I think he made his point.

He's an incompetent nut!!!

This headline reads like something from The Onion.

By the way, one of my all time favorite headlines from that pub:

"Bush: Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Propserity Finally Over."

Our most esteemed and exulted Bush made the reference to WW III because war is the only thing that he has in his brain. He wanted war, he asked for war, and he got war. Now he wants more war even if he has to imagine it up. Not one day have we heard him say anything about how to bring peace to the World. He has become a tragic figure who will live til the end of his days regretting his misuse of power.

Freudian slip.

Actions versus reactions.

I actually thought that the country that Iran would get the most support from would be China. Need for oil, etc.

So for John D., Jerry White, Bruce, etc. I've got a question for you.

Ronald Reagan went down in history as the President who ended the Cold War. Despite his initial successes with Russia, Putin in particular, it appears that George W. Bush is going to be able to go down in history as the President who brought the Cold War back. Don't you agree?

Using the words "irresponsible," or "un-American" to describe democrats was a dishonorable and very stupid thing for Bush to do because it ultimately divided our country and hurt his party. Using phrases like "World War III" to make a point, whatever the point, is also a very stupid thing to do. For a guy who grew up with every opportunity and advantage and an ivy-league education, his carelessness with words is still shocking, even after 7 years. When you poke a stick at someone, they poke back. Now watch them poke.

'Dubbya Dubbya III' ?

Bush is a man who believes the final days will come in his time. He has the power to make it so.
If the world survives the rest of his term of office, America must be very careful not to elect another with such beliefs.

Bush is an idiot. he only does stuff that would better his life. not america

S Mig,

Yeah, 'the base' all think they will be raptured out of the whole mess.

You're right, san miguel. We should vote in a president with the spirit and resolution of a coward. We should'nt stand up to other people who atttack us, or want to kill us. We should instead, submit without a fight, and we could have the honor of begging for our lives. War is not popular, but necessary. The american people have lost thier backbone. We cannot live in a make believe world that does'nt exist. Sometimes, you have to fight to survive. What would Gore, or Kerry done? nothing!

America offers enough support to Israel with the gunships, missiles, fighter planes, foreign aid, etc. that we provide to the tune of $3+ billion per year, of which some funds go directly to the expansion of the settlements.

I've been to Israel and strongly admire that country, easily the toughest SOB's in the world (FAR tougher than we are, the U.S. could learn a thing or two from the Israelis about how to coldly and methodically protect a nation and its interests). We should continue to offer moral and diplomatic support, but no American soldier should die to protect the narrow interests of any given Israeli government.

Their interests are certainly not always our interests (anyone heard of the USS Liberty?), and often our true interests diverge significantly. Supporting an important ally in the Middle East is one thing, but its far different to pretend that the U.S.'s interests are best served by giving Israel everything it asks for.

If anything, if indeed the Iranian nuclear program can be taken out from above (I do not believe that the diffuse, underground, hardened components of the program are likely to be taken out in such a manner, or at all) we should lean on our allies in Israel to do the deed for us. If they haven't noticed, we've kinda got our hands full protecting them from Saddam.

And Dyslin, please call me a "self-loathing Jew" again. I love when you expose yourself as a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Semite pretending to defend Israel from the Jews.

The Democrat Leadership is irresponsible, and they believe pardon me they know that they are better than anyone including their supporters. As for being unamerican, that is being very generous - Traitors would be more accutate. As for being in WWIII, we have been in one since Iran took over our embassy, and Carter didn't do a damn thing.

War is not popular, but necessary.
Posted by: GWB | October 18, 2007 12:12 PM

What was so necessary about Viet Nam?
There are people in many, many countries that want to kill us...why stop at Iraq?
I know...you wont.

The Prophecy says we must go to war with Iran! Christian soldiers take up your arms!!

If it grows the economy and my portfolio, I say where do I sign up another kid to fight this war while I stand behind you Mr. President?

GWB
You mean you actually support the idea of blowing up the entire world? To save us from what? Do you believe in the rapture? Are you one of the chosen? I am not talking about being cowards or surrendering our country to someone evil. I am talking about G.W. Bush, who has moved the world closer to WWIII than it has been in many years. I am talking about being able to bring ourselves to at least have a civil discussion, before ending the entire human race. It has been proven that diplomacy works. The Bush administration doesn't believe that.

Darkwater, (Blackwater?);
We have been in WWIII since WWI and before. Nobody ever won any of the wars, they only paused, when the killing got too heavy to handle, or they ran out of money. Don't forget, it was JFK and LBJ, both democrats, who started and carried out the Viet Nam war. Nixon only came in at the end, and he lost it. Let go of the partisan BS. Democrats and Republicans can be equally insane. Start thinking ideas, instead of party lines.

bill r. war is necessary. Vietnam was a disaster, I agree with that. Do you condemn Johnson for it? Before you answer, please rember that he was a democrat. There has been wars since the beginning of civilization, It's in our blood. Sure, we can stop war, but will the enemy?

I for one, am glad that president Bush had the backbone to stand up to terrorism. Clinton should be ashamed for doing nothing when the USS. Cole was bombed. Bush did'nt start this war, the terrorists did.

GWB,

Liberals, in general, strongly and repeatedly condemned LBJ for Vietnam.
Who do you think was protesting at the Chicago Dem. Convention in '68? The Young Republicans?

There may have been a few, but the overwhelming majority were Democrats, liberals, and lefties.

Why do you think LBJ decided NOT to run in '68?

BTW, you have no clue what Gore or Kerry would have done. You are dealing in the completely theoretical world with that statement.

"Clinton should be ashamed for doing nothing when the USS. Cole was bombed."

GWB,

Why did Ronald Reagan do nothing when Saddam rocketed the USS Stark, killing many of our guys?

Why did Ronald Reagan 'cut-n-run' when the terrorists killed 241 of our Mariens?

"BUSH SPEAKS" I'M THE DECIDER, AND BLACK PEOPLE I'M THE DODEMITE, AGAIN THE DODEMITE THAT IS SITTING IN THE TREE"

SO OH PLEASE AMERICAN MONKEYS DON'T MESS WITH ME.

SAID THE LION TO THE MONKEY!

458 DAYS LEFT OF NOTHING DONE, MORE DEAD SOLDIERS, MORE DEAD DAUGHTERS, MORE DEAD MOTHERS, MORE DEAD FATHERS, MORE DEAD NEIGHBORS.

BUT WE CAN LISTEN TO EACH CRY AS THE TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANIES BOTH FORIEGN AND DOMESTIC ALIKE ARE FREE TO DATAMINE YOUR VERY EXISTENCE.

DID YOU KNOW YOUR IPOD IS LISTENING AND WATCHING YOU TOO?

GWB;
I agree, there will always be someone stupid enough to start another war. It doesn't have to be us. We did not start the war with Bin Laden. We did start the war in Iraq, and it was not necessary.
There's a difference between fighting back, when someone smacks you in the face for nothing, and walking around smacking people in the face for nothing. Afghanistan was fighting back. Iraq was smacking someone in the face for nothing. Oh yeah, Sadam was one nasty dude, but he did not smack the U.S. in the face. He posed no threat to us. As a matter of fact, he needed our permission to even fly a helicopter in his own land.
I do not blame Johnson for the Vietnam war. JFK started it. He was a Democrat also. Nixon was a Republican, he pulled out, was he the coward or what?
Once again, it's easy to classify people by skin color, eye color, nationality, religion, political party,etc. if you are a bigot. I know Republicans I would vote for, in spite of my feelings about George Bush. I know Republicans I would never vote for, even if Bush had never existed. I know Democrats I would vote for and Democrats I would never vote for. Have any of you ever known a person from the other party? A black person? An Asian? A gay person? Have you ever tried to have an open conversation with someone from "The Other Side"? Let go of the stereotypes. Think people! Think! Think for yourselves! There will always be war, but some of them could be avoided, if people just begin to think first.

Darkwater

You, and many of your kind, continually condemn Carter for the way that he handled the Iranian hostage crisis.

So let me get this straight.

Because the Iranians knew they could keep the hostages and Carter was inept, they helped sway you and many like you to vote for Reagan, thus getting rid of Carter. Correct. They simply let the hostages go the day Reagan took office. I'm sure it was because of all of the bellicose verbiage that they were afraid of.

Reagan comes in and we get a little thing called Iran Contra. Reagan sells arms to an avowed enemy, Iran.

