Do it now or do it later?

One of the best articles Alan Caruba has written. This is from www.anxietycenter.com and the series of articles entitled: Warning Signs


July 26, 2006, Volume 8, No. 30


Do it now or Do it later?

We are beginning to see the national debate about what to do in the Middle East shape up into fairly specific sides. I call them the "Do it now" crowd and the "Do it later" crowd.

One can cite history to support either side. The "Do it now" crowd these days are called "neoconservatives" and they are led by people like Bill Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, a respected forum that makes ordinary Republicans look like wimps. Arguing for "Do it later" is George Wills, a respected conservative Washington Post columnist.

It should be noted that there is also a "Let’s not do anything" or a "Let’s run away" crowd who are called liberals and/or Democrats.

Maybe it’s just a trick of my imagination, but I seem to recall Americans of all descriptions just loving those images on television after 9-11 of the U.S. bombing the hell out of Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region where Osama bin Laden was said to be hiding or, better still, driving our tanks into downtown Baghdad. Later we found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole in the ground.

Perhaps the most powerful argument for "Doing it now" is the fact that it’s been five years since 9/11 and the U.S. has not experienced another comparable attack. Keeping al Qaeda on the run, killing its leaders, and playing havoc with its funding was, in retrospect, probably a good idea.

Now the images on television are of war in Israel and Lebanon. Israel has been the subject of attacks since the day it declared its independence in 1948. It took awhile for the message to sink in, but its neighbors eventually figured out that massing armies on its borders was a very bad idea. They switched to a low-level war involving suicide bombers and rockets. Imagine how long we would patiently deal with Canada or Mexico if they were rocketing our cities and towns?

The "Do it now" crowd is now rooting for Israel to get rid of Hezbollah in Lebanon; mostly Palestinians who took up residence there after previously losing encounters with Israel and Jordan. First thing they did, of course, was to lay waste to Lebanon with a fifteen-year civil war pitting Muslims against Christians. Having no idea what peace is, other than the total destruction of Israel, Palestinians and other Arabs are once again learning what a bad idea it is to provoke yeshiva boys.

In Gaza, Hamas—another group of unhappy Palestinians—is also getting shot up by the Israelis. The Israeli’s "Do it now" crowd has concluded that waiting around for peace with Palestinians is a bad idea and a higher level of payback may prove palliative.

All of which brings us to our "Do it later" crowd who advise that waiting is just as good an idea, particularly as regards Iran who everyone knows is developing its own nuclear weapons capability. By way of a reminder, it was Iranians who in 1979 invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran, seized our diplomats, and held them hostage for 444 days. It can be argued that most Iranians are being held hostage by the mullahs, but the funding and arming of Hezbollah comes from Iran.

The "Do it later" crowd always proudly points to how we patiently waited for the former Soviet Union to implode. The problem with that argument is that we also engaged in several proxy wars with them. Owing to Red China’s intervention, the best the U.S. could achieve was a stalemate in Korea and now we are stuck with a loony dictator in the north who has missiles and nukes.

Then there was that nastiness in Vietnam. Despite that loss the U.S. stayed busy sending troops to various places for the purpose of peacekeeping or swatting bad guys in Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. In 1983 Hezbollah blew up several hundred U.S. Marines who were in Beirut on a peacekeeping mission.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, we funded and equipped Muslim holy warriors to drive out the Russians, thus helping to bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. The Muslims, however, became al Qaeda and showed their gratitude by destroying the World Trade Center, flying a commercial jet into the Pentagon, and killing some 3,000 Americans.

The problem with waiting for Iran to become a nuclear power is that the leaders of Iran keep saying crazy things and promising to do crazy things. Even Arabs, no slouches when it comes to crazy, think the Persian, albeit Muslim, Iranians are really crazy.

So, while the warnings and recommendations of the "Do it later" crowd sound like a good idea, they rarely are. History is filled with examples of why "Do it now" is a better idea because failure to respond to Big Trouble almost always results in Even Bigger Trouble.

Every generation of Americans has had to learn this lesson. The nation has always been sharply divided over questions of war. This is what we pay Presidents to decide. After 9/11, we wanted the President to punish al Qaeda and, somewhat reluctantly, we agreed to his getting rid of a murderous despot in Iraq. Then we wanted that war to be over in two weeks.

History is rarely so accommodating. Wars tend to be very messy and this is especially true of the years after victory is declared. Militarily, we are still in Europe since the end of World War II in 1945. We are still in South Korea since 1953.

War is transformative and, even the most cursory look back at the past half-century or so reveals that the U.S. has benefited itself and much of the world by opposing evil. Wherever the forces of evil may be and whomever they might call themselves, we still need to be able to "Do it now" because power-crazed lunatics will always find an excuse to make trouble.

As we debate whether to "Do it now" or "Do it later" regarding the Iranian mullahs, perhaps we should recall British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who, after negotiating with Adolph Hitler, returned home to proclaim "peace in our time."

There is no substitute for victory

As this is written, George W. Bush is the subject of mockery and disdain, but sixmonths after the liberation of Baghdad by American and British forces, on November 6, 2003, he reminded the nation that "Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe—because in the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty."

On May 12, 1962, one of the greatest generals of World War II returned to West Point to deliver a farewell speech. Douglas MacArthur spoke as a soldier of one era to the young soldiers who would take up the duty of defending the nation. He told them, "Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory; that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your public service must be duty, honor, country."

"Others," MacArthur said, "will debate the controversial issues, national and international, which divide men’s minds. But serene, calm, aloof, you stand as the nation’s war guardians, as its lifeguards from the raging tides of international conflict, as its gladiators in the arena of battle."

Today, there is no lack of controversial issues and no lack of enemies who challenge our nation and the values of Western civilization on which it is based. Those values began 2,500 years ago with a tribe of people, the Hebrews who entered into a covenant with a God they deemed to be the creator and lord of all mankind.

Take away the Jews and there is no Judaism. Take away Judaism and there is no Jesus and no Christianity. There would have been no Diaspora and no Renaissance, no Reformation and no Enlightenment. The only constant to which one can point is the Jews. Empires and Nations rose and fell, but always, always there were the Jews, keeping the covenant, observing the laws, lighting the Sabbath candles, reading from the Torah, and yearning to return to Jerusalem and their promised land.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing that occurred in the twentieth century was that return, that resurrection, of Israel.

On May 14, 1948 Israel’s independence was declared. The Arab response was war. Israel fought again for its survival in 1967 when adjacent Arab nations attacked. Again in 1973, on the eve of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days of Judaism, Israel was attacked. Each time it successfully fought off the Arabs. In 1977, Menachem Begin became Prime Minister of Israel and in 1978 he would share the Nobel Peace Prize with President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt as the result of their peace accords. Sadat’s efforts for peace were rewarded with assassination.

Begin was well known to those early, first Israelis. He had served in the Irgun Zvai Leumi, an organization that forced the British to relinquish control of what was then called Palestine, a name first given it by the Roman Emperor Hadrian who thought it would erase all memory of Israel.

It remained the given name of the area when, after World War I, the British and French drew lines on the map of the Middle East to create Lebanon as a French Protectorate and Palestine as Britain’s. Other nations created were Iraq and what was then called Trans-Jordan.

Following the day in 1948 when a provisional Hebrew government was announced, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt prepared to attack the re-born Israel. Menachem Begun went to a secret radio station in Tel Aviv. Virtually every home in the land was tuned to listen.

"One phase of the battle for freedom, for the return of the whole people of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the whole land of Israel to its God-covenanted owners, has ended," he said. "The state of Israel has risen…through blood, through fire…it could not have been otherwise…and it is compelled to fight—or to continue to fight satanic enemies and blood-thirsty mercenaries, on land, in the air, and on the sea."

"The first pillar of our state must therefore be victory, total victory, in the war which is raging all over the country, said Menachem Begin, eerily echoing the words of General MacArthur at West Point. "Whoever does not recognize our natural right to our entire homeland, does not recognize our right to any part of it."

And he reminded the new citizens of Israel; "We cannot buy peace from our enemies with appeasement." Facing the first war of national survival, he told them that, "in this battle we shall break the enemy and bring salvation to our people, tried in the furnace of persecution, thirsting only for freedom, for righteousness, and for justice."

