It is not our place to tell Americans how they should vote. Their concerns are health plans, taxes and, suddenly, socialism. That's their business. We can however tell them what America looks like to us, and it's our business, because America is a 800-pound gorilla in our patch of jungle. We need the gorilla because it helps sustain our ecosystem by consuming stuff we make but can't use ourselves. But for the past eight years our gorilla has been acting like a crazed thing, bringing wars and economic catastrophe. Its antics have made it a pariah and worse - a laughing stock
. It's a gorilla that wears a big red nose, a frizzy wig and oversize shoes.

Today I was driving to my parents' place on Cape Cod and realized what an idiot I've been about what's happening right now. It's a really important moment, right down to Barack Obama putting a note into the Western Wall. It's the true ideological drama of this election campaign, the great events of this campaign. It doesn't get better than this, and it's all about the Armageddon of the Neoconservatives and the Two State Solution.

Consider that the Washington Post is reporting that McCain is looking seriously at Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor to be his veep. Cantor is tied in with Christian Zionists (David Bloom tells me)(can't do the link now). The Cantor nod would be McCain's obeisance to Sheldon Adelson and the neoconservative warchest. Because this is their last gasp. If they can't stop Obama, they can't might not be able to stop the two-state solution.

All this is happening behind the scenes, but look at it this way. The last time Dennis Ross and the two-state solution came close to coming to pass was 2000, the last gasp of the Clinton Administration. The neocons and Adelson formed an organization called One Jerusalem out of a panic that Jerusalem might be divided. And the day after GW Bush won the election, at last, in December 2000, Adelson gave the Republican Party $100,000 and soon the neocons were in big jobs all over the Administration. And they put off the 2-state solution forever, and invaded Baghdad

Israelis Assault Award Winning IPS Journalist

by Mel Frykberg

GAZA CITY - Mohammed Omer, the Gaza correspondent of IPS, and joint winner of the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, was strip-searched at gunpoint, assaulted and abused by Israeli security officials at the Allenby border crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Thursday as he tried to return home to Gaza.

Omer, snip was returning from London where he had just collected his Gellhorn Prize, and from several European capitals where he had speaking engagements, including a meeting with Greek parliamentarians.

Omer's trip was sponsored by The Washington Report, and the Dutch embassy in Tel Aviv was responsible for coordinating Omer's travel plans and his security permit to leave Gaza with Israeli officials.

What the fuck?

With permission:

Is a New Congressional Resolution Declaring War with Iran?

Washington, DC -- A House resolution effectively requiring a naval blockade on Iran seems fast tracked for passage, gaining co-sponsors at a remarkable speed, but experts say the measures called for in the resolutions amount to an act of war.

by Emily Blout

H.CON.RES 362 calls on the president to stop all shipments of refined petroleum products from reaching Iran. It also "demands" that the President impose "stringent inspection requirements on all persons, vehicles, ships, planes, trains and cargo entering or departing Iran."

Analysts say that this would require a US naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz.

Since its introduction three weeks ago, the resolution has attracted 134 cosponsors. Forty-three members added their names to the bill in the past two days.

In the Senate, a sister resolution S. RES 580 has gained cosponsors with similar speed. The Senate measure was introduced by Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh on June 2. In little more than a week's time, it has accrued 15 cosponsors.

Congressional insiders credit America's powerful pro-Israel lobby for the rapid endorsement of the bills. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual policy conference June 2-4, in which it sent thousands of members to Capitol Hill to push for tougher measures against Iran. On its website, AIPAC endorses the resolutions as a way to "stop Iran's nuclear program" and tells readers to lobby Congress to pass the bill.

Once again, notably in the wake of this week's annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference and the visit here of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, there's a lot of chatter about a possible attack by Israel and/or the United States on Iran. Olmert appears to have left the White House (and a dinner with Cheney Tuesday evening before the prime minister's meeting with Bush) quite satisfied on this score, while rumors -- most recently voiced by Daniel Pipes -- that the administration plans to carry out a "massive" attack in the window between the November elections and Bush's departure from office, particularly if Sen. Obama is his successor, continue to swirl around the capital.

What to make of this? Is this real? Or is it psychological warfare designed to persuade Tehran that it really does face devastation if it doesn't freeze its uranium enrichment program very, very soon and/or U.S. allies, Russia, and China that they have to put more pressure on Tehran or deal with the consequences of such an attack?

Ledeen: It's 1938-1941, Hitler is Hezbollah, al Qaeda, Iranian Khomeinists, Saudi Wahabis, Etc.

