© AP
A video tribute produced warm laughter and inevitable tears. There was no bitterness, but rather a sense of gratitude -- gratitude for the opportunity to serve, for able and loyal colleagues, and above all for our country and its people.
Yet, as Mr. Bush left Washington, in a last angry frenzy his critics again distorted his record, maligned his character and repeated untruths about his years in the Oval Office. Nothing they wrote or said changes the essential facts.
To start with, Mr. Bush was right about Iraq. The world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. And the former president was right to change strategy and surge more U.S. troops.
A propaganda battle designed to promote the plan to spread war throughout the greater Middle East is now under way and will soon hit the airwaves in the United States. The plan will be presented as a television advertising campaign to promote Israel as the victim of terrorism backed by the government of Iran. The advertising campaign is due to air on television during the inauguration period of President-elect Barack Obama.
Comment: This story has since been scrubbed from Haaretz's page. However, it is still available on Google cache.
Just in case it disappears forever, an archived screen shot can be seen at this link.
So let's think about this for a moment; There are groups of Israeli agents running around Gaza dressed very convincingly as members of a Palestinian militant group that is claimed to be behind the firing of Qassam rockets from Gaza into Israel. Add to that the fact that Hamas has on several occasions in the past claimed that they did not know who was firing the rockets into Israel, suspected that agents of the state of Israel were behind the firing of rockets at very sensitive times, and appealed to whoever was doing it to stop, and we have are led to a very interesting tentative conclusion:
Israel is now and has been for many years taking steps to ensure that peace never breaks out with the Palestinians. This is a very reasonable and logical conclusion because it is clear to all with eyes to see that without an enemy against which to fight, the illegality of the present state of Israel would be clearly exposed for all to see.