U.S.,Troops Kill 20 inside Pakistan

At least 20 people were killed in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday after U.S. and Afghan troops crossed from Afghanistan to pursue Taliban insurgents in an early morning attack that marked the first known instance in which U.S. forces conducted an operation on Pakistani soil since the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan began, according to witnesses and a Pakistani official.

The United States has conducted occasional air and artillery strikes against insurgents lodged across the border in Pakistani territory, and "hot pursuit" rules provide some room for U.S. troops to maneuver in the midst of battle. But the arrival of three U.S. helicopters in the village of Musa Nika, clearly inside the Pakistani border, drew a sharp response from Pakistani officials.

"We strongly object to the incursion of ISAF troops on Pakistani territory," said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, referring to the International Security Assistance Force, the coalition of U.S. and other NATO troops that has been battling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan since 2001.

A U.S. military spokesman in Afghanistan referred requests for comment on the incident to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa. A CENTCOM spokesman reached by phone in Tampa on Wednesday declined to comment. JYTimes

U.S., Israel and AIPAC: “No, Thank You”

Palestine: “Yes, Thank You”

On March 18^th we posted an article titled “Mid-East Policy vs. the U.S. Constitution” in which we said we were inviting representatives of the Israel Lobby (AIPAC) and the Governments of the United States, Israel and Palestine to attend GML 2007 to comment on the accuracy of a recent paper published by Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, entitled, “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” and a book published recently by Jimmy Carter entitled, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.”

We wrote that according to Mearsheimer, Walt and Carter, the United States has abandoned its own national interest and security to advance the interests of Israel, that neither strategic nor moral arguments can justify America’s unconditional support for Israel, that the United States has become the de facto enabler of Israel’s unlawful expansion and military occupation of the Palestinian Territories, that the United States is paying for the destruction of the Palestinian society, that U.S. policy in the Middle East (including giving Israel well over $140 billion in U.S. income tax revenues) has been driven by the activities of the “Israel Lobby,” and that the Israel Lobby attacks any person or organization that criticizes or is perceived to be a threat to Israel’s interests.

We wrote that if, in fact, the information presented by the Professors and Carter was correct, it must be concluded that U.S. Foreign Policy is repugnant to the General Welfare clause of the Constitution.

In support of such a conclusion we presented the following line of logic: