January 13, 2009

In Keeping with Lincoln Parallel, Michelle Obama to become Depressed, Schzophrenic

Really, what else is left to copy?

In a nod to the times, however, Mrs. Obama will be sentenced to The View instead of a mental institution.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:11 PM | Comments (43) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 12, 2009

CNN's Alibi Hasn't Seen the Raw Tape, and Won't Produce It

Today I contacted Paul Martin, the co-owner of World News and Features whom CNN cited in their claim that Ashraf Masharawi's video of his brother's death in a Gaza hospital emergency room as the result of being fired upon by an Israeli drone was indeed legitimate as shown, and not staged as many right of center bloggers have contended.

I asked Mr. Martin a series of questions about the video, including queries about the apparent inconsistencies in the timeline in various versions as told presented by CNN and Channel 4 as noted by Dan Riehl, and why the family was so adamant that an Israeli drone fired a missile that targeted the two boys playing on the rooftop. Did the family members directly witnessed a drone firing a missile, or did they hear the explosion, go to the roof, see a drone, and assume it was a drone that fired?

I also asked Martin, who is in the business of selling news footage, if CNN and Channel 4 were clients, and if so, if they purchased the edited versions of this Masharawi video, or if they purchased the raw footage to be made into a finished product by these news organizations.

Martin responded this evening via email that:

We plan to post the entire unedited videotape of the whole event, on our website, as soon as we can obtain the whole thing from Gaza... something which can happen when there is an end to hostilities.

There you have it, folks. CNN's alibi hasn't seen the unedited footage, and we can't expect to have them even attempt to provide it until the conflict is over.

Interesting, isn't it?

World News and Features claims to specialize in getting footage delivered from high-threat combat zones to the world's media organizations, and their ace videographer managed to get polished, edited footage of his brother's death in the hands of foreign media organizations within hours of the attack, but now they say we'll have to wait until the war is over to get the kind of raw footage that one would think is their bread-and-butter product.

Fishy?

You don't know the half of it...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:15 PM | Comments (38) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Joe the Plumber in Israel

Pajamas Media published a pair of articles today about Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a. "Joe the Plumber" going to Israel for ten days to talk to Israelis and provide commentary for PJTV. I wrote the pro-Joe article three days ago; Jazz Shaw wrote the anti-Joe article since then.

In my post, I don't think I made any unreasonable demands of the man whom admirers like to refer to as "JTP."

I’m not expecting Pyle's humanizing folksiness, nor Yon's gritty incisiveness, nor Crane's vivid imagery from Wurzelbacher. I don't know if he can craft a coherent sentence or conduct an revealing interview. And perhaps he'll be an absolute disaster as a journalist, even as he's created a PR explosion for PJTV.

But there is an obvious fear among so many members of the media so defensively and preemptively dismissive of "Joe the Plumber" trying his hand at reporting. Deep inside, they must wonder if an Ohio plumber could really be much worse than the so-called professionals we already have. There lies the fear that underlies those mocking Wurzelbacher in the media. It is a bruise to their egos when they realize that almost anyone can do what they do.

Since writing that post, Joe hasn't dazzled the world as a reporting prodigy, and has most recently been mocked today for telling a group of reporters that the media should be banned from reporting the conflict he was sent to report on:

"I think media should be abolished from, you know, reporting," Wurzelbacher said. "You know, war is hell. And if you're gonna sit there and say, 'well, look at this atrocity,' well you don't know the whole story behind it half the time, so I think the media should have no business in it."

The media, of course, lapped up Wurzelbacher's comment with great glee and held it up as if it were their vindication. I'm not sure it was, as there are good reasons to ban journalists from war zones on occasion.

While an outright ban on media coverage is generally considered undemocratic and is certainly unpopular in a culture told we should have access to almost any thing at any time, the simple fact of the matter is that irresponsible and often ignorant just-in-time journalism endangers combatants and civilians, and far too often reports completely false information as undisputed fact.

This conflict is no different.

Certain heavily-biased Middle eastern and European journalists have castigated Israel for using illegal incendiaries against civilians. It turns out those "illegal incendiaries" are quite legal 155mm M825A1 shells used to create smoke screens.

An aid organization temporarily stopped shipments of food and medical supplies into Gaza based upon definitive claims reported by the media that an Israeli tank targeted and shot at one of their trucks with a tank shell, killing the driver. Days later, after many came to accept this as fact, it was revealed that tank fire was not involved in the death of the driver, and that Hamas sharpshooters armed with rifles may have killed him.

Two news organizations—CNN and Channel 4—uncritically reported the claims of a Palestinian cameraman who stated his brother and cousin were killed by an IDF drone that fired a missile at them as the played on a rooftop. That no known missiles could cause the cartoonishly minimal damage shown on the rooftop, and that critics in the medical field quickly denouced the CPR performed on the boy in the hospital by a known propagandist dcotor as poorly pantomimed fakery, is buried by both networks, who defend the footage created by a cameraman who was later determined to have ties to Hamas.

France 2 is the latest to fake journalism, airing footage they claimed was from Israeli attacks, when the carnage aired actually come from a blast caused by Palestinian militants in 2005.

Another news organization can't tell the difference between dropping flares and dropping bombs. One pathic professional that reports from the region can't tell the difference between airplanes and helicopters.

So perhaps Joe the Plumber may turn out to be not much more than a media stunt. If so, he may still be more of a success if simply for causing less damage than our so-called professionals.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 06:37 PM | Comments (40) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 09, 2009

CNN Digs In On Israeli Airstrike Fraud

CNN is insisting that the story it aired of a Palestinian videographer filming his younger brothers death is entirely legitimate:

There's no truth to accusations by bloggers that a Palestinian camera crew staged a video showing the death of the videographer's brother after an Israeli rocket attack, said the team's employer.

"It's absolute nonsense," Paul Martin, co-owner of World News and Features, said of accusations leveled by bloggers at videographer Ashraf Mashharawi.

"He's a man of enormous integrity and would never get involved with any sort of manipulation of images, let alone when the person dying is his own brother," Martin said. "I know the whole family. I know them very well. ... [Mashharawi] is upset and angry that anyone would think of him having done anything like this. ... This is ridiculous. He's independent."

Raafat Hamdouna, administrative director at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, said Friday that "Mahmoud Khalil Mashharawi, a 12-year-old, was brought to the hospital, and he was breathing, but he was hit in the head and all over his body by shrapnel. He died later in the hospital. He was treated by the Norwegian team. When he was brought in, he was breathing. The team did their best to save him. I am not really sure if they even tried to rush him to the surgery room, because he was badly hurt."

This is CNN's evidence?

Martin is the co-owner of the news company that employees the videographer; he has an intense vested interest in maintaining the credibility and reputation of his company and employees at all costs.

And precisely what kind of news World News & Features produce [h/t Snapped Shot]?

WORLD NEWS & FEATURES is a unique specialist news and features provider, in the print, audio and video media, specialising in CONFLICT ZONES.

It specialises in high-quality and impeccably-researched content.

It only provides the material to non-competing clients. Under its unique system, each PREMIER CLIENT can brand the material as "From Our Own Correspondent" or "From ABC - Special to ..." or some other agreed wording.

A PREMIER CLIENT can also commission the writing, filming or broadcast of specific stories relevant to that clients region, city or specialised interest.

Premium clients can commission the writing filming, and broadcast of specific stories. Commissioned news, sold at a premium. Isn't that another name for mercenary propaganda?

If so, I wonder who commissioned these... or if they were done pro bono.

HAMAS ALLIES PREPARE FOR RENEWED CONFLICT

ROCKET MEN OF GAZA

DYING TO SMASH ISRAEL WALL SAYS HAMAS

RESIST, SAYS HAMAS ARMED WING

Martin is trusted by Hamas on at least a professional level, and has a financial stake in the credibility of his employee's story. Neither of these conflicts of interest were disclosed by CNN, for the rather obvious reasons it undermines their claim of the story's credibility.

And then there is the apparent discrepancy between the injuries claimed by hospital adminstrator Raafat Hamdouna and the lack of evidence of such wounds in the video footage.

Hamdouna claimed:

"Mahmoud Khalil Mashharawi, a 12-year-old, was brought to the hospital, and he was breathing, but he was hit in the head and all over his body by shrapnel."

The video shot by Ashraf Mashharawi does not seem to support this claim.

While a frame-by-frame analysis shows a possible gash on the lower leg and what may be evidence of blood localized on the lower trunk, there is no evidence of any wound to the head or upper body.

Others that have been following this story also find CNN's affirmation of this story's credibility less than credible, including Charles Johnson and Ed Morrissey.

CNN has also yet to explain what kind of Israeli drone could have fired the purported missile, and what kind of missile would cause the minimal damage shown on the rooftop where it is claimed these boys were killed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:09 PM | Comments (198) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Anatomy of a Media Hoax

As the IDF campaign in Gaza continues, so do attempts by Hamas and Hamas sympathizers to use the western media as an often willing propaganda tool.

Yesterday, media critic Charles Johnson commented on Little Green Footballs about a 2-minute CNN story that purported to show the death of a Palestinian child in Gaza that was captured on film by his brother.

Here is a copy of that CNN story.

The video purports to show a truly horrific series of events. A boy and his friend are said to be struck down are struck down while they play, deliberately targeted by an Israeli drone aircraft armed with missiles. As doctors frantically perform CPR, the child apparently dies in front of his horrified brother, who continues filming. The boy is taken home, where he is cradled in the arms of a grieving family member. The video then cuts to the roof of the family home, where a family member shows where he claims the Israeli missile strike took the life of the two boys. The video then shows the family taking the boy to a local cemetary in a shroud, where he is to be laid to rest.

