I just overheard a clip of this speech on CNN and went to look it up, because it just pissed me off. I don’t know if it’s Romney being completely dumb or him styling his speech for dumb people, but let’s just summarize how this is not possible:

1. Saying you want to wipe out Israel is very different from actually doing it. And this is the case in common law too. Saying “I’m going to rob that bank” will make people suspicious of you but no one can charge you with anything until you actually do it. 
2. On that note, America has killed vastly more Iraqis than Iran has killed Israelis. Food for thought. This is again because Iran has not attacked Israel. 
3. If you’re going to go down that route, it’s the equivalent of using international UN branches for your very much personal agenda. No one else cares as much about Iran as the US does (except Israel) and so using the UN Court of Human Rights as your own personal court is totally not cool. 
4. Genocide is also a hugely tricky topic, and it’s one of the great problems with international law. Even with practically clear cut cases like Rwanda and Bosnia, it takes ages to get your verdict through, because the definition for genocide is still kind of vague. So you can’t just go up to the UNHCR and say “Oh, by the way, I’d like to bring that Iranian fellow in.” 
5. It’s kind of a gaffe that he said “genocide convention” which suggests that he doesn’t know the difference between the “Geneva Convention” and the UN Court of Human Rights in the Hague. Even if he’d meant Geneva Convention, that’s very much a set of rules for states at war, again, not states, or leaders of states, talking about war. It is mostly to do with fair treatment of prisoners. 
6. The UNCHR is for war crimes, mostly, and again there has been no war between Iran and Israel. I don’t usually take gaffes too seriously even if they’re funny, but this suggests that he either doesn’t know or doesn’t care which one it is even though they are completely different things. 

All this is besides the fact that Bibi Netanyahu is clearly and unashamedly trying to manipulate the US election. There is literally no other head of state of any other country in the world who would have the balls to do this, but Israel gets away with it. 

And frankly, it offends me not only that Bibi is doing it, but that Romney is now his official spokesperson. It is highly insulting to my, and by relation American voters’, intelligence. 

gedenkenbrauchtwissen:

evensmallthings:

Iran in the 70s

إيران في السبعينات

Source: Antika

Photos from this era in Iran are so interesting and beautiful but they fail to express the nationalist outrage towards the Shah’s westernization.  

geopolit:

I have been working on this map, collecting news articles and documenting trends over the past couple years, and was surprised when it revealed that the world is deeply divided by two major spheres of influence that dominate and dictate global affairs.

The two major organizations at the center of this are NATO, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) headed by Russia and China. Both are military organizations with each member state promising to protect each others interests and come to aid in the event of war.

This setup creates an interesting situation whereby, at its most basic level, if any two nations from differing alliances go to war, it has the potential, through the domino effect, to bring war to every continent of the world. It is this fear of global conflict that creates such tension points as North and South Korea, Israel and Iran and Pakistan and India.

Ultimately, the global powers of the United States, Russia and China don’t want to go to war but neither is willing to cave to the influence of the other. This simple division of the world helps to explain almost every decision made on the global stage in recent years and will be a good prediction of how nations will interact in the years to come.

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Soo… I’m curious about a few things: 

Firstly, I really don’t think it’s possible to divide the world so neatly into spheres of influence. Not only is it no longer the Cold War Era, but every country frankly has rather complicated politics. I have personal experience in some of these countries, and quite honestly South East Asia, for example, is divided between being in China’s bed as it rises or banding together to resist its influence. 

Vietnam, in particular, has had a hard time warming up to China because, well, China invaded it several times. They haven’t forgotten that. 

Turkey might not be all that approving of its European allies but it IS still part of NATO. It’s certainly not closer to China than it is to the West. 

What is Belarus doing there in blue at all? Last I checked… Luvchenko was anything but pro-Western. 

Also, Africa is really not so cut-and-dry… 

Basically saying, countries may not be pro-Western but that doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily pro-China. 

In any case, with development going so fast in so many countries, analysts are still leaning towards a multipolar world. where America is the strongest of several strong nations all with their own spheres of influence. Although the BRIC idea is losing tract, other predictions haven’t quite nudged it off the pedestal… and yet it still poses an interesting hypothetical future. 

thepoliticalnotebook:

Picture of the Day. Gaza City. A Palestinian fires in air during the funeral of Mohammed Daher. An Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Palestine has tapered the back and forth attacks that left 25 Palestinians dead in Gaza over the past four days. No Israeli casualties have been reported. 

