Letters to the Editor
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and what should he tell them?
And what, precisely, should Bush tell the Israeli PM? Don't defend yourself while your civilians are being rocketed by terrorists?
Don't forget who started this fight.
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Who started it?
Who knows? The origins of conflict in this area are lost in the mists of time.
Better questions: who will stop the violence, and how, and how can we help.
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read history
The origins of conflict in this area are lost in the mists of time.
No they're not. In 1948 everyone's beloved United Nations created the nation of Israel from what had been the post-WWI British Mandate territory. It also proposed creating an Arab state alongside it.
The Arabs rejected the offer, told all the Arabs living within the borders of the newly created Israel to leave so they would have free rein to annihilate the Jews (not all left), and then five Arab armies attacked--and got their butts kicked.
Every war since (1956, 1967, 1973) has been initiated by the Arabs.
By the way, why was no one bleating about the "occupied" Gaza and West Bank when they were occupied by Egypt and Jordan, respectively, prior to 1967?
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Are we going to force him to think-again?
Come on, give the guy a break. He doesn't like to read reports and books, he's supposed to be on another vacation- but he's staying in DC so the liberals won't have anything to bitch about, AND he's trying to figure out how to open this new fangled french onion dip container to see whether baked Lays taste the same as regular Lays......
Now those pesky Israelis are bombing the hell out of their neighbors, what else is new.....besides, if Dick Cheney says he doesn't have to say anything, he doesn't have to say anything....it's not like they have oil or no-bid contracts with Haliburton or anything......
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You started it! No, YOU started it! Na na na
Yes, how very mature. This whole "it's your fault" crap is why wars still wage on in the era of mankind. However, at my last count, only two Israeli soldiers were captured. Is this a reasonable response? Bomb the heck out of Lebanon! For every soldier captured, we will kill thousands of THEIR civilians. Sound familiar? It should, because the Americans have been doing it in Iraq for years.
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Coalition of the Willing
The statements that have been made by Bush-Cheney in the last couple of days reflect a worldview in which Israel fights as a U.S. ally in the same global war on terror, against the same enemies. I believe the neo-cons see this not as a discrete conflict, which the U.S. in a pre-9/11 era might have mediated as an honest broker, but rather as a new front, joining Afghanistan and Iraq, in the same ongoing war.
The neo-cons have wanted a wider war involving Syria and/or Iran, as part of their grand plan to remake the Middle East; and a wider war would serve to solve some problems for Bush-Cheney, such as covering the disaster in Iraq and forcing the red state base to once more rally around the republicans in time for this fall's elections. The Bush-Cheney talk of "terrorists" and "WMD's" and their demands for "disarming" and "complying" with hitherto obscure U.N. resolutions sounds awfully familiar.
Will the U.S. soon be at war with Syria and Iran? I don't know. But given what we know about this administration, I'd bet there are some very influential people in the White House right now arguing in favor of such a war -- assuming, indeed, that the decision to attack has not already been made.
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hello, Mr. Pot calling
Come on, give [frederico] a break. He doesn't like to read reports and books, he's supposed to be on another vacation- but he's staying in DC ... it's not like they have oil or no-bid contracts with Haliburton or anything
Poor frederico, never reads a newspaper or anything or else he would know Bush was in Germany yesterday and Russia today.
He'd also know that Cheney surrendered all shares and control in Halliburton in 2000, and that Halliburton no longer has no-bid contracts with the Army.
But then that would mean having to actually, you know, know what you're talking about before spouting off like a nitwit.
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"Halliburton no longer has no-bid contracts with the Army."
After three gluttonous years or so of fattening themselves at the US tax payers expense. Please don't re-write the history of this fiasco just because they're being eased away from the trough. I did read about it and it sounds to me like they'll be right in the middle of things till 2009.
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Baiting Iran
After attempting to bait Iran for the last several months by using the nuclear ambitions meme, it sounds like Bush and his neo-con braintrust are attempting to do so now by having Israel bait Hezbollah into a conflict that, undoubtedly, eventually will find its way into Syria and Iran. It will be an all-out Middle East meltdown that satisfies the neo-con/PNAC agenda of radical change by military aggression. Oil prices will rise and new military contracts will flourish. Alas, this seems to be the NEW American way.
"See. If Iran had nukes, it would give them to Hezbollah, which would launch them at Israel. Ergo, we must disarm Iran!"
Of course, this misses the point that Israel already has nukes, though they won't publicly admit to it.
I suspect the neo-cons and the Israelis are feeling that the end could be near for their chance to alter the Middle East landscape forever, what with the Dems likely to boot them out of Washington very shortly. Once the Dems move in and open investigation after investigation next year, it'll be curtains - and maybe even prison garb - for the neo-cons. That means it's now or never for their PNAC agenda in the Middle East. How peachy.
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Here's what he should say
Bush should say: "The Israeli government needs to understand that a few hundred rockets fired by Hezbollah aren't a big enough deal to go to war over, because they didn't hit any miltancy targetures, or any civilizilians. Heh heh heh."
Jesus, Salon, now you've put me in the position of defending dubya.
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ignoring the problem
It isn't a problem, it's a plus.
It diverts attention away from the other two in the "axis of evil", Iran and Korea.