Ballots, Bullets And Suicide Bombers

Sanctuary - Israel only pre-empted the attack Egypt was already planning and about to execute. Get your facts straight.

I believe that the eigtht years of the Bush administration were a disaster in all levels. Like one said before me , we didn't have a foreIgn policy, all we had was an israeli foreign agenda that Mr. Bush and his administration followed blindly.
The result is we have more extremist in the middle east than ever before, we embolded parties like Hizbullah and Hamas, we destroyed Irak to strengten the ayatollahs in Iran. And what we did to our "moderate"allies pardon me our puppets, we turned them to look like dummies, we ridiculized them and we striped them from any credibility they can have with their own population.
As example Abbas, the moderate president of the Palestinian authority, instead of helping him to get some tangible results he can show to it's constituencies, we kept fooling him between Oslo, Camp David, Indianapolis, Charm Cheikh.......turn in him like a bouricot and in the meantime the Israelis kept their incursions in Gaza and the West-Bank, kept their humiliating check points, kept the siege on Gaza and more importantly they kept grabbing palestinian lands and installing more new settlers.
These policies need to change, the occupation of the West-Bank and the siege of Gaza must end if we really want a real peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Good Night and Good Luck.

RE: Posted By: Jonah Mc @ 01/06/2009 10:14:17 PM

Great post! I totally agree. It's is the elected government's job to be amoral and act in the country's best (self) interest, as they perceive it, is it not?
I think we are still noble, sometimes.

Part of the problem Americans have is that we're the shadowy mirror image of our Islamic enemies (though most us don't realize it because of our insularity and fanatic dogmas). They want to impose their culture on others through violence, and so do we. The US has tried to artificially impose democracy on cultures that have no business being democracies. Their value system and world view are so radically different from ours, yet we are so arrogant as to believe we can simply make them "democratic" when such systems haven't grown organically within their own societies.
So the results are disastrous. And what happens when we don't like the result of the democracies we've imposed? Why, that's when we decry and attack them because they???ve democratically elected our enemies (whoops!). Much as Hamas???s acts of violence are deplorable to you & me, Palestinians love them because Hamas provides medical care through hospitals, schools, food, covers their every need. Plus, Hamas provides their own brand of brainwashing Kool Aid, just like the kind of patriotic garbage about "our troops" and "freedom isn't free" that we sip at home, just at the other end of the spectrum.
Look at Saddam - yes, an all round bad guy and we kept complaining about how he gassed those poor Kurds. Well, during the enlightened Clinton years, we provided Turkey with the support and 80% of the weaponry to slaughter Kurds and burn down 3,500 villages. Where was the American outcry then? Nowhere, because we're conveniently selective. Let's face it, the US is completely amoral. The country's actions are a function of perceived self-interest: whether it has to do with propping up Somoza, Duvalier, Pinochet, or Stroessner, etc, there is more innocent blood on US hands than you could ever wash off. There are many examples: murderous pecadillos in Sudan, attacking soft targets (civilians) in Nicaragua, etc. And on and on. We???re as blasé about being violent & unfair as anyone else, and nothing like the bastion of enlightenment we pretend to be.
The concept of inherent American goodness is ingrained from an early age and thus understandably lapped up by the masses. But even examples of benevolence primarily serve national self-interest: for instance, the Marshall Plan was because we could not allow a weakened Germany to sit next to the Iron Curtain, and much of foreign aid is because creating free-ridership and other benefits is necessary for the hegemon's stability, even though there is a cost to be paid.
Are we any better than any of these other cultures? Of course not, but hey, at least we've got shopping malls, Carl's Jr. burgers, access to masturbatory internet material, and Dr. House on the telly! We???re as nonchalant about bloodshed as they are and guilty of the same kind of black-and-white extremism, we just have shiny, pretty things that mask our true nature and help prop up misguided notions of our own nobility.

I disagree to a point. The poverty is a result of the mindset that prevents progress. The Arabic and Persian ideals of what makes a man or family a success is still mired in 3d century thought. Even in the wealthiest of Arab countries there is still cultural and religious based violence and anger towards anything outside their value system. Times will not change until mens hearts change. islam is in direct conflict with the west, and Islam WILL NOT yield.

