Time to stop the open funding of terrorism!
 

I've been watching CNN tonight and one thing is clear...Israel faces a task with no really acceptable solution...and the fault clearly lies in the bowels of two insane countries...Iran and Syria! I hate the thought of war but how long can we tolerate these clowns thumbing their noses at us while they channel money, weapons and radicalism to these butchers? Time to draw the line...tell Syria and Iran that they either stop funding these crazies and attempting to throw any government that even appears to be heading toward democracy into chaos or we will stop them! There are innocent Americans in Israel, innocent Americans in Lebanon, and a country full of innocent folks in Israel....yes, there are innocent folks in the Arab lands as well, but these governments are corrupt to their core and simply evil. Either they stop the killing or they die by the very sword they wield!!

"You're either with us ... or you're with the terrorists."

Iran and Syria aren't with the terrorists ... they are the terrorists.

It's way past time to take out Junior Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Khamenei. Start at the top ... and work our way down the line.

frosty, there are innocent Lebanese in Lebanon too. Seriously though, if this escalates enough we'll get dragged into it, but Israel seems to be doing just fine right now.

The Israelis are just as guilty as any Arab nation. I don't see them working for peace. They are bombing the F out of Beirut right now, instead of working towards a solution they are escalating a war.

The only peace that terrorists understand comes from violent death! The lion may someday lay with the lamb but there will be peace in this region only after the last terrorist is laid in his/her grave! I wish it were not so, I wish that the hatred and brutality could be replaced with a genuine respect for human life....but I accept the reality and the right of Israel to defend itself. If that means the annihilation of Iran, Syria and Lebanon...so it will be!

I don't know how you can compare Israel to terrorists. That reminds me of people who think that Bush is a terrorist just like Bin Laden.

Not a chance and as usual you are wrong.

The last thing Israel wants is for this to escalate significantly. What will happen is this... It will go on for 3-4 more days until it all shakes out and Israel decides how much (not if) they're going to give in to demands. I really wish they wouldn't because when Israel negotiates with the less-savory elements it only perpetuates and promotes this kind of activity.

But, as we all know, Israel ALWAYS negotiates. Instead of having the stones to actually do more than lob missles which are killing hundreds, if not thousands of innocent Lebanese, they will, as always, give in and acceed to some extent.

Israel ALWAYS negotiates. Did it in 1972, did it a couple years ago. Will do it again in the next 5-7 days. They'll do it again two years from now.

All that will come of this is in the end is a badly damaged fledlging democracy in Lebanon struggle to survive and to feed and water their people.

Israel will not march into Syria. Israel will not go to Iran. Why should they? After all, it's far easier to put down the slingshot-toting Palestinians and lob some missles at the Democratic country of Lebanon.

All insignificant little countries, with the exception of Iran. Who cares about Syria, Lebanon, Israel, etc. They are little blips on the big world picture. They are all run by religious wackos. You could take all three of them off the map and nothing would change in the world. In 20yrs from now, if the US gets off its dependence of foreign oil and looks to Canada for all of its imported oil, the middle east will be nothing more than a bunch of crazy people that have been fighting for hundreds of years over a ridiculous issue like religion.

Russia, China, North Korea, all much more important than these insignificant countries.

48 hours ... and counting.

Let us pray that Junior Assad is as dumb as he looks.

Quite right.

The ultra-leftists don't believe a word of what they themselves are saying.

They just viscerally hate America and Israel ... and are willing to ally themselves with any of their enemies regardless of how vicious and inhuman they are ... because America and Israel are the big obstacles to leftist world domination.

The leftists hate not having power ... and they know that America and Israel are the reasons why they don't.

Gas up now, and keep it full.
 

Price of oil is about to explode. Hmmmmm, should I buy a Vespa now or later.

LOLOLOLOLOL. Off the deep end today you go!!!!

Well, it's been a very bad weekend for the radical right (neo-conservatives, as they say), today especially:

1. Bush and Omert aren't talking. Then again, Bush doesn't speak to the heads of state of Japan or South Korea either. Just wtf do he and Tony Blair talk about all day and night?

2. The rest of the world ain't exactly falling over themselves to defend Israel's generally characterized "disproportionate" response. Russia, no. Europeans, nope. Anyone else? No, sorry, they're all busy trying to find peace.

