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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Fidaa, thank you for sharing your poem. What "fight" mean to you? Is it the inner Jihad to remove all your impurities and perfect yourself before Allah?
It is such hard work. And I am failing miserably. :-(
"Unaccustomed, I fake a smile." I think we should say what we think and do what we say. And not fake smiles. The choice of being happy, peaceful and loving belongs entirely to us. We should choose to be happy all the time (despite however much others abuse and mistreat us.) From your words you have a big heart. You are no doubt doing better at this than I am. :-(
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Unrelated, can I ask how many Gazans still commute to work inside Israel? This use to be very common the 1980s and 1990s, although much less so now. How bad is it?
Israel should immediately issue more work, tourist, business, student and daily commute visas to Palestinians. No one would benefit more from this than Israel. Imagine all those smart Palestinians creating new products and leading business inside Israel to greatness.
Why doesn't Israel do this?
Akhoiya Walid, some minorities in the region take any help they can get from anyone, including Israel. This is not wrong for them to do and doesn't detract from their values as good people loyal to their countries.
Walid, have you carefully studied the LAF OOB?
I have looked at the LAF a little. We disagree. Iran, Syria, Russia have refused to provide large scale aid for the LAF. Russia offers to donate old aircraft and weapons platforms that require heavy maintenance that the LAF can't afford to maintain.
The fundamental problem is that the large Lebanese national debt/GDP and Lebanese budget deficit/GDP keep the LAF budget low and unpredictable.
Russsia, Turkey, US, Europe help a little. But not that much. Unfortunately the little aid the US does provide is likely to cut by the Congress.
Maybe I can share my thoughts on the LAF later with you.
Is any commentator on this blog a LAF expert?
Much of this article is accurate. But it is written from a wholly pro Hezbollah partisan point of view. Aoun and Berri would cringe at some of the points above.
Hezbollah aren't angels. They are deeply unpopular with a majority of Lebanese. This is partly because of anti Shia bigotry, but also partly because of Nasrallah's own mistakes. Hezbollah has a behind the scenes rivalry with Amal as well.
This article ignores some of the largest reasons Hezbollah came about:
1) The disappearance of Musa al-Sadr, probably killed by the schmuck Qaddafi. Musa al-Sadr seems have been a good and great man.
2) The harsh oppression of Lebanese Shia for a millenia. Musa al Sadr and Hezbollah after him greatly reduced the oppression of Lebanese Shia.
3) Khomeini's decision to create a Lebanese militias through the IRGC Kuds force that was loyal to Khamenei rather than Amal or the Lebanese state. [Strikes me as disloyal. At the same time Khomeini was taking Israeli help against Saddam he was secretly planning to kill them in Lebanon. Why can't people say what they think and do what they say?]
This article also does not mention the vast number of Amal people Hezbollah killed in the 1980s. That wasn't right or just.
The article doesn't mention Hezbollah's unnecessary conflict with the Druze, Hariri and Christian folks in 2008. Another big mistake.
What is Hezbollah's big plan to train Lebanese knowledge workers for the jobs, products and technologies of tomorrow?
The article mentions Sheba farms. Israel doesn't want Sheba farms and has offered it to Syria. Sine the UN says that Sheba farms belongs to Syria, Israel cannot give it to Lebanon unless Syria formally renounces its claims at the UN which Assad has refused to do.
Hezbollah has a less than perfect record in treating Lebanese Palestinians. Although some Hezbollah partisans I have encountered claim that Hezbollah isn't as bad as other Lebanese. What a sad state of affairs. Lebanon is better than that. Do right Lebanon.
On the other hand, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir should scare all of us a lot. [Dear Taxi, he is a "Takfiri."] His anti Hezbollah and anti Shia diatribes are completely over the top and inappropriate.
I don't have evidence that the Gulf establishment is holding his apron strings. Could someone else provide this? This would be yet more evidence that much of the Gulf establishment are secretly the enemies of most people on the planet, masked by their fake smiles and deceitful flattery.
Dear Israel, they are your enemies too. They are using you. Don't be a fool and fall for them.
Fredblogs is right. Fredblogs, how many of these terrorist attacks were committed directly by Arafat versus other Palestinian groups?
I don't think these attacks were the reason Israel attacked. The real reason was for Israel to take advantage of the opportunity to help the Christians, Shia and Druze defeat the PLO. Israel hoped to solidify a friendship of sorts with the Lebanese Christians, Shia and Druze. Although Israel was initially greeted by the Christians, Shia and Druze, Israel quickly burnt her bridges. Israel was also disloyal to the Lebanese that tried to work with Israel. Not good form at all.
In 1982 Israel was de facto backing Khomeini against Saddam and thought a similar de facto relationship with the Lebanese Shia was possible.
"when Saudi Arabia or UAE purchase new weapons in the mega billions, not a whisper of complaint is heard from the israelis."
I disagree. The Israelis do protest but lack the power to stop them. Or more specifically Israel wants to lower the specifications of the weapons the Gulfies buy.
What I don't understand is why there isn't much more protest? Is anyone under any illusions that the Gulf are friend of Europe, America, or basically any nonmuslim or minority muslim in the world? The world needs to wake up.
Most Lebanese think that Iran and Syria should only give weapons to the Lebanese Armed Forces or LAF. I agree with them. Iran and Syria can give as much money and weapons to the formal Lebanese government as they want. But should not give money to militias that are not loyal to the state.
Even Aoun believes this, although he isn't yet pressing the issue.
Did you hear President Michel Suleiman's speech?:
link to nypost.com
Germany, Russia, India, Turkey are all Israeli allies.
China and Israel have a close relationship too. Especially in military R&D.
Annie Robbins, Iraq has had the fastest growing economy of any mid sized economy in the world for many years. Iraq is rising. And increasingly Assad, the Gulf extremists and Jordan cannot stop her rise.
Fredblogs, my understanding is that Israel killed about 492 civilians and 800 Hamas Army fighters in operation cast lead. What is your estimate?
Did you back operation cast lead? I did not, but would love to ask you some questions about the IDF's poor operational tactics.
There was a large contrast between how Israel entered Gaza and how MNF-I conducted operations in Iraq. Why did Israel behave so recklessly and risk so many civilian lives?
Why didn't Israel focus primarily on a ground offensive from the start, and hold territory until the end of the war? This would have sharply increased the number of Hamas soldiers killed relative to the number of civilians killed. Instead Israelis kept their ground forces back and pounded civilian areas from the air or with artillery in far too many cases.
What was the strategic point of the entire venture? What was Israel hoping to achieve? If Israel was trying to help Mustafa Barghouti and the PA gain power in Gaza, that would have some logic. However what was Israel's logic? Seemed like pound Gaza a bit and then abruptly stop.
Les, understatement of the century. Do you really think KSA is an ally of any country that isn't ruled by Sunni extremists?
The Saudi global lobby is powerful than Israel's. Including in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe.
"That will continue so long as our Congress and White House remain occupied territory." Sorry to break it to you, but global business has exercised great influence over Washington for over a century.
Maybe instead of complaining about the extraordinary power of foreign lobbies in America, it might be more productive to strengthen lobbies that influence other countries.
This seems to be the thinking in Singapore, Hong Kong, Israel, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, and other successful countries. Every country needs to be humble enough to learn from other countries and transform themselves. America is no different.
Mooser, what is wrong with everyone being a little "nuts"?
:-)
All the greatest people in human history that I can think of were considered nuts by many of their contemporaries.
Not mentioning Ramadan was a big mistake by Romney. I believe it was unintentional. But a big mistake none the less.
Deepa Di, there is virtually no chance Romney will get a nut like Bachman as his VP. He didn't create Bain Capital from scratch by being brain dead insane.
His most likely woman VP running mate would be Nikki Haley in my opinion.
Israel's talent for business, product development, R&D, technology and entrepreneurship are deeply admired around the world. More so in Asia and Brazil in my opinion than in the US. There is a reason Indira Gandhi wanted India to be more like Israel. [Not in misbehaving with the Palestinians. That is not at all what they mean. They mean being successful like Israel in business, and to a lesser degree the Mossad and IDF]. Then South Vietnamese Vice President Ky famously praised Israel as a strong country and was attacked by Palestinian terrorists while traveling on his aircraft.
Many Asians want their kids to be like Israel. Really successful, hard working, passionate, creative, goal oriented and family oriented. Although not necessarily having the best morals in the universe. Would you disagree?
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I think you are wrong to perceive American free market types as anti muslim. Malaysia represents the model many Republicans aspire to make America like. No taxes on capital gains, dividends and interest. Low 26% top marginal tax rate. Very simple relatively flat tax code. Most can fill their tax returns on the internet. Malaysia also has very simple low business taxes and simple regulations. Overtly and unapologetically pro capitalist and pro business. No occupy business.
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In his recent trip to Palestine and Israel, Romney seemed very respectful towards Fayyad and Abu Mazen. Strange as this sounds, I think Romney will probably be more pro Palestinian than Obama's first term if elected. What do you think?
In practice Obama has given in to Israel a lot more than Bush junior, Clinton, Bush senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon and LBJ. [LBJ is the first strongly pro Israeli US president.]
lysias, people have continually said these sorts of things about Israel within the US security establishment.
There was a roar the last couple times that Bibi begged Washington to pardon Pollard. Including during the Clinton and GW Bush eras.
Israeli theft of US technology has long been a big sore point. Most of Israel's nuclear technology is generally thought to have come from France.
Its not impressive. Lots of articles like this use to be published in the early 1980s and even before that. More like status quo standard fare.
Anecdotally, there is tension between Israelis and CIA types.
Kathleen knows her stuff. :-)
"Bush 41 and Baker actually threatened to cut U.S. aid based on illegal settlement expansion. I think the illegal settlements expanded more under Clinton than any other President. I think"
I liked what Baker and Bush 41 did on Palestine. I believe Baker was genuinely pro Palestinian. Although I disagree with Bush 41 on some other issues.
"The connection of Taliban to terrorism in Russia and China (and of al-Qaeda, for that matter) is tenuous at best." :LOL: Putin would strongly disagree with you. For that matter, China complained vigorously to America about Osama Bin Laden in the 1990s.
The US has long been more willing to negotiate with the Taliban (and truth be told Al Qaeda) than the Afghans, Indians, Russians or Iranians. The problem for America is that the Afghans keep sabotaging the negotiations (since the Afghans are afraid that America wants to betray them), and they are supported in this by Iran, Russia, India (all of which are more anti Taliban and anti Al Qaeda than America.)
The Northern Alliance is orders of magnitude more anti Al Qaeda and anti Taliban than the US.
Putin has publicly condemned the withdrawal of NATO forces and demanded that NATO train, equip and fund the ANSF. Russia publicly offers to do this, and claims that NATO won't let it.
You don't understand China. The Business of China is Business. The business community runs China. They want better China/US relations.
The issue isn't in my view international forces in Afghanistan through UN mandate. The issue is the ANSF. Obama over the objections of ISAF commanders has significantly reduced aid to the ANSF. It is speculated that Obama did this as a favor to Saudi Arabia, the Pakistani Army and the Taliban that Obama is directly trying to negotiate with.
The Northern supply route was always open. It is however more expensive.
Russia will "NOT" close the Northern Supply route if Israel bombs Iran. Russia doesn't really care about Iran. Certainly not enough to actually help them in any serious way.
Russia's policy is to fight the Taliban to the last Marine. The Taliban, AQ and Takfiri threaten Russia more than America.
Pakistanis have viscerally hated Americans (and nonmuslims and minority muslims in general) for a very long time. Why was the US embassy in Pakistan destroyed in 1979? Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a minority (Ahmedi, Shia, Sufi, Christian, Hindu, Sindhi or a Pashtun in the mold of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) in Pakistan?
MLE, Iran was enemy number 1 of the Iraqi resistance. You do know that right? In fact the Iraqi resistance said that the moment the US bombed Iran, the entire Iraqi resistance would stop attacking America and instead stand shoulder to shoulder with America and help America defeat Iran.
Thank God this never happened.
Whatever you say about Bush, he stood up to Cheney and didn't allow Iran to be bombed on his watch. Cheney wanted to bomb Iran and aggressively lobbied for it on many different occasions.
I don't believe that Obama Messiah will attack Iran. This is not in the interests of the American people and Obama is a servant of the American people.
Isn't Obama the most pro Israeli president ever? Bush stood up much more for the Palestinians than Obama has had the courage to so far.
I think Bush had a good heart. Hence when Mahmoud Abbas actually showed Bush a 3 dimensional model of the Wall and Bush finally understood what it was, Bush changed his position. He called it a "Wall" and said it was a problem. Bush got all animated looking at Abu Mazen's 3 dimension model, looking at it sideways and stuff. Bush demanded that in the future he needs a lot more 3 dimensional models. The people around Bush were horrified at what had happened, and after the summit they distracted Bush's mind with other matters so that he couldn't follow through.
link to electronicintifada.net
Bush was also the first US president to call for a fully independent sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with property swaps of equal quality. Bush demanded that Israel stop the settlements in a way Obama still hasn't.
Bush wanted to give the Palestinians aid and a lot of other things, but was stopped by the confiscation of Khamenei's arms shipments to Arafat. Arafat had directly lied to Bush, and Bush never forgave him for it. Bush didn't get another chance to deal with this issue until 2005. But the people around Bush kept him distracted by other things so he didn't get around to Palestine. [And to be fair there were a lot of things occupying Bush's mind. Illegal immigration reform, improving US/Mexican relations, improving US/Brazil relations, getting US/India on track, improving relations with China, stopping the outsourcing crowd, social security reform, Iraq, Afghanistan, Takfiri terrorism, Hezbollah Israeli tension, stopping Israel from hitting Iran, stopping Chenney from bombing Iran, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, prescription drugs, education reform etc.] Too bad. Had Bush not been distracted he might have used America's power (limited though it is) to help the Palestinians on the margins.
By contrast Obama has always taken a much less pro Palestinian position than Bush.
I think Obama will do right. I think he prays to God and has good character and is a compassionate man. But Obama Messiah hasn't done it yet. Maybe because he hasn't yet had time to think much about Palestine. Have high hopes about his second term.
Does anyone have a clue what Romney would really do? He keeps his real views hidden. I have no idea what he really thinks about Palestine.
Does anyone have any perspectives on how devout a Mormon Romney is? Mormanism is a good and compassionate religion.
"smalltownman1905 says:
August 5, 2012 at 5:41 pm
How ironic and pity for those supporting blindly this lunatic Zionist ideology. No surprise just like any other US politician, now Romney bends over to Zionists. When a man kind will stand up against Zionist thugs?
"
I think that Romney often supports the opposite of what he says. Does this mean that he is secretly pro Palestinian? Worth exploring.
Blake wrote: "Oh Sassan we are not worthy. And on the point I made that Iranians do care about the Palestinian plight?"
Why don't Iranians care about Palestinians?
"You’d be surprised at the number of civilized western states who claimed that the territorial integrity norm trumps democracy and the self-determination norm. The Written statements are available here: link to icj-cij.org"
I have noticed. Many western diplomats seem to hold that point of view.
"Israel and the US routinely describe Hamas as the “de facto government” of Gaza in travel advisories & etc. Under customary international law, they are obliged to treat the thing that Hamas is governing as if it’s a state:
*The U.S. State Department explains that blockades have historically resulted in belligerent recognition, because they are “a weapon of war between sovereign states.”
Agreed.
"*Israel has legally designated Gaza as an “enemy entity”. It routinely requests Security Council action in response to Hamas violations of international laws and agreements or applies conventional rules of international law that only apply to contracting entities which happen to be states."
Agreed.
"Israel refuses to treat Palestine as a de jure contracting party to the Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocols and claims that it is not eligible to make valid accessions to those or any other treaties because it isn’t a state."
I don't understand this.
"Nonetheless:
–Israeli Military Intelligence Director Yadlin advised US officials that Israel would be “happy” if Hamas took over Gaza, because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a “HOSTILE STATE”."
