But can the US resist Israels instructions ? We read that anybody stepping out of line in the legislature can have so much influence and money brought to bear against them that the Israeli wish will always prevail.
Are elections too frequent? They produce governments that look four or so years ahead. Would say, every ten years produce administrations with a longer view? At the moment it’s hard to see how a government can do much that will be noticable in their term of office. Or if they take an action it might be compromised by the requirement that the results are visable quickly. It always makes me laugh when governments order up more nurses, doctors, teachers or policemen as if there must be loads of them on shelves in a warehouse someplace. Or in the event we swipe them from countries less able to do without them than ourselves!
Do you usually have to log in again, Andrew? This will happen to me when I’m hammering out a long and mighty screed. Why, I don’t know. Among options, what I usually do is highlight the text before submitting, hit Ctrl-c (which copies the text), and submit. At this point one of two things happens: either the submission is successful, or a notice instructing me to log in appears. In that case, I dutifully log in once again (although I never logged out). The text is now wiped away from the message body. This is where I click the cursor to the message body page, and hit Ctrl-v. This takes the text copied by the Ctrl-c function and pastes it to the message body, and my tome is intact.
Will I come to regret having passed on this information? 
Yes, American administrations have stood up to Israel,
usually Republican administrations, especially Eisenhower
and Bush, Sr. who signaled that aid would be cut if
Israel refused to negotiate (this brought down the
intransigent Shamir government and led to the Oslo
Accords). You’re perfectly right that it’s risky business
and that Congress will oppose; however the
executive is typcially what leads in foreign
policy and his party will likely follow if he
means business. Bush
can’t be re-elected, and there are four years
in which the electorate can forget before the
next election. Also we really do need the UK
in Iraq, not only materially but politically,
so there is the possibility that a stiff
British attitude would have some real leverage.
Once again it’s helpful to view Bush et al
as politicians. However I must own the possibility
that he believes this Zionist stuff entirely;
however in the Woodward book he is quoted
on several occasions speaking quite critically of
Sharon: ‘He’s a bull of a man, but the others around
him are worse.’ Meaning the other Likud politicians,
like Netanyahu.
There was an interesting incident several years ago,
when the Palestinian Authority was trying to
cobble together a cease fire so as to begin
negotiations with Israel. The PA was negotiating
with Hamas to join in, Hamas said it was seriously
considering ending terrorist activities so as to give
negotiations a chance. Like clockwork the Israelis
tried to assassinate Rantisi, a Hamas political leader
whom they could have killed any day for years;
helicopter attack killing his bodyguard and
wounding him. Naturally Hamas changed its mind
about considering the cease fire. Well it was pretty
obviously an Israeli attempt to scuttle the cease
fire so that there would be no negotiations so
the settlements would keep on expanding, etc.
Bush heard the news of the attack while he was
talking with reporters and he spoke spontaneously,
uncounseled
by Rove–‘I am deeply disturbed by Israel’s actions.’
Next morning he blamed the attack on Arafat–I suppose
the political costs of what he had said were explained to him in between.
Well, the political costs to Bush are less now; they would have
been higher for Kerry, who could have run again.
So there may now
be a window of political opportunity–the situation, while it’s
hardly hopeful, isn’t entirely hopeless, IMO.
Perhaps I’m whistling in the dark. But one
must try.
I remember that. It was remarkable, and worked very fast too.
Daddy Bush also used the same stick when he managed to keep Israel out of the first Iraq war.
He didn’t need to worry about losing Jewish votes so bad,
because he wasn’t going to get so many of them anyhow.
One of the reasons we didn’t invade Iraq in the Gulf War
was that Arab nations, fighting side by side with us against
Iraq, would have felt betrayed. Bush Sr had drawn closer
to them than any American pres in historyl, and he
wanted to preserve that friendship because he could
use it to help cobble together a solution to the
Palestinian problem. I suppose if he had beat
Clinton, the middle east would be
a much less nasty place than it is now. Also
there might well have been no 9/11.
How Bush, Sr was hated by the left!
He made deep unilateral cuts in our offensive
nuclear weaponry, for which he was vilified
by the peace movement. He was seriously
concerned about environmental issues,
strengtheneed the clean air and water act,
for which he was loathed by environmentalists.
Again, part of my problem with bashing
and demonization. There really is a risk
of losing touch with reality.
Here is a suggestion to eliminate being timed-out and losing what you have written, which, I agree, can be maddening. If I know that what I want to say is going to take some to formulate, I write the body of the text on my word processing program. Then I copy it and paste it in one fell swoop on the C & F message page. Simply right click on the message page to paste the body of the text.
I’ve done that, too. Thing is, I usually just start typing madly away at the reply function out of reflex, and sometimes come to realise that I’ve been at it longer than I’d expect, especially if I’m going back and modifying stuff for clarity or whatever (which I’ve done 3 or 4 times already just in composing this). That’s where the Ctrl-c and Ctrl-v functions save my bacon, as I seem to have impulse control issues. 
Well, he did beget the Antichrist! 
Daniel O’Donnell.
Now He is a real Anti-Christ.
Slan,
D.
(not forgetting his apostles - Fester and Alien!)
Yes, Bush senior was much more concerned about environmental issues than his son, having spread only 350 tons of uranium over Iraq as opposed to the recent five times as much ! ( 2000 tons in total ! ).
Or perhaps the environment away from home is not important ?
The Bushes should have to go to Iraq for their holidays without protective suits, and see how they like it.
Or the moon.
A quarter of a million innocent civilians refused the right to return to their hometown of Falluja devastated so cynically in pursuit of a relatively few opponents of the occupying forces.
Just look at all the scenes of utter devastation.
No power or water.
When has such a horror been visited on an innocent civilian population in living memory?
How long to bring the downtrodden population round to thinking Americans are not all from the Devil, and have something to offer the world ?
What is it all for, Jim ? and what apologies or excuses can you give us today for all this horror ?
How intelligent the actions of Bush and his henchmen are ? or that it may show some ecological sensitivity ?
Do tell us about Mr Bush’s quest for the " Hearts and Minds " of the Iraqi masses, or was that just another joke ?
Am I unusual in finding intellectual excuses for mass murder and other evils unpersuasive ?
Hopefully, no.
I find myself wondering how quickly the attitude of those responsible for all these horrors, whether in Washington or on the ground, might change if they were in any way put on notice that they might have to answer sometime and somewhere for their war crimes.
Starting at the top and the bottom, perhaps.
And I am not being religious. I wouldn’t !
Same if a few of the many who spend their lives ruining other people’s lives with large scale fraud , theft of pension funds and the like, were simply exterminated,to make an example. The rest might begin to wonder !
What a pity I do not have the time or energy!
I see that any of the civilian refugees returning to Falluja will be obliged to wear at all times cards with their addresses on them.
Will these by any chance be in the form of yellow stars, in the old Nazi tradition ? or have the occupying forces out Nazi’d the old uns and thaught of a different design, if not a new purpose ?
Sounds like an intellectual excuse for mass murder to me? Tell me it’s not so!
I don’t like the sort of people that you mentioned, and while they should be punished, exterminating them may be just a little harsh.
Andrew.
I was perhaps expressing the regret that we don’t see any small scale extermination of a few psycopaths who do so much harm in society, and thrive on it - and I haven’t even mentioned politicians !
Pour discourager les autres !
décourager, Mr Andrew…
Not in Franglais it aint !
If I want to lower myself to French ( which to be fair to the French they seem less and less inclined to do themselves these days ) I have an English/French dictionary 2 yards /metres away from here.
PS how many flutes have you bought this week ?