OBAMA TELLS ISRAEL THAT PEACE WITH PALESTINIANS MUST COME BEFORE SOLVING IRANIAN DISPUTE

Pres. Barack Obama met with Israel's hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu today at the White House. Scott Wilson reports on washingtonpost.com about the meeting. Writes Wilson:

""We want to pursue this on two fronts simultaneously -- the front of peace and the front of preventing Iran from getting nuclear capability," Netanyahu said.

"Although Iran's leaders say they are working to create nuclear power for civilian use, Netanyahu and others believe the program is designed to produce nuclear weapons, which Israel's government views as an existential threat to the Jewish state. Israel, which receives nearly $3 billion in annual military aid from the United States, has its own undeclared nuclear arsenal."

I was happy to see Obama repudiate Netanyahu's requirement that the Iranian nuclear development be resolved before Israel makes a deal with the Palestinians. Obama said it was just the other way around. Israel must first develop peace with the Palestinians. What a crock of crap from Bibi protesting his desire for peace. Netanyahu would love to bomb Iran.

NPR'S MORNING EDITION QUOTES AFGHAN POLICE CHIEF DEFENDING BOMBING OF CIVILIANS

This morning on NPR's Morning Edition, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports on the U.S. bombing raid of a small Afghani village that left 140 people dead, many of them children.

Writes Sarhaddi Nelson:

"Abdul Ghafar Watandar, the provincial police chief, said foreign militants and Afghan Taliban are flowing into districts surrounding Farah city from their hideouts across the southern border with Pakistan. Their commanders — including a cleric who was the governor of neighboring Nimrooz province when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan — recently formed a "shadow" government in Farah.

"Watandar said these new Taliban officials are handing out money and weapons to the impoverished and illiterate majority with the aim of further destabilizing the province.

"Unlike previous Taliban cells, this new army of militants seems eager to take on not only the local police, but also the far better trained and equipped Afghan and NATO troops. And Watandar said there aren't enough of those in Farah province, making air support a crucial part of major fights.

""If the American airstrikes hadn't happened that day, there might have been a lot more deaths," Watandar said. "The Taliban had secured themselves good positions on the rooftops and streets of the village, and they wouldn't have left.""

But this argument that the U.S. airstrikes probably saved many more deaths is just pure speculation and self-serving. Whoever ordered the airstrike needs to be recalled. Killing over 140 civilians is unacceptable. Killing even one civilian or one child is also unacceptable.

Is this what the war means in Afghanistan? U.S. war planes dropping bombs on civilians in the American quest to eliminate the Taliban? If the answer is yes, then I don't want any part of that dirty war.

Bring all American soldiers out of Afghanistan. There has to be a better way of dealing with fundamental Islamists. Killing civilians is not the answer.

STOP AIRBORNE MISSILE RAIDS AGAINST PAKISTANIS

I heard Pres. Barack Obama speaking to the Notre Dame commencement today, thanks to C-SPAN. Obama's speech was riveting as usual. Among other things, he mentioned former ND president Ted Hesburgh's commitment to abolishing the death penalty and his campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

But what I don't understand is how Obama can dish out the inspiring words on one hand, but on the other, still continue the target assassinations by drone missiles of Taliban insurgents in Pakistan.

Today The New York Times runs an op-ed by David Kilcullen and Andrew Mc Donald Exum on the counter-productive results arising from those missile strikes.

Write Exum and Kilcullen:

"The appeal of drone attacks for policy makers is clear. For one thing, their effects are measurable. Military commanders and intelligence officials point out that drone attacks have disrupted terrorist networks in Pakistan, killing key leaders and hampering operations. Drone attacks create a sense of insecurity among militants and constrain their interactions with suspected informers. And, because they kill remotely, drone strikes avoid American casualties."

But the drone attacks do more harm to U.S. interests than they benefit, according to Kilcullen and Exum.

First, the drone war has created a siege mentality among Pakistani civilians. This is similar to what happened in Somalia in 2005 and 2006, when similar strikes were employed against the forces of the Union of Islamic Courts. While the strikes did kill individual militants who were the targets, public anger over the American show of force solidified the power of extremists. The Islamists’ popularity rose and the group became more extreme, leading eventually to a messy Ethiopian military intervention, the rise of a new regional insurgency and an increase in offshore piracy.

