The Israelis have gained little by agreeing to the cease-fire put together by the United Nations... and not nearly as much as Hizballah has gained. Will Hizballah refrain from attacking innocent Israeli civilians again once Iran has had time to resupply and rearm them? No. Will Europe, the UN and our own Liberals stop blaming Israelis every time they defend themselves from terrorist attacks? Again, no. Can we all, at least, finally agree that Islamic radicals are at war with the entire Western world? Certainly not.

On the surface, the Israelis seem to have gotten some of what they wanted: a buffer zone between Israel and Hizballah territory, manned by international troops. The extra twenty miles between the Litani River and Israel's border is meant to keep the bulk of Hizballah's Katyusha rockets from falling at random into Israeli towns. The presence of the Lebanese military as well as an international force sounds like just the ticket to keep Hizballah forces out of southern Lebanon.

It all looks good on paper. Unfortunately, it's merely political theater. None of the problems have actually been solved. The cease-fire is nothing less than a disaster for Israel and a major blow to the US and our allies in the war on terror. The only possible reason the US pushed for it, and Israel accepted it, was to afford Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert a graceful exit from a botched offensive.

UNSC resolution #1701 makes no attempt to disarm or disband Hizballah, a secret arm of the Iranian military and part of Lebanon's government, as mandated in previous UNSC resolution #1559. The "international force" will consist mainly of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. That's the same authority -- flying the Hizballah flag from at least one of its outposts -- that did nothing to prevent Hizballah's acquisition of over 13,000 Katushya rockets as well as Fajr and Zelzal-2 missiles from Iran, the concealment of weapons and terrorists among the civilian population, or the firing of those rockets into Israel time after time.

As a result of this much-lauded cease-fire, Hizballah will be able to claim that they fought Israel's feared military to a standstill. Terror attacks from Hizballah and other terror organisations will likely increase as a result of this cease-fire. Instead of just Lebanese civilians to use as human shields, Hizballah will now have the UN and international troops to protect them. If... no, when they fire rockets into Israel from near UNIFIL outposts, and the Israelis fire back, the latter will take all the blame for any casualties. Remember, it was UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's condemnation of Israel after Hizballah used this very tactic that put pressure on Israel to stop fighting back against the terrorists. And under the terms of the cease-fire, Kofi Annan determines when -- and by whom -- it is broken. Any defense by Israel will be deemed a breach of the cease-fire, while Hizballah will once again be free to act.

Perhaps worst of all, the resolution grants a measure of legitimacy to terrorists and their tactics. The excuse Hizballah uses to cover their intention of destroying Israel -- Syria's claim to a part of the Golan Heights  -- is treated as a valid claim made by a legal authority. (The UN, however, determined in 2000 that Israel had withdrawn from Lebanon to within its international border, which included the Golan Heights.) Although the UN has long been reduced to a soapbox for terror-supporting rogue states, this may be the first time that body has granted an actual terror organisation the bona fides of sovereign nations. By the use of terrorism through Hizballah, Syria has forced the issue back onto the table. The message this sends is clear: terrorism works.

Because Olmert failed to launch a serious ground campaign, missed the chance to strike at Hizballah's leadership, and lost the public relations battle to Hizballah and the mainstream media, the terrorists -- and their sponsors, Syria and Iran -- have won a considerable victory. I'd be surprised if Olmert's moderate government doesn't collapse as a direct result of the Lebanon conflict, especially when the rockets once again begin to rain into Israel.

Only six years after Connecticut's hawkish, pro-Israel Senator Joe Lieberman was chosen to run for Vice President, the Democrats have virtually driven him out of the party. Since Lieberman has voted with his Democratic colleagues over 90% of the time during the last term of his eighteen years in the Senate, his downfall could only be a result of his refusal to backtrack on his vote to send troops into Iraq.

While other Democrats who voted for the Authorization for Use of Military Force in Iraq have backpedaled to appease the far Left core of their party, Lieberman stood by his decision, supporting the war even when the fighting got tough. Lieberman also refrained from parroting the vitriolic Bush-bashing rhetoric that's become common among Democratic politicians. As a result, novice Ned Lamont took Lieberman's place as Connecticut's Democratic nominee for Senate by running on an anti-war, anti-Bush platform. Like former Senator Zell Miller (D-GA), Lieberman has watched his party slide so far to the Left that he is considered "right-wing." Joe Lieberman has paid the price of standing firm in a party that stands for nothing.

