Posts filed under ‘Middle East’
Those Poor Israelis?
Most of the news we get about the endless Israeli/Palestinian conflict implies that the Palestinians just won’t leave the poor Israelis alone. That’s because here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. it’s considered sacrilegious to say anything negative about Israel. Yet it’s amazing to me the Palestinians aren’t more militant than they are what with the Israelis forever picking away at them by doing things like this:
(Imge via Library.Bethlehem.edu)
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Israeli forces destroyed over 1,300 olive trees in the south Hebron hills on Tuesday.
Israeli soldiers accompanied officials from Israel’s civil administration as demolition crews uprooted hundreds of olive trees in the village of Susiya, Ma’an’s reporter said.
According to B’Tselem, there are 26 outstanding Israeli demolition orders in the village.
In February 2012, right-wing settler advocacy group Regavim petitioned Israel’s supreme court on behalf of an Israeli settlement overshadowing the village, calling for Israeli authorities to implement the demolition orders.
Meanwhile, settlers from Karmi Tzur uprooted 30 olive trees east of Halhul, local Saeed Madiyah told Ma’an.
In al-Malih and al-Madareb, in the Jordan Valley, Israeli forces demolished 15 animal shelters belonging to Bedouins in the area.
It’s a heartbreaking situation.
New York Post: 12 Dead in Boston, Suspect is a “Saudi National”
Time will tell how much of this hysterical headline from the New York Post is true:
And then there’s this sentence which is included in the body of the article:
Authorities have a identified a suspect, a Saudi national, who is currently being guarded in a Boston hospital with shrapnel wounds.
Let’s check back in a day or two regarding these ahem, “facts.”
Ah Yes, Memories of How the United States Went Insane Over the Iraq War
Ten years ago. From CNN:
Dixie Chicks Pulled From Air After Bashing Bush
DALLAS, Texas (Reuters) –There are a lot worse things in country music than your wife leaving you or your dog dying. There’s stations not playing your music because you done gone and said some things against the president.
Music superstars the Dixie Chicks are finding out that criticizing President Bush’s plans for war in Iraq can cost you air play, big time.
Country stations across the United States have pulled the Chicks from playlists following reports that lead singer Natalie Maines said in a concert in London earlier this week that she was “ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.”
Love how CNN tossed its journalist cred and signaled it was on Bush’s side when it titled its article, “Dixie Chicks Pulled From Air After Bashing Bush.” Bashing Bush? Really?
That’s how insane we were. Bush & Co. said mushroom clouds were on the way and when the Dixie Chicks saw through that, as so many of us did, and said they were “ashamed,” CNN said they were “bashing” Bush when they should have been questioning him too.
Such bad memories.
I’ve read a couple blurbs today about how the American public “just doesn’t want to remember the Iraq war” and I’m kind of in that camp. It’s so upsetting. We went insane, lead by our still-crappy, sheep-like, stenographic, Washington-centric, corporate-owned media.
Sadly, all signs point to it being able to happen again.
The U.S. Invasion of Iraq, Ten Years On
I don’t know what to say on this, the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I was against the war before it began and I’ve been against it ever since. I thought we were being lied to all along and it turns out, that’s exactly what was happening.
So much misery.
In my opinion the invasion was one of the greatest tragedies the world has ever seen.
(It’s indicative of the fantasyland George Bush lived in when we’re reminded that Bush gave his “mission accomplished” speech six weeks — SIX WEEKS — after the March 19, 2003 invasion. (The war officially ended on December 15, 2011).)
Ten Years Ago Today, John McCain Cheered Us On to Invading Iraq
When I hear John McCain urging an attack on Iran (or any other country, which he’s fond of doing), I wonder why anyone listens to him. He got Iraq so, so wrong. As with bankers, there are no consequences.
