(Slightly off topic)

I read the NYT every day and love their work, but even I was a bit thrown off by apparent joy in the reporting of this article in today's edition.

"Hezbollah fighters move like shadows across the mountains of southern Lebanon; its workers in towns and villages, equally as ghostly, have settled deeply into people’s lives.

They cover medical bills, offer health insurance, pay school fees and make seed money available for small businesses. They are invisible but omnipresent, providing essential services that the Lebanese government through years of war was incapable of offering."

Maf,

Does sound a bit like a Hezbollah propaganda release doesn't it? No surprise from the NYT, however...

That NYT article is a bit reminicent of the Taliban. The same was said of what was offered to the Afghanis that their government did not offer.

Mark,

"Not like we're demanding immediate action. Could be nearly a week before its even voted on in the full Security Council."

--What a cold statement from a man who professes to be a Christian.

If they have been at war for over 2 weeks now, and there is still a tangible resistance from Hezbollah, what difference is another week of the same campaign of selective bombing and hit and run engagements going to do but drive the arabs out of their holes, and further north?

All this does is provide atleast another week of fear and isolation for the innocent civilian Lebanese who are hiding in basements, and surviving on international aid.

What have the Israelis accomplished here? Hezbollah is gaining legitimacy in the arab world, just like Saddam did after '91, OBL after 9/11, and Zarqawi after OIF; So what is the sum gain here? Another multinational force, another begrudging retreat, and more very angry people in the world who are seeing Lebanese children come out in body bags.

What happened to the idea of total defeat, showing them who's boss, and getting them to 'stop this sh!t'?

I really don't see what else is to be accomplished by bombing civilian areas, where they know there are home-bound people, who can't make Hezbollah stop firing from their neighborhoods, and can't leave for fear of having their white sheet festooned car blown to bits on the ride north.

This is increasingly looking like a political message from the American/Israeli nexus to the wider ME, that we can blow up civilians with impunity too, so "bring it on", perhaps trying to bait Iran or Syria into a blunder, thus justifying an attack...if that is the case, then I pray the terrorists we are creating today, aren't the OBL's of tomorrow. Somehow, I doubt most people around here care.

RE:All this does is provide atleast another week of fear and isolation for the innocent civilian Lebanese who are hiding in basements, and surviving on international aid."

TEO,

The Israelis want to eradicate terrorism for the sake of their people!!

Hezbollah is set up in the south to do their dirty work; to bomb the innocent civilians of Israel, and Israel is completely fed up with them!

Most people want freedom for their country, and Israel wants freedom like others who wish to have that same freedom!!
Now if the southern Lebanese know what is good for them then they will get out as we have told them to do, and I think most people would agree that; would'nt you?

Now face it your only here to criticize the job that Mr. Bolton is doing to help those in need over in Israel, and that is just plainly SELFISHLY SICK!!

We true Americans care about those in need; It seems so odd that you oppose those who fight for freedom, you oppose to the war in Iraq, And now you oppose the war in Israel, EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE'NT ANY OF OUR TROOPS THERE!! GEEZ, YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYONE!!

So if that is the way you feel, then just go ahead and join your AL.Q buddies, because we don't need anymore fighting against - OUR - LOGICAL CIVIL DECISIONS!!
And we don't need anymore of your dis-honesty PERIOD!! SO GO! UNTIL YOU FULLY UNDERSTAND!!

Jeremiah

Before this resolution go any further, the reference to Israel as being on the "offensive" must be removed. If it is not,then any act of defense under this assumption would be a violation of the resolution. The truth of the origins of this current escalation must be addressed truthfully before any further pursuance.

If the idea is to stop Hezbollah, then why is anyone talking about a cease-fire?
This "deal" - Hezbollah agrees to disarm, Syria agrees to not smuggle them more weapons - is a sucker play. The only thing missing is the French army to enforce the conditions.
If you don't stop Hezbollah everywhere, then they will regroup and start again.
This is not Bolton's finest hour.