This is a significant and sad step in the Democrats' transformation from serious political party to mouthpiece for the anti-war, anti-capitalist, "Blame America First" crowd. No longer merely the lunatic fringe, the far Left -- best represented by Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan, various Hollywood half-wits and MoveOn.org, funded by billionaires like George Soros and Peter Lewis -- now openly control one of the two major political parties in America. This race has shown that there is no longer any place for moderation or alternative points of view in the party ranks. Though not all Democrat voters are Left-wing radicals, not even in deep-blue Connecticut, any potential nominee for office must gain the approval of that group. Not even a long-time favorite like Joe Lieberman can represent the Democrats if he expresses a conflicting point of view on a major issue like Iraq.

By undermining public support for the liberation of Iraq and the war on terror at every opportunity, the Democrats have been trying to relive the Vietnam era -- the only victory the far Left has ever achieved. George McGovern, running on a platform of opposition to the Vietnam war in 1972, was crushed in a 49-state landslide by incumbent President Richard Nixon. Even so, the Democrat-controlled Senate withheld support for our troops and our allies just a few years later, granting an unearned victory to the Communist forces. The far-Left Democrats, if they manage to take control of Congress this year, aim to repeat history by ceding the Middle East to the Islamofascists and terrorists and, ultimately, to Iran.

The likely result of Lieberman's loss in the primary is that other Democratic politicians will shift to the Left. No politician in a losing party wants to gamble with the support of core voters, as Lieberman did. Yet as they move Left, the Democrats will lose more mainstream support. As they shrink, they will move further to the Left to retain core voters. Eventually, the expanding Republican party will split, returning us to a viable two-party system. In the meantime, voters who favor a strong stance on national defense, tax cuts to fuel the economy, protection for the unborn, freedom of (not from) religion and less Federal interference will have nowhere else to turn.

The Left's strident, self-congratulatory celebrations over a primary race, after six years of whining over losing actual elections, suggest a new Democratic party motto: In Clade Amari, In Victoria Arrogantes (Latin for "bitter in defeat, arrogant in victory"). The fact is that Lieberman, running as an Independent, has a solid chance to win the November election. The majority of Americans simply don't favor the policies espoused by the far Left. As Liberals continue to exert control over the Democratic party, that party will continue to lose.

Because of Ned Lamont's primary victory, the Republicans will probably retain control of Congress in November. And if they have the backbone to nominate a serious Conservative for President in 2008 -- someone like Virginia Senator George Allen, for instance -- they now have an excellent chance of winning, thanks to the malignant anti-war wing's takeover of the Democratic party. No one who's serious about fighting Islamofascism, the most important issue of our time, will entrust the defense of our nation to those who demand the US military run away from the central front of the war. 

But can we take another four (or eight) years of Liberals lying and crying about "stolen elections," "tax cuts for the rich," "war for oil" and "mean Conservatives?"

I, for one, am looking forward to it.

The buzz among Conservatives is that Oliver Stone's new movie about 9/11, "World Trade Center," is without political bias. If that's true, one has to wonder whether Liberals will attack the movie for being too maudlin and pro-American. Personally, I'll never know, because I will never see it for several reasons. And, for the record, I didn't see "United 93," either.

Regardless of the movie's bias or lack of same, it was made by notorious anti-American director Oliver Stone, who never met a Communist dictator he didn't like, and who referred to the terrorist attacks as "the revolt of September 11th." The movie also features actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, who believes the United States is "responsible in some way" for 9/11. People like that don't deserve a dime of my hard-earned American cash, nor do the anti-American causes which some of that money will ultimately fund. I don't need to watch Hollywood half-wits faking shock and sorrow they may have felt for perhaps a few seconds at best before they began blaming America for being the victim of terrorism.

