Israel can thank James Angleton at the CIA for their nuclear weapons:
"'Angleton was was a leading architect of America’s strategic relationship with Israel that endures and dominates the region to this day,' Jefferson Morley writes in The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. More than any other man, the longtime chief of U.S. counterintelligence made possible Israel’s shift 'from an embattled settler state into a strategic ally of the world’s greatest superpower.'"
"Angleton did so chiefly by burying any effort in the U.S. intelligence establishment to question Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. 'Angleton’s loyalty to Israel betrayed U.S. policy on an epic scale,' Morley writes. 'Instead of supporting U.S. nuclear security policy, he ignored it.'"
"Could one person effect such significant policy? It is the persuasive argument of this book that a man as willful and brilliant (and twisted) as Angleton was able in the 1960s to acquire such position inside the executive branch that he could control vital flows of information. And Angleton reasoned that intelligence-sharing between the countries was more valuable to the United States than thwarting Israel’s path to becoming a regional superpower."
"Today it is no surprise that Angleton is remembered more fondly in Israel than in the United States. Here he has the clouded reputation of a paranoid who used the CIA to spy on domestic political activities, resulting in scandal that forced his resignation in 1975. In Jerusalem there are two memorials to Angleton, dedicated by high officials, Morley relates. One stone is outside Angleton’s beloved oasis, the King David Hotel. 'In memory of a dear friend,' it says."[1]
Angleton's journey from being an mild anti-Semite (also covered in Morley's "Ghost") to becoming one of Israel's greatest outside champions was a winding and interesting one!
"If America owes anyone anything, we owe the Iranian people the debt of removing that evil regime and freeing them from the boot of despotism."
I guess by one interpretation, killing them all is one way of accomplishing this goal:
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!"[1]
At which point does the entire America and Israel project become the evil it was established to escape and defeat?
There-in is the million dollar question isn't it Chris? Morality? Jungle Rules? Ending a civilization in the name of justice? God? Hopefully TACO raises its head one more time.
They're called war crimes for a reason. Hiding behind God to wipe out an entire nation simply should never be the answer.
I'm not going to shed a tear for the Iranian industry and regime that was building drones that Russia was using to target civilians in Ukraine.
That said, we're waging this war in the most counterproductive and stupid way, as least as it pertains to US interests. Iran's theoretical weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz has been realized and is our new normal. Trump's not going to commit the necessary resources to root out the regime that he didn't change (also assisting Iran in avoiding a potentially useful and messy succession crisis). As long as Whiskey Pete leads Trump by the nose, we will continue to wage this war in the most backwards way possible.
Good for Bibi for getting everything he wanted. However, it's time for a leadership change in America so that we can steer these events in a direction that doesn't end up trading our status as the world's reserve currency to China.
Thanks for the historical background. I am attempting to compare your stated Israel's military equipment purchases from US against how much the American taxpayer is granting Israel annually in our foreign aid budget. Do you have those numbers?
$5 billion is a big "somewhere" range! I had understood the US taxpayer was highly subsidizing Israel's military purchases. Do we call it National Welfare?
It is 0.2% of the federal budget and Israel does pay for some things, plus the economic value of producing things in America that are exclusively for Israel. Same with South Korea and many NATO countries. But yes, it's alot. Then again, we pay $3 billion per DAY in interest on the federal debt.
It's probably better to look at it from the matter of whether Israel needs that money : back when we first started giving them the money it made up a huge portion of their budget, now - not so much. They really did depend on it for a while, but they're now much wealthier and can afford to not receive that aid.
Israel can thank James Angleton at the CIA for their nuclear weapons:
"'Angleton was was a leading architect of America’s strategic relationship with Israel that endures and dominates the region to this day,' Jefferson Morley writes in The Ghost: The Secret Life of CIA Spymaster James Jesus Angleton. More than any other man, the longtime chief of U.S. counterintelligence made possible Israel’s shift 'from an embattled settler state into a strategic ally of the world’s greatest superpower.'"
