http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/

here is how the israelis feel about liberty and americans both in 67 and today.....and they arre a country that gets more than $10 million ,in aid, per day, from good old uncle sam

and here is how israel treats our other american peace workers

http://www.ccmep.org/2003_articles/Palestine/040303_fog_of_war_israel_we_won.htm

lets see...then there was the time they bombed a UN refugee camp and killed 106 civilians

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qana_Massacre

because israel, like any country doesnt demand the US Navy to do anything in international waters.....the israelis were given all info they needed about the ship to know it was american and an ally and communications intercept ship.....do you think the israelis should be able to make demands upon our navy in international waters? arent we doing a good enough job of being their "poodle" without turning over our navy to them?

in the ways of sard and krusty heres some cnp background on the area and the groups involved in this conflict

Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need To Know

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

As the tv networks give unlimited airtime to Israel's apologists, the
message rolls out that no nation, least of all Israel, can permit
bombardment or armed incursion across its borders without retaliation.

The guiding rule in this tsunami of drivel is that the viewers should
be
denied the slightest access to any historical context, or indeed to
anything that happened prior to June 28, which was when the capture of
an Israeli soldier and the killing of two others by Hamas hit the
headlines, followed soon thereafter by an attack by a unit of
Hezbollah's fighters.

Memory is supposed to stop in its tracks at June 28, 2006.

Let's go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I'm talking about June
20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in
an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between
Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed
three Palestinian children and wounded 15.

Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a
van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive
barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.

Now we're really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9,
2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians
and
injuring 32.

That's just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies
of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most
of them women and children.

Israel regrets... But no! Israel doesn't regret in the least. Most of the
time it doesn't even bother to pretend to regret. It says, "We reserve
the right to slaughter Palestinians whenever we want. We reserve the
right to assassinate their leaders, crush their homes, steal their
water, tear out their olive groves, and when they try to resist we call
them terrorists intent on wrecking the 'peace process'".

Now Israel says it wants to wipe out Hezbollah. It wishes no harm to
the
people of Lebanon, just so long as they're not supporters of Hezbollah,
or standing anywhere in the neighborhood of a person or a house or a
car
or a truck or a road or a bus or a field, or a power station or a port
that might, in the mind of an Israeli commander or pilot, have
something
to do with Hezbollah. In any of those eventualities all bets are off.
You or your wife or your mother or your baby get fried.

Israel regrets... But no! As noted above, it doesn't regret in the
least.
Neither does George Bush, nor Condoleezza Rice nor John Bolton who is
the moral savage who brings shame on his country each day that he sits
as America's ambassador (unconfirmed) at the UN and who has just told
the world that a dead Israel civilian is worth a whole more in terms of
moral outrage than a Lebanese one.

None of them regrets. They say Hezbollah is a cancer in the body of
Lebanon. Sometimes, to kill the cancer, you end up killing the body. Or
bodies. Bodies of babies. Lots of them. Go to the website
fromisraeltolebanon.info and take a look. Then sign the petition on the
site calling on the governments of the world to stop this barbarity.

You can say that Israel brought Hezbollah into the world. You can prove
it too, though this too involves another frightening excursion into
history.

This time we have to go far, almost unimaginably far, back into
history.
Back to 1982, before the dinosaurs, before CNN, before Fox TV, before
O'Reilly and Limbaugh. But not before the neo-cons who at that time had
already crawled from the primal slime and were doing exactly what they
are doing now: advising an American president to give Israel the green
light to "solve its security problems" by destroying Lebanon.

In 1982 Israel had a problem. Yasir Arafat, headquartered in Beirut,
was
making ready to announce that the PLO was prepared to sit down with
Israel and embark on peaceful, good faith negotiations towards a
two-state solution.

Israel didn't want a two-state solution, which meant -- if UN
resolutions were to be taken seriously -- a Palestinian state right
next
door, with water, and contiguous territory. So Israel decided chase
the
PLO right out of Lebanon. It announced that the Palestinian fighters
had
broken the year-long cease-fire by lobbing some shells into northern
Israel.

Palestinians had done nothing of the sort. I remember this very well,
because Brian Urquhart, at that time assistant secretary general of the
United Nations, in charge of UN observers on Israel's northern border,
invited me to his office on the 38th floor of the UN hq in
mid-Manhattan
and showed me all the current reports from the zone. For over a year
there'd been no shelling from north of the border. Israel was lying.

