"It's general comments like Christian British leaders are the cause of the mess that are inaccurate. Sure their were supporters like him that fit the mold, but the situation is just more complex than off hand comments like that."

Indeed. The deeper question is why Wingate was selected for the mission in the first place, given that his beliefs were no secret to his superiors. In this regard it is wise to keep in mind that there was no Palestinian lobby in Britain to offset the pressure being brought by a well organized contingent of wealthy, influential Jews for the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in Palestine. Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary at the time, didn't dream up the idea on his own, be certain of that. Faced with an increasingly violent Palestinian response to the declaration and ever increasing Jewish immigration to Palestine during the 1920-30's, the British decided to use the newly formed, but inexperienced Jewish militia known as Haganah to suppress the revolt. But first they had to be trained, and initially led, by British officers. Who better for the job than Wingate, who was both a gifted military tactician and fervent supporter of Zionism? It most definitely was not a random choice. Wingate performed his task superbly, and Haganah gained both knowledge of modern military organization and tactics, and battlefield experience that would prove invaluable during the 1947-48 war against poorly trained, equipped, and led Arab forces.

A question for you: Were there any British leaders involved that were not Christain?

"My head hurts from all this good conversation."

+1

"Think I need a Woodford Reserve."

If I were still a drinking man, I'd lift a glass to you on this end. Oh he!!, I'll lift a glass of something to you anyway.

Cheers, Brad!

Tom,

Agree with Wingate post.

"A question for you: Were there any British leaders involved that were not Christain?"

Have no idea. I would imagine, but not sure it would have been a good idea to openly omit. Just don't know.

"Just don't know."

Me neither. Given their dissolute ways, I'd bet a lot of them were nominal Christians at best.

@Tom- when I said that it does get sticky just calling all Taliban "evil" and saying that shooting is too good for them, I wasn't alluding to some profound metaphysical point or anything. I just know that 1) most of the Angry Young Men in the Taliban never had a chance- they've been brainwashed since the age of two, and 2) a lot of the people shooting at coalition forces in Afghanistan aren't really Taliban. They're just unemployed young men who were offered an AK-47 and $300 to take potshots at a convoy or FOB. I once had a 14 year old patient who attacked a platoon-sized FOB with one of his cousins. Yes- two tweens attacking a FOB. The soldier who shot him saw him through his scope and didn't have the heart to kill a kid, so he shot him in the thigh. Then his cousin took off and left him. The desperately poor will do desperate things. I once heard a profound statement on the issue: "the solution is prosperity."
OTOH, I have seen drone footage of the Taliban herding civilians into a house that they had falsely leaked to us would soon hold a meeting of Taliban leaders- presumably so that we would bomb the house, killing the civilians and giving them a propaganda victory. Evil.
[I had to cut out something else I know of that is absolutely despicable, because I think my source is still classified, but Petraeus actually had to apologize for telling the truth about it because that just pi$$ed off the Afghans who didn't believe it because "no Muslin would do something like that!".]
Also, just to put it out there, a sizable majority of the "civilian casualties" you hear about from drone strikes are just dead combatants whose weapons were recovered by their buddies before anyone else got on the scene. Many of the rest are people who were supporting the Bad Guys targeted- which I acknowledge many of them probably didn't have a choice in, but then again many of them did. So they chose to risk themselves and their children. Unquestionably a tragedy- especially the children- but again I blame the Bad Guys. The U.S. passes on a staggering number of targets because of the risk of civilian casualties- again, I've visited the TOCs where this is run. The Taliban clearly don't- in fact they seem to seek out maximum civilian bodycounts. Who is evil?

TMK the U.S. has never hit a target that it knew or even strongly suspected would result in civilian deaths- with the exception of soldiers in the heat of battle returning fire, for instance. Heck, one of the reasons we didn't just bomb Bin Ladens compound in Abottabad (a minor one, admittedly) was worry about killing his wives and children.

