A thousand year-old Irish psalmbook has been dug out of the ground after a construction worker spotted it. Here's the freaky highlight:
The book was found open to a page describing, in Latin script, Psalm 83, in which God hears complaints of other nations' attempts to wipe out the name of Israel.
Posted by: Tibor ||
07/27/2006 02:30 ||
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#1
Beats the hell out of 'Allan' in Arabic on the side of a fish.
The Belgian daily newspaper « Le Soir » reported this morning that a complaint will be lodged today in Brussels, against Israël for war crimes. Belgian law, and especially the Law of Universal competence adopted in 1993 and since then amended several times, does in fact allow the lodging of complaints for crimes against humanity as long as there is link with Belgium (victims or perpetrators or Belgian residents, etc ). This is precisely the case because the two plaintiffs, Mr Ali Abdul-Sater and his wife Mrs Farkad El Husseini are both Belgian nationals of Lebanese origin who were on holidays in Beirut when the war broke out. Their apartment was destroyed and they had to flee the country via Syria under particularly traumatic circumstances. The complaint lodged mentions by name MM. Ehud Olmert, Prime minister, Amir Pertz, minister of Defense, and Dan Halutz, Chief of Staff.
Without questioning the suffering, certainly very real of the plaintiffs, we cannot but wonder about the climate of political manipulation that seems to surround this complaint.
But lets for a moment consider this famous Law of universal competence : this law allowing the pursue of criminals who, without it, could benefit of impunity would do honour to any democracy. In Belgium, unfortunately, it would rather raise smiles. This country has reached a level of corruption rarely equalled in the industrialised world (for months now, presumed corrupt practices within the socialist Party, principal party in government, multiply, the average person involved in legal actions waits for years for his case to be dealt with by the tribunals, which in many judicial districts do not pursue even minor offences because of judicial backlogs. Finally, many very interesting files have never been cleared, starting by those of the killers of Brabant that killed some 30 people in the eighties. And, is it this justice that we will say (in order to be polite to the magistrates who are in the first place the victims of the system) is a little slow, inefficient and politicised, that is going to throw light on the possible war crimes committed at the other end of the world? Absurd
But let us get down to the complaint itself. The barrister lodging it, Maître George-Henri Beauthier, is a well-known and respected figure of the Bar. He is also a man well-known to be leftist, which is entirely his right and, concerning Israel, this is not his first case. Some years ago he already lodged a complaint, always under the same Universal competence Law, against Ariel Sharon for the Sabra and Shatila massacres which, (it will be remembered, were committed by a Lebanese Christian militia, not by the Israeli army). So, today he takes on the cause of Mr. Ali Abdul-Sater and others, because he tells that others will follow. In passing he tells us that his client is Vice-President of the Association for a Laic Lebanon regrouping moderate citizens of all confessions worried about the future of Lebanon. It is not at all a question of a pro-Syrian or extremist movement.
We will point out that the association « for a Laic Lebanon seems to be a very recent creation which of course does not make it less pertinent . In Google we find only three or four references to this group and all of them date from the last few days. As for the internet site of the association it is only a blog created on July 2006 and on which the oldest messages go back only to July 23.
An association born perhaps merely of the circumstances, a slanted complaint, a militant barrister and something to make the front page of newspapers : it seems to us that there is more politics than thirst for justice in this affair.
#1
Let's remember that this country who feels itself qulifying for judging the world is the one where a pedophilic ring has been able to operate for years and who, for a previous offence, released its leader Marc Durtroux, with surprising celerity.
If you know where to look, its easy to find evidence of Spains Islamic past: You can see it in Spanish architecture and in the faces of the people. You can hear it in Spanish music, especially flamenco, and in the Spanish language itself.
Despite these undeniable historical links between Spain and the Islamic world, Spaniards have no interest in turning back the clock, not after their ancestors spent seven centuries expelling the Muslim invaders who forced themselves on Spain. However, there is one group that remains committed to such a reunion: Islamist radicals.
A few weeks ago, the FBI arrested eight men in charge of plotting to blow up the underground rail tunnels that link New Jersey and New York. The suspects included members of al-Qaeda living both in and outside of the United States.
An overlooked detail in the story was the name of one of the alleged masterminds of the plot: Emir Andalusi. As with many terrorists, thats not his real name but, instead, what the French call a nom de guerre, a war-time alias. And as with most such aliases, it provides an insight into his and other jihadist motivations and aspirations.
Andalusi comes from Al Andalus, the Arabic name for southern Spain, the part known as Andalusia today. As one Israeli writer has pointed out, references to old Muslim Spain are . . . [increasingly] common among jihadists who have set themselves against the Western world.
The best-known such reference is Osama bin Ladens 2001 video message that declared that al-Qaeda would not permit the repeat of the tragedy of Andalusia in Palestine. The tragedy he was referring to was the expulsion of the Muslim invaders by Spanish Christian forces.
In case the Western world didnt get the point, al-Zawahiri, al-Qaedas number two, later swore that the tragedy of Al Andalus must not be repeated.
It isnt just al-Qaeda that wants to force this. Hamas isnt just interested in Israel. It has demanded the return of the city of Seville to Islam and what it calls the lost paradise of Al Andalus.
These dreams of Al Andalus make Spain a target as the Spanish have already learned the hard way. And Spain isnt a target because of its policies toward the United States or the Middle East, but because its existence is regarded as a tragedy by the jihadists. As former Spanish Prime Minister Aznar put it, the problem with al-Qaeda has been 1,300 years in the making.
Unfortunately, the current Spanish Prime Minister, Zapatero, seems to share the same sense of denial that the British elites do as described in Melanie Phillipss book Londonistan, which I have talked about on BreakPoint. He has demonstrated open contempt for Spains Catholic heritage while increasingly accommodating Islamic interests. Some five hundred years after the fall of the last Islamic stronghold in Spain, his government is financing the teaching of Islam in public schools.
Whats it going to take for the West to wake up? There is a real clash of worldviews, and its deadly. And just like between the two great World Wars, Europe is asleep.
#1
Whats it going to take for the West to wake up? There is a real clash of worldviews, and its deadly. And just like between the two great World Wars, Europe is asleep.
Yup, what is it going to take? Are people waiting for another 911? We have already had the bombings in Spain and London. You would think, people would connect the dots by this time. Damn, it feels like 1939 with all the appeasement mongers.
