Ban Snow Flakes? YIKES!
Posted on 07/18/2006 7:51:35 AM PDT by pickrell
Recently newspaper columnist George Will wrote "...But elections have transformed Hamas into the government of the Palestinian territories, and elections have turned Hezbollah into a significant faction in Lebanon's parliament, from which it operates as a state within the state..."
There is always a tendency among those who cannot differentiate between cause and effect to note that winter is caused by all of those pesky snowflakes...
The elections in the middle east did not 'suddenly and magically infuse' Lebanon and Palestine with extremist voters, any more than the 'No child left behind' program of the Bush Administration suddenly created huge numbers of failing students in the U.S. They both merely forced the truth into the open.
Whenever the light is turned on in the kitchen, however, the media, and tired political writers assume that cockroaches are suddenly created by Sylvania and their pesky light bulbs.
This arab extremism has been around far longer than any hanging chads in Chad.
What we are seeing is merely the inability of the Arab Street, as it is popularly styled, to pretend any longer that they are, in the main, reasonable people who merely wish to have Israel stop oppressing them.
The fiction that because terrorists were not previously "officially" in charge in those countries allowed the New York Times to rail at Israel about "disproportionate attacks" and "failure to negotiate." They likely remarked in the past that Alphonse Capone held no city office in Chicago, and therefore bore no blame for gangland violence.
When a strong wind blows the camoflauge away, it is no longer possible to pretend that there are any "moderate arabs" around to negotiate with. It was a silly hope in the first place, built around masking the distasteful realization that large groups of people cheered when bombs went off.
We didn't want to think that sometimes entire populations get exactly what they wish for, and then complain about the costs to themselves in Israeli, and now American, retaliation.
George Will is simply a disappointment with such a column. He knows better.
I agree. Well said.
Not a bad rant, but it really belongs in the George Will column thread.
I disagree.
It's good enough to stand on it's own.
Unfortunately this is not "Arab Extremism." What we are witnessing is the same centuries old belief that killing infidels is a mandate from Allah. Murder, terror and deception are required of all Muslims. The goal of the Muslim religion is to convert or kill all non-Muslims.
Wake up. Like the cockroaches they are, the Muslims need to be
dealt with.
I thought about that, and actually began it that way. But the problem is that it really is much bigger than George Will, and his column. He is a snowflake.
The idea permeates the entire Middle East, and those who cover them, that since the terrorists in southern Lebanon are not officially paid by Lebanon- any Israeli retaliation against the Lebanese who shelter them is a matter of collateral killing of innocents.
This is nonsense.
Every population knows, admit it or not, that everything they allow to take place within their borders against another state, is an act of their state.
This ongoing fiction of innocent populations must stop.
If you keep killer dogs in your yard, and open the gates at night, it won't be the dogs in court later.
You own the consequences of what you permitted... and cheered for.
That's not what Will said at all.
He didn't say the elections created the extremist voters, he said the elections created an extremist government.
In order to get a better view of the forest, apparently we need to cut down those annoying trees.
It is only quite recently that "voters" even existed at all in the Middle East. It is an American invention, this self detremination stuff. Before then, the Caliphs decided who got stoned to death each morning.
A "government" is not something distinct and separate from the wishes of the people. A government is a distillation of what people will tolerate and what they will cheer for.
Tyrants and thugs have long understood this. We need to also.
George Will then posits that there is a difference between a "government" which is controlled and intimidated through fear and evil, by a group of murderous thugs... and a government which is controlled and intimidated through fear and evil by a group of murderous thugs, who bothered to place a few of their own on the city council, as it were.
Do you really find a difference in this?
Do you really believe that it will prevent one round from being fired, or cause one second of pause, in the forces who reply to attacks upon their people? Will the jews appreciate the subtlety, as they clean up the blood pools? I had to be flip in my reply, but isn't this an example of an anti-semantic attitude?
I like this column. I agree with what he is saying. The blinders are coming off...the naked ugly truth is revealed.
Is that so? Well my government has murdered millions of unborn children...all Will is saying is that the talk talk libs had their way and it is a disaster. Now the truth about Arabs is revealed. He is saying that the New York Times can no longer rail at Israel about its actions by claiming it is a few extremists who are not in control of the country causing the violence. He said the elections revealed an extremist government. It was always there, but now we can no longer deny its existance.
If that were all that Will was saying, it would likely be disputed only by the left.
As I read it, though, it is not all that Will is saying.
"...Still, it is not perverse to wonder whether the spectacle of America, currently learning a lesson - one that conservatives should not have to learn on the job - about the limits of power to subdue an unruly world, has emboldened many enemies..."
