Rumors of war

[Woodsman]

Now that was quick.

From the do-over in Sochi, the empire of chaos pivots

Soros sees risk of another world war

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Billionaire investor George Soros said flatly that he’s concerned about the possibility of another world war...If China’s efforts to transition to a domestic-demand led economy from an export engine falter, there is a “likelihood” that China’s rulers would foster an external conflict to keep the country together and hold on to power.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/sor...war-2015-05-19

...to China

Exclusive: China warns U.S. surveillance plane

Above the South China Sea (CNN): The Chinese navy issued warnings eight times as a U.S. surveillance plane on Wednesday swooped over islands that Beijing is using to extend its zone of influence...Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell told CNN's Erin Burnett Wednesday night that the confrontation indicates there is "absolutely" a risk of the U.S. and China going to war sometime in the future.


http://edition.cnn.com/2015/05/20/po...a-navy-flight/

...seemingly oblivious to the landscape of failure it leaves behind

In reversal, U.S. official admits Iraq troops reeling from Islamic State offensive

BY HANNAH ALLAM, McClatchy Washington Bureau May 20, 2015 Updated 20 hours ago

U.S. officials are still “trying to piece together exactly what happened” when Iraqi forces retreated from Ramadi in Anbar province during the Islamic State offensive, said the official, who could not be further identified under the conditions of the briefing he gave reporters. He said the focus now is to “just basically hold together” the Iraqi army’s units that retreated at Ramadi.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/05/2...al-admits.html

...where even "the good war" seems lost.

The Taliban, A CFR InfoGuide Presentation

The Taliban has outlasted the world’s most potent military forces and its two main factions now challenge the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As U.S. troops draw down, the next phase of conflict will have consequences that extend far beyond the region.

The Taliban was toppled in Afghanistan in 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda, but it has not been defeated. With an estimated core of up to sixty thousand fighters, the Taliban remains the most vigorous insurgent group in Afghanistan and holds sway over civilians near its strongholds in the country’s south and east. It has also metastasized in neighboring Pakistan, where thousands of fighters in the country’s western tribal areas wage war against the government. Now, as the international combat mission in Afghanistan closes, the Taliban threatens to destabilize the region, harbor terrorist groups with global ambitions, and set back human rights and economic development in the areas where it prevails.

http://www.cfr.org/terrorist-organizations-and-networks/taliban/p35985?cid=soc-Twitter-campaign-Taliban_InfoGuide-012215#!/

Meanwhile, the prince regent alternates from unwavering support for the disastrous Bush/Cheney policies to blaming Obama for not following them with sufficient vigor.

Jeb Bush's new Iraq strategy: Blame Obama
By NICK GASS 5/21/15


Jeb Bush is back on offense against President Barack Obama’s strategy in Iraq, following a difficult week in which the likely presidential candidate struggled to clean up his answer on whether he would have invaded Iraq knowing what he knows now...Bush said that Obama “abandoned” Iraq and lamented the fall of Ramadi to Islamic State terrorists, saying that “ISIS didn’t exist when my brother was president” and that Al Qaeda was decimated under his brother.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/0...lt-118171.html

And the pretender seems to have lost her voice.

Commentary: 16 questions Hillary Clinton should answer
By Ramesh Ponnuru
Bloomberg via National Review


As her campaign for the presidency kicked off, Hillary Clinton managed to go 27 days without answering a question from the press. On Tuesday, she broke that streak. Here are a few questions reporters might want to ask the next time she decides to give her prospective subjects an opportunity to get unscripted answers from her.


4. Do you think that you were misled when you voted to authorize military force in Iraq in 2002? If so, by whom?


5. Given what we know now, were you right to oppose the surge of troops that President George W. Bush ordered into Iraq in 2007?


6. What in your view has the U.S. intervention in Libya achieved?


7. The New York Times reported last year that you "seemed flustered" and gave a "halting answer" when asked for your greatest accomplishment as secretary of state. You eventually said that "we really restored American leadership in the best sense." Could you elaborate on what specific accomplishments you had?


8. What would you do about Islamic State as president? Do you agree with the Obama administration that it is "on the defensive throughout Iraq and Syria"?


9. Did you get advice from a lawyer about establishing and using a private email server as secretary of state? When you left the State Department, were you ever asked if you had returned all official records in your possession?...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/o...520-story.html

[don]

Re: Rumors of war

The serious possibility of a nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 is only a few weeks away – on June 30.

