The alternative of allowing Israeli's to be driven into the sea and the country driven from existence seems to be the price we are unwilling to pay.
Who's "we"?Whatever the views of Congress, eventually they have to answer to the American people. And when support for Israel heats up as an issue, which it obviously will eventually, either the congresscritters will comply with the wishes of the American people, or they'll be replaced with congresscritters who will.
And if the purpose of this war is the defense of Israel, why doesn't President Bush simply say so? You know why he doesn't - there's no way in hell the American people would ever support such a war.
and i opine rightfully so.
Then feel free to jump on an airplane and put up your own blood and treasure to defend it. But to me as an American citizen, and I suspect to most American citizens, it's a matter of small consequence whether Israel gets driven into the sea, or builds settlements all the way to China.
Let's remember the current inhabitants of Israel are in a large part, if not mostly, immigrants. They are there by choice, nobody forced them there at gunpoint. Fine and dandy, but if they wish to establish a nation out in the middle of where they aren't welcome, I submit the onus is on the Israelis to defend it. Not on America.
Americans themselves have made the same dramatic about-face. They once approved of the war by a 70 percent majority.
And this here is one big steaming crock of bullshit. You might get 70% if you took the outlier results of the most optimistic polls, but there has never been anything like a sustained 70% support for this war, with the exception of a.) immediately following 9/11, and b.) immediately after the fall of Baghdad, when there was a predictable Rally-Round-the-Flag effect. Check the polling data yourself:
http://pollingreport.com/iraq10.htmhttp://pollingreport.com/iraq9.htmhttp://pollingreport.com/iraq8.htmIn fact, the Time/CNN poll from the week of Feb. 19-20 2003 showed only 54% of Americans supported a ground invasion of Iraq. That's after nearly a year of the Administration ginning up war propaganda. What do you think the results would have been otherwise?