Now years later we are having problems with Iran.

So what is more of our proximate cause problem with Iran? Carter not getting the hostages out, or Reagan selling them weapons?

God you folks are selective with your memories.

Posted by: dogjudge | October 18, 2007 11:02 AM

John "the Joseph Stalin of Streamwood" won't answer you; he's still busy trying to figure out who move Cuba a few hundred miles to the east so that it's no longer in the Gulf of Mexico!

Liberals, in general, strongly and repeatedly condemned LBJ for Vietnam.
Who do you think was protesting at the Chicago Dem. Convention in '68? The Young Republicans?

I did'nt say liberals in general, I asked if YOU do? by the way Reagan did'nt do anything, because the democrat house and senate would'nt let him. Clinton did'nt even try.

"I do not blame Johnson for the Vietnam war. JFK started it."

50 years later and we are still as ignorant as ever. Our involvement in Vietnam began with Dwight Eisenhower.

"Clinton should be ashamed for doing nothing when the USS. Cole was bombed."

Ignorance on top of nonsense on top of partisanship. You must be joking.

First off, responsibility for the Cole bombing was determined precisely two weeks before Clinton left office. What would you have liked him to do? Start a full-scale war as a lame-duck president and tie Bush's hands with his rushed policy executed in the literal final days of his second term? I can just see what you would be saying if he HAD invaded and tied the hands of his predecessor- that Clinton just wanted Bush to fail so he through a quagmire around his neck, which poor lil' Bush had to unwind.

I mean, that would be like George HW Bush intervening in Somalia in the final days of his term and handing the mess to Clinton, who through relentless revisionist history is the "cut-n-runner" even though it was Republicans led by none other than John McCain who so eloquently made the case for PRECIPITOUS WITHDRAWAL:

October 1994 — McCain argued for the precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces from Haiti: “In my view that does not mean as soon as order is restored to Haiti. It does not mean as soon as democracy is flourishing in Haiti. It does not mean as soon as we have established a viable nation in Haiti. As soon as possible means as soon we can get out of Haiti without losing any American lives.” [Senate Floor, 10/6/94]

October 1993 — McCain argued against giving any strategy the chance to succeed in Somalia: “Mr. President, can anyone seriously argue that another 6 months of United States forces in harm’s way means the difference between peace and prosperity in Somalia and war and starvation there? Is that very dim prospect worth one more American life? No, it is not.” [Senate Floor, 10/14/93]

You can blame Clinton for failing to protect the Cole in the first place, but Clinton explicitly told his predecessor that that attack should be dealt with as an act of war and responded to accordingly. Of course, Clinton and Richard Clarke also turned over a multi-pronged PLAN to take out Al Qaeda before they could do worse damage than they already had.

President Bush failed to make any use of this advice and went one step further- ignoring Al Qaeda altogether to focus on taking out Saddam Hussein.

Bush had a responsibility to avenge the Cole and chose not to do so despite the wise advice of his predecessor.

So - let me get this straight.

A guy who threatens to start a World War is NOT a terrorist?

How this guy has not been impeached for the war crimes he's committed in the last six years will be his legacy.

God Help Us.

Bizarro White House Adventures

[This is a partial transcript of a leaked conversation between an investigative reporter and a State Department whistle-blower. The original document containing the full transcript is classified Ultra Cheney, the highest classification level currently in use.]

Reporter: So you're certain that Bush is actually preparing for this so-called World War III?

Informant: Yes. Absolutely. No doubt.

Reporter: Doesn't a world war require more than two countries fighting? Who else, exactly, has signed on for this round of "World At War?" Who's there standing right beside us through thick and thin? Loyal to the end. Come hell or high water. Who?

Informant: Ummm, we currently have a firm commitment from Tuvalu.

Reporter: Tuvalu? (Sound of computer keyboard. A brief silence.) Isn't that some fly-speck atoll nation in the middle of the South Pacific? Why would they give a shark's fin about what goes on in Iran? And even if they did, what could they possibly provide us to aide in the war effort? Guano? A fleet of canoes?

Informant: The peoples of Tuvalu are uniquely posed to offer us both a strategic location for our naval assets in the region, and several dozen armed warriors adept at the kind of warfare encountered in more primitive situations.

