Worth a 1000 Words

What much of the world doesn't seem to understand Gary Varvel eloquently explains with a single drawing:

Darwinian Hyperbole

This piece of overstatement is from the Science and Theology News site:

Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it - by evolving.

A medium sized species of Darwin's finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.

The altered beak size shows that species competing for food can undergo evolutionary change, said Peter Grant of Princeton University, lead author of the report appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

Grant has been studying Darwin's finches for decades and previously recorded changes responding to a drought that altered what foods were available.

It's rare for scientists to be able to document changes in the appearance of an animal in response to competition. More often it is seen when something moves into a new habitat or the climate changes and it has to find new food or resources, explained Robert C. Fleischer, a geneticist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo.

One of the difficulties of evolutionary theory is that the timescales involved are often so large that much of the data has to be inferred. While the scientific community finds such data - primarily the fossil record - compelling, the data can be incomplete, leaving room for critics to cry foul. However, documented changes occurring within the timescale of a human life are, one might say, a different sort of animal.

Why a journalist might think this constitutes evolution is not hard to understand. What is difficult to grasp is why a scientist would call it evolution. There's no speciation involved here, no reproductive isolation, no indication of an alteration in the finch's genome, no "different sort of animal," just a simple modification of the size of an anatomical structure triggered, apparently, by the unavailability of a particular food source.

This is only evolution if evolution is defined in such a way as to include any variation that occurs in a population of organisms, but such a definition renders the concept meaningless.

The amusing and disingenuous ploy at work in reports such as this is that they are used to support the claim that evolution is a fact. Darwinists will argue that evolution (meaning molecules to man evolution) is as firmly established as gravity, that anyone who questions it is either ignorant or malicious, but when the public meekly requests a crumb of evidence to support that claim it's shown pictures of finches with diminished beaks. We may as well be told that since humans, because of better nutrition, have grown taller in the last century and a half, and live longer, evolution is therefore a fact.

Window of Opportunity

Ed Lasky argues compellingly that there has never been a more propitious time than now for the Israelis to cut out the cancer that is Bashir Assad's Syria:

The stars are aligning as they rarely do in the Middle East. When was the last time France, America (under the most assertively Israel-supporting president ever), Israel and the Sunni nations agreed on a common enemy? Failure to grasp such an opportunity would be a failure to grasp an opportunity to bring peace to the region.

Read his entire argument at The American Thinker.

We're living in interesting times. There would probably be more enthusiasm in the rest of the Arab world for removing Assad than there would be in the capitals of the West. Despite the fact that Assad has been a thorn in our side in Iraq, it may be that behind the scenes he's been playing both sides, an irritating arrangement that, on balance, may have been working to our benefit. At any rate, Lasky is correct that a window of opportunity like this may not ever open again.

Awful Advice

Richard Cohen, in a column for which he has been roundly and justly criticized, writes:

There is no point in condemning Hezbollah. Zealots are not amenable to reason. And there's not much point, either, in condemning Hamas. It is a fetid, anti-Semitic outfit whose organizing principle is hatred of Israel. There is, though, a point in cautioning Israel to exercise restraint -- not for the sake of its enemies but for itself. Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself.

Why on earth, we ask, shouldn't Israel take this land back? The Arabs have shown that they can't govern it, they can't control the extremists, and in Gaza they even voted the extremists into power. Israel gave up this land with the understanding that giving the Palestinians and the Lebanese land that they claim would conduce to peace. It hasn't because the Arabs don't just want a sliver of soil here and a plot there. They want it all. Israel, having been betrayed by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, and the U.N. should rescind their decision to leave and should reoccupy whatever land they need to make their people secure.

Hard-line critics of Ariel Sharon, the now-comatose Israeli leader who initiated the pullout from Gaza, always said this would happen: Gaza would become a terrorist haven. They said that the moderate Palestinian Authority would not be able to control the militants and that Gaza would be used to fire rockets into Israel and to launch terrorist raids. This is precisely what has happened.

It is also true, as some critics warned, that Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was seen by its enemies -- and claimed by Hezbollah -- as a defeat for the mighty Jewish state. Hezbollah took credit for this, as well it should. Its persistent attacks bled Israel. In the end, Israel got out and the United Nations promised it a secure border. The Lebanese army would see to that. (And the check is in the mail.)

All that the critics warned has come true. But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. That would put Israel smack back to where it was, subjugating a restless, angry population and having the world look on as it committed the inevitable sins of an occupying power.

Cohen apparently believes that it's better to watch your children be blown to smithereens by suicide bombers and rockets than to have to control the people who would be their murderers.

The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. That includes getting out of most of the West Bank -- and waiting (and hoping) that history will get distracted and move on to something else. This will take some time, and in the meantime terrorism and rocket attacks will continue.

