Hard to believe he is actually going after the Demos! Let's hope they don't listen to him.
By Peter Beinart
Friday, July 28, 2006; Page A25
After years of struggling to define their own approach to post-Sept. 11 foreign policy, Democrats seem finally to have hit on one. It's called pandering. In those rare cases when George W. Bush shows genuine sensitivity to America's allies and propounds a broader, more enlightened view of the national interest, Democrats will make him pay. It's jingoism with a liberal face.
The latest example came this week when Democratic senators and House members demanded that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki either retract his criticisms of Israel or forfeit his chance to address Congress. Great idea. Maliki -- who runs a government propped up by U.S. troops -- is desperate to show Iraqis that he is not Washington's puppet. And the United States desperately needs him to succeed because, unless he gains political credibility at home, his government will have no hope of surviving on its own.
Maliki took a small step in that direction this week when he articulated a view of the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict quite different from that of the Bush administration. His views were hardly surprising: Iraq is not only a majority-Arab country; it is a majority-Shiite Arab country. And in a democracy, leaders usually reflect public opinion. Maliki's forthright disagreement with the United States was a sign of political strength, one the Bush administration wisely indulged.
But not congressional Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid demanded that Maliki eat his words or be disinvited from addressing Congress. "Your failure to condemn Hezbollah's aggression and recognize Israel's right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq under your leadership can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East," wrote Reid and fellow Democratic Sens. Richard J. Durbin and Charles E. Schumer on July 24.
How, exactly, publicly humiliating Maliki and making him look like an American and Israeli stooge would enhance his "leadership" was never explained in the missive. But of course Reid's letter wasn't really about strengthening the Iraqi government at all; that's George W. Bush's problem. It was about appearing more pro-Israel than the White House and thus pandering to Jewish voters.
Reid's letter is not an anomaly; it is part of a pattern. In February Democrats (and some Republicans) slammed the Bush administration for allowing a company from the United Arab Emirates to take over operation, though not management, of several U.S. ports. Democrats insisted that they were standing up for homeland security, but in fact homeland security experts overwhelmingly said the move did not represent a security risk. The principle animating the Democrats' attack was not security, it was politics. The Bush administration, playing against type, argued that America's long-term security required treating Arab countries with fairness and respect, especially countries, such as the UAE, that assist us in the struggle against jihadist terrorism. One might have thought that the Democrats, after spending years denouncing the Bush administration for alienating world opinion and thus leaving America isolated and weak, would find such logic compelling. But what they found more compelling was a political cheap shot -- their very own Panama Canal moment -- in which they proved they could be just as nativist as the GOP.
Then, in June, the media reported that the Iraqi government was considering an amnesty for insurgents, perhaps including insurgents who had killed U.S. troops. Obviously the prospect was hard for Americans to stomach. But the larger context was equally obvious: Unless Maliki's government gave local Sunni insurgents an incentive to lay down their arms and break with al-Qaeda-style jihadists, Iraq's violence would never end. Democrats, however, rather than giving Maliki the freedom to carry out his extremely difficult and enormously important negotiations, made amnesty an issue in every congressional race they could, thus tying the prime minister's hands. Once again, Democrats congratulated themselves for having gotten to President Bush's right, unperturbed by the fact that they may have undermined the chances for Iraqi peace in the process.
Privately, some Democrats, while admitting that they haven't exactly been taking the high road, say they have no choice, that in a competition with Karl Rove, nice guys finish last. But even politically, that's probably wrong. The Democratic Party's single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party's behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why.
The writer, a monthly columnist for The Post, is editor-at-large of the New Republic and author of "The Good Fight: Why Liberals -- and Only Liberals -- Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again."
#1
"The Democratic Party's single biggest foreign policy liability is not that Americans think Democrats are soft. It is that Americans think Democrats stand for nothing, that they have no principles beyond political expedience. And given the party's behavior over the past several months, it is not hard to understand why."
Make that "over the last 8 years" and you've got a deal.
There's a theory that says the purpose of the Clinton impeachment was not to "get" Bill Clinton; it was to drive the Democrats hopelessly insane.
Don't know whether that's true or not; but if it is, it worked.
Question: Whats the difference between the Arab League and the academic Left that despises Israel? Answer: Only the Arab League is willing to condemn Hezbollah.