My memories of 9/11 have not yet begun to fade. I almost wish they would. I will be able to see those people falling -- or worse, jumping -- out of those windows any time I close my eyes for the rest of my life. When I travel to north New Jersey or New York City, I'm still unable to stop myself from searching the now-unfamiliar skyline for towers where none now exist. .

When I want to see a movie about real New York heroes on September 11th, I'll watch the footage shot by two French filmmakers who happened to be making a documentary about a probationary firefighter that day. Jules and Gedeon Naudet followed the men of a lower Manhattan firehouse as they dealt with the attacks on the Twin Towers and the immediate aftermath. The accidental documentary, entitled simply "9/11," did a far better job than any slick Hollywood blockbuster ever could.

And when I want to learn about our enemies, I'll watch "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," which I first saw when it premiered in Philadelphia in March 2006. Naturally, it became available on Google video right after I ordered the DVD, but it's money well spent.

I need no big-budget, big-screen reminders only five years after 9/11. Get back to me on the fiftieth anniversary, perhaps.

The "Israel attacked and killed dozens of children" story has spread with a speed that defies rational explanation. It's as though most mainstream media "journalists" around the world were excited to learn that an Israeli attack on a Hizballah rocket launch point resulted in the deaths of 37 children. Those media vultures swung into action, painting the Israelis as evil aggressors deliberately targeting innocent men, women and children, making them sound... well, like Hizballah.

A three-story building in Qana, Lebanon was hit by an Israeli air strike in response to rocket attacks launched into Israel from the vicinity. The Associated Press depicted a man screaming, "Why are they killing us? What have we done?" as he pulled bodies from the wreckage. Reuters coverage, accompanied by graphic descriptions of the bodies, quoted another man asking, "Why have they attacked one- and two-year-old children and defenseless women?" It's difficult to remember the last time the media published such heart-rending accounts of personal grief in the aftermath of a Hizballah strike on an Israeli town. Then again, the media doesn't want to make that comparison, since people might notice that the Israelis aren't, in fact, launching random rocket attacks at innocent civilians on purpose. 

The media seems to be doing little more than publishing Hizballah propaganda thinly disguised as "news." The blog EU Referendum, for example, has documented evidence of Hizballah stage-managing coverage of the tragedy at Qana. The same man is seen "rescuing" the same victim in photograph after photograph, taken over a period of hours by several agencies, posing for the cameras with the body. CNN correspondent Nic Robertson took a guided tour conducted by a Hizballah "press officer" that was blatantly staged to "prove" that Israel was targeting civilians. Only photographic evidence that Hizballah attacks are launched from civilian areas, published in the Australian Herald Sun, weakened the mainstream media's indignation somewhat. Outrage over an Israeli airstrike that killed four UN "observers" was only slightly dampened when it was revealed that Hizballah was using the presence of UN troops as a shield from behind which they could launch attacks unmolested (or so they thought). UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan still used the Qana incident to demand an immediate cease-fire, which would prevent Israel from defending itself while leaving Hizballah free to regroup and rearm for more attacks.

Few of these "journalists" seem to have asked the questions, "what were women and children doing in that building when it collapsed, and why did it happen some seven hours after the airstrike took place?" The fact that Hizballah and other terrorists routinely use innocent civilians as human shields doesn't seem to change their foregone conclusion that the Israelis are really the bad guys. If it turns out that the building was used to hide Hizballah explosives which caused the building's collapse, Israel will still somehow be made to bear the blame.

There was no way for the Israelis to know that building contained women and children... if they were actually even there when the airstrike took place. There was no reason for any civilians to be in the town at all. Hizballah certainly knew that there were civilians present, but used the residential area as a launch zone anyway, knowing that Israel would respond. As usual, the majority of the "mainstream" media attaches no blame to terrorists whatsoever, even as the terrorists manipulate the media for their own ends.

The Israelis have been doing all that can be reasonably expected to limit civilian casualties in Lebanon as well as their own country. They regularly warn residents of southern Lebanon to leave towns targeted for airstrikes, via radio and dropped fliers, even though such warnings also tell Hizballah where the next blow will fall. No matter what they do, however, the Leftist media will continue to do all in their power to turn world opinion against them.

