100% I was introduced to this book some years ago. I learned a lot from it and it helped shape a lot of my views and doubts. All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
If you’re at all interested in this case, I highly recommend the book Black Hearts, which investigates the incident and everyone involved in extreme detail. It’s an exhaustive, practically bottomless chronology of military incompetence and inhumanity. Oddly enough I was exposed to it because it was on the official reading list of the Marine Corps a few years ago, ostensibly as a lesson on the consequences of a poor command environment. But anyone who has served can tell you that everything the book catalogued is just business as usual for the military.
The biggest reason is that the two families have business links.
Great book to get started with that doesn't fall into the conspiracy tropes.
https://www.amazon.com/House-Bush-Saud-Relationship-Dynasties/dp/0743253396
> and I always thought "oriental" referred to the Far East, so really not sure what the article was on about.
The article is drawing upon Orientalism by Edward Said, which is a important and popular text among cultural studies types. And is specifically about European attitudes towards the Middle East.
I think the term is Imperialistic Warmongering.
Source: Shock Doctrine
Scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds. Neoliberal foreign policy is one of torture, of both the people and the economy. Would you like to know more?
lol jesus fucking christ, everyone understands that aipac is shorthand for a constellation of pro-israel lobbying groups and donors. go read the israel lobby if you're seriously this dense
>radical religious conservatives at home.
The same could be said about Israel - lets remember it wasn't a Palestinian who assassinated Rabin but an Israeli opposed to peace talks with the Palestinians (the assassin is treated as a hero in some corners of Israel https://www.haaretz.com/1.4995281 )
Also, in 2003 Iran sought to use the Iraq invasion as an opportunity to improve US-Iran relations. Iran's offer to make peace with Israel was spurned, in favor of imposing regime-change in Iran instead as Iran was labeled a member of the "Axis of Evil"
>The document lists a series of Iranian aims for the talks, such as ending sanctions, full access to peaceful nuclear technology and a recognition of its "legitimate security interests." Iran agreed to put a series of U.S. aims on the agenda, including full cooperation on nuclear safeguards, "decisive action" against terrorists, coordination in Iraq, ending "material support" for Palestinian militias and accepting the Saudi initiative for a two-state solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The document also laid out an agenda for negotiations, with possible steps to be achieved at a first meeting and the development of negotiating road maps on disarmament, terrorism and economic cooperation.
ttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727.html
The idea that Iran was implacably opposed to Israel is a myth https://www.amazon.com/Treacherous-Alliance-Secret-Dealings-Israel/dp/0300143117/
Read Naomi Kleins book on the subject. It is a serious eye opener.
https://www.amazon.com/Shock-Doctrine-Rise-Disaster-Capitalism/dp/0312427999
Short version here
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster
Fuck off. Its a prosperous government for corporate interests and the wealthy, not the people. Which is exactly how neoliberal economies are designed to function (thanks Milton Friedman). Don't even talk about "converting through violence" after what Pinochet (with American help I might add) did to socialists and any nominally leftist people; thousands tortured and disappeared after a coup against a DEMOCRATICALLY elected socialist government under Salvadore Allende. You do some fucking research you lying ghoul.
>AIPAC doesnt spend that much money compared to other lobby groups
They are one of the most powerful lobbying groups in this country and by FAR the most powerful with regards to foreign policy.
A little about the author:
"John J. Mearsheimer is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, where he has taught since 1982. He graduated from West Point in 1970 and then served five years as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. He then started graduate school in political science at Cornell University in 1975. He received his Ph.D. in 1980. He spent the 1979-1980 academic year as a research fellow at the Brookings Institution, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs from 1980 to 1982. During the 1998-1999 academic year, he was the Whitney H. Shepardson Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York."
He's a brilliant writer and this book in particular lays a very solid groundwork for understanding just how much Israel has us on puppet strings. Oman may been an actual anti-semite, but the points she's making are not anti-semitic.
This is probably up there... Mahmudiyah rape and killings
Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death
I liked this book. I’m sure there are newer/better sources, and this book predates 2001 I think, but gives the reader a fairly good insight into oil politics and foreign policy.
More to your question - Afghanistan has no oil fields of consequence and the elected Iraqi government sold oil leases to Total (French) and Shell (Dutch) after the war. They’ve since developed some fields on their own. No American oil company had extracted oil from Iraq.
But America has hundreds of energy companies and I wouldn’t doubt some of them worked contracts though companies that are lease holders or the Iraqi government.
This whole comment reads like textbook Jewish Internet Defence Force guide to disinformation.
> Russia would love for you to think this.
Of course, load the scapegoat.
> There is absolutely no evidence of Israeli election interference. They may have lobbied and used that kind of influence, but there has been no evidence of any kind of campaign at anything like the scale of what Russia did.
Lobbying might be legal in the US but lobbying does indeed influence elections, at the very least it influences the policies and decisions politicians.
> Chomsky is making this up.
The best way to show something is false, is to disprove it, can you disprove that Israel doesn't influence, interfere in American elections and politics? I think not, but I would like to see you try.
> All the people here saying he is right... they are from the right.
Oh yeah, everybody who believes something different than you must belong to a particular political group/ideology.
> And again, that is exactly why Russia (and the Right) would love for you to think this baseless claim.
How convenient.