"While violent extremists may be unpopular, for a frightened population they seem less ominous than a faceless enemy that wages war from afar and often kills more civilians than militants.

"Press reports suggest that over the last three years drone strikes have killed about 14 terrorist leaders. But, according to Pakistani sources, they have also killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent — hardly “precision.” American officials vehemently dispute these figures, and it is likely that more militants and fewer civilians have been killed than is reported by the press in Pakistan. Nevertheless, every one of these dead noncombatants represents an alienated family, a new desire for revenge, and more recruits for a militant movement that has grown exponentially even as drone strikes have increased."

In other words, use of bombs or missiles fired from manned or unmanned aircraft creates a sense of outrage and a desire for revenge against the United States and against all Americans. How Obama can approve the continuation of these raids when he believes that every human being deserves respect and civility is beyond comprehension.

Furthermore Kilcullen and Exum give two other reasons why the missile strikes should stop:

"Second, public outrage at the strikes is hardly limited to the region in which they take place — areas of northwestern Pakistan where ethnic Pashtuns predominate. Rather, the strikes are now exciting visceral opposition across a broad spectrum of Pakistani opinion in Punjab and Sindh, the nation’s two most populous provinces. Covered extensively by the news media, drone attacks are popularly believed to have caused even more civilian casualties than is actually the case. The persistence of these attacks on Pakistani territory offends people’s deepest sensibilities, alienates them from their government, and contributes to Pakistan’s instability.

"Third, the use of drones displays every characteristic of a tactic — or, more accurately, a piece of technology — substituting for a strategy. These attacks are now being carried out without a concerted information campaign directed at the Pakistani public or a real effort to understand the tribal dynamics of the local population, efforts that might make such attacks more effective."

I call upon President Obama and the United States government to ban these airborne missile strikes on Pakistani villages. If I were a Pakistani, I would detest any entity, person or government that inflicted this horror from the skies upon my family, my relatives, my village and my country.

TAMANAHA ON BALKINIZATION: WHAT IF TALIBAN WATERBOARDED U.S. SOLDIERS?

I just read a post by Brian Tamanaha on Balkinization in which he theorizes about the scenario where members of the Taliban capture U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and subject them to waterboarding. The Bush administration especially Dick Cheney claim that waterboarding is not torture, so there is no violation of any Geneva Convention provisions. Furthermore, Tamanaha "quotes" the Taliban as saying that eminent legal scholars (one thinks of former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, John Yoo, David Addington, Jay Scott Bybee and Steven Bradbury) have opined that waterboarding is not torture, therefore the Taliban are not committing war crimes.

OBAMA IS A BIG DISAPPOINTMENT, CONTINUES HATED POLICIES OF BUSH/CHENEY

On certain decisions, Barack Obama has been a disappointing continuation of George W. Bush:

1. Obama resurrects the hated military commissions for prisoners at Guantanamo. See William Glaberson's article today on the web page of The New York Times.

2. Obama continues Bush's policies of trying to keep information out of the public's hands by claiming "state secrets."

3. Obama continues the dreadful war in Afghanistan. Just a few days ago, U.S. war planes bombed an Afghan village killing over 150 civilians, many of whom were just children.

4. Obama continues to threaten Britain and the British courts with non-cooperation in the future if a British court releases torture memos about what was done to former Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed. See John Burns' report in today's The New York Times.

5. Obama refuses to release photos of American mistreatment of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying it would threaten "national security."

6. Obama refuses to initiate an investigation of the Bush/Cheney policy of using waterboarding and other forms of torture of suspected terrorists.

Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for W, writes in today's The Washington Post about the lack of civility he claims to see in soon-to-be senator Al Franken and in Wanda Sykes, comedian during the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Franken can defend himself, but as to Sykes, Gerson ought to back off, give Wanda Sykes a break.

Sykes took aim at Limbaugh for hoping that Obama fails. So Sykes naturally said, she hopes Limbaugh fails.

When Sykes says, "let's hope his kidneys fail," she points out how ludicrous and mean-spirited Linmbaugh's statement about Obama is. By "failing," Sykes asks, does he mean that he wants the economy tank, or that Social Security retirement income end, or that Obama's negotiations with Iran come to naught?

