idrankwhat

Ok, help me out here then. I'll admit that the Dems have been real losers by not being able to use Bush's failures against him. But what do the Republicans stand for these days? I see nothing but a major identity crisis in their camp. Nation building? Balanced budget/fiscal responsibility? State's rights? Smaller Federal Govt? Immigration? Social programs/efficiency? Nation building (I know I put that one twice but it's a doozy). Since they've been in control I've seen only one thing that I could count on from them and that's a rampant feeding frenzy on the Treasury.

By the way. I'm glad you're doing ok. I know we disagree on most of this but I'll admit that I get a bit concerned when your posts disappear for a few days. You know, if everyone would just quit fighting and start spending their defense budgets on jumping, the world would be a happier place. More hung over maybe but happier overall.

Done.

I got this far and quite reading your hate filled shit..... For "hate filled shit" re-read your own posts. You might scare even yourself. The fact that you don't see the parallels scares the crap out of me.

That I believe is closest to the truth Not me. Iran gets Nukes, we agree to deal with them as "members of the club" and we offer to buy their oil from them. Admittedly it will cost more than we really want to pay but hey, that's what the free market is about right? We'll then turn a blind eye to their style of government and any human rights issues we might have because they're our "allies" now, just like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan....etc. I see the biggest threat to the world and to the US in particular is overreaching western nation building and imperialism exercises. I may have posted this quote earlier but....it's from the inside cover of Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy". "From ancient Rome to the British Empire, Phillips demonstrates that every world-dominating power has been brought down by an overlapping set of problems: a foolish combination of global overreach, militant religion, diminishing resources, and ballooning debt.

Sorry, but you are the one being played. Do you see any similarities to what is happening now and when Hitler was coming into power and biulding the German war machine? Are you talking about here in the US or over in Israel? If you're talking about the US then yes. The parallels of a bible weilding zealot using a deadly national disaster and propaganda to galvanize an increasingly nationalistic society into supporting militarization and waging imperialistic war while simultaneously reining in civil liberties is quite similar. (breathe) If you're talking about Israel, the I'd have to say yes as well. I find it quite ironic that a nation created as the result of war involving genocidal hatred would itself have no qualms about resorting to the genocidal hatred of its neighbors.

This basically translates as "if they had just continued to take the abuse from Israel then this wouldn't have happened". Also, "we" are not in Lebanon. "Our" munitions are however....in increasing numbers. And to top it off our chief diplomat in the UN right now won't let the UN even formally condemn Israel for (deliberately) blowing up the UN observation post. Frankly, I'm sick and tired of our administration doing everything possible to create more enemies for us by continuing with this blatantly lopsided support for Israel and its terrorist behavior. Yea, I use the "T" word for Israel because they're no better, and possibly worse than the rest of 'em. What was the question again? Oh yea, Boortz is half truth spewing hatemonger too. The only thing I like about him is that he's a pilot. This is where I'd go off on how far the media has deteriorited but then I'd be rambling, that's for another thread.

Holy crap. Do you realize how badly you are being played? The only buzz word you've not repeated from RushOReillyHannitySavage etc. is "World War 3". Or did I miss that one?

Stopped? Listening to the "know nothings" and ignoring the "know somethings" is what got us into this in the first place.

And to think, Olmert's predecessor's nickname was "the butcher". He makes Sharon look like Mother Theresa. Olmert should be brought up on war crimes charges. When do we start the regime change? They've got WMD's, are attacking and occupying their neighbors lands, and are in violation of three times as many UN resolutions as Iraq. What are we waiting for? Oh, that's right. They're our "allies". Nevermind, let them kill whoever they want.

To the contrary. Soldiers are not expendable and it sickens me that our civilian leadership has repeatedly ignored our military leadership in favor of this middle east imperialism campaign. Our soldiers have been performing valiantly considering that they were sent to do a job that they were not trained or equipped for. And when something bad happens, instead of respect the soldiers get blamed for carrying out orders that originated in the offices of the Pentagon lawyers. Add in the multiple tours, the stop loss programs and the poor pay and health care shortcomings and you have only scratched the surface on how this civilian leadership has abused our military. Instead of Bush, Rummy, Cheney, Rice and the rest of the warmongering bunch saying that they stand *behind* our troops, I say let them put up or shut up and stand in *front* of our troops. That would be leadership.

