RE: "UCLA Mideast Center fights Smears by off-campus Israel-Lobby Extremists"
SEE: “The Trial of Israel’s Campus Critics”, by David Theo Goldberg & Saree Makdisi, Tikkun.org, September/October 2009
[EXCERPT] . . . It is an extraordinary fact that no fewer than thirty-three distinct organizations – including AIPAC, the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Congress, and the Jewish National Fund – are gathered together today as members or affiliates of the Israel on Campus Coalition. The coalition is an overwhelmingly powerful presence on American college campuses for which there is simply no equivalent on the Palestinian or Arab side. Its self-proclaimed mission is not merely to monitor our colleges and universities. That, after all, is the commitment of Campus Watch, which was started by pro-Israel activists in 2002. It is, rather (and in its own words), to generate “a pro-active, pro-Israel agenda on campus.”
There is, accordingly, disproportionate and unbalanced intervention on campuses across the country by a coalition of well-funded organizations, who have no time for — and even less interest in — the niceties of intellectual exchange and academic process. Insinuation, accusation, and defamation have become the weapons of first resort to respond to argument and criticism directed at Israeli policies. As far as these outside pressure groups (and their campus representatives) are concerned, the intellectual and academic price that the scholarly community pays as a result of this kind of intervention amounts to little more than collateral damage. . .
RE: "The news out of Syria is bad and worse. The regime is being accused of widespread torture. . ." ~ Cole
MY COMMENT: Correct me if I'm wrong, but not so long ago the U.S. was using "extraordinary rendition" to send "detainees" to Syria knowing full well that they would be tortured. . . Oops, I mean subjected to "enhanced procedures".
RE: "...in conversations with President George W. Bush in late 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to nuke Baghdad if Saddam Hussein hit Israel with rockets again." ~ Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: I wonder if this subject was broached in the conversations that Bush and Blair had with the Israelis during Blair's April of 2002 visit to Bush's "ranch" in Crawford (during which Blair allegedly committed to backing/joining a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq).
FROM STEPHEN WALT (02/08/10):
(excerpt) . . . In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions.
Take it away, Tony:
As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this."
Notice that Blair is not saying that Israel dreamed up the idea of attacking Iraq or that Bush was bent on war solely to benefit Israel or even to appease the Israel lobby here at home. But Blair is acknowledging that concerns about Israel were part of the equation, and that the Israeli government was being actively consulted in the planning for the war. . .
RE: "It was only some years later that I learned that Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, had sponsored both Taylor and Sankoh, unleashing a blood bath of civil wars in West Africa that victimized untold numbers of Africans." ~ Gregory Alonso Pirio
MY COMMENT: Pat Robertson also supported Liberia's Charles Taylor.
FROM WIKIPEDIA [Pat Robertson]: (excerpts) Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930)[1] is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who politically aligns himself with the Christian Right in the United States. . .
. . . According to a June 2, 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot,[23] Robertson had extensive business dealings with Liberian president Charles Taylor. According to the article, Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside. According to two Operation Blessing pilots who reported this incident to the state of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda. In response to Taylor's alleged crimes against humanity, the United States Congress passed a bill In November 2003 that offered two million dollars for his capture. Robertson accused President George W. Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." At the time Taylor was harboring Al Qaeda operatives who were funding their operations through the illegal diamond trade.[24] On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S., and that he had volunteered to make Liberia's case before U.S. administration officials in exchange for concessions to Robertson's Freedom Gold, Ltd., to which Taylor gave a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia.[25] . . .
RE: "I suspect they are bureaucratic versions of Kafka’s Joseph K., trapped in a labyrinthine structure they are continually, blindly, adding to. And because their 'mission' has no end point, their edifice has neither windows nor exits..." ~ Engelhardt
JOSEPH K’s PREDICAMENT IN KAFKA’s “THE TRIAL”:
After months of trial postponement, Joseph K goes to court painter Titorelli to ask for advice. He is told to hope for little. He might get definite acquittal, ostensible acquittal, or indefinite postponement. No one is ever really acquitted, but sometimes cases can be extended indefinitely.
• Titorelli: “You see, in definite acquittal, all the documents are annulled. But with ostensible acquittal, your whole dossier continues to circulate. Up to the higher courts, down to the lower ones, up again, down. These oscillations and peregrinations, you just can’t figure ‘em.”
• Joseph K: “No use in trying either, I suppose.”
• Titorelli: “Not a hope. Why, I’ve known cases of an acquitted man coming home from the court and finding the cops waiting there to arrest him all over again. But then, of course, theoretically it’s always possible to get another ostensible acquittal.”
• Joseph K: “The second acquittal wouldn’t be final either.”
