Exclusive: Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson urged the United States to coerce Iran by dropping a demonstration nuke in the desert followed by a blackmail threat that the next one would obliterate Tehran. But this idea of genocide-extortion has drawn no official U.S. condemnation, says Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
When the largest donor to Republican political organizations urges the U.S. military to detonate a nuclear bomb in an Iranian desert with the explicit warning that “the next one is in the middle of Tehran,” you might expect that major American political figures and large U.S. media outlets would strongly denounce such genocidal blackmail.
After all, Tehran has a population of more than eight million people with millions more living in the suburbs. So, this threat to exterminate Tehran’s inhabitants from casino mogul Sheldon Adelson would be comparable to someone nuking an empty space in the United States as a warning that if Americans didn’t capitulate to some demand, a nuclear bomb would be dropped on New York City, the site of Adelson’s ugly threat.
Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson.
The fact that the scattered outrage over Adelson’s remarks on Oct. 22 was mostly limited to the Internet and included no denunciations from prominent U.S. politicians, including leading Republicans who have benefited from Adelson’s largesse, suggests that many Muslims and especially Iranians are right to suspect that they are the object of obscene prejudice in some American power circles.
Indeed, HuffingtonPost published a vociferous defense of Adelson’s comments by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who organized the event at Yeshiva University where Adelson spoke. Boteach, who has been hailed as the “most famous Rabbi in America,” treated Adelson’s nuke threat as innocent hyperbole only underscoring how aggressively the world should treat Iran.
Instead of apologizing for letting Adelson go unchallenged as he mused about murdering millions of Iranians, Boteach expressed outrage over the few expressions of outrage about Adelson’s plan.
“I found the reaction to his statement illuminating as to the double standards that are often employed on matters relating to Israel,” wrote Boteach, who then reprised the infamous false translation of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad supposedly saying “that Israel must be wiped off the map.”
Boteach then added to the false quote the assumption that if Israel ceased to exist as a Jewish state, that would require “the murder of the six million Jews who live there [as] the precondition of such erasure.” However, there is the other possibility that Israel/Palestine could become like the United States, a country that has no official religion but that respects all religions.
To lay out only the two extremes that Israel must be officially a Jewish state (with non-Jews made second-class citizens or stateless people) as one option and the other that all the Jews must be murdered invites either apartheid or genocide.
Boteach also misrepresented recent comments by Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei about destroying Tel Aviv and Haifa. The rabbi left out the context of Khamenei’s remark: the threat was predicated on Israel having first militarily attacked Iran. In other words, Khamenei was saying that if Israel destroyed Iranian cities, Iran had the right to retaliate against Israeli cities.
Israel’s Rogue Nuke Arsenal
But one thing that Iran has never threatened to do is to drop a nuclear bomb on Israel. First, Iran doesn’t have a nuclear bomb; has foresworn any interest in building one; has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty allowing in inspectors; and has offered to accept even more intrusive inspections in exchange for removal of economic sanctions.
By contrast, Israel possesses one of the world’s most sophisticated nuclear arsenals, albeit one that is undeclared and existing outside international inspections since Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I’ve also been told that Israel’s military contingency plan for possibly attacking Iran’s hardened nuclear sites includes use of low-yield nuclear weapons.
So, loose talk from a prominent American Zionist about the value of the United States launching a ballistic nuclear strike from Nebraska targeting an Iranian desert with the explicit follow-up threat that the next nuke would obliterate Iran’s capital could be read by the Iranians as a real possibility, especially considering Adelson’s close ties to prominent Republicans.
The fact that such a discussion was held in New York City with no meaningful repercussions for Adelson could be read further as a message to Iran that it might well need a nuclear deterrence to protect itself from such terroristic blackmail.
Boteach’s HuffingtonPost commentary also focused only on the part of Adelson’s remark about dropping a nuclear bomb in an unpopulated area of Iran, where only “a couple of rattlesnakes, and scorpions, or whatever” would be killed.
Treating the idea like some kind of humanitarian gesture, not a genocidal extortion threat, Boteach wrote, “Sheldon’s glib comments about nuking rattle snakes seemed to rattle many of the bloggers who were at our event even more than Ahmadinejad’s threats.”
