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On the website of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs there is a map -- with a message. The map itself is a basic display of how regional borders looked before the Six Day War in 1967. The message is in the distances drawn from those borders to major Israeli cities.

For example, it's noted that the distance from what was in 1967 the armistice line with Jordan to the Israeli city of Netanya on the Mediterranean was 9 miles; to Beersheeba, 10 miles; and to Tel Aviv, 11 miles. The city of Ashkelon was 7 miles from the edge of the Gaza Strip, then under Egyptian rule.

The point is a simple one: Israel was virtually impossible to defend; any aggressor would try to cut it in half. Read this story in Arabic

That's just what the Arab armies tried to achieve in 1967. On the eve of the war, the Egyptian newspaper al Akhbar noted: "Under the terms of the military agreement signed with Jordan, Jordanian artillery, coordinated with the forces of Egypt and Syria, is in a position to cut Israel in two at Qalqilya, where Israeli territory between the Jordan armistice line and the Mediterranean Sea is only 12 kilometres (7 miles) wide."

It's a point that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed at his White House meeting with President Barack Obama last week.

"Remember that before 1967, Israel was all of 9 miles wide, half the width of the Washington beltway," he said. "And these were not the boundaries of peace, they were the boundaries of repeated wars because the attack on Israel was so attractive from them."

His choice of the word "boundaries" may not have been accidental, because in 1967 Israel had no agreed borders with its Arab neighbors. They were instead armistice lines agreed to in 1949 after the division of Palestine. (Internationally-recognized borders with Jordan and Egypt have since been agreed upon.) The Six Day War rendered those armistice lines redundant.

At the end of May 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan were massing troops and armor within striking distance of Israel. Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping. On June 5, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack that destroyed much of the Egyptian air force. In the days that followed, Israeli forces captured all of Jerusalem and the West Bank from Jordan, the Golan Heights from Syria and the Sinai peninsula and Gaza from Egypt. Suddenly, Israel had some "strategic depth."

For a time, that altered Israel's military doctrine -- meaning that a pre-emptive first strike was no longer its only option. The October 1973 war showed that Israel was capable of absorbing a first strike and retaliating.

But Ariel Sharon, when he became defense minister in 1981, argued that the modernization of Arab armies and their possession of surface-to-surface missiles had cancelled out the benefits of "strategic depth." He argued that Israel could not absorb a first strike and should be ready to launch preventive and pre-emptive strikes against potential threats. The same argument is made by many Israeli strategists today, in relation to a potential nuclear threat from Iran.

Successive Israeli leaders have rejected a return to the pre-1967 boundaries, starting with Golda Meir in 1969, who said it would be irresponsible for any Israeli government to support such a plan.

Former Foreign Minister Yigal Allon wrote in 1976 that Israel needed defensible borders "which could enable the small standing army units of Israel's defensive force to hold back the invading Arab armies until most of the country's reserve citizen army could be mobilized." When he was prime minister, Menachem Begin said it would be national suicide for Israel to retreat to its pre-1967 borders. And in 2004, President George W. Bush promised then-Israeli Prime Minister Sharon a "steadfast (U.S.) commitment to Israel's security, including secure, defensible borders." Even so, the international community has never recognized Israel's claims to any territory beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines.

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I've come to a revelation about Rap - it's not about WHAT is said, it's about WHO says it. That is the beginning, middle and end of what passes for his thinking. If he likes WHO says it, then it's true.

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I've come to a revelation about Rap - it's not about WHAT is said, it's about WHO says it. That is the beginning, middle and end of what passes for his thinking. If he likes WHO says it, then it's true.

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He believes unthinkingly what he hears, as long as it's said by an authority he likes. He is the definition of an RWA.

And like any true believer, not only will facts fail to convince him, they will make him believe even more strongly than before (How facts backfire). It is worse than useless to engage him in debate, it makes his fact-free life even more untethered to this world. Facts and reason, in his case, do not prevail.

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why do republicans keep bring this up, as a way to deflect their culpability in this blunder? The whole world thought that there were wmd's, but this batch of dunderheads were so hot to go to war that they elevated it to an eminent danger. Mushroom clouds I believe was the catch phrase that they chose to use to sell it to the public.

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Part 1, Article 1 and the US Reservations of the UN Convention Against Torture:

The term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

The US Reservations for the UN Convention Against Torture: In order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality.

Article 32 of the Fourth Geneva Convention any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons in their hands. This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishments, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.

Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: torture or inhuman treatment, including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health

Article 7(2)(e) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court "Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions.

Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture For the purposes of this Convention, torture shall be understood to be any act intentionally performed whereby physical or mental pain or suffering is inflicted on a person for purposes of criminal investigation, as a means of intimidation, as personal punishment, as a preventive measure, as a penalty, or for any other purpose. Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish. The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

18 United States Code Title 18, §2340(2)

“torture” means an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical control
(2)“severe mental pain or suffering” means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from—
the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering;
the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality;
the threat of imminent death; or
the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind-altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality;

92 tapes were destroyed by the CIA in November 2005 after a report by Inspector General John L. Helgerson’s office determined that they depicted "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as defined by the international Convention Against Torture".

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The text of the Convention was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1984[1] and, following ratification by the 20th state party,[2] it came into force on 26 June 1987.[1] 26 June is now recognised as the International Day in Support of Torture Victims, in honour of the Convention. As of September 2010, the Convention had 147 parties

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The undersigned Plenipotentiaries of the Governments represented at the Diplomatic Conference held at Geneva from April 21 to August 12, 1949, for the purpose of establishing a Convention for the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, have agreed as follows:

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The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture (IACPPT) is an international human rights instrument, created in 1985 within the Western Hemisphere Organization of American States and intended to prevent torture and other similar activities. The Inter-American Convention entered into force on February 28, 1987, and, as of 2010, 18 nations are party to it, with another two having signed but not yet ratified.

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is the treaty that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). It was adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome on 17 July 1998[5][6] and it entered into force on 1 July 2002.[2] As of March 2011, 114 states are party to the statute.[2] Grenada will become the 115th state party on 1 August 2011.[7] A further 34 states have signed but not ratified the treaty.

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