You asked

“What could the governments of mainly Israel and the United States do to bring to an end this conflict our generation is dealing with? ”

Simple..

Declare war.

No cease-fires… no truces.. no armitices..

VICTORY DARN IT!

The other side has no intention in peace therefore you must destroy their intention in war by giving them war.. giving them war so badly that they tranform into todays Japanese society instead of the Klingon society that Islam thinks it can get away with.

Condi Rice’s very hard job was that she had to do this, knowing that it would not work. She had to say the words of mild appeasement because they are expected.
On the bright side, people in the middle east do these meetings for show every day of their lives so they don’t expect anything from this but a good lunch

For instance, Merkel is under pressure from the banks and industry to resist greater sanctions against Iran. If these groups turn against her for material reasons, there is a good chance that the leftists could use populist peace and negotiation feelings to upset the coalition government. Schroeder and Steinmeier have already made frontal attacks on her policies towartd Putin and China.

I do not trust the current Israeli leadership, and the Europeans seem to be about as good as the Palestinians regarding Israel. They weren’t able to get it done in WWII, this is a second change I guess. Does anyone aside from conservative Americans understand that the lamb is being led to the slaughter? And, our ability to help is being diminished by the failure, purposeful or not, of our leadership to provide conservative candidates. With the Republican Party on a path to reclaim it’s pre-60’s progressive roots, there is nothing being offered for current conservatives.

Hopefully it will be some European city or cities turned to ash first, which will create an worldwide awakening. However, my fear is that American or European, Israel will be hit at the same time. A change in “diplomacy” at that point will be a bit late, I should think. I still wonder if the left will continue demanding dialogue? Wait, after 9/11, I take that back. We know.

You would have thought, a western woman teaching children in an impoverished country would have been looked upon by liberals and feminists as an admirable person. Not on ABC News The View according to newsbusters: http://snipurl.com/1uhp0

SHERRI SHEPHERD: “I think it’s like it’s sacrilegious to name a stuffed toy Muhammad. But you know, you would think that with her being in Sudan, she would know the rules and customs. Because I know I performed stand up in Turkey, and they gave me a big thick packet on the customs, and what you could and could not do, and how you would offend people. So I’m surprised that she didn’t know it might be offensive.”

GOLDBERG: “Yeah, because you’d think if you’re going overseas, I mean, we had this discussion yesterday about people coming to America and learning the customs and knowing what is cool, and what isn’t cool. But I find that maybe we are not- and I say we just as European and American, we’re not as anxious to learn the customs before we go places. It’s just one of the reasons we’re called the ugly Americans..”

Its the teachers fault!

Liberals make dramatic theater about opposing conservatives on “principle” and “morals”, but the truth is they battle conservatives because conservatives are actually more predisposed to do battle on behalf “principle” and “morals”, which may end up getting yourself killed and expose those people (liberals & progressives), as shameless posers. Its also easier to do battle with conservatives because, well, we really arent the oppressive Nazis they make us out to be are we? Of course not. If you want real oppression. you can go teach school children in Sudan. But if you get caught exhibiting an unwitting “blasphemy”, dont look for help from the “progressives”.

All nations had to earn their peace the hard way, by annihilating their enemies and forcing the submission of their neighbors to the status quo. Either that or joining a protectorate as Germany did with the United States post WWII.

Nature, human nature, did not change all that much in just a century. Socialism and Marxism believes otherwise, of course, but those ideologies never did have the power to make people do what they were told in the long term.

The Arabs understand the truth, they just suck at fighting wars. All their defeats taught the Arabs that negotiation and limited wars would never bring them victory. So they created the Endless War, starting with Arafat’s indoctrination of an entirely new generation of Palestinians to carry on this Endless War.

Wars are not endless, of course. It just may seem so to the losing side, thereby motivating the losing side to sue for peace. Thus ending war. Asymmetrical wars, though, are probably the closest you can ever have to an “Endless War”. Which, given Israel’s status quo, is truly turning out to be a generational conflict. The Greeks practiced Western modern warfare, before the Peloponessian War which lasted for several decades. It lasted for several decades because the Peloponessian War was an asymmetrical war.

