tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post4697207712118073555..comments2024-03-29T05:29:57.536-04:00Comments on The DiploMad 2.0: Bibi Defies Obama, Refuses to Go AwayDiploMadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02316439950882822419noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-53982579424746435002015-03-22T22:12:59.737-04:002015-03-22T22:12:59.737-04:00Another good piece on Obama's strategy. >
...Another good piece on <a href="http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2015/02/obamas-secret-iran-strategy/" rel="nofollow"> Obama's strategy. ></a><br /><br />Troubling doesn't cover it.Michael Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18127450762129879267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-8631855997061188422015-03-21T11:30:01.137-04:002015-03-21T11:30:01.137-04:00There is a nice biography of the Iranian president...There is a nice biography of the Iranian president at <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/man-and-myth_796083.html?nopager=1#" rel="nofollow">Weekly Standard.</a><br /><br />It shows how foolish and shallow the Obama people are but you knew that.Michael Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18127450762129879267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-46480526182268829612015-03-21T06:23:51.340-04:002015-03-21T06:23:51.340-04:00"Once, when in Taiwan, I was in a restaurant ..."Once, when in Taiwan, I was in a restaurant and overheard a conversation a couple of tables away (odd acoustics in the place, for the other party was not overly loud). A man jocularly suggested [in Mandarin] that the Taiwanese should seize a bunch of American hostages, stick them in a safe place, treat them decently, then surrender as soon as the US Navy approached: "Then they'd be stuck with us." "<br />I wonder if they had seen "The Mouse that Roared". O and his boys will everything in his power to mess with Israel now, It's like they are a bunch of high school girls punishing some poor girl who had transgressed the groups "coolness". Sometimes I wonder if all the things O and his crowd have done including the Iran agreement if it ever happens will as so much dust that just blows away in the winds of history.<br />James the LesserJameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13642228725661059539noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-38020387544014266182015-03-20T22:44:30.282-04:002015-03-20T22:44:30.282-04:00Hillary Clinton says "We have a Fun Deficit i...Hillary Clinton says "We have a Fun Deficit in America."<br /><br />http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-03-19/hillary-clinton-let-s-go-camping<br /><br />And yet, and yet ...<br /><br />http://20committee.com/2014/11/17/lingering-okbomb-questions/<br /><br />ArkieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-57559712718100069932015-03-20T18:17:42.812-04:002015-03-20T18:17:42.812-04:00Well the opposition has a kindergarten style candi...Well the opposition has a kindergarten style candidate there, so it would fit right in.<br /><br />GrahamAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-50085515854247906682015-03-20T13:42:13.707-04:002015-03-20T13:42:13.707-04:00Hate to say it, but perhaps Netanyahu should'v...Hate to say it, but perhaps Netanyahu should've thrown the election.<br />Hear me out.<br />Obama doesn't like to appear 'uninclusive', and I'm sure it pains him that Israel wont 'just' accept Iran as a nuclear armed state.<br />That said, if Israel had a change in leadership, it *might* distract Obamites into a delay to 2017 on this nuclear suicide rush. At that point, hopefully a new potus who takes foreign policy seriously could look at the issue.<br /><br />- reader #1482Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-84879574137119719602015-03-20T13:27:59.835-04:002015-03-20T13:27:59.835-04:00I read somewhere that the Obama election machine i...I read somewhere that the Obama election machine is hard at work in Canada trying to unseat Harper and Co.<br /><br />DavodAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-89052541378865297732015-03-20T09:45:31.048-04:002015-03-20T09:45:31.048-04:00Kepha, right now, I wonder why anyone would want t...Kepha, right now, I wonder why anyone would want to join the USA for any reason. I see where our best allies and friends just delivered a humiliating diplomatic smack down to our Dear Leader over the AIIB which has been established by China as a direct challenge to American monetary dominance. The Obama Adm. fought this alliance with everything it could muster. Thirty some countries told Obama to go pound sand. Who can blame them. whitewallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03469746790747742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-38911287541076438372015-03-19T21:33:36.771-04:002015-03-19T21:33:36.771-04:00@Whitewall: I've also heard Taiwanese wistful...@Whitewall: I've also heard Taiwanese wistfully talking about becoming a US state. But I don't think it will happen, and much as I like and respect both Taiwan and Israel, I wouldn't support such a move. I even taught English in Taiwan long enough (and started my family there) that at one point, I went in to renew my residence permit and the officer on duty officially informed me that if I so chose, I had the right to apply for Republic of China citizenship.<br /><br />Frankly, I'd be a little queasy about admitting more states even if Canada, Mexico, and Central America (if the latter two could get their collective acts together) came knocking on our doors. Maybe if Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands sought statehood, I'd be OK with it, but those people have already been citizens for a while. <br /><br />I basically feel that a world full of actual nation-states that are both patriotic about themselves and respectful towards others is both possible and desirable. Such a world may even have a more free exchange of people for either temporary work/residence or immigration. But I'm an out-and-out skeptic towards too large a supranational entity; even if it is my own country. People being what they are, too much power does indeed corrupt.