Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

This Is Why We Thank God Every Day Hillary Isn’t President

In June of 2018, the “State of Palestine” submitted to the International Criminal Court a “so-called” state referral to investigate “past, ongoing and future crimes with the court’s jurisdiction, committed in all parts of the territory” defined as the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”

Three International Criminal Court judges, Péter Kovács, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut and Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou have been going out of their way to cater to Palestine in preparation of a trial, despite the fact Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has not yet decided to open an investigation.

Alan Baker, Director of the International Law Program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, adamantly believes the court is openly turning itself into Israel-bashing engine similar to the United Nations Human Rights Council. The attempts by Palestinian leadership to subvert the ICC and turn it into its own backyard court for hounding Israelis will, almost certainly, backfire.

Yesterday, speaking on behalf of President Trump at the Federalist Society, National Security Advisor John Bolton proclaimed, “The United States will always stand with our friend and ally, Israel. And, today, reflecting Congressional concerns with Palestinian attempts to prompt an ICC investigation of Israel, the State Department will announce the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization office here in Washington, DC.”

“The Trump Administration will not keep the office open when the Palestinians refuse to take steps to start direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel. The United States supports a direct and robust peace process, and we will not allow the ICC, or any other organization, to constrain Israel’s right to self-defense,” Bolton added.

In November of 2017, Bensouda said she would seek permission to launch a formal investigation into the situation in Afghanistan following a series of annual reports making clear that the investigation would cover not just the Taliban and Afghan security forces, but also U.S. military and intelligence officers.

Under federal statute, cooperation with the ICC in prosecuting U.S. personnel is prohibited.  On the policy level, the current and past administrations have strenuously objected to foreign courts or international tribunals exercising jurisdiction over U.S. personnel, citing concerns about unfair treatment. 

No U.S. administration has supported becoming party to the ICC Rome Statute and the Bush Administration was so concerned that the court would try to assert power over U.S. personnel that it went to extraordinary lengths to guard against that possibility.  It sought immunity agreements from member States using foreign assistance as leverage.  It blocked U.N. peacekeeping resolutions at the Security Council because they did not include ICC immunity clauses. It even worked with Congress to enact a law–still on the books–authorizing the United States to use military force to rescue U.S. persons from The Hague should one ever be detained by the court.

Three successive US administrations of both political parties have rejected the full jurisdiction of the international court over American citizens, although U.S. cooperation with the court expanded significantly under the Obama administration.

Bolton threatened to sanction and prosecute ICC judges if the tribunal attempts to charge US service members and intelligence agents with war crimes saying, “Today, on the eve of September 11th, I want to deliver a clear and unambiguous message on behalf of the President of the United States. The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court.”

“We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC.”

“We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”

UPDATE:  Welcome readers of Bad Blue Uncensored News.  We are honored that Doug Ross has linked to this post.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Magenta Alert! Magenta Alert!

After The Washington Post dropped a bombshell Monday afternoon asserting President Trump had leaked classified information to Russia’s foreign minister and its tub of lard ambassador, National Security Director H.R. McMaster emphatically stated the story the paper had published was patently false.

Just before McMaster emerged from the White House to speak at the “stake out” location, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Deputy National Security for Strategy Advisor Dina Powell, who were in the Oval Office during the meeting, had denied the accuracy of the Post’s story.  Additionally, the Office of the Russian Foreign Ministry also called the reporting false.

Tuesday at 11:30 AM, McMaster held a press briefing to take back the narrative from the paper asserting President Trump did not jeopardize assets by revealing highly sensitive information adding that Trump did not know where the Intel came from.

"The president in no way undermined sources or methods in the course of this conversation,” he said adding the information could be found in “open-source reporting.”

“I think the real issue, and what I would like to see debated more, is that our national security has been put at risk by those violating confidentiality.  I think national security is put at risk by this leak and leaks like this.  It’s incumbent on all of us to bring in the people with the right mandate and the right authorities to take a look at how this leak occurred and how other breaches may have occurred as well," McMaster said.
Not satisfied with the raft of explanations from senior White House officials, attacks from lifelong bureaucrats and Obama-era holdovers worked another angle on the revelation:  Trump discussed information about ISIS that came from a key US partner on the condition it not be shared with our other allies claiming it could put those sources at risk and alienate them.

That source had not been identified until The New York Times (competing desperately for clicks) blabbed the source was Israel.

Seems the Israelis didn’t feel the least bit alienated after all.  Ron Dermer, Israel’s Ambassador to the US said in a statement, “Israel has full confidence in our intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States and looks forward to deepening that relationship in the years ahead under President Trump.”

