US military aid to Lebanon put on hold - Politics - msnbc.com

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said Monday he has suspended U.S. military aid to Lebanon's army amid growing concern in Congress that American-supplied weapons could threaten Israel.

Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., said he placed a hold on $100 million in assistance to the Lebanese Armed Forces on Aug. 2, because he was concerned about influence the militant group Hezbollah may have in the army. He said those concerns were reinforced a day later when Lebanese soldiers shot and killed an Israeli officer along the two countries' border.
"Until we know more about this incident and the nature of Hezbollah influence on the (Lebanese army) — and can assure that the (Lebanese army) is a responsible actor — I cannot in good conscience allow the United States to continue sending weapons to Lebanon," Berman said in a statement.
Hezbollah was not involved in the most recent fighting but some have suggested that the group may have encouraged it.
In announcing the hold, Berman joined other lawmakers in urging the Obama administration to review its policy of providing weapons and training to the Lebanese military.
The Aug. 3 exchange of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border killed four people, including two Lebanese soldiers and the Israeli officer, in the most serious fighting since the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.
Reps. Ron Klein, D-Fla., and Eric Cantor, R-Va., have made similar calls.
"Lebanon cannot have it both ways," Cantor said in a statement. "If it wants to align itself with Hezbollah against the forces of democracy, stability and moderation, there will be consequences."
He noted that the United States has since 2006 given the Lebanese army about $720 million in aid, including M-16 assault rifles, missile launchers, grenade launchers and night-vision goggles in addition to training.
Both the Bush and Obama administrations have backed sending aid to Lebanon's army, maintaining that a professional military is critical for the government to exert its sovereign authority, which has been challenged by armed Hezbollah militants.
The State Department said Monday there was no evidence that American-supplied equipment had been used by Lebanese soldiers involved in the shooting incident. It said it was not yet clear if the soldiers involved had received U.S. military training.
Spokesman P.J. Crowley defended the assistance.
"We have an extensive military cooperation program with Lebanon because it's in our interest to have that program," he said. "It allows the government of Lebanon to expand its sovereignty. We believe that is in the interest of both of our countries and regional stability as a whole."
Crowley told reporters he was not aware of plans to reevaluate U.S. military cooperation with Lebanon.

via msnbc.msn.com

no evidence? the photos of the Lebanese soldiers that were shot had American guns!!!!! wtf? no evidence? who do these people think they are kidding?

noahdavidsimon's posterous

two pictures of LAF soldiers who were on the ground for last week’s cross-border ambush of the IDF. The guns they’re holding are M16’s. Or, as the rifles are better known in the context of Lebanese security assistance, “American-made M16’s:”

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Of course, as Foreign Policy gamely notes, you can never be sure. There’s at least a chance that these rifles are M16 knockoffs made by China, Iran, or Pakistan. Security assistance apologists – then – wouldn’t have to explain why we’re supplying the LAF with the specific weapons that they’re using to incite regional conflict. They’d only have to explain why we’re supplying the LAF with cutting-edge weapons while the Lebanese use different weapons – acquired either from our rising hegemonic rivals or from intransigent nuclear rogues – to incite regional conflict.
Now these M113 APC’s, the ones the LAF used to back their ambush?

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Those definitely came from us [PDF]:

via mererhetoric.com

 

Gay Bar to be opened next to WTC Mosque

(New York) Am not sure if this is a joke or the real thing, but it appears that Greg Gutfild (who?) from Fox News is looking at opening up a gay bar next to the proposed WTC mosque. Here is what he has to say on the subject:

“So, the Muslim investors championing the construction of the new mosque near Ground Zero claim it’s all about strengthening the relationship between the Muslim and non-Muslim world.

As an American, I believe they have every right to build the mosque – after all, if they buy the land and they follow the law – who can stop them?

Which is why, in the spirit of outreach, I’ve decided to do the same thing.

I’m announcing tonight, that I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space. [...]

The goal, however, is not simply to open a typical gay bar, but one friendly to men of Islamic faith. An entire floor, for example, will feature non-alcoholic drinks, since booze is forbidden by the faith. The bar will be open all day and night, to accommodate men who would rather keep their sexuality under wraps – but still want to dance. [...]

