A very interesting, and sobering 30k' view. My ONLY critical comment goes to JHK's synopsis of the Israel/Palestine portion of the forecast, which IMO is far too simplistic and which fails to impose the same standards of morality, natural law, and obvious common sense that infuse the rest of his treatise. It's like for JHK Israel should …
A very interesting, and sobering 30k' view. My ONLY critical comment goes to JHK's synopsis of the Israel/Palestine portion of the forecast, which IMO is far too simplistic and which fails to impose the same standards of morality, natural law, and obvious common sense that infuse the rest of his treatise. It's like for JHK Israel should get 'a pass' and be allowed to continue to operate in the US taxpayer dollar paradise it's been living in for the last 70 years, with no changes (because obviously 'it's perfect as it is'). However, as the single most aggressive, destabilizing and destructive country in the ME, that just isn't a status Israel deserves by any metric other than per Zionist absolutism, and as a result Israel should be forced to stop relying on legalized US technology theft, outright American monetary, military AND armaments handouts, as well as almost total control of the US Congress and the sympathies of (apparently) the entire incoming executive branch. I'm just saying that while we're dreaming, and imposing accountability on ourselves, lets not forget about the 'elephants in the room' just because we're aligned with them at a personal level. It's hypocrisies (double-standards) like that which can undermine the moral authority of any enterprise or massive change that is being projected to occur under Trump 2.0 and the unhappy realities created by our collective can-kicking down the road for the last forty years at least. Let's do this differently, and not allow favored pets like Israel to remain exempt from the rules of civilization, and free of accountability for it's actions when everybody else is being held to account for the west's collective sins resulting from many generations of moral bankruptcy, and greed just because it's convenient to what has been America's project of empire building since the end of WWII.
"which IMO is far too simplistic and which fails to impose the same standards of morality, natural law, and obvious common sense that infuse the rest of his treatise. It's like for JHK Israel should get a pass"
Thanks! Most members of ‘the Tribe’ have never been rational on the one issue of ‘the Palestinians’. But, JHK’s treatise was so good, and that small portion so completely out of line with the theme underlying the rest of his work, that I couldn’t let something like the pass for Israel to just slip through, unremarked upon.
Dershowitz once asked that Israel be exempted from the rules everyone else has to play by. As they made Ramses say in the Ten Commandments, Their God IS God. In other words, their particularity (and only theirs) is the Universal, thus turning reality on its head.
The US gets nothing in return for the economic and military support that it provides to the ethno-supremacist apartheid nation of Israel. In fact, the U.S. suffers internationally on account of its close relationship with Israel because of its constant vetoing of UN Resolutions intended to punish Israel for its human rights violations.
There is no alliance, and Israel is not our ally. Its government does not behave as an ally does, it has never fought alongside US forces in any of our foreign wars. Its interests are not aligned with ours as an ally’s should be. There is no formal treaty and no binding obligations that require our governments to do anything for the other.
Pundits always grossly exaggerates the extent of the ties between our governments. Israel is routinely called our “most important ally” in the region, or even our “most cherished ally” in all the world. These are ideological assertions that are not grounded in reality. Dozens of other states all over the world are better allies to the United States than the “most cherished ally” is. And they don’t preside over an illegal occupation and decades of abuses and crimes against the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. Now being ethnically cleansed in a genocide with US supplied bombs dropped on refugee camps and hospitals.
The effect of this constant repetition is to make the US/Israel relationship to be extremely important to U.S. interests when it is not. It promotes an illusion of a common interest where no real common interest exists ~ and has now suckered the US into being complicit in a genocide.
The US taxpayers are having billions of their taxes stolen and given to apartheid Israel. Americans do not have Universal healthcare. But pay for Israel to have Universal healthcare. And the US is $35-trillion in Debt. The US and Israel have made themselves pariahs in the eyes of the World. This is not going to end well for the US or Israel. The US will survive. The same cannot be said for Israel.
This is not going to end well for the US or Israel. I totally agree.
