Posted on 09/25/2001 6:19:44 AM PDT by SJackson
THE U.S. is showing a telling weakness in this war on terrorism. Once again, our coalition will exclude Israel, the country that is not only our truest ally but also the best at fighting terrorism.
It was an act of war. We will fight this war to win. We will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them. Countries will not be able to play it both ways: You're either with us or against us. So President Bush has iterated.
Why, then, can't Israel be "with us"? Because "moderate" Arab states won't be "with us" if we allow Israel to be.
Nor, of course, will the immoderate Arab states. Must the U.S. seek to put terrorist-harboring Syria in our anti-terrorism "coalition?" We doubtless want the help of strategically placed nations. But is excluding Israel to court softer support truly part of a plan for victory?
When Bush says you're either with us or against us, that implies an alignment based on basic principles. The Bush administration has repeatedly warned that countries can no longer have it both ways.
Wouldn't that apply to the U.S. too? Isn't America allied to Israel? And doesn't the September 11th attack make Israel even more "with us" than it was before?
But the attack on America has succeeded with the crowning achievement of its mission: causing the U.S. to renounce the very principles for which we are supposedly fighting. Our friends may not be with us. On the contrary, those who have long harbored the terrorists may be suddenly -- and evanescently -- "with us."
Ten years ago, during Desert Storm, the U.S. asked Israel to lie down and take the scud missiles launched from Iraq. Now, again, as America wages war, it urges a dangerous pacifism on Israel. Only days after planes struck the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, President Bush urged Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to push forward with a meeting between Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat.
Calming tensions between Israel and Palestinians, observed Peres, is part of the American plan for victory. America wants "to create a coalition that includes Arabs and Muslims," he said. Peres thinks Arafat should be considered a terrorist leader.
Arafat has been harboring terrorists, including suicide bombers, for years On September 11th, Palestinians cheered the destruction of thousands of American lives. And they continue to cheer, holding up posters of Osama bin Laden. Americans will not see this on the news, though. Palestinian police have confiscated the equipment of Western news agencies that captured the facts of Palestinian allegiance on tape and film.
Where is America's resolve to make honest distinctions about Arafat and the Palestinians? Is global political correctness more terrifying than terrorism?
...snip...
The spirit of the American people is awesome; it puts a lump in one's throat. But I've a thought to share with my leaders: The terrorists who killed thousands of Americans acted on a very deep hatred, the same kind of hatred that makes them want to destroy Israel, but a separate, distinctly anti-American hatred that makes them want to destroy America. Why America? Because America, the land of liberty, even more than tiny Israel, is the great enemy of the violent holy war that is the Jihad.
The Jihad wants American influence out of the Middle East, and it wants Israel gone. It seeks to divide the U.S. and Israel, and thus to conquer both.
We are Israel now. By shunning Israel, we betray ourselves. We'll never fight a real war against terrorism until we can have a coalition that includes Israel.
"We will not pay the price for the establishment of this coalition," said Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. But perhaps America will.
It does America no good to have a will for war if we do not have the will to identify honestly our real friends and enemies.
In what way have they been belligerently expansionist? From my recollection war was declared on Israel by various Arab nations. As a result of Israel's victories, they added to their country the land they had taken. Has there ever been a time in world history in which a victor handed back to its' enemy the spoils of war? I'd really like to know if this has ever happened.
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Actually, this happened with Russian giving back East Germany. However, they only did this after all threat of future attack from Germany was non-existant. Americans have to admit that this is a religious war - extremist Islam against Judism and Christianity. We cannot placate our way of this. It is naivity to think that if we were to side with Arabs against Israel, the terrorism would stop. It wouldn't.
Ask the CIA which sent a spy ship into coastal waters between waring counties, after Israel told the US to pull out all ships. Israelis mistook it for a Russian spy ship, which was also operating in the area. I suppose American forces never accidentally attacked American or allied forces during war? 1/3 our causualties in the Gulf War were friendly fire. This happened at a time when we expected our forces to be in the general vicinity. The Israelis did not expect the US to be arrogant or stupid enough to ignore warnings and secretly put a spy ship into a war zone. You interpret the fault to be Israel's, I see it is a mutual mistake in the confusion of war.
"Ask those who were compromised--and some apparently killed or imprisoned--because of the antics of Jonathan Pollard who is STILL a "hero" to Israelis and American Jews with questionable loyalties. "
Pollard handed over information on Arab states and Soviet weapons. The CIA line that a Naval analyst had information on spies is laughable. The CIA needed to blame someone for the loss of agents. We now know who is responsible: Aldrich Ames, who had full access to the spies in his job with counter-intell. Ames has admitted his role. Only the Arabist or the ignorant continue the lie about Pollard.
"We ought to use Israel as Israel uses us. But let's dispense with this silliness about their "trueness" as an ally. It insults our intelligence."
As does ignoring facts. Israel has allowed itself to be attacked to help US interests. It has failed to respon to terrorism to support US interests.
Israel illegally annexed the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and those parts of the West Bank later added to East Jerusalem. Israel created many illegal extremist Jews-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza and set up an apartheid-like system designed to oppress and dispossess the Palestinians who live there. Israel was only recently forced to abandon a destructive long-term occupation of Southern Lebanon.
From my recollection war was declared on Israel by various Arab nations. As a result of Israel's victories, they added to their country the land they had taken. Has there ever been a time in world history in which a victor handed back to its' enemy the spoils of war? I'd really like to know if this has ever happened.
The US occupied Western Germany and Japan after World War II. However, instead of imposing an evil plan to beggar and disposs the natives while stealing their land and resources, America generously gave them food and financial assistance and helped them to eventually become free and sovereign countries again.
Not quite. Iraq, for instance, which most likely had something to do with this terrorism, is not a militant Islmaic state. Saddam Hussein and his Ba'ath party are staunchly secularist, and the Iraqi regime is one of the most tolerant ones torward Christians in all the Middle East. Teraq Aziz, the Iraqi deputy prime minister, is Christian, for example, as are numerous other highly placed Iraqi officials. Saddam Hussein has even contributed to the building of Catholic Cathedrals. I'm not saying Saddam is a good guy. He's a murderous tyrant, but an extremist Muslim he is not.
On the other hand, Iran, perhaps the most extreme of extreme Islamic states, is not likely to be involved in this latest war. The terror was probably done by Bin Laden's group and other fundamentalist Sunnis with the help of secularist Iraq. Fundamentalist Shiite Iran hates both of these groups as much as they hate us, and they are remaining neutral for this reason.
You cannot reduce this to a conflict between the Jews and Christians vs. Muslims. If only things were that simple.
Funny. I've never heard this at all. In fact, what I've heard are survivors frustrating at being sold down the river by their own government so as not to "trouble" Israel.
How inconvenienced do you think they were, BTW, when they were being shot and killed or wounded by the Israeli Defense Forces?
H*ll, that wasn't JUST "some nonpatriot," that was STROBE TALBOTT!!!
And even after the events of 9/11, he was STILL claiming that this was all about "the poor of the Middle East against wealthy America."
When they discussed this one evening on Brit Hume's program on FoxNews, even Mara Laiason, no stranger to pinkness herself, shook her head in disbelief, pointing out that neither bin Laden nor the hijackers were anything CLOSE to "poverty-stricken."
Talbott's views are absolute proof-positive of just how ****ed up the Clinton State Department and the Clinton foreign policy was. How we ever survived eight years of it, I'll never know.
That is, assuming we DO survive it.
Remember that the OFFICIAL line in the Arab world is that 9/11 was staged by Mossad.
But I am still incredulous that Sharon would say that. Where did you hear it, as in which station/program?
Pollard deserves death, as does every miserable excuse of a spy, like the Cuban-American woman caught last week.
Try to justify it all you want, but American interests are and should be the first concern of every American. Americans should not be making excuses for the intrigues against America of foreign states.
That is pathetic, no matter who the foreign state might be. Israel is nothing special in this regard.
NOTICE
According to an article in the August 7, 1997, issue of The Toledo Blade, an organization called "*******" has been distributing a 1980 article about the USS Liberty attack along with pamphlets calling for an investigation of the attack and others calling for an end to aid for Israel and article in praise of Adolf Hitler.
The article quotes an Anti-Defamation League spokesman as calling ****** "the oldest neo-Nazi group in the United States" and says it is a successor to the American Nazi Party founded by George Lincoln Rockwell.
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups frequently try to adopt the Liberty issue as their own.
This is an embarrassment to us, but one over which will have little control.
We wish to make it clear that we do not support their views and do not welcome or encourage their support of ours.
Don't waste your time. Sharon never said it, poster is less than truthful.
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