One of the benefits of being my age is I’m not influenced very much by the opinions of pundits, and I come to my own conclusions about world events. As far as I’m concerned, nobody in the Middle East is entirely in the right, or blameless of atrocities.
Israel was pounding Gaza while Bush was still President because they knew he wouldn’t complain. The only reason it’s offering a cease fire now is because Obama is taking office and they’re not sure how he’ll react, although I assume Hillary Clinton has been talking privately with Israel. Obama has been smart to not make any public statements about Gaza before taking office.
Nobody likes Hamas, and Israel is right to defend its people from attack, but if I were Obama the first thing I would do is say, “Effective immediately, no more planes or tanks will be sold to Israel.”
The rise of radical Islam is a result mostly of two things — the creation of the state of Israel, and America putting the Shah of Iran in power. Israel can either be an all-Jewish state, or not. America can continue to try keeping friendly governments in power in the Middle East, or not.
It’s obvious that hard-line, winner-take-all policies don’t work, because the way things are there can be no winners. If I were Obama my attitude would be, “I don’t care who started it, but I’m damn sure going to do what I can to end it.” To do that means not being a nice guy. So the Republicans are right about the need to be tough, but we have to be tough on Israel too.
I’m confused. Is there a store at the mall that’s closing and/or the entire mall is in trouble?
As far as the Middle East goes, their problems have been going on for hundreds of years. It would take another “Hudson Miracle” to end THAT mess!
A lot is riding on his speech tomorrow. Suddenly there are all these books on Lincoln and Kennedy filling the racks of books stores, even Wal-Mart, comparing Obama to Abe. Well, they DID both take office during very turbulent times. I worry about security and the thousands of neo-Nazis and otherwise ignorant people who have a personal vendetta against Barry. God Bless Him and his family, no matter how any of us feel about him, he has a tough road ahead of him. And thank GOD, the chimp is finally out of office! I do believe he will take the attitude you speak of, Doug; I mean, what other choice does he have? Our country is going down the tubes. We were shopping at the mall Saturday and it was creepy buying books currently on the NYT bestseller list for mere bucks! The shelves had been stripped, and all the other stores were offering up to 75 percent off on their merchandise.