I’d Dump the Israelis Tomorrow –Ex-CIA Michael Scheuer Tells Congress
Ex-CIA Michael Scheuer : Primary motivators for Islamic Jihadis
1) Our support for Tyranny in the Muslim world for 50 years
2) Our presence on the Arab Peninsular
3) Our support for Israel and their rise.
Regarding American support for Israel’s wars — American people should be permitted to discuss and make that decision, and they should understand that there are costs associated with US commitment to Israel — cost in US lives and treasure, Scheuer said.
He continued : We are bankrupt, Mr. King. We have lost two wars, Mr. King.
House Homeland Security Committee on October 9, 2013:
Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA intelligence officer, American blogger, historian, foreign policy critic, and political analyst. He served as the Chief of Osama bin Laden tracking unit. He is currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies. He blogs at : Non-Intervention
More from Scheuer
This story has been missed. It exemplifies the absurd situation that Washington has put itself into with Iraq, Syria and the continuation of the Neocon mission for Israel. The Neocon mission all along has been to weaken and destabilize all potential adversaries of Israel. The foolhardiness eclipsed the absurd with the folly of US training and weaponizing the Free Syrian Army.
ReplyDeleteWith Russia expanding its military presence in Syria in an effort to secure the rule of President Bashar al-Assad, authorities in Baghdad announced Sunday that they have struck an intelligence sharing agreement with Russia, Syria, and Iran to better fight the Islamic State militant group.
The move formalizes what had been a de facto alliance between the three nations as they jointly work to combat the Islamic State — and take the fight to the enemy in a way Washington has been unwilling to do.
Moscow and Iran have mobilized considerable amounts of military and financial resources in support of both Assad and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad. The Syrian strongman has maintained his shaky grip on power largely because Tehran has been funneling in billions of dollars of aid and ordered the deployment of hundreds of Hezbollah militiamen. Iran has provided similar levels of support to Baghdad as it fights to reclaim territory from the Islamic State.
Russia, for its part, has been steadily ramping up its support for Assad, the head of a state that hosts its largest military installation in the Middle East. U.S. officials say Moscow has deployed drones, airplanes, and helicopters to newly-expanded bases inside Syria and expect Russia to soon begin an air campaign against the Islamic State.
The moves pose a strategic dilemma for the Obama administration, which has to decide between trying to take steps to minimize Russian and Iranian support for Assad or tacitly endorse it in the hopes that the two countries could have more success battling ISIS than the U.S.-led coalition. More practically, the Pentagon will have to find ways of ensuring U.S. and Russian aircraft coordinate their strikes and avoid potentially dangerous activities in the same regions.
The Iraqi move comes amid intense diplomatic activity ahead of this week’s opening of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, where American President Barack Obama will meet on the sidelines with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. It will be the first meeting between the two men since relations between Russia and the United States soured over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/09/27/iraq-strikes-intel-sharing-agreement-with-russia-syria-and-iran/
Medical aid group Medecins Sans Frontieres denied that Taliban fighters were firing from its hospital at Afghan and NATO forces before a suspected U.S. air strike killed at least 19 people in a battle to oust the Islamist insurgents from an Afghan city.
ReplyDeleteThe northern city of Kunduz has been the scene of fierce fighting since the Taliban captured it almost a week ago. Afghan security forces fought their way into Kunduz four days ago, but battles continue in many places.
The aid group has said an air strike, probably carried out by U.S.-led coalition forces, killed 19 staff and patients on Saturday in a hospital it runs in Kunduz, leaving 37 wounded.
The U.S. government promised a full investigation into the incident as the U.N. human rights chief said the bombing could amount to a war crime.
In a statement, President Barack Obama offered condolences to the victims of what he called "the tragic incident".
In Kabul, the Afghan Ministry of Defense said Taliban fighters had attacked the hospital and were using the building "as a human shield". But the medical aid group denied this.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/04/us-afghanistan-attack-idUSKCN0RW0HC20151004
DeleteAUSTRALIA SEES THE WRITING ON THE WALL
ReplyDeleteEarlier this week, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop made some comments flagging a significant shift in Australia's position on the Assad regime in Syria.
According to Bishop, if the Assad regime were to be removed or collapse, it would create a vacuum that could be filled by "an even more diabolical presence". As a consequence, Australia's position is now that all options should be considered.
Also this week, Russian warplanes and helicopter gunships launched their first airstrikes on rebel-held positions inside Syria. So are these two events in any way linked?
The short answer is yes, but it's a complicated picture.
For the "yes" side, Russian airstrikes were expected. There were signs for several weeks that Russia was preparing to dramatically increase its involvement in the Syrian conflict.
Earlier this month, there were reports of Russians delivering prefabricated housing for about 1000 people. This led analysts to speculate that Russia was about to commit its own air defence units and modern combat aircraft.
Russia's principal objective is to ensure that it continues to wield influence in post-civil war Syria. Syria is Russia's last remaining ally in the Middle East.
But Russian President Vladimir Putin's support of his Syrian counterpart, Bashar al-Assad, is not unconditional. A top diplomat reported that, in 2012 - when Assad's hold on power was considered tenuous - Russian diplomats approached the US, France and Britain with a peace plan that would have seen Assad removed from power.
What is important to Russia is that it continues to exercise influence within Syria. The vessel it uses to achieve this is negotiable.
Western countries dismissed Russian overtures because they believed that the Assad regime would be overthrown in a matter of weeks. But, in 2015, Russia will not easily abandon a resurgent Assad.
The strength of both Assad and Islamic State (IS) mean that there are two avenues to a quick end of the civil war:
There could be a negotiated settlement between Assad, IS, and the more minor players, which formalises the status quo. This is unacceptable to the West and others who view IS as a serious security threat.
The foreign powers can throw their weight behind the Assad regime and help it defeat IS. This now may be the better of two bad options.
Also on the "yes" side is Australia wanting to make clear to the Russians that the RAAF missions over Syria are not targeting Assad. If Russian air defence units and warplanes believe that Australian aircraft are working against the Assad regime, the airspace over Syria might become dramatically more dangerous for Australia's pilots.
There are three significant points to make on the "more to it" side of the ledger.
First, the change flagged by Bishop would align Australian diplomacy with its military actions. There is no denying the Assad regime's barbarity and the horrific 240,000 deaths that the Syrian civil war has now produced.
