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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Paul: You seem like a nice sort, so I won't go with my baser Evil Neo impulses to answer your statement on War and your question about hatred. They are monumentally naive, but politely stated.
"..how is war going to solve anything?"
Paul, War sometimes IS the answer. 8,000 Hamas rockets were fired into Israel in the time from the "cease fire" until the recent response. You wish, perhaps, for the Jews to 'talk them down'?
"Bombing people to make them stop hating you is not a strategy with a great record of success." Paul, NO war in history has had that as its strategy. Where oh where would you get that, Boyo? Killing the Hamas death Cult is the strategy. Oh, and breaking their stuff.
Baa-Daa-Bing. Like dat.
Yes, its called earth. Here we have a UN and stuff, and when you make shit up on the spot it doesn't become real. Your world sounds easier to get by in.
This from the same CNN article I posted before. The link is at the sig, in case you can't figure out how to cut and paste the link.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/06/israel.gaza.occupation.question/index.html
The U.N. position
In February 2008, Secretary-General Ban was asked at a media availability whether Gaza is occupied territory. "I am not in a position to say on these legal matters," he responded.
The next day, at a press briefing, a reporter pointed out to a U.N. spokesman that the secretary-general had told Arab League representatives that Gaza was still considered occupied.
"Yes, the U.N. defines Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem as Occupied Palestinian Territory. No, that definition hasn't changed," the spokesman replied.
Farhan Haq, spokesman for the secretary-general, told CNN Monday that the official status of Gaza would change only through a decision of the U.N. Security Council.
"The U.S. position
The CIA World Factbook says: "West Bank and Gaza Strip are Israeli-occupied with current status subject to the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement -- permanent status to be determined through further negotiation; Israel removed settlers and military personnel from the Gaza Strip in August 2005."
The U.S. State Department Web site also includes Gaza when it discusses the "occupied" territories. State Department spokeswoman Amanda Harper referred CNN Monday to the department's Web site for any questions about the status of Gaza, and she noted that the Web site referred to the 2005 disengagement. When asked the department's position on whether Gaza is still occupied, Harper said she would look into it. She has not yet contacted CNN with any more information."
Gaza is not occupied and its people have assumed combatant status by firing missles at Israel.
Er, what? It's not "occupied" because there isn't an IDF grunt stationed on every corner and 100 Palestinian politicals in every jail?
And what do you mean by "its people" are firing rockets (different from missiles, btw) at Israel? Which people, exactly? Do you know? Does it take 1.5 million people to fire a rocket?
Did the US declare war on Peru because a bunch of assholes murdered a Peruvian in New York a few weeks ago because he was walking arm in arm with his brother?
And who cares anyway? Did you see the stats I posted on bear killings? It's harsh: 25 in 8 years.
Damn! Can we exterminate the brutes already?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America_by_decade
Again, just to savor it. Maybe THIS guy is Friedman.
The fact that there was ANY opposition to the pro-Israel resolution in the US House last week (5 "no" votes & 22 "present" votes) is a good sign... that wouldn't have happened a few years ago. Maybe the wall is beginning to crumble.
In my view, with each non-combatant death or maiming, Israel's "right to exist" rests on shakier and shakier ground.
I hope you're right. Assuming, of course, you mean "right to exist" as an excuse to slaughter and oppress, not simply as a right to exist. I am so tired of that childish self-defense argument.
Hamas just needs a little spin, a little public diplomacy.
If Hamas spokespeople claimed the rockets were aimed solely at the IDF and formally decried any inadvertent Jewish civilian casualties, who's to say it's not true?
C'mon Hamas. Let's purify those arms.
Yes I'm saying exactly that: Palestinian "civilians" had no more power to control Hamas than I have to control George Bush et al empowered by people like you to bomb Iraq. Yeah that's exactly what I'm saying. For once you got it. Not until George Bush's lies became such public knowledge that even people like you started to doubt him. Do I believe that means that you and I or Palestinians should succumb to violent deaths because of their leadership? Of course not. Only an amoral douche like you would draw that equivalency.
But peace only comes when supporters of Israel like yourself stop consuming the mainstream media version of history, and stop assuming that granting concessions will inevitably lead to further attacks? How can you talk like that and pretend to desire peace? -- Baldie McEagle
Because it's true, moreover you are helping enable those attacks. Duh.
Superb post, Glenn. Letter-perfect on every single point.
Glenn rightly focuses on the moral repulsiveness of the passages quoted from Friedman's piece. Though less important, it is worth noting--and it is not surprising--that the first passage is intellectually incoherent as well.
Friedman describes the civilian deaths in Lebanon as "collateral," which in current jargon implies "unintentional," and hence not criminal. But this characterization occurs within the scope of Friedman's attribution to the Israelis of a (counter-)"strategy," a term which implies action aimed at an end. Of course, if the civilian deaths were part of a strategy for securing some end, then they were intentional and not merely collateral killings, and hence, as Glenn says, war crimes.
Not that Friedman cares very much about such niceties. In the second passage he doesn't even attempt to disguise or mitigate the attribution to Israel of intentional killings of civilians for the sake of an end.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
