There are different ways of looking at this: We didn't like it when CBS bowed to the conservatives, but all is fair in the political wars now or ?

To refresh your memory, CNN has a good article.

Capping an extraordinary conservative furor over a movie virtually no one has seen, CBS said Tuesday it will not air "The Reagans" and shunt it off to the Showtime cable network instead.

While CBS said it was not bowing to political pressure, critics said that was exactly the case, and worried about the effects of such pre-emptive strikes on future work.

But conservatives said it was a question of accuracy.

he miniseries became a hot topic on talk radio and the TV news networks. The chairman of the Republican National Committee wrote to CBS President Leslie Moonves, asking for historians to review the movie, and the conservative Media Research Center asked advertisers to consider boycotting the film.

"This was a left-wing smear of one of the nation's most beloved presidents and CBS got caught," said Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie said putting the movie before a smaller audience on Showtime doesn't address accuracy concerns. Without changes, Showtime should remind viewers every 10 minutes that the movie is fictional, he said.

In a portion of the script published in The New York Times last month, Reagan was depicted as uncaring and judgmental toward people with AIDS. "They that live in sin shall die in sin," Reagan's character tells his wife as she begs him to help AIDS victims.

CBS said its decision to cancel the movie was "based solely on our reaction to seeing the final film, not the controversy that erupted around a draft of the script."

It's a growing trend in entertainment: concerned groups not even waiting until something is released to make it a battleground. Actor Mel Gibson has been skirmishing with Jewish groups over his Biblical epic, "The Passion of Christ."

The CBS decision "gives new hope to all of the people who don't like what they see on entertainment television," said Robert Thompson, head of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. "All of the special interest groups can say, 'look, we got the Reagan docudrama off the air. What's next?"

It's our move. Do you think there is any chance of liberating the "9/11 movie-not a documentary" from ABC? If so, should we try do it?

I just put a movie on YouTube. It's a reality video. There are no actors.

If you want to watch it , here's the link.

Drunken Landlord

It has been an eye opening & unpleasant experience finding out how I would be treated in other countries per these foriegn visitors. They recreated the conditions of their country in this house. I think it has permanently affected the way I will see foreigners for the rest of my life.

I called the police after the incident captured on video.

Analysts say Israel has not seriously damaged Hizbullah

The Daily Star believes Israel is losing. Its staff writers give these quotes:

"It is undeniable that Israel is in a bind. The army has again been over-confident and underestimated its abilities to break Hizbullah," said Israeli military analyst Reuven Pedatzur.

The risk now is for Israel to invade South Lebanon. That would make its troops vulnerable to Hizbullah fighters.

For the moment at least, the specter of sliding back into the quagmire of Lebanon has put the brakes on a ground offensive. Yet Olmert has approved intensified ground operations, described by the Israeli Army as "pinpoint."

General Alon Friedman said the military was "operating to destroy Hizbullah infrastructure and underground bunkers in particular," and that enough troops were on the border to launch a large-scale operation.

"Hizbullah seems to be holding strong and its morale seems intact," said Shaul Mishal, a Tel Aviv University specialist in Islamic groups. "It's an illusion to think that with force alone we can destroy the weapons of a movement like Hizbullah, which has widespread support from Shiites in Lebanon."

Israel's Haaretz daily wrote Thursday: "Despite the media euphoria and the patriotic spin, the aerial war ... is not heading for victory. In the best case, it is heading for a limited military achievement ... The air force's hammer blows are hitting Lebanon harder than they are hitting Hizbullah ... Even in the best-case scenario, Hizbullah will rise from the rubble ... One way or the other, the illusion of a magic solution is about to burst." - Agencies

With Hezbollah’s entry into the war between Israel and Hamas, Fourth Generation war has taken another developmental step forward. For the first time, a non-state entity has gone to war with a state not by waging an insurgency against a state invader, but across an international boundary. Again we see how those who define 4GW simply as insurgency are looking at only a small part of the picture.

I think the stakes in the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas war are significantly higher than most observers understand. If Hezbollah and Hamas win—and winning just means surviving, given that Israel’s objective is to destroy both entities—a powerful state will have suffered a new kind of defeat, again, a defeat across at least one international boundary and maybe two, depending on how one defines Gaza’s border. The balance between states and 4GW forces will be altered world-wide, and not to a trivial degree.

So far, Hezbollah is winning. As Arab states stood silent and helpless before Israel’s assault on Hamas, another non-state entity, Hezbollah, intervened to relieve the siege of Gaza by opening a second front. Its initial move, a brilliantly conducted raid that killed eight Israeli soldiers and captured two for the loss of one Hezbollah fighter, showed once again that Hezbollah can take on state armed forces on even terms (the Chechens are the only other 4GW force to demonstrate that capability). In both respects, the contrast with Arab states will be clear on the street, pushing the Arab and larger Islamic worlds further away from the state. 

