The Scrap Movie Review- Live Free or Die Hard

Growing up in the scrap business we see the world a little different. Occasionally I will judge movies by how much scrap metal was generated in the story.

The 4th in the Bruce Willis Die Hard Collection is “Live Free or Die Hard”, a slam dunk 5 star plus (out of 5) on the Scrap Movie Review scale. Massive car wrecks, plane and helicopter wrecks, highway and bridge destruction (lots of embedded steel) and the ultimate total destruction of a huge power plant that alone must have been worth at least a 50,000 ton demolition. It was enough to make a scrappie shed a tear of joy.

From the actual script side they did not muddy the action with irrelevant love plots, international intrigue or political commentary; the destruction was not the result of humiliated Muslim fanatics, but just a pissed off high level ex- government employee... and a whole lot of burning, exploding, crashing, tearing action filled generation of first rate scrap metal.

The only other Scrap Movie Review 5 Star ratings I have recently bestowed were on Independence Day and War of the World, but both of these science fiction scrap fests involved aliens and substances (those 15 mile wide space ships) that probably were made of some alien material that would have been difficult to find an aftermarket for and would have generated just ridiculous disposal costs; a scrappie nightmare.

“Live Free or Die Hard”- a great action joyride and filled with good old normal metal scrap that would keep recyclers busy for years. Hooray!

HKO

Time to Fix Their Own Mess

June 25, 2007
from
More Middle East Madness
by Victor Davis HansonTribune Media Services

And after the multifarious failures of Yasser Arafat, the Assads in Syria, Muammar Gaddafi, Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saddam Hussein and other corrupt autocrats, many have, predictably, retreated to fundamentalist extremism. Almost daily, some fundamentalist claims that the killing of Westerners is justified — because of a cartoon, a Papal paragraph or, most recently, British knighthood awarded to novelist Salman Rushdie. The terrorism of Osama bin Laden, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Taliban is as much about nihilist rage as it is about blackmailing Western governments to grant concessions.

Meanwhile, millions of others simply flee the mess, immigrating to either Europe or the United States.These reactions to failure often lead to circumstances that can defy logic.The poor terrorists of Arafat's old party, Fatah, seem to shriek that they have been out-terrorized by Hamas, and desperately con more Western aid to make up for what has been squandered or stolen.Muslims flock to Europe to enjoy a level of freedom and opportunity long denied at home. But no sooner have many arrived than they castigate their adopted continent as decadent. The ungracious prefer intolerant sharia — denying to their own the very freedom of choice that was given to them by others.

Our response in America to this perennial Middle East temper tantrum?In the last 20 years, we've sent billions in aid to the Arab world. We've saved Muslims from Bosnia to Kuwait. We've removed dangerous thugs in Afghanistan and Iraq, fostering democracies in their place. We've opened our borders to immigrants from the Middle East. We've paid billions of dollars in inflated oil prices.

It's past time for Middle Easterners to fix their own self-inflicted mess. In the meantime, the U.S. and its allies should help as we can — but first protect ourselves from them as we must.
©2007 Tribune

for the complete article from Victor Davis Hanson http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson062507.html

The Israel Georgia Connection

I had the good fortune to have lunch with a few Maconites and the Israeli Consul General for the Southeast United States , Reda Mansour. I learned more information about the situation in the middle east from him in 40 minutes than I could learn from the press and media in six months. There is so much that is not covered that sheds so much illumination on this region that you begin to doubt the value of modern journalism.

But Reda was there to build business relations and to discuss the Israeli companies (33 of them) building plants and offices in the Atlanta area and the new technologies they are producing in the high and low tech sectors. The Israelis have modernized textile technology. Could this help revive this nearly dead southern industry? The Israelis have also made terrific advances in agricultural and husbandry technology.

Reda has a Masters from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a PhD from Haifa University. He speaks five languages. Read more about him at http://www.memjfed.org/page.html?ArticleID=112024

Tips and thanks to Chip Cherry, head of our local Chamber and Max Wood for bringing Reda to Macon and including me for lunch.

Intellectually Sicko

I have found Michael Moore's films and viewpoints intellectually dishonest, intentionally misleading, factully incorrect, and at best shallow and woefully biased.

From Front Page Magazine online

Sick-Out
By Jacob Laksin

FrontPageMagazine.com June 26, 2007

Rather than confront the complexities of the healthcare debate, the film settles on a culprit -- it’s the insurance companies’ fault! -- and presents a simplistic, mendacious and deeply disingenuous paean to government-run healthcare.