This is a "smart choice"? The reason Israel is in the predicament it's in is because it conceded to its enemies what they demanded. That made Israel vulnerable to the kinds of missile barrages that we've seeing launched at them on a daily basis and Cohen thinks that the smart play is to do more of the same? He advises the Israelis to withdraw now from the West Bank as well? He urges the Israelis to wait for the Arabs to grow weary of killing them? He counsels them to maintain the staus quo for generations more? This is what passes for sound judgment and analysis in the editorial offices of the Washington Post?

...gifted British historian, Tony Judt, wraps up his recent book "Postwar" with an epilogue on how the sine qua non of the modern civilized state is recognition of the Holocaust. Much of the Islamic world, notably Iran under its Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stands outside that circle, refusing to make even a little space for the Jews of Europe and, later, those from the Islamic world. They see Israel not as a mistake but as a crime. Until they change their view, the longest war of the 20th century will persist deep into the 21st. It is best for Israel to hunker down.

This has to be about the worst possible advice anyone could offer Israel. When one's family is under assault one doesn't hunker down, not if it is within one's power to stop the attackers. Cohen is so afraid that the Israelis might actually defend themselves and incur the condemnation of the Euro-appeasers that he urges upon them the path of cowardice and capitulation. Give the Arabs what they want, he argues, because, who knows, they might someday get fatigued from the slaughter. "Hunkering down" until the Arabs grow tired of killing them is a prescription for national suicide. Moreover, it's sheer impertinence for Mr. Cohen, who sits in a safe office in Washington, D.C,. to pontificate on how others should be willing to suffer the daily terrors of life among the orcs.

The Stem Cell Debate

As expected, President Bush vetoed today a Congressional attempt to expand federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. I understand and sympathize with the President's instincts on this issue, but I'm not convinced by the logic of his position.

Basically, the President argues that it is wrong to use federal money to support research that many Americans believe to involve the murder of a human being.

Here's the problem: Fertility clinics generate more embryos in their attempts to help couples conceive than what they eventually use. Once a successful implantation occurs the surplus embryos are usually discarded. Let us, for the sake of argument, stipulate that this is tantamount to killing a human being (parenthetically, we might wonder why those who believe that this is indeed a form of murder have not been more vocal in their opposition to the practice).

Furthermore, abortions produce hundreds of thousands of dead embryos every year. Let's stipulate that this also involves the killing of a living human being. Indeed, let's agree for the sake of discussion that early abortion is the equivalent of murder and should be made illegal.

Now, where are we? We have agreed that dead embryos are often produced in horribly immoral fashion. Does it follow from this that it is wrong to use those embryos, whose lives are forfeit in any event, to help relieve the suffering of others? Not necessarily. It would seem that it's no more wrong to use the tissues of murdered embryos (assuming, still, for the sake of argument that the embryos have been murdered) than it would be morally wrong for a hospital to harvest the organs of an adult homicide victim if consent from the next of kin were granted.

In other words, the morality of the means by which the embryos become available is a separate question from the morality of what can, or should, be done with the embryo once it has become available. It would be morally repugnant, certainly, to produce embryos purely for the sake of harvesting their tissues, but embryos which are sacrificed for other reasons, even for some morally dubious reasons, are not necessarily in that category. They are, at worst, in the same moral category as the homicide victim. It seems that just as we would abhor killing someone to harvest his organs but would not be repelled, perhaps, by the idea of harvesting the organs of someone whose life was otherwise unjustly taken, we should abhor producing embryos simply for the purpose of "farming" them, but not be unwilling to use the stem cells of embryos which have been produced and killed for other reasons.

In sum, the morality of using stem cells extracted from surplus embryos obtained from fertility or even abortion clinics is separate from the question of the morality of how the embryos came to be available. Using the cells for research is not necessarily made morally reprehensible because the way the embryos are obtained is, or may be.

At least that's how I've come to see the matter. Perhaps you have a different view, and if so, I invite you to share your thoughts through our Feedback feature.

Death of Another Butcher

The man responsible for the torture and deaths of two American soldiers has been killed by Iraqi security forces it was announced yesterday. Read the story here. Being shot to death was better than this man deserved.

If you have the stomach for it you can get an idea of why I say that by going here and scrolling to the bottom. I do not advise this unless you're sure you can handle a vision of pure evil and total moral degeneracy.

A Pilot's Diary

Major 'Y', an F-16 pilot in the Israeli Air Force, writes about his experiences of the past several days.

Wednesday 1000:

Returning back to my base from a routine practice mission. Taxiing back to the parking area, I hear "Zanek" (Jump) on the radio. What? I asked myself. Everything was calm when I took off, just one hour ago. By the time I get out of the plane, I hear the roar of the heavy takeoffs. And then another roar, and another. There is something different in the sound of a combat takeoff with a full load of bombs: the takeoff is long, the planes are heavy, the afterburner is used longer - not the light and quick training takeoffs. Something is definitely happening, I say to myself.

