Daily Alert Archives

Obama Is Learning from the IDF

[Ha'aretz] Aluf Benn - Israel's critics in the U.S. portray it as a strategic burden. They argue that during the Cold War the Israel Defense Forces gave Americans useful information on Soviet weapons systems used by Arab armies, but the Soviet Union collapsed and the value Israel offered to U.S. national security evaporated with it. These critics are wrong in a big way: The U.S. military effort against al-Qaeda and the Taliban is based on a doctrine developed by Israel. The IDF was a global leader in targeting terrorists from the air. After 9/11 the Americans simply copied Israel's methods, foreign sources say. Unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), armed with missiles, started being used to kill terrorists, first in Yemen and later in Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the New America Foundation, between taking office in January and early October, the Obama administration authorized 42 UCAV strikes. Bush authorized 40 such attacks during his three final years in office. Six senior Taliban and al-Qaeda figures were killed in Obama-ordered operations, as were some 450 others. Judge Goldstone would be advised to note that a quarter of those killed were civilians, while the rest were low-grade fighters. The targeted killing three months ago of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan, also killed 11 civilians, much like the Israeli bombing that killed Salah Shehadeh along with his relatives and neighbors in Gaza in 2002.
2009-11-04 06:00:00
Full Article