Friday News Roundup - International
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-08-31/friday-news-roundup-international
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi called for intervention in Syria at a summit of non-aligned leaders in Iran. German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrived in China on Thursday as head of the largest German business delegation ever to visit the country. And human rights activists called for the release of a Pakistani Christian girl accused of blasphemy for burning religious texts. Nadia Bilbassy of the Middle East Broadcasting Center, Mark Thompson of Time magazine and Susan Glasser of Foreign Policy magazine join Diane for analysis of the week's top international news stories.
Guests
Nadia Bilbassy
senior U.S. correspondent for MBC TV -- Middle East Broadcast Center.
Mark Thompson
Washington deputy bureau chief of Time magazine and editor of Time's "Battleland" blog.
Susan Glasser
editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine.
Comments
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Alas! The poor International Friday News Roundup! Conspicuous for it's almost total lack of comments.
The only thing that might be worthy of comment is Angela Merkel's visit to China. Is Germany going to surrender, economically, to China? Well, the USA started preparing for the American economic surrender during the Nixon administration.
Maybe Germany has decided to follow the crowd.
A young Benjamin Netanyahu participated in a nuclear smuggling ring targeting the United States.
But that can't be discussed on the DR Show, which focuses on propagating disinformation about Iran's (non existant) weapons program, dished out by various Israel lobby stooges.
Listen to a clip of Diane drop-kicking that issue right off the show.
http://www.irmep.org/npr.mp3
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/netanyahu-implicated-in-nuclear-smuggling-...
Geez wonder why Assad would think there could be a conspiracy against his regime. U.S. overthrows a democratically elected leader in Iran in the 50's, The U.S. supports Saddam and then invades Iraq based on a pack of lies, Israel assasinates Iranian scientist. Where the hell would Assad get such ideas?
And listen to that diversity of opinion on your panel today on Syria. Just like your panel the other day during your hour on Syria. No diversity of opinion at all. No mention of Egyptian President Morsi's suggestion to form a "contact group" to Syria to work on dealing with the Syrian situation via peaceful means. Nope no discussion about what Morsi has suggested.
So much coverage of the Syrian refugees on the Diane Rehm show compared how much you folks covered over a million Iraqi refugees that were created by the U.S. invasion.
If Israel attacks Iran ...Iran has every right to attack Israel. Every right
There is plenty Israel can do. Sign the IAEA's Non proliferation treaty. Open up their massive stockpiles of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons to inspections. That would say a great deal to Iran who signed the NPT and has the legal right to enrich up to 20% for peaceful purposes.
Lots of diversity of opinion on your panel about Israel and their madness. Choke. Rehm team when are you actually going to mix up the diversity of opinion on your program.
Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett
Professor Juan Cole
Former Cia head of the Bin Laden unit Micheal Scheuer.
Dr. Zbig.
Mix it up
Wow Diane mentions Rachel Corrie. Thank you. Hope you have the Corries on Diane. Diane you would love Cindy and Craig. Israel courts decide Israel is not at fault. No surprise there
Kathleen,
Juan Cole? Flynt and HIllary? Are you nuts? Steve Roberts, syndicated columnist for the bi-monthly Bethesda Magazine and cokie's hubby, can hold forth with greater expertise on any topic those people could ever possibly broach.
Diane in a sort of happy shock that you mentioned the Israeli court decision about Rachel Corrie being crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she was trying to stop a bulldozer from demolishing a Palestinian home on Palestinian territory. PLEASE PLEASE HAVE CINDY AND CRAIG CORRIE ON YOUR PROGRAM. HAVE AN ISRAELI REP TOO. BUT PLEASE HAVE THEM ON. YOU WOULD LOVE THEM..SO HONORABLE .
Caller John sounds as if he went to the Joe Biden School of public speaking and geopolitics. Another typical DR Show of Israel bashing and PLO propping up.
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, a correspondent for MBC TV, said that "Hamas should not be “lumped in” with other terrorist groups because “once Palestine is liberated then [Hamas] will cease to use violence.”
Come on, Diane. How about an Israelis journalist to balance out the PLO one-sidedness of your panel.
a recent report by former Israeli Defense force members came out this week. In the report description after description of human rights abuses being committed against Palestinian children by Israeli military members. Diane would you please have some of these honest Israeli soldiers on your program to discuss this critical report
Breaking the Silence is the name of the group and the report
Has it occurred to anyone that Romney do not mention the Afghan war or military families because no one in the family including their 5 sons has seen it fir to served in the armed forces?.
Has it occured to anyone that the SEAL team who killed OBL does not support POTUS Obama for re-election?
Unfortunately, the panelist who just said that Obama gave Israel what it wanted and that this is "lost" on folks - just doesn't get it.
Obama has caused serious casualty and grief for Israel - deliberately, I might add - in the world of "atmospherics." He has humiliated Israel - and has actually said he was doing that out of friendship. With friends like that... He has humiliated Netanyahu, when Netanyahu has come to this country by not receiving him properly. And on and on.
