Updated by Max Fisher on August 28, 2014, 2:00 p.m. ET @Max_Fisher max@vox.com
(Notice the Russian T-72BM tank in the convoy- picture of T-72BM below, being used in Chechnya)
On Tuesday, several days after Russian self-propelled artillery moved into eastern Ukraine in what was clearly a hostile invasion that Vladimir Putin insists is not occurring, someone took a video of some very heavy tanks crashing around an eastern Ukrainian town near the rebel-held city of Luhansk. While they look suspiciously like Russian tanks sent as part of the invasion, Moscow and the pro-Russia rebels have all insisted that any heavy equipment was stolen from or abandoned by the Ukrainian military.
But now military analysts have taken a look at the video and say that at least one of the tanks could only come from the Russian military, apparently settling the issue of whether these are in fact Russian military forces.
Joseph Dempsey, an analyst with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told the BBC that one of the tanks is something called a T-72BM, a modern variant identifiable by its special "Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive" armor, and one that Russia has not exported but uses heavily in its own military. That is a new development, and one that suggests not just that Russia is invading, but being increasingly brazen about it:
Dempsey told the BBC, "The Soviet-era tanks operated by the separatists have until now represented those that could have been potentially acquired internally within Ukraine, providing a degree of plausible deniability to any suspected third-party supplier." That degree of plausible deniability is now gone.
So?
ReplyDeleteRussia gobble up Ukraine.
China gobble up Tibet
Turkey still holds cyrus....
Rat still holds Native American lands..
Ash still squats on Canadian lands
Deuce? Lives in Philadelphia lands stolen from the Lenape...
Arabs? Well they are everywhere...
ReplyDeleteNew York Daily News -
President Obama wants to hit Russia harder in the pocketbook -
but he has to make sure American and European business don't feel the pain too.
The Headline calls it aid, but in the story, it is a loan, that is 'aid'.
ReplyDeleteThe EU demands an 'austerity' program for the people of the Ukraine, while increasing the debt load they carry.
EU says could send over 1 bln euros more aid to Ukraine
BRUSSELS Aug 30 (Reuters) - The European Union may disburse more than one billion euros in loans to Ukraine over the coming months and could consider further aid beyond that
The Neo-Nazi Question in Ukraine
DeletePosted: 03/11/2014
The Obama administration has vehemently denied charges that Ukraine's nascent regime is stock full of neo-fascists despite clear evidence suggesting otherwise. Such categorical repudiations lend credence to the notion the U.S. facilitated the anti-Russian cabal's rise to power as part of a broader strategy to draw Ukraine into the West's sphere of influence. Even more disturbing are apologists, from the American left and right, who seem willing accomplices in this obfuscation of reality, when just a cursory glance at the profiles of Ukraine's new leaders should give pause to the most zealous of Russophobes.
In a State Department "fact sheet" released last week the U.S. accused Putin of lying about the Ukrainian government being under the sway of extremist elements. The report stated that right wing ultranationalist groups "are not represented in the Rada (Ukraine's parliament)," and that "there is no indication the government would pursue discriminatory policies."
It isn't too surprising that conservative outlets like FOX News would downplay Russian allegations but the so-called "liberal" press has also contributed to the American disinformation campaign. Celestine Bohlen from The New York Times considers harsh epithets, like the word "neo-Nazi," which Putin has hurled at the demonstrators in Kiev as part of a Russian propaganda effort to tarnish Ukraine's revolutionary struggle against authoritarianism.
Yet after simply Googling the terms "Ukraine" and "Neo-Nazi," the official position of the United States government along with the stance taken by many in the American media both now seem quite dubious, if not downright ridiculous, especially considering that one would be hard-pressed to machinate the lineup that now dominates Ukraine's ministry posts.
For starters, Andriy Parubiy, the new secretary of Ukraine's security council, was a co-founder of the Neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), otherwise known as Svoboda. And his deputy, Dmytro Yarosh, is the leader of a party called the Right Sector which, according to historian Timothy Stanley, "flies the old flag of the Ukrainian Nazi collaborators at its rallies."
The highest-ranking right-wing extremist is Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Sych, also a member of Svoboda, who believes that women should "lead the kind of lifestyle to avoid the risk of rape, including refraining from drinking alcohol and being in controversial company." This is the philosophy underlying one of his "legal initiatives," according to the Kyiv Post, "to ban all abortions, even for pregnancies that occurred during rape."
The Svoboda party has tapped into Nazi symbolism including the "wolf's angel" rune, which resembles a swastika and was worn by members of the Waffen-SS, a panzer division that was declared a criminal organization at Nuremberg. A report from Tel-Aviv University describes the Svoboda party as "an extremist, right-wing, nationalist organization which emphasizes its identification with the ideology of German National Socialism."
According to this BBC news clip two Svoboda parliamentarians in recent weeks posed for photos while "brandishing well-known far right numerology," including the numbers 88 -- the eighth letter of the alphabet -- signifying "HH," as in "Heil Hitler." This all makes Hillary Clinton's recent comments comparing Putin to Hitler appear patently absurd, as Stanley adeptly points out: "After all, in the eyes of many ethnic Russians, it is the Ukrainian nationalists -- not Putin -- who are the Nazis."
Ash here is some plagiarizing for your draft dodging ass....
Deuce has told us, there are no historic claims for anyone anymore.
ReplyDeleteIsrael has a right to be cause it can.
America too. Russia will absorb Ukraine cause it can.
Turkey? Will hold Kurdish lands and Cyrus forever,
China will hold Tibet.
The Brits, French, Spanish, Portuguese still have holdings across the globe that they stole.
Of course the absurdness of having 21 arab nation states and trying to birth 2 news ones, ISIS/ISIL/IS and Palestine is more of a question of CAN they do it, rather than Justice or what is right.
It was reported that Obama was trying to set FREE Hawaii... LOL Deuce has suggested that the American SW should be cut loose too..
In the end? maybe we should have giant a "moslem" nation, a giant christian nation, a giant secular nation (good for the transgendered types), a giant hindu nation? A giant black nation (we do its a contentment called "africa"
OF course, all moslem arabs back to the giant moslem nation, all blacks back to africa, all euro types well you get the feeling..
Or? Pluralistic society that guarantee minority rights.
But what is a minority?
As defined as the USA government? Women, people of color and sexual abnormalities are all now considered "minorities" and thus are a MAJORITY of the population...
Israel the most hated nation on the planet (as per the UN)
ReplyDeleteIsrael the most condemned nation on the planet (as per the UN)
Israel the most fingerprinted at and spit at nation on the planet (as per the UN)
Israel the most illegal nation on the planet (as per the UN's NGO groups and the UN)
Once again turns to ISRAEL for safety...
UN troops under fire in Syria said to be fleeing to IsraelUnited Nations peacekeepers reportedly fleeing across border into Israel, amid clashes with rebels in Golan Heights buffer zone; 44 Fijian UNDOF peacekeepers remain unaccounted for.
This is not the 1st time UN troops have fled from arab controlled lands to FLEE to the safety of the Jewish state...
LOL
DeleteThat may be why the Palestinians wanted NATO, not the UN or Israelis to secure the peace in Palestine.
The Israeli rejected the idea, out of hand.
NATO is not a middle eastern organization.
DeleteIn fact? NATO cannot ensure the peace in the North Atlantic.
Israel is correct not to trust outside organizations to ensure the peace. They do not...
Tell that to Bob, he disagrees with you.
DeleteMyself ... it would be an error to send NATO to Palestine, to protect the Europeans, there.
.
DeleteNATO is not a middle eastern organization.
Tell that to Bob-rat.
:o)
.
