Cross Reference To LBN Post

May or may not be relevant to I/P --







Make up your own mind as to the relevance to I/P and PNAC and the War in Iraq.

oil companies are exerting too much influence on our foreign policy OR the highly pro-Israel people within the administration are. It just isn't an either/or situation.

These aren't mutually exclusive conditions, either. There is overlap, with some highly pro-Israel persons ALSO being involved with oil. I think most of us are aware of how much pull the oil industry has, it's just that isn't the only concern, either for us at DU in looking into these things, or the neocons either.

There is overlap, with some highly pro-Israel persons ALSO being involved with oil.

I think you are describing a parallel universe or some kind of a mirror image doppleganger world.

execs must relate to IP?

It couldn't relate to the Iraqi oil spigot?

It couldn't relate to the presence or absence of tax and regulatory "winks and nods" to encourage conservation of hydrocarbon fuels (e.g., higher Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards), to encourage reductions in green house gas emissions, to encourage non-fossil fuel sources of electricity (solar, wind, even nuclear).

The primary location of the many appends on this secret meeting was on "Late Breaking News" and on "Environment/Energy" -- and the level of discussion was highest on "Environment/Energy" - and the understanding of the PNAC documents and the level of debate are both much higher on "Environment/Energy."

that talks about the neocon influence in leading us into war with Iraq, and that this influence was not purely economically driven (oil) but also ideolgically driven (support for Israel):

Neo-con ideology, not Big Oil, pushed for war
By Jim Lobe
(Book Review: America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order (Cambridge University Press)
<snip>
While they do not deny that some economic interests - construction giants, such as Halliburton and Bechtel, and high-tech arms companies - may have given the push to war some momentum, the decisive factor in their view was ideological, and the ideology, "neo-conservative".

Powered by both Jewish and non-Jewish neo-conservatives centered in the offices of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney and by White House deference to the solidly pro-Zionist Christian Right, the neo-conservative world view - dedicated to the security of Israel and the primacy of military power in a world of good and evil - emerged after September 11, 2001, as the driving force in President Bush's foreign policy, as well as the dominant narrative in a cowed and complacent mass media.

...In that respect, the authors did indeed pull their punches in order no doubt to avoid being labeled "anti-Semitic", a common neo-conservative tactic against their critics, and to avoid fueling stereotypes that are both incorrect and dangerously anti-Semitic, such as the notion that "Jews" control the media, if not the world. While predominantly Jewish, the neo-conservative movement is by no means exclusively so, and most American Jews, it is important to point out, are not neo-conservatives. As the authors themselves write, "Today, it should not be considered legitimate to imply that any criticism of neo-conservatism is necessarily tainted by anti-Semitism."

That said, the horrific experience of European Jewry in the 20th century, culminating as it did with the Nazi Holocaust, is critical to understanding the neo-conservative mind set. It is that experience - and the failure of the "international community" to do anything about it - that helps explain the good-and-evil moral categories, the obsession with military force, the disdain for multilateral institutions and international law and, ultimately, the necessity for the United States to be permanently engaged against foreign enemies lest it withdraw into isolationism that, like appeasement, helped pave the way for Hitler and the Holocaust that make up the neo-conservative world view.<unsnip>

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FH18Ak01.html
(The authors of the book are <snip>Stefan Halper, a teacher at Cambridge and US policymaker under past Republican administrations, and Clarke, a retired British diplomat currently based at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank in Washington<unsnip>

(Btw, it's unreasonable to assume anything more from my post(s).)

It represents a distinct minority POV -- and seems to give Leo Strauss and Irving Kristol Svengalli like powers on the Foreign Policy establishment.

But, I will read it.