Israelis might as well forget about who "likes" them and do whatever it takes to remove Iran-controlled Hizballah from their northern border. After that, a multinational force -- NATO or an ad hoc coalition -- should help the Lebanese military keep the area secure from attacks. Now that the media has its meme, however, the clock is ticking on Israel's already faint international support. 

Just as most members of the media have used the crimes committed at Abu Ghraib to tear down public support for the entire liberation of Iraq, they will try to use Qana to turn support against Israel. If the Israelis bow to "world opinion" now, however, they might as well save time and drown themselves en masse in the eastern Mediterranean.

11 Aug 2006 UPDATE: More on photo fraud by a complicit media from aish.com.

Why are so many on the Left condemning Israel for a "disproportionate response" to attacks by Hamas and Hizballah? Is there a better way to defeat an enemy when it comes down to combat? After all, the object of war is not to play "tit for tat" games with the enemy, but to beat him. It's just another symptom of Leftist insanity that they believe the stronger combatant should be handicapped to make things "fair"... especially when the weaker force started the fight, and deliberately murders civilians as standard operating procedure. Did Patton leave men behind to make battles with the German army more "fair" during his push across Europe?

Of course, one has to wonder whether we'd hear the same rhetoric about fighting fair if Israel were among the weakest of Middle Eastern countries, instead of being one of the strongest. The prevalence of anti-Israel rhetoric among the Left seems to indicate that most Liberals wouldn't shed a tear over the fate of an occupied -- or destroyed -- Israel. 

The Israelis did everything they reasonably could to purchase peace with their enemies. They withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. Hizballah, Iran's sock puppet army, used their claim that they had driven Israel out to win political power. Israelis even uprooted their own people and withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Hamas, an offshoot of the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned al Qaeda, turned the claim that they had forced Israel to leave into a part of their own winning campaign platform. Instead of peace, all Israel got was Hamas firing Qassam rockets from one direction and Hizballah firing Iranian Katyushas from the other. Finally, both Hamas and Hizballah began conducting raids right into Israel itself. What could the Israelis do, if not fight back? No one who condemns Israel's response seems to offer a reasonable alternative.

This fight was never about land, occupation or peace, as the world should finally be able to see. This has always been about the destruction of Israel, pure and simple. Israel's enemies chose this fight. There is no "proportional response" to the threat of a nation's utter destruction.

The timing of this flare-up was no accident, either. Iran was facing UN sanctions over their refusal to halt their nuclear program, and needed as much time as they could buy in which to develop a bomb. If Iran's leaders ordered Hizballah to attack on the heels of Israel's reprisal against Hamas incursions, they have sacrificed a rook for nothing. Israel struck back, with a determination to crush Hizballah that surprised that group's leaders.

Those behind Hizballah's attack must have been even more surprised when most Arab nations refrained from using the opportunity to attack Israel again, even rhetorically. Consider what happened at an emergency meeting of the Arab League. Despite attempts by Lebanon and Syria to condemn Israel for attacking Hizballah on Lebanese soil, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and several other Middle Eastern countries chastised Hizbollah for "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts"... which is more than most of the mainstream media can do. Perhaps they (Middle Eastern nations, not the media) are capable of learning from their repeated failures. 

Maybe they've simply grown weary of backing the terrorists in their fight to return the world to the 7th century. It's not going to happen, although they can (and do) make the world a pretty miserable place sometimes. More likely, most Arab nations simply don't want to be dominated by Iran. Now that Saddam can no longer provide a check on Iran's ambitions, it may be that at least some Arabs fear Iran more than they hate America. Removing Saddam from power may have been the first step in dismantling Arab support for terrorism, after all.

Negotiating with Hizballah is not a valid option, unless we want the terrorists to gain legitimacy while remaining a danger to innocent people. The main item on the terrorists' wish list is the destruction of Israel, which happens to be about the only thing Israel hasn't already offered them. If Israel expands the war to the north of Lebanon in order to stop Syria from supporting Hizballah, Syria may become directly involved... and then, so might we. If Israel decides to halt their offensive, their best move would be to create a terrorist-free "buffer zone" inside Lebanon, then turn it over to the Lebanese military backed up by NATO... but not UN "peacekeepers." If they do pull back, however, Israel will merely gain a breathing space, after which Hizballah will return with even more Iranian support.

The UN failed to respond to Hizballah's disregard of UNSC resolution #1559, in which Hizballah was ordered to disarm or be disarmed by Lebanon. Hizballah's response: "By whom?" Lebanon's reponse: "Err... they must have meant some other Lebanon." Hizballah was so cowed by the UN's demand that they imported approximately 13,000 Katyusha rockets to fire into Israel. The presence of UN peacekeepers would be more likely to encourage Hizballah to tighten its grip on Lebanon than retreat from it.

The UN and other Leftists demand that Israel and Hizballah simply cease fighting, as though that's a solution. They seem to think that peace is merely the absence of war, instead of the absence of enmity. Returning to the status quo, in which Hizballah (and Hamas) attack Israel at will while Israel is practically forbidden to defend itself, is not an option. At least, not if Israel intends to survive. And after fighting for their survival for nearly sixty years, no one should doubt their intention to do just that.

The split this conflict has caused among Middle Eastern nations is nothing less than an opportunity to dismantle some of the world's worst terrorist groups one by one, instead of facing a united terror network backed by every country in the region. It would be a shame to squander that opportunity by allowing the Left to dictate our response. If we're serious about the War on Terror, we should back Israel all the way to Damascus... or even Tehran.

Five and a half years after taking office, President Bush finally blew the dust off his veto pen to reject increased Federal funding for embryonic stem cell (ESC) research. There's no good, scientific reason the government should fund embryonic stem cell research (not to mention most other things), and many reasons not to do so.

Critics complain because he vetoed the bill due to his religious convictions, as though that's a bad thing. Liberals seem to believe no one who draws a government paycheck should have moral values, or should pretend they have none while on the job. Sometimes it seems they won't be satisfied until all officials are drawn from the 6 percent of Americans who have no religious or spiritual beliefs at all, while the 90 percent who do (according to a 2005 Newsweek/Beliefnet poll) are excluded from holding any government job. They just don't understand that the majority of Americans want a President who adheres to strong religious beliefs, as shown by a 2004 Zogby poll. While the Left tries to build a soulless, hidebound, all-encompassing bureaucratic machine reminiscent of the dear old Soviet Union, a republican form of government should be reflective of the people it governs.

The first reaction of Democrats and Liberals is to call the veto a "ban" on stem cell research, thinking to make it a campaign issue as they tried to do in 2004. That's two lies for the price of one. No research has been banned by Bush's veto on appropriating Federal funds for it. In fact, the Bush administration is the first to fund embryonic stem cell research at all, a fact those on the Left are disinclined to mention. In addition, there are other forms of stem cell research for which government funding has not been blocked.

The private sector (in which research and development used to take place) and state governments are free to fund ESC projects as much as they like. California, for instance, has appropriated three billion dollars for that purpose. Complaints about having to depend on private funding for ESC research only highlight the fact that years of such research have shown few positive results, and produced some spectacular failures. Embryonic stem cells introduced into laboratory mice are routinely rejected by the subject's immune system, and often result in teratomas -- Greek for "monster tumor" -- as the stem cells form all kinds of tissues unrelated to the surrounding tissue.

Meanwhile, research on adult stem cells found in bone marrow, the pancreas, the spleen, hair follicles and fat cells have all produced actual, measurable results. Stem cells taken from the placenta (afterbirth) and umbilical cord after live births show at least as much promise as cells from dead embryos. Dr. Mariusz Ratajczak of the University of Louisville (Kentucky) has directed adult bone marrow stem cells to change into brain, nerve, heart and pancreatic cells. In 2004, Dr. Dennis Turner testified before Congress that symptoms of his Parkinson's disease virtually vanished for four years after treatment with stem cells from his own brain. This research mimics all the supposedly miraculous properties of ESCs while overcoming the rejection issue.

Research on adult stem cells have shown remarkable progress in treating diabetes, muscular dystrophy, blindness, heart disease, paralysis, cancer and dozens of other medical conditions. All ESC research proponents can talk about is potential breakthroughs, while adult stem cell research is actually producing the results. Aside from the lure of endless funding for projects that never need show a return, why do Liberals want taxpayer dollars funneled into experiments that have so far yielded no results?

