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Bully Pulpit

The term "bully pulpit" stems from President Theodore Roosevelt's reference to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a terrific platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda. Roosevelt often used the word "bully" as an adjective meaning superb/wonderful. The Bully Pulpit features news, reasoned discourse, opinion and some humor.

Monday, April 21, 2008

The Israel that must defend itself

The neoconservative commentator, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, recently proposed what he described as a "Holocaust Doctrine," in which an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel would be regarded as an attack on the United States. This is a bizarre and profoundly anti-conservative idea, as it should be readily apparent to every American and Israeli alike that Israel is not the 51st state of the Union. While it is to be regretted that anyone should wish to attack Israel, with nuclear weapons or anything else, this doesn't change the fact that Israel is not America and never will be.

The doctrine is also pure propaganda. What does a non-martial mass murder by National Socialists have to do with a potential military attack by Iran? Jews who revere the memory of their murdered ancestors should be offended by Krauthammer's shameless attempt to make use of them this way.


Vox Day

Krauthammer's doctrine is a bald attempt at banking political backing for the continuation of the neocons' Jacobin foreign policy positions. As Vox points out, Israel would be singularly foolish to welcome such a doctrine.

This is worth noting. One of the reasons Vox gives for such an alliance being a bad idea is the following:

The next administration. It is possible that if he is elected president, B. Hussein Obama will be inclined to continue the positive relations that Israel has enjoyed with previous presidents of both parties. But given his obvious ties to African supremacists and third-world recrimination ideology, to say nothing of outright anti-Jewish supporters such as the Rev. Eric Lee, this is far from given. His middle name is not "Sadat," after all.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would say that if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, World War III would be on. Let's be realistic, if Iran used nukes on any of our allies, we would retaliate.

Monday, April 21, 2008 2:03:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let's be realistic, if Iran used nukes on any of our allies, we would retaliate.

It depends on what is meant by retaliation. We would be hopelessly stupid to retaliate with nuclear weapons, for a number of reasons. Re-read the article. Israel is not one of our military allies. We have no treaties or mutual aggression or protection agreements with them. On the other hand, Iran does have such agreements with both China and Russia, as well as a number of other countries. Israel would be incredibly stupid to rely on our loyalty in the face of the suicidal consequences to us of any retaliation in-kind against Iran.

The proof is in the pudding, though. Bush and Co. have already shown their utter disregard for both Congress and the constitution in pursuing their own imperialist agenda. If they thought they could get away with attacking Iran, they would have already done so, and neither the US Congress nor the rule of law would be any impediment to them. They know that such an action would make us a pariah, with even our closest allies like Great Britain and Australia diving for cover. The days are long gone when we can stand alone, thumping our chests and rattling our sabers. We have spent too long on the same domestic socialism path that the Soviet Union trod on their way to destruction.

The same policy we pursued in the 1960s and 1970s with Israel is the only sane one. We simply make the world aware that we are more than willing to arm Israel to the teeth and to remove the restraining collars we have put on them should anyone be foolish enough to attack them. That prospect will be far more terrifying to any Muslim nation that anything we might say or do.

Monday, April 21, 2008 4:47:00 PM  

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