Col. Richard Kemp Testifies at U.N. Emergency Session <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NX6vyT8RzMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NX6vyT8RzMo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Governments Joint Intelligence Committee. Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population. Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents. The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights. The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks. Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes. More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians. Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets. And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.
Palestinian territory is a zoo... we should declare them a protected species or something, fix up their habitat, have tour buses go through to see them in the wild... the whole ME is a zoo, it's terminology I got from people that emigrated from there to the US, I'm not demonizing the people, just passing on intel I got from people with generations of boots on the ground in the eternally disputed area... I notice that the few Caucasian Jew haters I've known in the US will side with the Palestinian reports of brutality in Pavlovian fashion as well, it's not just the press...
I disagree. That is like saying Europe was a zoo when Hitler and Stalin reigned. The area wasn't a zoo. It was just that the evil ideologies of Nazism and Communism that permeated that area caused chaos. Similarly here Islam when practiced in earnest as Mohammed did is just another form of Nazism so similarly it will cause chaos in the ME as when Hitler's Nazism existed, and Iran isn't even in the ME while it is the major sponsor of terrorism in the world and major threat leading to nuclear war in the world.