Emotional exploitation is Moore’s specialty. In Sicko the effect is achieved by presenting human-interest stories devoid of any context or mitigating factual evidence. Sympathy, not the hard work of reasoning through the merits of what a government-run system would entail, is required of the viewer.

for the rest of the story http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=28882

From HKO

for the last two weeks the news page on Google has included coverage of Moore's film every single day. How such ignorant tripe is considered newsworthy amazes me. Is it asking too much of America to disengage their left/ right mental blindness and actually think?

A Fracture in the Wall Between Church and State

Jun 25 2007 10:13AM Associated Press
Justices bar ordinary taxpayers from suing over White House faith-based programSupreme Court (AP) The Supreme Court has ruled that ordinary taxpayers can't challenge a White House initiative that helps religious charities get a share of federal money.The 5-to-4 decision blocks a lawsuit by a group of atheists and agnostics against eight Bush administration officials, including the head of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.

HKO Comment

This is a very steep slippery slope. The proponents are very short sighted as they will realize when the Nation of Islam or other radical sects start lining up to get their share of your taxes.

The reason some of the faith based programs are so successful is because they are independent of the government. Beware of any religion that does not want to be independent of the government.

Increasing the Chance of War

From Today's OpinionJournal

Monday, June 25, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Winds of War

Iran is making a mistake that may lead the Middle East into a broader conflict.

BY JOSHUA MURAVCHIK

A large portion of modern wars erupted because aggressive tyrannies believed that their democratic opponents were soft and weak. Often democracies have fed such beliefs by their own flaccid behavior. Hitler's contempt for America, stoked by the policy of appeasement, is a familiar story. But there are many others. North Korea invaded South Korea after Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared that Korea lay beyond our "defense perimeter." Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait after our ambassador assured him that America does not intervene in quarrels among Arabs. Imperial Germany launched World War I, encouraged by Great Britain's open reluctance to get involved. Nasser brought on the 1967 Six Day War, thinking that he could extort some concessions from Israel by rattling his sword.

With the Bush administration's policies having failed to pacify Iraq, it is natural that the public has lost patience and that the opposition party is hurling brickbats. But the demands of congressional Democrats that we throw in the towel in Iraq, their attempts to constrain the president's freedom to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program, the proposal of the Baker-Hamilton commission that we appeal to Iran to help extricate us from Iraq--all of these may be read by the radicals as signs of our imminent collapse. In the name of peace, they are hastening the advent of the next war.

for the rest of the story: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110010256

Three Soldiers, Six Days, and Forty Years

Few pictures have captured the emotions of the Israelis after the Six day War like the picture on the left. The soldiers were reunited at the same site 40 years later.

For details about the soldiers and the photographer and their experiences at that defining battle: http://www.sixdaywar.co.uk/news_articles-three-soldiers.htm

How to Recognize Anti Semitism

for a better copy of this and other ADL ads on the insane British Boycott go to: http://www.adl.org/boycott/boycott_ads.asp#web

Tips to Marty Carter for the ad.

What You Tolerate You Teach

Fighting Fanatics

from the New York Post
WHY HAMAS WON
UGLY IMPLICATIONS FOR IRAQ

by Ralph Peters

Our problem is that, of those who rise in government, few have witnessed the power of revelation or caught a life-changing glimpse of the divine. They simply can't imagine that others might be willing to die for all that mumbo-jumbo. Our convenience-store approach to faith leaves us numb to the passion of our enemies.

The true believer always beats the feckless attendee. The best you can hope for is that the extremist will eventually defeat himself.

And that does leave us some hope: Fanatics inevitably over-reach, as al Qaeda's Islamo-fascists have done in Iraq, alienating those who once saw them as allies. But the road to self-destruction can be a long one: The people of Iran want change, but the fanatics have the guns. And sorry, folks: Fanatics with guns beat liberals with ideas.

for the rest of Ralph Peters' insight http://www.nypost.com/seven/06192007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/why_hamas_won_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

A Potential Boom for Satellite Radio?

The right wing talk radio celebrities are paranoid that the rising Democrats in power or a President Hillary would invoke some form of the 'Fairness Doctrine' in an effort to restrict the rhetoric on the AM airways. Such a doctrine is terrible idea and intentionally oppressive to free speech. It may be a good idea to invoke at NPR at least since it is government funded.

