‘One of the purposes of the Vietnam War desired by Johnson and his masters was to create a diversion while Israel was engaging in the decisive stage of its expansion. Imagine for a moment that there had been no Vietnam War, in 1967 and thereafter, to mobilize Americans’ limited attention on world affairs, and to divert their indignation. Could the Washington Post and the New York Times have managed to hide from the public the scandal of that war of aggression and illegal annexation? Even more importantly, Israel’s strategists surely understood that the legitimacy of the US state to condemn Israel’s crimes would be much diminished if the US could be blamed for even worse crimes.’