Colin,
your comment, “This is a “breakthrough”?  Hez wants to be back at the border lobbing missiles at Israel.  If the UN goes for this, then NOTHING will have been solved.  In fact, the situation will have returned to where it was before the incursion.”, shows how little you know about this situation.  Nothing will be solved until Iz cedes control of the territory it STOLE from Lebanon.  It seems that it is you and your ‘perspective’ that are impotent.

Until Lebanon admits that Hezbollah is running the show any agreement is a farce.  The UN knows what the story is, that’s why they’re dealing with this Nasrallah creep.  So, Lebanon agrees to the cease-fire but the Israelis are too sharp.  They won’t back out or let down their guard until the UN puts some unwitting canon fodder in the line of fire.  (BTW, how do you get volunteers for that job?) And the Israelis will be on guard even then.

Here’s a thought, put a few thousand Saudis in between them and let’s see what happens!  The Saudis are phony Muslims and don’t want anything to do with purifying the region (Just so long as the oil and dollars flow!).  I bet there’d be some serious negotiations then.  Second only to Israel, the Saudi royals have the most to lose if the Islamic fundamentalists win.

The Israelis know they have to be nasty to survive.  They have to be the biggest and baddest as long as possible.  The Israelis suck too but how can you blame them for wanting to survive. Where would you have them go?

What an absolute crap hole!

This is a “breakthrough”?  Hez wants to be back at the border lobbing missiles at Israel.  If the UN goes for this, then NOTHING will have been solved.  In fact, the situation will have returned to where it was before the incursion.

The UN cannot permanently solve anything.  It is impotent.

Collin

http://www.evangelicalperspective.blogspot.com

“How’s that for a happy ending?.”

In your dreams, Geronimo, in your dreams. As long as any of the players are looking at this mess as “We won - they won”, or in any other way but in a spirit of complete cooperation for the common good of all concerned, there will be no “happy endings.”

Until all parties are thoroughly ashamed of themselves, as they bloody well should be, for splashing their failure to deal with mutual issues in a mature fashion all over the media of the world, NOTHING WILL CHANGE.

The most astonishing atrocity, next to the loss of innocent lives, is the utter STUPIDITY of spending billions on munitions to destroy billions worth of infrastructure in countries that are still trying to “develop.” I can’t think of anything more retarded than such action… except, of course, in the case that those ordering the munitions and destruction stand to GAIN BIG TIME from contracts to reconstruct! Oh, damn… there my pessimistic jaded side is showing again.

If Israel can’t get somebody to come in an bail them out of the mess in which they have once again become enmeshed in Southern Lebanon, the Israel army will be held hostage once again, not just the original two soldiers.

And if they do get the international troops to come in, the entire Arab-Islamic world will know that Hezbollah won as Hezbollah will continue to fight until the last Israeli soldier leaves Lebonese lands ... uniting Iran, Shiite Iraq, and Syria in overt support of Hezabollah ... and creating inertia against the Israel-USA alliance in the Middle East among the remaining Arab countries lest the streets revolt ...

Now tell me again what Israel’s goals are in all of this ...

And the process of involving the international force in Southern Lebanon will take center stage in diplomacy for quite some time ... while North Korea cranks our more weapons grade plutonium or whatever it is ... and Pakistan increases it weapons grade plutonium capacity ... and Iran pursues weapons grade plutonium capability ...

Now tell me again what our (the USA’s) goals are in all of this ...

And we still have what? 2-1/2 years to go with Bush-Cheney-Rice-Rumsfeld? Well, at least Bush-Cheney.

Maybe everyone is thinking it can’t get any worse than it is now.

Don’t count on it with this team.

Hassan Nasrallah is indeed my latest hero. Look at the shining of faith, courage and nobility in his handsome face. He taught the Zionist neo-Nazis a lesson that in five wars the defeatist and corrupt Arab leaders, allied to the evil Western regimes, could not achieve collectively. He shattered the myth of the invincible Israeli army, armed to teeth by American dirty dollars and weapons of mass destruction. He stood up couregeously to the Great Satan and their baby Saton-in-training,Zionist Israel.

> Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said his Islamic militant group (and political party) will abide by the U.N. cease-fire resolution

For a crazed terrorist Nasrallah always sounds most reasonable.

Then again, to my ears, many of the Israeli spokespeople sound like loony fascists.

Who would have thought that the second American-Israeli war upon Lebanon (the first having been in l982) would be a turning point in the centuries old struggle to end colonialism in the Middle East.  After all the Israelis had every reason to believe that they could huff and puff and blow their way to Beirut, just as they had done twenty-four years earlier against Lebanese/Palestinian defenders who simply were no match for the powerful USA supplied Israeli military machine. 

What a surprise to the invaders, then, when Hezbollah’s warriors, not only held mighty Israel to a standoff, but inflicted such heavy losses on them that the Jewish settler-state, with its public beginning to get spooked from the heavy casualties that Hezbollah was inflicting upon its military and civilians populations, couldn’t sign fast enough on to a USA-French negotiated truce.

Yes, Israel and the USA will claim they won, but this won’t fool the Palestinians, Lebanese; indeed, the entire Arab-Islamic world.  What’s more Hezbollah’s triumph will embolden the Palestinians in Gaza to defend their homeland with the same courage and tenacity that enabled tiny Hezbollah to hold its own against the Goliath of the Middle East.  This in turn will inspire the Arab/Islamic peoples of the Middle East to pressure their governments into demanding and seeing to it that there’s justice for the Palestinians.

What’ll happen to Israel?  Undoubtedly its citizens will be a part of the new Middle East, but as equal partners this time, with no special rights and privileges..  And this will lead to peace on earth and goodwill to all living beings.  How’s that for a happy ending?.

.