The surreal politics of this war finds Saudi Arabia attributing full responsibility to Hezbollah and calling on the terrorists to alone shoulder the crisis they have created; it finds Kuwaiti journalists lauding the operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon [that] are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community, even as hundreds of American professors rush to denounce Israel for firing back at genocidal killers sworn to her destruction.
More than 1,000 such professors have signed a petition that is currently circulating on American college campuses. Written in the name of academics who condemn Israel's aggression against Lebanon and Gaza, the petition waxes indignant about Israels alleged crimes, including a brutal bombing and invasion of Gaza, and acts of Israeli state terrorism in Lebanon.
The Wapo gives this fellow space but to be fair, the WaPo's editorial page does not share his opinion
By Warren Christopher
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's just-concluded trip to Lebanon, Israel and Rome was an exercise in grace, bravery and, to my regret, wrongly focused diplomacy. Especially disappointing is the fact that she resisted all suggestions that the first order of business should be negotiation of an immediate cease-fire between the warring parties.... Secretary Christopher goes on to extol himself for his work in 93 and 96
#7
"Until three weeks ago, that agreement had succeeded for 10 years in preventing a wholesale resumption of hostilities."
In other words; The last decade has been just a few isolated incidences of rockets, ambushes, and suicide bombs. All is well..right Mr. Secretary?. Warren and his ilk must be seething to see a State Department that isnt tethered to the Doctrine of Status Quo.
#13
In response to post #6, Christopher. At least Maddie Halfbright could always pick out the appropriate brooch for the occasion. Christopher never learned to accessorize.
Of course, neither one of them looked as good as Condi in her boots, either.
Partially posted at http://counterterrorismblog.org/ and there is a name here, that is referenced above, Imad Mughniah
By Olivier Guitta
In the past few weeks, Hassan Nasrallah (which means in Arabic "God's victory"), the secretary general of Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah (the Party of God), has almost become a household name.
Even though Nasrallah has become "famous" for starting this new Hezbollah-Israel war and declaring Israel as Hezbollah's mortal enemy, one should not forget that the "big Satan" remains the United States. And that's why Iraq is where Nasrallah's influence can also be felt.
Nasrallah's biography explains how he got close to prominent clerics in Lebanon, Iran and Iraq, in particular the Sadr family. In 1975, when he was only 15, Nasrallah joined the ranks of the Lebanese Shi'ite movement Amal - which Hezbollah broke from after its creation in 1982 - led by Musa al-Sadr.
From 1976 to 1978 he was sent to study in Najaf, Iraq, at the famed Shi'ite seminary the Hawze. There he met most of his mentors, starting with Iranian ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979) and also his tutor, ayatollah Mohammed Sadiq al-Sadr (Muqtada al-Sadr's father). He also was in close contact with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani (the leading Shi'ite spiritual force in Iraq today).
And finally, he was groomed by future Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi, whom he succeeded after Musawi was killed by the Israelis in 1992. Those two years in Najaf definitely left a huge imprint on Nasrallah's psyche.
And that's why, when it was time to help his Shi'ite brothers in Iraq after the US intervention in 2003, and especially Muqtada, Nasrallah responded. Nasrallah, using the 1982 model of what had worked in Lebanon to kick out the multinational force, adapted some of his tactics in Iraq.
Indeed, Iraq in 2006 looks a lot like the Lebanon of 1983. For example, the Iranian man in charge of this whole operation is Hassan Qommi, who had the exact same job ... in Beirut in 1982. Qommi helped Hezbollah instructors get to Iraq to train Muqtada's Mehdi Army, which has staged several high-profile confrontations with US forces, notably at Fallujah.
Starting in 2003, Hezbollah began building up organizational and military apparatuses in Iraq. For instance, that April, Hezbollah opened two offices in the Iraqi cities of Basra and Safwan. The campaign, targeting moderate Iraqi Shi'ite clerics willing to work with the US, was most likely orchestrated by Muqtada and Hezbollah.
Keep in mind that even though Nasrallah greatly respects Sistani, he is totally at odds with him when it comes to fighting the US presence.
Also in 2003-04, Imad Mughniah, the top Hezbollah operative wanted by most Western secret services for his role in most of the attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah, including the bombings of the US Embassy and the US and French barracks in Beirut in 1983, was sighted in Iraq. Syria had most probably facilitated his entry on to Iraqi soil.
