Israel and AmericaMichael TomaskyI'm going to refrain by and large from just writing posts denouncing Israel. You can read plenty such essays on this web site and others, and anyway I was hired to write about America, so that's what I'm going to do.And in America, this event really could be a tipping point. The Beinart essay from the New York Review that we discussed previously has kicked up a broader, introspective conversation among American Jews about why younger Americans don't feel connected to Israel in the way older Jews did in earlier generations, and what that lack of empathy portends for Israel's future. Not being part of the circle, maybe it's not for me to say quite so much, except that from what I can observe, this tragedy having happened at the precise moment that such a thoroughgoing evaluation was taking place, it can't but have the effect of creating more anger and disillusion among many American Jews under 40, for whom the occupation looms far larger than the founding Zionist-humanist impulse.There is of course another current here, and the Israel-right-or-wrong contingent is breathing fire today: the flotilla was put together by a Turkish nonprofit with ties to a Saudi umbrella group that has financed terrorism, according to the Weekly Standard. Read the Standard online and the blog at Commentary magazine, called Contentions, if you want to keep up with how this faction is trying to spin the flotilla event. One post actually argued that the main problem here was that the IDF went in with too little force.Arguments like these will continue, but I believe the constituency for them in the US is growing smaller and smaller. Remember, Jews are liberals, by and large. There is a chasm between their liberalism and their support for Israel, a chasm that was widened (perhaps considerably) yesterday. If pressed to choose between their historic core beliefs and a state that they feel no longer upholds those beliefs to the extent they desire, most will probably chose their convictions over the state. Aipac surely knows this deep down.That's enough for now. More soon. And we'll get to what the Obama administration ought to do later today.   

 No 1 for 'political chic'Sarkozy blow as Michelle Obama beats Carla Bruni to style award

 Huge sweeps target Latino gangs that allegedly attacked blacks   May 21, 2009  Federal authorities said they would announce today a huge sweep of Latino gang members allegedly responsible for violence against law enforcement and racially motivated attacks against blacks.    

  Why Taliban leaders prefer dead diplomats According to a Taliban spokesman the real target of the suicide bombing in Kabul was the American embassy     
Jason Burke The Observer, Sunday 16 August 2009 Article history
According to Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, the target of Saturday's explosion in Kabul was not the headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan but the American embassy. This careful clarification reveals the insurgents' strategic logic.For weeks analysts have been puzzled by the apparent lack of a effort to disrupt the polls. The Taliban have, after all, made assaults on relatively poorly protected Afghan government officials a key element of their strategy. Yet other than a couple of raids and a few bombings nothing on the scale of the operations that the Taliban could launch if they wanted has been seen. The next few days may see this change but all the activities associated with the election have passed off with little interference.Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban, has not made any confirmed public declarations about the election and the insurgents have limited themselves to a statement posted on their internet site which calls on Afghans to boycott the polls. There are some reports of local intimidation and some leaflets in mosques dissuading potential voters but little else. It is as if the Taliban high command has decided to make their presence felt but not fully engage.There are several reasons for this.First, the insurgents have learned only to fight at a time and place of their choosing. Even a few days spent on the ground with western forces shows how the main problem for Nato troops is finding and engaging the insurgents. For the Taliban to go into battle now, at a time when their enemy has massive resources, would be to accept a fight that has been offered, not chosen.Second, the Taliban have shown themselves sensitive to public opinion. A booklet was recently circulated among Taliban commanders designed to win "hearts and minds".Since 2007, the more drastic of the movement's earlier "social edicts" has been left to the discretion of local commanders. The Taliban high command may have decided that, as most Afghans seem keen to vote, to oppose the poll would be counterproductive.Third, the probable outcome of the election will be the re-election of Hamid Karzai and the induction into government of many of the very warlords whose venality and violence led to rise of the Taliban in the first place.Fourth, the Taliban are not working with the same worldview as the west. The elections are not, to them, a potential turning point nor a litmus test of the success of the Afghanistan project. Nor is something as short-term as a single poll of great significance given the length of time they have allowed for their strategy to succeed.…

  From beyond the grave, Saddam reveals all (nearly) FBI releases details of 20 sensational interviews with deposed Iraqi President after arrest By David Connett
  Sunday, 5 July 2009   
getty images Saddam reacts to his guilty verdict in November 2006
 Some of the last, frank thoughts and confessions of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq have been revealed in transcripts of a remarkable series of interviews with the former dictator's interrogators. Under questioning by the FBI during 20 formal interviews and at least five "casual conversations" over a four-month period from February to May 2004 after his capture by US troops in December 2003, Saddam said he had made a mistake in destroying Baghdad's stockpile of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) without independent verification from UN inspectors. He also told FBI interrogators that claims he had links with Osama bin Laden were incorrect. On WMD, Saddam said Iraq's stockpile had been "eliminated" by UN sanctions. But such was his concern about neighbouring Iran that he did not allow inspectors into Iraq for fear of appearing weak. He felt Iraq was vulnerable and he would have sought a "security agreement with the US to protect [Iraq] from threats in the region". Related articles The Saddam Files: His final interviews Patrick Cockburn: A man of brutality and arrogance who knew how to play to American suspicions
Saddam remained defiant on military action against civilian Kurds, at one point dismissing reports of such an assault as "a lie". He also dismissed claims he had used body doubles to avoid assassination, and laughed: "This is movie magic, not reality." The documents suggest that an extraordinary rapport developed over time between Saddam and his interrogator, George L Piro, one of the very few FBI agents who spoke Arabic. Apparently more co-operative and willing to provide information to the FBI than at his subsequent trial, the former despot was questioned at the Baghdad airport military detention facility between 7 February – six weeks after he was discovered in an underground spider hole at a farmhouse – and 28 June 2004. He was later turned over to the Iraqi authorities, tried and executed by hanging on 30 December 2006. Transcripts of the interviews were released last week in response to US Freedom of Information requests. Despite the sensitive nature of some of the material, only the last interview – on 1 May – is redacted, though one background document is heavily edited. The secret FBI files were seen by senior officials throughout the US government including, it is believed, the former US president George Bush. Codenamed "High Value Detainee #1", Saddam was interviewed at length on subjects ranging from WMD to the bloody history of the Iraqi Ba'athist regime. During a series of conversations, he claimed North Korea was the only country likely to rush to his aid and said he shared President Bush's hostility towards the "fanatic" Iranian mullahs.…