@ Miguel- first, yeah, I'm not going to touch the Israel/Palestinian thing- which is clearly a complex issue- except to say that there is obviously a moral difference between killing civilians accidentally while targeting Bad People, and the purposeful killing of unarmed innocents like schoolchildren on a bus. (Just as one example.) Thus, in just about every incident that has happened in my lifetime at least, Israel tends to get the benefit of the doubt in my book and it is the Palestinians who have the burden of proof. I don't deny that the Israelis have pulled underhanded stuff- heck, even they don't deny it. But the Palestinians will never get any support (nor even a kind word) from me until random rocket attacks into urban areas, bus bombings, and other such brutalities stop. An attack on an Israeli military checkpoint is much more legitimate.

Second- haven't we butted heads before about Japan and Germany? I really don't want to get into it again, but OTOH I can't just let you try to pass that stuff off as fact. Brother, there was no significant resistance to the Nazis by Germans. There was exactly ONE protest against the persecution of the Jews, for instance. There were some very moving individual and small group acts to be sure- the White Rose comes to mind. But, just as surely, the general complicity of the German population in all manner of Nazi crap outweighs this massively- and of course the proposition that the populace had know idea about the Final Solution simply insults my intelligence- I spent a lot of time at the Dokumentation in Berchtesgaden. You can't hide that. It's hard to ignore ash falling from the sky a few hours after a train full of Jews and Sinti goes by. The WWII German populace just wanted to stick their heads in the sand. Heck, as a generality they didn't like the Jews, anyway, right?
I seem to recall at some point in the past mentioning that if all you say about your German relatives are true that they were a rare and laudable exception. (But we had pacifists in the U.S., too, and they weren't a "resistance.") One often sees numbers listed upwards of a hundred thousand of Germans executed or sent to the camps for "resistance", but almost all of these were incidents of political resistance. There was certainly no organized popular resistance as there was in Poland or France or Holland, etc. And the only significant resistance that did take place was from within the Abwehr or the Heer, because Hitler refused to accept the situation and make peace before Germany was reduced to rubble. The myth of a general German populace resistant to the Nazis is pretty well debunked. And of the acts of resistance that did occur the vast majority started only after it became clear that Germany was going to lose (i.e at the latest early 1943), si it's hard to consider that some sort of moral stand.
All of that said, I do understand that it is difficult to resist an established police state. Also, I can understand a tendency toward loyalty to your country, and how that can blind one. I can certainly make allowances for that. Heck, I LIKE Germans- I've lived five years in Germany, and I'm of German descent. WWII was a different time, and WWII Germany was a harsh place. Modern Germans have done wonders in making right what they can, and IMO they are free to move on. I certainly have no truck with their government, or the way they educate their schoolchildren about the war. To their credit they have a profound collective guilt that to this day some of them find crippling, even though they weren't born for decades afterwards.

