Democratic Party leadership statements of support for Israel

Hate to disillusion anybody, but I don't think that's going tio work this time. With half a million or so people holed up in bomb shelters and several hundred killed and injured, I strongly suspect they are not going to care what anybody else thinks. In particular, if Russians have anything to say about it, Israelis are probably going to ask them if they really feel like getting into an atom bomb war over Iran and Syria, and th answer to that one is pretty obvious.

They'd better have "clean" bombs or know their meteorology with confidence.

Rabbi Michael Lerner | End the Suffering in the Middle East
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/071706A.shtml
"The people of the Middle East are suffering again as militarists on all sides, and cheerleading journalists, send forth missiles, bombs and endless words of self-justification for yet another pointless round of violence between Israel and her neighbors," writes Rabbi Michael Lerner. This most recent episode of irrationality "evokes tears of sadness, incredulity at the lack of empathy on all sides, anger at how little anyone seems to have learned from the past, and moments of despair as we once again see the religious and democratic ideals subordinated to the cynical realism of militarism."

I'm not sure what you mean by tactics or strategy? If my neighbor sits on his front porch and lobs grenades into my yard and my house and at me, what am I supposed to do? I don't know whether you call it tactics or stategy, but whatever you call it, I probably would go over and take his hand grenades away, and if he tries to land a punch in the process, I might land one back. Is that strategy or tactics?



What if my neighbors don't care, and they say, stay off the man's property. Meanwhile he continues to sit on his porch and lob grenades at me. I would say their firepower is being used wisely by going in and taking out the launch pad sites and the places where Hezbollah is launching their operations. Yes, people make peace, not bombs, how about the neighbor, in this case, Hezbollah making peace? I don't see it happening. Get real, cicerone. This all comes under the heading, "SELF DEFENSE."

You see it as "self defense," because you don't understand anything about democracy, land grab by fraud, and international laws.

Something you fail to understand is the simple fact that if somebody comes and takes away your home and livelyhood, and the only thing you have are home made bombs, one doesn't have too many options.

It's their way of saying, everything worth living for has been taken away, and there's nobody to help them.

Then you apparently did not say what you actually believe imposter when you said Israel should exist and they should defend themselves. Which is it?

What do you actually believe, Imposter?

okie, If you borthered to read all my statements in this thread, you would already know my answer.

You just don't "get it."

I get "it" imposter, but what I don't get is your opinion. You can't have it both ways. The terrorists are bitter enemies of Israel and have vowed to exterminate them as a country. Either you support Israel's self defense or you do not. You want to condemn terrorists somewhat, but you want to condemn Israel just as much, if not more. You leave no solution to the conflict. You are one mixed up opinion. Typical of a liberal opinion. You wish not to take any responsibility for anything. You wish to criticize anything and everybody.

Well, I'm calling you off the fence imposter. Get off the fence and make up your mind about something. Just anything. Make up your mind about something for crying out loud.

No, you still don't get it; the Israelis are their own worst enemy for taking away civil and legal rights away from Palestinians.

Your brain just refuses to see it.

Thats not what this is about, Imposter. Such issues can be worked out. There is a long history to the problems you mention as to why those situations are as they are. That is not about this, however. Cicerone, to answer a question or solve a problem, you have to correctly identify the problem. You are talking about problems that do not relate to what is happening. Terrorists are not about civil rights. They are about exterminating Israel. Now repeat that until you get it understood.

One Giant Gaza Strip

Israel has justified the carnage by pointing to the 2 soldiers who were captured by members of the Lebanese resistance organization, Hezbollah. But Israel's defense is hopelessly flawed.

What if relatives or friends of the many US detainees who've been illegally imprisoned at Guantanamo, decided to use F-16s and laser-guided missiles to attack the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower, New York City's electrical grid, and vast swathes of the highway system? Would that be equally justifiable? Or, more to the point, what if Hezbollah decided to blow up major parts of Israel's infrastructure in retaliation for the hundreds of Lebanese prisoners languishing in Israeli prisons without any legal recourse? Would that be okay?

The scenarios you suggest are already happening, it seems to me. We might as well admit it is a war. If you think not, you are in denial. The reason people are at Gitmo is because they were captured in the acts of trying to kill or damage us. Hezbollah is trying to blow up Israel now, so whats new about your scenarios?

Yeah, here you go again comparing an entirely complicated problem to a simple problem and then determining that the initial problem is just as simple. It is not, and your insistance that it is only belies your lack of understanding of the situation.

