Posted on 01/05/2009 11:50:56 AM PST by LdSentinal
Outspoken Republican congressman Ron Paul says Israel had received a green light from the United States to launch an offensive in Gaza.
The Texas congressman said the Israeli attack on the impoverished Gaza Strip shapes a bleak future for the whole world as it means that, "the whole idea of preemptive or preventive war is spreading."
He went on to challenge the idea of Hamas threatening Israel's security and argued that "Palestinian missiles are so minor compared to the fire power of Israel, who has nuclear weapons."
The US Congressman's remarks come as Israel continues to rebuff international efforts to end the assault on Gaza, and Israeli troops and tanks -- protected by heavy air, sea and artillery fire - have sliced through the center of Gaza and surrounded the main city.
The tenth day of the assault brings the number of Palestinian casualties to 530 with over 2,600 others wounded. The UN says that about 25 percent of the casualties were civilian deaths.
Paul added that the escalation of war in Gaza would contribute to the fall of economy on the global stage and in the US, explaining that the US involvement in too many wars is "draining us emotionally and financially".
Congressman Paul said that even though Israel has carried out the invasion of Gaza, "the United States will be blamed for it."
"Israel depends on us; they depend on us economically, they depend on us for their military power and all their weapons and they really got a green light from our administration," he explained.
Paul's comment comes after US vice president Dick Cheney said Israel did not seek Washington's approval for launching an offensive against Gaza.
"They didn't seek clearance or approval from us, certainly," Cheney said Sunday.
Earlier on Saturday, the Israeli website Debkafile cited sources in Washington as saying that US President George W. Bush had given a green light to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for an all-out military operation in Gaza.
The GOP congressman also warned in July, that any Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities would take place with the explicit backing of the US government.
Paul told Press TV that, "No matter what they do, it is our money, it is our weapons, and they are not going to do it without us approving it."
You don’t know what “proportionate” means, as I suspected. Do the cops blow up the bank to catch a bank robber?
However, as we now find out, the "argument against it" is in error. It does deliver good information. See Sheik Mohammed, Khalid (KSM) for details.
But is waterboarding "torture"? After all, we routinely exposed our own troops to it as part of their training exercises. Would we torture our own personnel, do you think?
Indeed, are any of the interrogation techniques practiced at Gitmo really "torture"? Moving the thermostat up and down, sleep-deprivation, solitary, etc., are all "uncomfortable", to be sure. But are they, in your mind, "torture"?
Yes, I think waterboarding is torture, but so long as it provides information and is used on a combatant, I have no problem with it; nor, of course, when it is used for the purpose of training.
Regarding milder forms of discomfort, I don’t know. It is, I suppose, a matter of degree.
There may be hope for you yet...
Ask a Branch Davidian or Vicky Weaver.
These were indeed severe crimes of disproportionality on the part of the law enforcement.
The Biggest Lies About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
North Star Writers Group | January 9, 2008 | Rachel Marsden
Posted on 01/09/2009 4:45:59 AM PST by Invisigoth
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2161492/posts
Congressman and former GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, suggested to Press TV — the official propaganda arm of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — that Israel’s actions were “preemptive”... a war isn’t automatically “preemptive” just because one party was dumb enough to pick a fight it can’t win... It also isn’t the first time Rep. Paul has lamented the lack of nuclear power in other Middle Eastern countries. In early 2007, on Fox News, Rep. Paul told me that he didn’t have a problem with Iran possessing nukes.
American White Supremacist David Duke:
Israel Makes the Nazi State Look Very Moderate
MEMRI | 21 Nov 05 | Unknown
Posted on 11/29/2005 8:09:45 AM PST by LSUfan
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1530488/posts
Pat Buchanan Says Gaza is an “Israeli Concentration Camp” - Video 1/8/09
Freedom’s Lighthouse | January 9, 2009 | BrianinMO
Posted on 01/09/2009 6:13:35 AM PST by Federalist Patriot
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2161537/posts
‘Concentration camp’ remark threatens Pope’s visit to Israel
London Times | January 8, 2009 | Richard Owen
Posted on 01/08/2009 9:46:55 PM PST by Steelfish
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2161430/posts
[snip] after a prominent cardinal said that Gazans were living in a “big concentration camp”... Cardinal Renato Martino, the head of the Vatican Council for Justice and Peace and a former Holy See envoy to the United Nations... compared Gaza to a concentration camp... criticised Israel for killing civilians who had taken shelter at a UNrun school in Gaza. Israeli officials said that they were “deeply shocked that a man of religion is using the vocabulary of Hamas propaganda”. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which monitors antiSemitism and hunts down Nazi war criminals, said that Cardinal Martino had used the language of a “Holocaust denier”. [end]
http://www.christiansstandingwithisrael.com/vatican-palestinian-right-return.html
“...You’ll recall, in April, 2007, the Vatican’s notorious disdain
for Israel quickly materialized into a bitter, public dispute
when it turned down the invitation to attend a ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem —an occasion facilitated to honor and remember the millions of Jewish lives that were lost in one of the darkest, most evil periods in recorded history. Ironically, as evidenced by its presence at the Annapolis summit, such animosity was nowhere to be found when the Vatican received its invitation—one which they graciously accepted—to attend a “peace conference” where Israel would likely face overwhelming
international pressure to concede and acquiesce to
her enemies.
Even more insidious was the Vatican’s reason for not attending the ceremony at Yad Vashem...
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