I hurry back to the squadron, where the loudspeakers are announcing: "all aircrew into briefing room." The squadron commander gives a short update - two soldiers had been kidnapped, rockets are fired at the north. No more training for today... Everyone must prepare, review procedures and combat tactics.

1100:

Major E, my formation leader walks into the briefing room, still in his jeans. He's been called to come ASAP. What's happening? He asks me. I update him, and we brief for our mission quickly. He is concerned about making mistakes, and bombing the wrong targets. He is experienced, and has been around long enough to see mistakes happen and innocent civilians killed. A friend of his, a helicopter pilot once mistook a letter in a target's name, and ended up shooting at the wrong target, killing a whole family. Major E does not want the same thing to happen to us. He emphasizes that there is no rush, that we must check and recheck every coordinate we receive, make sure we understand EXACTLY what we are supposed to target.

1430:

The siren blows. We run to the planes, start the engines, power up the systems. Ground crew running around the plane, the tower gives us permission to take off. We are told to head north, to Lebanon. "Get ready to receive targets," announces the flight controller as we approach. Major E and I read back the information, verifying with the flight controller that we have no mistakes. We head to the coast of Lebanon. It looks so small from above - Israel on the south, Syria in the east. I shake myself - no time to enjoy the view... hurry through the switches, procedures, arm the bombs, check the systems, head to the target, follow the range 10-9-8 Pickle! The plane violently rocks from side to side as two bombs fall off each wing, few seconds apart. I look down at the ground - we are flying so high, it's hard to judge where my bombs are going to hit, but the explosions catch my eye.

We head back - "mission complete. 4 direct hits," reports Major E to the controller. The rush and adrenalin gone, thoughts enter my head. I sure wish I hit the "bad guys" and that there were no civilians hanging around the place. Hizballah cynically often uses civilians as a shelter from Israel's bombings.

1630:

We land in the base, and are relieved to learn that we went for a Hizbullah post. Probably unmanned. It's strange how the focus in these missions is not to succeed, hit the target precisely, but rather - not to make any mistakes. The message is clear all the way from the Squadron commander to the last pilot. One mistake can jeopardize the whole war, like in Kfar-Kana, in one of the last operations in Lebanon, where artillery bombarded a refugee camp, killing over 100 people, which resulted in international pressure that halted the operation. Hitting the target is expected, no misses are acceptable. There aren't any congratulations for a well-performed mission. Only a hammer on the head if something goes wrong. Personally, I think it's a healthy attitude; it causes the whole system to be less rash and hot on the trigger.

Friday, 5:30 a.m.:

I enter the briefing room after a short night's sleep. I've been called to come last night from home and spend the night in the base. My wife sure wasn't pleased with that, she's worried.

A couple of hours later Major T and I are above Beirut. The damage to the city is evident. The holes in the runway are easily seen. Huge gas tanks are still burning; a dark cloud of smoke is hanging over the whole city. I'm sorry for the poor citizens of Lebanon. As their Prime Minister Seniora said, they are the last to know, but the first to pay.

We head east, to the Bakaa valley, close to the Syrian border. Although we are careful not to get too close to the border and not expecting Syrian action, I keep a careful eye on the warning systems, that will tell me if a missile is launched. This time we have two targets; we later hear reports that the first target had been completely destroyed, while the second hit but not destroyed. Another formation is given the later target.

1800:

I join up with a few friends on Tel Aviv beach. We're having some beers, enjoying the breeze and watching the sunset. After a while I say something about how bizarre the situation is - we're here having fun, while whole towns in the north are being bombarded. Wait a minute - they ask me, haven't you been called up? Sure, I reply. Just this morning I dropped two tons of explosives on Lebanon.

One of the important things to note in this pilot's log is how concerned the Israeli pilots are to avoid civilian casualties. That there have been such is a consequence of human fallibility and the contemptible practice of Hezbollah, and Muslim jihadis generally, of using civilians as shields.

Israeli Tactics

Haaretz.com offers this analysis of Israel's tactics against Hezbollah. According to Haaretz the most intense fighting still lies ahead:

The fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, has still not reached its zenith. The Israel Defense Forces' operational plans against the Shi'ite organizations have not yet been carried out. The next two days are the most critical and a lot depends on whether Tehran decides to take a chance and authorize Hezbollah to launch long-range missiles with more powerful warheads. This is a capability Hezbollah still retains, despite the heavy blows it has suffered in the IDF air strikes.

On Sunday, Israel bore witness to the use of more powerful rockets against Haifa, which killed eight people and injured dozens more. The Syrian-made 220 mm rocket has a warhead weighing more than 50 kilograms. Hezbollah was supplied with these rockets as the Syrian armed forces were receiving them off the production lines. The decision to give Hezbollah the rockets was made when it was concluded that the group would be considered part of the Syrian army's overall emergency preparedness.

