It seems that bush administration has lost it's "roadmap to peace" in the middle east, if one ever existed. Maybe it flew out the window on the "road to Baghdad" when we attacked a Moslem nation with a secular government based on intelligence that no one else though actionable, certainly not actionable enough for an all out invasion and occupation. So as condi finally goes to the region plan to push a US plan to end the destruction that Israel is perpetrating on Lebanese civilians in the name of its war on hezbollah, and the less effective destruction perpetrated by hezbollah and the unguided missiles they continue to lob into Israel killing tens of people, one wonders if there can ever be peace. Over 300, probably closer to 400, people have been killed in Lebanon. Most of them were civilians. 500,000+ refugees have fled the merciless bombings of Beirut, Lebanese suburbs, and the civilian infrastructure of a fledgling democracy, once touted as an example of the change in the middle east that was brought on by bush's war on Iraq, which just had one of its most violent weeks of the year. So violent, in fact, it seems the head of the CIA is blocking an effort to figure out if Iraq IS in a civil war. Who will pay for the decimated infrastructure of Lebanon? Will Israel do what the US is doing in Iraq and remain until the country and NEW, democratically elected, government, which includes hezbollah, is up and running? Will they "arrest" the democratically elected members of the Lebanese government that they do not approve of as they did with the Palestinian democratically elected government?
30+ people have died in Israel from missiles fired by hezbollah, some flying further than anyone thought possible. The buffer of Lebanese troops along the southern border of Lebanon does not and has not yet existed. Can a new government dismantle a military militia that no else has been able to for decades? Will the Lebanese people turn against the only group that is giving them any immediate aid since Israel started bombing the, to use a presidential word, "shit" out of their country, its water treatment facilities and its power plants? Is Iran and Syria behind hezbollah's every move or are they supplying them with weapons as we are Israel? Hell, we used to support saddam.
The war mongering chicken hawk reds are calling for an all out war on all of them. Let me remind them that we haven't finished Afghanistan yet, and Iraq is getting worse. Even the "grand old" reds are turning against the neo-con induced Iraq war at this point (and I'm not just talking about Charles Barkley). Syria has a large standing army and who knows what weapons and Iran.... They may be up there with North Korea, whose recent ballistic missile test didn't go as well as the one We just had. I can only hope that they are not as far along as Pakistan. And what will happen to all the precious oil under the feet of a regional war in the middle east.
I would much rather be funny. I’d rather make jokes about the groper in chief and how it’s OK to go around rubbing female foreign dignitaries. I would rather type about how it would be nice to have a president who was eloquent whether the mic was on or off, instead of having one who is neither. Hell, I'd rather write about how its seems to be up to celebrities to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina and the government’s inadequate and delayed response in New Orleans. Can anyone say $400,000,000,000.00 on the war in Iraq? And speaking of delay, tommy has to stay on the ticket for a congressional seat he's resigned from and now he has to close down his political action committee (PAC) after being fined over $100,000.00 by the FEC. "Christian" conservative ralph reed losing in Georgia might be a nice way to segway into jack abramhoff and his affect on the turning of the tide in DC. But I just can't seem to think about anything but the killing and devastation that most, if not all, of the civilized world has called a "disproportionate" response to the kidnapping of two soldiers (who, by the way, are military targets).
Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause.
-George Washington
I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind.
-Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.
-Thomas Jefferson
