Iraq was a wrong war, no doubt. Bush is the name of a mad cow disease. You spread violence with violence, as we see happening.
The need to spread democracy in the Arab world is acute. I have been arguing consistently at this blog that spreading democracy the progressive way, not the neocon way is the way to win the Long War.
Lieberman has supported Bush blindly. And he has been paying the price. If he loses the primary, he should not run as an independent.
Bush misused the Congressional authorization on Iraq. No Democrat voted for the war that Bush jumped into. He was supposed to exhaust all political possibilities.
You can't just leave tomorrow. But the Democrats do have to compete with each other to come up with plans that get the US troops out as soon as possible. That is healthy competition. And that is in sharp contrast with the neocons. They want to stay there forever.
Progressive peace can not be about isolationism. It has to be about spreading democracy the progressive way. I don't see any of the anti war activists getting this point. You don't counter wrong foreign policy with no foreign policy.
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In The News
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Arab-Israelis protest ‘Israeli aggression in Lebanon, Gaza Ynetnews, Israel Some 2,000 supporters of the Arab-Israeli National Democratic Assembly party held a rally Friday in Tira in protest of “the Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Gaza.” ...... “Civilians, Jew and Arabs alike, are the victims of the same policy,” Bishara said. “We said from the beginning ‘no to the war’ and ‘yes to negotiations’ for the sake of both nations. ..... Hadash party chairman MK Mohammad Barakeh said of the war in Lebanon “innocent people from both sides of the border are paying the ultimate price for this vile and crazy war.” ..... MK Zahalka said “we all know that eventually the sides will reach the negotiating table, and therefore this unnecessary spilling of blood must end.” He said that it is not Israel but the US that is calling the shots with regard to the Lebanon war.
Security is being stepped up around Israeli Arab lawmakers for ...
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Israeli Airstrikes Hit New Targets Voice of America
Clearly time for new approach Toronto Star, Canada An Israeli labourer recently put it succinctly — "they do not want land, they do not want peace — they want us dead." ..... Hezbollah recognizes that the loss of civilian life strikes at civilized society's Achilles heel — our humanity. France now says that it does not want to send peacekeepers until the fighting halts and the UN Security Council agrees to a "wider framework for lasting peace."
Israeli Arabs Helped by Economy, Suffer From Hezbollah Missiles Bloomberg
Rockets hitting Israeli cities started war, not kidnapping Dispatch Online, South Africa
Nonie Darwish: The Muslim Majority Must Break Its Silence Yahoo! News Despite initially blaming Hezbollah, the Arab street's sympathies have now shifted to Hezbollah. Terror groups count on that support. ....... People in the West do not understand why the silent Muslim majority stays silent. The reason can be found in the old Arab saying, "My brother and I against our cousin, but my cousin and I against a stranger." Supporting fellow Muslims, right or wrong, is a fundamental cultural obligation among Arab society ........ and everything is being sacrificed by Arabs in order to kill Jews. The hatred of Jews by Arabs in the areas surrounding Israel is more important than a mother's love for her children....... In 1955, an intifada broke out in Gaza. But it was not against Israel; it was against the oppressive rule of Egypt's President Nasser. To divert attention from this uprising, the Egyptian government intensified the fedayeen operations against Israel under the command of my father, Lt. Colonel Mustafa Hafez. Israel's defense against the fedayeen, including their killing my father, ended the intifada. This pattern of Arabs increasing terror attacks against Israel as a way of dealing with threats to their governments continues until today. The fedayeen of the 1950's became the model for today's terror organizations.......... The terror groups' have distracted Arabs from solving their real human challenges while bringing them humiliating defeats...... We Arabs must abandon this obsession to destroy Israel and tend to more important issues, such as honor killing of Muslim girls, stoning of Muslim women, killing and torturing of gays, amputation of limbs of criminals, female genital mutilation, the murder of apostates who leave Islam, polygamy and its devastating effects on family relations, and the imprisonment of Arab reformists and writers and cutting the tongues of those who speak out. We must speak out against the self-anointed and hateful Ayatollahs and Sheikhs who incite violence, rage and anger from the pulpits of mosques. They are condemning the beautiful Middle East society to a permanent condition of war, terror and jihad.......
