So let the Palestinians have their own state already….

How can it be that there is not already an independent Palestinian state? The U.S. administration and Israel are all in a dither because the leader of Palestine is going to the UN General Assembly next week to demand Palestine be recognized as an independent nation.

From my knowledge of the history of this whole thing (recent history), which began about the time I was born, 62 years ago, neither side, Israel nor the Palestinians, have a lock on all that is good and right. Furthermore, Arab powers in the area, and even the Persians of Iran, have capitalized on the suffering of the Palestinians, but have not been of much help to them.

But the indisputable fact is that the Palestinians had their territory taken over in order to create the modern state of Israel. That state was created for the Jews by the Western powers, most notably the U.S. and Britain, to atone for all the suffering of the of Jews, who had long been persecuted in Europe and finally had lost millions of their own in Hitler’s Holocaust — they were shot or gassed to death and their bodies burned in giant ovens and maybe sometimes they were not killed before being thrown into the inferno.

So a new/old homeland for the Jews was created in the old biblical place where God’s “chosen people” once abided.

At the time previous to the creation of the modern state of Israel the British were in charge there, the area being  part of what was left of the old British Empire, upon which the sun never set.

There is disagreement as to how much legal claim the displaced Palestinians had over the land, they not being incorporated into a recognized state, and there are even claims by the Jews that the Palestinians were not chased off but rather left of their own accord — not wanting to share space with Jews. This is my admittedly limited understanding of the whole situation, but I think there are elements of truth from all who try to give an account of what happened, but their own prejudices and true motives get in the way of complete truth here.

But history is history. This is today. And there is no reason why what I believe are a relatively homogeneous group of people, the Palestinians, should not have complete autonomy.

While the Palestinians, as a group through the years, are guilty of grave acts of terrorism against the Jews, the Jews themselves engaged in terrorism, mainly against the British, in their original efforts at statehood. In addition, the Jews continue to build and maintain new settlements encroaching on what is considered Palestinian territory.

While the Palestinians have a responsibility to be peaceful neighbors and refrain from making war on Israel, Israel has to responsibility to quit denying freedom to so many inhabitants of the land who are not Jewish.

The United States has tried to be responsible through the years and be responsive to the needs of the Jewish people, who have historically been oppressed.

The U.S. has also responded through the years in various crises, such as Arab invasions, due not only to a sense of right but the power of the ultra-strong Jewish lobby and a strong voting block of U.S. Jews.

But it is time now for the U.S. to sit back and let the Palestinians declare their own state, making it plain that the U.S. still supports the defense of Israel.

There is no guarantee of peace and harmony is all of this, but to do otherwise after all this time is a guarantee of continued strife.

(Sharia law for Libya?) Obama may have another Middle East victory: Bin Laden down and now Gaddafi

LATEST UPDATE (8-25-11):

At the the opera they say it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. In libya,  it can’t even begin to be over till Gaddafi crawls out of his hole or until he is pulled out. His loyalits are still resisting and he’s still issuing statements, according to reports, even though his command center/residence was taken over.

And one wonders if this will all devolve into a civil war.

UPDATE:

8-24-11

Over the last 12 hours or so the story/rumor that is circulating concerning the apparent Libya rebel victory over Gaddafi, who served as a tyrant for more than four decades, is that a draft of a new “democratic” constitution is circulating and that it calls for the imposition of  Sharia law.

I have to admit I know next to nothing about Sharia law, except basically I understand it is an Islamic religious code. Well if a nation is going to have an official religion, it seems logical it might well adopt that religion’s code.

I could no more deal with the imposition of Sharia law here in the United States than I could deal with the imposition of some Christian code of conduct based on the Old or even New Testament of the Holy Bible.

In the U.S., religious freedom, which includes the prohibition of a state-sponsored religion (and I would add, freedom from religion), is a fundamental part of our democracy. It would seem impossible to achieve anything close to our basic freedoms with the imposition of a religious law, even though much of our law is derived from religious moral codes of the past.

And that story or rumor about a pending imposition of Sharia law in Libya is just that, a story or rumor.

