Lebanon!

I received this reply from "Arisrules" via PM.

I don't know why he did it that way, and I hope he doesn't mind, but he and anyone else who has a differing POV is more than welcome here anytime they want to drop the BigSoccer PoliForum sneer.

Well OK, not everyone, but MOST anyone. SOme people have simply proven to be idiots and no one cares what they have to say.

Anyway....

I heard the Hariri stuff a long time ago, and the people who told me weren't even liberals...as conservative as you could get. He supposedly was a lot dirtier than many people admitted, and swindled lebanon quite a bit.

Did you read what Fisk is reporting? That someone tampered with the Hariri blast sight, by moving the cars? Supposedly they are going to call an international investigation, besides the UN one.


And I'm not "liberal"...i supported bush in 2000. And the terms "conservative" and "liberal" mean nothing today. Why? What was a conservative 15 years ago, isn't that today, same with what a liberal was 15 years ago. The dynamics of the two parties have been shifting a lot.

And finally in regards to the Israeli occupation..that's what it is. My best friends in high school are conservative Jews, and I get in arguments all the time over the issue. But what they have done...taking other people's land in such a fashion is inhumane (I'm not relieving palestinians of any wrongdoing...my position is that they are both to blame). The only solution as I see it is 1967 borders with international troops (US?) patroling the West Bank and Gaza.

1) No one is suggesting that Hariri is Thomas Jefferson. Middle Eastern politics, is usually about greed and tribal influence. I don't see how anyone who had nothing to say about Arafat banking upwards of $24 billion in stolen aid money in Switzerland or Saddam stealing billions out of the mouths of hungry children suddenly is moraly outraged at a guy who engaged in a bunch of shady construction deals involving kickbacks and influence peddling.

1b) Furthermore, you must understand - MUST understand: the real point here: If Hariri or any other shady dealer is popular with the people of a country and they want him as their leader it's their business. Half the elected leaders in the world are crooked as hell and we don't much care. The point is popular government.

By the same token, you want to mention how there's a danger of Lebanon electing an "Iran-leaning" government. Yes there is and that's fine too. (Although there's absolutely no question that Iranians if given half a chance would toss the Mullahs out on their ears, so why voters in OTHER countries would like them better is a quandry, but that's another discussion)

The point is that we are in favor of popularly elected governments as they are decidedly disinclined to engage in terrorism. The reason being that they're too busy doing what elected officials do everywhere: trying to get re-elected.

2) I care nothing at all for whatever unfounded thrid hand rumors Robert Fisk is peddling, now or ever. Find a source without a reputation for anti-Americanism and we;ll talk. Furthermore, the UN has sent investigators, including some unbiased professional detectives from Europe. Let's see what they say, OK?

3) Party dynamics have certainly changed, but one thing holds true: the right is still interested in the removal of government from our lives as much as possible, and rule by majority. The left is primarily interested in federal rule and judicial fiat.

4) "Inhumane" is an inflammatory term without real meaning here. Israel has done what it has done in order to survive surrounded by 45 million people who want them all dead. The borders would still be the 1947 border if their neighbors hadn't invaded them trying to wipe them (literally) out. The 1967 borders would still be the borders if their neighbors hadn't invaded in 1972.

The borders are what they are becasue of Arab actions. Bill CLinton arranged for the borders to go back to 1967 and the Arabs said no. It's not ME you need to convince, it's those Arabs who will not accept the existence of any Jewish stae with any borders at all anywhere in the ME that you need to talk to.

 

Addendum:


I had to step away for a minute, but I want to add:


The whole Israel meme, with this "both sides are equally guilty" theme is - to me - completely ridiculous.

You have one country that wants to be left alone, and a bunch of Relio-Fascist haters who want them destroyed.

The Arab side engages in wonton, deliberate murder of innocent civilian on-combatants. The more women and children killed, the more the celebration in the streets of Ramallah. People who strap bombs to themselves and blow up lunchtime shoppers at a mall are pictured on posters as heroes and Saddam Hussein sends the family $25,000. (While the AMerican left screams about how the embargo is starving Iraqi children, BTW)

Israel responds by targeting terrorist leaders, knocking down houses that are identified as connected to terrorism and finally building a fence to keep the baby-killers out.

