The "experts" on the media argue that the king will now escalate his cooperation with the US war on IS. Does anyone take seriously his regime's claim that the pilot was burned to death Jan 3? That's just cover for bungling the swap for the woman for the Japanese reporter which, for what I can tell from here, was the only swap on offer from IS.
I watched an idiot terror "expert" (Neuman?) on PBS Newshour this evening. He lectured (w/o challenge by the respectful interviewer) they were radicalized by their "identity" crisis after being born in Christian France!
But the main obstacle to releasing an unredacted Senate report is not Rogers but Obama himself as boss of the CIA. He just sent Kerry out to warn its release would endanger US hostages.
" Russia’s unilateral annexation of the Crimea and heavy interference in eastern Ukraine is inconsistent with international law." Is this supposed to mean in contradiction toUS observance of International law or an imitation of it?
Somehow, we're missing any reference here to the violent failed state created by US direction of the military intervention against a government fighting fundamentalist in Libya.
The Kurds fighters were shown not to be the"invincible" US allies that the media portrayed and were reduced to (successfully) pleading for Obama's air force to bail them out on the ground.
There was a court order to release Barron's memo, but the Obama regime decided not to appeal it in order to get reluctant liberals and libertarians to sign on to Barron's nomination to the Boston appeals court. Obama promise to eventually release a sanitized version was enough to confirm his nomination.
It puzzles me that Russia is still allowing trains to supply and remove equipment for US troops in Afghanistan.
see map at link to csmonitor.com) Across Russia: A key NATO supply route into Afghanistan http://www.michaelmunk.com
"Obama, a self-declared moderate, has long claimed to be for more social freedoms in the US. But his push has been opposed by traditionalists and ultra conservatives that hold sway in the establishment."
Goldberg was referring to new info from a leak that Jason Leopold has just scooped on Al-Jazeera : Details Mitchell-Jensen personal roles in torture application; reveals Poland sought assurance the report would not mention it, new black site at Diego Rivera, etc. Read it all at
Right after the media celebrated the one of the few months in which the Pentagon reported no deaths in the AfPak war (although there were 16 WIA the week ending March 26), the military suffers four "non-hostile"casualties in the US.
Both Ft Hood shooters bought their weapon at Guns Galore in Killeen.
You write: "Obama staffers were reportedly “appalled” to discover the details [of the torture]. However, no officials have been charged with wrongdoing."
You should note that the reason is Obama's own decision in his first month in office not to prosecute the torturers and their bosses. He announced he didn't want to "look back."
Zeiden fled back to Europe where he came from, another of those exiles brought back under the auspices of those who changed the Libyan regime through their military intervention.
It seems increasingly difficult for those who backed that intervention to justify the resulting state of that nation.
I suggest that Iran's cooperation on the nukes issue is based on its knowledge that it is not working on nuclear weapons and thus it's impossible for the US to find credible evidence to the contrary. Of course, remembering that Iraq was right and the US wrong about its WMD, the facts may not matter.
For what it's worth:
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said [at Geneva II] armed groups were preventing women and children from leaving the besieged area of Homs.
"I have been personally involved over the past two years to get these women and children out of the Old City of Homs... In all these attempts we have been prevented by the armed groups, who did not allow a single person out," Mekdad stated.
Who "boxed in" Obama in when he sent 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan two months after he became CiC (March '09)? He decided to send another 30,000 in December. I question the line that he was "boxed in" and "jammed" as some reports call it. There were plenty of politicos like Biden who argued to get out and he chose between two very different alternatives. Today he is fighting to keep thousands more foreign fighters more in Afghanistan after his "combat" withdrawal at the end of this year, as he also tried to extend Bush's deadline unsuccessfully in Iraq.
We are accustomed to the US media’s false claim that 100,000 or more people have been killed by the Syrian government forces in the almost 3 years of the civil war there.
In fact, even the most widely quoted pro-opposition source in the western media, the “Syrian Observatory on Human Rights” in London link to syriahr.com, admits the largest group of the 130,433 deaths it claimed to have counted through Dec. 30 are those of pro-government combatants. Other opposition sources such as “The Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria” link to vdc-sy.info count far fewer (95,152) total deaths for the same period.