Bottom line: I hope that the mosque owners will be as open to the bar, as I am to the new mosque. After all, the belief driving them to open up their center near Ground Zero, is no different than mine.

My place, however, will have better music.”

The interesting thing here is, if the Muslims object then they really haven't a leg to stand on on pushing the religion of peace and understanding bit in which to promote their mosque come YMCA, have they?

via eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com

and you thought the pork we had planned wasn't kosher?

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Same-Sex Marriage Judge Finds That a Child Has Neither a Need Nor a Right to a Mother

U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled last week in federal court in San Francisco that same-sex marriage is a constitutional right. (AP Photo/Todd Rogers)

(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker, who ruled last week that a voter-approved amendment to California’s constitution that limited marriage to the union of one man and one woman violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, based that ruling in part on his finding that a child does not need and has no right to a mother.

  Nor, he found, does a child have a need or a right to a father.

  “Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted, and having both a male and a female parent does not increase the likelihood that a child will be well-adjusted,” the judge wrote in finding of fact No. 71 in his opinion.

  “The gender of a child’s parent is not a factor in a child’s adjustment,” the judge stated in finding of fact No. 70. “The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent. Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology.”

  Despite Walker’s claim that this “fact” is “beyond serious debate,” one of the sources he cited for it was a brochure published by the American Psychological Association (APA) that was entered into evidence in the case, which specifically stated twice: “Few studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.” Walker did not quote this part of the brochure in his opinion.

  However, Walker did quote this same brochure as saying: “[S]ocial science has shown that the concerns often raised about children of lesbian and gay parents--concerns that are generally grounded in prejudice against and stereotypes about gay people--are unfounded.”

  This quote comes from a side-bar box on page five of the six-page APA brochure. The box purports to answer the “most common questions” about homosexual parents, posing four such questions and giving the APA’s answer to them.

  The first is: “Do children of lesbian and gay parents have more problems with sexual identity than do children of heterosexual parents?”

  The full answer in the brochure is as follows: “For instance, do these children develop problems in gender identity and/or in gender role behavior? The answer from research is clear: sexual and gender identities (including gender identity, gender-role behavior, and sexual orientation) develop in much the same way among children of lesbian mothers as they do among children of heterosexual parents. Few studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.”

  The brochure does not explain why the APA concludes that the “answer from research is clear” that children of homosexual parents do not have more problems with sexual identity than children with mothers and fathers when in fact, as the brochure itself states, “[f]ew studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.” Nor does Judge Walker explain how his finding of “fact” that the gender of parents does not matter to children is “beyond serious debate” when in fact his own source stipulates that “[f]ew studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.”

  The second question answered in the brochure is:  “Do children raised by lesbian or gay parents have problems in personal development in areas other than sexual identity?”

  The entirety of the answer provided in the brochure states:  “For example, are the children of lesbian or gay parents more vulnerable to mental breakdown, do they have more behavior problems, or are they less psychologically healthy than other children? Again, studies of personality, self-concept, and behavior problems show few differences between children of lesbian mothers and children of heterosexual parents. Few studies are available regarding children of gay fathers.”

Judge Walker does not quote this part of the brochure in his finding that the gender of parents does not matter, nor does he explain how his finding can be “beyond serious debate” when in fact the very evidence he uses to establish this point states that “[f]ew studies are available regarding gay fathers.”

  To further his case that the well-being of children is no bar to declaring same-sex marriage a right protected  by the Fourteenth Amendment, Judge Walker makes a finding of fact that the state of California already legally recognizes that the gender of parents is irrelevant.  As Walker reports it, California laws goes so far as to “encourage” homosexuals to acquire children whether through adoption, foster care, or artificially conceiving a child and, presumably, in the case of a male-male couple, securing a female to gestate the child until the male-male couple can take custody of it.

  “California law permits and encourages gays and lesbians to become parents through adoption, foster parenting or assistive reproductive technology,” writes Walker in finding of fact No. 49. “Approximately 18 percent of same-sex couples in California are raising children.”