• Titorelli: “It’s automatically followed by the third arrest. The third acquittal, by the fourth arrest. The fourth...”
PARTIAL SOURCE - link to imdb.com
RE: "Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has made it clear that the Israeli-US campaign against Iran, into which they have dragooned Europe, could put up petroleum prices by as much as 30%"
AND NOTE: Israel’s Nuclear Triggers, by Grant Smith, Antiwar.com, 3/20/12
(excerpt) FBI files detailing Israel’s stealth acquisition of U.S. nuclear triggers were declassified and released on Dec. 28, 2011. The FBI’s secret Portland and Los Angeles inter-office communications were originally scheduled for release in the year 2036. Their availability today reveals how Israel’s elite spy networks acquire U.S. nuclear technologies while evading criminal and diplomatic consequences.
A kryton is a gas-filled tube used as a high-speed switch. U.S. State Department munitions licenses are needed to export krytons because they can be used as triggers for nuclear weapons. California-based MILCO International Inc. shipped 15 orders totaling 800 krytons through an intermediary to the Israeli Ministry of Defense between 1979 and 1983. MILCO obtained the krytons from EG&G Inc. After the U.S. government rejected several requests for kryton export licenses to Israel, Arnon Milchan’s Heli Trading Company brokered the transactions with MILCO. Milchan is an Israeli movie producer who became successful in Hollywood for such movies as Brazil, JFK, and Pretty Woman.
The FBI file reveals that after the illicit kryton exports were discovered, a U.S. attorney tried to flip MILCO President Richard Kelly Smyth to implicate Milchan during intense plea bargaining. The gambit failed, and in May 1984 Smyth was indicted on 30 counts of smuggling and making false statements. Smyth and his wife promptly fled to Israel and remained at large until captured in Malaga, Spain, in July 2001 after Richard Smyth applied for Social Security benefits. INTERPOL arrested Smyth and extradited him to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to violating the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. In November 2001, Smyth was sentenced to 40 years in prison and fined $20,000, though he was freed within four years because of his advancing age. . .
RE: "Newt Gingrich says he would appoint John Bolton as Secretary of State in order to “reform” the State Department." ~ Cole
ALSO SEE: Gingrich to Ask John Bolton to be Secretary of State ~ by John Glaser, Antiwar.com, 12/08/11
(excerpts) Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich announced Wednesday that, if nominated, he would be asking former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton to be his secretary of state...
...In a speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition, Gingrich said, “If he will accept it, I will ask John Bolton to be secretary of state.” This could be a violation of federal law, which prohibits a candidate from pledging an appointment “for the purpose of procuring support in his candidacy.”
The Gingrich campaign has so far refused to comment on the apparent crime.
RE: "...as more Palestinian refugees stormed the border with Israel." - Notar
MY COMMENT: I was under the impression it was Syria's border with the occupied Golan Heights, not with Israel proper.
I am so angry! The word 'livid' comes to mind. And "seeing red."
We must get to the bottom of this, no matter high up it goes.
P.S. I can't help but wonder whether "Pricky Dick" Cheney and his trusty Scooter might have been involved.
RE: "The regime of Hosni Mubarak appears to have taken some sort of bribe to send substantial natural gas supplies to Israel at a deep discount." - Juan Cole
SEE: ‘Egypt may buy back gas from Israel’, by JPost.com staff, 08/24/10 Egyptian paper reports that Cairo officials could lose $12b. on deal.
Anonymous sources told al-Shaab that internal discussions at Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources decided that over half of the natural gas sold to Israel under the deal would have to be repurchased at $14 billion, even though it was sold for $2 billion.
Cairo officials had previously blamed the gas deal with Israel as the main reason for the increase in power outages experienced by Egyptians since 2004, as less natural gas is provided for use by domestic power suppliers, AFP reported last Sunday.
Egypt’s ruling party has been embarrassed by the increased power cuts to the population and ensuing fights between government officials over who bears responsibility for the problem, according to the independent daily al-Shorouk report cited by AFP. The issue may become an important one as the fight to succeed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak gains momentum.
RE: "Another US Quagmire? Lebanon Government Falls" - Juan Cole
SEE: “How the US and Israel Hope to Destroy Hezbollah” ~ by Franklin Lamb, Counterpunch, 11/19/10
(excerpts)”I’ve got these [expletive deleted] just where we want them Maura! Watch the 1000 slow cuts as we shred Hezbollah…And we’ll do it by using 1757 and this time we’re going all the way. I told Israel to stay out of Lebanon…I will handle this and it will be my Christmas present to Lebanon.”
