It might have seemed clever to withhold judgment on the July coup and try to nudge the military towards a return to elected government, but this was interpreted by all sides as a positive endorsement of the coup and confirmation that there was nothing that the Egyptian military did that would trigger the suspension of aid. The attempt to retain “leverage” confirmed that the U.S. never really had any. The U.S. can’t constructively influence what the Egyptian military and its interim government do, and it should stop pretending that it can. This isn’t going to remedy any of Egypt’s ills, but it would be the first step in acknowledging that it is beyond the ability of the U.S. government to remedy them. In the meantime, it does nothing but harm America’s reputation to be backing a coup government that kills civilian protesters in the streets. It costs the U.S. very little to end that support, and it gains the U.S. nothing but grief to continue the status quo.
This is so very true. We are funding these idiotic feuds, like the one between Israel and Palestine. We need to stop this and start focusing on rebuilding our own economy. This uprising in Egypt should be a textbook example of why Wilsonian foreign policy simply does not work. The quicker the United States figures this out, the better.
However, there are many things that have come up since then, which I simply cannot defend.
They are:
The IRS targeting Jewish groups. – I mean, honestly, what the hell were the IRS and Obama’s people thinking when they let this one happen?
IRS targeting Conservative groups in Washington and Elsewhere. — Did they not know that this would be exposed?
DOJ going after the AP – This is borderline Watergate, so says a watergate player. — Again, what the hell were these people thinking?
My friends, the “Giving the benefit of the doubt” of the President and his Administration by this writer and blogger are over. There is no doubt in my mind that the Obama administration; much like the Administration of George W. Bush, became consumed with a lust for power and abused and exploited the office of President of the United States and the instruments of Governmental office for political purposes.
The Democrats have screwed themselves out of ever winning an election; for like oh, maybe the next 2 major election cycles. This is the sad part, Obama and his Administration promised Americans that he would be a clean break from the policies and practices of President George W. Bush and his Administration and sadly, it turns out that Obama and his Administration are just as bad; if not even worse. As I wrote before, it is sad ending to a Presidency that offered so much to give; but ended up delivering little or nothing at all, in the realm of change.
It is going to be a long, hot, nasty, political summer for America, Americans, Black Liberal Americans and for Washington D.C.. I just hope that cool heads prevail. But, I really do fear the worst in yet to come.
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.
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.
Every step of Koch’s convoluted career is best explained by his passionate attachment to Jewish, and Israeli, interests and predilictions. America simply did not register in the same way.
“Soldiers with minority religious beliefs and atheists often feel like second-class citizens when Christianity is seemingly officially endorsed by their own base,” American Atheists president David Silverman told Fox News. “We are very happy the Pentagon and the Army decided to do the right thing.” A military spokesman told Fox News the cross was literally dismantled and will be removed from the base to be in “compliance with Army regulations and to avoid any misconception of religious favoritism or disrespect.” “After a Christian prayer, the cross was removed from the roof of the chapel,” the spokesman said. “During the removal, the cross was dismantled; however the cross was reassembled and currently awaits transportation to a larger operational base.” The military told Fox News the cross will only be brought out during Christian services and will be designated as a “non-permanent religious symbol.” Silverman said a Christian chapel on an Army base in Afghanistan could have put American troops in danger. “It inflames this Muslim versus Christian mentality,” he said. “This is not a Muslim versus Christian war — but if the Army base has a large chapel on it that has been converted to Christian-only, it sends a message that could be interpreted as hostile to Islam.” An Army spokesman said all chapels must be religiously neutral. “The primary purpose of making a chapel a neutral, multi-use facility is to accommodate the free exercise of religion for all faith groups using it,” he said. “We take the spiritual fitness of our Soldiers seriously and encourage them to practice their faith and exercise their beliefs however they choose.” Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, of the Family Research Council, told Fox News a Christian cleansing of the military is under way. “I don’t think you can categorize it any other way,” he said. “There is a strong effort, led partially by the Administration as well as by atheist groups to destroy the identity of who we are as a nation and that means robbing us of our history.” —- Military: Crosses Removed ‘Out of Respect for Other Faiths’ | FOX News & Commentary: Todd Starnes
On one hand, I would hate to think that having Christian symbols on a battle front could be putting our Military at risk. On the other hand, I would hate to see Christianity being removed from the Military entirely. However, we are in a Muslim Nation is Afghan region; one would think that the Military would want to be respectful of those people and their culture.
It is a mixed bag, and all the more reason why we really need to get out of that Country. Our mission is done there; we killed Osama and we need to leave. We do not want to make the same mistake the Russians made there. Besides all that, Al-Qaeda has moved into other regions and is much more a threat to other interests in other parts for the world now.
So, to this Independent, the quicker we leave, the better.
I saw this morning and I could not believe what I was hearing. Rand Paul has basically sold out his Father’s Libertarian Birthright. Just so he can have a shot at running in 2016.
The video comes via the neoconservative blog HotAir.com:
Rand Paul sells America out.
The Quote:
Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul took what very well could be considered his most pro-Israel stance yet, saying in an interview that an attack on Israel should be treated as an attack on the United States.
Asked whether the United States would stand with Israel and provide it foreign aid if the Jewish state were attacked by its enemies, Paul went a step further.
“Well absolutely we stand with Israel,” he said in an interview with Breitbart News, “but what I think we should do is announce to the world – and I think it is pretty well known — that any attack on Israel will be treated as an attack on the United States.”
There is no two ways about it, Rand Paul is not his Father at all. His Father has principles; Rand sold his out for a little power and to placate a protected minority. It is sad that Rand Paul is more interested in pleasing a small part of the so-called “right” in order to get the blessing of the banksters and mobsters of the elitists in DC.
But, that is politics and it is proof that we need real Americans in DC. Not these rich elitists, who never had to use their backs to make a living.
Ought not to throw stones… and those who attack people, ought not bitch about it, when it happens to them!
So, there is this article in Israel National News about some mean ol’ meanie Arabs attacking Jews and of course, they have video, if it was not staged, which most of them are:
To this I simply say; what about this here? This was a Christian man, who was filming a documentary in an Orthodox Jewish area in Jerusalem and this is what happened to him:
Again, I say, those who live in glass houses, ought not to throw stones.
Jesus Christ called it right, when he called them Hypocrites. I mean, after all, anyone who builds on disputed territories, should expect rockets fired into their Country.
Obama won two elections giving voice to these policies, but within the neocon-dominated punditocracy and a Congress subject to pressure by the increasingly extremist American Israel Public Affairs Committee, they are akin to kryptonite. Hagel’s critics have been quick to unsheathe the McCarthyite tactics employed whenever opposition to any position of Israel’s right-wing government is at issue. The accusation is almost always “anti-Semitism,” but rarely has that charge proven as empty as in Hagel’s case. Leading the assault have been Pavlovian attack dogs like William Kristol and The Weekly Standard, Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post, ex–AIPAC flack Josh Block, the ADL’s Abe Foxman, Bret Stephens at The Wall Street Journal, and convicted criminal and former Reagan and Bush II official Elliott Abrams, now respectably ensconced at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The allegation rests in significant measure on a 2008 quote in which Hagel—whom the interviewer, author and former US diplomat Aaron David Miller termed “a strong supporter of Israel and a believer in shared values”—criticized the use of political intimidation by the “Jewish lobby,” an infelicitous phrase he accidentally used to describe AIPAC. Hagel later said he misspoke and had meant to refer to the “Israel lobby,” just as he did elsewhere in Miller’s interview. It’s an easy mistake to make, since the “Israel lobby” is pretty darn Jewish. (Dick Cheney, for instance, has made the same error.) As it happens, Hagel is a better friend to Israel than the Likud quislings and apologists who make up what journalists mistakenly term the “pro-Israel lobby”; for starters, he is willing to tell its leaders the truth. Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul general and adviser on US affairs to Prime Minister Ehud Barak, wrote recently that “Barak was thoroughly impressed not only by Hagel’s military background, but by his analysis, knowledge of the Middle East, and his understanding of Israel’s security issues and predicaments,” adding that Hagel “is not anti-Israeli and he is not an anti-Semite. In fact, if I were him I would lodge a complaint with the Anti-Defamation League, asking their assistance and support for being unfairly called an anti-Semite.”
What these hysterics may actually indicate is a genuine fear on the part of the neocons and conservative professional Jews that they are about to be exposed as generals without armies, demanding fealty to policies opposed by the vast majority of American Jews for whom they profess to speak. How marvelous, then, that Barack Obama finally decided there was one time he’d rather fight than switch. via Hooray for Hagel | The Nation
One thing that I really wish to dwell on here, and it bears repeating:
Hagel’s critics have been quick to unsheathe the McCarthyite tactics employed whenever opposition to any position of Israel’s right-wing government is at issue. The accusation is almost always “anti-Semitism,” but rarely has that charge proven as empty as in Hagel’s case.
I must admit, I can truly relate to this; I have accused of the very same stuff myself. I support Israel’s right to exist and all. But I do not support the stupidity of the Neoconservative right at all. This whole idea that America has to defend Israel unto the death is idiotic at best. Furthermore, the idea that America has to be the world’s policeman is out of touch with our economic realities here at home. The fact is that Wilsonian foreign policy is a disaster and America has had to learn the hard way many times already. We learned it in Korea, we learned in World War I, we learned it in Vietnam and now, we have learned it in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Furthermore, Israel has my support on existence; but this idea that Israel has the right to build on disputed territories and then sit, and moan and complain when Palestinian and Gaza terrorists fire rockets into Israel is mindbogglingly stupid. It is something that I cannot support at all. The said part is, that these Wilsonian Neoconservatives will tell you that I am a Jew-hater and Antisemite for simply saying what I just said to you here. I call it playing the Jew Card or playing the Semite Card. It cheapens the discussion and frosts any kind of criticism at all. Which is precisely what Joseph McCarthy did in the 1950’s.
So, as much as it pains me to say this; even though he is of the far left —- Alterman has a good point.
Is because of the steaming pile of bullshit below:
Prejudice—like cooking, wine-tasting and other consummations—has an olfactory element. When Chuck Hagel, the former GOP senator from Nebraska who is now a front-runner to be the next secretary of Defense, carries on about how “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here,” the odor is especially ripe.
Ripe because a “Jewish lobby,” as far as I’m aware, doesn’t exist. No lesser authorities on the subject than John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of “The Israel Lobby,” have insisted the term Jewish lobby is “inaccurate and misleading, both because the [Israel] lobby includes non-Jews like Christian Zionists and because many Jewish Americans do not support the hard-line policies favored by its most powerful elements.”
Ripe because, whatever other political pressures Mr. Hagel might have had to endure during his years representing the Cornhusker state, winning over the state’s Jewish voters—there are an estimated 6,100 Jewish Nebraskans in a state of 1.8 million people—was probably not a major political concern for Mr. Hagel compared to, say, the ethanol lobby.
Another Conservative blogger, who thinks just like I do.
This is good stuff, follow the link:
Is it about supporting democracy? Because democracy is essentially bullshit, you know. I’ve never understood why promoting and defending democracy overseas is such a priority for some conservatives. Democracy has made a royal fucking wreck out of the US, after all.
Are we worried about a human rights disaster if Israel is wiped out? That’s a nice moral concern, but the US does a fine job of ignoring such things in countries where the people don’t look like us. Why is any of this our job, anyway? The Palestinians aren’t our enemies or even our problem. Even Hamas isn’t a particular threat to the US. This instinctive desire to root for Israel and curse the Palestinians makes less and less sense to me with every rocket fired and bomb dropped.
Now I’m not going all anti-Zionist here. Israel has every right to exist as a Jewish state. What I can’t wrap my head around is why we think it’s our job to defend them and demand their protection regardless of what (sometimes brutal) steps they take to maintain that status. That Israeli lobbying cash that keeps our elected representatives in thrall isn’t lining any of my pockets. How about you? I think our “leaders” are duping us, truthfully.
Simply put, I’m tired of defending Israel when the rewards are clearly diminishing, if there are any at all. Demographics and political developments among Israel’s neighbors give me a bad feeling that we’re supporting the losing side for no good reason.
It’s perfectly appropriate for us to admire a romantic and embattled people. It’s another thing entirely–and arguably not conservative–to place the ambitions of such a nation above the long-term interests of the United States. I think it’s time for American conservatives to break up this bad romance.
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