This is the”Observatory’s” breakdown:
Syrian government soldiers: 32,013
Pro government militias: 19,729
Total 51 ,742
armed opposition fighters 19,937
Army defectors 2,233
Jihadists 6,913
Total 29,083
Civilians
(killed by both sides) 46, 266
Total deaths since 3/11: 127,091
Wikipedia link to en.wikipedia.org says “Al Jazeera journalist Nir Rosen reported that many of the deaths reported daily by activists are in fact armed insurgents falsely presented as civilian deaths, but confirmed that real civilian deaths do occur on a regular basis. A number of Middle East political analysts, including those from the Lebanese Al Akhbar newspaper, have also urged caution.
This was later confirmed when in late May 2012, Rami Abdulrahman of the [Other] Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is one of the opposition-affiliated groups counting the number of those killed in the uprising, stated that civilians who had taken up arms during the conflict were being counted under the category of "civilians". In May 2013, SOHR stated that at least 41,000 of those killed during the conflict were Alawites [most of whom support the government].”
"In central Syria, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a primary school in the predominantly Shiite town of Umm al-Amed in Homs province, killing at least 12 people, half of them children, the Observatory said. Syrian state media said eight people were killed and 34 wounded, mostly children." (a paragraph deep into the bombing report on Al-Jazeera)
The 13 warmonger Dems who obey AIPAC and joined 13 Repubs to demand more sanctions against Iran are:
Menendez (NJ), Schumer (NY), Gillibrand (NY), Blumenthal (CT), Casey (PA), Cardin (MD), Coons (Del), Warner (VA), Donnelly (Indiana), Begich (Alaska), Pryor (Ark), Landrieu (LA), and Hagan (N.C.).
The 10 Dem committee chairs who opposed them are Johnson (S.D.), Feinstein (CA), Levin (Mich.), Mikulski (MD.), Rockefeller (W.Va.), Boxer (Calif.)., Carper (Del.), Leahy (Vt.), Wyden (OR), and Harkin (Iowa).
(Four of the 10 are retiring)
Tom Engelhardt says:
"The Obama administration intervenes militarily in Libya, plays a significant role in overthrowing the autocrat who runs the country as a police state, and helps unleash chaos in its wake. The streets of Libyan cities fill with militias as the new government’s control of the situation fades to next to nil. Which brings us to our present moment, when a panicky Washington decides that what’s needed is yet another, different kind of intervention. The plan seems to be to compete with various local and Islamic militias by creating a government militia as the core of a new “national army.” Its members are to be drawn from already existing militias and they'll be trained somewhere outside of Libya. What an idea! Honestly, what could possibly go wrong? "
Everyone knows the resistance of Russia and China to military intervention for regime change in Syria is precisely because they were bamboozled by the US in UNSC to abstain from the authorization vote on Libya.
Obama promised them it was only a "humanitarian" intervention and would not result in regime change. "Fooled me once," they have insisted...
“responding to remarks by Kerry in Abu Dhabi on Monday, [Iranian FM Zarid] tweeted: Mr.Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night? and publicly commented against it Friday morning?"..."No amount of spinning can change what happened within 5+1 in Geneva from 6PM Thursday to 545 PM Saturday. But it can further erode confidence...”
It now appears “gutted” is what France did to the US draft that Iran seemed prepared to sign and which brought Kerry to Geneva from Israel Thursday night. So Kerry wrote another draft that France and the others signed but Iran would not. Now Kerry is trying to blame Iran rather than France for killing a preliminary agreement.
It’s called “changing the goal posts” and exactly what Iran had warned against for many years. Every time it accepted a US proposal, it was replaced by a new and tougher one.
What do make of Kerry's announcement that all the western countries including France agreed on a draft deal but Iran needed more time. What's with the reporting?
Note the difference in the welcome extended by Washington and the media to Taliban victim Malalka, who even got an audience with Obama, and the backs turned away from the victims of Obama's drones.
Poor Pakistan, poor Libya. Both complain the US violates their sovereignty with drones and kidnapping of their citizens, but that's only for domestic consumption to appease their people. With a wink and a nod, their spokespeople (I can't say "governments) whisper to Obama, "Go ahead, violate it."
Wasn't the attack averted by Congress, Parliament and the public of the "special relationship"? Obama surrendered when he cancelled the test vote in Senate. The agreement is a consequence of his defeated plan, not its cause.
The only reason Obama had the SC with him on Libya is that he bamboozled Russia and China into abstaining because he promised them his "no fly" zone was strictly "humanitarian." When it turned into regime change, Russia and China vowed to the world and their people they wouldn't be lied to again on military intervention.
And that's why Obama can't get the SC to back him on Syria. It's called Blowback...
Assad has reminded everyone that elections are to be held next year with outside inspectors and with new provisions for opposition parties decided in a vote last year. He has also not decided whether to run. The opportunity is there for opponents INSIDE Syria to make a serious political effort but only if the foreigners running the war stop and get out.
