Israel rams humanitarian aid boat destined for Gaza
Posted By: sm on 2008-12-30
In Reply to:
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20081230/twl-israeli-patrol-boat-collides-with-ai-3cd7efd_2.html
Bloody butchers block 3 tons of medical supplies being transported to Gaza to help prevent severely injured Palestinians from becoming fatalities due to lack of medical supplies resulting from ongoing Israeli blockade of Israel. People who could be stabilized with provisions as basic as electrolytes, antibiotics, bandages, etc are being turned away from hospitals and left to die in the street. Dead bodies are being returned to the family to be taken home due to inability to prepare them for burial. Wonder how many Hamas were hiding out on that boat? Yesiree, our tax dollars are hard at work once again.
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Israel felt pulling out of Gaza was okay. sm
Oh, okay, that explains all those wailing Jews being forcefully removed from their homes of 30 plus years. Glad you cleared that up. Your statement is ridiculous. But then, they all are. Gosh, your lying comment is getting really old. Does anyone else think so?
'trying to take Gaza from Israel is wrong?'
In what century are you living? It was already given to the Palestinians by the Israelis. The area is recognized internationally as part of the Palestinian territories.
What happened in 1948, when the Israelis took Palestine from the Palestinians?
The name "Palestine" comes, via Greek and Latin, from the Philistines; see History of Palestine.
The Palestinians were in Palestine, called the Philistines, BEFORE the Israelis came along from Egypt!
If I were you I would exchange the Bible for a history book and brush up on your history. Read also about the 1957 war!
Also: Give me 1 example, only ONE that what is written in the Bible is true!
'trying to take Gaza from Israel is wrong?'
In what century are you living? It was already given to the Palestinians by the Israelis. The area is recognized internationally as part of the Palestinian territories.
What happened in 1948, when the Israelis took Palestine from the Palestinians?
The name "Palestine" comes, via Greek and Latin, from the Philistines; see History of Palestine.
The Palestinians were in Palestine, called the Philistines, BEFORE the Israelis came along from Egypt!
If I were you I would exchange the Bible for a history book and brush up on your history. Read also about the 1957 war!
Also: Give me 1 example, only ONE that what is written in the Bible is true!
He is destined to be a one-termer...
I see a lot of turmoil in the next year in his administration...Biden will probably be the first to go, such a loose cannon, Hil won't be able to keep Billy boy quiet, Geithner and Holder are very questionable. Oh, it's going to be fun!
So you have to be some sort of HUMANITARIAN to be nominated.
That explains Bush's exclusion on that list. How embarrassed and ashamed should America be to see the leader of another, presumably poorer country try to provide humanitarian aid to Americans because our own president believes humanitarian aid begins with oil companies and ends with those intent on eliminating American freedom?
I wonder if he views our president as an oppressor and if he plans to invade and occupy our country to save us from Bush and to spread his superior form of government to the United States.
Sorry. I was just being silly. No credible leader in the world would ever do anything like THAT.....WOULD HE????
ONLY the Gaza Strip? Do you have an idea a tiny the Gaza Strip is?
Obiously not. Look it up online! And it is encircled by Israel in the East and by the Mediterranean Sea in the West. The Palestinians want also the Westbank, that Israel conquered from Jordan in the 1967 war.
me too - same boat as you....
Have had Humana HMO for small biz owners (just myself as employer/employee) and this started out as $242/month - 5-6 years ago. I rarely use this insurance too, but because I'm nearly 59 now - it went up July 1st to $710/month. I have to have group insurance due to preexisting conditions and I pay THRU THE NOSE because I don't earn that extra $710/month....between the mortgage ($1750), maintenance ($729/month), phone bills x2, cable TV, electric company, and a little bit of food and some paper goods.....You'd have to be earning $3000-$4000 month to cover everything. I don't earn that amount. 
So, I sympathize with you.......
Whatever floats your boat. SM
I really don't care what you do.
Then you need to put every politician in the same boat
They all have said conflicting things. Every one of them on both sides. Again that's why I say she has done nothing. But maybe I should have said she has done nothing that the other candidates haven't done.
Here is something for ya to peruse. We are all in the same boat.
The United States of America is the Next Argentina
Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
Aug 27, 2008 - 01:56 AM
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF - While bankers do control the issuance of credit, they cannot control themselves. Bankers are the fatal flaw in their deviously opaque system that has substituted credit for money and debt for savings. The bankers have spread their credit-based system across the world by catering to basic human needs and ambition and greed; and while human needs can be satisfied, ambition and greed cannot—and the bankers' least of all.
I have a bad feeling about what's about to happen. The Great Depression is the closest that comes to mind. I, like most, was not alive during the 1930s when it happened. Nonetheless, what once was feared in private is now being discussed in public. It's going to be bad. It's going to make high school seem like fun.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE NEXT ARGENTINA
This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by University of Maryland‘s Carmen Reinhart and Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff makes for perfect reading when flying between the US and Argentina.
There is perhaps no better analysis than Reinhart and Rogoff's on the history of sovereign defaults; and, as such, Reinhart and Rogoff's paper was ideal reading material when traveling between the US and Argentina , for the sovereign defaults that happened in the past to Argentina will soon be happening to the US .
But a US default will make Argentina 's debt defaults pale both by comparison and consequence. The US , unlike Argentina , is the world's largest economy, the issuer of the world's reserve currency and the world's largest debtor—and a default by the US on its debt will shake the very foundations of our increasingly fragile global economy.
SOVERIGN DEBT LIQUIDATING AMBITION
The power of ambition is extraordinary. The power of ambition transformed the US from the world's only creditor after WWII into the world's largest debtor in less than fifty years. Wanting to emulate England 's 19 th century empire in the 20 th , the US instead has mirrored England decline in the 20 th century here in the 21 st .
Credit and borrowing fueled America 's ambitions in the 20 th century as it had England 's in the 18 th and 19 th . During the 1980s, to pay for President Reagan expansion of the military, the US quadrupled its national debt in less than a decade by borrowing three trillion dollars during a presidency pledged to balance the budget.
When Reagan took office, US debt totaled one trillion dollars. When Reagan left office, US debt totaled four trillion dollars. Reagan's vaunted slogan of fiscal conservatism was just that—a slogan; and while talk is cheap, the debts now have to be repaid.
Just as the costs of WWI forced England to abandon the gold standard in the early 1900s, post WWII military spending forced the US to suspend the convertibility of the US dollar to gold in 1971; and the consequences, e.g. burgeoning trade deficits and global currency instability, are now putting unsustainable strains on a financial system already in extremis .
