Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
That speech was worth several divisions to Israel.
The President had watched the speech of Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban before the Security Council of the United Nations.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973, 36th President of the United States (Democrat, TX), 1967
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
President George W. Bush initiated an invasion of Iraq based on the fact that Iraq was developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. After the invasion however, there were none of these weapons found and much evidence that there were not any at that point in time. By the time Congress, the body which is supposed to declare war, found out that the reason for the war was bogus, it was too late. We had already occupied the country and were in the midst of a civil war. The President either acted on bad intelligence or wanted to invade Iraq for other reasons and history may finally tell us which, but Fein sees the problem as too much secrecy in the executive branch.
It is hard for us to envision that sophisticated and intelligent men like Sherman would actually see Communism as a danger of defeating capitalism. Our intelligence was poor and often exaggerated to justify military buildups and much of the leadership made statements like this and then many began to believe their own propaganda. Ironically, those who knew communism the best were more aware and realistic of the fatal flaws in not only communism in general but in the particular Soviet repressive version of communism. It would take almost 50 years, but the Soviet Union collapsed revealing its weaknesses for all to see.
Israel started it nuclear weapons program under Perez’s leadership. They do not admit that it is even in existence. Yet all their potential enemies in the Middle East realize that they have enough nuclear weapons capacity that if they are in danger of being overrun, they can literally destroy the attacking nation and all the countries that might be assisting that nation. Before Israel had developed this capability, some in the Middle East had as their objective to destroy the state of Israel and “drive the Jews into the sea”. No one believes that it is now possible to militarily defeat Israel without the attacking nations also being destroyed. For years, Israel has had the military might to conquer any nation in the Middle East and use their nuclear shield to protect them from any interference, but they have not done so demonstrating that the Israeli governments will not use nuclear weapons for any other purpose.
Israel's Arab enemies do not simply want to control the territory and/or the economic resources. Their aim, overtly stated thousands of times since the formation of Israel, is to "drive the Jews into the sea", murder the population, obtain revenge for their percieved humiliation that "foreigners" to the region and their religion could build a society so far advanced compared to Arabs on the harsh land abd without any of the oil riches that some of the Arab states had. Israel has won all the wars that the Arabs have initiated, and never murdered the population, and provide the "occupied territiries" with better medicine and infrastructure than the Arabs achieve on their own.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, in office from 1963 to 1969. He served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963 and assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson was also a United States representative and later majority leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people to have served, at various times, in all four federal elected positions.
