We misoverestimated him.

As Byrd tries desperately to calculate the cost in lost pork of liberating the world's only known Children's Prison, I can't help but think that truly, never have so many given so much for so few to be so petty.

This link is my Memorial day message for all my friends on ScrappleFace. It originated as a post right here in these comments sections and grew from there. Thank you all for being yourselves. Your right to speak out here is why we fight.

I don't exactly concider myself a Republican, but I for sure would not call myself a Democrat. They are going to be hurting in the next round of elections.

Too early... Make that consider.

Thanks, Greyhawk, he said throat lumpily. I'm a real sucker for warriors being brave.

Thanks, Greyhawk.

"How can I live among this gentle,
Obsolescent breed of heroes,
And not weep?"

--Keith Douglas

I just love the left making a hero out of Robert Byrd. Amazing how someone's background makes no difference in some cases but not in others.

Ohohoh. Would that be like, well, uh, misoverestimating Clinton's affairs and relationships, and the was in Kosovo (anyone know if the DIMS supported ol' Clinton's campaign against ethnic cleansing?), as well as misreading his relationship with the unlovely intern, Monica Elvira Lewdinsky, Mistress of the Dark?

I don't really care about what it means to you, or me, for that matter, but where is the source? I'm a little blog-naive but I would figure one would at least tell from where these quotes came. I mean, was it CSPAN? or what? Is this a quaint joke? I am a skeptic about all news, and the other postings on Limbaugh, etc, had sources, so I don't understand why this one doesn't.

Greyhawk. Those were some amazing words over at your blog. Thanks.

Like poster, "Larry, USAF(ret)"...I had the ole lump in the throat thing going.

Last night it was all out tears as I watched a part of the Memorial Day Concert, hosted for the 10th yr in a row by WW2 Vet and actor Ossie Davis. KUDOS to PBS for broadcasting it. ( did any other "major" network bother to air it???)..

Saw many camera shots of the 4 Gold Star Mothers that lost sons in Vietnam...PRECIOUS ladies!...At least one Vietnam Vet, ( and it was NOT J.Kerry)...also saw a couple of soldiers I suspect were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan---in some sort of bed or wheel chair with blanket and IV. If you want to get maybe a little feel for the concert PBS has a VERY nice page at their site. Click my name for it. It was INCREDIBLE.
*************
(to be cont'd....)

( cont'd...(wanted to break up the "epistle" :~}

On Topic: It sickens me to think that some of the Dim's secretly would hope for failure in Iraq for the sake of their own political agenda. Now that it was NOT a failure..While completely disregarding and disrespecting those who gave their lives and whose lives remain on the line--they continue their effort to paint the war as a failure--ONLY for the sick sake of politics!
*****
Senators Biden, Rockefeller, Byrd, Roberts and others...."--why do you insist on implying to the heartbroken mom's and dads'of our heroes that their child's death was in vain?
Why do you continue to desecrate the blood spilled by those men & women who are/were "better than yourselves."?

In your lust for political power--you profane the names of those who willingly gave and are willing TO give their lives for YOU!.

There was a beautiful program on PBS, "War Letters" from the book. It was just wonderful, and brought back memories and some tears. If you haven't read the book, do it.

Memorial Day among other things I always think of Pilot Officer John G. Magee, an American born in China who died in an RAF Spitfire in 1940 at the age of 19 years, sometime after writing the poem "High Flight," which you can read by Googling his name and/or poem title.

Maybe you all should watch the History Channel, instead of PBS. I love the History Channel, and watch it a lot. Very informative, ja?

'Mr. Rumsfeld agreed, "What an awful outcome. We deeply regret freeing the Iraqi people from a murderous gang of thugs masquerading in the United Nations as a representative republic. We're sorry that the Iraqi people have discovered thousands of graves of their Saddam-murdered relatives. It's none of our business if people want to live like that."'
Pure genius, Scott. Pure genius.

"Yes, we sincerely apologize for liberating the oppressed Iraqi people, for freeing them from a dictator so bad, he puts ones in the past to shame. For freeing them from Saddam, who had killed, and would continue killing, millions of Iraqi people. Who used chemical weapons to get his way in his country."

"Where are the WMD?" asks Frenchman.
The answer is...
Buried with the numerous people who were killed by them when Saddam came rolling through.

Sorry about that name. It should be this one, but I didn't notice I had changed it.

Why not send a fax or letter to Senator Rockefeller thanking him for providing the raw material for this excellent bit of satire.

(Don't for heaven's sake send anything critical or nasty. Remember the admonition, "never smarten up a chump.")

The Honorable Mr. Rockefeller's website is:
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/

I note in passing that his web site says he opposes the Bush tax cut because he thinks that not enough is being done for West Virginia.

Is he trying to tie up naming rights for tor the few things in West Virginia not named after the Fiddling Kleagle?

U.S Secretary of Defense also added that U.S. foreign policy would see a dramatic change from the current 'get involved when it pleases me' attitud to a more coherent 'save the world from tyrants' stance.

The US will now undertake the freeing of all oppressed people in the world and publicly by means of force (as oposed to covertly through the CIA) depose all governments that are non-representative.

'Developments in international law allow us now to assume that all unfriendly goverments might harbor terrorists and WMDs' - explain Mr. Rumsfelf - 'so it will be a lot easier to start invading countries in our secret agenda list.'

Confronted with a history of US non-intervention with foreign governments who systematically violate human rights, the defense secretary explained -"Well it use to be none of our business if people were opressed, but if there are no weapons of mass destruction to be found after a hostile invasion of a country, then liberation quickly becomes a motive."

I applaud the scrapple face patriots for recognizing ever so subtle irony in Rummy's remarks. Now I can truly look forward to you all likewise recognizing the not so subtle irony of the deceitfully selling an unnecessary war in the cheapest currencies of all: mindless nationalism, jingoism and xenophobia.

hmmmm? xenophobia? tell THAT to the millions of immigrants who have freely entered this country to make it their home---including the Iraqi's in Michigan who sought refuge from a FOREIGN murdermonger. All the while they've been planning and desiring to return to make Iraq a better place--and here in this xenophobic country have had the freedom and safety to do so. Just one positive that came about by the "unnecessary" war.

What an irony-- "Xenophobia" paid off for those foreigners.

Rathenau--are you an American? If so--you may not feel safe in this jingoistic, xenophobic society. Either way--just to reassure you---the door into this country opens both ways.

Typical America love-it-or-leave-it response for Rathenau. When is the right finally going to drop that broken record?

When is the left going to get it right?

I love it when the Left starts throwing around the accusation of "mindless" or "jingoism." It usually comes from people who can't hold a thought unless it can expressed on a bumper sticker, in a chanting rhyme, or on a sign held by a puppet.

Raoul Ortega---strong emphasis on the world "puppet"!

**************************************************
30 yr.old Marine Captain Ryan Beaupre (died in Kuwait) shared this in his last letter home:

----"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself". --- John Stuart Mill
***************(thx to Greyhawk for the link)***

From a one time commander for the DAV.( Billy E. Kirby)---
"Everytime I see our flag, I see the blood of our Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors and Marines---blood spilled for freedom yet caught within its blazing field. I see their valiant spirits reflected in its many stars. On Memorial Day, I see in our flag what I can never forget--their sacrifice."

***********************

being sobered by those realities and truly grateful for and humbled by the ultimate sacrifices made by this countries bravest lends to a very simple( and not vindictive)
"love it or leave it" attitude. [Just another part of the beauty of FREEDOM.]

The "record" isn't broken (ref. to earlier post) it's just too often necessary to repeat the 'song'!

No blood for oil!

Bush is worse than Hitler!

No blood for oil!

Free Your mind!

No blood for oil!

War is never the answer!

It's all about oil!

-- Oh yeah, and pro-war types are mindless and simplistic.

Having invested nearly 40 years of marching and slogans to the proposition that all morality is relative, the Left is now confounded by the example of a President who daily acts according to a powerful moral imperative. He seeks to do the right thing as God grants him the wisdom to recognize it - regardless of the social and political cost.

agent x
you know what Agent x..I will leave you to what your about to be blogged with..i don't have the time anymore ..
hey there is this French guy who bloggs here he might file a plagiarism law suit against you

so your a solder in what army navy airforce marines ??
or are you just a liberal load mouth with out merit or a right to a cause

I'd first like to point out the use of the phrase "cheapest currencies of all" in Rathenau's post... A horrible oxymoron, if you understand economics. Assuming Rathenau is one of the nuttier left-wingers, it makes sense that he does not. I would also like to say that his/her uses of "nationalism, jingoism and xenophobia" all have the same definiton in this context, making them horribly redundant and reducing the complaints to only one, nationalism.

I would say that usually, nationalism is only self-interest, and xenophobia is caution. There are exceptions, and "mindless" people can of course make life difficult for the rest of us, whether they are mindless nationalists or mindless defectors.

Just please understand that some people favor war for what they see as good reasons, even if you do not.

FMM

Could someone please explain to the mindless and simplistic jp what agent x was trying to say? Help your brethren, righties.

Spin it all you want...The Bush crowd lied about WMDs to justify a long-planned Iraq war....and now tries a fast tapdance about "freeing Iraqis.."

-------"mindless and simplistic" Typical Left wing terminology. When you gonna find a new record to play? That one is among many of yours-- broken!

Furthermore, why does liberalism always try to complicate things that are so easy?....or as Jonesy Parrot would say "simplistic".

Ya just can't hang with black & white, up or down, yes or no, on or off...and a cowboy in the Whitehouse that doesn't talk out of both sides of his mouth.

Please re-read ET Rovers post!

Attempting to reason with fools NEVER works. Not in Iraq..not with libs.

Well, planning for the (working title) Gulf War II started in about 1997 or 1998. I think there was some reason to believe there were WMDs in Iraq, and now there is some evidence that there were, though not enough to persuade anyone who doesn't want to be persuaded.

The thing is, WMDs were an excuse. We were justified in invading Iraq, because of their endless breaking of the treaties that followed Gulf War I, but most people won't get excited about a brutal dictator who hates us and has only a massive army and potential control over the world's energy supply. Bush had to use the threat of WMDs that were probably real anyway in order to get support for ending the real threat- a man whose avowed goal is to conquer the Middle East and most of the world's petroleum.

FMM

Interesting that so many left/lib/pacifistic posts are made today...Memorial Day.

You come here and just write what you've read off your posters and bumperstickers or what CNN or Peter Jennings has spoon fed you---- and its the same unredeeming mantra.

How about you take it to the moms and dads, husbands, wives, children of those who are weeping today over their child, spouse, daddy or mommy....their and our brave heroes.

See if you can wipe the tears away and bring comfort with those anti-war posters YOU paint with the blood of their loved ones!

there are so many "left/lib/pacifistic posts" because the posters have today off school.

FMM

It's always so convenient to throw slogans around and ignore the facts. There are several things that distinguished the Iraq situation from that of other "foreign governments who systematically violate human rights".

a)The Hussein regime was not just an oppressor of its own people, but an aggressor which had invaded one neighboring country (Kuwait) and indulged in an 8-year war with the other (Iran). It also gassed its own people when they rose up and tried to overthrow Saddam. But God forbid we should try to establish a government that would let them choose their own government...that would be (shudder) Nation Building - and we all know there's nothing worse than that...

b)Iraq violated a cease-fire agreement 12 years ago and was still not complying with UN resolutions to disclose or destroy it's WMD. If you negotiate a cease-fire and then don't enforce it when it is violated, you are encouraging the violator to repeat the acts of aggression that prompted the cease-fire in the first place.

c) Hussein's regime openly stated support for Osama Bin Laden and Al-Quaeda and encouraged it to attack Americans both within the US and abroad. There is documented evidence that Hussein has met with Bin Laden on several occasions. Somehow I doubt they were discussing the weather. Bush's stated goal was to deter terrorist organizations and the states which sponsor them.

d) This is almost too silly to respond to, but here goes:

"Well it use to be none of our business if people were opressed, but if there are no weapons of mass destruction to be found after a hostile invasion of a country, then liberation quickly becomes a motive."

The liberal left was willing to extend inspections indefinitely - no time period was too long to allow for the UN inspectors to find WMD. But within the last 2 months, somehow the US is supposed to fight and win a war, guard the assets of the Iraqi people, set up a government and restore public utilities, catch Hussein's supporters, police the streets against looters, and fight the self-serving twits in the UN so the sanctions are finally lifted and Iraq can rejoin the world economy. While they're at it, maybe they could get Israel and Palestine to join hands and sing "Michael, Row the Boat Ashore"...

Try picking up a newspaper and reading it - we're not searching very hard at all for WMD - there are many more important things to be accomplished first, and resources are being diverted to do what is really important. I would rather see us get Iraq back on its feet than ignore their problems in a silly attempt to prove we were right about WMD. Iraq is a desert land with vast uninhabited areas where anything could be hidden. Finding mobile units

I truly believe we will find them at some point, but right now what really matters is helping restore order to Iraq and rebuilding it's shattered economy (shattered, not by this war, but by Saddam's systematic looting of his own country).

Furthermore, the President Mr. George WMD Bush was quoted saying: -" I will not have this nonsesnse of people saying that we are preying on our own peoples fears to push our agendas. We are merely 'sweetening the pill' so that they have less trouble swallowing it. Just look how many leftist liberals opposed us, imagine the trouble we have had if we had not lied to them."

Secretary Rumsfeld further elaborated: -"Names for the campaigns are carefully thought out in strictly military terms, to win people's sympathies. They are not, as some commies are claiming, mere simplistic slogans to pump up the sport oriented, testosterone crazed everyday Joe into supporting a hostile invasion."

Sources from the Pentagon have provided a list of names that have been considered for operations that occurred or where postponed in the last year: Eduring Freedom, Iraqui Freedom, Turquish Obedience, Jordan Beware, Gimme that Oil, I'll Strike You First.

Thank you Lord, Cassandra showed up!

*wink* at the ever so fluent, informative, articulate Cassie!

Thank you Thank you Thank you. I hope those FACTS aren't again lost on the "left" posters!

The presdient has also stated, in consonanse with his statement that his goal is to deter terrorist organizations and the states which sponsor them, that he will soon be disbanding the CIA, invading Libya, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and China. He promplty retracted about invading China after being adviced that it is a rather large country for an exercise in 'Nation Building'.

Greyhawk...
Thank you very much for your link....read USMC Captain Beaupre's letter....it brought tears to my eyes.
Memorial Day is a very special day for me, as I don't spend it at the grill with a beer in my hand. I do what some people think is strange...I go to cemeteries and spend a moment, say a prayer and give a salute to those who are no longer with us. That brings tears to my eyes.

I also notice that those few others who are engaged in the same annual pilgrimage are of my age or older....and getting fewer and fewer each year. And that brings tears to my eyes, too...

Thanks again, Greyhawk.

Hand Salute!

Rannoque on the right

I will now use condescension and illogic to lower Angry American's self esteem. It seems appropriate to fight fire with fire.

*President * consonance, *promptly, *advised
You also left out a necessary clause after retracted: "his statement about."

I don't know how god ur speling is, but pleese take the thyme to illuminate typeos.

As for the content of your post, I agree that those nations are in need of reform and a couple of them may best be dealt with with force, should they become a threat.

FMM

Ratheneau- nice to see you again. See you changed your tag, so Iíll do the same. I also knew you would never go away.

Jonesy, JP hasnít missed a beat. This is exactly the kind of crap we regularly see here, you must be new.

Valleyjohn , yeah? How do you know? If Bush was lying about WMDs, wouldnít he have just planted them by now? Never seen a leader with cajones before?

Original Cat: Amen sister! You took the words out of my keyboard.

Cassandra, no matter how sound your reasoning, you are trying to convince the unreasonable. But thanks, I always enjoy reading your comments!

The USA is a lousy country.

1.)It's crowded.

2.)Most of its working adults own stock directly or indirectly so its hard to get them to listen to rantings about opression of the working class and exploitation of labor.

3.)The line to get in is way too long.

4.)Everyone can afford HUGE vehicles so the roads are jammed.

5.)The middle class is too content to revolt.

Now Cuba, there's a country ripe for a revolution.

Errata:

The President has been promplty advised that his actions are not in consonance with the principles the nation stands for.

I stand corrected.

Errata 2:

The Persidnet has been promptly advised that his actions consonance with profits for the VPs former companies, have the American people second guessing the motives of this war.

I stand corrected

Damn, Errata 3:

The President was promptly advised after the Decaptiation Attack that the Pinpoint Accurracy of the cruise missile did not mean that it had hit Saddam right on the head, thus decapitating him. In consonance with Mr. Bush's tradition he promptly recanted his comments and had all tapes of them seized and destroyed (Hey hold it! That's not what American presidents do, or is it?)

Now I really stand corrected.

Angry American: I'm sorry. I did not realise at first that English is not your primary language. May I ask where you are from?

But if you are not a US citizen, why do you care about its internal politics? In your position, I would just decry US arrogance.

FMM

disGusting Hall says:

The USA is a lousy country

Well do you live here, or are you making an assumption? In response to your astute comments:

1) Get out. One less.

2) Oh yeah, the US is the worldís largest oppressor of itís people and exploiter of labor. F*** u. Are you oppressed? Why? Can you explain this to me? Exploiter of labor? Which union are you talking about, the AFL-CIO? EWU? Maybe there in France you are unhappy because your government can't afford your pensions. Perhaps you people should take a page from the American Book of Capitalism.

3) Specifically because we are the LAND OF OPPORTUNITY. Why don't you ask the Cubans who risk their lives to swim to our shores why they do it?

4) How can the oppressed and exploited afford Huge Vehicles?

5) Sorry, we should be malcontents, like you. So which are you, a rich American or a poor American or just an Anti American?

Thanks Grayhawk, for elevating the quality of postings once again. I usually am content to read the great satire of Scott and the resulting comments but occasionally my anal retentive side takes over and I have to point something out.

I may be wrong, (but I doubt it)but Agent X was attempting to lampoon the Rathenau blog regarding"mindless nationalism, jingoism, & xenphobia" by illustrating some of the simplistic "left-wing" chants. Read his post again in context with the others and you may be inclined to cut him some slack.

Is that what you were looking for Jonesy?

Bush didn't just talk about Iraqi freedom after the war. He talked about it before the war as well.

Rannoque,
There will be another generation to carry that tradition on...it is a lovely one and so fitting.

So, now that you have shared your tradition with us, know that there will be those of us now who will continue to visit the national cemetaries and salute the ones who went before. They will never be forgotten.

Angry Anti American;

-Errata:
The President has been promplty advised that his actions are not in consonance with the principles the nation stands for.
I stand corrected

To what advisement do you refer? His actions are not within American principals? Which ones? Life? Liberty? Persuit of Happiness? You were corrected by who, your Paris professors?

-Errata 2:
The Persidnet has been promptly advised that his actions consonance with profits for the VPs former companies, have the American people second guessing the motives of this war.
I stand corrected

So what if itís the VPs former companies? Does he stand to benefit?

NO.

How many Americans are questioning the motives of this war? Only Liberals, the Hollywood left and a few elitists.

You stand corrected? Well, again, by who? Your statements appear to be more to yourself than anyone here. Why donít you just post them in your diary?

-Da*n, Errata 3:
The President was promptly advised after the Decaptiation Attack that the Pinpoint Accurracy of the cruise missile did not mean that it had hit Saddam right on the head, thus decapitating him. In consonance with Mr. Bush's tradition he promptly recanted his comments and had all tapes of them seized and destroyed (Hey hold it! That's not what American presidents do, or is it?)
Now I really stand corrected

A) Donít use obscenities.
B) Does this statement make any sense or refer to anything tangible? If so, go ahead and provide us a link. Otherwise, itís just more b**ls**t from you. Oh the superior intellect you possess jut frightens me.

LF Cat: You brought up Kerry, (about being a Viet Nam Vet), way back up there somewhere. I bring that up because it makes a point about, what it means to be a Dimocrat!

Kerry, threw down his medals, WHEN that was the popular thing to do. Now he can't stop talking about serving there, NOW that it is the popular thing to say! Which brings me to my point!

Senator Evan Bayh (D) Indiana, attended the visit to Indianapolis, earlier this month by President Bush. Then Bayh went back to Washington and voted to back Bush's tax cut, (primarily because of the overwhelming support for it in IN, Bayh's voting base)!

When back in Washington, (and in all probability, after, "TALKS", with the likes of Kennedy, Daschle, Clinton'S, Byrd, etc.), THIS A-TYPICAL LIB/DIMOCRAT/NoIntegrety/LIAR, went back on his word, voted against the Bush tax cut, (at the 11th hour), and thereby caused the Vice-President to cast the tie-breaker vote!

Bayh, BTW, was the ONLY Senator to change his vote! Of course none of this would have been necessary had the 3 closet Dims, in Republican clothing, backed their People, President, and Party!

Only a fool, or a Dimocrat, or a Bush hater, would not want to try a tax cut, to see if it will work.It has worked twice in the past, and WILL work again! That is exactly what the Dims fear.

P.S. Any of you Dims that think your tax dollars are better spent by the Government, sign you refund, and send it to Teddy Kennedy, or Hillary, with instructions to give it to schools, or Social Security. I am sure the money will get there????HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

P.P.S. Click my name, it will take you to senator (bigLittleMan)bayh's web site, where you can e-mail him. Just ask him WHY, he changed his vote? Don't expect a responce though, as I live in Indiana, and STILL, did NOT get a responce, although I am supposed to. He will, however get the election results next year!!!

SSD- And here it was, once again the truth locomotive John McCain, the fearless leader of the RINOs, opposing the legislation.

I honestly can't believe he hasn't switched parties yet. He's got the best chance against Bush in '04 as a Dim since he's also got the support of the "moderates" in the Republican party.

Pookie:

Don't forget Lincoln Chaffee. I don't know why he hasn't switched parties yet. He is more liberal that a lot of Dims!

Cut Angry American some slack. If he spoke english, I'm sure he would see through the anti-everything rhetoric he's been fed.

Does anyone know of a 'progressive' BBS? The only ones I've found explicitly forbid non-liberals from posting. It's quite disturbing.

FMM

In a recent exclusive interview Angry American regretted his cover had been blown and decided to come clean. Yes, his primary or native language is not english, but vulgar latin. In response to Field Marshal's Mathers comments he quipped -'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit'

He also extended apologies to BobbyR's -'Pardon my french!'- he is quoted as saying and his accent did sound suspiciously european.

According to his own admission he is bias by his own studies in comparative politics on the behaviour of the common man in Nazi Germany and Modern America. He admits that the recent Dixie Chick Album Burning incident sparked a dark unknow reaction agains his beloved America.

He humbly accepts he made a mistake and has now come to his rightful mind and is hoping this will not transcend to superior instances, such as any possible Anti-American Commity that may come into vougue in the feature. Editorial Note> Angry American requested we clarify that the use of the word vogue is that of the publisher and not his own, lest he be taken for a foreigner or non-patriot.

Kerry went to Nam, fought and got a medal for bravery. Whatever you want to call him, he had the guts to risk his life and meet his committments. More than you can say for President George aWol Bush.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/One_year_gap_in_Bush_s_Guard_duty+.shtml

Not to detract from the importance of this once-breaking news story, but Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas is a Republican, not a Democrat.

I don't recall hearing Roberts joining Rockefeller in making idiotic floor speeches on Iraq, but perhaps I missed something.

Anti-pooke, I think that it was satire.

Angry-American,
Why do you post here? You're not going to change anyone's mind. The people who post on this blog are from the other end of the political spectrum from you. They disagree with your position on virtually every issue you care to bring up.
Why do they insult you? They want you to go away. They don't want to read your opinions. They don't care what you think.
Yes, you are entitled to your own opinion. So is everyone else. We don't have to respect it, or care about it.
Do you post here so people can contradict your arguments, and perhaps cast aspersions? Isn't that just a bit masochistic? Or is it so you can feel better about yourself by facing down those evil conservatives? If so, then fine, you had your little ego-boost.

Now go away.

jong, Thanks for your praise. Some people don't realize how hard it was for me to kill women and children, but I found once I did, it was kinda fun. Are you Vietnamese jong? Are you a woman or a child? I could really go for a butchering right about now, MMMMMMMMMM---YES!

SRG---Maybe we shouldn't be so quick to chase away "Angry American ---ahem--(Non US)" He/She may just be coming here because he/she's not fully satisfied with or convinced of the positions they've articulated as being theirs.

We could have a "convert"...someone that really IS interested in truth. Idealistic of me--YES....but stats do show that "conversions" from left to right are Faaaaaar more common than vice versa.:~}

(makes sense to me---why would anyone want to go from right to wrong? :~})....ugh---I blow my own nose at me for I speak like an elitist....let me tone it down and go grey!)*detect satire*

ìI never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country,î

Dearest Afflicted Liberal Patients,

Please,forgive my brief, consultative abscence,and I will also try to forgive your obvious and voluminous,political "abscesses".

I was away giving needed vulnerary, to other liberal-minded,politically starved, enfeebles, like yourselves,around the internet.

My ever-growing practice, like Mr. Ott's clever blogging repartee , seems to never slow down.

To my shock and agonizing, stupefaction, I have come back to find Scrappleface has become infested once again,
with,Anti- American phraseology and systemic symptoms, of communicable, liberal buffoonery.

These un-ethical and sickly, liberal "pallor", posting games[pun intended], are taking away, from the very time, you need to heal your political insecurity.
A balanced,sane and conservative treatment needs time to react.Especialy with consideration to people with your politically, degenerative illnesses.

For the love of all things medical and politically pundit, please try to control your anger!

Try to think of your families and what you may be doing to them.

The very ingrained foundations of self-interest and of "keeping the party line" egoism, are what stand between you and conservative normalcy. You can also feel the "at peace" relief that can come from the conservative cure.Stay vigilant!It is all uphill from the netherworld of the leftist brain substratum.

Please,again I beg you, come out of your munificent, and counterfactual, liberal brain fogs!
There is hope for you.I hate to sound so desperate for your attention, but I am a Doctor who has seen the ravages of this affliction.

