The Good American in Haiti

[Tyrones own]

What do you think motivates those packs of eejits?

Not much other than the fact there are still too many damn infidels that
refuse to bow down and kneel before Muhammad....their Holy and
peaceful intentions are clearly stated in the Koran, you should give it a read sometime!

[muppet]

What do you think motivates those packs of eejits?

Not much other than the fact there are still too many damn infidels that
refuse to bow down and kneel before Muhammad....their Holy and
peaceful intentions are clearly stated in the Koran, you should give it a read sometime!

You don't think your Republican government's apparent need to invade some of their countries would have an impact?

Are you even remotely familiar with the history of Ireland?

[Tyrones own]

You don't think your Republican government's apparent need to invade some of their countries would have an impact?

Possibly but what's you justification for their peaceful interpretation of the Koran
long before Bush even new where Iraq was?

[Tyrones own]

Are you even remotely familiar with the history of Ireland?

Great...yet another history lesson on Ireland from a cut and run Mexican
as off topic as it is..again

[muppet]

Are you even remotely familiar with the history of Ireland?

Great...yet another history lesson on Ireland from a cut and run Mexican
as off topic as it is..again

How can you ever learn from history if you ignore any reference to it?

For 'they want to convert all infidels' type propaganda read 'the Irish are incapable of governing themselves'

Imperial propaganda 101. 

[Tyrones own]

For 'they want to convert all infidels' type propaganda read 'the Irish are incapable of governing themselves'

Ah yes I see it, the correlation here is astonishing alright I simply need look no further than the Koran.. thanks!
Have you no opinion good bad or indifferent regarding Galloway on youtube there? would you not agree it's a pretty damning
insight into the mind of a deranged brainwashed ideologue or will you be willing to defend it on here ? yes that's a question mark

[Declan]

Thought there was athread on ISreal sending in troops to Gaza but couldn't find it biut I suppose this article may give some expalanation as to the antipathy towards Israel and the states in the wider arab world other than they are all infidels etc

Israeli commander: 'We rewrote the rules of war for Gaza'

Civilians 'put at greater risk to save military lives' in winter attack - revelations that will pile pressure on Netanyahu to set up full inquiry

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem

Wednesday, 3 February 2010

   
A high-ranking officer has acknowledged for the first time that the Israeli army went beyond its previous rules of engagement on the protection of civilian lives in order to minimise military casualties during last year's Gaza war, The Independent can reveal.

The officer, who served as a commander during Operation Cast Lead, made it clear that he did not regard the longstanding principle of military conduct known as "means and intentions" – whereby a targeted suspect must have a weapon and show signs of intending to use it before being fired upon – as being applicable before calling in fire from drones and helicopters in Gaza last winter. A more junior officer who served at a brigade headquarters during the operation described the new policy – devised in part to avoid the heavy military casualties of the 2006 Lebanon war – as one of "literally zero risk to the soldiers".

The officers' revelations will pile more pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to set up an independent inquiry into the war, as demanded in the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report, which harshly criticised the conduct of both Israel and Hamas. One of Israel's most prominent human rights lawyers, Michael Sfard, said last night that the senior commander's acknowledgement – if accurate – was "a smoking gun".
Related articles

Until now, the testimony has been kept out of the public domain. The senior commander told a journalist compiling a lengthy report for Yedhiot Ahronot, Israel's biggest daily newspaper, about the rules of engagement in the three-week military offensive in Gaza. But although the article was completed and ready for publication five months ago, it has still not appeared. The senior commander told Yedhiot: "Means and intentions is a definition that suits an arrest operation in the Judaea and Samaria [West Bank] area... We need to be very careful because the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] was already burnt in the second Lebanon war from the wrong terminology. The concept of means and intentions is taken from different circumstances. Here [in Cast Lead] we were not talking about another regular counter-terrorist operation. There is a clear difference."

His remarks reinforce testimonies from soldiers who served in the Gaza operation, made to the veterans' group Breaking the Silence and reported exclusively by this newspaper last July. They also appear to cut across the military doctrine – enunciated most recently in public by one of the authors of the IDF's own code of ethics – that it is the duty of soldiers to run risks to themselves in order to preserve civilian lives.

Explaining what he saw as the dilemma for forces operating in areas that were supposedly cleared of civilians, the senior commander said: "Whoever is left in the neighbourhood and wants to action an IED [improvised explosive device] against the soldiers doesn't have to walk with a Kalashnikov or a weapon. A person like that can walk around like any other civilian; he sees the IDF forces, calls someone who would operate the terrible death explosive and five of our soldiers explode in the air. We could not wait until this IED is activated against us."

Another soldier who worked in one of the brigade's war-room headquarters told The Independent that conduct in Gaza – particularly by aerial forces and in areas where civilians had been urged to leave by leaflets – had "taken the targeted killing idea and turned it on its head". Instead of using intelligence to identify a terrorist, he said, "here you do the opposite: first you take him down, then you look into it."

The Yedhiot newspaper also spoke to a series of soldiers who had served in Operation Cast Lead in sensitive positions. While the soldiers rejected the main finding of the Goldstone Report – that the Israeli military had deliberately "targeted" the civilian population – most asserted that the rules were flexible enough to allow a policy under which, in the words of one soldier "any movement must entail gunfire. No one's supposed to be there." He added that at a meeting with his brigade commander and others it was made clear that "if you see any signs of movement at all you shoot. This is essentially the rules of engagement."

The other soldier in the war-room explained: "This doesn't mean that you need to disrespect the lives of Palestinians but our first priority is the lives of our soldiers. That's not something you're going to compromise on. In all my years in the military, I never heard that."

He added that the majority of casualties were caused in his brigade area by aerial firing, including from unmanned drones. "Most of the guys taken down were taken down by order of headquarters. The number of enemy killed by HQ-operated remote ... compared to enemy killed by soldiers on the ground had absolutely inverted," he said.

Rules of engagement issued to soldiers serving in the West Bank as recently as July 2006 make it clear that shooting towards even an armed person will take place only if there is intelligence that he intends to act against Israeli forces or if he poses an immediate threat to soldiers or others.

In a recent article in New Republic, Moshe Halbertal, a philosophy professor at Hebrew and New York Universities, who was involved in drawing up the IDF's ethical code in 2000 and who is critical of the Goldstone Report, said that efforts to spare civilian life "must include the expectation that soldiers assume some risk to their own lives in order to avoid causing the deaths of civilians". While the choices for commanders were often extremely difficult and while he did not think the expectation was demanded by international law, "it is demanded in Israel's military code and this has always been its tradition".

The Israeli military declined to comment on the latest revelations, and directed all enquiries to already-published material, including a July 2009 foreign ministry document The Operation in Gaza: Factual and Legal Aspects.

That document, which repeats that Israel acted in conformity with international law despite the "acute dilemmas" posed by Hamas's operations within civilian areas, sets out the principles of Operation Cast Lead as follows: "Only military targets shall be attacked; Any attack against civilian objectives shall be prohibited. A 'civilian objective' is any objective which is not a military target." It adds: "In case of doubt, the forces are obliged to regard an object as civilian."

Yedhiot has not commented on why its article has not been published.

Israel in Gaza: The soldier's tale

This experienced soldier, who cannot be named, served in the war room of a brigade during Operation Cast Lead. Here, he recalls an incident he witnessed during last winter's three-week offensive:

"Two [Palestinian] guys are walking down the street. They pass a mosque and you see a gathering of women and children.

"You saw them exiting the house and [they] are not walking together but one behind the other. So you begin to fantasise they are actually ducking close to the wall.

"One [man] began to run at some point, must have heard the chopper. The GSS [secret service] argued that the mere fact that he heard it implicated him, because a normal civilian would not have realised that he was now being hunted.

"Finally he was shot. He was not shot next to the mosque. It's obvious that shots are not taken at a gathering."