Reporter: (Dryly) Yes, I can see it now, the Iranian Army quaking in their boots at the sight of several dozen primitives with bad tattoos and brandishing knobkerries and spears rushing toward their heavily fortified lines -- terrifying, really.

Informant: While a little rough around the edges, they'll be a fine augmentation to our troops.

Reporter: Okay. I don't buy it, but let's move on. Who else has joined us on this glorious crusade?

Informant: Niger has shown more than a passing interest, but they haven't fully committed yet.

Reporter: Niger? You mean the second most impoverished nation in the world? That Niger? What did you do? Promise them plenty of MRE's?

Informant: We're still negotiating.

Reporter: I count two marginal allies on our side, which doesn't add up to a world war by any stretch of the imagination.

Informant: The "world" part of it comes from the Iranian side. Through secret treaty obligations, they can count on China, Russia, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Pakistan, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Chad, Algeria, Morocco, Ukraine, Indonesia, India, and a host of smaller players.

Reporter: What about our treaties? Isn't NATO obligated to stand by us?

Informant: Since the President is calling for a pre-emptive strike, we're the aggressors, thus the NATO countries aren't beholden to the terms. We might get some halfhearted moral support from the Brits, but we project that the rest of the alliance will sit on their hands for the duration.

Reporter: This sounds like madness.

Informant: It is, which is why I'm (loud click)

[End of transcript]

the way Reagan did'nt do anything, because the democrat house and senate would'nt let him. Clinton did'nt even try.

Posted by: GWB | October 18, 2007 2:42 PM

Wrong in so, so, many ways GWB.

First off the Republicans controled the Senate in 1983.

Secondly the only plan put forward to seriously retaliate for the attacks was quashed by Caspar Weinberger.

"Six weeks earlier, an air raid planned against an Iranian Revolutionary Guard barracks in Baalbek in Lebanon's Bekaa region was never carried out because of indecision by Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger and some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The White House was eager to retaliate for the Marine barracks bombing, but the top Pentagon officials worried and debated about the uncertain consequences of the attack."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=950DE2D6163CF935A3575BC0A96F948260

Third off, Reagan bombed Libya and invaded Grenada without congressional approval, so claiming that the Democrats somehow stopped him, is silly even if it wasn't for the fact that he never requested congressional approval, and the fact that the Democrats did not control the Senate.

“incompetent nut” , “wants more war”, “Freudian slip”, “believes the final days will come”, “If it grows the economy and my portfolio”, “impeached for war crimes”, “madness”….hey, wow, yeah, crazy…great stuff.

Now can I remind you that the leading candidate for the Democratic party nomination has basically the same stance as the Bush administration, and in fact has been railing on the Bush administration for the last couple years for not doing enough about Iran?

GWB says,
"I did'nt say liberals in general, I asked if YOU do? by the way Reagan did'nt do anything, because the democrat house and senate would'nt let him. Clinton did'nt even try.
Posted by: GWB | October 18, 2007 2:42 PM"

Of course I condemn LBJ for his conduct of the VN War. What did you not get in my posting? Why do you think he didn't seek reelection? He lost his base.

Every president from Truman through Nixon get some of the blame.

And your apology for Reagan doing nothing about the above mentioned attacks on the US forces is absurd.

He did nothing because of practical politics in the case of Saddam's attack on the Stark, (He was our ally against Iran), and in the case of Lebanon knew, due to good advice, that if we intervened further in the Mid-East it could mean WWIII.

The Democratic congress stopped him? That's the biggest laugh in the Swamp today.

When did Iran say they want to wipe Israel off the map??? They NEVER said it.

Also, anyone remember this nonsense from Dana Perino - http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071001-2.html

Press Briefing by Dana Perino

October 1, 2007

Q This weekend the New Yorker magazine came out with an article claiming that this summer the President, or at least the White House in general, asked the Joint Chiefs to redraw plans to attack Iran. Is that true?

MS. PERINO: Look, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. Every two months or so, Sy Hersh writes an article in The New Yorker magazine, and CNN provides him a forum in which to talk about his article and all the anonymous sources that are quoted in it.

Q So the President --

MS. PERINO: The President has said that he believes that there is a diplomatic solution that we can use to solve the Iranian problem. And that's why we're working with our allies to get there.