So, reportedly, said Jeffrey Feltman in conversation with his former office staffer, now US Ambassador to Lebanon, Maura Connelly during a October 17, 2010 visit with MP Walid Jumblatt at his Clemenceau residence…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to counterpunch.org
RE: "Palin Borrows ‘Blood Libel’ from Israeli Far Right"
SOUND THE BUGLE! LET THE TRUMPETS BLARE! Exclusive: Alan Dershowitz Defends Sarah Palin’s Use of Term ‘Blood Libel’ ~ by Publius @ Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Government”[lol!-JLD], 01/12/11
In an exclusive statement, famed attorney and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz defended Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” from multiple detractors. As the Media Matters/MSM/Democrat narrative on the Tucson tragedy unravels, they are getting a lot more desperate in their attacks on Palin. Fortunately, there are still plenty of honest liberals[lol!-JLD]around:(Dershowitz excerpts)"The term 'blood libel' has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning...I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report..." SOURCE – link to biggovernment.com
RE: "Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010" - Juan Cole MY
COMMENT: Unfortunately, most U.S. military actions are
self-perpetuating (whether they are based upon myths or
not).
RE:"In essence, the military-industrial complex...is busy...convincing us that...we have no choice but to become the ‘bitches’ of people like [Peter] King to avoid an even worse fate." - Juan Cole
MY SNARK: I reject outright the premise that there might possibly be a worse fate than being Peter King's‘bitch’. In point of fact, I find the mere thought of it to be über traumatizing.
P.S. Oops, I forgot about "Pricky Dick" Cheney. But in Cheney's weakened condition, I suppose I would prefer even him over Peter King. Of Course, a heart transplant might change that.
P.P.S. Oops again, I forgot about Liz and Lynne Cheney! Either of them would wield a hellaciously mean "stick".
Why don't we use the old Panama Canal trick and settle for extremely favorable terms on a 99-year "lease" of a twenty mile wide swath across both Afghanistan and Pakistan for our "Paki-Afghan Pipeline Zone". Wouldn't that be the most cost-effective way to access all those hydrocarbons in the "stans"?
RE: "President Obama’s plan for a nuclear free zone in the Middle East is useless unless the Israeli arsenal is dismantled." - Juan Cole
SEE: Hypocrisy Gone Nuclear: Israel, Obama and the Bomb ~ By Conn Hallinan, Counterpunch, 12/15/10
(excerpt)This past July, a nuclear-armed nation, in violation of an international treaty, clandestinely agreed to supply uranium to a known proliferator of nuclear weapons. China and North Korea? No, the United States and Israel.
In a July 8 article entitled “Report: Secret Document Affirms U.S. Israeli Nuclear Partnership,” the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that the Obama Administration will begin transferring nuclear fuel to Israel in order to build up Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile.
There is profound irony in the fact that while the U.S. and some of its allies are threatening military action against Iran for enriching uranium, Washington is bypassing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while aiding Israel’s nuclear weapons program, the only country in the world that has actually helped another nation construct and test a nuclear device...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - link to counterpunch.org
RE: "Climate scientists have demonstrated a clear drying trend in the Mediterranean and other sub-tropical regions." - Juan Cole
MORE KINDLING FOR THE TINDERBOX: "GOD-TV evangelical Christian channel funds Israeli ethnic cleansing" ~ By Neve Gordon, Redress, 12/04/10 Neve Gordon looks at how an evangelical Christian TV channel with a viewership of nearly half a billion people, including 20 million in the USA and 14 million in Britain, is funding a project to ethnically cleanse Israels Bedouin citizens from their ancestral land.
(excerpts)...Despite the fact that it was the seventh demolition since last July, this time the destruction of the Bedouin village of Al-Arakib in the Israeli Negev was different...
...I know this for a fact because right next to the demolished homes, the Jewish National Fund (JNF) put up a big sign that reads: “GOD-TV FOREST, a generous donation by God-TV made 1,000,000 tree saplings available to be planted in the land of Israel and also provided for the creation of water projects throughout the Negev.” GOD-TV justifies this contribution by citing the book of Isaiah: “I will turn the desert into pools of water and the parched ground into springs.”
The JNF’s objective, however, is not altruistic, but rather to plant a pine or eucalyptus forest on the desert land so that the Bedouins cannot return to their ancestral homes. The practice of planting forests in an attempt to Judaize more territory is by no means new. Right after Israel’s establishment in 1948, the JNF planted millions of trees to cover up the remains of Palestinian villages that had been destroyed during or after the war. The objective was to help ensure that the 750,000 Palestinian residents who either fled or were expelled during the war would never return to their villages and to suppress the fact that they had been the rightful owners of the land before the State of Israel was created...
RE: "Israel’s Mega-Fire"
MY COMMENT: I wonder if all those dimes contributed to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) years ago helped to provide some of the fuel for this forest fire. They did go to plant trees in Israel, didn’t they? Or is this all ‘old growth’ forests burning?
