Obama's Whistle-stop Train Leaves from Philadelphia Saturday Morning January 17. 
Abraham Lincoln's whistle-stop train trip, which Mr. Obama seeks to recreate, left Springfield, Illinois on February 11, 1861 enroute to his first inauguration on March 4. At the same time, another critical trip started when
Jefferson Davis, newly elected president of the Confederate States of America, departed his slave-owning plantation Brierfield in Mississippi on the same day, February 11, enshipped on the river to Vicksburg, and began his whistle-stop tour of his new country, the Confederacy. The New York Times published two columns side by side: "The New Administration," and "The New Confederacy." For the next twelve days, the public watched the progress of the two new potentates, and on Sunday 18 I will speak to two authors who write about this trip, Harold Holzer, author "Lincoln President-Elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861," and Ronald C. White, Jr, author "A. Lincoln: A Biography." (Below, see Lincoln at Philadelphia's Independence Hall, February 22, 1861; and then Lincoln at his first Washington inaugural, March 4, 1861.) Lincoln went to Washington. Davis went to Mobile, Alabama, and eventually to Richmond, Virginia. The trains of the two presidents, both born in cabins in Kentucky, collided in April 1861 when the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter.
Two Trains On The Track Now.
Mr. Obama's train is on the track to his first inauguration. And the other train, the Jihad train, is on the track for a train wreck in Gaza. My best signals source says that Mr. Obama inserted his talent for avoiding conflict this week in the Gaza War. Mr. Obama wants the fighting to stop before his inauguration. The IDF is now waiting for an Israeli Cabinet vote on Saturday night to decide on the so-called unilateral ceasefire. This figment is a direct order of the Obama administration. Hamas will not negotiate in good faith; Hamas will not accept any terms; Hamas will fire as
many rockets as it can as soon as it gets resupplied. The Israelis are going along with this Obama fantasy that Hamas can be contained without being killed. The US is promising to monitor the Gaza border and the coastline. The MOU (right) issued today between T. Livni and C. Rice is supposed to establish procedures for a coalition that will monitor the border by unknown means that will achieve what the IDF was not able to achieve in 40 years, which is the closing of the smuggling routes from Sinai to Gaza. This deal is a trajn wreck coming down the track, and the Obama team is going to collide with the Jihad train just as certainly as Mr. Lincoln collided with Jefferson Davis in 1861. Obama has stopped the IDF from the coup de grace of killing Ismail Haniyeh and his gang who are hiding in the Shifa Hospital. What happens after Tuesday is directly in Mr. Obama's hands, and already it is a certain confusion. How may rockets in a ceasefire before it is no longer a ceasefire? And how does the IDF withdraw from Gaza? And what happens to the gangsters in Shifa Hospital? And what does Tehran want from Mr. Obama, and what will he pay for quiet in Gaza? Not for genuine quiet. For fewer rockets. Mr. Obama wants jaw-jaw peace. He will get jaw-jaw war. The gangsters are trapped and defeated. The US is ordering the IDF to give them a get out of jail free card. (And if Mr. Lincoln had ordered Jefferson Davis's destruction or detention as a seditious rat in March, 1861, how much grief would have been avoided?)
Yes, when I read about the signing of a mutual agreement, I wondered what this agreement was all about and how the enforcement of it was structured. There's no advantage to Israel to unilaterally yield the field and cease the offensive, which has been proving every day, that the cause of the Hamas in Gaza and their strategy has brought them more and more isolation and less and less credibility as being truly representative of the Palestinians.
This seems just a show of altruistic goodwill as in: Israel will accept a halt to the conflict if Hamas accepts a halt to the conflict and America will sign off to a halt to the conflict if Israel and Hamas both agree to halt the conflict and we'll all work out the details later. And in order to lay claim to having contributed to a substantive solution, if one arises, we endorse this fine piece of work.
Anyone want odds on the passage of this fluff puff?
The Israeli people want the anticipated Phase III to go forward and put an end to this cycle, regardless whether Haniyah and his henchmen achieve martyrdom or not(which by the way, they have a marvelous chance of completing right now, but, for some reason they... well, who knows what they want).
Where is Binyamin N? He has a lean and hungry look...
Sure and the killing goes on. 1,130 dead, men, women and children. Unbelievable!
Israel's terms are totally one-sided. Either give up your arms or die! To be fair, the US should halt funding the Israeli war machine with their f-16s, tanks, depleted uranium and white phosphurous munitions. The Palestians are resisting an occupation by an intractable foe. The consequences of Israels' actions and the Western World inaction will not go un-noticed this time.
You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cant fool all the people all the time.
If Russia had attacked Poland or the Ukraine, the world would be up-in-arms. The TV, radio and newspapers and Western politicans would be condemning Russians 24/7. HOWEVER, if Israel does the killing than it is OK. Perception can help your cause or harm your cause; right now Israel/US are in the wrong. Genocide is genocide; no matter how you look it or political idealogy behind it.
The West and the Middle Eastern countries are all to blame for this current situation. Everyone is tainted. Everyone is out for their own self-interest; money talks; lives lost; you really have to wonder about 'realitive morality' when the shoe is on the other foot.
Dear Spencer:
You are so right to be skeptical about the proposed allegedly "mutual" ceasefire in Gaza. First of all, ceasefires with terrorists are hardly mutual; they always mean that only the terrorists' opponents will cease their fire, but never the terrorists themselves. This one, if it happens, will be no different.
Second and even more importantly, you are right again to note that such "ceasefires" often lead to policy failures, usually in the form of unanticipated consequences of the negative kind. I believe this likely will be the case here, specifically in regard to the guarantee the Bush Administration has extended to Israel to interdict the smuggling of arms and ordnance to Hamas in Gaza. After asking ourselves who exactly it is that supplies arms and ordnance to Hamas -- duh! -- I suggest that such a guarantee places the USA on an unintended collision course with Iran of the sort that will finally initiate the open and all-out war to the death that has been brewing between us since 1979.
Of course, this observation does not mean that we should not offer Israel such a guarantee, it is only to say that we should do so with our eyes wide open. Specifically, we must acknowledge that this guarantee significantly increases the risk of some sort of serious military confrontation with Iran, at which point we must either take up the challenge or ignominiously retreat. Is the incoming Obama Admininstration ready to grasp either horn of this dilemma, truly understanding what is at stake with either choice?
Sam: you are more creative than this. Blaming every one for Gaza is the same as admitting you didn't open the book on your homework. Your aim will improve with more reading. However there are travelers here. It is a very small if tricky planet. Sermons from the young are not as entertaining as a good map. For now, until you do some reading -- try Joseph Conrad, or biographies of Europeans like Disraeli or Bonaparte-- this is the your on-sabbatical posting.
Israel's terms are totally one-sided. Either give up your arms or die!
Exactly. That is what Victors do. Have we fallen so far that we are afraid to have winners and losers? Peace comes only after Victory. For one side, there is Freedom. For the other side, there is Obedience. Knowing that the cost of Defeat has Consequences reduces the likelihood of Conflict. This diplomatic nonsense about fairness and equity and moral equivalence only draws out the Conflict and increases the Squalor of the weaker party and the body count yet to come. Hard Decisions required Hard Men. We have few such people leading the West. If the Israeli Cabinet signs onto this unilateral cease fire, they write Death Sentence for so many more lives in a Futures contract who's witching hour is not yet known.
I will never understand the unwillingness to win by the West. They are 80-90% complete with destroying Hamas. They must put boots inside the hotel and capture or kill the war criminals hiding beneath a hospital. The Jews led civilization out of the age of polytheism and human sacrifice. They must lead the West out of the moral confusion before us today. Faster, please. Finish the job in Gaza. Free the residents of Southern Israel from bomb shelters. Free the inhabitants of Gaza from the Hamas pirates. Free the West from the fog of moral confusion. Finish the job - now!