The most common Liberal argument against Bush's veto is, "well, fertility clinics kill embryos anyway." Two wrongs, however, don't make a right. Deliberately killing fertilised, viable human embryos in the name of science would be a step towards "normalising" abortion for the general public, in anticipation of the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade. If the Supreme Court's unlegislated legalisation of abortion is overturned, individual states would once again get to decide the question of abortion's legality.

If killing human embryos for research purposes becomes widely accepted as a legitimate use of tax dollars, then the Liberal argument for government-funded abortion will be, "how is it any different from harvesting them for research, which we already pay for?" To Liberals, money means acceptance, even endorsement... which is why they fight against Federal funding for projects run by religious groups or charities.

Bush's veto of Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research was the right thing to do, morally and scientifically. If state governments and private firms want to sink money into ESC research based on promises that sound more like those of a faith healer than a scientist, let them answer to local voters and investors.

30 July 06 UPDATE: A company called BrainStorm is just one of several already treating Parkinson's Disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease) and Multiple Sclerosis using stem cells taken from the patient's own bone marrow. If anyone has a good reason why we should funnel taxpayer dollars into research that will take decades to reach the same point, if it ever does, while using material which is at best morally ambiguous, I have yet to hear it.

It seems that the Israelis have finally had enough. Even after they gave up Gaza to appease the Palestinians, with IDF troops herding their own countrymen out of their homes at gunpoint, the terrorist attacks on innocent men, women and children continued. Suicide bombers and nightly rocket attacks launched from Gaza and Lebanon proved that appeasement just doesn't work; rewarding bad behavior only leads to more bad behavior. When members of Hamas abducted a young ISF soldier, Corporal Gilad Shalit, via a tunnel dug from ther Palestinian Authority, Israel ran out of patience.

When given a choice, the Palestinians elected the terrorist group Hamas to lead them, despite (or due to) the fact that the Hamas "platform" consisted mainly of calling for Israel's destruction. Meanwhile, the new prime minister of Lebanon appointed a Hezbollah member to a cabinet post. Members of that terrorist organisation also hold elected positions in the Lebanese government. Hamas and Hezbollah had no intention of coming to an agreement with Israel, however. People don't blow themselves up or target innocents in order to reach a compromise.

So the Palestinians and Lebanese chose the leadership most likely to pick a fight with Israel... and a fight is what they got. When Israeli troops moved into Gaza carrying plenty of supplies on their mission to free Shalit, it was apparent that Israel had lost all hope of reaching a state of peaceful coexistence with terrorists.

Predictably, the United Nations met to discuss how best to reprimand Israel for defending itself. The UN's Human Rights Council, again predictably, condemned Israel for taking out bridges and power plants in Gaza, and approved a resolution demanding Israel's immediate withdrawal. The US promptly vetoed that resolution. President Bush affirmed that Israel has the right to protect itself from terrorists.

Even more predictably, Hamas and Hezbollah tried to intimidate Israel into withdrawing by firing more rockets, kidnapping more Israelis (soldiers and civilians), and even killing a few. The Israelis long ago passed the point where they can be intimidated into submission, either by terrorist attacks or terrorist supporters at the United Nations. They merely expanded the scope of the war.

Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert reacted to Hezbollah's incursion into Israel and the attack on IDF troops by considering it an act of war by Lebanon, from which the attack was launched. "Israel's response will be restrained but very, very, very painful," Olmert said. Israeli forces quickly imposed a blockade and attacked sites in Lebanon, concentrating on areas controlled by Hezbollah, but including the Beirut airport and a Lebanese Air Army base. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continued launching rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

In September 2004, the UN issued resolution 1559, which stated that Hezbollah must be disarmed, and that Lebanese military forces should patrol the southern border to prevent terrorist attacks on Israel. The Lebanese government is either unable or unwilling to accomplish those tasks. Hezbollah controls the southern half of the country and is in turn controlled from Syria. Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, enjoys the protection and patronage of Syrian president Bashir Assad. But all the trails of terror that run through Syria lead to Iran, in the end. Israel should have little trouble supressing terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon, but no one can be safe while Syria and Iran support terrorist groups.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned of a "fierce response" should Israel attack Syria. Any large-scale attack from Iran that crosses Iraq in some way would surely be treated as an unfriendly act by the Iraqi government... and by the US. If Iran makes a move, it's almost certain that both Israeli and American forces would strike at Iran. That country may already be involved in a more clandestine fashion, however -- two medium-range Iranian missiles that struck Haifa, out of range of Hezbollah's usual Katyusha rockets, are believed by some Israeli officials to have been launched by members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard working with Hezbollah.

