Sunday, October 20, 2024
Sunday, October 13, 2024
The Israelis-Hamas-Hezbollah War One Year Later: The People of the Middle East Deserve Better
It has been a year since the horrific surprise attack from Hamas that killed over 1200 Israelis and kidnapped over 200 people.
It was the largest attack on the Jewish People since the Holocaust from the World War Two era.
Over the last year, while some of the hostages have returned home (thanks to a cease-fire deal that unfortunately did not morph into a permanent solution,) others still remain in Hamas terrorist hands in Gaza, waiting to be reunited with their families and friends. Hamas is known to have executed several hostages while Israeli troops have accidentally shot some while trying to reach those same troops for safety.
Israel has been subjected to largely unsuccessful bombing attacks by Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran that have been thwarted, with American and other allies' assistance, and the Israeli's Iron Dome.
No one should deny that Israel has the right to defend itself.
If people launched attacks on the United States or its territories like Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the East Coast on 9/11, there is no doubt this nation would retaliate.
People can not expect Israel to not do otherwise. Innocent Israelis living on the Gazan and Lebanese borders should not have to worry every day if a bomb will hit their house or a terrorist will storm in and kill them.
Unfortunately, the scope of the Israelis response has come under serious and justifiable criticism.
While no one is shedding tears for the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leaders and members (these were not freedom fighters) Israelis' precision bombs and special forces missions managed to neutralize over the last year, their overall strategy begs questions.
Are they defending their country and residents from terrorists or launching a war to reclaim what religious fanatics in and outside the Israeli government says is theirs, both Biblically and from historical commitments made in the last century and then altered.
It can not be denied that the people of Gaza have been subjected to unbearable suffering as Israeli bombs and troop incursions have resulted in tens of thousands of civilians, many of them innocent children being killed while Hamas leadership cowardly hides in Gazan underground tunnels and Qatar.
Large swaths of Gaza, a narrow strip of territory, have been turned into a wasteland as Hamas leaders are perfectly willing to sacrifice the people and lands they are supposed to care for so they can get favorable press coverage for a war they started and sympathy from people that do not know the history of the region or understand the actual motives of the terrorist players.
People should recognize that this war would have been over if Hamas and other fringe forces that launched the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, had surrendered and returned the hostages after the first Israeli bombing attack on Gaza.
However, it does not help that there are extremist white nationalist Fascist Israelis in the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu, including the Prime Minister himself, who look to retake Gaza (where many of these people think earlier Israeli governments erred in leaving,) the former security corridor in Lebanon that they withdrew from, and formalizing their hold on the West Bank with the assistance of settler vigilantes attacking innocent Palestinians.
Netanyahu and his band of extremist expansionists are also probably hoping that this war hurts the Harris/Walz ticket in places like the Arab American areas of Michigan so they can get their friends Donald Trump and Jared Kushner back in the White House.
The people of Israel, the areas that will make up a Palestinian state, Lebanon, and frankly the whole Middle East deserve better.
They deserve leaders who will care for them and provide safety, order, peace, and full Democratic rights.
Time will tell if such a thing is possible.
Watch This: The Lincoln Project Launches Their 2024 "Daisy" Ad
The 1964 Johnson/Humphrey Campaign made history when they launched their "Daisy" ad that asserted that Republican Nominee Barry Goldwater was too trigger-happy with the country's nuclear arsenal to be President.
Fast forward 60 years and The Lincoln Project has released their own "Daisy ad" featuring a young woman from the grave, imploring her father and other men who support Trump, to come back from the world of hate and support candidates that would stop other women from dying on the operating table after physicians let them languish after having complications from a miscarriage.
The ad starts with a young woman, Daisy in emergency surgery, apparently following complications from a miscarriage that doctors waited to attend to because they did not want to be prosecuted for not following Trump's Abortion Bans in that state.
The daughter, after dying, speaks saying:
"It didn't need to end this way, Dad. You were so excited to be a grandfather. When you walked me down the aisle, those were happy tears. College, high school, sports. I could always count on you. You are my protector. My hero. You always made me feel safe, and loved. Like I was the most important person in the world."
"But it turned out, he (Donald Trump) was more important."
The ad then shows Mr. Trump praising his efforts to get rid of Roe v Wade and MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell mocking rules that prevent women from getting to a courthouse to ask for life-saving care if they "are on a hospital bed, dying."
The dead daughter continues her narration, saying:
"You knew what he'd do. You knew his politics would end my freedom. My rights...My Life. You chose hate...over me."
Unfortunately, this ad reflects a life-threatening reality for many women in states that have Trump Abortion Bans.
I would say ask Amber Thurman from Georgia to verify this but she is dead from the very same laws that this ad dramatizes.
I would say ask the women of Texas where maternal mortality rates have skyrocketed since their abortion ban went into effect.
Quoting President Lyndon Johnson from his 1964 ad "These are the stakes." But this time, it is not about a trigger-happy President causing a nuclear war. It is about the women of this country living in fear for their lives because of these Trump Abortion Bans.
In her 60 Minutes Interview, Vice President Kamala Harris Rightly Calls Out Trump-Republicans for Not Acting on Immigration Reform
Unlike Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris has no problem appearing before an interviewer for the CBS news show 60 Minutes.
During the event, the Vice President repeated many of the same responses about her economic plans and voter perceptions of her that she had said on both the campaign trails and earlier interviews.
The one comment that stood out to me watching it was Ms. Harris, when questioned about immigration and the inflow of immigrants at the southern border at the beginning of the Biden/Harris Administration, rightly reminded the interviewer, twice, that their first legislative proposal to Congress was for...wait for it...immigration reform.
"The first bill we proposed to Congress was to fix our broken immigration system. Knowing that if you want to actually fix it, we need Congress to act. It was not taken up."
Personally, the 60 Minutes reporter erred by pointing out that crossings quadrupled during the first three years of the Biden/Harris Administration compared to the last year of the Trump/Pence one. COVID-19 Title 42 quarantine measures were in place that the Biden/Harris Administration initially continued. That is why border crossings seemed to explode until recent Biden Executive Orders.
Calling it "A long-standing problem and solutions are at hand," the Vice President reminded the interviewer "From Day One literally, we have been offering solutions...The policies we have been about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem."
She also rightly pointed out that crossings have dropped since President Biden had to resort to an Executive Order to cut down on illegal immigration and fentanyl border traffic.
She reaffirmed that Congress has a responsibility, rather than relying on Presidential Executive Orders, to pass a permanent solution to the problem and chastised Congressional Republicans for backing out of a border security bill at the behest of Donald Trump.
Late last month in an appearance at the Arizona/Mexico border in Douglas, the Vice President reminded the attendees that during his four-year term, Mr. Trump and his Republican supporters in Congress did nothing, other than Executive Orders (several of them found unconstitutional,) to pass immigration reform.
Why?
Because Republicans want the specter of illegal immigrants swarming the Southern Border (they have no problem with any illegal immigration coming from mainly White Canada) rather than passing meaningful legislation that solves the issue.
Harris accused Trump during the interview and before of "wanting to run on a problem rather than solving it."
She is right.
Most Republicans balked at Immigration Reform during the last four Presidential Administrations, two of whom were headed by Republican Presidents.
They pushed back on bipartisan attempts at immigration reform legislation in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama terms.
If voters want immigration reform, they need a Democratic President, a Democratic House, and a Senate with enough of a Democratic majority to get bipartisan Immigration reform secured.
Sunday, October 6, 2024
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