AnonymousSat Aug 30, 12:18:00 PM EDT
DeleteTell that to Bob, he disagrees with you.
Myself ... it would be an error to send NATO to Palestine, to protect the Europeans, there.
Would NATO protect you, an european colonial occupier of Indian lands?
.
DeleteFrankly, we are NATO.
Who does NATO call when they run out of ammo? For that matter, who does Israel call?
We are the Sugar Daddy to the world.
.
Where is Turkey located, Quart-rat?
DeleteIs Poland on the North Atlantic?
AnonymousSat Aug 30, 11:42:00 AM EDT
ReplyDeleteThat may be why the Palestinians wanted NATO, not the UN or Israelis to secure the peace in Palestine.
The Israeli rejected the idea, out of hand.
Which fake nationalistic group of arabs claiming to be "palestinians" are you referring too?
The PA of the West Bank? Or the Hamas of the Gaza Strip?
Where was the world when Hamas was tossing off roof tops Fatah/PA members when they militarily took over the strip?
Where was the UN or the world when Hamas was executing children who dug their war tunnels? Where was the UN or the world when hamas was executing 50 civilians by firing squad?
The palestinians of the gaza strip need protection of from their islamic nazis masters...
Who will provide it?
The same people that killed 252 Jewish refugees, for propaganda purposes, the Zionists?
DeleteNot very likely.
AnonymousSat Aug 30, 12:19:00 PM EDT
DeleteThe same people that killed 252 Jewish refugees, for propaganda purposes, the Zionists?
Just because you repeat fiction doesn't make it so, your slant facts, distort and lie.
as usual.
You have no credibility.
Zionists murder civilians, Jewish refugees in a False Flag operation
DeleteOn Nov. 25, 1940, a boat carrying Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe, the “Patra,” exploded and sank off the coast of Palestine killing 252 people.
The Zionist “Haganah” claimed the passengers committed suicide to protest British refusal to let them land.
Years later, it admitted that rather than let the passengers go to Mauritius, it blew up the vessel for its propaganda value.
“Sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few in order to save the many,”
Moshe Sharett, a former Israeli Prime Minister said at memorial service in 1958.
http://beforeitsnews.com/strange/2013/03/zionists-led-jews-to-annihilation-in-ww2-2447940.html
Report: Abbas, Hamas agree on plan for independent Palestinian state
ReplyDeletePalestinian sources in Ramallah say three-tier plan calls for giving US a four-month period to draw borders of Palestinian state and garner Israel’s recognition, according to Saudi paper.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas have agreed on a three-phase plan that would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported Saturday.
The paper quoted Palestinian sources in Ramallah as saying that the plan calls for giving the Americans a period of four months to draw the borders of the Palestinian state and win Israel’s recognition.
If the two sides agree on the plan, they would launch immediate negotiations with a defined timetable during which Israel would be requested to present a map showing its own borders, the sources said.
But if the plan is rejected, the sources added, the Palestinians, together with the Arab countries, would ask the United Nations Security Council to “evict Israel from the land of Palestine.”
If this move also fails, the Palestinian leadership would resort to the third option, which is joining international treaties and conventions, including the International Criminal Court, in order to file “war crime” charges against Israeli leaders, the sources said.
Yes, you read that right. Internet speeds as fast as 1 gigabit gigabyte per second are the norm in the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Not the spot you might have predicted, would you. Certainly not the place I anticipated would have faster, better internet than anywhere else in the United States, and one of the faster internet speeds on the planet. Not only that, but the fast internet is helping to lead Chattanooga out of the economic doldrums.
ReplyDelete[A] group of thirty-something local entrepreneurs have set up Lamp Post, an incubator for a new generation of tech companies, in the building. A dozen startups are currently working out of the glitzy downtown office [that was formally the home of Loveman's department store].
“We’re not Silicon Valley. No one will ever replicate that,” says Allan Davis, one of Lamp Post’s partners. “But we don’t need to be and not everyone wants that. The expense, the hassle. You don’t need to be there to create great technology. You can do it here.”
He’s not alone in thinking so. Lamp Post is one of several tech incubators in this mid-sized Tennessee city. Money is flowing in. Chattanooga has gone from close to zero venture capital in 2009 to more than five organized funds with investable capital over $50m in 2014 – not bad for a city of 171,000 people. [...]
In large part the success is being driven by The Gig. Thanks to an ambitious roll-out by the city’s municipally owned electricity company, EPB, Chattanooga is one of the only places on Earth with internet at speeds as fast as 1 gigabit per second – about 50 times faster than the US average.
Yes, these young groups of local tech entrepenuers are important, but they couldn't have created this turnaround alone. They are receiving help help from the city's Democratic Mayor, Andy Berke, but the real driver of the boom comes from the efforts of the city's municipally owned electrical provider, EFB, which decided to fast track a high speed fiber optics network, rather than settle for slower service from the big cable company internet providers. On September 17, 2013, after construction was completed seven years earlier than originally planned.
[C]ity residents have an unlikely business to thank [for their faster, cheaper internet service]: the publicly owned electric utility. [...]
[T]he effort to bring cheap broadband to the masses began as a simple engineering problem: The city's electric company, EPB, needed a way for its systems to . . . . . .
You can guess who is fighting this tooth and nail.
DeleteArticle
Who the Israelis?
DeleteComcast/NBC - primary voting shareholder ...
DeleteBrian L. Roberts - a 'real' person.
Comcast is the nation’s largest cable television provider, but it also owns NBC, the national Spanish language network Telemundo and a number of cable networks like MSNBC and CNBC. The CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, is the most powerful person in the United States whom you have never heard of.
He is truly a leader of the Conga Line, too.
?
DeleteRead the article, dumbfuck
Really, "O"rdure you should read the stories, before commenting upon them.
DeleteIf you did that, you would know what the discussion was about.
“Think before you speak.
Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz,
for wio, obviously
DeleteAnonymousSat Aug 30, 02:36:00 PM EDT
DeleteReally, "O"rdure you should read the stories, before commenting upon them.
If you did that, you would know what the discussion was about.
“Think before you speak.
Read before you think.”
― Fran Lebowitz,
Sorry rat, but your English skills are lacking again.
Posing a QUESTION is not commenting..
I wrote: Who the Israelis?
That is a guess, a question, but certainly NOT a comment.
I guess your wordsmith is quite sloppy, I have a few other examples of your intellectual laziness...
Shall we share and show how inane and stupid you are?
Cut and paste the "rat"., time and place "O"rdure.
DeleteIt surely does not bother me.
I never claimed to be genetically superior. I'm no Zionist or NASI
Who is Comcast, how did a single person gain such centralized power in the communications industry?
ReplyDeleteQuestions that would make for an interesting thread, perhaps.
Or it may be that those that care, know.
Those that don't, won't.
Unbridled, Laissez faire capitalism is wonderful.
DeleteIt's made us 31st in the World in "quality of internet."
Right behind Uruguay.
Where are we in Medical Care? 37th ?
DeleteAnd, at twice the price of anyone else.
With a Median Net Worth of about 1/2 (or less) the Median Canadian, and
Delete1/4th the Median Australian
But, as Quirk stated, "We're the Sugardaddy"
DeletePassing out Fighter Jets, and Battle Tanks like they're "candy valentines."
ReplyDeleteCBO Projects Lower Deficits: Dana Milbank Derides Politicians for Not Having the Courage to Kick Old People in the Face
Saturday, 30 August 2014 09:12
Folks who are not DC insiders might think it would take courage to stand up to the rich people who have done so well (and caused so much harm) over the last three decades. Or, we might think it would take courage to standup to nonsense about budget deficits to point out that we need larger deficits now to create the demand necessary to bring the economy back to full employment. (Yes, we all love the private sector, but the private sector doesn't create jobs for love.) Taking those positions might seem to require courage, but in DC insider circles real courage is demanding that we cut Social Security and Medicare; and that is independent of any of the facts.