The real solution is to change their threat assessments. People can come back and insult/yell at you after a minor insult and injury. They can’t come back and do such after a major injury and fatal accident.

For all people’s protestations that their pen is mightier than their enemy’s sword, the truth of the matter is that few people are strong enough to kill with a pen against an enemy wielding a sword. The media and the Left aren’t part of that elite and rare group. Lenin and Marx might have been, of course. Certainly the Soviets gave everyone a run for their money via the Soviet propaganda apparatus.

In the end, what we do know is that the only people strong enough to kill with a pen against opponents armed with a sword, is the United States military. Specifically the Army and Marines.

Do you see the media learning from the military, Harry? Do you see the Left trying to get stronger by training with the military? or do you see them trying to kick the military off their campuses?

They won’t ever get strong enough to speak truth to power by being coach professors.

Boy, are you right about that. As much as I enjoy arguing with people on this blog, I ain’t touching this topic with a 10 foot pole. But I will say in general that I think these talks will produce about as much progress as other initiatives have in the past under other presidents, which is to say, hardly enough or none at all. That’s a shame, and quite frankly, there’s not that much an American President can do about it, whatever his approach might be and whatever political side of the aisle he’s on. As harsh and as critical as commentators can be on all sides, they’d do well to remember that in the end the conflict must be decided by the Israelis and the Palestinians, not by us.

Laura, thanks for your gracious reply re: your son on that “other” thread. I apologize for doubting you, and I want you to know that I truly, sincerely appreciate your son’s service. He does himself and the nation an honor. It’s unfortunate that you and I see the mission differently; I would hope that he sees it through and returns home safely—and soon.

Mediator: And what’s your position, Mrs. Smith?
Mrs Smith: I could be satisfied with 2 bullets in his heart.
Mediator: Mr. Smith, how do you feel about that? Two bullets in the heart?
Mr. Smith: Don’t sound too good to me.
Mediator, graciously: I know! How about one? One bullet in the heart, Mr. Smith? Everybody gives a little, it’s 50-50, seems reasonable enough to me. Eh, Mr. Smith?
Mr. Smith: One bullet in the heart? From that crazy bitch? Well, shit, no way I’m…
Mediator: Mr. Smith, we agreed not to be judgmental and disparaging, didn’t we?

Perhaps this is not so OT after all.

All it takes is Simon’s story - if one side wants you wiped off the face of the planet and nothing less than that is acceptable then there is no reason to continue talks. Compromise doesn’t work there either, when one side wants are that extreme there is no way that you can give them a little of what they want (a little bit of genocide is still genocide).

It just feels good to do this and they take advantage of it - because our sides goal is to avoid war it feels like something is being accomplished by the talks. However one side is totally dishonest all it is doing is delaying the inevitable and allowing the dishonest side time until they are strong enough to do what they want. We can find many many accounts in modern history - in fact the number of times negotiation has truly worked is VERY rare and in all of those cases both sides didn’t really want war and there was more than simply talks too (see the cold war).

Imagine how much bloodshed and misery would have been averted if, when this was apparent back in the late 60’s early 70’s if we did what should have been done. Now all it has done is cause decades of death and misery and still in the same position we were in when it started and we will stay in that position until the Palestinians decide to be honest or we finally get pushed into doing what is required to be done.

You want peace with the Palestinians, you’ve got to kill them wholesale.

Sounds barbaric and it is, but in the end that is the only thing that will work and that is what will be done.

It only awaits sufficient provocation.

I didn’t say we don’t. I very much believe we do. However, I also believe that there’s a limit to what an American President can persuade either side to do.

thank you for your words. we may not agree on many things, but we are both brother and sister in this great nation.

again thanks

The Old Sovs are working real, real hard to become the New Sovs.

Hamas is the elected face of the Palestinian Arabs.