It is quite obvious that some of you who post here are intense sufferer's of a definite lack of conservative magnanimity,and unfortunately I am without my "Stedman Medical and Political Terminology Books".

In situations like this I may have to resort to old school medical, and old school political know-how, only offering, a place to blog and a shoulder to cry on.But saying all of this in what may sound like, a somewhat compassionate tone, only goes so far in your treatment.Especially, when I don't really mean it...

Hoping for a Much Better Diagnosis,

Dr. Harden Stuhl

DR.DD,PHD, (Mostly BS) Microsoft Certified

Sometimes a Great Leader must deceive his people. Sen Rockefeller rejects this philosophy.
You make up your own mind.

Rathenua (among others) - What are you saying? Do you think Saddam Hussein was not developing mass impact weapons that he intended to use against Israel and America? Do you think that he did not murder hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen? Do you think that he was not paying thousands of dollars every week to the families of suicide bombers? Do you think that he did not try to assassinate a former US President? Do you think that he did not invade two countries and missle attack two others? Do you think that he was not hated by the Iranian, Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi, and Gulf regimes? Do you think he did not gas 40,000 of his own citizens? Do you think he did not gas Iranians? Do you think that he was not involved in the 1993 WTC bombing? Do you think he intended to back down from his war against the US and Israel? Do you think he did not fancy himself a modern day Saladin? Do you think he was sane? Do you think his death from natural causes would have made things any better? Do you think assassinating him would have made things any better? Do you think that the 20% of the country employed by the Hussein regime (and with all the weapons) would have risen up against their benafactor who was giving them housing and land and money? Do you think that any of the top Baathists were operating with a full deck? Do you think that this group of nuts were not a clear and present danger? Do you think that Saddam Hussein would have foregone a made in North Korea nuke? Do you think he would not have bought four or five (and given one to his terrorist buddies)?

Do you think?

Do you think President Clinton was wrong to institute the policy of regime change in Iraq? Do you think Mr. Clinton was a jingoist when as president he maintained free skies over the Kurdish zone?
Do you think Mr. Clinton xenophobic when he attacked Iraq after the assassination attempt against G.H.W. Bush?
Do you think President Clinton was a nationalist when he gave speeches saying it was in the interest of the US to see Mr. Hussein removed from power?

Do you think the difference between the policies of Mr. Clinton and Mr. G.W. Bush is that Mr. Bush means what he says?

Again I ask, Do you think?

Well, do you?

said a contrite Mr. Rumsfeld. "We overestimated the threat posed by a lunatic dictator, who hated the U.S. (no not Yitzhak Shamir who called George Bush senior an antisemite ) I mean Saddam who will like us a lot more now we've bombed the snot out of him. and who paid rewards to families of Palestinian terrorists as opposed to Israel which elects bloodthirsty terrorists like bus bomber Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir who ordered the murder of a UN peace negotiator.

In an age when two of the world's tallest buildings can be brought down with tools used by the stockboy at K-Mart it was a great idea of mine to attack Saddam, who is implacably opposed to the Al-Qa-ida terrorists, and its benefits were immediately apparent when Riyadh got bombed to hell.

We should have demanded more concrete evidence of exotic weapons of mass destruction. Maybe we should have checked out Israel's stockpiles. Either way we are darn sure Saddam had lots of nasties, why it took us days and hours to topple him, so we can all sleep a lot easier now as, although we totally failed to bag and tag any WMD, we're 100% sure that whoever has the sh*t now is bound to be a good friend of the US and unlikely to be harbouring any thoughts of revenge. We deeply regret freeing the Iraqi people from a murderous gang of thugs so, lesson learnt, there is absolutely no chance of us freeing the Palestinians from the Israeli thugs who indiscriminatly bomb civilians, journalists and even the UN base at Qana. There is even less chance of us freeing any other brutal regimes like Zimbabwe or Burma. When was the last time you saw any oil there (whoops) I mean they aren't a threat to Israel, I mean the US, either (darn, cut the "either") especially if we bomb them (sack the speech writer)"

Bless you, Dr. Stuhl, for the unending work you are trying to do! As we can see by poster, Comical Rummy, you are fighting an unending battle! Never fear though, his type is a dying breed, we certainly saw a lot of them, 'Rot' away, in the November 2002 elections, and they seem to be getting, dumber by the minute, until soon they will be as sparse as Unicorns!

Keep your chin up Dr. Harden Stuhl, after all if "Mr. Peanut", Jimmy ("I have lusted in my heart") Carter can get a Nobel Peace Prize, there is hope, we can ALL have one someday soon!

P.S. The numbing medication you prescribed,to help ease the recuring nightmares I've been having since I saw, the "KISS" between Al Gore and 'Tipper' the cow, during the 2000 Presidential Campaign, has helped tremendously! I only wake up screaming twice a night now!

Current debate between Isreali and Palestinian prime ministers:

"Stop blowing up busses and cafes and we'll get out of the West Bank."
"Get out of the West Bank, and we'll stop blowing up buses and cafes."
"You first!"
"No. You first!"
"No. You first!"

et cetera, ad nauseum.

Peace in our time? Yeah, right.

Now if Dr. Stuhl could prescribe something for the nightmares I have from having witnessed the kiss between Micheal Jackson and Lisa-Marie Presley. *shudder*

What are you trying to say Comical Rummy?
Dont you believe lil georgie when he says
ARIEL SHARON IS A MAN OF PEACE

bwahahahahahahahaha

in fact some_random_guy the israelis have not agreed to end construction of illegal settlements.

whereas the the Palestinians accepted the road map without preconditions or reservations a month ago the Israelis have announced 14 reservations inlcuding a refusal to end settlement construction.
in fact Sharon said the plan allows the continued building of settlements
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/297213.html
and Sharon believes complying with the road map and ceasing the grab of Palestinian land will force Israeli women into abortions ??!!
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L21407583.htm

Comical
In fairness to the Jewish people who support the Likud party it seems that every time some type of cease fire or agreement is made then Hamas goes and does there thing,wether its blowing up a school bus or shooting a pregnant woman or whatever...
People like Ariel Sharon and Bibi Netanyahu and Arafat and Rasin live and die by the feud.I was at a parade yesterday in Staten Isle when Sharon came on t.v. and I says to my friend""I admire this guy"".He says ""wade you hate this guy with a passion"" to which I responded""very true but do you doubt for 1 minute he means what he says and he's above all things sincere in his convictions""...
this is the problem in the holy land and as long as Israel gets huge aid from the usa then its our problem too..

For starters, Wade, I object to the use of the term "Jewish people" when you mean Israelis. They are not the same thing, many Jews oppose Israel and its policies eg Chomsky, Tim Wise, Ran Hacohen etc.
apart from that I partly agree. However few of these ceasefires have been agreed to by Hamas. In fact on the few occasions that Hamas have agreed a ceasefire it has been the Israelis who have sparked them into action again eg last summer whilst hamas were in ceasefire talks Israel flattened a Gazan tenement block full of civilians in order to kill 1 alleged terrorist.

further during all these ceasefires not once had israeli agreed to end settlement activity. its almost as though they don't want peace. far from evacuating settlements they have rejected the mitchel proposal, and now the road-mapm because they ask for an Israel freeze on land grabbing.

The Pals can clamp down on terrorism, Dahlan did it in 1995, but they can't while the Israelis destroy the Pal security services and while the Israelis do Hamas's recruiting for them by the ongoing construction of illegal bases over Pal land and indicriminate bombing of Pal civilians.

When the Pals get a fair deal I hope terrorism will whither - will that ever happen while the israelis, knowing the US backs the to the hilt, continue to remorselessly grab the remains of the Pal homeland ? of course not.

apologies, wade, ignore my first paragraph.
I just realised you said "the Jewish people who support the Likud party" not "the Jewish people", so I think I misunderstood you.

Comical
When refering to Israel I use the word""Jewish people""and that isnt proper considering that they have around a million arabs and vast amounts of other immigrants,I of course was refering to Israeli rather than jew.
So be it
After Rabin and Arafat shook hands,terrorism inside Israel between 1993-2000 dropped of to the lowest levels in Israel since 1967.
Since uncle Ari took power in Feb 01 the #s speak for themselves.Again in my opinion its hard to argue with the logic of the Israeli hardliners.
When your kids cant ride a bus a to school or go for a slice of pizza without security issues then you want to lash out at the people compromising their security,believe me when I tell you this.
The 1st 2 months after 9/11 I had to bring 2 of my kids to school,both inside of 1 mile of ground zero,it was a real live war zone,itchy 19yr old national guard kids with m-16s and a world I didnt want my kids to see...I felt what Israel felt....
On the other hand Palestinians live and have lived this same existance since 1948 and aside from the 2 souvlaki vendors who got assaulted outside 7th ave for high fiving each other on 9/11,the american arabs dont see this type of reasoning either...Its very difficult for me,as a vet,as a new yorker as a father to support palestinians who encourage 18yr old teenage girls to strap c-4 on their asses to blow up a bus or a resteraunt...
as a tax payer i have a very very difficult time supporting an arpartheid state that practices assassinations,collective punishments and brutal occupation as government policy...Big George and Clinton had Israel in check,lil george has let them run amok without having to worry about financial repercussions here in the states.
They are both wrong and neither deserves 5cents of american aid.

I agree with a lot of what you say, Wade.
I'd add some more though. When you talk of wanting to lash out I think that is exactly the logic that Hamas relies on after a string of innocent Pals have been flattened by Israelis (whoops I mean "caught in the crossfire").

Re the 18 year old suicide bomber I'm not sure how often they are encouraged by parents despite continual claims by pro-Israelis that this is the norm.
I'm not sure terrorism where you blow yourself up is worse than terrorism where you *only* blow other people up eg that practised by some Israelis since before Israel was founded.
By the way talking of child combatents did you know Ariel Sharon joined the Hagannah Jewish militia at the age of 12 (not sure if his parents sent him to war with their blessing or not)
ah yes - there was plenty of terrorism in those days ! and no ceasefire required before the Israelis got a state !
www.cdiss.org/terror_1940s.htm
Twenty Arabs, five Jews and two British soldiers killed and thirty wounded in Jewish terrorist bomb attacks on buses in Haifa and Ramleh, Palestine. British mandate to rule Palestine ends on 15 May 1948; state of Israel established.
December 29
Jewish Irgun terrorists throw grenades from passing taxi into cafÈ near the Damascus gate, Jerusalem, Palestine, killing eleven Arabs and two British policemen. >

you are well read comical.
hagana?????
oh yeah,old friends moshe dayan and menachem begin blew up the king david hotel(not sure of year)then went on to become a prime minister and defense minister,in fairness to dayan,he and his daughter were members of labor and dayan was called a traitor at a funeral in the west bank of 2 brothers who were whacked out by palestinian snipers..again in fairness to begin,he reached out to sadat and signed the 1st peace treaty between israeli and arabs ever.1 mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter(mandela,adams,mugabe etc...)
as ive said before,ask a dad who is burying his 14 yr old daughter if he cares wether she got blown up on a bus or run over by a tank or shot by an apache helicopter...

Hey comical rummy,

This may come as a shock to you, but a strategic decision to change policy and tactical cease-fires are not one and the same. When has Hamas ever veered from its intended goal of pushing Israel into the sea by recognizing its right to exist? Your interpretation of the facts is so utterly biased, so distorted, that one questions whether a deep psychological affliction isn't at work.

see comical
when you resort to facts some people will refer to you as ""unbalanced"",especially in the israel/palestine discussions,where the majority of americans back israel,UNCONDITIONALLY.
thats why some of the posters in this forum refer to terms such as ""liberal"" or ""commie"' or dimocrats etc...very much like a rush limbaugh or jay severin show.
that being said
eggo is correct in stating hamas has not once,not ever,considered recognizing israels right to exist and untill that initial step is made then they have no place,none,in civilized discussions.

hyst redressing the balance, eggo
for that matter when has Israel ever deviated from its policy of pushing the Pals into the sea by remorselessly seizing every last inch of Pal land ?
and when has Israel recognised the right to exist of a viable Pal state ?
and this isn't a terror group like Hamas, this is a government we support !

when Israel offers the Pals a fair deal - big if - then Hamas recruitment will whither and a viable Pal state wil lhave the ability and mandate to clamp down on terrorism.

"Only a fool, or a Dimocrat, or a Bush hater,..."

Susan...no need to be redundant.

I love how this message board went from Iraq to the "Roadmap". Oh, well.

ComicalRummy:

Hamas agreed to a cease fire? This is news to me. I'd appreciate a link to such a story or, if you're like me and don't know how to link, give me the post for a story so I can look it up myself.

I've followed the news and have noticed many occasions where Hamas has said that they were ABOUT to agree to a cease fire, but never read a report where they actually agreed to one. After such a retaliatory strike, someone in Hamas is bound to claim that they were about to agree to a cease fire (or claim they had agreed to one), but notice the timing: the claim is never made BEFORE an Isreali counterattack (flame me all you want, that's what they are), always AFTER one, and the claim is parrotted uncritically in the media.

I've got a dinner plate, fork and knife set right by me, and I'm ready to eat my words, but I don't think you will find one single article claiming a cease fire agreement between Isreal & Hamas, only claims by Hamas that an (as yet unreported) agreement had been violated by Isreal. And forgive me if I am skeptical of reports coming from the inventors of the Jenin "Massacre".

****Dr. Harden Stuhl

DR.DD,PHD, (Mostly BS) Microsoft Certified

+++++++++He's my HERO!+++++++++++++

Susan-Serin-D!

...LM(F)BO about the twice a night night mares of that sloshy, nauseating kiss!

SRG----I have to agree. Its' still a myster to me which gender Jacko prefers or is!.

But thanx to both of you for breaking up the liberal mad man party at the conservative blog with some "kisses". (:~})

as I AM a cat (F) stands for furry. I suppose I could edit it and make it[F]...being the [] is now scrapple code for bootie. in that case: LM[F]O

wat ben ik toch leuk!

"Since uncle Ari took power in Feb 01 the #s speak for themselves."

Wade, your history is a mile or two off the mark. The current intifadah began shortly after Arafat turned down Barak's deal at Camp David. It is, in fact, the reason why we now have Sharon. Israeli citizens, in the wake of increased attacks by Palestinians, turned to the candidate they thought would be most likely to keep them safe. Look at the pattern. Israelis threw out the hawk Netanyahu and elected Barak. He gave the Palestinians the best offer they've ever had. Arafat rejected it and then began the current intifadah. It was only then that the Israeli voters went back the other direction and put Sharon in office. Rightly or wrongly, it was a response to the intifadah. The intifada did not start because of Sharon...rather, the intifadah gave us Sharon.

Lynch Cat...the cheap imitators are easy to spot. They would NEVER want us to read the Love Letter. Thank you.

ROBERT---*wink* Wise man, my friend...wise man!(:~}) --You are SO welcome.

....one of my "trademarkS". I certainly hope I'm not conceited...but I AM convinced outsmarting the fake is proving successful.

COOL Cats are always imitated by someone without their own identity.(:~})....

---poor mange mobile.hehehehe

Prijs de Heer!

Robert
Thank you for your lesson in history 101 however allow me to interject some of my facts here.

While campaigning for president Ariel Sharon and his private army waddled up the temple mount in september(9th??) 2000 and told everyone who would listen that this place and all of Jerusalem is Israels forever.
Since he did this 20 minutes after friday prayer all hell broke loose that day.
Not 2 years before,not in 1993 but that september friday....let me rationalize this for all who will listen to reason.
Picture George Wallace or David Duke walking into the Appolo theater in Harlem on a saturday night telling all who will listen that the appolo is a white club and will always be...
Or how about this.
Picture 100 guys with rifles,jack boots and assorted nazi paraphenalia marching to your local synagouge on a saturday morning telling all who will listen that this is christian land,will always be christian land and if no one likes it tuff crap because we got the guns.
What in the name of Meir Kahane would happen then Robert?

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0305l.asp

For better or worse, I think my country's foreign policy with the Arab world has just set out on the same path as Israel and the Palestinians.

you bomb us
we occupy you
you bomb us
we occupy you
you bomb us
we occupy you

Repeat forever.

Lotta civilians on both sides have died, many more will die.

Yeah, Rumsy sure hits the nail right on the head! When are these Amerkin hating Libruls gonna get it? So what if Rumsfeld admits that they made up evidence? The people of the world are stupid and shouldn't be allowed to make decisions for themselves! Oil comanies, which rule by divine authority, should make important decisions, and tell us whatever they need to get us to do what's right. For example, Without lying to us, our mighty ruler wouldn't have been able to get us to go to war with Iraq, which was a just cause. The Libruls just don't understand war- war is like a big picknick, with fire works, and lots of good food, and looting. This is wjy the burden of proof necessary to go war is so light, if fact, if there isn't a really, really good reason for not going to war, war should always be the answer. Besides, The Iraqi people needed to be liberated. So what if more Iraqis die as a result of our war then ever died under Saddam? Libruls just don't get that saddam was inherantly evil, so anything he did was bad. George Bush, is inherantly good, so anything he does is good-- even if he does the same stuff Saddam did. Iraqis understand this. And all of the Iraqi children, who's limbs we liberated from their bodies, thank god nightly that they are now ruled by a "good" guy.

""I think that the idea of keeping 3.5 million Palestinians under occupation is the worst thing for Israel,for the Palestinians and for the Israel economy"".

never thought i'd EVER hear that out of his mouth and unlike arafat,you can translate sharons words without losing anything in the translation..ie

he means what he says in all sincerity

wade.

Susan Serin-Done, Grateful for Dr. Stuhl,

Thank you for your kind words.

I am often rewarded by the camaraderie and fellowship, from my fellow conservative Scrapplers, here at the Scrappler Institute of Higher Conservative Learning.

While ever diligent in my chosen profession, as Scrapplefaceís Conservative, Medical Editor in charge, I quite often have to remind myself that ìthe big conservative bloggerî in the sky, [Not Scott, the infinite Blogger] in his holy and inestimable wisdom, placed the brain behind the eyes for a specific reason.

We as human beings can never understand, what we canít see first, and perhaps that is why liberals tend to post first and think later.

They are blinded by their own Hyperbaric Political Optic Neuritis.

The greatest cause of brain pain and eye atrophy.

The brain canít reason, simply, because they leap before they look.

I can now offer the hope,that many of these same, liberal posters, will be able to remove their torpid (comatose) brains, from out of their complacent, political caucuses and ìsee more clearlyî, before they continue to post their harmfull, disseminating, flatulent, grey matter comments,and their never ending, vacuous philosophies; ad nausea,[nauseum] etc, etc,Ö..and so onÖ.. ,and so onÖ.. , and so onÖ.. ,yadaÖyadaÖyada..,..

Humbly yours in consultation,

Dr. Harden Stuhl

DR., DD., PHD, (Mostly BS) Microsoft Certified, Varsity Scout Letter, Montgomery Wards Employee of the Year, Bloggist Extraordinaire.

All Spelling Kerected By Microsoft Werd.

Ladies & Gentlemen---Everyone, please RISE! Thee Dr. Harden, (Mostly BS) Stuhl is in the house. Please bow and do obeisance to his majesty.

hi agent x,
been away - the Hamas ceasefire event (scuppered by an Israeli attack) I mostly had in mind was this one
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/07/25/1027497382140.html
(last paragraph) the basic facts can be verified at a number of sites. I think its well established there were plans for a ceasefire BEFORE the Israeli attack but you don'thave t believe it if you don't want to.

Another occasion was here.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,623611,00.html
And in fact there have been several periods of zero attacks on Israelis when attacks by Israelis have continued, the end of last year was one I think.

re Jenin, apparently 22 innocent civilians murdered in Jenin (plus 30 members of the Resistance)
does NOT count as a massacre.
o yes, they were caught in the crossfire
lets look at this el-mozote style caught in the crossfire - from the Human Rights Watch Report much touted by the Israeli terrorists themselves
http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/05/jenin0503.htm
Fifty-seven-year-old Kamal Zghair, a wheelchair-bound man who was shot and then run over by IDF tanks on April 10 as he was moving in his wheelchair equipped with a white flag down a major road in Jenin;
Thirty-seven-year-old Jamal Fayid, a paralyzed man, who was crushed in the rubble of his home on April 7 after IDF soldiers refused to allow his family the time to remove him from their home before a bulldozer destroyed it;
Fourteen-year-old Faris Zaiben, who was killed by fire from an IDF armored car as he went to buy groceries when the IDF-imposed curfew was finally lifted on April 11; and
Fifty-two-year-old 'Afaf Disuqi, who was killed on April 5 by an explosive charge that IDF soldiers had placed at her front door as she went to open it for the soldiers;>

if thats not a MASSACRE then Israeli IDF savages don't SH*T IN PHOTOCOPIERS
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=159923&contrassID;=2&subContrassID;=5&sbSubContrassID;=0&listSrc;=Y

PALESTINIAN TERRORIST GROUPS ABIDING BY UNDECLARED CEASE FIRE.
""Hamas and Islamic Jihad have come to appreciate and understand the importance of allowing the peace negotiations to take place"".

unheard of words coming from fire brand palestinian nationalist and ireland envoy ali halima who continues.

""we are very excited about the positive news coming from tel aviv, a cease fire has to take place,we need to put an end to suicide bombings"".
irishexaminer.com

miracles do happen,especially in that part of the world,before dismissing all this as politics remember how much influence bush1 had on israel..
after getting hit with 39 scuds in the 1st gulf war,israel didnt counter attack because we told them not too..it was secretary of state james baker who sniffed
""i dont care what they think over there,none of them vote for us anyway"" in reference to the large amount of jews who vote democrat....

the times they are a changin

And it isn't a massacre when a Palestinian teen-ager detonated a bomb inside a crowded Seder feast, is it ComiRum?
Then the murder of children and senior citizens is perfectly justified, isn't it?
Go ahead, tell me the bomb on the bus full of high school kids wasn't an act of wanton murder, but rather a political act from a freedom fighter.

Both sides commit unjustified acts of horrific violence, but your white washing of one band of killers while tarring the other demonstrates your bias.
When you look at it from "outside the box" both sides are scum.

some_random_guy,

of course Pals bombing buses full of civilians is an atrocity. I doubt you'd find many people who would defend it. You mention it as though its an undiscovered scoop I need to be informed of. Quite contrary to your claims of "whitewachins one side" its the Israeli terrorism and war crimes that is widely defended - on the few occasions when deaths of Pals come to people's attention and make it beyond the back pages of the news.

Comical Rummy: Where is it you live, that news of killings by the IDF is buried in the back pages of your paper? Do you know the name of Rachel Corrie? Do you know the name of Mohammed al-Dura? [who may not have been killed by the IDF anyway, but it's a complicated case]? I thought you might. Can you name a single victim of a Palestinian suicide bombing — I mean, apart from the bomber? I can't. I know who Wafa Idris was, but I can't name the people she killed. Their names didn't make it into the paper.

It would be sort of nice if everyone fretting over Palestine could just pause a moment and look at the rest of the world. How many people were slaughtered last night in Congo? In Sudan? Any guesses? Anyone know their names?

going way back to the guy who has to brrrring up Clinton's piccadillos yyyet a-GAIN, yes, yes, yes. Clinton was stupid. he couldn't control his *natural*, *biological* urges and succumbed to a thong-baring cow who was probably recruited and paid by the GOP.(and continues to get paid-anyone watch "the bachelor"? sorry if you did)
editorializing aside, the point I'm trying to make is that Clinton was getting his "jollies" the way that ALL human males do or wish to do. moralizing aside, it's natural. it's what humans do.
Whereas, it is all too apparent that the cabal of criminals in power now get the same kind of pleasure ONLY when our brave troops are killing people and getting killed themselves. and NONE of these guys,with the sole exception of Colin Powell, have anything resembling courage when it comes to putting themselves or their families in danger. they would never THINK of joining the military. why, W himself refused to even keep his cushy National Guard commission by going AWOL for a year and a half! courage in war, indeed.
Republicans rule by the 3 H's---
Hubris, Hyperbole, and Hysteria.
can we wake up now? please?

Comments for Field Marshal Mathers:

-"WMDs that were probably real anyway"

On what do you base this assertion? So far, as far as I know, no WMD's have been found in Iraq. While it's possible they were smuggled into Iran, it seems unlikely given the longstanding enmity between both nations. In addition, nobody has yet explained why, if Saddam had such weapons, he would have gone to such great lengths to conceal them instead of using them to defend his regime and his own life.

-"WMDs were an excuse."

So you admit Bush was knowingly lying to the American people, but it's okay because it was "justified"? I mean, I was angry myself when I found out Clinton had lied about Monica Lewinsky, but I don't see how people who were upset by that (assuming you were, which might not be the case) can defend the president choosing to lie on matters of major national importance.

"potential control over the world's energy supply."

Iraq was supplying something like 6% of America's oil supply before we invaded the country. It's chances of controlling the entire world's energy supply were slim to none.

"Picture George Wallace or David Duke walking into the Appolo theater in Harlem on a saturday night telling all who will listen that the appolo is a white club and will always be..."

Well, Wade...what about the the bombing of a church and murdering little girls? I do seem to recall something about "segregation now, and segregation forever".

You don't have a clue. Your analogy is one of the stupidest posts I've seen here. Your attempted analogy is exactly what George Wallace did. He never went to the Apollo theatre with a bunch of jack-booted thugs, but he did stand in the doorway at the University of Alabama with the Alabama National Guard. African-Americans did not respond by going on a murderous rampage resulting in the deaths of the hundreds of people like you see listed here:

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/Terrorism/TerrorAttacks.html

Sharon's actions were certainly provacative and inciteful. Does it justify the wanton murders that have followed? Only in the minds of truly warped individuals. To imply that African Americans would likewise become murderous thugs in response to similar actions by white America is offensive and racist. It's a stupid analogy, and it shows that you clearly no nothing about the civil rights movement in this country. African Americans did not respond to the bloodshed on the Edmund Pettus bridge by suicide bombing shopping malls. They did not respond to the Birmingham church bombing by bombing white churches. They did not respond to Rosa Parks by blowing up the buses.

comments for Cassandra:

"Iraq violated a cease-fire agreement 12 years ago and was still not complying with UN resolutions to disclose or destroy it's WMD."

