Not Cold War era but certainly something that helps elucidate people on the nature and history of the doctrines that contributed to the Cold War.
Edit: I am becoming more and more convinced that man’s worst enemy exists primarily in our imagination. It’s not a comforting thought.
That is a really interesting story. There’s so much potential intrigue. The simple explanation behind it is that Israel made a mistake but given everything that was going on, it’s impossible to know for sure.
I would say the likelihood of the Israelis making that many mistakes is extremely low
They just seem to have acted in a deceitful and mercenary fashion, and the US government bent over a took it
Imagine what the world would be like today if, due to the loss of America’s unwavering and unquestioning support, Israel was forced to stop being a belligerent regional bully, and learned to live in peace with their neighbours
The problem comes in at two places.
Israel’s strategic and intelligence value is enormous. During the Cold War and War on Terror they were an invaluable asset. We couldn’t just walk away from something like that at the time given the stakes.
The present state of affairs though is a different matter. Israel knows that we don’t need it like we used to and have been making inroads to formerly hostile authoritarian regimes as a result to hedge their bets and increase pressure on NATO to silence criticism.
Of course, terror exporting countries love to give us reasons to support Israel all the time too. Iran’s capacity for terrorism alone has traditionally been enough to minimalize the cost of unwavering support to Israel.
Israel’s belligerent attitude and policy of taking land and illegally occupying their neighbors created the terror in the first place
The US’s unquestioning support of Israel and their enabling of Israel’s bully boy tactics is what drew a target on America
I think that ignores certain realities regarding expansionist Islamic leaders in the Middle East but the argument certainly has merit.
We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. After Truman acquiesced to Churchill it was an “in for a penny, in for a pound” scenario.
It’s not about sunk costs, it’s about there being no good way to disentangle our relationship in such a way to curb Israel’s aggressive behavior. It’s a mother of a tough situation.
If we threaten to pull out support openly instead of diplomatically behind closed doors I have no doubt that would escalate aggressive posturing toward Palestine and push Israel further towards authoritarian governance.
I agree that the genie is out of the bottle, but all the while US/UK/EU turn a blind eye to Israeli misbehaviour world peace is a distant dream
What makes you think they’re turning a blind eye?
That’s agitprop and it’s demonstrably false.
The UN have decided the Israeli annexation of Palestinian territory is illegal
The US vetoes any attempt by the International community to sanction Israel, UK/EU go along
Perhaps you are correct, “blind eye” is too weak a phrase
Complicit suit you better?
Ah, right…that’s the ticket…
It’s definitely more accurate. We are complicit in a lot of very bad things. Our enemies, the ones who think nothing of that and simply do not care at all about doing far, far worse would love nothing more than to see NATO or any other freedom loving people die in a nuclear apocalypse.
China told Pol Pot exactly what to do, equipped him and enjoyed their full support while he made a mountain of dead children. Have you ever seen that wall in Cambodia? That shit was happening in our life time.
The old school ruthless dictators are making a come back. Do you think it’s a better idea to just go alone, give up any thought of hegemony and just shake your head while they amass a new global threat to life that exceeds the capacity of the Cold War era Red threat in every way measurable?
Because we have most of that now. If it was Russia that held the North Mediterranean, there’d be no Middle East peace problem because all of the blame America first crowd down there would be dead.
Do you know why we didn’t succeed in the Middle East? Genocide makes us squeamish.
You don’t see this problem in 3 dimensions.
As a thought experiment remove what you believe or think you know about NATO completely from your mind. Then only think about a world run on Maoist or Stalinist government.
I don’t think you’ve done that much. Maybe not at all. Look at how Russia and China pacify populations and tell me that shit is acceptable? You think America can fight that war completely on it’s own? FFS.
TL;DR
They may be sons of bitches, but they’re our sons of bitches
I just think it’s possible to put some manners on Israel without throwing them to the wolves
Right now the tail is wagging the dog
It’s not a matter of manners. It’s a matter of people taking resources that cannot be effectively defended. People love that shit.
I think the most useful latin phrase I ever learned was casus belli. It’s simply engineering an excuse to make war and it’s usually just a bunch of bullshit. People go through incredible contortions to justify coveting and taking their neighbors’ goods because they know their friend will believe any excuse to think of themselves as being “the good guys” and any excuse at all to think of someone they don’t like as “the bad guys” especially when they think they’re going to profit in someway. The victimizing never even occurs to them.
Right and wrong are viewed more often as a simple matter of political marketing strategies more they are facts. People tend to lose their moral compass and taste for nuance in a quagmire like that.
How the Russians shit all over the world and the West got the blame. Part ∞
Yuri Bezmenov gives the rundown on how the Russian intelligence service workds.
This is a repost just for updating. I think it’s an extremely important lecture to become familiar with for anyone who is interested in national security, the history of espionage and what the United States was up against.
I recommend you listen to this @doofaloofa , because I think you’ll understand my positions better.
Þhąňķß
I’ll give it a listen when I get 2.5 hours spare
It’s extremely interesting material. Captivating in many places.
