wrote:but in the end the U.S. foreign policy establishment supports what the Israeli militarist establishment does because...

What the hell is the "U.S. foreign policy establishment"? How does it control nearly every congress person and senator?

I hope this appointment, assuming it goes through, is a sign that Obama really intends to keep himself and his administration honest. There is good reason for disappointment with some of his appointments, but I still have a respect for the PE's levelheadedness.

Perhaps I have not been paying attention, but has anything happened with the CIA head?

Why does Salon continue to rely on Juan Cole's bad scholarship?

Who understood what the Iraq war would do, J. Cole or the neocons? In judging scholarship you look for knowledge combined with logical ability. The neocons have neither, and even if Juan Cole were a bad scholar he would be better than the neocons.

Can you understand that I might feel more responsible for my country torturing people to death, than for some other folks launching rockets into Israel?

Now for the tough one. If you can understand the previous paragraph, does it make sense that when the US gives military aid to Israel, I have a similar feeling concerning how this aid is used?

Can you explain why you do not feel as I do, in your own words based on your own thoughts without invoking any of the usual phrases?

alter my style so as to avoid offending people?

No, that is not it. What is damn amusing about you is that you are complaining about Glenn's style using a style that is really obnoxious, and only you can figure out why.

Interactions here are different from normal space. For example, have you noticed what happens when I ask shooter a "serious" question? (Hint: he goes away for a while, and then I do not have scan through so many replies.)

wrote:

and that it's 'a job that must be finished rather than left undone for only more (and harder) work that will have to be done in the near future?

"a job that must be finished" when carried out in this way is only done when the Palestinian people are all gone. If the US is willing to applaud this slaughter, then it also is willing to overlook disease and starvation. To ignore pleas from the red cross and the UN. To look the other way as a greater fraction of the declining energy of the Palestinian people goes into terrorism, and finally to applaud again as the cycle repeats and more US supplied bombs are used for killing.

You want statistics on how often the issue of Iraq civilian deaths has been mentioned on UT? Then find them yourself. This issue has dominated my thinking and that of many others here.

No, I do not think you can prevent responses of the type you so rightly expect.

wrote: To hand these cases over now to a US attorney, riddled with massive Constitutional abuses, will deny the People a fair trial.

I strongly disagree. Constitutional abuses are abuses of the People, as well as to those who are directly subject to them. When massive intentional abuses occur, the detainees cannot be convicted in a proper court of law. That is a simple fact, and there is no other solution that is fair to the People.

To get an idea, one might read Sanger's article in the NYT yesterday (U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site). Here is a small part:

But a decision to pull back on operations aimed at Iran could leave Mr. Obama vulnerable to charges that he is allowing Iran to speed ahead toward a nuclear capacity, one that could change the contours of power in the Middle East.

Israel’s effort to obtain the weapons, refueling capacity and permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran grew out of its disbelief and anger at an American intelligence assessment completed in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had effectively suspended its development of nuclear weapons four years earlier.

That conclusion also stunned Mr. Bush’s national security team — and Mr. Bush himself, who was deeply suspicious of the conclusion, according to officials who discussed it with him.

You see, that intelligence estimate is dead. It has taken a year, but it has been rejected because neither the administration nor Israel believes it. Or is that the same thing?

My low opinion of research in this article is based on this sentence:"The United States did give Israel one item on its shopping list: high-powered radar, called the X-Band, to detect any Iranian missile launchings."

Suppose a reporter overheard two policemen discussing the getaway car in a robbery. The car was a Toshima Leviathan, which comes with either a V-6 or a V-8. One says to the other: 'Yea, it was the V-8."

The next day, the reporter's article has this line:"The getaway car, called a V-8, was..."

Writing that a radar is called "the X-band" is equally idiotic. Radars have an operating frequency located in one of several bands. They are not named after the band, but the band might be used to denote the radar in some discussions.

So I think that the purpose of this "news" article is to alter public opinion, not present facts. Why bother to know what you are talking about if the facts are irrelevant?

Yes. If he cannot be convicted in a proper court as a result of constitutional abuses, he will go free. What other result could possibly be within the rule of law? Lynching?