War breaks out, Hamas apologists answer the call

Remarkable photo of black smoke rising from the Gaza side of the border. Egypt is on the right. From Stern.de

Israel is hitting Gaza in response to Hamas rocket attacks, and Arab activists are protesting all over the globe. I'm not going to echo the media here, but instead point out that some of Israel's critics are not telling you the whole story.

Of course, the predictable Daily Kos, Juan Cole, and Richard Silverstein, and the Huffington Post, to name just a few, are all crying out in support of Palestinians and against the Israeli "aggressors".

Professor Cole call's Israel's offensive a "war crime". His reasoning:

In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

...The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.

The omissions in Cole's article are dishonest. He is comparing apples and oranges. It's true that relatively few Israelis have actually been killed by Hamas rockets. But he conveniently forgets that these are not the only weapons in Hamas' arsenal. They have also used suicide bombings (even with women and children), IEDs, kidnappings, and assorted guerilla tactics against the civilians and Israeli Defense Forces. In all, 1,176 Israelis have been killed and 8,341 wounded in terror attacks since 2000. And this doesn't even include the Palestinians killed by Hamas, mainly when cleansing their Fatah rivals from the strip.

Another thing that Cole fails to mention is that Gaza is not only bordered by Israel. Egypt has it's own blockade, and are even shooting Gazans attempting to flee the country. This is especially grievous considering that the Egyptians, unlike the Israelis, aren't under attack by Hamas.

Finally, Cole and the rest always fail to mention one harsh reality. Just to survive, Israel must force their enemies to suffer many times their own casualties; they would be overwhelmed otherwise. Israel's population is just over 7 million. By contrast, the Arab nations surrounding Israel total in the hundreds of millions (Egypt alone has 81 million people!). You can also add 66 million Persians in Iran, which is still pursuing a nuclear program.

Don't get me wrong - Israel is not entirely innocent here, and I don't fully support their tactics. I would have instead gone with commando insertions right off the bat, followed by a full scale ground invasion. Yes, it is much more risky, but has a better chance of taking out the ringleaders as well as not providing Hamas with fodder for their reams of fake photographs of injured children. Moreover, Israel will probably have to invade the strip anyway. Since giving Gaza back to the Palestinians has ended in complete failure, not just for Israel but for the Palestinians themselves, Israel needs to seriously consider relocating the entire population of Gaza strip. It would result in worldwide Arab condemnation, but it would last a few years, while the ongoing situation provides the Arab countries with excuses to blame Israel and conduct attacks for decades to come. Even the talk of such a massive resettlement might shock Hamas into finally realizing their terror tactics are threatening to send them out of their very homes.



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Holiday week's updates

Pin-up legend Bettie Page (in one of her few non-pinup photos). She died last week at the age of 85

In the last couple weeks, when I was absent from this blog, the world has been a busy place. Some things you may have missed:

UK: As the holidays approach, keep in mind this startling statistic. In the UK, up to 70% of people currently doubt the story of the Nativity (Jesus's birth). It wouldn't have anything to do with efforts to erase any religious connotations of Christmas, would it?

TEXAS, USA: A nine year-old girl asks Santa in a letter to help her and her sister stop four years of sexual abuse by their stepfather. School officials saw the letter, and the man was arrested and arraigned on charges concerning both girls.

UK: On the other side of the coin, some observations on society's hysteria over accusations of child molestation, and how all men suffer for it. Very applicable to the USA as well.

TURKEY: A recent report on woman's rights in Turkey, kind of a hard dose of cold water for multiculturalists who insist that Turkey is currently ready for inclusion into the European Union.

WORLD: As the holiday season is here, remember that much of the world is still battling basic problems like hunger. Fortunately, the recent dramatic fall in oil prices should ease this problem somewhat.

USA: Study shows how important the Internet has become; almost as important to people as sex. 46% of women and 30% of men would rather give up sex for two weeks than give up Internet access over the same period.