#2
Spanish people have few is any Moorish blood. First because as teh Chrtisnas were driving South and dislodging Moors they repopulated the deserted lands with either people from other parts of Europe, christaions of north Spain or those who had not left Christian faith. At one point Muslims were expelled and later (because they were suspecyted to be still Muslims in secret and of helping Turks and Moorish pirates) the converted Muslims were expelled too.
Now when Romans arrived to Spauin they found Celts in the North and Iberians in the South. The iberians came from North Africa in prehistoric times. Now the guy sees Iberians and thinks he is seeing Moors. Idiot.
Spanish architecture? Look at cathedrals from medieval Christian Spain or post-renaissance and try to find elements of Muslim architecture. There are none. TRhe only common point is the taste for intrincate carvings in the Plateresco style but Pleteresco doesn't look like Muslim architecture.
Also while Spanish has a number of words of Arab origin specially in the South (eg aljibe instead of pozo for a well) they are not thet numerous. The French haven't been ocupppiing Germany for eight centuries and you have at least as many French words in German than Arab words in Spanish.
Alos some of these French words are "fundamental" in German (eg equal is egal) while in Spanish they are limited to wome names of things.
Among the largest stars are the red giants, ten times or more the size of our sun. Over billions of years, as they burn themselves out and start to die, these stars begin to shine more brightly. Some, called miras, periodically brighten and dim before they - like the rest - collapse on themselves and then explode into nothingness. In that, the stars of the universe most closely resemble the stars of the mainstream media. The miras of the media, those such as the New York Times, CBS News, the Washington Post, are collapsing into themselves. And while they do, every two years they burn with a sudden intensity that still dazzles those who take them at their word.
As the fervency of the media's liberalism increases, the number of people who comprise their audience shrinks. The NYT, for example, lost about 20 per cent of its home town readers between 2001 and 2004. MSNBC - whose liberalism is beyond parody - is experimenting frantically with various reincarnations to bestir higher ratings without doing anything about its core liberal biases. Even the AP, once among the best sources of political news, has a tattered reputation. The rips and tears are self-inflicted, created by fabulously-biased Iraq coverage and stories such as its bizarre feature about then-Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' childhood, "...during the racially turbulent 1960s and '70s [in a neighborhood that] once banned the sale of homes to nonwhites and Jews."
Businesses with shrinking customer bases usually move heaven and earth to stop the hemorrhaging. But the media are so self-absorbed they think the problem is with their audience, not with them. Instead of news editors imposing more discipline on themselves and reporters, instead of editorial page editors recalibrating the shrieks that they substitute for op-eds, audience shrinkage has had the opposite effect. The wider audiences have been abandoned and the few constraints that existed as late as 2004 are gone. Conservatives sense something wrong in the media, but haven't really formulated either the disease or the cure. Michael Barone calls it an effort to delegitimize the administration. I think it's a disease called Bush Derangement Syndrome.
On July 16th, the Washington Post's lead editorial spoke to all the world's conflicts by, as usual, displaying its disgust with the Bush administration. It wrote, "But in the press of cascading crises, it is crucial that the administration not lose focus on the two wars it started and has yet to win." It started? The WaPo news editors as well as the editorial page, suffering a terminal case of BDS, have reached an Orwellian state of grace. In WaPo Newspeak, George W. Bush has replaced Usama bin Laden and the "Mission Accomplished" banner on the USS Lincoln has replaced the fallen Twin Towers as the reason we are at war.
The conservative pundit/religious right hater, Andrew Sullivan, sees a WOT hardline forming, and misreads it as a Party coup against Neo-Cons. No way! The hardline has always been there. Sullivan mentions unsettling facts such as Iraqi Parliamentary support for Hizbollah, but says nothing of potential Arab re-alignment against Shiite Iranians. And who says that President Bush won't defer to hard-liners? Newt Gingrich recently declared that our current military-political position was "World War III." But Bush said that in a May interview with AFP (France). Maybe a pre-emptive war climate isn't best suited for advancing democracy. A consensus is building on WOT revamping.
by Andrew Sullivan
...To be fair, some neoconservatives long expected this potential irony. Their ultimate analysis of the Middle East was, to my mind, a largely persuasive one. It was that decades of propping up Arab dictatorships and kleptocracies in return for cheap oil was no longer a viable foreign policy.
The repression in the region had given life and legitimacy to radical Islamism, spawned terror, and eventually cost the lives of thousands of Americans.
The only way to tackle this problem at its roots was to shift American policy towards favouring democracy in the Muslim and Arab world - even if this meant instability and an Islamist explosion in the short term. In the medium and long run, neocons hoped, democratically elected governments would behave more rationally towards the West and Israel - and to their own citizens.
In theory, this makes a good deal of sense - and neocons are, of all people, adept at theory. The trouble, of course, is that theory always melts when it meets something called reality. And non-neoconservatism has always been defined as a political temperament acutely aware of the discrepancy between theory and practice.
It is, from Edmund Burke through to Michael Oakeshott, a tradition that grasps that imperfection, doubt and complexity are the only reliable guides to navigating politics - and life as a whole. Conservatives are not averse to theory or argument - they just understood that it is never, ever enough in the world of practical life...
#4
It's no wonder why this flame thrower was chosen to be the Time Mag. blogger. He is just using the word "Civil War" as an attention getter. If he used word "debate," he wouldn't be invited to the MSM talk shows.
There is a debate among neoconservative and conservatives and the neoconservative theory of spreading democracy in the ME and open borders is no longer in play. The Iraq experiment is over, but WoT, without spreading democracy, continues forever. No matter what the "debate" among conservatives, the Democrats can forget about the Presidency, for a long time. The conservatives have already come the conclusion that problem is, religion not oppression. A religion that teaches hate and martydom against Jews and Christians, as the only way to achieve forgiveness of sins. Here is a quote from today's Zawahiri tape.
"It is a Jihad for the sake of God and will last until (our) religion prevails ... from Spain to Iraq," [sic] "We will attack everywhere."
The sheeple better wake up and take him at his word. Unfortunately, the only way, is to destroy the radical gene pool starting at the top. The US policy makers need to realize that forcing Israel into land for peace, significantly weakens American WoT. Land for peace only results in Jew and Christian pieces.