Forgot to add.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
Let me guess, now you are gonna call me or anyone who sees Israeli interference in American politics, Anti Semites?
This is known as hasbara; Israel's incessant propaganda campaign to censor the truth about its criminality. Reddit is particularly bad because the administation is sympathetic to the pro-Israel agenda. Thus, major subs, like /r/worldnews, are allowed to be hasbara moderated and brigading is permitted.
These people believe in the myth of "Western Civilization" that is taught in virtually every college and university in the USA. They don't consider Mao, Stalin, and even Lenin, to be a part of "Western Civilization". From there, it isn't much of a step to go fash and say that Marxism is an "Asiatic ideology" that feminizes men and "masculinizes" women. Socialism is Asiatic, other, and feminine. Lenin was depicted as a scheming Jew in fascist propaganda. Stalin was always portrayed as Georgian and Asian.
Orientalism plays a large role in why people over estimate the "death toll of communism". The Holocaust that the Nazis carried out was particularly horrifying to Europeans. European Empires such as the British East India Company had committed mass atrocities and genocides for hundreds of years in places like India, China, Africa, and the Americas. This was the birth of capitalism, in blood. The idea of Europe having this level of genocide horrifies the Reactionary Mind.
Edward Said's book on Orientalism explores the subject further.
I have no problem blaming only the Sunni fundamentalists that are responsible for Islamist violence and I simply don't understand why that is so hard for my fellow Americans to see and actualize in policy — this mass ignorance of World Religions is what allowed the United States to get duped into invading Iraq in retaliation to the actions of the Saudi-connected Sunni terrorists that committed the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
Soon, Americans will be led into a war against Iranian and Lebanese Shi'a people and against Lebanese Catholics, and they will justify it by pointing to the actions of Sunni people and by blaming all of Islam. Middle Eastern Christians themselves can testify that Shi'a and Christians living under Sunni fundamentalist governments will often experience similar levels of persecution.
I can not and will not pass judgment on Shi'a, Alawites, etc. for the actions of the Islamic equivalent of the KKK.
I think most "leadership" books are a waste of time if you are a regular human being that exercises empathy, pragmatism, and critical thinking.
What people ought to be reading are books of leadership failures like Black Hearts. You can learn far more from failure than success and I'm open to anyone changing my mind on that.
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501
TL;DR: combination of intense lobbying, support for a 'democratic' country in a despotic region, evangelist support, military/industrial complex interests. Also lobbying.
Here's a good book from 2008 that explains, most probably it is too powerful.
Short and sweet: during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan we were sending a shitload of weapons to the Afghanis through Pakistan. The paki isi(their cia) pretty much gave everything to the taliban. The northern alliance got shit. The pakis (isi)and the talis pretty much teamed up wrg to weapons/training/etc. To top it off the feds were so impressed with the paki/tali religious dedication and a lot of our cash funded madrassas which in turn radicalized a shit ton of people which lead us into the situation we’re in now. It’s fucking absolutely nuts. If you want to read an amazing account of that whole ordeal I highly recommend “Ghost Wars”. And the follow up “Directorate S”
We basically caused 9/11 the rise of the taliban, the shitshow going on now and pretty much every terrorist attack claimed by isis and a lot more. I can’t even find the words to describe how I felt after absorbing everything.
The audiobook is great and there’s so much crazy shit thst pops up your constantly like “WTF!!”
It 100% affects you in the US.
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501
No country has co-opted American policy making like Israel has.
I’m pretty supportive of Israeli interests. I am 100% against Zionist influence of American policy posture and aid the us gives.
Israel should pursue its interests as it sees fit but the US should not help.
This subreddit's booklist recommends an excellent book on this exact subject: <em>The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy</em> by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt.
The reasons for such staunch support of Israel in the United States are legion. They include, but are not limited to:
The United States has developed a vested interest in Israel for a lot of reasons. It's important to the US to have a stalwart, democratic, military ally in the region that will permit them access to the heart of the Middle East for their varied missions. (I won't address the United States' interests in the region since that is a different topic.)
The United States is also interested in Israel because of a substantial foreign policy lobby that continually lobbies the US government on Israel's behalf.
The US has also brokered peace agreements between Israel, Palestine, and other Arab nations. Seeing those agreements work in perpetuity is a priority for America because it demonstrates her power as a broker of peace and beneficial hegemon.
There are also religious, economic, and more diplomatic ties that keep the United States tethered to Israel.
Also recognize that people can be interested in both things: I can have strong views about the Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict and also have important insights and opinions on COVID-19, my livelihood, etc. Just because Americans tend to have strong opinions on Israel and Palestine does not mean we are ignoring other priorities or disregarding our own welfare.
If anyone wants to read more about this topic, check out this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Lobby-U-S-Foreign-Policy/dp/0374531501
John Mearsheimer is an amazing political scientist and this book will open your eyes to the extent that Israel has buried it's claws into the US government.
Most of us here expect oil production to peak soon/already, but people still keep posting articles about the details of how/when that's happening.
Same thing with demand destruction, it's interesting to talk about how it may collapse. Zeihan details how different regions of the world will collapse at different rates and why.
I'm not saying people here didn't see this coming or this is all original, it's just interesting to me to see different takes on how it all falls down.
Zeihan wrote a book called, The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization.
Wife and I are child free by choice but the teacher isnt wrong about the demographics shift
Read this if you have a chance