Hezbollah also had a specialty in Lebanon in the 1980s, which was kidnapping foreign citizens. Is it a coincidence that it was happening on a daily basis in 2004 in Iraq?
Knowing that Nasrallah called for suicide bombings against the US forces in Iraq, it was just a matter of time until Hezbollah was ready to strike. The connection with Muqtada is total. For proof of Hezbollah's active participation in the insurgency there are the arrests made in February 2005 by Iraqi authorities of 18 Lebanese Hezbollah fighters taking part in the insurgency.
In a July 11 speech that was really focused on the situation with Israel, Nasrallah made a point of again talking about Iraq. He specifically called for Iraqis to step up their resistance against the US invader. In response, Muqtada offered to send members of his militia to south Lebanon to fight Israel. This is not surprising, since Muqtada declared in 2004 that he was "the striking arm for Hezbollah".
Obviously, Hezbollah as a multinational group cannot be simply reduced to Lebanon and Israel. Its expansion into Iraq fits strategically very well in the plans of its two sponsors: Syria and Iran.
Richard Armitage, former US deputy secretary of state, has said that the United States had a blood debt with Nasrallah's organization. In light of the fact that Hezbollah was, prior to the September 11 attacks of 2001, the organization that had killed the most Americans, and the likelihood of additional killings of US soldiers in Iraq, now would be a good time to repay the debt.
Olivier Guitta is a foreign-affairs and counter-terrorism consultant in Washington, DC.
What other country, when attacked in an unprovoked aggression across a recognized international frontier, is then put on a countdown clock by the world, given a limited time window in which to fight back, regardless of whether it has restored its own security?
What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?
To hear the world pass judgment on the Israel-Hezbollah war as it unfolds is to live in an Orwellian moral universe. With a few significant exceptions (the leadership of the United States, Britain, Australia, Canada and a very few others), the world -- governments, the media, U.N. bureaucrats -- has completely lost its moral bearings.
The word that obviates all thinking and magically inverts victim into aggressor is "disproportionate," as in the universally decried "disproportionate Israeli response."
When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel "proportionate" attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.
Disproportionate? No. When one is wantonly attacked by an aggressor, one has every right -- legal and moral -- to carry the fight until the aggressor is disarmed and so disabled that it cannot threaten one's security again. That's what it took with Japan.
Britain was never invaded by Germany in World War II. Did it respond to the Blitz and V-1 and V-2 rockets with "proportionate" aerial bombardment of Germany? Of course not. Churchill orchestrated the greatest air campaign and land invasion in history, which flattened and utterly destroyed Germany, killing untold innocent German women and children in the process.
The perversity of today's international outcry lies in the fact that there is indeed a disproportion in this war, a radical moral asymmetry between Hezbollah and Israel: Hezbollah is deliberately trying to create civilian casualties on both sides while Israel is deliberately trying to minimize civilian casualties, also on both sides.
In perhaps the most blatant terror campaign from the air since the London Blitz, Hezbollah is raining rockets on Israeli cities and villages. These rockets are packed with ball bearings that can penetrate automobiles and shred human flesh. They are meant to kill and maim. And they do.
But it is a dual campaign. Israeli innocents must die in order for Israel to be terrorized. But Lebanese innocents must also die in order for Israel to be demonized, which is why Hezbollah hides its fighters, its rockets, its launchers, its entire infrastructure among civilians. Creating human shields is a war crime. It is also a Hezbollah specialty.
On Wednesday CNN cameras showed destruction in Tyre. What does Israel have against Tyre and its inhabitants? Nothing. But the long-range Hezbollah rockets that have been raining terror on Haifa are based in Tyre. What is Israel to do? Leave untouched the launch sites that are deliberately placed in built-up areas?
Had Israel wanted to destroy Lebanese civilian infrastructure, it would have turned out the lights in Beirut in the first hour of the war, destroying the billion-dollar power grid and setting back Lebanon 20 years. It did not do that. Instead it attacked dual-use infrastructure -- bridges, roads, airport runways -- and blockaded Lebanon's ports to prevent the reinforcement and resupply of Hezbollah. Ten thousand Katyusha rockets are enough. Israel was not going to allow Hezbollah 10,000 more.
