Posted on 07/30/2006 2:43:48 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking after the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese village of Qana, said it was time for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.
She said she was saddened by the bombing and confirmed that she had canceled a planned trip to Beirut, but would stay in Israel to try to work out a deal for ending the 19-day-old conflict.
Or not.
It won't end for a while yet but it looks to me like Hezballah wins this round. The Israelis pulled their punches and even so the world is ready to rein them in. The Israeli PM was sold on an air campaign by his Air Force and that doesn't defeat guerillas.
Too soon to tell.
Your point about the military plan of Israel not being sufficient is a bit seperate from the diplomatic dance, I think.
It mostly depends...the diplomacy so-called...on whether the rest of the world is prepared to let Iran, through Hezbollah, take over Lebanon. Because that really appears to be what is happening, when you back off and take a look at the big picture.
I don't think Bush is prepared to let that happen, but will he have any Allies?
The deaths in this village equal one single suicide-bomber's attack in an Iraqi marketplace, which happens several times a week. I never heard the Lebanese government, or any other Arab government calling for an immediate cease-fire by the terrorists in Iraq.
Nor did I ever hear of the Jordanians calling for a cease fire by Hezbollah, who were operating from their own territory.
Sorry about the kids, but their parents were warned to clear out and didn't, and they allowed Hezbollah to operate in their town, and even supported them.
Many innocent people die in a war like this, but a cease fire will accomplish nothing: the process will continue, as long as ... ?
I have a huge problem with a ceasefire. It is a ploy used by everyone of Israel's enemies. They attack Israel. Israel responds and the bad guys get smacked. Then the bad guys call in the international community whining about how Israel is being mean. Eventually a ceasefire is called and the bad guys regroup and rearm.
IMHO - the only solution is to find the leaders and whack them. Without the leaders teaching the young to hate, things would cool down. It takes a lot of energy to hate that much all the time. Without the mullahs and terrorist types the could have been peace in the middle east decades ago.
Every passing day proves how much we don't have the stomach to fight the good fight. We treat these terrorist groups like they are decent people and they take full advantage of it. What will have to happen before the good people of the world decide it's time to stamp out this evil one and for all.
No Condi! Don't do it!
Israel may indeed finally have to concede to some sort of arranged cease-fire, but before that happens it has to be made Very Clear that any further incursions by Hezbollah or any other group, organization, whatever, from Lebanon will result in a much "sterner" response than this one has been...
Other nations in the area must also recognize that the same applies to them..
Hezbollah has co-opted the Lebanese government and military powers, and therefore Lebanon is responsible..
Lebanon did nothing to stop Hezbollah and has for the most part supported it's policies and actions..
As such, the entire nation and it's people are just as responsible as Hezbollah..
Further violations should be met with a response that starts at Damascus and proceeds south..
You're right. Ahmadienjad, Assad, Hamas, Hezbolla, al-Qaeda and the MULLAHS all need to be assassinated. They don't give a damn about dead children. They call them martyrs and use their against the Israelis.
The more dead kids there are, the more islam love it because it makes the jews look bad. They planned it this way. They need to be taken out. Now.
Israeli PM neds to go on TV now and tell Lebanon to stop firing rockets and release the soldiers and than there will be a cease fire.
STFU Rice! Bush get out of Israel's way.
Bush is about Israel's only powerful friend. Rice isn't stopping Israel, just open your blinded eyes and take a real look.
Please, read this, then come back and tell me that Stephen Harper of Canada knows this but poor dumb George W and Condi DON'T know it.
Things aren't always, in fact they seldom are, what they might appear on the surface.
TORONTO SUN EDITORIAL: What peace is there to keep?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1674552/posts
Too late!
She already did it!
We must not forget that her "mentor" was Madeleine Albright's father.
Our government is anxious to repeat our 1967 error: STOP ISRAEL BEFORE THEY FINALLY WIN THE PEACE!
There will be no peace because islam is a violent religion that sees all other religions as unacceptable inhibants on this earth. Islam is an exterminator and when they get the bomb, they will kill their own babies with it along with all the rest of us without blinking an eye.
I can only see one way to solve the problem.
Dang. Gone wobbly.
CONVENTION IV
Part II. General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War.
Art. 28. The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations.
http://www.genevaconventions.org/
are you sure?
We never know where these sound bites were taken but are added in when convenient for the drive bye-media!
I wonder if those who were hit were the families of Hizbollah, that were sacrifice by the Hizbollah for fodders of the Hizbollah to get world support?
You can never tell with these Zombies!
She did nothing.
Yeah, dead children will do that to you.
These people love dead children. Teen suicide bombings. Dead Israeli children. Dead children in houses where the adults were shooting rockets from thereby bringing retaliation.
I'm glad its a recent phenomenon. Never was much good at speaking German.
Wrong. It's nothing but empty public dismay. Not meant to violate the President's clearly stated policy. Or did you miss that...
You are spot on with that observation.
Ceasefire?
Hizbulla must be running low on ammo and needs resupplied.
===
Let Israel FINISH the damn job, Dr. Rice!!!!
As long as he rockets are landing in Irsael I would keep bombing.
??? Sorry, I don't see the words "empty public dismay" anywhere. I see the Sec. of State of the U.S. calling for a ceasefire. If that is in contradciton to the Prez's stated policy, then she should be fired.
