I believe something could be learned in comparing Nasrallah and Gerry Adams.

Certainly something could be learned from comparing their respective movements. As someone who wishes Isreal well I also expect that - as with the IRA - the Palestinians are engaged in what will become a permanent-and understandable- resistance and that to the extent democracy has any effect it will be to ensure that their movement is led by
those most committed to that resistance.

Have the earlier comments on this post been deleted?

Condi Rice still holds the crazy belief that Lebanon's Army, which is 50% Shia, will magically deploy and confront Hezbollah.  She also deluded herself into believing that the radical groups, like Hezbollah and the insurgents in Iraq, are stirring up trouble because the US mission of spreading democracy is actually working. 

I don't think that she believes this.  It is all a mater of politics.  Israel seems to have decided that it needs to take on Hezbollah right now and do it in a way likely to destroy the existing government in Lebanon.  Our government right now is not in a very strong position to prevent Israel from once again rolling the dice in Lebanon. Not only that, but that roll of the dice is probably a good thing for Republican prospects in November.  Even if things turn out very badly by any  objective measure,  if in the next few months this triggers some other big crisis  (or some terror attacks on the US)  that might well be enough to get Americans marching to the polls to support our "resolute" leaders. We would need to vote in a way that would "send a message" to the terrorists and Syria and Iran.

And what choice do the Republicans have given that the Democrats falling all over themselves to try to be more supportive of Israel than the Republicans?  I think that perhaps a part of the reason that Israel has decided to play its hand in Lebanon at this moment is that its leaders correctly see that right now the political situation in the US assures that they well get whatever support they need from the US.  If they don't act now when when all American politicians want to be hawks, then if in November the  failure of the Iraq war results in the Republicans losing control of one or both houses of Congress  it could be much harder to get the US to support a new military adventure by Israel.

Fred in Vermont

Nasrallah is not Palestinian.

I haven't seen a poll yet. But my guess is that Bush's popularity has gone up.

Well, Bush's popularity is so low these days, that he's baselining around the proportion of Americans who are actively delusional. Basically, he's got the Klan, the Nazi's, the Multinationals, various brands of racists, fruit loops, fruitcakes, chickenhawks etc. Most of these people would support him if they watched him rape a nun in public. Like I said, tis hard for him to drop further.

So inevitably, his polls are more likely to go up. Basically, having a successful bowel movement is now a demonstration of ability and confidence.

But by all means, ROTFL, take heart from that.

I was unable to post last night at all.

At one point, I got a red message at the top that said, "You are not authorized to post messages" or some such.

I assumed Josh had lowered the boom on me because of something I said.

I'm still not sure what went on. Some posts of mine appear to have disappeared from other threads, as have some posts of others that were responding to mine. Because of the ridiculous ability to disappear low-rated messages, I can't tell if they were deleted or merely disappeared or if there was a technical glitch.

Larry's article was linked at HuffPo but nobody could access it from that end initially.

Be nice if somebody would tell us what the hell is going on.

I'll give Josh the benefit of the doubt for the moment, but last night it sure looked like the "new rules" were being ruthlessly enforced.

It may be worth remembering that Irish politics have gone through several variants of single-state proposals (e.g., Eamon de Valera's anti-Treaty faction in the South vs. Michael Collins' Treaty group), as well as the many variants of North and South, and possible partitions of the North. Ironically, the Israeli guerilla officer, Yitzhak Shamir, used Michael Collins as his code name.

I don't think it's unfair to say that the more recent progress was more grass-roots and by peace movements, as recognized by the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize to Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan. One cannot help but think of Tom Clancy's fictional use of nonviolent resistance, and if any such movement will arise in the very different culture of the Middle East.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Yesterday, the US Secretary of State, in a news conference, open to the press from all over the world, stated that we are on the side of Israel in this.  No other interpretation is possible for her statement that we are opposed to a cease fire until Israel can destroy the arms held by Hezbollah in Lebanon.  This is a blunt statement that we support Israel's attacks on southern Lebanon for that purpose, and will not support stopping those attacks until Israel decides that they have eliminated much of the threat to it.

No rational government anywhere in the world would believe that the US is a neutral country, able to be a neutral broker for  peace in that region of the world.  I'm not saying the the US should not be supporting Israels raids, because Israel clearly cannot ignore the threat of never ending rocket attacks across their northern border, and the government of Lebanon is incapable of even trying to disarm Hezbollah.  But, to even dream that we are a neutral nation, which should be trusted by all of the Middle Eastern nations to negotiate a just peace is utterly laughable.  In fact, I'm not sure just what country could be trusted to do that.

Hoppy in Sacramento

I think it is pretty obvious that too many of the comments were borderline unacceptable, if not outright unacceptable to Josh.  This is his "home" so when we visit his "home" his rules are what we follow, whether we agree with them or not.  

Never in my memory has it been so difficult to debate national issues.  We are now so polarized on almost every issue, that rational debate quickly becomes just repetitions of dogmatic extreme statements.  And, anything involving the Middle East situation seems to be the most polarized of all.

