The Redhunter

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July 31, 2006

The End of Illusions

We're at the point now where an serious person must realize that the "land for peace" formula that was the backbone of the "roadmap to peace" is dead and buried.

We have been told for over 30 years now that peace can be achieved if Israel would only give up this or that piece of land. And it seemed to work, once. In 1978, Anwar Sadat, the President of Egypt, concluded a deal with Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel, the essential part of which was that Israel would return the Sinai to Egypt in return for various security guarantees.

This same formula, it was believed, could also be made to apply with regard to the people who became known as "Palestinians". If Israel would give them the West Bank as their own country then they would have no reason to attack Israel. Ditto with Gaza.

President Clinton tried to make this work with the Oslo Accords. In 2000, he even invited PLO leader Yassir Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to Camp David for an all-out push to resolve the matter. Despite numerous Israeli concessions, Arafat refused to accept the offers made to him. Nevertheless, people still felt that the "land for peace" had merit.

But with what has happened in the past few years should put an end to the illusion once and for all.

Israel accepted the Palestinian Authority government on the West Bank, almost a de facto country. All the Palestinians had to do is behave and in short order they'd have the rest of the West Bank and become a full-fledged county. But no, they launched another Intifada, this time with suicide bombers. Israel pulled out of Gaza earlier this year, and far from be grateful and try to live peacefully, it is now simply a new base for the terrorists. Israel has dismantled many or most of their settlements on the West Bank, and all they have received for their trouble is more terrorism.

Now we've got Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel, turning it's cities into ghost towns. What can Israel do? Jonah Goldberg nails it

It seems to me the inescapable lesson of the current conflict is a depressing one for Israel and the United States. It ain't about land. In the 1990s, we were repeatedly told that Israel's problems could be solved via a geopolitical swap-meet. Everyone get together in back-slapping fellowship and trade land and, abracadabra, we'd have peace. It turns out, in Israel's case, this is nonsense. Hezbollah doesn't want land-for-peace, it wants genocide for peace. (Note: if someone brings up Shebaa Farms as "proof" Hezbollah only wants land, they will have annointed themselves "Sucker for the Day" in my diary). Of course, this generalization doesn't apply to every Arab talking head and potentate. But as far as the militants with the guns and the hearts and minds go, that's the reality. Perhaps there are deal-makers even among the Iranians, but the fact is Hezbollah means what it says and it's stock is going up, not down. That means all of the 1990s illusions about how the Arab-Israeli (now more of a Muslim-Israeli) conflict could be solved through negotiations have been exploded.

A similar lesson applies to America. Al-Qaeda is our Hezbollah (and, in a sense, Hezbollah was our al Qaeda before al Qaeda showed up on the scene). Immediately after 9/11, the argument was made repeatedly that al Qaeda should be treated like a bunch of militant Palestinians. It was our support for Israel, our military presence in Saudi Arabia, etc, etc, which "created" al Qaeda and sustained them. Stop doing what bothers them and they will go away. True or not, the fact is the question of what created al Qaeda in particular or Jihadism in general is irrelevant at this pont. Hezbollah was created by Israel's occupation of Lebabon. But until three weeks ago Israel no longer occupied Lebanon. This didn't make Hezbollah disappear. It made Hezbollah stronger. America could pull out of Afghanistan and Iraq tomorrow. This would not make al Qaeda weaker. It would make al Qaeda stronger. And not long thereafter we'd hear how if "we" only gave them Spain, we could have peace.

So what do we do? The moonbat left believes that our problems with al-Qaeda are caused by our presence in the Middle East. But it is increasingly clear that if we left, the terrorists would simply follow us. Europe already has a huge problem with it's Muslim immigrants, and the problem will not go away. If we do not defeat the Islamic radicals in their homelands, they will only send forth more propagandists and terrorists to our countries. And then they will be asking for Spain back.

What does Israel do? There seems general consensus that the military campaign is not destroying Hezbollah as hoped. Mario Loyola, writing on NRO, believes that the only hope for Israel is, get ready, a "robust Security Council resolution" . If the situation is that dire, then we are in trouble indeed, for the UN is not an institution that any freedom-loving person has reason to trust.

No doubt that ending the threat from Hezbollah or any other terrorist group requires more than military action. A simple "cease fire" would only postpone the current conflict. Hezbollah would simply use the time to rearm, and I don't share Loyola's faith in the UN.

But the bottom line here is that "land for peace" is dead and buried. And it was killed by the failure of so many Arabs to take advantage of a gift horse when it was staring them in the face. Rather than follow the example that Anwar Sadat set, they have followed the example of Yassir Arafat. And the result has only been war and misery.

Posted by Tom at 9:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 30, 2006

Outrage! They Cried

It's an Outrage! they cried! Outrage!

Oh yes, now the usual suspects are outraged because an Israeli airstrike killed 60 civilians, inclucing 37 children, in a building in Qana, Lebanon. "Denunciations spread across the Arab and Muslim world" , with the attack called a "horrendous crime", the Israeli's are "war criminals".

"Palestinian protesters stormed the main U.N. compound in Gaza City on Sunday during a demonstration against" the bombing. Several hundred members of Islamic Jihad ("militants" to Reuters), attacked the compound, throwing rocks and firing rifles.

Nevermind the fact that the building collapsed some 8 hours after the Israeli attack. What they ought to be asking is why people were in a building that was structurally unsound.

But Hezbollah has gotten what it wants; more propaganda that suckers around the world willingly lap up and use to fuel their hatred of the Jews Israel. They deliberately hide their weapons among civilians, caring about them only insofar as they serve a useful propaganda purpose.

Oh, and that idiot Kofi Annan keeps prattling away, this time demanding an end to "the violence", and insisting that the Security Council step in. I'd say that he probably feels guilty about not preventing the genocide in Rwanda when he was given multiple opportunities to do so, but I know too much about him to believe that.

It would almost be funny if the situation wasn't so serious.

At an emergency meeting of the council called to address the killings, Annan said the region was growing impatient that U.N.'s most powerful body had yet to issue any meaningful response after three weeks of war in Lebanon.

But what statement might the Security Council issue?

The five permanent members at the United States, United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia.

The rotating members currently are Argentina, Greece, Qatar, Congo, Japan, Slovakia, Denmark, Peru, Tanzania, and Ghana.

The only reasonable statement that should be issued is one supporting Israel and condemning Hezbollah. If you want to add something cautioning Israel to be careful in it's attacks fine.

But there is no way a body composed of such members would issue such a statement. Anything that would garner majority support and avoid a veto would have to be "evenhanded". In otherwords, without moral clarity. And such a statement would be completely unacceptable. Which illustrates once again why the UN is not simply worthless, but is absolutely harmful to anyone who knows right from wrong.

The Good News

The Bush Administration is resisting much pressure from around to world to jump in and call for an immediate cease fire. The President and his Secretary of State apparently realize that Hezbollah needs to be destroyed, or at least significantly degraded.

The Bad News

Unfortunately, the IDF is not having as much success as it had hoped against Hezbollah. As John Hinderaker notes on Power Line, that "It's frustratingly hard to get a good fix on the military situation" but that "my sense is that the IDF hasn't made as much headway against Hezbollah as we would have wished."

That's what I'm picking up too, from a general reading of the news. Hezbollah is proving a much tougher customer than the PLO was in 192, when Israel went into Lebanon under what they called Operation Peace of the Galilee.

The Insanity

The insanity of it all boggles the mind. The same Palestinian "militants" who are so outraged over Israel's accidental bombing, one for which it has apologized , themselves attack civilians.

Kofi Annan is completely unable to distinguish aggressor from victim. To him all participants are simply "warring parties", to be dealt with equally.

Most Arabs cannot tell between an attack on a military target in which civilians are accidentlly killed (or killed as a byproduct), from a direct attack on civilians. For that matter, many in the West seem to have forgotten that distinction as well.

The Lebanese people, most of whom seem upset that another country is trying to destroy a terrorist force occupying much of its territory. The Lebanese Prime Minister who "thanks Hizbollah for its 'sacrifices'".

More insanity in the War on Radical Islam. Just another day.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 29, 2006

Nothing Better to do at the UN

From the department of "don't they have anything better to do" we see this being reported by Reuters

The United Nations Human Rights Committee on Friday urged U.S. lawmakers to give the District of Columbia a voting member of Congress, saying the lack of such representation appeared inconsistent with international law.

