One of the fundamental contributions of Jewish life to American liberalism is self-doubt, hence the crippling (by now it's a tradition) tendency on the left, and in Israel, to believe your own bad press, no matter how bad it is.

Last night I watched thirty minutes of Muslim guy-on-the-street opinion, followed by three minutes of an Israeli family who have to sleep away from the windows. What balance is this? Is there any country in history that has been worse at public relations than Israel? Muslim fruit cakes are continually describing Israel as being like Hitler or acting like Nazis and they do it for no reason except to be as insulting as they can and the media simply repeats this for them, never holds them accountable, never takes them to task for it. The western media describes Israeli actions, but never gets into the background leading up to those actions, then dwells almost exclusively on suffering Muslims.

People in the West are used to trusting evident public opinion as having some inherent credibility, but public opinion in Muslim countries can't be given any level of serious regard because these people are all under threat of death if they say something wrong.

What's absolutely mystifying to me is the continuing romance, even now, of many leftists with Islam and Palestinians, who have never resorted to civilization at any point in their history. Liberals who support the Palestinians are simply drunks who think they've found a hip way to justify granddad's anti-semitism.

The Islamic world is the Republican's idea of utopia.

cld:

The charitable description for that is batshit crazy.

Personally, I'd rather sleep away from the windows than live in a squalid refugee camp -- but maybe that's just me.

"A hip way to justify my grandaddy's anti-semitism." Oh, and I'm a drunk, too.

Ad hominem invective like this certainly does little good for your argument that Israel is on the morally correct side.

Bob

THE INVISIBLE SUPERPOWER American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on all this, at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever.

No. Diplomacy is invisible because it's not needed. What we need is war not diplomacy. Israel just discovered 100 Iranian soldiers have been helping Hezbollah launch missles in Lebanon. We must show to Iran they have miscalculated by aiding the terrorists fire missles at Israel and the only way we can do is with war. Otherwise we would be displaying weakness. Israel is fighting four of our enemies right now - Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. And America is fighting the other enemy Al-Qaeda in Iraq. This is World War 3. The 2006 elections will be about which side the liberal Democrats are on in World War 3. Are the Democrats going to side with America, the troops, and George W Bush? Or are they going to side with the terrrorists?

Those 'squalid refugee camps' are of their own making.

And they aren't camps, they're towns and villages, and the whole of Gaza.

American media simply repeats the phrase Palestinians use of the environment they themselves are mostly responsible for creating.

And a charitable view of the Islamic world really suggests you're drunk on something.

cld:

I practice sympathetic introspection. Being drunk usually makes a person contemplate their own most glorious navel.

If you're going to try to ad-hom this, cld -- you will lose.

In order to make an argument about inherent moral superiority, you need the moral high ground.

Bob

rmck1:

Yep, I'd opt for "batshit crazy."

Democrats wonder why the President isn't strutting about, making grand speeches and press-covered calls on foreign leaders. After all, that's what a Democratic president would do, rather than making intense diplomatic efforts behind the scenes.

"Showing leadership" is something that normally requires a specific course of action first. What do you recommend in the current situation?

If you go back and read "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" you will find that securing Israel's northern border is a central goal of securing Israel’s future:

Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.

Syria was pushed out bloodlessly with a well-organized PR campaign called, tritely, “The Cedar Revolution”. Israel has been waiting for the right moment to complete the job of securing the northern border and the abduction of the soldiers was just the casus belli they needed.

The US is not involved because another goal of the Clean Break is to gain independence from the US. The destruction of Iraq has allowed Israel unprecedented room. If I am correct the US will not become involved because this is Israel’s coming of age as an independent nation-state. For this reason, the US will not engage Syria and Iran in any meaningful military fashion (anyway it would be too costly in every sense, Gingrich and the other hawks are blowing smoke).

If Israel had withdrawn to its pre-1967 borders as UN Resolution 242 (unamimously passed, 1967) required and allowed an independent Palestinian state to be formed, most of the hatred, anger and belligerence we have seen over the last 40 years might have been avoided.

Drunks never know when to shut up, is the point I meant about drunks. In this case drunks who may need to justify some unconscious impression of anti-semitism.

Since the Palestinians haven't lived up to one agreement they've ever made and have made most of their money in drug running, weapons dealing and every variety of criminal conduct befitting any other mafia group, I think the Israelis have a lot more moral high ground here than they do.

cld: you write as though it is only the Israelis who are under attack. Surely you'd noticed the growing civilian death toll in Lebanon?

Yes, I've noted the death toll in Lebanon, but the Israelis didn't start it.

Um, rmck1 and cld, please move it to the bedroom. Making up sex is glorious!

Bush doesn't "looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic..."

He IS weak, confused, and pathetic.

Not with some guy who denies the genius of Spike Jones, I won't.

cld:

I never denied the genuius of Spike Jones.

I just think Frank Zappa's is more extensive -- as I feel JS Bach's genius is more extensive than Zappa's.

Bob

PowerLineBlog is linking to a new group blog by Jewish bloggers.

www.J-Blogosphere.blogspot.com.

Evidently several of the bloggers are in Israel. They are literally live-blogging the war.

Israel wants the US to attack Iran (and Syria). The bush administration wants to attack Iran and Syria. Since the neocons can't possibly get a UN security council resolution authorizing military action against Iran (both Russia and China would veto one), they're going to counterfeit some "atrocity" to create a fictitious causus belli to hang a wargasm on.

A logical outcome of all this will be a repeat of the 1973 oil embargo.

Isn't Bush's lack of restraint on Israeli excesses mainly a matter of his own domestic political needs?

In theory he has a lot of the same pressure points available that past administrations had -- but using them always came at something of a political cost. But now that so much of his base is bravely fighting alongside the IDF with their keyboards, Bush will probably be in for something like the Dubai ports fiasco if he actually tries to exert any meaningful pressure.

cld:

The Israelis themselves didn't start it.

The world community did, in sanctioning the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, of all places.

Aren't you the secular fanatic who hates all the Yawehistic religions?

Do you really made sense to form a modern nation based on something that Jehovah allegedly promised to Moses?

Personally, I think the US should have given the Jews Montana. And then re-settled all the Montanans into Nebraska.

Bob

I'm reading Quandt's "Peace Process" at the moment and I'm jumping around looking at different periods of time in Amer. FP regarding the Israelis. Interestingly, I'm reading about "Camp David II" and Quandt avers that Clinton held back because of the U.S. elections (among other things). While the elections were not the sole contributing factor to a limited diplomacy (there were considerations regarding the internal politics of the Israelis and Palestinians), it seems to fit well with the facts. I wouldn't doubt such a calculation is being made today by the Bush administration and the midterm elections. It isn't a bad thing in itself--Presidents should have the flexibility to consider a number of influences that contribute the the possible success of any policy.

In my opinion though, what makes the current silence so shocking at the moment is that now, as opposed to in 2000, there is all out war. And again, today, just as in the early 1980s, a Republican administration gently urges Israel towards restraint while tacitly allowing Israel to continue.

Spike Jones invented not having your two front teeth and wanting them for Christmas.

How can Zappa even compare?

cld:

Li'l Miss Muffet on a squat by me
Can you see the li'l strings danglin' down
Makes the legs go wobble and the mouth flop shut
an' that HORRIBLE EYE
an' that HORRIBLE EYE
an' that HORRIBLE EYE
Go rollin' around ...

That's how :)

Bob

The fundamental error in the origin of Israel was the Jewish romantic idea of the Middle East. They failed to take literally the political circumstances described in the Bible, where the region of Israel is the field of proxy conflict between larger external powers --and it still was. Because the Ottoman Empire had come to such a degree of stagnation the area had achieved, not so much stability, as stasis. As soon as something new dropped in the whole thing blew up again.

Having failed to appreciate, really, where they were, they also failed to realize that, as the original ideal of public organization for an Israeli state was socialist, which was secular and technically atheistic, that was the same thing as saying to Arabs "We're Jews but atheism is good enough for you, if you want to talk to us."

Perversely if Israel had been established as a sanctuary for Jewish religious maniacs from the get go it wouldn't have had half so much difficulty.

In the 1940s the UN partitioned the western part of Palestine into two countires, Israel and Palestine. In every case where a territory has been partitioned like this there was population displacement.

The difference here is that Palestine never organized as a state, and has never declared itself a state.

The problem with the neocons and the Bush administration is that they put the interests of the United States second to the Likudnik interests of Israel. The guys who make up the Project for the New American Century, after all, first tried to sell their idea of an invasion of Iraq to Israel in the mid-1990's. The focus of the ill-conceived plan was the defense of Israel, not the United States.

But after 9/11, the PNACs repackaged the idea initially meant for the defense of Israel and re-sold it to the Bush Administration, which of course bought the idea.

Bush has yielded American foreign policy interests to those of Israel's right wing. It's a betrayal of the United States.

Eisenhower stood up to Israel, Britain, and France when they invaded the Suez in the mid-1950's. Eisenhower put US interests first, and would not kowtow to Israel when those interests were threatened. Bush, of course, has never stood up to Israel because he's afraid or unwilling to put US interests ahead of Israel's right wing.

vanessa, I agree

I think that the Cheney regency has had enough of project wars. They may be quite incompetent and rash and authoritarian but my sense is that the establishment in the US has decided the American military has enough on its plate. Given the situation in Iraq, I doubt the bureaucracy could run another war if it want to.

The consequences of the US getting more involved in the Middle East are just too great to contemplate. Any American politician or military leader who would sign-off on such a project is stupid, perverted or a traitor. Honestly, I think Bush and the Texans are too provincial to understand the Middle East.

bob,

But how many people can hum along with that? Zappa's great moment was popularizing 'gag me with a spoon', a phrase every one knows, but wouldn't if it weren't for him.

Kevin, thanks for the link. I think Marc Lynch has it "about right", to use your turn of the word. Where is the U.S. in all this? Where is Condi Rice? Where is Bush? I agree with Lynch that it may be better to have Bush do nothing than to totally f*ck it up - But how pathetic is that???

With a man like John Bolton (who apparently thinks you solve problems by yelling at them), in charge of the U.S. delegation to the UN, we have placed a bull in an already destroyed china shop.

If Bush's incompetence in handling this very dangerous situation isn't hugely apparent to anyone with an IQ over room temperature, they aren't paying attention. [And please spare me the idiotic "Bush hater" sing-song from the right.] The man is incompetent and the U.S. needs some thoughtful, engaged leadership right now!

Neoconservatives are social conservatives first and anything else long after.

A social conservative is socially conservative to his formative, or infantile, environment and believes anything else is wrong and evil. That most of the neocons are Jewish is incidental, but it gives a coloration to their mental failure --which is to say, they don't understand any distinction between their patriotism as Americans and the worst impulses of Israeli nationalism.

I've lately come to think that social conservatism isn't quite retardation, but more in the way of a learning disability.

What we need is absolute appeasement. Hezboolah should be allowed to take over Israel. The US should sit on the sideline eating brie. Also, we should help speed up the Iranian nuclear progarm so that they can nuke evryone they don't like. What side are the Republicans on? Are they on they side of strength or passivity like that liberal Jesus. We side with Democrat, liberal, terroist, Jesus.

Let me get this straight, Condi and team. We want to empower the Lebanese gov, so we'll give a green light to the bombing of Lebanon. This is the Orwellian world that Bush has wrought, liberation through occupation and empowering through bombing. I'm not being hyperbolic: we would all be safer if a group of teenagers with average intelligence were running the country. They'd say, "We want to make them stronger, so we're going to, like, bomb their people. Isn't that, like, way wack."

Stephen Kriz 4:30 - are you so busy yelling that you can't see what is happening? You bashed John Bolton exactly 24 hours AFTER he achieved a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning North Korea's missile launches earlier this month.

Great timing, genius.

rmck1 >"...Do you really made sense to form a modern nation based on something that Jehovah allegedly promised to Moses?..."

Show me the source document & a valid chain of custody twixt then & now

Otherwise it is just base psychosis & greed operating (until God herself shows up & refutes/verifies)

The Palestinian position is no better basically being run by second generation Nazi thinkers (where do you think those Nazi second line psychos went when the Third Reich collapsed ?) that refuse to do anything other than forment race wars

The Middle Eastern War of Psychos goes on under an umbrella of ignorance

"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." - Isaac Asimov

The bombing is intended to be “balanced”. The idea is to hit Hezbollah hard enough to undermine its military capacity and to send a message to the weak Lebanese government that Israel means business without destabilizing the whole state. They also hope to delegitimize Hezbollah and turn them into a pariah group. Israel wants the Lebanese to take control of the southern border.

"If Israel had withdrawn to its pre-1967 borders as UN Resolution 242 (unamimously passed, 1967) required and allowed an independent Palestinian state to be formed, most of the hatred, anger and belligerence we have seen over the last 40 years might have been avoided."

Gee, didn't Israel do that unilaterally, both withdrawing completely from Lebanon and from Gaza? Not only that, but Olmert's election campaign was premised on a planned unilateral withdrawal from most (although not all) of the West Bank. The response was hundreds of rockets and military raids across the Gaza and Lebanese borders. The simple truth, which is confirmed by most of the pro-Arab posters above, is that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs, and certainly Hezbollah and Hamas, do not want peace with Israel. They do not accept the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. They have been encouraged to continue to wage war against Israel, seeking its destruction, by people like rmck1, instead of seeking peace. This is tragic, both for the Jews and for the Arabs, but I can assure you that the Jews will continue to fight because they have nowhere else to go. All of the facile anologies that the leftists make of Israel to some 19th century colony of some European power fail on this simple fact: there is no mother country. The Jews have been pushed into this one corner of the earth, their historic home, and they will not leave.

Most Americans, thankfully, understand this. Certainly almost all American politicians understand this, both Republicans and Democrats. Aside from a few far leftists like Ralph Nader and far rightists like Pat Buchanan, most Americans do not want to see the Jews of Israel slaughtered or driven into the sea.

hank says, Democrats wonder why the President isn't strutting about, making grand speeches and press-covered calls on foreign leaders.

