Author Topic: With Friends like these  (Read 3396 times)

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sirs

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With Friends like these
« on: May 10, 2007, 11:36:59 AM »
BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, May 9, 2007


Friends of Jimmy Carter
In a Newsweek interview, a Mideast leader has kind words for a former president and several other prominent Americans:

You weren't encouraged at all by the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report?

[President] Bush ignored the Baker-Hamilton report and the positions and reports of a number of American figures and former officials, such as [former national-security adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski, [Council on Foreign Relations president] Richard Haass and former U.S. president Carter. Bush continues to adopt the same philosophy: if power does not succeed in achieving the objective, then more power will.

Still, some Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer seem to be making an effort to reach out.

I believe [Pelosi's recent visit to Syria] was a step in the right direction. Wise people in the U.S. should realize that Israel and the fundamentalist American conservative right have both become burdens on the interests and the future of America.

And who's saying this? Khaled Meshal, described by Newsweek as the "most powerful figure" in the terrorist group Hamas.

With friends like these . .


Article
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #1 on: May 10, 2007, 12:06:36 PM »
I guess part of America's problem is exactly what Khaled Meshal has described, the stranglehold that the Likud party and similar right-wing Zionist groups, through AIPAC and similar less-publicized organizations have achieved over foreign policy in both major American political parties.  Some Americans, including those cited by Meshal, have clearly identified the problem.

Your post, taken at face value, made sense right up to your final dismissive comment.  In four short words, all you achieved was to demonstrate precisely the mindset that is - - as Meshal pointed out - - costing America a devasting loss of influence in the Middle East and in the world.

It's almost as if, in another field, you had quoted a few paragraphs  verbatim from some eminently sensible work of science, mathematics or philosophy, say the Origin of Species or Principia Mathematica or the Critique of Pure Reason and then finished off with, "what'll these lunatics come up with next?"

Most people reading the post through to its surprise ending would be wondering, "What was wrong with that anyway?"

Plane

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #2 on: May 10, 2007, 12:56:38 PM »
  What does Khaled Meshal think is the best future for America?

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #3 on: May 10, 2007, 02:19:42 PM »
 <<What does Khaled Meshal think is the best future for America?>>

Who knows and what's that got to do with what the man said?  He stated some very basic home truths that Americans should pay attention to.  Although it seems that some Americans want to dismiss them as soon as they know the source and hear the "T" word.

What does John Ashcroft think is the best future for America?  What about Karl Rove?

sirs

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #4 on: May 10, 2007, 02:27:45 PM »
<<What does Khaled Meshal think is the best future for America?>>

Who knows and what's that got to do with what the man said?  He stated some very basic home truths that Americans should pay attention to.  Although it seems that some Americans want to dismiss them as soon as they know the source...

Oh you mean like when it's a news story from Fox, or an editorial from the WSJ, or punditry from Rush Limbaugh?  Ahhh, good to know you don't actually dismiss such comments & reports from those sources, and actually consider the substance of what's being said.
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #5 on: May 10, 2007, 02:30:34 PM »
<<Ahhh, good to know you don't actually dismiss such comments & reports from those sources, and actually consider the substance of what's being said.>>

Yeah, but the substance of what was said is almost always sheer fascist lunacy.

sirs

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #6 on: May 10, 2007, 02:40:04 PM »
<<Ahhh, good to know you don't actually dismiss such comments & reports from those sources, and actually consider the substance of what's being said.>>

Yeah, but the substance of what was said is almost always sheer fascist lunacy.

LOL.....so says our lunatic leftist     
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Plane

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #7 on: May 11, 2007, 02:59:19 AM »
<<What does Khaled Meshal think is the best future for America?>>

Who knows and what's that got to do with what the man said?  He stated some very basic home truths that Americans should pay attention to.  Although it seems that some Americans want to dismiss them as soon as they know the source and hear the "T" word.

What does John Ashcroft think is the best future for America?  What about Karl Rove?


He said"Wise people in the U.S. should realize that Israel and the fundamentalist American conservative right have both become burdens on the interests and the future of America."