Nearly sixty years after Begin addressed his people, Israel is still the only truly free nation in the whole of the Middle East. It constitutes barely one percent of the total area occupied by its Muslim enemies. Israel’s population of 6.4 million people is equal to two percent of the combined 315 million Muslims of the nations surrounding and threatening them.

A friend of mine asked, "Why does 98% of the Middle East’s population with 99% of the land hate Israel so much? It is a mystery that defies explanation." It is no mystery. The reason is Islam, a religion that holds all other religions in utter contempt, but especially the Jews whose ancestors had refused to recognize Mohammed as a prophet.

Finally, in this hour of blood and fire for both America and Israel, the words of another U.S. General, George S. Patton, Jr. are worth recalling when, on the eve of the invasion of Europe, he told his troops, "Americans love to fight, traditionally. Americans love the sting and clash of battle. Americans love a winner. Americans will not tolerate a loser. Americans despise cowards. Americans play to win."

The wavering, the calls for cease-fire, the urgings for appeasement and withdrawal are not the foundation upon which great nations are born and based.

In Iraq, Americans must play to win and so must Israel in yet another hour of another war it must not lose. Our fates are intertwined; our destinies are the same. The issue is freedom and the battle must be joined. There is no substitute for victory.

"Warning Signs" is the Center’s way of helping Americans and others gain an insight to both national and international events, issues, and trends that will protect our interests and those of others striving toward freedom everywhere. The Center needs your donation to maintain this effort. If you prefer to send a check, please make it payable to The Caruba Organization, 28 West Third Street, Suite 1321, South Orange, NJ 07079.

Coming in September, Alan Caruba’s new collection of his commentaries written between 2003 and 2005. To learn more about "Right Answers: Short Takes on Big Issues", click here.



© 2006 Alan Caruba.
All Rights Reserved

Another Birthday

Apart from sharing my Birthday, July 25th, with Iman ( David Bowie's wife) amd Matt LeBlanc, the famous spy Mata Hari was shot on this day in 1917. There's more



1978
The world's first test tube baby, Louise Joy Brown, is born at Oldham General Hospital in the north of England.
1962
In London, the Buckingham Palace Art Gallery officially opens to the public.
1959
A Hovercraft - the SRN 1 - makes its first English Channel crossing from Dover to Calais in a little over two hours.
1946
The United States detonates an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
1944
World War II: The Germans first use a jet fighter - the Messerschmitt 262 - in aerial combat.
1943
World War II: Italian dictator Benito Mussolini is forced to resign.
1917
World War I: Dutch spy Margarethe Zelle - known as exotic dancer Mata Hari - is sentenced to death.
1909
French aviator Louis Bleriot becomes first man to fly across Channel from a field near Calais to Northfall Meadow near Dover Castle, England.
1907
In England, Sir Robert Baden-Powell begins an experimental camp on Brownsea Island near Poole to test the feasibility of Scouting. Four days later he forms then Boy Scout organisation.
1814
English inventor George Stephenson demonstrates the first steam engine.
1603
James VI of Scotland is crowned James I of England.

Are we being short-sighted?

From the UKIP's website - comments by Nigel Farage on the possible future problems caused by the addition of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU. My take on immigration, illegal or otherwise, isn't always in line with my colleagues in UKIP. I'm more of a pragmatist. If we genuinely need workers from these countries, then allow them in - but on a restrictive visa arrangement.................................



Immigration: All spin and no action

24-07-2006



The Home Secretary's plans for stricter border controls were today (24.7.06) condemned as "a farce".

The apparent promise by John Reid for a single border control agency, which would control British airports and ports, is nothing more than a window-dressing exercise, the UK Independence Party said today.

"Putting passport officers in uniforms will do nothing to reverse the rocketing immigration into this country" said UKIP MEP Nigel Farage. "Even the announcement of more staff is nothing more than spin, since they will simply be making up the deficit of immigration officers which this Government has allowed."

Mr Farage continued: "This is the same Home Office who predicted immigration from Eastern Europe of only 13,000 a year, when in fact the figure is 600,000 and rising."

Of more concern to the Home Office should be the influx of immigrants from Bulgaria and Romania, who are due to join the EU in January 2007. A leaked memo showed that around 45,000 heading for the UK are criminals.

