The organization Veterans for Peace has issues a memorandum to President Obama over the threat of war with Iran and what he can do to stop it.
An excerpt:
Needed: Presidential Action
We believe that you have the power to nip the current warmongering in the bud by taking essentially two key steps:
1. Announce publicly that you will not allow the United States to be drawn into war if Israel attacks Iran or provokes hostilities in some other way.
In threatening and planning such attacks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters are assuming you would have no option other than to commit U.S. forces in support of Israel. To assume automatic support from the world’s sole remaining superpower is a heady thing and an invitation to adventurism.
We are aware that you have dispatched emissary after emissary to ask the Israelis please not to start a war. We mean no offense to those messengers, but there is very little reason to believe that they are taken seriously.
We are convinced that only a strong public demurral from you personally would have much chance of disabusing Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders of the notion that they can expect full American support, no matter how hostilities with Iran begin.
The Risks of Silence
A public statement now could preempt a catastrophic war. Conversely, the Israeli leaders are likely to interpret unwillingness on your part to speak out clearly as a sign that you will find it politically impossible to deny Israel military support once it is engaged in hostilities with Iran.
What we find surprising (and the Israelis presumably find reassuring) is the nonchalance with which Official Washington and the media discuss the possible outbreak of war. From officials and pundits alike, the notion has gained currency that an attack on Iran is an acceptable option, and that the only remaining questions are if and when the Israelis will choose to attack.
Little heed is paid to the fact that, absent an immediate threat to Israel, such an attack would be a war of aggression as defined and condemned at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey’s anemic remark on Sunday that an Israeli attack on Iran would be “not prudent” is precisely the kind of understatement to give Netanyahu the impression that he essentially has carte blanche to start hostilities with Iran, anticipating a mere tap on the knuckles — if that — from Washington.
2. Announce to the people of the United States and the world that Iran presents no immediate threat to Israel, much less the U.S.
That Iran is no threat to America is clear. Your secretary of state has acknowledged this publicly. For example, speaking in Qatar on Feb. 14, 2010, Secretary Clinton said that, were Iran to pursue a nuclear weapon, this would “not directly threaten the United States” but would pose a threat to our “partners here in this region.”
Secretary Clinton has made it clear that the partner she has uppermost in mind is Israel. She and the Israeli leaders have used the media to hype this “threat,” even though it is widely recognized that it would be suicidal for Iran to use such a weapon against Israel — armed as it is with hundreds of nuclear weapons.
The media have drummed into us that a nuclear weapon in Iran’s hands would pose an “existential” threat to Israel, a claim that is difficult to challenge — that is, until one gives it careful thought. Now is the time to challenge it. Indeed, the whole notion is such a stretch that even some very senior Israeli officials have begun to challenge it in public, as we shall point out later in this memorandum.
You can read the whole memo here.
From Washington’s Farewell Address (1796):(from VFP statement)
So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.
And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity….
———————————————————————-
Translation: We know what is going on here, STOP!!
Im looking forward to more statements like this from Vets for Peace and other US service-folks. No other American “group” has as much “skin in the game”
Herewith the less than official foreign policy statement on Israeli relations with
its neighbors, including Iran as posted by Rachel Abrams, board member with
William Crystal of the Emergency Committee for Israel on her Bad Rachel blog:
Gnash Your Teeth, O Israel, and Rend Your Clothes
Tear your hair, mourn your dead, heal your wounded, and root out the bloody savages who shoot guns, mortars, and rockets at unarmed men and women going about their daily lives, and slit the throats of children and infants in their cribs.
And when you’re done with that, wrest back the Sinai from the hands of the Egyptians, who have lost the capacity, on account of the chaotic loss of capacity they’re calling “Spring”—or is it an intentional, a malign, unwillingness? Who’s to say? No “expert” expert enough—to prevent acts of terror committed against you from across that magnificent Mosaic landscape you handed over to them back in the mists of time and “Peace.”
And when you’re done with that, put the inhabitants of Arab-occupied Judea and Samaria—and their European defenders with their borne-in-the-blood anti-Semitism, and their sob-sister anti-Zionist American champions—on notice: They may go to the UN, get themselves declared a State, make Ramallah their capital—if Hamas will let them—and carry on pretending they are a noble people poised to create a civilized nation. But you know what they’re really after is the sight of your blood irrigating their olive groves, and you will never let that happen.
And when you’re done with that, send the rest of the world a message: Ha am im haGolan—the nation is with the Golan (and the Golan is part of the nation)—and you won’t be passing it along to Hizballah or Lebanon or Bashar Assad or whoever follows him in the Syrian sea of misery any time in the foreseeable future.
And when you’re done with that, turn your tear-stained faces toward the butchers of Iran.
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Posted by Rachel Abrams at 5:47 PM
0 comments
FRIDAY, AUGUST 12, 2011
@ Dan Crowther,
Let’s say you and I decide to join the JSDF [Japanese Self Defense Force]. It’ll be tar, feathers and even worse for betraying our country [right?]. How many senators have sent their kids to join the IDF? How many so called ‘US citizens’ have done so [joined the IDF] without any form of retribution? How many Jewish names can be found amongst those who’ve died in Iraq and Afghanistan? I guess it’s easier to use Palestinians for target practicing and far less lethal.
[disclaimer: I do read and check names @ link to icasualties.org If I've missed one I surely am wrong and my comment loses all its value]
I admit, I do find the idea of americans joining the IDF repulsive – but I think it pales in comparison to people volunteering the services of the US military to fight in another country’s stead.
I respect dual citizneship, im no nationalist – my beef is with people who use the rights of -in this case- their US citizenship to do the political bidding of foreign countries. And that’s across the board.
Personally, I think we should bring back the Abraham Lincoln Brigades–
Seems to me like there are all these americans who want “us” to go fight in far away places – lets give people the option to go themselves. Of course, that won’t happen – Americans might go ahead and form a Abe Lincoln Brigade on behalf of Palestine, and that of course could never be tolerated……
@ Dan Crowther,
I live and work in another country, so, yes, I have no problem with dual-citizenship either. Let’s send in the brigades. I’ll supply a few warn down parachutes so the kids of all those warmongering ‘hillers’ can be dropped behind ‘enemy’ lines in an unmarked LZ and do their bidding for ‘daddy’ personally.
hahaha!!
“I respect dual citizenship”
Since you can serve only one lord and one country, I oppose dual citizenship for those who were born in the USA. If they want to serve the interests of another land, they should move there and give their US citizenships and passports back.
For immigrants, who become US citizens, we may make an examption, but not for their children. Here we have a problem, as certain new citizens MUST renounce their old citizenship, but others, like israelis, may keep theirs.
Here we should have one law, either way!!
I must be getting soft, since you cannot serve two lords at the same time, no dual citizenship should be allowed. Basta!!
One must ask, what are all those foreign citizens, AGENTS, doing in our government and sensetive positions like in the military and intelligence services?
Sorry, I watch this very closely, like only a former US military grunt might. I see no evidence at all from the mouth of Obama, or from mouth of the GOP candidates for POTUS (except Ron Paul), that a war on Iran would be really stupid, and would be very detrimental to US best interests, to say the least. Active US Army troopers are marching on the WH now to protest our current wars and any war on Iran–but who knows it? It’s not even being mentioned in the mainstream media, even though this is the first time in US history that active military troopers have waged such a public protest.
I thought it was a Ron Paul thing – the march. Kokesh loves him some Paul.
Not too impressed with these anti-war vets. They weren’t so anti-war when it came to getting their college stipend or seed money for a landscaping firm paid for in the blood of inoffensive foreigners.
I hear you kapok, I get where your coming from
Me, I signed on the dotted line September 6, 2001. I wasn’t looking for money for college, I was raised to think service was important, and since no one else in my family had been in the service (aside from a couple uncles/great uncles) I thought military service – in the form of the Marine Corps- was something I thought I should do.
I also think its Fcked up that for a lot of kids in this country, the military is the best way to improve your condition, learn a trade, credentialize yourself, but it is – I just don’t blame the kids, they didn’t create the situation.
KAPOK- “Not too impressed with these anti-war vets.”
Throwing some mighty derogatory allegations around. The two biggest anti-war veterans organizations are Viet Nam Veterans against the War and Iraq Veterans Against the War. Care to share with us the number of members who “weren’t so anti-war when it came to getting their college stipend or seed money for a landscaping firm paid for in the blood of inoffensive foreigners.”? How about Bradley Manning? Is he also gaming the system? My impression is that veterans opposition to war has been at least as effective as non-veterans opposition to war. Frequently more so.
Keith-
Some people are angry with the military – its just the way it is.
