The Big Government Corruption of Obama/Clinton
The key 2016 issue is outrage over a rigged system by special interests. There’s a reason Hillary doesn't get it
“It’s the corruption, stupid”: Hillary’s too compromised to see what Donald Trump understands
In 1992, James Carville, Bill Clinton’s senior campaign strategist, scribbled a terse memo containing three instructions. Two are long forgotten. The third may live forever. “It’s the economy, stupid” became a meme because it nailed the issue that drove that election. One overarching issue drives this election, but neither Hillary Clinton’s campaign nor the Democratic Party got the memo. Any swing voter could tell them what it says: It’s the corruption, stupid.
Donald Trump got the memo. What you notice first about Trump is his xenophobia, but he also speaks more about corruption than immigration. For example: when he falsely claims to self-fund his campaign, blames Bush’s donors when he gets booed, shames his opponents for crooking the knee to the Kochs, or belittles the Clintons for attending his wedding. He brags of buying influence as if buying it were less corrupt than selling it. He gets away with it because few in the press see the issue’s centrality to the race — or would know what questions to ask if they did.
Deep in their unconscious, even Trump’s most ardent fans must know that such a colossal liar couldn’t possibly be a reformer. Asked to explain their enthusiasm, they invariably cite his independence. Doubtless many are also drawn to his racism — but corruption is what Trump and his backers talk most about. In any event, the only real reformer in the race is Bernie Sanders. Even he must broaden his message beyond cracking down on Wall Street and repealing Citizens United. All Democratic candidates call for repealing Citizens United. Democratic audiences cheer when they do. Other audiences doze off, and for good reasons.
One reason is that people don’t know what they mean. If you talk about Citizens United or Glass Steagall, you must tell us what they are. The key to campaign finance is discussing how much money flows into the system, where it comes from and how it’s spent. For financial regulation, talk about how without it, banks can bet their depositors’ money — and if they lose big enough, even with Dodd Frank, we taxpayers end up bailing them out.
Another reason is that Democrats who bewail Citizens United so often depict corruption as a right-wing plot of which they themselves are mere victims. Not even the base buys that. Citizens United arrived in 2010. Pay-to-play politics took off in the mid-’70s, right about the time the middle class stopped getting raises. The sad truth is elite Democrats like the current system a lot. Here’s a well-guarded secret: They even see a lot to like in Citizens United.
Poorly written and atrociously reasoned, Citizens United rests on three simple, absurd precepts: Money is speech; corporations are people; and corruption is OK so long as it is sanctioned. OK, the third one isn’t so simple, but it sure is absurd. It pertains to what Justice Kennedy, the opinion’s author, calls “soft” corruption, by which he means the entire system: big donors, lobbyists, lush retreats, revolving doors, exorbitant speaking fees. The whole shebang.
Kennedy says that unlike “hard” corruption (bribery, mainly), “soft” corruption harms and offends no one, so Congress can’t regulate it. The issue hadn’t come up at trial, so there was nothing about it in pleadings. There’s tons of data about how evil it is and how much we hate it, but Kennedy ignored it. He offered no proof to support his “finding.” He just said it was so and now it’s the law.
I’d rate Citizens United the second most corrupt decision in Supreme Court history after Bush v. Gore. Blind partisanship drove Bush v. Gore. Right-wing ideology informs both decisions. But Citizens United’s key findings, that our politics isn’t really corrupt and we don’t care anyway, is neither partisan nor extreme. It is in fact the bipartisan consensus of Washington’s soul-sick, brain-dead establishment.
If you doubt it, consider Barack Obama. In 2008, America was almost as angry at its government as it is today. Then as now, the media and political consultants to both parties were blind to the issue. But Obama and strategist David Axelrod sort of got it. Axelrod wasn’t much for specificity. He preached the “politics of biography” (sell the person, not the policy). So Obama spoke of transforming “Washington’s culture.” It was powerful stuff, but not quite powerful enough.
Voters knew the problem wasn’t “partisan gridlock” but a hammerlock of special interests. They could abide politicians’ incivility but not their corruption. Obama added some policy meat to the metaphorical bone of his message. He called whistle-blowers heroes and vowed to strengthen freedom of information, to let C-SPAN cameras film healthcare negotiations, end no-bid contracts, close revolving doors and never hire lobbyists to handle matters of special concern to their ex-clients. By late fall, nearly every speech he gave ended in a rousing call for reform.
Breaking those vows was the original sin of the Obama administration. No C-SPAN cameras ever filmed a meeting. He didn’t treat whistle-blowers as heroes; he broke records prosecuting them. He didn’t end no-bid contracts; he increased them. He didn’t ban lobbyists; he recruited them. (Healthcare industry consultants drove that team; he even hired a defense lobbyist to oversee Pentagon procurement policy.) Revolving doors kept swinging; every ex-Obama staffer you ever heard of now sits on some comfy corporate perch. Republicans didn’t kill the reforms. Obama had the power to implement each one by executive order, but chose not to.
In 2008, Obama raised more money from big business than any candidate in either party’s history and in 2009 he hired the most conservative economic team of any Democratic president since Grover Cleveland. He then sided with insurers against a public option, with banks against rescuing homeowners and with business against raising the minimum wage. If you’re highly educated and care more about cultural than economic issues, you may not have noticed. If you’re financially pressed, you may be torn between Sanders and Trump, or have given up on politics altogether.
Clinton calls it an “artful smear” to suggest that she, Obama or any Democrat is influenced by the money they say corrupts every Republican. Her anger is partly a pose. But any card-carrying member of the establishment will take any suggestion that the system is compromised as a personal insult. This is true of elite reporters as well as politicians.
The Times’ David Brooks recently praised Obama’s “superior integrity,” calling his years in office “remarkably scandal free.” It’s all true, but recall Anthony Kennedy’s clueless distinction between hard and soft corruption. He said soft corruption was better but it’s worse really. Soft corruption is systemic corruption; a cancer on the body politic. We kill it or it kills us, and sooner than you may think.
Asked about her Goldman Sachs speaking fees, Hillary offered two rationales. One was the perennial favorite “everyone does it.” The other was equally flippant. (“That’s what they offered.”) Since leaving the White House she and Bill have hauled in $153 million in speaking fees. Her deepest flaw is she doesn’t know it’s wrong. As I’ve written twice here and said often elsewhere, I’ve great respect for her. Her flaw is denial, not dishonesty — but her denial runs deep.
Back when Bill was governor of Arkansas, she began trading cattle futures. She put up hardly any money but a Tyson Foods lawyer arranged credit and did the trading. She made $100,000 in 10 months. She joined the well-wired Rose Law Firm, appeared before legislative committees, went on Wal-Mart’s board and got a loan for the ill-fated Whitewater deal from a bank she represented before regulators Bill had appointed.
For all this she was hounded by prosecutors, many of them vicious partisans. Kenneth Starr ran a sting operation on the president of the United States hoping he’d lie if caught in an affair, an abuse of process for which Starr himself should have been investigated. But the issue isn’t whether the Clintons broke the law. It’s whether any governor’s spouse should rep corporate clients before state agencies, hop on corporate boards or take favors from corporate “friends.” The answer’s simple. No. The reason’s also simple. It’s wrong.
It’s all ancient history, unless of course it isn’t. An ongoing FBI probe is now being overseen by James Comey, the former George W. Bush deputy attorney general whom Obama, inexplicably, appointed director of the bureau. Here’s hoping he wraps it up soon, lest Clinton make history not only as the first woman presidential nominee but as the first person ever nominated while under criminal investigation. The media’s near silence on the matter reflects a concern for due process but also a failure even now to grasp how heavily the integrity issue weighs on her candidacy and the election. Democratic elites await the outcome with preternatural calm.
Clinton bristles at any implication she’d ever stoop to a policy quid pro quo. I don’t think she would. But that’s not how soft corruption works. Politicians spend more time talking to their donors than to their children. As in all intimate relations, each learns to see the world through the other’s eyes. It affects everyone: pollsters, policy advisers, reporters, pundits. You can hear it in the current healthcare debate.
On the topic of single payer, Clinton sounds like Dan Aykroyd in “Ghostbusters” (Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!). Bill calls it a “fairy tale.” Hillary rails, “I don’t want us thrown back into a terrible, terrible national debate … about some ‘better idea’ that will never, ever come to pass!” Alleged experts regurgitate Clinton campaign talking points: It’s unattainable, unaffordable and scares voters half to death.
