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John Podhoretz posts on a WSJ article about the administration’s interference in weapons purchases by Israel. Now the Pentagon can no longer proceed with transfers without white house and state department approval thus allowing more passive/aggressive behavior towards Netanyahu.
What on earth? In the middle of a war this country’s president (That would be barry obama) publicly says is justified owing to the relentlessness of the rocket fire against civilian populations, U.S. officials proudly tell the Wall Street Journal, they are holding up weapons transfers to Israel:
They decided to require White House and State Department approval for even routine munitions requests by Israel, officials say.
Instead of being handled as a military-to-military matter, each case is now subject to review—slowing the approval process and signaling to Israel that military assistance once taken for granted is now under closer scrutiny.
These transfers were taking place through entirely traditional, legal, and uncontroversial means. Israel is an ally. It’s at war. War depletes stocks. So why is this happening?
Simply put: It’s a gigantic hissy fit, an expression of rage against Bibi Netanyahu, by whom the administration feels dissed. The quotes in this article are almost beyond belief. In the annals of American foreign policy, no ally has ever been talked about in this way. …
Here is the Wall Street Journal article mentioned above by Podhoretz.
White House and State Department officials who were leading U.S. efforts to rein in Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip were caught off guard last month when they learned that the Israeli military had been quietly securing supplies of ammunition from the Pentagon without their approval.
Since then the Obama administration has tightened its control on arms transfers to Israel. But Israeli and U.S. officials say that the adroit bureaucratic maneuvering made it plain how little influence the White House and State Department have with the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu —and that both sides know it.
The munitions surprise and previously unreported U.S. response added to a string of slights and arguments that have bubbled behind the scenes during the Gaza conflict, according to events related by senior American, Palestinian and Israeli officials involved. (See photos and maps surveying the destruction in Gaza.)
In addition, current and former American officials say, U.S.-Israel ties have been hurt by leaks that they believe were meant to undercut the administration’s standing by mischaracterizing its position and delay a cease-fire. The battles have driven U.S.-Israeli relations to the lowest point since President Barack Obama took office.
Now, as Egyptian officials shuttle between representatives of Israel and Hamas seeking a long-term deal to end the fighting, U.S. officials are bystanders instead of in their historic role as mediators. The White House finds itself largely on the outside looking in.
U.S. officials said Mr. Obama had a particularly combative phone call on Wednesday with Mr. Netanyahu, who they say has pushed the administration aside but wants it to provide Israel with security assurances in exchange for signing onto a long-term deal. …
… Today, many administration officials say the Gaza conflict—the third between Israel and Hamas in under six years—has persuaded them that Mr. Netanyahu and his national security team are both reckless and untrustworthy.
Israeli officials, in turn, describe the Obama administration as weak and naive, and are doing as much as they can to bypass the White House in favor of allies in Congress and elsewhere in the administration. …
… Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said Congress’s goal in approving the money quickly on Aug. 1 was to send a message to the administration to stop calling Israel out about civilian casualties.
A senior Republican congressional aide said Israeli officials told senators they wanted the money sooner rather than later. He said Israel’s main purpose in accelerating the vote in Congress to before legislators’ August recess was to provide an overwhelming “show of support” for the military operation. …
Jonathan Tobin says Israel should ignore the tantrum from the petulant president.
Last month as the fighting raged in Gaza, news about the United States resupplying the ammunition stocks of the Israel Defense Forces balanced other, more troubling stories about arguments between the two countries over diplomacy. But it turns out the arguments between the Obama administration and the Israelis were even angrier than we thought. As the Wall Street Journal reports today, the White House has been having a full-fledged temper tantrum over Israel’s unwillingness to take orders from Washington and doesn’t care who knows it. But the best advice friends of Israel can give Prime Minister Netanyahu is to stick to his positions despite the insults being flung in his direction.
The article, which appears to be based on leaks from high-ranking U.S. officials, revolves around the notion that the administration is furious with Israel. The anger emanating from the White House is, at its core, the function of policy differences about the peace process. It also revolves around Israel’s decision to attempt to reduce Hamas’s arsenal rather than merely shoot down the rockets aimed at its cities. But what really seems to have gotten the president’s goat is the ease with which Jerusalem has been able to circumvent his desire to pressure it to make concessions via the strong support of Congress and the close ties that have been established between Israel’s defense establishment and the Pentagon. …
Pickerhead has been on the case of the public safety goobbers running wild with military gear. Here’s Kevin Williamson with comments on the equipment used by police in Ferguson, MO.
… The old-style police uniform, whether that of the English bobby or his American counterpart, communicated a specific civic ethic. Both “bobby” and “peeler” are slang based on the name of Sir Robert Peel, who in 1829 organized the first modern police force, in London. (As prime minister, Peel would make history, and end his career, by repealing the Corn Laws, a red-letter event in the history of free trade.) Peel spelled out his famous Nine Principles of Policing, which are still in effect and still very wise.
The first order of police work is, according to Peel, “to prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.” The second principle is “to recognize always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions, and behavior, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.” He called this “policing by consent.” The policeman, in Peel’s view, was a citizen: “The police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.”
In that context, the function of the police uniform is simply that of an imprimatur — of the municipal government of London or of New York or Mayberry. It tells little Peter Pat whom he can trust.
Our contemporary and increasingly militarized police uniforms are designed for a different purpose: the projection of force. Peel organized the Metropolitan Police as an alternative to “military repression,” but we, in turn, have turned our police into quasi-military organizations: Armored vehicles roam the mean streets of Pulaski County, Ind. Why? “It’s more intimidating,” the sheriff says. In New York City on Monday, I noted four police officers in battle helmets, carrying carbines, standing in front of Le Pain Quotidien on Park Avenue, perhaps expecting some particularly nasty muffin burglar. My subway stop, which is between City Hall and 1 Police Plaza, often resembles a military parade ground. (Not that they do anything about the vagrants camped out there.) Police in my hometown of Lubbock, Texas, occasionally go about their business in army-green armored vehicles and uniforms with woodland camouflage patterns, in spite of the fact that God never saw fit to put a tree within a hundred miles of there.
The different uniforms are meant for different kinds of policing: The traditional blue coat is for the policeman who walks a beat, and the ridiculous stormtrooper suits are for those who roll through in an MRAP.
Which sort of policing would you prefer? …
Popular Science posts on spotting military gear used by police. The formatting of this article so hard to manage so follow the link if you want the complete story. You’ll like the picture of VA Beach storm troopers riding into battle.
Following the fatal police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last Saturday, a protest movement broke out in the small town. Police from St. LouisCounty responded, showing up with body armor, gas masks, rifles, camouflage uniforms, armored cars, and tear gas. This excessive show of force, combined with gear that looks very military, has lead to widespread outcry against police militarization, including some objections from veterans themselves. Here’s a look at some of the gear on the ground in Ferguson and how it made its way from military service to police armories. …
John Steele Gordon writes on 100 years of the Panama Canal.
On August 15, 1914, the world was fixated on the dramatic first month of World War I, as the German army raced towards Paris and the fate of Europe hung in the balance. But on that day, half a world away, a ship named the SS Ancon became the first vessel to officially transit the Panama Canal — and the canal was opened for business.
It had been 401 years since Balboa had first crossed the Isthmus in 1513 and “stared at the Pacific … Silent, upon a peak in Darien.” For most of that time, a water route across Panama had been a dream. Thanks to one of the supreme engineering feats of the early 20th century, that dream had now been realized.
Until the advent of the railroad in the 1830s, bulk cargo moved by water or it did not move. To shorten these water routes, canals had been constructed since ancient times. In the 17th century, France built the Canal du Midi, fully 150 miles long. It connected the GaronneRiver, which flowed into the Atlantic, with the Mediterranean Sea, eliminating the need for cargo to sail around the Iberian Peninsula.
The Erie Canal, which connected the Great Lakes with the Hudson River, opened in 1825, greatly shortening the distance between the burgeoning Middle West and the east coast. It quickly made New York City, “that tongue that is licking up the cream of commerce of a continent,” and the greatest boom town in world history.
In the mid-19th century, the Suez Canal, originally 102 miles long, shortened the sea route between Europe and India by thousands of miles.
The Panama Canal route was much shorter than these three great canals, a mere 48 miles. But Suez was built in a level, low-lying desert. Building Suez was, therefore, essentially a matter of shoveling sand, although, to be sure, there was a lot of sand to be shoveled.
Panama, in contrast, was another matter altogether. …