Roger Cohen, "Why Israel Still Refuses to Choose": Liar!

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Why Israel Still Refuses to Choose," Roger Cohen writes (my emphasis in red):

"From Tel Aviv to Ramallah in the West Bank, from the largely Arab city of Nazareth to Jerusalem, I found virtually nobody on either side prepared to offer anything but a negative assessment of the two-state idea. Diagnoses ranged from moribund to clinically dead. Next year it will be a half-century since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began. More than 370,000 settlers now live there, excluding in East Jerusalem, up from about 249,000 in 2005. The incorporation of all the biblical Land of Israel has advanced too far, for too long, to be reversed now."

Bullshit, Roger! The built-up areas of the settlements constitute only 1.7% of the West Bank, i.e. less than 40 square miles.

Cohen continues:

"Palestinians — whether in Israel proper, where the 1.5 million Arab citizens make up about 17 percent of a population of 8.5 million, or in the West Bank, where they number about 2.6 million — are tired of the humiliations, big and small, that Israel dishes out."

Humiliations handed out to Israeli Arabs? Like when Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, an Arab Christian, read out former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's jail sentence? Unlike Cohen, I interact with Israeli Arabs on a daily basis, and if I were to witness any such "humiliation," I would not tolerate it for an instant.

A pity Cohen is not more concerned with the phenomenon of "honor killings" perpetrated against Palestinian women by their fathers, brothers and husbands.

And then there was the recent attempt by the Palestinian Authority and UNESCO to deny the connection of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Jewish people, which also goes ignored in this opinion piece by Cohen. This was not an attempt to humiliate and demean Jews in Israel and throughout the world?

In short, more road apples from someone who in 2009 waged a campaign to convince us that Iran is "not totalitarian." Sickening.

Roger Cohen, "Bernie’s Israel Heresy": More Horse Manure From the Master

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Bernie’s Israel Heresy," Roger (Iran is "not totalitarian") Cohen praises Bernie Sanders for his criticism of Israel during his recent debate with Hillary Clinton in Brooklyn. Cohen writes:

"In New York, no less, days before a primary, a candidate for the Democratic Party presidential nomination declares that Israel used 'disproportionate' force in Gaza in 2014, that 'we are going to have to treat the Palestinian people with respect and dignity,' that the United States has to play 'an evenhanded role' and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel 'is not right all the time.'

Wow! Sensation! Hold the presses!."

Yup, the US needs to be more evenhanded, particularly as the Palestinians continue to fire rockets at Israeli towns and cities; continue to stab Israeli civilians, particularly women; and continue to blow up Israeli buses transporting civilians.

Moreover, the  US must treat Palestinians "with respect and dignity" as Palestinians engage in "honor killings" against their sisters and daughters, and oppress homosexuals, who flee to Israel for safety. And then there is the small matter of Palestinian Authority President Abbas,  now in the twelfth year of a four-year term of office. Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears that it is the Palestinians who need to be treating Palestinians "with respect and dignity."

Sanders's claim that the Israeli response to the more than 4,000 Hamas missiles fired at Israeli towns and cities in 2014 was "disproportionate"? Perhaps Bernie would care to explain how many missiles the US should fire back at Iran, if a single Iranian ballistic missile hits New York. Should it be tit for tat, i.e. one ballistic missile for one ballistic missile?

Cohen goes on to tell us in this gem of an opinion piece, "In most of the rest of the world, Sanders’s position would be uncontroversial." How reassuring! But isn't this the same world that turned away Jews seeking refuge before and during World War II, notwithstanding Hitler's abominations?

Cohen denounces "continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank." However, Cohen forgets to mention that Israeli settlements are built on less than two percent of the total territory of the West Bank, and that it has been agreed that most of these settlements will belong to Israel as part of any peace deal which will inevitably involve land swaps. More important, Cohen makes certain not to let his readers know that Netanyahu declared a 10-month settlement freeze in 2009 "to restart peace talks" at the request of Obama; however, Abbas delayed entering negotiations until the last moment and then walked away from the discussions. Yes, it's hard to negotiate peace when someone is not willing to talk peace with you.

And then there's Cohen recital of Netanyahu's "relentless attempt (even in extremis) to stop the Iran nuclear deal." Ah yes, that wonderful unsigned deal, which has allowed Iran to engage freely in ballistic missile tests. The deal purportedly extends Iran's nuclear "breakout time" from three months to one year (What a difference those nine months make . . . not!), but does not prevent Iran from perfecting its nuclear weapon delivery capabilities.

Yes, the ignorance (if only that) of Cohen and Sanders is sickening.

David Brooks, "It’s Not Too Late!": You Should Be Scared. Very Scared.

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"I’ve never done this before. Can I have a pledge? A swearing? Raise your right hand. I do solemnly swear that I, no matter how I feel, no matter what the conditions, if there's hurricanes or whatever - that's good enough - will vote on or before the 12th for Donald J. Trump for president."

- Donald Trump, rally, Orlando, Florida, March 5, 2016

"I swear: I will be faithful and obedient to the leader of the German empire and people, Adolf Hitler, to observe the law, and to conscientiously fulfil my official duties, so help me God!"

- Nazi Germany civil servant oath, 1934-1945

Yes, you should be scared. Very scared. But not only by Trump.

In an editorial entitled "Democracy’s Disintegration in Turkey," The New York Times would have us know:

"If there was any doubt about why the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan seized the newspaper Zaman last week, consider this: Within 48 hours after the takeover, the paper began publishing pro-Erdogan propaganda.

. . . .

This crackdown is merely the latest of Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian moves, which have included imprisoning critics, sidelining the military and reigniting war on Kurdish separatists. He now controls much of the media and has made Turkey a leader among countries that jail journalists. Along with his campaign to wipe out a free press, his government’s prosecutors have opened nearly 2,000 cases against Turks in the last 18 months for insulting Mr. Erdogan, which is a crime.

. . . .

It is unsettling that the United States and Europe have responded so meekly to Mr. Erdogan’s trampling of a free press. The Obama administration said the move against Zaman was 'troubling.' "

"Unsettling"? "Troubling"? It goes without saying that the Times fails to mention how Obama named Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as one of his best overseas friends in 2012.

