Success of Security Measures Not to Be Measured by Their Success

The News: President Bush pronounced, "Our success in Iraq must not be measured by the enemy's ability to get a car-bombing into the evening news," he said. "No matter how good the security, terrorists will always be able to explode a bomb on a crowded street. In places like Israel, ....

The Note: The story here isn’t that bush said Iraq should be like Israel but that he’s admitted that “security measures” are useless.

©Barfo, 2007
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New Testament on Net alleged to violate Constitution

The News: Truthout reports that, "At the Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Army base, military chaplains have been holding Bible classes for US soldiers using study guides that appear to be anti-Semitic." The accusation was made by "the nonprofit watchdog group, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, an organization that seeks to enforce the law mandating the separation between church and state..." [ Hmmmm...] The Officers Christian Fellowship Neighborhood Study Guides were written by Major George Kuykendall, and actually [!!! ] quote portions of the New Testament, including a passage from Galatians that asserts Paul was persecuted by the Jews. [No!] A spokeman for the group denied any anti-semitism and stated that the fellowship was simply discussing the texts as they appeared in the New Testament. "But for Mikey Weinstein, the founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the religious teachings are not only blatantly anti-Semitic, but he believes disseminating it over the Internet tramples upon the Constitution."

The Note: Disseminating the New Testament over the internet violates the Constitution? Amazing! What sort of twisted thinking contorts itself to that conclusion? The Gospel is "anti-semitic" and ergo translates into a violation of the Establishment Clause? Plus ça change. It’s all a dissimulation in service of an ethnical cause.

©Barfo, 2007
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Fruit from a Poisonous Tree

The News: Uri Avneri,the socialist and peace-activist Israel journalist writes:

"Concerned friends recently e-mailed me some hair-raising quotes from a statement by Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and the spiritual leader of the settlers and the entire religious Zionist camp. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the rabbi decreed that it is impermissible to have compassion with the civilian population of Gaza if that imperils Israeli soldiers. His son, Shmuel, interpreted this decree on behalf of his father: if the killing of 100 Arabs is not sufficient to stop the launching of Qassam rockets at Israel, then 1000 must be killed. And if that is not sufficient, then 10,000, and 100,000 and even a million. All this to stop the Qassams, which in all the years have not succeeded in killing a dozen Jews.

"What is the connection between this "religious" view and the God who (in Genesis 18) promised not to destroy Sodom if 10 righteous people could be found there?

"What is the difference between this moral perception and that of the Nazis who executed 10 hostages for every German soldier killed by the resistance?

"The rabbi's decree did not arouse any reaction. There was no outcry, neither from his flock nor from the general public. The number of rabbis who publicly support such methods has risen to the hundreds. Most of them come from the settlements. This is a "religious" outlook that grew up in the poisoned atmosphere of the occupation, a religion of occupation. It shames the Jewish religion, present and past.

"No wonder that a person with a strong religious conscience, Avraham Burg, former Speaker of the Knesset and Head of the Jewish Agency, this week renounced Zionism and demanded to abolish the definition of Israel as a Jewish State."

The Note: No wonder that there are those of us who thought that the idea of a Jewish state was poisoned seed all along.

Avneri also points out that the occupation is destroying the Israeli Army. Yep; just as it is destroying the Ah'murkan.

©Barfo, 2007