While the Taliban get all the headlines, the main source of the violence in Afghanistan is the money from the heroin trade. This is what pays to arm and encourage (with payments to the gunmen, or to their families after their sons die in action) young men to get involved. The Taliban also take advantage of the ancient Pushtun tradition of fighting outsiders. The result of all this has been a few thousand Taliban and al Qaeda fighting wandering around southern Afghanistan, terrorizing locals into supporting them (with food, and no cell phone calls to the police). Because most of the Pushtuns want nothing to do with more violence, more and more of the gunmen are foreigners. Most are from Pakistan, but hundreds are from outside the region, mostly Arabs.
The majority of Afghans have nothing to do with all this. Partly this is because about 60 percent of the population are not Pushtuns, and consider the Taliban another example of Pushtun madness they want no part of. The rest of the country still has the usual problems of corruption, banditry and tribal politics, but nothing as nasty as the Taliban and their murderous religious fanaticism.
U.S. and NATO commanders know they cannot be beaten. The combination of more capable troops, air reconnaissance (especially hundreds of UAVs) and smart bombs, enables Taliban fighters to be killed quickly, whenever the enemy stays in one place too long. But there are more groups of Taliban running around southern Afghanistan than there are Western troops available to go kill them. NATO commanders know their history, that the Pushtun tribes can be beaten, but that it will require,they calculate, another three brigades. This will enable a large enough number of Taliban fighters to be killed, in a short enough period, to break the morale of the Pushtuns still willing to go out and carry a gun for the Taliban. Getting those additional troops will be difficult, largely because of domestic politics in the West. Europeans, in particular, are eager to find a way to not get involved. The Europeans have allowed their armed forces to waste away since the end of the Cold War in 1991, and the general attitude is more receptive to making some kind of deal with the Islamic radicals, rather than hunting down and killing them. The Islamic radicals know this, and are willing to say whatever the Europeans want to hear in order to get Western troops out of Afghanistan. To help that process, al Qaeda is concentrating suicide and roadside bombing attacks on European troops, because of the potential political payoff back in Europe.
The Taliban have been unable to come up with any tactic to neutralize this Western advantage. However, the Taliban believe that if they keep up the violence long enough, many of the nations, especially the Europeans, supplying troops will tire of the effort and pull their forces out. If a leftist president is elected in the United States this Fall, the Taliban see an opportunity for reducing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. Even without that, the Taliban leaders believe they can simply outlast any foreign efforts to "pacify" the Pushtun tribes.
The Afghan government, which is dominated by Pushtuns, see the Taliban as an uprising by some tribal factions seeking power in the traditional way. As the Taliban did in the 1990s, the Taliban want to restore their religious dictatorship, which would be dominated by Pushtun tribal leaders who are religious enough, and ruthless enough, to enforce Taliban rules (no schools for girls, harsh rules for women, no fun for men and no tolerance for anything but conservative Sunni Islam). This outcome scares the crap out of most Afghans, who will resist violently. They have no doubts what Taliban rule would be like, having suffered it in the 1990s.
The Afghan government, and the majority (over 80 percent, including most Pushtuns) of Afghans see the Taliban as not just a bunch of Pushtun religious zealots trying to take control of the government, but another effort by evil neighbor Pakistan to take control of Afghanistan via the Taliban. It's true that Pakistan armed and organized the first Taliban combat units, recruiting Pushtun refugees (from the 1980s war with the Russians) living in Pakistani camps, and attending Saudi funded religious schools. This was the faction in the Pakistani government which agreed with the concept of an Islamic religious dictatorship as the solution for the world's ills. This attitude is a minority one in Pakistan, but is tolerated because these fanatics are found at all levels of society, and are organized for self-protection. But the majority of Pakistanis are actively opposed to the Islamic conservatives, again thanks to al Qaeda and their tactics of bombings that kill lots of innocent civilians. This is the usual terrorist self-destructive death spiral. The terrorists kill civilians, turning the people against them and are eventually wiped out by an enraged population. It's happened before, it just happened in Iraq and it's happening now in Afghanistan.
