Rep. John Yarmuth is absolutely correct

The Audio:

The Story:

Rep. John Yarmuth says Republican House Speaker John Boehner inviting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to the House of Representatives is “close to subversion.”

Speaking with the Stephanie Miller Show on Friday, the Kentucky Democrat added some Congress members’ strong support for Israel “had to do with fundraising.”

“I am totally outraged at Speaker Boehner for doing it, I think it’s, it was deliberately

designed to undermine the president — that’s close to subversion,” said Yarmuth of Netanyahu’s upcoming address to Congress.

“I mean, the president is supposed to be conducting foreign policy, not the Speaker of the House.”

Yarmuth then said a lot of the strong support for Israel has to with fundraising and pressure from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

“And you know, a lot of it has to do with fundraising — I’m sure some of it is sincere support for Israel,” Yarmuth said.

“You know, I’m a Jewish member of Congress, I’m a strong supporter of Israel, but my first obligation is to the Constitution of the United States, not to the Constitution of Israel. And unfortunately, I think, some of the demands that are made of members by AIPAC and some strong Jewish supporters are that we pay more attention — I guess we defer — to Israel more than we defer to the United States.”

“And that’s another thing, because if he’s going to come over here and say ‘well, my intelligence shows this’ — you know, there’s an implicit, I guess, admission — or not admission, I guess concession — that Israeli intelligence is superior to American intelligence. I’m not ready to sit there and endorse that kind of proposition, and I suspect he will, basically, talk about things like that — you know, try to match their assessment of the situation against ours. And I’m not willing to believe theirs is superior.”

via Democratic Congressman: A Lot Of Strong GOP Support For Israel “Has To Do With Fundraising” – BuzzFeed News.

Rep. John Yarmuth is absolutely correct. It is subversion and it has been happening for years in this Country. There some in the neocon media who are upset that this man would say this; but it is the truth and it has been happening for years.

Kudos to Rep. Yarmuth for having the guts to speak out about it too. 😀

If I were the US, I would tell Afghanistan’s Karzai, “Sign the agreement or we leave in 48 hours!”

Next year?!?! How about in 48 hours?

The Story:

KABUL, Afghanistan –The White House threatened to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year, after President Hamid Karzai refused to sign a new bilateral security agreement.

Over the weekend, officials in Afghanistan endorsed a security deal that would keep United Stations troops in the nation beyond next year, but President Hamid Karzai denied the request. He wants the U.S. to bring more security to the country first. NBC’s Richard Engel reports.

The two countries remain deadlocked over future military involvement after an unsuccessful working dinner between Ambassador Susan Rice and Karzai at his palace in Kabul on Monday night.

In a statement, the White House said Karzai had outlined new conditions for a deal “and indicated he is not prepared to sign the BSA promptly.”

“Ambassador Rice reiterated that, without a prompt signature, the U.S. would have no choice but to initiate planning for a post-2014 future in which there would be no U.S. or NATO troop presence in Afghanistan,” the statement said.

via US to Afghanistan’s Karzai: Sign security deal or we’ll pull out all troops next year – World News.

If I were the President and Susan Rice, I would simply tell Karzai that either he signs the agreement or our forces would be out of Afghanistan in 48 hours. However, before that, I would quite forcefully remind Karzai that the only reason he and his predecessor were even elected to power; was because the United States of America overran the Taliban by Military force and forced them to allow a democratically elected Government.

I would also tell him this; If we leave in 48 hours and your Government gets overran by the Taliban again and you happen to find yourselves under the Islāmic extremists again — do not call us, because the United States will NOT be coming back here at all. The United States came to Afghanistan to get Osama Bin Laden after 9/11 and in the process of that, defeated the Taliban. We got our man and our being here is now moot. Now, this idiot is playing hardball; well, I would play it right back; and tell him that either he signs or we leave — and he can deal with the fallout, we did our job as far as this writer is concerned. We really do not need to be there; but for the sake of a few kids, who we don’t want to see living under extreme Islāmic rule.

Next year… 🙄 What is that going to do? Buy Karzai some time? I think it is time that we got tough with Karzai and tell him, “Either get with the program or we’re done with you and this Nation.”

Just my opinion.

Iran and World Powers Reach Deal on Nukes

Here’s the video: (H/T to Crooks and Liars)

The Stories via WaPo:

GENEVA — Iran and six major powers agreed early Sunday on an historic deal that freezes key parts of Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for temporary relief on some economic sanctions, diplomats confirmed.

