SANCTIMONEOUS HERESY: Right-wing Israelis demonstrate in Jabal Mukabber after hundreds ransacked the village in occupied East Jerusalem, destroying Palestinian property, March 2008. (Meged Gozani/Activestills)
A third uprising?
Gary M. Burge,The Electronic Intifada,3 August 2009
Gary M. Burge is professor of New Testament at Wheaton College in Chicago. He is author of Whose Land? Whose Promise? What Christians are not being told about Israel and the Palestinians (2003). He will soon release Jesus and the Land. How the New Testament Transformed “Holy Land” Theology.
I recently returned from the Holy Land after leading about 40 Presbyterians from Galilee to Jerusalem. This isn't new territory for me. I've been in the country many times leading students, working at archaeology digs, speaking at conferences, and occasionally taking a church such as this. And this time what I saw and heard was worrying.
Many important developments have taken place over the last six months. There was Israel's winter invasion of Gaza and a few months later, right-winger Benjamin Netanyahu became prime minister. Even recently US President Barack Obama has called for a change in America's posture toward Israel's settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. For Middle East news junkies, these have been solid months. Continue reading “Journal: Chuck Spinney Flags Israel's Use of Economic Strangulation (A Form of Genocide or Other Atrocity)”
The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and its formal but free online publication, Diarmament Forum, the cover is shown to the left here, linking to the Forum's home page, is the model for the Journal of Public Intelligence.
Today we are creating a new section for the Journal, “Worth a Look,” which will point to relevant scholar-practitioner publications that make a contribution to the emerging and converging disciplines of Collective Intelligence, Public Intelligence, Cognitive Science, and Global from Local Public Administration, the latter the ultimate constituency for the Journal of Public Intelligence.
Below is the first page and link to the seven-page UNIDIR article, “Learn, adapt, succeed: potential lessons from the Ottawa and Oslo processes for other disarmament and arms control challenges.”
We note with special interest the importance of informal trust networks that are by, with, of, and BEYOND all bureaucratic entities.
Dr. Webster Griffin Tarpley is in some ways a complement to individuals such as Chalmers Johnson and Noam Chomsky who attempt to speak truth to power from an academic point of view.Ā Others such as Ralph Peters, Chuck Spinney, and Robert Young Pelton comes at truth to power froma “ground truth” perspective.
Many will disagree with Dr. Tarpley's analytic conclusions, but we stand firm on the importance of his point of view and the need to hear his voice.Ā He is a valued contributor to Phi Beta Iota.
Phi Beta Iota: Dr. Tarpley is a brilliant historian, and we continue to believe that his work on 9-11 was of the highest order, but new evidence has been produced that suggests he might be an agent of influence of the Israeli Mossad, perhaps not directly recruited, but financially subsidized through intermediaries.Ā With regret, and continued respect, he is suspended as a contributor effective 30 January 2010.Ā His obsession with blaming the CIA for everything should be understood in this light, but is never-the-less respected as a voice that must be heard.
Tip of the hat to Dr. Webster Tarpley, gifted historian and speaker of truth to power, for picking this up.Ā We leave it to the reader to speculate about what role, if any, the U.S. Government played, and what might play out in the future as the indigenous peoples of Saudi Arabia find that they are power that cannot be suppressed.
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PakistaniDefence.com, 2 August 2009
Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the kingdom's former ambassador to the United States, is reportedly under house arrest over a conspiracy against the monarch.
Saad al-Faqih, head of the opposition group Islamic Reform Movement, told Arab-language TV al-Alam that Prince Bandar has been disappeared and the media has published no word from the ex-diplomat's whereabouts since nearly three months ago.
McChrystal: A'stan commander doing his best -- but for what?
Tip of the hat to the New York Post, the primary outlet for Ralph Peters' syndicated column.Ā Below the article is reproduced in its entirety for archival purposes and with permission of the author.Ā Clicking on the photograph leads to the original article for as long as it remains available.
More Troops Aren't The Answer
New York Post
August 3, 2009
By Ralph Peters
OUR troops in Afghanistan are performing heroically, doing everything we ask of them. But we shouldn't ask them to die without a purpose.
We're floundering in Afghanistan — confusing techniques with strategy. Not one senior official, political or mi! litary, has explained convincingly why we're still there.
Only a few months ago, our “strategy” became the pacification of villages, providing security to the inhabitants and extending the writ of the government in Kabul.
But Afghans see their government as anĀ enemy — a cabal of thieves grabbing all they can. We're fighting for an Afghan government that won't fight for itself or sacrifice to help its own people.
Our own officers don't trust the Kabul government. Why should Afghans believe us when we promote it? They know what they'll face — from both sides — when we leave.
Now RUMINT (“rumor intelligence,” the military term for insider scuttlebutt) has it that the new strategy isn't working and, instead of occupying rural hamlets, we'll shift to a newer new strategy of protecting major population centers.
On the plus side, that's what worked reasonably well for Afghanistan's medieval rulers, who concentrated on the ownersh! ip of cities and caravan routes.
On the down side, it never made Afghanistan a real country.
Worse, RUMINT also holds that our commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stan McChrystal (a terrific soldier tasked with the impossible), may request additional American troops above the 21,000 already in the pipeline.
Their mission would be to buy time to build Afghanistan's security forces. Yet, after almost eight years of US efforts, the illiterate Afghans who Kabul press-ganged into uniform still perform abysmally (a few elite units notwithstanding).Ā They don't believe in their government, either.
So our troops shoulder deadly burdens for a corrupt government that sides with the Taliban in the media to win votes from a hostile population. How, exactly, is this supposed to come out?
The echoes of Vietnam keep getting louder. Our well-intentioned aid only corrupts. We never pause to try to think like Afghans. And we comfort ourselves with platitudes, then lie about our prospects.
When political and milit! ary leaders don't know what to do, they send more troops, hoping things will magically work out. In Iraq, the surge was part of a comprehensive plan. In Afghanistan, though, another surge would be rubbing a rabbit's foot and crossing our fingers.
Meanwhile, Afghans in the countryside just wish we'd leave them alone (Vietnam redux). They don't know why we're there any more than we do.
What does this accomplish for our security? How does occupying a village in Helmand Province or even a major Afghan city deter al Qaeda'sĀ Arab leadership from its global jihad? Despicable as they are, the Taliban didn't attack our homeland.
We're fighting the wrong enemy, in the wrong place, in the wrong way. And sending more troops won't fix it.
The Taliban can't defeat us, but we can't win if we set ourselves absurd goals. Is an endless stalemate in a wasteland worth it?
We shouldn't evacuate Afghanistan entirely. It remains an excellent mother! ship for aĀ smaller, hyper-lethal US force that would co ntinue to hunt and kill al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists in the back-country that straddles the border with Pakistan.
But the idea of building a modern Afghan state with a respected rule-of-law government is anĀ impossible dream — and not worth the life of a single soldier, Marine or Navy corpsman.
AfghanistanĀ isn't the heartland of terror. It's just the heart of darkness.
Readers of this column know I believe in killing our enemies wherever we can find them. But I don't believe in killing our own troops because our leaders duck fundamental questions.
During his election campaign, President Obama promised us that he knew how to fix Afghanistan. His macho rhetoric made it his war. But I'm willing to let him off the hook on that one — if we just stop pouring lives and money down a bottomless rat-hole. Concentrate on destroying our global enemies, not on teaching hygiene to Afghan hillbillies.
In the words Gen. ! David Petraeus applied to Iraq, “Tell me how this ends?”
It looks alarmingly as though the answer is “Vietnam.” I recently joked to a fellow military retiree that, if the parallels to the 1960s get any stronger, we might at least get some good music out of this mess.
I believe that Gen. McChrystal is doing his best. I'm convinced his subordinate officers are doing their best. And IĀ know our troops are doing their best.