Hence we see Dana Milbank telling us that new CBO projections, showing that deficits will be lower over the next decade than in the prior set of projections,"threw cold water on my tranquility." He went on to say the new report was "downright bone-chilling" and that the "top-line conclusions were grim enough, if not catastrophic." It's scary to think what his reaction would have been if the new projections showed a worsening picture.
But his real horror story is that the debt to GDP ratio will be over 77 percent in a decade. Wow, and this means what? Milbank was on vacation so he probably missed the collapse of the housing bubble and the worst downturn since the Great Depression. That really was (and is) bone-chilling and catastrophic, but apparently not the sort of thing that worries DC insider types.
Just for purposes of comparison, just about every country in the euro zone has debt to GDP ratios well above 77 percent and many are borrowing at lower interest rates than the United States. Japan has a debt to GDP ratio more than three times as high and borrows long-term at less than a one percent interest rate. So, these debt numbers might make good scare stories for the DC insider crowd, but they have nothing to do with real world economics.
There are of course things we should be worried about, like continued slow growth and high unemployment, but the best remedy for that would be a higher budget deficit or a lower valued dollar that would reduce the trade deficit. We should also worry about the fact that we pay twice as much for our health care per person than people in other wealthy countries with nothing to show for it in terms of outcomes. If we fixed health care that would also take care of the budget deficit, shifting the projected deficits to surpluses.
But fixing health care would mean taking money away from drug companies, doctors, medical equipment suppliers and insurers. The Post doesn't pay people to push taking away money from those interest groups,, just seniors.
Dean Baker
Rufus IISat Aug 30, 02:34:00 PM EDT
ReplyDelete?
Read the article, dumbfuck
WHY?
You will tell us..
Pentagon and State Department said the U.S. was “appalled by” the “disgraceful shelling" of a U.N. facility.
ReplyDeleteRead more at http://www.wral.com/israeli-us-relations-tested-once-again-in-gaza-war/13907914/#BJkdafBFG0mSgSrC.99
Why Israel’s bombardment of Gaza neighborhood left US officers ‘stunned’
ReplyDeleteAnalysis: Military sources say Pentagon’s assessment of Shujaiya shelling alarmed even Secretary of State John Kerry
August 27, 2014 4:00AM ET
by Mark Perry @markperrydc
The cease-fire announced Tuesday between Israel and Palestinian factions — if it holds — will end seven weeks of fighting that killed more than 2,200 Gazans and 69 Israelis. But as the rival camps seek to put their spin on the outcome, one assessment of Israel’s Gaza operation that won’t be publicized is the U.S. military’s. Though the Pentagon shies from publicly expressing judgments that might fall afoul of a decidedly pro-Israel Congress, senior U.S. military sources speaking on condition of anonymity offered scathing assessments of Israeli tactics, particularly in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
One of the more curious moments in Israel’s Operation Protective Edge came on July 20, when a live microphone at Fox News caught U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry commenting sarcastically on Israel’s military action. “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation,” Kerry said. “It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.”
Rain of high-explosive shells
Kerry’s comment followed the heaviest bombardment of the war to that point, as Israeli artillery rained thousands of high-explosive shells on Shujaiya, a residential area on the eastern edge of Gaza City. A high-ranking U.S. military officer said that the source of Kerry’s apparent consternation was almost certainly a Pentagon summary report assessing the Israeli barrage on which he had been briefed by an aide moments earlier.
According to this senior U.S. officer, who had access to the July 21 Pentagon summary of the previous 24 hours of Israeli operations, the internal report showed that 11 Israeli artillery battalions — a minimum of 258 artillery pieces, according to the officer’s estimate — pumped at least 7,000 high explosive shells into the Gaza neighborhood, which included a barrage of some 4,800 shells during a seven-hour period at the height of the operation. Senior U.S. officers were stunned by the report.
{...}
{...}
DeleteTwice daily throughout the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) operation, a select group of senior U.S. military and intelligence officers at the Pentagon received lengthy written summaries of Israeli military action in Gaza. The reports — compiled from information gleaned from open sources, Israeli military officers with whom U.S. officials speak and satellite images — offered a detailed assessment of Israel’s battlefield tactics and the performance of its weaponry, a considerable portion of it supplied by the United States.
Although these reports shy from offering political judgments on the operation, a number of senior U.S. military officers who spoke about the contents of those daily reports were highly critical of some of the IDF’s tactics, particularly in the Israeli ground invasion of Shujaiya. An official spokesman at the Pentagon declined to comment on the contents of this article.
On July 16, the IDF dropped leaflets into Shujaiya, warning residents of an imminent Israeli attack and urging them to evacuate the area. The next day, after a short artillery preparation, three IDF units, led by the Golani Brigade, began a ground assault into the neighborhood to destroy Hamas bunkers and break up Hamas formations.
{...}
Delete’Take off the gloves’
The incursion went well at first, with Golani soldiers meeting little resistance. But by late on Saturday afternoon, July 19, forward elements of the brigade were running head on into well-organized Hamas units, and some IDF formations were pinned down in vicious fighting in Shujaiya’s streets and alleys. What had been envisaged as a limited ground operation was not going as planned, with Hamas units emerging from tunnels and bunkers in attempts to exploit IDF weaknesses. The Hamas units were well prepared and trained, with their formations hidden so well that Israeli soldiers were rarely able to pinpoint their locations.
“The ground assault was poorly handled into eastern Gaza City,” an Israel civilian adviser to the IDF’s chief of staff said at the time. “The Hamas fighters showed an unexpected tenacity and were far more effective against our armored units than we’d anticipated.”
By late Saturday night and into Sunday morning, the fight had devolved into a series of vicious small unit clashes, with IDF squads facing off against Hamas squads, sniper units and teams carrying lethal anti-tank rockets. In one eight-hour period starting early on July 20, the IDF suffered 13 dead, seven of them in an armored personnel carrier that caught fire after a Hamas sapper team detonated an anti-tank mine beneath it. When the IDF moved to retrieve the bodies and the stricken APC, Hamas fighters targeted the rescue vehicles and engaged in gun battles with IDF combat teams as the rescue convoy retreated.
{...}
America has never taken the gloves off while fighting an army...
DeleteLOL
Get's more comical with each and every day.
{...}
ReplyDeleteIn the early hours of that Sunday morning, with IDF casualties mounting, senior officers directed IDF tank commanders to “take off the gloves” and “to open fire at anything that moves,” according to reports in the Israeli press.
The three Israeli units assaulting Shujaiya were never in danger of being defeated, but the losses the IDF suffered in the four-day house-to-house battle embarrassed IDF commanders. By the afternoon of July 19, even before Israel had suffered most of its casualties, the scale of resistance prompted Israeli battlefield commanders to blanket Shujaiya with high-explosive artillery rounds, rockets fired from helicopters and bombs dropped by F-16s. The decision was confirmed at the highest levels of the IDF.
By Sunday night, Palestinian officials were denouncing the bombardment of Shujaiya as a massacre, and international pressure mounted on the Israeli government to explain the heavy casualty toll being inflicted on Gaza civilians. The IDF told the press that Shujaiya had been a “fortress for Hamas terrorists” and reiterated that while Israel had “warned civilians” to evacuate, “Hamas ordered them to stay. Hamas put them in the line of fire.”
