Tail Wags Dog

This has to stop:

“I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone,’ ” Mr. Olmert said in a speech in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, according to The Associated Press. “They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care: ‘I need to talk to him now,’ ” Mr. Olmert continued. “He got off the podium and spoke to me.”

Israel opposed the resolution, which called for a halt to the fighting in Gaza, because the government said it did not provide for Israel’s security. It passed 14 to 0, with the United States abstaining.

Mr. Olmert claimed that once he made his case to Mr. Bush, the president called Ms. Rice and told her to abstain. “She was left pretty embarrassed,” Mr. Olmert said, according to The A.P.

U.S. and Israeli interests are not one and the same.

Where's the Outrage?

Imagine if this had been any other country:

An 84-year-old former Army engineer in New Jersey was charged on Tuesday with leaking dozens of secret documents about nuclear arms, missiles and fighter jets to the Israeli government during the early 1980s, federal prosecutors said.

The engineer, Ben-Ami Kadish of Monroe Township, could face life in prison or possibly the death penalty if convicted on the most serious charge, prosecutors said.

I'm sure the same people who regularly call for us to nuke Iran are busy getting their act together.

Peacekeeping

I do not think that word means what you think it means:

Israel announced plans Monday for 1,400 new homes on land the Palestinians claim for a future state -- just hours after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice ended a peacekeeping mission to the region.

She's quickly earning the worst secretary of state ever title.

It's Like Shooting Yourself in the Face All Over Again

Following up on yesterday's link to the Vanity Fair article,

Israeli aircraft sent missiles crashing into the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, pressing an offensive against Palestinian rocket squads even as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in the region to try to rescue peace talks from the latest outbreak of violence.

Ms. Rice hoped in a meeting later Tuesday to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiations he cut off on Sunday after more than 120 Gazans were killed in an Israeli operation against militants who bombard southern Israel with rocket and mortar fire. Although Mr. Abbas has had little power over the coastal area of 1.4 million people since Hamas seized control in June, the high death toll, which included dozens of civilians, made it difficult for him to continue the talks.

Because Condi's the awesome at everything she touches. She's a miracle worker!

Let the Man Speak

If you've seen any news media today, I'm sure you've caught a headline, snippet or photo of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I can't help but feel disappointed at the vitriol and hatred that is filling this country over this man.

It's still unclear to me what his claim to infamy is; the worst I can see is that he's a holocaust denier, which, for me, puts him in the same bag as flat earthers. However, Ahmadinejad isn't anti-Jewish - Iran has a sizable Jewish population that lives under perfectly acceptable conditions - so it must be that he's anti-Israel. I know this isn't news; the U.S. has a history of being rabidly pro-Israel, but at the end of the day Israel is not the 51st state and the U.S. has no obligation to make Israel's enemies into the U.S.'s enemies. Furthermore, it's not like Israel is a saintly country that has never done wrong. Yet, this dishonest intertwining of Israel's bogeymen and our own has tainted this country for far too long. Glenn Greenwald asks the right question:

[I]sn't it long past time to have the discussion about the extent to which the U.S. is willing to wage war on behalf of Israel's interests? Do Americans really think that Iranian hostility towards Israel or its support for "terrorists groups" that are hostile to Israel are grounds for declaring Iran to be our Enemy or waging war against them? If so, then let proponents of war with Iran make that case expressly.

All this fear and hatred has contributed to preventing Ahmadinejad to visit Ground Zero and attempting to preventing him from speaking at Columbia University. Last year Columbia canceled an invitation to him after pressure from Jewish groups, but this year he will speak. Columbia usually handles these things horribly, but this time I'm glad they made the right decision and stuck to it (full disclosure: I'm an alum). Like the man or not, Ahmadinejad is a world leader and should have a platform with which to air his views and have them questioned.

I want to know what is so horrible about this man that he shouldn't even be allowed to speak. Has this country become so blinded by lies and weak that we can't bear to listen to the point of view of someone who disagrees with us?