Mideast fighting has weakened moderates, says Jordan King Hindu, India the prolonged battle in Lebanon has weakened moderates all across the Mideast. ...... Even if Hezbollah is destroyed, the hostility toward Israel is so high that another such group may pop up in Syria, Egypt, Iraq - or even his own country, King Abdullah II, a key US ally, said ...... As long as there is aggression, there's resistance and there's popular support for this resistance..... may have crushed outright, any hope for reviving Mideast peacemaking....... Abdullah said Israel's "aggression has exceeded all limits and must stop immediately." ...... Israeli attacks in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories resulted in "despair in the whole region"
Wave of Rocket Attacks Kill 8 in Israel ABC News
Jordan's King Says Arab Moderates Change Washington Post, United States
Fighting in Lebanon sparks tensions around Mideast Hindu, India
Hezbollah 'heroes to Arabs' The Australian, Australia the rise of guerrilla groups such as Hezbollah who targeted the Jewish state stemmed from Israel's reluctance to give up Arab territory captured in the 1967 war in return for lasting peace. ...... "They (Israelis) want to destroy Hezbollah by tanks and air force. Peace comes by returning occupied territory and setting up a Palestinian state" ...... the US administration should move quickly to end the Arab-Israeli conflict to regain its credibility among ordinary Arabs. .... People cannot sleep and wake up to pictures of the dead and images of destruction in Lebanon and Gaza and for us to say we want moderation.
Mousa: Israel Attempting to Destroy Lebanon, not Hezbollah Zaman Online, Turkey
Jordanian king 'enraged by war' BBC News, UK
Snubbing mercy, once again National Post, Canada
36 Lawmakers Urge Israel to Stop Attack Korea Times, South Korea
3 weeks in, Hezbollah surprises with its might Seattle Times, United States Hezbollah has fired rockets as far as the West Bank, knocked out Israeli tanks and damaged a warship — and had plenty of time to booby-trap all of southern Lebanon. It is hardly a typical guerrilla group, equipped only with bravado and AK-47 assault rifles....... The group has gained attributes more often associated with a national military — fixed training bases, rocket-launching facilities, well-trained artillerymen — than with a guerrilla or terrorist group ......... they have more expertise than the Lebanese military ....... Communication is by walkie-talkies, always in code, and sometimes messages are delivered by motorcycle. Weapons are in place across a terrain fighters say they know intimately........ "On the ground, face to face, we're better fighters than the Israelis" ...... its detailed planning since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000...... six years to ready its defenses, set deadly traps and store munitions in tunnels and bunkers hewn into the rocky, mountainous terrain of southern Lebanon....... Hezbollah fighters appear to exercise a great deal of autonomy, a flexibility evident along the region's back roads: ammunition loaded in cars, trucks in camouflage, rocket launchers tucked in banana plantations........ Fighters and supporters suggest time is their friend in a war many suspect won't have a conclusive end. .... "We are here, and we're not going anywhere." ..... In eight days of fighting in the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbail, Israel lost 18 soldiers, its heaviest casualties since the conflict began in Lebanon. Israel withdrew, saying it never intended to capture it......... the devotion of the Hezbollah fighters. ..... "The most important element about this war is its moral dimension. Hezbollah has prepared itself for this war, its fighters have been indoctrinated to fight until victory" ..... a mood of competition among fighters: competition over bravery, over performance and over who is going to be a martyr first ...... communications sophisticated enough to monitor some Israeli military communications ..... the fighting, so far, has been the type where "guerrillas have the advantage ...... "Our missile capacity is still untouched," Mahmoud Qamati, deputy head of Hezbollah's political bureau, said Wednesday in Beirut. "It is sufficient at two levels, in quantity for the missiles they know of, and in quality for those they still don't know about — the type or the range." He added, "We have enough missiles for months." ....... Hezbollah is believed to have 500 to 600 highly trained fighters, with about five times that many available in reserve .... Like any guerrilla army, it can also draw fighters from the civilian population. ..... before the war, it was believed to have a 12,000 to 13,000 missile stockpile ...... Hezbollah's most important hardware could be a variety of anti-tank weapons, potentially crucial if Israel uses previously successful strategies of encircling pockets of resistance with armor before wiping them out...... Israel can probably defeat Hezbollah, many analysts said. But it may have to be flexible, something past battles have shown it does well. ...... "If there's one military in the world that's especially adept at learning and adapting and adjusting to the situation as it presents itself, it's the Israeli Defense Force" ..... very innovative small-unit approaches
Arab, Jewish women unite to call for peace in Mideast Calgary Sun, Canada
News Analysis: How 'winning' might be defined International Herald Tribune, France
The Times interview with Ehud Olmert: full transcript Times Online, UK I am not talking only about the British soldiers. As far as I am concerned the French are welcome, the Germans are welcome, the Italians are welcome. Turkish forces are welcome. The Saudis, Egyptians.