#1
It doesn't seem to me to be happening in Afghanistan. The Taliwhackers seem to have an inexhaustible supply of cannon fodder and money from opium. If they need 3 more brigades, why don't we send 5 and snuff these miserable choads. We have been trying to fight this war on the cheap from day one and I can't figure out why. It's frustrating as hell just reading about it. I can't imagine having to serve in the military there and follow their ridiculous orders and ROE's.
#2
The reason, or at least the best reason I can see, that we have been fighting this war on the cheap is the lack of a port. If we go in with an even heavier footprint, The ISI will have our supply lines by the short ones.
This is the place where Special Forces should have gone in, done the job, turned it over to whomever was on top, told 'em if we had to come back everybody would be killed and gotten out. Trying to nation build Afghanistan is a fools errand. Iraq ain't much better, but at least we have secure lines of communication.
July 3, 2008: FARC is falling apart at both ends, with its high command infiltrated by government intelligence agencies, and the lower ranks demoralized and surrendering or deserting in growing numbers. The recent rescue of fifteen high value FARC hostages showed the world, and the FARC leadership, how much the government knew about the inner workings of FARC, especially how the senior FARC leaders communicated with subordinates. It's not like the FARC leadership couldn't see this coming. FARC has lost three of its seven most senior leaders so far this year, in many cases laptop computers and other electronic files were captured. FARC seriously underestimated what the government could do with this stuff. Now the FARC high command is in a panic, and the FARC rank-and-file are even more demoralized. For the last few months, FARC has been losing over 500 people a month to desertions (mostly) and casualties (including people getting too ill to continue because of the harsh life in the bush). FARC strength is down to 8,000, and falling, mainly because recruiting is becoming difficult. A decade ago, FARC has nearly 20,000 gunmen on the payroll. The drug gangs are getting the best recruits these days, and the gangs are now starting to move against FARC, to reverse the process that, over the last decade, had enabled FARC to become a major factor in the drug business (by either pushing the drug gangs out, or forcing the gangs to pay "protection" money to the FARC. This process is tempting the more successful FARC commanders to just drop all the FARC political nonsense, and concentrate on being a drug gangster. When it comes to money and politics, most people view the latter as a means to obtain the former.
July 2, 2008: The army pulled off a spectacular commando operation that resulted in the release of fifteen prominent hostages (including three Americans and former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt) and capture of several mid-level FARC leaders. The operation was based on using captured documents, and interrogations of recently captured or surrendered FARC members, to successfully send a false order, allegedly from the new FARC commander, for the FARC unit holding the fifteen hostages, to march them to a nearby NGO (non-governmental organization) operation, and board helicopters that would carry the hostages to the new location. Once in the air, the FARC guards were disarmed by the commandos (posing as FARC operatives) and arrested. The shocked hostages were then told that they had been rescued. This will become one of the textbook examples of how to carry out a high-risk, big payoff type operations.
June 27, 2008: Unable to oust their archenemy from office via the ballot box, president Uribe's political foes have apparently gotten to the Supreme Court judges. Bribing politicians and judges is an old problem in this part of the world, and it is often used as a way to get opponents removed from the political scene. The latest attempt against Uribe is the Supreme Court declaring his 2006 re-election illegal. Uribe called for a referendum on the matter, or a new election. While Uribe has a 70 percent approval rating with the voters, he is less popular with most politicians. Uribes crackdown on FARC and the drug gangs has cost a lot of politicians and judges a lot of money. Uribe's successes have also been embarrassing for public officials who have been around for a while, and have long complained that "nothing could be done."
June 24, 2008: Resumption of diplomatic ties with Ecuador has been put off. Ecuador's leftist president was caught supporting the FARC earlier this year, when Colombian troops raided a FARC camp just across the border in Ecuador. Laptops with very incriminating email and documents were captured, but Ecuador president Rafael Correa vacillated between apologies and new pledges to bring down the non-leftist government in Colombia. Correa has serious economic and political problems at home, so bad-mouthing Colombia provides a useful distraction. Colombia is not sure Correa has really stopped providing aid to FARC, and is willing to risk loss of trade ($1.5 billion a year in exports to Ecuador, about half as much in imports) with its neighbor until the matter is resolved.
Mounting pressure from non-Jewish groups and the Israeli Embassy in Berlin has led the German Sports Science Association and the University of Göttingen to convene special sessions to address an anti-Semitic theory propagated by Göttingen Prof. Arnd Krüger.