Rubbish. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, respondents backed “Medicare for all” by 58 percent to 34 percent. One reason people like it is that it will save them a bundle. All other developed nations use a form of it and spend half what we do per capita. As for the politics, no Republican Congress will pass any Democratic healthcare bill and no Democratic Congress can resist an aroused public demanding change. The very idea of the debate being too disruptive insults our democracy.
Clinton likes to say “before it was Obamacare it was Hillarycare,” but really it was Romneycare, which speaks to its defects, many of which are systemic. Curing them requires other systemic reforms, or what Bernie calls a revolution. Clinton says she’ll “partner” with the insurance and drug industries. That’s a fairy tale. The numbers will never work, which is why she can’t say how she’d get us to universal coverage. What she’s really saying is we can’t get there from here. It’s like American Exceptionalism but in reverse; America, the really big country that can’t.
Clinton knows she can’t convince a trade unionist or a single mother that her neoliberal world order is better for them than Bernie’s revolution so she avoids side by side policy comparisons and paints him as the “other.” In Nevada it worked. She accused him of being disloyal; he cited the times he was loyal or spoke loftily of his right to dissent. He might have said loyalty to principle meant as much to him as party loyalty did to her, that he loves Obama too but that it’s time to give all people decent healthcare and a living wage; to break up the big banks and clean up the corrupt politics they feed on. He didn’t say it. He needs to say it soon.
The soft corruption of establishment politics is what we mean when we say the system’s rigged. It is Sanders’ great advantage; on the overarching issue of the election he alone among all the candidates wants what we want: an end to politics as we know it. The best place for him to start is with Obama’s 2008 reform agenda; an end to back rooms revolving doors and no-bid contracts, to hiring lobbyists and persecuting whistle-blowers. No one could question the agenda’s popularity or his ability, once in office, to deliver it. He wouldn’t need a new Court or Congress. He could just order it done. Nor could anyone question his loyalty, at least not out loud. He’d be keeping the biggest promise Obama ever made.
Step back from the campaign fray for just a moment and consider the enormity of what’s already occurred.
ReplyDeleteA 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who describes himself as a democratic socialist, who wasn’t even a Democrat until recently, has come within a whisker of beating Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus, routed her in the New Hampshire primary, and garnered over 47 percent of the caucus-goers in Nevada, of all places.
And a 69-year-old billionaire who has never held elective office or had anything to do with the Republican Party has taken a commanding lead in the Republican primaries.
Something very big has happened, and it’s not due to Bernie Sanders’ magnetism or Donald Trump’s likeability.
It’s a rebellion against the establishment.
READ ON:
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DeleteThe question is why the establishment has been so slow to see this. A year ago – which now seems like an eternity – it proclaimed Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush shoe-ins.
Both had all the advantages – deep bases of funders, well-established networks of political insiders, experienced political advisors, all the name recognition you could want.
But even now that Bush is out and Hillary is still leading but vulnerable, the establishment still doesn’t see what’s occurred. They explain everything by pointing to weaknesses: Bush, they now say, “never connected” and Hillary “has a trust problem.”
A respected political insider recently told me most Americans are largely content. “The economy is in good shape,” he said. “Most Americans are better off than they’ve been in years. The problem has been the major candidates themselves.”
I beg to differ.
Economic indicators may be up but they don’t reflect the economic insecurity most Americans still feel, nor the seeming arbitrariness and unfairness they experience.
Nor do the major indicators show the linkages Americans see between wealth and power, crony capitalism, declining real wages, soaring CEO pay, and a billionaire class that’s turning our democracy into an oligarchy.
Median family income lower now than it was sixteen years ago, adjusted for inflation.
Most economic gains, meanwhile, have gone to top.
These gains have translated into political power to rig the system with bank bailouts, corporate subsidies, special tax loopholes, trade deals, and increasing market power – all of which have further pushed down wages pulled up profits.
Those at the very top of the top have rigged the system even more thoroughly. Since 1995, the average income tax rate for the 400 top-earning Americans has plummeted from 30 percent to 17 percent.
Wealth, power, and crony capitalism fit together. So far in the 2016 election, the richest 400 Americans have accounted for over a third of all campaign contributions.
Americans know a takeover has occurred and they blame the establishment for it.
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DeleteThere’s no official definition of the “establishment” but it presumably includes all of the people and institutions that have wielded significant power over the American political economy, and are therefore deemed complicit.
At its core are the major corporations, their top executives, and Washington lobbyists and trade associations; the biggest Wall Street banks, their top officers, traders, hedge-fund and private-equity managers, and their lackeys in Washington; the billionaires who invest directly in politics; and the political leaders of both parties, their political operatives, and fundraisers.
Arrayed around this core are the deniers and apologists – those who attribute what’s happened to “neutral market forces,” or say the system can’t be changed, or who urge that any reform be small and incremental.
Some Americans are rebelling against all this by supporting an authoritarian demagogue who wants to fortify America against foreigners as well as foreign-made goods. Others are rebelling by joining a so-called “political revolution.”
The establishment is having conniptions. They call Trump whacky and Sanders irresponsible. They charge that Trump’s isolationism and Bernie’s ambitious government programs will stymie economic growth.
The establishment doesn’t get that most Americans couldn’t care less about economic growth because for years they’ve got few of its benefits, while suffering most of its burdens in the forms of lost jobs and lower wages.
Most people are more concerned about economic security and a fair chance to make it.
The establishment doesn’t see what’s happening because it has cut itself off from the lives of most Americans. It also doesn’t wish to understand, because that would mean acknowledging its role in bringing all this on.
Yet regardless of the political fates of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, the rebellion against the establishment will continue.
Eventually, those with significant economic and political power in America will have to either commit to fundamental reform, or relinquish their power.
ROBERT REICH
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/is_this_the_end_of_the_establishment_20160223
The number of private contractors working for the U.S. Defense Department in Iraq grew eight-fold over the past year, a rate that far outpaces the growing number of American troops training and advising Iraqi soldiers battling Islamic State militants.
ReplyDeleteThe sharp increase, disclosed in a recent Pentagon report to Congress, underscores the military’s reliance on civilians even for missions with relatively small troop presence.
“If you look at the size and the composition of the forces that have been deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, that’s changed markedly in the past year,” said Rick Brennan, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corp. and a retired Army officer.
As of January, 2,028 contractors were in Iraq, up from just 250 one year earlier, according to the Pentagon’s data. There are roughly 3,700 American troops there now, compared to 2,300 in January 2015.
That number of military contractors represents just a fraction of the contractors employed by the U.S. in Iraq. In addition to the 2,028 Pentagon contractors, another 5,800 are employed by other agencies, including the State Department.
In the 1980s, the U.S. military decided to hire contractors to work in support roles that had historically been done by troops. That includes jobs like food services, maintaining housing units, water purification and “all those those other things that go with maintaining troops in the field for a long time,” Brennan said. The plus-up in Iraq is likely for contractors in those types of roles.
MORE OBAMA CORRUPTION AND THE EXPENSIVE DECEPTION OF THE US MERCENARY ARMIES
FROM THE GREAT ROBERT FISK
ReplyDeleteSyria civil war: On the front line with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards battling outside Aleppo
| Middle East | News | The Independent
We knew who they were the moment they approached us on the front line outside Aleppo. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards – no longer merely advisers but fighting troops alongside the Syrian army – emerged on the roadside in their grey-patterned camouflage fatigues, speaking good though not perfect Arabic but chatting happily in Persian when they knew we could understand them.
Why, they asked politely – they were courteous, but very suspicious in the first few minutes – were we filming this part of their line? A mortar exploded in a field to our right – sent over either by Isis or by Jabhat al-Nusra – and we had filmed its cloud of brown smoke as it drifted eastwards.
I told the Iranian commander, a tall, bespectacled and thoughtful man, that we were journalists. I got the impression that these men wanted to talk to us – which proved to be the case – but they were wary of us, as if we were dangerous aliens.
“When I heard that there was an English reporter asking for information in this area,” the man said, “I said to myself: ‘England is helping Isis and an English reporter is here asking for information’. The immediate thing in my mind was, ‘Where is this information going to go?’”
