commentopia

 

 

 

FEBRUARY 22, 2010 -- FEBRUARY 28, 2010

CAMP HOLLAND: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ON THE HOME FRONT

First the Dutch are smart to be leaving and we can see the division this war, and it is a war, created in their country. Even in our most conservative ridings the cracks will start to appear as the number of dead and wounded continue to return.

As well, victories over the Taliban are hollow in that they will simply retreat, knowing what they can and cannot do. They lay traps and snipe and retreat. We'll secure the land and leave and they'll simply return. Much like cat and mouse. The only difference is there's an endless supply of those willing to fight the West.

Which brings us back to the Dutch. This is what they, the insurgents are hoping for and are being rewarded with. The cracks within our alliance and the condemnation by the people making up the coalition. It is only a matter of time and they know this.

Remember Vietnam, same scenario, different time and place, different out come. That will never change. Why? On any given Sunday one army can defeat another army on the battle field. That's one thing. But to then occupy a county which does not want to be occupied that is quite another and we have never learnt our lesson even with all the prevailing history behind it.

Read the article CBC NEWS/Dutch to leave Afghanistan, P.M. says

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Nato did a top notch job during the Cold War. There was a real threat to western democracies. Solidarity made sense.

With the demise of the Soviet Union, Nato floundered around looking for a reason to exist. Unfortunately it has morphed into a foreign policy extension of the USA...the Americans decide and we follow.

How is American foreign policy molded?...by the President, Senators, etc. fixated on American domestic opinion. Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan become more about US politics than military necessity....It follows that Canadian foreign policy on Afghanistan is also determined by internal U.S. politics. Not a good reason for Canadian soldiers to die

Fortunately the Dutch government is listening to its own population...and hopefully our own government will respect the will of Canadians and pull our troops out as promised.
Read the article CBC NEWS/Dutch to leave Afghanistan, P.M. says

To those criticizing the Dutch for leaving Afghanistan:

My father was part of the ‘liberating’ force of 1945. When he got there, more than 1,000 Dutch people were dying of starvation every day. These people know the horror of war for civilians more than you. They choose not to perpetrate those horrors on anyone else. To anyone with any grasp of morality, it is, given their experience, an understandable and correct decision.

Read the article CBC NEWS/Dutch to leave Afghanistan, P.M. says

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The Dutch culture tends to be based on common sense. They did get a little bit carried away with cultural tolerance to the extent that they subordinated their own culture to some strongly-opinionated Muslim immigrants.

Europeans are rather "enlightened", having gotten past their own medieval theocratic stage of history, but they can be like American liberals of the past, which is to say, having an inclination to over-correct for mistakes of the past.

It's a shame that Theo Van Gogh and Pim Fortyune had to be assassinated before a majority of Europeans comprehended the fact that their ultra-tolerance was seen as weakness by those immigrants with a less "nuanced" view on things.

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/Accountability, Dutch Style

 

WHO WAS BEHIND THE SLAYING OF MAHMOUD AL-MABHOUH IN ROOM 230?

This frenzied condemnation of Israel before all the facts are known, is fairly predictable.

1. There is no proof it was the Mossad, the Dubai Chief of police admits this. They are neither ruled in or out.

2. This Hamas activist had many enemies it seems. He himself used a fake passport to enter Dubai, apparently.

3. If israel wanted to acquire (or forge)passports that would not point to their own involvement in a crime - they could easily do so. it has already been rightly pointed out that these fakes were not the highest quality - unlikely that the mossad would have been so inefficient.

4. The involvement of the 2 Palestinians might just as easily suggest that the protagonists are a rival faction (of Hamas) and who better to blame than the Israelis.

5. Israel never comments on these incidents even when they have no involvement - as it suits their purpose to let terrorists around the world think they are unsafe.

Read the article U.K. TIMES/Dubai assassination -- police hunt six new suspects

I have no doubt that Mossad carried out this assassination. The use of the identities of British-Israeli dual nationals on the falsified passports points to the Mossad, plus Israel obviously had the strongest motive to take out this Hamas target.

Far from being sloppy, this was a professional operation. The hit team entered Dubai without anyone taking notice, located Mabhouh and carried out the killing in his hotel quickly without arousing any suspicion,and left the country within hours, again without any hitches.

It took the Dubai authorities a few weeks to even realize that an assassination took place, long after the hit team had left the country. This was a professional intelligence agency operation without a doubt.