And then there was the news out of Oberlin College. As reported by Perry Chiaramontein in a Fox News article entitled "Oberlin trustees fire back at school, crackpot prof":

"Trustees and alumni at a prestigious Ohio college are turning up the heat on the school administration, which has so far taken no action against a nutty professor who believes Jews were behind 9/11 and the Charlie Hebdo terror attack in France.

The Board of Trustees at Oberlin College demanded answers in a statement posted on the school's own website, with Chairman Clyde McGregor blasting 'rhetoric and composition' Professor Joy Karega for anti-Semitic online postings.

'These postings are anti-Semitic and abhorrent,' McGregor said in the statement. 'We deplore anti-Semitism and all other forms of bigotry. They have no place at Oberlin."

Oberlin's president, Marvin Krislov, had previously defended Karega's right to publish such trash:

"I am a practicing Jew, grandson of an Orthodox rabbi. Members of our family were murdered in the Holocaust. As someone who has studied history, I cannot comprehend how any person could or would question its existence, its horrors, and the evil which caused it. I feel the same way about anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Regardless of the reason for spreading these materials, they cause pain for many people—members of our community and beyond.

I am also the son of a tenured faculty member at a large research university. My father instilled in me a strong belief in academic freedom. I believe, as the American Association of University Professors says, that academic freedom is 'the indispensable quality of institutions of higher education' because it encourages free inquiry, promotes the expansion of knowledge, and creates an environment in which learning and research can flourish."

You see, bigotry, at least against Jews, allows learning and research to flourish. How very "progressive" of you, Krislov! However, even Roger (Iran is "not totalitarian") Cohen yesterday acknowledged in a Times op-ed entitled "An Anti-Semitism of the Left" that "nothing can justify the odious 'anti-Semitic anti-Zionism' . . . seeping into British and American campuses."

All of which brings me to David Brooks's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "It’s Not Too Late!" Praying for a "Marco Rubio miracle in Florida" and asking that the field be cleared for John Kasich in Ohio, Brooks writes:

"If the G.O.P. is going to survive as a decent and viable national party, it can’t cling to the fading orthodoxy Cruz represents. But it can’t shift to ugly Trumpian nationalism, either. It has to find a third alternative: limited but energetic use of government to expand mobility and widen openness and opportunity. That is what Kasich, Rubio, Paul Ryan and others are stumbling toward."

But can Rubio and Kasich behave like big boys and strike a deal? I doubt it.

The situation is grim, but not only on the right, and those in the center are being squeezed like never before. Does it remind you of the Weimar Republic before Hitler came to power? It darn well should.

Fred Hiatt, "Diplomacy as anesthetic in Syria": Obama's Odious Legacy; Hillary's Horrifying Complicity

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One week ago, even Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen, who supported the unsigned nuclear deal with Iran, did not mince his words when lambasting Obama's inaction in Syria in a New York Times op-ed entitled "America’s Syrian Shame":

"Obama’s Syrian agonizing, his constant what-ifs and recurrent 'what then?' have also lead to the slaughter in Paris and San Bernardino. They have contributed to a potential unraveling of the core of the European Union as internal borders eliminated on a free continent are re-established as a response to an unrelenting refugee tide — to which the United States has responded by taking in around 2,500 Syrians since 2012, or about 0.06 percent of the total."

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Diplomacy as anesthetic in Syria," Fred Hiatt now joins Cohen in holding Obama accountable for this disaster. Noting US Secretary of State John Kerry's optimistic pronouncement at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday that "This is the hinge point" for bringing peace to Syria, Hiatt writes:

"As Kerry was discussing the latest diplomatic development, Russian planes were bombing civilians in the city of Aleppo and cutting off its supply line, raising the possibility that the city will be encircled and 400,000 more people forced to flee or face possible starvation, a favorite tactic of Syrian ruler and Putin ally Bashar al-Assad.

. . . .

I admire Kerry’s doggedness. But diplomacy that perpetually, and falsely, holds out the prospect of imminent progress can end up providing a cover and an excuse for inaction. The options available to Obama from the start were risky, and maybe none would have helped; maybe he was right not to give the rebels missiles to shoot down the helicopters that were dropping barrel bombs on civilian neighborhoods; maybe safe zones would not have spared Europe from its 'near-existential' crisis. But the mirage of negotiated peace has helped spare the administration — and Congress, and the nation — from even having to debate those possibilities seriously as one of the greatest humanitarian and strategic disasters of our time has unspooled."

Admire Kerry, who called Assad "my dear friend," for anything? Below, Kerry and Assad, together with their wives, dining in Damascus in 2009.



And what about Kerry's predecessor at the State Department, Hillary Clinton, who inexcusably came to the defense of  Assad in 2011:

"Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer."

This inane declaration followed Hillary's presentation of a "reset button" to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in 2009.

Recently asked if Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" involving the use of Assad's chemical weapons damaged American credibility, Hillary responded with a non-answer:

"I think as commander-in-chief, you have to be constantly evaluating the decisions you have to make."

David Brock, the head of a Hillary Clinton super PAC, not long ago declared that "cementing [Obama's] legacy is a very important part of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy." May the Lord have mercy on our souls.

David Brooks, "I Miss Barack Obama": I Don't

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In an editorial entitled "North Korea’s rocket launch shows that Mr. Obama’s ‘strategic patience’ has failed," The Washington Post responds to North Korea's recent launch of a long-range rocket by observing:

"The three-stage rocket launched Sunday, which supposedly put a satellite into Earth’s orbit, could also serve as an intercontinental missile. If North Korea has succeeded, as it claims it has, in miniaturizing a nuclear warhead, Mr. Kim could target Hawaii and Alaska, or perhaps even the western U.S. mainland. The threat is not imminent — and yet it is likely to become so if the United States does not devise a more effective strategy for containing and deterring the Kim regime.

President Obama’s policy since 2009, 'strategic patience,' has failed. The policy has mostly consisted of ignoring North Korea while mildly cajoling China to pressure the regime. As the supplier of most of the isolated country’s energy and food, Beijing has enormous leverage. But Chinese President Xi Jinping appears even more committed than his predecessors to the doctrine that it is preferable to tolerate the Kim regime — and its nuclear proliferation — than do anything that might destabilize it."