Israel is in violation of several UN resolutions, including orders to disarm. The US and Turkey also choose not to follow UN resolutions on several issues.

"There is documented evidence that Hussein has met with Bin Laden on several occasions."

Where? Tell me where I can find this evidence, because so far I have not seen it, and I read news for something like 3 hours a day. Clearly this must be new evidence, as opposed to the reports on such events made several months ago which were later proven false. Hell, even if you can't give me specific proof of this, at least ask yourself - did you ever yourself read any news story specifically establishing such a link, or did you just hear from elsewhere that such a link had been established?

"we're not searching very hard at all for WMD"

Well, it was ostensibly the justification for going to war to begin with, so I'd hope we would be. As far as how you "truly believe" that such weapons will be found, I don't see how you can put such blind faith in an administration which has, if not lied, then at least been ridiculously wrong on a number of matters - the presence of nuclear weapons in Iraq, the idea that the Iraqis would welcome us as "liberators", the effect Bush's first tax cut would have on the economy, etc, etc.

"what really matters is helping restore order to Iraq and rebuilding it's shattered economy (shattered, not by this war, but by Saddam's systematic looting of his own country)."

Prior to the UN imposed sanctions, Iraq was a largely modernized, fairly well developed (although certainly oppressive) nation. In addition to sanctions, the US carried out periodic bombings, as well as damaging the country's water supply (sorry, I can't attribute that last bit... read it somewhere, but too tired to make the internet crawl right now). Saddam is certainly guilty of continuing to safeguard his own ridiculously high standard of living while his country fell into ruins, but sanctions were far more damaging to Iraq's economy.

's all for now. Too sleepy to keep writing.

Hi, My name is wade_warren. I went to kolledge. We wuz taut many thingz out of books by Liberal Professurs! That iz why I am much smarter than u guys!

As you may have noticed, I REALLY like to talk, ----ALOT! I talk a lot, but all Im really trying to say iz, I hate Bush, I iz a Liberal, I think that taxin the rich and givin to the lazy, is the answer to EVERYTHING! Bigger guvernmint, thats the key!

I jus want to saay one more thing, I wish I had a life, then I would not have to bash Bush and uther moral decent people. Itz true, misery doew luv company!

WELL, maybe one more thing, if I wuz in charge, i wood slove all the worlds problems, overnite! Ther wood bee piece in the middle east, I would, sumhow, feed all the chilldren, everrywhereee, and be all things, to all peeple, just like bill anndd hillery!

Now go to bed, i"LL bore u sum more tommorro!

wade---------

i cound knot have said it bettur myself!

diddle!!!!!!

soreyy, i ment ditto!!!!!

Michelle, certainly yesterday's killing of a Palestinian teen was buried in the back pages.
there are 1 or 2 or maybe 3 (literally) exceptions, 1 of who 1 is American and others are Brits. And actually were any of these front page news ? I think they are only well known in the massageboards where the ME conflist is discussed and that due to the efforts of the few pro-Pals.

actually the names of suicide bomb victims are well publicised whether people remember them or not. You named a suicde bomber, but for that matter can you provide the name of a single IDF killer. when did you hear "reports are coming in of another innocent Palestinian killed" or dramatic reports from the scene of an IDF bombing ?

you mention killings in Sudan and Congo et al. well I notice them. The difference is, unlike the atrocities carried out by the IDF, I don;t notice many people defending thsoe massacres, And, unlike the IDF, those killings are supported by US tax dollars.
thats the difference.

by the way the last post wasn't by me but I admit the spelling was spookily similar !

by the way Robert, maybe there were no violent backlashes in the civil rightds movement and mayge there were but the slave movement years earlier certainly had many uprisings we would now call terrorism - was that justified ?

the ANC bombed bars full of civilians, even necklaced people - was that justified ?

the Intifada was sparked by Sharon's visit but is mroe a reaction to pent up anger as the ISraelis steal the last remains of the Pal homeland - it still doesn't justifiy killing innocents but then the IDF Gaza attack, among many others, wasn't justified either.

Hello all !

FROM THE AMERICAN HERITAGEÆ DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FOURTH EDITION. COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY. PUBLISHED BY THE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY.

I hope you will appreciate the last one as much as I did !

HYPE

PRONUNCIATION: hp
NOUN: 1. Slang Excessive publicity and the ensuing commotion: the hype surrounding the murder trial. 2. Exaggerated or extravagant claims made especially in advertising or promotional material: “It is pure hype, a gigantic PR job” (Saturday Review). 3. An advertising or promotional ploy: “Some restaurant owners in town are cooking up a $75,000 hype to promote New York as ‘Restaurant City, U.S.A.’” (New York). 4. Something deliberately misleading; a deception: “[He] says that there isn't any energy crisis at all, that it's all a hype, to maintain outrageous profits for the oil companies” (Joel Oppenheimer).
TRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: hyped, hyp?ing, hypes
To publicize or promote, especially by extravagant, inflated, or misleading claims: hyped the new book by sending its author on a promotional tour.
ETYMOLOGY: Partly from hype, a swindle (perhaps from hyper-)and partly from hype(rbole).

LIE (1)

PRONUNCIATION: l
INTRANSITIVE VERB: Inflected forms: lay ( l), lain ( ln), ly?ing ( lng), lies
1. To be or place oneself at rest in a flat, horizontal, or recumbent position; recline: He lay under a tree to sleep. 2. To be placed on or supported by a surface that is usually horizontal: Dirty dishes lay on the table. See Usage Note at lay1. 3. To be or remain in a specified condition: The dust has lain undisturbed for years. He lay sick in bed. 4a. To exist; reside: Our sympathies lie with the plaintiff. b. To consist or have as a basis. Often used with in: The strength of his performance lies in his training. 5. To occupy a position or place: The lake lies beyond this hill. 6. To extend: Our land lies between these trees and the river. 7. To be buried in a specified place. 8. Law To be admissible or maintainable. 9. Archaic To stay for a night or short while.
NOUN: 1. The manner or position in which something is situated. 2. A haunt or hiding place of an animal. 3. Sports The position of a golf ball that has come to a stop.
PHRASAL VERBS: lie down To do little or nothing: He's lying down on the job. lie in To be in confinement for childbirth. lie to Nautical To remain stationary while facing the wind. lie with 1. To be decided by, dependent on, or up to: The choice lies with you. 2. Archaic To have sexual intercourse with.
IDIOM: lie (or lay) low 1. To keep oneself or one's plans hidden. 2. To bide one's time but remain ready for action.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English lien, from Old English licgan. See legh- in Appendix I.

LIE (2)

PRONUNCIATION: l
NOUN: 1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood. 2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
VERB: Inflected forms: lied, ly?ing ( lng), lies

INTRANSITIVE VERB: 1. To present false information with the intention of deceiving. 2. To convey a false image or impression: Appearances often lie.
TRANSITIVE VERB: To cause to be in a specific condition or affect in a specific way by telling falsehoods: You have lied yourself into trouble.
IDIOM: lie through one's teeth To lie outrageously or brazenly.
ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old English lyge. See leugh- in Appendix I.
SYNONYMS: lie2, equivocate, fib, palter, prevaricate These verbs mean to evade or depart from the truth: a witness who lied under oath; didn't equivocate about her real purpose; fibbed to escape being scolded; paltering with an irate customer; didn't prevaricate but answered honestly.

BIG LIE

VARIANT FORMS: also Big Lie
NOUN: Repeated distortion of the truth on a grand scale, especially for propaganda purposes: released falsified documents to bolster the big lie that no government troops were involved in the fighting.

THE AMERICAN HERITAGEÆ DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FOURTH EDITION. COPYRIGHT © 2000 BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY. PUBLISHED BY THE HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

>>>Michelle, certainly yesterday's killing of a Palestinian teen was buried in the back pages.

Posted by: comical rummy on May 28, 2003 04:24 AM

I agree Comical! They shouldn't hide those items, I like to read about those things first, and brighten my day, early!

Please Believe!

I'm so very sorry.

I'm so used to calling you wonderful Americans liars.

Please believe my sincerest apologies.

Jacque Chirac is an evil, underhanded, horrible friend of mass murderers. I'm ashamed he's my countries leader.

I have been foolish in my false accusations.

Please believe.

If you click on my name you can see what I'm talking about.

Hi Frenchy
"I agree Comical! They shouldn't hide those items, I like to read about those things first, and brighten my day, early!"

heck no, next time there's a suicide bombing let's keep it quiet ? complete media blackout eh ?
none of this rolling footage of dead and injured.

>>>Michelle, certainly yesterday's killing of a Palestinian teen was buried in the back pages.

Posted by: comical rummy on May 28, 2003 04:24 AM

The article failed to mention that the 'teen', had 5 lbs of C-4 strapped to him!

A VERY GOOD, pre-emptive strike! Chalk another one up for the 'Good Guys', YEEEEESSSSSSSS!!!!!

NICE WORK Frenchman.

ARE THOSE WORDS SUFFICIENT TO DESCRIBE FRANCE AND CHIRAC ???

C-MON YOU CAN DO BETTER....

HAHAHAHAHAHA...

Europe Launches Plans for Military to Rival U.S.

NewsMax.com Wires and NewsMax.com
Tuesday, May 27, 2003

The European Union demonstrated its determination to become a major military power today when its leading members signed a $23 billion contract to buy a fleet of 180 Airbus A400 military transport jumbo jets, with the capacity to deploy up to 20,000 troops far beyond Europe's shores in a single airlift.

The move is a dream come true for French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who since breaking with Washington over Iraq have vowed to create a power to rival the United States.

Vive le President Chirac !
Vive le General De Gaulle !
Vive la France !
Vive L'Union Franco-Allemande !
Vive l' Europe-Puissance Economique et Militaire !

I'm so very sorry.

I'm so used to calling you wonderful Americans liars.

Please believe my sincerest apologies.

Jacque Chirac is an evil, underhanded, horrible friend of mass murderers. I'm ashamed he's my countries leader.

I have been foolish in my false accusations.

Please believe.

Why do I keep repeating myself. I'm such a mess. Someone, please help me. I talk too much and nobody listens.

I am a liar and no one cares.

Please believe---I'm confused.

As an admission of my own ChIraqness I posted the above. It shows my true nature for being a war monger. Jacque and I just didn't want you Americans to have all the boom boom toys.

With our own weapons we can now wage war ourselves and maybe even get back our oil.

We are and have been a mighty force to be reckoned with. (I can say that now since it is no longer to pretend to be a pacifist.

Saddam has been brought down and now my fearless leader can take over where he left off only in France.

Viva la War
Viva la Hypocrisy
Viva la G*y men
Viva la Pacifist Army
If you click on my name you can see what I'm talking about

Vive le President Chirac !
Vive le Chancelier Schroeder !
Vive le General De Gaulle !
Vive la France !
Vive l'Union Franco-Allemande !
Vive l'Europe Puissance Economique et Militaire !

good to see i have fans out there at 3am,sonny lean over and take out the rubber doll and pound that for a little while,let some of the air out so as not to wake up your mama...

robert
ever hear of crown heights??
watts?? reginald denny??ephrain goldbloom???
officer richard santiago??
ever visit detroit or the south bronx??
theyre still burning 40 years after the civil rights movement i know nothing about..ever hear of liberty city? long beach???
if you need to vent at me at 3am at least come to the table with something significant instead of sounding off like a crying 2year old who is lost in the grocery store...
i need not put on a white robe or dress like a los angeles police officer to get the attention of our black friends,all i need to do is get on the wrong subway after dark and if you dont believe me come with me to browsville or bed-sty or astoria blvd west or 179th st and show me how friggin diverse you are...

hows that for liberal sonny...

the vivid memory i have of uncle aris weekend on the mount is the picture of the father,in the line of fire,wrapped around his 11 year old son..
front page of the ny post that morning showed the terror filled father and son...dad made it,the kid was killed and the next day the palestinians went nuts...kind of like they did in crown heights after the jewish kid ran over the black kid resulting in the jewish kids brother getting stabbed about 40 times and dying on a police car that was waiting to take him to the hospital but couldnt because it was surrounded but that was only 3-4 years ago so that dont matter robert eh??

do i really need to go on??

"The article failed to mention that the 'teen', had 5 lbs of C-4 strapped to him!"

nope he was throwing stones,
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u;=/afp/20030527/wl_mideast_afp/mideast_unrest_030527192702
in Northern Ireland's Bloody Sunday they had an inquiry after stone throwers were shot dead.
If they had that in Palestine there'd be a bloody sunday inquiry every day, lucky the Israeli regime doesn't favour them !
at least not for Palestinians ! the leader of one of Israel's main parties, Shas, openly called for Palestinians to be "annihilated"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/1272343.stm

frenchy
do those air buses have a ""reverse""??
do they come with white flags??
you talk as if 23 billion is something that shakes us,christ we lost more than that in between the cushions of the haliburton couch..

this is the big boys table frenchie,go back to making your rich,creamy sauces and let the big boys decide whats gonna happen to the rest of the world...

thank you

If the Democrats are the party of sophistication and nuance, why do I keep hearing "no blood for oil" from them? Oh, and I also love the bit about how we squandered the enormous reservoir of goodwill buit up after 9/11. Yes, we built up an enormous reservoir of goodwill by getting clobbered. But when we retaliated in a vigorous--but measured--way, we squandered that goodwill. Kinda like that enormous reservoir of goodwill we squandered after Pearl Harbor.

Fred,

I agree with what you said...

But then, what should we expect from a group of people who exfoliate victimization to a level so extreme,so that they can make sure there is enough to go around for everybody? If you want to join the largest group of immolated mental patients, become a Democrat.

Democrats want to be the party for all the victims in the US. They even want to spread their leftist ,fertilizer to the barren deserts of despotism in Iraq. The people of Iraq don't need to learn to be victims. Saddam taught them how to do that. They need to learn how to be winners. Make them capitalists. Give them a stereo. They are smart enough to figure out soon enough on their own, that they will need to buy speakers. That is what capitalism does. It motivates. Best solution ñ maybe not. But it works. Very few people die from stereo fragment grenades.

Democratic - Party of sophistication and nuance ? I laugh when they are react angrily towards diversity of opinion,while claiming they are the prime example of dissimilarity. Their commiseration towards worldly living and perfidiousness know no bounds.

They love to tell everybody with a dissenting opinion,how wrong they are. Especially to the ones who choose not to subscribe to their ìcrepehangerî attitudes.

[ (defeatist ) - Sorry I couldn't resist dinging Frenchie].

I say company loves misery. Save your group hugs for somebody else. I don't want Hillary to help raise my compassion. I want her to give some to her husband, so he will stop man-handling interns. They should be called the ìIndemnificratsî. Just my two cents worth. Excuse me, ìOne Cent Worthî. I am sure they will find away to tax the little bit of pocket change I have left.

Down with group victim mentality chanting ñ up with individual expressionisms!

Read my lips harden
no new taxes

think the apple doesnt fall far from the lying tree harden???

Comical Rummy: When you say that "no one" is defending the slaughter in Congo or Sudan, you must mean "nobody who matters to you." Do you really think that the people carrying out this carnage are thinking, "gee, this is a horrendous atrocity, but I'm just going to do it anyway"? People don't go to war without someone thinking it's a good idea.

Unfortunately I'd recycled yesterday's paper already, so I don't know on which page it appeared, but the SF Chronicle (my local paper) ran an AP story headed "Israeli fire kills Palestinian boy and wounds two other children in West Bank violence." I don't think it was on the front page, because the big Middle East news was Sharon talking his cabinet into accepting the "road-map." You did notice that, right?

(No, I take it back. That was Monday's ME headline. Tuesday's was Sharon denouncing "occupation." You did notice that, right?)

Re media coverage of suicide bombers vs. their victims: try Googling Wafa Idris and then the old man she murdered, Pinhas Tokatli. 1860 results vs. 210.

Hi, My name is comical rummy. I went to kolledge, in Floorida. We wuz taut many thingz out of books by Liberal Professurs! That iz why I am Soooo much smarter than u guys!

As you may have noticed, I REALLY like to talk, ----ALOT! I talk a lot, but all Im really trying to say iz, I hate Israel, GOD, JESUS, The Bible, and Bush! I iz a Liberal, I think that taxin the rich and givin to the lazy, is the answer to EVERYTHING! (That, and distroying Izrael!) Bigger guvernmint, thats the key!

I jus want to saay one more thing, I wish I had a life, then I would not have to bash Izrael, Jew's, and uther moral decent people. Itz true, misery doew luv company!

WELL, maybe one more thing, if I wuz in charge, i wood slove all the worlds problems, overnite! Ther wood bee piece in the middle east, the way to piece in the middle east, iz to push the Izralii's into the sea! I say they iz planting those bombs on the innoscent Palestinians and then blowing them up and blaming our wonderful, kissable Arafat!!!I would, sumhow, feed all the chilldren, (xcept for the stinkin Izraeli's), everrywhereee, and be all things, to all peeple, just like My Wunderfull Airafat! (Distroy Izrael!)

Now go to bed, i"LL bore u sum more tommorro!

CONical Rummie---------

(Kill all Jewish people, that's the ticket!)

Rummy:

Thanks for the posts, but they clearly confirmed what I had said earlier.

Regarding the article in heage.com. Here's the $$ quote:

ìPalestinian officials said they had been poised
to enter into a ceasefire agreement that would have suspended military operations by all major
factions...î

The article states that Hamas officials claimed that they were GOING to enter into a cease fire, NOT that one was agreed (funny how that keeps happening to Hamas; I'm sure that has nothing whatsoever to Hamas's cynical use of the negotiation process to claim they were "about" to enter into cease-fire terms they showed no indication of conceeding to only after counterstrikes).

The second link (to The Guardian article) further confirms this fact:

"Until now, Hamas leaders had resisted Mr Arafat's call [for a ceasefire]. A leaflet distributed by the group in Gaza said the ceasefire would remain in effect 'until further notice'. It said all members of the group, including the military wing, must abide by the decision."

Bottom line, Hamas has claimed after several suicide attacks that they were GOING TO agree to a ceasefire, but never actually agreed to one.

Regarding the Jenin "Massacre":

Hamas initially claimed 5,000 civilian casualties and their initial claim was a baldfaced lie. My reason for mentioning this incident was to demonstrate that Hamas's claims that they were "poised" to enter into a ceasefire were self-serving statements from an organization with a proclivity to lie (as well as murder, but we knew that already, right? Right?)

The Isreali government claims seven civilians died in the Jenin raid, and the remaining deaths were combatants, not civilians. Given that the casualties NOW claimed by Hamas are a fraction of the casualties initially claimed, I am inclined to trust Isreal's casualty rates over Hamas (and over the United Nations, which is, let's not forget, responsible for the Jenin camp and which has looked the other way while many residents at the camp have smuggled in weapons).

Are no civilian deaths ever acceptable? I know for a fact YOU don't think so, or you wouldn't refer to Palestinian Terrorists as "resistance" fighters. As for myself, I accept that civilian casualties are an inevitable part of combat and that they are morally defensible if the underlying action is necessary to protect innocent life.

I don't know if I'll be able to convince you that Isreal was justified in doing anything to prevent terrorists from blowing up civilians at bus stops, but I will remind you that, in the weeks leading up to the Jenin raid there were hundreds of Isreali civilian casualties from suicide attacks, and that failure to try to dismantle the terrorist network would likely have led to hundreds more civilian casualties. The fact that the weeks after the Jenin raid were a period of relative calm indicates that the Jenin raid cost fewer innocent civilians in the long run.

Finally, I noted you took exception to people who complained that your post defended suicide terrorism. Maybe that was because you refered to the Isrealis as "terrorists" and Hamas as "resistence" fighters. As they say in yiddish, what chutzpah.

Wade,

I'm losing you or your not understanding me? What is your point?:)

Yo Wade! in your post to Frenchy: "you talk as if 23 billion is something that shakes us,christ we lost more than that in between the cushions of the haliburton couch.."

no need to "flatter" frenchie with that name. It's just not fitting!..("C", Wade, not"c" of course---does it matter when used in your context?

Ladies & Gentlemen! Boys & Girls, doofuses that crash the scrapple face parties!....Your attention, please! Please give a warm round of ammuniti....uhm...APPLAUSE to the great, incomparable, legendary, genius that IS Dr. Harden ( mostly BS) Stuhl........*whistles, wild applause*

Dr. Harden please take the stage. My band and I will be warmng up. When we're ready to make the stage our own---- you can then make your rounds.

Much emergency brain replacement work to be done. Several people in need of ongoing shock therapy. This place is a mess lately, Dr.

Meanwhile with my endorphins made to praise following a long brisk walk....I'm ready to take on what appears to be the movie set of a tornado movie--the aftermath ( a.k.a my house)

Lynch Family Cat,

You are embarrassing me with your kind laudations.I am glad you appreciate my concerted efforts. Many unlike you,here at Scrappleface,have misunderstood my linguistic enthusiasm for being conceited and being vain. But, I am no more special than anyone posting here at Scrappleface . Most of my educated comments and ability to analyze liberals in need of therapeutic counseling has come about, from being well traveled and fortunate enough to teach in some of the finest universities in the world. Although, I can speak eight languages,have various medical degrees,have also consulted at medical clinics abroad and all over America, consistently have won the 'Aesculapius [The god of medicine and healing] Award' of Medical Excellence, every year, for what seems to be an eternity,am mentioned and have written, in most subscription based medical journals known to modern psychiatric medicine, Microsoft Certified,and still maintain a 290 average in a ìGolden Pinsî Friday night bowling league, I assure you, I am by no means egotistical. When I hear that unkind skullduggery,from the liberal nemesis and my few medical critics still "practicing" [Pun Intended] in mental health,my reply to them is simply ,ìWe are not amusedî. Some bloggers get so jealous of adroit medical personalities.

In conclusion, and with much more self-effacement ,I must admit that my ability to use long run on sentences does impress me as a person and give me some sense of iambic completion. Thanks again. Hmmm,..two words to form a sentence, I should try that more often.

Your friend and mine,
Dr. Harden ìAesculapiusî Stuhl

Michelle,
re the Congo, its a facile point that the people carrying out the slaughter defend it. But how many columnists in the US defend it ? hoe many people ? Whereas regarding Israel's slighter of Pals columnistys claim "Israel merely defends itself", did Jay Garner congratulate the Congo killers for their "remarkable restraint", did GWB describe it as merely "heavy-handed", were the Congo killers armed and also supported diplomatically and economically by our tax dollars ? all the answers to these are "no" - whereas in the case of the rogue Israeli regime the turning off of our sponsorship can mkae a difference and the opinions of the people of the country can affect what is being done by their government. and the end of our one-sided endorsement of Israel could even lead to comromise and peace.
don't pretend you don't see the difference.

Yep , I saw Sharon's words, he also said he had no intention of ending the illegal bases on the remains of Palestinian homeland so exactly how far he intends to go in ending occupation remains to be seen.

I admire your competence with google. Not sure what it proves though, I imagine Hitler gets more hits than the average holocaust victim. Did you ever find the name of the IDF killer of the Palestinian teen ? I wonder why his name hasn'e been released for condemnation ?

Agent X,
will whether you believe it or not I believe it was established that the ceasefire talks were occuring before the IDF terror attack scuppered them and it was reported in many media outlets.
have you noticed another Hamas ceasefire is mooted ?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/801833.asp?0cv=NB10&cp1;=1
Despite no let up in the theft of Pal land. I wonder if the Israelis will do something to scupper this !

The Palestinians, not Hamas as you state, claimed a higher number of civilian deaths at Jenin - not sure if your 5000 claim is accurate. And it is HRW who established at least 20 deliberate murders in a report accepted even by the IDF killers. The true figure will never be known as the Israelis refused a proper UN investigation (they were mindful of Qana when they rigged a UN inquiry to be headed by a PRO-ISRAELI, van kappen and he still exposed the IDF lies and branded their bombardment of the Qana UN base deliberate).

Still not sure why you think I support suicide bombings. The Pal fighters in Jenin were not known to be terrorists purely on the basis they were fighting the IDF. If any had been suicide bombers they'd be dead surely ? There were no Israeli civilians in Jenin. Outgunned resistance fighters fighting an occupying army are NOT terrorists. I know the IDF claim any attack on them is a terrorist attack but then IDF reports are just a joke - you do see that don't you ?

I think where you may be going wrong is when you say "you trust the IDF". Aside from their lies exposed re Qana they were recently caught lying concerning the attack on James Miller where they claimed 1) they were responding to fire - the attack on clearly marked luminous TV reporters was filmed and there was no other fire other than from the IDF positions 2) they claimed Miller was shot from behind when Israeli forensics rebutted this.

PalMurd,
you sound a bit rabid there.
you kinda remind me of Ovadia Yosef, leader of Shas and genocidal member of several Israeli governments !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1270038.stm
with a sermon calling for the annihilation of Arabs.
"It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable,"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/869553.stm
in which he said the Nazi Holocaust was God's retribution against Jewish sinners.

Battle of Saguntum: Comparison of Polybius and Livy (From www.barca.fsnet.co.uk)

The battle of Saguntum as told by Polybius and Livy gives two separate accounts of the same battle and the events leading up to it.

The most significant force shaping these two authors is most likely the nationalities of the two men.

The differences in the styles and facts between these two stories are extensive.

While neither side fully identifies with Carthage, one author definitely gives a more well rounded and evenly balanced account.

The two histories differ not only in facts about the battle, but also in the events leading up to the battle as well as how Hannibal is depicted.

Silly Libruls, don't you understand that you can't compete with our powerful mastery of argumentation strategery? We simply label anything you say as "liberal," and then show that Liberals can not spell (by immitating Libraal Speeling). This obviously means that you lost the argument.
Capito?
When you fail to see the clear logic of this line of argument, we then prove your theories false by pointing out that any liberal argument is flawed because it comes from a flawed liberal mind, which is obviously flawed because it has liberal ideas, which are flawed because they come from liberal minds which are...
I'm sorry, I lost my place for a second.
But clearly, this means that you lost the argument.
And when your simplistic liberal minds fail to comprehend the clear victory of the last line of argumentation, we change the subject and attack some other Liberal ideas, while chanting the Party line over and over again, because if we say it enough, it becomes a fact. I invite all to look over this thread, which proves the superiority of this superior conservative logical strategery. Liberals, be awed by what you see, and conservatives...
be proud!