[muppet]

For 'they want to convert all infidels' type propaganda read 'the Irish are incapable of governing themselves'

Ah yes I see it, the correlation here is astonishing alright I simply need look no further than the Koran.. thanks!
Have you no opinion good bad or indifferent regarding Galloway on youtube there? would you not agree it's a pretty damning
insight into the mind of a deranged brainwashed ideologue or will you be willing to defend it on here ? yes that's a question mark

Pointless straw man argument as usual. 

I don't care if George Galloway claims to be a wolfchild of the moon. He is everything you say Michael Moore is. It doesn't make the invasion of Iraq any more right or wrong.

By the way I wouldn't boast about familiarity with the Koran where you are. The free world mightn't be very understanding.

[Tyrones own]

Pointless straw man argument as usual. 

Jaysus.... do you never get tired dancing?

I don't care if George Galloway claims to be a wolfchild of the moon. He is everything you say Michael Moore is. It doesn't make the invasion of Iraq any more right or wrong.

Right we've already beaten to death the fact that Iraq was a mistake but what's funny here is that
"you don't care what Galloway has to say" but ye boy's wouldn't exactly be on the back foot about berating Palin for her Dangerous views on the world!
They're all only dangerous when they're Christian Values and beliefs...right?

[muppet]

Pointless straw man argument as usual. 

Jaysus.... do you never get tired dancing?

I don't care if George Galloway claims to be a wolfchild of the moon. He is everything you say Michael Moore is. It doesn't make the invasion of Iraq any more right or wrong.

Right we've already beaten to death the fact that Iraq was a mistake but what's funny here is that
"you don't care what Galloway has to say" but ye boy's wouldn't exactly be on the back foot about berating Palin for her Dangerous views on the world!
They're all only dangerous when they're Christian Values and beliefs...right?

Let me see your logic here.

I think Palin is an idiot.
Galloway thinks she is an idiot.
Therefore i am a Galloway supporter?

She isn't the only idiot.

[magickingdom]

"There really is no help for people like you, you are too far gone and too much hate in your heart". 

Stew, it's people like me who have a heart can say what I said.

If you had of seen the same handy work of the US as me, then you wouldn't be so quick to put me down.

Again, I will repeat myself. "The US need to hang their head in shame for their role in Haiti right now."

And don't start me on their other achievements.

care to explain? you obviously hate the place and can see no good in anything the US does, that say a lot about you. i truly believe there ain't no pleasing some people

whats your point? that isnt what muppet quoted me as saying. .

[stew]

Pointless straw man argument as usual. 

Jaysus.... do you never get tired dancing?

I don't care if George Galloway claims to be a wolfchild of the moon. He is everything you say Michael Moore is. It doesn't make the invasion of Iraq any more right or wrong.

Right we've already beaten to death the fact that Iraq was a mistake but what's funny here is that
"you don't care what Galloway has to say" but ye boy's wouldn't exactly be on the back foot about berating Palin for her Dangerous views on the world!
They're all only dangerous when they're Christian Values and beliefs...right?

Let me see your logic here.

I think Palin is an idiot.
Galloway thinks she is an idiot.
Therefore i am a Galloway supporter?

She isn't the only idiot.

Playing the man again I see muppet.

[Tyrones own]

After 21 pages of deflecting questions and their willingness to discuss absolutely anything but the
point being discussed, I think most stable minded people on here have them both figured out at this stage
...there's wiser in St Lukes as they say round our way!

[Declan]

Why Washington Cares About Countries Like Haiti and Honduras
US interference in the politics of Haiti and Honduras is only the latest example of its long-term manipulations in Latin America

by Mark Weisbrot
When I write about US foreign policy in places such as Haiti or Honduras, I often get responses from people who find it difficult to believe that the US government would care enough about these countries to try and control or topple their governments. These are small, poor countries with little in the way of resources or markets. Why should Washington policymakers care who runs them?

Unfortunately they do care. A lot. They care enough about Haiti to have overthrown the elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide not once, but twice. The first time, in 1991, it was done covertly. We only found out after the fact that the people who led the coup were paid by the US Central Intelligence Agency. And then Emmanuel Constant, the leader of the most notorious death squad there – which killed thousands of Aristide's supporters after the coup – told CBS News that he, too, was funded by the CIA.

In 2004, the US involvement in the coup was much more open. Washington led a cut-off of almost all international aid for four years, making the government's collapse inevitable. As the New York Times reported, while the US state department was telling Aristide that he had to reach an agreement with the political opposition (funded with millions of US taxpayers' dollars), the International Republican Institute was telling the opposition not to settle.

In Honduras last summer and autumn, the US government did everything it could to prevent the rest of the hemisphere from mounting an effective political opposition to the coup government in Honduras. For example, they blocked the Organisation of American States from taking the position that it would not recognise elections that took place under the dictatorship. At the same time, the Obama administration publicly pretended that it was against the coup.

This was only partly successful, from a public relations point of view. Most of the US public thinks that the Obama administration was against the Honduran coup, although by November of last year there were numerous press reports and even editorial criticisms that Obama had caved to Republican pressure and not done enough. But this was a misreading of what actually happened: the Republican pressure in support of the Honduran coup changed the administration's public relations strategy, but not its political strategy. Those who followed events closely from the beginning could see that the political strategy was to blunt and delay any efforts to restore the elected president, while pretending that a return to democracy was actually the goal.

Among those who understood this were the governments of Latin America, including such heavyweights as Brazil. This is important because it shows that the State Department was willing to pay a significant political cost in order to help the right in Honduras. It convinced the vast majority of Latin American governments that it was no different from the Bush administration in its goals for the hemisphere, which is not a pleasant outcome from a diplomatic point of view.

Why do they care so much about who runs these poor countries? As any good chess player knows, pawns matter. The loss of a couple of pawns at the beginning of the game can often make a difference between a win or a loss. They are looking at these countries mostly in straight power terms. Governments that are in agreement with maximising US power in the world, they like. Those who have other goals – not necessarily antagonistic to the United States – they don't like.

Not surprisingly, the Obama administration's closest allies in the hemisphere are rightwing governments such as those of Colombia or Panama, even though Obama himself is not a rightwing politician. This highlights the continuity of the politics of control. The victory of the right in Chile, the first time that it has won an election in half a century, was a significant victory for the US government. If Lula de Silva's Workers' party were to lose the presidential election in Brazil this autumn, that would be another win for the state department. While US officials under both Bush and Obama have maintained a friendly posture toward Brazil, it is obvious that they deeply resent the changes in Brazilian foreign policy that have allied it with other social democratic governments in the hemisphere, and its independent foreign policy stances with regard to the Middle East, Iran, and elsewhere.

The US actually intervened in Brazilian politics as recently as 2005, organising a conference to promote a legal change that would make it more difficult for legislators to switch parties. This would have strengthened the opposition to Lula's Workers' party (PT) government, since the PT has party discipline but many opposition politicians do not. This intervention by the US government was only discovered last year through a Freedom of Information Act request filed in Washington. There are many other interventions taking place throughout the hemisphere that we do not know about. The United States has been heavily involved in Chilean politics since the 1960s, long before they organised the overthrow of Chilean democracy in 1973.

In October 1970, President Richard Nixon was cursing in the Oval Office about the Social Democratic president of Chile, Salvador Allende. "That son of a bitch!" said Richard Nixon on 15 October. "That son of a bitch Allende – we're going to smash him." A few weeks later he explained why:

    The main concern in Chile is that [Allende] can consolidate himself, and the picture projected to the world will be his success ... If we let the potential leaders in South America think they can move like Chile and have it both ways, we will be in trouble.

That is another reason that pawns matter, and Nixon's nightmare did in fact come true a quarter-century later, as one country after another elected independent left governments that Washington did not want. The United States ended up "losing" most of the region. But they are trying to get it back, one country at a time. The smaller, poorer countries that are closer to the United States are the most at risk. Honduras and Haiti will have democratic elections some day, but only when Washington's influence over their politics is further reduced.

[ardmhachaabu]

Good article Declan, thanks for posting it.  I am guessing that some of the pro-yank elements on here will rail against it for all they are worth, you aren't allowed to post such things about the US administration

Bad Declan