But what made Adelson’s remark even more stunning than his idea of a demonstration nuclear attack in the desert was the follow-up warning: “Then you say, ‘See! The next one is in the middle of Tehran. So, we mean business. You want to be wiped out? Go ahead and take a tough position and continue with your nuclear development.”
At that point, the audience at Yeshiva University interrupted Adelson with applause.
The obvious problem with this kind of blackmail threat, of course, is that it requires the extortionist to follow through if the other side doesn’t capitulate. To be credible, you have to back up the warning “you want to be wiped out?” by actually wiping the other side out.
Republican Influence
If Adelson were simply an eccentric old billionaire spouting threats of genocide at some university forum in New York City, that would be bad enough. But Adelson is an important behind-the-scenes figure in the Republican Party.
Nearly singlehandedly, Adelson kept afloat the 2012 presidential campaign of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then threw his vast financial resources behind the Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who accompanied Adelson on a high-profile trip to Israel that was designed to highlight tensions between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Romney’s warm reception in Israel was seen as effectively an endorsement of his candidacy by Netanyahu, who has rattled many of his own military sabers at Iran. While in Israel, Romney delivered a belligerent speech suggesting that he, as U.S. president, would happily support an Israeli war against Iran.
Romney told an audience of Israelis and some wealthy pro-Israel Americans that he is prepared to employ “any and all measures” to stop Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons “capability,” a vague concept that arguably already exists.
Romney’s speech in Jerusalem was accompanied by a comment from his top foreign policy adviser Dan Senor seeming to endorse an Israeli unilateral strike against Iran. “If Israel has to take action on its own,” Senor said, “the governor would respect that decision.”
Romney said, “today, the regime in Iran is five years closer to developing nuclear weapons capability. Preventing that outcome must be our highest national security priority. We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option. We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability.
“We should employ any and all measures to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so. In the final analysis, of course, no option should be excluded.”
By elevating Iran’s achievement of a nuclear weapons “capability” to America’s “highest national security priority” and vowing to “employ any and all measures” to prevent that eventuality, Romney was essentially threatening war against Iran under the current circumstances. In that, he went beyond the vague language used by President Obama, who himself has sounded belligerent with his phrasing about “all options on the table” to stop Iran if it moves to build a nuclear weapon.
However, the nuance was significant, since U.S. intelligence agencies and even their Israeli counterparts have concluded that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon even as it makes progress in a nuclear program that Iranian leaders say is for peaceful purposes only. Still, those lessons from a peaceful nuclear program arguably can give a country a nuclear weapons “capability.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “US/Israel: Iran NOT Building Nukes.”]
Though Romney lost the 2012 election, his point of view is common among pro-Israel hawks in Congress and throughout Official Washington’s think-tank and media communities. Adelson also wields real influence because he, along with his wife Miriam, has poured a fortune into the U.S. political process, calculated at $92.8 million to outside political groups during the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
And, it is his kind of crazy talk, not uncommon among extreme Zionists, that makes any political settlement of the Middle East disputes next to impossible.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his new book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). For a limited time, you also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Remember the Holocaust!!
hammersmith:
And what does that exhortation have to do with Iran?
Are Iranian leaders sending the Iranian army into neighboring countries to round up and kill Jews? No.
Has the Iranian leadership threatened to destroy Israel? No.
I don’t think people are forgetting the holocaust here. That’s not what expressing disgust with Adelson is about.
This man is not an evil man.He is a passionate meat and potatoe Jew, who simply is too emotional and not informed.He comes from an old paradigm of racismin combination with impulsive, unenlightened actions.Being as wealthy as he is, he simply needs to rethink his goals in life: does he want to contribute to an emotional, uninformed continuation of hatred and war or not.Does he need WAR as a business opportunity? I doubt it.He needs to be approached by another passionate meat and potatoe Jew (so he feels comfortable) and have a serious conversation about the possibility to make a lot of money without using nukes and military arsenal as foundation of business.Once this man is correctly informed, he will change his ways.It really is a problem to be a Casino mogul, because these people are not willing or have no time to study too much. Neither history nor international intelligence (including Israeli intelligence)nor anything else.They watch mainstream TV, strippers, movies and go gamble.He doesn’t look like a Eugenicist to me though…he is a simpleminded jolly fellow, who got lucky in business (God bless his heart…I respect successful people) but somehow got stuck in an outdated paradigm of simplified history …………I see through him….he needs to meet the right people…then he will understand that there are better activities and investments than war….and the people of the world will thank him.
Sounds like the same excuse lots of people made for National Socialists. Hannah Arendt called it “the banality of evil” when she chronicled Adolf Eichmann as just a cog in the bureaucratic machine. Hannah was widely criticized and ostracized by Adelson’s generation. Now they expect to be forgiven for that same banality?
oh I live in Qom near Tehran.In that way I wold be killed.
Many influential people share in Adelson’s fears regarding Iran. The underlying causes are military, political and financial. Here’s a very small list possible causes for their war mongering mantras: Apparently, Israel’s “Iron Dome” will not prevent penetration by Iran’s latest long range rockets and even if they could not, there’s talk about a high altitude nuclear detonation, circumventing the iron dome, causing EMP or electromagnetic pulse to blanket and fry all the electronics through out tiny Israel. Secondly and more obviously, the theocratic leaders did not extend an invitation to our secret service to train praetorian guards responsible for protecting high echelon mullahs. This so called training is in reality a tactic, that can manipulated by “deep state” actors to assassinate heads of state via known security vulnerabilities when they are in public. It’s a handy tool should some sudden emergency arise that requires “executive action” Examples; JFK, RFK, Yitzhak Rabin and many others. However their Mullahs didn’t fall for this one, not even through the ageis of one of our confederates. And then there’s the Iranian bourse problem, trading in currencies other than those found within banking cartels who use the USD and similar monetary exchanges, electronic or otherwise, by Western Occident nations. Other dangling issues are running in the background, such as the Tamar gas field on Israel’s coast situated along the eastern Mediterranean Sea. It will, in long term economics, collide head-on with the Iranian pipeline plan scheduled to run through Iraq, Syria and end in Lebanon for export to Italy or anyone along the way who wants it. Quite a competitor for Israel because of Iran’s vast gas reserves and technological know-how to construct and maintain it. Lastly, economic sanctions have been gradually eroded by NIORDC, a corporate entity within Iran that now refines it’s own gasoline from domestic oil and this has greatly reduced the need for importing it. The Adelson crowd is just going to have to get along with their economic, political rivals and competitors and get around to formally negotiating out each of these fear generating issues. No middle east actor (exception, Pakistan) is unstable enough to use the nuclear option. There are too many environmental, retaliatory (military) consequences to using this weapon, even if Iran had two hundred nukes, it all just speaks to that somehow forgotten or deliberately omitted acronym, MAD.
elmerfudzie:
It’s kind of insulting that you go along with “Iran wants to attack Israel” meme. Starting with that rockets claim.
The rockets were mentioned only as an example of fear mongering and described as weapons that may be used during times of crisis. The military on both sides of any potential conflict, size up their potential opponents, consequences of battlefield engagement and their most threatening armaments. No insult intended.
Robert, do you remember the calls in Washington to Nuke Makah Saudi Arabia in 2002.3 & 4??
Have you objected to those calls back then??
No!
Noweizer:
Just for my memory and documentation who made those calls in DC, 8 or 9 years ago?
In other words provide exact sourcing.
And you do realize that all sorts of crazy generals (eg LeMay) and Ronny Reagan all advocated: “nuke, this that and the other to solve the problem”.
Noweizer:
Just for my memory and documentation who made those calls in DC, 8 or 9 years ago?
In other words provide exact sourcing.
And you do realize that all sorts of crazy generals (eg LeMay) and Ronny Reagan all advocated: “nuke, this that and the other to solve the problem”.
And it’s not as if Robert Parry is some crazed right wing blogger who defends the idea of nuking the enemy du jour, or defends those who advocate such action against any other party.
In early 1982 didn’t Al Haig propose the idea of the US setting of a nuclear weapon in continental Europe to show resolve, or whatever, to the Soviets?
Even Haig didn’t then propose, at least publicly, the crime Adelson advocates. Just saying there’s a long history of this crap.
Israeli officials have spoken of creating an ethnically pure Jewish state. No matter how appealing the bright white and red roofed dwellings, that still sounds like a ghetto to me. Establishing such a state would require genocide. They appear to have rewritten the Golden Rule as “Do unto others as you have been done to.”