I’m revealing my age here, but this whole thing about Trump and the Rooskies reminds me of the 1960’s sitcom Get Smart.

“Gentlemen, as of this moment, all members of C.O.N.T.R.O.L are on Magenta Alert.” 

Thursday, December 29, 2016

Kerry Got The Final Jeopardy Answer Wrong

Seth Lipsky noted in his most recent piece at The New York Post,In one of the most condescending speeches ever given at the State Department (no mean feat), Kerry spoke as if he knows better than Israel, the Mideast’s only democracy, what is best for Israel. Affecting friendship, he helped only its enemies.”

Howie Carr, a conservative radio talk show host based in Boston wasn’t kind either when he said, “What a pathetic piece of work this Kerry is. Always has been. But what’s the mid or long-term upside to rolling over for these bloodthirsty Third World savages? Remember, this is a guy who said he could, uh, sort of understand why the Muslim butchers of the Charlie Hebdo magazine staff in Paris had decided to go Gestapo.”

“Daniel Patrick Moynihan used to call throwing in with the vermin at the United Nations ‘joining the jackals.’ As this preening fool, a narcissist’s narcissist, a laughingstock stares at himself in the mirror this morning, he’s thinking…if I can’t get the Nobel, maybe I can at least score a Profiles in Courage award.  After all, my initials are JFK. Will James Taylor croon as Caroline hands me the plaque?”

“When it comes to Kerry, the only thing we have to be thankful for is that he never became president.”


Thursday, November 20, 2014

What if Obama Had Been President During the Civil Rights Movement?

Statement by President Barack Obama on Attack in Selma, AL

Source: WH, 11-18-1962
I strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack, the burning of a black church in Selma, which killed four innocent people, and injured several more. There is and can be no justification for such attacks against innocent civilians. The thoughts and prayers of the American people are with the victims and families of all those who were killed and injured in this horrific attack and in other recent violence. At this sensitive moment in Selma, it is all the more important for blacks and Klan leaders and ordinary citizens to work cooperatively together to lower tensions, reject violence, and seek a path forward towards peace.
Fortunately, our leaders back then did not suffer under a sense of false moral equivalency.

Monday, July 28, 2014

John Kerry, Hamas, Qatar, Iran And Treachery

I spent most of a rainy Sunday morning watching the talking heads on the Sunday political talk shows and sat in amazement at the veiled anti-Semitism on parade.  I was especially appalled at the heavy-handed manner in which CNN’s Candy Crowley kept nudging the conversation in the direction of blaming Israel for the bitter war between the Israelis and the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas.  A bitter war, I might add, that Israel sought earnestly to avoid.

Mike Rogers (R-MI), Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee appeared on Meet The Press and Face The Nation.  It was the Face The Nation interview that yielded the most telling evidence of just how complicit the mainstream media has been by choosing, yes choosing, to portray Israel as some horrible aggressor.

The point at which this became evident was when the host, Bob Schieffer asked, as though inexplicably shocked, “But I thought the Qataris were our allies here?”

Here’s the transcript:

"That's what's so frustrating with the administration," he said "All of this works together. You can't just pick and choose one particular region; it has to work in concert. So when you free up $2.8 billion for Iran, when they're already cash strapped because of sanctions, that means they can continue to do bad activities in the Gaza Strip, including we believe at least missile components."

He said that Qatar, which acts as a U.S. ally on other issues, are also funneling money to Hamas, as are some sources inside of Saudi Arabia. And, Rogers added, the militant group also takes legitimate foreign aid dollars coming into the region to put toward building tunnels into Israel that the Israeli government is working to destroy.

"Think about how obscene that is, the hundreds of millions of dollars they've had over a decade. Twenty percent of the people in Gaza Strip aren't connected to a water source. Ninety percent of all the water there doesn't meet international standards. But they've got, I think the Israelis disclosed, 35 tunnels. So they're diverting legitimate money. And you have Iran that is aligned into this particular interest in a way that's very, very dangerous," he said.

In an earlier interview on "Face the Nation," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the army had discovered a "vast underground terror kingdom" meant to give Hamas a way to carry out attacks in Israel. He promised Israel would not stop trying to destroy the tunnels, although he did not specify whether there would be an expansion of the current ground invasion.