Mr Farage added: "This Government is still perpetrating the myth that they can do something about who enters our country. In fact, the only way John Reid can halt these criminals entering the UK is by halting the automatic right of residence and employment which EU nationals currently have.

"Once these people are in the UK, it will be illegal for the Home Office to deport them under EU rules. Mr Blair must take a firm stand and veto the accession of Bulgaria and Romania when the topic is debated in October."

Germany and France are among two EU countries who did not grant these rights to the enlargement nationals, and they have seen their immigration decline.

Notes:

Bulgaria and Romania are due to join the European Union in January 2007. Under EU rules, the UK is forbidden from discriminating on grounds of nationality even if a person is convicted of a criminal offence.

Sam Sodje to Reading FC

So Sam finally did it! He'll be the first Margate player to play in the top flight of English football since Tommy Jenkins went to Southampton after a spell at Reading 35 years ago.

The photo shows me interviewing Sam at Brentford FC for BBC Kent just a few months ago.

And where has Sam been transferred to..............Reading FC

Lord Levy & The "Honours" System

So our Prime Minister maybe interviewed by the Met. over the "cash for gongs" affair. Personally, I think all three main parties are as bad as each other. My take on our so-called honours system is very much in line with these comments taken from an anti-EU campaigner...............................


I've had time to go through the full list of Honours given out earlier this month:


This year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours list (drawn up by the pro-EU establishment, politicians and civil servants and not by the Monarch) includes awards for cheesemakers, the ape alliance, beekeepers, a fish and chip shop owner, bowling, brass bands, fencing and carrot growers. There are Honours for people working with the EU and for organisations that are part of the EU ‘regionalisation’ policy to break up the UK (of which the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament are a part). And there are lots of awards for ethnic minority organisations – many of them funded by British taxpayers’ and council taxpayers’ money.

But, as usual, the pro-EU establishment has made sure that its list of Honours is typically politically correct and includes no awards at all for any groups or organisations promoting Englishness – and there can’t be any awards for anyone working for an English Parliament because there isn’t one (and the anti-English Labour Party intends to keep it that way).

Quite disgracefully, the anti-EU Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Dr. Paisley was, for thirty years, snubbed by the europhile establishment – denied even a single place in the House of Lords (and no Honours). Only after the DUP won half the parliamentary seats in Northern Ireland to become the fourth biggest party in the Commons (in May 2005) did the establishment relent and make Eileen Paisley (wife of the DUP leader) a Peer. For the anti-EU UK Independence Party – and any other anti-EU campaigners – there are no places in the Lords (unlike all the other political parties that won seats in the EU Election of 2004) and no Honours. Carrot growers, the owner of a fish and chip shop, beekeepers, brass bands and the ape alliance take preference over the millions of anti-EU people in the UK as far as the pro-EU establishment who dish out these Honours are concerned.

The following is a selection from the long list of Queen’s Birthday Honours published on 17.6.2006:

Honours for people working for regional/devolved organisations/bodies or those promoting and/or supporting the EU-backed ‘regional’ and/or devolved organisations:

Order of the Bath KCB: John Elvidge, Permanent Secretary, Scottish Executive

Order of the British Empire, CBE: Dr. Hamish Robert McHattie Wilson, formerly Head, Primary Care Division, Scottish Executive

Order of the Bath CB: Alan Pritchard, formerly head, Economic Development and Transport Department, National Assembly for Wales

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Julian Burrell, ‘Chair’ Wales Tourism

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Barry John Dodd, ‘Chair’ and Chief Executive GMS Group and Board member Yorkshire Forward, for services to Business in the Humber Region and Yorkshire (Yorkshire Forward backs the unwanted Yorkshire ‘regional’ assembly)

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mrs. Ann Elizabeth Lewis, Audio Typist and Clerk, Ashford Employment Tribunal Office, Department for Constitutional Affairs

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Philip Rolf Harding, Head, Sustainable Business Government Office for the south-west, Department for communities and local government

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Miss Hannah Rita Jones, Head, Farm Liaison Team, National Assembly for Wales

Order of the British Empire, OBE: John Angus Mackay, Chief Executive, Gaelic Media Service, for services to broadcasting in Scotland