And this is "guilt on both sides"?

No, this is one side fighting back. It is both compeltely true and completely undeniable that the day Arabs stop trying to murder any Jew they can get their hands on is the day the "cycle of violence" (good leftie term, eh?) ends. Frankly, Israel ahs shown an amazing level of restraint. The horrible deaths and slaughter and fear they have lived with are "inhumane" to me, not the fact that they have been forced to retaliate bacause the alternative is slow, painful death.

The PROBLEM is that the Arab world does not want peace with Israel. Israel is used as an excuse for the worst kind of police stae brutality all over the Middle East. The last thing Assad or Hexbollah or Iran wants is peace.

As for the so-called "Palestinians" they want one thing: Israel gone, all the Jews dead. And the US has stood in their way for 60 years. So they hate us, Good, Let them hate us.

You may have noticed I'm not Bill Maher. I don't want to sit around worrying about why they hate us. I KNOW why they hate us. I've forgotten more Middle Eastern history than he'll ever know, by a factor of ten.

As for the "Palestininas" who are nothing but pawns to the power plays of the Shieks and Dictators and thugs who run the Middle East, I feel a great deal of sympathy. They have been abused, lied to and exploited by their "brothers" since 1947. Israel is a tiny country bereft of natural resources set amongst several million square miles of the most resource-intensive land on Earth.

If they live in "camps" and in abject poverty after 60 years, it is their fellow Muslim Arabs who live in artificially constructed Muslim Arab countries spending lavish amounts of money on gold-plated bathroom fixtures and personal jets and military hardware who are keeping them that way.

 

1) The first part of your screed is simple hysteria. Please tone it down. This is not the PoliForum and you're not playing for the applause of idiots.

2) If there's a point in there somewhere, other than "OH YEAH???? Well Israel is bad!!!!!" I can't discern it. My bottom line, which you have repeatedly ignored, is the simple proposition that without the surrounding Arab nations invading Israel repeatedly the borders would still be exactly as laid down in 1947.

3) Are you saying that Israel has stolen the electricity too? The fact is that Israel is green and prosperous because Israelis made it that way.

4) I can cite you numerous sources that disagree with Fisk, who has a huge anti-American axe to grind. Taking anything he says at face value is absurd.

5) Arguments here that contain "haha" are mostly offered by people who are about to be invited out. Word.

6) I'm not sure what your point is about people getting their picture taken. I do get that you feel, as does most of the non-rational left, that the US "created" or "supported" or "enabled" Saddam, Bin Laden, etc. It's horse pucky.

7) Why are you manisfestly unable to get my point about Hariri? I don't care if he's the worst gangster since Al Capone. Don't care a whit. If the Lebanese people wanted him, or someone like him, or someone like Ayatollah Khomeini as their leader, then they have the absolute right to elect him. Absolute right.

8) I don't understand what your point is in denigrating Hariri. It doesn't change the fact that he was brutally murdered by a foreign country. (Despite what you believe. Hell, even the gofddam French think Assad had him killed) If some of the left had spent one tenth the time talking about what a horrible thief, liar, thug and murderer Yassir Arafat was, we might not be in this damned mess. Compared to him, Hariri was Sister Bernadette.

 

Several sites have said today that the previous reports of a coup in Syria were incorrect.

Then about an hour ago, this moved on the normally reliable Middle East News:

I'm certainly not convinced, but information in a police state is incredibly difficult to come by in the best of circumstances.

http://menewsline.com/stories/2005/march/03_18_1.html

 

The rest of that report, from World Tribune:


http://216.26.163.62/2005/me_syria_03_17.html

 

The way I understand it, Syrian military commanders in Lebanon are essentially the local crime bosses. They smuggle drugs and guns and run prostitution and gamblng. It's how the regime keeps their loyalty.

It's difficult for Assad because, as I keep pointing out, Syria deosn;t have much oil. So while Saddam could simply dip into hs vast lake of cash to keep everybody happy, it's harder for the Syrians.

So when you pull the military out of Lebanon, the first problem is that you're depriving your main supporters of their main source of wealth.