So guess what the terminally paranoid House of Saud is up to: Lay their hands on a nuclear bomb to counteract the non-existent “Iranian bomb”, which Tehran, via Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, has consistently abhorred as un-Islamic, and wouldn’t have it anyway because of stringent inspections bound to be part of the final nuclear deal.

The proverbial “former Pentagon official” has leaked to a Rupert Murdoch paper that the House of Saud is bound to buy a ready-made nuclear bomb from Pakistan. The choice of media already offers a clue; Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is one of News Corporation’s leading shareholders.

The “why now?” concerning the leak is pretty obvious. Yet the whodunit is hazier territory.

Already on December 2011, the House of Saud announced publicly that it was pursuing a nuclear bomb. But only as the possibility of an Iranian nuclear deal advanced they started to embark in a wag the dog attempt to control U.S. foreign policy.

Israel got into the game as early as November 2013, when the BBC reported on an alleged nuclear deal between Riyadh and Islamabad. A key quote was from a former head of Israeli military intel, Amos Yadlin; if Iran had a bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”

Compare this with wily Prince Turki, former Saudi intelligence chief and close pal of one Osama bin Laden, who has always waved the possibility of a nuclear House of Saud. The last time was in fact in April, at the South Korean Asan Plenum; “Whatever the Iranians have, we will have, too.”

http://atimes.com/2015/05/wahhabis-g...ear-literally/

[gwynedd1]

Re: Rumors of war

Now that was quick.

From the do-over in Sochi, the empire of chaos pivots



...to China



...seemingly oblivious to the landscape of failure it leaves behind



...where even "the good war" seems lost.



Meanwhile, the prince regent alternates from unwavering support for the disastrous Bush/Cheney policies to blaming Obama for not following them with sufficient vigor.



And the pretender seems to have lost her voice.

Woodsman,


As a citizen of the US, I begin to envy some of the benefits of a dictatorship and especially monarchy . What we seem to have is a powerful leader that does not answer to the will of the people , but is at the same time fleeting. Like a constant change of tyranny , you have to wonder what other countries can expect from us when out politics seems to turn on a dime. Normally a democracy is slow to war, but with drones and a heightened paranoia about terrorists around ever corner , I wonder how they must be afraid of us. China is certainly aggressive in what it perceives as its possessions, but it does do it in more of the style of a Hapsburg, acquiring a province by marriage and then defending their legal claim.

[don]

Re: Rumors of war

Russian Airborne Troops chief says paratroopers ready to help Syria in combating terrorism

Russia
August 04, 15:23 UTC+3 TASS

Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov said that help would be rendered should such a decision be made by Russia's leadership

DUBROVICHI RANGE /Ryazan region/, August 4. /TASS/. The Russian Airborne Troops are ready to assist Syria in countering terrorists, if such a task is set by Russia’s leaders, commander of the Airborne Troops Colonel-General Vladimir Shamanov told reporters on Tuesday.

"Of course we will execute the decisions set forth by the country’s leadership, if there is a task at hand," Shamanov said, in response to a Syrian reporter’s question about the readiness of the Russian Airborne Troops to render assistance to Syria’s government in its battle against terrorism.

Shamanov noted that Russia and Syria have "long-term good relations." "Many Syrian experts, including military, received education in the Soviet Union and in Russia," Shamanov added.


Lavrov, Kerry discuss US plans to bomb Syria government troops


Big thing, little thing, nothing?

[don]

Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

AUGUST 5, 2015 The Brookings Institute Plan to Liquidate Syria

by MIKE WHITNEY

Here’s your US foreign policy puzzler for the day: When is regime change not regime change?

When the regime stays in power but loses its ability to rule. This is the current objective of US policy in Syria, to undermine Syrian President Bashar al Assad’s ability to govern the country without physically removing him from office. The idea is simple: Deploy US-backed “jihadi” proxies to capture-and-hold vast sections of the country thereby making it impossible for the central government to control the state. This is how the Obama administration plans to deal with Assad, by making him irrelevant. The strategy is explained in great detail in a piece by Michael E. O’Hanlon at the Brookings Institute titled “Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”. Here’s an excerpt:

“…the only realistic path forward may be a plan that in effect deconstructs Syria….the international community should work to create pockets with more viable security and governance within Syria over time… The idea would be to help moderate elements establish reliable safe zones within Syria once they were able. American, as well as Saudi and Turkish and British and Jordanian and other Arab forces would act in support, not only from the air but eventually on the ground via special forces. The approach would benefit from Syria’s open desert terrain which could allow creation of buffer zones that could be monitored for possible signs of enemy attack. Western forces themselves would remain in more secure positions in general—within the safe zones but back from the front lines—at least until the reliability of such defenses, and also local allied forces, made it practical to deploy and live in more forward locations.