Murdoch's Wall Street Journal editorial page is as hard-line as ever, today featuring a lengthy and by now familiar meditation by AEI "Freedom Scholar" and perennial intrigue entrepreneur Michael Ledeen on "Iran and the Problem of Evil." Actually, the headline is a bit of a distortion because, in typical neo-conservative fashion, Ledeen compares the conflated threats emanating from the Arab world and Iran -- or, as Ledeen puts it, "from Hezbollah and al Qaeda to the Iranians Khomeinists and the Saudi Wahabis" -- to those posed by Mussolini's fascism, Hitler's Germany, and Stalin's Russia. To his credit, Ledeen decided to forgo the use of "Islamofascism," a decision which no doubt will get him in trouble with David Horowitz, Frank Gaffney, and James Woolsey, among others of his hard-line fellow-neo-cons. But, of course, by putting "Iran" and the other assorted threats in the same context, he really doesn't have to use the word itself. In any event, the lesson -- and I guess here is where the headline that features "Iran" alone -- is clear enough: "As it did in the 20th century, it means war."

Ledeen often describes himself as a historian, and, as such, I would expect Ledeen to be scrupulously careful of his facts, but one assertion about anti-Semitism in Iran in his essay really stuck out at me; namely, that "The Protocol of the Elders of Zion" is now circulating in a Farsi edition. I did a quick Nexis search for the "Protocol" and "Protocols", "Iran", and "Farsi" and could find only two articles that appeared to corroborate Ledeen's statement. One was a 2005 article in the Likudist New York Sun by Benny Avni, who asserted that "`The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,' the classic anti-Semitic fraud, is a best seller in Iran..." No further evidence to support that assertion was offered. A second article, which appeared in the November 2006 edition of Playboy, by frequent New Republic contributor Joseph Braude, also asserted that the notorious forgery had been translated into Farsi with the financial help of the Islamic Republic. Again, however, he offered no supporting evidence.

Washington must assert to the rest of the world that if they want to be friends with America, they need to do more to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, visiting US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Sunday in an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post.

Nancy Pelosi holds talks on security in Israel

Pelosi said the US needed to be more "proactive" in saying to the countries of the world - including Russia, China and the Muslim countries in Asia - that "one of the pillars of US foreign policy is to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to anyone."

The US needed to make it clear to everyone, including the Europeans, that their polices on this issue would be a term of friendship with the US, and a measuring stick of benefits they could derive from that friendship, she said.

   
Iranian Embassy employees and their driver were shot Thursday in a Baghdad incident that some reports said involved Iraqi troops.

An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said five employees of the Iranian Embassy were shot and wounded about 9 p.m. in Baghdad. The official said there had been conflicting reports about the shooting.

An Interior Ministry report said unidentified gunmen in northern Baghdad fired on two SUVs carrying the five employees and driver, who were transported to an Iraqi hospital.

The Baghdad Operations Command, however, reported that an Iraqi army patrol was shot at and returned fire at the SUVs -- injuring the embassy workers and their driver, according to the official.

Meanwhile, Iran's semi-official FARS news agency was reporting that three Iranians and one Iraqi employee of the embassy were injured when shot by "unidentified terrorists."

The agency quoted an Iranian Embassy official as saying the group was traveling to visit the graves of two religious leaders when 16 bullets were fired at their vehicle from another vehicle.

Even before the Lebanon war, Peres was out pushing Iran's buttons, and he continued this week just in time for Bush's mission:

Peres likens Iran's nuclear threat to Hitler's Germany

 In sweeping comments yesterday before Israel's 60th anniversary, Israeli President Shimon Peres compared the Iranian nuclear threat to Hitler's Germany and said engaging Gaza's Hamas rulers would be like talking to a wall.

Adelson is closely aligned with Netenyahu and all the other neo-cons that got us into Iraq in the first place. He does carry a lot of weight:

An article about Sheldon Adelson, "a huge--and mostly behind-the-scenes--financial angel for Republican, pro-business, and pro-Israel causes", was published in the National Journal:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/rosnerBlog.jhtml?itemNo=865078

Ever the hawk:

Well known for his staunchly anti-union views and his close links to the Israeli Right, including Likud Party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Adelson is, by many accounts, a hard-charging dynamo. He likes to immerse himself in the details of the many causes he champions while assiduously avoiding the limelight.

Freedom's Watch sugar daddy Sheldon Adelson in its May 10 edition, which you can access here. Particularly interesting is the opening about last October's private gathering of the "'best and the brightest' conservative voices talking about the terrorism threats posed by radical Islam and Iran," including David Horowitz, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, Clifford May of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum, all of whose groups, the Journal notes, have all benefited from Adelson's largesse. The story brings in the Adelson's Netanyahu-Likud and AIPAC connections, although it doesn't break any new ground on those fronts.

http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/

This is the man, Bush is taking advise from.

In Bush's speech to the Knesset, he takes a direct shot at anyone that might be interested in a negotiated peace:

Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is - the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121083798995894943.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

I hope the republican politicians get their money's worth from Adelson. Freedom's Watch Adelson's 527 baby posted $15 million dollar budget in 2007. They'll need it.

Remember the curious and intriguing interconnections between One Jerusalem, a Likud/settler group chaired by Natan Sharansky, and two U.S-led "NGOs" with overlapping or interchangeable directorates -- the "Policy Forum on International Security Affairs (PF)" and the newly minted "Case for Freedom" -- that we discovered in the participants list of the "Prague Democracy and Security" conference where George W. Bush appeared despite the concerns of his State Department last June? I wrote about the conference twice, once describing it as a "Neo-Conservative International" and a second time focusing on those very same connections under the title, "More on that Meeting in Prague."

Well, there are some new developments that raise fresh questions about these groups, their provenance, and interrelationships. At the time of the conference, the websites of both the Policy Forum (PF) and the Case for Freedom (CCF) were "under construction," but now they're up (click on their names and you'll see them), although the PF site seems somewhat comatose. The second piece of news is that the Pentagon's policy office -- formerly run by Doug Feith (a co-founder with Sharansky of One Jerusalem) and currently directed by one of the remaining neo-cons at the Pentagon, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman -- awarded a $79,416 no-bid contract to the Policy Forum and its director, Devon Gaffney Cross (yes, that's Frank Gaffney's sister) last September.

John Bolton, America's ex-ambassador to the United Nations, has called for US air strikes on Iranian camps where insurgents are trained for war in Iraq.

Mr Bolton said that striking Iran would represent a major step towards victory in Iraq. While he acknowledged that the risk of a hostile Iranian response harming American's overseas interests existed, he said the damage inflicted by Tehran would be "far higher" if Washington took no action.

"This is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we're not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do," he said. "Then the ball would be in Iran's court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops."

Mr Bolton, an influential former member of President George W Bush's inner circle, dismissed as "dead wrong" reported British intelligence conclusions that the US military had overstated the support that Iran was providing to Iraqi fighters.

Do you think Hillary will appoint Bolton. He can go after that evil oil cartel. $200/barrel oil, here it comes.

Bomb Iran=Victory in Iran. I am glad someone finally figured it out.

Palestinian Authority officials said Monday that Israel was offering the Palestinians nothing more than a "mini-state of cantons" in parts of the West Bank.

Olmert meets Abbas to discuss border and security issues

The officials told The Jerusalem Post that Israel's proposals were "completely unacceptable" and "provocative."

They also claimed that the US Administration was supporting the Israeli position.

"Today it's clear to us that Israel has no intention of withdrawing from all the territories that were occupied in 1967," said one official.

"If the Israelis and Americans think that they will ever find a Palestinian leader who would accept less than the 1967 borders, they are living under an illusion."

Another top PA official said that maps presented by the Israeli government to the Palestinians in the past few weeks showed that Israel is planning to retain control over nearly half of the West Bank and large parts of east Jerusalem.

The Israeli maps, he said, "turn the Palestinian communities in the West Bank into cantons surrounded by Israeli military bases and large settlement blocks."

The official added: "We have made it clear to both the Israelis and Americans that they should throw away these maps. No Palestinian will ever agree to the presence of settlements or Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. This is in violation of [US President George W.] Bush's vision of two states living next to each other in peace."

snip
"The Israeli government is not serious about the peace talks," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior PLO official closely associated with Abbas. "We don't believe that we can reach an agreement [with Israel] before the end of this year."

Abed Rabbo accused Israel of "deceiving" the Palestinians by continuing to build settlements while talking about the need to reach a peace agreement. "Israel does not want to change its policy," he added. "Israel wants to continue settlement expansion and the construction of the separation wall."

snip
Erekat said Monday's talks focused on the final status issues. He said Abbas demanded an end to construction in the West Bank settlements and the reopening of closed PLO institutions in Jerusalem.

He said Abbas also demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, especially those who have been in prison for more than 20 years, as well as women, minors and political leaders such as Marwan Barghouti.

According to Erekat, Israel has agreed to grant residency status to 10,000 Palestinians who entered the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past decade.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627019177&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1209627019177&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The president of Opec, the cartel of oil-producing countries, has given warning that the price of crude could hit $200 a barrel, sparking fears that rising fuel costs will force more businesses into bankruptcy.

Chakib Khelil, the Algerian Energy Minister and president of Opec, said that the falling value of the US dollar would continue to drive up oil prices as investors sought to store their wealth in other assets.

Lehman Brothers, the bank, has said that high prices are being sustained by an influx of money into the oil market from investment funds.

snip

Supply shortages are expected to get worse over summer, which is hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico.

In addition, demand usually rises in hot months when air-conditioning units are operating at full blast. If financial investors continue to pour money into oil funds, as the president of Opec has suggested, this could cause prices to spike even higher.

The military adventurers of the George W Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the "smartest guys in the room", the title of Alex Gibney's prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neo-conservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous
expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries.

Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay - or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.

READ THE WHOLE THING!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA24Ak04.html

....let me see, Bush=0, Bin Ladin=2