Since we are almost diametrically opposed on Israel/Palestine*, perhaps we can agree on one thing? The notion -- expressed by both these speakers -- that Barack Obama was ever going to do anything substantive to faciilitate peace in the region was absurd from the get-go. I tend to blame this mostly on the Israeli electorate (i.e, the election of Netanyahu), but that's somewhat besides the point. Placing hope in the Obama government for resolving the conflict is a complete waste of time and a reflection of terminal hopelessness in the region. I am 20 minutes into this and the two of them are still chattering about Obama and what he should do. Completely off the rails. * I support one democratic state with Jerusalem as the capital.

Everyone's opinions are good to hear. Most importantly people should always be open to hearing from the people they disagree with the most. If Bob Wright could score Ahmadi to debate Elie Wiesel on the Holocaust that would be great too. Hell, even the likes of David Duke should be invited on here.

Quoting mvantony: What took you so long? ;-)

What's with the smiley face? When did such pernicous idiocy become comfortable banter, a joke between friends? Itzik Basman

Thanks to both participants for a revealing diavlog. I hope both can return to BH.tv, either together or separately.

That's pretty lopsided. (And if you count appearances instead of people it's something like 2 to 30.) One might be able to quibble with my lists a bit, but not much, I don't think.

It's only lopsided if you think UN votes to the tune of 160 - 2 are not lopsided.

What took you so long? ;-)

It actually took about 65% of my life. I am a very recent convert. שנה טובה אחי

Pernicious, pershimsus.

Well-matched pair. I was especially impressed by the second half on the Arab world. Both speakers, unlike so many American think tank pundits with their silly world-improving schemes (hint: neocons, liberal internationalists e tutti quanti), actually seemed to know something about the region. Dare we hope for a "return to geography and history" after so much folly?

No, cause they're all a bunch of despots and despotism is anathema to modern Western values.

Quoting Lyle: No, cause they're all a bunch of despots and despotism is anathema to modern Western values.

Go get 'em Lyle!

Don't you mean pershmicious? סליחה

I agree with basman is that the view is pernicious, though not in the sense that entails malice on the part of anyone who holds it.

Well, of course we can call each other (or each other's views) pernicious till the cows come home, but that really gets us nowhere. Not that we're going anywhere anyway.

Well you act like we're suppose to act like they're respectable countries that we shouldn't ever have any serious issues with. You can't even remember why the U.S. is in a country like Afghanistan to begin with, as if we just up and decided to go mess with the Taliban for no good reason. At least America can do something about the likes of the Taliban whereas France can only hope to placate them with faux appeasement, while treating Muslims like children in France itself.

Quoting Lyle: Well you act like we're suppose to act like they're respectable countries that we shouldn't ever have any serious issues with. You can't even remember why the U.S. is a country like Afghanistan to begin with, as if we just up and decided to go mess with the Taliban for no good reason.

At least America can do something about the likes of the Taliban whereas France can only hope to placate them with faux appeasement, while treating Muslims like children in France itself.

Where do you pick up all this drivel? US newspapers? Your friends? TV?

Quoting Francoamerican: Where do you pick up all this drivel? US newspapers? Your friends? TV?

It's a phase. He'll start being treated like an adult when he starts acting like an adult.

Quoting claymisher: It's a phase. He'll start being treated like an adult when he starts acting like an adult.

Could Lyle be one of those boy-dudes discussed in another BHTV episode?
Immaturity prolonged beyond a certain point begins to resemble what.... The French have always called Americans "grands enfants."

Quoting Francoamerican: Could Lyle be one of those boy-dudes discussed in another BHTV episode?
Immaturity prolonged beyond a certain point begins to resemble what.... The French have always called Americans "grands enfants."

No, he's actually in middle school. Cut him some slack.

I'm responding only to you what you write Franco. Why don't you respond by making an argument, rather than getting into the insults. My guess is you don't have an argument, cause you know I'm right.

You throw around baseless insults, yet I'm a grand enfant? Say what? bh.tv administrators say what?

What are you talking about?

Face it Lyle, you're just not an Ivy Leaguer

Let's hope the latest from McClatchy is wrong:

Three officers at the Pentagon and in Kabul told McClatchy that the McChrystal they know would resign before he'd stand behind a faltering policy that he thought would endanger his forces or the strategy.

The issue is simple: after declaring Afghanistan a 'war of necessity' and forcing the resignation of the previous Afghanistan commander so that the 'A' team could do the job right, the 'A' team general is being denied the resources he needs to avoid defeat. McChrystal wants troops and the WH has evidently instructed McChrystal, repeaedly, not to ask for them:

Adding to the frustration, according to officials in Kabul and Washington, are White House and Pentagon directives made over the last six weeks that Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, not submit his request for as many as 45,000 additional troops because the administration isn't ready for it.

What the fuck does that mean: 'the administration isn't ready for it'? US policy is to send US soldiers into harm's way without clear guidelines or the necessary manpower and equipment. Sound familiar? Who could have imagined that Obama would repeat

Quoting Francoamerican: Could Lyle be one of those boy-dudes discussed in another BHTV episode?
Immaturity prolonged beyond a certain point begins to resemble what.... The French have always called Americans "grands enfants."

