Friday News Roundup - Hour 2
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-10-07/friday-news-roundup-hour-2
Germany threw its weight behind efforts to recapitalize Europe’s banks and restore confidence in the Eurozone, as Greece teetered on the brink of default and anti-austerity protesters took to the streets. Russia and China vetoed a UN resolution condemning the government crackdown in Syria. A plot to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai was foiled as America marked the ten-year anniversary of its longest war. US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made his first official visit to Israel and cautioned it against becoming too isolated, and German prosecutors reopened investigations into hundreds of suspected Nazi war criminals. A panel of journalists joins guest host Laura Knoy for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
Guests
Yochi Dreazen
senior national security correspondent, National Journal magazine.
Nadia Bilbassy
senior U.S. correspondent, MBC TV -- Middle East Broadcast Centre.
Massimo Calabresi
Washington correspondent, Time magazine.
Comments
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Your posted picture here of Greek police clashing with protestors is....I fear....a shadow of the things to come. Even to the shores of America. So far the protests state side have been mild to the extent that the protestors themselves have conducted themselves peacefully. As tensions and misunderstanding mount this may not always be true.
Some radio personalities on the Right are pushing a new notion that these protests in America have been in part, aided and abetted by the Obama administration as a way to divert attention away from its failed policies. That is patently absurd. Neither of the "monied political parties" in the country desire a revolution but their inattention and inactivity in effective governing is leading directly to one.
This global meltdown is indeed....Global. Occupy Wall Street protests have begun to spring up in Australia, which by my calculations is a long long ways from Wall Street.
And the meltdown of the Euro is witness to the continued spread of this contagion globally. Capitalism is in big trouble.
A very well-informed and well connected former CIA analyst Ray McGovern has written an article "Israel's Window to Bomb Iran"noting mounting indications that Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak might be on the verge of launching a war against Iran. What can your guest say about these "mounting indications"
That Israel is getting closer to pre-emptively attacking Iran based on unsubstantiated claims?
Former CIA middle east analyst Ray McGovern has written that
"There are mounting signs that the right-wing Israeli government may think the timing is right for an attack on Iran, with growing alarms inside Israel about alleged Iranian progress on building a nuclear bomb – and with President Barack Obama fearing loss of key Jewish political support in 2012 if he doesn’t go along"
In a new article titled "Israeli's window to Bomb Iran"
What can your guest say about this possibility?
was just over at the "Center for the Preservation of Dynastic Wealth" website. Seems like wealthy heirs and heiresses are uniting. They may hit Wall Street soon with signs saying "It's a class war and we're winning" "Tax the Mainland not our Islands"..."Widen the Income Gap"
I think the 1% are rising up against the 99%
They are starting to feel picked on. Tears
Realized where ALL the calls and mailers came from last election(NC)- one rich family funded millions in media AND 'turned' state RED(now is the required time for publicly accounting for funds). Just in time for redistricting...
and the faithful think that is a liberal lie...
well money- er- incorporated families have a vote for every dollar just like US. So their voice SHOULD be louder. They did used to own IT but believe most sold/ transfered overseas... raiding infrastructure very profitable... take the money for future American retirements GREAT enriching short term business philosophy(they could go to jail to do otherwise- fidiciary responsibility U know)
LONGEST WAR?
With respect to the News Roundup today, which has erroneously characterized the war in Afghanistan as the longest modern American war, a correction is in order. The Viet Nam War was far longer -- and far, far costlier in lives -- than the current war in Afghanistan. The USA lost 50,000 American lives; the South Vietnamese and the North Vietnamese lost hundreds of thousands of lives, if not millions of lives. The Viet Nam War included American participation as early as the latter 1940's, solidified in 1956, when the Geneva Accords were abrogated by South Vietnam with American support; American participation then ramped up profoundly in 1964, when President Lyndon Johnson began sending hundreds of thousands of American soldiers to Viet Nam, even exceeding 500,000 American soldiers. Nightly body counts from that war far exceeded the current loss of life in Afghanistan, most of which is brought to Afghanistan courtesy of the Taliban, who mass murder civilians and assassinate Afghan Government officials. The Viet Nam War lasted almost thirty years; the USA withdrew from the Nam in 1975, and the period 1964 - 1975 still exceeds the duration of our present presence in Afghanistan. The point of this comment is not to trivialize the horrors of the Afghanistan War, nor to market greater horrors in Afghanistan, nor to encourage false analogy between the two wars, which bear some similarities, but, which are not at all identical. The point of this comment is merely to correct the erroneous statement that the Afghanistan war is the longest modern American war.
watching Greece is what US call teasers for US... previews?
TG Blackwater, er 'Z', er whatever KBR calls yem now HAS trained domestic US police forces for a decade now and yey stand ready with the scoopers.
USed to be paranoid and -redacted- BUT wiy yem after US now to busy to complain.
temporal quake- where are US ? Oh no here.
HAPPY BDAY record setting war(for US)... another 990 years to go to tie record...
actually death of OPUS Roosevelt, and loss of his leadership, 'killed' peaceful transition for Vietnam post WW2
fighting the Japanese Vietnamese were promised no restoration of France as colonial power. OPUS Truman did not act to preserve promise as restoration of France considered more important(ducking US ideals costs again) post war.