If the 'fairness doctrine' is invoked in the world of AM Radio I predict it will be a huge marketing boom for satellite radio. All those ditto heads and other fans of AM talk radio will likely find their favorite shows moving to a slightly different media even if they have to pay for it.

Talk radio is market driven. Right or wrong, good or bad, its enemies will find that market tough to control. Markets have a way of asserting themselves no matter what you do.

The Victims of our Puppets

From Der Spiegel Online

June 21, 2007

HAMAS OPENS DOORS OF NOTORIOUS PRISON
A Visit to Fatah's Torture Chamber
By Ulrike Putz in the Gaza Strip

The headquarters of the Fatah-controlled security force in Gaza have been open to the public since last Thursday. Every day is open house now.

For years the complex was a symbol of the horror disseminated by the security forces that reported directly to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. This is where Hamas men were taken after Fatah had arrested them. Some of those lucky enough to be eventually released reported that they had been tortured. Others disappeared forever.

for the rest of the story: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,489898,00.html

from HKO

If you are keeping score Fatah is the moderate one we (the US and Israel) are now supporting. How long will we continue to prop up amoral regimes because they are slightly less amoral that the other fascists? The victims of our puppets become tomorrow's anti American terrorists.

Our demands on Fatah and Hamas must be clear and strong. Recognition of Israel, and renounce and ELIMINATE terrorism from your territories.

The only difference between Fatah and Hamas is Hamas wants Israel destroyed now; Fatah is willing to wait a few years to accomplish the same end goal.

Defending Ahmadinejad

The House approved a resolution for the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel.

The Genocide Convention of 1948 was passed by the UN in response to the holocaust.

The vote was 411-2 in favor of the resolution.

The two votes against this resolution were Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, the fringes from both parties.

The Past that Never Was

From
Reactionary Amnesia
The good ole’ days in the Middle East.
By Victor Davis Hanson

in National Review Online

Our present policy, however poorly managed in postbellum Iraq, arose as a reaction both to the do-nothingism of past administrations, which, by general consensus, had emboldened al Qaeda to up its ante on 9/11, and the decades of amoral realism that propped up thugs and dictators who ruined their societies but blamed the ensuing mess on Americans and Jews.

So here are questions to ponder as reactionaries yearn for a pre-Bush past. Imagine: One of the various foiled terrorist plots — a Fort Dix slaughter, a JFK airport attack, or the suicide teams ABC news claims are headed our way from Afghanistan — succeed after 2008. Thousands of Americans die.

What does President Clinton or Obama do? Draft a tough federal indictment? Ask for a U.N. resolution condemning such violence? Count on a unified response with NATO, battle-seasoned after its heroic offensives in Afghanistan? Hope for help from the EU rapid-response force? Bomb the source where the jihadists trained (Gaza?, Pakistan? Syria? Iran?) — but only from 30,000 feet, and, as in 1998, without U.N. or congressional approval? Work with the Saudis and Egyptians and Mr. Abbas to curb such atypical zealots? Have John Edwards globe-trot the globe to use his courtroom flair to win over allies?

Or imagine that Iran announces that it is going to set off a bomb in its desert. Do we resurrect the EU3? Ask Hans Blix to return as nuclear inspector with Mr. El-Baradei and others to assure us the test was genuine? Send Jimmy Carter to Teheran (or better, find an aged Ramsey Clark to return as a special envoy as in 1979?). Or maybe beseech the new U.N. head, Mr. Ki-Moon who just enlightened us that global warming (read the U.S.) — not Islamic Jihadism and age-old sub-Saharan thuggery — caused Darfur?

It would be nice to go back to our pre-9/11 past, just as in a bloody 1944 the calm of 1937 looked to many of the starry-eyed far preferable, just as in the midst of the nuclear stand-off of 1962 we lamented the loss of the old “friendly” Russia and China of 1945.

But while our ancestors engaged in the same despair, the same blame-gaming that we so enjoy, they at least were not stupid enough to lose those far more deadly and dangerous wars. We can win like they did as well, but only if we face the future with confidence, and not pine for the return of a mythical past that never was.

for the complete Article
http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NzAyMGQ2ODcxMTM2MTcxNzE4Njg3Y2E4OTcxYzZhZDg=

Hindsight Does Not Hide Bias- a review of 'Second Chance' by Zbigniew Brzezinski

Just read Second Chance by Zbigniew Brzezenski, Carter's National Security Advisor

He grades the last three Presidents- Bush 1 gets a 'B', Clinton a 'C' and not surprisingly W gets an 'F'.

