Wes Clark: New York Jews pressing Bush to bomb Iran

wow...that's just incredibly stupid. And this idiot was the guy in charge of cleaning up the whole ethnic cleansing bloodbath in Serbia?

just wow...

 

So sad basso that you've been reduced to belittling peoples names.

Anyway I was hoping someone one would make a thread about this.

Could Israel become our proxy army against Iran and force the US into a regional war? Is that what you want basso?

Here's the article that Wes is apparently angry about. --


Analysis: Never again?

By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE


WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 (UPI) -- Through history, rulers, despots, nations and empires have humbled and humiliated, and with the advent of Adolph Hitler, massacred Jews by the millions. From the Exodus from ancient Egypt to the First Crusade, which didn't distinguish between Jews and Arabs, to the Spanish Inquisition under Tomas de Torquemada, to Czarist pogroms, to the World War II Nazi genocide, some historians calculate that had Jews been treated like other citizens through the ages, they would number at least 200 million today. They now number less than 15 million. And from right to left, the five million Jews in Israel now feel threatened with extinction yet again.

In today's Israel, the overwhelming majority is now convinced Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is synonymous with a 2nd holocaust. "We stood idly by as we were led to slaughter in Hitler's concentration camps and gas chambers in the 1930s and 40s," is a refrain frequently heard in Israel these days, "but never again." In a New Year's Day message, superhawk and former Prime Minister Netanyahu Binyamin accused Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of the kind of appeasement that threatened Israel's very existence.

Ahmadinejad recently held an international conference of holocaust deniers. And Israelis are now reminded daily that the Iranian president is a new Hitler who has to be terminated "with maximum prejudice" before a Persian nuclear weapon terminates Israel. The existential threat to Israel looms even larger, in Netanyahu's view, with the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group (ISG) report. His critique's main points:


• The ISG report smacks of rank appeasement when it recommends talking to Syria and Iran at a time when Iran has been handed the whip hand in Iraq by the U.S. with a U.S.-facilitated, pro-Iranian Shiite-led government.

• ISG says a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a sine qua non to stabilizing the rest of the Middle East. The implied suggestion that it's now up to Israel to make further concessions to the Palestinians is yet another manifestation of appeasement. Israel must reject any perceived sign of weakness.

• In reality, if the problem of Iran, which Israel's enemies call "the strategic backbone of Hezbollah and Hamas," were solved by the forceful elimination of its nuclear facilities, or a highly unlikely voluntary return to nuclear power for peaceful purposes under U.N. inspection, the conflict with the Palestinians would become easier to tackle.

• Hezbollah and Hamas are rapidly arming themselves thanks to the Israeli government's decision to refrain from further action against them. Since the cease-fire was declared, dozens of Kassam rockets have been fired at targets in the western Negev.

• If Olmert's government reacts limply to Iran's statements about its intentions to destroy Israel, "why should we expect the world to act against them?"

• ISG says, "The majority of the political establishment in Israel has grown tired of a continuous state of a nation at war." When even Israel's leadership sends out a message of fatigue and weakness, "why should we be surprised that the world agrees?"

Netanyahu then said Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international, public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."

There are signs this is already happening in Washington. Before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika decided the ousting of Saddam Hussein had to become an integral part of the "war on terror." Eventually 60 percent of Americans thought Saddam was behind 9/11, even though there was no link between the two. Today, the Bush-Cheney team faces the same spin scenario: how to weave the global war on terror and the Shiite powers that be in Iran. This one is relatively simple: Iran trains and funds Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories.

Anticipating the new line, Sen. Joe Lieberman (Independent-CT) referred to "Iran and al-Qaida" on Wolf Blitzer's Sunday program on CNN. That Iran is Shiite and al-Qaida Sunni becomes irrelevant in the new game plan that will most probably lead to U.S. air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities in 2007/08. Can a Democratic Congress be bypassed under a blanket authorization already secured to hunt down transnational terrorists wherever they may be hiding?

The "neocons" who work closely with Netanyahu on what could be the next phase of a nascent regional war in the Middle East, say Bush has the authority to take out Iran's nuclear threat. Because it has only one purpose -- to take out Israel. One Hiroshima-type nuclear weapon and Israel ceases to exit.

There is little doubt president Bush's geopolitical legacy as it stands today is unacceptable to someone who identifies with Winston Churchill roaring against appeasement in the 1930s. Iraq is either an unmitigated or mitigated disaster. And year-end analyses widely published at home and abroad listed Bush among the four worst presidents in U.S. history.

And if Bush doesn't take on Iran, prominent Israelis are speculating that president Clinton 2 (Hillary) will do so. Oded Tira, the chairman of Israel's Association of Industrial Manufacturers, and former chief artillery office in the IDF, said, "Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran. As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party, which is conducting itself foolishly, and U.S. newspaper editors."

Writing in Ynet News (online Yedioth Ahronoth), Tira said, "We need to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure. Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party (must) publicly support immediate action by Bush again Iran."


As for target Iran, Tira voiced widespread belief in Israel that the Jewish state must coordinate strikes with the U.S. -- "and prepare for the Iranian response." Fearless forecast: It will be formidable.

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?StoryID=20070102-125318-7565r

 

I missed the part in the article where Clark advised sitting down and singing Kumbaya.

Oh that's right, it wasn't there. It was something that you added.

I never thought you to be totally ignorant, misguided, certainly, but not ignorant.

Do you have any idea of the diplomatic tradition? For centuries it has been that we discuss differences, find intermediaries to discuss differences, and try to find peaceful solutions to problems before resorting to military attack.

Clark was advocating exactly that.

Perhaps this is another inconvenient fact that you choose to ignore rather than let a little reality into your paranoid and irrational world view.

 

I was listening to a radio show a couple of weeks ago and they were talking with an American oil prospector who was doing work in and around Mosul. In response to the way that things were turning out in Iraq he said the following (more or less):

[rquoter]
It seems like we Americans have been playing checkers while the Iranians are playing Chess.

[/rquoter]

I do firmly believe that despite your many differences with large portions of the D&D forum, basso, that you are (as much as can be expected when you are constantly under fire) a well meaning poster who is motivated by strong beliefs. I even (though I don’t like to admit it) sometimes find common ground in your statements.

I furthermore agree that Iran is indeed 'the bad guy' and that the most satisfying path would be to confront them directly - slug it out in the playground after lunch. I can genuinely appreciate this desire on your part. I feel it to a large degree as well. But I would suggest that what we've learned in Iraq should caution us that, while it is important to remember who the 'good guys' and 'bad guys' are sometimes it is also important to make sure that the game is chess instead of checkers. In other words expose a pawn and lead the opponent into a trap and set up the board thinking of moves several turns in advance, instead of taking the most overt and direct action possible.

 

While you're busy trying to somehow pin Clark as an anti-Semite (Ironic since he IS part Jewish), you're besmirching the name of a highly decorated military officer who has proudly -- and honorably -- served this nation while you were enjoying your Danish cheese.

 

LOL, basso, you have like the WORLD'S WORST JEWDAR.

YOu think Felix is a Jewish name (que pasa chico?)

You think Clark is a redneck backwoods Arkie anti-semite (like George Felix Allen wishes he was) when the frigging guy is half Jewish.

How the f-ck do you live in new york? Do you wear your yarmulke to the bodega? Do you go to Katz' deli and ask for a chorizo torta? Do you go to the Dosa Hut and ask for a hamburger? You really suck at this. You should turn in your Metrocard because you suck so bad.

You suck at playing guess-the-jew; you suck at detecting anti-semitism. Also you suck because the title of your thread is another lame lie of the kind you pretend to detest.

It's 2:10 AM EST, 5 Jan 2006, and currently basso still sucks!

 

basso did exaggerate; I think they will have Pete Seeger singing Kumbayah playing as background music rather than outright singing. They are too busy talking about vacation homes, inadequate retirement planning, youth soccer, college expense and piano lessons:

 

being half Jewish means nothing. There were some full blooded Jewish "rabbis" who showed up in support of Iran's "discussion" on the Holocaust

 

Do you have any idea how peace is reached? Do you know the background between the camp David Accords signed by Egypt and Israel?

The first thing you do is to humanize both sides, show why it is beneficial to each side to have peace, etc.

Again the diplomatic tradition is a long and honored one. It has brought peace, avoided war, ended bloodshed. If you can't get your head around that, then hopefully you and basso can whine until the cows come home, while others get the work done.

 

i think it was george allen's mother who suggested he was ashamed of his jewish roots.

 

You do know that diplomacy has no guarantee of working? Look how many violent conflicts we see around the world. How do you determine who is whining?

 

I do know diplomacy doesn't always work. I also know that war doesn't always work. Just look at Iraq.

If I am going to try two things which both have less 100% success rates, my first option would be the one that doesn't instigate bloodshed, and destruction.

 

So your claim is that there were no diplomatic efforts toward Saddam's regime? Or just that there could have been more? How do you make the call when enough is enough? Six years? Twelve years? More?

 

No it was george allen when his reaction was to become and enraged and them make terrible jokes about how he was going go chow down on a ham sandwich. He might be the only person denser in this area than you.

 

that is not my claim. I make the call that enough is enough when we have no more options.

However, having inspectors on the ground in Iraq and containment of Saddam left us with plenty of other options to ensure he wasn't a threat.