From The Nation:
Myth 1. It’s a dangerous world. We face an array of serious national security threats that require an experienced Commander in Chief.
Myth 2. The surge has worked. To withdraw from Iraq now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and embolden Islamic extremists.
Myth 3. We cannot allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists. We therefore must redouble our military efforts there or face another terrorist attack.
Myth 4. Iran is responsible for much of the violence against US forces in Iraq; by using its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, it threatens to dominate the Middle East.
Myth 5. To talk to the leaders of “rogue” states like Iran and Cuba without conditions legitimizes their position and weakens American leverage.
Myth 6. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an authoritarian state pursuing an anti-American agenda aimed at reconstituting the Soviet Union in the form of a new Russian empire.
Myth 7. Because the American military is stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must increase the size of our conventional armed forces.
Myth 8. A League of Democracies would create a global coalition for peace and freedom and would enable the United States and its democratic allies to intervene to solve humanitarian and other crises when the UN Security Council is paralyzed.
Myth 9. Globalization has strengthened the economy, and we cannot avoid it by hiding behind protectionist walls.
Myth 10. The world needs American leadership.
Interesting myths, no? To find out more about why they are myths, click and read The Nation:
Madness I tell you:
Quoting senior diplomatic sources, Britain’s The Guardian said Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert raised the issue with Mr Bush during his visit to Israel for the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state’s founding.
In a one-to-one meeting on May 14, Mr Bush told the Israeli leader he would not support such a strike because of fears of retaliation, possibly on US targets in Iraq and Afghanistan, and concerns that the Israelis would fail to disable Iran’s nuclear facilities anyway, it said.
Mr Bush’s refusal to support an attack, and the strong suggestion he would not change his mind, is likely to end speculation that Washington could be preparing an “October surprise” before the US presidential election.
Some analysts have argued Mr Bush would back an Israeli attack in an effort to help Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s campaign by creating an eve-of-poll security crisis.
The Guardian reported that Mr Bush’s refusal to support such a strike appeared to be based on two factors.
One was US concern over Iran’s likely retaliation, which would probably include a wave of attacks on US military and other personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan and on shipping in the Persian Gulf.
The other was US anxiety that Israel would not succeed in disabling Iran’s nuclear facilities in a single assault, even with the use of dozens of aircraft. It could not mount a series of attacks over several days without risking full-scale war. So the benefits would not outweigh the costs.
Iran has repeatedly warned it would retaliate with force against any attack. Some Western government analysts believe this could include asking Lebanon’s Shia movement Hezbollah to strike at the US.
Wow. Destroying America for Iraq was clearly not enough. Read more.
From a former member of the House of Representatives:
In 2002, President Bush publicly ordered Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to end a bloody, destructive rampage through the Palestinian West Bank. He wilted just as publicly when he received curt word from Sharon that Israeli troops would not withdraw and would continue their military operations. A few days later President Bush invited Sharon to the White House where he saluted him as a “man of peace.”
I had similar experiences in the House of Representatives. On several occasions, colleagues told me privately that they admired what I was trying to do in Middle East policy reform but could not risk pro-Israel protest back home by supporting my positions.
The pro-Israel lobby is not one organization orchestrating U.S. Middle East policy from a backroom in Washington. Nor is it entirely Jewish. It consists of scores of groups — large and small — that work at various levels. The largest, most professional, and most effective is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Many pro-Israel lobby groups belong to the Christian Right.
The recently released book, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” co-authored by distinguished professors John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, offers hope for constructive change. It details the damage to U.S. national interests caused by the lobby for Israel. These brave professors render a great service to America, but their theme, expressed in a published study paper a year ago, is already under heavy, vitriolic attack.
They are unjustly accused of anti-Semitism, the ultimate instrument of intimidation employed by the lobby. A common problem: Under pressure, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs withdrew an invitation for the authors to speak about their book. Council president Marshall Bouton explained ruefully that the invitation posed “a political problem” and a need “to protect the institution” from those who would be angry if the authors appeared.
I know what it is like to be targeted in this way. In the last years of my long service in Congress, I spoke out, making many of the points now presented in the Mearsheimer-Walt book. In 1980, my opponent charged me with anti-Semitism, and money poured into his campaign fund from every state in the Union. I prevailed that year but two years later lost by a narrow margin. In 1984, Sen. Charles Percy, then chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and an occasional critic of Israel, was defeated. Leaders of the Israel lobby claimed credit for defeating both Percy and me, claims that strengthened lobby influence in the years that followed.
The result is that Members of Congress today loudly reward Israel as it violates international law and peace agreements, lures America into costly wars, and subjects millions of Palestinians under its rule to apartheid-like conditions because they are not Jewish.