Q That's what he said before we went to Iraq, too.

Q But what's the -- can you answer actually on the substance of whether or not the White House asked -- I mean, if it's not true, then you can say Sy Hersh is wrong and CNN was wrong to air it. You could say that, but --

MS. PERINO: We don't discuss such things, Ed.

Q -- what about the substance of whether we --

MS. PERINO: We don't discuss such things. What we have said and what we are working towards is a diplomatic solution in Iran. What the President has also said is that as a President, as a Commander-in-Chief -- and any Commander-in-Chief -- would not take any option off the table. But the option that we are pursuing right now is diplomacy.

Q But the article very specifically said that this summer in a video conference -- secure video conference with Ambassador Crocker, the President said that he was thinking about "hitting Iran" and also --

MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on -- one, I don't know. I wouldn't have been at any -- at that type of a meeting. I don't know. I'm not going to comment on any possible -- any possible scenario that an anonymous source, you know, continues to feed into Sy Hersh. I'm just not going the do it.

Q Why should anybody believe that the President wants diplomatic solutions? He said that before going into Iraq.

MS. PERINO: The President sought a diplomatic solution in Iraq and Saddam Hussein defied the U.N. Security Council 17 times.

Q Some of the history we've learned since suggests otherwise.

MS. PERINO: That the President didn't -- that Saddam Hussein defied 17 U.N. Security Council resolutions?

Q No, that the President was intent on going to war in Iraq in any case.

MS. PERINO: No, the President pursued a diplomatic option. He went to the U.N. Security Council, and then we proceeded.

Q Did he consult -- would he tell Congress before attacking Iran -- before he attacks Iran?

MS. PERINO: Helen, we are pursuing a diplomatic solution with Iran.

Q I'm asking you does he feel committed to ask Congress for permission?

MS. PERINO: We are pursuing a diplomatic solution in Iran.

He is not joking about WWIII, that is the plan, just like this summer he slipped and said " I wouldn't want there to be another terrorist attack" as in he manipulated the last two. Two you say? Anthrax,created at Ft. Detrick Ames strain, see Francis Boyle, senior's bioterrorism expert for more deails, mailed to two Democratic Senators right when the debate over the Patriot Act got serious. Anthrax takes a long time to culture and mill into a weaponized form, and as the probability of someone having it lie around while Osama, with deep ties to CIA and Saudi intelligence, is ready to go is zero. In other words, Osmama is an unwitting tool, steered in the right direction by Mr. Bush through compartmented/need to know operations he would have learned from his father when Sr. was at CIA. Tools of power a son of a President would know well.
What we are witnessing is a subtle form of Hitler and the Reichstag fire. Hitler had the Reichstag burned by extra-state thugs, read, contractors, and then said we need to suspend the Constitution to fight the Communists, read, terrorists. Bush was a history major at Yale and would know this with the 14 history classes on his transcipt,with better grades than Kerry,look it up, and actually his officer tests shows an IQ of 130 +, gifted. He knows what he is doing, and can execute because of his Harvard MBA.There are no dummies there. It is the same thing as the Reichstag fire, up to and including the fact that the masters of power know how to conceal their intentions. Everyone thought they had Hitler in hand until they were hung by piano wire or other associated bad endings. The reason Bush has gotten away with this is that we misunderestimate him, because he is a good actor, a genius in his own way, who deliberately appears dumb sometimes to blind us to his ambtions, which are to exceed his father and become dictator and world emperor. "I am the Decider." Crazy, yes, but a fox too, and the most dangerous individual to hold the job, and also by my analysis a mass murderer, torturer, traitor (think exposing a spy, aid and comfort to the enemies of the U.S.) and therefore needing to be impeached and removed, removal, and probably executed, of not life in prison. What we are witnessing with Mr. Putin is the unraveling of the Ribbentrop Molotov pact, as Putin came into power riding a wave of patriotism over apartment bombings in 1999, supposedly by the Chechens, but now fairly widely agreed to be FSB/KGB. Nice coincidence with 9/11, very unlikely conincidence. Especially because the Global Guardian nuclear war exercises were moved to September for the first and last time around 9/11, in coordination with Russian exercises, as both dictators prepared to have Russian Spetznatz forces blow the towers secured by Marvin Bush's firm, nice coincidence, in a building run by Giulianni, WTC 7, which collapsed afterwards with no planes and no NIST simulations explaining the unexplainable. Steel buildings have never collapsed like that before or since. The Spetznatz troops would have been easy to blow up leaving the country at the same time the bin Laden family left, the latter an absurd breach of investigative procedure, unless you didn't want the truth to come out, keeping those fully in the know to Bush, Rice (Russian speaker no translators needed), Rumsfeld (see nonchalance at Pentagon after attack), Giulianni (see WTC 7)and possibly Cheney, and of course Putin and a few FSB henchmen.Read the neocon agenda about taking over the world as early as Cheney's 92 Quadrenial Review, and call them what they are: neofascists hence the tie to Berluscone and Italy and the Niger memo forged by Italian intelligence in the Plame affair before 9/11 (See Italian Letter)
Alas, all dictators have their falling out, like Hitler and Stalin,or Bush and Putin, and then they go to war. So no, Bush is not kidding, and needs to go now. He has broken the law enough to remove him, and if the media would do its job, the rest of us would be much safer from the supposed terrorist attack before the next elections and war with Iran and Russia, the latter quite likely involving at least limited nuclear strikes. If you think he is dumb, remember the cat's paw: get someone else to take the fall. Its always Cheney or Rove or Rumsfled; no way, they are the cat, he is the monkey (See 48 laws of power). He is a genius who has fooled us all and we need to remove him from office while we still can.