Israel's response to Hezbollah has been to use the most precise weaponry and targeting it can. It has no interest, no desire to kill Lebanese civilians. Does anyone imagine that it could not have leveled south Lebanon, to say nothing of Beirut? Instead, in the bitter fight against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, it has repeatedly dropped leaflets, issued warnings, sent messages by radio and even phone text to Lebanese villagers to evacuate so that they would not be harmed.
Israel knows that these leaflets and warnings give the Hezbollah fighters time to escape and regroup. The advance notification as to where the next attack is coming has allowed Hezbollah to set up elaborate ambushes. The result? Unexpectedly high Israeli infantry casualties. Moral scrupulousness paid in blood. Israeli soldiers die so that Lebanese civilians will not, and who does the international community condemn for disregarding civilian life?
Posted by: Steve ||
07/28/2006 13:40 ||
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Melodramatic images of war are now televised all day long. The images out of Israel this week have produced something new for war-soaked living-room audiences. One might call it Katyusha World.
The all-too-visible reality for the inhabitants of Katyusha World is that there is no defense against incoming rocket barrages other than hiding and hoping. The Hezbollah militia has decided to use unguided artillery Katyusha rockets like bullets. They fired more than 1,500 of them this week at Israeli population centers. Hezbollah is believed to possess longer-range missiles made in Syria and Iran for which Israel also has no defense. They would simply land and explode.
It was only a few weeks ago that all of us were learning how to pronounce "Taepodong," a long-range ballistic missile that North Korea periodically lobs as a "test" in the direction of the unprotected population of Japan. After this week it is getting hard to pretend that the threat of missiles is something we don't have to think about.
Up to now Israel has regarded Iran's long-range guided missiles as the primary threat of this sort, and in the 1990s developed the Arrow ballistic missile-defense system. Uri Rubin, former head of the Arrow project, told me in an interview from Israel this week that the relatively poor accuracy of the cheap Katyushas has been an argument against investing in an expensive anti-Katyusha defense system. This cost-comparison calculus was one reason Israel shelved plans to deploy Northrop Grumman's THEL system, whose lasers routinely have shot down Katyushas at the Army's White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. Speaking this week about the earlier decision, Mr. Rubin said, "You also have to compare the cost of no defense"--for lives or infrastructure.
Mr. Rubin shared with me an unpublished paper he wrote with Dan Hazanovsky on "The Emerging Threat of Very Short-Range Ballistic Missiles," or VSBMs. In times past, the world worried about huge, Soviet-style missiles. Mr. Rubin says smaller, free-flying rockets are now evolving into relatively sophisticated and accurate ballistic missiles, "thanks to the steep decline in the cost of accuracy--the falling prices of onboard inertial and satellite navigation systems, the availability of cheap, commercial grade, high-speed computing power and low-cost control systems." That is, the same dynamic that makes cheap, fast electronic products available to consumers will do the same to electronic missile weaponry. . . .
Historically the Democratic Party has committed itself to suppressing the development of anti-missile technologies. This opposition dates to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972. During the Cold War, when the enemy was the Soviet Union, opponents of missile defense opted for the policy known as mutual assured destruction, or MAD. Sens. Biden, Levin, Kerry and Kennedy all in recent times have spoken out against missile defense. The party's platform in 2000 opposed "an ill-conceived missile defense system that would plunge us into a new arms race." But closing off missile-defense technologies today means we default again to MAD, or a kind of MAD Jr.
This was made explicit last Jan. 19 when French President Jacques Chirac threatened a nuclear strike to deter terrorist attacks on France. "Against a regional power, our choice is not between inaction and destruction," he said. "All of our nuclear forces have been configured in this spirit." In a similar vein, it is generally believed that Japan could--and probably would if necessary--assemble several nuclear devices within 30 days. Whatever the argument in the Cold War years for protecting populations with a strategy of mutual assured destruction, it makes no sense now when negotiating partners such as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong Il represent the antithesis of any known concept of good faith. Also, in the case of an enemy like Hezbollah and al-Qaida, which hides itself among civillians, the MAD "deterrent" means you threaten to destroy a whole bunch of innocent people for whom the bad guys have no concern in the first place. Is it even possible that could be moral?
As Robert Kaplan pointed out in the Journal last week in his review of "Terrorists, Insurgents and Militias," the biggest strategic problem today isn't past notions of big-power miscalculation but new rogue regimes whose ideology means they "cannot be gratified through negotiations." Absent any in-place protection against the missiles described here, "defense" means either an Israel-type counteroffensive, nuclear retaliation or--the Democratic preference--open-ended diplomacy, cease-fires and negotiation. None of these suffice. Widely available tables showing the proliferation of missiles listed by nation boggle the mind. Put simply, in terms of post-launch, we are behind the curve.
We are heading toward two election cycles amid a world unsettled by missile threats--in the air or on the brink. To the specter of North Korea and Iran delivering WMD by long-range missiles, now add Katyusha-like strikes from very small rockets and missiles. Come 2008, we may see a Republican candidate who understands these issues running against a militarily ambivalent Democrat who has to learn them, like an unguided rocket, on the fly.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2006 07:37 ||
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#1
Also, in the case of an enemy like Hezbollah and al-Qaida, which hides itself among civillians, the MAD "deterrent" means you threaten to destroy a whole bunch of innocent people for whom the bad guys have no concern in the first place. Is it even possible that could be moral?
Exactly the process the Allies used in bombing the Axis in WWII. Was it moral? The enemy at Shanghai, Warsaw, Rotterdam, and elsewhere demonstrated it didn't give a fig about civilians anymore than the terrorists. It got back in compound interests what it played out. Notice how the older generation of Germans and Japanese never had stomach for further military adventures. Three generations later, they still make only tentative steps in deploying their security forces beyond their borders. Cause -> Effect.
Part of the problem is that all human beings do not think the same. The vast efforts in the West to minimize collateral damage and raise the value of human shields, to include those who contribute to the ability of the terrorist to operate among them, has only created the 'moral' issue. If the technology was still at the WWII 'dumb' bomb level, would we even be concerned? Not as we are today. In effect, we have created the problem by being too concerned about civilian casualties which have been part of the very definition of war to begin with, by developing these capabilities. The overblown emotions of the MSM, which ignores the absolute low numbers of American casualties in the Iraq operation when compared to any other major historical conflict, also demonstrates its ignorance in the number of Frenchmen and Italians [after they switched sides] who died in Allied bombing and ground campaign in WWII. In order to accomplish the goal of ending the original Axis of Evil, you had to fight your way through the geography and population. That's life and death. Hasn't changed much since the Eygptians and Hittites faced off over 4,000 year ago.
#2
It's not necessarily killing that does it. Sherman accomplished the same result as WWII without, relatively, a lot of killing. But the enemy must believe they've been utterly defeated and scream to surrender. We have not so utterly defeated an enemy, with the possible exception of Grenada, since WWII. Israel has not so defeated an enemy since 1973.
Israel's problem here is that it has defined the enemy incorrectly. It's enemy is not so much Hezb'Allah as the Lebanese who choose to support them. Not so much Syria as Iran who is paying the bills and calling the shots. Until Israel finds a way to utterly defeat its real enemies, it will continue to be dejavu all over again.
#3
There is a peculiar philosophy of the give-and-take of short range rockets and artillery.
Optimally, someday, there will be a small laser that can pop them mid-flight at little cost. But in the final analysis, this only treats the symptom, not the disease.
Granted, for a military unit engaged in combat operations against a terrorist enemy that keeps throwing such things, the laser is a fine idea. This is because the military unit is otherwise engaged in hunting down and eliminating the terrorists.
But a civilian population should not have to live under a protective umbrella, without seeking to end the cause of their complaint. This is because no defense is perfect.
Sooner or later a lucky shot, or some fix, will let those rockets or mortars get through.
For this reason, there is not just justification, but a compelling reason to go after those individuals who launch or fire such weaponry. Until they are eliminated, the disease will remain.
#4
I don't mean to hurt the feelings of any red legs, but the days of tube artillery are numbered. A sergeant and a PFC in five-ton truck can do the job of an artillery battery now. Cheap guidance, fire direction computers, and GPS means you get better accuracy than guns and eliminate the FDC, survey section, met section, etc.
#5
Won't the Excalibre shell do most of that at a lower cost per shot? Also isn't there some multi/programmable fuse system that will reduce the number of shells the artillery carries?
