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POPSUri Avnery: Israel Officially Declares War on the Palestinian People Until 2002, Palestinians who married Israeli Arabs (which was very common, because the 1948 borders of Israel cut across Arab villages and clans) became Israeli citizens. Then the Knesset passed a law preventing Israeli Arabs from bringing their spouses with them into Israel. Jewish and Arab petitioners challenged the law in the Israeli Supreme Court, and the Ministry of Justice lawyers defending the law blatantly asserted that Israel is at war with the Palestinian people. Via Philip Weiss
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POPSIsrael investigating soldier testimony of war crimes against Palestinians
Another veteran described an officer who ordered machine-gunners to fire at an elderly woman In the testimony, the soldiers admitted that excessive force was used because the lives of Palestinian civilians were valued far less than those of the soldiers. When asked about the revelations, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that he believed the stories described were an exception, and insisted the Israeli Defense Forces are the "most moral army in the world" Danny Zamir, the chairman of the preparatory school that hosted the seminar, said that the soldiers' testimony showed that the disregard for Palestinian civilians was not an exception. "The new release testimonies raise a grave suspicion that the rules of engagement in the infantry violated the basic principles of the international laws of war," he said. "If the alleged rules of engagement are true, both the officers who gave the order and the soldiers who obeyed them might have committed war crimes."
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POPSJohn McCain's revolutionary foreign policy proposal In his speech McCain proposed that the United States expel Russia from the G8, the group of advanced industrial countries. Moscow was included in this body in the 1990s to recognize and reward it for peacefully ending the cold war on Western terms, dismantling the Soviet empire and withdrawing from large chunks of the old Russian Empire as well. McCain also proposed that the United States should expand the G8 by taking in India and Brazil—but pointedly excluded China from the councils of power. Via Laura Rozen
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POPSIn defense of William Ayers But to call Ayers a "terrorist" and throw him in the Osama bin Laden pile is a reach for the moral high ground by the very people and political establishment that secretly carpet bombed Cambodia, murdering hundreds of thousands of civilians. ...Ayers is no martyr, and he's no role model. But he doesn't deserve to be the punching bag of the moral cretins who still celebrate lying wars of aggression and the pointless slaughter of untold thousands.
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POPSUS made deal with devil to stabilize Iraq Chris Hedges is the author of this editorial. ...those who support the continuation of the war insist that "the surge" has been successful. But the surge...did little to thwart attacks. "The big news of the past year, the smashing up of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the stabilization of a lot of Sunni Arab areas, has virtually nothing to do with the surge," said Wayne White, former deputy director of the State Department's Middle East Intelligence unit. "What we have done, in effect, is we have made a deal with the devil in order to get rid of al-Qaeda. We have allowed nearly 100,000 tough Sunni Arab fighters to organize and arm themselves as they never could before when they had to operate underground. We have destroyed a nasty insurgency and replaced it with a more deeply rooted and broad-based potential insurgency."
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POPSA War We Just Might Win Can you believe this?? This article was published by the New York Times!! It is obvious the democrats have stuck their necks way out, predicted and often enabling our defeat. Now that we are winning, they are backed into a corner. If we do win, their lies will be exposed. Even the NYT, their propaganda arm, seems to be covering all the bases.
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POPSMark Twain's "The War Prayer" In 1904, disgusted by the aftermath of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent Philippine-American War, Mark Twain wrote a short anti-war prose poem called "The War Prayer." His family begged him not to publish it, his friends advised him to bury it, and his publisher rejected it, thinking it too inflammatory for the times. Twain agreed, but instructed that it be published after his death, saying famously: None but the dead are permitted to tell the truth. "The War Prayer" was eventually published after World War I, when its message was more in tune with the times. Now, Washington Monthly's publisher, Markos Kounalakis, who was affected by Twain's words when he covered the war in Yugoslavia in the early 90s, has made "The War Prayer" into a short video for release this Memorial Day weekend. It features stunning illustrations by Akis Dimitrakopoulos and is narrated by Peter Coyote, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Erik Bauersfeld. *
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POPSBETRAYED I am sickened by those elected officials who ignore their constituents. Especially Clinton & Obama who cast their "nay" votes by the time it made no difference.
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POPSEmbarrassing Michelle Malkin video Michelle Malkin dons a cheerleader outfit to chant L-O-S-E-R to describe Democratic opposition to the Iraq war. If this is the best argument she can muster for the Iraq war, then the cause truly is dead.
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POPS Lynch, Tillman's brother: U.S. military lied Just a reminder how corrupt this whole war has been from start to finish. Bush started it with lies, lied about how soldiers died, and continues to lie today about the way to end this thing. Enough is enough isn't it?
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POPSWashington Post, Dick Cheney, and War Crimes Since this editorial appeared, the evidentiary trail has led straight to Vice President Richard Cheney as the author of the administration’s torture policy. Indeed, Cheney openly advocated the need for torture before the Republican Senate Caucus in his efforts to block the McCain Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, and in his advocacy of the initial version of the Military Commissions Act of 2006.
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POPSCivil War history: Battle of Fort Pillow, 4/12/1864 "d" pointed out that today is the anniversary of the Battle of Fort Pillow at Lawyers, Guns, and Money . He notes that the commander of the Confederates was Nathan Bedford Forrest (who would go on to found the KKK). Forrest remains perhaps the most famous Tennesseeans of the 19th century. More than 30 monuments and state markers have been cast in his honor, including a statue at the state capitol building in Nashville. A state park bears his name, as did a World War II-era Army base in Tullahoma; the ROTC building at Middle Tennessee State University is named for the Klan leader and war criminal, as are two public high schools in the Volunteer State.
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POPSFormer Rumsfeld Advisor: Army is Broken
This editorial, written by a former adviser to Rumsfeld, appeared in the Washington Times. The Army's collapse after Vietnam was presaged by a desertion of mid-grade officers (captains) and non-commissioned officers. Many were killed or wounded. Most left because they and their families were tired and didn't want to serve in units unprepared for war. If we lose our sergeants and captains, the Army breaks again. It's just that simple. That's why these soldiers are still the canaries in the readiness coal-mine. And, again, if you look closely, you will see that these canaries are fleeing their cages in frightening numbers. The lesson from this sad story is simple: When you fight a long war with a long-service professional Army, the force you begin with will not get any larger or better over the duration of the conflict. For that reason, today's conditions are pretty much irreversible. There's not much that money, goodwill or professed support for the troops can do...[/quo
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POPSDemocrats punishing Anti-war representatives In writing yesterday about MoveOn's alliance with Pelosi, I failed to highlight one fascinating factoid. While I mentioned that MoveOn's supposed polling of its membership was rather hinky, I didn't specify that the survey had simply omitted mention of the more liberal Woolsey alternative. Slime City.
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POPSTerrorism Threat Overblown Interesting radio interview of John Mueller, who wrote a book claiming that the threat of terrorism is overblown and we spent too much money in the wrong places trying to prevent terrorist attacks.
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POPSThe Face of War Lindsay Beyerstein (aka Majikthise) interviews Nina Berman, who took prize-winning photographs of an injured marine who returned back to his small home-town in Illinois to marry his girlfriend. At the very bottom of my clip is a link to an online gallery of her photos, but I am not clipping them here to avoid sensationalism.
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