Category: Foreign Policies

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Israel Palestine Politics war

IS ISRAEL NOW PART OF “THE AXIS OF EVIL?”

Photo: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

As seen on America The Not So Beautiful

July 31, 2014

By Mike Caccioppoli

OK Israel, enough is enough. When you start to bomb schools and kill sleeping children you have lost me for good. I knew Netanyahu was a right wing scum bucket, but now he should be considered a terrorist. If Arabs did this, we would be calling them just that. No more double standards, I’m done.

This is exactly what the Israeli’s have done. They bombed United Nations schools where Palestinian civilians went to escape the bombings because they thought they would be safe there. U.N. officials say they warned the Israeli’s no fewer than 17 times about the locations of these schools and that children would be there and that civilians were gathered there, civilians not terrorists.

“Nothing is more shameful than attacking sleeping children” said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. I agree. The Israeli’s claim there was rocket fire from near the school so of course they needed to bomb the entire school. The Geneva Convention prohibits attacks on schools and hospitals, but hey they are Israel so they can get away with it right?

Anyone who claims there is no double standard at work here is simply full of shit. I mentioned Arabs but if any other country were bombing schools and killing children at the pace the Israel’s are right now the United States would be leading the charge against that country. The war hawks here would be calling for retaliation and another war against the violating country. Not with Israel. This is as appalling as the despicable acts of violence the Israelis are responsible for.

There is no excuse. We wouldn’t be accepting one from an Iran or a North Korea or even Germany for that matter. So far there have been 1,328 Palestinian deaths in this Gaza war. There have been 59 Israeli deaths. This is a one-sided massacre. Dare I say a Holocaust? Yes I dare.

The Israeli’s want this to be seen by everyone as a fair war. If that were the case then the Palestinians would have the same fire power that Israel has. Of course they do not. It makes sense for the right wing of this country to love Netanyahu because they love war. Anyone on the left who backs this daily massacre is a hypocrite. These people will call Bush, Cheney et al, war mongers, but in the same breath they will make excuses for Netanyahu. I’m here to call them on their bullshit hypocrisy.

The United States and their Israel apologist machine is in full force. The National Security Council has already put out a statement that tried to make the Palestinians equally responsible for the bombings by saying they oppose the Israeli attacks on the schools BUT ALSO oppose Palestinians hiding weapons in the schools. There is yet to be any evidence of that of course and even if there was it’s no excuse to kill innocent civilians and children.

The word “terrorist” has not been used by the United States in response to these school bombings. I wonder why? Ask yourself if that word would be part of the discourse if the roles were reversed or if one of the “Axis of Evil” were responsible for the attacks. You and I know the answer, it’s obvious.

There have been several “terrorist” attacks on these school. The U.N. has said there have been NO weapons stored in these schools by Palestinians. The U.N. is the same organization that said there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

They were right then and they are right now.

It’s time to call out Netanyahu for what he is. A terrorist.

Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com

@CaccioppoliMike

Visit America The Not So Beautiful

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Afghanistan Domestic Policies Foreign Policies Healthcare Iraq Israel News Palestine Politics Russia Technology

Obama: This Duck Is Still Mobile

You would think, from all the talk about the midterm elections and the final two years of the Obama Administration, that the president doesn’t matter anymore or that absolutely nothing will get done in Washington between now and January 2017. While we may be fighting political gridlock, and the possibility that few if any consequential laws will be passed soon, the rest of the world is not stopping nor is our country’s need for attention to our very real problems. The Republicans in Congress have made it clear that they do not want to work with Barack Obama or give him any victories from which the Democrats can claim any advantage going into the 2016 election season. This is no way to run a country, and we will pay a price in the future for our inability to act now.

There is no shortage of media stories purporting to paint Obama as a lame duck before his time, abandoning his legislative agenda in favor of executive orders and agency rule-writing. The problem with this interpretation is that Obama’s actions, especially on the environment, will have a profound effect on business and industry. New rules that detail how much a company can pollute and whether they need to clean up their emissions is no small matter. If it was, then the various business groups that oppose these changes wouldn’t be making so much noise.

