Editor's
Note:
The Middle East is complicated. When you have so much
money from oil, arms sales and currency issues, the
tangled web of interests gets difficult to unweave. Add
religion and ideological battles and a media landscape
that protects corporate interests and the picture is
further muddied.
Today is an attempt to clarify the interests at play. We
know this will challenge all sides of the conflict.
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A Question of Interests- by Jaffer Ali
"No serious historian of politics would imagine that he
had accounted for... policies, until he had gone behind
the general claims and the abstract justifications and
had identified the specifically interested groups which
promoted the specific [policies]. "
--Walter Lipmann
It is always difficult to deconstruct strategies.
Whether one attempts to fathom the subtleties of
competing business strategies or even more complex
political realities, deciphering motives and intentions
is difficult.
The truth is often hidden. Walls of selective silence
and misdirection rule the day. Business and political
leaders rarely announce their strategies for general
consumption.
It would be like opposing football coaches announcing
their game plans in advance of the game. Yet most
pundits take at face value declared strategies of
various political leaders.
Ask yourself one question and keep it close to your
heart every day. Do you believe that stated rationales
for the war in Iraq are the real motives behind the war?
The media spends unimaginable hours dissecting
officially stated purposes and rationale. This is the
way the Truth or real strategies are shielded from
public scrutiny.
In essence, we are led to chase string. And the string
rarely leads anywhere...which is the point. Corporate
media facilitates the chasing of string. Why does the
mainstream press play a role in the façade?
The modern media landscape is owned by corporations that
are not government controlled as in many countries. One
might think this would insure independent editorial
policies.
But editorial policies must follow the dictates of
profit.
I am not disparaging this at all but merely stating a
fact.
Profits are derived from advertisers. Who advertises?
Large corporations like BP, ($300 million annual
advertising budget), Chase Bank ($250 million annually)
and the rest of the transnational corporations. If you
believe that editorial policies are divorced from the
need to satisfy advertisers' needs then this is a naïve
way to live.
The entire Middle East is a region filled with strings
that when followed misdirect our attention. Israel and a
compliant media have been tremendously successful in
misdirecting its strategy.
In the Middle East we have a perfect storm of three
forces that have combined to create a mythology. The
myths serve transnational corporate interests. They form
a trinity of sorts. They are:
1) The Military-Industrial complex has made hundreds of
billions of dollars arming various sides in Middle East
wars. The introduction of Israel into the region
insured a steady sale of arms. US corporations have
supplied both sides of conflicts for years. Iraq and
Saudi Arabia have been the largest buyers of military
equipment over the years. Of course we armed Israel to
the teeth. Israel purchased this military arsenal using
US aid.
The Military-Industrial complex benefited immensely as
Arab governments pay hard cash from oil revenues. To the
corporation, it matters not from where the money comes -
US
taxes sent to Israel as aid or from Arab oil revenues.
Either
way the money shows up on the balance sheet. General
Dynamics,
Raytheon and General Electric make a literal and
figurative
killing promoting hostilities.
2) Everything in the Middle East must be seen through
the lens of
its vast oil resources. BP, Shell and Exxon have
TRILLIONS OF
DOLLARS at stake. Rarely do you hear media reports
interviewing
oil executives about foreign policy. Why? Both media and
their
corporate sponsors rather have the people chasing string
that
misdirects attention AWAY from oil. Politicians of
course comply
with this misdirection and use alternative rationales
for
policy. Oil is seldom heralded as the reason for going
to war
or supporting policies.
3) The third force animating Middle East foreign
policies are the
financial institutions that require a strong US dollar.
At one
point, the entire world's oil was bought and sold using
US
dollars. This means that Japan needs to purchase US
dollars on
the open market to buy Saudi oil. The demand for US
currency
makes the dollar more valuable. International banks who
hold
assets in dollars want a strong dollar. The link between
oil
and US currency is important...but as long as we chase
string,
it rarely gets mentioned by the mainstream press. Chase,
Alex
Brown and Citicorp top this list.
Instead of these animating forces, we are lead to
believe that ideological battles between
neo-conservatives and the State Department matter. By
the way, many of those waging ideological battles
actually believe that what they say matters. These
believers are tools of deception from above.
The power elite use them to misdirect.
We are also fed the misdirection or "string" that
lobbies like the pro-Israeli AIPAC control Middle East
policy. These entities distract our attention. They
unwittingly serve to PROTECT the real motives and
strategies of policy. The interest groups also believe
in their effectiveness or power.
Their "proof" that they have power is the policies that
coincide with their charter. Coinciding interests mask
the trappings of real power.
In reality, ideological partisan policies are followed
ONLY when they coincide with the interests of the
"trinity."
Ideological arguments are quickly discarded when they
run counter to corporate interests. Ideological
arguments rationalize policies and are for public
consumption.
The misdirection is mind-numbingly effective. All
pundits chase the string. All network anchors chase the
string.
Politicians that are not in-the-know chase the string.
The few political elite who know the score are masters
at this misdirection.
One of the great successes of the "trinity" is that they
have such few critics. This is because they have been so
successful in controlling the underlying assumptions of
policies. Activists who are critical of policies rarely
get to the underlying assumptions because they are too
busy critiquing the phantom motives postulated by the
media pundits.
The war in Iraq is a good example of misdirection at
play.
False predicates for war were offered like WMDs, Al
Qaeda links, and the biggest canard of all; freeing the
Iraqi people were used to justify invading. These all
serve to obscure the economic motives for the war and as
long as we debate the veracity of absurd premises, the
power elite is safe from public scrutiny.
The pundits then offered the ideological battles between
neo-conservatives and the State Department as additional
string to chase. Others postulate Israel as the master
manipulating entity. All of this maintains the sanctity
of the power elite.
If we spend time debunking false predicates for
policies, the real underlying matrix is safe from
scrutiny. Nowhere is this more evident than US support
for Israel. Here we have the classic misdirection. We
are told that Israel shares the same values as us hence
we need to support them. There are those that suggest
that their lobby, AIPAC, buys politicians despite only
having a $30 million annual budget.
We are now told that ideological zealots control our
foreign policy and these zealots, mostly Jewish
neo-conservatives, implement policies in Israel's
interests over US national interests.
This is all hogwash.
We have US national interests at play, Israeli interests
AND international corporate interests in the mix of US
Middle East foreign policy. Sometimes these three
coincide and other times they diverge. This is why it is
difficult to deconstruct motives.
War in Iraq was NOT in the US national interest. An
internationalist agenda created the war. As an aside, US
support for Israel is no longer in US national interests
and Israel knows this. Israel no longer serves the
transnational corporate interests as well.
This combination means that Israel is in trouble. The
demise of Zionism is looming but that is an essay for
another time. In my opinion, this is one of the only
positive things to come out of the internationalist
agenda.
***********************************************************
Jaffer Ali is an Arab-American businessman who writes on
politics and business ethics. He is a frequent
contributor to Viewpoint.
***********************************************************
More selected readings on the Middle East
Israel to Attack Iran?- by Arnaud de Borchgrave
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20040701-042335-4421r.htm
US Soldiers Laugh At Drowning Iraqi- Associated
Press
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/wme/2004/jul/06/070605227.html
The Price of Brainwashing - by Daniel Ben-Simon
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/447719.html
Blair: Saddam May Have Destroyed WMDs
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=538832
Nukes & the barrier Put Israel in the Spotlight -
by Tom Regan
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0706/dailyUpdate.html
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