Wendy Sherman Says It Would've Been Difficult
To Tell The World That It 'Should Wait For Congress'
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations Security Council is due to vote on Monday on a resolution that would endorse a deal placing long-term curbs on Iran's nuclear programme but would retain an arms embargo and ban on the supply of ballistic missile technology, said a U.S. diplomat.
The vote will be scheduled for 9 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT) on Monday, said the diplomat.
According to the draft text, seven previous U.N. resolutions on Iran will be terminated when the International Atomic Energy Agency submits a report to the council verifying that Iran has implemented certain nuclear-related measures.
The language of the resolution was negotiated as part of the deal agreed on Tuesday in Vienna between Iran, the five veto-wielding Security Council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - Germany and the European Union.
In return for lifting U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions, Iran agreed to long-term curbs on a nuclear programme that the West suspected was aimed at creating an atomic bomb, but which Tehran says is peaceful.
A U.N. ban on the supply of ballistic missile technology to Iran will remain in place for eight years, an arms embargo for five years, and restrictions on nuclear technology for a decade, according to the draft resolution.
It also lists 36 individuals and entities who will no longer be subjected to a global asset freeze and travel ban. There are currently 43 individuals and 78 entities on the U.N. blacklist. The targeted sanctions regime will be in place for eight years.
It also calls on countries to monitor the Iran deal by inspecting all cargo to and from Iran if they suspect it contains items that violate the nuclear deal.
The draft resolution also enshrines a mechanism for all current U.N. sanctions to be automatically reimposed if Iran breaches the deal, referred to by some diplomats as snapback.
According to the Vienna deal, the six world powers, Iran and the European Union will form a joint commission to handle any complaints about breaches. If the complaining state is not satisfied with how the commission addresses its concerns, it could then take its grievance to the U.N. Security Council.
The Security Council would then need to vote on a resolution to extend the sanctions relief for Iran.
If such a resolution has not been adopted within 30 days of the council receiving the complaint of a breach, then the sanctions contained in all previous U.N. resolutions would be reimposed, unless the council decided otherwise.
According to the draft U.N. resolution, if the previous sanctions are reimposed they would not apply retroactively to contracts Iran signed.
If the nuclear deal is adhered to, all the provisions and measures of the U.N. resolution would terminate in a decade.
However, the six world powers and the EU wrote to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday to inform him that after 10 years they plan to seek a five-year extension of the mechanism allowing sanctions to be reimposed.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Ken Wills)
The Israel Lobby Policies and their disastrous affect on US Foreign Policy - Destroying the AIPAC myth:
The Israel Lobby Policies and their disastrous affect on US Foreign Policy - Destroying the AIPAC myth:
WHO ELSE DESERVES PRONGING?
ReplyDeleteNobody was surprised by Benjamin Netanyahu’s immediate denunciation of the Iran nuclear agreement as “a historic mistake for the world.” Echoing the Israeli prime minister’s opposition throughout the negotiations were all the usual suspects in this country—a panoply of pundits and politicians from Weekly Standard editor William Kristol and Fox News Channel analyst Charles Krauthammer to MSNBC host Joe Scarborough. Now this same crew will urge its rejection by the United States Senate.
Focusing on the alleged pitfalls of the deal between Iran and the world powers, these critics downplay provisions that would allow economic sanctions to “snap back” quickly if Iran violates its promises, and greatly increase the Islamic Republic’s difficulty in building an undetected bomb. They don’t explain that if the United States had walked away, the result would have been the disintegration of international sanctions, the rapid buildup of Iran’s nuclear capability, and the likelihood of war—not just bombs, but “boots on the ground.”
What everyone should remember about the agreement’s most prominent foes is something they will never mention: their own shameful record in promoting our very worst foreign policy mistake since Vietnam.
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DeleteLike his admirers here, Netanyahu was a fervent proselytizer for war against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. He appeared before the United States Congress in 2002 to frighten Americans and whip up belligerence. “There is no question whatsoever”—mark those words—“that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing toward the development of nuclear weapons,” he intoned, restating the “mushroom cloud” rhetoric of national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and vice president Dick Cheney, among others.
Around the same time, Krauthammer declared: “Time is running short. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He is working on nuclear weapons. And he has every incentive to pass them on to terrorists who will use them against us.” As the vote on Bush’s war resolution approached that fall, he warned that “we must remove from power an irrational dictator who ... is developing weapons of mass destruction that could kill millions of Americans in a day.”
And we heard the same endless, hysterical exhortations from Kristol, Scarborough, and the entire cohort that had been pushing for war in Iraq ever since 9/11. No doubt they wish we would forget they ever uttered such nonsense. But at the time they argued that not only would Saddam’s overthrow mean “the end of his weapons of mass destruction,” as Scarborough once gloated, but the democratic ouster of all our enemies in the Mideast.
On that claim, Netanyahu was unwavering and absolute. “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime,” he told Congress, “I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region. And I think that people sitting right next door in Iran, young people, and many others, will say the time of such regimes, of such despots is gone.”
Of course, Bibi’s “guarantee” was worth less than the pitch of any used-car salesman. So was Kristol’s blithering reassurance that Iraq’s Shiite and the Sunni communities felt no enmity that would disrupt the bright future post-Saddam.
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DeleteAs Netanyahu noted not long ago—while arguing, ironically, against negotiations with Iran—the mullahs in Tehran now have far greater influence than we do over the Iraqi government in Baghdad, because both are dominated by Shiite parties. (He failed to recall his own wrong predictions.)
So we wasted blood and treasure to throw out Saddam and empower the Iranian mullahs in his place. And now the same figures responsible for that policy disaster demand that the United States turn away from the prospect of a peaceful resolution with Iran, and toward still another armed conflict.
The fundamental truth, recognized by Republican idol Ronald Reagan, is that negotiations are always preferable to war. Yet many on the American right have often preferred war, including the utterly insane risk of nuclear war, to dealing with our enemies. Earlier this year, Scarborough suggested that even if the Iran deal looked better than expected, he disdains peace talks on principle—as do the neoconservatives, who rose to prominence lobbying against strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union.
“I never trusted the Soviets,” said Scarborough. “I never wanted Reagan to make deals with the Soviets in the late ‘80s. It turned out well, but I was always against detente and against dealing with communists. And right now, I’m against dealing with a country whose Supreme Leader calls us the devil, who says death to America at the same time he’s negotiating this deal.”
