st4s03 wrote:
Who? What? Athenians and Spartans ?
Please, no more with the "cut and paste imperialisism", "bumper
sticker" "what he said" mentality . Think for yourself and leave us
alone or tell us about your last soaring adventure.


Brad wrote:
Let's see if Sean Hannity would be interested in a ride. Maybe we could
talk him into taking a sky dive too..........fill his chute with
hanging chads and take bets on if his divinity will allow him to touch
down un-scaythed.

Brad

August 13, 2006
No Resolution At All
Why the U.N. can't solve the problem of Hezbollah.
by Bruce Thornton

The U.N. resolution that supposedly will solve the problem of Hezbollah
is a perfect example of the delusions inhibiting the West in its fight
against jihadist terror. According to the resolution, the current
impotent U.N. force - the same one that blithely sat by for years as
Hezbollah prepared its attack on Israel - will be beefed up and given
permission actually to stop Hezbollah with force. But don't worry:
the U.N. will be supported by the fearsome Lebanese army, which up to
now has shown no ability or inclination to prevent an armed gang from
high jacking Lebanon 's foreign policy and unilaterally plunging the
country into ruin.

Delusional is too weak a word to describe this resolution. Does anyone
really believe that U.N. troops, no matter where the soldiers come
from, are going to use force against Hezbollah? I won't even bother
asking that question about the Lebanese army because the answer is too
obvious, given the high level of support for Hezbollah among the Shia
rank and file. But don't bet on troops from France or any European
country killing jihadists who are admired and supported by European
Muslims. The French couldn't even stand up to punk teenagers
protesting a perfectly reasonable law intended to loosen up a sclerotic
economy. I can't see the same government standing up to Muslim
rioters angry over the government's participation in a
Zionist-Crusader plot to kill the warriors of Allah.

Once again the diplomatic dance of the seven veils is performed by the
West to create the illusion of consummating a solution to the crisis
when the whole time no one has enough testosterone actually to do so. I
know why the Europeans engage in this charade: they've convinced
themselves that as long as the jihadists have Israel and the U.S. to
hate, they'll leave Europe in peace. Sound familiar? Just give Hitler
the Sudetenland and he'll be satisfied and we'll have peace in our
time. Europe is so addled by prosperity and multicultural fantasies,
all subsidized by American military power, that until the ticking
jihadist bomb blows up in its face - and maybe not even then, if
Spain is any indication - it's not going to do anything that gets
in the way of afternoon adultery and café philosophizing about
unsophisticated cowboy Americans.

But why are we Americans going along with this farce? I'd like to
think there's some clever tactical ploy we don't know about, but
the answer seems to be that we still buy into all the lies endlessly
recycled by the self-loathing media and intellectuals. You know the
CNN/New York Times/Middle East Studies Association mantra: most Muslims
are moderates who just want to get along, but a failure to resolve the
Palestinian issue, the on-going war in Iraq, America's other
imperialist depredations, the lack of political freedom and economic
opportunity, and post-colonial hangovers have all rendered them
vulnerable to extremists who have high-jacked the faith and distorted
it to justify murder.

Of course very little evidence supports this fantasy, and mountains of
evidence refute it, but it still serves a purpose: camouflaging the
moral degeneracy of many in the West who, no longer believing in
anything other than pleasure and comfort, have no basis for calling
evil by its proper name. It's much easier to indulge the "all
cultures are equally wonderful" lie, or sadly invoke the "cycle of
violence" canard, or fall back on "moral equivalence" to avoid
making a judgment that might hurt the feelings of those exotic little
brown people so beloved by jaded Westerners.

And since we don't believe there is anything worth killing or dying
for, we turn this moral nihilism into a virtue by chanting that
"force solves nothing," and that talk, talk, talk will get at the
"root causes" and solve the problem. Except we've been talking
and talking and talking for fifty years - remember Oslo and Camp
David ? - and the jihadists and their millions of supporters still
want to destroy Israel and the West, and are perfectly happy to murder
innocents to do so. The net result is the current U.N. resolution that
treats a terrorist gang like a state actor whose agreement to the terms
of the resolution is required. Does no one else see the abject folly of
this behavior? But why should we be surprised, when for years we've
been treating terrorists (e.g. the PLO, now retooled as the Palestinian
Authority) like legitimate state functionaries?

And then we have the gall to proclaim, "Terrorism won't work."
Who are we kidding? It's been working for decades. How else explain
the speed with which the U.N. and the media have fastened on to this
conflict, while millions elsewhere ( Sudan , Rwanda , Congo , Tibet )
have suffered and died while the rest of the world basically yawned?
How else explain the obsession with the Palestinian Arabs and Israel
's legitimate attempts to ward off an enemy that wants to destroy it?
Anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism, imperial and colonial guilt are all
factors, but the pervasive threat of terrorist violence is the key
element in the West's selective concern with one small group of
aggressors while ignoring countless other victims of genuine tyranny
and oppression. And, of course, the jihadists take our fear as an
encouraging sign that we deserve to die unless we embrace a spiritually
superior Islam.

The U.N. resolution will not solve the problem of Hezbollah. It will
simply postpone the solution. Meanwhile Hezbollah will regroup and
rearm, Syria and Iran will continue to make mischief, and the same old
useful idiots in the West will peddle the same old excuses for Islamic
dysfunction and Western appeasement.

©2006 Bruce Thornton