Ambition has its price and the bill is now due and owing. The question is: how will the US pay what it owes? In Hyman Minsky's Financial Instability Model, the US is close to “Ponzi status” if not already there since the US is having to roll its debt forward and borrow from others to pay the interest as it can no longer pay down the principle.
In 2006, in an article published by the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Professor Laurence Kotlikoff stated the US was “technically bankrupt” as there was no way the US could pay the $65.9 trillion it owed.
Evidently, Professor Kotlikoff was conservative in his estimate or we're going downhill faster than he knew. Just three months ago, on May 28, 2008 Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank estimated the obligations of the US to be actually $99.2 trillion, 50 % higher than Kotlikoff's figures.
Fisher stated: In the distance, I see a frightful storm brewing in the form of untethered government debt . I choose the words—“frightful storm”—deliberately to avoid hyperbole. Unless we take steps to deal with it, the long-term fiscal situation of the federal government will be unimaginably more devastating to our economic prosperity than the subprime debacle and the recent debauching of credit markets that we are now working so hard to correct.
Fisher should know what the US owes and the danger that sum represents. As President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Fisher is a part of the Federal Reserve
System—the very system that has indebted America into perpetuity when its credit-based money forced out gold and silver based money in 1913.
But in his speech Fisher said nothing about the role the Federal Reserve has played in America 's fatal dance with debt, warning instead about the increasing costs of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.
Fisher is part of a larger effort to now blame America 's entitlements as the primary cause of our problems, assiduously avoiding the role his own Federal Reserve Bank has played in sinking our once wealthy nation into perpetual indebtedness.
In truth, the entitlement program that poses the greatest threat to America is—and always has been—the Federal Reserve System. Without the Federal Reserve's credit-based money whose compounding interest (paid to the bankers) is obliged to be paid for by a possibly unconstitutional US income tax [note: the Federal Reserve Act and Federal Income Tax were both instituted the same year in 1913], the US would not be indebted and bankrupt as it is now.
If Ben Bernanke and Richard Fisher et. al. at the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank resigned and stopped plundering the US for their own benefit at the expense of the public in order to line the pockets of their banker friends with public funds, the US might have a chance of successfully getting out of this mess.
But, of course, they won't and the now privately controlled US government will continue to indebt the American public so insiders can continue to profit immensely at the public trough. But the question still remains, how will the US pay its unpayable debt? The answer is as clear as it is obvious. It won't because it can't.
DEBT & DESTRUCTION SOUTH OF THE BORDER
In their well-researched paper, Serial Defaults and Its Remedies , Reinhart and Rogoff write “Cycles in capital flows to emerging markets have now been with us for two hundred years”. If we are to understand the dynamics of serial default, it would do us well to look at these cycles and their relevance to what is happening today.
Serial Defaults and Its Remedies, Section 2. Capital Flow Cycles and the Syndrome of “This Time Is Different” :
..a pattern of borrowing followed by crisis is evident in the string of defaults during 1826-28 in Latin America that come on the heels of the first wave of massive capital flows from Britain into Latin America in 1822-25…A second wave of capital flows from Britain came during the 1850s and 1860s. The cycle ended with the crisis of 1873. The next wave of capital flows into emerging markets coincided with the shift of the financial epicenter of the world from London to New York . Among Latin American countries, the borrowing binge of 1925-28 was [financed] with “cheap” money from New York . Capital flows peaked in 1928, the year before the U.S. Stock market crash ushered in financial and currency crises around the world and eventually an international debt crisis during 1929-33.
Argentina is at the very epicenter of Latin America borrowings and defaults and a cursory judgment may well lay the blame for such on Argentina . But understanding the past is akin to sedimentary sampling and a deeper reading of events reveals far more than the too familiar story of a spendthrift deadbeat nation borrowing more than prudence would otherwise dictate.
The capital flows from England and the US in the last two hundred years to Latin America were flows of credit, not money. The distinction is critical in understanding what has happened during the last two centuries. It explains the basis of the British Empire and current American power. It also explains the exploitation of Argentina .
The British Empire was founded on the central bank invention of credit-based money and the subsequent ability to substitute this new “money” for costly gold and silver; and the issuance of paper money allegedly backed by gold and silver is a critical component in the confidence game of central bankers to pass off their printed coupons as the real thing.
What the private bankers accomplished with the creation of the Bank of England was the government's “legitimization” of the bankers' new credit based coupons, sic paper money—coupons upon which the private bankers could now charge interest just as they had when loaning actual gold (what a wonderful scam). The new coupons were a lot easier to come by, especially when the king gave them a monopoly over its issuance.
The advantage to the king was that the king now had an unlimited supply of “money” that could be used to finance his wars—wars which led to the establishment of the British Empire; the cost of which was transferred directly as a burden to the people as the new counterfeit debt-based money was now an obligation of the state, not of the king.
This was the genesis (genius to the bankers and government) of the modern income tax where the people are forced to pay interest on the credit-based money issued by their own government. This was also the beginning of credit-based markets, deceptively called capitalism in order to closely identify the newly counterfeit credit based economy with the real money it had replaced.
CAPITALISM THE SPREAD OF DEBT IN DISGUISE
The flow of credit from England and then from its surrogate successor, the US, to developing nations such as Argentina was but the flow of printed coupons designed to harness and indebt the wealth and productivity of new lands.
The “capital” was really only credit, thinly disguised debt in the form of paper money originally issued by central banks, the Bank of England in Britain and the Federal Reserve Bank in the US , the twin towers of monetary Mordor.
The wonderfully sounding idea of unfettered capitalism is but a smokescreen for bankers to leverage their coupons in the form of credit and thereby indebt and control the productivity and wealth of others. As such, it has accomplished its goal admirably but its success will now cost the bankers dearly.
Three centuries of indebting nations, businesses, and the citizenry with constantly compounding debt is no longer sustainable. This is why central bankers in London , New York , Paris , and Tokyo are in such distress. Debtors can no longer pay their debts, defaults are on the rise and bankers may actually have to find real jobs if their confidence game continues to disintegrate.
BANKERS' FEARS
Lawrence Summers' credentials as a banker are impeccable. Educated at MIT and Harvard in economics, Summers has served as Chief Economist for the World Bank, US Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard University.
Recently, in March 2008, Summers stated:..we are facing the most serious combination of macroeconomic and financial stresses that the U.S. has faced in a generation--and possibly, much longer than that…It's a grave mistake to believe in the self-equilibrating properties of economies in the face of large shocks. Markets balance fear and greed. And when fear takes over, the capacity for self-stabilization is not one that can be relied upon.