(Image via MichaelHayes on Twitter)
The Right War for the Right Reasons
The critics also have it wrong when they say that the strategy of the United States for the opening hours of the conflict — likely to involve more than 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first two days — is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi people. It is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi military and to dissuade Iraqi leaders from using weapons of mass destruction against our forces or against neighboring countries, and from committing further atrocities against the Iraqi people.
The force our military uses will be less than proportional to the threat of injury we can expect to face should Saddam Hussein continue to build an arsenal of the world’s most destructive weapons.
[...]
sn’t it more likely that antipathy toward the United States in the Islamic world might diminish amid the demonstrations of jubilant Iraqis celebrating the end of a regime that has few equals in its ruthlessness?
The Iraq War: A “Smash and Grab” Robbery of American Taxpayer Dollars
William Rivers Pitt, a real journalist — we need a thousand more like him — on the run up to the Iraq war:
(Image via WithFriendship.com)
Over the last few years, MSNBC refashioned itself as the progressive news alternative to networks like Fox and CNN by giving Keith Olbermann an opportunity to do actual journalism on television for a few years, and by putting people like Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz front and center. Even Chris Matthews, the human weathervane, appears to have gotten the memo. But I remember a phone call I got from an MSNBC producer in February of 2003. Hans Blix and his weapons inspectors had not been in Iraq for 100 hours when this woman called me on my cell, told me she’d read my book, and asked me to appear on the network. There was, however, one caveat: she told me I was expected to argue that Blix and the inspectors were doing a terrible job and should be ignored, which just happened to be the exact line being peddled at the time by the Bush administration. I told the producer that I did not agree, that the inspectors needed to be given time to do their jobs, and that undermining them might lead to a devastating war. The MSNBC producer chuffed a cigarette-roughened laugh into my phone and hung up on me.
That happened – I remember the details not only because of how gruesome the conversation was, but because when she hung up on me, I almost lost control of my car and nearly wound up in the Charles River – and the fact of it tells you everything you need to know about MSNBC and the rest of the alphabet-soup cohort that is America’s “mainstream” news media. I did not do what that MSNBC producer asked me to, but you can bet all the money you have that she found someone who would a few phone calls later. You might have even seen it on TV.
[...]
The war against Iraq, in the end, was nothing more or less than a massive money-laundering operation that took American taxpayer dollars, soaked them in blood, and redirected them to Certain Friends In High Places. It was, as I said years ago, a smash-and-grab robbery[*] writ large, aided and abetted by an American “news” media which had its own profit motive, and which made a nifty sum off the whole deal. Even better for them, today they get to enjoy the ratings and advertising dollars to come when they broadcast their somber “documentaries” about how terrible it all was, how many lies were told, how many mistakes were made, and all without ever looking inward at their own enormous complicity.
* Halliburton, KBR, United Defense, the Carlyle Group, independent military contractors like Blackwater and a crowd of American oil companies are still counting the riches they earned from their participation in the carnage.
I’m proud to say I was one of the millions of people around the world who demonstrated (more than once) against the war. It has turned out pretty much exactly as I feared.
Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, John Bolton, Lindsay Graham and Erick Erickson Praise Obama’s Drone Plan/Kill list
They’re all warmongers so if they love it, I don’t!
(Image via WeAreHere.eu)
This:
GOP and TP on Obama’s Foreign Policy “Successes”
To wild GOP crowd cheers, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachman vehemently defend Obama’s assassination policy.
And this:
—-
Graham Defends Obama on Drones
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will offer a resolution next week commending President Barack Obama’s use of drones and the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.
—-
Skip the Drone Debate, Just Kill the Terrorists Before They Kill Us
We no longer have to transport ourselves to a magical alternate reality to ponder what a love child between Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney would look like. Given a Justice Department memo obtained by NBC News, we can conclude that child would look like none other than President Barack Obama.
“Just kill the terrorists before they kill us.” Land of the free and home of the brave? No. When I saw folks tearing up at the Super Bowl over those words I gagged.
