I am so upset about Gaza

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-20-1999
I am so upset about Gaza
332
Sun, 01-11-2009 - 10:14pm

I can't quite express how much this has upset me.

Sucker Punch

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 4:14am

>>> I don't know why they are doing it -- well, except the keep the Red Cross and UN from effectively doing their jobs.

Would that be "doing their jobs" by calling a "cease fire" to permit humanitarian aid when such a respite actually put Israelis in jeopardy? Crazy Israelis.

>>> But this is not something jkenny made up. According to the UN, and according to the lcoal Red Cross, they are providing their coordinates to the IDF, for clearance and permission to conduct humanitarian aid. And almost as soon as they are cleared to follow the route provided, the IDF begans shotting them. Sveral UN and Red Cross aid workers have been shot and attacked by the IDF, after getting IDF clearance to travel safely int he area.

I think it takes a pretty skewed perception of reality to assume that Israel permits humanitarian aid and then intentionally bombs the aid workers. More likely, Hamas seeks out the UN and uses it as a shield, just as it does innocent civilians. Hamas...gutless cowards, the lot of them.

>>> Additionally, the IDF has been bombing UN schools and UN shelters. You are free to draw your own conslusions as to why the IDF is targetting both civillians and those aiding the civillians.

Because Hamas is using them a human shields? And because the Israelis have to make the choice...either be fired upon with impunity and see your friends/soldiers die, or attack the enemy where you find them.

<<< Who do you think is accepting the responsiblity of those who'd surrender

<< I imagine that the Israeli army has a process for taking prisoners and refugees.

>>> No. There is no process by which the Israeli army is taking in civillians. The won't allow them to flee. That is a big bulk of the protest against Israel's actions.

The links you've provided thus far are less than convincing.

<<< (and from what, this nurse and her family weren't firing rockets into Israel, they didn't do anything wrong except try to live their lives and, in the case of the nurse, to heal others.)

<< Possibly...but then, how "innocent" were the German people in 1937? I guess we were evil to have bombed those poor folks, weren't we?

>>> Well, since the Palestinians have not put Jews into camps, killing them, your analogy simply doesn't work.

You're right...they just take them prisoner or kill them from afar...like cowards.

<<< They are finally protecting themselves.<<

<<< 13 dead israelis of a population of 7 million. 1,000 dead Gazans of a population of 400,000. The Israelis are "protecting" themselves at a rate of 1346 to one. That isn't self-defense, its genocide. To give you a sense? If we decided to "protect ourselves" in a similar fashion, we'd have needed to kill over 4 million people in response to the attacks on the twin towers on 9/11.

>>> What disturbs me, and apparently people like Jenny, is that while the IDF may say this is about self defense, their actions do not mesh with their words.

Except that, unlike the Palestinians, Israel acts in self-defense.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 5:58am

Just for the heck of it, here are a bunch of old posts about the lead-up to and justifications for the Iraq war. They were originally posted on Hot Debates, the links are good, I just checked them and added one as well. The dates are the original dates of the posts in question. It is easier to keep the old posts than to retype every time this comes up.

May 13, 2005: To bolster my point that the hawks simply bypassed the intelligence professionals when the cause so demanded, I offer the following excerpt. You may balk at the source, but antiwar.com is run by mostly conservative people. It is not a leftie site.
http://www.antiwar.com/mcgovern/?articleid=5934&#8232;

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September 14, 2004: A decent overview of the process leading to the Iraq war.
http://www.logosjournal.com/dorrien.htm

Last, but not least, an old article from National Review, written by Jonah Goldberg. I am sure this made the rounds back then, but I thought it made an interesting read now, given the chance at hindsight. Goldberg seems to express fairly accurately the neo-con thinking involved in going to war against Saddam. For example, he readily acknowledges that there probably aren't any links between Saddam and al-Qaeda, yet insists that attack is the way to go.
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg042302.asp

Goldberg makes reference to what he calls the "Ledeen Doctrine" as a good reason to go after Iraq: "Well, I've long been an admirer of, if not a full-fledged subscriber to, what I call the "Ledeen Doctrine." I'm not sure my friend Michael Ledeen will thank me for ascribing authorship to him and he may have only been semi-serious when he crafted it, but here is the bedrock tenet of the Ledeen Doctrine in more or less his own words: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." That's at least how I remember Michael phrasing it at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute about a decade ago."


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September 26, 2004: Do you remember Brady Kiesling?

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0227-13.htm He had access to intelligence.

Most of the intelligence put together to back the case for invasion was flawed. Much of it was built on single-source info that had already been vetted and discarded by the CIA.

There is a good chance that the whole Niger uranium "intelligence" was cooked up for the occasion. For some hints at this, you can see:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshallrozen.html There was supposed to be a follow-up to this article with documentary evidence, but it somehow got killed before the pub. date.

Here is a later Vanity Fair article on the matter:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/07/yellowcake200607

The main problem concerning the WMD was that a discrepancy existed between what weapons we KNEW Saddam had had at some point and the inventory/evidence we had of what had been destroyed. He was being recalcitrant and coy, and as the joke goes, we had the receipts. There was a legitimate basis for believing it possible that Saddam still had some mustard gas and a few other nasty things sitting around.

According to Wolfowitz, WMD wasn't even the reason for the invasion, it was just the reason everyone could agree on putting out there. IOW, it was the justification that was most likely to fly:

"U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a Vanity Fair interview, said the public justification for the invasion of Iraq was not primarily based on the fear of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Wolfowitz was quoted as saying, "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Of lesser importance but explosive nevertheless was a BBC report that the British had deliberately exaggerated the presence of WMD in Iraq. The two stories, emerging on the same day, inevitably combined to create a shock in the international system. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scrambled, later in the day, reasserting in a radio interview the original administration position."

http://www.grailwerk.com/docs/stratfor01.htm

A small, but good example is the whole debacle with the Niger claim getting into the State of the Union address. Hadley's office was in charge of clearing info in speeches with the CIA. Hadley had wanted to put the claim in a different speech a few months before. He had been told not to, by the CIA, on the phone (or in a meeting) AND in a memo from Tenet. So, how the heck does the claim get into the State of the Union a few months later, cleared once again by Hadley's office? It is hard not to get the impression that there was a deliberate attempt to deceive.

-----------------------------

August 5, 2004: It is true that there were conflicting assessments of the WMD capacity of Iraq. This was in large part because we had the records of what we had sold them, yet could not account for what had happened to the materials. This would be for the bio-chem weapons. As far as nuclear weapons, there was little conflict as far as I can tell.
The second issue has to do with whether there was any cooperation between Saddam and al-Qaeda. There the waters get more murky.

However, in both cases, the established intelligence channels tended to take a conservative view of these issues. Most of the controversy was generated by the Office of Special Planning and most of the "intelligence" that office produced was based on dicey and discarded tidbits combed out of the archives or obtained from Chalabi and his boys. The Niger uranium story was an outright hoax, and it was known by the CIA and the administration prior to the claim getting into the State of the Union address. This is just fact, there is no controversy there.

A basic "Iraq War Reader," with links in chronological order.

An article on Wolfowitz' "defense Planning Guidance" from 1992: http://work.colum.edu/~amiller/wolfowitz1992.htm

A quote from the document:

"In the Middle East and Southwest Asia, our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region’s oil. We also seek to deter further aggression in the region, foster regional stability, protect U.S. nationals and property, and safeguard our access to international air and seaways. As demonstrated by Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, it remains fundamentally important to prevent a hegemon or alignment of powers from dominating the region. This pertains especially to the Arabian peninsula. Therefore, we must continue to play a role through enhanced deterrence and improved cooperative security."

A by now classic article by Jason Vest, from September, 2002.

http://www.nogw.com/download/2006_men_jinsa_csp.pdf

An excerpt:

"For example, the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board--chaired by JINSA/CSP adviser and former Reagan Administration Defense Department official Richard Perle, and stacked with advisers from both groups--recently made news by listening to a briefing that cast Saudi Arabia as an enemy to be brought to heel through a number of potential mechanisms, many of which mirror JINSA's recommendations, and which reflect the JINSA/CSP crowd's preoccupation with Egypt. (The final slide of the Defense Policy Board presentation proposed that "Grand Strategy for the Middle East" should concentrate on "Iraq as the tactical pivot, Saudi Arabia as the strategic pivot Egypt as the prize.") Ledeen has been leading the charge for regime change in Iran, while old comrades like Andrew Marshall and Harold Rhode in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment actively tinker with ways to re-engineer both the Iranian and Saudi governments."

The actual JINSA document from 1996 that Artyfreda mentioned, please note that one of the co-authors is Feith:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/860941/posts

It is important to note that as presented in the paper, the strategy is intended as an Israeli strategy. But many of the basic assumptions and ideas were incorporated into current US policy. The idea that no Arab hegemon can be allowed to emerge in the Middle East directly ecchoes Wolfowitz' paper from '92.

The 1998 PNAC open letter to President Clinton:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm

It is signed by, among others, Bolton, Woolsey, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Perle.

An editorial from the Weekly Standard, September 24, 2001, pretty much rehashing much of the above.

http://www.newamericancentury.org/middleeast-092401.htm

Gerecht is direct in laying out that taking out Saddam will be for the purpose of inspiring "awe" in Arab hearts. He makes some half-hearted attempts at linking Saddam to terrorism, but equally acknowledges that Saddam has FOUGHT the Jihadists with all his might and been somewhat successful.

+niger +yellowcake and see what you come up with. Here is an overview of the matter by the Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/5/152456/7365

Of particular interest would be the following snippets:

"Late 2001 SISMI adds the forged Niger-Iraq uranium documents into the mix of genuine, visas-and-stuff documents their agent at the Nigerien Embassy has been passing to Giacomo (the information purveyor). Italian intelligence also begins distributing summaries of these documents to western intelligence agencies (including Britain, France, and the US).

Around this time "Without being precise about dates, Giacomo said: 'I received a call from a former colleague in Sismi. I was told that a woman in the Niger embassy in Rome had a gift for me. I met her and she gave me documents. Sismi wanted me to pass on the documents but they didn't want anyone to know they had been involved. It was the Italians and Americans together who were behind it. It was all a disinformation operation'.... Giacomo says that he passed the documents to 'contacts', but will ... Elisabetta Burba" ("Tracked down," by Nicholas Rufford and Nick Fielding, Sunday Times (London), Aug. 1, 2004)"

"Feb. 4, 2003 The IAEA learns of the existence of the forged Niger documents and receives copies of them; Niger is not mentioned the next day in Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council; within a few weeks, the IAEA has concluded the documents are bogus."

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-07-2009
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 9:39am
You give me too much credit - but I consider it an honor!!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2008
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 10:14am

13 dead innocent Jews, a population of 7 million.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-25-2008
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 10:42am

So, are you saying that the problem is that Hamas doesn't do a better job?


Their failure is not due to a lack of desire, merely a lack of ability.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-09-2009
Fri, 01-16-2009 - 4:55pm
Um...so...uh...you're suggesting that our efforts to fight Al Qaeda are "excessive" because the murder of 3000 innocent Americans doesn't make Al Qaeda a "serious threat" to wipe out 300 million?
iVillage Member
Registered: 11-07-2008
Sat, 01-17-2009 - 12:55am

Yes, she/he said they were trying to wipe out Israel, I pointed out and am glad to see you agree, that they lack the ability to wipe out Israel.

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2009
Sat, 01-17-2009 - 11:55pm

LOL


iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2009
Sun, 01-18-2009 - 12:23am

"It's just so sad that

iVillage Member
Registered: 01-12-2009
Sun, 01-18-2009 - 12:32am

Both the democrat and republican leadership believed S.H. had WMD.

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