Posted on 07/31/2006 7:04:51 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Within 48 hours, it was apparent Israel was exploiting Hezbollah's attack to execute a preconceived military plan to destroy Lebanon – i.e, the collective punishment of a people and nation for the crimes of a renegade militia they could not control. It was the moral equivalent of a municipal police going berserk, shooting, killing and ravaging an African-American community because Black Panthers had ambushed and killed cops.
If Israel is not in violation of the principle of proportionality, by which Christians are to judge the conduct of a just war, what can that term mean? There are 600 civilian dead in Lebanon, 19 in Israel, a ratio of 30-1 – though Hezbollah is firing unguided rockets, while Israel is using precision-guided munitions.
Thousands of Lebanese civilians are injured. Perhaps 800,000 are homeless.
Yet, whatever one thinks of the morality of what Israel is doing, the stupidity is paralyzing. Instead of maintaining the moral and political high ground it had – when even Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were condemning Hezbollah and privately hoping Israel would inflict a humiliating defeat on Nasrallah – Israel launched an air war on an innocent people. Now, 87 percent of Lebanese back Hezbollah, and the entire Arab and Islamic world, Shia and Sunni alike, is rallying behind Nasrallah.
...
For two weeks, Bush seemed unable to find a word of criticism for what our friends in Israel were doing to our friends in Lebanon. He publicly sent more bombs to Israel. He and Condi emphasized that America did not want a cease-fire – yet.
...
Rubbing our noses in our own cravenness, "Bibi" Netanyahu took time out, a week ago, from his daily appearances on American television denouncing terrorism to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the terror attack on the King David Hotel by Menachem Begin's Irgun, an attack that killed 92 people, among them British nurses.
This was not a terrorist act, Bibi explained, because Irgun telephoned a 15-minute warning to the hotel before the bombs went off. Right. And those children in that basement in Qana should not have ignored the Israeli leaflets warning them to clear out of southern Lebanon.
A paraphrase of an OLD quotation is in order here:
Dear Mr. Buchanan, I am sitting in the smallest room in my house. I have your article in front of me. Soon it will be behind me.
Cana is a propaganda stunt..
BINGO:)
I think Pat hates Israel more than Nasrallah does.
Soon Pat will be hanging around over at DU and loving every minute of it!
Pat, dadgumit, you are so out of your mind on this subject.
I've seen the videos. You've seen the videos. The Hezbollah have seen the videos. What part of self-defense do you not understand?
If a criminal was shooting at Shelly from behind a neighbor's house, would just curl up on the couch and let them? I'm thinking you'd probably place a few rounds at the corner where that feller stood. And if one round accidently hit a neighbor, God forbid, I sure as hell wouldn't hold you accountable for trying to defend you family.
Pull your head out and smell the coffee beans bud. Just damn...
I like your plan.Why can't you be the President, darn.
That does it, Im gonna send Pat a bagel
He insists on conflating Lebanon with Hezbollah.
If Lebanon is Hezbollah, then Lebanon is complicit or guilty of Hezbollah's attacks on Israel. Remember, Hezbollah has been rocketing Israel for years. Every Hezbollah attack is an attack on civilians. Does this need to be repeated? Every Hezbollah attack is an attack on civilians. This recent attack was one more; combined with the murder and capture of Israeli soldiers, combined with almost identical attacks by Hamas, also aimed at civilians, it was the final straw.
Lebanon had the responsibility to disarm Hezbollah. Of course, that is difficult since Hezbollah is Lebanon, not only because Buchanan says so, but because Hezbollah is a significant part of the Lebanese government.
If Hezbollah is outside Lebanese government control, as they have always claimed, then Israel is liberating Lebanon. The Lebanese can't play it both ways.
In any case, the building in Qana was the site of repeated missile launches. Who would fill such a building with children? This is grotesque. The people who did that bear "moral culpability" for the death of those children. Israeli gunners can't know the area around the missile launchers has been filled with kids; the people who put them there, and put the launchers there, they did know.
We bad;)
Although they both rank somewhere below pond scum, I actually think Pat is lower than John Kerry.
Pat Buchanan has redefined "low".
I agree that Cana was a propaganda stunt. Pat should know the truth of this, but he isn't seeing it for whatever reason. All that's doing is destroying whatever shred of credibility he had left. It's sad to watch this guy go down that path as far as he has.
Pat Buchanan playing the race card. Now I have seen everything.
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