WaPo's conclusion: "'Strategic patience' is no longer a viable option."

North Korea is Obama's only overseas failure? What about Iran, which promptly engaged in ballistic missile tests in violation of UN Security Council resolutions subsequent to entering into the unsigned nuclear agreement with Obama and friends. The agreement unfroze more than $100 billion of Iranian assets, which, according to even John Kerry, will be used to finance terrorism.

And then there's also the Syrian mess. Remarkably, Roger Cohen, who supported the nuclear deal with Iran, did not mince his words when lambasting Obama's inaction in a New York Times op-ed entitled "America’s Syrian Shame,":

"Obama’s Syrian agonizing, his constant what-ifs and recurrent 'what then?' have also lead to the slaughter in Paris and San Bernardino. They have contributed to a potential unraveling of the core of the European Union as internal borders eliminated on a free continent are re-established as a response to an unrelenting refugee tide — to which the United States has responded by taking in around 2,500 Syrians since 2012, or about 0.06 percent of the total."

All of which brings me to David Brooks's Times op-ed of today's date entitled "I Miss Barack Obama." Brooks concludes:

"No, Obama has not been temperamentally perfect. Too often he’s been disdainful, aloof, resentful and insular. But there is a tone of ugliness creeping across the world, as democracies retreat, as tribalism mounts, as suspiciousness and authoritarianism take center stage.

Obama radiates an ethos of integrity, humanity, good manners and elegance that I’m beginning to miss, and that I suspect we will all miss a bit, regardless of who replaces him."

"[D]isdainful, aloof, resentful and insular"? Sounds to me like a narcissistic personality disorder.

Integrity and humanity? Pardon my French: Horseshit!

David Brooks, "Communities of Character": Ignoring the Decline and Fall of American Higher Education

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Communities of Character," David Brooks informs us, "All over the country there are schools and organizations trying to come up with new ways to cultivate character." Brooks illustrates his point by describing the Leaders School in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn:

"This is a school with roughly 300 students who speak between them 22 languages. Eighty-five percent are on free and reduced lunch. Last year the graduation rate was an amazing 89 percent and every single graduate went to college."

Every single graduate went to college? How marvelous! Or perhaps not.

On Wednesday, George Will provided a remarkable synopsis of the depths being plumbed by American universities in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "America’s higher education brought low." Examples provided by Will:

"The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, an irony-free campus, declared the phrase 'politically correct' a microaggression. The master of Yale’s Pierson College said his regrettable title reminds distressed students of slavery. Wesleyan University’s student government threatened to cut the school newspaper’s funding because it published a column critical of campus leftists. Wesleyan created a 'safe space,' a.k.a. a house, for LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM students (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Transsexual, Queer, Questioning, Flexual, Asexual, Genderf---, Polyamorous, Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/Submission, Sadism/Masochism).

A Washington State University professor said she would lower the grade of any student who used the term 'illegal immigrants' when referring to immigrants here illegally. Another Washington State professor warned in his syllabus that white students who want 'to do well' in his 'Introduction to Multicultural Literature' should show their 'grasp of history and social relations' by 'deferring to the experiences of people of color.' Another Washington State teacher, in her syllabus for 'Women & Popular Culture,' warned that students risk 'failure for the semester' if they use 'derogatory/oppressive language' such as 'referring to women/men as females or males.'"

Go to college in the US and further build character, grit, leadership and intellectual curiosity? I have my doubts.

As even Roger Cohen seems to suggest, America is sickly and getting weaker. May the Lord have mercy on us!

Charles Krauthammer, "The Syrian immigration cul-de-sac: Republicans should keep the focus on the abject failure of Obama's policies": Does Ice Cream Make You Fat?

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First the good news, at least for me: Ice cream does not necessarily make you fat. A Times of Israel article by Simona Weinglass, entitled "Will ice cream make you gain weight? It depends on your gut, study finds," tells us:

"Why is it so hard to lose weight? According to a new Weizmann Institute study by Professor Eran Segal and Dr. Eran Elinav, it may be because different people’s bodies respond differently to the same meal, depending on their gut bacteria.

The study, published in the November 19 issue of the journal Cell, followed a group of 800 people for a week and continuously monitored their blood sugar levels. It turns out that the foods most likely to make people’s blood sugar spike diverge widely. For instance, many people’s blood sugar rose sharply after consuming a sugary dessert, but others experienced a blood sugar surge after white bread but not glucose. One participant even saw a sharp rise after eating tomatoes, which she had been consuming under the mistaken impression that they were good for her."

What a relief! I can continue with my diet of Rocky Road and rotgut liquor; however, I'm thinking of taking tomatoes off the menu.

And now the bad news, at least for President Obama: He is under withering criticism from both right and left for his malign neglect policies involving Syria. In a must-read opinion piece entitled "The Syrian immigration cul-de-sac: Republicans should keep the focus on the abject failure of Obama's policies," Charles Krauthammer says of the Syrian refugee debate currently raging in the US:

"A quarter-million deaths ago, when Bashar Assad began making war on his own people, he unleashed his air force and helicopters. They dropped high explosives, nail-filled barrel bombs and even chemical weapons on helpless civilians. President Obama lifted not a finger.

In the earliest days, we could have stopped the slaughter: cratered Assad’s airfields, taken out his planes, grounded his helicopters and created a nationwide no-fly zone. (We successfully maintained one over Kurdistan for 12 years between 1991 and 2003.)

At the time, Assad was teetering. His national security headquarters had been penetrated and bombed. High-level aides were defecting. Military officers were forming a Free Syrian Army.

Against the advice of his top civilian and military aides, Obama refused to intervene. The widows and orphans he now so ostentatiously champions are the product of his coldhearted refusal to do anything that might sully his peacemaking image."

Yes, Krauthammer is right. And now, instead of imposing a no-fly zone, the US is faced with the dilemma of whether or not to admit thousands of Syrian refugees (half of Syria's population of 23 million has been displaced from their homes).