  To support this finding, Walker notes that California’s attorney general, who is Jerry Brown, “admits that the laws of California recognize no relationship between a person’s sexual orientation and his or her ability to raise children.”

  “Attorney General admits,” writes Walker, “that California law protects the right of gay men and lesbians in same-sex relationships to be foster parents and to adopt children by forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Walker’s ruling declaring same-sex marriage protected under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, if upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, would have ramifications far beyond California, requiring states across the union to recognize same-sex marriages while wiping out any legal protection a child might have from being handed over by state governments to same-sex couples either through adoption or foster parenthood.

  The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as applied by Walker would require states to grant a marriage license to same-sex couples and would-be parents, while implicitly annihilating the notion that each American child has an equal right to a mother and a father.

  A child put out for adoption or foster parenting by the state, or a child conceived through technological means and gestated in a hired womb, would have no right not to be assigned to a homosexual couple who would act as his or her father and father or mother and mother.

via cnsnews.com

hard to believe that this guy is granted the reputation to be impartial with such references.

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For Arab Nations, the Threat of a Nuclear Iran Puts Israel in a New Light

a bit optimistic at best. I hope they can convince the Arabs to cooperate with such writing. I see only the ability to convince more Americans that these guys are ready to be allies.

Getty Images

An Israeli F-16i jet fighter.

Being an Arab leader has its rewards: the suite at the Waldorf-Astoria during the United Nations General Assembly, travel in your own plane, plenty of cash, even job security—whether kings, sheiks or presidents, with or without elections, most serve for life.

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Associated Press

George Mitchell, U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East, with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

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Mr. Abbas with Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri

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Mr. Hariri with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

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Mr. Mitchell with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Mr. Netanyahu with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia with Mr. Assad.

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King Abdullah with Mr. Hariri

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Associated Press

King Abdullah with Mr. Mubarak.

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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with Mr. Assad.

But the advantages must seem dwarfed by the problems that face the Arab world this summer. The Shia in Iran seem to be building a bomb, Iran's ally Syria is taking over Lebanon (again), Yemen is collapsing (again), Egypt's President Mubarak is said to be dying and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is back on the front pages.
What's more, no one is sure who's in charge these days. The American hegemony, in place at least since the British left Aden in 1967 and secured through repeated, massive military operations of its own and victories by its ally Israel, seems to be fraying. Who will stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program, the Arabs wonder; they place no faith in endless negotiations between earnest Western diplomats and the clever Persians.
Israel is the enemy of their enemy, Iran. Now, the usual description of Arab-Israeli relations as "hostile" or "belligerent" is giving way to a more complex picture. Following the joint Arab military efforts to prevent the formation of the Jewish State in 1948, and the wars that followed in 1956, 1967 and 1973, this is a bizarre turn of events. Israel is as unpopular in the Arab street as it has been in past decades (which is to say, widely hated), but for Arab rulers focused on the Iranian threat all those the Israeli Air Force jets must now appear alluring. The Israeli toughness the Arabs have complained about for over a half century is now their own most likely shield against Iran.
The Arab view that someone should bomb Iran and stop it from developing nuclear weapons is familiar to anyone who meets privately with Arab leaders, especially in the Gulf. Now, the curtain is being pulled back: Just last month, the United Arab Emirates' ambassador to the United States, Yousef Al Otaiba, spoke publicly of a "cost-benefit analysis" and concluded that despite the upset to trade that would result and the inevitable "people protesting and rioting and very unhappy that there is an outside force attacking a Muslim country," the balance was clear. The ambassador told an Aspen audience, "If you are asking me, 'Am I willing to live with that versus living with a nuclear Iran?' my answer is still the same: 'We cannot live with a nuclear Iran.' I am willing to absorb what takes place." By speaking of "an outside force," Ambassador Al Otaiba did not specifically demand U.S. action; he left the door open for volunteers.
And two weeks ago, the Israeli press carried reports of a visit to Saudi Arabia by Gen. Meir Dagan, chief of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency; Gen. Dagan is the point man on Iran for the Israeli government. This follows stories in the Times of London two months ago claiming that the Saudis would suspend their air defense operations to permit Israeli fighter planes to cross Saudi air space en route to an attack on Iran.

