Sic Semper Tyrannis

Israeli settlers burn church in Jerusalem - IMEMC

"A hundred year old church was burned Friday by right-wing Israeli settlers, who broke a number of windows of the church and hurled Molotov cocktails inside." IMEMC

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"IMEMC?"  Why haven't they been closed down yet?  pl 

http://www.imemc.org/article/59791

 

Stewart for president!

I thought that the mass attendance at the rally was a massive rebuke to the Glenn Beck temptation, plus a few more temptations like the abomination, Joe Miller.  

The clowning was fun but for pantomime deprived Americans, Stewart's closing speech was worthy of the crowd.  He laid down blue chips in abundance.

The Tea Parties talk incessantly about the principles of the Founding and of the Framers, but, they rarely seem to know much about those ideas or those men. Stewart's closing speech yesterday was all about those founding principles.

The head count on the crowd was something over 200,000.

Stewart may say that he is a New Jersey man, but by education and taste he is a Virginian, and I embrace him as a great patriot. pl 

 

 

 

 

 

Middle East Peace? - Richard Sale

 By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars

     In his 1989 book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, Tom Friedman wrote that Israel’s far-right “will never be prepared, for ideological reasons, to allow a Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza,” explaining, “They are committed to holding forever the Land of Israel, out of either nationalist or messianic sentiments.”

     Friedman has been proved right, but the reluctance of Zionists to share the Land of Israel with the Arabs stretches far back into the origins of the state. Glints of this ruthless intractability could be seen in a recent CBS Sixty Minutes segment about Israeli settlers racing to build new homes in East Jerusalem, an area of the highest historical and religious value to the Muslims there.  It is my view that such an action amounts to “aggression by settlement” and will destroy any chances of any agreement in this tragic, ancient quarrel. 

"Obama on 'The Daily Show'" CSM

"President Obama’s turn on Jon Stewart’s Wednesday comedy show was a bit of bait and switch, in that the tone, the content, and the message turned out to be pretty darn serious. It was a half-hour that would have fit nicely in rotation with those Sunday morning shows – think “Meet the Press” or “Face the Nation.”"  CSM

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I think this was a bad idea.  Stewart is a clever man, but he is a comedian.  The president of the United States should not act as a "straight man" for a comedian. Obama is trying to reach more potential voters?  I understand that, but the gravitas of the office is damaged by participation in such events.

"Dude?"  Stewart addressed the commander in chief of the armed forces as "dude?" The president has the actual power to order death en masse and does so order death in the form of national security "findings."  Should someone with that kind of power participate in political grandstanding and clowning?

The Democratic Party may benefit from this but the republic will not.  pl 

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Election-2010/Vox-News/2010/1028/Obama-on-The-Daily-Show-with-Jon-Stewart-heavy-on-issues-hold-the-comedy

National Journal Blog, 26 October, 2010

http://security.nationaljournal.com/2010/10/an-end-to-the-usuk-special-rel.php#1761852

 

 

Pakistan and ‘AfPak’ - FB Ali

It is rather remarkable that, ten years after having drawn Pakistan into its war in Afghanistan, the US is still not clear on the motivations that underlie Pakistan’s stance in this war, where they’re coming from, where they’re going. This doesn’t just apply to the self-styled ‘experts’ in Washington’s numerous think tanks; it also seems to apply, surprisingly, to administration policy makers. 

Typifying this confusion is the US government’s invention of the AfPak term to describe the theatre in which the war is going on. A term that had to be hastily dropped by officials, at least for public use, after Pakistan made it clear that it wasn’t amused. However, the US still thinks of it as the AfPak war, in which Pakistan’s function is to backstop and bolster US operations in Afghanistan. The generals conducting that war find it convenient to ascribe their lack of success to Pakistan’s failure to deliver, and keep demanding that Washington do something about it. 

"Iraq slowly builds a stable, prosperous democracy" Thomas Raleigh

"In terms of regional security, Iraq will have taken concrete steps to redress decades of mistrust and mutual suspicion with its neighbors. Bilateral arrangements and programs will eventually have provided the basis for noteworthy multilateral initiatives. (This year, we coined the term "rock soup diplomacy" to describe this process.) We envision that in 2025, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia will implement a multilateral agreement to pursue greater transparency in military affairs. Eventually, a multi-dimensional regional security organization (perhaps a trimmer version of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) may emerge to address such common regional security issues as border security, terrorism, proliferation and refugees."  Raleigh

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A veritable Paean to Neocon Jacobinism, could it be more full throated and prophetic? Is this guy a foreign service officer?    Sooo, if everything turns out exactly as current US policy wants to to be, then we win it all!

Grand, unfortunately nothing really develops this well.  Let's hear some alternate scenarios.  pl

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102206113.html

Analysis at NPR = ?

NPR fired Juan Williams.  Vivian Schiller (CEO of NPR) said about this later that he had been fired because he had stated an opinion about something and that such an action was incompatible with his job description as a "news analyst."

Well, pilgrims, I used to be the boss of a whole lot of analysts so I thought a lot about the nature of analytic work.  In the end my opinion was that analysis is opinion with regard to the meaning of facts rather than "analysis of facts" whatever that means.  This latter version is NPR's definition as stated by Schiller.  Her definition implies a mathematically logical application of rules to arrive at an "objective" understanding of truth.

"News" people" now routinely express opinions with regard to the material that comes in over the internet or that flows across the teleprompter. News analysts are commentators, all of them.  Their process of formulating an opinion (analysis) is no different than the process used by reporters in the field to choose the material they report and what sort of "write up" or spin to put on it. 

In my opinion with regard to these facts, Williams was fired for associating with Fox News, the ideological enemy of NPR.  All else in nonsense.  pl 

 

"Certainly in our children's..." Washpost

"Clinton at one point suggested a much longer time frame: "The future holds the possibility of progress, if not in our lifetimes, then certainly in our children's."" Washpost

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One wonders if the denizens of Obamaland really thought there would be a positive result from the current effort at peace in the Holy Land?  As we discussed in this space all the auguries should have been negative before the attempt began. Natanyahu to the extent that he actually wanted a negotiated settlement, does not seem to control the Israeli polity enough to accept success.  The Palestinians continue to insist that the general outline of a settlement should be known at the outset.  The Israelis, on the other hand, seem sure that they can outwit the Palestinians if the process is esentially Hegelan in its form.

What, in this, was seen as promising?  i continue to believe that the Obama Administration was simply forced into this vain effort by its liberal Zionist campaign financiers.

Very foolish.  pl 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/23/AR2010102302576.html

A Note on Economic Warfare - Richard Sale

By Richard Sale, author of Clinton’s Secret Wars 

For those of us who are victims of sentimentality and national conceit and who like to think of America as cuddly and warm-hearted, it does us good to remember that there are always cold, implacable ulterior motives that lie hidden in even the most generous foreign policy gesture. 

In a recent post, I related how the United States had crippled the British Empire soon after the close of World War II.  The United Kingdom controlled a huge area with a population of 540 million and from which the use of the U.S. dollar had been shut out. By the time the crisis ended, the exclusion of the dollar had ended, opening vast markets for U.S. goods, but at a cost of further laming a key wartime ally.