Column One: Hardball with Washington

Caroline begins to understand that playing the game involves hard,tough,brutal moves, not the timid and cowardy moves of Israel's weak and fearful P.M. Olmert.


exerpt;
Israel had a clear national interest in exposing the nature of the target as quickly as possible. Moreover, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had a political interest in exposing the details of the raid to the Israeli public as quickly as possible.
And yet, bowing to US demands, Israel placed draconian censorship regulations on media reports of the strike. To please the likes of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who still clings to the notion that her brilliant diplomatic skills will enable her to convince the North Koreans to give up their nuclear arsenal, Israel agreed to hide information of its vital mission and massive success from both its own people and from the global audience.
As for espionage, as the late Yitzhak Rabin once noted, every few years Israel discovers another US agent committing espionage against the state. Rather than make a big deal about it, and in spite of the fact that some of the information being stolen is deeply damaging to Israel's national security, out of a sense of comity with Washington, Israel keeps the scandals quiet and generally deports the spies.
By arresting an 84-year-old World War II veteran in an effort to place Israel under a cloud of suspicion as its military triumph in Syria is exposed to the American people, the US is sadly showing Israel once again that nice guys finish last. If Israel wants to be treated with respect by the US, the lesson of the Kadish affair, of the Syrian raid and of the Pollard affair is that Israel had better start pushing back.
The first thing it should do is arrest officials suspected of transferring classified materials to the US without authorization. It should then publish the names and details of US spies whom Israel previously caught and treated with kid gloves. Then it should publicly demand that Bush release Pollard from the prison where he rots, while the likes of Hizbullah agent Nada Prouty - who penetrated both the FBI and the CIA - is expected to receive a six-month prison sentence for her crimes.
When Bush arrives to celebrate Israel's 60th birthday, Israel's leaders would do well to show him that at 60, Israel is a grownup country. And as such, it demands to be treated with the respect due to the US's most reliable ally in the Middle East.
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2. More stupidity from rotten bottom

'Jihadist' booted from US government lexicon
Bush administration launches new front in war on terrorism, this time targeting language


one response to the Washington elite's latest insanity.

2.Recomendations from American Moslems
Let me guess... CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, MSA? These Muslim groups are all radical supporters of terror against us infidels. They are not "moderate". Yet the government continues to defer to such groups. Such is the state of today's war on terror that bases itself on Islam. (Can I say that?) The FBI recruits agents and translators on Islamic web-sites, but avoids hiring Sephardic Jews because of suspected "dual loyalty". Law enforcement brings in Muslims from such Islamic groups to teach us to be "sensitive" to them. They engage in "outreach" to those who should be prosecuted and deported. What's sad is we are more than six years past 9/11, and the folks we count on to keep us safe can't even bring themselves to name the enemy! Heaven help us.

Raymond in DC , Washington, DC USA 04.25.08