Widening the scope to the big picture, winning the war againtst Islamist extremism versus secularism comes down to exposing the puppetmasters of martyrdom for what they really are, cowards who manipulate others to do their dirty work while they reap the political rewards. The difference between well known martyrs such as Jesus, Peter, and Ali and the Ayatollah Khomeni is that Jesus, Peter, and Ali became martyrs by their own volition through the unjust actions of others while the Ayatollah sent children to be martyred in Iraqi minefields. A good PR machine turns the Ayatollah into a senseless murderer in the eyes of an average muslim rather than focusing the blame on the Iraquis who put the mines there and glorifying the sacrifice of the children. The other keys to long term success and preventing the extremists from turning back th e clock to a xenophobic and tribalist era is to provide economic prosperity to the region. This is no small order, however any human being would rather spend some money and build a life than fire bullets and then scrape to rebuild their life. We can see the underpinings of the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan and how they are tied to poverty and desperation. Did anyone learn anything from WWII as for what happened in Germany when it was destitute? This is why the economic blockade past and present has had predictable results in radicalizing Gaza and the real reason hizboallah and Iran have gained favor in Lebanon for rebuilding after Israel trashed the southern half of the country. A successful incursion must be followed by a Marshall plan to rebuild or what you get is another war with more brutal tactics and influence being shaped by those who are willing to provide assistance. The stick must be followed by a carrot rather than spite, but I fear it is far too late for Israel to learn that simple lesson from the past century's world wars.

An excellent and well thought out article. I do fear that enormous apathy on the part of the west to the tactics of martyrdom has generated a prevailing wind towards extremism that may be approaching gale force in that region. Visionaries such as Saad Hariri who have more clarity than these extremists I am afraid are quite literally becoming a dying breed. The PR machine of Hamas/Hizboallah has become so cunning that their take on things is prevailing even on the world stage versus the Israeli PR machine. Instead of viewing the limited civilaian casualties as a success of precision bombing mitigating collateral damage while taking out mostly the callous murderers of innocent civilians, it is seen as the martyrdom of innocent civilians by the callous oppressors trying to take out valiant resistors of a strangling economic blockade with the only tools they have, suicide bombers and crude rockets. At some point however, the military pastings which generate political victories through martyrdom will generate enough political currency that the leaders must cash it in for political legitamacy and a stronger bargaining position. They risk going too far and losing everything if their provocation lead to true atrocities and massive retaliation. Hamas is at an interesting point in that they may have misplayed their hand and reached the point of all out war. Obviously Israel invades now while it still has the carte blanche offered by the Bush administration and Hamas may have done better to wait until Obama was in before firing the rockets. Will there be enough of an international outcry and pressure to stop or limit the Israeli ground incursion or has Israel been so provoked so as not to care or listen anymore? A long series of blunders since Oslo has left Hamas and Hizboallah in the strange position of winning a political victory if they offer to negotiate now and Israel does the right thing and backs down. Ironically the best possible outcome for Israel may be if they press on with what is largely perceived as a brutal attack and weaken Hamas sufficiently to allow their opposition Fatah to gain the upper hand there by attrition.

This is a joke, right Newsweak? Obama has said nothing-zero-zip-zilch-nada about the situation in Gaza and now you liberals are all goo-goo and ga-ga over something the man hasn't even *talked* about yet. By the way, why don't you liberals ever talk about the constant attacks Israel had to deal with from Hamas since they pulled out of Gaza in 2005 to let the Palestinians run their own lives? How come you Newsweak liberals only placate Hamas and never call out their cowardice of hiding behind innocent women and children instead of fighting like men?