Truth be told-probably neither side is too concerned. Who can name the last resolution the UN ever enforced?

mary - That's exactly what I think. The UN has a possible resolution? Who cares? Who believes it means anything?

I must be a little confused here!

Is John Bolton making this decision, or is it just his take on the situation by the UN?

Someone help here?

Jeremiah

The only way to make the libs happy in this war is to have Israel cease and desist, to let the Hezbos go, and stop the human sufferin'.

In other words, you can't fight Hezbollah, because they hide in civilian areas, and we can't be killin' them there civilians. Even though, according to the left, the "civilian" population supports the Hezbos.

Well, maybe they do. After all, the Lebanese govt have made numerous statements supporting the Hezbos. Additionally, thousands of Iraqi Shiites are vowing to assist Hezbollah. I think these guys should be rounded up, along with Mookie Al-Sadr. Innocent Americans in Iraq could get hurt. War

In the news today...

The Lebanese parliamentary speaker, a prominent Shiite who has been negotiating on behalf of Hezbollah, rejected the U.S.-French draft of U.N. cease-fire resolution on Sunday because it did not include the government's plan for ending the fighting.

Will this matter? Up until now, Hezbollah told Lebanon what to think and this sounds like more of the same. But officially, the Lebanese government seems to be opposing the deal.

Rev,
Part of why they oppose the deal is because Israel is within its rights in the resolution to continue taking defensive military action, so if the Hezbo Bozos keep firing rockets and kidnapping soldiers as they know they will, Israel can get right back to the Lebanon smackdown.
TEO,
I'm so confused. Do you realize that by extension of your argument, when the Nazis attacked France or Poland, supported by vast numbers of their population (just as the Lebanese rally by the hundreds of thousands in support of the Hezbos) because the Nazis had great social programs, leadership programs for the youth, and all you had to be was Aryan to get them, by extension of your argument, we couldn't bomb Nazi bomb factories because there might be a shut in living next to one, or someone who's afraid if they leave they'll get hit by our bombs dropping on another factory?

And who cares about legitimacy? Does anyone care about how much legitimacy Saddam has right now? He's out of power because we overcame his force with our force. It's not because we let him do whatever he wanted to do so he became our friend, that is not why he ceased to be a threat. Your argument that killing terrorists creates more terrorists is like saying if I stomp a cockroach and see two the next night, I created more cockroaches.

The Lebanese support a group that wants to kill us all just because of where we were born and what God we do or do not worship. If you think we should leave them to their own devices, then by extension you can't have supported civil rights and desegregation in America because many Southern towns were not going to desegregate and allow civil rights for Af Ams without US marshals and the FBI. By your argument for every white person we put in jail for violating civil rights there would be two more white people who hated us for doing that, and so they would discriminate more against blacks. This isn't a popularity contest. Throw away the focus poll and get your head back in the game.

Morris,

I think you're making up your own points here, and they have nothing at all to do with what I was trying to say.

The support Hezbollah garners from the Lebanese has been increased immeasurably. We have an instance here where Israeli soldiers, on Lebanese territory, were captured and killed, then that somehow gives Israel the right to bomb civilian infrastructure, and 'collateral damage' over 600 people [many, children].

Your argument is a non-starter, for one simple reason: We were fighting an invasion by Hitler, here, Israel is the invader, and as such they have no rights, only responsibilities; Those responsibilities include making sure that civilian death is minimized...how does indescriminantly bombing white-flag flying cars, fleeing north, qualify as responsible war-fighting? Are we to be impressed that Israel has only killed 600 civilians, or does it only really become an outrage when it hits 1000? 5000? 16-million?

This is a show of force, not a campaign to eradicate Hezbollah, if total destruction was the plan, then there would be no talk of concessions. There has been no strong international outcry for stoppage of the fighting, especially not from the US, so why stop now? Why stop before every last terrorist is hunted down like a fox? Because they know as well as we know, you can't kill an ideology, that is why Nazis, Communists, and The Muslim Brotherhood still exist.

Your analogy about roaches is moot. You can't create a new roach by killing one, just like you can't create a new German or Japanese by killing them, but you CAN create new terrorists by legitimizing their rhetoric.

