“You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war.”
Winston Churchill
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells Congress today that President Obama is selling us out in regard to the proposed treaty with Iran which will inevitably lead to a nuclear armed Iran.
Robert Zubrin at National Review Online gives us the details:
In morally saner times, Obama would be currently facing impeachment and trial, with his own party leading the charge.
Americans may not care for the Iranian regime, but unlike other nations in the region, Israel included, they are a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which they have internationally recognized rights regarding the development and use of nuclear power. Why would any nation sign such a treaty in the future, if its rights under it are not recognized? As a signatory to the treaty they cannot develop a nuclear weapon. So far, there is no credible intelligence that they are building a weapon. The treaty allows them to enrich uranium, even to fairly high levels.
The US can deter Iran from any threat they may pose to our own national security. Israel will see to their own defense; we should do likewise with respect to our own. Our interests are not identical though on occasion they do overlap.
“As a signatory to the treaty they cannot develop a nuclear weapon.”
Rubbish on stilts. Anyone who thinks that will deter the Iranian regime from gaining nuclear weapons has a charming faith in paper which is completely unwarranted by the history of the Iranian regime and the ambitions of the despots who rule it. Not to mention the fact that they have already violated that treaty:
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-11-08/Iran-nuclear-weapons-treaty/51125744/1
Chris C passes forth the same kind of propaganda that I see on a certain liberal progressive web site that happens (ironically enough) to be pro-nuclear power. The Koran permits – even exhorts – its Muslim adherents to lie to non-Muslims, so why should we believe anything that a radical Shiite Muslim regime says, especially a regime which kidnapped and held hostage hundreds of our own citizens back under liberal progressive Jimmy Carter.
.
I would also like to know why nothing is being said about Iran’s IR-40 heavy water reactor design to convert fertile U-238 into fissile Pu-239. Do we place the same belief in Iran’s claims that it won’t breed weapons grade Pu-239 as we place in Iran’s claims that it won’t enrich weapons grade U-235? Really? Exactly how gullible does this godless man of sin and iniquity in the White House assume we are?
.
All I have to say is this: Benjamin Netenyahu is a real man and a real leader, and Barack Hussein Obama is a despicable, contemptible traitor, but no one will do anything about it because he is the first black president. How racist is that! Oh for a Colonel Allen West in charge!
.
God save America because we cannot.
Is there anything we can do to stop this? I know of nothing if Osama (misspelled on purpose) chooses to complete the negotiations on his own. He has said repeatedly that he will act without congressional approval–and has done so many times. The only real solution I see to this matter is for Israel to take on Iran militarily.
No coincidence, of course, that Bibi received a bust of Churchill as a gift from the members of Congress who listened to his speech.
I suspect Netanyahu’s address could be one of the most historically significant speeches by a head of state since Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” speech. The circumstances are roughly similar: Churchill warned of rising Soviet power, Bibi of rising radical Muslim power.
Paul, does the “certain liberal progressive website” have anything by Pat Buchanan on it? If not you’ll have to look elsewhere for the sources of my “propaganda”. Yes the Koran says what you said it does. So why is the US neck deep in a relationship; business, political, military with the Saudis? They read the Koran there don’t they? Maybe it’s time we stopped being played for suckers by other nations who would be happy to drag us into war for their own benefit, and certainly not ours. I supported the Iraq War in 2003. It hasn’t worked out well and we went in with bad intelligence. I don’t want to see a repeat.
And Don, Iran should be watched carefully and not trusted, but the best means to do so short of war, is a regime of regular inspections and consultation, imperfect though it might be. For that the NPT is the only game in town. Unless you want to go to war now? In which case I don’t expect Russia to sit it out. What in the name of US National Security and Just War principles would justify such an engagement at this point in time?
And on a side note, the day when the US, and the West for that matter, had any moral credibility to “police the world” is long gone, assuming it there ever was one. A nation advocating as a matter of liberty and justice, for abortion, contraception, and “gay marriage”, and pressuring other nations to go along or else, has no moral standing to set the world right.
“Paul, does the “certain liberal progressive website” have anything by Pat Buchanan on it?”
When it comes to the Israel and Iran, Buchanan is always on the side of Iran.
, “imperfect though it might be.”
You can translate imperfect to useless when it comes to the Iranian nuke program.
“had any moral credibility to “police the world” ”
Similar arguments were made by those who believed that isolationism was the perfect response to the Third Reich. Actually Buchanan, your go to guy on Iran, still makes that argument:
http://www.amazon.com/Churchill-Hitler-The-Unnecessary-War/dp/0307405168
Without a world policeman the wolves of world feed on the defenseless, which is precisely what the Iranian regime intends, and our worthless administration is saying, “Bon apetite!”
I don’t think Buchanan would deny being anti-Israel.
What is it that Iran says about destroying Israel and the US that Chris doesn’t understand?
Terrorist with a nuclear device supplied by Iran will visit Tel Aviv, New York, Washington, Paris, London…….all on the same day. Let’s noyt get stuck on stupid people.
Yes the Koran says what you said it does. So why is the US neck deep in a relationship; business, political, military with the Saudis?
—
Because the House of Saud is a status-quo regional power which has not undertaken a mobilization against any other power since 1924, who have no ambitions to cadge territory or erect client states, and whose foreign policy is governed by bland material self-interest (bar a pronounced antagonism to Communism). It’s just business with them in their dealings with just about everyone. C’mon Chris C., this isn’t that difficult.
I can’t speak for Mr. Buchanan, but I would guess he’s about as “anti-Israel” as the Vatican, which has on occasion criticized Israeli policies, in particular its treatment of those under continued military occupation. What Iran says is not what ultimately must determine what the US, acting primarily in its own interests and not that of foreign nations who can well defend themselves, should actually do. The US faced down far graver threats from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, without going to war. Yet we’re beating the war drums now? And Shawn if you’re mortified by what Iran says, and presumably think that warrants war preparations, what do you propose we do about North Korea whose bellicosity makes the Iranians look tame by comparison? The US has ample means of deterrence, and as long as it is mindful first and foremost of its own national interest and national security, it has little to fear unless it panics its way into a war it cannot win. Or do you think a bombing campaign with or without ground troops would have the slightest chance of bringing a lasting peace to the region? Have we learned nothing from our last righteous endeavor? War has taken a horrific toll on the Christians of the Middle-East. Should we add to their already grave burdens? Their plight is never taken into account. It should be front and center, not an afterthought.
Maybe it’s time we stopped being played for suckers by other nations who would be happy to drag us into war for their own benefit, and certainly not ours.
—
Why not take Philip Giraldi’s poisonous claptrap somewhere else?
The US faced down far graver threats from the USSR and the Warsaw Pact, without going to war. Yet we’re beating the war drums now?
==
Because the Soviet regime was governed by a different sort of calculus and could be readily deterred.
—
Nuclear weapons draw heat, which is why the vast majority of foreign countries are uninterested in acquiring them. The possession of them does nothing toward the achievement of their political goals. Pakistan was motivated to build a nuclear weapon because they’ve had a series of cage matches with India (also a nuclear power) which ended badly for them. What’s Iran’s object (not shared by any other Near Eastern state)?
Or do you think a bombing campaign with or without ground troops would have the slightest chance of bringing a lasting peace to the region?
—
The object is to destroy production facilities. Quit playing games.
In that instance, it helped our cause that the secular humanists ideologues we confronted had a purely this-worldly, material understanding of the immanenton which they sought to eschatize.
Unlike the Mullahs, whom view Mutually Assured Destruction as a win-win.
“Unlike the Mullah’s whom view Mutually Assured Destruction as a win-win.” -Ernst Schreiber
A real and frightening truth Mr. Schreiber.
Wasn’t long ago, 2008 I believe, that the old leader was welcoming all chaos as to open the way of the Mahdi.
Saudi Arabia is a very reliable ally against Iran.
Iran, whose own oil reserves are dwindling, would dearly like to get her hands on the oil-rich Shiite areas of Saudi Arabia, along with those of the Caspian. Don’t forget, a quarter of Iranians are ethnic Azeris.
What makes Iran particularly dangerous is her rapidly declining birth rate. The government knows that, if it is ever to have a chance of creating a new Persian empire, it must act now, whilst it still has enough men of military age to do so.
No doubt Israel has reasons to be very concerned. The whole middle-East is in a ferment at a time of global uncertainties.
What then is the solution?
http://www.popeleo13.com/pope/2015/03/02/category-archive-message-board-270-the-time-for-the-jewish-nation-1/
After years of Obama regime unilateral, strategic disarmament Israel is better prepared to defend itself than is the United States.
You know Net hit them where it hurts. The MSM liars (always presenting lies as news) and late-night hyenas (turning lies into farce) were out of control.
Saudi Arabia is a very reliable ally against Iran in the exact same sense that Soviet Russia was a very reliable ally against Nazi Germany.
“Salvation is from the Jews”. Bibi said, we are “Mishpocha”, and if we neglect our first “family” we do so at our peril.
I always get a chuckle out of T Shaw’s descriptions: “late night hyenas.” How aptly does that describe the talking heads on late night TV. I would of course include in their company jackals, baboons, warthogs, and broods of vipers (a phrase John the Baptist and Jesus both used), all different varieties of the same loathsome creature which we know as the liberal progressive Democrat journalist.
Saudi Arabia is a very reliable ally against Iran in the exact same sense that Soviet Russia was a very reliable ally against Nazi Germany.
—
Rubbish. The House of Saud routed its Hashemite rivals in 1924 and assumed control of the Hijaz as well as Nejd. It’s boundaries have been fixed since. then. The only neighboring state it has injured in the last 90 years has been the ghastly Ba’athist menace in Iraq, and in that circumstance, they were a crucial but secondary participant. The disagreeable features of the regime are organic l products of the local society and culture. The regime’s imperialist and revanchist disposition is nil. They’re nothing like Soviet Russia. They do have no permanent friends, just permanent interests.
Shiites, Wahabbists, whatever strand of Sunni Islam ISIS practices, it’s like watching the redshirts, blackshirts and brownshirts street brawl over whose strand of socialism is authentic as far as I’m concerned.
And the Saudis use mosques much the same way that the Soviets used the Comintern.
No state has done more to spread Islamic radicalism worldwide than Saudi Arabia. They haven’t invaded their neighbors but so what? The Iranians haven’t either. The Saudis, by aiding in the establishment of radical Mosques have done more to threaten the US than Iran by far.
And Art, you failed to address my first comment about the Saudis and the Koran, though you responded as if you did. Paul had pointed out that the Iranians can’t be trusted since the Koran permits them to mislead the infidel.(that’s us). The Saudis can play us for fools as well, and justify it by the same passages in the Koran, such as when they pretend to be an ally while supporting radical Islam. And I agree Art, the object of bombing is to destroy production facilities. So what? It’s an act of war. Feel free to walk us through how that will further the only legitimate and proper object of war; that of securing a lasting and just peace, and enhancing US security in the process.
Curtis LeMay might have some worthwhile opinions on how to best go about it. But yeah, I’m sure you’re right. Blowing up production facilities, while necessary, won’t be sufficient.
The Saudis, by aiding in the establishment of radical Mosques have done more to threaten the US than Iran by far
—
Rubbish. The only threat generator there would be through the conduit of youths who leave the occident to join paramilitaries abroad, and only that portion thereof which could be attributed to Saudi promotion of the Wahhabi school of interpretation. The Saudi government is not financing foreign paramilitaries beyond the forces arrayed against Soviet Russia and the protection money they paid the PLO.
==
And Art, you failed to address my first comment about the Saudis and the Koran, though you responded as if you did. Paul had pointed out that the Iranians can’t be trusted since the Koran permits them to mislead the infidel
==
I’m not responsible for what Mr. Primavera says. Take your complaints to him. I’m observing the behavior and history of the two governments in question. One’s a self-interested minor irritant with which we’ve done business for nearly nine decades, one’s a lunatic asylum.
So what? It’s an act of war. Feel free to walk us through how that will further the only legitimate and proper object of war; that of securing a lasting and just peace, and enhancing US security in the process.
—
There is no such thing as ‘a lasting and just peace’. There is merely the equilibrium of the times. Some equilibria are more stable than others. Some more just than others. The point of destroying the production facilities is to take away their capacity to harm others in five and six figure job lots. Quit playing dumb.
