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POPSLebanon War Probe Accuses Olmert of 'Severe Failure' The first part of the official, government-appointed report is in and already the results are scathing. This is what the face of governmental accountability looks like. Better late than never, America will go through the same process of political introspection and repair as it goes forward. The inevitability of accountability is what allows a true democracy to survive almost anything. "Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved, and in part were not achievable by the authorized modes of military action," the report said.
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POPSTen Ways to Make Sure That Peace Stays Dead Too many people on each side see the other as wholly culpable. Too many people on each side see themselves as wholly innocent, wholly victimized, ill-served by the well-meaning, abandoned by former allies, betrayed by the media, misunderstood by people who should know better, forgotten by the world. Too many people on each side see only the suffering that has been caused them. Too many people have learned to wall themselves off from the suffering that they have caused.
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POPSAmerican Conservative Magazine: GOP Must Go There may be little Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country’s reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a result that is seen—in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague to Kuala Lumpur—as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq.
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POPSRemember: Saddam Was Our Man NY Times OpEd from March 14, 2003. The United States also sent arms to the new regime, weapons later used against the same Kurdish insurgents the United States had backed against Kassem and then abandoned. Soon, Western corporations like Mobil, Bechtel and British Petroleum were doing business with Baghdad -- for American firms, their first major involvement in Iraq. This history is known to many in the Middle East and Europe, though few Americans are acquainted with it, much less understand it. Yet these interventions help explain why United States policy is viewed with some cynicism abroad. George W. Bush is not the first American president to seek regime change in Iraq. Mr. Bush and his advisers are following a familiar pattern.
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POPSIsraeli President Katsav to be indicted for raping two women? In an attempt to thwart the accusations made at him, President Katsav tried to seek charges of blackmail against the alleged victim, which appeared to backfire as the publicity unleashed many new allegations from other women: Altogether, there appears to be sufficient evidence to indict Katsav for sexual offenses involving five women. Additional complainants are expected to be summoned to testify against him at his trial to reinforce the argument that Katsav had a specific modus operandi in relation to women. And if that wasn't enough, Police have also found sufficient evidence to indict Katsav on charges of illegal wiretapping and Katsav is also suspected of obstructing justice and harassing a witness.
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POPSWhen Not Seeing Is Believing Human perfection. Whether we like it or not. Justice, peace and virtue. That concept of the beneficent, omnipotent will of God and the need to always submit to it, whether we like it or not, is not new. It has been present in varying degrees throughout history in all three great monotheisms—Judaism, Christianity and Islam—from their very origins. And with it has come the utter certainty of those who say they have seen the face of God or have surrendered themselves to his power or have achieved the complete spiritual repose promised by the Books of all three faiths: the Torah, the Gospels, the Koran. That is where the smile comes from. (Andrew Sullivan. Time Magazine , Oct. 2, 2006.)
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POPS The Seductive Logic of Exterminationism The second tendency stemming from dwelling so much on Hitler's exterminationist logic is to begin to absorb it and to start thinking like Hitler himself, to say to oneself: Well, while it wouldn't do to come out and quite say it publicly, it's simple logic that if we can't democratize the Muslims (which looks increasingly implausible), we'd better do unto them before they do unto us: exterminate them. That way of thought leads toward a war of nuclear genocide that would be as unnecessary as it is criminal.
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POPSThe Islamic Way of War - Andrew J. Bacevich (The American Conservative) the sun has set on the age of unquestioned Western military dominance. Bluntly, the East has solved the riddle of the Western Way of War. In Baghdad and in Anbar Province as at various points on Israel’s troubled perimeter, the message is clear: methods that once could be counted on to deliver swift decision no longer work.
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POPSNot So Clean Break - Taki (American Conservative) The Bush doctrine of creating democracy in the Middle East with bombs will go down in history as the cruelest and craziest ever. A war on terror, as Bush calls everything he doesn’t agree with, cannot be won by a democratically elected government acting like a terrorist organization. Killing civilians, especially children, is wrong.
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POPS War! What is it good for? (Less and less these days) Steve Sailer concludes: Still, there will be plenty of men who will get very excited over every twist and turn in the Game of Nations, and bay for war to prevent any loss of the slightest advantage. As former war correspondent Fred Reed notes, after decades of following the sounds of guns it occurred to him that war, important as it seems at the time, is just something males do.
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POPSIsrael gives up on disarming Hizbullah Michael Totten adds: Those inside and outside Israel who believed disarming Hezbollah by force was possible in a short time frame were supremely delusional. It’s not 1967 anymore, when Israel could defeat three Arab armies in six days. Hezbollah is a guerilla army, as well as a terrorist army, and assymetrical warfare is hard. Look at how much longer it is taking the US to put down a Baathist insurgency in Iraq compared with the Baathist army in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in power.
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POPSMajority of Israelis 'want Olmert to go' The Israeli government came under increased pressure today with the publication of a newspaper poll showing that for the first time a majority want Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign over perceived failings in his handling of the war with Hizbullah.
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POPSWashington's "Green-Lighting" of the War in Lebanon - Seymour Hersh Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports in this week's issue of the New Yorker that Israeli officials visited the White House earlier this summer to get a "green light" for an attack on Lebanon. The Bush administration approved, Hersh says, in part to remove Hezbollah as a deterrent to a potential US bombing of Iran.
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POPSEvangelical Christians plead for Israel Last month, John Hagee led the first summit of Christians United for Israel in Washington. As the Mid-East continues to roil, more and more of his fellow end-time-focused groups are making their voice heard in American politics, influencing our foreign policy decisions for their purposes. "When they see what's going on in the Middle East, a whole range of enemies arrayed against God's people, they see God's word being played out on their television sets"
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POPSHaaretz: Lebanon "failure" puts strain on US-Israel alliance Rivkin and Casey rightly worry about Israel's privileged ally status to the US after failing to decisively defeat Hezbollah, espeically in light of the predicted return of some Democratic control in Washington. "Israel must win," they half-heartedly write, but with the UN cease-fire draft up for vote later today , they must know the time for "winning" is almost up. All that is left will be the inevitable post-war spin from both sides...and preparing for the next round of the Neverending War.
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