But, international relations often offer only bad options, and we must select the least worst policy. The painful reality is that however undesirable Assad is, his regime is better for local and regional stability than no government. And we must conclude from a few years of failed diplomacy that any power-sharing arrangement between Syria's disparate ethnic groups would most likely have collapsed. This could have led to a fierce civil war, like that which took place in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.
The only thing worse than an Assad government would likely be an IS government. There is good reason to expect that this would follow Assad’s imminent departure.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/adam-lockyer/australias-possible-strat_b_8230376.html
The hard cold facts are being exposed by the facts as they are today. The US/Neocon strategy was to destabilize the ME for the benefit of Israel and the Saudis. The failure of the strategy is breathtakingly obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe Russian strategy is for pragmatism, stability and restoring order to the disaster created by Washington.
Like it or not, that is the reality that will become more obvious in the months ahead.
THURSDAY, OCT 1, 2015 05:57 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteA neocon never learns: Beware the cry of the Syria war hawks
Echoing U.S. invasion of Iraq, Putin bombs Syria on anti-terror pretext. Neocons say U.S. must respond. But how?
On Wednesday news broke that Vladimir Putin had launched Russian military action in Syria, bombing rebel groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. War-hungry neoconservatives in America immediately leaped into action to denounce President Obama’s lack of a Syrian policy and aim some tough talk at Moscow, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have all internalized this scene from “Animal House”: “He can’t bomb Syria! Only we can bomb Syria!”
Sen. Tom Cotton, a man who has apparently never ran across a foreign national he didn’t want to shoot, released a statement saying, “The U.S. must reject Russia’s interference [in the bombing of ISIS in Syria] and rally our partners to do the same.” Sen. John McCain immediately ran to the Senate floor to demand Obama do something, anything, so long as it involved leading with leadership. (This is known in political journalism as “The Full Fournier.”) Reacting to news that the Russian military had warned the United States to stop flying its planes over Syrian airspace, McCain sneered, “What we should be saying to Vladimir Putin is that you fly, but we fly anywhere we want to, when and how we want to, and you’d better stay out of the way. That’s the message that should be sent to Vladimir Putin.”
Hm, maybe McCain has internalized another classic movie.
McCain did not have any suggestions for how to defuse the international incident that will occur if American and Russian fighter jets wander into each other’s flight paths in the middle of a shooting war. Which, of course, is the problem with the “bomb everyone” crowd. Their solutions, such as they are, would likely intensify the Syrian civil war, increasing the already overwhelming flow of refugees to Europe and spilling over Syria’s borders, drawing in the militaries of neighboring countries.
That Putin is intervening to prop up Assad should surprise absolutely no one. Syria has long been a client state of Russia, which has armed Assad’s military and intervened with the United Nations to keep it from trying to stop the 4-year-old civil war. Putin is an ardent nationalist, in love with the Russian self-image of itself as an important empire on the world stage. He would love nothing more than to reassert his nation’s hegemony across the globe.
But what might really be galling the neoconservatives here is how blatantly Putin is using their long-ago justifications for invading Iraq (an event that eventually led to the creation of ISIS and today’s Syrian crisis) as a fig leaf for his own imperial ambitions in the Middle East.
We all remember the rhetoric from 2002-03 to sell the war in Iraq. Sadaam Hussein was harboring jihadists within his borders, we had to fight them over there so we wouldn’t have to do it over here, you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists, and so on. As Hayes Brown notes, Putin has been using similar language in talking about Syria. Assad and his government are “bravely fighting face to face with terror.” Syria is “waging a fight against terrorist aggression.” On Monday in a speech to the United Nations, he said only Assad and the Kurds are “truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria.”
BOTTOM LINE
Delete(conclusion from Salon article)
We all remember the rhetoric from 2002-03 to sell the war in Iraq. Sadaam Hussein was harboring jihadists within his borders, we had to fight them over there so we wouldn’t have to do it over here, you’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists, and so on. As Hayes Brown notes, Putin has been using similar language in talking about Syria. Assad and his government are “bravely fighting face to face with terror.” Syria is “waging a fight against terrorist aggression.” On Monday in a speech to the United Nations, he said only Assad and the Kurds are “truly fighting the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations in Syria.”
That last statement is pure garbage from the United States’ point of view, but it makes sense in the context of the war.
If Putin agrees, or pretends to agree, with Assad’s self-image that he is the only legitimate ruler of Syria, then of course any group fighting to overthrow him is a terrorist group in his eyes. Russia is simply doing something similar to what America did in Iraq: Intervening in a country’s internal affairs to remove a terrorist threat.
Or so Putin can tell America. He’s a master troll, the Weird Twitter of international relations. He’s got the neoconservatives flailing impotently, demanding that Obama wave his magic wand to end the bloodshed in Syria. But given their track record, no one needs to bother listening.
The NEOCON Putsch in US Foreign policy has been a calamity for real US (American) interests. Here is why:
ReplyDeleteThe neoconservatives claimed that Afghanistan and Iraq would become models of democratic capitalism for the region, and Iraq would be an U.S. ally serving as a bulwark against Iran. Well before Obama took over, it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.
Today, the neoconservatives would have the United States engaged in ground combat in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and possibly also Libya and Somalia. All those places are messes, with active Islamist terrorist militias. But after Afghanistan and Iraq, the neoconservatives are unconvincing in their claim that a small U.S. role will make a big difference, or that a large role is in our national interest.
The United States desperately needs a new school of thinking about our engagement in the world. One that is clear-eyed about the chimera that is an “international order” and the limited value of multilateral organizations. But one that defines the national interest on which the United States should act unilaterally and with coalitions of the willing narrowly and with rigor.
In all the mess that is the Middle East and North Africa, the only cause that truly rises to an actionable U.S. interest is rendering Islamic State impotent. A terrorist organization that controls country-sized territory, is largely self-funded, and wants to attack the United States merits special focus.
However, Obama’s reluctance for the United States to take on IS on the ground is well-founded. Yet his hope for an international coalition to take on the task, and the neoconservative hope for a Western-leaning and U.S.-led indigenous force to do it, seem equally unrealistic.
