This is what 42 years of occupation does: In Gaza, Hamas Suddenly Become Moderates, from CNN:
Friday’s clashes were the latest between Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who have said they are moderate Muslims pledged to the Palestinian cause, and more extremist Islamic groups.
Jund Ansar Allah is part of the radical Islamist movement that follows the doctrines of the “Salaf,” or the predecessors — referring to the early generations of Muslims. They reject all modern influences such as politics and government.
Read more.
Israel’s military was rocked on Thursday by Gaza war veterans’ accounts of the killing of civilians and allegations that deep contempt for Palestinians pervaded its ranks.The soldiers, alumni of a military academy, gathered last month to discuss their experiences in the 22-day Israeli offensive that ended in January, a campaign that Palestinians and human rights groups have said warranted war crimes probes.
Disclosing details of the session, the institution’s director said the soldiers pointed to an atmosphere within the military of “unbridled contempt for, and forcefulness against, the Palestinians.”
“They talked about unwarranted fire on Palestinian civilians. There was also talk of vandalism to property,” Danny Zamir, head of the Yitzhak Rabin pre-military program, told Israel Radio.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak responded to the accusations by repeating Israel’s description of its armed forces as the most moral in the world.
How did Iraq turn out, Ehud?
Read more. Had Bush II done what everyone told him, he would have forced Sharon to sit down and make peace with Palestinians… once Palestine would have been established, the ire of the Arab Street would have dissipated, and Iraq would have been forced to focus on getting its standing in the world community back. Iran would have largely been less influential than it is today.
Because of Bush’s incompetence, none of that happened, it is Israel that is now alienated… not even the US can come to her rescue… and Iran’s role is greater than ever, with a Shia block having been propped up in Iran-Iraq-Lebanon.
From Peter Bergen:
Lost in this discussion [of the surge] was the fact that while the surge of some 30,000 American soldiers certainly put more American boots on the ground in neighborhoods from Anbar province to Baghdad to “clear, hold and build” them and was clearly an important element in the sharp decline in violence in the country, there are several other key underlying factors that tamped down the mayhem in Iraq that neither of the candidates addressed:
• First, the appearance in 2006 of the various “Awakening” movements, in which Sunni tribes once allied with al Qaeda turned against it.
• Second, the implementation of the Sons of Iraq program consisting of some 100,000 Sunni militants, many of whom used to be shooting at American soldiers, who are now on the U.S. payroll. Now that’s a surge!
• Third, the previous ethnic cleansings in Iraq and the millions of Iraqi refugees who have fled their homes, meaning there are fewer potential targets of sectarian violence.
• Fourth, the large size and increasing efficacy of the Iraqi army and police, some 550,000 strong, who are now beginning to operate with some level of professionalism.
• Fifth, the increasingly nonsectarian approach of Nuri al-Maliki, the Shia prime minister, who has taken on Shiite militias in Basra and Sadr City, an important signal that the government will act in something like the national interest.
• Sixth, the cease-fires ordered in the past year or so by the leader of those Shia militants, the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose position in Iraq has weakened significantly since 2007.
These underlying factors made the surge a force multiplier for the fragile peace we are seeing today in Iraq.
And now that the surge is over, it is those factors that might ensure that the fragile peace holds, yet neither Obama nor McCain discussed how these factors might change their own Iraq policies going forward.
A missed opportunity in the debate was also to hear from each candidate some specifics about his plans for the size of the future U.S. military presence in Iraq.
McCain, who once famously said that the United States could be in Iraq for a century if American troops weren’t being injured or killed there, never explained in the debate how he plans to ramp up significantly the number of American soldiers in Afghanistan — something he has promised to do, at the same time that he continues to favor a continuing substantial U.S. presence in Iraq.
As Obama noted during the debate, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, has said that given the present commitments in Iraq, it is just not possible to now send thousands more American soldiers to Afghanistan.
For his part, Obama was not asked about the specifics of his plan to withdraw from Iraq in 2010 yet at the same time maintain what he has frequently termed a “residual force” there that would handle key missions such as counterterrorism.