Should Israel treat Gaza as a state? Even now that a unity coalition government seems to be coming together? Israel, some allege wants a 3 state solution. Wouldn't recognizing Gaza offend Palestinians who want one Palestinian state? I don't know the answers, but am asking questions.
"–According to the Washington Post and many other sources, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev cited the San Remo Manual and maintained that it was clearly within its rights to stop the aid flotilla, saying “any state has the right to blockade ANOTHER STATE in the midst of an armed conflict.”"
True. But has the Israeli Knesset declared war on the de facto state entity in Gaza?
"The Israeli Supreme Court has ruled that the conflict with Hamas is an international one. See the subsection of the ruling in the targeted killings case under the heading “The General Normative Framework, A. International Armed Conflict”"
I agree with the Israeli Supreme Court.
"Inexplicably, the IDF targets the Hamas municipal police force, because it’s a uniformed militia that openly carries weapons. But it refuses to treat any Palestinian militia members as POW’s under the general normative framework of the applicable international law."
I don't get this at all. It makes no sense to me.
"The Israeli Supreme Court also refuses to enforce the prohibition against transferring or deporting them out of the occupied territory to prisons in Israel as part of the protected civilian population. See HCJ Rejects Petition against Holding Detained Palestinians in Israeli Territory [HCJ 2690/09] [28.3.2010] link to idi.org.il"
The question is why? I don't understand.
"The US and Israel obviously would like to impose all of the duties of statehood on Hamas and the PA, while denying that either of those entities are entitled to the corresponding rights of statehood. That’s actually a flagrant violation of US and Israeli obligations under customary international law and conventional US obligations under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States and Chapter IV of the Charter of the Organization of American States."
Mostly Agreed.
I think the US recognizes only one Palestinian state and does not support the partition of Palestine into the West Bank and Gaza to my knowledge. Maybe this is causing confusion.
Hostage I would really like to talk to you offline.
I have many questions regarding the Israeli supreme court and judicial system. You are one of a handful of people I have ever encountered that understands these issues.
Many thanks again Hostage. Agree with your comments on Hamas and Gaza.
"Other states can’t impose an international duty that requires the inhabitants to disobey a de facto regime, i.e. placing them between the proverbial “rock and a hard place”. It’s important to remember that belligerent recognition only requires that the belligerent community be afforded all of the rights and privileges of neutrality and commerce enjoyed by other states. "
If someone tells you to rape 1000 woman over 1 year, does that mean you have to obey them? Does the UNSC have the power to unanimously order you not to obey the order?
You know the kind of horrible massacres the Taliban inflicted on non Pashtun Afghans (62% of the population). And the abuse they inflicted on Pashtun woman. Banning girls from attending schools, from working etc.
Aren't there international laws or human values that supercede the orders of immoral militias?
Hostage, many thanks again. Could I contact you via one of the Mondoweiss authors please? You are remarkably informed to put it mildly.
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"Under the public international law of the US and UK, there has been no legal difference between a de facto government and a de jure government since the Tinoco arbitration case. The US referred to the Taliban, not the Northern Alliance, as “the de facto government” and treated like a state with jurisdiction when it demanded that the regime extradite Bin Laden. "
This I do not understand. The Northern Alliance [they use to call themselves the "United Front"] occupied the Afghan UN seat. The Northern Alliance also occupied all of Afghanistan's international embassies except for three (KSA, UAE, Pakistan).
Here is a question . . . Is it possible for a nation state such as the United States to simultaneously recognize two governments for the same state? Are there precedents for this? Please elaborate.
The US requested that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia produce Osama Bin Laden and gave them a time deadline. The Pakistanis and Saudis (as the patrons for their Taliban proxies) chose not to fill this request. The Saudis and Pakistanis sent their own delegation to Mullah Omar and in theory conveyed the request for OBL's extradition. In my opinion Pakistan and KSA could never have allowed their long time asset OBL to be taken alive, because he had too much incriminating information against them. If push came to shove, they would have killed him themselves. For whatever reason, they chose not to kill Osama Bin Laden. However, the Pakistani Security Forces abruptly withdrew over ten thousand officers and NCOs from Afghanistan. Without their leaders, combat enablers and embedded combat enablers, the Taliban quickly fell into confusion. The Northern Alliance used this confusion to seize all of Afghanistan. The US chose to use its influence to facilitate the Pakistani Army to withdraw as many of their forces from Afghanistan as possible. [Suspect the Bush Administration might have seen this as necessary to avoid open war with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, which the Bush administration did not want.] The Pakistani Army exit supply lines were also used to withdraw the senior Taliban and AQ leadership into Pakistani Army safe houses inside Pakistan.
This gets to another objections Afghans have to calling the Taliban, the “the de facto government” of Afghanistan. What is the Taliban? Karzai himself has publicly said that the Taliban only has one address. Pakistan. By which he means the only institution that can talk on behalf of most of the Taliban and get most of the Taliban to do something is the Pakistani Army. Karzai has also said that the Pakistani Army can arrest the large majority (but not all) of the senior Taliban leadership at will. Since Afghans do not control the Taliban, how can it be a sovereign government? Just to give one example, Mullah Omar managed to sneak the operational leader of the Quetta Shura Taliban (the de jure formal number 2 of the entire Taliban movement in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Former Soviet Union 5 Stans) to negotiate with Karzai. As soon as the Pak Army found out they arrested Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Mullah Omar's hopes of negotiating directly with Karzai without Pakistani Army oversight died.
It is widely believed that Mullah Omar lives under the protection and at the pleasure of the Pakistani Army.
The Northern Alliance's battle cry in the early 2000s was:
"Death to Pakistan" [Pakistani Army]
"Death to the Arabs" [Saudi establishment]
"Death to Osama Bin Laden"
"Death to the Taliban"
They regarded the Taliban to be foreign occupation and a puppet government. Were they right?
This is a long way of saying that the Taliban was not "treated like a state with jurisdiction when it [US] demanded that the regime extradite Bin Laden."
"the majority of Iranians are “fake Muslims”, hence NOT RELIGIOUS. I never claimed and do not claim that the majority of the population inside of Iran is atheist."
We agree on this. Can I ask you a question? Is there any part of the world where the general population isn't "fake religious"? Religious hypocrisy seems to be a global problem.
Maybe all of us should stop using the world "religious" and use the term "spiritual" instead since it carries less negative emotional baggage for most people.
Annie Robbins, many religious Iranians exist. However a surprising number of Iranians are overtly very anti theist and anti religious. Sassan is clearly one of them. Atheist Iranians like him need to be respected and honored by all Iranians. The fact that not everyone in the Quom Marjeya does this is the very reason there are so many overtly and angry anti theist Iranians in the first place.
Sassan, some of my responses to you regarding atheism, twelverism, Ali, Fatima and the great muslim prophets and saints were blocked by the moderators.
Shingo, not sure what you mean by: "Yeah, wink win, nudge nunge – just like drone attacks right?"
To my knowledge ISAF doesn't engage in "drone strikes" as you understand them without permission from President Karzai inside Afghanistan. The CIA covertly runs drone strikes inside Pakistan, with the Pakistani government having "co-soverignty" over them. The fact that the ISAF commander [COMISAF] has no authority and in many cases no knowledge about these drone strikes is a problem.
Shingo, ISAF is a multinational command created by the United Nations. It operates with a limited legal and mission mandate.
"The ANSF are nothing but useful idiots for ISAF."
The genesis of the ANSF are the former Northern Alliance. The ANA is particular is deeply popular among Afghans and feared by the Pakistani Army, Saudi establishment and their Al Qaeda/Taliban proxies. This is why they lobbied so hard to force ISAF and the international community to prevent the ANA from becoming too capable.
This is the reason it was US policy between 2001 and November 2009 to keep the ANSF weak. Obama changed this policy in November 2009 in an act of great courage. He did so knowing how the Gulf extremists and deep state might react and retaliate. However in late 2010, Obama did not approve the ISAF/McChrystal/Caldwell/Petraeus/Karzai/Afghan MoI/Afghan MoD/NTM-A plan for a large capable ANSF. His reasons for opposing this are not yet fully understood. Afghans have all sorts of conspiracy theories about the Saudi/Pakistani hand in all of this. Or ISAF/Obama backs Taliban theories. Some argue that Obama has made a deal with KSA/Pakistan to go after Iran, Assad; and given KSA and Pakistan what they want [a weak ANA] in return.
The ANA are not idiots. I certainly wouldn't call them that to their face if I were you Shingo. I have been told about ANA shooting ISAF soldiers who implied the ANA are idiots. The ANA take this charge very seriously.
There might be other reasons why Obama wants a weaker ANA. Long term cost. The danger that the ANA attacks Pakistan and drags ISAF and America into a conflict with Pakistan. Maybe because Obama sees the ANA as a close long term ally of India, Russia, Iran and Turkey (which, in all honesty it is.) Many other potential reasons.
"The truth is that ISAF canb and does go wherever it wasnts whenever it wants." Legally it cannot. We live in a litigious world. Like all institutions created by the UN, it operates within strict parameters.
"all that proves is that you are getting the BS directly from the horse’s mouth." To some degree true. Some ANA have a bit much machismo.
"The ANA officers are only authorized to repeat the official message anywyay. They have jobs and they wish to keep them."
Very astute observation. You are growing on me Shingo bro. There is a difference between what ANA say off the record and what they say on the record. You need to know both. You might become a journalist yet. :-)
Have to go now. Maybe we can continue later?
" law of belligerent recognition of de facto regimes under international law. The grant of foreign assistance to the Taliban to impose a policy on the population subject to its jurisdiction is a classic example. There is an entire chapter devoted to the subject in Ti-chiang Chen, The international law of recognition, with special reference to practice in Great Britain and the United States, Praeger, 1951: link to archive.org"
Could this precedent be used to declare the Taliban/Al Qaeda syndicate to be a de facto regime independent of their state sponsors [not as a statement of fact, but as a legal device?]? Could their "nation" be undefined? i.e. could they become nations without subjects? And could war be declared on them by the UN on this basis? This would be much more convenient for the international community, which is reluctant to openly acknowledge let alone engage the countries for which Al Qaeda/Taliban are proxies.
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"Of course, Common Article 3 of the 4th Geneva applies to non-international conflict between the subjects of a High Contracting Party. Intervention by another High Contracting Party at the invitation of one of the factions would only transform the situation into an international armed conflict."
Would the UN mandated UNAMA and ISAF forces or possibly the UN itself be considered a "High Contracting Party" in this situation? Something to think about.
I don't think this is the view of the UNSC. They have unanimously declared the Afghan government to be the sole sovereign legitimate Afghan government. As such they don't recognize them as a "faction". Similarly they don't recognized the Al Qaeda/Taliban linked militias as "factions."
Could you share your thoughts on this?
"The prohibition against forced transfer and involuntary deportation contained in Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to foreign nationals who find themselves in the hands of the United States while in the territory of one of the co-belligerents. Needless to say, the United States government is a creature of the Constitution and it cannot acquire some sort of legally secured interest in any human being by selling or purchasing them. The laws of nations recognize a general prohibition against any such practice."
To clarify, all the prisoners of the Northern Alliance were "prisoners of war" presumably. If so, who were the Northern Alliance [recognized Afghan government] at war with? Taliban/Al Qaeda/related militias? Or the Pakistani and Saudi governments? If the legal Afghan government recognized their prisoners of war as members of Pakistani and Saudi backed militias (with many of them being actual Pakistanis and actual foreigners), does that mean the Afghan government--and the US government after the US took custody of some of the Northern Alliance prisoners--would have to return these prisoners to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia?
My understanding is that they were sent to Guantanamo precisely so that they wouldn't have to be returned to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia since it was believed they would immediately rejoin the fight. As it is many of the top current Al Qaeda/Taliban leaders are alumni from Guantanamo released to their home countries.
What in your view should be done with the Uighur Guantanamo detainees. Many Uighurs from Xiangjang province joined Al Qaeda/Taliban and were taken prisoner by the Northern Alliance. China doesn't want them back (understandably) and Obama has no idea what to do with them.
On a side note, there are many Taliban/AQ Uighurs in Pakistan now. The Chinese want drone strikes against them. This causes all sorts of tension in Washtington from people who don't want to do China's dirty work. On the other had, these Uighurs are helping AQ/Taliban, which are America's enemies too.
Are the Uighurs a "faction" under international law? If so a "faction" of what country? China? Pakistan? Afghanistan? America (for the Guantanamo detainees)? These questions are why I find international law so confusing.
Your clarity of thought is refreshing.
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"Can an armed militia or organized crime prisoner be considered a “prisoner of war”?
Yes, in fact it takes a great deal of sophistry and mental gymnastics to ignore the plain meaning of the obligations under the third and fourth Geneva Conventions regarding members of armed militias or combatants who are hors de combat according to common article 3 and other the protocols."
On this we are in complete agreement. They are prisoners of war. One reason there is reluctance to declare them as such is because then it might become necessary to identify the party a country is at war with. No one wants to formally acknowledge that the Taliban/AQ are proxies of certain countries. Perhaps the best option to to declare that the war is with the militias AQ/Taliban/Deep State alphabet soup of groups. This saves face for Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and lets countries continue to have normal relations with them.
Hostage, I am learning from you. Love to contact you offline if possible.
If I could respond to your thoughtful points:
1) Could you read the unanimously passed UN resolutions on Afghanistan that created UNAMA and ISAF and explain what you believe is ISAF's and UNAMA's mandate? There are several relavent UN resolutions. I would be very curious to learn your perspective.
2) Could you similarly share your perspective on the UN missions in the Congo, Haiti?
3) Could the precedent in Korea be used?
The most powerful and lethal parts of the Taliban and Al Qaeda linked networks operate as veritable wings of the Pakistani Army Inter Services intelligence. The Gulf establishment is also closely involved. This has been widely known among those interested in the Taliban since 1994 or those who have followed Osama Bin Laden's career since the 1980s. However, it was only recently that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States finally admitted this under oath before the US senate. [Al Qaeda was acknowledged indirectly. Sirajuddin Haqqani was acknowledged to be a veritable wing of the Pakistani Army. Siraj sits on the primary Shura for Al Qaeda in addition to heading the most powerful and lethal Taliban militia in Pakistan and Afghanistan. One affect of the surge is that Siraj's relative power has increased within the broader Taliban movement since Siraj's Southern Afghan nominal Taliban allies (which were thought to have more independence from the Pakistani Army) have been significantly clobbered.]
Could the Taliban/AQ be declared to be Pakistani Army and Saudi proxies and under that context could they be declared as illegal militias killing Afghans? Could the UN authorize and order ISAF to help the ANSF remove them from Afghanistan?
The reason this hasn't happened yet is because the major global powers are afraid to openly acknowledge the close relationship between KSA, the Pakistani Army and Al Qaeda/Taliban. Because this would force the international community to change its policy towards these two countries.
A spike in oil prices caused by sanctions against Saudi Arabia could cause most elected officials in the US, India, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and the world's other free democracies to lose their reelection. The Chinese government might fall in the upheaval as well.
This would also not be convenient for the anti Iran and anti Shia folks.
For the non Shia readers at Mondoweiss, "twelverism" is the largest subsect of Shia. Why are Shia "totalitarian"?
"the ruling ideology in Iran is more authoritarian than totalitarian" To a point yes. However Khamenei has committed the blasphemy of Vilayat-e Faqih. Khamenei claims infallibility and absolute power in a way without precedent in Shia history since the 9th century AD. The sheer arrogance of it is mindbloggling. It is like any reader of Mondoweiss claiming to be a perfect follower of God and a perfect knower of HER (or HIS) WILL. And stating that every Shia in the world has to obey their every whim.
"many important clerics view Khomeini’s innovations as wrong, hence the current political structure of Iran has substantial Shia opposition."
