Dr. Ivan Eland, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute on Winning Over Arabs Using Israeli Tactics:
The Bush administration’s recent “get tough” approach to the chaos in Iraq is predictable and will likely make things worse there in the long-term. With few good options left in Iraq — few foreign countries will send troops to help with the American occupation, inserting more U.S. forces is politically unacceptable, and the newly created Iraqi security forces resemble the keystone cops — the Bush administration’s escalation of the violence, in an attempt to quell the Iraqi insurgency before next year’s election, comes as no surprise. But such escalation will kill, wound or anger even more Iraqi civilians and thus make long-term stability in Iraq even more unlikely.
Of all the Bush administration’s inept bungling during the occupation of Iraq, the new aggressive tactics on the ground may take the cake. Not only are U.S. forces becoming more combative against the insurgency, they are making no secret about imitating a failed Israeli model. Like the Israeli forces occupying Gaza and the West Bank, U.S. occupiers are now bombing or bulldozing houses and buildings used in attacks against them, wrapping towns in razor wire, locking them down for 15 hours a day, issuing photo identification cards for those Iraqis wishing to go in or out during the other 9 hours and imprisoning relatives of suspected guerrillas to pressure them to turn themselves in. Senior American military officials admit that the United States sent officers to Israel to learn Israeli techniques in urban counterinsurgency warfare.
Read the rest here. This entry also posted at Stand Down.
In his entire life, has Bush ever made anything better, or not made things worse?
Posted by Anonymous on December 12, 2003 02:33 PM
imitating a failed Israeli model
Somebody needs to tell Israel that. And those who claim that American policy is not influenced by Israel need to take notice. It’s coming straight from Israel, from the beginning. It benefits only Israel.
Posted by Anonymous on December 12, 2003 02:37 PM
Pardon me, but a little balance is in order.
The statement “The Bush administration’s recent “get tough” approach to the chaos in Iraq is predictable and will likely make things worse there in the long-term” is a fallacy. It is an assertion that has never been borne out in practice. It is simple appeasement theory, and holds no merit.
The fact of the matter is that ONLY when the Israelis get tough on the ground does Arafat then come to the negotiating table. Every time Israel has negotiated a treaty with Arafat, he has used the cessation of Israeli military enforcement to attack civilians anew.
The fact is that those who oppose Israel and American defense policies do so because they want America and Israel to LOSE.
Posted by Robert Kessler on December 12, 2003 03:42 PM
No, Mr. Kessler, I think that those who criticize American and Israeli defense policies do want America, the real America of the founding fathers and Lincoln, to win, and think that people holding your views don’t know what winning, in true American terms, really is. Dragging our coutry into the vicious tribal conflicts in the Middle East, and adopting the appalling tactics of the paticipants in those conflicts, is precisely what Presidents from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower counseled against. America can only win in other ways consistent with its long-standing traditions.
Posted by David in NY on December 12, 2003 04:19 PM
David,
I appreciate your comments. However, this isn’t 1782, or 1956.America has been attacked on our soil, and we exist today, infiltrated by people domestically born and imported, who seek the destruction of our country. They have the will, and perhaps the means, to spread death on a mass scale.
I would prefer a world where all we had to do to be safe would be to pull back into our shell and let other fight it out, but that world no longer exists.
And, as far as predictions whose accuracy relies on being proved at some point between now and “on into the future”…well…pardon me while I laugh a bit. Ha! There. I feel better.
The number of intercepted suicide missions by the Israelis is documentable. It is not some vague assertion that someone pulled out of a hat. To say that the Israeli policies do not produce results is in fact denying the facts. And that’s a fact. Ppppllllbbbbbbbb!!!!!!! 🙂
Posted by Robert Kessler on December 12, 2003 10:19 PM
>>The number of intercepted suicide missions by the Israelis is documentable
The number of times the Israelis failed at that is equally documentable.
>…we exist today, infiltrated by people domestically born and imported, who seek the destruction of our country. They have the will, and perhaps the means, to spread death on a mass scale.
I still can’t believe how some people in the US are scared out of their wits by something as small as terrorism. Yes you heard me right. A score of nations have seen much worse in this area and have survived without much damage to their societies(Ireland, Peru, Spain, France even.)
This is truly a case of the elephant being scared of the mouse. Maybe scared doesn’t do it justice, “scared to the point of being paranoid” is probably better.
By the which other names can be put in place of the “…” above?
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on December 13, 2003 04:56 AM
Wouter said: “Maybe scared doesn’t do it justice, “scared to the point of being paranoid” is probably better.”
And yet they constantly brag about their powerful military and how they are the only superpower.