But he is not alone in taking Obama to task. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "World War III," Roger (Iran is "not totalitarian") Cohen also derides the president's failed policy involving Syria. Creating an imaginary dialogue between a child and his mother, Roger provides us with the mother's explanation as to why people are fighting in that country:

"'Well, there was this brutal, remote tyrant behaving like an emperor and some of the peoples in Syria rose up against him. The tyrant started shooting them. America and Britain and France, among other countries, didn’t like that, and they said they’d kind of support the rebels, but didn’t really.'

'Why?'

'Because, like I said, America is sickly. It’s getting weaker.'"

America is sickly and getting weaker? Coming from Cohen? My instincts tell me that Roger is not going to be invited to interview Obama any time over the next three decades, or until Cohen meets his maker, whichever comes sooner. But Cohen is also correct: As we are informed by another Times of Israel article entitled "Russia deploys S-400 missile battery in Syria, state media says" by Judah Ari Gross:

"The advanced [S-400] missile system, completed in 2007, is capable of detecting and destroying aircraft some 400 kilometers (250 miles) away. Its deployment in Latakia will grant Russia aerial control over practically all of Syria, Lebanon and Cyprus, over half of Turkey, parts of Iraq and Jordan — and, of course, Israel: Planes flying in and out of Ben Gurion International Airport — approximately 395 kilometers (245 miles) from Latakia — would be within Russian sights."

Or stated otherwise, the first invertebrate ever to occupy the Oval Office has ceded control over the entire theater of operations to Russia.

All of which is enough to give you a headache and make you want to forget the world. Where is my Rocky Road? Where is my vodka?

Roger Cohen, "Body Bags in Paris": Hypocrite!

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Body Bags in Paris," Roger Cohen, who recently celebrated Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Khamenei, writes of the attacks in France:

"We may not know who exactly the killers are but we know what they want to destroy. They spit at Montaigne, Voltaire and De Tocqueville. They loathe reason. They detest freedom. They cannot bear the West’s sexual mores. They would enslave the world, particularly its women, to the cruel god of their medievalist reading of Islam."

Hold your horses, Roger! Can't all of the above also be said of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which hangs homosexuals; stones to death women accused of adultery; persecutes Christians, Sunni Muslims, Kurds and Baha'is; imprisons Americans without cause; executes poets accused of being enemies of God; bombed a Jewish community center in distant Buenos Aires; supports the monstrous Assad regime in Syria; arms Hezbollah; and has the highest per capita execution rate in the world?

Perhaps "The West has lost its spine, a spine called America," as Cohen concludes, but Roger is also a hypocrite.

Roger Cohen, "To Have Paris, Defeat ISIS": To Have Buenos Aires, Crush Iran?

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "To Have Paris, Defeat ISIS," Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen would have us know:

"The only adequate measure, after the killing of at least 129 people in Paris, is military, and the only objective commensurate with the ongoing threat is the crushing of ISIS and the elimination of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq. The barbaric terrorists exalting on social media at the blood they have spilled cannot be allowed any longer to control territory on which they are able to organize, finance, direct and plan their savagery."

A question for Cohen, who has long advocated détente with Iran: You call for the destruction of the Islamic State, yet what is so different between the horrifying acts of terrorism experienced in Paris yesterday and Iran's bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, which killed 87 people and wounded over 100 people?

Why shouldn't the bombing of the Jewish Community Center by Iran have evoked similar outrage? Oh, that's right, it was the bombing of a Jewish Community Center, and Jews apparently don't matter.

The Islamic State versus Iran? In fact, one is Sunni and the other is Shiite, but they are equally barbaric.

Roger Cohen, "Turkey Haunted by Its Ghosts": Silvan and the Hypocrisy of the West

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Turkey Haunted by Its Ghosts," Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen tells us of the struggle of Turkish Kurds for autonomy and an end to intolerance and discrimination. Writing from Diyarbakır (see why I have highlighted the name of this city below) in southeast Turkey, Cohen informs us:

"The Kurdish question has boiled up again in acute form. Kurdish militias loyal to the imprisoned P.K.K. leader, Abdullah Ocalan, have taken control of a wide area of northern Syria that they call Rojava, defeating Islamic State. Kurdish pesh merga forces are fighting side by side with the United States against ISIS in Iraq. Young Kurds here in the Diyarbakir area have tried to set up autonomous areas within cities, only to be crushed. All Kurds at some level want the state denied them when the Ottoman Empire broke up. They may settle for autonomy but a dream persists.

. . . .

The emergence of Kurds as America’s Iraqi and Syrian allies against ISIS has complicated the critical Turkish-American relationship. President Obama probably needs Erdogan more than Erdogan needs him, a fact that limits American leverage. Still, renewed Turkish-Kurdish negotiation and real Turkish commitment against ISIS are paramount American interests. The impression with Erdogan has been: better a Sunni Islamist fanatic than a Kurd."

Cohen's conclusion:

"Settling the Armenian dispute and reaching a negotiated settlement with the Kurds must be central Turkish goals before the centennial in 2023 of Ataturk’s state."

Action needs to be taken by 2023, i.e. sometime within the next eight years? Remarkably, Cohen does not even mention what is currently occurring in the city of Silvan in the Diyarbakır Province of Turkey. As we learn today from a Hurriyet Daily News article entitled "Thousands of residents flee Silvan amid ongoing conflict":

"Thousands of residents sought to flee for their lives in the southeastern district of Silvan yesterday, the 10th day of a continuing military operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.

A sixth curfew since August was declared in three neighborhoods of Silvan, a town of 86,000 about 80 kilometers from Diyarbakır, on Nov. 3.

. . . .

Up to date, some 10,000 residents have fled Silvan without taking away any of their belongings, Muhittin Kan, chair of Silvan branch of the Union of Associations of Turkish Craftsmen and Artisans, told the Doğan News Agency (DHA) on Nov. 12.

'We don’t know whether they will come back because most of the houses belonging to them have been damaged,' Kan said.

'The town is under fire. Reinforcements are still being sent here. We have been scattered. Craftsmen will not be able to recover even in the next 20 years,' Kan said, noting that around 100 workplaces had been severely damaged.

. . . .

