The article basically says that inside the United States there is a powerful interest group. It is deeply committed to shaping American foreign policy in ways that work to the benefit of Israel. The Israel Lobby in the US, dude, VPRO & Al Jazeera 2007
The Bible has a clear mandate to be supportive of the state of Israel. ibid. John Hagee, evangelical pastor
There are people all over America … who are set up … to protect the interests of Jewish Americans. ibid. dude
The state of Israel is the dream of your ancestors … ibid. Nancy Pelosi
Money does not flow into a particular Congressman’s coffers or Senator’s coffers unless he supports positions taken by the lobby. ibid. Wilkerson
The United States will stand with Israel now and forever. ibid. Pelosi
‘Too often we make a mockery of the idea of ‘never again.’ And when a country with the power of the United States sits on its hands and does nothing in the fact of evil, we certainly diminish our influence.’ Corridors of Power: Should America Rule the World? s1e1: For Every Insect There is an Insecticide, Paul Wolfowitz, BBC 2024
‘Guess who the world calls for whenever there is a mugging?’ ibid. Colin Powell
‘America truly is the world’s indispensable nation.’ ibid. Clinton
As for Saddam’s accused conspirators, they were hustled outside and strapped to stakes. ibid.
With American help the Shah turned Iran into a brutal dictatorship using his CIA-trained secret police, the SAVAK to torture and massacre his opponents. ibid.
After 25 years of oppression, the Iranian people had had enough. ibid.
The mountains, say the Kurds, are our only friends. ibid.
Saddam knew no limits. Iraq’s failure on the battleground led him to double down … Iraqi gunners were using mustard gas … Iraqi soldiers had been using nerve gas. ibid.
Chemical Ali was determined to solve Iraq’s Kurdish problem once and for all. ibid.
Iraq was massacring its own citizens with chemical weapons. ibid.
His war had not turned out as Saddam expected. Instead of Iran’s oil fields, Iraq was left with a vast debt, its economy in shambles. ibid.
Now, from Basra to Erbil ordinary people took up arms and surged into the streets. ibid.
People were angry that George Bush had called for an uprising and was doing nothing to help. ibid.
The worms coming to life in the Balkans were particularly poisonous for they were driven both by long resentment and by ethnic hatred. Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e2: Bosnia: Our Soldiers Are Not Toy Soldiers
The Republics wanted their independence and began declaring it. ibid.
Some 1.3 Bosnians have been displaced. ibid. US document
Serb soldiers began rampaging through Bosnia. ibid.
‘And he [Colin Powell] got really mad at me and said, ‘Our soldiers are not toy soldiers.’’ ibid. Albright
The Serbs saw weakness. To Milosevic and his generals, the West’s so-called new world order looked like vacillation and incompetence, and they ruthlessly seized the moment. ibid.
Rwanda experienced the most intensive slaughter in this blood-filled century we are about to leave. Corridors of Power: Rwanda s1e3: That Was a Local Thing, Clinton
They were hearing the information but they weren’t acting on it. ibid. old boy
The Kosovar Muslims’ struggle for independence from Serbia ... ‘We were going to intervene in Kosovo.’ Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e4: Kosovo: In the Name of Our Future
If Milosevik does not halt his ethnic cleansing of Kosovo the western powers are willing to use their military might to stop him. ibid.
The bombing of Belgrade was a bit of a shock for some of us at the State Department. ibid.
We did do the right thing. ibid. Albright
Why didn’t we do more sooner about Bosnia? Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e5: Darfur: Carrots for a War Criminal, author
In Sudan, a vast land, the third largest in Africa, two decades of civil war had brought countless atrocities, and left two million dead. The country was rich in oil but that lay in the south. ibid.
Darfur is a region in western Sudan roughly the size of Spain. The people of Darfur are Muslims, but they are also black Africans. ibid.
Now the Christians in south Sudan were going to get their own state, the Darfuris escalated their own. ibid.