He apologised. We must not think he was hostile to us. “If you were in my place and you were fighting a harsh and brutal enemy like Isis in this location – and this is our front line – you would ask yourself this question: ‘What is the English reporter doing here – why should he be allowed here?’”
We explained that we were travelling with Syrian military personnel, and I showed the Iranian commander my press card – and he recognised my name and newspaper. There was much shaking of hands. The Independent was respected, he said. But he was still a very cautious man.
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DeleteDown the dun-coloured road in front of us, across the flat plains to the south-east where the Nusra and Isis lines still held against the Syrian advance, there was an awful lot of rifle fire and the sound of bullets whizzing past the buildings. Outgoing, the Iranians assured us – I’m not sure I believed them, suspecting the fire was coming from their enemies – but the shooting continued throughout our strangely existential conversation.
“One of the problems of this place is that the enemy is very close,” the Iranian said, pointing through the dust haze. “You see those two silos over there? Well, that’s where Nusra are sitting right now and watching us at this moment. Any time, a mortar can arrive, you will be dead – and I will feel responsible, because in the last few hours I have already lost one man and had another wounded.” We were not there to die, I told the man. Reporters have to live to tell their tale.
He grinned at us. “We make a distinction between death and martyrdom,” he said. “In my view, because you are here and seeking the truth and bringing that truth to the world, if you die here in this spot, you are a martyr.”
The comment was intended to be kind. He was allowing a non-Muslim to become a martyr – which I had no intention of becoming. I told him how I had the very same conversation during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war in a trench opposite Saddam’s front line. A soldier then had told me of the pleasure he would experience in dying for Islam and I had told him it was my intention to live, that death held no joys for me. Never the twain shall meet, I said to myself.
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DeleteThe Iranian officer – and seven others had gathered round him in the hot afternoon, the crack and zip of bullets still breaking up our conversation – insisted that “to fight in the way of justice is martyrdom”. But then a team of Iranian military IT men arrived, serious, courteous, and wanted to look at our camera. They looked at the pictures of the mortar explosion and concluded that we were telling the truth – we were not spies. They were frightened that we had filmed their own strategic locations.
Then another younger man arrived, bearded but smiling broadly. “This is not the right place for you to be,” he said. “If you want to show the truth of what is happening, you should go to the north of Aleppo and you should see villages and how they’ve been destroyed and how those who rejected the rule of al-Nusra were treated. They have lost everything – their homes have been smashed – and even if the war was to end now, the clean-up and preparations to rebuild will take at least a decade. That’s how badly damaged everything is.”
I realised at that moment that this young man must have fought to retake the Shia villages of Nubl and Zahra with other Revolutionary Guard forces three weeks earlier. “You should understand the kind of suffering these people have gone through – that’s what you should be writing about,” he said. He looked at us to see if we understood, and I suspect that for him this was a holy as well as a military mission – which may not be quite the way to win a war. But there they were, the Iranians in Syria chatting away to us on the battlefield – the “real thing”, as journalists like to say – and we took our leave.
“We would like you to write the truth about this place,” the commander said. “And I’m sorry we can’t allow you to see our lines.” There were more smiles from yet more Iranians who had turned up on motor cycles and in Toyotas. And then the commander went to his vehicle and came back with a large box of Arab sweets and handed them to us. How very Iranian of him. England supports Isis, it seems, but he was ready to feed the English reporter on his front line. But please, no more pictures.
They are sending home Iranian bodies at the rate of 10 a week from Aleppo military airport. Quite a price.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-civil-war-on-the-front-line-with-the-iranian-revolutionary-guards-battling-outside-aleppo-a6891891.html
The IOT, Iranian Occupation Troops, are an invading, foreign military force that has, defacto taken over Syria.
DeletePersians have no business outside of Persia. Many here have bragged how "no Iranian troops have fought outside Iran in 200 years"...
Now they will die, every day, and every week, fighting for the Shite vision of the world, the return of the Mahdi.
They will kill Sunnis and the Sunnis will kill them.
Israel had no business repeatedly invading Lebanon. In doing so it created Hezbollah and destabilized the region including Syria. You have bragged about repeated Israel military aggression against Syria and your blood brothers and fellow traveling Neocons have wrecked the region ostensibly to advance the interests of Israel.
DeleteIran has recognized events post the US/UK destruction of Iraq and the creation of ISIS. Israel prefers ISIS. It is state policy.
Iran is fighting ISIS.
Israel will yet get to answer for its support of ISIS as will Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Israel, fighting for it;s survival, invaded a bordering nation that harbored a hostile force.
DeleteYou sadly attempt to blame Israel on the Arab on Arab, Iranian on Arab, Russian on Arab, American on Arab violence.
The simple fact? It aint Israel's doing, but it DOES benefit Israel to see the conflict between Moslems of all stripes.
Iran is a regional super power with a path to WMD, ISIS is nothing compared to them.
Iran and it's puppet Assad have slaughtered 320,000 of the 360,000 in Syria.
they are the mass murderers that make ISIS look small...
ISIS is hostile to Israel and Israel has fought against them that have attacked Israel.
Meanwhile, ISIS and Iran are BOTH shits.
:)
Deuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 07:54:00 AM EST
ReplyDeleteIsrael had no business repeatedly invading Lebanon
Maybe you should ask WHY they did?
Maybe it's because Lebanon refused to control the lands and allowed the PLO to create a war zone on Israel's northern border?
SO your premise?
"Deuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 07:54:00 AM EST
Israel had no business repeatedly invading Lebanon
Is crap....
America flies 9000 miles from it's border to attack enemies....
No nation on the planet has to take repeated attacks from another nation....
No Business? LOL
You too funny!!! (in my best Chinese/American candace)
The 1982 Lebanon War (Arabic: الاجتياح, Al-ijtiyāḥ, "the invasion"), (Hebrew: מלחמת לבנון הראשונה, Milhemet Levanon Harishona, "the first Lebanon war"), called Operation Peace for Galilee (Hebrew: מבצע שלום הגליל, or מבצע של"ג Mivtsa Shlom HaGalil or Mivtsa Sheleg) by Israel, and later known in Israel as the Lebanon War and First Lebanon War, began on 6 June 1982, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) invaded southern Lebanon, after repeated attacks and counter-attacks between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) operating in southern Lebanon and the IDF which caused civilian casualties on both sides of the border.[9][10][11] The military operation was launched after gunmen from Abu Nidal's organization attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, Israel's ambassador to the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Menachem Begin blamed Abu Nidal's enemy, the PLO, for the incident,[12][13] and treated the incident as a casus belli for the invasion.[14][15][i]
ReplyDeleteIsrael has long sought a peaceful northern border. But Lebanon's position as a haven for terrorist groups has made this impossible. In March 1978, PLO terrorists infiltrated Israel. After murdering an American tourist walking near an Israeli beach, they hijacked a civilian bus. The terrorists shot through the windows as the bus traveled down the highway. When Israeli troops intercepted the bus, the terrorists opened fire. A total of 34 hostages died in the attack. In response, Israeli forces crossed into Lebanon and overran terrorist bases in the southern part of that country, pushing the terrorists away from the border. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew after two months, allowing United Nations forces to enter. But UN troops were unable to prevent terrorists from reinfiltrating the region and introducing new, more dangerous arms.
ReplyDeleteViolence escalated with a series of PLO attacks and Israeli reprisals. Finally, the United States helped broker a ceasefire agreement in July 1981. The PLO repeatedly violated the cease-fire over the ensuing 11 months. Israel charged that the PLO staged 270 terrorist actions in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and along the Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Twentynine Israelis died and more than 300 were injured in the attacks.
Meanwhile, a force of some 15-18,000 PLO members was encamped in scores of locations in Lebanon. About 5,000-6,000 were foreign mercenaries, coming from such countries as Libya, Iraq, India, Sri Lanka, Chad and Mozambique. Israel later discovered enough light arms and other weapons in Lebanon to equip five brigades. The PLO arsenal included mortars, Katyusha rockets and an extensive antiaircraft network. The PLO also brought hundreds of T34 tanks into the area. Syria, which permitted Lebanon to become a haven for the PLO and other terrorist groups, brought surface-to-air missiles into that country, creating yet another danger for Israel.