’The only possible reason for doing that is to kill a lot of people in as short a period of time as possible … It’s not mowing the lawn. It’s removing the topsoil.’
a senior U.S. military officer
Frankly, just watching the IDF in formation ( if you can call it that) and in their day to day policing activity, they are more like a gang than a military unit. The hammering they gave to the civilians was in the same league as the Soviets. It would be interesting to watch the IDF and ISIS go at each other.
ReplyDeleteMark Perry
Delete@markperrydc
Mark Perry is a Washington-based reporter and author of eight books. His newest, a biography of Douglas MacArthur, will be released in January of 2015.
Deuce ☂Sat Aug 30, 04:12:00 PM EDT
DeleteFrankly, just watching the IDF in formation ( if you can call it that) and in their day to day policing activity, they are more like a gang than a military unit. The hammering they gave to the civilians was in the same league as the Soviets. It would be interesting to watch the IDF and ISIS go at each other.
Wow and you retired at what rank?
Higher than yours.
DeleteNo, the IDF is not the USMC when it comes to perfect formation. On the other hand, they have not yet lost a war, unkempt as they may appear.
DeleteBeing a Marine, I do think appearance is indicative of discipline and focus. If these kids lack adult supervision the fault lies up the chain. Like our Marines, they are superb fighters. Like our Marines, they have been betrayed by chickenshit leadership.
Yesterday, my old unit, 1/9 was decommissioned. There was never a better fighting force. The world is going to hell in a hand-basket. They looked great at the ceremony, by the way.
Quart-rat needs to redo geography class.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't know where Turkey and Poland are located.
He seems to think they are located somewhere along the North Atlantic coast.
DeleteIndeed, there are times, and I personally have witnessed this, when "things are spinning around, Bobbo" and he doesn't know up from down, or left from right.
DeleteAugust 30, 2014
ReplyDeleteA Questionable Statistic: 'Children' Killed in Gaza War
By Leo Rennert
The Washington Post runs a front-page article today about numbers of fatalities in the seven-week Gaza War – with Israel and Hamas issuing divergent breakdowns for “civilians” killed.
As author William Booth indicates, there is not much contention about the overall Palestinians killed – about 2,100. Where the two sides differ sharply is when it comes to breakdowns for “civilian” fatalities. Israel maintains there was about an even split between combatant fatalities and non-combatant fatalities. For their part, Hamas and the U.N. allege that seven out of every 10 Palestinians killed were “civilians.”
Here is how Booth relates the U.N. breakdown for civilians: “In its most recent count, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 2,104 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 1,462 civilians, among them 495 children and 253 women. Those U.N. numbers would mean that 69 percent of the total killed were civilians.”
The U.N. breakdown of 495 “children” killed, however, is greatly overblown. Why? Because the U.N. deems anyone below the age of 18 a “child,” which is totally unrealistic. Booth overlooks the fact that in Gaza, under Hamas indoctrination, children transition to adulthood at a much earlier age. They’re no longer “children” when they’re 17, 16, 15, or even farther on down for quite some years. Whether in Gaza schools or summer camps, Hamas transmits its brand of terrorism when kids are still in elementary grades. They reach adulthood far earlier than at age 18.
Thus, the notion propagated by the U.N. that anyone under the age of 18 automatically is a presumably innocent “child” falls terribly short of reality in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
DeleteBecause Booth fails to expose this glaring U.N. error, his article applies the same “civilian” label to both an innocent four-year-old and a seventeen-year-old Hamas operative. This is patently ridiculous when the reality of Gaza is cranked into the equation. The total of “children” killed, in reality, is far less than the 495 propounded by the UN. A big chunk of these comprises adults.
In short, when Booth uncritically tells readers that 495 “children” were killed in Gaza, he’s blowing smoke.
In turn, the overblown 495 statistical total for killed children pumps up the breakdown for 1,462 “civilians” killed. The error about killed “children” falsifies the breakdown for killed “civilians.”
What is more than a bit puzzling is why Booth, supposedly a competent reporter, fails to exercise minimal journalistic skepticism before giving Post readers a demonstrably bogus statistical account.
“Children” in Gaza age far more quickly than in the USA.
Or consider that under Israeli-Jewish tradition, a boy reaches adulthood at 13 years of age, while a girl attains adulthood a year earlier. These are far earlier ages than the mythical age 18 for adulthood in the U.N. playbook.
Booth engages in bias by omission – a rather glaring omission.
Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers.
The Washington Post runs a front-page article today about numbers of fatalities in the seven-week Gaza War – with Israel and Hamas issuing divergent breakdowns for “civilians” killed.
As author William Booth indicates, there is not much contention about the overall Palestinians killed – about 2,100. Where the two sides differ sharply is when it comes to breakdowns for “civilian” fatalities. Israel maintains there was about an even split between combatant fatalities and non-combatant fatalities. For their part, Hamas and the U.N. allege that seven out of every 10 Palestinians killed were “civilians.”
Here is how Booth relates the U.N. breakdown for civilians: “In its most recent count, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 2,104 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 1,462 civilians, among them 495 children and 253 women. Those U.N. numbers would mean that 69 percent of the total killed were civilians.”
The U.N. breakdown of 495 “children” killed, however, is greatly overblown. Why? Because the U.N. deems anyone below the age of 18 a “child,” which is totally unrealistic. Booth overlooks the fact that in Gaza, under Hamas indoctrination, children transition to adulthood at a much earlier age. They’re no longer “children” when they’re 17, 16, 15, or even farther on down for quite some years. Whether in Gaza schools or summer camps, Hamas transmits its brand of terrorism when kids are still in elementary grades. They reach adulthood far earlier than at age 18.
Thus, the notion propagated by the U.N. that anyone under the age of 18 automatically is a presumably innocent “child” falls terribly short of reality in Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Because Booth fails to expose this glaring U.N. error, his article applies the same “civilian” label to both an innocent four-year-old and a seventeen-year-old Hamas operative. This is patently ridiculous when the reality of Gaza is cranked into the equation. The total of “children” killed, in reality, is far less than the 495 propounded by the UN. A big chunk of these comprises adults.
In short, when Booth uncritically tells readers that 495 “children” were killed in Gaza, he’s blowing smoke.
In turn, the overblown 495 statistical total for killed children pumps up the breakdown for 1,462 “civilians” killed. The error about killed “children” falsifies the breakdown for killed “civilians.”
DeleteWhat is more than a bit puzzling is why Booth, supposedly a competent reporter, fails to exercise minimal journalistic skepticism before giving Post readers a demonstrably bogus statistical account.
“Children” in Gaza age far more quickly than in the USA.
Or consider that under Israeli-Jewish tradition, a boy reaches adulthood at 13 years of age, while a girl attains adulthood a year earlier. These are far earlier ages than the mythical age 18 for adulthood in the U.N. playbook.
Booth engages in bias by omission – a rather glaring omission.
Read more: http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/a_questionable_statistic_children_killed_in_gaza_war.html#ixzz3BuTV9fBb
.
DeleteFrom the CIA: World Factbook
Gaza: Age Structure
0-14 years: 43.2% (male 402,848/female 381,155)
5-24 years: 20.6% (male 191,710/female 182,405)
25-54 years: 30.1% (male 280,551/female 266,756)
55-64 years: 2.6% (male 31,711/female 31,515)
65 years and over: 2.6% (male 19,617/female 28,111) (2014 est.)
The male/female ratio is close enough to 1:1 for government work.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/print/country/countrypdf_gz.pdf
Both groups, the IDF will lie if they thinks it's to their benefit. Nothing in the numbers provided by the CIA would suggest that the population breakdown put out by the UN couldn't reasonably be true. Therefore, the argument comes down to a he said/he said argument with the UN/PA/Hamas on one side and Israel on the other. Any informed person would find it difficult to decide which side is lying.
IMO
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.
