Schumer, No. 3 US Senate Democrat, to oppose Iran nuclear deal

[Pakboong]

"First, they defied a prevalent political culture of ignoring inconvenient facts, consulting narrowly if at all, and never saying what you believe when it’s not what your constituency wants to hear. Second, his statement concerned Iran, an issue where fact-based reasoning on Capitol Hill and beyond tends to take second place to preposterous posturing — as per the Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee’s statement that the nuclear deal with Tehran would march Israelis “to the door of the oven.”

“the best way to achieve” the goal of preventing Iran from advancing toward a nuclear weapon, an outcome that would make Israel, the Middle East and the world “far more secure.” Sander M. Levin, the most experienced Jew in Congress

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/opinion/roger-cohen-one-congressmans-iran.html

Edited August 19, 2015 by Pakboong

[Scott]

A quote that has been altered to change the meaning and reported has been removed.

[arjunadawn]

Israel demonisation follows all normal rules of logic - they have no right to be in Palestine, a land they lost over 2,000 years ago. it's like allowing the Romans to rule over Europe, because they did that a long time ago, it's ridiculous.

snip.

Well, if the entire premise rests on presumed rules of logic and those rules are faulty then you are wrong. The entire claim of the muslim world is based on a horse that flew to the furthest mosque (that never left Arabia), written in a book, 1,400 years ago. Moreover, there were no mosques on the Jewish Temple Mount at the time. Palestinians are muslims and this makes the issue a religious one, also. The muslims simply have no weighty claim, only demands. In fact, the entire islamic push for Jerusalem is no more than a corruption of blood because the Jews rejected their prophet. This underlies Iran's daily and increasing bellicosity toward isreal, a land by which their only claim is religious.

It is presumed by rules of logic you mean there is no precedent to return something of claim or value to a claimant or descendent after some period of time, the time being defined as "a long time ago." This then are the rules and logic? Why is time the distinction and what amount of time and how makes a claim void? A 1,350 year claim is more valid than a claim from 71CE? There are too numerous to count examples of what is rightfully another's being returned irrespective of time. Fewer examples exist in the world to a more rightful claimant than the Jews of this region. From Tibet to Uighers to the very Romans you cite, not that many years ago. From Hawaiians to reparations to Indians, lots of claimants are seeking to be made whole, and are, irrespective of some vague caveat called time.

Edited August 19, 2015 by arjunadawn

[Chicog]

Here Daniel Greenfield nails it.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/259826/iran-deal-everything-bad-about-obama-one-package-daniel-greenfield

Obama’s foreign policy has been one long string of miserable disasters, but we’re expected not to acknowledge that or allow it to influence our views as he promotes his latest foreign policy disaster. Forget giving Iran the benefit of the doubt, why after a track record of horrible disasters in the region, is Obama entitled to any benefit of the doubt on Iran?

There’s nothing new about this latest disaster. Only the stakes are bigger because they’re nuclear.

A "track record of horrible disasters in the region"? What a load of crap.

Considering he's been cleaning up Bush's mess and dealing with the Arab Spring revolutions (which were the inevitable consequence of 50+ years of Western governments backing greedy Arab oligarchies), I think the damage has been relatively minimal compared to what it could have been.

The only real alternative would have been to just go and carpet bomb large swathes of territory and commit genocide. Or sending more US troops to their deaths.

Now *that* would have been a foreign policy disaster.

Why do republicans think spending trillions on pointless wars and sending thousands of American troops to their deaths is not a "foreign policy disaster" by the way?

Are the glasses really that rose coloured?

[chuckd]

Personally I don't give a flying f---- what Israelis think of the deal.

It's between Iran and the P5+1.

Exactly right!

Actually, it is America's deal and that is what matters to me. Now, Israel has gone and embarrassed a sitting American President by addressing his legislature without executive branch approval. This is going to go badly for Israel or, I should say that it should go badly for Israel. If we have truly become an Oligarchy, it could go badly for us Americans.

When it comes to individuals asked to speak before Congress, it isn't required to get a "please may I" from the President.

Congress may invite whomever they wish to speak before them.

[Chicog]

Personally I don't give a flying f---- what Israelis think of the deal.

It's between Iran and the P5+1.

Exactly right!

Actually, it is America's deal and that is what matters to me. Now, Israel has gone and embarrassed a sitting American President by addressing his legislature without executive branch approval. This is going to go badly for Israel or, I should say that it should go badly for Israel. If we have truly become an Oligarchy, it could go badly for us Americans.

When it comes to individuals asked to speak before Congress, it isn't required to get a "please may I" from the President.

Congress may invite whomever they wish to speak before them.

Since we're going for some stating-the-obvious award, likewise the President (and anyone else) can choose not to give a flying fig.

[Publicus]

Personally I don't give a flying f---- what Israelis think of the deal.

It's between Iran and the P5+1.

Exactly right!

Actually, it is America's deal and that is what matters to me. Now, Israel has gone and embarrassed a sitting American President by addressing his legislature without executive branch approval. This is going to go badly for Israel or, I should say that it should go badly for Israel. If we have truly become an Oligarchy, it could go badly for us Americans.

When it comes to individuals asked to speak before Congress, it isn't required to get a "please may I" from the President.

Congress may invite whomever they wish to speak before them.

When the regular diplomatic courtesies are ignored however and the visiting head of government ignores the president and directly opposes his policies in a partisan political invitation from the opposition political party in the congress maximus the whole thing stinks to the high heavens. That is exactly what happened, i.e, the invitation by the Republicans in the congress maximus was extended only by them; Democrats were excluded although the House Speaker Boehner ingenuously suggested in the invitation that it was a bipartisan one.

So since then there is a Republican US Senator from Israel who is also the prime minister of Israel.

There must be something somewhere in the Constitution about that. Because what many of us see in this is that a rightwing prime minister of Israel may now qualify ex officio to be a Republican US Senator too. Who knows what could come next...maybe Bibi goes to Moscow to dine with Putin and Assad so they all can commiserate over what an sob president Barack Obama is.

[chuckd]

...and you just won the award with your stating-the-obvious remark.

[Publicus]

If you're there to present the award personally you won't like where I put it

[Ulysses G.]

200 NON-PARTISAN retired generals and admirals come riding to the rescue. They sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday urging lawmakers to reject the Iran nuclear agreement, which they say threatens national security. Many of them served in the White House, under Democratic administrations as well as Republican. They consider the Iran nuclear deal a threat to U.S. interests in the region and its own national security.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who was vice commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe, said he considers the agreement the most dangerous nuclear accord in U.S. history.

“What I don’t like about this is, the number one leading radical Islamic group in the world is the Iranians,” he said. “They are purveyors of radical Islam throughout the region and throughout the world. And we are going to enable them to get nuclear weapons. Why would we do that?”

McInerney said he thinks that most retired general officers do not support the agreement, but he said some did not sign the letter because they feared negative career repercussions.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/retired-generals-and-admirals-urge-congress-to-reject-iran-deal/2015/08/26/8912d9c6-4bf5-11e5-84df-923b3ef1a64b_story.html

Edited August 27, 2015 by Ulysses G.

[Scott]

Inflammatory posts and replies removed.