I put this under Opinion because, while the the Foreign Policy reporter is doing nothing more than delivering former President William Jefferson Clinton's statement, that statement is considerably more opinion than fact. Before reading this, I considered the honourable gentleman highly intelligent but immoral. Now I can't decide if he's dumb and deluded or just plain lying like his Democratic colleague, the former president James Earl Carter.
Who's to blame for the continued failure of the Middle East peace process? Former President Bill Clinton said today that it is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- whose government moved the goalposts upon taking power, and whose rise represents a key reason there has been no Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
Clinton, in a roundtable with bloggers today on the sidelines of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York, gave an extensive recounting of the deterioration in the Middle East peace process since he pressed both parties to agree to a final settlement at Camp David in 2000. He said there are two main reasons for the lack of a comprehensive peace today: the reluctance of the Netanyahu administration to accept the terms of the Camp David deal and a demographic shift in Israel that is making the Israeli public less amenable to peace.
Read the rest at the link. I was going to fisk it, but Elliott Abrams does a much better job here.
Mr. Bill hoped to make a huge mark in the history books with his Camp David talks between Barak and Arafat. Didn't work. He's been pissed ever since.
#4
Teh continual targetting and murder of innocent civilians by the Palieos does have a tendancy of killing 'peace processes'. Not to mention failure to fulfill a single one of their oblications.
#9
"Peace process"? There is no "peace process". This is a war process you half wit.
You were another knuckle headed president without a clue - and you still have no clue. STFU and go climb under your rock.
#11
Clinton gave an extensive recounting of the deterioration in the Middle East peace process since he pressed both parties to agree to a final settlement at Camp David in 2000.
At the time, I thought Arafat rejected terms that very favorable to the Palestinians. It was Israel's fault that things fell apart? It had nothing to do with the Palestinians or the Iranians and Syrians or Hamas or Hezbullah?
#13
IIRC Benji was on FOX NEWS this AM stating that Israel is willing to accept the gener concept of a negotiated, sovereign Paleo State at peace wid Israel, but that the Paleos OTOH want a sovereign "State wid NO PEACE", i.e. a Nation-State still engaged in permanent existential war agz Israel.
[Dawn] EVEN though it was not the first attack on Shia pilgrims in Balochistan ...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it... , the modus operandi of Tuesday`s cold-blooded murder of 26 bus passengers near Mastung showed a descent into new depths of savagery. The pilgrims, mostly from the Hazara community, were lined up by beturbanned goons who checked their identity cards before mowing them down. An ambulance going to the aid of the victims in Mastung was fired at, killing three people. Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has brazenly grabbed credit for the two heinous acts. One is appalled by not only the krazed killers` fiendish mindset but also the authorities` failure to provide protection to buses carrying vulnerable pilgrims. What is also cause for regret is the tour operators` indifference to their clients` safety. While it is true that the beturbanned goons are quite capable of meticulous planning and a careful choice of targets, the authorities should have had the common sense to anticipate Wednesday`s killings, given that this was the third such sectarian attack in Balochistan since July. Surely, if an entire community, vulnerable to such attacks, cannot be provided security, there are ways in which safety can be assured for smaller groups, such as pilgrims, likely to be targeted. The obvious measure would be to have well-armed security escorts in vehicles forming a cordon round buses carrying pilgrims. The success of this mode of security was demonstrated in the Hub area in July 2007 when police vans were able to beat back an attack on Chinese engineers and kill many terrorists. Similarly, the tour operators and the security authorities could work out a scheme to have armed guards within the buses.
The fight against Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is part of the country`s larger battle against the Taliban who have declared war on the state and people of Pakistain. The enemy is ruthless and indifferent to human suffering and innocent deaths, and targets school buses, hospitals and funerals without any qualms of conscience. While the government has to operate within the sphere of the law, these constraints should not deter the state in its resolve to stamp out terrorism in all its forms and give protection to the people.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan
[Dawn] THE liquidation of former Afghan president and leader of the High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, ... the late legitimate president of Afghanistan... appears to have dealt a severe blow to the prospects of peace in Afghanistan. While talk about peace talks on various tracks has grabbed the headlines in recent months, the reality is that next to nothing is known about the content and pace of the engagements with Taliban emissaries and go-betweens. In fact, some commentators familiar with the region have suggested that a `grinding of the peace processor` has been stillborn as all sides are still waiting to see what the emerging strategies of the other sides are. And yet others point to the somewhat encouraging noises that have come from the Taliban camp which seem to suggest that a negotiated settlement in Afghanistan is not off the table altogether. Could it be, then, that there are rifts in the Afghan Taliban camp itself?
What is clear is that the liquidation of Mr Rabbani has left President Karzai`s strategy for engaging the Taliban in tatters. Mr Rabbani, while seeking to engage Pakistain and other groups inside Afghanistan, was always controversial in the eyes of the Taliban because of his links with the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance, of course, would seek to have a nominee leading the internal grinding of the peace processor who is close to their camp for fear of their interests being harmed in a grinding of the peace processor with the Taliban. But for all the controversy attached to him, Mr Rabbani also had stature in Afghanistan and it isn`t clear if there is anyone else on the horizon who can replace him. In any case, with Taliban attacks and liquidations surging this year, can they be counted on to do anything other than press for victory?
For the Pak security establishment, the temptation may be to press home the `advantage` they have retained in the form of links to some Afghan Taliban groups, particularly the Haqqani network, now that it appears the Taliban`s always-unproven appetite for a political settlement has waned even further. But that is almost certain to lead to a deterioration of ties with the US in the short term, though it remains unclear if the US has the necessary tools to compel Pakistain to change course in its Afghan policy. For now, it appears the violence in Afghanistan will continue to creep upwards, accusations and recriminations between Pakistain, the US and the Afghan government will continue to flow and fear and apprehension in the region will continue to grow. Afghanistan does not have to descend into chaos; but are the stakeholders willing to do what it will take to prevent that from being the outcome?
Posted by: Fred ||
09/23/2011 00:00 ||
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Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
Yea Rantburg, make the MSM look like dogshit.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/23/2011 18:39 Comments ||
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Barack Obama has done the United States a great, though unforeseen, favor. He has brought to light, as no one else could, many of the pernicious assumptions of our culture from the last half-century. He turned theory and what ifs into fact for all America to see, experience, and, yes, suffer through.
...Had McCain been elected, or had Obama proved a canny Clinton triangulator, we would never have gotten out of the bipartisan rut of massive borrowing, growing government, higher taxes, and unionized public employee regulators. But with Obama as the great liberal deliverer and with the masses scared to death of Him, the next president will inherit an America in catharsis. The future is uncertain, but at least now, after our cauterizing, we have some sort of chance to return to the old principles that might save us.
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.
THE 