At an academic conference on June 20 in Göttingen, Lower Saxony, Krüger argued in his lecture on 'Hebron and Munich: How do we communicate sports history without getting caught in [the] snare of anti-Semitism?' that the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches who died at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich essentially committed suicide 'for the cause of Israel.'
According to a report in the mass-circulation daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, Krüger contends the sportsmen sacrificed themselves to prolong financial restitution from Germany, and to preserve guilt among Germans due to the Holocaust.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Some noxious weeds sprout back up no matter how many times you take the spade to them....
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
07/03/2008 10:15 Comments ||
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#2
Hey, they could always get a gig at a California state university or college or for that matter a chair in the ethics department of a Colorado university in Boulder.
Democratic presidential presumptive Sen. Barack Obama (IL) met with his terrorist supporting fundraiser, Jodie Evans, at a $5 million Hollywood fundraiser held last week at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion on Tuesday, June 24.
In what can only be described as a big middle finger to the veterans and military families who have urged Obama to renounce Evans, Obama met with Evans and was photographed with her at the fundraiser. Evans is co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink. She and Code Pink have endorsed the terrorists in Iraq and have sent over $600,000 in cash and humanitarian aid to 'the other side' in Fallujah.
Evans said in an interview last month on June 3 that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had a 'valid argument' for attacking America on Sept. 11, 2001.
Continued on Page 49
#1
Gee Jodie, you must represent at least 2% of the the population. He should bend over and kiss his own ass for you if you tell him to. If it were not for your $5million fund raiser, he would throw you under the bus with his grandmother.
We're beginning to understand why Barack Obama keeps protesting so vigorously against the prospect of "George Bush's third term." Maybe he's worried that someone will notice that he's the candidate who's running for it.
Most Presidential candidates adapt their message after they win their party nomination, but Mr. Obama isn't merely "running to the center." He's fleeing from many of his primary positions so markedly and so rapidly that he's embracing a sizable chunk of President Bush's policy. Who would have thought that a Democrat would rehabilitate the much-maligned Bush agenda?
Take the surveillance of foreign terrorists. Last October, while running with the Democratic pack, the Illinois Senator vowed to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies" that assisted in such eavesdropping after 9/11. As recently as February, still running as the liberal favorite against Hillary Clinton, he was one of 29 Democrats who voted against allowing a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee reform of surveillance rules even to come to the floor.
Two weeks ago, however, the House passed a bill that is essentially the same as that Senate version, and Mr. Obama now says he supports it. Apparently legal immunity for the telcos is vital for U.S. national security, just as Mr. Bush has claimed. Apparently, too, the legislation isn't an attempt by Dick Cheney to gut the Constitution. Perhaps it is dawning on Mr. Obama that, if he does become President, he'll be responsible for preventing any new terrorist attack. So now he's happy to throw the New York Times under the bus.
Next up for Mr. Obama's political blessing will be Mr. Bush's Iraq policy. Only weeks ago, the Democrat was calling for an immediate and rapid U.S. withdrawal. When General David Petraeus first testified about the surge in September 2007, Mr. Obama was dismissive and skeptical. But with the surge having worked wonders in Iraq, this week Mr. Obama went out of his way to defend General Petraeus against MoveOn.org's attacks in 2007 that he was "General Betray Us." Perhaps he had a late epiphany.
Look for Mr. Obama to use his forthcoming visit to Iraq as an excuse to drop those withdrawal plans faster than he can say Jeremiah Wright "was not the person that I met 20 years ago." The Senator will learn as John McCain has been saying that withdrawal would squander the gains from the surge, set back Iraqi political progress, and weaken America's strategic position against Iran. Our guess is that he'll spin this switcheroo as some kind of conditional commitment, saying he'll stay in Iraq as long as Iraqis are making progress on political reconciliation, and so on. As things improve in Iraq, this would be Mr. Bush's policy too.
Mr. Obama has also made ostentatious leaps toward Mr. Bush on domestic issues. While he once bid for labor support by pledging a unilateral rewrite of Nafta, the Democrat now says he favors free trade as long as it works for "everybody." His economic aide, Austan Goolsbee, has been liberated from the five-month purdah he endured for telling Canadians that Mr. Obama's protectionism was merely campaign rhetoric. Now that Mr. Obama is in a general election, he can't scare the business community too much.
