What does "Winning" mean?

Submitted by Terry Brauer (United States), Jul 21, 2006 at 11:50

What does "winning" mean?

It fascinates me when people not directly affected by the slaughter, give advice to Israel or any other party to the conflict.... tell the parents of Israeli hostages that no prisoner exchanges will ensue. Then, ...sit between Iran and Hezbollah and stop the rockets from coming into their possession. Next... stop the American arms from reaching Fatah.

Mr. Olmert is mindful, after Israel spent 2 decades in Lebanon, of the necessity to create a security zone. Lebanon was Israel's Vietnam. They had to get out. Besides, the Lebanese Army was supposed to have created security under U.N. Resolution 1559 ... another scripted piece of unenforced crap that the U.S. failed to have implemented....

Israel, engaged in more wars and elusive peace for the last 6 decades thanany other people in the world is as Pipes sees it, the instrument of American foreign policy in the Middle East. He throws out Syria and Iran, Lebanon, Hamas, and Hezbollah as if he is dealing with nuisances ... not significant, well-armed and aggressive renegades. They are unguided missiles.

What Israel is trying to do is to stop the unguided missiles' missiles from falling on Israel. Initially, this means eliminating current arsenals. Fundamentally, it means that the U.S. must convince itself that there might be something more valuable than cash for its arms and indeed ... convince its French, Russian, and Chinese fellow capitalists that they are ENABLING sustained conflict with GREED. Alas, time for the 'democracies' to come to Jesus ... good Christian and Buddhist folks that they are ... and activate self-discipline.

The math isn't in Mr. Pipes computations ... and not in Israel's favor. Israel is surrounded by fanatics. It would not be difficult to imagine that Kim Jung IL or other attention-seeking nut jobs will sell weapons to Israel's enemies that we have not even contemplated (given the ineptitude of U.S. military intelligence).

In BushWorld, capitalism is King ... sell what you want ... global economy ... profit from whatever whenever ... and the only Veto Bush exercises is over research that would help heal millions. Blood money is no sin in BushWorld. Stopping arms sales to set an example for stopping more arms sales isn't going to happen with this government dedicated to enrichment for its political allies.

Israel is screwed. It will do the best it can do and should tell the U.S. to shut up ... since the U.S. hasn't said much intelligible anyway.

When a nation invades another unprovoked, it cannot be credible by suddenly trotting out pious pronouncements of caution and restraint. Another minor by product of Iraq. The U.S. induced civil war in Iraq and the unbalance of power amongst Iran, Iraq, and Syria.

100/day. 14,000 to date. That's the toll of dead Iraqis in 2006 for 'regime-change' and 'democratization'. 2600 dead American troops in 3+ years. Tens of thousands maimed forever. The Iraq adventure was to have made Israel and the U.S. safer. It has had the opposite effect.

Mr. Pipes ... you cannot convince fanatics that Israel is permanent and unbeatable. That's Western-think. Palestinians pass out cookies and candy when 2 Israeli soldiers are kidnapped. That's Middle Eastern street-think. Failing to understand the difference and factor it into policy is only part of the problem.

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