If not us, they will do it themselves.

keep us out .

We will see if he can resist bombing Iran.

'merican. No Thanks

stay classy.

must one support Israel's goals in order to no be an anti semite?

I resent Israel interfering with US elections and lobbying for war. Please don't try to make that into something it isn't.Nazi reference? yeah it's a stretch, They said that about the Brits in WW2 So who did I call a Nazi?

"The British would fight to the last American", Goebbels, 1941.

the gist of the statement is a jaundiced look at our allies tryng to get us into another war

There is no call for bombing Iran as Iran has not attacked Israel.

Of course Israel could blackmail who knows what in the U.S. due to this kind of policy.

On a thread by Catrina

Who is pulling the strings? Or is it some either or thing where the actor is interchangeable with the same goal set by some group. And no they aren't all zionist or whatever unless McCain is whatever that group would be.

Yes the ideology is neocon. But exactly who are they?

zionist would be part, but domestic politics playing toward conservative Christian Evangelicals; more than willing to give a blank check to Israel and anybody that supports that kind of policy almost regardless of their other politics with the exception of the abortion issue.

Then you have the less than 1% Wall Street idolators and the oil corpse hooked to that bandwagon as well.

Now I don't believe the less than 1% really give a rat's ass about the "holy land," but their political power and wealth is based on this alliance.

Politicians of both parties but particulary the Republicans play to or are intimidated by this constituency.

If Israel supports bombing Iran, the likes of McCain and Graham would say "Yes sir how much to the Stone Age or Iron Age!?"

(I found this to be an interesting and hopeful read. Let's hope the days of posturing and influence from the Ehud Barak's are waning. I found David's speech inspiring and and well thought out. Although he could be more optimistic than is warrented...I needed to feel that hope rather than the spin we are getting from Neol-Lib supporters)

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Ending One War, Ending All Wars


Remarks on September 21, 2013, at the Nashville Festival for Peace, Prosperity, and Planet.

Thank you to Elizabeth Barger and the Nashville Peace and Justice Center and to all of you, and happy International Day of Peace!

From a certain angle it doesn’t look like a happy day of peace. The U.S. government is engaged in a major war in Afghanistan, dramatically escalated by the current U.S. president, who has been bizarrely given credit for ending it for so long now that a lot of people imagine it is ended. The same president goes through a list of men, women, and children on Tuesdays, picks which ones to have murdered, and has them murdered, often with missiles shot out of unmanned drones, drones that circle people’s villages endlessly threatening immediate annihilation moment after moment for weeks on end, missiles that often miss their targets and often kill random people too close to their targets. The CIA with war powers. Secret military operations in dozens of nations. Expansion of U.S. troop presence in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Some 90 percent of the world’s nations with U.S. troops in them. Prisoners force-fed in Guantanamo. Black sites. Iraq ruined without reparations. Libya thrown into anarchy without apology. Activists treated as enemies. Journalists treated as spies. Whistleblowers locked up in cages. Our Constitutional rights treated as dispensable. The United Nations used, abused, and circumvented. U.S. weapons provided to dictatorships and democracies around the globe. Tennessee’s U.S. Senator Bob Corker going on television repeatedly for weeks to tell us that the United States is covertly aiding one side of a war in Syria. Does he not know what “covertly” means, or does he not know how television works?

But I believe that, despite all of that and much more, there is huge reason to celebrate a happy international day of peace. At most events where I speak there is a time for questions, and almost always there is someone whose question is really more of a speech to the effect that war opposition is delusional and hopeless; if the government wants a war, it gets a war — so this person always tell us. Well, no more. From this day forward, that person’s comments should be no match for the laughter that greets them, because we just prevented a war.

Congress members heard from many thousands of us, and what they heard was over 100-to-1 against attacking Syria. When it became clear that not even the Senate would authorize such an attack, talk shifted immediately from the inevitability of war to the desirability of avoiding war.

Secretary of State John Kerry said that President Bashar al-Assad could avoid a war by handing over all the chemical weapons his government possessed. Russia quickly called that bluff and Syria agreed to it. Syria had tried in the past to negotiate a Middle East free of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, but the United States had been opposed, not wanting to stop arming Egypt and Israel.

Secretary Kerry, apparently panicked by the possible delay or prevention of missile strikes, put out a statement that he had only been making a “rhetorical argument,” not a real proposal. But when the White House saw the writing on the wall in Congress, Kerry claimed to have meant his comment seriously after all. He was for his own idea after he’d been against it.

Of all the many ways in which John Kerry has tied himself in knots before, this is the first time he’s had to do so because the people of this country and the world rejected a war. Remember when Kerry asked how you could ask someone to be the last man to die in the war on Vietnam? We have it in our power to reject the next war and the next war and the next war and make John Kerry the last man to have tried to sell us a dead idea.