But again, my limited understanding is that there are various forms of Sharia law and that different people, that is different Muslims, interpret it differently.

Now that I think about it, Iraq, which we liberated and nation-built with so much cost in blood and treasure, now uses Sharia law. And so does our oil-rich “friend ” Saudi Arabia.

(From what little I do understand of Sharia it is not fun to be a woman where it is practiced, unless you like having no rights.)

While we have to hope that something good comes out of the Libya rebel cause, such as a Western-style democracy, I’m not sure it should make a lot of difference to any of us here in the Good Old USA. We have our democracy and a nice country — we need to take care of ourselves and let Libyans decide what they want to do.

And by the way, does it bother you as it does me when I see all those ignorant people shooting automatic weapons into the air in “celebratory fire”? BBC (a much better source of news than any of our outlets) did a little story on the dangers and the many deaths that idiot behavior causes.

Are those people really ready to take care of things for themselves?

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My previous post from 8-23-11 follows:

Maybe there is hope that the Libya thing won’t turn into an Iraqi/Afghanistan/Vietnam quagmire after all — we don’t know yet.

Unlike the Republicans, I freely admit or concede our President Obama is looking pretty clever right now. I was critical of his move and method on Libya, thinking that although we (the U.S.) went in there, by air power, under the cover of NATO, we would be left holding the bag and it would all turn into a messy civil war, as is or was the case in Iraq and/or a seemingly unwinnable fiasco as in Afghanistan.

I was right in that it takes ground troops — air alone would not likely topple Gaddafi — but the troops were indigenous rebels, the way it should be I would think.

As of this writing, Gaddafi has not been captured yet, but reports are that fighting is intense around his palace or compound, I guess they call it (I thought he lived in a tent), and smoke can be seen coming from his residence.

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UPDATE: Now at mid morning my time on the West Coast reports are that rebels have taken over his compound and have found some of his officially-stamped papers. No reports of Gaddafi’s capture yet. If he’s like Saddam Hussein, I’d day call Rotorooter.

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It’s almost laughable how the Republican candidates have to say they are happy Gaddafi is out or almost out but refuse to give Obama any credit.

I don’t even buy that it could have come quicker with more U.S. help — I mean maybe it could have, but I have to admit Obama was wise not to make this an American war. He also knew that he could not afford to get into still another ground war.

Of course no one knows what will happen now. It could still turn into complete chaos.

But for now, with the Obama-ordered killing of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. special operations and elite forces and now apparently the downfall of Gaddafi, I’d say Obama is looking pretty good.

But the economy here at home and the question of whether the Republicans can field an acceptable candidate, palatable to the bulk of American voters, will likely decide whether Obama gets a second term.

P.s.

I wonder what Assad in Syria is thinking about now.

Probably not a good idea to invade Libya, and air power alone won’t likely be good enough…

Given current realities the best thing to do about Libya probably is let Libya be Libya and solve its own problems, even if that means civil war and a disruption in the oil supply from that nation.

I have not detected much enthusiasm from the mainstream of Americans for the invasion of still another nation in the Middle East.

The only or primary reason the Middle East is of any importance at all to us is that is where much of the world’s oil supply comes from. But all that investment in blood and treasure and we did not take over Iraq’s oil supply, but China has gotten into the market and is drilling there (with no military investment there whatsoever). And as a matter of fact one day China might well get into developing what is believed to be a treasure trove of mineral resources in Afghanistan (with no military investment whatsoever). Inscrutable, those Chinese — well not the right word, but that word is usually applied to them — okay clever.

There is talk of the U.S. putting up a no-fly zone with or without the help of the UN or other nations. Commentators have pointed out that the logistics of an air war would be difficult, as well as the politics in justifying it among the world’s nations (although certainly not impossible).

I always fail to understand why anyone thinks military actions can be limited to the air. There is little evidence of that being the case.

(There was Clinton’s Kosovo thing, but people, to include soldiers of the region and other countries and police and civilians died on the ground. Personally I never did understand that whole thing when it was going on and just now tried to look up some background on it and am still scratching my head.)

