War News: Nov. 1, ‘06
1st November 2006
by gordo
A young Lord’s Resistance Army fighter
Ugandan LRA rebels sign new truce
Uganda’s northern rebels and the government have signed a new truce in an effort to revive stalled talks.
Under the August agreement, Lord’s Resistance Army rebels were supposed to gather at two points by mid-September. But both sides violated the deal. The new truce addresses rebel demands by creating buffer zones around the assembly points.
Israel
2005: Hezbollah marches in Beirut
Hezbollah confirms Israel talks
Hezbollah’s leader has confirmed that indirect talks with Israel on a prisoner exchange are under way, describing them as “serious”.
Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said a United Nations mediator had been meeting officials from both sides, but he provided no further details.
Israel launches major Gaza raid
Eight Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have been killed in heavy clashes in the northern Gaza Strip. In one of Israel’s biggest raids into Gaza in recent months, troops carried out three air strikes and moved to encircle the town of Beit Hanoun. Some 60 people were wounded as troops, backed by tanks and helicopter gunships, carried out the raid.
Iraq
(click to enlarge)
Military Charts Movement of Conflict in Iraq Toward Chaos
A classified briefing prepared two weeks ago by the United States Central Command portrays Iraq as edging toward chaos, in a chart that the military is using as a barometer of civil conflict.
In fashioning the index, the military is weighing factors like the ineffectual Iraqi police and the dwindling influence of moderate religious and political figures, rather than more traditional military measures such as the enemy’s fighting strength and the control of territory.
The conclusions the Central Command has drawn from these trends are not encouraging, according to a copy of the slide that was obtained by The New York Times. The slide shows Iraq as moving sharply away from “peace,” an ideal on the far left side of the chart, to a point much closer to the right side of the spectrum, a red zone marked “chaos.” As depicted in the command’s chart, the needle has been moving steadily toward the far right of the chart.
(So when President Bush said “We’re winning, and we will win, unless we leave before the job is done,” he was lying. –g)
U.S. Officers Detail Problems With Iraqi Soldiers
U.S. military advisers are confronting difficult behavior from Iraqi soldiers, who tend to fire all their ammunition in response to a single sniper shot or go on rampages even against civilians upon witnessing the death of a colleague, according to Lt. Col. Carl D. Grunow, a former adviser to an Iraqi army armored brigade.
“The ‘burst reaction’ may be attributed to Iraqis experiencing denial, anger and grief all at the same time,” Grunow wrote in a recent article published in Military Review, the bimonthly publication of the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Along Iraq-Syria Border, a Struggle to Cover the Terrain
U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trying for years to crack down on foreign fighters and funds moving across the border from Syria. But training efforts for Iraqi Border Patrol officers have picked up steam only over the past year. Better equipment such as new pickup trucks arrived only months ago.
Rumsfeld OKs increase in Iraqi forces
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday that he may approve proposals by the Iraqi government and the top U.S. commander in Baghdad to increase the size of the Iraqi security forces.
“I’m very comfortable with the increases they’ve proposed and the accelerations in achievement of some of their targets,” Rumsfeld told reporters at the Pentagon, when asked about a report by CBS News that Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, was going to recommend an increase of up to 100,000 soldiers and police.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:04 pm
The BBC, which is second only to the Guardian as the most anti-semitic and Israel bashing media outlet in Great Britain. has zero credibility in its Middle East reporting. Anything they say has to be taken with several tons of salt.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:30 pm
SLC–
Right. I’m sure there was no raid, and no deaths. The anti-Semites at the BBC probably just made the whole thing up.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Uh,
Not one of my contacts in the UK has ever mentioned the BBC as being anti-…well anti anything. It was my impression they were one of the most trusted news sources in the world. I mean, they aren’t too far right or too far left from what I can tell and they aren’t like Network F (on the right) or any of the left-leaning networks here in the US. Perhaps all my contacts are wrong or maybe they are all anti-Semites anyway.
Speaking of anti-Semites…does it appear to any of you that Hayworth in Phoenix is going to lose or is he in the clear? I know, perhaps he isn’t an Anti-Semite, but at least some of his staff is.
November 1st, 2006 at 4:59 pm
As usual, Mr. Packard misses the forest for the trees. The issue is not whether the events the BBC described occurred but the spin that was put on them. The BBCs’ spin which they put on events in Palestine is almost always that the evil Zionists overdogs are oppressing the virtuous Palestinian underdogs. Little events like homicide bombings, kassems, kidnappings, etc are ignored or justified as the rightous response of the underdogs to the oppressor overdogs.
November 1st, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Clif–
A poll from a week ago shows that race as a toss-up.
As for Hayworth, he skips past “offensive” and goes right into “amusing.”
Funniest insult about Hayworth: “He’s as dumb as he looks.”
November 1st, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Gordo,
My only election experience with Hayworth is from 1994, I think, he was running (he was a sports news guy in Phoenix) for a seat held by a woman who went into office on the coat tails of Clinton. I voted for her as she was a good Rep. Hayworth won going away, even though when I was at an appearance of his I asked him about water rights, the border, taxes and such. He responded that since most of the Colorado River is in Arizona, it should be our water. Uh, most of the river is not in Arizona. Anyway, he had no idea about taxes - other than to say, they were too high. He had nothing to say about the border, but who did in 1994?
I don’t get to NOT vote for him this time. But I would if I could.
Oh, and I guess I don’t know why I am typing here as you seem to always miss the forest for the trees. =P LOL
November 1st, 2006 at 6:34 pm
SLC–
There was no discernable spin on that story. The facts were reported, and commentary was solicited from representatives of both sides. Anywhere else in the world, this is what is called “objective journalism.” But in the US, journalists who report events in Israel in this manner are called “anti-semitic Israel bashers.”
November 2nd, 2006 at 5:15 am
If there was no discernable spin on the story, it would be the exception that proves the rule.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:42 am
SLC–
Perhaps if you actually read the BBC stories you’d come to a different opinion.
November 2nd, 2006 at 8:58 am
Erm, someone should tell Israel that Palestinians are Semites. They should tell a lot of other people too. Those people who CAN NOT face up to the fact that anyone could be sick & tired of them them because of what they DO - not because of what race or religion they happen to be.
Thank goodness, in the UK it’s still possible to be as critical about a Jew and/or an Israeli, as it is to be critical anyone else from anywhere else — without being automatically ( and hysterically voiciferously), labeled anti-semitic.
Anyhow, that tired old ‘witch-hunt’ type of accusation/vilification just doesn’t wash with we Brits, nor with many others outside the US.
Millions of Brits despise what fellow Brits in our government are doing, but it would be childish to say that makes Brits anti-British. The same applies with millions of Americans who despise fellow countrymen running/ruling them, and commiting all manner of evil. Are those Americans accused of being anti-American? Ooops! Er, umm, oh … erm …
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:12 am
Brit–
Good point. You expect the Chinese press to be full of vilification for “anti-Chinese” dissidents, but you don’t see that much in the Democratic world, outside of the US. It’s always been interesting to me that the US usually adheres to very high standards in terms of press freedom, but the press reacts to this freedom by imitating the state press of the most repressive regimes.
Ironically, that leads to a situation in which a majority of Americans are condemned as being “Anti-American.” See this post.
November 2nd, 2006 at 9:21 am
Ah, good post, Gordo. I missed that ‘cos it was while I was away in Turkey.
Btw, Alon Levy speaks a language I undertsand completely when he talks about ‘words-v-deeds’.