I’ll be going within the house and I have Chicken in the oven so I may be slow in answering and allowing comments in the next few hours. Opinions of all stripes are most welcome and when time permits will be answered personally, so if your comment isn’t answered or posted be aware that this is the reason.
Archive for January, 2009
He expresses it better than me
Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news, warTags: history, Israel, reality
I’ve been wrestling with a post I made yesterday through several replies and updates. I think Jeff Goldberg (via Glenn) in the Atlantic expressed what I’ve been thinking much better than me:
Okay, yesterday I was depressed. Today, I’m just pissed off. It’s absolutely astonishing to me how interested the world is in Israel’s failings. This is the source of a bitter but hilarious observation I once heard a Kurdish leader make: He was complaining to me that his people were cursed, and I asked him what he meant: Cursed by geography, cursed by their proximity to Kurd-hating Arabs, what? He said the Kurds were cursed because they didn’t have Jewish enemies. Only with Jewish enemies would the world pay attention to their plight.
…
we’ve all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It’s a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn’t matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I’ll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble — and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I’ve seen in my life. And it’s typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they’d learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.
The question is why are Palestinian moral failings not of great interest to people, why are the Kurds cursed to not have Jewish foes?
Can someone on the left explain this to me? I really need an answer to this that leads me to different conclusions.
This sounds like Sherman too
Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in arthur vs carter, opinion/newsTags: history, Israel, War on Terror
Via Israellycool this Arab written article is rather amazing:
With Israel entering its fourth week of an incursion into the same Gaza Strip it voluntarily evacuated a few months ago, a sense of reality among Arabs is spreading through commentary by Arab pundits, letters to the editor, and political talk shows on Arabic-language TV networks. The new views are stunning both in their maturity and in their realism. The best way I can think of to convey them is in the form of a letter to the Palestinian Arabs from their Arab friends:
Dear Palestinian Arab brethren:
The war with Israel is over.
You have lost. Surrender and negotiate to secure a future for your children.
The next phrase sounds just like Sherman:
…you and your leaders have wasted three generations trying to fight for Palestine, but the truth is the Palestine you could have had in 1948 is much bigger than the one you could have had in 1967, which in turn is much bigger than what you may have to settle for now or in another 10 years. Struggle means less land and more misery and utter loneliness.
At the moment, brothers, you would be lucky to secure a semblance of a state in that Gaza Strip into which you have all crowded, and a small part of the West Bank of the Jordan. It isn’t going to get better.
Here is Sherman in Jan 1964
Three years ago by a little reflection and patience they could have had a hundred years of peace and prosperity, but they preferred war; very well. Last year they could have saved their slaves, but now it is too late.
All the powers of earth cannot restore to them their slaves, any more than their dead grandfathers. Next year their lands will be taken, for in war we can take them, and rightfully, too, and in another year they may beg in vain for their lives. A people who will persevere in war beyond a certain limit ought to know the consequences.
I attribute Arab movement in this direction to three things: The War in Iraq, The Gaza withdrawal, and Iran’s move for the bomb. It remains to be seen if Israel can win the propaganda war. If it can the whole dynamic of the area can change.
We can be sure that unless totally destroyed Hamas will hold out till at least the 20th to see if there is any change with the new president. It will be interesting. Arthur or Carter. Believe it or not I’m betting Arthur.
Nothing like a little elevator action
Posted: January 6, 2009 by datechguy in gaming, techTags: nostalgia
If you are an old gamer than this little animation will be cute to you. Click on Play video.
Isn’t that just what your mind’s eye saw you doing when you played the game?
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