“It turned out well” is to put it very mildly. Not only was President Reagan’s reputation enhanced, but owing to decades of negotiation, we avoided a nuclear conflict that would have ended life on this planet. Yet Scarborough and his ilk reject the idea of talking with our enemies—although any negotiation over matters of war and peace will always require that distasteful necessity.
Twelve years ago, we made the historic mistake of listening to all these false and foolish prophets. There is no excuse to repeat that tragic error.
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DeleteJoe Conason has written his popular political column for The New York Observer since 1992.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/iran_deal_why_should_we_heed_the_same_voices_that_are_always_wrong_20150717
The latest and current episode on Iran and US foreign demonstrates the need to expose and counter The Israel Lobby.
ReplyDeleteThe successful passing of the Iranian nuclear deal will break the back of The Lobby.
ReplyDeleteThe successful passing of the horrible deal will break the back of America's spine to stand up against Islamic Iranian terror.
DeleteAmerica the cuckhold will be the new America.
Makes you proud to support the mullah's of Iran that hang gays, stone women and fund terror across the globe?
Goodbye, therefore, to the overwhelming influence of the Sunni Muslim nations which gave their sons to the 9/11 crimes against humanity and provided the world with Osama bin Laden, which supported the Taliban and then the Sunni Islamists of Iraq and Syria and – finally – goodbye to those emirs and princes who support Isis. Washington is sick and tired of the decrepit princes of the Gulf, their puritanical lectures, their tiresome wealth (unless it’s paying for US weaponry) and their grotty civil war in Yemen. Shia Iran is now the good guy on the block.
DeleteOf course, appearances can be deceptive. The raving loonies among the Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, the raving loonies in the Israeli cabinet and the raving loonies in the US Congress will try to gum up the works. But here’s a thought. John Kerry – not, to be sure, the brightest of US secretaries of state – has spent more time at the Iran talks in Vienna – eighteen days – than any of his predecessors have passed in one place since the Second World War.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/iran-nuclear-deal-however-the-great-and-good-represent-it-america-has-now-taken-the-shia-side-in-the-middle-easts-sectarian-war-10388940.html
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DeleteShia Iran is now the good guy on the block.
Bull.
There is no one in the ME that is a friend to the US. There are definitely no 'good guys'.
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Robert Fisk uses a lot of irony.
DeleteThe World wants the deal. The deal will be made. The second video shows the disastrous impact of The Lobby on the US.I will be proud when the Lobby is broken. Israel is on the wrong side of history and The US is complicit. The Israeli Right Wing knows its political existence is in peril once the deal is made. That is their priority - their political careers.
ReplyDeleteAll your ludicrous Aipac talking points and diversionary tactics are chaff caught in the downwind of Global public opinion. Seeing the GOP gutted and marginalized will bring me great pleasure.
DeleteThe Republican Party is in shambles and a death spiral. Almost any Democrat will takedown any one of the dreadful cast of political opportunists selected by the GOP establishment to lead the party. Republicans are dead in the Northeast. Ohio, Florida, Virginia and the entire West Coast is lost to them. All they have left is fear, loathing and the last stands in the deep south among White Christians. Aipac cannot save them and the hysteria over Iran, the illegal settlements, the vicious assaults on Gaza and the apartheid enclaves will shame all but the religious fanatics in the Likuds Force.
ReplyDeleteDonald Trump and I are having a great week.
ReplyDeleteIn his case, it’s because likely Republican voters have weighed in, and they heart The Donald. He was already in second place with Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire, and a recent Reuters poll placed him in a dead heat with rival Jeb Bush. Now another survey, released Tuesday by USA Today, actually shows him leading Bush, 14 percent to 17 percent. A majority of Republicans, nearly 60 percent, say they have a favorable view of Trump, which is very nearly a complete turnaround from as recently as May. The whole thing — by which I mean having an overt racist take the lead because there is nothing your base loves more than an overt racist — has pretty much turned the Republican presidential race from a mere carnival of sadness into a shitshow of epic proportions.
And this, as you may already have guessed, is why I am having such a fanfuckingtastic week.
know. There’s basically zero chance that Trump will hold on to this lead for anything but a fleeting moment. I am not the first to recognize that we only have to look back as far as 2012 for examples of other early GOP primary front runners — Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain — who ultimately turned up the crazy so deafeningly loud that even Republicans were forced to change the station. Almost three-quarters of Americans polled say they essentially regard Trump’s candidacy as a tasteless joke. (Were he not Canadian, we could probably put Neil Young in that camp, judging by the fact that he told Trump to stop using his music and then turned right around and told Bernie Sanders to turn that shit up.) Even Trump’s flimsy lead in the aforementioned poll falls within the margin of error.
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ReplyDeleteBut for a second, let’s stop trafficking in reality. For just a moment, join me in the hope that this terrible and actual human nightmare will hang in there for as long as possible. Because if there was ever any question about the values the modern Republican party holds dear — racism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism and garden-variety lunacy— Donald Trump, a bullhorn with a comb-over, is ready to shout it at the top of his lungs.
The other Republican contenders may play to the same ugly ideas, but they cloak their language (although only just barely) to disguise it as something else. Rick Santorum, in the aftermath of the Charleston shooting and the repeated refrain to take down the Confederate flag, speaks substantively to neither issue but instead talks about “states rights” and suggests that the way to end racism is to shutter Planned Parenthood. Bobby Jindal defends anti-gay and racist remarks with drivel about constitutional rights, but then decides Article Three — the one establishing the Supreme Court — should be scuttled when SCOTUS makes marriage equality the law of the land. Ben Carson says political correctness under Obama has made America “very much like Nazi Germany” and the Affordable Care Act is “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” Ted Cruz actually calls the consecutive days on which SCOTUS upholds healthcare and marriage equality “some of the darkest 24 hours in our nation’s history.” Scott Walker implies gay people are child sexual predators and tries to make poverty as humiliating and punitive as possible by fighting to drug-test food stamp recipients. And Rick “Forgetful Jones” Perry just executes people — a fact that, you might recall, Republicans actually cheered him for. We could do this for all eleventy thousand Republican candidates, but I’m sure you already get the picture.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/oh-please-god-let-donald-trump-keep-talking
Delete.
ReplyDeleteThe successful passing of the Iranian nuclear deal will break the back of The Lobby.
No. It won't.
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The Lobby is all in on Iran. If they lose on this, they will be left defending apartheid, illegal settlements and murderous assaults on Gaza.
ReplyDeleteIran on the other hand will have normal relations with Turkey, China, Russia, Afghanistan, the EU and a defacto alliance with the US fighting ISIS.
Netanyahu will be exposed again for the lard ass fraud he has always been. Israel will be shaking down DC for about $4 billion year.
In 2014, pro-Israel groups contributed $11.9 million to congressional candidates, with $6.8 million going to Democrats and $5.1 million to Republicans. Not a bad return when you are dealing with the whores in The US Conga Line.
Nature abhors vacuums
ReplyDeleteIranian President Hassan Rouhani has underlined the importance of the Vienna agreement on Iran’s nuclear future and its positive impact on Tehran-Ankara relations with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, via a phone conversation.
“This agreement will influence Iran’s relations with its neighbors, especially Turkey,” President Rouhani said during the conversation, according to Iranian agency IRNA.
“We left behind the oppressive sanctions and were able to find acceptable solutions,” he added.
The Iranian president also mentioned Tehran and Ankara’s mutual cooperation to help restore stability in the region, saying, “People of the region are eyeing our cooperation and we can achieve a win-win solution in the region.”
“It is necessary to increase our interactions for uprooting terrorism and confronting the issue of terrorism in the region, which could destabilize regional countries.”
Rouhani, meantime, thanked Turkey for its cooperation on the nuclear issue in recent years.
The Turkish president, for his part, felicitated President Rouhani for its nuclear achievements, according to IRNA. He said, “We are ready to cooperate with Iran on regional issues. We can help achieve this through close interactions among different bodies of the two countries.”
Erdoğan, in reference to Iran-Turkey relations, said, “We should follow up the expansion of ties and help to deepen it through cooperation.”
Turkish authorities have not yet made a statement on the conversation.
Israel’s worse nightmare
ReplyDeleteThe nuclear deal struck between Western powers and Iran earlier this week may herald more open cooperation between Washington and Tehran in the fight against Islamic State extremists, analysts say.
President Barack Obama told reporters Wednesday he did not foresee formalizing any ties with Iran in the fight both countries are waging in Syria and Iraq against the Islamic State. He did appear, however, not to rule out coordination with Iranian military advisers and Tehran-linked Shi'ite militias - if they are working under the command and control of the Iraqi military.
“The one thing you can count on is that any work that the U.S. government does, or the U.S. military does in Iraq with other partners on the ground is premised on the idea that they are ... under the chain of command of the Iraqi government and Iraqi security forces,” Obama said at a news conference Wednesday at the White House in which he defended the Iran nuclear agreement.
His remarks now raise the possibility of more open, albeit informal, coordination, argues Jonathan Schanzer, an analyst with the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies, a Washington DC-based think tank.
“Informal cooperation with Iran in the fight against IS has been Obama's policy in the months leading up to the signing of the deal. It will remain Obama's policy, and it will be bolstered by the nuclear deal, despite not having a formal set of agreements,” he maintains.
But Schanzer warned, “The president fails to see that the more Iran is involved in the fight, the more IS will be able to recruit Sunni extremists who see the war in Syria and Iraq as a sectarian one. It's a simple equation. An empowered and aggressive Iran will inexorably lead to more mobilized Sunni jihadists.”
Awkward, secret coordination
The unusual confluence of interests in both Iraq and Syria, where traditional rivals Tehran and Washington find themselves battling a shared enemy, has prompted a degree of secret - and often awkward - coordination between the American military and Iran’s.
In order to avoid any mid-air incidents, Iraqi officers have served as intermediaries between the Americans and Iranians, informing each side of upcoming airstrikes, an Iraqi military official confirmed to VOA.
That coordination appeared to break down in March when Iranian-linked Shi'ite militias fighting to recapture the Iraqi city of Tikrit claimed they had been hit several times by misdirected U.S. airstrikes.
Tehran said two of its advisers were killed. The Pentagon vehemently denied the accusations, but the claims and counter-claims highlighted the fragility of the makeshift alliance battling to dislodge the militants of the so-called Islamic State from northwest and central Iraq.
Both sides have consistently played down any cooperation - even if coordination is through a third party.
In December, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters in Brussels: “I think it is self-evident that if Iran is taking on ISIL in some particular place and it’s confined to taking on ISIL and it has an impact... the net effect is positive. But that’s not something that we’re coordinating.”
However, U.S. officials have noted publicly their concern that Iran’s high-profile military role in Iraq may backfire and stoke the sectarianism dividing Iraq and add to the country’s instability.
Last year, Admiral John Kirby, the Pentagon press spokesman, said, “Our message to Iran is the same today as it was when it started, and as it is to any neighbor in the region that is involved in the anti-ISIL activities. And that’s that we want nothing to be done that further inflames sectarian tensions in the country.”
Suspicions on both sides
ReplyDeleteThe U.S. and Iran have pursued parallel, but at times complementary efforts, in Iraq. Washington has waged mainly an air war against the Islamic State, while training the Iraqi military and backing the Kurdish Peshmerga forces; Tehran has supported and directed Shi'ite militias. With the collapse of the Iraqi army, the Shi'ite militias have proven to be the crucial fighting force.
But there are signs of cross-over. U.S. soldiers and Shi'ite militia groups have been using the Taqqadum military base in Iraq’s Anbar province, prompting criticism last month from some U.S. lawmakers.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who served in the U.S. Army and fought in Iraq, noted Iran had backed Shi'ite militias and supplied the bombs that killed U.S. troops in Iraq after the U.S. invasion of the country.
“It's deeply troubling that the president now finds it acceptable to share a military base with this enemy,” Cotton said.
The Taqqadum military base is where the Pentagon is dispatching 450 additional U.S. military advisers to help train Iraqi military units.
Suspicions on both sides mark the makeshift alliance. U.S. officials - and Iraqi Sunnis - fear the Shi'ite militias will draw Iraq further into the Iranian orbit and expand Tehran’s clout and influence on its neighbor.
And Shi'ite militiamen bristle at the American role in Iraq. In March some militia leaders withdrew their forces from Tikrit’s front lines in protest of the American participation.
Some U.S. officials say they worry about the vulnerability of U.S. military advisers, if Shi'ite militiamen decide to target them.
Obama also raised the concern Wednesday, saying: “We’re not going to have our troops, even in an advisory or training role, looking over their shoulders because they’re not sure of what might happen to them.”
The president also noted, though, “Clearly, Iran has influence in Iraq. Iraq has a majority Shia population. They have relationships to Iran.”
Speaking at a U.S. think tank in Washington Thursday, Gen. John Allen, Obama’s envoy to the global coalition fighting IS, urged caution against viewing the conflict in over-simplified sectarian terms. He noted that Anbar Sunnis opposed to the Islamic extremists have praised the contributions of Shi'ite fighters.
“They recognize that there is a distinction to be made between many of the Shia hardliners under the influence of Iran and the large number of Shia who answered Grand Ayatollah Sistani’s call to defend Iraq last summer,” he said.
... Payvand News - 07/17/15 ... --
Someone needs to give The US Conga Line a lesson on geopolitical realities.
ReplyDeleteran has offered India $8 billion worth of infrastructure projects, including a stake in developing the strategic port of Chabahar, the country’s ambassador to New Delhi has said.
The two countries signed an MoU in May for Chabahar’s development in southeast Iran but a commercial accord is needed to implement the pact.
New Delhi wants to use the port’s potentials for connectivity, including its terminals to operate container and multi-purpose cargo ships for trade with Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries.
Ambassador Gholamreza Ansari said President Hassan Rouhani had offered Prime Minister Narendra Modi an expanded role for India to play in Iran’s connectivity plans.
"Connectivity is the main policy of Modi that coincides with Iran's government policy. We have offered them, in connectivity, $8 billion of projects," the Indian media quoted Ansari as saying.
Iran is fleshing out the transportation network on its southern coasts as it is developing an integrated transit corridor which connects the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea for a link with the Central Asia and beyond.
The International North–South Transport Corridor between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and the Central Asia for freight transportation by the ship, rail, and road will join the Silk Road -- an ambitious plan championed by China to revive the ancient international trade route.
Rouhani’s meeting with Modi came during recent summits of BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) nations in the Central Asian city of Ufa in Russia.
Indian PM Narendra Modi (L) and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shake hands on the sidelines of BRICS and SCO summits in Ufa on July 9.
Ansari cited a “golden time” for India to seize on investment opportunities in Iran after the conclusion of nuclear negotiations between the Islamic Republic and the P5+1 group of countries.
The focus is now on the removal of sanctions, with many governments and international companies having already started scouting business prospects in the country.
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2015/07/18/420782/iran-india-infrastructure-chabahar-ansari
The EU, China, Turkey, Russia and India have no intention of returning to the failed past and falling over the cliff with The US Congressional Ass Clowns
ReplyDeleteIran on Tuesday reached a historic nuclear deal that is likely to result in easing of sanctions in exchange for curbs on Tehran's nuclear programme. Global oil prices tumbled more than a dollar after the news broke.
The Iran nuclear deal has significant implications for India, analysts say.
1) India imports nearly 80 per cent of its energy requirements, so falling oil prices will benefit oil marketing companies such as HPCL, Indian Oil and BPCL. These stocks gained 2-3.5 per cent higher.
2) Falling oil prices are negative for upstream (exploration) companies, which weighed on shares in Cairn India and ONGC.
3) The Iran deal is likely to be "neutral" for Reliance Industries, which operates the world's largest refinery in Jamnagar.
4) Aban Offshore - India's largest offshore drilling services provider - gets 35 per cent of its revenues from Iran. Shares in the company closed 16.2 per cent higher. Easing of sanctions in Iran will help Aban's working capital situation, analysts say.
5) The oil ministry fears that Iran could award the right to develop its giant Farzad B gas field to Europeans who can deploy the latest technology and commit billions of dollars to modernising the country's oil-and-gas infrastructure. ONGC is currently in contention to get development rights of Farzad B field.
6) Indian refiners are unlikely to get cheaper oil from Iran as Tehran will be able to do business with any country when sanctions are lifted. Indian refiners will also have to settle past dues of $6.5 billion (over Rs. 40,000 crore) in hard currency that they have not been able to pay due to the sanctions.
7) The lifting of sanctions in Iran is likely to benefit domestic pharmaceutical, IT and commodity firms, according to trade ministry officials. These companies will now be able to compete for contracts in Iran.
8) Iran is a big buyer of basmati rice, soymeal, sugar, barley and meat. Under sanctions, Iran paid a premium of up to 20 per cent over global prices to buy from India, analysts say. Food companies such as McLeod Russel (tea) and Kohinoor Foods (rice) that have business in Iran gained.
9) Thousands of exporters in India have enjoyed a three-year run because India did not back sanctions against Tehran. India's exports to Iran doubled to $5 billion in 2013-14, helping to halve its bilateral trade deficit. Now, they will face more competition at a time when exports have dropped 20 per cent because of global slowdown in trade, analysts say.
10) Indian companies will have to compete for consumer products ranging from clothing to cars, and big-ticket contracts like the Tehran metro with global firms.
(With inputs from Reuters)
http://profit.ndtv.com/news/economy/article-iran-nuclear-deal-what-it-means-for-india-781303
The Jesus Freaks in the GOP Likuds Force doesn’t understand global economic realities. Fortunately, Obama does
ReplyDeleteIF CONGRESS KILLS IRAN DEAL, SANCTIONS WOULD LOSE INDIA'S SUPPORT: US
Washington: White House has cautioned a hostile Republican controlled Congress against killing the historic Iran nuclear deal saying loss of support from countries like India would lead to a collapse of the sanctions regime.
"The key to the success of this latest round of sanctions has been the aggressive enforcement of countries around the world, including countries that aren't even a party to this particular agreement countries like India, Japan and South Korea," the White House Press Secretary told reporters on Friday.
These countries "previously relied heavily on the importation of Iranian oil and by scaling back their oil purchases that had a negative impact on Iran's economy but also had a negative impact on the domestic economy of those individual countries," he pointed out.
"So the point is that the sanctions regime would collapse if Congress were to kill this deal," Earnest said.
"And what that means is it means that the international leverage that we have previously used to reach this agreement would vanish."
"The second is, Iran would still obtain the financial benefits of sanctions relief something that our critics have described as a financial windfall," Earnest said.
“And the problem is, Iran is going to get all of that money and the United States doesn’t get anything for it.
"
http://www.indiatvnews.com/news/world/if-congress-kills-iran-deal-sanctions-would-lose-india-support-25547.html
There are 193 U.N. members. Although Israel will likely have a couple of Arab allies in a no vote, it's possible that it might come down to 192 - 1.
ReplyDeleteLet the Conga Line chew on that one for a bit, before they vote.
That will put the US in the subservient role and in a position to defending Israeli transgressions at any cost. Pathetic how less than $20 million can buy the so-called “ US Congress”. There is not much US left in The US Congress in Israeli occupied Washington.
Delete“Congress is Israeli-Occupied Territory”; You Got a Problem With That?
DeletePosted on May 4, 2009 by wallwritings
by James M. Wall
Update from final day of AIPAC Conference May 5, 2009
Speeches on the final day brought some surprising speeches. Go to the internet and click the following for Phil Weiss’ coverage of speeches by Vice President Joe Biden and Senator John Kerry, and a comment on views on the two state solution. This was definitely not your typical White House-orchestrated response to AIPAC.
It is Springtime in the nation’s capitol. The cherry trees are in bloom. And once again, just after the robins return, AIPAC gathers for its annual conference, May 3-5.
AIPAC, in case you have just arrived from Mars, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby which gives the U.S. Congress its marching orders on all matters pertaining to the best interests of the state of Israel.
If you have to ask if AIPAC is also concerned with the best interests of the people of the United States, conservative pundit Pat Buchanan has news for you:
The U.S. Congress is “Israeli-occupied territory”
Occupiers, as the Palestinian people can testify, have only the best interests of the Occupier at heart.
AIPAC is not shy about touting its influence in Washington. A news release on its website describes the 2009 opening program:
While Washington, D.C., is increasingly consumed with bickering between Democrats and Republicans, the U.S.-Israel relationship remains the one issue that transcends the partisan divide. In a display of this bipartisan spirit, more than half of Congress will attend tonight’s Gala Banquet, which will fill a room large enough to fit the Washington Monument on its side.
Four top Congressional leaders will address banquet attendees: Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Senate Republican Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA).
In addition, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will wake up in the middle of the night in Israel (or stay up quite late) in order to address the Gala Banquet live via satellite. The prime minister’s speech will be his first to an American audience since becoming the Jewish state’s head of government earlier this year.
HAVE THINGS CHANGED OR ARE THEY WORSE?
AIPAC 2003 - HAVE THINGS CHANGED OR ARE THEY WORSE?
DeleteThis year, Iran is on the AIPAC agenda. Six years ago, officially, Iraq was not on the 2003 AIPAC agenda. The game plan in 2003 was for Israel to pretend a neutrality in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Israel would stay out of the Coalition of the Willing. That was the official 2003 plan.
But unofficially, well, let Dana Milbanks explain the action behind the Wizard’s curtain:
As delegates to the AIPAC meeting were heading to town, the group put a headline on its Web site proclaiming: “Israeli Weapons Utilized By Coalition Forces Against Iraq.” The item featured a photograph of a drone with the caption saying the “Israeli-made Hunter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle” is being used “by U.S. soldiers in Iraq.”
You got that? Israel was “neutral”, but the Coalition Forces knew who had their back. This was six years ago, friends, when the Bush-Cheney team was lying to the world about WMD’s being the motivation for the war.
It is pro forma that Israeli government will show up at every AIPAC conference, presenting an annual tableau of a foreign nation sending its leaders to meet with a pro-Israel lobby to shape U.S. foreign policy in Israel’s best interests.
In 2003, the cheerleading was led by Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. Milbanks again:
At an AIPAC session on Sunday night, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom proclaimed in a speech praising Secretary of State Colin L. Powell: “We have followed with great admiration your efforts to mobilize the international community to disarm Iraq and bring democracy and peace to the region, to the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Just imagine, Mr. Secretary, how much easier it would have been if Israel had been a member of the Security Council.”
The foreign minister did not have to go, hat in hand, to Foggy Bottom, to deliver that message to the U.S. Secretary of State. Colin Powell came to him, along with some of his closest government colleagues:
A parade of top Bush administration officials — Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political director Kenneth Mehlman, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns — appeared before the AIPAC audience. The officials won sustained cheers for their jabs at European opponents of war in Iraq, and their tough remarks aimed at two perennial foes of Israel, Syria and Iran.
Six AIPAC conferences later, Israel has another foreign war it wants the U.S. to fight. Your mission, Uncle Sam, should you decide to accept it, is to use your vast military power to do to Iran what you did to Iraq. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds.
IT IS SIX YEARS SINCE THAT WAS WRITTEN BY PAT BUCHANAN AND THE SITUATION IS THAT THE US CONGRESS IS STILL OWNED BY AIPAC AND THE ISRAELI FIRSTERS> THE so called US CONGRESS
China and Iranian Energy Deals will be going forward regardless of the Aipac owning of the US Conga Line
ReplyDeleteAt first sight it may seem like the Iranian nuclear deal has no impact on Chinese economy, but Beijing has hailed the agreements reached in Vienna on July 14.
Jin Canrong, the vice-principal of the Institute of International Relations of the People's University of China, told Sputnik, that China may now become a major exporter of Iranian oil in the world.
Canrong noted that the Vienna agreement gives Iran a chance to address the issue of economic sanctions as the Iranian economy is in a dire state currently.
"These difficulties are mainly connected with economic sanctions. Improvement in US-Iranian relations will lead to a certain weakening of the isolation of Iran in the Middle East.”
China, who is the main buyer of oil in Iran, will now cooperate with Iran in the nuclear field for the first time ever. According to West, this is the reason why China was so supportive of actively lifting sanctions in Iran.
But Canrong explained that, “Although China participated in the negotiations of the ‘six’ on Iran, it was not one of the major players in the negotiations, just like a number of other countries. However, China did play an active and very positive role in these negotiations. China, of course, contributed to the solution of the Iranian nuclear issue on the basis of their interests, primarily economic.”
The analyst recalls that earlier, China invested in Iran through the purchase of Japan’s major Iranian oil field. However, sanctions imposed by the US led to the fact that China was not able to make further investments in Iran's economy and was not able to export Iranian oil.
“As a result, China suffered a significant economic damage. Now, after the agreement on the Iranian nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions, it is no longer a problem to export from Iran.”
China is now the largest importer of Iranian oil and it is very beneficial to a number of parties. Iran’s entrance into the global oil market can lead to a certain decrease in energy prices.
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/business/20150715/1024667683.html#ixzz3gEyuNztz
The latest, updated Casualty Report for the War Against ISIS is in:
ReplyDeleteZero
Civilians are not worth of counting?
DeleteMohammed Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who Thursday, July 16, murdered four US Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and wounded three people, was the third Muslim of Jordanian-Palestinian descent to massacre US military or intelligence personnel in six years. These acts of terror were the price US agencies paid for relying on Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate for penetration agents against Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other radical Islamist organizations. He must have been under Jordanian radar when he traveled to Yemen, and Jordan’s GID must have tipped off US intelligence.
ReplyDeleteWhile the crime seemed more heinous than other school shootings because the victims were so young, the gunman was typical.
DeletePrinceton sociologist Katherine Newman, has studied all the school shootings that occurred in the U.S. since 1970.
Newman says the school shooters she's studied had a few things in common. They have all been white males, generally between the ages of 15 and 25, most were depressed, and most were intelligent.
Lanza was an honors student. Described as thin, socially awkward, and shy, he didn't even want to have his picture in his high school year book.
Classmates say say he barely said a word during his time at school and he didn't have many or any friends.
Newman says all of the school shooters she studied were "dwebish intellectuals" or "outcasts."
Another common thread with school shootings is meticulous planning. Very few of the cases Newman has looked at were random. There was a reason for the attack, in the killer's mind.
People who knew the shooters, looking back, said there were clues leading up to the tragedies.
"School shooters are looking to gain the affection and attention of their peers. They never explode spontaneously, they usually let out hints many months in advance," she says.
The location of Friday's massacre also fits the pattern she's noticed with other mass shootings.
"School rampage shootings tend to happen in small, isolated or rural communities," says Newman. "There isn't a very direct connection between where violence typically happens, especially gun violence in the United States, and where rampage shootings happen."
AIPAC is not the problem.
ReplyDeleteThe Iranian Revolution is.
The Wahabbist Sunni are...
Play with yourself all you want it doesn't change the fact.
The Christian Terrorist Movement No One Wants To Talk About
ReplyDeleteBY JACK JENKINS DEC 4, 2014 9:12AM
Last Friday, Larry McQuilliams was shot and killed by police after unleashing a campaign of violence in Austin, Texas, firing more than 100 rounds in the downtown area before making a failed attempt to burn down the Mexican Consulate. The only casualty was McQuilliams himself, who was felled by officers when he entered police headquarters, but the death toll could have been far greater: McQuilliams, who was called a “terrorist” by Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo, had several weapons, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a map pinpointing 34 other buildings as possible targets — including several churches.
While the impetus for McQuilliams’ onslaught remains unclear, local authorities recently announced that he may have been motivated by religion — but not the one you might think. According to the Associated Press, police officers who searched McQuilliams’ van found a copy of “Vigilantes of Christendom,” a book connected with the Phineas Priesthood, an American white supremacist movement that claims Christian inspiration and opposes interracial intercourse, racial integration, homosexuality, and abortion. Phineas priests take their name from the biblical figure Phinehas in the book of Numbers, who is described as brutally murdering an Israelite man for having sex with a foreign woman, who he also kills.
Members of the Phineas Priesthood — which people “join” simply by adopting the views of the movement — are notoriously violent, and some adherents have been convicted of bank robberies, bombing abortion clinics, and planning to blow up government buildings. Although McQuilliams didn’t leave a letter explaining the reason for his attack, a handwritten note inside the book described him as a “priest in the fight against anti-God people.”
McQuilliams’ possible ties to the Phineas Priesthood may sound strange, but it’s actually unsettlingly common. In fact, his association with the hateful religious group highlights a very real — but often under-reported — issue: terrorism enacted in the name of Christ.
To be sure, violent extremism carried out by people claiming to be Muslim has garnered heaps of media attention in recent years, with conservative pundits such as Greta Van Susteren of Fox News often insisting that Muslim leaders publicly condemn any acts of violence perpetrated in the name of Islam (even though many already have).
But there is a long history of terrorist attacks resembling McQuilliams’ rampage across Austin — where violence is carried out in the name of Christianity — in the United States and abroad. In America, the Ku Klux Klan is well-known for over a century of gruesome crimes against African Americans, Catholics, Jews, and others — all while ascribing to what they say is a Christian theology.
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DeleteBut recent decades have also given rise to several “Christian Identity” groups, loose organizations united by a hateful understanding of faith whose members spout scripture while engaging in horrifying acts of violence. For example, various members of The Order, a militant group of largely professed Mormons whose motto was a verse from the book of Jeremiah, were convicted for murdering Jewish talk show host Alan Berg in 1984; the “Army of God”, which justifies their actions using the Bible, is responsible for bombings at several abortion clinics, attacks on gay and lesbian nightclubs, and the explosion at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia; and Scott Roeder cited the Christian faith as his motivation for killing George Tiller — a doctor who performed late-term abortions — in 2009, shooting the physician in the head at point-blank range while he was ushering at church.
These incidents have been bolstered by a more general spike in homegrown American extremism over the past decade and a half. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of hate groups in America rose 54 percent according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and white-supremacist groups — including many with Christian roots — saw an “explosion” in recruitment after Barack Obama was elected the country’s first African-American president in 2008. In fact, the growth of this and other homegrown terrorist threats has become so great that it spurred then-Attorney General Eric Holder to revive the Domestic Terror Task Force in June of this year.
Christian extremism has ravaged other parts of the world as well. Northern Ireland and Northern India both have rich histories of Christian-on-Christian violence, as does Western Africa, where the Lord’s Resistance Army claims a Christian message while forcibly recruiting child soldiers to terrorize local villages. Even Europe, a supposed bastion of secularism, has endured attacks from people who say they follow the teachings of Jesus. In 2011, Anders Behring Breivik launched a horrific assault on innocent people in and around Oslo, Norway, using guns and bombs to kill 77 — many of them teenagers — and wound hundreds more. Breivik said his actions were an attempt to combat Islam and preserve “Christian Europe,” and while he rejected a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ,” he nonetheless championed Christianity as a “cultural, social, identity and moral platform” and claimed the faith as the forming framework for his personal identity.
Chillingly, experts warn that something like Breivik’s attack could easily happen in the United States. Daryl Johnson, a former Department of Homeland Security analyst, said in a 2010 interview that the Hutaree, an extremist militia group in Michigan that touts Christian inspiration, possessed a cache of weapons larger than all the Muslims charged with terrorism the United States since the September 11 attacks combined.
Yet unlike the accusatory responses to domestic jihadist incidents such as the Fort Hood massacre, news of McQuilliams’ possible ties to the Christian Identity movement has yet to produce a reaction among prominent conservative Christians. Greta Van Susteren, for instance, has not asked Christian leaders such as Pope Francis, Rick Warren, or Billy Graham onto her show to speak out against violence committed in name of Christ. Rather, the religious affiliation of McQuilliams, like the faith of many right-wing extremists, has largely flown under the radar, as he and others like him are far more likely to be dismissed as mentally unstable “lone wolfs” than products of extremist theologies.