The world will see the "Emperor has no clothes"
When that happens, Israel will have to choose the Samson Option (taking everyone down, including themselves) or some kind of arrangement with the (surviving, angry) Palestinians.
Today's Israelis will not be willing to die without Uncle Sugar.
Post-apartheid South Africa comes to mind.
I'd say that's a bad end for the US (the end of unfettered consumerism) and Israel (the end of the Jewish State).
Life will be difficult... for everyone. The "winners" will be defined as nations or people who don't face an existential threat from other nations or people. That is not the same as a high standard of living, or human rights or prosperity.
Yikes, all you folks desiring the destruction of Israel, a question?
Who exactly is the miracle Arab nation or group that is going to “eliminate” Israel?
They have tried for 75 years with absolutely no success.
Today we have the up-coming Abraham accords that will mollify the vast majority of Arab nations. Then there is Iran, who keeps losing credibility of being able to do much of anything about Israel. So who?
Trump will support Israel. He will support the side that is advantageous to America. I believe he will not spend as much on their behalf, but they will just shift to other options, including other countries.
It appears to me that we see the potential consequences of a potential US/Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program very differently.
You seem to think that it will be a localized episode, limited to Iran, and the US/Israel will prevail, in that they will seriously set back the Iranian nuclear program without any serious adverse consequences. That in turn will show the Arab Kingdoms that the US/Israel is in control, they will sign on and it will be business as usual.
I think this attack will, for openers, disrupt or stop the flow of 20% of the world's oil. That's enough to trigger a global economic meltdown--including the US. It has the potential to PERMANENTLY alter the the flow of oil. How? Well, if I'm the Iranian government, and I think I'm in a corner and my future is looking very dim, I do my own little Samson Option--I fling nuclear waste (readily available from an reactor) at oil shipping facilities and render them unusable for a few hundred hears.
Good chance the US/Israeli attack will require tactical nukes--do you think Russia and China will just idly watch? Even if the US/Israeli attack uses conventional high explosives, when it hit above ground nuclear facilities, the destruction of those facilities will unleash radiation.
So the question becomes, how will China and Russia respond? For that matter, how will Iran respond? Will they take out US satellites? Blockade Taiwan? Probably help Iran sink a few US warships--maybe a carrier. Maybe THEY will sink one themselves. We now know the Iranians can in fact hit Israel. They might just lob nuclear wastes into Israel.
Iran is not Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas. Iran can absorb several hits. Can Israel? Can the US fleet?
In the meantime, can anyone predict the fate of the pro-US Arab dictatorships in Egypt? Jordan? If Saudi Arabia gets hit, or not, will Osama Bin Laden supporters (many Saudis like him, just like many Americans like Trump--Islam First!)? How does that play out?
How does Russia (the most independent nation on earth, with a few thousand nuclear warheads to boot) "leverage" a US attack on Iran to perhaps attack Turkey, and get access to the Middle East?
Before that, how does Turkey "leverage" a US/Israel attack on Iran, to expand--they have big ambitions.
I'm afraid we will find out. And I'm afraid my view of things is as lot closer to reality than yours. I can't know what will go wrong and how, but things will go VERY wrong for humanity. SO, enjoy your (high electricity and water consuming) day!
"However [speaking of Israel], as the single most aggressive, destabilizing and destructive country in the ME...." Wow, if that isn't the nadir of upside-down perverse thinking that puts the truth in a grave the speaker has dug for himself and all who choose to join him in the darkness of destruction. Watch an expose of what was going on in the Assad regime that just collapsed, or what's been happening in Lebanon or Iraq or Egypt or Iran or any of the Arab countries not swimming in oil revenues that has won them "friends" and influence.
Thanks for your opinion. I believe that Israel’s military actions against it’s neighbors, and grossly disproportionate response in Gaza, over the last 14 months, particularly as it comes to it’s massive and indiscriminate bombing campaign against civilian targets (including sniper attacks on children and first responders), speaks for itself. For the record. I consider Israel a racist, cruel and amoral nation.
