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Dobbs: Not so smart when it comes to the Middle East


Guest trancepriest

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Guest trancepriest

NEW YORK (CNN) -- We Americans like to think we're a pretty smart people, even when evidence to the contrary is overwhelming. And nowhere is that evidence more overwhelming than in the Middle East. History in the Middle East is everything, and we Americans seem to learn nothing from it.

President Harry Truman took about 20 minutes to recognize the state of Israel when it declared independence in 1948. Since then, more than 58 years of war, terrorism and blood-letting have led to the events of the past week.

Even now, as Katyusha rockets rain down on northern Israel and Israeli fighter jets blast Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, we simultaneously decry radical Islamist terrorism and Israel's lack of restraint in defending itself.

And the U.S. government, which wants no part of a cease-fire until Israel is given every opportunity to rescue its kidnapped soldiers and destroy as many Hezbollah and Hezbollah armaments as possible, urges caution in the interest of preserving a nascent and fragile democratic government in Lebanon. Could we be more conflicted?

While the United States provides about $2.5 billion in military and economic aid to Israel each year, U.S. aid to Lebanon amounts to no more than $40 million. This despite the fact that the per capita GDP of Israel is among the highest in the world at $24,600, nearly four times as high as Lebanon's GDP per capita of $6,200.

Lebanon's lack of wealth is matched by the Palestinians -- three out of every four Palestinians live below the poverty line. Yet the vast majority of our giving in the region flows to Israel. This kind of geopolitical inconsistency and shortsightedness has contributed to the Arab-Israeli conflict that the Western world seems content to allow to perpetuate endlessly.

After a week of escalating violence, around two dozen Israelis and roughly 200 Lebanese have died. That has been sufficient bloodshed for United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to join in the call for an international security force, ignoring the fact that a U.N. force is already in Southern Lebanon, having failed to secure the border against Hezbollah's incursions and attacks and the murder and kidnapping of Israeli soldiers.

As our airwaves fill with images and sounds of exploding Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs, this seven-day conflict has completely displaced from our view another war in which 10 Americans and more than 300 Iraqis have died during the same week. And it is a conflict now of more than three years duration that has claimed almost 15,000 lives so far this year alone.

An estimated 50,000 Iraqis and more than 2,500 American troops have been killed since the insurgency began in March of 2003, which by some estimates is more than the number of dead on both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict over the past 58 years of wars and intifadas.

Yet we have seen no rescue ships moving up the Euphrates for Iraqis who are dying in their streets, markets and mosques each day. French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has not leaped to Baghdad as he did Beirut. And there are no meetings of the Arab League, and no U.S. diplomacy with Egypt, Syria and Jordan directed at ending the Iraqi conflict.

In the Middle East, where is our sense of proportion? Where is our sense of perspective? Where is our sense of decency? And, finally, just how smart are we?

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He's way off point. Under Clinton Israel gave the Palestinians 99.99% of everything they wanted, but Arafat said no, why? Well it's real simple, it's money. Iran, Iraq (at the time), the saduis, Egypt and the rest of the non democratic countries fund the war and casuse havoc so their countries won't be toppled. See if there were peace in a 2 state system for Israel and Palastine, then those other kindoms and dictatorships would be pressued to change. Also as the fighting got worse oil prices went up and they all made even more money. The amount of money it costs to get a barrel out of the ground remains fixed. The Palestinians are being used by those other countries, and this is why Dobbs is flat out wrong, those countries will never ever help the Palestinians. Even now those arab countries could care less, it's all a front, because oil is sky high and no one is pushing democracy in their countries.

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Are you kidding me?? Support Hamas??? They don't even reconoize Israel!!!!! You can't have peace if they won't move away from the total destruction of Israel!!!

So we should talking about our feelings and hopefully the terrorists in Lebanon will leave, the same people who killed our service men in kobar towers????

Then we have factual errors:

One family of seven was wiped out on a beach by what the IDF assures us was an errant artillery shell.

Too bad pat it was a land mine.. But he didn't mention that..

Ps, this is the moron who wanted to kill Chavez... Some Christian...

Not only is PB a loser, you people are for buying into that bullshit. One seconed he wants us to kill chavez, the next support hamas...

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Guest slamminshaun

Exactly Saleen. What's even funnier is one second Pat Robertson is called out by every liberal on CJ as a fanatical moron, next thing you know he's a credible source.

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Guest bcnjunkie

the christian rant is:

[move]zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZZ z[/move]

[move]zzzzzzzzzzzz ZZZZ zzzzz ZZZZZZ zzzzz[/move]

[move]ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzz zzzz zzzzzzzz ZZZZZZZZZ[/move]

I have yet to meet someone who can really call himself remotely christian ... most self proclaimed righteous christians are hypochrites

and Hezzbollah ? most Lebanese people hate them. As for Hamas, they would like to see Israel disappear completely. That article was pretty shortsighted.

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Guest slamminshaun

I have yet to meet someone who can really call himself remotely christian ... most self proclaimed righteous christians are hypochrites

I don't think being a Christian means you have to walk on water.

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