The Trouble With Air Strikes in Pakistan

War on Terror

30 Jun 2009, NewAgeIslam.Com

The Trouble With Air Strikes in Pakistan

In my mind, this is one of the big problems with using the phrase "war on terror." It gets people in a frame of mind where they're thinking of analogies like "what would I do to a Nazi tank column?" rather than "what would I do to a crime-plagued neighbourhood?" And when trying to figure out the right approach here, the right thing to do isn't to ask yourself whether international terrorism is "really" a kind of warfare or "really" a kind of crime. The right thing to do is to ask yourself what kind of strategic goals you have and what kind of tactics are likely to achieve them. What we want is for Muslim communities around the world to cooperate with various governments around the world to smoke out and apprehend would-be violent extremists. That's more like a crime-fighting mission. -- David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1507 -----------------  The Trouble With Air Strikes in Pakistan Via Robert Farley, a good concise explanation from David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum about the problem with these drone strikes against targets in Pakistan:  Governments typically make several mistakes when attempting to separate violent extremists from populations in which they hide. First, they often overestimate the degree to which a population harbouring an armed actor can influence that actor's behaviour. People don't tolerate extremists in their midst because they like them, but rather because the extremists intimidate them. Breaking the power of extremists means removing their power to intimidate — something that strikes cannot do.  Imagine, for example, that burglars move into a neighbourhood. If the police were to start blowing up people's houses from the air, would this convince homeowners to rise up against the burglars? Wouldn't it be more likely to turn the whole population against the police? And if their neighbours wanted to turn the burglars in, how would they do that, exactly? Yet this is the same basic logic underlying the drone war.  In my mind, this is one of the big problems with using the phrase "war on terror." It gets people in a frame of mind where they're thinking of analogies like "what would I do to a Nazi tank column?" rather than "what would I do to a crime-plagued neighbourhood?" And when trying to figure out the right approach here, the right thing to do isn't to ask yourself whether international terrorism is "really" a kind of warfare or "really" a kind of crime. The right thing to do is to ask yourself what kind of strategic goals you have and what kind of tactics are likely to achieve them. What we want is for Muslim communities around the world to cooperate with various governments around the world to smoke out and apprehend would-be violent extremists. That's more like a crime-fighting mission. Source: http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/05/the-trouble-with-air-strikes-in-pakistan.php   URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1507 Some interesting Comments Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 6:38 pm The Muslim world has a legitimate dispute with the West over Israel. The West thinks Israel-as-a-Jewish-state has some cosmic importance that makes acceptable measures taken to ensure that state's viability. These measures include starving then occupying Iraq, supporting dictators over a hundred million people in Egypt, Jordan and other places, repeated bombings of civilian populations in Lebanon and Palestine, the permanent dispossession of Palestinian refugees, the permanent renunciation of sovereign rights for Palestinians remaining on the territories, etc, etc. The Muslim world largely disagrees. The fight against Al-Qaeda, the occupation of Iraq, the US interference in Pakistan's politics, the attempts to stifle Iran's economy are all part of this fight the West is waging against the Muslim world. To me this raises two questions: 1- would the Middle East be perfect if there was no Israel and a new question I'm working through is 2- is it possible for the US, or the West to substantially change its position on Israel. 1 is easy. The Middle East would not be perfect, but it would be imperfect the way the oil-producing West coast of Africa is imperfect, or the northern tier of South America. There would be disagreements sometimes. Resentments some times. But no need to spend a trillion dollars occupying any of the countries there. It would be at least possible for a democratic country there to be reasonably pro-American without a huge occupying army. The United States certainly would not and would not have to consistently align itself with dictatorships against any popular movement. Israel truly distorts US objectives in Israel's region. 2 is harder. Most Americans do not care much one way or another about anyplace outside of the US, including the Middle East. Except Jewish Americans who, even liberals, very often have a blinding emotional bias towards Israel. Probably most Americans who care enough to become knowledgeable about the Middle East are Jewish and transmit a pro-Israel bias throughout the US foreign policy system. This is structural at least for now, and to some degree renders at least the US incapable of refraining from confrontation with the Muslim world. The limits to the pro-Israel distortion of US policy are interesting. Israel would not be able to turn the US against Turkey and we are now seeing Israel is not able to get the US into a shooting confrontation with Iran. Back to Pakistan. From a Muslim point of view, al-Qaeda is right. If the US is going to give Israel the ships and guns it needs to blockade and slowly starve over a million Muslims in Gaza, somebody from the Muslim world should strike back at the US. If the aim is now to make Pakistan stop sympathizing with al-Qaeda, somehow the US has to have more leverage over the Pakistani government than the Pakistani people. Of course this is not only expensive in the form of bribes the US is paying to Pakistan's notoriously corrupt and increasingly apparently foreign-imposed leader Zardari but it runs the risk of breaking up the country, at greater expense to the US and to others, which makes attacking the United States more the right thing to do. There is no need to bribe, blockade or militarily overthrow the Venezuelan government because even if they don't like Yankees, they have no reason to support al-Qaeda, or groups directly attacking the US because there is no South American Israel that the US is structurally forced to support. Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:13 pm But to Matt, this is not exactly a criminal issue. Brazil has plenty of organized criminals. It would never occur to them to use their resources to attack the United States. They plan jail breaks, organize the trade of illegal materials such as drugs and guns and try to bribe or intimidate local police. Al Qaeda and groups sympathetic are not a bunch of burglars in the midst of Pakistan. Imagine the Michigan Militia and then add to that the idea that they really believe China is actively supporting policies that are causing white people in Ohio to starve to death. Or even the Black Panthers if it's the early 1970s but the US government instead of being omni-powerful, is really just a bunch of quislings who do whatever the government of South Africa told them to do. As long as they consider their grievances unresolved, it is going to be really hard to get them to stop trying to attack the US, bombing or no. And the US relationship with Israel makes it very easy for Muslims to consider their grievances with the US unresolved. SLC Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:21 pm Re Arnold Evans I'm certainly glad that Mr. Evans is so confident that if the US dumped Israel and forced a 1 state solution, the Jews in Israel would make out as well as the whites in South Africa. I am afraid that I don't share Mr. Evans' optimism and neither do the Jews in Israel. But of course, Mr. Evans really couldn't care less. Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:27 pm So because Brazil's criminals have no reason to attack the United States, the US has no reason to pay off the government to fight the criminals. But if China was paying Washington to fight the Michigan Militia, that would be a different issue entirely. Washington would be leaking legitimacy while the Militia would be gaining it. In the end maybe after a lot of money and the total destruction of the US political system to serve China's ends, maybe China would be able to eradicate every organized group that is sympathetic to the Militia. But it would be really hard and really expensive, not only to Washington, but also to China. And there would run the risk of the Militia coming out of this stronger, with a more solid hold on territory from which to fight China. Even after the victory, it's just a matter of time until somebody else starts a new organization. The underlying cause is still popular. The underlying grievances are only getting worse. The US would have to, on China's behalf, become a police state to stabilize this problem. Welcome to the Middle East. But on the other hand, why would China be so stupid as to be playing a major role in some dispute a bunch of hicks in the US Midwest care about? Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:37 pm SLC: Maybe, just maybe it is possible for Zionism to end without Jews being boiled to soap. Just maybe, the tremendous amount of resources the US is already committing to the defense of the Zionist project could instead be used to ensure that a soft landing from Zionism is reached that ends the war between the West and the Muslim world without mass killings. But you're not sure. So just in case, let's just keep 100 million Arabs living under police-state dictatorships, and spend trillions of dollars invading any country that, if independent, would threaten Israel-as-a-Jewish-state. Let's do that indefinitely.  Let's keep millions of Arabs starving on an ongoing basis if they vote for the wrong parties. Let's every now and again spread cluster bombs over farmland. Let's build a system of one-race-only roads.  If this is the choice the US makes, and the US may be structurally unable to make the other choice. (That is a new realization for me.) If this is the choice the US makes, the US has expensive and difficult times ahead in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and throughout the region because of that choice.  