#7
I've been torturing neocons in my basement all morning, and I have come to the realization that they are not organized into cells that take orders from Karl Rove, but just clear thinkers.
Another wasted day.
#9
Sea, I think it's the "Vietnam" of intra-party debate. We may very well see our own My Lai here soon, too, lol!
And, I take deep dispute with his "neocons are only good at theory" crack. In fact, I'd argue that Repubs are the ONLY ones looking at reality dead in the face, not liking what they see, and changing TACTICS to fit the situation. Yeah, maybe we "democratized Palestine" to get Hamas as a result, or we democratize Iraq to get nutcases like al-Sadr in power, but hey, let's completely ignore the (not so minor) changes in Saudi, Kuwait (women voting and running for positions), Egypt (yeah, we got Muslim Brotherhood there too), Libya dropping its nuke program, Afghanistan settling down after thousands of years of civil war, etc.
Posted by: BA ||
07/27/2006 13:19 Comments ||
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#10
Andrew, you bore me
Carefull, or he jus might "bore" you
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:25 Comments ||
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On hearing the news that a United Nations observation post manned by four unarmed peacekeepers at the nexus of the Israeli, Lebanese and Syrian borders was struck by an Israeli bomb, an uncharacteristically forceful Kofi Annan bolted out of a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to proclaim his shock at the "apparently deliberate targeting" by Israel Defence Forces of the post. The UN Secretary-General went on to say the UN would conduct a full investigation. A curious statement, considering his comment that the IDF intentionally targeted the observers. Case closed, n'est-ce pas? Not quite.
The blast on Tuesday claimed the lives of Major Paeta Derek Hess-von Kruedener, a Canadian serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organization mission in southern Lebanon, and three other UN soldiers. On July 18, Major Hess-von Kruedener had sent a number of his colleagues, including regimental officers such as myself, an e-mail describing what the situation was like at his location since the Israeli attacks began against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
"Based on the intensity and volatility of this current situation and the unpredictability of both sides (Hezbollah and Israel), and given the operational tempo of the Hezbollah and the IDF, we are not safe to venture out to conduct our normal patrol activities. We have now switched to Observation Post Duties and are observing any and all violations as they occur."
UNTSO was established in 1948 and is the UN's oldest mission. Canada has participated since its inception, and one of its current roles has been to monitor the ceasefire in the Golan Heights after the 1967 Six-Day War. When there had been a semblance of peace, UN monitoring made considerable sense, so minor violations could be dealt with quickly. But to leave the observers in place with a war under way stretches the credibility of the UN's operational judgment close to the breaking point.
The penultimate paragraph of Major Hess-von Kruedener's e-mail is prophetic, to say the least:
"The closest artillery has landed within two metres of our position and the closest 1,000-pound aerial bomb has landed 100 metres from our patrol base. This has not been deliberate targeting, but has rather been due to tactical necessity."
This is what we call "veiled speech" in military jargon. It means hiding the truth in lingo that outsiders would not necessarily understand. What he is saying translates roughly as: "We have Hezbollah fighters all over our position engaging the IDF and using us as shields. They will probably stay, hoping that the IDF won't target them for fear of hitting us."
Surprising? Not really.
I have served in another mission where one side constantly set up its weapon systems, including mortars, in and around hospitals, medical clinics, mosques and, yes, UN positions, knowing full well that, when it engaged its enemies and received return fire, it would make for compelling TV as the networks covered the civilian carnage. (When they took up positions around my soldiers, I advised their leaders that I would authorize my soldiers to kill them within the hour if they didn't withdraw. Fortunately, as I was not an unarmed observer, I was in a position to do that.) In many cases, the weapon systems were moved immediately after firing, and their positions around civilians were abandoned before innocents paid the price for their despicable techniques. You have to admit this technique helps to win the PR war, which often is as important as the fighting one.
Certainly, the Secretary-General is familiar with this technique, having been the UN undersecretary of peacekeeping in the horrific 1990s, when the UN was floundering in the Balkans, Somalia and Rwanda.
For that reason alone -- and despite his soft-pedalling yesterday that the Israeli Prime Minister "definitely believes [the bombing was] a mistake" -- Mr. Annan should not have been so quick to pass judgment on an event that quite likely was not as it seemed in the hours following the tragedy.
Retired major-general Lewis MacKenzie was the first commander of United Nations peacekeeping forces in Sarajevo.
Posted by: Steve ||
07/27/2006 10:26 ||
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People react under stress without pretense. IOW, Kofi is an innate anti-Semitic.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:27 Comments ||
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Posted by: DanNY ||
07/27/2006 07:54 ||
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Mohammed at ITM is one smart Iraqi. The fact that such men exist in the ME gives hope. Unfortunately, the number of lunatics in the ME tilts the balance toward hopelessness.
#2
He exhibits what could be called constructive paranoia. In this case, he is not alone, and many Iraqis on the street know that there is one, and only one, troublemaker in their neighborhood--Iran.
The thing about being a little paranoid is that you are a lot harder to sneak up on. And when the Iraqis finally reach their threshold of tolerance for Iranian hanky-panky, there is going to be a lot of dead Iranian agents and symps.
During his trip to Washington earlier this week, the Iraqi prime minister again failed to condemn Hezbollah and instead focused exclusively on the "destruction that happened to the Lebanese people as a result of the military air and ground attacks." Following Nouri al-Maliki's initial one-sided and even blunter criticism of Israel 10 days ago, a demoralized friend from Jerusalem emailed me:
"Iraqis need to understand that they must not jump on the anti-Israel Arab bandwagon; not for Israel's sake, but for themselves. The Arab obsession with Israel has been debilitating for the Arab world and has been the primary excuse for tolerating dictatorships and terrorism. Some brave Arabs have said this. Also, why should Iraq line up with Syria and the hardliners when even the Saudis are criticizing Hezbollah?"
He's right. And it wasn't supposed to be this way. We had thought that a post-Saddam Iraqi government would be less susceptible to Arab League pressure; Israel as the old whipping-boy was to find little resonance there. This change of tone was to be a model for the region. Wasn't the road to Arab-Israeli peace supposed to go through Baghdad?
