Vice-Presidential Debate: A Successful Governor takes on a Firehose of Hate and Falsehoods Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – As a Southern man of letters, I’ve learned a lot from Tennessee Williams’ plays and films. Watching the Vice Presidential debate, the stench of mendacity wafted all the way from New York to California whenever JD Vance opened his mouth. The Trump/ Vance campaign offers nothing more than myths, lies, fiction and conflations of unrelated issues. The distortions come so fast and furiously that they can’t be addressed in the time allowed for rebuttal. It’s tough to debate a guy who’s gone on record as saying he’ll make things up if he needs to. That was Tim Walz’ challenge, to counter the Trump-inspired gaslighting campaign that Vance enacted. That dynamic overwhelmed Walz at times, but he regained his footing and countered some, though not all of Vance’s brazen lies. But I give Vance credit for knowing how to package all that bovine excrement, and sell it to those naïve enough to buy it. Though he nailed Vance near the end by challenging him on whether the 2020 Election was stolen, Walz missed multiple opportunities to call his bluff more forcefully and fact-check him in real time. But he also articulated how his model of governing Minnesota can be a positive, progressive template at the federal level with regard to health care, child care, public school nutrition and other public services. Walz’ only real faux pas was to choke on the question about the timing of his China visits, and his alleged presence in Tiananmen Square. But he made an acceptable save at the end to say he’d confused the timeline about a series of visits. Walz’ major misstep was to say that the problems in the Middle East started on October 7. WRONG! The starting point was the British double-dealing during and after World War I, and the San Remo Conference after the war, when the great powers divided up the Middle East along new national borders that they drew, cutting across natural tribal and ethnic boundaries. Vance repeatedly referred to “failed policies of the Harris Administration,” a gross anachronism, while conflating numerous issues to manufacture the worst possible outcome, real or imagined. I was waiting for Walz to pipe up and say, “JD, I believe you’re talking about the Biden Administration, not the Harris Administration. We’re waiting our turn.” Remember Vance is the guy who told CNN’s Dana Bash, “I’ll make things up if I need to.” Moderators Nora O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan were the smart ones in the room, but could have been better Parliamentarians by muting Vance when he tried to talk over them to mansplain some tortured fictions — among them how Trump supposedly “saved Obamacare.” (Cue uproarious laughter). They muted the candidates’ mics only once, when things got testy. I wondered why they didn’t do that more often when Vance frequently spoke out of turn. Perhaps they were giving him rope for his own hanging. As I scored the debate at home, I tracked the lies of Vance, as well as the points made and mistakes made by Walz. Both men pivoted away from answering questions directly, but Vance was the guiltier offender. He began his pandering by re-introducing his book, Hillbilly Elegy about his early life struggles, and invoked his beautiful wife and kids numerous times to evade questions. He often targeted Kamala Harris with wildly untrue accusations, revealing his own confusion about the roles of the three branches of government. Walz called him out on that to say, “Senator, Congress controls the purse strings and appropriations, not the Vice-President.” Vance avoided answering tough questions on the Middle East repeatedly saying, “It’s up to Israel how to respond.” True to the Trumpian mission, Vance engaged in aggressive historical revisions, twisted fictions and gross lies. That’s all they have to run on, including: -Trump saved Obamacare (more laughter). -Blaming Harris for the immigration crisis at the Southern border, and for allegedly “allowing” gangs and fentanyl into the country. He said, “Harris opened the border to fentanyl by overturning 94 Trump Executive orders.” It sounds as though he forgot Joe Biden is still president and as though he doesn’t know that border crossings have plummeted in 2024. -Said Trump brought stability (!) and made the world more secure (!). -Bizarrely said that no conflict broke out under the Trump administration. -Alleged that Harris has raised energy prices (?). – Blamed the current State Department for thousands of lost children, who were in fact separated from parents under Trump and Stephen Miller, attributing it to “Harris’ border policy.” -Claimed Immigrants are taking millions of jobs away from Americans, and have overwhelmed schools and hospitals in Springfield, OH, creating a housing shortage. In fact, economists say that without immigrants, America’s impressive recent job growth would have stalled. As for housing, construction of new homes tanked after the Republican Great Recession of 2008-2009 and during COVID, creating a shortage that has little or nothing to do with immigrants. -Claimed he never supported national ban on abortion, even though he has been caught on tape demanding such a national ban. -Said, laughably, that January 6 was a peaceful protest. -Called efforts to counter the election-steal fiction “Kamala Harris censorship.” Even more important was what Vance refused to say; that Trump lost the 2020 Election. And he argued that censoring misinformation about election denial is a threat to Democracy, and not the attempted coup that Trump commanded on Jan. 6. He said, “Kamala’s censorship on an industrial scale” to