If you keep on excusing, you eventually give your blessing to the slave camp, to cowardly force, to organized executioners, to the cynicism of great political monsters; you finally hand over your brothers~~Albert Camus

This article was previously published on OpEdNews (May 21, 2008)).

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.   --Thomas Jefferson

Mr. Hannity: "We would be foolish to assume there is any quick fix, any single solution, to the challenges America will face in the continuing battle with our terrorist foes. But keep in mind that the Cold War was a marathon as well, lasting some fifty years." (p. 276)

Mr. Hannity: "You cannot negotiate with evil...sweet-talk...compromise...give ground to it. You can only defeat it, or it will defeat you." (p. 6)

My response: As a Catholic, I agree wholeheartedly with this principle. In the great cosmic struggle between good and evil in which we are all participants, vigilance and unwavering determination are crucial for those fighting evil. Wishy-washiness in confronting evil allows the devil to take a person over. But Mr. Hannity's book fails to take into account the difference between the unchanging moral law and the application of that law to the political sphere.

Last week I submitted an article for editorial review on Political Cortex titled, "Rhetoric of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." It spent about one week in the queue, was voted up and down, and then finally disappeared from the queue. I would like to open a discussion about this controversial article for the purpose of gathering people's thoughts about it, and to learn why it was not deemed suitable for publication on this website.

Mr. Hannity: We cannot excuse terrorists as "...men driven to their bad acts by the injustices of Western society". (p. 3)

My response: As a Catholic, I agree that there is no excuse for deliberate evil. If a person commits a bad act with full knowledge of what he is doing and full consent of the will, he is guilty of mortal sin, as the Catholic Church teaches and as I presume Hannity believes. Ultimately, that person can only blame himself for committing the act.

Mr. Hannity: The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were "...unmistakable act[s] of war and crime[s] against humanity." (p. 1)

My response: Yes, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were terrible crimes against humanity which killed thousands of innocent people. They were unequivocally condemned as such by all the nations of the world.

The topic below was originally posted in my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well as the Independent Bloggers Alliance and the Peace Tree.

Trying to make sense of tribal politics in the Middle East can't be done with simple bumper sticker slogans. The history, entangling relationships, religious dimension, shifting alliances, geography and multiple cultures are a Byzantine maze of complexity. Specifically, the Muslim world is often regarded by people in the west, especially Americans, as a large bowl of alphabet soup. As a result, policy makers who look for quick and easy fixes by force in the region overreach and miscalculate.

One tragic example of miscalculation and overreach is Lebanon. Once regarded as the "jewel" of the Middle East, Lebanon endured a brutal civil from 1975 to 1990. Surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea, Syria and Israel, this small country the size of Connecticut has flummoxed leaders in Jerusalem and Washington for two decades.

I started a series called "Danse Macabre" to illustrate the dangerous signs and trends of the Bush Administration and their neoconservative ideology. The third installment to the series has now been posted on the ePluribus Media Journal. It's entitled "Danse Macabre: The Return of Ja(a)far [Donald Rumsfeld]."  

This diary serves both as an invitation to check it out if you haven't seen it yet (it's long, bring coffee) as well as an opportunity to touch upon the various artists responsible for the images found within. Come on inside, and learn a little more about the artists and their works.

A few hours before Iran delivered its response to the UN regarding its nuclear program, an Iranian warship fired on a Romanian oil rig off the coast of Iran.  Troops from the vessel then boarded and seized it, according to the rig's owner said.

Since this is not getting any significant play in the US yet, here is some other stuff you might like to know. For starters, bloomberg news reports:

The U.A.E.-registered drilling company had signed a preliminary contract with Halliburton Co. after winning an estimated $310 million contract to develop phases 9 and 10 of Iran's offshore South Pars gas reservoir.

We should prepare to go on the offensive.  Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria.  The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine.  We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us.  We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai."~~David Ben-Gurion, May 1948

I have been stunned by many things on the US political scene since I was jerked violently awake on Nov. 22, 1963.   However, one thing that simply flew under the cuckoo's nest of my awareness was the total influence on our Congress; the control of our media, our courts, our universities, our entire society -- even our religion -- by the state of Israel. I had no idea.

There's something about Bush declaring a smackdown of Hezbollah that reminds me of the Pharoah Ramses II and his truthiness version of the battle of Qadesh. In 1273, Ramses declared victory over the Hittites despite massive Egyptian casualties and the loss of Syria. Lo and behold, as Bush does his hamster dance of hegemony, here comes Hezbollah's announcement of historic, strategic victory.

The AP reports:

"Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean on Wednesday called Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an 'anti-Semite' for failing to denounce Hezbollah for its attacks against Israel. ... 'The Iraqi prime minister is an anti-Semite,' the Democratic leader told a gathering of business leaders in Florida. 'We don't need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion dollars bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah.'"

As the Washington Post reports, Maliki "declined to disavow his critical comments on Israel's incursion into Lebanon or denounce Hezbollah's killing and kidnapping of Israeli troops that precipitated the fighting, handing Democrats a wedge that they eagerly used." In addition, President Bush's "promise to fortify troop presence in Baghdad virtually foreclosed major troop withdrawals before November's midterm election."

In talking to people online, I have heard two conflicting message. The one, prevalent of most people here, is that the Democratic Party has not shown enough spine and that we need to return to the days of 1860 and draw a clear distinction between ourselves and the Republican Party. But the problem comes when I try to help lay out a Progressive agenda including my endorsement of Russ Feingold for President and Chuck Pennacchio for Senate. All of a sudden, when it comes time to actually do the hard work of challenging our favorite DINOs in the primary, people freak out and tell me why it is so impossible to elect Feingold because (insert difficulty here).

Informed speculation: A "very desperate" and "very worried" U.S. will ask middle east counties to send forces to Iraq

juan cole offers this interesting and plausible possibility underlying cheney's middle east trip...

   Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney will meet Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday. Al-Zaman ("The Times of Baghdad") says that its sources in Cairo tell it that Cheney will ask that Egypt be ready to send troops to Iraq if the situation there calls for it.