If you are seeing a trend here, June may be a month for upheaval in the history of mankind. This trend may settle down later in the month. Here is a short video on the Six Day War in 1967:
This war was and is the crux of the unrest that we are experiencing today in the middle-east. It is especially poignant in light of President Obama’s visit to Arab countries over the past few days. His visit to a Holocaust site today offers a dramatic postscript to his trip.
This is an open thread and you can comment on any subject. Merely keep things decent. Also feel free to comment in threads that open during the day.
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I found this interesting Diary at DailyKos. It is a reaction to President Obama’s speech and it sort of relates to this “6 Day War” topic.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/5/736863/-I-have-a-dream-but-I-have-yet-to-sleep:-Reaction-to-Obamas-speech
Trend noted Walt. It’s been an interesting walk through. What do you have planned tomorrow? June 6th? Can’t think of anything at all, really…..
Going back to 1967. I dug this one out of Haaretz just a few days ago.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/998839.html
Note the comment way down about the USS Liberty and how Admiral Mullen tells his Israeli counterparts that he wnats to ‘avoid mistaken confrontations’ like the ‘accidental’ attack on the USS Liberty by Israeli planes during the Six-Day War. That’s diplomatic speak for – ‘we know you did it deliberately, you know we know you did it, don’t play that game here’.
Here is a blog article on the Medal of Honor awarded to the Liberty captain, William McGonagle. Unlike other MOH winners, his is awarded in a simple ceremony instead of by the President at the WH. And yes, does the fact that Israel is not mentioned at all during the citation or at any point in this sorry story illustrate the power of the Israeli lobby to squash any hint that Israel might do something as murderous embarrassing as to deliberately attack US ships and kill its sailors.
http://therearenosunglasses.wordpress.com/2009/06/02/uss-liberty-survivor-gets-medal-of-honor-about-freakin-time/
Look up the USS Liberty and read about it. A shameful episode in US/Israeli relations for both sides.
Nother article.
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0398/9803026.html
I’m looking for an admission by Yitzhak Rabin that “I don not believe Nasser wanted war”, and also a note by Begin that “let’s face it we chose to attack Nasser/Egypt”.
Anyone?
Found it: it’s referenced here:
http://www.shunpiking.com/ol0405/0405-OP-IZ-causesof67war.htm
It’s from the New York Times , August 21, 1982.
“In June 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
Next time you here this rot about “Israel was defending itself in 1967″…..
Let’s just hope this year’s June doesn’t foment another major confict…
Going back to the USS Liberty/ McGonagle medal of Honour.
Did you catch that the US State Department *asked* the Israeli government if it was *OK* to award the Captain of a ship Israel attacked with no less than 30 sorties, killing or wounding 2/3 of it’s crew, the Congressional Medal of Honour?
That Red Sea Pedestrian Kung-fu is strong
RUC,
If I don’t miss my guess, the last three major punch ups have all been started by US client states with presumably the ‘nod’ being given by either the Chimp or his Organ Grinder:
Summer 2006 – Israel v Hizbollah – score draw, Hizbollah win on the away goal rule
Summer 2008 – Georgia v Ossetia – Ossetia put their new Russian signing on the pitch and Georgia went down to a heavy defeat
Winter 2008 – Israel v Hamas – wouldn’t call that sport.
Just to cheer things up a bit for a Friday night, here’s an amazing tale of cultural ‘Weltsprungfarbmachtordnungsgluck” ( look it up—-later) that is actually on topic. Really!
It began with Japanese schoolgirls (as so many things often do—or if they don’t, well maybe they should).
In the 1970′s Japan began creating a new identity for itself with the invention of small high tech products–transistor radios, portable TV’s , micro-cassette recorders, electronic calculators.
But one of the biggest changes to Japanese life was the adoption of the mechanical pencil–by schoolgirls. .
The pencil freed the girls from the formalities of the traditional brush-and- ink ‘cursive’ style.
The fine lines provided by the pencil made writing traditional Japanese characters rather difficult, so the schoolgirls invented a new writing style.
Possibly because they could now write more quickly, and possibly because they had to impart meaning to their new characters that would otherwise get lost in translation, they embellished some characters with what we now would call smileys ( plus they were schoolgirls, and they all do that sort of thing anyway!)
What does all this have to do with warfare?
This is Japan we’re talking about!
They invented tentacle-sex and Gamera, the rocket-powered turtle super-hero with tusks!
Of course there’s a connection between Japanese schoolgirls and violent conflict!
So keep reading, you crazy gaijin round-eye, and all will be revealed!
Okay, so, Japanese schoolgirls, pencils, writing….
So the new juvenile writing style became such a phenomenon that it was given a name–”kawai” which means cute or adorable.
Hello Kitty!
That’s how that started, inspired by schoolgirl doodles, and all of Japan suddenly went nuts for anything ” kawai”.
So where does the military violence come in? Right about now.
“Kawai” can only go so far so the the execrable Pokemon menagerie was created to add a bit of excitement and as you should be well aware Pokemon is about cute animals becoming violent so some kid can win some interminable meaningless cartoon competition whilst learning valuable lessons about platonic relationships.
Well that theme has run its course too, which forces us all take take a “sride down the srippely srope” to the “rogical concrusion” of the ‘kawai”phenomenon to this:
Ultra-realistic CGI “kawai” critter mercenaries blowing the crap out of everyone and everything with “extleme plejudice”!
And this new entertainment is called ….”CAT SHIT ONE” !!!!??
Damn you , Japanese schoolgirls, with your sock-glue and what not!! Damn you all to hell!!!
WTF?