, although the major US bourgeois Jewish organizations are an
important component, nor even exclusively an instrument of the Zionist state
of Israel. 

It is also a genuine US foreign policy lobby, with strong support across the
two-party system, the foreign policy apparatus, and in the top circles of
the ruling class. In this sense it is rather like the once supposedly all
powerful China and Cuba lobbies.

US foreign policy at an impasse 
The course of boycotts and war in various forms as the first resort against
Palestinians, Iran, Syria, Cuba, North Korea, etc., and which was being
slowly but steadily and almost automatically extended to Venezuela, Bolivia,
Ecuador, Argentina, North Korea, and even Russia -- basically anybody who
barked back. 

The gross interventions against the governments in Venezuela and Bolivia,
and the open marching orders to Nicaragua and other countries about how they
better vote in elections was a part of this arrogant and commanding posture,
as well, of course, as the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the deliberate
course toward war with Iran, and the all-out support to Israel. 

And we all know how the US Interests Section became the organizing center of
an effort to build an opposition party with US dollars in blockaded Cuba,
known in official parlance as "the people," to whose leaders, who are also
the members, all prominent officials of whatever country visitors are
expected to pay obeisance if they visit Cuba.

Obama attempts major cosmetic surgery
In Obama's eyes and those of his allies, this policy had one giant flaw. It
did not work. When the smoke cleared, the US was in a weaker position than
when the offensive opened despite the occupation of two countries. And
definitely not qualitatively more powerful (i.e., hated perhaps but above
all feared), which is what Bush-Cheney believed was virtually a sure thing
when they inherited and escalated sharply the Clinton-Gore version of this
course after 9-11.

Obama can back down on this and may well do so at some point, but only at
the cost of retreating from the attempt to adopt a more "soft cop" approach
toward defending imperialist interests in Latin America and Iran, and losing
all freedom from maneuver relative to the "hard cops" even where they appear
to agree today -- the continuing bloodshed the US including his
administration has brought to Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

US support for Israel is 100 percent "American"
There is nothing unpatriotic about the aggressive defense of Israel that is
fostered by the rulers of this country. Israel -- the "Jewish state," the
supposed homeland of all Jews in the world and only all Jews in the world,
and from which 750,000 Palestinians were expelled in 1948, is a RACIST state
through and through. It is a criminal state in a special way like South
Africa, and not just like dozens of other bad, repressive, undemocratic,
discriminatory, and even imperialist governments. Israel is inevitably a
central target of worldwide antiracist public opinion in a situation where
white supremacy has been in a long historical retreat which is far from
completed. 

The US has been committed to the creation and defense of an exclusively
"Jewish state" in Palestine (not in Germany, not in Eastern Europe, not in
Russia, but Palestine, WHERE A PEOPLE OPPRESSED BY IMPERIALISM ALREADY
LIVED)for the past 60 year. This began with US backing to the policy of
expulsion from their country, expropriation of almost all their land,
brutalization, and permanent war against Palestinians as a people. Israeli
government lawyers recently declared this to the country's Supreme Court in
no uncertain terms.

This is the central and distinctive characteristic of the Israeli state.
This distinctive characteristic is the reason why the tactic of
international boycott is appropriate, as it was in the case of South Africa
and regardless of academic disputations by theoreticians over whether the
racist system in Israel is identical or different in some important respects
than apartheid. 

Especially if one rejects, as any consistent democrat must, the underlying
assumption that Israel being different from South Africa means that Israeli
society is superior or preferable in some way.


Digression on Israel and Palestinian "anti-Semitism"