Mr. Maliki--who is competent, tough and genuinely committed to a democratic Iraq--is not responding to pressure from the Arab League. The pressure is coming instead from some radical Shiites in his own country. Moqtada al-Sadr and his Sadrists, the Sadriyyun, are as powerful and destructive as ever, forcing the prime minister's hand on Israel and other issues.
There's a long discussion in the article on the origins, organization, and objectives of the Sadrists, who are a lot like Hezbollah.
It is important to keep in mind, however, that the vast majority of Iraqis do not share the obsession with Israel that has consumed many in the region. The Iraqi political parties that have run on a Nasserite pan-Arab agenda have performed dismally. Iraqis are preoccupied with the lack of security, jobs and electricity, none of which they connect to the old pan-Arab scapegoat.
When an Iraqi cab driver is waiting in a six-hour line at the gas station--under 112-degree heat--or a family is forced to endure Baghdad's sweltering summer with only seven hours of electricity in a day, they would be hard pressed to believe that the breakdown in basic services is the fault of the "Zionists." When Iraqis are victimized in a wave of sectarian violence that has claimed sometimes a hundred lives per day, they now have access to enough free information to know that their war is with Sunni insurgents and Shiite militia--stoked by foreign jihadis--and not a result of "the Mossad." It would be impossible in Iraq today for a democratically elected prime minister to send Iraqi national revenues to fund suicide bombers in Israel--as Saddam had done with regularity--or mobilize the country to fight a reckless war.
So, my Israeli friend should not be overly concerned about the anti-Israel rhetoric coming from Iraq's government. But Iraqis and Americans should be deeply concerned by what this rhetoric is symptomatic of: Moqtada al-Sadr's strength in Iraq today. We must address his potential to wreak havoc and capitalize on a weak state, much as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 07:28 ||
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Steve called this yesterday. He's a politician talking to his constuency.
What is the most important component of Hezbollah's power in the south? It is the Hezbollah cadres themselves. Hezbollah's most precious possession isn't Katyushas, long-range rockets, night vision goggles or antitank missiles or electronic equipment. It is the trained core of its military force. Equipment can be replaced but Hezbollah's cadres represent an expensive, almost irreplaceable investment. In them resides the organizational knowledge of Nasrallah's organization. It embodies man-decades of operational experience against Israel. Rockets can be replaced. The stars of Hezbollah's operational force are less expendable.
From this observation I'm going to say that despite the received wisdom of the newspapers to the contrary, the fighting at Maroun al-Ras and Bint Jbeil have been and continue to be an unmitigated defeat for the Hezbollah. The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. Oh, I know that this will be justified in terms of "inflicting casualties" on the Israelis. But the Hez are probably losing 10 for every Israeli lost. A bad bargain for Israel you say? No. A bad bargain for Hezbollah to trade their terrorist elite for highly trained but nevertheless conventional infantry. Guerillas should trade 1 for 10, not 10 for 1.
Reduced to its essentials, the IDF strategy may be ridiculously simple: fix the Hezbollah force in Southern Lebanon while detaching its command structure from the field by simultaneously striking Beirut. One of the great mysteries, upon which newpaper accounts shed no light, is why the IDF should so furiously pulverize Hezbollah's enclaves in southern Beirut, blockade the port and disable the airport. The object isn't to shut down Lebanon. It is to momentarily disorient the Hezbollah headquarters in Beirut, so that in a moment of absentmindedness, the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon will do what comes most naturally: commit themselves against the IDF.
Whether accidental or not, the IDF attack on Kiyam raises the specter that it will operate eastward against the Bekaa valley and perhaps eventually against the Beirut-Damascus highway. That would cut off supplies from Syria to his men in the south and to his command element in Damascus. Then where would Nasrallah's influence over Lebanese politics be? And how should he fare against his former adversaries in the recently concluded Civil War? With the onus of all the ruination he has visited upon Lebanon upon him and his forces in stuck in a southern front against the IDF he may find it hard to cut the swath he once did in government circles.
#1
What is the most important component of Hezbollah's power in the south? It is the Hezbollah cadres themselves. Hezbollah's most precious possession isn't Katyushas, long-range rockets, night vision goggles or antitank missiles or electronic equipment.
#2
The Hezbollah are doing the single most stupid thing imaginable for a guerilla organization. They are fighting to keep territory. . . . in a moment of absentmindedness, the Hezbollah forces in Southern Lebanon will do what comes most naturally: commit themselves against the IDF.
By God, I think he's got it!
Posted by: Mike ||
07/27/2006 13:02 Comments ||
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#3
I sure hope he does. I don't know what to make of all this...
#5
The weakness of the Hezzies is fanaticism and over zealousness.
While great recruitment tools, irrationality comes with the fanaticism and zeal.
Let's pour more Hezzies into the meat grinder.
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:38 Comments ||
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#6
Hesb'allah's weakness is also the Arab military mindset and their training from certain muslim countries and Iran (and likely a few ex-Red Army veterans as well). Neither is exactly strong on initiative. Hence the fanaticism and over zealousness as a substitute.
Email freebie, no linkie.
After a long night of debate, the Israeli security Cabinet led by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert decided the military campaign in south Lebanon would not be expanded, and that any modifications to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation, such as deploying more troops, would require Cabinet approval.
Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire. This might not be true to Israeli thinking, but it is certainly a message they are trying to send to Hezbollah's chain of command. Which then raises the question: Why?
Israel is likely exaggerating the extent to which the military and Cabinet are divided over how to continue in this military campaign, but a real disagreement exists between those promoting a sustained air campaign and those pushing for a ground offensive because IDF forces are getting restive. A compromise might have been reached in the July 27 Cabinet meeting to bolster the air campaign but prepare ground forces for an invasion if it becomes apparent that the Israeli air force will be unable to deliver on its own.
There could be some faith within Israel's defense circles that an air campaign will eventually pan out and succeed in undermining Hezbollah's capabilities, but such an operation takes time and costs an exorbitant amount of money, since ground troops are standing by. As support for a continued air campaign is weakening by the day, something else must be factoring into Israel's war strategy.
The thought of Israel even considering scaling down its military operation at this point -- though golden news for Hezbollah -- carries devastating consequences for Israel. If the fighting were to come to a halt over the next few days, Hezbollah would claim victory and present itself as the only Arab force capable of standing up to Israeli aggression. Merely resisting and surviving a fight against Israel represents a major win for the Islamist militant movement and its sponsors in Iran and Syria -- something Israel, the United States and even the surrounding Arab regimes are unable to cope with. Moreover, an imminent cease-fire would allow Hezbollah to retain the capability to carry out attacks against Israel whenever the need arises.
