Hey..........thanks for pinging some really good people, bitt! :)
they should LOVE that story...what an opportunity...
BTW, Ben Stein says, when asked why these Israeli atrocities weren't well know, that
"The atrocities were widely reported after the '73 and '67 wars...."
Mark Noonan gets it right!
STANDING FIRM WITH ISRAEL
By Mark Noonan at 09:22 AM
There has been a lot of worry-wortism on the right these days about whether or not President Bush will stand tough with Israel...this is rather surprising considering the fact that President Bush is standing firm in Iraq which has cost him far more politically than any stand with Israel would ever cost him. At all events, yesterday President Bush once again laid down his terms - which really amount to his terms for Hezbollah's unconditional surrender:
Q Mr. President, in the last couple of weeks, every time the question was asked why not get an immediate cessation and then build a sustainable -- terms for a sustainable cease-fire after you get the hostilities stopped, it was categorically rejected. Yet, a few weeks later, here we are. Can you explain why this wasn't done a couple weeks ago?
THE PRESIDENT: Sure. Because, first of all, the international community hadn't come together on a concept of how to address the root cause of the problem, Jim.
Part of the problem in the past in the Middle East is people would paper over the root cause of the problem, and therefore the situation would seemingly be quiet, and then lo and behold, there'd be another crisis. And innocent people would suffer. And so our strategy all along has been, of course we want to have a cessation of hostilities, but what we want to do in the same time is to make sure that there is a way forward for the Lebanese government to secure its own country so that there's peace in the region.
And that deals with an international peacekeeping force to complement a Lebanese army moving into the south to make sure that Resolution 1559, passed two years ago by the U.N., was fully upheld. Had the parties involved fully implemented 1559, which called for the disarmament of Hezbollah, we would not be in the situation we're in today.
President Bush has an excellent ability to get to the heart of the problem and then stake out the irreducible minimum position acceptable - the root of the problem is the fact that Hezbollah has been allowed to arm itself via Iran and Syria outside of the control of the legitimate government of Lebanon. The solution to the problem is that Hezbollah be rendered incapable of armed action against Israel. All the rest is just fluff - anything which doesn't have at its center the disarmament of Hezbollah is a worthless agreement, and President Bush isn't going to sign on to it. Better that the battle go on for six more months than to enter in to an agreement which allows Hezbollah to continued as an armed force on Israel's northern border...to do that would be to just kick the can down the road a bit. The really dangerous part of that equation, these days, is that the next time Hezbollah launches rockets in to Israel, they might have WMDs on them, courtesy of Iran and Syria.
Everyone who wishes decent people well in this world must hang tough - with our troops, with our Israeli allies, and with our President.
http://blogsforbush.com/