Israel-Hizbollah fight is policy windfall for Bush (Reuters)

[rodeodance]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060720/pl_nm/mideast_usa_policy_dc;_ylt=Ank0DwxJt8DLr9eO314zqJys0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3b2NibDltBHNlYwM3MTY-

Israel-Hizbollah fight is policy windfall for Bush

By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent 41 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
Israel's campaign to destroy Hizbollah is a foreign policy windfall for the Bush administration, which hopes it will boost the U.S. war on terrorism and heap pressure on its nemesis Iran, analysts say.


"It's not just Israel that doesn't want a ceasefire here," said David Makovsky, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank.

Long a stalwart ally of Israel, the White House has repeatedly voiced support for Israel's right to self-defense and denied the nine-day-old Israeli bombardment could be considered America's war too.

But administration officials admit the current fighting, triggered by the Islamic militants' capture of two Israeli soldiers and rocket attacks into northern Israel, is also furthering some U.S. goals.

"To the extent that this is part of the war on terror, we certainly have an interest in it," White House spokesman Tony Snow said on Wednesday.

[rodeodance]

1. 'GOLDEN' OPPORTUNITY

.....While some experts say the escalating bloodshed may fuel Arab resentment and trigger an anti-U.S. backlash, several analysts say the fighting is a chance to let someone else's military promote what are also U.S. objectives, while gaining leverage for Washington's own diplomatic efforts.

"This seems like the perfect opportunity for the United States to bang the drum and say to people, 'Look, you need to wake up and smell the coffee,"' said James Carafano, a security expert at the conservative Heritage Foundation, which is considered close to the administration.

"The people who are causing evil in the Middle East are Syria, Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas. These people are just as bad as al Qaeda and we've got to stand together and deal with this if we want peace in the Middle East," he said.

'GOLDEN' OPPORTUNITY

Several experts including Makovsky said the conflict helped the United States show Iran it could not scare the world or divert attention from its nuclear program by using Hizbollah as a military proxy.

[Lerkfish]

2. and...there you have it.

[DELUSIONAL]

4. Yep -- just as we though . . . .

Who gains? Certainly not the Lebanese -- or the children.

[VegasWolf]

3. Bush's good fortune always involves the loss of thousands of innocent

lives, young children who will never grow up, all so that Bush can feel righteous about all of his shit for brains plans. I wonder how many new decades of terrorism the world will endure all because the lunatic fundies were so against abortion and the rights of gays to get married. The existence of Bush proves the nonexistence of god.

[grytpype]

5. Everything is good news for Bush.

It has to be a full-fledged catastrophe with absolutely no imaginable redeeming feature for the media to admit something is bad for Bush.

[hadrons]

6. so rightwing idiots at "think" tanks believe this is a "windfall for Bush"

is this news?

[Lindacooks]

14. It is news. News the Democrats should use.

This is what chimpy and the neocons think of human life: Scores of violent deaths are a 'Golden Opportunity' for them.

[gabeana]

18. yup rightwing nuts

I googled this Washington institute for Near East studies it is a pro-Israeli think tank with strong ties to both Republicans and Democrats.I am not computer savvy so I will paste the link to a great article by a Stanford Professor on the institutite http://activistsreader.com/articles%20folder/thinktankwatch-winep2.html,

[progressivebydesign]

7. Hhmmmm... what comes after "trifecta", a quadfecta??? n/t

[Tyrone Slothrop]

21. A superfecta, actually

All that time at the track finally paid off for something...

[rocktivity]

8. Israel's campaign to destroy Hizbollah

will be as successful as Bush's campaign to destory Al Qaeda.

:(
rocknation

[yellowcanine]

9. Only a couple of wingnuts sees a war as a "windfall". Moral degenerates.

It is almost as immoral as using the threat of terrorism for political purposes....Oh wait....

[LittleWoman]

10. Where is Dick Cheney by the way?

[UpInArms]

11. Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon - the "new and improved" trifecta

:banghead:

[patcox2]

12. Necon ultra-zionist conspiracy, seems to me.

The neocons have seen their dreams of having the US march on in to Iran after being greeted with flowers is dead, so now they are resorting to more desperate measures to jump-start the Iran war. And how convenient, they get to nullify the democratic election which brought Hezbullah into the Lebanese government with bombs!

[daleo]

13. If there is plenty of death, it is a positive for Bush

It's enough to make you start getting superstitious - a sort of neo-con version of The Omen.

[BillZBubb]

15. Blood of innocents is Republican's nectar.

But will the sheeple join in the festivities?

[saigon68]

19. They love this stuff TOO GRAPHIC TO POST

http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2006/07/73089.html#

[xchrom]

16. it's just an extension of the ''terror terror terror'' meme.

and the axis of evil meme.

that bushco wants to rewrite history with their version being the one that every one learns by rote -- is a given.

[w4rma]

17. The backwash loves death and destruction. They fear everything. (nt)

[warrens]

20. Oh, wait til the land war starts

As a nation, we're sick of this butchery.

[Straight Shooter]

22. Iraq has just damn near fallen off the radar for most Americans now.

Ain't that funny.

:sarcasm:

[SOS]

27. Sure enough

Bush's failure in Iraq is off page one.

[DaveT]

23. Bullum Shitum

These "analysts" would "say" that the outbreak of peace was a windfall for Bush; that the outbreak of a stalemate would be a windfall for Bush; that the outbreak of regional war would be a windfall for Bush; the end of civilization as we know it is a windfall for Bush, ultimate vindication of his .

From the point of view of mid-twentieth century "hard news" journalism, this Reuters dispatch is considered a thumb-sucker. The "news" is some guys giving their opinions -- without any action to report. In this excruciatingly vapid piece, the thumb is getting sucked even harder as the substance of the opinions are not about what policy should be, but about how today's headlines might be affecting perpetual political horse race.

Well, guess what? The news is always good for George W. Bush.

[modrepub]

24. Just talking like this

pisses arabs off even more. This is not a windfall for us. The Israels have been doing this for decades and they will be doing this same thing decades from now. An eye for and eye is the mantra for most of the middled east. I guess it will all stop when all of them are blind.

[PATRICK]

25. Amazing how

they can get a windfall by exacerbating the situation, ignoring it, doing NOTHING including lackadaisical and miserly efforts to rescue our trapped citizens. And Reuters in total absence of irony isn't saying the half of it, namely that this bloody handed disengagement is intentional, probably conspiratorial and aimed not in a war against terrorism but the next oil countries on the to-do list.

Bush always stops short on doing any real good to anybody in any crisis. The news stops short on saying anything is what it is. The people of the world are brought up short on the truth and being able to do anything about the crooks and liars "in charge" of everything.

But hey, it doesn't matter who dies or what the catastrophe or crime is. It just matters that our WH team scores points in some uber contest in which the press is unabashedly criminally complicit.

Criminally complicit.

Criminally complicit.

The intentions and good will do not matter. God can sort that out, the Hague will take care of the violations.

[AnOhioan]

26. This conflict is the chimps wet dream

[leesa]

28. Yup. The Neocons in US and Israeli governments are the number one

terrorists in the world.

[VegasWolf]

29. America and its cokehead president. nt