It is a truly horrible story, and one no doubt played out by heart-broken families on both sides of this conflict far too many times.

The only significant difference in this story, however, it that it is an obvious fake, featuring a series of images that any credible news editor should have quickly recognized.

But what marks this story as a hoax, and what elements point to media collusion in promoting this video as propaganda? Please watch the video above again, and we'll go through those elements step-by-step.

They are:

• basic medical procedures are poorly faked
• known propaganda actors are used in this film
• the site of the attack is poorly-constructed and inconsistent with a military attack.
• the body doesn't act like a body

First, let's return to the hospital, and take a look at our medical doctors and the life-saving procedures they are performing.

Narrated by Michael Holmes, the video opens with a Palestinian and European doctor hovering over what the narrator claims is a "victim of the violence."

The Palestinian doctor, on the right side of the camera frame, is shown to be mimicking a series of fast and shallow chest compressions as the doctor on the left examines a monitor.

The obvious problems? This is not how CPR is performed.

There is never an attempt to get the child to breath or to provide him with life-sustaining oxygen, and the chest compressions are far too shallow to be of any medical value at all. Real chest compressions performed during CPR are violent by necessity. For the lungs to fill with air heart to pump blood, they it must first be forcefully compressed using hard and deep pressure that uses a significant amount of upper body strength on the part of the person doing the compressions. The amount of forced used to successfully compress the chest would be very painful to a conscious victim, as the compressions often crack or even break the ribs. The doctor in this video is being very careful not to cause the out-of-frame victim any harm.

Such delicacy would not be practiced if desperate life-saving measures were actually needed. Nor would such care be wasted on a corpse used in such a re-creation. As we will discover later, this so-called victim seems very much alive and healthy, and they take great care to make sure he remains that way.

But enough about our Palestinian doctor poorly faking chest compressions. Let's have a look at our dashing Norwegian doctor on the left of the frame.

Sadly, the image quality is lacking i this still-frame from the video, but you get a much better shot of him accompanying this print story that happened to be running at the same time as CNN's video.

Isn't he quite the photogenic soul?

The BBC, CBS, CNN, Sky News, and other news outlets sure seem to think so, as they've all featured him and his special brand of spin:

International media reports, including those from the BBC, CBS, CNN and FOX’s sister station Sky News, present Gilbert as an ordinary doctor.

But a look at his record shows that Gilbert, 61, is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist "Red" party, and he has been involved in solidarity work for the Palestinians since the 1970s. He has criticized the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders for refusing to take sides in conflicts.

Gilbert volunteers at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza with the Norwegian Aid Committee (NORWAC), an aid organization funded by the Norwegian government, and he has been interviewed by the media on a variety of issues. Israeli government officials have said Hamas hides weapons in the hospital where Gilbert works.

NGO Monitor, an Israeli human rights watchdog group, says Gilbert presents one-sided criticism of Israel to the media and has accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians in its Gaza offensive to stop Hamas from firing rockets into Israel.

In addition to being supportive of the terrorist organization Hamas, Gilbert has voiced support for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

What makes mad Mads appearance in this video all the more shocking is that he can't be bother to even help make this bit of theater mildly convincing by even going through the motions of giving the victim air, a complaint quickly voiced by doctors who viewed the clip.

I'm no military expert, but I am a doctor, and this video is bullsh-t. The chest compressions that were being performed at the beginning of this video were absolutely, positively fake. The large man in the white coat was NOT performing CPR on that child. He was just sort of tapping on the child's sternum a little bit with his fingers. You can't make blood flow like that. Furthermore, there's no point in doing chest compressions if you're not also ventilating the patient somehow. In this video, I can't tell for sure if the patient has an endotracheal tube in place, but you can see that there is nobody bag-ventilating him (a bag is actually hanging by the head of the bed), and there is no ventilator attached to the patient. In a hospital, during a code on a ventilated patient, somebody would probably be bagging the patient during the chest compressions. And they also would have moved the bed away from the wall, so that somebody could get back there to intubate the patient and/or bag him. In short, the "resuscitation scene" at the beginning is fake, and it's a pretty lame fake at that.

Frankly, we need Foreman and House on this. If we're going to have fake CPR, we need to have fake doctors who can pretend to do it more convincingly.

Now, let's look at the impact site of the alleged Israeli drone's missile attack.

For reasons never explained in the video—or perhaps for obvious reasons—the narrator never quite explains why the Israeli drone found this incongruous pile of cinder blocks to be worth firing upon, nor does it explain why the drone stopped firing only after mortally wounding the one cinder block, leaving the other largely intact and still capable of posing a threat. I kid, of course.

The cinder blocks are the heart of the video segment filmed on the rooftop where the two boys were said to have been killed. A frame-by-frame review of this segment as the camera pans across the roof shows no evidence of scorch-marks, shrapnel, or scoring consistent with shrapnel in the area around the blocks that the brother suggests is the impact point.

There is no evidence of any penetration or contact with into the roof surface itself at that point or anywhere else shown— not a single mark, despite the fact that drone-class warheads typically have impact-dependent fuses that means they would have detonated on impact, or if delayed, would have penetrated into the home before exploding.

As the camera pains across the rooftop, confirming no evidence of blast damage, it pans past the kind of cheap resin chairs that grace so many homes and apartments worldwide, thanks to the magic of Chinese industry. You've probably had one like this yourself.

You've also probably thrown away your fair share of chairs exactly like this one as well.

One thing we have learned from years of foreign imports is that you can have "cheap," or you can have "quality," and this kind of chair is decidedly cheap. Flimsily made, they bend and break with little provocation, and perhaps just as interesting for our context, they are tossed violently a considerable distance with even a moderate wind.

Somehow, we're expected to believe that an Israeli missile detonated on this roof without causing any obvious shrapnel, or enough concussive blast damage to shatter a simple resin chair or even knock it over, and yet still have the power to kill two boys, including at least one that was on the far side of that chair (where the "blood" stains are) or shred the clothes hanging on the clothesline just feet behind the that.

Despite all the fiction so far, there is some actual truth in the video on the rooftop, when the narrator notes that the roof is "pock-marked." There are holes in metal panels and chipped concrete, as you can see in the images below.

You'll also note that the metal panels are corroded around the edges of the holes, which is interesting in that recent perforated galvanized metal shows up bright, only to corrode much later. The pockmarked concrete, likewise, shows the weeping of rust from the exposed iron rebar inside.

This rooftop does indeed show signs of damage, but it is far less obvious if the damage is a sign of substandard construction materials or from combat. In either event, the corrosion evident on both the metal and concrete assure us that the damage was done long ago. No missle impact here during this war, if ever.

Lastly, rest assured that our young victim is doing far better than his pretend treatment and shroud would indicate.

As he is about to be laid to rest, the shroud falls away, leaving his arm exposed to gravity. Conscientious even as a corpse, the young victim holds his arm tightly against his woundless body as the camera pans away. I suspect his family is celebrating his miraculous resurrection even as you read these words.

And what of his family?

His brother's grief was never too strong to keep him from documenting his brother's death, and he will cope by burying himself in his work. Considering that he is the general manager of the company that runs web sites for Hamas while they are at war, I'm sure he is quite busy, indeed.

As for CNN, they have carried on exactly as you would expect they would as the kind of company that would hide the torture of even their own employees just to retain favorability among despots.

While they quickly dropped the video from their site after being caught in this lie, leaving what must have been an uncomfortable void where the video used to be, they did so with no explanation, no correction, and no retraction.

It must have been a very interesting meeting when decided that the best way to handle this obvious farce was to double-down and continue to pretend this story was real, replacing the fradulent video with the print script of the story read by Michael Holmes.

The story is no less fraudulent, and the cover-up is far more damning.

This, truly, is CNN.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:31 AM | Comments (49) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 08, 2009

Pro-Hamas Doctors Caught Faking A Civilian Death... After CNN Airs Footage

Mads Gilbert, the radical Marxist Norwegian doctor that was the focus of a Fox News report earlier today for being an anti-Israeli Hamas apologist, has been positively identified as one of two doctors caught faking CPR on a Palestinian boy that "died" in video featured today on CNN.

The segment with Gilbert shows him and another doctor badly faking chest compressions and other life-saving measures on a live boy faking death in what can only be described as political theater. The video claims to be filmed by the brother of a Palestinian teen that claims the boy was one of two purposefully killed by a missile fired at them by an Israeli drone as they played.

Lawhawk, has more on why the fake CPR is so pathetically obvious to those with actual CPR training.

CNN editors who swallowed the story of the poorly-acted video unquestioningly—no doubt because it fit the anti-Israeli narrative familiar to CNN viewers and critics—have now pulled the video without explanation, correction, or retraction.

It has also been determined that the videographer who filmed his brother's "death" is the general manager of a company that hosts web sites for Hamas.

Dr. Gilbert was allowed into Gaza by the Israelis just 2 days ago to provide medical care. He was involved in faking war crimes less than 48 hours later.

Update: The CNN cover-up continues. Saddam Hussein's favorite network has now pulled the video completely from their site, instead posting a text story that continues the propaganda.

I suspect this attempt at avoiding the truth isn't going to work out very well for them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 07:04 PM | Comments (90) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 07, 2009

Working Stiffs Fluff for Bailout

The economy has brought many industries to their knees, including one line of work that spends a considerable portion of its time there anyway.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:28 PM | Comments (27) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Another Leftist/Islamist Lie Up In Smoke

It doesn't seem that we can have a conflict in the Middle East without pro-terrorist Islamists and Leftists in the world declaring that white phosphorus (WP) is a chemical weapon, and that the military force using WP is guilty of a "war crime" or "atrocity" for firing white phosphorus shells—never mind that that Islamist force targets civilians, uses their own population as human shields, and commits rape and torture with barbaric impunity to those they suppress.

