A good liberal response. Make it kind of an insult - you don't see - but don't try to explain why what I said was wrong.
Now I understand. It's my vision, not what I said.
Here'a a tiny bit of change i can heartily embrace. Temporary as it no doubt is fated to be.
It seems that a rare moment of sanity has siezed the US government, and some smart but soon-to-be unemployed member if the US State Dept has refused to issue a visa to one Dr. Uzi Arad. Arad is slated to be the security advisor to Bibi Netanyahu, the once and future Prime Minister of Israel.
The basis for the visa denial is that Arad is involved in the long-awaited trial of accused AIPAC/Israeli spies Rosen and Weiss. It appears that Arad has been denied enty into the US for at least two years, and is described as an "intelligence risk," as oppossed to the more customary term "security risk" I would think we could coin a new term for Dr. Arad - "sanity risk" - as the US would be insane to listen to the same tired, tiresome apologetics for aggression, war crimes and ethnic cleansing which will no doubt spring from this source, let alone to act upon any of it.
No doubt our brave solons in the Congress are busy RIGHT THIS SECOND to fix up any probs Dr. Arad might be facing in terms of gaing enty into this country. Wouldn't be good form to inconvenience so brave an ally in The Global War On Teror, you see. The usual suspects like Rep Waxman or Senator Schumer are no doubt busy writing some legislation to overturn the visa denial. One wonders if they'll stop there or plow on and write a bill offering Dr. Arad US citizenship. They'll probably throw in a US gov't pension with it as well.
Well, I say, let Arad enter the US without diplomatic immunity, where he would be subject to indictment, arrest and trial. No such luck, of course.
US Blocks Visa for Top Bibi Aide
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
United States officials have denied a visa to Dr. Uzi Arad, a security expert who is Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu’s choice to be national security advisor, according to the Washington Times. He is suspected by the Americans of being an intelligence risk, and his attempts to obtain a visa have failed for nearly two years.
Dr. Arad confirmed the report but told The Times, “The director-general of the Israel Foreign Ministry did tell his American counterparts that there has been no cause to deny me a visa.” Lack of a visa would prevent him from visiting American officials on top security issues, making it difficult for him to serve as the Prime Minister-designate’s advisor.
Dr. Arad worked for the Mossad intelligence agency for more than 20 years and advised Netanyahu after he retired in 1997. He has been an opponent to the U.S. invasion of Iraq and also was against the Israeli abandonment of the Gaza region nearly four years ago.
The main problem for American immigration authorities is that Arad was implicitly named by Larry Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) representatives.
The indictment against Franklin mentioned “a person previously associated with an intelligence agency of [foreign official' country,” The Times reported, adding that both Israeli and American officials have confirmed the reference is to Dr. Arad, who met with Franklin in 2004 at the Pentagon cafeteria.
Uriel Reichman, the president of the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, recommended to American officials in 2007 that a visa be granted to Arad. Referring to suspected espionage issues, he wrote that is “absolutely certain to me and to all who know him, that none of the causes specified ... apply to him."
Dr. Arad told Israel National News that the source of the problem is a technicality." A senior aide to Prime Minister-designate Netanyahu told The Times that he expects officials to grant a visa for official matters.
Comment on this story
The way people bandy words like "ethnic cleasing" is so silly it is cute. It is like calling a slap in the face murder.
Ethnic cleansing used to be mean something akin to genocide, meaning the systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group.
Even in the recent war in the Gaza there were at most a coupld thousand killed, many of whom were combatants. However, assuming arguento all were children, which we know is not true, it is silly to think that Israel was attempting to "exterminate the entire race."
With all the fire power, tanks, planes, bombs, jets, assault weapons, and other weapons that were available, when you realize that only that number was killed in a densely populated region, it is obvious there was no attempt at any thing close to genocide.
If they wanted to kill 10,000, five well placed bombs in the most densely packed buildings would do the job. While any deaths are tragic, so few deaths resulting in war fare in a densely populated area is proof of how restrained the attack was and how much it was geared to combatants, as much as possible.
Ethnic cleansing. How silly. The inflation of words defeats any meaning
"To equal robbery with murder is to reduce murder to robbery, to confound in common minds the gradations of iniquity, and incite the commission of a greater crime to prevent the detection of a less. If only murder were punished with death, very few robbers would stain their hands in blood; but when by the last act of cruelty no new danger is incurred and greater security may be obtained, upon what principle shall we bid them forbear?"
Samuel Johnson: Rambler #114 (April 20, 1751)
Oops! we do care for precision. How does "ethnic tidying up" or "ethnic neating up" or "ethnic straightening up" work for you? Better? More accurate? Less judgmental? More politically accetable? Less emotionally conflicting?
And what, no complaints about the use of the terms 'aggression" and/or "war crimes"? Running out of steam?
So pettifoggering it is sad. But defending the barely defensible is a chore, so carry on.
Sammy Johnson once famously observed that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. One wonders what his take might have been upon The Global War On Teror/World War IV/The clash Of Civilizations and the rest of our foreign policy debacles.
-- Modified on 3/22/2009 4:47:57 PM
It isn't pettifoggering about words. It is as if someone called the L.A. County Jail a Death Camp. Yes, a few people have died there, but the purpose is not to kill mass numbers.
Had the intent been "ethnic tidying up," it would be easy to kill 10,000. (Attempted genocide would have been e00,000. Even then it would have been an attempt, since that would only be half the population of Gaza, which is ignoring the population of the West Bank and other Palestinians in the area.
Compared to WW II, where it was 90% of one group living in Europe, this needs a different word.
Yes, aggression and war crimes are silly also. If 1,000,000 rockets are fired into a nation, it is not aggression to respond.
Look at how little it took Russia to respond in Georgia last year, and look at how violent that was.
you are missing the forest for the trees, but that's not surprising.
A good liberal response. Make it kind of an insult - you don't see - but don't try to explain why what I said was wrong.
Now I understand. It's my vision, not what I said.
Leme spell it out for you :
The Forest : a key gov't official of America's Most Reliable Ally In The Middle East is denied a visa to enter the USA, his presence in this country being deemed harmful to America's interests;
The Trees : your pettifoggering over the throwaway use of Ethnic Cleansing.
It is interesting that an advocate of America's most self-destructive foreign policy would wish to change the subject of the danger Dr. Arad's presence in the US presents to this country to a discussion of whether or not Israel's treatment of the Pallys does or does not constitute Ethnic Cleansing. This just tells me how desperate your side can become. And with so little effort.
By the way, since you've chosen to place your formidible intellect at the service of Isreal, why not defend Dr. Arad, pro bono, if and when he should have the courage to enter the US w/o diplomatic immunity and expose himself to the machinery of the US judicial system?