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What is it about Republicans and their need to create wars?
Here’s where to look for a World News Daily article by Jamal Abdi: New Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli “Preventive” War on Iran.
Before reading it, here’s the first couple of sentences:
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is planning to press the Senate next month to pledge U.S. troops, money, and political support to Israel should Bibi Netanyahu launch a preventive war on Iran.
Graham claims his effort would merely make explicit that the U.S. has Israel’s back. But when your friend is drunk, you don’t hand them the keys. If Graham has his way, he will hand Bibi the keys and lend him our car, while the rest of us ride shotgun.
If this gets you at all nervous about creating a new major mideast war at the behest of Israel (and Lindsay Graham), then get ready to write your senator.
Related articles
- New Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli Preventive War on Iran (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
- Lindsey Graham Introduces Bill To Commit US Troops to Israel (dailypaul.com)
- New Senate Push to Pledge Unconditional Support for Israeli Preventive War on Iran (whitenewsnow.com)
- Lindsey Graham alleges Election-Driven WH cover-up on Benghazi, Calls Obama ‘misleading’ or ‘incompetent’ (riehlworldview.com)
- U.S. Senate Joins Bibi In Push For War (addictinginfo.org)
Quote of the Week – Gaining International Fame…
Thanks to the Extreme Liberal Blog for showing off this one:
For his next stop, Romney went to Israel and gave a speech comparing the Palestinian culture unfavorably to Israeli culture. When everybody got mad, he said “I never said anything about culture.” He did, you can see it in the transcript provided by his campaign. Then after saying it, and then denying he said it, he wrote an op-ed and said it again. Now, in the Olympics they name a difficult move after the first person to do it in international competition. So from now on, the “Triple Self Contradiction with Vaguely Racist Backflip” will be known as the “Triple Romney”
– Peter Sagal on his NPR show Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me…
Related articles
- Romney Denies, Then Confirms He Was Talking About Palestinian Culture (theatlanticwire.com)
- Mitt: I wasn’t criticizing Palestinian culture (politico.com)
- Racist Romney (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
- Romney claims he never spoke about Palestinian culture (rawstory.com)
- Jennifer Rubin, Mitt Romney’s top media shill (salon.com)
- Romney drops new clanger in Tel Aviv (morningstaronline.co.uk)
Getting Ready for the End of the Earth in 2012…
So the year 2012 starts on Sunday and we have a few possibilities (improbable as they may be) which can stagnate our minds in a thick depression if we let them.
The Mayan calendar, say. Sometime next December, the ancient Mayan calendar ends and with it, some disturbed thinkers claim, the world. So what will do it? What will make the world crumble and the pieces drift into the universe? Maybe some of the actions we might take along the way.
For instance, we might elect Newt Gingrich as President. This would make our military grow and perhaps bring us into a new and destructive war while wiping out all the aspects of government that deal with education, poverty and civilian participation. Then again, we might elect Ron Paul who wants to turn off recognition of Israel, turn on recognition of Palestine and acknowledge, but not indicate any changes, in remarks stated in racist newsletters in the 90s. These factors would certainly end MY world, and I’m not sure that they wouldn’t lead to ongoing destruction across the planet. What fun.
Or we might continue to ignore Global Warming (like the majority of Tea Partiers) or air pollution, or ongoing poisoning of our water, or the Monsanto chemicalization of our food. Then we might all be gone and who cares what happens to the planet.
So let’s celebrate the coming of 2012 and begin the campaign to educate and change the world (even though both Paul and Gingrich would end the Department of Education) and do what we can before it’s too late. As to the Mayans, they didn’t stick around long enough to update their predictions… but, hey, that’s how it goes.
This seems to be more than just Hopeful…
Nothing would make me happier than Republicans, and by that I mean The Tea Party (or the Koch Brothers Front) losing control of the House next year.
Steve Israel (see below) is right on the money here, and if those uncompromising righties don’t sign along with the rest of us to restore taxes on the Top 1%, then they will guarantee the loss of control.
Picked this up at Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire:
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Related Articles
- DCCC Chair Steve Israel Says Ryan Budget, Medicare Will Cost Republicans the House (blogs.abcnews.com)
- All in: House passes Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget, 235-193 (hotair.com)
- DCCC posts fundraising haul (politico.com)
- Meet the Democratic Campaign Leaders (pinkbananaworld.com)
Rabin’s son presents his Israeli Peace Initiative – from Haaretz.com
Yuval Rabin and businessman Koby Huberman propose a response to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative: A Palestinian state based on 1967 borders, with Jerusalem ‘the home of two capitals’.
By Akiva Eldar
Yuval Rabin, the son of the late prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, has joined forces with businessman and social activist Koby Huberman in order to advocate for the Israeli Peace Initiative, or IPI, a response to the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.
In an article published in the Web site bitterlemons.org, Rabin and Huberman propose that instead of responding to the APA, the Israeli government should say “yes” by presenting a parallel proposal to end the conflict – the IPI.
The two have spent several months promoting the IPI among political figures, academics, and businessmen in Israel and at the same time tested the reaction of Palestinian and Arab figures to the principles of the initiative in an unofficial manner.
The detailed IPI proposal will be soon published in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and the principles outlined are the following:
1. A viable Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders and one-on-one land swaps
2. Jerusalem as the home of two capitals and special arrangements in the holy basin
3. An agreed solution for the refugees inside the Palestinian state (with symbolic exceptions)
4. Mutual recognition of the genuine national identities of the two states as the outcome of negotiations and not as a prerequisite
5. Reiteration of the principles underlying Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence regarding civic equality for its Arab citizens
6. Long-term security arrangements with international components.In regards to the Syrian channel, the IPI suggests that the end-of-conflict scenario include “phased withdrawals from the Golan Heights to finally reach the 1967 borders with one-on-one land swaps, coupled with tight security arrangements to curb terrorists and paramilitary organizations.”
“Regarding Lebanon,” Rabin and Huberman write, “the scenario articulates mainly security arrangements, as international borders have already been established. The other three IPI components present regional security mechanisms addressing common regional threats, a vision for regional economic development, and parallel evolution toward regional recognition and normal ties.”
Concluding the article, Rabin and Huberman say that they “hope the IPI creates an intensified dialogue and some rethinking both in Israeli circles and the region.”
“More importantly, 15 years after Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, we hope to see brave regional and international leaders translate the API and IPI visions into practical and synchronized progress.”
Before the previous elections, Yuval Rabin met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and told him that he didn’t rule out voting for him for prime minister, and also supported Netanyahu’s intentions of establishing a unity government.
Rabin’s initiative may indicate his disappointment with Netanyahu’s current policies.
As one who is also disappointed (to say the least) with Netanyahu’s policies, I find this suggestion by Rabin’s son worth looking into. Haven’t we all had enough war…everywhere?
Related Articles
- Rabin’s Son Releases Proposal (talkingpointsmemo.com)
- Rabin’s Son Presents Peace Plan (tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com)
- Israelis mark 15th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s death (ctv.ca)
- November 4, 1995 – The Yitzhak Rabin Assassination (crooksandliars.com)
- Recalling Rabin, and a Mideast Quest (nytimes.com)
- Fifteen years after Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, letting go is the right thing to do. (slate.com)
International Quote of the Day
“Settlers and settlements are not something that entertain me, and I don’t want to entertain them.”
– Israeli actor Yousef Swaid commenting on theatre artists’ boycott of new theatre in the occupied West Bank. The signatories have asked theatre managers to restrict their activity to stages within the internationally accepted 1967 borders.
More at ArtThreat.net. Thanks also to Thomas Cott at You’ve Cott Mail.
Here’s a clip from Juan Cole…
And if you are against the idea, sign the petition.
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“Jew Baiters”
If you want a clearer view of Netanyahu when he made the quote above, check out this article, Tricky BiBi, in an Israeli publication HAARETZ. |
Helen Thomas Retiring… effective immediately.
Why she made the comments on Israel, I don’t know. I do NOT believe that she is an anti-semite. I do believe she made a terrible mistake.
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Israeli Conservatives strike back with a satirical video:
Note from Bill:
This is taken from an article in Salon this morning.
Alex Pareene is the reporter who states:
Hebrew-language “satire” website Latma produced a funny web video about the deadly raid by Israeli commandos on an aid flotilla headed for Gaza in which 9 activists, including an American citizen, were killed. The video is a laugh riot, especially if you love Israeli Jews dressing up as dead Palestinians and Muslims (and British and American activists) and singing funny songs:
If this upsets you (when I read Pareene’s article and analyze the source of all this, I am more or less disgusted with the Israeli right wing) then take some time and think about what may be done to end this crap. You can write to the organizations involved, or to President Obama, and suggest that we, as Americans, support someone other than Netanyahu to lead Israel.
Let’s listen to Glenn Greenwald…
I’d like to make something clear… I don’t think Israel’s action against the flotilla of Turkish ships bringing aid to the Gaza Strip was justified or remotely legal.
However, if I protest this it is much too easy to label me as an “anti-semite” (which I am not as my long history of Jewish friends, my Jewish wife and my 1/2 Jewish son will, I hope, attest to). So I was happy to see my thoughts on the matter repeated by Glenn Greenwald, who was being interviewed on MSNBC by Elliot Spitzer.
Take a look at the complete interview here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/37455133#37455133.
Of course, now the USA is saying Israel should be allowed to self examine the situation and make what corrections are necessary… this to the opposition of the UN and most of the world.
Who are we kidding? Greenwald passes on this Twitter comment from Scott Larson:
“Self-regulation has worked so well for BP that surely it will be just as shiny for Israel.”
US Intelligence Found Iran Nuke Document Was Forged
This was an interesting, long article at Truthout.com… Certainly worth reading before we send troops to Iran in the future (and who knows?, we’ll probably add Yemen, too if Joe Lieberman gets his way).
Read the clips then go over to Truthout and read the whole thing. Then wonder why we get involved in this crap!
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The article ends:
This is not the first time that Giraldi has been tipped off by his intelligence sources on forged documents. Giraldi identified the individual or office responsible for creating the two most notorious forged documents in recent U.S. intelligence history.In 2005, Giraldi identified Michael Ledeen, the extreme right-wing former consultant to the National Security Council and the Pentagon, as an author of the fabricated letter purporting to show Iraqi interest in purchasing uranium from Niger. That letter was used by the George W. Bush administration to bolster its false case that Saddam Hussein had an active nuclear weapons programme.Giraldi also identified officials in the “Office of Special Plans” who worked under Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith as having forged a letter purportedly written by Hussein’s intelligence director, Tahir Jalail Habbush al-Tikriti, to Hussein himself referring to an Iraqi intelligence operation to arrange for an unidentified shipment from Niger.
Obama just landed in Saudi Arabia…
The trip that Obama is on right now may be the only chance he gets to firm up a Middle East policy that could actually create a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. The Oval Office has never reached out to the Arab nations before in our history the way Obama is reaching out now.
There is also the fact that Obama will be touring the Arab world but NOT stopping in Israel. It will be interesting to see where his course takes hum.