The author has the brilliance of hindsight, but the difficulty of making these decisions under the real time pressures of the job and the complicated uncertainty makes such retro analysis cheap and easy. While he criticizes Bush 2 for fear mongering, the national paranoia after 911 was very real. Combined with the hubris of success in Kuwait in the first Gulf War and in Afghanistan it is not difficult to understand our willingness to take unilateral action at that time.

Brzezinski asks for a different approach and repeats “the strength of a great power is diminished if it ceases to serve an idea”. Clearly Bush 2 took a different approach and treated terrorism as an act of war rather than a crime. He clearly had an idea to stop the rise of terrorism by changing regimes and instilling a democratic form of government hoping it would change the culture that spawns terrorism. For a while it even seemed as if it was working.

Bush 2, unlike his predecessors had to address a major attack on our soil. While the loss of life may have been small compared to other conflicts, the emotional impact was far greater. Bush’s deliberate response that this war would not be fought here took the battle to the source. Brzezinski does not really differentiate the difference in climate the third president faced. In fact the failings of Carter, the retreats of Reagan, and the missed opportunities of Bush 1 and Clinton fell at Bush 2’s doorstep in a way that precluded him from not acting strongly.

Zbibniew was Carter’s National Security Advisor and shares his former boss’ proclivity to blame Israel disproportionately for the conflict. He finds it too easy to excuse Arafat’s intransigence even for his refusal of the Clinton/ Barak offer which many considered generous to a point of suicide. Like Carter he seems to blame all of the violent escalation in the Middle East on American failures to exploit opportunities and on Israel’s and America’s lack of willingness or ability to negotiate smarter.

Brzezinski makes some valid points, especially about the Americans’ general ignorance on the world outside our borders, but given the horrible legacy of Carter’s foreign policy (he praised the Ayatollah as a man of God and a man of peace), criticism from his National Security Advisor rings hollow.

Hate Speech from the Left

from Media Watch http://www.mediaresearch.org/welcome.asp

"If there is retributive justice," Senator Jesse Helms " will get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it." Nina Totenberg from NPR, Broadcaster of the Year in 1998

"I hear about Tony Snow (has cancer) and say to myself, well, stand up every day, lie to the American people at the behest of your dictator-esque boss and ,well, how could cancer NOT grow in you." Huffington Post blogger Charles Karel Bouley

"Vote Republican and you vote to enable George Bush to keep ruling as emporer- a retarded child emporer, but an emporer." HBO's Real Time host Bill Maher

About Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas: "I hope his wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter and he dies like many black men do, of heart disease" Syndicated columnist Julianne Malveaux


from HKO

Why is the phrase "mean spirited" only associated with the right when the left spews such venom. The above is just a small sampling. Endless example are available at Media Reserach Center. ( See recommended sites). The same pundits who spout such hateful speech then berate the degeneration and tone of our political discourse.

Useful Idiots

June 14, 2007
Murder in Gaza
Why Israel and not Fatah is demonized.
by Bruce ThorntonPrivate Papers

Posted at http://www.victorhansen.com/ see recommended sites.

In Gaza the fighting between Fatah and Hamas has escalated to the point of all-out civil war, replete with dead women and children, kneecapping, and handcuffed prisoners thrown from roofs. Meanwhile in Lebanon, the Lebanese army continues to shell a Palestinian refugee camp, with who knows how many civilian deaths. Arab is killing Arab, Muslim is killing Muslim, and the world basically is shrugging its shoulders.

How different from the intense media attention and the U.N.’s hysteria over Israel’s attempt to root out terrorists in Lebanon last summer. This obscene double standard that strains out the gnat of Israeli self-defense while swallowing numerous camels of Muslim-on-Muslim violence cries out for explanation.

Larger cultural dysfunctions are at work, not least being the corrupt Western media. The major print and television media are filled for the most part with self-styled champions of “social justice,” crusaders not for the truth but for “progressive” ideologies in turn based on incoherent ideals and sheer ignorance of history. Their minds shaped by sentimental Third-Worldism, Marxist demonizations of “colonialism” and “imperialism,” and arrogance about their own moral superiority, many Western reporters are easily turned into the chumps and shills of corrupt Arab regimes and Muslim jihadists. The Palestinian Arabs in particular have brilliantly exploited the useful idiots of the media....

...For the modern jihad against the West did not start on 9/11, or even in 1979 with the Iranian revolution. Its first major campaign took place in 1948 when the Arab states ignored a U.N. resolution and attacked a U.N. member state. As significant as this rejection of the Western-crafted international order was, the response of the West — leaving Israel to sink or swim — was even more important. By sitting on the sidelines while a Western democracy battled for its life, the West sent a message: that it would not intervene to protect a cultural brother and a legitimate state when attacked by autocracies and religious fanatics.

for the rest of this revealing opionion see: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/thornton061407.html

Kitty and Shecky- Dead or Alive?

Ever get into a discussion that asks if a celebrity is dead or alive?

God bless the Internet. There is a site that will get you the answer quickly.

http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/

Tips to my bride.

Kitty Carlisle just died on 4/17/07

but Shecky Greene is still going.

A Time to Reap

Watching the corrupt and the intolerant devour each other in Gaza, an American can not help but appreciate the importance of a system of law and order with the authority and the power to enforce the law. It is the critical glue that holds a civilized society together.

The Palestinians have tolerated every affront to civilization from their people as long as their viciousness was directed at their favorite common enemy, the Jews. They have been emboldened by symapthetic leftists around the world who have turned a blind eye to their hatred and violence.

Now this violence has turned on their own people; and given a chance it will turn on their Arab neighbors. The Arabs in the Middle East have used the Palestinians as pawns to accomplish through lawlessness and terrorism what their military could not accomplish on the battlefield.

They will now reap what they sowed.

Henry Oliner

a similar point was made in the Opinion Journal in an article appropriately called "Arafat's Children"

The deeper lesson here is that a society that has spent the last decade celebrating suicide bombing would inevitably become a victim of its own nihilistic impulses. This is not the result of Mr. Bush's call for democratic responsibility; it is the bitter fruit of the decades of dictatorship and terrorism as statecraft that Yasser Arafat instilled among Palestinians.

for the rest of the article http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110010219

For Tenths of a Celsius

from OpinionJournal's Political Diary 6/14/07

"As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism.... The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment.... The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature" -- Czech President Vaclav Klaus, writing in the Financial Times.

Gaza and Iraq

IN GAZA'S SHADOW
IRAQ & THE ARAB SUICIDE CULT
by Ralph Peters in the New York Post

June 14, 2007 -- WONDER what Iraq would look like if we left tomorrow?
Take a look at Gaza today. Then imagine a situation a thousand times worse.

We're stuck in Iraq, and it sucks. But were we to leave in haste, far more blood than oil would flow in the Persian Gulf. The disaster in Gaza's just a rehearsal for the Arab-suicide drama awaiting its opening night in Iraq.

For the rest of the Story: http://www.nypost.com/seven/06142007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/in_gazas_shadow_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm

from HKO
Israel pulling out of Gaza may prove to have some value. The theocratic butchers daily show the world how worthless they are as statesmen. Why the Muslim world is not shamed to change by their behaviour is not nearly as astounding to me as the support and sympathy these midevil animals get from the left, while Israel is demonized.

How else does one explain this phenomena except as a continuation of the longest hatred.

Maybe My Dog Knew Something I Didn't

You gotta love the healthy skepticism of Kyleray Katherman, a Middle School student in Oregon.

When students were banned from bringing bottled water to school (too easy to hide gin and vodka), this student proved that the toilet water was cleaner than the water from the drinking fountain.

I hope Kyleray gets an "A" for challenging the status quo.

Read the story on Foxnews at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1848365/posts

Hummers Are Not Free

A stellar student and an athlete is finally freed after 26 months in prison from a ten year sentence for getting a consensual hummer .

read the details

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=thompson_wright&id=2900878

This is why I abhor mandatory sentences. Judges should not create laws and lawmakers should not adjudicate cases they have never heard. We have a system for applying judgment to crimes, using "judges". Judgment in a case should be reserved for judges. Mandatory sentences undermine judges.

I hope our lawmakers learn from this fiasco. Mazel Tov to Genarlow Wilson and his attorney B.J. Bernstein. ( I think her first initials are a little ironic considering the case.)

HKO

Hitchens on Hillary

Just finished reading Christopher Hitchens' "No One Left to Lie To", his short (150 Pages) book about the Clintons.

What is a bit different from so many of the books written about the Clinton's is that Hitchens does not come from the right, but assails them more for their betrayal of the values of the left.

The party of feminist values supports a defiler and rapist of women. The party of support of the poor got 'the end of welfare as we know it'. The party of gay rights got 'don't ask, don't tell.'

But worst is the grotesque appetite for the abuse of power and casual disregard for the rule of law and any value of the truth.
About Hillary, Hitchens writes;

".. she is a tyrant and a bully when she can dare to be, and an engratiating populist when that will serve. ...She is entirely un-self-critical and quite devoid of reflective capacity; and has never found that any of her numerous misfortunes or embrassments are her own fault, because the fault invariably lies with others. ... she can in a close contest keep up with her husband for mendacity. Like him, she is not just a liar but a lie..."

from HKO
The democrats' deification of this couple indicates a rot in the core of their party.

tips to Douglas Ott for recommending the book

Hillary's War

Iraq will become Hillary’s war
By Dick Morris
June 06, 2007

from National Review Online

Hillary Clinton will not be able to pull out of Iraq.

Pay no attention to her politically motivated vote to “end” the war by cutting off funds or her support for a mandatory withdrawal schedule. Both votes were cast in the heat of a presidential race in which she cannot allow Edwards or Obama to flank her to the left.

The Democratic left does not realize that simply pulling out is not a viable political or military option and that no president, of either party, is going to pursue it. And particularly not a woman with hawkish inclinations during her first year on the job.

for the rest of the article: http://thehill.com/dick-morris/iraq-will-become-hillarys-war-2007-06-06.html

Dick Morris confirms my very first blog entry at RebelYid

Will the Democrats Pull Out from Iraq

http://rebelyid.blogspot.com/2007/04/will-democrats-pull-out-from-iraq.html

Forty Years and Six Days

There is a lot of analysis in the media on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War.

One of the best is from today's Opinion Journal

from
No Pyrrhic Victory
Most of the conventional wisdom about the Six Day War is wrong.

BY BRET STEPHENS
Tuesday, June 5, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Fog also surrounds memories of the immediate aftermath of the war. To read some recent accounts, a more sagacious Israel could have followed up its historic victory with peace overtures that would have spared everyone the bloody entanglements of its occupation of the Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Or, failing that, it could have resisted the lure of building settlements in the territories in order not to complicate a land-for-peace transaction.

In fact, the Israeli cabinet agreed on June 19 to offer the Sinai to Egypt and the Golan to Syria in exchange for peace deals. In Khartoum that September, the Arab League declared "no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it." As for Jewish settlements, hardly any were built for years after the war: In 1972, for instance, only about 800 settlers had moved to the West Bank.

Then again, when the sun rose on June 5, 1967, Israel was a poor, desperately vulnerable country, which threw the dice on its own survival in the most audacious military strike of the 20th century. It is infinitely richer and more powerful today, sure in its alliance with the U.S. and capable of making concessions inconceivable 40 years ago. If these are the fruits of Israel's "Pyrrhic victory," it needs more such of them.

for the compete article see: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/bstephens/?id=110010169

also check out the fantastic Six Day War resource at http://www.sixdaywar.org

When Will Defeat Be Acceptable

from the Washington Post

The 'Blame The Iraqis' Gambit
By Robert Kagan
Sunday, June 3, 2007; Page B07

Republican leaders think they're being clever in saying that if there is no progress by September, or by the end of 2008, we will have to wash our hands of the whole mess. That's nonsense. Defeat will be no more tolerable in January 2009 than it is now. And it won't matter whom we try to blame.

As for the United States, if we are driven out of Iraq, it will be by al-Qaeda, not by the flaws of the Iraqi people.

for the rest of the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/01/AR2007060102179.html

From the Uncertain to the Inevitable

Hillary’s War
From the New York Times
by Jeff Gerth and Don Van Natta

the article prints to about 15 pages but it is very illuminating

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/magazine/03Hillary-t.html?n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fPeople%2fG%2fGerth%2c%20Jeff&_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print


from HKO
The story attached is a well documented chronology of Hillary’s support and criticism of the Iraq War, possibly indicating what kind of president she would be. As controversial as the war and its execution is, I consider it an act of cowardice to vote and contribute to the decision to invade Iraq and then refuse or minimize any responsibility for the results; and an even greater act of cowardice to then use the discord from the results for pure political gain.

I would have some respect for taking direct responsibility, and then engaging in some in depth analysis on how the game has changed and how we can not just turn back the clock and pretend the decision did not happen. It would be irresponsible to invade and unseat a government and then abandon the citizens to the whims of tyrannical theological fascists. The decision to invade, good or bad, right or wrong is not so easily reversible.

Al Qaeda may or may not have been tied to Saddam Hussein depending on who you want to read or listen to; but the harsh reality is that they are there now and Bin Laden himself has made this the defining battlefield. They were the enemy before deposing Saddam and they are still the enemy. They have declared war on us.
Abandoning this battlefield in defeat would be a disaster we would likely regret terribly. Anything other than a commitment to defeat the enemy, regardless of how or why we got there, and regardless of anyone’s time table would likely be disastrous.

It is also a worthless exercise to merely demonize Bush. The reality is that the paranoia of 911, and the hubris of relatively easy victories in Kosovo, Kuwait and Afganistan, probably heavily colored the decisions of the President and the Senators of both parties. There are plenty of retroactive geniuses; but if we had not attacked and Saddam reinstated his weapons programs there would have been an equal number of retroactive prophets.

History converts randomness and uncertainty into inevitability.

The Secret to Peace

from the best of the Web Today at www.OpinionJournal.com

BY JAMES TARANTO

Thursday, May 31, 2007 2:58 p.m. ED

The United States is among the least "peaceful" nations in the world, ranking 96th between Yemen and Iran, according to a new "index" released on Wednesday that "evaluates" 121 nations based on their "peacefulness."

The index, brainchild of the Economist Intelligence Unit, is described further in this press release, which also lists the countries in order of their ranking. It is a very silly exercise:

Today both Norway and Germany are peaceful because America entered World War II and because America spends an outsize share of its GDP on defense in order to protect its allies from aggressive threats. But the Economist index faults the U.S. for the strength that makes possible Europe's peace. Of the 20 "most peaceful" countries, 12 are U.S. allies, and another five are formally neutral European states--i.e., free-riding nonmembers of the NATO alliance.

Another example of the survey's absurd bias: Israel places No. 119, ahead of only Sudan and Iraq. But of course most Israelis would like nothing more than to live in peace, as would their leaders. They are forced into frequent wars because they are surrounded by enemy states, almost all of which The Economist reckons as more "peaceful"--including Iran, which comes 22 places above Israel despite its pursuit of nuclear weapons and its president's vow to "wipe Israel off the map."
Syria, at No. 77, actually places well ahead of the U.S., despite its support for terrorists in Iraq, Lebanon and Israel. The Palestinian Arabs aren't even mentioned in the survey, which covers only nations.

Then again, maybe this is all a clever ruse to discredit pacifism.

for the rest if the story: http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110010147

HKO comments: such examples of intellectual fraud is typical of using data without a brain or even worse, data selected with preordained conclusions. Principles trump data. The way to achieve peace is to defeat those people who oppose it.

An Enduring Strategic Vacuum

OUT-THOUGHT BY THE ENEMY
By RALPH PETERS

6/1/07

from the New York Post


What's the postmodern equivalent of air power, the new revolutionary development? It's the proliferation of the 24/7 media in all its formats. And the terrorists realize it. They learned to trump air power and all the detritus of the last revolution by refusing to mass together and by submerging themselves in urban seas. Then they went one better by grasping the power of irresistible weapons that came free of charge: the media.

Yes, the media were able to influence a war's outcome back in the Vietnam days. But the Cronkite-era media were the equivalent of World War I biplanes. Today's media are a sky full of B-52s, cruise missiles and stealth fighters - with unlimited ordnance.

The terrorists know they can't beat our forces on the battlefield. Their purpose in engaging our troops is to generate a body count, graphic images and alarmist headlines. They've created a new paradigm of warfare that's cheap, effective and defiantly hard to defeat.

Meanwhile, our own military isn't even allowed to slip stories to the bribe-driven Arab press. And the global media credit every perfunctory claim by the terrorists that the target we just hit was another wedding party.

It may prove impossible to win by today's rules. We, too, need a new warfare paradigm. The bad news is that there isn't any sign of one.

Meanwhile, it's disheartening to see a sound tactical approach to security in Baghdad at last and Sunni tribes turning against al Qaeda in Anbar province - but an enduring strategic vacuum in Washington.

for the rest of Ralph Peter's article: http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http://www.nypost.com/seven/06012007/postopinion/opedcolumnists/out_thought_by_the_enemy_opedcolumnists_ralph_peters.htm