Israeli strikes and commando raids were unable to stem the growth of this PLO army. The situation in the Galilee became intolerable as the frequency of attacks forced thousands of residents to flee their homes or to spend large amounts of time in bomb shelters. Israel was not prepared to wait for more deadly attacks to be launched against its civilian population before acting against the terrorists.
The Last Straw
The final provocation occurred in June 1982 when a Palestinian terrorist group led by Abu Nidal attempted to assassinate Israel's Ambassador to Great Britain, Shlomo Argov. The IDF subsequently attacked Lebanon again on June 4-5, 1982. The PLO responded with a massive artillery and mortar attack on the Israeli population of the Galilee. On June 6, the IDF moved into Lebanon to drive out the terrorists in "Operation Peace for Galilee."
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger defended the Israeli operation: "No sovereign state can tolerate indefinitely the buildup along its borders of a military force dedicated to its destruction and implementing its objectives by periodic shellings and raids" (Washington Post, June 16, 1982).
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War[4] (Arabic: حرب تموز, Ḥarb Tammūz) and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War (Hebrew: מלחמת לבנון השנייה, Milhemet Levanon HaShniya),[51] was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, Northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Due to unprecedented Iranian military support to Hezbollah before and during the war, some consider it the first round of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, rather than a continuation of the Arab–Israeli conflict.[2]
ReplyDeleteThe conflict was precipitated by the Zar'it-Shtula incident. On 12 July 2006, Hezbollah fighters fired rockets at Israeli border towns as a diversion for an anti-tank missile attack on two armored Humvees patrolling the Israeli side of the border fence.[52] The ambush left three soldiers dead. Two Israeli soldiers were abduc
So now, Hezbollah has taken over Lebanon, and in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions has rearmed SOUTH of the Litani river with 100,000 rockets capable of hitting Israel anywhere in the tiny nation....
ReplyDeleteWhat business does Israel have in invading Lebanon again and this time wiping Hezbollah off the face of the earth?
A lot...
Hezbollah has bragged it is ready, willing and able to attack Israel again..
Rules have changed...
No more wasting days with leaflets, phone calls to the civilian population of Southern Lebanon...
No, IF, NO, when Hezbollah attacks again?
there will be a firestorm burning southern lebanon, if not more...
.
ReplyDeleteIsrael, fighting for it;s survival, invaded a bordering nation...
And stayed.
They went in in 1982 and all the troops didn't leave until 2000.
In fact, Israel still occupies a small portion of Lebanon.
The results?
1. Hezbollah
2. Syrian dominance of Lebanon
3. Israeli condemnation for allowing the Sabra and Shatila genocide.
.
1. Hezbollah is an iranian proxy. Israel did not create it.
Delete2. Israel does not occupy any of Lebanon, the UN certified it.
3. Syria has dominated Lebanon for DECADES before Israel even set foot in it..
4. Israel did not commit the Sabra and Shatila slaughter, Christians in retaliation for Palestinian murders did..
Fact is Lebanon has been hostile and war like to Israel.
israel did in fact finally got a peace treaty signed and was promptly voided by Syria.
If you don't want israel to Invade you? Dont allow the use of your lands to be launching pads for terror..
America would not stand for it, why should Israel?
No nation would stand for it..
Now the results are clear.
Hezbollah (an Iranian proxy), Assad and Iran are slaughtering hundreds of thousands in Syria....
Yeah what happened to the disarmament ?
DeleteWhat happened to the Blue Helmets ?
Iran has put missiles both north and south (Gaza) of Israel.
All this shit started after the fall of the Shah.
It is all the fault of the Iranians.
Israel ought to depopulate/demilitarize the entire area up to the Litani at least.
The US made a mistake under Lyndon Johnson by not responding to the attack on the US Liberty. Had they done so in a suitably disproportionate manner, the Middle East would be better off today. Israel has been punching above it’s own weight ever since and has thoroughly corrupted the easily corruptible Washington establisment.
DeleteWho paid and pays? Not Israel . Not the Neocons and not the Iraeli-firsters.
It's time my Dr. Ben Carson to bow out with some grace. A fine man, the best man in the race, it's time to call it quits.
DeleteBen, you've made your point - our political system weeds out the best. There's no reason to stay in any longer.
The Liberty, The Liberty, The Liberty....and we don't really know for certain what happened with The Liberty.
DeleteMakes a handy rope to loop around Israel's neck though, whenever needed.
USA shot an Iranian civilian airliner out of the sky killing all aboard but we never hear about that around these parts....
I'm sick of hearing about The Liberty, which happened during the heat of war.
The only reason I can think of for Ben staying in is to somehow help The Donald, hoping for the VP pick. He's never said he wouldn't accept a VP pick.
DeleteHow his staying in helps The Donald I don't know.
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Delete1. Hezbollah is an iranian proxy. Israel did not create it.
Irrelevant regarding the point made. There would be no Hezbollah except for the 'continued' occupation of Lebanon by Israel through the 1980's. It was formed in direct response to the Israeli invasion in 1982 and the continued occupation until 2000.
2. Israel does not occupy any of Lebanon, the UN certified it.
Initially.
But they eventually agreed with Lebanon and Syria that the Shebaa Farms, occupied by Israel, actually belong to Lebanon. But why nitpick, whether the farms belong to Lebanon or Syria they are still occupied territory held by Israel.
3. Syria has dominated Lebanon for DECADES before Israel even set foot in it..
Syria had always claimed that Lebanon was actually part of 'greater Syria', and they did invade in 1976 for the same reason Israel did six years later, to put down the Lebanese Palestinians and leftist; however, until 1982 when Israel invaded, they did have an Arab League mandate as a 'peacekeeping' force. However, in 1982 their 'legal' basis ended and they became a de jure as well as de facto occupying force like Israel.
4. Israel did not commit the Sabra and Shatila slaughter, Christians in retaliation for Palestinian murders did..
Don't be obtuse. Of course, Israel was complicit in the genocide.
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Why did Israel invade Lebanon in 1982 ?
Delete.
DeleteUSA shot an Iranian civilian airliner out of the sky killing all aboard but we never hear about that around these parts....
You and WiO bring this up occasionally. Deuce brings it up all the time in pointing out why Iran might possibly have a negative view of the US. I am not aware of anyone here trying to defend it.
On the other hand,
"I will never apologize for the United States — I don't care what the facts are... I'm not an apologize-for-America kind of guy." - George Bush, Aug 2 1988
These are the words of the (at time) Vice President of the United States after a civilian aircraft carrying 290 passengers, 66 of which were children, was shot down by the reckless USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988. The coverup and lack of apology, continues to this day.
Current events being what they are I thought it would be an appropriate time to bring this up. The rest of this post will be derived from the wiki of the incident. It is worth the time to read the entire article and all the supporting links.
"The plane, an Airbus A300B2, registered as EP-IBU and flown by Captain Mohsen Rezaian, a veteran pilot with 7,000 hours of flight time, left Bandar Abbas at 10:17 am Iran time (UTC +03:30), 27 minutes after its scheduled departure time. It should have been a 28-minute flight. After takeoff, it was directed by the Bandar Abbas tower to turn on its transponder and proceed over the Persian Gulf. The flight was assigned routinely to commercial air corridor Amber 59, a twenty-mile (32 km)-wide lane on a direct line to Dubai airport. The short distance made for a simple flight pattern: climb to 14,000 feet (4,300 m), cruise for a short time, and descend into Dubai. The airliner was transmitting the correct transponder "squawk" code typical of a civilian aircraft and maintained English-speaking radio contact with appropriate air traffic control facilities..."
"On the morning of 3 July, the Vincennes was passing through the Strait of Hormuz returning from an escort duty. A helicopter from the USS Vincennes received small arms fire from Iranian patrol vessels, as it observed from high altitude. The Vincennes moved to engage the Iranian vessels, in the course of which they all violated Omani waters and left after being challenged and ordered to leave by a Royal Navy of Oman warship. The Vincennes then pursued the Iranian gunboats, entering Iranian territorial waters to open fire. The USS Sides and USS Elmer Montgomery were nearby. Thus, the USS Vincennes was in Iranian territorial waters at the time of the incident, as admitted by the US government in legal briefs and publicly by Admiral William Crowe on Nightline. Admiral Crowe denied a U.S. government coverup of the incident and claimed that the USS Vincennes's helicopter was in international waters initially, when it was first fired upon by the Iranian gunboats..."