Whatever happened to Bush’s promise to smoke out Osama bin Laden and bring him in? The superpower turns out to be a superwimp. No, a scared superwimp. Pathetic.
Posted by Anonymous on December 13, 2003 04:40 PM
Pardon me for being nauseous.
“I still can’t believe how some people in the US are scared out of their wits by something as small as terrorism. A score of nations have seen much worse in this area and have survived without much damage to their societies.”
This is a comment that borders on idiocy if it weren’t made by an obviously intelligent person whose ideology is so twisted that he’ll make moronic statements like this one.
Of course, this is how I’ve expected the liberals and anti-Bush libertarians to make their argument as time goes on. You see “Terrorism isn’t anything real, or anything to worry about, and anyway, who’s worried about a little terrorism execpt those fascists in the White House”.
OK. Enough of this nonsense.
Posted by Robert Kessler on December 13, 2003 05:48 PM
Wouter,
3000 people dead in one day is a pittance? Trivial? Not much to be worried about.
When did the number of Iraqi dead in this war become significant then? What number of dead was reached before it bothered you, who’ve had nothing to do with this war except by your own interjections.
Posted by Anonymous on December 14, 2003 06:46 AM
Wouter,
Forget the original point. It’s lost on you apparently. I’m just absolutely fascinated. I mean what the hell are you talking about here.
“..Clearly your standard of ordering, awards major credits to acts that you feel personally associated with and now to far ways acts. Who has twisted logic here ?”
“Are you somehow thinking that my line of thought bears any resemblence with your own ?”
Evidently not. I’d take it as a mortal insult if you suggested that as well.
And then…
“The message conveyed in your statement is totally incompatible with my line of thinking. Because your line of thinking implies that one can torture and detain an infinate number of civilians (people) without any problems as long as nobody dies.”
I’m still wondering where you got that. I’m not sure you know either. It sure wasn’t from what I wrote.
“In your view “hell is heaven”, nobody dies here as well.”
Uhh huh! Riiiiiight. OK then. I’ll add you to my list of folks to ignore.
Good day.
Posted by Anonymous on December 15, 2003 04:37 AM
But seriously, I will explain it to you.
Anonymous asked: >>What number of dead was reached before it bothered you,
Evidently you have a standard in which (only) the number of deaths determine the significance of an event. Obviously I don’t.
This is not a contest in who’s suffering the most and even if it were that than it would be wise to see the full suffering of others and not just stare at 9/11 till it looks as big as a Mammoth.
The reasoning deployed in your posts and that of Robert are twisted as that they all contain portions of fabricated significance. As in YOU assigning more significance to certain events on personal grounds. This is fine for you personal perception and experience but it still doesn’t make such an event more significant in the greater scheme of things.
You may think 911 is more significant than Guantanamo. However it is Guantanamo that is more threatening to the US way of live than 9/11 can every be.
See here the contradiction between significance and number of deaths ?
If not than you’re obviously part of the problem. But that shouldn’t bother you much as you are ignoring me from no won.
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on December 15, 2003 07:29 AM
a comment that borders on idiocy from Robert Kessler
Only if it weren’t true – something that you fail to refute. A few buildings and 2700 people is not a huge disaster by anyone’s standards. It seems huge to many Americans only because their arrogance and pride is so huge. That amount of damage is not at all uncommon in the world. Kessler’s American predecessors did far more damage to the Indians, annihilating 90% of them (an estimated 4.5 million out of 5 million of them) and eliminating most of their tribes and societies in the process. And there are many more examples just as bad or worse. Compared to that, the Twin Towers in New York were just a mosquito bite. But not to America’s (and Kessler’s) monstrous self-importance and false pride.
If only the real cause of the attacks on America were admitted and dealt with, such attacks (and the hatred, animosoty, resentment that underlie them) would become few and far between. But most Americans (from Buish on down to Kessler) are incapable of doing that. They refuse to admit that there is something very wrong with what they have been doing around the world for many decades. So they will continue to pay for it.
Posted by Anonymous on December 13, 2003 06:38 PM
Hey Genius…why don’t you use your name on your posts?
Posted by Robert Kessler on December 13, 2003 11:40 PM
Robert Kessler: “why don’t you use your name on your posts?”
Like you could do anything about it if you knew it…
Like any of this is about me or any one else personally…
Like facts and truth depend on the name attached to their statement…
Posted by Anonymous on December 14, 2003 01:32 AM
Did I say it was a pittance ?
No, I said :” … scared out of their wits by something as small as terrorism. …”
Terrorism is NOT threatening the existance of the US or even its way of life (If you can call it that). Hence the choice of words of(As small as terrorism)
I think 11 sept is not even in the top of the list of most terrifying (terror ?) acts. You may think it is but it isn’t.
It doesn’t rank high even for not-combat related murder epidemics like :
Pol Pot Combodia persecution of intellectuals and educated persons by a group of peasants; Anyone wearing glasses was killed almost immediately as that was a sign damning intellect.
France under Robbespiere, after the revolution. Makes for very interesting reading. This time was later named Reign of terror even though no (foreign) terrorist group was responsible for that and it didn’t have clear goals (US out Arabia; Israel out of palestine) for which terror was used in order to achieve it.
Russia under Lenin right after the revolution. Farmers did’t want to go along with centralisation and state onwership. So they killed them all after torturing and starving them. Millions in a few years time !
Rwanda after the airwaves were taken over by Hutu extremists. Nearly a million deaths in a few weeks time. Wanna do the math on that one and see if it tops 3000 in a day ? (ONLY by a factor of 10)
Kristalnacht. Were your long time (friendly) neighbour could be the one clubbing your head in or ratting you out to some Security Service. Not many people died in that night that is true but it was a monster of a precursor to things to come.
The expulsion of Palestinians of Israel proper by planned mass killings and destruction. “the catastrophy” as its called. Quite a few villages were cleared and dynamited to the ground to force the residents to leave and never to return.
The list can be very long indeed.
The point is THESE events were really shaking the foundations of the nations in which these happened.
Most of these nations turned out to be okay after they lived through their dark times. So all that talk of 9/11 threatening the US way of live is nonsense. It belongs onder the category of paranoia.
Lets name a few nations that didn’t recover after experiencing trully devastating events,
Caribs after Columbus.
Natives in North America
Inca’s in Peru, Mayas in centre America
Aloutians (Russian traders)
In short; all native American people north and south, east and west.
I think Cortex cleared an Inca city in one day and was proud to claim he killed over 10.000 natives before he became too tiredto lift his sword.
The jews. In this sense I pitty them. Notice the distinction Ialways make between Jews and Israeli’s !
Etc.
So you see, your point :
>>When did the number of Iraqi dead in this war become significant then?
Says more about you than me.
I just ordered the (historic) events I know and came to the conclusion that Terrorism AS WE KNOW IT today stands pretty low on the list. Which ever way you look at it. Clearly your standard of ordering, awards major credits to acts that you feel personally associated with and now to far ways acts. Who has twisted logic here ?
>>What number of dead was reached before it bothered you, who’ve had nothing to do with this war except by your own interjections.
Do you mean to say that any murder rate below 3000/day by a single act is insufficient in order to be regarded as a sign of an awful event ?
Or are you saying that you think that there is a minimum amount of deaths required in order to be regarded as something else than “Life as usual” ? Or even neglectable ?
Are you somehow thinking that my line of thought bears any resemblence with your own ?
The message conveyed in your statement is totally incompatible with my line of thinking. Because your line of thinking implies that one can torture and detain an infinate number of civilians (people) without any problems as long as nobody dies.
In your view “hell is heaven”, nobody dies here as well.
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on December 14, 2003 09:03 AM
WHAT ?!! There was a point in Roberts post. Where ? Where?
Ha. ha . ha
Wouter
Posted by Wouter on December 15, 2003 07:17 AM
Robert said: “The statement “The Bush administration’s recent ‘get tough’ approach to the chaos in Iraq is predictable and will likely make things worse there in the long-term” is a fallacy. It is an assertion that has never been borne out in practice.”
‘In the long term’ here means in the period from now on into the future, so once again Kessler’s knee-jerk reaction is wrong. Something in the future can not by nature be judged as never having been borne out in practice in Iraq.
Robert said: “The fact of the matter is that ONLY when the Israelis get tough on the ground does Arafat then come to the negotiating table.”
No. The Palestinians have not bowed to Israeli use of military power, which has utterly failed to stop or even contain the Palestinian resistance. If Kessler based his reactions on facts, he would have to deal with the fact that recently many high-ranking Israeli political and military leaders have been saying that their policy is a complete failure and will never work. But then Kessler doesn’t care about facts and truth. He knows only his propaganda divorced from reality. Just like his hero, Mighty Shrub.
Posted by Anonymous on December 12, 2003 07:53 PM
Let’s look at this a different way. Here are some extended quotes from Peter Singer’s book “One World:
[The victims of the 9/11 attack, on average have the possibility of getting $2 million from various sources as compensation]…
[On the other hand], 10 million children under the age of 5 die every day from preventable causes such as malnutrition, unsafe water, and the lack of basic health care. That means it is likely than on September 11, 2001 nearly 30,000 children died from those causes…
Many years ago the UN set a target for development aid pf 0.7% of GNP…in 2000 the U.S. gave .1% of its GNP…less in actual dollars than Japan, even though the US GNP is roughly twice the size of Japan.