Pakistan would be as easy for US strategists to deal with as Brazil is, if it was not for Israel. But Israels turns Pakistan from trivial to nearly impossible. Actually impossible unless the US can install a pro-US police state there.  That's going to be expensive, and will have to be repeated in a lot of other places.  Gmorbgmibgnikgnok Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:52 pm One way to cut off the Taliban's base of support would be to promise Sharia and civilian aid to the elders in those towns, on condition that they stay out of politics. They can be as right-leaning as they like in their own towns, but the minute they compete with the official government, they get cut off.  The people there are basically 7th-century goat herders whose allegiance can be bought. We should buy it.  JT Says: May 17th, 2009 at 7:53 pm The problem with Predator strikes in Pakistan is that they are criminal. They are a war crime. Seriously, will someone explain by what rights your ObaFuhrer orders the deaths of uncounted civilians in Pakistan? In what way does this differ from Nixon's bombing of Cambodia and Laos? And spare me the "targeted" bs; obviously the strikes in Pakistan are not accurately targeted. Even assuming that the government of Pakistan is wink wink in on the air strikes the fact remains that they are a criminal act; no government can legally order the indiscriminate bombing of their own or another's citizens; that is a crime against humanity. Fact: the ObaFraud is now as guilty of war crimes as BushitCheney and it is pathetic that, in the hurry to kiss his ass, the Left no longer cares about the murder of innocents. SLC Says: May 17th, 2009 at 8:31 pm Re Arnold Evans  Of course, Mr. Evans claim that Israel is the sole cause of the US problems in the Muslim world is preposterous. Is Mr. Evans claiming that the India/Pakistan dispute is somehow the fault of Israel? Is he claiming that the Shiite/Sunni divide is somehow the fault of Israel?  Mr. Evans is pitifully naive if he thinks that the current secular dictatorships in the Arab World will be replaced by secular democracies. If they fall, they will be replaced by Islamic dictatorships or Islamic authorian governments just like Irans, where the unelected Ali Khamenei is the real ruler, not the elected parliament or the elected president.  However, be all that as it may, I could be curious to know how Mr. Evans, if he were President of the US would go about persuading or forcing the Government of Israel to go out of business. Would he launch an invasion of Palestine and occupy the country (worked out real well in Iraq)? Would he institute a worldwide boycott of Israel to force the government of that country to go out of business? What would he do if, instead of caving in, the Government of Israel attacked Saudi Arabian oil fields with nuclear weapons, which would make them unusable for several decades? Or suppose China decided, for their own reasons not to go along with the boycott. What would he do in that case?  The trouble is that I don't think that Mr. Evans has thought through the situation in the Middle East and all the ramifications therein. As is usually the case, there is no simple solution to a complex problem.  Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 8:40 pm It's really not crime fighting. To that degree shooter242 is right. Crime fighting is happening in Brazil and Nigeria (and all over). The US for the most part could not care less about crime fighting in other countries.  This is political-movement-fighting. Foreign political movement fighting at that.  You win a political movement fight by resolving the grievances or enacting a police state.  "Resolving the grievances" may not be a fully objective notion, but fostering a widespread belief that the grievances have been resolved may be more measurable.  Predators are doing nothing to resolve the grievances. They are pushing Pakistan towards becoming a US-sponsored police-state. But getting from here to there is not a pretty process. It is a process that conflicts violently with supposed US values and it is a process the US would not be attempting to undertake but for its relationship with Israel.  Now, Obama is not as liberal as I am. But there was no more liberal candidate who had a decent chance of beating McCain during election season. He is as liberal as we were going to get last year. He is an imperialist. He is not the one to stand up on principle to an organized opposition even if he was not an imperialist. But he's what we have.  Cambodia was different, because it was tied to Vietnam and a generation afraid of the draft. But yes, Democrats do get an easier time from liberals on foreign policy than Republicans. Johnson would have been treated easier than Nixon for the same policies. And no, Obama isn't different with respect to Pakistan than Bush.  But his alternatives are push Pakistan towards a pro-US police state and hope it doesn't break, tolerate al-Qaeda friendly Pakistanis who are autonomous enough to stifle the US fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or cancel the main fight between the US and the Muslim world which is over Zionism. I don't think there is much any US president can do in this situation different from what Obama is doing.  