Back in the day, the first-term Senator also voted against the Supreme Court nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. But last week he agreed with their majority opinion in the Heller gun rights case, and with their dissent against the liberal majority's ruling to ban the death penalty for rape. Mr. Obama seems to appreciate that getting pegged as a cultural lefty is deadly for national Democrats at least until November.
This week the great Democratic hope even endorsed spending more money on faith-based charities. Apparently, this core plank of Mr. Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is not the assault on church-state separation that the ACLU and liberals have long claimed. And yesterday, Mr. Obama's campaign unveiled an ad asserting his support for welfare reform that "slashed the rolls by 80 percent." Never mind that Mr. Obama has declared multiple times that he opposed the landmark 1996 welfare reform.
All of which prompts a couple of thoughts. The first is that Mr. Obama doesn't seem to think American political sentiment has moved as far left as most of the media claim. Another is that the next President, whether Democrat or Republican, is going to embrace much of Mr. Bush's foreign and antiterror policy whether he admits it or not. Think Eisenhower endorsing Truman's Cold War architecture.
Most important is the matter of Mr. Obama's political character and how honest he is being about what he truly believes. His voting record in the Senate and in Illinois, as well as his primary positions, would make him the most liberal Presidential candidate since George McGovern in 1972. But he clearly doesn't want voters to believe that in November. He's still the Obama Americans don't know.
#1
The "much maligned Bush agenda" is bad only because Bush is running it. By the same token, even jogging (which was good when Clinton was doing it) is bad because George Bush jogs. (Yes liberals were actually claiming this)
Obama (like John F'ing Kerry) is counting on Liberals realizing that this is just a charade, but all those dumb flyover Americans will be too stupid to notice.
God help us if he succeeds.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/03/2008 13:11 Comments ||
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#2
Look for Mr. Obama to use his forthcoming visit to Iraq as an excuse to drop those withdrawal plans faster than he can say Jeremiah Wright "was not the person that I met 20 years ago."
Code Pink loonies would flip out. That might be fun to watch.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/03/2008 14:50 Comments ||
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#3
Cause we know all about George's life long association with the likes of Rev. Wright and Mr. Ayers. Now just don't worry know you simple folk, it's all going to be alleft alright.
Danny Gillerman, outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations, told the Israel-American Chamber of Commerce, that the U.N. can be "a crazy world." He joked, "You know you're in a crazy world when world's greatest rapper is white, the world's greatest golfer is black, the world's greatest soldiers are Jewish, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the French accuse the Americans of being arrogant."
Gillerman said he was proud as an Israeli when he appeared in the U.N. because he represented "a country that is far better than most member states of the U.N. with the possible exception of the United States." He also noted that Muslims lead the world in violence and terror.
"Muslims are killing Muslims. When Christians kill Muslims, it's the Crusades. When Jews kill Muslims it's murder, and when Muslims kill Muslims, it's like talking about the weather. Nobody really cares about it," he said.
The UN Human Rights Council is not allowed to judge religions, according to president Doru Romulus Costea of Romania. Criticism of Sharia law or fatwas is now forbidden.
How about criticizing the Jooos? Not going to be much of a UN Human Rights Council if they can't criticize the Jooos.
This ruling follows attempts by the Egyptian and Pakistani delegates at the Council to silence criticism of human rights abuse in the Islamic world.
The representative of the Association for World Education, in a joint statement with the International Humanist and Ethical Union, had denounced the stoning to death of women accused of adultery and of girls being married at the age of nine years old in countries where Sharia law applies. The speaker, David Littman, was interrupted by no fewer than 16 points of order and the proceedings of the Council were suspended for forty minutes when the Egyptian delegate said that Islam will not be crucified in this Council and attempted to force a vote on whether the speaker should be allowed to continue.
On giving his ruling after the break Council President Costea said that the Council 'is not prepared to discuss religious questions and we dont have to do so'. 'Declarations must avoid judgments or evaluation about religion. I promise that next time a speaker judges a religion or a religious law or document, I will interrupt him and pass on to the next speaker'.