#6
Excalibur costs $50K (per strategy page) a pop plus you still have the overhead of the gun crews.
I can't find a number for a GPS guided katyusha, but a JDAM kit costs $18K. The difference in cost is mostly due to acceleration. An artillery shell experiences 12K G's going through the tube. A rocket, only 10-20. You don't need special components for those kinds of accelerations.
#8
I dunno. Tolerances are lower for rockets and they don't weigh as much. I always thought that the reason the Soviets adopted the katyusha is that if you just want to take out a grid square, it's cheaper than arty. And in a world of precision engagements, a GPS guided rocket will always be cheaper than a GPS guided shell and the cost curve should be steeper as well for the rockets. Bulk seems to be the biggest problem to me since the rocket propellant will take up more space than a propellant charge bag(s). Anyway, those are the tradeoffs I see.
Overall I think that the dynamics are very simillar to going to CAT3 and CAT5 cabling for 10baseT and 100 TX ethernet. With 10base2 and 10base5 we used a real quiet, predictable medium (coaxial cable) to move bits. From 10baseT and on, we used a really cheap crappy medium (phone wire) and then used the power of the silicon to make up for the inherent crappiness since silicon was cheaper than coax. My guess is that we will find it cheaper to put sophisticated electronics and solid state IMUs on crappy rockets than try to put them on shells turned on a lathe. The accuracy is the same. The cost and overhead is lower for the rockets.
I'm guessing that within five years there will be a cheap RPG seeker out there that can hit the thinly armored engine deck of a tank 80-90% of the time. Abdul points, pulls the trigger, runs like hell and -- boom -- mobility kill.
Jimmy Carter stood by while Irans Shah asked for American support to defend his government against Islamic extremism. After his overthrow, Carter stood by while American hostages withstood 444 days of imprisonment and torture under the Khomeini regime.
This fecklessness emboldened Iran, which took its cue from Carters weakness and began its reign as undisputed terror paymaster of the world. Carter himself has found few dictators that he hasnt coddled and supported: Arafat, Castro, Ortega, Chavez and a large cast of other rogues.
What has escaped much attention is that Carter protégés have also played roles after their time on the world stage has ended. One of these figures is Ed Peck, who has emerged as a major critic of American policies, a foe of Israel, and a promoter of anti-Semitic myths. Peck served as chief of the U.S. Mission to Iraq under Carter and now has continued his outreach towards Arab fanatics.
A few months ago , he wrote an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that defended the paper written by Professors Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby. The paper was roundly condemned on academic grounds; furthermore, many critics across the political spectrum openly declared that the paper was anti-Semitic (see, for example, the Washington Post op-ed: It is Anti-Semitic.)
Peck praised the paper and did not deal with any of the substantive criticisms of the work. Instead, he used his op-ed instead to blame Israel for anti-Semitism in the world, stating
Israeli actions also generate anti-Semitism, the very label the lobby uses to bludgeon into silence anyone in America who questions relations with Israel and its expansionist policies (as noted by James Taranto in his Best of the Web column)
Now Peck is back. In an appearance on Fox News Channel, he absolutely denied that Hezbollah is a terror organization and compared their fighters to American soldiers in World War 2. He went on to say equate Hezbollahs actions against Israel to Israels actions in Lebanon. He says acts of terrorism that Hezbollah commits are the same type of actions others commit but America doesnt call those acts terrorism because they are committed by friends. When he was asked if Hezbollah was a terror group, he deflected the question by this cliché: A terrorist organization is in the eye of the beholder and he went on that
America is opposed to a cease-fire because we want to give Israel a chance to kill as many people as we can.
Yet, he goes on to proudly call himself a diplomat. Some diplomat.
Hezbollah has murdered many Americans, French, Lebanese and others over the years. The group kidnapped more than 200 foreign nationals in Lebanon, most of them Americans or Western Europeans. Hezbollah also organized suicide attacks against U.S. and French targets, killing almost 1000 people, including 241 U.S. Marines and 56 French paratroopers sent to Lebanon to enforce peace. Hezbollah blew up a Jewish community center in Argentina, killing over 80 people. The group hijacked TWA Flight 847 in 1985, beating to death a US Navy diver and dumping his body on the tarmac. The group blew up the Israeli Embassy and cultural center in Argentina, killing over 30.