Such apologist claims, almost without exception, based upon either radical politics, gross ignorance, or a combination of the two. In either event, these shrill claims are decidedly false.

A typical case of ignorance is the one I cited several days ago in the Pacific Free Press where the headline called the use of White Phosphorus by Israeli forces in Gaza the " War Crime du Jour."

Likewise, "Cernig," posting at Crooks & Liars, posted an equally inflammatory, fact-free and generally unhinged rant on the subject:

And there are good reasons to believe that the IDF is simply lying as part of a propaganda war it admits has been eight months in the planning: the use of indiscriminate white phosphorus airbursts, in contravention of international law as it is understood everywhere except the US and Israel (the 1980 Protocol III to the Convention on Conventional Weapons containsa blanket restriction on dropping incendiary weapons from the air against military objectives "located within a concentration of civilians"; the way in which the IDF is throwing explosives around so freely that almost as many of its people have been killed by its own "errant' tank shells as by enemy action.

Like most Leftists, Cernig is quick to pick and choose his atrocities of choice, completely ignoring that Hamas purposefully targeted Israeli civilians with thousands of rockets and mortar shells, in order for him to attack Israel by purposefully (and ignorantly) misconstruing what the laws of land warfare are, and what white phosphorus munitions are being used, and how.

The Israelis are not firing White Phosphorus incendiary weapons into Gaza.

This photo from Gil Cohen Magen two days ago shows Israeli 155mm M825A1 white phosphorus shells, with "M825A1" written clearly on the sides. I've cropping the image to focus on the M825A1 shells.

Update: A higher-resolution crop showing the shell markings more clearly.

Likewise, this photo posted today shows more Israeli 155mm M825A1 shells near a self-propelled gun.

Clearly, Israeli forces are using 155mm M825A1 white phosphorus shells in Gaza. But the white phosphorus shells they are using in Gaza are not incendiaries, and they are not being used in any way that can possibly be misconstrued as illegal.

Why?

Because the M825A1 is a smoke round.

From Global Security:

The M825 is a 155mm Smoke projectile used to provide screening or marking smoke. It is a separate loading munition using a hollow forged steel shell. The shape is ogival with a boat tail for aerodynamic efficiency and a welded steel baseplate. Close to the base is a gilding metal drive band protected by a grommet until just before loading.

The M825 White Phosphorus (Felt-Wedge) is a 155mm base ejection projectile designed to produce a smoke screen on the ground for a duration of 5 to 15 minutes. It consists of two major components, the projectile carrier, and the payload. The projectile carrier delivers the payload to the target. The payload consists of 116 WP-saturated felt wedges.After ejection, the WP felt wedges fall to ground in a elliptical pattern. Each wedge will then becomes a source of smoke. The projectile is ballistically similar to the M483A1 DPICM family of projectiles.

Smoke ammunition is a limited asset. Since ammunition requirements vary with each mission, observers should know the amount and types of smoke ammunition available and how many minutes of coverage it can provide. Extensive, planned smoke employment should be coordinated early with firing units to allow for redistribution or requisition of ammunition.

That's the short version.

The full article goes into far more detail about the nuance about the difference between the use of "quick smoke" and "immediate smoke" for battlefield missions, but one thing is painfully obvious—these are artillery shells and they contain white phosphorus, but they are not incendiary weapons, and they are not, by any remote measure, illegal to use in Gaza or anywhere else. They are smoke shells, used to create smoke screens.

The kind of white phosphorus artillery shells used as incendiary munitions are those called burster-type white phosphorus, and Global Security explains the difference between the incendiary and smoke rounds in sufficient detail .

The airburst Cernig and other terrorist apologists laments as an illegal attack is instead how a smokescreen is created to protect advancing soldiers. It is decidedly not an incendiary weapon, is decidedly not illegal, violating no laws or conventions.

Make no mistake—these apologists, Islamists and Leftists alike, are lying, pro-terror shills.

Few nations on Earth exercise as much care in waging a "humane" war as does Israel and the United States.

In this present conflict in particular the IDF has gone to extreme lengths to reduce collateral damage, from the careful selection of targets, to using precision-guided state-of-the-art weaponry to maximize the accuracy of their strikes, to using distinct weapons systems designed with different capabilities to use the absolute minimum of force to destroy terrorist targets, to even going to the extreme of phoning civilians near terrorist targets in order to evacuate them prior to attacks.

As Victor David Hansen notes, Israel has gone to historical lengths to protect a hostile civilian population, even as those hostiles openly back and publicly cheer terrorist attacks—more than 6,000 in recent years—that purposefully target Israeli civilians.

There is no moral middle ground here, but one of the most clear-cut battles between good and evil mankind is likely to ever see on this mortal plane.

If you side with Hamas, you side with evil.

Perhaps, then, I shouldn't be so surprised that so many of Hamas' apologists are so willing to lie for them.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:30 PM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 Then there are those of us from the Vietnam era who see nothing morally wrong about using willie peter on enemy positions and not just as marking rounds for artillery spotters.

Rules in warfare, when my life is at stake? I don't think so.

Posted by: Rex at January 07, 2009 01:33 PM (W309r)

2 WP is indeed a smoke producing agent. When I was in the army our M60 tanks could shoot WP shells, and I think my tank carried a couple rounds. But you get smoke from burning, and WP burns on contact with air, so if you get it on you, you need to douse it with water and then pick off the bits of WP from your flesh or it will keep burning. So, its purpose is smoke but a side-effect is burning. I agree, it is fine for the Israelis to use them for their intended purpose or laying down smoke, and if some Hamas members get burned, well... maybe they ought to stop murdering people, then they won't run that risk

Posted by: Brad at January 07, 2009 01:54 PM (NTFbl)

3 Wonder what would happen if Hamas somehow managed to fire white phosphorus rockets? Surely then the left would finally condemn them, right? /sarc.

Posted by: Vaultenblogger at January 07, 2009 01:58 PM (HG6DM)

4 In Vietnam, my platoon was ambushed several times. To counter the threat, we were given 3 mortars. To turn a Willie Peter round into an airburst WP round was simply a matter of replacing the detonation fuse with a timing fuse. We practiced a bit to get the right time and elevation and charges to burst over the trees that lined the road where we travelled. The last ambush we had stopped immediately after we shot off a couple of these airburst WP rounds. Very effective at saving lives, namely ours.

Posted by: Mike at January 07, 2009 01:59 PM (toXTX)

5 Personally, I think Israel should drop cluster bombs, WP, napalm and thermobaric bombs on those large gatherings of Hamas when they have funerals or political rallies. Same thing with hezbollah.

Posted by: SamIam at January 07, 2009 03:21 PM (jl7C/)

6 Unhinged is the polite way of saying it.

Posted by: Jack at January 07, 2009 04:48 PM (Z1UDt)

7 Not that anyone notices anymore but you cannot have a warcrime wunless both combatants are geneva convention signers *and following the conventions*. As soon as one side declines to follow the rules the other is freed of any obligations as well.

Posted by: rjschwarz at January 07, 2009 04:49 PM (gk04J)

8 And these people are picking sides. That is something they don't seem to want to admit.

I call this "Che chic" --- it is a Western (intellectual) society form of flagellation. They pat themselves on the back for being big enough to demonize the "us" while bending over backward to ignore the reality of the "other" ---- which means in reality that they champion the other - no matter how grotesque.

So, the Palestinians are just another of those poor, downtrodden masses, yearning to be free, trampled on by the rich, democratic, industrial-capitalist world order --- and as such victims of all that made the Che chic-types free (like capitalism and democracy and industrialization) ---- whatever this "other" does must be excused. ----- while the state of Israel - by being too much aligned with the world order - must be condemned.

It really isn't about championing the Palestinians. It's about making themselves feel better for being "progressive" -- which means attacking the foundations of their own (Western) societies.

But -- it still - in the end - champions the likes of Hamas....

Posted by: usinkorea at January 07, 2009 06:07 PM (lK2Wx)

9 Well, even so-called "conventional" ammunition uses chemical propellants. Ergo, they are by definition chemical weapons.

Ooh, more war crimes!

Roofing nails packed into semtex vests, of course, are exempt from any arms agreements.

Posted by: Steve Skubinna at January 07, 2009 11:14 PM (Vcyz0)

10 White Phosporus is considered a chemical round because way back when Christ was a Corporal, smoke screens were part of the job of the Chemical Warfare Service, usually with 4.2 inch Chemical Mortars, an improvement on the old British Four Inch Mortar that was smoothbored rather than rifled. That gray green color of the shell body indicates a chemical round and the yellow stripe indicates an explosive bursting charge for it. That's mostly by tradition and long ingrained habit, otherwise they'd paint the things red like any other incendiary device like tracer ammo.

White phosporus is an incendiary agent. It burns, and it does cause some horrible wounds. As Brad noted, our tanks were loaded with a few as a part of our basic ammunition load, along with SABOT, HEAT, HEP and BEEHIVE. As trained, WP was considered to be appropriate only for screening and antimaterial use.

We also considered it to be excellent for taking out SAGGER, (Soviet 9M14M Malyukta antitank missile) operators. Suddenly becoming a crispy critter, tends to take the motivation out of the hardest of the hardcore. Fire has always been a good psychological weapon.

I don't know whether the Israelis are using their SMOKE rounds legally or not. I'm not there and like most other people reading about the current incursion or watching it on television, I can't comment on what they're doing because of that.

I do know that if I had to deal with snipers or Engineer Tank Killing Teams or other people who were trying to kill me, I probably wouldn't be terribly fastidious about what I used on them, since I'm not infected with the Martyr's Disease. I want the other guy to die for his country, not the other way around.

I'm not sure that I'd use smoke for screening in Gaza though. Too heavily urbanised and what screens an enemy from me, also provides cover to an enemy, even with Thermal Imaging Sights. Concrete will hold and reflect a lot of heat and if it's daytime, that lowers the contrast of the target in question some.

Bottom line though, is that we all ought to take a wait & see attitude on this, especially when you consider the fact that lawyers are hip deep in our wars now, and what people do either establishes a precident or violates one with the possibility of being prosecuted. And whatever's happening there might well create precident to be used against our guys one day.

David Drake made the best point on the subject, when he noted that whenever you send out a guy with a gun to solve your problems, you've created a policy maker and when it's his ass on the line, he's gonna do whatever he thinks that he has to in order to get it done and stay alive. People who expect otherwise are either delusional or lying. Pick one.

Posted by: Michael Shirley at January 07, 2009 11:43 PM (u0eeD)

11 Steve wrote:
Well, even so-called "conventional" ammunition uses chemical propellants. Ergo, they are by definition chemical weapons.

Ooh, more war crimes!

It's worse: human beings are powered by chemical reactions. They are also biological. The average Israeli soldier is quite a weapon in himself, so by sending troops into Gaza, Israel is using chemical and biological weapons against Hamas!

You may scream in panic and outrage now.

Posted by: Patrick Chester at January 08, 2009 02:31 AM (RezbN)

12 First of all, EVERY weapon is a chemical weapon. Guns use gunpower, a chemical. Even a kitchen knives are made of chemicals.

White phosphorus is also a chemical weapon. But it is not a chemical weapons banned under the Convention on Chemical weapons that "Cernig" mentions above. Whether it is simply a smoke round or not, doesn't matter.

Cernig uses sleight of hand to claim it's banned for use in "objectives located within a concentration of civilians". But EVERY weapon in the world is banned for use against civilians - there is nothing special about that, and that's why his posting was complete nonsense.

Posted by: John Rohan at January 08, 2009 03:55 AM (Xtvxj)

13 On another subject; I have noticed that the media's pictures of dead children that I have seen are a bit unreal. The supposedly dead children are not bloodied in any way. That is not to say that children are not victims, but I expect the green helmeted man to appear shortly. I don't have any confidence in the reporting by the Gaza stringers nor the Western media either.

Posted by: amr at January 08, 2009 07:27 AM (I4yBD)

14 Personally I'd have no issues with the Israelis going "old school warfare", which would entail pretty much wiping Gaza off the map. That's how wars were once fought and that's how the Islamists are fighting. I believe Sun Tzu said never leave an enemy at your back, and that is basically what Israel has done, except no matter which way she turns there's an enemy at her back.

We imagine ourselves and the world to be so civilized when in fact the majority of the nations/cultures/population is FAR from it. You deal with the uncivilized on a level they will understand. From a position of strength and the promise of utter obliteration.

Posted by: Scott at January 09, 2009 09:16 AM (mqy6N)

15 The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 01/09/2009 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Posted by: David M at January 09, 2009 12:24 PM (gIAM9)

16 A little lesson on terminology might help keep this thread focussed.

Today's lesson is taken from the Chemical Weapons Convention, which entered into force 29 April 1997.

Reading from Article II (Definitions and Criteria), paragraph 1: "'Chemical Weapons' means the following, together or separately: (a) Toxic chemicals and their precursors, except where intended for purposes not prohibited under this Convention..."

Moving now to paragraph 9 of the same article: "'Purposes Not Prohibited Under This Convention' means: [...] (c) Military purposes not connected with the use of chemical weapons and not dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare;"

Put them together and what have you got? (No, not 'Bibbity boppity boo') You've got this: Phosphorous (white or red, and there are munitions that use both), if used for military purposes not involving poisoning people, is not a 'chemical weapon' (burning people, by the way, is not the same as poisoning them - and I've yet to hear the morons bleating about phosphorous burns complain when a soldier gets ripped apart by fragments of white-hot steel from an exploding IED). A lead bullet doesn't constitute a chemical weapon when you shoot it into someone, even though lead is toxic. You're not using lead to poison the person, after all; you're using it to makes holes in him. There's a difference.

Phosphorous is also used as an illuminating agent in tracer rounds. Does that mean that every 5th bullet that comes out of a .50 calibre machine gun is also a 'chemical weapon'?

The definition of a 'chemical weapon' in the Convention is intent-based; if you're not intending to poison people with a given substance, then the substance is not a 'chemical weapon', no matter how toxic it might be. Generating smoke is clearly a purpose not prohibited by the CWC, which means that WP smoke rounds are not chemical weapons. Many of the other very toxic chemicals used by militaries are also not 'chemical weapons' because they're not used "to cause, through chemical action on life processes, death, temporary incapacitation, or permanent harm to humans or animals" (Art II, para 2).

Let's keep it real, here, or pretty soon the Huffington Post will be trying to ban toothpicks because wood is made of cellulose, and OH GOD, THAT'S A CHEMICAL TOO!

By the way, Israel - like its neighbours, Egypt and Syria - is not a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and therefore is not bound by its provisions. Something to think about.

Posted by: Arms control guy at January 09, 2009 12:32 PM (JO1Py)

17 I hope the administrator of this website respects free speech because this may test some of the views I've read. The use of WP gets complicated.

Assuming the 116 each, WP saturated felt wedges released by a 155 mm M825A1 WP smoke projectile can cause burns deep into tissue if it lands on a person... assuming burning WP is extremely difficult to put out when it gets on the skin (remember from basic training?)... assuming that, unlike other burns, painful chemical burns due to the absorption of phosphorus into the body through the burned area can result in liver, heart and kidney damage, and in some cases multi-organ failure . . . assuming that half the human being on the ground in Gaza are civilians ... assuming half the civilians are children ... assuming you wouldn't want your child to experience a M825A1 round fired over their head at, say a 4th of July celebration ... then why is it okay for the country of Israel to do so?

This is not a high school football game where you yell "kill 'em." There are real, live, innocent children on the ground (and their mothers) and, be honest now, while use of WP rounds may be legal in warfare, is use of them in a densely populated civilian area, (knowing they likely are harming innocent civilians, including by the way, Palestine Christians), the moral way for a civilized nation to conduct a military operation?

Am I aware that Hamas has fired their rockets into civilian areas? Yes. Are you aware they have killed less than 10 people? Are you aware that use of disportionate force can be considered a war crime?

I agree with the argument made by the Israelis that we would not tolerate Mexico firing rockets on San Diego for as long as they have tolerated it from Humas. They make a good point.

I know eliminating the Hamas problem the moral way would cause a few more casualties on the Israeli side. Isn't the moral thing what the good guys do? Everyone knows Humas is outgunned a thousand to one in this conflict. Why can't Israel show a little moral restraint expected of a civilized country???

Unfortunately, military forces often must take place in civilian areas. Military Law only regards as criminal those deaths or injuries to civilians in a war zone that are caused by deliberate (i.e. not accidental) attacks on civilians by military forces, "OR" by grossly disproportionate use of force, in EXCESS of what military necessity provides for, against a military objective in close proximity to civilians or civilian buildings. Oops!

This is just my $.02. God bless you and your children and all the innocent children we are obligated to protect.

Posted by: Retired 28 year U.S. Army Vet at January 10, 2009 07:04 PM (BCjkl)

18 Are you aware that use of disportionate force can be considered a war crime?

I would expect a 28 year veteran to know that the assessment of 'proportionate' or 'disproportionate' is based on if the civilian casualties inflicted are reasonable with regards to the objective the operation was intended to achieve.

It most definitely does not mean you only get to inflict as many casualties on the other side as you have sustained.

I would also expect that a 28 year veteran would know that the presence of civilians very explicitly does not make it illegal to attack a military target- and positioning civilians in proximity to such a target is a war crime by the party that puts the civilians in proximity to the target.

This is basic stuff.

As far as the children are concerned, it's a damn shame their parents didn't do a better job of finding people who aren't murderous lunatics to run their country. Now they get to deal with the consequences. Hopefully they will do a better job next time. For their part, the Israelis seem determined to reduce the number of murderous lunatics in Gaza.

Posted by: rosignol at January 12, 2009 12:39 AM (aAePs)

19 Retired 28 &c,
"OR" by grossly disproportionate use of force, in EXCESS of what military necessity provides for, against a military objective in close proximity to civilians or civilian buildings."
You raise a point, sir.
However, isn't the idea (and I say this as one with no military experience) to make sure the balance of forces is grossly disproportionate? This strikes me as similar to the argument that the rockets fired by Hamas into Israel on a daily were not terribly accurate and therefore the Israelis are being mean by being more accurate and effective.
Israel is at war against an existential threat. They are trying to win that war. The way to win, really win, any war is to kill enough of the other side that the survivors sue for peace-on your terms-to stop the killing. The civilians elected the savages to run the government. I don't like to say it, but they have only themselves to blame for the consequences.