'Silvan has been besieged by thousands of soldiers, special teams and police officers accompanied by helicopters, Kirpis [armored vehicles] and tanks for the last 10 days. We don’t even know how many people lost their lives and how many people have been wounded,” [The Confederation of Public Sector Trades’ Unions] said in a written statement. 'We know from the AKP’s earlier practices where it imposed curfews that very severe human rights violations are being committed in Silvan and even lawmakers are not being let in so as to prevent these violations from being heard.'"

So why does Cohen, writing from Diyarbakır, not even mention the struggle in Silvan, now in its tenth day?

And why does the Obama administration and Europe also ignore this catastrophe? Can you begin to imagine the stink that Obama and his friends would raise if Israel were to encircle and attack a Palestinian city with helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles?

Shame on the West! The Middle East's 30 million long-oppressed Kurds deserve their independence!

Roger Cohen, "Ripples of the Iran Deal": Palestinian Stabbings Are "Understandable"

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Apparently in response to Iran's arrest of another Iranian-American, Siamak Namazi, a businessman who has actively supported improved ties between the US and Iran, and the conviction earlier this month of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian for espionage, Roger Cohen is celebrating Obama's "transformative" nuclear deal with Khamemei. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Ripples of the Iran Deal," Cohen begins by observing:

"There was never any chance the Iran nuclear deal would be hermetic. One of its merits is to condemn the United States and Iran to a relationship, however hostile, over the next decade and a half at least. Now, within months, it has led to Iran’s presence at peace negotiations on Syria. That’s a good thing.

It’s a good thing because no end to the Syrian civil war is possible without the involvement of all the actors. Iran is one, directly and through its surrogate Hezbollah."

Got it: Iran orders Hezbollah fighters into Syria from Lebanon and is then invited by the Obama administration to participate in peace talks, and this is a "good thing." Why does this sound more like more appeasement coming from the White House?

Cohen continues:

"The fact is neither Khamenei, a hard-liner, nor the reformists led by President Hassan Rouhani can ignore the other."

Rouhani is a "reformer"? Iran, under Rouhani's leadership, executes more persons per capita than any other country in the world, and this rate is rising.

Next Cohen would have us know:

"But Iran has long been a useful distraction from Israel’s core problem, Palestine. Iran is far away from Jerusalem and Iranians seldom think about Israel."

Fascinating.  Iran's commander of it Quds Force, Major General Qasem Soleimani, recently visited Quneitra, one mile away from the Israel's border with Syria. Hey, Roger, given Iran's perpetual threats to exterminate Israel, what do you think he was doing there?

And then Cohen calls Palestinian stabbings of Israelis "understandable":

"Oppressed people will do such things. The oppression does not make random Palestinian stabbings of Israelis defensible. They are vicious crimes against innocent people. But it makes them understandable. Violence is the other face of the so-called status quo that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes to be in Israel’s interest. Violence is inextricable from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank that is almost a half-century old. Stateless non-citizens, living behind a high-tech wall among colonial settler garrisons, will not all acquiesce to their fate."

"Understandable"? The wave of stabbings has nothing to do with Israeli settlements. Rather, it has to do with a baseless rumor that Israel plans to destroy the al Aqsa Mosque, which gave rise to Palestinian Authority President Abbas's declaration that Jews have no right to defile the Temple Mount with their "filthy feet". Of course, no mention of this by Cohen.

But more to the point, if oppressed persons from America's inner cities were to start stabbing middle-class whites, would Cohen also label such attacks as "understandable"? I don't think so.

And just to set the record straight, that "high-tech wall" to which Cohen refers is 90 percent fence. But why should the facts get in the way of Cohen?

Sickening.

Roger Cohen, "Obama's What Next?": Blaming Israel for Using Excessive Force to Prevent Stabbings

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Labeling Obama the "king of the slippery-slope school of foreign policy," Roger Cohen concludes in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Obama's What Next?":

"I believe Obama has sold America short. The foreign-policy pendulum that swings between expansiveness and retrenchment has swung too far. His shift from indispensable power to indispensable partner has backfired when partner after partner — the Afghan Army, the Iraqi Army — has proved ineffective. The United States is not even at the Minsk table on the Ukraine crisis. Germany is.

'Just do it' might have served Obama better at times than 'What next?' Between paralysis and 350,000 troops on the ground there are options. Not every intervention is a slippery slope. The question, post-Syria, is whether the next president can make American power credible enough to stop this crisis or another in the Middle East, the Baltics, or the South China Sea, from spiraling out of control."

No mention by Cohen of the recent Iranian precision-guided ballistic missile test in violation of Security Council resolution 1929 that Obama "referred" to the UN, or that 3,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops are now in Syria, or that Cuban soldiers have been flown by Russia into Syria to assist Assad.

Or stated otherwise, "Just do it," which morphed into "Don't do stupid sh*t," has now morphed into "Don't do squat" - other than have US State Department John Kirby blame Israel for using "excessive force" to prevent Palestinians from stabbing Israeli children and senior citizens.

Roger Cohen, "Obama’s Doctrine of Restraint": "Rudderless Reality"?

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Obama’s Doctrine of Restraint," Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen concludes:

"Obama does not lack courage. Nor is he unprepared to take risks. It required courage to conclude the Iran nuclear deal — a signal achievement arrived at in the face of a vitriolic cacophony from Israel and the Republican-controlled Congress. It took courage to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough with Cuba. The successful operation to kill Osama bin Laden was fraught with risk. His foreign policy has delivered in significant areas. America has wound down its wars. The home pivot has yielded a revived economy (at least for some) and given all Americans access to health insurance.

Yet the cost of the Doctrine of Restraint has been very high. How high we do not yet know, but the world is more dangerous than in recent memory. Obama’s skepticism about American power, his readiness to disengage from Europe and his catastrophic tiptoeing on Syria have left the Middle East in generational conflict and fracture, Europe unstable and Putin strutting the stage. Where this rudderless reality is likely to lead I will examine in my next column."

Obama does not lack courage as evidenced by the Iran nuclear deal? Query: What does the first invertebrate to occupy the Oval Office have to say about Iran's violation over the weekend of UN Security Council Resolution 1929, which provides "Iran shall not undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using ballistic missile technology"?

