[Assam] force is effective only as a preventative
Chan Mahanta
cmahanta at gmail.com
Fri Jun 4 07:18:17 PDT 2010
>the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the
>blockade,
*** so it is just to starve off the Palestians? Awesome argument,
ain't it?
On Jun 4, 2010, at 9:10 AM, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
> 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
>> _______________________________________________
>> assam mailing list
>> assam at assamnet.org
>> http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
>>
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