Congress Piling On Amendments To Anti-Iranian Nuclear Legislation

April 13, 2015March 27, 2019 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

Stephen Lendman – Democrat and Republican hardliners are toughening the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 (INAR)

iran Obama opposes it. A possible veto-proof majority looms. The legislation aims to undermine consummating a final deal by giving Congress vetting power over its terms.

Israel and its Lobby want them tougher than any responsible government would accept – their way to kill an equitable deal altogether.

Congress is on board to oblige. More than 50 amendments are being considered.

On April 14, Senate Foreign Relations Committee members will begin debating them. Obama wants no congressional action until a final deal is reached by end of June.

All 535 congressional members know Iran’s program is entirely peaceful – with no military component or intention to have one.

They know Iran doesn’t threaten Israel or any other nation. It’s leadership goes all-out for mutual cooperation with all other countries.

Israel, Obama and pro-Israeli zealots infesting his administration know all of the above. They fabricate accusations claiming otherwise. They deplore peace and stability. They relish endless wars.

Reports indicate intense negotiations over ways to amend INAR – largely irresponsibly. Continue reading →

US Lawmakers ‘Bought And Paid For’ By Israel Lobby

January 5, 2015March 31, 2019 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

This just in from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

“JERUSALEM (JTA) — U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said in Jerusalem that the Senate will vote on an Iran sanctions bill next month…Graham told Netanyahu that ‘the Congress will follow your lead’ and will want to have a say about any final deal.”

Since when did the US Congress “follow the lead” of a foreign head of state who loathes – and is loathed by – the President of the United States? Lindsey Graham should stay in Israel and run for the Knesset. If he attempts to return to the USA, he should be arrested, tried, and hanged

US lawmakers ‘bought and paid for’ by Israel lobby: Scholar Press TV

Continue reading →

Banning Dissent In The Name Of Civility

December 23, 2014November 7, 2022 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

“The code word that the Israel lobby and its facilitators at universities use to silence critics is “civility.” Israel supporters are permitted to spout hate and calls for indiscriminate violence against Palestinians. Critics of Israel, however, even if they are careful to denounce violence and not to demonize Jews, are banned in the name of “civility.” It is the height of academic duplicity.” – C Hedges

I had been invited to talk next April 3 at the University of Pennsylvania at a peace conference sponsored by the International Affairs Association, but last week after Truthdig published my column “ISIS—the New Israel” the lecture agency that set up the event received this email from Zachary Michael Belnavis, who is part of the student group:

We’re sorry to inform you that we don’t think that Chris Hedges would be a suitable fit for our upcoming peace conference. We’re saying this in light of a recent article he’s written in which he compares the organization ISIS to Israel (here’s the article in question). In light of this comparison we don’t believe he would be suitable to a co-existence speaker based on this stance he’s taken.

Being banned from speaking about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, especially at universities, is familiar to anyone who attempts to challenge the narrative of the Israel lobby. This is not the first time one of my speaking offers has been revoked and it will not be the last. However, the charge of Belnavis and the International Affairs Association that I do not believe in coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel is false. I oppose violence by either party. I have condemned Hamas rocket attacks as war crimes. And I support Israel’s right to exist within the pre-1967 borders. The charge that I oppose coexistence cannot be substantiated by anything I have said or written. And those of us who call on Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders are, after all, only demanding what is required by international law and numerous U.N. resolutions. Continue reading →

Michael Krieger ~ Glenn Greenwald on Hilary Clinton: “Soulless, Principle-Free, Power Hungry…”

November 17, 2014March 25, 2019 ~ admin ~ 1 Comment

One attribute I like most about Glenn Greenwald is that he never pulls punches. One of his most prescient and cutting political lines came earlier this year when he made some observations on the upcoming 2016 Presidential election, in which two status quo, corrupt, bloodthirsty con-artists will compete for the Oval Office. While we don’t yet know which crony the GOP will put up, Hillary is pretty much a foregone conclusion for the Democrats. Greenwald observed:

Hillary is banal, corrupted, drained of vibrancy and passion. I mean, she’s been around forever, the Clinton circle. She’s a fucking hawk and like a neocon, practically. She’s surrounded by all these sleazy money types who are just corrupting everything everywhere. But she’s going to be the first female president, and women in America are going to be completely invested in her candidacy. Opposition to her is going to be depicted as misogynistic, like opposition to Obama has been depicted as racist. It’s going to be this completely symbolic messaging that’s going to overshadow the fact that she’ll do nothing but continue everything in pursuit of her own power. They’ll probably have a gay person after Hillary who’s just going to do the same thing.

You can read that and more in the post: Glenn Greenwald on the 2016 Elections – “They’ll Probably Have a Gay Person After Hillary.”

Well Greenwald is back, and this time he outlines exactly who’s excited about Hillary’s forthcoming run for the Presidency. Here are some excerpts from the Intercept:

It’s easy to strike a pose of cynicism when contemplating Hillary Clinton’s inevitable (and terribly imminent) presidential campaign. As a drearily soulless, principle-free, power-hungry veteran of DC’s game of thrones, she’s about as banal of an American politician as it gets. One of the few unique aspects to her, perhaps the only one, is how the genuinely inspiring gender milestone of her election will (following the Obama model) be exploited to obscure her primary role as guardian of the status quo. Continue reading →

Scott McConnell ~ Israel’s Iran Agenda

August 3, 2013March 28, 2019 ~ admin ~ Leave a comment

The American Conservative August 2 2013

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When is pointing out an opponent’s motivation an effective tactic in foreign-policy debate? During the Cold War, I published my first large article documenting that E.P. Thompson (a leading proponent of the “nuclear freeze”) was not merely (as he was customarily presented) a pleasantly “utopian” socialist with a charming shock of white hair, but a figure with a somewhat hardline Marxist history and a long record as an opponent of NATO and advocate of accommodating the Soviet Union. Thirty years later I have white hair myself, E.P. Thompson has passed on, and all are grateful that the Cold War concluded without nuclear bombs going off. As to whether or not my type of argument—made in countless variations by hundreds of writers during the rhetorical Cold War—was effective, many thought it was. The piece was quoted, circulated, and advanced the professional aspirations of its author. And in fact it was an easier argument to make than to wade into the impossible-to-calculate unknowables about how a strategy of non-belligerence might save Europe from both the threat of war and Soviet dominance.

This issue of motivation arises because of the House’s vote on Wednesday to ramp up sanctions on Iran. The vote was rushed to floor before recess not so that sanctions can be escalated anytime soon (the Senate won’t take up the bill till the fall, if ever) but because AIPAC—representing in Washington the perspectives of Israel’s current government—wants to short circuit any chance of meaningful negotiation between the Obama administration and Iran’s newly elected president. One goal of the bill is to demonstrate to Iran’s leaders, through a landslide House vote, that America is deeply, almost inherently, hostile and to undercut whatever small gestures of peaceful diplomacy that Obama and the new Rouhani team have each been making since the latter’s election last June.