We could see them learn to march and shoot, setting up road bombs, and
how they ambushed and executed a civilian Israeli in an exercise. Some
of the boys being trained and interviewed were as young as ten, hardly bigger than the
AK47 assault rifles they were learning to use.
I hope some people remember this footage the next time the anti-Israeli press laments that the IDF kills "a child."
Arafat and his allies are busy making the next generation of cold
blooded murderers and terrorists, and yet Europeans consider a fence
the pressing Middle East problem.
A very disturbing report that the Phillipines is giving in to terrorism by promising to withdraw troops from Iraq as soon as possible. The Philippine deputy foreign
minister Rafael Seguis read out a statement broadcast on al-Jazeera.
"In response to your request, the Philippines ... will
withdraw its humanitarian forces as soon as possible," Seguis
said according to the translation of the statement, addressed
to the Islamic Army in Iraq group holding 46-year-old de la
Cruz.
"I hope the statement that I read will touch the heart of
this group," said Seguis. "We know that Islam is the religion
of peace and mercy."
Rather unbelievable, considering that the country is itself in the forefront in the war against Islamic terrorism.
The kidnappings in Iraq will no doubt intensify as the terrorists probe to find out who else they can intimidate to leave.
Bulgaria, in contrast, stands firm. So has Japan, South Korea and Turkey.
"You've gotta like a senator who is a pooper picker-upper," says one onlooker, Connie Thompson of Laurel.
Even as this is true, I doubt it will do John Kerry much good outside
the northeast to be as closely associated to Edward Kennedy as this
article portrays him.
9:22:31 PM comment []trackback []
Critics of Margaret Thatcher have maintained that the sinking of the
Argentine warship Belgrano was needless slaughter of a harmless training vessel
heading away from the conflict. New evidence from the most unlikely
source begs to differ.
Captain Hector Bonzo was at the bridge of the
Belgrano on 2 May, 1982, when HMS Conqueror fired three torpedoes into
his vessel, killing 323 of his men. But Bonzo, it now transpires,
believes the attack was justified. "Our mission in the south wasn’t
just to cruise around but to attack," he told Secret History in what
amounts to an astonishing coup for the documentary series. "We knew we
had to be ready to attack or be attacked ourselves."
The article refers to a Channel 4 documentary that would be interesting to watch.
It is often overlooked how important the 1982 Falklands war was in how
British (and American) armed forces viewed themselves. In a way it
foreshadowed Operation Desert Storm in demonstrating how vastly
superiour a modern western army was against even a well-equipped third
world army. Battles on the Falklands were often 1-to-4 or worse for the
British expeditionary force brought halfway around the world, yet it
prevailed with such convincing strength it made the Soviets, for one,
realise that the balance of power was not in its favour as it thought.
Maybe more important, however, is how the defeat of the Argentine junta
caused a downfall of a brutal dictature and the development of
something thought impossible at the time: true democracy in Latin
America (however troubled, the current regimes are surely vastly better
than the juntas).
Those of us who are optimists, hope that this can be a model for the Middle East.
I had a look at Sky News today, a channel I don't get at home, and saw the scary footage of 
