US, Israel and Syria.

Al-Quaida? The murdered Americans were training police. Palestinian police, correct?

What exactly would the motive be...? Stopping and protesting the training? Deeper motive, anyone?

Does it seem to point to Hamas, or other like minded anti-peaceniks--incredibly afraid to admit culpability?

Yep. As I was running the motives--the biggest one would seem to be to galvanize the US against the Pals... That will surely be the outcome. We have investigators on the ground.

Some conspiracy theorists will reflexively jump on your reasoning above. <puking emoticon here.>

Frank Apisa Wrote:well, I have long suspected that avid American conservatives simply do not understand the principles upon which this country is based. You have reinforced that suspicion. I thank you for doing so -- but I was pretty sure I was right anyway.

My mistake Frank----how silly of me-----You are always right Not however as in "correct" but right as in "RIGHT" dammit now shut up. You really add a new dimension to open discussion. Soooo nice to have you lurking to throw a hand grenade at anyone who happens to disagree with your "closed" point of view. Have a nice day in your cave where the "sun don't shine".

The Palestinians no matter what they say for western consumption do not want a two state solution. What they are after is what they have always been after the elimination of the State of Israel.

AU-- I agree.

Still looking and listening for Palestinians For Peace.

I wasn't speaking of that time in history, au, and should have qualified the statement as meaning this time in history.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/801833.asp

Investigators arriving at the scene of the carnage were attacked by Palestinian youths.

The article notes this attack took place very soon after the US vetoed the anti-Israel UN Resolution...

AU wrote:

What they are after is what they have always been after the elimination of the State of Israel.

You are absolutely correct AU which is why I favor this solution to the Middle East problem----- we should allow Israel to use 3 of their nukes 1. one on Damascus 2. One on the Iranian nuclear facilities 3. One on Teheran.

When the dust settles divide Lebanon in half ---- ship all the Palestinians to northern Lebanon (next to their pals the Syrians). If the rest of the Arab world flexes a muscle---tell them they're next.

This would make a lot of Muslims happy( they would get to be martyrs) and it would make the Israelis happy (they could build more settlements) . This would make the US happy because we could sell them more F-16s with which they could deliver more Nukes.

No.............well anyway it was a happy thought

Preception
How about saving the last for the best France. That should raise a little ire.

Hamas and ilk have never shown any fear of admiting to an attack before. There is no reason for them to start now except for diplomatic reasons that would have been clear during the planning of the attack. Looks more like Al Qaeda.



Hmm, maybe the "fight idiocy with idiocy" tactic will work:

The Israelis, no matter what they say, don't want peace, they just want to steal land. The Israeli goal is the elimination of Arabs and the theft of all their land.

Craven
That being the case why was the offer made at Camp David. Ands why pray tell did the Palestinians turn it down. That would seem to put a lie to your ongoing statement. As long as that is the position of the PAL there can be no settlement.

Apparently you are not "perceptive" enough to realize just how hilarious it is to hear charges of close-mindedness coming from the likes of someone like you.

Hey...it provided a much needed moment of levity for me this morning. I played golf this 50 mph gusty autumn morning and take my word for it -- I needed a good laugh.

Once again -- thanks.

You are alright in my book, Perspection -- no matter what what these other people might think of you. (Or should I have written that ALL RIGHT!)

Ouch! How did you do? Did it remind you of discussing with conservatives?

Hey.

Don't blame your lousy slice on me!

Continuing the insipid charade:

Because Isreal was paying lipservice to the west. The offer was lousy and they really weren't interested anyway. See, Israelis just want to murder Arabs and steal their land.

End charade.

Your criteria for evidence is as biased as it gets. If you think the ridiculously shortchanged offer the Israelis made to Palestinians in Camp David (which they should have accepted) is evidence of an Israeli desire for peace (when their every action is calculated to delay the inevitable settlement) then you need to accept the Palestinian's half-hearted efforts at peace as evidence of their "good will" as well.

But you don't. You just repeat the insipid mantra that Iraelis are downright cherubic and that them thar evil A-rabs don't want peace.

Be reasonable, there is just as much evidence that Israel does not want to settle as there is that all Arabs have as their ultimate goal the destruction of Israel.

Of course you could sample reality for a second and realize that on both sides there are those who want peace and those who want more land and that on both sides the ones who want to delay peace to keep their territorial asperations alive have managed to dictate the terms but I won't hold my breath.

It was like hitting into a wall.

Hummm...that does remind me of discussing things with conservatives.

Reminds me of a good joke:

American journalist over in Jeruselem doing a feature article on the Wailing Wall.

He sees a devote Jew -- long black coat; black fedora; full beard -- standing in front of the wall rocking back and forth as observent Jews do when praying at the wall.