The difference between Tactics and Strategy, in terms of your misplaced analogy, is thus: Strategy is answering the question, 'What will be the best way to keep my home safe?' Tactics are the methods you use to carry out that strategy. In this case, if someone is threatening your house, what is the best way to keep it safe? Violence, reason, appeal to authority, negotiation, compromise? It isn't just a matter of the best 'short-term' solution, either; one must consider the long-term effects of one's actions, and then accordingly choose a tactical manuever.

In this case, your analogy is terrible, because Israel was never in any real danger as a nation. Their response is the equivalent of you killing or maiming someone who threw a pebble at your front door. Sure, it'll stop their actions, but will it make you safer in the long run?

Cycloptichorn

Some of the people in Gitmo were doing that. Many were turned in by Pakistanis for monetary bounty, and were innocent.

Cycloptichorn

look who's talking about denial. Damn morons.

okie et thinks it's so easy to get rid of Hezbollah, they can't figure out why the great US army is having so much difficulties in Iraq and Afghanistan. They still can't see the Iran connection to all of these problems. Hell, Lebannon is an easy target; bomb them to smitherines, and maybe Hezbollah will disappear. Dummass.

Ex-CIA chief: Bomb Syria!
Woolsey says Damascus, Iran think U.S. 'nation of cowards'

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Posted: July 17, 2006
8:35 p.m. Eastern


By Joe Kovacs
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com



Former CIA Director James Woolsey

As violence continues to escalate between Israel and Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency says the U.S. should now take military action against Syria, which, along with Iran, is believed to be backing Hezbollah.

"I think we ought to execute some airstrikes against Syria, against the instruments of power of that state, against the airport, which is the place where weapons shuttle through from Iran to Hezbollah and Hamas," James Woolsey said. "I think both Syria and Iran think that we're cowards. They saw us leave Lebanon after the '83 Marine Corps bombing. They saw us leave Mogadishu in '93."

The former CIA chief, now a vice president for the global consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, said it is much too soon to talk about a realistic end to the fighting.

"I think the last thing we ought to do now is to start talking about cease-fires and a rest," he said.

"Iran has drawn a line in the sand. They've sent Hezbollah and Hamas against Israel. They're pushing their nuclear weapons program. They're helping North Korea, working with them on a ballistic missile program. They're doing their best to take over southern Iraq with [radical Shiite cleric] Muqtada al-Sadr and some of their other proxies. This is a very serious challenge from Iran and we need to weaken them badly, and undermining the Syrian government with airstrikes would help weaken them badly."

The Gitmo killers:


Who Exactly Are The Gitmo 'Killers'?

July 16, 2006
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(CBS) Attorney Andrew Cohen analyzes legal issues for CBS News and CBSNews.com.

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This is the first in a two-part series of columns about the legal status and fate of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Part I highlights underreported information about the detainees. Part II suggests a solution to the legal problem of processing the men through some sort of military trial.

"We are looking for a process where we can bring the killers to justice," Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters Thursday afternoon when asked to discuss the Administration's ever-evolving plans to process out of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba the hundreds of detainees who have been kept there since the early years of the war on terror. "Congress and the executive branch will have to decide if it's appropriate to provide those kinds of protections to killers."

The Attorney General, and the rest of the Bush Administration, want you and me to believe that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay are, indeed, "killers" or, as President Bush once put it, the "worst of the worst." So they repeat the charge, endlessly, effortlessly, in order to create the impression that the matter of the detainees' culpability and the menace they pose is incontrovertible, a fait accompli. In this dehumanizing way, our government believes that the American people will be more willing to support a series of harsh trial procedures that will give the men virtually no chance of getting anything close to a fair shot at justice. If they are terrorist "killers," in other words, they don't deserve due process.

But for the most part this talk of "killers" is a lie?- a monstrous one-- and the Attorney General and all of the other men and women who give voice to it know it. According to the government's own evidence, compiled by military officials who evaluated the case against each Gitmo detainee, the vast majority of the remaining prisoners are nothing close to being "killers." We know this because two attorneys (one of whom is a law professor at Seton Hall University and both of whom represent detainees at Gitmo) have reviewed the government's "Combatant Status Review Board Letters" and concluded in a thorough analysis published in February that, among other things, "the large majority of detainees never participated in any combat against the United States on a battle field."