That kind of behavior by Israel's closest ally is outrageous.
Of course, the result is that Obama singlehandedly defeated any hope of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations over two years ago. And, of course, the result has been a change in Abbas' behavior toward Israel - and eventually toward the US.
Unfortunately for Obama, he misgauged b/c Obama didn't have the knowledge, experience or skills to deal with the Middle East.
In the end, Abbas told Obama to take a walk. And Obama has made it difficult for Israel to operate in other settings.
Too bad that Obama just didn't get it - and neither did Diane's panelist. The world has suffered for it.
Of course, Obama doesn't get it on Iran either.
A president's first ambition and priority should be to make the US and the world a safer place...not to be re-elected.
Obama's priorities are reversed.
Frankly I am surprised at how often the middle east journalist makes jingoist remarks, implying heavily that the US should be moving to military action against just about everybody - Iran, Syria, China, Russia ..... whomever.
The US needs more war like Greece needs more debt. In spite of the world view that Americans are global cops, there are rational limits to what military action can even accomplish, especially in light of the collateral damage and casualties that would inevitably occur ...... and the potential for ever-widening conflicts.
Example: one eventuality involved in actually striking Syria would be that Al Qaeda and other anti-US forces would flock to the area, inflict untold havoc, end up blaming the Americans for the mess, and then seize power after Assad's bunch leaves. From the frying pan into the fire. Something even more drastic could occur in attacking Iran - a state which has far more warcraft available than Iraq ever did.
IRMEP you sound as if you have an expectation of fair standards. And remember President Kennedy was the last President to demand that Israel open up their nuclear weapons sites to inspections.
Thus far, only RETIRED members of the SEALs have voiced opposition to Pres. Obama. In fact, active duty members of the Armed Forces are told to be cautious about statements regarding their current Commander In Chief. There is a chain of command in place, and you'll find that the UCMJ has restrictions on certain public activities for active duty members.
That said, it really wouldn't matter whether the entirety of the Armed Forces votes for or against any candidate - that's a citizen's privilege. President Obama has heaped nothing but praise on SEAL team 6 and all the Armed Forces regardless of unit or assignment. He launched an in-depth investigation of leaks immediately after they occurred. All the fact-checkers have thus far repudiated all suggestions that the President authorized leaks or used any discussion of the OBL killing for political gain. So far no evidence.
AND re: attacking Iran et al: Any military strategist will also tell you that a threat of attack is most powerful before the attack is even launched.
People seem to be concerned about Syria's chemical weapons falling into the wrong hands, but i do not see much concerns about other Syrian weapons such as missiles, bombs, and other munitions falling into rebel hands. What are the implications for the whole region if these weapons start pouring across Syria's borders.
HonestAbe wrote:
"President Obama has heaped nothing but praise on SEAL team 6 and all the Armed Forces regardless of unit or assignment. He launched an in-depth investigation of leaks immediately after they occurred. All the fact-checkers have thus far repudiated all suggestions that the President authorized leaks or used any discussion of the OBL killing for political gain. So far no evidence."
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POTUS Obama has also said U.S. military is "fighting on his behalf." You know as much about POTUS Obama's comments on the military as you do about Clint Eastwood's politics.
"Over the course of several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors; when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed, monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf..."
It is interesting to me that the Republicans, including Paul Ryan, claim that President Obama has no plan to institute reforms that would extend the life of Medicare. Then, they complain about the changes that he has made via the Affordable Care Act that does institute some level of reforms and would, in fact, extend the life of Medicare. I cannot imagine that they could find a way to reform Medicare and extend its life without making some cuts to the Medicare funding. The Paul Ryan budget touted by the Republicans does make cuts and clearly shifts the costs to seniors. Also, the Republicans claim that they are concerned about future generations (i.e., their children and grandchildren); but, then they point out that their plans would apply to anyone under age 55; does that not include the future generations they claim to be so concerned about.
They Republicans frequently make the claim that the Democratic Party had control of Congress for 2 years and thus could have passed any legislation President Obama wanted. That is not my recollection. With the unprecedented use of the filibuster by Republicans in the Senate, it was not possible for the President and Democrats to exercise the complete control that they claim. It was only for a couple of months, after Senator Specter changed parties, that the Democrats had the 60 votes needed in this partisan environment to barely pass the Affordable Care Act.
Nadia is obviously very knowledgeable and educated on the events she speaks about, but could you please ask her to take a breath every now and again. I think she was doing 500 words a minute at one point today.
Colm wrote:
"Nadia is obviously very knowledgeable and educated on the events she speaks about, but could you please ask her to take a breath every now and again. I think she was doing 500 words a minute at one point today."
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That's just how a professional PLO propagandist speaks. She figures the faster she talks the less likely the listener is to catch the inherent inaccuracies of her arguments.