Fade said: "At any rate, if Hugo Chavez likes him, then I like him."

If you want to sell out your intellectual integrity to the likes of Hugo Chavez, then so be it. But keep your hero worship of that thug and his nascent dictatorship to yourself. You'll give the rest of us on the left a bad name.

Enzoblue said: "No, they don't want to hear what he's really saying because the sheep might realize he's reasonable human being. Osama wants to kill us and Ahmadinejad wants to be our greatest ally..."

First of all, I have my doubts that anyone who is a fundamentalist muslim is a reasonable person. That doesn't mean he can't be prudent given what he takes to be the truth, but you shouldn't confuse the two. Second, your comment that he wants to be the "greatest ally" of the US is absurd on its face. I'll await the large amount of credible evidence you need to adduce to justify this extraordinary claim. Finally, quit insisting that the rest of us are "sheep," and that we need to "wake up." Your incredible arrogance notwithstanding, you are no more enlightened than anyone else. This is demonstated by--among other things--your "theory" about the interpreter (I'm waiting for evidence on that one, too).

oh, but you'd be wrong, though it's hard to blame anyone for believing such a simple and widespread myth

right off the bat, the afghan mujahideen were not the taliban and the arab mujahideen were not the afghan mujahideen -- these were three distinct groups

the us funded only the afghan mujahideen from july 1979 (sorry, jon, you should have shown carter, not reagan) to february 1989

the taliban was not formed until 1994, and didn't come from the afghan mujahideen anyway, so the us had no connection to them

the third group in the soviet invasion of afghanistan was the arab mujahideen -- these were arab 'freedom fighters' recruited from many middle-eastern countries and funded extensively by the saudi gov't and privately -- *important* the us and/or cia did not recruit, fund, train or in any way assist these arab mujahideen, including bin laden and a nascent al qaeda

i know you don't want to believe it, but those are the facts -- start digging, the truth is there to be found - the most conclusive of which is osama and zaywahiri directly disputing any connection

In the mean time, post nascent humans are being killed right now, all over the world.

wingnut, just think how much worse off VS would be without choggie or westy. Westy CLAIMS to be british, but you'd never tell- CIA analysts have been trying to decipher his posts for months. Choggie... choggie has claimed at different times to be black, italian, christian, right-wing, anarchist.. personally I wonder if he isn't a nascent sysopmind, a newly minted AI, working in league with siftbot to take over the intartubes.

rickegee, while you are right that there is probably no such thing as a progressive republican I dislike being identified as a democrat because I see the nascent progressive movement as a transitory beast.

In reality DC politicians are scared of the netroots and their demands that government actually be transparent and accountable. Currently democratic elected officials are playing lip service to those elements of the party, but eventually they will seek to marginalize them.

When this finally occurs I expect the various progressive branches of the democratic party, EFF, moveon, DKos, Blue State Project, TPM, Crooks and Liars, MYDD to form their own political coalition. To some extent you can already see this with "net roots" endorsed candidates. They are trying to change things from within the democratic party, but I doubt that they will be all that successful.

This isn't personal. In the marketplace of ideas, we are both selling and buying.

Have you thought this out thoroughly? What happens when/if "the Palestinians" get their "own" nation? It will end up another launchpad for rockets.

http://factsandlogic.org/ad_77.html

But how about the legal aspect of this matter? Isn’t the “West Bank” “occupied territory” and therefore the Jews have no right to be there? But the historic reality is quite different. Very briefly: The Ottoman Empire was the sovereign in the entire area. In 1917, while World War I was still raging, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration. It designated “Paleatine” — extending throughout what is now Israel (including the “West Band”) and what is now the Kingdom of Jordan — as the homeland for the Jewish people. In 1922, the League of Nations ratified the Balfour Declaration and designated Britain as the mandatory power. Regrettably, Britain, for its own imperial reasons and purposes, separated 76 percent of the land — that lying beyond the Jordan River — to create the kingdom of Trans-Jordan (now Jordan) and made it inaccessible to Jews. In 1947, tired of the constant bloodletting between Arabs and Jews, the British threw in the towel and abandoned the Mandate. The UN took over. It devised a plan by which the land west of the Jordan River would be split between the Jews and the Arabs. The Jews, though with heavy heart, accepted the plan. The Arabs virulently rejected it and invaded the nascent Jewish state with the armies of five countries, so as to destroy it at its birth. Miraculously, the Jews prevailed and the State of Israel was born. When the smoke of battle cleared, Jordan was in possession of the West Bank and Egypt in possession of Gaza. They were the “occupiers” and they proceeded to kill many Jews and to drive out the rest. They systematically destroyed all Jewish holy places and all vestiges of Jewish presence. The area was “judenrein.”

In the Six-Day War of 1967, the Jews reconquered the territories. The concept that Jewish presence in Judea/Samaria is illegal and that the Jews are occupiers is bizarre. It just has been repeated so often and with such vigor that many people have come to accept it.

How about the “Palestinians,” whose patrimony this territory supposedly is and about whose olive trees and orange groves we hear endlessly? There is no such people. They are Arabs — the same people as in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and beyond. Most of them migrated into the territories and to “Israel proper,” attracted by Jewish prosperity and industry.

The concept of “Palestinians” as applied to Arabs and as a distinct nationality urgently in need of their own twenty-third Arab state, is a fairly new one; it was not invented until after 1948, when the State of Israel was founded.

But here’s a thought: How about a deal by which the “settlements” were indeed abandoned and all the Jews were to move to “Israel proper.” At the same time, all the Arabs living in Israel would be transferred to Judea/Samaria or to wherever else they wanted to go. That would indeed make Judea/Samaria “judenrein,” and what are now Arab lands in Israel would be “arabrein.” The Arabs could then live in a fully autonomous area in eastern Israel and peace, one would hope, would descend on the holy land.

http://www.factsandlogic.org/

What are the facts?

The state of Israel was legally created out of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. The area was desolate – desert and swamp – with some small towns and a few inhabitants, many of them nomads. The inhabitants, if they thought about it at all, considered themselves Syrians. The legitimacy of Israel arises from the Balfour Declaration issued by the British, who were given the mandate over the area by the League of Nations. Jews have lived in the country since Biblical times. The Arabs from the surrounding areas were lured to “Palestine” by the industry and prosperity that the Jews brought to the region. Envy, hatred, and religious fanaticism turned the Arabs against the Jews. In bloody outrages, horrible massacres, killings and rapes, the Arabs tried to dislodge the Jews, but were unable to do so.

In 1947, the British, having tired of the trouble and the bloodshed, resigned their mandate. That same year, the United Nations mandated partitioning of the territory. The Jews, though disappointed, accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it out of hand and launched war against Israel. The armies of five Arab countries invaded the nascent state. Following the exhortations of the invaders, the Arab residents got out of the way hoping to return after victory was attained. They could then reclaim their property and that of the Jews, all of whom would have been killed or would have fled. That and that alone is the source of the Arab “refugee problem.”

Had the Arabs accepted the UN partition plan, there would now have been a state of “Palestine” for the last 58 years. They might have attained a similar level of prosperity, advancement, and development as Israel, which, small though it is, is today in almost every regard one of the world’s most advanced countries.

END WEBSITE

Op-ed: "Palestinians'" greatest fear would be the elimination of Israel, since they would then be forced to face their own failings.