Marshall plan(rebuilt post WW2 Europe) BARELY passed Congress... as fiscal conservatives thought too costly... US debt 'high'... ETC.
US love repeats. You gotta love IT.
Deaths from war Viet LESS then yearly deaths on roads from autos since... WOW. Who claimed car inefficient, wasteful(horrid design), and polluting(and contributing to global genocide?)?
Krazy US. We love US.(you gotta love IT).
came close to making glow in dark glass parking lot in 80's
another oops from death of OPUS Roosevelt... and diversion of 'goal' of special operations... subverting 50's English parliamentary system in place Iran... or was that Iraq... US miss Persia and their enlightenment of the West... which brought on the Inquisition to 'correct' the scientific and social gains...
apparantly huMANs love repeats too
was ALL done in Greece one time or another... why Socrates suicided. Bored from reruns.
ENDING THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN
Repeatedly, the media informs us that the Taliban and related organizations are funded by the illegal drug trade and by the illegal trafficking of human beings. We also hear repeatedly that the cash economy and livelihood of Afghanistan is largely the province of the illegal drug trade and illegal human trafficking.
The fastest and smartest way to cause the price to fall out of those two illegal markets is to legalize and regulate these markets. Then of sober and financial necessity, the Afghanis may engage themselves in rebuilding their nation.
We in the West have similar problems. Organized crime has increasingly taken over our economy. Yet, we do not hear the issue of organized crime discussed as a reason for the failure of our economy.
Western economic failure, political dissonance, and corruption may conceivably be turned around by legalizing and regulating the illegal drug and the illegal sex trade. Minimum wage would certainly be a deterrent to willing participation in the illegal sex trade, which libidinous appeal to young men and women is the lure of quick riches. Those 'quick riches' often wind up right back in the hands of the organizations employing them as hookers, for often the hookers become hooked by horrible drug habits. As well it is drug addiction that may lead to employment in the sex trade as a way of supporting the drug habit. Without illegal trade in drugs and sex, organized crime would shrivel, gang warfare would have no 'raison d'etre', and the weapons trade, legal and illegal, would be much less fungible.
This is a reasonable conjecture that should be explored as a way to root out the possible fundamental causes of worldwide corruption, social disintegration, economic failure, and warfare.
Das OCCCUPY!
Massimo Calabresi won today's 1st place Spin & Distort The Facts prize today! Something I've heard in the tone over the last week since the American Autumn has finally started to get covered even by NPR, is a very definite media attempt to blur distinctions between the Tea-Party and people involved with Occupy Wall St et al.
It stands out as they are categorically dissimilar and natural enemies! So why the hyper credulity towards the tea-party and with a cynical dumb-downed mealy mouthed, paraphrasing of what the Occupy Wall St people are saying, as if they where at the core similar?
This is the whole NPR et al suck, and I'll no longer donate any money to because it's all scripted as such to well fog us.
Massimo Calabresi, Washington correspondent, Time magazine, said that Romney being compared to POTUS Carter was of course not flattering for a Republican. Being compared to Jimmy Carter is not flattering to any politician regardless of political party.
I take issue with Mr. Yochi Dreazen’s statement on the Diane Rehm Show Friday News Roundup international hour on Friday October 7, 2011. Mr. Dreazen’s statement “Obama hates Netaniahu and Netaniahu hates Obama” remained unchallenged by Ms Knoy. She should have asked him to justify such a statement. Perhaps your guests should familiarize themselves with the same code of conduct and terms of use before making statements that you demand from your callers and/or email commentators.
You had excellent reporters/guests on your first hour. The second hour left a lot to be desired. I am sorry I listened to the defamatory language on your international discussion; it left a bitter taste. I wonder is Ms Rehm would have left such a statement unchallenged.
Nadya
Let’s see, according to one guest the drone planes aimed at legitimate military targets (you know, the people actually trying to kill us), and designed to (hopefully) produce limited ‘collateral damage’, are seen in the Middle East “as a kind of cowardly way of waging war”.
Compared to what?
Hamas deliberately targeting civilian populations with its rockets?
Suicide bombers doing the same (and being pretty indiscriminate about it)?
Hijacking commercial airplanes to use as missiles against an office building, killing both the passengers and the civilians working there?
I wonder how the Middle East would like it if the U.S. followed those examples and truly started behaving in a cowardly and blood-thirsty way? A few thermonuclear ICBM’s can ruin your whole day!
(Just to be clear, I hope that never happens, but on the moral scale if there must be warfare I’ll choose the drone planes over those other “brave” attacks I mentioned.)
Thank you Etaoin Shrdlu for pointing out the plasticity of so called respect for life and faith members, Hiroshima and Nagasaki notwithstanding. We are efficient killers of humans and our planet. One representative of Congress voted/opposed the war. Can one call it suicide by minority media control?
Although Indianapolis has a constitutional legal demonstration today, some call it mob, the Gannett newspaper did not cover it. It did cover declining revenue from our Colt football team.