The same is true with the Affordable Care Act. Yes, two Circuit Courts did issue contradictory rulings last week about whether people who buy policies on the federal exchange are entitled to subsidies, but in the end I believe that the law will be upheld and the subsidies will remain in place. I base this not on my fine reading of the law, but on the fact that by the time the Supreme Court gets the case, upwards of 30 million people will be covered by federal subsidies and the cost of ending them will be too much of a disruption to the country. Just as the Supreme Court ruled that police can’t search cell phones without a warrant mainly because the justices understood first hand what that would entail, so they will understand what it means to take health care away from people or make it unaffordable. Either Roberts or Kennedy will provide the deciding vote in any future case; the former to maintain his legacy, the latter because he tends to see applicability more than the other conservatives. The result of any case will be the president having to issue orders or to order executive branch offices to maintain the law so that it continues to honor its promises.

The president is never a lame duck when it comes to foreign policy, and Obama will not be an exception. The world is on fire as we speak and the United States will play a role in unwinding many of the conflicts that engulf it. Critics have been unsparing in their denunciations of Obama’s seemingly uninspiring handling of foreign affairs, but many on the right are calling for actions that the United States will not, and should not, take, such as sending troops or issuing ultimatums. Economic sanctions will have an effect on Vladimir Putin, and I think he understands this which is why he continues to push for separatist actions in Ukraine. Obama’s continuing contact with Benjamin Netanyahu will result in a cease-fire and long-term cessation of hostilities because the American president still carries great weight in the region. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya look hopeless, but a concerted American effort will yield some results. Ultimately, these countries will have to solve problems on their own, but each will look abroad for help. Obama will be there.

Labeling a president as a lame duck is dangerous business in today’s world technology has made everything faster and response time smaller. The economy is improving, but if the gains in the stock market prove to be a bubble, then the president will need to act quickly. Any number of natural disasters would require a response. And if the GOP ever gets the message that tax policy, infrastructure improvements and immigration really do need more attention than suing or impeaching Obama, then perhaps we could have a significant bill before the next election.

I can dream, no?

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Benjamin Netanyahu Israel News Politics

Benjamin Netanyahu: They’re Responsible For Us Killing Them

In an interview on Meet The Press, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cast blame for the hundreds of deaths in Gaza squarely on the back of Hamas.

According to the prime minister, Hamas is using people to shield their missiles and when Israel attack these missiles, the people get killed instead.

“We use missiles to protect our people, they use people to protect their missiles,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu’s statement reminds me of something Stephen A. Smith said, when he implied that abused women should do all they can not to provoke the beatings they get from their significant other.

Video

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Israel Palestine

Gaza Massacre Extends Past 1000 – Israel Waits an Additional 4 Hours Before The Massacre Continues

(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis)

I guess we should thank Israel for their kindness in allowing the innocent residents of Gaza – the ones still alive – to pull their dead from the rubble. Instead of a 12 hour cease fire, Israel gave the poor souls an additional 4 hours to prepare for more bloodshed!

Thousands of Gaza residents who fled the violence streamed back to devastated border areas during Saturday’s truce to find large-scale destruction: fighting pulverized scores of homes, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets.

In the northern town of Beit Hanoun, Siham Kafarneh, 37, sat on the steps of a small grocery, weeping. The mother of eight said the home she had spent 10 years saving up for and moved into two months earlier had been destroyed.

“Nothing is left. Everything I have is gone,” she said.

Across Gaza, more than 130 bodies were pulled from the rubble Saturday, officials said. In southern Gaza, 20 members of an extended family were killed before the start of the lull when a tank shell hit a building where they had sought refuge, Palestinian health official Ashraf al-Kidra said.

Israel launched a major air campaign in Gaza on July 8 and later sent ground troops into the Hamas-ruled territory in an operation it said was aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire and destroying cross-border tunnels used for attacks.

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Domestic Policies Foreign Policies Healthcare Israel News ObamaCare Palestine Politics Russia

The Silly Season Gets Serious

I took my talents to South Beach over the weekend for a relative’s surprise birthday party, and on the plane to and fro I had the opportunity to…think. Love airplane mode. Phones and tablets should have other modes, such as marriage mode, play-with-children mode, just-watch-one-screen mode, or perhaps physical media mode, where you would be forced to consume news and entertainment using a newspaper or magazine. I know, I know. I’m old and out-of-touch.

