Posted on 01/01/2009 11:39:33 AM PST by Free ThinkerNY
It's a new year in an old and bloody world.
In Israel, politicians jockeying for power have launched the most lethal military assault on Palestinian territory in decades. Israel has justified its bombardment of Gaza on the grounds that Hamas broke a fragile, temporary cease-fire. The Israeli government is right to consider Hamas' rocket attacks on Israeli civilians inexcusable, but the timing of the Israeli military offensive has more to do with politics than anything else.
Ehud Barak, Israel's Labor Party defense minister, and Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister from the centrist Kadima party, are both contenders for prime minister in Israel's Feb. 6 national elections. A show of "toughness" against Hamas could help Labor and/or Kadima beat back the right-wing Likud Party of Benjamin Netanyahu, which has been leading in the polls. Meanwhile, outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who faces corruption charges, has just a few weeks to restore his own tattered reputation.
Adding to the time pressure is U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's upcoming inauguration. As long as President Bush was in the White House, Israel could count on a U.S. administration that wasn't merely "supportive" of Israel but blindly, mindlessly so. Obama may be less willing to offer Israel blank checks. Thus this New Year's military offensive, timed for the crucial window before Israeli elections and Obama's swearing-in.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Why not? Worked for us.
If Rosa Brooks were in charge in the 1940’s, she would be an antique lamp shade now.
YES THEY CAN! Obama fan (la time writer).
You mean, like the US and the Allies couldn’t bomb their way to peace in Europe and Asia to end WWII....?
Uh, yah.
I see the LATimes is not only illiterate and innumerate but ignorant of history as well.
If the bombings destroy Hamas’ leadership, or at least break its will to continue fighting, well, yes they CAN bomb their way to peace.
But don’t expect anyone at the Slimes to understand that.
Still worth a try, isn’t it?
It isn't the Israelis who believe in a totalitarian ideology that worships violence.
I'm so sick of these knee-jerk peacenixs who believe that Israel is the source of the problem, that if Israel only appeased the unappeasable all would be well with the world.
These liberals deserve nothing but contempt for their odious combination of blatant stupidity and empty posturing.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
funny how treaties are ‘fragile’ only after the other side breaks them. Cease-fires are suddenly questionable once the jihadis start shooting.
But God help anybody on our side when decides to shoot first. The entire world comes after them.
Hamas only signs deals after they have had their ability to fight removed from them (by force). So it sounds like it is going to be time for another ‘cease fire agreement’ in the near future when Hamas runs out of bodies or rockets.
Give War a Chance. Certainly giving Peace a Chance hasn't worked. If the great William Jefferson Clinton couldn't bring peace to the Middle East. Barak Hussein Obama can't.
Sincerely yours,
McGruff
>>If Rosa Brooks were in charge in the 1940’s, she would be an antique lamp shade now.<<
How concise, graphic and true. But, more disturbing is the propensity of these people to wish to repeat their errors while hoping for different results.
“Rosa Brooks is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. Prior to joining the Georgetown faculty, Brooks taught at the University of Virginia and at Yale. She has also served as a senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State, a consultant for Human Rights Watch, a board member of Amnesty International USA, a fellow of the Kennedy School of Government's Carr Center, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. Her government and NGO work has involved extensive travel and field research in countries ranging from Iraq and Kosovo to Indonesia and Sierra Leone.
Brooks is the author of numerous articles on international law, human rights, and the law of war, and her book, “Can Might Make Rights? Building the Rule of Law After Military Interventions” (with Jane Stromseth and David Wippman), will be published in 2006 by Cambridge University Press.
Brooks received her A.B. from Harvard in 1991, followed by a master's degree from Oxford in 1993 and a law degree from Yale in 1996. More information can be found at www.rosabrooks.com.”
This seems like the perfect resume for a member of the American elite in the age of Obama.
I luv how the “war never settles anything” crowd like to think of themselves as enlightened intellectuals. If they would only get their head of out their a$$ and actually read history, they would realize that most big, historical changes have occured as a result of war. That does not make war good, but it is ignorant to assume that things don’t change because of it.
Harvard-Yale-Oxford. The perfect pedigree for self-hating Clintonites who value diplomacy above freedom and virtually invented the concept of moral equivalence.
When all else fails - and it has all failed for Israel - pacify your enemy through force.
*DING*
Peace through superior firepower.
Actually, they can.
It just requires sufficient bombing to drive the will to fight out of the enemy or drive the enemy to extinction.
Try for one and when that doesn’t work, go for the other.
Maybe the NYT would change their tune if they were bombed every week with “homemade” missiles.
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