"Contrary to the accounts of various USS Vincennes crewmembers, the Iranian airliner was climbing at the time and its radio transmitter was "squawking" on the Mode III civilian code only rather than on military Mode II, as recorded by the USS Vincennes' shipboard Aegis Combat System."
"After receiving no response to multiple radio challenges, the USS Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles at the airliner. One of the missiles hit the airliner, which exploded and fell in fragments into the water. Everyone on board was killed."
{...}
Delete{...}
Of course a coverup took place and the official position of the US Government was that theVincennes mistakenly identified the Iranian airliner as an attacking military fighter. However as mentioned above all evidence points otherwise and it was to later come out that the Captain was a loose cannon:
"The destruction of the aircraft "marked the horrifying climax to Captain Rogers' aggressiveness, first seen four weeks ago."His comment referred to incidents on 2 June, when Rogers had sailed the Vincennes too close to an Iranian frigate undertaking a lawful search of a bulk carrier, launched a helicopter within 2–3 miles (3.2–4.8 km) of an Iranian small craft despite rules of engagement requiring a four-mile (6.4 km) separation, and opened fire on small Iranian military boats."
Iran did not buy the 'fighter jet' excuse:
"Even if the aircraft had been an Iranian F-14, Iran argued, the U.S. would have had no right to shoot it down. The aircraft was flying within Iranian airspace and did not follow a path that could be considered an attack profile, nor did it illuminate the Vincennes with radar. During the incident, the Vincennes had also covertly entered Iranian territorial waters without first declaring war, while aiding Iraq's 1980–1988 war against Iran.Regardless of any mistakes made by the crew, the U.S. was fully responsible for the actions of its warship under international law."
"Iran pointed out that in the past "the United States has steadfastly condemned the shooting down of aircraft, whether civil or military, by the armed forces of another State" and cited El Al Flight 402, Libyan Arab Airlines Flight 114 and Korean Air Lines Flight 007, among other incidents. Iran also noted that when Iraq attacked the USS Stark, United States found Iraq fully responsible on the grounds that the Iraqi pilot "knew or should have known" that he was attacking a U.S. warship..."
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/7/18/1314985/--I-Will-Never-Apologize-Iran-Flight-665-Shot-Down-290-Dead
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Idaho BobWed Feb 24, 10:54:00 AM EST
ReplyDeleteThe Liberty, The Liberty, The Liberty....and we don't really know for certain what happened with The Liberty.
Makes a handy rope to loop around Israel's neck though, whenever needed.
USA shot an Iranian civilian airliner out of the sky killing all aboard but we never hear about that around these parts....
I’m sick of hearing about The Liberty, which happened during the heat of war.
We do know what happened. There is no doubt. You are tired of it. Tough shit.
:)
DeleteWhy argue with you ?
I'm off the topic.
After half a century things slip off my radar screen, anyway.
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DeleteUsually after a few hours things slip off your radar.
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The USS Liberty was defying orders and was 10 miles off the Gaza coast during a hot war between Egypt and Israel.
DeleteAll American ships were ordered OUT of the area.
The NSA had taken over the SPY ship and was in fact, listening on Israeli electric communications.
That is not disputed.
What is disputed is WHY Israel hit the ship, mistake or intentional.
In the end the Americans had no business being there.
As Deuce so wonderfully stated about Israel and lebanon..
"Israel had no business repeatedly invading Lebanon."
America had no business repeatedly spying on an ally during war without INFORMING Israel of the ship's presence.
It was either a mistake or on purpose that the USA did not inform Israel of a "friendly" being there.
Deuce has excused Hezbollah's blowing up the Marine's barracks in lebanon because America had no business there...
When you stick your nose in other nations business?
It might get punched..
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DeleteWhy did Israel invade Lebanon in 1982 ?
After continued attacks and counterattacks along the border between the PLO and IDF, Israel in 1982, using the assassination attempt on its UK ambassador as a casus belli invaded Lebanon.
They quickly drove the PLO out of Lebanon.
And then they stayed. They did so making the same mistake GWB did in Iraq. They tried to establish a friendly government. It didn't work too well.
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EVEN THE NEOCONS ARE GETTING TIRED OF ISRAEL’S BULLSHIT
ReplyDeleteDavid Cameron blasts Israel’s ‘genuinely shocking’ illegal settlements
David Cameron has branded Israel’s construction of illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land as “genuinely shocking”.
The Prime Minister said that though he was a strong supporter of Israel, he had been taken aback by what had seen first hands on visits to the occupied territories in Jerusalem.
“I am well-known as being a strong friend of Israel but I have to say the first time I visited Jerusalem and had a proper tour around that wonderful city and saw what has happened with the effective encirclement of East Jerusalem – occupied East Jerusalem – it is genuinely shocking,” he told MPs in the House of Commons.
“What this government has consistently done and gone on doing is saying yes, we are supporters of Israel, but we do not support illegal settlements, we do not support what is happening in East Jerusalem and it’s very important that this capital city is maintained in the way that it was in the past.”
The Prime Minister had been asked by Labour MP Imran Hussain what the Government was doing “to prevent the infringement into Palestinian lives and land”.
When England leaves the Fauklins let's talk...
DeleteBut more specific?
"East Jerusalem" includes the Western Wall, Mount of Olives, City of David and many other JEWISH Historic sites.
Sorry if that fact doesn't fit your fiction...
AND disputed lands are not automatically "palestinian" lands. So says UN Security Council Resolutions 181 and 242.
And the line is the best "capital city is maintained in the way that it was in the past.”
So no to improving the lives of people living in a Capital City...
Does this standard of FREEZING the city apply to any other disputed lands anywhere in the world?
No
So I'd say to the Brits? You have screwed up enough in the Middle East, go back to Londonstan and deal with your own jihadist center of the world....
and piss off...
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ReplyDeleteI'm sick of hearing about The Liberty, which happened during the heat of war.
Too bad.
I blame the US more than Israel, specifically LBJ for refusing to send in the jets. I don't know why Israel attacked the Liberty but I am convinced based on the evidence I have seen that they did it and that they did it deliberately. They may have had legitimate national security reasons for doing it, but it was still an act of war against an ally.
The reason I have talked about it dozens of times over the years is not because they did it but because of the argument raised by Allen when I first came to this blog that it was all a big accident, a mistake made in the fog of war. To my mind, the evidence weighs against that.
That, and lately the argument that if Israel really wanted to sink the Liberty they would have done so, a ridiculous argument unless you consider that the torpedoes they fired were all warning shots and the one that actually hit and blew away half the hull was because its stabilizing features were defective.
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The act of war was clear, spying on Israel during a war was an act of war.
DeleteComparing it to Hezbollah's actions against the USA is specious
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DeleteThe act of war was clear, spying on Israel during a war was an act of war.
Nonsense.
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The comment is so galling. Three months before the Jewish State of Israel killed the US Liberty, I watched US servicemen painting over the US insignia on F-4 Phantoms to be flow to the ungrateful bastards.
DeleteAs to the act of war. It would have been all the excuse needed and an opportunity missed to show the Israelis, our greatest ally ever, what an act of war looked like.
DeleteDeuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 01:05:00 PM EST
DeleteThe comment is so galling. Three months before the Jewish State of Israel killed the US Liberty, I watched US servicemen painting over the US insignia on F-4 Phantoms to be flow to the ungrateful bastards.
Just how are they "ungrateful bastards", they apologized and paid restitution..
I didn't see your pals, the Iranians or Hezbollah apologize for the Marine Bombing or the Embassy takeover....
Nor a thanks for the 150 billion..
This US marines were attacking another country. I don’t know how it would go in Ohio, but in Pennsylvania, if bombed and attacked by a foreign country and troops from that same country billeted themselves in any PA town, building or wherever, we will do our best to kill them.
Delete" I don't know why Israel attacked the Liberty"
ReplyDeleteQuirk
Then you don't know anything about it, so best keep your silence.
Maybe it was a mistake in the fog of war.
We weren't even at war when we shot down an unarmed Iranian civilian airliner killing all aboard.
It was an accident, a mistake.
Why not harp on that for a few years ?
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DeleteDon't be stupid.
If you have a random shooting where the shooter is taken down by the cops, you might not know exactly why the shooter started killing people but in most cases you can be pretty sure he did it.
