Military Affairs

Two Items…and Two Questions

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1) A Palestinian man has been sentenced to death by hanging for the “crime” of selling land to Jews.

Will the people who endlessly denounce Israel for its supposed interference with “Palestinian rights” have anything to say about the rights of this Palestinian man?

I think you know the answer.

2) Palestinian military forces are now being trained–at a cost of tens of millions of dollars to American taxpayers–by United States personnel.

Why on earth should we assist the development of a military which shields a regime under which atrocities such as the one above are a matter of policy?

Note also: The Obama administration is requesting changes to U.S. law which would permit aid to continue flowing to the Palestinian Authority even if officials backed by Hamas become part of a unified Palestinian government. (Since Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization, aid would not be permitted under U.S. law as it stands.)

Political AIDS: the First Symptom is Pirates

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The thing that strikes me most about the Somali  pirate  problem  is the shear trivial nature of the physical threat. Via Instantpundit comes this report which says:

Separately Sunday, the captain of an Italian cruise ship said his security staff fought off a pirate attack in the region Saturday with pistols and a water hose.  

Wow, who knew that the combination of  pistols  and  water hoses  created such a fearsome weapon! The navies of the world’s developed nations should look into obtaining this fearsome combination because apparently they cannot defeat these  awesome  pirates with the ships, aircraft,  missiles, radar,  satellites and all the other multi-billion dollar weapons they currently have.  

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South Park Foreign Policy

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Via Instapundit comes this report on the U.S. struggle to deal with Somali pirates:

Gen. David Petraeus, who came to the Capitol to talk about a wide variety of issues, told a House committee Friday that just trying to outrun or block pirates from boarding cargo ships isn’t enough to deter sea bandits off the Somali coast who are becoming more aggressive. The Pentagon is starting to study how to better protect merchant shipping, but hasn’t yet come up with a formal plan.

They should just ask the writers of South Park:

Of course, we should shoot all pirates regards of race, ethnicity or creed. A pirate is a pirate.  

Announcing ChicagoBoyz Roundtable, Fall 2009

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Anabasis

Xenophon’s Anabasis.

Obama’s War Crimes Hypocrisy

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So, Obama is thinking about prosecuting lawyers for war crimes. [h/t Instapundit]

Frankly, I doubt that Obama will actually go through with it. Leftists like to talk big about how horrible and murderous America’s military and  intelligence  services are, but history has shown that they are just hypocritical cowards when it comes to acting on their hysterical rhetoric. John Kerry started his political career with this statement made under oath before congress in 1971:

I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command….
 
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.

A shocking allegation but absolutely standard for the pro-communist-victory leftist of the day. It’s important to remember that for Kerry and the rest of the 25% most leftward part of the American political spectrum, America’s fight against communism in Indochina wasn’t just foolhardy or doomed but actively evil. America was engaged in an evil imperialistic war to prevent the people of Indochina from embracing the enlightened communist future they desired. Since America was a Nazi-like country that would attack and oppress innocent people, it followed that American soldiers would use Nazi-like tactics.  

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