The risk to Iran is not military, but rather that Hezbollah would suffer such damage that it would no longer be counted as the sole external element of Iran's Islamic Revolution. It is difficult to assess what the Iranian leadership will decide. If it does opt for aggravating the situation, it will certainly encourage the Syrians to become involved in the confrontation, but all indications suggest that Damascus is not eager to get dragged into war.

Israel is also not interested in a third front, so long as Syria does not intervene in the fighting on the side of Hezbollah.

Another option is that Iran will decide that it is not advantageous for Hezbollah to launch "one too many" rockets at Israel's civilians. In the past 24 hours, there has been a slowing in the air strikes against Lebanese national infrastructure. Now attention is focused on Hezbollah infrastructure, including rockets, positions and bunkers, in southern Lebanon, the Beka'a and Beirut.

From a military standpoint, the mobile Fajr rockets pose a special problem because they are more difficult to locate and destroy. On Sunday, the air force concentrated on attacks against regular Katyusha rockets whose range is shorter and many of which have already been launched against towns in the Galilee. But the presence of some 600 Hezbollah storage bunkers, a third of which were prepared for the longer range rockets, makes the task difficult.

Israel will also try to target the 12 most senior members of Hezbollah, who are hiding in bunkers deep in the Dahiya quarter in southern Beirut. These men are strategic targets and they include Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Ibrahim Akil, Imad Mughniye and others. These senior figures constitute the group's equivalent of a General Staff and its political-diplomatic cabinet.

One of the reasons for the repeated attacks against Dahiya is that the Hezbollah's top headquarters are situated there. The area is described by IDF as a "terrorist center" and although the aim is not to harm civilians, the IDF hopes that the permanent residents will leave their homes so that they will not be hurt. A total of 40 targets have been marked in Dahiya, some linked by underground tunnels; one of them is a subterranean factory for special types of ammunition.

What Will the Israelis Find?

We wonder: If the Israelis sweep through the Bekaa Valley, as some analysts predict, will they find Saddam's WMD which are putatively buried there? Is the CIA on top of this?

Disproportionate Response

Cox and Forkum offer their opinion of the refrain that Israel's response to the thousands of missiles that have been fired into Israel over the years and the hundreds of murders of Israeli citizens is "disproportionate":

Thank God For George Bush

This will set the left to rooting through its pockets for its blood pressure medicine. Elie Wiesel, in a demonstration in support of Israel in New York on Sunday, thanked God that George Bush was in the White House. Hillary who shared the stage with the Nobel prize winner, did not seem to share Elie's enthusiasm for Mr. Bush.

Go here and scroll down to the photo of Weisel and click on it to play his speech.

Stem Cell Funding

The imminent presidential veto of a bill providing for federal funding for embryonic stem cell research may require a few clarifications.

No one in the debate is seeking to ban embryonic stem cell research. The legislation which will be sent to the oval office, there to fall victim to the first veto of the Bush presidency, would simply lift the ban on federal funding of such research. Presently anyone who wishes is free to seek alternative funding for his or her research, but federal funds are available only to those researchers working on stem cell lines available prior to 2001. This limitation applies only to embryonic stem cells taken from a human embryo and which require the embryo be destroyed in order to harvest them. Research on stem cells from adults or umbilical cords is not affected.

One possibility being discussed is that surplus embryos produced in fertility clinics for women seeking to get pregnant, and which will be destroyed in any event, could be donated for their stem cells, and researchers could be eligible for federal funding for these. Since these embryos are going to be destroyed, this seems to make a certain amount of sense, but it puts the administration on a slippery slope. If they agree to making funds available to researchers working with stem cells obtained in such a fashion on what grounds could they refuse to make funds available to researchers using stem cells harvested from aborted embryos? No doubt this is what will provoke Bush's promised veto.

A Brief History

Breitbart.com offers us a brief history of the relations between Israel and Lebanon:

Because Israel and Lebanon have never signed a peace accord, the countries remain officially in a state of war that has existed since 1948 when Lebanon joined other Arab nations against the newly formed Jewish state.

The two countries have been bound by an armistice signed in 1949, which regulates the presence of military forces in southern Lebanon. With a large Christian minority in an overwhelmingly Muslim region, mercantile and Westernized, Lebanon was considered the least hostile Arab neighbor to Israel - and the weakest. The rare skirmishes that occurred were mostly symbolic.

That began to change as Palestinian guerrillas became active. In 1968, Israeli commandos landed at Beirut airport and blew up 13 Lebanese airliners in retaliation for Arab militants firing on an Israeli airliner in Athens, Greece. Under pressure from staunch anti-Israeli Arab regimes in 1969, Lebanon signed an agreement that effectively gave away a southern region for Palestinian guerrillas to use as a springboard to infiltrate Israel or launch cross-border attacks.

Israel retaliated regularly as Palestinian guerrillas fired on northern Israel, and Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon in 1978. A U.N. peacekeeping force deployed and the Israelis pulled out after installing a local Lebanese militia in a border buffer zone, but the attacks continued.

