all you guys who suggest that US end aid to Israel and let the arabs drive it into the sea, etc.; do you realize that US aid makes up a grand total of 20% of Israel's economy? ending it would make things tough for Israel, but they've been in worse shape than that before. the US has just took a hit in the economy that's probably about that size percentagewise, and it's not exactly crippled our military.

lemme point out again that "what we get for the money" was for 50 years a proxy to fight the Soviet proxy of the arab nations, pitting US military hardware against Soviet military hardware, real life war games. without that kind of thing, one side or the other eventually gets it into their head that they have a big advantage and launches an attack; or else gets it into their head that the other side is getting a big advantage and launches a preemptive attack. neither of which would be a good idea when both sides have enough nuclear missiles to destory the earth several times over. and for similar reasons, you don't want both sides actually having little skirmishes of their own forces to test their strength, in case they blow up; see the cuban missile crisis for a near miss.

so, the most responsible thing would be for the US to be an honest broker for peace and speak firmly to each side; this would even save face for a moderate israeli administration "gee, you know, we'd really love to bomb the shit out of gaza, but ya know what? the US just won't let us"

but if the US decides to pull their aid, that's OK too, but don't expect any favors, or a quick end to the conflict; and i absolutely do not believe that it will cause islamic militants to love the US again, because what links the US and Israel in their minds is a lot deeper than US aid, it's a mutual dedication to a progressive westernized world (with a toxic soulless consumerist component) that, although being quite compatible with most of the muslims in the world, is anathema to those who currently hate us.

we're not going to become the utopia we all grew up hoping america would be, very soon. no matter who got elected. in fact, just getting us more or less to where we were in the clinton era will probably be a damn good accomplishment for obama in 8 years. unfortunately, that means selling out a lot of good ideas and good people to get favors to cash in. that's politics. for some idiot reason, half the country still thought the republicans were the best party to change the way those republicans run the country,

does it mean the democrats have to kiss crazy rightwing bullies' asses still? damn, i hope not. glenn has done a terrific job this year pointing out how insular the world inside the beltway is, republicans, democrats, and press all marching to the bushies' tune and accepting their every axiom as a law of nature. let's hope for release from at least that mental illness.

well, because it brings about a reaction, of course. which is what hamas wants. all of a sudden they are the worldwide heroes and brave underdogs, rather than a bunch of thungs robbing their own people of scarce resources and without the slightest idea as to how to run a nation which is not at war.

it works, too.

if hamas is the freely chosen and elected representatives of the gaza people and they choose to bombard the people next door with rockets and mortars, that's war, and they can't be morally upset when the people next door fight back. the question of who came first, the restrictions or the rockets doesn't affect this.

on the other hand, if the citizens are truly innocent and blameless victims being slaugtered for fun, then hamas is not legitimate and is using them as human shields and i don't see how folks can support them.

this is pretty simple stuff. being attacked by people you are bombarding is entirely different from being attacked by people you are not bombarding. and the argument that you are doing a lousy job with your bombarding doesn't change that, it just makes you all the more culpable in your own destruction, removing as it does any argument that it's in self-defense. more in common with the phenomenon of suicide-by-police.

i personally would like both sides to stop. before everybody says the israelis will never stop so hamas should keep it up, consider; if they are so ineffective, what would they lose by stopping, just to see? (their image as protectors fo the people, of course). did the israelis invade while the rocketing was down to one every day or two? no, they started when it had been back up to several a day, after a month or so. does this not support some theories regarding the violence and invalidate others? did the rocketing drop off after the israelis pulled out of the area? no? does this not support some theories regarding the violence and invalidate others? if you are going to argue that the conditions are just as bad regardless of whether the israelis pulled out or not, why did anybody want them to pull out? there wouldn't be any invasions and hundreds of deaths.

well, nobody's going to change their mind, anyway.