It works like this: value lives in Afghanistan the same way the US military has been authorized to do by our government. Here's what happens when we kill civilians: On the back of an Afghan army truck, U.S. officials paid $40,000 in Afghan currency to representatives of the 15 people killed — $2,500 for each death plus $500 for two wounded men and $1,500 for village repairs. Lt. Col. Steven Weir, a military lawyer who helped oversee the payments, said the payments were not an admission by the U.S. that innocents were killed. "It's a condolence payment," he said. "The villagers said none of them were in the Taliban, just peaceful individuals from the village. So by this payment they will understand it's not our goal to kill innocent people. This may help them understand we're here to build a safer and more secure Afghanistan." When asked if the U.S. was paying money to relatives of people that the U.S. had wanted to kill or capture, Weir said: ...

If it wasn't enough that Israel is organizing an army of bloggers to counter its critics in the new media, here's the best evidence yet that the IDF has pretty much gotten world coverage wired exactly the way it wants it. Here's a smattering of the professional courtesies given Israel by American network military experts: “I think you were too restrained and could have gone deeper into Gaza,” retired Lt-Gen Thomas McInerney, a military analyst for Fox News noted, saying the Israeli public’s universal approval for the onslaught could have muted global opinion, and that it would have made it “more difficult for Europeans, the Left or the Arab media to counter that.” McInerney also chided Israel’s leadership, saying they are “too sensitive about world opinion.” In 22 days, the Israeli military killed over 1,300 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Human rights groups have noted that they deliberately fired white phosphorus into densely populated residential neighbo...

... is often given as one of the reasons for unwavering US support of Israel. Of course, that democracy has just banned its two largest Arab parties (Balad and UAL-T) from participating in the upcoming Knesset elections , which will prevent more than half the Arab Israeli citizens already in the parliament from running for re-election. These have to be extremist parties, right? Parties dedicated to the destruction of Israel, right? Well, not exactly: The Arab parties earned the ire of the most hawkish elements in the Israeli government by publicly opposing the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. Balad likewise made enemies by explicitly calling for equal rights for all citizens of Israel, regardless of national or ethnic identity, which the ruling Kadima Party said would “undermine Israel’s identity as a Jewish state.” I'd come up with a really snappy sentence to end this post, but--with both the US Senate and House having voted nearly unanimously in favor of giving Israel a blank chec...

I'm waiting to see if any of the MSM pickes this up from Al Jazeera . I suspect the heavy pro-Israel spin would be, Why dignify terrorists by listening to them? We've said what they need to do to re-establish a cease-fire . And I'm certainly not enamored with Hamas or any other Islamist organization. But the process of negotiating a cease-fire rather than dictating surrender terms begins with--as they say--a frank exchange of views. So here are two snippets from an interview with Hamas spokesman Abu Marzouq, the first on a cease-fire, the second on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: excerpt one Al Jazeera: Under what conditions will Hamas agree a ceasefire with Israel? Abu Marzouq : We have three conditions for any peace initiative coming from any state. First, the aggression of the Israelis should stop. All of the gates should be opened, including the gate of Rafah between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Finally, Israel has to withdraw from the Gaza Strip. We are not saying we w...

There are always two sides to any story. Israel has carefully mobilized its media blitz to explain in great detail the fear and terror of living under an unceasing rocket attack (even though deaths are in fact so rare that Israeli partisans never want to mention them). Steve Niva takes a careful look, however, at the dynamics which actually broke the ceasefire, and finds that the story is not so one-sided at the US Senate, the Israeli Defense Force, or new Obama-appointee to the State Department Dennis Ross might have you believe: Israel has repeatedly claimed that it had "no choice" but to wage war on Gaza on December 27 because Hamas had broken a ceasefire, was firing rockets at Israeli civilians, and had "tried everything in order to avoid this military operation," as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni put it.... There was a genuine lull in rocket and mortar fire between June 19 and November 4, due to Hamas compliance and only sporadically violated by a small number ...

... reside not only among his choice of advisors, but in the US Congress , where the Senate just unanimously handed the Israeli Defense Force a blank check to continue operations in Gaza (and the House will not be far behind, according to Nancy Pelosi): The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a resolution expressing support for Israel in its conflict with Hamas, while the House of Representatives prepared to act on a similar measure tomorrow. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the measure “expresses vigorous support” for Israel. “The Israelis have every right to defend themselves against these acts of terrorism,” said Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Israel is in its 13th day of military operations against the Islamic militant Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip in an effort to stop rocket attacks against southern Israeli towns. Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said they had personally spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to express the...

... which deserve broader discussion even if they come out of a post with which I otherwise disagree. Thoughts on Freedom points out that, ironically, there is more condemnation of Hamas being heard in the Muslim world than there is in the West, and that much of the hand-wringing over Gaza is an example of selective outrage : In a carbon copy of the 2006 conflict with Hizbollah, Israel is once again losing the media war. The Hamas cheer squad of CNN, the BBC (funded by all British taxpayers), the New York Times and the Guardian is raining propoganda bombs on Israel as surely as the 6,000 Qassam rockets that have hit its southern borders from Gaza. Despite a clear cut case of self-defence that even the Muslim countries of Egypt (‘Hamas are more interested in having the injured serve as pawns in their propaganda war on Western TV networks‘), Saudi Arabia (‘Arab states should call a spade a spade…let Hamas accept responsibility for once..‘) and the Palestinian Authority (‘we talked t...