And how is that Obama caved on every Iranian demand in order to reach the said nuclear deal?

And what does Obama have to say about Iran's expanding presence in Syria? Iranian Revolutionary Guard Brigadier General Hossein Hamedani was killed last week in Syria. This comes after Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Ali Allahdadin was killed in January on Syria's border with Israel by an Israeli airstrike.

Obviously, Putin is not the only one aware of Obama's spinelessness.

Roger Cohen, "Iran: The Obamacare of Foreign Policy": More Lunacy From the Man Who Claimed Iran Is Not Totalitarian

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Iran: The Obamacare of Foreign Policy," Roger Cohen would have us know that Obama's unsigned nuclear deal with Iran has prevented a disaster:

"Why has a disaster been averted? Because if the deal had unraveled in Congress, so would America’s standing as a global power. Russia, China and the European Union would have concluded that the United States is unserious. To negotiate over years a tough compromise obliging Iran, among other measures, to slash its stockpile of enriched uranium by 98 percent and its operating centrifuges by two-thirds, and then walk away in a righteous and deluded funk — well, that’s not how America won the respect of the world."

However, as we were told earlier this week by Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, "the time had come for the Americans to realize that they were not the world's super power and no one recognizes them as such any longer."

And as reportedly stated by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Rybakov, who headed Russia's negotiating team:

"I was telling my associates last night that these Iranians are truly geniuses. They came to get a green light for their enrichment program from the Security Council in exchange for what? In exchange for their sanctions to be lifted. Not only do they not give anything in exchange, but they receive something in exchange for what they receive! Their sanctions will be lifted and their enrichment will continue."

America is now considered "serious" by the rest of the world? Road apples!

In his opinion piece, Cohen tells us of a conversation that he had with Nicholas Burns:

"The deal will become the 'Obamacare of foreign policy,' Nicholas Burns, a Harvard professor and former under secretary of state, told me. Yes, it will. That is, something sensible (at least in the eyes of most people across the world) to which Republicans will never acquiesce and which they will try to use in every conceivable way to undermine a president they loathe."

Needless to say, Cohen doesn't mention that Burns, in a recent Times op-ed, acknowledged:

"Republicans have been right to highlight the deal’s principal weakness — it could permit Iran to emerge stronger 10 to 15 years from now as restrictions on its nuclear program begin to lapse."

To overcome this "weakness," Burns, in his op-ed, recommended five measures, which surely should have been implemented prior to, and not after, agreeing to this illusory arrangement.

Sorry, but Obama's nuclear deal is indeed a disaster in the making, and Democrats will live to rue the day when Iran builds an arsenal of nuclear-tipped ICBMs capable of striking New York and Washington in the not too distant future.

Roger Cohen, "One Congressman’s Iran": Shame on Sander Levin!

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Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, who decided to support Obama's nuclear deal with Khamenei, should be concerned when he receives the blessing of Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen. In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "One Congressman’s Iran," Cohen begins:

"Representative Sander M. Levin, Democrat of Michigan and the longest-serving Jewish member of the House, said something important this week: 'In my view, the only anchors in public life are to dig deeply into the facts and consult broadly and then to say what you believe.'"

Levin dug deeply into the nuclear deal with Iran? Heck no! He couldn't even bother waiting to learn what appears in the secret side agreements between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran, never seen by John Kerry or Ernest Moniz, which lay out the terms for IAEA inspections of Iranian military sites, such as Parchin, where nuclear detonator tests were conducted. And those terms are not pretty: Iran itself will be relied upon to supply requested soil samples to the IAEA.

Cohen continues:

"Levin’s reflection led him to the sober, accurate conclusion that the agreement is 'the best way to achieve' the goal of preventing Iran from advancing toward a nuclear weapon, an outcome that will make Israel, the Middle East and the world 'far more secure.' Not the ideal way, the perfect way, or a foolproof way, but, in the real world of ineradicable Iranian nuclear know-how, the best way attainable. That is also the view of other parties to the deal — the not insignificant or unserious powers of Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany."

Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany all wish to "make Israel, the Middle East and the world 'far more secure'"? I suppose that is why China will now be selling 150 J-10 fighter jets to Iran and Russia will now be selling 100 refueling aircraft to Iran, allowing the mullahs to attack any other country in the Middle East, including, of course, Israel.

I suppose that a 60-member German trade delegation, which visited Iran earlier this month, was also concerned with the security of Israel.

France? As reported by Josh Rogin in a Bloomberg article entitled "Top French Official Contradicts Kerry on Iran Deal":

"Jacques Audibert, is now the senior diplomatic adviser to President Francois Hollande. Before that, as the director general for political affairs in the Foreign Ministry from 2009 to 2014, he led the French diplomatic team in the discussions with Iran and the P5+1 group. Earlier this month, he met with Democrat Loretta Sanchez and Republican Mike Turner, both top members of the House Armed Services Committee, to discuss the Iran deal. The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, was also in the room.

According to both lawmakers, Audibert expressed support for the deal overall, but also directly disputed Kerry’s claim that a Congressional rejection of the Iran deal would result in the worst of all worlds, the collapse of sanctions and Iran racing to the bomb without restrictions.

'He basically said, if Congress votes this down, there will be some saber-rattling and some chaos for a year or two, but in the end nothing will change and Iran will come back to the table to negotiate again and that would be to our advantage,' Sanchez told me in an interview. 'He thought if the Congress voted it down, that we could get a better deal.'"

Shame on you, Sander Levin! You might be a friend of Obama, and true blue to the Democratic Party, but you are no friend of Israel at a time when the Jewish State is again being threatened with extinction by a country being handed a nuclear arsenal within 15 years at most!

Roger Cohen, "Iran’s Unserious Critics": So You Swallowed Poison and Need to Vomit?

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You swallowed poison and need to vomit? Read Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Iran’s Unserious Critics," which should work just as well as sticking a finger down your throat. Cohen declares in this gem of an opinion piece:

"[H]ard-nosed agreements with Iran can stick and that Tehran must be taken seriously in its declared readiness to reach a fair deal with the United States and its partners."