Israel, therefore, cannot agree to a cease-fire. At the same time, the current operational tempo has not yet yielded a satisfactory outcome for Israel. Katyusha rockets continue to rain down over the northern part of the country as Israel continues its attempts to take out Hezbollah's rocket launch sites. Though Israel's massive air campaign could gradually wear down Hezbollah's offensive capabilities, it will take several weeks before any definitive results will come to light. Hezbollah, meanwhile, is locked in its own military strategy. Hezbollah commanders have long been preparing for this battle and are ready to stand their ground for an extended period of time and draw the Israelis into bloody insurgent combat.
And time does not appear to be on Israel's side. Israel has already incurred a steady barrage of rocket attacks over the past two weeks, and the IDF experienced one of its deadliest days in ground fighting July 26, when nine soldiers were killed in a battle against Hezbollah fighters in the village of Bent Jbail. The numbers of Lebanese civilian deaths are also escalating by the day, fueling worldwide criticism of the extensive Israeli air campaign. The United States is carefully buying Israel time to carry out its military objectives by postponing a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but political pressure on the U.S. government will mount over the next few days, following the argument that Israel cannot be given a blank check for a permanent air campaign against Lebanon. An end to the war in the next few weeks, without a dramatic improvement in effectiveness from the Israeli perspective, would leave Hezbollah in a prime position.
With this in mind, it strikes us as exceedingly peculiar that Israel, a country with a heavy track record of fighting experience despite its youth, is so intent on promoting the idea that its defense and political figures are running in circles trying to revise their military strategy while Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah is brimming with confidence in his regular video appearances. It is simply not intelligent war strategy to expose your weaknesses in the midst of a major war campaign -- unless your objective is to spread disinformation to prepare for a larger surprise.
In making the decision to restrict the ground operation in southern Lebanon, the Israeli Cabinet carefully inserted a statement that said any future decisions regarding the IDF strategy would take into account "the need to prepare forces for possible developments." This nuance becomes especially critical in light of Israel's decision to call up three additional divisions of reservists July 27. The reservists are ostensibly being called up to "refresh" troops in Lebanon who have been on the battlefield for a short time, but will not be deployed until further notice. It is difficult to see how IDF troops on the front can be relieved if the additional forces have not even been deployed, unless Israel is quietly building up its ground forces for a major assault to clear Hezbollah positions south of the Litani River.
The Israeli Cabinet also agreed to send forces up to the Aouali River -- just north of Sidon in Lebanon -- as a necessary move to destroy Hezbollah's rocket-launching platforms, according to Israeli radio. This is an extensive reach into Lebanon that would place the IDF within striking distance of the Bekaa Valley -- Hezbollah's main base of operations. We also have received indications that reserves belonging to Israel's elite fighting force, the Golani Brigade, have already moved north up to the Bekaa Valley. Fighting on Hezbollah's turf in the Bekaa Valley will undoubtedly be the most difficult stage of Israel's military campaign. At the same time, moving ground forces into the Bekaa is also necessary for Israel to meet its objective of sterilizing Hezbollah's military capabilities.
Moving into the Bekaa Valley also complicates matters with Syria, which could very well view an Israeli push into the Bekaa as a trigger for a Syrian military response. Major smuggling routes for heroin and opium run through the Bekaa and provide a major source of income for Hezbollah forces and Alawite businessmen. Though Israel is not too worried about its ability to defeat Syrian forces, it is not interested in expanding its military campaign across Lebanon's western border into Syria for fear of the aftermath of such an attack. The crumbling of Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime would create a new set of problems that Israel is not prepared to deal with, especially while a major upset is occurring in Lebanon. At the same time, al Assad wants to get out of this conflict unscathed and in a prime negotiating position so he can demonstrate his worth in brokering a cease-fire with Hezbollah while putting the issue of the Golan Heights back on the table. With these considerations in mind, the issue of keeping Syria in check will heavily factor into the timing of Israel's push into the Bekaa.
The Bekaa is crucial to Israel's ground campaign, but will have to be dealt with carefully and will likely require more time for major ground combat. In the meantime, Israel is carefully regaining the element of tactical surprise by reducing the war to routine and strongly suggesting that its forces are getting bogged down. Each day Israel and Hezbollah exchange fire, but no developments have dramatically changed the course of the war. While Israel may be developing an atmosphere of complacency around Hezbollah, it will launch its ground offensive when everyone least expects it.
The fact that a major ground offensive is the last thing on anyone's mind does not necessarily decrease the possibility -- it increases it. The movement of troops, rather than the public statements, will only tell if we are right.
Send questions or comments on this article to analysis@stratfor.com.
#1
"Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are severely divided over the current operation, and that it might have no choice but to cave in to diplomatic pressure to put an end to the fighting and draw up a cease-fire."
As of late this afternoon, the cabinet just approved an additional 30,000 troops for military expansion.
So now, let's rephrase: "Israel is essentially broadcasting to the world that its political and military circles are united over the current operation, including expansion, and that it might have no choice but to destroy the terrorists"
As time goes by, world protest against the IDF offensive operation in Lebanon becomes more widespread. Not all protesters do so on ethical grounds, but most use ethical arguments. Yet further exploration of these arguments might show most of them to be mostly empty, or at least they don't come to terms with what we learn from war ethics literature. Following are four of these arguments.
Hezbollah's provocation constituted a reasonable use of force. Untrue.
The shooting on the patrol and the kidnapping were aimed at military forces, but this act was not executed in a fighting context. After IDF forces withdrew behind the international border as part of a settlement validated by UN resolutions, all use of force against them, including the killing and kidnapping of soldiers, is not legitimate.
Also, there is no doubt the Katyusha firings along the border prior to the kidnapping where illegitimate, since they were aimed at a civilian population, an act that is prohibited also in a time of war. The fact that it was a limited action does not make it reasonable. Hezbollah's interest is to keep the conflict on a low level, since in that sort of warfare it has a relative advantage. Furthermore, since the act took place as part of an ongoing attrition strategy, Israel holds the right to respond not only to that one act, but to all acts that result from practicing such a strategy.