Israel was right to hold the Palestinian government and Lebanon accountable for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah in their areas, even more so since the terrorist groups are part of those governments. No country can sit by and endure constant attacks launched from within the border of another that does nothing to stop them. How long would we sit still if a terrorist group was launching daily rocket attacks into Detroit or Buffalo from across the Canadian border, and Canada did nothing at all to prevent them?

If the nations that support Hamas and Hezbollah don't find some way to appease Israel soon, the Israelis will be knocking on the door of Assad's summer palace, instead of merely sending fighters to fly over it. It's useless to keep pretending that terrorist groups are separate from the nations that train, harbor, supply and use them in order to conceal their own involvement in attacks. The masks in Middle East politics are coming off at last... and so are the gloves.

Ready or not, the big war for the Middle East seems about to begin. Constant terrorist attacks have driven Israel to the point where they have nothing left to lose. Could neighboring countries possibly hate them any more, or launch more terrorist attacks against innocent civilians, than they already do? Could the United Nations possibly condemn them any more than they do now? Israel has nothing to gain by inaction.

Whatever else happens, I doubt the Israelis will make the mistake of surrendering precious land for promises of peace again anytime soon, even if they are convinced to stop short of invading Syria. Terrorist sympathisers around the world might as well forget about Gaza, and probably half of Lebanon, for the foreseeable future.

We're facing a potential nuclear crisis with North Korea that's been a dozen years in the making. Kim Jong Il has been building his nuclear capabilities since shortly after signing the 1994 agreement in which he promised to cease doing so, and now has long-range missiles with the potential of carrying nuclear warheads to our own West Coast. The fact that the first one he tested failed after launch is of no relevance. The problem is that the dictator of North Korea feels comfortable lobbing missiles at the United States. Who knows where he will aim the next one... or what payload it will carry?

This is what happens when we allow America's enemies to continue working on ways to kill us instead of standing up to them. Democrats and Liberals, the media and many of our supposed "allies" began pouting and stamping their feet over the decision to stop Saddam Hussein from the moment President Bush mentioned Iraq as a part of an "axis of evil" in 2002. Despite the contributions of over 50 countries to the liberation of Iraq, America's "unilateral" action was universally anathematised.

So the Bush administration decided to deal with Iran and North Korea, the other two countries whose leaders have ambitions that need curing, by making a point of allowing other nations to take charge of the negotiations. Result: Iran continues to build nuclear weapons, and North Korea is now testing long-range missiles by firing them off at Hawaii. Meanwhile, without batting an eye, the Left tells us to give Kim Jong Il "incentives" to get him to talk to us, as though talking is an end in itself. Some on the Left seem to believe that fanatical Islamofascists and terrorist-supporting dictators simply can't build their engines of destruction while sending diplomats to hold meetings. The Dictator's Dictionary, if there were such a book, would surely define "negotiations" as, "the best way to prevent your enemy from acting against you until you are ready to attack."

Kim Jong Il's actions are obviously timed to take some pressure off his partners in Iran, as they approach a deadline of their own. Iran has been given until 12 July 2006 to suspend uranium enrichment, but that country's leaders have already declared they will not even respond to the ultimatum until August. With Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya off his customer list, Kim is running out of major countries willing to buy his missiles. Iran is his last major partner -- much of Iran's arsenal is North Korean in origin. If America succeeds in halting Iran's ambitions, North Korea will have very few sources of revenue left. Kim Jong Il wants to blackmail the US into one-on-one talks while he still thinks he can repeat his 1994 performance. In bilateral talks, Kim gained valuable concessions including two light-water reactors and oil, in return for a promise he found easy to break without discovery.