As a result it would not be surprising if some of these guys are balking. There's always been a question as to how much Assad was relly in control and how much he was essentialy a puppet for the military thugs, secret police and Baathist thieves.

So I'm not prepared to completely disregard the sentiment that there's a kernel of truth in these reports. Unfortunately, it's exactly like trying to get information out of Nazi Germany; the Gestapo had nothing on these guys.

 

OK, I'm gonna try and explain this to you on the off chance that you're a) not completely brainwashed and b) actually interested. But I must say, at the risk of sounding snarky, that the left, which seems to pride itself on their level of sophisticated understanding of complex issues, seems disinterested in even trying to understand this one.

This is a political problem for Israel. You cannot say Israel "yearns" for "conquering the land" any more than you can say America yearns for conquering, say, Cuba. Some people do, some people don't some people don't care one way or the other.

Many if not most of the Settlements were established contrary to government policy. Likud has been more willing to look the other way than Labor, but the thing is that the people who are big on repopulating Judea and Summaria are the religious conservatives, and they are an important part of the Likud block.

Taking out there settlements will come with a tremendous political cost. Soldiers will be required, and there will be violence. People will be hurt, and some will likely die. It is a highly emotional issue based deeply within the Jewish religion and the determination to reclaim what they feel God said was theirs.

Now that said, a majority of Israel would happily go through this horrible national ordeal in return for peace. Some will never accept it, no matter what, but for most the chance to live without having to worry whether your kid's school bus will be blown up with 40 lbs. of C4 tomorrow morning is worth the tradeoff.

Palestine could have it tomorrow.

Palestine doesn't want it.

What you, and the rest of the left, is asking is absurd on the face of it: that Israel give up the only thing it has to bargain with in return for the promise that the PA will sit down and talk with them awhile. It's insane, I mean really insane, to ask them to do this.

So for anyone - you or anyone else - to point to the settlements as the root of the problem is entirely disingenuous, politically naive and hopelessly one-sided.

The left doesn't like to be reminded of the Clinton/Albright/ Arafat/Barak negotiations in December of 2000. They don't like to deal with the facts, but the facts are these:

Clinton brokered a deal with Barak: Israel would give up all the settlements, send in troops to drag their citizens out of their homes, bulldoze the place, outrage their conservative base, withdraw to the 1967 lines, recognize a Palestinianian government and likely cause the collapse of the government in return for the promise that the PA would recognize their right to exist and stop the killing.

In short, they were willing to give the PA everything, in return for peace.

Arafat said no, went home, opened the prisons, let the mad dogs out and declared the Intifada.

That much is beyond dispute, but that's not the impertant part: the IMPORTANT part, what is absolutely CRUCIAL for you to understand (assuming you really want to get it) is WHY Arafat said no:

It's because he couldn't say yes.

Details aside, everybody really understood that the deal was this: Israel would take on the ultra-conservatives, the extremists, if Arafat would do the same. Barak was pretty sure he would be tossed out of office for doing it, but decided it was worth it for finally establishing peace for his country.

Arafat wasn't willing to go that far. He wasn't about to risk losing power just for peace, which didn't suit his purposes anyway, and in any case there's no way he can get HIS radical extremists, the ones who are armed to the teeth and begging for martyrdom, without a bloody fight, and he sure had no interest in that.

So he had to put up or shut up, and he bugged out.

Now that was a crucial time, because the Israeli people were sick to death of the war, and there was a substantial majority opinion in favor of giving away ANYTHING if only they could have peace.

But after they offered EVERYTHING and got turned down, they realized that a negotiated settlement was impossible without simply packing up and vacating. So they elected Sharon, a hardliner, and set to work coming up with their own solution: retaliate against terror leaders when attacked and, eventually, simply building a wall.

Now in fact Sharon is dismantling the Gaza settlements, which doesn't make Egypt happy but who cares?

Bottom line: your complaining about the "settlements" as if they were the problem is just nonsense. The settlements came about because the Arab nations wouldn't stop attacking Israel and they'll go away when the Arab nations are willing to forego attacking them in the future.

Until then, don't ask Israel to give up their only bargaining chip for absolutely nothing. You wouldn't do it, and neither would anyone else.