3. Why doesn't Condie Rice get her scrawny butt over there and start doing her job? It's called shuttle diplomacy. Henry Kissinger must be turning in his grave. Warren Christopher too. Can it be Rice is too busy working with the Chinese over N. Korea? Nope. She's not welcome there either. (And boy, did the Chinese do some job on our behalf trying to get North Korea to back off it's activities). How does Colin Powell manage the restraint to refrain from commenting?!?

4. Sean Hannity called pretty much all the European nations anti-semites for not embraing Isreal's over-response. Radical righthanders at least have good old Hannity to fall back on, because, ....

5. You all saw and heard none other than that bastion of modulation, Newt Gingrich on "Meet The Press" today bashing the Bush Administration for it's failure to execute Middle East policy successfully. I thought Russert was going to toss his cookies he was so surprised. No political strategy for the Iraqi nation, no reaching out to the Sunnis (read oil money) and just total and utter failure at military infrastructure. Like me, 60% of Americans and about 95% of the rest of the world, he's just tired of Bush's and Rumsfel'ds failure to get the job done.

Don't get me wrong. I didn't think the war was a terrible idea. But it would be nice if we weren't acting like the clown army of the world in Iraq. I also voted for Bush, twice. I admit my hand shook a bit in '04 as I voted. But after all, as Lewis Black says, "what the hell is there to do when your choices are two bowls of sh1t?"

6. We did see Condie Rice say that while Israel has the right to defend itself, there is no chance for peace without a 2-state solution. Nice to hear, but really, it is so very lamentable that it takes this kind of action to get the Roadmap To Peace" back into meaningful dialogue. And poorly advised of the U.S. to say this. It only serves to boost Hezbollah and the extreme portion of Hamas in importance. Not sure I'd have done that.

7. Bush's remarks today and yesterday also have to be of concern to the ultra-radical right here and in Israel. He certainly doesn't come across as particularly happy.

8. Iraq coalition nations are obviously getting pissed off at having to do Israel's heavy lifting in Iraq and are wanting to see some closure to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. While it's comforting to know that Estonia (35 troops currently in Iraq), Macedonia (33) and Kazakhstan (28) are ommitted, ALL the nations of the world are asking, "Where the heck are the Israeli troops?" Can someone tell us why Israel has not had a single soldier on the ground in Iraq?

9. It's sad to see the fledgling democray in Lebanon being held hostage. The government is fairly weak and their army is not all that loyal. Instead of embracing Lebanon and making sure the UN placed security troops in the southern part of that nation, the U.S. and Israel found other things to do. Also, the U.S. and Israel took the shortest, easiest path in Lebanon and did not force out the Hezbollah group totally from power.

10. Whatever happened to that s.o.b. Osama Bin Laden? That guy is a mofo for sure, but he has got to be first-ballot for sure into the Hide-and-go-Seek Hall of Fame.

12. As an aside... 15% Oil. 15% Precious Metals. 70% Cash. Wait until you see the end of all this mess, which of course, will be when you see...

12. The King of Jordan!!! Once he gets involved (and you see him on the BROADCAST national news), it's pretty much a solved situation and a done deal. Get back in the next morning!

13. The world is expressing it's disdain for US and Israeli policy. The world is tired of the legitimacy brought to Hezbollah by the Gaza and Golan issues. The world wants to see this end... and the only way, according to the world, is to remove the reasons for legitimizing Hezbollah and other thugly folks. Get the peace process going and going strong, never stop no matter what... that way, there is no legitimizing issue for the Hezbo. It is really that simple. Even if it isn't, it ain't exactly as if what the U.S. and Israel are doing is working now!

Make peace not war.

All sounds good...but how do you have a peace process when one side is populated with thugs, murderers and terrorists who don't want peace...will never accept a peaceful solution unless it involves the eradication of every last Jew in the Middle East (for now, later it will be our turn)???

There were innocent Germans we carpet bombed the **** out of in WWII, does that mean we shouldn't have done what was necessary to take a a stand against Hitler?
The mark of a true man is one that can accept ugliness, unideal moral behavior. and micro-stupidity as a fact of life, yet understand the innerworkings of such and use them to achieve the maximum possible greater good for humanity. "And then I realized they were stronger than we. Because they could stand that these were not monsters. These were men.trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love,but they had the strength,the strength... to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling... without passion,without judgment. Because it's judgment that defeats us. "

That quote it says is to do what is necessary takes sacrifice, even if it means your soul.

