The Bush administration has tended to treat IAEA as an inept or possibly corrupt body whose findings should not count for all that much alongside US and Israeli intel. Democrats in leadership should counter that dissing.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/M…..5Ak02.html

But one thing that men apparently need no threats or intimidation to do is to plan, plot, scheme, even to detail and diagram, the killing of millions of their fellow men, women and children. As evidence of this, I present before the bar of humanity this item I recently came across on the Internet, a report authored by respected military analyst Anthony H Cordesman of the US Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think-tank, entitled “Iran, Israel and Nuclear War” [1].

He is not a stupid man, and diplomatic words in foreign affairs are highly loaded and, one would think, highly vetted.

Abbas responded that the remarks were totally unacceptable and, within the ongoing kabuki that is the ME they are indeed.

My only thought is that Obama used the word knowingly — going far to the right of even the right wingers — knowing he would be called on it and be forced to “correct” himself back into the center. I.e., he would show himself to be really pro-Israel, so much so as to continue to defuse latent suspicion on this score.

That’s the only case — craven as it is — I can imagine for this smart man sayhing a dumb thing. Some might call such and approadch canny. I call it stupid, and cynical.

The pro-Israel lobby has been remarkably successful in suppressing criticism. Politicians challenge it at their peril because of the lobby’s ability to influence political contributions. When Howard Dean called for an evenhanded policy toward Israel in 2004, his chances of getting the nomination were badly damaged (although it was his attempt, after his defeat in Iowa, to shout above the crowd that sealed his fate). Academics had their advancement blocked and think-tank experts their funding withdrawn when they stepped too far out of line. Following his criticism of repressive Israeli policy on the West Bank, former president Jimmy Carter has suffered the loss of some of the financial backers of his center.

Anybody who dares to dissent may be subjected to a campaign of personal vilification.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20030

why oh why are those frogs sitting on sunny rocks, zapping flies with their long, elastic tongues?

why oh why can’t those frogs have feathers, and spines, and wings coming off the spines! so that they could fly, and sing! and build their nests out of twigs, and mate for life, to members of their own sex if they wanted to – why what wonderful frogs those would be!

because those are birds that do that, and frogs are not birds, and will never be birds.

In order to sincerely oppose the incredibly hideous nightmare of aggressive war against Iran, one would have to not support, give money to, and vote for candidates of a party that advocates such a war.

you cannot cajole a big bullfrog with plaintive letters and faxes and phone messages that are screened and disposed of by froggy staffers, begging the frog to not eat the tasty flies and try gathering a few twigs to build a nest up in that tree with.

Its not really an if anymore – the froggy party (the Democrats) are clearly willing to allow the Cheney Admin its last wargasm – they are doing nothing to avert it. all the candidates kowtowing to AIPAC recently is not really new or surprising.

what were you expecting?

oh yeah, “Change”.

But Obama was quite clear that “sustained and aggressive diplomacy” must be undertaken. Here’s the pertinent quote from his AIPAC speech:

“And while we should take no option, including military action, off the table, sustained
and aggressive diplomacy combined with tough sanctions should be our primary means to prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons.”

Bush will most certainly NOT undertake any diplomacy at all, much less sustained and aggressive diplomacy. I don’t think Obama gave Bush any cover at all with these comments. I don’t think Obama can respond to a Bush attack on Iran by saying “well, sustained and aggressive diplomacy failed.” I actually found Obama’s comments very encouraging insofar as they appeared to foreclose any support for a Bush strike on Iran in the next six months.

We all know why Obama and Clinton say what they say to AIPAC. I firmly believe that Clinton was AIPAC’s favored candidate, and that Obama’s victory is a victory over AIPAC’s neocon inflected policies. But now is not the time to be subjecting Obama to litmus tests of purity. We’ve got to trust him on this one.

Also, under the Jewish National Fund, started in 1902(ish), Jews of Europe had been sending money to buy (redeem) land for late

i had it explained to me by a settler in kedumim – how redeeming the land means clearing it of arabs. :(