Darn straight. The entire Najaf Marjeya and at least 9 of the 11 Quom Marjas. Only one Marja to my knowledge in Quom other than Khamenei supports Khamenei's blasphemy.
This is why Sassan, I don't understand why you and your friends don't ally with religious Shia and the Marjas in going after Khamenei. After Khamenei is gone, then worry about the rest.
"Moreover, the same Sassan claimed that most of the population in Iran is atheist, which I found simply dubious." A majority are not atheist.
However, piotr, anecdotally many Iranians, Iraqis and other people from muslim families are. Or they are agnostic, secular, or anti muslim "Koranists". Not sure why. Some would say it is because religion and virtue is forced down young people's necks and this causes rebellion. Maybe Sassan could share his thoughts on why.
Shingo,
The Green, Yellow and Blue are areas that ISAF cannot operate in without Afghan Government permission. ISAF conducts no security operations and has no security responsibility. [If a villager calls ISAF and asks for help, ISAF would patch them through to the ANSF or flatly do nothing.] However some ISAF combat enablers might be provided to the ANSF upon their request in areas that the ANSF has complete security responsibility. [One problem going forward is ISAF's reluctance to provide the ANSF close air support upon request in areas ISAF is not present, for fear that Karzai might later blast ISAF and fire the senior ANSF officers involved. This could lead to cascading tension and misunderstandings between the ANSF and ISAF.]
In areas not highlighted, ISAF "can" conducts actual security operations in collaboration with the ANSF.
"This “media backgrounder” is typical occuaption progandanda BS, similar to the crap we were few in Iraq. It’s pupropse it to convince the masses that the “training of local police and military” is working and that NATO are in control."
Shingo, I have interviewed actual ANA officers. If you are really interested in talking to them directly and getting your views, then and only then please say so. Do you have any Pharsi/Dari speaking friends? Maybe Roya. If so, then you can directly set up a telephone interview with them, call them on their cell phone and get their first hand feedback.
The Afghan MoD and MoI are terrible at providing this kind of graphically friendly data to the public or being transparent. If you talk to them, then they might talk to you by district, village, city and province; but they might also not talk to you if they think you are a Pakistani Army or Saudi spy. [That is interestingly enough also what the Afghan National Security Forces often refer to the Taliban as.] You wouldn't be able to understand them unless you already know about Afghanistan. If, however, you talk to their ISAF advisors, they would be able to explain the big picture better to people who know nothing about Afghanistan. Plus they would likely know better english. [Although don't count on this for the advisors from some countries. Some of the advisors actually talk to the Afghans in Russian or through translators.]
"As the US did in Iraq, NATO and Washington have been gradually lpowering expectation as to what can be expected from Afghanistan."
Ask yourself why this is. Many Afghans say it is because ISAF, the UN, and international community backs Al Qaeda and the Taliban against the Afghan National Army and Afghan people. Is this your view?
For reasons that puzzle most of the international community and Afghans, Obama seems to have decided in late 2010 to cut back assistance to the Afghan National Army. Obama seems to have made this decision talking to a very small group of advisors that didn't include the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Several countries such as Germany have publicly opposed this decision. India opposes this decision. Putin has publicly blasted ISAF (really Obama since he is the originator of this policy) for cutting back assistance to the ANSF. Khamenei also opposes this decision.
This is in my opinion the biggest real story in Afghanistan right now.
"The basic idea, elaborated in an article by top military adviser Anthony Cordesman, is to lower expectations that Afghanistan will ever be anything other than a war-torn and divided society, while aiming to secure at least a portion of it for extended use as a platform for future U.S. military operations.
csis.org/publication/time-focus-afghan-good-enough"
I have exchanged e-mails with the CSIS folks. Some of their data comes from my friends. Their paper deserves a full response. I might yet write one up, but I haven't yet. For now I would say that your summary is incomplete and partly inaccurate.
What is true is that if Obama's proposed 35% cut in the size of the ANSF is implemented, and if Saudi Arabia and Pakistan keep backing Al Qaeda/Taliban, then "Afghanistan will [N]ever be anything other than a war-torn and divided society." With a forever war between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and their proxies on one side, and the Afghans (backed by NATO, Iran, Turkey, Russia, India, Japan, Australia) on the other.
"deliberately rebuilding enough of the elements of the Northern Alliance so they can act as a counterbalance to Taliban."
Obama is not doing this. However India, Russia, Iran seem to be. They appear to be fearful that Obama might be making or considering making a secret deal with the Saudis, Pakistani Army, Taliban, Al Qaeda; maybe even the Ikhwan in Egypt and Syria. Many Afghans are afraid that Obama wants to throw them over the bus.
The most fantastic of the conspiracy theories argue that the US, Gulf extremists, Ikwan in Egypt, FSA, Pakistani Army, Taliban and AQ networks are forming a de facto partnership to attack Iran, Hezbollah, Afghanistan, Assad, Iraq. With maybe the Europeans and Aussies are not part of this deal, and much of the US government being unaware of it. I don't think this grand conspiracy is accurate although some of what Obama does seems consistent with this hypothesis. If it were true, India, Russia, Turkey would be forced to support the Afghans against this grand coalition.
"No, it’s a failure. The Afghan National Army is already infiltrated by the Taliban, which explains why they keep turning their guns on their Western “trainers”." None of your authors are experts on the ANA. It is true that the Pakistani Army ISI and the Taliban seems to have infiltrated some people inside the ANSF. This has caused some ANSF against ANSF fighting and to a lesser degree ANSF against ISAF fighting. But you exaggerate the scale of it. About a quarter of violent incidents are ideological. The rest are personal. The undercurrent of this is that the ANA is culturally viscerally anti Taliban and Al Qaeda and some of its soldiers are suspicious that internationals support Al Qaeda/Taliban against them. A common cause of violence is when a corrupt ANSF officer or NCO feels that he might be found out.
When you say the "Taliban" is winning, what do you mean? Do you mean the Peshawar Shura? Sirajuddin Haqqani and his Miramshah Shura? Quetta Shura? Mullah Omar? Gerdi Jangal Shura? Pakistani Army? Saudi Arabia?
My analysis would be that the Gerdi Jangal Shura is getting pulverized. Mullah Omar centric Quetta Shura is also getting slammed. Power is shifting to the Pakistani Taliban, Siraj, and Peshawar Shura in the North East of Afghanistan and Northern Western Pakistan. The Pakistani Army is very close to them operationally, tactically and strategically. They are deeply dependent on Saudi money, although the extent of Saudi influence is difficult to determine.
Many in the Pakistani Army and Saudi Arabia do think that they are winning (not just in Afghanistan, but against Assad and Iran as well.) My view is that many of the Afghan Taliban are quietly anti Pakistan and Saudi too, and are deeply fearful of their plans for Afghanistan. They also realize that ISAF and the ANSF have smashed much of the organic insurgency but left the international insurgency strengthened. Mysteriously Obama suddenly cut off the ANSF/ISAF offensive against them just as it was about to seriously demolish the Taliban. This, along with the fact that many Afghan Taliban leaders are negotiating with Obama leads to all sorts of conspiracy theories among low level Taliban that the leaders in Pakistan, the Pakistani Army and Saudis might have an understanding with Obama.
Is this your view Shingo?
"Almost all of them hate the Northern alliance too, and all of them hate Karzai and the NATO." The Northern Alliance no longer exists. Their leaders are divided into many different political parties. Afghanistan's political process is very competitive and tough.
It would take 10 pages to explain some of this. What appears to be happening is the growth of anti Taliban Afghan political movements that are opposed to Obama's unilateral negotiations with the Taliban. They take a very strong anti Taliban line and don't think Karzai is anti Taliban enough, even though they see Karzai as more anti Taliban than Obama, who are suspicious of.
The ANA is by far the most popular and respected institution in the country. It is popular with all ethnic groups and comes from all ethnic groups. It has so far managed to float above most of Afghanistan's harsh internal politics.
"The Northern alliance have always been decidedly weak. The Northern Alliance militias are propped up entirely by the US/NATO, but even they are openly admitting that they have no option but to negotiate with the Taliban."
The Northern Alliance no longer exists as a unitary force. Let us all pray to Allah/Yeshua that it does not come back. All the Afghan militias were disarmed in the early 2000s.
Most Afghans say they support negotiations. But they don't support sufficient concessions to the Taliban to make negotiations realistic. Afghans want Afghans to be able to join US/Taliban negotiations. In part, to make sure the negotiations don't succeed. All of Karzai's negotiations with the Taliban since 2001 have failed, because Karzai could never sell the concessions the Taliban wanted to the Afghan people.
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Unrelated, Iraqis do hate Assad. They also view the FSA with some concern, since they fought many of the FSA 2003-2008. Much of the FSA are former Iraqi resistance.
"No I’m not. The UN Charter allows the organization to maintain international peace and security, but it doesn’t permit the organization to intervene in a domestic dispute to impose a political settlement."
We don't agree. Whether the UN is just or moral is another matter. But the UN security council can authorize a military force to intervene inside a UN member state.
""No, the US government gave the Taliban regime a 40 million dollar grant in May, 2001. link to cato.org""
The DEA did that for drug related purposes. This does not imply recognizing the Taliban government. The DEA can give money to militias too (which is what the Taliban was 1994-2001.)
"It also demanded that the regime extradite Osama bin Laden. Extradition is an act of state. " The US asked the Taliban militia to extradite Osama Bin Laden. This is because Bush didn't want to fight the Taliban and their three sponsors, KSA, UAE and Pakistan. In many ways 9/11 was a state sponsored attack by parts of the Pakistani and Saudi states against the US. The US, however did not respond against the primary perpetrators of 9/11, for fear of fighting a war with Pakistan and KSA. The US responded by attacking Pakistan's and KSA's proxies . . . Al Qaeda and the Taliban; and by helping their hated enemy (the Northern Alliance) to remove the deeply unpopular Pakistani and Saudi occupation from Afghanistan.
"Whenever American forces advance into the territory of a High Contracting Party to the Geneva Conventions, and the civilians there find themselves in the hands of US armed forces for whatever reason, our international obligations under the laws of armed conflict and the humanitarian laws contained in the Hague and Geneva Conventions are immediately engaged" Does this apply even when the US armed forces enter as a guest of the native government?
"The Northern Alliance turned wounded and other protected persons over to the US armed forces, who were then illegally transferred across international frontiers to Guantanamo Naval base and a secret network of prisons in violation of the terms of the Fourth Geneva Convention."
Here again we don't agree. The Northern Alliance hated Pakistan, Arabs and other foreign fighters and was planning torture and death for many of their prisoners. the US "bought" some of the prisoners from the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance retained custody for many of the prisoners, who then became prisoners for the fledgling new Afghan Government coming out of Bonn (more than half Northern Alliance with many minorities added in . . . the Norther Alliance merged itself into the new Afghan Government.)
Whether the US government should have bought some prisoners from the Northern Alliance is an interesting question.
I am not a lawyer. Could you elaborate on the international law aspects of this? Can a country transfer its "prisoners of war" to an allied country? Do those "prisoners of war" remain "prisoners of war"? Until when?
Can an armed militia or organized crime prisoner be considered a "prisoner of war"?
Part of the problem is that as the fully sovereign legitimate government of Afghanistan, could the prisoners of the Northern Alliance be considered "prisoners of war"? If they were correctly referred to as proxies of Pakistan and KSA, then probably yes. But the US was opposed to calling them this. The US wanted only a partial conflict with Pakistan and KSA and was unwilling to actually fight them despite their culpability with 9/11.
The subject of prisoners of war and the fourth Geneva Convention is something I don't understand.
Here is another question . . . what if the Taliban was recognized as the government of part of Pakistan (Sirajuddin Haqqani really does rule parts of North Waziristan and the Khurram agency). Then would it be legal to hold Taliban prisoners as "prisoners of war" into perpetuity?
Akhi Shingo, see page 2 from:
link to nato.int
Green, Yellow and Blue are Afghan lead. De facto the Afghans lead in all these areas already. However in some cases the formal announcement by Karzai will be made in a few weeks as per Karzai's public relations strategy.
The Afghan National Army is better than most armies (Mexican Army for example), but it still has to improve further.
"Of course not. The Afghan government has no legitimacy outside of Kabul." You are obviously not informed. About 62% of Afghans are not Pashtuns. Almost all of them hate the Taliban. This limits Taliban influence in most of the country. The Taliban have some Pashtun supporters. Although most Afghan Pasthuns hate the Taliban as well.
The Afghan Government has international and domestic legitimacy. It is also very corrupt, divided, and has many problems.
Do you realize how much non Pashtun Afghans hate the Taliban? And how powerful the neo Northern Alliance militias still are? Many parts of Afghanistan are presided over by viscerally anti Taliban neo Northern Alliance warlords and militias. They nominally say they follow Karzai but have some de facto autonomy.
Hostage wrote another great response:
"Of course it’s paranoia. Abba Eban called it a “security psychosis”. Even Zionists have web pages which illustrate that you were much more likely to be a victim of homicide here in the US than in Israel or the occupied territories during the heyday of wall and fence construction in 2004. In fact, Jewish perpetrators are responsible for most of the Jewish victims of homicide. link to mideastweb.org"
Sassan, please do read Sufi poems. Rumi. Mansur Al-Hallaj. The Christis. These are amazing reads. Read the stories of Ali and Fatima as recounted by the Sufis. Also read the Taoist poems and the Vedic Mahavakyas. When you read any of them, you are transported to joy and bliss. And I kid you not, it is really hard to tell them apart. Sometimes it feels like the same authors must have composed all of them. It seems like all religions share a common heart. And that all religions are love.
There is a connection between Sufism and Judaism:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Do you mean the Omar Khayyam who died in 1131 AD. I haven't read his writings. Maybe I should.
"In fact, exploring the cosmos through my telescopes make me feel in a way “transcendental”." Fascinating. And so true. Many of the ancient spiritualists also experienced the transcendent through the stars. This is why astrology with precise scientific and mathematical measurements is closely linked to many ancient religions.
Look forward to continued dialogue with you Sassan. :-)
Hostage, you are confusing Afghanistan with Iraq.
Only three countries (Pakistan, KSA and UAE) recognized the Taliban. Everyone else in the world recognized the Northern Alliance as the sole legitimate sovereign Afghan government, including the UN. The Northern Alliance launched a series of offensives and liberated all of Afghanistan in October and November, 2001. They requested and received substantial help from Iran (Yes Khamenei himself), Europe, Turkey, Russia, India and America. In 2001 and 2002, US and Iranian special forces worked literally shoulder to shoulder advising the Northern Alliance, developing friendships with each other. The Iranian Air Force and US air force used the same airfields to drop military supplies for the Northern Alliance.
It is the Northern Alliance (the sole legitimate sovereign Afghan Government) that liberated Afghanistan with international assistance. The UN unanimously created ISAF and urged all countries to contribute to it. ISAF's responsibility was to surge the capacity of the Afghan Security Forces and assist with security until the Afghan Security Forces could assume full responsibility.
When the Northern Alliance liberated Afghanistan, there were only about 340 US special forces in the entire country. And a comparably small number of special forces from Iran, Europe, Canada, India, Russia, Turkey.
To say that Afghanistan was invaded is to insult the Northern Alliance. The Afghan Government didn't say that Afghanistan was invaded. Although they profusely thanked Iran, Khamenei, America, Turkey, Europe, Canada and India for helping them liberate themselves. [Russia didn't get thanked as much even though Russia helped substantially for obvious political reasons.]
The Afghan Government is very corrupt. So is Khamenei's dictatorship in Iran, Pakistan and India. Afghanistan has been very corrupt for centuries. The Moghul Mongol Seljik Turk empire was deeply corrupt for the two centuries it ruled Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The Persian empire was deeply corrupt when it ruled Afghanistan after that. So was the Afghan state (Durrani empire) from the start in 1747. The Taliban is corrupt too.
"Under the circumstances, the Taliban would be within their rights to consider the Afghan army a valid military objective."
