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Monday, June 28, 2010

Huffington Post: Palin says Obama Selling Out Israel

NORFOLK, Va. — Sarah Palin on Sunday painted President Barack Obama's administration as a cowering giant intent on surrendering the nation's mantle as a superpower and willing to sell out its allies.

The former John McCain running mate addressed a paying audience of several hundred people in Norfolk and accused Obama of selling out ally Israel in over its naval blockade of Gaza and treating Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shabbily.

On May 31, Israeli naval commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists in clashes aboard a Turkish ship headed for Gaza, setting off a world outcry and forcing Israel to ease its three-year-old blockade.

She also said Obama lacked the resolve to stand up to Russia and China.

"Do they think, really, that we're getting anything in return for all this bowing and kowtowing and apologizing? No, we don't get anything positive in return for this," Palin said at the event spearheaded by a Norfolk talk radio station.

"So while President Obama is getting pushed around by the likes of Russia and China, our allies are left to wonder about the value of an alliance with our country any more. They're asking what is it worth," she said.

Palin said that Obama and an allied Democratic Congress had cut military spending while showing no such restraint on other expenditures, running up trillions in new deficits.

Rightardia comment: This is the kind of right wing disinformation Rightardia sees all the time. First of all, the defense budget wasn't cut, it was expanded by 4 per cent. The plan would increase spending by 4% over fiscal 2009.

Judging from the reaction of congressional hawks, one would think the Pentagon were being gutted. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) commented in a blog post from Afghanistan that "President Obama is disarming America" and betraying our troops abroad. The fear-mongering won't end there.

As Rep. Alan Grayson has pointed out, the US spends nearly as much on defense than the rest of the world combined.

Turkey is a far bigger country than Israel and is also a NATO ally. Turkey has the biggest standing army and navy in the middle east. Turkey is an Islamic country and Saudi Arabia, an Arab country, is also an important US ally.

Israel snubbed Vice President Joe Biden when he visited Israel when it announced Israel announced 1,600 new homes will be built in disputed east Jerusalem during his visit to the region.

Biden showed up 90 minutes late to an Israeli  state dinner and Obama essentially dismissed Natenyahu in DC when the Israli PM refused to agree with the US on some middle eastern issues. The US is no longer kowtowing to Israel like the Bush administration did.

China is a very important US ally that could undermine the US economy if we took a belligerent stance with it. Russia President Medvedev is getting along famously with Obama and the Russians have allowed US overflights to Afghanistan.

Obama has commented that the Russians have lived up to all of the promises they have made so far. US foregn policy and diplomacy are finally working again.

Israel is not an important ally and has become an international pariah because it has bullied its Arab neighbors. The Gaza has become its Warsaw ghetto. Do we need enemies when we have friends like Israel?

Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. From 1976-2004, Israel was the largest annual recipient of U.S. foreign assistance, having been supplanted by Iraq.

Since 1985, the United States has provided nearly $3 billion in grants annually to Israel. What he the US gotten in return? 

It's time to cut our losses from Israel and move on. 


source: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/apr/07/opinion/ed-defense7

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