What do you think OBL et. al are licking their chops at? War. You know why? because just like in Afghanistan it will draw fighters from all over the globe, including making it much easier for them to recruit new fighters, that means by playing their game, we help to make ourselves into the monster they portray us as, on the muslim street.

Why did the IRA win? Because they won the PR war. Everytime Israeli bombs create new bodybags filled with women and children, it makes it that much easier for the terrorists to claim to be the oppressed.

For as much as people around here don't want to admit it, bombing Lebanon back 20 years isn't going to solve the underlying problem which keeps that region in turmoil, yet Israel insists on either ignoring the Palestinian issue, or make half-hearted gestures towards once and for all removing themselves from the occupied territories, and until that happens, there continues to be animosity in Tehran, Jedah, Qatar etc. towards Israel, and America by extension. At some point the reality that terrorists flourish because there is such a simmering sense of hopelessness, and injustice emerges. It is mind-boggling that people can sympathize with killers...doesn't that strike you as a bit odd, that otherwise normal, middle-of-the-road civilians have such a hatred for the actions of one nation, that they can justify the killing of innocent Jews, to affect some sort of change?

This isn't focus polling, this is the reality of over 1/6th of the world's population believing that watching innocent people get crushed by their own homes as an atrocity, and not as a country defending herself...that is the reality you're perspective is competing with, and as I have said many times before, 'there hasn't been a missle created, which can kill and idea'.

Morris,

My advice, ignore the troll.

Rev,
Thanks for the advice, but I like taking down trolls.
TEO,
I'm confused. You want to ignore the fact that Hezbollah is holding two Israeli soldiers who no one in Israel or the international community has seen for weeks? I'm curious as to your attitudes on soldiers held at Gitmo. Most liberals think it awfully nasty that we held "enemy combatants" under supervision of the Red Cross, because we didn't give them lawyers or charge them with a crime. Now, if you think it's against international law to do such things at Gitmo, I'm curious as to why it's okay for the Hezbozos to do such things with an Israeli soldier. They haven't charged them with crimes, given them lawyers, or even allowed the Red Cross to see verify they're being treated in accordance with Geneva Convention standards. So, when we do it it's a crime, but when the Hezbozos do it, it's righteous anger?
And of course you ignore the little point about them firing rockets at Israel. Or was that Israel's fault too, maybe their responsibility for not getting out of the way, perhaps?
What would you do, if we were getting rocket attacks against Brownsville and El Paso from Mexican leftists? Do you think we should maybe send troops over the border to stop it, or no you don't, because when Israel did that you say they're invading, and then Mexico would have every right to kidnap our soldiers, right? This is a failure common of liberals, to look at the system and focus only on the most recent act, as though context has no bearing on morality. Think about that for a second. If Kitty Dukakis was getting raped and you shot the guy doing it, according to the common liberal moral equivalency, you are guilty and responsible for murder because you killed her, or at least that's what you say when George Bush or Israelis respond to violence with violence.
Why don't you go to Lebanon on the street and point out to me the civilians in a way that if I'm flying in a bomber a couple hundred miles per hour overhead, I can not kill the civilians. Are they still civilians if they riot in support of Hezbollah, as we are assured all of south lebanon loves Hezbollah. Are people who go to Klan meetings but don't actually burn crosses in people's yards, just throw in their dues, are they innocent civilians? By our post 9/11 laws, they are not innocent, and neither are most of those caught in the cross fire who support them.
Furthermore another example will shed some light. If somebody takes a hostage in a crowded mall and uses them as a human shield, fires off shots past them but a nearby security guard can't get a clean shot, how many people does the guy have to shoot, wound, paralyze, and/or kill before the security guard can shoot him. Because by your focus only on the Lebanese "civilians," I don't think you'd ever want him to take that shot. What if your mom or sister was in that mall, would you answer differently then? The people getting killed by Hezbollah rockets are husbands, fathers, and brothers. How many Israelis have to die before the losses of civilians become proportionate? How many people you love would have to die before you'd take that shot?
What concessions is Israel talking about? From everything I've heard, Hezbollah's going to have to kill everybody in Israel before Israel hands over all the prisoners Hezbollah wants.
Maybe ideas are eternal, but so what? I'm not concerned about destroying ideas, I just want to stop all the people willing to die to kill me and those I love for our lack of Muslim ideology.
And how exactly does killing terrorists legitimize their rhetoric? By your logic, American should have been overcome by cults after Reno watched over the biggest government slaughter of Americans in recent history, because they would be legitimized. The truth is that most of the people in cults lose their religion if you get them back into the rest of society and out of their bubble. The Islamic terrorists have a bubble around much of the Middle East, and that's why we're there, to pop that bubble.
And the Zarqawi memo clearly talked about their difficulties in recruiting in Iraq. That wasn't because we stopped fighting them, we didn't. Of course it was all propaganda planted by the black helicopters unless Alec Baldwin vouches for it.

Morris,

"Now, if you think it's against international law to do such things at Gitmo, I'm curious as to why it's okay for the Hezbozos to do such things with an Israeli soldier."

--When did I say that Hezbollah was in the right here? It makes it much easier for you to assume I am on the "other" side of the issue, doesn't it?

First things first, these soldiers were captured on lebanese soil, they should be regarded as POWs, I eagerly await a prisoner exchange, cease-fire, and a return to some semblance of stability in the region, followed closely by a return to the road-map, including a more even-handed approach to Israel, by us.

"And of course you ignore the little point about them firing rockets at Israel. Or was that Israel's fault too, maybe their responsibility for not getting out of the way, perhaps?"

--That is a war-crime, much like collective retribution by israel, and the bombing of civilian infrastructure which isn't a military use...such as northern roads and bridges in the first days of the campaign.

"This is a failure common of liberals, to look at the system and focus only on the most recent act, as though context has no bearing on morality."

--I agree, can we start talking about 40 years of refusal to give-up occupied territories, and snubbing of their noses at international law?

"Think about that for a second. If Kitty Dukakis was getting raped and you shot the guy doing it, according to the common liberal moral equivalency, you are guilty and responsible for murder because you killed her [sic]"

--If you were squatting on the rapists couch for 40 years, then sent your kids into his backyard to steal his dog, had been arbitrarily stealing his SS checks from his mailbox, blocking his drive-way so he couldn't go get food when he did get his checks, and then put up a 20 ft. wall around his yard...I think the courts might find you have some serious responsibilities in the matter as well.

"Why don't you go to Lebanon on the street and point out to me the civilians in a way that if I'm flying in a bomber a couple hundred miles per hour overhead, I can not kill the civilians."

--it's called growing a set of testicles, and putting your boots on the ground...what a childish, yellow-bellied way to fight a war [Hezbollah included].

"they are not innocent, and neither are most of those caught in the cross fire who support them."

--I'm sorry, who the hell made you judge, jury, and executioner. Where do you get this sense of moral certitude that guides your simplistic view of who is and isn't innocent?

"How many people you love would have to die before you'd take that shot?"

--When does it become counter-productive when in the cross-fire, 600 innocent people in that mall get killed?

"What concessions is Israel talking about? From everything I've heard, Hezbollah's going to have to kill everybody in Israel before Israel hands over all the prisoners Hezbollah wants."

--It's called an opening offer.

Israel has made prisoner exchanges before, what makes this time any different?

"By your logic, American should have been overcome by cults after Reno watched over the biggest government slaughter of Americans in recent history"

--Do you remember a guy named Tim Mcveigh?

How many groups use the Waco murders as a rally-cry against the government? What about Ruby Ridge? Did these incidents de-legitimize the freeman/anti-government sentiment in the US...then there is your proof.

"The truth is that most of the people in cults lose their religion if you get them back into the rest of society and out of their bubble"

--Fanatic: A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause.

There is a marked difference between fair-weather converts, and unreasoning fanatics...unfortunately, we help the recruitment of the latter with every child pulled from a bombed-out apartment building.

"the Zarqawi memo clearly talked about their difficulties in recruiting in Iraq."

--Ofcourse it was hard to recruit fanatics in Iraq, that's because everyone else who was killing other people were doing it because of sectarian causes...the sunni/shi'a hatred goes back centuries, they didn't need Zarqawi or AQ to unleash that pent-up agression, not to mention the overwhelmingly secular nature of the nation over the previous century.

Do you see how the chaos we are helping to foment can blur lines between groups with unrelated causes?

Morris,

Told ya.

Rev,

Your flock is straying

xoxoxo

Your flock is straying

Still trolling? Get lost, you creep.

TEO,
Let me try to make sense of this. The great backlash for Waco was Oklahoma City? We arrested McVeigh, so where's the great backlash for that? You have this idea that when people come after us, if we stop them, we make more of them, it sounds very rigid like a good deeds get multiplied by three or by seven, and bad deeds get multiplied by 13 or whatever other number fits. But your defining as the bad deeds acts of protection and self defense equally to acts of unprovoked aggression.
The fallacy of your arguments lies in its appeal to legitimizing circumstances, and the shirking of personal responsibility that goes with it. Rebellion, seeking freedom from bondage is an eternal idea. The trouble isn't with the idea. The trouble is when people don't have something to live for, and they think they want to die for that or another idea. People like McVeigh don't blow up buildings because of Waco. They blow up buildings because they don't have anything to live for, so risking their life doesn't seem like such a bad idea. They talk themselves into that idea, and probably get help from others who also want to talk them into it. Consider it a different way. I think Waco was a revenge massacre perpetrated by ATF agents who got their feelings hurt. So, in a way, McVeigh and I are alike because we both believe that. The question is, why is it two people who believe that respond to it in so separate ways? This is where personal responsibility comes into play. I have influence over how I handle myself, or at least some higher power has that kind of influence over me. In my heart, I believe that our country has as much potential for greatness as it does for the perversity it displayed in Waco. By grace, I didn't give up on my country, and I didn't give up on myself, my life. I believe that I can accomplish more in little ways the thousands and thousands more days I hope to live than with one big bang that kills a bunch of people not really related to the problem.
What I mean is, the government wasn't really trying to systematically kill everyone, there were just a few, maybe several instances where it sure appears they were (Vince Foster, Ron Brown, Waco, Ruby Ridge). I had faith that another way of responding would be more effective than the path chosen by McVeigh. But the trouble with you and McVeigh is you both look at the small pictures without the context. You both see a government killing by dropping bombs as in Lebanon or using incendiary devices and rifles as in Waco. And that's all you see. You don't see the context, you see the small picture, and as is the case with the brain, it makes up its mind that it has seen enough to make a determination and it won't accept contradictory information after that.
The trouble as I mentioned above is the bubble. Now it can as in the case of the unabomber be a self contained system of thought. Or it can be a cultish bubble that is supported by others. Have you asked yourself why 90% of the terrorism in the last five years has been perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists. Either it's people who want to hurt others joining up with them, in which case it doesn't matter what we do because they'll want to hurt others (sadist or antisocial or borderline is the psych word), for different reasons, no matter what we do. Alternatively, it's the reasons Al Queda gives because they've done a good number of them, and those include killing all the infidels to establish a new caliphate. Or it could be something we've done.
Of course, the "something we've done" always depends on the time frame because as with irrational behavior it's often focused on the most recent reason, like when a man tells a woman he wishes she didn't keep doing things that make him hurt her. I'm trying to think of what it was three thousand people did on 9/11 but it escapes me.
Your response is where I have to laugh. You accuse them both of war crimes. So maybe in that tradition we should get the UN involved, because that worked so well. I mean, the terrorist attacks and kidnappings stopped after Israel left Palestine and let it be run by a terrorist. Oh, that's right, they didn't. And I'm sure that would work in Iran, where one of the people who kidnapped Americans in our embassy twenty five years ago will soon have a nuclear weapon. Let's just accuse everyone of war crimes, dress up in zebra colored referee costumes and call offsides on the Israelis and the Palestinians, and maybe illegal use of arms on the Hezbozos. Oh, that's right. That would be absurd.

Rev,
Right you were.

"Where do you get this sense of moral certitude that guides your simplistic view of who is and isn't innocent?"
I get it from a source you'll trust, the Washingon Post.
"On Tuesday, however, the throngs of Syrian supporters who gathered two blocks away, on Riad el-Solh Square, challenged that image. The exact size of the crowd was difficult to determine. Lebanese officials said 1.6 million people attended the rally, but more conservative estimates placed the number at roughly 500,000. Christian, Druze and Sunni parties were represented, but the crowd appeared to consist mostly of followers of Hezbollah and Amal, the second-largest Shiite party."

"Where do you get this sense of moral certitude that guides your simplistic view of who is and isn't innocent?"
I get it from a source you'll trust, the Washingon Post.
"On Tuesday, however, the throngs of Syrian supporters who gathered two blocks away, on Riad el-Solh Square, challenged that image. The exact size of the crowd was difficult to determine. Lebanese officials said 1.6 million people attended the rally, but more conservative estimates placed the number at roughly 500,000. Christian, Druze and Sunni parties were represented, but the crowd appeared to consist mostly of followers of Hezbollah and Amal, the second-largest Shiite party."

Morris,

You were asking for an example of retribution for Waco, Oklahoma City was retribution, why are you changing your argument?

"They blow up buildings because they don't have anything to live for"

--Thats isn't what he said, his reasoning was because of an overbearing national government, who he felt was a detriment to freedom, and this was his "opening salvo" in what he saw as the coming war...It's called fanatacism, now replace McVeigh with Atta, and you can see how the ideal propagates itself, it's a positive feedback loop.

"I have influence over how I handle myself"

--Great, how do you propose to mandate personal responsibility in the ME...does it involve killing more civilians to make your point...ratcheting up the violence for each action in return? please tell me how you're going to make sure that we inject more personal responsibility into Muslim affairs...are we going to continue propping-up, and bringing-down governments, even the democratically elected ones?

"You don't see the context, you see the small picture"

--What context do you want me to see? Israel, who has the most powerful army in the region, is bombing a nationa which just rebuilt itself after an occupation and civil war, not because of something the civilians did, but because Israel injected troops onto their lands, and they killed and captured them...would you like to add some more context to that picture

"...it doesn't matter what we do because they'll want to hurt others..."

--Then what is the use in collective retribution, why aren't we treating it like the law enforcement issue it is? By our own actions, we have elevated the profile of these organizations, which is exactly what they need to propagate. Since you can't kill an idea, you can replace it with a better one, but playing the role that the terrorists in the ME have made for us, isn't making it any easier to win hearts and minds. Everytime you shrug-off a single innocent person dying, you are ignoring the making of a new sympathizer, or at worst, a new terrorist.

"So maybe in that tradition we should get the UN involved, because that worked so well"

--You mean like the Nuremburg trials?

look, I will not make excuses for Hezbollah, they are an ugly, inhumane organization who has very little good to offer to anyone, including the lebanese, but what exactly do you expect them to do when they find israeli soldier in lebanon? Ask them to go home, politely?

"I mean, the terrorist attacks and kidnappings stopped after Israel left Palestine"

--They never left the occupied territories, that is why there is still fighting...you're simplifying the situation, and ignoring the big picture...i thought you were on top of all the context of the current situation...what do you think shoul dbe done about Golan or Sheeba or East Jerusalem; just give it to Israel, and call it even? The minute you solve the Palestinian Israeli land issue, that cuts the legs out from under the terrorists who use it as a rally-cry, it's that whole concept of replacing bad ideas, with good ones.

"The massive turnout suggested that Lebanon's anti-Syrian movement would no longer dominate the political debate as it has in recent weeks, and Hezbollah's secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, pointedly warned those who favor Syria's withdrawal and the disarmament of his Shiite Muslim party that they do not represent most Lebanese."

