Friday, July 9, 2010

Israel’s Nukes Harm US National Interests

Israel’s Nukes Harm US National Interests by John Mearsheimer

John Mearsheimer co-authored The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Excerpts from this article:

"The Israelis can do almost anything and get away with it. So the idea that opacity matters, I don’t think so. The lobby believes it can finesse any issue. They’ve never seen an issue that they can’t finesse. Look at what they did with the Goldstone report.

...

Alan Dershowitz was correct when he said that "Jews of my generation created what is, perhaps, the most powerful interest group in the history of democracy."

...

I actually believe the situation is going to get much worse over time. I believe that we’re not going to have an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement. I believe that talk of a two-state solution and all this talk about moving from "proximity talks" to "direct talks " is a charade. I find it hard to believe that people in this town take this discussion seriously. I think, at this point in time, that you’re going to get a "Greater Israel," and it either is, or is going to be, an apartheid state. It is going to cause us enormous problems, in the Middle East, or in the Arab and Islamic world. It is going to continue to keep relations between Israel and its neighbors in a troublesome state.

...

What of course all of this is going to point to is the fact that America’s interests and Israel’s interests are going to continue to diverge. And the end result of that, back here in the United States, is that the lobby is going to have to work overtime to cover that up and make it look like everything is hunky-dory when in fact it’s not. And that has all sorts of negative consequences for domestic politics.

So I think things are very bad now but I’m sad to say they’re only going to get worse."


Hope and Change Fade, but War Endures - Seven Reasons Why We Can’t Stop Making War By William J. Astore

Please read these 7 reasons - and consider how it makes you feel about America

The Worst of Times, the Best of Times By Alexander Cockburn

"It’s the worst of times. America is plunging back into Depression. Only one out of every two Americans of working age has a job. Forty years ago that would have been okay. Dad went to the factory. Mom stayed at home to mind the kids. These days, just to keep the show on the road, mom and pop both work and the kids get daycare.

Somewhere near 10 million Americans without work aren't getting any kind of check. One in every five children is living below the poverty line, sometimes by as much as 50 per cent – classed as "extreme poverty". Across America, in state after state the till is empty. Barack Obama's home state of Illinois is effectively bankrupt. So is California. Forty-six of the 50 states are buried under huge deficits.

The stimulus has failed. The housing market is in free fall. A couple of months ago market analysts predicted there would be five million more foreclosures between now and 2011 and it looks like they're on target. Forty per cent of delinquent homeowners have already loaded up the SUV, thrown the plastic chairs in the swimming pool and tossed the house keys back at the bank. Only 30 per cent of foreclosures have been re-listed for sale. The banks have been keeping them back to avoid flooding the market."

But America is rich! Please read the rest of this article.


Bill

No comments: