i understand what you are driving at

i would point out that simply because another country helped organize hezbollah doesn’t mean that it didn’t have grassroots support within lebanon

i will not defend the PLO’s actions of sending rockets indiscriminately into israel pre-1982

but i also will not defend what israel did yesterday, as i view it as the same situation, or perhaps worse, since it was a state that the US supplies arms to at our expense to kill civilians in an indiscriminate way. (see post)

see, i would feel the same way if it were my taxpaying dollars which were sent to pay for hezbollah rockets launched into israel, were those rockets responsible for civilian deaths.

to make matters worse, the US image and security is being highly compromised by said support, and if i find the actions of that government and military morally objectionable, and i feel that real harm is occurring to the US because of that support, i think we should ask serious questions about the need to continue that support.

pres bush I once tried to withhold aid to israel because of settlement activities in the OT, and it hurt him politically. he at least tried to send the message to israel that if you us US aid, and continue to break international law and UN resolutions, then US aid won’t continue to flow to israel.

i respected pres bush I , and still do to this day. i consider him to have more integrity than his son.

now, about your comment on double- standards, its not a double-standard at all.

I claimed that the Israeli ambassador made rascist comments publicly, and should be disciplined for those comments.

You countered with a claim that suggests that the Iranian Ambassador to Syria helped organize hezbollah in reponse to the israeli invasion in 1982, which i do not dispute.

Me being critical of one ambassador for making rascist comments has nothing to do logically with me not criticizing another ambassador with assisting in the organization meant to resist the israeli invasion.

it would be a double standard if the iranian ambassador to syria made public comments of a rascist nature about the israeli jews, and knowing that, i then defended the ambassador’s public comments.

of course, this did not happen, so no double-standard

cheers

Anyway, as you probably could tell this post was simply to point out the double standard you have regarding the role of diplomats. You are outraged by some statements made by an Israeli ambassador, but he didn’t foment violence against his neighbors like Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour does.

are you seriously attempting to predict my reaction to your new post?

that’s what it seems like you are doing when you presume to label a statement you made as a red herring because you think i would call it so

i would only offer one or two comments in response to the remainder of your post :

if you argue that israel has a right to defend itself, which all nations do, then why do you paint a negative picture of the lebanese organizing themselves into a grassroots-driven organization whose creation was sparked by an ILLEGAL invasion of that country?

hopefully, you will see the obvious point …

the tone of your comments suggested that the lebanese do not have that inherent right

next, you make a big deal about iran supplying hezbollah

yippy skippy

the us supplies israel with more powerful weapons than what the iranians have supplied hezbollah with, including nuclear weapons

your post mentions the iran-iraq war, which the US encouraged because of the disastrous interference the US had in iranian affairs, going back to 53, which you still do not connect as having radicalized many segments of iranian society, the backlash of which we are seeing currently

it was ok to give saddam hussein chemical and biological weapons then so he could fight the iranians

the us-led coup in 1953 replaced a principled leader of iran with a horribly-corrupt leader

stephen kinzer could only conjecture in his book concerning operation ajax what the tapestry of the middle east might look like today had the US not led the coup on mossadegh

i realize that at the time the decision was made, it was argued that it was in the best interests of the united states to overthrow mossadegh and install the shah resa pahlavi

what you do not even consider is that other countries should pursue actions which are in their own self-interests

you believe that US self-interests trump all other countries’ self-interests, and perhaps the question to ask is would you tolerate another country interfering in US affairs as we have done dozens of times around the world, with real consequences ?

you defend american policy because you are american, and you feel obliged to do so

i am critical of certain american policies and certain israeli policies because i think they are morally objectionable, and that’s as simple as i can distill it johnny b