Third- re: Japaese apologies- IIRC all of the official Japanese apologies used weasel-words. They all were equivalents of "we regret what occurred during the war" or "past relations are regrettable" and crap like that. It doesn't help that they were almost always immediately followed by a denial of Japanese war crimes. Apology is important in Japan, but really that's not what Japan's critics want. What is wanted is an admission that they were wrong in starting the war, and all of the needless brutalities they inflicted. Nothing close to that happened until the freaking 1980s, and even those still used weasel-words. But most importantly, while there have been a few admissions to this extent, that is certainly not what is taught in Japanese schools. The Japanese still see themselves as VICTIMS in World War Two! (Though I understand that this may finally be changing among today's youth, possibly due to the influence of the interwebs,and I think there may finally be some realism creeping into their textbooks.) I'm not looking for a dogeza or anything, but they could stop with the weasel-words. OTOH when you think about the horrible things the Japanese did during the war it's easy to understand where the Chinese/Koreans/etc. who DO want a dogeza are coming from. Vivisection of Chinese, Filipinos, and captured Allied Airmen? Unit 731? A competition published in a Japanese Army newspaper to see who could be the first to kill 100 people during the Nanking Massacre? That all seems to go beyond "we regret the recent unpleasantness." (And, hint- mentioning the U.S. interment camps for Japanese-Americans or our genocide against the Native Americans does NOT make criticisms of Japanese atrocities invalid...)
I'm tempted to think that this is just a cultural chasm that I can't cross. An American who is admitting wrongdoing will stand up and say "I was wrong", not "I deeply regret the unpleasantness in our recent relations." And perhaps to Japanese sensibilities if you say enough variants of the latter it adds up to something significant. But other Asian nations accuse the Japanese of using weasel-words, too, so I'm not inclined to think I'm just being a parochial westerner or something.
OTOH the national pacifism of post-war Japan is an example for the world. I admire the way they have avoided essentially ANY conflict- and without just knuckling under. Of course, I guess it helps when a superpower is backing up your pacifism with a carrier battlegroup or two. :) But they have also clearly been advocates for peace in many international fora.

Fourth-

EDIT-- Wait, I see that the America-Bashing "America-centric" commentary was already covered, so,

Tschüß.

@Brad- wow, intelligent design, huh? I'm really tempted not to touch that one, either, but just- wow. That entire movement displays a shocking ignorance of science. If you're a Believer, good on you, but every argument the leaders of the ID movement have yet produced is inane claptrap that they try to masquerade as science. What's even worse is that at meetings of other ID believers they keep spouting "evidence" that they have PUBLICLY ACKNOWLEDGED is wrong just to pump up the crowd, presumably because what the ID leaders really believe in is the ignorance of their constituency. (Not to imply that being a Believer makes one ignorant- just that clearly these "leaders" assume that many in the crowd are, in fact, ignorant of the issue and just want a chance to cheer or something.)

The supernatural is exactly that- beyond the natural i.e. science.

Edited by acrosome on 11/18/2012 12:33:59 MST.

Okay, I can't help myself since people have bad-mouthed Susan Rice

Patraeus testified that in the days after Bengazi, the intelligence people said it was spontaneous, even though they knew it was a planned attack, so they didn't tip off the terrorists that they were investigating them

Susan Rice said on those Sunday shows 5 days later that they're investigating but the best info is it was spontaneous - what the intelligence people told her

Yet, Republicans main point out of all of this is that Susan Rice lied or is stupid and shouldn't be confirmed as Secretary of State (for which she hasn't been nominated)

I think it's obvious that the Republicans are still mainly motivated by politically attacking Obama and they care much less about the good of the country

Susan Rice did not do anything she was not told to do. She was told to spin the story toward spontaneous protest of the youtube vid, even though it was known in the dept of defence, state department and the whitehouse that it was a preplanned terrorist attack. There is no mystery here.

"@Tom- when I said that it does get sticky just calling all Taliban "evil" and saying that shooting is too good for them, I wasn't alluding to some profound metaphysical point or anything. I just know that 1) most of the Angry Young Men in the Taliban never had a chance- they've been brainwashed since the age of two, and 2) a lot of the people shooting at coalition forces in Afghanistan aren't really Taliban. They're just unemployed young men who were offered an AK-47 and $300 to take potshots at a convoy or FOB......."

Thanks for responding, Dean. This kind of experienced based information has been in short supply in this discussion. Lots to think about here. One further question regarding the non Taliban fraction of the guys shooting at us: Would you ascribe any of it to Pashtun resistance in the face of a perceived invasion, merely the most recent of countless others they have confronted in the past, and also genuine outrage at the civilian casualties that have been inflicted by ISAF forces, even if they are the minority of civilian casualties?