The lawyers' report is based upon a review of "written determinations the Government has produced for detainees it has designated as enemy combatants… prepared following military hearings commenced in 2004… to ascertain whether a detainee should continue to be classified as an ?'enemy combatant.'" The written evidence created by the military, the lawyers note, does not identify any of the detainees by name and is no more "precise" than the government's categories permit. But the documents clearly are specific enough to refute the Attorney General's calculated attempt to dehumanize the men more than they already have been.

"Fifty-five percent of the detainees are not determined (again, remember that the "determination" was made by the government itself) to have committed any hostile acts against the United States or its coalition allies, the Seton Hall report concludes. "Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18 percent have no definitive affiliation with either al Qaeda or the Taliban."

One detainee was deemed to have committed a "hostile act" when he fled a US bombing attack. Another detainee deemed to be "associated with the Taliban" who "engaged in hostilities" despite the fact that he was apparently a "cook's assistant who fled a Northern Alliance attack and then surrendered to the Northern Alliance." Of course, there could be more evidence against these men than was evident from their files. On the other hand, if any of these men were known to be "killers" you would think that would make the file, too.

There is more in the report entitled "The Guantanamo Detainees: The Government's Story," by Professor Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux. "Only five percent of the detainees were capture by United States forces," the report concludes, while "86 percent of the detainees were arrested by either Pakistan or the Northern Alliance and turned over to United States custody." Why is this important? Because, the report concludes, "the detainees captured by Pakistan or the Northern Alliance were handed over to the United States as a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies."

Military officials on their forms "described each prisoner's nexus to" Al Qaeda and /or the Taliban. According to the Seton Hall report, sixty percent of the men were only "associated with" a terror group. Thirty percent of the men were deemed to be "members of" a terror group. Only eight percent of the detainees were deemed as "fighters for" a terror group. The report notes that even the definitions of "associated with" and "members of" are ambiguous. This statistic also refutes the Attorney General's lamentable label for the men. Being "associated with" the Taliban might be a bad career move but it doesn't necessary make a person a "killer" or a threat to our national security.

And, finally, there is this. According to the report, to support conclusions that some of the men are "enemy combatants," military interrogators "cited as proof" evidence such as the fact that the men possessed Casio watches and wore "olive drab clothing." One man was classified as "an enemy combatant" because he "traveled with and shared hotel rooms with" a member of the Taliban government. The point is not to dispute the classifications. They speak for themselves. The point is to highlight the vast gulf between what kind of men we are holding in Cuba and what kind of men our government wants us to believe that they are.

Does the Seton Hall Report dismiss completely the evidence compiled by military officials? Absolutely not. "The evidence satisfactory to the Government for some of the detainees is formidable," the lawyers state. "For this group, the Government's evidence portrays a detainee as a powerful, dangerous and knowledgeable man who enjoyed positions of considerable power within the prohibited organizations. The evidence against them is concrete and plausible." However, the Report concludes "there are only a very few individuals who [were] actively engaged in any activities for al Qaeda. For example, 11 percent of detainees allegedly met with Bin Laden. Eleven detainees (out of more than 500, remember) "swore an oath" to him.

Are these detainees the "killers" that the Attorney General is talking about? If so, the government ought to say so, and prove it, and then stop referring to all of the detainees in that manner. If not, then the Attorney General should be required to explain just which detainees he is talking about when he talks about the "killers" the feds want to dispatch so economically that they are willing to violate the Constitution to do so. And if the Seton Hall report is wrong, in whole or in part, the government should say so too, and explain how those "Combatant Status Review Letters" really say something other than what the lawyers say it does. Amidst all this Washington talk about "deferring" to the "expertise" of the military it's time the politicians put their money where their mouths have been.

To correct the record in this fashion?-to give lie to the lie, if you will?- is not to condone the action of the detainees or to suggest that those who have committed crimes or engaged in terrorism shouldn't be punished. Of course they should be. But that is a far cry from calling a group of men "killers" when the vast majority of them clearly aren't. The great national debate over the fate of the men?-and the fate of our nation's laws in a time of war-- demands far more candor and precision, and far less cheap rhetoric, than what the Attorney General offered the other day.


©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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Bushco and righties keep piling up the lies, and Americans still support these dangerous morons. Go figure.

If we're a 'nation of cowards' it's because we dont face up to the crimes against humanity of Bushie and Blair and Gonzalez, etc. ""Rebuilding America's Defenses" - A Summary
Blueprint of the PNAC Plan for U.S. Global Hegemony". That's global hegemony. If you're not with Bushie you're with the "terrorists". Submit or suffer the same fate as MLK and his ilk.