Posted on 12/06/2005 1:49:57 PM PST by SJackson
You're right about his value if we can use it to our advantage. My impression of these stories, more rumors, is that they're US initiated. The idea isn't that Bagoudi will be sent here, rather that he'll be free to, in all liklihood, gain control of Fatah and by extension the PA. He's a popular guy, an active, charismatic terrorist as opposed to Abbas who has always been an inside guy. Which, if these reports are true, raises the question of why we consider it in our interest to establish an active terrorist state in the mideast. Frankly, Jews will die, but Israel will be able to deal with the threat. A destabilized Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq could be much more problematical.
I take it you are puzzled that people in Israel want him back at all, then...?
If, for example, I, errr, clap your scrotum between two cold bricks, have I conferred a benefit on you?
Could I charge you for the gesture?
No, thank you.
I look forward to reading some support -- any support at all -- for your contention.
What does "what he agrees to" matter in this picture? If a deal (fanstastic as it sounds) takes place between the US and Israeli governments, they take Pollard to the prison door and if he won't move, propel him out with a swift kick in the tuchas. He going to spy again to get back in?
It means that in the, I hope, extremely unlikely event a deal like this is cut, he'll stay in jail, and pay the rent. As though his fate, Pollard's fate, means a thing to anyone involved. Pure ego.
If the US agrees to release Pollard for Barghouti, it will prove two facts.
Pollard has been unjustifiably imprisoned for too long.
And
This Administration will do anything to support the "Palestinians" against Israel.
If Israel agrees to this, it will be more evidence for what is more and more obvious every single day.
The current Israeli Government is out of its ****** mind.
Any chance that mole computer program was also responsible for bringing down Challenger?
"I take it you are puzzled that people in Israel want him back at all, then...?"
Not a bit puzzled.
The leaders of the Israeli government are much more hard-minded, but if the Americans are behind this initiative, as I expect they are, they are relying on the soft emotionalism of the Israeli people for a man who has been presented to them as a suffering martyr for Israel to put political pressure on the government that a Sharon, eager to create his new party, will be loth to defy in an election cycle.
This gets rid of a US public relations problem with Israel.
The only problem is trying to figure out the sense in the US game here. Bagoudi seems like a pretty bad candidate for release.
Of course, over the past few years American intelligence and foreign policy operations have proved catastrophically inept and foolish, so there may not be any deeper American plan here other than naive reliance on assurances of goodwill and hoping for the best. The current team has given no-one any great cause for confidence that they know what they're doing.
This story sounds ridiculous.
"Barghouti's wife, Fadwa, said her husband's strong showing is a message to Israel that "Marwan is not a terrorist"
Really? I thought it was the other way around.
Here is what is wrong with your analysis. The Jews In Israel and in US that care about Pollard are the same ones that are hardliners on terror. They would not advocate for such a trade releasing the terror master Barghouti.
Sheetrit and Beilin who want Barghouti freed could care less about Pollard. They are in the game, to use your expression, because they believe in Palestinian democracy and believe that the Palestinians will reform and abandon terror. They and their followers could care less about Pollard. Just read what they said -- nothing on Pollard, all about Barghouti's potential.
Stupid idea. They're both criminals. Keep them both in jail.
second the motion.
"Any chance that mole computer program was also responsible for bringing down Challenger?"
I am now cleaning coffee off my monitor.
"Here is what is wrong with your analysis. The Jews In Israel and in US that care about Pollard are the same ones that are hardliners on terror. They would not advocate for such a trade releasing the terror master Barghouti."
Well, then it's another foolish gaffe by the US government that won't work. The American government's to see Bagoudi released does not make much sense to me at all. Why not, instead, kill off these terrorist leaders when captured to clear the decks for others who are willing to be more reasonable to take over. There could be no movement at all so long as the old terrorist Arafat was alive. He needed to be dead for anything to happen, because the power of his connections could not be overcome by reasoned self-interest and fear.
Seems to me that the template needs to be to kill the Palestinian terror leaders (and footsoldiers) whenever you get them in your power. Don't detain them and release them. Kill them. And keep on doing it until you've thinned out the ranks of militant leadership.
Then someone like a Jerry Adams will step forward, someone who may be bloodyminded as hell, but who will play the game politically. You don't like him, and you don't trust him, but there are basic rules of the game. Get the gun out of Israeli/Palestinian politics in the same way that Adams and Trimble got the gun out of Irish politics, and you will have come a long, long way towards resolving the issue.
That assumes that it can't be resolved, and that it's not really Amalek versus the Hebrews, and ordained by God and the Devil to be a perpetual war which can never be resolved until the end of the world. This may be the truth of the case, but we can't base our policies on that assumption.
So, let's just say that the American game here seems to be to try and work with some known terrorist, and to dangle Pollard out there as a worm. And this game seems pretty foolish, by my lights.
Satellite imagery from a US KH-11 satellite ... was used to plan the 7 June 1981 attack on the Tammuz-1 reactor at Osiraq, Iraq. This attack, carried out by 8 F-16s accompanied by 6 F-15s punched a hole in the concrete reactor dome before the reactor began operation (and just days before an Israeli election) and delivered 15 delay-fuzed 2000 lb bombs deep into the reactor structure (the 16th bomb hit a nearby hall). The blasts shredded the reactor and blew out the dome foundations, causing it to collapse on the rubble.
25 years of a world without a Iranian nuclear threat resulted - definitely good for the U.S. The threat is back and it will again have to be dealt with.
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