RE: Congressnutter Michele Bachmann, (R., Minn.) denounced Iran’s “ever-impending threat to nearly every nation of the world.” Iran “continues to strut and deploy,” she said...
EXCERPT FROM THE OBSERVER GUARDIAN, 09/21/2003:
…Without a ‘just, comprehensive and lasting’ peace which only America can bring to pass, Israel will remain at least as likely a candidate as Iran, and a far more enduring one, for the role of ‘nuclear-crazy’ state.
Iran can never be threatened in its very existence. Israel can. Indeed, such a threat could even grow out of the current intifada. That, at least, is the pessimistic opinion of Martin van Creveld, professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. ‘If it went on much longer,’ he said, ‘the Israeli government [would] lose control of the people...
...In this situation, he went on, more and more Israelis were coming to regard the ‘transfer’ of the Palestinians as the only salvation; resort to it was growing ‘more probable’ with each passing day. Sharon ‘wants to escalate the conflict and knows that nothing else will succeed’. But would the world permit such ethnic cleansing? ‘That depends on who does it and how quickly it happens. We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: “Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.” I consider it all hopeless at this point. We shall have to try to prevent things from coming to that, if at all possible. Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.’
RE: "The United States has thanked Saudi Arabia for the crucial intelligence tip." - Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: Let's double that $60 billion sale to the Saudis to show our appreciation! And throw in some cluster munitions, for good measure.
RE: "This hydra-headed story...was sliced and diced by the television gossip-pundits all afternoon and evening...I mean, is this the last days of Rome and are these our bread and circuses? - Juan Cole
SEE: “The Most Terrifying of All Battles: When the Enemy Lies Within Ourselves” ~ By Arthur Silber, 08/16/10
(excerpt)…Those who repeatedly and furiously denounce the “Ground Zero mosque,” as they speak in horrified tones of the coming conquest of America by Islam, tremble before one possibility far more than any enemy they have chosen to identify. Their capacity for more accurate perception and even minimal self-awareness is altogether obliterated by their greatest of all fears: that they might have to hold up a mirror to their own souls and see the diseased, twisted nature of what they have allowed to permanently reside there.
Such people cannot be reasoned with, and it is futile to try. But we should always remember what it is that actually drives them to such destructive rage, and that it has nothing at all to do with the source they are willing to identify. This pattern is, of course, as old as humankind. What we loathe in ourselves, we place in others. Then we destroy those others, believing we thus destroy what we loathe.
But the enemy still lives, inside us. Until that is understood, the battle will never end, nor will the destruction, the suffering and the death…
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
P.S. How dare Mr. Cole refer to Donald Trump as an "egotistical exhibitionist"! No wonder he never received one of those highly sought-after invitations to spend a weekend with "The Donald" at Maison de L'Amitie (known as Mar-A-Lago by its earlier, more tasteful owner). I wonder if the new Russian owner will finally shorten Trump's 80' flagpole to comply with Palm Beach's height limitation of 42 feet. "Enquiring minds want to know."
RE: "The Nativists came out in numbers to mount demonstrations in Irish Catholic neighborhoods in north Philadelphia..." - Juan Cole
SEE: "The Most Terrifying of All Battles: When the Enemy Lies Within Ourselves" ~ By Arthur Silber, 08/16/10
(excerpt)...Those who repeatedly and furiously denounce the "Ground Zero mosque," as they speak in horrified tones of the coming conquest of America by Islam, tremble before one possibility far more than any enemy they have chosen to identify. Their capacity for more accurate perception and even minimal self-awareness is altogether obliterated by their greatest of all fears: that they might have to hold up a mirror to their own souls and see the diseased, twisted nature of what they have allowed to permanently reside there.
Such people cannot be reasoned with, and it is futile to try. But we should always remember what it is that actually drives them to such destructive rage, and that it has nothing at all to do with the source they are willing to identify. This pattern is, of course, as old as humankind. What we loathe in ourselves, we place in others. Then we destroy those others, believing we thus destroy what we loathe.
But the enemy still lives, inside us. Until that is understood, the battle will never end, nor will the destruction, the suffering and the death...
ENTIRE COMMENTARY - link to powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
RE: "UNIFIL already determined that the tree was in israel’s territory and gave them permission accordinally, otherwise they would have consultated the lebanese first." - Leila
FROM BUSINESSWEEK - August 04, 2010, 4:48 PM EDT :
Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A clash that left five people dead along the Israel-Lebanon border occurred because the two nations couldn’t agree on how to remove a tree that was on Israel’s side of the disputed frontier, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations said.