The vast majority of Afghans strongly disagree with this. As does the entire international community. Two countries de facto agree with your position but they do not state this openly. Large parts of the Taliban are veritable wings of two countries.
The Afghan war is a proxy war between two countries and Afghanistan (and Afghanistan's international allies). This is a major reason so many around the world are disillusioned about helping the Afghans fight their war against two rival countries. Many see it as Afghanistan's war and not something that benefits them.
Fredblogs, the world you describe is not one I recognize. However, one of my reasons for reading this blog is to understand you better,including understanding why you believe what you believe.
"As to the abstract concept of Genocide, a majority of the Palestinians (about 70%) agree with a hadith about Muslims exterminating the Jews" That Hadith can be interpreted differently by different people.
I think you are referring to this one?:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Your question is legitimate and deserves a full response.
Could a practicing Sunni on this blog respond to this. If no one else does, maybe I will later.
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"a significant minority of the Palestinians (about 1/3) think that murdering Jewish babies is a good thing. They are not good people."
Please don't say things like this. Everyone in the world is at least a little good [maybe mixed with some bad]. Even Lucifer Iblis himself has at least a little good in him.
Please provide evidence regarding the slander regarding killing Jewish babies.
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Will need to respond to the rest of your points later. Have to run. Could someone else respond to Fredblogs please?
Blake that Keith Johnson is awful. The vicious anti Jewish lies and statements. Oh my God. Keith was claiming that Jews have a lot of influence over America and the world.
This is 100% wrong. For example Jewish Americans are not as rich as many other American ethnic groups. For example one fifth of Indian Americans households are millionaires. Higher than the comparable number for Jewish Americans. Jews do not control America, wall street or any other important country. Jews rock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sassan, I don't understand your problem with twelverism. What do you think of Ismaelis? Sunnis? Hindus? Buddhists?
A lot of Hindus, Jains, Taoists, and Buddhists practice a type of religious spiritual atheism. [Not all, some.] Being deeply religious and spiritual while atheist is completely consistent in my view.
Have you read the famous Sufi poets? In my view to read them is to be transported into the transcendental. You can enjoy them just as much as a practicing atheist.
Is your atheism inspired by people such as the Hitch? [Long time fan of the Hitch.]
Hostage, are you saying that the Afghan government is not fully sovereign and legitimate? Are you implying that it is okay for people who do not like the Afghan government to violently attack the more than 195 thousand Afghan National Army soldiers?
If the Afghan Government chooses to allow the UN to operate in their country and allow UN mandated ISAF forces (which have repeatedly been authorized by unanimous UN resolutions), that is her right as a sovereign country. The Afghan Government reserves to sole sovereign right to accept combat enablers, trainers and advisers from whoever it chooses.
In the large but not overwhelming majority of Afghanistan, the Afghan Government has a monopoly on force and complete security responsibility. In some places (parts of Kandahar, Nuristan, Kunar, Loya Pakti . . . . mostly a few places along the Durand line), the Afghan Government and its security forces have joint responsibility with ISAF forces.
Afghanistan is at war with her enemies, enemies backed by two very powerful countries. Both of them more powerful than Iran or Israel. [Iran use to be relatively much richer and more capable in the 1973, but the Iranian economy and security forces have greatly deteriorated since them. Iran's economic depression since 1973 has been orders of magnitude deeper on a per capita basis than America's economic depression in the 1930s.]
This is the reason Afghans are so insistent that internationals train and surge the capacity of their security forces. There is a wave of anger among Afghans because of the perception that the internationals want a weak Afghan National Army.
Blake, listened to part of it.
Sassan, why are you atheist? Are you open to being agnostic? What is the big deal about Imam Ali coming back? I don't get it.
Citizen Fredblogs wrote "@anan
They could start by giving up terrorism and stop firing missiles into Israel. It isn’t paranoia, the Palestinians, enough of them and in an organized manner, really do dislike Israelis and want to hurt them."
Comrade Fredblogs, love ya man. But I don't understand your comment. Who is using terrorism against Israel? Aren't the Palestinians actually good people and therefore aren't they by definition anti terrorist?
I am extremely pro Israel by the way. But I think you are way off base about the Palestinians, chief. Israelis have been mean to Palestinians. Not to anyone else in the world. You guys rock with anyone who isn't Palestinians. But you have kind of kicked the your Palestinian sisters and brothers around. So they are a little upset. But once you stop being mean to them, you will find that the Palestinians are very similar to you. They may turn out to be your closest allies and friends. They are part of your family after-all. Psss. You might find out that you actually like Palestinians. :-) They have good music, good food, good families and they live life. The Palestinians are good people; why would they hurt you? I don't get it.
Look, there are a lot of very real bad people out there. The Takfiris for example. And non muslim viscerally anti Jewish English. They are a far bigger threat to you. The Palestinians could be powerful allies for you against them.
Moreover you have first hand experience. 23% of all Israeli citizens are Palestinians. These are your most loyal, patriotic, hard working, anti terrorist, successful citizens. Can you imagine how much poorer Israel would be without their work ethic, brainpower, compassion, culture, family values, etc. Imagine how many fewer successful start ups you would have. Imagine how much worse your universities would be and how much less successful you would be in high tech.
Obviously Israeli Palestinians ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Go Israeli Palestinians. :-) I love Palestinians. And Israelis too.
Since Palestinian Israelis are so cool, ergo Palestinians are necessarily ultra cool too. It is logic, right?
Fredblogs, what are you talking about?
Afghans vote in Afghan elections. They have some influence over the UN and UN mandated forces in their country but they don't control them.
Aren't 23% of all patriotic, loyal hard working successful Israeli citizens in fact Palestinians?
When anyone says anti Palestinian things aren't they really dissing 23% of the Israeli people; and aren't they really anti Israeli?
Many thanks Ellen. Enjoyed watching that. Very interesting. Learn a lot from Finkelstein on Palestine/Israel.
Thanks the the Finkelstein clip. He is one of my favorite commentators on Palestine/Israel. Could you tell me the minute and second where he said Israel does not have a right to exist (or at least a lesser right than any other country.)
Hostage, how can Israeli paranoia about Palestinians disliking Israelis and wanting to hurt Israelis be reduced? This seems to be a big problem for Israelis.
Fredblog, the Takfiri do find 5 thousand troops deep in the desert who live huge distances away from any Saudi civilians offensive. Ask yourself why.
They also find all nonmuslims who live in KSA (including business people) to be offensive. Ask yourself why.
You still don't get it.
ChuckCarlos, Mooser and Fredblogs, you are all wrong.
The Takfiri have always wanted to attack the US. They still plan to. They differ among themselves about in what order to take their enemies out. Some say kill the Jews in the early stages. Others say focus initially on mass murdering Shia, Hindus, Russians, Sikhs, Sufis, Communists, Europeans, Atheists, etc.
They will try to kill all of us (thinking that they are sending us to heaven.) But they are open to sequencing when they kill us.
Osama Bin Laden wanted to attack the US even in the early 1980s. He just wanted to attack the USSR first.
Do all of you know how much Osama Bin Laden hated Hamas? Osama Bin Laden hated Hamas so much that he use to blast them in his speeches. Al Qaeda has fought gun battles with Hamas.
For you trio, a few questions:
1) Was Osama Bin Laden's killing thousands of people in Gilgit Kashmir in 1988 because of Israel/Palestine?
2) Was OBL killing thousands of people in Mazar e Sharif in 1998 because of Palestine?
3) Were the attacks on Mumbai in 1993 and 2008 because of Palestine? [Evidence is being presented that OBL played a major role in the 2008 attacks.]
4) Were the AQ linked attacks against New Delhi 2001 because of Palestine?
chuckcarlos says: "does Israel have a right to exist?"
Good question. Does any country have a right to exist? Or are countries immoral ammoral organized human institutions as a matter of principle.
Finkelstein has said that "Israel" has a right to exist under international law, as does the Palestinian state.
ColinWright, Singapore is a free democracy. Not as free as America, but mostly free.
Iraq is also a mostly free democracy. More democratic than free. For example it is illegal for an Iraqi muslim to convert to another faith on their own volition. So Iraq isn't completely free. But by the standards of the muslim world there is freedom of speech and press.
Iraq has had 4 national elections with high turnout and several peaceful transfers of power. In my view the test of democracy is peaceful transitions of power.
Malaysia is an amazing success story. Indonesia is also a success story.
"he was being advised by a neocon salwart out of nyc."
What is a neocon? I know that Saakashvili hired a lot of guys. Hired help.
I am amazed by the lobby he was able to build for such a small country. If Georgia can do it, then Iraq can build a "FAR" more powerful lobby than that. Iraq should do it. So should other good countries of conscience.
Be curious to get your research and file it. If I ever argue this position with someone again, I want to have more facts. In 2008, I didn't have all the facts. And I guarantee you that the Americans duped by Saakashvili didn't have all the facts either, including senior people in the US establishment.
"israelis were training troops there" Do you know how many countries around the world Israelis train troops in? Serbia and Israel are long time allies. Israelis like how the Serbs fought the Nazis in WWII. Israel helped Serbia until right before both the 1995 and 1999 NATO wars against Serbia. Israeli weapons shipments arrived in Serbia weeks before the 1999 war.
Israelis are friends with a lot of countries that America isn't that close with.
Israel was simultaneously supported after a fashion by both the US and USSR 1948-1961. Israel continued to have an interesting relationship with the USSR throughout the cold war. Israel quickly befriended Indira Gandhi 1967-1984, despite Indira being on the outs with the US.
Israel famously it assumed to have given US F-16 and radar technology to the Chinese. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Israel and China help each other train, although I have never seen news to that affect.
Russia and Israel have close defense cooperation. Closer than Israel/Georgia. When push comes to shove, I think Israel would side with Russia against Georgia.
"we dumped him like a hot potatoe when he (we) got busted for faking the narrative"
You don't get it. By then Bush was getting wiser about some of the folks around him, including Cheney. When Bush found out that there was an attempt to dupe him, he was justifiably not pleased. Nor were the other countries Saakashvili tried to dupe.
"but we were definitely on board with his attack." :LOL: Oh my you have an imagination.
The US, Europe and Russia were allies in Afghanistan and with respect to Pakistan at the time. And truth be told many countries are secret allies against the Gulf extremists although very few have the courage to openly admit it. Al Qaeda and Taliban linked networks and Pakistan was much more important to both NATO and Russia than a few tiny almost irrelevant villages in South Ossetia.
But I will tell you what. Next time I argue this position with someone (mostly to argue why it is important to improve cooperation between Russia and other free democracies, I will ask you for data and arguments. I really don't care that much about South Ossettia aside from the fact that it is detracting from solving far more important global challenges.
"we (US/IS neocons) want georgia in nato to build a ring around russia."
Why? For what purpose? Russia and NATO are de facto mostly allies. This was the opinion of GW Bush, Condi, Biden and Obama.
Israel wants Russia to become a closer ally. Israel most definitely isn't interested in antagonizing Russia for irrelevant things.
Rumor is that Georgia and Azerbaijan might help Israel and sectarian Arabs attack Iran. If so, Israel would dance a little for them. But not seriously threaten the Israeli/Russian friendship. At least in my opinion.
"ossetia is disputed under international law" . . . Absolutely. And I think the free world should absolutely try not to get involved in it. Georgia must sacrifice her claims for the welfare of the world. At least that is the argument I make.
"no country can be part of nato with disputed territory" Bingo. Right again.
"so this action was to peel russia away from south ossesia, it didn’t work." Now here I don't follow. Russia would have to concede for the territory to no longer be disputed. Angering Russia through inept gymnastics and hurting Russian peacekeepers does not help.
"c rice and france were also involved with a little switcheroo wrt an agreement w/russia." I don't follow. How could Saakashvili's actions have possibly benefited the US or France? Those tiny villages in South Ossettia are almost worthless.
"it all fell flat." For Georgia and Russia. It was terrible publicity for the both of them. And terrible for the concept of free democracy and international rule of law in general.
"so really anan, go read the MOA links"
When I want to argue this case with someone, I will. Not now though.
"don’t give me this crap like we weren’t behind Saakashvili every step of the way until he fell on his face."
You aren't the only one who has sources. I also have friends in DC and friends who are close to the DC crowd as you do. I don't believe Bush knew about it in advance. If he did, Bush would have pulled Saakashvili's neck. It was very inconvenient for the US and for Bush. Bush badly wanted a good Russian US relationship, even an alliance.
Annie, some of my friends wrote pretty damning articles about Saakashvili. Many of my friends criticized Saakashvili. Damn good articles in fact. He wasn't America's or Europe's friend and caused all sorts of problems for his supposed allies.
His stupidity is multifold. As soon as he heard that Russians were wounded, he should have immediately called Putin, and cried for forgiveness.
This is an example of Saakashvili manipulating a situation and moving it so far so fast, that other countries responded before learning all the facts.
RoHA, CNN is not a US channel. CNN is owned by a $40 billion market cap multinational corporation (TWX ticker symbol) that has shareholders from all over the world. CNN maximizes profit. This is far more important to them than to listen to the US government.
Georgia is very complicated Shingo. It would take a long time to discuss it in the lenght it deserves.
I would say that Saakashvili (who was never Europe's or America's man, although he pretended to be that and extensively lobbied for everything he could get) was reckless in his actions in South Ossetia. He partly provoked Russia, which still shouldn't have attacked militarily. Georgia was still a friend of Russia and Russia could have used its leverage (and its close relationship with America and Europe) to pressure Saakashvili. Russia has many allies inside Georgia.
Both Georgia and Russia were hurt by the conflict. Mostly because it is bad for business.
sardelapasti: "Stop feeding Zionist propaganda agents already, especially obscenely logorrheic ones like this guy, who make the discussion site worse reading than the Aipac bulletin. Except, of course, if we want this site to also become repulsive to people looking for a serious discussion of Zionism. It almost looks as if the site owners also want that, but at least we the discussants could try to avoid it."
I think you are talking about me. When have I said anything anti Palestinian? I don't know what you mean by Zionism.
I support free plural democracy and justice.
" It was Reagan that removed Iraq from it’s list of terrorist states, thereby enabling IRaq to qualify for loans to purchase dual use technology."
Huge mistake. It is a major reason why Reagan isn't one America's great presidents.
Saddam was evil. Reagan should have known that.
"Great rebuttals, from you and Annie, as always. But I do think it’s a waste of time vis-a-vis anan. I doubt if anyone here takes him seriously, and doubt even more that anyone will be able to change his inane views."
Averroes, how is supporting a strong ISF inane? I haven't called you inane.
"Rubbish. There is no relationship between NATO and Russia. In fact, NATO’s only purpose seem to be to kick sand in the face of Russia. NATO should have been disbanned when the Soviet Union imploded."
Russia and NATO have worked closely many times. Most especially in Afghanistan starting in 2001. Russian and NATO embedded combat advisors for the Northern Alliance worked shoulder to shoulder.
I think Russia should join NATO. The conflict between Russia and some other free democracies helps evil doers.
"avoiding allison’s current thread. instead he comes over to an almost two week old thread to fill it up with his psyops disinfo links."
I was responding to Shingo and others. I didn't notice what thread the comments were on or the date.
Annie Robbins, I haven't impugned your motives or accused you of engaging in "psyops"? You use the word like an F world.
If I wanted to accuse you of "pysops", I would remind people that after Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, the best friend the Syrian Allawites and Assad has left is Israel. The friends of Israel are a big reason the US and Europe haven't offered military aid to the FSA yet. I could accuse you of trying to block international aid to the FSA as part of an Israeli "psyop". Many in the FSA use this exact argument to discredit their opponents. But I don't say this. Because after reading your comments, I don't think this is your actual motive.
I could also accuse you of not wanting a strong ISF back in 2004-2008, because Israel was afraid of a strong ISF. But I don't. I don't think that is your motive. Some Iraqis were afraid that the Israelis didn't want a strong ISF and were preventing America from strengthening the ISF back in the 2000s.
Sister, you constrain your imagination. As a result you don't ask the right questions and research the right things. Which reinforces your lack of understanding. How does this facilitate Palestinians making themselves more successful?
We should respond to anger, hate and abuse with love and light. And this is how I am trying to respond to you.
Unusually perceptive comment by the Angry Arab. I am pleasantly impressed.
"How can you possibly argue that these fighters were sent to Iran by the Assad regime when these same fighters are trying to oust him" ??? What are you talking about?
"Al Qaeda has and always has been an enemy of Assad"
Assad backed Al Qaeda 2003-2008. Now Al Qaeda and Assad are enemies.
"First of all, the insurgency had virtually no presence in Ninevah province"
Did someone really write this? Shingo, you really need to talk to people who have visited Ninevah or live in Ninevah. Forget that. Look up MNF-I statistics. Starting in May 2008 a majority of all violent attacks in Iraq were in Ninevah.
"and what’s more, Ninevah province was not under the control of the central Iraqi government anyway."
MND-N transferred Ninevah security responsibility to the 3rd and 2nd Iraqi Army Divisions in late 2006.
By late 2006, there was less than one US brigade assigned to Ninevah At Tamin (Kirkuk province), Northern Salahadin. They were advisors to the ISF. By contrast Ninevah alone had two Iraqi Army Divisions (more than 25 K), and more than 15 K Iraqi provincial police.
By late 2006 Ninevah was an ISF versus Assad and Assad proxy fight. With some free lance Takfiri mixed in. Even that oversimplifies things. Ninevah is very diverse. Peshmerga still had a presence not under ISF control. There were Shia Turkmen. Sunni Turkmen. Different groups of Sunni Arabs with significant tension between them. [Initially entire battalions of the 7th Iraqi Army Division in Al Anbar were composed of specific pro Government of Iraq Ninevah tribes.] Badr had a presence, including among the Turkmen Shia. Ninevah also sported Kurdish Shia and Kurdish Yezidi.
Many Ninevah Sunni Arab young men would give the Iraqi Army dirty looks during IA patrols since the IA were under the command of a hated Shia/Kurdish Iraqi Government.
"Apparently, you haven’t figured otu that Ninevah province lies in Iraqi Kurdistan, and came under sepsrate control."
Part of Northern Ninevah were under the control of the Peshmerga and the KRG. This was a problem. But Maliki had bigger fish to worry about until 2008, and let it be for a while.
"Secondly, why would the Baghdadn leadership care what was happenening to the Christian community in Mosul? How is kidnapping the Archbishop of Mosul amoutn to an isnurgency against the Iraqi leadership?"
Not everything is about the Iraqi parliament, their internal squabbles and mutual insults.
Kidnapping the top Christian Biship in Ninevah province in 2008 was a shot across the bow to the Iraqi Army and they hated Syria for it.
Why did Assad do this?
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"No, it is one example of an operations alledgedly run inside the Kurdish region of Iraq."
Whatever you say about the KRG national guards, they kept Syria and Al Qaeda out. And they gave sanctuary to Iraqi Christians. More Iraqi Christians than Syria and Jordan did, based on my best estimates. The KRG were far from perfect, but they were not the idiots many European and American leftists described them to be.
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"The same way it happened elsehere in Iaq without Assad’s direct help."
This is a sensitive issue. It appears to me that Assad's influence was greater in Ninevah than elsewhere. Another province Assad also had influence on Al Anbar. Other Iraqi provinces were far from Syrian supply lines and logistics.
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"That is the most idiotic thing I’ve heard outside of the Weekly Standard. Muqtada al Sadr was in Iran by that stage at the invitation of Khamenei you fool."
Exactly my point. Muqtada was extremely dependent on Khamenei and living in Iran. Yet he was so angry that he accused Khamenei of supporting Al Qaeda publicly while living in Iran. What do you make of that?
Forgot to post this link:
link to atimes.com
The author is Hezbollah and IRGC Kuds force friendly. So I hope everyone trusts its credibility. In this article, Assad's people claim that 50,000 Syrians who use to fight in the Iraqi resistance inside Iraq are now fighting for the Syrian opposition.
I cannot confirm whether the 50,000 number is accurate or not. However, this is more evidence that many tens of thousands of Syrians were sent to Iraq by Assad under the leadership of senior "retired" officers in the Syrian army to fight the Government of Iraq, Iraqi Security Forces and Multinational Forces-Iraq.
I am only alleging that Assad tried to organize a genocide against Iraqis if Al Qaeda tried to organize a genocide against Iraqis. This based on sources from 2nd and 3rd IADs about the Syrian security force role in Ninevah province.
Sources from 2nd and 3rd Iraqi Army Divisions have described Assad's and the Syrian Army's involvement inside Iraq.
Assad use to send "retired" plain clothes Syrian Army Colonels into Ninevah province. These Syrian Colonels in turn ran much of the insurgency in Ninevah province.
If you are interested, why don't you call the cell phones of retired officers from 2nd and 3rd IADs yourself and ask them?
2nd IAD cleared this for release on the record:
link to longwarjournal.org
"the leader of the Christian community in Mosul. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped during what Iraqi officers in Mosul described as a professional operation. Three cars pulled up as Rahho left mass, killed his three-man security detail, and put him into the trunk of a car.
His captors were led by a former Syrian colonel and a former lieutenant colonel in the old Iraqi Republican Guard, said Colonel Hage Alzebari, the 2nd Iraqi Army Division's intelligence officer during a briefing given to the staff of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division at Forward Operating Base Lion.
Read more: link to longwarjournal.org"
This was one of many operations run by Syrian Army Colonels inside Iraq.
Many more data points like this are available from 2nd and 3rd IADs. It comes down to how much you trust 2nd Iraqi Army Division commanding Brigadier General Mouta'a and 3rd Iraqi Army Division commanding Major General Kirshad.
Maybe you can argue that Assad was only trying to destroy the 2nd and 3rd Iraqi Army Divisions 2006-2008 since he saw them as a long term threat to his regime in Syria. But then, how to you explain Al Qaeda in Ninevah province?
Do you really believe that Assad was not behind Safi, the former al Qaeda emir of Mosul, who was personally killed by BG Mouta'a in August, 2007?
In Ninevah, the "insurgency" launched several well organized large sized attacks of several hundred soldiers against the Iraqi Security Forces [that to my knowledge were unique to Ninevah and Al Anbar provinces.]. How could this have happened without Assad's direct help? The logistics, training, signals and command and control requirements for these large unit actions is substantial. How did the Ninevah resistance pay their soldiers more than the Iraqi Army paid its soldiers? [OK, this does not prove anything. Someone could speculate the funding came from the Gulf.]
Another source that corroborates Assad's backing of Al Qaeda is Sayyed Muqtada al Sadr. Muqtada on several occasions while in Iran publicly angrily blasted Sayyed Khamenei for backing Al Qaeda. How could Khamenei (a Shia Marja and supreme leader of Iran--Al Qaeda's hated enemy) have backed Al Qaeda. It would have had to be indirectly with plausible deniability. Muqtada al Sadr between the lines was in part saying that Khamenei is backing Al Qaeda through Assad.
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I need to sleep now. If I could close with a question. Does anyone disagree with the assertion that Al Qaeda was trying to organize a genocide in Iraq? If so why? If someone believes that Al Qaeda was not trying to organize a genocide in Iraq, then Assad wasn't trying to organize a genocide against Iraq either.
Do you mean the 1947 UN plan borders or the 1967 borders?
Annie Robbins wrote: "not really. israel could just pull back to the 48 mandate borders and respect ror. i bet that would go along way towards settling past debts, at this stage anyway."
Please look at it from a Palestinian perspective.
Palestinians export $500 million and import $4 billion per year. Palestine collects less annual tax revenues than international grants per year. The Palestinian national debt is soaring. Without implicit international guarantees on Palestine's national debt from abroad, it is unclear if Palestine would be able to borrow at all. Which would mean that Palestine would have to end most social spending virtually overnight.
The Palestinians also need market compensation for all property confiscated by the ILA paying below market prices.
If Israel abruptly withdrew to 1967 borders and didn't issue visas to Palestinians and didn't agree to free trade/free investment/ free product development with the Palestinians and didn't pay market compensation for property confiscated by the ILA, and didn't pay for a Marshal plan for the Palestinians, what would happen to the Palestinians?
The Palestinians do not have access to enough drinking water to survive. And because they lack drinking water, they cannot grow enough food to survive.
Your proposal would doom the Palestinians to dehydration and starvation unless the international community agreed to give Palestine grants. There is no guarantee this would happen once Israel pulls back to the 1967 borders.
Palestinians need a lot more from Israel to survive.
If Israel were to decide to deny West Bankers and Gaza access to the Israeli transportation, electricity and infrastructure networks, the economies in the West Bank and Gaza would both deteriorate from current levels.
Palestinians and Israelis are symbiotic and interdependent. Israel cannot just abruptly withdraw to 1967 borders and end the conflict.
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Unrelated, how important is the welfare of the 23% of Israeli citizens who happen to be Arabs that are not Jewish?
To be clear I don't have a problem with property swaps of equal quality provided the Palestinians and Israelis agree to it. Nor do I have a problem if the Palestinians agree to sell property to Israelis at a fair price.
However, the Palestinians need a fighting chance to succeed as a free plural democratic nation.
"So? It’s shocking that Israel is not fulfilling her responsibilities as the occupying power, isn’t it?"
How interesting. Israel is not doing a good job. She is not doing right by her Palestinian sisters and brothers, which Israel as a good and great people must.
"She, and she alone, is responsible for ensuring that all basic Palestinian needs are met. If she doesn’t like that deal, she can withdraw. We don’t try to make the EU pay for any shortfall in the Navajo Indian Reservation’s budget."
Here we don't agree. Israel has to withdraw "AND" pay for a Marshall Plan for the Palestinians "AND" co-sign Palestine's debt so that Palestine can borrow at reasonable interest rates "AND" end all restrictions on Palestinian imports, Palestinian investment, Palestinian cross border collaborative product development, "AND" use affirmative action to provide Palestinians a large percentage of Israeli college seats (with scholarships), and jobs inside Israel "AND" greatly liberalize work visas, student visas, business visas and tourist visas for Palestinians "AND" use affirmative action to guarantee Palestinian participation in Israeli sports "AND" train, advise and provide combat enablers to the Palestinian Security Forces as requested by the Palestinians.
One of my ideas is for the settler to gain Palestinian citizenship and become patriotic citizens of the Palestinian nation. I think many might need dual Israeli and Palestinian citizenship.
What does everyone else think?
Akhoiya Averroes,
Hope to respond to your thoughtful observations in other comments later. If I could respond to this comment first?:
1)
"if you can justify the way the US conducts its foreign policy in many parts of the world, then you must by extension be willing to justify and support any other country that carries out the same actions or policies. As they have. See for instance the preposterous and hypocritical statements of Condoleeza Rice during Russia’s invasion of and conflict with Georgia a few years back"
We 100% agree. There has to be a common universal standard.
Iraq was in a civil war 1980-2008 against one of the greatest demons in world history . . . Saddam Hussein. Despite massive help from Khomeini, Khamenei, Europe, US, at least 15 countries, the Iraqi resistance was unable to overthrow Saddam. The Iraqi resistance was clearly on the right side and Saddam was on the side of demons.
The Iraqi resistance in 2003 requested and accepted American help to overthrow Saddam.
This is different from Georgia. Georgia was a successful prosperous free democracy and friend of Russia. Russia's attack on it harmed Russia's own long term interests. On the other hand Georgia was foolish not to proactively advance Russia's interests in Ossetia, knowing how sensitive and irrational Russia was on the issue.
The US and Europe should have tried to stay neutral. Fortunately Georgia was not in NATO. The world needed and still needs a close working relationship between NATO and Russia to better fight the Takfiri menace. Sometimes the welfare of the few must be sacrificed for the welfare of the many. Unfortunately in this case Georgia needed to sacrifice for the welfare of the world.
I am not justifying what Russia did, however. Georgia didn't want a conflict. They had an entire combat maneuver brigade in Wasit province Iraq (2.5 K strong) when Russia struck, which demonstrates that Georgia wanted to avoid a conflict with Russia.
Georgia's performance in Iraq was admirable, and far better than England's.
The Georgians had successfully advised what was at that time one of the best brigades in the entire Iraqi Army. The 32nd motorized commando brigade, 8th Iraqi Army Division [The division Lieutenant General Othman created from scratch.]. This once Georgian advised brigade played a major role in winning the Iraq war. When 32-8 brigade was sent down to save the English from shame and defeat in Basrah, it was replaced (in Wasit) with the awful British advised brigade from Basrah, which the Georgians helped fix up. [Old 1st Bde, 10th IAD. In my opinion the worst brigade in the entire Iraqi Army. And the one the English had the largest role creating and advising.]
How interesting that Georgia and the Iraqis had to fix the whale of a mess creating by England in Southern Iraq. How the empire had fallen. What a contrast between the performance of the English in Basrah and Maysan, and the performance of the Iraqi Army and Iraqi MoI rapid reaction forces.
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"Putin and others in Russia’s officialdom noted the double standards applied by the US by responding accordingly:"
With all respect, Russia's actions had little to do with the US. America simply isn't that important. Putin acted because of emotion related to South Ossetia.
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"with at least as much “evidence” as the US provided vis-a-vis Afghanistan or Iraq."
Do you refer to Charlie Wilson, Jimmy Carter 1979 to Reagan 1988 regarding Afghanistan?
Not sure what you mean by Iraq. The real reason for the 2003 US invasion in March 2003 was because Saddam tried to kill GW Bush's dad and Lara.
link to youtube.com.
It wasn't business, it was strictly personal. It was between the two families, the Saddams and the Bushes.
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" Saddam’s invasion of Iran in 1980, and his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 (after getting the green light from the US to do so), are just two cases in point. There are probably countless others."
Do you think Jimmy Carter asked Saddam to invade Iran in 1980? Jimmy Carter has never acknowledged that he did this.
Saddam was allied with the USSR, France and India 1968 to 1991 (in 1991 the USSR, France and India all abandoned Saddam.) 1968-1991, Saddam supported the Soviets against the US. None the less, Reagan was so angry at Khomeini that he tilted in favor of an anti American Soviet client state against Khomeini. Carter, however, has not acknowledged that he supported the evil Saddam Hussein . . . America's long time enemy.
Averroes, thank you for your very clear response. I will need to think it over.
The Palestinians need life. They need it now, not a hundred years from now. This is what I think.
Truth be told I am someone slightly divided on Syria. I am arguing the FSA position here because no one else is. Among the pro FSA crowd, I would argue differently.
Ali ibn Abi Talib was a great man. I like reading about his sayings. Thank you for the quote.
I am not trying to "debate" you. More understand you better and then ruminate over your response. You and "hostage" and a few others have a lot to teach everyone else.
Averroes, the Palestinian situation is anything but simple:
1) Palestinians are deeply dependent on very expensive ocean desalinized water
2) Palestine has to import food because water is too expensive to make agriculture practical
3) Palestine has to create new products and sell them internationally to buy water and good
4) Palestine imports $4 billion per year. Exports $500 million
5) Palestine receives more international grants per year than collects tax revenue
6) Palestine's national debt is soaring.
7) Palestine is deeply dependent on implicit international debt guarantees to borrow money at reasonable interest rates.
8) Palestinians need Israel to pay for a marshal plan for Palestine, provide vast numbers of student, tourist, work, commute and business visas, give vast numbers of free scholarships and affirmative action seats at Israeli universities, free trade/free investment/free product development treaties with Israel.
Would you really recommend that our Palestinian friends fight a war with the IDF right now? Would any true friend of the Palestinians advise them that this moment is the best time to fight the IDF? Just because you have the right to do something doesn't mean you should do it.
