Category Archives: Terrorism

Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Military, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, War

The following is from “Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards,” now on RT.

“In ‘Letters from Iceland,’ W. H. Auden reflected on ‘the cold controlled ferocity of the human species.’ The latest flare-up in the cold war between Hamas and Israel is ‘an extraordinary vision’ of that ferocity. …

…The locking of horns between Hamas and Israel cost 150 Palestinians and five Israelis their lives. The fight was started by Hamas. Hamas hides among unwitting civilians, who have no way of controlling its activities.

This fact does not give Israel the right to kill innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally.

Besides, murder is not ‘unintentional’ when you know it is inevitable.

… Israeli commandos such as the ‘Sayeret Matkal’ are trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations. ‘Sayeret’ soldiers can trace and neutralize the source of an attack against Israeli civilians sans ‘collateral damage.’

Yes, what’s the matter with Israel’s Special Operations capabilities? Where are Israel’s precision Pac Men?

Did the Israel Defense Forces rain bombs, willy-nilly, on the civilians at the Entebbe Airport—in Uganda, on July 4, 1976—where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine held 100 hijacked Jews and Israelis hostage?

Not on your life.

Led by Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Bibi Netanyau’s late great brother, 100 members of the ‘Sayeret’ traversed 2,500 miles to rescue their brethren. They killed only those who needed killing….”

The complete column is “Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards,” now on RT.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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Modern, Standing Armies Commandeered by Cowards

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Just War, Palestinian Authority, Terrorism, War

Although Hillary Clinton would like the world to think of her as indispensable in negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian ceasefire, she arrived in the region well after rumors had spread that an agreement was being brokered by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsy.

If regional players know they will ultimately have to face one another, only, they are more likely to reconcile.

Hamas is a rib of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ribcage. Let Morsy assume a lead in the negotiations between Hamas and Israel.

CNN: “Hamas listens to Mohamed Morsy,” Gerges said. “Hamas looks up to Egypt now, at this particular stage, and that is why Egypt has emerged as the most important state vis-a-vis Hamas and Gaza.”

Yes, let Morsy man up.

If I understand the events of the last few days, Hamas aggressed from Gaza, which it now controls. Israel responded with disproportionate force. The result: Gazan civilians are dying in disproportionate numbers. These people have no siren systems to warn them of an impending attack, no bomb shelters, no nothing. They just die. Or their meager homes are destroyed.

The abiding problem for the libertarian is justifying killing of innocents. One cannot.

Yes, Hamas started the fight. Hamas hides among unwitting civilians. But this does not give Israel the right to kill these innocent non-combatants, not even unintentionally.

Where are Israel’s precision pac men? What’s wrong with their Special Operations capabilities?

After the Lebanon fiasco, I proposed that “the state of Israel should consider stationing on the borders the best of its special-operations units such as the ‘Sayeret.’ It’s trained in surgical strikes, including modern urban counterterrorism operations.”

“Sayeret” soldiers can go door-to-door to trace the source of the attacks on Israeli civilians and take them out.

But no, modern, standing armies are commandeered by cowards. It used to be that generals led their men into battle. Now they issue orders to bomb innocents from above. And the soldiers sit in armored cars and fire away indiscriminately.

To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi: That’s The Question

Democracy, Democrats, Government, libertarianism, Media, Middle East, Military, Neoconservatism, Propaganda, Republicans, Terrorism, The State, War, Welfare

“To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi; That’s The Question,” and that’s the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

The gist of a cable received by the Office of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on August 16 this year, summarized an emergency meeting convened a day before at the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya.

The post could not be defended in the case of a coordinated attack. Such an attack was in the air, as Benghazi was home to “approximately ten Islamist militias” raring to go. The compound was small and understaffed. It lacked “the manpower, security measures, and weapons capabilities” to repel an all-out assault.

The cable laid out before Mrs. Clinton’s Emergency Action Committee what Fox News’ Catherine Herridge described, on Oct. 31, as “specific warnings” and “detailed intelligence.”

Fox News has been covering the Benghazi story wall-to-wall; the other cable news stations not at all. However, one specific snippet buried in the telegram was too fraught for the folks at Fox to probe.

In “liberated” Libya, the American outpost was also up against limited “host nation support.”

This was a coordinated attack on a despised presence, timed for the 9/11 anniversary. Living under de facto American occupation had enraged the occupied. Anathema to “free” Americans, this generic creature had evinced similar rage when he lived under Genghis Bush, in Iraq.

At first, the eminence grise of American opinion makers—left and right, Republican and Democrat—got behind the central conceit floated by the Obama Administration. The Arab world had once again erupted because of those of us who dared to insult Mohammad, Jihad’s muse. As the other set of despots used to intimate during its tenure in D.C., the perennial Muslim rioter resented the freedoms of our pole dancers, potty-mouthed entertainers, and loud, loutish politicians.

From the stuff that makes us “free,” these proxies for American power always exclude the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), authorized to hound us till end of the world, the alphabet soup of regulation agencies that prosecutes and regiments our best and brightest to the gills, the War on Drugs that assumes dominion over the most precious piece of real estate we own—our bodies—a welfare state that has been likened “not [to] a principality, but [to] a vast empire bigger than the entire budgets of almost every other country in the world,” and a warfare complex that gobbles up so much wealth and so many men, ours and others around the world.

As soon as it was discovered that these things—the accoutrements of a “wonderfully” messy democracy—could not be blamed for the attack on the Benghazi Mission, most media fell silent. …

The complete column is“To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi; That’s The Question.” Read it on WND now.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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To Be Or Not To Be In Benghazi; That’s The Question

Barack Obama, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Republicans, Terrorism, War

Benghazigate is a minor issue in the grand scheme of American politics. The Dems and Republicans are arguing not over principles but over procedural mishaps. In other words: What happened? How did it happen? Who covered it up? How do we go back to doing what we did before IT happened. (“IT” being the Sept. 11 attack on the American embassy that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.)

Viewed through the two-party prism, America wants to know how it can get diplomatic immunity from the dangers of occupation and interventionism. That’s all.

Likewise, the megalomaniacal media is not for peace; it’s for Barack Obama. They’ve depicted this war president as your good kind of killer; a thoughtful, great leader who agonizes over his kill lists with excruciating care.

Tomorrow’s final presidential debate at Boca Raton, Fla., will revolve around foreign policy. Unless Mitt Romney flip-flops to articulate a patriotic, non-interventionist policy; one that is antithetical to BHO’s—he’ll be playing second fiddle to Obama, as far as the American people are concerned (mainstream media already hates him).

It’s inevitable.

The other, more realistic strategy that might see Mitt Romney tied for the trophy is to go for the president’s jugular on Benghazigate. This might work for him.