Afghan Reviews, From Kucinich to Congress, Siegman: Israelis and Obama

Not one, but a series of reviews, from the Pentagon to American-led
training headquarters, all come to the same conclusions about the
Afghan enterprise. For the full story, Click on the URL of the lead article.

I've now read equally dire reports on Israel/Palestine and Iraq. I cannot
fathom the mindset of the administration or congress, or see anything
other than disaster in any of it. Read them at: http://www.nytimes.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/world/asia/06training.html?_r=1&ref=world

Reviews Raise Doubt on Training of Afghan Forces

By THOM SHANKER and JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
NY Times International Section Lead Story: November 5, 2009

The first two paragraphs:
WASHINGTON - A series of internal government reviews have presented the
Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan's military and
police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart
of the evolving American war strategy - to speed up their training and send
many more Afghans to the fight.

As President Obama considers his top commander's call to rapidly double
Afghanistan's security forces, the internal reviews, written by officials
directly involved in the training program or charged with keeping it on
track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling to nurse along the
poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt Afghan forces.

***

Kucinich Addresses UN Goldstone Gaza Resolution
November 3, 2009,

Congressman Dennis Kucinich addresses H.RES. 867 on the House Floor. H.RES.
867 condemns the UN Goldstone Gaza Fact Finding Mission Report.

Congressman Kucinich stated:

"Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost
as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending
that war crimes were never committed and did not exist."

"Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the
destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the
triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the
totalitarian."

"Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the
destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the
triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the
totalitarian."

"The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the
Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes,
including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the "Down is Up,
Night is Day, Wrong is Right: resolution."

"Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read,
concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which
it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution."

"How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly
approve of violations of international law and international human rights,
if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of
people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?"

"How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold
no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical
security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right
to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement,
their right to human security of jobs, education and health care?".

"We will have peace only when the plight of both Palestinians and Israelis
is brought before this House and given equal consideration in recognition of
that principle that all people on this planet have a right to survive and
thrive, and it is our responsibility, our duty to see that no individual, no
group, no people are barred from this humble human claim."

Thank You

***

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/opinion/02iht-edsiegman.html?ref=global

Israelis and Obama

Israelis do not oppose President Obama's peace efforts because they dislike
him; they dislike him because of his peace efforts. He can only regain their
affection by abandoning these efforts. So attempting to gain their affection
should not be the guide for his actions.

By HENRY SIEGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: November 2, 2009
:
Polls indicate that President Obama enjoys the support of only 6 to 10
percent of the Israeli public - perhaps his lowest popularity in any country
in the world.

According to media reports, the president's advisers are searching for ways
of reassuring Israel's public of President Obama's friendship and
unqualified commitment to Israel's security.

That friendship and commitment are real, President Obama's poll numbers in
Israel notwithstanding. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to
reinforce that message during her visit to Israel. The presidential envoy
George Mitchell has reportedly been asked to make similar efforts during his
far more frequent visits to Jerusalem.

The White House is about to set a new record in the number of reassuring
messages and video greetings sent by an American president to Israel, as
well as to Jewish organizations in the United States, on this subject. Plans
for a presidential visit to Jerusalem are under discussion.

Presidential aides worry that the hostility toward President Obama among
Israelis can be damaging to his peace efforts. This is undoubtedly true.

But a White House campaign to ingratiate the president with Israel's public
could be far more damaging, because the reason for this unprecedented
Israeli hostility toward an American president is a fear that President
Obama is serious about ending Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Israelis do not oppose President Obama's peace efforts because they dislike
him; they dislike him because of his peace efforts. He will regain their
affection only when he abandons these efforts.

That is how Israel's government and people respond to any outside pressure
for a peace agreement that demands Israel's conformity to international law
and to U.N. resolutions that call for a return to the 1967 pre-conflict
borders and reject unilateral changes in that border.

Like Israel's government, Israel's public never tires of proclaiming to
pollsters its aspiration for peace and its support of a two-state solution.
What the polls do not report is that this support depends on Israel defining
the terms of that peace, its territorial dimensions, and the constraints to
be placed on the sovereignty of a Palestinian state.

An American president who addresses the Arab world and promises a fair and
evenhanded approach to peacemaking is immediately seen by Israelis as
anti-Israel. The head of one of America's leading Jewish organizations
objected to the appointment of Senator Mitchell as President Obama's peace
envoy because, he said, his objectivity and evenhandedness disqualified him
for this assignment.

The Israeli reaction to serious peacemaking efforts is nothing less than
pathological - the consequence of an inability to adjust to the Jewish
people's reentry into history with a state of their own following 2,000
years of powerlessness and victimhood.

Former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination by a Jewish
right-wing extremist is being remembered this week in Israel, told Israelis
at his inauguration in 1992 that their country is militarily powerful, and
neither friendless nor at risk. They should therefore stop thinking and
acting like victims.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's message that the whole world is against
Israel and that Israelis are at risk of another Holocaust - a fear he
invoked repeatedly during his address in September at the United Nations
General Assembly in order to discredit Judge Richard Goldstone's Gaza
fact-finding report - is unfortunately still a more comforting message for
too many Israelis.

This pathology has been aided and abetted by American Jewish organizations
whose agendas conform to the political and ideological views of Israel's
right wing. These organizations do not reflect the views of most American
Jews who voted overwhelmingly - nearly 80 percent - for Mr. Obama in the
presidential elections.
An Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement has eluded all previous U.S.
administrations not because they were unable to devise a proper formula for
its achievement; everyone has known for some time now the essential features
of that formula, which were proposed by President Clinton in early 2000.

Rather, the conflict continues because U.S. presidents - and to a far
greater extent, members of the U.S. Congress, who depend every two years on
electoral contributions - have accommodated a pathology that can only be
cured by its defiance.

Only a U.S. president with the political courage to risk Israeli
displeasure - and criticism from that part of the pro-Israel lobby in
America which reflexively supports the policies of the Israeli government of
the day, no matter how deeply they offend reason or morality - can cure this
pathology.

If President Obama is serious about his promise to finally end Israel's
40-year occupation, bring about a two-state solution, assure Israel's
long-range survival as a Jewish and democratic state, and protect vital U.S.
national interests in the region, he will have to risk that displeasure. If
he delivers on his promise, he will earn Israelis' eternal gratitude.

Henry Siegman, a former national director of the American Jewish Congress,
is director of the U.S./Middle East Project.