Rendering IS impotent should be the singular objective. If that involves Russian sorties and Iranian-affiliated militias on the ground, so be it. If it bolsters Syrian strongman Bashar Assad, so be it.
A new approach to foreign policy needn’t be isolationist, as neoconservatives assert. It should be the ultimate in a realist foreign policy: seeing the world, and American interests and capabilities, as they really are.
Reach Robb at robert.robb@arizonarepublic.com.
All I see is, Russia bringing some serious, and much needed, firepower against ISIS. If Bibi, and the neocons (and, Obomb'em, I suppose) feel a little butt-hurt, too bad.
ReplyDeleteTo my way of thinking, that story about a very low, And Shrinking (3.6%) Unemployment Rate in Seattle is a much bigger, and more important, story.
DeleteListen to that 2013 Radio interview of Michael Scheuer (the third video). He nails it.
DeleteI don't think much of Scheuer, either; he just happens to agree with me on this one thing.
DeleteISIS is nothing.
DeleteIran and Syria murdered over 850,000 in both iraq and syria.
In the end, Russia adding to the mass genocide will kill a few ten thousand more.
Hezbollah, Iran, Russia, Hamas, Syria all suck.
ISIS/ISIL? Sucks too...
May they all implode and die.
Our little "O"rdure is telling lies, again.
DeleteThe best academic estimates on the number of civilians killed in the illegal U.S.-led wars on the Iraqi, Afghani and Pakistani peoples amount to at least 1.5 million as a direct result of Western military action of one form or another. Several million more deaths can be added when indirect deaths are included. At least 20 million more have been displaced from their homes.
http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf
"O"rdure claims, without references, that the 'enemy' has killed half the US total.
He refuses to admit the equivalency of the governments of Israel and Syria, though they both meet the same standards.
Neither has ratified the Rome Statutes, though both have signed.
Despite what Western governments would like us to believe, the beginning of the 'Syrian revolution' in 2011 did not involve a mass uprising of ordinary Syrian people.
DeleteIt involved relatively small anti-government demonstrations and extremely large pro-government rallies.
These were, however, quickly overshadowed by violent attacks on demonstrators, Syrian police and government buildings by well-equipped groups that were trained and armed by Western military and intelligence forces stationed in Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.
http://www.brusearch.com/news/87122
Quirk has tried to get links to many of the unsubstantiated claims by the resident Israeli-firsters. I have asked a simple question and have yet to receive any answer,good or bad.
DeleteThe claim is that Israel is an invaluable ally to the US.
Question: What positive thing has this invaluable ally, Israel, ever done for the US that id did not get paid for?
I promise to name at least ten negative costs and liabilities accrued by the US from the tragic parasitic relationship between Israel and its host hostage.
WE have an equally loathsome relationship with Saudi Arabia, except we do yet a reliable source of oil from the Saudis and they actually pay for the arms that we sell them with real money. The Israelis have yet to ever pick up a check or pay an invoice.
Deletedeuce: The claim is that Israel is an invaluable ally to the US.
DeleteNo the claim was Israel was an ally.
Now you change the supposition when you where proven wrong.
deuce: I promise to name at least ten negative costs and liabilities accrued by the US from the tragic parasitic relationship between Israel and its host hostage.
Deleteyou post so called negative costs about israel on a daily basis.
You ignore reality.
But since you have become an American Basher of highest quality we expect nothing less that pure anti-American screeds and anti-Israel screeds from you.
I wonder what a Big Mac costs in Seattle. :)
ReplyDeleteThe price of Combo meal in fast food restaurant (Big Mac Meal or similar) in Seattle, Washington is $7
Deletehttps://www.expatistan.com/price/big-mac/seattle
Combo meal in fast food restaurant (big mac meal or similar) in other cities
In Cape Town the price is 52% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Zurich the price is 104% higher than in Seattle, Washington
In Tegucigalpa the price is 15% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Recife the price is 29% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Chelyabinsk the price is 68% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania the price is 5% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Barnaul the price is 76% lower than in Seattle, Washington
In Queretaro the price is 26% lower than in Seattle, Washington
The Big Mac, solo rings in at $4.11
http://www.humuch.com/prices/Big-Mac-sandwich/______/17#.VhEvfSun_5s
Portland, Oregon, it is $4.09 while it is $3.92 in Houston, Texas ...
DeleteFalls Church Virginia eats are cheap, $3.14 for a Big Mac
$4.15 in Tel Aviv,
S4.17 in Phoenix
DeleteThe higher minimum age, in Seattle, it has had no serious effect on the price of a Big Mac.
Good Job, Ratster. :)
DeleteIn another era the Neocons would all be in prison or worse..
ReplyDeleteIn another era the Neo-Traitors of the Democratic Party and folks like Obozo would all be in prison or worse.....
DeleteTe Russians are making some extraordinary claims about a bombing campaign less than two weeks old:
ReplyDeleteRussia Claims Air Strikes Hit 10 ISIS Targets In Syria
The Russian defense ministry says it hit a terrorist training camp and a suicide belt factory.
ReutersBy Polina Devitt
Posted: 10/04/2015 07:30 AM EDT
MOSCOW, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Russian planes have flown 20 sorties in Syria and struck 10 Islamic State targets in the past 24 hours, the country’s defense ministry said in a statement on Sunday.
Russia has said it would step up its air strikes in Syria, escalating a military intervention which Moscow launched on Wednesday to weaken Islamic State militants, but which Western powers say aims to support President Bashar al-Assad.
"As a result of our air strikes on Islamic State targets, we have managed to disrupt their control system, the terrorist organization's supply lines, and also caused significant damage to the infrastructure used to prepare acts of terror," the ministry said.
It said the strikes, conducted by SU-34, SU-24M and SU-25 planes, had hit targets in the Idlib and Raqqa provinces, including a terrorist training camp and a suicide belt factory.
The strikes, which it called pinpoint, had also destroyed three ammunition stores and four Islamic State command centers, the ministry said.
We have no way of knowing much more than the Russians are reporting. We absolutely know that we can’t trust anything the CIA, The Pentagon, The White House or MSM reports. We have to look elsewhere and this blog has been using some reliable sources that have proven to be more accurate than the rogue’s gallery of disinformation stated above.
The question is:
What are we to conclude if in a few short weeks or month, the Russians affect changes in the war against ISIS that far surpass the results of the US activities of the past 12 months?
