"I think Mearsheimer and Walt ask the wrong question. They ask "How come the pro-Israel coalition consistently secures biased US policies against the national interest?" The coalition just has a different idea of the national interest - I'll come back to this in another post. You don't need to take a position on the merits to see that something very odd is going on.Perhaps it's not about 'national interest' at all
I would ask instead:
* how come US policy towards Israel is consistently more hawkish (pro-settlements, repression not negotiation) than the views not only of of median Americans but of median American Jews?
* how come US support for Israel has become steadily more unconditional since the latter's creation, in inverse proportion to Israel's actual vulnerability?"
here's jason vest, 2002:
It's a milieu where ideology and money seamlessly blend: "Whenever you see someone identified in print or on TV as being with the Center for Security Policy or JINSA championing a position on the grounds of ideology or principle--which they are unquestionably doing with conviction--you are, nonetheless, not informed that they're also providing a sort of cover for other ideologues who just happen to stand to profit from hewing to the Likudnik and Pax Americana lines," says a veteran intelligence officer.
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The Daniel Hopsicker report about 5.5 tons of cocaine captured in Mexico in a plane owned by Brent C Kovar (appointed to the Business Advisory Council of the NRCC in 2003 by Tom Delay) gets a more detailed treatment from Wayne Madsen.
The DC-9 was painted in the familiar blue and white colors of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration with an official-looking seal with an American eagle bearing the inscription: "Sky Way Aircraft - Protection of America's Skies."
Skyways International is a firm tied to the Bush family and the Saudis. GW. Bush's friend James Bath invested Saudi money in Arbusto '70 Ltd., Arbusto '80 Ltd., and Bush Exploration Co (Harken Energy).
Bath, who was a sole agent of Salem Bin Laden, was also the sole director of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Corp., one of the affiliates of Skyways International. Bath established four corporate entities with the name "Skyway" and the firm that incorporated the corporate contrivances in the Cayman Islands for Bath was the same one that established a Cayman-based money laundering front company for Oliver North in the Iran-contra scandal. In 1977, Bath bought Houston Gulf Airport on behalf of Salem Bin Laden. Skyway Aircraft Leasing Corporation was, according to the Chronicle, owned by Khalid Bin Mahfouz, a major shareholder in the defunct Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a major money laundering activity for George H. W. Bush's Iran-contra caper. Bin Mahfouz was also the owner of the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia.
As noted by Hopsicker, the plane's registered owner, “Royal Sons LLC”, was at one time based at Huffman Aviation, Venice Fl., home of Mohammed Atta and that other drug trafficker Wally Hilliard. For those who don't know, Florida has over 200 flight schools and Huffman was small and financially dodgy. Drugs is the linking theme here. That the Bush's and the Saudis appear to be linked to recent massive drug imports comes as no surprise.
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