(Hat tip TigerHawk)

Certainly beats doing anything serious, like condeming Hezbollah or Hamas for their deliberate targeting of civilians. Or dealing seriously with the massacres in Sudan.

Among the members of the UN Human Rights Council, we find Algerian, Bahrain, China, Cuba, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia and Zambia. All well known for their record on human rights. Abusing them, that is.

The UN Human Rights Committee appears to be a subset of the UH Human Rights Council. According to the relevant web page on the UN website,

The Human Rights Committee is composed of 18 independent experts who are persons of high moral character and recognized competence in the field of human rights.

Members are elected for a term of four years by States parties in accordance with articles 28 to 39 of the Covenant. Members serve in their personal capacity and may be re-elected if nominated.

The membership of the Committee is a bit better, the members being from places like Japan, Panama, India, Tunisia, Switzerland, Ireland, Columbia, Egypt and the UK. Take a look for yourself.

It all still smacks of anti-American politics to me. With all of the governments around the world doing so much evil to their own people, this is what they consider to be important?

Posted by Tom at 3:46 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

July 28, 2006

More Moral Confusion at the UN

Jan Egeland, the guy who called US aid to Indonesia "stingy" after last year's tsunami, is at it again. Now he says that Israel has "created a generation of hatred" with it's attack on Hezbollah (hat tip TigerHawk)

Talk about being born yesterday. The Arabs have hated Israel from day one. The never accepted that country's right to exist.

But what's most interesting is that he goes to great lengths to be evenhanded in the way he condems both Hezbollah and Israel

"The rockets have to stop. The terror has to stop. But please remember that for every civilian killed in Israel there are more than 10 killed in Lebanon. It has to stop on both sides." He charged that Israel had used "excessive" and "disproportionate" force in violation of international humanitarian law, and dismissed Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's contention that proportionality is measured in relation to the threat posed by a force.

"You cannot invent new kinds of proportionalities. I've never heard that the threat is supposed to be proportional to the response," he said. "Proportionality is there in the law. The law has been made through generations of experience on the battlefield. If you kill more civilians than military personnel, one should not attack," he said.

Egeland reiterated his condemnations of Hizbullah's tactics. "Armed men should not cowardly hide among civilians. It will inflict civilians casualties," he said, calling Hizbullah's cross-border kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers "a mega-catastrophe."

But, he stressed, "Civilians must be protected, and when there are many more dead children than armed men, something is fundamentally wrong, not only with how the armed men behave and where they seek hiding, but also in the response."

From what I can tell, Egeland is saying that because not as many Israeli civilians have died, Israel should not be responding as vigorously. Or that they're killing too many Lebanese civilians.

Yes it should "stop on both sides." But here's what it comes down to: You go to Israel and ask, "what would it take for you to stop?" The Israeli spokesperson would say "Hezbollah has to stop attacking us." Go to Hezbollah and ask the same question, and the response you'll get is "Israel must cease to exist and we're going to fight it until we win." The only way to reconcile these differences is for one or the other to be destroyed.

Speaking of rockets, one fired by Hezbollah hit the top floor of a hospital in he Israeli border town of Nahariya earlier today. Fortunately no one was killed. Think many people will trip overthemselves in a rush to condemn Hezbollah?

The same article goes on to say that Hezbollah has fired a "new kind of rocket, which landed deeper inside Israel than hundreds of other strikes in 17 days of fighting." But according to Egeland, Israel is supposed to sit there and take it, becasue they cannot respond proportionally.

Proportionality

The proportionality is part of just war theory, something developed in the West by Christian thinkers which I think is a pretty good guide to actions before and during war. I wrote extensively about it last year, and you can find all of my posts on it here.

From the section on proportionality

"The principle of proportionality with regards to conduct in war "deals not with a whole war but with a single military action in that war. The criterion requires that the good to be achieved by the action be proportionate to the damage done. Again, this means values preserved compared with values sacrificed, not a single cost-accounting of lives and dollars."

and

In summary, then, the jus ad bellum criterion of proportion says one mustn't go to war unless the values to be preserved by the war exceeded the values to be sacrificed. Within the war, the jus in bello criterion of proportion says that when one takes action against enemy military units or installations, the values sacrificed in the attack must not exceeded the values that would be threatened by the continued existence of the target.

The application, of course, is where it get's tricky. Let's take a quick look at a few things that are going on.

1) Hezbollah rockets have turned Israel's third largest city, Haifa (pop 280,000) into a ghost town. Ditto for the border along Lebanon.

2)By dropping leaflets, Israel is warning residents who live near Hezbollah sanctuaties to evacuate.

3) Israel is using precision weapons when necessary. No these do not prevent all civilian casualties, but they do mimimize them

4) Just War Theory does not allow sanctuaries. It is impermissable to hide behind civilians and then scream foul when they are killed.

5) The number of civilians killed so far is far less than in previous wars.

6) The doctrine of proportionality does not contain a "one to one" rule. That is not how it works.

7) If Israel had done nothing, or stops short of destroying Hezbollah and accepts a ceasefire under the auspices of the UN, within a short time Hezbollah will rearm itself with more and longer-range missiles. They will return to firing them, this time deeper into Israel. Israeli civilians will be killed. At some point Israel will say "enough is enough" and respond, but this time Hezbollah will be even stronger, so the fighting harder, thus more civilians killed. It is therefore better to suffer some casualties now than more casualties later.

Creating "a Generation of Hatred"?

The idea that all Israel is doing is creating "a generation of hatred" is the strangest of all. The Arabs have hated Israel since 1948. Even before the state of Israel was created, the Jews and Muslims in the area did not always get along. Perhaps a few Lebanese who didn't mind Israel will now be turned against it, but even that doesn't go very far.

Here's the point; suppose that is was true that most Lebanese hate Hezbollah and want them gone. Suppose further that they are sympathetic to Israel, or at least don't hate it (ok, a lot of supposing, but hear me out). Wouldn't they want Israel to destroy Hezbollah even if it cost civilian lives?

The website of the D-Day Museum says that during the Battle for Normandy, "between 15,000 and 20,000 French civilians were killed, mainly as a result of Allied bombing", which fits with what a tour guide told me when I was over there some years ago. Yet the French were and are today thankful that we freed them (Yes they are. Despite policy differences since then, they do appreciate that we liberated them from the Nazis).

Any deaths are a tragedy. The question is whether it is better to suffer fewer now or more later. And I think the answer to that question is obvious.

Posted by Tom at 8:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 26, 2006

More Reasons Not to Trust the United Nations

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says that Israel deliberately attacked a UN position in southern Lebanon

The UN secretary general Kofi Annan says an Israeli attack on a UN observation post was "apparently deliberate". Four unarmed military observers were killed in the air strike in southern Lebanon. ...

Mr Annan later called for participants at a Mideast conference to push for an immediate ceasefire to end fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Hizbollah must stop its "deliberate targeting of Israeli population centers". And Israel must put an end to all bombing, ground operations and blockades of Lebanese ports.

"Deliberately"?

Only someone completely deluded could believe such a thing. I could go through my usual analysis, but I think that John Podhoretz summed it up best over at NRO:

He's an anti-Semite who sucks up to Arab dictators and presides over an organization choking on its own immoral filth.

I think that about sums it up nicely.

But if it's analysis you want, head over to Belmont Club where Richard Fernandez does his usual masterful job. After examining various UNIFIL press releases about it's activities in southern Lebanon, Fernandez concludes that ". If each of the press releases is read in their entirety is manifestly clear that UNIFIL is performing none of these authorized missions," which are to "to a) Confirm the withdrawal of Israeli forces from southern Lebanon; b) Restore international peace and security;" and "c) Assist the Government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area."

Maybe this picture of a Hezbollah and UN flag side-by-side say it all

Michelle Malkin has details.

Posted by Tom at 9:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

July 25, 2006

The Israeli attack on Hezbollah

I haven't written anything about the current Israeli war against Hezbollah for two reasons, one, I've been too busy, and two, it all seems so obvious. To me, Israel must be allowed to destroy Hezbollah. If Hezbollah is allowed to survive, all that will happen is that it will reconstitute itself and resume attacks on Israel. In other words, we'll return to the situation that prompted the war in the first place.