It will probably come as a huge surprise to you as one who wallows in constant ethnocentric arrogance but in truth many here do not hold what the French have to say in all that high regard. Matter of fact, about the only people who hold the French in high regard, are the French. France has been both embarrassingly inept as a domestic example and an international one for a couple centurys. I understand they make a pretty good wine though. **side note...Is there a word for the condition of growing to resent those who have been your benefactor in the past?

Quoting kidneystones: What the fuck does that mean: 'the administration isn't ready for it'? US policy is to send US soldiers into harm's way without clear guidelines or the necessary manpower and equipment. Sound familiar.

Who could have imagined that Obama would repeat precisely the same mistakes that George Bush made in Iraq in Afghanistan? The way things are going Israel may have to rescue the US mission in the ME, not the other way round..

Aren't you exaggerating a tiny bit here? It seems to me that by saying they aren't ready, and by not sending soldiers into harm's way they are doing exactly the opposite of the Bush administration, which was absurdly overconfident and unprepared for what awaited them in Iraq. But I share your exasperation with what looks like the beginning of another fiasco, caused by unclear and wishful thinking.

Quoting harkin: Face it Lyle, you're just not an Ivy Leaguer

Proves nothing, unless you think intelligence is measured by multiple-choice tests. Most students do worse on multiple-choice exams after four years of college, Ivy League or not. Thinking, in case you have never had the experience, is one of the consequences of education.

Quoting mvantony: What's closer to the truth is that it's lopsided only if many of of the scores of UN votes singling out Israel for censure since the UN's founding are profoundly unjust.

The question here, however, is whether the BhTV believes it is proper, as you appear to, to present the the Israeli-Palestinian debate with ten times more expert appearances from the left than from anything as far right as the Israeli center. Does BhTV have a political agenda here? If so, they should say so. But then it would also be good to remove or change, or at least append a footnote to, this bit toward the end of the "About" section:

As you've defined the problem here, that is far more experts who "lean left" than those from the "far right," I'd say that that mix makes sense to me.

Franc writes...[...] Perhaps you missed the first few acts: Feb 18, 2009, Obama orders more troops to Afghanistan 'doubles' number of combat brigades. Sept 21, 2009, Guardian:

Obama has already approved an additional 21,000 US troops this year, raising the total to 68,000.

Acorn has already sent 21,000 troops into his 'war of necessity', so far. McChrystal was sent to Afghanistan to study the challenge and come up with a workable plan. He's done that. He wants 40,000 more troops to implement a new policy: move US forces to more populous areas to provide real security to the Afghans living there while training the Afghan military. Essentially, McChrystal is calling for a 'surge' in Afghanistan. He's determined that anything less means a Taliban victory. Bush had the nuts to step-up after years of doing Iraq on the cheap. Turning Afghanistan over to the Taliban doesn't make much sense to me. McChrystal is supposed to be the best general for the job. Let him fight the war the right way; or get all western troops out of Afghanistan now. Polls are driving US Afghanistan policy; not military or national security issues. Bush was willing to fight an un-popular war. The last thing we need is poll-driven

Quoting kidneystones: Essentially, McChrystal is calling for a 'surge' in Afghanistan. He's determined that anything less means a Taliban victory. Bush had the nuts to step-up after years of doing Iraq on the cheap. Turning Afghanistan over to the Taliban doesn't make much sense to me. McChrystal is supposed to be the best general for the job. Let him fight the war the right way; or get all western troops out of Afghanistan now.

Polls are driving US Afghanistan policy; not military or national security issues. Bush was willing to fight an un-popular war. The last thing we need is poll-driven strategies.

Thanks for the information. I had gathered from some of your other comments---no doubt mistakenly---that you had a rather low opinion of Bush and his conduct of the war in Iraq. I have no expertise on the subject of Afghanistan, but I know enough about the country to doubt that a counterinsurgency strategy by itself, in the absence of a more comprehensive policy of aid and state-building, will accomplish what it intends: the elimination of the Taliban (which in any case is not monolithic and has a certain amount of support in the

Quoting mvantony: Are you joking?

Regardless, my wording wasn't as clear as it should have been. The idea was this: If there had merely been ten times more left-leaning diavlogs than nutty extreme-right diavlogs, or even than more sane far-right diavlogs (don't worry what those mean), that wouldn't be remarkable. But you needn't go nearly that far right (i.e., that far in a rightward direction) before you can say that there are ten times more diavogs from the left. You needn't go any farther than the Israeli center. Which isn't to say the Israeli center is far right! It's to say that BhTV puts on ten times more left-leaning diavlogs than anything from the center on rightward. No doubt that makes sense to many people (e.g., those at BhTV deciding how to treat the I/P conflict). But it's highly unbalanced. And it's in tension with BhTV's stated view of itself as lacking a dominant ideology and representing a diversity of views -- as least where Israel/Palestine is concerned.

I don't know. I feel as if I stand somewhere near the center on this issue. Certainly I've been accused from both sides of partisanship. The far right, and the far left

Quoting Francoamerican: .. Historically, counterinsurgencies have NEVER been successful in the short run....unless you consider Iraq a success.

That is unless you look at those places where it has Historically succeed. Historically one could look at the examples of the Philippines, Peru or Malaya and just to give one to the French I suppose you could throw in Algeria.

Quoting piscivorous: That is unless you look at those places where it has Historically succeed. Historically one could look at the examples of the Philippines, Peru or Malaya and just to give one to the French I suppose you could throw in Algeria.

