THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT AND ISRAEL

With the appointment of such as Samantha “Force-a-Solution-on-the-Jews” Power and similarly-minded denizens of academe to highest policymaking positions, the Obama administration’s policy toward Israel may finally fall in line with hoary anti-Israel State Department perspectives. More change that we are supposed to believe in, I suppose.

The Foggy Bottom prejudice is as old as Israel itself, as well documented. Quoth Abba Eban, of blessed memory, on p. 151 of his Autobiography: “…on April 4, 1954, Assistant Secretary of State Byroade went back to his campaign for the de-Judaization of Israel.” Mr. Byroade apparently went on to encourage Israel to view itself as a Middle Eastern state vice a Jewish one, and to harangue Israelis not to view themselves as conquerors who believe that force is the only policy that their neighbors will understand. Finally, he stated that “…unlimited Jewish immigration [to Israel] was a matter of grave concern.”

Mr. Eban, then Israel’s ambassador to the United States, had filed a protest against Mr. Byroade’s harangue, forcing a partial (!) retraction from the State Department. When, in a subsequent meeting with Mr. Byroade, he pointed out that the U.N. had asked Jews to form “a Jewish state, not another Middle Eastern state,” Byroade “could hardly believe his ears.”

“His ignorance is encyclopedic,” Abba Eban is reputed to have said about someone. One hopes it was about Mr. Byroade, but it might as well be about the State Department in general. Then, as now, Israel is always faced with the prospect of going it alone and being destroyed. To quote Abba Eban (again): “Israel was and is breathing with only a single lung.”

Naively playing footsie with terrorist states like Iran and Syria, as the administration is doing now, can only make matters worse for Israel. One hopes that President Obama gets burned quickly since, to quote the inimitable Abba Eban (yet again): “When all else fails, men turn to reason.”

An Obama administration that follows the dictates of cold, hard reason: now that would be change even I would believe in.

THE MYTH OF AFGHANISTAN AS THE CENTRAL FRONT IN THE WAR ON TERRORISM

For months now, I have been wondering who gives President Obama geopolitical and military advice.

To me, the idea that isolated and historically ungovernable Afghanistan is THE front in our (and NATO’s) fight against terrorism seems extraordinarily naïve. We have no secure land lines of communication into the country. The Khyber Pass from Pakistan is currently available, but insurgents throughout the ages (including in December 2008) have shown how easy it is to interdict this chokepoint, then melt away and await another opportunity. Also, if there is any truth to the widely reported rumors of Pakistan’s imminent collapse, Khyber Pass, vulnerable or not, will be off limits.

Will Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Russia or China allow NATO to move troops and equipment at will through their territories? Not on your life. None of them want us there, for their respective reasons.

Well then, if not by land, how about by air? For starters, Afghanistan is completely hemmed in by nations that are not friendly to us. This gives rise to the thorny problem of overflight rights that can be pulled at a moment’s notice. Air bases? We have use of the Manas base in Kyrgyzstan, but the BBC reported on February 6 that the Kyrgyz government has announced that the base will be closed. Karshi-Khanabad, an alternative in Uzbekistan, is still a pipedream.

As if on cue, the Russians and Tajiks have followed up with a promise, likewise reported by the BBC on the 6th, that they will allow transshipment of supplies through their territory, but only of a non-military nature.

In any case, any discussion of long-term air supply is moot. Moving sufficient troops, equipment and supplies by air seems out of the question even for the existing force in country, let alone the expanded force that Obama is planning to deploy.

If President Obama wanted to present the U.S. military with an opportunity for disaster, he would be hard-pressed to find a better way to do it. The whole thing looks like a potential country-wide Dien Bien Phu.

Iraq, on the other hand, was the right war, at the right place, at the right time. I know: this is a concept that is hard to swallow, given that the war was the nefarious doing of the Bushcheneyneoconreactionaryzionistcapitalist Evil Axis, but there it is.

THE ONE PARTY STRIKES AGAIN or BUCHENWALD, ANYONE?

The inimitable Representative Alcee Hastings (D-Fl), has introduced HR 645 (www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645), a bill requiring the Homeland Security Department to establish at least six “six national emergency centers” at military facilities in the U.S., for reasons of emergency preparedness, for housing “large numbers of individuals” for “an extended period of time” but also to “to meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security” (Section 2.b.(4)). These sites will eventually be transferred from the Department of Defense to the Department of Homeland Security.

Jerome Corsi at WorldNetDaily (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=87757) has taken note of this bill but I have not yet seen it discussed elsewhere. I am assuming that “other appropriate needs” include detention of prisoners relocated from Gitmo but, given the totalitarian direction The One Party has taken and the language of HR 645 that refers to "large numbers of individuals" and "extended periods of time," it is fair to ask if detention of political opposition will also become an “appropriate need.” This question is especially urgent since a Bush Administration Executive Order NSPD-51/HSPD-20 of May 2007 also gives the President the authority to declare a national emergency and take over the direction of all governmental bodies, from federal to tribal, without even consulting Congress (Also reported by WorldNetDaily at (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55825).

President Obama’s desire to create a “civilian national security force” is a well-known fact. He has let us know in no uncertain terms even before being elected that "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set[.]...We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded." Equally well known is his impatience with a Constitution with enumerated powers. I imagine that, to him, NSPD-51/HSPD-20 is a G-dsend.

Imagine this civilian security force (read "people's militia" or "Sturmabteilung"); well armed, I am sure, owned by The One Party and responsible only to The One, running these emergency centers...

At the very least, this bill needs extensive modifications to protect American civil liberties. I would propose at least the following:

• Opposition to the sitting government and political party in power, no matter how widespread, shall never be construed as a national emergency.
• The national emergency centers shall never be used to confine people specifically because of their political views or political party affiliation.
• In order to continue receiving funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall report to Congress each fiscal quarter that the national emergency centers are being used in accordance with the above guidelines, and that they are not being used in any manner that would abridge the rights of United States citizens.

Not that such language would ever deter any determined community organizer, but it sure is worth trying.