Informant38

It is clear that US Special Forces trained in Israel to prepare for the kind of 'Arab urban warfare' that Israel has extensive experience waging

Mark LeVine links Israel to the invasion of Iraq, and to the "techniques" and practices employed at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq; then addresses the question of whether or not Israel is

an omnipotent force pulling the strings of the United States to ensure that Iraq, previously one of Israel's most dangerous enemies, can never regain its former military and economic power.

and whether or not

a coterie of neo-conservatives at the heart of the US administration planned the invasion in consultation with the Israeli government

He sums up the various facts and hypotheses with

Dubbed the "Likudization" of US foreign policy by several commentators, this line of argument claims that the power of the White House has, in essence, been hijacked by the Israeli government to further its parochial ends in the region.

Calling that line of argument

nonsense.


-AsiaTimes 01.Mar.06

Changing a few terms in the argument won't lead so readily to such an easy dismissal.
Instead of "the Israeli government" substitute whatever it is Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and David Wurmser pledge their allegiance to, and Jack Abramoff, and Scooter Libby. And a trainload of others.
Zionism is the word that gets used a lot, but it means different things to different people. Neocon is another.
The lack of distinct nameable boundaries means there isn't an accurate term for what is there, so that even after we get through the obstacle course of accusations of anti-Semitism and terrorist sympathy we can't talk about it without paragraphs of preamble and explication.
LaVine does a great service to the truth just mentioning the things he does, and being able to substantiate assertions with facts that, had they been available and public at the time, would have done a lot to keep the patriotic hysteria of the last couple of years from becoming an embarrassment to a lot of good-hearted Americans.
Flags are disappearing, some of the flags I photographed over and over aren't there anymore.
There's still more than there were before the cycle of events that began with the fall of the World Trade Center, but not nearly as many now as there were a year ago.