DeleteThat being said, since the rebuttal was printed in the American Thinker and was put up by Obumble that would automatically sway my judgment in favor of the UN numbers.
.
.
DeleteIn my post (two up), the first line should have read
Both groups, the UN/PA/Hamas and the Israeli/IDF will lie if they think it's to their benefit.
.
>>>On Thursday the North Atlantic Treaty Organization released satellite images showing Russian combat forces engaged in Ukraine and termed the action “illegal”. NATO says at least 1,000 Russian troops are operating within Ukraine, with another 20,000 arrayed along the nearby border.
ReplyDeleteThe Associated Press reported that heavy Russian weaponry is also being deployed. Ukraine’s Col. Andriy Lysenko said two columns of tanks entered southeastern Ukraine after heavy shelling from inside Russia. Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko cancelled a foeign trip to deal with the crisis and has introduced mandatory military service to bulk up Kiev’s forces in anticipation of a direct confrontation. Mr. Poroshenko has issued a direct plea for help from western allies, including Canada. “Columns of heavy artillery, huge loads of arms and regular Russian servicemen came to the territory of Ukraine from Russia through the uncontrolled border area,” he said. Although Washington carefully continues to call the situation an “incursion” rather than an “invasion” Foreign Minister John Baird on Thursday termed it “a very active invasion” and denounced Mr. Putin’s “shameless dishonesty.”
Mr. Putin’s response has been cynical in the extreme. He continues to deny the obvious, against all evidence. The Russian troops in Ukraine are merely “volunteers” who elected to assist Russian-speaking rebels demonstrate their discontent with the government in Kiev. Ten Russian paratroopers captured in Ukraine were there by “accident” – they got lost during a routine border patrol and somehow ended up in the wrong country. Russians seeking information on images of sons captured in Ukraine are told they’ve been photoshopped. Russian casualties are buried in clandestine funerals ignored by state media while independent reporters are chased away.<<<<
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/29/kelly-mcparland-putin-czarist-fantasies-put-europe-on-brink-of-the-unthinkable/
I don't see how this can be happening after Hillary reset the red reset button with the Russians.
(Secretly, I am beginning to think Hillary is just an old gas bag.)
DeleteFrankly, just watching the IDF in formation ( if you can call it that) and in their day to day policing activity, they are more like a gang than a military unit.
ReplyDeleteDeuce
It seems to have worked so far. They have won all their defensive wars against the Arabs.
7,000 rounds in one residential neighborhood?
ReplyDelete4,800 in a seven hour period?
I think Israel is toast. It's just a matter of time.
Their arrogance has already undone them. They just don’t know it yet.
ReplyDeleteNonsense.
DeleteThe moslems are the most arrogant people in the world.
An Allah inspired arrogance that leads to the unmentionable. And they glorify in it .Roll in it, like a dog.
Some Jewish cult just got kicked out of Guatemala. Guatemala! Nobody gets kicked out of Guatemala.
DeleteGUATEMALA CITY – Members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group have been forced out of a village in western Guatemala after disputes with indigenous residents over cultural and religious differences.
DeleteMisael Santos of the Lev Tahor community says the Jewish group started leaving San Juan La Laguna on Friday after the town's Elders Council voted to kick them out.
Santos says that there were 230 members of the Jewish community living in the lakeside village and that some had been in the town for six years. Others arrived earlier this year from Canada, where they face a child removal case.
The town’s Elders Council voted last week to give the group 24 hours to leave because they say some members of the sect have mistreated indigenous residents and tourists in the area.
You have to be a real arrogant self absorbed intolerant asshole to get kicked out of Guatemala.
DeleteThey probably were all the above.
...and Bob, don’t embarrass yourself. You don’t know shit from Shinola about anything in Central America and less about normal Palestinians.
DeleteHaving no idea what happened there doesn't prevent me from alternatively suggesting perhaps a bunch of totally illiterate Christian peasants one generation out of the stone age got into it with some odd behaving 'others'.
Delete:) I thought the worst punishment, possible, on this miserable coil was to be "kicked into" Guatemala. :) :)
Deletea bunch of totally illiterate Christian peasants one generation out of the stone age got into it with some odd behaving ‘others’.
DeleteYour ignorance is astounding.
Your ignorance is astounding.
DeleteWhat we were talking about one year ago.......
ReplyDeleteFriday, August 30, 2013
It looks as if it is down to Al Qaeda and the US, brothers in arms, against Syria
UPDATE 18:52 EST
The Elephant Bar
I am glad the football season is starting.
Only about 2 hours to kickoff, and the Vandies begin to get creamed !
ISIS, cousin to Hamas, is forcing little kids to watch beheadings, crucifixions, gang rapes.
ReplyDeleteThis is their version of acculturation.
The Russians are high bred gentlemen by contrast.
DeleteYou have no clue about what you are talking about. Hamas exists because of a land dispute between Palestinians and Israel. ISIS are religious fanatics. You believe the existential lies of Netanyahu comparing the two, because he knows many ignorant and stupid American dupes will parrot his lies and repeat the disinformation.
ReplyDeleteYour prejudice is astounding.
DeleteRead the Hamas Charter, please!
It is a call to genocide, pure and simple.
Football in 1/2 hour!
GoFlorida!
out for the game....
Deuce ☂Sat Aug 30, 05:40:00 PM EDT
DeleteYou have no clue about what you are talking about. Hamas exists because of a land dispute between Palestinians and Israel. ISIS are religious fanatics. You believe the existential lies of Netanyahu comparing the two, because he knows many ignorant and stupid American dupes will parrot his lies and repeat the disinformation.
De-nile aint just a river in Egypt.
This is the Charter of the Islamic Resistance (Hamas) which will reveal its face, unveil its identity, state its position, clarify its purpose, discuss its hopes, call for support to its cause and reinforcement, and for joining its ranks. For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails. Thus we shall perceive them approaching in the horizon, and this will be known before long: “Allah has decreed: Lo! I very shall conquer, I and my messenger, lo! Allah is strong, almighty.”
DeleteThe prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim).
DeleteLand dispute?
You believe the existential lies of Netanyahu?
LOL
For our struggle against the Jews is extremely wide-ranging and grave, so much so that it will need all the loyal efforts we can wield, to be followed by further steps and reinforced by successive battalions from the multifarious Arab and Islamic world, until the enemies are defeated and Allah’s victory prevails. Thus we shall perceive them approaching in the horizon, and this will be known before long: “Allah has decreed: Lo! I very shall conquer, I and my messenger, lo! Allah is strong, almighty.”
DeleteDeuce & Ash, you are quite good "googling" un attributed posts...
DeleteTell us, whose words are those?
The Jews?
The Jordanians?
The Egyptians?
Whose?
But first -
ReplyDeleteEducation in Guatemala
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Education in Guatemala is free and compulsory for six years.[1] In 1997, the gross primary enrollment rate was 88.1 percent and the net primary enrollment rate was 73.5 percent.[1] However, only 30 percent of students who begin primary school in Guatemala complete this level of education.[1] Children who do not attend school are concentrated in rural areas, and a disproportionate number of them are indigenous.[1]
List of universities in Guatemala
Issues Regarding Education in Guatemala[edit]
Guatemala has a 3-tier system of education starting with primary school, followed by secondary school and tertiary education, depending on the level of technical training. Despite primary education being compulsory and provided free by the government, mean years of schooling in 2011 still stood at a low of 4.1. The difference in percentages between gross enrolment ratio dropped by more than half from primary to secondary school.[2] Although the Guatemalan government devotes a percentage of its budget to education expenditure, nearly 31.7% of the country’s near 12 million people are illiterate, with illiteracy rates up to more than 60% in the indigenous population.[3]
The current state of education in Guatemala still remains significantly under-funded and many classrooms nationwide, especially in rural Guatemala, do not meet minimum standards for classroom space, teaching materials, classroom equipment and furniture, and water/sanitation.[4]
With more than half the population of Guatemalans living below the poverty line,[5] it is hard for school going children, especially indigenous children, to afford the rising cost of school uniforms, books, supplies and transportation, all of which are not supplemented by the government.[6] This is exacerbated by the fact that, for poorer students, time spent in school could be time better spent working to sustain the family. It is especially hard for children living in the rural areas to attend primary school and most drop out due to the lack of access and largely inadequate facilities.