The problem is that Lebanon does not have a government that controls the entire country. The reason for this is that it has been fractured by years of civil war and Syrian intervention. The Cedar Revolution eliminated the latter in an overt form, but of course Syrian influence remains. Syria supports Hezbollah, and doesn't want the government of Lebanon to tolerate it. Hezbollah gained so much strength that it has cabinet ministers in the Lebanese government, so it's influence is not easy to eliminate. Indeed, it spent much of the past several years killing anyone in Lebabon who spoke out too strongly against it.

So the first step towards peace and stability in Lebanon is to eliminate Hezbollah. We've all heard that UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called for the disarming of Hezbollah, but of course that hasn't happened, and won't as long as the UN is in charge of making it happen.

Therefore, the worst thing that could happen now is for other nations to impost a premature cease-fire that allows Hezbollah to survive. This would be repeating 1982, when we allowed that terrorist Arafat and his PLO to survive and escape to Tunisia just when the IDF had them cornered in Beirut.

Alan Dershowitz lays out the case why we should not allow the UN to mediate or have anything to do with the situation. He describes how the UN legitimizes terrorism:

If anyone wonders why the UN has rendered itself worse than irrelevant in the Arab-Israeli conflict, all he or she need do is read UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's July 20 statement. Annan goes to great pains to suggest equal fault and moral equivalence between the rockets of Hezbollah and Hamas that specifically target innocent civilians and the self-defense efforts by Israel, which tries desperately, though not always successfully, to avoid causing civilian casualties. In his statement, Annan never condemns, or even mentions, terrorism, which is a root cause and precipitator of the conflict.

Even Annan was forced to acknowledge that "Hezbollah's provocative attack on July 12 was the trigger of this particular crisis"; that Hezbollah is "deliberate[ly] targeting ... Israeli population centers with hundreds of indiscriminate weapons"; and that Israel has the "right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN charter." But he doesn't stop there. He goes out of his way to insist on equating Hezbollah's terrorists with Israeli military response, which he labels "disproportionate" and "collective punishment." He condemns both Hezbollah and Israel. He also criticizes Israel for its efforts at preventing Qassam rocket attacks against its civilian populations, noting that the Hamas rockets have produced no "casualties in the past month." (This, of course, is not for lack of trying.) He ignores Hamas' long history of terrorism against innocent civilians.

Annan then calls for an "immediate cessation of indiscriminate and disproportionate violence" on both sides, again suggesting a moral equivalence. Among the most immoral positions anyone can take is to suggest a moral equivalence between morally different actions.

Dershowitz nails the entire problem with the UN; moral equivalence. It simply cannot distinguish between agressor and defender, between right and wrong, between terrorist and victim. To Annan, Israel and Hezbollah are simply two warring parties which must be brought to heal.

Unfortunately, this attitude has infected many around the world and in the US. Hezbollah hides among civilians, knowing that no matter how precise the Israeli attack, some will be killed. Despite that the civilian death toll is far less than in the 1982 operation, many insist on a cease fire "for the children". So the terrorists get to have it both ways; when they fire their rockets into Israel or send forth their suicide bombers, a few tut-tut but then quickly insist that Israel must make this or that concession "for peace". But when Israel tries to destroy the terrorists, it's "they're using disproportionate force" and "it perpetuates the cycle of violence".

Lastly Derschowitz reminds us that there have been UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon for years, but they haven't exactly done any good

The UN peacekeepers on the Lebanese border have turned out to be collaborators with Hezbollah, videotaping the Hezbollah kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers in 2000 and then refusing to release the video--which could have helped in the rescue--on the grounds that it might compromise their "neutrality."

Yes the current situation is frought with danger. A wider war, and a spread of chaos would not been good for the situation in Iraq. It is worth the risk, however, if we can destroy or at least significantly harm Hezbollah. Let Israel do what it has to do.

Posted by Tom at 9:54 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

July 24, 2006

Book Review: Tower of Babel

However bad you think the United Nations is, however corrupt, however useless, anti-American or anti-Israeli, however much you think you know about it's misdeads, you're wrong.

It's even worse than you think. More than that, it's been that way from day one. It's not as if the UN started out well and then slowly got worse. We are forever hearing about this or that plan to reform the UN. What many people don't realize is that this has been going on since the organization's inception in 1945.

For anyone who still has a glimmer of hope that the UN has some virtue, somewhere, that redeems it, that makes the billions spent on it worthwhile, this book by Dore Gold should be the final nail in the coffin.

Because if the UN was merely useless that would be one thing. If it was simply a huge waste of billions of dollars that would be bad enough, but sufferable. What makes it worse than you think is that the UN does positive harm to any reasoned idea truth, justice, and peace in the world. And what is important to note is that this holds true whether you are a liberal or a conservative. It's not that the UN is simply anti-George W Bush or anti-neocon, as an institution is is anti-democratic and is deeply morally confused.

We saw this reflected just the other day when UN General Secretary Kofi Annan "criticized both Israel and Hezbollah for their actions since the July 12 abduction of two Israeli soldiers." Both sides. The inability to distingiush right from wrong, agressor from defender, is inherant in UN thinking. According to the account by the Associated Press , Annan justified his thinking by saying that "his priority was helping the Lebanese people and preventing more civilian casualties." Where was the UN when Hezbollah was firing rockets into Israeli cities and towns? Or, for that matter, when Hamas sends suicide bombers into Israeli pizzarias?

Former Israeli ambassador to the UN Dore Gold lays out his case in Tower of Babel: How the United Nations has Fueled Global Chaos (2004). The case he makes is in my opion iron-clad; the UN stands condemed. The only question now is how to move beyond it, and fortunately in his last chapter Gold makes some useful recommendations.

Gold avoids the temptation to simply fill the book with examples of anti-Israel bias, which would have been all too easy to do. If you didn't read on the cover that he had been Israel's ambassador to the UN(1997-1999), you'd never know it. Gold is writing for an American audience, but again, not all of his examples of UN perfidy involved the US, for he spends an entire chapter on the Pakistani-India conflict over Kashmir. Rather, Gold takes us from the formation of the UN in 1945 to the present day, stopping off wherever necessary.

The big problem with the UN can be summed up with one term: Moral Equivalency. the organization knows no difference between tyranny and democracy, between agressor and victim. All nations are simply "member states", regardless of how they treat their people. It ignores the massive crimes of dictators, preferring instead to condemn much smaller offenses (real or imagined) by the leaders of democratic states. An alien from another planet would be excused for thinking that Israel was the most murderous country on the planet, and that the Palestinians were the most peaceful people.

The men who founded the UN, mainly President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, laid out a vision that was good in theory but has not worked out in practice. The founders had moral clarity, those who run it today have anything but. Unfortunately, it did not take long for the organization to get off track.

The current General Secretary of the UN, Kofi Annan, typifies all that is wrong with it. A lifetime UN bureaucrat, he was the Undersecretary General for Peacekeeping Operations when the Rwandan and Bosnian massacres occured. You might think that a man with such failures under his belt would resign in disgrace, but then you don't know the UN. Shortly after overseeing these disasters, he was promoted to General Secretary. But of course.

To top it off, in 1991 he was awared the Nobel Peace Prize, which tells you all you need to know about it (ok, if you really want more go here).

Of all the times the UN has failed the people of this world, and of all the examples that Gold goes through, it's hard to decide which is worst. Two that stand out were the massacre in Rwanda, and the way the UN coddled and pandered to Saddam Hussein. In the first instance the means to avoid a massare were at hand, but a deliberate decision was taken not to use it. In the second, the UN had many chances to hold Saddam accountable and failed each and every time.

Rwanda

The situation in Rwanda was complicated, but essentially during colonial times the country had been ruled by the minority Tutsi tribe(10-15%). When the country gained it's independence in 1962, the minority Hutus started a campaign to purge the Tutsis from government posts. There were also many violent attacks against Tutsis, which led many to flee the country over the next few decades. After much violence and a few wars, the UN eventually brokered a deal in which a new government would be formed. So far so good.

In 1993 the UN deployed 2,500 peacekeeping troops to Rwanda, mostly soldiers from Belgium, Bangladesh, and Ghana. They were under the command of Canadian Major General Romeo Dallaire. His mission was to enforce a peace agreement, part of which specified that he was to demobilize the warring parties, and help to create a new national army.

In early January of 1994 General Dallaire received what he believed was conclusive proof from an informant that an extremist Hutu militia was planning the "extermination" of the Tutsis. He devised a plan whereby his troops would seize arms caches that the informant had told him would be used in the massacre, thus hopefully preventing it. He then sent word of his intentions by coded cable to UN headquarters in New York.