I hate to point this out, but, since you seem so proud of the newly-found humanitarian reasons for war (oppressive dictator, brutal regime, etc.), you're pretty much obligated to support wars in Uzbekistan, the Congo, and countless other lovely locales with hideous records of human rights abuses. Are we going to those places any time soon? no. Uzbekistan was one of our allies in Iraq, so they get to kill whomever they want without any judgment on our part. And the Congo? Maybe if Halliburton and bechtel find something lucrative there. If you valued honesty at any level you'd admit that your new focus on the "liberation" of the Iraqui people (gosh, look how happy they are! They're looting and raping... it's so cute when they get excited like that!) is solely the product of WMD's not being found. Otherwise, we'd be involved in military action in places all over the globe. Even places with no oil, if you can imagine it.

Comical Rummy: I understand the difference between regimes that we fund and regimes that we don't, but it still seems disproportionate for Israeli crimes (and I know there have been many) to be routine front-page news while literally millions are dying elsewhere and don't rate the same coverage — not only here, but in Europe.

Look, compare Palestine and East Timor. Which occupation was more brutal? Which killed more people? There was massive US support for both occupying governments. But East Timor was a sort of fringe leftist cause, and Israel was attacked from every side. Why?

My own guess is that it's because the Israelis are largely of European background. Europeans will tolerate any sort of brutality outside their own countries, so long as it isn't done by Europeans, Americans, or descendents of either.

I admire your competence with google. Not sure what it proves though, I imagine Hitler gets more hits than the average holocaust victim.

Dear CR, Wafa Idris killed one person besides herself. She is not comparable to Hitler. I was pointing out that she is much better known than her lone victim — whose name it took, yes, a series of Google searches to find. Interesting that I should have to use the murderer's name to find the name of the victim, but that is the reality of journalism re Israel. I think, you know, that with Palestinian victims the case would be reversed. It's worth reflecting on that.

Wade...

Hey, []...only a complete and utter moron actually thinks that it's always 3:00 AM at the same time all over the world. Ever hear of time zones, you moron? I supposed that you haven't yet gotten to the part in your junior high school geography class where you learn that there are actually more than four time zones on the planet. What an idiot. Lost in the grocery store? What a moron. You obviously got lost on the way to geography class. You really want to mix it up? Come back when you finish junior high school.

Yeah...all those things you mentioned happened. Yeah, there were riots. Only a fool would one compare something like the Rodney King riots with mass murdering dozens in a shopping mall.

Do you need a body count to justify my case Robert?
I am well aware of the time zones in this country and being a vet I have been in just about all of them all over the world,how about you sonny?
Robert I crap bigger than you will ever be,quit whining like a 3rd grade girl and accept the fact that you're just not that bright,reach out to the distinguished members of the panel and dont take things personally.
As far as the personal attacks on me go,keep it up,it only completes your circle of ignorance.

as always
ww

AP News, May 29, 2003

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in New York on Tuesday, said it was possible the reason Iraqi chemical or biological weapons had not been found yet was that Saddam Hussein's government 'decided that they would destroy them PRIOR to a conflict.'"

Raises some interesting questions, doesn't it? (Maybe those UN weapons inspectors weren't so blind after all? Maybe our intelligence isn't so intelligent? Maybe Bush and his oiligarchy are liars?)

Darth Chef, Cassandra, where are you? Ynot, AHA, South Texas Ranchman? Particularly you, Darth Chef. You have been SO zealous in the past about rooting out falsehoods. why are you not commenting on this little item?

I repeat: WMD (What Mass Destruction)?

Yes, ridding the world of Saddam (who may or may not be dead), was a good thing. Lying about the reasons for taking this country into war and occupation was not. Also, while we're pondering the truth, what are you going to say, JP, Cybersarge, JAGOFF, and your ilk, to the families of those soldiers who continue to be killed while LIAR Rumsfeld and Bush sit safely at home? Come on, Greyhawk, tell me why your man had to lie to take his country to war. It may soon cost Blair his job. It should cost Bush his.

BTW, did anybone read the story all over the services that the heroes who rescued Pvt. Lynch refuse the hospital's offer of a key, so that they wouldn't need to kick in a bunch of doors? Of course, now, Jessica's parents have been told by the Pentagon not to discuss details.

Or did you hear the one about the President who disregarded written warnings about the possibility of a $44 trillion deficit as he rushed to sign into law tax cuts of $350 billion.

Well, he's not buying my vote.

Sorry, I can't wait 12 years to say "I told you so."

I await your thoughtful replies.

yaksun

Dear Ed: "Support war in the Congo?" My dear sir, there has been war in the Congo for ages. There are those ca. 3 million dead people that the media have been belatedly mentioning occasionally. Oh, you mean that our newfound policy of actually trying to stop sadistic dictators from murdering the people under their control might actually oblige us to do something about it? Well, yeah. About time, too.

Look, the UN record here is not exactly stellar. A UN that had any right to the reputation it preens itself on would have stopped the Rwandan genocide; would be in Congo; would be in Sudan. I think, frankly, that Africa embarrasses the European countries that dominate UN deliberations. The US has done many nasty things, but it was the Europeans who colonized Africa.

As for "places with no oil," the recent threats to Syria were aimed at extracting what resourse, exactly? Syria imports its oil . . . from Iraq.

I pose the same question to you, Scott. Results aside, a falsehood is a falsehood.

yaksun

dear Michelle, I'm perfectly aware of the congo's beautiful history of seething violence and misery, but to suggest that the U.S.'s policy is now to stop violent dictators... well, pardon me if I don't gobble up a zealous Republican fairy tale. We've turned a blind eye to various atrocities for ages, and depressingly, this is necessary if we don't want to be the policemen of the world. But Iraq? Come on, no WMD's, which were the initial justification if you recall, and suddenly the true motive was the liberation of the Iraqui people. Right. And to suggest that this administration has nothing to gain? Please, the Guardian reported a document dating back to November of last year, when Bush was still supposedly dedicated to diplomacy and not war, effectively granting Haliburton access to Iraqui oil wells. You know Haliburton, right? Cheney's old company? the one that, odlly, didn't have to bid on a lucrative government contract? Yeah, this administration is bloated with humanitarian sentiment.

Oppressive regime in the Congo? Hmmm, last I heard it was two different tribes trying to wipe each other out.
But fear not! The courageous French are preparing to invade..I mean 'Intervene'...on a peace-keeping mission. No doubt peace and prosperity for all Congolese will soon follow.
(in case you missed it, that last part was sarcasm)

Yaksun:

Long time, no sparring! Let's think this one through.

"Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking in New York on Tuesday, said it was possible the reason Iraqi chemical or biological weapons had not been found yet was that Saddam Hussein's government 'decided that they would destroy them PRIOR to a conflict.'"

***I'm confused. Are you saying that if there hadn't been the imminent threat of war, those weapons wouldn't have been destroyed? Or is this the same tired old "give the inspectors more time" argument, which ignores the inconvenient fact that it was the US mobilization that got the inspectors back into Iraq in the first place. Or does the discovery of mobile labs recently scrubbed down with Clorox and with parts manufactured within the last year or so not arouse your curiosity?

Recently barrels full of anthrax vaccine material and various other chemical agents from the 1950's and 60's were unearthed right near my home in Frederick Maryland. Does that fact that no one found them until recently mean that they didn't exist?

Raises some interesting questions, doesn't it?

***Absolutely. But having given the inspectors 12 years to conduct their inspections with a government that was supposed to be cooperating, is it too much to ask to give the US 6 months to 1 year to find evidence, especially considering how many important things they are trying to do at the same time. Like restoring order, rebuilding infrastructure, chasing criminals, helping the Iraqis set up their new government. This is a sparsely inhabited country covered in SAND - lots of hiding places. Why the rush to judgement?

(Maybe those UN weapons inspectors weren't so blind after all?

***If the inspectors were doing such a great job, why did Hussein know where the "surprise" inspections were being held ahead of time? Blix hasn't been saying he didn't believe there weren't weapons (and hopefully he is in a position to know). He said he couldn't find them. He also said that Iraq was not actively cooperating with the inspectors. If they had already destroyed the weapons, why not just say so?

Maybe our intelligence isn't so intelligent?

***Intelligence is never perfect, especially when dealing with a closed society and a dictator whose inner circle were all family members. Kinda hard to get close to the info unless you can manage to be born into the family. Which means you have to rely on second-hand sources - which are always less reliable.

Maybe Bush and his oiligarchy are liars?)

***Possibly. But usually when you make a charge like that, you need proof if you expect anyone to believe you. Why not give this a bit more time? After all, we gave Saddam Hussein the benefit of the doubt for 12 years. If, as we all know, George W. is worse than Hitler, Stalin, and Hussein combined, according to my reckoning we should maybe give him 1/3 of that, or 4 years according to the prevailing wisdom.

Note that I have admitted that it's possible you are right and I (or Bush if you will) am wrong. Can you admit that it's possible that there just hasn't been enough time yet for anyone to know the truth?

Okay, okay...I did leave out the troops from Uganda, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Chad, Rwanda, and Burundi. Obviously waht we have here is a bunch of super-powers vying for control. An African "World War".

Same plan for most of Africa (sub- and supra-Saharan) as for most of the Mid-East: Pull out, seal off, and let them kill each other.

Want to be part of the world community? Then knock off the crap! I don't care if your tribe has been feuding with that other tribe for 500 years. Its meaningless. Whoopty-doo if the national boundaries drawn by European colonizers run right through your people's traditional range, it's more meaningless crap.
Take a big jump into at least the 20th Century!

Sub-Saharan Africa is a vast territory chock-full of natural resources. All these violence wracked countries could be living fat if they would just give up some of their traditional hatreds, or at least remember the old saying: The best revenge is living well.

So listen up T'Chaka: Forget about the fact that your great great grandfather's cattle were rustled by M'Boka's ancestors. Get your revenge by getting yourself and your people rich and prosperous.

That's my .7 cents worth (2 cents after taxes). I'm outta here.

Ed: I didn't suggest that "this administration had nothing to gain." I did hint that maybe there wasn't a lot of oil in Syria.

We've turned a blind eye to various atrocities for ages, and depressingly, this is necessary if we don't want to be the policemen of the world.

I see. So you'd favor pulling out of the UN, then? Or is it necessary that we keep up the appearance of being in favor of, you know, stopping the odd genocide, without actually doing anything about it?

And as long as we're on the subject, what is the UN for, if it isn't intervening in Congo and Sudan and couldn't be bothered with Rwanda?

I don't think that the US went into Iraq solely to liberate the oppressed, no. But that's what actually happened, and I continue to be amazed at the number of people who can't bring themselves to admit it.

It's interesting how all my posts are irrelevant because of timing or the fact that I am working so hard on my rap career.
First,
"who disregarded written warnings about the possibility of a $44 trillion deficit as he rushed to sign into law tax cuts of $350 billion."
If there is a deficit of $44 trillion looming, we might as well cut taxes and party before the impending global depression. There is no way in 7734 that we could come up with 44 trillion anyway.

Second, akrajag's comments a while back. Sorry it took so long to respond. I do think George II believed there were in WMDs in Iraq, but as a practical matter it doesn't matter. We GAVE Iraq a lot of chemical weapons, so we know they have them. If Iraq did destroy its WMDs, perhaps it was trying to look tough by making Syria, Iran, etc. think it had nukes or mustard gas. I read an article to that effect somewhere.

I would say that the biggest evidence that GWB thought there were/are WMDs in Iraq is that no one has planted them yet. If he was purposely lying, the CIA would've had them in Baghdad months ago.

As for control over the petroleum supply, Iraq does supply only a few percent of our needs. They have, however, tried to conquer Iran and Kuwait for their oil. Saddam's military, without US intervention, could now be sitting on the entire middle east. With, say, 5 or 10 % of the oil production, Iraq could easily send prices towards $100 a barrel and blackmail us.

This is probably why no one really wants a peaceful, unified arab state, but I digress.

FMM

I knew I smelled something. The real Frenchman is back. Look at posting no. 678 or thereabouts.

A note on the Eurotroops announced this week.

One brigade. not a divsion, a brigade. Three countries pool their resources and that's all they could come up with. Why don't these clowns just give it up.

wizegoi--- Hi-- My 12 lb. dog gives "what for" to other big dogs and people she thinks may pose a threat to me. I call it her short dog syndrome. (I also say she's a Rottweiller in drag--LOL)...think Napoleon. Think Napoleon made up of 3 parts???...(:~})

*the preceding is a daily dose of dissing France, brought to you by a Europacat*

Im surprised you can STILL smell Frenchman. I thought he was chased outta here crying daaayz ago! LOL

Wade...pretty lame comeback on your part. You sound like a middle school student who, when caught with his proverbial pants down, attempts some lame comeback just to save face. Your immature, knee jerk response to my post and those of others around the world supposedly being written at 3:30 AM shows that you have no clue that people all over the world read this site. Also, your grammar is far too poor to be that of anyone very far out of junior high. Ok...maybe you're sitting in a college dorm room somewhere. Vet? I doubt it. I doubt you've ever been outside the country.

As for body counts...yes, you do need a body count to prove your initial stupid position that African Americans would react just like the Palestinians have, with suicide bombers in shopping malls and on buses. Your initial post claimed that if David Duke went to the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and claimed it as white territory now and forever more, that African Americans would react the same way. It remains an utterly stupid position, unfounded by any historical fact. Even in the most turbulent times of the civi rights struggles, even with the bloodiest riots, African Americans never reacted like that.

yaksun, wade, frenchman, comical runny(nose), are all a bunch of runny nosed, gas bags, cut from the mold, (or mildew), of their hero michael (blimp) moore. Usually, when I see their posts, I just scroll down, because I know what they have to say is not going to make much sense, be funny, or be true, so WHY waste my time?

I have a feeling that, none of the above, are capable of thinking for themselves. They certainly do spout the same rhetoric over and over and over. Typical libs. they feel if they spout any lie enough, (i.e. "I did NOT have sexual relations with that woman!"), it will 'magically' become true!

Let me say one last thing to these children, (sorry wade, forgot you were a vet, is your specialty treating 'Frogs'?), goodnight, don't let the bed bugs bite, and be sure and use the bathroom, so you don't have an, 'accident' again!

"Look, compare Palestine and East Timor"
well I condemned both, do more people support the Palestinians than the East Timorese ? thats exellent news if true, I support both and condemn US support of Israel just as I condemned US support of Suhiarto and the invasion of East Timor (both the US and UK sold military equipment to Indonesia, I was livid in 1999 when Indonesia was invited to the UKs Chertsey arms fair in the UK, UK FM RObin Cook claimed "Indonesia needed to be able to defend itself" !!).
However I don't see your problem that one oppressive regime gets even more flack than another ? Presumably because Israel gets even more aid than Indonesia got. why do you bring it up ! I could equally ask you since you defend Israel why you don't defend Suhiarto and SLobo as well ?

"Wafa Idris killed one person besides herself. She is not comparable to Hitler"
So what is your moan about Idris fame/infamy ? She gets more hits than her victim, so what ? at least the vrime is widely known. By the way you still haven't found the name of the IDF killer.

"Iraq destroyed its WMD before the invasion" insists Comical Rummy. " Maybe" he confirms. "They destroyed them just like I always said they hadn't. And ignore my double act partner Comical Tony who says the idea of Saddam detroying his WMD is palpably absurd. As we all know the first thing a country does when its at war is destroy all its weapons"
He later clarified "No wait I remember ! they're well hidden ! thats it ! "
He further summarised "We haven't got a clue ! Thats it, definitely right now, We sent dozens of US servicemen to their deaths. Why ? We haven't got a clue"

Susan , Actually I do like some of Michael Moore.
Other bits I don't.
Particularly the bit where he resolves world conflicts.
He resolbes Northern Ireland by suggesting al the Protestants convert to Catholicism.
Later he writes to Yasser Arafat urging him to end the Intifada. In fact Israel has tried hard and failed to link Arafat to the start of the Intifada. It is clearly a spontaneous rising. Moore further claims that South Africa, in contrast, was sorted without violence. I assume he doesn't include the ANC bombing bars and restaurants and necklacing people as violent.
I'm surprised he didn't suggest all the Jews convert to Islam ??

GWB is reforging his father's links to the Saddam regime.
Reagan and Bush senior were strong allies of the Saddam regime in Iraq's war against Iran in the 1980's.
Now Bush is aiding MEK, an Iranian group listed as a terrorist group by the US state department and a group strongly linked to Saddam's regime
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/iraq99l.htm

Bush plans to ally with these terrorists in order to destabilise the Iran government
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/ITeamInsider.html#Iran
Its true what people say about these "axis of evil" states and "their terrorist allies".

susan ever wake up face down in the back of 71 eldorado??
sounds like you could use it.

Robert you are a simpleton because if you have ever been to any city larger than the petticoat junction town you currently reside in then you would know just how bad the american ghettoes are.

The only difference between south central and gaza are the military vehicles being used to subdue the population and the fact that the good people in south central are armed more heavily.

Are you actually saying the black people in Los Angeles county acted reasonably after the Rodney King verdicts!The citizens in California who have been paying off the 5 billion in damages might beg to differ with you.The 200 store owners who lost everything may too,not to mention the 40-50 people who lost their lives in those riots.

Where do you live,Oz?

I'm perfectly willing to admit that the Iraqis are infinitely better off than they were under that patron of Frazetta-esque barbarian art. That's fine. What bothers me, however, is an administration selling a war to the public under false pretenses, and then justifying it after the fact with an obviously disingenuous motive. And I agree, with your point that the U.N.'s function should be exactly that: to put a stop to atrocities. But, with that said, the administration is now trying to portray itself as a liberator of oppressed peoples when that was so apparently not the initial motivation. Cheney himself, in August: "There is no doubt that Iraq has reconstituted nuclear weapons". Ari Fleischer a few months later: "That (removing the WMD threat) is the reason for this war". That doesn't seem to be the case now. But, at any rate Michelle, thanks for replying in a polite and intelligent fashion... two qualities which seem to be in short supply these days.

Hi Cassandra!

You are a star in an otherwise cloudy sky here.

Yes. I will readily admit that two months is not the same as 12 years. But this statement by Rumsfeld is a remarkable turnaround, don't you think?

I tell you what else. If REAL weapons of MD are found, I will come back and admit I was wrong AND apologize. Frankly, I wish they would, if only so our soldiers did not die for nothing. Likewise, nothing would please me more than to see an authentic videotape of Saddam signing a check to Osama. I do not think this will happen however.

My concern is that many of the folks (beside yourself) with whom I have been jousting have the attention span of a potato. Furthermore, it is hardest to prove that something DIDN'T exist. Thus, when I read the quoted remarks of the Administration's Pointman, Rumsfeld, now back-pedalling from the "serious" "immediate" threat of Iraqi WMD promised to US by our Fearless Leader as a pretext for going to war, I fear that by the time 12 years, or 5, or whatever have passed, the fact that we were lied to will no longer matter to most. (Out of generosity, I will allow for the possibility that the President was given some VERY BAD ADVICE/INFORMATION by people in his inner circle with their own perverted agenda.)

But even the lie itself isn't near as troubling as the fact that 5 US troops have been killed just SINCE LAST SUNDAY. Why are they being kept in a position of being killed while Bush and Rumsfeld sleep soundly at nite???? If it wasn't to keep US (and Israel) safe from non-existant WMD, then why? There is no proof STILL of a terrorist connection between Iraq and Al Quaeda. Absent such, that leaves only rank regime-change itself - or an oil grab.

ANd you didn't comment on the Jessica Lynch "Lie Within a Lie". Pretty amusing to compare the detailed accounts of the Iraqi doctors and nurses with the guns blazin' Penatagon pap of which movies will be made.

ps: Did you read the reports about the Penatagon's strategy for dealing with Iran? They want to recruit the MEK (Mujahadeen e Khalq) to conduct armed incursions into Iraq for the purpose of "destabilizing" that regime. Now I have no problem with letting Iranians die instead of Americans in this cause. But the MEK is listed with the State Dep't as a terrorist group the same as Al Quaeda. One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter, huh? If I were the MEK, I'd be very leery about dealing with those shifty Americans. They might turn on me the way they did on Saddam, and Al Quaeda before me.

You have integrity and guts. That's more than I can say for many of the others named above, who are oh so silent now.

with much respect,

yaksun

Susan Serin-Done,

You aren't the only one ignoring them....I am beginning to think one of them comes out of his belltower long enough to buy more ammunition[Who shall remain nameless - but who ever has been posting here for awhile should realize who it is]. I have never seen so much anger come through when someone posts.It might be time to see a real doctor.

Harden:

I'll assume you are referring to me in your last post.

Anyone who reads that 5 US troops were killed this week while occupying Iraq on behalf of a regime that lied to the American (and British) publics about the reasons for invading that nation and who doesn't get angry for the waste of life should re-think their priorities.

BTW, the worst is yet to come. Expect many more US soldiers to die in Iraq occupying that country than did taking it. You heard it here first.

And for what?

yaksun

Comical Rummy: My point about East Timor vs. Palestine is that the immeasurably worse crime got a lot less press, despite the fact that both governments in question received massive US aid. Doesn't this discrepancy interest you at all?

Sharon is in no way comparable to Milosevic or Suharto. Please try to learn how to recognize genocide when you see it. If the Israelis actually intended to obliterate the Palestinians, you know as well as I do that they have the means. You will notice that they have not. They have done stupid things and, yes, vicious things, but deliberate, wholesale slaughter — no. (And, no, I have not forgotten about Baruch Goldstein, but one crazed Israeli nut acting on his own bizarre initiative does not a pattern make.)

As for Wafa Idris: well, you say "at least her crime is known." Good heavens, CR, don't you understand that to a large demographic it wasn't a crime? There are streets and schools named after this woman. Poems are written about her. She killed an inoffensive old man who was a total stranger to her, but he was an Israeli, so let's all celebrate!

I am sorry that this doesn't sicken you. It does me.

NY Times (via CNN), 5/30/03:

"'The American people were manipulated,' bluntly declares one person from the Defense Intelligence Agency, who says he was privy to all the intelligence there on Iraq."

"'The Al Quaeda connection and nuclear weapons were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.,' notes Greg Thielmann, who retired in September after 25 years in the State Department, the last four in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. 'And the Administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.'"

Keep it coming. Keep it coming. The truth will out.

yaksun

Ed: Thanks as well for your civil and reasoned questions! I'm still not persuaded that there are no WMD. You will recall that lots of people were arguing for another six months' worth of inspections before the war started. Perhaps we should wait another four months before we pronounce?

I've seen one wild possibility floated (I think in an article on NRO) — that Saddam himself may have thought that he had active WMD programs, but his underlings were systematically deceiving him and siphoning off the money for their own purposes. It sounds conceivable to me, and it would explain what we thought he had and what he thought he had, and why neither of them was actually there. (If they aren't, which I submit we don't yet know, but it sure does begin to look that way.)

I am curious what you think was our real motivation. If it was to get the oil, we'd have done better just to urge the UN to lift the sanctions — I mean, assuming we didn't think Iraq actually had WMD, why not? Oil delivery up, price down, what's not to like? I mean, we'll have that now too, but at enormous expense. High-tech wars do not come cheap. Then there were our ominous noises toward Syria, which has no oil.

So commentators switched from "all about oil" to our nefarious plan to democratize the Middle East. Which might even be the truth. Personally, I hope it is.

With all due respect to the Royal family Bush,why dont we establish democracy in the banana republic known as Florida before discussing the middle east.

The right wing zealots who dominate this board should think about the humiliation that is currently going on in the pentagon over this Jessica Lynch story,the Donald Rumsfeld admission and the body bag count on the rise.

Allow me to apologize for exercising my right of free speech as I know it annoys the crap out you guys with the large trust funds.

Doesnt it bother any of you when Warren Buffet and Alan Greenspan and the department of the treasury speak out against tax cuts?

How do all you God fearing Christians think we will be able to fund homeland security,Israels security,the payoff to the Turks which is forthcoming and a 2 front war or terror while cutting taxes?

Let me know and when you do you can stop by and do my taxes for me.

Keep tying the yellow ribbons,Bush is the shepard and you are the sheep.

Dear Chris,

I don't find you especially annoying, just lame. Do please speak freely, and I'll even sign over my nonexistent "large trust fund" as a gift to you if you email your street address.

But as you know exactly zero about my income, my finances, my religious views, or my opinion of Bush's tax cuts, kindly refrain from presenting speculation as fact.

I apologize to you Michelle and any who are offended.

I just take great satisfaction with lumping all who disagree with me into categories.
religion
economics etc etc....

I equate it with the panels frequent use of the word ""liberal"" as if anyone who thinks differently than they are ""liberal"' or as often put,""dimocrats"".

Next time I want to attend a good ole cross burning I'll look some of these good ole boys up.

Are Strom Thurman and Jesse Helms still members of the Republican party?
Who says George Wallace delegates dont have a sense of humor!!

Chris: Pardon me for cutting in. Ha, if all you get called here by some of these folks is "liberal" or "dimocrat", count yourself as lucky.

I've even had people on here tell me what race and sex they think I am just based on what I've written.

Try: "queer", "traitor", "faggot", "crazy", and ***hole, etc. The civility level for some of these folks jsut about drove me off, but the latest developments in the news are just too appealing to let slide.

Its amusing how many of those "old boy" hardcores have turned reticent in these past few days.

Have a good one.

yaksun

Chris,

You don't get it. I'm not "offended," I'm amused. I suppose that's uncharitable of me.

You know, if you listened and read these comments closely, you might discover that there are a great many people who do try to think through political questions one by one, carefully, and neither pigeonhole their opponents on these questions nor fall neatly into the pigeonholes themselves. Civilized dialogue is not impossible. It does require giving up certain easy pleasures, like mentioning the KKK every so often just for the fun of it. (As a matter of fact, I believe the one former KKK member now in the Senate is a Democrat, but as you doubtless know his name I won't mention it here.)

Look, take issues one by one. Think them through. Don't assume that "he who says A must say B" when A and B have nothing at all to do with one another. Treat questions as questions, not rhetorical opportunities, and treat your fellow human beings as human beings, who may believe what they do about any particular question for any number of reasons which you cannot guess and have no right to presuppose.

Sincerely,

Michelle Dulak (registered Democrat)

I apologize for the first sentence of the second paragraph above, which is a garbled mess. Changed my mind halfway through the sentence and forgot to fix the first half. Sorry!

Ive been following many of the postings on this board.There are goldstar dads,wives of serviceman,ex-vets and a plethora of other intelligent people who bring many fresh ideas and different insight to the proverbial table.

Then you have the core Bush constituency.
""na na na na,you are a liberal""
or
""kill em all and let God sort em out"".

I may be a paranoid individual but if I told you after Pearl Harbor that F.D.R. knew it was coming you wouldve called me crazy,today that has been basically established as a fact.

Come to your own conclusions about the Iraq thing,its painfully obvious to me and anyone who has any sense this was nothing but a grab for oil and a big reward for the good people at Haliburton

We are starting to win their hearts and minds!

baaahhaaaa baaahaaa baaaahaa black sheep.

Chris:

Ive been following many of the postings on this board.There are goldstar dads, wives of serviceman,ex-vets and a plethora of other intelligent people who bring many fresh ideas and different insight to the proverbial table.

Then you have the core Bush constituency.
"na na na na, you are a liberal"
or
"kill em all and let God sort em out."

Ah, I see. And you put me where in this bestiary exactly?

Chris, there have been intelligent discussions going on on this very thread in the last day that didn't involve irrelevant (to the thread) comments about "good ole boys" or tax cuts or anything at all but the Middle East, which was, you know, sort of the original topic.

Scroll up and look, please.

And yes, I shall "come to my own conclusions" about Iraq. One of the first that occurs to me is that if this were all a ploy to benefit Haliburton, we would have let Iraq sabotage the oilfields as it did last time in Kuwait. Haliburton is one of very few companies that have the wherewithal to put out such fires. By removing the bombs set on the wells near Basra, we cost them millions of dollars' worth of fruitful labor, yes?

"My fellow Americans, you can relax now, The scarometer is back to level orange .The mean guys with the beards are curently on vacation and nothing can happen right now.

When I raise the scarometer back to red, you will know that you instantly need to be so scared again that you will believe everything I say.

Thank you for your attention."
president Bush.
Yep, I'm the president!

Well Michelle I would put you and the 99% others into the intelligent crowd.

Most everyone on this panel does their homework and I see you have done yours.

Haliburton does clean up,lots of it over the years but their money maker is energy,has been and always will be their primary source of income.

In this instance and of course this is one mans opinion and I have been wrong thousands of times but why dump the oil or let it burn when you could pipe and sell it at much less financial cost to everyone involved.

America doesnt get much oil from that specific part of the world.Iraqi and Kuwait produce a sort of ""dirty oil"" that needs much more processing than the crude we get from places like Nigeria and Venezuela.

Speaking of Venezuela
isnt it a coincindence that the oil workers went on strike just before the war started and ended when Bagdad fell?

Maybe and maybe Salvatore Allende is making love to Tricia Nixon and David Eisenhauer.

Anyway,like a school teacher,all we want is to have people think and act like adults in a civil manner.

Unfortunetly some of the members on the panel dont want to be bothered by facts and instead prefer to stick their heads in the sand while waving the flag.

All have a blessed weekend,I'm going to burn about 200 gallons of fuel in my boat this weekend..

Hypocritical eh?

Michelle:
Pardon me for cutting in.

Repeat after me: "$500 MILLION".

Future possible earnings: "'virtually limitless thanks to an open-ended logistics contract with the US army." Source, Yahoo reprint of Financial Times Article entitled "Halliburton Earns on Iraq-Relate Projects", May 30, 2003.

The Army knocks it down. Halliburton gets rich, and I consider half a BILLION-plus to be pretty good pay, building it back up again. No, this was probably not the main reason for the "war" in Iraq, but its a nifty little consequence, don't you think?

I was amused by your post about the "nefarious plan to democratize the Middle East." In that regard, I ask you a question. Lets assume that the cardinal principle in a democracy is that the majority rules. The majority of Iraqis are Shiites who favor a mullah-ruled, strict, Islamic theocracy. Why then does the US insist that it will not allow that very form of government, going so far as to warn Iran (home to many Iraqi expatriates) not to urge such a government? Is that not self-contradictory?

yaksun

Chris: I'm sorry, but you are making less and less sense. If all we want is to "pipe and sell [the oil] at much less financial cost to everyone involved," it is hard to see why we needed to fight a war to do it. Lifting the sanctions would have gotten us cheap oil if that is what we wanted. The sanctions were always supposed to be our fault when they were in force, though it was the UN that imposed them; if we had lobbied strongly for them to be lifted . . . well, it would have been interesting to see who would have been opposed, and on what grounds. Might France or Germany or Russia have become suddenly worried about WMDs? Why, I think they might have. Sanctions are very handy if you want to make a black (or gray)-market profit.

If you mean we are going to confiscate the oil rather than buy it . . . oh, please. You think so? I am not going to say that no US Gov't would ever have done such a thing, but no US Gov't is going to steal Iraqi oil after having made prominent and repeated pledges that the oil belongs to the Iraqi people, &c.; It's just too dumb, Chris.

And then, having having made the point about how this is all about getting our hands on the desirable Iraqi oil, you add that the Iraqi oil isn't particularly desirable after all, and the good stuff is in Venezuela.

Which explains everything. I am sorry I was so blind before. We went into Iraq to spend billions of dollars opening a supply of oil that was constricted principally by a UN resolution that we forced through and could easily have gotten rescinded (at least, that was the claim of almost all the Left pre-war, when the sanctions were universally depicted as a US atrocity perpetrated upon the Iraqi people). Of course, the oil we actually want is in South America.

John Grisham might be able to make a plot of that. I can't.

yaksun: The majority of Iraqis are Shia, but if you know that the majority of Iraqis want a Shiite theocracy as their government you have information I don't. "Shiite" is not shorthand for "I wish to be ruled entirely by mullahs."

What we are trying to do is set up a loosely federated government that will allow the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds regional autonomy to some degree, while also keeping the country in one piece. You think this is a bad idea because . . . ?

Michelle,
I am as disgusted about East Timor as I am about ISrael and I made this clear when it was an issue.
Howver East Timor is over now.
Yes its true the US aided the appaling genocide in East Timor that you;ve highlighted. I think the solution would have been for more attanetion to be focesed on East Timor rather than less attention on Israel/Palestine.
I guess the reason Israel gets more attention is for the reason you've again deflected: that ISrael gets more economic, military and diplomatic aid than any othe country. And don't give me figures showing that Egypt gets, what is it ? 1/3 of the aid of ISrael and what do I have to say about that ! Egypt is many times the size of Israel in population but the main point is that a rogure regime liek Israel, Indonesia .. should not get any aid.

"If the Israelis actually intended to obliterate the Palestinians, you know as well as I do that they have the means."
I've heard this claim many times - that because the Israelis haven't murdered ALL the Pals that means thay haven't murdered ANY Pals. The logic doesn't hold. The same could apply to the oppression of Jews in Europe prior to the C20. There couldn't have been any pogroms otherwise there's have been no Jews left. also BS.

so where are we on IDris ? you point out that she gets more press than her victim. I say Hitler is more well known than most of his victims. You say Hitler killed more than Idris. Not sure how this reinforces your point whatever it was.
"that to a large demographic it wasn't a crime?"
what is your point now ? We're getting close to your point re the Congo, of course the killer sdon;'t regards it as a crime. Maybe you're thinking that the same applies to the crimes of the IDF, remember these murders are financed by your tax dollars ! Many in the US defend them !

"I am sorry that this doesn't sicken you."
where did I say it didn't ? By the way were you sickened by Ovadia Yosef's comments ? He gets 12% of Israel's votes ! what a country/regime, eh ? Did you know the West Bank infiltrators had a memorial to Baruch GOldstein ? Did you know a poster on the yahoo message boards has adopted the userid "Baruche_Goldstein" (spelling ?) in admiration of the serial killer ? Did you know the Jerusalem Post published a letter last year praising ex Israeli PM (and terrorist) Menachem Begin and stating " the only good Arab is a dead Arab". Its almost a pattern isn't it ?

yaksun,

Well actually no....I don't think you were even being considered. I was referring to the guy who pretends to be a conservative and it is so obvious to most of us that he goes the other way.A couple of times I thought he was the on the ledge ready to jump. I am just amazed he got his computer out there. He Must have Wi-Fi. I don't want to push him to hard - he might jump.

I must remind everyone here,again, that this a satirical board. Don't any of the liberals here ever laugh at anything? You guys are too serious. Satirical remember? You aren't going to solve the worlds problems here. Most of the liberals that post sound like they are running for office. At least when I am posting it is easy to see that I am a Knucklehead.Take a deep breath folks. You aren't going to convince us anymore than we are going to convince you.It is called being wired differently.

PS. Stop assuming - Yaksun. You are being paranoid. You are one of the more decent - thoughtout responders in here. If you guys aren't carefull - I am going to have to insist you take the word party out of Democratic.:)

Harden

Comical Rummy: I Israel had not gotten any US aid, Israel would not exist. (That is to say, the maps in the Palestinian schoolbooks would be accurate.) You may think that's a satisfactory situation; I don't.

You are wilfully missing my point about the Israelis having the means to obliterate the Palestinians. I am not saying that the Israelis have not harmed the Palestinians. I am not saying Israelis haven't killed Palestinians unjustifiably. I am saying that if their aim was genocide of Palestinians, they could have accomplished it in a day. They have not. I don't know how to make this clearer.

Wafa Idris: The point is that it's not particularly remarkable that a man who killed millions of people should be better known than any one of his victims, but that a killer of one elderly man should be so much better known than the victim is is unusual. And the reason I pointed out that much of the intended audience doesn't think Idris committed a crime is because you remarked that at least her crime was well-publicized. I am not sure what good you think that does, if she's seen as a role model and not a criminal.

To my observation that Wafa Idris is already having streets and schools named after her, you retort that some settlers made a memorial to Baruch Goldstein, and someone uses his name as a Yahoo userID, and the Jerusalem Post published a letter to the editor saying that Goldstein did the right thing. Yup, that looks like the Israeli government deifying Baruch Goldstein to me. There'll be a Baruch Goldstein Elementary School any minute now.

actually many ISraelis prefoundly disagree hat without US aid Israel would not exist, Israel is the regional superpower, it does no tneed US aid to oppress the Pals but I guess the more F16s it gets to indisciminately bomb (the phrase often used by human rights groups and as good a definition of terrorism the better) Pal civilians the better.

when you say with out US aid Israel would not exist do you mean that without US military the Israelis would not have been able to seize 55% of Palestine and ethnically cleanse its 2/3 Pal Arab inhabitants, that without US bribery and blackmail the 1947 UN vote would never have been passed. Well I agree with you there ! actually I think its great for the Jews to have a state - and Kurds, Native Americans if they want. I feel they got way to good a deal in 1947, and have ALWAYS wanted ALL of Palestine, the Ben Gurion plot to use the 1948 Israel as a bridge head to seize all of Palestine and drive out its indigineous people is well established.

"I am saying that if their aim was genocide of Palestinians, they could have accomplished it in a day." so just a few pogroms are OK then ? I guess you've made yourself clear.
"settlers made a memorial to Baruch Goldstein, and someone uses his name as a Yahoo userID, and the Jerusalem Post published a letter to the editor saying that Goldstein did the right thing."
yes its all very shocking and I'm surprised you don't think so. heres the memorial at his grave if you want to be shocked http://www.newkach.org/special/baruch/02.htm
Add to that the fact that Israel allows men like Ovadia Yosef who espouse genocide of Pals, men like Zeevi who call Pals lice and elects terrorists like Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir as leader and I think you get the picture of what sort of regime governs Israel,
Baruch Goldstein Elementary School ? there were a proposal for a Zeevi St in New York actually
http://www.antiwar.com/mcconnell/mc012902.html

missed a crucial phrase out there in my post:
I meant to say :
Add to that the fact that Israel allows men like Ovadia Yosef who espouse genocide of Pals, men like Zeevi who call Pals lice into their government !

hey michelle,
just been flickiing around the web.
there's a "scholarly" discussion here on this website on whether Baruch Goldstein's actions were justified from a religious viewpoint. very bizarre.
http://www.torah.org/learning/issues/goldstein.html
actually I've done a search in the text for "murder", found the first 5 instances and gave up : none of them were the context of Goldstein murdering innocent Arabs.

talking of the jpost here's an interesting letter suggesting a native american state in Texas !
http://www-origin.jpost.com/Letters/40349.html
what do you think ?
personally I think Illinois might be a better place. Heck there's plenty of other states for the Illinois refugees to settle in with their fellow Americans without denying Native America's "right to exist".

>>>susan ever wake up face down in the back of 71 eldorado??
sounds like you could use it.

Posted by: wade warren on May 30, 2003 08:00 AM

No wade, tell me what's it like?

>>>BTW, the worst is yet to come. Expect many more US soldiers to die in Iraq occupying that country than did taking it. You heard it here first.

And for what?

yaksun

Posted by: yaksun on May 30, 2003 12:24 PM

I pity you yak. It sounds like you take delight in the death of our Soldiers, just so you can say, "I told ya so!"

If that's the case, GOD has a special place for you in Hell!

'A' typical Lib, they have to hope the war goes bad, economy tanks, etc, so they can win back the White House. Win regardless of the outcome. Kind of reminds you of the 'Sports Parents' that are going nuts, and physically attacking Coaches, and/or sueing them because their child has been injured or doesn't get played enough!

>>>NY Times (via CNN), 5/30/03:

-----------------
Keep it coming. Keep it coming. The truth will out.

yaksun

Posted by: yaksun on May 30, 2003 12:43 PM

Yak: You quote the N.Y. Times and CNN, and then say, "The TRUTH will out."

What a COMPLETE FOOL you are! I will no longer read any of your posts! I put more faith in Jayson Blair! At least he doesn't DENY he is a LIAR!

Comical Rummy: Obviously we are never going to agree on this subject. Just a few more comments here.

I am not saying that "a few pogroms [interesting word choice there, CR] are OK"; I'm saying that Israel is not attempting genocide on the Palestinian people. There is a difference in kind between the West Bank and Srebenica or Rwanda or Cambodia or East Timor. It is not the same sort of situation. And it's not just a difference in scale; it's a difference in method and intention. Take Jenin — the IDF searched houses one by one (and lost a lot of soldiers in consequence, as there were booby-traps and ambushes). They could have simply blown them up; they did not. They could, had they wanted to kill Palestinians indiscriminately, have killed every last person in the place, at less risk to their own troops; they did not. Reasonable inference: they are not trying to kill Palestinians indiscriminately. I do not see how anyone looking fairly at the evidence could conclude otherwise.

Once more, this doesn't justify the civilian deaths that did occur. (I keep saying that, and you keep ignoring it.) It just means that we are not dealing with a state determined to exterminate an ethnic group, but a state attempting to defend itself from real threats, and doing so badly and at times unjustly.

Israelis have "ALWAYS" wanted "ALL" of Palestine, have they? How kind of you to assume that they are all clones of David Ben-Gurion. I would wager that a large fraction of the Israeli electorate would gladly give Gaza back to Egypt and the West Bank to Jordan — not, of course, that either country would have them as a gift.

The difference between naming a street or a school after a suicide bomber and naming one's Yahoo ID after Baruch Goldstein, or an independent newspaper's publishing a letter defending him, is that the former are government actions under the Palestinian Authority and the latter are individual actions taken by people in a society that (unlike the PA) respects freedom of speech. This is not complicated.

Israel is the "regional superpower," yes. It got that way largely through our help. Do you think Israel would still exist if it had never had US aid? I doubt it very much. Look at the demographic disparity; look at the disparity in natural resources; look at the profound hostility of the Arab states. Only great vigilance and a lot of military hardware have kept it alive. Do you really not believe that?

Michelle,
actually I never said Israelis wanted to kill every last Palestinian, I accused them of ethnic cleansing, which is th correct term for when an ethnic group are driven off their homeland, in this case, as in Kosovo, it involve numerous slaughters eg Deir Yassin.
and yes the "indiscriminate" attacks on Pal civilians, a term you dispute, is a term used by several human rights groups, Amnesty and Btselem I think.

"are all clones of David Ben-Gurion": OK the policy, both then and now, of the israeli government and its elected leader is to ethnically cleanse the Pals and seize their land and you think its Ok as not every last Israeli agrees with that - actually a Maariv poll DID show a significant number of Israelis supported ethnic cleansing "In the Maariv poll, more than a third of those surveyed said they supported the idea of "transfer" of Palestinians out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Arab countries." http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/February/Feb_19.htm

the letter to jpost I referred to did not defend Goldstein it praised Begin and stated "the only good Arab is a dead Arab": the shocking aspect is not that it was written but that it was published. the jpost is supposed to be part of a respected media empire including the Chicago Sun-Times: can you imagine if the CS-T publish " the only good Jew is a dead Jew" and the uproar that would rightly cause ? And that was only one aspect I noted to indicate Israels climate: the most important I though was that they elect terrorists as PM and include leaders who espouse genocide (eg Yosef) in government. Actually which parts of the PA approved the naming of a road after Idris ? Is that worse than Kiryat Arba settlement approving a memorial to GOldstein of NYC considering a Zeevi St ?

You refer to ISrael being "kept alive" - in fact you make it sounds like a living entity rather than a state which annexed Pal land and continues to do so ? Its this occupation that we keep alive. And until we stop feeding Israeli greed for yet more Pal land there will never be peace in the ME.
Until then the Palestinians will continue "attempting to defend itself from real threats, and doing so badly and at times unjustly" to use your phrase.

Michelle,

I did not say he Israelis try to kill every last Pal, I noted there desire to ethnicaly cleanse the Pals frmo their native land. I'm glad you think its OK that only the ISraeli government, its elected leaders, and not every single ISraeli support this policy - a poll in Maariv showed a significant number of Israeli support ethnic cleansing
"In the Maariv poll, more than a third of those surveyed said they supported the idea of "transfer" of Palestinians out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Arab countries."
http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/February/Feb_19.htm

you dislike the word indiscriminate for Israeli attacks on Pal civilians, this is the word used deliberately by several human right groups of Israel, Amnesty and Btselem I think.

the letter I referred to praised Begin and included the phrase "the only good Arab is a dead one" - its not that someone wrote it its that the jpost published it ! the jpost is part of a respected media group including the Chicago Sun-Times, can you imagine the uproar if the CST published a letter "the only good Jew is a dead Jew" ?

which part of the PA decidec to name these roads ? and is it worse the Kiryat Arba supporting a memorial to serial killer Goldstein or NYC wanting to name a Zeevi St ? And that is onyl part of the facts I noted indicating the climate of Israelis regime: the fact they elec terrorists like Begin and Shamir as PM and include men who espouse genocide like Yosef in government is worse.

You talk of keeping Israel "alive", by which you mean supporting the ongoing annexation of Pal land. WHile we support Israel its greed for more land wil lnever be sated and there wil never be peace. The pals will continue "attempting to defend itself from real threats, and doing so badly and at times unjustly." to use your phrase

Michelle,

I did not say he Israelis try to kill every last Pal, I noted there desire to ethnicaly cleanse the Pals frmo their native land. I'm glad you think its OK that only the ISraeli government, its elected leaders, and not every single ISraeli support this policy - a poll in Maariv showed a significant number of Israeli support ethnic cleansing
"In the Maariv poll, more than a third of those surveyed said they supported the idea of "transfer" of Palestinians out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Arab countries."
http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/February/Feb_19.htm

you dislike the word indiscriminate for Israeli attacks on Pal civilians, this is the word used deliberately by several human right groups of Israel, Amnesty and Btselem I think.

the letter I referred to praised Begin and included the phrase "the only good Arab is a dead one" - its not that someone wrote it its that the jpost published it ! the jpost is part of a respected media group including the Chicago Sun-Times, can you imagine the uproar if the CST published a letter "the only good Jew is a dead Jew" ?

which part of the PA decidec to name these roads ? and is it worse the Kiryat Arba supporting a memorial to serial killer Goldstein or NYC wanting to name a Zeevi St ? And that is onyl part of the facts I noted indicating the climate of Israelis regime: the fact they elec terrorists like Begin and Shamir as PM and include men who espouse genocide like Yosef in government is worse.

You talk of keeping Israel "alive", by which you mean supporting the ongoing annexation of Pal land. WHile we support Israel its greed for more land wil lnever be sated and there wil never be peace. The pals will continue "attempting to defend itself from real threats, and doing so badly and at times unjustly." to use your phrase

Michelle,

I did not say he Israelis try to kill every last Pal, I noted there desire to ethnicaly cleanse the Pals frmo their native land. I'm glad you think its OK that only the ISraeli government, its elected leaders, and not every single ISraeli support this policy - a poll in Maariv showed a significant number of Israeli support ethnic cleansing
"In the Maariv poll, more than a third of those surveyed said they supported the idea of "transfer" of Palestinians out of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to Arab countries."
http://www.acj.org/Daily%20News/February/Feb_19.htm

you dislike the word indiscriminate for Israeli attacks on Pal civilians, this is the word used deliberately by several human right groups of Israel, Amnesty and Btselem I think.

which part of the PA decidec to name these roads ? and is it worse the Kiryat Arba supporting a memorial to serial killer Goldstein or NYC wanting to name a Zeevi St ? And that is onyl part of the facts I noted indicating the climate of Israelis regime: the fact they elec terrorists like Begin and Shamir as PM and include men who espouse genocide like Yosef in government is worse.

You talk of keeping Israel "alive", by which you mean supporting the ongoing annexation of Pal land. WHile we support Israel its greed for more land wil lnever be sated and there wil never be peace. The pals will continue "attempting to defend itself from real threats, and doing so badly and at times unjustly." to use your phrase

Dear Comical Rummy,

Well, I suppose only we two are reading this old thread anyway, and as you have not supplied your actual email, there is no way for me to reply except by posting here.

In comparing the Israeli gov't to Suharto and Milosevic you were, by any reasonable standard, accusing Israel of attempting genocide. I know that Bosnia is the origin of the phrase "ethnic cleansing," but the Serbs weren't just evicting the Bosnians, they were taking them methodically in busloads to a central location in Srebenica and massacring them in batches. The Israelis, whatever crimes they are committing, have not done that or anything like it.

In talking of keeping Israel "alive," I mean exactly what I said. I think there should be a state called Israel with a predominantly Jewish population, and that it should be roughly the size of pre-1967 Israel and in pretty much the same place. If you disagree with any of that, please be specific.

I think most of the existing settlements are a bad idea, and more settlements would be a terrible idea. I suggest searching through my posts for enthusiasm about settlement-building; you won't find it.

A lot of Israelis feel the same. Even Sharon — the personification of all that is wicked, yes? — just signed on to a plan that involves dismantling two and a half years' worth of settlements and building no more.

I don't understand your idea of proportion. One NY City councilman wants to name a street after Ze'evi after the guy is assassinated, and this is equivalent to the acting government of Palestine actively honoring mass murderers of civilians. Is it necessary for me to point out that the NYC councilman was not a member of the Israeli government, or indeed an Israeli citizen, and that his proposal not only didn't pass but was widely ridiculed? Apparently it is.

The same goes for the Jerusalem Post letter. Good God, man, it's a letter to the editor, not an editorial. It might have been poor judgment to have allowed it to be printed, but then there might have been any number of reasons to run it. Like, say, exposing bigotry. The editors of letters pages often do pick the dumbest letters advocating dumb positions to run, simply because the letters make the positions look even dumber than they are. If you don't believe me, try reading the letters page of the Arab News for a week or so.

I stand by what I said about keeping Israel alive: if it were not for US aid, the country would have been destroyed. a long time ago. The place does not have natural resources sufficient to support the only kind of military that could prevent its being overwhelmed by its neighbors (i.e., one that can do anything, quickly). The closest thing to a natural resource is the climate and the Mediterranean, but tourism is kind of a losing proposition when there's always the possibility that when you sit down to lunch someone is going to punch you full of rat-poison-soaked nails.

I do need to make a serious correction. I was mistaken in thinking that I had seen reports of schools named for Wafa Idris. The shahida honored that way is Dalal Mughrabi, who hijacked a bus in 1978 and killed 36 Israelis and wounded dozens of others. Clearly a bigger cheese than Idris.

Dear Michelle,

I know of the Srebrenica masacre but can you supply to link to this busloads and cental location incident.
Ethnic cleansing means the expulsion of a native people. You say the Israelis have never massacred civilians in doing this. Have you never heard of Deir Yassin and Tantura in 1947. Or more recently the deliberate bombardment of the UN base Qana killing over 100 in Lebanon.

re the jpost I wonder if your excuses would be the same if the letter referred to Jews and was in the Chicago SUn-Times etc - nr is it the only letter of that ilk. There was also a letter re the bombing of the wedding in Afghanistan "Mooslimes shouldn't have weddings, it pollutes the gene pool". And the letter was the least of my beefs against the Israeli regime as you recall.

Well I'm glad the NYC isn't controlled by Israel, I wonder why then a member suggested the naming of a street after an ISraeli extremist, it makes it even more weird. Re the PA naming the school - are you sure this was approved by the PA at some high level ? I'm not sure this is worse at all than the Goldstein memorial and certainly naming shools after terrorists is better than electing terrorists. I've made these points before, we seem to be going round in circles here

"the country would have been destroyed" you mean the annexation and dispossession of the majority Pal inhabitants would have been reversed. Actually I also agree with an Israel back in its 1967 borders, so does Arafat, but I can never seen it happening, by the way have you noticed the new wall between the WB and ISrael is annexing yet more Pal land cutting far deeper into Pal land then the Green Line.

