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 A Declaration of Independence From IsraelPosted on Jul 2, 2007
By Chris Hedges Israel, without the United States, would probably not exist. The country came perilously close to extinction during the October 1973 war when Egypt, trained and backed by the Soviet Union, crossed the Suez and the Syrians poured in over the Golan Heights. Huge American military transport planes came to the rescue. They began landing every half-hour to refit the battered Israeli army, which had lost most of its heavy armor. By the time the war was over, the United States had given Israel $2.2 billion in emergency military aid. The intervention, which enraged the Arab world, triggered the OPEC oil embargo that for a time wreaked havoc on Western economies. This was perhaps the most dramatic example of the sustained life-support system the United States has provided to the Jewish state. Israel was born at midnight May 14, 1948. The U.S. recognized the new state 11 minutes later. The two countries have been locked in a deadly embrace ever since. Washington, at the beginning of the relationship, was able to be a moderating influence. An incensed President Eisenhower demanded and got Israel’s withdrawal after the Israelis occupied Gaza in 1956. During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israeli warplanes bombed the USS Liberty. The ship, flying the U.S. flag and stationed 15 miles off the Israeli coast, was intercepting tactical and strategic communications from both sides. The Israeli strikes killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 171. The deliberate attack froze, for a while, Washington’s enthusiasm for Israel. But ruptures like this one proved to be only bumps, soon smoothed out by an increasingly sophisticated and well-financed Israel lobby that set out to merge Israeli and American foreign policy in the Middle East. Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile. The barrier weaves its way through the West Bank, creating isolated pockets of impoverished Palestinians in ringed ghettos. By the time the barrier is finished it will probably in effect seize up to 40 percent of Palestinian land. This is the largest land grab by Israel since the 1967 war. And although the United States officially opposes settlement expansion and the barrier, it also funds them. The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region’s first nuclear weapons program. U.S. foreign policy, especially under the current Bush administration, has become little more than an extension of Israeli foreign policy. The United States since 1982 has vetoed 32 Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security Council members. It refuses to enforce the Security Council resolutions it claims to support. These resolutions call on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories. There is now volcanic anger and revulsion by Arabs at this blatant favoritism. Few in the Middle East see any distinction between Israeli and American policies, nor should they. And when the Islamic radicals speak of U.S. support of Israel as a prime reason for their hatred of the United States, we should listen. The consequences of this one-sided relationship are being played out in the disastrous war in Iraq, growing tension with Iran, and the humanitarian and political crisis in Gaza. It is being played out in Lebanon, where Hezbollah is gearing up for another war with Israel, one most Middle East analysts say is inevitable. The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is unraveling. And it is doing so because of this special relationship. The eruption of a regional conflict would usher in a nightmare of catastrophic proportions. There were many in the American foreign policy establishment and State Department who saw this situation coming. The decision to throw our lot in with Israel in the Middle East was not initially a popular one with an array of foreign policy experts, including President Harry Truman’s secretary of state, Gen. George Marshall. They warned there would be a backlash. They knew the cost the United States would pay in the oil-rich region for this decision, which they feared would be one of the greatest strategic blunders of the postwar era. And they were right. The decision has jeopardized American and Israeli security and created the kindling for a regional conflagration. The alliance, which makes no sense in geopolitical terms, does makes sense when seen through the lens of domestic politics. The Israel lobby has become a potent force in the American political system. No major candidate, Democrat or Republican, dares to challenge it. The lobby successfully purged the State Department of Arab experts who challenged the notion that Israeli and American interests were identical. Backers of Israel have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars to support U.S. political candidates deemed favorable to Israel. They have brutally punished those who strayed, including the first President Bush, who they said was not vigorous enough in his defense of Israeli interests. This was a lesson the next Bush White House did not forget. George W. Bush did not want to be a one-term president like his father. Israel advocated removing Saddam Hussein from power and currently advocates striking Iran to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons. Direct Israeli involvement in American military operations in the Middle East is impossible. It would reignite a war between Arab states and Israel. The United States, which during the Cold War avoided direct military involvement in the region, now does the direct bidding of Israel while Israel watches from the sidelines. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel was a spectator, just as it is in the war with Iraq. President Bush, facing dwindling support for the war in Iraq, publicly holds Israel up as a model for what he would like Iraq to become. Imagine how this idea plays out on the Arab street, which views Israel as the Algerians viewed the French colonizers during the war of liberation. “In Israel,” Bush said recently, “terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it’s not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that’s a good indicator of success that we’re looking for in Iraq.” Americans are increasingly isolated and reviled in the world. They remain blissfully ignorant of their own culpability for this isolation. U.S. “spin” paints the rest of the world as unreasonable, but Israel, Americans are assured, will always be on our side. Israel is reaping economic as well as political rewards from its lock-down apartheid state. In the “gated community” market it has begun to sell systems and techniques that allow the nation to cope with terrorism. Israel, in 2006, exported $3.4 billion in defense products—well over a billion dollars more than it received in American military aid. Israel has grown into the fourth largest arms dealer in the world. Most of this growth has come in the so-called homeland security sector.
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By Inherit The WInd, July 12, 2007 at 2:29 pm # Strangely enough, Bush may be right! Israeli Zionists attacked us on 9/11 and they are also leading the insurgent charge in Iraq, aiming to dismember the country in the ‘Balkanization’ effort. Next, of course, they will be behind 911-II and a similar ‘Balkanization’ attempt in Iran. Does the US Military really need that old Carrier ‘Enterprise’ any more - or is it ‘disposable’ and full of asbestos, like the WTC towers?! ********************** You buy into this pure bullshit that was put out by Arabs to TRY to cover for 19 Arabs flying planes into the WTC and the Pentagon, but “oh No! I’m not anti-semitic! I just believe Jews (whoops! I meant to say ‘Zionists’--chuckle--) are from Satan!” GodSend: You ARE anti-semitic. You ARE a bigot, and you ARE a neo-nazi because you happily and willingly buy into this bullshit that could not POSSIBLY be true. But then again, facts don’t matter to you anyway--you have “faith” and a direct line from God. I’ve met Christians and “Christians”. Trust me, you are the latter.
By GodSend, July 12, 2007 at 9:36 am # OK, 1Sgt - we’ll get him in a cross-fire!
By Ken, July 12, 2007 at 9:03 am # Cyrena, where does zionism in your world view stand on the ladder of legitimacy, and where are countries based on colonialism. Where are fiefdoms and regimes that go about execution style rampages? Where does it honestly rank compared to 90% of the world’s countries, where the police isn’t your best friend, and a nightly knock by the army/gang/police on the door means you have to hide your virgin daughters? If you are interested to find out about ‘legitimate zionism’, you might want to read a book with an open mind, that actually does not quote from the bible, the quran, nor is it based on atrocities. It’s about realities: How to Cure a Fanatic by Amos Oz It could be a real cure for some of the fun loving characters that roam around this blog
By GodSend, July 12, 2007 at 7:18 am # Here is a VERY IMPORTANT message about America, Israel, Zionism and the future of our country and of our children. After the sorrow has subsided, it needs to be replaced by OUTRAGE and ACTION! Was there ever a more appropriate time than NOW, when “the tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots”? (Thomas Jefferson). It may not have to be real blood just yet - figurative blood may be sufficient. It’s high time for all patriotic Americans to say: “We’re mad as hell - and we’re not going to take it any more!”
By Inherit The Wind, July 12, 2007 at 3:42 am # GodSend on 7/11 at 11:03 pm Truly, Windbag, I have no intention of twisting your arm (or worse) about ANYTHING - or anyone else’s. I’m not the violent type. Furthermore, you are welcome to remain an agnostic Windbag for the rest of your life. It’s possible (by God’s Grace) that He will decide to make you aware of His existence - you should be so lucky! That is likely to be an experience you will never forget - for better or for worse. God can work miracles even with lobotomized agnostics! smile Did it ever occur to you that my comments to you are not really addressed to you? wink ****** Thankyou, Thankyou! I’m going to get tonsured and join the priesthood this very afternoon! Only one thing in the history of the Universe could possibly be termed “a miracle” and that was The Big Bang itself--and only because we have no way (yet)of seeking and examining what came before it and caused it. Everything from the first “10 to the -100th” of a second after the BB until now is governed by the laws of physics, only some of which are understood. If you want to say that it was God who made the Big Bang happen, well, I certainly cannot and will not dispute that. And I have no problem with that--that’s the Deist position. However, to say that He/She has had to constantly interfere and “adjust” things after the Big Ban denies the very concept of His/Her “Omniscience” and “Omnipotence”. In other words, interventions ("miracles") imply that God could not see the implications of The Big Bang, and did a lousy job of crafting it. Both of these inferences about “miracles” deny Omniscience and Omnipotence. And, according to most religions, are sacreligious to infer God as less then All-Knowing and All-Powerful. In other words, Omniscience means He/She knows I’m typing these words even before I do. I’m not talking only to you “GodSend”, but to people who may think your arguments make some sense. Have a nice day.
