And how does anyone even pretend this is legal? They can just 'waive' laws for special people and leave them in place for us proles now?
This is not the American way. One law for everyone. If the law is wrong, repeal it, don't 'waive' it for your friends while the rest suffer.
Are you seriously surprised that Justice is not blind? She hasn't been for quite some time, as best I can tell, not to mention that someone rigged her scales.
"Two-tier justice", I think that's what they call it. The common practice of threatening outrageous sentences to pressure people into a plea bargain, which is to say be found guilty without a day in court -- but of course they only even attempt that when they estimate the cost of mounting a defense would prove problematic.
Actually it seems to me that now we ought to distinguish three- or even four-tier justice, accounting for cases such as this one where political considerations come into play and recently there have even been cases of corporations being found guilty of very serious offenses but deemed " to big to jail".
I get that some people feel that affirmative action has been taken too far. I also get that some feel that it actually has a detrimental effect on the supposed beneficiaries. I don't claim to know either way.
But it looks to me as if racism, the bad old ugly kind, is very much alive in the USA (and many other places). So it seems unhelpful, to say the least, to ridicule people who are attempting to fight it -- whether you agree with their particular approach or not, we need more of those people.
Seems to me what you need is a political party that opposes this shit. Whenever Ds and Rs agree on anything, it is a pretty safe bet that the public at large do not.
and if that means 100 civvies dead on the other side for each Israeli, so be it. It's the same shit we've done here in the US with Iraq and Afghanistan when we call in airstrikes, and it is justifiable.
So be it, huh? Serves those civvies right for having been born in the wrong country? That is an argument which betrays complete moral bankruptcy. And completely overlooks that the war in Iraq was not justifiable to begin with. Certainly it had nothing to do with protecting US citizens.
The Nuremberg Tribunal...
... called the waging of aggressive war "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
I think that the answer, in your hypothetical example, as well as the current Gaza conflict (and the previous three, actually), is both.
The tragedy is nothing will come of it. A UN report will determine that both sides committed war crimes. Israel will condemn this as anti-semitic, and Hamas will condemn it as depriving them of the only way they have left to resist Israeli military and economic warfare.
Even looking at root causes is futile, for a conflict this old. So an apparently simple question such as "who broke the ceasefire / truce?". For example, one might argue that it was Hamas, because they fired rockets from Gaza, before the first Israeli airstrike hit. But another might argue Israel, because it never even started implementing the conditions upon which the truce was achieved (settlement freeze, lifting the blockade,...)
In any other case, the UN would send in peackeepers. But of course that is not possible here, because of the US' reflexive support for Israel (which, according to some, amounts to US legislators' mortal fear of AIPAC).
Are you trying to say that those who demand gun control are the ones most likely to rebel against authority?
Well, I don't think anyone is likely to rebel against the US government -- not by force anyway, given that the latter is armed to the teeth. 1.6 billion bullets for DHS, was it?
But not everybody is claiming that the possibility of armed rebellion (preposterous though it may be) makes for a valid argument in support of the second amendment.
I'm not right wing, but I have to call you out on that. Most extreme right-wingers that I know - the kind that likes to talk about right to keep and bear arms as "means to fight back against a tyrannical government" - are actually pretty skeptical of PATRIOT Act, NSA surveillance, and all that stuff. Notice how a lot of recent attacks on the NSA came from Tea Party.
Actually I haven't said anything about left- or right-wing, though I suppose that generally speaking the need for the second amendment is felt more strongly by the right-wing. And the need to rid society of all those firearms is perhaps more strongly felt by the left. But, correct me if I am wrong, isn't the Tea Party a minority amongst right-wingers? And by extension, among pro-gun activists?
From the outside, the Ds and Rs don't actually seem all that different, and it would appear that they somehow agree on precisely those issues that are unpopular with both of their supporters. E.g., PATRIOT, domestic NSA transgressions, copyright and patent legislation, and the better part of the US foreign policy come to mind.
(And fighting tooth and nail at every opportunity to outlaw any means the citizens have to resist.)
Oddly enough, some of the staunchest defenders of the second amendment claim to do so on the principle that an armed populace can keep a government in check -- and overthrow them by force if need be -- and yet those same people seem some of the least likely candidates to criticize the government for all these bogus measures and information black-outs in the name of "national security".
This instance is particularly shocking. They are required to make privacy assessments, presumably as a remnant of more enlightened times when the government still operated on the assumption that at least *some* members of the public are well-meaning, mostly harmless citizens. Times in which the folks who wrote up this requirement didn't even think, apparently, to include a demand that the results be made public.
And now they claim that the results of that assessment must be kept secret. For your own good, honestly. Well, that fact in itself should tell you all you need to know.
Hehe, point taken. Actually I AM a blast at parties, provided I make a point of leaving my assorted linguistic obsessions at home... Anyway, I meant no offense, I trust you got that.
Con, as in "pros and cons" comes from "contra", meaning against.
But "con" in congress means basically the opposite, which is to say "with", "together". As in "concert", "consistent", "consonant", "contract" and so on.
But you know, it's still pretty funny.
In French I've heard it say that on parle == they talk on ment == they lie
But etymologically that is equally broken I guess.
I would only add that, in addition to worrying about an evil foreign power getting hold of such records, we should also worry about evil local groups who might be in government some time in the future.
Which is why, in my opinion, these records should be subject to strict time limitations and expire sooner rather than later -- if we decide we need them at all for, you know, only slightly evil purposes.
I'm not sure why you are surprised -- wasn't the main reason for these intra-agency deals mainly to circumvent the restrictions to spying on ones own citizens?
That said, we in the Netherlands have an absolutely terrible record -- no pun intended -- of evesdropping and phonetapping and so on.
Where you live doesn't fucking matter, everyone can read the papers. Fact is that that cunt retard Rutte should have immediately sent in the marines to secure the crash site. Now those Russian swine have had the time to remove evidence and loot the victims' possessions.
Look, I understand the sentiment. I honestly do. Even the suggestion to send our own strong men, though it is preposterous and you know it.
It just seems to me that the surest way to guarantee that this tragedy will just keep on escalating from what should be first and foremost about the victims and their families, is this rush to conclusions and consequences in this volatile geopolitical powder keg. Except, you know, with nukes.
What we know doesn't seem to amount to much yet, sadly, if we disregard the he said / she said.
However, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said there is overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the incident
Until evidence is presented, this is no more credible than the overwhelming evidence of WMD in Iraq and of Assad being behind the sarin attacks.
Russia denies the claims.
Likewise, not credible. They would say this anyway.
Ukrainian authorities earlier released a recording they claimed was a conversation between pro-Russian militants admitting to shooting down the plane.
And this is also quite meaningless, as of now, because of the accuser is basically at war with the accused.
Incidentally I wonder if these militants are less pro-Russian than they are anti-Kiev (post coup).
Meanwhile, though, there are at least some relatively positive developments:
Pro-Russian separatists say they have found the plane's "black box" flight recorders and have agreed to hand them over to Malaysian investigators who are in Ukraine.
Dutch forensic scientists have also arrived to start work on identifying bodies.
Time is critical. So until there's information otherwise, it's shameful to everyone involved to support anyone who is hindering an independent investigation.
Absolutely agreed, which is why I wasn't supporting anyone.
I'm not insulted, though you are of course right not to care. One-line posts like "you're full of shit" don't exactly make you seem a reasonable commentator, which is why I don't care what you call me.
I'm not saying I'm Mr Reasonable either. But it is rather telling that you go around accusing people of being tools or "useful idiots" when those people aren't even stating any controversial opinion, but merely refuse to be drawn into a propaganda fest before any facts are in.
While, I might add, at the same time making various claims -- which may or may not turn out to be accurate -- but at any rate currently without a shred of evidence either way.
I despise Putin, but only slightly more than I despise the West's handling of this whole sordid affair. And that was even before this latest tragedy.
Unlike you, I don't go around insulting people for disagreeing with me. In short one-line posts with no further references or links or even hints at an argument. Just conclusions and accusations out of thin air.
I haven't actually said anything remarkable here: just throwing out there that, in my opinion, the current mud slinging back and forth only adds to the hurt of the people who've lost friends and family in this catastrophe. I know, because I live among those people.
And yet that gets modded Troll, and you're cheap shot is somehow deemed Insightful.
Sad.
(*) Not that you should care, but Pino is the dutch name for Big Bird.
I obviously agree that Ukraine is to gain the most from this tragic event, and yet that's the only argument for a horrible accusation of UA army shooting down this plane. One really has to have good argumentation in place in order to suggest or proceed in this direction
That goes both ways, though, doesn't it? I don't think anybody has convincingly made any argument about what the separatists, much less Russia, has to gain from this tragic event.