To his astonishment, headquarters cabled back that he was to do nothing. Dallaire's cable had gone to the UN Department of Peacekeeping, which was headed by Kofi Annan. Annan's assistant, Iqbal Riza, received the telegram, and after consultation with his assistants, ordered Dallaire to stand down.

The reasoning behind the refusal to authorize action was that Dallaire's plan "went beyond the mandate entrusted to UNAMIR" (UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda). Further, Iqbal was to later justify his actions by saying that the UN mandate did not authorize peacekeeping forces to actively disarm warring parties, merely to "assist" them in doing so. His mindset can be seein in the cable he sent, which said, in part, "The overriding consideration is the need to avoid entering into a course of action that might lead to the use of force and unanticipated consequences." Even with genocide staring them in the face, the need to maintain neutrality and not take any risks was formost in their minds.

Dallaire sent additional warnings throughout February and March, yet the UN did nothing. By this time, Kofi Annan had been informed, so could not plead ignorance. He also pushed for additional troops, believing that he needed at least 5,000 total. Adding to the problem, no major country, such as the US, did anything to push the UN to act. The Clinton Administration must therefore bear some responsibility in the matter also.

By April the predicted massacres started, and other the next several months some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers were killed.

For his incompetence Annan was elevated to Secretary General a few years later. And now the man who could have prevented a massacre goes around telling us "never again", yet again does nothing about Darfur.

Iraq

On the surface, one might think that Iraq was a success story for the UN; Security Council resolutions leading up to the Gulf War and the inspections afterwards that destroyed most of Saddam Hussein's WMD. Wasn't it only the bad old USA that spoiled a largely successful inspections program with an unnecessary invasion?

The reality was that UN involvement with Saddam Hussein's Iraq from the 1980s through the 2003 invasion was mostly characterized by coddling the dictator and an overriding concern to "respect" the regime. Had the UN acted decisively during that time, Operation Iraqi Freedom would not have been necessary. The United States and the United Kingdom pushed the UN to do more, but the two nations alone could not change ingrained attitudes.

The problems started well before the Gulf War. The UN Security Council should have condemned Iraq for it's invasion of Iran, but did not, mostly because the US and USSR wanted to remain neutral, mainly because they did not want to jeapordize oil shipments. The inspections that were carried out by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) proved a failure, when Hans Blix admitted after finding out the truth after the Gulf War that "It is correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis. Blix had led IAEA inspections in Iraq during the 1980s.

After the Gulf War Iraq did destroy vast quantities of WMD, mainly because it feared a US invasion. The UN agency created to oversee the destruction of the WMD was called UNSCOM (UN Special Commission). UNSCOM did a good job at first, but as time went on found itself stymed by UN bureaucrats, Kofi Annan in particular.

Annan obstructed UNSCOM leader Richard Butler in many ways, not the least of which was by creating what became known as the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food proved a disaster because Saddam was easily able to circumvent it and use the money for arms purchases (and to build palaces, not exactly what the designers of the program had in mind).

Worse was Annan's attitude. During a 1998 trip to Baghdad, Annan announced a Memorandum of Understanding with Iraq. Annan had negotiated a relaxing of inspection requirements that was nothing short of ridiculous. Vast areas of Iraq were to be off-limits to inspectors under the guise that the were "presidential sites". Further, UN diplomats would now be required to be present at what visits were allowed to these sites. Obviously, friendly diplomats could tip off the Iraqis as to what sites were to be visited.

Annan told the BBC that it was important "not to insist on humiliating Saddam Hussein." He "made a priority of treating the Iraqi regime with respect and sensitivity." After the February 1998 visit, Annan's senior staff "described the UN weapons insptecotrs as a bunch of out-of-control "cowboys" who had ignored Iraq's nationals sensitivities." On and on it went.

Gold lays all this out in excruciating detail, and it makes for painful reading. The bottom line is that the UN "could verify that Iraq had fulfilled it's original obligation to turn over its most deadly weapons." And Gold reminds us that "the UN put the burden of proof squarely on Iraq for disclosing what had happened to its weapons of mass destruction - not on the inspectors."

Recommendations

Many UN supporters treat any criticism as an endorsement of a “go it alone” strategy. They cannot imagine anything else. But the reality is that between reliance on the UN and unilateralism there is a third option; working with other states that share your values and/or objectives.

The biggest problem with the UN is moral equivalency because its members have no shared values. The very term “international community” is nonsensical, because to have a community you need to have shared values and interests. The simple fact is that the UN is broke, and nothing will fix it. It’s time for new ideas.

As such, we need to bypass the UN entirely and form our own alliances. They may be temporary ad hoc coalitions established to meet specific goals, or they may be more or less permanent. An example of the former would be the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative), established to identify and sometimes intercept shipments of WMD and related materials. An example of the latter would be NATO, or more recently, the Community of Democracies, established by the Clinton Administration in 2000.

While it is not necessary that all members of each coalition meet our level of democracy and commitment to human rights to be a member, they should meet some basic minimum standard. For example, while we can and must work with Pakistan in the War on Terror, they don’t qualify for membership in any organization we would want to form. But we can use these organizations to incent countries to change their ways so that they do qualify.

Happily, Gold’s recommendations coincide with ones that I have made. As a practical matter we’re not going to completely get out of the UN. Besides, it would be useful to retain our seat on the Security Council, if for no other reason than to veto resolutions that might harm us or our allies. Rather, we should work to marginalize the UN and work to establish alternative institutions. Gold’s book is one step farther towards this laudable goal.

Posted by Tom at 9:10 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 18, 2006

Comments and Trackbacks

If you leave a comment or trackback and receive a "server error" message, please do not post your comment again, because it will show up, I just have to approve it. I realize I'm having a problem with the blog and am in the process of trying to get it fixed. My apologies for the problem.

Posted by Tom at 8:00 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 17, 2006

No More Excuses!

I'ms sure that most of you reading this do something for the troops. Maybe you send letters or packages regularly, or maybe you've donated to a program at work or through your church. Maybe you've even visited VA hospitals, or worked there as a volunteer. Perhaps you've participated in pro-troops rallies, which in my book count also.

But maybe for whatever reason you haven't done anything yet. Maybe you're used the excuse that "I just don't have a lot of time or money, and if I only do something small it won't matter." Well, that's just not true. As Chris Missick, former soldier stationed in Iraq, "I hear that from people and I tell them it's just not true. Anything, no matter how small, means a lot to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So without further ado, here it is: this post at FreeRepublic.com is full of links to organizations that specialize in helping our troops in one way or another. Head over there now to see how you can contribute!

Posted by Tom at 10:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

All You Need to Know About Hezbollah

These are pictures from several Hezbollah gatherings from the invaluable StrategyPage., which comments, "We'll let you draw your own conclusions."

Go Israel!

Posted by Tom at 10:00 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

July 15, 2006

Ideas for Winning in Iraq

Commenter jason, in my "Bring Back the Neocons post at Conserva-Puppies, pointed me to a roundtable discussion in Foreign Affairs which is worthy of attention and consideration. As he points out, it avoids the name calling and provides solid analysis coupled with reasoned ideas about what to do in Iraq. The discussion is over an article written by Stephen Biddle called "Seeing Baghdad, Thinking Saigon" which appeared in the March/April 2006 of Foreign Affairs.

No one in either article calls for either a unilateral withdrawal from Iraq, or a "follow the Bush Administration and stay the course". All participants want us to win, and avoid partisan backbiting as well as revisionist history(Bush lied!).

All this is important because the situation in Iraq is looking pretty dire right about now. Although "the violence" is not the whole story, it is what everyone looks at, like it or not. And all the rebuilding of infrastructure and Iraqi military capability is only the backstage to successful operations in the field; none of it is of value unless it leads to results. Right now we are in the middle of the Battle of Baghdad, perhaps the most crucial battle in a long time in that country. This Belmont Club post points to an analysis by Iraq the Model, in which Mohammed concludes that the good guys aren't winning. Myself, I'm not so sure, but I will tell you that I'm a lot less optimistic about chances for success in Iraq than I have been in a long time. But more on that later.

Both Foreign Affairs articles are far too long and complicated in their analysis and recommendations to fully summarize here, so you'll want to read them both on your own. Biddle, in his article, agrees that Iraq is not Vietnam

But if the debate in Washington is Vietnam redux, the war in Iraq is not. The current struggle is not a Maoist "people's war" of national liberation; it is a communal civil war with very different dynamics. Although it is being fought at low intensity for now, it could easily escalate if Americans and Iraqis make the wrong choices.