Arnold Evans Says: May 17th, 2009 at 8:44 pm SLC:  Israel is just as vulnerable to the loss of US support as South Africa was. Actually more. Israel would let the Palestinians form a political majority just as easily and for the same reasons the white South Africans did.  South Africa had nukes. Who was it going to use them on? How would bombing Saudi Arabian oil fields really prolong Zionism? Instead Apartheid did they did the normal thing, the same thing Zionism would do under the circumstances, let everyone vote and went out of business.  Arnold: Despite the Obamabots here who still carry water for him no matter how often he reneges on his campaign promises or how often he demonstrates the truth of what I said about his having no frickin' clue about foreign policy, the reality is as you say. This country is not capable of making a correct decision on these matters.  So cheer up, things could be worse. And when you cheer up, things will be worse.  We still got nearly four years for Obama to get into a war with Iran - or be dragged into it by Israel.  Netanyahu just said it again today to shift the focus from Obama's demand about freezing settlements (email me when Obama can force Israel to do that!): time is "running out" on Iran.  So every time Obama says the word "settlements", Netanyahu will say the word "Iran".  That's gonna get us far along.  And I simply don't buy any notion that Obama and the AIPAC-controlled US Congress are going to start slapping foreign and military aid freezes on Israel unless they comply with some "Road Map".  delurker Says: May 17th, 2009 at 10:44 pm The LAt has a mini investigation on the Afghan strikes… see the real face of "precision strikes — 9-year-old girls with their skins burned off  anonymous Says: May 17th, 2009 at 10:44 pm The problem is that the situation is in fact somewhere between "Nazi tank column" and "crime-plagued neighbourhood". Generally, criminals, if surrounded on all sides, will surrender; what they are after is loot, not martyrdom. This is less likely to be the case with the Taliban or Al Qaeda, or as least with some members of these groups.  That said, the crux of the anti-air strike argument is sound. The large number of civilian casualties largely renders any gains in killed terrorists moot. It is more important to destroy Al Qaeda's and the Taliban's ability to recruit and popularity among the population than to kill a few of them at a time with high collateral cost.  Alan Says: May 17th, 2009 at 11:56 pm Israel started summary executions via missile. The U.S. followed its lead.  While it may be "practical", it reflects poorly on democracy. Israel and the U.S. governments have the right to kill without trial and take the lives of innocents within range.  Max424 Says: May 18th, 2009 at 12:30 am What would I do to a Nazi tank column? I would take out the lead vehicle and the rear vehicle with a couple of TOW missiles and virtually immobilize the column. Then I would call in a massive series of strikes from a vast array of weapons systems that are always conveniently at my disposal.  After appraising the lethality of the strikes, I would release my people and let them wander amongst the twisted and smouldering wreckage to loot lugers and iron crosses from the smoking corpses and anything else not burnt to a cinder.  Unfortunately, aside from Gulf War I, things are never that easy. SLC Says: May 18th, 2009 at 7:45 am Re Hector  It's a waste of time trying to have a discussion with Mr. Evans. He basically has two themes, neither of which has any validity.  1. Israel is South Africa  2. Israel is the cause of all the problems in the Muslim World.  However, here's the text of a speech given by Senator John McCains' brother to an AIPAC convention in 2002. Note what I have highlighted in bold.  McCain Addresses AIPAC Annual Policy Conference  Washington, DC ñ U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today made the following remarks to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Conference regarding the current situation in the Middle East:  "There will always be an Israel. The terrorist onslaught against her people represents not progress towards a refoundation of historic Palestine but a plunge into an abyss of moral decay perpetrated in the name of the Palestinian people by their own leaders. There will always be an Israel, because the Israeli people will defend their homeland against murderers who pose as martyrs, and will never accept justice imposed on them by leaders who send children to kill their children.  "There will always be an Israel, strong and free, because Israel, and her supporters in this country, will never allow the depravity of her enemies to obscure the moral clarity that inspired her founding, 54 years ago last week, as the homeland of a people who understood evil long before Americans saw its more recent expression on September 11th.  "Terrorism is terrorism, whether in the form of professional killers who crash civilian aircraft into buildings or amateur murderers undistinguished by anything other than their willingness to take innocent lives.  "A political solution to the conflict with the Palestinians is the best answer to Israeli insecurity, of course. But no moral nation — neither Israel nor America — can allow terrorists to chart the political course of its people. No freedom-loving nation can tolerate a terrorist state on its border. And no great nation can abandon the obligations of moral clarity for the convenience of situational ethics.  "If we are serious about the values we in America and Israel live by, and the opportunities we would like all people in the Middle East to enjoy, we can allow terrorists no role in the political process.  "Indeed, we must work to spread our values in the Middle East, first by opposing tyranny in the Arab world. The celebration of freedom in the streets of liberated Baghdad will serve as a counterpoint to the state-directed Arab media's distortion of the Palestinian conflict. It will be a reminder to other Arab tyrants that the United States is a natural ally of Arab people who aspire to freedom. Freeing Arabs from repression by tyrannical regimes is the priority of neither Yasser Arafat nor the dictators he counts as his allies. But bringing liberty's blessings to Arab peoples will do much more to improve their lives than will their jihad against Israel.  "Unfortunately, when it comes to advocating freedom and opportunity in the Arab world, our values know few champions. In the monarchies and dictatorships of the Middle East, cynicism is the essence of statecraft. Americans find ourselves handicapped in our Middle East diplomacy by a native regard for moral clarity.  "It is our fidelity to the values Arab leaders reject that makes it unmistakably clear to Americans who destroyed the peace process begun in Oslo. The authors of that disaster were the Palestinians themselves — and the Arab leaders who encouraged or accepted Yasser Arafat's rejection of the sweeping settlement offered by former Prime Minister Barak at Camp David, and provided rhetorical and material support for the ensuing intifada waged by suicide bombers.  "I don't think our cultural differences with Arab states are so vast that a common recognition of what constitutes real peace and a just settlement is unattainable. I think Arab leaders know exactly what it will take to achieve real peace between Palestinians and Israelis, and that what they currently offer serves only to perpetuate the conflict.  "Telethons and poems glorifying suicide bombers are not steps toward peace. Cash payments to the families of suicide bombers are not steps toward peace. Communiqués glorifying the murder of innocents are not steps toward peace. All of this is evil, pure and simple.  "It is not peace, but fear of each other that motivates Arab dictators, and fear of their own populations, whose resentments toward Israel and America have been inflamed for generations to distract them from grievances against their own rulers for the economic and political inequities they are expected to endure permanently.  "It is the unenlightened rule of Arab dictators, not the plight of the Palestinians, that condemns the Arab world to the civilizational crisis in which it finds itself. Which Middle Eastern nation grants its Arab citizens the most political freedom? Israel. Which countries' leaders have the blood of innocents on their hands but hear nothing about it from the Arab League? Iraq, Syria, and Sudan, for starters. Which country has the most egregious record of occupying another today? Syria, in Lebanon. In which countries do Palestinian refugees suffer without rights and the most basic freedoms? Other than Israel, only Jordan has treated these people with any dignity. Which nation in the region has matched its payments to the families of Palestinian murderers with money for health care, education, and other development in the territories? Not one.  "How Arab leaders can abide their own hypocrisy is one question. Why they expect us to do so is a better one.  "Arab leaders recoil in mock indignation from any suggestion that they have a responsibility to discourage Palestinian treachery. Instead, they demand that the United States pressure the Government of Israel into forsaking its obligation to defend its citizens from terrorism that Arab governments celebrate and support.  "I'm also distressed that some of our European allies are dismissing Israel's legitimate security concerns. In some quarters, Jews are once again threatened with attacks on their institutions. We are witnessing once again the torching of European synagogues. All world leaders must condemn, in the strongest terms, such despicable behaviour.  "Israel has proved its willingness to risk its strategic interests by returning territories captured in war, and living cheek by jowl with a Palestinian state in exchange for peace and acceptance of Israel's right to exist by its Arab neighbours. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority he claims to lead insist on a settlement that would threaten the eventual extinction of a Jewish state in the Middle East, and accept and support murder as a means to achieve it. Official sponsorship of Palestinian terror is a self-induced mockery of the Palestinian leadership's moral authority, and that of its Nobel Peace Prize-winning chairman.  "The Oslo peace process was premised on the notion that Israelis and Palestinians could live together. I believe it is now time to explore ways in which they can live apart. It is time to consider alternatives such as that proposed by former Prime Minister Barak — to erect a security barrier between the Israelis and the Palestinians. This is not to accept the hopelessness of a political solution, but to embrace the hope that Israel's people can live in safety until a Palestinian leadership truly committed to peace emerges from the chaos and despair inflicted on Palestinians for generations by leaders who lack the courage and compassion and wisdom to make a better life for their people.  "Friends, I make no claim to wisdom on how to resolve the crisis in the Middle East. Like you, I look for guidance in the values we share with the only democracy in the region. I know this: no American leader should be expected to sell a false peace to our ally, consider Israel's right to self-defence less legitimate than ours, or insist that Israel negotiate a political settlement while terrorism remains the Palestinians' preferred bargaining tool.  "The moral clarity you bring to American understanding of Israel's plight is the most effective antidote to the cynicism and hostility that parade as Arab diplomacy in the Middle East today. We will defeat terrorism against America, and we will stand with Israel as she fights the same enemy.  "One of the great privileges of my life was the friendship that I developed with the late Senator Henry Scoop Jackson. I got to know Scoop when I was the Navy liaison to the Senate in the late 70's. Scoop was and remains the model of what an American statesman should be.  "In 1979, I travelled to Israel with Scoop, where I knew he was considered a hero. I had no idea how great a hero he was until we landed in Tel Aviv. When we arrived, we were transferred to a bus big enough to accommodate our large delegation, as well as the U.S. Ambassador in Israel and several of his staff. About a hundred yards outside the airport, the bus was surrounded by a crowd of seven or eight hundred Israelis screaming for Jackson, waving signs that read "God Bless you, Scoop," "Senator Jackson, thank you," and dozens of other tributes. For a patriot like Scoop, their affection for him was nothing less than affection for America.  "Scoop understood a deep truth. The bond between America and Israel is not just a strategic one, though that is important. Today, in the war against terror, we have no stronger ally than Israel. The more profound tie between our two countries, however, is a moral one. We are two democracies whose alliance is forged in our common values. To be proudly pro-American and pro-Israeli is not to hold conflicting loyalties. As Scoop understood, it is about defending the principles that both countries hold dear.  "And I stand before you today, proudly pro-American and pro-Israel. Thank you."  Senator John McCain's brother on The Jews & Israel.  There is a lot of worry popping up in the media just now — "Can Israel Survive?" Don't worry about it. It relates to something that Palestinians, the Arabs, and perhaps most Americans don't realize — the Jews are never going quietly again. Never. And if the world doesn't come to understand that, then millions of Arabs are going to die. It's as simple as that.  Throughout the history of the world, the most abused, kicked-around race of people have been the Jews. Not just during the holocaust of World War II, but for thousands of years. They have truly been "The Chosen People" in a terrible and tragic sense.  The Bible story of Egypt's enslavement of the Jews is not just a story, it is history, if festooned with theological legend and heroic epics. In 70 A.D. the Romans, which had for a long time tolerated the Jews — even admired them as 'superior' to other vassals — tired of their truculent demands for independence and decided on an early "Solution" to the Jewish problem. Jerusalem was sacked and reduced to near rubble, Jewish resistance was pursued and crushed by the implacable Roman War Machine — see 'Masada'. And thus began The Diaspora, the dispersal of Jews throughout the rest of the world.  Their homeland destroyed, their culture crushed, they looked desperately for the few niches in a hostile world where they could be safe. That safety was fragile, and often subject to the whims of moody hosts. The words 'pogrom', 'ghetto', and 'anti-Semitism' come from this treatment of the first mono-theistic people. Throughout Europe, changing times meant sometimes tolerance, sometimes even warmth for the Jews, but eventually it meant hostility, then malevolence. There is not a country in Europe or Western Asia that at one time or another has not decided to lash out against the children of Moses, sometimes by whim, sometimes by manipulation.  Winston Churchill calls Edward I one of England's very greatest kings. It was under his rule in the late 1200's that Wales and Cornwall were hammered into the British crown, and Scotland and Ireland were invaded and occupied. He was also the first European monarch to set up a really effective administrative bureaucracy, surveyed and censused his kingdom, established laws and political divisions. But he also embraced the Jews.  