So for you urban snobs, left/right wing religious idiots, and self serving intellectual "elites," You score 0 points witht the rest of us who weren't born into circumstances of being rich, elite.

you need a a trip to the blue oyster and your love problems will be solved..you may walk funny though//not that its wrong.......its raining ten divisions of men halah looya....lmfao..

what the hell kind of response was that

Please explain your rather loopy post first ... then we can get to the other one.

Umm... aren't you the person that talks about how you drive around your mom's BMW 740Li and that you shop and Burberry? I guess driving around Mommy and Daddy's 75K (base price) car doesn't make you privileged. Or is all that BMW/Burberry talk a lie?

Yikes! You cannot defend that which is wrong by cloaking it in necessity, turning men into brainwashed sheep may produce a mighty army but it will not protect each soul from the consequences of immoral acts. Judgement translates to choices and free will mandates that every choice has a consequence. A person cannot be moral and kill without feeling...in war, we take life least ours be taken yet it should haunt us forever, otherwise our very existence is meaningless...life is about choices, love and pain, there is no escape from that and only a fool tries to minimize or justify that which can not be justified!

I would like all to note how quiet Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and other middle eastern countries have been. Iran is a Persian country and is funding terrorist groups that these countries do not particular like.

Hezbollah has made a grave error. The Israelis know that most of Southern Lebanon has tunnels and other havens for weapons built right under the houses of innocent Lebanese that protested the involvement of Syria in the first place. Leaflets where dropped and they explained that the area would be bombed because of the weapons and tunnels that hide all these rockets raining down on innocent civilians in Israel.

Let us please try to never mix the Israelis with the terrorist they are attempting to fight. We can complain that Israel has made a mistake in bombing too much infrastructure and not taking enough care to miss the innocents. But never ever mistake the basic moral values behind these terrorists and Israel.

Israeli planes dropped leaflets over parts of southern Lebanon, urging civilians to leave. Israeli Army officials say that Hezbollah stores rockets and portable launchers among the civilian population, in apartments, garages and shops.



Does Hezbollah send messages to innocent Iraelis telling them rockets might hit them in the next hour, please take caution? Do Iran and Syria send intellegence reports to Israel telling them, "look these monsters that we have given weapons to, they plan to strike...." Nopes. Never ever mistake the basic humanitarian differences between the Israelis and the terrorist groups supported by Iran and Syria.

What would we do if Mexican terrorist groups randomly started lauching rockets into LA and Houston? You think we stand by and let this happen? No way. Put yourself in the place of the Israelis. And then put yourself in the place of all the innocent Muslim people that just want to live a peaceful existence and raise their children without having to leave and hide and starve. Syrian and Iran send the supplies for this disaster, and innocent Palestinians and Lebanese pay the awful price. And they just sit back thinking" we got a bunch of human bombs to make things tough on Israel while we just sit back and watch all the fun".
This will end. Syria and Iran are going to feel what it is like to use others to suffer for their zealotry.

wasnt born rich or privillaged, all that stuff just recently came in the past 5 years due to hard work and smart investments by my parents.

Dad came to America with 25 dollars in his pocket, washed dishes and swept floors

And you should be very grateful that he did so ... instead of bashing the country which made his and your success, comfort, and safety possible.

And there's nothing unique about your family's experience ... it has happened tens of millions of times in this blessed country. My grandparents didn't have two nickels to rub together when they came here ... in fact ... if someone gave them a nickel ... they still wouldn't have had two nickels.

Let us pray so.

AS usual you are wrong.

Israel cannot get to the root of Hezbollah by lobbing missile at Lebanon. There are two things you won't see the Israelis do:

1. Support the Coalition forces in Iraq.
2. Send ground troops into Lebanon to truly battle Hezbollah.

Israel NEVER uses ground troops.

These extreme groups exist and are legitimized/embraced by the oppressed Palestinians for the sole reason to fight the battle the Palestinians cannot.

Remove the only legitimizing factor which of course is the lack of peace and any meaningful Western effort to work toward it and you will eliminate Hezbollah.

It is funny how these radical rightists twist anything that someone says that disagrees with Israeli or American strategy or tactics and turns it into the stereotpical "you hate America" or "you hate jews."

It is simply a case of someone seeing the world different than you do. And you cannot acccept the fact that nearly all of the rest of the world feels you are wrong.