... he's still an asshole. First things first--credit where credit is due: President-elect Barack Obama has broken his silence on Gaza, just slightly--apparently in the wake of the slaughter at the UN school. He's expressed his "concern" for Palestinian loss of life and promised much more to say after January 20. Here's the most extended quote I can find (ironically from Al Jazeera ): "After January 20 I'm going to have plenty to say about the issue, and I am not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign, that starting at the beginning of our administration, we are going to be engaged effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East." I still believe he should have spoken earlier--but he has spoken, and for that I both thank and applaud him. [Although I still retain the fundamental difference of preferring a non-interventionist, non-imperial foreign policy. That doesn't equate, however, with si...

Criticism of Israel as exhibiting a disproportionate response to Hamas rocket attacks have engendered a strong round of counter-criticisms that the entire idea of proportional response is a wimpy, academic, egghead, defeatist idea. Among my favorites so far (not going to provide links because they are so prevalent): Should the United States have limited itself to a proportional response to Germany and Japan after Pearl Harbor? This is war. In war you go do what it takes to win. War is inhuman, and you can't win by following made-up rules. What did you want Israel to do? Keep letting Hamas rain down rockets on towns? Hamas is a terrorist organization; you wipe them out like the vermin they are. The fact of the matter is that proportionality in law and war is an ancient concept, documented as far back as the Code of Hammurabi, and well-attested in Pentateuch legal codes (Ex 21;22-25; Lev 24:17-21; Deut 19:6-21; all the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" stuff). The ...

... at least if it's true that a picture is worth a thousand-word-presidential-elect press release. I will (seriously) stop suggesting that President-elect Barack Obama has not voiced an opinion on the current crisis.

... he doesn't want to make foreign policy pronouncements while there is still a sitting President he might contradict... Sure. That's why his transition team isn't talking publicly about changes in the relationship of NASA and military space programs in relationship to a new space race with China that will impact American satellite security. Oh. Ooops. They are talking publicly about those changes. But Israel, Gaza, Hamas--the tough questions? Can't touch that. Here's Obama from his third debate with John McCain: In such cases, answered Obama, "we have moral issues at stake." Of course the United States must act to stop genocide, he said. "When genocide is happening, when ethnic cleansing is happening . . . and we stand idly by, that diminishes us." Here's Obama today: Here's the thing: If Barack Obama sees the bombing and invasion of Gaza by Israel to be acceptable international behavior, he should support the current administrati...

... is that you can issue detailed national statements on your economic bail-out plan, and even publicly call for Congress and meet with legislative leaders to pass specific legislation... ... but that as Israel actually invades Gaza, your position is that you're monitoring the situation closely , and--besides-- we only have one President at a time, you know . At this point it is even immaterial to me (from a certain perspective) whether Barack Obama is pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, or strictly neutral on the growing conflict--I'd just like to see him use that spine of steel to express an opinion.

Hube, it's your fault--you got me started on this one with this post: Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed. On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority. Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion. Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas. The source is Caroline Glick, in the Jerusalem Post , which is a truncated version of a larger story that first ran in Palestine Media Watch , and w...

In 1943 the German Army discovered a mass grave of Polish officers, executed by the Soviet NKVD (forerunner of the KGB) after the partition of Poland in 1939. Sensing a gigantic propaganda opportunity, the Nazis invited in the international press, to say, Look, what a mass-murdering bastard Stalin is! Of course, by that time, 80% of all the Jews who would die in the Holocaust were already dead. Did the fact that the Third Reich had committed genocide absolve the Soviet Union of mass murder? Another case: during the final round of the Seminole Wars in the early 1830s, the United States Army managed to defeat the elusive Seminoles under Tecumsah by simply burning their crops and continuing operations through the summer in order to prevent them from planting any more. As Seminole children began starving, the leaders--including Tecumsah--found themselves forced to parley. Tecumsah was eventually executed by the US Army in a bizarre set of circumstances. Our justification for tactics tha...

Now, stung by an unusually bad reception for its Gaza attacks in online media, the Israeli Defense Force has decided to go into the spin business itself : Across the world, mainstream journalists are expressing increasing disquiet at the way the Israeli government is trying to manage international coverage of its war on the Gaza Strip. Journalists have been barred not just from the strip itself, but the government is now prohibiting journalists from going to parts of Israel near the Gaza Strip.... The Israeli military has therefore announced that online media and the blogosphere are another warzone for the military to manage. To that end, the military is launching its own Youtube channel to bring the viewing public footage of “precision bombing operations” in the strip. In ensuring that the only footage of their military operation is provided directly from them, the Israeli military is another step closer to completely managing public perception of the ongoing attacks. The military say...