Can the hysteria over the Russian actions in Syria from the Obama Administration be indicative of them knowing something that we don’t but soon will?
.
DeleteThe Russian defense ministry says it hit a terrorist training camp and a suicide belt factory.
How would Russia know it hit a suicide belt factory?
Just asking?
.
Syrian intelligence, the same people we could not talk to because of they who must be obeyed.
DeleteI'm always happy when I hear about 'a suicide belt factory' getting hit, no matter where, or how.
DeleteThe Syrians know who they are fighting and where they are. McCain met and was photographed with people that he hadn’t the slightest clue of who they were. we armed them.
ReplyDeleteWe have been in Afghanistan for 14 years and don’t know where a hospital run by Doctor’s Without Borders is?
The NSA knows where you iPhone is.
This thing is going to implode worse than our self-inflicted debacle in Viet Nam.
ReplyDeleteWhy Russia and Syria, with Iran and Hezbollah are slaughtering arabs by the scores every day...
DeleteMaybe Russia is right, kill palestinians.
That's what they are doing....
No screams of genocide Deuce?
Do those palestinians not count or are they being killed by the RIGHT team?
You are a blathering idiot. Where are the Russians, Iranians and Hezbollah slaughtering Arabs?
Delete.
DeleteThe opposing forces in Syria are committed to fighting to the death (of the last Syrian).
Your arguments are silly.
None of the powers fighting there give a shit about the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Christians, men, women, or children except as when they can be used as pawns to advance their respective agendas.
.
I have a suspicion that the Russians believe that ISIS is fragile as is the Assad regime and the FSA. If the Russians go after ISIS and the FSA, morale will increase with Assad’s forces, rally and go on the offensive with Russian air support. Russia will take credit for doing what the US could not and that is reestablish stability in Syria.
ReplyDeleteIf this happens quickly, as I believe it will, the refugee crisis will abate in Europe and Russia will get credit for that as well. We will have accomplished nothing in 14 years of war.
The US decision not to talk to the Syrian Army while fighting ISIS gives me the very strong impression that Lewis Paul Bremer III, genius that fired the Iraqi army, must be secretly advising the Obama Administration.
ReplyDeleteA firsthand account of life in the US Defense Department shows just how pro-Israeli groups exerted their influence from within the government. Karen Kwiatkowski retired as a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force after two decades of distinguished service. Her last posting was at the Near East South Asia (NESA) directorate at the Pentagon.
ReplyDeleteIn a lengthy article in the online journal Salon.com, Kwiatkowski writes, “From May 2002 until February 2003, I observed firsthand the formation of the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and watched the latter stages of the neoconservative capture of the policy-intelligence nexus in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.” The “seizure of the reins of US Middle East policy,” Kwiatkowski recounts, “was directly visible to many of us working in the Near East South Asia Policy office, and yet there seemed to be little any of us could do about it.”
KEEP READING
All this happened under the watch of Bill Luti, the deputy secretary of defense for NESA, and went up and down the chain of command.
Some of the specific incidents Kwiatkowski recalls are illustrative: “Longtime office director Joe McMillan was reassigned to the National Defense University. The director’s job in the time of transition was to help bring the newly appointed deputy assistant secretary up to speed, ensure office continuity, act as a resource relating to regional histories and policies … Removing such a critical continuity factor was not only unusual but also seemed like willful handicapping.”
Kwiatkowski said “the expertise on Mideast policy was not only being removed, but was also being exchanged for that from various agenda-bearing think tanks, including the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.” The main agenda of all these organizations is advocating closer US-Israel ties. She saw the “replacement of the civilian head of the Israel, Lebanon and Syria desk office with a young political appointee from the Washington Institute, David Schenker. Word was that the former experienced civilian desk officer tended to be evenhanded toward the policies of Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon of Israel, but there were complaints and he was gone.” As the personnel changed, so did the atmosphere; Kwiatkowski recalls that a “career civil servant rather unhappily advised me that if I wanted to be successful here, I’d better remember not to say anything positive about the Palestinians.”
IT GETS WORSE
DeleteIn an official meeting at which Kwiatkowski was present, Luti openly called Marine General, former Chief of Central Command, and Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni, a “traitor” for having reservations about the march to war, and open contempt and calls for Secretary of State Colin Powell to resign were common. What she observed until her voluntary early retirement was nothing less than a full-scale assault on the intelligence and policymaking apparatus of the United States. She witnessed intelligence and careful analysis being replaced with propaganda, falsehoods and manipulation and fed to the Congress and the Executive Office of the President. This “fear peddling” was, Kwiatkowski writes, “designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses.”
What prompted Kwiatkowski to speak out is the “swiftness of the neoconservatives casting of blame,” for the failures in Iraq, “on the intelligence community and away from themselves.” She is indignant that, “we are told by our president and neoconservative mouthpieces that our sons and daughters, husbands and wives are in Iraq fighting for freedom, for liberty, for justice and American values. This cost is not borne by the children of Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld and Cheney. Bush’s daughters do not pay this price.” Many Americans and observers in the Middle East hope that if Bush is defeated in the November election, it will lead to a reversal of course in US policy. But realistically, a President John Kerry would not pressure Israel any more than Bill Clinton did, and in the post-September 11, 2001, environment, probably less. And Kerry, despite his misgivings about the Iraq war, talks of staying until the “job is done.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/its-worse-you-thought-pro-israel-influence-us-policy/5020
Delete.
DeleteWhen speaking of neocons, there are some here who take that as a code word for GOP hawks. However, when I speak of the neocons I speak of the philosophy. For me, the word is more inclusive and also includes Democratic neocons though they may be called something else, democratic interventionists or some such.
The neocons started their rise to prominence in the second half of the 90's. Their influence crested in the Bush years, fell into disfavor for a couple years after the Iraq fiasco, and now is struggling to regain its perch at the top. Obama is as much a neocon as Bush though he has perhaps done less harm.
The only thing holding back the neocons is the current reluctance on the part of the American public to put up with more of their bull.
.
Does anyone thing that anything has changed up to and including the US involvement with Syria today?
ReplyDeleteNothing has changed except it has gotten worse. Of that you can be sure.
