Friday, April 30, 2010

Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad

Obama Removes Any Reason For Abbas To Come To The Table

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 07:56 AM PDT

Abbas now gets what he's wanted all along--someone to do his work for him so he can sit and do nothing:U.S. President Barack Obama has told several European leaders that if Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he will convene an international summit on achieving Mideast peace, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday.The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - in a bid to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state. The summit, they said, would...

Obama's Iran Sanctions--Iranians Can Rest Easy Now

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 07:32 AM PDT

We are now working with our partners in the United Nations on new Security Council sanctions that will show Iran's leaders that there are real consequences for their intransigence, that their choice is to live up to their international obligations. Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite.Secretary of State Hillary ClintonNo doubt the Iranians are quaking in their boots sandals.But then again, they probably saw this coming:White House seeks to soften Iran sanctionsWants exemption for firms based in China and RussiaThe Obama administration is pressing Congress to provide an exemption from Iran sanctions to companies based in "cooperating countries," a...

Submitted 04/30/10

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 04:08 AM PDT

A bit late, here are this week's Watcher's council submissions. Council Submissions Joshuapundit - Happy Birthday Trig Palin! Oh, And More Mean Spirited Trig-Truther Rot From Sully Wolf Howling -The Roots Of Slavery & The Races Hustlers' Holy Grail - Reparations Mere Rhetoric - Obama Defense Dept: We're Not Going To Attack Iran, And If Israel Tries We Might Shoot Down Their Jets Rhymes With Right - Doing My Part For Freedom Of Speech, Press, And Religion The Razor - Socialism=Cannibalism The Colossus of Rhodey - Race conundrum in education (again) Bookworm Room - What if American blacks don't want...

Iraqi chutzpah

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 01:10 AM PDT

The Iraqi government has been making a request of the Americans: The soldiers came looking for weapons of mass destruction. What they found in the flooded basement of Saddam Hussein's secret police headquarters was a legacy of destruction -- the demise of one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. There was a treasure trove of Torahs and Haggadas, centuries old. And there were marriage records, university applications, financial documents -- the living record of a community, seized by the Mukhabarat from the homes of Jews as they fled Iraq under pressure and amid persecution, with only a handful...

The value of the dni

Posted: 30 Apr 2010 12:44 AM PDT

Today's Washington Post has an op-ed cowritten by Thomas Fingar who was the first deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. The subject of the op-ed is how American intelligence gathering has improved markedly since the creation of the office of the Director of National Intelligence. Fingar and his co-author Mary Margaret Graham write: Commentators noting the fifth anniversary, this month, of the launch of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence have largely paid more attention to shortcomings than to what has been achieved and why the achievements are important. This is unfortunate for many reasons, not least...

Council speak 04/30/10

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:08 AM PDT

Whoops, I'm a bit late getting you last week's Watcher's council winners. Council Winners First place with 3 votes - Wolf Howling - Thoughts On Britain, Colonialism, and Multiculturalism Second place with 2 votes - Bookworm Room - Ordinary people view Rush as a dangerous Svengali Non-Council Winners First place with 2 1/3 votes - Caroline Glick - The strategic foundations of the US-Israel alliance Submitted by Right Truth Second place with 2 votes - Zenpundit - More Mackinlay - On Why the USG Doesn't "Get" AQ as a "Global Insurgency" Submitted by The Glittering Eye The complete results are...
Posted by Soccer Dad at 11:20 PM 0 comments

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Soccer Dad

Soccer Dad

Has Jimmy Carter Finally Gone Too Far In Sudan?

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 12:53 PM PDT

Jimmy Carter may know which side to pick when it comes to Palestinian Arabs vs Israel, but in a recent election he oversaw, he may have just committed a whopper. Dr. Walid Phares and Khairi Abaza write thatCarter gave his blessing (with perfunctory caveats) to a rigged election that has handed victory to a genocidal war criminal who granted safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.On the Carter Center's website, he raised several concerns about the vote, but on the ground, the former president told reporters that he saw "no reasons for any concern" about the elections, except for "a...

