Sarah Palin at Tea Party w/ Israeli Lapel Pin: Attack Iran

[scorpio]

(This biatch is really starting to tick me off - Scorpio)



Many Voices Calling for War with Iran
by Philip Giraldi, March 04, 2010

Wanting to go to war with Iran has created some very strange bedfellows.  Leading neoconservative Daniel Pipes' assertion that President Barack Obama can salvage his presidency and get reelected by attacking Iran is about as low as it gets, suggesting as it does that an act of war can and should serve as a diversion from a failed domestic agenda.  The soldiers and civilians who would inevitably die in such a conflict might not agree with Pipes that all is fair in politics.  They would no doubt consider themselves betrayed and manipulated by a venal and disconnected political leadership, but no matter.  It would not be a first time a neocon would consider a non-neocon casualty little more than a disagreeable statistic.

Sarah Palin is on the Pipes bandwagon, showing up at the mid-February Nashville Tea Party convention sporting an Israeli flag lapel pin and subsequently urging the president to do the right thing in supporting Israel by attacking Iran.  As she put it, President Obama would improve his chances of re-election by showing people how tough he is.  Pipes is at least smart enough to understand the implications of what he was saying, but Palin apparently was just parroting a line fed to her by Bill Kristol or one of her other handlers.  Even Dick Cheney found the Palin line to be too much, pointing out that no one should go to war for reasons of domestic politics.  Whether he actually believes that or not is unclear.


But possibly the most bizarre commentary supporting war with Iran was penned by Anne Applebaum for the Washington Post on February 23rd.  Applebaum is married to the reliably conservative Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski, who is himself an American Enterprise Institute alumnus.  She is an Obama supporter but generally has been described as a conservative who adheres to a hard line on foreign policy issues, perhaps not too surprising a triangulation as Obama himself has betrayed a goodly percentage of his flock by moving in the same direction.  She sometimes confuses her personal agenda with her public advocacy, writing, for example, several articles calling on Roman Polanski to be freed while her husband in his official capacity was garnering support from the European diplomatic community to the same end.

Applebaum's "Ready for an Iran war?" is not particularly subtle but it is interesting how she frames her argument.  The first three quarters of the piece could almost be considered an antiwar statement.  It details just how bad a war with Iran could be in terms of the possible consequences.  She notes that the US does not want to attack Iran because no one knows where all the nuclear sites are, because an attack would only set back the alleged weapons program by a few months, and because Iran could easily engage in serious retaliation both against US troops in the region and against Israel.  Applebaum also recognizes that oil prices would surge as soon as military action started.  And she then goes on to argue that the Israelis likely have the same reservations about the efficacy of an attack on Iran.  So far so good.

But then she shifts gears, warning "At some point, that calculation could change" because "the Israelis regard the Iranian nuclear program as a matter of life and death" due to the "Iranian president's provocative attacks on Israel's right to exist."  Per Applebaum, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supports "historians who deny the Holocaust" and suggests that Israelis might become "the target of an attempted mass murder."

Applebaum then posits that there might well be a 2 a.m. phone call to the White House from the Israeli Prime Minister announcing the completion of a bombing attack on Iran. "I don't want this to happen – but I do want us to be prepared if it does," concluding that "I do hope that this administration is ready, militarily and psychologically, not for a war of choice but for an unwanted war of necessity.  This is real life, after all, not Hollywood."

Actually Applebaum's analysis is itself more like Hollywood than real life and its claim of "necessity" is little more than an appreciation that someone you have just struck might attempt to hit you back.  A little fact checking for her article might have also proven useful.  Iran is a military midget compared to Israel.  It has no nuclear weapons and is apparently far away from obtaining them even if it makes a decision to do so and can master the necessary enrichment technology.  Israel has a large secret nuclear arsenal together with missiles and submarines to deliver the weapons on target.  Iran, far from a nation bent on a genocidal suicide mission, has never threatened to destroy or attack Israel while Israel has repeatedly threatened to use force against Iran.  Many reported Iranian government "statements" to the contrary are deliberate mistranslations.

Applebaum cleverly dresses her scenario in a cloak of inevitability, suggesting to the reader that "this is what is going to happen."  Her dire forecast is intended to increase American acceptance of the likelihood of a preemptive war with Iran, but war is by no means certain if everyone involved makes a serious effort to avoid it.  As Israel knows its air force cannot cripple Iran, its government has had to devise a scheme to get the US to do it instead, which is precisely what is being promoted by Anne Applebaum, Daniel Pipes, and all the other usual suspects who have already brought America fun and games in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Vladimir Ilyich Lenin used to describe people like Applebaum as "useful idiots," journalists who advance a cause in the belief that they are supporting something worthwhile, not understanding that they have been manipulated.

How to stop an Israeli attack?  All the White House has to do is to say "no" to Israel firmly and publicly and tie that no to a commitment to cut off all military and economic aid to Tel Aviv if Bibi Netanyahu opts to do otherwise. Applebaum only sees realpolitik in one direction, coming from Israel and what Israel's "needs" might be.  She is not alone in making that type of assessment.  She seems ignorant of the fact that an Israeli bombing attack on Iran would have to cross Iraq, where the airspace is controlled by the United States.  The Pentagon can tell Israel flatly that it will use whatever force is necessary to stop an Israeli overflight knowing that if the US were to permit the attack it would be an accomplice to it, virtually requiring the Iranians to retaliate and drawing Washington into the war whether it wanted to be there or not.

And if there remained any uncertainty about what to do about Iran after the Applebaum op-ed, the Post used the same page in the same edition of the paper for an additional article by Richard Cohen making pretty much the same points as Applebaum about those awful Iranians, "Fight crazy with crazy."  Cohen takes pains to ridicule any suggestion that the US might be tempted to use force to deter an Israeli attack on Iran, characteristically opining that we might thereby "Shoot our friends to defend our enemies."  Cohen and Applebaum together make the case that preemptive war against Iran is somehow both justifiable and inevitable, ignoring the fact that Iran has never threatened the United States.  Their Israel-centric view makes it appear completely acceptable for Washington to yet again go to war on behalf of Tel Aviv.

Well it all comes together neatly, doesn't it?  Those Iranians are well outside the pale and always will be, Cohen calling Ahmadinejad a Hitler come to earth again, and it is downright churlish of anyone to even suggest that we Americans might well have a national interest differing from that of Israel. How dare one express concern that the United States might be badly damaged if Tel Aviv starts another war in a deliberate attempt to "Wag the Dog?" But if there is a contrary view to Applebaum and Cohen you won't find it in the Washington Post unless you take the time to review the hundreds of comments posted on both articles, which are almost all hostile if one weeds out the syntactically challenged cheerleading entries inserted by the industrious drones at the Israel Foreign Ministry. A number of bloggers not surprisingly describe Cohen and Applebaum as Israel-firsters.  To be sure, the United States national interest as it relates to the Middle East quagmire would appear to be of no concern to Fred Hiatt and the others who manage the Post's editorial and op-ed pages.

Source: Antiwar.com

[superzebra]

letter to white nation like us and uk only.

i do not understood how the people think.
what do they like wars?
do they love to see people get killed?according to ynet.co.il(israeli-newspaper-taken from american media) survey 62% in favour of attacking  iran.

would someone explain to me what the hell is going on in the uk and us,so they so that in favour of war.

appoligy for reall us and uk patriots.

[scorpio]

Superzebra, you raise an excellent question, but a difficult one to answer.
My best guess is that many of those polls are bogus and rigged. Israel wants this war and will stop at nothing to get it.
Nobody I know wants that war.
Many Americans and people in the UK have been conditioned by jewish owned/controlled television and media to think that we must do something
against the great 'threat' of Iran. Never mind the fact that Iran hasn't invaded another nation in over 200 years.

We are getting to the point where everything that the mainstream media says is a blatant lie.
Dissenting voices are not allowed.  :slient:  :slient:  :slient:

[Wimpy]

Sarah Palin would, no doubt, take First Place in a trouser sausage eating competition but she is not qualified to represent me or speak on my behalf.  The GOP thinks she's a great mouthpiece;  They're right but a little confused.

[abduLMaria]

maybe this is God's way of encouraging me to stay home on election day in 2012.

if it's Obama vs. Palin ...

i hope Cynthia McKinney runs again.

[Christopher Marlowe]

Before the US invaded Iraq in 2003, enormous crowds were out in the street in the United States and in the UK.

(According to Wikipedia)

"The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq. Millions of people protested  in approximately 800 cities around the world. According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million."....

[In New York,] "people tried to reach the rally area they ended up constituting an unplanned march, stretching twenty blocks down First Avenue and overflowing onto Second and Third Avenue.  In total estimates range from been 300,000 to 400,000 protesters (WSWS estimate).[20]  to over a million protesters (Berlin Heise estimate).  There were "smaller numbers protesting in [Los Angeles], Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, and other cities.....

[The Stop the War Coalition in the UK organised a protest] against the imminent invasion of Iraq on 15 February 2003, claimed to be the largest demonstration in Britain with estimates of attendance ranging between 750,000 and 2,000,000 people.

I don't think there was ever any protests for the Iraq War that comprised more than a few random idiots.  The polls before the war showed that people in the United States would support an invasion if the UN was behind it.

Days before the March 20 invasion, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll found support for the war was related to UN approval.... If the U.N. Security Council were to reject a resolution paving the way for military action, 54% of Americans favored a U.S. invasion. And if the Bush administration didn't not seek a final Security Council vote, support for a war dropped to 47%.

In March 2003 the United States government announced that "diplomacy  has failed" and that it would proceed with a "coalition of the willing" to rid Iraq under Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction the U.S. insisted it possessed. The 2003 invasion of Iraq began a few days later.

Prior to this decision, there had been much diplomacy and debate amongst the members of the United Nations Security Council over how to deal with the situation. This article examines the positions of these states as they changed during 2002-2003.

Prior to 2002, the Security Council had passed 16 resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441.

Resolution 1441 stated that Iraq was in material breach of the ceasefire terms presented under the terms of Resolution 687. Iraq's breaches related not only to weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but also the known construction of prohibited types of missiles, the purchase and import of prohibited armaments, and the continuing refusal of Iraq to compensate Kuwait for the widespread looting conducted by its troops during the 1991 invasion and occupation. It also stated that "...false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq at any time to comply with, and cooperate fully in the implementation of, this resolution shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations."

In 2003, the governments of the U.S., Britain, and Spain proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the "eighteenth resolution" and others called the "second resolution." This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast no votes on any new resolution, thereby vetoing it. Had that occurred, it would have become even more difficult for those wishing to invade Iraq to argue that the Council had authorized the subsequent invasion. Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the U.S., Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.

On September 16, 2004 Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

So from a historical viewpoint:
1) Large numbers of people turned out in the US and UK to protest against the Invasion of Iraq.  
2) The majority of people in the United Stats did not support an invasion of Iraq if the Unites States did not seek UN approval of such.
3) The proposed amendment to 1441, which would have called for an Invasion of Iraq was withdrawn when it was seen that the security council would not support such an amendment.  
4) The UN Charter prohibits any war unless it is out of self-defense or when it is sanctioned by the UN security council. If these requirements are not met international law describes it a war of aggression.

So the Iraq War did not have the support of the people of the world, or the people of the United States.  It was illegal under the UN charter, and since that charter was ratified by the Senate, it was illegal under US law.  

i do not understood how the people think.
what do they like wars?
do they love to see people get killed?according to ynet.co.il(israeli-newspaper-taken from american media) survey 62% in favour of attacking iran.

would someone explain to me what the hell is going on in the uk and us,so they so that in favour of war.

IMHO, the people don't want war.
The Jewish owned Mainstream Media constantly lies about Muslims and tries to frighten the people into killing brown people.  Also, as  Scorpio has already pointed out, (great show on Piper, by the way Scorpio) the polls are not always trustworthy.  
Thank God for the internet since it is (apart from God) the only way to find out what is really going on in the world.  People need to turn off their TVs.  I'm afraid that people who watch TV are brainwashed, frightened idiots.

Welcome to TIU Superzebra!