Bill would allow hearsay in terror cases WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- The Bush administration has drafted a bill that would allow hearsay evidence to be used in terrorism trials unless it was found to be "unreliable." The 32-page bill would also allow the government to delay a trial and punishment "without limitations," hold defendants found not guilty until the end of hostilities, allow the government to exclude defendants from trials to prevent the suspects from hearing classified evidence against them, and allow for the admission of evidence obtained during interrogations where coercion was used, The New York Times reported Wednesday. However, the bill outlaws the use of "statements obtained by the use of torture." The provision on hearsay, evidence in the form of statements a witness has heard but does not personally know to be true, would allow such statements to "be admissible if the military judge" rules that it has "probative value." The legislation was being circulated this week to various military lawyers and legal experts, the Times said. If given final approval by the administration, the bill would need a member of Congress to bring it to the floor.

Fair enough This is for another thread but it goes to point out the problem with pretty much everything as I see it is the influence that lobbyists have on our lawmakers. The taxpayer pays for the resulting legislation/earmarks and the entities which hire the lobbyists have to get that money from somewhere, often in the form of higher prices. One of the saddest examples of this was a story I saw last week about the growing number of municipalities which are hiring lobbying firms in order to get in touch with their own legislators. I can't remember if I posted that one or not.

This wasn't much of a rebuttle. More of a "Nuhh Uhh, is not". Just a couple of things to point out. First of all he states: "Over the course of four tours in the White House, I never once saw a decision in the Oval Office to tilt U.S. foreign policy in favor of Israel at the expense of America's interest." To which I say "Is he on crack"? Secondly, even the person who he says should be insulted by the Mearsheimer and Walt paper, Dennis Ross states: "It's pretty clear that they (AIPAC) are a significant source on the Hill". He tries to play down the influence on the Executive branch but he admits that they are a significantly powerful lobby. Sorry, no text, only audio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5539456

This place is getting scarier by the minute. I'm sure that FEMA is only concerned about these prisoner's.....errr...I mean tenant's safety and that they'd tell us more but it's not in the interest of our national security.