<br /><br />Once, when in Taiwan, I was in a restaurant and overheard a conversation a couple of tables away (odd acoustics in the place, for the other party was not overly loud). A man jocularly suggested [in Mandarin] that the Taiwanese should seize a bunch of American hostages, stick them in a safe place, treat them decently, then surrender as soon as the US Navy approached: "Then they'd be stuck with us." <br /><br />Kephahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00999385775493831638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-42366806853955108382015-03-19T21:11:52.857-04:002015-03-19T21:11:52.857-04:00Michael, I don't wish further economic misery ...Michael, I don't wish further economic misery on my countrymen--much as my low opinion of our current POTUS and his likely becankled successor are known around here. <br /><br />As for anti-Semtism among blacks, my own uncle (alov hasholom--I am Jewish on the paternal side; mostly Scandinavian on the maternal) ran into it while a NYC high school vice principal back in the Silly 'Sixties and the beginning of the Sillier 'Seventies. After the ideological and emotional investment he'd made in the Civil Rights movement and the education of his charges (mostly black and Hispanic), it broke his heart. <br /><br />I, however, will note that I've also seen among blacks a kind of respect and appreciation for the Jews, too.<br /><br />My read on the O's hostility to Israel is not so much old-fashioned anti-Semitism ("the Jews are Christ-killers!"; "They're an intrusive, alien people from Asia!"), but part of the Leftist, anti-colonialist paradigm with which he was raised. He's fine with Leftist Jews and those lukewarm attitude towards Zionism, I suspect; but when he looks at Israel, he sees intruders from white Europe imposing themselves on a noble, pacific, non-Western people at a time when sensible white Europeans were abandoning colonialism as fast ad they Winds of Change could blow--and that the Israeli majority is made up of Mizrahim who, in numerous cases, arrived in Israel as destitute as those Falastin Arabs who fled Al-Nakhbar in 1947 arrived in Jordan or Syria, simply doesn't register with the O. That part of the Israeli story isn't part of the anti-colonialist, Left-wing narrative. Besides, the Israelis made the fatal Cold War mistake of ending up on the bad side of the Soviet Union as well. Last of all, Uncle Kepha frankly suspects that the O isn't able to think outside the memes and paradigms he's received.<br /><br />Kephahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00999385775493831638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-16942984043377157252015-03-19T20:57:41.009-04:002015-03-19T20:57:41.009-04:00The O will not forgive Bibi for winning the electi...The O will not forgive Bibi for winning the election, and do whatever nastiness he can over Netanyahu's saying to his Israeli constituency by saying that a Falastin Arab state cannot be. To people like the O, the cause of the Falastinian Arabs is the cause of all peoples colonized by evil, white Western intruders, among whom are numbered the Israelis.<br /><br />Further, an Israeli-Falastin Arab peace is the holy grail of American diplomacy. It is probably not attainable--at least not until the both sides between the Yarden and the Med figure out they may have some important common interests besides mutual destruction--but every American statesman, politician, or political cone officer in the Foreign Service probably dreams that one day he will be the broker of such a deal. Bibi Netanyahu gets in the way because he is probably too realistic about the Falastin Arabs (perhaps because so many Mizrahim, who remember what it was to be Dhimmi, voted for him/), too committed in the hard-headed sense to his own side and people, and has too much of that East-of-the-Vistula, your-real-friend-will-argue-with-you mentality for post-modern Washingtonians to stomach. <br /><br />Granted, my time with State was short and inglorious. However, from more senior colleagues who had served in their country, I got the sense that Israelis were not all that popular in the Foreign Service community. Some former fellow [Christian] seminarians I've kept in touch with who had gone to Israel for study tours have communicated with me a frank admiration for what they read as Netanyahu's "Israeli forthrightness", so I put the two and two together and suspect that, rather than actual anti-Semitism, lay behind my former State colleagues' dislike of the Israelis.Kephahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00999385775493831638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-17280234878593950582015-03-19T18:19:19.293-04:002015-03-19T18:19:19.293-04:00One small hope I have is that the massive stock ma...One small hope I have is that the massive stock market bubble that is building as we speak will pop before Obama can do anything really destructive. Clinton was able to get out of town just as the internet bubble popped and 9/11 came in response to his neglect of defense.<br /><br /> I suspect Obama may see a similar fate but wants to stick it to the Jews before he leaves town. I learned about anti-Semitism from my black nursemaid as a small boy. She was a wonderful woman but hated Jews like LA blacks hate Koreans. I think it is jealousy of the small businessmen and women who sell them things they cannot buy from other blacks. That is things other than dope and guns.Michael Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18127450762129879267noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-4521818737982511942015-03-19T18:07:25.287-04:002015-03-19T18:07:25.287-04:00Dip,