Israel invaded again on a wider scale in 1982 to destroy Yasser Arafat's Palestinian guerrilla movement, which had established itself as a force within Lebanon during the country's civil war. The bulk of Palestinian guerrillas were evacuated from Lebanon, but a new Lebanese guerrilla force, Hezbollah, emerged with the aid of Iran and drawn from the Shiite Muslim community that inhabits southern and eastern Lebanon.

U.S.-sponsored negotiations produced a Lebanon-Israel agreement but that deal died as Lebanon collapsed in another round of civil war. After a destructive and costly military campaign that lasted for three years, Israeli forces withdrew from most of Lebanon but retained a self-proclaimed "security zone" just north of its own border.

Fighting inside Lebanon would escalate periodically, including a 1993 Israeli bombing offensive and the 17-day "Grapes of Wrath" military campaign in 1996 that left about 150 Lebanese civilians dead. At that time, Israel was reacting against guerrilla attacks by Hezbollah against Israeli soldiers inside the occupied zone and against Katyusha rockets being fired by Hezbollah into Israel proper.

Israel left that zone in 2000, but warned that it would return if its security to the north was compromised. Hezbollah trumpeted Israel's withdrawal as a great victory but claimed that Israel continued to occupy illegally a small, empty parcel near Syria called the Chebaa Farms.

Diplomats mostly see that claim as a convenient excuse to justify attacks against Israel. Nevertheless, the Israeli-Lebanese frontier had remained largely quiet for the past six years with occasional outbursts _ until a cross-border raid July 12 resulted in the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of eight others, sparking the current warfare.

Let's think about the Israeli position. Suppose some American Indians moved into the houses on either side of yours and from time to time fired a couple of bullets at your house. You demand that they stop, but they refuse. Occasionally they sneak onto your property and assault your family. You call the police, of course, but the police ultimately do nothing to stop the terrorizing of your family. Your kids fear for their lives and so do you. You ask to negotiate with your neighbors. They insist that you're living on land taken by your ancestors from their ancestors and they want it back, and until you give it back you'll have to put up with these attacks forever or until you and your descendents are all dead.

You have two options. You can either move your family or you can fight. You have no place to go, the house is yours, so why should you move? On the other hand, you are much stronger than your neighbors and better armed. Fighting is the last thing you want to do, but what other practical choice do you have?

That's pretty much the situation the Israelis find themselves in today.

Off Topic

I just got home from a trip to San Diego where I hooked up with Nick, an old college buddy of mine and we toured the southwest on motorcycles for a week. There's a lot of beautiful country in America and it quickly becomes apparent that it must have taken a long time for the forces of nature to make it.

Nick took some pics during our 2400 mile trip of the scenery along the coast of California on Route 1, east through Utah, and then Nevada including Zion and Bryce National parks.

We finished the trip by riding from the Grand Canyon to San Diego in eleven hours. We did a drive by through Las Vegas which displayed an incredible amount of new construction...mostly casinos. It seems that the majority of the clientele are Asian and they have a lot of money and like to gamble so Las Vegas is determined to accommodate them.

We stopped to get something to eat in Baker, CA around 6 pm. The temperature was 120 degrees. When we left at about 6:45 the temperature was 122 degrees.

Later we stopped for gas at Barstow, CA. The motorcycles required premium gasoline and it cost $4.00 per gallon. I was glad I wasn't driving a Hummer.

When we finally got back to San Diego, we relaxed for a bit and then started to discuss a trip to the northwest sometime in the future.

Nick burned the pictures he took onto a cd and it just arrived in the mail so I thought it good to share them with our readers.

Note: For best viewing of the pictures - Internet Explorer users can move the mouse to hover over the picture and an icon will appear in the lower right corner of the image. Clicking on the icon will expand it to full screen. Netscape users simply have to click on the image to expand it.

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Root and Branch

Ramirez puts the blame where it belongs:

Mark Twain once observed that there are thousands of people hacking at the branches of evil for everyone who is cutting at the root. It's past time that this tree be brought down root and branch.

Lebanese Christians

One voice rarely heard from the Middle East is that of Lebanese Christians. The Lebanese Foundation For Peace has issued a statement thanking Israel for striking at Hezbollah which has been terrorizing Lebanese Christians for two decades. Here's a report on the statement from Brigitte Gabriel:

For the millions of Christian Lebanese, driven out of our homeland, "Thank you Israel," is the sentiment echoing from around the world. The Lebanese Foundation for Peace, an international group of Lebanese Christians, made the following statement in a press release to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert concerning the latest Israeli attacks against Hezbollah:

"We urge you to hit them hard and destroy their terror infrastructure. It is not [only] Israel who is fed up with this situation, but the majority of the silent Lebanese in Lebanon who are fed up with Hezbollah and are powerless to do anything out of fear of terror retaliation."