I have no complaint to make to Paul, and I already addressed the matter with him, but you chose to quote my comment to him but ignored the context, which was if Iran can’t be trusted because the Koran allows them to lie why do we cozy up to the Saudis whose Koran allows them the same privilege? And Art,do you think Augustine et al who developed the Just War theory were playing dumb as well? Maybe they know a bit more than you and I do about how to bring a Christian perspective to issues of war and peace. Back to the Saudis you have heard that 18 of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi( not Iranian) didn’t you? And are you really unconcerned about Saudi influence in the propagation of radical Islam, including here in the US? This might help you get a handle on it a bit better.http://dttj.blogspot.com/2010/08/saudi-arabias-funding-of-american.html
chris c wrote, “Maybe they know a bit more than you and I do about how to bring a Christian perspective to issues of war and peace…”
I would put more faith in Cardinal Richelieu and Père Joseph. They had both practical experience and pressing responsibility to mould their views.
Question, chirs: Were the 9/11 guys working for the Saudi government as part of a larger Saudi foreign policy scheme, do you know?
And are you really unconcerned about Saudi influence in the propagation of radical Islam, including here in the US? This might help you get a handle on it a bit better
—
Chris, you propagate something, someone has to be listening and receptive. We’ve had since the 2d World War several bureau of the United States government whose work it was to promote an American viewpoint abroad. They operate radio services, run libraries, run exchange programs, have a speakers’ bureau etc. Currently, I think its all subsumed under the Broadcasting Board of Governors and the public diplomacy apparat of the State department. How’s that been working out for us? During the late Cold War, it was astonishing the degree to which the idle public diplomacy of 3d world countries followed a variant of the Soviet line. You want to attribute that to the effect of Radio Moscow? The Soviets may have been the megahertz champion of the world, but their radio programming was comparatively crude and their listenership a small fraction of that of the BBC World Service. These sorts of things may have a good effect (or a bad effect), but they’re a weak vector in influencing the evolution of culture.
—
I would refer you to Alastair Horne’s A Savage War of Peace on the Algerian insurrection (1954-62). The association of ulema in Algeria is mentioned once in passing. The Arab world was awash in revanchist political action in 1954, a great deal of it violent. Some of it was praetorianist, some fascist, some variant communist. All of it was evil. What’s happened since is that the revanchism has remained but the idiom has changed. The Wahhabi school of interpretation has had political hegemony in the Nejd since the early 19th century and the House of Saud has been a force of interest since the advent of the Arabian oil industry more than 70 years ago. Violent political Islam dates only from 1978, and the source was not the Wahhabi sect, but the Shi’ite clergy in Iran, who had seized control of the government. This should suggest to you that there’s a limit to the power of ideas per se to motivate action or to breach the compartments people maintain in cogitating about one part of life and another.
==
Back to the Saudis you have heard that 18 of 19 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi( not Iranian) didn’t you? –
—
Fifteen of the hijackers were Saudis and four were Egyptian. They were also bachelors, had long histories of genteel unemployment, and derived from the educated bourgeois minority.
I cannot forecast to you the action of the Obama Administration. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. Is Valery Jarrett that key? Now I only know what I read “in the papers” and that isn’t much but to me she seems the dog that didn’t bark. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard the sound of her voice at all. And now we hear of the former Secretary of State using a private server for all of her official business. Did the President know of this? Taken together with the Prime Minister of Israel taking the desperate expedient of going around the President to directly address Congress, these curious affairs should arouse the attention of all citizens. Be gentle as doves but wise as serpents.
Art, you are certainly correct; the number was 15 NOT 18. Thanks for the info on the book. Regarding violent political Islam dating only from 1978, the Armenian genocide under the Ottomans might well qualify.
As to WK, I think the involvement of the Saudi leadership in 9/11 is a matter of some dispute. I have read there are claims that they were involved to some degree, but I’m not sure where the truth lies on that point.
chris c wrote, “Regarding violent political Islam dating only from 1978, the Armenian genocide under the Ottomans might well qualify.”
