If [former Mexican President Ernesto] Zedillo committed any act, gave any order, was aware of any act or order of any significance which led to the massacre, the plaintiffs claim, it would represent an act outside Zedillo's authority. But any one of those putative acts must be considered in context of the Chiapas Conflict in 1994.
The EZLN [Ejercito Zapista Liberacion Nacional ] attacked in January 1994, starting in the last year of the term of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. Despite warnings by local and state government officials that the national government do something about the increased activity of Guatemalan rebel's use of Mexico as a haven against Guatemalan Army counterinsurgency operations since 1992, Salinas seem to be caught with his pants down. It was probably an unlikely combination of intervention by the Liberation Theology wing of the Mexican Catholic church and EZLN logistics that ended the hottest portion of the war.
It had to have been an embarrassing fiasco for Mexico's national government, and one for which the Mexican Army had developed a solution.
This is the Mark Levin rant youve been waiting on. Seriously. It is awesome to hear him stand behind and defend our troops and declare that he is a staunch supporter of the Marines who urinated on the subhuman Taliban carcases. And he makes no beans about it:
And what we should be saying: Let this be a lesson to everyone of you subhumans who plots against America and tries to kill American citizens. We dont give a damn who you are! We dont give a damn what you believe! And we dont give a damn if youre offended! Because were going to hunt you down and kill you and then humiliate you after youre killed!
#4
I heard Mark's comments live here in DC earlier this week.
Levin is the "real deal". He's written some wonderful patriotic books. Why not invest in a National treasure and buy one?
I'm afraid those young Marines will be vilified to the max.
So the assumptions of the last 60 years are over and not just because of the cost. If Americas responsible for 43 percent of global military expenditure, why doesnt it feel like that? Why does the United States get so little bang for the buck? It is two-thirds of a century since this country won a war (and please dont bother writing in to say what about Grenada? or Panama?). In the days after 9/11, many Bush-administration officials assured us that this time it would be different, and even liberals believed them. A decade later, Washington cant wait to get the hell out of the Hindu Kush, and the day after they do it will be as if they never set foot on that benighted sod. Illiterate goatherds with string and fertilizer have tied down the hyperpower for twice as long as it took America to win the Second World War. Something is wrong with this picture.
Ron Paul says he would pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan as quickly as the ships could get there. Afghanistan is a landlocked country, but hey, thats just the kind of boring foreign trivia we wont need to bother with once were safely holed up in Fortress America. To those who dissent from this easy and affordable solution to Americas woes, the Paul campaign likes to point out that it receives more money from Americas men in uniform than anybody else. According to the Federal Election Commission, in the second quarter of 2011, Ron Paul got more donations from service personnel than all other Republican candidates combined plus President Obama. Not unreasonably, serving soldiers are weary of unwon wars of going to war with everything except war aims and strategic clarity. I would hazard that the recent video of U.S. Marines urinating on Taliban corpses is a coarser comment on the same psychosis, and the folly of fighting a determined and murderous enemy by distributing to your officers bulk orders of that charlatans bestseller Three Cups of Tea. There is a logical progression from three cups of sweet tea to those acts of micturition that the Pentagon would do well to ponder.
With characteristic timidity, Mitt Romney says that as commander-in-chief his Afghan strategy would be determined by the commanders in the field. More tea and sympathy! But a lazy deference to the inviolability of the present arrangements for another two-thirds of a century of unwon wars will not suffice. I am in favor of a leaner, meaner military emphasis on both adjectives. A broke America will perforce wind up with the first. But, if we want the second, the foreign-policy Right will have to make a better case than it has this primary season.
Dear Reader, feel free to count the errors of logic and fact in this opinion piece. The one with the highest count wins.
My letter might be late, but late is better than never.
Not always...
This subject is critical and cannot be completely ignored. Two months ago, I noticed a headline on the biggest Arab, Israeli, and international newspapers and news sites, except Palestinian titles.
The headlines were about a statement made by the Palestinian Authority's president, Mahmoud Abbas, where he expressed that he believes the Arab refusal of the UN partition plan 181 in 1947, was a mistake.