Meanwhile, commentators such as Andrew Krepinevich argue essentially that Washington is not refighting Vietnam properly ("How to Win in Iraq," September/October 2005). Krepinevich sees the current U.S. strategy as a repeat of the failed search-and-destroy missions of early Vietnam and wants Washington to adopt instead the approach of territorial defense used in late Vietnam. ...

Iraq, Biddle says, is not like Vietnam in which you had a "Maoist people's war" which was "a struggle for good governance between a class-based insurgency claiming to represent the interests of the oppressed public and a ruling regime portrayed by the insurgents as defending entrenched privilege" Iraq, rather, is a "Communal civil war" in which people are divided by ethnic and sectarian allegiances.

Whereas the Vietnam War was a Maoist people's war, Iraq is a communal civil war. This can be seen in the pattern of violence in Iraq, which is strongly correlated with communal affiliation. The four provinces that make up the country's Sunni heartland account for fully 85 percent of all insurgent attacks; Iraq's other 14 provinces, where almost 60 percent of the Iraqi population lives, account for only 15 percent of the violence. The overwhelming majority of the insurgents in Iraq are indigenous Sunnis, and the small minority who are non-Iraqi members of al Qaeda or its affiliates are able to operate only because Iraqi Sunnis provide them with safe houses, intelligence, and supplies. Much of the violence is aimed at the Iraqi police and military, which recruit disproportionately from among Shiites and Kurds. And most suicide car bombings are directed at Shiite neighborhoods, especially in ethnically mixed areas such as Baghdad, Diyala, or northern Babil, where Sunni bombers have relatively easy access to non-Sunni targets.

Biddle's presciption is to slow down the growth of the Iraqi Army and bring more pressure on the various parties to form a viable government. The way we should achieve this is to use our military to "threaten to manipulate the military balance of power among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds to coerce them to negotiate."

The Roundtable Reaction

All of the participants agree with Biddle that Iraq is not Vietnam. Strange as this may sound, that alone to me justifies reading what else they have to say, because I am so sick and tired of the same old "another Vietnam" refrain that we've been hearing from the left that some honest analysis is refreshing.

They disagree with Biddle and each other, however, about exactly what should be done. Their various responses are so long and complicated that I cannot do justice to them here, so you'll want to read the article yourself.

But just to provide idea, as to their thinking, one of the participants, Chaim Kaufmann suggests that we stop insisting on either a power-sharing arrangement in the Iraqi government, or a " genuinely Iraqi security force" , because neither are possible given the level of ethnic hatred in Iraq. Rather, we should allow Iraq to break up into " communal cantons", which in some respects seems to already be occuring. The US military, he says, should be used to facilitate this process and protect the various peoples as they move about, and then once they have settled into their new homes. He defends this policy against those who would claim that it amounts to ethnic cleansing

Some might say that this policy will legitimate ethnic cleansing. But they would have to face squarely the costs of not protecting refugees; to the extent that the policy did succeed, Iraqis would experience less suffering than if it failed or was never attempted. Others will object that the current U.S. administration is unlikely to adopt these measures. Perhaps, but saving at least some lives would require getting only a few brigade commanders in a few places to think seriously about refugee protection.

Another of the participants, Leslie H. Gelb, agrees, while the other two, including Biddle in his response, do not. As I said earlier, read the whole thing.

Everyone's a Genius

Not to be mean to Biddle or the participants of the roundtable, but it's easy to sound smart when you're not in power. The reason for this is simple; your ideas are rarely tested against the hard rock of reality. "The enemy get's a vote" is more than a cliche, it is true, as is "no plan survives contact with the enemy." As Clausewitz said, "the enemy is an animate object that reacts."

Unfortunately, we can't replay history using different variables, so if things do not work out in Iraq then all of the naysayers will be able to say that "if only they'd taken my recommendation" we would have been successful, and of course there's really no hard counter to their arguments, no matter how contradictory they may be to each other.

So Where Are We?

Is the situation in Iraq as dire as the participants make it out to be? Maybe. Reading the two articles does not give one hope for optimism. Further, I already mentioned how Mohammed of the Iraq the Model blog is not optimistic as for government chances of success in the Battle for Baghdad. I'm given to lend some credence to his analysis, if only because Belmont Club takes him seriously. Cable TV is mostly useless, and newspaper reporting spotty. I've read too many times that editors spike good news stories even when their reporters file them.

Second, I, and others such as StrategyPage(and here) were a bit overoptimistic in writing off al-Qaeda in Iraq after the death of Zarqawi. They have retained more of an ability to create terror than I would have thought. Despite their ability to remain viable, however, the real threat, I think, is from ethnic violence, especially that coming from the Shia militias.

As I wrote in this post, this is the analysis General Casey gave in a press briefing with Secretary Rumsfeld on June 22 in which he says that (as summarized by Belmont Club) that "Al-Qaeda in Iraq is hurt and perhaps dying; the Sunnis are looking to throw in the towel", and that "Criminal gangs and ethnic militias are the rising threat, (although) Casey does not appear all that worried."

As for the sectarian violence, the bloodshed is getting worse (see also here), with the past twelve months seeing about twice as many dead as the year before. It needs to be pointed out that the violence is localized, as General Casey pointed out in the same news conference cited above, "The insurgency hasn't expanded. Fourteen of the 18 provinces still have about nine attacks a day or less. And if you look at where the sectarian violence is occurring, it's occurring within about a 30-mile -- 90 percent of it is occurring in about a 30- mile radius around Baghdad." Further, as John Hinderaker of Powerline points out, the violence needs to be put into the context of Saddam's Iraq. It's not as if the place was a balloon-flying paradise.

That said, it must also be noted that he who controls Baghdad controls Iraq. It is the key to the country in a way that no city in the United States is.

At the same time, it appears I was right in that we have now started to focus on taking down the Shia militias, especaially the Madhi Army, which is controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr. This is a good thing because no country can survive if every power souce is allowed it's own army.

Further, for all our mistakes, we need to remember that the enemy isn't fighting a perfect war either. It sounds obvious, but so many people seem to forget that victory in war doesn't go to the side that doesn't make mistakes, but to the side that makes fewer of them. As Kat points out in this post of hers, al-Qaeda is making plenty of mistakes themselves.

That said, I still agree with the editors of StrategyPage that the situation in Iraq isn't characterized by civil was as it is ethnic cleansing and "civil disorder", much of which was caused by the misrule of Saddam Hussein. Iraq would be in a civil war if the government and army split along sectarian lines, and the Sunnis set up an alternative government or declare self-rule. ,

Lastly, the US military continues to meet or exceed it's recruitment and retention goals. If we were doing so badly, wouldn't the soldiers would be the first to know, and to leave the service in droves?

Strategically Right, Tactical Misque?

Even knowing what we know now, and even if things do not work out, I still think it was right to invade Iraq.

How so? Consider; if the North had not won the Civil War, it would still have been right for them to fight it. Unlike World War II in the Pacific, where we were attacked, fighting the South was volunary. Lincoln could have evacuated Fort Sumter and let the South go.

Even if our tactics after the invasion were flawed, as undoubtably some of them were, it was important to maintain the strategic offensive in the War on Terror, instead of simply playing defense as John Kerry would have had us do.

There were good reasons for us to go into Iraq, as I've said before (and here). The invaluable Victor Davis Hanson points out that with the jihadists preoccupied in Iraq, we have not suffered another 9-11 style attack, but that "in our complacence, we think our recent safety was almost a natural occurrence rather than the result of national sacrifice and ordeal that must continue." Futher, for all the problems in Iraq, "its democratic government just keeps chugging along, its enemies so far unable to derail it."

Let us hope that it continues to chug along. Perhaps Biddle and the roundtable have some worthwhile ideas to keep it going.

Posted by Tom at 12:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 14, 2006

The "More Important Threat" Brigade

Reading this article about Hezbollah and Israel reminded me of something I've wanted to write about for some time but haven't had a chance to.

I've been a participant in lots of rallys and demonstrations, and have been confronted many times by Iraq war opponents with the argument that we should have dealt with (fill in the blank), because they or it was a more important threat. The people who make this argument insist that they are not lefty pacifists, but that Iraq was the lesser threat and as such could have been contained.

Some of these are well-intentioned people. Some, however, are not, and are simply using the argument du jour in an attempt to rattle supporters of the Iraq War.

The "more important" threat they cite is usually North Korea or Iran, but occasionally someone will ask why we don't go after Hezbollah, which is, after all, responsible for killing more Americans than any other terrorist group besides al-Qaeda.

Although I believe it to be incorrect, on the surface it is not an unreasonble argument, and as such deserves a response.

What Would They Have Had Us Do?

I've never really received a clear response to this answer. "Are you saying we should have invaded North Korea or Iran? That we should have destroyed Hezbollah?" I ask. Some say yes, but others I've spoken with demur, and start off with how we're distrated in Iraq and haven't been "dealing" with Iran or North Korea.

Most of the time they simply say that we should apply the same old tried-and-failed techniques of diplomacy, economic sanctions, and "working with the international community." Some have told me that because of Iraq now everyone hates us so we can't use diplomacy.

I therefore try to question these people, and get them to realize that if all they want us to do is to apply diplomatic and economic pressure, coupled with military threats, then whether we had gone into Iraq or not doesn't make any difference.

Further, as world events have shown, it is a fiction to think that because of Iraq we've lost all diplomatic clout. We're able to work well with the Europeans with regard to Iran, for example, despite our differences on Iraq. And ventures such as the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) are unhamptered as well.

Air Strikes?

The military forces we have up in Afghanistan and Iraq are mostly ground forces. Our Navy, and most of our Air Force, isn't doing a whole lot other than providing "just-in-case" support. When people say that because of Iraq we are "stretched thin" they have a point, but only with regards to ground forces and the logistical trail required to support them.

We might have to strike Iran or North Korea at some point, the latter probably before the former. The effectiveness of such strikes is problematical, and both nations are likely to respond in some fashion, as they won't just "sit there and take it". Air strikes on Hezbollah would achieve little and would only give them a cause to send forth their terrorists to hit us.

We'd face the same opposition to air strikes from the same group of suspects, domestic and foreign, regardless of whether we'd gone into Iraq or not. The American left is getting all bent out of shape now over the prospects of our hitting Iran or North Korea. Does anyone seriously believe that had we not gone into Iraq they would approve of such action? Ditto with nations such as France, Russia, and China.

Either way, then, it ishard to see how our invasion of Iraq has made air strikes on anyone more difficult to do.

Ground Invasion

So do the "should have dealt with a more important threat" people think that we should have gone into North Korea, Iran, or Lebanon with ground forces? Iraq is child's play compared to any of those options.

North Korea. likely already has a half-dozen or so nuclear weapons. Most likely they are designed to be delivered by short-range missile or aircraft. It is not likely we could get all of them in an air strike, and at any rate we could not be sure of it. Worst case is that after the initial US air assault they use them to hit South Korea or Japan. Even if that did not occur, North Korea has approximately 500 large artillery guns and 200 multiple-launch rocket systems hidden in underground bunkers just across the border from South Korea. They also have 500-600 Scuds that could hit the South. The South Korean capital, Seoul, lies right on the border. The North Koreans could literally lob artillery shells into downtown Seoul day and night. Yes we would - eventually - take out those guns. But in the meantime tens of thousands of South Koreans would be killed. Happy now?

Iran.has a population of 68 million(CIA Factbook), as against Iraq's 26.7. Iran is 1.636 million sq km, or about the size of Alaska. Iraq is 432,162 sq km, or double the size of Idaho. Just mutiply our troubles with Iraq by two or three. A ground invasion of Iran is simply not realistic.

With Hezbollah, air strikes would undoubtably kill many terrorists, but I think would only have a marginal effect on Hezbollah's effectiveness. You simply can't destroy a large terrorist gang by bombing. Because they place their facilities near civilian population centers, event the most careful of attacks would involve killing many civilians, which would in turn be exaggerated by media outlets such as al-Jazeera. The purpose of a ground assault would be to achieve what? Yes we could kill a great many terrorists, but not all of them, and what would our "exit strategy" be? To create a viable, terrorist-free government in Lebanon? As if that would be significantly easier than Iraq.

Trading One Set of Protesters for Another

Actually, most of the protesters would be the same. ANSWER and Code Pink would still be doing there thing. But instead of a guy in a blue polo shirt approaching me to say that "we should have dealt with Iran", it would be a guy in a brown blazer telling me that "no, we should have hit Iraq." No matter what you do, someone will complain.

Posted by Tom at 9:00 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

July 11, 2006

Bring Back the Neocons?

A fascinating editorial titled "Bring Back the Neocons" appeared in today's New York Sun:

So look where President Bush's decision to sideline the neoconservatives has gotten him. Instead of worrying about America, Iran now holds the upper hand, choosing which U.N. officials will inspect it as America begs Tehran to accept an offer of negotiations and "incentives" that include civilian airline parts. North Korea is as belligerent as ever, test-firing medium range missiles. Iraq's capital is a bloodbath of sectarian violence. Israel is under fire from a Hamas state in Gaza. Russia and Communist China are blocking American action at the U.N. Security Council.
...

Well, if this is what four months of a "softer line" has gained us, we say bring back the neoconservatives, particularly because Mr. Bush himself hasn't totally abandoned their — and his — freedom agenda....

The neoconservatives said success in Iraq depended on pressing on to neighboring Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. The administration stopped short, and Mr. Bush strolled through the Texas bluebonnets holding hands with Prince Abdullah of the House of Saud. Neoconservative calls for American support for Iranian democrats were met with a belated administration proposal of a paltry $75 million. ...

Neoconservatives want to liberate North Korea by opening the door to refugees seeking to escape its oppression, the same way that the breach in the Berlin Wall took down the Soviet empire. Mr. Bush did sign into the North Korean Human Rights Act of 2004 and did meet on April 28, 2006, with North Korean refugees. But the Bush administration, in a variation on President Clinton's approach, has been devoting energy to negotiating with Pyongyang in six-party talks that the neoconservatives think are a waste of time.

(Hat tip to The Reform Party of Syria for the editorial, which I received through their email list)

The editorial goes on to say that while the Bush Administration put a lot of faith in Mahmoud Abbas, the neocons warned that he would not be much better than Arafat. The Bush Administration also spends a lot of time trying to work with the United Nations on problems such as Iranian nuclear weapons, an institutions most neocons despise.

Who Are the Neocons?

It's always a good idea to define your terms. This definition from Answers.com seems as good as any to me:

Neoconservatism (or neocon) refers to the political movement, ideology, and public policy goals of "new conservatives" in the United States, that are relatively unopposed to "big government" principles and restrictions on social spending, when compared with other American conservatives such as traditional or paleoconservatives.

In the context of United States foreign policy, neoconservative has another, narrower definition. Critics define it as interventionist with hawkish views on foreign policy. Supporters define it as advocating the use of military force, unilaterally if necessary, to replace autocratic regimes with democratic ones. This view competes with liberal internationalism, realism, and non-interventionism.

Is the Editorial Right?

I think it's largely on track. We all know that the insurgency is being fueled by Iran and Syria (not that if we sealed the borders it would totally disappear, but it would help the situation). Failure to strike known terrorist centers is due to the understandable fear of a larger war, but it may have been a risk worth taking.

Although I'm sure we're covertly supporting Iranian democrats, I have to wonder if we're really doing all that we can.

North Korea is a tough nut to crack, and I don't really blame Clinton as much as some do for his virtual appeasement. But while it may have been worth a try once, we should have learned and moved on. And I have to admit that the "Six Party Talks" never seem to really achieve anything.

Mahmoud Abbas, or Abu Mazen, or whatever name he calls himself these days, hasn't done anything more than Arafat to resolve the crisis on the West Bank, and never had any intention of risking anything for peace. The long-term way to resolve the issue there it to promote democracy, but this requires democrats, and Abbas isn't one.

So we've tried the soft line with the Palestinians, North Korea, and Iran, and it hasn't gotten us anywhere. It's time to go back to a freedom agenda.

Posted by Tom at 9:13 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 8, 2006

Confrontation with Code Pink at Walter Reed

As readers of this blog know, every Friday night members of FreeRepublic.com and other patriots assemble outside of Walter Reed Army Medical Center in northwest Washington DC to wave patriotic signs and keep the leftists of Code Pink away from the hospital entrance.

Walter Reed is one of the main hospitals in the United States where our wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan go for rehabilitation. Most stay for months, and over the course of time I've come to meet and know many of them and their families. Dozens of times I and others have gone inside the hospital to meet with our troops and bring them what we can, from books and food treats to coloring books for their kids, you name it.