--Here is a perfect example of how to ruin a good thing. Last year we had a wave of anti-Syrian sentiment, so much so that the Lebanese for the first time in 20 years were going to be free of outside influences...but thanks to Israel, we now have a situation where even Druze and Christians are backing Hezbollah, I mean who are you going to back, the people killing innocent civilians, or the ones shooting at them? Don't be obtuse, this is creating more problems that it is supposed to fix.

TEO,
Your argument of legitimizing relies on the idea that we can't use force to defend ourselves because we'll be confirming the idea of some person who doesn't see the context in which those actions were taken. But unless you can give an example of retribution for every time our country has defended itself, there is no more certainty in that perspective than there is in our perspective, that we've tried negotiating and compromising and all flavors of semantic level interventions and they haven't worked, so why not try a political intervention by changing the structure on the ground?

Where was the retribution for arresting McVeigh or for that matter any criminal? Atta didn't talk about OKC, he talked about Americans in Muslim lands. He was a violent person looking for a reason to make sense of his violent urges, not a reasonable person making sense of the world and finding a remedy with violence. Your argument suggests that every time we use force to affect an arrest and imprisonment, that will legitimize the perceptions of those who believe us to be denying political freedoms with violence. It's a false argument that presumes most people behave rationally, and if you read Kahneman, his experiments deny that.

Furthermore, the Islamic fundamentalists want to deny many more political freedoms that we currently do. Your argument says that McVeigh wanted to destroy our government because it limits too many personal freedoms, and Atta wanted to destroy our government because it allows too many freedoms (specifically freedom of religion), and they're both being rational in finding fault with our government, so our government is supposed to change so as not to offend them. What change do you suggest that will satisfy them both by at the same time destroying and holding sacred personal freedoms?

This is where personal responsibility comes to play. They both have gripes against our country and its government that they want to satisfy through violence, and they don't care who gets hurt in the crossfire. If our government is not capable of at once making all the necessary and sufficient changes to satisfy everyone who has a complaint and wants to resolve it through violence, then can we say reasonably that their demands are unrealistic? I know this goes against every liberal fiber in you that says no one has an unrealistic demand that can't be satisfied, but again I challenge you, how we are to destroy and hold sacred rights at the same time? There is no categorical imperative that will satisfy everyone who is reasonable, because people are not always reasonable.

You're absolutely right about one thing. We have elevated the profile of Hezbollah. By allowing an organization like Hezbollah dedicated to the destruction of Israelis and Americans to be armed with 10,000 rockets, we have elevated their profile. I'm glad the Israelis appear to be remedying that situation as we speak, and I hope America has the chance to help the Israelis. One thing about the left I have trouble getting my head around is the idea that it is somehow wrong to be strong. That should have been Kerry's campaign theme, "It's Wrong to be Strong!" How is it rationally a bad thing that Israel has the strongest military in the region? How does that mean they have less of a right to defend themselves than other people?

Let me put it into an example for you. A guy breaks a bottle on a bar and charges another guy who happens to be a black belt. The black belt throws him on the gound. He gets back up, now angrier because in the language of the left his hatred has been legitimized by the violent way this black belt threw him to the ground. He grabs another bottle, breaks it and charges. The black belt again throws him on the ground.

The guy with the bottles, for example's sake call him Hezzi, is tired of getting thrown down, so he starts throwing bottles at the guy he charged, call him Izzy. Izzy dodges most of them but get cut by flying glass, then sits down on Hezzi to stop him. Hezzi has had his anger legitimized once again, and bites Izzy. Izzy puts more pressure on Hezzy, and Hezzy starts to feel it. Just then, the bouncer (let's call him Kofi) comes over and wants to know what's going on. Hezzy tells Izzy that if Izzy gets off of him, he'll leave the bar. Izzy gets off of him. Kofi walks away.

Hezzy keeps hanging around because his friends are all impressed that he stood up to the black belt who they all saw hurt Hezzy repeatedly. Finally, his friends work him up enough that Hezzy throws another couple of bottles at Izzy.

