I lived in Israel for many years

• Israel has lauched ground operation...(sm) - Just the big bad
  • Do you believe what the Palestinians say? sm - MT and worn out
    • Your deep-seated denial is purely pathlogic and - sm
  • Wow. What timing! - Marmann
  • Obama has opened his mouth and stated his opinion - whatwillhesay
    • Everything else, such a what? - sm
  • Good. Hope Israel can destroy HAMAS. - -who are terrorists, since you dont know.nm
    • Like that'll happen. Trying to bomb a grassroots political force - sm
      • Your very first sentence, "Trying to bomb... - Marmann
    • Here's what you don't know. - sm
      • I read plenty thanks! You can blame loss of life - of Palestinians on Hamas, not Israel!.nm
        • Plenty of what? Lies? Propaganda? - sm
          • It is YOU who have no "thought" of your own. - Hamas are terrorists-you drink the koolaid.nm
            • Yes, and Hamas once again broke the peace. - Israel has every right to defend herself.nm
              • You man after Israel killed 6 Palestinians on November 5 and - sm
                • Here's a link describing who broke what. - Marmann
          • And plenty of American-made weapons! - Marmann
          • Yeah, and Hamas weapons also - consist of anything else
            • Are you suggesting Hamas has 1017-mile-long tunnels? - sm
              • Sorry, I am not regurgitating anything, - just stating a fact. Can't
                • In addition to the relationships - sm
              • gee, one-sided U.S. news coverage...go figure....it's how Obama - got elected....duh...
                • Duh must be - jj
  • I posted this on this board on 11/05/2008. SM - Lu
    • I don't think this is about Obama. (sm) - Just the big bad
      • Um, I didn't say this was about Obama. It's about timing. - Lu
        • Ummm, let's see here. You mention Obama - sm
          • Israel's "occupation" of their land is the most godly thing in the middle east. - Lu
            • Boy, talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. - jj
      • On what authority? sm - m
        • What the sugar daddy giveth, the sugar daddy can taketh away. - sm
        • FWIW. Not much, I'd say. - sm
    • I lived in Israel for many years - I like Obama
      • I've heard that also........... sm - m
        • Are you literate or just dazed and confused? - jj
          • You and your drive bys................sm - m
        • LOL! Dont you know? EVERYTHING is - Bush's fault. These people are crazy.nm
          • Did you even read the post or just chime in with the choir? - jj

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3 times. First the communists were coming to get us. We had to fight communism everywhere because they were going to take us all and make us reds. They could be here at any time. I remember safe shelter signs on buildings and personal bomb shelters and dictators claiming they would kill all our grandchildren. Nothing much happened. The second was Vietnam. Same thing, different year. We had to protect the world from communism again. We needed to fight them over there instead of over here.They were going to be on the beaches of California in a New York minute if we did not see this thing through. We got the same deal in 73 that we had on the table in 69 but because of arrogance, hubris, fear of the word failure, about 28,000 more soldiers died during that 4-year stint. We did not get anything more for the time, they died and nothing happened. Now its the terrorists. They can have a nuclear weapon here in 45 minutes. Saddam was in on 9/11. Blah, blah, blah. Conservatives have condemned this. I would hardly call Baker a liberal. Generals, people who actually know something about the geopolitics of the area, real Arab people, scholars, think its over and a done deal. I am not alone in this and you cannot blame the liberals for it either. The decider-in-chief apparently does not listen to anyone, especially not those of us on the left. I have been surprised he does not listen to those on his side. I still believe it was a mistake from the get go and I think we should leave yesterday.

About the crusades. Perhaps because you were not raised Catholic (assumption) you do not know how the crusades have been USED  to justify, rationalize or discredit Catholics and those very same crusaders, fact or no. The crusades have been USED as a great Catholic basher for years. We heard it a lot then, still do.

I really don't know why you come to the liberal board and say the things you do. My head is not in the sand. I know all the facts you do about the **islamofacists** (one of the silliest words I think I have ever heard). I see things differently and your belittling me will not change anything ever.

exlemplary moral life.  Only dirt anyone can sling is about other people whose paths he has crossed. Whoopie.  John McCain an old, worn out horn dog who wants to be seen as a happily married church goer.