President Bush may not be the most intellectual president we have had, but have you ever thought of where we would be if he had not done what he has done. Do you really believe he makes all decisions solely? He doesn't want a WWIII. He doesn't want a country who is known to be against the U.S. to have the power annihilate us.

In early 1951, the Iranian parliament voted to nationalize the facilities of the AIOC, a British company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which had controlled the extraction, production and marketing of Iranian oil. Mohammed Mossadeq, the main architect of Iran’s nationalization policy, was elected prime minister. Mossadeq was ridiculed in the West as a hypochondriac but in his own country, Mossadeq was revered as a charismatic figure whose defiant opposition to British domination captured the imagination of the Iranian public.

Britain responded harshly to the nationalization of the AIOC’s facilities and imposed an embargo on Iranian oil in an attempt to wreck Iran’s economy. It advocated a military takeover of the AIOC’s oil refinery in Abadan, on the southern coast of Iran. The Truman administration opposed military intervention, fearing that it might provoke a Soviet invasion in Iran.

Meanwhile, Britain’s boycott devastated Iran’s economy which in turn, caused Mossadeq to lose popularity, compelling him to govern in an increasingly authoritarian manner.

Eisenhower took a harsher view of Mossadeq than Truman and in the summer of 1953, the CIA sent Kermit Roosevelt to Iran to recruit officers in the Iranian military to stage a coup against Mossadeq.

Roosevelt hired local gangs to stage anti-government demonstrations in the streets of Tehran. With the city in chaos, the pro-U.S. Iranian army officers seized control of the government, replacing Mossadeq with a pro-shah prime minister.

A consortium of foreign oil companies was allowed to control and market Iran’s oil, with the AIOC surrendering a large share of the operation to American oil companies. Iran became a major recipient of U.S. economic aid. The shah himself was now deeply beholden to the U.S.

At the time, U.S. officials thought they had won a splendid victory, but once the shah was reinstalled in power, he governed much more repressively than before. Ordinary Iranians came to see him as a puppet of Washington; the ultimate consequences of these perceptions were later to become clear in the Iranian revolution of the late 1970.

I recount this history (The Great Courses - The United States and the Middle East: 1914 to 9/11 - Univ. of Chicago) to point out how the U.S. overthrew Iran’s democracy. I believe President Clinton apologized to Iran for this tragic blunder.

The similarities of the situation in Israel in the early 60s and the present situation in Iran is stunning! The concern that Iran’s civilian nuclear power program would be converted to a weapons program is identical to the situation in Israel in the early 60s which I have recounted as follows:

In the early 60s, before President Kennedy was tragically assassinated, he was attempting to influence Israeli behavior regarding two principal issues. President Kennedy wanted to prevent Israel from converting its civilian nuclear power program into a weapons program and he wanted Israel to permit the repatriation of Palestinian refugees, something Israel had refused to do since 1948, on the grounds that this would threaten the Jewish character of Israel. Not only had the Arab states called for Israel’s repatriation of Palestinians, but in late 1948, the UN General Assembly had passed Resolution 194 calling on Israel to repatriate all Palestinian refugees who wished to return to their homes in present-day Israel.