I’ve been trying to ignore Sam. The truth is that there are far too many of him these days. Natural law dictates that for two things to interact, a common element must be present in both. The only exception is a lie. A lie cannot affect the truth. Therefore it can only interact with itself. This has the effect of spinning the liar off into an alternate universe – one, divorced of truth. In such a realm, there are no facts; and logic does not prevail. This condition often results in madness. The madness can metastasize to the point of actually posing an existential threat to the truth. We’ve seen it ourselves in our “mad” response to our (so called) financial crisis, and electing an ideological child to the highest office in the land. All this will yet reach the point of a Winnie-the-Pooh-like fantasy in which, if schoolchildren were asked whether Lincoln was Democrat or Republican, they would answer, “Democrat” – and be marked, “correct”.
Sam--
stop spinning! the phosphorous story is bogus--phosphorous is present in illumination flares and that is its source in Gaza (do some research outside the far left blogs.
Israel has obviously looked the other way re Hamas weapons. the rocketing went on for years. The problem is they keep firing their weapons at Israel. Last time I checked Israel is a sovereign state. what would you do?
Your examples (Poland) are silly and don't apply at all--I don't think Poland is rocketing Russia. In fact the world was much bothered when Georgia stupidly provoked the Russian retaliation. George was stupid and deserved to get clocked. Live and let live. As a "nation" if you don't do that, you must be prepared for a fight.
I see we have another New Jersey particpant--Tom in NJ.
I'm changing my handle to JiminNJ.
there are others here locked in the friggin' socialist state that nearly as bankrupt as California.
Sam, is this what a nation committing genocide does with their enemy population?
Israel to transfer Gazans to Israeli hospitals
Starting Saturday, injured Palestinians from Gaza will be transferred to Israeli hospitals, based on their medical condition, according to an agreement between Israel and the Red Cross. Pursuant to the agreement, Israel's Ministry of Health announced it would open a temporary Magen David Adom station at the Erez crossing for Gaza patients. It would include pediatricians, gynecologists, GPs and trauma doctors. (Meital Yasur-Beit Or)
We are in California and just hired a new virtual employee in New Jersey. Our derelict payroll service initially set her up with California withholding. When they corrected it for New Jersey withholding, her net amount actually went up! I was disappointed - I had always heard New Jersey to be even more socialist than California. At any rate, I am so disappointed with Arnold's performance. He promised to balance our budget and make this state more business-friendly, and he's done neither.
Just to play devil's advocate here, is there any chance that Obama doesn't really want Israel to stop hammering Hamas, he just wants to go through the motions to quiet the many voices accusing us of standing by and watching as Israel comments "terricide"? (It sure beats "American Idol" for entertainment value, if you ask me.)
And so it came to pass that the Cabinet of the State of Israel agreed to the conditions of the yet to be inaugurated 44th president. Remember the word he used during the campaign "fairness" regarding the Palestinian cause. I am greatly concerned about this new administration's committment to the survival of the State of Israel. HRC may be a 'hawk' buy policy is made by the president - and the State Dept. is notoriously anti-Israel.
I attach this latest communique from Debka Files:
A unilateral cessation of fire approved by Israeli cabinet leaves Israel troops in Gaza
DEBKAfile Special Report
January 17, 2009, 11:15 PM (GMT+02:00)
The Israeli security cabinet in a special meeting Saturday night, Jan. 17, approved by a majority of 11 to 3 a unilateral cessation of fire in the Gaza Strip - but not quite an end to Operation Cast Lead just yet.
DEBKAfile: Israeli forces will hold to their positions in the Gaza Strip for a trial period counted in days to test Hamas' response. Meanwhile, Hamas promises to keep on fighting and shooting rockets, while neither Washington nor Cairo guarantee action to end the flow of weapons to Gaza.
As the cabinet voted, Hamas fired rockets against Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Sunday, a large group of European leaders from the UK, France, Germany, Spain and the Czech Republic descends on Jerusalem. DEBKAfile's sources report they are coming ostensibly to show the flag for Israel, but they will also be on hand to ascertain that the Israeli military quits the Gaza Strip – even without the operation's goals being met – and also that Israel opens the six Gaza crossings as demanded by Hamas.
The plan the European leaders have developed with Egypt provides a $1.6 billion aid package for the Gaza Strip's reconstruction.
The millions of tons of cement and supplies will be shipped to Israeli ports and delivered through the Gaza crossings over a period of years. Israel, they believe, will not be able to refuse to reopen the crossings, thereby bringing its embargo of the Gaza Strip to an end.
Can everyone please stop speaking in these ellipses and tell me what is going on? Did everyone secretly sign a pact to stop speaking plain English and not let me in on it? It's a fine line between profound and pointless. I'm confident enough in my intelligence to admit that I don't have a clue for the most part what any of you are talking about, although it sure sounds like it probably has some significance or other.
Ten days of Hamas provocation and bluster can be expected. It's an amazing concession, especially when it seems that overall interest and concern for the whole affair appeared to be waning.
Ravaged dark eyes peer out from the devastation to claim a victory. They have held their ground and they will continue the fight.
Ten days... how many bottle rockets are allowed per diem?
I can almost hear the furious scratching of Novanglus' quill pen on parchment as he writes, "I will never understand the unwillingness to win by the West." That is because he does not know what constitutes victory in 2009, as opposed to 1945. In this he is far from alone, since Israel grasps the notion of Fourth Generation Warfare no better than does America.
It is because of the near-universal ignorance of 4GW that I stated on this site a couple of weeks ago that Hamas had left a flaming sack of dog poo on Israel’s doorstep. Subsequent developments have been drearily predictable, alas.
Mr. Batchelor, a future discussion of 4GW would be helpful. It is a fascinating topic, one worthy of your show.
How many hearts and minds could have been won if the next President had proclaimed that there is no greater celebration than to 'humbly' take the oath as protectorate of the nation for the people. No exhorbitant affairs. No lavish expense to the taxpayers. Just swear in and move on with the business at hand which has been vehemently declared the most critical of the age.
What's wrong with walking into the Oval Office with the Chief Justice and a few pool reporters with staff to record the event and say the necessary things of deep meaning and then dismiss everyone and get to the important matters at hand? This would have been real change.
But, no, let's do a redeux of Lincoln symbolically. How can you not just love it?!!
Adolphus Cusins: 'It is not the sale of my soul that troubles me. I have sold it too often to care about that. I have sold it for a professorship. I have sold it for an income. I have sold it to escape being imprisoned for refusing to pay taxes for hangmen's ropes and unjust wars and things that I abhor. What is all human conduct but the daily and hourly sale of our souls for trifles? What I am now selling it for is neither money nor position nor comfort, but for reality and for power.'
Everyone was judgmental of the industrialists flying in on corporate jets to present their cases to Congress. What of this?
Members of an in-group, whether Trekkies or terrorists, must always have shibboleths to distinguish them from the dreaded outsider. Forty-two thousand Ephraimites would agree with me on this, were they available for comment.
To my ears the hermetic language you mention has a peculiarly harsh and ugly quality, almost deliberately so, like Tolkien's Orcish speech or--Orwell noted this--old Soviet acronyms and phrases such as Agitprop and GOSPLAN.
But then, I have a hang-up about style and manner of presentation, so what do I know?
Well said Kenneth!!
I can almost hear the furious scratching of Novanglus' quill pen on parchment as he writes, "I will never understand the unwillingness to win by the West." That is because he does not know what constitutes victory in 2009.
Kenneth, teach me. I have read little about 4GW, but to me it seems like traditional insurgency coupled with effective manipulation of mass media. Yet, behind the insurgency there are state actors that we do not hold accountable - Iran, Syria. Our own governments would hold us accountable as criminals were we to form counter insurgency networks. If this is the model, then we must accept a permanent state of war - low intensity conflict - until a nation of sufficient power tires of the nuisance and obliterates the host (civilian population) and the parasite (terrorists). I fear the future will be an ugly place. The American people and their leaders have Attention Deficit Disorder and are unable to sustain the kind of counter-insurgency actions and support that would be needed to turn things around.
Unbelievable! Even the "Home Improvement" show has gotten into the act. I was listening this morning when they said that Lincoln (aka Obama) was a forerunner of the modern day 'green movement'. It was said that log cabins are particularly energy efficient in comparison to today's standard housing.
I cannot remember Bush ever having gotten such a break in any press account. I do pray that Obama (aka Lincoln) won't take this whole Lincoln thing too far; that his handlers will be advising him to stay away from Ford's Theatre.