Gender inequality in the sphere of education is also common, where male literacy and school enrollment rates dominate female rates in all aspects. Out of the 2 million children who do not attend school in Guatemala, majority are indigenous girls living in rural areas. In addition, most families still subscribe to patriarchal traditions that tie women to a domestic role and the majority would rather send a son than a daughter to school if they could afford it.[7]
Moreover, the recruitment and retaining of quality teachers poses a large problem in rural areas of Guatemala. Apart from the meagre pay, most teachers often come from larger towns, where they have been able to receive higher education, and, faced with a daily commute of a few hours in order to reach the rural areas, many would rather seek employment in the larger towns first. The lack of curriculum guides or teaching materials in rural schools also hamper efforts to improve education standards in those areas[6]
Washington (AFP) - The US military launched fresh attacks on Islamic State forces in Iraq, using fighter aircraft and drones to carry out strikes near the Mosul dam, the Pentagon said on Saturday.
ReplyDelete"The strikes destroyed an ISIL armed vehicle, an ISIL fighting position, ISIL weapons, and significantly damaged an ISIL building," a US Defense Department statement said, referring to the IS forces also known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
"All aircraft exited the strike areas safely."
The statement put out by US Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida, said the strikes were conducted to support Kurdish and Iraqi troops, "as well as to protect critical infrastructure, US personnel and facilities, and support humanitarian efforts."
The statement said that US Central Command so far has conducted a total of 115 air strikes across Iraq.
The United States earlier this week also used aircraft and drones to strike targets in northern Iraq to try to rein in Islamic State militants, who have seized a large swath of territory in the region.
Iraq is struggling to regain significant parts of the country after a lightning militant offensive led by the IS seized second city Mosul in June and swept through the country's Sunni heartland, as security forces fled.
US air strikes on Sunday also targeted the Mosul area, as Iraqi and Kurdish forces endeavor to wrest back some of rebel held territory.
The latest US air support came as Iraq launched a major military operation Saturday to oust the rebels from the town of Amerli, after a two-month-long siege by the jihadists.
Iraqi security forces, thousands of Shiite militiamen and Kurdish peshmerga fighters are all taking part in the operation to lift the jihadist blockade of Amerli, sources said.
Amerli residents face major shortages of food and water, and are in danger both because of their Shiite faith.
The United States has . . . . . . . .
snip, snip
Hey, wait a minute...I thought the battle for Mosul Dam was over and done thanks to air support. Am I now to understand that ISIS has to be engaged again? Well, it's good to know we took out some American built equipment.
DeleteIf you sincerely believe the Iraqi Army capable of an engagement against ISIS, you need to look at the history. There is no Iraqi Army unless the US is providing some muscle. Despite taking some pain, ISIS is still there. That is not going to change. As for the Kurds, they will not stray far from home for fear of the Turks. But we all feel better knowing that American munitions have be used.
A week from now, ISIS territory will be expanded. That expansion will not include the Mosul Dam, that being a diversion.
You may think me incorrect, but the caliphate is larger now than it was last week when we were really hurting ISIS. At some point, ISIS will find the means to take on the Iraqi Army. ISIS will prevail and the tribesmen will have a sudden change of heart.
There is no way to save Iraq short of a massive Western invasion. That is not going to happen.
While we play games in Iraq, Aleppo is being surrounded by the ISIS. The loss of Aleppo to Assad will mean the end of the Syrian regime.
I say again, whoever is calling the shots for the ISIS is well versed. I do not think they will lose.
What ever made you think "it" would be over and done?
DeletePlease, reference the quote that could have led you so far astay from reality!
Won't waste my time playing semantic games with fools.
DeleteDamn delay of game back east......maybe they are chickening out thinking of Idaho.......because if Idaho loses another game on the road it will be 17 straight loses, a school record......and Coach doesn't want that.......
ReplyDeleteThe Trouble Is that Obama DOES Have a Strategy
August 29th, 2014
Obama’s “we-don’t-have-a-strategy” gaffe was so egregious as to distract attention from the fact that he does indeed have a strategy, which has blown up in his face. His strategy is accommodation with Iran at all costs. As I wrote earlier this month, our ISIS problem derives from our Iran problem: Bashar Assad’s ethnic cleansing, which has displaced 4 million Syrians internally and driven 3 million out of the country, was possible because of Iranian backing. The refugee flood in Iraq and Syria gives ISIS an unlimited pool of recruits. Iraqi Sunni support for ISIS, including the participation of some of Saddam Hussein’s best officers, is a response to Iran’s de facto takeover of Iraq.
Now we have analysts as diverse as Karen Elliott House and Angelo Codevilla proposing that the Saudis should use their considerable air force to degrade ISIS. Unless the U.S. commits its own forces in depth, the Saudis never will do so (unless they are defending their own territory, which ISIS is not stupid enough to attack). It is a sad day when America’s appetite for a fight is so weak that we count on the Saudi monarchy to do our dirty work for us. Codevilla writes:
Day after day after day, hundreds of Saudi (and Jordanian) fighters, directed by American AWACS radar planes, could systematically destroy the Islamic State—literally anything of value to military or even to civil life. It is essential to keep in mind that the Islamic State exists in a desert region which offers no place to hide and where clear skies permit constant, pitiless bombing and strafing. These militaries do not have the excessive aversions to collateral damage that Americans have imposed upon themselves.
That is entirely correct: in that region, air power could drastically weaken ISIS, if not quite eradicate it. It certainly could contain its advances (as fewer than 100 American sorties already have in northern Iraq). But the underlying problem will remain: Iran’s depredations have triggered an economic and demographic catastrophe in the region, and that catastrophe has created the snowball effect we call ISIS.
It may be entirely academic to argue that America should bomb not only ISIS, but also Iran’s nuclear facilities and the bases of its Revolutionary Guards. No Republican candidate I know is willing to argue this in advance of elections. Nonetheless, I repeat what I wrote Aug. 12: “The region’s security will hinge on the ultimate reckoning with Iran.”
On Canada’s Sun TV earlier today, commentator Ezra Levant asked me what Obama will do now. My guess is: very little. The reported Egyptian-UAE attack on Libyan Islamists is a harbinger of the future. Other countries in the region will take matters into their own hands in despair at American paralysis. Russia and China will play much bigger roles. And the new Thirty Year War will grind on indefinitely.
http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/08/29/the-trouble-is-that-obama-does-have-a-strategy/
he he he
ReplyDeleteAugust 30, 2014
Hey Obama -- Here's an ISIS Strategy For You
By Andrew Thomas
President Obama has announced that his crackerjack administration does not have a strategy to address the ISIS terror organization. Apparently, the only thing Obama is well-prepared to address sits on the top of a tee. Well, I have some cogent thoughts on the matter.
Let's examine the political philosophy of ISIS. It is a super-religious organization. They are very intolerant of atheists and other cultures. They hate Obama. They despise gays, lesbians, transvestites, and basically anyone in the LBGT community. They take pleasure in chopping the heads off of media folks. Now we learn that they are against the legalization of marijuana! On Thursday, they videoed themselves destroying a cannabis field in Syria.