US and its friends (including the UN secgen, a national of a country (South Korea) with a military alliance with the US, are in a panic to mitigate this story but it confirms what Syria has declared from the get-go. Iraq was proven right when it denied it had WMDs and Iran is probably correct when it denies it wants nukes--charges made by its enemies--including the current IAEA secgen, a national of a country (Japan) which has a military alliance with the US.
Why is it every time a foreign fighters' plane goes down, the US denies the Taliban had anything to do it? Doesn't speak well of US aircraft upkeep or pilot competence.
The Syrian regime invited UN inspectors to vet its claim that the opposition used some kind of gas in the Allepo area. At this point a game starts--as we see with the sec-gen of the IAEA, a national of a regime with a military alliance with the US (Japan) in Iran-- the UN sec gen, a national of a nation with a military alliance with the US (SK)insists the inspectors have to go elsewhere in Syria--which Syria refused. So the original site is subject to all sorts of manipulation and reports are confused.
These games of the "international community" (the US and its friends) are transparent to all but the US media.
Just curious: does the US endorse the bombings by the Syria opposition that kill "Syrians/their own people"? I've never heard any journalist ask the Lesser Evil's regime spokespeople that question.
O did not mention Dogan because,like Rachel Corrie and the 33 crew members of the USS Liberty,his killing by IDF pirates is OK under US policy that allows Israel (but not anyone else)to kill Americans.
Yes, one of the worst examples of historical distortion in the film is that it didn't present the Iranian invasion of the Embassy as a specific response to Carter granting the hated Shah refuge in the US.
RE "Why WaPo and many other American news sources more or less cover up the effect of the US war on Iranian petroleum exports in keeping world oil and gasoline prices high is what is mysterious to me."
When I proposed the connection last year, many disagreed
The ACLU filed a suit in El-Masry's behalf against the CIA in 2005, which was dismissed on the "state secrets" claim , a dismissal upheld by the Supremes in '07.
"The US State Department deplored the Israeli move" Not quite, he spokeswoman said Palestine was responsible for failing to follow US orders to withdraw their request for state observer status (NYT) carried the quote
Since Pakistan officically condemns the drones and other US activities inside its borders, I'm curious why it does not shoot down the damn things (like Iran and the Afghan Taliban have)with its expensive military weapons. The fact they go on suggests the public position of its corrupt government is a "wink and a nod."
The hate-Muslims film currently in the news is not the first of its kind, and one of predecessors was distributed by The Oregonian and other major newspapers in the US.
In September, 2008, the Oregonian got paid by a rightwing fringe group to distribute“Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” an anti-Muslim CD. The paper took the money of the Clarion Fund, which is still in the business of fomenting hate of Muslims and, according to the NY Times link to nytimes.com
is bankrolled by several families and foundations. The newspaper distribution of its 2008 CD, was bankrolled with over $18M some of which came from the notorious casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
The Oregonian distributed a hateful anti-Muslim DVD with its Sunday paper in 2008 [My hede, Blue Oregon’s story-MM]
Kari Chisholm
This is unbelievable, but true.
A right-wing group called "The Clarion Fund" has produced a DVD that's been described as a "highly inaccurate, biased and hateful" screed against Muslims. It's being distributed in newspapers across the country.
And according to the Mercury, the office of Mayor Tom Potter has learned that the Oregonian is planning to distribute the DVD in Sunday's newspaper.
Mayor Potter has called the Oregonian's publisher, Fred Stickel, to ask him to reject the DVD. From the Merc:
The mayor reportedly told Stickel: "If you're planning on distributing this, please don't. It contributes to a climate of distrust towards Muslims, and holds the entire Muslim community accountable for the actions of a dangerously misguided few."
If you can stomach it, watch a few minutes of the film on YouTube.
Call Fred Stickel at 503-221-8140. Seems to me that if the DVD does get distributed, they'd should be returned to the Oregonian. Drop yours off (or mail it - just 83 cents!) to:
Nobody in the media gives any credit to the reporting of regimes that are enemies of the US.But Iraq was truthful when it insisted it was not building WMDs and now the mantra is to dismiss the Syrian contention that the terrorists are supported by the oil shiekdoms of Qatar and the House of Saud plus Turkey that keep urging military intervention.
Compare the media stenotyping of the opposition with the blackout on the Syrian side.
Watch what happens to speculator controlled oil market prices if Obama walks back his sanctions and war threats against Iran.
