Obama threat to Israel?

[fccool]

Give me a break. He just selected this guy to be his chief of staff.

I highly doubt that Chertoff will be going away any time soon. It amazes me that somebody with dual citizenship can occupy such high positions in government, especially considering these events.

[fccool]

On the same note:

Dana Milbank

The Washington Post

November 6, 2008

A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday — and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force has “rightly been labeled a terrorist organization.” He used terms such as “false prophets of extremism” and “corrupt” while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: “I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused.”

How could they be confused? As a pandering performance, it was the full Monty by a candidate who, during the primary, had positioned himself to Hillary Clinton’s left on matters such as Iran. Yesterday, Obama, who has generally declined to wear an American-flag lapel pin, wore a joint U.S.-Israeli pin, and even tried a Hebrew phrase on the crowd.

Obama even outdid President Bush in his pro-Israel sentiments. On the very day that Obama vowed to protect Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — drawing a furious denunciation from the Palestinian Authority — Bush announced that he was suspending a move of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem.

[fccool]

On top of that, quoting Rahm Emanuel...

Quote:

It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

Sigh.... Soviet Union school system flashbacks...

[Bravus]

I dunno, I think some basic education in serving their community would be a pretty healthy tonic for most young Americans (and Australians too), and a rite of passage that might help us get past the eternal childhood that, IMO, is behind many of our divorce and unwed pregnancy statistics.

On Isreal, you have to remember that the source of the quote was not Joe the Plumber but someone who went to hear Joe the Plumber speak, with whom Joe agreed.

Obama is likely to be just a *fraction* more even-handed in relation to Israel-Palestine than Bush, who undid all the good work Clinton did in that region, but I am disappointed to see him roll over for AIPAC.

[fccool]

He knows that without AIPAC approval you don't stand a chance to be a president.

As far as the "community service" goes... sure it would be beneficial, yet ... don't we already have government schools to do that? Why set up another system on top of what we have to address the "preparedness" issue?

It has nothing to do with "preparedness", but more to do with paving the road for draft.

[Bravus]

You may well be right there.

[John317]

President-elect Obama said a lot of things as a candidate that he will no doubt change his tune on as he receives daily and even hourly intelligence reports. He's going to be learning a lot of things he had no idea about before.

[fccool]

I'm sure he has a lot of "learning" to do as far as how the things work around there. Things like... political suicides for the right cause.... a big "no no". For example, FDR's pushing anti-lynching bill would be a political suicide, so he choose the greater economic good over the moral choice of doing something in cases like these:

Quote:

Not long after midnight on October 26, 'an armed mob of approximately 100 men stormed the county jail at Brewton, Alabama,' and seized Claude Neal, a black man accused of the murder of a white women. According to an NAACP investigator, the mob took Neal back to Florida, where the murder had been committed, and subjected him to 'the most brutal and savage torture imaginable, the greatest possible humiliation and agony.' They sliced him with knives, severed parts of his body, and made him eat his penis and testicles. Then they branded him with red hot irons, choked him several times with a rope, tied him to the back of a car, and dragged him to the home of the dead woman, where a member of her family drove a butcher knife into his heart. A crowd of thousands assembled; the body was repeatedly trampled, and 'little children waiting with sharp sticks drove their weapons deep into the flesh of the dead man.' The mutilated body was hung on a tree in the courthouse square; hawkers sold photographs for fifty cents apiece.

If you ask young people studying history what "lynching" is, I doubt they will be able to tell you. Same goes for another chapter in US history... Eugenics. It's not even mentioned in college history textbooks. No one will tell you that "New Deal" policies were exact copies of what Mussolini has done in Italy, and received much praise from FDR advisers. No one will tell you about Christian Socialist movement, who is responsible for writing the pledge of allegiance as we know it (Ironically forgetting to tag on "Under God" in the original).

All of these are dark times in our history that both us and our leaders should know. In face, I think some sort of history test should be mandatory in order to become a leader of a state/country. To this day, I don't think many (if not most) politicians in Washington today can tell you the cause of the Great Depression. How exactly do they expect to cure the disease, if they don't even know the causes?