Why, in the eyes of an average Huffington Post reader, these people ISIS folks could belong to the dreaded TEEEE PARTY!! Obama's Department of Homeland Security has already characterized the Tea Party and other conservatives as potential terrorists. We are not at war with ISIS according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. But the White House is at war with conservatives.
All that is needed is to airdrop Lois Lerner and an IRS special ops team into Syria to root out and destroy the "assholes", as she has characterized conservatives. A second wave of teams from the DOJ, NEA, and EPA should then be deployed. Finally, a mop-up operation consisting of Common Core advocates in the Department of Education should be initiated to provide re-education of ISIS terrorists to liberal political correctness.
In other words, Obama's strategy should be to marshal all of the government resources he has been using to crush conservatives, seniors, veterans, and the middle class, and redirect their malevolent energy toward ISIS. I say we spare no one in this campaign and fight to the last government bureaucrat.
Andrew Thomas blogs at http://darkangelpolitics.com
President Obama has announced that his crackerjack administration does not have a strategy to address the ISIS terror organization. Apparently, the only thing Obama is well-prepared to address sits on the top of a tee. Well, I have some cogent thoughts on the matter.
Let's examine the political philosophy of ISIS. It is a super-religious organization. They are very intolerant of atheists and other cultures. They hate Obama. They despise gays, lesbians, transvestites, and basically anyone in the LBGT community. They take pleasure in chopping the heads off of media folks. Now we learn that they are against the legalization of marijuana! On Thursday, they videoed themselves destroying a cannabis field in Syria.
DeleteWhy, in the eyes of an average Huffington Post reader, these people ISIS folks could belong to the dreaded TEEEE PARTY!! Obama's Department of Homeland Security has already characterized the Tea Party and other conservatives as potential terrorists. We are not at war with ISIS according to White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. But the White House is at war with conservatives.
All that is needed is to airdrop Lois Lerner and an IRS special ops team into Syria to root out and destroy the "assholes", as she has characterized conservatives. A second wave of teams from the DOJ, NEA, and EPA should then be deployed. Finally, a mop-up operation consisting of Common Core advocates in the Department of Education should be initiated to provide re-education of ISIS terrorists to liberal political correctness.
In other words, Obama's strategy should be to marshal all of the government resources he has been using to crush conservatives, seniors, veterans, and the middle class, and redirect their malevolent energy toward ISIS. I say we spare no one in this campaign and fight to the last government bureaucrat.
Andrew Thomas blogs at http://darkangelpolitics.com
Read more: http://americanthinker.com/blog/2014/08/hey_obama__heres_an_isis_strategy_for_you.html#ixzz3BvImB7KL
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook
Idaho Bob,
ReplyDeleteMr. Booth has not been keeping up with events in Africa. Children are used as soldiers. He does, however, show his true colors when it comes to Israel.
Bob, I pay very little attention to the MSM propaganda.
Israel's biggest error is in not winning. As Patton said, "Americans love a winner." Americans would not care who was killed as long as the IDF could hold a parade in Gaza City. In WWII, the Nazis were using kids of 13 and old men to fight;. Americans still saluted the victory. Such is life.
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DeleteI kinda doubt your analysis is correct. In WWII , the Americans had a dog in the fight. I doubt the American people would be especially impressed by an IDF triumph winding through the streets of Gaza City. Better sell the tickets to the good seats to the Israeli people.
.
Ridiculous, comparing the German armies and the WWI US military and allies to the IDF and the Palestinians and Hamas. The IDF triumph, you have to be kidding.
DeleteWell, to each his own. Human nature, however, is pretty consistent. But what do I know?
DeleteBy the way, it was the Japanese who attacked America. We had no European dog in the fight until Hitler insanely declared war on America.
DeletePolls showed that most Americans had not interest in fighting Germany. That changed on 11 Dec 1941. While I am well aware that Messrs. Roosevelt and Churchill had other plans, the majority of Americans were opposed to US involvement in Europe.
DeleteThere are many Jews who believe that the Allies should have made a major effort to attack railways and other paraphernalia that supported the death camps. I disagree. By the time the Allies had the ability to do so, it was too late. I would have followed Patton's plan: Let the Germans and Soviets bleed themselves white and them force a peace on American terms. That is hardhearted I know, but symbolism does not win wars. The vast majority of Jews were dead before America could have made a difference from the air. Had we just let the Germans and Soviets fight, by 1945 there would have been no fight in them. At that point, Zionism would have had little opposition other than form Arabs, who had no homeland other than than that granted by the Mandates. Then as now, the Mandate of 1922 would have had legal precedence.
War is cruel. Some do not understand that.
Lightning strikes and rain at The Swamp in Gainesville, Florida.
ReplyDelete65 minutes into a delay.
Can't play for 30 minutes after the last lightning strike.
This game may be cancelled.......
A WIN for Idaho !!!!!!!!!
Raining buckets.
DeleteAnother lightning strike.
The announcers are running out of stuff to talk about so they are turning it over to country western for half an hour......
Delete"Around Mosul Dam" has become codespeak for any group that could be threatening to Erbil.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting that all ISIS could do, by the time they got to Ameril, was "besiege" the place? I mean, Ameril is only a town of 20,000, or so.
That said, no one is claiming that the 115 Airstrikes, so far, have "severely damaged" ISIS. All that's being said is that a couple of months of those strikes will smart a bit.
We will hurt ISIS but we cannot defeat them from the air. If we want to defeat them it will take first class American troops on the ground - head to head. I have not doubt that under those conditions we would crush them. But, Rufus, that is not going to happen. Instead, we will attempt to provide cover for half-baked Iraqi troops, who would rather be in Philadelphia. In my opinion, the Sh'ia would be happy to stay in there neck of the woods while the Sunni stay in theirs. That is not going to happen. ISIS wants the whole shooting match.
DeleteWhen this all started in 2003, I had no interest in democracy. The US has one strategic objective: control of the Strait of Hormuz. Nothing has happened since to change my mind. If the US wants to control the behavior of the Chinese and the EU, the Strait is the answer. If we want to bring the Iranians to our point of view the Strait is the means. We should let all the SOBs understand our position. Playing semantic games gets us no where. We should be right in their faces: the USA controls the flow of oil through the Strait.If they don't like it, go to the UN.
Of the 88,000 thousand folks that turned out to watch the Mighty Vandals get clubbed to death, only about 1,000 hardy hearty souls, probably the Idaho contingent, remain in the aptly named The Swamp stadium in Gainesville, Florida. The announcers are back on and talking about someone who has just opened up a kayak concession down by the south goal line....hardeharhar.
ReplyDeleteProbably Quart, out to make another quick buck.
DeleteThey did the kickoff then the lightning hit again. 30 minute delay. They seem to be determined to play this game if it takes until tomorrow.....
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON (AP) — Aircraft from the United States, Australia, France and Britain dropped food and water to the beleaguered Iraqi town of Amirli, which has been under siege by Islamic State militants for nearly two months, the Pentagon said Saturday night. U.S. airstrikes supported the humanitarian mission.
ReplyDeleteThousands of Shiite Turkmen have been stranded in the farming community about 105 miles north of Baghdad. The aid came at the request of the Iraqi government, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said in a statement.
Military operations will be limited in scope and duration as needed to address the humanitarian crisis in Amirli and protect the civilians trapped in the town, Kirby said.
Instead of fleeing in the face of the Islamic State drive across northern Iraq, the Shiite Turkmens have stayed and fortified their town of 15,000 with trenches and armed positions.
While Amirli fought off the initial attack in June, it has been surrounded by the militants since mid-July. Some residents have said that the Iraqi military's efforts to fly in food, water and other aid have not been enough amid oppressive heat, lack of electrical power — the town's power station was destroyed weeks ago — and shelling from the militants.