It is time to call politicians to account for their undying allegiance to a foreign state. Let the Mearsheimer-Walt book be a clarion that bestirs the American people to political action and finally brings fundamental change to both Capitol Hill and the White House.
Citizen participation in public policy development is a hallmark of our proud democracy. But the pro-Israel groups subvert democracy when they engage in smear campaigns that intimidate and silence critics. America badly needs a civilized discussion of the damaging role of Israel in U.S. policy formulation.
John McCain and the Republicans are unbelievable. Remember this statement from their own camp:
While the media is slowly starting to call the McCain campaign on their dishonest tactics, McCain’s staff boasts that they don’t care. As a McCain spokesman told the Politico, “We’re running a campaign to win. And we’re not too concerned about what the media filter tries to say about it.”
Now see this:
Has Sen. John McCain renounced his longtime antagonism toward the Army’s Future Combat Systems?
On Sept. 8, the Republican presidential candidate told a rally crowd in Lee’s Summit, Mo., about an Obama video message to a liberal advocacy group.
“He promised them he would, quote, ‘slow our development of Future Combat Systems,’” McCain said, according to wire reports. “This is not a time to slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”
Flashback to July, however, when his campaign furnished McCain’s economic plan to The Washington Post, declaring that “there are lots of procurements — Airborne Laser, [C-17] Globemaster, Future Combat System [sic] — that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed.”
In fact, McCain has long criticized the over-budget, behind-schedule FCS program. In 2005, he blasted the Army for allowing the program to balloon to $161 billion, and forced the service to rewrite the main FCS contract.
So where does McCain really stand? Some bloggers and analysts have suggested that he used the term “future combat systems” generically. Obama’s campaign maintains their candidate was speaking specifically about FCS, in which case McCain may be twisting his rival’s words.
Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute called it deceitful.
“McCain’s interpretation of Obama’s position is typical of the way in which the Republicans have twisted Democratic views in order to undercut their opponents and at the same time obscure the past positions of the Republicans,” Thompson said. “Future Combat Systems is the centerpiece of Army modernization. However, McCain has been more critical of it than anyone else in the chamber. Obama has been much more detailed and thoughtful in his comments about future military investment than McCain’s very superficial statements.”
Officials with the McCain campaign did not return phone calls and emails requesting clarification.
From Iran’s Press TV, quoting Arab-language Israeli daily al-Arab:
The Arab-language Israeli daily al-Arab reported that the three agents were killed on Wednesday in a blast at a building which was guarded by the US security firm Blackwater. According to report, the three agents carried fake Iraqi passports.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi media reported that hundreds of Mossad agents had been deployed to northern Iraq. According to reports, the agents were tasked with the killing of the Iraqi scientists who were involved in the country’s nuclear program under Saddam.
US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh had earlier reported that Israeli agents were based in Iraq’s Kurdistan to gather intelligence on Iran’s nuclear activities. According to Hersh, the agents who were disguised as businessmen had managed to infiltrate into Iran and Syria and install smart espionage gadgets inside the countries.
Israel hoped that the US would resume the activities of the Kirkuk-Haifa pipeline which was constructed during the British rule. Under pressure by Arab countries, the US, however, had to drop the plan.
Read more.
In what can only be described as a direct response to America helping Georgia (a country about half the way around the world), Russia will now be aiding Iran even more (a country that sits firmly below it on a map).
America’s misguided imperialistic zeal and delusions of remaining grandeur and might will now open a new war - hot or cold - it will not be able to win.
What’s the cost of the Iraq war at now? In the meantime, read more about the strengthening Russian/Iranian bond.
More madness from Israel and Iran:
As the clash between the US and Israel on the one hand and Iran on the other reaches a critical level, the powers that be have been desperately at work spinning a web of deception that may take the already war-exhausted Americans into the military conflict of the century, a confrontation that could eventually escalate into World War III.
Odd how everyone is talking about the economy, yet Dubya manages to pour $162B more into the disasters that are Afghanistan and Iraq:
U.S. President George W. Bush has signed a war funding measure that will pay for the ongoing fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and guarantee troop support well past his presidency.
(…)
The legislation will bring the amount Congress has provided for the Iraq war since it began in 2003 to more than $650 billion US. For war operations in Afghanistan, the measure will bring the spending total to nearly $200 billion US, congressional officials said.
Call me a cynic, but this is very ironic, on so many levels.
Lou Dobbs argues that American leaders have squandered our wealth. He’s right.
We elected these people because we let religious fanaticism blur our view. Odd, because we want to nuke people pre-emptively because their religious fanaticism blurs their judgment supposedly. That’s ironic, if you ask me.
Secondly, we were greedy to think that Iraqi oil was ours, so we sent off our troops and used our resources to win over their treasure. In turn, oil became more expensive, we borrow from foreigners and we’re indebted.
That’s the price of being evil, if you ask me.
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