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Politics : Polite Political Discussion- is it Possible? An Experiment. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (245)	7/30/2006 7:49:17 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 1695

Notice how the subject of Iranian nuclear development has just totally disappeared from public consciousness since this started? Now it is widely accepted that Iran at least largely controls Hezbollah. Isn't this a convenient distraction? Not our war? If Iran gets The Bomb, we are going to have 2 opposing nuclear forces in the ME within spitting (or missile) distance of each other. Does anyone really have trouble imaagining a nuclear war starting there and rapidly spreading to other countrie? If the war doesn't, the fallout certainly will. I'm sure the Europeans, who seemingly want to bury their heads in the sand (with the notable exception of Britain) will be just delighted when that radioactive dust starts falling on them. Hezbollah hates Americans at least as implacably as Al Qaeda does, and rarely misses an opportunity to say so. ``We consider [America] to be an enemy because it wants to humiliate our governments, our regimes, and our peoples," railed Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, at an enormous rally in February 2005. (Video of Nasrallah's speech, which was broadcast on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV, can be seen at www.memritv.org.) ``It is the greatest plunderer of our treasures, our oil, and our resources. . . . Our motto, which we are not afraid to repeat year after year, is: `Death to America!' " And from tens of thousands of Hezbollah supporters came the answering cry: ``Death to America! Death to America! Death to America! Death to America!" These are anything but empty threats. Prior to 9/11, Hezbollah was responsible for more American casualties than any other terrorist organization in the world. Among its victims was Army officer William F. Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut who was abducted by Hezbollah in March 1984 and who died after 15 months in captivity of torture and illness. And the young Navy diver Robert Stethem, singled out during the 1985 Hezbollah hijacking of TWA Flight 847 and brutally beaten before being shot to death. And William Higgins, a colonel in the Marine Corps and commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, who was seized by Hezbollah in February 1988, tortured, and eventually hanged. As Michelle Malkin noted last week, the tape of Higgins, bound and gagged and swinging from a rope, was one of the first publicly disseminated jihadi snuff films. And the 241 Marines murdered by Hezbollah on Oct. 23, 1983, when a suicide bomber drove a truck rigged with 12,000 pounds of TNT into their barracks at the Beirut airport. And the 19 US servicemen killed in the 1996 bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Thanks for that. I was about to say that Hezbollah had not struck at Americans yet. Clearly I would be grossly wrong in that. They're serious about it. Why aren't we? Good question. And one that every American had better start asking him or herself.

To: J. C. Dithers who wrote (245)	7/31/2006 5:10:06 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1695

Thank you, Laz, for that excellent summary of how this conflict started. I wouldn't characterize that as an excellent summary. In fact, his omission of one key fact resulted in stating the EXACT OPPOSITE of the truth. The latest incidents were started first by Hamas crossing the Israeli border, kidnapping an Israeli soldier, then by Hezbollah crossing the Israeli border, killing 8 Israeli soldiers, and kidnapping 2 soldiers. Hamas kidnapped the Israeli soldiers on June 25. On June 24 Israel kidnapped 2 civilians in Gaza. So, the latest incidents were started by Israel. Hezbollah had been lobbing rockets into northern Israel for years I'm only addressing this because the media have almost universally repeated this part of the Israeli narrative. In fact, Hezbollah was NOT firing rockets. <<< ... In the six years since Israel withdrew, there have been frequent border incidents between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, and cease-fire violations of the type committed now by Hezbollah, have occurred before, initiated by either side, and more frequently by Israel. None of the previous incidents resulted in Katyusha shelling of the north of Israel, which has enjoyed full calm since Israel's withdrawal ... >>> zmag.org Tom