IDF reaction is not a measured one. Untrue.
It is a common error to assume the principle of proportionality relates to the proportion between the scale of damage and the scale of retribution. This argument might have been in order if it regarded a scuffle of two sides that agree to do so within known rules of engagement. But war is seldom like that. War is fought to try and obtain an objective. When the objective is legitimate it is referred to as a necessity. The principle of proportionality relates to the proportion between the amount of force used to the amount required to achieve the same necessity. When one side routinely attacks the other with no legitimate cause over years, and the other side has an interest to stop the aggression, it is allowed to use the required force to achieve that objective. In our case, we can see that a little force will not be enough, since all the force used so far is not sure to be enough.
Harming the civilian population in Lebanon constitutes a war crime. Untrue.
War ethics calls for abstention from an intentional harm of non-combatant populations, and to prevent as much as possible unintentional harm to those populations. But it is not always possible to prevent all unintentional harm. It is much harder when enemy troops systematically use the cover of a civilian population, in order to put the opposing side in a cruel dilemma between the achievement of its goals and an attempt to abstain as much as possible from violating war ethics. In our case, Hezbollah intentionally operates from within a civilian population, often from house terraces and mosque courts. Furthermore, most of the civilians used for these ends do so in full consent and thus they cross the line from non-combatant to combatant.
Aiming for civilian infrastructure is a war crime as it is intentional. Untrue.
When a sovereign state makes no attempt to enforce its rule, and knowingly permits an armed force to operate from it against another state, responsibility lies on it. The government of Lebanon holds responsibility, since for the last six years it has done nothing to maintain the UN 1559 resolution that obligates it to practice its sovereignty also over Hezbollah.
Its weakness is no excuse since it is a result of a conscious decision not to maintain a force that can enforce a rule. An attempt to force it to follow its duties is therefore not unreasonable. In view of this, a measured attack on infrastructure is not illegitimate, more so when it is known that Hezbollah makes use of this infrastructure (i.e transportation routes to the south) for its hostile operations; the only option is to attack these infrastructures in the required measure. It therefore seems that while the wisdom and effectiveness of IDF operations is debatable, the "ethical fervor" should be chilled.
The writer is a professor of psychology at the Haifa University.
The « Farms of Cheeba » comprise a little territory of 25km2 that Hezbollah uses as pretext to continue the fight despite the Israeli retreat of May 24, 2000 and which continues to be claimed by Beirut. This zone consists of two large villages : Cheeba and Kfar-Chouba. These two villages with a population of about 4000 inhabitants (Sunnite Moslems and some Christians) who live essentially of harvesting agricultural products were conquered by Israel at the same time as the Golan Heights during the Six-day war in 1967.
It is nevertheless necessary to go back to a much earlier date to understand how difficult it is to define the sovereignty of this territory. Indeed, this zone was badly defined from the start of the Franco-British mandate, between the two wars. During the second world war the French and British administrations decided, nevertheless, to grant the area of the farms of Cheeba to Syria. In 1949, the day after the start of the first Israeli-Arab war, the official border between Lebanon and Israel was fixed on the base of that which had been defined between Palestine, Syria and Lebanon by Great-Britain and France in 1923, and didnt therefore include the Farms of Sheba in the Lebanese territory. In 1964, a mix Lebanese-Syrian Commission decided to allot the said sector to Lebanon but it is Syria that, de facto, controls it administratively. We must note that when the third Israeli-Arab war broke out in 1967 the Territory was truly under the thump of Damascus.
When the Israeli forces invaded South Lebanon in 1978, the UN Security Council adopted resolution 425 which called for the withdrawal of the Hebrew State from all the Lebanese territory to the border that prevailed before the invasion. Clearly, the demarcation line of 1949. The position of the Lebanese government regarding these borders with Israel was until 1999 based on that of the United Nations. It is only when Israel began to prepare its withdrawal from south Lebanon that the authorities in Beirut under Syrian pressure changed their minds and began to claim sovereignty over the territory of the Farms of Cheeba.
The Israel position is clear. The farms of Cheeba are part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel in 1981 (this annexation was condemned by Security Council resolution 497) and should, in case of need, return to Syria. Indeed, for the Hebrew State, their eventual retrocession will only be done in terms of a bilateral agreement with the authorities in Damascus. This interpretation is confirmed by the official reports of the United Nations.
Beirut claims since 1999 sovereignty over this territory that would have been ceded to it by Syria. A United Nations report explains that the Lebanese government has informed the UN of its new position concerning the demarcation of its territory. For the Lebanese authorities the hypothetical withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Farms of Cheeba follows resolution 242 relating to the territories occupied in 1967 and no longer resolution 425. Before 1999, not a single official statement of the Lebanese government had taken into account any claim to this territory.
Damascus, which has very little interest in this small territory except as a means of pressure to support the attacks of Hezbollah maintains that it belongs to Lebanon. On the other hand Syria claims that Hezbollah is an independent unit that receives no instructions from anyone. For the Syrian authorities the conditions to relaunch negotiations with the Jewish State are clear : "the negotiations must pickup where they were stopped that is to say with the commitment of Israel to withdraw from the entire Syrian territory occupied in 1967 (also including the territory of the Farms of Cheeba).
The position of the United Nations is, also, extremely clear. After the retreat of the Tsahal from South Lebanon in May 2000, the United Nations sent land-surveyors to establish clearly the borders of the territory of the Farms of Cheeba and to avoid any further dispute. The conclusions of the United Nations are clear : the retreat of Israel from South-Lebanon is completed (in accordance to resolution 425) and the area of the Farms of Cheeba is Syrian. Consequently, the Lebanese claims over this territory are illegitimate, it is up to Israel and Syria to negotiate the future status of this territory.
Finally, Hezbollah claims to pursue its combat to get back the Farms of Cheeba, which, according to Hezbollah, belong to Lebanon. Besides, it is the main justification of this organisation to continue its attacks as explained by Hassan Nasrallah: We will take back, by blood, by the djihad (holy war) and the resistance the Farms of Cheeba (declaration published by AFP, June 10, 2001).
In conclusion, the plan to end the crisis presented by Condoleeza Rice these last few days foresees in the first phase the transfer of the zone to Lebanon after having placed it under the responsibility of the United Nations. This option will deprive Beirut of the eternal excuse of the occupation of the Farms of Cheeba by the Israeli army to justify its inability to recover its authority over south-Lebanon. As a result this alternative will also deprive Hezbollah of its cause.