Litmann, who is also a representative for the World Union of Progressive Judaism, had been threatened before following a statement he made in January in which he had criticized the Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, a matter deemed irrelevant by the Council in the debate condemning Israeli incursions into Gaza.
When stopped, Litmann had opined that there is something rotten in the state of this Council. For this, the WUPJ had been threatened with expulsion form the UN and its president summoned to appear before the NGO Committee in New York and forced to apologise.
#1
I just read the first five paragraphs or so, but I think the jist is that the Useless Nitwits are doing all they can to accommodate and advance Sharia law.
When can we move that worthless headquarters building to Brussels? Or perhaps Islamabad? It's very presence is an ugly stain on American soil.
#2
The time to end the UN farce is here. The scum has taken control. The US taxpayer is funding their jollies. Is the correct term "cognitive disconnect "?
#1
Old cold war Soviet joke,
"What do you do when you hear the attack warning siren?'
"You wrap yourself in a sheet and walk slowly to the cemetery."
"Why do you walk slowly?"
"Comrade, you don't want to start a panic!"
Posted by: bruce ||
07/03/2008 15:08 Comments ||
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#2
The primary aim of the enemy is no longer to occupy the country but to change its regime
Regime change would be nice but I thought the primary goal would be to disable the nuke program. Reduce the place to rubble and let the survivors figure out what to do with it.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
07/03/2008 15:24 Comments ||
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Since the agreement on the tahadiyeh (lull) was reached between Hamas and Israel on June 19, the border crossings between Israel and Gaza have already been closed six times in response to Palestinian rocket fire. Israeli officials acknowledge that none of these attacks was carried out by Hamas. Hamas, nevertheless, is keeping itself busy.
The organization's military wing is putting in place preparations based on a comprehensive strategy for facing an expected eventual large IDF operation into Gaza. Hamas gunmen are training extensively to play their allotted roles within this strategy.
The model for Hamas is Hizbullah's preparations for and conduct of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The evidence suggests that Hamas is using its uncontested control in Gaza to effect a qualitative change in its abilities and ambitions.
Hamas's strategy derives at the highest level from the group's muqawama (resistance) doctrine. According to this view, Israel's Achilles' heel is its inability to absorb large numbers of military and civilian casualties. Hamas believes Israel's will can be broken through attrition and a steady toll of unexpectedly high numbers of both military and civilian casualties.
In the event of a major IDF incursion into Gaza, Hamas would seek to maintain a steady rain of rockets on Israeli communities around the Strip and to break the sense of armored and air invulnerability hitherto enjoyed by Israeli forces engaging with its fighters. Hamas would of course also try to inflict steady losses of 4 to 10 casualties per day on IDF's ground forces during the fighting. Looking to the 2006 model, the movement's planners believe that achieving these goals could be sufficient to break Israel's will.
To make this possible, Hamas is feverishly training as well as acquiring relevant weapons systems - of a type far superior in quality to those previously associated with the organization. The weapons systems on which Hamas is thought to be currently training in the Gaza Strip include a wire-guided anti-tank missile, probably the AT-3 Sagger, and additional anti-tank guided missiles: the AT-4 Spigot, the tripod-fired AT-5 Spandrel and the shoulder-fired AT-14 Spriggan - all useful against armor. All these systems have ranges of several kilometers.
In addition, Hamas is thought to have brought into Gaza large numbers of RPG-29 Vampir handheld anti-tank grenade launchers with a range of 500 meters, which are capable of penetrating reactive armor and are considered far superior to the RPG 7 systems used by the movement in the past.
Hamas is also developing improvised explosive devices, i.e. bombs. The organization possesses an Iranian-developed, locally-produced system known as the Shawaz explosively-formed penetrator that it says can penetrate 20 cm. of steel. Hamas also claims to possess air defense missiles, though no information could be obtained on their nature or the veracity of the claim. Imports from Iran and Syria and local production are all playing a role in the movement's development of its arsenal.
