Top Senator: An Attack On Israel Is An Attack On US

[Purveyor]

By HERB KEINON
01/10/2012 01:29

An Iranian attack on Israel would be tantamount to attacking the United States, US Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) told an auditorium full of high school students in Jerusalem on Monday.

Inouye, introduced to the students by former AIPAC president Robert Asher as the best friend Israel has in Congress, said he discussed the Iranian threat in a meeting earlier in the day with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“We in the US are deeply concerned with the activities in Iran,” said Inouye, who is America’s senior senator, having served continuously since 1963. “If the Iranians should ever develop a nuclear device or bomb, that could mean the end of the world as we know it in the Middle East. It would have an impact on all countries, not just Israel. As a result, our position is that if you attack Israel, you are attacking the United States.”

Inouye is the president pro tempore of the US Senate, making him third in line to succeed the US president, following the vice president and speaker of the house. He is also chairman of the powerful senate appropriations committee, and is here leading a delegation from that committee that also includes Thad Cochran (R-MS) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD).

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http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=252905

[MinervaX]

1. The US Senate is a country club to guys like Inouye.

He's a damn good example of why there should be term limits.

[MattBaggins]

8. Term limits are built into the system

You have every opportunity to go to Hawaii and try to get someone else elected. You don't have the right to disenfranchise others because you don't like who they voted for.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. "..it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another" - George Washington

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest, but even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand, neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with powers so disposed, in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our merchants, and to enable the government to support them, conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit, but temporary and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. George Washington - Farewell Address

[sharp_stick]

3. Yammering to his audience

I don't think you can get into the Senate unless you can do this. I bet he could just as quickly pivot around to a talk in front of a bunch of Iranian/Americans with almost the same speech.

This is one of the many reasons I don't hold a lot of respect for politicians in general and have become so damned cynical in general.

[NathanTheGreat]

4. Most of the people who represent you disagree

I personally believe that Israel should either stand alone or find a new place to live.

We have achieved the great nation you see around you because we have spent 2 centuries not embroiled in conflicts that are 50 centuries old. We've grown and prospered and watched as the fools around the world continued to fight wars with no idea why they were fighting in the first place.

How dumb are we to keep putting ourselves in the middle of the conflict that began when Joshua sacked Jericho? They have been fighting over tiny scraps of nearly worthless land as long as history has existed, and they'll probably keep fighting long after everyone reading this is dead.

We're keeping Israel and their neighbors apart, we're keeping Koreans safe from themselves, protecting Taiwan from China, and we have a mutual defensive agreement with most of Europe (NATO.)

Are any of these conflicts important enough to us that I'm willing to die or send my child to die?

Never

[RZM]

5. You repeat a common myth about I/P

As if they have been at each others throats constantly for thousands of years.

In fact, the conflict as we know it isn't all that much longer than 100 years old. It pretty much dates from the beginnings of modern Zionism, which emerged at the end of the 19th century.

[NathanTheGreat]

7. Semantics

The word zionism arrived in the late 1800's, but the notion that the Jews have a home in Israel and an obligation to return there and rebuild Jerusalem as a Jewish city has been around much longer.

The Jews at times were even invited back by the arabs, by leaders like Cyrus and Saladin, but each time they came back they were eventually considered a nuisance and either left because they were mistreated or kicked out.

The early 1900's actually ended a relatively stable period for the region, because it was entirely under control of the Ottomans for centuries...but after they fell the old conflicts and the old bad blood came back pretty quickly.

It's a quagmire, always has been. England screwed it up in 1917, I'm tired of being expected to pick up their bill.

[BlueIris]

6. Laying some more groundwork for Iran, I see.

Something I've always wondered about propaganda pushers of this particular stripe: do you really think Americans will support retaliation against "Iran" after "Iran" strikes Israel? Do you really think Americans are going to support yet another invasion that will rapidly go nuclear to defend...Israel?

I still can't believe I'm reading this crap in 2012. It got old when the Bushies were doing it back in 2005. Not any less old (or dangerous, or offensive) now.

[superpatriotman]

9. Tough guy posturing

Iran has not, and is not attacking anyone.

[newfie11]

10. yeah and this asshole can lead the charge! n/t