Yet he is a member of Hezbollah


Ashcroft and Rove want peace and prosperity I suppose  peace and prosperity is better for Americans in general than it is for Hebolla.

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #8 on: May 11, 2007, 10:04:44 AM »
<<Ashcroft and Rove want peace and prosperity I suppose  peace and prosperity is better for Americans in general than it is for Hebolla.>>

Everyone wants peace and prosperity - - on their terms.  It's what Aschcroft and Rove want for America in addition to peace and prosperity that has some folks worried.

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #9 on: May 11, 2007, 10:08:39 AM »
<<He [Khaled Meshal] said"Wise people in the U.S. should realize that Israel and the fundamentalist American conservative right have both become burdens on the interests and the future of America.">>

Yes, and truer words were never spoken.

<<Yet he is a member of Hezbollah>>

And so . . . ?

Plane

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #10 on: May 11, 2007, 09:25:17 PM »
<<He [Khaled Meshal] said"Wise people in the U.S. should realize that Israel and the fundamentalist American conservative right have both become burdens on the interests and the future of America.">>

Yes, and truer words were never spoken.

<<Yet he is a member of Hezbollah>>

And so . . . ?


Hezbolla is the first runner up in the killing Americans competition , they are supported by Iran where they have a twenty minutes hate every day chanting "Death to America " like a loud mantra.

Pardon my scepticism about his good will.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2007, 10:29:25 PM »
Hezbolla is the first runner up in the killing Americans competition , they are supported by Iran where they have a twenty minutes hate every day chanting "Death to America " like a loud mantra.

==============================================================
Hezbollah spends most of its time chanting "Death to the Zionist Entity". I think that Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and several Iraqi militias have all killed more Americans than Hezbollah. I can't think of even ONE American soldier killed by Hezbollah.

Surely more American troops have been offed by other American troops than have been killed by Hezbollah.

It goes to show how very effective Zionist propaqganda is, that you believe this.

 Really.

And it is true that the American right and Israel are detrimental to American prestige and progress pretty much everywhere.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #12 on: May 12, 2007, 12:21:23 AM »
I can't think of even ONE American soldier killed by Hezbollah.

The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in which 63 people were killed and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American military personnel were killed.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2007, 11:36:34 AM »
<<Hezbolla is the first runner up in the killing Americans competition , they are supported by Iran where they have a twenty minutes hate every day chanting "Death to America " like a loud mantra.

<<Pardon my scepticism about his good will.>>

You sound like a man with no faith at all in human nature.  He hates America NOW, but that's only because of America's violent, destructive and disastrous policies.  It was written somewhere that God desireth not the death of the sinner, but only that he repent and change his ways.  Hezbollah believes in America.  They believe that America can change, can stop doing evil.  They WANT America to change and if it changed to more benevolent policies, they would have no more reason to hate America.

Think of Germany.  When they were run by Nazis, they were an insupportable menace to all of humanity, a blight upon the earth.  A certain amount of punishing violence had to be applied to them.  After enough violence had been applied, Germany saw the error of its ways.  Now they (the vast majority of them, anyway) wouldn't touch Naziism with a ten-foot pole.  They have learned their lesson and learned it well.  Does anyone hate Germany today?  Why would they?  Today's Germans are democrats and anti-fascists.  They will probably never go down that fascist road again.

Hezbollah has similar hopes for America, that in time it will recognize all the things that it is doing wrong and change.  Change leadership, change direction.  THAT is the goodwill that they have for America.  Your skepticism is wholly unwarranted.

Lyndon

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Re: With Friends like these
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2007, 11:54:18 PM »
I can't think of even ONE American soldier killed by Hezbollah.

The April 1983 U.S. Embassy bombing in which 63 people were killed and the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing in which 241 American military personnel were killed.

Was it ever proven that Hezbollah carried out these attacks?  By proof I do not mean the findings of US federal District court judges in civil actions. Caspar Weinberger did not think so:
'But we still do not have the actual knowledge of who did the bombing of the Marine barracks at the Beirut Airport, and we certainly didn't then'.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/target/interviews/weinberger.html