When the guy is finished, he goes over to him and asks: "What are you praying for?"

The gent says: (I wish I could do the accent on-line, it makes the joke better) "I'm praying for peace; peace between the Jews and their neighbors; peace between the Arabs and the Jews; peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians; peace among all the peoples of the world."

The journalist follows up with: "So do you think your prayers will be answered."

The guy replies with a disgusted shake of his hand: "It's like talking to a wall!"

Okay, I won't.

But there are times when you do distract me! :wink:

On Bashing Bashar

By WILLIAM SAFIRE

Published: October 15, 2003

WASHINGTON — At a sandwich lunch at The Times, Howard Dean was asked what his message would have been to Israelis about their recent strike into Syria to destroy a terrorist camp after a suicide bomber's atrocity in Haifa.
The candidate for the Democratic nomination had a carefully prepared reply: "I don't have any access to intelligence to know whether that was a terrorist camp or not. If it was, they're justified. They have a right to defend themselves."
What a refreshing change from his previous comment that "it's not our place to take sides" in the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians. Rival candidates may mutter that Dean is now pandering to pro-Israel Democrats, but those of us who believe in the pre-emption of terror welcome all who have policy epiphanies.
Note, however, the big "if" in Dean's answer: the strike into Syria would be justified if the target for Israel's pre-emption had in fact been an Islamic Jihad training camp in Syria.
Israel's government, presumably with sneakers on the ground, claims that its intelligence is rock-solid and that it bombed the Jihad facility "between classes" to minimize casualties while delivering its potent message. Although the White House is in anti-leak lockdown, other U.S. officials let it be known that our satellite surveillance confirmed the Israeli finding and was the factual basis for President Bush's strong public support for the cross-border strike.
But in real presidential life, little intelligence data is certain. What if Mossad informants and C.I.A. evaluators had come up with an estimate of "75 percent likely"? Would a President Dean then find pre-emption justified? Or would he wait until trainees from that camp carried out their missions, perhaps killing thousands, when he could be 100 percent sure?
That is where strategic analysis, past performance and plain logic come into play. Bashar al-Assad, the minority Alawite ruler, is shown by many telephone intercepts to be deeply influenced by Hezbollah's Sheik Hassan Nasrallah in Syrian-occupied Lebanon. Bashar lied in Colin Powell's face last year about cutting off Saddam's illegal oil exports through Syria, and got away with it.
What else goes into the calculation that Syria is terror's friend and the free world's enemy? We suspect, but cannot inspect, weaponry we think was trucked into Syria from Iraq in the weeks before the war.
Beyond suspicion is this fact: A majority of the Saddam die-hards, Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Islam terrorists, and suicide bombers who have turned up in Iraq have been killers who entered from Syria, an infiltration that Bashar did little to stop. On the contrary, he finds it in Syria's strategic interest to aid and abet guerrilla war against the coalition and the nascent Iraqi government. With Saddam gone, Bashar sees Syria as the leader of Arab rejectionism.
How to change regime behavior short of regime change? Turkey showed us one way, when it massed troops on its Syrian border and demanded that Damascus close down the Kurdish P.K.K. terrorist headquarters in Damascus. Bashar yielded promptly, and the terrorist leader is in a Turkish jail.
• Demand that Syria repay the Iraqi people the billion-dollar payoff Bashar took from Saddam in the form of cheap oil during the run-up to the war. Put pressure on the long-bamboozled I.M.F. to require Syria to repay Iraq the additional $3 billion in Saddam's payoffs and blood money that U.S. officials charge is now hidden in Syrian banks. Until that stolen money is returned, do not appoint a new U.S. ambassador or accept the credentials of a new Syrian envoy.
• Pass and sign the Syrian Accountability Act, but back up its minor sanctions with inducements for Turkey, Jordan and (Paul Bremer to the contrary) Iraq to minimize trade with a neighbor that abets the training and export of terrorists.
• Sponsor an embarrassing U.N. resolution to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon; more than 25,000 soldiers keeping a puppet in place are nobody's "guests." (And why is the Vatican supine in the face of sustained Muslim oppression of Maronite Christians?) Find the European connections to the cocaine trade in the Bekaa Valley that buys rockets for Sheik Nasrallah's Hezbollah.
• Repeat forcefully, when we have good data to back up an allied government's stern signal to pre-empt further atrocities, Howard Dean's echo of Bush's policy: "They have a right to defend themselves."

Craven


Never claimed that the Jews are cherubic. They left that calling in Europe with the six million dead. However, I believe that peace in the region is in the hands of the
A-rabs. If they can piece together a government that wants it.
And indeed the longer they wait the less they will get.