March 2, 2021

 

Ron Paul

Last Thursday President Biden continued what has sadly become a Washington tradition: bombing Syria. The President ordered a military strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border that killed at least 22 people. The Administration claims it struck an “Iranian-backed” militia in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on US installations in Iraq. As with Presidents Obama and Trump before him, however, Biden’s justification for the US strike and its targets is not credible. And his claim that the US attack would result in a “de-escalation” in the region is laughable … Initiating a war against a country that did not attack and does not threaten the United States without Congressional authority is an impeachable offense … President Biden should be impeached for his attack on Syria, as should have Trump and Obama before him.

Patrick J. Buchanan

Thursday, in its first military action, the Biden Pentagon sent two U.S. F-15Es to strike targets of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia just inside the eastern border of Syria. The U.S. strikes were in retaliation for a missile attack on a U.S. base in Irbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, which killed a contractor and wounded a U.S. soldier … Democratic Sens. Tim Kaine and Chris Murphy want to know where President Joe Biden got his authority to launch attacks in Syria, where there was no clear or present danger to any U.S. troops. Days before the U.S. strike, Kataib Hezbollah issued a statement denying any complicity in the Irbil attack … Six weeks into his administration, Biden seems in danger of being drawn back indefinitely into the forever wars of the Middle East.

A. Ramirez - Jamestown Foundation

The new year brought about a noticeable shift in the tactics and goals of Antifa groups nationwide. After President Joe Biden’s January 20 inauguration, Antifa cells in the Pacific Northwest, northern California, and Colorado simultaneously broadened their focus from anti-police rhetoric to condemnation of the United States as a whole … On President Biden’s Inauguration Day, Antifa cells in cities such as Portland, Seattle, and Denver took to the streets for coordinated marches and riots called “J20.” … The messaging at all the rallies was harmonized around anti-American sentiment and a rejection of the United States’ political and economic system as a whole … One difference between various “J20” Antifa actions was that rioting was widespread on the West Coast, while rallies in the Rocky Mountain region remained lawful.

Jason Ditz – Antiwar.com

It is rare for a succinct foreign policy platform paper to so fully encapsulate a candidate’s thinking process. A policy paper [Jan. 2001] sent to Hillary Clinton, available on WikiLeaks, lays out the Democratic front-runner’s strategy as an architect of US intervention in Syria, shows the flawed reasoning that beget the scheme. Perhaps most importantly, the document shows utter blindness to the huge problems that the war ultimately led to. As with so many US wars in the Middle East, it all starts with Israel, and saw the US imposing regime change in Syria as primarily about benefiting Israel and spiting Iran, a position that closely mirrors that of several Israeli officials.

Institute for Historical Review

When a prominent American political figure speaks boldly about Jewish-Zionist power, that's news. So the remarks by South Carolina's senior Senator that Iraq was invaded "to secure Israel," and that "everybody" in Washington knows it, are indeed remarkable … Bush's motive in going to war for Israeli interests, charged Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, was to get Jewish support in election campaigns.

A. Adamit-Gorstein - JTA

Michael Che of “Saturday Night Live” made a joke last week during the show’s “Weekend Update” segment saying that “Israel is reporting that they’ve vaccinated half of their population, and I’m gonna guess it’s the Jewish half.” The joke struck a nerve among some Jews, who rushed to condemn the satirical show for anti-Semitism and demanded that Che and “SNL” apologize for using “dangerous” and “anti-Semitic” tropes against Israel … Some liberal Jewish groups, on the other hand, celebrated the joke for pointing out Israel’s systematic discrimination against the Palestinians … It is not anti-Semitic to note that Jewish settlers living in the West Bank are full and equal citizens of Israel, while Palestinians living there are deprived of basic rights; it is the plain truth.

JTA

After viewers noted that the stage at the CPAC conference was shaped like a Nazi symbol, the organizer of the conservative political conference said any resemblance was unintentional … CPAC is perhaps the leading annual conservative conference, drawing a who’s-who of prominent Republicans as well as lower-profile activists. This year, former President Donald Trump was the top-billed speaker. On Friday, The Daily Beans, a liberal news podcast, noted that the stage of CPAC, which was taking place in Orlando, Florida over the weekend, was shaped like the Odal Rune, an ancient European symbol that was later appropriated by the Nazis as part of the Waffen-SS uniform.

JTA

About 200 academics from the United Kingdom and the United States have signed a petition defending a British university lecturer who had called Jewish students on his campus “pawns” of Israel, “a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing.” Jewish groups and organizations have protested the remarks by David Miller, a professor of political sociology at the University of Bristol, made during an online videoconference Feb. 13. Some have called for his ouster. The signatories of the letter published Friday supporting Miller include linguist Noam Chomsky and gender theorist Judith Butler, both Jewish Americans.

Associated Press

A secretive Israeli nuclear facility at the center of the nation’s undeclared atomic weapons program is undergoing what appears to be its biggest construction project in decades, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show. A dig about the size of a soccer field and likely several stories deep now sits just meters (yards) from the aging reactor at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center near the city of Dimona … Under its policy of nuclear ambiguity, Israel neither confirms nor denies having atomic weapons. It is among just four countries that have never joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a landmark international accord meant to stop the spread of nuclear arms.