counter election deniers, is more of a threat to Democracy than Jan. 6. Walz scored points stating how Donald Trump is unfit for the highest office. Start with turning away from our NATO allies, and towards Vladimir Putin and North Korea, while praising Harris’ “steady leadership.” He contrasted that with Harris saying, “Support for Democracy matters.” Then he called out the broad coalition, from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney and Taylor Swift, who support Harris. “Opportunity economy that works for everyone, with freedom to make choices.” He added, “We know who Trump is, and Vance made it clear he will push Trump’s agenda. Trump makes the people I care about afraid. Kamala represents politics of joy, and solutions for middle class.” On the energy topic, Walz pointed out how Trump calls climate change a hoax, and invites oil executives to Mar-a-Lago to ask for transactional campaign donations. Of the immigration crisis Walz noted, “They don’t want to solve it; they want to demonize it,” to create stories and make it a campaign issue. He pointed out that Congress was prepared to pass a bi-partisan Border Bill, until Trump commanded his Republican flock to kill it because he didn’t want it to be resolved; he wanted to preserve it as a campaign issue. When Walz asked Vance directly, ““Did he lose the 2020 election?” Vance responded, “Tim, I’m focused on the future,” to which Walz retorted, “That is a damning non-answer.” Walz got a walk-off home run at the end, saying, “The Trump campaign is all about forgetting what happened on Jan. 6. He lost. This is not a debate other than in his world,” and asking “Where is the firewall with Donald Trump? If he can steal an election what would he do? There’s a clear choice as to who’s going to honor democracy, and who’s going to honor Donald Trump. Rather than toadying up to Trump, Vance should watch his own back. We now know that when Trump was informed that Mike Pence’s life was in danger at the Capitol, Trump said, “So what?” He’d throw Vance under that same bus in a New York minute. —- Bonus video added by Informed Comment: MSNBC: “Vance vs. Walz: MSNBC analysis from the vice presidential debate hosted by CBS News” |
Why Tehran chose to attack Israel ( The Nation ) – Iran is the first Middle Eastern state in the 21st century to strike Israel directly, having fired a massive salvo of ballistic missiles from its territory – not once, but twice – in just one year. But it is not the first Middle Eastern state ever to have done so. […] |
( The National ) – Iran is the first Middle Eastern state in the 21st century to strike Israel directly, having fired a massive salvo of ballistic missiles from its territory – not once, but twice – in just one year. But it is not the first Middle Eastern state ever to have done so. That was Iraq in 1991. From a military perspective, both the Iraqi and Iranian attacks failed to achieve any immediate military objectives. Yet both attacks may have achieved a symbolic victory in the long term. The events that brought the decades-long shadow war between Iran and Israel out into the open occurred in March. Until then, both states had mostly fought each other through proxy wars and assassinations. Seven months ago, however, Israel killed a general belonging to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran’s diplomatic facility in Damascus. That provocation was enough for Tehran to retaliate the following month when it fired 300 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles. Israel then responded by conducting a long-distance air raid against a military base in Isfahan that same month, marking its first ever direct attack on Iran. From a military perspective, both the Iraqi and Iranian attacks failed to achieve any immediate military objectives. Yet both attacks may have achieved a symbolic victory in the long term Both states claimed victory. Iran demonstrated for the first time that it has weapons that can reach Israel, even if most were intercepted. Israel had to rely on American and British aircraft to intercept these projectiles, further elevating Iran’s status as a Middle Eastern actor that provoked all three powers to react. Israel’s retaliation, meanwhile, was a message to Iran that it can conduct long-distance air raids to hit its nuclear facilities in the future. That episode appeared to have ended, giving each state the chance to claim that they had established deterrence against the other. It appeared to be a repeat of the crisis of January 2020, when then US president Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the IRGC general Qassem Suleimani. Iran retaliated with 22 ballistic missiles launched at US forces in Iraq. No Americans were killed, and the episode ended for both sides. What upset a similar balance between Iran and Israel came in late July, when Israel conducted a more significant long-range aerial attack that killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. At the time, Israel struck Iran’s capital, violating not only its sovereignty but also its reputation of protecting its guests. Yet Iran did not retaliate. This begs the question as to why Tehran chose to attack Israel last night. After all, its April salvo was intercepted, and it appears even weaker now given that no missiles were able to hit significant targets yesterday either. There are two explanations for this. Having failed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s death, Tehran would have appeared particularly weak had it not responded to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah last week. Going farther back, Saddam Hussein’s strike against Israel in 1991 might shed important light, too.
During the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam launched close to 40 Scud ballistic missiles towards Israel, aimed at Tel Aviv and its nuclear facility in Dimona, the same facility that Iran targeted in April. Saddam had sought to disrupt the large international coalition that the US had assembled, and which had included Egypt and Syria, by attempting to force Israel to strike back and thereby dividing the Arab world. The attacks killed 13 people, but with Washington having restrained Israel from its longstanding policy of swift retaliation, Saddam’s ruse appeared to have failed at the time. In 1999, just eight years after those events, I got into a taxi in Jerusalem that was being driven by a Palestinian. When he enquired about my origins after I spoke Arabic to him, I responded by saying “Asli Iraqi”. He then praised Saddam with a by-now familiar refrain: “Saddam was the only leader who fought for the Palestinians,” regardless of facts on the ground. Relations between Iraq and Palestinian leaders have, of course, historically been strong. But that’s when I realised that while Saddam had lost the Gulf War, he had won the war for Palestinian memory. Israel may have intercepted Iran’s missiles last night, but it is painfully clear to every Israeli that Tehran has the ability to target their country on a consistent basis. Further, it has been widely reported that many Gazans mourned the death of Nasrallah, even though it was met largely with indifference in the rest of the Arab world. Many Gazans also reportedly cheered Iran’s overnight attack on Israel, if only because it had forced Israel’s government to divert some of its attention away from the beleaguered enclave. Palestinians are not going to forget what they have endured since October 7, for generations to come. Many are just as likely to remember Iran’s strikes on Israel, regardless of their merit, as a show of solidarity with Gaza. Reprinted from The National with the author’s permission. About the AuthorBiden’s Israel Policy Has Led Us to the Brink of War on Iran ( Code Pink ) – On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could […] |
( Code Pink ) – On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.
For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.
Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.
Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.
President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”
On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.
“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.
Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
“Yahoo-Tank,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024
“I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”
The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.
That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.
On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.
Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.
When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.
But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.
Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.
Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.
So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”
Via Code Pink
( Code Pink ) – On October 1, Iran fired about 180 missiles at Israel in response to Israel’s recent assassinations of leaders of its Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), Hezbollah and Hamas. There are conflicting reports about how many of the missiles struck their targets and if there were any deaths. But Israel is now considering a counterattack that could propel it into an all-out war with Iran, with the U.S. in tow.
For years, Iran has been trying to avoid such a war. That is why it signed the 2015 JCPOA nuclear agreement with the United States, the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union. Donald Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, and despite Joe Biden’s much-touted differences with Trump, he failed to restore U.S. compliance. Instead, he tried to use Trump’s violation of the treaty as leverage to demand further concessions from Iran. This only served to further aggravate the schism between the United States and Iran, which have had no diplomatic relations since 1980.
Now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees his long-awaited chance to draw the United States into war with Iran. By killing Iranian military leaders and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil, as well as attacking Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Yemen, Netanyahu provoked a military response from Iran that has given him an excuse to widen the conflict even further. Tragically, there are warmongering U.S. officials who would welcome a war on Iran, and many more who would blindly go along with it.
Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a platform of reconciling with the West. When he came to New York to speak at the UN General Assembly on September 25, he was accompanied by three members of Iran’s JCPOA negotiating team: former foreign minister Javad Zarif; current foreign minister Abbas Araghchi; and deputy foreign minister Majid Ravanchi.
President Pezeshkian’s message in New York was conciliatory. With Zarif and Araghchi at his side at a press conference on September 23, he talked of peace, and of reviving the dormant nuclear agreement. “Vis-a-vis the JCPOA, we said 100 times we are willing to live up to our agreements,” he said. “We do hope we can sit at the table and hold discussions.”
On the crisis in the Middle East, Pezeshkian said that Iran wanted peace and had exercised restraint in the face of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, its assassinations of resistance leaders and Iranian officials, and its war on its neighbors.
“Let’s create a situation where we can co-exist,” said Pezeshkian. “Let’s try to resolve tensions through dialogue…We are willing to put all of our weapons aside so long as Israel will do the same.” He added that Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Israel is not, and that Israel’s nuclear arsenal is a serious threat to Iran.
Pezeshkian reiterated Iran’s desire for peace in his speech at the UN General Assembly.
“Yahoo-Tank,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 2024
“I am the president of a country that has endured threats, war, occupation, and sanctions throughout its modern history,” he said. “Others have neither come to our assistance nor respected our declared neutrality. Global powers have even sided with aggressors. We have learned that we can only rely on our own people and our own indigenous capabilities. The Islamic Republic of Iran seeks to safeguard its own security, not to create insecurity for others. We want peace for all and seek no war or quarrel with anyone.”
The U.S. response to Iran’s restraint throughout this crisis has been to keep sending destructive weapons to Israel, with which it has devastated Gaza, killed tens of thousands of women and children, bombed neighboring capitals, and beefed up the forces it would need to attack Iran.
That includes a new order for 50 F-15EX long-range bombers, with 750 gallon fuel tanks for the long journey to Iran. That arms deal still has to pass the Senate, where Senator Bernie Sanders is leading the opposition.
On the diplomatic front, the U.S. vetoed successive cease-fire resolutions in the UN Security Council and hijacked Qatar and Egypt’s cease-fire negotiations to provide diplomatic cover for unrestricted genocide.
Military leaders in the United States and Israel appear to be arguing against war on Iran, as they have in the past. Even George W. Bush and Dick Cheney balked at launching another catastrophic war based on lies against Iran, after the CIA publicly admitted in its 2006 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons.
When Trump threatened to attack Iran, Tulsi Gabbard warned him that a U.S. war on Iran would be so catastrophic that it would finally, retroactively, make the war on Iraq look like the “cakewalk” the neocons had promised it would be.
But neither U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nor Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant can control their countries’ war policies, which are in the hands of political leaders with political agendas. Netanyahu has spent many years trying to draw the United States into a war with Iran, and has kept escalating the Gaza crisis for a year, at the cost of tens of thousands of innocent lives, with that goal clearly in mind.
Biden has been out of his depth throughout this crisis, relying on political instincts from an era when acting tough and blindly supporting Israel were politically safe positions for American politicians. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rose to power through the National Security Council and as a Senate staffer, not as a diplomat, riding Biden’s coat-tails into a senior position where he is as out of his depth as his boss.
Meanwhile, pro-Iran militia groups in Iraq warn that, if the U.S. joins in strikes on Iran, they will target U.S. bases in Iraq and the region.
So we are careening toward a catastrophic war with Iran, with no U.S. diplomatic leadership and only Trump and Harris waiting in the wings. As Trita Parsi wrote in Responsible Statecraft, “If U.S. service members find themselves in the line of fire in an expanding Iran-Israel conflict, it will be a direct result of this administration’s failure to use U.S. leverage to pursue America’s most core security interest here — avoiding war.”
Via Code Pink
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