Not really.

Consuming news over the past 10 days has been a wild ride. The Middle East is blowing up again, Malaysia Airlines underwent another tragedy. U.S. courts are issuing contradictory opinions on the same set of facts. We have reached a news critical mass.

I am worn out about the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian war and the war over which press outlets are too pro-Israel (FOX) and too pro-Palestinian (The New York Times). Terrorist groups and organizations have for too long molded the narrative and have sabotaged every attempt at peace in the region. And the governmental authorities in the warring camps have let it happen. Clearly, Benjamin Netanyahu is not the man who will lead Israel to recognize a two-state solution and there is no current Palestinian leader with the credibility to make peace with Israel. As long as countries in the region refuse to recognize Israel’s sovereign right to exist, there is no basis for meaningful talks. As long as Israel continues to blow up Palestinian homes, the world will continue to paint it as an immoral country.

And speaking of leaders with no credibility and few morals, Vladimir Putin has almost succeeded in building his neo-Soviet state out of the ashes of the USSR. Covering up the shooting of the Malaysian airliner, then having his thugs block access to the crash site is right out of the Chernobyl 101 textbook. The problem is that textbooks are so passe and the technology we have now has laid bare his claim that it was Ukrainians, not pro-Russian separatists, who perpetrated this horrific deed. I don’t believe that this will lead to Putin’s downfall in the short term because he’s still very popular in Russia and he controls the media. Some Russians even believe that Putin himself was the target as he was flying in the general vicinity at the time the Malaysian plane was destroyed. Next up to blame will probably be the Israelis. Putin loves the Israelis.

As for the latest domestic squabbles, the Third Circuit Court in DC struck down the ACA subsidies and the Fourth Circuit in Richmond upheld them. Gotta love our judicial system. Both sides can claim victories, but my sense is that the ultimate decision by the Supreme Court, either next year or the year after, will uphold the subsidies that people get when buying insurance on the national exchange even though the law says that subsidies should only be given to people who buy on the state exchanges. Of course, the last time we tried to parse the ACA arguments in the court, the general consensus was that the law was toast. Ouch. And even if the Republicans win the Senate in November, which they won’t, the law will still survive.

Meanwhile, sleep tight America. Rick Perry’s got the border covered. 

But don’t worry; he’ll never be president.

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Categories
Israel News Palestine Politics

7 Nobel Peace Winners and 64 Public Figures Want International Arms Embargo on Israel

Sixty-four public figures, including seven Nobel Peace Prize winners, have called for an international arms embargo on Israel for its “war crimes and possible crimes against humanity” in Gaza. The statement came in a letter published in Britain’s The Guardian on Friday.

“Israel has once again unleashed the full force of its military against the captive Palestinian population, particularly in the besieged Gaza Strip, in an inhumane and illegal act of military aggression. Israel’s ability to launch such devastating attacks with impunity largely stems from the vast international military cooperation and trade that it maintains with complicit governments across the world,” read the statement.

“We call on the UN and governments across the world to take immediate steps to implement a comprehensive and legally binding military embargo on Israel, similar to that imposed on South Africa during apartheid,” the letter concluded.

Among the signators were Nobel peace laureates Desmond Tutu, Betty Williams, Federico Mayor Zaragoza, Jody Williams, Adolfo Peres Esquivel, Mairead Maguire and Rigoberto Menchu.

Also signing were academics Noam Chomsky and Rashid Khalidi, filmmakers Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, musicians Roger Waters and Brian Eno, writers Alice Walker and Caryl Churchill, and journalists John Pilger and Chris Hedges. Two Israelis, academics Ilan Pappe and Nurit Peled, signed the letter as well.

h/t Haaretz

Categories
George Bush Iraq Politics war

MEMO TO MEDIA: STOP ASKING MASS MURDERERS FOR ADVICE ON IRAQ

As seen on America The Not So Beautiful

June 17, 2014

By Mike Caccioppoli

David Gregory is an asshole. So is EVERY mainstream media moron who does a “segment” with one of the Bush cronies who got us into the Iraq war to begin with over 10 years ago. We know the right-wing plan is to simply prey on the ignorance of Americans (always their plan) and pretend Bush and company never existed. That the Iraq war is Obama’s fault because hey Mr. and Mrs. Shit kicker..he’s President now ain’t he??

