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The Left Coaster

An outside-the-Beltway perspective on current events, politics, media, and the arts. We are proud to be part of the Reality-Based Community.

News from Gaza continues to be very depressing. Yet, as Daniel Levy wrote there are definitely things we can do to help:

Want to do something? Sign the J Street petition and join J Street.

Your turn now.

Some Advice for the Current Israeli LeadershipYesterday

Having read all these stories, I'd like to briefly interrupt my ongoing series (focused on developing a broad framework to understand violent conflicts and find working solutions to them) in order to add a few comments regarding civilian casualties.

I understand that pretty much all conflicts lead to unintended civilian casualties. That's an unfortunate consequence of war of any kind. I am even willing to give the Israeli Government the benefit of doubt when they claim they are not deliberately targeting civilians. However, the rules of war, and especially the rules of a counterinsurgency (COIN)-type operation - which is effectively what Israel is running in the Gaza strip today against guerilla-style Hamas militants who operate in the midst of civilians - don't just require the non-targeting of civilians. There

GazaYesterday

In the comment thread to an unrelated post, reader Shirin had a back-and-forth with two other readers after wondering whether there is some kind of deliberate attempt here at TLC to avoid talking about the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. Shirin shared her concerns about close friends who are at risk in that region and urged - "Talk about it, read about it (but not in the U.S. MSM for sure!), march, protest, call your Congress members, write your congress members, donate money to help the U.N. help the victims, take up a collection - do SOMETHING. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. "

Speaking just for myself, there is obviously no attempt whatsoever to ignore Gaza here. Quite the contrary. I wrote some posts on the topic here, here and here (others have written about the issue as well). The reason I am not writing every day just about the latest news out of Gaza - something you can easily find on many other blogs - is because I am not in favor of simply repeating bad news every day and feeling helpless about it. I want to do something about it and in my view, that something, is to build more awar

Open ThreadYesterday

The hawks are watching Obama (like vultures).

Anything interesting going on in the news?

George Bush Center for IntelligenceJanuary 7

Since there seems to be, um, a bit of umbrage over the Panetta pick for DCI, I should add one more thing following my previous post.

Remember President George H. W. Bush?

He was a Congressman initially and the only House Committee he was on was Ways and Means. He was appointed Ambassador to the UN by President Nixon, and then appointed head of the Republican National Committee. After that Gerald Ford appointed Bush "Chief of the US Liaison Office in the People's Republic of China" and then in 1976 appointed him Director of Central Intelligence (DCI).

He served in this role for 355 days, from January 30, 1976 to January 20, 1977. [20] The CIA had been rocked by a series of revelations, including those based on investigations by Senator Frank Church's Committee regarding illegal and unauthorized activities by the CIA, and Bush was credited with helping to restore the agency's morale. [21]

Today, the headquarters of the CIA, in Langley, carr