The Sauds, and various other tribes of lesser barbarian stripe, continue to be blessed by the existence of oil beneath their wasteland countries.

Now taking into account Mr. Vanderleun’s position, how long does anyone think that “Islamic Fundamentalism” (in the form of senseless bombings, riots in Paris slums, rumbles on Aussie beaches, or heaven forbid riots in Hamistan, USA…) is going to be tolerated as a threat once the PRC sinks an aircraft carrier on their way to Taiwan…or Russia decides that Poland, or the Latvian states, or Hungary, or anywhere else is “traditionally Russian territory” or “necessary for defense”….

IMO Annapolis is “That F****** Hoop Every American Administration Jumps Through Even Though Every Sentient Being On The Planet Knows It’s A Sham”.

If Iraq had a few years to work, if Mushareff pulls an entire rabbit farm out of his a$$ and forms the anvil to our hammer and lets us clean out al Q, and if the Saud royalty makes the call to join the human race and quashes Wahabbism…

… we might see the resolution of this conflict in some form less… drastic… than big smoking piles of bodies dotting a wasted subcontinent.

The economic, cultural, and demographic forces approaching cusp are pivotal. The sad state of Western civilization and our abject state of vacuity of political and moral leadership is a recipe for several hundred million deaths.

They will die just to clear the decks for the real fight to follow. You cannot fight a technological war for the future of the human race by granting wannabe - eight century brigands a place on the board, much less within your borders and certainly not camped on top of the fuel you will have to have, or deny to others, to win.

We live in very interesting times.

“You cannot fight a technological war for the future of the human race by granting wannabe - eight century brigands a place on the board, much less within your borders and certainly not camped on top of the fuel you will have to have, or deny to others, to win.”

Perhaps my memory is beginning to go. I seem to recall being told that one of the problems with the left is that they are “pessimists” whereas neocons are “optimists” who believe that things will work out for the better.

I suppose, if one believes that biblical Armageddon is right around the corner and the sooner we help blood flow like a mighty river in the holy lands the sooner we’ll see the Second Coming (bring on the Rapture), then these comments might be deemed optimistic.

It would appear that I finally got the answer to a question I asked on another thread; the answer is that many who post here DO think that the wholesale slaughter of followers of Islam, beginning with all of those who reside in the Middle East, is the best way to go. Why that genocide would be good genocide where other genocide is bad escapes me.

So, the real question would seem to be how to slaughter tens of millions while not destroying access to the fuel they’re “camped on top of” and not destroying the Israelis in the bargain. Maybe we’re going to have to revisit the issue of the draft. I doubt stoploss alone would give us enough boots on the ground to wipe out the entire Arab population of the ME. Cleanup after a nuclear carpet bombing of the entire region would seem a bit daunting. And then there’s the pesky issue of all the Arabs and followers of Islam scattered elsewhere around the globe. Of course, perhaps this means we can look forward to many cities in Europe being turned to ash as part of the campaign to get the rest of the world to wake up and smell the falafels.

I’ll beat jimfocus to the first popular media reference:

“Boom goes London and boom Paree
More room for you and more room for me
And every city the whole world round
Will just be another American town
Oh, how peaceful it will be
We’ll set everybody free
You’ll wear a Japanese kimono
And there’ll be Italian shoes for me

They all hate us anyhow
So let’s drop the big one now
Let’s drop the big one now”

Randy Newman

This is a shameless plug, but I just posted this on my blog on basically the same subject:

http://21stcenturyschizoidman.blogspot.com/2007/12/around-and-around-and-around-we-go.html

where the question has to do with what is driving Annapolis and the Palestinians…and about the hard, hard choices made necessary by the failure of diplomacy.

Or more exactly, less a failure of diplomacy and much more the deliberate manipulation of the process.

No. The “Left” sees the world through the lens of “things oughta be like THIS” and then proceed to act in an historical vacuum… “THIS” being whatever the current ideological construct or political fad the Left is enamored of at the moment.