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Herschel Post, ‘Chair’, Earthwatch, Europe, for services to the Environment



Honours for people working with or for the EU/or people promoting EU policy:

Order of St. Michael and St. George CMG: Miss Gillian Mary Anne Lambert, Deputy UK Permanent Representative to the EU in Brussels

Order or St. Michael and St. George, CMG: Julian Beresford King, Political and Secretary Council Representative, Office of the UK permanent Representative to the European Union

Order of the British Empire, OBE: David John Capel, Team Leader, EU Student Finance Team, Higher Education Directorate, DFE skills

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Michael Randall, Director of Recycling, for services to Waste Management in Northern Ireland (Recycling promoted due to EU Directive banning landfill waste sites)

Yet again, not one single Honour/award for any organisation promoting Englishness or with the words ‘English’ or ‘England’ in its name – but plenty of Honours for people involved in ethnic minority organisations/matters:

Order of the British Empire, CBE: Miss Sarah Veale, Head of Equality and Employment Rights, Trades Union Congress for services to Diversity

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Shun Ying Au, ‘Chair’ and founder, Chinese Mental Health Foundation for services to the Chinese community

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Jeremy Ian Crook, Director, Black Training and Enterprise Group for services to community relations and to Diversity

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Rashid Ahmed Awan, President, Pakistan Society of West Yorkshire for services to community relations

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Fitzroy John Batchelor, for services to Black and Ethnic minority people in the NHS

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mrs. Sudarshan Bhuhi, for services to the Asian community in East London

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Ninian Vernon Le Blanc, Director, Diversity and Inclusion, Royal Mail for charitable services

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Delisle Cumberbatch, for services to African Caribbean people with Mental Health Problems in Tower Hamlets, London

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mohindra Dhall, Founder, Scottish Indian Arts Forum, for services to the arts in Scotland

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Babulal Sudra, for services to the Gujarati community in Redbridge, London

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mrs. Geslyn Agatha Malcolm, Treasurer, Pineapple Luncheon Club for services to Black and Minority Ethnic People in Ethnic people in south-east London



Honours – controversial:

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Professor Michael Anthony Lennon, ‘Chair’, British Fluoridation Society (BFS) for services to Dental Health (BFS promotes the enforced mass medication of the British people through fluoridation of water supply)

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Arthur Thomas Barrett, Food Secretary and Livelihooods Adviser, Zimbabwe Department for International Delivery (Zimbabwe’s government has been criticised around the world for its human rights abuses)

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Dr. Sultana Feroze Al Qu’aiti, for services to disadvantaged communities in Yemen and to British relations with Yemen and Saudi Arabia (Saudia Arabia executives people in public at lunchtime and chops off the arms of those breaking certain laws)



Honour – inexplicable

Order of the British Empire, MBE: ‘Ms’ Yvonne Williams, Sustainable Development Officer, Lichfield District Council, Lichfield District Council, Staffordshire, for services to local government (Sustainable development?)

Honour to Labour Party member:

Knights Bachelor: Charles Cleese CBE, Leader Manchester City Council for services to local government

The pro-EU establishment regards the following people/organisations as more important than Honours for anyone from UKIP or any other pro-sovereignty organisations: Honours to obscure and ‘low profile’ organisations/not very well known people:

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Dr. Nigel Hewett, ‘Chair’, Leicester Rough Sleepers multi-disciplinary team for services to homeless people

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Randolph Hodgson, ‘Chair’, Specialist Cheesemakers’ Association, for services to the Dairy Industry

Order of the British Empire, OBE: Ian Michael Redmond, ‘Chair’, Ape Alliance and Co-founder, Elefriends and the UK Rhino Group, for services to conservation

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mohammed Ali JP, for services to the community in Derby (no Honours for any doctors of any other religion)

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Constance Ann Brown, Fish and Chip shop Proprietor, for services to business and to the community in Pembrokeshire

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mrs. Jill Edwards, for services to golf in Wales.

