No one likes war. War is a horrific affair, bloody and expensive. Sending our men and women into battle to perhaps die or be maimed is an unconscionable thought.
Yet some wars need to be waged, and someone needs to lead. The citizenry and Congress are often ambivalent or largely opposed to any given war. It's up to our leader to convince them. That's why we call the leader "Commander in Chief."
George W.'s war was no different. There was lots of resistance to it. Many in Congress were vehemently against the idea. The Commander in Chief had to lobby for legislative approval.
Along with supporters, George W. used the force of his convictions, the power of his title and every ounce of moral suasion he could muster to rally support. He had to assure Congress and the public that the war was morally justified, winnable and affordable. Congress eventually came around and voted overwhelmingly to wage war.
George W. then lobbied foreign governments for support. But in the end, only one European nation helped us. The rest of the world sat on its hands and watched.
After a few quick victories, things started to go bad. There were many dark days when all the news was discouraging. Casualties began to mount. It became obvious that our forces were too small. Congress began to drag its feet about funding the effort.
Many who had voted to support the war just a few years earlier were beginning to speak against it and accuse the Commander in Chief of misleading them. Many critics began to call him incompetent, an idiot and even a liar. Journalists joined the negative chorus with a vengeance.
As the war entered its fourth year, the public began to grow weary of the conflict and the casualties. George W.'s popularity plummeted. Yet through it all, he stood firm, supporting the troops and endorsing the struggle.
Without his unwavering support, the war would have surely ended, then and there, in overwhelming and total defeat.
At this darkest of times, he began to make some changes. More troops were added and trained. Some advisers were shuffled, and new generals installed.
Then, unexpectedly and gradually, things began to improve. Now it was the enemy that appeared to be growing weary of the lengthy conflict and losing support. Victories began to come, and hope returned.
Many critics in Congress and the press said the improvements were just George W.'s good luck. The progress, they said, would be temporary. He knew, however, that in warfare good fortune counts.
Then, in the unlikeliest of circumstances and perhaps the most historic example of military luck, the enemy blundered and was resoundingly defeated. After six long years of war, the Commander in Chief basked in a most hard-fought victory.
So on that historic day, Oct. 19, 1781, in a place called Yorktown, a satisfied George Washington sat upon his beautiful white horse and accepted the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, effectively ending the Revolutionary War.
#1
W was kinda helped by the fact that north Baghdad was cleansed of Sunnis. McCain has to be careful with distancing, but he has to do it. During a Letterman' appearance, he blamed Rummy for "mismanagement." Let's see where that goes.
#1
Looking back, Tootal is angry at what he describes as wishful thinking about the Afghan mission by senior military and politicians.
If the politicians had 'looked back' a bit further...(Anglo-Afghan Wars 1839-42; 1878-80; 1919 and events in India they'd have a more solid perspective. For the lack of reading it, we appear to be doomed to a repeat of history.
#2
While I think there was a need to do some fighting, had I been empowered to have that money in bags of gold to put on the table and known who to talk to, we could have brought over some of the guys who ended up fighting against us.
This is similar to the strategy that won the war in Iraq for Petraeus, paying $300 to the Awakening Councils per month for each guerilla who turned on their former allies Al Qaeda in Iraq.
If makes you wonder why Tootal had to resign to drive home the point that a similar strategy should be adopted in Afghanistan.
Behind the court case against Turkey's ruling party lies an existential question: how Islamist has the country become?
Long piece in The Economist about Turkey. Worth a read if you're coming up to speed on the subject.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 00:00 ||
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Steve,
No time or interest in The Economist any more but let me ask you - is the Turkish Military being infiltrated by Islamists? I would find that hard to believe. As long as the Turkish Military is still secular, western and part of NATO (as well as receiving US Military assistance) then there is a big counter-weight.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/20/2008 16:21 Comments ||
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#1
Within two days in late June the Supreme Court of Canada clarified the concept of fair comment and the Canadian Human Rights Commission ruled why no hearing was warranted for the controversial Mark Steyn article published in Maclean's in October 2006.
OK, then let the recover the costs of lawyers, legal fees, loist time, etc. The state weighed in and attempted to crush them on a bogus complaint brought by axe-grinding muzzies.
Make the muzzies PAY. Personally. For all the fees and costs they caused the defendants to incur.
#2
This refers to the "Canadian Human Rights Commission" and the proposed hearing concerning Mary Steyn and the Maclean's article. That particular hearing is indeed a dead dog and will not be revived.
HOWEVER . . . . . the "British Columbia Human Rights Commission" hearing continues with Steyn et al waiting to hear the verdict. There may be further hearings in other provincial jurisdictions.
There may also be some . . . . civil . . . . . unpleasantness to follow, depending on the outcome.
There will be no recovery of costs, OS, because the process is INTENDED to be the punishment.
#3
And there is your problem. McCleans/Steyn ought to sue the government for malicious prosecution,. abrogation of fundamental rights to free speech presen in English Common Law, and so on - and if possible, force the individuals, under civil suit, responsible for the complaints to be brought to the courts and spend money to defend themselves against suits.
Too bad you guys don't have a First Amendment. Nor a Second.
#4
And yes, I mean litigate the snot out of this, suing individual comissioners, state, local and city government, individual officials from each of those, personally, and suing all the complaintants individuall.
Force them to spend money to defend themselves from claims of fraudulently filing charges.
Break them. Bankrupt them then hound them out of the country.
I post. You decide.
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
It was supposed to be satire, but the caricature of Barack Obama and his wife that appeared on the cover of the New Yorker last week rightly caused a major flap. And among black professional women like me and many of my sisters in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, who happened to be gathered last week in Washington for our 100th anniversary celebration, the mischaracterization of Michelle hit the rawest of nerves.
Welcome to our world.
We've watched with a mixture of pride and trepidation as the wife of the first serious African American presidential contender has weathered recent campaign travails -- being called unpatriotic for a single offhand remark, dubbed a black radical because of something she wrote more than 20 years ago and plastered with the crowning stereotype: "angry black woman." And then being forced to undergo a politically mandated "makeover" to soften her image and make her more palatable to mainstream America. How about taking her children to a hate-filled church?
Sad to say, but what Obama has undergone, though it's on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women. We endure this type of labeling all the time. We're endlessly familiar with the problem Michelle Obama is confronting -- being looked at, as black women, through a different lens from our white counterparts, who are portrayed as kinder, gentler souls who somehow deserve to be loved and valued more than we do. So many of us are hoping that Michelle -- as an elegant and elusive combination of successful career woman, supportive wife and loving mother -- can change that.
"Ain't I a woman?" Sojourner Truth famously asked 157 years ago. Her ringing question, demanding why black women weren't accorded the same privileges as their white counterparts, still sums up the African American woman's dilemma today: How are we viewed as women, and where do we fit into American life?
"Thanks to the hip-hop industry," one prominent black female journalist recently said to me, all black women are "deemed 'sexually promiscuous video vixens' not worthy of consideration. If other black women speak up, we're considered angry black women who complain. This society can't even see a woman like Michelle Obama. All it sees is a black woman and attaches stereotypes."
Black women have been mischaracterized and stereotyped since the days of slavery and minstrel shows. In more recent times, they've been portrayed onscreen and in popular culture as either sexually available bed wenches in such shows as the 2000 docudrama "Sally Hemings: An American Scandal," ignorant and foolish servants such as Prissy from "Gone With the Wind" or ever-smiling housekeepers, workhorses who never complain and never tire, like the popular figure of Aunt Jemima.
Even in the 21st century, black women are still bombarded with media and Internet images that portray us as loud, aggressive, violent and often grossly obese and unattractive. Think of the movies "Norbit" or "Big Momma's House," or of the only two black female characters in "Enchanted," an overweight, aggressive traffic cop and an angry divorcée amid all the white princesses.
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies? If Claire Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" comes to mind, remember that she left the scene 16 years ago.
The reality is that in just a generation, many black women -- who were mostly domestics, schoolteachers or nurses in the post-slavery Jim Crow era -- have become astronauts, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, engineers and PhDs. You name it, and black women have achieved it. The most popular woman on daytime television is Oprah Winfrey. Condoleezza Rice is secretary of state.
And yet my generation of African American women -- we're called, in fact, the Claire Huxtable generation -- hasn't managed to become successfully integrated into American popular culture. We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible. It's a term that comes up again and again. "In my profession, white men mentor young whites on how to succeed," a financial executive told me, but "they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
As someone who recently left a large law firm to work in the corporate sector, I have to agree. I liked my firm, but I always felt that I had to sink or swim on my own. I didn't get the kind of mentoring that I saw white colleagues, male and female, getting all around me. The firm was actually one of the better ones when it came to diversity, and yet of 600 partners, only five were black women.
A 2007 American Bar Association report titled "Visible Invisibility" describes how black women in the legal profession face the "double burden" of being both black and female, meaning that they enjoy none of the advantages that black men gain from being male, or that white women gain from being white.
Invisibility isn't the only problem. I run an organization dedicated to supporting African American professional women and often run empowerment workshops at various conferences. At a recent such workshop, I asked the participants to list some words that would describe how they believe they're viewed in the workplace and the culture at large. These are the kinds of words that came back: "loud," "angry," "intimidating," "mean," "opinionated," "aggressive," "hard." All painful words. Yet asked to describe themselves, the same women offered gentler terms: "strong," "loving," "dependable," "compassionate."
Where does the disconnect come from? Possibly from the way black women have been forced into roles of strength for decades. "Black women are the original multitaskers of necessity," says one nonprofit executive. "We've perfected it because we've been doing it for so long. But people don't appreciate the skill it requires, and they don't recognize the toll it takes on us as human beings."
