Republican sympathizers? If you want to accuse people of being partisan, try not using the language of a fucking dictatorship.
[QUOTE=wolfpup]
I pretty much laid out my position in #50, which is: the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that Israel did – Israel’s foreign minister pretty much came right out and said so – most probably in the person of Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the US and Netanhahu’s fiercely loyal and equally hawkish right-hand man, and a former American Republican operative himself, who knows his way around Washington like a dog knows its food dish.
[/QUOTE]
Like I said, I haven’t been following closely and I wouldn’t trust The Guardian to tell me if water was wet.
Only 3?
Well, before you turned it around you could have answered my simple question, but I don’t see how this analogy works to be honest. Was it Snowden’s job to take classified information, determine it was bad and then flee with it to another country with the intent of divulging it to the world? How is that analogous to Congress getting information from Israel about talks in Iran (assuming for a moment that the circumstantial evidence you claim is true)? It IS Congresses job to oversee stuff like this, after all.
As you say, ‘it depends’. I don’t think the good of Snowden outweighed the bad, but I also don’t see how your analogy works at all in this situation. So, simple question for you…let’s say Snowden had taken information to Congress instead of fleeing to another country and given it to the Democrats showing that Iraq had no WMD before the Iraqi invasion and that Bush et al had cherry picked the data so that it appeared they did and gave us an excuse for war. Should the Democrats in Congress have acted on this information or let the executive branch sort it out…yes or no?
The veracity of the data is certainly something that Congress should determine, and if there is a conflict of interest, but that has nothing to do with what I was asking you.
I think that, regardless of a conflict of interest data from Israel is going to be of a higher quality than ‘Baghdad Bob’, but, again, you are answering a different question than I’m asking you and jumping through a bunch of hoops to avoid answering. If China (who has an interest) gave the Democrats data about North Korea showing that President Bush The Younger’s proposed plan to bomb The Dear Leader III should the Democrats in Congress act on the data, even knowing China has a conflict of interest in giving it to them, or should they simply allow the Executivator handle things and stay out of it? Would you be totally pissed off the the Democrats sents a letter to Lil’ Kimmy Uno saying that they disagreed with the President and informing him not everyone is behind the plan to bomb him?
From Wiki:
ISTM your main beef is you don’t like what Congress (Republican Congresscritters) DID but I can’t tell if you think this way because of your obvious partisan bias or you really believe that Congress shouldn’t get involved with things that are supposedly the province of the executive branch in a similar generic situation. I can understand your problem with what the Republicans did, and I’m not disagreeing with you that they shouldn’t have sent that letter to Iran during negotiations…to me, that certainly politically motivated and pretty slimy as well.
(post shortened)
The Guardian cut-and-pasted an article from the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ was the media outlet credited with “breaking” this story.
And no, there is no evidence that Israel passed along secret Iran nuke talks info to anyone in the U.S. Congress.
To date, the secrets-passing story seems to be an invention of some unnamed Obama senior administration official.
A Manichean statement, and an incorrect one.
War with Iran is not in the interest of Israel. A “peaceful settlement with Iran” is not in the best interest of the US, if it is the wrong deal (Susan Rice: “A bad deal is worse than no deal”). What is in the interest of everyone, Israel and the US, hawk and dove, is a good deal. The question is what constitutes a “good deal.”
For some, there is an additional question as to whether the Obama administration has the skill or interest in negotiating a good deal. This, I think, is where your issues lie. You believe (a) that the Obama administration is capable of understanding the parameters of a good deal, and of obtaining them, and (b) that, at all events, the Obama administration is the unitary executive and, by virtue of that capability, the Office, and common sense, should be given the freedom and breathing room to try.
The confounding factor is that anyone can make a bad deal. When you give the other side what they want, it is remarkable how quickly they agree.
Wikileaks just published a draft of the TPP agreement. Note: they made it public, not just released it to (as Israel is alleged to have done) Congressmen who can presumably be trusted with “secret” information.
And, surprise, not one condemnation from the left of Wikileaks doing that. In fact, the leftie reactions I have seen are praising Wikileaks.
Was the US’ directly spying on Israel illegal?
Regards,
Shodan
Now that I think about it, I’ve never seen this Wikileaks and the unnamed Obama senior administration official in the same room, or at the same time. Could they be one and the same? Hmmmmm. 
Nah. The WSJ story is looking more and more like an Obama administration attempt to prevent Netanyahu from becoming the PM of the next Israelis government. IMHO, of course.