Read the article HAARETZ/Lieberman cites Israel's "ambiguity" over Dubai killing

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I wonder whether Britain used false papers from friendly countries in WW2 as a necessary operational device? The huffing and puffing here really is a little over the top. I would have been content for Britain to have used forged papers from the US, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain or frankly anywhere in the fight against Nazi Germany.

I am not sure Israel did it. It would be a completely new modus operandi for them to use not just actual identities, but also actual identities of Israeli residents. And not just actual identities of Israeli resident, but actual identities of Israeli residents that a five minute Dubai police investigation would uncover.

I smell a rat here. There are one or two other entities that may have carried out this operation. One of them is the USA, which has a reasonable motive in wanting to cool Iran’s provocations to Israel via the missiles it ships to Hamas. I can see the CIA being perfectly content to misdirect everyone onto Mossad.

It’s just not typical of Mossad at all to shaft Israel’s own citizens so casually.

Regardless, whoever did it killed not just a murderer but a man who was playing a key role in turning the Arabs of Gaza into willing pawns of Iran’s games. That’s the real moral crux here.

Read the article U.K. TELEGRAPH/Israel must come clean over its involvement in the Dubai murder plot

MARJA IS CRUCIAL TEST OF NEW AFGHAN STRATEGY TO "CLEAR, HOLD, BUILD."

We are not there to kill every last member of the Taliban that is in that province. That would be impossible and everyone in the situation knows this.

It is to gain this ground, not just to deny the Taliban a stronghold but to deny one of the Taliban's main source of funding: Opium/Heroin.

Helmand province alone produces 90% of Afghanistan's opium and 60% of the world's opium. You take this out then you strike a detrimental blow to the Taliban more then killing a couple hundred of it's members. Also yes there is a force of 15,000 that is there, however of those 15,000 the majority is not getting into the fighting, most are support/logistics. Read the article CNN/Coalition forces making headway "slowly but surely in Afghanistan."

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The imbecility of the Western political and military mindset beyond understanding and belief .

As if it was not enough to ignore the principles outlined by Sun Tzu in The Art of War written in 500 BC and still wholly applicable and the fairly recent but no less cogent and meaningful treatise of Robert Taber, in his “War of the Flea”, The allied army machine now limits itself to rules of engagement which give the enemy an advantage that neither Sun Tzu, Taber or for that matter the Taliban themselves could ever have dreamed of.

That the Americans are fearful of being bogged down is no small wonder. How much abandoned Russian military hardware have they passed on the Jalalabad highway today and doesn’t it tell them anything. If the papers were to publish photos of all the young Russian soldiers killed trying to achieve much the same objective as the allies there would be no room for any news . How many messages do these people need?

Read the article U.K TIMES/U.S. fears being bogged down in Marjah

 

This is a major problem that reminds me of the DMZ in Vietnam. In Afghanistan, a big investigation is launched because a target wasn't perfectly hit but the Taliban can kill all the civilians they want and it's not a big deal - Karzai wants to talk to them.

In Vietnam the North could send anything it wanted across the Demilitarized Zone, but we weren't allow to cross it to the northern side. Also, in Vietnam the artillery was not allowed to shell certain roads so when they were targeted they sometimes simply came out of the jungle and sat on the road.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban know they 'll get plenty of notice of attack if they occupy a town giving them plenty of time to lay mines and slip away.

Read the article ABC NEWS/U.S rockets slam into Afghan home, killing 12.

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Of course it will be an outstanding success,  just as the same type of operations in Vietnam were, according to the US military at the time.

Huge "search & destroy" operations,  with aerial bombing, done from a great height infantry units helicoptered in, plus gound advances. After which it'll be claimed that the enemy was driven out of the area invloved.

What actually happens is that the foe gets wind of it, disappears a safe distance away, only to return later & continue their war once more.

Read the article BBC/HAVE YOUR SAY?/Will Afgoe the Plumbhan operation be successFul

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Well, as usual, its complicated. Saying "they were warned to get out" is a trite answer. Where are the residents supposed to go? Suppose a bunch of foreign troops showed up outside your home in dayton ohio (or wherever you live) and told you to get out, how many fingers would you give them?

Ultimately, I don't think a military solution is going to work in Afghanistan. In 2500 years of history, Afghans have never supported a foreign backed power running their country. The people there dislike Karzai and his government and killing civilians isn't going to help that. I think that the real solution is to show them that the US is on their side by rebuilding the country - schools, pipelines, roads, the usual thing. Provide military protection from the Taliban for such activities if necessary.

