Tons of Talk

As reported yesterday, there is an ongoing debate of some intensity into the various types of war crimes that are being committed by both sides in the conflict, about issues arising from use of human shields to use of white phosphorus artillery shells in heavily populated areas. However, there is a new report about the conduct of Israeli soldiers which has been underreported. The story has since been deleted from the Ha'aretz website, but is posted here for your perusal. Two of the most important aspects of the laws of war govern the uniforms worn by combatants and the targeting of civilians in urban areas. The aforementioned report bears on exactly these problems. Though it might be the case that witnesses were mistaken about the identity of soldiers wearing emblems of Hamas, however even the mere allegation that Israeli soldiers were targeting buildings known to contain civilians in order to make them evacuate goes beyond the pale. This latest report, combined with reports that one of the largest hospitals in the Gaza Strip was attacked by white phosphorus and tank shells, should necessitate a response from the Hague and the United Nations if international law is going to be effectual at all during the 21st Century. But perhaps such words are empty, and will ultimately serve to alleviate the suffering felt by both sides of the conflict.

Elsewhere, there is a lot of talk aimed at calling a halt to the ongoing operations. In Egypt, officials are reportedly getting close to hammering out a ceasefire agreement, but the fundamentally conflicting goals of both sides, centering around the ongoing embargo of commercial goods aimed at stemming the flow of weapons into the Gaza Strip, stand in the way of any lasting resolution. The United States is firmly behind the government of Israel as the foreign ministers of the two countries signed an agreement obligating the U.S. to assist in preventing smuggling into Gaza and the re-arming of the militant wing of Hamas in the event of any ceasefire, whether it is formal or informal. Elsewhere, the Arab world is split into two camps, one which supports the U.S.' position in the conflict met in Kuwait, while the other camp, which is opposed, even virulently against the campaign, met in Qatar. The latter group urged member states to diplomatic and economic ties with the state of Israel. Because of this split, neither side was able to achieve a quorum sufficient for the Arab League to issue a statement in response to the conflict, ultimately proving both gatherings to be diplomatically useless in terms of finding a solution to the intractable problem of Middle East peace.

More Questions than Answers

The Fringe Element has yet to comment about the ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, because there was seemingly little to be added to the current discussion. However, that silence must now come to an end, as we wonder the true purpose of the operations.

According to Israeli officials, the stated purpose is to make sure that Hamas can no longer fire rockets into the southern areas of Israel from the Gaza Strip. Yet, during the six month cease fire that expired just before the beginning of operations, Hamas did not fire a single rocket in violation of the ceasefire, though a handful of rockets were fired by smaller, shall we say fringe, militant groups. This is a matter of fact, and is readily admitted by Israeli officials. 

So, disregarding the question of who initially broke the ceasefire, because of the rampant violations thereof, not the least of which being the Israeli embargo, we have to wonder why Israeli officials chose to attack the Gaza Strip in the way that they have done so far. Of course, electoral politics gives us a quick answer. The government of Israel has enjoyed carte blanche from the Bush Administration in everything they do, upto and including expanding settlements in the West Bank and continuing to build the separation wall, both of which are violations of international law.  But the reins of the executive branch are about to turned over to a new leader, whose support for Israel has yet to be meaningfully tested. In combination with this factor, Israel itself will soon hold elections for Prime Minister. With the campaign in Gaza enjoying tremendous support amongst the general Israeli population, the various personalities in the running are trying to out-do each other to support the operation. In addition, the 20% Israeli Arab minority has been completely disenfranchised as their parties will not be able to participate in the coming election. 

Yet, this still does not fully explain the rationale behind this operation. If one keeps asking questions, the answers keep leading to darker and darker answers. For instance, the Israeli military has been using some fairly advanced ammunition in the current operation, and the question must be raised whether the Israeli military, and more broadly the Israeli government, is using this as an opportunity to test the finest weapons that the world has to offer in battlefield conditions. For instance, the use of white phosphorus in artillery shells, although illegal to use against civilian targets is not necessarily against international law if used to create a passive smoke screen. But, it is definitely illegal if it is used against the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza, which supplies essential foodstuffs to half of the enclave's population. A more insidious weapon is what is known as Dense Inert Metal Explosives, also referred to as DIME. This type of explosive, with a small blast radius, allows for specific targetting of hostile forces. However, it has also been found to be extremely carcinogenic. The apparent signs of a DIME-inflected injury, internal burns without shrapnel and entry wounds without exit wounds, have been appearing in civilian casualties. 