Pump prices will go down as they went up when he imposed sanctions and war threats.
For obvious reasons, Obamatons just make fun of the Repubs
nonsense but refuse to acknowledge Prof Cole's factor #1 after "and.."
But Iran's "saber-rattling" was defensive, ie, a response to US oil sanctions and explicit US/ Israeli threats of military attacks. The spike in gas prices is on Obama, who could bring down the speculators' market by walking back his sanctions and threats.
When I (a army PFC draftee) was teaching fellow US occupation troops at the U.of Maryland Far East Division in Korea in 1950, my students were mainly junior officers who needed a BA for promotion. I guess the U MD still has this arrangement at most US imperial bases around the world.
RE:"a successful US withdrawal, i.e. one that does not lead to another Afghan civil war, one that doesn’t leave the country a playground for regional interests, one that does not result in a takeover by the Taliban."
Please explain why after all the human and material costs over so many years, you still believe these outcomes are worth even more blood and treasure.
Does anyone find it odd that a collection of shiekdoms and kingdoms like Jordan, Qatar and the House of Saud (the "Arab League") after enabling the Nato intervention in the Libyan civil war, now try to dictate change in a secular regime in Syria?
I wrote the reporter that his employer's cooperation in withholding the name of the imposter was an example of its function as an arm of the government in such cases. Serves them right to have been bamboozeled by a ineffective intelligence service.
And didn't the Taliban declare they would jnot negotiate until all foreign fighters left their country? They even warned that anyone pretending to represent them was an imposter.
In Iraq, it looks like the former US surrogate Al-Maliki (today making nice
with Amadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Teheran) is morphing into an
Iranian surrogate while the US is pulling most of its strings for Allawi--
its current favorite for surrogate. Al-Maliki asked the Iranian president
"to support our reconstruction and to boost economic and commercial
co-operation, which will help improve stability in our region." Khamenei
told the Iraqi lame duck President: "May God get rid of America in Iraq so
that its people's problems are solved," a goal previously shared with
Muqtada al-Sadr
Al-Malaki goes on to Qomto meet Muqtada al-Sadr, who recently announced backing for his former foe Al-Maliki
On the other side, Alawi echoed the US position. He accused Iran of "trying
to wreak havoc on the region".and of "trying to destabilise the region by
destabilising Iraq, and destabilising Lebanon and destabilising the
Palestinian issue".
The issue remains in doubt. One would assume the US occupation has more
clout than Iran's proximity and ties with Shiite factions.
© 2026 All Rights Reserved
The "experts" on the media argue that the king will now escalate his cooperation with the US war on IS. Does anyone take seriously his regime's claim that the pilot was burned to death Jan 3? That's just cover for bungling the swap for the woman for the Japanese reporter which, for what I can tell from here, was the only swap on offer from IS.
Re your headline. Dem Menendez of NJ is a leader of the Iran war movement. It's not just the Repubs.
The expose was by Scott Horton in Harpers, March 2010.
Wasn't the fake suicide story exposed a few years ago in Atlantic (or Harpers)?
I watched an idiot terror "expert" (Neuman?) on PBS Newshour this evening. He lectured (w/o challenge by the respectful interviewer) they were radicalized by their "identity" crisis after being born in Christian France!
But the main obstacle to releasing an unredacted Senate report is not Rogers but Obama himself as boss of the CIA. He just sent Kerry out to warn its release would endanger US hostages.
" Russia’s unilateral annexation of the Crimea and heavy interference in eastern Ukraine is inconsistent with international law." Is this supposed to mean in contradiction toUS observance of International law or an imitation of it?
So does Obama want a deal if it's "not too humiliating."?
R "Iran must give the world intrusive access to its nuclear programs as much as every other country with a nuclear program."
Does the US give "the world" "intrusive access" to its nuclear program?
IS "studiously avoiding" fighting Assad? Western media report IS killed almost 200 Syrian troops in taking an airbase just last week.
Somehow, we're missing any reference here to the violent failed state created by US direction of the military intervention against a government fighting fundamentalist in Libya.
The Kurds fighters were shown not to be the"invincible" US allies that the media portrayed and were reduced to (successfully) pleading for Obama's air force to bail them out on the ground.
There was a court order to release Barron's memo, but the Obama regime decided not to appeal it in order to get reluctant liberals and libertarians to sign on to Barron's nomination to the Boston appeals court. Obama promise to eventually release a sanitized version was enough to confirm his nomination.
How about letting Libyans and Syrians decide who governs, rather than foreigners deciding for them?