Whatever the outcome of this push it won't really change things in the long run. The insurgents will simply melt away after a while and then return when the coast is clear.

Read the article DAILY BEAST/Twelve Afghan civilians killed

 

FEBRUARY 15, 2010 -- FEBRUARY 21, 2010

BEST AND BRIGHTEST YOUTH ON THE PLANET SEIZE THE DAY AT "YOUNG DAVOS"

 

ONE YOUNG WORLD WEBSITE

"The Origin of Consciousness..." -- is part of the title of a cult psychology classic by the late Julian Jaynes: The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Don't worry, I'll not enter a theme paper on it...

The importance of this conference strikes me as something related, that is, the beginning of the creation of an actual new consciousness by the NEXT GENERATION in humankind aptly named: the Young World.

What it will bring forth? I don't have the slightest idea, and this makes it wonderful. What I expect from it? Almost limitless possibilities exists because the minds gathered there are fresh new ones who have become young adults under the Internet which by itself is a whole new step in human culture evolution.

Read the article INTERNET EVOLUTION/Conference unites global net generation

For the first time in history, young people are able to do more than simply protest on the street. They can get their message out to the world more easily. Social media can be an incredible weapon, but then like any "weapon," it depends on how well the person using it knows how to use it.

At least for now, one good thing has definitely come out of it. "Regular" people/consumers are able To force Big Companies to become more socially responsible and operate more ethically. Big Companies got away with a lot of very unethically practices in the past, but it's harder for them to do so today.

Read the article HUFFINGTON POST/One Young World Summit in London seizes on social media

 

FEBRUARY 8, 2010 -- FEBRUARY 14, 2010

IRAN RAISES THE HEAT IN NUCLEAR DISPUTE

Iran is not a threat to the World in any way. Saudi Arabia, the radicalised Sunni Muslim nation, sees Shia Iran as a threat, so does Israel. Israel is scared because the Persians are the smartest lot in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia the funding agent of Islamic radicalism will remain a U.S. lackey as long as America confronts Iran. Please remember that Iran has always opposed Al Qaeda and Taliban while the West's allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have funded & trained these violent misogynists. Read the article BBC/HAVE YOUR SAY/How should the world react to Iran's nuclear regime?

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If the rest of the world does nothing, others in the region will have to. Iran's nuclear ambitions are a prop to an unpopular regime, who will use those weapons against a fabricated external threat, in order to corral unquestioning internal support (The fatherland must be united against "them".) Every tyranny in the world has done that sort of thing, with disastrous results. No wonder that Iran's supporters are Russia and China, those paragons of free democracy. Iran should be blockaded, now.

Read the article BBC/HAVE YOUR SAY/How should the world react to Iran's nuclear regime?

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This is a move that the Iranian leadership will use to get control of their country back. The West will rail against the leadership for its nuclear ambitions, enact a bunch of sanctions that will only affect the citizens, and all the while, Khamene’i and his puppets will use the period of isolation to crack down on the revolutionary movement and reaffirm their grip on the country. Sanctions will not work against Iran. Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Iran's nuclear move prompts new calls for sanctions

 

THE TRIBE THAT LOST ITS VOICE: EXTINCTION OF THE BO IN THE ANDAMAN ISLANDS, INDIA

CNN -- VIDEO CLIP OF BOA SR.

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee". You can count all human actions as part of evolution, from the murder of your parents to the Holocaust. But as intelligent beings we can make different choices to help people preserve their way of life. These groups didn't just go die off because they couldn't compete, other groups of people took their means of survival. Any group that survived 65,000 years in one area probably had things to teach us and all human cultures are part of our story.

Read the article CNN NEWS/Ancient tribe becomes extinct as last member dies

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And to think that the first I ever heard of this ancient tribe was on the day the last of it's people died. I want to know more about this tribe now and the others that still exist in seclusion but I hope that their desire to remain secluded is respected so that another ancient culture is not lost.

Read the article U.K. DAILY MAIL/ Last member of 65,000-year-old tribe dies, taking one of world's earliest languages to the grave,

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I was touched to read such a sensitive article. A language and its associated culture and folk memories cannot be replaced once it is gone.