You've lost your precious Newt Gingrich. At least you have Sean Hannity to hold on to.

Hezbollah and Hamas will never go away as long as there are countries that are willing to pay cash for bodies willing to destroy Israel. Make no mistake. There are some very smart people within these groups that live very well that would never die for "the cause". They are profiting from this conflict. And Israel will continue to battle these groups until they provide security for their citizens. If this means bad patches of time with missles lobbed in, they will take them out. The missiles will eventually return if funding does not stop. And Israel will take them out. Israel is in this for the long haul. They know that their citizens will NEVER be fully safe as long as other countries with the tryrannical governments fund misguided human bombs. The citizens of Israel understand this. The world will see these messes continue until countries come to the realization that Israel is not leaving the map, and they will adapt to the terrorists as necessary. Forever, if that what it takes. So what will continue to take place is innocent people will pay the price, mostly in the Muslim states in which terrorists roam with impunity. The terrorists will continue to hide behind their innocent human shields, using them as political fodder. These people do not value human lives, any. It has become an industry. Use misguided poor youth, make them into killers, and then profit from the proceeds from countries that can spend money harrassing Israel using the blood of others.

There are very clearly good guys and bad guys in this conflict.

We may just have to accept the fact that some folks are just terminally stupid.

All the other Arabs ... and even the Persians of Iran ... have been using the "Palestinians" as cannon fodder for their money-making schemes for the past 60 years ...

... and the "Palestinians" are still too dumb to realize it.

There are tens of millions of Arabs who have gotten wealthy and lived lives of luxury off the riches of the homeland of Arabia ... while the "Palestinians" have gotten nothing but generations of poverty, misery, and death.

Yet the "Palestinians" still think that Israel is their enemy.

Terminal stupidity is a sad thing to observe.

These larger missiles fired require technological help. There are clearly Iranian and Syrian advisors and trainers in Lebanon. No doubt about that. And they are payed well for putting their lives on the line.

Don't look now but Israel sent ground forces into southern Lebanon yesterday, they will invade if necessary and to think any differently shows a lack of understanding of the Isreali mindset...as Pgardn said, Israel will do whatever it takes, including carpet bombing Damascus if these attacks continue. Why do you think we heard rhetoric about a cease fire from both Syria and Iran in the last 24 hours...they are not stupid and they see the storm a-coming!

As usual you make these utterly silly statements. The Palestinians are not stupid. They have been used. The utter poverty they live in makes them perfect targets for fanatacism. How do you think Israel gets so much intelligence? The "stupid" Palestinians that realize the hopelessness of their fanatic brethren. If you were born in Palestine bold one, I can see you as one of the first to die with bombs strapped to your body because you dont think. You react. Like a primitive jellyfish, very little analysis goes on. Environmental cue-----react. Hell, you might as well be a mousetrap.

Terminal Stupidity demonstrated.

You live in a Lebanese neighborhood. You own a small market and live modestly in a small house. Hezbollah guerrillas under intense attack move into your neighborhood, set up their rockets to fire.

Do you rise up with your neighbors and throw the armed men out? Hell no, they will kill you. So the rockets are fired and the guerrillas move to a new neighborhood. Next thing that occurs is your neighborhood is destroyed by Israeli bombs. What the crud are you supposed to do? Your government cannot control the guerillas.

1. The guerrillas are willing to sacrifice you and your family for the "greater" war.
2. Israel will hit the neighborhood knowing full well civilians that live there that have nothing to do with the war will be killed even, if you have been warned to leave, your life is destroyed.

And now on a Palestinian "Representative" says the Hezbollah kidnappings were a natural reaction to what was happening in Gaza. And the Hezbollah missles are an attempt to defend themselves?????? Exactly what, as a peaceful person living in Lebanon, are you supposed to do? Who do you hate for this? Who do you blame for ruining your livelyhood?

It is complex. But its pretty clear to me what the answers to these questions are.

w says "humas needs to stop that ****" at the g-8 summit..talking to blair..so funny...in a bad deal..

What's the old saying ... "Fool me once ... shame on you ... fool me twice ... shame on me"?

How many times now have the Palestinians been fooled by their Arab "brethren" ... and isn't it about time that they woke up?

Even Rip Van Winkle slept for only 20 years ... the Pals have been asleep for 60. I don't know how you define stupidity ... but that sure looks like it to me.

P.S. You're intelligent enough to realize ... or you should be ... that once you resort to personal attacks and name-calling ... you've clearly demonstrated that you've lost the argument.

Again ... your premise is faulty. You write as if Hezbollah were something which fell from the sky one day ... like a meteorite ... and the helpless Lebanese could do nothing about it.

The Christian Lebanese did their best to prevent terror and dictatorship from taking hold ... the Muslim Lebanese not only didn't fight it ... they encouraged it.

Most Christians left Lebanon when they saw it was hopeless ... can you say "Danny Thomas" and "Jamie Farr"? The Muslims didn't ... thinking that the terrorists were their "friends" ... and now .... many years later ... they're reaping the whirlwind for their complicity with evil.

And here's something lovely (not)-- this is from andrewsullivan's website (he's a conservative blogger I like to read). A letter writer to him posted it. "USG" is United States Government, of course:

"On your most recent posting quoting about how the USG is bankrupt, and cannot pay its "creditors". I think they have figured out one way to take care of it: charge their citizens for emergency services.

I am currently enrolled in an intensive summer arabic program at the American University in Beirut, and am holed up at the university, probably the safest place in the city right now. Basically my choices have been to make a run for the border with Syria and try to catch a flight out, or wait for the USG to carry out the evacuation plan. Because I heard reports about the dangers of the former (and based on a statement by the American embassy), I opted for the latter. They are finally getting everything together today, but they dropped a little surprise: they are going to be billing us for giving us emergency transport to Cyprus, and then basically dropping us off on our own to get commercial flights back to the US. Most other goverrnments evacuating people here are actually flying them back to their home country without cost. But not the USG. They are perfectly happy to fund the World Toilet Summit (in Ireland, if my memory is correct) to the tune of $13 million or something. But 25,000 or so Americans stranded in the middle of a (quite unexpected) war zone? They better be ready to pay up if they want out."

Great. Just great. But by God, the wealthy DESERVE those tax cuts!

Genuine Risk,
I've stayed away from posting on this thread.
It was actually a bit "entertaining" to watch Pgardn and Bold Fraud go at it.

However, I have seen enough. The family that was driving north to the border that got hit, and the father of the eight children, who said "Oh God!
How can I tell my children? They are all so badly burned that I can't recognize them."
At least the Americans have a way out, even if they have to pay for it.
Unfortunately, the stupidity of present actions is only going to cause more resentment and retaliation. Do the "Powers that be" expect anything less?
Is this part of the plan to create even more "terrorists"?

Expect Bold A-hole to respond to this. He usually does, even brings his Townhall propaganda garbage. However, I am addressing this to YOU, not Bold A-hole. Let him start his own thread if he feels that what he has to say is SO VERY important.
Here's something that you might want to read to see the differences between the ways that the unfortunate victims of the carnage are attempting to escape.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0717-04.htm

Well, you don't have to wait for BB...I'll respond. I wish we had weapons with intelligence so that only the enemy was hit, the US conducted the most "humane" war (talk about an oximoron) in history when we invaded Iraq...every effort was made to limit civilian casualties, yet there were many horror stories like the ones in the article...IT SIMPLY ISN'T POSSIBLE to wage war and not kill folks, and the innocent die just like the guilty! It's still all smoke and mirrors, attempting to blame the Israeli people for defending their country against the savages attacking them...won't work!!! Tell a million horror stories, that fact will always remain!

For the record: Andrew Sullivan is a leftist former New York Times reporter ... who is also openly homosexual and a crusader for homosexual rights.

Not that there's anything wrong with that ...

... but let's just keep the facts straight.

And the point of this completely unverifiable personal anecdote ... from an unidentified source ... is ... ?

Somer,
This is always interesting. Smoke and mirrors, indeed!
Recent reports from Afghanistan show that the Taliban has regained control of two districts, opium crop (remember the "war on drugs"?) is bumper.
Iraq is going down in flames of civil war.
Now this overly aggressive response by Israel to the kidnapping of two soldiers.
Horror stories??? Far too many.
"Humane war"???

Never happened yet.

The innocents suffer for the mistakes of others.
Same old, same old.

Question: Do you honestly think that our present leadership will in anyway influence the current outcomes?

I'm interested in your take on this... and btw, those rockets aren't manufactured in Iran. They come from China. Can I buy some at Walmart?
Oh! I almost forgot to mention who holds the notes on the US deficit...you know who, don't you?