The lion wrote: "It’s really irrelevant who some necon yuppie in the US thinks is a legitmate government or not. That’s for the states themselves to decide."
Now this makes no sense. How could Iraqis decide on their legitimate sovereign government when they were living inside a large concentration camp where Saddam kept digging and filling more mass graves; as in filling them with Iraqis? Iraqis had no way to choose who their sovereign legitimate government was between 1968 and 2004.
There is a world of difference between free democracies such as Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil and now Iraq . . . . and genocidal mass murdering absolute dictators. Do you understand this?
Averroes is completely right to be concerned about Takfiri influences over part of the Syrian resistance and FSA. We should all be very wary of this. I would urge everyone to listen very carefully to Maliki, the Iraqi National Security Advisor (and commander of the Iraqi Intelligence and Operations center) and the Iraqi Joint Forces Command. They know what they are talking about.
At the same time it is almost certain that the FSA would beat Assad in a landslide if a free election were held today. The world cannot be on the wrong side. This is in my opinion is why Maliki has quietly allowed arming of the FSA through Iraqi territory and is careful not to support Assad.
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Averroes, didn't Assad try to destroy Iraq 2003-2007? Didn't Assad send many of the current fighters in the FSA to Iraq to organize a genocide during that period? Might it not be worth destroying Assad and simultaneously doing all you can to weaken the more Takfiri idealogical parts of the Syrian opposition?
Many Iraqis now seem to say something different . . . Syria tried to destroy Iraq . . . now let them suffer the consequences for their former crimes against Iraq. Let Syrians kill each other. Let us help this along so that Syria is weakened and is less of a threat to Iraq in the post Assad era. Is this the right attitude? [Facilitate international aid to the FSA and Khamenei aid for Assad so that Syria burns?]
Annie Robbins, what is that suppose to mean? Are you implying that I am an ant?
A country can be without a legitimate sovereign administrative government for long periods of time.
Are you saying that no government is "sovereign"? If so, how to indicate that the government of a country is not recognized by its people and the international community. For example the Taliban was only recognized by 3 countries (KSA, UAE and Pakistan) 1994-2001. The rest of the world and UN recognized the Northern Alliance as the sovereign government of Afghanistan.
What is the better phrase to describe a "legitimate" government or an
"illegitimate" government?
"Uh? Indonesia was forced to withdraw from East Timor"
"Asian Financial Crisis"
It is a good thing that there are many tens of thousands of powerful lobbies. To a great extent they cancel each other out. It is far from clear what the strongest global lobby (or strongest lobby in DC) is.
Akhoiya Averroes, many of my responses to you have disappeared .
The third biggest mistake in Reagan's life was not realizing that Saddam as a bigger threat to the world than Khomeini.
Hamas' army and the PA National Security Forces (NSF) can attack the IDF if they choose. But do you believe that is in Palestine's interests? If so, why?
Syria and Iraq were always sovereign countries.
In Iraq the sovereign government was mass murdered with a lot of other Iraqis in 1968 by Saddam and his uncle. After that the old sovereign government was dead. But no new sovereign government was created after that that had legitimacy among the Iraqi people. Saddam wasn't seen as legitimate because he had to be Iraqi to be legitimate. To be Iraqi he needed to be a human being first. Devil spawn doesn't count.
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Assad's crimes against humanity and against the Syrian people cost him any legitimacy he may have had or any sovereign authority his government may have had in 2011. But no new government has risen that is acknowledged by the international community as the sole legitimate Syrian government. Therefore Syria is in flux.
Shingo, you ask you said so. Doesn't common sense come into play.
lyn117, your point is well made. Should the FSA where uniforms?
Jonah's comment is long. It is difficult to read through and understand.
Mooser, I don't even understand what you are saying.
Shegetz, do you ever drop your politically correct dialogue to say what you really think? Why do your opinions have to neatly fit into already established lines of thought?
I am not a leftist. Please don't call me that. I have already been called a leftist far too often. Leftist believe in everyone being poor together. Shared poverty and sacrifice. Where everyone slowly gets poorer every year. The closest thing to a leftist country in the world is North Korea. That is not what I support. Why can't everyone become rich instead?
I don't know what you mean by hypocrisy. Perhaps we believe in different assumptions and facts and that our positions are completely consistent with the assumptions and facts we believe in.
My answers keep disappearing. Many countries shape the US through their powerful lobbies. Remember the way the Indonesian lobby wielded such influence over the Clinton administration in the 1990s? The Israeli lobby isn't close to being the most powerful national lobby.
Please list the countries that you think don't intervene in other countries.
Maybe the real rule is that countries can freely intervene in each other's affairs so long as they comply with international law and values.
A country retains sovereignty, but it's government can lose sovereignty. Often a sovereign country can go without a sovereign government for decades at a time. For example, Iraq didn't have a sovereign government 1968 to 2004.
How should countries deal with sovereign countries that lack sovereign governments? I don't know the answer to this question.
Syria is a sovereign country without a sovereign government. Does the FSA armed militia had the right to request and accept international assistance? If so, can you elaborate how?
"”NBC News reported that “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group [MeK] that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service,”"
Israel is not America.
"while The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh detailed in April that the U.S. has provided extensive training to MeK operatives, on U.S. soil.”" Be careful about Hersh's sources. What I would like to know is which US agency and when.
Maybe the Obama administration is moving closer to supporting the MeK than the Bush administration did. This is possible. Have you asked any friends you might have at the US state department about it? I could try to ask around. But I am not motivated to.
Does the US support MeK or is the MeK buying some US support through their US lobby? I think this is a question that might be explored.
Annie, which American official do you think instigated a fitna? Or better question, which senior American official knows the meaning of the word "fitna."
Ukhti Annie, you can be naive. If I have your permission to call you sister.
You have no idea how uninformed many of the top American officials in Iraq were at the time. It was like they were preschoolers running around around with their heads between their legs. Most of them were very idealistic. Especially in MNF-I. Do you know how many top American officials didn't properly understand the different between twelver and ismaeli or between normal Sunni and salafi? Their pronunciation of Iraqi cities were beyond awful. What is worse is that Iraqis would use terribly American mispronunciations so that their American colleagues would be able to follow them. There were also some schmucks who advised the ISF. It was a real uneven mixture in quality.
We don't agree on the MEK. They have a powerful lobby in Washington, but you exaggerate the extent of their power. Yes they had powerful friends inside the Bush administration. What I am telling you is my best information and conjecture regarding MNF-Iraq. I don't believe that MNF-I backed MEK. Sure some other agencies of the US government could have been doing God knows what without the knowledge of the MNF-I [MNF-I had 30 countries which might be a reason MNF-I would not be informed]. I don't know what the US ambassador knew and didn't know. It is possible that he didn't really know what they were up to either.
MNF-I had a simply awful relationship with many other powerful parts of the US government, which is a major reason Iraq wasn't as successful as she should have been.
Strange as it sounds, MNF-I in many ways had a foreign policy slightly independent and contradictory to the foreign policies of other parts of the US government. That is how the American system works.
"remove Iraq (under Saddam) from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism back in the early 1980s. You remember that, don’t you anan? The whole messy business with Iran, the obstacles in Congress that prevented the US government and US arms-dealers from directly or indirectly providing political/economic/military/logistic support to Iraq due to it’s horrific human rights record against its civilian population at the time. The US needed a free unfettered hand to, alongside Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Jordan, etc.. (interestingly the same nations who were the primary sh*t-disturbers in Iraq post 2003, and the same ones also now involved in the Syrian debacle) to beef up Iraq’s military machine in order to fight its war against Iran."
What Reagan did in the 1980s was disgraceful. The 3rd worst mistake of his life. Worst mistake was backing Takfiri Mujahadeen in Afghanistan through Gulf extremists and the Pakistani Army. 2nd worst mistake was not getting rid of all nuclear weapons with Gorbechev in return for ending missile defense. 3rd worst mistake was cohabiting with the Lucifer spawn wanna be antichrist general scum of the earth Saddam Hussein al Tikriti. 4th was not running budget surplusses during the 1980s economic boom. Other than that he was a good President.
However, note that Saddam was allied with the USSR against the US at the time. As a result Saddam didn't get nearly as much support from the US as he got from the communists. Saddam was also closely aligned with India at the time. Saddam was also allied to China and other countries.
The only country in the world that did right then was Israel. Israel alone backed Khomeini against Saddam. Israel also probably helped the Iraqi resistance help Saddam although the extent of this help is hard to know. Thank you Israel for standing up for justice at that critical time. [Israel now please do right by the Palestinian brothers too. Thank you.]
Glenn Greenwald made up vicious lies about the Iraqi Army and now the Afghan National Army. I don't trust him. Need to still read your links though.
Regarding Israel, I kind of support everyone. Even the FSA. I know that many of their fighters tried to destroy Iraq 2003-2007. I am hoping that they learned their lesson and will not try foolish things like that in the future. I am also strongly and proudly pro Palestinian.
Israel is not America. Just like Turkey isn't America. The US isn't even as closely aligned with Israel as it is with Turkey.
I heard about "former GOP New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, former Democratic New Mexico Governor and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, former GOP U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former GOP Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Democratic State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and several retired U.S. Generals.”" at the MEK rally. Very impressive. But not nearly as impressive as what truly powerful American lobbies such as the Turkish lobby or the Saudi lobby are able to present.
Iraq needs to build its own lobby in America modeled after the Israeli, Turkish, Chinese, Indian and other powerful American lobbies. As I sadly remind my Iraqi friends; Iraq is not doing nearly as good of a job as she must. She would immeasurably serve the American people by doing so. By somewhat balancing the powerful Gulf and Pakistani lobbies. And yes even that lobby that many people on this blog speak of which does not always even serve the interests of the country it claims to support. Iraq can easily build a more powerful lobby than KSA. Iraq is helped by the fact that Iraqi interests are more similar to American interests than some of these other countries. Iraqi family values and values more generally are similar to the values of the American Midwest and South. Biden's mother has a rosary of beads with which she says God's name. So do many Iraqis. Iraqis and Americans share many seculars and left of center types too. There is much commonality that can be utilized.
Annie Robbins, what Badr/SCIRI/ISCI did at Iraqi MoI will forever blight the Iraqi people much as the Nabka continues to horrify the conscience of good Israelis.
Badr/SCIRI/ISCI might have done a lot to save Iraq from Saddam, and during 2003-2005 they were heroes among the Iraqi Shia for doing so; but there is no excuse for what they did starting in 2005.
To repeat, there is "NO EXCUSE" and I am not excusing them. However you Annie, should recognize what created them.
As you know Khomeini came to power in 1979. Once of his first acts was to call for the death of Saddam Hussein and the elimination of the Baa3th. You probably use to see video of large crows chanting in pharsi "Death to Saddam. Death to America" etc. Khomeini immediately began to massively arm, train, equip and advise the Iraqi resistance, including the Badr.
In 1980 Badr and others started a general popular revolt by the Iraqi people against Saddam. Saddam was so scared by it, that he decided to invade Iran to take out Badr's logistics, training camps, command and control and other combat enablers. Badr continued to fight Saddam 1980-2003. Badr fielded a large fully equipped and functional army during this period.
In April, 2003, over a hundred thousand Iraqi resistance fighters entered Iraq and quickly took over most of Iraq. The Coalition stayed clear of them for good reason, knowing how much popular support they had.
The Iraqi resistance initially primarily targeted Iraqis rather than internationals, and no one as much as Badr. In fact Annie Robbins, you bosom buddy Rumsfeld claimed in July, 2003, that there was no insurgency in Iraq because the resistance was primarily mass murdering Iraqis rather than targeting coalition forces.
The Iraqi resistance killed the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of American civilians [{Iraq's civilian casualties} * {America's population}/{Iraq's population}]. This is why the Badr went crazy with wild revenge in 2005, despite Sistani pleading with Badr not to do so. Just imagine if America was going being hit by Al Qaeda with a 9/11 type attack every week for years on end. How long would it take before America's social fabric would break apart, and American gangs would wildly go after anyone for revenge. Not After the first 10 9/11 attacks, not after the first 30 9/11 attacks. But eventually, wouldn't many Americans go crazy too?
Badr/Hakim/SCIRI (renamed ISCI now) won a decisive victory in the January 30, 2005 Iraqi elections. Defeating Muqtada Al Sadr, Fadheela Sadrists, Dawa, Allawi etc. Muqtada only won Maysan and part of Sadr city.
Bayan Jabr got the Interior Ministry in April, 2005. And this is what he found. Rumsfeld hadn't trained anyone. Rummy and MNF-I didn't even start training anyone at the Interior Ministry until 2005. Something Rumsfeld frequently brought up in briefing as a way to subtly jab the hated State Department which Rumsfeld claimed should have trained the Iraqi MoI. The entire Iraqi MoI was a joke. Moreover Rumsfeld was publicly saying that it was not America's responsibility to train the ISF, that the ISF should train, equip and fund themselves. The Iraqi resistance was organizing a genocide against the Iraqi people while MNF-I was under orders from Rumsfeld not to defeat the resistance. Dead serious. Rumsfeld's orders were that it wasn't MNF-I's responsibility to defeat the resistance. Rather that was the responsibility of Iraqis (that again Rumsfeld didn't think the US should train very much.)
Jabr felt there wasn't time to build training camps and actually train Iraqi police officers. Rather the MoI had to induct vast numbers of Police officers without any training, and give them weapons they didn't know how to use, and throw them into the fight ASAP against the Iraqi Resistance. This is what the MoI did. The MoI often had little idea regarding what forces they actually had. MNF-I was even more clueless than they were.
This is how death squads came into the Iraqi MoI. It would never have happened if MNF-I had actually trained the Iraqi Police. MNF-I didn't begin training the Iraqi Police in large numbers until mid 2006. It was only then that Pres GW Bush found out that Rumsfeld hadn't been allowing much training of the ISF for more than 3 years; and directly took more control over his administration.
Annie Robbins, who do think is more responsible for the tragedy of the Iraqi MoI? Jabr? Or Mr. Rummy . . . . I have nice hair . . . . I have a standing desk . . . I won't take any responsibility for training any Iraqi Police so that I can say the Iraqis are fully responsible for their own security and make fun of the State Department . . . I won't order MNF-I to defeat the Iraqi resistance so that the Iraqis do it on their own . . . The Iraqi resistance trying to organize a genocide against the Iraqi people is Iraq's problem; not my problem . . . nothing is my problem . . . nothing is my fault . . . I am so cool . . . I rock . . . The US State Department sucks because I am not in charge of it . . . Powell sucks . . . actually everyone except for me and my friends sort of sucks . . . woman like my smile . . . I get up at 4:30 AM every day . . . I work hard . . . kids be like me . . . no one in the universe talks like me or has my unique feisty syntax . . . known knowns, known unknowns, unknown knowns, unknown unknowns . . . did I say how smart I was?
I mean, where did President GW Bush pick this guy up from?
"If and when you invade a foreign country, chances to succeed is very limited without population consent. They will start to resist occupation in time or immediately."
I am sorry. But as a student of history it is rare that a country will "violently" resist occupation, and even when they do, they generally lose.
This said, in Al Anbar the "occupation" they were resisting was the occupation of the Government of Iraq and the Iraqi Army. Al Qaeda in Al Anbar called them both "Iranians." Their primary MO was that they were fighting "Iranian" occupation.
I am reminded of very nice cartoon drawn by a US Marine officer in Al Anbar to explain things to fellow Americans, probably around late 2005. The drawing shows a US Marine having few friends in Al Anbar. And it shows the US Marine's Iraqi Army Shiite colleague having no friends in Al Anbar.
When Falluja happened in November 2004, the locals in Falluja were scared to death not as much of the Marines, but rather of the Iraqi Army that followed them in. Some Iraqi Army soldiers drew graffiti murals about "Remember Karbala." Implying that some local Fallujans were responsible for Saddam's genocide of 30,000 civilians in Karbala over 3 days in 1991. And reminding people about what Muawiyah did to Ali in Karbala in 661, what Muawiyah persuaded Hassan's wife to do to him in 669 and what Yazid did to Hussein in 680 in Karbala.
Of course the Iraqi Security Forces and Government of Iraq decisively won the war in Al Anbar in early 2007. Weeks after the CIA stated that the war was lost in Al Anbar and that Al Qaeda controlled the province completely. [Could the CIA analysts who wrote that report have really been that stupid, or where they intentionally lying?]
Schlonich Akhoia Averroes? Salam Aleikum.
That youtube link was extremely scary.
Regarding the FSA; Obama has yet to decide whether to support them or not with lethal combat enablers such as weapons and training. Concern from Maliki is one of the reasons Obama is so divided.
As you know the US government has multiple silos and often it seems like each of them are carrying out their own foreign policy oblivious to the other silos or any "whole of government" coordination.
There are some in the CIA who are a bit too enamored with Salafi extremists and their sponsors in the Gulf establishment, Pakistani Deep State and among the Egyptian Salafis.
Many uniformed officers in the American armed forces have a very negative view of the CIA. Partly because many CIA are very green, naive and uninformed. But also partly because of how the thought process of the CIA has been influenced by the establishments of "nominal" US allies that duplicitously support Salafi extremists (which to a tea are all viscerally anti American in addition to being anti Sufi, anti Shia, anti Kurd, anti Ahmedi, anti Jewish, anti Hindu, anti Russian, anti atheist, anti communist etc.). Some CIA people are perceived as being partly brainwashed by America's worst enemies. And I am putting this much more politely than GIs say it.
Part of the issue is that CIA officers often have little understanding of military matters, COIN, capacity building, economic development, the real world etc.
For example the CIA reported in late 2006 that Al Qaeda had decisively won the war in Al Anbar and now controlled the entire province. The CIA also believed that this victory would be very difficult to reverse, and to over generalize the CIA was presenting options such as throwing Maliki and the Iraqi Army over the bus to negotiate with Salafi nutjobs. The CIA also greatly underestimated the capacity of the Iraqi Army's 1st Division and 7th Divisions that were then based in Al Anbar. [As you know Averroes, The Gulf, Assad and Arab League strongly opposed any international attempts to build a powerful Iraqi Army and were continuously spreading false propaganda about how weak and incompetent the Iraqi Army was, in part to persuade the US Congress to cut off funding for the Iraqi Army. Often elements of this propaganda would end up in official US government reports.]
Of course the CIA report in Al Anbar in late 2006 was 100% incorrect and read like pure Saudi Arabian, Jordanian, Assad propaganda. Unfortunately much of the intelligence the CIA provided MNF-I 2004-2007 was deeply inaccurate and biased in favor of Salafis.
The US government is deeply internally divided regarding the MEK. If you noticed, the US State Department to date still calls them terrorists. The MEK hasn't yet gotten appreciable help from the US Department of Defense. All that happened was that MNF-I decided not to waste resources directly attacking the MEK when it had so many higher priority missions to complete. Ultimately Maliki did take the MEK out, and the US refused to lift a finger to help the MEK.
"US support for terrorism in Latin America. The School of the Americas, operating out of Georgia, directly training and supporting some of the worst mass murderers, torturers, and thugs ever. See:"
The School of the Americas is America's only spanish language military school. As a result all Latin American countries use it. Even ones that don't like America. Part of the reason it exists is so that all the militaries in Latin America can learn about each other, interact with each other, conduct joint operations together, and so that American GIs can practice Spanish. Education and capacity building are good things. Because of education and capacity building, Latin Americans can handle their own affairs without very expensive direct American involvement. This should be the model for how America conducts business everywhere.
To blame the school of Americas for what some of its alumni do makes no sense. It is like blaming Harvard or HKUST for every bad action every one of their alumni make.
Would you rather that the US had provided no training for any Iraqi Army officers and NCOs? Would you rather that no Iraqi Army officers were training inside the US as we speak? If this had happened, it is almost certain that millions of Iraqis would have been mass murdered by the very Salafis you are so right to be concerned about.
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" international community has a right and moral obligation to use a) gun-boat diplomacy against the US of A"
For what purpose. America is already a free democracy. And its people are generally affluent, successful, happy and prosperous. America generally does well by its own people. Not as rich as some other countries (only 4.3% of Americans are millionaires compared to 17.3% of Singaporeans, and America has such a small percentage of its population that has over $100 million in wealth that the US isn't even in the top 25 countries list), but successful none the less. The US has low unemployment. Not by Asian standards of course. But low by international standards. Why would the international community use gun boat diplomacy against the US? There are many who need international help more than Americans do.
"b) implement the harshest form of economic sanctions to starve the civilian population"
For what purpose? Sanctions against the US would cause a deep global financial crisis and depression. Likely over a billion poor people around the world would starve to death. Africa and Latin America would be devastated. And for what?
"c) train, arm, fund and otherwise support local militias to overthrow the government"
Why? The US government tries to look after Americans for the most part. Elections are free, fair and transparent. There is freedom of press, speech and religion. Any Americans who disagree with the US government should do so through the political system. How would this benefit Americans? How would this benefit anyone in the world? Who benefits from a global financial crisis and depression?
"d) get down and dirty with a Shock and Awe military intervention, blowing the country and its people to smithereens, in order to carry out regime change and implement some other cultural/political alternative to the dominant democracy/capitalism variety of the modernist ideology."
Are you joking? Why would anyone want to do that? What could possibly be gained by that?
MRW wrote: "You're an idiot."
I know. Others have already told me this. Do you disagree with the statement? If so why?
I take it the answer is no then for the FSA. Are you interested in interviewing any of the other groups you mentioned? Presumably AQ was written in jest.
Salut Annie Robbins. Very astute and relevant questions. My complements.
International Law is a very controversial subject. I don't have a JD, and would be very interested in critiques from those who do.
I interpret the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Universal Declaration of Human Rights to mean that a sovereign entity loses its national sovereignty when it commits sufficiently egregious human rights violations, crimes against humanity and war crimes against its own citizens.
Does anyone have a different interpretation? If so, could you please elaborate?
The next question is if sufficient human rights offenses have occurred for Assad to lose his ability to claim sovereignty over the Syrian state. This is a much tougher question to answer.
I would very much like to hear everyone's thoughts regarding this.
Annie Robbins, I have many friends and acquaintances who are journalists. You have no doubt heard many of their names. However none of them has been able to assemble anything with as much granular detail as an Order of Battle for the Free Syrian Army by Company, Battalion and Brigade. There are militias in Syria that have tenuous links to the FSA. I should probably stop talking here, since I personally haven't spent enough time researching the FSA to make generalizations. My point is that atrocities have been committed. But by what company, battalion, brigade of the FSA? Have they been committed by another militia entirely?
If a battalion in the FSA committed a specific atrocity, how much influence does the FSA general command HQs in Turkey have over that battalion.
Without knowing this type of specific information it is very hard to determine whether or not the Turkish assisted and advised FSA has committed large scale human rights abuses.
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This is completely off topic; Annie Robbins, would Mondoweiss like to conduct a detailed interview with the FSA? Could you nominate an Arabic speaking person to conduct the interview by telephone on behalf of this blog; and then publish that interview on this blog in English translation? Is this something that the Mondoweiss community might consider doing?
Maybe this is more appropriately discussed via e-mail.
I too would love to hear the FSA directly answer questions.
I learned something today. That some people still consider Assad to be the legal government of Syria.
This is my understanding. Hafez al-Assad in 1970 overthrew the existing Syrian government by force and mass murdered a lot of people. He was closely allied with the USSR in the cold war. But his ruthlessness and killer instinct so impressed Kissinger that Kissinger praised Hafez in his books, and even though Hafez was a nominal enemy of America, they struck up a friendship of sorts.
[If you want to learn more, please read one of the best book of our times . . . "The Trial of Henry Kissinger" by the Hitch from 2001]
Kissinger and the USSR manipulated the international community into recognizing their beloved Hafez al Assad as the legitimate leader of Syria under international law. In my view this was deeply wrong and immoral. But it happened.
Fast forward to 1982. Hafez lost all legitimacy to being the leader of Syria when he organized a genocide against his own people. Unfortunately at that time the USSR still backed their bosom buddy Hafez. Reagan was too busy being obsequious to Hafez to get a Nobel prize for the Israeli-Arab peace process, to get Israel out of Lebanon, and to end the Lebanese civil war to do anything either.
As a result, although the international community should have dropped all recognition to the Baa3th regime, they didn't.
Fast forward to 2011. Assad engaged in crimes against humanity against the Syrian people and under international law lost all legitimacy to hold any position in the Syrian Government. Since 2011, Syria has not had a sovereign government recognized by the international community.
Some time ago, when India joined Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the entire Sunni world in supporting the Syrian opposition, it was all over. Brazil, the non-aligned countries, virtually everyone in the world now supports the opposition.
Sovereignty for a country ends when a country engages in crimes against humanity and genocide against their own people. Few have explained the legal reasons for why better than Christopher Hitchens.
Shingo, are you a lion? Shingho means lion in Sanskrit and in many South East Asian and South Asian languages. For example Singapore is a permutation of lion.
Thank you for telling me how uneducated and clueless I am. Thank Yeshua that you are here to teach me these things.
"The Iraqi Government most of the major Iraqi political parties weer little more than militias." This is borderline racist talk. How would you like it if I called every political party in your country little more than militias?
"You;re the one who is confusing any insurgency in Iraq with Al Qaeda."
Al Qaeda was by far the largest, best funded, and most combat effective "Iraqi Resistance" organization in Iraq. They served as embedded combat advisors, officers and NCOs in other Iraqi Resistance units as well. The Syrian Army and the establishments of several other Arab countries played a very large role in the Iraqi Resistance. Many of them nominal American allies.
2006-2008, the commanders of the 2nd and 3rd Iraqi Army Divisions HQed in Ninevah province Iraq spoke quite openly about the Syrian hand and what Syrian Army Colonels and senior officers were doing what. They also spoke openly about Al Qaeda.
1st and 7th Iraqi Army Divisions also spoke openly about these subjects in their press briefings.
Please read these briefings on your own directly. There are english translation available for them.
If you show the least bit of interest in looking them up and reading them, we can talk further.
Mooser, I have exchanged e-mails to Juan Cole on many occasions. He introduced me to a person who I greatly respect and admire.
This is the wrong setting to discuss Juan Cole. Suffice to say he is much better than the Angry One.
Rusty Pipes morally and legality are often completely different unrelated things.
Regarding legality, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran and other countries poured large sums of money in Iraqi political campaigns 2004 to the present. By doing this, they bought political influence that they have used ever since.
Many countries donate money to Lebanese political parties. Many countries influence the elections and political process in other countries with money.
How come no one takes these countries to court?
Look at the US. Many lobbies from many countries wield significant political influence in Washington. I am sure many readers of this blog have met lobbyists in Washington. Are these lobbies a violation of international law?
For that matter large parts of the establishment of countries had a role in 9/11. For valid geopolitical reason the US government chose to let that slide without taking them to court. Correctly so.
Other countries intervene in US affairs all the time. Unless lawyers (presumably your friend Hostage is one of them) can win these cases through the judicial system, then I don't agree that this is illegal under international law. Maybe under the domestic law of some countries, but that is another matter.
Rusty, you need to live in reality, and try to change the world in practical ways. Read Finkelstein for advise on how to do this.
ToivoS, my politics are irrelevant. They also keep changing. The reasons I don't like the Angry Arab are too many to list.
This quote is a perfect example. An Israeli citizen should be loyal to his or her own country; serve, respect and love his or her country to the best of their ability. Ditto for citizens of other countries too.
"3) the person must engage in armed struggle against the terrorist state of Israel. " I couldn't disagree more. It is horrible to demand such things from Israeli citizens. MLK refused to use violence against the elected US government. Gandhi refused to use violence against the British and later the elected Indian bodies even when he very strongly disagreed with them . . . which he did many times. Observe what Nelson Mandela did.
The principle of democracy is that the side that loses an election respects the side that won the election and "DOES NOT" try to kill them. But not according to Angry Arab. Angry Arab wants Israelis to vote for what "HE CONSIDERS" the right Israeli political parties. If the Angry Arab's preferred political parties lose Israeli elections, then he wants all voters who support his preferred political party to use violence to hurt and kill the parties that won the most votes in free and fair elections.
He would put this up as an example to every free democracy in the world? If everyone listened to him; every time someone's political faction lost an election; the losers would violently attack the political faction that won the most votes.
Angry Arab would replace every free democracy in the world with a violent dictatorship. He discredits anyone who wants to nonviolently use civil society and democracy.
How on what planet is this funny or acceptable rhetoric?
I always admired the late Christopher Hitchens, a great friend of the Palestinians. He would have butchered this quote far better than I ever could. For that matter Finkelstein would rip apart this quote as well.
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"2) the person must leave the house he/she occupies and the land on which he/she stands on because chances are the house is occupied, in the literal sense, and the land is occupied, in the literal sense"
I know the Angry One presumably favors a free democratic plural one person one vote democracy. The marriage of Israelis to Palestinians. I respect that this is his opinion. But if a one state solution happens, then Israelis would become partners in democracy and freedom with Palestinians. They would stay in their homes in a united Israel + Palestine.
But how can this happen if the Angry One demands that every Israeli person leave their home in a one state solution?
Is the Angry One even really in favor of a One State Solution? Or does he enjoy the sound of his voice a bit too much?
Angry Arab is a deeply confused individual. He backed this same Al Qaeda (or Salafi extremists) in Iraq 2003-2007. Heralding them as "resistance" even though the large majority of Iraqis hated them. Angry Arab celebrated violent attacks that killed 18 thousand Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police. Angry Arab wrote the nastiest things about the Iraqi Government and all the major Iraqi political parties.
The hardest anti Hezbollah diatribe I ever read Angry Arab write was when Hezbollah saluted Sistani (who I think is a great man.) Angry Arab regards Sistani as the man most responsible for destroying Iraq and the most sectarian man in Iraq. No kidding.
Confused angry people like Angry Arab should meditate more. He is angry at Sistani, Maliki, America, Israel, Barghouti, Europeans, UN, Iraqi Army, Al Qaeda, Russia, Aoun, Geagea, Jumblatt, Berri, Hezbollah. Now you tell me he is angry at Assad too. I believe you. He is an angry man. How does being angry like that help the world? The world needs love, respect, forgiveness and light; not anger.
RustyPipes, you are idealistic and impractical. Countries intervene in the affairs of other countries all the time. Always have. What mid sized or large country in the world today doesn't do this? And for that matter, why shouldn't countries intervene in other countries as a moral matter?
What you can maybe argue is that interventions in other countries should be transparent and open as much as possible. And that they should be consistent with values. Here you would have a point.
To date the primary support for the FSA has come from Turkey and the Arab League; with other Sunni countries slowly starting to chip in. Europe is also starting to help in a limited way.
To date the US has been behind. And it is causing anti American anger within the FSA.
To any lawyers reading:
Legally, Assad is no longer related to the sovereign Syrian government. The sovereign Syrian government is either the opposition; or there is no legal Syrian government at all right now, depending on your point of view. The opposition has clearly asked for international help. Where does international law come down in this case? If we assume Syria has no legal government right now, does the Syrian Opposition have the legal right to request and accept international help?
The attack on Fort Hood was treason from a respected US Army Major and 20 year veteran.
Al Awlaki was a Takfiri who wanted to mass murder muslims and nonmuslims all over the world. Praise be to Allah that he is gone.
ToivaS, what is Angry Arab an expert at other than worshiping Assad's Khera?
Annie, who in the world backs Assad aside from Hezbollah, Khamenei, Russia and Israel; aside from a couple folks in Europe and America? Even the Iraqis hate Assad; they are just divided because they fear the FSA.
