"I can't stand him… he’s a liar!"

[Dino Velvet]

"You're fed up with him - I have to deal with him every day!"

Whoopsie. Nobody likes Bibi. Me neither.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2058966/Nicolas-Sarkozy-called-Israeli-Prime-Minister-Benjamin-Netanyahu-liar.html#ixzz1d7ztOOiE

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2011/11/08/article-2058966-0EB890FE00000578-31_634x453.jpg
President Obama pretending to be a child trying to avoid Benjamin Netanyahu.

Nobody blames him.

[russtafa]

good for you mate .

[onmyknees]

You make the call folks. The tale of two men. Who ya gonna want deciding if Iran gets a nuke?

[trish]

The guy on the right, he doesn't need half a dozen penis compensation devices.

[Stavros]

The guy on the left, Dino, who you say you don't like, has already sent Mossad into Iran where, according to the Guardian (UK) they attacked a missile base:

The blast at the Alghadir missile base at Bid Ganeh was so powerful it rattled windows 30 miles away in Tehran. Witnesses said it sounded like a huge bomb had been dropped. Seventeen of Iran (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran)'s elite Revolutionary Guards were killed, among them a man described his peers as the "architect" of the country's missile programme, Major General Hassan Moghaddam.

Sometimes your political choices are irrational, in the sense that your opinion on people conflict with their affinity with your views...Netanyahu is one of the most dangerous people in the region, a man who rejected the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, which is why he has done so much to ignore it. A man who has offered no support whatsoever for Arab democracy -and a man who has treated with contempt the government [and by extension, the people] of the USA -the same government that guarantees his country's security and transfers a staggering amount of taxpayer's $$$$ year after year.

[notdrunk]

The guy on the right, he doesn't need half a dozen penis compensation devices.

Lets belittle a guy who serving his country in that photo..:party:

[trish]

The guy on the right is serving his country. I said nothing of the man on the left. Learn to read you yahoo.

[Stavros]

It has occurred to me that one shows Bibi in the IDF in 1967, the other shows Obama when he followed his parents example and was working for the CIA, in New York...so in their own ways the photos show both of them serving their country...

[Prospero]

What a puerile argument for god's sake.

Anyway iran said yesterday that the explosion was an accident. Normally they'd b quick to blame Mossad.

And an attack on iran? Just what we need after the mess we all made in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might, however, be hard for Israel to resist because for them a nuclear iran (with Ahmadinejad and his apocalyptic mad sect in control) would be an existential threat. (There is very distrubing piece about the Twelver sect in Iran in a recent NYRB - can't find it now - but this has some interesting background.
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/guest/05/vonheyking/twelfthimam.html )

[notdrunk]

The guy on the right is serving his country. I said nothing of the man on the left. Learn to read you yahoo.

And what are penis compensation devices? Oh yea, individuals that don't like firearms use that term to describe male users of those weapons. It is meant to belittle individuals. Interestingly, you make that comment when making a choice between Netanyahu (in a photo posing with a firearm that is holstered) and Obama (no firearm).

[trish]

How stupid can you get?! People are not devices. The guns are. And the little dicked dudes like you and OMK, who think that picture on the left with all the hardware on "display" (a kind of male animal behavior) exemplifies virility and sound leadership, are the pathetic losers who envy what those "devices" represent. Either that or you just want to suck Netanyahu's dick. But now that we're on the topic, Netanyahu has been a major obstruction to peace in Palestine.

[Faldur]

How stupid can you get?!

What it must be like to live in your world, where you are so brilliant and the rest of the world is so stupid. Must be a sad place...

[trish]

Well it IS pretty obvious that people aren't devices. I don't claim any "brilliance" for that observation. And it's pretty obvious omk used those particular pictures because guns are symbols of virility and as notdrunk points out, Obama's not toting one. So there's nothing brilliant in that observation. What's sad is that you realize all that too, but you're willing to forgo your integrity to be a toady for a netnitwit who calls himself "notdrunk." But hey, thank you for the undeserved compliment.