Does this sound like a conservative who has realized the necessity of America taking on terrorists in their back yard... or a strange version of George Will of the last few years, who accepts as writ the idea that Iraq was a mistake?
Currently learning a lesson? The lesson we should have learned when the towers fell, was that the popular agenda of Bill Clinton to dismember the military, and respond to a number of opening assaults in this war, was to ignore the losses... as merely military poeple and embassy staff.
The lesson George Will needs to learn is that, though the media may repeat themselves endlessly... it doesn't make it true.
The idea that conservatives are being "taught a lesson", is straight out of Murtha's playbook.
Those who cannot tell the difference between Clintonian empire-building, and our present day Guadalcanal in Iraq, need to go back to the history books.
You are certainly right about that. It's, odd, though, the reaction to the word anti-semitism. Rather than being used easily, like racism, it finds a more measured use among conservatives.
I suppose that's why I used the synthetic phrase 'anti-semantic', being a fusion of "anti-semetic"- i.e. a wish to see harm befall an entire race-, and the word "semantics"- i.e. a clever misuse of language to mask or justify masking the true nature of a concept, such as watching harm befall an entire race over decades, but not finding the urgent voice to protest until Israel begins to strike back...
Many "conservatives" agree over the need to avoid world wide religious warfare, if possible, but disagree with us "neo" types about when it should be apparent that any further attempts to negotiate are as pointless as all of them have been in the past.
In fact, an argument could be made that the problem up till now has been the total failure to see past the journalists.
Perhaps, in today's usage, it is best to stick with "judeophobic". BTW, true conservatives rarely use the word "racism", preferring instead the traditional term "prejudice", unless of course they are referring to "preferences".
Your word "anti-semantic" is too confusing to be coined into usage.
"Judeophobic" is pretty good! Perhaps, like "infidel-challenged" or "differently zealous". I'll keep that in mind. As for anti-semantic, that was a quick pun that died lonely. Like a proverbial lead balloon!
The point was supposed to be that an increasing number of self-described conservatives are ignoring the evidence of documented Al Quaida admissions that Iraq is hurting them badly, and instead accepting as gospel the Media campaign that the sacrifices of our forces in Iraq are in vain.
I've seen an increasing number of pundits on "our side" pepper their statements with supposed "fact", and seldom are called on it.
Does the fact that Israel has finally had enough, somehow negate our strategy of drawing in terrorists, trained over the years to attack U.S. civilians, into an area where they will face not civilians, but rather our armed forces ready and quite able to destroy them?
Is the fact that they cannot withdraw from Iraq now without terrible loss of face, somehow a proof that we erred in taking down the man who funded them?
We are being taught a lesson because we took a play out of the liberals handbook...talk and more talk. Then we added a dash of appeasement. Will is right we should have already known and not needed on the job training.
Ban Snow Flakes? YIKES!
I've said for quite a while that the election of Hamas in 'pali-land' wasn't an aberration, it was exactly what those people really wanted.
Oh the overt daily corruption of the Fatah creeps may have had something to do with it, but the voters knew what they were going to get when the put Hamas in charge.
And Hamas operatives violating sovereign Israeli borders, killing soldiers and civilians, and kidnapping Israeli military personell wasn't unexpected. It was entirely predictable. Hamas was just keeping their campaign promises as it were.
Now the other whackjobs, hizbolla, saw what Hamas had done regarding snatching a couple of soldiers and thought to themselves "We better get ourselves some hostages, too" (apologies to Steve Martin).
Now maybe this Ohlmert chap isn't a complete pussy. He's at least partially snapped the leash off the IDF and he certainly seems to mean what he says. I think Bush is playing this one masterfully as well. (There I said something nice about the President. I haven't been able to do that in a while.) It wouldn't suprise me if he and Blair knew that mic was on when he said "Assad has got to go".
Every body got worked up about Bush using a relatively mild epithet, but no one said much about his comments regarding Assad.
That little line must have Boy Assad pissing in his pants. Every other leader Bush has said that about has either had a serious change of heart, is dead, or in prison on trial.
The way I see it Assad now has two choices, neither of which are very good for him. He can try to rein in Hizbolla which may or may not work out so well. It's hard to fathom just exactly how much operational control he has over them. Or he can back them to the hilt and let them continue killing Israeli civilians. That also may not work out so well for him. He's got to be remembering that little fly by the IAF pulled a few weeks ago.
If Assad ain't careful he may be the recipient of a 2,000 lb peace offering right in his lap. Personally that's what I want.
L
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