Actually Edward didn't embrace Jews so much as he embraced their money. For the English Jews had acquired wealth — understandable, because this people that could not own land or office, could not join most of the trades and professions, soon found out that money was a very good thing to accumulate. Much harder to take away than land or a store, was a hidden sock of gold and silver coins. Ever resourceful, Edward found a way — he borrowed money from the Jews to finance imperial ambitions in Europe, especially France. The loans were almost certainly not made gladly, but how do you refuse your King? Especially when he is 'Edward the Hammer'. Then, rather than pay back the debt, Edward simply expelled the Jews. Edward was especially inventive — he did this twice. After a time, he invited the Jews back to their English homeland, borrowed more money, then expelled them again.  Most people do not know that Spain was one of the early entrants into The Renaissance. People from all over the world came to Spain in the late medieval period. All were welcome — Arabs, Jews, other Europeans. The University of Salamanca was one of the great centres of learning in the world — scholars of all nations, all fields came to Salamanca to share their knowledge and their ideas. But in 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, having driven the last of Moors from the Spanish Shield, were persuaded by the righteous fundamentalists of the time to announce "The Act of Purification". A series of steps were taken in which all Jews and Arabs and other non-Christians were expelled from the country, or would face the tools and the torches of The Inquisition. From this 'cleansing' come the Sephardic Jews — as opposed to the Ashkenazis of Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, the sporadic violence and brutality against Jews are common knowledge. 'Fiddler' without the music and the folksy humour. At times of fury, no accommodation by the Jew was good enough, no profile low enough, no village poor enough or distant enough.  From these come the near-steady flow of Jews to the United States. And despite the disdain of the Jews by most 'American' Americans, they came to grab the American Dream with both hands, and contributed everything from new ideas of enterprise in retail and entertainment to becoming some of our finest physicians and lawyers. The modern United States, in spite of itself, IS The United States in part because of its Jewish blood.  Then the Nazi Holocaust — the corralling, sorting, orderly eradication of millions of the people of Moses. Not something that other realms in other times didn't try to do, by the way, the Germans were just more organized and had better murder technology.  I stood in the centre of Dachau for an entire day, about 15 years ago, trying to comprehend how this could have happened. I had gone there on a side trip from Munich, vaguely curious about this Dachau. I soon became engulfed in the enormity of what had occurred there nestled in this middle and working class neighbourhood.  How could human beings do this to other human beings, hear their cries, their pleas, their terror, their pain, and continue without apparently even wincing? I no longer wonder. At some times, some places, ANY sect of the human race is capable of horrors against their fellow man, whether a member of the Waffen SS, a Serbian sniper, a Turkish policeman in 1920's Armenia, a Mississippi Klansman. Because even in the United States not all was a Rose Garden. For a long time Jews had quotas in our universities and graduate schools. Only so many Jews could be in a medical or law school at one time. Jews were disparaged widely. I remember as a kid Jewish jokes told without a wince - "Why do Jews have such big noses?" Well, now the Jews have a homeland again. A place that is theirs. And that's the point. It doesn't matter how many times the United States and European powers try to rein in Israel, if it comes down to survival of its nation, its people, they will fight like no lioness has ever fought to save her cubs. They will fight with a ferocity, a determination, and a skill, that will astound us. And many will die, mostly their attackers, I believe. If there were a macabre historical betting parlour, my money would be on the Israelis to be standing at the end. As we killed the kamikazes and the Wehrmacht soldaten of World War II, so will the Israelis kill their suicidal attackers, until there are not enough to torment them. The irony goes unnoticed — while we are hammering away to punish those who brought the horrors of last September here, we restrain the Israelis from the same retaliation. Not the same thing, of course — We are We, They are They. While we mourn and seethe at September 11th, we don't notice that Israel has a September 11th sometimes every day. We may not notice, but it doesn't make any difference. And it doesn't make any difference whether you are pro-Israeli or you think Israel is the bully of the Middle East. If it comes to where a new holocaust looms — with or without the concurrence of the United States and Europe — Israel will lash out without pause or restraint at those who would try to annihilate their country. The Jews will not go quietly again. Joe McCain URL of this page: http://www.newageislam.org/NewAgeIslamArticleDetail.aspx?ArticleID=1507