[notdrunk]

How stupid can you get?! People are not devices. The guns are. And the little dicked dudes like you and OMK, who think that picture on the left with all the hardware on "display" (a kind of male animal behavior) exemplifies virility and sound leadership, are the pathetic losers who envy what those "devices" represent. Either that or you just want to suck Netanyahu's dick. But now that we're on the topic, Netanyahu has been a major obstruction to peace in Palestine.

There you go. Putting your foot in your mouth. I looked beyond the firearms. It is a photo from a time in which he was in the military. He rose to the rank of Captain in the Sayeret Matkal. The Sayeret Matkal is a special forces unit. He chose to join that unit. I guarantee he made life and death decisions during his military service. He led men into combat (is that leadership?!?!?! :0). It also shows how his attitude can be and it will turn people off.

:geek:

[Stavros]

What a puerile argument for god's sake.

Anyway iran said yesterday that the explosion was an accident. Normally they'd b quick to blame Mossad.

And an attack on iran? Just what we need after the mess we all made in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might, however, be hard for Israel to resist because for them a nuclear iran (with Ahmadinejad and his apocalyptic mad sect in control) would be an existential threat. (There is very distrubing piece about the Twelver sect in Iran in a recent NYRB - can't find it now - but this has some interesting background.
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/guest/05/vonheyking/twelfthimam.html )

Prospero, I think we should let the Americans snipe at each other on the Bibi/Obama photo call.


Re Iran: You may know that in contrast to the 'Twelver Shia's' the Ismaili are 'Seveners' who believe the 7th Imam Jaffar was the rightful leader of all Muslims -they also have seven pillars of the faith where Sunna have five, and needless to say Ismaili like most Shi'a are not considered Muslims by a lot of Sunna, especially in Saudi Arabia.

The messianic element in Shi'a discourse has been constant since the schism, whether or not the Hojjatieh mentioned in your link have as much influence over Ahmadinejad is a debatable point, but what is not in doubt is that there has been a major falling out between Ahmadinejad and Khamane'i since they conspired to steal the last Presidential elections in 2009 and use various paramilitaries to crush dissent thereafter.

It seems Ahmadinejad took the election 'victory' as a green light to forge his own path, and maintain his legacy by appointing the father-in-law of his daughter -Esfandar Masha'i - as his successor as Vice President. Masha'i then made a speech in which he claimed Iran is a friend of Israel and the USA after which Ahmadinejad was forced to sack him for that speech and the lack of consultation on government appointments that suggested Ahmadinejad thought he could rule without the 'supervision' of the Clergy, for it is precisely this desperate need by Khamane'i and the Clergy to retain what they see as Khomeini's legacy that is at the core of the conflict.

Ahmadinejad has been a colossal flop -apart from becoming a figure of ridicule in the west, none of his promises of economic growth have borne fruit, instead whatever money Iran makes is being poured into the nuclear gamble, and its offshore funding of favourites in Lebanon and Afghanistan -interestingly less so in Syria in recent months. Having second largest reserves of gas in the world do not give Iran much of an edge domestically, it has to import gas and its argument that it needs nuclear power to generate electricity is, ironically, valid but only if it works, given that Iran has one of the best educated population in the region but neither they nor their energy sector seem to be working (!).

Legislative elections follow next year, the Presidential one the year after, and given that most Iranians want good relations with Israel and the West it will be interesting to see if Netanyahu disregards all this for his own deliberate policy of not informing the USA and ignoring Obama on his government's intentions, and attacking Iran. The Iranians are absorbed with their own spats, Israel could yet prove to be as counter-productive as it has been under Sharon and Netayahu to nobody's benefit. It just seems very convenient that an attack on a missile base kills a prominent member of the missile programme, but I can't prove Israel was behind it.

Durham have a useful paper with some of the details on Ahmadinejad's neo-fascist connections in Iran and the bizarre definition of Israel which means that when they refer to it being 'erased' and so on, they only claim to be referring to Jewish settlers. Whatever.

http://dro.dur.ac.uk/7087/1/7087.pdf

[trish]

I looked beyond the firearms.Yeah, yeah, yeah. Half a day after your post maybe. And even then you felt it important somehow to point out that Obama has no firearm. Like I said, you were drawn in and are still drawn in by the symbol of virility those weapons represent. The person in the right hand photo, the President, is the person who btw ordered the raid that killed Bin Laden, ordered the mission that took out Anwar Al-awlaki, oversaw the fall of Ghaddafi and even put a fleet of Somali pirates in their place and for way less the cost in lives and money paid by the previous president.

He rose to the rank of Captain in the Sayeret Matkal. The Sayeret Matkal is a special forces unit. He chose to join that unit. I guarantee he made life and death decisions during his military service. He led men into combat (is that leadership?!?!?! :0). Never denied any of that. Sure Netanyahu is a leader. That's an empirical fact. But where has his intransigence and corruption led Israel? To an apparent impasse. Extreme conservatism is anathema to progress__it's in the word "conservatism". Witness the impasse in the U.S. Congress which is due to the radical right's stigmatization of the word "compromise."

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/before-we-bomb-iran-lets-have-a-serious-conversation/

[Dino Velvet]

The guy on the left, Dino, who you say you don't like, has already sent Mossad into Iran where, according to the Guardian (UK) they attacked a missile base:

The blast at the Alghadir missile base at Bid Ganeh was so powerful it rattled windows 30 miles away in Tehran. Witnesses said it sounded like a huge bomb had been dropped. Seventeen of Iran (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran)'s elite Revolutionary Guards were killed, among them a man described his peers as the "architect" of the country's missile programme, Major General Hassan Moghaddam.

Sometimes your political choices are irrational, in the sense that your opinion on people conflict with their affinity with your views...Netanyahu is one of the most dangerous people in the region, a man who rejected the Oslo Accords and the peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians, which is why he has done so much to ignore it. A man who has offered no support whatsoever for Arab democracy -and a man who has treated with contempt the government [and by extension, the people] of the USA -the same government that guarantees his country's security and transfers a staggering amount of taxpayer's $$$$ year after year.


What a puerile argument for god's sake.

Anyway iran said yesterday that the explosion was an accident. Normally they'd b quick to blame Mossad.

And an attack on iran? Just what we need after the mess we all made in Iraq and Afghanistan. It might, however, be hard for Israel to resist because for them a nuclear iran (with Ahmadinejad and his apocalyptic mad sect in control) would be an existential threat. (There is very distrubing piece about the Twelver sect in Iran in a recent NYRB - can't find it now - but this has some interesting background.
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/guest/05/vonheyking/twelfthimam.html )

I had heard about an accident reported on the news too. But, after reading what Stavros wrote, who knows? Anything's possible.

I would love to hear Nicolas Sarkozy elaborate on why he he thinks Netanyahu is a liar and what Netanyahu lies about. Netanyahu is not helpful and I hate the manipulation Israel does to compel people to assist them. Not sure if Sarkozy has the guts to be honest himself. I'd listen.

[hippifried]

Extreme conservatism is anathema to progress__it's in the word "conservatism". Witness the impasse in the U.S. Congress which is due to the radical right's stigmatization of the word "compromise."
"Extreme conservatism" is anathema to itself. It's an oxymoron that creates an irreconcilable paradox. This is just another reason why I despise the linear political descriptive, & the silly current habit of interchanging terminology. It confuses the narritive until there's noyhing remaining but derogatory animus. It's a lot harder to keep the dialog civil if nobody knows what the other is talking about.