I think this deserves a repost. Researchers Say U.S. Policy Influenced by Israel Morning Edition: July 6, 2006 Researchers Say U.S. Policy Influenced by Israel LYNN NEARY, host: This morning, we’ll meet two academics who violated a taboo. John Mearsheimer teaches at the University of Chicago, Stephen Walt is at Harvard. Together, the noted academics wrote a paper called, The Israel Lobby; it questioned the power of groups that support Israel and the United States. STEVE INSKEEP, host: That paper sparked a storm of criticism. Today and tomorrow, we’ll examine their argument that support for Israel is not always in America’s national interest. John Mearsheimer says he decided to question what he calls The Israel Lobby, after events in 2002. Professor JOHN MEARSHEIMER (Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago): The Israelis had occupied, or reoccupied, the Palestinian areas that they had been given control over, as a result of the Oslo Peace Process. And President Bush told Ariel Sharon, in no uncertain terms, that he was supposed to withdraw his forces. Sharon then made contact with The Lobby, and The Lobby went to work. Bush was forced, after about a week’s time, to back down. He was, in effect, humiliated by The Israel Lobby. And that event made me realize just how powerful The Lobby was. And it also made it quite clear to me that The Lobby could force the United States to operate in ways that were not in its national interest. INSKEEP: Gentlemen, let’s dig into that example. When you say The Israel Lobby went to work, what specifically did they do, as far as you can tell, to move U.S. policy? Prof. MEARSHEIMER: Well what happened was, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, put significant pressure on senators and congressmen, and got them to approach the White House, and to tell President Bush, in no uncertain terms, that it was not possible for him to try to face down Ariel Sharon. And as a result, what happened was, that Bush backed down. INSKEEP: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is one of many, many, many lobbying organizations in Washington. What would give them the influence to move the opinions of senators, members of Congress, even the White House? Professor STEPHEN M. WALT (Academic Dean, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University): This is Steve Walt. AIPAC is extremely well organized and well funded. It’s very good at channeling campaign contributions to candidates who are supportive of Israel, and against anyone that they think might be unsupportive of Israel. They also spend a lot of time up on the Hill. They help congressmen prepare talking points and things like that. Other organizations that are part of this broad coalition, write op-eds, challenge anyone who is critical of Israel so that Israel is perceived in a very favorable light. This is, again, the standard tactics that most interest groups employ, but they are particularly effective at it. INSKEEP: You argue also, that The Israel Lobby was at least one factor in the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq. Why do you think that? Prof MEARSHEIMER: It's quite clear that from about early 1998, forward, there was one group that was pushing very hard for war; and that was the neo- conservatives. And the neo-conservatives are closely identified with Israel, and have been pushing American policy for a long time to support Israeli objectives. Which, of course, they believe are consistent with American objectives. But there is an abundance of evidence that it was those forces, specifically the neo-conservatives and the leaders of The Israel Lobby, who were pushing for that war. And it is that evidence that led us to make the argument that they were a necessary, but not sufficient cause for the conflict. INSKEEP: Which gets into one of the complexities here. You’re acknowledging that The Israel Lobby, at most, was one of the factors here. Prof MEARSHEIMER: Our argument is that it was a major driving force. And if you took that major driving force away, in all likelihood, you would not have had a war. INSKEEP: Stephen Walt, as you examined the history of what you describe as The Israel Lobby, did you find an example where they did not get what they wanted? Prof. WALT: Well, there is a number of things where they haven’t gotten what they wanted. They pressed very hard, for example, for the United States to move its embassy to Jerusalem. They have occasionally failed to prevent certain weapons sales. But the key goal is to make sure that nothing interferes with broad American support with the very high level of American economic aid - roughly $3 billion a year - that goes to Israel - the most to any country. So no matter what Israel does, whether it continues building settlements; whether it spies on the United States; whether it sells our military technology to other countries; no matter what Israel does, one of The Lobby’s main goals is to make sure that nothing interferes with broad American support. INSKEEP: Gentlemen, can we get to the underlying issue beneath all of this debate? Is it in the U.S. national interest to provide support to Israel? Prof. WALT: I think it’s very important to distinguish between support for Israel’s existence, and a willingness to defend Israel if its survival were ever in danger. I think that is in American interest, and it’s one that John and I both support. It’s a separate question whether the United States should be providing unconditional backing for Israel, and for all of Israel's policies. Most notably, the continued occupation and control over the Palestinians, and the refusal to negotiate a long-term peace settlement with the Palestinians. That’s something that the United States pays a large price for, in terms of our image in the Middle East, and our image elsewhere in the world. INSKEEP: I should mention, Stephen Walt, just to note, that Israeli spokesmen would dispute almost every phrase of what you just described. When you say refusal to negotiate a long-term peace settlement, they would add a lot of qualifications to that. John Mearsheimer, what do you think? Prof MEARSHEIMER: My argument is very similar to Steve’s. Our piece was not anti-Israel. We believe there’s a powerful moral case for Israel’s existence. And our argument is, is that Israeli policy, and American support for Israeli policy, is not in America’s national interest. INSKEEP: I want to try to understand what concretely you would want to do differently. Because if you have made that fundamental decision that you’re going to support Israel, and you’re in this messy situation where there’s plenty of blame to go around on many different sides, isn’t that going to force you into some compromises? What could you really do differently? Prof. WALT: This is Steve Walt. If you imagined The Lobby being less influential, the United States, I think, would still be supportive of Israel’s right to exist and supporting Israel’s core security. But the United States would be using its leverage to prevent the construction of settlements. The United States would have formulated its own proposals in peace negotiations, which we tended not to do. We tended to clear our positions in advance with Israel. The United States would, in our judgment, have been much less likely to have invaded Iraq. And finally, we would have been adopting a much more flexible policy towards a number of other regional problems, most notably Iran. INSKEEP: John Mearsheimer? Prof MEARSHEIMER: Yeah. I would add to that, that I think the United States would also have put significant pressure on Israel to give the Palestinians a viable state of their own. The conventional wisdom in the United States, especially among many American Jews and supporters of Israel, is that it is the Palestinians who have been the principle obstacle to the two-state solution, not the Israelis. I think that’s not the case. I think there is certainly blame to go around to all sides, but I think the Israelis have essentially been unwilling to give the Palestinian a viable state since 1967. And I think in the absence of The Lobby, the United States would have put great pressure on Israel to settle the conflict. INSKEEP: John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, thanks very much. Prof. WALT: Thank you. Prof MEARSHEIMER: You're welcome, Steve. INSKEEP: And this debate continues tomorrow, when we’ll talk with one of Mearsheimer and Walt critics, former Middle East envoy Dennis Ross. You’re listening to NPR News. Copyright ©2006 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR's Permissions Coordinator at (202) 513-2000. This transcript was created by a contractor for NPR, and NPR has not verified its accuracy. For all NPR programs, the broadcast audio should be considered the authoritative version.

For some reason I keep thinking of a quote from one of the "Alien" movies. "I say we take off and nuke it from orbit, only way to be sure."

My take on this is that if Israel laid down their arms then the US and an international force would come protect them. That would not happen if the Lebanese and Palestinians laid down their arms. Israel is not interested in that sort of help because it would necessitate the definition of their borders, which would mean that Israel would lose their ski resort and winery in Golan.

Or the skills of the pussies to hide and cower are refined to the point of making them difficult to distinguish. I can't believe that you're actually defending Israel shooting at FOX News.....even though I'd like to do it sometimes. This is a prefect example of why I post alternative viewpoints. Everyone gives Israel a pass. If it had been Arabs shooting at FOX I'm willing to bet you'd have a different view.