ReplyDeleteCNN *Commie News Network* Turns Mixed Race Oregon Shooter into A White Man
LA Times claims Mercer was a white supremacist
CNN Turns Mixed Race Oregon Shooter into A White Man
by Infowars.com | October 4, 2015
According to The Gateway Pundit and Conservative Treehouse, CNN altered a photo of Chris Harper-Mercer, the Oregon shooter, to make him look white.
“On the left is the selfie Christopher Mercer uploaded to his social media,” the Conservative Treehouse reports. “On the right is how CNN presented the same selfie in broadcast stories about him. Why did CNN need to change the complexion (color) of their broadcast?”
CNN also did not show photos of Mercer’s mother, who is black.
The reason CNN altered the photo is obvious: the race of Mercer does not fit the narrative that only white males — and thus white supremacist — can be mass shooters.
A black male shooter is incompatible with the racist Black Lives Matters class warfare agenda pushed by the liberal establishment and its propaganda media.
On Friday, a CNN correspondent, Pamela Brown, cited writings allegedly penned by Mercer where he “rambled about his hatred toward black men,” thus portraying him as a racist or possibly a white supremacist.
The Los Angeles Times also portrayed Mercer as a white supremacist:
A federal law enforcement source familiar with the investigation said, though, that authorities had obtained some of Harper-Mercer’s writings, as well as a note he left behind, suggesting that he supported white-supremacist causes and opposed organized religion.
http://www.infowars.com/cnn-turns-mixed-race-oregon-shooter-into-a-white-man/
The Israelis haven't had anything to do with any of this shit.
ReplyDeleteOne Israeli General I heard back in the day said:
"You should be careful you might come to long for the day when Saddam was around"
Obozo is the fault of it all, for taking the troops out too soon:
See Gary Kasparov
And people like Quirk, who mistake proposed no fly zones and safe areas for war mongering.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Moving along to something important, I think the Idaho freshman quarterback played well. He did get 35 points up there on the board. It is not his fault the defense allowed AS to score 49 points.
I think him the equal of Linehan, the regular starting quarterback, who should be back in two weeks from his ankle injury.
I hope the young freshman red shirt QB gets another chance to show his worth.
How can one weep for Syria ?
ReplyDeleteIn the long view it is the result of the varieties of insanity in Islam.
Culture counts, and Islam itself is the problem, in all its marvelous insane varieties.
They should have chosen other ways......
What did the Neo-Traitors know, and when did they know it ? --
ReplyDeleteSyria is Obama’s Watergate
By Michael Goodwin
October 3, 2015 | 9:43pm
Modal Trigger
Syria is Obama’s Watergate
Photo: Reuters
MORE FROM
Michael Goodwin
What did he know and when did he know it? The immortal question about Richard Nixon and Watergate should be posed to Barack Obama about Syria. What and when did he know about Vladimir Putin’s axis-of-evil coalition?
The significance is not limited to Syria. The question goes to the heart of the Iran nuclear deal, especially the timing of the congressional votes.
Imagine Obama trying to sell the Iran deal now. With Russia, Iran and Iraq working together to muscle the United States aside and defend Bashar al-Assad, the president couldn’t possibly argue that the nuke deal would help stabilize the Middle East. Nor could he argue that Russia could be trusted to help enforce restrictions on Iran.
The strong likelihood that Obama would have lost the Iran vote if Congress knew then what the world knows now suggests the possibility the president concealed the Russian plan until the Iran deal was done. That view fits with his single-minded determination to get a deal at any price, including making key concessions and downplaying Iranian threats to Israel and the United States.
After all that, what’s another lie?
That view is also supported by the chronology, which reveals strong evidence the president hid the truth.
For much of September, reports of Russia moving soldiers and military equipment into Syria invariably said the Pentagon was “puzzled” or the White House was “unclear” about Putin’s intent. Obama declared on Sept. 11 that whatever the dictator’s plan, it was “doomed to fail.”
The claims of fuzziness about Syria allowed Obama to keep the focus on his push to sell the Iran pact to Congress. He touted Russia’s support, vowed to impose “snapback” sanctions if Iran cheated and said he would work to stop the mullahs’ regional aggressions.
His arguments and arm-twisting kept 42 Senate Democrats in line, enough to save the deal. Yet soon after opponents lost their final vote, on Sept. 17, Russia revealed that it would lead a coalition of Iran and Iraq to intervene militarily to save the Assad regime.
The shock-and-awe attacks launched last week are rattling the world as Russian airstrikes pound Syrian rebels, including some we support, with Iraq and Iran providing boots on the ground. But it’s not possible that nobody in Washington saw this coming.
DeleteAfter all, the Russian plan took shape well before late September. The Iran deal was officially finalized on July 14, and Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani met with Putin in Russia on July 24. Fox News, which first reported the meeting, even had the flight numbers of Soleimani’s Iran Air flights between Moscow and Tehran.
Soleimani, banned from international travel because of links to terrorism, earlier had been spotted in Iraq, helping to defend Assad against Islamic State. Yet five days after Soleimani was in Moscow, Secretary of State John Kerry told the Senate the travel restrictions against Soleimani would never be lifted. Apparently, they would never be enforced, either.
Although Russia and Iran had separately supported Assad, Kerry never mentioned that they could be working together militarily. Yet the Institute for the Study of War, a respected think tank, reported that “available satellite imagery and open sources” showed that “the new buildup of Russian military forces in Syria began in July 2015 and accelerated considerably in late August and September.” That means the buildup began near the Soleimani visit to Putin.
The institute offered key details, including that in late August, a Russian ship unloaded armored personnel carriers. It cited another report from Syrian rebels that Russian-speaking soldiers were engaged in combat against Assad’s opponents.
Yet in early September, less than two weeks before the final Iran vote, Kerry still wondered whether the buildup reports were “accurate.” That ridiculous feint would soon morph to an acknowledgment of a buildup, but with convenient claims that nobody understood Putin’s intent.
Now, of course, everybody understands Putin’s intent and is alarmed because the war is widening and Russia has replaced the United States as the region’s top power broker, a blow to our national security and allies.
But there still is little understanding of the connection between this tectonic shift and the Iranian nuclear deal. In fact, the deal was the final piece that put the Syria plan into action.
