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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bilow who wrote (196301)	8/9/2006 1:50:35 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 281500

Buffett and Hezbollah ___________________________________________________________ By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times August 9, 2006 Warren Buffett. The most important thing you need to know about Israel today and how it has performed so far in the war with Hezbollah is Warren Buffett. Say what? Well, the most talked-about story in Israel, before Hezbollah started this war, was the fact that on May 5, Mr. Buffett, the Berkshire Hathaway chairman and the world’s most successful investor, bought an 80 percent stake in the privately held Israeli precision tools company, Iscar Metalworking, for $4 billion — Mr. Buffett’s first purchase of a company outside America. According to BusinessWeek, as a result of the deal, Iscar’s owners were “likely to pay about $1 billion in capital gains taxes into the Israeli government’s coffers — an unexpected windfall. With the Israeli budget already running a $2 billion surplus, the government is considering slashing value-added tax by one percentage point to 15 percent.” In May, Israeli papers were filled with pages about how cool it was that Israel had produced a cutting-edge company that Warren Buffett wanted to buy. It was being discussed everywhere, pushing the Tel Aviv stock exchange to an all-time high. That is where Israel’s head was on the eve of this war — and it explains something I sensed when I visited Israel shortly after the fighting started. Nobody wanted this war, and nobody was prepared for it. Look closely at pictures of Israeli soldiers from Lebanon. There is no enthusiasm in their faces, and certainly no triumphalism. Their expressions tell the whole story: “I just don’t want to be doing this — another war with the Arabs.” Israeli soldiers were napping when this war started — that’s why they got ambushed — for the very best reasons: They have so much more to do with their lives, and they live in a society that empowers and enables them to do it. (Unfortunately, the Buffett company is in northern Israel and had to be temporarily closed because of rocket attacks.) Young Israelis dream of being inventors, and their role models are the Israeli innovators who made it to the Nasdaq. Hezbollah youth dream of being martyrs, and their role models are Islamic militants who made it to the Next World. Israel spent the last six years preparing for Warren Buffett, while Hezbollah spent the last six years preparing for this war. “Israel was not prepared for this war,” said the Israeli political theorist Yaron Ezrahi. “It came upon us like the crash of a meteorite. ... The whole focus of debate in the country before this war was on withdrawal.” The Israeli Army had just taken on its own extremists, the settlers in Gaza, and removed them against their will, added Mr. Ezrahi, “and the country had just elected for the first time a prime minister who promised voters to unilaterally withdraw from the West Bank in return for nothing.” In the end, Israel will do whatever it has to do to prevail. But what is so troubling for Israelis is that this war is about nothing and everything. That is, Israel got out of Lebanon, and yet Hezbollah keeps coming. It is all about Hezbollah’s need to justify its existence and Iran’s need for a distraction. What is doubly sad is that Lebanon was getting its act together. Rafik Hariri, the former prime minister, represented a whole new type of Arab leader — one who rose to power by being a builder and an entrepreneur. He understood that Lebanon, freed of Syria, was a country whose youth had the energy and skill to compete anywhere. He thought Lebanon could again be a model of how Arabs can embrace modernity. But Mr. Hariri was murdered, allegedly by Syria, and now Lebanon’s democracy is being murdered by Hezbollah. Once again, in the Arab world, the past buries the future. Israel mustn’t get sucked into that same grave. Israel needs to get a cease-fire and an international force into south Lebanon — and get out. Israel can’t defeat Hezbollah, it can only hurt it enough to make it think twice about ever doing this again — and it has pretty much done that. It must not destroy any more of Lebanon, which is going to still be its neighbor when the guns fall silent. Israel wins when Warren Buffett’s company there is fully back in business — not when Nasrallah is out of business. Because that will only happen, not by war, but when Arabs wake up and realize that he is just another fraud, just another Nasser, whose strategy would condemn the flower of Arab youth — who deserve and need so much better — to another decade of making potato chips, not microchips. Nasrallah can win in the long run only if he can condemn the flower of Israel’s youth to the same fate. Don’t let it happen, Israel.

To: Bilow who wrote (196301)	8/9/2006 1:51:24 AM
From: geode00	Respond to of 281500

I would agree with you if it was not for the track record of the Bushies. That would be the W Bushies, not the Poppy Bushies who are apparently out to slap W on the rear for misbehaving. washingtonmonthly.com I think the Neocons, the IdiotCons and the run of the mill Republicons are drunk with power which they don't deserve and responsibility which they can't deal with. They have the power, no one from the Dems to the bureacracy to the world community to the media seems able to stop them and they're going to use that power gosh dang it. This must be what it felt like in a monarchy or dictatorship when power went from father to idiot-son. The son is found to be insane, an idiot or just a degenerate bum and goes about destroying the country until someone stops him in his tracks. I find it credible that the W Bushies would use nukes. This is the gang who toppled Iraq with no plan of what to do after. This is the gang who ignores OBL because they are no longer interested in him. This is the gang who wants to privatize SS at a cost of $1-2T. This is the gang who is bankrupting Medicare for the sake of pharmaceutical profits. This is the gang who blithely watch oil prices rise and countries being destroyed while they vacation. They've increased our national debt by 45%. They've started a war because they wanted to. They don't do the rational, intelligent thing. They do what they wish to do. After this much unbelievable damage, would nuking or bombing Iran or Syria be that much of a leap? I don't think so. Would Israel fail to go along with the Neocons and the Bushies? I don't think so. It is possible for all of these people to be crazy or to simply be stupid.