Haaretz has reported that Benjamin Netanyahu in 2007 offered to join a coalition government with Ehud Olmert on the condition that Olmert launch an attack against Iran. Recall: just three months before Netanyahu made that offer, in March-April 2007, Iran had detained fifteen British sailors in the Persian Gulf, and the neoconservatives were turning up the heat for an American strike against Iran. The Cheney circle made no secret of their eagerness for a U.S. attack--whether ahead of Israel, in combination with Israel, or as a partner expecting to take Israel's side in case of Iranian retaliation.
So, when Netanyahu in July 2007 sent a special memorandum of his plan for an Israeli Unity Government to the U.S. State Department (in a telegram marked confidential), he was also intervening in American politics and probably with coordination on the American side. He had done the same in 1996--when, as the historian Taylor Branch reports Bill Clinton saying--"his Likud agents in the United States joined Republicans eager to stir up suspicions against Clinton's Middle East diplomacy. . . . [Clinton] called it scandalous electioneering by and with a foreign political party."
Today Netanyahu is preparing to repeat the performance. An invitation to speak to Congress--issued by Republicans, and announced by Eric Cantor--gives him an opportunity, now at close quarters, to show his gift for "scandalous electioneering." Doubtless he will speak to Congress about the entire Middle East. He will make an offer that involves Palestine--an offer whose gestation will take time and patience. He will not fail to invoke the imminent danger of Iran. By his American admirers, he will be compared to Churchill.
Netanyahu's design in 2007 was thwarted by Admiral William Fallon, the chief of CentCom, who kept to appropriate size the U.S. response to Iran's taking of British hostages. Assisting Fallon was the secretary of defense, Robert Gates. Vice President Cheney was not pleased at the obstruction, his people were still in place all over government, and less than a year later Fallon was sacked. Now Gates is poised to step down as secretary of defense, while President Obama has been thinking (at his usual pace) whether to make a speech about the Middle East before Netanyahu arrives to be cheered by Congress. The presidential adviser closest to Israel, Dennis Ross, has warned Obama not to steal a march on Netanyahu.
Is Obama any better prepared than Clinton--politically, temperamentally, and morally prepared--to deflect the stratagems of "scandalous electioneering" by an Israeli politician in America?
Netanyahu can perhaps reprise his 2009 Davos speech and tell the American people via their elected corporate whores in DC that Iran is a far greater threat to the western world than the economic crisis
link to walt.foreignpolicy.com
News of the Monica Lewinsky scandal broke Jan. 17-21, 1998. (Drudge Report Jan. 17; Washington Post Jan. 21.)
Netanyahu met with Bill Clinton in Washington late the night of Jan. 20, 1998, “in an unscheduled second trip to the White House to discuss the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. “.
wow. what timing. it almost makes me wonder what kind of skeletons obama might have in his closet. we just might find out, or not.
Obama and Bill are working on this together you can be sure. But how do you appeal to individuals with no conscience. I think 41 and James Baker were the only ones to really threaten cutting off the funding if the illegal settlements kept growing. You can see where that got them
from lysias’s last link (cnn)
some things never change.
Israel would have been better off accepting Clinton’s terms.
This quote is about debt but applies equally to failed imperial projects
link to ft.com
“There is a rationale to delay if you really think you can make it through, but there is a tendency for delay unnecessarily, because the costs are exaggerated by financial markets,” Mr Stiglitz says. “If debt is going to have to be restructured, it’s better to be sooner than later.”
Actually seafoid, Israel is already taking this into account. Their idea is to change the facts on the ground such that any restructuring can only favour them more.
i.e. the guy who owes you $100 you want the whole $100. If he owes you a $1,000,000 but is bankrupt, you’d accept 10¢ on the dollar. Fortunately for the Palestinians and other oppressed peoples, politics do not work much like debt restructuring. Just ask dukes, duchesses and counts of the Ancien Regime in France.
Thanks for information about that coincidence Lysias. Funny how things happen isn’t it?
Great catch, lysias. I even forgot I forgot that. ;-)
The White House switched to a WH-only phone system installed by a company whose name began with Fox (can’t remember the rest) in 1996. The WH went off the Federal Telephone System (FTS) and to this private company. Where was it from? Israel.