Creation of these sanctuaries would produce autonomous zones that would never again have to face the prospect of rule by either Assad or ISIL….

The interim goal might be a confederal Syria, with several highly autonomous zones… The confederation would likely require support from an international peacekeeping force….to make these zones defensible and governable, to help provide relief for populations within them, and to train and equip more recruits so that the zones could be stabilized and then gradually expanded.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war“, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

Isn’t this the basic gameplan that is unfolding in Syria today?

Notice how O’ Hanlon never considers the moral implications of obliterating a sovereign nation, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and displacing millions of others. Those kinds of things simply don’t matter to the pundits who concoct these imperial strategies. It’s just grist for the mill. Notice, also, how the author refers to “buffer zones and “safe zones”, the same terms which have been used repeatedly in relation to Turkey’s agreement with the US for the use of Turkey’s Incirlik air base. Turkey wants the US to assist in the creation of these safe zones along Syria’s northern border to protect it from attack and to create a sanctuary for the training so called “moderate” militants to be used in the war against ISIS. As it happens, these prospective safe zones are a vital part of O’Hanlon’s broader plan to break the state into a million disconnected enclaves ruled by armed mercenaries, al Qaida affiliates, and local warlords. This is Obama’s dream of a “liberated Syria”, an anarchic failed state sprinkled with US military bases where massive resource extraction can take place unimpeded.

What Obama wants to avoid at all costs, is another embarrassment like Iraq where the removal of Saddam created a security vacuum that led to a violent and protracted revolt that cost the US dearly in terms of blood, treasure and international credibility. That’s why he’s settled on the present strategy which he thinks is a smarter way to achieve the same objectives. In other words, the goals haven’t changed. The only difference is the methods. Here’s more from O’Hanlon:

“The plan would be directed not only against ISIL but in part against Assad as well. In a bow to reality, however, it would not explicitly seek to overthrow him, so much as deny him control of territory that he might still aspire to govern again. The autonomous zones would be liberated with the clear understanding that there was no going back to rule by Assad or a successor. In any case, Assad would not be a military target under this concept, but areas he currently controls (and cruelly bombs) would be. And if Assad delayed too long in accepting a deal for exile, he could inevitably face direct dangers to his rule and even his person.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

What does this mean?

It means that Syria is going to be the testing ground for O’Hanlon’s new regime change strategy, a strategy in which Assad is going to be the number one guinea pig. And just so there isn’t any misunderstanding about the real aim of the operation, O’ Hanlon makes this rather stunning admission:

“This plan would differ from current strategy in three main ways. First, the idea would be plainly stated as the avowed goal of the United States….. It would also help dispel the lurking suspicion that Washington was content to tolerate the Assad government now as the lesser of two evils.”

(“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

So the administration should abandon the pretense that the US is conducting a war on ISIS and just admit openly that ‘Assad’s got to go.’ According to O’ Hanlon that would help to smooth things over with other members of coalition who are confused about Washington’s real intentions. Here’s more from O’ Hanlon:

“…multilateral support teams, grounded in special forces detachments and air-defense capabilities as needed, would be prepared for deployment into parts of Syria once opposition elements were able to seize and reliably hold strong points…..This last part would of course be the most challenging, and the actual deployment of any such teams the most fraught. It need not be rushed….But it’s a necessary part of the effort.” (“Deconstructing Syria: A new strategy for America’s most hopeless war”, Michael E. O’Hanlon, Brookings Institute)

Translation: There’s going to be US boots on the ground in Syria. You can bet on it. While it’s okay to deploy the jihadi cannon fodder to lead the charge and “soften up” the enemy; eventually, you have to send in the A Team to seal the deal. That means special forces, a countrywide no-fly zone, forward operating bases, and a ginned-up propaganda campaign aimed at convincing the sheeple that Syria must be destroyed in order to defend US national security. All of this will unfold in Phase 2 of the Syria war fiasco which is about to intensify by many orders of magnitude.