UNIFIL: "The Worlds Most Expensive Summer Camp"

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:17 AM PDT

Michael Rubin writes about the utter failure of UNIFIL to do what it was supposed to:The rearming of Hezbollah -- to the point that, as Secretary Gates points out, they now have more missiles than most countries -- highlights the utter failure of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. What was a force of slightly less than 2,000 men, before the 2006 war, ballooned in the aftermath of the end of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 ending that war into more than 11,000 troops -- the budget for which, this year, is more than $500 million. Rather than maintain peace...

Jesse jackson's "terrorism for the innocent" moment

Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:09 AM PDT

The other day, Jesse Jackson referred to Arizona's new anti illegal immigration bill as "terrorism for the innocent" Jesse Jackon appeared on MSNBC today and told Contessa Brewer that the new law, allowing police to require proof of citizenship from anyone they "suspect" of being an illegal immigrant, is the equivalent of 'terrorism for the innocent...you look suspicious because you are Mexican." Jackson also seemed to suggest that even Gov. Bill Richardson was at risk of being pulled over under this law because of his appearance. Rev. Jackson is one to talk. Back in 1996 he said: ''There is nothing...

The nyt's one-sided debate

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:56 PM PDT

I did a quick roundup of op-eds appearing at the New York Times website duirng the year 2010. I suppose it may be somewhat arbitrary, but I did a search on the words "Israel" and "Hamas" between January 1, 2010 and April 29, 2010 and limited the resutls to the Opinion section. I know that doesn't include unsigned editorials. Nor does it include an op-ed by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. But it also doesn't include a vicious article by Robert Wright. My samplng leaves us with 6 articles from February, and 5 each from March and April. Follow the links...

Ain't Understanding Mellow: MPAC-UK and Yousef al-Khattab make up

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:14 PM PDT

You may have heard of the group Revolution Muslim, on whose website the now-famous threat to the producers of South Park appeared. MPAC-UK tore the lid off this group recently with a post entitled "Exposed: Israeli was behind Muslim 'extremist group.'" The "Israeli" turned out to be the "Jews-for-Allah" guy: Joseph Cohen/Yousef al-Khattab. It seems now that he has written to MPAC-UK to declare his true Muslim sympathies and credentials and his disassociation from Revolution Muslim. MPAC has responded with an apology: We hope brother Yousef can understand that the author was simply doing their job in ensuring that...

Nyt mideast op-eds apr 2010

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 11:12 PM PDT

Opinion pieces about the Middle East in the New York Times during April, 2010. 1) Tim Sebastian Of course, they're not the only ones who need to move on. The Middle Eastern stage is clogged with bad actors playing lousy parts. Like the well-meaning Irish foreign minister Micheál Martin, who wrote a few days ago in these pages about how unacceptable the Gaza siege was, but omitted to mention how it got there. The word "Israel" was almost completely absent from the article, leaving the uninitiated to conclude that the siege had probably happened by itself. Too many global players...

Nyt mideast op-eds mar 2010

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 10:29 PM PDT

Opinion pieces about the Middle East in the New York Times during March, 2010. Zion Evrony: For Israel, the vital interest is its recognition by Palestinians as the nation-state of the Jewish people, existing with adequate security arrangements alongside a demilitarized Palestinian state. For Palestinians, the vital interest is independence and freedom within their own state. 2) Thomas Friedman: I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's government rubbed his nose in...

Nyt mideast op-eds feb 2010

Posted: 28 Apr 2010 10:22 PM PDT

Opinion pieces about the Middle East in the New York Times during February, 2010. 1) Yossi Alpher: A second revised priority should address Hamas itself. It's time to recognize that all the strategies mustered against the Hamas "emirate" in Gaza since the takeover of June 2007 have failed. The economic warfare policy invoked by Israel, the Quartet powers -- the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations -- and Egypt has punished 1.4 million Gazans, impoverished the moderate middle class and empowered and enriched Islamist smugglers, yet has failed to dislodge the Hamas regime. It is plainly...
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