For all our success in the professional world, we have paid a significant price in our private and emotional lives. A life of preordained singleness (by chance, not by choice) is fast becoming the plight of alarming numbers of professional black women in America. The fact is that the more money and education a black woman has, the less likely she is to marry and have a family. And yet the stereotype is that the less money and education a black women has, the less likely she is to be married. It's so unfair!
Consider these stunning statistics: As of 2007, according to the New York Times, 70 percent of professional black women were unmarried. Black women are five times more likely than white women to be single at age 40. In 2003, Newsweek reported that there are more black women than black men (24 percent to 17 percent) in the professional-managerial class. According to Department of Education statistics cited by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, black women earn 67 percent of all bachelor's degrees awarded to blacks, as well as 71 percent of all master's degrees and 65 percent of all doctoral degrees. That's 'cuz the dudes are all playin' sports. Sorry.
With all the challenges facing professional black women today, we hope that Michelle Obama will defy the negative stereotypes about us. And that, now that a strong professional black woman is center stage, she'll bring to light what we already know: that an accomplished black woman can be a loyal and supportive wife and a good mother and still fulfill her own dreams. Wait for the speech at the Convention.
The fact that her husband clearly adores Michelle is both refreshing and reassuring to many of us who long to find a good man who will love and appreciate us.
Recently, a friend who's a married professional mother of three girls wrote to me: "I think one of the most interesting things about Michelle Obama is that what she and her husband are doing is pretty revolutionary these days -- and I don't mean running for president. For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life -- let alone a life of service to others -- all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary."
It's how so many black professional women feel. And our hope is that if Michelle Obama becomes first lady, the revolution will come to us at last.
Posted by: Bobby ||
07/20/2008 08:10 ||
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#1
Mr. Perception, I'd like you to please meet Mr. Reality. Oh, you two already know one another?
#2
For a black man and woman in the U.S. to be happily married, with children, and working as partners to build a life ...all while rearing their children together is downright revolutionary.
Being married and raising a family is considered 'revolutionary'? That is the saddest thing I have read all week.
#3
black women also suffer from the perception that their achievements in school, business have been though affirmative action and not of their own doing. As with all overly-general perceptions, they start with some nugget of truth. AA and quotas do more to damage, in my mind, than help.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 11:39 Comments ||
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#4
We're still looking for respect in the workplace, where, more than anything else, black women feel invisible.
Congratulations, you've achieve American middle class. We're all an invisible gray. We buy into a concept in which there is no color, only status by merit. What you are articulating is that the original goals of the 50s and 60s Civil Rights movement have been achieved, only that's not what you really wanted. You want to be 'special', along with the perks and powers that come with being 'special'.
#5
On the other hand, when was the last time you saw a smart, accomplished black professional woman portrayed on mainstream television or in the movies?
Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, CSI Miami, Without a Trace, Heroes, Boston Legal... and that's with about five minutes of searching.
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 12:13 Comments ||
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#7
This is like a "Baby On Board" placard: Yuppies congratulating themselves (and bragging to the world) for doing what LOTS of people with less money and fewer advantages managed to do out of innate decency and moral fiber. WooHoo...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/20/2008 13:07 Comments ||
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Sorry, dahlink, but if you are going to go into a traditionally male profession, you are going to run the risk of being characterized that way by some of the guys there, regardless of your color, if you dare to occasionally speak up against behavior you find unacceptable. It has nothing to do with your pigmentation.
Deal with it or go somewhere there are more women colleagues.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
07/20/2008 14:30 Comments ||
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#9
But Michelle, do tell us about that $200,000 raise you got for your clerical job when your hubby became US Senator. That smells like a dead hippo.
#10
If, and I still say its a big If, Obama gets elected POTUS, this lady will make Hillary look like a Sunday school teacher. She will be spitting dragon fire around the country and head butting everyone of us to get with the program - which is, of course, repatriation. Don't believe me? Watch.
Posted by: Jack is Back! ||
07/20/2008 16:27 Comments ||
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#11
Oh boy. At least four more years of hearing people with more power and a LOT more money than I am BITCH about how much life sucks for them.
#13
If a woman chooses a professional career but really wants a husband and family, she'd better hold the wedding right after her graduation ceremony. The male marriage pool shrinks with age (despite divorces), as the women for whom marriage and family are important take the interested men out of circulation, and many of those remaining refuse to be tested against someone's Platonic ideal (ok, perhaps platonic isn't quite the right word here). It's an interesting bit mathematical theory, as it turns out, which should be great fun for those of you able to follow it. Certainly our baby boomer black female professional has no business complaining about what holds equally true for her non-black equals.
As for the rest of the whine, if she wanted everyone to be see her as gentle and supportive instead of ball-busting, she should have chosen a career in housewifery, where the odds of that are better. Although, "loud," "intimidating," "opinionated," "aggressive," and "hard" are often compliments in the business world... even a gentle and supportive little housewife like me knows that.
#15
"they're either indifferent to or dogmatically document the mistakes black women make. Their indifference is the worst, because it means we're invisible."