We’re a scared bunch of sheeple. We stood by while almost 60,000 Americans were killed in Vietnam because our leaders told us the commies were coming to get us. Ten years ago yesterday, Colin Powell lied his face off in front of the United Nations Security Council and as a result, we invaded Iraq because they (I’m gagging again) supposedly had WMD and were ready to send a mushroom cloud over the U.S.
None of that was true.
Yet, again, we’re so scared of the lies we’ve told ourselves, all in the name of kill them before they kill us.
Defense spending — our tax dollars! — has doubled since 2001.
Ten years ago there was no such thing as the Department of Homeland Security but now we’re dumping untold billions dollars into that agency because it’s supposedly keeping us “safe.
And now we have drones — millions going to defense contractors for their new toys that we’re paying for — AGAIN, out of our tax dollars that — and President Obama’s kill list predicated on his supposed authority to kill Americans without their Constitutional right to be charged and tried by a jury of their piers.
They tell us these drone strikes are keeping us safe. But they aren’t: “Drone attacks are doing nothing but inciting more hatred” say Pakistani protesters. Google it yourself. There’s a whole bunch of info out there about how drone attacks are actually making us less after
So when will be again become the land of the free and the HOME OF THE BRAVE and when will we stop being scared little people who sacrifice their future for defense contractors and politicians who want to enrich them?
The Answer to Women Being Allowed to Drive in Saudi Arabia
Simultaneously sad and hilarious:
(Image via GlobalVoicesOnline.org)
The New York Times Reports Fact About Israel, But Then Changes its Mind
The lock the Israeli lobby in the United States has on the discussion of Israel’s occupation of Palestine is truly astonishing. Check out what the New York Times — a newspaper which says it offers “the world’s finest journalism” — did today when it told the truth (oops!) about that:
Screenshot #1. Note the headline: “Palestinians Set Up Camp in Israeli-Occupied West Bank Territory:”
(Image via ElectronicIntifada.net)
Uh oh. Israeli-occupied? That’s basically banned language around here because Israel doesn’t do things like that, or so “the worlds finest” journalists would have us believe. Look at how the headline reads now: “Palestinians Set Up Tents Where Israel Plans Homes:”
(Image via the NYTimes.com)
(More.)
Hey Bibi, It’s Only Been 65 Years
The State of Israel was established in 1947:
On 29 November 1947, the United Nations General Assembly recommended the adoption and implementation of the United Nations partition plan of Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization[8] and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared “the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.”
The Israelis and Palestinians have been fighting over territory ever since, which makes this comment by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so ridiculous:
(Image via Haaretz.com / Tomer Appelbaum)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized President Shimon Peres on Tuesday, after the latter called him to move forward with Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
“Contrary to voices I’m hearing over the last few days, urging me to rush forward, to give up, to withdraw, I think that in a political process one should act responsibly and not in a rush, with a realistic approach and not a hasty one,” Netanyahu said.
No, let’s not “rush” or make any “hasty” decisions Bibi. Let’s wait another 65 years and who-knows-how-many more deaths. Geezus. What an utter lack of leadership.
The U.N. Recognizes Palestinians, Tells the U.S. and Israel to Kiss Off
UPDATED.
This is such good news. The Palestinians have been shunned (thanks to Israel and the United States) long enough. I’m all for any move that gives oppressed people a voice. Bravo to the U.N.:
The United Nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to recognize a Palestinian state, a long-sought victory for the Palestinians but an embarrassing diplomatic defeat for the United States.
The resolution upgrading the Palestinians’ status to a nonmember observer state at the United Nations was approved by a more than two-thirds majority of the 193-member world body — a vote of 138-9, with 41 abstentions.
A Palestinian flag was quickly unfurled on the floor of the General Assembly, behind the Palestinian delegation.
(Image via TVNZ.co.nz)
Israel and the United States (embarrassingly) voted against the measure.
Thank god a majority of the members of the U.N. are less hateful and vindictive than the U.S. is; a big factor being that the Israeli lobby doesn’t have a choke-hold on their governments.