Looking deeper into the situation, I have been left wondering if the Israeli operation is intent on forced displacement of the entire population of the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces have been dropping leaflets and warning civilians that they are going to be in the path of military operations. But, with the territory entirely surrounded and controlled by the Israeli government and for all intents and purposes cut off from the rest of the world, where are the refugees supposed to go? As is usually the case with military operations, civilian bystandards are often left with more questions than answers, and given the opacity of Israeli policy and motives behind the ongoing operation in the Gaza Strip, the rest of the world is left to wonder about true intentions. 

The real question that should be asked in capitals around the world, the United Nations, and the Hague is whether or not to begin investigating whether the Israeli government is committing war crimes. 

More Sabre Rattling?

In a new twist, the White House is almost appearing the most reasonable party involved in the latest geopolitical saber rattling, or flashpoint, developing as Venezuelan troops are reportedly completely deployed in three regions along the Columbian border, aside from invoking the word terrorism in defense of the Columbian military raid into Ecuador. The matter is further complicated by assertions that FARC was dealing in Uranium. After all, no military adventure is too costly when defending the world against Weapons of Mass Destruction. There is a qualitative difference in this tension, though, as it is being complicated by an arms deal. In this case, the vaunted F-16 would have been sold to Venezuela from Spain, had it not been for a veto from the United States. Secretary of Defense Gates is comfortable in the ability of the Columbian military to handle their own affairs. This is hardly the first time that there has been tension along this border, as observable by the airstrips built into the road system in eastern Columbia. The investment community has signalled strong support for the Columbian side, pushing the Columbia's main stock exchange to the highest gain on world markets. As usual, the Wikipedia site on the incident is the most comprehensive.

In other news, Syrian and Saudi officials met in Cairo in an effort to relieve the tensions in the region, namely in Gaza, Iraq, and Lebanon. The Saudis then held discussions on the side with an American envoy. The USS Cole has been relieved off the coast of Lebanon by two U.S. warships and has passed through the Suez Canal en route to the Persian Gulf, signaling a wider build up of U.S. Naval forces in the region. The head of Egypt's Head of Intelligence, Omar Suleiman, has canceled a planned visit to Israel, perhaps reflecting a response to Ban Ki-Moon's letter, a denunciation of Israel's operations in the Gaza Strip, a snub at the U.S.-led bloc, or a combination of the three. Judging from the militaristic propaganda, and pondering minor war crimes to avoid major war crimes, Israel is ready to fight.

Does anyone remember Somalia? The United States has conducted another air strike there, which is sure to keep the fires of war still burning.

Sabre Rattling?

Israeli citizens living along the border had a rude awakening, which was initially feared to be Qassam rocket attacks. Unfortunately for everyone who can read this, there are tensions, to say the least, on both sides of the border. In Lebanon, among long-standing political deadlock and the assassination of their military leader, Hezbollah has replenished its arms to pre-2006 war levels. Meanwhile, on the Israeli side of the border, the Israeli Defense Forces are training in the ways they have improved their vaunted Merkava tanks in light of deficiencies discovered during the aforementioned Israeli invasion.

The UN General Secretary, perhaps desperate to enforce UNSC Resolution 1701, has sent a letter to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak about the situation. If I had to guess and paraphrase:

Dear President Hosni Mubarak,

Get me on this one and I will owe you big!

Your BFF,

Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary-General

On a more serious note, Imad Mughniyeh, the Hezbollah official, whom was reportedly assassinated by Israel by sources of no repute, was actively involved in facilitating international cooperation, such as "bringing members of the Iraqi Shi'ite Mahdi Army to the Lebanese Beqa'a valley, where they trained in paramilitary methods," amongst other allegations. However, again, I would advise one to judge the quality of the source before completely swallowing either side.

The Saudi Arabian and Kuwaiti governments, on the other hand, are pulling all of its civilians out of Lebanon for fear of violence.

And the addition of the group of vessels off the coast of Lebanon, led by the USS Cole, has brought its own added significance to the dangerous situation.

With the Israeli government looking ready to apply its lessons learned and vindicate a troubled administration, the entire situation is a tense powder keg that is ready to explode. I, for one, hope that this entire affair turns out to be another tempest in a teacup. However, as the Lebanese military moves to the highest state of readiness, the question should be raised, "What about the children?" Or, why isn't this story more of a headline in the mainstream media?

Waxing and Waning

Escalation and peace talks, or things in between are the theme of military news today, with local grassroots activism thrown in for flavor. Roughly organized from worst news to best news, here is a brief of places where people are killing each other or moving away from it.

In what would be a dangerous escalation of the Bush administration's Global War on Terror, the CIA is reportedly considering expanding its area of operations into the tribal regions of Pakistan. Pakistan's government, of course, has announced that they would not allow any such operations within their country. Meanwhile, Pakistan's government has reassigned Generals ahead of a massive military effort in the aforementioned tribal region that is the North West Frontier Province. Should the CIA get approval to implement such a horribly misguided policy, the situation will become much worse, with global public opinion shifting further away from the idea of the United States as anything other than a lonely bully.

On the front of one of the longest-smoldering flashpoints in the world, Ehud Olmert has ordered security forces "to escalate Israel's actions" in Gaza after their homemade rockets went a little further than normal. According to the article, 4 people were killed and 34 wounded. This comes ahead of Bush's visit to the Middle East, which has been roundly denounced by al Qaeda's American spokesman. On the question of what becomes of those held by Israeli security forces during their raids into the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization, has published a damning report of the Israeli Defense Force's military court system.

From another of the world's longest-smoldering flashpoints, comes news that the Tamil Tiger's military intelligence chief has been killed amid renewed fighting in northern Sri Lanka. The Nordic monitors are leaving, and the army is expected to begin its new escalation on January 16th.

In other news, the deal worked out with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program isn't being implemented as smoothly as envisioned.

Myanmar is celebrating its Independence Day! Iraq is celebrating its Army Day!

The Armed Forces of the Phillipines announced they are on schedule to crush the Islamist uprising in the southern regions of the country.

The guns will fall mostly silent in the eastern regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo, as the government has suspended operations against rebel factions ahead of a planned peace summit.

Local citizens in Cyprus attempted to stand up for their sovereign rights in the face of British imperialism, with 120 demonstratings throwing rocks and fireworks at RAF Akrontiri.

Wow...

Wow...

So, by my reckoning the main questions are, who sold these nuclear secrets? And which nuclear secrets were they? Does Israel have the information to make the bunker buster nuke?

The more valid question, though, is how fast can this be ignored by the mainstream media?

On a lighter note, here is a list of close calls involving nuclear weapons during the cold war. #4 is my favorite.

When Intelligence isn't Spin, Spinsters React

Since the publication on a National Intelligence Estimate about Iran and its nuclear weapon, the Bush administration, by many accounts, seems to be in full strategic retreat. However, as Dan Froomkin from washingtonpost.com reported, W has already started covering his own liability. Since he has had a few more months than the rest of the country to prepare for the release of the NIE, you can be sure that he has already appropriately adjusted his warmongering. Here is a look at how the NIE was produced.

Surprisingly, the news media is still listening to Norman Podhoretz and John Bolton about anything, and specifically in this case, intelligence. Here is a report that relies upon their opinions, yet doesn't point out the problem with citing them as experts. Norman Podhoretz, for instance, made a career of out of being a neoconservative pundit before the heyday of neoconservatism. One of his earliest and best-known works is a racist diatribe about how he hated black people. But, more relevant to the current discussion is his complete lack of experience in the intelligence community. While he may be retired now, he was an original signatory of the "Project for the New American Century," the ideological framework for W's administration and foreign policy, meaning that he is deeply invested in making sure that history has a favorable impression of the administration. John Bolton, for his part, is also intensely involved in the Project. He has made a career for being a diplomat or wandering mouth for conservative presidents. Bolton also has no experience in working in the intelligence community, but does have something of a reputation for cooking intelligence for political purposes. Since the intelligence community is notionally no longer under the thumb of the neoconservatives that make up the decision-making in the W administration, these two old warriors are now resorting to ad hominem attacks on what appears to be dissident voices within the federal bureaucracy. "But I (Norman Podhoretz) entertain an even darker suspicion. It is the intelligence community, which has for so many years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W Bush, is doing it again." Behold, the evolution of spin, now those who pushed the intelligence community to supply, what can most graciously be called, misleading intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, accuse those who are career intelligence officials of politicizing their work.

The Pentagon, for its part, has dispatched the uniformed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, to Israel to speak with their Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, and their intelligence analysts. During the whirlwind 24 hour visit, Adm. Mullen will probably explain the constitution and the fact that the President doesn't really need the support of the American people to expand the war to Iran, something that would be hard to understand for those who live in a free, demoratic society.

Reps. Peter Hoekstra (MI 2nd) and Jane Harman (CA 36th) published an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal questioning the quality of the intelligence organization that they were notionally in charge of overseeing as Ranking Members and Chairpersons of the House Intelligence Committee. Defending the mischaracterizations of intelligence on the part of the W administration, "..., intelligence is in many ways an art, not an exact science." In summation, the entire piece reads like an apology for delivery the wrong intelligence, although they also go into a little ad homineming against the intelligence analysts who produced the report (the confidence remark).