To add to that thought, and ethnically pure Jewish state will never happen because the various factions in Israel fight each other over who is a real Jew. There are some massive differences between some of those factions and they are all but hopelessly absolute about it. A reason to detest religion.
I was brought up Roman Catholic and of course learned that we were the one, the only one true religion and only we were going to heaven because we were baptized as Roman Catholic. We were special and everyone else was wrong.
Much later I found out there were other Catholics (non-Roman authority) and even other rites within the Roman Catholic church including the Eastern Rite where priests can marry. I remember when the rule about fish on fridays was up to each bishop in their diocese. I think I was in junior high. So north of the Platte River we could eat and be sinless and south (another diocese) it was still a sin. Or was that the reverse. So. yah gotta confess, beg forgiveness and do penance. Lucky I was the oddball who liked tuna salad sandwiches.
Anyway, cripes!
(Side note: if someone used the wrong words for your baptism you would wind up in purgatory (another change-the-goalpost argument invention) – assuming you were otherwise “good” – until the end and the return of the “savior.” – as if you had control over that too, along with that original sin thing)
Nothing to do with religion yet everything to do with the Talmud which a bunch of Pharisees dreamt up. Didn’t Christ rail against this crowd which eventually pulled strings behind the scenes to force Pilate, a politician, crucify him? Of course they now deny they had any hand in this. Sounds like they are at it again except this time on Capitol hill.
Nobody has mentioned the fact that “legal” nuclear powers ever since MAD (mutually assured destruction) are forbidden to nuke any non-nuclear countries by their own agreement, until WBush let it be known he did not support this part of the NPT. All the pretence of Iran not keeping to international norms when the USA is the main danger because of its 5000 nukes and threats to even consider using them, mock any hope of negotiations in good faith. Adelson has cash but no brain, and his words show his stupidity, but it is very dangerous just the same. Any observer can see Israel is the main problem, but the US “leaders” pretend otherwise.
HEE-BEE-JEE-BIES BIBI NETANYAHU AND THE ZOMBIE CASINO COCKROACH $HELDON ADEL$EN HAVE ENOUGH CHUTZPAH AND GELT TO $UCK THE AIPAC BRIBE-$WALLOWING CONGRE$$IONAL WHOREHOU$E TO CRAWL AROUND NAKED WITH DILDO$ IN$ERTED $INGING THE I$RAELI NATIONAL ANTHEM. THE$E BIG MOUTH BELLICO$E BA$TURD$ AND THE U$ HOU$E BROTHEL THEY HAVE PURCHA$ED WITH U$ FOREIGN AID TO I$RAEL AT $8 MILLION PER DAY EVEN THOUGH I$RAEL IS –OR $HOULD BE –ENJOYING THEIR ECONOMIC BOOM FROM DI$COVERED PALE$TINIAN OIL AND I$RAEL’$ $OFTWARE EXPORT$ EVEN THOUGH AMERICAN $CHOOL-CHILDREN ARE NOT ABLE TO GET A FULL DAY OF $CHOOLING FOR LACK OF WHAT THE U$A I$ FORCED TO $END TO I$RAEL EVERY $INGLE DAY FOR THE NEXT THOU$AND YEAR$!!! WHY ARE THO$E WHO MADE THE DE$ERT BLOOM $O INCAPABLE OF NEEDING AMERICAN MONEY FOR THEIR EXCELLENT UNIVER$AL HEALTH CARE THAT AMERICA AND AMERICAN TAX-PAYER$ CANNOT AL$O AFFORD???????? $HELDEN ADEL$EN WA$ BEING INVE$TIGATED FOR WHITE COLLAR CRIME$ WHEN HE PURCHA$ED THE UGLY BODY AND HEARTLE$$ $OUL OF $LOB BROTHER NEWT GINGRICH TO HOPEFULLY BUY OFF THE US GOVERNMENT’S