By abraham, July 12, 2007 at 12:01 am # FREE PALESTINE! BITCHES!
By GodSend, July 11, 2007 at 11:03 pm # Truly, Windbag, I have no intention of twisting your arm (or worse) about ANYTHING - or anyone else’s. I’m not the violent type. Furthermore, you are welcome to remain an agnostic Windbag for the rest of your life. It’s possible (by God’s Grace) that He will decide to make you aware of His existence - you should be so lucky! That is likely to be an experience you will never forget - for better or for worse. God can work miracles even with lobotomized agnostics! Did it ever occur to you that my comments to you are not really addressed to you?
By Narad Naia Volia, July 11, 2007 at 9:13 pm # When one moves to the radical left, apparently they are not moving in a strait line but a circle. The author of this antisemitic diatribe has come full circle. Chris Hedges is not a progressive or even a left-wing ideologue he is a right-wing fascist. After WWI Hitler was also blaming the Jews for the war. If there are any on this blog who still believe that the Holocaust even took place, they should recount what the consequences of blaming the Jews were. Really! If those of you who are not openly white supremacists really believe this kind of antisemitism is progressive you are only kidding yourselves.
By Inherit The Wind, July 11, 2007 at 2:47 pm # GodSend on 7/11 at 1:45 pm Windbag, I said earlier that the lobotomy of your mind and heart was successful - you keep proving it with every foul breath and post that arrives here. You understand NOTHING! One day you will be on your knees before your Creator (that’ll be the end of your agnosticism) - and the witness of your words and actions on Earth will condemn you and reason will not save you! You’ll have eternity to find a reason for having been so dense! *************************** Yeah, and Santy Claws is gonna leave me a lump of coal. The man who says “Believe as I do or God will damn you,” will soon be saying, “Believe as I do or I will kill you.”-- Voltaire That, ‘GodSend’, is my opinion of you. That in your frustration at not being able to convince people like me to follow your superstition, you will then advocate using violence against me to FORCE me to conform and terrorize others into conformity. You are only a step or two away from becoming a “Christian” version of an Islamic Jihadist--like Eric Rudolph, who justifies his murder and terrorism as “God’s Will”. Save your boogie-man fairy-tale threats for those who are frightened by such medieval nonsense. It’s just a noisy passing of gas to me.
By Pein Tellus, July 11, 2007 at 2:05 pm # In 1700s, the French philosopher Condorcet asserted that the gullibility and stupidity of the vast majority of the population would enable a cunning minority to indoctrinate them at will and so create an elite oligarchy behind a ‘democratic front.’ In 1972 Senator William Fulbright declared that the United States was “subservient” to Israel and bore “a very great share of the responsibility for the continuation of Middle East violence.” Fulbright added that “The Israelis control politics in Congress and in the Senate” - i.e., in America. For daring to speak out and tell the truth to the American public, Jewish Americans voted together to kick Fulbright out of the Senate. In confirming that AIPAC was responsible for Fulbright’s defeat at the polls, a former head of AIPAC boasted: “The Jews in America gathered to oust Senator Charles Percy and the (other) American politicians got the message.” AIPAC also ousted Congressman Paul Findley who had also dared to speak out about the power of the Israeli Lobby and the omnipotent control they had over America and the lives of its citizens.
By GodSend, July 11, 2007 at 1:45 pm # Windbag, I said earlier that the lobotomy of your mind and heart was successful - you keep proving it with every foul breath and post that arrives here. You understand NOTHING! One day you will be on your knees before your Creator (that’ll be the end of your agnosticism) - and the witness of your words and actions on Earth will condemn you and reason will not save you! You’ll have eternity to find a reason for having been so dense!
By Inherit The Wind, July 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm # Hey, Sgt. Schultz: Do you really think for example we Americans have not noticed the former Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, who is Jewish, and is a ZIONIST is advocating US attacks on Iran, US continuing the Iraq war although he WAS a democrat and then switched parties to Independent so he could get back in when he was beat in the primaries last election? You are so two dimensional that you may not believe that I detest Lieberman just as much as you do, and for nearly the same reasons: Advocating unwarranted attacks on Iran, supporting Mad King George without question, dishonoring the party he was a member of for so long by going independent. But “I know nuz-sing!” (Apologies to the late John Banner, a great funny-man)
By Inherit The Wind, July 11, 2007 at 12:51 pm # by GodSend on 7/11 at 8:10 am Well, Windbag, you did it again! - filled this space with enough hot air to float us all to the moon wink I’m going to let a dead man answer you (and all other agnostics and atheists), who is ‘on the other side’. His name is Theodor Austin-Sparks: “We were saying that these are not just abstract ideas, this is positive, practical, experimental knowledge… In the very simplest way, with the greatest of ease, light just begins to filter through, and you do not know exactly when it happened, but you are able to say, I see now! That is the nature of spiritual knowledge. It is always like that, it will ever be like that. It is life, it is spirituality. It is that you are in living union with God, and not as merely a fact but a process, you are continually living in union with God.” I can’t improve on that except to say: I, too, once was blind - but now I SEE! (by God’s Amazing Grace) ******************************* Let me translate that gibberish/hash for you: “Stop thinking if you what to know God. Don’t be what ‘He’ made you, a rational, reasoning being. Don’t use ‘His’ greatest gift to you--your brain. And when you achieve that absolute perfection of non-thinking, you’ll be dead and that’s the best thing you can be--dead. Cross my heart and hope to die!” And you buy into that...stuff. I don’t. I recognize it for what it is: vile and evil masquerading as goodness. As a mean-spirited, hate-filled insult-spitting, threat-hurling miserable excuse for a human being, you have a lot of damn gall saying you were blind and now you see. I suggest you tend to your own business before you tend to mine. I can’t imagine any god seeing grace in you.
By GodSend, July 11, 2007 at 8:10 am # Well, Windbag, you did it again! - filled this space with enough hot air to float us all to the moon I’m going to let a dead man answer you (and all other agnostics and atheists), who is ‘on the other side’. His name is Theodor Austin-Sparks: We were saying that these are not just abstract ideas, this is positive, practical, experimental knowledge, the result of the free action of Divine life in us, the mystery and wonder, the marvel of Divine life within which knows no limitations. Thus, fullness is governed by two things. Firstly by life and spirituality. Those two are one, one is but the definition of the other. Life and spirituality; it is spiritual life, it is a spiritual state which that life produces. It is related entirely to all spiritual things, related to association with God, union with God, knowledge of God. That life makes the link and defines the nature of spirituality. Fullness is based upon that. If any of us live on the basis of nature, in the measure in which we do that, we are unspiritual and miss God. If, for instance, you are just trying to get round and get over the immensities of God’s thoughts by reason, projecting your head into that realm and trying to comprehend with natural reason, you will not only do yourself harm and bring yourself to despair, but you will miss the way entirely. This requires the renewed, re-born spirit indwelt and taught by the Holy Spirit. You people who call yourselves thinking people, your reaction is, Where does human reason come in? Is it not a Divine gift? Yes; but it is an after instrument. You do not begin with it. You have to have it in order to communicate with other people who are on the same level, rational people. To be able to say to others what God has shown to you requires your brain, but you never get that revelation by means of your brain. You will undo yourself if you try, and you will miss the way. So it is on any other line of the natural, we will miss the way. How often we have been brought to the point where in despair we have said, I give it up, I cannot see, I cannot understand! and we have fallen down before the Lord and said, I have extended myself to the last fraction to try and understand and apprehend; now I give it up unless you show and reveal it to me. In the very simplest way, with the greatest of ease, light just begins to filter through, and you do not know exactly when it happened, but you are able to say, I see now! That is the nature of spiritual knowledge. It is always like that, it will ever be like that. It is life, it is spirituality. It is that you are in living union with God, and not as merely a fact but a process, you are continually living in union with God. I can’t improve on that except to say: I, too, once was blind - but now I SEE! (by God’s Amazing Grace)
By Inherit The Wind, July 10, 2007 at 11:43 pm # As I said before, first try to get rid of that nasty case of agnosticism! Translation: Give up what makes you human. Not in this life. As human beings, our competitive advantage that allows our survival is loosely called our “intelligence”, but that’s not precise. It is our ability to reason, to collect facts and apply logic to them that makes us masters of the Earth (good or bad masters is another topic). Down the millenia it has allowed us to master fire, agriculture, basic machinery (levers, wheels and winches), and move from hunter-gathers to growers of food and builders of cities. Faith didn’t bring this about: Reason did. Try building a house using faith instead of reason! The computer that GodSend types on was not created by faith, but by men and women asking a thousand, a million tiny questions: “Does this belong?” The scientists, working with “Just a theory”, a theory with less evidence than Evolution, invented the semi-conductors that make these computers possible. Faith didn’t build these--Faith slowed down their creation by over a thousand years. Yes, GodSend, your kind of “my way or the highway Christianity” destroyed the greatest sources of knowledge and burned the men and women who would have moved us forward. They denied our human nature: The Reasoning and progress stopped for a millennium. Agnosticism uses this basic reasoning ability to ask the same questions your faith “answers”: Who are we? Where do we come from? Why is Right right and Wrong wrong? Why are we Here? But unlike your blind, hateful superstition, Agnosticism uses what makes us Human and kept us alive to research those questions: Our ability to collect facts and apply logic to them--to reason. Reason is isn’t faith. It’s the opposite of faith, the enemy of faith, the shining light that leads us away from the darkness and black pit of faith. Faith always leads to killing people as a means of worshipping God. Whether it’s Aztecs chopping out a heart, Christians burning heretics at the stake, or Islamic Jihadists bombing a pizza parlor full of children, all came to their pointless brutal murders via FAITH! The question isn’t when will I give up Agnosticism? The question is when will YOU use the one thing that makes you different than everything else alive on Earth--your ability to reason? I know, I know--reason is wasted on you. You’re a victim GodSend, but you are such an example of walking fertilizer it’s hard for me to care.
By Inherit The Wind, July 10, 2007 at 7:39 pm # GodSend on 7/10 at 7:22 pm Hey, Windbag! There is a photo on my website with a black hat Jew holding up a sign that reads: “Zionism is Nazism”. What, do you suppose, he meant by that? You, ‘Lefty’, Sharon, Olmert and all the other Zionists are the “Sieg Heil” Neonazis in the world - and are likely to be responsible for the real Holocaust, yet to come (unless the Jews of this world put an unceremonious end to your ‘Greater Israel’ ambitions). Of course, Yahweh has already promised to do much worse than that to the rebellious house of Israel! Being melted in His furnace could ruin your whole day! ********* Let me guess: You and Sgt Schultz plan to be His instrument in this, right? His hammer and His sword? Just like the “Islamic Martyrs” (terrorist suicide bombers). Threats of murder and genocide from “GodSend"--that’s debating for you. “Ve are goink to get you CHEWS!”
By GodSend, July 10, 2007 at 7:22 pm # Hey, Windbag! There is a photo on my website with a black hat Jew holding up a sign that reads: “Zionism is Nazism”. What, do you suppose, he meant by that? You, ‘Lefty’, Sharon, Olmert and all the other Zionists are the “Sieg Heil” Neonazis in the world - and are likely to be responsible for the real Holocaust, yet to come (unless the Jews of this world put an unceremonious end to your ‘Greater Israel’ ambitions). Of course, Yahweh has already promised to do much worse than that to the rebellious house of Israel! Being melted in His furnace could ruin your whole day!
By Inherit The Wind, July 10, 2007 at 7:12 pm # Sgt Schultz on 7/10 at 4:38 pm Many people like you are still in the old paradigm and it won’t work anymore. People are not scared...it just doesn’t work anymore. A disagreement does not make one an anti-semite. You really need to remember that and I certainly take you to task on your charge because it is baseless, but it does show YOU for what you are. Like I’ve said before...your types are in for a Nasty, Nasty surprise. ***************** Translation of Sgt. Schultz: “Ven VE are in powah, all you Chews are goink to be in BIC t-r-rubble! Ve are goink to fix you GUT!” SCHULTZ! VAT ARE YOU DOINK?!?!?
By uh....clem, July 10, 2007 at 3:57 pm # to “the 1SGT”: did you deliberately leave out the third main reason osama bin laden mentions as reasons for the attack of 9/11, assuming, btw, that he was the main culprit behind it? OR, was it just an oversight on your part? as you probably recall he mentions the US and UK sanctions against Iraq which resulted in the deaths of circa one million iraqis, half of them children. perhaps that “reason” given by osama is not so convenient for your “patriotic” criticism of israel. there is an “isolationist” slant to your thinking, which is fine by me, but try telling that to the people who have controlled US foreign polity for over a century—the (economic) ruling class. they know what side their bread is buttered on. when a “max shields” tried to raise the issue of american imperialism, in one of the earliest threads, almost no one replied at all, for or against. i can only assume it is not a topic to be discussed, among either the broad Right or broad Left in your country. how saddening.
By Inherit The Wind, July 10, 2007 at 1:38 pm # GodSend, 1Sgt: Got yer swastikas, skinheads? We fought a war and put TEN MILLION men under arms to rid the world of your type. And it is called “The Good War”. |
Newsroom Carnage Continues at The Washington Post
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(That’s verbal cross-fire, DJ - just in case you’re getting all jumpy!) 
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