All this will be denied, of course, as it has always been, but Arab-Israeli (and for that matter, Arab-Palestinian) relations remain far more complicated than headlines suggest. Even in states where there are no politics as we know it—there are no elections or the outcomes are decided by fiat in the presidential palace—all politics is local, and concerns about the Palestinians take a back seat to national and personal interests. The minuet now being conducted by Arab foreign ministers with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, is illuminating.

The issue is whether the Palestinians should move to direct negotiations with Israel, in place of the desultory "proximity talks" that have been led by U.S. envoy George Mitchell. Mr. Abbas has been very reluctant to make this decision, fearing venomous criticism from Hamas and wondering if direct talks would actually lead anywhere except to a further crisis down the road if and when they break down. Mr. Abbas has been laying down preconditions that make talks harder and harder to begin, asking in essence that the U.S. guarantee an outcome he likes on the central matters (refugees, borders, Jerusalem) before he will sit down at the table. Despite heavy American and European pressure, Mr. Abbas has been unwilling to decide anything. In fact, reversing years of effort by his predecessor Yasser Arafat to escape the tutelage of Arab states, he threw the ball to them. He would do whatever the Arab League told him to do.
But the Arab foreign ministers, meeting two weeks ago in Cairo, proved to be as wily as he. They decided to endorse direct talks, but with preconditions—and they left the timing to the Palestinians, thus leaving Mr. Abbas on his own. Their decision was to make Mr. Abbas bear any blame associated with the decision, while they ducked and returned to their hotel suites. They are for peace and talks with Israel, and they are helping the Americans, and they are backing their Palestinian brothers, unless of course things go sour, in which case it will be clear that Mr. Abbas made the wrong decision to enter (or not to enter) direct talks. All this under the guise of "Arab solidarity."
There isn't much solidarity this summer. For Syria, the only issue right now is regaining hegemony in Lebanon, and Syria is aligned with Iran and Hezbollah. Syrian President Bashar Assad visited Beirut a week ago for the first time since Syrian troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005—a fitting symbol of the return of Syrian power.

But Syria's border with Israel remains dead quiet, for the regime seeks no direct confrontation. The last time it moved to assert a leadership role in the region, by the secret construction of a nuclear reactor with designs supplied by North Korea, Israel bombed the site to smithereens in September 2007. So Syria arms Hezbollah, menaces the Lebanese and watches to see how the Americans will handle Iran. There will be no serious negotiations over the Golan Heights until the Iran issue is settled, for any Golan deal would require that Syria break with Iran—and such a move depends entirely on whether the regime there is rising or falling in influence.
For Lebanon, divided as ever among Sunni, Shia, Christian and Druze, the main concern is the forthcoming decision of the international tribunal investigating the murder of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. Will it name Syria or Hezbollah, the Shia terrorist group that controls much of the country? And how will Hariri's son Saad, now prime minister, balance the need for stability against the desire for justice?

The fact that Mr. Assad of Syria arrived a week ago in a Saudi jet and accompanied by the Saudi King, Abdullah, shows Lebanese that Saudi support for their independence is a thing of the past. The Saudi message was clear: Make your own arrangements with Damascus and do not count on us. Until this week, the Lebanese border with Israel had been quiet since the 2006 war—Hezbollah and its Shia supporters were hurt badly enough to avoid a repetition. For months there have been rumors of war this summer along the Israeli-Lebanon border, but that was never in the cards. Hezbollah, whose well-trained terrorists and rockets aimed at Israel's cities are supplied or financed by Iran, could attack Israel if Israel bombs Iran's nuclear sites. Thus Hezbollah's forces are both a deterrent to an Israeli attack, and a way for Iran to strike back at Israel if an attack occurs—an Iranian second-strike capability. The ayatollahs need Hezbollah intact and ferocious to scare the Israelis, so another Israel-Hezbollah war that might badly wound the Shia group is the last thing Tehran wants right now.
The incident last Tuesday, when Lebanese Army snipers shot into Israel, killing one Israeli officer and wounding another, is still not fully understood. It appears to be the work of the Lebanese commander in that area, a Shia considered close to Hezbollah. Perhaps the attack was his own nasty idea; perhaps Hezbollah ordered him to do it, using the Lebanese Army to change the subject away from the tribunal. Either way it is a reminder that Lebanon is not a normal country with an army under government control. It is a battlefield largely controlled by Syria and Hezbollah, and unable to determine its own fate.