By eliminating most sanctions and freeing Iranian assets, the nuke deal provides money and protection for the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism to attack our allies. And Iran’s liberation gave Putin the Muslim ground troops he needs.
So the question needs to be asked of Barack Hussein Nixon: What did you know, and when did you know it?
nypost.com/2015/10/03/syria-iSyria is Obama’s WatergateBy Michael GoodwinOctober 3, 2015 | 9:43pm
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Not a bad question, really.
Hmmmm... a moral dilemma presents itself -
ReplyDeleteClackamas -- the Oregon Massacre a Gun Stopped
Daniel John Sobieski
Disarming the law-abiding to prevent such killings is like trying to fight drunk driving by making it harder for sober drivers to get driver’s licenses. More
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/10/clackamas__the_oregon_massacre_a_gun_stopped.html
Are you willing to give up your driver's license to prevent Quirk from driving around Detroit, as he said, 'better drunk than sober' ?
(I am trying to look out for and give Quirk a reality check....vehicular homicide charges are no laughing matter)
Beautiful fall day here.....we are going for a drive while the blue skies last.....
ReplyDeleteCheers !
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ReplyDeleteThe Chicago Council on International Affairs
America Divided: Political Partisanship and US Foreign Policy
Survey
http://www.thechicagocouncil.org/publication/america-divided-political-partisanship-and-us-foreign-policy#sthash.FVJwBxJ1.dpuf
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ReplyDeleteWill the Boobism's Never End?
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And people like Quirk, who mistake proposed no fly zones and safe areas for war mongering.
Damn, think Bobbo, think. I know it hurts when you try but do it anyway.
A 2004 Stanford University paper published in Journal of Strategic Studies, "Lessons from Iraq and Bosnia on the Theory and Practice of No-fly Zones," reviewed the effectiveness of the air-based campaigns in achieving military objectives. The paper's findings were: 1) A clear, unified command structure is essential. In Bosnia, during "Operation Deny Flight," a confusing dual-key coordination structure provided inadequate authority and resulted in air forces not being given authority to assist in key situations; 2) To avoid a "perpetual patrol problem," states must know in advance their policy objectives and the exit strategy for no-fly zones; 3) The effectiveness of no-fly zones is highly dependent on regional support. A lack of support from Turkey for the 1996 Iraq no-fly zone ultimately constrained the coalition's ability to effectively enforce it.[10]
The main reason I opposed the no-fly zone in Syria was the nature of the war there; but beyond that was the proven incompetence we have demonstrated in foreign interventions over the past couple of decades. If I did call you a warmonger (which I don't recall) it is because you are, even if unintentionally. You are quick to criticize Rufus for being too optimistic in his view of US progress in this war yet you do the same thing when you offer up your inflated views of the super-human capabilities of a few American troops. It's just dumb.
My first question would be what exactly would a no-fly zone do for you?
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DeleteLooking at the lessons learned noted above, its easy to see were the US could run into problems with a no-fly zone in Syria.
1. Unified command structure. We can see problems here from our experience in Iraq where it is the host country that is calling the shots on the 'where and when' of US air strikes. In Syria, we see it in our deference to our NATO ally Turkey on who we can support. We see the danger of the Turkish no-fly zone where one ally is bombing our major partner in fighting ISIS, the Kurds. The idea of coordination and full cooperation by all the players involved in the Syria conflict is pretty iffy. Look at the words of our supposed allies in the region and then compare them to their aims and actions.
2. Defined strategy and exit-strategy? Neither exist in Syria or Iraq.
3. Regional support. Their is obviously little regional support. Even our allies (Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States) have only really supplied verbal support while continuing to funnel support to the very groups we are fighting.
additional points
1. Given the shifting nature of the conflict in Syria it would require a Syria-wide no-fly zone. Since no one else active in the conflict has an air force, the only force in the region that a no-fly zone would affect would be Assad's government forces. This would amount to a declaration of war thus the use of the word warmonger.
War with Syria presents a number of problems for the US, problems Obama recognizes.
a. The US public doesn't want the US involved in another ME war.
b. There is no way you would get a UN resolution authorizing the NFZ.
c. Syria is not a tribal confederation with no defenses like Libya. They have sophisticated air defences and are getting more (and better).
d. A conflict with Syria could possibly (likely?) go regional. Other regional players, (Iran, Hezbollah) would be opposed to our intervention and supportive of Assad. Russia is willing to provide assistance and so is China.
e. It would have a negative impact on our stated objective in Syria/Iraq, the defeat of ISIS.
f. A victory over Assad could lead to the establishment of a radical, likely Islamic, government in Syria.
g. It would likely result in Syria quickly devolving into a failed state ala Libya unless the US were to stay and try to establish a representative type government. We have already seen the outcome of our efforts along those lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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The same type of analysis can be applied to your simplistic idea of creating a safe zone. Forget the logistical problems in coordinating the mass movement of entire populations across Syria, avoiding sectarian conflicts, creating the same refugee problems we see right now, or the costs of trying to supply those populations (running into the millions) with food and water and housing and other supplies for what 4 or 5 years now, overcomng the objections of our regional allies; forget all that, where in Syria would you place this utopian safe-zone? How long would you support it? Who would support it?
Of course, your simplistic solutions would create more havoc than they would prevent.
The same applies to your simplistic view of how leaving a few troops in these countries would prevent the formation of ISIS or the sectarian disintegration of IRAQ or that it would turn all the Arabs in the ME into raging feminists.
THIMK
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I'm thimking, THIMKING
Delete.
ReplyDeleteJohn McCain on "Why we hate whttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/10
/04/american_bombs_kill_in_afghan_doctors_without_borders_hospital_mccain_why_we_hate_wars.htmlar".
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Letter to the pop group Bon Jovi:
ReplyDeleteDear Jon Bon Jovi, David Bryan, and Tico Torres,
Often in the past I have written detailed, and sometimes even persuasive, letters to colleagues in the music business, encouraging them not to give succor to the Israeli government’s apartheid policies by performing in Israel. Having read Jon’s comments last week in Yedioth Ahronoth, I won’t waste my time drawing parallels with Apartheid South Africa and the moral stand that so many artists took then and that thousands are taking now in the face of decades of Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
So the die is cast, you are determined to proceed with your gig in Tel Aviv on October 3. You are making your stand.