The other folk look at what is, compares it to what has gone before, and try to come up with solutions that work.

Placating a culture of psychopaths (check out the textbooks and the Koran) isn’t survivable.

“I suppose, if one believes that biblical Armageddon is right around the corner and the sooner we help blood flow like a mighty river in the holy lands the sooner we’ll see the Second Coming (bring on the Rapture), then these comments might be deemed optimistic.”

Sorry, no Jeebus Belt Bible Thumper here, pard. Just an historian.

“It would appear that I finally got the answer to a question I asked on another thread; the answer is that many who post here DO think that the wholesale slaughter of followers of Islam, beginning with all of those who reside in the Middle East, is the best way to go. Why that genocide would be good genocide where other genocide is bad escapes me.”

Where do you see me (or anyone else) proposing genocide? Have you checked out the policy position of the Iranian Government re: The Jewish State? That of Hamas? Or of the Arab League? I am not saying there is ANY spiritual component to effectively defeating the threat of Islamic fascism.

I’m saying that it needs to be done.

If we had governments in Saudi and Iran that believed in The Rights of Man in ANY shape or form, then those governments could lead their people into a new era where they were fit to be neighbors with civilized people.

Islamic fascism is simply the lethal safety valve for a repressive and unsustainable cultural model.

Islam is born of brigandage and survives ascendant today simply because of OIL. Export of the angry young is just one of the toys that oil buys - other, less terrifying ones are private A380s, skyscrapers in the desert, ski resorts in Bahrain, man-made archipelagos, sextour enclaves in Scandinavia and Thailand, and any number Western academics/media/financiers/politicians.

But it’s all fueled by an inconceivable amount of capital we all provide everytime we flip a light, turn a key, or eat a meal. The burn rate on the capital behind world survival makes the entire dotcom bubble, the great depression, and the last ice age combined look like marginal notes in history’s ledger.

Someday that fuel will run out. Or more likely - much more likely - populations seeking political or territorial superiority will act to achieve their ends and the first priority will be to fight the shortest, sharpest fight possible. I mention Russia and China simply because they are best positioned and most likely by form of government to move in this direction. India seems to want to remain the world largest democracy and thus is UNWILLING TO USE FORCE EVEN WHEN IN IT’S OBVIOUS INTEREST… and we have the obvious and ongoing struggle between democratic Israel and nihilistic Palestinians who have been literally bred to be Hitler’s surrogates. By resisting the necessity to use enough force to END THE FIGHT AND STILL BE IN EXISTENCE, Israel gambles with survival everyday.

Israel should respond to every rocket attack with tube artillery and airstrikes. For every rocket, they should move the demarcation lines of Gaza and the West Bank one meter east or west.

And if we aren’t going to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities (which I’m pretty sure we are) then we should go ahead and let the Israelis know. We won’t do it conventionally, so they will have to do it with nuclear weapons.

Chamberlain had the excuse of not actually understanding the evil he faced. What is left of Western Civ has no such fig leaf where fundamentalist Islam is concerned.

I don’t want Islam wiped out. But they will cease killing my friends, neighbors, and allies based on their ideology. One way or another.

How else should this comment by Vanderleun be interpreted?

“You want peace with the Palestinians, you’ve got to kill them wholesale.”

Replace ‘Palestinians’ with ‘Jews’ and re-read it if that helps clarify things.

Sorry, but someone who believes that Islam is a “culture of psychopaths” is a poor and uninformed historian indeed.

It only awaits sufficient provocation.

Chris, I believe this viewpoint has been espoused in regards to Native Americans, Africans, all Arabs, Indians, Asians, etc., etc. But of course, they all brought it on themselves by daring to contest another group’s supremecy and dominion over them, and so they got what they had coming to them.

Find me a way to defeat that without overwhelming military victory and we’ll talk.

Hamas, and several hundred million Arabs, define Jewry (and apostasy to Islam, cartoons, and naming teddy bears the same as the prophet) as a capital offense. Beslan, WTC, Bali, Sbarro,

Where is your outrage toward THEM?

Israel where the desert blooms. Where governments come and go on the whim of the governed. Where justice exists.

Czechoslovakia. Munich. Camp David. And now Annapolis.

The crux of my argument is not what we should do, but rather what is going to happen because we won’t do the right thing now.

Thanks for hosting this forum, Neo. Discussing the defense of civilization with a liberal is agreeing to hold an anvil with a drowning man who demands a debate on their definition of buoyancy .

Pride. It’ll kill ya.

“But of course, they all brought it on themselves by daring to contest another group’s supremecy (sic) and dominion over them, and so they got what they had coming to them.“.

Care to judge your place in relation to ascendant Islam, the religion of submission?

There is no “justice” involved here. Sometimes you have two competing ideologies - or just one movement of political, theological, or economic force - that will not be restrained. For four thousand years we’ve had cycles of empire and barbarism, with the longevity and impact of each state wildly depending on variable such as but not limited to climate, population, or technology.

The ills of the world are NOT solely attributable to pasty penis men…

It’s a long story, X, and the page is going to turn on today whether we like it or not.

We’re the ones that last flirted with Empire - the kind of heel-on-the-throat empire that Britain’ India or that of Rome were - in 1899. We were sucked into an economic/colonial war in 1917 and declined a place of power to prevent another like it. And we ended the last ideological war by allying with totalitarian at least as unsavory as Hitler… but we did in fact eventually beat the Sovs by denying their regime even the facade of respectability. We stopped selling them food so they could make more weapons. We built weapons that made it impossible for them to defeat us and then watched their system with and die when their failure sucked the last ruble out of the economy.

And then we celebrated the end of history.

We haven’t named political Islam an enemy of freedom like we did communism. Kind of funny how that worked out; not many people in the west took Islam seriously - “submission” is antithetical to the bedrock concepts of individual franchise and freewill embodied in western civ. The westerners most willing to accommodate Islam turn out to be the same demographic that made room for communism. Go figure that.

Good, bad…we’re the one with the five thousand nukes. And when it becomes clear that we’ve let slip the moment when our conventional forces could have done the necessary work, we’ll be left with unconventional force and nothing else.

I’m using all my angst up trying to make the point that the enemy is before us and can be defeated in detail. We can cut the heads of the dictatorships off in sequence and foster representative democracy in the place of the thugocracies.

But that would require we believe in something bigger than our own little existences… and the bad guys may well have us there.

We can debate and theorize endlessly; as long as somebody else is getting killed that’s no reason for us not to defend each our own pet theories…

… until it’s us that picks the wrong Tuesday to fly out of Boston. Or sends our kids off to elementary school the day the enemy has chosen to make a statement.

Times up. End the fight now in loud and messy fashion, or end it later at a cost no one can even begin to calculate.

Well, no, it hasn’t actually. But that won’t stop a good “liberal” on a guilt binge.

CW and especially X, though, do illustrate something important about the nature of this particular struggle. The islamists actually do have a strategy, after all, and stripped down, it might go something like this: first kill the enemy — Jews, Christians, Europeans, Americans, Africans, whatever — “wholesale”, in as large batches as possible, especially targeting women and children since they’re often easier; then, after stirring up their fear, roll over and play to the liberal guilt that pervades the decadent “first world” particularly, appealing to their shame at the very fact of being the “dominant group”. Fear is the weapon, in other words, and guilt is the shield. Of course, both the fear and the guilt really only work well with certain segments of these societies, but since those segments represent important elites, themselves dominating major media outlets and centers of education, that’s quite enough to constitute a workable strategy. They’re not aiming, after all, to be at the head of an invading army — they’re aiming to bring the nations and cultures they see as their enemies down from within, after paralyzing them with a kind of culture-wide Stockholm Syndrome. Read the transcripts of one of OBL’s recent monologues, for an example of the appeal.

Well said.

Wish I had the chops to write any more.

This was worth the effort.

Ah, yes. More preening and smug, but empty pontification from the left. Feel better now Xan? ” I feel good about myself because I espouse the correct sentiment I am expected to express to be considered a good and nonjudgmental person.”, Imagines Xan.

Regardless of the attempt by liberals on this board to project upon the conservative view point as being one derived from a radical Christian fundamentalist viewpoint:

“I suppose, if one believes that biblical Armageddon is right around the corner and the sooner we help blood flow like a mighty river in the holy lands the sooner we’ll see the Second Coming (bring on the Rapture), then these comments might be deemed optimistic.”

And ignoring almost completely that this is almost exactly how the other side of the GWOT views it., the fact that continued liberal preening about dialogue and “peace process” continues to drag out the conflict and kills wounds and enslaves more Palestinians in perpetual depravity, martyrdom and victim hood than would ordinarily would happen if there were an all out total war.

That the Palestinians, (”the brown people”) are just as much the victims of Arab ethnic discrimination, and the victim of their own greedy and inept “leadership” has completely slipped the “progressive” mind. The “progressive” is not interested in “ground truth”. The “progressive” is interested in feeling good about himself and how he is perceived by other liberals. The suffering, of course, continues.

“Free Darfur!” “Save Tibet!” “The Republicans are racists!”

Good boy Xan and Chris, good boy.

To begin, my comment was about the way those who do not espouse neocon views have been accused of pessimism (and, yes, also of wishful thinking) and so was extrapolating from there that one of the only ways of finding optimism while calling for massive warfare in the ME I could imagine would be if one believes we are entering the biblical End Days.

There are radical Christian fundamentalists who believe and advocate all kinds of extreme views, most of which are repudiated by mainstream Christians; so, too, there are radical Zionist, Islamist, Hindu and whatever fundamentalists whose views do not reflect mainstream versions of those faiths.

Ah, yes, I hear you counter, but so many mainstream Muslims DO accept these repugnant ideas, so it is US against THEM and the only viable option is total war, kill THEM wholesale. If we look back fifty years in American history to the period of the Civil Rights movement it might be argued (and was by radical fringe elements on both sides at the time) that it was US against THEM and the only realistic way out of the centuries old impasse was through armed conflict; kill THEM wholesale. There are those today who still argue variations of that ’solution’ to racial tensions here in the U.S.

Implicit in the thinking of all of these vastly different groups is the notion that WE are divinely or genetically or morally superior beings and THEY are so debased as to be incapable of compromise or change and so must be permanently eradicated or exiled.

God help us all if, as some of those commenting here seem to hope, President Bush is only doing this for PR cover in dealings with various European and ME countries while secretly undermining it.

That only applies to the war effort in Iraq. Why would it occur anywhere else?

The Left may be “optimistic” about international goings on, but such things are not the same as being optimistic about the state of things in America and Iraq.

Apples and oranges, Chris. Why don’t you just stick to one topic and not bring all this other stuff that is clogging your works.

Technically, that would make the Democrats believers in predestination concerning the failure of Iraq, not even pessimists.

For one thing, this isn’t about the Muslims, the Jews, or Annapolis. Another thing would be that just as we don’t agree with your philosophy of international workings and writs, you don’t agree with the American school of Total War.

Your massive warfare would indeed be devastating and crippling for no gain whatsoever. But your brand of massive warfare is not American Total War or even American Limited War. Just as our preference for classical diplomacy has little to no relation to your preference for modern diplomacy, Chris.

Why do you continue to pretend that the Left is talking about the same things as their opponents? The Left has a different consideration of torture than we do, they have a different conception of peace and war than we do, and the Left even has a different conception of what is ethically right and wrong than we do.

It would seem, to a reasonable person, that the recognition of such differences would be a mandatory action for anyone seeking to communicate and argue across the aisle. Yet you still believe and act as if when you say “optimism”, it means the same thing coming from us as it is comming from you. It doesn’t.