UPDATE: Here’s a list of the powerhouse (well, not exactly) nine nations that voted no with the U.S. on this:
Voting “no” Thursday were Israel, the United States and Canada, joined by the Czech Republic, Panama and several Pacific island nations: Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau. The Pacific nations typically support the U.S. and Israel at the U.N. on key General Assembly resolutions.
That’s right Americans. The Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau are on your side.
Geezus.
The “Liberal” U.S. Media Can’t Stop Bullshitting Itself About Israel and Gaza
Check out this photo the New York Times ran yesterday under the headline: On This, 2 Sides Agree: Fighting Hardened Positions:
(Image via Tyler Hicks / The New York Times)
The caption under the photo reads: “Girls at a Gaza school were stunned to find it closed.”
Read the article here or at the link above.
That said, I love the reaction from TheAngryArabNewsService which is spot on:
“Girls at a Gaza school were stunned to find it closed[?]“ No, you smart people of the Times. They are stunned obviously to see all that destruction.
Geezus. The NYTimes can’t get past its own spin. Look at the blown-out windows in the background and the rubble. Who does the NYT think it’s kidding?
Hey, I think I know. Itself.
Israel’s “Strategy” Regarding Gaza
Does Israel have a long-term plan or strategy for dealing with its seemingly never-ending conflict with the Palestinians in Gaza? Not exactly:
(Image via the U.S. State Department)
An Israeli official was listening a few days ago to the familiar critique that Israel doesn’t have any strategy in Gaza, just periodic tactical assaults on Hamas. The official finally exploded: “That is our strategy. Don’t you understand? We don’t have any other choice except to punch our adversary in the face every few years.”
They “don’t have any other choice?” Yes they do. Where are the grownups?
Israel v. Gaza by the Hard, Cold (Inconvenient) Numbers
Just sayin’:
(Image via U.S. State Department)
Number of Israelis killed by fire from Gaza between January 1st 2012 and November 11th 2012: 1
(Source: Wikipedia)Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire during the same period: 78
(Source: United Nations)Number of Israelis killed by fire from Gaza, November 13th-19th 2012: 3
(Source: press reports)Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire, November 13th-19th: 95
(Source: IDF)Total number of Israelis killed by rocket, mortar or anti-tank fire from Gaza since 2006: 47
(Source: Wikipedia. This is disputed; another source says 26)Number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by Israeli fire from April 1st 2006 to July 21st 2012: 2,879
(Source: United Nations)
Find little ol’ Gaza on the map above. This is like a fight between an elephant and a mouse.
The United States Bows to its Corporatocracy; Falls Way Behind Energy-Wise
There’s this:
(Image via Wikipedia)
On a windy night in September, whilst most people were sleeping, wind power reached a record of 64.2% of Spain’s electricity demand.
The vast majority of Spain’s power that night came not from fossil fuels but clean, renewable energy generated by wind turbines on the Spanish hills.
And what couldn’t be used in Spain wasn’t wasted.
Some was exported via giant cables linking Spain to the rest of Europe and some was used to pump water uphill so it could be allowed to flow back down later, when demand was higher.
Pumped storage and interconnectors are just two of the way Spain has found to make sure wind works.
And there’s this:
Germany Widens Global Solar Lead (September 24, 2012):
Germany continues to outstrip the rest of the world in solar power capacity, and is adding new solar faster than any other country as well.
The US energy corporatocracy wants to believe that drilling for oil, fracking and transnational pipelines are the key to energy independence. Believe that at your children’s and your grandchildren’s peril.
Countries like Germany and Spain (despite their financial difficulties) are moving ahead with clean energy yet the US is held hostage by companies who wouldn’t mind destroying the entire planet to make a profit.
The Centurys-Old Conflict Between Israel and Palestine Explained, in 3:33 Minutes
This is a must — MUST — watch: “It tells the story of the wars in the land called Israel/Palestine/Canaan/the Levant, since the cavemen until today:”
Seriously. I highly recommend it.
