TERRORISM TERRORISM TERRORISM!!!!!

There, now that I have your attention, say hello to the NSA! At least that's what my teacher for Terrorism and Responses said. Apparently, the US government tracks everything with the word "terror" in it and has read it within a matter of hours.

If you're from the NSA or any other intelligence organization and you're on this site, leave me a comment. I'm curious if what he said is true.

Today was our second class and I had a few interesting thoughts in class based on what he was saying. First off, the man is an officer in the IDF and does something with anti-terrorism training and analysis. My general impression of him is that he is a good man who takes both his job as an officer and a teacher seriously.

However, he is incredibly biased and makes his positions very clear. He co-writes for a website called Middle East on Target which is intended to combat the "anti-Israel bias" in the "liberal media". Those are not direct quotes. Those are quotes like Dr. Evil in Austin Powers.

Anyways, today he ranted about how the New York Times was "dribble" and made a very subtle plug for FOX News. His criticism du jour for the New York Times was that it's coverage of casualties in Iraq is neither worthy of the front page headline or even national news. I subscribed to the Times for a few months and received it daily while I was back at Pitt. Their war coverage is important, if not essential to educating the nation about the war. The human cost of the misguided Iraq campaign cannot be ignored. He tried to make a comparison between WWII coverage and the Iraq coverage, but the two wars cannot compare. WWII had clearly defined battles that could be reported on and FDR did not lead the country into a war that was both a quagmire and cooked up through doctored intelligence. The insanity taking place in Iraq cannot be covered like a regular military campaign, where there are battles and clearly defined enemies. The New York Times needs to continue it's critical coverage of the war and the Bush administration's deception.

Beyond his labeling of the New York Times as drivel, he also made a claim that Israel stops something around 30 terrorist attacks per day. That number seems way too high. I've heard between 2 and 3 but never 30.That means that in a year, nearly 11,000 attacks are foiled. Which would mean that there are at least 11,000 new Palestinians jailed annually. That means that there are 44,000 Palestinians that have been arrested and jailed since 2003, when the wall was completed. That too seems way too high. If 44,000 people had been jailed in 4 years, someone in the mainstream "liberal" media would have said something. Even if 3 attacks are foiled every day, that would mean 4,000 people have been arrested since 2003. Again, somebody would have said something. 4,000 people is a lot of people. Needless to say, I want to see some facts. And by facts I don't mean ZOA, AIPAC, or Hasbarah talking points. I want an official government report with names, dates, offenses, and sentences. If Iraq has taught me anything, it's that governments cannot be trusted and must be held accountable. If an official report exists, like either the Winograd (about the Lebanon War) or the Sasson (about the illegal settlements in the West Bank) I would like to see it.

To the teacher's credit, he and I both agree on somethings. We both agree that the current policy of cutting power to Gaza is wrong. My belief is that it is a humanitarian crisis in the making and will do nothing but piss of more Palestinians and increase the rockets falling on Sderot and Ashkelon. By the way, according to the teacher, there are only 3 or 4 rockets per day, at most, that hit Israel, and the ones that do hit are essentially lucky shots. Katyshua Rockets are inaccurate and cannot be aimed. They have no technical guidance system, let alone enough fuel, to hit a target accurately. They're still dangerous, but not to the degree that they are made out to be in America. Anyways, he opposes the power shut down because he views it as being ineffective, based on the logic that the power outages will cause the unarmed Palestinians to overthrow Hamas. (Non-Hamas members were stripped of their arms) He also questioned the government's motives for the shut down. He suggested that the shut down will not meet its goals and will be used as a pretext for Israel to invade Gaza and confront Hamas outright, which makes sense.

Hopefully it won't come to that. Hopefully something will come from the Annapolis conference in a few weeks. Hopefully.

My teacher is also a pretty big critic of the way that the Lebanon War was carried out, like myself. I'm not sure on the specifics of how he would have conducted the war, but he did say that he, like myself, believed that the rescue of the two soldiers was not possible and that a full scale invasion was not the way to go about it. Funny how an officer in the IDF and someone who was labeled as a "bad Jew" and "not Zionist enough" could have the same opinion. By the way, those who labeled me those things are NOT in Israel right now, supporting its people, the economy, and paying taxes. Just thought I'd point that out.

While I may disagree with the teacher, I do respect him and his point of view. He knows things that I don't, but at the same time, he is prohibited from questioning some of those things that he knows as well as the general policies of the government. It's his job. My duty as a civilian is to question the policies. Either way, I plan to take his lectures with a grain of salt. Today though, I needed a whole bag of salt.

Anyways, back to the class. The class itself is interesting and is progressing slowly. My friends and I are responsible for doing a report on ETA, which is the Basque Separatist Group in Spain and France. Our project is coming along well and we're pretty confident that we will get an A with it.

Just to add to a previous post, all the military activity in the north of Israel is just an exercise. "Just an exercise". Not sure what for. But just an exercise.