Lebanon didn’t respect as Israeli territory this spot along the UN-imposed “Blue Line,” said Under-Secretary-General Alain LeRoy. “They have reservations about the Blue Line,” he said. Israel rejected the UN’s offer to cut down the tree and, after waiting about five hours yesterday for the UN to settle the dispute, went ahead on its own, LeRoy told reporters in New York. “We asked for more time to ensure that both parties would agree, to ensure there would not be incidents,” LeRoy said. “Maybe we would have expected a bit more hours. Israel wanted to go on with cutting of the tree because they considered they had the right.”...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - link to businessweek.com
P.S. FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10: ...Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Eternal Fascism" describes the cult of action for its own sake under fascist regimes and movements: "Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation."...
SOURCE - link to commondreams.org
RE: "Other strange features of this discourse are the disregard for any evidence that contradicts the set talking points, unwillingness to seriously reconsider positions in the light of such evidence..." - Juan Cole
MY CONTRIBUTION: "Sticks and stones may break our bones, but facts will never sway us." - Neocon Creed
RE: "the party has a choice between reviving Neoconservatism– which is pernicious but creepily coherent as a nihilist ideology of perduring destruction– and muddling along with no positive message at all." - Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: Sounds like a 'no brainer' to me!
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RE: "UCLA Mideast Center fights Smears by off-campus Israel-Lobby Extremists"
SEE: “The Trial of Israel’s Campus Critics”, by David Theo Goldberg & Saree Makdisi, Tikkun.org, September/October 2009
[EXCERPT] . . . It is an extraordinary fact that no fewer than thirty-three distinct organizations – including AIPAC, the Zionist Organization of America, the American Jewish Congress, and the Jewish National Fund – are gathered together today as members or affiliates of the Israel on Campus Coalition. The coalition is an overwhelmingly powerful presence on American college campuses for which there is simply no equivalent on the Palestinian or Arab side. Its self-proclaimed mission is not merely to monitor our colleges and universities. That, after all, is the commitment of Campus Watch, which was started by pro-Israel activists in 2002. It is, rather (and in its own words), to generate “a pro-active, pro-Israel agenda on campus.”
There is, accordingly, disproportionate and unbalanced intervention on campuses across the country by a coalition of well-funded organizations, who have no time for — and even less interest in — the niceties of intellectual exchange and academic process. Insinuation, accusation, and defamation have become the weapons of first resort to respond to argument and criticism directed at Israeli policies. As far as these outside pressure groups (and their campus representatives) are concerned, the intellectual and academic price that the scholarly community pays as a result of this kind of intervention amounts to little more than collateral damage. . .
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to tikkun.org
RE: "The news out of Syria is bad and worse. The regime is being accused of widespread torture. . ." ~ Cole
MY COMMENT: Correct me if I'm wrong, but not so long ago the U.S. was using "extraordinary rendition" to send "detainees" to Syria knowing full well that they would be tortured. . . Oops, I mean subjected to "enhanced procedures".
RE: "...in conversations with President George W. Bush in late 2002, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon threatened to nuke Baghdad if Saddam Hussein hit Israel with rockets again." ~ Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: I wonder if this subject was broached in the conversations that Bush and Blair had with the Israelis during Blair's April of 2002 visit to Bush's "ranch" in Crawford (during which Blair allegedly committed to backing/joining a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq).
FROM STEPHEN WALT (02/08/10):
SOURCE - link to walt.foreignpolicy.com
RE: "It was only some years later that I learned that Libyan leader, Muammar Qaddafi, had sponsored both Taylor and Sankoh, unleashing a blood bath of civil wars in West Africa that victimized untold numbers of Africans." ~ Gregory Alonso Pirio
MY COMMENT: Pat Robertson also supported Liberia's Charles Taylor.
FROM WIKIPEDIA [Pat Robertson]: (excerpts) Marion Gordon "Pat" Robertson (born March 22, 1930)[1] is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who politically aligns himself with the Christian Right in the United States. . .
. . . According to a June 2, 1999, article in The Virginian-Pilot,[23] Robertson had extensive business dealings with Liberian president Charles Taylor. According to the article, Taylor gave Robertson the rights to mine for diamonds in Liberia's mineral-rich countryside. According to two Operation Blessing pilots who reported this incident to the state of Virginia for investigation in 1994, Robertson used his Operation Blessing planes to haul diamond-mining equipment to Robertson's mines in Liberia, despite the fact that Robertson was telling his 700 Club viewers that the planes were sending relief supplies to the victims of the genocide in Rwanda. In response to Taylor's alleged crimes against humanity, the United States Congress passed a bill In November 2003 that offered two million dollars for his capture. Robertson accused President George W. Bush of "undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country." At the time Taylor was harboring Al Qaeda operatives who were funding their operations through the illegal diamond trade.[24] On February 4, 2010, at his war crimes trial in the Hague, Taylor testified that Robertson was his main political ally in the U.S., and that he had volunteered to make Liberia's case before U.S. administration officials in exchange for concessions to Robertson's Freedom Gold, Ltd., to which Taylor gave a contract to mine gold in southeast Liberia.[25] . . .
