International Occupying Power Will Solve Israeli Palestinian Conflict
By Con George-Kotzabasis reply to:
Watching Death Day and Night So Close By...
By Steve Clemons Washington Note
All those who continue to approach this tragic conflict, which emanates from an array of past soft failed policies implemented by the U.S., the EU, and their Middle East allies, with olive branches in their hands and a new “credible peace negotiation process” wishfully hoping that once they lay this conflict on their Procrustean bed of peace they will put this conflict to sleep for ever after, are like “certain octogenarians who hurl themselves at women to whom they are no longer capable of doing any serious danger”, to quote Marcel Proust.
Clemons who is an expert fisherman who finds and fishes aggressors from the depths of the ocean has found the aggressor of Gaza being Ehud Barak the Defense Minister of Israel who, according to Clemons, is “itching to manage a war.” So to Clemons the threat to more than half a million Israelis who live and work in the proximate range of Quassam rockets is merely an Israeli ‘itch’.
Another one on TWN, not an octogenarian but in one’s robust youthful prime, sails through the Clashing Rocks of the Bosporus without his dove and the help of Orpheus’s music and without his Medea, unlike Jason, on erroneous routes in search of the Golden Fleece of peace in the Middle East. Dan Kervick, in his well-crafted narrative but badly-crafted strategic thinking, argues that it’s an error to think that by killing few bad actors and destroying their organizations one could resolve the problem, as those who have been killed will be replaced by other “Hamases”.
On this issue, he is unwilling--for understandable reasons who loathes to concede, that despite the heavy price, Iraq has been a tremendous success of the Bush-Cheney administration-- to learn the lessons of the Surge in Iraq and the irrefutable evidence as presented by Bob Woodward in his new book, that it was the clandestine operations of Special Forces that killed al-Qaeda and al-Sadrist operatives in Iraq that has brought the country on the threshold of democracy. Where are the signs that those leaders of the insurgency in Iraq that have been killed are to be replaced by others? Haven’t they who escaped the deadly American grip all run to Afghanistan and Pakistan? Providing the Iraq government and its Western allies are vigilant and are prepared to take severe measures at the first signs of an al-Qaeda or al-Sadrist resurgence in the country there will be no renascence of a new insurgency in Iraq.
As for Kervick’s smart Alec comment that Israel is shooting at Palestinian “pea-shooters”, one can only say that he makes a farce out of a great danger. Hamas acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fazr-3 missiles that could reach nuclear warheads at Dimona. Are these “pea-shooters”?
More seriously, Brzezinski says that the Israelis and the Palestinians have failed to rise to a level of strategic, forward-looking maturity to solve this problem and therefore the burden must fall on others such as the US and Europe and their Arab allies. I would agree with this proposition but with one important rider. The burden must be extended beyond its diplomatic purview. They must put troops on the ground. They must place an international garrison of troops in areas of Palestine where recalcitrant elements of Hamas and other terrorist organizations operate and continue to launch their rockets into Israel not as peace-keepers but as peace-enforcers, with the mandate that this international garrison will operate as an occupying power with the use of its military armaments that are related to such a status against Palestinian militants.
This is the hard way to peace and to the establishment of a Palestinian state and not in the misguided search for diplomatic Golden Fleeces of Peace.
Hic Rhodus hic Salta
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Israel Distorted by Lowenstein’s and Slezak’s Lens
A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:
Gaza distorted by media lens by Antony Lowenstein and Peter Slezak
On Line Opinion January 2, 2009
One could re-write this article under the title “Israel Distorted by Lowenstein’s and Slezak’s Lens”. The lives of 400,000 Israelis that live and work within the range of the Quassam rockets are threatened on a daily basis and their freedom of movement is infringed, which is a cardinal principle of human rights, as they are enforced to live on a daily basis in-and-out of shelters, and L and S with a sleight of hand transform this threat and abrogation of freedom of movement into a failure of the media and of politicians to acknowledge the transgressor in this conflict which to them clearly is the terrorist government of Israel.
Guilty to the brim of his cup of consciousness that he does not support Israel in this deadly conflict, Lowenstein—as I don’t know whether Slezak too is a Jew—attempts to cover up his “turncoatedness” to Israel under the slogan of “tough love” and furtively place himself as a true friend of Israel. True friendship however is shown when friends rush along to help someone who is in a critical situation, like Israel is and has been for a long time. Lowenstein has no love for Israel.
A reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:
Gaza distorted by media lens by Antony Lowenstein and Peter Slezak
On Line Opinion January 2, 2009
One could re-write this article under the title “Israel Distorted by Lowenstein’s and Slezak’s Lens”. The lives of 400,000 Israelis that live and work within the range of the Quassam rockets are threatened on a daily basis and their freedom of movement is infringed, which is a cardinal principle of human rights, as they are enforced to live on a daily basis in-and-out of shelters, and L and S with a sleight of hand transform this threat and abrogation of freedom of movement into a failure of the media and of politicians to acknowledge the transgressor in this conflict which to them clearly is the terrorist government of Israel.