At some time or another ground troops have to be called in to consolidate things or actually take control. We started with a no-fly zone in Iraq but certainly did not end that way. We bombed the heck out of North Vietnam but failed to send ground troops over the border — lost that one.

It’s nice to have an excuse to invade a country. Hitler liked to say he was protecting ethnic Germans or providing his people with more living space. The U.S. said it was saving Iraq from Saddam Hussein and there was also something about yellow cake and WMD’s, bogus as it seems to have turned out to be (that’s why we blew up so many Iraqi homes and people and decimated the infrastructure of a whole nation, to include its electricity grid, and sent so many thousands of American soldiers to the grave or wounded them for life, and meanwhile spent billions we could have used constructively here at home).

There has been a citizen revolt in Libya and Libya has had a crazy man, Muammar Gaddafi (there are countless spellings of his name), running it for a long time and he even tricked the U.S. into backing him after he gave up his nuclear program (maybe he is not totally crazy). But now he has his remaining loyal followers and some hired foreign mercenaries shooting his own people. He’s even calling in air strikes on his own people. So, yes the U.S. has a pretext to invade. And Libya has lots of oil. So the U.S. has a good reason to take control there. But easier said than done. It would most likely be costly in lives and money and we would likely end up stirring up resentment among the population — like I have said previously, the cops go and try to save the wife from her husband beating up on her and end up getting resistance from both warring parties.

There seems to be some sentiment on the far left for us to do something for strictly humanitarian reasons. To the extent we could do that without going to war, fine. But good luck.

My own personal opinion here is that we better sit this one out.

But like on all such questions, I would say that if the powers that be do decide to use some type of military action they better be prepared to go all the way and so should the American people — if not, shame on us all!

We haven’t had a win or a clear win for the record books in a long time (in most of our lifetimes). But we keep expending money and asking our own people to die for what?

P.s.

Since we did not help the Iranian opposition or freedom movement (and Iran has more oil than Libya) it is hard to see why we would step in to help the Libya opposition. Columnist Charles Krauthammer had interesting comments on the situation, not that I agree with any or all of his conclusions: http://www.redding.com/news/2011/mar/03/charles-krauthammer-from-baghdad-to-benghazi/

Maybe people of the Middle East want freedom from the status quo on their own terms, rather than those of the Islamists or the West…

Al Qaeda has sought to stir up the masses and inflict terror to topple dictatorships in the Middle East supported by the West, most notably the United States.

But it seems as if what might have been a dream for Al Qaeda could turn into a nightmare for the terrorist organization that purports to be doing the work of Islam. I mean what if the people in that region throw out all the dictators but refuse to ally themselves with Al Qaeda? (I think I touched on that same issue in one of my recent blog posts).

By the same token, what if the Middle East goes totally democratic but does not align itself entirely with Western interests?

Events are moving so fast there now that it is hard to keep up with, and since our own news media is fairly ignorant of anything outside of the United States, it has been difficult to get much background for this whole story.

I mentioned this before, as well, but you should check out the Al Jazeera website English version. Originally written off as a propaganda tool for Al Qaeda, and at the very least totally anti-U.S., Al Jazeera seems to have greatly upgraded and seems to be going to great lengths to be objective and to present a sophisticated look at the news. I even see that it is covering news in other areas of the world, to include our neighboring country of Mexico. Try finding much about Mexico in the U.S. news media, good luck! (a sensational and superficial story about the ongoing drug wars from time to time, maybe, and that is a major story, but it should be covered much more fully).

Apparently Al Jazeera gets most of its funding from the Emir of Qatar, and gets some revenue by selling footage to other world news outlets, to include CNN, as well as other broadcast deals and advertising. And who knows? maybe it’s all an elaborate plot to get us hooked and steer us away from the truth in some subversive master Islamist plan, but for now I’d say Al Jazeera is a good source of information — you have to take all info with a grain of salt no matter what the source anyway. (For background on Al Jazeera: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera )

Just one more thing on that: I was watching a kind of panel discussion on Al Jazeera and it struck me how sophisticated these people were and how they seemed to be concentrating on the issues rather than playing to the camera and coming up with clever one-liners and comebacks to bring attention to themselves instead of the story as many of these groups on American commercial media do.

