Shameful US legislation commits to ensuring Israel always has superiority in weapons, technology, training, command and control, and intelligence over its neighbours.
It’s time everyone knew why the US is joined at the hip with a loathsome genocidal ethnocracy like Israel whose stated aim is domination of the Holy Land and beyond.
In 2008, Congress enacted legislation requiring that US arms sales to any country in the Middle East other than Israel must not adversely affect Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME). This ensures the apartheid state always has the upper hand over it neighbours. It is central to US Middle East policy and aims to keep the region at or near boiling point and ripe for exploitation.
The UK has superglued itself to this evil US-Israel partnership for so-called security and other dubious reasons.
Legislation defines QME as “the ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.”
In a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on 4 November 2011, Andrew Shapiro (Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the State Department), enlarged on QME saying:
As a result of the Obama Administration’s commitment, our security relationship with Israel is broader, deeper and more intense than ever before. One of my primary responsibilities is to preserve Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge, or QME. This is not just a top priority for me, it is a top priority for the Secretary and for the President.
It is widely known that our two countries share a special bond that is rooted in our common values and interwoven cultures…. We are committed to that special bond, and we are going to do what’s required to back that up, not just with words but with actions.
Most British people would be mortified to think we as a nation had a special bond or any shared values with such a repulsive regime yet some of our senior politicians seem (mistakenly) to think we have.
“The cornerstone of America’s security commitment to Israel has been an assurance that the United States would help Israel uphold its qualitative military edge,” continued Shapiro. “This commitment was written into law in 2008 and each and every security assistance request from the Israeli Government is evaluated in light of our policy to uphold Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge.”
And he explained how, for three decades, Israel had been the leading beneficiary of US security assistance through the Foreign Military Financing programme (FMF) which was providing $3 billion per year for training and equipment. A 2007 memorandum of understanding provided for $30 billion in security assistance over 10 years, allowing Israel to purchase the sophisticated defence equipment it needs to maintain its qualitative military edge. 60 percent of US security assistance funding to some 70 countries went to Israel.
But here’s the really warped bit. Shapiro claimed: “Our support for Israel’s security helps preserve peace and stability in the region. If Israel were weaker, its enemies would be bolder. This would make broader conflict more likely, which would be catastrophic to American interests in the region. It is the very strength of Israel’s military which deters potential aggressors and helps foster peace and stability. Ensuring Israel’s military strength and its superiority in the region, is therefore critical to regional stability and as a result is fundamentally a core interest of the United States.”
Well, that worked well, didn’t it? Israel is an unwelcome alien intruder and has spent its time picking quarrels with its neighbours, stealing their lands and slaughtering their citizens, safe in the knowledge that the mighty US protects them regardless of their aggressive behaviour.
Shapiro went on:
The United States also experiences a number of tangible benefits from our close partnership with Israel. For instance, joint exercises allow us to learn from Israel’s experience in urban warfare and counterterrorism.
Yes, gained and honed from decades of surveillance, assaults, bombardments and brutal persecution of the captive Palestinian people under Israeli military occupation, and having to deal with Palestinian resistance. And now genocide, which must have provided a wealth of ‘advanced’ experience.
Israeli technology is proving critical to improving our Homeland Security and protecting our troops. One only has to look at Afghanistan and Iraq…. Israel is a vital ally and serves as a cornerstone of our regional security commitments. From confronting Iranian aggression, to working together to combat transnational terrorist networks, to stopping nuclear proliferation and supporting democratic change and economic development in the region – it is clear that both our strategic outlook, as well as our national interests are strongly in sync…. Our security assistance to Israel also helps support American jobs, since the vast majority of security assistance to Israel is spent on American-made goods and services.
It was then time for him to demonise Iran.
The Iranian regime continues to be committed to upsetting peace and stability in the region and beyond. Iran’s nuclear program is a serious concern, particularly in light of Iran’s expansion of the program over the past several years in defiance of its international obligations.
So, speaking of international obligations, how safe is the region under the threat of Israel’s nukes? Why is Israel the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty? Are we all supposed to believe that Israel’s 200 (or is it 400?) nuclear warheads pose no threat? Why hasn’t Israel signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, and why has it signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention?
What the updated 2012 legislation says
The US views its QME policy as crucial for Israel’s survival and for maintaining a strategic balance in the region, citing Israel’s role as a “bastion of liberal representative government”. And these barmy ideas are enshrined in something called the ‘United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012’. Read the whole thing here, if you have the stomach for it.
It kicks off by saying Congress makes the following findings:
Since 1948, United States Presidents and both houses of Congress, on a bipartisan basis and supported by the American people, have repeatedly reaffirmed the special bond between the United States and Israel, based on shared values and shared interests.
The Middle East is undergoing rapid change, bringing it hope for an expansion of democracy but also great challenges to the national security of the United States and our allies in the region, particularly to our most important ally in the region, Israel.
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran is continuing its decades-long pattern of seeking to foment instability and promote extremism in the Middle East, particularly in this time of dramatic political transition.
At the same time, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to enrich uranium in defiance of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions.
A nuclear-weapons capable Iran would fundamentally threaten vital United States interests, encourage regional nuclear proliferation, further empower Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, and pose a serious and destabilizing threat to Israel and the region.
Over the past several years, with the assistance of the Governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas have increased their stockpile of rockets, with more than 60,000 now ready to be fired at Israel. The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to add to its arsenal of ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, which threaten Iran’s neighbors, Israel, and United States Armed Forces in the region.
US law requires the President to certify to Congress that any arms sale to a Middle Eastern country other than Israel will not negatively affect Israel’s QME. And the legislation incudes this statement:
It is the policy of the United States to reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. As President Barack Obama stated on December 16, 2011. ‘America’s commitment and my commitment to Israel and Israel’s security is unshakeable.’ And as President George W. Bush stated before the Israeli Knesset on May 15, 2008, on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, ‘The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friend-ship runs deeper than any treaty’.
Given the present situation, America’s unquestioning commitment to the demented Israeli regime is probably the most mischievous, damaging and idiotic piece of foreign policy ever devised in the history of the modern world. The UK has no reason for cuddling up to this evil love-in, and the smallest shred of decency should tell us to steer well clear. There are other much more palatable allies to be had.
The post The Pure Evil of America’s QME Doctrine first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.