Back to the topic (which isn't guns by the way):

All I know of Netenyahu is what I've gleaned from the miniscule spun coverage we get here. I would imagine it's probably the same for anyone who isn't Israeli in here, regardless of how pompously some will deny that. Other than what appears to be promotion of Israeli expansion & a disdain for non-Jews, I really don't know what his politics or economics are. Hawkish & expansionist nationalism doesn't necessarily equate to fascist ideals. He could be Maoist for all I know. It's hard to think of anything more commie & little red bookish than a kibbutz. I just don't like the dude because he comes off as such an arrogant asshole.


P.S. The 2nd Amendment says you have a "right to keep & bear arms". There's nothing that says it's the right or smart thing to do. My observations tell me that packing makes you a target.

[russtafa]

Obama is on his way here to visit Australia and i suppose our useless Prime Minister will gush all over him

[Dino Velvet]

I just don't like the dude because he comes off as such an arrogant asshole.

Hippi, we agree on something. Netenyahu has a face made for a fist. He makes many other Israeli leaders appear calm and reasonable almost having a Stalin effect projected onto them.

[tsadriana]

assholes here aswell.

[Stavros]

All I know of Netenyahu is what I've gleaned from the miniscule spun coverage we get here. I would imagine it's probably the same for anyone who isn't Israeli in here, regardless of how pompously some will deny that. Other than what appears to be promotion of Israeli expansion & a disdain for non-Jews, I really don't know what his politics or economics are. Hawkish & expansionist nationalism doesn't necessarily equate to fascist ideals. He could be Maoist for all I know. It's hard to think of anything more commie & little red bookish than a kibbutz. I just don't like the dude because he comes off as such an arrogant asshole.


Hippifried you are right to associate the Kibbutz with socialism, it was one of the key elemments in what was called 'Labour Zionism' that enabled Ben-Gurion to promote Israel as a socialist country -the first state to recognise Israel in 1948 was the USSR.

Ideologically, the kibbutz movement began as a sort of utopian community of equals, it espoused collective agriculture in the 19thc as part of the broader concept of 'renewal' which Zionists used to justify the economics of a 'Jewish state' -their belief that Palestine was under-developed and that they had the modern farming solutions to 'make the desert bloom' which the Arabs lacked, even if they had no intention of migrating to the desert; and in spite of the Arab role in the growth of the economy in Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The importance of the Kibbutzim was that they were primarily European Jews who voted for the Labour Party and kept it in power, and it was not until Menachem Begin's victory in the 1977 elections that Israel was perceived to have 'shifted to the right' -Begin all his life had been an anti-British, and an aggressive nationalist and more oriented to free markets and capitalism than to socialism which he detested. Many of his bedrock supporters were oriental Jews, and extreme nationalists who have tended to be settlers, mostly from the USA, the UK, South Africa and Australia. Netanyahu emerged from this hard core of nationalist politicians as a junior to Ariel Sharon, but unlike Begin, who signed a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, Sharon and Netanyahu see no reason to compromise on the 'security' of Israel and Netanyahu's refusal to contemplate 'land for peace' is fundamental to the impasse into which he has drive Israeli politics.

In recent years the Kibbutz has gone into decline as a social experiment, its farms are now run mostly on a commercial, market principle rather than as a sort of moral economy; and yet many Jews remain fairly liberal on a wide range of economic and social issues; the growth of the aggressive and often violent settler communities has tended to undermine the idealistc kibbutz movement, and given Israel a harder edge than maybe it used to have. The settlers, like all fringe groups are fanatics who support Netanyahu only as long as he supports them.

As I have said before, nationalism has been the driving force in Israel, an implacable and frankly offensive belief that there is nothing to share with non-Jews -and as history has always shown, nationalism is a dead-end in politics, and doomed to fail, just as this 'Jewish state' employs cheap labour from China and Thailand to farm its commercial produce, and maids from Sri Lanka and the Philippines to wash its laundry. You could say they are living a contradiction.

[onmyknees]

The guy on the right, he doesn't need half a dozen penis compensation devices.


How can you be sure of that? We all know you know the unknown, and are the village sage, but this one warrants further explanation. lol


The point of the picture and the compassion, is Obama will light up a Newport, kick back, give it some thought, and punt as he has with nearly everything else. ( Hint...."we can't wait for jobs" ....unless it's the Keystone Pipeline, then we can wait until after the election)

[trish]

How can you be sure of that?He's already shown us he not afraid to decisively and efficiently exercise his authority as Commander in Chief.



Oops! Almost forgot. People who are secure in their supreme knowledge and find the views of others laughable always insert a "LOL" or three into their posts.

ROTFLMAO LOL LOL

[onmyknees]

And what are penis compensation devices? Oh yea, individuals that don't like firearms use that term to describe male users of those weapons. It is meant to belittle individuals. Interestingly, you make that comment when making a choice between Netanyahu (in a photo posing with a firearm that is holstered) and Obama (no firearm).

Yes...Trish goes to that well for water with every mention of a four letter word (guns). Don't you get it?? Guys with little dicks need big guns to compensate. I think the first time I heard that referrence was Gloria Steinem back in 1970, and most recently by that troll Gloria Allred when referring to Herman Cain's "stimulous package"....It seems despite being feminists, they're pretty hung up on male junk ! lol

[trish]

1+1=2 is even older, and also true. The truth of a (non-self-referential) proposition is independent of it's age.

[Silcc69]

I thought extreme conservatism is called neoconservatism.

[notdrunk]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Half a day after your post maybe. And even then you felt it important somehow to point out that Obama has no firearm. Like I said, you were drawn in and are still drawn in by the symbol of virility those weapons represent. The person in the right hand photo, the President, is the person who btw ordered the raid that killed Bin Laden, ordered the mission that took out Anwar Al-awlaki, oversaw the fall of Ghaddafi and even put a fleet of Somali pirates in their place and for way less the cost in lives and money paid by the previous president.
Never denied any of that. Sure Netanyahu is a leader. That's an empirical fact. But where has his intransigence and corruption led Israel? To an apparent impasse. Extreme conservatism is anathema to progress__it's in the word "conservatism". Witness the impasse in the U.S. Congress which is due to the radical right's stigmatization of the word "compromise."

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/before-we-bomb-iran-lets-have-a-serious-conversation/

Thanks for trying to read my mind. It looks like you failed though. I already explained it. Don't need to explain it again. I didn't question Obama's accomplishments. The conflict has been gone on for decades now. The situation used to be a lot worse. It is just another chapter of the story. Netanyahu thinks it is the best for Israel. You have to remember that Israel sees Jerusalem as it capital. So, of course, he is going to allow Israeli construction if his people demand it. However, he might lose the next election because of all the domestic issues he is facing.

[hippifried]

I thought extreme conservatism is called neoconservatism.
"Extreme" & "conservative" are antonyms.

I've been asking for a coherent definition of "neo-conservative" for years now, without success. What I do know is:
The linear labels don't work.
"Left wing" & "liberal" aren't the same thing.
"Liberal" & "progressive" aren't the same thing.
"Liberal" is an adjective.
"Progressive" is an adjective.
"Conservative" is an adjective.
"Conservative" is "conservative", whether it's neo, paleo, or any other time frame prefix.
"Conservative" & "right wing" aren't the same thing.
"Fascism" is corporate control of government.

Words count. If you're not clear, or you just sling labels around, then others look at what you say & just make up anything for what it means. Nowadays, if someone's slinging labels &/or interchanging terminology willy nilly, I assume they don't know what they're talking about. The alternative motive is that they think I'm too stupid to notice. That should piss me off, but life's too short to get upset over someone else's ignorance. Since the labels are a lie more often than not, I see no reason to buy into any of it. I see politics as a sphere. The only lines are the radii. There are an infinite number of radial lines because they each represent an issue or idea, instead of a blanket linear descriptive.

[Stavros]

You are right about the language Hippifried -some years ago I was asked by a graduate student of international relations -an Arab- what was the difference Liberal theory and Neo-Liberal theory, and Realist theory and Neo-Realist theory. I am afraid my cynical response to some badly written books (Waltz in particular) was that Neo-Liberalism is liberalism and Neo-Realism is realism re-constructed by academics who need to write books to show how intellectually vibrant their departments are. All it does is confuse students who have enough to contend with when they realise what they thought was the study of current affairs is a labyrinth of inchoate and barely readable pseudo-philosphical rubbish. But when he asked me to write all his essays and I declined he went away looking sorrowful. Not much neo there.

[onmyknees]

I thought extreme conservatism is called neoconservatism.

Nope...
Like most catch phrases used to describe a political ideology or belief, it has a completely different meaning that it did even 20 years ago, but let's deal in the here and now....To a fiscal conservative's point of view, a Neo-Con refers to an interventionist foreign policy. Paul Wolfowitz for example was a Neo-Con believing that the US should use it's influence ( both covert and overt) in all four corners of the globe. Wolfowitz was one of the leading voices to "go big" in Iraq. Neo-Cons are hawkish advocates. There are social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and neo conservatives. Ron Paul would be and example of a fiscal conservative with no "cross over" to the Neo Cons

[Stavros]

To fine tune what you say onmyknees, I would swap the word 'interventionist' with pre-emptive. Instead of waiting for your 'enemy' to attack, you get in first and disable that ability. More fine tuning would suggest a 'conservative' -old-style- would be cautious about that kind of action (see Kissinger's review of John Lewis Gaddis's biography of George Kennan in the NYT on the 10th November). So does this mean a 'neo' conservative is a 'new form' of conservative when their attitude to action is so different? Neo-cons only works because it sounds like it came out of Star Trek.

[russtafa]

:pissed::pissed:Obama just gave a strong warning to China in his speech to the Australian parliament which went down really well with the Chinese .Our stupid prime minister lapped this shit up ,we should have thrown the chump out on his ass.China is our biggest partner in trade and he starts threating them and our clown of a prime minister puts up with it! bloody hell

[onmyknees]

To fine tune what you say onmyknees, I would swap the word 'interventionist' with pre-emptive. Instead of waiting for your 'enemy' to attack, you get in first and disable that ability. More fine tuning would suggest a 'conservative' -old-style- would be cautious about that kind of action (see Kissinger's review of John Lewis Gaddis's biography of George Kennan in the NYT on the 10th November). So does this mean a 'neo' conservative is a 'new form' of conservative when their attitude to action is so different? Neo-cons only works because it sounds like it came out of Star Trek.

Interesting....swapping interventionist with pre-emptive. I'm not entirely sure I'd agree, but it certainly could be a great topic for "Firing Line with William F. Buckley" or those wonderful Fred Friendly PBS discussions. I miss measured disagrrement. Good post Stavros.

[Stavros]

Indeed -Dick Cheney or Richard Pearle against Buckley -Professor Bile meets the Acid men...

[notdrunk]

:pissed::pissed:Obama just gave a strong warning to China in his speech to the Australian parliament which went down really well with the Chinese .Our stupid prime minister lapped this shit up ,we should have thrown the chump out on his ass.China is our biggest partner in trade and he starts threating them and our clown of a prime minister puts up with it! bloody hell

Psst, China is the United States second biggest trading partner. The biggest trading partner for the US is Canada. The US better not piss off lil America!

[russtafa]

Obama gave a great sword rattling speech and the Chinese did not like it one bit and our dumb Aussie politicians just sucked it up.If any one can sword rattle these days it's the Chinese

[Stavros]

If the USA is perceived to be maintaining a commitment to Japan and the Philippines, it is because the sovereignty of the small islands chains in the region is still contested by China, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, and Malaysia -the discovery of gas north of Palawan the large island to the west of Luzon has suggested more resources could be in the deep water in that area. China is unlikley to go to war unless it calculates that it can be a cost-effective manoeuvre which would not prejudice trade -and Taiwan is really the territory they want the most -they will continue to press their claims to various islands through diplomacy, I guess force majeure is not ruled out, but I don't think anyone at the moment thinks they are worth that kind of effort.

[russtafa]

yeah but the sun is going down on the American empire and the dragon is on the rise

[Stavros]

I don't know what you are worried about, Russtafa -even if you were to discount the trade Australia has with Japan and South Korea, China would still be an irreplaceable part of the Australian economy -you are an integral part of the East Asian economy, a country which in that context resembles Belgium and the Netherlands in Europe, but with fabulous mineral riches to export. Indeed, as your Embassy in Beijing points out:

The Australian and Chinese economies are strongly complementary. As a result, our trade and investment relationship is substantial and has developed well beyond its modest beginnings in the 1970s. According to Australian statistics, two-way merchandise trade has grown from A$113 million in 1973, just after the establishment of diplomatic relations, to A$78.2 billion in 2009. China is Australia's largest trading partner, with total trade (goods and services) in 2009 valued at A$85.1 billion, an increase of 15.1 per cent over the previous year.

Perhaps after a chorus of We're in the money, you will acknowledge what a colossal debt you owe to Gough Whitlam.

[russtafa]

Yeah and but to have Obama making threats and putting a base in Darwin is upsetting our biggest trading partner and those 2 idiots accepted it

[Dino Velvet]

Can't call Kissinger an anti-semite unless he's self-loathing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2063191/Nixon-adviser-Kissinger-branded-Jewish-self-serving-b-----new-documents-reveal.html#ixzz1e5ln2yGX


Nixon adviser Henry Kissinger branded Jewish as self-serving 'bastards', new documents reveal


American Jewish groups, lobbying the Nixon administration on behalf of their Soviet brethren, got under White House adviser Henry Kissinger's skin so much that he denounced them as self-serving 'bastards', newly released documents reveal.

The comments were made in August 1972, when appeals were flooding the White House over the Kremlin's levying of fees for exit permits.

One such letter was from the Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, appealing to the White House to end its strategy of 'quiet diplomacy', and for Mr Nixon to take up the issue with Soviet leaders directly.

A White House official, Leonard Garment, himself flooded with letters and phone calls with Jewish appeals, asked Mr Kissinger for help and guidance.

According to transcripts released by the State Department, Mr Kissinger - deputy national security adviser at the time - said to Mr Garment: 'Is there a more self-serving group of people than the Jewish community?'

Mr Garment replied: 'None in the world.'

The exchange was all the more remarkable because both Mr Kissinger and Mr Garment were Jewish.

But Mr Kissinger continued, saying: 'What the hell do they think they are accomplishing? You can't even tell bastards anything in confidence because they'll leak it.'

Despite his outburst, Mr Kissinger said he would take up the issue with Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin and also meet again with Jewish leaders.

But he finished with: 'They ought to remember what this administration has done.'

The remarks were contained in documents dealing with U.S.-Soviet relations released by the State Department.

Mr Kissinger, 88, was not available for comment over the released transcript.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mr Kissinger played a dominant role in U.S. foreign policy between 1969 and 1977.

During this period, he pioneered the policy of detente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People's Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War.

Even after his term with presidents Nixon and Gerald Ford, he has been approached for advice by successive presidents - including Ronald Reagan and George W Bush.

[Stavros]

There is an old story that when Kissinger, under pressure from Golda Meir to prioritise Israel's interests because of his Jewish background, wrote to her and said Madam, first of all I am an American, secondly I am Secretary of State, and thirdly I am a Jew she replied, That's ok, sonny, over here we read from right to left.

Both Kissinger and Nixon were notorious for their bad language, and it didn't matter who it was if they got in the way. According to Bob Woodward, Nixon went to Africa once, for less than a day, and casually referred to Africans as jiggies, but I guess if contempt for non-white people is your issue, you could not get worse than Theodore Roosevelt, a truly vile individual. The UK equivalent was a Prime Minister called Churchill.

[Stavros]

Yeah and but to have Obama making threats and putting a base in Darwin is upsetting our biggest trading partner and those 2 idiots accepted it

Threats? Even the Daily Mail said:

Obama avoided a confrontational tone with China in his speech to the Australian parliament, praising Beijing as a partner in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and preventing proliferation.

[russtafa]

threats if you read between the lines and that is how China perceived it

[Dino Velvet]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/19/us-iran-israel-usa-idUSTRE7AI0UF20111119


Israel: time running out to stop a nuclear Iran

WASHINGTON | Sat Nov 19, 2011 1:46pm EST

(Reuters) - Iran (http://www.reuters.com/places/iran) is less than a year away from being unstoppable in its goal of producing a nuclear weapon, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said in an interview with CNN released on Saturday.
In an advance transcript of an interview to air on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" program on Sunday, Barak said Israel was focused on the prospect of a nuclear Iran and what "should and could be done about it on time."
"It's true that it won't take three years, probably three quarters before no one can do anything practically about it because the Iranians are gradually, deliberately entering into what I call a zone of immunity, by widening the redundancy of their plan, making it spread over many more sites with many more hidden elements," he said.
Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, said a report earlier this month by the U.N. nuclear watchdog that Tehran appeared to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be conducting secret research had had a sobering effect on world leaders and was driving urgent, intensive diplomacy.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report confirmed long-standing concerns that Iran aims to build a nuclear weapon, which Israel sees as a threat to its existence. Tehran has said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
The United States and Israel have not ruled out possible air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites.
"I don't think that that is a subject for public discussion," Barak said when asked whether Israel was prepared to attack Iran to stop its nuclear ambitions.
He said a nuclear Iran would have deep repercussions for the Middle East, prompting countries like Saudi Arabia (http://www.reuters.com/places/saudi-arabia), Turkey and Egypt to "turn nuclear" and starting a countdown to putting nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists.
Barak declined to comment on widespread speculation an explosion at an Iranian military base last week that killed 17 troops including an officer regarded as the architect of Iran's missile defense systems was the work of Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
"No. I don't know anything that I can contribute to this conversation," he said.
Iran has said the explosion took place during research on weapons that could strike Israel but has denied speculation of possible sabotage by Israel or the United States.
(Writing by Sandra Maler (http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=sandra.maler&); Editing by Paul Simao)

[Stavros]

There is no doubt that the Israeli's, for good reason, are raising the pressure on Iran and its nuclear ambitions, but Barak's concern that a proliferation of nuclear development could start a 'countdown to putting nuclear materials in the hands of terrorists' is old hat. Anthony Cordesmann, the erudite American military analyst was warning of terrorists using a 'dirty bomb' in the 1980s; there was concern after the break-up of the USSR that corruption and incompetence could allow fissile materials and other hardware capable of producing a dity bomb to be bought by 'terrorists' at the same time as Abdul Qader the nuclear scientist of Pakistan was selling his knowledge to anyone who wanted it. And yet so far the closest anyone has come to this kind of warfare was the Sarin attack on the Tokyo underground railway system, which was deemed, in military terms, to be an inefficient operation, notwithstanding the damage that it did cause. In addition to which Israel itself has used phosphorous bombs in Lebanon and the Gaza District and Saddam Hussein used nerve gases on the Kurds of northern Iraq and Iranian troops during the 1980s war. I am not saying it cannot happen, but the costs and logistics seem to be beyond the capacity of most terrorist groups. But not of governments.

[hippifried]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzpffthrp... Huh?
Oh, we're still in "everybody worry about Iran some more" mode?
Wake me up if anybody manages to find a clue.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz