A better way forward on security?
I happened to learn of Lebanese rockets hitting Tel Aviv while in a meeting with Rep. Jane Harman, discussing her work strengthening Democrats' national security voice through her PAC SecureUS. We all stopped in dismay.
If ever a new approach to national security was needed, it is now.
Not only has war now broken out in Israel, but North Korea has acquired nuclear weapons and has begun missile tests--a program that had ceased since the Clinton compromise. Iran is next in line. Al Qaeda has attacked New York, Indonesia, London, and Madrid--and the Taliban are regrouping in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We have a threadbare force in Afghanistan, because rather than finishing that crucial job, we ran to start a war in Iraq--a war we must now leave a success or risk the further growth of terrorist training camps there, but which was a war of choice started when our job in Afghanistan was unfinished, and while the al-Qaeda network still flourished.
A tin ear for the world was good politics in 2004--but it is disastrous to our national security. I wish Jane Harman and our other national security leaders reviving the smarter security tradition of FDR, Truman, and JFK success--not out of partisanship, but because the world is getting very frightening--and America needs a better way to secure itself.
Lebanese rockets have hit Tel Aviv? In what alternative universe? Funny, Google News doesnt' say anything about strikes on Tel Aviv - only Safed and Nahariya.
Do FACTS even remotely interest you or is this all about a knee-jerk "Israel is being attacked" nonsense?
FREE WOMEN AND CHILDREN PRISONERS
July 13, 2006 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
If ever a new approach to national security was needed, it is now.
We're all ears. Do you have some concrete suggestions? You're the pro, aren't you?
July 13, 2006 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
She qualified that, sourced it as coming from a meeting with Jane Harmon.
In any case, people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
July 13, 2006 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I had to go check that one myself.
I found an article detailing the various rockets (and they aren't "missiles" since most of them have no guidance systems at all) Hizballah supposedly has, albeit from a pro-Israeli position. They are nicely well equipped - but none of them can hit Tel Aviv. Haifa, however, is within range of the longer range rockets. About a third of Israel's population might be at risk from at last some of the rocket types. Allegedly, Hizballah has maybe 13,000 rockets of several types. Most are still the old Russian Katyusha rockets, but some newer, bigger ones have apparently been supplied by Iran - the largest has a warhead of a few hundred pounds, but weighs several tons and is probably not long for this world if Hizballah actually tries to use it.
Of course, all that pales against the Israeli military capability.
July 14, 2006 1:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
SHe could have checked the statement first before rushing over here to once again portray Israel as the victim. Oh, Israel is always the victim, isn't it?
And speaking of glass houses:
"According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the army has killed 1,722 Palestinian civilians - more than one-third of them minors - as well as 1,519 combatants, since the intifada began nearly five years ago; the comparable Israeli figures are 658 civilians killed - 17% minors - along with 309 military. The army has investigated just 90 Palestinian deaths, usually under outside pressure. Seven soldiers have been convicted: three for manslaughter, none for murder.
Last month, a military court sentenced a soldier to 20 months in prison for shooting dead a Palestinian man as he adjusted his TV aerial, the longest sentence yet for killing a civilian, and less than Israeli conscientious objectors have got for refusing to serve in the army.
B'Tselem argues that a lack of accountability and rules of engagement that "encourage a trigger-happy attitude among soldiers" have created a "culture of impunity" - a view backed by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which last week described many army investigations of civilian killings as a "sham ... that encourages soldiers to think they can literally get away with murder".
(Guardian 28 June 2005)
Yes, child-murderers. THAT is who YOUR tax dollars are supporting.
July 14, 2006 9:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can't you edit this embarrassing piece of disinformation? Haifa is NOT Tel Aviv! I'm shocked that someone writing under the banner "America Abroad: Notes on Foreign Affairs" doesn't know that.
July 15, 2006 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid you're issuing a cry in the wilderness.
TPMCafe posters are honor bound never to read comments -- well, except for Schmitt and Newman, who occasionally exhibit their clandestine dishonoring of the tribe's rules by publishing responses.
July 15, 2006 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
A restoration of U.S. national security is vital concerning events in the last two weeks. Remember the fad cliché in the nineties about a New World Order. Not the most favored term for global affairs, however, we must look at the world from an entirely different lens. July 4 Kim Jung Ill and North Korea attempted to get the worlds attention with his exuberant missile display. Terrorists kill 200 hundred Indians in train bombing. In addition, an Israeli soldier kidnapped leading to a 5-day war in Israel and Hezballah. Today is the 16th. There is Iran, and do not for get the ever evolving democratization going on in Iraq. The Bush Administration and Congress most expect crisis to appear, uneventful at times, but indeed troublesome for our interests. A shift in doctrine will take place if Israel continues. A new doctrine based on current and future events of global affairs and national security may need to occur. Our hesitation in intervening in talks between Israel and Hezballah may be a hint that if we do not intervene Israel may rain hell on any opposing forces. War on terrorism now is popular.
Rachel Kleinfeld has a rather straightforward yet historic point about FDR, Truman, and JFK. The traditions and gifted points of views of these administrations got us through many crisis and groups such as the Truman Project are places to go and perhaps view the world with the right lens and solve global problems effectively.
July 16, 2006 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink