[Assam] force is effective only as a preventative

Fri Jun 4 07:10:46 PDT 2010

Dear Sushanta,

As an extension to our discussions, here is a column from the Washington
Post. While I don't particularly agree with what Krauthammer writes, in this
particular case, he seems to get it right.

Just because it is the US, the UK or Israel or the GOI or GOA, they are not
the root cause of all worldly problems and issues, and those against them
are always the victims.
**
*****Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted,
the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the
blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean
unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas. *

*Israel has already **twice intercepted ships
laden*<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16637-2002Jan8?language=printer>
* with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would
allow that?********** (from the article)*

Now, what country interested in their safety and well-being turn a blind
eye. Now, Hamas/Turkey is planning to send another "humanitarian" ship. Why?
To test Israel?

The article is below.

--Ram da
**
*Those troublesome Jews
*

Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 4, 2010; A19

The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its
illegality<http://www.mfa.gov.tr/address-by-h_e_-ahmet-davutoglu_-minister-of-foreign-affairs-of-republic-of-turkey-at-the-united-nations_-31-may-2010_-new-york.en.mfa>,
inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and
European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.

But as Leslie Gelb<http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-31/israel-was-right-to-board-the-gaza-flotilla/>,
former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade
is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a
self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000
rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to
unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a
blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

In World War II, with full international legality, the United States
blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we
blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba
turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board
them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for
doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a
hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief?
No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their
supplies to an Israeli
port<http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-gaza-aid-convoy-can-unload-cargo-in-ashdod-for-inspection-1.292560>,
be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into
Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian
supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the
flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade,
i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping
into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

Israel has already twice intercepted ships
laden<http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A16637-2002Jan8?language=printer>with
Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow
that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade?
Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically
de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and
active defense.

(1) *Forward defense*: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by
hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward
defense -- fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan
Heights) rather than its own.

Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace.
But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a
protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern
Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses
in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror
attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in
Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don't have to fight them here.

But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis
were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the
anti-Israel insurgencies -- and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause,
would bring peace.

Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land
-- evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An
intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side,
multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of
unrelenting rocket attack.

(2) *Active defense*: Israel then had to switch to active defense --
military action to disrupt, dismantle and
defeat<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-on-a-New-Strategy-for-Afghanistan-and-Pakistan/>(to
borrow President Obama's description of our campaign against the
Taliban
and al-Qaeda) the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern
Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.

The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were
met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same
international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli
withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone
report<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402279.html>,
which essentially criminalized Israel's defensive operation in Gaza while
whitewashing the *casus belli* -- the *preceding* and unprovoked Hamas
rocket war -- effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against
its self-declared terror enemies.

(3) *Passive defense*: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left
with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply
prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for
international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward
having it abolished.

But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?

Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting
flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front
organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus
at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough
of the Jewish problem.

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international
campaign is to deprive Israel of *any* legitimate form of self-defense. Why,
just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed
four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus
document<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052902304.html>that
singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus
de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again
-- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide.
For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from
defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in
particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

letters@ charleskrauthammer.com <letters@%20charleskrauthammer.com>

On Thu, Jun 3, 2010 at 5:55 AM, Sushanta Kar <pragyan.tsc50 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Well said and good suggestion Utamda! I could have avoid the word 'bloody'
> .
> No comments anymore for now.
>
> Sushanta
>
> On 3 June 2010 12:17, uttam borthakur <uttamborthakur at yahoo.co.in> wrote:
>
> > Dear Sushanta,
> >
> > The analogy between the "Emperor" and the "Pirate" applies here. The
> > "Emperor" (Alexander) molested the world, but had retained the right to
> > punish the "Pirate", who had molested a few ships. The reason for this
> view
> > is obvious; there would be no end to this debate, as the debate has not
> been
> > resolved even by 'war', the extreme method of seeking a resolution.
> >
> > But at the same time, use of less adjectives, and more of reasons, would
> > augur well for an argument. The use of the word 'concrete' by a German
> lady
> > (who was a communist, but Gestapo could not ascertain her leanings
> through
> > severe interrogation) at the fag end of an inqusition gave her away
> (Refer
> > to: The God that Failed) . So, it would be better to stick to admitted
> facts
> > (even what is fact for you may not be fact for another) beyond reproach
> > would make your case stronger, and even your detractors would keep a
> guarded
> > silence or stay away from entering a debate or try to evade the moot
> issues,
> > unless they have a vested interest in scoring over you. :-)
> >
> > Just tell me why should you call the British 'bloody'; the empire could
> not
> > do otherwise than to set up an empire, because the growth of mercantile
> > activities  had to find a market world-wide; just like the present US,
> which
> > cannot do without looting the scarce fossil fuel of the middle-east. If
> they
> > rely only on their own resources, the domestic prices would soar,
> > transportation costs will increase, all bills would go high, and the
> halcyon
> > days now reigning in the US may end up in a dated 'concept' of 'armed
> > rebellion' ( the citizens have more liberty to carry weapons than in our
> > place) for which they have already put in place the Homeland Security
> 'idea'
> > instead of 'concept'!
> >
> >
> > Uttam Kumar Borthakur
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > assam mailing list
> > assam at assamnet.org
> > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Sushnta Kar
> সুশান্ত কর
> তিনসুকিয়া, আসাম
>
> আমার ব্লগগুলি:
> http://sushantakar40.blogspot.com
> http://ishankonerkahini.blogspot.com
> http://ishankonerkotha.blogspot.com
> আমার সম্পাদিত 'প্রজ্ঞান'
> http://pragyan06now.blogspot.com
> http://sites.google.com/site/pragyan06now
>
> "স্বাজাত্যের অহমিকার থেকে মুক্তি দানের শিক্ষাই, আজকের দিনের প্রধান শিক্ষা"
> রবীন্দ্রনাথ
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