Last Friday marked the 64th straight week that we have held our rally at Walter Reed. I have attended since last August, so am almost at my one-year mark. Due to time and distance from my house I attend every other Friday. A complete history of our rallies and face-offs with Code Pink can be found on The Redhunter here.

Now that the Pinkos have lost their permit for the corners directly at the entrance they hold their "vigils" halfway down the street, where they are largely out of sight and out of mind. We don't pay much attention to them anymore, nor do the passing motorists. We spend out time waving pro-troops signs, banners, and flags. Lots of people honk their horns for us and/or wave. Our presence at the hospital entrance is to keep them away from the entrance and to provide a general show of true support for our troops.

Due to the holiday, I suppose, we had more people that usual show up on our side last night, maybe 30+ people. I estimate the pinkos had about 20+. Here's a photo of our largest banner. This corner is directly across the street from the entrance to the hospital.

Here's a photo of the corner caddycorner to the one above. The pinkos are a few hundred feet down the street from this corner. It's the one the pinko leaders were to visit (although I took this photo after the confrontation)

The Pinkos Visit

So last night Code Pink founders Medea Benjamin and Gael Murphy decided to pay a visit to one of our corners. I'm still not sure why they did it, although I heard vague reference to them wanting to have a "discussion" or some such matter.

At any rate, they were quickly surrounded by Freepers and the others on our side and a "vigorous" discussion ensued (in the ensuing melee I forgot to turn on the red-eye feature of my camera).

Here two of our people challenge Medea and Gael. Medea is the one in the pink shirt. Gael has the glasses on

Gael (at left) and Medea are engaged by our side in a forceful debate

The guy at right in this next photo is a solder back from Iraq who is at Walter Reed. Later he told me that although the pinkos may be deceived by anecdotal stories of soldiers who oppose the war, in his opinion the "vast majority" support our efforts and despise groups like Code Pink

I didn't hear much of what was said, as there were maybe 20 or 30 people engaged here, with much loud talking and carrying on. I did hear Gael say that they were just trying to "raise awareness" of the war. I shouted at her something like "oh please, everyone knows there's a war on, and how many American's have lost their lives" but so many people were confronting here that she didn't hear or respond to me.

A handful of Pinkos came up to join in the fray, but they were vastly outnumbered. One came up to me, and although I forget how the conversation started, I pretty quickly called her a communist sympathizer (or something pretty similar). "Why?" she asked. "Because you hang out with people who like Fidel Castro, and who supported the Sandinistas in the 1980s." "Why do you say communism is bad?" she asked. I mentioned Robert Conquest's books, and the Black Book of Communism, but she wasn't impressed. After a few minutes she went on her way and I resumed taking photographs.

This Pinko tried to shake hands with Kristinn Taylor, the president of the DC chapter of FreeRepublic.com, but Kristinn declined. Let's be clear; these are not liberal Democrats, Code Pink is a bunch of communist sympathizers who side with the insurgents in Iraq (at least their leaders do), and hate this country.

After about 10 or 15 minutes Medea and Gael decided enough was enough and beat a retreat, rejoining their comrades down the street. We chanted "swim ... to ... Cuba!" after them. Code Pink had planned on spending this past New Year's eve in Cuba, but cancelled the trip when the State Department sent them letters informing them that it was against the law to visit Cuba and threatening fines and penalties.

The Troops Arrive!

Sometime between 9:15 and 9:45 the troop bus arrives at the hospital entrance, carrying wounded warriors who have been treated to a gourmet meal at an upscale DC restaurant. The bus caught me by surprise last night and this was the best photo I got

As usual, the pinkos are gone by the time the troop bus arrives. Despite their claim that they are simply "supporting the troops" and "raising awareness of the war's costs", they show no sign of actually wanting to meet or interact with real soldiers and Marines. Some time ago, when Code Pink still had the corners directly at the hospital entrance, there was an incident in which troops on the bus gave the one-finger salute to the pinkos on the corner. From that evening on, the leaders made sure that they had disbanded their people before the bus arrived.

Who are Medea Benjamin and Gael Murphy?

As I mentioned, Medea and Gael are two of the founders of Code Pink, Women for Peace. Although Gael shows up occasionally at their Walter Reed "vigils", this is the first time any of us had seen Medea here. Perhaps it was Medea who wanted to come up and see for herself who we were.

Medea Benjamin's bio on the Code Pink website.

Gael Murphy's bio on the Code Pink website.

Medea Benjamin's bio on David Horowitz' DiscoverTheNetworks.org database site of leftist groups and people.

The Case Against Code Pink

According to the description of the group on DiscoverTheNetworks.org the term "code pink" was choosen to mock the Bush Administration's color-coded alert system.

Besides their general leftist wackiness there are by my count at least three main pieces of evidence against Code Pink:

"The World Tribunal"

On June 24, 25, and 26 of 2005, a group called Democracy Now! sponsored a "World Tribunal on Iraq" whereby the United States and President Bush were placed on trial for crimes against humanity. They were - surprise - found guilty. Code Pink is listed as one of the endorsers of the event.

Ok, that's weird enough, but if that's all there was to it we could write it off as another convention of moonbats.

However, the tribunal issued a "Declaration of Jury of Conscience" where in section I paragraph 11 you find this

11. There is widespread opposition to the occupation. Political, social, and civil resistance through peaceful means is subjected to repression by the occupying forces. It is the occupation and its brutality that has provoked a strong armed resistance and certain acts of desperation. By the principles embodied in the UN Charter and in international law, the popular national resistance to the occupation is legitimate and justified. It deserves the support of people everywhere who care for justice and freedom.

(emphasis added)

In other words, it is ok to kill American troops. There's no other way to read that paragraph.

The "Beirut Communique"

Gael Murphy represented Code Pink at, and was asignatory to, the "Beirut Communique", which was arrived at during a strategy meeting anti-war and anti-globalization types in Beirut, Lebanon September 17-19 of 2004.

Here is a partial list of demands that the participants of the Communique drew up:

* We support the right of the people of Iraq and Palestine to resist the occupations.

* We call for the unconditional withdrawal and "coalition" forces from Iraq.

* We demand the end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine

* We demand the Right of Return be fulfilled....

* We ask for the release of all Palestinian and Iraqi political prisoners.

In another section, the express their "support for efforts by Iraqis to build a united national front against the occupation."

Although they claim that they "oppose war in all forms", there is not a single word in the communique condemning, or even mentioning, Palestinian, Iraqi, or al-Qaeda terrorism.

If all this is not a statement of support for the insurgent terrorists plaguing Iraq, then nothing is. And in case your not familiar, the "right of return" is a Palestinian plan to flood Israel with their people, so as to vote the nation out of existence in it's own elections.

Aid to Terrorists?

Perhaps the most damming allegation is that Medea Benjamin gave aid and money to the terrorists themselves. From DiscoverTheNetwork.org:

During the last week of December 2004, Medea Benjamin announced in Amman, Jordan that Code Pink, Global Exchange, and Families for Peace would be donating a combined $600,000 in medical supplies and cash to the terrorist insurgents who were fighting American troops in Fallujah, Iraq.

The news was first reported by Agence France Press, and stories were run by the Turkish Press and Space War. There is even a mention of the incident on the Code Pink website

We traveled to Amman, Jordan, with medical supplies, blankets, heaters and water purifiers for the refugees in the camps outside Falluja. Global Exchange received donations of medications from a large pharmaceutical company as well as small donations of supplies and cash valued at $600,000.

Who is right? David Horowitz' site says that they gave the aid and money to the insurgent terrorists, Code Pink says that they gave it to refugees.

In the Turkish Press article cited above, Medea says that she gave aid to "...families of the 'other side'". At the very least, by "other side", she at least means families of those fighting our troops. If someone had given aid and comfort to German or Japanese families during World War II, they would have been guilty of treason.

Examining the matter in some detail in an article on FrontpageMag(also a David Horowitz site), Ben Johnson concludes that "Medea Benjamin has the motive, and her allies have actively comforted our enemies before. And some in her recent Iraqi caravan have personal ties to terrorism."

My guess is that they gave the aid to people who in turn gave some or most of it to the terrorists, or maybe they gave it to people who were terrorists themselves but represented themselves as "refugee workers". Either way, Medea knew the terrorists would get some, part, or most of the aid, and intended this to happen, but also wanted "plausible deniability".

Either way, Code Pink is a disgraceful outfit, and I figure it's the least I can do to help keep them away from the hospital entrance. If you're even in Washington DC over a weekend, stop by and give us a hand. I can't promise any confrontations with the leftists, but can promise lots of friendly waves and honks from motorists, and a lot of thankful troops.

Update

Check out PleaDeal's post on the face-off with Code Pink over at FreeRepublic.com. Notice the salute one of the peace-loving Pinkos gave to one of our soldiers currently being treated at Walter Reed.

Posted by Tom at 7:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack

July 3, 2006

Head On Over...

...to Conserva-Puppies where I have photos and a complete report on Cindy Sheehan's "last supper" outside the White House. Yes, she's going on a hunger strike, or as they put it on the Code Pink website, a "fast" to call attention to the war.

I was there, along with about a dozen other intrepid Freepers. We had our own signs so as not to let them think they could have the day to themselves.

Until I get this problem with either Moveable Type or Hosting Matters resolved all posts will be at one of the sites where I guest blog.

Posted by Tom at 11:17 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Cindy Sheehan Goes on a Hunger Strike

Note: This post is still under construction, and it taking longer than it should due to technical difficulties with either Moveable Type or Hosting Matters. You can find the completed post with photos at my other site, Conserva-Puppies. Thank you.

In a blatant attempt to gain media attention, Cindy Sheehan ate her "last supper" today in front of the White House before she goes on a hunger strike to call attention to the war (or her, which is more the truth). Yours truely, along with about a dozen other intrepid FreeRepublic patriots, was there to counter-demonstrate and record the whole thing.

At about 3pm today the leftists arrived at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial outside of the Embassy of India on Massachusetts Avenue in northwest Washington DC. Unlucky for them, we were positioned across the street to greet them.

Here we are on the other side of the street. We had maybe a dozen people on our side. I estimated the lefties across the street to be about 100, maybe more.

In case the photo isn't clear it the banner says "Cindy Sheehan: Starving for Attention"

The Occasion

The point of the affair is that Cindy Sheehan, idol of the radical anti-war left and media whore, has decided to go on a hunger strike along with several other fellow moonbats.

Code Pink Women for Peace orgainzed this affair and the day's events. In an interview on their website, Dc Code Pinker Carrie Biggs-Adams says that it will last "a month or two." Asked why she is fasting, she replies that she is

...committed to fast during this hunger strike because it's time to raise the visibility and the ante. While I spend every day with pink fingernails and a button to publicize my opposition to this war and my call for peace, it's essential that we get more serious and raise the ante and the visibility, and get more people participating in our opposition to the war.

There were plenty of police around, but by their relaxed attitude they obviously did not expect any trouble. Their job was to keep the lefties on their side of the street and us on ours. A couple of times a leftie or two tried to come over and try to debate us, and there were a few shouting matches, but nothing serious.

These guys are having trouble with their dates, or are too lazy to change their sign. Operation Iraqi Freedom started on April 2003, so it's more than 4 years and 1 day. We hollered that they were desacrating the flab, but of course they didn't care. That's one thing I've noticed about leftist demonstrators; they either don't have American flags at all, or they're all jazzed up with something. Rarely do they just have straight American flags.

Reporters were all over the place. They started out across the street with the lefties, but once they realized there was a counter-demonstration they swarmed over to our side to photograph and interview us. Here one from the Associated Press interviews Kristinn Taylor, the president of the DC chapter of FreeRepublic.com, and the organizer of our rally

Good Reporters and Bad Reporters

Many times during the rallys and protests that I've taken part in, I have been interviewed by reporters. I've come to notice that there are two types; the mainstream media, and independents.

By "mainstream media" I mean repoters from newspapers, radio stations, or the like, and I've been interviewed by reporters from the Washington Post, The Associated Press, Dutch Public Television, even "alternative" outlets like the Afro-American (who interviewed me during the big Sept 25 2005 protests). During these street interviews I have received nothing but straight and fair interviews from these reporters. They ask questions like "What is the message you are trying to get out?" and "What brings you to this rally?" They don't try to nitpick or catch you up, either, but just ask the question, accept whatever you say and move on.

Then there are the independents. You never know what you are going to get with them. Sometimes they do it straight, and then sometimes they have an obvious agenda and the "interview" turns into more of a debate.

This happened today with two guys who came to our side. One did the camera and mic, the other asked the questions (I didn't get a photo of them). He only asked me one or two fairly straight questions, then moved on. Settling on a lady in our group, he started in with "I've interviewed Iraq war veterans who say that they've received orders to shoot women and children. What do you say to that?" and "Female American soldiers are afraid to walk across American bases at night for fear that they will be raped (by American male soldiers. What do you say to that?" He went on like this, obviously looking for a reaction and an argument. We eventually told him to get the hell away from us.

On to Lafayette Park

After about 45 minutes or so of this nonsense the lefties gathered their things and marched down Massachusetts Avenue to Lafayette Park, which was about a mile away, maybe less. Lafayette Park is across the street from the north face of the White House. As the street is is only a short distance from the White House itself (maybe just over 100 ft?), for security reasons the street has been blocked off and is essentially now part of the park. This park is the traditional center of anti-government protests, and there is always one leftist group or another holding some sort of protest or vigil. Check it out the next time you're in Washington DC.

We too gathered our things, but instead of following the leftists we got in our cars and drove down. Once we saw where they were set up in the park we again organized our counter-demonstration.

Lafayette Park

After getting their crowd together, the lefties all went up to the White House fence where they chanted various slogans. Unfortunately I did not think to get a photo with the White House actuall in it. It is just off screen to the right.

Notice the big UN flag. Yeah, they'll solve the world's problems. Just like they did in Rwanda

I almost forgot to have someone take my picture. This time I decided to go with a "pro" message rather than an "anti" one. The Freeper under her sign at my left doesn't want her photo on the Internet (if she can help it), something about her work, I think.

The lefties then walked back about a hundred feet and set up camp on the other side of the street. We walked back to about where they had been, and I took this photo with us in the forground and them in the background. The White House is to my right.

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"Thank You For Doing This"

During all this tourists passed by, wondering I suppose if they'd wandered into an alternate universe. Must just snapped photos of the two groups and went on their way, but several times people came up to us, shook all of our hands, and said "thank you for doing this!" At least three were Iraqi war veterans home on leave.

Again, a few times a leftie or two would come over and try to engage us, but the police kept them away. Both at the Gandhi Memorial and at Lafayette Park we spoke with several of the officers, most of them seemed either bored or amused by the entire spectacle. No doubt they've seen hundreds of these sorts of things, and unlike during the '60s, rarely does violence or trouble break out at the smaller ones (the big ones are another story. I've seen the DC police in action, like at the big Sept 25 1005 anti-war protests, and they are out in force and are dead serious in their work.

All of this went on for about an hour. They had a portable loudspeaker system and several of them gave fierly yet boringly predictable speaches. I've heard it all before.

The Main Event

Code Pink had set down a long pink cloth maybe three feet wide and 50 feet long on which they would hold their last supper before the fast (everything is pink at their events, it seems).

They had a food preparation table nearby, and most of them then sat down to have their last meal. At this point I left my post and went forward to take some photos.

Here's Cindy, you can see her sitting down in the middle of the photo. I think that the woman standing right above her in a pink shirt is Medea Benjamin, one of the leaders of Code Pink and a commie if there ever was one.

Here you can see a cameraman in the forground. Right across from Cindy were a whole bunch of photographers from the media, which you'll see in the second and third photos

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Ok enough.

At about 6:30 I decided enough was enough and headed for home.

All in all, I find it hard to take these people seriously. Yes Cindy Sheehan will garner some media attention with her stunt. But her and Code Pink are so whacked out of their minds that rational discourse with them is impossible. Their arguments, such as they are, are not to be taken seriously.

What is of concern is how more mainstream leftist groups like Moveon.org and the Daily Kos are affecting the Democrat Party. That is a subject for another post, but suffice it to say for now that I think these things run downhill: Code Pink/Cindy Sheehan affects Moveon.org and the Daily Kos, and they in turn affect the Democrat Party. None of this can be good for our country, because we have a war to win, and the lefties of Code Pink are rooting for our enemies.

Update

Here is the account of the day's events at FreeRepublic.com Be sure to check it out, as Albion recorded what we and the moonbats said and reports some of it verbatum.

Posted by Tom at 11:10 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack