Mark, if you ever get the chance, watch Steven Speilberg's "Munich."

The film illustrates the main theme of what's going on now: unless reasonable people on both sides drop their weapons and call for a end to the meaningless bloodshed, there will never be peace in the Middle East.

Having said that, I refuse to take sides because each side is guilty of the other: killing in retaliation. It's just utter madness.

TL,

Uh, that is a movie - you know, a fictionalised account of what happened. Its not true. It cannot be a guide to action.

As it is, I'm just old enough to remember the actual events - the strange thing called "terrorism" was still quite new.

What ends war is the end of the war - and that takes someone calling it quits. I know, this might sound a bit old-fashioned to you who have been educated in the latest liberal/left fads about human nature, but there it is: someone has to acknowledge being beaten in order for there to be an end to this war. Right now, Israel and the US could lay down their arms and talk till they were blue in the face with the terrorists and it wouldn't end the war - in fact, it would make the war longer and bloodier than it already is.

It is a war, TL, and one side will have to lose and the other side win - and unless you want to be dealing with this 50 years from now when we who run the world are long safely dead, then you might want to get on the right side.

Mark,

I hate to say this, but TL never seems to learn, he/she keeps spouting off the liberal line. As for Munich the movie, it is so far from what really happened, and I vividly remember the events because the Olympics were always big in my family's home.

TL - maybe you should study your history more, and understand what war is. There is a really good series of books on the history of WWII by Winston Churchill, maybe if you read the entire set you will have a more realistic view of war and peace.

Come on, Mark. Kick teenage looser off. He's a hizbolliberal, spouting that tired liberal line about peace in the Middle East. As if. If they stopped killing people, those people who would have been killed will just go have babies who will be killed unless they stop killing and talk until those babies have babies, and then, LORDY, think of how many people there will be on earth THEN to kill! Huh! Yeah. So, if they keep killing now, then it'll settle the whole revenge thing and there'll be no one left to kill on their side.

And then there'll be peace.

Churchill said "But if we fail, the whole world, including the Unites States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age, made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science." And who is more perverted than liberal scientists. Einstein said science without religion is to blame. Those godless liberals are all to blame. Einstein said so.

Hey, maybe we can get liberals to store munitions in their basements and deliberately draw fire. They're so dumb, they might do it.

I watched the '72 Olympics, too. Especially when those liberals held up a "17 dead, already forgotten?" sign the next day when the games got back underway. Thank God security officers removed the sign and expelled the liberals from the grounds.

Hey TL, go watch United 93. It's a fictionalized movie, too, but it's really great and will remind you why you used to be afraid and should still be. The truth shall set you free, unless it's a lie tripped over by truth that will be held up as proof that truth isn't true.

God bless the president He annoited, Geroge Bush. Amen and a high five.

(Man, being a conservative requires a painful suspension of disbelief... my head hurts.)

Seems to me that the current crisis is a sign of failure in establishing borders. Saying most of the Lebanese that have been killed or injured (or israelis for that matter) are fighters is wrong. Even the Bush admin makes a distinction between "they're all terrorists" and "there are terrorists living among civilians."

If you believe the former -- they're all terorists -- you're hopeless. Lebanon is a fraile democracy and the Lebanese like America. If you believe the latter -- they'r enot all terrorists, but somehting has to be done -- then the question is "how much collateral damage is acceptable?"

The people most happy about the continuation of this conflict are: Osama bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Anne "they should completely destroy southern Lebanon" Coulter. The question is: will this work? is this a "final solution"? Hardly. If anything it's bulldozing the Lebanese democratic process and swellign the ranks of the nihilists that want to kill us all.

While there's much ado about "you're with us or against us", I personally don't like being on Osama bin Laden's side. Do you?

(Man, being a conservative requires a painful suspension of disbelief... my head hurts.)

It's like drinking Scotch -- you have to acquire a taste for it. Actually, for your first time, you did very well. A couple nights ago I tried to look at an issue from the perspective of a Liberal and had the same problem you did -- I had to suspend almost everything I believe in. I know you were being sarcastic, as was I the other night, but it really is an exercise that each of us ought to go through once in a while.

Here's a challenge for you, Congressive: make a side by side list of all the people (countries) in the world who have been freed from the shackles of Totalitarianism by ANY faction of Islam and all the countries that have been freed by the American military. As a footnote, also list all the countries that we've freed in which we are still an occupying force (not just a few bases but actually controlling the government). If you have to suspend any beliefs to make such a list, then you're beyond hope.

Israel say's NO to the worlds request to stop killing children. The Hezbollah "terrorist" organization said YES to a humanitarian ceasefire, of 72 hours, so the children would stop being killed. Who is the warmonger here? Who holds the moral highground? Peace

Mark-

I agree with your premise of people crafting vocabulary for political gains. It really needs to stop, but it never will.

I have to admit though, the choice of vocabulary you chose (or that guy you cited chose) is very cynical. I watch CNN quite a bit (balanced out by talk radio, Air America just sucks), and they have been pretty even handed when it comes to reporting on the plight of civilians on both sides.

The question is: Should they be even handed. On the one hand, many more lebanese civilians have died, but on the other, many of those lebanese probably actively help and support Hizbullah. it truly is a quandry...

Hey Retired Spook,

While Congressive is naking his/her list, why don't you write a list of all the countries that America has introduced, supported or erstwhile aided and abetted a totalitarian dictatorship.

I'll start you off:

1. Iraq

(I think you might be at this for a while).

And Georgina, yes the media bloody well should be even handed. What is this "many of those lebanese probably actively help and support Hizbullah." Hmm. What evidence do you have to support this? (the opinions espoused by FOX News commentators do not constitute evidence).

Georgia,

Even if CNN were being 100% even handed, they'd still be wrong - there is no sense in being impartial between the fire and the fire department. One side is right, the other is wrong and all good people should do whatever they can to help the right side - simple decency requires it. And, of course, CNN isn't being even handed - they are slanting their coverage to be more positive about the wrong side.

You see, while I'm sympathetic to the Lebanese people, I'm also realistic - they've allowed these armed thugs to be there, stockpiling weapons and they haven't made even the slightest effort to control them...you know, like maybe putting the Lebanese Army on the roads which lead from Syria and by which Hizbollah is supplied with missiles. The Lebanese people are in the same plight as the Italian people in WWII...not nearly as responsible for the war as Hitler and his Germans, but still very responsible for eagerly jumping in to a system - fascism, and the Italians were quite eager about it, early on - which ensured that bad decisions would be made.

Hizbollah is the primarily guilty party, but Lebanon is an accessory to the crime (so is Syria and Iran, of course; and moreso than Lebanon is).

Additionally, the casualty reports should be taken with thousands of pounds of salt - you and I don't really know how many people have been killed nor what their status was. The authorities in Lebanon, who are either afraid of or in support of Hizbollah, are not to be relied on - and Hizbollah simply will lie and not only say that everyone killed is civilian, but that far more have been killed than actually have been.

Mark-

Really, the Lebanese government is more at fault than the Lebanese people. Hizbullah provides many social services (such as running hospitals and charities, rebuilding houses and insurance) than the government has been able to, not even mentioning how inept the Lebanese military is. As a result, many civilians owe their allegience to Hizbullah, rather than the government of Lebanon.

If they assisted the destruction of Hizbullah, they would be biting the hand that feeds them.

Ok help me on this one, Retired. After being "freed" are they still alive? Are we talking a handful of survivors? By "freed" do we include women? Covert CIA ops or just the ones in the news?

Here, let me illustrate:

Over two million Vietnamese civilians were killed, which, to paraphrase one colonel "denied them to the enemy" and thus spared them from a life under communist rule. Are they considered "freed"?

Ok, ok, another one:

America frees Cuba from the Spaniards, but then Estrada bails, and we install Gomez who resigns due to corruption, so we install Machado who becomes a brutal dictator, so we back Batista to boot Machado, who off and on again brutalizes Cubans, so Castro wins and reinstates the Cuban Constitution of 1940 that Batista suspended, literacy skyrockets, and it all goes to heck from there. Except for the coffee and those toasted ham and pickle sandwiches.

Ok, not so good. Lemme try again:

OK, how about Grenada? We kicked booty there and freed Grenadines from the British Commonwealth. We sort of forgot to tell the Queen, who was working on putting cruise missiles there, but luckily no one was killed. Sort of.

Ok, and so Reagan bombs Libya and sure liberated them! Ok, not exactly. But he freaks them out, that's for sure.

Ok, so we freed Panama from CIA henchman Noriega. Is that like freeing them from us? Does that count? Ok, I'll take it!

Now Kuwait, ah, there's a freedom masterpiece! We freed them from Saddam so they could go back to their constitutional monarchy wherein by law 139,000 people out of three million citizens are allowed to vote. Hey, you can't just let ANYONE vote, right?

Somalia? Hmmm. Are we still there?

Haiti? Once we booted Aristide, that place flourished!

Bosnia? Any war that ends in a peace treaty negotiated in Dayton, Ohio must be a good one.

Ok, here's the big confuser for me: Iran.

Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh is overthrown by the British Intelligence Service and our CIA in 1953, so that doesn't count a "liberating" anyone, does it? We install Shah Pahlavi and back him through the 1970s while he increases dictatorial powers. Ok, so we didn't free them from a dictator, we gave them one. But it was a good dictator who granted women's rights and sufferage, and protected Bah'ai and Christians from mean old Muslims, kinda like Saddam, while killing people who stepped out of line, generally Shia Muslims. Ok, so Khomeini boots the dictator, but that doesn't count as an Islam dude overthrowing a dictator, right, because we liked that dictator? So now we want to liberate Iran from the liberating liberators who liberated Iran from a democratically elected Parliament in the first place. Man, Reagan didn't have Alzheimers. After trading arms with Iran to fund the Contras, he just blew a fuse.

Iraq: boy, there's a toughie. We and the Brits win WW1, freeing it from the Ottomans, and give Iraq to the Brits,. who claim they will be greeted as liberators. The UK un-unites a bit and frees Iraq in 1932, but then militarily invade again in 1941, because those Iraqi's can't yet be trusted with "freedom." So, we help re-install a total monarchy in 1947, to a four-year-old "king" who was ovethrown by a Russian-commie-loving guy named Qassim, who gets booted by Arif, a dictator who's brother takes over when he dies, who gets booted by our favorite dictator, Saddam. Saddam is AMAZINGLY supported by the U.S., Russia AND France in the 1980's.

Dude, let me write that again: Saddam is supported by America, France and Russia against Iran in their Middle East dustup. Saddam messes it up, kills a few thousand Kurds, and we realize, hey, Saddam might actually use those WMDs we sold him. But wait, we sold arms to Iran during that debaucle, too. Whose side was Reagan on, anyway. But I digress. So almost immediately (over a decade later) we boot Saddam, install a democratically elected theocracy who has already passed a constitutional item barring any law not in agreement with the principles of Islam, and Iraq lived happily ever after. But not because they're Muslims, because we "freed" them. Because we love them. Not so much the Muslim part. The freedom part.

Well, you're gonna have to give me an example or two, 'cause I've struck out.

What ever happened to "give me liberty or give me death?"

I've struck out.

long ago, son, long ago...