Gunnery Sgt. Marcelo R. Velasco, 40, of Miami, died Nov. 19 from injuries sustained in a non-hostile incident in Anbar province, Iraq. He was assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force Headquarters Group, I MEF, Camp Pendleton, Calif.
Pvt. Charles Yi Barnett, 19, of Bel Air, Maryland, died on Nov. 20 of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident in Tallil, Iraq. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
Sgt 1st Class Miguel A. Wilson, 36, of Bonham, Texas, died Nov. 21 in Abu Sayf, Iraq, of injuries sustained during a rescue attempt of another soldier while their unit was conducting a dismounted reconnaissance mission. He was assigned to the 2nd Squadron, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fort Hood, Texas.
Master Sgt. Anthony Davis, 43, of Deerfield, Fla., died Nov. 24 in Baaj, Iraq, after being shot by an Iraqi Security Force soldier while he was conducting a dismounted humanitarian food drop. He was assigned to the Military Transition Team, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.
1st Lt. William K. Jernigan, 35, of Doraville, Ga., died Nov. 24 in Baqubah, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident. He was assigned to Headquarters Company, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, Fort Wainwright, Alaska.
Capt. Warren A. Frank, 26, of Cincinnati, Ohio, died Nov. 25 while supporting combat operations in Ninewa province, Iraq. He was assigned to the 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liasion Company, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Okinawa, Japan.
Capt. Robert J. Yllescas, 31, of Lincoln, Neb., died Dec. 1 at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., of wounds suffered Oct. 28 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his unit at Combat Outpost Keating, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 6th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas.
In the days that lie ahead, we’re going to hear a lot of rhetoric about restoring America’s moral standing after eight years of the Bush Administration, doing collective teshuvah for the sins of our nation.
President-elect Obama has been. And again, in his 60 Minutes interview, he stated that he wanted to end torture and close Guantanamo, that “[t]hese are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.” He said something similar when he accepted the Democratic nomination. Part of the collective teshuvah is holding him to his word. Calls for an Executive Order against torture during the first 100 days of the Obama presidency have been issued by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, among others. An Executive Order would be more than symbolic. The Bush Administration’s expansive view of the powers of the Executive Branch allowed them to circumvent American laws and treaty obligations, including those outlawing torture.
But we shouldn’t assume that this is case-closed. Already, reports have appeared (and have been critiqued) that Obama may not revoke the CIA’s ability to use harsh interrogation techniques that the military is prohibited from using. This backtracking, if true, would be a major blow in the effort to end torture. After all, many of us in the anti-torture lobby used to quote John McCain (author of the Detainee Treatment Act) until he decided at some point during the Presidential campaign that it was okay for the CIA to torture. Torture isn’t suddenly effective because the CIA is using it.
I would also argue that ending torture is not simply a top-down cause. We all have to be part of the national teshuvah and take responsibility for what we, the people, have done. The limited public outcry against torture (and many other civil liberties issues such as wiretapping) gave no incentive to stop doing it. Torture happened over there, to someone else. And with all the depictions in popular culture of torture being effective, many Americans want to believe that torture keeps us safer.
I wish I didn’t believe that last sentence, but I do. I work to raise the awareness of the Jewish community about ending torture, and I’ve noticed something disturbing. On the one hand, many Jews I speak to understand that Judaism is against torture and that torture doesn’t work. They don’t want to talking about the halachic reasons—they just want to know what they can do to end it. But when I press deeper, something else is uncovered. If torture did work, if it truly gave real intelligence that kept us safer, if the ticking time bomb wasn’t just a mythical scenario…then its harder to get them to say they are against torture.
This is the moral legacy of the past eight years. Deep down, we’ve bought the message of the Bush Administration’s dark side. Now we need to do teshuvah. President Obama needs to hear from us.
And here’s how:
• Go to http://change.gov/page/s/ofthepeople.
• Fill out your contact information. Write “torture” in the “another issue” box.