Their statement continues, "On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the Diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism.

We ask you for support, facilitation and logistics in order to win this struggle and achieve together the same objectives: Peace and Security for Lebanon and Israel and our future generations to come."

The once dominate Lebanese Christians responsible for giving the world "the Paris of the Middle East" as Lebanon used to be known, have been killed, massacred, driven out of their homes and scattered around the world as radical Islam declared its holy war in the 70s and took hold of the country.

They voice an opinion that they and Israel have learned from personal experience, which is now belatedly being discovered by the rest of the world.

While the world protected the PLO withdrawing from Lebanon in 1983 with Israel hot on their heals, another more volatile and religiously idealistic organization was being born: Hezbollah, "the Party of God," founded by Ayatollah Khomeini and financed by Iran. It was Hezbollah who blew up the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in October,1983 killing 241 Americans and 67 French paratroopers that same day. President Reagan ordered U.S. Multilateral Force units to withdraw and closed the books on the marine massacre and US involvement in Lebanon February 1984.

The civilized world, which erroneously vilified the Christians and Israel back then and continues to vilify Israel now, was not paying attention. While America and the rest of the world were concerned about the Israeli / PLO problem, terrorist regimes in Syria and Iran fanned Islamic radicalism in Lebanon and around the world.

Hezbollah's Shiite extremists began multiplying like proverbial rabbits out-producing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament. Since the Israeli pull out in 2000, Lebanon has become a terrorist base completely run and controlled by Syria with its puppet Lebanese President Lahood and the Hezbollah "state within a state."

The Lebanese army has less than 10,000 military troops. Hezbollah has over 4,000 trained militia forces and there are approximately 700 Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. So why can't the army do the job? Because the majority of Lebanese Muslims making up the army will split and unite along religious lines with the Islamic forces just like what happened in 1976 at the start of the Lebanese civil war.

It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology vs. Judeo Christian Westernism. Muslims who are now the majority of Lebanon's population, support Hezbollah because they are part of the Islamic Ummah-the nation. This is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid.

The latest attacks on Israel have been orchestrated by Iran and Syria driven by two different interests. Syria considers Lebanon a part of "greater" Syria. Young Syrian President Assad and his Ba'athist military intelligence henchmen in Damascus are using this latest eruption of violence to prove to the Lebanese that they need the Syrian presence to protect them from the Israeli aggression and to stabilize the country. Iran is conveniently using its Lebanese puppet army Hezbollah, to distract the attention of world leaders meeting at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, from its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Apocalyptic Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the ruling Mullah clerics in Tehran want to assert hegemony in the Islamic world under the banner of Shia Mahdist madness. Ahmadinejad wants to seal his place as top Jihadist for Allah by make good his promise to "wipe Israel off the map.

No matter how much the west avoids facing the reality of Islamic extremism of the Middle East, the west cannot hide from the fact that the same Hamas and Hezbollah that Israel is fighting over there, are of the same radical Islamic ideology that has fomented carnage and death through terrorism that America and the world are fighting. This is the same Hezbollah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon. They have cells in over 10 cities in the United States. Hamas, has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away.

Sheik Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah, is an Iranian agent. He is not a free actor in this play. He has been involved in terrorism for over 25 years. Iran with its Islamic vision for a Shia Middle East now has its agents, troops and money in Gaza in the Palestinian territories,Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Behind this is this vision that drives the Iranian President Ahmadinejad who believes he is Allah's "tool and facilitator" bringing the end of the world as we know it and the ushering in of the era of the Mahdi. He has a blind messianic belief in the Shiite tradition of the 12th or "hidden" Islamic savior who will emerge from a well in the holy city of Qum in Iran after global chaos, catastrophes and mass deaths and establish the era of Islamic Justice and everlasting peace.

President Ahmadinejad has refused so far to respond to proposals from the U.S., EU, Russia and China on the UN Security Council to cease Iran's relentless quest for nuclear enrichment and weapons development program until August 22nd. Why August 22nd? Because August 22nd, coincides with the Islamic date of Rajab 28, the day the great Salah El-Din conquered Jerusalem.

Ahmadinejad's extremist ideology in triggering Armageddon gives great concerns to the intelligence community. At this point the civilized world must unite in fighting the same enemies plaguing Israel and the world with terrorism. We need to stop analyzing the enemies' differences as Sunni-Hamas or Shiite-Hezbollah, and start understanding that their common bond in their fight against us is radical Islam.

The Israelis must not stop what they're doing in Lebanon until they have eliminated Hezbollah as a force in that country. The well-being of the entire Middle East depends upon it.

Shameful Indeed

The Vatican, or at least one of the officials therein, has harshly criticized Israel for its incursions into Lebanon. The criticism was delivered by the Vatican Secreatary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano. The prelate stated that:

"As in the past, the Holy See also condemns both the terrorist attacks on the one side and the military reprisals on the other." Israel's right to self-defense, Sodano said, "does not exempt it from respecting the norms of international law, especially as regards the protection of civilian populations."

