This was argued in as many words by the Iranian foreign minister in 2008. He said, in effect, Bush put us, Iraq and North Korea in the Axis of Evil. North Korea has nukes and is still here. Iraq did not and is gone. Our instructions are clear. Again, though, that's too simple. The United States has maintained an ambivalent, adversarial relationship with Israel when it benefits us - America fucked Britain over to help the Jews and recognized Israel two years before Britain. But then when the Israelis and British got too big for their britches the Americans fucked them both over (in no small part because it fucked Hungary). There's ample evidence that the CIA/NRO knew damn well the Yom Kippur War was bound to happen and let Israel get a little bit fucked before airdropping a fuckton of foreign aid and that frankly, the fall of Iran as a vassal US state caused America to give Israel too much leeway. Israel is useful to the US. Need some Iranian physicists assassinated? Israel. Need an Iraqi reactor bombed? Israel. Need to shoot down some Soviet MiGs? Israel. Palestine? ... is not. That's really what it comes down to - it's proxy warfare all the way down. Now. How much are you gonna wanna talk about proxy warfare in Intro to Fuckery? 'cuz it's complicated.I read the chat with 'bl00 and spence, and I think my cynical takeaway is that once a country can make nuclear weapons, they can do almost whatever they want to any non-nuclear regional powers, using the threat of proliferation.
I don't disagree that we're using Israel for proxy warfare. But this fits so much with what am_U's saying about effective altruism,. We gotta give them nukes and let them bomb children because it lets us stop these other guys from getting nukes and lets us bomb them easier which gives us lower prices on oil which helps the global stability and peace or whatever. It's all so indirect and sneaky and about the ends justifying the means, and I'm not convinced we're going to get the ends anyways.
That's not effective altruism and you know it. Power of language - you're changing terms from something simple (pragmatism) to something abhorrent ("effective altruism") because you can't argue against pragmatism while "effective altruism" has no credible defenders. "The ends justify the means" is the fundamental nature of politics and has been since Sumeria. "It's all indirect and sneaky" is that "standing on the wall" speech from A Few Good Men and has been going back to Sargon of Akkad. It all fucking sucks. All of it. It has always fucking sucked. All of it. Rashida Tlaib is urging Michigan Democrats to vote against Biden in the primary. She should. He is acting in a way that is abhorrent to her politics, her constituency and her way of life. American policy towards Israel has long needed a change but there hasn't been enough momentum. Now? Now we've got a bunch of simps running around screaming "river to the sea" like it's fucking KONY2012 because if you scratch the surface of the problem even a little tiny bit you can't go "Biden is a Zionist sorted."