Category Archives: Middle East

Middle East Musical Chairs

Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Middle East

Gleaned from its sources in the bowels of the Obama administration, DEBKAfile has provided the likely backdrop, and backroom deals, that have led to the tiresome and futile reunion of Bibi Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas, second-in-command in the Palestinian Authority, after the Hamas leader du jour.:

“Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks it concluded with Netanyahu’s senior aides Yitzhak Molcho and Uzi Arad.

Part of the deal was for Israel to line up with the Obama administration’s non-reaction to Iran’s activation of its Russian-built nuclear reactor at Bushehr last Saturday, Aug. 21. The United States promised, for its part, to deliver the Palestinians to the negotiating table for face -to-face talks after dropping their pre-conditions (determination of the 1967 lines as the final borders of a Palestinian state and a moratorium on Jewish construction on the West Bank and Jerusalem).

But most of all, the secret deal obliged Obama to refrain from twisting Israel’s arm on behalf of the Palestinians should the dialogue founder – as it is widely expected to do.

Wit this deal in the bag, Netanyahu was able to showcase the Obama administration’s endorsement of his diplomatic strategy and is rejection of Palestinian demands.

However, the deal was shown to have sprung a leak in the formal announcements in Washington of Friday, Aug. 20, debkafile discloses.
Whereas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton kept faith with Israel and turned down a last minute White House demand to insert this phrase in her announcement: ‘The United States could offer bridging proposals if necessary,’ into her announcement, the euphemistic phrase turned up in special presidential envoy George Mitchell’s remarks elaborating on the Clinton statement.'”

MORE.

UPDATED: Fine, We Won; Just Come Home

America, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Middle East, Military, War

“We won, we’re going home! We won! Its over! America, we brought democracy to Iraq!” Bless the poor survivor of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, who shouted these pathos- (and bathos) filled words out of “the back of his Stryker vehicle.” Jubilation among the soldiers, the second most abused and bamboozled people to have (voluntarily) taken part in the Iraq fiasco, is more than understandable. The first are the Iraqis, whom we conscripted involuntarily. (MURDER BY MAJORITY.)

I noticed that Keith Olbernmann and Rachel Maddow, who were honest about Bush’s war during the Bush years, have reversed course, declaring victory. I suspect this has something to do with the fact that 1) their guy Obama now owns the Iraq war. 2) Midterm elections are nearing.

“Amazing. We finally made it out, we made it back. We’re good. Happy to be here. Happy to go home. We got our mission done successfully and it was good to go.” So said Pvt. Nicholas Kelly. I’m chocking back the tears as I write (thinking of stuff like this, which I chronicled during the years of writing about Iraq).

Pvt. Troy Danahy of Hampton, N.H: I missed “Just America in general. I just miss grass, simple, little things, winter, snow and all that.”

After a mere week of 90 plus degrees in the shade here in the Pacific North-West, the olfactory sensations that come with the cool never fail to make my heart overflow for this beautiful landscape that is my home. Can you imagine how intoxicating the fragrance of home is to the poor men who’ve suffered the suffocating climate of Iraq, that barren, inhospitable, dangerous dump?

I’ll leave it at that. It’ll be a while before these men arrive on these shores of ours. Still, Welcome home. I’m a little tongue-tied, emotional, and teary-eyed myself.

Is it really over, or is this just another of their cruel, craven jokes?!

UPDATE: Recommended: “Iraq in the rear-view mirror” by Ned Parker. The Powers That Be have promised that the remaining troops will not see combat. I presume this means no more patrols for IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices).

UPDATED: Stoning: It Takes A Village

Islam, Middle East, Military, Nationhood, Religion

The Taliban did it is the spin in the media about the stoning to death of a young couple in northern Afghanistan. The many spectators who gathered to watch the stoning, as one news report alleged, were Taliban men. Executioners.

“The woman, Sadiqa, was 20 years old and engaged to another man, said the Kunduz provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Raza Yaqoubi. Her lover, 28-year-old Qayum, left his wife to run away with her, and the two had holed up in a friend’s house five days ago, said district government head, Mohammad Ayub Aqyar.”

“They were discovered by Taliban operatives on Sunday and stoned to death in front a crowd of about 150 men,” wrote another report. “First the woman was brought out and stoned, then the man a half an hour later.”

Still other reports emphasized that the Afghan government has condemned the barbaric act and that it was the only stoning since the US occupied this backward country. (The only one that we know of.)

The New York Times gives an honest account of this blood sport:

“The punishment was carried out by hundreds of the victims’ neighbors in a village in northern Kunduz Province, according to Nadir Khan, 40, a local farmer and Taliban sympathizer, who was interviewed by telephone. Even family members were involved, both in the stoning and in tricking the couple into returning after they had fled.”

It takes a nation of lunatics to imagine they can transform a country like this one.

UPDATE (Aug. 18): “It worked with Germany, didn’t it?” I’m convinced Nora is being cynical. She can’t be comparing the nation that gave us Ludwig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Thomas Mann, Immanuel Kant, Mercedes-Benz, on-and-on, to the people who gave us the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (say no more). She’s being funny. Besides, American welfare didn’t rehabilitate Germany post WWII; German genius and graft did. Even with an enormously debilitating welfare state, Germans are still the most productive, ingenious people in Europe.

UPDATED: The Warbots, The FLOTUS & Other Terrifying Things

Barack Obama, Christianity, Islam, Jihad, Media, Middle East, Military, Republicans, Terrorism, War

The first lady’s share of this week’s WND column, “The Warbots, The FLOTUS & Other Terrifying Things,” comes under the heading “PIMP MY FLOTUS”:

“A world away from her husband’s dirty little war was the first lady’s ostentatious sojourn to Spain. I must say that the Marie Antoinette metaphor for Michelle did not do it for me. Despite the motorcades and the session with the Spanish monarchs at their Marivent Palace – the mental imagine that I got was made in America; it came from reality TV or MTV. Shades of the shows ‘Pimp my Ride’ and ‘Cribs’ came to mind. Coloring my imagination was a vivid, prior mental image of the ‘sedate’ soiree the first lady held for Mexican President Felipe Calderon, down to the disco ball and the half-nude, pelvis-grinding Beyonce. (Bibi Netanyahu was confined to the cellar.)

Still sillier were demands our patrician pundits made (at least one of whom has touted one-time porn star Kim Kardashian as a role model because she does not imbibe) for Mrs. Obama’s dollars to be spent stateside, so as to boost the American economy. Michelle Obama’s income comes from taxpayers. The first family doesn’t produce anything; it only consumes American wealth. Somewhere in the U.S., productive activities have already been suspended to fund the POTUS, the FLOTUS and their lavish lives. It matters not where the first family spends the loot. …

Read “The Warbots, The FLOTUS & Other Terrifying Things.”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

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UPDATED: “BRING THEM HOME. BRING THEM HOME, NOW.” So says Vox Day, who perfectly captures the emotions evincied by women and children in this touching footage of “Troops Surprising Loved Ones”:

“There are few words sufficient to express the joy that one sees in the faces of the children and women in this video. But underlying that joy, one can also see an occasional glimpse of the stark terror of loss in which they have been living for months, if not years.”