I seem to remember Soviet Muslims in the Red Army were celebrated in their republics when they won decorations in battle.
It puzzles me that Russia is still allowing trains to supply and remove equipment for US troops in Afghanistan.
see map at link to csmonitor.com) Across Russia: A key NATO supply route into Afghanistan
http://www.michaelmunk.com
"Obama, a self-declared moderate, has long claimed to be for more social freedoms in the US. But his push has been opposed by traditionalists and ultra conservatives that hold sway in the establishment."
It's becoming even more difficult than in the past several years to justify the western military regime change in Libya.
Goldberg was referring to new info from a leak that Jason Leopold has just scooped on Al-Jazeera : Details Mitchell-Jensen personal roles in torture application; reveals Poland sought assurance the report would not mention it, new black site at Diego Rivera, etc. Read it all at
link to america.aljazeera.com
Right after the media celebrated the one of the few months in which the Pentagon reported no deaths in the AfPak war (although there were 16 WIA the week ending March 26), the military suffers four "non-hostile"casualties in the US.
Both Ft Hood shooters bought their weapon at Guns Galore in Killeen.
You write: "Obama staffers were reportedly “appalled” to discover the details [of the torture]. However, no officials have been charged with wrongdoing."
You should note that the reason is Obama's own decision in his first month in office not to prosecute the torturers and their bosses. He announced he didn't want to "look back."
Zeiden fled back to Europe where he came from, another of those exiles brought back under the auspices of those who changed the Libyan regime through their military intervention.
It seems increasingly difficult for those who backed that intervention to justify the resulting state of that nation.
I suggest that Iran's cooperation on the nukes issue is based on its knowledge that it is not working on nuclear weapons and thus it's impossible for the US to find credible evidence to the contrary. Of course, remembering that Iraq was right and the US wrong about its WMD, the facts may not matter.
Before buying what HRW says, read this from NACLA:
link to truth-out.org
Those who accept the armed opposition's propaganda, who include most of the western media. are even more gullible.
For what it's worth:
Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said [at Geneva II] armed groups were preventing women and children from leaving the besieged area of Homs.
"I have been personally involved over the past two years to get these women and children out of the Old City of Homs... In all these attempts we have been prevented by the armed groups, who did not allow a single person out," Mekdad stated.
Count me.
Compare the MIT study with Obama's claims before sitting down
Who "boxed in" Obama in when he sent 34,000 more troops to Afghanistan two months after he became CiC (March '09)? He decided to send another 30,000 in December. I question the line that he was "boxed in" and "jammed" as some reports call it. There were plenty of politicos like Biden who argued to get out and he chose between two very different alternatives. Today he is fighting to keep thousands more foreign fighters more in Afghanistan after his "combat" withdrawal at the end of this year, as he also tried to extend Bush's deadline unsuccessfully in Iraq.
They would veto it because they were bamboozled by Obama to abstain on his intervention to remove a secular regime in Libya.
Sure. What do I have to do?
We are accustomed to the US media’s false claim that 100,000 or more people have been killed by the Syrian government forces in the almost 3 years of the civil war there.
In fact, even the most widely quoted pro-opposition source in the western media, the “Syrian Observatory on Human Rights” in London link to syriahr.com, admits the largest group of the 130,433 deaths it claimed to have counted through Dec. 30 are those of pro-government combatants. Other opposition sources such as “The Center for Documentation of Violations in Syria” link to vdc-sy.info count far fewer (95,152) total deaths for the same period.
This is the”Observatory’s” breakdown:
Syrian government soldiers: 32,013
Pro government militias: 19,729
Total 51 ,742
armed opposition fighters 19,937
Army defectors 2,233
Jihadists 6,913
Total 29,083
Civilians
(killed by both sides) 46, 266
Total deaths since 3/11: 127,091
Wikipedia link to en.wikipedia.org says “Al Jazeera journalist Nir Rosen reported that many of the deaths reported daily by activists are in fact armed insurgents falsely presented as civilian deaths, but confirmed that real civilian deaths do occur on a regular basis. A number of Middle East political analysts, including those from the Lebanese Al Akhbar newspaper, have also urged caution.
This was later confirmed when in late May 2012, Rami Abdulrahman of the [Other] Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is one of the opposition-affiliated groups counting the number of those killed in the uprising, stated that civilians who had taken up arms during the conflict were being counted under the category of "civilians". In May 2013, SOHR stated that at least 41,000 of those killed during the conflict were Alawites [most of whom support the government].”
Also a war crime?
"In central Syria, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a primary school in the predominantly Shiite town of Umm al-Amed in Homs province, killing at least 12 people, half of them children, the Observatory said. Syrian state media said eight people were killed and 34 wounded, mostly children." (a paragraph deep into the bombing report on Al-Jazeera)
The 13 warmonger Dems who obey AIPAC and joined 13 Repubs to demand more sanctions against Iran are:
Menendez (NJ), Schumer (NY), Gillibrand (NY), Blumenthal (CT), Casey (PA), Cardin (MD), Coons (Del), Warner (VA), Donnelly (Indiana), Begich (Alaska), Pryor (Ark), Landrieu (LA), and Hagan (N.C.).
The 10 Dem committee chairs who opposed them are Johnson (S.D.), Feinstein (CA), Levin (Mich.), Mikulski (MD.), Rockefeller (W.Va.), Boxer (Calif.)., Carper (Del.), Leahy (Vt.), Wyden (OR), and Harkin (Iowa).
(Four of the 10 are retiring)
Tom Engelhardt says:
"The Obama administration intervenes militarily in Libya, plays a significant role in overthrowing the autocrat who runs the country as a police state, and helps unleash chaos in its wake. The streets of Libyan cities fill with militias as the new government’s control of the situation fades to next to nil. Which brings us to our present moment, when a panicky Washington decides that what’s needed is yet another, different kind of intervention. The plan seems to be to compete with various local and Islamic militias by creating a government militia as the core of a new “national army.” Its members are to be drawn from already existing militias and they'll be trained somewhere outside of Libya. What an idea! Honestly, what could possibly go wrong? "
Everyone knows the resistance of Russia and China to military intervention for regime change in Syria is precisely because they were bamboozled by the US in UNSC to abstain from the authorization vote on Libya.
Obama promised them it was only a "humanitarian" intervention and would not result in regime change. "Fooled me once," they have insisted...
Their current resistance is called "blowback".
We need an analysis from supporters of the US et al military regime change campaign and its imported replacement politicians.
The US strategy, as Iran has argued for years, is called "moving the goalposts."
“responding to remarks by Kerry in Abu Dhabi on Monday, [Iranian FM Zarid] tweeted: Mr.Secretary, was it Iran that gutted over half of US draft Thursday night? and publicly commented against it Friday morning?"..."No amount of spinning can change what happened within 5+1 in Geneva from 6PM Thursday to 545 PM Saturday. But it can further erode confidence...”
It now appears “gutted” is what France did to the US draft that Iran seemed prepared to sign and which brought Kerry to Geneva from Israel Thursday night. So Kerry wrote another draft that France and the others signed but Iran would not. Now Kerry is trying to blame Iran rather than France for killing a preliminary agreement.
It’s called “changing the goal posts” and exactly what Iran had warned against for many years. Every time it accepted a US proposal, it was replaced by a new and tougher one.
What do make of Kerry's announcement that all the western countries including France agreed on a draft deal but Iran needed more time. What's with the reporting?
The NYT even seemed to excuse his far right white terrorism because his mother had died !
Note the difference in the welcome extended by Washington and the media to Taliban victim Malalka, who even got an audience with Obama, and the backs turned away from the victims of Obama's drones.
Poor Pakistan, poor Libya. Both complain the US violates their sovereignty with drones and kidnapping of their citizens, but that's only for domestic consumption to appease their people. With a wink and a nod, their spokespeople (I can't say "governments) whisper to Obama, "Go ahead, violate it."
"He doesn’t explain how the US can be “arrogant” and “trespassing” but also allow itself to be bossed around by a small country of 7.5 million."
Did he have to explain? Everyone is familiar with the "3rd rail" in US foreign policy, which elected politicians are justifiably fearful of touching.
Saddam "managed to appear as though he were hiding WMD and got his country invaded and himself overthrown and executed."
That's why the US invaded Iraq? Come on...
Syria produced CWs as a deterrent to Israel's CWs and nukes.
You mean Congress would have voted for the attack?
Once in a while, it's OK to take Putin at his word.
Wasn't the attack averted by Congress, Parliament and the public of the "special relationship"? Obama surrendered when he cancelled the test vote in Senate. The agreement is a consequence of his defeated plan, not its cause.
The only reason Obama had the SC with him on Libya is that he bamboozled Russia and China into abstaining because he promised them his "no fly" zone was strictly "humanitarian." When it turned into regime change, Russia and China vowed to the world and their people they wouldn't be lied to again on military intervention.
And that's why Obama can't get the SC to back him on Syria. It's called Blowback...
Yes, preservation of the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is sufficient to explain the Lesser Evil's paralysis.
Indeed. Also waiting for her observation on the massacres in Egypt. Who is "shooting its own people" there?
Assad has reminded everyone that elections are to be held next year with outside inspectors and with new provisions for opposition parties decided in a vote last year. He has also not decided whether to run. The opportunity is there for opponents INSIDE Syria to make a serious political effort but only if the foreigners running the war stop and get out.
US and its friends (including the UN secgen, a national of a country (South Korea) with a military alliance with the US, are in a panic to mitigate this story but it confirms what Syria has declared from the get-go. Iraq was proven right when it denied it had WMDs and Iran is probably correct when it denies it wants nukes--charges made by its enemies--including the current IAEA secgen, a national of a country (Japan) which has a military alliance with the US.
Why is it every time a foreign fighters' plane goes down, the US denies the Taliban had anything to do it? Doesn't speak well of US aircraft upkeep or pilot competence.
The Syrian regime invited UN inspectors to vet its claim that the opposition used some kind of gas in the Allepo area. At this point a game starts--as we see with the sec-gen of the IAEA, a national of a regime with a military alliance with the US (Japan) in Iran-- the UN sec gen, a national of a nation with a military alliance with the US (SK)insists the inspectors have to go elsewhere in Syria--which Syria refused. So the original site is subject to all sorts of manipulation and reports are confused.
These games of the "international community" (the US and its friends) are transparent to all but the US media.
Hi Phil.
Are you a spokesman for the Lesser Evil answering a questions from the media?
Joe: Has any journalist asked the question?
Just curious: does the US endorse the bombings by the Syria opposition that kill "Syrians/their own people"? I've never heard any journalist ask the Lesser Evil's regime spokespeople that question.
A-J's owner runs Qatar, a major arms and money pit for the regime change effort in Syria
O did not mention Dogan because,like Rachel Corrie and the 33 crew members of the USS Liberty,his killing by IDF pirates is OK under US policy that allows Israel (but not anyone else)to kill Americans.
Quid pro quo in Bibi's apology?
After a respectable interval Obama frees Pollard
I also tried to exposed the WMD hoax before the invasion and later noted that Iraq's denials proved to be truthful.
Today I suspect the Iranian denials are truthful.
Yes, one of the worst examples of historical distortion in the film is that it didn't present the Iranian invasion of the Embassy as a specific response to Carter granting the hated Shah refuge in the US.
RE "Why WaPo and many other American news sources more or less cover up the effect of the US war on Iranian petroleum exports in keeping world oil and gasoline prices high is what is mysterious to me."
When I proposed the connection last year, many disagreed
Note that the still-secret full text of the OLC assassination justification was co-athored and signed by David Barron, now a Harvard law prof.
The ACLU filed a suit in El-Masry's behalf against the CIA in 2005, which was dismissed on the "state secrets" claim , a dismissal upheld by the Supremes in '07.
"The US State Department deplored the Israeli move" Not quite, he spokeswoman said Palestine was responsible for failing to follow US orders to withdraw their request for state observer status (NYT) carried the quote
"Petraeus and other officers boxed Obama in in late 2009 and more or less imposed a counter-insurgency policy in Afghanistan on him."
A very questionable statement or a sad commentary on our Commander-in Chief
RE: "Obama accepted the plan of David Petraeus and other Pentagon officers (who, admittedly, boxed him in) for a troop escalation in Afghanistan.."
Please explain and speculate what his behavior suggests about his future decisions.
Since Pakistan officically condemns the drones and other US activities inside its borders, I'm curious why it does not shoot down the damn things (like Iran and the Afghan Taliban have)with its expensive military weapons. The fact they go on suggests the public position of its corrupt government is a "wink and a nod."
The hate-Muslims film currently in the news is not the first of its kind, and one of predecessors was distributed by The Oregonian and other major newspapers in the US.
In September, 2008, the Oregonian got paid by a rightwing fringe group to distribute“Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West.” an anti-Muslim CD. The paper took the money of the Clarion Fund, which is still in the business of fomenting hate of Muslims and, according to the NY Times
link to nytimes.com
is bankrolled by several families and foundations. The newspaper distribution of its 2008 CD, was bankrolled with over $18M some of which came from the notorious casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.
The Oregonian distributed a hateful anti-Muslim DVD with its Sunday paper in 2008 [My hede, Blue Oregon’s story-MM]
Kari Chisholm
This is unbelievable, but true.