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DeleteGranted, right-wing extremism — like Muslim extremism — is a complex religious space. Some participants follow religions they see as more purely “white” — such as Odinism — and others act more out of a hatred for government than religious conviction. Nevertheless, McQuilliams’ attack is a stark reminder that radical theologies exist on the fringes of most religions, and that while Muslim extremism tends to make headlines, religious terrorism is by no means unique to Islam.
These incidents have been bolstered by a more general spike in homegrown American extremism over the past decade and a half. Between 2000 and 2008, the number of hate groups in America rose 54 percent according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and white-supremacist groups — including many with Christian roots — saw an “explosion” in recruitment after Barack Obama was elected the country’s first African-American president in 2008. In fact, the growth of this and other homegrown terrorist threats has become so great that it spurred then-Attorney General Eric Holder to revive the Domestic Terror Task Force in June of this year.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/12/04/3599271/austin-shooter-christian-extremism/
You conveniently overlook the inspiration for revenge provided to Muslim extremists by Israel apartheid policies in the occupied territories, atrocities and humiliations inflicted by Israel and US support and wars in the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteTO MY POINT:
ReplyDeleteHuman rights group Yesh Din has revealed that some 92% of Palestinian complaints of Jewish hate crimes in the occupied West Bank are closed and the criminals never brought to justice.
The organisation has been tracking 1,045 complaints filed to it by Palestinians since 2005, according to Israeli daily Haaretz.
The complaints include a variety of offences such as arson, the cutting down of trees, stone-throwing, construction on Palestinian land, shootings, assault, crop theft, violent threats and attacks.
The statistics, collated from 2013 and 2014, caused the rights group to condemn the Israeli fight to battle nationalistic crimes as "hollow".
They said that the statistics prove that the creation of a Judea and Samaria District Police unit in the West Bank led to no improvement in investigations in Jewish hate crimes; in fact this has actually led to an increase in failed investigations into crimes against Palestinians.
"The statistics prove that the high-flown statements about the fight against nationalistically-motivated crime were hollow," says Noa Cohen, data coordinator at Yesh Din's research department.
"The new department has not improved by one iota the law-enforcement authorities' ability to investigate and prosecute criminals suspected of harming Palestinians, and ideologically-motivated crime in the West Bank continues to serve as a tool of intimidation and the takeover of land."
"The Israel Police has not yet received the report, so no comment about the data can be made," said a spokesman for the Judea and Samaria District Police.
All those unanswered and un-prosecuted crimes are incubators for acts of revenge. It is human nature.
DeleteThe US pays by its unquestioning support for any Israeli act no matter how heinous. What do you expect? How many Israeli State sanctioned hits, shootings, bombings and killings by Israeli security forces were done for revenge of the killings of Jews?
DeleteDo you seriously think that revenge killings are the exclusive right of Jews?
Nonsense.
The US military mercenary forces have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims since The Bush family wars in the Middle East. I am shocked that there are not more revenge attacks. There certainly would be if some foreign invader attacked and occupied the US, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands of US human beings, destroying US property and causing millions of refugees.
ReplyDeleteAre we so ignorant about human behavior? Do we believe that killing and pillage is an American exclusive right and privilege of empire?
The Muslim World should be grateful for the misery that is afflicted on them by US forces?
You want to be angry, be angry at The US Conga Line for the killing and ruination of others in your name and mine. They make the worst criminal gangs look like altar boys in the damage done.
Take a weekend trip to Central America and visit some bars frequented by ex US contract killers and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteDon’t say a word. Listen. Watch. Report back on your observation of these men in their unguarded moments.
They are no different than any other military thugs throughout the entire history of human history regardless of flag, insignia or uniform.
Picture men just like these, speaking another language, patrolling through the towns and neighborhood of you in your school years. What would you do?
DeleteI have no doubts about my actions, regardless of the cost, I would seek the most brutal and offensive revenge possible from the most convenient and accessible target of opportunity .
WiO (flogging a dead horse): Mohammed Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, who Thursday, July 16, murdered four US Marines in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and wounded three people, was the third Muslim of Jordanian-Palestinian descent to massacre US military or intelligence personnel in six years.
ReplyDeleteHaaretz: FBI search for motive in Tennessee shooting rampage after ISIS ties ruled out
"Edward Reinhold, special agent in charge of the FBI's Knoxville, Tennessee, division, said investigators had found nothing that tied the suspect to an international terrorist organization."
But WiO says his parents were Jordanian and Palestinian, so that's good enough for him. Blood is everything in the shitty little countries of the Middle-East.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete.
ReplyDeleteOne of the key issues that will be raised on the Iranian deal will be verification. Opponents and proponents will be talking access, capabilities, etc. However, my main concern will deal with political will of the group doing the verifying.
The IAEA has had failures in the past (NK, Iraq) detecting nuclear progress. The failures were due to the state of their tools and access.
In the intervening years those tools have been developed and the new agreement should give them the access they need. The question remains does the IAEA have the political will to kill a deal that the US, the EU, and other major states have spent years developing and are anxious for various reasons to see work? Just how independent will the IEAE prove to be?
We might see by the end of the year.
I don't know exactly what it gives us but as part of the deal Iran has committed to provide the IAEA with details of its suspected past nuclear activities with a military dimensions. Iran owes the info by October for an IAEA report due December 15. The info from Iran would be about suspected activity covering about a four to five year period prior to 2003. If Iran fails to provide the required info, there will be no sanctions relief and the deal can be scrapped.
The key question, if the IAEA's suspicions remain will they have the courage to scuttle a deal most of the big players in the world want?
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ReplyDeleteThe United States and its allies bombarded Islamic State in Iraq on Friday with 23 air strikes, hitting the militant group near Tal Afar and Ramadi, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
Referring to the militant group as Daesh, Col. Wayne Morotto, chief of public affairs for the Combined Joint Task Force, said in a statement: "When coalition assets detect and positively identify Daesh targets, we strike them relentlessly and our strikes exact a heavy toll on this brutal enemy."
Nearly half the strikes, 10, hit targets near Tal Afar, where they destroyed an Islamic State building and vehicles and damaged tactical units, staging areas, weapons caches and a command and control centre, according to the military.
Five strikes near Ramadi destroyed Islamic State improvised explosive devices, vehicles and fighting positions, while also hitting tactical units, military said.
Separately, coalition forces also launched eight air strikes in Syria with most, five, hitting targets near Al Hasakah, the U.S. military said.
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Pravin Char)
Relentless
BAGHDAD — An Iraqi military operation to retake the key Sunni city of Ramadi from Islamic State militants is gaining momentum, the top U.S. military officer said Saturday.
ReplyDeleteGen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said his senior field commanders here do not require additional U.S. forces or the need to deploy advisers in the field with Iraq's combat forces for the offensive to succeed.
"I asked the senior leaders point blank: 'Are we at the point where, in order to make sure this mission succeeds, that we need to be here in greater numbers and go farther forward?'" Dempsey told reporters as he wrapped up a daylong visit here. "And the answer was 'no'."
Iraqi forces have been repeatedly humiliated in battles by the vastly smaller ranks of Islamic State fighters. That has prompted critics of the administration's limited presence in Iraq to push for more U.S. forces in Iraq, including teams that could accompany Iraqi combat forces to help call in more precise airstrikes against the militants.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican presidential candidate, has suggested a force of 10,000 U.S. troops to speed up the training of Iraqi troops.
Currently, there are about 3,500 U.S. troops in Iraq. Their primary role is to train and support Iraq's military so they can lead the fight and keep American soldiers out of combat. Dempsey said he supports that policy.
U.S. forces have trained 9,700 Iraqi forces so far.
The Islamic State, which has taken over large areas of Iraq in the past year, remains a lethal enemy. An attack in a crowded marketplace in Diyala Province east of Baghdad on Friday night killed at least 115 people, primarily Shiites.
"An Iraqi man on July 18, 2015, walks past the site of a bomb attack the day before in Khan bani Saad, eastern Baghdad, Iraq, At least 115 people were killed in a car bombing that the Islamic State claimed it was behind. (Photo: STR, EPA)"
The Islamic State, composed of Sunni Muslims, has tried to spark sectarian warfare with Shiite Muslims, who dominate Iraq.
The collapse of Ramadi in May was a blow to Iraq's military, which abandoned the city without much of a fight.
Last Monday, Iraq's government announced an offensive to take the city back. Iraq's military has not yet begun an assault into the center of the city, where an estimated 250 to 300 militants are holed up. Instead, it is trying to surround the city before closing in on the militants.
DeleteBrig. Gen. Yahea Resool, a Defense Ministry spokesman, said Iraq's forces have had initial successes in securing areas on Ramadi's outskirts.
Iraqi forces are also attempting to isolate Fallujah, a Sunni city east of Ramadi, to cut off the flow of fighters and arms between the two Anbar Province locations.
The Iraqi government has assembled a force of about 10,000 troops who include Iraqi army, national police, Shiite militias and Sunni tribal forces.
Resool defended the slowly moving operation, saying it will help protect civilians and minimize destruction of the city. "We are not in a hurry," Resool said. "We have to protect the people and the infrastructure."
The U.S. led coalition has supported the offensive with airstrikes, but coalition officials acknowledge that stringent rules designed to avoid civilian casualties can slow the process of ensuring that militants are targeted.
"We have very strict guidelines in terms of what we can and cannot do," said Brigadier James Learmont, a coalition official from Britain. Airstrikes require the approval of senior officers before they are approved, he said.
The offensive also had been slowed by the Iraqi government's initial reluctance to provide support for Sunni tribal fighters in Ramadi who oppose the Islamic State's brutal tactics.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has had to contend with powerful Shiite politicians who prefer using Shiite militias rather than Sunni tribal forces for the Ramadi offensive.
"There is a competition within the government of Iraq on which security force will be the dominant force," Dempsey said.
He said the government has resolved many of those issues and support is beginning to flow to the Sunni tribes.
Worst Army, Ever
Reading about the old Sumerians, they couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag, either.
DeleteSomething in the genes, I guess. :)
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Delete"I asked the senior leaders point blank: 'Are we at the point where, in order to make sure this mission succeeds, that we need to be here in greater numbers and go farther forward?'" Dempsey told reporters as he wrapped up a daylong visit here. "And the answer was 'no'."
:- o
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That will put the US in the subservient role and in a position to defending Israeli transgressions at any cost.
ReplyDeleteWe've been sold a bill of gods.
Donald Trump continued his feud with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Saturday when he criticized the military record of the onetime prisoner of war.
ReplyDelete"He's a war hero because he was captured," Trump said during an appearance at the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday. "I like people who weren't captured."
"Perhaps he's a war hero, but right now he's said some very bad things about a lot of people."
McCain spent five and a half years in a North Vietnam prison where he was tortured after his Skyhawk dive bomber was shot down in 1967. President Barack Obama, who defeated McCain in the 2008 presidential race, has praised the Arizona senator as a "genuine war hero."
Trump avoided the draft with four student and one medical deferments.
Trump and McCain have gone back and forth this week after the Arizona senator told The New Yorker that Trump "fired up the crazies" with comments he made about undocumented immigrants during a rally in Phoenix. Trump, in characteristic fashion, fired back on Twitter, calling McCain a "dummy."
Trump said that he would not apologize to McCain for the comments, and defended his deferments to reporters.
Several of Trump's Republican rivals were quick to come to McCain's defense.
Ah, Donald. Donald, Donald, Donald.
Several of Trump's Republican rivals were quick to come to McCain's defense.
DeleteWe Shall Over Comb!
I have no doubts about my actions, regardless of the cost, I would seek the most brutal and offensive revenge possible from the most convenient and accessible target of opportunity.
ReplyDeleteAll except the NSA tapping the phone and broadband of these mofos, you oppose that. Snowden is your hero.
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ReplyDeleteNot knowing Snowden's motivations, I hesitate to call him a hero; however, I certainly appreciate what he did.
As for the armed resistance comment, it might provide catharsis but it doesn't always work. Palestine is an example. If they are any closer to having a state today (a big if) it is not through the actions of groups like the PLO or Hamas but rather actions taken with or by the international community. It appears their most viable way forward.
Using armed resistance has been ineffective for the Palestinians. In fact, it allows Israel to play the victim card and provides an excuse for the continued occupation of Palestine. IMO, had the Palestinians employed public opinion and the world community rather than violence with tactics like BDS, application for UN membership, pressure from the international community, they would have had their state decades ago.
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Westboro Baptist Church: Kansas Church Reportedly Plans to Picket Funerals of Slain Marines and Sailor
ReplyDeleteA Twitter account appearing to be run by the church claimed the organization plans to picket funerals of servicemen killed in the recent shooting in Chattanooga, Tenn., the Times Free Press reports.
Assholes.