INVE$TIGATION OF ADEL$EN WHO$E BIG MOUTH RANT$ FOR WORLD WAR 3 MAKE HIM AN UNDE$IRABLE AMERICAN CITIZEN–IN NAME ONLY BECAU$E HI$ PATRIOTI$M IS BULL$HIT. THIS LUNATIC AND HIS HEE-BEE-JEE-BIE BIBI $OUL BROTHER ARE AMERICA’S WOR$T PUBLIC ENEMIE$ EQUIVALENT TO ANY PHALANX OF TERRORI$T$. BIBI’$ EMBRACE OF ROMNEY LA$T ELECTION EVE A$ A $IGNAL TO JEWI$H AMERICAN$ TO VOTE FOR MITT- THE -DREK MADE ME $EE THAT BUNCH FOR WHAT THEY ARE: WHORE$ WHO WILL DO WHATEVER THEY CAN DO TO DRAG AMERICA OVER THEIR BURNING COAL$ AND EXHAU$T THE LA$T AMERICAN $OLDIER $ERVING THEIR $OLIP$I$TIC RACI$T EVIL AGENDA. I AM $O DELIGHTED THAT OBAMA WAS OVERWHELMINGLY RE-ELECTED WITH 70% OF JEWI$H AMERICAN$ VOTING FOR HIM. THE I$RAEL OF TODAY IS LED BY THE SAME BUSHFART HANGOVER -HOLDOVER$, BORN-AGAINER$ AND TEA PARTY $CUM WHO GAVE U$ A GOOD $AMPLE OF THEIR TWI$TED, IMMORAL AND MERCENARY EFFORT$ TO RULE AMERICA’$ WHOREHOU$E CONGRE$$ WHERE MAGGOT$ IN THE NON-$UPREME COURT’$ CITIZEN$ UNITED HAVE BEEN ENCOURAGED TO TELL AMERICA WHAT TO DO AND WHEN WITH THEIR HATRED$ AND THEIR WEALTH FOR EVIL. I YEARN FOR AN AMERICA LED BY TOTALLY AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO$E FIR$T AND FOREMO$T GOAL AND DE$IRE I$ TO FIND PEACE WHERE IT I$ IMPO$$IBLE AND MAKE FRIEND’$ OF OUR ENEMIE$ BECAU$E I BELIEVE THAT A STRANGER OR ENEMY IS ALWAY$ A POTENTIAL FRIEND OR ALLY. UNFORTUNATELY, RICH UN-AMERICAN $CHMUCK$ LIKE ADEL$EN AND CHICKEN-$HIT WARMONGER$ WHO HIDE IN UNDERGROUND BUNKER$ LIKE HEE-BEE-JEE-BIE BIBI NETANYAHU DI$AGREE. THE$E DUDE$ WOULD MAKE ME HAPPY IF THEY WERE CA$TRATED OR GO FOR A FLYING $AUCER RIDE TO ANOTHER PLANET –IN THE WORDS OF AN OLD ROD SERLING TWILIGHT ZONE EPISODE–” TO SERVE MAN!” THE$E LIAR$ ARE NOT HELPFUL TO ANY THING ALIVE ON EARTH!!! THEY ARE TAKER$–NEVER GIVER$!!! THEIR HOU$E ALWAY$ WIN$ IN A LO$ING KIND OF WAY!!!
bor:
If you were being honest you’d examine the claims about Iran and “worldwide support of ‘terrorism’â€â€“the events in Argentina remain highly suspect. And terrorism is usually in the eye of the beholder.
Again: If you were being honest you’d support that 100 million claim about those in the Arab world who’d destroy Israel.
Yet again: Iran has not promised to destroy Israel, nor either is Iran Arab, this latter is a repeated “mistake†by you.
If you were being honest you’d acknowledge the fact that by treaty Iran is allowed to enrich uranium, and has expressed very little interest in acquiring WMDs.
If you were being honest, you’d realize that Iran with a real parliament and universal suffrage is not a medieval theocracy–look a bit to the south.
If you were honest: It’s pretty clear what Israel has indeed threatened in the past–but for legalistic and marketing reasons Israel can’t publicly use the n word.
But you’re not honest.
Borat, That has never been proven especially the Argentina event. And what about the murder of scientists (some not connected to uranium enrichment) in Iran, the murder of a Hamas leader outside Palestine (agents used false passports), the attempted murder of an ex-Israeli intelligence officer in Canada who was speaking out about Israeli embarrassments, the attempted murder of Yassin (agents using false passports) a member of Hamas to whom Israel allowed to move into the occupied territories with permits to collect funds so as to undermine Arafat (eventually succeeded in killing Yassin), and on and on. One man’s so called defence, another man’s terrorism.