As I've suggested above -- almost all these speculative accusations seems to emanate from one side or the other in a political/military dispute. Meanwhile the families of the casualties can't get closure, or even a credible account of what happened, because of all the propaganda flying back and forth.
Let's point fingers when we have at least some sense of direction.
I am from the Netherlands, where most of the casualties are from: can we PLEASE stop our uninformed finger pointing until at least some evidence turns up?
None of us know what happened.
Russia or the separatists in Eastern Ukraine might have done this -- although no-one is sure what they would stand to gain from it. Ukraine's own military might have done it (they've done it before and denied it vehemently until it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).
For the moment though, we are doing the victims' families a shameful disservice by pretending to know what happened. Their loved ones are currently being cynically used, by both sides, as pawns in a game they had no part in.
Well, you did say you think the UN are "anti-Jewish" in the context of Israel. And I have had some discussions which turned out to be pointless and frustrating because some people pretend they can not distinguish between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews.
Which is regrettably still not completely gone, as is racism generally, but I don't think it is the reason why the UN condemns some Israeli actions and policies. Well, the general assembly. There hasn't been a meaningful security council resolution for ages because the US veto everything. Check out the UN voting records, it is rather shocking how many resolutions have overwhelming majorities and a single US veto.
In the 80s, there were various resolutions against South Africa during their Apartheid years. Would you say this is a sign of "anti-white" bias on the part of the UN? Of course not, it is a just the majority opinion of the member states.
I'm not sure what you mean when you write "if they were occupying". They ARE an occupying force, I don't think that is controversial. Some argue that this occupation is justified, or that this is somehow a special kind of occupation that exempts Israel from the Geneva rules -- in particular the one that says you can't move your own population into occupied territories, or provide military and economic support to individuals who move in of their own accord. I, and the vast majority of the "international community" disagree.
I'm going to assume you mean "condemnation" rather than "commendation". There is no shortage of condemnation of Egypt. Not just over their handling of the Palestinian issue, but you might remember there was a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government they had after the revolution. I despise the Muslim Brotherhood, but they did win fair elections.
Given that your nice Kiev friends have recently burned 100 Russians in Odessa to death, I say you are either stupid or a tool.
The coverage I've seen of this event in mainstream Western media was abysmal. "The building caught fire" was an oft read phrase, while there were crystal clear videos of goons throwing Molotov cocktails inside.
And his head should roll. Exactly the same way GWB's head should roll for Iraq.
I have no love for the man, but it is utterly hypocritical of Washington to say Russia is "destabilizing Ukraine". Which is not to say that they aren't trying to influence the situation, militarily and politically, but let's not forget that it were Western forces that backed, funded, armed the coup in Kiev -- and in so doing supported some decidedly unsavoury types (Svoboda, Right Sektor).
What exactly do we expect the Russians to do here, given that a majority of the population in the Eastern Ukraine self-identify as Russian? How are they supposed to take seriously any diplomatic efforts on the part of the West? Even if we with our luxury induced attention span deficiency have forgotten, they probably remember a promise by Bush I and Baker that NATO wouldn't expand "as much as a thumb’s width further to the East".
I don't mind debating this with you here -- although I must admit to having taken us rather off topic -- but first we'll have to get one thing out of the way.
Do you accept that it is conceivable -- for reasons other than being "anti-jewish" -- to be critical of Israel's occupation of West Bank or their stranglehold on Gaza, and their treatment of the Palestinians in both the occupied territories and Israel proper?
Or are you of the opinion that any criticism of Israel is, somehow by definition, anti-semitic? (Disregarding, for a moment, the fact that Palestinians are Semites as well).
Because if that's the case, I don't see the point. And frankly I am not going to bother spending any effort toward convincing you I am not an anti-semite.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course they are.
And how does anyone even pretend this is legal? They can just 'waive' laws for special people and leave them in place for us proles now?
This is not the American way. One law for everyone. If the law is wrong, repeal it, don't 'waive' it for your friends while the rest suffer.
Are you seriously surprised that Justice is not blind? She hasn't been for quite some time, as best I can tell, not to mention that someone rigged her scales.
