He should have clearly made a stand for human rights…by restating Israel’s right to a secure state, but also the Palestinians’ right to be allowed out of the prison in Gaza. He could have highlighted the terrible conditions in Gaza as unacceptable…it is this poverty and lack of hope that creates terrorism. And the surest way to defeat ‘terrorism’ is to treat people with dignity. Obama sold out to a bunch of well-healed bigots for whom the conditions in Gaza mean nothing.

Its definitely am important part of it.

“Is immigration a Left Right Issue in the first place?”

Definitely the left tends to be more sympathetic to allowing migrants in. (e.g. the Democrats)

“ I know plenty of right wing people who are very pro – immigration – as its a good form of cheap labour to replace the indigenous labour force who are too expensive etc etc. Nothing like new slaves to replace the old ones to keep the profits coming in.”

So if you are anti-migration you are a xenophobe, while if you are pro-migration you are importing new slaves? Damed if you do, damed if you don’t.
Besides if you ponder the previous post a little more, you will note that the legislation Obama, McCain, and even Bush support would give undocumented workers legalization allowing them to claim benefits like healthcare, minimum wage standards, etc. that as undocumented workers they would be denied.

“If its single issues for you then”

Immigration is only an example. There is also the issues such as gender equality which the US is “left” of the other western countries.

“Can one be Left wing and Pro – Capital punishment?”
Dick Cheney favors rights for homosexuals. Does that make him not part of the right wing?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5817720/

Obama is no Abe Lincoln in being sincere in wanting to bring dignity to people. He basically had a chance to show he is different and in pursuit of power he sold short the Palestinians and I’d say the Israeli’s by not being honest about what was needed.

He is more of a Blair than a Lincoln.

What is tragic is people are building him up as a hope when he just isn’t fir for purpose.

It is palin stupidity that people can’t see this.

The only possible solution is peace with Syria and the Palestinians. The is no credible alternative.

By bombing Iran – america and Israel will be seen as hypocrates as they have their own nuke capability and are deciding who can ahve what in territory and weapons.

It is a stupid situation and will lead to much bloodshed which the people who are advocating it will not be affected by and they wil say we told you so. But it is their gross negligence and stupidity that is leading to this.

I’d say anyone who fails to see what was wrong about Obama’s speech is a fool. Obama just brought more misery and bloodshed to a region that doesn’t need such stupid allies.

I am afraid that I agree with the poster who said that Obama sold himself and I am afraid he showed zero leadership or courage.

It is always easy to tell people what they want to hear and it isn’t always easy as a leader to tell them what they need to hear.

What Aipac needed to hear wasn’t said by anyone. Apiac doesn’t have to live with the consequences of its desires the people in the Middle East do.

What would have been brave for Obama is that he should have highlighted to Aipac what a miserable existance the Palestinians have and how it is a duty of Americans including Jewish Americans to bring peace and prosperity to the two nations and two peoples. That would have shown real courage.

Obama failed, Aipac failed and more importantly the Israeli’s and Palestinians were failed.

Then Israel also needs to accept that the International Community has a bigger and longer standing duty for bring peace to the Israel/Palestine Conflict and it is hypocracy that this isn’t happenign as it is fuelling much of this weapons drive.

Israel needs to act as a mature nation and accept that it needs to compromise on major issues to bring peace to this region.

The Palestinians also have a responsibility but they are trying to enter the world nations.

Bombing now will only slow this down and each day that goes by reduces even that.

In addition Iran has learnt from Iraq and has hidden much of its facilities and they are very spread out. So bombing isn’t as easy an option as people think.

Plus Iran can reply quite hard.

I doubt Iran will give a dirty bomb to anyone as it isn’t worth the risk. They have spend decades building up influence across the Middle East and aren’t about to let that go for a chance to hit Israel.

I think it is all sabre rattling to come to terms with Israel on their own terms rather than be led into it or forced into it.

The fact is that Iran won’t stop its activities because it knows that it now has the knowledge to develop a bomb thus air strikes are meaningless and Aipac isn’t waking up tot he reality that it needs to get the US to begin dialogue with Iran rather than threaten it.

The Palestinains have no reason to use a dirty bomb as it would also kill them via fall out.

Thus we have a lot of rhetoric which isn’t constructive.

If Israel wants to neutralise Iran then it needs peace with Syria and the Palestinians which drives back Iran. That is a policy which is being pursued too slowly.

Israel and the Palestinians are their own and each others worst enemies as they can’t live with each other or without each other. This need to be settled to reduce the Shia sphere.

Aipac is thinking nonsense if it believes that peace without giving up East Jerusalem including Temple Mount is possible. Some arrangement needs to be made here and Israel needs to nip this threat in the bud.

