Rick Richman notes that The Jewish Press has endorsed George Bush.
[A]s the [New York] Times Magazine interviewer said of Mr. Kerry’s statement that he is committed to destroying terrorists “effectively”:
This was a word that Kerry came back to repeatedly in our discussions; he told me he would wage a more “effective” war on terror no less than 18 times in two hours of conversations. The question, of course, was how.
It should be noted that in the second presidential debate Mr. Kerry stated 23 times, without adding anything more, that he “has a plan.”
Is there any question that President Bush can be relied upon to more forcefully prosecute the war on terror?
Richman adds this:
It is hard to imagine John Kerry leading the Not Primarily a War on Terror.
It is impossible to imagine him mobilizing anyone behind the Wrong War Wrong Place Wrong Time. His election would be the Spanish election writ large.
And it is easy to imagine Kerry appeasing Old Europe’s views on Israel, as he seeks to pass the global test.
This is idiocy of the first order. Richman doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
The seed corn for terrorism has been the Palestinia situation. Sharon has inflamed that – even polls back in Israel show very little support for is present tack.
Bush has been MIA on the Palestinian question. Instead, he’s done Arafat a favor and created even more motivation for terrorists. Go visit the Middle East (as many of my business associates have recently) – there you’ll find early support for American struggles against terror completely overwhelmed byy what almost every citizen there sees as an Iraqi occupation (which it is). Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time!
Incidentally, if Richman is so gung ho about Bush, I suggest he enlist and go fight in Iraq, if he’s such a true believer.
Richman doesn’t know the first thing about prosecuting THIS war on terror. He should take a look at the many soft targets here at home that still stick out like sore thumbs for terrorists of all kinds.
Terrorists today go for soft targets and catastrophic kills. Unless we appropriately tackle the homeland problem (and not by just reordering the CIA, for god’s sake) we will feed right into what terrorists want to accomplish – to create fear, disruption, disorder, and lack of trust in the government. Does any of that ring a bell? This is how Bush’s actions have fed right into classical terrorist goals. Usama hooked Bush, and now he’s hooked Richman too. These are leaders? PLease!
Assuming your comment is not simply a parody of Franco-German obtuseness (or are you still pissed off over being buried sitting up? Get over it!), Charlemagne, Myths and Facts Online is a good place to start regarding the “Palestinian problem”:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html
Kate very kindly provides links to Belmont Club and several excellent Iraqi blogs about the current situation.
Charles, if you think I’m biased toward the Palestinians, you’re wrong. Furthermore, I know my history.
I looked at Kate’s site; there’s some good stuff there.
Bottom line: the Bush administration has done virtually nothing to help resolve that conflict. It’s a mess, with both Palestinians and Israelis looking forward to making compromises that hurt a little in order to achieve some semlance of peace.
It will take a long time, but until it happens the Middle East will remain a wreck.
Travel to the Middle East some time and ask the person on the street – as many of my associates have – what they think about this.
Arafat was a small time Tuniasian thug that was brought in by Israel to manage the Palestinian territories – they underestimated the little SOB.
Arafat is a lying, killing, terrorist. However, there has been no innovative *long0term* efforts from Israel in ways that would give the Palestinians the core of what they want.
This is a conflict that both parties will have to be FORCED to make – that will be accomplished by nnovative diplomacy, for starters…something this administration knows little about.
typo – change “This is a conflict that both parties will have to be FORCED to make – that will be accomplished by innovative diplomacy, for starters…something this administration knows little about.” to….
This is a conflict that both parties will have to be **FORCED to an end**- that will be accomplished by nnovative diplomacy, for starters…something this administration knows little about.
Bush is innovative. The great innovation was to stop kowtowing to murdering, thieving, two-bit despots like Arafat, Assad, Qaddafi, and Saddam. Fairly good results have been achieved so far. I don’t consider your business colleague’s middle eastern friends’ whining to be a bad thing.
I think the seed corn for most of the terrorist problems in the middle east is Bad Government.
Unfortunately when Americans’ economic chickens come home to roost, the tremendous cost of the sharp end of all this innovation may be judged by a majority of voters to be Not Worth It.