Be damned glad it's indifference. If you're as arrogant, loudmouthed and incompetent as most of the professional blacks I met in my career, "indifference" would have been replaced with an active and well-merited effort to have you fired for cause.
Just because you're black doesn't mean you're entitled to ANYTHING. Most people are indifferent to other people; so what? There aren't that many Mother Teresas running around. As for a lack of mentoring, it seems to me there are thousands of things like the "Journal of Blacks in Higher Education" out there. Nobody else gets those; only you poor, misguided, mistreated blacks.
I'm sick of the underperformance, the unwarranted arrogance, the attitude of presumptive entitlement, the constant "race card" playing, and, most particularly, the vastly disproportionate violent criminal activity. So are lots of other people, which is why most people of other races tend to see blacks negatively and avoid dealings with them when they can.
There she is -- no, not Miss America, but the Angela-Davis-Afro-wearing, machine-gun-toting, angry, unpatriotic Michelle Obama, greeting her husband with a fist bump instead of a kiss on the cheek.
Yeah, I can see why blacks wouldn't like that. It's too close to the real truth.
The biggest threat to the West is not al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan or Iran, but the country that, thanks to its laxity, has become the terrorists' chief hideout and breeding ground
It is not laxity. It is state policy. In 1947, the year it was created, Pakistan raised a jihadi militia and invaded Kashmir. The Pashtun tribals were so busy looting, even pausing to rape some Catholic nuns, that the Indians had time to send their own troops and take Srinagar. In 1965, there was Operation Gibralter, where Pakistan trained a jihadi militia and infiltrated them across the LOC along with regular Pak troops in disguise. They were supposed to provoke a rebellion. The locals reported them to the Indian army which sent its tanks across the international border deep into Pakistan proper. In 1999, they sent another group of jihadis, along with SSG commandos and the Northern Light Infantry across of the LOC to seize the Kargil heights. They were supposed to cut off the highway, allowing Pakistan to seize the region. A local shepherd reported the intrusion and the Indian army blasted them with hundreds of 155mm artillery guns, then sending in mountain warfare troops to remove them from the mountain peaks.
It's the threat to world peace that dares not speak its name.
In the early 80s the Pakistanis funded, trained and infiltrated Sikh terrorists in their Khalastani campaign. They blew up a 747 over the Irish sea. After the 1993 bombing of the Mumbai stock exchange, India recovered an unexploded bomb. The timer was US military issue - from a batch given to the Pakistan Army. In 1989, as the Afghan jihad was being wound down, Pakistan began training jihadis for war in Indian Kashmir. The Indian army has seized enough ordinance from dead jihadis to equip two complete army divisions.
We hear plenty about the dangers posed to our security by al-Qa'eda, Afghanistan and Iran. But when it comes to talking about the country that arguably constitutes the greatest threat to our everyday wellbeing, Pakistan hardly ever seems to merit a mention.
This is rather surprising, given that if you talk to any of the military commanders or politicians responsible for prosecuting the war against Islamist terrorism, Pakistan is the country that is almost universally identified as constituting the most serious active threat to our national security.
And it is also seen as the greatest obstacle to our efforts to combat the pernicious threat of jihad by terrorism.
Last week, the subject came up in conversations I had with one of our leading military commanders and a senior politician who is personally involved in the defence of the realm. About the only response I could evoke from my military acquaintance when I raised the thorny issue of Pakistan was a deep sigh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Ah yes, Pakistan," he said with a world-weary sigh. "A multitude of problems with no obvious solutions."
As for the politician, I was curious as to why the Government seems to have imposed a news blackout on making any statement that might be deemed critical of the Pakistani government. "The fact is, the country is teetering on the precipice of total collapse, and we don't want to be the ones to push it over the edge."
Indeed, the idea of Pakistan replicating the near-anarchy that prevails across the border in Afghanistan is almost too terrifying to contemplate.
While coalition forces have enjoyed much success in eradicating the operational infrastructure of the Taliban and al-Qa'eda in southern Afghanistan, they are deeply frustrated by the fact that the terrorists have simply been allowed to regroup and rebuild across the border in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.
British military commanders last week told The Sunday Telegraph that the five-fold increase in roadside bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan was the result of the training that Taliban fighters were receiving at religious schools in Pakistan, where they are being taught to make explosives and build improvised explosive devices.
And while al-Qa'eda is not the force it was when it carried out the September 11 attacks, Western intelligence experts believe the core of al-Qa'eda's leadership - possibly including Osama bin Laden himself - is based in the inhospitable mountain ranges of Waziristan in Pakistan, where they continue to plot their diabolical schemes to attack the West.
To this potent Taliban/al-Qa'eda terrorist mix has now been added the new ingredient of Pakistan's home-grown Islamist radicals, which Western security experts call the Pakistani Taliban to distinguish them from their Afghan neighbours.
The Pakistani Taliban is made up of indigenous Muslims who have been radicalised in one of the hundreds of Saudi-funded madrassahs, which openly preach that young Muslims have an obligation to wage Jihad against the infidels of the West.