Posted by: irish19 at January 12, 2009 01:40 AM (6aeB2)

20 Existential treat? Here's an old article about who Israel considers an existential threat: http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1128/p06s01-wome.html

Is Gaza an "existential" threat to Israel? Absolutely not. Is Iran? Absolutely. Would Israel like to bomb Iran while we have troops in Iran? I don't know but some sources think so: http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2009/01/11/us_denied_israeli_bid_for_bunker_buster_bombs/
(You may also want to read the reader comments below it). If Israel is allowed to employ unrestrained military force in the region, will our 140,000 troops in Iraq be at risk? Will we ever get out of there?

We put the cost of the Iraq war on our credit card, meaning your kids pay for it. Who pays for the next one, your grandchildren? We're not just talking about the children of Gaza, we're talking about OUR children.

Look guys, Israel is our ally, but are they concerned with our best interests? Would it serve their purposes if the U.S. keeps troops in the middle east "FOREVER?" How could they make this happen? Maybe the unrestrained use of force against Iraq, which the Bush administration is trying to prevent. If we continually accept Israel's use of unrestrained force, will it serve our country's needs?

I seriously doubt we can EVER get out of Iraq if Israel is allowed to conduct unrestrained military operations. Isn't it time we consider our own interests.

Again, just my $.02 which is about all ANY of us will have for retirement if we keep paying for wars on credit. The United States is now in about the same condition as England after WWII, out of resources. Think about it.

These are only my thoughts. I don't intend to enter an endless debate, so I'm signing off.

Blessing to all of you. I know each of you is doing your absolute best to be a good citizen of our country and has it's interests at heart.

Posted by: Retired 28 year U.S. Army Vet at January 12, 2009 03:16 PM (fr0IU)

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January 06, 2009

Reuters: In The Service of Hamas

I've got post at Pajamas Media highlighting Reuters using deceptive captions to suggest that photos capturing the deployment of defensive flares (uses to thwart heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles) are weapons being fired on targets in Gaza.

This is an Israeli helicopter deploying a weapon (a Hellfire, most likely), as is this. No one with any competence could ever confuse a bomb, missile, or rocket with a flare.

Associated Press photographer Ariel Schalit can ever photograph and properly label both missiles and flares in the same picture.

Reuters, masters of fauxtography, don't even try.

It doesn't serve their interests of cashing in on anti-Israeli propaganda by selling biased and inflammatory photos to an always-enraged Islamist-friendly media in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:34 PM | Comments (32) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sacrificial Wolves

It was only a matter of time—Israeli counter-battery radar isolated Hamas mortar shells as they rose, and a computer algorithm quickly did the geometry and isolated the GPS coordinates of the launch location before the terrorist-fired bombs even began their descent.

Israeli counter-fire aimed at the launch site was likely in the air before the Hamas-fired shells impacted near their target of Israeli civilians.

When the Israeli shells impacted the Hamas launch site—a school—the terrorists got just what they wanted.

Israeli forces fighting Hamas in the Gaza Strip struck a school run by the United Nations, killing at least 30 Palestinians hiding in the compound, a UN official said. Israel said it was returning fire from the school.

Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency in Jerusalem, said in a phone interview he could confirm 30 dead and 55 injured, 15 critically, as the result of three Israel artillery shells hitting the school in northern Gaza.

The Israeli army said in a faxed statement late today that its investigations showed that "among the dead in the school were members of the military wing of the Hamas terror organization and a cell firing rockets and mortars at Israeli forces in the area."

Time and again, Hamas terrorists have fired weapons from schools, residential areas, hospitals, and mosques. Often these same sites have been used to store weaponry as well.

An Isreali drone captured a similar Hamas mortar attack launched from the exact same U.N. school two years ago.

Anti-Israeli hypocrites in the world’s media and Islamo-fascist states constantly cry that Israel is guilty of "war crimes" for returning fire against the aggression of various state-sponsored Islamic terrorist groups along its borders, and no doubt will rally against today’s casualties as an example of such.

What they will not admit—and perhaps ideologically, cannot—is that it is Hamas that is clearly guilty of multiple war crimes by any objective measure, as they continually embed militant forces inside civilian structures, population centers, and fire weaponry from within civilian enclaves that they use as human shields.

Perhaps equally as shameful is that the naked hatred of Palestinian culture towards Isreal is so extreme is that even non-combatants are more than willing to have themselves used as human shields, as they view the deaths of their own population as martyrs in a media war as an acceptable cost of attempting genocide against their Jewish neighbors.

Hamas militants did not have to force themselves into this school that recent reports suggest doubled as a weapons depot and firing position, nor in any of the dozens of residential neighborhoods, schools, mosques, and hospitals they’ve illegally weaponized in decades of terrorism. No, they were accepted willingly by Palestinians equally as bent on the destruction of Israel.

Indoctrinated by terror-loving, Jew-demonizing characters from birth on Palestinian television in a culture that lives to hate, fight, and die, there are no innocents here.

The high number of casualties in this particular incident suggests a similar patterns as in previous conflicts. Adoring Palestinians stood too close for too long after their terrorist heroes fired mortars at Israeli civilians. The Palestinians gathered around the launch site to watch munitions being fired against Israel simply didn’t anticipate the speed and accuracy of the Israeli response, and Israeli counter-battery fire detonating additional Hamas weaponry at the school only made the carnage worse.

There is a simple way out of such constant death and misery in Gaza for the Palestinians, a solution the Israelis had hoped for in 2005 when they pulled out of Gaza, giving the Palestinians a chance to form their own state, with their own government.

Instead of prospering and building a future for their children, they squandered their chance, choosing agony and a futile, constant war against an Israeli state that gave them a clear chance for peace and prosperity.

Hamas responded with violence.

All the dead of this war are on the heads of Hamas and the Palestinians that embrace and support them. There are no innocent lambs being slaughtered in Gaza.

Only the deaths of wolves.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:12 PM | Comments (33) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

January 05, 2009

Dear Terrorist Supporters: White Phosphorus is Not an Illegal Weapon

Pro-terrorist shills like this clueless twit give other leftist beards for Islamofascist oppression a bad name.

War Crime du Jour: Israel Deploys White Phosphorus Shells

When regarding the Christmas massacre conducted against the captive population of Palestine by the Israeli army in the name of the people of Israel's security, one is left to wonder: How deeply into Israel's vast arsenal must the IDF dig before the world's leaders act?

Do we wait until the nuclear option is put on the table? "Bunker busters" are already deployed; cluster bombs and the usual array of missiles, bombs, and bullets rained down on civilians and the civilian infrastructure. Hospitals, universities, police stations, mosques, and apartment blocks. Have we missed anything?

Just reality.

White phosphorus is in the inventory of most of the world's major military forces, including the United States, Great Britain, Russia. It is used for smoke screens, for signaling, and incendiary uses.

Global Security states it bluntly:

Israel used White Phosphorus against HAMAS targets in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in January 2009. This violated no international laws or conventions.

White Phosphorus in Gaza (as it was in Lebanon) is clearly being deployed as an obscurant, laying down a smoke screen to prevent Hamas terrorists from seeing advancing Israeli forces.

This is done to save the lives of soldiers from being targeted with IEDs and sniper fire, and—though leftists refuse to admit it— to also hopefully save the lives of Palestinian civilians by allowing Israeli soldiers to engage Hamas terrorists at close range with rifle and machine gun fire, rather than use more destructive arial bombing and artillery fire.

As for the "bunker busters" alluded to by the deluded author above, the GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, it too is designed to save lives by using minimal destructive force:

At just 5.9 feet long and 285 pounds, the bomb’s small size increases the number of weapons an aircraft can carry, therefore raising the amount of targets it can kill in one sortie. Because of its size and precision accuracy, it also reduces collateral, or unintended, damage in the target vicinity.

It is a small bomb that uses far less explosives that the 500-lb, 1000-lb, and 2000-lb bombs that air forces have had to rely upon in the past that could level several buildings or even a city block even with a precision strike, and being a bunker buster exploding below ground, it further decreases the threat of shrapnel and blast forces to innocent civilians.

As for the blackened bodies in Lebanon he cites as evidence of atrocities... well that was conclusively debunked, as was the fiction pushed by pro-insurgent leftists about the use of WP in Fallujah.

Keep your eyes out: you'll be seeing more of this pro-terrorist propaganda in the days ahead.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:42 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Not Quite Dead Yet

Yes, I've been a slack blogger lately, but I'm merely resting up for four years of pure comedy gold that the Obama Administration promises to be.

Panetta? Really? I guess was Stephanopoulos too busy.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:05 PM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 31, 2008

Happy New Year

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:47 PM | Comments (31) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ending Gaza

Let's put this bluntly: the Gaza Strip is a failed non-state run by terrorists pledged to genocide and dreaming of a second Holocaust. It has no discernible reason to exist other than to hate; no notable exports greater than the crude rockets and mortars targeting Israeli civilians for merely daring to exist.

Lets end it. It was a mistake. It's time to close Gaza.

Empty the 1.4 million Gazans living in squalor into the surrounding Arab nations who helped make it a modern Hell. Send them to Egypt. Syria. Jordan. Lebanon. Let these nations deal with the extremism they've midwifed by absorbing the bastard Arabs of the Middle East into their own societies.

Granted, such a repatriation will be welcomed by neither the Arabs of Gaza nor the nations who have to host the violent illiteracy and religious extremism they helped create.

But it is the only viable long-term solution for peace.

And an idea long overdue.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:19 AM | Comments (63) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 I agree, Gaza should become a buffer zone with nothing allowed to grow or be build over ankle high. A massive carpet bombing campaign should do the trick and close the rat holes the Mooslimes have dug all over the land of murder and rape.

Posted by: Scrapiron at December 31, 2008 11:49 AM (I4yBD)

2 I second the carpet bombing idea. . . I am just not sure they should let them out of the area first. The terrorists living there will just fight from their new home if given a chance. . ..