In addition to arming Gaza to the teeth, Hamas is recruiting fresh fighters. Once again, the model is Hizbullah, and the intention appears to be to develop a force part-way between a regular army and a guerrilla force, of the type developed under Iranian tutelage by the Shi'ite Lebanese group. Extensive recruitment has been taking place in the past month. New fighters have been accepted to both the Izzadin Kassam Brigades - Hamas's long-standing military wing, and to the Executive Force - the newer group created since Hamas's election victory in January 2006.
The latter force played the key role in Hamas's rout of Fatah in its 2007 coup. Hamas claims to have around 20,000 men under arms, though some sources suggest that the number may be higher. Again, both Iran and Syria are thought to be playing a role in providing advanced training to cadres from both of these organizations: around 1,000 Hamas men are thought to have trained in one of these countries in the last months.
What does Hamas's attempt to create 'Fortress Gaza' mean? Its political leaders have consolidated their rule internally vis-à-vis other Palestinian forces. They are thought to face a certain problem from yet more radical Sunni Islamist currents among both the rank and file fighters and commanders of their own military organizations. But for the moment, with no serious internal challenge, Hamas is digging in.
The Hamas rulers believe that Israelis want only peace and quiet, which makes them both vulnerable and deterrable. Thus, Hamas is seeking to create a solid shield around its Gaza fiefdom that can be turned into a weapon of attack at a time and situation of its choosing.
#1
"Hamas claims to have around 20,000 men under arms, though some sources suggest that the number may be higher."
Translation: There are 20,000 people in Gaza who need to be killed RIGHT NOW. And probably a lot more than that. Probably be better to start sooner, than later.
Does anyone remember those Golden Days before Clinton's cursed "Peace Process", back when NO "palestinian" on Israeli territory was allowed to possess a firearm of any kind? [sarc]It's so nice those awful days of old are gone. Things are so much more secure and peaceful now.[/sarc]
#7
3DC is correct - turn off the water and the power NOW. 20,000 fighters...Boo, they'll be reduced to whining buzitches in a week. Let the whole of Gaza become a ghost town - No water, now power, no problems.
There has been a lot of talk about the need for change in this country. That is Senator Obamas mantra, of course. And all of the commentators say, It is a change election. Well, I can understand why the call for change is so powerful considering the pitiful condition that our country is in.
We simply have the most prosperous, freest and strongest country in the history of the world. So we can understand why liberal politicians and their supporters see the need for great change.
On a more serious note, we have long recognized the role change plays in lives. Edmund Burke wrote extensively about it in the 18th century. He said that change was inevitable and when properly guided, change was a process of renewal. But it was his opinion that the man who loves change is disqualified from being a reformer because of his lust to be the agent of change.
Remind you of anybody you know?
So it is not change that concerns us its change in the wrong direction. And what we may be changing from.
...
Those changes that are momentarily popular in elite circles, which would expand our government, weaken our ability to defend ourselves, redefine marriage and life itself, sap our sense of personal responsibility and treat our people as if they were merely a collection of appetites to be fed in an election year ... they must be rejected. These are not changes we can believe in. These are changes we should run away from. Because the ideas behind these endeavors, which have long inspired left-wing politicians around the world, have led to consistently disastrous results.
Id like to suggest a change for us: Instead of a constant search for the new, exciting and different, lets re-assert the "First Principles" that made this country great.
Has freedom, liberty and the strength which guarantees them become outdated?
...
Do we see our nation as one in decline, populated by helpless victims for whom every misfortune and every economic downturn is a conspiracy against them?
Or do we still see that we are a people of free will, willing to accept our responsibilities?
Are we a people who as generations of American before us did believe that our best days are ahead of us?
Will we remember who we are, what we stand for, and what we represent to the world? That we are free people who respect life who love liberty.
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.
Danny Gillerman, outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations, told the Israel-American Chamber of Commerce, that the U.N. can be "a crazy world." He joked, "You know you're in a crazy world when world's greatest rapper is white, the world's greatest golfer is black, the world's greatest soldiers are Jewish, Germany doesn't want to go to war, and the French accuse the Americans of being arrogant."
Since the agreement on the tahadiyeh (lull) was reached between Hamas and Israel on June 19, the border crossings between Israel and Gaza have already been closed six times in response to Palestinian rocket fire. Israeli officials acknowledge that none of these attacks was carried out by Hamas. Hamas, nevertheless, is keeping itself busy. 