Tim, Israel created the Gaza Strip, trying to buy peace with land as they have done other times. They have tried to mollify the Gaza Strip”two country” solution, working with Hamas to try to stabilize the Strip into a legitimate Palestinian state. They hoped for “peace”, and have gotten nothing but rockets, tunnels, military build-up, and invasion across the Gaza border. Bibi is going to just eliminate the Gaza Strip and remove the burr under his saddle blanket.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at all the negotiations going on in Syria, and Iraq as decisions are being made about what to do with these two countries. Think about one influence, Sunni or Shia, or Christian? Or Turkish? Or Kurdish? Who will lead the formation of this region?
Personally, I don’t believe the Israeli government has ‘believed’ in actually trying for a ‘two state solution’ since Begin. The flooding of what’s left of Palestine with settlers for the last thirty years, at least, says all I need to know about the governments intentions in that regard.
It is too bad that the same folks that believe in the Maccabee’s miracle of the lamps could not believe in the message of their Messiah when He was on earth, showing them the way into Yahweh’s Kingdom. The biggest downer for the Jews is that they are no longer the Chosen of God. Their allegiance to the “Law” instead of the Grace of God through Jesus leaves them with little, spiritually.
Greater Israel includes all of the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan - and a large swath of Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Now that the IDF is wearing the map as a patch on their uniforms, it's a de facto declaration of war against the Sunni Arabs as well as the Shiites. If these two had any brains, they would unite while there is still time.
Hmmm, your identification of the goals of Israel sorta makes them the New Ottoman Empire. The same empire that the Ottoman Turks created with much bloodshed many centuries ago. Can you imagine the Jews of Israel in control of the oil in the Middle East? Are they a counter to the Iranian dream of having control of the oil?
A very interesting, and sobering 30k' view. My ONLY critical comment goes to JHK's synopsis of the Israel/Palestine portion of the forecast, which IMO is far too simplistic and which fails to impose the same standards of morality, natural law, and obvious common sense that infuse the rest of his treatise. It's like for JHK Israel should get 'a pass' and be allowed to continue to operate in the US taxpayer dollar paradise it's been living in for the last 70 years, with no changes (because obviously 'it's perfect as it is'). However, as the single most aggressive, destabilizing and destructive country in the ME, that just isn't a status Israel deserves by any metric other than per Zionist absolutism, and as a result Israel should be forced to stop relying on legalized US technology theft, outright American monetary, military AND armaments handouts, as well as almost total control of the US Congress and the sympathies of (apparently) the entire incoming executive branch. I'm just saying that while we're dreaming, and imposing accountability on ourselves, lets not forget about the 'elephants in the room' just because we're aligned with them at a personal level. It's hypocrisies (double-standards) like that which can undermine the moral authority of any enterprise or massive change that is being projected to occur under Trump 2.0 and the unhappy realities created by our collective can-kicking down the road for the last forty years at least. Let's do this differently, and not allow favored pets like Israel to remain exempt from the rules of civilization, and free of accountability for it's actions when everybody else is being held to account for the west's collective sins resulting from many generations of moral bankruptcy, and greed just because it's convenient to what has been America's project of empire building since the end of WWII.
Brilliant Tim! I could not have said it better.
"which IMO is far too simplistic and which fails to impose the same standards of morality, natural law, and obvious common sense that infuse the rest of his treatise. It's like for JHK Israel should get a pass"
That's were I stopped reading.
Thanks! Most members of ‘the Tribe’ have never been rational on the one issue of ‘the Palestinians’. But, JHK’s treatise was so good, and that small portion so completely out of line with the theme underlying the rest of his work, that I couldn’t let something like the pass for Israel to just slip through, unremarked upon.
Dershowitz once asked that Israel be exempted from the rules everyone else has to play by. As they made Ramses say in the Ten Commandments, Their God IS God. In other words, their particularity (and only theirs) is the Universal, thus turning reality on its head.
The US gets nothing in return for the economic and military support that it provides to the ethno-supremacist apartheid nation of Israel. In fact, the U.S. suffers internationally on account of its close relationship with Israel because of its constant vetoing of UN Resolutions intended to punish Israel for its human rights violations.