Anyone ...... this murderous organisation Hezbollah, which is the long arm of Iran ..... We didn’t like very much UNIFIL which was very useless and very helpless. ..... Everyone understands that Israel was the defensive side and Hezbollah was the offensive side. ..... I will do everything possible in order to influence the resolution to this direction. ...... Ariel Sharon’s, ‘brave step’ of disengaging from Gaza and the lack of emergence of ‘moderate elements’ in Hamas ....... we have to win the war against global extremism and that we have to win it at the level of values and at the level of force ...... I don’t think relations between Israel and America is established on the basis that we get orders from the administration. ...... We all share the same commitment to the basic values of democracy, of equality, of tolerance and that we are ready to fight for these principles. ...... The war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately. ...... can you imagine seven million British citizens sitting for 22 days in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham in Newcastle, in Brighton and in other cities? Twenty two days in shelters because a terrorist organisation was shooting rockets and missiles on their heads? What would have been the British reaction to that? .......... How many innocent civilians were killed in Kosovo 10 years ago? ...... The difference between us and Hezbollah is that when we kill innocent people we consider it a failure, when they kill innocent people they consider it a success. .... It was registered by the UN that Israel has pulled out entirely from Lebanon and we don’t occupy one centimetre of Lebanon. ...... it has to be made up of armies, not of retirees, of real soldiers, not of pensioners who have come to spend leisurely months in south Lebanon, but, rather, an army with combat units..... Israel is not afraid of missiles. ..... my wife - she went today to the north to visit with some people and communities and she told me: 'Listen, it's not pleasant. They are falling all the time, everywhere.' ........ we responded in such a manner that will be registered in the collective memory, of not just the Lebanese, but of every nation that has ever had any plans to attack the state of Israel with missiles. They will know that we respond and sometimes the response can be very, very, very painful....... Israel will never, ever allow anyone any more to attack Israel without response....... - a big infrastructure created for Hezbollah. .... in 2001 in the middle of the intifada when we had to face every day suicide attacks in the middle of our cities ...... the military campaign has been brilliant. ...... I don't know of any army in modern history which has done near what we did against a guerrilla organisation....... Look how difficult it is for the allied forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because you don’t fight big formats....... If Lebanon as a country had been the target within half an hour there wouldn't have been any air fields, any planes, any tanks, anything, and that would be it. ...... the enormous, unbelievable intelligence we knew in every village which home they had these launchers ...... We destroyed most of the launchers of the longer range missiles, again due to unbelievable intelligence. We also destroyed 700 targets that served as command positions, as logistical positions, as storage houses as offices of Hezbollah across Lebanon. ....... look at the face of Nasrallah .... had he been able to reverse it to square one and not to start it altogether he would have done it immediately ........ the Hezbollah lost entirely their status in the political structure of Lebanon. Number two, they lost their position amongst the moderate Arab countries. For Hezbollah to hear that Saudi Arabia is opposed to them is a blow in the heart ....... error of judgement was that Israel would not respond in the way that we did. ...... I am not a Nasrallah. I am not talking in this arrogant and pompous manner......... if Nasrallah is so courageous why doesn’t he resurface? Why is he afraid even to feel the light of the sun...... Where exactly is Nasrallah, this big mouth? ......
It's Israel that is the larger threat Toronto Star, Canada
Open letter to Bush from an Arab girl Khaleej Times, United Arab Emirates your foreign policy is completely biased towards Israel ..... it is our — the entire Arab and Muslim world’s — choice to support Lebanon. ..... In Qana, 57 armless, defenseless civilians died in an Israeli air strike, 37 of them were children..... they matter to more than 200 million Arabs in the Middle East..... How many more, Mr Bush, should die before you decide to stop sending those bloody weapons to Israel? Perhaps we can afford a sacrifice that will rein in your generosity towards Israel permanently....... Not the "New Middle East" that you’ve been brainstorming in your Oval Office. ..... "They murder the murdered and walk in his funeral." ......Your credibility and your government’s credibility have long been lost — irretrievably lost like those lost innocent lives. People will not forget this though. They will not turn the other cheek; they will retaliate — just like you had chosen to retaliate after 9/11...... I was born too late to see how the British Empire had collapsed, but right on time to see how the American Empire is falling apart. Mr Bush, You will surely be remembered in history for hastening that process.
No side winning War The Israeli people are not winning because they live in constant fear of terrorist threats and suffer continuous attacks. The Palestinian people aren't winning because they haven't yet regained their homeland; they live in constant fear of Israeli reprisals and suffer unbearably when Israel retaliates. Both Israel and the terrorists lose face, in their struggle to dominate, when they kill innocent civilians........ The only people who seem to be winning are the politicians and leaders who incite passions and use the conflict to further their aims; the organizations that gain money and support by inciting anger; the weapons manufacturers and distributors, which make billions selling their hardware; the security companies, which make billions advising leaders and selling their equipment and all the remaining companies that supply other goods and services to the warring factions...... After all is said and done, the Palestinian issue will eventually be settled using the non-violent methods of diplomacy, talking, negotiating, handshaking and paper signing
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