War is a dead idea, an idea whose time has gone. The abolition of war is an idea whose time has come. But the government isn’t ready to announce that for us. That’s why we need to celebrate this victory. And not just us at this festival. This was everybody. This was the people of Syria who spoke against an attack on their nation. This was the people of Iraq and Afghanistan who said don’t do to others what you’ve already done to us. This was the people of the world and of Russia and of China who said you won’t paint this crime as legal with our help. This was the people of Britain who moved their House of Commons to reject a prime minister’s request for war for the first time since the surrender to the French and Americans at Yorktown. This was low and high ranking members of the U.S. military saying “We didn’t sign up to fight for al Qaeda.” This was government experts risking their careers and their freedom to say “If President Obama’s excuse for a war happened, he’s guessed it right, because the evidence doesn’t establish it.” This was the majority of the U.S. public telling pollsters, yes, we care about suffering children; send them food and medicine, don’t make it worse by sending in missiles.” This was the victory not of a moment but of a decade of cultural enlightenment. When you’ve got the Pope and Rush Limbaugh on your side you’ve built something very broad. Remember when they called resistance to war “The Vietnam Syndrome” as if it were a disease? What we’ve got now is the War on Terror Inoculation. This is health, not sickness. War is the health of the state, said a World War I resister. But war resistance is the health of the people. The people are the world’s other super power.

So, yes, I say celebrate! Start seeing successes. Drone attacks are down dramatically. Environmental groups are beginning to oppose military base constructions. States are beginning to work on conversion of war industries to peaceful industries. Larry Summers has been denied a chance to do more economic damage.

http://my.firedoglake.com/davidswanson/2013/09/21/ending-one-war-ending-all-wars/

The fact is that the State Department, not Kerry, CLARIFIED Kerry's statement - in their clarification, what they referred to as "rhetorical " was that Syria would not do it. Until that point - that was the case. Kerry's comment which put the idea out there - was then followed by Russian and Syrian comments. The fact is that Kerry and Lavrov -- at the request of Obama and Putin had been working on just that.

Kerry did a google hang out with Nicolas Kristoff (NYT) the next day - and he said then - that if it could happen, it was far better than a targeted strike. Here is the video - http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/announcing-a-live-google-hangout-with-john-kerry/?_r=0 There was also Obama's speech to the nation that day - where he spoke of the behind the scenes events.

BOTH of those REAL sources are ignored by David Swanson, who I had admired when he advocated for a blog on the Downing Street Memos. My question to him would be why he doesn't even credit that this was what Kerry preferred and that the threat of a the targeted strike (or even the targeted strike itself) was intended to hold the principle that chemical weapons can not be used with impunity.

Obama’s Thoughtful Diplomatic Triumph on Syria Leaves His Critics Speechless
By: Jason Easley

President Obama’s critics on both the left and right were silenced today, as his thoughtful approach to Syria has led to a breakthrough diplomatic agreement on chemical weapons.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have reached an agreement for the destruction of all of Syria’s chemical weapons. Syria’s failure to comply will not result in unilateral U.S. military action, but UN enforced sanctions. This is a complicated framework that expects Syria to submit a detailed list of their chemical weapons within a week, UN inspectors be allowed to complete their work/the destruction of Syria’s production and mixing/filling equipment in November, and it calls for all Syria’s chemical weapons materials and equipment to be destroyed or removed by early 2014.

This is not the sort of agreement that comes together quickly. It is a complicated and detailed agreement that looks to have been in the works for a while. The structure of this agreement verifies the Obama’s administration’s claim that they have been working on this with the Russians for months, and it was first mentioned a year ago.

The idea that has been pushed by the Obama critics on the left that Putin rescued Obama on Syria is even more absurd and ridiculous when the details of this agreement are examined. The pressure is now on Russia to deliver Syria’s compliance. If this agreement falls through, it will be on the Russians. President Obama will get credit for the agreement and for not using the military to act unilaterally no matter what.

Syria now becomes a test of Russian credibility. Russia’s reputation is on the line. If they fail to deliver Syrian compliance, their image as a global force will take a huge hit. If Putin was really the hero, he would have been able to negotiate from a position of strength and not take such a giant risk.

President Obama’s critics on the left and right have been made to look foolish again. The President of the United States will always have more information than they do, so when critics base their criticisms on personal biases or what they think is happening, they will almost always be wrong. The Obama bashers on the left and right demonstrated exactly why they have zero credibility.

Obama has once again triumphed at home and abroad.

The agreement on Syria’s chemical weapons is a victory for intelligence and thoughtfulness. The president took a huge risk by putting himself out there, but it looks like the military threat was designed to jump start the international community and get Syria to the negotiating table. The president was playing chess, while his critics will still playing George W. Bush level checkers.

President Obama brilliantly won on Syria without firing a shot, and his critics are once again reeling in retreat with nothing to say.

http://www.politicususa.com/2013/09/14/obamas-thoughtful-diplomatic-truimph-syria-leaves-critics-speechless.html

as that suggests. I also am not all that comfortable with the - he knows far more than you - argument for anyone.

What I specifically disliked in the Swanson piece was that he was so invested with his anger that JK argued the Obama administration's position that he ignored easily available comments from Obama and Kerry. It is Swanson who ties himself into knots here - not Kerry.

If you read EVERYTHING Kerry said or wrote, what the Obama administration wanted was targeted strike to send the message that using chemical weapons is not ok and to diminish his ability to do it again. In that light, Kerry's response was simply the only honest answer he could give. If you were SoS, how would you have answered CONSISTENT with teh Obama administration goals? Kerry is the top diplomat -" no comment"," I don't know", or "I can't say" - are all pretty bad answers. "Assad leaving" would be a gaffe and specifically NOT the policy goal of the targeted strike per the administration. "Nothing" would be a repudiation of everything Kerry ever said he believed in. If the goal is to deter future use of chemical weapons, then the answer is a no brainer. On top, of that, Kerry and Lavrov had already started to work on that.

I think that BOTH Kerry and Obama would love to end the wars that exist and to avoid some potential future ones. In this, I don't think they are unique. The fact is that there is a very nasty civil war - that America seems to have encouraged since at least 2005. (Kerry and Obama, who sent him, actually did work to try to get Assad to stop giving SCUDS to Hezbollah and to enact reforms - they were not successful)

positive message because so many working for peace have been so discouraged by "more of the same" from Obama Administration.

I could accept the "Good Cop/Bad Cop" routine that Kerry and POB did (supposedly to fake us out because they already had a diplomatic plan in place) IF the evidence didn't seem to show that POB was ready to go, Kerry was acting like a wild man with hyperbolic statements to the People, Senate and Congress and in the end it was British Parliament, lack Nato Support , terrible Polling plus Americans letting their Congresscritters know in no uncertain terms that the constituents did not support a strike. Add a little Wall Street Dip into that and there's no way that the decision not to Strike was just the hard work of Kerry and POB for years trying to bring peace.

Why would Kerry use so much hyperbole that those of us on the Dem Left thought he'd become insane or that we had been hoodwinked into where Kerry's true loyalties have been for quite a long time now. Definitely there's the huge AIPAC lobby that was ready to go pressuring Kerry and POB.. but that the country was put through over ten days of gearing for another invasion and aftermath doesn't sound like years of considered diplomacy behind the scenes. I'm of the camp that believes that Putin saved our butts. Whether they alerted Putin before hand as part of diplomacy and Putin offered the alternative or it got so out of hand that he had to step in at the last minute...at least it was stopped...for now.

attack was ghastly. You ignore that where he was NOT in the least using hyperbole was in defining the response. Here is a Kerry statement that rather does address your comments - http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2013/09/06/yes-vote-conscience-worlds-red-line (from before the agreement was a possibility)

Not to mention, I don't think Kerry is controlled by AIPAC - his position on peace talks is far closer to J Street, which incidentally has sent many emails to their list supporting Kerry's work on I/P.

As to Putin, the question is whether -- without the US -- they would have pressured Syria to give up chemical weapons. I find that incredibly unlikely. They showed absolutely no interest until it was a possible way to avoid a US attack.

Now, I suspect that you might say that getting rid of chemical weapons is insignificant -- and the issue was JUST not having a "war" (even if it were simply a few days of cruise missiles - like the Clinton attack on Iraq in 1993.)

Once those are defanged....then Assad has no reason to stay...which is the ultimate purpose.

That's the dark side of this. But, that Putin came in and is now pushing for more aggressive oversight by the UN makes him seem the "rational one." And, US now has less leverage since Cameron couldn't support invasion and the other reasons that I listed in my first reply to you. We are much weakened by this rush to Invade Syria...based on Chemical Weapons which they didn't think that the "People KNEW" lies that got us into Iraq and that there wouldn't eventually be backlash. We are weakened by this and by the NSA Spying. We have used Chemical Weapons on civilian populations. This cannot be ignored by some last minute "high principled positioning" by POB and SOS Kerry. The people all over the world and including much of our own population realize how farcical it was to claim this was just over Chemical Weapons. It's an awakening that happened sooner than the MIC/PTB realized and we shall see how it works out.

While Kerry may be closer to "J" Street...he also had to deal with the Lieberman and MIC types breathing down his neck and "they" are more powerful than "J" at this point in time, but hopefully that will change sooner rather than later after this fiasco.

Horrific as they are, they are not the main weapons he has used. He will still have complete control of the air space and he has used it.

I agree that, if you look at everything America has ever done, we are not in the position of being described "as he without sin" - in "Let he, who is without sin, cast the first stone". Both Kerry and Obama likely know the use has used things like napalm - an atrocity that Kerry spoke against even when doing so would have possibly ended any possibility of the political career he wanted. However, I don't think that an applicable test for who could act to remove chemical weapons in a country where they have been used.

I can understand wanting to go bomb Syria- they're the active "bad guys" this year.
But what has Iran done this month to go on Israel's "must bomb today" list? Put too much vinegar in the washing machine? Took the last steak from the buffet? Ate all the cheese?
These AIPAC guys need to loosen up and read the damn military intelligence reports- they keep saying Iran is NOT building a nuke.