The Terror of the View

So much for the flypaper theory. Let's think about why the hell it was ever taken seriously in the first place.

Ok then, I am going off for the weekend real soon. So here is a bunch of links yall should check out.

Israel and Palestine: The Pullout is a real big deal, but Sharon is also trying to lock in the West Bank settlements as far as possible. There are 38 days until the pullout. I am suspicious that the recent money handed to the Palestinians may be used to build fences, checkpoints and shit in the West Bank on the premise that it "improves their quality of life" by allowing more streamlined processing around the vast chunks of stolen land. Haaretz has a furious editorial about detatching Jewish religious fundamentalism from secular Israeli politics. It is spooky:

While Gush Katif residents are trying to postpone the Gaza Strip's closure to visitors until the last possible moment, the Yesha Council of settlements has its own agenda, no longer focused on thwarting the disengagement, but on seizing the moment to arouse the entire settler camp.

It is doubtful that anyone in the settler leadership thinks protest can prevent the evacuation of Gush Katif. After all, they know Ariel Sharon better than anyone, and they know that the more spokes put in his wheels, the more determined he becomes. The settler leadership's political goal is to exploit the fire that has already been started in the youth, the yeshivas, the girls' schools, the road blockings, the prisons, the army and even the ultra-Orthodox camp to ignite a huge conflagration to prevent further evacuations. This blaze is also liable to destroy any remaining empathy that the Israeli public has for the settlers' concerns.

Given that we are dealing with brainwashed youngsters, who from their infancy have been spoon-fed the belief that it is forbidden to give up any scrap of land, grew up on memories of Sebastia and learned from their parents that breaking the law always pays, any attempt to direct and moderate the protest is doomed to failure.
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The mass march to Gush Katif, like the scale of refusal by religious soldiers, will determine not only the future of the hesder yeshivas, but primarily whether religious Zionism in its current incarnation is not a Trojan horse that has infiltrated Zionism in order to destroy it from within.

The hardcore settlers and their supporters are going to have a mass march towards Gush Katif in Gaza pretty soon, and will attempt to overwhelm the Israeli military. It is interesting that the whole area is so small, that such tactics are viable.

Right-wing protesters set up new Gush Katif stronghold
Right-wing protesters have begun establishing a new stronghold in the settlement of Shirat Hayam, bringing in large amounts of equipment over the past few days and carrying on construction work, in contravention of the order issued last week by GOC Southern Command Dan Harel.

Far-right activist Moshe Feiglin, head of the Jewish Leadership faction in the Likud Party, moved there yesterday.

Israel denies the press reports about their getting intelligence (or providing it) to the British government. However we should point out the key sentence:

"After the first explosion, our finance minister received a request not to go anywhere," Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Army Radio.

We need to know for certain when the British actually determined they were experiencing a terror attack -- because it apparently wasn't after the first explosion. This timeline the thing that a lot of 9/11 conspiracy theorists dwell on, and if we're to parse out this whole crazy theory -- again, based on an AP story and a Stratfor report -- the timeline matter.

IDF gives Amuna outpost 48 hours to evacuate 9 homes (built illegally on Palestinian land). Sharon's London statement and more on the denials. Radical stories from Right wing: More soldiers say "I cannot expel Jews". Israel wants US Aid for Pullout Plan. New border crossing system. West Bank barrier construction accelerated.

Iraq: Now it's being claimed that the Iraq insurgency may be directly tied to the bombings, besides a whole swath of people that are just quite happy about it because the British illegally invaded their country and helps continue blowing it up.

It's too bad though--if the American military leadership had been forced to take more cues from the Brits, it surely wouldn't have gotten so bad in Iraq. For example, the British initially accepted -- as the Americans finally came to accept -- the Shiite sheiks in southern cities that threw the Baath off and took relatively calm control of their areas immediately.

So it's all gone to hell. I usually count on Juan Cole to offer finer-grained details about the disaster. His line these days, "sometimes you are just screwed." In this Salon article, he remarks on the message the bombers posted, "the time of revenge has come".

Minnesota: /bin/shutdown --stategovernment now

It pisses me off. I also feel somewhat embarrassed because I helped put together the Politics in Minnesota index for a Legislature, that for whatever else, caused the state's first shutdown. BLAH. Why do they think that evaporating the government is useful? <That zap sound you're hearing is my neurons killing themselves in despair.>

Damn Judy Miller: Why the hell does she have to be the saint of journalism, after putting out all of Chalabi's WMD disinformation for the whole damn country to swallow? The WaPo says its a bad case for the fight. Although their editorials are usually ridiculous these days. Some say she should go to jail.. No one in White House press corps questions Rove.

Misc: ok we;re shifting to Linkdump:

Scarborough is crazy. Durrr. FOX's bombing reaction is fucking scary. FUcking SCARY. Again SCARY. Do conservatives believe in revolution? Yes it was practically an attack on London Muslims... "It's Up to the Anti-War Movement to Restrain the Thirst for More Blind Revenge". Fisk: "Bush was right, but too late"
Info Clearing House is good. Watch the Antiwar blog.

For some fun, NewsBreakers awesome!

Well I am sorry, that is all the links I have time for. MUST GO NOW. Damn... as always time's a bitch.......... Have a good weekend all.

To know the ending would be pretending...