Yes the ignorant American public, the uneducated masses who allow the Republican party to exist since we know it couldn’t exist anywhere else. But OK, we expect it from the R’s. We don’t expect the media, the people who are supposedly intelligent to comply with the right wingers game plan (hey, what happened to the “liberal” media?) This is exactly what they do when people like Gregory or Anderson Cooper put guys like Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Dick Cheney, Ari Fleischer, John McCain, et al. on national television to ask their “advice” on what to do now in Iraq.

Let me ask these media folks a question. Would you put on a serial killer to talk about gun control? A rapist to talk about women’s rights?

We know the answer, it’s a simple one. So why the fuck do they continue to put these Iraq war architects on to get their advice on how to quell the fighting in Iraq? The same guys who claimed the war would be done with quickly. The same guys who thought it was the right time for Bush to dress like a dick and step off an aircraft carrier to proclaim “Mission Accomplished.” The same politicians who were one hundred percent behind the war to begin with.

Kristol, the arrogant know nothing killer of women and children, said back in 2003 that the war would be over “in two months.” Two fucking months! Yet there he is on “Meet the Press” being asked by that putz Gregory, “What should we do now Mr. Kristol?” It’s unbelievable! Tim Russert must be turning over in his grave knowing that he would have simply pulled the video of Kristol saying the war would end in two months back in 2003 and ask him why should anyone listen to him now?

THAT would be the question to ask if someone had the urge to put this bullshit artist on television. This is what Paul Wolfowitz said in 2003…“It’s hard to conceive that it would take more forces to provide stability in post-Saddam Iraq than it would take to conduct the war itself and to secure the surrender of Saddam’s security forces and his army. Hard to imagine.” Hard to imagine yes, because it actually happened! Yet there he is, another mass murderer on national television shows being asked his “expert advice.” As though this son of a bitch actually walks on two legs.

Want more?

Dick Cheney is 2003..”My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”  

“I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” 

John McCain..“Make it a hundred…That would be fine with me.” -to a questioner who asked if he supported President Bush’s vision for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 50 years.

Paul Wolfowitz in 2003..“There’s a lot of money to pay for this. It doesn’t have to be U.S. taxpayer money. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”

I could go on and on and on…doesn’t matter. Aside from people like Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell, we see this pattern of putting people who are a total failure on television and asking their opinion and advice on major, life or death situations and policy. As though all of recent history has been erased. As if the thousands upon thousands of deaths, both U.S. military and Iraqi civilians never happened at all. It’s disgusting and unethical.

Yet they continue to get away with this lazy, intellect free journalism because the average citizen of this country doesn’t have a clue. They failed in school and they continue to fail in life. History doesn’t matter.

This is why as a country, we continue to die.

Mike.Caccioppoli@yahoo.com

@CaccioppoliMike

Visit America The Not So Beautiful

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arrested Benghazi Benghazi Politics

Breaking: “A Key Figure” in Benghazi Attack is Arrested

Photo: Getty Images

This story will get about 5 minutes on Fox News.

The U.S. government has captured what it’s calling “a key figure” in the attacks two years ago on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

American military and law enforcement personnel operating in Libya captured Ahmed Abu Khatallah, who has secretly been indicted in the United States for his alleged role in the attacks.

Khattalah, who was captured Sunday, is now in “a secure location outside of Libya,” and no civilians or U.S. personnel were harmed in the operation, according to a statement today from a Pentagon spokesman. One source said he is being held on a US Navy ship in the Mediterranean.

Categories
Iraq Politics

President Obama’s Press Conference on Iraq – Video

The President of the United States spoke today about the unfolding crisis in Iraq and America’s role, if any, in bringing some form of stability to the country.

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Israel

Israel’s Next President – Reuven Rivlin

Mr Rivlin, a former parliamentary speaker and Cabinet minister, defeated long-time legislator Meir Sheetrit, by 63 to 53 in a secret runoff ballot.