According to military officials I have spoken to, such a residual force tasked with counterterrorism, intelligence gathering on the ground, providing tactical support to Iraqi military operations and protecting U.S. facilities such as the largest American embassy in the world would consist of four to eight brigades.
Depending on the exact size of those brigades, that could mean up to 40,000 American soldiers based in Iraq for many years to come. For obvious reasons Obama has never spelled out what he estimates his residual force in Iraq would look like, as to do so would alienate the liberal, Moveon.org wing of his party, which is laboring under the delusion that come 2010, if Obama is in the White House, there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq.
Obama was on firm ground when he attributed the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan to the diversion of American resources to Iraq. This is uncontroversial.
The initial U.S. deployment to Afghanistan was the smallest peacekeeping force, per capita, that America has sent anywhere since World War II, while a RAND study found that, “Afghanistan has received the least amount of resources out of any major American-led nation-building operation over the last 60 years.”
And today, there are four times more U.S. soldiers in Iraq than in Afghanistan, a country that is significantly larger in terms of both size and population.
via CNN.
From The Nation:
Myth 1. It’s a dangerous world. We face an array of serious national security threats that require an experienced Commander in Chief.
Myth 2. The surge has worked. To withdraw from Iraq now would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and embolden Islamic extremists.
Myth 3. We cannot allow Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists. We therefore must redouble our military efforts there or face another terrorist attack.
Myth 4. Iran is responsible for much of the violence against US forces in Iraq; by using its proxies in Lebanon and Gaza, it threatens to dominate the Middle East.
Myth 5. To talk to the leaders of “rogue” states like Iran and Cuba without conditions legitimizes their position and weakens American leverage.
Myth 6. Vladimir Putin’s Russia is an authoritarian state pursuing an anti-American agenda aimed at reconstituting the Soviet Union in the form of a new Russian empire.
Myth 7. Because the American military is stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we must increase the size of our conventional armed forces.
Myth 8. A League of Democracies would create a global coalition for peace and freedom and would enable the United States and its democratic allies to intervene to solve humanitarian and other crises when the UN Security Council is paralyzed.
Myth 9. Globalization has strengthened the economy, and we cannot avoid it by hiding behind protectionist walls.
Myth 10. The world needs American leadership.
Interesting myths, no? To find out more about why they are myths, click and read The Nation:
John McCain’s “our economy’s fundamentals are strong” might be one of the dumbest things ever said in a campaign. Maybe even dumber than this:
“There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” Frankel responded, “I’m sorry … did I understand you to say, sir, that the Soviets are not using Eastern Europe as their own sphere of influence in occupying most of the countries there?” Ford responded, “I don’t believe … that the Yugoslavians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Romanians consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. I don’t believe that the Poles consider themselves dominated by the Soviet Union. Each of these countries is independent, autonomous, it has its own territorial integrity, and the United States does not concede that those countries are under the domination of the Soviet Union.”
In response Carter said he’d like to see Ford “convince the Polish-Americans and the Czech-Americans and the Hungarian-Americans in this country that those countries don’t live under the domination and supervision of the Soviet Union behind the Iron Curtain.”
News reports about the debate were dominated by Ford’s statement and its potential effect on the race. Most observers felt the debate proved to be a turning point and the key to Carter’s narrow electoral victory. A post-debate Gallup poll on October 15 showed Carter six percentage points ahead of Ford, 48 percent to 42 percent.
Sometimes I wonder how people can vote for McCain, but then you see what they are looking for.
In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Gabriel Nathan Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.
“Less taxes and more war,” he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should “bomb the hell” out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.
Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country’s resources.
“We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money,” he said. “We deserve reimbursement.”
All righty then… read more about how some women helped herself to his resources, which included a $30,000 watch, a $20,000 ring, a necklace valued at $5,000, earrings priced at $4,000 and a Prada belt valued at $1,000, police said.
Chilling… I don’t know how any American can possibly vote for John McCain after watching this:
PLAY