To mommyof3 and all like her... Do you realize that the pictures you saw on CNN about Palestinians cheering on 9-11 were found to be faked, from a earlier date! My little ones, who control the media in this country. If you do not believe it is the Jews, you are living in a different reality. Ask any American politician that happens to make a negative comment regarding Israel, Remember Howard Dean? He was ahead in the polls in the democratic primaries in 2004 until he made the comment that we needed to rethink our policy toward Israel, so as to make our policy more even and more believable, since we want to set ourselves as the honest broker in the middle east. After his comments, the press began to call him unstable, etc. Now, regarding the Palestinians. Put yourself, if you can, since we are all good God fearing Americans, (you should feel for the less fortunate as our bible says.) Your land is taken away; you live in a little strip of land controlled on every area by Israel. Israel decides when to allow food, water, medical supplies, etc., into the Gaza strip even before this war started. You are treated as less than human with no hope of things ever getting better. Now remember, it was Bush and Israel that wanted Hamas to run in the election, which they won. Now us and Israel did not like the result of that election. So you live hopeless, with your farms and homes being destroyed. What would you as an American do if Mexico or Canada would do that to one of our states? Would we just sit patiently and take it? Of course not. Even God fearing Christians as you and I would fight back against the enemy. Again, Hamas shoots rockets into southern Israel. Have you seen these rockets? People, these things are homemade! I do not know the exact number, but my best guess is that in the last five years less than one hundred Israelis have died, how many Palestinians?. But, Israel response to these attacks is disproportioned to the threat. Hamas with homemade rockets and rifles, Israel with the best weapon systems the US can give them. Then uses them against civilian populations at will; schools, mosques, universities, etc. wherever they might think a Hamas fighter is hiding, it's a fair target regardless whether women and children may be there also. That is Israel for you. The US also will be responsible some day. As a Christian I cannot understand how most of you cannot see suffering, injustice, oppression of others just because they are of other faith. Shame on you all! Quit being hypocrites, stop calling yourself God fearing people, you're not! You are stooges in this game. Christians Zionists, what a farce! I will leave you with this to ponder: If the Palestinians were looked by us as whites, as we see the Jews, would we accept their oppression as cavalierly as we do now?

You people can never learn, israel cannot survive without an enemy, this is why it must provoke a war every few years.God bless Hizbullah and Hamas and all the freedom fighters in the middle east. Fighting is the only way the israelis understand. they try to show the world that they want peace but at the same time they are steatling more and more land from the original owners ( The Plestinians ) of the land. the solution for peace is very simple: give the Palestinians back their land. Trust me no matter how much israel bomb Gaza, this will lead to more hatred and resistence. This has always been the case. FYI I am a Palestinian Christian.

Force is the weapon of the weak, force can give you a temporary relief but in the long run it's useless and ineffective. and you will not know neither safety nor liberty. Terrorisme is an ideology and wise people knows that there is no military solution to terrorisme. Terrorisme can be fought by spreading the real democracy in the world, the democracy our ancestors fought for when they kicked out the british occupier from our land. I might appear naive for some of you, but I rather look a naive then look as a blood thirsty hawk.

Good night and good luck.

imo, these terrorists (Hamas an the like) are no better than the IRA, who fomented hate and violence to perpetuate and satiate their desires for power and money. Violence became a living for them and they had no interest in resolving differences of ending the bloodshed. Without the conflict, they become nothing.

Let Israel wipe Hamas off the face of the earth. Then maybe the Islamic extremist will get the idea that the rest of the world is tired of their terrorism and whining. Hamas and the rest might learn a valuable lesson that if you push a peaceful people too far then they just might come down to your level and fight back and not allow you to hide behind innocents. The Islamic extremist are not Freedom Fighters, they should never be compared to Masada, Thermopylae, the Alamo, the Light Brigade and the Little Bighorn. The people in these battles were soldiers they fought and died honorably. Davey Crockett did not walk in to a crowd of unarmed people and blew himself up. Custer did not fight the little the battle of the little big horn from behind a group of school children. At Thermopylae there were 2 clearly defined combatants neither side used women to detonate bombs or fired weapons and ran in to churches to hide. There is a lot of difference between a soldier and a terrorist, the sad part is people like you can???t tell the difference.
Unfortunately this is the true mind set of Islamic extremists "The way these people fight a war, they don't believe in defeat," one prominent moderate Arab politician said privately, and with considerable chagrin. "As long as there is one person from Hamas left alive in Gaza, they will claim a victory." So this being the truth the only viable answer for peace is to leave no extremist left alive. To bring peace we must eliminate those spread death and terror we must go to their level, the world must hunt them down and stop them by any means necessary. We must not give the terrorist any safe havens. No building should offer any protection not schools or hospitals or mosque or church. No border should be allowed to harbor or aide these murderers, these animals that seek to destroy our civilization. The same civilizations that they seek to destroy they hide behind our rules and laws but respect neither.
It is not time for peace because the terrorist uses peace and cease fires as a time to rebuild and regroup and plot again their plans for war and terror. The old saying goes ???There is no rest for the wicked.??? now is not the time to give these wicked people any rest. It is time to take the fight to them and destroy this very dangerous group once and for all.