CIA warns Barack Obama that British terrorists are the biggest threat to the US

Netanyahu 'will coax Obama into Iran war':
The Israeli prime ministerial frontrunner will win a US blessing to enter war with Iran, says a source familiar with US Mideast policies.

This Just In: Israel Is Indeed Our 51st State!
By Melissa Rossi
I am truly alarmed at the idea that Israel is indeed our 51st state -- falling, apparently between Indiana and Kansas -- but this idea is fairly entrenched in US foreign policy. After all, unbeknownst to most Americans, Israel -- an affluent country -- receives more US foreign aid than ANY other country in the world -- and the bulk of it goes for arms, a result of the 1979 Camp David Agreement that brought Israeli-Egyptian peace, as I note in this entry.

Britain: Foreign Office colludes with US to cover-up torture of Binyam Mohamed
By Robert Stevens
A High Court ruling by two British judges regarding the torture of a Guantánamo detainee has unleashed a major political crisis. The judges have stated that they have been pressured by the United States into concealing evidence that should be made available in any country governed by the rule of law. This took the form of threats to withdraw security cooperation, instigated under the Bush administration and continued under Barak Obama's presidency.

How Bush Threatened Britain
By Andrew Sullivan
In order to prevent any details of its torture record being publicly disseminated, the Bush administration threatened the British government with withdrawal of intelligence sharing if they allowed a court to publish the redacted evidence. Foreign secretary David Miliband denied this on Wednesday, but the letters from the US have been released by Channel 4 News. And their message is unmistakable.

This explains everything.

This Just In: Israel Is Indeed Our 51st State!
By Melissa Rossi
I am truly alarmed at the idea that Israel is indeed our 51st state -- falling, apparently between Indiana and Kansas -- but this idea is fairly entrenched in US foreign policy.
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I'd thought it would just be a breezy Friday afternoon, when I clicked on today's post of M.J. Rosenberg, here on Huffington Post.
Director of Policy for the Israel Policy Forum, Mr. Rosenberg's blog entry concerns the upcoming Israeli election -- and he tells us the outcome is "really not our business." After all, he blithely notes, "As Americans, our job is to promote policies that are best for America, and for Israel."

There weren't comments when I started reading -- but by the time I read through his post and hit the reply button, there were already five comments and more pending. All of them saying the same thing -- no, Mr. Rosenberg -- our job is to promote policies that are best for America. PERIOD.

I am truly alarmed at the idea that Israel is indeed our 51st state -- falling, apparently between Indiana and Kansas -- but this idea is fairly entrenched in US foreign policy. After all, unbeknownst to most Americans, Israel -- an affluent country -- receives more US foreign aid than ANY other country in the world -- and the bulk of it goes for arms, a result of the 1979 Camp David Agreement that brought Israeli-Egyptian peace, as I note in this entry.

Thus, everytime Israel makes a military move, it reflects on the US -- since they're using our freebie arms, as I note here.

The neocons who dominated both the Bush administrations, son's and father's, adopted the idea that what's good for Israel is good for the US, and there are those that argue that in fact our 2003 march into Iraq was more about conquering a threat to Israel than destroying a threat to the US.

And certainly, if Israel makes a move on Iran -- which remains a distinct possibility whoever wins the election -- and perhaps even before, as I discuss here -- it will not only reflect on the US yet again, it may pull us directly or indirectly into the ugliest war we've yet seen in the Middle East.

So, sorry, Mr. Rosenberg, it is our business who wins the elections in Israel -- nevertheless, Israel is not our latest state. And Mr. Rosenberg, I will be happy to debate you on this issue is any forum you name.
-- Melissa Rossi is the author of What Every American Should Know about the Middle East

THE GREAT BENEFACTOR
Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War II. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.2 Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one‐fifth of America’s foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year.3 This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.4
Israel also gets other special deals from Washington.5 Other aid recipients get their money in quarterly installments, but Israel receives its entire appropriation at the beginning of each fiscal year and thus earns extra interest. Most recipients of American military assistance are required to spend all of it in the United States, but Israel can use roughly twenty‐five percent of its aid allotment to subsidize its own defense industry. Israel is the only recipient that does not have to account for how the aid is spent, an exemption that makes it virtually impossible to prevent the money from being used for purposes the United States opposes, like building settlements in the West Bank.
Moreover, the United States has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems like the Lavi aircraft that the Pentagon did not want or need, while giving Israel access to top‐drawer U.S. weaponry like Blackhawk helicopters and F‐16 jets. Finally, the United States gives Israel access to 2
intelligence that it denies its NATO allies and has turned a blind eye towards Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.6

all countries need to understand the forces that drive U.S. Middle East policy.
The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardized U.S. security.
This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives. As we show below, however, neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel.
Instead, the overall thrust of U.S. policy in the region is due almost entirely to U.S. domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the “Israel Lobby.” Other special interest groups have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions they favored, but no lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical.1
In the pages that follow, we describe..............

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