Posted on 01/29/2006 6:40:24 AM PST by SJackson
The neoconservatives who dreamed up the Bush Doctrine -- promoting "democracy" would be the U.S. mission in the Middle East -- may be about to hold yet another "Seconds Thoughts" conference.
Certainly, Israel must be having second thoughts on the folly of having yielded to U.S. pressure and allowed Hamas to participate in elections. For Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel and employs suicide-bomb attacks on civilians, has just won a sweeping political and moral victory in Palestine.
Freedom and democracy are on the march, says President Bush. Perhaps. But there is no doubt Islamism is on the march.
Not only is Hamas now the voice of Palestinian nationalism, Hezbollah used elections to establish itself as the political power in south Lebanon. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood swept over half the parliamentary seats it was allowed to contest and appears the probable beneficiary to the political estate of President Mubarak.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
...a certifiable one!
Many of us think PB is an idiot BECAUSE of the stances he takes. Just because one doesn't care to regurgitate all of them to your satisfaction, don't get the notion they aren't valid.
Feel free to continue supporting PB all you want, but insulting those who feel very differently about him is pathetically juvenile.
This was widely referred to, correctly, as a "surrender". Khadafi didn't want to find himself living in a spiderhole. Saddam didn't take the same opportunity he was offered, and he sits in a jail now while his sons moulder in the grave.
We have been negotiating with the Palestinians for 10 or 15 years now, and what it has gotten us is more dead Israelis. And what it has gotten us is Hamas, from a population that believes that Fatah was insufficiently dedicated to the death and destruction of Israelis. So since the Khadafi solution hasn't worked with these people, we may be looking at the Bin Ladin solution, where we chase their leaders into a cave, or maybe the Saddam solution, where we pull them out of a cave and put them on trial. Or maybe the Zawahri solution, where we splatter them into atoms.
Pat is worried about the consequences of a wall between the Israelis and the arabs; he needs to spend a moment and reflect upon a map of the middle east. If the arabs are walled off from Israel, and can no longer get at them to detonate themselves in a crowd of Israelis, what are they to do? They will be forced to a modified status-quo-ante, where Gaza looks to Egypt for its commercial connections, and the arab West Bank looks to Amman. Its that simple; its not the end of the world. Pat can relax and take a deep breath.
Once again the old addage "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" spoken by Abba Eban-
Now what do you think will happen when israel builds the rest of the fence,unilateraly disengages and the new GOVERNMENT of the palestinains -"hammas re IRAN" does something stupid.remember the 6 day war-israel vs 3 arab countries (armed by the soviets).This will be over in 15 minutes IF, and i say IF israel has the stones and the west does also by taking out IRAN the major trouble maker in the mideast.the world, the west has to come to grips we are dealing with a scociety no better then the apes in the beggining of 2001(the movie)where they jump,club and kill.
The world can wiat and jaw jaw,and it will cost us more dearly later on in a war war
The point stands. Bush is negotiating with Islamists in Iraq. We can disagree about the motivation but that is a cold hard fact. Interestingly, Bush receives very little criticism here for doing this. Double standard perhaps?
When Pat discovers them missing, hell know who to blame.
Yup! Even the MSM might figure this one out.
Exactly, if Bush can't whip these folks in line with a soft stick and diplomacy the big sticks are going to rain hard. It looks like Australia and alot of other folks the world over are getting a bellyful too.
Unfortunately, it appears to be the status quo of the entire ME, with Iraq apparently headed toward a Sharia- lead society.
PB has been a little wacky these past years, but he may be going back to fundamentals here. That is, we need to place our national security first and foremost, and that pressing countries to be "democratic" is not going to guarantee non-violent, friendly regimes.
Maybe its time to start redeploying troops in Iraq from the interior to its Syrian and Iranian borders and start engaging in the only dialogue these guys will understand - raw power.
Was I attacking? Do I attack the sky when I say it is blue? No, I was simply identifying PB. To actually go into detail isn't required. But let me soften it for you. 80%-90% of PB's thoughts are idiotic. What really scares me is the 10% of the time when I agree with him.
And when time is not on your side, the last thing you should do is go hand holding with the opposition, so that they can run out the clock. If the man across the table is assembling a gun to shoot me with, I don't try to engage him in conversation on the hope that he won't shoot to kill.
The Hamas victory is good in that it is very clarifying and the Palestinians must now sleep in the bed they've made. Had Israel just elected a government dedicated to the eradication of all Palestinians, not a single sole in the world would be saying that anyone "must talk to them". Quite to the contrary, the line would be, "they must be isolated".
I'll be glad to second that! You said it all in one sentence. BRAVO!
The US is backing the British and German negotiations, with the repeated public caveat that we do not consider a nuke armed Iran to be an acceptable outcome.
This is a perhaps subtle distinction, but a real one in light of the criticism that the US has taken for so-called unilateral action.
The double standard I see was in the US violating their doctrine on terrorists and terror sponsoring states WRT "Palestine". If we were following that doctrine for real, we would be shelling Ramallah from the sea instead of pressuring Israel to accommodate a viper in their bosom.
Buchanan reminds me of William Shockley, except that before the latter went insane with his anti-semitism and other racial hangups, he was a brilliant scientist. Even in his heyday, no one would have considered Buchanan "brilliant".
He also said he wouldn't deal with terrorists. I expect him to keep his promise.
That might be his instinct, but it's going to be very hard to resist. The administration, particularly State, has been throwing out hints for six months that they'd deal with Hamas, the theory being those elected, 11 of whom are in jail, aren't terrorists, rather businessmen and politicians. We could have contact with the PA on the theory that it's a government, not a political party. And without American support, there won't be a palestinian state by the end of GWB's term. For whatever reason, that's been a primary objective of the administration. We'll see what develops. I think he'll have problems getting aid through Congress.
God Almighty! God help us.
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