"Two-tier justice", I think that's what they call it. The common practice of threatening outrageous sentences to pressure people into a plea bargain, which is to say be found guilty without a day in court -- but of course they only even attempt that when they estimate the cost of mounting a defense would prove problematic.
Actually it seems to me that now we ought to distinguish three- or even four-tier justice, accounting for cases such as this one where political considerations come into play and recently there have even been cases of corporations being found guilty of very serious offenses but deemed " to big to jail".
Presumably they are choosing not to get screwed by NSA, through proxies such as Apple and MS. But otherwise I agree entirely.
I wish headlines such as
China seems to be on a mission to isolate itself from the world, at least in terms of technology.
Would more often be accompanied by its root cause, something along the lines of
America seems to be on a mission to antagonize the rest of the world, not least in terms of technology.
Ok, so who IS fighting racism? Because just looking at some of the posts in this thread, it needs fighting.
This is +5 Insightful?
I get that some people feel that affirmative action has been taken too far. I also get that some feel that it actually has a detrimental effect on the supposed beneficiaries. I don't claim to know either way.
But it looks to me as if racism, the bad old ugly kind, is very much alive in the USA (and many other places). So it seems unhelpful, to say the least, to ridicule people who are attempting to fight it -- whether you agree with their particular approach or not, we need more of those people.
Seems to me what you need is a political party that opposes this shit. Whenever Ds and Rs agree on anything, it is a pretty safe bet that the public at large do not.
and if that means 100 civvies dead on the other side for each Israeli, so be it. It's the same shit we've done here in the US with Iraq and Afghanistan when we call in airstrikes, and it is justifiable.
So be it, huh? Serves those civvies right for having been born in the wrong country? That is an argument which betrays complete moral bankruptcy. And completely overlooks that the war in Iraq was not justifiable to begin with. Certainly it had nothing to do with protecting US citizens.
The Nuremberg Tribunal ...
... called the waging of aggressive war "essentially an evil thing...to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
... who is the war criminal?
I think that the answer, in your hypothetical example, as well as the current Gaza conflict (and the previous three, actually), is both.
The tragedy is nothing will come of it. A UN report will determine that both sides committed war crimes. Israel will condemn this as anti-semitic, and Hamas will condemn it as depriving them of the only way they have left to resist Israeli military and economic warfare.
Even looking at root causes is futile, for a conflict this old. So an apparently simple question such as "who broke the ceasefire / truce?". For example, one might argue that it was Hamas, because they fired rockets from Gaza, before the first Israeli airstrike hit. But another might argue Israel, because it never even started implementing the conditions upon which the truce was achieved (settlement freeze, lifting the blockade, ...)
In any other case, the UN would send in peackeepers. But of course that is not possible here, because of the US' reflexive support for Israel (which, according to some, amounts to US legislators' mortal fear of AIPAC).
Are you trying to say that those who demand gun control are the ones most likely to rebel against authority?
Well, I don't think anyone is likely to rebel against the US government -- not by force anyway, given that the latter is armed to the teeth. 1.6 billion bullets for DHS, was it?
But not everybody is claiming that the possibility of armed rebellion (preposterous though it may be) makes for a valid argument in support of the second amendment.
I'm not right wing, but I have to call you out on that. Most extreme right-wingers that I know - the kind that likes to talk about right to keep and bear arms as "means to fight back against a tyrannical government" - are actually pretty skeptical of PATRIOT Act, NSA surveillance, and all that stuff. Notice how a lot of recent attacks on the NSA came from Tea Party.
Actually I haven't said anything about left- or right-wing, though I suppose that generally speaking the need for the second amendment is felt more strongly by the right-wing. And the need to rid society of all those firearms is perhaps more strongly felt by the left. But, correct me if I am wrong, isn't the Tea Party a minority amongst right-wingers? And by extension, among pro-gun activists?
From the outside, the Ds and Rs don't actually seem all that different, and it would appear that they somehow agree on precisely those issues that are unpopular with both of their supporters. E.g., PATRIOT, domestic NSA transgressions, copyright and patent legislation, and the better part of the US foreign policy come to mind.
(And fighting tooth and nail at every opportunity to outlaw any means the citizens have to resist.)
Oddly enough, some of the staunchest defenders of the second amendment claim to do so on the principle that an armed populace can keep a government in check -- and overthrow them by force if need be -- and yet those same people seem some of the least likely candidates to criticize the government for all these bogus measures and information black-outs in the name of "national security".
