Israel has a "right to defend itself" but...

FB, You are taking a myopic view of this. Hezbollah is probably the fourth most powerful military in the middle east. They are rolling in hundreds of millions of dollars of cash. Where do you think that money came from? Where do you think they have gotten their more sophisticated weapons from? Iran and Syria *are* a problem. Pretending the problem isn't there won't make it go away. After 9/11, Colin Powell went to Damascus, sat down with Assad and said, "You're either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. The choice from here on is your's." You can sum Syrian behavior since then with an SportsJournalists.com word: Assbaggery. Iran's hostility toward Israel and the West really needs no explanation. I saw yesterday that Ahmadinejad once again denied that millions died in the Holocaust, and said that the West is intent on taking over the middle east.

These are giant unreasonable, assbags sitting on top of a lot of weaponry. They are going to have to be dealt with at some point. This is kind of a shitty way to look at it, but the U.S. should actually be glad that the Israelis are dealing with it instead of us. The carnage in Lebanon is terrible. But the "gutting the Bronx to take care of the Gambinos" analogy is just wrong. Israel is in a fight for its life. They need to take out airports and roads and kill the infrastructure, or else you can be sure that tons of more weapons targeted for Israel will be making their way to Lebanon from Iran via Syria. This is a wee bit bigger than the Gambinos.

I come back to one thing I already posted. Hezbollah has been legitimized and embraced in Lebanon. It is somewhat understandable--they take all that Iranian oil money they're fed and they provide social services and they win hearts and minds. But I am an objectivist. And there is an objective right and wrong. If Osama Bin Laden moved into my neighborhood--even if he was handing out $20 bills--I'd be mortified if there was a citywide celebration. That is essentially how Hezbollah has been greeted in Lebanon and now the country is paying for it. It's sickening to watch, but with something this untenable, I really can't blame Israel for doing what they have to do.

 

FB, First the common ground. Yes, Iraq is a giant clusterfuck. And yes, there are all those American troops who are going have targets on their backs if the Iran powder keg blows. But this is inevitable. Going Neville Chamberlain on the problem isn't going to prevent it. It will make it worse by emboldening the Iranians.

Now for one point you do not do justice. Israel's occupation of Lebanon, by virtue of how long they stayed, did a great deal of harm. And yes, it is why Hezbollah formed. But as much of a hawk as Sharon was, you can't ignore the events that led up to the invasion. The PLO--Abu Nidal--tried to assassinate Israel's ambassador to Great Britain. Israel responded by bombing PLO bases in Lebanon. A justified response. The PLO then crossed a major line--they began lobbing rockets at Israeli civilian populations in Northern Israel. So Sharon said "fuck it," and decided to create a buffer zone to protect his country. Can you blame the Israeli's for this?? The irony is that the Palestinians actually had their state--they were an autonomous country within a country in Southern Lebanon. If it had really been about having a home and being autonomous--and not about the destruction of Israel--they could have lived peacefully for eternity. The Israelis were not looking to start shit with them. They just wanted to be left alone.

The Israelis fucked it up by getting mired in trying to keep Syria from taking over the Lebanese government (but can you blame them really?) and stayed way too long. Hezbollah was emboldened because they were the only ones ever successful in dealing Israel a blow. They did it with guerrilla tactics. With suicide bombers. But they were able to do what Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Syria could never do and make the Israeli's retreat. They now have mythical status. They also have NO status without Iran feeding them hundreds of millions of dollars. You are right that they are not going away. But the Israelis have to deal with them. They can't just sit still and allow Iran to fuck with them through this powerful army-by-proxy it has created.

Forget about Iraq. Look at the Middle East. You have Syria and Iran--being run by irrational fuckwads, who quite frankly ARE the "crazies." That's the bottom line here. Do you have any doubt that Iran sparked this situation to deflect the attention it was getting from the UN for its nuclear ambitions? And do you have any doubt that the aggression--whether it was against Israel or the U.S--was not going to ramp up at some point? You can call any attempt at dealing with it, "more cowboying up," but Israel didn't have much luxury in this situation. When a kid keeps starting shit with you on the playground, eventually you have to punch him in the jaw. Or else he keeps at it and it gets worse. If Israel rolls over, Hezbollah gains even greater mythical status. And if they roll over, they actually risk rockets raining down on homes all over the Northern part of their country. They are just doing what anyone would do to protect itself.

This is not about Iraq. Harping on Iraq and saying, "our troops there make it impossible to deal with Iran," is just a way of making a backward argument that points out the negative to reinforce an opinion you'd have had regardless of Iraq. If Iran is dangerous and poses a threat--and you really need to address this--then something eventually was going to have to be done about them, even if we risk a world of more hurt in Iraq. Sometimes you have no choice but to fight. I don't think we're there yet, but Israel surely was. As I said before, if you really feel the way you do, perhaps you should thank your lucky stars that Israel is dealing with it instead of us. Because it is a real problem and it wasn't going to go away. The idea that Israel is being manipulated as part of Bush's grand scheme is ridiculous. I don't argue that Bush has a grand scheme, but Israel didn't start this. The Israeli's weren't looking to go to war! Keep your eye on the ball. Who started this? What does the timing of it say?

You seem to think that the Arab world is not composed of adults capable of knowing right from wrong and making moral decisions. I think that the people who embraced Hezbollah and all but handed their country over to them are adults, just as I am. They can think, just as I can. It's not enough to say "their culture is different than ours. You are just being an ugly American." Eventually, the large part of the unenlightened Arab world that is determined to not coexist with Israel and America is going to either have to go to war or change its thinking. "Go to war" looked like it was going to mean terrorist acts for the next several centuries (which, by the way, would not be an excuse to not try to deal with it). But with Iran's apparent strength, and its ability to create what is a professional army--Hezbollah is no longer a bunch of poor people with bombs strapped to their chests--it looks like the fight is going to be conventional as well as unconventional. And it is going to get ugly and may last a long time. But there is no middle ground or appeasement on this. Anyone who didn't see this coming eventually--today or 5 years from now--is a fool.