"In particular," the statement continued, "the Holy See deplores the attack on Lebanon, a free and sovereign nation."

In reply Michelle Malkin runs a 2002 essay by Oriana Fallaci which administers a thorough drubbing to people like Sodano who can't get past the idea that Israel bears at least most, if not all, responsibility for every evil that occurs in the Middle East. Fallaci's piece is worth reading:

I find it shameful that in Italy there should be a procession of individuals dressed as suicide bombers who spew vile abuse at Israel, hold up photographs of Israeli leaders on whose foreheads they have drawn the swastika, incite people to hate the Jews. And who, in order to see Jews once again in the extermination camps, in the gas chambers, in the ovens of Dachau and Mauthausen and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen et cetera, would sell their own mother to a harem.

I find it shameful that the Catholic Church should permit a bishop, one with lodgings in the Vatican no less, a saintly man who was found in Jerusalem with an arsenal of arms and explosives hidden in the secret compartments of his sacred Mercedes, to participate in that procession and plant himself in front of a microphone to thank in the name of God the suicide bombers who massacre the Jews in pizzerias and supermarkets. To call them "martyrs who go to their deaths as to a party."

I find it shameful that in France, the France of Liberty-Equality-Fraternity, they burn synagogues, terrorize Jews, profane their cemeteries. I find it shameful that the youth of Holland and Germany and Denmark flaunt the kaffiah just as Mussolini's avant garde used to flaunt the club and the fascist badge.

I find it shameful that in nearly all the universities of Europe Palestinian students sponsor and nurture anti-Semitism. That in Sweden they asked that the Nobel Peace Prize given to Shimon Peres in 1994 be taken back and conferred on the dove with the olive branch in his mouth, that is on Arafat. I find it shameful that the distinguished members of the Committee, a Committee that (it would appear) rewards political color rather than merit, should take this request into consideration and even respond to it. In hell the Nobel Prize honors he who does not receive it.

I find it shameful (we're back in Italy) that state-run television stations contribute to the resurgent anti-Semitism, crying only over Palestinian deaths while playing down Israeli deaths, glossing over them in unwilling tones. I find it shameful that in their debates they host with much deference the scoundrels with turban or kaffiah who yesterday sang hymns to the slaughter at New York and today sing hymns to the slaughters at Jerusalem, at Haifa, at Netanya, at Tel Aviv.

I find it shameful that the press does the same, that it is indignant because Israeli tanks surround the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, that it is not indignant because inside that same church two hundred Palestinian terrorists well armed with machine guns and munitions and explosives (among them are various leaders of Hamas and Al-Aqsa) are not unwelcome guests of the monks (who then accept bottles of mineral water and jars of honey from the soldiers of those tanks).

I find it shameful that, in giving the number of Israelis killed since the beginning of the Second Intifada (four hundred twelve), a noted daily newspaper found it appropriate to underline in capital letters that more people are killed in their traffic accidents. (Six hundred a year).

I find it shameful that The Roman Observer, the newspaper of the Pope--a Pope who not long ago left in the Wailing Wall a letter of apology for the Jews--accuses of extermination a people who were exterminated in the millions by Christians. By Europeans. I find it shameful that this newspaper denies to the survivors of that people (survivors who still have numbers tattooed on their arms) the right to react, to defend themselves, to not be exterminated again.

I find it shameful that in the name of Jesus Christ (a Jew without whom they would all be unemployed), the priests of our parishes or Social Centers or whatever they are flirt with the assassins of those in Jerusalem who cannot go to eat a pizza or buy some eggs without being blown up.

I find it shameful that they are on the side of the very ones who inaugurated terrorism, killing us on airplanes, in airports, at the Olympics, and who today entertain themselves by killing western journalists. By shooting them, abducting them, cutting their throats, decapitating them. (There's someone in Italy who, since the appearance of Anger and Pride, would like to do the same to me. Citing verses of the Koran he exorts his "brothers" in the mosques and the Islamic Community to chastise me in the name of Allah. To kill me. Or rather to die with me. Since he's someone who speaks English well, I'll respond to him in English: "F*** you.")

I find it shameful that almost all of the left, the left that twenty years ago permitted one of its union processionals to deposit a coffin (as a mafioso warning) in front of the synagogue of Rome, forgets the contribution made by the Jews to the fight against fascism. Made by Carlo and Nello Rossini, for example, by Leone Ginzburg, by Umberto Terracini, by Leo Valiani, by Emilio Sereni, by women like my friend Anna Maria Enriques Agnoletti who was shot at Florence on June 12, 1944, by seventy-five of the three-hundred-thirty-five people killed at the Fosse Ardeatine, by the infinite others killed under torture or in combat or before firing squads. (The companions, the teachers, of my infancy and my youth.)