Posted by: JD at December 31, 2008 12:20 PM (VyXDV)

3 Good idea, but I think all those countries will resist violently. They know what has been created and will resist. But that would be nice to see.

Posted by: Federale at December 31, 2008 12:54 PM (H1JJq)

4 lots of empty land in Saudi Arabia......

Posted by: redc1c4 at December 31, 2008 01:06 PM (vLw7K)

5 With one small difference I will agree totally. Just substitute "palestine" for Gaza.

Posted by: Ken Hahn at December 31, 2008 01:18 PM (nHlbs)

6 One Israeli nuke-- send those chernozhopi straight to Hell.

Posted by: Ivan Ivanovich Renko at December 31, 2008 01:23 PM (RABxQ)

7 Proposal for a durable cease-fire: Give the Hammies one week. Count the number of rockets fired over the border in that week. Destroy everything, animate or otherwise, starting from the boarder and proceeding one meter west for every rocket during the baseline week. Repeat as necessary with a multiplier of two, then three and so on. Even if no one has the stomach for that (yet) stop feeding these scum as well as providing them energy, medical care and whatever else is the largess of Israel, the US and the UN. These pukes are pirates at best. Anyone with a claim to being a "moderate" Palastinian had best demonstrate that through deeds, pronto.

Posted by: megapotamus at December 31, 2008 02:06 PM (LF+qW)

8 Works for me.

Posted by: Vaultenblogger at December 31, 2008 02:38 PM (HG6DM)

9 While we're at it, make sure we deal with the Cynthia McKinneys attempting to aid the terrorists.

Posted by: Conservative CBU at December 31, 2008 02:51 PM (M+Vfm)

10 Yeah, did McKinney's canoe get searched? I wonder if it was all baby-milk and Band-Aids.

Posted by: megapotamus at December 31, 2008 03:10 PM (LF+qW)

11 "But it is the only viable long-term solution for peace"

Indeed. It could almost be called the "Final Solution" to the "Palestinian Problem".

Cheers

Posted by: Oyka at December 31, 2008 03:38 PM (qb2YA)

12 Oh, I know I know hear me out...Maybe you should suggest that we round up all these Gazans...perhaps COCENTRATE them all together in one spot (a camp or camps if you will) or in several places.

Genius!!!!

Posted by: Oyka at December 31, 2008 03:48 PM (qb2YA)

13 Oyka -

Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan already do just that. And since they have no birthright citizenship laws, children born in the CONCENTRATEs have no Lebabon, Syrian, or Jordanian citizenship.

Boy that sucks, huh?

Posted by: Adriane at December 31, 2008 04:05 PM (W7nzI)

14 Mega, makes no difference to me if it IS all baby milk and bandaids. Aiding and abetting the terrorists, is aiding and abetting, no matter what it is you're shipping to them.

Cynthia McKinney should be IMMEDIATELY placed under arrest upon touching US soil.

Posted by: Conservative CBU at December 31, 2008 04:18 PM (M+Vfm)

15 Cato the Elder had the right idea:
"Carthage must be destroyed."

The words are supposed to be have been repeated by Cato at the end of every speech he made in the senate, after his visit to Carthage in 175 B.C., when he became obsessed by the military threat posed by the city. It was eventually destroyed by Rome at the end of the Third Punic War in 146 B.C.

Contrary to legend, the soil of Carthage was not sown with salt.

The Palis should suffer Carthage's fate. But it won't happen.

Posted by: miriam at December 31, 2008 05:16 PM (p7QDM)

16 Kill everybody and let god sort them out seems to be your line.

No wonder the rest of the world things you are crazy, still as Bush has the man from Manchuria has wrecked your economy you wont be able to kill as many people in 2009 as 2008.

Posted by: Derek Wall at December 31, 2008 07:12 PM (EWJ1+)

17 Great idea, but won't work because the presnt situation is exactly what the Arabs states want it to be. They invented the notion of "Palestine" as a proxy for their continuously failed wars of extermiantion against Israel. Not only do the hapless Palis do all the bleeding and suffering and dying on their behalf, but Israel gets transformed from David into Goliath and instantly becomes a bully in world opinion, for the heinous crime of defending itself.

Derek, we don't give a rat's ass for the opinion of what you delusionally claim is "the rest of the world." You're a bloody handed accessory to genocide, feel free to STFU - or better yet, go stand in front of a Hamas missile factory as a subhuman shield.

Posted by: Steve Skubinna at December 31, 2008 07:32 PM (Vcyz0)

18 Killing the Palestinians won't solve the problem. It will only infuriate the Arabs, who will then become an even greater problem than the Palestinians.

No, the only solution is to kill them all, Palestinians and Israeli's alike - just sterilize the whole area and start over with the Amish.

Posted by: M. Onan Batterload at December 31, 2008 10:07 PM (bV7Pv)

19 Kill everybody and let god sort them out seems to be your line.

Did you read that somewhere, Derek? Did you read the post? What does it say? As for your second sentence, don't drink and type. It never works out well.

Posted by: Pablo at December 31, 2008 11:13 PM (yTndK)

20 This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 1/1/2009, at The Unreligious Right

Posted by: UNRR at January 01, 2009 11:21 AM (uKBSQ)

21 The great irony is that the Palestinians could be rich if they wanted to be. If they took all the aid money they receive and used it to build an infrastructure and businesses instead of spending it on munitions and feathering the nests of Hamas leaders, they'd be leading very comfortable lives. Consider Gaza - that is prime beachfront property. And the Pals took it over and trashed it.

But peace and prosperity isn't what they're interested in - not when there are Jews around to kill.

Never have a people been so undeserving of sympathy - and yet the murderous SOB's get it from moronic tools the world over. Why? Well, let's put it this way - the Palis are very, very fortunate to have the enemies they do. If other Arabs were killing them, nobody would pay attention or give a damn.

Posted by: Donna V. at January 01, 2009 10:14 PM (rTyiR)

22 Saudi Arabia needs foreign workers....half of the O/S foreigners could then be released to return to their homes.....problem is, the koran forbids having muslims as slaves and that messes up the Saudi plan. Guess they'll have to send them all to Lebanon. Lebanon is a palestinian controlled Iranian puppet now anyway and the thugs from Gaza and the West Bank would fit right in(after, of course, a bunch of gangland style killings and suicide bombings to sort out the heirarchy). The remaining Labanese that haven't yet moved to Dearborn, Michigan or Chicago will have to hash out living arrangements for the rest of the palestinians. That will give Israel a couple years of respite to salt the borders with minefields and resettle Gaza and West Bank with settlers. Cool plan eh?

Posted by: Tonto at January 02, 2009 11:53 AM (Qv1xF)

23 Tonto,

As a 2nd generation American whose paternal grandfather (and his father and grandfather) emigrated from northern Lebanon, I take exception to sending more murderous blankety-blanks to one of my ancestral homelands.

Of course, if it leads those blankety-blanks to their ultimate doom I'm all for it

Posted by: PhyCon at January 02, 2009 12:19 PM (4od5C)

24
Prior to the 1967 war, Gaza was part of Egypt (or at least administered by Egypt) and the West Bank was administered by Jordan. In the Camp David accords, Egypt wanted the Sinai back (minus settlers) but didn't demand/ask for Gaza as far as I can tell.

So whose fault is it the arabs in West Bank and Gaza don't have a country?

Posted by: iconoclast at January 02, 2009 01:15 PM (ddU4M)

25 The funny thing, iconoclast, is the timeline.

So, in 1967, Gaza was part of Egypt, and the West Bank was part of Jordan.

But when was the Palestine Liberation Organization (dedicated to liberating Palestine) founded? 1965!

So, what, exactly, was the PLO seeking to liberate?

All of a sudden, it would seem that the PLO, and the Palestinians in general as well as their Arab backers, weren't so much interested in liberating Gaza and the West Bank, as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and all the other parts of Israel, pre-1967.

Posted by: Lurking Observer at January 02, 2009 01:34 PM (6FBvO)

26 So you want a genocide? Stay classy, should get you back into power real soon.

Posted by: WOW at January 03, 2009 11:50 AM (6oxG5)

27 WOW, I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Everyone "knows" that civilians are just packed into Gaza, right? And the Israelis are armed with a full arsenal of modern weapons, from F-16s and cluster munitions to multiple launch rocket systems.

So, how many casualties have there been in the past five days? Five hundred? A thousand?

This must mean that the Jews are some of the most incompetent genocidal murderers out there, because with this massive arsenal of weapons, they can't kill more than 100-200 people a day! And this, with minimal anti-aircraft barrages and no SAMs from Hamas.

It almost raises the question, given this incredible level of incompetence, why Hamas hasn't liberated all of Israel by now!

That, or maybe your terms and concepts are wildly out of whack.

Naaaahhhhh.

Posted by: Lurking Observer at January 03, 2009 12:45 PM (6FBvO)

28 Moderate Palestinians?
I think they all left for more stable, secure places long ago. Only the terrorists and those too poor to leave are left now.

Posted by: AngryConservative at January 03, 2009 09:01 PM (jSsV8)

29 One question: How many Palestinian lives are worth an Israeli's. Because I see the current response as very unproportional. Hamas launches simple rockets that manage to kill few over a few years (although not taking into account the psychological toll). In response Israel launches airstrikes and now a ground invasion that has managed to kill hundreds more, dozens if not hundreds of those being innocent civlians (they are not all Hamas).