I have a serious question. It appears clear ...Dip,<br />I have a serious question. It appears clear that Obama will not just abandon Israel, but throw Israel under the bus and embrace Iran.<br />Yes, I believe this fully.<br />So, how do we as citizens impact Washington, D.C. I am running out of ideas and do not want the inevitable.....that being our country doesn't just abandon Israel, but in worst circumstance....shoots down Israeli jets, IF they have to move forward to prevent another Holocaust.<br />I lived in Germany a long time ago. I was taken by a German woman I tutored in English, who as she came to know me.....laid, what seems now like prophecy, at my feet, when she explained how Germany came to fall under Hitler's spell and then.....Frau Gunn, any country could become what Germany became.<br />Watching this our country betray Israel, took me back to visiting Camps in Germany and how that woman long ago, told me to watch out for AMERICA.<br />Any ideas of how to affect the minds in D.C. and to show forth support for Israel, as the rest falls apart..????<br /><br />East Texas RancherAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-59609973522534790492015-03-19T13:47:24.089-04:002015-03-19T13:47:24.089-04:00Add in Judea and Samaria without any conditions as...Add in Judea and Samaria without any conditions as to who owns what.whitewallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03469746790747742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-52054259749921538492015-03-19T13:33:30.269-04:002015-03-19T13:33:30.269-04:00I have a solution for solidifying Israel's sec... I have a solution for solidifying Israel's security. We get the citizens of that country to vote to make themselves our 51st state, since many of them already have dual US citizenship. After that, the 51 states elect Bibi as their president.<br /> Once the State of Israel becomes part of our union, any attack by an imposter like Obama would be equivalent to an attack against Wyoming, or New Jersey, or Arizona.<br /> Further, the Union then takes back all the real estate that Israel had to give up, such as Sinai and Gaza, paid for in Israeli blood, followed by deporting all the Arabs back to their countries of origin--primarily Jordan and Egypt.<br /> That's kind of how we got Hawaii and Alaska to join the fold, isn't it?<br /><br /><br />Jim CarlsonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-86886771726437804742015-03-19T09:41:36.842-04:002015-03-19T09:41:36.842-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.Fhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06981706601001285694noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-85010598693401347092015-03-18T22:37:42.761-04:002015-03-18T22:37:42.761-04:00Beware of the revenge of the narcicist in chief.Beware of the revenge of the narcicist in chief.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-63587032285937709592015-03-18T18:18:27.475-04:002015-03-18T18:18:27.475-04:00Ah, how easy foreign policy would be, were it not ...Ah, how easy foreign policy would be, were it not for all the foreigners with whom it must deal!Kephahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00999385775493831638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-57922672206411482432015-03-18T17:13:07.738-04:002015-03-18T17:13:07.738-04:00Thanks commenters, finally, something important I ...Thanks commenters, finally, something important I had missed that explains the why and how long, with terrible implications, and FYI according to wiki, It is also now known as VAJA, and previously as VEVAK . Persian, or Farci, the letters stand for. Works in with my theories, until better knowledge comes along also.<br />JackAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-3217607744903419242015-03-18T17:03:17.152-04:002015-03-18T17:03:17.152-04:00The Times hasn't been this angry since Bush v ...The Times hasn't been this angry since Bush v Gore or even when the USSR imploded.whitewallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03469746790747742992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-34493114224853781762015-03-18T15:29:23.042-04:002015-03-18T15:29:23.042-04:00In this case the bogus pre-election story has been...In this case the bogus pre-election story has been followed by the bogus post-election story. <br /><br />The Left can never lose honestly. If they ever lost honestly they might have to reexamine their ideas, and that's impossible.nschttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18072214195214820672noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-90509420612733688102015-03-18T15:11:15.211-04:002015-03-18T15:11:15.211-04:00There is a column in the NYT that calls Bibi's...There is a column in the NYT that calls Bibi's win sordid, shameful and divisive. The author was looking in the mirror at the time. Projection.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-70036749595032232402015-03-18T13:53:19.828-04:002015-03-18T13:53:19.828-04:00Bibi wins. obama loses yet again. obama is a feckl...Bibi wins. obama loses yet again. obama is a feckless fool to be sure. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-53585649511913126372015-03-18T12:15:37.259-04:002015-03-18T12:15:37.259-04:00I don't believe the narrative that is being pu...I don't believe the narrative that is being put out now about Bibi turning hard right and unexpectedly winning. This would not be the first time the MSM put out a bogus pre election story--Bibi's way behind-- hoping to throw an election by keeping despondent voters at home figuring why vote, our guy has lost. This election wasn't even close by standards despite busing efforts by Obama's team. <br /><br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1400985529434569506.post-55755389058458674282015-03-18T10:24:22.322-04:002015-03-18T10:24:22.322-04:00Ken & Paul. Don't you mean VEVAK?Ken & Paul. Don't you mean VEVAK?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com