U.S. airstrikes in . . . . . . . . .
article
A town of 15,000 fought'em off.
DeleteIt doesn't seem it takes all that much to slow ISIS down. The Black Clothes seems invincible there for awhile.
DeleteIt's midnight in Gainesville and as far as I know they are still waiting for the lightning to clear. The radio switched over to ESPN Sports News.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what the NCAA rules are for cancelling a game in a situation like this but as far as I know it hasn't been cancelled......
Ah, it's been cancelled.
ReplyDeleteGreat picture of the lightning and nearly empty stadium here, Vandal Fans -
ReplyDeletehttp://bleacherreport.com/articles/2182005-florida-vs-idaho-season-opener-cancelled-due-to-inclement-weather
My God, Anna Nicole Smith's daughter is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteFox Special on dear Anna's train wreck of a life.
Hope that beautiful little kid does better.
August 31, 2014
ReplyDeleteHamas's Academic Apologists
By Cinnamon Stillwell
Reaction by Middle East studies professors to Israel’s recent effort to destroy Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure epitomizes their perennial pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and anti-American biases. In lieu of reasoned, informed, and balanced assessments, they proffer extremist rhetoric that demonizes Israel and America while ignoring Hamas’s misdeeds: rockets aimed at Israeli civilians, kidnappings and murder, disregard for ceasefires, and the cynical use of Palestinian civilians -- including children -- as human shields.
Two groups -- Middle East Scholars and Librarians and Historians Against the War -- signed letters advocating a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and accusing Israel of war crimes that demand the end to U.S. military aid, respectively.
Many, however, took their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel antipathies far beyond petitioning to spew forth hyperbolic and mendacious rhetoric that reveals far more about the fevered imaginations of the professoriate than about their intended target.
Ignoring that Hamas started the war, Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, declared that, “Israel’s only real strategy is causing war, not ending war.” Despite the fact that no Israeli politician has advocated genocide and that none has been committed, Cole alleged that, “Israeli nationalists have been arguing for war crimes at an alarming rate. . . . Too many Israelis have justifications in their minds for genocide.”
Similarly, Rashid Khalidi, who teaches modern Arab Studies at the Columbia University, maintained that, “By parroting deceitful Israeli talking points about ‘self-defense’ and ‘human shields,’ they -- US and its allies -- make themselves complicit in what may well amount to war crimes.”
Meanwhile, As'ad AbuKhalil, a political scientist at California State University, Stanislaus, argued that, “With every war, with every massacre, and with every ‘assault,’ Israel (the government and its people) genuinely thinks that this war crime would do the job and finish off the flame of Palestinian nationalism once and for all.” “The US media and government are willing to justify any Israeli war crime no matter the scale,” he added.
Stanford University history professor Joel Beinin vilified Israeli society while portraying Palestinians as passive victims: “The public devaluation of Arab life enables a society that sees itself as ‘enlightened’ and ‘democratic’ to repeatedly send its army to slaughter the largely defenseless population of the Gaza Strip.”
Joseph Massad, professor of modern Arab politics and intellectual history at Columbia University, imagined in characteristically lurid detail, “The carnage that Israeli Jewish soldiers and international Zionist Jewish brigades of baby-killers are committing in Gaza (and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, let alone against Palestinian citizens of Israel).”
DeleteEmploying a grossly ahistorical comparison to the Holocaust, Hamid Dabashi, who teaches Iranian studies and comparative literature at Columbia University, likened Israelis to Nazis and Gaza to Auschwitz:
“After Gaza, not a single living Israeli can utter the word ‘Auschwitz’ without it sounding like ‘Gaza.’ Auschwitz as a historical fact is now archival. Auschwitz as a metaphor is now Palestinian. From now on, every time any Israeli, every time any Jew, anywhere in the world, utters the word ‘Auschwitz,’ or the word ‘Holocaust,’ the world will hear ‘Gaza.’”
Nadia Abu El-Haj, an anthropology professor at Barnard College–Columbia University, exploited another overwrought and mendacious analogy: “The IDF’s tactics recall the logic of the British and American fire-bombing of German and Japanese cities during the Second World War: target the civilian population. Make them pay an unbearable price. Then they will turn against their own regime.”
Peddling a disproven conspiracy theory involving the three Israeli teenagers whose kidnapping and murder preceded the war, Noura Erekat, a human rights law professor at George Mason University , claimed that “Israel knew that these boys had been murdered very early on,” but that it nonetheless, “continued to fan racist and war-mongering flames.” Erekat also disregarded the vulnerability of Israeli civilians: “Hamas cannot hurt Israel at all militarily. . . . Israeli citizens enjoy relative security. In contrast, Palestinians are enduring an all-out massacre.”
Abdullah Al-Arian, a history professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar, claimed preposterously that, “Hamas has not chosen the option of a military or violent confrontation with Israel.” Yet Al-Arian hypocritically praised the terrorist group’s assault on Israeli civilians as “exceeding all expectations.” Rounding out this trifecta, he later compared Israel to the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL or ISIS).
DeleteRatcheting up the absurdity, Hatem Bazian, a lecturer in Near Eastern studies and director of the Islamophobia Research & Documentation Project at the University of California, Berkeley, equated Israeli policy with slavery and accused Israel of being behind Latin American death squads: “We need to make a link between what is taking place today in Palestine and the whole transnational, anti-colonial, anti-slavery, and anti-oppression struggle. . . . You need to understand the link of Israel to what’s taking place in Latin America. . . . Israel was helping the death squads and training them.”
Such cheerleading for Palestinian terrorism and willful disregard of historical facts discredits the individuals who advance it and the academic culture of Middle East studies that rewards it. It is politicized rather than objective, propagandistic rather than principled. American interests at home and abroad are ill-served by these apologists for terrorists.
Cinnamon Stillwell is the West Coast Representative for Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum. She can be reached at stillwell@meforum.org.
Reaction by Middle East studies professors to Israel’s recent effort to destroy Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure epitomizes their perennial pro-Hamas, anti-Israel, and anti-American biases. In lieu of reasoned, informed, and balanced assessments, they proffer extremist rhetoric that demonizes Israel and America while ignoring Hamas’s misdeeds: rockets aimed at Israeli civilians, kidnappings and murder, disregard for ceasefires, and the cynical use of Palestinian civilians -- including children -- as human shields.
Two groups -- Middle East Scholars and Librarians and Historians Against the War -- signed letters advocating a boycott of Israeli academic institutions and accusing Israel of war crimes that demand the end to U.S. military aid, respectively.
Many, however, took their pro-Hamas, anti-Israel antipathies far beyond petitioning to spew forth hyperbolic and mendacious rhetoric that reveals far more about the fevered imaginations of the professoriate than about their intended target.
Ignoring that Hamas started the war, Juan Cole, a history professor at the University of Michigan, declared that, “Israel’s only real strategy is causing war, not ending war.” Despite the fact that no Israeli politician has advocated genocide and that none has been committed, Cole alleged that, “Israeli nationalists have been arguing for war crimes at an alarming rate. . . . Too many Israelis have justifications in their minds for genocide".................
.............Such cheerleading for Palestinian terrorism and willful disregard of historical facts discredits the individuals who advance it and the academic culture of Middle East studies that rewards it. It is politicized rather than objective, propagandistic rather than principled. American interests at home and abroad are ill-served by these apologists for terrorists.
Read more: http://americanthinker.com/2014/08/hamass_academic_apologists_.html#ixzz3BxPdugSr
These 'middle east scholars' sound as if they read the EB in their early years.....the arguments are just the same.