[Peace-discuss] at HuffPo: Rep. Keith Ellison: Postpone Bibi's Speech to Congress

[Robert Naiman]

Look at U.S. Iran policy since 2006. It moved. How did it move? The main
story is: Democrats moved. There are no Green Party Members of Congress,
and there is no prospect that there will be any, certainly no appreciable
number. Changing U.S. foreign policy is overwhelmingly a story of moving
Democrats.

Right now there is a split between the U.S. government and the Israeli
government. This creates an opening to move Democrats.






Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:53 AM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
wrote:

> True, if and only if stopping the US from killing people is a Platonic
> abstraction.
>
> And whom do you want to win? I've wondered.
>
>
>
> On Jan 30, 2015, at 10:37 AM, Robert Naiman <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org>
> wrote:
>
> You and I have totally different goals. You want to satisfy a Platonic
> abstraction. I want to win.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 10:32 AM, Carl G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu
> > wrote:
>
>> "...stand with the Boehner-Bibi axis or stand with President Obama?"
>>
>> How about condemning them all and demanding a reversal of Obama
>> administration war policy, in Europe and Asia?
>>
>> The greatest risk of a wider war, even nuclear war, comes not from Iran's
>> non-existent nukes (or even from Israel's hysterical provocations on the
>> matter) but from Obama's vicious proxy war in Ukraine.
>>
>> Like all US administrations since the fall of the USSR - but even more
>> belligerently - the Obama administration is working to damage Russia for
>> control of the Eurasian economy.
>>
>> The American client regime in Kiev has already killed more people in
>> Donbass than the American client regime in Israel recently killed in Gaza,
>> and the attacks continue today.
>>
>> The Obama/Boehner good-cop/bad-cop charade in DC is at best a side-show
>> that continues to mask the US government's imperial policy from the only
>> one of its many enemies it really fears, the American people.
>>
>> The administration is attempting to wean Iran from the SCO and restore
>> the status quo ante (pre-1979), when US control of Mideast energy resources
>> rested on a Saudi Arabia-Israel-Iran tripod. Obama, who says he's surprised
>> to find that killing people is his "strong suit," is willing to kill a lot
>> of people to this end: his drone attacks - which have killed as many people
>> as his proxy war in Ukraine - amount to ‘the most extreme terrorist
>> campaign of modern times’ [Noam Chomsky].
>>
>> The Bush-Obama-(Clinton) regime is working for the American 1% and their
>> economic advantage in Europe and Asia, as the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon regime
>> once did in regard to SE to Asia.
>>
>> The American people must stop them once again.
>>
>> --CGE
>>
>> On Jan 30, 2015, at 9:24 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
>> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/keith-ellison-netanyahu_b_6575504.html
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Controversy is spreading around House Speaker John Boehner's decision to
>> invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ("Bibi") Netanyahu to address
>> Congress on March 3. The invitation is controversial for three reasons: 1)
>> contrary to precedent, Boehner did not consult the White House or the House
>> Democratic leadership in scheduling the speech; 2) the speech will be two
>> weeks before the Israeli election, essentially making the U.S. Congress the
>> backdrop for a speech in Netanyahu's re-election campaign, also contrary to
>> precedent; and 3) the express purpose of the speech is to bash President
>> Obama's Iran policy and demand that Congress pass new sanctions on Iran,
>> which would blow up the U.S./Europe-Iran talks and put the U.S. on a path
>> to war with Iran, as European leaders
>> <http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/on-irans-nuclear-programs-give-diplomacy-a-chance/2015/01/21/0cdb4dcc-a185-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html> and
>> the Congressional Progressive Caucus
>> <http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/hot-topics/progressive-caucus-urges-senate-and-house-committees-to-postpone-new-iran-sanctions-legislation> have
>> warned.
>>
>> J Street <http://act.jstreet.org/sign/Send_Boehner_A_Message> and Americans
>> for Peace Now <http://peacenow.org/entry.php?id=10357#.VMqqsGTF-rw> have
>> called for Netanyahu's talk to be postponed. Former Israeli Ambassador to
>> the U.S. Michael Oren
>> <http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.638809>, the mainstream
>> political opposition in Israel
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/28/world/middleeast/israeli-opposition-takes-aim-at-netanyahu-over-planned-speech-to-congress.html>
>> , former Israeli President Shimon Peres
>> <http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Peres-on-Netanyahu-speech-When-the-US-president-tells-you-not-to-come-to-US-you-dont-go-389415>,
>> and the editorial board of the *New York Times*
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/opinion/john-boehner-benjamin-netanyahu-playing-politics-on-iran.html> have
>> denounced the planned speech. Even *Fox News
>> <http://www.vox.com/2015/1/24/7884311/netanyahu-boehner-fox-news> *thinks
>> Bibi and Boehner are out of line.
>>
>> Now, Reps. Keith Ellison (co-chair of the Congressional Progressive
>> Caucus), Steve Cohen, and Maxine Waters are circulating a letter
>> <http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/democrats-john-boehner-benjamin-netanyahu-speech-114695.html> to
>> Speaker Boehner, asking him to postpone the invitation until after the
>> Israeli election and after Congress has considered the issue of Iran
>> sanctions.
>>
>> This sets up a sharp choice for Members of Congress: stand with the
>> Boehner-Bibi axis or stand with President Obama? A signature on the Ellison
>> letter is a decision to stand with President Obama.
>> [...]
>>
>> ===
>> Robert Naiman
>> Policy Director
>> Just Foreign Policy
>> www.justforeignpolicy.org
>> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
>> (202) 448-2898 x1
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>
>
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