I said in the short run. The Philippines is not an example a civilized human being would cite. Nor would anyone but an idiot cite Algeria.

Quoting mvantony: But you needn't go nearly that far right (i.e., that far in a rightward direction) before you can say that there are ten times more diavogs from the left. You needn't go any farther than the Israeli center. Which isn't to say the Israeli center is far right! It's to say that BhTV puts on ten times more left-leaning diavlogs (many of them pretty far left) than anything from the center on rightward. No doubt that makes sense to many people (e.g., those at BhTV deciding how to treat the I/P conflict). But it's highly unbalanced. And it's in tension with BhTV's stated view of itself as lacking a dominant ideology and representing a diversity of views -- as least where Israel/Palestine is concerned.

What is "balance"? Left, center and right have no meaning without comparison to the median stance of the public. OK, so who is "the public"? Some of the unbalance you cite may be accounted for by a difference between the Israeli center and American center. The same naive sense of fairness that impelled Americans to support the creation of Israel, now requires an recognition of Palestinian complaints. I think bhTV is

While we disagree on two of the four two doesn't equate to NEVER.

Quoting AemJeff: I don't know. I feel as if I stand somewhere near the center on this issue. Certainly I've been accused from both sides of partisanship. The far right, and the far left both identify with one side so closely that they have no problem demonizing the other. I think anybody advocating a one state solution (sorry Wonderment) is implicitly consigning the Israelis to the destruction of their State, and refugee status. I think the Likudnik arguments (the land is OURS!) explicitly advocate making refugees of the entire Palestinian population. I haven't heard too many open advocates of either of those extreme positions here, though I dare say some of the neocons aren't far from the latter position.

From my self-declared position in the middle (I'm open to arguments contradicting that assertion) I don't have a particular problem with the mix of interlocutors chosen to speak on this topic here.

Anyone in the center would not use the term Likudniks. The term is universally used by only people on the far left as a derogatory term for anyone who disagrees with them. Do you refer to the Israeli left as Meretzniks? Didn't think so. The Likud party's

Quoting piscivorous: While we disagree on two of the four two doesn't equate to NEVER.

Put it this way Pisc: none of the counterinsurgencies you mention was successful in the long run. France and the United States waged brutal wars to keep Algeria and the Philippines, but ultimately both countries failed to do so. Afghanistan, as far as I know, is not a colonial possession of the United States. The counterinsurgency being waged by the US against the Taliban is supposedly part of a "war against terror". We shall see.

We weren't discussing the long term but the short term I thought.

Quoting gwlaw99: Anyone in the center would not use the term Likudniks. The term is universally used by only people on the far left as a derogatory term for anyone who disagrees with them. Do you refer to the Israeli left as Meretzniks? Didn't think so. The Likud party's stance is not "(the land is OURS!) explicitly advocate making refugees of the entire Palestinian population." In fact Netanyahu has proposed his opening point of negotiation on a Palestinians state. Not what the Palestinians want, of course, but certainly not "(the land is OURS!) explicitly advocate making refugees of the entire Palestinian population." Perhaps you are thinking of Yisrael Beiteinu's Avignor Lieberman whose party represents about 8% of Israeli voters and who recently changed his position to supporting a two state solution.

The term "Likudnik" means a member of the "Likud" party or a (generally non-Israeli) direct supporter. The Likud are the direct heirs of the legacy of the Irgun, whose despicable history should not be forgotten. It's not "far left" to express disapproval of those responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre (up until the establishment of Kadima, I think of Ariel Sharon and

Quoting piscivorous: We weren't discussing the long term but the short term I thought.

What is the short term, and the long term, in relation to Afghanistan? If the short term goal is suppressing the Taliban, I think the United States is engaged in a policy that will not succeed. The Taliban are supported by a substantial part of the Afghan rural population. Therefore, I fail to see what the long-term policy of the US is.

You're not going to like this, but there is no reason to have Israeli commentator "balance". Here's why: a) Israeli intellectuals in general are, like their counterparts in many other nations, particularly the USA, considerably left of center. We are not choosing from a pool of taxi drivers, settler farmhands and Tel Aviv janitors, so of course the bias is going to be leftward. b) Automatically, 20% of the Israeli citizen population is ignored because they are Arabs (even the left-wing staff at BH seems to have taken their non-existence for granted). Where's the balance for them? Let's see, Israeli Jews: 100%. Arabs: 0%. c) The US (and BH is mostly a US audience) is so thoroughly saturated with right-wing pro-Israel/anti-Arab propaganda that you'd have to have several million Bheads going full steam ahead to begin to catch up. d) It's hard to keep up with Israel's dive off the right-wing cliff into the embrace of crooks and extremists like Sharon, Olmert and Netanyahu (redux). If we really wanted balance we should have a big increase in Shas voters Kharedi rabbis and Settler Kahane-type thugs. e) And this is the one you won't like, if this were the end of Apartheid years in South

Quoting Francoamerican: Proves nothing, unless you think intelligence is measured by multiple-choice tests. Most students do worse on multiple-choice exams after four years of college, Ivy League or not. Thinking, in case you have never had the experience, is one of the consequences of education.