Nearly all the major terror plots against Britain - both those that succeeded, such as the July 7 bombings, and those that have been foiled by the vigilance of our security services - have been linked in some way to Pakistan.
We've noticed that, as have some smart Brits, but the gummint there seems to be going out of its way not to notice ...
The emergence of a new, home-grown terrorist organisation in Pakistan has dramatically increased the threat the country poses to Britain.
As if this wasn't enough to give us all sleepless nights, Pakistan is the only Muslim country known to possess a nuclear weapons arsenal.
So long as President Pervez Musharraf remains the country's titular head, the West has some degree of assurance that Pakistan's nukes remain secure for, in his former capacity as the head of Pakistan's armed forces, Musharraf allowed US officials to make sure the necessary safeguards were in place to ensure the nukes did not fall into the wrong hands.
Al-Qa'eda's training manuals make no secret of the fact that the organisation would love to get its hands on a nuclear device, and the only two likely places it could do this are Pakistan and Iran.
Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, spent the Nineties making a tidy profit from hawking his nuclear-bomb blueprints to some of the world's less stable regimes, and North Korea, Libya and Iran were among some of the more notorious beneficiaries.
Although Dr Khan was placed under house arrest after his activities were exposed by Western intelligence agencies in 2002, Pakistan's new coalition government, bowing to nationalist pressure, has indicated it is prepared to rehabilitate the disgraced nuclear scientist, even though the West is still struggling to come to terms with the consequences of his clandestine nuclear proliferation network.
This is just one of several disturbing developments to emerge from Pakistan since the new coalition government took power earlier this year, in reaction to the West putting pressure on Mr Musharraf to return the country to democratic rule. At the time, both London and Washington believed that Pakistan having a democratic government would increase its co-operation in fighting terrorism. In fact, the opposite appears to have happened.
Since most Paks, whatever their affiliation, agree with the terrorists: Pakistain is the land of the pure, there are infidels everywhere, and it's necessary to have jihad. The Paks won't allow themselves to be 'surrounded', won't allow Tajiks and Uzbeks to run Afghanistan, and won't allow Kashmir to go its own way. Doesn't matter who's in charge in Islamabad.
Pakistan was created by Indian Muslims who did not want to live in a democratic state where there would be one man, one vote. When they didn't get their way, they created their own country and built a new capital - Islamabad - The city of Islam, complete with its Mughal-Stalanist architecture. Even then there was the hope that India would soon break up and Pakistan, and its share of the British Indian Army, would dominate the weaker states of the subcontinent. For Pakistan to live in peace with its neighbors, especially India, requires Pakistanis to accept that they will not rule the subcontinent, that they will be dominated militarily, culturally, economically by non-Muslims. It requires Pakistanis to give up all hope of being the equal or better of India. That violates their concept of Islam. For Allah promised that the Muslims would conquer, that all would fall under the sway of Islam. If this is not the case, then what the Koran promised is incorrect. Pakistan might as well not exist. They might as well not be Muslims. Such a thing is far too traumatic. Hence we have perpetual jihad.
The West might have been frustrated by what it perceived as Mr Musharraf's lack of commitment to rooting out terror groups in Waziristan, but at least while he was directly running the country there were sporadic bouts of activity. But talk to any of the military commanders involved with prosecuting the war against the Taliban and al-Qa'eda, and they will tell you that Pakistani co-operation has virtually ground to a halt since the coalition government took control.
Until now, the West has maintained a discreet silence about its concerns regarding Pakistan's lack of commitment to rooting out Islamist terror cells, hoping that the new government in Islamabad can be persuaded to mend its ways. But the West's mounting frustration is unlikely to be contained for much longer.
Barack Obama, the Democrat presidential nominee, last week became the first leading Western politician to voice his frustration with Islamabad when he declared that he would have no hesitation in ordering American troops to pursue terror suspects across the Pakistani border "if Pakistan cannot or will not act".
The Pakistanis ignore this shot across their bows at their peril.
The Paks are going to bet on the fact that Barack Obama is an empty suit, and they may be right. Obama can talk tough about a country that's far away, but if he's willing to back down in Iraq, why would the Paks believe he'll be tough on them?
#1
On that last comment from Dr. Steve, if Candidate Obama can speak so, Candidate McCain can go even farther... which should prove interesting to all parties.
The uncovering of a second Arab-Israeli cell with ties to Al-Qaida in the space of a few weeks does not quite suggest that an attack by international Islamic terrorism is imminent. But we are still able to learn two things: that among Arab Israelis, like the Palestinians in the territories, there is growing support for the messages of Al-Qaida, and that the Israeli security services are also countering terrorist plans also through the Internet.