The deal was reached after four days of marathon bargaining and an 11th-hour intervention by U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry and other foreign ministers from Europe, Russia and China. the sources said.

The agreement, sealed at 3 a.m. signing ceremony in Geneva’s Palace of Nations, requires Iran to halt or scale back parts of its nuclear infrastructure, the first such pause in more than a decade.

“We have reached an agreement,” Michael Mann, spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in a Twitter posting.

“We have reached an agreement,” echoed Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a separate posting.

…and from the NY Times:

According to the accord, Iran would agree to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent. To make good on that pledge, Iran would dismantle the links between networks of centrifuges.

All of Iran’s stockpile of uranium that has been enriched to 20 percent, a short hop to weapons-grade fuel, would be diluted or converted into oxide so that it could not be readily used for military purposes.

No new centrifuges, neither old models nor newer more efficient ones, could be installed. Centrifuges that have been installed but which are not currently operating — Iran has more than 8,000 such centrifuges — could not be started up. No new enrichment facilities could be established.

The agreement, however, would not require Iran to stop enriching uranium to a level of 3.5 percent or dismantle any of its existing centrifuges.

Iran’s stockpile of such low-enriched uranium would be allowed to temporarily increase to about eight tons from seven tons currently. But Tehran would be required to shrink this stockpile by the end of the six-month agreement back to seven tons. This would be done by installing equipment to covert some of that stockpile to oxide.

To guard against cheating, international monitors would be allowed to visit the Natanz enrichment facility and the underground nuclear enrichment plant at Fordo on a daily basis to check the film from cameras installed there.

In return for the initial agreement, the United States has agreed to provide $6 billion to $7 billion in sanctions relief, American officials said. This limited sanctions relief can be accomplished by executive order, allowing the Obama administration to make the deal without having to appeal to Congress, where there is strong criticism of any agreement that does not fully dismantle Iran’s nuclear program.

Naturally, Israel and their neoconservative friends are not pleased with this; which is not too terribly surprising.

More Fruits of Wilsonian Foreign Policy in Iraq

Remember the stupidity of Wilsonian foreign policy that I wrote about in my previous posting?

Well, here you go! The fruits of what happens when the United States of America invades a sovereign Nation based on bad intelligence.

The Story:

Several car bombs have exploded around the Iraqi capital Baghdad, killing at least 38 people, officials say.

The bombs were placed in parked cars and detonated over a 30-minute period in busy streets, mainly in Shia areas.

At least 100 people were injured in the attacks, some of which targeted markets and bus stations.

Hundreds have been killed in Iraq this month, with the often sectarian-fuelled violence reaching its highest level since 2008.

Almost 1,000 people were killed and more than 2,000 wounded in September alone, according to the UN.

And unofficial counts for October suggest more than 600 have been killed.

Sunni militants, including the local offshoot of al-Qaeda, are often blamed for the attacks, which usually target Shia areas.

The Shia-led government has been accused of failing to address grievances among the Sunni Arab minority, including allegations of abuses by security forces.

via BBC News – Iraq car bombs cause Baghdad carnage.

You’d think that the United States and American Jews would learn from that horrible mistake; but if Sheldon Adelson and his bumbling idiot friends have anything to say about it, we will be making the same mistake again with Iran.

This my friends above, is why you do not allow the Israeli or the Saudi Governments to dictate foreign policy.

Sheldon Adelson is a blubbering idiot

Someone has to say it; so, it might as well be me. 😀

Now, why do I say this? Because this steaming pile of idiocy here, the money part comes at 5:26:

The quote from the JPost:

NEW YORK – During a panel at Yeshiva University on Tuesday evening, Sheldon Adelson, noted businessman and owner of the newspaper Israel Hayom, suggested that the US should use nuclear weapons on Iran to impose its demands from a position of strength.

Asked by moderator Rabbi Shmuley Boteach whether the US should negotiate with Iran if it were to cease its uranium enrichment program, Adelson retorted, “What are we going to negotiate about?” 

Adelson then imagined what might happen if an American official were to call up an Iranian official, say “watch this,” and subsequently drop a nuclear bomb in the middle of the Iranian desert.

“Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development. You want to be peaceful? Just reverse it all, and we will guarantee you that you can have a nuclear power plant for electricity purposes, energy purposes’,” Adelson said.

“So a tremendous demonstration of American strength?” Boteach clarified. “So that they would get the message?” 

“It’s the only thing they understand,” Adelson said.

“And do you see the current negotiations as a sign of weakness?” Boteach asked.

