Category Archives: Foreign Policy

UPDATE III: Obama Out Of The Closet On Israel (Cavuto & The Prince)

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Law, Nationhood

On November 20, 2008, I wrote a column titled “Obama’s And Abdullah’s Plans for Israel.” The column pretty much outlined what has come to pass today. Here’s the lead and a little more:

Barack Obama has decided to revive a plot the Saudi Crown Prince hatched in 2002. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz had suggested Israel beat a retreat to the pre-1967 borders, in return for the recognition, whatever that means, of the Arab world.
Back then, Time magazine made the mustachioed monarch its “Man of the Week,” for what it termed his “peace plan.” [Their enthusiasm today is a little more muted.] The Sunday Times now reports that:
“Obama intends to throw his support behind a 2002 Saudi peace initiative endorsed by the Arab League and backed by Tzipi Livni, the Israeli foreign minister and leader of the ruling Kadima party.”
A loose paraphrasing of U.N. resolution 242, this “peace initiative” requires Israel to give the Golan Heights to Syria, which is tantamount to returning land to the aggressors, and “allow the Palestinians to establish a state capital in east Jerusalem.” For its concessions, the Arab League will doff a collective kafia to Israel. As will Israel be given “an effective veto” on the national suicide pact known as the right of return—the imperative to absorb millions of self-styled Palestinian “refugees” into Israel proper.

Understandably, it’s a little tough locating in US media the precise wording of the president’s plan for Israel. But Ha’aretz has it:

U.S. President Barack Obama said Thursday that the U.S. endorses the Palestinians’ demand for their future state to be based on the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
“The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states,” Obama stressed during a major Mideast policy speech at the State Department.

If it continues to return land to the aggressors, Israel will be in violation of Nullum crimen sine poena, the imperative in international law to punish the aggressor (one that seems to comport quite well with the natural law). Israel has already breached this principle—and its own national self-preservation—by signing and honoring agreements (Oslo I and II) with a terrorist organization (the PLO). Israel has also flouted the “rights of necessity,” as explained by Professor of International Law, Louis Rene Beres:

“[T]his norm was explained with particular lucidity by none other than Thomas Jefferson. In his ‘Opinion on the French Treaties,’ written on April 28, 1793, Jefferson wrote: ‘The nation itself, bound necessarily to whatever its preservation and safety require, cannot enter into engagements contrary to its indispensable obligations.’”

What will Bibi Netanyahu’s do? That’s the question.

UPDATE I: Bibi has booed Obama’s latest decree. The Israeli Prime Minister, however, still used dhimi-like tones, which can only be ditched once Israel cuts the Gordian Knot that ties it to the US (foreign aid).

“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel would object to any withdrawal to “indefensible” borders, adding he expected Washington to allow it to keep major settlement blocs in any peace deal.”

MORE.

UPDATE II: GANGSTA DIPLOMACY. George Will: “Obama’s dilation on the 1967 borders makes matters worse: Borders are what negotiations are supposed to be about, not what is to be stipulated before negotiations.”

Remember Netanyahu’s last visited to the White House? The boorish Obama practically confined the Israeli Prime Minister and his party to the basement. Once again Obama has exhibited contempt for Netanyahu by making this Middle-East statement on the eve of the PM’s visit to the White House. Bibi can hardly bail on the bastard, and so is destined to be diplomatically humiliated again.

UPDATE III (May 20): I’ve just heard Fox News’ Neil Cavuto complaining about Bibi Netanyahu, while reverentially referening to The Saudi Prince, to whom he had just been making overtures. It was quite bizarre. Cavuto had suddenly turned into a defender of the Leader of the Free World (who presides over the largest welfare-warfare state in this “free” world), against the onslaught of the Israeli PM, who dared to lecture the venerable leader (BHO), as follows:

“For there to be peace, the Palestinians will have to accept some basic realities,” Netanyahu said, sitting beside Obama at an appearance with reporters. “The first is that, while Israel is prepared to make generous compromises for peace, it cannot go back to 1967 lines.”
In his speech about Middle East issues Thursday, Obama had reiterated U.S. support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem, suggesting that Israel revert to the territory it held prior to its gains in the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, while allowing for swaps of land between the two future states.
“These were not the boundaries of peace,” Netanyahu said at the White House. “They were the boundaries of repeated wars.”

Netanyahu ought to have given Obama a taste of his own boorishness and canceled his visit to the White House. Instead, he firmly but politely told the president what was what.

