More on Buchanan and the "Realists"

It seems that the "realists" have gone over the top with Buchanan leading the charge. It's irritating that in addition to suffering shots from the left for a long time, we are now being targeted by snipers firing from the right.

Now Israel's rampage against a defenseless Lebanon -- smashing airport runways, fuel tanks, power plants, gas stations, lighthouses, bridges, roads and the occasional refugee convoy -- has exposed Bush's folly in subcontracting U.S. policy out to Tel Aviv, thus making Israel the custodian of our reputation and interests in the Middle East.

The Lebanon that Israel, with Bush's blessing, is smashing up has a pro-American government, heretofore considered a shining example of his democracy crusade. Yet, asked in St. Petersburg if he would urge Israel to use restraint in its air strikes, Bush sounded less like the leader of the Free World than some bellicose city councilman from Brooklyn Heights.

As to Lebanon being destroyed, I don't think so. Certain blocks in the southern burbs of Beirut; yes. The infrastructure of the whole country; hardly. Take the bridges for example; the expensive bridges so far have been left pretty much intact with maybe a hole through the deck in a strategic location. This indicates to me that the Israelis hit it with a concrete bomb which has no explosives but a hell of a punch. Can be repaired fairly easily.

Some of the short bridges such as cross dry creeks have been knocked down entirely but these are relatively inexpensive and easy to replace.

Anderson Cooper was in Beirut escorted by Hezbollah to record the devastation. When asked by someone in the studio whether this was typical of a broad area, he replied that no, it was confined to a few blocks.

The attacks on the airport have (to my knowledge and I could be mistaken) been confined to cratering the runways.

Strategic hits on electrical substations can knock power without destroying the grid.

We're seeing a lot of propaganda designed to gin up international condemnation of the Israelis and we don't need our people throwing gas on that fire (if you know who I mean.)