He will succeed Shimon Peres, 90, who ends his seven-year term in July.

The Israeli president occupies a largely ceremonial position and has no formal role in peace talks with the Palestinians.

Mr Rivlin, a member of the governing, right-wing Likud party, will become Israel’s 10th president.

He won in the second round of voting on Tuesday.

Categories
Afghanistan Bowe Bergdahl Foreign Policies News Politics Terrorism

Deserter Storm

At this point, the only relevant question I can think of asking in the tale of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is this: If he was the son of a member of the U.S. Congress, would anybody be questioning his patriotism? Perhaps in this hyper-partisan atmosphere we have the answer might be yes, but I doubt it.

As more details emerge about Sgt. Bergdahl’s captivity, it’s becoming clearer to me that a large swath of our citizenry simply has not learned the lessons of the past and is too ready to jump on anything negative in a person’s background to deny them basic human rights. Yes, he had a habit of wandering when he shouldn’t have and, yes, U.S. soldiers were killed trying to find him. It is a tragedy that those soldiers died and their families have every right to be angry over the circumstances of their deaths. That should never have happened. This kind of thing happens in war. That’s why I hate it.

The worst, unfortunately, is yet to come. Sgt. Bergdahl will come home to a town and country that is deeply divided over whether he should have even been freed, much less traded for five suspected terrorists. He will be called terrible names in person and in the media by those who believe that they are the country’s moral arbiters. I have one word for them: Vietnam.

Last week I took my classes to the New Jersey Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial. It’s a trip that’s become a yearly ritual at my school, and this year it was even more valuable because it provided some historical relevance in light of Sgt. Bergdahl’s story. Vietnam veterans lead all of the tours and are available for discussion, question and answer periods, and explanations of some of the exhibits at the memorial and education center. To a man, and they were all men, they recounted their experiences as soldiers returning to a divided country in the 1960s and 1970s. They told us about being called baby killers, village burners, Nazis, fascists and murderers. They were young men, some who were drafted and some who enlisted, who saw it as their duty to fight for their country, and their country turned their back on them. Today, they are kind, thoughtful men who are proud to be grandfathers and are happy to tell the younger generation about their experiences.

I thought of Bowe Bergdahl. Not the Sergeant; just the young man, and what he faces in the near future. For the Vietnam veterans there was some strength in numbers. Bowe Bergdahl will face the country alone. John McCain met President Nixon as a hero. I hope that President Obama sticks to his position and does the same for Bergdahl. Yes, he made a terrible mistake which became a tragedy for some of his fellow soldiers. But to hang this whole tragedy on him would be a terrible mistake. Let’s hope that we haven’t forgotten the lessons of 40 years ago.

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Categories
Benghazi Benghazi Politics

Fox Panel Laughs at Laura Ingraham for Unnecessary ‘Benghazi’ Mention in Conversation

It’s what they do. No matter what the conversation is, these people always try to bring it back to Benghazi. 

What makes the story interesting though, is what happened at Fox News when Laura Ingraham, one of the guests on the Fox Sundays talk show, managed to infuse Benghazi in a conversation about President Obama’s West Point speech. Making everything about Benghazi is a normal procedure at the Fox News network. But this time, it seems that even those at Fox were tired of the Benghazi bottom line to every conversation. And when Ingraham brought it up, she was quickly laughed at.

“The idea that the president goes to West Point and says ‘Look, we’ve never been stronger relative to the rest of the world’ — I’m sorry, that doesn’t even pass the straight-face test,” Ingraham said. “Just on an economic front, forget our declining influence across the globe. So I thought it was a very odd speech and it was not well received, and that didn’t surprise me at all given its tenor and its tone.”

After another guest on the show pointed out that President Obama did the two most important things required of any president, that is, protecting the nation and keeping us from unnecessary war, Laura Ingraham could not let that one slide. She could not see or hear President Obama get any credit for anything. And that is when the Benghazi comparison came out.

“We didn’t protect the Benghazi diplomatic mission on 9/11/12. We kind of failed on that regard, don’t you think, Bob?” she said. “That is the country.”

“Well, you are underscoring my point that this will never go away, at least with you,” Woodward said, drawing laughter from the panelists.

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