After an uproar, the name was changed to another one by making the company an American-based subsidiary for real. Mere paperwork.
The worse thing that we ever did was allow CALEA in April 1994.
On the same page I’m sure as Caroline Glick and Douglas Feith, Netanyahu will certainly also mention the super-scary Muslim Brotherhood, and try to p*** on Egypt and the Arab Spring as much as humanly possible.
Naturally, but perhaps it bears saying, those things don’t have to be connected nor is there a zero sum.
Netanyahu can be a bully who is bad for Israel and worse for the Palestinians and peace.
And, the Muslim brotherhood can in fact be (and in my opinion is) super scary regarding the rights of Copts, women, gays and freedom of discourse.
Sorry, but muslim brotherhood is not the enemy of kopt christians in Egypt.
link to ikhwanweb.com
Was there a particular article you wanted to point to?
Coptic Intellect: MB Wants Civil State Which Offers Copts their Rights, Freedom and Justice .
MB: Freedom and Justice Party Grants Christians Rights Denied during Mubarak’s Reign .
There is a pogrom against the Copts in Egypt as we speak. It is much like what happened to the Jews 50-60 years ago. Soon Egypt will be cleansed of all non-Muslim religions.
DGB, your statement is ridiculous and unqualified. You have never been to Egypt and obviously know nothing of the country.
Pogrom? Hardly. Not that there arent extremists (or opportunistic elements) who wouldnt target the Copts for their own nefarious ends. I’m sure the pro-Israelites would love nothing more than a pogram to be underway, it would serve their ends quite well.
Some in the media and pro-Israel blogs like to paint the MB as a Taliban type outfit where ‘infidels’ (Copts, non-Muslims), gays or womans rights are matters of obsession or some central part of the MBs philosophy. But these are rather peripheral issues. The MB is more focused on achieving political gains and position in Egypt politics and that will require a large degree of flexibility on their part. Gay rights (unlike in the West) dont even merit a blip in Egyptian political or social discourse so it would be hard for the MB to make an issue out of that. Womans rights or perceived ‘non-rights’ of women have more to do with cultural issues or practices rather than Islamist jurisprudence, and the MB would be hard-pressed to alienate half their potential electorate on this. The MB boogieman is more likely to have originated from Israeli circles and their supporters because it can be convenient to make Egypt look bad if it doesnt cooperate with Israel like the previous regime. Egypt as a whole can then be painted as some evil Islamist entity.
There is no pogrom now and there was no pogrom 60 years ago.
Ellen,
I have been to Egypt, but don’t see how that is relevant. There was a story on Coptic persecution this morning on NPR. Christians are being persecuted in all Muslim countries they live in.
Another Coptic website flat out calls it a pogrom.
link to copts.com
Shingo,
link to en.wikipedia.org
Christian copts in Egypt have more rights than Christian Arabs in E. Jerusalem. Why do Zionists continue to play the “look away, look away” game when attempting to identify injustice. It is in your own backyard and you are responsible for it.
complete nonsense ToivoS. Christian Arabs in EJ are persecuted, but nothing like the Copts in Egypt.
As far as I recall, that NPR story blamed Salafists in Egypt — not the MB — for those attacks on Copts.
Right, it is not relevant. But you are obviously playing a false card. I know Egypt and Christian Copts who would not support your statement as there is much mixing among Copts and Muslims, especially among the young. There are no pogroms.
Your web site link is a bogus site and you know it.
Oh yes, Wikipedia.
Please tell us about the Lavon affair.
lysias,
yeah, that is correct. No where did I mention the MB. a pogrom is a pogrom.
“Pogrom” usually refers to state-supported violence. There is very little chance of the Salafists ever coming to power in Egypt.
With the evidence that came to light after the seizure of the state security building, there was a significant amount of secretly state-sponsored violence against the Copts under the Mubarak regime.
Yes it is indeed, DBG.
The problem is, you don’t understand what a pogrom actually is. That’s where the government supports and provides legal (or even military) protection when one ethnic/religious group stages attacks on another ethnic/religious group. Is the Egyptian government funding and arming the Islamist extremists who are attacking their Coptic brothers the way that the Israeli government funds and arms Israeli settlers it illegally transfers onto settlements in the West Bank?
A wiki ink with the word pogrom heading that doesn’t describe a pogrom.
Thanks for confirming no pogrom took place.
Speaking of which, Shingo, check the history on that entry. It’s not even a month old! And the citations reference the Jewish Virtual Library and the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Big time wrong DBG:
complete nonsense ToivoS. Christian Arabs in EJ are persecuted, but nothing like the Copts in Egypt.
I know a number of Copts from Egypt. In general they are a very prosperous part of Egyptian society. In Arabs in EJ, both Muslim and Christian, are having their properties confiscated by the Zionists. The restrictions make it very difficult for them to engage in business activity. It is only the Jews that are given free reign to engage in commercial activity. There are no laws in Egypt that restrict the Copts from owning property or in engaging in commerce. There are dozens of regulatory restrictions that prevent Arabs from engaging in similar activities in EJ (not to mention the WB or even in Israel itself).
Look to thyself Zionist DBG, you are the oppressor.
Who is behind this misinformation? What is the point of insinuating that the Copts are being persecuted ?
Was it DBG who said it is “exaclty what happened to the Jews”? I took that to mean that the Israeli government would be pulling the strings because it needs 4 million Copts to go to Israel to work as maid and sweepers for the Ashkenazim.
The website of the Coptic Church, apparently updated for Holy Week, reports what is clearly a tense situation that could go either way. One flashpoint is the attempt by the new government to appoint a Christian governor to one of the provinces, succeeding another Christian appointed by Mubarak. This could be interpreted in many ways. The Salafists are saying that they are not against the man because he is a Christian but because he too has a background in the Mubarak police apparatus. The Salafist leader remarks that it is against his religion to be ruled by a Christian but that he might have made an exception had the man been popular. Interesting – and again open to different interpretations – that exceptions are contemplated or allegedly contemplated on those ‘democratic’ grounds.
DBG April 21, 2011 at 3:55 pm
There is a pogrom against the Copts in Egypt as we speak. It is much like what happened to the Jews 50-60 years ago. Soon Egypt will be cleansed of all non-Muslim religions.
“Soon” is a very long ways off to get rid of 10 or 12 million people but DBG is not totally wrong in saying that the Christians of Egypt are suffering but his calling it a pogrom is inaccurate. Since Mubarak’s overthrow and the supposed arrival of freedom in Egypt, fires have been set to 3 churches. A Christian had his ear cut off bythe Salafists and sent back to his community and in one governate, the local fundies rioted because they did not want the Christian governor.
The Salafists that are poised to enter politics have announced their intention of fielding candidates in the coming November elections and these people don’t hide their goal to have a Sharia state. As to the Brotherhood with their stated “good-guys” approach, they are being astute for now until the elections are over. But they are all wasting their time because military rule isn’t going away anytime time soon and we’re about to see the massive campaign, especially by the military and the US, to short-circuit Baradei’s chances of becoming President. This may spell further hardships for the Christians if the military continues turning a blind eye on the persecution of Christians.
His trip is going to be a bad bad bad Iran bash fest
Somebody will be Hitler. The Itamar killings will become the Holocaust.
Iran is the Nazis. The Middle East is Poland 1942. Israel is a shtetl with Mizrahi servants. Who are also paranoid.
Lewis Black did the best piece on Beck and Nazi “tourettes”
Netanyahu has Iran Nazi “tourettes”
If you need a laugh
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black—glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s
The congressional circus aside, Obama and his administration are completely responsible for carrying on essentially the same policies of previous administrations in regard to support for the occupation, military actions, weapons, etc. They have their own geopolitical reasons for doing so. They can’t blame it on the Republicans.
Jewish reporters who refused to look away and instead report on how Israel meddles in US politics would be the first to be canned by their Jewish bosses whose disproportionate numbers in our media are even more disproportionately agents of the Israel Lobby. Does any other country come any where near Israel’s level of meddling?
That Bromwich is in the media, in however a minor way, is a reminder of what you learned in high school, “The exception proves the rule.”
The captured British navy boat incident took place around the same time news came out via journalists in the know — e.g. Ron Suskind and Seymour Hersh — that in one cabinet meeting, Cheney had floated the idea of a false-flag operation wherein US special forces disguised as Iranian National Guard staged an attack on an American navy ship, thus prompting a harsh American response.
Allegedly, that idea didn’t gain much support at the time.
BTW I never heard of this. Can you link? I have a real fear a false-flag op re Iran would be coming, perhaps near the end of Obama’s term, or with the next prez term…. but this just validates and perhaps adds to my fears. They were totally rebutted, yet they did not die. In fact the neocons may be resurgent with some “terror” attacks and FOX news pumping them up, and fitting the narrative…. stage setting? link to foxnews.com scary scary stuff when you know history and how some people operate….
Remember this false flag
Filipino Monkey … Borat … Same Difference
link to emptywheel.firedoglake.com
link to emptywheel.firedoglake.com
But What about Congressional Oversight?
By: emptywheel Sunday June 29, 2008 11:09 am
In addition to showing how the Iran hawks have evaded oversight over their Special Forces war plan against Iran, Sy Hersh seems intent on generating pressure on Democrats to withhold funding now being used to start a covert war with Iran.
Hersh notes that the Gang of Eight has been briefed on the CIA–but not the Special Forces, assassination of high value targets–part of the plan.
Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and “there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it, according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.
I love how Hersh feels the need to remind Democrats they are in the majority.
Then, after recalling all the opposition to Administration plans from within the military, Hersh returns to Democrats’ failure to prevent policies they oppose.
The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
Now, the problems with oversight seem to focus on two things. First, the Democrats once again got punked by Administration lies when, three years ago, David Obey backed off an attempt to withhold funding for such operations.
On March 15, 2005, David Obey, then the ranking Democrat on the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, announced that he was putting aside an amendment that he had intended to offer that day, and that would have cut off all funding for national-intelligence programs unless the President agreed to keep Congress fully informed about clandestine military activities undertaken in the war on terror. He had changed his mind, he said, because the White House promised better coöperation. “The Executive Branch understands that we are not trying to dictate what they do,” he said in a floor speech at the time. “We are simply trying to see to it that what they do is consistent with American values and will not get the country in trouble.”
Obey declined to comment on the specifics of the operations in Iran, but he did tell me that the White House reneged on its promise to consult more fully with Congress. He said, “I suspect there’s something going on, but I don’t know what to believe. Cheney has always wanted to go after Iran, and if he had more time he’d find a way to do it. We still don’t get enough information from the agencies, and I have very little confidence that they give us information on the edge.”
So Congressional Dems aren’t doing the most efficacious thing to prevent BushCo from starting their war with Iran, defunding such efforts.
Democrats who have been briefed on the Presidential Finding (which appears to be restricted to the Gang of Eight), are just now figuring out that Cheney has the assassinations hidden behind Bush’s EO giving Special Forces a blank check.
Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail differs from the White House’s. One issue has to do with a reference in the Finding, the person familiar with it recalled, to potential defensive lethal action by U.S. operatives in Iran.
[snip]
The defensive-lethal language led some Democrats, according to congressional sources familiar with their views, to call in the director of the C.I.A., Air Force General Michael V. Hayden, for a special briefing. Hayden reassured the legislators that the language did nothing more than provide authority for Special Forces operatives on the ground in Iran to shoot their way out if they faced capture or harm.
Yet it appears that Dems are doing the same thing they did in response to the warrantless wiretap program: writing letters into the black hole of the White Hous email system.
The legislators were far from convinced. One congressman subsequently wrote a personal letter to President Bush insisting that “no lethal action, period” had been authorized within Iran’s borders. As of June, he had received no answer.
(Note, there’s a strong chance that this “congressman” is Silvestre Reyes, since he’s the only Congressman briefed on the full Finding; the other Congresswoman would be Speaker Pelosi.)
And an aide for what appears to be Senator Reid (the only male in leadership briefed on the program), suggests Reid is just claiming he’s powerless to do anything about the Iran war-mongering.
An aide to one member of the Democratic leadership responded, on his behalf, by pointing to the limitations of the Gang of Eight process. The notification of a Finding, the aide said, “is just that—notification, and not a sign-off on activities. Proper oversight of ongoing intelligence activities is done by fully briefing the members of the intelligence committee.” [my emphasis]
And now Obey has retired from Congress. Could this have been part of the reason why?
Seymour Hersh was so persistent at trying to keep us informed
Preparing the Battlefield
link to newyorker.com
The Iran Plan
link to newyorker.com
I remember watching news at the time, in 2007, and the breaking news reports were screening a very recent footage about Faye Turney, the female hostage.
I was struck by coincidence that they just happened to have to hand a recent footage of her life with her children, family, showing how patriotic she was, a regular homemaker, what made her join the navy, God bless the Queen, etc, etc.
These were no home videos. This was a professional reportage with cameras, editing etc, which just happened to be to hand when the incident happened.
I have been looking for a link for a long time and cannot find it.
Will we be graced by his ranting about Palestinian Kindergarten Kamps to teach suicide bombers as he was given a platform on network television to the American public about this and to scare them warning them that Palestinians were set on destroying America. He was never cut off in his insane rant:
link to youtube.com
Fast forward to 2011 for a contrast as he was interviewed by Larry King’s successor, When-Irish-Eyes-Stare-You Down- Piers Morgan :
link to youtube.com
Maybe Netanyahu can ask McCain to sign at the White House Dinner that they will throw for him. Senator Lindsey Graham and Crazy ass Rep Gohmert and Ros Lehtinen will sing the chorus “bomb bomb Iran” These people are warmongering nuts
Bomb Bomb Iran
link to youtube.com
McCain to sing
“Bomb Bomb Iran”
sings a high ranking American politician while running for preseident.
But it is Iran that is the threat because one of its leaders suggested that the Zionist regime would vanish.
Israeli officials including Netanyahu threaten Iran almost daily as well as endlessly trying to build up support for a US military pre-emptive strike on Iran.
What the Iranian President said. Not how the warmongers misrepresented what he said.
But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all. The second reason is that it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.” It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem. It is not about tanks.
Since Mr. Hitchens wants to splash my private mail all over the internet against my will, as though he were himself an agent of the Bush Administration’s electronic spying on the private conversations of Americans, I’m glad to share the message that encapsulates the results of our deliberations at Gulf2000.
Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2006 15:34:18 -0400 From: “Cole, Juan”
The speech in Persian is here:
Sorry that I misremembered the exact phrase Ahmadinejad had used. He made an analogy to Khomeini’s determination and success in getting rid of the Shah’s government, which Khomeini had said “must go” (az bain bayad berad). Then Ahmadinejad defined Zionism not as an Arabi-Israeli national struggle but as a Western plot to divide the world of Islam with Israel as the pivot of this plan.
The phrase he then used as I read it is “The Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).”
Ahmadinejad was not making a threat, he was quoting a saying of Khomeini and urging that pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope– that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the Shah’s government.
Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that “Israel must be wiped off the map” with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people. He said that the occupation regime over Jerusalem must be erased from the page of time.
link to juancole.com
Zionism being erasied from the page of time is a long way from what the neocons keep repeating “iran wants to wipe Israel off the map”
Israel threatens Iran almost everyday. There is no solid evidence confirming that Iran is enriching uranium beyond the level that they are legally able. Israel should be pressured to sign the NPT so that other countries in that region do not feel a daily nuclear threat from Israel
“The presidential adviser closest to Israel, Dennis Ross, has warned Obama not to steal a march on Netanyahu.”
Read that again, and then read it again. The moral pygmy and his boss, an inept, intellectually stunted leader of a small state prone to overwhelming violence and aggression, has the gall to tell the US President what to do. The same man who has no shame tapping up the poor taxpayers of America to assist the well kept, subsidised citizens of his own fortress state. And then he lectures America with the goal of bending it to his own political survival and fundamentalist agenda. Imagine the outrage if Iran breezed into town and started demanding this, that and the other. What is different about Israel, a state with a similar oligarchy and medieval attitude?
bingo. Ross has been allowed to keep Israels agenda front and center.
Obama has to know the climate in the U.s. has been opening up by leaps and bounds. Now the money may be still tied up, but the tone, the discussion has widened more than ever before. He needs to draw a line in the cement with Netanyahu on the illegal settlements.
Ross has and continues to negotiate for Israel. Folks should be contacting their Reps and Obama double time before Netanyahu gets here. Let him know we are out here. Call, write, go visit your reps.
Keep turning up the pressure
Come to the Move over aipac conference
link to moveoveraipac.org
former weapons inspector Scott Ritter has been telling us for along time where they were headed. As well as Seymour Hersh. Israel wants to dodamage to Iran real real bad.
Read Scotts Target Iran
link to amazon.com
And watch this interview/debate with Scott and Seymour
link to c-spanvideo.org
I think in future the notion of the leader of Israel visiting the US to lecture the locals will raise lots of questions. I remember as a child coming across accounts of this place called Prussia that I could never find on any map in our family atlas.
It may be particularly hard to understand if both Israel and the U.S. cease to exist.
Yes, another highly militarized nation state.
yeah there is no I lobby control of our media either, no influence. Go check out what Camera is trying to do to Washington Journal . One of the only places in our MSM where folks can even bring the I/P issue, Israeli lobby influence up.
The pro Israel media watch group Camera is attempting to shut down information, questions, comments about the Israeli Palestinian issue at C-Spans Washington Journal. I had noticed that over the last 1O years or so more folks were calling in to Washington Journal with more legitimate facts, questions and comments about the conflict. There have been even more calls coming through after Former President Jimmy Carter’s book “Palestine Peace: Not Apartheid” and Walt and Mearsheimers book “The Israel Lobby” came out. But the last several years it appears that the host of Washington Journal have been quick to cut callers off, interrupt them or challenge them when there are legitimate questions or criticisms about Israeli policy or US support for Israel’s policies. The host seem to quickly interrupt callers when they bring up illegal Israeli settlements, the Wall, checkpoints, etc etc. Prior to this noted change the host only challenged callers when they criticized Washington Journal
Although host have consistently been quick to cut people off when they are anti Jewish, anti Muslim, racist in any way shape or form, the host cut them off.
Here are the links to Camera’s effort to shut down the debate on C-Spans Washington Journal. Go check it out. Some of the calls are edgy. But the majority of callers bring up the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty, the Wall, the influence of the Israeli lobby, the illegal settlements in the West Bank and illegal housing in E Jerusalem and Camera calls all of these facts “anti semitic”
Call C Span. Encourage them to keep their program open to the facts on this issue. Ask them to go back to their old format when you could go to their site and watch and listen to the whole show. Now when you go to the site the open phone segment is often missing. I am wondering if there is some type censorship going on through the process of elimination and editing? This is just a question at this point. Their new format is odd.
link to camera.org
link to camera.org
link to camera.org
According to Camera’s take every caller is the same person or from the same group. Comments about illegal settlements, the Wall, the treatment of Palestinians, Israel’s bombing of the USS Liberty, no MSM focus on Palestinian protest are all “anti semitic”
CentCom Commander Fallon: Attack On Iran ‘Will Not Happen On My Watch’
Earlier this year, the Bush administration deployed a second Navy group carrier into the Persian Gulf. Vice President Cheney referred to the move as an attempt to send a “strong signal” about the administration’s commitment to confronting Iran.
In February, Newsweek reported that the Bush administration was planning to ratchet up the pressure even further by deploying a third carrier group into the Gulf. Hillary Mann, the administration’s former National Security Council director for Iran and Persian Gulf Affairs, warned that some Bush advisers secretly wanted an excuse to attack Iran. “They intend to be as provocative as possible and make the Iranians do something [America] would be forced to retaliate for,” she told Newsweek.
IPS reported yesterday that the administration’s attempt to send the third carrier group was vetoed by the new head of the U.S. Central Command Admiral William Fallon:
“Admiral William Fallon, then President George W. Bush’s nominee to head the Central Command (CENTCOM), expressed strong opposition in February to an administration plan to increase the number of carrier strike groups in the Persian Gulf from two to three and vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM.
“Fallon’s resistance to the proposed deployment of a third aircraft carrier was followed by a shift in the Bush administration’s Iran policy in February and March away from increased military threats and toward diplomatic engagement with Iran. That shift, for which no credible explanation has been offered by administration officials, suggests that Fallon’s resistance to a crucial deployment was a major factor in the intra-administration struggle over policy toward Iran.”
One source said Fallon sent a memo that “insisted there was no military requirement for” for an additional carrier. Fallon private conveyed around the time of his confirmation hearing that an attack on Iran “will not happen on my watch.” IPS notes, “Fallon’s refusal to support a further naval buildup in the Gulf reflected his firm opposition to an attack on Iran and an apparent readiness to put his career on the line to prevent it.”
While Fallon’s message may have affected the deployment of another Navy carrier, it didn’t stop Vice President Cheney from finding other ways to issue symbolic acts of provocation against Iran. Last week, Cheney stood aboard one of the two carriers currently in the Gulf and warned Iran that the U.S. was prepared to use its naval power to keep Tehran from disrupting off oil routes or “gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region.”
“America is easy to move,” Netanyahu told his tribe behind the big goy dope, Uncle Sam’s back. Wasn’ t that what he said?
One commenter on this forum dated Netanyahu’s statement as shortly before 9/11.
Can anybody confirm or refute this dating, preferably with a more precise dating?
Citizen, remember the other one on how Israel’s leaders talk about America was dropped by Ariel Sharon; it was broadcast by Kol Israel Radio on October 3, 2001. At the time Sharon was berating Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in Cabinet said:
“Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it.”
link to intifada-palestine.com
Mmmmh, Walid, do you think commenters here like eee, Guilty, hophmi, Witty etc know something that Israeli leaders such as Nettie and Sharon never have never known? And, as well as all those in the USA who dismissed Mearhseimer and Walt, Baird, Carter, Percy, Freeman, etc as US foreign policy amateurs, and anti-semites? Should everybody go back and read Truman’s diaries and the diary of his old hat sales business buddy?
They probably know Citizen, except for eee that’s a bit young, but they go on pretending they don’t. As to the Americans, they don’t know and worse, they don’t want to know.
Walid, yes, the Americans don’t want to know; as a fundie I email with (only because of a high school class connection) regularly, she has all the info she says she “needs to know.” she happens to “think” that those who love Jesus must also back the Jews, which she rather back than the Arabs because the latter, she’s convinced, want to take away from her heart and bosom the baby Jesus. On every topic except Israel & the US special relationship she’s pretty darn astute. She won’t really look at, or discuss, anything to do, for example, with AIPAC. But she will comb through thousands of files to find an incident showing how the Muslims want to give Americans Sharia law. She reminds me of Sarah Palin, although she was born and bred in Ohio, and now lives in the deep South with her husband, who thinks we should pass a law forbidding all lawyers to take part in US politics, and so on. Any Zionist, Israel First influence on US politics on the part of a powerful segment of American Jews is dismissed as “there’s always a few rotten apples in any group.” She does think the US government is rotten totally to the core. She’s a narrow-minded dot connector; sort of like Glen Beck in that he shows he can well connect dots, yet he always avoids some glaring dot connections. I’d like you and others to comment on this comment.
Citizen, I’ve had lots of dealings with the types you described but also with the saner ones so my overall impression of Americans is positive, especially since half of my family is American and from the considerable time I spent in the US; apart from its bias towards Israel that makes it do ugly things in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria, I think the US is just great. I have yet to meet anyone not critical of his governement’s corruption and the US is no exception but Arab governments don’t take a back seat to any in that department. People keep voting-in those very people they criticize. Most were convinced that the cheating and lying Bush would never get re-elected but he surprised all of us so I wouldn’t be surprised if the inept Obama also gets re-elected.But for racist narrow-mindnessness, Israel takes the cake. The majority pretend they are against it and gleefully read about it in every other Haaretz article but the realty of things is in the various polls that attest to the majority’s consent to Israel’s continued oppression of the Palestinians. If they didn’t, Israel wouldn’t be doing all these bad things to a weaker people. I guess that makes most Israelis racists and bullies. Maybe this is why the same kind of people like your fundie friend associate with Israelis.