No, the Armenian genocide was the result of Turkish nationalism, not radical Islam (which the Young Turks detested)
Michael though generally the genocide dates from 1915 it was preceded by massacres in 1894-1895, on the order of 100-300,000, and in 1909 by Ottoman forces as part of a purge against the Young Turks. Many Armenians include these events as occurring as part of the genocide, In any event it was directly against Armenian Christians as Christians by a movement that was not indifferent to Islam, although they wanted to bring it into modern times. Turkish nationalism was a movement within Islam, not apart or outside of it, and it saw Christians as expendable. Maybe it’s not equatable with todays Jihadist movement, but I think it still qualifies broadly speaking as an Islamic political movement that had grave repercussion for those in the way because of their Armenian nationality and Christian faith.
chris c
Turkish nationalism was a rejection of Islam, as traditionally understood.
It rejected the ummah and the caliphate in favour of national independence. It rejected Arab influence (the adoption of the roman alphabet and Roman law, replacing sharia with the Swiss Civil Code, the German Commercial code and the Italian Penal Code, the ban on wearing the fez and the burkah)
It was no more (and no less) an Islamic movement, than the French Revolution and the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was a Catholic movement.
“Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.” ―Mehmed Talat
“The Turkish elements here referred to were shortsighted, fanatical, and yet sincere in their belief. The public encouraged them, and they had the general approval behind them. They were numerous and strong.” ―Mehmed Talat
While it is true that the wartime events occurred under the aegis of the Young Turks whose motivations were primarily nationalistic, it cannot be said that radical Islamic sentiments were not essential to the implementation of the genocide.
Under the “Bloody Sultan” Abdul Hamid II, Christians were cut down to the cry of “Allahu Akbar”. At mid-day, the butchers knelt down and said their prayers and jumped up to resume their bloody work.
There had been previous murderous assaults against the Armenian people, who had lived two thousand years in their ancient homeland before the Seljuk Turks conquered it. Sultan Abdul Hamid II was responsible for the massacre of about 200,000 Armenians between 1894 and 1896. Behind the opaque veil of mere statistics there transpired vicious scene after vicious scene of unspeakable horror: “soldiers” falling upon them to “outrage” many to death and slaughtering others with sword and bayonet; children set in line to see how many could be killed with a single shot.
Throughout these years, sadistic brutality raged against the Christian Armenian population of Turkey. Rarely, a fleeting opportunity of survival was offered when the troopers would crash into an occupied church and demand the congregation to deny Christ, and embrace Mohammed. When no one answered, the troops fell upon them, and the butchery commenced until martyr’s blood flowed from beneath the doors of the church.
In 1909, another paroxysm of persecution occurred in Adana. Over four-thousand dwellings were torched, and thirty-thousand Armenians slain. These nightmares were but practice for the carefully planned genocide the Turkish government carried out behind the obscuring fog of the “Great War”.
The government decided that the existence of a Christian minority impeded and threatened the destiny and integrity of an expanding Turkish Empire. On November 14, 1914, to marshal the Musselmen for the task ahead, the sheikh-al-Islam, leader of all the Sunnis, proclaimed a jihad against “infidels and enemies of the faith”.
The annihilation of one and a half million Armenians commenced on April 24, 1914. On that day, throughout the Armenian villages of Turkey, there appeared a town crier, accompanied by a boy beating a drum, announcing that in so many days they must be prepared to relocate, as part of the war effort, and to assemble at the town square.
Once assembled, the men were marched out of town, and shot. The defenseless women and children were marched out to a worse fate. As they stretched out upon the roads away from their ancient homes, there lay in wait newly uniformed legions of released-for-the-purpose criminals eager to fall upon them with license to kill.
One sympathetic witness, Armin T. Wegner, described the doomed deportees arrayed along the road as “like a weeping hedge that begs and screams, and from which rise a thousand pleading hands; we go by, our hearts full of shame.” Most were tortured to death. The thousands drowned by the boatload in the Black Sea suffered less.
My comments are largely drawn from Peter Balakian’s “Burning Tigris” which has been criticized, although not credibly in my view, for being overly lurid.
The leaders French Revolution do not appear to have used Catholicism as a motivator of say the Sans Culottes or other elements to obtain their goals. The Church was indeed actively persecuted and Catholics massacred in the Vendee and generally throughout France. Christianity is not easily bent to achieve evil ends. Her concept is of God being Love, not merely power and will. Accordingly, I find Obama’s attempt to compare Jihad and Crusade lame, uninformed or worse.
PS: “Who today, after all, speaks of the annihilation of the Armenians?” – Adolph Hitler, eight days before Nazi Germany invaded Poland.