[Moreover,] most US aid is strategically targeted for political purposes…Only a quarter of US aid (as oppossed to half of Japan’s) goes to low-income countries…adding non-govermnetal aid in the US increases the amount from .1% of GNP to only .14%.
———-
While total US aid was only $14 billion (and remember only a quarter of that goes to poor countries) the US is spending half a trillion dollars on its defense budget. America, the richest country in the world, is at the bottom of the table when it comes to helping others. So please, please, please don’t talk about the “good we are doing in Iraq.” If we were really interested in helping people and saving lives, we could take just 10% of our military budget, and in 15 years we could achieve the following amazing goals:
1. halve the number of people in the world who suffer from hunger or who live on less than $1 a day (currently about a billion pewople)
2. assure a primary education for every child in the world
3. reduce by 2/3 the under 5 mortality rate (save 20,000 children’s lives every day!)
4. halve the proportion of people without access to safe water
We are talking 10% of our defense budget, $40-50 billion a year. Is there anyone with even the slightest bit of intellectual integrity who seriously believes America’s military might will be seriously hampered if we cut our defence budget by 10% (after nearly doubling it in the past few years)?
Pardon me for being nauseated. But how can anyone think how “wonderful” America is, as Halliburton, Bechtel and others fatten their pockets on making Iraq safe for American corporations, while 30,000 kids die every day because somehow we “can’t afford” to help out? Give me a fucking break. Talk about comments that border on idiocy and twisted ideologies, this one has to take the cake:
“I believe freeing Iraq is a good and proper thing. I don’t care if Halliburton makes money doing it.”
If we can afford to spend billions on “freeing” Iraq, why can’t we afford to spend billions on ending world hunger? Obviously because the billions we spend in Iraq are mostly lining the pockets of American corporations like Halliburton, not helping the Iraqi people. And those billions are a short term investment, in hoped-for long term windfall in controlling Iraq’s resources and economy. But some poor kids in some resource poor African or Asian county – why should “compassionate conservatives” give a fuck about them? And don’t get me started in how this same adminsitration is screwing over the working class and poor Americans (who haven’t yet sunk to third world poverty levels – but will after a few years of Bushenomics).
I would respect Bush & Co more if they just said outright: All we care about is ruling the world for America’s benefit and the benefit of American corporations (which from their perspective is one and the same thing). At least words would match actions, and we’ld have some “moral clarity”. There is nothing more nauseating than lying hypocrites.
Posted by aronst on December 14, 2003 12:25 AM
Aronst: You claim “If we were really interested in helping people and saving lives, we could take just 10% of our military budget, and in 15 years we could achieve the following amazing goals…”
But you don’t show that. Yes, we could achieve spending a lot of money. But do you think that our foreign aid is distributed by carpet-bombing poor Third World villages with dollar bills? It goes to “development agencies”, bureaucrats, and foreign governments. In other words, it mostly redistributes money from middle-class Americans to rich people who aren’t Americans. Some of the money may even actually get to the intended recipients, after the various politicos have had their way with it.
But even if we were to go the bombing-with-bills route, that presupposes that it /is/ our responsibility (or our government’s) to do something about it. Personally, I find the idea of taxing Mr. & Mrs. Joe Smith of Peoria to give their money to Mr. & Mrs. John Mwanzu of Burundi mysterious and offensive. Hey, if they want to send their own money, more power to ’em. But I thought our government was supposed to be instituted for /our/ benefit, not for beggaring us for the rest of the world’s benefit. (As for the UN: if they’re so interested in the welfare of the poor, why is their headquarters a skyscraper in the world’s most expensive city? You’d think they could economize a little and pass the savings along – but I guess the high life in NYC is more appealing than kicking around in Ouagadougou, eh?)
Posted by JD on December 15, 2003 03:40 PM
JD said: “I thought our government was supposed to be instituted for
/our/ benefit, not for beggaring us for the rest of the world’s benefit.”
Typical American arrogance and ignorance. By spending money that is earmarked for military purposes and eliminating much of the poverty and disease around the world, the world would become a safer place and many more people would be able to buy American products, among other benefits – so it would benefit America AND other people. It’s called foreign aid, which has been in existence in America for a very long time.
And spending money that has already been collected in taxes would not beggar Americans (reduce them to beggars). Scare tactics based on lies don’t work. They only tell the rest of the world that Americans are bastards.
Posted by Anonymous on December 15, 2003 03:54 PM