Finally, here’s O’ Hanlon making one last spirited pitch for his spanking-new regime change strategy:

“This type of plan may be the only realistic path forward… Moreover, while it is not without risks for the United States, the scale of military involvement envisioned is not substantially greater than what we have been doing the last year or so in Afghanistan. President Obama…. should not view Syria as a problem to hand to his successor, but rather a crisis that demands his attention and a new strategy now.”

So there you have it; the plan to rip Syria to shreds, precipitate an even bigger humanitarian crisis, and topple Assad without physically removing him from office. All that carnage and destruction in one-short 1,100 word essay. How’s that for brevity?

[Woodsman]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

AUGUST 5, 2015 The Brookings Institute Plan to Liquidate Syria

by MIKE WHITNEY

Here’s your US foreign policy puzzler for the day...

He means Israeli foreign policy, Don. The US is a mere instrument.

[don]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

He means Israeli foreign policy, Don. The US is a mere instrument.

I respectfully disagree, Woody. The Israeli tail wagging the US dog is a convenient MacGuffin. When it was expedient to make nice with Iran, looking to thwart bigger fish (Russia), Israel was left at the altar of perpetual arms aid. It would come as no surprise if Israel had indebted the US as much to its bosom as possible* - what little country wouldn't with such largess - but if and when serious US geopolitical interest are at loggerheads with Israel, too bad landsmen.

(* what do you think those dozen or so Mossad agents were whopping it up about while filming 9/11 from the Jersey shore? Quid pro quo to come?)

[Woodsman]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

...a convenient MacGuffin.

You ole so-and-so ;)

[Woodsman]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

MacGuffin moving along nicely.

Yesterday’s speech shows that President Obama has also read The Israel Lobby and that its central points have become his chief concerns: The Israel lobby is a loose but powerful coalition of Israel supporters who will distort policy at every turn out of the sincere misguided belief that the US and Israel have the same interests; that coalition of conservative Jews in league with Republican hawks played a critical role in starting the Iraq war that has been an unmitigated disaster for our foreign policy. I have argued here for a long time that we won’t defeat the war party till we identify its true cause, and Obama all but did so explicitly yesterday. “Every nation in the world that has commented publicly” supports this deal, except Israel, he said. And Israel has many friends in this country, including the president himself, he said...

So we’re finally getting to the political discussion that we need to be having about this deal: who is buying the Congress? Chris Matthews said last night that all those swing Democrats in the Congress are under great pressure from “contributors” right now. He didn’t say voters, he said contributors. That’s pro-Israel money. American Jews largely support this deal. Even Simon Schama says so.

"Obama ushers in the crisis of the Israel lobby"
http://mondoweiss.net/2015/08/ushers-crisis-israel

Like friggin' Deus ex machina, it is.

Chuck Schumer Opposes Iran Nuclear Deal, Shaking Democratic Firewall

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and JONATHAN WEISMANAUG. 6, 2015

WASHINGTON — Senator Chuck Schumer, the most influential Jewish voice in Congress, said Thursday night that he would oppose President Obama’s deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

[don]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

The WASP oligarchy is kaput?

[don]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

Israel depends upon the United States for $3 billion a year in military aid and diplomatic cover in forums where she is often treated like a pariah state. Israel has also been the beneficiary of almost all the U.S. vetoes in the Security Council.

America is indispensable to Israel. The reverse is not true.

One can only imagine what President Eisenhower would have done had he seen Bibi at the rostrum of the U.S. House of Representatives, ripping apart his Middle East policy. Or had Ike learned that an Israeli ambassador was working the halls of Congress to kill an arms deal he and John Foster Dulles had just negotiated.

Lest we forget, Ike told his wartime colleague, Prime Minister Anthony Eden, to get his army out of Suez or he would sink the British pound. Ike then told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai or face U.S. economic reprisals.

Eden and Ben-Gurion did as they were told.

Pat Buchanan

[vt]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

Pat Buchanan When Eisenhower was President Israel did not face the threat of nuclear missiles from radical religious fanatics.

He's a racist, anti-semitic, anti immigrant jerk.