"@ Miguel- first, yeah, I'm not going to touch the Israel/Palestinian thing- which is clearly a complex issue- except to say that there is obviously a moral difference between killing civilians accidentally while targeting Bad People, and the purposeful killing of unarmed innocents like schoolchildren on a bus. (Just as one example.) Thus, in just about every incident that has happened in my lifetime at least, Israel tends to get the benefit of the doubt in my book and it is the Palestinians who have the burden of proof. I don't deny that the Israelis have pulled underhanded stuff- heck, even they don't deny it. But the Palestinians will never get any support (nor even a kind word) from me until random rocket attacks into urban areas, bus bombings, and other such brutalities stop. An attack on an Israeli military checkpoint is much more legitimate."

At the risk of butting in, I'd like to offer a little perspective here. If you limit your view of the behavior of the Israelis and the Palestinians to the tit for tat of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and the Israeli responses, it is not hard to understand why you might give the Israelis the benefit of the doubt. However, when one considers the deplorable conditions in which the Palestinians have been forced to live as a result of a calculated Israeli strategy to break their will to resist even further encroachment in the West Bank, it is no surprise that they respond as they do. If you treat people like animals, they will surely act like animals. If you go back to the period when Israel was established, the picture gets even grimmer, but this is, I suspect, before you were born. Nonetheless, it has a direct bearing on the behavior of the Palestininas today, after 3-4 generations of livng in a state of degradation and despair. It is a tragic state of affairs that we have the ability to remedy, but are either unwilling or unable to muster the political courage to do so.

Edited by ouzel on 11/19/2012 17:36:58 MST.

"Susan Rice said on those Sunday shows 5 days later that they're investigating but the best info is it was spontaneous - what the intelligence people told her"

@Jerry,

- The attack happened on 9/11. If people aren't intelligent enough to think it Might be terror related then they should be fired.
- I'm sure they didn't have all the details in 5 days, so why rush to communicate anything? Just say still investigating. They don't have trouble doing that with other issues. Why not a simple press conference saying we are gathering and investigating a lot of information
- How many spontaneous attacks have we had with that firepower that resulted in an ambassador being killed vs the number of attacks that are terrorist related? Without any information the odds are very high is was terror related.
- 2 hours after the attack Ansar al=sharia was claiming responsibility according to USA Today

A more responsible and measured approach would have been a better approach. Terrorist attacks are not something new, so we should have a protocol for handling them. The administration was more concerned about it not being a terrorist attack and blaming on someone else.

The republicans are too focused on this and should handle more lower key in my opinion. I think they are doing themselves more harm than good. But how you can say this issue was not badly handled is just beyond me. You have lost your ability to see things objectively when it comes to the democrats or this administration taking the blame for anything.

@Jerry

An if I was the director of the movie I would hit Susan Rice with a defamation lawsuit. Reminds me very much of the Richard Jewell handling in the Olympic bombing. Guy had to go into hiding and his life was threatened.

"An if I was the director of the movie I would hit Susan Rice with a defamation lawsuit."

The guy who made that movie is awful.

There were a bunch of violent protests in response, which is what was intended.

Anyone that has any sympathy for him is just confused.

Brad - do you have any ill feelings towards somebody that would create a video intended to enrage Muslims and cause violence?

@Jerry

Haven't seen the video and it doesn't look like something that would appeal to me. I don't watch videos by idiots like this, nor do I watch videos by radical muslim clerics that think we should be murdered, nor do I watch documentaries from people like Michael Moore or the like (both liberal or conservative). That are not intended to educate, but for people to draw attention to themselves.

However you are missing the point that the issue wasn't handled properly. Administration was looking for a scapegoat to deflect attention. Again why not just wait until you have all the information? Nobody can answer that question.

"Anyone that has any sympathy for him is just confused."

I have no sympathy, but we do have something called the first amendment rights that protect his freedom of speech. No matter how vile his message he still has that right. The administration blaming him actually drew attention to the video. If they would have said nothing it would have been just another senseless video that everyone ignored.

"I have no sympathy, but we do have something called the first amendment rights that protect his freedom of speech. No matter how vile his message he still has that right."

Exactly

And the administration said just that to Muslims to cool things off

Maybe the administration should have just ignored it

Judgement call - could go either way


"Again why not just wait until you have all the information?"

4 Americans were killed. The press/citizens wanted to know why. The administration had to say something. Susan Rice said they were investigating but our best information at that moment was spontaneous which is what the intelligence people said.

There was still potential violence when Susan Rice was talking 5 days later, so it still made since for her to say they didn't agree with that video.

Yeah, there was an election in a few days which everyone was mindful of. I think the Republicans were politicizing it much more than Democrats, and they still are now.

Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice both have similar backgrounds - Stanford connection. I hate Condoleeza Rice. You probably think she's great : )

"Susan Rice said they were investigating but our best information at that moment was spontaneous which is what the intelligence people said. "

See I think that approach is wrong and careless. If you are still investigating who cares about what it might be. Terrorist were claiming responsibility, CIA director already said they thought it was a terror attack, etc. Since when is the US protocol for anything like this to spout off half truths. Again why go on the TV talk show circuit? Even now Rice and Administration will not omit it was a mistake. Geez omit you handled wrong and move on. The lack of humility on both sides is fueling this story.

"There was still potential violence when Susan Rice was talking 5 days later, so it still made since for her to say they didn't agree with that video."

Since when does the US Government comment on videos made by crankpots? Are we really stooping to that level to appease people? So is our new international diplomacy position going to be that any time a private citizens promotes something that offends the muslim nation, the administration is going to stand up and say we don't agree with that?

"I think the Republicans were politicizing it much more than Democrats, and they still are now. "

Agree 100%, but unfortunately that is what our political system has evolved too. Always look for a chance to make the other side look bad. Pretty sad.

"Susan Rice and Condoleezza Rice both have similar backgrounds - Stanford connection. I hate Condoleeza Rice. You probably think she's great : ) "

Was waiting for it. You had to reach back to the past for some non relevant comparison. I don't hate SR, but the situation was mishandled and it might have just been what she was instructed to say. None of us really know. However she is accountable for what she said regardless. She appears to lack the humility to omit she was wrong and the situation should have been handled differently.

"Since when does the US Government comment on videos made by crankpots?"

The State Department does diplomacy.

There was violence because of video.

State Department comments could lessen that violence, so it's appropriate.

I could also see argument for just ignoring it, but I won't criticize them for choosing to comment and try to diffuse.

And since 4 Americans were killed, I think it's the responsibility of the government to say more than just "we're investigating".

All of this post violence talk is un-important - what's important is did we have appropriate security before, what do we do for security in the future, figure out who did it and get justice, and let the families of the victims know how much they were appreciated.

"All of this post violence talk is un-important - what's important is did we have appropriate security before, what do we do for security in the future, figure out who did it and get justice, and let the families of the victims know how much they were appreciated."

Well obviously we didn't have the appropriate security in place before hand, so that is an easy one.

So you are not concerned about understanding where the ball was dropped and holding people accountable? Nothing to see here just move forward. Sounds like another fast and furious. Amazing how you will reach back a decade to cast blame at Bush (rightfully so at time), but when Obama administration might be at fault for mishandling it is all about looking forward.


Just too funny.

Agreed Brad. This is Obama's main job as commander in chief. This was the 3am phone call that Hillary talked about, on 9/11, and it very much appears it was not handled correctly.

It seems like the main focus of Republicans is on what Susan Rice had to say afterwards which is unimportant, and there is relatively little talk about the security beforehand

Susan Rice had nothing to do with the security beforehand

If you listen to Republicans and they mention Susan Rice, you know they care more about preventing Susan Rice from becoming secretary of state than figuring out what went wrong at Bengazi.

The thing about Condoleezza Rice is that I don't like Condoleezza but like Susan. Vice versa for you. Sort of funny how our biases effect our judgements of people.