IRAQ: A view inside Rusafa prison, an Iraqi-run detention facility. A surprisingly fair report, it corresponds very closely to my own experiences in visiting Iraqi jails (including the one at Camp Justice, where Saddam Hussein was hanged). The prisons are extremely crowded and unpleasant, but they are not Gulags, or Nazi-era concentration camps either. Too bad the media can't be as objective when reporting on conditions at Abu Gharaib or Guantanamo.

UK: a man gets life in prison (well, the UK version, anyway: possibility of release after 19 years) for raping his own two daughters over a period of 20 years. The rapes resulted in 19 pregnancies, all of which ended up in miscarriages or abortions. The harm done to the women is incalculable. But this didn't happen in some war-torn country or third-world Pakistan or Somalia, but in the UK, among the most developed nations in the free world, and quite a nanny-state to boot. So what is truly beyond comprehension is how he could have gotten away with this for so long with nobody reporting anything suspicious.

CANADA: The future of fembots is here, and it's pretty creepy, even to a huge sci-fi fan like myself.

NORTH KOREA: Now that I'm stationed in Korea for the time being, I've been following the news in North Korea more closely. Two great sources I found were the Daily NK and Liberty in North Korea (both in the links section).

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About two of Obama's cabinet choices

The Stryker Infantry Fighting Vehicle, one of Shinseki's pet projects. Photo by MATEUS 27:24&25

Veteran's Affairs

As a veteran myself, I'll come out and say that we simply never needed a Department of Veteran's Affairs as a cabinet-level post. What are veteran's needs, anyway? This may come as a big shock, but they are the same needs as anyone else: food, water, shelter, security, and education - for ourselves and our families. Yes, there are programs and benefits specifically for veterans, but these are very limited in scope. President Reagan elevated this department to a cabinet post in 1988, alongside other departments posts such as Health, Energy, and Defense, but it clearly doesn't belong on that level.

In any case, Barack Obama nominated retired General Eric Shinseki to that Cabinet post, and the leftists go wild, due to his reputation of refuting the Bush administration on the number of troops needed in the War in Iraq. But like many folk legends, this reputation is greatly exaggerated. He did claim in 2003 that the US needed "several hundred thousand troops" to occupy Iraq, in contradiction to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at the time. But he made the remark in an off-the-cuff statement in a public hearing with Senate Armed Services Committee. Although there were no shortage of rumors, he never publicly criticized the Bush administration or the war, even after he retired. It's also ludicrous to assume he was "forced out" over the issue, or that it "ended his career". The man had 38 years of military service after all, far beyond the normal retirement time, and in line with other long-serving Generals. His retirement was also announced before his Congressional testimony. Additionally, he was already the Army Chief of Staff, the absolute pinnacle of rank in the Army, and completed his full four-year term at that post. If he stayed in, there was nowhere for his career to go after that (There is one higher position - the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, but that post was already filled by Air Force Gen Richard Myers at the time).

Truth is, most in the military remember him for something else. The guy who brought the Army the dreaded black beret, an awkward headgear which is highly unpopular. He also brought us the Stryker vehicle, which is also unpopular with many, although I myself think it's a good vehicle (photo above).

I'm certain he will do just fine in the job, as long as he's not involved in politics and resists the temptation from Paul Rieckhoff and his ilk to turn veteran status into some kind of underpriveleged group, begging for public sympathy (we are just people, not some oppressed, needy group looking for handouts).

State Department

With a world in chaos (wars in the Middle East, attacks in Mumbai, massive protests in Thailand and Greece, piracy in Africa, etc), Obama picks Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. And nobody is surprised. Why should they be? She is well connected, after all... In my experience, the US State Department is one of the largest, most arrogant, and most bloated beasts in the entire government.

I guess it doesn't matter that she has almost zero foreign policy experience. A career diplomat would have been a less flashy choice, but far more practical. This is exactly the type of "business as usual" politics that Obama claimed during the campaign to be so well above. Like Shinseki, I'll give her a chance. But this doesn't reflect well on the President-elect.



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