With or without a pretext Israel wanted to invade Lebanon. So it did,
and rolled up to Beirut. It shelled Lebanese towns and villages and
bombed them from the air. Sharon's forces killed maybe 20,000 people,
and let Lebanese Christians slaughter hundreds of Palestinian refugees
in the camps of Sabra and Chatilla.

The killing got so bad that even Ronald Reagan awoke from his slumbers
and called Tel Aviv to tell Israel to stop. Sharon gave the White House
the finger by bombing Beirut at the precise times -- 2.42 and 3.38 --
of
two UN resolutions calling for a peaceful settlement on the matter of
Palestine.

When the dust settled over the rubble, Israel bunkered down several
miles inside Lebanese sovereign territory, which it illegally occupied,
in defiance of all UN resolutions, for years, supervising a brutal
local
militia and running its own version of Abu Graibh, the torture center
at
the prison of Al-Khiam.

Occupy a country, torture its citizens and in the end you face
resistance. In Israel's case it was Hezbollah, and in the end Hezbollah
ran Israel out of Lebanon, which is why a lot of Lebanese regard
Hezbollah not as terrorists but as courageous liberators.

The years roll by and Israel does its successful best to destroy all
possibility of a viable two-state solution. It builds illegal
settlements. It chops up Palestine with Jews-only roads. It collars all
the water. It cordons off Jerusalem. It steals even more land by
bisecting Palestinian territory with its "fence". Anyone trying to
organize resistance gets jailed, tortured, or blown up.

Sick of their terrible trials, Palestinians elect Hamas, whose leaders
make it perfectly clear that they are ready to deal on the basis of the
old two-state solution, which of course is the one thing Israel cannot
endure. Israel doesn't want any "peaceful solution" that gives the
Palestinians anything more than a few trashed out acres surrounded with
barbed wire and tanks, between the Israeli settlements whose goons can
murder them pretty much at will.

So here we are, 24 years after Sharon did his best to destroy Lebanon
in
1982, and his heirs are doing it all over again. Since they can't
endure
the idea of any just settlement for Palestinians, it's the only thing
they know how to do. Call Lebanon a terror-haven and bomb it back to
the
stone age. Call Gaza a terror-haven and bomb its power plant, first
stop
on the journey back to the stone age. Bomb Damascus. Bomb Teheran.

Of course they won't destroy Hezbollah. Every time they kill another
Lebanese family, they multiply hatred of Israel and support for
Hezbollah. They've even unified the parliament in Baghdad, which just
voted unanimously -- Sunnis and Shi'ites and Kurds alike -- to
deplore
Israel's conduct and to call for a ceasefire.

I hope you've enjoyed these little excursions into history, even though
history is dangerous, which is why the US press gives it a wide birth.
But even without the benefit of historical instruction, a majority of
Americans in CNN's instant poll -- about 55 per cent out of 800,000 as
of midday, July 19 -- don't like what Israel is up to.

Dislike is one thing, but at least in the short term it doesn't help
much. Israel's 1982 attack on Lebanon grew unpopular in the US, after
the first few days. But forcing the US to pressure Israel to settle the
basic problem takes political courage, and virtually no US politician
is
prepared to buck the Israel lobby, however many families in Lebanon and
Gaza may be sacrificed on the altar of such cowardice.

its apparent history or reality isnt important to ya aunty.....just the kind of ignorance that will get more american soldiers killed.....the same kind of ignorance that has led to 3000 dead americans in iraq...... way to go

I borrowed this from another site. I couldn't let it go unnoticed lupo.
Its much simpler


Sunday, July 16, 2006
A difficult lesson When I was in the Navy, I once witnessed a bar fight in downtown Olongapo (Philippines) that still haunts my dreams. The fight was between a big oafish Marine and a rather soft-spoken, medium sized Latino sailor from my ship.

All evening the Marine had been trying to pick a fight with one of us and had finally set his sights on this diminutive shipmate of mine... figuring him for a safe target. When my friend refused to be goaded into a fight the Marine sucker punched him from behind on the side of the head so hard that blood instantly started to pour from this poor man's mutilated ear.

Everyone present was horrified and was prepared to absolutely murder this Marine, but my injured shipmate quickly turned on him and began to single-handedly back him towards a corner with a series of stinging jabs and upper cuts that gave more than a hint to a youth spent boxing in a small gym in the Bronx.

Each punch opened a cut on the Marine's startled face and by the time he had been backed completely into the corner he was blubbering for someone to stop the fight. He invoked his split lips and chipped teeth as reasons to stop the fight. He begged us to stop the fight because he could barely see through the river of blood that was pouring out of his split and swollen brows.