• In the “Your ideas” box, explain why you believe torture is wrong. A sample statement might be: “As a Jewish American, I am deeply troubled by our nation’s use of torture. The Jewish tradition urges us not to oppress the stranger, because we were strangers in the land the Egypt, and implores us to honor the image of God in every person. Torture goes against these values and against everything America stands for as a country. Please act to end U.S.-sponsored torture by issuing an executive order based on the Declaration of Principles endorsed by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.”
• Then click “submit form.”
This Sunday, Jewish Currents, The Workmen’s Circle and The Shalom Center are cosponsoring “Jews Uniting to End the War and Heal America,” a day-long conference featuring a remarkable list of speakers and representation from a broad, liberal Jewish spectrum.
Central Synagogue, 123 East 55th Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues), NYC, 9:30-5:15 (registration pens at 8:30)
Room is limited; preregistration is recommended! A full list of speakers, including Jewschool Founder Daniel Sieradsky, can be found at http://www.circle.org/jewsuniting/.
If we think of each human life as an entire world, as the Jewish tradition urges us to do, then the war in Iraq is a black hole swallowing galaxies. Yes, the war has moved to the backburner of public consciousness because of all the other ways in which our country is suffering from the radically ideological, and radically incompetent, Bush government. Nevertheless, ending the Iraq war and reckoning with the damages it has caused is a critical foundationstone of the “change” that Barack Obama urged throughout his campaign. Few public voices are saying so, however, and few voices are challenging the “preemptive war” doctrine or other military policies that have held sway since 9/11.
Seventy-eight percent of American Jews voted for Obama, despite all the predictions of Jewish liberal “slippage” and all of the lies and rumor-mongering that tried to provoke that slippage. Now is the time for the Jewish community to follow up its vote by breaking its silence about this war. One key purpose of the conference is to explore the complex reasons for that silence and finally release our community from its grip. We have weighed and largely withheld our words for more than five years; it’s time, now, to lift our voices and direct our resources towards the healing of America.
Some new developments in the prisoner swap with Hezbollah:
Yesterday, Ha’aretz reported that Israel is exhuming the bodies of Hezbollah guerillas fulfilling part of their end of the prisoner swap for the captured soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, captured June 2006. In that article, the remains of 200 Lebanese will be transferred at the border crossing at Rosh HaNikra.
In today’s news Israel’s High Court rejected an appeal against releasing Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese convicted murderer imprisoned in Israel since 1979. In that article, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, is quoted as saying that reports that Regev and Goldwasser are dead are simply “speculation.”
Let us all hope and pray that he is not being a dickwad being truthful.
In a 22-3 vote, the Israeli cabinet approved a measure that would allow for Samir Kuntar, terrorist serving 4 life sentences for 1979 murders, to be exchanged for Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser who were kidnapped by Hezbollah in June 2006.
Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann, Housing Minister Ze’ev Boim and Finance Minister Ronny Bar-On opposed the measure while the remaining 22 ministers voted in favor.
The exchange will likely occur on German soil in the coming days.More »
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Some 300 rare and valuable books confiscated from Iraq’s Jewish community by Saddam Hussein’s regime have been secretly spirited into Israel, an Israeli newspaper reported on Friday.
The books include a 1487 commentary on the biblical Book of Job and another volume of biblical prophets printed in Venice in 1617, the Haaretz daily said… Many volumes were damaged during the bombing of government buildings in the opening weeks of the war, and after the fall of Baghdad most of the books were sent off to be temporarily stored at the Library of Congress in Washington.
In the past couple of weeks there has been a fury of news about the possible return of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and for good cause after two years of nervous waiting.
The negotiated deal was ready to be implemented between June 20-25, but earlier in the week, Hezbollah added some Palestinian prisoners to their list, Olmert shuffled his feet, and then all of a sudden Mossad is declaring that the captives are likely dead. After an outcry against the political move from the Israeli public and specifically the captive soldiers’ families the cabinet is now set to discuss a written deal with Hezbollah on Sunday.
