Islam

"The security of the State of Israel is a matter of great importance to U.S. policy in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. A strong Israel is an asset upon which American military planners and political leaders can rely. Israel shares our commitment to democracy, freedom, personal liberty and rule of law."

"The problem of militias and non-state actors operating in a sovereign country is precisely the same as that faced by Americans and coalition forces in Iraq — also supported by Iran and Syria.

"We believe that Israel’s military operation to remove Hezbollah from southern Lebanon is a correct and legitimate response to the creation of an armed force accountable to Syria and Iran … and using Lebanese territory to engage in cross-border warfare.

The statement was issued through the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in Washington, which organizes exchanges and visits between military leaders of the U.S. and Israel to strengthen the security of both nations.

Click the "continue" link below to read the full text with list of the signers.

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Is there a place in the U.S. justice system for torture?

Alan Dershowitz, the civil libertarian defender of O.J Simpson, believes the law should sanction torture so it may be applied in certain cases, such as terrorist acts.

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Israel as “vampire bat”? Terrorist-supporting Arab states run by dictators as “butterflies”? While everyone is entitled to an opinion, this letter to the Monitor shows that some opinions are of value only as examples of poor reasoning.

Despite ample historical evidence, many on the anti-war Left continue to put their faith in international coalitions and the UN to resolve the ongoing crisis in the Middle East. These same folks claim to prefer "diplomatic" solutions even when there is no diplomatic solution. (Where is the diplomatic middle ground with an enemy that fails to uphold international standards of behavior and repeated calls for the annihilation of UN-member states?) They also favor applying a “European approach” rather than American "cowboyism" to dealing with the world’s hot spots.

Post World War II Europeans have spent decades supporting meaningless resolutions and absolving terrorist organizations of blame for heinous crimes while holding the United States and Israel to impossible standards. That is the “European approach,” and it fails miserably everywhere it is tried. (Remember the former Yugoslavia?) The irony is that the United States “cowboy” has spent billions of dollars and sacrificed thousands of lives over the past 70 years trying to mitigate European diplomatic, military, and philosophical messes.

Let us not forget that Israel was created in part because European powers could not be trusted……

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With this Posting, GraniteGrok is happy to welcome Bob M!  We have enjoyed his Letters to the Editor in the local papers for a while now as they have been factually based and logically written.  He will be seen here, hopefully, more than occasionally.

Thanks Bob!      -Skip

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Update 1

Ken responds to a Letter writer in the Concord Monitor here.  Spotting another Letter supporting him here, he continues

Thank you, Ms. Fallon.  You clearly understand the situation far better than Kenneth Joop of Concord.  He writes a letter in the Sunday Monitor that reads, in part:

It is difficult for me to conceive of anyone supporting Israel’s devastation of Lebanon. We are often cited various Muslim groups who wish to wipe Israel off the map. Israel is in no danger of being wiped off the map, although this is not necessarily true of Palestine.

Israel is fighting against a deadly terrorist organization whose leader states flatly that his goal is the destruction of the state of Israel, a UN member state.  Arab nations have tried to conquer Israel in conventional war since its establishment.  Now they use terrorist proxies.  Using conventional arms, these groups can not destroy Israel.  But a nuclear-armed Iran will pose a mortal threat.  Does Mr. Joop really believe that the Jewish state could survive a nuclear detonation in Tel Aviv?  Death, destruction, refugees, economic chaos – the land would not be "wiped off the map," but the nation would be. 

And what, exactly, is the "Palestine" to which Mr. Joop refers?  A segment of the old Ottoman Empire? The post World War I British administrative region called the Mandate of Palestine, which included the modern Kingdom of Jordan?  The Palestinian Authority has not earned statehood.

Israel has a right to defend itself, even if that means attacking a terrorist enemy that is interwoven with a civilian population.  The Allies destroyed Germany and Japan to win World War II, killing many civilians, many children.  Such is the nature of war.  If southern Lebanon must be destroyed in order to eradicate Hezbollah, so be it.

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(Sometimes, people just don’t do their homework – both in the historical sense and in the literary sense.  Ken gets a "twofer" with this one  -Skip)

Double standard, JULIE LANOCHA , Hopkinton – Letter  to The Concord Monitor  July 23. 2006 10:00AM
 

Despite the sympathies anyone might have for the Jews following the atrocities of World War II, the fact is they had no more right to be in Palestine than the British to be in Northern Ireland.

To put the current hostilities into perspective, if England had responded to the kidnapping of two soldiers by the IRA with the bombing of Irish villages, destroying hospitals, bridges, airports, killing hundreds of civilians, cutting off water and electricity, how would the international community respond?

If I recall correctly, there was a very active IRA sympathizer community in the United States raising money and providing support to this terrorist group. I don’t remember an enraged U.S. populace calling for the terrorists to be stopped, for the bloodshed to end, for all means necessary to be put to use to stop the menace.

Why the difference?

JULIE LANOCHA

 

Here’s my response:  No Analogy

An effective argument from analogy  must meet two requirements:

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EUROPE – THY NAME IS COWARDICE

Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG

A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, Europe -your family name is appeasement." It’s a phrase you can’t get out of your head because it’s so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements.

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Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of Eastern Europe, where for decades, inhuman suppressive, murderous governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities.

 

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