There is no alliance, and Israel is not our ally. Its government does not behave as an ally does, it has never fought alongside US forces in any of our foreign wars. Its interests are not aligned with ours as an ally’s should be. There is no formal treaty and no binding obligations that require our governments to do anything for the other.
Pundits always grossly exaggerates the extent of the ties between our governments. Israel is routinely called our “most important ally” in the region, or even our “most cherished ally” in all the world. These are ideological assertions that are not grounded in reality. Dozens of other states all over the world are better allies to the United States than the “most cherished ally” is. And they don’t preside over an illegal occupation and decades of abuses and crimes against the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation. Now being ethnically cleansed in a genocide with US supplied bombs dropped on refugee camps and hospitals.
The effect of this constant repetition is to make the US/Israel relationship to be extremely important to U.S. interests when it is not. It promotes an illusion of a common interest where no real common interest exists ~ and has now suckered the US into being complicit in a genocide.
The US taxpayers are having billions of their taxes stolen and given to apartheid Israel. Americans do not have Universal healthcare. But pay for Israel to have Universal healthcare. And the US is $35-trillion in Debt. The US and Israel have made themselves pariahs in the eyes of the World. This is not going to end well for the US or Israel. The US will survive. The same cannot be said for Israel.
They do help us. They help us help them.
As Bibi says, The United States can dry up and blow away once we get what we need from it.
Bibi is a delusional psychopath and a war criminal.
On trial in Isreal for corruption.
The sooner he meets the same fate as Mussolini the better for the World.
Your hubris will be the nails in our coffin my friend.
Wishing ill upon a patriot protecting his country.
My my nails in your coffin indeed.
Bibi is not protecting his country.
Now, he is only interested in protecting his own backside.
If he loses, he ends up hanging by his neck from a lamp post.
And his Missus as well.
Couldn't happen to a nicer guy!
Another opinion and another ridiculous post.
Dennis go fsck yourself.
This is not going to end well for the US or Israel. I totally agree.
The world will see the "Emperor has no clothes"
When that happens, Israel will have to choose the Samson Option (taking everyone down, including themselves) or some kind of arrangement with the (surviving, angry) Palestinians.
Today's Israelis will not be willing to die without Uncle Sugar.
Post-apartheid South Africa comes to mind.
I'd say that's a bad end for the US (the end of unfettered consumerism) and Israel (the end of the Jewish State).
Life will be difficult... for everyone. The "winners" will be defined as nations or people who don't face an existential threat from other nations or people. That is not the same as a high standard of living, or human rights or prosperity.
Yikes, all you folks desiring the destruction of Israel, a question?
Who exactly is the miracle Arab nation or group that is going to “eliminate” Israel?
They have tried for 75 years with absolutely no success.
Today we have the up-coming Abraham accords that will mollify the vast majority of Arab nations. Then there is Iran, who keeps losing credibility of being able to do much of anything about Israel. So who?
Trump will support Israel. He will support the side that is advantageous to America. I believe he will not spend as much on their behalf, but they will just shift to other options, including other countries.
It appears to me that we see the potential consequences of a potential US/Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear program very differently.
You seem to think that it will be a localized episode, limited to Iran, and the US/Israel will prevail, in that they will seriously set back the Iranian nuclear program without any serious adverse consequences. That in turn will show the Arab Kingdoms that the US/Israel is in control, they will sign on and it will be business as usual.
I think this attack will, for openers, disrupt or stop the flow of 20% of the world's oil. That's enough to trigger a global economic meltdown--including the US. It has the potential to PERMANENTLY alter the the flow of oil. How? Well, if I'm the Iranian government, and I think I'm in a corner and my future is looking very dim, I do my own little Samson Option--I fling nuclear waste (readily available from an reactor) at oil shipping facilities and render them unusable for a few hundred hears.
Good chance the US/Israeli attack will require tactical nukes--do you think Russia and China will just idly watch? Even if the US/Israeli attack uses conventional high explosives, when it hit above ground nuclear facilities, the destruction of those facilities will unleash radiation.
