I started out talking to you, but went way off course!

very interesting and insightful.

One thing that bothered me was how Hewitt was trying to corner GG into a concession by forcing the utterly inapplicable example of Hitler (isn't there a saying that goes "whoever mentions Hitler in a debate immediately loses it?").

I think these historical comparisons are futile and irrelevant. Moreover, there's no way to know when would have been the right time to "crush Hitler like a bug." The whole notion of retrospectively "crushing Hitler like a bug" is a populist slogan that comes very, very cheap. It's much harder to do the right thing in the present.

In my view the correct answer is not after Anschluss, not after the invasion of Poland -- it is simply "I don't know." Nobody knows. I'm sure Hewitt thinks he does, however.

Hugh Hewitt has shown that although he presumes to learn from history, he actually doesn't, while Glenn Greenwald, who carefully acknowledges history's complex uniqueness, in fact does.

Israelis deny using phosphorus

Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian, Tuesday 6 January 2009

Israeli military spokesmen deny that their forces have used phosphorus in Gaza, despite photographs and film of munitions showing similar characteristics to the potentially lethal shells.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/06/gaza-israel-palestine-munitions

A preposterous statement by Israel. They've been using WP since the very beginning of this incursion--what are they thinking?:

http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=UVY4NUKowzg

One quibble - you let Hewitt's assertion that "Hamas brutally seized power" stand unchallenged; in fact, Hamas was demo-cratically elected in Gaza.

Understandable, considering the barrage of half-truths and lies which comprise the corporatist/zionist/tv preacher-duped line you were facing. Hard to counter everything.-- divadab

As usual, there are half-truths in much of what is said by both sides.

Actually, Hamas effectually seized power prior to the election and they did use brutal means to do so. They pre-emptively struck their Fatah opposition by force, after they learned that the US had encouraged and armed Fatah in order for Fatah to militarily strike Hamas and thus control the election. Hamas won the intra-Palestinian struggle for leadership only because Fatah was not sufficiently organized to be able to complete both politically and militarily within the timeline forced by the US.

The irony is that today, Hamas is probably using US supplied arms to fight Israel and there's a good chance that some of those arms have been utilized in the manufacture of those rockets which are striking Israeli civilians.

How many Americans (or anyone else who isn't up-to-speed on the machinations of our neocon friends realizes that we are arming both sides of this conflict?

I would suggest that there aren't many.

The strange thing is that while these people like Hewitt and my brother feel themselves part of a group of victims, they also are constantly trumpeting the amazing military strength and righteous might of the U.S. and Israel.

You noticed that, too? My wife calls that "triumphant victimology". It is one of the most shameful things about Zionism.

And coming from Jews, it shows a complete lack of self-awareness, and any appreciation of Jewish history.

And it's shameful.

According to haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052331.html

and eyewitness accounts. The use of cluster bombs in civilian areas should be a war crime.

I believe the Israeli side has not explained its argument very well.

It's been claimed that since the recent discovery of natural gas and oil in Gaza territory, off the coast, the Israeli purpose is to make the Gazans go away so Israel can take advantage of those resources.

So, the attack is really about theft. They could have kept the cease fire going. It had been doing well enough until Israel broke it with an incursion to jill fighters working on a tunnel.

It's been claimed, and documented here by Glenn, that the concern by Israel is the terror caused by all the rockets Hamas has been launching into Israel. Grandmothers cannot take showers. They have to worry about how slow they are to make it to shelters. I hear this on Democracy Now recently.

It seems that history shows, from Pearl Harbor, to the bombing of London by the Germans, to the bombing of German cities by the United States, that these efforts do not demoralize a population. It only makes a scattered population more supportive of their own government in response.

So, the remark that the longer the attack the stronger the support that Hamas has.

So, is their goal to just keep stealing their living space and killing anyone who objects? Given how predictable and ironic this has become, I have to complain that they have not explained themselves clearly enough.

You are already aware of the strangely feminine focus most self annointed progressives hold toward endless negotiations, be they with the Stalin or Ahamaditajobs of the world.

You think it makes you a real man to want to send other people (men and women) to fight wars - as opposed to going and fighting them yourself?

What a strange and insecure concept of "masculinity" you cling to.

I am gonna tell this comments board the way I really feel about Zionism!

As for your hatred of woman, I'm guessing it has a lot to do with you being massively unappealing to them. Why do you think that is? Your fear?

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Either that, or the stench of Lotus Athlete's Feet.

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...I'd much prefer, though, to leave Zen archery and Zen himself out of this pint-size dissertation - partly, no doubt, because Zen is rapidly becoming a rather smutty, cultish word to the discriminating ear, and with great, if superficial, justification. (I say superficial because pure Zen will surely survive its Western champions, who, in the main, appear to confound its near-doctrine of Detachment with an invitation to spiritual indifference, even callousness - and who evidently don't hesitate to knock a Buddha down without first growing a golden fist.)

-- JD Salinger, "Seymour, an Introduction"

http://www.unita.it/index.php?section=news&idNotizia=74848