Implicit in the thinking of all of these vastly different groups is the notion that WE are divinely or genetically or morally superior beings and THEY are so debased as to be incapable of compromise or change and so must be permanently eradicated or exiled.-C

The Left really shouldn’t try to ascribe motivations to their opponents. It just never works right in the end.

Can you know what we are thinking of, when you don’t recognize that when we say diplomacy would be better than war, it doesn’t mean the same thing as when you say diplomacy is better than war?

etc., etc.

As these examples make clear, the latter-day “liberal” (with the few usual exceptions) literally cannot bring himself to acknowledge that one culture might actually be “superior” to another, in any way. Relativism — cultural, moral, even, in some cases, epistemological — is so deeply ingrained in these types that they would choke before they could admit that the culture of which their own nation is a part, in particular, might be in any way better than another. For any self-styled liberal to speak of the relative value of freedom, for example, in the West versus in Islam, would be to risk instant mockery and ostracism from their tribe. In fact, it’s not just that their own culture must be levelled with all others — it’s that, ironically, the very technological superiority of the West must be held against it, and become the source of its moral inferiority, on account of its colonial past. Only then can this “liberal” rest in the smug comforts of this rather perverse rectitude.

And all the while, as 9/11 made clear finally, we’re facing an enemy that shrinks from absolutely nothing in order to slaughter as many as they possibly can, any way they can, any time they can. And that counts, as their own leaders make clear, on the guilt-ridden, fear-ridden complexes of what they see as a decadent culture to forestall the reaction that would blow them away. Not hard to see why our modern “liberal” is exactly what’s meant by the old phrase “useful idiot”.

Yes, and it is what is wrong with our education system. We wonder why so many young black men think getting an education is too white. Sure, some of it is from some of the rotten parents, but no small part of it is from the education system which is nearly completely in step with the type of thinking you discuss. Even if they tried to keep that out of their educational programs, it would be impossible. Beyond, this type of behavior problem prone thinking has spread from the lower end to the middle class and upper class education and on to higher education. Rather than seeing that as a “problem sector” and limiting it, it is being spread in order to produce an equality of outcome through standardized mediocrity (or more, equality of idiocy). And, I thought the politicians who were growing up through the 60’s and 70’s were bad (to include the current president, to some degree). I can only imagine the Bubba Thugocracies awaiting us.

Sometimes I could swear that I am just in a bad dream, that I will wake up, and people will actually be sane and do wise, intelligent, and pro-active positive things for themselves, each other, the communities they live in, the nation, and the world. Evil men will be called that and dealt with, often fairly lightly since they will have no power. It would be great to walk into a school (and not need a police escort for any reason), and see kids really learning and working. And, to actually be able to test them on the subjects, to include their true cultural heritage, and have them test well. I am either dreaming, in purgatory, or perhaps just in hell. Because what I see around me is not right.

Is there Black and White Educations systems?

I wounder what are the differences?

No, at least in the US we all share the same educational system. Either that or the other people in the class with me that had high levels melanin in their skin were simply a figment of my imagination (If true, especially bad given that I was in the vast minority through my public education).

“rice and bush’s conduct in promoting annapolis is nothing less than betrayal…”

I would hate to be in their shoes - in the US Iraq is a political quagmire that is irrelevant to the actual situation on the ground - the Israel-Palestinian conflict is orders of magnitude worse.

I tend to agree with the sentiment, however I will wait longer to decide. As long as they push for realistic stuff (not like Clinton did wherein Israel gave up half their land for a promise to try and do less attacks, but no guarantee of it) and otherwise just treat it like it really is (wasting time) then I do not care so much.

They do seem to hope to have something productive come of it however. I think it would be amusing if there was someone running the “talks” that realized that the newest run of them in the, what, last 50 years isn’t going to achieve anything. “I have a peanut here and it is near lunch time - anyone want to give me a concession for it? How about a 10% reduction in suicide bombers or 100 square miles of land?”. It would be just as effective yet MUCH more entertaining to watch.