Worldwide, the large, centralized nation-state, such as the ones spawned by Bismarck and his ill-educated American counterpart whom Marx admired, has begun to lose its allure. Hence the looming collapse of both Pakistan and Mexico. (The latter's failure will be a far greater threat to America than anything likely to happen in the Middle East, I fear. It would be another excellent topic for Mr. Batchelor's show.)
Nature abhors a vacuum. So does politics. Therefore we can expect the rise of more non-state actors to fill the void, some much closer to home than a cave in Afghanistan. To fight them with "overwhelming force," the way we did Hitler, makes no more sense than would attacking a swarm of wasps with a sledgehammer.
I fear that I lack the time, knowledge, and ability to teach anybody much of anything, especially about that slippery concept known a victory: I am but an overworked drone that comes home at five, walks my girlfriend's bumptious chowbradors, and then scrambles for anonymous and ill-paid writing gigs on the side. However, I will say that at least one 4GW theoryhead contends that Israel blew its best chance by not tricking Hamas into becoming a state, with all the cares and vulnerabilities that statehood brings.
See the writings of William Lind for further enlightenment. Like most really smart, as opposed to merely smart, people, he can be a little, uh, idiosyncratic in his views, such as in his unstinting admiration for Kaiser Wilhelm II, but his thought is worth it: http://d-n-i.net/lind/lind_archive.htm
And yes, I too fear that the future will be an ugly place. Of course, my default setting these days is a kind of half-assed pacifism, so to me the present more and more resembles a dystopian science fiction novel...
We are about to embark on a great experiment to see whether propaganda alone can make for a better world. Agreed, that PEBO is purely a media creation. How could he be otherwise? You’ve heard all the superlatives. Already he has been compared to Jesus, Lincoln, and the last of the twelve imams who along with the Mahdi are said to bring peace and justice to mankind. Expectations, both here and abroad, are running at fever pitch. Along with it, there’s a sense of optimism that is palpable. Even Republicans say they are willing to give him a chance. Those still in opposition have been marginalized, if not silenced - all this, without Barrack Obama having served even a single day in office.
This stands in stark contrast with our Bush experience. From the day this man took office, the press already had it in for him. He was said to have stolen the election. He was routinely branded an incompetent, a liar, a torturer; all around bad guy, well deserving of our ridicule and scorn. His accomplishments were either ignored or grotesquely twisted into failures. When he gave more money than any other U.S. president in history toward fighting AIDS in Africa, the story appeared on the back pages of newspapers - if at all. When the economy was good, any sign of it was always greeted as “unexpected” by the talking heads who were trotted out to schmooze about it. (And, don’t forget, things began to sour only after Democrats took control of Congress in ’06.) Bush was never given an iota of credit for conducting - not one, but - two marginally successful wars simultaneously. (And he didn’t do it to distract the public from his extramarital affairs.) Above all, he kept us safe for nearly two terms. But that fact too has been conveniently forgotten as it does not fit the template that the media has assigned him.
We can now safely say that Bush too was a media creation. Whereas Obama is made out as a two-dimensional cartoon hero, Bush was made out to be a two-dimensional cartoon villain. Neither man has been presented to the American people in a fair and objective manner.
Now we will see if hype-inspired optimism alone can bring positive results. Should things get even marginally better with Obama in charge – say, the economy improves by virtue of toxic debt containment within the confines of “Bad Bank” vaults (and wouldn’t you just love to be the president and CEO of a “Bad Bank?) - the press will be vindicated. Similarly, should things remain status quo internationally by virtue of a policy aimed at containing toxic world hot spots within specified areas (Gaza, Darfur, North and South Korea, Kashmir, Tibet, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, with the possibility of some others coming on line), the (world) press will say, Obama is doing the best he can (at least he’s not torturing people).
This would nevertheless represent a draw down of credibility for a press that promised us so much more. Still, after four years, the case could be made that things were far worse under Bush. People have short memories, after all.
…and this, realistically, is the best we can hope for: Obama being no worse than Bush. No doubt, if Obama had been in Bush’s shoes these past eight years and had done exactly what Bush did, Mt. Rushmore would now be making preparations to add yet another face. Let us hope for our sake that there’s still enough room up there.