Iran has said it will abide by any agreement Syria and the Palestinians make. As long as there is no agreement then Iran can continue to keep the parties apart but with an agreement their ability to do this is gone.

As for America I’d say Barak Obama just cost Israel its chance of haveing the Americans contribute towards a just settlement as both candidates have proven they don’t have the spine to tell their ally what it needs to hear.

I hope the Israeli regime can be brought down by capitalism as well as the Iranians.

b’shalom

bananabrain

b’shalom

bananabrain

As I said before, his commitment to AIPAC is truly disastrous. An undivided Jerusalem as capital of Israel does exactly what Saeb Erakat has now said:

It closes all avenues of peace.

The only way round this has got to be a shared undivided capital (and perhaps even country).

Now that is Audacity of hope!

That is nonsense. Oil is their main export so why would they want to use that internally when they are desperate for export money. Hence they are seekign alternative supplies internally so they can export extrenally they core natural resource.

What they are developing is for domestic production. It is what they are learning from this that can be used to develop a bomb. It is nonsense to say what they are devloping is a bomb as they are not refining that type of fuel – yet.

This is where Pro-Israeli’s are just plain wrong and allowing Iran to then counter the argument. This has been highlighted by numerous Israeli Defence Officials. It is the knowledge of what to do and the ease with which they can do it which will become the problem and from this knowledge they can develop a bomb.

So they are not developing a bomb but what they are doing is learning how to. As we have seen on the Indian Subcontinent it is easy to then transfer this knowledge.

Thus if you bomb it merely delays as at that point the knowledge is acquired.

I’d say they are probably past the point now and in fact are nuclear capable in knowledge but haven’t refined the fuel.

Anything done now is too late and it is nonsense to suggest they don’t know how to do this now. Now the situation needs to be managed and not escalated.

From the Israeli Perspective they need to make peace with the Sunni World which will create a bridge between Israel and Iran.

Thus Obama wanting to talk to Iran is by far the most sensible move as that allows some degree of management to take place.

Iran will conduct low level wars with Israel by proxy but won’t do any more, it isn’t in their interest as the low level allows their influence to spread.

I suspect Israel already knows Iran is capable and thus is ratching up pressure but won’t do much, you may seea symbolic bombing to slow this down but the world needs to accept that Iran is now nuclear capable.

If its single issues fo you then – how about capital punishment. Is Obama against the death penalty? Please provide the link where he states he is against it.

Can one be Left wing and Pro – Capital punishment?

Its a genuine question. I’d be interested to hear peoples views on it.

justforfun

Hmm, so I guess Obama and the Democrats must be a set of raving anti-migrant xenophobes like the UK conservatives?

Well, guess not. In fact most Democrats a for allowing “a path to citizenship” for undocumented workers and/or granting them visas.

Heck even McCain and Bush for such an amnesty. Does that make them to the left of even the Labor Party?

There is no way Iran will attack Israel

iran has already attacked israel, in the summer of 2006 and on an ongoing basis. they are funding, training and arming both hamas and hizbollah and hiding behind the cloak of “plausible deniability”, which tactic credulous nincompoops seem too incredibly dense to notice. iran’s proxy strategy is also under way in both iraq and the gulf states. and if saddam’s iraq and assad’s syria haven’t attacked israel all-out, it is solely because israel made them abundantly aware of the consequences both at osirak in the early 80s and just a few months ago in the syrian desert, otherwise we’d be looking at a syrian nuke in the hands of army hardliners in short order. what the israelis will not permit is the development of iranian nuclear capability – it’s not for domestic power production when they’re sitting on a lake of oil that is one of the largest in the world.

b’shalom

bananabrain

jff – “In America maybe , but over here he would be competing with David Cameron for his job.” heh heh good one. I am assuming though/hoping that Cameron has the sense to realise that if he were to start talking about “health policy and public healthcare” when he actually meant ” more affordable private insurance” – that more of us would ctually realise there is a problem with that.

No – he is a man of little imagination. I form this opinion from the company he keeps. If he is not able to find collegues outside his Eton social clique then he does not have the imagintion or real interest in finding out how others live or challenging his own ideas on life. In short – He will keep the status quo because he likes to live in his intellectual comfort zone. He has not taken the last few years to create any actual hinterland of support to back him up in any of the real changes that this country needs to make. It has all relied on the politics of waiting for Labour to screw up. Not an ineffective way of gaining power as it was bound to happen eventually. But not much good if one actually wants to do something constructive when one gets into power.

So as not to de-rail this thread further – Doug – we can chat about the SNP latter – I ask as I want to keep abreast of gossip from my childrens’ homeland.

justforfun