#2
Can someone explain why a country who doesn't condemn the kidnapping of two soldiers and the killing of 8 soldiers should be entitled to anything other than their annihilation?
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:30 Comments ||
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#3
DepotGuy: Can someone explain the why Israel feels the need to hang onto this 25k of scrub land?
Can someone explain why the US feels the need to hang on to New Jersey? It's only 0.08% of American territory. Whereas the Shebaa farms are 0.3% of Israeli territory. It's 1.5% of the part of Israel that isn't a desert.
This might be the jawdropper of the day, as todays report from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon shows that the United Nations is busily repairing damaged roads in Hizballah-controlled areasroads the IAF bombed specifically to impede Hizballah movementright in the middle of the war. (Hat tip: mich-again.)(.pdf file)
UNIFIL is still facing serious restrictions in its freedom of movement due to the ongoing hostilities and the extensive destruction of roads and bridges throughout the area of operation. Yesterday, a UNIFIL engineering contingent from China managed to do some repairs on a key road artery between Tyre and Naqoura, and the road is now usable for traffic. However, more road destruction was reported in various areas in the south.
I have long suspected that UNIFIL has been providing Hezbollah with all sorts of combat support and combat service support. Much, like road repair, they would claim is "dual-use" for both UNIFIL and Hezbollah, so it's not their fault if they "aid" a belligerent. This is no defense.
#4
Well I wasn't so much concerned with the equipment, but the operators. Blow up a few Caterpillars and the occupation will lose it's luster. But I get your drift.
Before we get to the uplifting substance of today's column, let me briefly skirmish with the innumerable correspondents who have filled my inbox with outrage against my justifications for Israel's attacks. They parrot what they have heard in the "liberal" media. The errors of fact I'm about to correct are beneath the elementary. But it is necessary to correct big lies as well as small.
Item: Israel has attacked Lebanon, which is too weak to defend itself.
This is a lie. The Israelis have made it abundantly clear they are not attacking Lebanon, but Hezbollah entrenched in Lebanese soil. Israelis, as anyone with any decency, feel sorry for innocent Lebanese caught in the crossfire. But as Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, put it to the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel: "Whether weak or strong, a government carries the responsibility for whatever happens within its country." She went on to hint the obvious: that Israel would prefer a Lebanon strong enough to disarm Hezbollah without Israeli help.
Item: The Israeli military operations are "excessive", and include unnecessary strikes against Lebanon's infrastructure and capital city.
This is a damned lie. Israel has been attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon, which necessarily includes infrastructure that Hezbollah uses. Even the attacks on the Beirut airport were to a purpose openly stated, and advertised in extensive leafleting and broadcasting before the airport's runways were cratered, and fuel depots taken out. From hard past experience, the Israelis knew Hezbollah would be using that airport not only to whisk their prisoners to safekeeping in Iran, but as a conduit to bring Iranian and Syrian advisers, and crucial supplies, in and out of the country. The strikes elsewhere in Beirut are overwhelmingly on the southern, Shia part of the city, where Hezbollah's masters have their command. Lebanese television and radio have themselves been broadcasting Israeli communiqués, clearly warning what they will hit, when, and why. The overwrought charge that Israel is "trying to destroy Lebanon" is an imposture. If the Israelis actually wanted to destroy all of Lebanon, they could carpetbomb the place.
Item: There is a huge civilian toll.
Statistics. And given the scale of the conflict, the number of deaths is not abnormally high. Our media have been giving running totals of civilian deaths in Lebanon that they should know are both wrong and misleading. They cannot know how many have been killed in Hezbollah's "hidey holes". Foreign reporters are in no position to distinguish between real civilians, and the Hezbollah fighters who blend among them. Even the United Nation's humanitarian point-man, Jan Egeland -- no friend of Israel -- has noted actual boasts from Hezbollah that their "human shield" strategy has got so many women and children killed, and so few of their own fighters. They cache their weapons in schools, hospitals, houses, apartment buildings. They hold civilians at gunpoint who are trying to flee. In light of all this, the stress on specific casualties -- for instance the poor little boy who was suffering hideously in a hospital in Tyre, that CNN went to town on, Monday night -- is a flagrant appeal to emotionalism, calculated to enflame misinformed audiences against Israel, throughout the West and the Arab world.
But now we come to the paradox. Despite some of the best efforts I've seen, by our liberal media, to spread poison, there is a growing understanding of what is taking place. Better yet, the response of the Arab world is increasingly directed against Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran; and even against Iran's other client, Hamas in Gaza (now suing for peace). This is unprecedented.
In a partly incoherent, rambling, and apocalyptic address on official Iranian TV, Sunday, President Ahmadinejad said, "Lebanon is the scene of an historic test, which will determine the future of humanity." Then, after condemning the unnamed leaders of various Arab regimes that had failed to align with Iran and Hezbollah, "This is 'the Day that all things secret will be tested'."
Iran unquestionably ordered the rocket and kidnapping attacks with which Hezbollah and Hamas provoked the current Israeli reaction (though it may have been greater than they expected). The ayatollahs are probably also behind the current terror spike within Iraq. Their motive is quite obvious: to change the subject from the Western and growing Arab alarm about Iran's own emergence as a bellicose nuclear power. The ayatollahs are, further, trying to cement their claim to be the managing directors of the international Jihad.
Ahmadinejad is right: this is "an historic test". But it does not follow that he is winning it. Instead, it appears, by pushing too hard and fast, Iran has opened a civil breach across the Muslim world between Shia and Sunni. The ayatollahs have thus created a new opportunity for the West to form alliances with Sunni Muslim states against Iran's aspiring regional hegemony, which the Bush administration is now rightly trying to exploit. Ahmadinejad has, in short, given us an unexpected reason to hope -- as Hitler did, when he began to make too many enemies.
#1
"This is 'the Day that all things secret will be tested'."
This makes me a little nervous.
Whack this turkey and make the world a safer place.