You stand shoulder to shoulder
With the settler who burned the baby
With the bulldozer driver who crushed Rachel Corrie
With the soldier who shot the soccer player’s feet to bits
With the sailor who shelled the boys on the beach
With the sniper who killed the kid in the green shirt
And the one who emptied his clip into the 13-year-old girl
And the Minister of Justice who called for genocide
You had a chance to stand
On the side of justice
With the pilot who refused to bomb refugee camps
With the teenager who chose eight prison terms over army service
With the prisoner who fasted for 266 days until freedom
With the doctor banned from entry for saving lives
With the farmer who was cut down marching to the wall
With the legless child growing up in the rubble
And the 550 others who won’t grow up at all
Because of the missiles and tank shells and bullets we sent
The dead can’t remind you of the crimes you’ve ignored. But, lest we forget, “To stand by silent and indifferent is the greatest crime of all.”
Roger Waters
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/02/roger_waters_to_jon_bon_jovi_you_stand_shoulder_to_shoulder_with_the_settler_who_burned_the_baby/
DeleteWhat is interesting 1/2 of the so called examples were crimes perpetrated by the Palestinians themselves
Deleteno one likes to talk about Pallywood.
Deletebut it's real, although the blood libels they create are not real..
His premature abandonment, against all military advice, of Iraq and Afghanistan (where the pullout is still under way) has left both countries worse off. Iraq, in particular, is bleeding far more than it did even in the worst years of “George Bush’s war.”
ReplyDeleteHow 7 years of Obama brought the world from Kumbaya to chaos
By Post Editorial Board
October 3, 2015 | 6:27pm
http://nypost.com/2015/10/03/how-7-years-of-obama-brought-the-world-from-kumbaya-to-chaos/
What this country needs is Carson/Trump or Trump/Carson; Garry Kasparov as Secretary of State; Ted Cruz as Secretary of Defense; Judge Jeanine Pirro as Attorney General; and Bibi Netanyahu as Ambassador - at - Large.
ReplyDeleteAnd Hillary Clinton in prison.
And me as Head of US Fish and Wildlife.
DeleteWhat ? and Bibi Netanyahu as Ambassador - at - Large. Do you have Stockholm syndrome? Are you so in the tank for the Israeli Lobby that you can’t find an actual American?
ReplyDeleteThat was to stir you up - Mission Accomplished.
DeleteIs Kasparov an American these days, or a Russian ?
I really don't know what he is other than a great chess player.
What difference does nationality make anyhow - you said yourself Obozo was born in Kenya.....
The Lobby has the afterburners on - Look at this headline from the occupied zone at the Wailing Wall Street Journal:
ReplyDeleteWall Street Journal
Congress Can Respond to Putin With More Sanctions
Wall Street Journal - 49 minutes ago
From Ukraine to Syria, the Obama administration has consistently misread Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objectives and the implications of cooperating with him.
Deuce ☂Sun Oct 04, 07:03:00 PM EDT
DeleteThe Lobby has the afterburners on - Look at this headline from the occupied zone at the Wailing Wall Street Journal:
You wonder why we think you are a Jew hater?
Cant you hate Israel without hating Jews or Judaism?
I guess you can't...
I don’t hate the sinner. I hate the sin. All the Abrahamic religious cults deserve to be put on the scrap heap.
DeletePutin is trying to take on Israel’s allies, ISIS, in the Syrian disaster. They have been at it for a week and Rupert wants more sanctions!
ReplyDeletePutin is helping Assad kill ISIS, the Palestinians and the Sunni arabs of Syria.
DeleteWell there a BIG thanks to Putin.
You have made the point many times on this blog that you are all for mass murder, genocide, killings and mayhem. Like all fascists, you have no moral qualms only your own personal selection and preference of those who are to be the victims. All very Third Reichish of you.
DeleteRacists and fascists always play the victim card and justify their criminality by claims of past injustices to their people by select groups of others.
ReplyDeleteISTANBUL
A Russian warplane on a bombing run in Syria flew within five miles of the Turkish border and may have crossed into Turkey’s air space, Turkish and U.S. officials said Sunday.
The incident raises new concerns that Russia’s armed intervention in Syria could spill over to neighboring countries, lead to an unintended military confrontation and trigger an even bigger regional conflict.
A Turkish security official said Turkish radar locked onto the Russian aircraft as it was bombing early Friday in al Yamdiyyah, a Syrian village directly on the Turkish border. He said Turkish fighter jets would have attacked had it crossed into Turkish airspace.
But a U.S. military official suggested the incident had come close to sparking an armed confrontation. Reading from a report, he said the Russian aircraft had violated Turkish air space by five miles and that Turkish jets had scrambled, but that the Russian aircraft had returned to Syrian airspace before they could respond.
The Turkish security official said he could not confirm that account. Both officials insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the news media.
A NATO spokesman referred all questions to the Turkish government, which had no immediate comment. The U.S. Central command, which oversees military operations in Syria, said it was working on a response to questions from McClatchy.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stepped up his rhetoric. In his strongest comment to date, he called Russia’s intervention unacceptable and a “grave mistake” that would isolate Moscow. Russia’s intervention and its bombing campaign in Syria “have no acceptable side,” he told reporters on the eve of a state visit to Belgium.
Turkey has maintained a buffer zone five miles inside Syria since June 2012, when a Syrian air defense missile shot down a Turkish fighter plane that had strayed into Syrian airspace. Under revised rules of engagement put in effect then, the Turkish air force would evaluate any target coming within five miles of the Turkish border as an enemy and act accordingly.
Al Yamdiyyah hosts a tent camp for internally displaced Syrians and a hospital, run by the French-based Doctors Without Borders. The bomb struck in the village just a few hundred yards from the actual border, wounding several townspeople, local residents said. The Doctors Without Borders hospital apparently was not damaged.
The town, in a mountainous region of northern Latakia province, has been a prime route for smuggling people and goods between Turkey and Syria and reportedly has functioned as a key entry for weapons shipped to Syrian rebels by the U.S.-led Friends of Syria group of Western and Middle Eastern countries.
Dr. Jawad Abu Hatab, a heart surgeon at the Al Yamdiyyah hospital, claimed in a statement distributed by the Syrian Opposition Coalition, an opposition group recognized by the United States, that he believed the hospital had been the target of the airstrike. In the statement, he said the hospital at Al Yamdiyyah and another one in Latamneh, in northern Hama province, served only civilians in their respective areas, and not rebel fighters.