Guilty to the brim of his cup of consciousness that he does not support Israel in this deadly conflict, Lowenstein—as I don’t know whether Slezak too is a Jew—attempts to cover up his “turncoatedness” to Israel under the slogan of “tough love” and furtively place himself as a true friend of Israel. True friendship however is shown when friends rush along to help someone who is in a critical situation, like Israel is and has been for a long time. Lowenstein has no love for Israel.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Paul Krugman Plays his Dirty Politics
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The eminent economist and crown prince of punditry of the New York Times Paul Krugman laments that we are “entering a period of severe crisis with weak and confused leadership.” And I would respond that the people in the media like himself should be warning us about the economic abyss we are facing instead of being out playing their dirty politics. Only few moments after the speech of President Bush warning Americans of the imminent perils of the economy and of the absolute necessity for Congress to pass the legislation immediately, as time was a crucial factor for the success of the plan-with which Krugman himself agrees-what Krugman did? He ingloriously tried to associate the speech of Bush with the so called lies of the war in Iraq.
Thus like so many other weak commentators widening the credibility gap that was already extant between the President and many Americans and confusing the latter about the veracity of Bush about the economic crisis, when Krugman himself knew that what the president was saying was the absolute truth.
Tu ne cede malis
By Con George-Kotzabasis
The eminent economist and crown prince of punditry of the New York Times Paul Krugman laments that we are “entering a period of severe crisis with weak and confused leadership.” And I would respond that the people in the media like himself should be warning us about the economic abyss we are facing instead of being out playing their dirty politics. Only few moments after the speech of President Bush warning Americans of the imminent perils of the economy and of the absolute necessity for Congress to pass the legislation immediately, as time was a crucial factor for the success of the plan-with which Krugman himself agrees-what Krugman did? He ingloriously tried to associate the speech of Bush with the so called lies of the war in Iraq.
Thus like so many other weak commentators widening the credibility gap that was already extant between the President and many Americans and confusing the latter about the veracity of Bush about the economic crisis, when Krugman himself knew that what the president was saying was the absolute truth.
Tu ne cede malis
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Polical Tyros Have Tasteless Recipes To Cook in Kitchen of Foreign Policy
A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:
Richard Vague: Throwing More Troops at Afghanistan WRONG Move
By Steve Clemons Washington Note December 23, 2008
Richard Vague is another recruit in the league of political tyros led by Clemons. America is at war with an irreconcilable implacable enemy. In any war, especially in this one, there are no soft options. And those who suggest “retreats” and “withdrawals” prematurely from Iraq and Afghanistan are soft brained and they should never have delved in the complexity and hard tasks of war.
‘Vague was “very discouraged to hear...that the United States plans to send up to 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan next year’, says Clemons. Vague states that although “Obama said in his campaign that he would escalate in Afghanistan...I had hoped he was saying that as a way to deflect questions regarding Iraq without appearing soft, and when the time came he would exit Iraq but resist escalating in Afghanistan.” Clemons says that Vague told him “there are a whole lot of cooks in the foreign-policy kitchen these days.”
Looking at Vague’s photo, it’s obvious that he spends a lot of time in his own “kitchen” as a good cook in the culinary art but he would have made a very bad cook in the art of foreign policy. Clemons considers Vague to be ‘a giant in the U.S. credit card business’.
To each his own.
A short reply by Con George-Kotzabasis to:
Richard Vague: Throwing More Troops at Afghanistan WRONG Move
By Steve Clemons Washington Note December 23, 2008
Richard Vague is another recruit in the league of political tyros led by Clemons. America is at war with an irreconcilable implacable enemy. In any war, especially in this one, there are no soft options. And those who suggest “retreats” and “withdrawals” prematurely from Iraq and Afghanistan are soft brained and they should never have delved in the complexity and hard tasks of war.
‘Vague was “very discouraged to hear...that the United States plans to send up to 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan next year’, says Clemons. Vague states that although “Obama said in his campaign that he would escalate in Afghanistan...I had hoped he was saying that as a way to deflect questions regarding Iraq without appearing soft, and when the time came he would exit Iraq but resist escalating in Afghanistan.” Clemons says that Vague told him “there are a whole lot of cooks in the foreign-policy kitchen these days.”
Looking at Vague’s photo, it’s obvious that he spends a lot of time in his own “kitchen” as a good cook in the culinary art but he would have made a very bad cook in the art of foreign policy. Clemons considers Vague to be ‘a giant in the U.S. credit card business’.
To each his own.
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