This instance is particularly shocking. They are required to make privacy assessments, presumably as a remnant of more enlightened times when the government still operated on the assumption that at least *some* members of the public are well-meaning, mostly harmless citizens. Times in which the folks who wrote up this requirement didn't even think, apparently, to include a demand that the results be made public.
And now they claim that the results of that assessment must be kept secret. For your own good, honestly. Well, that fact in itself should tell you all you need to know.
You must be a blast at parties...
Hehe, point taken. Actually I AM a blast at parties, provided I make a point of leaving my assorted linguistic obsessions at home... Anyway, I meant no offense, I trust you got that.
Thats's cute and all, but not actually correct.
Con, as in "pros and cons" comes from "contra", meaning against.
But "con" in congress means basically the opposite, which is to say "with", "together". As in "concert", "consistent", "consonant", "contract" and so on.
But you know, it's still pretty funny.
In French I've heard it say that
on parle == they talk
on ment == they lie
But etymologically that is equally broken I guess.
Absolutely right.
I would only add that, in addition to worrying about an evil foreign power getting hold of such records, we should also worry about evil local groups who might be in government some time in the future.
Which is why, in my opinion, these records should be subject to strict time limitations and expire sooner rather than later -- if we decide we need them at all for, you know, only slightly evil purposes.
I'm not sure why you are surprised -- wasn't the main reason for these intra-agency deals mainly to circumvent the restrictions to spying on ones own citizens?
That said, we in the Netherlands have an absolutely terrible record -- no pun intended -- of evesdropping and phonetapping and so on.
Geen punt joh, doe ik wel even.
Translation of parent post:
Where you live doesn't fucking matter, everyone can read the papers. Fact is that that cunt retard Rutte should have immediately sent in the marines to secure the crash site. Now those Russian swine have had the time to remove evidence and loot the victims' possessions.
Look, I understand the sentiment. I honestly do. Even the suggestion to send our own strong men, though it is preposterous and you know it.
It just seems to me that the surest way to guarantee that this tragedy will just keep on escalating from what should be first and foremost about the victims and their families, is this rush to conclusions and consequences in this volatile geopolitical powder keg. Except, you know, with nukes.
What we know doesn't seem to amount to much yet, sadly, if we disregard the he said / she said.
However, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said there is overwhelming evidence of Russian complicity in the incident
Until evidence is presented, this is no more credible than the overwhelming evidence of WMD in Iraq and of Assad being behind the sarin attacks.
Russia denies the claims.
Likewise, not credible. They would say this anyway.
Ukrainian authorities earlier released a recording they claimed was a conversation between pro-Russian militants admitting to shooting down the plane.
And this is also quite meaningless, as of now, because of the accuser is basically at war with the accused.
Incidentally I wonder if these militants are less pro-Russian than they are anti-Kiev (post coup).
Meanwhile, though, there are at least some relatively positive developments:
Pro-Russian separatists say they have found the plane's "black box" flight recorders and have agreed to hand them over to Malaysian investigators who are in Ukraine.
Dutch forensic scientists have also arrived to start work on identifying bodies.
Time is critical. So until there's information otherwise, it's shameful to everyone involved to support anyone who is hindering an independent investigation.
Absolutely agreed, which is why I wasn't supporting anyone.
I'm not insulted, though you are of course right not to care. One-line posts like "you're full of shit" don't exactly make you seem a reasonable commentator, which is why I don't care what you call me.
I'm not saying I'm Mr Reasonable either. But it is rather telling that you go around accusing people of being tools or "useful idiots" when those people aren't even stating any controversial opinion, but merely refuse to be drawn into a propaganda fest before any facts are in.
While, I might add, at the same time making various claims -- which may or may not turn out to be accurate -- but at any rate currently without a shred of evidence either way.
I despise Putin, but only slightly more than I despise the West's handling of this whole sordid affair. And that was even before this latest tragedy.
You're full of shit erik.
And why is that Pino (*)?
Unlike you, I don't go around insulting people for disagreeing with me. In short one-line posts with no further references or links or even hints at an argument. Just conclusions and accusations out of thin air.
I haven't actually said anything remarkable here: just throwing out there that, in my opinion, the current mud slinging back and forth only adds to the hurt of the people who've lost friends and family in this catastrophe. I know, because I live among those people.