No, just something better than talking about pigs. Newsday has this:
"Does it concern you that the Beirut airport has been bombed?" a reporter asked. "And do you see a risk of triggering a wider war?"

"I thought you were going to ask me about the pig," Bush replied blithely.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/ny-wobush0716,0,5816676.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

Do you *believe* this dork?

DBL~

I respect your position and opinion enormously. I agree that most likely, most Americans do not want to see Jews of Israel slaughtered or driven into the sea. I also believe that most Americans do not want to see civilians of ANY country bombed or militarily attacked, or slaughtered. Which is why you are hearing and reading their concerns.

Just short of five years ago, New York and Washington DC were attacked. Some have said that if the US had a taken different foreign policy course over the decades, it would not have happened. After the fact, this is speculation. The horror of civilians in a metropolis under attack are still fresh with us, however.

Up thread, there is sympathy for the civilians of Lebanon who have been bombed. (As, in the past, there has been sympathy with Isrealis going about their business being victimized by suicide bombers.) Is it really taking a political position? My thoughts are it is because of an empathy with civilians under attack. As I read the blogs today, the argument is not against Israel's right to exist, or even to protect itself. The writings of the Common American (Left) Blogger is that what has happened is disporportionate to the events that supposedly triggered it.

As the week goes on, perhaps there will be more facts to bear out an attack on civilians in a city, but right now if the trigger is the capturing of 2 army personnel, the scenario screams for onlookers to call it as the "overkill" that they have. If there is an as yet, unseen trigger, well then......I guess we'll have to call that when we see it.

Bolton achieved nothing, Kenneth, so blow me. We are discussing Israel and it's reckless, disproportionate reaction to an attack on a few of it's soldiers, not the other geopolitical mess that Bush and his incompetents have bungled us into. For now, this is the crisis du jour and needs immediate American diplomatic intervention. North Korea has been simmering for years, and
if Bush’s old man hadn’t help the lunatic Sun Myung Moon arm Kim Jong Il’s regime, we wouldn’t be in the mess there that we find ourselves in.

Apparently, right-wingers like Newt Gingrich, who cowardly ran away from military service, now want to create World War III, the sick perverts.

...."The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic... "

and nowhere more so than when mr. bush blustered that, "Boy if we wanted to, we could sure shoot down those North Korean missles."

Boy if I wanted to I could pull out my gun and shoot you.

Boy, if I wanted to, I could haul off and beat the crap out of you

just try me one more time big guy and see if I don't...honest -- don't make me come over there. I really mean it. Really I do....it's my missile and believe me...it works, sorta, kinda -- well at least on paper....if we know when YOUR missile is gonna be fired, and what trajectory it will be on and how fast it will be going...

But really...we could shoot it down if we wanted to. (but we don't want to, just in case our missile doesn't really work and then we'd look even more impotent and powerless, wouldn't we?)

bush has taken the only position a militarily impotent superpower CAN take ... namely, to say and do nothing while tacitly encouraging israeli aggression. we lack the resources to do anything militarily, and this administration lacks the finese, intelligence, or inclination to do something politically.

israel is over-reacting and killing the sand-niggers ... bush nods approvingly ... and the rightwing group think lap it up, apologists that they are for all convenient war crimes.

Social conservatives like to view politics as sports, among Arabs the Palestinians are simply the home team. Like the Cubs.

My initial impression about Israel attacking Hezbollah was that they anticipate greater conflict between the US and Iran and any serious fight would see Iran loosing everything it has, which would include sizable attacks on Israel, so they're pre-emptively attacking the forward positions of Iranian assets.

For once, I'd like to read a discussion about this from an American point of view. As in, how does what's going on relate to our national interest. I keep encountering people discussing this as if they were Israelis, which I think is a big part of the problem. Aren't we all Americans first?

I think a day will come when people will have to choose whether they are Americans or supporters of Israel. To me, what's in the national interest of one may not be in the national interest of the other.

I'm of Polish, German and Norwegian descent. But I'm an American. I don't concern myself with the national interests of any of those nations. In the same way, I was raised Catholic, but I don't see geopolitics through that lens, I see them through an American secular lens.

cld:

You're wrong. From the initial coverage I've seen, the media has mostly shown damage done to Israeli cities, when clearly more damage is being done to Palestinian cities. I've seen plenty of on-the-street interviews of Israelis - one program does not the entire media make. It's the responsibility of the media to show facts, and it is entirely reasonable for the media to show what Palestinians have to say, as opposed to censorship. In fact, I'd say the initial MSM coverage of the attacks have been pro-Israeli, if anything. You're clearly biased, so that makes your assessment of Western media invalid.

I mean Lebanese, not Palestinian..

Where is Condi Rice?

Out claiming that there should be no ceasefire by Israel as long as Hezbollah exists.

When Kevin posted about "The Invisible Superpower," I perked up, thinking that this might be some novel insight into some unknown covert superpower lurking about that is now beginning to emerge.

That would be interesting.

Instead, he was referring to the conduct of the Bush administration.

I'm sorry, Kevin, but the United States is not a superpower. A casual inspection of the various deficits or of the current situation in Iraq should prove this. And the United States now has so little credibility that anything it might try to do would most likely be counterprodctive.

As for the Israelis, if they are going to enjoy any chances of long term survival, they are going to have to find substantial elements of the Islamic world with which they can deal.

In this context, disputes over "whose fault it is" are unlikely to be productive.

If they cannot or will not do this, then the sober and responsible policy for them to adopt would be the organized and gradual withdrawal of their population from Palestine.

Hank:

You write:

..making grand speeches and press-covered calls on foreign leaders. After all, that's what a Democratic president would do, rather than making intense diplomatic efforts behind the scenes.

You're completely wrong. If by a Democratic President you mean Clinton, he always worked behind the scenes, exerting pressure through back channels, as the case was in Bosnia. Bush is the one who always makes grand pronoucements publically. There have been very few cases of behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts by Bush - that was the hallmark of Clinton. Bush is the one who always pressures other leaders publically, which causes backlash.

How can any reasonble person, conservatives and liberals alike, not see that Bush's foreign policy has been dismal. Iraq was supposed to get WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, bring about democratic change, and suppress terrorism. Looking at Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Hizbollah, has any of that been achieved? Sure, Iraq is better off without Saddam, and that's all great for the Iraqi citizens (at least the ones who haven't been injured or killed by insurgents), but after spending 300 billion dollars and three years later, there has to be some real tangible benefit for the American taxpayer. What Bush has done with American tax money and the lives of the armed servicemen has been utterly irresponsible.

nepeta: If Israel had withdrawn to its pre-1967 borders as UN Resolution 242 (unamimously passed, 1967) required and allowed an independent Palestinian state to be formed, most of the hatred, anger and belligerence we have seen over the last 40 years might have been avoided.

When Israel was in its pre-1967 borders it was repeatedly attacked, by armies and by civilian terrorists. The post-1967 violence against Israel is merely a continuation of what went before. The first U.N. resolution concerning Israel created an independent Palestinian state (not with that name), but the Arabs fought against its creation.

There are complexities, but what you wrote is worthless.

Rose at 6:14 makes an interesting proposal -- let's talk about this from the standpoint of American interests, rather than imagine we are Israelis or Palestinians, or that we are judges trying to evaluate their respective charges and claims, or (my own amendment) that we need to use the latest crisis in the Middle East as a hook to express, for about the 500th time in some cases, our views about American domestic politics.

Let's remember, first of all, that a sense of proportion matters. There are fewer people in Israel, the occupied territories and Lebanon combined than there are in greater Shanghai by itself. Notwithstanding the great visuals provided by the conflict in Lebanon, run over and over on television, there is nothing so transcendant about the issues in dispute in the Middle East that Americans or their government should make them their highest priority or anything close to it.

Secondly, America has an established policy dating back over half a century of support for the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. That isn't about to change, and there is no good reason why it should. It is true that Jewish settlements on the West Bank and Gaza have never served any conceivable American interest, something every American administration (before the current one) has recognized, and most of Israel's partisans in Congress and elsewhere have, not to their credit, refused to -- a thoroughly bipartisan phenomenon, by the way. The benefit of the doubt, though, in any conflict between Israel and groups dedicated to its destruction will always go to Israel. This will be true regardless of who is President, and especially when the groups opposing Israel have a history of practicing terrorism.

The above does not answer questions as to whether the Bush administration's reaction to all of Israel's actions in Lebanon has been correct. My personal view is that Israel's strategic concept is wrong, and that this is leading IDF to take actions that have little chance of damaging Hezbollah but impose unnecessary hardship on Lebanese with whom Israel need not quarrel. I would prefer the administration say that or something like it, but I'm not sure how much that would help with the Arab, and especially the Arab Shia, "street."

Finally, let's remind ourselves about the nature of this Arab "street" whle revisiting that question about a sense of proportion. An Arab government has waged a genocidal war on a defenseless, and mostly Muslim, civilian population in Darfur for well over three years now. Hundreds of thousands of people have died; slavery, forced relocation, rape and starvation have been used as weapons. You won't see any Arabs demonstrating on television about Darfur anytime soon, any Arab governments that the Sudanese government disarm its janjaweed militias or pledging to match the humanitarian aid already sent by Western countries, or many articles in any of the Arab press criticizing any of this. Yet without the unstinting backing of its fellow Arab governments, the Khartoum regime's defiance of the civilized world over the last few years could never have been sustained.

These are the people we are dealing with. They are capable of honest and genuine outrage when it appears that non-Muslims are fighting Muslims, but are fine with Muslims being exterminated as long as other Muslims do the killing.

Two things, I think, follow from this, from the standpoint of American interests. First, we should spend more time speaking about what Arab governments do and less about how they are chosen. Greater democratization at the price of tolerance for genocide is a game not worth the candle. Secondly, we need to start viewing conflicts like the one in Lebanon now solely from the standpoint of damage control.

Conflicts in the Arab world do not represent tears in the fabric of civilization, but rather disturbances at its outskirts. Americans like to think of problems as things to be settled, but some of them can't be, not as problems are settled here, in Europe or Japan or one of the other English-speaking countries. The Israeli-Arab conflict is one of these.

The fact that the American Presidency
is NOT NOW a vociferous voice for peace
says all you need to know:

America has at its helm the ilk of terrorists.
(Repugs... if you will.)

That's the bad news.

The good news:

You are going to pay
for their slackjawed indifference
at the pump.

But how many people can hum along with that? Zappa's great moment was popularizing 'gag me with a spoon', a phrase every one knows, but wouldn't if it weren't for him.
Posted by: cld

Do you even know who Frank Zappa is? The man had many great moments, and here is one of them:

Well I'm about to get sick
From watchin' my TV
Been checkin' out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend
Is anybody's guess

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched 'em throwin' rocks and stuff
And chokin' in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin' 'round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin' down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
'Cause, baby, I don't need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
'N all that phony stuff on sports
'N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin' out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they'll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin' hard and doin' swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can't be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They'll send some joker with a brownie
And you'll see it all complete

So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin'
Hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin'
Every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay
That trouble comin' every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin' every day

Hey, you know something people?
I'm not black
But there's a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I'm not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin'
And the local people turnin'
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite 'em
And they say it served 'em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it's the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin' "You can't understand me!"
'N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don't appeal to him
(No matter if it's black or white)
Because he's out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won't be many live
To see it really end
'Cause the fire in the street
Ain't like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don't you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now's the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain't no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn't free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won't amount to nothin' more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor

Blow your harmonica, son!

Zathrus, thank you. So satisfying to read an analysis that's not based primarily on who did what to whom and why the whom should respond in kind.

I also agree with the thrust of your analysis. Damage control is exactly it. Neither exaggerating the danger nor ignoring it.

Andy,

No, I don't watch half as much tv as I ought to.

US foreign polilcy under the Presidential leadership of George W. Bush:

He appoints as Secretary of State a retired General held in high regard for leading a multi-national coalition, with diverse interests and sensetivities, to the successful conclusion of a complicated operation, within the limitations of its parameters. He is generally considered intelligent, calm, grounded and experienced.

The administration never really lays out a doctrine, but as the months go by it is seen to be "We can do what we want and we can do it alone." Whether Kyoto and environment, or WTO, GATT and world trade, or UN and international cooperation, the US shows that it's preferred route is to work bi-laterally or low-level multilaterally where the US doesn't have to compromise its interests (as the administration sees them) to the same degree, if at all, as working in the international forums. Besides Kyoto, the administration shows a casual attitude towards all the nuclear treaties: nuclear proliferation, anti-ballistic defence, weapons in space, etc. Equally, they show trade aggression towards others -- timber, steel, GM foods -- often acting in a unilateral manner that pisses our otherwise partners off.

After 11th September '01, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was forced to face how sidelined he had become. From this time, the neocons openly ran foreign policy, although thay effectively always had been, but now they could straightline to objectives. "You're either for us or against us."

We all know the group-think that went on from there. And we could see the powerplays proceed. The turf building, the combining and creation of security apparatus without clear thought behind it, or clear lines of responsibility within it.

The invasion of Iraq was not only based on false theories and assumptions, we also know that key experience and advice was ignored or overridden and the planning was slipshod and left no room for reserves or contingencies. Above all, the State Department was cut out of the picture and this continued after "mission accomplished" when control should have reverted to the civil body.

Gen. Powell had had enough. As the dutiful soldier and without fuss he stepped aside. Condi Rice became Secretary of State. I'm not sure what she achieved as NSA. As set out above, I disagree with the way Homeland Security has been structured and has proven to be another layer of bureaucracy and more turf-building. She is reported to look to see the President's lean before committing, so not a leader and maybe not an original thinker. As Secretary of State, being a poodle, nothing she says carries weight. Personally, I think she is a lightweight way out of her depth. For all these reasons she is certainly not going to help provide a real Foreign Policy that makes sense.

So we've had five and a half years of a foreign policy where the President himself couldn't find his way out of Texas on his own. A neutered or ineffective Secretary of State. And input from a group of people -- the neocons or, as I prefer, the PNACnuts -- who now find that it's hard to ignore that their theories, preconceptions, assumptions and expectations have mostly proved inaccurate. Their desire to reshape the world to the benefit of the US has brought unforeseen consequences and complications. It's impossible for them to show that they knew what they were doing or that it has been to the benefit of the US. In short, they are a group of failures. A few of them can admit that,

So, 55 years of mostly successful US foreign policy, that has brought the longest period of economic expansion ever to the whole world under an increasingly stable international cooperative system, and more and more in line with the United States interests, was thrown away on a misconceived theory by a group of neophytes over-equipped with intellectual arrogance.

These last 5 years have seen the US throw away this broader world-wide cooperation on many fronts that, although it came with costs, has proven to benefit the US (and the world) over time, and instead pursued narrow interests that have proven to unravel many of the mechanisms of stability, diplomacy and negotiation.

Think they knew what they were doing. No chance!

Reprobate,

That's not bad, but not half so resonant as his appearance on Miami Vice.

Everybody who owns that season of Miami Vice on dvd will know his presence, for eternity, until they die, and whatever of them lives on after will carry with them some trace of Frank. For God to see.

Look at most of the posts here by Democrats. They remind me of Chicken Little, who went around yelling "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

Only these Democrats add their own twist: "The sky is falling and it's Bush's fault! The sky is falling and it's Bush's fault!"

notthere.

You are a moron. Global growth the last few yeas has been the strongest it's ever been and extremely well balanced.

Colin Powell served his purpose and became a liability. In a time of war it's not good to have moderates at State especially when he's a leak machine. Plus with Cheney and Rumsfeld the position is not as important.

This team has done a brilliant job setting up the GWOT and refocusing US foreign policy away from the appeasers in Europe and toward the moe sober nations in Asia including Japan and India. GWB has even recently peeled Germany away from France to take a far more aggressive stand against Iran and against terror.

A decade from now the most powerful alliance in the world will be the USA-INDIA-JAPAN-GERMANY as well as Italy, Australia, Denmark and other reliable allies.

Out are the UN, Kyoto, the ABM treaty, Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin and soon Jacques Chirac.

but not nearly as good as exercising actual grown-up leadership at a time when the world could really, really use some.

It appears from reports til now that the adults in Israel are taking the leadership role in disarming the Hisbullah, an action called for by resolutions of the UN and the Lebanese government. I doubt that we'll get an accurate count anytime soon of how many have been destroyed in the various homes and warehouses where they have been stored, but hundreds at least. The Israeli bombing has cut the Hisbullah off from its contacts outside southern Lebanon, and has seriously reduced its fighting effectiveness. The Bush administration is resupplying the IAF with jet fuel expeditiously.

I would not characterise this as a lack of policy or a lack of adult leadership.

oops,

I meant an accurate count of how many rockets have been destroyed. Not all of the civilian dead have been human shields for the rockets, but clearly some have.

Gee, didn't Israel do that unilaterally, both withdrawing completely from Lebanon and from Gaza?

DBL: I'm certainly not an expert on Israel or ME history. But from what I've read of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the terms are quite rightly not acceptable to the Palestinians. Israel will unfortunately never know peace until it comes to a 'fair' and 'equitable' 'agreement' with the Palestinians, as it has done with Egypt and Jordan. Here is the description of the Gaza withdrawal that I find most relevant. If you can inform me of any error in this description, please do so:

'Of course, Olmert's plan was presented with a positive spin characterized by terminology to do Orwell proud. Hitkansut or 'withdrawing into oneself' in Hebrew is the operational phase of 'separation' from the Palestinians, and seems exactly what the public wanted (a full 85% of Israeli Jews support the construction of the Wall, or 'Separation Barrier'). Perhaps that is the reason it generated no public discussion, no dissent and ended up a non-issue. It does not mean, however, withdrawal of Israel back to its pre-1967 territory, but rather a 'convergence' of Israeli settlers scattered throughout the West Bank into Israel's major settlement blocs. Though the idea of leaving territories densely populated by Palestinians sounds good to Israeli Jews, it really means apartheid. And it will be imposed unilaterally because Israel has nothing to offer the Palestinians. True, they get 70-85% of the Occupied Territories, but only in truncated enclaves. Israel retains control of all the borders, Palestinian movement among the cantons, all the water and the richest agricultural land, the large settlement blocs including "greater" Jerusalem (which accounts for 40% of the Palestinian economy), the Palestinians' airspace and even their communications. Indeed, Israel retains all the developmental potential of the country, leaving the Palestinians with only barren and disconnected enclaves. Israel expands onto 85% of the entire country, leaving the Palestinians - the majority population or soon to be - with only about 15%, and that truncated, non-viable and only semi-sovereign. A Bantustan a la apartheid South Africa.'

Gee, didn't Israel do that unilaterally, both withdrawing completely from Lebanon and from Gaza?

DBL: I'm certainly not an expert on Israel or ME history. But from what I've read of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, the terms are quite rightly not acceptable to the Palestinians. Israel will unfortunately never know peace until it comes to a 'fair' and 'equitable' 'bilateral'agreement with the Palestinians, as it has done with Egypt and Jordan. Here is the description of the Gaza withdrawal that I find most relevant. If you can inform me of any error in this description, please do so:

'Of course, Olmert's plan was presented with a positive spin characterized by terminology to do Orwell proud. Hitkansut or 'withdrawing into oneself' in Hebrew is the operational phase of 'separation' from the Palestinians, and seems exactly what the public wanted (a full 85% of Israeli Jews support the construction of the Wall, or 'Separation Barrier'). Perhaps that is the reason it generated no public discussion, no dissent and ended up a non-issue. It does not mean, however, withdrawal of Israel back to its pre-1967 territory, but rather a 'convergence' of Israeli settlers scattered throughout the West Bank into Israel's major settlement blocs. Though the idea of leaving territories densely populated by Palestinians sounds good to Israeli Jews, it really means apartheid. And it will be imposed unilaterally because Israel has nothing to offer the Palestinians. True, they get 70-85% of the Occupied Territories, but only in truncated enclaves. Israel retains control of all the borders, Palestinian movement among the cantons, all the water and the richest agricultural land, the large settlement blocs including "greater" Jerusalem (which accounts for 40% of the Palestinian economy), the Palestinians' airspace and even their communications. Indeed, Israel retains all the developmental potential of the country, leaving the Palestinians with only barren and disconnected enclaves. Israel expands onto 85% of the entire country, leaving the Palestinians - the majority population or soon to be - with only about 15%, and that truncated, non-viable and only semi-sovereign. A Bantustan a la apartheid South Africa.' - Jeff Halper, ZMag

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=10150

Out are the UN, Kyoto, the ABM treaty, Gerhard Schroeder, Paul Martin and soon Jacques Chirac.

Paul Martin's been out since January, nutball.

Oops...sorry for the double post.

Not all of the civilian dead have been human shields for the rockets, but clearly some have.

Can you back up your use of the word "clearly"?

Can you back up your use of the word "clearly"?
Posted by: Foundation of Mud

by "clearly" republicrat simply means "as a way to justify my racist tendancies."

he could easily have said, "not all of those killed on 9/11 deserved it, but clearly some did." I'm sure osama says something like that ... but then, osama and repubs in general have similar thought processes, and a similar willingness to embrace collective punishment.

"This team has done a brilliant job setting up the GWOT . . . "

There is no "Global War On Terrorism." This is a pernicious fiction of the Republican party designed to replace the Cold war. When the Soviet Union disappeared, the reason for Republican Party existence disappeared. The GWOT had to be invented, or else the Repubs would have to go out of business.

The Al-bot: "What we need is war not diplomacy. ... We must show to Iran they have miscalculated by aiding the terrorists fire missles at Israel and the only way we can do is with war. Otherwise we would be displaying weakness. ... Are the Democrats going to side with America, the troops, and George W Bush? Or are they going to side with the terrrorists?"

"I find that mighty bold talk for a one-eyed fat man!" -- Ned Pepper (Robert Duvall) to Marshal Rooster Gogburn (John Wayne), True Grit (1969)

"Well, it just seems to me that you want --you just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. You wanted us in Iraq. Now you want us in Iran. Now you want us to get into the Middle East, where I think there’s a real interesting dynamic at play. I think it’s psychological on the part of Israel and many of its supporters, and I’ll throw you in here. Somehow you see Israel as weak, and you see [new Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert as weak. ... And the defense minister as weak. Everybody is weak in the aftermath of Sharon, and so everybody has to prove what a man they are in the Middle East, including — you’re saying, why doesn’t the United States take this hard, unforgiving line? Well, the hard and unforgiving line has been, we don’t talk to anybody. We don’t talk to Hamas. We don’t talk to Hezbollah. We’re not going to talk to Iran. Where has it gotten us, Bill?" -- Juan Williams to Bill Kristol, FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace

Indeed. Where has your heroes' chickenhawk bellicosity gotten us, Al?

Donald,

Nice post and all, but Al is a spambot. He posts once per thread, reciting Repub talking points.

We have plenty of living trolls to play with here, if that's your desire. Try rdw, for example. Challenge his juvenile political analysis, and watch him launch into a lengthy essay on W's trade deals with Oman and how trading with dictatorships that traffic in slavery is replacing the US relationships with Europe.

Such are the dull-witted ruminations of retired accountants. But I suppose they are a step above animations like Al, if not in predictability, then at least in innovative bafflegab.

Why have Palestinians never declared statehood? Because they're not a state, not a nationality, but an instrument used in a proxy war, just as instruments like them have been used in this area for the past four thousand years, and probably longer.

They have no nationalistic identity or idea of themselves except as a thing dedicated to destroying Israel. That's all they are, that's all they have.

If they declared statehood what would happen? Instead of being the Arab home team they become another power player, and the weakest player in the region. In order to survive in Arab politics they would inevitably have to make common cause with Israel.

But, that will never happen.

bush has taken the only position a militarily impotent superpower CAN take ... namely, to say and do nothing while tacitly encouraging israeli aggression. we lack the resources to do anything militarily, and this administration lacks the finese, intelligence, or inclination to do something politically.

israel is over-reacting and killing the sand-niggers ... bush nods approvingly ... and the rightwing group think lap it up, apologists that they are for all convenient war crimes.

阀门电磁阀调节阀球阀蝶阀闸阀隔膜泵离心泵水泵电动阀门气动阀门电动阀煤气电磁阀不锈钢电磁阀水用电磁阀防爆电磁阀电动调节阀气动调节阀衬氟调节阀波纹管调节阀电动精小型调节阀电动球阀气动球阀三通球阀电动调节球阀气动蝶阀电动蝶阀电动调节蝶阀电动截止阀电动闸阀电动隔膜泵气动隔膜泵管道离心泵排污泵磁力泵

I wonder if other people see, like me, that this new Republican right is as dangerous a threat as the United States has faced?

They believe that the president should have executive, legislative and judicial autonomy. They support the suspension of human rights in terms of habeas corpus, torture, representation and fair trial. They demand allegiance and single-minded support to the cause above intelligence, critical facility or judgement. Corruption for the cause is acceptable whilie they maintain a front of strict morality for society as a whole that inhibits individual choice and freedom. They put the U.S. as supreme among nations with a God-given right to control their own and others' destiny. They cynically use facts and media to distort to their own ends; propaganda would be understatement.

I'm sure you get the picture and can add more.

He called it National Socialism. What does Bush call it?

The only difference is that this puppet doesn't recognize what has risen up around him and hasn't got the intelligence to control it. Which makes this a extra-political agenda using any available levers. Which is why they are so opaque about everything.

And people like rdw use the same rabid "we are the wunderkind" speech as the nuts 70 years ago.

I hope the US constitution and institutions are strong enough to win through. They are under direct attack.

And I never thought I'd become a conspiracy nut!

"They have no nationalistic identity or idea of themselves except as a thing dedicated to destroying Israel. That's all they are, that's all they have."

What a crude thing to say. The Palestinians are people, just like you and me. How does one form a nation when the land is under occupation?

"And I never thought I'd become a conspiracy nut!"

I agree with you entirely. John Dean recently published a book that I want to read (maybe you too). The title is "Conservatives without Conscience." He reports on the results of legitimate sociological studies that show the 'new' conservative (in contradisinction to the 'old' conservative) have strong authoritarian personality traits, both the leaders and the followers. I've spent the last six years trying to figure out why conservatives 'think' the way they do. This may be the answer.

It seems like liberals almost always immediately take a anti-American position (when a Republican is president). Why is that?

In this case, it is far too early to assess what is going on or what is the right conclusions. This "Arab street" nonsense is cited every time (like the Arab street would explode upon the invasion of Iraq), and never plays out like the liberals predict. Can't we just wait a few days, at least, to see how this is playing out?

here's from the G-8 statement:

The immediate crisis results from efforts by extremist forces to destabilize the region and to frustrate the aspirations of the Palestinian, Israel and Lebanese people for democracy and peace. In Gaza, elements of Hamas launched rocket attacks against Israeli territory and abducted an Israeli soldier. In Lebanon, (Hezbollah), in violation of the Blue Line, attacked Israel from Lebanese territory and killed and captured Israeli soldiers, reversing the positive trends that began with the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, and undermining the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.
...
These extremist elements and those that support them cannot be allowed to plunge the Middle East into chaos and provoke a wider conflict. The extremists must immediately halt their attacks.
...
It is also critical that Israel, while exercising the right to defend itself, be mindful of the strategic and humanitarian consequences of its actions. We call upon Israel to exercise utmost restraint, seeking to avoid casualties among innocent civilians and damage to civilian infrastructure and to refrain from acts that would destabilize the Lebanese government.

does it seem to you that the influence of the US is missing from this statement?

does it seem to you that the influence of the US is missing from this statement?

Yes.

Because Israel is going to do what it wants no matter what Bush thinks, so he's forced to endorse attacks by Israel that have neither constraint nor proportion so that he looks tough, while the victims continue to be Lebanese civilians...and Canadians.

An influential President would be able to step in and negotiate an end to the carnage.

How does one form a nation when the land is under occupation?

And what would prevent them? If it's a nation it's a nation with or without an occupation.

The United States declared statehood and ejected an occupying power, but the Palestinians can't and won't.

Any concept of a Palestinian state would include the West Bank and Gaza. They have those now. Everything they do is as if intended to prevent the Israelis from disengaging.

If the UN tried to force them to declare statehood? They would refuse.

If you call it apartheid, then you don't believe in a two state solution at all, you view the region as inherently unified. But why? The whole area of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is only 20% of Palestine. When the PLO were forced into Jordan they weren't any more popular there than they were in Israel. They tried to seize the Jordanian government and the Jordanians drove them into Lebanon where they started the Lebanese civil war.

Why they thought they could realistically seize the Jordanian government at all was because the population of Jordan is ethnically contiguous with them. They are all the Arabs of Palestine. But when they ended up in Lebanon and tried to seize that government they were simply acting in outright gangsterism, their true colors.

Almost all of the Old Testament is about exactly this sort of thing, some external 'The Lord' orders some local group to attack and pillage some other local group, desecrate their temple, or chop down all their trees. This is the way the area of Israel (and most of Lebanon) has been since the bronze age, and probably earlier.

An unusual thing about Israel is that if it were allowed to live in peace it would be a stable local power in this area, with backing external to the whole of the Middle East.

That's why they always insist that Israel is acting as a proxy for the US, though that's hardly true.

"The only reason I’m not calling more loudly for Bush to get involved and take a leadership role in the conflict is the expectation that he would probably do the wrong thing."

Not to worry. We'll be hearing in a couple of days, "You're doing a heck of a job, Olmert."

It seems like liberals almost always immediately take a anti-American position (when a Republican is president). Why is that?...

Posted by: brian on July 16, 2006 at 11:19 PM | PERMALINK

Perhaps you'd like to set out what "anti-American" position(s) is/are? You know, just so we know.

By the way, it's "aN anti-American position".

...but the Palestinians can't and won't.

Any concept of a Palestinian state would include the West Bank and Gaza. They have those now. Everything they do is as if intended to prevent the Israelis from disengaging...

If you call it apartheid, then you don't believe in a two state solution....

Posted by: cld on July 16, 2006 at 11:55 PM | PERMALINK

Gaza and West Bank: If you believe they "have these now" you are delusional. Israel maintains all the control; egress/ingress, import/export, internal movement. As I've set out before, every Israeli action is set around maintaining that control and the inability to come to solution, any ability of the Palestininas to control their own territory or negotiate.

The Israeli policies have been to ghetto the Palestinians while maintaining all possible control. The obvious and extreme case would be East Jerusalem, but the others are not far behind. Who has the control, the strength, who's building the walls?

There are a proportion of Israeli and US Jews who recognize this. You cannot be a Jew over 75 without recognizing the parallels and hypocrisy.

You state everything as undeniable fact when, of course, there are shades of grey.

Whoops. Sorry! You guys like to keep it simple!

...And then read this too.

—Kevin Drum 2:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (82)

Wow! A press conference where the press get to ask any question they want and put the politicians on the spot. What a concept!

Wouldn't it be nice if our own press would put our own politicians on the spot? I see the British press ask some pretty hard questions of politicians, ministers and the prime minister. And they have Prime Minister question time where the Prime Minister has to stand in the House and answer questions from the political opposition. That's quite a good concept.

You know, maybe we didn't quite set this up correctly. The President has been able to avoid any direct, hard questions. In a democracy, is that right?

notthere:

Anti American positions are actions such as rushing in to immediately attack and blame our president and the administration -- like Dean, Dodd and Harmon did today and like Lynch in the post:

"The Bush administration right now looks weak, confused, and vaguely pathetic... which is better than batshit crazy (like the folks who are demanding that America either smile on or even join in a war with Damascus and/or Tehran), but not nearly as good as exercising actual grown-up leadership at a time when the world could really, really use some."

This is not a hard concept. There is no need to immediately attack Bush on every issue. The bad guys here are Hamas, Hizballah, Syria and Iran and their terrorist/jihadists supporters. Liberals might give some consideration to blaming them and not America.

Dodd, Dean, and Harmon are so lame in extolling the virtues of pre-2000 "diplomacy" that, in case anyone forgot, resulted in 9/11.

You know, we accuse the Arabs of not having an open press, but . . .

"...And then read this too" puts it all in perspective. We REALLY DON"T have the free press that everyone keeps telling us we have.

Nobody gets put on the spot. Journalists don't ask the hard questions. Nobody gets drilled for lieing. "Both sides" are printed without critical appraisal. And the New York Times can deliberately mislead in a news article and what will happen?

Does any really think the head of the democratic party saying the following today is in the best interest of the cournty:

“If you think what’s going on in the Middle East today would be going on if the Democrats were in control, it wouldn’t, because we would have worked day after day after day to make sure we didn’t get where we are today. We would have had the moral authority that Bill Clinton had when he brought together the Northern Irish and the IRA, when he brought together the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

Dodd, Dean, and Harmon are so lame in extolling the virtues of pre-2000 "diplomacy" that, in case anyone forgot, resulted in 9/11.
Posted by: brian

20 years of killing arab civilians, supporting dictators, selling them wmds, and arming paramilitary militias resulted in 9/11, jackass. diplomacy bears less of the blame, except for armchair cowboy pussies like yourself and your preznint.

Does any really think the head of the democratic party saying the following today is in the best interest of the cournty: ...
Posted by: brian

it certainly isn't in the best interest of bush or his fellaters ... but it also happens to be true ... so yes, that highly accurate statement likely is in the best interests of our country.

Nads,

Come on. Dean's statement is nothing more than his speculative opinion about what would have happened if democrats somehow won the last two elections. If that is what liberals consider "truth" and helpful to the country, they should never be trusted with power again on national security matters.

If the subject wasn't so serious, Dean's statement about Clinton bringing together the Israelis and Palestinians would be comical. How do the democrats put someone like Dean in charge of their party?

brian ... weren't you the mental midget that tried winning an argument by asserting that since israel was good and the arabs evil, israel could kill whomever it wanted???

and didn't I tell you not to come back until your juvenile ass grew some chest hair and your testicles descended? clearly, that hasn't happened yet ... so what are you doing here trying to opine on matters above your capacity?

Nads,

On that high note, goodnight and sweet dreams. Maybe things will be beter in the morning.

Does any really think the head of the democratic party saying the following today is in the best interest of the cournty:

“...."

Posted by: brian on July 17, 2006 at 1:52 AM | PERMALINK

Brian, this is what I don't understand: that you feel that the opposition doesn't have the best interests of the country to the forefront, and what they have to say has no relevance and should be suppressed.

Fine US patriot you are! You don't believe in democracy. Or not the one you'd like to have!

notthere,

Dean can say anything he wants. I question his judgment and wonder how politicians like him can get so caught up in the anti-Bush view that they shoot their mouth off in a silly way, apparantly without considering what might be in the best interst of the country.

Dean and the democrats are not going to remove Bush from office. He is our president for almost three more years and, even if in Dean's mind he thought such statementw would help the dems win back the house or senate, a democrat house or senate will not be running our foreign policy or national security over the next three years so I don't even think the statement could be rationalized on that ground. These are very serious issues. I find it interesting and probably encouraging that no one other than Nads supports the content of Dean's statement as anything more than political, speculative opinion, at best.