"Angleton did so chiefly by burying any effort in the U.S. intelligence establishment to question Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s. 'Angleton’s loyalty to Israel betrayed U.S. policy on an epic scale,' Morley writes. 'Instead of supporting U.S. nuclear security policy, he ignored it.'"
"Could one person effect such significant policy? It is the persuasive argument of this book that a man as willful and brilliant (and twisted) as Angleton was able in the 1960s to acquire such position inside the executive branch that he could control vital flows of information. And Angleton reasoned that intelligence-sharing between the countries was more valuable to the United States than thwarting Israel’s path to becoming a regional superpower."
"Today it is no surprise that Angleton is remembered more fondly in Israel than in the United States. Here he has the clouded reputation of a paranoid who used the CIA to spy on domestic political activities, resulting in scandal that forced his resignation in 1975. In Jerusalem there are two memorials to Angleton, dedicated by high officials, Morley relates. One stone is outside Angleton’s beloved oasis, the King David Hotel. 'In memory of a dear friend,' it says."[1]
Angleton's journey from being an mild anti-Semite (also covered in Morley's "Ghost") to becoming one of Israel's greatest outside champions was a winding and interesting one!
[1] https://mondoweiss.net/2017/11/golem-angleton-israel/
Fascinating.
I finished reading Morley's book a couple of weeks ago. It's a fascinating biography.
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250139108/theghost/
"If America owes anyone anything, we owe the Iranian people the debt of removing that evil regime and freeing them from the boot of despotism."
I guess by one interpretation, killing them all is one way of accomplishing this goal:
"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS? We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!"[1]
At which point does the entire America and Israel project become the evil it was established to escape and defeat?
[1] https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116363336033995961
There-in is the million dollar question isn't it Chris? Morality? Jungle Rules? Ending a civilization in the name of justice? God? Hopefully TACO raises its head one more time.
They're called war crimes for a reason. Hiding behind God to wipe out an entire nation simply should never be the answer.
I'm not going to shed a tear for the Iranian industry and regime that was building drones that Russia was using to target civilians in Ukraine.
That said, we're waging this war in the most counterproductive and stupid way, as least as it pertains to US interests. Iran's theoretical weaponization of the Strait of Hormuz has been realized and is our new normal. Trump's not going to commit the necessary resources to root out the regime that he didn't change (also assisting Iran in avoiding a potentially useful and messy succession crisis). As long as Whiskey Pete leads Trump by the nose, we will continue to wage this war in the most backwards way possible.
Good for Bibi for getting everything he wanted. However, it's time for a leadership change in America so that we can steer these events in a direction that doesn't end up trading our status as the world's reserve currency to China.
Thanks for the historical background. I am attempting to compare your stated Israel's military equipment purchases from US against how much the American taxpayer is granting Israel annually in our foreign aid budget. Do you have those numbers?
Looks like it's about 4 billion dollars a year out of 7 billion dollars a year in total of similar aid to countries like South Korea.[1]
[1] https://www.ajc.org/news/what-every-american-should-know-about-us-aid-to-israel
After Oct 7 2023 Congress allocated somewhere between $16 and $21 billion in direct military aid through FY25.
https://www.cfr.org/articles/us-aid-israel-four-charts
$5 billion is a big "somewhere" range! I had understood the US taxpayer was highly subsidizing Israel's military purchases. Do we call it National Welfare?
$16 billion would house a lot of homeless veterans and fund a ton of science.
It is 0.2% of the federal budget and Israel does pay for some things, plus the economic value of producing things in America that are exclusively for Israel. Same with South Korea and many NATO countries. But yes, it's alot. Then again, we pay $3 billion per DAY in interest on the federal debt.
It's probably better to look at it from the matter of whether Israel needs that money : back when we first started giving them the money it made up a huge portion of their budget, now - not so much. They really did depend on it for a while, but they're now much wealthier and can afford to not receive that aid.