Category Archives: Middle East

UPDATE II: 12 Year After #Iraq #Invasion, A Conservative (#LauraIngraham ) Gets It Right

Iraq, Just War, Middle East, Republicans

She’s saying what principled libertarians argued 12 years ago (and nearly lost their perches). But oh, how grateful we are for the crumbs of belated wisdom tumbling from the mouth of broadcaster Laura Ingraham.

“Jeb Bush … told Megyn Kelly that knowing what we know now about Iraq, he would absolutely still invade the Middle Eastern nation.”

Bush saying he would still invade Iraq – even after knowing what we know now – is probably going to be the stupidest thing we’ll hear anyone say. Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham apparently agrees, as she absolutely crushed Jeb’s comments on the Iraq War and suggested that something might be wrong with him. “You can’t still think going into Iraq now, as a sane human being, was the right thing to do,” Ingraham said. “That’s like you have no ability to learn from past mistakes at all… when the past mistakes were made by your brother. …
… And when Jeb suggested that Hillary Clinton would agree with him on Iraq, Ingraham hammered that idiocy as well. “No Hillary wouldn’t!” she said. “Hillary wouldn’t authorize the war now, if she knew what she knows now.” It’s true, Hillary Clinton has gone on record saying that she regrets voting for the war and that knowing what we know now she absolutely would not have voted for the invasion. …

MORE.

UPDATE I (5/13): I knew the source of the reporting above would come up on Facebook. My reply:

Truth matters to me; not the source of it. If those who read me learn anything at all, it is fierce independence; allegiances to no one. The report above is correct, no matter its progressive origins. During “W,” left-liberal Keith Olbermann was sometime a source for me. So what!

UPDATE II: Oh for the privileges main-streamers like Laura I. get. However immutable, truth is recognized only once they arrive at it independently, no sooner. All in the fullness of time; their time.

The Geopolitics Of Genocide-Recongition

History, Israel, Middle East

The following puzzling snippet comes via Vox Day:

Israel does not plan to recognize the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Turkey, Rafael Harpaz, Israel’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, told Azeri website Trend.

“Israel is a democratic country, everybody has two opinions, not one opinion,” Harpaz said. “The government has a very clear opinion.”

He said Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had made Israel’s policy clear. Harpaz told Trend he hoped Israel’s troubled relations with Turkey would improve.

Vox correctly notes that “this decision makes sense from a geopolitical grand strategic point of view.”

I would go further and venture that Israel’s “willingness to throw away the moral high ground” on the Armenian genocide is indicative of the Jewish State’s sense of insecurity in a region that is rapidly forming new alliances. This, coupled with the alienation from the administration of Barack Obama has clearly made Israel a lot more cautious as to which Middle-Eastern potential partner it annoys with symbolic gestures.

‘Beer Talk’ From Blowhards: Pat Buchanan On Iran Hysteria

Britain, Foreign Policy, History, Iran, Israel, Middle East

“Are we going to be frightened by words from an Iranian blowhard?” Pat Buchanan tries to school Sean Hannity on the insignificance of Iran’s military as compared to American and Israeli might (and Bibi’s 200 plus atom bombs). It has not dawned on Mr. Hannity that the Arab alliance forming in the Middle East against ISIS, our mortal enemy, is exactly what the US needs if she is to get the hell out of the business of meddling where we are hated.

I like Pat’s description of Britain ending up on US food stamps because of WWII.

What is so disconcerting is the blowhards of cable. In Pat Buchanan you have a learned man who partook in successive American administration, at crucial times in our history; who has so much too impart. And rather than let him teach you something, you scream him down.

Anti-intellectual.

Broken Clock Kerry Right This Once

Foreign Policy, Iraq, Israel, Middle East

Most readers crave partisan orthodoxy. How annoying, then, to have to preface every truly “fair and balanced” commentary over these pixelated pages, with disclaimers about my departure from orthodoxy. Since I am about to agree with no other than US Secretary of State John Kerry on a comment he recently made, I had better provide my anti-Kerry credentials to uninitiated ditto-heads.

KERRY’S COWARDLY CONVERGENCE
KERRY’S SEXY MOTHER TERESA

MORE.

In “testimony on the Middle East,” delivered to Congress on Sept. 12, 2002,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “expressed strong support for Washington to oust former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,” saying: “I think the choice of Iraq is a good choice, it’s the right choice.” “If you take out Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” urged Netanyahu, in 2002.

Said Kerry recently, about Netanyahu:

“The prime minister, as you will recall, was profoundly forward-leaning and outspoken about the importance of invading Iraq under George W. Bush, and we all know what happened with that decision.”

Kerry will get no disagreement from these quarters, other than to remind the secretary that he too should thrash about like a fish out of water when Iraq is mentioned. Like Bibi, Kerry supported that unforgivable invasion.

Until recently, Netanyahu and his government, so revered by Republicans, were on the wrong track with Syria too, but have been endeavoring to “radically change [the] tack on Syria, reversing a policy and military strategy that were long geared to opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad.”

I wonder if Bibi even knows of “Assad’s pro-zionist grandfather”?

Given that Netanyahu is both intelligent and knowledgeable, which is more than one can say of Bush, Obama and Kerry—I suspect that unlike our idiots, he does “Know Shiite From Shinola.” However, Bibi is playing the US, out of what he perceives to be dire necessity.