Greatest Idea Ever

So, so stupid:

Defense Secretary Robert Gates sketched out a long-term vision for securing Iraq that includes a continuing American military force that is a fraction the size of the one there today, no permanent U.S. bases and a significant Navy and Air Force presence in the Persian Gulf region.

In an interview in the Pentagon, Mr. Gates also said part of the long-range security structure would be stronger military partnerships with some of America's friends in the Gulf area, helping them build better counterterrorism forces as well as regional air- and missile-defense systems to check Iranian ambitions.

Maintaining a small military force in the region is the worst of both worlds. A smaller force will be more vulnerable to continued attacks and serves as a lighting rod and rallying point for all anti-U.S. forces.

But then again, this is all about Iran, as is everything else coming out of the administration's mouth on foreign affairs these days. Check Iranian ambitions? Last time I checked we'd done all we could to support them by destabilizing Iraq. Furthermore, Iran is already engaging in diplomacy with Sunni Saudi Arabia. Iran poses no military threat to the U.S. and only the delusional, bed-wetting neocons and authoritarians need to keep running around in a perpetual state of fear so they can justify lashing out at someone else to make themselves feel secure. See these posts over at TPM for more.

BTW, this just in:

The deputy commander of Iran's air force said Wednesday that plans have been drawn up to bomb Israel if the Jewish state attacks Iran, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

The announcement comes amid rising tensions in the region with the United States calling for a new round of U.N. sanctions against Iran over its disputed nuclear program and Israeli planes having recently overflown, and perhaps even attacked, Iranian ally Syria's territory.

Let's get something clear right now: Israel's interests are not necessarily aligned with the ours. They are merely another country and should not be treated specially. We really don't need to be Russia in 1914.

Spreading the War

Nothing good will come of this:

Israeli warplanes bombed unidentified Syrian targets early on Thursday, causing no damage or casualties, the official Syrian news agency said.

Syrian air defenses fired at the incoming planes, which crossed into Syria after midnight local time, the agency said.

"The Syrian Arab Republic warns the government of the Israeli enemy and reserves the right to respond according to what it sees fit," the agency said.

The Israeli military declined to comment on the air strike. Israel has long warned Syria to stop supporting militant Palestinian groups and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah.

Call me paranoid, but this is not entirely unrelated to the right wing's saber rattling over Iran. Someone's looking for an excuse.

Very Smart People

The State Department:

The United States sealed a deal on Thursday to provide Israel with $30 billion in defense grants over the next decade, a 25 percent boost that Washington describes as strengthening a bulwark against Iran.

At a signing ceremony in Jerusalem, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the United States would help Israel maintain a military advantage over foes ranging from Iran and Syria to their proxies in Lebanon and Palestinian territories.

"There is no question that, from an American point of view, the Middle East is a more dangerous region now even than it was 10 or 20 years ago and that Israel is facing a growing threat. It's immediate and it's also long-term," Burns told reporters.

"The United States faces many of the same threats from the same organizations and countries as Israel does, and so we felt this was the right level of assistance."

These people understand nothing and are wrong about everything, all the time. Even though this decision came from Foggy Bottom, I am sure Fourthbranch had a hand in it.

A large part of the reason so many muslims hate the U.S. has to do with Israel. Is Israel worthy of this level of assistance? I doubt it. Furthermore, as we have learned countless times in the last 5 years, the enemy of our enemy is not necessarily our friend. All this serves to do is galvanize Iran and increase the possibility of a conflict. Why is Iran automatically our enemy? What threat does Iran pose to the U.S.? It is notable that the U.A.E., Dubai in particular, is much more anti-Israel and anti-Jewish than Iran, as well as far more rich and powerful, but you never hear any angry rhetoric pointed at Dubai.

The U.S. should cut most - if not all - of its military aid to Israel. That would be a good first step toward easing tensions with many of our "enemies" and at no cost to us - profit, actually. Israel is not an enemy, but it is not automatically an ally. It is another country and should be afforded the same status as any other country.