Jonah, Khaled Meshaal told Charlie Rose that he was open to a two state solution. Why don't you believe Khaled Meshaal?
I am a fan of Mustafa Barghouti, are you? Do you admire Fayyad's free market pro business reforms?
Hostage, Chomsky doesn't understand the degree to which the interplay of special interests and industries dominate global policy and interstate policy.
He speaks of America as too much of a "monolith", and other countries as monoliths too that quite frankly makes him look like he lives in an alternate universe.
seanmcbride, a good comment.
An attack on Iran by US forces is not in the American interest. America should stay neutral.
If Israel and sectarian Arabs attack Iran, don't stop them. But stay out of it.
The reality is that America only has 18% of global income and a smaller share of global wealth. The ratio of [American % of global income/American % of global wealth] keeps falling because America loves to borrow from foreigners. Increasingly America is owned by foreigners. The percentage of America owned by immigrants, children of immigrants, ethnics and minorities keeps rising as well.
In most of the world America is not seen as a threat. Hasn't been seen as such for a very long time. Many thousands of lobbies fight for influence in all large plural democracies, including the US. To some degree they balance each other off.
Keith lives in a dream world of his own fantasies.
Kieth,
"Your latest comment is the most tortured legal justification for ongoing militarism I have seen. You list a bunch of treaties designed to limit weapons for defensive purposes only, all of which have been routinely violated by Israel, the UK, and the US. If any of those treaties were other than “a parchment barrier,” there wouldn’t be an empire would there?"
You are very naive. The US supreme court is more powerful than the executive branch. The US government can't break the law and get away with it.
Neither can England.
The NATO alliance and UN are so litigious, they boggles your mind.
If anyone breaks the law, they can be sued.
Do you know how many lawyers work for the US military and the degree to which NCOs and officers need legal advise? The UCMJ is extremely complicated and strictly enforced.
Other militaries similarly operate under tight legal parameters. For example the Indian military, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Europe.
However, Israel seems to sometimes act in ways that are illegal under Israeli and international law. At least to me from a distance. But I don't know well enough how to argue the legal case. The only people I have seen that can are "Hostage", "Finkelstein", and a handful of others with a legal background. Hitchens was very skilled at defending the Palestinian cause, but lacked the legal background of "Hostage" and "Finkelstein."
Keith,
Are you an anarchist libertarian who supports a 0% tax rate for everyone? Many very good people have this point of view.
The concept of the legal system has its roots in ancient Sumeria (7 thousand years ago) and the ancient Aryan legal system (from Iran and South Asia 7 thousand years ago).
The judicial system makes rulings. And militarism, empire or security forces (take your pick) enforces these rulings. The great modern civilization in the last 7 thousand years has been based on this principle. Every country in recorded history was or is by definition an empire based on militarism. There are no exceptions.
"“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.” (Dwight David Eisenhower)"
There is a lot of wisdom to this. And I mostly agree with this.
Many well intentioned Iraqis from the Iraqi Governing Council and Americans said these very words to justify their plan for a tiny almost unequipped Iraqi Security Force. Their plan was that the entire Iraqi Army would only have 40,000 people. Their argument was that this would mean a lot more money for Iraqi economic development.
This strategy 2003-2006 was a disaster for the Iraqi people. Many Iraqis died before finally Maliki and Bush both reversed this policy in 2006. Within less than 2 years of this decision violence in Iraq fell by about 95%. How many Iraqi lives were saved as a result?
Sometimes defense spending can sharply improve security, safety, stability, technological innovation and living standards. Sometimes higher defense spending can sharply reduce structural unemployment.
There is, though a big "BUT." After stability and security are established, there has to be a major effort to determine sustainable ways to maintain this hard-won stability and security with less defense spending.
An example of successful defense spending is the city of New York. New York use to have 10-12 violent deaths a day. That fell to about 1 violent death a day thanks to effective policing. This in large part is what Counter Insurgency is all about. The drop in violence lead to much higher living standards and much lower unemployment.
Hostage, do you think the US was wrong to help the ARVN with their strategic hamlet program?
"His remarks justifying unprovoked summary executions of civilian “military-age-males” are simply despicable. Concerns over those sort of views raise legitimate suspicions of a deliberate cover-up in connection with his initial investigation of the My Lai massacre"
I never heard anything about this.
Shingo dude, the F-22 is a failure? The F-22 was designed for very specific missions. It is not multifunction. At long range air to air, radar penetration and strategic bombing, it is beyond peer.
A lot of the operations cost challenges were worked out. If more than 187 aircraft had been manufactured, the new models would have been much better than the first 187 models. This is the reason the US congress didn't want Australia, Japan and other countries to have them. [Stupid. America has no better friends than Japan, Australia and South Korea. They should have been allowed to buy the F-22. Maybe India, Brazil and Turkey too. Israel shouldn't have been allowed to purchase F-22s because of its propensity to proliferate sensitive technology to other countries.]
In my opinion the US doesn't need more than 187 F-22s. The US is extremely unlikely to ever fight a near peer or peer country such as China, Japan, India, Brazil, EU or Russia directly. The US needs to focus limited defense spending on FID (Foreign International Defense or increasing the capacity of allies and providing combat enablers including embedded combat advisors to them), and FID COIN (facilitating allies and multinational coalitions successfully prosecute COIN).
The F-22 doesn't help with this.
Regarding the F-35, it was designed to be all things. It is very expensive. High operations costs. Plus it won't hit mass production for some time.
The F-35 has been disqualified from several competitions, including India's MRCA, Brazil's competition and South Korea's competition because it won't be mass produced in time.
I would still rate it the best carrier aircraft in the world.
The F-35 isn't as good as a ground based aircraft. Would you rather buy the F-15SE Silent Eagle, F-16V, and newly upgraded low radar signature F/A-18 Super Hornet?
The joint Russian/Indian Sukhoi PAK FA looks like it is having significant time and cost overruns and won't be available for export in large quantities until the mid to late 2020s, long after the F-35 becomes available.
Two other potentially better alternative platforms to the F-35 for ground based multifunction aircraft would be:
--the new redesigned Dassault Rafale. Not the first 126 models being purchased by India. But the next 74 aircraft which would likely be significantly modified and improved by combined French/Indian R&D.
--the newly redesigned tranche 3 Eurofighters (upgraded by extensive R&D)
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In my opinion countries generally don't need top of the line aircraft. Based on the best models I have, the cheapest life cycle cost high end 4.5 gen aircraft for a large airforce is the F-16.
For a small airforce the cheapest life cycle cost high end 4.5 gen aircraft is the Gripen. [Not as high end as the F-16, but most countries don't really need those kinds of metrics.]
The cheapest life cycle cost low end gen 4 fighter is the Pakistani/Chinese JF-17. This is probably more than good enough for most countries. For countries that need a little higher quality, the F/A 50 Golden Eagle.
Personally I like turboprop. I think the US should buy a lot more turboprop and save a fortune in pilot training costs, close air support costs, and surveillance costs. Only the sheer insanity and mental illness of the US congress is preventing this.
My favorite turbofan aircraft is the C-17. Talk about low transportation cost per ton and cubic meter! And range and speed compared to C-130s.
When speed, range and large payloads aren't an issue, the C-130s are amazing.
Brother Lion (Shingo) said "The demand is entirely artificial." Not true. There is a lot of demand for aircraft that achieve the planned F-35 parameters. The problem is that mass production for the aircraft keeps getting pushed back. Many countries don't want to wait 8 years to buy stealthy 5th generation multipurpose fighter aircraft. [The only way to get F-35s sooner is to convince a country ahead in the line to delay their own deliveries of F-35s.]
"For example, the US State Department fought tooth and nail for the tendor to supply Norway with F35s."
You mean the Lockheed Martin lobby? I am free market and am uncomfortable with borderline socialist style "industrial policies" . . . which is what the state department promoting US exports is.
I think Norway could make do okay with the Gripen to tell you the truth. The F-35 is orders of magnitude better than the Gripen and a lot more expensive.
In my opinion (have done some cashflow analysis of this) the Gripen is by far the cheapest generation 4.5 aircraft in the world. [Some might claim the Chinese J10B. I don't agree: 1) The J10B's performance metrics aren't as good as the Gripen 2) I am skeptical that the life cycle operations cost of the J10B will be as low as currently claimed]
"The supply constraints are based on the fact the F35 cannot meet the spec it promised to deliver." This is correct. The F-35 is taking longer and costing more in one time R&D development costs to bring to mass production. The F-35 is still one of only two Generation 5 aircraft ever produced. There is nothing in the world remotely as good except for the F-22. There are also real questions about what the life cycle operations costs for the F-35 will turn out to be.
I don't agree the F-35 is a failure. It is the best carrier aircraft ever produced.
The F-22 was a major success. It is by far the best aircraft ever produced. Only 187 operational aircraft were ever manufactured. The assembly line has been shut down. The US DoD pleaded with the Congress to allow F-22 exports to Japan and Australia. India and many other countries around the world also wanted the F-22. But the US Congress refused and shut the production line down. They aren't known for their intelligence. [Lockheed Martin wanted the F-22 production line shut down for good to persuade countries to buy the F-35.]
Some people here don't understand F-35s and its affect on Lockheed Martin. Demand for F35s exceeds supply. The reason more F-35s are not being built right now is because of supply constraints.
seanmcbride wrote yet another brilliant comment.
Each individual is made from the image of God and has infinite power, imagination and potential. Every individual can transform the world by the power of their thoughts and actions.
For example Edgar (Ted) Codd, the founder of relational data bases or James Gosling, founder of Java and the man who in many ways created Sun (and is now part of Oracle.) Or Isaac Newton, or Einstein. Or Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Or Homer. Or Jesus. Or Mohammed (and his daughter Fatimah and son-in-law Ali).
Averroes, this comment is directed towards you.
seanmcbride, I understand and agree with you. :-)
Large complex multi-sided heterogeneous plural diverse free democracies such Brazil, America and India are in many ways alike. They are plutocracies with vast numbers of networks. Networks inside Networks and Networks correlated with Networks. These different Networks of interest (interest groups or lobbies) form constantly shifting alliances with other Networks of interest. Some networks rise and fall in influence. It is these constantly shifting alliances between networks of interest that determines policy.
Another growing trend is the increasing strength of transnational networks of interest. An examples of this would be: the the global greenhouse gases cap and trade lobby. The global human rights lobby. The global Natural Gas lobby. The global Hadoop open source community and lobby. The global Java open source classes community and lobby. Global lobbies on near field communications. Global semiconductors standards lobbies. The global biotechnology lobby.
Marxists do not try to understand who and what these networks of interest are and their constantly shifting alliances with each other. Hence their understanding of the world is inaccurate and irrational.
Thanks for the info tree.
Keith the Israeli lobby isn't nearly as powerful as people think.
What you call "transnational corporate empire" has been far more powerful than what you call "American empire" for generations.
Actually I don't know what you mean by "American empire."
Roya, it is good that America makes it easy for expatriot Americans to vote in American elections.
Greens refer to people power in Iran. The force that is going to kick Sayyed Khamenei out of his divinely infallible supreme leader of the faithful position. His time is coming, just you watch.
Greens also refer to people who support CAP and Trade to reduce global CO2 emissions.
Terry, no one should ever forget 1972. All violent attacks against Jews anywhere in the world are always completely wrong. All racism or sectarianism against Jews is immoral. Anti Jewish prejudice is a cancer on our species that needs to be rooted out by whatever means are necessary.
Terrylevine, Iraq like Israel is a free democracy with many large minorities.
How does Israel treat its minorities compared to how Iraq treats its minorities?
For example, half of all officers in the Iraqi Army are Sunni Arabs even though Sunni Arabs are only 18% or less of the population. [This is allowed by PM Maliki to alleviate Sunni Arab paranoia about the Shia punishing them.]
Arab Israeli citizens are about 23% of the population of Israel. What percent of the IDF's officer core are Israeli Arabs? What percent of the Israeli business community, senior corporate officers, VCs, entrepreneurs, sports players, models, actors, playwrits, entertainers, tenured professors, researchers, scientists, etc. are Israeli Arabs? I don't know the answer, that is why I am asking this questions.
Thank you very much for your well sourced responses. I will need to ruminate over this.
I think the question is fair. I have asked it before and not gotten good answers. Was there a Palestinian identity different from Jordanian, Lebanese and Syrian (subjects of the Turkish empire all) in 1920? There clearly is one now. But was there one then?
What does "Palestinian" mean? Are all Israelis "Palestinians" too since they moved to Palestine? Why are so many Israelis uncomfortable being called Palestinian or Arab (since most Israeli citizens have Arab Jewish or non Jewish Arab great grandparents)?
From this article, many Palestinians today had great grandparents who were born outside of current day Palestine:
link to meforum.org
This doesn't make them any less Palestinian. But it begs the question, what is Palestinian.
Another question that I have relates to Palestinian Egyptians, Palestinian Syrians and Palestinian Lebanese. Why aren't they full equal citizens of their own countries (albeit who happen to have Palestinian heritage and ancestry)? Why is Jordan the only country that treats Palestinians like one of their own people?
Terry, can I ask you a question. Why doesn't Israel proudly call itself an "Arab" country? Israel can authentically be many countries all at once. Jewish, Arab, Muslim, Christian, democratic, high tech, free, rich etc. Why doesn't Israel proudly embrace its blessed and unique multiple heritages? And honor Palestinian Israeli citizens as the national asset that they are?
Why doesn't Israel insist on its birthright as an "Arab" country and demand admission to the Arab League?
Question for the friends of Israel . . . how can I politely bring up these issues with Israelis without offending them or putting them on the defensive? Or is it best to not bring up these subjects with Israeli business and work colleagues at all?
seafoid, rather Israel should pay for a Marshal plan for Palestine. England should pay for a Marshal plan for Palestine. The world should simultaneously help out too.
The Palestinians need lots of help.
One of my ideas is widespread affirmative action for Palestinians in Israeli universities with scholarships. This would surge Palestinian human capital over time.
When you do ask IDF this question, one response is that the IDF does not believe in COIN. Somehow Counter Insurgency works in the vast majority of countries in the world but will not work in Palestine because of "Arab mind" this and "Pali" that etc.
Israel has also repeatedly blocked the training of the Palestinians National Security Forces in the past. Even though that is completely inconsistent with COIN doctrine. When you ask them why, often the response seems completely irrational.
Its as if the Israelis and Palestinians don't share a common heart, humanity and progenitor in Abraham.
What I don't understand is why the Israeli security forces do not prioritize the security of Palestinian civilians as much as they prioritize the security of Israeli civilians. Shouldn't providing security for everyone be the priority until a Palestinian state fully takes over security responsibility?
How can you ask Israelis this question without offending them or making them defensive?
Thanks again for everyone's information and help.
Fidaa, we do not know each other. However your warm compassionate personality emanates through your words. Your fiancé is one of the luckiest human beings on earth. May Allah be ever present in both of your hearts.
"Thank you for reading my post." The pleasure of reading your post was all mine. Your dialogue with the Egyptians lifted my spirits. I love the phrase "Ummah wahada". All humanity, muslim and nonmuslim is Ummah wahada.
You are right to not have too many desires. It is Allah's grace that you feel this way.
God willing the sanctions against Gaza will end soon and life will flourish beyond all of our wildest imaginings.
Please write again.
Habibi Gamal, could you please elaborate on how Morsi is a collaborationist Ikhwan? I am most uncomfortable with Morsi's previous closeness to extremists in the Gulf and Pakistan (Takfiri). Is this what you mean by collaborationist?
May Allah bless your community in El Nakhas.
Fidaa, brilliant article. Don't know if you are reading the comment section. If so, then Schloenich Habibti Fidaa?
Thank you so much for the dialogue. Loved it. :LOL:
Inshallah Gaza will soon become richer than Dubai and Hong Kong.
Wada'an Fidaa.
Thanks for this information. So aside from 85,000, other Jews were immigrants under English occupation?