In a very surprising change in the position of the Israeli government, Ha’aretz reports that the IDF may soon declare Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev “killed in action.” The two soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah in June of 2006, which triggered the summer war two years ago.
In recent reports, the government was said to be in negotiations with Hezbollah via German mediators on an exchange of Samir Kuntar, a convicted murderer held by Israel since 1979, for the two captive soldiers. The government announced that were the two soldiers declared “killed in action,” there would certainly be no deal exchanging Kuntar for their bodies.
While last week there were reports of an imminent deal to be carried out between June 20-25, beginning yesterday the Israeli media reported that the deal was in danger of collapsing after Hezbollah added Palestinian prisoners being released as part of the negotiated deal. Now, it seems that Israel is possibly going to declare the soldiers dead, thereby ending any negotiations regarding Samir Kuntar. It seems likely that Israel would continue to negotiate to retrieve the remains of the soldiers, as has been the historic practice of the Israeli government.
The announcement comes as a shock to the families of the captive soldiers, who were under the impression their sons would be home this week. According to Miki Goldwasser, mother of Ehud,
“I ask what happened now that they remembered two years after the abduction to make such a move…Why now? Why when the deal is closed and it is the best possible deal?”
The reported deal to exchange Samir Kuntar for the Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev was overwhelmingly supported in the Knesset and specifically, the cabinet. The deal also received support from the Israeli public, and most importantly, was supported by the families of the captive soldiers.
Ehud’s wife, Karnit, said:
“We are at the end of a very difficult day in the Knesset, on the verge of humiliating…At the end of the day I get a call that the file has been transferred to the chief military rabbi. I don’t have time to notify the family before I hear it on the news. I am furious. This is a terrible and shameful day for the state of Israel,”
According to the report, she added that the family has been reduced to begging the ministers to agree to a prisoner swap.
It seems that the Olmert administration picked up on the demand to release Palestinian soldiers as an excuse to get out of the deal. It seems that they had come so far in the negotiation to release Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. It seemed like it had been successful and the soldiers would be freed. And now they’re dead?
What goes through the mind of Prime Minister who has almost no support from his people, who denies the will of his electorate, who denies the will of his cabinet, who denies the will of his parliament, who denies the will of the families who urge him to free Samir Kuntar to free their sons?
How is it that this man is even still in office? Is this a sign that Israeli democracy has matured to the point that bi-annual elections are a thing of the past? Or, perhaps, this is a sign that Israeli apathy has hit an all-time high, and a nation that once held the threat of toppling governments in a day now bears the corruption and dysfunction.
According to the report linked above, the deal received widespread support from the government and the public, only the PMO and the defense establishment do not support the deal. Is this an example of when the army and government “know more than the people”? Or is this another example of how the IDF and the PMO are completely out of touch with the perspectives and will of the Israeli public.
I, for one, am a bit dismayed and a lot surprised.
**This just in : BBC News clip of Olmert interview broadcast today on BBC Arabic Television (I’m looking for the full interview). Longer BBC clip, more detailed article.
The New York Times reports that Israel has offered Lebanon talks on peace negotiations and land exchange. These talks are referring, of course, to the disputed Shebaa Farms.
Part of the negotiation, according to the New York Times, will include Israel releasing maps of land mines and cluster bombs left behind from the 2006 summer war.
This news follows reports that talks have started with Syria, via Turkish mediators, and it seems that talks with Lebanon might be a result of those negotiations.
The news comes the same day that a truce in Gaza sets in.
And read below for Reb Yudel’s post on last year’s unofficial peace deal offered as a way to solve the stalled talks on Golan.
Is this Olmert struggling to convince his people and the world that he’s not a corrupt, incompetent buffoon? Is this the US exerting back room pressure so Bush’s legacy can be secured? Or, is this, maybe, perhaps, possibly even real? (unlikely, but I hope so).
If I learned anything from reading A Missing Peace, Dennis Ross’ major work on his experience as the lead US negotiator from 1987-2001, it is that a huge chunk of what happens in these negotiations is over-dramatized jockeying and a whole lot of PR and acting.
So, whether or not this is real, it clearly sends a message to Israel’s people, its neighbors and the world that perhaps there are partners with whom to negotiate. Likewise, it shows a willingness of Israel’s neighbors to be more comfortable making diplomatic meetings, and perhaps even ties.
Ross Perot is back. He still has very large ears, he still has a playful, thick Texas accent and he still has charts. His charts are not surprising, but shocking nonetheless.
Ross Perot, business leader and former presidential candidate, announced today the launch of “PerotCharts.com,†a public information website that contains objective, factual information about the current economic crisis in America. The site is being launched as an alert and appeal for American citizens to inform themselves about federal government spending. Perot said, “The U.S. national debt reached $9.4 TRILLION on April 30, and it is increasing by more than $1 billion every day. We are leaving our children and grandchildren with debt they cannot possibly pay.â€
Perot’s website, PerotCharts.com, is essentially a PSA. He really has not changed his message since his runs in 1992 and 1996. It leads one to wonder why he did not have charts in 2004 when we had a federal deficit of more than $400 billion, and why he has waited so late in the 2008 election to release his message. It also leads one to wonder if he has established a PAC.
In my opinion, people like Ross Perot, maybe even people like Ralph Nader, represent something exciting and special to many people–the chance to not vote for a politician. I believe it is why Obama got such a boost from his “celebrity” status; people didn’t know him.
According to a recent poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org, the citizens of the world distrust the leaders of the world (Bush and Ahmedinijad top amongst them, nearly universally).
Interestingly, one of the clear messages this poll shows is that people around the world trust their leader more than other nations leaders. The Palestinians, who are in the poll, trust no one except Nasrallah and Abbas. Israel is not featured in the poll, and I presume it would have been the exception to the “Bush rule,” Mr. Bush being the least trusted leader in the world, by far; I presume Israel would have expressed no trust for their leaders, and little for the world’s and none for the region’s.
As America’s economy tanks, we may need to rethink our financial support of the Jewish State (and others). If the Israeli population finds their government hopelessly corrupt, why do we trust them with multi-billion dollar cash transfers? The USAid website’s Israel page has not been updated since 2005 and does not reflect the full implications of the aid package, but rather just the cash transfer. The package reflected there does not reflect the renegotiated $30 billion decade long deal from 2007.
According to Perot’s charts, in 2007 our defense budget alone had a deficit of $542 billion (20% of our total deficit), and Israel’s aid is earmarked so it might not all fall into the defense budget. Another chart shows that following the Cold War, we experienced what Perot calls a “Peace Dividend”, our spending markedly decreased. While still remarkably lower (by percentage), than at the height of the Cold War, in our own day, there has been a marked increase in US spending post-2001.
I’m certainly not knowledgeable enough to understand the ramifications of these numbers, what the practical impacts of outlandishly large spending and aid packages are, what the ramifications of suspending those packages would be, and so forth. But I think one need not be too clever to look at this and see something clearly isn’t working right.
from left to right: Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev; Gilad Shalit (captured by Hamas in separate incident)
Ha’aretz is reporting that the soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah, triggering the summer war of 2006 may be reunited with their families the week of June 20. Ha’aretz is citing the Lebanese newspaper, As-Safir, as breaking the news.
According to the Saudi owned newspaper al-Sharq al-Aswat, Israel will release Samir Kuntar, the infamous Lebanese terrorist sentenced to four life-terms for murders he committed in Israel in 1979.
According to Kuntar’s attorney, his client has received no information to this end.
The Senate Intelligence Committee released a report today saying that the Bay of Pigs invasion was stupid the Gulf of Tonkin incident was made up Bush and Cheney lied us into a war.
“In making the case for war, the administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when, in reality, it was unsubstantiated, contradicted or even nonexistent,” said Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), chairman of the intelligence panel. “Sadly, the Bush administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.”
And, of course, the report “doesn’t call for penalties or a follow-up inquiry.”
Story here
So, who is this sweet kid in a nice Jewish living room? Is it (a) the newest “Jewish Jordan†(b) the guy my sister went out with last week (c) the man hired to replace Rabbi Herschel Schachter or (d) an international arms trader?
If you guessed (d), you’re right. Efraim Diveroli is the CEO of AEY Inc., the arms company suspended last week for ripping off the Pentagon and endangering Afghani and American soldiers.
Nice to know that our yiddishe kopfs are being put to a good use.
Not long after getting out of the army, a friend and I drove down to Eilat to relax for a couple of days. We were sitting in our hotel room after an amazing day of hiking and snorkeling, and there was the news. A suicide bombing. Twenty people were murdered, dozens more injured. It was the “Childrens’ Attack.†I stared helplessly at the TV screen, I prayed for the injured, and I prayed to see an image of the new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, distraught, upset, denouncing the violence. As the night rolled on, more people died, the army made plans, but Abu Mazen never appeared. My friend and I were shooken up, we couldn’t stay and swim any longer. We packed our bags and headed home.
The next morning, on the drive back, we stopped by an army base where my old unit was stationed. There was a good friend of mine, now an officer. Roi was doing some work on a tank, and he was alone. I climbed up with him, and we sat down to talk. There, on that hulk of steel we cried. We were sorry for ourselves, we were sorry for our country, we were sorry for the victims, we were sorry for the Palestinians, and we were sorry for the world. Niether of us had ever wanted to fight, but we did. We did it because we needed to, because there was a war, because we had a responsibility to keep our friends and our families safe. But, every day, we prayed for peace. We prayed for an end. Every day that we fought in the territories, every day that we caused Palestinian suffering, we understood just how much we shared with them, and how hurtful it was for everyone for this all to go on. The past few weeks had been quiet. Roi’s company was able to leave the front. We thought it was ending, that perhaps things would change, but the night before had shattered everything once again. So, we sat, stared at the sun, and we cried. We were tired.
That was nearly five years ago. Since then, wow, things have changed, right? Arafat died, the Red Sox won the World Series, the disengagement hapenned, I went to school, Arik had a stroke, Facebook, the Lebanon war – and we’re still fighting the Palestinians, and terrorism keeps on going. You know what? I am tired.
I am tired of fighting, I am tired of death. Yes, I will go on. I will continue to support Israel, I will continue to fight for peace. I will continue to draw attention to the genuine suffering of the Palestinian people, and I will continue to serve in the reserves, and God forbid – in another war. But, I am tired of all of this i am tired of trying to fight my way through this horrible moral thicket, and I am tired that for every thought of doubt I have, someone is questioning my character. Blaming me for the holocaust, blaming me for the death of Palestinians, blaming me for the death of Jewish citizens, and blaming me for ignoring Torah. All of this is complicated, it is exhausting. My thoughts have grown so jumbled and confused, that the beginnings and ends of conversations and arguments are hidden beneath so many layers of rhetoric.
The Breaking the Silence video blog is up and running with responses from folks who’ve seen the exhibit in Philly and Boston. Most of the videos collected can be summarized as “Gee, wouldn’t peace be nice” or “Wow, these soldiers are really courageous” or “You all a bunch of propogandists.” (Ha!) The dozen most eloquent folks have been posted so far, but this 15-year-old kid just blew me away.
This video was entirely extemporaneous after a 30-minute tour of the exhibit the IDF veteran on hand. There was no practice; I shit you not. (The sound is very low; you’ll have to turn up the speakers to hear him.)
I’m not voting for Obama anymore — I want this kid for president.
Tonight at DC JCC: “What Makes an Army Jewish?” a panel discussion between Yehuda Shaul, co-founder of Breaking the Silence, and Adam Hartman, right-wing Israeli military soldier-turned ethicist.