EL PASO, Texas - Four U.S. soldiers accused of murdering suspected insurgents during a raid in Iraq said they were under orders to "kill all military age males," according to sworn statements obtained by The Associated Press.

So how much is an Iraqi (or Palestinian, or Iranian or Syrian or Lebanese) life worth? About this much

That's why they hate us.  

Why just last night, a Lobby Congressman appeared on Harball trying to convince us that Israel was just doing what the PM of Lebanon wished it to do.

• Bush Sees Mideast Strife as Step to Peace

• Lebanese PM: Israeli Attacks Making Hezbollah More Popular

Imagine an America free of the Israel Lobby!

One War - One Plan - One Lobby - One Practice to Deceive

American intelligence on Hizbullah is weak. Much of it comes from Israel. Anthony Cordesman says, "I'll be perfectly blunt: Israeli intelligence is political, and you can't trust it." With this warning, US papers then explain that Israel claims Hizbullah is really a Syrian and Iranian operation and not Lebanese at all

via Josh Landis

Is it any wonder that free of an Israel Lobby

Support for US and Israel Declining Rapidly Outside of US

Guess who is coming to dinner?  

PM Maliki, Dawa Party (Hizbollah)  

United Against the U.S., Israel

Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas are partners in that sense, and they are gaining clout. The Iraq war has played a key role, analysts say.

My Senator Dianne Feinstein says Israel is "crucial to Middle East stability".

More horrible, horrible pictures of the Israeli carnage against Lebanese civilians. I advise you not to click, but if you do, you are on your own. Juan Cole

Grabbing the Third Rail

Interview: Two professors respond to the backlash over their controversial paper on the Israel Lobby.

"Syria Can be a Stabilizing Force" by Uri Sagi, Ex IDF Intelligence Chief [Ha'aretz]  

Who's your daddy???

Hear O Israel, it is come to Bashar time and Syria is not a charitable organization.

^Hosea

⁷For they sow the wind,
   and they shall reap the whirlwind.
The standing grain has no heads,
   it shall yield no meal;
if it were to yield,
   foreigners would devour it.
⁸Israel is swallowed up;
   now they are among the nations
   as a useless vessel.
⁹For they have gone up to Assyria,
   a wild ass wandering alone;

What explains the indifference of the Bush administration to the slaughter of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza? 

A Handful of Neocons Are Instigating a Wider War Will Americans join Iraqis, Lebanese, and Palestinians as neocon victims?

by Paul Craig Roberts

Twenty-five years ago I stared into the eyes of Michael Berman, chief operative for his congressman-brother, Howard Berman. I was a neophyte running for the California Assembly in a district that the Bermans claimed belonged to them.
“I represent the Israeli defense forces,” Michael said. I thought he was joking. He wasn’t. Michael seemed to imagine himself the gatekeeper protecting Los Angeles’ Westside for Israel’s political interests, and those of the famous Berman-Waxman machine. Since Jews represented one-third of the Democratic district’s primary voters, Berman held a balance of power.

Prayers are with Ryan and the people of Lebanon.

I hope you will wake up to the nightmare you have dragged us into. I hope you will want to have fire ceased as soon as possible. I hope you will deem our humanity as valuable as your own.

Letter from Rasha in Beirut; and the Israeli Siege Notes

Letter from a Young Lebanese-American Woman

 Hospitality or the Abyss

Patrick McGreevy writes from Beirut:

And what of those who are raining bombs on Lebanon? Today a water-drilling truck in the Christian Achrafieh neighborhood, another truck transporting medicine, civilians dying everywhere. The targeting strategy errs on the side of overkill—the tactic of terror. But what does it yield? What does the Warsaw Ghetto tell us? Both Hezbollah and the Israeli leaders, despite the asymmetry of their power, assume this is a macho game about dignity, about facing down one’s enemy. Look in the mirror habibi. Look into the abyss.

Bush: Love Attack on Merkel!" 



 

One German tabloid, Bild-Zeitung, which posted the link to the video and headlined it: "Bush: Love Attack on Merkel!"

(www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/news/aktuell/2006/07/18/merkel-bush-liebes-attacke/merkel-bush-liebes-attacke.html)

And Dialog International, a Web site that specializes in German-American politics and culture, said Bush's behavior raised questions about the American president and his profile abroad.

"When he is away from his script and his handlers, his true lack of intelligence and emotional maturity surfaces for all to see. The dangerous situation in Lebanon ... requires true leadership. Don't look for it from the world's uberpower."


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