RE: "I suspect they are bureaucratic versions of Kafka’s Joseph K., trapped in a labyrinthine structure they are continually, blindly, adding to. And because their 'mission' has no end point, their edifice has neither windows nor exits..." ~ Engelhardt
JOSEPH K’s PREDICAMENT IN KAFKA’s “THE TRIAL”:
After months of trial postponement, Joseph K goes to court painter Titorelli to ask for advice. He is told to hope for little. He might get definite acquittal, ostensible acquittal, or indefinite postponement. No one is ever really acquitted, but sometimes cases can be extended indefinitely.
• Titorelli: “You see, in definite acquittal, all the documents are annulled. But with ostensible acquittal, your whole dossier continues to circulate. Up to the higher courts, down to the lower ones, up again, down. These oscillations and peregrinations, you just can’t figure ‘em.”
• Joseph K: “No use in trying either, I suppose.”
• Titorelli: “Not a hope. Why, I’ve known cases of an acquitted man coming home from the court and finding the cops waiting there to arrest him all over again. But then, of course, theoretically it’s always possible to get another ostensible acquittal.”
• Joseph K: “The second acquittal wouldn’t be final either.”
• Titorelli: “It’s automatically followed by the third arrest. The third acquittal, by the fourth arrest. The fourth...”
PARTIAL SOURCE - link to imdb.com
RE: "Geraldo wears the Hoodies he Blames for Shooting" ~ Juan Cole
MY SNARK: Yeah, but Geraldo wears expensive designer hoodies. That's entirely different! Apples and oranges! Yada, yada, yada!
An "Apache" helicopter? Are those made by the Native Americans? What about "Tomahawk" missiles?
RE: "Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund, has made it clear that the Israeli-US campaign against Iran, into which they have dragooned Europe, could put up petroleum prices by as much as 30%"
AND NOTE: Israel’s Nuclear Triggers, by Grant Smith, Antiwar.com, 3/20/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to original.antiwar.com
RE: "A majority (57%) of Republicans believe that the US will attack Iran this year, whereas only a quarter say no." ~ Cole
MY COMMENT: Probably not entirely coincidentally, a significant percentage of Republicans believe The Rapture™ will occur in their lifetime(s)!
RE: "71% of Americans think Iran already has the Bomb (Also we used to have pet triceratops)" ~ Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: I hear tell Jesus Christ himself had a pet triceratops!
RE: "Newt Gingrich says he would appoint John Bolton as Secretary of State in order to “reform” the State Department." ~ Cole
ALSO SEE: Gingrich to Ask John Bolton to be Secretary of State ~ by John Glaser, Antiwar.com, 12/08/11
SOURCE - link to news.antiwar.com
I have long considered Fox News a 'cult leader' and many of their viewers (including my mother) 'cult followers'.
RE: "...as more Palestinian refugees stormed the border with Israel." - Notar
MY COMMENT: I was under the impression it was Syria's border with the occupied Golan Heights, not with Israel proper.
Why can't the U.S. Senate investigate? Isn't it still controlled by the Democrats? Or, am I missing something?
I am so angry! The word 'livid' comes to mind. And "seeing red."
We must get to the bottom of this, no matter high up it goes.
P.S. I can't help but wonder whether "Pricky Dick" Cheney and his trusty Scooter might have been involved.
Onondaga Nation Leaders Blast 'Geronimo' Codename for Bin Laden - link to commondreams.org
RE: "The regime of Hosni Mubarak appears to have taken some sort of bribe to send substantial natural gas supplies to Israel at a deep discount." - Juan Cole
SEE: ‘Egypt may buy back gas from Israel’, by JPost.com staff, 08/24/10
Egyptian paper reports that Cairo officials could lose $12b. on deal.
SOURCE – link to jpost.com
RE: "Another US Quagmire? Lebanon Government Falls" - Juan Cole
SEE: “How the US and Israel Hope to Destroy Hezbollah” ~ by Franklin Lamb, Counterpunch, 11/19/10
(excerpts)”I’ve got these [expletive deleted] just where we want them Maura! Watch the 1000 slow cuts as we shred Hezbollah…And we’ll do it by using 1757 and this time we’re going all the way. I told Israel to stay out of Lebanon…I will handle this and it will be my Christmas present to Lebanon.”