How does one form a nation when the land is under occupation?

The way the Israelis did it. One takes what one is offered in the negotiations, and one sets up one's state. If the other side insists on warfare, one fights for what one can hold, and one sets up one's state there.

The Palestinians have shown themselves incapable over the last 15 years of ever saying yes to any offer in the actually existing universe we inhabit. They are holding out for a fairy tale, and they are willing to kill and die for their fairy tale.

nepeta,

I believe you were reading a description of one of the various proposed West Bank withdrawal plans, I'm not sure which one. There have been several.

The withdrawal from Gaza was complete, from 100% of the territory of the territory of the Gaza strip, to the armistice lines in effect before the Six-Day War in 1967.

As for the West Bank, the most generous proposal the Israelis made was at Taba, which followed the failed Camp David talks. Israel would have given up most of the West Bank. It would have retained (and in all imaginable scenarios will retain) the large Jewish suburbs that were built on mostly empty lands just to the east of Jerusalem. Try to imagine Scottsdale, Arizona and you'll get the picture. I believe that Sharon at one point said he would be willing to discuss compensation to the PA for the land that Israel was going to keep, both monetary compensation and even giving to the PA some of the Arab villages that were on the Israeli side of the pre-1967 armistice lines. (Of course, the Arab residents of those villages have no desire to be transferred from a first world country like Israel to the PA.) I do not know where Olmert stands on this, but if it were just a matter of negotiating mutually acceptable compensation, then that would have been done long ago. Given the historical record (50 years of Arab determination to exterminate the state of Israel), I don't see how any reasonable person could object to Israel retaining some security positions in the West Bank (e.g., along the Jordan River), but I don't see any reason why they couldn't be time limited, e.g. Israel would agree to give them up in 25 years if relations with the PA are compeltely peaceful for that period.

brian: It seems like liberals almost always immediately take a anti-American position (when a Republican is president). Why is that?

"You can support the troops but not the president." -Rep Tom Delay (R-TX) 1999

When historians look back they will probably recognize the inaction of major powers as the most damning thing that happened in that conflict.

We are told that 9/11 changed everything, well it actually didn't. This conflict between Israel and Palestine is the biggest problem on the face of this earth, it is a cancer that threatens the entire world. 9/11 gave a window of opportunity to really engage the problem and force both sides to give up their fairy tales, and finally liberate them from that insane cycle of violence cycle where they have been trapped for the last 30 years.

That would have required american leadership and a ton of political courage from the president. That unfortunately didn't happen. And please don't tell me it could not be done. We have 200 000 troops in Irak right now for god knows what reason, i don't see why they couldn't be in Palestine instead, enforcing the peace process on both sides. If that's what it takes then it must be done, this problem is just too serious.

I wish people would represent the "negotiations" with the Palestinians in a more accurate way (hint: brooksfoe and dbl). It is disingenuous, to say the least, to say that "some large sounding percentage" of the West Bank is offered and then imagine Scottsdale? This is nothing more than a retelling of the Israeli myth (without asserting that every israeli believes this, just that it forms part of th Israeli national narrative) that the people living on the land they occupy have as much value as the supposed "desert" they made "bloom"

The problem, in fact, is that the Palestinians, once they were even recognized as a culturally and therefore national population, have never been offered anything in the way of territorial concessions (and that is the main issue here) that could possibly result in a viable state. The cantonization of the land with Israel controlling the arteries that divide up the land is no solution. Saying that the Palestinians have been offered anything viable is the untold fairy tale in this story.

mhr: what negotiations of Carter and Arafat with Israeli reps present are you referring to? AFAIK, they met for the first time in 1990.

notthere, Gaza and West Bank: If you believe they "have these now" you are delusional. Israel maintains all the control; egress/ingress, import/export, internal movement

You think they do this for fun? If the Palestinians had anything to do besides attack them, they would never have to.

sunship,

The Palestinians were given Gaza and the West Bank in the 1940s, rejected it, refused to declare their own statehood and set about attacking Israel, which accepted the UN arrangement. None of the Arab countries accepted the UN arrangement, but they would never have accepted any non-Arab state in the region. The striking thing is that at this point the Palestinians did not declare their own statehood, because they couldn't because they are simply the catspaws of external powers.

cld, you're full of nonsense.

The Palestinians were given Gaza and the West Bank in the 1940s

Impossible, no such territorial units existed then. Besides, it wasn't that they were "given" any territory, but rather left with what was remaining after colonialist european powers decided to carve up the region. The arrangement made by the UN was not de facto just simply because it proffered the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli state. It represented a political victory for zionists and in their view resolved the situation quite favorably. I also object to your denial of Palestinian nationhood by claiming that any claim on the land was/is simply a result of external influences against a jewish population. You really ought to read more history, otherwise your view of events will remain twisted.

You think they do this for fun? If the Palestinians had anything to do besides attack them, they would never have to.

What do the settlements do to stop attacks, pray tell. Could there be another motivation? hmmm...

Is it time to cut the pig yet? This presidentin' shure is hard work!

An influential President would be able to step in and negotiate an end to the carnage.

No US president has been influential, if that is the criterion for judging.

sunship,

The general resentment of the Palestinians was organized during the War for Arab Independence as a hedge against the British in Palestine, to keep them confused if they thought about staying.

Who told you Gaza and the West Bank didn't exist in the 1940s, they just crawled out of the ocean?

Israel ended up in the configuration it did in that agreement because of continual Palestinian assaults. Those borders were the minimum defensible enclave. That and their actual legal ownership of the property.

Since Palestinians had everything else, all they had to do was do nothing and they'd be a happy little country now, in fact they'd have about 75% of present day Israel,

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/MAPS/invade.html

cld, you are a fuckwit. sunship is right--why do you persist in using the anachronism of "offered the west bank and gaza"

Look at the map,

http://www.jafi.org.il/education/100/MAPS/invade.html

The blue is Israel, everything else would have been 'Palestine'.

Better map, looks more like 50-50,

http://www.mideastweb.org/unpartition.htm

You're completely wrong. If by a Democratic President you mean Clinton, he always worked behind the scenes, exerting pressure through back channels, as the case was in Bosnia. Bush is the one who always makes grand pronoucements publically. There have been very few cases of behind-the-scenes diplomatic efforts by Bush - that was the hallmark of Clinton. Bush is the one who always pressures other leaders publically, which causes backlash.

How can any reasonble person, conservatives and liberals alike, not see that Bush's foreign policy has been dismal. Iraq was supposed to get WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, bring about democratic change, and suppress terrorism. Looking at Iran/Syria/Lebanon/Hizbollah, has any of that been achieved? Sure, Iraq is better off without Saddam, and that's all great for the Iraqi citizens (at least the ones who haven't been injured or killed by insurgents), but after spending 300 billion dollars and three years later, there has to be some real tangible benefit for the American taxpayer. What Bush has done with American tax money and the lives of the armed servicemen has been utterly irresponsible.

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