Posted by: DanNY ||
07/27/2006 8:00 Comments ||
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#2
Open telegram to Ahmadinnerwhatever;
Can't make it this week stop
Big cosmic event, must attend stop
Keep up the good work against Jooos stop
Expect to be there in 2007 stop
Imam 12 out
(MNA) -- Although two weeks have passed since the Israeli army began its military attack on Lebanon, all diplomatic measures to force the Zionists to put an end to the bombardment of innocent civilians seem to have been in vain. The foreign ministers of Germany and France, the U.S. secretary of state and the United Nations deputy secretary general have failed to convince Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who had held meetings with both the Lebanese and Israeli officials during her recent Middle East tour, believes that it is still too soon to discuss a ceasefire. Rice, who has not proposed any peace plan for solving the current crisis in the Middle East, announced that the United States wants Hezbollah forces to be disarmed, to be followed by the deployment of NATO forces between the border region of the occupied territories of Palestine and the Litani river -- about 20 kilometers from the frontier -- so that Hezbollah forces will be unable to fire missiles into the occupied territories in the future.
Undoubtedly, the Lebanese government and political groups will never agree with such a proposal because the deployment of NATO forces would be a violation of Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity. The recent proposal is not meant to guarantee peace and stability in the region, but is actually a prologue for realizing the Greater Middle East Initiative, which the U.S. has long sought to implement. Naturally, regional nations and particularly the Lebanese nation will never allow the U.S., the European Union, and the Zionist regime to turn Lebanon into a base for plots against other countries.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
07/27/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Yes, it is too soon to discuss a ceasefire. There's still Hezbullies walking around. Kill 'em all first.
#2
Usually when they talk about the "aggressor" it means we are winning
Posted by: Captain America ||
07/27/2006 17:35 Comments ||
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#3
I remember reading some tales by a Soviet spy about how he was in the Army in USSR in '67 trying to follow the 6 day war on Russian radio and they knew the jig was up for the Egyptians when the radio started calling the IDF 'the aggressors'
We Americans don't seem to worry that we owe billions of dollars to the Chinese, or that our oil hunger is enriching hostile rogue regimes, or that our annual budget deficit keeps adding to our national debt.
Why fret now? For nearly a quarter-century, Americans have come to expect the good life. Unemployment should never go above 5 percent. Interest rates are expected to be always around the same low percentages, inflation even lower - and all this accompanied by steady growth in the economy and expanding government entitlements. Double-digit rates of interest, unemployment and inflation - the stagflation that characterized the Nixon and Carter administrations - are apparently ancient history.
Along with the amazing performance of the post Cold-War economy, technology has made the basics of life far more enjoyable - cell phones, the Internet, high-definition cable television, iPods and the like. The entrance of 2 billion workers in China and India into the global capitalist system, along with easy credit, makes material goods more accessible to the consumer than ever.
Luxury is now available to the middle class. Magazines are devoted to remodeling kitchens with granite tops and tony stainless steel appliances. Suburban tract houses often have both hot tubs and gardeners. Garages now appear in new developments with not one but two garage doors - and on occasion three or even four.
What are the consequences of this affluence?
For starters, a certain lack of appreciation of our bounty. No one praises Reagan, Clinton or Bush for the past amazing performance of the U.S. economy. Instead, it's taken as America's new birthright.
We expect almost instantaneous success in everything we do. Most in the media are thus tired of the present wars in the Middle East and think the enormous human cost is not worth the goal of offering freedom to millions, even though we have suffered far fewer fatalities in Iraq and Afghanistan than a generation sacrificed in Vietnam.
As we near the fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, most have forgotten the dangers of a terrorist attack. Often the public appears to worry more over the Patriot Act and wiretaps, as if our own leaders pose a greater threat to the United States than do mass-murdering Islamist terrorists.
But could our good life really sometime come to an end - as the histories of past affluent societies suggest it will? Imagine al-Qaida attacking the New York Stock Exchange or an unexpected North Korean missile taking out a West Coast city. What if Beijing suddenly had to sell off billions of its accumulated American dollars? Or how about a good old 1970s-style recession in which interest rates hit 20 percent, with inflation and unemployment each hovering near 10 percent? What would millions of younger Americans do - people who have known only the prosperity, material surfeit and mostly peace and security of the 1980s and 1990s?
Prosperity can also be deceiving. Many Americans, despite superficial affluence, are in debt and often a paycheck away from insolvency. By historical standards, they are pretty helpless. Most of us can't grow our own food, don't know how cars work and have no clue where or how electricity is generated. In short, few have the smarts to survive if the thin veneer of civilization were to be lost, as it has been from time to time in places like downtown New Orleans.
Think back to the Roman era of the "Five Good Emperors" - between A.D. 96-180 under the reigns of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonious Pius and Marcus Aurelius - when all problems of the turbulent past at last seemed to have been solved. There was a general peace, ever more prosperity from Mediterranean-wide trade, and a certain boredom and occasional cynicism among the Roman elite. Few then had any idea that three centuries of war, revolution, poverty and scary emperors like Commodus and Caracalla awaited their descendants - all a prelude to a later general collapse of Roman society itself.
In our own new age of war, terrorism, huge debt, high-priced gas and frightful weapons and viruses that we try to ignore, we should remember that civilization's progress is not always linear. The human condition does not inevitably evolve from good to better to best, but always remains precarious, its advances cyclical.
The good life sometimes can be lost quite unexpectedly and abruptly when people demand rights more than they accept responsibilities, or live for present consumption rather than sacrifice for future investment, or feel their own culture is not particularly exceptional and therefore in no need of constant support and defense.
We should tread carefully in these challenging days of our greatest wealth - and even greater vulnerability.
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and author.
#1
In short, few have the smarts to survive if the thin veneer of civilization were to be lost, as it has been from time to time in places like downtown New Orleans.
Piss poor example of Americana I'd say. Don't know quite how I'll sleep tonight with all of this Victor Hanson gloom. Depression appears to be setting in as I type!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
If you know where to look, its easy to find evidence of Spains Islamic past: You can see it in Spanish architecture and in the faces of the people. You can hear it in Spanish music, especially flamenco, and in the Spanish language itself.
(MNA) -- Although two weeks have passed since the Israeli army began its military attack on Lebanon, all diplomatic measures to force the Zionists to put an end to the bombardment of innocent civilians seem to have been in vain. The foreign ministers of Germany and France, the U.S. secretary of state and the United Nations deputy secretary general have failed to convince Israel to accept an immediate ceasefire. 