Take Tehran seriously? Yeah, right. As observed by Michael Makovsky in a Weekly Standard article entitled "Iran’s Cheating":

"Iran has a long and proud history of cheating on its international nuclear agreements. Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who once monitored Iran’s nuclear program, observed in 2013: 'If there is no undeclared installation today .  .  . it will be the first time in 20 years that Iran doesn’t have one.' Indeed, Iran’s main enrichment facility at Natanz was a covert facility that was only discovered in 2002, by the Mojahedin-e-Khalq, an Iranian opposition group. A year later, the European Union struck a deal with Iran to prevent it from spinning its centrifuges and beginning to enrich uranium. Yet for much of the deal, Iran was busy mastering its uranium supply chain. 'While we were talking with the Europeans in Tehran,” wrote Iran’s nuclear negotiator and now president Hassan Rouhani, 'we were installing equipment in parts of the [uranium conversion] facility at Isfahan. .  .  . In fact, by creating a calm environment, we were able to complete the work in Isfahan.' In 2009, the world learned of yet another clandestine enrichment plant, under a mountain at Fordow, that Iran was trying to construct.

. . . .

In the past year alone Iran has violated its international agreements at least three times. First, even though the interim Joint Plan of Action (JPOA) prohibited Iran from enriching uranium in any centrifuges that were not in use at the time the deal went into effect in January 2014, last November the IAEA caught Iran operating a new centrifuge—worse still, it was an advanced IR-5 model. Second, the JPOA required Iran to process any low-enriched uranium it produced during the deal’s term from the gaseous form used for enrichment into a solid that can be used as reactor fuel, so that it would not be readily available for further enrichment and potential breakout. As of February 2015, Iran had an excess of some 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, in violation of the deal’s terms. Third, in parallel to the JPOA, the IAEA and Iran signed a Framework for Cooperation under which Iran agreed to answer outstanding IAEA concerns about the possible military dimensions of its nuclear program. Iran answered only one question to the IAEA’s satisfaction and, for the past six months, has been stonewalling on the rest."

Cohen concludes his op-ed by stating (my emphasis in red):

"Both sides probably have a few weeks to play with. But to imagine the interim deal will hold, absent a final accord, is folly. America’s coalition will fray; Russia and China will start the blame game; Iran will eventually start installing new centrifuges again; the politics of Iran and the United States will shift; Israel will take its brinkmanship an inch or two further; and the hooded, throat-slitting barbarians of Islamic State — enemies of Shiite Iran and the United States — will advance, kill and plunder, relieved of the one conceivable effective coalition to confront them."

Cohen would have us believe that "the hooded, throat-slitting barbarians of Islamic State" are somehow worse than the Islamic Republic of Iran, which hangs gay men, stones to death women accused of adultery, savagely persecute Baha'is, Christians, Kurds and Sunnis, jails and brutalizes journalists and political opponents, backs Shiite militias in Iraq that are engaged in ethnic cleansing, bombed a Jewish community center in distant Argentina, routinely calls for the annihilation of Israel, and executes poets for "waging war on God."

In fact, there was never anyone less "serious" than Cohen regarding Iran. If you have the time, have a look at my 2009 blog entry "Was Roger Cohen's 'What Iran's Jews Say' in Keeping with The Times' Ethical Guidelines? Open Letter No. 3 to Clark Hoyt." It tells you everything you need to know about Cohen's "unique" style and standards of journalism.

Roger Cohen, "Iran Matters Most": More Hokum From the Man Who Claims Iran Is Not Totalitarian

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Iran Matters Most," Roger (Iran is "not totalitarian") calls upon the US to conclude a nuclear accord with Iran. Cohen begins:

"Do the Iran deal. Defeat the barbaric marauders of Islamic State. In the fragmenting mayhem of the Middle East, these must be the American and Western priorities."

The "barbaric marauders" of Islamic State? And what about the Islamic Republic of Iran, which stones to death women accused of adultery, hangs homosexuals, and imprisons and tortures Kurds, Baha'is, Sunni Muslims, Christians and anyone brave enough to voice opposition to the regime?

The one is any better than the other? I don't think so.

Roger Cohen, "Israel’s Vote Without Victory"*: Do You Remember "Dewey Defeats Truman"?

[* The title of the op-ed has now been changed to "An Uneasy Coalition for Israel."]


Do you remember the famous pictures of Harry Truman holding up a copy of The Chicago Tribune declaring "Dewey Defeats Truman"? Well, none other than Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen has managed to provide us with his own special revival of this journalistic debacle. In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Israel’s Vote Without Victory," Cohen writes:

"If the Israeli election was above all a referendum on the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he did not lose it. After accumulating nine years in office over three terms, that is a measure of his political guts, however limited his political achievements.

Nor, however, did he win it, according to early exit polls, and a long season of Israeli uncertainty now looks inevitable, despite the cries of victory from Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud Party.

. . . .

But many Israelis are tired of Netanyahu’s games; they embrace a different idea of Israel.

. . . .

As with Churchill’s words on democracy, a national unity coalition now looks like the worst form of government for Israel except for all the others. It could curtail Netanyahu’s hubris while giving Herzog heft, a desirable double whammy."

However, with 95 percent of the vote tallied, Netanyahu's Likud currently leads Herzog's Zionist Union by five parliamentary seats, and Netanyahu is almost certainly assured of forming the next government in Israel.

As always, nice work, Roger!