A response as nasty as it is wrong-headed and also an example of elitism, as intelligence had very little to do with the article and your 'education' blast was incredibly condescending. Thinking is a consequence of life, not just education. And while multiple choice can be a good gauge of knowledge regarding certain relevant facts, it's not as exact as a written answer for determining whether a student knows what they are talking about. I was very surprised when a recent graduate from a Pac-10 school told me she didnt know what a blue book was. Actually I was very surprised at how poorly the students at the 'elite' universities did (I got 56 but cannot attribute knowledge of every answer to my humble CA public school education, I read a lot). But I can comfortably state that even at 18 I would have done much better than a D+. I humbly 'think' that a better education grounded in

At the Netanyahu-Abbas-Obama "summit" in NY, "all sides agreed peace talks must start soon." This is a shocking development and a real game-changer. At last! Three leaders committed to the revolutionary, new-paradigm, thinking-outside-the-box "Soon Doctrine. " Thank God we have such statesmen.

Quoting harkin: A response as nasty as it is wrong-headed and also an example of elitism, as intelligence had very little to do with the article and your 'education' blast was incredibly condescending. Thinking is a consequence of life, not just education.

And while multiple choice can be a good gauge of knowledge regarding certain relevant facts, it's not as exact as a written answer for determining whether a student knows what they are talking about. I was very surprised when a recent graduate from a Pac-10 school told me she didnt know what a blue book was.

Actually I was very surprised at how poorly the students at the 'elite' universities did (I got 56 but cannot attribute knowledge of every answer to my humble CA public school education, I read a lot). But I can comfortably state that even at 18 I would have done much better than a D+.

I humbly 'think' that a better education grounded in the basics (including history and civic government) would have produced better results.

Look at a standard test for graduation of the 8th grade one hundred years ago and you may be surprised at how rigorous the education was

Quoting AemJeff: The term "Likudnik" means a member of the "Likud" party or a (generally non-Israeli) direct supporter. The Likud are the direct heirs of the legacy of the Irgun, whose despicable history should not be forgotten. It's not "far left" to express disapproval of those responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacre (up until the establishment of Kadima, I think of Ariel Sharon and Likud inseparably,) among other atrocities, or to suggest that Likud is about as acceptable as Hamas; and just as culpable for the state in which the region finds itself. Netanyahu's apparent recent slight moderation is cause to watch cautiously, not for celebration.

Thanks for proving my point for me.

Quoting gwlaw99: Thanks for proving my point for me.

y/w. I've never known you to be so doctrinaire on any topic but this. I think you're trying to redefine the "center" in terms defined by where you stand. I think I'm trying to describe where I stand relative to where I think the poles are in the debate. I'm open to an argument that my view of the center is skewed, but yours doesn't sway my opinion.

Quoting AemJeff: y/w. I've never known you to be so doctrinaire on any topic but this. I think you're trying to redefine the "center" in terms defined by where you stand. I think I'm trying to describe where I stand relative to where I think the poles are in the debate. I'm open to an argument that my view of the center is skewed, but yours doesn't sway my opinion.

There is no question that Likud is right of center. I am not trying to argue they are. I do not agree with a lot of what they believe. My point is simply that childish name calling of the right is not something that people in the center normally do. I would hope that serious people on the left would not do it either. I would be just as critical of someone who said they were in the center, but called the left appeaseniks.

Quoting gwlaw99: There is no question that Likud is right of center. I am not trying to argue they are. I do not agree with a lot of what they believe. My point is simply that childish name calling of the right is not something that people in the center normally do.

Saying "childish name calling" in response to the enumeration of facts isn't much of an argument. "Despicable" and "atrocity" might be characterizations, but they're easily defensible, and I don't see anything else in my post to which you could be referring. So, forgive me if I'm at a bit of a loss here. Added: I'm dense, you're still referring to "Likudnik." Sorry, but it doesn't read as a strong pejorative to me. I might also say "peacenik" in reference to someone on the far left. I'd be surprised by a strong objection to that, as well.

Calling Lidukniks "Likudniks" is about as derogatory as calling Democrats "Dems." You can get a flavor for this "insult" at http://www.likudnik.co.il/

Quoting Wonderment: Calling Lidukniks "Likudniks" is about as derogatory as calling Democrats "Dems."

You can get a flavor for this "insult" at

http://www.likudnik.co.il/

You take all the fun out of caviling, you with your facts!

Quoting AemJeff: Saying "childish name calling" in response to the enumeration of facts isn't much of an argument. "Despicable" and "atrocity" might be characterizations, but they're easily defensible, and I don't see anything else in my post to which you could be referring. So, forgive me if I'm at a bit of a loss here.

Added: I'm dense, you're still referring to "Likudnik." Sorry, but it doesn't read as a strong pejorative to me. I might also say "peacenik" in reference to someone on the far left. I'd be surprised by a strong objection to that, as well.

Likudnik is childishname calling. Just as calling Palestinian supporters "Palistinistas" would be. The suffix -nik is derogotory in Yiddish which is why it is so insulting to many American Jews whose grandparents spoke Yiddish and have retained the use to a lesser degree.

An added layer of insult is embedded in the suffix "-nik," when we remember that derogatory words in Yiddish (such as "nudnik," [31] meaning "someone who is a boring pest") often end in this manner.

