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Why we're in so much trouble, foreign-policy wise...

... is exemplified by a comment that came in this morning on another post.

It's not exceptional, and I don't want to single out the writer of these words, because there are several similar comments to be found in our pages, and thousands (millions?) more out there around the internet.

Here it is:

The bottom line is that, VERY SADLY, there will be no peace in the middle east until one side or the other is completely annihilated. No peace talks, accords, bargaining, or other niceties will cause cooler heads to prevail there.


I know that such comments are meant by their authors to reflect grim reality, but that's not what they do.

What they do is lay the groundwork to make a complete group of people expendable; they empower exterminationism.

I'm not going to be very popular for saying this, but the idea that the only possible outcome of a given conflict is the complete eradication of one group of human beings is one that resonates in the Third Reich, in Stalin's Russia, in Cambodia, in Rwanda, and in Darfur.

I'm not suggesting that Israel has genocide in mind for the Palestinians, but I am suggesting that this war in Gaza is revealing an ugly side to American perceptions of the world.

That's why I am so saddened by the utter failure of our American political leadership--on both sides--to address the larger moral issues.

Apparently there is an American sentiment toward unrelenting jihad.

Comments

Early Ehlinger said…
Perhaps annihilation was too strong a word. Perhaps I should have said "defeated."

The nature of war, especially war where both sides are fully committed ideologically, is that the only path to ending the war, PERMANENTLY, is for one side to be defeated.

Completely.

This war is one of those cases.

The Palestinians want for Israel to cease to exist. The Israelis do not. The Palestinians will not be happy with having their own state. They are not seeking their own success, but Israel's demise.

The two positions are completely incompatible. There is no common ground on which to find compromise.

Until one side is defeated (i.e., either the Palestinians completely give up, or the Israeli State shuts down and all Jews leave its borders) cease fires will be broken, negotiations will break down, and people will be killed.

Believe me, I truly wish that there was another way. I would greatly prefer to see the Palestinians happy with Bush's proposal of "the land you occupy will officially be yours, if you just play nice together." I sincerely hope that I am proven wrong and we see an end to all acts of aggression everywhere in the world.

But I am not naive enough to believe that will be the case.
Eric Dondero said…
Simple, cause our enemies view us as a bunch of Wimps. They believe we have no stomach for War. That's precisely what Osama bin Laden said in his video tape: That Americans are too soft, and used our pull-out of Somalia in the 1990s as an example.

Any coincidence that Adolph Hitler said precisely the same thing in the 1930s?

Hitler was quoted as saying that Americans would never enter the War, cause "they're too emersed in Hollywood movies, sports and sex-obsessed." (paraphrase.)

When you become a Nation of Girlie Men, not willing to fight, the Radical Islamists will rape and pillage and walk all over your country. And they may even rape the Girlie Men in the ass while they're at it.
Hey, Eric, you're such a genius, find the source for the Hitler quote you claim to have paraphrased.

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