Goku72 wrote:

if it weren't for Clinton decomissioning much of our armed forces then Bush wouldn't have had even to spend nerely as much money to restore it.

Dick Cheney disagrees with you here. As he said during the campaign, a President is stuck with the military the last President left him.

Given that, Clinton's military has done a fine job for Bush.

(And did a fine job for Clinton in Bosnia and such.)

Spuzzum wrote:
The lines between them are pretty fine, however... especially when you remember how Nazi planes used to fly over Allied lines -- entirely ignoring the troops -- and bomb the cities themselves.

In school, little is said about the allied forces doing the same. For most of the second world war, we attempted to do the honourable thing, but near the end, cities like Dresden were carpet bombed. (WWII bombing techniques were not the precision strikes that we have now.)

Granted, the actual targets were factories, but they were operated by people just like you and I. As ball bearings were essential to the war effort, these were targets of priority.

In anycase, I think such tactics were unavoidable, and probably shortened that war as well.

Leftley wrote:

What Israel offers is not 99% of what the Palestineans want; it is, at best, 99% of what the Palestineans have resigned themselves to ask for since they know that their bargaining position is not nearly powerful enough to have any hope of getting anything resembling what they want (most of which is merely what the Israelis want--to have a substantial independent nation in the region in which they form a dominant majority, and can rule themselves with a reasonable sense of security from their foes). More importantly, I do not believe it's what 99% of what the Palestineans as a people deserve, although it suffices for the Palestinean authorities given the tactics they support; I do certainly agree that the Palestineans are in serious need of some new authorities.

I thought Dennis Miller's comments on this topic were an interesting perspective:


A brief overview of the situation is always valuable, so as a service to all who still don't get it, I now offer you the story of the Middle East in just a few paragraphs, which is all you really need.

Here we go:

The Palestinians want their own country.

There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians.

It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like "Wiccan," "Palestinian" sounds ancient but is really a modern Invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no "Palestinians" then, and the West Bank Was owned by Jordan, and there were no "Palestinians" then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the Palestinians," weeping for Their deep bond with their lost "land" and "nation."

So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word "Palestinian" any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our Deaths until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: "Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death."

I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: "Adjacent Jew-Haters." Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't.

They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, Especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region Want: Israel.

They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where The real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel.

Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel -- or "The Zionist Entity" as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.

It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about. The great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.

Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five Million Jews. Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.

Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.

My friend Kevin Rooney made a gorgeous point the other day: Just reverse the Numbers. Imagine five hundred million Jews and five million Arabs. I was stunned at the simple brilliance of it.

Can anyone picture the Jews strapping belts of razor blades and dynamite to themselves? Of course not. Or marshaling every fiber and force at their disposal for generations to drive a tiny Arab state into the sea? Nonsense. Or dancing for joy at the murder of innocents? Impossible. Or spreading and believing horrible lies about the Arabs baking their bread with the blood of children? Disgusting. No, as you know, left to themselves in a world of peace, the worst Jews would ever do to people is debate them to death.

Mr. Bush, God bless him, is walking a tightrope. I understand that with vital operations in Iraq and others, it's in our interest, as Americans, to try to stabilize our Arab allies as much as possible, and, after all, that can't be much harder than stabilizing a roomful of supermodels who've just had their drugs taken away.

However, in any big-picture strategy, there's always a danger of losing moral weight.

We've already lost some. After September 11 our president told us and the world he was going to root out all terrorists and the countries that supported them. Beautiful. Then the Israelis, after months and months of having the equivalent of an Oklahoma City every week (and then every day) start to do the same thing we did, and we tell them to show restraint.

If America were being attacked with an Oklahoma City every day, we would all very shortly be screaming for the administration to just be done with it and kill everything south of the Mediterranean and East of the Jordan.

Maz wrote:

I'm not actually sure who Dennis Miller is, but he sure puts a good argument through. It made me re-realise just how much I hate racists.

He's a comedian who got well known for "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live over a decade ago (I may be scared if I look up just how long ago), then got his own short-lived show, then ended up on HBO or something.

He started out more liberal/libertarian, but seems to have gotten more conservative over time.

When you think about it, even though they killed normal people working in those factories, it was within reason. Bombing civilians who don't work directly for their government besides paying taxes is one thing, bombing civilians indirectly who are working in a factory which is aiding the enemy's military strength is another.