Harden: My bad. I apologize. ("The paranoids are out to get me!) ;-)

Michelle: The concept you mention is quite noble. I do not believe it will work in Iraq like it did in, e.g., post war Japan, which was a mono-racial society based primarily on one religion. If it does however, I will be grateful - for our troops will not have died in vain. This concept of liberating the Iraqis for a democracy does not square with the Administraion's promise of immediate threat from WMD:

"'Simply stated, there is NO DOUBT that Saddam Hussein NOW HAS weapons of mass destruction.'" VP Dick Cheney, in an August 26, 2002 speech to the VFW, (Taken from Wash. Post art. 5/29/03, "US Hedges on Finding Iraqi Weapons").

Also, you didn't get back to me about the $500 MILLION-plus reasons Halliburton has for celebrating the Iraq "war".

Susan S-D: If you will take a moment to remove the flag from in front of your eyes and reread any of my posts along these related threads, you will see that while I have always opposed our intervention in Iraq, I have NEVER rooted for our troops to fail or to be killed. I will not dignify that aspersion by further rebuttal. It makes me sick to read that 5 US loved ones were killed last week, and that ex-soldiers of the Iraq military are today (various news services) are threatening to carry out suicide bombings against our kin who have been ordered to occupy and secure that country by a Government which seems to have lied about the reasons for being there. It occurs to me that any level-headed citizen has the right to inquire why our loved ones are being put in harm's way (i.e., I'm not willing to accept GWB's word for it).

If anyone is entitled to say, "I told you so", about the lying and the lack of wisdom of our involvment in Iraq, it is me. I have been saying the same since the first of the year when I found this cite, and I have certainly been castigated for it. You are way, way down on the list of those who have accused me for being "unpatriotic". As for me, I consider it to be equally "unpatriotic" to send loved ones off to be killed without having a good, truthful reason for doing so. And yet, I do not attack you personally for what I perceive as gullibility, or worse. Dry your eyes. Take a deep breath. And then tell me what you want to do about North Korea, which has nukes, and Iran, which is trying to acquire them.

NEWS FLASH:

"The Pentagon today announced the discovery of real, true, honest WMD in Fallujah, Iraq.

"Yup. Its true," said SecDef. Donald Rumsfeld. "Some of our boys were shopping in this Ma and Pa grocery store when they found this suspicious box. They called in some haz-mat guys who opened it to find no less than 12 fly swatters and 2 cans of Raid."

"Early reports indicate that houseflys throughout the region are breathing sighs of relief with the knowledge that these WMD have been secured by US forces."

Your fellow American,

Yaksun

"Annexation of Palestinian lands..."
Interesting. Isreal is attacked by Jordan. They lose, and Isreal takes the West bank.
Isreal is attacked by Syria. They lose, and Isreal takes the Golan Heights.
Isreal is attacked by Egypt. They lose, and Isreal takes the Gaza Strip and the Sinai.

So which parts were Palestinian?

The part where haifa and tel aviv are,were palestine untill britain and all the other nations,guilt ridden and looking to make amends,turned it into israel,chalk up another victory for the u.n.

Oh, you mean Lebanon.

Comical Rummy:

You can Google "Srebenica massacre" as well as I can. But try

http://www.pcma.com/crisis_intervention_news/cbsoncharter/story_134895.html

The women and children were bused across the front line and dumped in safe territory. The men, thousands of them, were bused to neighboring Serb villages, lined up and shot.

The accounts I remember from 1995 were a little different: There was an open mine in Srebenica; buses full of people went into the site, and empty buses came out.

I have not the time to research this for you, but if you are anxious to find out I don't think you'll find it difficult.

Now, the PA claims 2100 or so dead in the three years of the second intifada. According to many independent news sources (none controlled by Bosnians, I think), the Serbs killed 8000 or so Bosnians in July, 1995, systematically and en masse.

That, sir, is what a campaign of genocide looks like. That is what the Serbs were doing in Bosnia.

Re letters to the editor, I strongly recommend, again, checking out the Arab Times, which publishes a lot of US letters as well as Saudi and other Arab ones. I'd wager that you could match the viciousness of your two examples in any given month. And if you checked the Arabic-language press your chances would be even better.

Good heavens, man, you know as well as I do what gets printed — as presumably-editorially-authorized commentary, mind you, not as "letters to the editor" — in major Arab newspapers. (If you don't, try MEMRI.)

Naming schools after terrorists is better than electing terrorists.

Is it? I'm not honestly sure. But if it is, it would be nice if you deigned to mention Arafat occasionally alongside Begin &c.; And do bear in mind that the PLO was trying to "liberate Palestine" years before there were "occupied territories" in the sense we mean it now. They wanted Israel to be destroyed. They still want it to be destroyed. Do you doubt it?

[By] "the country would have been destroyed" you mean the annexation and dispossession of the majority Pal inhabitants would have been reversed.

CR, what I mean is that the Jewish state would have been overrun, almost all of the Jewish inhabitants killed or expelled, and the territory claimed by one or more Arab states.

You have said above that you believe in the idea of a Jewish state, and that you also believe that Israel should be secure within the 1967 borders. I repeat that the only way Israel is going to be secure within those borders is by being armed to the teeth (or, of course, among friends — which is not going to happen as long as every Arab schoolchild is told that "Palestine" includes pre-1967 Israel).

Things are looking up; actual talks are going on, on a timetable that for once seems intelligently designed. If we can cut the demonization and start thinking rationally we might actually get somewhere this time.

Naming schools after terrorists is better than electing terrorists.

That line in the post above is Comical Rummy's; I meant to italicize it but forgot. Sorry.

yaksun: I don't think keeping Iraq in one piece and peaceful is going to be easy; I was just disputing your line

The majority of Iraqis are Shiites who favor a mullah-ruled, strict, Islamic theocracy.

I don't think "the majority of Iraqis" want any such thing, and I don't see how you could possibly know if they did. Gallup poll, maybe?

As to Halliburton: As I pointed out somewhere else, the easiest way to make lots of work for Halliburton would have been to let the Iraqis sabotage the oilfields. There a lot of companies who know how to extract oil, but very few who know how to put out oil fires.

Michelle,

far be it from to defend the crimes of the Balkans,
I notice that those crimes were conducted by Slobo's Serbian allies not Slobo himself.
"That, sir, is what a campaign of genocide looks like."
yes it looks strangely like the events of Sabra and Chatilla where Sharon sent the Phalangists into the camps to murder Pal civilians. I guess you're going to claim that no blame, no war crimes, attach to Sharon for that ?
I don't think its that unlike Qana where a base full of civilians was deliberately bombarded. It looks very much like the atrocities conducted by Sharon's Unit 101.It looks very much like Deir Yassin or Tantura or any of countless atrocities in the 1940's when Israel seized the Pal land, driving out or killing the inhabitants.
It looks very much like the Israeli ethnic cleansing that the US has always financed.
Much of this terrorism was carried out by Begin and Shamir.

"Naming schools after terrorists is better than electing terrorists.
Is it? I'm not honestly sure. "
well you should be sure.

"But if it is, it would be nice if you deigned to mention Arafat occasionally alongside Begin &c.;"
Why is Pal terrorism some unheard of scoop I need to be informed of ? Of course I condemn Pal terrorism. the difference is that Pal terrorism is well known and deplored in the US. Israeli terrorism is not well known, is not widely deplored, is even defended and funded. Thats why I need to redress the balance.

"almost all of the Jewish inhabitants killed or expelled, and the territory claimed by one or more Arab states."
thats funny as Jews and Arabs had coexisted in Palestine for centuries, not always totally peacefully but Jews were treated there BETTER by Arabs than they were in Europe. You are attempting to turn the Pal victims of Israeli ethnic cleansing into aggressors against the Israeli invaders. ludicrous.

"Things are looking up; actual talks are going on, on a timetable that for once seems intelligently designed."
how is that ? Israel is already rejecting the road map - it has raised 14 reservations that it doesn't intend to abide to whereas the Pals accepted the road map without reservations a month ago. Israeli illegal annexation of Pal land continues. How about when Israel agrees to FREEZE illegal settlements at current levels then the Pals agree to freeze attacks on Israelis at current levels ? sound fair ? why not ? you think NO attacks on Israelis should be allowed ? Well I would agree - also NO illegal settlements can be allowed. They are not for final status discussion deep in the future. Did you notice that the Israelis are claiming that preventing the ongoing land grab of the remnants of Pal land would be the same as forcing Israeli women to have abortions !! weird eh ?

Some Random Guy,

you need to hit the books,
"So which parts were Palestinian?"
all those bits and what if current Israel were Palestinian until in 1947 Israel attacked the Paletinians who had lived in that territory for centuries and who were still 2/3 of the population. The number of Palestinians driven out from the territory taken by Israel in 1947-1949 is estimated at 600.000 to 720.000 (says the nationalistic Israeli historian Benny Morris in his authoritative The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem)

Comical Rummy,

OK, I'm up late doing some editorial work, and, why, there you are again. Still w/o valid email, so one more time . . .

You make an interesting point about Bosnia. Milosevic didn't do the dirty work, but sent in "his Serbian allies." This is supposed to be like Sharon sending in the Lebanese Christian militias in Sabra/Shatila (well, actually, failing to keep them out — I suppose the strict Srebenican analogue to Sharon would be the Dutch peacekeeping forces, but never mind.)

But here's the interesting difference. Any American who was watching the news in the mid-90s or later has heard of Mladic and Karadzic. My memory of 1982 news is a little hazy — I was still in high school — but if any Christian Lebanese Phalangist's name has ever been a common feature of the front page of an American newspaper it is news to me. No, Sharon was the "Butcher of Lebanon," and the people who actually did the butchery — well, they weren't Israelis; who'd want to read about them?

I would. Personally, I'd like to know what prompted these militias to rush into refugee camps and murder hundreds of people. But, on the whole, Lebanon is a subject critics of Israel rather tend to avoid, is it not? For one thing, it's pretty well "occupied territory," but unfortunately not occupied by Israel. Bummer.

And speaking of Syria (you did realize I was speaking of Syria, yes?), just about the time that Sharon was earning his reputation for butchery in Lebanon, Hafez al-Assad obliterated the town of Hama, killing . . . oh, the smallest estimate I've seen was 7500. The largest ones cluster around 30000.

Sabra/Shatila is famous. Hama is one of those things people occasionally mention.

Understand: They happened at the same time. They happened within a few dozen miles of one another. One killed an order of magnitude more people than the other, at minimum.

That's the one that's forgotten. Naturally.

"Naming schools after terrorists is better than electing terrorists.
Is it? I'm not honestly sure. "
well you should be sure.

Then let's both notice Begin and Arafat and call it a wash, shall we? Really, it seems silly to say that the PA merely names schools after terrorists while Israel elects them, while ignoring entirely the past of the PA's once-elected leader (who was, once again, devoted to violently liberating "Palestine" before the "Occupied Territories" as we know them were "Occupied.")

I think you owe Some Random Guy an apology, by the way. If Gaza and the West Bank are Palestinian land, then obviously Egypt and Jordan were occupying Palestinian land up til 1967, yes? How is it that no one was incensed about that?

Scott Ott, if for some perverted, masochistic reason you should happen to be reading this, please forgive my turning your archives into troll-feeding ground. I simply can't help myself.

Hi Michelle,

if you don't mind I sort of have a policy not to give out my email address to anyone. I know some pro-ISraelis can be nasty people. No offence and I'm certinaly not thinking of you personally. Also I can't see any reason why debating on this board is a problem ?

I disagree that Sharon is analogous to the Dutch peacekeepers. The peacekeepers failed to prevent a massacre whereas, in contrast, the IDF were in total control of those camps and sent the phalange killers into the camps in full knowledge that a massacre would occur.

I would say the Phalange killers are reasonably well known and its a crime that they also haven't been brough to justice. But Elie Hobeika isn;t a major recepient of US aid: military, economic and diplomatic (particularly since he was mysteriously killed by a car bomb).
"I'd like to know what prompted these militias to rush into refugee camps and murder hundreds of people"
is that condoning it ? Do you ask the same question when Pals bomb Israelis ? We know, the IDF knew, the Phalangists hated the Pals as there had been many atrocities on both sides before eg Damour. Yes Hama is well known in that pro)Israelis often mention it to justify Sabra+Chatilla (again not done by our ally, the big difference), and that makes Sabra and Chatilla OK ? thats like saying its OK for the Pals to kill Israelis as Hitler killed many more Jews, It makes no sense.

"Sabra/Shatila is famous"
actually its not that famous, I didn't see any major coverage during its 20th anniversary last year.
"ignoring entirely the past of the PA's once-elected leader "
so we agree Begin=Arafat, both states led by terrorists, funny how Israel manages to project itself as an ally in the war against terror ?!

"How is it that no one was incensed about that?" maybe because in the 48 war it wasn't seized by force with the native population being violently driven out. I would say the Jordanese etc tok that land to protect it against the invading israelis,
and yes I know about the later Black September war etc but Jordan even offered the Pals citzenship, something Israel never ofered to the Pals under occupation in the WB/Gaza, of course they want the land but not the people.

CR:

You're entirely entitled to keep your email address private. I was just beginning to think this was a pretty surreal conversation to be having in the archives of a satirical website.

"I'd like to know what prompted these militias to rush into refugee camps and murder hundreds of people"
is that condoning it ?

No.

Do you ask the same question when Pals bomb Israelis ?

Yes.

The Hama massacre doesn't "justify" Sabra/Shatila; nothing could do that. It does sort of contextualize it, though. At the end of the day, Sharon is still the "Butcher of Lebanon" twenty years later, while Assad is just your average deceased dictator and the dead of Hama (who probably outnumber the Palestinians dead at Israeli hands over the last twenty years) have become, as you say, a debating point.

No, you didn't see any 20th-anniversary commemoration of Sabra/Shatila. Nor of Hama, I imagine.

It is kind of you to mention "Black September," as there's another enormous massacre that dwarfs anything Israel has done in the mass-killing line and is practically forgotten.

I do not understand your repeated point that, well, these things weren't done with our money, whereas Israel's crimes were. I can understand that mattering to an American activist, because it would condition what you had direct power to change. I can't imagine, though, why it would matter to a European activist, whose country had nothing particular invested in Israel or Syria or Jordan. Yet, oddly enough, the European press is even more interested in Israeli crimes than is ours, and even less interested in trifles like Hama. Weird, yes?

Final question: Suppose that it were proposed that Egypt should take back Gaza and Jordan should take back the West Bank, both places being purged of all settlements. Do you think that either country would take the land back? Do you think it would be just for them to do so?

Hi Michelle,

"Yet, oddly enough, the European press is even more interested in Israeli crimes than is ours"
the European press generally is less pro-Israel than in the US.

re Gaza/WB, maybe your or any proposal on the future of them should be voted on by the inhabitants (still 90% Palestinian), according to the principle of self-determination that was violated when Israel seized Palestine in 1947.

You guys are on today...wow...
The Christian president of Lebanaon,I believe his name was Gemayel,was murdered by Palestinians in the spring of 82.
Sabra and Shattila were the results however they couldnt have been done without the aid of uncle ari and his people.
Amazingly enough Lebanon has been fairly peacefull since Israel packed its bags a few years back,I often wonder if that scenario could play itself out in the occupied lands??

Sean,

thats right Bachir Gemayel dies in a car bomb a few days before. Many people blamed the Pals so it would have even more obvious to Sharon the consequences of ordering the Phalange into a camp full of Pals, mainly unarmed women and children. No PLO, they must have thought it was Xmas (since they were nominally Christians).

Its not established that the bombing was by Pals.
SOme sources totally dispute it
"the assassination of the Lebanese Forces' leader, president-elect Bashir Gemayel, on September 14 - a massacre that Sharon publicly, and erroneously, blamed on Palestinians. "
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,608171,00.html
Syria is another possibility,
Of course Elie Hobeika the phalange military commander was car bombed last year, many suspect ISrael of that on the grounds he was about to reveal further ISrael involvement in Sabra and Shatilla.

The fact of the matter is that over the last 10 years the only bombs blowing up in lebanon are courtesy of the mossad.
Also the Christian Phalangist who was murdered was due to give a statement I believe to either the Hague or to the Belgian govt where Sharon is scheduled to be charged with war crimes directly related to this mess.
I should have been more specific when saying the PLO was responsible,it could have been a dozen different groups,however they were muslims.

Sean: Well, I had to be up, and one may as well read . . .

CR:

"Yet, oddly enough, the European press is even more interested in Israeli crimes than is ours"
the European press generally is less pro-Israel than in the US.

Um, you're missing my point. I said that the American press features Israeli crimes were treated out of proportion to other, nearby, much larger crimes. You said more or less that that's because it's "our tax dollars at work." I then asked why, if that's so, the European press is even more hostile to Israel. You reply that the European press is less pro-Israel. Um, yes, but why? You would think that countries that aren't spending any particular money on Israel or Syria could look objectively at Hama and Sabra/Shatila and notice that one was, oh, ten times bigger than the other one, and judge the crime accordingly. But oddly enough that isn't how it shakes out.

re Gaza/WB, maybe your or any proposal on the future of them should be voted on by the inhabitants (still 90% Palestinian), according to the principle of self-determination that was violated when Israel seized Palestine in 1947.

Ahem. Israel seized Palestine in 1947? I can understand "Israel was forcibly created out of Palestine in 1947 (or 48 really)," but Israel at its creation wasn't in a position to "seize" anything. I am guessing you mean 1967, but maybe you don't.

CR, suppose Israel had not taken the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt in 1967. Would you now be arguing for their "self-determination"? Are you in fact arguing for the "self-determination" of any other part of Egypt or Jordan? Indeed, is there any part of the entire Middle East, with the sole exceptions of Israel, maybe Turkey, and (maybe, with luck) Iraq that has got it? I mean, in the let's-take-a-vote-and-decide-what-to-do sense that you describe?

Aaargh, sorry. That first sentence is hopelessly garbled. I wrote it, revised it, and neglected to revise all of it. (Memo to self: DO NOT stay up all night.)

I said that the American press features Israeli crimes out of proportion to other, nearby, much larger crimes.

There. That's actually intelligible.

Israel isnt even in the ballpark when discussing genocide against other arabs.
Jordan killed more palestinians in 1970 than Israel has killed in 60 years.
Saddam has killed more Arabs than all the other nations combined,most of the murder occured under our very own eyes when he was an ally.

Michelle
I believe the point our colleague is trying to make is this.
We,the united states of america,are being hypocritical when we claim to be enforcing the u.n mandates against iraq.
then not only ignore the resolutions against israel but rewarding them as the biggest benefactors of our foreign aid(russia may have surpassed israel)...
I really dont care what happens in the ""holy land"",I just dont want to be associated with the suppresion of the palestinian people and as long as caterpillar bulldozers and apache helicopters are running roughshod over the territories then we as americans are collectively guilty.
Right wrong or indifferent..

Sean,

Sorry to be so late replying. I think that before you denounce our "hypocrisy" over justifying our move into Iraq via a UN mandate, you need to consider the other varieties of hypocrisy floating around in the UN stew. There's the obvious — countries sending troops into foreign countries without UN authorization while insisting that troops may be sent into foreign countries only with UN authorization (Hello, France! — of course, they did get the authorization, but they didn't even ask for it til the troops were already in Cote d'Ivoire).

But the hypocrisy regarding Israel is subtler and also bigger. Compare the fraction of UN censures that are directed at Israel with the ills of the world, sorted by perpetrator. God, Israel isn't by any means the worst offender in its own neighborhood, let alone in the world. But I believe it's been censured far more often than any other country.

We went to the UN re Iraq because we were constantly told that only the UN could legitimize any action. The UN seems to be rather specializing in inaction lately; there's hardly a genocide that interests it. Will someone please tell me what it's for, if not to stop mass murder? Look at Congo; look at Sudan; look at Zimbabwe, if you can bear to.

Hi Michelle,
"that countries that aren't spending any particular money on Israel or Syria could look objectively at Hama and Sabra/Shatila and notice that one was, oh, ten times bigger than the other one, and judge the crime accordingly. "
no I don't think so, Israel is still a big issue in Europe again because the US sponsors Israel, US influence is global - you don't have to be American to have a view on whether the world's only superpower (which is also a traditional ally to most west european countries) should be supporting rogue regimes.
I think the reason that Europe is more pro-Pal rights is - and I don't think this is controversial - that there are fewer pro-Isrealis, often Jewish, in politics and the media, to be honest I think this self-perpetuates the American publics support for Israel. how many Americans have heard of Qana ? how many realise several Israeli leaders were terrorists ? how many realise the Pals were ethnically cleansed in 1947 ?

"Israel at its creation wasn't in a position to "seize" anything"
No I meant 1947, how do you mean ? Israel *did* seize Palestine and drive out the native Pals. And since it did it obviously must have been in a position to do so. On a related note historians like Avi Shlaim are now looking more objectively at the evidence and debunking the ZIOnist myths that 5 big hairy Arab armies attacked cute little fluffy "new born" Israel. The Israeli invaders in 1847 were far better amred and organised than the Arabs trying to defend the Pals.

"CR, suppose Israel had not taken the West Bank from Jordan and Gaza from Egypt in 1967. Would you now be arguing for their "self-determination"?"
Yes !
Of course I wouldn't argue that even a street can declare itself independent (ever so often you hear of nutters who declare their house an independent state and claim they are issuing their own postal stamps) but the Pals are a large national group who have lived distinctively in Palestine for centuries. O and Turkey certainly doesn;t offer self-determination to Kurds - quite the reverse - and again they have an appaling human rights record re Kurds which, like Israel, they get away with because they are our friend.

And Israel is not the only state to get regularly flacked at the UN - we are often reminded how often Iraq got flacked.
They are the only state to get defended by the US veto against world opinion - Apartheid South Africa was also defended by the US veto in its day nearly to the same extent.
http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/geoff/UNresolutions.htm

"The UN seems to be rather specializing in inaction lately; there's hardly a genocide that interests it. Will someone please tell me what it's for, if not to stop mass murder? Look at Congo; "
I agree, Michelle, since we are now claiming teh US/UK intervention in Iraq was on humanitiarian grounds, downplaying the missing WMD, why haven't we intervened in all those countries ? The US could push for a motion authorising its troops into Zimbabwe or Congo if it wanted. The guy below makes the point that the UN is the sum of its parts. The US is the biggest country in the world but seems to use the UN to rubber-stamp (or not) its own policies, to try and gain legitimacy for what it would want to do anyway. It vetoes collective decisions and then complains when other nations, eg France backed by other strong powers like Germany and Russia - similarly invoke the veto.

Friday October 19, 2001

Your correspondents, Leslie Seavor in the UK and Andrew Hirsch in the US (Letters, October 17), make the usual attacks on the "inadequacy" of the UN as if it were an independent body able to carry out its policies on its own initiative. This is far from the case; the UN has for years been hobbled by the failure of its members to support it.
They have failed to finance its actions, even when they have voted for them; they have refused to supply forces, even after voting for military action; and in many cases, where they have provided such forces they have refused to put them under UN command or, having nominally done so, have deemed themselves to have the right to interfere with the command, even to the extent of withdrawing their troops at a vital time.

And the main culprit, though not the only one, has been the US, which has for years withheld its contributions to the main UN budget and peacekeeping assessments - the former to such an extent that it was on the verge of losing its vote in the general assembly. Yet it still turns to the UN to pick up the pieces after its military adventures as, now, it talks of a UN role in restoring normal government in Afghanistan after the war.

What the UN needs, more than anything, is true and full support by its members, led by the permanent members of the security council. Then it would have a chance to do the job for which is was created: maintaining world peace and removing the causes of war.
Harold Stern
Vice-chairman, United Nations Association UK
harold.stern@virgin.net

Frankly speaking
I live 10 blocks from the u.n. and would have no issue with us turning into a playground for 9/11 orphans,widows and widowers.
We work with the u.n. in korea,bosnia and the rest of the balkans and in iraq.We dont deal with the issues of the day in Africa and Israel because it doesnt suit our interests.
Thats the bottom line here.
Since we eat the vast majority of the u.n's budget then fail to adhere to their rulings,whats the point of having this monstrosity sitting in the middle of manhatten???
I say move it to Paris or use the Hague..
Ever see how the un diplomats drive or park their cars??
Immunity from all parking or driving violations,actually when you're a foreign diplomat its like a liscense to steal in this town.
Burn it down and try again where international law matters..Here in New York it doesnt

Comical Rummy:

Israel is still a big issue in Europe again because the US sponsors Israel, US influence is global - you don't have to be American to have a view on whether the world's only superpower (which is also a traditional ally to most west european countries) should be supporting rogue regimes.

I see. We in the US ought to criticize Israel because our money is supporting it. Europeans also ought to criticize Israel, because our money is supporting it.

If you see an atrocity committed by a government not supported by the US, feel free to divide the death toll by ten. Or twenty. Or whatever. Then adjust your level of concern accordingly.

I think the reason that Europe is more pro-Pal rights is - and I don't think this is controversial - that there are fewer pro-Israelis, often Jewish, in politics and the media, to be honest I think this self-perpetuates the American publics support for Israel.

Ah. Europe sees more clearly because Europe isn't full of those pesky Jews, as America is. Probably best not to inquire too closely into the reasons that might be so. Or why the Israel Philharmonic was pretty well built around parts of the Vienna Philharmonic — those particular parts that sort of had to flee, oh, right around the Anschluss.

Israel was created out of a chunk of the Palestinian Mandate. It didn't create itself, and I don't see how it could have "seized" territory that it had been granted.

The Israeli invaders in 1847 were far better amred and organised than the Arabs trying to defend the Pals.

I'll assume that's meant for "1947." But, look, I'm confused here. How could there be "Israeli invaders" if there was not yet such a thing as Israel? You are writing as though there was an Israeli army that decided to invade Palestine. Where was it? Was there a sort of massive armed Jewish influx from outside? That's what an "invasion" generally means. Or do you mean that the "invaders" were already, you know, living in the place when the partition was announced?