Americans: Heads Up on How Your Tax Dollars Are Being Spent
David Kirkpatrick, the New York Times‘ Cairo bureau chief and Steven Erlanger, its Paris bureau chief, just interviewed the President of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi. They have been tweeting some fascinating tidbits about the interview for about an hour now. If you’re interested check out their twitter feeds linked to above. (The article resulting from the interview will apparently be posted on the NYT website tonight.)
This tweet really struck me:
Haven’t heard anyone state this so bluntly before. It’s something we Americans need to hear and to know, as in really get and internalize and hopefully, change. (I’m not optimistic on that score given Israel’s power over us.)
Romney Generating Awful Headlines Overseas
America, do we really want to elect someone who inspires headlines like this? Romney says Middle East Peace ‘Unthinkable’
The Butterfly Effect
Juan Cole over at Informed Comment is, as usual, the go-to guy for understanding what’s going on in the Middle East. This is the best I could do to (hopefully) convey his main points, cut from a very long article:
Romney Jumps the Shark: Libya, Egypt and the Butterfly Effect
[...]
So the Associated Press did a careful investigation of the ‘Sam Bacile’ who supposedly directed the hate film, ‘The Innocence of Muslims.’ And AP found that probably he does not exist, but is a persona used by a convicted Coptic Egyptian fraudster, Nakoula Bassely Nakoula.
But the story gets more complex. Nakoula had Coptic and evangelical associates in the shooting of the film, including Steve Klein, a former Marine and current extremist Christian who has helped train militiamen in California churches and has led “protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques.” My guess is that most of the Egyptian Copts involved are converts to American-style fundamentalism.
The Egyptian Coptic church has roundly condemned the hateful film they made smearing the Prophet Muhammad.
Anyway, the bigotry of the edited film, directed at Muslims, is part of a movement of religious prejudice that also targets . . . Mormons.
[...]
Then it turns out that the film was shot in such a way that there was originally no mention of the Prophet Muhammad in the script, and the cast had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and then the name of Muhammad was clumsily dubbed into the final edit.
So, the film was from the beginning a fraud. It was directed by a fraud. It was promoted by a militia trainer. And Nakoula marketed it fraudulently as the work of a fictitious Israeli-American Jewish real estate agent, ‘Sam Bacile,’ and falsely said it had been funded by “a hundred Jewish donors.”
The group behind the film, in other words, managed to evoke all the classic themes of anti-Semitism as a way of disguising the Coptic and evangelical network out of which the ‘film’ came. When they weren’t busy picketing Mormons and defaming Muslims they were trying to get Jews killed for their own smears of Islam!
Of course, given the strident hatred of Muslims promoted by a handful of Jewish American extremists such as Pamela Geller, David Horowitz, Daniel Pipes and others, in which they gleefully join with white supremacists and Christian fundamentalists, it was only a matter of time before their partners in hate turned on them and used them.
The bad, dubbed ‘film’ only had one theater showing in some dowdy place in LA. Then in July the group had the trailer for it dubbed into Arabic with subtitles as well, and put it on Youtube, where it was found by strident Egyptian Muslim fundamentalist Sheikh Khaled Abdallah, who had it shown on al-Nas television and caused the sensation that led to Tuesday’s demonstrations in Cairo and Benghazi. As I argued yesterday, the vigilante extremists or ‘jihadis’ have been left on the garbage pile of history by the democratic elections in Egypt and Libya, and are whipping up the issue of this film in a desperate attempt to remain relevant.
Aware of the building sensation about the film, an employee of the US embassy in Cairo condemned it as hate speech before the rally began outside its premises.
In other words, this is a non-film and a non-story, a fraud, promoted by the worst people in each culture.
[...]
In the end, the violence and extremism of the hardliners on both sides is a phantasm of the past, not a harbinger of the future. The wave of democratic politics sweeping the region has left the haters behind, reducing them to desperate and senseless acts of violence that will gain them no good will, no popularity, no political credibility.
(Emphasis added.)
The term “Coptic Egyptian” is new to me. Here is the Wikipedia page for that group.
The United States — Israel’s Lacky
I absolutely love this post from 972mag because it so perfectly, perfectly!, illustrates the United States’ relationship with Israel for as long as I’ve been alive:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise yesterday to build 851 more housing units in the West Bank got the Americans “angry,” as usual:
“The US position on Israeli settlements is clear – we do not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity. We also oppose any effort to legalize settlement outposts,” the official said.
Yada, yada, yada. Been there, heard that. If I had a buck for every time a State Department official condemned settlement activity, I’d have more than Warren Buffet.
And guess what? Israeli officials don’t even bother to hide how they take America for a dupe. Here’s what Ariel Attias (Shas), Minister of Construction and Housing, said to Army Radio this morning:
They condemn. We build.
It’s a pretty simple game once you get the hang of it.
And on and on it goes.
I am ashamed that the U.S. has looked the other way all these years on the issue of the Israeli settlements. Going against Israel, even when it would be the right thing to do, just isn’t done here.
My heart goes out to the Palestinians. Decade upon decade of this:
(Via.)
How Many al Qaeda No. 2 Are There?
So, exactly how many Al Qaeda No. 2 are there? 48? 72? 325?
Abu Yahya al-Libi. (Photo: AFP)
US Strike Targets al-Qaeda No. 2
AL-QAEDA’S second-in-command Abu Yahya al-Libi was the target of a US drone strike that killed 15 people in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
US officials confirmed that al-Libi had been the target of the missile attack in North Waziristan on Monday, a Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold along the Afghan border, but could not say whether he had survived.
Is Hillary Clinton Going to Sweden to Negotiate Julian Assange’s Extradition?
Something to think about and be aware of:
Via the U.S. State Department:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will travel to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkey from May 31-June 7.
[...]
On June 3, Secretary Clinton will travel to Stockholm, Sweden, for meetings with senior Swedish officials to discuss a range of issues, including green energy, Internet freedom, Afghanistan and the Middle East. In Stockholm she will also participate in a Climate and Clean Air Coalition event on short-lived climate pollutants.
Via Wikileaks:
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) Thinks Ariel Sharon and Yasir Arafat Should Clamp Down on Palestinians
From “Mondoweiss: The War of Ideas in the Middle East:”
(Photo via AP)
My father recently received a form letter response from Joe Pitts (Pennsylvania’s 16th district). A year ago, after visiting me in Ramallah, my father contacted Pitts’ office, expressing his opposition to House Resolution 268, a one-sided resolution that condemned Palestinians and reaffirmed the US “commitment to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. The incredibly baffling, much-delayed response from Pitts included this gem:
With the global war against terrorism, it is now incumbent on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasir Arafat to clamp down on Palestinian extremists that have perpetuated violence and to restart a peace process that has collapsed.
Whut? There are two gigantic problems here: (1) Ariel Sharon “has been in a permanent vegetative” state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006,” and (2) Yasir Arafat died on November 11, 2004.
Amazing. Seems to me Mr. Pitts might be in a “permanent vegetative state” himself. Either that or facts really, really, REALLY don’t matter to Republicans.
Attack Iran? Something Americans Need to Know
It’s refreshing to know there are countries out there where leaders question leaders and they don’t just robotically fall in line behind the Commander-in-Chief “during times of war” (like a certain country I know). Americans need to know that is happening in Israel with regard to attacking Iran:
Apart from Netanyahu and [Ehud] Barak, ‘most Israeli political and security leaders oppose attack on Iran”
The overwhelming majority of Israel’s political, military and intelligence leadership reportedly believes the time is not ripe for an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and shares the assessment that an Israeli strike would, at best, merely set back rather than destroy the Iranian program.While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated that a decision on striking Iran will be made in the next few months, and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak said last week that it was time to gear up to put the Iranian program to “a decisive end,” this assessment is not shared by President Shimon Peres, the chief of staff of the Israeli army and his predecessor, the head of the Mossad intelligence service and his predecessor, at least five of the most senior ministers in the government and the leader of the opposition, Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz, respected Israeli media analysts said Saturday night.