So what is it? Is an innocent Israeli worthy of life as much as an innocent Palestinian because I hear very little regard when Israel destroys innocent Palestinians. And as it turns out, in this conflict more innocent Palestinian blood has been spilt and is on the hands of Israel than innocent Israeli blood on the hands of both Hamas and Fatah over the WHOLE course of this conflict.

Nobody will deny that more Palestinians have died.

Posted by: Oyka at January 03, 2009 10:57 PM (DG9kt)

30 Nice try, Oyka. Sorry, but I for one refuse to play this game of goal-post shifting.

You start the fight, you're gonna have to pay for it.

The Palestinians fire rockets at the Israelis, they're going to pay for it. To throw the first punch (or several dozen or several hundred over several years) and then to cry "Foul!" because the other side shellacks you is nonsense.

If you break my little finger every week, does this mean that I am not allowed, after a year, to do more than break your little finger?

That is neither just, nor supporting the concept of deterrence.

That's just the philosophical problem w/ your "argument." That doesn't touch on just how many of those "civilians" are Hamas (at least you admit that many of them are). That doesn't touch on how Hamas is based AMONG civilians. That doesn't touch on how Hamas refuses to allow wounded Gazans to get medical care even in Egypt. (Whose fault is that, Oyka? The Zionists?)

By this "logic," the US should have stopped after the several thousand sailors killed at Pearl Harbor had been equaled by the number of Japanese killed?

But somehow, from your previous comments, I suspect you don't actually give a fig about the sons of apes and pigs. I don't think you give a fig about how Hamas brought the fire down upon Gazans, nor about how they have had no regard for Gazan casualties.

Which is why I won't bother wasting time with you.

Posted by: Lurking Observer at January 04, 2009 12:41 AM (Wrs4H)

31 Oyka,
Lurking is correct. If one country starts a war, no sane individual is going to listen to them when they complain about losing the very war they started.
If Mexico was shelling El Paso on a daily basis, I would expect that the USA would do more than just lob a few grenades back over the Rio Grande.

Posted by: Angry Conservative at January 04, 2009 06:40 AM (jSsV8)

32 Oyka, what would a "proportional" Israeli response look like? Should they just fire back into Gaza, rocket for rocket, mortar for mortar? Or should they just kill/maim a Gaza civilian for each Israeli that suffers the same fate?

Posted by: Pablo at January 04, 2009 12:45 PM (yTndK)

33 The only problem with the idea of putting the Palestinians elsewhere is that there is no Arab government that would be willing to accept them. They have already been booted out of Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt because they became involved in those countries internal political processes. Their purpose was to de-stabilize those countries, and install a Pro-Palestinian government. Needless to say, the rulers of those countries had some issues with such plans.

The fact that that Hamas-led Palestinians are openly associated with and backed by Iran (Persians, not Arabs), makes Arab nations even less likely to accept them.

Posted by: Dan at January 05, 2009 06:34 AM (bEM7/)

34 The Arabs in the other countries don't give a rat's arse for Palestinians...if they did, they would simply repatriate them willingly, but they don't care.

I say Israel goes all the way, wipes out Hamas and Fatah, and whoever wants to live in peace can live under Israeli rule. Their life will be astronomically better under their care than under the current terrorist regime who have done nothing to promote the well-being of Palestinians.

Posted by: Richard Romano at January 05, 2009 04:17 PM (kycO9)

35 "Hamas launches simple rockets that manage to kill few over a few years"

No doubt, a foolish, university educated leftist, taught well by his/her professors.

Posted by: Richard Romano at January 05, 2009 04:19 PM (kycO9)

36 Reading some of the troll posts, I am reassured that they are as stupid as ever. If not worse than before. Israel has been taking it, and taking it for YEARS. As someone said, how much are you supposed to take before you strike back? The entire purpose of Ham-Ass is to destroy Israel. So...what? Israel just lays down and dies? Would they?
Carpet bomb with neutrons. There is brainwashing from birth by these slime, so nothing must be left alive. Do you simply carve out the bulk of a cancerous tumor, or do you carve out everything you can detect and give chemo or radiation to kill any possible remaining cancer cells? It is a shame that these animals are programmed from birth. But they are. So in the interest of humanity this must be stopped, however is needed.

Posted by: cmblake6 at January 06, 2009 08:39 PM (QSVQf)

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December 30, 2008

IDF Starts Gaza YouTube Channel; Already Hit With Terms of Use Violations

The Isael Defense forces have started a YouTube channel to show the precision and care they are taking in destroying Hamas terrorist weapons dumps smuggling tunnels, and rocket launching sites located in residential areas by the terrorists. Hamas places the sites among homes and school in hopes that innocent civilians—particularly children—will be killed. Hamas can then use Palestinian and Arab cameramen with sympathies towards their cause to take pictures of the dead and wounded civilians for Hamas' propaganda war, which is typically waged via cameramen from Reuters, AFP, and the Associated Press.

Typically, as in the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, these photos are stage managed to varying degrees, while a few are occasionally staged.

Some photos are staged by physically manipulating scenes for news photographers to photograph, though the primary way Hamas manipulates the media is to tightly control their access, limiting photographers to areas where they can take generally only take pictures of dead and wounded civilians and Hamas &qout;police," never allowing them access to photograph bombed weapons smuggling tunnels, missile launching sites, and other legitimate military targets.

The IDF YouTube channel is a vital dissemination tool to counter the propaganda photos staged by Hamas and willingly participated in by the world's media outlets, and so it is perhaps no real surprise that the channel itself is already under attack.

Several of the videos showing the Isreali Air Force hitting Hamas rocket launching sites with GBU-39 precision-guided bombs have been flagged by pro-Hamas (or at least anti-Israeli) users and momentarily removed for terms of use violations before being restored. Some have been removed and have not been restored. Expect this online battle to continue, and perhaps intensify.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:57 AM | Comments (60) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

1 The American press has been doing the same thing to us for years, working the message till it no longer resembles the truth. The MSM is the counterpart to Hamas, Conservative websites are the counterpart to the IDF.

We have to teach our children how to go find the truth now. It does not appear at the simple flip of a TV on button.

Posted by: JK at December 30, 2008 12:37 PM (Z7PN0)

2 Seems like a "TrueTube" service is needed.

Posted by: Kevin at December 30, 2008 12:48 PM (roJck)

3 The IDF should start a channel at LiveLeak instead.

Posted by: Craig at December 30, 2008 12:51 PM (mEJO6)

4 As a beginning, you see the shortcomings of you tube.
The IDF needs to start a site owned by the Israeli government, hosted on hardware they own, and hooked up to backbone they control (leased to Israeli government)(, and protected from hackers by Israeli employees (government or contract)
If they can find reliable hosting elsewhere, they can always redirect the links later. (and if the hosting doesn't prove reliable they can take it back "inhouse").
Probably a distributed node network architecture, but all the hardware should be in Israel or Israel's embassies.

yanking utility service to embassies because you don't like what they are saying violates "international law".

Posted by: J'hn1 at December 30, 2008 12:55 PM (+A1UB)

5 Good to see the IDF following MNFIRAQ into cyberspace!

Posted by: desertdweller at December 30, 2008 12:58 PM (26nvS)

6 The IDF should start a channel at LiveLeak instead.

No, use both.

Demonstrating what YouTube won't show is just as important as the video itself.

Posted by: edh at December 30, 2008 12:59 PM (OjT5k)

7 Why doesn't the IDF just buy YouTube or start their own video hosting site. They could call it "JewTube"

(don't flame me, folks, it's just a joke. OK?)

Posted by: Ralph Gizzip at December 30, 2008 01:01 PM (9UpXS)

8 there's an MIT website which features all video that's been deleted by YouTube -- called YouTomb -- available at youtube.mit.edu (I haven't yet checked the YouTomb site for any youtube deleted IDF videos).

Posted by: J.S. at December 30, 2008 01:01 PM (P7eMS)

9 correction: make that "youtomb.mit.edu" (for deleted YouTube videos).

Posted by: J.S. at December 30, 2008 01:03 PM (P7eMS)

10 "it's just a joke. OK"

and a funny one at that.

Posted by: Boyd at December 30, 2008 01:05 PM (0hVL5)

11 Ralph, it was a lousy joke.

Posted by: Graham at December 30, 2008 01:05 PM (lxgQ7)

12 That's what they did to me too. Censored by the Obamabots. This is a big problem that Google needs to figure out ASAP.

Posted by: cakesecret at December 30, 2008 01:05 PM (uUGtX)

13 The IDF YouTube channel will be back up and running momentarily.

The AP is now reporting that beautiful Mossad agents have infiltrated YouTube HQ, seduced the staff, and incapacitated them all with poisoned lipstick.

Posted by: driver at December 30, 2008 01:50 PM (25C9v)

14 They could also try Blip.tv

Posted by: SSG Jeff (USAR) at December 30, 2008 02:42 PM (UrQ4c)

15 What? The media is allowing itself to be manipulated by one side of a political argument? I'm shocked, shocked! What are professional journalists doing to maintain their independence? They are professionals, aren't they? Hello? Hello? Anyone there? Hello? Oh, boy....

Posted by: Ed at December 30, 2008 02:51 PM (PCF7a)

16
REdon't flame me, folks, it's just a joke. OK?)

Posted by: Ralph Gizzip at December 30, 2008 01:01 PM

It's a type of joke that an antisemite would make.

Posted by: TT at December 30, 2008 02:55 PM (1IhU+)

17 So much for "don't be evil".

Posted by: Vaultenblogger at December 30, 2008 03:21 PM (HG6DM)

18 It could also be a comment that a Jew might make. I see no harm.

Posted by: Eric at December 30, 2008 03:28 PM (rawx6)

19 the problem with the suggestions of other video hosting sites is that they don't get the traffic Youtube does. If the IDF wants a lot of people to see its material, especially people who aren't already pro-Israel, Youtube is the place to be.