The Bedouin men from Rahat who were arrested several weeks ago on suspicion of providing information on Israeli sites of possible attacks by Al-Qaida (including Ben-Gurion International Airport), and the cell on whose arrest a gag order was lifted Friday, operated in similar ways. In the latter case, the suspects are two Arab Israelis from Nazareth and Taibeh, who linked up with four Palestinians living in East Jerusalem. Their religious-ideological commitment was directed toward a terrorist plot (the six belonged to a religious study group at the Temple Mount). The cell contacted people linked with Al-Qaida through the Internet, collected basic information on possible targets and sought instruction on ways to carry out the attacks. It still seems they were a long way from being able to carry out any attacks.
There is something a bit deceptive about the Shin Bet security service announcement, according to which the six joined "the Al-Qaida organization" in February this year. Israeli intelligence almost never uses the term "organization" to describe Al-Qaida and prefers the description "international jihad movement." Al-Qaida is seen today as a loose network of organizations, which shares an extremist Islamic ideology and does not abide by a detailed and organized hierarchical structure. If anyone is imagining the six were sworn in to the organization in the middle of the night by Osama bin Laden, then he is in for a disappointment. It is a lot more likely that they communicated in Internet chat-rooms with individuals like themselves, who could have been a Pakistani youth in London or agents in Tel Aviv.
The latest case also attracted some international attention because U.S. President George Bush's name came up in relation to it. One of the suspects took a photograph of the helicopter landing pad on which the president's helicopter was scheduled to land in Jerusalem, and asked for instructions on ways to target it. However there was a long way to go between the suspect's wishes and a practical plan: He lacked both the means and the technical expertise to strike at the president. What the cell did do, according to the indictment, and this is by no means minor - is to collect basic intelligence for an operation. The collection of intelligence, as well as the wish of Arab Israelis and Palestinians with 'blue' (Israeli) identifications, to carry out serious terrorist attacks, is troubling. No less troubling is the growing identification they sense with the agenda of Al-Qaida, which is much more extremist than that of Hamas or of the extremist wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel. For some years now the public declarations of Bin-Laden and his aides have increasingly focused on Israel and Jewish communities around the world as targets for terrorist attacks. It is also known that cells linked with Al-Qaida operate with relative ease in the Gaza Strip.
The desire of Al-Qaida to operate in Israel is finding fertile ground. There are those who will willingly offer assistance - and therefore the likelihood of a strike by international jihad on Israeli soil (similar attacks have already taken place in Jordan and Sinai) is of reasonable likelihood.
#1
the likelihood of a strike by international jihad on Israeli soil (similar attacks have already taken place in Jordan and Sinai) is of reasonable likelihood.
Not if you publically hang the ones you've caught, then bury them in pig lard. I'm sure the word will get out. Then deport the families of these sh$$heads to some Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank. Also, start putting a few mild restrictions on Israeli Arabs, cranking them up each time you discover one of these "cells". Pretty soon, the Israeli Arabs will either learn to behave, or they'll leave of their own accord. It's time to quit putting up with this BS, in Israel AND in the US. Squeeze the "enablers" until they hurt, then squeeze them some more.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 16:53 Comments ||
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#2
Al Qaeda's reputation has taken a nosedive in the middle east because they've murdered so many Muslims.
Politically, they NEED some high profile anti-joo attacks.
Posted by: Bin thinking again ||
07/20/2008 22:13 Comments ||
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Virtually no heroes can be found in the affair of the abducted soldiers, except for the noble Regev and Goldwasser families. Surely a cack-handed cabinet that hastened to wage war without pausing to reflect, and a vociferous media with a penchant for exaggerations and sentimental melodrama, are not among these heroes.
But maybe, in addition to the Regevs and the Goldwassers, we can add Ofer Dekel to the list, for his performance as the government's representative in the negotiations to return the two soldiers' bodies. He helped make the best out of a difficult situation, and at minimal cost.
Dekel operated within a rigid framework, made up of a government that needed an achievement, and to put an end to this affair; a reckless and impatient media; and the genuine human drama of the missing soldiers' families'.
Through it, he managed to keep a clear head. He correctly assessed that the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, is not the all-powerful sorcerer he's made out to be, and that Hezbollah - yes, even the mighty and dreaded Hezbollah - had some constraints that could be exploited.
One constraint stems from the organization's primary source of power - its status as the only armed militia inside Lebanon.
Its raison d'etre, in all the agreements within Lebanon and in other Arab countries, was resisting Israel's presence in Lebanon. The Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 stripped it of its legitimacy. How can Hezbollah justify its existence as a militia now?
The pressures to disarm Hezbollah increased with Syria's pullout from Lebanon in March 2005.
Furthermore, its need to take action against Israel, to justify its military component, produced the July 2006 kidnapping. In staging this attack, as Nasrallah himself admitted in retrospect, Hezbollah did not take into account a massive Israeli reaction.
This means that even the great Nasrallah makes mistakes, despite our commentators' insistence that he reads us like a book.
The other constraint is that Iran was upset over Hezbollah's reckless move, as the abduction was construed in Tehran. Furthermore, Iran was displeased with Hezbollah's use of long-range missiles, which were meant exclusively for a large-scale showdown with Israel.
This is why Iran has forbidden the organization to use the missiles until further notice.