This is not just a far away issue. The historic policies of British, French and spanish Governments was to obliterate minority languages such as Welsh, Irish, Breton, Catalan. In the case of Cornish that policy very nearly succeeded and its future as a living language is uncertain.

It seems that Westminster is, at last, on the verge of granting the Welsh Assembly Government "permission" to legislate on the use and future of the Welsh language.

Even in modern Wales there are plenty of people with a mind set that our language should be killed off in the name of "progress."

Read the article  U.K. TIMES/Oblivion for 65,000-year-old tribe as last of the Bo takes her language to the grave

 

LISTEN TO BOA SR. SINGING IN BO

It is indisputably a loss for us all when a language dies. As a historical resource, a language is as valuable as a library whose contents can be found nowhere else. Culturally, with the loss of a language, we lose ideas about the many ways humanity can express itself, which is not just a way of understanding the past, but also an inspiration for the future. Those who suffer most from the death of a language though are obviously the language community themselves, or what is left of the community. Many are wont to object to 'identity politics' but a sense of belonging and community is nearly as important as food and shelter for almost all of us. A shared and exclusive language is a very powerful provider of these things, and without it a community is robbed of some of the meaning, which can often feel in short supply in modern life.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/The death of a language

U.S. BOOSTS ALLIES WITH PATRIOT MISSILE SHIELD

M.A.D. isn't the deterrent that it used to be. Even in the darkest days of the cold war, the USA and USSR were both too fundamentally sane to bring about their own destruction. Now there seem to be religious extremists of every stripe who would positively welcome the end times - Armageddon - Gotterdammerung - Judgement Day or whatever their particular mythology has planned. Some of these people have been getting alarmingly close to the big red button of late. We live in scary times.

Read the article U.K. Times/U.S. raises tensions with Iran by selling anti-missile systems

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Reality check time. Some of you are acting like an invasion is imminent. This is nothing more than defensive positioning. If there was about to be an invasion we would know about it because of the massive troop buildup that would be going on. Even if you combine the troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan, it would not be anywhere near enough to go in and invade Iran and conduct regime change ourselves. Re-nation building is not in the cards this time. That is up to the people of Iran to decide.

If Iran continues to fail to live up to it's NPT commitments, then the two options will be sanctions or limited air strikes on suspected sites. Sanctions would be the preferable option, but if China vetoes then Israel will probably strike Iran unilaterally. We will be in a position to handle any fallout should Iran try to retaliate or escalate against our interests if Israel does go ahead with air strikes (hence the moving in of defensive weapon systems to go with the air bases already in the region+U.S. Navy).

Both the United States and Iran have pressure points in the region, but there is a disparate bargaining power position between the two countries. Iran can choose to retaliate only so much before they run up against a response by the United States that leaves it no choice, but to back down or have their country set back a few decades by air power. The United States and friends do not face that choice.

This is pretty much how the next few years will proceed as it pertains to the Iran theater so there is little reason to get all excited and hysterical at the smallest movement in this campaign. We still got awhiles to go before anything really interesting happens.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/Barack Obama looks set to give up negotiations with Iran

 

FEBRUARY 1, 2010 -- FEBRUARY 7, 2010

TONY BLAIR: "WHAT CHANGED FOR ME AFTER 9/11: THE WHOLE CALCULUS OF RISK"

VIDEO: BLAIR TESTIMONY HIGHLIGHTS

"After September 11, if you were a regime engaged in WMD, you had to stop" said Mr Blair.

If so, then why did we not invade Pakistan? Their WMD programme was far more advanced that Iraq's ever was, and they are a hotbed for far more fundamentalism.

This "calculus of risk" is a nonsense. Blair backed the invasion of Iraq because he wanted to strut the stage next to the US. And we all know that Bush pushed for the invasion of Iraq because those who bankrolled his presidency - and supplied his advisors - wanted it.

Blair is still the same attention-seeking boy pictured in those university photos from years ago. And now thousands have paid with their lives for his vanity. There are no words for the contempt that this man deserves - or the contempt that he has shown for truth and democracy.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/I believed beyond doubt that Iraq had WMD, Tony Blair tells inquiry

First Blair took us into a war on the pretext of Saddam's possession of WMD - which didn't exist, and which he knew full well didn't exist. Now his reasoning has shifted towards supporting invasion because Saddam might have started amassing WMD. If this anemic defense is in any way considered acceptable, we may as well declare open-house on global military interventions based on the merest suspicion of future hostility - and a descent into barbarism and chaos.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/Tony Blair at Iraq Inquiry

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Nerve agents, as used by Iraq, can be made in a garden shed or purchased. (Some people put weak ones on their children's hair to kill nits). Nuclear weapons take hundreds of people with adequate funding and large factories decades to make. Mr Blair uses the term WMD to obscure the difference and conflate the threat. There was never any possibility that Iraq had nuclear weapons and contrary to Mr Blair's assertion, many people realised this in 2002. An inquiry composed of persons who do not understand the detail is unlikely to be useful. 

Read the article U. K.TELEGRAPH/Tony Blair live at Iraq war Inquiry

 

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You don't have to like Blair. You don't have to like his beliefs nor his decisions. But I don't see many people defending the legacy of Saddam Hussein, whom, everyone will remember, isn't in power any more, precisely because of some of the decisions and beliefs of Tony Blair.

I wish people would cast their judgments of others, world leaders and all the way down to next door neighbors, with a little more sense of scale, perspective, and context of the crimes and faults they perceive, real or imaginary, in others. And then there's the issue of hindsight.

Blair is not a monster. He meant to do good in a bad situation, and many of those hurling fire and brimstone at his legacy can only wish their decisions would have been remotely as good in the same situation.

Show a little humility, show a little discretion, show a little class, show a little caution. Then judge.

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Citing 9/11, Blair defends legacy at Iraq inquiry

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This sort of investigation will never take place here. Isn't that a shame on us and congress that presidents can get away with the foul deeds they do and never get called on it unless it's some sexual misconduct in the Oval office?

Read the article NEW YORK TIMES/Citing 9/11, Blair defends legacy at Iraq inquiry

 

AUSCHWITZ AND THE REMEMBRANCE OF PURE EVIL

Never stop talking about the Holocaust. Never stop talking about what can happen when the world looks away while people are being tortured and murdered.

When I listen to survivors of Nazi death camps, today especially I heard a survivor of Auschwitz speak, I am reminded again and again of the spirit of a people--this woman reminded me that as victims of one of the most horrific events in history, these people did not go out and avenge--they did not set out to declare war on their tormentors--the stories survivors can tell us about the people who never walked out of those camps and their own stories are gifts to us.

These gifts can help all of us be better people, to strive to be kinder and more compassionate. After all if survivors of this hell can find compassion and forgiveness, the rest of us should have no problem doing that in our own lives.

Read the article WALL STREET JOURNAL/Nazi camp survivors dwindle to a few

I try to imagine who are those that believes that moving on is to forgive whatever wrong doing was made. Where are the voices of the Romani People, the voices of the homosexuals, the voices of the Armenians, from Ruanda, from Kosovo, from Darfur, from Jeovah Witnesses? Did somebody hear it?
Does this mean that they forgive and move on? No, no and no.

But we, the Jews keep our voices high and clear and we will keep doing it for all coming generations, because we know that the Holocaust is the tip of the iceberg of long millenias of persecutions and brutalities, and there are people that under the disguise of anti-semitism will hurt other People.

So, while Jews don't "move on" there will be concern to all Mankind, be assured. Never Again is relly what is meant. Remember that it is easy to pay your way out of guilt, but you cannot get ride of shame unless you forget the cause of it.

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/Holocaust survivors' stories

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I grew up 15 years after the war's end but very much saw the effect of the Holocaust on my people and my country. The lingering effect of this monstrosity on many of it's people's life. Yes I agree that nothing has been learned if Darfur is still allowed to happen and nothing is being done. Not really. If the likes of Ahmedinajad are allowed to spout his venom. No he is not Hitler - but his venom and the hypocrisy, pseudo humanism, and delusion of (in particular) the European left and the viciousness of the extreme right are a real threat to the world not only to Israel.

I have lived in Britain for many years and saw it change. Not for the better. I saw the rise of racism and yes - the exclusion of minorities, of what is seen as the other... and the memory of a best friend's mother who, in Budapest under Nazi occupation, saw her brother being brutally murdered by Nazi soldiers and who after the war - displaced, homeless and traumatized made her way to Israel - comes to mind. The bitter legacy of that war is still carried by her two children and they paid a heavy, bitter, price for it...

The idea of the OTHER is repugnant and dangerous. In a country that prides itself in giving refuge to the persecuted it should never be allowed!!!

Read the article U.K. GUARDIAN/Holocaust survivors' stories

 

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