To induce the Israelis to make concessions in these areas, Kennedy agreed to sell them advanced antiaircraft guns, Hawk missiles. Kennedy did not establish a formal quid-pro-quo between the arms sale on the one hand and the refugee and nuclear issues on the other. Unfortunately for Kennedy, this lack of formal linkage permitted Israel to pocket the inducement without making significant concessions on the refugee and nuclear issues.

On the nuclear question, Israel appeared to be cooperating with Kennedy, assuring him that the Dimona nuclear reactor was purely for civilian purposes. By evading and thwarting U.S. attempts to conduct meaningful inspections, Israel continued to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

The similarity between America’s attempt to inspect Dimona in the early 60s and the current attempt to inspect Iran’s civilian nuclear power is overwhelming. Both Israel and Iran used religious holidays as excuses to thwart inspection. Both set very rigid ground rules for inspection. Both used numerous ways to delay, etc.

Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 during which time he was growing very frustrated with Israel.
President Johnson was no more successful than Kennedy had been at keeping Israel from developing the bomb. Although the Israeli government insisted that it had no intention of acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, the U.S. intelligence community learned otherwise. Israel’s standard statement on the question, “Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East”! It is believed that Israel acquired its first usable nuclear bomb sometime in early 1968.

the elections are in a month or so. just hope that hilary doesnt get elected or we are screwed. and if we do end up going to war with iran she is not gonna know what to do.

The article is fine in its assessment but where due to growing factors, a global war in some highly powerful minds, may make perfect sense. I say this as the greatest threat to humanity is the population explosion and where a major global war would solve this problem. Indeed, there is a minority of humans with considerable wealth and power who see the destruction of others as the savoir of themselves (and their vast wealth it has to be said also). The late Glenn Seaborg(Element 106 Seaborgium) our founding President personally appealed and implored President Truman not to drop the 'bomb' on occupied Japanese territory. The President though through his military advisers took no notice even though he discovered Plutonium and was head of the Plutonium plant on the Manhattan Project. But behind the scenes also at the time, there were dark figures who saw that after the fall of Japan, great wealth could also be secured. These figures manipulate presidents and leaders to their own ends and basically again today, change-master politicians and governments in particular, are in the pocket of very rich and very powerful individuals/multinational companies, who seemingly do not look for peace but in many ways for wars and their own vested economic interests. Thinking that they can survive because they are on the strongest side and the reason why in many ways US$1.2 trillion per annum and growing, is spent on armaments now.
But getting back to humankind's greatest threat (even greater than that of even the warmongers it has to be said) is that of the ever-growing population problem and where I give a little evidence based facts that people may not be aware of.
The population of the world (in absolute numbers) has only to increase year-on-year by a mere 0.85% for there to be 12 billion people by 2075. The current population growth (in absolute numbers) is 1.27% (most recent UN figures), some 26% above the percentage increase for 12 billion humans to exist in 2075. But looking at the present rate of human growth, there would be 15.6 billion human inhabitants living on planet Earth in 67-years time. But again, as growth rates are, in statistical terms (not the best accurate measure by any means), slightly declining year-on-year, let us assume that the growth rate is the average of the two, which is 1.18%, then we would still have 14.7 billion people to support. In every scenario it is something that the world's resources could not possibly support considering rising standards of living throughout the world and where it is predicted that India alone will have over half-billion middle class citizens by 2025 (McKinsey, May 2007) on its present economic path. And a final point, what is happening with statistics is that they are being manipulated as usual. In this respect people say that population is declining statistically, but where in reality as we have a greater number each year for our base-line, the figures are really growing at the same rate as the year before, or close to that. It is a bit of a con job that governments in particular like to use so not to alarm their electorate.
Therefore overall looking at our bleak future in a world with vastly dwindling resources by the decade, a war may very well be on the cards for humankind in this century, and one where this time there will be no winners.
Dr David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland
www.thewif.org.uk