In an interview with the Israeli Channel Two, President Abbas said: "At that time, 1947, there was Resolution 181, the partition plan, Palestine and Israel. Israel existed. Palestine diminished. Why? [...] I know, I know. It was our mistake. It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole. But do they punish us for this mistake (for) 64 years?"
Yes. Forever, in fact -- that's how it works.
I would understand if the president, after he saw the results of the Israeli occupation today, would want to go back to the year 1947 to adopt the partition plan, because that would mean a larger territory for the Palestinian state to be created on.
But, was the refusal a mistake? If the Arabs accepted, would it be guaranteed that the Zionist movement will accept what is less that the whole Palestinian territory?
Yes, actually. They are not like you. Fortunately for you, because if they were, you wouldn't be alive to write this.
Frankly, I consider the president's statement faulting the Arab and Palestinian stance refusing to abide with an unlawful resolution which takes away the Palestinians' right to self-determination, to be a very dangerous statement which certainly deserves my comments.
But by the Arabs refusing to accept the offer -- without consulting the locals on the ground, the one who now call themselves "Palestinians" -- the Arabs took away your right to self-determination. Try complaining to them for a while, just for the novelty of it.
But be careful to duck when you complain, because your Arab 'brothers' really, really don't like to hear you whine...
Any rational person would see that if the partition plan was applied and fully respected by both sides, Palestinians would be living in a paradise compared to the miserable situation we live in today under occupation.
Indeed.
But, at the same time, no wise and intelligent person would believe that accepting the partition plan was to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. It is only naive to describe the Palestinian and Arab stance regarding the partition plan to be wrong.
Naive, but morally correct.
Palestinians use this phrase to describe the Balfour Declaration: "The promise of who doesn't own, to those who don't deserve." As a result of that declaration, we have the partition plan which paved the way for those who don't deserve to take over the land of the indigenous Arab Palestinians.
*sigh*
At that time, Arabs were over two thirds of the Population in Palestine; they owned 94 percent of the land of Palestine. In what right does the United Nations decide to divide Palestine to give over 55 percent of the land to the Jews who didn't own anything but 6 percent of the land before year 1947?
True, for very specific and abnormal definitions of... Dear Reader, you know how to finish that sentence.
In the year 1947, 1,293,000 Arab Palestinians Christians and Muslims lived in Palestine, plus 608,000 Jews who most of them were recent immigrants from Tsarist Russia and those who fled the horrifying Nazi Europe. The partition plan was not rational from the beginning as there were 407,000 Arabs living in what was to become the Jewish state according to the partition plan.
All of whom could now have had the benefits of Israeli citizenship, had so many not fled in hope of returning on the heels of the mighty Arab Armies. A shame, O Editorialist, that your ancestors made the stupid choice.
How were Arabs going to accept a decision that will eventually allow conducting mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land to make way for a made up Jewish state?
How were Arabs to accept a resolution that was to place international border lines between villages and cities which have neighbored each other for thousands of years?
There was nothing about the partition plan which would convince the Arabs to accept it, Palestinians were losing what is over half the Palestinian land in exchange of nothing, nothing at all.
Yes, yes. And how does that compare to the current situation?
Another example of the unfairness of resolution 181 is that in the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine's resolution, it states that "the Jews will have the more economically developed part of the country embracing practically the whole of the citrus-producing area which includes a large number of Arab products."
Philosophy summarized:
1. Life isn't fair.
2. Everything is harder when you're stupid.
I still wonder how refusing this resolution would be considered a "mistake". President Mahmoud Abbas is doing his best to put the blame on the victim.
The partition plan was not a decision to divide the land only, but it was a decision that was to take away many of the Arab Palestinians' rights.
How would you allow unequally dividing your land and giving the settler who recently arrived from Europe, a bigger slice of your land, voluntarily?
Look how well that worked out.
Accepting the partition plan would be like paving the way for the Zionist movement to take over the whole land of Palestine, without resistance. If we were to look back at some of the Zionist leaders' speeches like Ben Gurion, we will see that, even the Zionist leadership, were not content by what resolution 181 was granting them and they wanted more.
The Israeli acceptance of resolution 181 was only a media play; the acceptance was only to lay the political cover for the Zionists to take over what is larger than what the resolution has offered them.
Considering the refusal of the partition plan to be wrong is one thing, and hoping to build a Palestinian state on the territory granted by the partition plan is another; we should not mix between the two.
The refusal of the partition plan was not a mistake and the Palestinians did not lose any golden opportunities by refusing it. It is only naive and ignorant to consider the refusal to be a mistake.
The author is a 17-year-old Palestinian resident of Jerusalem and a senior at Friends School in Ramallah. He blogs for The Electronic Intifada and translated this article from the Arabic version.
The cream of the Palestinian crop, recipient of a Quaker education since 1869, no less.
h/t Gates of Vienna
So you think youre free? Thanks to big government spending and exploding debt, the United States and indeed the world is less economically free today than it was a year ago, according to the 18th annual Index of Economic Freedom, released yesterday by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.
#3
Uhh, Debt can be used to justify slavery. Search on Debt Peonage, Debt Slavery, and related topics. Then consider the mindset and attitude of your typical ambitious leftist/liberal...
Why the mainstream media keep losing paying subscribers: John Hinderaker of Powerline digs up the rest of the story, completely missed by Reuters and editorial writers like Froma Harrop (of The Civility Project fame). A taste:
The Left is carrying out a coordinated attack on Mitt Romney's business career. One sees exactly the same allegations, often phrased identically, whether you look at the Daily Kos, the Associated Press, Slate or Think Progress, or listen to Newt Gingrich or Rick Perry. The centerpiece of the Left's attack has been Bain's involvement with two companies that merged to become Holson Burnes Group, Inc. Holson made photo albums, and Burnes made picture frames. In the late 1980s, Holson was in deep trouble because of competition from cheap imports. Bain helped to save the company, then encouraged its merger with Burnes...
Bain's stewardship helped to ensure that Holson Burnes survived and prospered. At the end of 1992, the company had 588 employees. Profitability returned in 1993 and 1994, and in 1996 Bain and the other shareholders of Holson Burnes sold the company to Newell Rubbermaid for $33.5 million. Leftists grumble that Bain and the other shareholders made money on the deal. I hope they did; they deserved to. Newell Rubbermaid's purchase of Holson Burnes made it "the world's largest manufacturer of picture frames, framed art and photo albums." In the years that have gone by since then, Holson Burnes has changed names and owners, but has continued to prosper and has employed thousands of people. It is now known as Burnes Home Accents, LLC, and has its headquarters in Atlanta.
As for Gaffney, South Carolina, the fact that its 150 citizens had jobs at Holson Burnes for only four years was unfortunate, but hardly catastrophic. The county's top economic official says:
"A 1992 decision by a company controlled by an investment firm once led by former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney to close a Gaffney plant and lay off 150 workers did not have a major impact on the local economy, according to Cherokee County's top economic development official."
For your amusement, contrast Mr. Henderaker's piece with a syndicated column tossed off by the aforementioned Ms Harrop who, according to her website About page, "Previously... covered business for Reuters Ltd., in New York, and was a financial editor for The New York Times News Service."
Because we here at Rantburg are all about being fair and balanced, allowing those on all sides a voice in the conversation and a place at the table, etc and other clichés.
So that we can then point at the losers and laugh.
#2
But it's UNFAIR, and MEAN, to take advantage and make a profit off of companies that are in trouble. That $33.5 million could have kept those 150 people employed in Gaffney for YEARS!
(Have I properly channelled the liberal viewpoint?)
#3
This morning's Charlotte Observer piles on with a headline "Bain treated us like dirt," just in time for the South Carolina primary next Saturday. Nothing like objectivity. Given the heavy Republican registration in SC (as well as NC---Charlotte is right on the border between the 2 states), one wonders where the Observer's marketing staff is, at the very least.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/14/2012 14:37 Comments ||
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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.