And yet that gets modded Troll, and you're cheap shot is somehow deemed Insightful.
Sad.
(*) Not that you should care, but Pino is the dutch name for Big Bird.
I obviously agree that Ukraine is to gain the most from this tragic event, and yet that's the only argument for a horrible accusation of UA army shooting down this plane. One really has to have good argumentation in place in order to suggest or proceed in this direction
That goes both ways, though, doesn't it? I don't think anybody has convincingly made any argument about what the separatists, much less Russia, has to gain from this tragic event.
As I've suggested above -- almost all these speculative accusations seems to emanate from one side or the other in a political/military dispute. Meanwhile the families of the casualties can't get closure, or even a credible account of what happened, because of all the propaganda flying back and forth.
Let's point fingers when we have at least some sense of direction.
I am from the Netherlands, where most of the casualties are from: can we PLEASE stop our uninformed finger pointing until at least some evidence turns up?
None of us know what happened.
Russia or the separatists in Eastern Ukraine might have done this -- although no-one is sure what they would stand to gain from it. Ukraine's own military might have done it (they've done it before and denied it vehemently until it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).
For the moment though, we are doing the victims' families a shameful disservice by pretending to know what happened. Their loved ones are currently being cynically used, by both sides, as pawns in a game they had no part in.
Well, you did say you think the UN are "anti-Jewish" in the context of Israel. And I have had some discussions which turned out to be pointless and frustrating because some people pretend they can not distinguish between criticism of Israel and hatred of Jews.
Which is regrettably still not completely gone, as is racism generally, but I don't think it is the reason why the UN condemns some Israeli actions and policies. Well, the general assembly. There hasn't been a meaningful security council resolution for ages because the US veto everything. Check out the UN voting records, it is rather shocking how many resolutions have overwhelming majorities and a single US veto.
In the 80s, there were various resolutions against South Africa during their Apartheid years. Would you say this is a sign of "anti-white" bias on the part of the UN? Of course not, it is a just the majority opinion of the member states.
I'm not sure what you mean when you write "if they were occupying". They ARE an occupying force, I don't think that is controversial. Some argue that this occupation is justified, or that this is somehow a special kind of occupation that exempts Israel from the Geneva rules -- in particular the one that says you can't move your own population into occupied territories, or provide military and economic support to individuals who move in of their own accord. I, and the vast majority of the "international community" disagree.
I'm going to assume you mean "condemnation" rather than "commendation". There is no shortage of condemnation of Egypt. Not just over their handling of the Palestinian issue, but you might remember there was a military coup that ousted the democratically elected government they had after the revolution. I despise the Muslim Brotherhood, but they did win fair elections.
Given that your nice Kiev friends have recently burned 100 Russians in Odessa to death, I say you are either stupid or a tool.
The coverage I've seen of this event in mainstream Western media was abysmal. "The building caught fire" was an oft read phrase, while there were crystal clear videos of goons throwing Molotov cocktails inside.
And his head should roll. Exactly the same way GWB's head should roll for Iraq.
I have no love for the man, but it is utterly hypocritical of Washington to say Russia is "destabilizing Ukraine". Which is not to say that they aren't trying to influence the situation, militarily and politically, but let's not forget that it were Western forces that backed, funded, armed the coup in Kiev -- and in so doing supported some decidedly unsavoury types (Svoboda, Right Sektor).
What exactly do we expect the Russians to do here, given that a majority of the population in the Eastern Ukraine self-identify as Russian? How are they supposed to take seriously any diplomatic efforts on the part of the West? Even if we with our luxury induced attention span deficiency have forgotten, they probably remember a promise by Bush I and Baker that NATO wouldn't expand "as much as a thumb’s width further to the East".
I don't mind debating this with you here -- although I must admit to having taken us rather off topic -- but first we'll have to get one thing out of the way.
Do you accept that it is conceivable -- for reasons other than being "anti-jewish" -- to be critical of Israel's occupation of West Bank or their stranglehold on Gaza, and their treatment of the Palestinians in both the occupied territories and Israel proper?
Or are you of the opinion that any criticism of Israel is, somehow by definition, anti-semitic? (Disregarding, for a moment, the fact that Palestinians are Semites as well).
Because if that's the case, I don't see the point. And frankly I am not going to bother spending any effort toward convincing you I am not an anti-semite.