blevkog

All Arab leaders are guilty in allowing Hamas and Hizbollah to fester.

Even Abbas regularly lets Hamas murderers out of jail.

Arabs have to start accounting for allowing every idiot carry a gun in their country's.

I think that few Canadians want to see Hezbollah win this battle, I know for one that I certainly don't. In some ways that means that we are all on the same side; it becomes a question of approach and methodology.

Rob - Yes, Arab states have to have carry more culpability for the actions of paramilitary organizations that work within them, but unfortunately many of them, like the fragile Lebanese government, have no means of doing so. Saudi Arabia has funded Wahabi schools across the mid-east for decades, flooding the fundamentalist Islamists with cash that win over fervent portions of the population and undermine governments deemed "pro-Western". By the time many of these organizations surface it is often already too late for them to be dealt with by the host state. You can punish the governments for getting in this situation, but in no way do I think that this is going to lead to a solution to the root problems.

MH - I presume that your comments use the US government merely as an example to counter Rob and don't reflect "anti-American" feeling. We can have you arrested for that, you know.

X - The UN is only as strong as the Security Council wants it to be. How many resolutions have been issued against Israel? According to this list it looks like dozens or a hundred or so. The weakness of the UN, its "culpability" as you say, splits both ways on the mid-east.

And what exactly do you mean by "up to the job"? I've no doubt that they are willing to duke it out with Hezbollah, but will or can they win? I have argued that you can't actually win a military battle against a terrorist that is already ensconced within a civilian population - the victory has to be political and economic.

I hope the UN is up to the job, but I have my doubts. Israel I'm afraid, is not.

Michael Ignatieff arrived back in Canada late Sunday night.

All day today he has worked on an op-ed that will (hopefully) appear in tomorrow's Globe and Mail.

In the article he will call for an immediate cease fire and an internationally enforced disarming of Hizbollah.

Just letting everyone know that a comment by anonymous was deleted because he/she couldn't ask a question without being insulting. Anonymous, if you'd like to restate your comment in the form of a question, please free to resubmit it.

Otherwise, goodbye.

EX-NDIP stated that in eliminating Hezbollah, Israel was up to the job. He ought to check out some more info. I have seen quite a few military sites that question exactly what Israel has accomplished. There are quite a few officers in the IDF who have doubts about the effectiveness of the campaign that Israel has waged for three weeks with no discernable affect on Hezbollah's ability to continue to launch rockets into Israel. If he thinks Israel is up to the job, when will we start to see evidence of this?