But Rogers warned that the combination of Iranian and Qatari support for Hamas and for certain factions in Syria is "intertwined in a way that makes it a very dangerous stew indeed."
SCHIEFFER: Mr. Chairman, let's just go back to Israel for a minute. Hamas continues to fire these rockets.  They have poured all this concrete, as you heard Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talk about.  Where are they getting this stuff? 
SCHIEFFER: But I thought the Qataris were our allies here? 
ROGERS: Well, this is what makes this region so interesting. 
So, you have Iran and the Qataris are supporting Hamas, and certainly factions thereof. They're also supporting places in Syria. So, that is why this is so intertwined in a way that makes it a very dangerous stew, indeed. 
It is one common thing that the Shias and the Sunnis do not like, and that is a Jewish Israel state. That is confirmed. And I think they have found an outlet to try to do this. And it's spreading to other areas, Bob. This is what is the other problem. There is the unseen war in this particular event, and that is the new cyber front. 
There are not only what you see coming from Hamas, attacks on Israel, but now we have nation states engaged in the region in cyber-conflict that could cause this to escalate in a way that is very, very dangerous for stability. 
SCHIEFFER: How much do you think they have? How much money do you think has been poured into these tunnels? It's literally millions of dollars which, as I understand it, came in there to build schools and things of that nature. 
ROGERS: Well, again, I think they diverted some of the legitimate money. Clearly, that happened. Instead of building wells or water infrastructure, they diverted that money to build these tunnels. 
And I think that they are getting money again from Iran, who has been a maligned force in that whole entire region. Think about it. They are putting Hezbollah in the fight in Syria and supplying Hamas in the Gaza Strip with weapons. That is the difficult part here. 
And what is concerning about that is just about 10 days ago or so, the United States agreed to allow Iran to have another $2.8 billion released just for them to continue nuclear negotiations. And that is what is so frustrating with the administration now. 
All of this works together. You can't just pick and choose one particular region. It has to work in concert. When you free up $2.8 billion for Iran, when they are already cash-strapped because of sanctions that means they can continue to do bad activities in the Gaza Strip, including missile—we believe, at least missile components. What they have—we understand, according to public reports, they have even offered to help hide those missile systems, and their work in Syria with supporting the Assad regime. 
It's not working in concert that is helping us cause this confusion around the Middle East. 
SCHIEFFER: Well, Congressman, I want to tell you, you have explained and made this thing even more dire than I understood it at the beginning of this broadcast.
More dire.

Avi Issacharoff reported the content of John Kerry’s ceasefire proposal writing, “Israel and the US are meant to be allies; the US is meant to be committed to the protection of Israel in this most ruthless of neighborhoods; together, the US and Israel are meant to be trying to marginalize the murderous Islamic extremism that threatens the free world. Yet here was the top US diplomat appearing to accommodate a vicious terrorist organization bent on Israel’s destruction, with a formula that would leave Hamas better equipped to achieve that goal.”

[SNIP]

Whether through ineptitude, malice, or both, Kerry’s intervention was not a case of America’s top diplomat coming to our region to help ensure, through astute negotiation, the protection of a key ally. This was a betrayal.

Read his entire piece here.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Kerry’s Dubious Utility As A Peace Process Facilitator Is Officially At An End

I have despised John Kerry ever since he compared American servicemen deployed in Vietnam to “the Army of Genghis Khan” in exaggerated imagery:
“They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam.”
Secretary of State “Ketchup” has issued a series of remarks over the past nine months that have incensed his Israeli counterparts and left the Mideast Peace Talks in utter disarray.

Last month he suggested that a deterioration of the peace talks was due to settlement activity in east Jerusalem. This past March he suggested that Israel would face a reinvigorated boycott, divestment and sanctions movement should talks fail, and last November he seemed to threaten Israel with a third intifada if a deal was not concluded.

The current administration continues to open itself up to parody, an example of which we saw most recently in a video clip, and now we learn than he warned if Israel did not make peace soon it could become “an apartheid state.”

This slur against Israel must be music of the ears of the Palestinians, Hamas and our betters on the Left.

Attempting to walk back the loaded term “apartheid” in relation to Israel, Kerry said:
“If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution.  In the long term, a unitary, bi-national state cannot be the democratic Jewish state that Israel deserves or the prosperous state with full rights that the Palestinian people deserve.”
Kerry’s non-apology apology means simply that armies of soldiers, terrorists and diplomats continue to gather in a flagrant scheme to carve up the Holy City of Jerusalem and eradicate half the city of Jews and turn it into a staging zone for some of the world’s most barbaric terrorists.