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DeleteWe weren't even at war when we shot down an unarmed Iranian civilian airliner killing all aboard.
It was an accident, a mistake.
Why? Because the US says so?
Our bombing in Libya also didn't result in any collateral damage.
Check Wiki on the details of the shoot down.
If it was an accident, a mistake, why do we even today refuse to apologize for it?
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Cause that's the way we roll?
DeleteAre you suggesting USA shot down an Iranian civilian airliner killing all on board on purpose ?
And you are bitching about Israel ??
Really ???
And don't be stupid yourself.
We know the Liberty incident happened. We don't know why or exactly how it happened.
Quirk: These are the words of the (at time) Vice President of the United States after a civilian aircraft carrying 290 passengers, 66 of which were children, was shot down by the reckless USS Vincennes on July 3, 1988. The coverup and lack of apology, continues to this day.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find interesting is that the photos splashed on all the magazines at the time showed floating bodies right after the shoot down..
I know of no other aircraft downing that had bodies floating in the water..
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DeleteSo?
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recently dead bodies do not float.
Delete.
DeleteYou miss my point.
Are you actually suggesting that the bodies were planted?
That the Vincennes didn't shoot the plane down?
What are you saying?
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QuirkWed Feb 24, 11:56:00 AM EST
ReplyDelete.
1. Hezbollah is an iranian proxy. Israel did not create it.
Irrelevant regarding the point made. There would be no Hezbollah except for the 'continued' occupation of Lebanon by Israel through the 1980's. It was formed in direct response to the Israeli invasion in 1982 and the continued occupation until 2000.
Yes formed by Iran. And one can argue that Hezbollah's continued existence AFTER Israel left lebanon is proof that Iran and Hezbollah are not playing by the same rules as you are.
2. Israel does not occupy any of Lebanon, the UN certified it.
Initially.
But they eventually agreed with Lebanon and Syria that the Shebaa Farms, occupied by Israel, actually belong to Lebanon. But why nitpick, whether the farms belong to Lebanon or Syria they are still occupied territory held by Israel.
Bullshit.
3. Syria has dominated Lebanon for DECADES before Israel even set foot in it..
Syria had always claimed that Lebanon was actually part of 'greater Syria', and they did invade in 1976 for the same reason Israel did six years later, to put down the Lebanese Palestinians and leftist; however, until 1982 when Israel invaded, they did have an Arab League mandate as a 'peacekeeping' force. However, in 1982 their 'legal' basis ended and they became a de jure as well as de facto occupying force like Israel.
Syria did not have to "invade it" before they did due to the Syrian secret police that had free reign of murder and control...
4. Israel did not commit the Sabra and Shatila slaughter, Christians in retaliation for Palestinian murders did..
Don't be obtuse. Of course, Israel was complicit in the genocide.
Of course they were not, and it was NOT a genocide. it was a slaughter. And the Israelis did not commit the murders. The Christians did.
To argue your point? Then the slaughter of 360,000 in Syria is Assad's, Iran's, America's fault...
Slippery slope...
Complicit..
LOL
bullshit word play.
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DeleteYes formed by Iran. And one can argue that Hezbollah's continued existence AFTER Israel left lebanon is proof that Iran and Hezbollah are not playing by the same rules as you are.
My initial comment was simple. Hezbollah.
Hezbollah was formed in Lebanon in 1987, five years after Israel invaded Lebanon, five years after the PLO (Israel's reason for the invasion) had been kicked out of Lebanon. If not for Israel's 'continued' occupation of Lebanon, there would have been no Hezbollah.
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You have no way of knowing that.
DeleteOr you could say, if only all the Jews of Israel had slit their throats?
DeleteThe PLO would never have been formed...
Nonsense logic
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DeleteBullshit
The Controversy
Controversy over Shebaa Farms flared up in 2000 following Israel's withdrawal from South Lebanon after 22 years of occupation beginning in 1978, and in belated compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 425.
The United Nations certified that Israel had withdrawn from all Lebanese territory. Hezbollah, the militant Shiite militia and political organization that controls South Lebanon, insisted that Israel was still occupying Shebaa Farms, and that Hezbollah would continue its attacks on Israel until Israel withdrew. Israel maintains that Shebaa Farms was Syrian territory when Israel occupied it, and that Hezbollah has no claim.
Lebanon and Shebaa Farms
The Lebanese government, however, officially seconds Hezbollah's position. And, in fact, the United Nations subsequently confirmed that the village of Shebaa itself, after which some 14 farms that make up Shebaa Farms are named, is in Lebanese territory, thus establishing that Israel seized the village of Shebaa, in Lebanese territory, during its 1967 invasion.
According to the Shebaa Farms Foundation, "Lebanese and Syrian officials insisted that Syria had officially given the territory to Lebanon in 1951. Lebanese officials pointed to the fact that a number of residents in the area have land deeds stamped by the Lebanese government. Lebanese army maps published in 1961 and 1966 specifically pinpoint several of the Shebaa Farms, including Zebdine, Fashkoul, Mougr Shebaa and Ramta, all of which are designated as being lebanese.
Lebanese Ministry of Tourism maps also show the Lebanese-Syrian border running west of the Shebaa Farms. Syria has officially acknowledged the Farms are Lebanese..."
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What is beyond question is this: the land known as Shebaa Farms belongs either to Lebanon or to Syria, not to Israel. But it is illegally occupied by Israel according to the United Nations.
http://middleeast.about.com/od/lebanon/f/shebaa-farms-faq-lebanon.htm
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DeleteOf course they were not, and it was NOT a genocide. it was a slaughter. And the Israelis did not commit the murders. The Christians did.
On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the Sabra and Shatila massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide.[121] The voting record[122][123][124] on section D of Resolution 37/123, which "resolves that the massacre was an act of genocide", was: yes: 123; no: 0; abstentions: 22; non-voting: 12.
No country voted against the resolution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War
==================================
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the killing of between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by a militia close to the Kataeb Party, also called Phalange, a predominantly Christian Lebanese right-wing party in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. From approximately 6:00 pm 16 September to 8:00 am 18 September 1982, a widespread massacre was carried out by the militia virtually under the eyes of their Israeli allies.[4][5][6][7] The Phalanges, allies to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), were ordered by the IDF to clear out Sabra and Shatila from PLO fighters, as part of the IDF maneuvering into West Beirut. The IDF received reports of some of the Phalanges atrocities in Sabra and Shatila but failed to stop them.[8]
===================
The massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. It was wrongly assumed that Palestinian militants had carried out the assassination. In June 1982, the Israel Defense Forces had invaded Lebanon with the intention of rooting out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). By mid-1982, under the supervision of the Multinational Force, the PLO withdrew from Lebanon following weeks of battles in West Beirut and shortly before the massacre took place. Various forces — Israeli, Phalangists and possibly also the South Lebanon Army (SLA) — were in the vicinity of Sabra and Shatila at the time of the slaughter, taking advantage of the fact that the Multinational Force had removed barracks and mines that had encircled Beirut's predominantly Muslim neighborhoods and kept the Israelis at bay during the Beirut siege.[9] The Israeli advance over West Beirut in the wake of the PLO withdrawal, which enabled the Phalangist raid, was considered a violation of the ceasefire agreement between the various forces.[10] The Israeli Army surrounded Sabra and Shatila and stationed troops at the exits of the area to prevent camp residents from leaving and, at the Phalangists' request,[11] fired illuminating flares at night.[12][13]
=========================
In 1983, a commission chaired by Seán MacBride, the assistant to the UN Secretary General and President of United Nations General Assembly at the time, concluded that Israel, as the camp's occupying power, bore responsibility for the violence.[19] The commission also concluded that the massacre was a form of genocide.[20]
==========================
In 1983, the Israeli Kahan Commission, appointed to investigate the incident, found that Israeli military personnel, aware that a massacre was in progress, had failed to take serious steps to stop it. The commission deemed Israel indirectly responsible, and Ariel Sharon, then Defense Minister, bore personal responsibility "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge", forcing him to resign.[21]
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Phone call from Niece !!
ReplyDeleteDoing great !!
I doubt she's ever heard of the Liberty of Vincennes incidents.
Life goes on.
She is however well aware to stay away from Moslems in Germany.
I wouldn't brag about a racial profiler.
DeleteQuirkWed Feb 24, 12:38:00 PM EST
ReplyDelete.
The act of war was clear, spying on Israel during a war was an act of war.
Nonsense.
Quirk contends that the ILLEGAL spying by the USS Liberty on Israel DURING the war, and giving said intel to the Egyptians was not an act of war...
LOL
In the Quirk Universe maybe..
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DeleteQuirk contends that the ILLEGAL spying by the USS Liberty on Israel DURING the war, and giving said intel to the Egyptians was not an act of war...
There is no proof the US was giving Egypt any information on Israel's battle plans. The Liberty was in international waters and it made sense for the US to be monitoring EVERYTHING that was going on there. Your provincial interest in things Israeli is amusing but you seems to forget the US had bigger fish to fry at that time, things like the Cold War, the fact that Russia was involved in the ME too and a wrong move by ANY of the players could have resulted in a major escalation, the fact that the US didn't need the bullshit with the Vietnam war cranking up. Israel was the only reason the Liberty was in Mediterranean waters.
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Your last sentence makes gibberish of your second sentence, or, if you prefer, your second sentence makes gibberish of your last sentence.
DeleteYour choice.
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DeleteBob, go away.
You're comments are too stupid to bother with. They don't make any sense.
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Not even two cents?
DeleteMy Niece doesn't like Trump.
ReplyDeleteIt's gonna be The Donald vs. The Beast in Female Form.
ReplyDeleteIt's gonna be interesting.
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ReplyDeleteAs to illegal...
The Hague Convention of 1907 addresses the status of wartime spies, specifically within "Laws and Customs of War on Land" (Hague IV); October 18, 1907: CHAPTER II Spies".[58] Article 29 states that a person is considered a spy who, acts clandestinely or on false pretenses,
[The Liberty was carrying the largest array of antennas and radio and communication devices of any ship in the world. Only an idiot would not know its purpose. And it was flying the American colors.]
infiltrates enemy lines with the intention of acquiring intelligence about the enemy
[The Liberty was in international waters and Israel was not an enemy but an ally.]
and communicate it to the belligerent during times of war.
[As noted above, there is no proof the US transmitted anything to anybody.]
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Soldiers who penetrates enemy lines in proper uniforms for the purpose of acquiring intelligence are not considered spies but are lawful combatants entitled to be treated as prisoners of war upon capture by the enemy. Article 30 states that a spy captured behind enemy lines may only be punished following a trial. However, Article 31 provides that if a spy successfully rejoined his own military and is then captured by the enemy as a lawful combatant, he cannot be punished for his previous acts of espionage and must be treated as a prisoner of war. Note that this provision does not apply to citizens who committed treason against their own country or co-belligerents of that country and may be captured and prosecuted at any place or any time regardless whether he rejoined the military to which he belongs or not or during or after the war.[59][60]
Blah blah blah, Quirk.
ReplyDeleteYou've already said you don't know what happened.
Quit with the gibberish, already.
You are making a fool of yourself.
"I don't know why Israel attacked the Liberty"
Quirk
Then you don't know anything about it, so best keep your silence.
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DeleteI'm sure you'll excuse me if I ignore your advice.
Then you don't know anything about it, so best keep your silence.
Another senseless comment from the leader of the IMA.
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Soldiers who penetrates enemy lines in proper uniforms for the purpose of acquiring intelligence are not considered spies but are lawful combatants entitled to be treated as prisoners of war upon capture by the enemy.
DeleteSo they were lawful combatants
They got their noses punched.
Lawfully.
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DeleteMore silliness.
The Liberty was in international waters. But you know this.
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International waters means nothing if you are doing things that are an act of war.
DeleteAmerica did it all the time in WW1 and WW2
QuirkWed Feb 24, 03:13:00 PM EST
Delete.
More silliness.
The Liberty was in international waters. But you know this.
So you re saying that America never attacked a ship in international waters?
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ReplyDeleteDemocratic Party superdelegates are undemocratic
CNN's Jake Tapper asked Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz why the Democratic Party would embrace such a plainly undemocratic process. Here's what she said:
"Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don't have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists."
In other words, the Democratic Party's superdelegates exist to preserve the power and influence of the Democratic Party's elite. Well that makes perfect sense -- if you're, say, the inherently elitist, pro-big business, rich Republican Party. But not if you're supposed to be the party that protects the interests of regular Americans.
And sure, there's an argument to be made that both parties should have a fail-safe way to prevent the sort of cataclysmic disaster of the kind Donald Trump is creating by becoming the GOP nominee. But democracy is democracy, folks. We're supposed to stand by the process even if we don't like the outcome...
http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/23/opinions/superdelegates-democratic-party-kohn/index.html
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ReplyDeleteAfter S.C. and Nevada, Trumps lead explodes in the delegate count.
Trump: 81
Rubio: 17
Cruz: 17
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-delegate-tracker/
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Deuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 10:34:00 AM EST
ReplyDeleteThe US made a mistake under Lyndon Johnson by not responding to the attack on the US Liberty. Had they done so in a suitably disproportionate manner, the Middle East would be better off today. Israel has been punching above it’s own weight ever since and has thoroughly corrupted the easily corruptible Washington establishment.
If only America had destroyed Israel we could have peace in our time?
Quirk makes the contention that the USA was an "ally" of Israel in 1967.
ReplyDelete"During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status."
The USS Liberty was not supposed to be there. Orders were issued to the Liberty to leave the area.
THESE ORDERS WERE DISOBEYED
After the war erupted, due to concerns about her safety as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to increase her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 and 6.5 nmi (14.4 and 7.5 mi; 23.2 and 12.0 km), respectively, to 20 and 15 nmi (23 and 17 mi; 37 and 28 km), and then later to 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) for both countries.
Sounds like someone on the Liberty was acting on their own...
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Delete"During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status."
Fine. I'll give you that one. Israel and the US weren't allies. So, Israel instead attacked a neutral non-combatant.
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DeleteAfter the war erupted, due to concerns about her safety as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to increase her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 and 6.5 nmi (14.4 and 7.5 mi; 23.2 and 12.0 km), respectively, to 20 and 15 nmi (23 and 17 mi; 37 and 28 km), and then later to 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) for both countries.
:o)
Funny how a little careful editing can change a story.
From Wiki...
During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status.[10] Several days before the war began, the USS Liberty was ordered to proceed to the eastern Mediterranean area to perform a signals intelligence collection mission in international waters near the north coast of Sinai, Egypt.[11] After the war erupted, due to concerns about her safety as she approached her patrol area, several messages were sent to Liberty to increase her allowable closest point of approach (CPA) to Egypt's and Israel's coasts from 12.5 and 6.5 nmi (14.4 and 7.5 mi; 23.2 and 12.0 km), respectively, to 20 and 15 nmi (23 and 17 mi; 37 and 28 km), and then later to 100 nmi (120 mi; 190 km) for both countries.[12] Unfortunately, due to ineffective message handling and routing, the CPA change messages were not received until after the attack.[12]
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DeleteSounds like someone on the Liberty was acting on their own...
Please, not your piracy/mutiny theory again.
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do you KNOW that last part?
DeleteReally?
How LUCKY that the United States MOST advanced communications ship could not receive 3 messages!!!!!!
Now I call BULLSHIT
QuirkWed Feb 24, 06:47:00 PM EST
Delete.
Sounds like someone on the Liberty was acting on their own...
Please, not your piracy/mutiny theory again.
No piracy, no mutiny. Simple really, the NSA commanded the ship to do NSA business.
Spy on Israel, give the intel to the Egyptians.
Sounds SIMPLE....
America has now admitted it has spied on Israel as well as most of the US allies for the previous 50 years....
DeleteWhy is it so hard to wrap your brain around the concept that the Liberty was up to no good???
Simple facts.
DeleteThe most advanced spy ship with the most advanced comm gear failed to listen to 3 direct orders to leave the war zone.
They did not inform the israelis of their presence just 10 miles off the coast of gaza, in fact the testimony of the sailors puts them within 4 miles of the coast.
12 nautical miles
Territorial waters or a territorial sea as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most 12 nautical miles (22.2 km; 13.8 mi) from the baseline (usually the mean low-water mark) of a coastal state.
Do we really KNOW where they were?
If they were 10 miles off shore?
They were NOT in international waters...
Hmmmm
The more we learn the more it stinks...
Why would America let a ship sail into a war zone without telling the nations that the ship was there?
ReplyDeleteMaybe the Israelis inaccurately determined that it was an Egyptian ship flying USA flags and markings. Maybe WiO is right above that the Liberty was acting on its own. It was quite close into shore.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate it is a very murky situation and it is only brought up by those that have it in for Israel, I have noticed that.
It's an attitudinal 'tell'.
Only an asshole that was never in the service would speculate that a US navy ship would go rogue. A good part of the crew were sunbathing. There was nothing murky about it. Israel has been the single biggest diplomatic blunder in all of US history.
ReplyDeleteAid has begun arriving in some of the remote areas of Fiji that were hit hardest by Cyclone Winston at the weekend.
ReplyDelete...
Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama toured some of the devastated areas, reassuring residents that help was on the way.
...
The financial impact of the cyclone was also being calculated and was already believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
It came out the other day that USA has been spying on Israel all the way through.
ReplyDeleteDidn't surprise me any.
And what I said was:
"Maybe the Israelis inaccurately determined that it was an Egyptian ship flying USA flags and markings."
Chill out.
This asshole stood for the draft lottery.
DeleteOthers did what they did.
DAYS after devastating Cyclone Winston ripped through Fiji, holidaymakers are being urged to return to island resorts as it’s “the best way to help Fiji to recover”.
ReplyDelete...
“The best way to help Fiji to recover is for visitors to come on over, spend their holiday dollars, and help these warm welcoming people keep their jobs and feed their families,” Mr Duncan, the CEO of Awesome Adventures Fiji and South Sea Cruises, said.
Mr Duncan praised the incredible spirit of the Fijian people.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cb8N5fSW8AE0Gr3.jpg:large
ReplyDelete.
DeleteSaw her latest add.
It's got guy talking about what a tough ob the presidency is and how Hillary fits the bill. It sounds like they hired a Ronald Reagan impersonator. I swear, the guy sounds just like him.
Politicians have no shame.
.
They're all dicks, save Ben Carson.
DeleteNon-dicks finish last.
It's discouraging.
What's happened to my beloved Fox News ?
DeleteAll of a sudden I'm getting some European station blabbing about money. And now they are washing a baby ape in Bristol, England.
I hate soccer news between Ukraine and Ivory Coast.
DeleteAustralian Defence Minister Marise Payne says HMAS Canberra will be dispatched to assist Fiji with the amphibious vessel expected to arrive on March 1.
ReplyDeleteFour Globemaster cargo planes have already arrived, carrying 19 tonnes of supplies along with aircraft and personnel while Australia has also sent a six-person medical assistance team, 32 defence personnel and staff from the immigration and trade departments to help Australians get home.
Aid workers have warned of potential outbreaks of the Zika and Dengue viruses, both carried by mosquitoes which could breed in the stagnant water left by the storm.
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DeleteFiji is what, about the size of Puerto Rico?
.
Come on, you remember Fiji.
DeleteWhere you got soused and danced around in a see through grass skirt and got arrested, and then sent to the nude beach.
Puerto Rico was where you got drunk and applied for US Aid and got arrested and air mailed back to Detroit.
Deuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 06:31:00 PM EST
ReplyDeleteOnly an asshole that was never in the service would speculate that a US navy ship would go rogue. A good part of the crew were sunbathing. There was nothing murky about it. Israel has been the single biggest diplomatic blunder in all of US history.
It disobeyed 3 direct orders...
The NSA took the ship over.
Sounds very clear to me that the crew were played by our NSA.
They have done it before and they will do it again...
Hey, how's Benghazi doing?
Israel has been the single biggest diplomatic blunder in all of US history. - Deuce, noted Israel hater.
DeleteYou have a right to your opinion. It funny that it doesn't JIVE with the majority of Americans nor elected leaders.
You support Iran and Hamas.
I dont...
QuirkWed Feb 24, 06:40:00 PM EST
ReplyDelete.
"During the Six-Day War between Israel and several Arab nations, the United States of America maintained a neutral country status."
Fine. I'll give you that one. Israel and the US weren't allies. So, Israel instead attacked a neutral non-combatant.
Who says they were really neutral? Spying on Israel and passing on the electronic war map to egypt certainly shows hostility to Israel.
.
DeleteYou did. I was merely responding to the statement in quotes above. A statement YOU posted.
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Deuce ☂Wed Feb 24, 06:31:00 PM EST
ReplyDeleteOnly an asshole that was never in the service would speculate that a US navy ship would go rogue. A good part of the crew were sunbathing. There was nothing murky about it. Israel has been the single biggest diplomatic blunder in all of US history.
You lose credibility by calling me names...
Just proves your lack of ability to communicate and the classlessness of your personality.
Deuce you hate Israel, love the Iranians, Syrians, Hezbollah and the Palestinians (including Hamas)
ReplyDeleteWow...
How far you have fallen..
USS Liberty cost 34 American sailors
ReplyDeleteIran and the Palestinians have murdered scores and scores more and you find no fault with them.
Deuce's pals
ReplyDeleteThe Islamic Republic of Iran announced on Wednesday its support for the "Jerusalem intifada" that Israel has been witnessing for the past five months, declaring that it would give financial rewards to families of Palestinian terrorists.
Speaking at a press conference in Beirut on Wednesday, with the participation of several leaders of Palestinian factions, Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Fathali, said: "Continuing Iran's support for the oppressed Palestinian people, Iran announces the provision of financial aid to families of Palestinian martyrs who were killed in the "Jerusalem intifada."
According to the ambassador, every family of a martyr will receive $7,000, while a family whose home was demolished by the IDF will receive $30,000. The aid will be conveyed through the Palestinian branch of the Shahid Institution, which was established in Iran in 1992.
Fathali called on the Arab Muslim nation to unite around the central Palestinian issue and said that "the martyrs' blood will release the entire Palestine, from the river to the sea."
Sounds exactly as if the Iranians are planning, attempting, encouraging and funding genocide to me.
DeleteHow do you read that, Quirk ?
"from the river to the sea"
That sounds genocidal, to me.
.
DeleteWell, I wouldn't say that Iran is doing any 'planning' and 'attempting' but they are certainly encouraging and funding.
Definitely encouraging the terrorism.
As for genocidal, that kind of depends on if the plan were to kill all the Jews in Israel/Palestinian. Despite the chants of 'Death to Israel' both Khamenei and Rouhani have indicated that they are not talking about normal military action against Israel.
In his book, Khamenei lays out the principles he is talking about. He is against the Israeli state. What he is suggesting is a continuing low level aggression, read terrorism, so as to make life in Israel so miserable that the Israelis will simply pick up and leave. In this sense, the idea of supporting the families of the Palestinian terrorists would seem to be consistent. When you think about it, the plan doesn't seem all that practical.
Rouhani on the other hand is talking a softer game,
Khamenei is getting to be pretty old. He is already making succession plans. It will be interesting to see which way Iran moves once he is gone.
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And here I thought he was calling me as asshole.
ReplyDelete:)
Anyway I didn't respond in kind, being of the middle classes.
Your self-consciousness did not go unnoticed.
DeleteSyria's opposition indicated on Wednesday it was ready for a two-week truce in Syria, saying it was a chance to test the seriousness of the other side's commitment to a U.S.-Russian plan for a cessation of hostilities.
ReplyDelete...
But it objected to Russia being a guarantor of the truce alongside the United States, saying Russia was a direct party to the conflict, and that the plan ignored the role Assad allies Russia and Iran were playing.
Pat Robertson is sucking up to The Donald.
ReplyDeletePAT ROBERTSON TELLS TRUMP 'YOU INSPIRE US ALL'.....Drudge
This really sucks.
On Tuesday:
ReplyDelete• Republicans will award 595 delegates in 11 state races, with 1,237 delegates needed to clinch the nomination.
• Democrats will award 865 delegates in 11 states and American Samoa, with 2,383 needed for the nomination.
The election calendar suggests that if Trump's rivals don't slow him by mid-March, they may not ever.
How come we don't get Samoa?
Quirk, a Republican 'big wig' of the old school, traded American Samoa for American Fiji, which he figured had more fat heavy fruit eating voters than Samoa, who look more like Republicans. He gave them all cigars and a ballot and had 'em mark "Trump" on it, and flew off into the Blue Yonder.
Delete