On June 29, 2008 the Financial Times quoted Summers:... we are in an economic environment where we have more to fear than fear itself …
Lawrence Summer's fears are not to be taken lightly. They are the banker's equivalent of Jim Cramer's televised fit of fear when interviewed on CNBC last year, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?
While Summers is rightfully fearful of the current economic environment, the rest of us have far more to fear from bankers like Lawrence Summers and others like him. Summer's role in the manipulation of the price of gold is found in his 1988 paper Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard co-authored with Robert Barsky, published in the Journal of Political Economy (vol. 96, June 1988, pp. 528-550).
The hubris of bankers such as Summers is stunning. Fixing the price of gold hoping to control interest rates and prices is like fixing the temperature of thermometers hoping to control global warming. Such is the short reach of Summers' considerable intellect.
EVIL BANKERS FACT OR FICTION?
But the real danger of bankers like Lawrence Summers lies not in their untethered intellect but in their cold ambition and selfish greed that sees nations and people as but living fodder to be milked, used and discarded as they and others profit.
In 1991, Summers issued the following memo while serving as Chief Economist at the World Bank:
…developed countries ought to export more pollution to developing countries because these countries would incur the lowest cost from the pollution in terms of lost wages of people made ill or killed by the pollution due to the fact that wages are so low in developing countries…the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
As the World Bank's Chief Economist, Summer's memo is a chilling reflection of the heartlessness that lies at the core of bankers and banking establishments. The World Bank itself seems to be a favorite watering hole for those of questionable intent.
Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War was President of the World Bank as was Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq War. The current President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, is also an ardent supporter of the Iraq War (also on Zoellick's considerable list of “credits” is his service as advisor to Enron, his membership on the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission and his attendance at the secretive Bilderberg meetings from 1991 to the present and his role as Senior International Advisor to investment bank Goldman Sachs).
It is no coincidence that those heading the World Bank are closely associated with America 's vast war machine. Bankers have profited from fueling the military ambitions of both England and the US for the past two centuries and continue to do so today.
But perhaps the most damning indictment yet of the World Bank and today's bankers is John Perkins's Confessions of an Economic Hitman (Barrett Koehler, 2004) in which Perkins reveals the hidden intent of the World Bank and US bankers to cold-bloodedly indebt third world countries such as Argentina and profit by their misery.
In their review of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman write:
Remember Smedley Butler?
He was perhaps the most decorated Major General in Marine Corps history. In the early part of this century, he fought and killed for the United States around the world. Butler was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor.
Then, when he returned to the United States he wrote a book titled “War Is A Racket” which opens with the memorable lines: “War is a racket. It always has been.”
“I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers,” Butler said. “In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
In a speech in 1933, Butler said the following:
“I helped make Mexico , especially Tampico , safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”
Smedley Butler, meet John Perkins.
Perkins has just written a book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (Barrett Koehler, 2004). It is the War is A Racket for our times. Some of it is hard to believe. You be the judge.
In 1968, after graduating from Boston University , Perkins joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Ecuador . There, he was recruited by the National Security Agency (NSA) and hired by an international consulting firm, Chas. T. Main in Boston.
Soon after beginning his job in Boston , “I was contacted by a woman named Claudine who became my trainer as an economic hit man.” Perkins assumed the woman worked for the NSA.
“She said she was sent to help me and to train me,” Perkins said. “She is extremely beautiful, sensual, seductive, intelligent. Her job was to convince me to become an economic hit man, holding out these three drugs –- sex, drugs and money. And then she wanted to let me know that I was getting into a dirty business. And I shouldn't go off on my first assignment, which was going to be Indonesia, and start doing this unless I knew that I was going to continue doing it, and once I was in I was in for life.”
Perkins worked for Main from 1970 to 1980. His job was to convince the governments of the third world countries and the banks to make deals where huge loans were given to these countries to develop infrastructure projects. And a condition of the loan was that a large share of the money went back to the big construction companies in the USA – the Bechtels and Halliburtons.
The loans would plunge the countries into debts that would be impossible to pay off.
“The system is set up such that the countries are so deep in debt that they can't repay their debt,” Perkins said. “When the U.S. government wants favors from them, like votes in the United Nations or troops in Iraq, or in many, many cases, their resources – their oil, their canal, in the case of Panama, we go to them and say – look, you can't pay off your debts, therefore sell your oil at a very low price to our oil companies. Today, tremendous pressure is being put on Ecuador , for example, to sell off its Amazonian rainforest -– very precious, very fragile places, inhabited by indigenous people whose cultures are being destroyed by the oil companies.”
When a leader of a country refuses to cooperate with economic hit men like Perkins, the jackals from the CIA are called in. Perkins said that both Omar Torrijos of Panama and Jaime Boldos of Ecuador -– both men he worked with – refused to play the game with the U.S. and both were cut down by the CIA -– Torrijos when his airplane blew up, and Roldos when his helicopter exploded, within three months of each other in 1981.
If the CIA jackals don't do the job, then the U.S. Marines are sent in –- Butler 's “racketeers for capitalism.”
Perkins also gives lurid details of how he pimped for a Saudi prince in the 1970s, in an effort to get the Saudi royal family to enter an elaborate deal in which the U.S. would protect the House of Saud. In exchange, the Saudis agreed to stabilize oil prices and use their oil money to purchase Treasury bonds, the interest on which would be used to pay U.S. construction firms like Bechtel to build Saudi cities.
For years, Perkins wanted to stop being an economic hit man and write a tell-all book. He quit Main in 1980, only to be lured back with megabucks as a consultant. He testified in favor of the Seabrook Nuclear power plant (“my most infamous assignment”) in the 1980s, but the experience pushed him out of the business, and he started an alternative energy firm.
When word got out in the 1990s that he was starting to write a tell-all book, he was approached by the president of Stone & Webster, a big engineering firm.
Over seven years, Stone & Webster paid Perkins $500,000 to do nothing.
“At that first meeting, the president of the company mentioned some of the books that I had written about indigenous people and said –- that's nice, that's fine, keep doing your non-profit work,” Perkins told us. “We approve of that, but you certainly would never write about this industry, would you? And I assured him that I wouldn't.”
Perkins assumes the money was a bribe to get him not to write the book.
But he has written the book.
You be the judge.
Evil bankers? Fact or Fiction? You be the judge.
DEFAULT OR JUST DEADBEATS
While Reinhart's and Rogoff's work on sovereign default is worthwhile and important, their glaring avoidance of the geopolitical aspect of credit flows from England and the US to Latin America and other developing regions is indicative of the blind eye scholars turn to the activities of those who pay them.
Lawrence Summers was President of Harvard University where Kenneth Rogoff is now employed. It is not likely those who hired the likes of Summers would look kindly upon Rogoff should he begin asking questions whose answers would lead to truths Harvard's trustees would rather not see the light of day.