Even China couldn't stop North Korea's missile test, despite the fact that North Korea is normally a useful pawn in China's chess game against the US. China's premiere, Wen Jiabao, asked Kim Jong Il to "refrain from taking measures that will worsen the situation" on the Korean peninsula, yet the test proceeded as planned. In fact, Kim Jong Il's defiance of his patron nation may be an excuse for them not to act, if we decide to do so.

Japan immediately called an emergency session of the UN, with predictable results. As in the Iranian situation, China and Russia stated that they would veto even the mildest of sanctions against North Korea, squashing any attempt to work through the UN yet again. Apparently, the angry letter a fictional Hans Blix threatened to deliver to Kim Jong Il in the movie "Team America: World Police" is stronger than any action of which the real UN is capable. If the UN (as usual) is unable to act, then we (as usual) may have to.

If our enemies pay attention to the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets, they must believe our military is stretched to the breaking point and our people are on the verge of revolt. In fact, the naval power we have in the Pacific is more than sufficient to wipe out every launch pad, missile facility, military base, weapons depot and (of course) palace in North Korea. Air strikes could do the same in Iran, if need be. We've barely stretched our muscles yet, if the truth were told. But if we continue to pretend that talk is a substitute for action, openly-declared enemies like Iran and North Korea will continue to drag us towards a nuclear war.

And the next time we let an enemy launch a sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, we may not be able to build a memorial for several hundred years.

Although the majority of Americans support a Constitutional amendment that would allow Congress to set penalties for desecration of our flag, the Senate failed to pass a proposed amendment by a single vote. It's disappointing that we see a need to amend the Constitution in order to protect our flag, and even more disappointing that our elected leaders don't see fit to do so.

The reasoning behind a flag amendment is the same is that behind the proposed marriage amendment. No matter how many laws state or federal governments may pass, one activist judge with an agenda to push can strike them down, twisting the words of the Constitution to suit his or her purpose. That was the fate of every flag protection statute ever passed, from the first state law enacted in 1897 to the federal ban on flag desecration enacted in 1968. Only by amending the Constitution can lawmakers prevent the Judiciary from rewriting laws from the bench.

It's not as though we have no limits on free speech already, besides the old standby that one can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater. We have limits on political speech, thanks to the McCain-Feingold Act, which prohibits using a candidate's name in a political ad right before an election. Libel, slander and child pornography are prohibited by law. In many cases, one can't talk about religion in public places, not even when a student delivers a valedictory address at a high school. A compliment to a member of the opposite sex might get one fired for sexual harassment. And how many categories of "hate speech" do we have now? I've lost track. Don't argue for the "right" to desecrate the American flag in the name of free speech absolutism.

Burning or otherwise desecrating the American flag is not "freedom of speech." It's not speech at all. It's an action, designed to anger and upset people. If you can't come up with any way to make your point other than resorting to an emotional attack, then you don't really have a point to make. Many on the Left defend flag desecration by saying, "well, it's just a piece of cloth." But if that's all the flag is, then why bother burning it?

The flag is not just a piece of colored cloth. It's a unifying symbol that brings all Americans together, the one thing we all have in common. The American flag is the badge of our country -- the defender of freedom, the beacon of hope for billions. We display it to honor our country, our ideals and achievements. Generations of Americans have pledged allegiance to the flag, and generations of foreigners have viewed it with aspirations of one day living in the kind of freedom for which it stands. Our national anthem is a paean to our flag, despite the fact that, as a child, I thought "The Star-Spangled Banner" had only one verse and ended with, "Play ball!"

The American flag flies over every government building in this country, and every one of our embassies overseas. An American flag stands, alone and proud, to mark the spot where humans first touched the surface of another world. The sight of three firefighters raising the flag over the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center in a gesture of solidarity and defiance brought tears to the eyes of every American. Every member of our military wears the American flag into battle on our behalf, to fight for the ideals it represents -- from the revolutionaries who carried the current flag's predecessors to the men and women proudly fighting under its colors today. And when they fall, that flag covers them on their final journey home.