So Gerson lighten up, Wanda is right on in showing how mean-spirited Limbaugh's wish is. "Let his kidneys fail" is not a death wish, only a satiric jab back at a Republican ignoramus.

TORTURE ALWAYS WRONG ALTHOUGH SOME REPUBLICANS WOULD ALLOW IT

Charles Krauthammer, writing in today's The Washington Post, seems to think that the ethics of torture depend on the situation at hand. In other words, torture is not an absolute evil. Sometimes it is good, sometimes bad, it all depends. Therefore what Bush and Cheney and the rest of their gang did to KSM (183 times on the waterboard) or Zubaydah (over 80) was not intrinsically evil. Rather the situation at that time called for torturing these guys because there could have been a "ticking time bomb."

I reject this situationist ethic. Torture is always wrong and always evil because it tries to achieve common good by sacrificing the rights of the individual. Everyone has the right to be free from Cheney's "harsh interrogation methods." Even the suspected terrorist.

By the way, let's subject Krauthammer to the "test of water." In the days of the Inquisition, sometimes churchmen suspected Widow Jones of being in consort with the devil. They subjected her to the water board, and lo and behold, she confessed that she was indeed a witch. This process must have occurred thousands of times all over medieval Europe. (So much for Sen. Graham's silly assertion that waterboarding has worked for the last 500 years, so it must be good.)

But now let's give Krauthammer a chance on the board. Hey Charlie, we suspect you were the 20th hijacker. So tell us all you know or else. Here's the first cup of water. We won't stop until you admit your complicity and conspiracy.

How long before Krauthammer cries mama and confesses? I bet within 10 seconds.

CNBC'S DENNIS KNEALE SPOUTS REPUBLICAN SPIN ON TAX INCREASES

I happened to catch CNBC's Dennis Kneale last night railing against the supposed tax increases of the Democrats and Barack Obama. Kneale claimed that Obama was destroying profit motives on Wall Street by raising taxes on those guys making more than $250K. After all, Kneale said, greed is really good. And Obama wants to change that! And as if that were not awful enough, Kneale said that Obama was trying to raise taxes on utilities!

If Kneale wants to defend greed, what does he have to say about the practices of Bernie Madoff or Sir Allen Stanford, about whom CNBC this very evening is running one of its "specials?" I suppose Kneale will try to defend Madoff for wasting over 50 billion of his clients' assets in the interest of buying chateaus in France or mansions in Florida. Perhaps Kneale will even come to Stanford's defense by saying that he was motivated by "greed," greed being "good," so Stanford's alleged stealing of billions from depositors in his banks was merely an innocent pursuit of "greed."

And as to taxes, what does Kneale say about Obama's plan for universal health care? Sure, Kneale himself has health care provided by CNBC, but how about the millions of families living day-to-day with fears of someone getting sick and needing emergency medical care? This is what government is for, and what taxes are for - to take care of citizens who are faced with life's catastrophes and who don't have the means to buy their own medical insurance. So which would Kneale prefer? - low taxes or universal health insurance for all?

OBAMA TRIES TO CONCEAL WAR CRIMES SHOWN IN PHOTOS OF TORTURE IN IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN

The photos of abuse and torture of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan are no doubt hard to look at and say a lot about the cruel character of Americans in Iraq. However, that is no reason to suppress them, as Barack Obama now seems to want to do.

Better to release all the dirty linen to fresh air, admit profound mistakes, and tell the world that the United States is on a different course.

Surely these photos will in due course come out. No one can hide the truth, as momentous as these photos are.

By not releasing the photos, Obama is trying to have the U.S. government cover up war crimes. This will not succeed.

SRI LANKA'S RULERS TRY TO ERADICATE ALL TAMILS

The government of Sri Lanka needs to stop the shelling of Tamil civilians caught on a tiny section of northeast Sri Lanka. This is genocide and ethnic cleansing by the majority Sinhalese against the dark-skinned Tamils. Hundreds of civilians, mostly children, are being maimed, wounded and killed everyday by the government's fanatical desire to destroy all the Tamils.