At long last, somebody from the U.S. Senate has taken notice of the new U.N. Human Rights Council and concluded it is no different than the inept and corrupt organization that it was designed to replace.
The U.N. Human Rights Council has spent the full period of its existence investigating Israeli "violations" of human rights, to the exclusion of all other nations. Of all the nations in the world, Israel is the only one to earn the special status of being permanently placed on the UNHRC's monthly agenda. First, the UNHRC examines Israel, and then, if there is any time left, they go to new business. To date, there's been no time left.
Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota has had enough: "You've got countries like North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe where you have state-sponsored brutality, and what we have is deafening silence," he told Haaretz. Last month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved legislation advanced by Coleman aimed at cutting off funding to the UNHRC.
The UNHRC is getting a bit of attention among the Washington establishment, as well.
Assistant Secretary of State Kristen Silverberg called the council's first year a serious disappointment. She reproached member states for abandoning their responsibility ...   more »

By Barbara Opall-Rome

   
BALADIA CITY, Israel — In a new, elaborate training center in the Negev desert, Israeli troops — and someday, U.S. Marines and soldiers — are preparing for the wide range of urban scenarios they may confront.
Here, at Israel’s new National Urban Training Center, the Israeli Defense Force’s Ground Forces Command is preparing forces to fight in four theaters: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Syria.
Built by the Army Corps of Engineers and funded largely from U.S. military aid, the 7.4-square-mile generic city — balad, in Arabic, means village — consists of 1,100 basic modules that can be reconfigured by mission planners to represent specific towns.
It’s a much smaller, IDF-tailored version of the Army’s Joint Readiness Training Center, the sprawling 100,000-acre simulated microcosm of the Middle East used to train infantry brigade task forces deployed in the region. And while Baladia City won’t feature all the pyrotechnic bells and whistles of the Fort Polk, La., facility, it will offer the same high-fidelity simulated battlefield technologies, force identification and location systems, and debriefing capabilities, officers here said.
“Combat units from platoon up to brigade level will train in an environment that simulates the real ...   more »