Former General McChrystal Reiterates Support for Hagel

Former General Stanley McChrystal spoke at the Free Library of Philadelphia today. The first part was a question and answer session with Mark Bowden, author of "Black Hawk Down".

He reiterated his support for the appointment of former Senator Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.

"If he will have the job, I support him," said McChrystal. "He will have to deal with sequester, integrating women in the military, which I support, and Iran in the next four years... Ahmadinjad (the President of Iran) does not exactly inspire confidence. The President will be making policy."

He compared the military's "op tempo and strategy" under him to the "Rocky Balboa strategy against Apollo Creed".

He said, "At first, we were going after only the top guys in the organization. We found that was not destroying the organization. Instead of aiming just for the top people, we hit constantly and in the mid section. When I started, we were doing 18 raids a month. At the end. we were doing 10 raids a night."

McChrystal had mixed feelings on drones.

"The other side does not respect leaders of a military that uses drones. They believe you should come up fighting mano el mano," he said. "There is collateral damage. If a drone hit a drug dealer in Philadelphia, the bystanders might think it was good he was hit. They still would have felt the impact."

McChrystal received a classified briefing on Benghazi, which begs the question why is a general that resigned in disgrace still receiving classified briefings.

"They entered the consulate not expecting to find the ambassador there," McChrystal was allowed to reveal.. "This was not organized. Other attacks in the area were. They set fire. The ambassador died in the safe room of smoke inhalation."


Chrystal said that he did not witness any extreme interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.

"The only torture techniques that were allowed were sleep deprivation, limiting sleep to 4 hours, and forcing them to be in extreme positions like kneeling," said McChrystal.

IDF Spokesman: 3 Million Israelis In Line of Fire

IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) spokesman Captain Eytan Buchman is one of the people live tweeting the Gaza incursion. Yesterday, the official twitter account of the IDF, @IDFspokesperson, tweeted - 

Ahmed Jabari:Eliminated.pic.twitter.com/sCnQnKkM

Buchman, a Chicago native, explained in a phone call the reasoning behind the IDF’s increased social media activity. “We learned from Operation Cast Lead in 2008 and 2009 that there were potential new audiences that we could target rather than the traditional media,” he said. “There is so much misinformation coming out of Gaza. Videos show a man be carried into an ambulance, but don’t show the same man walking out of the ambulance a few minutes later. Hamas falsely claimed to have hit an Israeli naval vessel. Social media allows everyone to see for themselves what is happening and make their own decisions.”

As for the controversial decision to show the video of the assassination of senior Hamas leader Ahmed Jabari, Buchman defends it.“The video shows that we hit him when he was in the middle of the intersection to minimize collateral damage," he said. 

He asserts Israel tries to avoid civilian casualties but that the Palestinian leaders make that hard to do. "They put the rockets in the middle of urban areas. When the leaders know they are a target, they use Palestinians as a human shield."

He stresses that Israel tries to minimize the collateral damage. "If you ever read Sun Tzu's Art of War, you would know that surprise is important.Yet, Israel drops leaflets before an attack warning the Palestinians to leave the area. No other army in the world does that."  

Buchman is shedding no tears over the death of Jabari, He said, "Jabari has been in Hamas since 1995." He has blood on his hands and not just the sheen of blood. Gilad Shalit is just the highest profile case that he has been involved with. He is behind the stockpile of weapons in Gaza.”

The captain emphasizes 3 million Israelis now are in the line of fire from Hamas rockets. Many of them ran to bomb shelters this morning when the sirens sounded.  My cousin, Hila Tal-Lazarus, wrote this on her Facebook page: “Terrible, I can’t explain the feeling of running for shelter with a 6 months old and a three year old. This is the time that I wish I wasn’t a mommy… But otherwise we are well. Thanks!”

Captain Buchman credits the Iron Dome, which was supplied by the United States Government under President Obama, for preventing the situation from not being much worse.  “Since it was first utilized in April 2011, it has prevented 100 rockets. In the last four days, it has prevented 105 rockets.”

The IDF has 30 seconds, the length of time of a Super Bowl commercial, to make the decision to fire a missile in response to a Hamas rocket. They do not fire at every Hamas rocket, only the ones that will land in urban areas, due to the $40,000 cost of each missile.  

Three Israelis died today after being hit by Hamas rocket fire. Israel does not have enough Iron Dome batteries to cover the entire Southern region.

Buchman argues, “Those that accuse Israel of being the aggressor have not been paying attention. They should be asking why it took us so long to respond. Since 2001, 12,800 rockets and mortars, an average of 3 a day, have landed in Israel. 274 rockets have landed in Israel since Operation Pillars of Defense.”