Nobody moved. Not one person.

The only sound in the bar was the sickening staccato sound of this sailor's lightning fast fists making contact with new areas of the Marine's head. The only sound I have heard since that was remotely similar was from the first Rocky film when Sylvester Stallone was punching sides of beef in the meat locker.

Finally the Marine's pleading turned to screams.... a high, almost womanly shriek. And still the punches continued relentlessly.

Several people in the bar took a few tentative steps as though they wanted to try to break it up at that point, but hands reached out from the crowd and held them tight. I'm not ashamed to say that mine were two of the hands that held someone back.

You see, in between each blow the sailor had begun chanting a soft cadence: "Say [ punch] you [punch] give [ punch] up [punch]... say [punch ] you [punch]were [punch] wrong [ punch]".

He had been repeating it to the Marine almost from the start but we only became aware of it when the typical barroom cheers had died down and we began to be sickened by the sight and sound of the carnage.

This Marine stood there shrieking in the corner of the bar trying futilely to block the carefully timed punches that were cutting his head to tatters... right down to the skull in places. But he refused to say that he gave up... or that he was wrong.

Even in the delirium of his beating he believed in his heart that someone would stop the fight before he had to admit defeat. I'm sure this strategy had served him well in the past and had allowed him to continue on his career as a barroom bully.

Finally, in a wail of agony the Marine shrieked "I give up", and we gently backed the sailor away from him.

I'm sure you can guess why I have shared this story today.

I'm not particularly proud to have been witness to such a bloody spectacle, and the sound of that Marine's woman-like shrieks will haunt me to my grave. But I learned something that evening that Israel had better learn for itself if it is to finally be rid of at least one of its tormentors:

This is one time an Arab aggressor must be allowed to be beaten so badly that every civilized nation will stand in horror, wanting desperately to step in and stop the carnage... but knowing that the fight will only truly be over when one side gives up and finally admits defeat.

Just as every person who had ever rescued that bully from admitting defeat helped create the cowardly brute I saw that evening in the bar, every well-intentioned power that has ever stepped in and negotiated a ceasefire for an Arab aggressor has helped create the monsters we see around us today.

President Lahoud of Lebanon, a big Hezbollah supporter and a close ally of Syria, has been shrieking non-stop to the UN Security Council for the past two days to get them to force Israel into a cease fire.

Clearly he has been reading his autographed copy of 'Military Success for Dummies Arab Despots' by the late Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt. Ever since Nasser accidentally discovered the trick in '56, every subsequent Arab leader has stuck to his tried and true formula for military success:

1. Instigate a war.

2. Once the war is well underway and you are in the process of having your ass handed to you... get a few world powers to force your western opponent into a cease fire.

3. Whatever you do, don't surrender or submit to any terms dictated by your enemy. That would ruin everything! All you have to do is wait it out and eventually the world will become sickened at what is being done to your soldiers and civilian population... and will force a truce.

4. Once a truce has been called you can resume your intransigence (which probably caused the conflict in the first place), and even declare victory as your opponent leaves the field of battle.

This tactic has never failed. Not once.

In fact it worked so well for the Egyptians in 1973, that to this day they celebrate the Yom Kippur War - a crushing defeat at the hands of Israel - as a military victory! No kidding... it's a national holiday over there!

President Lahoud has already begun to shriek like a school girl to the UN Security Council to "Stop the violence and arrange a cease-fire, and then after that we'll be ready to discuss all matters."

Uh huh. Forgive me if I find that a tad hard to swallow. He allowed Hezbollah to take over his country. He allowed the regular Lebanese army to provide radar targeting data for the Hezbollah missile that struck the Israeli destroyer. He has turned a blind eye while Iranian and Syrian weapons, advisers and money have poured into his country.

And now that his country is in ruins he wants to call it a draw.

As much as it may sicken the world to stand by and watch it happen, strong hands need to hold back the weak-hearted and let the fight continue until one side finally admits unambiguous Idefeat.

Posted by David Bogner on July 16, 2006 |

Here I sit in Bakersfield, Ca. enjoying the 112 degree sauna in the 4th largest agriycultural eonomy in thew world. Wondering what pearls of wisdom I might be missing on PP. It is apparent that there are no pearls to be had, lol especially from Lupo and Rhoid. Oh well, no big suprise.
My son was kind enough to loan me his laptop for a bit of a lookin. MY idea of a laptop is a bit different than his. lol

Carry on.


Carry on.