Obviously, the Iranians are not eager to see a second round of hostilities with Israel - certainly not while they are attempting to dampen the international and diplomatic pressure over their uranium enrichment program.
Iran has an interest in presenting itself as a reasonable and responsible regional power.
This all means that despite Hezbollah's rearmament drive, it does not possess a military option right now. The balance of terror in the north is tipping in the favor of the Israel Defense Forces, as Hezbollah has reason to fear a ferocious Israeli retaliation for its military activities, in the name of a rematch or revenge.
Hezbollah's need to legitimize itself as an armed militia is becoming more pressing in light of how the March 14 Alliance, a coalition of anti-Syrian political parties and independents in Lebanon, is gaining support.
Hezbollah, which the Christian-Sunni-Druze alliance considers an enemy of Lebanese sovereignty, can justify its existence with nothing more than the pitiful pretext of liberating the Shaba Farms, which Hezbollah's detractors have ridiculed and belittled.
Another grave error by Nasrallah - May's forceful takeover of the Sunni quarter in Beirut - increased the need for legitimacy.
The takeover clearly showed that the militia is battling not just the Zionists, but also coreligionists: Lebanese Sunnis. Following the murder of its leader Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese Sunni establishment has become a strong believer in a strong and independent Lebanon.
The newly founded alliance between Christians and Druze has consolidated itself even further, while Sunni Muslim movements outside Lebanon, headed by Egypt's Muslim brotherhood, strongly rebuked Hezbollah for perpetrating this act - which Sunnis call an act of civil war.
If Hezbollah is sensitive to any sort of media coverage, it is not the coverage by Al Jazeera, with its amorphous and sentimental viewership.
Hezbollah cares about winning supporters from fanatical sister sects and Muslim organizations. This is especially true now that the Sunni-Shi'ite gulf is widening from its rupture point in Iraq.
The conclusion is that Hezbollah is in grave need of an achievement that would help it legitimize its existence as a militia.
Dekel apparently comprehended this, as well as Hezbollah's poor bargaining chips.
After all, the Israeli team negotiated under the near-certain assumption that the two MIAs were dead. Dekel understood the weaknesses of an organization that many perceive to be omnipotent, and this is why he was able to run a truly praiseworthy negotiation process.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/20/2008 01:14 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[4 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
#1
This guy just doesn't get it -
Hezbollah has guns and money and is happy to kill its opponents, thats the only legitimacy it needs. And any other status it has it gets from winning propaganda victories, which this was.
#4
I disagree with almost everyone here. Not that Olmert's not a crook, which he certainly seems to be, but that his decision not to send in massive ground forces into Lebanon was precisely correct. Put simply, it would not have been enough to damage Hezbollah, it would have to be and stay defeated. The only way to do that would have been to reoccupy the country, and there is simply no way that the U.S. could have supported such an occupation. The prisoner exchange makes Hezbollah look weak, not strong.
#5
I dunno, Perfesser, the exchange makes Nasty look like a man who can get stuff done. That makes him look good to the rubes.
The Israelis are in a bad situation up north. Their army was allowed to deteriorate, the Hezbies have protection, and the world doesn't mind at all that the Hezbies are killing Jooos. Next time they have to go up there they might as well toss the Hezbies and re-occupy southern Lebanon -- the condemnation won't be any worse.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 10:02 Comments ||
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#1
About six months ago, they decided to put a hunch to the test. Janikowski merged his computer map of crime patterns with Bettss map of Section8 rentals.
Hardly rocket science. If the federal government is permitted to FEED the vermin, they will come. Ask any Orkin Man. Second-order effects; declining school standards and rejected school systems, closed businesses, declining home values, homes that won't sell, unwanted subdivisions and communities.
#2
they do their damndest to avoid talking about race, absence of fathers, cultural acceptance of crime and welfare (which is what section 8 is). What they need is a Community Organizer, huh?
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 10:26 Comments ||
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#3
When I lived in Irvine, CA, the communist mayor of Irvine, Larry Agran, embraced the Section 8 program as a way to "help" the disadvantaged in Orange County.
I was away one Christmas and my house was burglarized. The police told me there had been 12 buglaries in my neighborhood in one week. They tracked the burglar down through an informant and the culprit was the first Section 8 guy moved into Irvine, in my neighborhood.
This nexus between Section 8 and crime does not surprise me at all.
I personally believe it is a class warfare program developed by the leftists in Congress to destroy the middle class.
Let's see:
Ruin the public school system and dumb down the middle class
Sexualize women, promote promiscuity among teen age girls and destroy the nuclear family
Demonize organized religion
Increase the role of the central government in every phase of our lives.
The latest addition is the "National Security Force" that Obama is promoting.
Looks like Obama and the dems in congress spend more time reading Trotsky than they do Keynes or Adam Smith or even Volker or Greenspan.
Posted by: James Carville ||
07/20/2008 10:39 Comments ||
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#4
Ima starting to think this ain't the real Cajun Cueball.
Posted by: Wayne Anthony nutz ||
07/20/2008 11:21 Comments ||
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#6
Phyllis Betts told me that when she was interviewing residents leaving the housing projects, they were under the impression they could move into the new developments on site. Residents were asked to help name the new developments and consult on the architectural plans. Yet to move back in, residents had to meet strict criteria: if they were not seniors, they had to be working, or in school, or on disability. Their children could not be delinquent in school. Most public-housing residents were scared off by the criteria, or couldnt meet them, or else theyd already moved and didnt want to move again. The new HOPE VI developments aimed to balance Section8 and market-rate residents, but this generally hasnt happened. In Memphis, the rate of former public-housing residents moving back in is 5 percent.
Sounds pretty reasonable to me. I mean for Pete's sake, we need to draw the line somewhere. What good does subsidizing irresponsible, counter-productive behavior do? My guess is that it only exacerbates the problem.
Is it a shame that only 5 percent of residents could meet such basic and lenient criteria? Absolutely. But there's only so much you can do to help someone. At some point, they need to help themselves.
#7
We could start to utilize some of the family housing on downsized and closed military bases. But to keep them from turning into new ghettoes and projects, there has to be tight criteria on who gets in, and behavior standards for staying. Yes, I'm suggesting a tight "leash" on these families - especially those lead by a single female with male children. There needs to be a large male presence in the lives of these boys - to teach them what is expected of men in America. You can't leave it up to the television, the same medium that gives us "pimp my whatever" and "thug-life".
Maybe I'm too idealic, but I don't think that anyone wants to be a POS, they simply evolve into it while no one is watching or doing any thing to stop it.
Enough is enough. Decent people shouldn't have to be the heard that feeds these predators. Some need to go away, they're simply too far gone to be mended. Many can be turned from their futures as crimnials and ganstas, but it will take a lot of effort - every day, not just fresh paint on new walls.
#8
You might have something there Rob06. At least if the housing is inside an intact perimeter fence with guard towers & such. Just fence 'em in instead of out. Then you don't have to worry much about the rest of the standards
Here in Katrina-land crime was WAAAYYYY down - for about a year. And I mean crime rate, not raw numbers. But then we brought most of our scum back from Houston, Dallas, Atlanta etc. And they brought their 'friends' and newfound 'skills', so our crime rate is worse than ever now.
#9
Glenmore, there's a way to fix that. It's called "trolling for alligators". Works well, too. Or you could raise a couple of mil, hire Sherrif Joe Arpio away from Arizona, and turn him loose in New Orleans.
My family lives north of the Red River, where there are fewer problems, but also fewer people. New Orleans is, and has been since the late 1840's, a problem. It takes strong men and strong willpower to put a stop to it, neither of which are common down there.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
07/20/2008 16:43 Comments ||
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#10
Thought I'd post the list of the top 10 cities by violent crime rates and rankings for 2006. A few others are listed for comparison. I was a little surprised to see Anchorage, Alaska and Saginaw, MI. on the list. My recollection of Saginaw of about 10 or so years ago was that it was a sleepy little city. What happened to Chicago, D.C., Detroit, and Youngstown?
Memphis topped the list of 311 metro areas in its 2006 rate of violent crime -- homicide, rape, aggravated assault and robbery. The top 10 and selected others (violent crimes per 100,000 residents):
#14
Not necessarily, take Gainesville FL (Hogtown) it was a crossing on a minor river before an Ag School was built there, then the crime rate exploded, and the hawgs are always paranoid now.
Seriously, tho, the college first, then the crime.. low crime.. except for the occasional Ted Bundy and Rollins.
#15
Two comments: first, wherever there are sizable concentrations of blacks there will be a disproportionate amount of crime. Why this is so is an exercise left to the reader but that it IS so is indisputable.
Second, don't believe the figures. There's a tremendous amount of sleight of hand involved in compiling them. Rudy Giuliani did some good work in NY but he fudged the figures by having a lot of crimes simply not recorded as crimes. When the situation is actually on the edge of out of control, it is in the authorities' best interest to downplay the problem as much as possible. British police departments, and the Met in particular, are supposed to be world-class at this "reevaluation/recategorization" of real violent crime incidents.
In short, it's the usual thing: a group of boneheaded malcontents blaming others for their self-created problems and the authorities trying to hide the magnitude of the problems said malcontents cause. The only answer is to get a CCW and be prepared to protect yourself, and if you live in a place where that isn't possible, move to one where it is.
#17
And remember, Section 8 housing is how Daley has remade Chicago, closing the high-rise filing cabinets that imprisoned a lot of folks (Stateway Gardens, Cabrini-Green, etc.) and shoving them into the boondoggles and crooked low-rise housing.
The kind Obama was involved in, with friends, as a 'community organizer'.
See the superb article in the Boston Globe for more.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 20:35 Comments ||
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#18
SW - see comment #2 :-)
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/20/2008 21:25 Comments ||
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#19
I was just 'adding and extending' :-)
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/20/2008 21:32 Comments ||
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