"Talking about a new strategy is useless until we get a new team ‚Äî in the Pentagon, in the Administration. These guys have screwed up everything. They haven’t got the credibility to implement anything," – retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, in Joe Klein’s grim column on Iraq.
My take on the Iraq meltdown in yesterday’s Sunday Times of London can be read here.
So they deliberately fire rockets from civilian areas in order to provoke Israeli counter-strikes whose civilian deaths can then be deployed through the mass media to intensify the psychological warfare on Israel. That’s a war-crime. But why should be expect any less?
(Photo: Naser Nasser/AP.)
Stan and Kenny Visit Mel. It’s uncanny how Trey Parker and Matt Stone are right about everything.
"I do not understand the accusations of anti-Semitism, for except for Pilate and his soldiers, all of the players are Jewish, the most noble, the flawed, and the corrupt. I do understand the long history of Christian anti-Semitism, and how it perverted the Gospels to its cause, but this film is not part of that shameful legacy. Should anyone try and pervert the movie to that end, there will be millions of Christians condemning such a kidnapping … ‘If the world hates you, you know it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.’ John 15:18-19. These words of Jesus are a guarantee that the maker of The Passion of the Christ is in for a rough go of it, as well as its cast and crew. If anyone knows Mel Gibson, please pass along my thanks," – Hugh Hewitt, one of anti-Semite Mel Gibson’s carefully selected Christianist previewers of "The Passion of the Christ."
If you want to understand what the Bush administration has done to conservatism, listen to the well-meant and sincere agenda of Mike Gerson, former liberal Democrat.
A reader writes:
Just making sure I’ve got this straight:
Involvement in community theater is enough to not just disqualify, but actually remove someone from military service, while a "moral waiver" allows a high-school dropout with a criminal record to enlist in the millitary days after his last arrest.
Look: they may be criminals, but they’re not fags. Is there anything else about the military’s attitude we don’t understand?
Greg Djerejian comments.
Important context from the Jerusalem Post:
Some 150 rockets were fired from the Lebanese village of Qana over the past 20 days, Air Force Chief of Staff Brig.-Gen. Amir Eshel said on Sunday evening.
Speaking to reporters, Eshel added that Hizbullah rocket launchers were hidden in civilian buildings in the village. He proceeded to show video footage of rocket launchers being driven into the village following launches.
My take in the Sunday Times of London.
"These are all civilians. There’s no base here. This isn’t a military area. There’s nothing around here. People thought they were safe in the shelter," – Bassam Muqad of the Red Cross, about the immense tragedy in Qana.
I do not know the details of this awful event. If it was a mistake, it will damage Israel’s standing even more in the Arab world and foment more fanaticism against the Jewish state. If not a mistake, and the Israelis were being cavalier about innocent human life, including children, it is a horrifying war-crime. We’ll see.
The Dish 