I don’t see any realistic way around it. Until the Palestinians do something that allows the rest of world to finally invade and stop them or Israel is finally wiped off the face of the planet the status quo will be it. The status quo since the end of WWII is the Palestinians sending suicide bombers over there while having talks about stopping it. Only in the US and then only for a short period of time does having a state send suicide bombers onto you soil allow you to retaliate (and then blowing up a few buildings and coming back home is all that is allowed).

My overall take is that the public school systems have resegregated over the past 30 years due to white flight & racism, and the continuing de facto segregation in the US, despite some progress. Another phenomena, under-reported, is the growing de facto segregation of private & charter schools.

My feeling is the overwhelming problem in the black community is drug and alcohol addiction, it affects everything. Second is the continual grinding cycle of poverty for most.

Talk about dominant groups and superior cultures, especially from ethnic groups of people who were subjected to the same psychopathological thinking such a short time ago is truly ironic–folks just don’t learn from history.

You can think you’ll solve the problem by force, war, declaring one group superior to another–it never works–because it simply isn’t true.

Here we see the White man thinking!

Did Israel give their land?

It’s an occupied land, how Israeli gives occupied land?

Can you asked the thief to give you your belonging?

“To give or not to give,” that is the Shakespearean question - “to make concessions” or “not to make concessions.”

Just as no one would conceive of killing the residents of an entire neighborhood, to harass and incarcerate it because of a few criminals living there, there is no justification for abusing an entire people in the name of our security. The question of whether ending the occupation would threaten or strengthen Israel’s security is irrelevant. There are not, and cannot be, any preconditions for restoring justice.

Oh! Good boy Jim! Good boy! Another empty self serving “feel-good” sentiment for your lefty pals. Good for you Jim! Good for you!

Against such a backdrop, there is no particular reason to argue about policy. It will never reach a good compromise due to the fact that neither side will compromise their philosophical beliefs. Just as Palestine won’t compromise their existence, which needs the hate against the Jews. Just as Israel won’t compromise their existence, which needs to be able to control internal policies and security.

Course, Olmert might be able to compromise Israel’s security unintentionally, like Chamberlain. That is always possible, with the unintended consequences going on.

Well Ymar, you cnat very well teach “truth” to anyone if you lack it yourself. Which is what the real problem is.

Aristocrats have faced the problem of being part of the nobility but not being noble, for a very long time, Harry.

This statement lake of truth.

There are Jews still living in Islamic world, ther is no hatred as such, as example there are 20,000 jew in living Iran!

But the problem its Israel occupation of Arab Land?

By Phyllis Bennis

Can you asked the thief to give you your belonging?

While this question might give hives to your fifth grader’s English teacher, it attempts to ask something valid. It is the most problematic of the underlying causes of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. After WWII the Europeans and Americans decided the solution to their “Jewish Problem” was to create a Jewish state outside of Europe. For biblical reasons the holy lands of Palestine were selected. This required those living there, who had lived there for centuries, to give up their land and become essentially stateless. In short, the Palestinians have been asking for the return of at least a portion of their belongings from those who took them away.

It was a solution the way the “Trail of Tears” and reservation system was a solution to the “Indian Problem” in the U.S. Perhaps, if the size of the land area involved were as great as the continental U.S., and if the Palestinians had been decimated by disease, and if they simply accepted their fate meekly, it would have worked. Unfortunately, it did not.

Hey, I’ve got a great idea. Let’s solve a bunch of problems at the same time. Let’s give the Israelis a chunk of southwestern Texas and New Mexico and move all of their citizens there. It has a similar climate and the Israelis could deal with the problem of illegal immigration along the Rio Grande. The Palestinians could take back their land in the ME and the Arabs states wouldn’t have Israel as a causa belli any more. We’d only need an agreement between the U.S. and the Israelis to get it to happen, none of those messy and stupid international agreements.

Now, what to do about all those Texans?

To be more accurate here it was two places offered to them one in Africa and one in ME!!