The term peacenik and beatnik, for example, are derogotory uses of the suffix by the right against the left.. -nik is also used in Russian to simply denote

Quoting mvantony: ...One way to see this is to note that the number of BhTV "regulars" who occasionally discuss Israel -- those I called "generalists," probably not very accurately -- is pretty evenly divided across the sane US political spectrum (i.e., just a slight leftward bias, I think). But when it comes to specialists/experts on Israel-Palestine who are invited on to discuss that topic, things are very different. Whereas on other topics, people from the Eli Lake, Bob, Kagen, David Frum etc. camp (specialists included) get lots of chances to argue their side of the story, on Israel-Palestine, virtually no specialist/experts from that camp are ever given a voice. But lots of them exist. (Maybe start by inviting back Rosner and Pollak, both of whom are very good.) So I'd say that relative to the kind of "non-ideological" political coverage BhTV is aims for on other topics, when it comes to Israel-Palestine, they fall very short of the mark.

I am open to hearing from some of the under-represented specialists you refer to.

mvantony writes...[...] I see no reason to paper over the appalling treatment of Palestinians by IDF troops. I'd happily watch some good well-grounded Israel bashing in return for a detailed examination of the assassinations and intimidation practiced by Palestinians against other Palestinians fighting for control of the cash doled out by the international community. Israel will need left-center hawks willing to defend Israel policies before too long, I'm afraid. It's important to identify these individuals now and make sure their views are heard. Frankly, the bhtv viewer list is too short and the stakes, too high. They'll need to get the message out to a broader audience. In the meantime, however, they can practice here. Good call.

If Obama doesn't send troops to Afghanistan, he's a failed President in less than a years time. And the Democrats will be shown to have never supported the mission in Afghanistan, i.e., that they've been lying to the public the entire time. What a clusterfuck of epic proportions this would turn out to be if the above you cited is accurate.

Quoting gwlaw99: Likudnik is childishname calling. Just as calling Palestinian supporters "Palistinistas" would be. The suffix -nik is derogotory in Yiddish which is why it is so insulting to many American Jews whose grandparents spoke Yiddish and have retained the use to a lesser degree.

The term peacenik and beatnik, for example, are derogotory uses of the suffix by the right against the left..

-nik is also used in Russian to simply denote a person--hence the non-derogotory "refusenik"

As Wonderment noted, "Likudnik" is often used as a self-description. "Beatnik" has no sting, just like, as I noted, "peacenik." I'm married into a Jewish family, I know the difference between a schlemiel and a schlamazel. Nobody I know would take offense at any of these usages. This is pretty far afield of whether I'm close to the center in this debate.

Quoting AemJeff: schlemiel ... schlamazel ...

Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!

Quoting claymisher: Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!

Where do you find a kosher rabbit?

Quoting AemJeff: Where do you find a kosher rabbit?

Why, Milwaukee, of course!

Quoting claymisher: Why, Milwaukee, of course!

I just had to dig this up. As I'm overcome by waves of nostalgia from the late 1970s. Wow.

Quoting claymisher: Why, Milwaukee, of course!

We're going to do it our way? Crap! I had completely excised that damn song from my conscious existence!

TNR wants to know why Acorn is repeating the same errors as Bush. America's allies want to know whether the US is in for the long haul. Obama spent the last few years telling everyone Bush was wrong to focus on Iraq. Obama committed tens of thousands more US troops to Afghanistan, but is stopping short of sending enough to make a difference. I opposed the surge in Iraq and it turns out I was wrong, big-time. Obama made the same mistake. That doesn't necessarily mean a surge will work in Afghanistan. It does mean the generals might know more about how to fight and win a war than the pundits and the politicians. Tough for the folks actually on the ground waiting for Obama to make up his mind. In this environment Israel can't look to America for any kind of help.

Quoting Whatfur: It will probably come as a huge surprise to you as one who wallows in constant ethnocentric arrogance but in truth many here do not hold what the French have to say in all that high regard. Matter of fact, about the only people who hold the French in high regard, are the French. France has been both embarrassingly inept as a domestic example and an international one for a couple centurys. I understand they make a pretty good wine though.

**side note...Is there a word for the condition of growing to resent those who have been your benefactor in the past?

If you think that an illiterate, uneducated boor like yourself speaks for anyone but himself, you are comically mistaken. Your misuse of English alone makes me doubt that you know any more about the history of the US than of France. By the way, I have both American and French citizenship. So I do not need permission from a rightwing crackpot like you to criticize the US.

Yeah, Obama better get his head screwed on soon, or he and his party are going to have some problems.

Lyle writes...[...] Obama's dithering isn't only costing US lives. I traveled a fair bit this summer back and forth through the UK. The BBC and virtually every British newspaper covered every UK death in battle in detail. Here's just the latest example from the Sun

Quoting kidneystones: I opposed the surge in Iraq and it turns out I was wrong, big-time. Obama made the same mistake. That doesn't necessarily mean a surge will work in Afghanistan. It does mean the generals might know more about how to fight and win a war than the pundits and the politicians.

Generals always know more about how to fight and win a war. The question is, as you yourself imply, whether the counterinsurgency is doomed because it is based on erroneous assumptions, on an incorrect assessment of the situation. That is a policy matter, and it is up to the president and his advisors to determine what is the best policy. I don't pretend to know the answer. But we saw what happened when Bush abdicated responsibility for formulating policy in Iraq and let the military run the show. Even if Iraq eventually does become a stable state (not terribly likely in my opinion), the war and its aftermath will go down in history as a fiasco of epic proportions.

Franco writes...[...] I couldn't disagree more. Bush and the executive branch waged war against the Pentagon pretty much up to 2006. The pre-invasion Pentagon assessment called for 300-400 thousand troops to secure Iraq post-invasion. The general who offered that assessment was contradicted within days by Paul Wolfowitz and fired. That sent a clear message to the military. The WH famously never planned for Phase IV, post-occupation. Tommy Franks figured the US military would be out of Iraq within a year after the invasion. Failure to raise and dispatch the necessary troops forced the tax-payers to foot the bill for Blackwater mercenaries. Contraints imposed by the WH meant that poorly-trained reservists ended up torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners. The same mistakes were repeated in Afghanistan. American policy in Iraq only improved when the WH took their hands off the brake and allowed the military to send more troops to Iraq in the 'surge'. You've a poor grasp of recent US Afghan policy, IMHO, and don't appear to know much more about Bush-Pentagon relations, either. Get some facts.

Quoting Francoamerican: Generals always know more about how to fight and win a war. The question is, as you yourself imply, whether the counterinsurgency is doomed because it is based on erroneous assumptions, on an incorrect assessment of the situation. That is a policy matter, and it is up to the president and his advisors to determine what is the best policy.

To that end, Andrew Sullivan: "McChrystal's Over-Reach "Am I the only person to be somewhat alarmed by this statement:

Yes, he'll be a good soldier, but he will only go so far," a senior official in Kabul said. "He'll hold his ground. He's not going to bend to political pressure.

"It is McChrystal's job to bend to political pressure. His job is to obey the orders of his commander-in-chief who is answerable to the American people. The way in which this man seems to be trying to bounce the administration into a deeper longer war, and threatening to resign to exact political damage if he doesn't, is outrageous. It is one thing to recommend a new military strategy; it is another thing to enter politics. McChrystal is lucky that his recent history of presiding over

Stanley McChrystal, in my estimate, is not a political general, as Petraeus undoubtedly is. He appears to be a fine soldier, a great fighting man, but not overly intelligent. It was a mistake to appoint him to a position where he had a role in making policy instead of just implementing it.

It would not surprise me if this was a clever maneouvre by Gen Petraeus: getting McChrystal put in the Afghanistan command, with his first task to recommend the policy for that war, and suitable advisers made available to him to draft that policy.

Somewhere down the line McChrystal was sold on COIN (probably as the recipe that turned the Iraq war around, even though it did nothing of the sort); he is that intense type who commit themselves totally to things once they are convinced. Thus, Petraeus's preferred policy is put forward by McChrystal, a general who would probably quit if it wasn't adopted, while the former sits back and waits to see which would be the best way to jump at the right moment.

I have read the Commander's Summary of McChrystal's 30 August report. The apt term to describe

Quoting kidneystones: You've a poor grasp of recent US Afghan policy, IMHO, and don't appear to know much more about Bush-Pentagon relations, either. Get some facts.

And I think you have a poor grasp of civil/military relations in the US. Your assessment of Iraq contradicts everything I have read on the subject. But even if you are right, the military's "success" in quelling the insurgency was, after all, not the goal of the war in the first place. As for Afghanistan, all I can say is that your faith in the American military is in inverse relation to your irrational hatred of Obama.

Quoting TwinSwords: "In my mind, that is NOT what good soldiers do. Good soldiers follow legal orders issued to them. If this report is correct, then General McChrystal should be removed from his command. This threat would seriously weaken the concept enshrined in our Constitution of civilian control of the military. If McArthur can be fired, certainly a McChrystal can be fired."

Thanks for the links. If McArthur is McChrystal's model, the sooner he resigns the better. It wouldn't at all surprise me if the US military is full of officers and soldiers who are contemptuous of the president and think, like kidney, that they will be invincible if allowed to "fight with the gloves off."

Quoting gwlaw99: Anyone in the center would not use the term Likudniks. The term is universally used by only people on the far left as a derogatory term for anyone who disagrees with them.

One can as easily say the same thing about your use of the term "far left."

Quoting mvantony:
That's pretty lopsided. (And if you count appearances instead of people it's something like 2 to 30.) One might be able to quibble with my lists a bit, but not much, I don't think.

well, if you want to go ahead and make lists and talk about bias... how many jews are on BHTV? It seems pretty incredibly lopsided towards jewish perspectives here if anything - which only concerns me when the topic is Israel or circumcision where the perception of bias is nearly unavoidable. maybe when we get as many conversations from a couple of arabs or persians about israel, I could take your whining with some degree of seriousness, until then - you sound like the oppressed christian masses of america complaining about the "war on christmas".

Quoting popcorn_karate: maybe when we get as many conversations from a couple of arabs or persians about israel, I could take your whining with some degree of seriousness....

Now that would be an interesting conversation! I fear, though, it would also be the end of bhtv.

Like Simon, I'd be interested in hearing from the specialists you believe aren't being heard. (Like others, I guess, I consider myself somewhere in the center of American opinion on the issue, which does mean that most of the specialists are to my left, but I find their perspectives interesting and sometimes educational, and would like other perspectives for the same reason.)