Hard to make a good moral argument against people who view “the troops” negatively, sad to say. To me its a distraction, what we should be talking about is the state behind all of this.
Personally, I think anyone making a sectarian anti-war argument at a time like this is a &%^ing moron, but we’ll leave it at that. The more the better, no? Let’s all do our part, eh?
israel never ever does what we want and often does things that harm us (Pollard, USS Liberty, selling our secrets to China, etc etc) then wants more money in hand-outs … the only way we will get them to do what we want in this budding Iran debacle is to sternly tell them we will, in fact, shoot down their planes if they send them to attack Iran before we give a green light … our policy is clearly yellow/red light right now … israel never faces consequences for their repeated abuse of America and they need to know we mean business this time
What you say makes sense but it could never happen. No Republican (at least among those currently running) would even want to get tough with Israel (as far as I can tell Santorum is chafing at the bit to bomb Iran), the others only somewhat less so.
As for Obama, his administration is so infiltrated with Zionists he can’t pass gas that Netanyahu doesn’t know about it instantly. The strongest action he’d ever take is paint one of the free planes we give them the wrong shade of grey. Boy that would show them they they can’t push us around.
Most Americans–though perhaps not you and the people you associate with–are willing to fight when necessary for the United States. A war with Iran is neither necessary nor beneficial to this country.
When Americans fight in wars that are necessary and beneficial to America, they deserve all the help they can get. Mocking them as people looking to start landscaping firms is (or should be) beneath you.
I think the numbers of those who are brought up to think that military service is a noble calling are dwindling, and have been for a long time. Many of our soldiers joining since 9/11 were motivated by a sense of duty to country–often combined with a lack of a decent job in the rural and relatively rural areas most come from. I have not seen a necessary war since WW2, and, perhaps, Korea–at least up to the point we had pushed the North Korean army back across their border with South Korea.
Irony…..
The whole Obama ‘Natural Born Citizen’ thing is highlighted in Washington’s Farewell Address:
link to youtube.com
The Founding Fathers made eligibility for Presidential Office conditional, according to this vid. The President’s parents must be American Citizens. The idea behind this was to prevent The President’s loyalty to the United States from being compromised.
Not that it’s really relevant today. The entire nation’s loyalty is compromised by it’s relationship with Israel.
Hmmm … Israel has 300-400 NUKES, yet Iran is still the threat?
~~~~~~~~
Silencing The Critics
February 20, 2012
“Many suspect that the Israel Lobby used its clout with TV advertisers to silence critics of the Israeli government’s efforts to lead Washington to war with Iran. Regardless, the point before us is that the voice of the mainstream media is now uniform. Americans hear one voice, one message, and the message is propaganda. Dissent is tolerated only on such issues as to whether employer-paid health benefits should pay for contraceptive devices. Constitutional rights have been replaced with rights to free condoms.
The western media demonizes those at whom Washington points a finger. The lies pour forth to justify Washington’s naked aggression: the Taliban are conflated with al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, Gaddafi is a terrorist and, even worse, fortified his troops with Viagra in order to commit mass rape against Libyan women.
President Obama and members of Congress along with Tel Aviv continue to assert that Iran is making a nuclear weapon despite public contradiction by the US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate. According to news reports, Pentagon chief Leon Panetta told members of the House of Representatives on February 16 that “Tehran has not made a decision to proceed with developing a nuclear weapon.” link to denverpost.com
However, in Washington facts don’t count. Only the material interests of powerful interest groups matter.“
link to paulcraigroberts.org
CHAPEAU for the Veterans for Peace
This memorandum is a grand and timely initiative. One can only hope that the POTUS has any balls left to do just what the VfP have suggested and make :
an unmistakably clear and unambiguous PUBLIC warning at the address of the GoI and its warmongerers. And let them know that those days are gone when the tail wagged the dog.
Such a statement would put an end to all that media gimmick and bull…. of the last many months!
This Memo of the Vets should substantially be taken up for a world-wide signature campaign as a message for the POTUS to live up to his responsibility to bring at least some sanity back into the discourse.
AVAAZ.org could easily mobilize imho some few 100K or even more – if George Soros (respectively his money?) would let them….. and if they dared to exhibit some courage rather than campaigning only well-trodden paths or purely humanistic and little controversial causes!
However, in light of their past record, AVAAZ are nothing else than formidable Israel-cowards!
Shamefully so.