Roger Cohen, "The Other Iran Letter": Now Read a Real Open Letter Written From Prison by the Iranian Poet Hashem Shaabani

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Other Iran Letter," Roger Cohen pens an "open letter to the leaders of the United States of America." Well, anyone who reads this blog knows what I think of Roger ("Iran is not totalitarian") Cohen, and rather than relate to Cohen's drivel, I prefer to provide you with a portion of a real open letter written from an Iranian prison in 2013 by the poet Hashem Shaabani:

"In February 11/2011 when I was at home and after my return of the Sheakh Ansari minor school (I am a teacher and I was teaching Arabic language in different minor school and high school) the Iranian intelligence services arrested me and after a long interrogation they accused me of the founder of the popular Resistance movement for liberation of Ahwaz and as I mentioned above I used this nicknames just to express my feeling toward the misery and the unspeakable oppression of my people and these nicknames have nothing to do with outside but the interrogators of mine refused my claims and let me to confess on myself under the severe and unbearable tortures physically and psychologically. Under the ongoing tortures I have lost my control on my real conscious and my mind engulfed with hallucination that made me to confess and accept the imposed charges that extracted of myself and the friends of mine by harsh tortures in the solitary confinement. After a long term in the solitary confinement the intelligence service transferred me to the Karoon prison. My first trial along with my friends was on May 21/2012 in the revolutionary court of Ahwaz in which I understood the reality and strongly rejected the charges of having link with organizations outside of the country and I said to the judge that the external organization that you are claiming about it ,is nobody just me Hashem Shabbani. In fact I confessed on myself due to the severe tortures and the intelligence security extracted the confessions from me and my friends according to their will. Finally after passing three sessions of my trial in court I have got aware of the fake scenario that fabricated by the intelligence service by extracting baseless confessions and using them against us. I have got shocked when I read the verified death penalty sentences that issued against me and four of my friends along with 20 years in exile for my friend Rahman Assakre."

Hashem Shaabani was hanged to death on January 27, 2014 after "moderate" Iranian President Hassan Rouhani approved the sentence.

Roger Cohen, "Netanyahu’s Iran Thing": Roger "Iran Is Not Totalitarian" Cohen Is Back!

Do you remember how Roger Cohen waged a campaign during the first six months of 2009 to convince us that Iran is "not totalitarian"? Well, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Netanyahu’s Iran Thing," Cohen is back with more asinine claims, intended to support Obama's pending nuclear agreement with Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei. Cohen begins:

"[Netanyahu] portrays a rampaging Islamic Republic that 'now dominates four Arab capitals, Baghdad, Damascus, Beirut and Sana,' a nation 'gobbling' other countries on a “march of conquest, subjugation and terror.' Then, in the same speech, he describes Iran as 'a very vulnerable regime' on the brink of folding.

Well, which is it?"

So, you can't be "rampaging" and "vulnerable" at the same time? Nazi Germany certainly "rampaged," but at the same time was "vulnerable" owing to the dependence of its war machine upon Romanian oil and Swedish iron ore.

Is a rampaging Iran also vulnerable? For example, is Iranian support of Hamas and Hezbollah affected by its finances, i.e. the low price of oil? Absolutely. As reported by Newsweek in a January 15, 2015 article entitled "Is Hezbollah Going Broke?" by Jeff Neumann:

"But the good times may now be over for Hezbollah and its supporters. Iranian oil profits, which have lubricated the proxy group with hundreds of millions of dollars a year, appear to be drying up. Western sanctions, imposed on Tehran due to its nuclear program, coupled with falling oil prices, have emptied the coffers of the Islamic Republic. Crude now trades at less than $50 per barrel, down from more than $100 in June, due to lower global demand, oversupply in the Middle East and the rise of the American fracking industry. Meanwhile, Iran has reportedly seen its oil exports fall by 60 percent since 2011, and the country’s budget deficit has climbed to an astounding $9 billion."

Cohen continues, "Netanyahu knows the first thing that will happen if talks collapse is that Russia and China will undermine the solidarity behind effective Iran sanctions." Sorry, Roger, but after Obama softened the sanctions regime against Iran in 2014, Russia and Iran have already held joint naval exercises. However, hope is not lost. Russia is also being impacted by the dramatic decline in the price of oil and is susceptible to American pressure.

Cohen goes on to say:

"Netanyahu lambastes the notion of a nuclear deal lasting 10 years (President Obama has suggested this is a minimum). He portrays that decade as a period in which, inevitably, Iran’s 'voracious appetite for aggression grows with each passing year.' He thereby dismisses the more plausible notion that greater economic contact with the world and the gradual emergence of a young generation of Iranians drawn to the West — as well as the inevitable dimming of the ardor of Iran’s revolution — will attenuate such aggression."

Got it: The US and Israel should pin all its hopes upon the emergence of a more moderate generation of Iranians. Needless to say, in another decade the Iranian Revolutionary Guard will simply fade into the sunset. Yeah, right.

Next, Cohen tells us:

"What better assures Israel’s security, a decade of strict limitation and inspection of Iran’s nuclear program that prevents it making a bomb, or a war that delays the program a couple of years, locks in the most radical factions in Tehran, and intensifies Middle Eastern violence? It’s a no-brainer."

A "no-brainer"? Oh really? As Max Boot writes in a Commentary item entitled "Why Obama Thinks He Can’t Get a Better Iran Deal":

"The U.S. intelligence community has a terrible track record of detecting nuclear work in other countries. We were caught off guard by the first Soviet nuclear test in 1949, the first Indian test in 1974, the first Pakistani test in 1998, the first North Korean test in 2006. Likewise, we were surprised by the extent of the Iraqi nuclear program in 1992.

Is there cause to hope that we would be better informed about the Iranian program? Only if we get truly intrusive inspection that allows international monitors to roam the country at will with no need to announce visits in advance. I am skeptical whether the mullahs will agree to that. The 1994 Agreed Framework with North Korea shows how easily a state can cheat on a nuclear accord: The North agreed to shut down a plutonium reactor at Yongbyon but proceeded with the secret enrichment of uranium."

"[A] decade of strict limitation and inspection of Iran’s nuclear program"? Keep dreaming, Roger!

And then there is Cohen's reference to Nancy Pelosi:

"No wonder Representative Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Party’s House Leader, saw Netanyahu’s speech to Congress as an 'insult to the intelligence of the United States.'"

This is the same Nancy Pelosi who, in 2007, listened in rapture to mass murderer Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, and declared after meeting him:

"We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process. He’s ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel."

Finally, there is Cohen's declaration that "Iranian help today furthers America’s strategic priority of defeating those knife-wielding slayers [i.e. ISIS]." Those "knife-wielding slayers"? Cohen fails to observe that Iran stones to death women accused of adultery and hangs homosexuals. Also, forgotten by Cohen is the fact that some 20 percent of American casualties in Iraq were caused by Iran's Quds forces. Nevertheless, the US should now be grateful for the help of the mullahs in combating ISIS.

Cohen turns my stomach. Enough said.