Obama capitulates to the Israel lobby

[Martijn Meijering]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Hee die Hein!

> ... audi et alterem partem ...

Als je gaat pronken met je Latijn moet je het wel goed doen, het is
alterAm partem, ;-)

Met vrijzinnig democratische groet,

Martijn

> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Even een oefening in audi et alterem partem: als een naburig land
> Nederland zou dreigen met "We gaan jullie van de kaart vegen", en dat
> land had langzamerhand de mogelijkheid die uitspraak waar te maken met
> een kernwapen, what would you do?
>
>
> Ben benieuwd naar je antwoord, Trotsky.
>
> Antid Oto schreef:
>> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>>
>> http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12944
>>
>>   June 6, 2008
>> Obama Capitulates
>> – to the Israel lobby
>> by Justin Raimondo
>>
>> Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to the U.S. is part of a
>> concerted effort, by the Israeli government and its American
>> lobbyists, to convince U.S. lawmakers – and, most of all, President
>> George W. Bush – that the time to attack Iran is now. The Israeli
>> newspaper Yediot Achronot reports that Olmert will tell Bush "time is
>> running out" on diplomacy and that he'd better launch an attack.
>>
>> In his speech to the AIPAC conference, Olmert's message was harsh and
>> unrelenting: Iran, he said, "must be stopped by all possible means"
>> from acquiring a nuclear capability. Yes, sanctions must be tightened,
>> but these are only "initial steps": what's needed, he averred, are
>> "more drastic and robust measures" – and that can only mean one thing.
>>
>> Israel would rather not act alone, but Olmert signaled that he was
>> willing to do so if pushed: ""Israel will not tolerate the possibility
>> of a nuclear Iran, and neither should any other country in the free
>> world," he declared, in what was clearly a threat of unilateral
>> action. Citing Israel's record in regard to Iraq in the eighties and
>> Syria last year, Tim Butcher warned in the Telegraph: "The speech
>> shortens the odds significantly on military action against Iran's
>> nuclear program."
>>
>> The U.S. would almost certainly be drawn into the conflict if Israel
>> carried out its threat, and Olmert knows that. So does Bush, who, in
>> any case, may not need much persuading. After all, in his speech to
>> the Israeli parliament last month, the President declared:
>>
>> "Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the
>> world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future
>> generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to
>> have a nuclear weapon."
>>
>> For the sake of peace, we must make war: a familiar refrain that
>> echoes down through the years, mocking the living and the dead.
>>
>> The clock is ticking, and time is running out for the War Party: they
>> must get in their licks before the most pro-Israel president, ever,
>> leaves office. As Butcher writes: "Among Israeli supporters of
>> military action against Iran there is concern something must be done
>> before Mr. Bush's end of office next January as Mr. Bush is perceived
>> as closer to Israel than any potential successor."
>>
>> Don't look to Barack Obama for deliverance from this looming conflict.
>> In his speech to AIPAC, he clearly signed on to the Lobby's latest
>> project, departing from his prepared text to declare:
>>
>> "I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a
>> nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything."
>>
>> "Everything" includes murdering tens of thousands of Iranians, mostly
>> civilians – driving the price of oil up above $300 a barrel and
>> destroying the US economy – and involving us in a war that will make
>> the Iraq conflict look like a Sunday school picnic. And for what?
>>
>> The irony, of course, is that Iran is nowhere near obtaining nuclear
>> weapons, as the President's own intelligence agencies recently
>> informed him: but no matter. That's a small obstacle to those who
>> disdain "the reality-based community," and see themselves as Making
>> History while the rest of us watch, helpless and aghast. As Ha'aretz
>> recently reported
>>
>> "Olmert will try to convince Bush to set aside the National
>> Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program in favor of data
>> presented by Israel, and determine the administration's policy on Iran
>> accordingly."
>>
>> The coming war with Iran has nothing to do with "weapons of mass
>> destruction" – no more than the invasion of Iraq ever did. It's all
>> about preserving Israeli hegemony in the Middle East by wiping any and
>> all recalcitrant Arab-Muslim states off the map. First Iraq, then Iran
>> – and Syria will have its turn soon enough, along with poor prostrate
>> Lebanon, once the jewel of the eastern Mediterranean and now an
>> economic and political basket case.
>>
>> It is almost certain we will be at war with Iran before a new
>> President is inaugurated: now that Obama has capitulated to the Lobby,
>> nothing but Divine Providence can stop it.
>>
>> God help us all.
>>
>> I have to say I was wrong – dead wrong – about Obama. In my
>> eagerness
>> to find a bright spot in a rapidly darkening world, I grasped on to
>> his alluring rhetoric and his at-times trenchant critique of the Bush
>> foreign policy, like a sinking man holding on to a life-jacket. But
>> looking for hope in all the wrong places doesn't create opportunities
>> for peace – it only prolongs our illusions. We must face the prospect
>> of a much more terrible conflict than we have ever known, and look it
>> squarely in the face, without flinching or looking for false messiahs.
>> I know many of you are disappointed, and some of you are now
>> exclaiming "I told you so!" All that we can do now is hope, and pray,
>> that our country – and the Iranian people – will somehow survive the
>> coming catastrophe.
>>
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