He said several medical staff had been wounded on Thursday in raids on Latamneh, which had been bombed on three successive days.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article37743798.html#storylink=cpy
Syria, under Assad, with Russian help, Iranian cash and Hezbollah storm troopers have murdered over 360,000 syrian sunnis.
ReplyDeletethey have also created 14 million refugees...
But Deuce claims to be a supporter of the Palestinians..
LOL
No, that belongs to your team, the largest sponsors of terrorism since WWII, The Neocon cabal.
DeleteDeuce you support Iran, Syria, Russia, the PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah and the destruction of Israel.
Deletethat says it all, almost.
What also needs to be said?
Your support their acts of mass murder all the while saying how Israel is evil.
Terrorism in Syria provoked from outside
ReplyDeleteTerrorism in Syria has been provoked from outside, Syrian President Bashar Assad said in an interview with Iran’s IRINN news channel on Sunday.
He said it was clear from the very beginning that terrorism in Syria had been provoked from outside to wreak havoc and destabilize the country. In his words, the Syrian government had learnt the lessons from the political crisis and a wave of protests on March 2011 and was committed to the efforts to counter terrorism.
When asked by an Iranian correspondent why the anti-terrorist efforts of the Western coalition were to no avail, Assad noted drew a parallel, saying that a thief could never be a police hand. He said the alliance supporting terrorism can never succeed in exterminating it.
“After several months of bombardments by the Western coalition, we saw no results, moreover, the result was just the opposite - the geography of terrorism has only expanded and the number of people who joined terrorists was only growing,” he said.
WE KNOW THAT IS TRUE AND PREDICTED BY GENERAL WESLEY CLARK
In October, 2007, Gen. Wesley Clark gave a speech to the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (seven-minute excerpt in the video below) in which he denounced what he called “a policy coup” engineered by neocons in the wake of 9/11. After recounting how a Pentagon source had told him weeks after 9/11 of the Pentagon’s plan to attack Iraq notwithstanding its non-involvement in 9/11, this is how Clark described the aspirations of the “coup” being plotted by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and what he called “a half dozen other collaborators from the Project for the New American Century”:
Six weeks later, I saw the same officer, and asked: “Why haven’t we attacked Iraq? Are we still going to attack Iraq?”
He said: “Sir, it’s worse than that. He said – he pulled up a piece of paper off his desk – he said: “I just got this memo from the Secretary of Defense’s office. It says we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in 7 countries in five years – we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”
Clark said the aim of this plot was this: “They wanted us to destabilize the Middle East, turn it upside down, make it under our control.” He then recounted a conversation he had had ten years earlier with Paul Wolfowitz — back in 1991 — in which the then-number-3-Pentagon-official, after criticizing Bush 41 for not toppling Saddam, told Clark: “But one thing we did learn [from the Persian Gulf War] is that we can use our military in the region – in the Middle East – and the Soviets won’t stop us. And we’ve got about 5 or 10 years to clean up those old Soviet regimes – Syria, Iran [sic], Iraq — before the next great superpower comes on to challenge us.” Clark said he was shocked by Wolfowitz’s desires because, as Clark put it: “the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?”
... The neocon end as Clark reported them — regime change in those seven countries — seems as vibrant as ever. It’s just striking to listen to Clark describe those 7 countries in which the neocons plotted to have regime change back in 2001, and then compare that to what the U.S. Government did and continues to do since then with regard to those precise countries.
https://youtu.be/Ha1rEhovONU
DeleteWas General Clark lying? Obviously not and the Neocons are still trying with Iran. Russia just maybe, will put an end to it in Syria and maybe Assad is correct that a coalition of Iraq, Syria, China, Russia and Iran will halt the Neocon reign of terror.
DeleteMost of the Arab Spring was about populist revolts, including Libya, but it was the West’s military which enabled regime change. What Bush did to Iraq and Obama/Clinton did to Libya and tried in Syria is known and is history.
Delete(Look at the time stamp) General Clark said he was shocked by Wolfowitz’s desires because, as Clark put it: “the purpose of the military is to start wars and change governments? It’s not to deter conflicts?”
DeleteI think you ought to become a Big Brother to some poor young fellow in Philly and get off this tangent you have been on for months and months.
ReplyDeleteWhen I think that I need your advice, UncleBob, you will be the first to know.
DeleteSomething very dreadful has happened to the United States. I think I will remain on tangent.
DeleteKeep in mind that Clark is very much a statist. He is no libertarian or revolutionary. Clark would be all in on muzzling dissent and going MacArthur on those who disagree with his fellow statists. That makes his revelation all the more shocking and events since his statements have proven him right.
DeleteWhat, specifically now, has, say, The Czech Republic done for us lately?
ReplyDeleteAnd yet they live and thrive under our nuclear umbrella.
What has Sweden done for us lately ? Even though not a member of NATO, they too live and thrive under our nuclear umbrella.
What about Ireland, for instance ?
Nothing that I know of, but the western world is not about to abandon them to the wolves.
New Zealand ?
Curious minds wish to know why these countries should be of concern to us, while some say Israel should not be of concern to us. Israel these days is as much a part of 'the western world' as any of them, having adopted basic western forms from its inception.
I’ll try and keep this simple for you:
DeleteNone of the four stated countries lobbies all of our Congressman for special benefits. Israel does.
None of them has ever attacked an American ship. Israel has.
None of them has stolen US nuclear technology. Israel has.
None of them is occupying land taken illegally. Israel does.
None of them has established a ghetto and an apartheid system which they periodically bomb. Israel does.
None of them practices the establishment of a religious state that excludes the civil rights of other religions. Israel does.
None of them has stolen US technology and sold it to the Chinese.Israel did.
None of them is on the US dole for an annual shakedown of $3 billion. Israel does.
Still curious?
I am taking my leave for the night, as my wife tells me in half an hour there is a new Don Johnson series starting......something about Blood and Oil, or some such.
ReplyDeleteI am very curious to see what Don Johnson looks like these days. I hope he hasn't gained as much weight as I have since I last watched him.........
Ooops...forgot the....
DeleteCheers !