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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Mar 19, 2011 - 12:43am PT
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Mar 20, 2011 - 10:24pm PT
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Filling in for Fattrad as he missed this story in the exchange of missiles today:
"Hamas used force to break up a small rally today, witnesses said. An Associated Press Television News cameraman was nearby when he was cornered by Hamas police and beaten with sticks. He was briefly detained and released unharmed. Other cameramen also were beaten and some had their equipment confiscated by Hamas. Hamas also raided the offices of the Reuters news agency in Gaza. A producer was arrested by Hamas and witnesses later saw him leave hospital with a bandage wrapped around his hand. Reuters Bureau Chief Crispian Balmer said: 'A group of armed men entered our office in Gaza and threatened our employees and confiscated a video camera after we were spotted filming a demonstration from the building. They smashed a TV in the office, they clubbed one of our guys on the arm with a metal club and they threatened to throw another one of our employees out of the window.'"
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1367883/Israel-hits-Palestinians-unleash-heaviest-rocket-attack-2-years.html#ixzz1HCDKxv00
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Mar 25, 2011 - 10:23am PT
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March 25, 2011 12:00 A.M.
The Professor’s War
America is led by a man determined that it should not lead.
President Obama is proud of how he put together the Libyan operation. A model of international cooperation. All the necessary paperwork. Arab League backing. A Security Council resolution. (Everything but a resolution from the Congress of the United States, a minor inconvenience for a citizen of the world.) It’s war as designed by an Ivy League professor.
True, it took three weeks to put this together, during which time Moammar Qaddafi went from besieged, delusional (remember those youthful protesters on “hallucinogenic pills”) thug losing support by the hour — to resurgent tyrant who marshaled his forces, marched them to the gates of Benghazi, and had the U.S. director of national intelligence predicting that “the regime will prevail.”
But what is military initiative and opportunity compared with paper?
Well, let’s see how that paper multilateralism is doing. The Arab League is already reversing itself, criticizing the use of force it just authorized. Amr Moussa, secretary general of the Arab League, is shocked — shocked! — to find that people are being killed by allied airstrikes. This reaction was dubbed mystifying by one commentator, apparently born yesterday and thus unaware that the Arab League has forever been a collection of cynical, warring, unreliable dictatorships of ever-shifting loyalties. A British soccer mob has more unity and moral purpose. Yet Obama deemed it a great diplomatic success that the League deigned to permit others to fight and die to save fellow Arabs for whom 19 of 21 Arab states have yet to lift a finger.
And what about that brilliant U.N. resolution?
● Russia’s Vladimir Putin is already calling the Libya operation a medieval crusade.
● China is calling for a cease-fire to be put in place — which would completely undermine the allied effort by leaving Qaddafi in power, his people at his mercy, and the country partitioned and condemned to ongoing civil war.
● Brazil joined China in that call for a cease-fire. This just hours after Obama ended his fawning two-day Brazil visit. Another triumph of presidential personal diplomacy.
And how about NATO? Let’s see. As of this writing, Britain wanted the operation to be led by NATO. France adamantly disagreed, citing Arab sensibilities. Germany wanted no part of anything, going so far as to pull four of its ships from NATO command in the Mediterranean. France and Germany walked out of a NATO meeting on Monday, while Norway had planes in Crete ready to go but refused to let them fly until it had some idea who the hell is running the operation. And Turkey, whose prime minister four months ago proudly accepted the Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights, has been particularly resistant to the Libya operation from the beginning.
And as for the United States, who knows what American policy is. Administration officials insist we are not trying to bring down Qaddafi, even as the president insists that he must go. Although on Tuesday Obama did add “unless he changes his approach.” Approach, mind you.
In any case, for Obama, military objectives take a back seat to diplomatic appearances. The president is obsessed with pretending that we are not running the operation — a dismaying expression of Obama’s view that his country is so tainted by its various sins that it lacks the moral legitimacy to . . . what? Save Third World people from massacre?
Obama seems equally obsessed with handing off the lead role. Hand off to whom? NATO? Quarreling amid Turkish resistance (see above), NATO still can’t agree on taking over command of the airstrike campaign, which is what has kept the Libyan rebels alive.
This confusion is purely the result of Obama’s decision to get America into the war and then immediately relinquish American command. Never modest about himself, Obama is supremely modest about his country. America should be merely “one of the partners among many,” he said Monday. No primus inter pares for him. Even the Clinton administration spoke of America as the indispensable nation. And it remains so. Yet at a time when the world is hungry for America to lead — no one has anything near our capabilities, experience, and resources — America is led by a man determined that it should not.
A man who dithers over parchment. Who starts a war from which he wants out right away. Good God. If you go to take Vienna, take Vienna. If you’re not prepared to do so, better then to stay home and do nothing.
— Charles Krauthammer is a nationally syndicated columnist. © 2011 the Washington Post Writers Group.
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fresh pow
Boulder climber
phoenix
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Mar 29, 2011 - 01:36am PT
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Still waiting for bombs to drop on Iran. Oh wait, now its Libya. Next? A neighborhood near you. US foriegn policy under current administration is a joke. Domestic policy too. Haha. Not really. Unfortuantly. Sorry. I'm still hurting too. Whole admins a joke. So unbelievably mad I'll stop right here.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-extreme-right-turned-israel-into-an-anachronism-1.353451
The extreme right turned Israel into an anachronism
Unlike Europe, where the right has significantly grown but is still not in power, in this country the racists, the extreme and clerical right is the government, with only a vacuum opposing it.
By Zeev Sternhell
Slowly but surely Israel is acquiring the status of an anachronistic entity. The legislation that passed in the Knesset that dark night last week, which makes ethnic inequality a legal norm, has no parallel in democratic countries because it contradicts the very essence of democracy. In terms of the principle on which it is based, institutionalized discrimination against the non-Jewish population takes us back to the early days, when Israel’s Arab citizens were under a military government.
Read this if the truth matters to you.
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philo
Trad climber
Somewhere halfway over the rainbow
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Crickets........
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dirtbag
climber
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There is no C of C.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Truckee , CA
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Apr 11, 2011 - 04:47pm PT
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Not much, Jeff. For one reason - Israel.
Syria, Lebanon Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - all going "democratic would spell the end of Israel.
Just imagine all of those countries playing nice with the rest of the world, being good world citizens and against violence/terrorism but still have a population diametrically opposed to Israel, Zionism and it's nuclear program ( which is the case due to Israel completely poisoning it's world image - ranking #4 behind Iran, N. Korea and Pakistan ).
This would put Israel in a real bind no only in the court of public opinion but in the political realm as well.
She could not hide behind the "we are surrounded by terrorist states" any more to justify it's cache of Nuclear weapons, the large amounts of foreign aid from the U.S. and it's thumbing-of-nose toward countless U.N. resolutions ( funny how the leaders of Israel are always criticizing the U.N. unless one of it's rulings helps "the struggle" ).
Without an/many enemies and a "struggle", Israel as it exists now is just not possible.
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couchmaster
climber
pdx
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Apr 11, 2011 - 04:53pm PT
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Syria, Lebanon Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia - all going "democratic would spell the end of Israel.
Just imagine all of those countries playing nice with the rest of the world, being good world citizens and against violence/terrorism but still have a population diametrically opposed to Israel
We're all holding our breaths until this happens.
uhhh, sure [/sarcasim]
Please tell us when you expect all of these countries to go democratic, ie, be like Israel currently is.
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Douglas Rhiner
Mountain climber
Truckee , CA
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Apr 12, 2011 - 12:08pm PT
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You're not very bright are you! Here is your moderate Arab leader:
Jeff,
Your post proves my point.
Israel has so poisoned it's reputation that moderates and no one of right mind supports Israeli policies.
And, Jeff, you are about as bright as a black-body-radiator at 0°K
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Apr 15, 2011 - 06:04pm PT
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So now you're into just posting stupid pics and copy/paste articles?
Got brain?
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