The issue is headline news because the former head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service, Yuval Diskin, on Friday publicly branded Netanyahu and Barak as “unfit” to lead the country in confronting the Iranian nuclear threat, and wrong in their approach to the danger, sparking a political firestorm.
This is huge to have such high-level people question a prime minister and a defense minister. Wow. Good on them. People don’t do such things on a whim so their concern must be extremely serious.
Romney: Please, Please, Please Pick Rubio!
If Mitt Romney picks Florida Senator Marco Rubio as his vice presidential nominee, we’re gonna have fun with this quote from Rubio today on CNN’s “State of the Nation:”
I haven’t gone through the comparison,” Rubio told CNN’s Candy Crowley. “I think that presidents serve in different times with different challenges. And so I think that George W. Bush, in my opinion, did a fantastic job as president over eight years, facing a set of circumstances during those eight years that are different from the circumstances that a President Romney would face.
Bush lied us into a war; he passed an unfunded Medicare prescription drug program (a gift to the drug and insurance companies) that could cost as much as much as $1.2 trillion; he passed the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and he let the banks crash the global economy, to name but a few of his accomplishments. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Republicans think is a, ahem, “fantastic job.”
So, keep the video handy. If Romney does pick Rubio it’s gonna get a whole lot of airtime. If Romney doesn’t pick Rubio, we can save it and use it when Rubio runs. Heehee.
A Perfect Example of How the “Liberal” American Media Brainwashes Us
Wow. Here we have a perfect example of how the “liberal” American media brainwashes us into fearing or hating groups that those in power decide we should ah, fear or hate. This example is from today’s Washington Post.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has delivered a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that calls for a resumption of peace negotiations.
Got that? Palestinian Authority President Abbas wants to resume peace negotiations, but the Israeli lobby wants us to hate and fear the Palestinians (nobody bucks the Israeli lobby), so check out the photo the WaPo used to illustrate the article:
(Via.)
Amazing.
Karl Rove: Any President Would Have Killed Osama bin Laden
Karl Rove is trying to rewrite history while simultaneously making President Obama look like an empty suit:
As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film “that’s the call I would have made.” For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.
Excuse me. George W. Bush was president for eight years while bin Laden was on the run and he didn’t get him. As a matter of fact, Bush blew a huge chance to do so:
(Via.)
And that’s the one big chance Bush blew to catch or kill bin Laden that we know of. There could have been many others over the course of Bush’s two terms.
So again, for Rove to claim “any president” would have done what Obama did — when his guy had eight years to do so but didn’t — is just typical Rove slime.
Congress Votes to Extend the US’s Dependence on Oil
From the owned-by-the-oil-and-gas-industry file:
Plans to spur the conversion of heavy trucking fleets to natural gas with billions of dollars in tax credits fell short in the Senate on Tuesday despite backing from Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and energy magnate T. Boone Pickens.
Senators voted 51-47 on an amendment by Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) to sweeping transportation legislation, but it required 60 votes for passage.
The vote signals the tough road ahead for the plan despite support for natural-gas vehicle incentives among many Democrats, Republicans and President Obama, who in North Carolina touted his own proposals for boosting alternative-energy vehicles last week.
The Senate rejected the plan that Reid, Menendez and Burr introduced as a separate bill in late 2011. Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.) is the lead sponsor of House natural-gas vehicles legislation.
The plans aim to curb oil demand by greatly expanding use of natural gas as a transportation fuel, including in the oil-thirsty heavy trucking industry.
Nice to know we’re being lead by ahem, visionaries planning for our future.