Quoting mvantony: So what's the correct "relativization" for judging BhTV's content on Israel/Palestine? Perhaps a useful way to look at it is in terms of the kind of balance BhTV aims for on US issues not having to do with Israel, both foreign and domestic. Anyone who watches lots of diavlogs has at least a rough sense of the kinds and numbers of people from the left, center and right (relativized to the US political landscape) BhTV gets on, and the kind of audience they're catering to (which I won't try to characterize). My own impression is that with respect to most issues there's a slight left bias, perhaps for the reasons you mention (though I'm not convinced of that), but at least there are lots of people in the center and right of center voicing

20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish Arab. Proportionally, there are far more Arabs in Israel than blacks in the United States. These are Israeli citizens with Israeli passports. They are voters, people who supposedly have equal rights in Israel. Yet we NEVER have had one of them on Bhtv. It is always assumed that only Israeli Jewish voices matter. Why? I never tire of telling this story: A few years ago I was at a Bar Mitzvah, and some of the relatives of the boy had travelled from Israel to attend. One young woman was very excited about the experimental New Agey Kibbutz she and her friends had set up in the Negev. They were vegetarians and egalatarians, Yogic, gay/straight, etc., etc. I asked her, "Is everyone Jewish?" Her answer? "What do you mean? In Israel, everyone is Jewish."

He has followed orders though, and now the Obama administration is contradicting their own orders to him. That's as good a place for any general to resign. The general is replaceable though. Perhaps Obama even wants the general to resign. Who knows? The issue isn't the general though, the issue is Obama deciding to quit Afghanistan after Afghanistan being his and the Democrats top priority in foreign policy during the election.

Franco writes...[...] The Independent explains:

Six months after proclaiming a new commitment to the war in Afghanistan, President Barack Obama is under growing pressure to make what would amount to a U-turn in US policy

What U-Turn? Obama spent most of his campaign criticizing Bush for failing to make Afghanistan the main focus of the US war in the ME. When elected Obama promptly sent more US troops in Afghanistan while asking allies to stand with the US for the long haul. In May Obama fired the US General David McKieman, the top US and Nato commander in Afghanistan despite the fact he was supposed to serve another year at least. Why? So his hand-picked general, McChrystal, would have a free hand to devise the best possible strategy to defeat the Taliban and secure the government of Afghan President Karzai. From the Guardian July 2:

American marines and Afghan troops poured into southern Afghanistan today in the first major test of Barack Obama's strategy to wrest the initiative from the Taliban.

Get it? Barack Obama's strategy, not McChrystal's. And that's where the parallels with Bush kick-in. General Shinseki informed Congress that several-hundred thousand troops would

Quoting Francoamerican: If you think that an illiterate, uneducated boor like yourself speaks for anyone but himself, you are comically mistaken. Your misuse of English alone makes me doubt that you know any more about the history of the US than of France.

By the way, I have both American and French citizenship. So I do not need permission from a rightwing crackpot like you to criticize the US.

Funny, how an illiterate, uneducated, boor is able to walk your goat around in circles leaving you spewing insults and nothing of intelligence. Probably easier than defending the history, but then I have been witnessing your shredding of current events so I would not expect your history to show improvement.

Quoting Whatfur: Funny, how an illiterate, uneducated, boor is able to walk your goat around in circles leaving you spewing insults and nothing of intelligence. Probably easier than defending the history, but then I have been witnessing your shredding of current events so I would not expect your history to show improvement.

No insults intended Whatfur, just the pure, unvarnished truth.

Quoting kidneystones: Get it? Barack Obama's strategy, not McChrystal's. And that's where the parallels with Bush kick-in. General Shinseki informed Congress that several-hundred thousand troops would be needed to secure Iraq post-invasion. McChrystal has compiled a similar report for the current President. Obama doesn't want to hear it..

I do get it. But the similarity with Bush ends there. Bush, after starting a pointless and unjust war for reasons that will probably never be fully elucidated, fell back willy-nilly on his generals to carry it on. They did as well as they could do under the circumstances. Obama inherited two wars, and made an ill-advised commitment during the campaign to expand the war in Afghanistan. It has taken him a while to see the truth: that the counterinsurgency is a tactic without a strategy; that the Afghan Taliban are not necessarily a threat to the security of the US (though they may be a threat to more secular Afghans); that the US cannot carry on a war against them without undertaking at the same time to rebuild the country and the machinery of government; that all this will be costly and time-consuming; that the American

Quoting Wonderment: 20% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish Arab. Proportionally, there are far more Arabs in Israel than blacks in the United States. These are Israeli citizens with Israeli passports. They are voters, people who supposedly have equal rights in Israel. Yet we NEVER have had one of them on Bhtv. It is always assumed that only Israeli Jewish voices matter. Why?

I never tire of telling this story: A few years ago I was at a Bar Mitzvah, and some of the relatives of the boy had travelled from Israel to attend. One young woman was very excited about the experimental New Agey Kibbutz she and her friends had set up in the Negev. They were vegetarians and egalatarians, Yogic, gay/straight, etc., etc. I asked her, "Is everyone Jewish?" Her answer? "What do you mean? In Israel, everyone is Jewish."

Revealing. But surely an extreme case? I have never been to Israel although I have some friends, a married couple (he=goy, she=Jewish, Israeli citizen) who have lived there on and off. She is very conscious of the Arab presence in Israeli society, and has a certain amount of sympathy for their plight.

Revealing. But surely an extreme case?

Yes, surely an extreme, but suggestive of a deeper cultural blindness. The idea of a "Jewish state" with Arabs presents an existential dilemma for the Zionist. Since all the Arabs are not leaving, and since the Israelis want to have to have at least a pretense of a democracy, how shall they treat the Other, the non-Jew? Many Israeli intellectuals take the question very seriously, and many ordinary people make extraordinary efforts to bridge the cultural divide. But for most Israeli Jews, it's easy for Arabs to become invisible. Or they are perceived as vague obstructions (objects), impediments to a pure Zionist vision of the Promised Land; or they are treated as aliens in their own country; or in the worst case, they are made the brunt of racist scorn and phobias. Israel is generally a VERY segregated society, and the Arabs are very much second-class citizens. Some Israelis will dispute this, but scratch the surface of how the country runs, and you'll find all the inequities soon enough. Separate schools, inadmissibility to the Armed Forces, underfunded communities, segregated housing, etc., etc. There's another story I tell of back when I was in high school in New England

Quoting Wonderment: There's another story I tell of back when I was in high school in New England in the early 1960s. An Israeli family joined our synagogue. The boy, my age -- who already had a reputation as a thug from living in some tough neighborhoods in New York City -- told me he hated Arabs. "They're like n***gers are here."

In one of my less happy avatars I ran an English language school in Saudi Arabia for a few years. I was in charge of training and hiring teachers--- Palestinians but also university graduates from Egypt, Syria, Jordan. I travelled a lot around the ME to do the recruiting, and everywhere I encountered hostility towards the state of Israel and towards Jews in general, but I never knew-- because I never made much progress in learning Arabic-- how deep it ran. People do not usually express themselves frankly in a foreign language. The Saudis were the most benighted, but their hatred was political and religious, not racial: Arabs see Israel as the last outpost of western civilization, a relic of European colonialism. Curiously, though, the Palestinians were the LEAST hateful, and actually seemed to have a better understanding of Israelis... I'm not sure of the relevance of

I traveled to Egypt in 2001, just as a tourist. It's true you need Arabic to make optimal connections, but the trip was still a real eye-opener for me. There was plenty of primitive anti-Semitism, but anyone with minimal education was concerned about Israel, not Jews. Egyptians had recent wars with Israel with considerable combat deaths, so the wounds are relatively fresh. Still, two things helped heal a lot: 1) the bilateral agreement with Israel. There was a real sense that Israel is here to stay, and although we might not love them, we have to live with them as grown-ups and responsible international citizens; 2) people understood how demagogues used "the evils of Zionism" to distract them from real Egyptian problems. They were sick of that shit.

Franco writes...[...] Much better. I disagree very much with your so far un-supported claim that Bush let the generals fight the war they wanted. That never happened unless you call a pistol to the head an invitation to voice complaints. Every single Bush appointee who failed to back WH policy got the axe. Which might be fine were goals clearly articulated. They were, but not publicly. The public WMD argument allowed America to relocate troops from Saudi Arabia and try out all kinds of nifty new weapons. The US has an immense regional commitment in Central Asia/ME with no place the land forces can truly call home. 'Saddam did it' focused attention. And to that end, your point about predicting the future is well-taken. Iraq may yet surprise folks. The US is staying in the region. Obama is not withdrawing from Afghanistan. He's returning to a policy of firing drones at weddings. The US is going to remain in Afghanistan. You do realize that Obama's next bright idea is to commit the US to fighting three wars by launching attacks more attacks on Pakistan. Just securing Iraq would be have been hard enough. Backing down is going to have

Quoting kidneystones: Kidney writes...[...]

I have no desire to re-debate the Iraq War. The war aims were confused from the beginning because they were based on erroneous assumptions about Iraq (WMD, terrorist state) and because they were utopian: the neoconservatives thought they could use the pretext of WMD to carry out their little experiment of exporting "freedom" to the darker regions of the earth. Whether the military could have done a better job if they had been given carte blanche by Bush is irrelevant. The military is not, and never has been, in the business of state building.

PS (added) The REAL reason for the Iraq War was, of course, oil and the establishment of permanent military bases. But that could never be said. If it had been said, Bush, Cheney, and the top echelons of US government would in fact be war criminals and liable to prosecution under the UN Charter---but of course the US exempts itself from international law because IT CAN.

I don't think opinion in Europe has written Obama off yet as weak. France in favor of bombing Iran? Do you have a pipeline to the Quai d'Orsay? As a prophet you may be right. But as I said that's not my

President Sarkozy may get it even if you don't.

Obama: “We must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth.”

Sarkozy: “We live in the real world, not the virtual world. And the real world expects us to take decisions.”

“President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite.

“Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993.

“I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map,” he continued, referring to Israel.

“If we have courage to impose sanctions together it will lend viability to our commitment to reduce our own weapons and to making a world without nuke weapons,” he said.

I'm not sure President Sarkozy is as enamored with the rhetoric of others as he is of his own.

You do jump to conclusions, Pisc. I am not sure what your quotations have to do with my reply to kidney. Sarkozy has said nothing about bombing Iran. In any case, diplomats at the Quai d'Orsay don't always agree with the president.