On Youtube you can post a video as a response to another video. The IDF should do that with every jihadi video.

Posted by: Yehudit at December 30, 2008 03:33 PM (0Tzs7)

20 I agree with Yehudit. I think the public relations war is almost as important as the real war against Hamas.

The IDF cannot rely on the international media since they are being led by the nose and are only reporting one side.

So you will always get stories where the IDF are commiting atrocities while Hamas are freedom fighters. So the IDF needs to counterattack on land as well as in cyberspace.

Posted by: Joemama at December 30, 2008 04:30 PM (MIJuy)

21 I worked at Youtube owner Google for a year as a contractor. The political leanings of the majority of the employees was so extremely leftist that it was a bit uncomfortable for a moderate such as myself.

I am completely not surprised that the politics of the employees affects what is considered acceptable.

Posted by: Ogre at December 30, 2008 04:46 PM (mqYab)

22 There IS a website called "Jewtube.com" and it appears to have Jewish and Israeli related video content on it.

Posted by: Bob in Houston at December 30, 2008 05:08 PM (sSr5k)

23 I occasionally post vidblogs, and the most recent one I posted on YouTube was posted to be seen, but for some reason the "email" option was shut off (not because I did it...I tried to change it and it wouldn't let me). It was about the dangers of gun control. Friends had to pass it around the long way because YouTube deliberately shut off that feature for that particular vidblog.

Censorship takes many faces.

Posted by: MelMaguire at December 30, 2008 06:39 PM (sBm2i)

24 How would someone in their right mind still believe they would get a fair shake from youtube?
Is this an example of Israeli intelligence?

Posted by: papertiger at December 30, 2008 06:52 PM (VFSPG)

25 Hey, papertiger, what makes you suppose that the Israelis expected a fair shake from YouTube?

I'd be surprised if Israeli intelligence hadn't already wargamed the Google/YouTube octopus' response. Now that the lefty Googloctopus has been busted for acting on behalf of Hamas by pulling the plug on Israel's attempts to get its side of the story out, Israel wins because (a) there's more interest than ever in the IDF videos, (b) more people are hearing about how Paliwood fakes its propaganda stories, and (c) lefty Hamas-symps like the Googloctopus are discredited that much more. What's not to like?

Posted by: Micha Elyi at December 30, 2008 09:17 PM (6j2L1)

26 Israel always creams the bad guys on the battlefield, then loses politically and in the media. Perhaps they are learning: there were some nice deception touches preceding the current war, an Israeli politico-military first.

Posted by: Bleepless at December 30, 2008 09:54 PM (2UF9E)

27 Does anyone know the link to the IDF channel?

Posted by: Jax at December 30, 2008 10:09 PM (evI68)

28 Two of the deleted IDF YouTube videos are now available via Powerline. The site is sluggish and the videos load v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, probably because of the number of users attempting to view them.

The videos show the degree of care the IDF exercises in singling out active Hamas members, especially when compared to the indiscriminate rocket attacks by the terrorists.

Posted by: Just Askin' at December 30, 2008 10:11 PM (esv00)

29 I suspect that if you look at the terms of use very closely, you'll find that being a zionist, advocating zionism, and portraying zionism in a positive light are per se terms of use violations.

But there's nothing in there about chopping off heads.

Posted by: Deuce Geary at December 30, 2008 10:27 PM (rZoaz)

30 I saw something very interesting today on current TV. That's Al Gore's network where they play homemade (and otherwise) videos that pass the youtube filters. Only 100% AP, Google, Youtube, DNC, approved content, all the time.

What I saw was a twenty minute spot devoted to a masked Hamas fellow building a rocket, then shooting it at Israel.
It was produced by Collective Media.

Posted by: papertiger at December 31, 2008 10:05 AM (8lx0N)

31 Videos of IDF striking Hamas
Here are some videos of the IDF bombing Hamas military targets. Reportedly, some of these videos have been removed from youtube.

Posted by: The Intellectual Redneck at December 31, 2008 10:27 AM (FMXM9)

32 Jihadi videos and antisemitic videos ok on you tube, pro Israel truthful videos verboten. Google should be ashamed of itself, but that would require a conscience.

Posted by: eaglewingz08 at December 31, 2008 11:24 AM (qh8b9)

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December 29, 2008

Meanwhile, Back in Iraq...

While everyone seems to have shifted their gaze to track Gazans reaping what they've sown, CY commenter Big Country has been busy in Iraq, explaining to State Department VIPS how not to kill themselves and getting bombed... on tequila.

Kinda reminds me of a sandy version of Robert Earl Keen's Merry Christmas From the Family, with body armor.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:10 AM | Comments (53) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 28, 2008

Because Monsters Are Always Monsters

From the "a zebra can't change its stripes" department comes this lovely story.

Hamas officials say 271 Palestinians have been killed and 600 wounded since Israel began its aerial assault on the Gaza Strip on Saturday, but none of the injured have yet left via Rafah.

Egypt has helicopters and doctors on standby at the Rafah crossing.
There are also up to 40 ambulances waiting to go into Gaza to bring out the most seriously wounded. Tonnes of medical supplies have arrived at the nearby airport of El-Arish.

But the Egyptian authorities say that, at the moment, they have no-one to treat.

Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said the wounded were "barred from crossing" and he blamed "those in control of Gaza" for putting the lives of the injured at risk.

The same terrorist organization that Palestinians and leftists worldwide cheer for targeting innocent Israelis for death on a daily basis is now barring their own civilians from getting medical care in hopes of converting their wounded into dead—wailing processions for the media's cameras are the only effective anti-aircraft weapons in Hamas arsenal.

Gazans fail at killing, and when the are killed in response, they kill the survivors. If there has ever been an entire population that is pathological than this one, I'd be interested in knowing who they were. Various Palestinian factions seem intent on this conflict continuing until one side or the other is completely wiped out.

And most times, they don't even seem to care which side.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:48 AM | Comments (45) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

Bombed in 30 Minutes or Less, Or Your Next One's Free

Israel has finally responded to extensive rocket attacks targeting their civilians with a surprise series of air strikes yesterday against more than 100 Hamas terrorist targets. Air strikes are continuing today, and Israeli ground forces are massing on the border with Gaza.

I'm sure that many people will think that an Israeli ground invasion is all but inevitable.

I also happen to think that Israel's next phase of strikes was banking on Hamas making just that supposition.

Israel's Saturday attacks went after overt Hamas targets in an effort to rattle their proverbial cages, hitting their most visible signs of power, Hamas security stations, armories, tunnels and training camps.

Hamas, trained and back by Iran just like Hezbollah was in 2006, was prepared and braced for a grinding ground war from fixed positions with concurrent and continuing rocket attacks on Israel, in hopes of winning the traditional Arab "victory," of not being utterly wiped off the face of the earth.

Hamas hoped to stall any Israeli ground invasion by making it as costly as possible by forcing Israeli units into ambushes. Overnight, Hamas rushed their terrorist drones to fighting positions along likely Israeli invasion routes to man tank traps and ambush zones. I strongly suspect IAF planners were counting on just that development.

If I'm right, Israeli Air Force planes have been hitting Hamas fortifications filled with eager young terrorists who died waiting for an invasion that will never come. Hamas was suckered into putting their fighters in combat positions while the IAF simply waited for them to show up for their pre-planned bombing runs.

If Gazans weren't part of a genocide-mad death cult I might feel sorry for them, but then I remember that these same terrorists purposefully target Israeli civilians, and that even their kids dance in the streets when Israeli woman and children are killed by Hamas rockets, and I don't feel too bad, at all.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:58 AM | Comments (35) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas, All

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:39 AM | Comments (42) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

December 24, 2008

David Spade's Arms Deal

The former Just Shoot Me star made a grand gesture to the Phoenix Police Department, giving them funds to equip their officers with AR-15 rifles to counter the firepower of increasingly violent Mexican drug cartels.

The thing is, Spade's donation doesn't seem to be going as far as it should.

The Phoenix Police Department has gotten some high-powered goodies courtesy of actor David Spade.

The one-time Phoenix resident donated $100,000 so that the department can buy approximately 50 AR-15 rifles.

Spade said he wanted to make the donation after seeing a TV news report about Phoenix officers having to buy their own rifles. Spade grew up in the Phoenix area and graduated from Arizona State University.

Phoenix Police Sgt. Alan Hill says the rifles will be given to patrol officers and that the agency was grateful for the gifts.

But how is Spade's donation of $100,000 leading to just 50 rifles for PPD patrol officers?

Even with the tremendous increase in demand due to the election of Barack Obama, the Phoenix Police should be able to get AR-15 carbines for far less than $2,000 a copy that the story seems to indicate.

The Bushmaster Patrolmans' Carbine, an M4-style AR-15 marketed to law enforcement, retails for less than $1,300, roughly the same as a similar version made by Smith & Wesson. And these are premium AR-style rifles at retail prices—there is no reason on the earth that a bulk agency purchase can't buy these rifles for less than a thousand dollars (the automatic M-16 has a replacement to the military of $586).

If Spade's donation is also helping purchase ammunition, magazines, cleaning kits, and/or officer training for these rifles as well, then he's not getting a bad value for his donated dollars. I would hope that his generous donation isn't being squandered on over-priced weapons, or the appearance of the same created by journalists guilty once again of not thoroughly covering a story.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:21 PM | Comments (39) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)

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