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Between Hezbollah/Syria, Serbia, and now Hugo, there’s an awful lot of troops hanging out on borders these days....

Venezuela, Ecuador sends troops to Colombian border
reuters ^ | 3/2/08 | various

Posted on 03/02/2008 10:25:05 PM CST by BurbankKarl

Venezuela and Ecuador sent troops to their borders with Colombia on Sunday after their Andean neighbor bombed Colombian rebels inside Ecuador in an attack Caracas said could spark a war.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez also deployed tanks to the frontier, mobilized warplanes and withdrew his diplomats from Bogota in the worst dispute in the unstable region for years.

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a close ally of the leftist, anti-U.S. Chavez, expelled Colombia’s ambassador and recalled his own envoy from Bogota in protest over what he said was an intentional violation of his nation’s sovereignty.

Colombia responded to Correa by offering its apologies for the troops crossing the frontier, but said the operation on a jungle rebel camp was necessary because its forces came under fire from inside Ecuador.

But Colombia, a U.S. ally, also said it found documents at the camp that linked Correa to the guerrillas.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1979416/posts

Good morning Uncle Ike.

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Hamas claims Gaza “victory” as troops pull back
Mon Mar 3, 2008 4:28am EST

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli troops pulled out of the Gaza Strip on Monday after a U.S. appeal to end days of fighting that killed more than 100 Palestinians and rescue peace talks.

The Hamas Islamists who control the coastal enclave declared “victory” and vowed to continue firing rockets into Israel, launching one into the main southern city of Ashkelon shortly after the troops withdrew. No one was hurt.

A senior Israeli government official said the conflict had entered a “two-day interval” for a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

She is to hold talks in Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday and Wednesday on moving Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations forward. Washington hopes a Palestinian statehood deal can be reached this year.

“This very limited (Gaza) operation was intended to show Hamas what could happen, what you may call a ‘prequel’,” the Israeli official said.

“If they decide they’ve seen enough and stop the rockets, if they get the message, then we may get into a period of quiet. If they continue to fire the rockets, then there will be more operations like this one or worse,” the official said.

Israel had been under pressure from its ally in Washington to halt the violence after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas suspended U.S.-backed peace talks in protest at the bloodshed.

“The enemy has been defeated,” a spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing said, as Gaza residents streamed out of homes where they had been trapped for the past five days by heavy fighting.

Medical workers and Hamas said about half of the 112 Palestinians killed in the Israeli offensive were civilians.

Many of the civilian casualties came when Israeli missiles fired by helicopters, jets and unmanned drones hit buildings and homes that the army said were used by militants.

In Ramallah, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian during a student demonstration, local residents said. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

Overnight, Israel carried out several air strikes in the Gaza Strip, killing three militants, medical workers and Hamas said. The army said it had targeted workshops making rockets.

“This operation has run its course,” Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon told Army Radio. “There were dozens of deaths among the Hamas terrorists — this is certainly deterrence.”

DEATH TOLL

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri countered: “Gaza will always be a graveyard for the occupation forces.”

Hamas officials said they had found four bodies, including that of an ambulance worker, following the Israeli withdrawal.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had condemned Israel for using “excessive force”, and called on Palestinians to halt their rocket attacks.

bbas, whose Western-backed forces lost control of Gaza to Hamas in June, said he would not resume talks with Olmert until what he called Israeli aggression ended.

“We’re encouraging Israel to exercise caution to avoid the loss of innocent life,” a U.S. State Department spokesman said after Rice spoke to Abbas on Sunday. A White House spokesman said: “The violence needs to stop and the talks need to resume.”

Javier Solana, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, in the region for talks with Israel and the Palestinian Authority, said in Tel Aviv on Sunday: “I think we have to give the message to the two parties, saying that the political process has to continue.”

On Saturday, 61 people including 30 civilians were killed in the bloodiest day for Palestinians since their 1980s uprising.

Two Israeli soldiers were killed in the fighting and on Wednesday an Israeli civilian was killed by a rocket, the first such death since May.

Hamas says it fires rockets in self-defense and that it would stop if Israel halted all military activity in Gaza and the occupied West Bank and ended its blockade of the Gaza Strip.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald and Dan Williams in Jerusalem and Adam Entous in Tel Aviv; writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

This seemed to me a pretty level headed assessment of the Israeli situtation. (Good morning, Uncle Ike.)

ANALYSIS: Hamas wants lull in Gaza, but only on its own terms

By Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondents

Tags: Israel, Fatah, Gaza Strip

The prevailing opinion in the government and Israel Defense Forces leadership on Sunday was that Hamas wants to end the current round of fighting with Israel. The Palestinians, it is thought, have suffered a nearly intolerable amount of casualties this past week and are looking for a way out of the hostilities.

But it appears that Israel forgot to take into consideration Hamas’ military wing, whose operatives have continued to launch Qassam and Grad Katyusha rockets on the western and northern Negev.

Sunday’s fighting was indeed more limited than the blood-drenched violence on Saturday. But some 40 rockets in one day, in addition to >12 Palestinian fatalities, cannot be considered a return to normal.

In principle, the Israeli view is logical: Hamas is indeed interested in a lull. But at least for the meantime, despite the pressure being exerted by the IDF, the organization is prepared to agree to a cessation of hostility only on its own terms - after it proves that it can withstand Israel’s steamroller.

The importance of the death toll should not be ignored. After the IDF operation in Jabalya, with some 100 Palestinian fatalities in less than a week, the Gaza Strip is thirsty for revenge. Hamas, like Hezbollah, wants to be the one to fire last. It will be able to live with a gradual reduction in shooting, as long as it does not look like it was the one that gave in.

In addition, Hamas is scoring some victories of its own. It managed to paralyze the West Bank, where a full strike was declared, though not on the orders of the Palestinian Authority. The schools shut down and students took to the streets to protest the IDF operation in Gaza on Sunday. Settlers’ cars became targets for stones and firebombs.

Hamas also dominated Palestinian media discourse, with Fatah being attacked on all the television stations ¬ an impressive political victory for the Islamic organization.

The IDF, for its part, is recommending that the government allow a continuation of the offensive. The General Staff is pleased that the army has been allowed to take its gloves off, and envisions a long series of actions. These include additional ground operations of limited scope, a continued aerial hunt for the people involved in manufacturing and launching rockets, and possible attacks on leaders of the Hamas political bureau. The IDF is considering sending more troops into Gaza because the forces there may not suffice.

The primary objective of the Gaza move is to get Ashkelon out of the firing line and to prevent Hamas from launching a large number of Qassams at Sderot in response to the death of every operative. The army’s operations are also meant to provide the basis for a possible decision to embark on an expanded ground offensive, because the IDF will be able to argue that it has tried everything and that it is bringing extensive forces into the Strip only as a last resort.

It seems that those who boast about the IDF’s achievements sometimes confuse efficiency with effectiveness. The fact that the army has been completing its tasks with relative efficiency does not necessarily lead to a fundamental change in the situation. As in previous clashes with the Palestinians, Israel has quickly moved toward a focus on the body count.

Even if there is a gap between the haughty statements of Hamas spokesmen and the movement’s actual situation, it is clear that Hamas sees its losses in a different way than Israel does and that it views the ongoing conflict in the context of a totally different time frame than that envisioned by the impatient Israelis.

Link: http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/959936.html