Bill Clinton Asked to Try For Gilad Shalit's Release, Invading Iran For The Summer?

Doyle McManus

The most interesting thing revealed over the weekend, besides where Lebron James will play next year, is that while he was in Washington, Israeli's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with former US President Bill Clinton, asked him to meet with Hamas and use his diplomatic skills to try and obtain a release of Gilad Shalit. No word if Bill accepted the challenge, and the Hamas government in Gaza has not been notified of any pending visit. Or, in Hamas-speak: "Hamas "welcomes every effort to expose Israeli crimes against the population of Gaza. The government is open to the world through contact with Western officials, who are well briefed on the suffering of the Palestinian people,” I've said before that we could use Bill Clinton as an envoy to the Middle East. In fact, why not use all of the former Presidents? George Bush still has some good relations with a few countries, why not put him to good use? He might prove a better envoy than he did as a President, look how Jimmy Carter has built up his world-esteem since he has been in office. I know, I know, now there would be someone planning to use Ronald Reagan like a prop from Weekend at Bernie's; but hey, if even a dead President might work, I say let's dig the man up...

What has suddenly made Israel's Prime Minister so happy with Washington, besides buying new weapons through the Pentagon? It's Obama's reassurance that the US stands with Israel concerning Iran. The US and Israel have been holding joint bombing exercises, and Israel has been showing the turkish military how to use drones. We now have three warships in the Persian Gulf, Israel has one and a couple nuclear submarines that on paper don't exist. US forces are building up in Yemen and Azerbaijan, in essence surrounding Iran. Either two things will happen - one, that the US and Israel will go for a brutal, intense strike against Iran, designed to cripple its nuclear industry and hoping that it will spur the Iranian people to provoke a regime change. Or two, just the pressure and threat of attack will provoke the paranoid and crazy faction of the Iranian government into some kind of action that will justify a strike or provoke a regime change, because it looks doubtful that there will be another election any time soon... It might be one reason why there have been a lot of Iranian-made bombs going off in Iraq and Pakistan lately, trying to destabilize the area and have the US refocus there instead of on its borders...

An invasion of Iran could be Obama's October Surprise, designed to get approval back in time for the elections. As everyone knows, wars are good for the economy and for boosting your political ratings. The Pentagon's budget for 2011 is almost $800 billion. If we took that amount and divided it up into payment for everyone who is unemployed, how many weeks would it last?

The general consensus is that the Republicans will win enough seats that they will be in charge of the House, with John Boehner replacing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker. Tanning booth replacing botox injections... Unless they can start bringing in some young blood and fresh ideas, their reign will be short lived. Letting your party platform be built by lobbyists, and putting your faith in lack of responsible oversight is how we got ourselves into our current depression. I've been reading how TARP was supposed to have failed, but then, it was a Republican solution that was supported by Democrats and the new President. So, the economy went into the toilet when Republicans were in power, their ideas to fix the problem didn't work (there are an equal amount of arguments that says TARP worked well, and with interest, it made money), and they haven't come up with any good ideas or solutions for the future... I'm afraid that keeping the platform obscure won't be helpful, and if they thought that people were mad last Summer, wait until next Summer when people get fed up with the same old crap being fed by rich politicians. We may have a real revolution on our hands. Fuck terrorism, I need a job...