[no subject]

[Bill Bartlett <billbartlett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is sickening! To be asked to maintain a polite tone in response
to the monstrous ravings of barbarians like this Cordesman creature
is to ask more than I am capable of.  I am only human.

I suppose he is right in a perverted way though, the vile methods
being perpetrated by the fascist regime in Israel are inevitably the
only and the appropriate methods of achieving their vile aims. Such
barbaric objectives can hardly be achieved by civilised methods, they
can only be attempted by outright savagery.

Nevertheless this creature has definitely crossed the line. It is one
thing to be a cowardly apologist for brutality, to deny and to
camoflage the routine and systematic abuse of human rights and
everything civilised and human. That is, after all, part of the
standard job description of a "news analyst".

But this is beyond the pale. Not only that, but such candid honesty
demonstrates that this Cordesman is something of an incompetent
apologist. He's up to the job quite frankly. Of course being an
apologist is a difficult job, given the Israeli regime's candid pride
in its barbaric and uncivilised vengeance attacks on civilians. But
that is no excuse, other middle-east media apologists manage to put a
brave face on it and knuckle down to their job of defending the
indefensible, denying the obvious and obfuscating on issues which are
plainly apparant. Cordeman has lost the plot, unable it seems to
discern which to defend and which to deny.


Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas


>ACTION ALERT:
>ABC News Analyst Advocates Brutality
>Report condemned by Amnesty International
>
>November 21, 2000
>
>ABC News Middle East analyst and military expert Anthony Cordesman published
>a report last month advocating the use of "excessive force" against
>Palestinian civilians, including "interrogation methods that border on
>psychological and/or physical torture." The report was released by the
>Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential
>Washington think tank where Cordesman holds a chair in international
>security.
>
>Amnesty International has condemned Cordesman's report as a "dangerously
>irresponsible contribution to the escalating violence in Israel and the
>Palestinian Authority" that risks "legitimizing torture." Cordesman's CSIS
>report urged the Israeli government and the Palestinian National Authority
>to use security methods that violate human rights in order to implement any
>future U.S.-brokered peace agreement.
>
>CSIS's Middle East task force, which Cordesman co-directs, includes
>prominent American policymakers such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman and Sen. John
>McCain. According to the London Independent (11/6/00), copies of the report
>have been circulating among senior U.S., Israeli and Palestinian Authority
>officials.
>
>Cordesman has been a prominent military analyst for ABC News for over ten
>years, frequently appearing on-air to provide analysis of military and
>Middle East issues. During last year's NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, he was
>often invited to comment on NATO's military strategy.
>
>In a section of his report entitled "Peace and Security as the Natural
>Enemies of Human Rights," Cordesman lays out his recommendations: "There
>will be no future peace or stable peace process," he wrote, "if the
>Palestinian security forces do not act ruthlessly and effectively."
>
>Specifically, he notes that "effective counter-terrorism relies on
>interrogation methods that border on psychological and/or physical torture,
>arrests and detentions that are 'arbitrary' by the standards of civil law,
>break-ins and intelligence operations that violate the normal rights of
>privacy, levels of violence in making arrests that are unacceptable in civil
>cases, and measures that involve the innocent (or at least not provably
>directly guilty) in arrests and penalties."
>
>As a model for the Palestinian Authority, Cordesman holds up the British
>forces in Northern Ireland, who often "used excessive force, abused human
>rights, and used extreme interrogation methods and torture" but who
>nevertheless "did an excellent job of balancing the conflicting problems of
>effective security and a concern for human rights."
>
>Marty Rosenbluth, Israel/Occupied Territories coordinator for Amnesty
>International USA, told FAIR: "I've been doing human rights work for almost
>20 years and this is one of the most bizarre documents I've ever seen. It's
>basically a blueprint for human rights violations that [the authors] want
>the Palestinian Authority to follow."
>


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