A right-wing group called "The Clarion Fund" has produced a DVD that's been described as a "highly inaccurate, biased and hateful" screed against Muslims. It's being distributed in newspapers across the country.
And according to the Mercury, the office of Mayor Tom Potter has learned that the Oregonian is planning to distribute the DVD in Sunday's newspaper.
Mayor Potter has called the Oregonian's publisher, Fred Stickel, to ask him to reject the DVD. From the Merc:
The mayor reportedly told Stickel: "If you're planning on distributing this, please don't. It contributes to a climate of distrust towards Muslims, and holds the entire Muslim community accountable for the actions of a dangerously misguided few."
If you can stomach it, watch a few minutes of the film on YouTube.
Call Fred Stickel at 503-221-8140. Seems to me that if the DVD does get distributed, they'd should be returned to the Oregonian. Drop yours off (or mail it - just 83 cents!) to:
Attn: Fred Stickel
Visit my website http://www.michaelmunk.c
He meant 23 million UNDER-employed: working part time, stopped looking, etc. which is accurate.
MSM are framing the four members of F.E.A.R.(Forever Enduring Always Ready) as "anarchists" and frequently editing out their Obama asssination plans.
Nobody in the media gives any credit to the reporting of regimes that are enemies of the US.But Iraq was truthful when it insisted it was not building WMDs and now the mantra is to dismiss the Syrian contention that the terrorists are supported by the oil shiekdoms of Qatar and the House of Saud plus Turkey that keep urging military intervention.
Compare the media stenotyping of the opposition with the blackout on the Syrian side.
I was responding to your first comment that Burnett was correct that Obama wasn't responsible for high gas prices. But you go to explain why he is.
Confusing...
Watch what happens to speculator controlled oil market prices if Obama walks back his sanctions and war threats against Iran.
Pump prices will go down as they went up when he imposed sanctions and war threats.
For obvious reasons, Obamatons just make fun of the Repubs
nonsense but refuse to acknowledge Prof Cole's factor #1 after "and.."
But Iran's "saber-rattling" was defensive, ie, a response to US oil sanctions and explicit US/ Israeli threats of military attacks. The spike in gas prices is on Obama, who could bring down the speculators' market by walking back his sanctions and threats.
When I (a army PFC draftee) was teaching fellow US occupation troops at the U.of Maryland Far East Division in Korea in 1950, my students were mainly junior officers who needed a BA for promotion. I guess the U MD still has this arrangement at most US imperial bases around the world.
Only Afghans can answer that, we aren't and have no standing to impose our/your judgement on them.
RE:"a successful US withdrawal, i.e. one that does not lead to another Afghan civil war, one that doesn’t leave the country a playground for regional interests, one that does not result in a takeover by the Taliban."
Please explain why after all the human and material costs over so many years, you still believe these outcomes are worth even more blood and treasure.
Not sure whether Obama and the Dems have a different take on Bibi's attack on Dempsey
Anybody the read the Arab League observers' report on their Syrian mission?
link to columbia.edu
Does anyone find it odd that a collection of shiekdoms and kingdoms like Jordan, Qatar and the House of Saud (the "Arab League") after enabling the Nato intervention in the Libyan civil war, now try to dictate change in a secular regime in Syria?
I wrote the reporter that his employer's cooperation in withholding the name of the imposter was an example of its function as an arm of the government in such cases. Serves them right to have been bamboozeled by a ineffective intelligence service.
And didn't the Taliban declare they would jnot negotiate until all foreign fighters left their country? They even warned that anyone pretending to represent them was an imposter.
visit my website http://www.michaelmunk.com
In Iraq, it looks like the former US surrogate Al-Maliki (today making nice
with Amadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Teheran) is morphing into an
Iranian surrogate while the US is pulling most of its strings for Allawi--
its current favorite for surrogate. Al-Maliki asked the Iranian president
"to support our reconstruction and to boost economic and commercial
co-operation, which will help improve stability in our region." Khamenei
told the Iraqi lame duck President: "May God get rid of America in Iraq so
that its people's problems are solved," a goal previously shared with
Muqtada al-Sadr
Al-Malaki goes on to Qomto meet Muqtada al-Sadr, who recently announced backing for his former foe Al-Maliki
On the other side, Alawi echoed the US position. He accused Iran of "trying
to wreak havoc on the region".and of "trying to destabilise the region by
destabilising Iraq, and destabilising Lebanon and destabilising the
Palestinian issue".
The issue remains in doubt. One would assume the US occupation has more
clout than Iran's proximity and ties with Shiite factions.