There is nothing Obama can do to prevent Netanyahu from becoming the PM right now.
BTW, Obama administration just declassified, very much on purpose, a Pentagon document detailing US military assessment of Israeli nuclear program. The document also details the nuclear programs of Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries, but those sections were redacted out. Just a coincidence, I am sure.
This is a deliberate anti-Israel campaign by Obama administration. And the idiot Jews continue to vote 80% Democrat.
How disloyal of them.
AFAIK, the Likud party hasn’t formed a ruling coalition, yet. The Obama administration still has a chance to create the Anybody But Bibi ruling coalition.
But the Obama administration would never try to influence the outcome of another nation’s election. :rolleyes:
Can’t happen. Obama cannot do miracles.
They definitely did try to influence the outcome of Israeli election in March, quite actively. Apparently it backfired. But try as they might, they will not be able to force a coalition that doesn’t have Bibi as Prime Minister.
The document in question appears to have been declassified in early February, not that this has been widely reported anywhere but right-wing (and mostly nutty) websites.
This idiot Jew (and Democrat) thinks that Netanyahu’s strategy and leadership has been bad for Israel and made Israel weaker. I’m with Jeffrey Goldberg on this.
… because of course Obama’s disclosing Israel’s nuclear capabilities makes Israel stronger. And serves US interests. Somehow.
My uniformed opinion is that the conflict between Obama and Bibi has become pretty personal; those two just plain seem to hate each other, and appear to be out to do as much political damage to each other as they can. It is not doing either of them any favours, and is showing them both at their worst.
Bibi doesn’t need the help, he is perfectly capable of showing himself at his worst on his own - and does so, frequently. 
Obama, of course, need not care so much, as he’s not up for re-election: he can vent on Bibi as he pleases. I can see the temptation - Bibi seems to me to be unpleasant and mendacious to deal with, to say the least.
The problem for both is that they have much larger real issues to address than scoring points off each other. Indeed, the whole Arab-Israeli conflict has become somewhat of a sideshow to the titantic current events in the ME, as whole countries are torn apart and sink into anarchy and barbarism. These two sniping at each other has some of the appearance of fiddling while Rome burns.
It doesn’t affect Israel. I’ve seen no details that could possibly affect israel’s security. As to our interests, releasing info that damages no one is in our interests of transparency.
Whatever excuses make you feel better.
Not even close. If you want to see Obama at his worst, just look at who spent two and a half years in prison over the CIA’s use of rape and torture against prisoners. Here’s a hint: it’s the guy who tried to put a stop to it.
The summation I gave in the post in question had nothing to do with The Guardian. Aside from the fact that the original article was from the WSJ, on the opposite side of the political spectrum, most of what I wrote there was sourced from half a dozen different places (one of which I linked) that paint a consistent picture of Netanyahu’s political proclivities and the machinations of Ron Dermer, his equally aggressive alter ego in Washington.
Don’t mistake my strong and sometimes colorful language for “obvious partisan bias”. I’m more than willing to slam Obama or the Dems when they deserve it. My problem with the line of argument that cites open-ended Congressional rights to act as a check on the executive branch is that it’s not a useful guideline for any specific case – you may as well trot it out to show that Congress has the right to dictate the exact words that Obama must say to a visiting foreign leader, or tell him what time to show up for work each morning. My point remains that when Congress acts to oppose the administration, they must do so either under specific constitutional rules (e.g.- overriding a veto) or else in good faith on matters of sufficient gravity and necessity to justify it. In this case, in meddling with the details of delicate ongoing negotiations Congressional Republicans were just being malicious, as in the example of the absurd letter they sent to Iran, and I’m glad that you agree that this was both politically motivated and slimy. I maintain that this applies to their entire attitude to the Iran negotiations.
The only thing I need to believe is that when you have a duly elected President whose administration is empowered to negotiate a deal, then in the absence of compelling information to the contrary you should assume they are competent to do so, instead of preemptively trying to undermine it for partisan reasons. Perhaps there is compelling information to the contrary. I haven’t seen it.
I agree. Uncompromising extremists are rarely good for the nations they presume to be leading.
No excuses are needed, because nothing wrong was done. Documents are unclassified all the time, about a variety of topics.
What in this document is damaging to Israel?
Of course. And the fact that only Israel’s information was unredacted in the document, while the information pertaining to other countries was redacted is just a coincidence, right?
The official acknowledgement, for the first time, of its nuclear program.