Re self-determination: The PLO itself didn't argue for self-determination for the West Bank and Gaza until after the Six-Day War. The only part of Palestine they sought to "liberate" was the bit called "Israel" on the map.

Re the UN: We aren't the "biggest country in the world," by population or land area. Not even second. We are the richest and the most powerful.

To you this means that we ought to pay a quarter of the UN budget and then do what it tells us. This is silly.

The UN isn't exercized particularly about Congo because they think getting there and fixing things would be long, bloody, and messy. So it would. It will be long, bloody, and messy anyway, but if the UN isn't substantially involved, at least they can keep themselves out of the few feeble press stories that there will inevitably be.

Ditto Sudan. Besides, it wouldn't be nice to mention that half of Sudan is busy exterminating the other half when they've just gotten a seat on the UN Human Rights Commission, yes?

Oh, dear. Enough rant for the moment. If there's anything I should have addressed that I didn't, let me know.

Michelle,
"I see. We in the US ought to criticize Israel because our money is supporting it. Europeans also ought to criticize Israel, because our money is supporting it."
spot on ! that's right, abuses of human rights, funded by US money can be condemned even by non-Americans.

"If you see an atrocity committed by a government not supported by the US, feel free to divide the death toll by ten. Or twenty. Or whatever. Then adjust your level of concern accordingly."

not right, I am also inflamed by Zimbabwe, the Congo and Russia, Chechyna - I remember circa Kosovo there was fury over Western inaction over Chechnya now, surprise, Putin is an ally in the war against terror. you have to wonder whether had Slobo lasted 5 more years whether he would have been an ally against terror post 911.

You're not seriously suggesting there are not influential pro-Israel Jews in the US government and in the media ? actually what I say of Europe also applies to the UK where there are plenty of Jews, many of who oppose Israel.

"Israel was created out of a chunk of the Palestinian Mandate. It didn't create itself, and I don't see how it could have "seized" territory that it had been granted."
it just seized the Pals land without realising it did it ? you need to find out just how extensive Zionist lobbying led to the US using bribery and blackmail to force the UN vote through

Presidential aide David Niles, Truman's channel to the Jewish community, contacted influential American-Greek businessmen in an attempt to persuade Athens to vote for partition.>
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/04.Dec.1997/Features/Article-2.html

"How could there be "Israeli invaders"
actually yes most of the ISraelis DID come from outside. Do you really not know these fundamental details of the Zionist program ? There was massive import of Jews into Palestine in the early 20th cent. The ZIonist plot, as described by Ben Gurion, was to use them as a bridgehead to invade and seize all of Palestine driving out the native Pals. Its ongoing but they are nearly there. The Israeli invaders have 80-85% of Palestine and counting ! 100 years ago there were only a few 10,000 Jews in Palestine.

You're basically saying that the US should just do whatever it want and hang world opinion aren'y you ? Its true Sudan is an oppressive regime but who decides who the oppressive regimes are ? I guess it should always be the US !? That would get Israel and Turkey off the hook.

whoops Michelle, my extract describing US pressure to create Israel got snarled up.
It should read
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/04.Dec.1997/Features/Article-2.html

Presidential aide David Niles, Truman's channel to the Jewish community, contacted influential American-Greek businessmen in an attempt to persuade Athens to vote for partition >

Dear CR,

It's a good thing there's probably no one else reading this by now.

"I see. We in the US ought to criticize Israel because our money is supporting it. Europeans also ought to criticize Israel, because our money is supporting it."
spot on ! that's right, abuses of human rights, funded by US money can be condemned even by non-Americans.

Of course they "can be condemned"; I never said otherwise. But you seem to think that they ought to be condemned more forcefully than much larger atrocities not funded by US money. We ought (in your view) to be differentially interested in Israeli crimes because it was our money. But the Europeans are differentially interested in Israeli crimes . . . and this is because it's our money. I thought that was a little absurd.

Actually, of course, the Europeans are differentially interested in Israeli crimes because they distract attention from the amazing amount of misery European imperialism has created in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and other places.

"If you see an atrocity committed by a government not supported by the US, feel free to divide the death toll by ten. Or twenty. Or whatever. Then adjust your level of concern accordingly."

I gave that description of the European media and I stand by it. A single person killed by Israelis in Palestine is as newsworthy as a small massacre almost anywhere else.

(A sort of tangential parallel case that doesn't involve Israel at all: Immediately after 9/11, there were all sorts of warnings in our media not to demonize Muslims; there were dire hints that furious Americans would kill any random Muslim they could get their hands on.

In April 2002, Muslim extremists killed sixty or so Hindu activists in India. Within a week, several hundred entirely innocent Muslims had been massacred. In September 2001, Muslim extremists killed, oh, fifty times as many of our people. At the time of the Indian atrocities, or a little under seven months later, I checked CAIR's website. They have no incentive to minimize American outrages against Muslims, to say the least. They put the number killed in American anti-Muslim hate crimes at eleven.

Now, which got more press in Europe, do you think? The actual dead people in India, or the "pervasive climate of fear" among US Muslims?)

actually yes most of the ISraelis DID come from outside. Do you really not know these fundamental details of the Zionist program ? There was massive import of Jews into Palestine in the early 20th cent.

And from an earlier post: No I meant 1947, how do you mean? Israel *did* seize Palestine and drive out the native Pals. And since it did it obviously must have been in a position to do so.

CR, please help me to understand this. What you are calling "invasion" is what most of us call "immigration." 1947 is not "the early 20th cent.", so you are talking about an ongoing process, not a massive influx in 1947, yes?

I don't know very much about the Zionist Movement in its early years, but I do know that the early Zionists purchased the land they lived on (in what was then the Palestinian Mandate). If that is "invasion," then so is a bunch of New Yorkers moving to California.

Then came WWII and an early influx of refugees, who don't seem to figure in your tale. (I think that later in the war the British actually cut off further immigration, or at any rate severely restricted it.) And then the 1948 war, and another influx of refugees (what, half a million or so?) from Arab countries.

Whose losses don't figure in accounts of the refugee crisis precisely because they were resettled. Roughly, for every Palestinian lamenting a home lost in present-day Israel, there is an Israeli who had to flee a home somewhere else, leave everything behind, start over. Israel is more or less built of refugees and their children. Try looking for Jews in the Middle East apart from Israel. There used to be many. They've all fled.

You're basically saying that the US should just do whatever it want and hang world opinion aren't you ? Its true Sudan is an oppressive regime but who decides who the oppressive regimes are ? I guess it should always be the US !?

Well, you just decided it yourself re Sudan, you know. Give reason a chance ;-) What you seem to be saying is that we can't get an international consensus on what constitutes an oppressive regime (possibly because half the people voting are representatives of murderous kleptocracies), so we'll have to let the UN decide which massacres to stop. Which they will presumably do with the measured, calm, objective, reasonable assessment typical of assemblies half of whose members are representatives of murderous kleptocracies.

Or, on the other hand, we could bypass the UN, get together a coalition of like-minded nations, and do what we think needs to be done. There are precedents. (You mentioned Kosovo; that would be one.)

CR: I am sorry to have forgotten to address this one:

You're not seriously suggesting there are not influential pro-Israel Jews in the US government and in the media ? actually what I say of Europe also applies to the UK where there are plenty of Jews, many of whom oppose Israel.

Just to back up, CR had suggested that there's more support for Israel in the US than in Europe because in Europe

there are fewer pro-Israelis, often Jewish, in politics and the media, to be honest I think this self-perpetuates the American publics support for Israel.

OK, CR, let's reason this one out, shall we? You are saying that the US supports Israel because there are pro-Israeli Jews in high places, whereas there aren't in Europe. I hint at a possible reason there are next to no Jews in Europe. You say in turn that, yes, there are so Jews in high places in Europe, and they're in Britain (hmmm: the only European country with a substantial pre-war Jewish population not occupied by Axis forces in WWII seems to be the one with a functioning Jewish community now, though that's doubtless complete coincidence), and that they're largely hostile to Israel.

I see. So it's possible for Jews to be hostile to Israel. It is even possible for whole communities of Jews to be hostile to Israel.

In that case, I should say that chasing down who is and who isn't Jewish among the President's advisors is ridiculous. Attack their policy recommendations, attack their views about Israel, but don't hint that they want what they want just because thy're Jews, when you deny that English Jews want the same things.

Dear Michelle,
"But you seem to think that they ought to be condemned more forcefully than much larger atrocities not funded by US money"
thats right it makes perfect sense to me, when the world only superpower chooses to support a rogue regime then its a big issue to everyone. did I give the other reason I condemn Israel and insist on putting the other side of the coin ? its because so many people in the US support Israel, when I hear people shout down condemnation of the Burma regime, vocally support Russian atrocities against Chechnya and argue that the Sharpesville massacre for too much press I will argue with them too. Actually Bush does seem to support Putin in Chechnya now, he never used too, maybe he's found out Chechyna has oil. Do you think there is too much criticism of Sharpesville ? After all it killed fewer than Hama. I would say - again - one of the reasons is because the US at the time insisted on still doing business with the SA regime and supporting them in the UN.

"the Europeans are differentially interested in Israeli crimes because they distract attention from the amazing amount of misery European imperialism has created in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and other places."
I disagree totally, I think the Europeans who condemn Israel would be the first to acknowledge the miseries colonialism caused.

"The actual dead people in India, or the "pervasive climate of fear" among US Muslims?)"
well I think the Pak/India situation: IMO there was tremendous concern with the issues in the subcontinent then, both the massacres and the prospect of war.

"What you are calling "invasion" is what most of us call "immigration" no when massive numbers of invaders, several 100,000s, enter a country against the wishes of its inhabitants, take up arms, and then seize the land driving out its native population THAT is NOT immigration, that is invasion. immigration of Jews is what didn't happen in the US in the 1930s when the 1920s Quota laws severely restricted Jewish imigrants. you see the massive difference.

"I do know that the early Zionists purchased the land they lived on"
No they didn't lets give you the facts from an Israeli source.
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/04.Dec.1997/Features/Article-2.html

owning 5% does NOT give the Israeli invaders the right to the 55% (in the resolution the US forced through) or to the 78% they subsequently seized (as envisiaged in the plot to seize Palestine masterminded by Ben Gurion) nor does it allow them to drive out the native people, I guess the Israelis bought Deir Yassin off the Pals before they shot them all ?
you talk of the UN being full of kleptocracies and I don't think thats true. there are some in the world thats true, anyway who are the regimes on the security council who can veto any action ? Russia might count given its action in Chechnya.
Maybe there's be less brutal regimes in the world if the US didn't install, arm and support them: Pinochet, Saddam, Suhiarto, a string of regimes in central america. Are these the like-minded countries you had in mind ? Or by like-minded you mean countries that do what the US wants ? which is not necessarily install freedom and democracy: the US helpe overthrow democracies in Guatemala (54), Chile (72) and the Congo (61 ?)

re public opinion in the US and Europe
"So it's possible for Jews to be hostile to Israel. It is even possible for whole communities of Jews to be hostile to Israel." yes of course, Israeli sympathisers usually call them self-hating Jews eg Chomsky, Tim Wise, Ran Hacohen, ISrael Shahak, Harold Pinter ... in the UK Jack Straw has Jewish background and has drawn attention to the "double standards" re UN resolution on ISrael/ Iraq, he previously said terrorism was bred by anger at events in Palestine, an uncontroversial comments an Israeli minister called "pornographic". Still you have to wonder why Tony Blairs middle east advisor Lord Levy is the son of an ISrael cabinet minister.
Where are the anti-Israel politicians in the US ? Jewish or non-Jewish ? All of [Paul] Wolfowitz, [deputy defence secretary], [Richard] Perle, [John] Bolton, assistant secretary of state, [Douglas] Feith, [Ken] Adelman, [Elliott] Abrams and [Ari] Fleischer, [Mr Bush's press secretary.] are pro-Israel. In the 2000 election both Bush and Gore fell over themselves to endorse Israel ! why ISrael ? why not Zimbabwe or Burma or some other oppressive regime. Why do so many people, including you, on these boards defend Israel but many fewer support Chinese policy ? If you don't think its the result of influential pro-Israelis, often Jewish, then I'd like to hear your reason and I hope, given the facts I've outlined, that your reason won't be that ISrael is so obviously in the right or that Israel, a state that elects terrorists , is an ally in the war against terrorism.

Michelle,
got it slightly wrong on Levy - it seems Lord Levy maintains a second home in Israel where his son works for former Israeli Labor Party minister Yossi Beilin, still raises questions over his bias when advising Blair on the Middle East. You'll argue Blair is pro-Pal - I don't agree - maybe compared to Bush he is but thats relative !
The UK arms Israel and rarely condemns them.

I've noticed my response to your claim that the Israelis bought their land got screwed up
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/04.Dec.1997/Features/Article-2.html

owning 6% does NOT give the Israeli invaders the right to the 55% (given in the UN resolution the US forced through) or to the 78% they subsequently seized

one more try ! I guess scrappleface doesn't like quotes in - it misses them out
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/04.Dec.1997/Features/Article-2.html
"The undisputed statistics were these: the country contained 1.2 million Arabs and half as many Jews; Arabs owned 94 percent of the land and Jews only 6 percent"
owning 6% does NOT give the Israeli invaders the right to the 55% (given in the UN resolution the US forced through) or to the 78% they subsequently seized

"Roughly, for every Palestinian lamenting a home lost in present-day Israel, there is an Israeli who had to flee a home somewhere else, leave everything behind,"

Jews were indeed harassed (by the people and/or regimes) in Arab countries FOLLOWING the 1948 ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian, but blaming the Arabs of forcing Jews to flee is cynical when it is imputed by the very Zionists who demanded "let my people go", or by the same Israel that did all it could to force those very countries to let their Jews leave in order that these Jews could settle in Israel and be given the homes of dispossesed Palestinians. The global Zionist pressure on each and every country, from the Soviet Union to Syria, to let its Jewish citizens go, was part of Israel’s efforts to consolidate its Jewish majority;

Dear CR,

Ooh boy. OK, last post first:

"From the Soviet Union to Syria"? Aren't you forgetting something? Like, um, Europe? Small war going on there? A certain religio-ethnic group getting a disproportionate amount of nasty attention?

I am puzzled too by your attitude towards emigration. You seem to be saying that Jewish pressure was responsible for various countries "letting [their] Jewish citizens go." Interesting that any pressure had to be put on any country to let any of its citizens emigrate, yes? I take it that you're saying that Syria, for example, was refusing Jews permission to leave the country, a claim I never heard before. Please tell me more!

The Soviet Union, of course, was refusing almost everyone permission to leave the country, as its few remaining disciple states (Cuba, North Korea) still do. But a large proportion of its most prominent dissidents were Jews. They did want out, and so would you have in their place.

I remember campaigns for the release of Soviet Jews in the late 70s or early 80s. There may have been Soviet Jews in Israel at the founding, but there were many, many others that had to wait decades to escape (and they didn't all move to Israel, either). This casts some doubt on the irresistible-Jewish-pressure theory.

But you don't even seem to understand that forbidding people to emigrate is a violation of their human rights. Good God, CR, if "Zionist pressure" established a right to emigrate, is that not a good thing? Ought people to be trapped in this or that hellhole, forbidden to travel? If they are allowed to travel, should they be shadowed everywhere by agents who are there to make sure they don't try to seek asylum at some embassy? Really, I'm astonished that you'd treat trying to demolish the idea of the prison-state as just another cunning Zionist plot.

Why Jews in Arab countries should have been "harassed," as you call it, for the actions of other Jews with whom they had zero connection is another interesting question. You take this as entirely natural. I should say that if half a million Jews had to flee from their homes to Israel, we aren't talking about isolated acts of violence (like the few anti-Muslim hate crimes in the US after 9/11), but a calculated campaign of persecution.

The Jews, you say, said "Let people emigrate who want to." The Arabs, you say, obliged by letting them go (which they ought in humanity to have done anyway), but also by making their lives so miserable that they had to flee. This proves that Jews were responsible for the Jewish refugee crisis.

Congratulations on producing the single most repellent argument I've read in months.

CR:

I think the Europeans who condemn Israel would be the first to acknowledge the miseries colonialism caused.

Well, sure — from a safe distance. But they wouldn't actually hold Belgium, say, responsible for the present state of Congo. Or for Rwanda, for that matter. France can send troops into Cote d'Ivoire without UN approval (except after the fact) because it was a French colony, but France isn't held responsible for the condition of the place.

Israel is convenient because Israel is the only place in the Middle East and Africa where someone besides Europe can be blamed for putting in place the "root causes" of the carnage. Syria was not our fault, therefore Hama is a non-issue. Jordan is not our fault, therefore Black September is a non-issue. Zimbabwe and Congo and Sudan are not our fault, so they're low-level continuing news stories, nothing to get excited about.

And Iraq, of course. You want to guess how many innocents Iraq killed during the years of Intifada II (2000-present) vs. how many Israel did? Want to take bets on which number is bigger? Want to guess which group of victims got more attention in the Western press? (It certainly does make for better copy if you can name your victims individually, which is hard if there are too many.)

Re Zionists and land ownership: The source you gave says that 6% of land in Palestine was owned by Jews at the time of partition. It says nothing about whether the early Zionists proceeded by buying land, which is all I claimed.

Googled around and found this:

http://www.iap.org/partition.htm

which is a pro-Palestinian account of the partition. It claims that the total population of Palestine in 1946 was 1,972,000, of whom 1,247,000 were Palestinian Arabs, 608,000 Jews, and 16,000 "other." Israel was to contain 407,000 Palestinians in addition to (presumably) the whole Jewish population. So 1,015,000 people were to occupy a fraction of a total territory occupied by 1,972,000. That gives 55% of the land to about 52% of the people, if my math is right. That is not terribly far off fair division. Of course, it did leave a large number of Palestinians in a Jewish-majority state, which is obviously a calamity if you think a state with a Jewish majority will mistreat its minority. (Much better to have an Arab-majority state, which is guaranteed not to mistreat its Jewish minority.)

On the other hand, the Palestinians in the nascent Jewish state did have a vote, which they would not have had anywhere else nearby. (Does anyone think that Jews would have had a vote in an Arab-majority state? They haven't yet. Nor have Arabs, actually, with a very few exceptions.)

Hi Michelle,
"Aren't you forgetting something? Like, um, Europe? Small war"
no there was no war in Europe at the time we speak, 1948, so Israel would not have appealed to European countries to release Jews for that reason. Many Jews fled to Palestine in 1940+ its true - the US restricted the numbers of Jews allowed in if you remember, despite being maybe 100x the size of Palestine.

"you don't even seem to understand that forbidding people to emigrate"
you seem keen to twist my words in a number of occasions here I notice -
Michelle I never claimed that Arab states prevented Jews from leaving, I said Israel appealed to the Arab states to let their people go, you're taking my statement further than it should be taken. In many cases since 1948 Arab states have reluctantly let Jews go when they letf following hrassment
eg Tunisia
http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/tunisjews.html
"Why Jews in Arab countries should have been "harassed," as you call it, for the actions of other Jews ... You take this as entirely natural. "
I certainly do take it as natural, its not right and must be condemned but it should have been totally predictable and its not unique to arabs either (after the King Davids Hotel bombing there were anti_jewish riots in Liverpool, the UK) - you must have a starry eyed view of the world not to realise these things happen. why do you think it was a coincidence that Jewish harrassment happened when it did ?

"Congratulations on producing the single most repellent argument I've read in months"
a pleasure ! at least you don't dispute it as a fact.

"But they wouldn't actually hold Belgium, say, responsible for the present state of Congo."
wrong again, I think many would regard colonial exploitation as the source of many of these countries woes, after all many of them were comparatively wealthy prior to the colinial era, certainly the disparities in wealth between Africa and the West were not as great. is this still relevant to Israel ?

"Syria was not our fault, therefore Hama is a non-issue."
no not a non-issue, a terrible atrocity in fact. And when I hear a poster defending Syria's actions I will argue with them in the same way I argue with those who support Israel's actions. Problem is I never do. Israel isn't totally the only oppressive regime the US has supported (also Pinochet etc) but it seems to be unique in the level of support it gets. I really suspect that behind all your spin you do realise there is a big difference between Hama and atrocities that the US supports, such as Israel's and why the latter should provoke so much anger.

"how many innocents Iraq killed during the years of Intifada II (2000-present) vs. how many Israel did? Want to take bets on which number is bigger? Want to guess which group of victims got more attention in the Western press?"
this is probably Iraq isn't it ? Bush hardly opens his mouth without reminding us how brutal Saddam was (in fact Michelle you need to remind him that Hama killed more than Halabja).

"about whether the early Zionists proceeded by buying land" sure, OK. 6% of Palestine they bought, the rest they stole, you've made your point.

"if you think a state with a Jewish majority will mistreat its minority. "
what do you mean "if" - you seem to have forgotten that the Pals in that state were promptly ethnically cleansed, exactly as Ben Gurion said they would be, to ensure a safe Jewish demographic majority (and its strange that those who dispute this was the Israeli reason are the same people who say that there must be no Pal right of return for the same reason, to preserve the Jewish majority) as part of BGs acknlowlded plot to seize ALL of Palestine.

Dear CR,

I am sorry not to have responded yesterday; I had connection problems.

I am going to back up just a bit to this idea of invasion. As far as I can tell from what sources I can find, there was steadily increasing Jewish immigration into Palestine from the late 19th c. til 1939, when the British, alarmed at the flood of refugees from Europe, sharply curtailed it. At this point the Jewish population was apparently around 450,000. Many refugees did get in illegally during WWII despite the stricter rules.

Now I find another source which tells me that Tel Aviv, founded early in the century on land bought by Zionists, had a population over 200,000 in 1948. I haven't been able to find out what was the population of Tel Aviv in 1939, or the Jewish population of Palestine at the creation of Israel, but it does sort of look as though a hell of a lot of it was in a city built on land that no one seems to dispute was legally bought.

Were there armed seizures of Arab land (as opposed to purchases) before Israel was declared a state? Or were all the Jews in Palestine living on that 6% of the land? These are not rhetorical questions; I really don't know the answers.

But if the latter, I really don't see how it could be called an invasion, except in the bigoted sense that people you don't want as neighbors moving into your neighborhood is called an invasion. What you've got is a lot of people buying land and building on it. Why exactly would that be wrong?

More in a bit.

CR: OK, I need to understand this "invasion" fully. As far as I can see, there was peaceful settlement (on land properly purchased) through the early 20th c. In 1939 the British put a stop to this because the number of European refugees was enormous. A large number found their way in anyway. At this point I still know of no seizures of land owned by Palestinians, only use of land bought by Jews or public domain, that is, not claimed by anyone in particular.

So these must be your "invaders." You don't mean the refugees from Europe, because they came after the war. You don't mean the 600,000+ refugees from the rest of the Middle East, because they only came, in your own account, because Jews were "harassed" after the "Israeli invaders" seized the territory.

I am twisting your words when I imply that you implied that Arab states were not letting Jews emigrate? Here are your words:

[B]laming the Arabs for forcing Jews to flee is cynical when it is imputed by the very Zionists who demanded "let my people go", or by the same Israel that did all it could to force those very countries to let their Jews leave in order that these Jews could settle in Israel and be given the homes of dispossesed Palestinians. The global Zionist pressure on each and every country, from the Soviet Union to Syria, to let its Jewish citizens go, was part of Israelís efforts to consolidate its Jewish majority.

You add in your last post,

In many cases since 1948 Arab states have reluctantly let Jews go when they left following harassment, e.g. Tunisia

Now, to my simple mind, if Israel had to "force" states to "let their Jews leave," there is at least a teensy implication that they weren't free to leave otherwise. In two other places your phrase is "let them go." Ditto, yes?

I should like some details of this "harassment." It takes a lot to make more than half a million people flee their homes and their home countries within a year or two. Especially when everyone could see that the place that they were fleeing to was going to be the epicenter of the next regional war. I take it we are talking about something a bit more elaborate than the odd graffito, yes?

Quick points: You brush off Hama as an obvious atrocity that no one defends. Has it occurred to you that there are many thousands, maybe tens of thousands murdered, and no one has been brought to book for it?

The war in Congo appears to be killing a few hundred a day, and has done so every day for a few years. No one's defending that either, so it can stay on the back pages. If Israel killed a few hundred in a day it would be front-page news for a month. You know that as well as I.

OK, another post.

"Why Jews in Arab countries should have been "harassed," as you call it, for the actions of other Jews ... You take this as entirely natural. "
I certainly do take it as natural, its not right and must be condemned but it should have been totally predictable and its not unique to arabs either (after the King Davids Hotel bombing there were anti-jewish riots in Liverpool, the UK) - you must have a starry eyed view of the world not to realise these things happen.

Yes, I see. This explains the vast anti-Russion riots at the time of the invasion of Afghanistan (and of the imposition of martial law on Poland, and the invasion of Czechoslovakia, and the invasion of Hungary, but let's not multiply cases here). It explains the terrible worldwide persecution of Japanese emigres after Japan invaded Manchuria, and of Italian emigres after Italy invaded Ethiopia, and of Irish emigres after each IRA bombing. It explains why after the Indian partition, when Pakistan invaded Kashmir, the refugee crisis didn't involve just India and Pakistan but also the many other countries where Muslims were ruthlessly persecuted for the Pakistanis' crimes.

Not.

CR, I don't think it is "a coincidence" that what you persist in calling "harassment" happened when it did. If entirely innocent people belonging a particular ethnic group were invariably attacked when an entity acting in that group's name did something nasty, I might even agree with you. As that's not what seems to be happening, I'm sort of inclined not to.

Oh dear, must go. But must add this.

The Jews, you say, said "Let people emigrate who want to." The Arabs, you say, obliged by letting them go (which they ought in humanity to have done anyway), but also by making their lives so miserable that they had to flee. This proves that Jews were responsible for the Jewish refugee crisis.

Congratulations on producing the single most repellent argument I've read in months. [me]

a pleasure ! at least you don't dispute it as a fact. [CR]

Um, I think I did.

Aaargh. Please read "Russian," not "Russion." Dagnabbit.