UPDATED: In Libya & Loving It (The Massacre That Never Was)

Foreign Policy, Islam, Middle East, Reason, Terrorism, UN, War

“NATO is deprived of all morals and all civilisation.” So said the Libyan government spokesperson Moussa Ibrahim, with whom I wholeheartedly agree. Two weeks ago the US and allies killed Col Gaddafi’s son and a couple of his grandchildren. Today we were licking our chops for more blood. Via BBC:

Nato air strikes have again hit the compound of Col Muammar Gaddafi, hours after Libyan state TV showed footage purportedly of the leader in Tripoli.
Libyan government officials said the attack in the early hours of Thursday killed three people, although this cannot be independently verified.
Correspondents said three rockets hit the base and caused extensive damage.
A video of Col Gaddafi aired Wednesday was the leader’s first appearance since his son was killed two weeks ago. Smoke rose from the Gaddafi compound, Bab al-Azaziya, and ambulances raced through the city as the last missile struck early on Thursday, reports said.

UPDATE (May 13): To “Compassionate Fascist”: There is nothing like asserting that the massacre that never happened would have happened had you not killed-off the people whom you claim were about to kill had you not killed them.

Is this not what is called a negative proof? RationalWiki explains: “A logical fallacy which takes the structure of:

X is true because there is no proof that X is false.

“If the only evidence for something’s existence is a lack of evidence for it not existing, then the default position is one of skepticism and not credulity. This type of negative proof is common in proofs of God’s existence or in pseudosciences where it is used to attempt to shift the burden of proof onto the skeptic rather than the proponent of the idea. The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence.”

UPDATED: Is Ron Paul Good For Israel? (Inadvertently, Yes)

Foreign Policy, Israel, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Ron Paul

The excerpt is from “Is Ron Paul Good For Israel?”, my latest WND.COM column:

“In 2007, the Ron Paul presidential campaign commissioned a short position piece from me concerning the congressman and Israel. In discussion with Dr. Paul’s then-campaign managers, I had ventured that to forge ahead as a viable candidate, Rep. Paul would need to convince the enormously powerful Christian Right that he was not hostile to Israel. For America’s Evangelicals—and not the puny AIPAC (American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee) often invoked derisively by libertarians—are Israel’s most powerful political lobbyists.

The truth is that libertarians consider Israel a bit of a vexation. As a principled libertarian and an unapologetic Zionist, I have strived to navigate these shoals without resorting to special pleading. … The time is ripe, then, to publish ‘Unshackling Israel,’ the piece I penned for Dr. Paul back in December of 2007…”

The complete column is “Is Ron Paul Good For Israel?”, now on WND.COM.

My new book, Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, can be pre-ordered from the publisher. Shipping is currently free. Follow the “Buy” links on the page. The Amazon account will be activated shortly.

UPDATE (May 14): Actually, I am unsure what readers mean when they assert that I must have “investigated” Ron Paul and certified him as a friend of Israel, whatever that means. Nothing of the sort. I have no idea what Ron Paul feels or thinks about Israel. The good news is that Paul’s First Principles are all I need to know about. And I do know these; these are sound. With the kind of First Principles Paul holds, he will be good for America, first and foremost, which means he will not be meddling with other countries, which, inadvertently, means he will let Israel conduct its own affairs.

Here is another thing I know: Paul understands that an American president will have a tough time currying favor with Americans if he tilts wildly toward the crazy Palestinians. Americans are generally pro-Israel. Simple. If Paul starts exculpating suicide bombers in Israel, it’s over. That’s the way Americans roll.

Bush Would Have Used The BLU-82

Barack Obama, Bush, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Republicans, Terrorism, War

Incredibly, some Republican Party media megaphones have been making the case that Bush deserves credit for the actions of Obama in eliminating Osama bin Laden. There is something particularity rank about this tack. It is one thing to credit the operatives in the field, but quite another to commend a far-removed gas bag like Genghis Bush with the kill. That is if you support what some are calling an extra-judicial killing. A Gallup survey indicates that “More than 9 in 10 Americans approve of the U.S. military action that killed Osama bin Laden on Sunday.”

What will it take for certain Republicans to give credit where credit is due? Would BHO need to switch parties (a minor ideological conversion, really).

The same Gallup poll shows, however, that, “Thirty-five percent say he deserves a great deal of credit and another 36% say he deserves ‘a moderate amount’ of credit. More than a quarter say he does not deserve much or any credit at all.”

This is probably a function of the general antipathy toward Obama’s policies, and not an objective assessment of the operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Rest assured that if something had gone wrong, the sitting president would have been blamed. “Former President Jimmy Carter knows about that,” notes the Huffington Post. “In 1980, Carter approved a plan to rescue the American hostages in Iran that ended in failure and left eight American servicemen dead. The botched mission was cited as one factor in Carter’s defeat when he ran for re-election.”

The attempt to drag Bush into this says something about the convergence of the two parties on matters of foreign policy. Obama has “embraced his inner neocon.” As a consequence, Republicans have few bones to pick with the president on the foreign policy front. What remains in their bag of political tricks is to make hay of his exotic origins (birth certificate), or to claim that his predecessor paved the way for (what they perceive to be) his recent success.

In any event, Bush’s military signature is the Daisy Cutter.