“Absolutely,” Adelson said.

Adelson, who donated tens of millions of dollars to defeated Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney during the most recent campaign, criticized the Obama administration’s willingness to engage the Iranians diplomatically.
“[It’s] the worst negotiating tactic I could ever imagine, my entire life,” he said.

“Because you can’t get anything. He’s not saying to them, Roll back your entire program and show that you’re willing to be peaceful. So, roll it all back… and we’ll roll back the sanctions…. What is that, a game of chicken, who’s going to blink first?”

Okay, now that is a good deal of stupidity to unpack; but I shall do my best here.

If the United States of America pulled something as stupid as that, the fallout would be chaos of Biblical proportions.

First off, if we dropped a nuke in the Iranian desert, the radioactive cloud from that sort of a bomb would go over into Iraq, and possibly kill half of the population. Not to mention that it would most likely kill half of the Iranians too. This would be the last thing we would need, seeing we just left that Country and our invading it, was based on some seriously bad information.

Second of all, if we did something like that; Al-Qaeda would order every last sleeper cell in the United States to activate and the result of that would be many terrorist attacks in this Country, that would make 9/11 look like a walk in the park. Furthermore, the entire arab community, would turn on us, like a rabid dog and begin attacking our interests overseas. You think things are chaotic in the middle east now? You let something like that happen; it would be utter bedlam.

This right here is why I have such an issue with neoconservatives, and basically Zionism in general. Because they simply do not think past the idea that Israel should be defended to the death. Sheldon Adelson does not give two flips about the security of the United States and the effect that doing something as stupid and reckless as this, would have on the United States. All he and his neoconservative friends care about, is Israel.

Daniel Larison is correct in his assessment that the GOP should rid themselves, of the idiots like this man, and people like Rick Santorum; who have this sort of thug mentality, when it comes to Israel, Foreign Policy and the United States of America. It is reckless, it is irresponsible and it will only cause more instability in the middle east.

Make no mistake, Iran is a Country that I would not trust further than I can throw them. However, this sort of foreign policy is what gave us Iraq twice, Korea, Vietnam and World War I. Pursuing this sort of foreign policy is a fool’s errand. We cannot afford it either. Ronald Reagan dealt with the Soviet Union in a peaceful way and brought down the iron curtain without firing a shot. I believe these reports of Iran having the bomb; to be bogus, manufactured by those who wish to take us to war with Iran. I treat them with the skepticism that I do all the neoconservative, Wilsonian propaganda.

If Israel and the Saudi’s want to go after the Iranians; let them. But keep the United States out of it. We have had enough war to last us a good lifetime. What did we get out of Iraq? A mountain of debt, that President Obama added to; and an middle east that is a powder keg ready to blow.

Enough is enough, the Wilsonians have to go. Period, end of story.

 

 

A very good point

I suggest you read the whole thing; but the quote below sums up my feelings about United States Wilsonian foreign policy.

Quote:

Why should anyone trust a U.S. friendship? Henry Kissinger even said himself, “To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal”. Military Empires are very fickle. One day you’re a hero and a provider of “stability”, and the next there’s a bomb falling from the sky with your name on it.

via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity : US Cuts Egypt Military Aid, Jeffrey Goldberg Has Panic Attack.

 

Best thing I’ve read in the New York Post in a long time

I hate to say it, but I happen to like this blunt, frank, assessment of the middle east.  It is the best one that I have seen in a very long time.

Quoting Ralph Peters in The New York Post:

The Arab Spring has unleashed the Arab Collapse. Everybody still standing in the region is picking the flesh of the helpless. The Islamist cancer proved more virulent than Arabs themselves expected, while dying regimes behave with unrestrained ruthlessness.

And our diplomats still think everyone can be cajoled into harmony.

We’re witnessing a titanic event, the crack-up of a long-tottering civilization. Arab societies grew so corrupt and stagnant that violent upheaval became inevitable. That’s what we’re seeing in Syria and Iraq — two names, one struggle — and will find elsewhere tomorrow.

The next country to go: Rescuers working at the site of a car bomb in Kirkuk, Iraq, last week. Violence is rising rapidly across the country.

We can’t stop it, we can’t fix it, and we don’t understand it. But we can stay out of it.

[….]

The Saudi position is always “You and him fight!” As long ago as Desert Storm, Saudis joked about renting the American army and our bumpkin gullibility. (Try to find one US officer who’s worked with the Saudis and doesn’t hate their guts. . .) Now they want Washington to spend our blood and treasure to open the mosques of Damascus to their Wahhabi cult.

