Israel is in a stonger position with American bases in Iraq and Afganistan. As long as Americas military bases are secure what's happeing to the civilians is irrelivant.

Israel and America are preparing to go after Iran now. Taking on Iran would be impossible without American-Israeli military support in nearby Iraq and Afganistan. It's all falling into place.

Don't dispair about civilians. No one in America cares what Israel did to the Lebonese women and children, so I don't people give a shit about Afganistan.

It doesn't help the local Jewish community to keep bringing up problems in Afganistan. Israel is preparing to go after Iran and that's where our focus needs to be.

Well if we don't need to care about civilians, why don't we just nuke every country except the US and Israel? Then we'd have the rest of the world to ourselves, right Josh?

Israel has a right to use nuclear weapons in self defense. The Stranger is strongly pro-Israel and pro-Jewish. Especially during this time of Rosh Hashanah celebration Israel needs to be held close to our hearts. Shalom.

Is it jan '09 yet?

For the sin that we have sinned before You in carrying out a futile war and
in committing major violations of the laws of war,

And for the sin that we have sinned before You in killing hundreds and
injuring thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians.

For the sin that we have sinned before You in hardening our hearts,

And for the sin that we have sinned before You in abandoning thousands of
Israeli civilians to the crimes of Hizbollah and the negligence of the
Israeli Government.

For the sin that we have sinned before You in inequality,

And for the sin that we have sinned before You in hindering and humiliating
the minorities and the weak amongst us.

For the sin that we have sinned before You in the oppression of others,

And for the sin that we have sinned before You in the justification of a
"war of no choice".

For the sin that we have sinned before You by our indifference,

And for the sin that we have sinned before You by obedience to orders that
serve the military system, the occupational regime and the oppression and
weakening of Palestinian, Lebanese and Israeli civilians.

And for all of these, we have no right to beg forgiveness, until we
acknowledge the humanity of others and our responsibility to protect them.

"Yesh Gvul" and "Rabbis for Human Rights"

www.yeshgvul. org.il

Fuck off, Erin. You're off topic and you're taking the trolled bait.

We could have won this war in Afghanistan, really won it, permanently won it, if we'd followed through on even a hundredth of our commitment there. Instead, we shifted focus to Iraq, and now we have two toilet countries instead of one -- or rather three, because the Sudan is still there, still going after Darfur with the tacit support of the United States Government (in payment for rendition and torture services).

All because our president is a man of "action" and not ideas, who can't be bothered to even think about what happens afterwards, who can't even be bothered to think about what happens the 99 times out of 100 your plan is wrong.

We had Afghanistan. We had global support. We had EVERYTHING we needed to drive the Arab invaders out and restore the country to its people, and to bring it into the 19th or 20th century, if not the 21st. We spend many fortunes there, on nothing. No roads, no schools, no offices, no nothing. Garbage, shit and garbage. Impeach the motherfucker already.

Israel is winning. Americans are strongly behind Israel. The weak ass nay sayers in the press are not helping anyone but the islamo-fucks. I believe in Israel and America. Shalom.

I know! Let's ignore reality and live in a Faith-based Bubble in DC and pretend we actually know what we're doing as a nation and aren't being run by incompetent FOOLS.

Oh, wait, we've been doing that for six years now ...

Not even a large minority of Dems in Congress has ever put forward anything like the proposal FNARF is making to totally rebuild Afghanistan. Bush is an ass. His decisions in Iraq have been catastrophic, and distracted the US from what little commitment it ever made to improving instead of merely destroying Afghanistan. But the US wasn't ever going to invest in Afghanistan without privatizing it or selling it off to American corporations first. Even "anti-war" Dems are mum on Afghanistan these days. The silence and betrayal isn't just coming from Bush.

You apparently don't remember the chanting "Marshall Plan, Marshall Plan, Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, Marshall Plan for Iraq, Marshall Plan for the Middle East". I do.

The thing is, we spent the money. We could have done it for the same amount of money. It wouldn't have cost us a dime more than what we spent anyways. But look what we got: shit and misery. A national disgrace.