Kerry must resign his post as Secretary of State and Jonathan Tobin’s money quote adds credence to this thought:
“[Kerry’s] ability to influence events in a positive way is finished. By injecting the apartheid slur into the negotiations, Kerry has poisoned the waters in a manner that will only make it more rather than less difficult for Palestinian leaders to do what they must to bring about peace. Rather than pushing the parties toward an agreement, he has sabotaged the process. Just as the end of the conflict will have to wait until a new generation of Palestinians is willing to put aside their rejection of a Jewish state, so too, must a productive American intervention be put off until Kerry leaves the diplomatic stage.”

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Tilting At Windmills


Since last Saturday when The Insufferable Airhorn spoke in the Rose Garden about the “crisis” in Syria, we have seen the political role reversals of hawks and doves.

Bill Kristol, whom I abandoned some time ago, suggested in his op-ed at The Weekly Standard that “using this resolution to cast a vote of no confidence against Obama would empower those abroad making the case against placing confidence in the United States. That would be damaging. And in the real world, a vote against Obama will be seen as a vote for Bashar al-Assad, and for Vladimir Putin, and for the regime in Iran.”

Kristol insists “the right vote” by Republicans, a party that for at least two generations has held the banner of American leadership and strength, should not cast a vote that obviously risks a damaging erosion of this country’s stature and credibility abroad.”

Kristol continues, “A Yes vote is in fact the easy vote. It’s actually close to risk-free. After all, it’s President Obama who is seeking the authorization to use force and who will order and preside over the use of force. It’s fundamentally his policy. Lots of Democrats voted in 2002 to authorize the Iraq war. When that war ran into trouble, it was President Bush and Republicans who paid the price. If the Syria effort goes badly, the public will blame President Obama, who dithered for two years, and who seems inclined to a halfhearted execution of any military campaign. If it goes well, Republicans can take credit for pushing him to act decisively, and for casting a tough vote supporting him when he asked for authorization to act.”

Kristol, to my way of thinking, is correct on one point:  President Bush and the Republicans did pay the price when the Iraq war effort went badly and if Syria goes badly the current Oval Office occupant will be evisorated.  Kristol’s only concern is about Republican senators and congressmen re-establishing their “anti-Obama credentials.”  Good grief, man.  Sending our men and women to another pesthole is all kinds of wrong.

Caught between Iraq and a hard place are two of our betters—Hollywood actors Ed Asner and Mike Farrell.  In a stunning revelation about the silence of Tinseltown and their disappointment in their idol’s penchant for military action Farrell said, "I'm frankly deeply disappointed in the president's foreign policy, war-making, his reliance on military rather than diplomatic responses, his use of drones, continued allowance of the Guantanamo prison. He's a disappointment to me and other people I know."

"I voted for him, but I'm not proud. He hasn't thrown himself on the funeral pyre. I wanted him to sacrifice himself. Instead, he has proved himself to be a corporatist, and as long as he's a corporatist, he's not my president," Asner said. "A lot of people have lost hope—with the betrayals, the NSA spying…People aren't getting active because 'Who gives a shit?' is essentially the bottom line."

Another reason some Hollywood progressives have been reticent to speak out against war in Syria, according to Asner, is fear of being called racist.  "A lot of people don't want to feel anti-black by being opposed to Obama," he said.

What a magnificent example of cowardice.

Then there’s this.  District of Columbia delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) who has been a member of Congress since January 1991 confessed recently that if President McBombypants actually gets the votes he needs for the resolution “it’ll be because of loyalty of Democrats. They just don’t want to see him shamed and humiliated on the national stage."

On Thursday, September 5th, Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus issued what is, in effect, a gag order asking members to “limit public comment”.  The request was designed to quiet dissent while “shoring up support for President Obama’s Syria strategy.”

That “red line” The Insufferable Airhorn has now disowned has gotten all over him, Hollywood and progressive activists.  It’s one big clusterfuck..

It reminds me of Don Quixote de la Mancha.  Quixote, as we all remember from our high school or college lit classes, was a victim of his delusions.  In Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, knight-errant Quixote tilts at windmills that he imagines to be giants:
“Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, ‘Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless.’" 
"What giants?" asked Sancho Panza. 
"Those you see over there," replied his master, "with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length." 
"Take care, sir," cried Sancho. "Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone."
It is obvious to this observer that we have Don Quixote in the White House begging for lawmakers to unleash the dogs of war in a vicious snake pit of cannibalistic rebels and savage Islamic extremists.

I believe that America should stay out of Syria.  Let neighboring nations deal with the barbarians at their gate.  I am quite certain that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the spine of steel needed to protect his people.

"Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next," wrote General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, only one month ago. "Deeper involvement is hard to avoid."