[….]

Iraq was carved out for British interests, while Syria was France’s consolation prize. Now Syria’s collapsing in a too-many-factions-to-count civil war. And Iraq’s in the early stages of its own dissolution; even a would-be dictator — another of our one-time “friends,” Nouri al-Maliki — can’t keep the “country” together.

We don’t even know how many new states will emerge from the old order’s wreckage. But the Scramble for the Sand is on, with Iran, Turkey, treacherous Arab oil sheikdoms and terrorists Sunni and Shia alike all determined to dictate the future, no matter the cost in other people’s blood.

We had our chance to extend the peace and keep both Iran and Wahhabi crazies at bay after we defeated Iraq’s insurgencies. But a new American president, elevating politics over strategy, walked away from Baghdad, handing Iraq to Iran. Now it’s too late. If George W. Bush helped trigger the Arab Spring, Barack Obama made this Arab Winter inevitable.

We must not be lured into the current fighting — centered, for now, on Syria — by cries of humanitarian necessity. The local powers could step in to stop the killing. But they won’t. Once again, they want us to pay the bill. (It’s time for the Saudis, especially, to give their own blood.)

We’ve paid enough. Rhetoric and red lines notwithstanding, we need to back off from Syria, if for no other reason than a strategist’s golden rule: If you don’t understand what a fight’s about, stay out.

I can tell you that if back in during the heyday of the Bush Administration someone had written something like this about the middle east and Iraq; they would have been ran out of Murdoch’s owned company on a rail!  This shows me, that the chickenhawk right has become a very small minority now and is being replaced by people who simply want common sense in foreign policy on the right.  This is a very positive step in the right direction.

Honestly, this really sounds like something from the American Conservative and, as far as this writer is concerned, Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul; and the rest those who said Iraq was a bad idea —- were very much right.

Others: VodkaPundit

The Further Consequences of Wilsonian Foreign Policy in Iraq

This is what happens when you invade sovereign nations based upon bad intelligence  and do not bother to verify said intelligence.

BAGHDAD –  Car bombs struck two outdoor markets and a group of taxi vans in Shiite areas across Iraq on Friday, killing at least 36 people and wounding nearly 100 in the bloodiest day in more than two months, as minority Sunnis staged large anti-government protests.

Sunni protesters have rejected calls to violence by an Al Qaeda-linked group, but there is concern that Sunni insurgents could step up attacks ahead of the April 20 provincial elections — the first country-wide vote since the U.S. troop withdrawal more than a year ago.

via 4 car bombs at outdoor markets in Iraq kill at least 36, wound 100 | Fox News.

Now I am not going to sit here and write a posting blaming Bush for all the above. Yes, Bush was wrong about Iraq; but Bush has not been President since 2009, when he left office. Obama took the reigns of the Country and he now is the President, so, basically, Iraq was Obama’s baby when he took office. There are some who believe that Obama removed our troops too early; to be quite honest with you, I really do not agree with that at all. Because to be honest with you, our presence there was causing a good deal of friction in that Country, or at the very least, adding to the friction that was already there. Now the total anti-war people say that, if we would have never invaded Iraq, this above would not be happening; because Saddam would not tolerate it. This is true, but Saddam also was a brutal dictator, who did horrible things to his people as well. So, while it is not a good thing that we invaded that country, we did get rid of someone who was a horrible tyrant. This is why I never took, and still do not take a hard stance on the Iraq War and the middle east; because it is such a complex subject, and seems to get more complex by the minute. This is why I never really bought into the, “blood for oil” meme by the Democrats and the anti-war crowd. I did feel however, that once we got Saddam, we should have started making the moves to leave the Country.

However, I will say this; this Wilsonian bungle that did happen in Iraq, will be a black mark on America for a very long time to come. The Wilsonian foreign policy crowds biggest flaw, is that they cannot see past the end of their noses. They never look past the “here and now.” They always live in the moment. They do not stop to think about what might happen down the road; they never do. All they care about is defending Israel, no matter the cost of life or money. This is their fatal flaw and they have ruined America’s credibility around the World. What gets me is, how the Republicans like to blame Obama for ruining America’s standing in the World. The problem is, Obama is a very little part of that; the Neoconservatives, with their Wilsonian foreign policy ruined America’ reputation in just eight years time. True the Democrats did destroy the housing market and the economy. But, our standing in the World was done by Bush and the Neocons.

Anyone that tells you anything different than that, is either lying or a partisan. But, then again, I repeat myself.