NO! Israel needs to FINISH to job NOW. If they don't the rest of the world and Israel will look weak and LOOK OUT!! These heathens will do anything to destroy the rest of us!!
Give peace a chance is BS!
Israel can do whatever it wants. Maybe, it doesn't want to finish the job. FYI: Dr. Rice implements our foreign policy. The WH formulates it and decides what action we will take. It isn't up to Dr. Rice to decide whether it is our policy to "let Israel FINISH the job" or not.
Sorry, but you have the wrong playbook.
US policy DOES call the shots.
Why!!?
If the U.S. is committed to the "War on Terror" and since Hizbollah remains a terrorist guerrilla organization, and since they keep attacking Israel, there is absolutely NO sane reason that Israel should stop until every last Hizbollah member is dead. I was pleased to see that the U.S. finally gave Israel the green light to do what Israel should have done years ago and thought that the U.S. had finally adopted a somewhat sane foreign policy as it relates to Israel and Israel's enemies, but apparently such sanity was not bound to last.
If find it highly hypocritical that this administration talks a good game about the War on Terror but lacks the will necessary to actually see it through. No small part of this is the undermining sedition of the Democrat Party and their minions in Congress but that can be partially blamed on the refusal of the Republican Party to bring out the long knives and go for their jugulars. Open treason is being committed in our streets (see Code Pink) and even in the halls of Congress. Yet not a single person has been charged with the crime.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan isn't going quite as well as expected, Iraq much worse, and we just had a Muslim terrorist shoot a bunch of Americans in Seattle and our borders are still wide open just begging for terrorists to cross and attack us. Not to mention the other attacks in America and elsewhere and those that were attempted but, thankfully, were stopped.
Going into this, after 9/11, we new that anything other than total commitment to the War on Terror and the destruction of all Islamic terrorists and their sponsoring nations would only make things worse for us. Well, guess what...that commitment appears to be incomplete and the results are not going to be satisfactory. Pardon me if, hearing all the talk from President Bush after 9/11, I expected to see a mobilization and national effort on par with World War II. Less Americans died in the Pearl Harbor attack than 9/11 and the WTC was a civilian target in a major American city - not to mention that the attack on the Pentagon was an unparalleled provocation. Americans should have expected nothing less than a national effort comparable to WWII. Instead, we're seeing an effort that is, at least relative to troop deployment levels, roughly equivalent to the Vietnam conflict. Need I remind anyone that we lost that one? But a loss in Vietnam lead mostly to the deaths of many Vietnamese. The loss of this War on Terror will lead to the deaths of many Americans and potentially the total destruction of our nation and modern civilization.
Do I desire total war? In fact, no. But total war is upon us. We didn't have a choice. The entire Islamic world has declared war on us and on our allies. Islam desires world domination as much or more than Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany and they are every bit as, if not more, barbaric than either of those countries ever were. Total war is upon us but our response and our effort is incongruous to that fact and the threat of total destruction that we face.
Nothing less than the survival of our free nation and, in fact, freedom throughout the entire world is at stake here. We need to act like it. Instead of cautioning Israel or pressuring them to ease their defensive attacks against the terror threats that surround them we should be allying with Israel to eliminate the Islamic threat in the entire region. The U.S. and Israel possess the military might and production capabilities to accomplish this but the U.S. seemingly lacks the will to see it through. At best, and I'm trying to be optimistic here, we'll fight to a stalemate. That is unacceptable. That is not what Americans were promised after 9/11. Worse, it sentences our children and grandchildren to future terror attacks and forces them to pay the bills that we won't pay now. We owe it to them and to those who have sacrificed their lives in this conflict so far to get the job done and eliminate the Islamic threat now and forever. It is a mistake to pressure Israel to ease up at all let alone attempt to negotiate a ceasefire with terrorists.
The terrprists are banking on a belief that the west lacks the backbone to coninue pressurng them.
Rice and the Administraion - IF THEY REALLY MEAN THIS - are modern day Chmaberlains.
The war should only end when every last Hezebollah fanatic is dead, REGARDLESS OF CONSEQUENCES.
If not, SYRIA AND IRAN win this.
What is going on LEbanon is, like the World Trade Center, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., another battle in a major war against civlization by Islam.
Sorry, but Condi - please shut yer yap.
Diplomacy is what got us into this mess. More diplomacy means more mess.
I wish that were really the case. More often than not, we follow Israeli policy, which then becomes US policy.
Obfuscation, misdirection, and diplomatic filler. You don't discuss your war campaign strategy or those of your allies with reporters. just give them something to type up and get on the wire. Meanwhile, hezzi hideouts are being reduced to powdered concrete and twisted rebar.
I'm watching Fox now and they haven't mentioned this once. I'm sorry about the kids but civilian adults and children die in every war.
It's time to blast Syria to disrupt supply lines.
This is Rooters, folks. I'd consider the source.
Truer words were never spoken and one of the reasons there is no "peace" in the ME; like Styen said last week we're always sending in the "suits" to solve the problem of a group of people that want to see Israel destroyed, period.
It seems that after were WWII we forgot what winning a war entailed; keeping more of the other SOB's than he killed of you (with apologies to G. Patton) until they were so crushed or dead that it was over.
"The Israeli PM was sold on an air campaign by his Air Force and that doesn't defeat guerillas."
How 'bout if they use bunker busters?
Sheesh, that should be "killing more of the other SOB's" instead of "keeping".
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