BRUTAL PRESSURE
Former US defense secretary says Israel must not harm US interests, warns strike against Iran would be “catastrophic.”
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated on Thursday that Washington must make it clear to Israeli leaders that the US must not permit Israel to harm American interests.
Speaking at an event in Norfolk, Virginia, Gates commented that the Israeli leaders must be aware they “do not have a blank check to take action that could do grave harm to American vital interests.”
Instead, Gates called for heavier sanctions on Iran, saying the “results of an American or Israeli military strike on Iran could, in my view, prove catastrophic, haunting us for generations in that part of the world.”
He added sanctions are “our best chance going forward, to ratchet up the economic pressure and diplomatic isolation to the point where the Iranian leadership concludes that it actually hurts Iranian security and, above all, the security of the regime itself, to continue to pursue nuclear weapons.”
Gates also warned that neither Israel nor the US has the capabilities to obliterate Iran’s atom program, and that a military operation against the country’s nuclear facilities “would make a nuclear-armed Iran inevitable.”
He inferred that any attack would see Iran merely “bury the program deeper and make it more covert.”
Gates’ comments follow his criticism of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month, where the newly retired defense secretary called him an ungrateful ally and blamed him for diplomatically isolating Israel and hurting American interests, as Bloomberg revealed.
The criticism, reported in a piece by Jeffrey Goldberg, apparently peaked after Netanyahu met with US President Barack Obama last May, lecturing him in front of the cameras on the Israeli security situation with a level of “impudence” that shocked many in the White House, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
@ steven l:
There are many ways to aid the poor and I won’t go into it but Romney may not be a legal tax cheat, (who can tell these days even the IRS can’t unless it’s blatant and obvious). He does use the system as do most of those with extreme wealth to pay as little as possible to the IRS. So He can write off his wifes horse as a deduction and become as he has a SLUM LORD of sorts writing off the depreciation of his properties and with the best tax accountants more or less determine what taxes if any he will pay. He could have manipulated the system to pay zero taxes but it would not help him politically so he chose a moderate rate.
Keeping a substantial part of his wealth in off shore
tax shelters means no-one but his barber knows what and how much he has, only what he declares.
Romney’s biggest charitable deduction was to the Mormon church. He paid them with dividend yielding stock warrants which because they were stock transfers, he paid no capital gains got his full charitable tax deduction and the Church if and when they sell the stocks are exempt from all taxes.
That’s how the rich game the system. In America nominal tax rates for individuals and Corporations mean little in fact.
In America Tax Reform is like the weather…..! Anyone who pays the nominal rate is a fool and a sucker or too poor to game the system.
yamit82 Said:
Won’t be many “us” left to care, either.
@ steven l:
Start working on an epatath:
when allah created liberals he established a fifth column that tips the scale
Sampson defense will bring us a tie
@ Bernard Ross:
Greed like compassion has no political affiliation.
How much Reid, Kerry, Biden and Gore have given to the poor? what about the Clinton’s!
Probably Romney has given a lot more than the four or the five together.
Nobody among the vociferous/savage democrats dare to speak-up! The party of the poor!!!!!
How much lady Cutter gives to the poor?
Their leaders fail abysmally! Yet they accuse Romney of tax cheat! FUNNY!
In my last post i stated
the quote should be
Why dont we give them another 50 years?
yamit82 Said:
Also, no one mentions that big business wants immigration so they can create labor competition and keep wages down under the “free” market; which enables them to give no benefits and hire contract workers(oneof the legacies of entrusting big business with the economy). Also, they didnt mention that when, they pushed for the WTO free markets to Asia, without any citizen voting, on the basis of enabling US exports and “cheaper” goods for US consumers,there would costs down the road in lost jobs, US company bankruptcies,capital and asset flight,flight of production, increased prices of agriculture due to foreign purchases in newly rich asia, devaluation of currency and price inflation of resources,etc,etc,. You know all the hidden costs which economists and big business are aware of but just forget to mention when pursuing their own gluttony. (another of the legacies of entrusting big business with the economy). did they forget to mention the coming inflation resulting from US currency devaluation due to no exports(what happened to those exports we were enhancing)? How will america get foreign currency to pay for the increases in prices for all those purchases bought from asia? Probably selling food and driving up local prices. How does all this impact security: even defense materiel is manufactured in asia. Do people really think that the reps of big business interests have the US in its heart? As much as I am for free enterprise and dont want govt control I cannot see any other way that the unbelievable excesses of big business over the last decades can be controlled. Big businesses plan for america is exactly what we have now!!! Did anyone wonder why there is free and compulsory education for 110 years but not medical Perhaps those businesses wanted the taxpayer to pay for training their workers, you know, spread the costs. At every step of the way big business seeks to remove gains and living standards of the population to its own benefit. There would be no medicaree or social security from the republicans, was there ever anything of value which they instituted to the benefit of the majority of the population? Let us not forget that there is no free market with a federal reserve system that sets interest rates that its members then benefit from to the detriment of citizens, didn’t anyone notice the latest scandal over the libor rates???? I am no democrat but the CIA fact book states that most of the gains from the last few decades have gone to the top 20% of households: was the economy run during that period by big business or by govt? Both parties have corrupt politicians serving corrupt business interests. When big business went to USSR in the cold war they did not have to worry about labor problems. The people are being robbed by both parties, big business should not be empowered but should be regulated and taxed to pay back those il gotten gains. If they want to leave then they should be allowed no license to do business in the US. They are not indispensable, when Steve JObs dies he is replaced as anyone other CEO or employee, A society and economy need not be paying billions in salaries and corruption costs to a greedy few. In the case of the various wars and connections to govts they are an existential danger. And no one should use these words to infer any endorsement of the democrats or Obama. We are in deep doo doo from all these crooks not from regulating big business.
Who commands “EVOLUTION”? We are a byproduct, not the master, although we are excessively homocentric!
2 in a row in moderation that is for me a first TED.
@ Bernard Ross:
Burger flipping and the Romney flagship success< (STAPLES) which created hundreds and or thousands on minimum wage paying jobs stocking shelves. Nobody mentions the small local stationary and hardware stores these chains put out of business and the thousands od their employees many if not most were earning above minimum wages.
Americans should first and foremost support their local and community businesses and stop shopping unless there is no choice from the chains. The chain concept is UN-American anti capitalistic because it limits real competition and are quasi monopolies.
@ Bernard Ross:
Most politicians talk about debt in term of reducing entitlements and government waste and corruption but few except maybe Ron Paul speaks about the cost direct and indirect to Americas wars since 2001
Here is a count of direct costs but when adding indirect costs the amt goes up almost 50%
Romney says he wants to increase the defense budget, which today is larger than the rest of the combined world military budgets, even higher?
Today I don’t believe Islam is a direct existential military threat to the United States or anyone else except maybe Israel. They are a soft ideological threat but not a military one.
Communism was the bogeyman after WWll and after the fall of the USSR was replaced as Islamic Terror or just plain anonymous terror which for American elites and policy makers is even better. The American Military/ Industrial Complex need A Bogeyman to maintain high volume of production and mega profits. Low intensity never ending conflicts is their preferred choice. Wall st. demands and requires such conflicts so American politicians who are owned by same comply.
The only party keeping the ME on burning tinder is America. Peace might have broken out between Israel and the Arabs long ago if America had embargoed her weapons sales to everyone in the ME including Israel. And forced the Europeans and Russia and China to do likewise.
Israel can produce enough quality weapons for her needs, the Arabs can’t. When those same weapons producers ( USA, Russia< Leading EU countries and China) speak of Orwellian Peace in the ME they are speaking of war and continuous conflict, because it serves their economic interests; peace would be disastrous for them especially the leading producer and purveyor of weapons the USA.
yamit82 Said:
as I have been saying they have transferred JObs, capital and production to Asia
big business that is. and they are saying they are going to create jobs, in what industry?? burger flipping is what they left for the middle class and down. Meanwhile they have the ignorant voters arguing about medicare and welfare as if that caused the problem. Corruption robbed the people and left the debt so that it is now a problem to pay for the basics. They dont even care about the US consumption to drive their engines as they are priming the biggest consumption engines in Asia that they are raising up. The new company store is asia so america will be small potatoes tomorrow. Those who think that big business will give a damn about them will keep being disappointed. They bankrupted the economy and left the negro holding the bag. What better sucker to keep the poor pacified.
@ Bernard Ross:
If it was a Russian made drone sold to Iran and given to Hezbollah it could be an Israel drone we sold to Russia or a reversed engineered copy of our own. That said, as I stated we are vulnerable and ignore the IDF spin.
Israeli planes trigger sonic booms over Lebanon in possible response to drone dispatch
Hezbollah silent on claims it sent the unmanned aircraft downed over Israel on Saturday
moishe Said:
Food for thought
@ steven l:
I think you should concern yourselves more with how many non Jews vote for him than the Jews. There aren’t enough Jews going to vote to effect the election outcome. If he wins it won’t be due to the Jews but to those savvy gentiles who vote like they root for pop idols and sports teams.
Matter of fact the American electoral process reminds me of a sporting contest like the Superbowl or world series.
It’s a very superficial process aimed at a very superficial voting public.
When I hear analytic opinions over the demeanor of a candidate and whether he LOOKED and spoke presidential and whether one looked the other directly in the eye I know that the game is not only rigged but is quite stupid.
This subject never made it into the primary debates or the Presidential debates. Then it;s serious stuff out of bounds in American politics.
@ yamit82:
The only little people who are not there, IS YOU. YOU HAVE NEVER EVER BEEN ALL THERE ! AND PROBABLY YOU WILL NEVER BE ALL THERE. A LOST CAUSE.
yamit82 Said:
as far as I am concerned I would not risk my sons life for an entire arab city, my view is either surrender or be bombed to cinders, not one life of my own to risk in order to save enemy civlians. The same for the terrorist villages in Israel. After all the bombing can accomplish no more then the ground troops. If a war is to be fought then let it be the enemy doing all the dying.
yamit82 Said:
But I have heard they expect more ground troops to fight in civilian areas where the enemy bases are located. My own view is to destroy the village before risking lives, I do not believe in limited and restrained war. These end with some dying while others languish on wall street.
By the way, on another subject, they dont even know who sent that drone do they, if it were a chemical attack who would they retaliate against(I say everyone who is a suspect)?
@ steven l:
I think you should concern yourselves more with how many non Jews vote for him than the Jews. There aren’t enough Jews going to vote to effect the election outcome. If he wins it won’t be due to the Jews but to those savvy gentiles who vote like they root for pop idols and sports teams.
Matter of fact the American electoral process reminds me of a sporting contest like the Superbowl or world series.
It’s a very superficial process aimed at a very superficial voting public.
When I hear analytic opinions over the demeaned of a candidate and whether he LOOKED and spoke presidential and whether one looked the other directly in the eye I know that the game is not only rigged but is quite stupid.
This subject http://ampedstatus.org/the-wall-street-pentagon-papers-biggest-scam-in-world-history-exposed-are-the-federal-reserves-crimes-too-big-to-comprehend/ never made it into the primary debates or the Presidential debates. Then it;s serious stuff out of bounds in American politics.
@ moishe:
Don’t know who to worry about more the Arabs or you.
Seen any little men who weren’t there Lately?