Do you get the picture? There's no world police who are willing to keep Hezbollah off Israel unless it's us, and of course that's spelled US. The rest of the world knows they're not on top, and anything that brings down the nation on top brings them that much closer. They (Russia, China, Iran, Syria, France) have an investment in our defeat and the defeat of our closest ally. Eventually, Izzy has to use his skills to break Hezzy. It's violent, and it's ugly, but that was the reality before Israel started fighting back. Perhaps my greatest trouble with the liberal mindset is their hatred of violence and war. They cannot get their heads around the idea that if war is the state of the world, not to accept that is to be at war with reality. War is the state of the world, because terrorists made war against us. Not to accept that reality is to fight the wrong war.

I can't believe you accuse me of ignoring the context. They're resolution to the "land issue" as you call it (you say land issue, I say distraction) is for the Israelis to leave Jerusalem, for the infidels to leave this world so that their new caliphate can be established. You use the word resolve when you should be saying surrender and die, because that is how they want this land issue resolved, if you listen to them.

You make me laugh, thank you. Check the date on the article I linked, that you say is evidence the Lebanese have gone from being anti-Syrian to anti-Israeli. It's from back in March, well before Israel started this offensive, yet it illustrates my point so well. A person who wants to kill another person can always come up with a reason. But that doesn't make their actions reasonable.

TEO,
A positive feedback loop accelerates, and that acceleration leads to more acceleration. You can draw a connection between OKC and Waco, true. But how do you think Atta is connected with OKC? The plots to destroy America that have been thwarted have been Islamic plots. There hasn't been an act of domestic terrorism by Americans in the last ten years.

I'm making two points here. The first is that if it's truly a positive feedback loop, we would have seen retribution already for capturing McVeigh the way Israelis capture their enemies. We haven't. Ergo, no feedback loop.

The second point I want to make is that Atta hated the US government for going too far with personal freedoms because according to Islamic law people aren't free to worship other gods. McVeigh thought we needed more personal freedoms and protections from the US government. If it truly is America's (or substitute Israel's) fault, and the responsibility for angering these terrorists lies with our own actions, what's the remedy? If you limit freedoms, you're going to (using your word) legitimize the fears of McVeigh, that our government isn't doing enough to guarantee personal freedom. If you extend freedoms, you're going to legitimize the fears of Atta, that our people are allowed to satisfy their lusts with no regard for what is sacred. If it truly is America's fault both these terrorists attacked our country, what's the solution that will satisfy them both?

My point is some terrorist somewhere is always going to have a rallying cry: we're doing too much of what is to them a wrong thing or too little of what they see as a right thing. Most people with a just indignation, however, do not become terrorists. The land deal the terrorists seek since you seem to be a little fuzzy on the context is that infidels leave all the land of this world so the Islamic people can establish a worldwide caliphate. That's what the land deal they want. Hezbollah's strings are pulled by Iran, and that's what Iran wants. They've said again and again Israel doesn't have a right to exist. So all we have to do is jump into spaceships and hope the destruction of infidels that Iran wants to ring in their caliphate doesn't happen before we hit the launch button. That's the land deal that would satisfy them.

I find your response to the WaPo amusing. You must not have checked the date. You seem to be under the impression this was recent, and that all the headway Israel's playing by Muslim wishes had made was suddenly turned around. It's dated from March, that's when half a million marched in support of Syria and Hezbollah, half a million "innocent civilians" who'd rather see Jews dead than take advantage of their willful appeasement.

When are you going to figure out that people hate, kill, and destroy because of whatever is the reason at the time, whatever narcissistic desire of theirs is thwarted, whether it be lust for land or blood. Read about serial killers, it's the same thing with them. And back to decision making, when their leaders have been for years and years been allowed to teach that we deserve to die for offending them with our presence, then more and more start believing them, and you can check into the research that shows people make obviously false judgments to appease those around them. I think you're familiar with the idea, are you not?

Sorry for some redundancy, my last post didn't show up when I checked the page so I tried to rehash it.