Because if you had you'd definitely be able to see the VAST difference between a police state and the American state.

Also, your one-world government theory about the Bush's doesn't sync with your view that Bush is alienating the rest of the world, but I guess you think because Bush wants democracy for the world he somehow is planning to take over the world.

Wow, you are very steeped in conspiracy theory I'll give you that.

Why does none of this surprise me?

'US, Israel planned ME war' 13/08/2006 11:06  - (SA)

New York - The US government was closely involved in the planning of Israel's military operations against Islamic militant group Hezbollah even before the July 12 kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, The New Yorker magazine reported in its latest issue. The kidnapping triggered a month-long Israeli operation in South Lebanon that is expected to come to an end on Monday. But Pulitzer Prize-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh writes that President George W Bush and vice president Dick Cheney were convinced that a successful Israeli bombing campaign against Hezbollah could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential US pre-emptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations. Citing an unnamed Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of the Israeli and US governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush administration officials - well before the July 12 kidnappings. The expert added that the White House had several reasons for supporting a bombing campaign, the report said. If there was to be a military option against Iran, it had to get rid of the weapons Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation against Israel, Hersh writes. Citing a US government consultant with close ties to Israel, Hersh also reports that earlier this summer, before the Hezbollah kidnappings, several Israeli officials visited Washington to get a green light for a bombing operation following a Hezbollah provocation, and to find out how much the United States would bear. The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits, the magazine quotes the consultant as saying. Why oppose it? We'll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran. US government officials have denied the charges. Nonetheless, Hersh writes, a former senior intelligence official says some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should. There is no way that (defence secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this, the report quotes the former official as saying. When the smoke clears, they'll say it was a success, and they'll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.

Move the state of Israel to Virginia, Jerry Fallwell and Pat Robertson can fight over the honor, and see how much y'all love Israel then.

I know that it happens all the time.  I am sorry that it does.

Why the Israeli attack helps the US by taking on Hamas now and why this time Israel may succeed in Gaza. A well-written perspective on Gaza, Israel, Hamas. This adds more to consider as we all discuss this war.

Why Israel Fights
By WILLIAM KRISTOL
Published: January 4, 2009

The Israeli assault on Hamas in Gaza is going to be a replay, we’re told, of the attempt to subdue Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006. And the outcome, it’s asserted, will be the same: lots of death and destruction, no strategic victory for Israel and a setback for all who seek peace and progress in the Middle East.

Obviously, war is an unpredictable business, so I say this with some trepidation: I think the conventional wisdom will be proved wrong. Israel could well succeed in Gaza.

For one thing, southern Lebanon is a substantial and hilly area, bordered by northern Lebanon and Syria, through which Hezbollah could be re-supplied, both by Syria itself and by Iran. Gaza is a flat, narrow strip, bordered by Israel, as well as by the sea and by Egypt, no friend to Hamas. By cutting off the northern part of Gaza from the southern, Israel has basically surrounded northern Gaza, creating a military situation very different from that in Lebanon in 2006.

What’s more, the Israeli leadership seems aware of the mistakes — political, strategic and military — it made in Lebanon. That doesn’t mean it won’t make them all over again. The same prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is in charge, after all. But, today’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, is very different from his predecessor, the weak and unqualified Amir Peretz. So far as one can tell, the Gaza operation seems to have been well-planned and is being methodically executed, in sharp contrast to the Lebanon incursion. Barak has also warned that the operation could be long and difficult, lowering expectations by contrast with the Israeli rhetoric of July 2006.

In addition, in Lebanon, Israel proclaimed war goals that it couldn’t achieve — such as retrieving its two kidnapped soldiers and disarming Hezbollah. Now the Israeli government says that it seeks to weaken Hamas, lessen its ability to fire rockets from Gaza and secure new arrangements along the Egyptian-Gaza border to prevent Hamas from re-arming. These may well be achievable goals.

And, of course, not all military efforts against terror fail. Recall Israel’s incursion into the West Bank in the spring of 2002, when, under the leadership of Ariel Sharon, Israel succeeded in ripping up established terror networks and began the defeat of the second intifada. Israel also was able to avoid a long-term re-occupation, while retaining the ability to go back in on anti-terror missions. What’s more, the 2002 bloodshed didn’t seem to do lasting damage to hopes for progress or moderation on the West Bank. After all, it’s Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005, not the West Bank, that became a Hamas stronghold.

An Israeli success in Gaza would be a victory in the war on terror — and in the broader struggle for the future of the Middle East. Hamas is only one manifestation of the rise, over the past few decades, of a terror-friendly and almost death-cult-like form of Islamic extremism. The combination of such terror movements with a terror-sponsoring and nuclear-weapons-seeking Iranian state (aided by its sidekick Syria) has produced a new kind of threat to Israel.

But not just to Israel. To everyone in the Middle East — very much including Muslims — who aren’t interested in living under the sway of extremist regimes. And to any nation, like the United States, that is a target of Islamic terror. So there are sound reasons why the United States — whether led by George W. Bush or Barack Obama — will stand with Israel as it fights.

But Israel — assuming it succeeds — is doing the United States a favor by taking on Hamas now.

The huge challenge for the Obama administration is going to be Iran. If Israel had yielded to Hamas and refrained from using force to stop terror attacks, it would have been a victory for Iran. If Israel were now to withdraw under pressure without accomplishing the objectives of severely weakening Hamas and preventing the reconstitution of a terror-exporting state in Gaza, it would be a triumph for Iran. In either case, the Iranian regime would be emboldened, and less susceptible to the pressure from the Obama administration to stop its nuclear program.

But a defeat of Hamas in Gaza — following on the heels of our success in Iraq — would be a real setback for Iran. It would make it easier to assemble regional and international coalitions to pressure Iran. It might positively affect the Iranian elections in June. It might make the Iranian regime more amenable to dealing.

With respect to Iran, Obama may well face — as the Israeli government did with Hamas — a moment when the use of force seems to be the only responsible option. But Israel’s willingness to fight makes it more possible that the United States may not have to. 

the U.N. overstepped its bounds?  And what about the United Kingdom that controlled the area in the early 1900s? 

Like it or not nations are formed through civil war.  There are winners and there are losers.  It's really very simple.  The process has not changed for centuries and it will never change.  The strong prevail.  The righteous prevail. The minute we take a liberal viewpoint, that's the exact minute we become weak. 

Yep, they'll be back when all the Lebanese are dead, because all us conservatives are evil like that.    

I have studied U.S./Israel relations extensively.  I fully understand that the protestors do not share my point of view as well as you.  From reading your copious posts I am very clear on where you stand.  I will not be so presumptious as to think I know your biography, but you obviously believe everything wrong in the world has U.S. origins.  I believe you are wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I will not try to change your mind.  Since liberals in general are so worried about how the rest of the world thinks about us I will bring to your attention that it becomes ever more clear by your stances and views as with those on the extreme left that you all side with terrorism.  You can spin it any way you want, but you come off as supporting terrorists.

When I speak of Israel, I speak of the Jews. 

You Said:  "And yes, I did bring Hitler into the conversation.  He systematically tied to wipe out a group of people, which is exactly what Israel is doing right now."

That statement is exactly what makes you anti-Semitic.  The fact that you can compare Israel to Nazi Germany is obscene and anti-Semitic.  You are using something horrific done to the Jews (who make up 75% or more of the Israeli population) and using it to illustrate what you perceive is going on in the Gaza Strip.  Can you not find some other means to make your point other than conjuring up prejudice perpetrated by Hitler?  Could you have maybe made your comparison to Kosovo/Bosnia?  Nope, you chose the holocaust to illustrate your point.  You intent was to shock and to be controversial.  You wanted to provoke a reaction. 

What exactly did you think using the name "Hitler" would provoke?  You argument in and of itself is anti-Semitic. 

By the way, I am a messianic Jew.  I know a little bit about anti-Semitism.  So before you continue to insult both my intelligence and my homeland, choose your words wisely.