We have learned in this decade via the Iranian Green Revolution in 2009 that barbarian elements in social revolutions cannot be harnessed.  Neda Agha-Soltan died of a single gunshot wound to the chest. Her last moments—captured on a cell phone camera and shown around the world—catapulted her into the symbol of the postelection reform movement in Iran.

No one will say how many have died in Egypt’s coup against the Muslim Brotherhood.

Two years after the Arab Spring revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi, and one year after the assault on the U.S. compound in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others, Libya’s fragile government has little control over the nation’s security.

The whole of the Middle East is a powder keg and the blast wave that we invite by interfering in Syria may well involve America in a conflagration of tectonic proportions.

One final thought, the errand boy sent by grocery clerks is slated to speak to the nation this Tuesday on taking military action against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.  For the whole of his second term, this president and his apparatchiks have deflected and distracted through sleight-of-hand and carefully coordinated propaganda, not the least of which has been on the issue of Benghazi.  The lies are damnable. 

I think it’s important to note that Obama will use the eve of 9/11 (the World Trade Center attack and the Benghazi murders) to create an imagery and recount emotions meant to sway Congress.
 
As he feigns outrage, his argument for intervention is weak and this nation does not need to be thrown into the crucible he created.

While battling for reelection in August of 2012, he drew a “red line”.  Saying now, “I didn’t set a red line. The world set a red line,” is his desperate attempt to rescue his personal credibility from his hubristic foolishness.


Sunday, July 21, 2013

Helen Thomas On The Freight Elevator To Hell

Since the announcement of Helen Thomas’ death, we’ve seen the usual worshipful coverage of her 92 years on this earth.

“Her unparalleled experience covering the presidency earned her the respect and affection of both colleagues and public officials for decades,” wrote Patricia Sullivan for The Washington Post.

Sullivan provided a few anecdotal stories of Thomas that I found amusing:
“We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable,” she told author Kay Mills for a 1996 Modern Maturity magazine article. “Otherwise, he could be king.”
In the 1980s, after the official planting of a Lebanon cedar tree on the South Lawn of the White House, fellow reporters urged Ms. Thomas, a Lebanese American, to pick up the ceremonial shovel and toss some dirt into the hole to cover the roots. “And as she shoveled,” ABC News broadcaster Sam Donaldson later said, “I heard the ghosts of presidents past and present say, ‘Shove her in.’”
Although she identified herself as a political liberal, Ms. Thomas did not hesitate to criticize the Democratic administration of President Obama, even after he presented her with cupcakes on Aug. 4, 2009, their shared birthday. She once told CNSNews that not even Nixon attempted to control the news media the way Obama’s administration tried to do. “What the hell do they think we are—puppets?” Ms. Thomas asked. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”
On May 27, 2010 after a visit to the White House to celebrate American Jewish Heritage Month, David Nesenoff, a rabbi and independent filmmaker, asked Thomas whether she had any comments on Israel.

“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.  Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land.”

Nesenoff asked where she thought they should go.

“Go home,” she responded.

Asked to elaborate, Thomas said, “Poland, Germany,” and after more prompting by the rabbi, “and America, and everywhere else.”

The video was posted five days later and almost immediately went viral, prompting calls for her firing. Thomas issued an apology, saying she deeply regretted her comments.  Her adroitly insincere apology caused her to be stripped of her front-row center seat in the White House briefing room.

One might assume that she would be finished with the limelight, but that was not the case.  One year later, in April 2012, she was presented with a medal by Hanan Ashrawi on behalf of PLO President Mahmoud Abbas “for her long career in the field of journalism during which she defended the Palestinian position.”  Washington’s PLO office said the medal was presented to her with the appreciation and blessing of the president and the Palestinian people for all of her action supporting Palestine in the West.”

Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary for George W. Bush made mincemeat of Thomas in July of 2006.  Never, in my opinion, has a press secretary looked so good bouncing off a screed disguised as a question.

Thomas was inquiring about the possibility of sending U.S. troops as part of a UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.  Watch the video for one of Snow’s most memorable quotes:  "Thank you for the Hezbollah point of view."

Anyway, Helen The Hag can screech about the Joos from hell and spend eternity finding out why Israel is the “apple of God’s eye.”

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Obama and Israel: The Undermining of a Historic Relationship

Assisted by a biased media, Barack Obama has turned his back on more than six decades of American-Israeli friendship.

This video, produced by Accuracy in Media, documents President Obama's often hostile, one-sided pressure on Israel. It also shows how the President will do anything to ensure his own chances for re-election, even if it means allowing Iran to continue developing nuclear weapons while it plays a cynical game of stalling and deception.