Hi Michelle,

re Israeli invasion: "I really don't know the answers." nope me neither, but I can tell you the Israeli invasion was deeply opposes by the Pal majority and it continued without the agreement of the Pal inhabitants, paticularly because the stated objective of the Zionists was to create a state on the Pal land.

"that people you don't want as neighbors moving into your neighborhood is called an invasion."
now you have noticed the slight difference that these neighbors had the states objective of annexing the inhabitants land as a state and driving out the original inhabitants - you so see this difference ?

"there was peaceful settlement "
peaceful ? that was because the Pals were powerless to stop them when the Btirs were letting them in, Hitlers annexation of Czech as also peaceful I spose !

"I still know of no seizures of land owned by Palestinians " so you're happy that the invasion was "peaceful" until the time came for this "peaceful" bridgehead to act on the BG plan and break out seizing the rest of the Pal land carrying out countless massacres of innocents at Deir Yassin, Tantura etc.

"You don't mean the refugees from Europe, because they came after the war. You don't mean the 600,000+ refugees from the rest of the Middle East, because they only came, in your own account, because Jews were "harassed" after the "Israeli invaders" seized the territory"
not sure where I said any of this ? of course ISraelis invaded from Europe before and during WW2 (if thats the war you mean), and further Jews came from Arab countries, where they were harassed following the earlier ethnic clensing of Pal, on the urging of the occupying Israelis to bolster their seizure of the Pal land.

re this Jewish movement to Israel from Arab countries so are you still claiming that I implies the Arabs tries to force the Jews to stay ? I can't see your point cinse I never said that and you yourself admitted it was "a claim I never heard before"
and no, you've provided no evidence to dispute the incotrovertible facts that Arab harrassment of Jews occured AFTER the ethnic cleansing of Pals and that the Israelis exploited this to encourage the Jews to come to Israel to help themself to the land of dispossessed Pals and solidify their annexation, this is well understood in history.

by the way what happened to your thesis about masscres should get attention proportional to the numbers killed. last point you were claiming Bush should give more attention to the more numerous Iraqis killed by ex_US ally Saddam than to the Israelis killed in the Intifada (something like that anyway)

whoops sorry just say you have touched n Hama etc - exactly why does the deaths of Israeli inn suicide bombings get so much press when so many more get killed in the Congo ?

re harassment of Jews/ Russians, name the Russians in other countries or the Germans in other countries who sypmathised with their countries actions - for Nazi sympathisers I guess you could name Lindberg or Henry Ford so maybe you're right, no harrassment ! re Soviet Russia you've forgotten how non-Russian alleged, and fabricacted Commies were persecuted in a presumably advanced and tolerant country like the US for Soviet actions.

Michelle,
further thoughts on your claims regarding the Arab harrassment of innocent Jews after the ethnic cleansing of the Pals. the other aspect where your Soviet invasion and other supposed parallels fall short is that there were no other major Afghan countries with Russian minorities who might be persecuted.
as a slight aside you're aware of looting of properties and shops with Geman sounding names in WW1 in the UK and US (particularly after the Lusitania). What was your reason behind claiming the Arab revenge attacks on Jews were unprecedented anyway ? were you trying to claim Arabs are particularly hateful ? Given the WW1 events are you now going to claim Brits and Americans are particularly spiteful ?

Hi Michelle,

just some random thoughts,
I remember you said you supported an Israel within its per 1967 borders - a moderate view I support. out of curiousity given that Israel is making clear it will dismantle the larger illegal settlements in the WB how do you think this might be achieved ?

have you noticed that following Israel's refusal to remove these settlements and following Israel's attacks killing 2 unarmed Pal teenagers and 2 Hamas members the ceasefire we were discussing has collapsed.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u;=/nm/20030608/wl_nm/mideast_dc_252
how was this news item reported round your way ? I heard 3 Pal gunmen and 4 Israelis were killed - you have to read the article closer to find out the Israelis were also gunmen ie soldiers.

did you catch this other item ?
http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/2003-06/015.html
"Israeli tourism minister, Binyamin Elon and transportation minister Avigdor Lieberman, headed a mob of Jewish settlers attacked Wednesday a house owned by Palestinian civilian Rashad Maqdisyya, and occupied his house after banishing his family. The Jewish settlers attacked the home of Maqdisyya in Nablus Street, next to the US Consulate. Tens of Israeli border guards and policemen were protecting the two ministers and the settlers, WAFA reported."

Ack. Another round (probably the last, since this article and associated thread are going to disappear soon, though you are welcome to email me at any time should you want to carry on the discussion; I pledge not to give your address to anyone else in that case).

Re "peaceful" immigration into Palestine, I still don't see how immigrating, buying land, and then building on it can be counted "invasion." At the very most you might call it the preliminaries of an invasion. If the Zionists bought land, someone must have willingly sold it to them. If they built a good-sized city that stayed alive, someone was obviously trading with it. I don't see how the work of the Zionists before the establishment of Israel harmed anyone, least of all the Palestinians. You aren't contesting my guess that the land on which Tel Aviv was built was legally bought, so I take it I'm right.

Re "invasions" during WWII: talking of people patently fleeing for their lives from a genocidal state explicitly dedicated to killing every last one of them as "invaders" when they seek refuge in another state is grotesque. Try another line, CR. This one does you no good credit.

(I'm well aware that the US was scandalously callous about Jewish refugees. So was the Palestinian Mandate. The difference apparently was that smuggling people into Palestine was easier than smuggling them into the US.)

re this Jewish movement to Israel from Arab countries so are you still claiming that I implied the Arabs tried to force the Jews to stay? I can't see your point since I never said that [ . . . ]

CR, if you talk about Israel "forc[ing] . . . countries to let their Jews leave," countries "letting their Jews go," &c.;, the obvious inference is that the Jews weren't free to "leave," go," &c.; until pressure was put on them. I mean, if you'd written about the US "forcing" this or that nation to "let their gays marry," a reader would conclude that the nation was prohibiting gay marriage and the US was making them allow it anyway, yes? If you meant anything else, I should like to know what it was. I can't even guess at this point.

Re harassment of Jews/Russians, name the Russians in other countries or the Germans in other countries who sympathised with their countries' actions — for Nazi sympathisers I guess you could name Lindberg or Henry Ford so maybe you're right, no harrassment! Re Soviet Russia, you've forgotten how non-Russian alleged, and fabricated, Commies were persecuted in a presumably advanced and tolerant country like the US for Soviet actions.

Ah, yes. We can assume that most Russian and German emigres weren't Communists and Nazis. We can, I seem to hear you saying, assume that most Jews throughout the Middle East were Zionists. How would we know that? Did someone do a Gallup poll avant la lettre? " 'I want to move to Palestine and expel all the original inhabitants.' Do you agree, or disagree?" CR, there were Nazi sympathizers and Communist sympathizers in the US. (There still are!). How many fled the country through "harassment" in the mid-20th c.? For anywhere?

[F]urther thoughts on your claims regarding the Arab harassment of innocent Jews after the ethnic cleansing of the Pals. [T]he other aspect where your Soviet invasion and other supposed parallels fall short is that there were no other major Afghan countries with Russian minorities who might be persecuted.

Well, no, no other "major Afghan countries" — sort of the way there weren't a lot of "major Tibetan countries" to persecute their Chinese minorities for invading Tibet, or "major Manchurian countries" to persecute their Japanese minorities for Japan's invading Manchuria. Nor, come to think of it, were there "major Palestinian countries." You seem to be going into Nasser mode here. The Middle East is one Arab state.

Actually, there were a lot of Central Asian "nations" with Russian minorities, but as they were under Soviet control, I don't suppose they count.

And as Liverpool ("after the King Davids Hotel bombing there were anti-Jewish riots in Liverpool, the UK") — which, remember, was your example, not mine — is obviously part of a major Arab country [NOT], your point would be . . .?

I need to cut this short, but just a comment on your last item. Four Israelies and three Palestinians died at a checkpoint at the Gaza/Israeli border. You insinuate that the report isn't fair because it doesn't say the Israelis were armed. It was a military checkpoint — what do you think? If you go up to any checkpoint in the world and start shooting people, will the press feel compelled to point out that the people manning the checkpoint had guns? Honestly. You omit also that the Palestinians disguised themselves as Israeli soldiers and ambushed Israelis who were within the 1967 borders.

Oh dear, really have to run now. My apologies.

Dear CR,

A few bits I missed in the first post.

Exactly why does the deaths of Israelis in suicide bombings get so much press when so many more get killed in the Congo?

Well, I think that deaths caused by suicide bombers get disproportionate press wherever they happen. They do in Chechnya and in Sri Lanka; Israel isn't unique. But it's fair to say that political violence in Israel and Palestine, on both sides, gets disproportionate attention.

My point was that Israel & Palestine together loom so large for the opinion-makers of the developed nations that they can't see mass slaughter even when it's sitting under their noses. And even if they do see it, Israel is a better target because Israel is likely to be blamed on us, whereas Congo (say) is more likely to be blamed on Belgium.

Re looting of German-owned (or allegedly German-owned) businesses during WWI: I'm not denying it happened, and obviously I think it shouldn't have. If you had told be that everyone with a Germanic name, or virtually everyone, fled the US and England after the Lusitania was torpedoed, it might be more impressive. How many Jews live in the Middle East outside of Israel and the settlements now? How many did in 1946? We are talking massive drastic panic, headlong flight, not "harassment."

Hi Michelle

"At the very most you might call it the preliminaries of an invasion. If the Zionists bought land, someone must have willingly sold it to them."
OK, we'll call it the preliminaries of an invasion if you like, can't really see thats much better, we can also call it the preliminaries of a terrorist campaign if you like since the ethnic cleansing of 1947-8 was preceded by Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir bombing buses and cafes full of Pal civilians, Shamir even ordering the murder of the UN peace negotiator.

"talking of people patently fleeing for their lives from a genocidal state explicitly dedicated to killing every last one of them as "invaders" when they seek refuge in another state is grotesque"
the invasion of Palestine by Zionists was ossuring well before WW2- that Jews had to flee the Nazis was of course appaling. howver let us not forget that some of these ZIOnists in Palestine were Menachem Begin who chose to wage a terror campaign against the Arabs but also fought the Brits during WW2. Shamir's terror ally Stern even proposed an alliance with the Nazis (rejected of course) against the Brits ! Meanwhile true Jewish heros liek Mark edelmann were fighting the Nazis back in Begin's Polish homeland,

"if you talk about Israel "forc[ing] . . . countries to let their Jews leave"
which I didn't - I said (Israel) "[B]laming the Arabs for forcing Jews to flee is cynical" when Israel actively encouraged them to leave.
you mustn't beleive Israeli spin too much (they are currently claiming that ceasing the theft of Pal land is "forcing Israeli women to have abortions")

so where are we on this Arabs preventing Jews from fleeing ? which of us is it believed this happened ? it isn't me.

"We can, I seem to hear you saying, assume that most Jews throughout the Middle East were Zionists."
SO you are saying that Israel cannot rely on the sympathy of world Jewry and is not supported by them. Well that at least is refreshing ! SO where ir your evidence for this assertion that the Jews who went to Isral to bolster its demographic majority did not approve of Israel's seizure of Pal land ?

"How many fled the country through "harassment" in the mid-20th c.? For anywhere? " in fact many people were forced to flee the US after being blacklisted eg Hans Eisler (who previously fled the Nazis), Charlie Chaplin etc
whether all were "commies" is of course debatable, 1 senior HUAC member testified "if a man claims there is discrimination against Negroes or inequality of wealth in this country there is every reason to believe he is a communist" !?

"Nor, come to think of it, were there "major Palestinian countries"
is it going into Nasser mode to suggest that other Arab countries are sympathetic to the Pal Arabs ? its a well understood fact ! so you agree there are no other Afghan countries with Soviet minorities who *would* have been persectued after the 1980 invasion !

"— is obviously part of a major Arab country [NOT],"
are you familr with the KD Hotel bombing ? it was against a Brit target although many Arabs and Jews inc civilians were also killed

"what do you think? " I think they deliberatley downplayed that the ISraelis were soldiers to make it sound liek a terror attack - equally why bother to say the Pals were gunmen ? if the Israeli soldiers were killed in the battle isn;t that obvious ? why not just say: 4 Israeli soldiers and 3 Pal resistance were killed in a battle. you also notice it got a lot more press than the 2 Pal teenagers killed last week, 1 of whom was killed when the IDF sprayed a civilian crowd with gunfire - not THAT is closer to terrorism.
"You omit also I think that deaths caused by suicide bombers get disproportionate press wherever they happen against "us" - whereas Pals kiled by IDF homicide bombings and other killing get less press.

"My point was that Israel & Palestine together loom so large for the opinion-makers of the developed nations"
because the US supports Israel

"everyone with a Germanic name, or virtually everyone, fled the US and England after the Lusitania was torpedoed, it might be more impressive"
so you're not impressed by the violence meted out to those with German ancestry - so Brits arent as bad as Arabs then ? - and where would these Germans flee to ? and how ?

"We are talking massive drastic panic, headlong flight, not "harassment."
actually you are exaggerating, many did flee through harassment, other left encouraged by helping themselves to the homes of dispossessed Pals, you may not like it and it may not help you in your effort to demonise Arabs but its a fact.

Dear CR,

This thread is about to die, so this is the last word unless you should choose to continue via email.

"if you talk about Israel "forc[ing] . . . countries to let their Jews leave"
which I didn't - I said (Israel) "[B]laming the Arabs for forcing Jews to flee is cynical" when Israel actively encouraged them to leave.

Actually, what you said is that

[B]laming the Arabs for forcing Jews to flee is cynical when it is imputed by the very Zionists who demanded "let my people go", or by the same Israel that did all it could to force those very countries to let their Jews leave in order that these Jews could settle in Israel and be given the homes of dispossesed Palestinians. The global Zionist pressure on each and every country, from the Soviet Union to Syria, to let its Jewish citizens go, was part of Israelís efforts to consolidate its Jewish majority.

CR, "let them leave," "let them go," suggest that the state is making them stay. If you meant that there there was free emigration and Israel were putting pressure on individual Jews to emigrate, why not say that? If you meant that Israel put pressure on states ("the Soviet Union to Syria") to expel their Jewish populations, or otherwise encourage them to leave (that would be your government "harassment"), why not say that?

I just don't see how your words could be interpreted otherwise than as suggesting that states were preventing Jews from emigrating.

About "harassment" — I really don't know what to say at this point. You say that attacks on Jews throughout the Arab world after Israel was declared were forseeable and understandable, though wrong.

I ask why, if they were so forseeable, no one assaulted random emigre Russians when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, random Italian emigres when Italy invaded Ethiopia, &c.; You say, essentially, "Well, there weren't any conveniently at hand in nearby countries; and anyway, Italian emigres mostly weren't fascists and Russian emigres mostly weren't Communists."

Whereas the Jewish population of Arab countries 55 years ago was mostly . . . ?

Your most recent response, with its reference to current "world Jewry," completely evades the point. Look, there are essentially no Jews in the Middle East outside Israel. There haven't been since, oh, 1948. There were well over half a million Jews there a couple years earlier. Your theory seems to be that they all left voluntarily for Israel, because they were Zionists and Israel told them to come. Or else they left because they were persecuted; but persecution was only natural, because they were Zionists. (In which case, why hadn't they left already? Oh, never mind.)

[S]o you're not impressed by the violence meted out to those with German ancestry [in WWI] - so Brits aren't as bad as Arabs then ? - and where would these Germans flee to ? and how ?

CR, what I'm not "impressed" with is your historical parallel. We are talking about Country A attacking Country B [I'm assuming your "Israeli invasion" scenario arguendo here] and dispersed people of A ethnicity in Countries C, D, E, F &c.; being "harassed" to the degree that virtually every one of them flees the country. I really don't think that's happened very often, as I said.

"Where would these Germans flee to?" Um, maybe Germany? The Jews all fled to Israel, in your scenario, yes? Of course German-Americans might have gone to Mexico first — I seem to recall that there was at least talk of a German-Mexican alliance midway through the war.

Anyway, CR, you have been talking for a long time about "ethnic cleansing," but the total extinction of most of the ancient Jewish communities of the Middle East is one of the clearest examples of it, and it troubles you not at all.

Once again, email if you want to respond, because this thread's about to disappear. My address is there.

Cheers,

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

"suggest that the state is making them stay" thats right Israel suggested the Arab states tried to force the Jews to stay - that doesn't mean that the Arab states DID force the Jews to stay - I clearly made this point im my last post that Israel's claims ere unreliable.
(actually I've done some research since and Iraq actually did initially bar Jews from emigrating but, according to one source - and accounts are mixed- passed law in 1951 allowing Jewish emigration

"Israel were putting pressure on individual Jews to emigrate,"
Yes Israel was encouraging Jews to achieve Aliyah, some of these Jews were NOT oppressed and didn't leave Arab countries for several years after the Israeli seizure of Palestine ie until the 1950s (Tunisia, Moroccoo)

"no one assaulted random emigre Russians when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan"
you made this point before - and what I actually pointed out that if these emigre Russians had been in another large Afghan majority state - or a state with large sthnic sympathy to the Afghans - they would have been harassed, ditto most of your other cases are similarly invalidated. I further pointed other instanced of the concept of revenge, a concept you didn't seem familr with, namely Brit/US attacks on ethnic Germans after the Zeppelin/ Lusitanis attacks and Brit riots against Jews after the KDH bombing, you noted the UK wasn't an arab country apparently unaware that the KDH bombing was, in large, part against Brits.

"Your theory seems to be that they all left voluntarily for Israel, because they were Zionists and Israel told them to come"
not a theory - an accepted historical fact even by most Israel I would think, I'm surprised you're unaware of this.

"Or else they left because they were persecuted; but persecution was only natural, because they were Zionists."
yes revenge is common. maybe its good you're unaware of this unfortunate fact of life. and not just "because they were ZIOnists" mainly because of the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Pals including appaling massacres at Deir Yassin, Tantura and countless other place - I've reminded you of this throughout, what is it about the massacre of innocent unarmed Pals which doesn;t stick in your memory ?

". being "harassed" to the degree that virtually every one of them flees the country"
and it didb't happen in 1948 either, as I said, and you really need to check the history of this period, some Jews were harassed, many fled after Israel encouraged them to perform Aliyah further prmoising them the property of the dispossessed and murdered Pals.

""Where would these Germans flee to?" Um, maybe Germany? "
um, and how easy would that be while WW1 was in full swing, unlike the Aliyah Jews Germany were not strongly encouraging the Germans to emigrate, there were no airliners, Germany's navy was blockaded, even if these Germans had escaped to germany they may well have been regarded as spies. your suggestion, with respect, is ludicrous.

"and it troubles you not at all"
I think I may it clear that harassment of Jews troubled me, its also clear, and historically accepted, that while some Jews did flee many more left voluntarily encouraged by Aliyah, what seems not to bother you at all - and I've heard not one word from you condemning Israel's actions, is the brutal ethnic cleansing of the Pals includnig bloody massacres - you even seem to be justifying or explaining it by the LATER treatment of the Jews !! this is chronologically illogical surely,

anyway all the best if I don't hear from you again - I'm sure we'll "lock antlers" on another thread - maybe or maybe not Israel related - will this thread really disappear ? there seem to be threads still alive from at least last Sept eg at random http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/000259.html
anyway bye for now
Comical Rummy

Dear CR,

Hmmm . . . it looks as though it is still possible to post here. Sorry, Scott. ;-)

Now, CR, the person who said that Israel "forced" governments to "let their Jews leave," "let their Jewish citizens go," was you. Not an Israeli flack, but you.

Let's do this slowly. YOU said that Israel FORCED other states to LET their Jews leave. There is no way to read that except as implying that said states were not letting Jews leave until Israel forced them to. That is the first inference any rational person would make from the passage. If you had said, say, that Portugal had forced the government of Chad to let the Italian ice-cream salesmen leave, I would assume that there were Italian ice-cream salesmen trapped in Chad, unable to get out until Portugal had exerted its influence. Wouldn't you?

"no one assaulted random emigre Russians when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan"
you made this point before - and what I actually pointed out that if these emigre Russians had been in another large Afghan majority state - or a state with large ethnic sympathy to the Afghans - they would have been harassed [ . . . ]

Oh, you mean like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan? No Russians there, were there, in 1980?

Look, you're setting conditions so narrowly that they vitiate your whole point before you even start talking. You're saying that when Country A is perceived to attack Country B, and Countries C, D, E, F, it's only natural that people affiliated with B should be attacked by the citizens of C, D, E, F, unless of course they aren't sufficiently affiliated with A, in which case the entire exercise doesn't count.

Translation: You prove the "sympathy" of the population of C from the fact that it does persecute people ethnically related to A. It's natural for majority populations in C to attack random innocents from A — so we may conclude that if this doesn't happen, C doesn't really hate A, and so it doesn't count as a case.

Neat, CR. Everyone persecutes random emigres from ethnic groups that persecute their own ethnic group. Except those that don't. And they're exceptional.

I know I haven't answered half of your queries, but I haven't any more time. Once again, I really think this would make more sense via email, but whatever.

Hi Michelle,
"Now, CR, the person who said that Israel "forced" governments to "let their Jews leave," "let their Jewish citizens go," was you."

again Michelle I said and you can check
>>when it is imputed by the very Zionists who demanded "let my people go", or by the same Israel that did all it could to force those very countries to let their Jews leave in order that these Jews could settle in Israel
and no , that doesn't imply that the Arab countries prevented Jews leaving, in fact with the exception of Iraq, they didn't, so what is the problem.
are you just trying to deflect from Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Pals in 1947-8 or draw attention from Israel's current violence and rejection of the road-map ?

"you mean like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan? No Russians there, were there, in 1980?"
so you are still saying that the Arabs are uniquely vengeful and claiming that otherwise there would have been attacks on Russian in the above states after 1980 ?
in fact those regions were part of the USSR and under strong Soviet control so attacks on Russian citizenswould have been unlikely - whereas the UK was not under German control in WW1, the Arab countries were not under Jewish control in 1947+, the difference should be obvious.

nope sorry your A,B,C,D ... was a bit lost on me !
I think it is clear that after the appaling ethnic cleansing of the Pals in 1947 revenge attacks by other Arabs on (innocent) Jews were to be expected, not justified but expected. And expected because similar attacks happened before - in the UK after the King David Hotel bomb and in the UK/US after Zeppelins, Lusitania.
And your supposed parallels re Afghanistan fail miserably, now where are there powerless Russians in an Afghan aligned state, certainly not in the states you mention.

anyway .. I'm still keen to hear your route to an Israel in its pre 1967 borders given Israel's refusal to remove settlements and other 14 "reservations" regarding its comittments under the roadmap, Israelis resistance - or specifically that of "settlers"/infiltrators and righwingers -even to removing a few caravans on Pal land and Israel's current attempts to scupper the road map through violence.

Dear CR,

If I said, "Jimmy's mom forced Lucy's mom to let Lucy go to Jimmy's birthday party," you would infer that Lucy originally didn't have permission to go. (You might also infer that Jimmy's mom had some sort of hold over Lucy's mom, but that's beside the immediate point.)

Now you write, "Israel [. . .] did all it could to force those very countries to let their Jews leave [ . . . ]," and the construction is exactly the same. Leave aside the motivations you impute to Israel; that's a separate issue. Just look at the statement of who did what. A "forcing" B to "let" C "leave" means that C wasn't free to leave before. It just does.

And why was Israel doing "all it could" to "force" states to "let their Jews leave," when, by your account, they could actually leave any time they liked? I think even you would have to agree that Israel had a lot to do in its first years, though you might disagree as to what it was. "Forcing" nations to lift emigration barriers that didn't exist would seem to be a waste of scarce time and resourses.

More later.

Hi Michelle

whatever you say re Arab-based Jews and Aliyah,
and you also insist that this is justification for the earlier ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

still interested in how you think Israel can be persuaded back to its 1967 borders given its refused to accept the road map on 14 points.

Did you notice Sharon has had another successful day defending the Israel people. He still maintains that shooting unarmed Palestinian teenagers and trying to bomb Hamas leaders is the way to end violence. He also insists the moon is made of green cheese and that Elvis lives.

Dear CR,

and you also insist that this [the mass flight of Jews from Arab countries] is justification for the earlier ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

CR, I didn't say that. I said that for every Palestinian home fled when Israel was founded, there was probably a Jewish home in some Arab country fled soon afterwards. I didn't say that one justified the other. I did say that the loss of one's home and possessions, the tragic flight, happened on both sides and in roughly equal numbers. I still think that's true.

no Michelle, the two are not equivelent, first although the attacks on Jews was not justified the fact that the Israel commited their atrocities first is important - its not true to say ah well both suffered so its a draw. Second many of the Jews were encouraged to leave by Israel to achieve Aliyah - you can google "aliyah" or "operation magic carpet" etc t find out about this. thirdly the Jews in Israel were compensated by the homes and property of the dispossessed or murdered Pals.

no views on the other issues I raised then ?

Dear CR,

My apologies for not responding to your every point. I had to abandon a post midway through yesterday.

I was in the middle of pointing out that the most prolific killers of Arabs since Israel was founded have been either other Arabs, or other Muslim peoples in nearby states. There are nationals of each of these countries in many others. At the least, there are embassies; more generally, there are visiting citizens, temporary residents, yes?

Well, during the Yemeni civil war, were there attacks on Egyptian nationals? After Black September, were there attacks on Jordanian nationals? After Hama, were there attacks on Syrian nationals? During the Iran/Iraq war, were there attacks on Iranian nationals? When Kuwait expelled a quarter of a million Palestinian laborers after the first Gulf War, were there even attacks on Kuwaiti nationals?

No, Arabs can attack Arabs without an instinctive retaliation all over the Arab world. Even non-Arab Muslim nations can do so. But we can't, and Israel can't.

You said somewhere that obviously I thought Arabs were exceptionally vicious. Not at all. I think Jews are exceptionally demonized.

Must run now.

CR:

I am not going to follow this discussion further nor respond here. It's an inappropriate use of this site. If you want to continue, you are, as I've said before, free to email.

Can anyone tell me the date of the Gold Star Mother's convention in Norfolk, Va.?