So instead of dealing with the critical issues raised by John Perkins, Reinhart and Rogoff consider the phenomena of sovereign defaults as an innocent rite of passage much like high school through which developing economies must pass. Perhaps it is so, perhaps not.
But their “trained” eye wanders a bit, even to an untrained eye such as mine. According to Reinhart and Rogoff, the US is a “default virgin”, sic the US has never missed a debt repayment or rescheduled on at least one occasion. While this is strictly so, the US is nonetheless at the center of the largest default in monetary history.
In the 1970s, the US defaulted on its gold obligations under the Bretton-Woods Agreement. After overspending the greatest hoard of gold in history, 21,775 tons, between 1949 and 1971, the US had 7,000-8,000 tons of gold left and still owed perhaps over 31,000 tons to others.
In 1973, when the US officially refused to convert US dollars held by other countries to gold, it was the biggest monetary default ever. In that one act, as a consequence the entire global monetary system shifted from a gold-based system to a fiat-paper system.
Of the US default on its gold obligations, Professor Antal Fekete wrote in June 2008:
http://www.professorfekete.com/articles%5CAEFItsNotADollarCrisisItsAGoldCrisis.pdf
Thirty-five years ago gold, symbol of permanence, was chased out from the Monetary Garden of Eden , replaced by the floating irredeemable dollar as the pillar of the international monetary system. That's right: a floating pillar. The gold demonetization exercise was a farce. It was designed as a fig leaf to cover up the ugly default of the U.S. government on its gold-redeemable sight obligations to foreigners. The word ‘default' itself was put under taboo even though it punctured big holes in the balance sheet of every central bank of the world, as its dollar-denominated assets sank in value in terms of anything but the dollar itself. These banks were not even allowed to say ‘ouch' as they were looking at the damage to their balance sheets caused by the default. They just had to swallow the loss, obediently and dutifully join the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus of sycophants in Washington praising the irredeemable dollar and the Nirvana of synthetic credit.
Debt virgin? Hardly, and whether the US defaulted or not is not just a question of semantics, it is a matter of truth—which, like credit, is now surprisingly hard to come by.
THIS TIME IT'S DIFFERENT
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's paper, This Time It's Different , refers to the idea that sovereign defaults are a thing of the past. That we have somehow fixed what was wrong and it won't happen again. Reinhart and Rogoff think otherwise.
But this time, in a different way it really is different. This time default will come to both banker and debtor alike. The bankers' system itself is now collapsing under the weight of debt that the bankers' debt-based money has produced.
Banks are finding themselves increasingly bankrupt as are the governments the bankers used to debase the world's currencies. This time, not only will Argentina possibly suffer another sovereign default, so too will its creditor, the US , as will many of the US banks that issued that debt.
The default of the US will remain, however, outside the limited definition of default used by Reinhart and Rogoff. The US will not miss a payment or reschedule its debt. Unlike Argentina , the US prints the currency in which the Argentine and US debt is denominated. The US will print its way out of its debts. Argentina cannot.
Because of the enormity of the US debt, the amount of dollars necessary to print to pay down the debt will lead to the hyperinflation in the US and the destruction of the US dollar. Those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword—though not often.
In that same article where Professor Kotlikoff estimated US liabilities to be $65.9 trillion, Kotlikoff also wrote:
The United States ..appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.
Maybe this time it isn't different..
DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA
SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF
In 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the democratically elected Argentine government. The first to recognize the dictatorship was the US . The second was the International Monetary Fund, and within 24 hours of recognizing the soon-to-be most brutal regime in recent history, the IMF arranged a loan to the military junta.
At the time, Argentina 's external debt totaled $7 billion. When the bloody dictatorship ended with the return of democracy six years later, Argentina 's debt totaled $43 billion, a debt owed mainly to US banks.
The common law concept of caveat emptor has particular relevance here, caveat emptor —Latin, “let the buyer beware", is a legal precept that buyers must take responsibility for the conditions under which the sale was made.
If you loan to a dictatorship, don't expect to be repaid if a democracy emerges.
Richard Perle, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense and neoconservative lobbyist
Richard Perle who supported the Iraq War said those words shortly after the US invaded Iraq . While it is doubtful Perle believes the same applies for debts incurred by the US supported dictatorship in Argentina , the truth of Perle's words extend beyond Perle's situational principles or a lack thereof. In a court of law, an illegal contract cannot be enforced—unless, of course, the court has been bought off.
A critical distinction between the debt “owed” by Argentina and the debts owed by the US is that Argentina's debt was illegally imposed upon Argentina by the IMF, the US and international bankers without the consent of the Argentine citizenry, The US debt, however, was incurred with the consent of the American people—or was it?
That, my fellow Americans, is a $99.2 trillion question.
BANKRUPT BE THE BONDS THAT BIND
Americans with their outstanding obligations now measured in trillions of dollars of outstanding US bonds have much in common with the Argentine people. We have both been enslaved and bankrupted by the same financial system.
While it is impossible for the debt burdened Argentines to do something about US banks, it is not impossible for Americans to do so. The US Federal Reserve Bank—the largest emitter of debt-based money in the world—while not an official US government agency is nonetheless still subject to the rules and laws of our land.
STIRRINGS IN THE ELECTORATE
Dissatisfaction, the beginning of change, is now occurring. The two political polarities are finally awakening to the fact that both have been callously used by those in power. The US has lurched right then left then right again, but it continues to go in the same disturbing direction, a direction now equally distasteful to those on the left and on the right.
In modern democracies, successful politicians must possess two qualities: They must say what the people want to hear and they must do what those in power want done.
It has been easy to manipulate those on the right as well as those on the left. The Republicans and Democrats have done so for years. But where's the beef? The nation's finances have been even more badly managed by the Republicans than the Democrats—and Iraq ? Sure, vote for the Democrats and stay mired in a conflict they promised they would end.
Both parties are controlled by the same money, the same money that now controls global governments and institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, the same money that buys politicians, scholars, the military, lawyers, TV anchors, radio talk show hosts and anyone else whose influence they can use for their own ends.
There is a reason why we are indebted as we are and there is a reason why we are mired in a war that one wants except the few that do, the few that now control our nation and many others. In the midst of this most unreasonable world, there are reasons—whether you want to know them or not.
Humanity now finds itself at the beginning of a profound shift, a shift that will force us—if we are to survive, if we are to triumph—to put aside our differences to accomplish together what we obviously cannot accomplish apart.
The two political polarities must find common ground or they will soon find there is no ground at all. What is happening is bigger than money and power although it involves both. It involves humanity, it involves all of us and unless we find each other we will soon find there will be nothing left to find at all.
We are closer to the end than to the beginning. Keep your own counsel. Buy gold and silver. Keep the faith.
In Argentina , I read in a recent issue of Scientific American that physicists now believe that in the beginning of time the Universe was only one centimeter across. That knowledge heartened me. We have come a long way.
Note: I will be speaking at Professor Fekete's last session of Gold Standard University Live to be held in Canberra , Australia from November 11 th to the 14 th . The focus of the session will be trading the gold and silver basis for profit. For further details, contact feketeaustralia@yahoo.com .
By Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
blog www.posdev.net
About Darryl Robert Schoon
In college, I majored in political science with a focus on East Asia (B.A. University of California at Davis, 1966). My in-depth study of economics did not occur until much later.
In the 1990s, I became curious about the Great Depression and in the course of my study, I realized that most of my preconceptions about money and the economy were just that - preconceptions. I, like most others, did not really understand the nature of money and the economy. Now, I have some insights and answers about these critical matters.
In October 2005, Marshall Thurber, a close friend from law school convened The Positive Deviant Network (the PDN), a group of individuals whom Marshall believed to be "out-of-the-box" thinkers and I was asked to join. The PDN became a major catalyst in my writings on economic issues.
When I discovered others in the PDN shared my concerns about the US economy, I began writing down my thoughts. In March 2007 I presented my findings to the Positive Deviant Network in the form of an in-depth 148- page analysis, " How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper In The Process. "
The reception to my presentation, though controversial, generated a significant amount of interest; and in May 2007, "How To Survive The Crisis And Prosper In The Process" was made available at www.survivethecrisis.com and I began writing articles on economic issues.
The interest in the book and my writings has been gratifying. During its first two months, www.survivethecrisis.com was accessed by over 10,000 viewers from 93 countries. Clearly, we had struck a chord and www.drschoon.com , has been created to address this interest.
Darryl R Schoon Archive
Whatever floats your boat
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I am in the same boat, labeled a hater.sm
All I want is accountability and truth.
We may end up meeting on a life boat then
I'm in OR and I heard about that too.
in the same boat! If hubby loses sm
job we are in a world of hurt. Have no bills but house and utilities, ins etc, no car payment but he has to have his job.
I have family and friends all over the place retired from the big 3 auto companies and are all worried about their pensions. Am originally from Michigan and it has kind of turned into a ghost town up there. Very sad. Never thought I would see the day when the auto companies would be in so much trouble. The auto companies have put a lot of food on a lot of folks table!
Whatever floats your boat. I just dont find
you are hawking to be terribly helpful. Besides, the results are basically the same if you do the math.
I was simply casually passing on a bit info in line with the post below that was speculating on whether or not Obama has lost his support. According to CNN's poll right after the election and this one now (comparing apples to apples, since they are from the same source), it appears that he is pretty much holding his own IN SPITE OF all the controversy surrounding the stimulus package. That makes me feel pretty relaxed, all things considered, so I'll pass on that drink you offered, thanks just the same.
Gaza Strip
Israel renews Gaza attacks.
The Jewish state launched about 100 strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday. |
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And add Republican Mike DeWine and his Swift Boat ad firm
DeWine sticks with firm that bungled 9/11 ad
By Bret Schulte
Posted 7/20/06
Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine is sticking with the political advertising firm that doctored images of the World Trade Center to make it appear as though the footage came from the September 11 attacks. The video was used in a 30-second campaign spot that has aired throughout Ohio since last Friday, accusing his opponent, Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, of being weak on national security. An investigation by U.S. News revealed that the images, which show the south tower ablaze and the north tower untouched –– contradicting the chronology of the day's events –– were bogus.
The firm that produced the commercial has been the subject of controversy before. Alexandria-based Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm produced the famous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads that challenged the war record of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004. Still, the DeWine campaign has no plans to ax the ad agency. Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm is a nationally recognized firm, and they will continue to do media consulting for the campaign, said DeWine spokesman Brian Seitchik.
The DeWine campaign learned of the faked video when contacted by U.S. News Wednesday evening. DeWine promised to immediately replace the video in question with a still image of the World Trade Center taken before the attacks. The campaign says the spot, now modified, will not be pulled anytime soon, despite ongoing controversy that has threatened to drown out the commercial's message. Long before yesterday's revelation, Democratic critics were lambasting the ad as an attempt to capitalize politically on the terrorist attacks. Republicans have made similar charges about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's use of images of flag-draped coffins in ads criticizing the war in Iraq.
Still unclear is why DeWine's advertising firm would doctor an image of the twin towers when numerous photos and video accounts of the actual event are available. A source with some knowledge of the ad called the entire commercial graphics based, with the computer-generated smoke just another part of the mix. Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm did not return phone calls requesting comment. A source says no one has been fired from either the campaign or the ad agency as a result of the fallout.
Brown's campaign, already enraged over the ad, called the doctored images shameless. Brown has seized this opportunity to question DeWine's character. Mike DeWine has always run campaigns with attack ads and distortions, Brown said in an interview. For his part, DeWine insists it was an honest mistake that doesn't detract from the message of the ad. The fact is we stand by the ad. Sherrod Brown and I have very different views and approaches to the defense of this country, DeWine said.
Brooks Jackson, director of the watchdog publication publication FactCheck.org, expressed mostly bemusement. This seems to be a case of incompetence on the part of the media consultant, Jackson said, not an attempt to deceive voters.
Hamas live in Gaza.
That makes them civilians, too, the same way our elected officials are also citizens and live in their respective states. If living in their own houses in their own neighborhoods is "hiding," then that statement is accurate.
This is a lie. They live in Gaza. They don't hide there.
They were democratically elected into power, defeating the Fatah party, which retains its majority in the West Bank, but Hamas has won elections there, too.
The majority of the people in Gaza live in the squalor of refugee camps under the iron fist of their hostile occupiers who imposed an apartheid police state and enforce blockades of basic supplies such as food, medicine and MONEY. This strangles their economy and starves their people. Israel was supposed to lift the blockade as part of the cease fire conditions. They have had since June to do this and by the time the cease fire expired on December 19th, they had not done so and had no intention of doing so. THAT is why the cease fire did not hold. Surprise, surprise. More lies and broken promises from Israel, only these particular lies are creating deadly and fatal conditions for the entire population in Gaza. Can you say genocide? It's a war of attrition at the hands of Israel and sanctioned by the United States.