So, there was a revolt in Tunisia and then the major one in Egypt. The dissidents in Iran have flared up again, but have been met with heavy resistance from the government security forces there. In Algeria there was a flare up met with an immediate crackdown by the government before it could get very far. And there are uprisings in Yemen and Bahrain and other Arab states (and yes, Iran is not Arab; it is Persian).

I have been hearing that what happens in one country over there, such as Egypt, might not happen in the same way in other countries. Their individual social structures and economic situations are not all the same.

What is especially interesting to me is that so far in Egypt — and they really have not gotten anywhere yet as far as democracy, except getting rid of Mubarak — is that so far there does not seem to be the fighting between religious factions as has been the case in Iraq.

I do understand that tribal loyalties could get in the way of successful democracy movements in some Arab states, such as has been the case in Afghanistan.

But I think that both the United States and Al Qaeda could come out of all of this with egg on their respective faces if the people really do usher in democracy but do not align themselves entirely with the West or bow down before the alter of Islamist extremism (“Islamist” seems to be the new or preferred word to replace Islamic, with the former meaning extremist and the latter referring to the religion itself or the religion in general).

The West has had a long unpleasant history in the Middle East. Both the French and the British created colonies in the area (to include North Africa) to exploit natural resources and agriculture production, and then the British developed the oil industry in the region originally and created what amounted to artificial nations, combining peoples or different tribes and religious factions, with it being necessary to have strong authoritarian rule to keep them from each other’s throats (not unlike how the old Soviet Block dictators kept control of masses who when left to their own devices murdered each other).

When the U.S. became the leading world power after World War II, it was felt we had to support any dictator that was anti-communist. We felt the masses were too ignorant to be self-governing and that they would fall prey to the communists, wreaking havoc with Western capitalism and more to the point cutting off the oil supply.

No sooner, though, had the communist threat disappeared (fall of the Soviet Union and its Eastern Block countries), than it was replaced with the Islamist threat.

But whether it was communists or Islamists, the need for oil is what the West has been concerned about in the Middle East.

The reality has been that oil from that region is vital to our (the West’s) whole economy. Maybe we always thought, well someday, we can help those poor people get their freedom, but right now we need the oil.

But for the masses in the Middle East, to include millions of young adults hooked up to social networks, that someday is today and I don’t think we better get in their way.

We really need to be developing alternative sources and forms of energy and working on overall energy independence anyway.

Meantime, the oil producers there still need our business.

P.s.

Hindsight is always 20/20, but it seems we should have been using our influence over there to foster democracy all these years, but who knew that people really wanted to practice what we preach?

Is the people’s uprising in Egypt all a radical Islamist plot???

Blogger’s note:I have a real job and even a real life (to an extent), so I cannot blog constantly, but at the same time I like to keep current, both in my own mind and in my blog, so today I am kind of posting a running blog as I get time to add things.

ADD 2:

One (who is not a Middle East expert) has to wonder if the forces of radical, western-hating Islam will hijack this Egyptian uprising that on its surface has the appearance of a populist, pro-democracy movement, or whether it was the radical Islamist (woman stoners) plan all along.

Overnight USA time (day is night and night is day in all of this — I mean they did their Wednesday already) heavy violence broke out on the streets in Cairo as anti- and pro-government citizens clashed, in one instance with government backers reportedly riding in on horses and camels, only to be dragged off their mounts and beaten. I have not seen any comprehensive or reliable figures on casualties in all of this that has taken place over the past week or so. At last report I read the Army is still taking a more or less neutral stance on this, but is calling on everyone to go home and back to life as usual.

And on the snippet I just read on Yahoo News, the Republicans in the USA are all over the board on this one trying to figure out whose side to be on and figuring out whether they can blame it all on Obama or whether they should not speak too soon (as usual, they probably really do not have a clue). I personally stick to my guns (so to speak) and say the U.S. should lay low and let things play out, and I would add, keeping our eye on our real interests, such as keeping the Suez Canal open and making sure the oil keeps on coming, to the extent we can.

ADD 1:

Things are moving rapidly in Egypt. I’m not sure now whether the people have control of this uprising or not. AP is now reporting that the Egyptian Army is calling for a halt to the demonstrations, but at the same time is calling for Mubarak to step down immediately.

I was also listening to a Middle East expert on KGO Radio (San Francisco) on the John Rothman Show and he was saying that the Islamic Brotherhood is likely to have a major role in a new government in Egypt. He seemed to be saying that they have been orchestrating this revolt, that it has been their long-term plan all along. Admittedly, this “expert” has an Israeli slant or bias on things, but he seemed to know what he was talking about (If I could only recall his name — I’ll get that later — okay, I found it. He is an Israeli and his name is Mordechai Kedar, see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechai_Kedar).

ADD 3:

And while I am on the subject of the afore-mentioned Middle East expert, something he said, something I have heard and read before, struck out at me. Many (most?) states such as Pakistan, and Iraq, for that matter (and others) in the Middle East were artificially created by the British when they ran things there. But warring tribes have been thrown together and they still just do not get along. The situation seems almost hopeless.

And I say, for the most part, if there was no Suez Canal and no oil in the region we in the USA would scarcely give a hang, but there is and we do.

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What part of we don’t want you here anymore does Egyptian president and dictator Hosni Mubarak not understand? A million people or more (update: or less, no real accurate count here, maybe a quarter of a million) crowd a square in Cairo and other cities and he still does not get it. But U.S. President Barack Obama reportedly phoned him and said as much as you’ve got to go. It’s not that the U.S. really has business running Egyptian affairs, but since we have been propping him up with military and other aid and since he has been a strong ally for us in the region and made nice, nice with Israel, we do have influence.

(Point of reference: Egypt is the most populous nation in the Middle East; estimated population: 83 million.)

The foregoing is the new lead for a blog I started earlier today before my real job’s requirements got in the way. I was saying:

What if there was an uprising of a million or more people protesting against a dictator and demanding he step down and in fact leave the country, with many of the protestors appearing on video to be quite intelligent and articulate and not narrow-minded anti-western religious zealots?

That’s what seems to be taking place right now in Egypt.

Mubarak has now announced that he will not seek re-election in September (he always wins when he runs; I guess it’s set up that way), but he refused to step down and said he plans to die in his homeland (he did not say how).

It’s a ticklish situation in international relations and the balance of power game for the USA who has backed Mubarak for his 30- year reign over Egypt and who has seen him as an ally who has made peace with Israel and is not with the Islamic extremists.

In my previous blog I opined that the U.S. should lay low and let the people in Egypt do what they will do. Maybe asking  or suggesting to Mubarak that he do the right thing, that is leave, is not so bad. We just don’t know what we will or the Egyptians will get in his place.

My own real job has kept me away from reading as much as I would like to, but I have monitored the news, primarily on AM radio, over the past few days since posting my previous blog and from what I gather many think that an eventual new government in Egypt will not be an Islamic extremist one. The Army may play a major role in a new government, and the Army seems to have at least partially allied itself with the protestors.

I am also impressed with the web coverage made available by the Arab news service called Al Jazeera, and apparently so are many others. It previously had been dismissed by most westerners as an Islamic propaganda machine, kind of like the Islamic equivalent of Fox News. But it has found what may be its biggest story so far in the Egyptian uprising and seems to be rising to the occasion.

This all started in Tunisia, spread to Egypt, and has had effects in other parts of the Arab world. The king of Jordan has dismissed his government ministers. And I understand the Royals in Saudi Arabia are nervous as heck about what their oppressed people might do.

Strangely, at the moment the Arab world seems to be showing what power to the people is all about.

Meanwhile Americans can only get excited about the Super Bowl (I guess some people are, anyway).

I plan to blog about all this in more depth soon.