War Handwavium

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To the veterans and their families, thank you.

Remember back in 2007, when Blackwater got some bad press for shooting 17 Iraqi civilians? American and Iraqi investigators had declared the shooting to be unjustified. And Blackwater was afraid they’d get thrown out of Iraq which would lose them their State Department contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Turns out, Blackwater executives authorized a million dollars in bribes to Iraqi officials to silence their criticism

Classy.

No wonder they changed their name to Xe.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/shocker-by-digby-who-could-ever-have.html

One of the biggest things condemned by the Goldstone report is Israel’s “Dahiya Doctrine”.

Dahiya doctrine: An approved defense strategy of Israel stating that civilians will be held accountable for their leaders’ acts.

Israeli Defense Force Northern Command Chief Gadi Eisenkot said that in the next clash with Hizbullah, Israel won’t bother to hunt for tens of thousands of rocket launchers and Israel won’t spill its soldiers’ blood in attempts to overtake fortified Hizbullah positions. Rather, Israel shall destroy Lebanon and won’t be deterred by the protests of the world.

Compare the Dahiya doctrine with something like, oh, just say, the Geneva Convention which prohibits collective punishment on civilian populations, and you can see why the Goldstone report found Israel in gross violation of international law.

http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/11/2009111174626931966.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahiya_strategy

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3605863,00.html

A historical tidbit the Republicans would rather not talk about: Reagan allowed Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons.

http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/003139.html

Palestinians tore down a section of Israel’s separation wall on the 20th anniversary of the falling of the Berlin Wall.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/2009119151639325464.html

The Isreali government refuses to stop building illegal settlements on Palestinian land. THe Israeli government is tearing down Palestinian homes in the Palestinian portion of Jeruselem and is claiming the entire capital for Israel. The Israeli government refuses to do anything that would allow the road-map for peace to move forward.

And every time the Israeli government does something like this, every time the Israeli government bombs civilians in Gaza as collective punishment against all Palestinians, every time the Israeli government bombs its national neighbors, every time the Israeli government treats the lives of Palestinians and anyone who isn’t Jewish as second class citizens, that fuels hatred in the middle east against the United States.

Why?

Because Israel has been the largest recipient of US foreign aid for decades. Because any time the UN tries to sanction Israel for violating international laws, for initiating war against it’s neighbors, for its maltreatment of Palestinians in occupied territories, every time the UN speaks a word of criticism about Israel, the United States is there on the Security Council to veto any resolutions. Because when Israel runs low on bullets and bombs, the US sends them more.

Israel’s actions reflect on the US.

And it’s time the US stop enabling Israel’s abusive behaviour. Israel is a sovereign nation, and the US cannot dictate what Israel does or how Israel should behave. But America is a sovereign nation too, and Israel cannot tell America who to send billions of dollars in foreign aid to, military weapons to, and who to protect at the United Nations.

Every time Israel behaves badly with American weapons, American money, and American protection at the UN, it fuels anger towards America. And since Israel and America are both sovereign nations, I won’t be telling Israel what to do. But I will be telling the American government, my government, what I want them to do as part of my democracy.

If Israel refuses to stop settlement construction, if Israel refuses to stop destroying Palestinian homes, if Israel refuses to stop its slow theft of Palestinian land, if Isreal refuses to stop its militant actions against Palestinians and its neighbors, then America should stop funding Israel.

If Israels don’t work towards peace, then America should stop funding Israel with money, bombs, and political protection at the UN.

If no peace, then no money, no bullets, and no UN vetos.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/11/08/extremists/index.html

On November 5, 1999, Congress passed the the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, repealing the part of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 that regulated banking, securities companies, and insurance companies.

It only took ten years for market speculation specifically allowed by the bill to create a bubble and subsequent crash.

More details here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s106-900

Senate vote (90 for, 8 against) on the bill here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=s1999-354

House vote (362 for, 57 against) on the bill here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h1999-570

Maybe you’ll want to check your reprentatives and see how they voted and send them a note. Of all the politicians who opposed the bill, the vast majority of them were Democrats.

In April of 2009, a Minneapolis cop tasered 18 year old Rolondo Ruiz who was standing still, with hands on hood of police care, in the neck.

Ruiz was arrested after he allegedly broke a window of an officer’s personal car parked in the lot by the 2nd Precinct station in Minneapolis. The cop may have taken the broken window personally, and decided to punish Ruiz.

The video has caused the FBI to start an investigation into the police officer’s actions.

Ruiz has plead guilty to damaging property.

There does not appear to be any justification for tasering him as shown on the video. Tasers are to be used when the bad guys are threatening someone’s life, not as the cop’s own Judge Dredd version of trial, conviction, and punishment on the street.

http://wcco.com/local/teen.tasered.talks.2.1292663.html

http://wcco.com/local/Rolando.Ruiz.guilty.2.1294887.html

Illegal Jewish Settlements on Palestinian lands are gobbling up the land that would become part of a Palestinian state, making the two-state solution impossible.

The only alternative to the two-state solution is that the Palestinians become part of the state of Israel. Except many Jewish Israelis hate that idea. Israeli government officials have recently said that Israel is a Jewish State, that non-Jews will have to leave Israel once a Palestinian state is created.

But there’s little land for a state left.

What this points to is that Palestinians will likely get absorbed into Israel, Israel will declare that it owns all the land that is currently Palestinian land, and Palestinians will be treated as second class citizens, an apartheid enforced by the Israeli government.

It’s little different than the current situation, other than the Palestinians will officially lose all their land to Israel, rather than Israel stealing it one illegal settlement at a time.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/11/200911421151530735.html

With apologies to Daft Punk.

What amazes me in the conversations in America about wars is how we can’t seem to figure out the basic math. Kill 1 insurgent, 50 take his place. That’s the math. The war-mongering response to this is to do it harder, better, faster, stronger, and somehow it’ll all work out.