As I have posted before, I believe the root cause of this is that none of us really has a clue about how to settle the festering issues in that region of the world.  This may have to await the invention of a time machine, allowing someone to travel back to the early 1900's or sooner and change a few things. 

Hoppy in Sacramento

That's easy - they're defending themselves from criticism.

I'm sure Israel is searching Lebanon for the Internet backbone connection so they can sever that soon since too many pictures of bombed out apartment buildings and dead Lebanese children are showing up on the Net.

Someone pointed out that the Lebanese aren't the Palestinians or the Iraqis - they've had Net access and are cosmopolitan enough to use it to get the word out as to what is going on.

What is that "embedded" media the US loves so much? I guess Israel can't count on that in Lebanon, can they?

Since my question to Larry from yesterday disappeared I will post again.

What role is intelligence playing in on-the-ground operations as well as decision making by US and ME countries involved? 

The intelligence question/issue so prevalent in the public discussion of Iraq is invisible in the case of Lebanon.  Lebanon has been an open country so I have to assume that everyone has quite a bit of insight, correct?

As for Israel why should they be failing since they have clearly, at least in what I read, prepared and planned for militarily dealing with Lebanon. Why should they be surprised by how built into the landscape and the populace Hezbollah is??

You have a point there Dan K. The Bush administration is committed to its path, and has embraced the policies that are making America a world pariah.

Your point is that if Bush had any international cred, he would have gone and blown it by acting like a thug.

That's self evident. You used to have international cred. You have blown it by acting like a thug.

The illusion that Liberals have is that once Bush is gone, it will all go back to the way it was, America will be the leader of the free world, its word will be respected, people will see it as an honest broker.

Sorry to crap on the cherished dreams and delusions of the Liberal wing of America, but those days are gone.

America's name is mud, and if you ever have credibility again, you're going to have to work hard for a good long time to get it back.

George W. Bush has thrown away whatever integrity America earned in fifty years. You don't get a 'do over.'

Particularly not with the consent and compliance offered by most Democrats. The world correctly perceives that as bad as Bush is, the American political class does not differ significantly on his policies.

The following is approximately my post to this thread that was deleted.

Many of us are considering the possibility that the U.S. and Israel are getting into situations that they cannot control and which might put them at serious risk of losing big time. We have some very knowledgeable people saying we are handling the world situation in a stupid and unsustainable way militarily, economically, diplomatically, and otherwise. To some it is serious and to some it is just a game, and to some just a cynical power play, but you can bet that nobody involved on a serious level wants to lose. We don’t know who will win, but there are some things that we can predict with some confidence.

How about a sports metaphor?

It is the big game, it is the Super Bowl. America’s Team is down 21 to 27, fourth and fifteen on their own 25 yard line. There is eight seconds left on the clock They have no time outs left. They MIGHT lose. [ It could happen] What in the world can they do. What do you think? What would you do? I’m gonna bet they go long. I’m gonna bet that they take a long shot even if there is very little chance that it works. It is desperation time. Since they are MY TEAM and I have bet the farm on them I want them to win, I have got to hope it works.

Here it comes. Hail Mary, Mother of God, they are going to throw THE BOMB.

Who would have guessed?

What happened to the comments that were here yesterday? Were they removed on purpose or was there a software glitch

I think it is clear that the entire thread was deleted. I find this ominous, particularly after the screed by MJRosenberg was given front page prominence and he was not ever taken to task for his reprehensible attacks on this entire community of posters. That to me was blatantly biased.

Did you have to verify your account this morning, too? I also noticed the "moderation" button disappeard. Does this mean I used to be a trusted user but now am not? Did I say something unacceptable?

This  experience is not unique to you. Whatever was the problem has not at all been explained, discussed or clarified. I think most of us remain clueless and can only speculate as to what happened other than the clear evidence of the entire thread being banned.

What is so upsetting to me is that this is the type of thing that Limbaugh and Fox news do. They only want a certain perspective to dominant on an issue and they will not allow strong counter arguments to any position they choose or deem as the 'correct' posture.

What are we as members of this community to make of commentors being allowed to express vehemently extreme views and posters to the discussion not being able to have equally strong counterviews? 

For whatever reason I feel attacked and defenseless. It is like being robbed by a thief and then having your house condemned rather than the thief being caught and penalized...you lose your house instead.

In life, it is only when the envelope is pushed that progress is made. Many times people have said that MLK was successful because Malcolm X was so radical, that making concessions to MLK was far more desirable. It was only via two extremes that a compromise was even considered.

This is a sad day for TPM cafe. The expression of ideas has been curtailed and effectively muted. This just emphasizes how much Walt and Mershiemer were on target.

Didn't England solve the IRA problem by invading Northern Ireland and dropping bunker buster bombs around Dublin and pulvurizing the countryside?

Didn't think so but it would have been 'her right,' to do so, eh?

Well, it takes a lot of political courage to allow free debate on this issue. Josh has his name out there. I don't. But I sure do wish we could find someone in this party to move us from Joe McCarthyism to Eugene McCarthyism. When you've got a Congress that can't even muster 10 votes for a ceasefire, you know we've gone war mad and if we have even ONE Democrat who has courage to speak out against WWIII, I haven't been able to hear him above the war.