If you know your history, you should know that Mexico has always felt that parts of Texas, Arizona and California were taken from them by the military might of the United States. Now picture this. Those same southern border states are continuously hit, without warning, by missiles supplied to the Mexican Army by Cuba and Iran, two of our closest friends. And although the missiles are poorly constructed and without an accurate guidance system, they still reign terror in the hearts and minds of those Americans who live within their range of flight. Would the United States government idly sit back and do nothing. Would the U.N. security counsel act. Would the rest of the world sit in silence? The answer to those questions is all but obvious.

As the rockets rained down on Israeli towns, the world sat silent, and this was not just a recent event. Israel has been subject to such indiscriminate attacks for years. But, why raise a stink over the Palestinians ( there is no such word by the way ) who live in the squalor of Gaza? Why worry about the Israelis? They are used to such attacks from their “neighbors.” Was not the state of Israel once part of the Arab world, just as Pakistan was once a part of India? Has not the enmity of the “Arab” for Israel as timeless as time? Why get involved in someone elses problem. Isn’t that how Hillary and Barack campaigned last Fall? Talking will solve those problems – not war.

However, Israel felt a little differently about the situation, just as we would have felt had our southwestern tier of states been subjected to such hell. And so, Israel sought to destroy its enemy Hamas with its own bombardment and ground attack of Gaza. However, unlike Hamas, which targets civilians, Israel made it a point to warn civilians of an impending attack by dropping leaflets, which described exactly where it planned to attack. That in itself may be humanitarian, but certainly does not assist one in targeting a hidden enemy, especially such a brave enemy that hides among school children and hospital patients.

And while Israel locates its military installations as far from the civilian population as possible, Hamas places its “brave” soldiers next door to schools, civilian population centers, hospitals and in its Mosques, hoping not only that Israel will respect these locations as being non military targets, but also that he world conscience will rise up in anger, should one of them be targeted, resulting in civilian deaths.

Well, that is exactly what happened. Not only is the rest of the world aghast at Israel’s retaliation for those apparently inconsequential Hamas missiles, but is angered by the imbalance of civilian casualties on the size of Gaza versus the few losses in Israel. Perhaps the world would have been more satisfied had about 500 Israeli citizens died in the missile attacks? And to bomb a Mosque? Of course, that Mosque contained both Hamas fighters and caches of weaponry. So much for the sanctity of Islam.

Time Magazine reports that Hamas stated ” …if Israel stops its raid on Gaza and lifts its closure of the border crossings, we’ll go for a truce immediately.” If you believe that, then you must be a fan of Neville Chamberlain and the Nazis. Hamas wants Israel off the face of the map – always has, always will. There is no greater truth in the world. So why go for a truce? Because those Islamic maniacs don’t want their martyrdom quite as soon as the Israeli attack promises. Perhaps those 70 Virgins are not quite as palatable as their protected leaders try to lead the potential young and foolish pre-martyrs to believe. In addition, a truce would give Hamas time to hide their brave leaders and move their weapons to other hospitals, schools and mosques. Israel was duped by its civilian leaders in its 2006 incursion into Lebanon, when it pulled the same type of mistake pulled by the first President Bush, when he failed to go into Baghdad and take out an enemy saved for his son, the second President Bush. Hopefully it learned a painful lesson never again to be repeated. When you attack a king, you don’t stop until you cut off his head. Only then is the danger eliminated.

And what about those poor civilians we see every hour on our TV networks? Hell, those fools are the very ones who voted in Hamas as their government. Those idiots are the very ones who let their children play in the streets right outside of a Hamas safe house. Dumb is as dumb does. Oh by the way, where is the coverage of the damage and terror provoked by the Hamas missiles in Israel. Ahh, the media. So unbiased. So neutral. So worthless.

And what will Barack do about this situation? Barack has a quasi mandate to do “nothing, nada, nicht, nein, not!” He was elected on a promise to get us out of foreign intrigues and wars. What makes anyone think that he is going to rush in head first into this mess? “…I will not wait until a few years into my term or my second term… to get the process ( peace process ) moving.” Well, if that was meant to shame the Bush administration, it was a promise which Mr. Obama will be making for at least the next four years without success. You can’t deal with the devil anymore that you can negotiate with an Islamic radical.

Obama does not have the political capital to do anything about the mess in the Middle East. Israel is proving that now, by acting on its own, knowing that the incoming President is not going to be the friend that George W. Bush was, nor be willing to use the office of the President to act, without first asking for the support of a do-nothing Congress. Obama is going to be more of a strict Article I President, allowing Congress to make his decisions and then blaming Congress, whether it be a Democrat or Republican Congress, for the errors of his administration. Obama is going to be another Bill Clinton, just without stained blue dresses. I have seen this trait already in the President Elect, as he whitewashed the failures of his campaign on others, or simply ignored them as non entities. It’s one thing to fool an American in a voting booth. It’s quite another to fool a radical with a Kalashnikov rifle.

As for Gaza, sometimes bad must simply be viewed as bad. The world showed no sympathy for the post war Germans who, by the way, elected Hitler by popular vote thus paving the way for their destruction. Israel should show no sympathy for those civilians who voted for Hamas. As I stated, dumb is as dumb does. Sympathy or reluctance on the part of the Israeli military is not going to solve the problem with their neighbors. Israel should have never given up the Gaza strip or the West Bank in the first place, any more than we have returned to Mexico land won with American blood. That may seem like harsh rhetoric, and it certainly did not come from the halls of Harvard, but it is the hard rhetoric of reality. We live in a harsh and cruel world. Its time the bleeding heart liberals on the left either put up or shut up.

JLK