By the way, Buchman is the one that coined the Operation Pillar of Defense name. In Hebrew, the name of the operation is Pillar of Cloud, which references the cloud that traveled with the Jews as they left Egypt and made their way to Israel. While Israelis know the Bible well, he was not sure that Americans would understand the biblical reference. 

Did Netanyahu Prevent Obama From Meeting With Other World Leaders?

Much media attention this week has been focused on the fact that this is the first time in 20 years that an American president has held no one on one meetings with world leaders in town for the UN's General Assembly. Being an election year, Obama had limited time to spend at this year's General Assembly.

 A source, who has been involved in Mideast affairs for years and is close to Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas, told me that Obama was prevented from meeting with other world leaders because of Netanyahu. 

This source said, "Netanyahu would have raised holy hell if Obama met with other world leaders and not him. Abbas would have objected if he met with Netanyahu and not him."

Locked in a close election race and knowing that there was be a possible political downside to meeting with Netanyahu due to the strained relationship between the two leaders, Obama opted not to hold any meetings with world leaders. 

While I am very pro-Israel and believe that it is in America's interest to have a good relationship with Israel, it is not all about us. 

As for Bibi's Wile. E. Coyote bomb graphic, it was brilliant. For the second year in a row, no one has talked about the Palestinian problem at the UN's General Assembly. It may be only a short term victory. President Obama can not be too happy about all the talk about red lines when he is made it explicit that he will not draw one. 

Napolitano, ElBaradei,and Pentagon Brass Give a National Security Update

I attended the ASIS convention, which is one of the nation's foremost security conferences. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano gave the keynote address on Monday, the day before the 11th anniversary of 9/11. She pointedly did not try to convinced this crowd, which is very knowledgeable about national security, that the country is safer than it was before 9/11. The only major improvement in national security that she noted was more sharing of information between the federal agencies.

She devoted the majority of her pedestrian speech to talking about the threat of cyber-attacks. She is most concerned about attacks on critical infrastructure such as nuclear facilities, water plants, and natural gas pipelines.

The former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, was grouchy during his 8 am speech.The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who recently lost the Egyptian presidential election to Mohamed Morsi, started out defending his previous relationship with former Egyptian president Mubarak.

'I tried to persuade Mubarak to make peaceful changes, but he always resisted. Mubarak would respond, with a faint smile on his face, my potential opponents can't be trusted. It did not have to end the way it did," said ElBaradei.

He rebuked the American habit of supporting dictators because the government thinks it will increase stability and further Western interests. The real recipe for security, using its broadest definition, is to raise the standard of living of the poor.


He argued, "Poverty is the real weapon of mass destruction."


He blamed the American appeasement of North Korea's nuclear ambitions for Iran's rapid acceleration of their nuclear program.

"North Korea has demonstrated that they have nuclear capabilities and they are invited to the negotiating table." ElBaradei explained. "Iran wants the same thing. They want to be a regional power."

With the recent war of words between Israel and this administration, I asked the Pentagon brass attending ASIS about Iran.

One colonel, who recently served at Strategic Command, said, "We are not only concerned that Iran will conduct a nuclear attack against Israel, but also worried that Iran will give the nuclear material to state funded terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah."

Israeli Government Sources- "Not Bombing Iran"

I want to respond to the recent Huffington Post and Businessinsider articles that Israel is considering bombing Iran before the UN vote on a Palestinian state in September. All of my sources' who are either in the Prime Minister's office or Israeli military, intelligence officials, and diplomats, say that the bombing of Iran will not occur before the UN Vote.

Israel is deathly afraid that the UN could create a separate Palestinian state. As you may recall, Israel was created by a UN Vote.

All of the Israeli government's current energies are directed towards defeating that vote. The Israeli government considers the creation of Palestinian state by the UN the most serious threat that the state of Israel has ever encountered. They believe that the creation of a Palestinian state by the UN will endanger the safety of its citizens far more than Iran.

This is why Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu agreed last week to start peace negotiations with the Palestinians along the lines of the 1967 borders if the Palestinians would forsake asking for statehood at the UN.

One military official said to me, "Why would we risk bombing Iran before the UN vote. What is the rush?"

While Israel may have tacit American support for an attack on Iran, Israel do not want to risk anything going wrong during the bombing which would force America to withdraw its support at the UN.

While I know many follow Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting on Israel including the shaky prediction that Israel would bomb Iran, I urge you to not believe that Israel is going to bomb Iran any time soon.

I have lived in Israel for 10 years, returning in 2009. Many of my family have lived since the State's creation.

While living in Israel, I made the acquaintance of many in government, military, and intelligence. I freelanced at the defense contractor Elbit Systems, where many former military officials worked. As a reporter for Israeli news outlets such as Globes, Israel21c, Jerusalem Post, and Haaretz, I wrote about military matters and know many of the military reporters covering the beat.