The president uses some absurd rhetoric about the new military aid bill:
Congress has passed my legislation to strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: we stand resolutely for democracy and freedom, and against tyranny and oppression [bold mine-DL].
Secretary Blinken made a claim yesterday that absolutely no one will believe:
“We apply the same standard to everyone,” Blinken said. “And that doesn’t change whether the country in question is an adversary, a competitor, a friend or an ally.”
Everyone can see that Blinken isn’t telling the truth. It’s a bit odd that top U.S. officials try to preserve the fiction that the U.S. holds allies and clients to the same standard that it uses for others. No one takes the story seriously, and it just prompts critics to call out the pointless lying.
The Biden administration still hasn’t given up on its terrible plan for a Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Biden administration is pushing for a long-shot diplomatic deal in coming months that presses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a new commitment to Palestinian statehood in exchange for diplomatic recognition by Riyadh, U.S. and Saudi officials said.
Continue reading “Pursuing Saudi-Israeli Normalization Is a Fool’s Errand”
The president published another strange op-ed tying the wars in Ukraine and Gaza together. His immediate goal was to urge Congress to pass a bill funding more military aid for Ukraine and Israel, but to do that he insists on linking the two wars together as if they are comparable and equally worthy of support. This is the same line he has been pushing for months ever since he decided to try to use Congressional support for Israel to get more funding for Ukraine last year. It was a strained and unpersuasive argument six months ago, and now it is just insulting.
The U.S. shouldn’t be providing any military assistance to Israel for its current war(s). Not only has the Israeli government used U.S.-made weapons to commit war crimes, but it has also been impeding and blocking the delivery of humanitarian aid as part of a policy of using starvation as a weapon against the people of Gaza. Further weapons transfers to Israel should be out of the question. There shouldn’t be one more cent spent on military aid to a government responsible for such crimes. U.S. forces shouldn’t be used to protect a bad client from the consequences of its actions.
The Iranian retaliation in response to Israel’s April 1 attack on their consulate in Damascus was unprecedented. It was the first direct attack on Israeli territory from Iran, and it was reportedly the largest drone attack on record.
The attack was also one of the most telegraphed military responses of all time. After almost two weeks of warnings that a response was coming, the Iranian government gave advance warning to Turkey, Jordan, and Iraq several days before the attack, and they gave Israel, the U.S. and other regional states hours to prepare. Tehran wanted to make a point without doing so much damage that it would be guaranteed to trigger a wider conflict. The response could easily have been worse and more destructive than it was.
The Washington Post reports that Israel didn’t give the U.S. advance warning about the strike on the Iranian consulate last week that killed seven people, including a high-ranking IRGC general:
Senior Pentagon officials were frustrated that Israel did not notify the United States before conducting a strike on an Iranian site in Syria this month, an escalation that they assess increases risks to American forces in the Middle East, U.S. officials said.
