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Senators Have a Chance to Halt Weapons Sales to Israel. Will They Take It?
(theintercept.com)
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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Well, let's see what Chuck Schumer probably thinks...
https://www.opensecrets.org/industries/summary?cycle=All&ind=Q05&recipdetail=S
Number 7 on one of the few bipartisan lists in DC, nestled right between hos buddies Mitch McTurtle and Rafael "Ted" Cruz...
One of the few areas Biden is really head and shoulders above the rest though.
But Israel pays way too much money to both parties for either party's leaders to actually do what's best for America.
They're gonna do what's best for their campaign donations.
Edit:
Since some people may be surprised number 2 doesn't sound familiar, it's this guy:
https://apnews.com/article/bob-menendez-new-jersey-senate-resignation-9941e49020a032da3861f5f5cf118ec2
One of the most corrupt Dems to ever be held accountable (technically the trial is still happening).
He was Hillary's co-campaign chair in 07 when she lost to Obama, and then Obama made him chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for some fucking reason. He was indicted shortly after in 2018, but charges were then dropped for 5 years till 2023 when he was committing crimes and accepting bribes from foreign government with a legitimately trumpian level of skill at hiding his crimes.
Like, at one point I remember him trying to argue that storing gold bars inside of the suits in his closet was a totally normal thing and not related to him googling how to smuggle gold bars into America while he was in Qatar and just accepted gold bars as bribe...
You get that result if you set the filter to "all" election cycles, but not if you set it to one of the more recent ones. The "all" figure is influenced by the fact that Biden is old and has been through many election cycles.
Compared to all the sprin chickens on the list like Mitch McConnell?
You do have a point there.
What's best for America is containing Iran.
So... Not sure what your going on about. It would be grossly negligent for a US president to break or alliance with Israel and let Iran run the middle east for the next century. You think human rights are under threat now, but you think we should let Iran run things. Seems either ignorant or hypocritical.
The actual conviction that a fucking shia state is going to create a hegemony without a belligerent Israel to counterbalance them is laughable. The only reason they get as much support as they do now is because everyone fucking hates us more. Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia are plenty to counterbalance Iran when push comes to shove. Though I don't consider the Saudis much better. Pan Arabisim specifically discounts Persians and they will react to Iran being a significant threat, even if Turkey and Egypt play nice right now.
The only thing Israel will give the US is a causus beli to go to war with Iran, which is a war the US certainly does not have the conviction to win.
With hundreds of millions of lives on the line, nobody should count on religious fanatics to be rational. They aren't rational.
A hedgemony without Isreal is laughable, I agree. I'm not sure what you're getting at though because Israel, and it's nuclear armament, isn't going anywhere. That's the worry: that Iran, with the power of God on its side, will think it could actually defeat Israel and decide to shoot its shot. They cannot beat Israel. It's not a successful pan-islamic caliphate seated in Tehran that I'm worried about.
I'm worried about the aspiring caliphate that wants to destroy Israel and thinks its ordained to do so. It's great that Egypt and Saudi Arabia will resist Iran, but it won't be before at least tens or even hundreds of millions of war refugees flee the area. Where are they going to go? They're going to head to North Africa, the Mediterranean Coast, eastern Europe, central Africa, south western Asia. What's going to happen to those economies and governments? Maybe not all of the surrounding states will collapse, but some of them will for sure. And then what will happen to all the people that live in these collapsing countries, not to mention Iran itself?
You're trying to downplay the seriousness of the threat posed by a fanatic government in Iran because it believes in a model of government that we, as rational people know cannot sustain from its geopolitical position.
What I'm saying is that it will cost tens of millions of lives for Iran to learn that lesson. Tens of millions of more people will be victims of strained economies and governments, many of whom will likely fall permanently into nation-states of Islamic fascism. The strategy of the western world in the middle east needs to be one based on helping Iran understand that it will not win a war against Israel, despite Iran's sincere conviction that it has God in its side.
America absolutely has the conviction to make sure Iran is not successful. Every president in modern memory has said in no uncertain terms that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons while they are in office. The Pentagon's war plans for a war between Iran and Israel calls for millions of American troops on the ground in Israel.
In any event, the 50,000 dead in Gaza will be a forgettable drop in the bucket compared to the casualties that start tallying up if Iran declares war. It would be pretty stupid for America to change its Middle East policy because Israel went ham on 50,000 people when a change in America's policy is likely to prompt a war that will kill millions of people and displace possibly hundreds of millions. It took a year for 50,000 people to die in Gaza; try to imagine what it would be like when 50,000 people are dying everyday before lunchtime.
So let's just be clear that anyone saying that America should pull its support for Israel is not saying so because of any sincere desire to save lives or preserve human rights.
You speak with both sides of your mouth. Somehow America is preventing Iran from invading Israel while also Iran is a loose cannon that will invade anyway. It's horseshit. The one who's going to start a war is Israel. They're the ones committing genocide and they're the ones who actually put boots on the ground in other countries while flagrantly violating the Geneva convention. That's the powder keg the US has enabled and will continue to enable by giving full support to fascist governments. It won't provide stability or security. All it provides is an absolute liability. And you're beyond delusional if you think Americans will accede to the Pentagon's war plans once the bodies start flying in.
Hmm okay, your strong feelings aside, no, Iran is not likely to invade Israel if we maintain the existing defensive posture, which we will, and which includes the threat of American air support and ground troops, and which, brace yourself, has been working very effectively.
The Supreme Leader can throw the hardliners a few "crumbs" such as October 7 to say "see look how hard our boys are fighting the infidels, hang in there were gonna win this thing" and they will keep the immamate in power, keep relative peace in downtown Tehran, mask on. The problem is the supreme leader, being as he is a human, might have faculties that start to deteriorate and the seat of his power might start being exercised irrationally.
I'm going to assume now that since you suppose to know what Americans will accede to you are American. Your general opinion as to Gaza aren't shared by virtually anyone in Washington, DC. And obviously you know, rhetoric aside, you live in a liberal democracy for which you are pretty thankful. You can do the math, which is objective, but you must know that your description of Israel as anything other than a flawed, young liberal democracy, is not taken as anything more than hyperbole. Obviously Israel is not a fascist government, nor is the US government, as long as our liberal democratic institutions stand. Hamas, the Iranian immamate, the Qatari royal family, on the other hand, whose general rhetoric as to Gaza you agree with, are actually fascists: no trial by jury, no due process, no electoral oversight, no judicial oversight, laws can be changed at the whim of church muckity mucks, any rights granted can be as instantly taken, religious police, with summary executions, are an actual thing in Iran, in Qatar, in Gaza. Ya know, for-real fascism, no rhetoric.
So you should at least ask why you are siding with actual for-real fascists against the virtually unanimous opinions of your own liberal democratic government's leadership, and not even with their TV news rhetoric, but with their actual votes in Congress. Do you have any sense of dissonance here? If you think they are all wrong, that I'm wrong, and that you have it all figured out, maybe you can offer some explanation for the fact that despite the horrific "fully fascist" genocide, going on more than a year, 99% of everyone in Gaza is still alive. Seems like you're the one who's talking out of both sides of your mouth.
Oh of course, who ever heard of a neoliberal state going off the rails and planning delusional foreign policy. I'm obviously some way off base nutjob for suggesting such a thing. Since you want to deny the genocide that's happening, though, I don't really see the point in continuing.