I haven’t seen my fundie email friend in person in half a century. She wanted to visit me last year, but I said I’d be out of town. She forwards tons of stuff to her big list daily picking on the government for just about everything it does except it’s rubber-stamping of Israel right or wrong. Lots of her forwarded stuff takes a libertarian-Christian fundie style stance on multiple issues, and often this includes pure hasbara speak. Everything fearful about Islam she heavily endorses with her sometimes accompanying brief comments. I don’t think she’s ever talked with a Jewish person about anything, and if she has, it’s very likely she never noticed that person was Jewish. She never met an explicit Jewish Zionist for sure, and never studied Zionism at all, and she’s never had any contact with an Israeli. The same goes for the many people on her list.
This might be of interest to some:
1) Asia Times – Three myths of Israel’s insecurity
That Israel faces the ever-present threat of obliteration by hostile neighbors while its population lives in constant danger of rocket attacks are notions that have shaped American public opinion on Israel for years. How this is possible given Israel’s massive military superiority in the region, and that Gaza rocket attacks are often futile and provoked, is easily glossed over by the skillful, well-oiled Israel lobby. More @ link to atimes.com
2) Al Jazeera – The Middle East’s oldest dictatorship
As the conventional wisdom goes – especially in the West – Israel is the “only democracy” in the Middle East. And that is so, particularly for its Jewish citizens. However Israel has been anything but democratic for the indigenous people of the land, the Palestinian Arabs. By nature and precedence, foreign military occupation is temporary. Colonialism on the other hand, and more precisely civilian colonisation, is a socio-political system of ruling over another people. More @ link to english.aljazeera.net
3) Asia Times – Israel and North Korea: Missing the real story
Profiles of a delusional North Korea fanboy in the Israeli press are less newsworthy than the uncut history of North Korea’s dealings with Tel Aviv. The tale of how Mossad and the Israeli foreign ministry bumped into each other in a plane from Pyongyang is worthy of high farce. But the real twist is how Israel’s torpedoing of a diplomatic maneuver undermined missile safety in the Western world. more @ link to atimes.com
Interesting: Netanayahu unmasked on US MSM
“And would it not make sense for Israel to give enormous priority to strengthening its relations, overt and tacit, with moderate Arab states who share similar fears about Iran?
Instead, this Israeli government has ruptured relations with Washington, makes little effort on the peace process, and, with its inaction, makes life more difficult for moderate Arabs that have relations with Israel, like Jordan and Egypt.
So, the conclusion I draw is that while the Israeli government talks a great deal about the Iranian threat, its actions suggest that this is actually not that much of a priority and it can continue business as usual with its motley collection of political parties, each vying with the next to demonstrate it can pander to some narrow political constituency. And Prime Minister Netanyahu, who presents himself as a Churchillian figure in the midst of this world crisis, is actually more like a local hack, counting the votes that will allow him to stay in office, even if that means doing very little while in that office….”
CNN: GPS
link to transcripts.cnn.com
It is a rather depressing interview on many levels. One gets the impression that Israel is self destructing within, and the so-called American Jewish community, the elites, are existentially fearful and unable to deal with it honestly as it threatens so much self understanding and vested interests. So delusional realities are built, just to deal with it. This is human nature.
Thus ironic that the following guest was Micahel Lewis, author of “The Big Short” highlighting the toxic destruction behind the massive US Housing financing industry with the lead in…
“LEWIS: When you look back at what happened, there was so much propaganda in the air, it was this kind of collective thing, group think on Wall Street, this all was OK, this business. It was obviously insane. ”
Will this be what a historian says about the Zionist project years from now? Like the US Housing economy…..it will survive in some form, but never be the same.