According to Peck, these acts are comparable to US soldiers fighting in World War Two-because, after all, they are not trerrorists.
#1
As a former delusional Carter fan, the best I can say about Jimmuh is that he's a dangerously deluded fool. Unfortunately I think in reality he's much worse.
#6
Carter signed the home-brew legislation. Just goes to show ya' even the worst people have the potential to do onesomething right.
Posted by: Gir ||
07/28/2006 15:10 Comments ||
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#7
Where's the senile old fart himself been during all this? I figured he'd be sporting wood for a chance to spout his usual gibberish on the current situation.
Rich Lowry, posting at National Review's "The Corner"
The statement by the Hezbollah official the other day that they didn't expect Israel's response raises a pointassuming he's telling the truthabout the limits of deterrence. Advocates of deterrence and containment sometimes seem to think they are magical forces that always work. In fact, if someone is deterrable, it doesn't mean he will always be successfully deterred. Deterrence depends on everyone knowing the rules and not miscalculating. Hezbollah thought it knew the rulesthat border skirmishes would result only in some tit-for-tat fighting. It wasn't that Hezbollah was absolutely undeterrable. It was deterrable in the sense that it cared what the Israeli response would be and was modulatingso it thoughtit actions accordingly. All this should be kept in mind when people say Iran is deterrable. Perhaps it is. But are we willing to tolerate the consequences if deterrence fails, as it did two weeks ago?
Posted by: Mike ||
07/28/2006 07:53 ||
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#1
I'm reminded of an old cartoon where one Air Force general says "The goal of our program is deterrence - we must retain the ability to deter the enemy." A second general then chimes in "Deter 'em to Kingdom Come if necessary..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/28/2006 11:23 Comments ||
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Captain Ed has been hammering the recent release of a UNIFIL report for 2006 that describes (as one example) how the Hezbies have been building their positions right next to the UNIFIL stations. Interesting nuggets in here.
To get this, hit the link and put 'UNIFIL' in the extended search text box. The report is dated '20-07-06'.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/28/2006 00:10 ||
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#2
Some Hizbollah positions remained in close proximity to United Nations positions,
especially in the Hula area, posing a significant security risk to United Nations
personnel and equipment, as demonstrated during the heavy exchanges of fire on 28 May. In letters to the Foreign Minister, dated 23 March, 27 June and 5 July 2006, the Force Commander, General Pellegrini, expressed grave concern about the Hizbollah construction works in close proximity to United Nations positions and requested that the Government of Lebanon take necessary actions to rectify the
situation. However, the situation remained unchanged despite repeated objections
addressed by UNIFIL to the Lebanese authorities.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/28/2006 6:18 Comments ||
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Then there is this, near the end -
41. The hostilities between Hizbollah and Israel since 12 July have radically changed the context in which UNIFIL is operating. In the current environment, circumstances conducive to United Nations peacekeeping do not exist. Facing a situation where the Force is restricted from carrying out even basic activities, such
as the ability to resupply its positions and to conduct search and rescue operations on behalf of its personnel, how can it fulfil its mandate under Security Council resolution 425 (1978)?
So their basic function is to resupply themselves and perform search and rescue?
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/28/2006 6:26 Comments ||
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#4
UNIFIL: United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon.
Interim? 28 years? Good thing it wasn't permanent.
According to Security Council resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978) of 19 March 1978, UNIFIL was established to:
Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon;
Restore international peace and security;
Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area.
Most recently the mandate of UNIFIL was extended until 31 July 2006 by Security Council resolution 1655 (2006) of 31 January 2006.
So it looks as if the interim forces' mandate ends next Monday. Wonder if that means they're going to get the hell out of the way?
#2
I'd like to be a fly on the wall in the mosque that will be discussing this.
We need to get some rules on the books quick how we as americans need to show our alligiance and love of country to America.
Just because the Israeli's have less folks killed because they actually warn their people, verses the Hizbollah crowd that likes seeing the high numbers killed, having not warned their people, instead hiding in and amongst them.
Intern them hell, have them sign oaths to support our country, and love our credo or get out. Or possibly have this be something that has to be done to be able to have a rally.
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.
Question: Whats the difference between the Arab League and the academic Left that despises Israel? Answer: Only the Arab League is willing to condemn Hezbollah.