Colin Powell’s prescient warning, ‘If you break it, you own it.’ ibid.
America broke Iraq, and was clearly unprepared for what would happen next. ibid.
More than 2 million Dafuris left their homes … They never had enough to eat; disease was rampant … Women, children and the elderly suffered most. ibid.
Young Arabs began to remake their world … Libyans had taken to the streets challenging their long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e6: Libya: If You Break It, You Own It
Gaddafi had been a villain for the West for a quarter of a century. ibid.
‘We need to make sure they [Gaddafi’s forces] don’t get to Benghazi.’ ibid. US dude
‘You unleash a chain of events that make it very difficult to control.’ ibid.
‘Oh no, my people love me because I’m leading the resistance front.’ Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e7: Syria: The Risk of Doing Nothing, Bashar al-Assad
Parents joined religious leaders in a march to demand their children be released. The marchers were peaceful but the forces of the regime opened fire, killing four. ibid.
‘You now had great powers pitted against each other in Syria, and with that the conflict was going to be very difficult to manage.’ ibid. US dude
Multiple reports that Assad was using chemical weapons. ibid.
Every solution you propose or present or pursue almost necessarily creates new problems. So even when you think you’ve done the right thing, you have generated a whole set of additional decisions that themselves put you back in this loop of imperfection. Corridors of Power: Should America Police the World? s1e8: Syria: A Loop of Imperfection, US dude
What does this all end? ibid. Barack
A new force had emerged in Syria: Isis. ibid.
Americans had shown little appetite for sending their war planes to defend Syrians even when thousands were dying from Assad’s chemical weapons. But the televised beheading of an American journalist had raised a sudden appetite for revenge. This stark act of cruelty and injustice on a single young American kneeling in an orange jumpsuit in the desert awakened a bottomless anger. ibid.
A populist revolution in Iran, hostage crisis at an embassy, in Mecca the assassination of an Egyptian head of state, a military invasion in Afghanistan, a series of terrorist attacks in the Philippines, an official reception in Washington DC. All these events are pieces of a giant puzzle scattered around the world. The Terror Routes I: 1979-1993: They Were On the Side of the Angels, Amazon 2011
We should attempt to follow that road: it winds through a transforming Arab world, a crumbling Soviet empire, and an American nation at the hands of would-be sorcerers, the object of mounting hatred. ibid.
Kabul, Afghanistan, 24th December 1979: Operation Storm 333 has just begun. That is the codename given by the Soviets for the invasion of Afghanistan. ibid.
All along the road leading to September 11th are a number of men who are part of an Islamic galaxy. ibid.
Ayman al-Zawahiri is released after three years spent in Egyptian jails. Under torture, he reveals the names of a number of underground Islamist leaders. There years are crucial in al-Zawahiri’s evolution. They only served to reinforce his radicalism. ibid.
Peshawar near the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan is now a strategic hub in the war against the Soviets. Support for Afghan rebels, the Mujahideen, is organised with the help of western powers led by the United States. ibid.
‘Ali Muhammad created the encyclopaedia of jihad, the training syllabus that was used extensively in Afghanistan.’ ibid. US man in the know
‘Reagan openly supported jihadists, including some that are now fighting us.’ ibid.
‘Everybody took credit for it but they all forgot that there was this Islamic muscle which took credit for Allah. And nobody thought of devising some sort of a strategy or policy to contain this muscle. Indeed, they did the opposite.’ ibid.
‘I don’t know why the blind sheikh was issued with a visa to come to the United States.’ ibid.
The Towers held but the countdown to their demise was launched. The Terror Routes II: 1993-2001 The Countdown
Americans and jihadists lose their common enemy. Exhilarated by their victory against the Soviet Union, Islamists turn against their former protectors. ibid.
During the same period, in the middle of the ’90s, Saudi Arabia is facing an important surge of Sunnite extremism. ibid.
‘Bin Laden had come to our attention because his money was increasingly linked to people that the US was worried about.’ ibid. man in the know