Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…

Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…

Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…

Lookks like your page was heavily hit by spam…

Fuck no…call them “reconstruction funds” - and make sure plenty of it goes to your friends.

“Reparations.”

What I’d like to point out is, if the Democrats want to ever win an election again, DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER USE THE WORD ‘REPARATIONS’ FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ON A STICK.

First of all, to the extent that it has any meaning to most folks at all, it comes from the absolute Looney Tunes idea of slavery reparations, in which you take money from people whose ancestors were peasants in Poland in 1865 and give it to people whose ancestors were slaves in Mississippi in 1865. Any idea that puts a larcenous glint in the eye of Al Sharpton is a net loser for the Democratic party, got that? That’s not even getting into the dubious substantive merits of the idea (if we want to talk about a group that got screwed and left out of the white man’s prosperity, let’s talk about taking money from blacks AND whites in America and giving it to Indians, huh?), just pure electoral politics. You want the next vote on a Republican president’s SC nominee to win on a straight party line vote 73-27, then you push reparations…

…And so that’s the politically advantageous term Marc uses for taking away the practical help Iraqis need and mostly want from us, and instead pouring money into the country with no responsibility for how it gets spent. Because, hey, we broke it! It was a country that worked so well before we screwed it up! It had an Olympic team (penalty for losing, torture) and hospitals (no electricity, but hospitals!) and it only invaded its neighbors about once a decade. Who do we send the checks to, Marc? Ahmed Chalabi? The local office of Al-Qaeda in Iraq? Or do we just toss it out of an airplane?

It’s really revealing that this strikes anyone on the Left as a solution. Write a check and split, don’t call us we’ll call you. That’s how you solve knocking up your kid’s nanny in Bel Air but it is not exactly a practical, effective approach to geopolitics.

Much of this was encouraged in the name of a secure Jewish homeland — something which few U.S. politicians dared to criticize — but behind the public facade there existed a world where the CIA became dependent on Mossad for intelligence, Israel’s economy became dependent on profits from arms transfers, and policy itself was exercised through proxy wars.

It is especially helpful in understanding the influence of the Israeli arms industry, which operates on a revolving-door basis with various elements of Israel’s intelligence community and has been all too eager to supply many of the world’s tyrants.

So the dark underside of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, is that the former provides the rhetoric, but the latter gets all the action.

WJA is wishing upon a study here.

No according to that Pew study they haven’t. Try again.

I have to say, that’s not even a good oversimplification. The question of Arabs’ and other Middle Easterners extreme negative attitudes toward “the Jews” isn’t rooted in Israel playing “bad cop” for the U.S. There’s a longstanding regional problem that is among the thorniest in the world which has nothing inherent to do with the United States (which not to say that historically it doesn’t have anything to do with the United States.) But I’d say that, more accurately, a hell of a lot of anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East is rooted in our trying to play “good cop” for the Israelis.

Statistics are not very reliable—statistical models can be shaped to form any subjective conclusion.

What can be gleaned from these figures is that Jews are the least liked religious group in the Middle East and Asia. Well if you play the “bad cop” for the U.S., chances are you’ll not be the most popular kid in the neighborhood.

This is an excerpt from Peter Bergen’s book: “So I sat down with Osama in his tent underground. I told him, “Everybody is against this idea. Why are you here? Don’t you know that this is very dangerous?” He said, “We came to be in the front.” I said, “No, we did not come to be in the front. We came to [act as supporters of the] Afghans.” I told him, “Every drop of blood bleeds here in this place. God will ask you about it in the Hereafter. Everybody saying this is wrong, so Osama, please leave the place right now.” Everybody was hearing our argument; our voices become hard. I was really very angry; this is our first time to be like this. I told him, “Look, you will leave the place or I will never see you again.” He told me, “Do whatever you want.” So I left.

As far as I am concerned, it’s not really important whether we have the inside scoop on how OBL thinks; because at this point he has taken on a mythological quality that transcends reality; he has become an inspirational figure.

What is important is that TERRORISM WILL NEVER END, HAS LONG AS PEOPLE ARE MARGINALIZED AND EXPLOTIED. Other leaders will always surface; the Islamic militant movement is self-sustaining.

What is unfortunate is that chaos provides the rationale for continued occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan. So it in a really sad convoluted way, terrorism creates the raison d’etre for an indefinite military presence.