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Robert Jack, for services to bowls

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Alan Lawton, for services to Brass Band Music

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Gerald Hornby Moxon, Council member, Yorkshire Beekeepers’ Association, for services to the Beekeeping Industry

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Mrs. Eileen Dorothy Pitman, Coach and Founder, Portslade Fencing Club, for services to sport in Sussex

Order of the British Empire, MBE: Clements Harry Tompsett, ‘Chair’, British Carrot Growers’ Association, for services to Agriculture and to the community in Cambridgeshire

Order or St. Michael and St. George, CMG: General Ralph Zacklin, formerly Assistant Secretary, United Nations Secretariat (the United Nations in an internationalist organisation which is backed by europhiles in the UK)



Is it time to get rid of the Honours System?

A fresh perspective on Israel from Alan Caruba

Alan Caruba sent me this from his base in the US.

It's Always Israel's Fault
by Alan Caruba

We live in a world where hijackers, primarily from Saudi Arabia, can commandeer two airline jets to destroy the World Trade Center and, within hours, the word is spread that this heinous act was really the work of the Israeli Mossad and Jewish terrorists.

We live in a world where, despite ceding Gaza to the Palestinians, a tunnel is built by Hamas to facilitate the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of a third, while rockets rain down daily, and yet Israel is ultimately blamed because it is the “occupier” and holds Palestinian terrorists in its jails.

We live in a world where Hezbollah can take two Israeli soldiers hostage a few days later and flee back across the border into Lebanon. Apparently, Israel’s military withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 was insufficient reason to cease such outrages.

This brings us to the UN’s Division for Palestinian Rights, a branch of its Department of Political Affairs. Every year since 1977, it has organized a meeting in New York on November 29 to deplore the General Assembly’s 1947 Partition Plan that was accepted by the Israelis and unanimously rejected by Arab states. The meeting is a platform for speeches denouncing the existence of Israel, all paid for by the UN.

When the body of the former UN Human Rights Commission stank so rankly of its own putrescence, it was rhetorically replaced with a Human Rights Council and on July 6, 2006 the Council ended its first-ever “special session” with a resolution condemning Israel for the latest problems in Gaza.

Briefly, Gaza is a sliver of land adjacent to the Egyptian border from which Israel withdrew, forcing its own citizens who lived there to abandon their homes and communities. The hope was that by ceding Gaza to the Palestinians, it would lead to peace. It led to the election of Hamas, a terrorist organization solely dedicated to the destruction of Israel.

When Israel retaliated against the latest provocation, demanding the return of the young soldier, it was the considered opinion of the UN Human Rights Council that Israel was guilty of causing a humanitarian problem. The vote was 29-11 with five abstentions.

The Council’s resolution included a call “to dispatch an urgent fact-finding mission headed by the Special Rapporteur” et cetera, et cetera. The man selected for this mission is John Dugard and, as UN Watch, an independent non-governmental organization noted, he has held this position since 2001 and has the dubious record of never finding a single Palestinian guilty of anything. After a pro forma expression of sympathy for Corporal Gilad Shalit, the Hamas hostage, he added that he felt the same “for all Israel’s young soldiers compelled to serve in the army of an occupying power.”

According to UN Watch, this same “occupying power” has, over the past four years, been subject to more than 140 separate suicide attacks and 13,730 shooting attacks. Dugard failed to mention them.

The United States has been oddly quiet of late regarding events in Gaza, noting only that the kidnapping was a terrorist act. Perhaps the State Department has concluded there is nothing that can be done to persuade the Palestinians to act in a sane fashion.

The Israelis have tried every thing they could to mollify the Palestinians and the neighboring Arab states. They have done this despite having fought several wars that gained it the territories the Arabs want returned, along with all of the rest of Israel.

There is a lesson here somewhere for the Israelis and for the rest of the world. It has something to do with punishing one’s enemies until they give up. It has something to do with the lesson the Holocaust should have taught them. You cannot negotiate with people who want to kill you.

-----------
Read more articles like this at HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE!
http://www.humaneventsonline.com/

The Battle of the Somme - July 1st, 1916

I've been very impressed by the media coverage of the above event which started 90 years ago today. It's right and proper that we don't allow the football mania, currently gripping the country, to shroud important historical events.

It's difficult to imagine the carnage that took place on that first day. Tens of thousands were slaughtered or injured in the first few hours. In total there were over 120000 casualties.

Apparently, the opening salvos could be heard across the channel at Hastings.