Buchanan in his own words:

Pat Buchanan: In His Own Words

As an author, media figure, and political commentator, Patrick Buchanan publicly espouses racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-immigrant views. At one time an influential staff member in the Nixon and Reagan Administrations, Buchanan has gone on to write a number of books and articles that focus on the decline of Western civilization due to what he refers to as the “invasion” of non-European immigrants in the United States and Europe. His books, along with his weekly appearances on NBC’s The McLaughlin Group, have given him substantial mainstream exposure. Buchanan has affiliated himself with extremists in the United States and abroad, including deceased racist Sam Francis and the leaders of the Vlaams Belang, a xenophobic, racist political party in Belgium. On American Jews and the Pro-Israel Lobby 2010: “If [Elena] Kagan [President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court] is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats. Is this Democrats’ idea of diversity?” -- Column, “Are Liberals Anti-WASP?” May 14, 2010 2008: “Israel and its Fifth Column in this city seek to stampede us into war with Iran. Bush should rebuff them, and the American people should tell their congressmen: You vote for 362, we don’t vote for you.” -- Column, “A Phony Crisis — and a Real One,” July 15, 2008 2007: “If you want to know ethnicity and power in the United States Senate, 13 members of the Senate are Jewish folks who are from 2 percent of the population. That is where real power is at….” -- On The McLaughlin Group, February 2, 2007 2005: “Neocons say we attack them because they are Jewish. We do not. We attack them because their warmongering threatens our country, even as it finds a reliable echo in Ariel Sharon.” -- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.136 2005: “They charge us with anti-Semitism…The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a 'passionate attachment' to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what's good for Israel is good for America.” -- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.137 2005: “Who would benefit from a war of civilizations between the West and Islam? Answer: one nation, one leader, one party. Israel, Sharon, Likud.” -- Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq, P.142 2004: "[Richard] Perle's depiction of his delight at first meeting the future president reads like Fagin relating his initial encounter with the young Oliver Twist." -- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.42 2004: "Who would benefit from these endless wars in a region that holds nothing vital to America-save oil…Who would benefit from a 'war of civilizations' with Islam? Who other than these neoconservatives and Ariel Sharon? Indeed, Sharon was everywhere the echo of his American auxiliary…." -- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.52 2004: "Israel is in an existential crisis. It can wall itself off and annex what it wants on the West Bank, and leave Palestinians in tiny truncated, nonviable bantustans that will become the spawning pools of terror. Or it can give the Palestinians what Oslo, Camp David, Taba and the 'roadmap' promised; a homeland, a nation and a state of their own. Israel is free to choose. But American needs a Middle East policy made in the USA, not in Tel Aviv, or at AIPAC or AEI." -- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.241 2004: "America has given up its role as 'honest broker.' President Bush no longer sits at the head of the negotiating table, but directly behind Sharon." -- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.242 2004: "Dissent to the neocon line on Iraq or Israel has come to be equated with treason." -- Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency, P.248 2004: BUCHANAN: [N]eoconservatives…Perle and Wolfowitz and Wurmser and the others, working with Netanyahu, had an agenda for war with Iraq that was going nowhere. 9/11 happens, and they put this agenda before a president, who in my judgment was untutored, as his father was not. Reagan would not have done this. I don't think his father would have done this. They captured Rumsfeld, and they captured Cheney, and I think they captured the president… BLITZER: Did you think of the Jewish line of Fagan [sic] when you wrote that and Richard Perle being Jewish? BUCHANAN: Well, I mean, obviously Fagan was Jewish. But the thing about it is he was a leader of pick-pockets in a fictional book. Why is it unacceptable for me to use a literary allusion when I am called routinely Father Charles Coughlin of the modern era who was alleged to be an anti-Semitic priest? That is an outrage because that's a real character. But I'll tell you this. Look, my views with regard to the security of this country - I disagree with Sharon's agenda. I think we have outsourced Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon. I think that's a disaster for this country. It's damaging our relations over the world. And we cannot allow ourselves to be silenced because people call us names. My objection to the neoconservatives is not their ethnicity, Wolf. It is their war-mongering. -- CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, September 12,2004 2004: "Washington today is rife with reports the FBI has been investigating whether or not a nest of Pollardites in the Pentagon has been transmitting American secrets, through the Israeli lobby AIPAC, to the Reno Road embassy and to Sharon… "AIPAC and the Israelis deny any spying. Cooperation between the Bush and Sharon governments is so close, they insist, there is no need to commit espionage or thieve U.S. documents. Perhaps, but the men about whom the FBI is inquiring have old, deep and questionable ties to Israel and the Likud Party of Ariel Sharon… "Having promised him a cakewalk to Baghdad and a rose garden thereafter, neoconservatives misled President Bush. He should have fired the lot of them. Having failed to do so, he ought now, in his own interests, as well as our nation's, name Patrick "Bulldog" Fitzgerald, now heading up the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak, to head up the investigation of Israeli espionage, and possible treason, against the United States. If there has been a recurrence of Pollardism at the Pentagon, we need to know and the president needs to act, as Truman did not with Alger Hiss and Harry Dexter White." -- "Pollardites in the Pentagon," Creators Syndicate, September 12,2004 2004: "We also need to investigate whether there is a nest of Pollardites in the Pentagon who have been transmitting American secrets through APAC, the Israeli lobby, over to Reno Road, the Israeli embassy, to be transferred to Mr. Sharon. Now, I did not know until this weekend's stories in The Washington Post that this is exactly what is being talked about; that certain individuals over there in Mr. Feith's shop or beneath him have been transmitting these secrets. "Now, the FBI have been asking questions. There are no conclusions. No one should assume guilt on anyone's part. But if this has been going on, Tim, we are getting dangerously close to the T-word." -- Meet the Press, September 5,2004 2004: "I believe the mistake the president is making is outsourcing American Middle East policy to Ariel Sharon." -- Real Time with Bill Maher, September 3,