They do not hide behind women and children. The population in Gaza supports the resistance to the blockade, since they and their children are the ones who are being slowly starved to death. That's why they elected Hamas. An occupied population which has been invaded repeatedly, blockaded, has the highest unemployment rate in the world (Gaza at 45%), has no medical supplies and is on the verge of starvation tend to arm themselves and band together against their common enemy. It's human nature to do so. This is not about anything more than simple survival for them.
Yeah, and Isreal took its own out of Gaza, yet
nm
I can't believe there are those who believe the 8000 peole in the Gaza strip should
occupy one-third of the land, while the other 1 MILLION people live in the other two-third.
Granted, I'll concede that I have not followed it except that I know the land is sacred, but the settlers themselves should be able to see the unfairness in this.
I think it was a standup think for the Israeli president to do from where I'm sitting.
You might want to check out the thread about Gaza before gloating about that. nm
Ahem. The West Bank is not theirs. Neither is Gaza.
So just how does that justify illegal settlements and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank?
If Netanyahu continues to bomb Gaza,
then Obama has to do some action, words are not enough anymore regarding this conflict.
Most probably Obama, as he is a wise guy, he will curtail US' financial and weapon support to Israel.
Obama will not start the bombing and he will not torture.
Condi lies through her teeth in her 1-minute Gaza statement.
"Hamas has held the people of Gaza hostage "ever since their illegal coup" against the forces of (Palestinian Authority) President Mahmoud Abbas." In the AP report, they attempted to scour this lie by stating that Rice pinned the blame for the violence on Hamas, the Islamist Resitance Movement that "seized power" in Gaza in June 2007 after "ousting" the US-backed Palestinian Authority of Mahmud Abbas. Neither statement even remotely resembles the truth.
Hamas won control of 28 municipalities in both the West Bank and Gaza in the municipal elections of 2005, including control in the West Bank's largest cities (Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah and East Jerusalem). They achieved a stunning victory in the legislative elections in 2006, which yielded a yielded a 78% voter turnout. Hamas won 76 out of 132 seats on the Legislative Council. Factoring in the 4 seats won by independents who support Hamas, they seized 80 seats, giving them control of 60.6% of the council. In other words, they did BETTER than the US democrats in 2008.
Hamas benefited in the election from the fractures in the secular, US-backed (kiss of death) Fatah party of Mahmoud Abbas. Fierce in-fighting between Hamas and Fatah factions erupted in the election aftermath. Israel and the US (along with Egypt) immediately tried to undermine Hamas and force them from power, even going so far as to arm and train Fatah for a war with Hamas! They hatched a plot that involved smuggling US arms for Fatah strongholds in Gaza through a suddenly porous Egyptian border with Israel's blessing.
As with countless other ill-advised US attempts to rearrange the political landscape in the Middle East, this stunt backfired all over the place. When this engineered conflict erupted later in the summer, Fatah and Hamas officers and leaders (including Abbas) were targeted by their respective militia's opponents. Things got really nasty and Abbas HIMSELF dissolved the Palestinian-Hamas unity government, declared a state of emergency, tried to dismiss the prime minister and declared himself ruler of Gaza by presidential decree. Can you say US-backed coup? Of course, this went over like a lead balloon with the newly elected Hamas leadership.
Ultimately, this led to the current division of government between Gaza (Hamas) and the West Bank (Palestinian National Authority), who the US and EU normalized relations with and began sending direct aid. Abbas relocated to the West Bank and is still the President of the Palestinian National Authority. In the meantime, he has found it increasingly more difficult to sustain the more moderate status quo support of US-brokered peace initiatives with Israel in view of the absence of such during Bush's second term. He has announced he will not run for office again at the end of his current term. In May 2008, he stated he would resign if Condi's impotent so-called peace talks did not produce results within 6 months. In July, he spoke not only of resigning, but also of dismantling the Palestinian Authority all together.
As a footnote, Gaza is held hostage by Israel occupation of Palestine and its 18-month blockade, which Condi failed to mention in her statement this morning, not by their democratically elected representatives.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jun/16/israel.comment http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3412813,00.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/international/middleeast/14mideast.html?_r=2&ei=5094&en=d28cff5caa1702fa&hp=&ex=1139979600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0525/p07s02-wome.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/14/MNGIPMV3N61.DTL
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article640747.ece
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/806603.html
End of the year 2008 a total of 1.073 Palestinians were killed in Gaza and over 4,000 injured.
It is also a historical fact that the Palestinians were the FIRST to populate the Holy Land and that the Palestininas were driven from Palestine 1948, and again in the 1967 war Arab land went to Israel.
In the year 1993 the Palestinians concentrated in the 'Gaza Strip', this is a tiny, tiny land strip where 1.5 million Palestinians are living under horrible circumstances and in fear of Israeli attacks.
November 2008 Israel invaded Gaza and massacred Palestinians living there and the whole world condemned this act.
This is history!
Israel
There are many jews who do not like Sharon, many. I could post what they say about him but I wont. However, posting about great leaders, I grew up loving absolutely loving Golda Meir..The situation in Israel is not ours to decide or get heated about..the situation we need to get heated about is America. To try to tie jews and christians together happily cannot happen. For many many years christians did not even acknowledge jews or their beliefs, now all of a sudden lets get together as we believe as one, however, we do not believe as one, not at all. I have watched this over a few years, the christians are trying to hook onto jews as they think well, we both believe in the Bible so we believe the same. We do not believe the same. First of all, we do not believe in the new testament, we do not believe in hell, many of us do not even believe in a heaven and we do not believe in jesus as a savior. He was a jewish man who taught peace and love and tolerance but nothing more. Our savior has not come yet. I think you truly pray and feel for Israel, however, maybe you can take a few courses of Judaism at a local synagogue and understand us more. I know my local synagogue has courses for non jews to learn more about us.
Oil from Israel
Has anyone researched that? In the coming future, Russia will attack Israel. Those who have researched prophecies of the future of the world believe a gusher of this oil wealth is soon coming from Israel, and Russia (amazingly not called Soviet Union in these prophecies of 1100+ years ago) will form an Islamic alliance (they really don't want to) and will come down from the north and attack unwalled villages, supposedly for this sudden great wealth of oil. However, Israel has built walls all over the place. So, this attack will probably happen after the one world leader soon to appear on the world scene offers a convincing (but false) peace and Israel tears the walls down. I have been to Russia, and it is so different from what was promised to the Russian people back when my parents were very young. Then, it was a revolution similar to what Castro was supposed to have done, and now what Chavez is supposedly doing. I saw the apartments, hospitals, schools, etc., in Russia. Yes, Kruschev said there were no homeless people. I only saw people who had to live in apartments where the government dictated that they live and no freedom to express their opinion. Their cost to live in these apartments - free. Our cost to have the freedom in America to say what we want to - priceless. Anyone remember that guy that wrote, The Late Great Planet Earth, back in the 1970's. He now has a program called International Intelligence Briefing. Check your local/cable listings. If you know of any others like him who have researched this other side of the (global) story, please let me know. Thanks.