I find it shameful that in part through the fault of the left--or rather, primarily through the fault of the left (think of the left that inaugurates its congresses applauding the representative of the PLO, leader in Italy of the Palestinians who want the destruction of Israel)--Jews in Italian cities are once again afraid. And in French cities and Dutch cities and Danish cities and German cities, it is the same. I find it shameful that Jews tremble at the passage of the scoundrels dressed like suicide bombers just as they trembled during Krystallnacht, the night in which Hitler gave free rein to the Hunt of the Jews.

I find it shameful that in obedience to the stupid, vile, dishonest, and for them extremely advantageous fashion of Political Correctness the usual opportunists--or better the usual parasites--exploit the word Peace. That in the name of the word Peace, by now more debauched than the words Love and Humanity, they absolve one side alone of its hate and bestiality. That in the name of a pacifism (read conformism) delegated to the singing crickets and buffoons who used to lick Pol Pot's feet they incite people who are confused or ingenuous or intimidated. Trick them, corrupt them, carry them back a half century to the time of the yellow star on the coat. These charlatans who care about the Palestinians as much as I care about the charlatans....

The Israelis are on the front lines of the war against terror. It is indeed shameful that the Vatican spokesman would criticize them for seeking to preserve the lives of their children against a barbaric and cruel enemy that kills any Israeli it can in any way that it can. To side with Hamas or Hezbollah, or to put Israel in the same moral category as these savages, is the worst sort of moral blindness and fatuousness.

Fair Fight

The Bush administration agrees to abide by Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Ramirez sums it up:

Rating the President

What would you consider to be the top five most important issues facing this nation today and what grade would you give the Bush administration in the handling of these issues?

Viewpoint lists the top five issues as follows:

1. The global war on terror (including the war in Iraq and Afghanistan)
   
2. The composition of the Supreme Court
   
3. Stopping the flow of illegal aliens
   
4. The economy (including reducing the deficit and spending)
   
5. Conserving natural spaces
   

Perhaps your list would be different and, if so, I'd like to hear your suggestions. Meanwhile, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being absolutely miserable and 10 being excellent, here's how we rate the current administration on each of the above five at this point in time (President Clinton's score on these specific issues is shown in parentheses):

1. The global war on terror (including the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) ---- 8.5 (1.0)
The Bushies get high marks for having prevented a follow-up to 9/11. The job of finishing the conflicts in the Middle-East is excruciatingly difficult and overall the Bush team has done well, but they should have had more troops available after the initial invasion of Iraq and they should have clamped down hard on the insurgency when it was still in its infancy. This, however, is second guessing, and I'm willing to concede that there may have been good reasons why we didn't do these things. I just don't have any idea what they are.

2. The composition of the Supreme Court ---- 10 (1.0)
Roberts and Alito are superior picks. We're hoping Bush gets at least one more shot at an appointment.

3. Stopping the flow of illegal aliens ---- 2 (1.0)
Unfortunately, G.W. just doesn't seem to get it. We have a disaster brewing in this country. Build the fence!

4. The economy (including reducing the deficit and spending) ---- 7.5 (7.0)
The economy is doing well and deficits are coming down due to increased revenue resulting from the Bush tax cuts. Even so, they're still too high and Bush has been spending as if money grows like grass.

5. Conserving natural spaces ---- 6 (9.0)
Bush gets credit for setting aside the vast stretch of ocean near Hawaii as a national monument. Unfortunately, there has been little done that we're aware of in the continental U.S. to increase the amount of natural land that is safe from the depradations of developers. We say staff the department of the Interior with personnel from The Nature Conservancy.

Overall rating: 6.8 (3.8)

Making the Most of College

Gideon Strauss continues the series at Comment on the theme of making the most of college. He writes:

College is a time for falling in love, reading great books, and asking big questions. It is a time for adventure and exploration, discovery and delight-for "tensed leisure," as Calvin Seerveld sometimes calls it. While our deepest loves may take root in childhood, it is in our young adult years that we are most likely to begin to articulate the implications of what we love for how we hope to live. For those of us privileged to spend time at college, the provocations offered by books and movies, paintings and songs, teachers and friends encountered during these years bring us to question the answers we have inherited from our parents.

Sometimes we appropriate those answers for ourselves with deepened conviction, and sometimes-wrenchingly-we reach for other more convincing and more coherent answers. It is a time in which we can try out different ideas, ways of life, kinds of work, with a little more wiggle-room in the face of destiny, and a little more tolerance from others for backing out of options we find to be cul-de-sacs.

Strauss goes on to address seven basic questions about life to which all students should seek answers while they're in college:

• What do I love?
• What do I believe?
• Where do I belong?
• Who am I?
• What hurt needs healing in the world?
• What potential waits to be realized?
• What is to be done?

Each of these questions receives elaboration on the post. It's a good read for students and parents of students.