News: Reports say that Israel sees this “mini” battle with Gaza as a warm-up or test run for military action against Iran, and a way to test out its Iron Dome missile defense system. This system apparently worked so far.

Photo Credit: Hatem Moussa/AP. Via.

View more Picture of the Day posts. Submit a photo.

One of the most interesting things to note about any conflict between Israelis and Palestinians or Lebanese are the casualty numbers. 

While of course it’s obvious and makes sense that Israel is a modern military while Palestine and Hezbollah have militias at best, so it’s only natural that Israel suffer much less… the Israeli reaction to those casualties is disproportionate. 

Every time there’s a conflict, hundreds of Palestinians or Lebanese die, to usually less than a hundred, or much less than that, of Israelis. But every Israeli dead is considered an outrage and they respond with overwhelming force. Rocket attacks from Hamas or Hezbollah tend to have more of a psychological effect than a physical effect since, again, very few Israelis actually die. On the other hand, when Israel attacks, the opposing side always has great loss of life. 

And yet media portrayal tends to balance out the costs. It’s true that all deaths are tragic, but in the grim and bloody algebra of survival and death, numbers really do matter.

Israel, contrary to whatever its leaders feel (leftover from the Cold War) is no longer fighting for survival against the entire Arab world. Despite what many groups say, “wiping Israel off the map” is no longer an attainable goal and shouldn’t really be taken seriously. So Israel spends most of its time fighting Palestinians and Hezbollah. By that comparison, Israel is clearly the more powerful and has the potential to facilitate peace. 

And anyway, even if the whole Arab world were still conspiring to destroy Israel, Israel is estimated to have over 100 nuclear weapons. If it wanted to, it could probably destroy the Middle East. It would destroy itself in the process, but the point is the possession of nuclear weapons as a deterrent to warfare. It’s another opportunity for peace, but instead Israel uses it to guarantee security from formal warfare from other nations, while pacifying its local troubles from Palestinians and Hezbollah. 

All in all, the ball has long been in Israel’s court. But it has little to no interest in playing the game for peace. 

You probably heard in the news that a few bombs went off in Israel. Israel is already pointing fingers at Iran. 

Prior to that, of course, it was saying that it would bomb Iranian nuclear development facilities. 

The point is that no matter what the facts are, war is probably inevitable. You can tell this because the rhetoric is up, and Israeli politicians have started rolling their war drums. They’re telling everyone why they should, giving themselves reasons to prepare for war, and don’t sound like they’re looking for a peaceful resolution. 

The US is unlikely to actually hold them back from this folly, and they’re the only country which could. And Israel seems pretty dead set on justifying an attack on Iran. 

Iran, thus far very stubborn, isn’t likely to discourage them either. 

anticapitalist:

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kileyrae:

(CNN) After Iran threat, U.S. aircraft carrier goes through Strait of Hormuz flanked by British and French ships without incident.

As far as I’m aware, an American “Carrier Battle Group” is the most powerful military formation ever. All it needs is one nuclear powered Aircraft Carrier and the various escort and support ships to move into an area to make a heavy security presence and play the Clausewitzian game of power. 

And the US has, to my knowledge, 7 of these on patrol around the world. 

France had two, the UK had one. That’s before the cutting of the defense budget last year, and now the plan is to “share” one carrier between them. I think that’s still in process. It’s been a while, I forgot. 

But America still has 7. 

At the start of 2012, here are the four countries we all need to watch closely: Italy, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea.

The discussion everywhere these days is about Iran’s strength. Mitt Romney, the Republican front-runner, describes Iran as “the greatest threat that the world faces over the next decade.” He and others are impressed by Iran’s recent declarations about its nuclear capacities and its missile tests. Newt Gingrich has compared the Iranian challenge to the rise of Hitler’s Germany. More measured commentators also see Iran’s rising influence and power across the Middle East.

In fact, the real story is that Iran is weak and getting weaker. Sanctions have pushed its economy into a nose-dive. The political system is fractured and fragmenting. Abroad, its closest ally and the regime of which it is almost the sole supporter - Syria - is itself crumbling. The Persian Gulf monarchies have banded together against Iran and shored up their relations with Washington. Last week, Saudi Arabia closed its largest-ever purchase of U.S. weaponry. Meanwhile, Europe is close to approving even more intense sanctions against Tehran.

liberal-linguaphile:

politicalthinker:

brosephstalin:

womp womp

Also, Michele, lets not close the embassy on the moon. Shit is important.

Because the Lunar People kept us from coming back. She learned that on the Intelligence Committee. Oops.