For Egypt, there is one worry: Mr. Mubarak's health. With a presidential election coming in the fall of 2011, will his 30 years in power (since Sadat's assassination in 1981) end with a free election, or will the ill, 82-year-old Mr. Mubarak demand another term or the installation of his son Gamal as his successor? Meanwhile, Egypt's dominance of Arab diplomacy and its overall influence in the region are declining steadily. The Arab League is still headquartered there, but it was symbolic of Egypt's diminished status that the key figure in the foreign ministers' meeting held there last week was Hamad bin Jassem of Qatar, the rich Gulf sheikdom with about 350,000 citizens, not Ahmed Aboul Gheit of Egypt, with a population of 80 million.

At stake in the succession crisis in Egypt is not simply who will rule the country, but whether a new president will maintain Egypt's chilly but reliable peace with Israel. Here too there are shared enemies, in this case Hamas and other Palestinian radical and terrorist groups; Israel and Egypt have maintained together (though with Israel shouldering 99% of the blame) a blockade on Gaza since the Hamas coup there in 2007.
The Egyptian regime feels no love for the Israelis, but there is significant security cooperation between the two countries; Egypt's rulers see the Shia in Iran, not the Jewish state, as the more dangerous threat to Arab power in the region. Egypt's decisions in late July to bar an Iranian Red Crescent ship carrying aid to Gaza from entering the Suez Canal and to prevent four Iranian parliamentarians from crossing the border into Gaza are the most recent proof of this Egyptian attitude.
Whatever Egypt's concerns about Iran, fears are far greater in the Gulf. Seen from those shores, the Palestinians are a constant drain on the pocketbook and, with Al Jazeera stirring things up through constant broadcasts depicting Israeli violence and Palestinian misery, a source of popular dissatisfaction. Israeli-Palestinian violence is poison for regimes that are concerned above all else with survival, and the "peace process" is a much-sought antidote. Everyone loves conferences that suggest "progress," though as the decisions at the recent Arab League meeting show, everyone will seek to avoid the hard decisions that serious negotiations might necessitate.
The Palestinian issue has been with them for decades and may last decades more; the rise of Iran is new and pressing, given its proximity—and the existence of a Shia majority in Bahrain and a significant Shia population in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern province. It is not difficult to think of Iranian pressure, money and even guns leading to riots and violent uprisings.

The Gulf regimes have long relied on American protection, and the U.S. maintains large bases in the UAE, Bahrain (the Fifth fleet's headquarters), Qatar and Kuwait. For these regimes and for the Saudis, Iran is a constant threat and the issue of the day is who will be, to use the old British phrase, "top country" in the region. Repeated American offers to negotiate with Iran, and statements from Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates respectively that an attack on Iran would be "incredibly destabilizing" or "disastrous" do not reassure them. They want Iran stopped. They are not sure the need to do that is understood as well in Washington as it is in Jerusalem—and at Israel Defense Forces headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Perhaps the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, if he is an Israeli pilot. In that case, all gestures of friendship will be forsaken or carefully hidden; there will be denunciations and UN resolutions, petitions and boycotts, Arab League summits and hurried trips to Washington. But none of that changes an essential fact of life well understood in many Arab capitals this summer: that there is a clear coincidence of interests between the Arab states and Israel today, in the face of the Iranian threat. Given the 60 years of war and cold peace between Israel and the Arabs, this is one of the signal achievements of the regime in Tehran—and could prove to be its undoing.
—Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

via online.wsj.com

fear does not create friends in the long term though

noahdavidsimon's posterous