[Southernguy]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

So far the only "radical religious fanatics" with nuclear arms in the Middle Eeast...we all know who they are. And they are not the Iranians.

[vt]

Re: Let's Twist Again, Like We Did Last Summer

Israel is not a fanatic nation, and they have not said they'd destroy any Islamic nation.

The radical leadership of Iran has killed many Americans:

• Iranian military action, often working through proxies using terrorist tactics, has led to the deaths of well over a thousand American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last decade and a half.[COLOR=#000000 !important]
  [/COLOR]
  
• Throughout the course of the Iraq campaign, a variety of weapons flowed into the country through direct purchases by the government of Iran. These included Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFPs), a shaped charge designed to penetrate armor. These weapons – often camouflaged as rocks – were identical to those employed by Hizbullah against Israeli forces. In 2006, the British Telegraph revealed that three Iranian factories were “mass producing” the roadside EFP bombs used to kill soldiers in Iraq.
• In 2007, American troops discovered over 100 Austrian-made Steyr HS50 .50 caliber sniper rifles in Iraq. These high-powered rifles, which fire Iranian bullets, can pierce all in-service body armor from up to a mile and penetrate U.S. armored Humvee troop carriers. The rifles were part of a larger shipment legally purchased from the Austrian manufacturer under the justification that they would be used by Iranian police to combat drug smugglers.
• Iran paid Taliban fighters $1,000 for each U.S. soldier they killed in Afghanistan. The Sunday Times reported that a Taliban operative received $18,000 from an Iranian firm in Kabul as reward for an attack in 2010 that killed several Afghan government troops and destroyed an American armored vehicle.[COLOR=#000000 !important][/COLOR]
  
• Iranian President Rouhani’s so-called “moderation” was displayed when he appointed Brig.-Gen. Hossein Dehghan to be minister of defense. Dehghan played a key role in the October 1983 suicide bomb attacks in Beirut in which 241 U.S. Marines and 58 French paratroopers were killed. Meanwhile, inside Iran, Rouhani has presided over a rise in repression, including executions, torture of political prisoners, and persecution of minorities.

- See more at: http://jcpa.org/killing-americans-al....3g4P6hzy.dpuf

Meanwhile radical islamists have killed many muslims:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/15/opinio...eda-hypocrisy/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...e-9139525.html

Hopefully one day religious freedom will prevail, with all religions respecting each other and living in peace.

[touchring]

Re: Rumors of war

Woodsman,


As a citizen of the US, I begin to envy some of the benefits of a dictatorship and especially monarchy . What we seem to have is a powerful leader that does not answer to the will of the people , but is at the same time fleeting. Like a constant change of tyranny , you have to wonder what other countries can expect from us when out politics seems to turn on a dime. Normally a democracy is slow to war, but with drones and a heightened paranoia about terrorists around ever corner , I wonder how they must be afraid of us. China is certainly aggressive in what it perceives as its possessions, but it does do it in more of the style of a Hapsburg, acquiring a province by marriage and then defending their legal claim.

As I see it, America is already what I call a "rule by consensus" dictatorship not quite unlike China. The only difference is China has 1 party whereas the US has 2 parties that takes turn to run the dictatorship.