And you very neatly keep talking about countries because Palestinians never lived in a defined country (before WWI under Ottoman rule), just to negate what Geneva really means, a people living on the land. Most Jews have no ties to Israel but are of European stock or from the area where Europe meets Asia. Others are converts from north Africa and other regions. Palestinians are more related to the historical Jews than they.
And I would say that terrorism is used in an attempt to force them to act as Israelis (past immigrants) want them to act. Excuse me but when you murder so many Palestinian civilians, Muslim and Christian, it’s very naive to not think that other Muslims and Christians will not react negatively to Israeli policy.
Just consider what I’ve said about one man’s terrorism. And Israeli schools are not teaching about the Nakba. I wonder why !? Just what history are they teaching and why?
This topic gets very emotional as I know many Jews and Palestinians and what they think and have been through.
I got a double negative in a line and it should have read;
“Excuse me but when you murder so many Palestinian civilians, Muslim and Christian, it’s very naive to not think that other Muslims and Christians will react negatively to Israeli policy.”
borat:
There is very little evidence for your claims about Bulgaria and Argentina and you clearly didn’t read my original point about Argentina.
Not having a peace treating does not mean that every citizen wishes destruction up the other party not part of a peace treaty–so very faulty logic there. There is no peace treaty between the US and North Korea, but by your dishonest representation all in the US wish destruction up the people of North Korea.
Right Iran executes people, after conviction, so does the USA. (Do I disagree with the death penalty? Yes. Does Iran execute people for seemingly minor “infractions”? Yes. But then look at the USA.)
You’ll have to do better than just assert that Iran wants to “kill Jews period”–odd there are some Jews in Iran.
Is Iran a liberal democracy, no. But you’ve confused it with Saudi Arabia.
No Zionist is honest. That’s been clear since day one.
“It is about time we internalize the fact that Israel and Zionism are the ultimate Evil with no comparison.”–Gilad Atzmon
Sorry, borat. There is NO evidence of the danger of Iran; Israel constantly threatens and attacks its neighbours and its non-Jewish subject population; is worse than a “medievalist theocracy” because it pretends to be God-chosen; the surrounding Arabs and others have offered a lan of security since 2002 which israel has rejected-the danger is false; French Jews are encouraged by Israel to go an live there, but are hugely influential and powerful in all parties and at all levels in France. Attacks by radical islamists??? not at all.
If the criteria used by the Justice Department to prove conspiracies were applied to Adelson and to those who signaled their agreement with his his vile proposal the whole lot would be in the dock charged with conspiring to commit a war of aggression. At Nuremberg that was a hanging offense.
What this story comes down to is that, given Adelson’s potential ability to buy an election, foreign governments could regard his exercise of free speech as a legitimate reflection of future foreign policy. Coming from a senile old fart, that’s a stretch…except that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision validated exactly that concept. Adelson in fact represents the highest profile foreign policy spokesman in the United States today. He has the money to buy media events, control press coverage and influence voter turnout. Foreign governments will have to take him seriously. He represents the new American paradigm, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court. It’s the new golden rule. He who buys the votes makes the rules.
He wants the US to make war on Iran to save Israel. Is he American or Israeli? Seems as if, like former Sen. Lieberman of Conn. he’s got mixed loyalties. I find that scary. I’m not anti-Semitic but I am leery of Israel and Israel’s supporters having undue influence on US policy.
When the US first got the bomb, generals and pundits were always saying ‘nuke them’ and some wanted nuclear weapons used in Vietnam and other conventional wars. We are the only nation to use nuclear weapons on civilian populations. I don’t care if there is a desert a thousand miles wide or an uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific (word means peaceful), saber rattling like this is insane.
Sen Obama selecting Lieberman to be his mentor should have warned us all of the possible future!!
It disturbs me when threats are made by an obvious anti-muslim that you (and most people)still fear the backlash of speaking against them, and that being considered or labeled anti-semetic. Being anti-Likud or anit-Netanyahu does not equate to being anti-semetic anymore than being anit-BushCheney would have meant a person was anti-American. I appreciated your comment, but just wanted to point out that it seems like it’s high time we get over the fear of that label. It doesn’t work anyway. You can say it until you are blue in the face and still get labeled by extreme right wing paranoid Zionists!