Posts Tagged ‘history’

Shades of the Lusitania

Posted: January 7, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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Isreallycool links to this message at the “Free Gaza” (quotes are mine) site:

Israel is hereby put on notice that we are coming. We will announce our exact departure date, time and route, traveling from Cypriot waters, into international waters, directly into Gaza territorial waters, never nearing Israeli waters. The Israeli Navy, Ministry of Defense, and Foreign Ministry will all receive a copy of this notice. Any attack on our vessel will be premeditated and any harm inflicted on the 30 civilians on board will be the result of a deliberate attack on unarmed civilians.

I can only think of this notice:

lusitania-warning

I took the liberty of doing a search for the word “rockets” on their site, other than describing them as “modest homemade rockets”. I’m curious if they would consider them modest and homemade if they were fired at them. Of course there is no condemnation of those attacks, illustrating the moral bankruptcy of these guys.

In my opinion Israel should seize the vessel, and repatriate the people on board to either their starting location or to their individual countries of origin. These guys are very lucky that Israel is not the bunch of barbarians that these guys claim. If they actually thought they were, they’d stay home.

He expresses it better than me

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, war
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I’ve been wrestling with a post I made yesterday through several replies and updates. I think Jeff Goldberg (via Glenn) in the Atlantic expressed what I’ve been thinking much better than me:

Okay, yesterday I was depressed. Today, I’m just pissed off. It’s absolutely astonishing to me how interested the world is in Israel’s failings. This is the source of a bitter but hilarious observation I once heard a Kurdish leader make: He was complaining to me that his people were cursed, and I asked him what he meant: Cursed by geography, cursed by their proximity to Kurd-hating Arabs, what? He said the Kurds were cursed because they didn’t have Jewish enemies. Only with Jewish enemies would the world pay attention to their plight.

…

we’ve all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It’s a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn’t matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.

The question is why are Palestinian moral failings not of great interest to people, why are the Kurds cursed to not have Jewish foes?

Can someone on the left explain this to me? I really need an answer to this that leads me to different conclusions.

This sounds like Sherman too

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/news
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Via Israellycool this Arab written article is rather amazing:

With Israel entering its fourth week of an incursion into the same Gaza Strip it voluntarily evacuated a few months ago, a sense of reality among Arabs is spreading through commentary by Arab pundits, letters to the editor, and political talk shows on Arabic-language TV networks. The new views are stunning both in their maturity and in their realism. The best way I can think of to convey them is in the form of a letter to the Palestinian Arabs from their Arab friends:

Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:

The war with Israel is over.

You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.

The next phrase sounds just like Sherman:

…you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.

At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn’t going to get better.

Here is Sherman in Jan 1964

Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late.

All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences.

I attribute Arab movement in this direction to three things: The War in Iraq, The Gaza withdrawal, and Iran’s move for the bomb. It remains to be seen if Israel can win the propaganda war. If it can the whole dynamic of the area can change.

We can be sure that unless totally destroyed Hamas will hold out till at least the 20th to see if there is any change with the new president. It will be interesting. Arthur or Carter. Believe it or not I’m betting Arthur.

Maybe Nordlinger is right instead

Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/news
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In this post I made a rather provocative assertion when explaining why 65,000 civilian deaths dead in the fight against the Tamil-Tigers provoked no protest on the left as opposed to Israel and Gaza:

How could this be? Simple answer. If you can’t blame Jews or Americans, then its not evil or important. Why? Because their final goal is dead Jews. Period.

In is column today, Jay Nordlinger may have a better explanation:

During the Cold War, we used to speak of anti-anti-Communists. These were people (on the left) who were not exactly pro-Communist. But they so hated the anti-Communists, they were . . . well, anti-anti-Communists — the best, the fairest name for them.

Today, there are anti-anti-Islamofascists. They are not on the Islamofascist side in the War on Terror. But they hate those who are fighting, or attempting to fight, the Islamofascists more than they could ever hate the Islamofascists. They are anti-anti-Islamofascists.

The similarities between yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists and today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists would make a very good essay — perhaps by David Pryce-Jones or Norman Podhoretz. Of course, many of today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists were yesterday’s anti-anti-Communists — I mean, the same people, in the flesh.

And it’s all embodied in a publication such as The New York Review of Books.

That is a much more charitable explanation, I’ll have to think on it.

He also touches on another quote I made during the first week of this blog.

You can take this to the bank: Any successful attack on American soil during an Obama administration is going to be wholly owned by not only that administration but the Democratic party.

Here is Nordlinger:

A wise Republican head said to me the other day, “I actually think Obama is going to have a hard time of it.” Here was his reasoning: “Two things Bush has done right are Iraq (after the surge) and preventing a second attack. Those are big achievements to live up to — especially if you don’t believe there is any connection between the president’s means and these ends.

This goes to the heart of the Arthur vs Carter question. Anyway its another reason why Nordlinger should be regular reading for you.

As for yesterday’s anti-anti Communists as today’s anti-anti-Islamofascists; I guess they are fooled twice. Shame on them.

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