So, reportedly, said Jeffrey Feltman in conversation with his former office staffer, now US Ambassador to Lebanon, Maura Connelly during a October 17, 2010 visit with MP Walid Jumblatt at his Clemenceau residence…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to counterpunch.org
RE: "Palin Borrows ‘Blood Libel’ from Israeli Far Right"
SOUND THE BUGLE! LET THE TRUMPETS BLARE!
Exclusive: Alan Dershowitz Defends Sarah Palin’s Use of Term ‘Blood Libel’ ~ by Publius @ Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Government”[lol!-JLD], 01/12/11
In an exclusive statement, famed attorney and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz defended Sarah Palin’s use of the term “blood libel” from multiple detractors. As the Media Matters/MSM/Democrat narrative on the Tucson tragedy unravels, they are getting a lot more desperate in their attacks on Palin. Fortunately, there are still plenty of honest liberals[lol!-JLD]around:(Dershowitz excerpts)"The term 'blood libel' has taken on a broad metaphorical meaning...I myself have used it to describe false accusations against the State of Israel by the Goldstone Report..." SOURCE – link to biggovernment.com
RE: "90% sucess rate; T'aint bad" - Palin's tweet
T'aint @ 'Urban Dictionary' - link to urbandictionary.com
RE: "Top Ten Myths about Afghanistan, 2010" - Juan Cole MY
COMMENT: Unfortunately, most U.S. military actions are
self-perpetuating (whether they are based upon myths or
not).
RE:"In essence, the military-industrial complex...is busy...convincing us that...we have no choice but to become the ‘bitches’ of people like [Peter] King to avoid an even worse fate." - Juan Cole
MY SNARK: I reject outright the premise that there might possibly be a worse fate than being Peter King's‘bitch’. In point of fact, I find the mere thought of it to be über traumatizing.
P.S. Oops, I forgot about "Pricky Dick" Cheney. But in Cheney's weakened condition, I suppose I would prefer even him over Peter King. Of Course, a heart transplant might change that.
P.P.S. Oops again, I forgot about Liz and Lynne Cheney! Either of them would wield a hellaciously mean "stick".
Why don't we use the old Panama Canal trick and settle for extremely favorable terms on a 99-year "lease" of a twenty mile wide swath across both Afghanistan and Pakistan for our "Paki-Afghan Pipeline Zone". Wouldn't that be the most cost-effective way to access all those hydrocarbons in the "stans"?
RE: "President Obama’s plan for a nuclear free zone in the Middle East is useless unless the Israeli arsenal is dismantled." - Juan Cole
SEE: Hypocrisy Gone Nuclear: Israel, Obama and the Bomb ~ By Conn Hallinan, Counterpunch, 12/15/10
(excerpt)This past July, a nuclear-armed nation, in violation of an international treaty, clandestinely agreed to supply uranium to a known proliferator of nuclear weapons. China and North Korea? No, the United States and Israel.
In a July 8 article entitled “Report: Secret Document Affirms U.S. Israeli Nuclear Partnership,” the Israeli daily Haaretz revealed that the Obama Administration will begin transferring nuclear fuel to Israel in order to build up Tel Aviv’s nuclear stockpile.
There is profound irony in the fact that while the U.S. and some of its allies are threatening military action against Iran for enriching uranium, Washington is bypassing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) while aiding Israel’s nuclear weapons program, the only country in the world that has actually helped another nation construct and test a nuclear device...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - link to counterpunch.org
RE: "Climate scientists have demonstrated a clear drying trend in the Mediterranean and other sub-tropical regions." - Juan Cole
MORE KINDLING FOR THE TINDERBOX: "GOD-TV evangelical Christian channel funds Israeli ethnic cleansing" ~ By Neve Gordon, Redress, 12/04/10
Neve Gordon looks at how an evangelical Christian TV channel with a viewership of nearly half a billion people, including 20 million in the USA and 14 million in Britain, is funding a project to ethnically cleanse Israels Bedouin citizens from their ancestral land.
ENTIRE ARTICLE - link to redress.cc
RE: "Israel’s Mega-Fire"
MY COMMENT: I wonder if all those dimes contributed to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) years ago helped to provide some of the fuel for this forest fire. They did go to plant trees in Israel, didn’t they? Or is this all ‘old growth’ forests burning?
RE: Congressnutter Michele Bachmann, (R., Minn.) denounced Iran’s “ever-impending threat to nearly every nation of the world.” Iran “continues to strut and deploy,” she said...
EXCERPT FROM THE OBSERVER GUARDIAN, 09/21/2003:
SOURCE - link to guardian.co.uk
RE: "The United States has thanked Saudi Arabia for the crucial intelligence tip." - Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: Let's double that $60 billion sale to the Saudis to show our appreciation! And throw in some cluster munitions, for good measure.
RE: "This hydra-headed story...was sliced and diced by the television gossip-pundits all afternoon and evening...I mean, is this the last days of Rome and are these our bread and circuses? - Juan Cole
SEE: “The Most Terrifying of All Battles: When the Enemy Lies Within Ourselves” ~ By Arthur Silber, 08/16/10
(excerpt)…Those who repeatedly and furiously denounce the “Ground Zero mosque,” as they speak in horrified tones of the coming conquest of America by Islam, tremble before one possibility far more than any enemy they have chosen to identify. Their capacity for more accurate perception and even minimal self-awareness is altogether obliterated by their greatest of all fears: that they might have to hold up a mirror to their own souls and see the diseased, twisted nature of what they have allowed to permanently reside there.
Such people cannot be reasoned with, and it is futile to try. But we should always remember what it is that actually drives them to such destructive rage, and that it has nothing at all to do with the source they are willing to identify. This pattern is, of course, as old as humankind. What we loathe in ourselves, we place in others. Then we destroy those others, believing we thus destroy what we loathe.
But the enemy still lives, inside us. Until that is understood, the battle will never end, nor will the destruction, the suffering and the death…
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – link to powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
P.S. How dare Mr. Cole refer to Donald Trump as an "egotistical exhibitionist"! No wonder he never received one of those highly sought-after invitations to spend a weekend with "The Donald" at Maison de L'Amitie (known as Mar-A-Lago by its earlier, more tasteful owner). I wonder if the new Russian owner will finally shorten Trump's 80' flagpole to comply with Palm Beach's height limitation of 42 feet. "Enquiring minds want to know."
RE: "The Nativists came out in numbers to mount demonstrations in Irish Catholic neighborhoods in north Philadelphia..." - Juan Cole
SEE: "The Most Terrifying of All Battles: When the Enemy Lies Within Ourselves" ~ By Arthur Silber, 08/16/10
(excerpt)...Those who repeatedly and furiously denounce the "Ground Zero mosque," as they speak in horrified tones of the coming conquest of America by Islam, tremble before one possibility far more than any enemy they have chosen to identify. Their capacity for more accurate perception and even minimal self-awareness is altogether obliterated by their greatest of all fears: that they might have to hold up a mirror to their own souls and see the diseased, twisted nature of what they have allowed to permanently reside there.
Such people cannot be reasoned with, and it is futile to try. But we should always remember what it is that actually drives them to such destructive rage, and that it has nothing at all to do with the source they are willing to identify. This pattern is, of course, as old as humankind. What we loathe in ourselves, we place in others. Then we destroy those others, believing we thus destroy what we loathe.
But the enemy still lives, inside us. Until that is understood, the battle will never end, nor will the destruction, the suffering and the death...
ENTIRE COMMENTARY - link to powerofnarrative.blogspot.com
RE: "...the US Congress will have to decide which it wants to represent." - Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: My money is on Israel!
RE: "UNIFIL already determined that the tree was in israel’s territory and gave them permission accordinally, otherwise they would have consultated the lebanese first." - Leila
FROM BUSINESSWEEK - August 04, 2010, 4:48 PM EDT :
Aug. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A clash that left five people dead along the Israel-Lebanon border occurred because the two nations couldn’t agree on how to remove a tree that was on Israel’s side of the disputed frontier, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operations said.
Lebanon didn’t respect as Israeli territory this spot along the UN-imposed “Blue Line,” said Under-Secretary-General Alain LeRoy. “They have reservations about the Blue Line,” he said.
Israel rejected the UN’s offer to cut down the tree and, after waiting about five hours yesterday for the UN to settle the dispute, went ahead on its own, LeRoy told reporters in New York.
“We asked for more time to ensure that both parties would agree, to ensure there would not be incidents,” LeRoy said. “Maybe we would have expected a bit more hours. Israel wanted to go on with cutting of the tree because they considered they had the right.”...
ENTIRE ARTICLE - link to businessweek.com
P.S. FROM TED RALL, 07/22/10: ...Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Eternal Fascism" describes the cult of action for its own sake under fascist regimes and movements: "Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation."...
SOURCE - link to commondreams.org
RE: "Other strange features of this discourse are the disregard for any evidence that contradicts the set talking points, unwillingness to seriously reconsider positions in the light of such evidence..." - Juan Cole
MY CONTRIBUTION: "Sticks and stones may break our bones, but facts will never sway us." - Neocon Creed
RE: "the party has a choice between reviving Neoconservatism– which is pernicious but creepily coherent as a nihilist ideology of perduring destruction– and muddling along with no positive message at all." - Juan Cole
MY COMMENT: Sounds like a 'no brainer' to me!