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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

On Friday, Kyrgyzstan’s interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, flew to the site of this month’s ethnic violence — and raised the estimate of the dead to 2,000.

Some 400,000 ethnic Uzbeks have become refugees, with 100,000 safely across the border in Uzbekistan and 300,000 trapped in Kyrgyzstan. Their homes have been burned, their relatives beaten, raped or slaughtered.

The Kyrgyz military and police stood by and let it happen — or pitched in. The interim government couldn’t control them, once the ethnic cleansing began. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

Afghanistan just got its worst news since the Soviet invasion three decades ago: American geologists have charted as much as a trillion dollars’ worth of mineral deposits in that tormented landscape.

Up to now, Afghanistan’s internal factions and neighbors have been fighting over worthless dirt, Allah and opium. Assigning the battlefield a trillion-dollar value is not a prescription for reconciliation. Expect “The Beverly Hillbillies” scripted by Satan. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

Yesterday brought the welcome news that a 22-year-old soldier had been busted for passing classified gun-camera tapes and documents to Wikileaks. If proven guilty, Spc. Bradley Manning needs to do serious prison time.

But that’s where the good news ends. Spc. Manning was only caught because he bragged about his crime to a former hacker, who turned him in to the Army. Our government still isn’t serious about plugging classified leaks in wartime. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

As the Irish-flagged “aid” ship Rachel Corrie heads for Gaza and Act Two of this made-in-Turkey crisis looms, Washington still can’t bring itself to accept that the entire script was written in Ankara.

Fourteen months ago, President Obama made his first stop abroad in Turkey, where he told his hosts that “Turkey and the United States can build a model partnership.” (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

Yesterday’s “aid convoy” incident off the coast of Gaza wasn’t about bringing humanitarian supplies to the terrorist-ruled territory. It wasn’t even about Israel.

It was about Turkey’s determination to position itself as the leading Muslim state in the Middle East.

Three ships of that six-ship pro-terror convoy flew Turkish flags and were crowded with Turkish citizens. The Ankara government — led by Islamists these days — sponsored the “aid” operation in a move to position itself as the new champion of the Palestinians. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

Each Memorial Day, we’re treated to countless columns thanking our men and women in uniform for their service and honoring those we have lost or who suffered wounds. The rhetoric’s well intentioned. But it isn’t enough.

In the midst of war, we owe our troops far more than an annual pat on the back. Those who serve on the front lines and the vast array of military members supporting them have immediate and vital needs. On several important counts, we’re letting them down. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

President Obama may have Katrina’d himself this week over the Gulf oil spill — but at least it distracted attention from the fact that he also got caught using the National Guard as lipstick on a cactus.

Anyone with military experience knew that the president’s earlier decision to send 1,200 National Guard soldiers to Arizona’s border with Mexico was a purely political move. But few realized just how cynical it was. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

Yesterday, The New York Times published another front-page article based on a leaked classified document. This time, it was an order signed by Gen. David Petraeus authorizing black operations against adversaries and such dubious friends as Iran, Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

Gee, thanks. We really needed to know that. The world’s a better place now.

Yet the Times‘ sin was the lesser one. The paper has long since given up any pretense of patriotism. (Ugh! Yuck!) Its editors are just publishing and perishing as citizens of the world. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

The world changed last week and we yawned. Our government and media utterly failed to grasp the meaning of the Iran-Brazil-Turkey nuke deal.

Undercutting the sanctions-lite bargain Secretary of State Hillary Clinton thinks she has with Russia and China was the least of it.

We’re so obsessed with the single (albeit important) issue of terrorism that we’re missing profound global realignments and the rise of grave new threats. (more…)

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by Ralph Peters [author, novelist]

‘It’s those damned Jews.” That’s the muffled message I hear when, pretending to represent our national interest, voices call for the abandonment of Israel.

We’ve heard it from agenda-driven scholars who write that our alliance with Israel is responsible for our problems in the Middle East. More worrisome still, I’ve begun to hear it from a minority of military officers, as well as from Washington types. (more…)