Apparenly the skills at determining friend from foe are pretty lousy. Oh, and get a load of what the idiot on FOX New says. "If you're somebody and you're a long ways away and you just see something and you don't know who it is, sometimes you just start shooting". Moron. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar0jRu5fDZw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Felectronicintifada%2Enet%2Fv2%2Farticle4998%2Eshtml

You can call it propaganda, and I am not saying that its not necessarily. However it is extremely accurate. I think it would be more accurate if in the first frame you saw that the whole group was standing outside of Israel's border and in a second frame you saw the Israeli soldier gunning down all three of the Arabs with a US bought gunship.

Who, the US? More Than 470 Physicists Sign Petition To Oppose U.S. Policy On Nuclear Attack More than 470 physicists, including seven Nobel laureates, have signed a petition to oppose a new U.S. Defense Department proposal that allows the United States to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states. The petition was started by two physics professors at the University of California, San Diego, Kim Griest and Jorge Hirsch, who said they felt an obligation to speak out about the nuclear policy change because their profession brought nuclear weapons into the world 60 years ago. They and other prominent physicists who signed the petition—which will be delivered to members of Congress, scientific professional societies and the news media—object to the new policy because it blurs the sharp line between nuclear weapons and conventional, chemical and biological weapons. “While it has long been a U.S. policy to use nuclear weapons in order to respond to a nuclear attack,” said Hirsch, “the new policy allows the U.S. to use nuclear weapons against states that do not have nuclear weapons and for a host of new reasons, including rapid termination of a conflict on U.S. terms or to ensure success of the U.S. forces.” “Humanity has gone more than half a century without using nuclear weapons, in large part because of the success of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,” said Griest. “The U.S. use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states will destroy the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and give strong incentive for other countries to develop and use nuclear weapons, thus making nuclear war more likely. As physicists we feel we need to bring this to the attention of policy makers and the public, in order to engender discussion, debate, and hopefully repudiation of the new policy.” The two physicists began their grass roots petition last month following reports in The New York Times and Washington Post that the federal government was in the final process of adopting a new U.S. policy that would permit the use of nuclear weapons against an adversary for the following reasons: * For rapid and favorable war termination on U.S. terms. * To ensure success of U.S. and multinational operations. * To demonstrate U.S. intent and capability to use nuclear weapons to deter adversary use of weapons of mass destruction. * Against an adversary intending to use weapons of mass destruction against US, multinational, or alliance forces. Griest and Hirsch put their petition on the internet at http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/ , invited their colleagues to sign and quickly received an avalanche of responses. The petition is signed by two past presidents of the American Physical Society, the premier professional organization for U.S. physicists—George Trilling of UC Berkeley and Jerome Friedman of MIT. Friedman, who is also a Nobel laureate, was joined on the petition by six other Nobel Prizewinners in physics—Philip Anderson of Princeton University, Anthony Leggett of the University of Illinois, Douglas Osheroff of Stanford University, Daniel Tsui of Princeton University, Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas and Frank Wilczek of MIT. Other prominent physicists on the petition include Fields Medal winner Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study, Wolf Prize laureates Michael Fisher of the University of Maryland and Daniel Kleppner of MIT, and Leo Kadanoff of the University of Chicago, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and president-elect of the American Physical Society. “We point out in the petition that nuclear weapons are on a completely different scale than other weapons of mass destruction and conventional weapons and that the underlying principle of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is that in exchange for other countries forgoing the development of nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapon states will pursue nuclear disarmament,” said Hirsch. 'Instead, this new U.S. policy dramatically increases the risk of nuclear proliferation and, ultimately, the risk that regional conflicts will explode into all-out nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.” The physicists hope to gain additional supporters before a meeting of the executive board of the American Physical Society on November 18 and a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency on November 24. http://www.physlink.com/News/102605NuclearPetition.cfm News Story Origin and Copyright: UCSD : http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu Original news release: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/science/mcpetition.asp

Yea, Israel does nothing to provoke/oppress them right? http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/ochaSR_Gaza120406.pdf

I refer you back to those cute little kids in the pictures with suicide vests on........ and havent there been a number of women doing that crap now too???? Innocence in this game is out the window. You're right. You're right. Man, that's a great idea. Let's lock up or kill all of the women and children. It's only genocide if you kill them right? This way it's called "extinction". On a more serious note, I believe that Israel is in violation of the fourth GC over this prisoner issue. Many of the prisoners are held as "Administrative" detainees which means that they're held without charge or trial for up to 180 days at a time, at which point the detention is renewed for another six months, then another six months, then another.