So the question becomes, how will China and Russia respond? For that matter, how will Iran respond? Will they take out US satellites? Blockade Taiwan? Probably help Iran sink a few US warships--maybe a carrier. Maybe THEY will sink one themselves. We now know the Iranians can in fact hit Israel. They might just lob nuclear wastes into Israel.
Iran is not Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas. Iran can absorb several hits. Can Israel? Can the US fleet?
In the meantime, can anyone predict the fate of the pro-US Arab dictatorships in Egypt? Jordan? If Saudi Arabia gets hit, or not, will Osama Bin Laden supporters (many Saudis like him, just like many Americans like Trump--Islam First!)? How does that play out?
How does Russia (the most independent nation on earth, with a few thousand nuclear warheads to boot) "leverage" a US attack on Iran to perhaps attack Turkey, and get access to the Middle East?
Before that, how does Turkey "leverage" a US/Israel attack on Iran, to expand--they have big ambitions.
I'm afraid we will find out. And I'm afraid my view of things is as lot closer to reality than yours. I can't know what will go wrong and how, but things will go VERY wrong for humanity. SO, enjoy your (high electricity and water consuming) day!
Add on that a very conservative attitude has taken over Israel, allowing Bibi to “eliminate” the enemies.
Sorta sounds Old Testament, doesn’t it.
"However [speaking of Israel], as the single most aggressive, destabilizing and destructive country in the ME...." Wow, if that isn't the nadir of upside-down perverse thinking that puts the truth in a grave the speaker has dug for himself and all who choose to join him in the darkness of destruction. Watch an expose of what was going on in the Assad regime that just collapsed, or what's been happening in Lebanon or Iraq or Egypt or Iran or any of the Arab countries not swimming in oil revenues that has won them "friends" and influence.
Thanks for your opinion. I believe that Israel’s military actions against it’s neighbors, and grossly disproportionate response in Gaza, over the last 14 months, particularly as it comes to it’s massive and indiscriminate bombing campaign against civilian targets (including sniper attacks on children and first responders), speaks for itself. For the record. I consider Israel a racist, cruel and amoral nation.
Tim, Israel created the Gaza Strip, trying to buy peace with land as they have done other times. They have tried to mollify the Gaza Strip”two country” solution, working with Hamas to try to stabilize the Strip into a legitimate Palestinian state. They hoped for “peace”, and have gotten nothing but rockets, tunnels, military build-up, and invasion across the Gaza border. Bibi is going to just eliminate the Gaza Strip and remove the burr under his saddle blanket.
It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall at all the negotiations going on in Syria, and Iraq as decisions are being made about what to do with these two countries. Think about one influence, Sunni or Shia, or Christian? Or Turkish? Or Kurdish? Who will lead the formation of this region?
Personally, I don’t believe the Israeli government has ‘believed’ in actually trying for a ‘two state solution’ since Begin. The flooding of what’s left of Palestine with settlers for the last thirty years, at least, says all I need to know about the governments intentions in that regard.
Lies, calumny, and more lies.
Happy Hanukkah.
It is too bad that the same folks that believe in the Maccabee’s miracle of the lamps could not believe in the message of their Messiah when He was on earth, showing them the way into Yahweh’s Kingdom. The biggest downer for the Jews is that they are no longer the Chosen of God. Their allegiance to the “Law” instead of the Grace of God through Jesus leaves them with little, spiritually.
So if you know, act like you know. Let it inform your politics.
Greater Israel includes all of the West Bank, Lebanon, and Jordan - and a large swath of Egypt, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. Now that the IDF is wearing the map as a patch on their uniforms, it's a de facto declaration of war against the Sunni Arabs as well as the Shiites. If these two had any brains, they would unite while there is still time.
Hmmm, your identification of the goals of Israel sorta makes them the New Ottoman Empire. The same empire that the Ottoman Turks created with much bloodshed many centuries ago. Can you imagine the Jews of Israel in control of the oil in the Middle East? Are they a counter to the Iranian dream of having control of the oil?
But...Turkey (or however its spelt now)