Feb 25th, “On the Way to Gender Equality in Israel: a Comparative View” will present several expert perspectives on the struggle for gender equality in Israel, including recent initatives and developments. Location info here.
A former U.S. Army captain and a former Israeli Chief of Staff weigh in on the Winograd Report at Middle East Progress — and how the Israeli military knew it was screwed from the get-go.
Reports of religious impropriety in today’s U.S. military appear with the regularity of abuse reports from Rubashkins meat plants. Unlike the Agriprocessors scandal, however, the problem of Evangelical Christian influence in places like the U.S. Air Force Academy has attracted little Jewish attention and less organized response, except from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation and its founder, retired J.A.G. Michael Weinstein.
The latest issue exposed by the MRFF is the invitation of three Arab converts to Christianity to speak at a weeklong conference on terrorism organized by cadets at the Air Force Academy. The three speakers, Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zak Anani, claim to be reformed Islamist terrorists and “have appeared numerous times on Fox News Channel, The 700 Club, the Pastor John Hagee program and other venues in which they engaged in embellished stories of their conversion from Islam to Christianity, extolling its virtues and the wholesale denigration of Islam and its followers,” according to the MRFF’s Richard Baker.
The Academy’s official story, on the other hand, as related by spokesman Brett Ashworth to a NY Times reporter, is that “the three were invited because ‘they offered a unique perspective from inside terrorism,’… [and that] the conference is to result in a report on methods to combat terrorism that will be sent to the Pentagon, members of Congress and other influential officials.”
There must be individuals out there with more reliability than Shoebat, Saleem, and Anani who can provide that kind of perspective, however, considering that experts who have heard them speak have serious doubts about the stories they present: More »
I don’t like this story. I’ll be honest, the last time I wrote about the good guys trying to provoke a war, I was wrong, but I’m still gonna call the US out this time. You’ve all heard the news, a few speed boats irreverently boated around some American warships in the Persian Gulf. I heard that too, and figured it’s another crotchety Iranian thing, trying to test us, find limits, be pricks in general. And, the US played it up. Annoying, dangerous, but typical news.
But then I saw the video and heard the audio track.
Give me a break! I can do a better Persian accent than that. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am willing to trust Uncle Sam enough, and accept that nobody at the DoD cooked up this video, or any of the sound. But, Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, speaking to CNN admits that there is no way to establish that the communication came from those boats. Aside from the accent, if you were bopping around in a little speedboat, you would expect to hear some background noise. You know, those outboard motors are pretty loud, as is the wind. Here’s my guess, some bored sailor, trying to have some fun, was sitting alone somewhere we had a radio set, and well, he got cute.
I can imagine it perfectly, you’re in the middle of a long mission. It’s boring, like always. But, just to make things a bit more annoying this time around, every couple of days, they wake you all up, and make you sit at battle stations again. One time, it’s a strange white thing floating in the water, the next - some unidentified plane. Today, after working your eight hour shift at the radar, keeping an eye on over two hundred fishing boats, you finally get to bed. You lie down blang! goes the klaxon. You’re back to some God forsaken part of that boat (somebody with more naval experience can help me out here) this time because some speed boats are messing around. Why not have a little fun? Unprofessional, yes. Dangerous, yes. Stupid, yes. Exactly the kind of crap a bored serviceman does, yes.
Here’s the rub. I see through this. You know the people on that ship see through this. They didn’t seem particularly threatened or scared when they heard it. The military brass sees through this. Then why the hell are they publishing it? So, you want the video, fine. Then edit out this crap. You don’t have a problem editing other stuff out. For example, I never hear any orders to the crewmen, nor do I hear any officers discussing how to act. That they got rid of. So, get rid of this too.
I guess that’s our America for you. Trying to get a provocation cooked up. Anything that can be done to bring war in our time is good. It seems Bush is still trying to start a war, but instead he’s just looking even dumber.
Update:The Times now has a similar angle, and is covering developments on the story. Aside from bring up the problems that I mentioned, they also have links to Iranian videos of what might be the same incident.