Israel was willing........... sm
to give the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in 2005 and allow them to govern it on their own, but that wasn't good enough for the Palestinians.
China has given us untold amounts of money. Does that mean that China has a say in how our country should be run?
I stand on my previous statements that any country that does not support Israel (and I don't mean just monetarily)is barking up the wrong olive tree.
do you really think it is just to let Israel
take the whole of Palestine? Does not matter what the Bible says!
US, Israel planned ME war
Why does none of this surprise me?
'US, Israel planned ME war'
13/08/2006 11:06 - (SA) |
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New York - The US government was closely involved in the planning of Israel's military operations against Islamic militant group Hezbollah even before the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue.
The kidnapping triggered a month-long Israeli operation in South Lebanon that is expected to come to an end on Monday.
But Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh writes that President George W Bush and vice president Dick Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential US pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.
Citing an unnamed Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of the Israeli and US governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush administration officials - well before the July 12 kidnappings.
The expert added that the White House had several reasons for supporting a bombing campaign, the report said.
If there was to be a military option against Iran, it had to get rid of the weapons Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation against Israel, Hersh writes.
Citing a US government consultant with close ties to Israel, Hersh also reports that earlier this summer, before the Hezbollah kidnappings, several Israeli officials visited Washington to get a green light for a bombing operation following a Hezbollah provocation, and to find out how much the United States would bear.
The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits, the magazine quotes the consultant as saying. Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.
US government officials have denied the charges.
Nonetheless, Hersh writes, a former senior intelligence official says some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should.
There is no way that (defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this, the report quotes the former official as saying. When the smoke clears, they'll say it was a success, and they'll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.
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Israel solution
Move the state of Israel to Virginia, Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson can fight over the honor, and see how much y'all love Israel then.
I am not asking you to discuss Israel. sm
I know that it happens all the time. I am sorry that it does.
You don't have to go to Israel to know right from wrong.
Occupation, blockade, genocidal war of attrition, settlement expansion, diasporas of refugees, no right to return, the wall, imposition of police state, creation of open air prisons/terrorist breeding gounds, countless treaty violations, repeated invasions, plunder of resources, wholesale murderous slaughter featuring killing, generations of widows, widowers and orphans, maiming for life and massive destruction of property...just to name a few things off the top of my head.
Why Israel Fights
Why the Israeli attack helps the US by taking on Hamas now and why this time Israel may succeed in Gaza. A well-written perspective on Gaza, Israel, Hamas. This adds more to consider as we all discuss this war.
Why Israel Fights
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Published: January 4, 2009
The Israeli assault on Hamas in Gaza is going to be a replay, we’re told, of the attempt to subdue Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006. And the outcome, it’s asserted, will be the same: lots of death and destruction, no strategic victory for Israel and a setback for all who seek peace and progress in the Middle East.
Obviously, war is an unpredictable business, so I say this with some trepidation: I think the conventional wisdom will be proved wrong. Israel could well succeed in Gaza.
For one thing, southern Lebanon is a substantial and hilly area, bordered by northern Lebanon and Syria, through which Hezbollah could be re-supplied, both by Syria itself and by Iran. Gaza is a flat, narrow strip, bordered by Israel, as well as by the sea and by Egypt, no friend to Hamas. By cutting off the northern part of Gaza from the southern, Israel has basically surrounded northern Gaza, creating a military situation very different from that in Lebanon in 2006.
What’s more, the Israeli leadership seems aware of the mistakes — political, strategic and military — it made in Lebanon. That doesn’t mean it won’t make them all over again. The same prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is in charge, after all. But, today’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, is very different from his predecessor, the weak and unqualified Amir Peretz. So far as one can tell, the Gaza operation seems to have been well-planned and is being methodically executed, in sharp contrast to the Lebanon incursion. Barak has also warned that the operation could be long and difficult, lowering expectations by contrast with the Israeli rhetoric of July 2006.
In addition, in Lebanon, Israel proclaimed war goals that it couldn’t achieve — such as retrieving its two kidnapped soldiers and disarming Hezbollah. Now the Israeli government says that it seeks to weaken Hamas, lessen its ability to fire rockets from Gaza and secure new arrangements along the Egyptian-Gaza border to prevent Hamas from re-arming. These may well be achievable goals.
And, of course, not all military efforts against terror fail. Recall Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in the spring of 2002, when, under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, Israel succeeded in ripping up established terror networks and began the defeat of the second intifada. Israel also was able to avoid a long-term re-occupation, while retaining the ability to go back in on anti-terror missions. What’s more, the 2002 bloodshed didn’t seem to do lasting damage to hopes for progress or moderation on the West Bank. After all, it’s Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005, not the West Bank, that became a Hamas stronghold.
An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror — and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East. Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism. The combination of such terror movements with a terror-sponsoring and nuclear-weapons-seeking Iranian state (aided by its sidekick Syria) has produced a new kind of threat to Israel.
But not just to Israel. To everyone in the Middle East — very much including Muslims — who aren’t interested in living under the sway of extremist regimes. And to any nation, like the United States, that is a target of Islamic terror. So there are sound reasons why the United States — whether led by George W. Bush or Barack Obama — will stand with Israel as it fights.
But Israel — assuming it succeeds — is doing the United States a favor by taking on Hamas now.
The huge challenge for the Obama administration is going to be Iran. If Israel had yielded to Hamas and refrained from using force to stop terror attacks, it would have been a victory for Iran. If Israel were now to withdraw under pressure without accomplishing the objectives of severely weakening Hamas and preventing the reconstitution of a terror-exporting state in Gaza, it would be a triumph for Iran. In either case, the Iranian regime would be emboldened, and less susceptible to the pressure from the Obama administration to stop its nuclear program.
But a defeat of Hamas in Gaza — following on the heels of our success in Iraq — would be a real setback for Iran. It would make it easier to assemble regional and international coalitions to pressure Iran. It might positively affect the Iranian elections in June. It might make the Iranian regime more amenable to dealing.
With respect to Iran, Obama may well face — as the Israeli government did with Hamas — a moment when the use of force seems to be the only responsible option. But Israel’s willingness to fight makes it more possible that the United States may not have to.
Who does Israel belong to? So you are saying
the U.N. overstepped its bounds? And what about the United Kingdom that controlled the area in the early 1900s?
Like it or not nations are formed through civil war. There are winners and there are losers. It's really very simple. The process has not changed for centuries and it will never change. The strong prevail. The righteous prevail. The minute we take a liberal viewpoint, that's the exact minute we become weak.
So, even after Israel withdrew from
Gaza, the Hamas still continued bombing Israel. Who is the aggressor?
Yep those mean conservatives are over there helping Israel
Yep, they'll be back when all the Lebanese are dead, because all us conservatives are evil like that.
No, they live in the US, and the US backs Israel.nm
z
I have studied U.S./Israel relations
I have studied U.S./Israel relations extensively. I fully understand that the protestors do not share my point of view as well as you. From reading your copious posts I am very clear on where you stand. I will not be so presumptious as to think I know your biography, but you obviously believe everything wrong in the world has U.S. origins. I believe you are wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I will not try to change your mind. Since liberals in general are so worried about how the rest of the world thinks about us I will bring to your attention that it becomes ever more clear by your stances and views as with those on the extreme left that you all side with terrorism. You can spin it any way you want, but you come off as supporting terrorists.
This describes most experts on Israel. TI
A breyre hob ich (I have no alternative), the mind is closed here. It is not really such a phenomenon. All is bashert (predestined). Even in the Jewish community, there is division. The Jews in the United States, many of them, have lost communion with the Jews left in Israel, though we are seeing some coming back, rediscovering the cause. Then have a benken (longing, yearning) inside them and they are drawn back to the homeland. They are welcome. As for what is said here, it is really not debate at all is it? It was silly of me to have tried. There are better battles and bigger stakes than most imagine. Alaichem sholom (peace to you). If it please Hashem.
oops: I did mean Israel & Iran.
Afghanistan & Pakistan are no picnic, either.
What makes you think Israel will succeed in
"defeating" the Palestinians this time around. Bullying swagger and bravado certainly won't make it so. Goliath has not been able to slay David in the last 60 years. You think they will pick up their marbles and go quietly into the night? There is only one thing that can change the course of this cycling hell-on-earth.
REPEAT: It's the occupation. End it or live in fear for all eternity.
I lived in Israel for many years
and what has happened has more to do with the upcoming election in Israel than with the US. Check it out.
Wrong again! With or without the U.S., Israel will always prevail.
Just keep watching. Obama will withdrawal American support from Israel, I'm sure, and Israel will STILL prevail.
Israel will prevail.......it is ordained by God
And even Obama can't do anything about that but that's not to say Israel hasn't done its share of manipulating the Arabs....they helped form Hamas for the purpose of overthrowing the PLO and look where it got them...... more trouble!
Does really need to be said that Israel is predominantly Jewish?
When I speak of Israel, I speak of the Jews.
You Said: "And yes, I did bring Hitler into the conversation. He systematically tied to wipe out a group of people, which is exactly what Israel is doing right now."
That statement is exactly what makes you anti-Semitic. The fact that you can compare Israel to Nazi Germany is obscene and anti-Semitic. You are using something horrific done to the Jews (who make up 75% or more of the Israeli population) and using it to illustrate what you perceive is going on in the Gaza Strip. Can you not find some other means to make your point other than conjuring up prejudice perpetrated by Hitler? Could you have maybe made your comparison to Kosovo/Bosnia? Nope, you chose the holocaust to illustrate your point. You intent was to shock and to be controversial. You wanted to provoke a reaction.
What exactly did you think using the name "Hitler" would provoke? You argument in and of itself is anti-Semitic.
By the way, I am a messianic Jew. I know a little bit about anti-Semitism. So before you continue to insult both my intelligence and my homeland, choose your words wisely.
No, it is not, but US supports Israel every year with
billions of dollars and the newest military technology.
Former Israeli administrations already agreed to a 2-state solution. The Palestinians would get the Westbank as their state. Instead of keeping their promise, Israel started to build the 20-meter-high separation wall and building settlements for the Israelis.
Obama wants this to stop and Netanyahu does not want to comply as a hardline right-winger. It is Netanyahu who wants the whole occupied Palestine for Israel and does not want a 2-state solution. He wouldn't even 'utter' the term ƈ-state solution,' not even when he was discussing this issue with Obama in Washington; he just circled around it.
This does not come out of my head, I am very literate, informed, I look around what is going on in the world, always, I am tolerant and fair.
You are wrong: Obama is not against Israel,
he is for a 2-state solution: The Westbank and Gaza for the Palestinians, ALL the rest for Israel. I think that the Palestinians have a right to a 'small' part of Palestine, as they were the first to be in the Holy Land and there were several agreements under previous US administrations, also Bush's, that implemented this right.
Why should Israel have it all and the Palestinians nothing? Where should the Palestinians go who live in the by Isreal occupied territories that were promised to them? This constant back and forth struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, especially the Israeli attacks on Gaza, have the goal to make whole Palestine an Israeli state.
Even on the Israeli side there are a lot of voices who think that the Palestinians have a right to their own state and admit that bringing this problem to a solution (2-state) will solve a lot of problems, as it constitutes the root problem in the Middle East.
It is all about justice and fairness!
You are wrong: Obama is not against Israel,
he is for a 2-state solution: The Westbank and Gaza for the Palestinians, ALL the rest for Israel. I think that the Palestinians have a right to a 'small' part of Palestine, as they were the first to be in the Holy Land and there were several agreements under previous US administrations, also Bush's, that implemented this right.
Why should Israel have it all and the Palestinians nothing? Where should the Palestinians go who live in the by Isreal occupied territories that were promised to them? This constant back and forth struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, especially the Israeli attacks on Gaza, have the goal to make whole Palestine an Israeli state.
Even on the Israeli side there are a lot of voices who think that the Palestinians have a right to their own state and admit that bringing this problem to a solution (2-state) will solve a lot of problems, as it constitutes the root problem in the Middle East.
It is all about justice and fairness!
You are wrong: Obama is not against Israel,
he is for a 2-state solution: The Westbank and Gaza for the Palestinians, ALL the rest for Israel. I think that the Palestinians have a right to a 'small' part of Palestine, as they were the first to be in the Holy Land and there were several agreements under previous US administrations, also Bush's, that implemented this right.
Why should Israel have it all and the Palestinians nothing? Where should the Palestinians go who live in the by Isreal occupied territories that were promised to them? This constant back and forth struggle between Israel and the Palestinians, especially the Israeli attacks on Gaza, have the goal to make whole Palestine an Israeli state.
Even on the Israeli side there are a lot of voices who think that the Palestinians have a right to their own state and admit that bringing this problem to a solution (2-state) will solve a lot of problems, as it constitutes the root problem in the Middle East.
It is all about justice and fairness!
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