October 06, 2008 Issue
Copyright © 2008 The American Conservative

An Open Letter to Sarah Palin       PDF

 

By TAC Editors

To: Gov. Sarah Palin
From: TAC Editors
Re: What Your Tutors Aren’t Telling You

Congratulations on being chosen as John McCain’s running mate. It’s an honor, if a dubious one. As you know, conservatives have reservations about McCain. To your credit, they have few such concerns about you.

You’ve given new life to a party whose brand was bankrupt. You’ve energized a campaign that was embarrassing its own partisans. Across America, crowds flock to see you—not that old man who barely wheezed his way through the primaries. If John McCain wins, he will owe you, as the guy in the undisclosed location says, “Big time.”

Wonder why Middle America finds you irresistible? Maybe they’re big Tina Fey fans. More likely, you remind them of the conservative values they feared lost: faith, family, independence. This impression owes more to who you are than what you’ve done. But at least you keep Obama from cornering the market on hope. Conservatives have faith in you. Don’t fail them as George W. Bush has.

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A few weeks back, the U.S. Army's European Command set up an early-warning radar system in Israel. It's ostensible purpose is to boost defenses against Iranian missiles. But Entropic Memes wonders whether there isn't something more to this radar than meets the eye.

The AN/TPY-2 radar is one of the "key component[s]" in the "American Forward-Based Radar global missile-defense system," Entropic Memes notes. And it has a huge range -- about 2000 kilometers, by some estimates.

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Robert Fisk

www.rupeenews.com

Robert Risk is one of the few independent journalists left in the Western world who can dare to say it like it is. He correclty points out the lack of usage of the term Palestinian. He also correctly points to the outlandhish remark by Biden that Pakistani Nuclear missiles could reach Israel. Fisk correctly says that Pakistan has never threatened Israel and that Pakistan is on the side of the West–though having supported the USA for the past six decade, the Pakistanis get “do more’ lectures from “the allies” that keep bombing Pakistan and killing Pakistanis on a daily basis.

• Afghanistan in Peril: Defeat and disaster for USA & India
• Afghanistan: Omar rebuffs weak Karzai. No Saudi lifeline for him

Robert Fisk’s World: When it comes to Palestine and Israel, the US simply doesn’t get it

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Iran ties enrichment halt to fuel import guarantee
Thu 2 Oct 2008, 11:52 GMT
[-] Text [+]

By Ingrid Melander

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Iran would consider stopping sensitive uranium enrichment if guaranteed a supply of nuclear fuel from abroad, a senior Iranian official said on Thursday.

For that to happen, U.N. inspectors would have to verify Iran's disputed nuclear programme is wholly peaceful and a myriad of international sanctions against Tehran be lifted. There is little prospect of either on the horizon.

Iran is trying to master nuclear fuel-cycle technology that could yield electricity -- its stated goal -- or give it the capability to make atom bombs if the process is adjusted, which Western powers suspect is Tehran's underlying purpose.

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October 1, 2008

A Dial Marked 'War'

The last resort of our bankrupt elite

by Justin Raimondo

The War Party loves generals: John McCain mentions Gen. David Petraeus at the drop of a hat, citing him as the final military and moral authority when it comes to U.S. strategy in the Middle East. The reverent tone is supposed to indicate that no further argument is necessary. Military figures are, for the neoconservatives, an essential adjunct to their favorite narrative, which defers to military leaders in a way the Founding Fathers would have found horrifying – they who wondered aloud whether the young republic ought to have a standing army at all, lest it give rise to a permanent military caste that would wield undue influence.

That never happened. Although generals have laid claim to the presidency often, the military as a separate political subclass never gained either ascendancy or undue influence, except insofar as individual military figures went into politics. The tradition of keeping the military as a body out of politics is long and praiseworthy, and it has happily been largely observed – except, of course, by the neocons, who tread on tradition as a matter of high principle and have made a demigod out of Petraeus, a role he seems to revel in.

Yet Petraeus is the exception that proves the rule. The U.S. officer corps was solidly against our Iraqi adventure, and they are horrified at the prospect of a repeat – on a much larger scale, of course – in Iran. They are, like the exemplar of the species, Colin Powell, reluctant interventionists, at best, and generally considered unreliable and even dangerous by the War Party. Others, like the late Gen. William E. Odom, are more fearless in expressing their anti-interventionist instincts, and if we go back in American history, we come across other unlikely peaceniks in uniform.

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w w w . h a a r e t z . c o m
Last update - 18:27 26/09/2008

Is Mossad responsible for delaying Iran's attainment of nuclear capability?
By Aluf Benn

Every Thursday, Mossad chief Meir Dagan and a few of his staff members report to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office in the old Defense Ministry building in the Kirya in Tel Aviv, to present an operation for approval or report on one that has taken place. Olmert loves these moments more than any others in his job. He wants to know the details, to see the faces of the soldiers before the operation. He usually approves Dagan's proposals.

Over the past two years Dagan has become the most important security official close to the prime minister. His evaluations on the Second Lebanon War and the Mossad's cumulative achievements vis-a-vis Iran, Syria and Hezbollah have strengthened his status and led Olmert to approve more and more daring missions.

During Sunday's cabinet meeting, in which Olmert announced his resignation, he said: "I believe the processes the government of Israel has enacted under my leadership in various areas, those that can be told and those that cannot, will yet receive their proper place in the history of the State of Israel."

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Update
Iraq: They Make It a Desert and Call It Peace


Whose War Will Win the Election -- McCain's or Obama's?

By Ira Chernus

In 1932, in the midst of a disastrous economic meltdown, Franklin D. Roosevelt made "the forgotten man" the centerpiece of his presidential election campaign. Far more than we suspect, this year's election may turn not on a forgotten man, but on a forgotten war in a forgotten country.

Even before the present financial meltdown hit the news, the Iraq War had slipped out of the headlines and off the political stage. Now, as investment houses totter and bailout plans fill the headlines, it will be even harder for Iraq to get major media attention. Yet the war remains just beneath the surface of the presidential campaign, and so is sure to affect the outcome in ways too complicated to fully grasp.

Think of that war not as one, but two currents, affecting the coming election all the more powerfully because they are out of sight, out of mind, and -- interacting in unpredictable ways -- out of anyone's control.

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Iran isn't planning to attack Israel, but that isn't stopping John McCain from tapping into fears of a second Holocaust

• 
• • Richard Silverstein
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Tuesday September 30 2008 20:02 BST

I swear that Howard Kohr, the executive director of Aipac, must have been briefing John McCain for the presidential debate against Barack Obama last week. The pro-Israel lobbying group has been shreying for years about the "existential threat" posed to Israel by Iran. And so McCain seemed to be reading from the Aipac script when he warned:

If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the state of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel [a] compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well. Now we cannot [allow] a second Holocaust. Let's just make that very clear.

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Related
Somali pirates show radiation sickness on hijacked Iranian ship
Somali government to be moved to Kenya

The web site carrying a story on the "hijacked" Iranian ship, the Long War Journal is mobbed up with the Weekly Standard, the National Review and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies--a Pentagon front.

Notice the name of this site, the Long War Journal?

Straight out of former Sec'y of Defense Rumsfeld's mouth.

Some of their news consists of "open source" reporting, meaning they read other's work and then put their own spin on it and print it, just like former Whte House Stenographer Judith Miller.

One of the company's that support LWJ, is Gryphon Airlines, which has a number of "former" military and intelligence types on its board and flies into Iraq and the ME.

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• 
• • Peter Tatchell
  • guardian.co.uk,
  • Monday September 29 2008 19:30 BST
    

Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made a remarkable announcement. He's admitted that Iran might agree to the existence of the state of Israel.

Ahmadinejad was asked: "If the Palestinian leaders agree to a two-state solution, could Iran live with an Israeli state?"

This was his astonishing reply:

If they [the Palestinians] want to keep the Zionists, they can stay ... Whatever the people decide, we will respect it. I mean, it's very much in correspondence with our proposal to allow Palestinian people to decide through free referendums.

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Related
Lost in translation

McCain: Nuclear-equipped Iran threatens 'second Holocaust'
AFP - 10 hours ago
"Here is (Iranian President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, who is ... talking about the extermination of the state of Israel, of wiping Israel off the map

Ahmadinejad never said such a thing. The zionist jewieh MEMRI group said he said this and this was good enough for thre NewYork Times to repeats and all other wannabees.

Keep in mind Obama has pedalled the same BS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AvSQuqQb5c&threat=New+World+Order

The unpopular truth  first:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-08-18-ahmadinejad_N.htm

According to this, the difference being between "we should destroy Israel" and "Israel will destroy itself", which is actually backed up by the "disappear from the geographical scene" quote.

The House Democratic leadership has effectively shelved a resolution calling for what critics say would amount to a naval blockade of Iran because of concerns that it could provoke another war, officials on Capitol Hill said.

Even though the document would not be a law but a "statement of policy" aimed at preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, the Democratic leadership is worried that it could be viewed by the Bush administration as a green light to use military force against Iran, officials said.

Howard L. Berman, California Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he has concerns about the current text and will not bring it before the committee until those issues are addressed. That, in effect, blocks the document from reaching the floor.

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What is it with these "Sons of Khazar?" Are they so despising of other people, religions and races that the sight of one human touching another sets them on edge?

Or is the Israeli/Zionist way of hugging the only permitted?

That type of hugging happens when the IAF sends a Hellfire missile screaming into a Palestinian hovel, with the resulting flames and explosion giving a very warm and very fatal embrace to the inhabitants.

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Related
Define ‘Lacking Credibility’

When the world's largest news organizations toe the line with U.S. officials on highly unpopular government policies, you don't have a press:

you have a Ministry. In its declaration of journalistic ethics, The Associated Press demands, "Anyone who works for the AP . . . must refrain from declaring their views on contentious public issues in any public forum." [1]

That has not prevented AP's Baghdad bureau from promoting the belligerent U.S. occupation of Iraq.

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Do you as Americans really want to rock with a nation armed with enough nukes to mess you up? (or will your leader order a false flag meltdown of say, Chicago, that he'll pin on Isalamabad?

Related
Pakistan and Iran agreed on Tuesday to initiate work on the multi-billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline.

US suspends consular services in Pakistan: official

30 minutes ago

The United States Thursday suspended visa services at consular offices in Pakistan citing deepening concerns over security after the deadly Islamabad hotel bombing, the State Department said.

"Consular services have been temporarily suspended as of today," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

"We are very concerned about the security situation. We had the attack on the Marriott Hotel almost a week ago, and it's of great concern," he said.

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Once again, U.S. politicians, including both Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, pile on the Iranian president. Why does Larry King (!) sound like the adult in the room?

By Juan Cole

Sep. 24, 2008 | Sen. Barack Obama responded with outrage to the remarks made Tuesday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the United Nations General Assembly, expressing regret that the quirky little president was even allowed to speak. Obama's denunciation was mild compared with that of Gov. Sarah Palin, who accused Ahmadinejad of dreaming "of being an agent in a 'Final Solution' -- the elimination of the Jewish people." In contrast, "Larry King Live" carried an hourlong interview with Ahmadinejad in which the Iranian was allowed to speak for himself and repeatedly denied any violent intentions. King thus reinforced the trend whereby entertainment television, whether Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" or King's own dog-and-pony interview hour, conveys reality-based news while politicians continue to paint inaccurate and even fantastic scenarios that are harmful to U.S. foreign policy.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad said "the American empire ... is reaching the end of the road" and accused the U.N. Security Council of allowing "Zionist murders" because of "pressure from a few bullying powers." Obama issued a statement saying, "I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views." He added, "The threat from Iran's nuclear program is grave." Obama then called on his rival in the presidential race, Sen. John McCain, "to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran." He slammed McCain, saying that the senator was playing partisan politics by declining to join Obama in this divestment campaign.

In the heat of the campaign, Obama surely overreached himself in appearing to advocate barring leaders of member states from addressing the United Nations because their views are obnoxious to Americans. He also fell into the trap of declining to make a distinction between anti-Zionist views and anti-Semitic ones. If a policy of exclusion had been adopted by past administrations, Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev could not have announced from that podium the reduction of Red Army forces in Eastern Europe in 1988. And if anti-American statements should trigger the denial of a visa to come to New York, should Nelson Mandela, who called the United States the "most dangerous country in the world," be excluded, too?

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America focuses on the worsening economy while Congress focuses on Jewish cemeteries and Kristallnacht.

Related
Top Ten 2008 and Career Recipients of Pro-Israel PAC Funds


11 hours ago

CLEARWATER, Florida (AFP) — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Tuesday condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's anti-Zionist and anti-US remarks in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
"I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views," Obama said in a statement.

"The threat from Iran's nuclear program is grave. Now is the time for Americans to unite on behalf of the strong sanctions that are needed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime," Obama said.

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