Almost another week has gone by and the Middle East looks the same except with more destructions in Lebanon and Israel. Don't forget Gaza and of course Iraq. The only good news for Bush is the conflict in Lebanon has pushed Iraq to the back page. Does anyone notice the disaster that is happening in Iraq? Each week it has been worse than the one before and more troops will be going there with more U.S. soldiers going out on the streets to try to stop the sectarian violence. Nobody seems to notice this as everyone is focused on Lebanon.

So what is the Bush administration doing about Lebanon? Rice made her rounds but says nothing except to decline to have a cease fire until some permanent solution can be found. In other words we'll let Israel beat up Hezbollah to her satifaction before we call a cease fire. In other words our diplomatic effort will depend on Israel's military effort. As I said before, Israel may win the war but will give birth to more terrorists each day she is destroying Lebanon. Also Israel painted herself into a corner by vowing to destroy Hezbollah. This looks like will take longer than expected. Hezbollah, on the other hand, can claim victory by simply surviving. So if Israel destroys 80% of Hezbollah and then call for a cease fire, we are no better off than if we had called for a cease fire right now. So it is not in the interests of the U.S. to let Israel keep on fighting. We should act in our best intersts just as Iran and Syria would rein in Hezbollah if it is in their best interests to do so.

This brings to what we should do in the future. With countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt all condeming Hezbollah and fearing the power of Iran, this gives the U.S. an opportunity to break up the radicals. Iran and Syria are the supporters of Hamas as well as Hezbollah. If we can break these two apart and leave the other one isolated we may have a chance for an Arab-Israel peace. As I have said, this peace is absolutely necessary if we are to defeat terrorism. This is what Bush should have concentrated on, not going into Iraq. He has a second chance now.

It won't be easy but I think it is possible to get Syria away from Iran. The Iranians are Persians and they tend to look down on Arabs. They are also Shiites and the Syrians are predominantly Sunnis as are the Jordanians who are U.S. allies. Israel and the U.S. also have a negotiating chip, the Golan Heights. The return of the Sinai to Egypt was the key for peace there. Israel eventually will give back the Golan Heights anyways and this is as good as any time to negotiate. The leader of Syria, Assad, is not a religious fanatic like the president of Iran. (can't spell his name) Assad is a British trained physician and I think he would like his country develop economically as King Abdullah is trying to do in Jordan. The only problem is that he is not the strong man his father was so he cannot make peace with Israel without risking his life. Also Israel cannot come out and say she will give up the Golan Heights, so the U.S. will have to use our diplomatic channels to convey the desire.

Of course some will say that Syria was the one to tell Hezbollah to attack so Syria can get back into Lebanon and Assad will not negotiate seriously with Israel. Also some will point out that after the Israelis left Gaza, Hamas attacked Israel. Sure all this maybe true but not trying to break the bad guys up will be an opportunity lost. Even if Israel had not left Gaza, Hamas would cause trouble anyways. And it would be obvious that if there is a possiblity of peace, the bad guys will try to stop the process. You just have to keep doing the right thing and maybe someday the goal will be achieved. If Syria decides to make peace, it will be automatic that Iran will cause big trouble. But if you don't try to make peace with Syria, you know that Iran will cause trouble anyways but will also be helped by Syria. Right now most of the Arab countries are condemning Hezbollah and they are afraid of Iran getting stronger. Now is the time to try to get the Syrians to join their Arab brothers.

As the war between Israel and Hezbollah keeps escalating, there seems to be no significant effort from the U.S. to stop the fighting. It seems that the only strategy Bush has is to curse the Syrians. I don't have any problem of the president cursing but I think he has not demonstrated any leadership or understanding in the Middle East. Maybe he didn't study history at Yale. So I am going to write what I understand about the history of this region. I am not a history buff and my understanding of this area may not be accurate but I think that in order to make good policies, a leader must have a good understanding of the past.

The region of Palestine was controlled by the Ottoman Empire prior to WWI. Unlike the assertion of pro-Palestinian groups, the Jews did not take away their country. They had no country to begin with as they were controlled by the Turks. Some Jews were in this area even in the early 1900's even though they were greatly outnumbered by the Arabs. During WWI, the Ottomans were on the sides of the Germans. Britain wanted the help of the Arabs to defeat the Ottomans so they promised that various Arab groups will get independent countries following the defeat of the Ottoman if the Arabs help Britain. At the same time through the Balfour Declaration, Britain expressed support for a Jewish homeland in the hope of getting support from Jews in Britain and the U.S. Needless to say these promises raised the expectations of the Arabs and Jews alike.

After WWI, with the Ottomans defeated, Britain had the mandate to create a Jewish state. Many Zionists started to immigrate to Palestine. But fearing Arab hostility, Britain sought to control Jewish immigration. During the Nazi attempt to exterminate Jews, the cry for a Jewish state increased. Britain continued to ignore the demand of the Jews and there were uprisings against the British by Jews in Palestine. Future Israeli leaders like Begin were considered terrorists by the British at that time. After WWII, the UN decided to divide Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Jerusalem was to be under international control. The Jews accepted this plan but the Arabs did not. Fighting broke out immediately after the state of Israel came into existence. Israel won easily and gained a lot of land that was meant to be the new Arab state.

After this you have various wars starting in 1956 when Israel, England and France attacked Egypt for closing off the Suez Canal. In 1967 Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in the 6 Day War. Egypt lost the Sinai peninsula and Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel. After this war the PLO came into prominence. Since regular Arab armies couldn't defeat Israel, Arab support went to the PLO and their guerrilla tactics. The armies of Egypt and Syria tried again in 1973 in the Yom Kippur war. Again they failed miserably. But Israel did suffer losses during this war and she became more dependednt on the U.S. for arms and aids.

Jimmy Carter didn't accomplish much as president but one thing he did accomplish was bring together Sadat and Begin to Camp David. This eventually led to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. Incredibly, this peace has held up. This did cost more credibility of the U.S. in the Arab world. In the 1980's and maybe even now, I am not so sure, the aids that the U.S. give to Egypt and Israel make up 50% of our total foreign aid. Everybody knows that Egypt did not get the aid because the U.S. likes Egypt. Even neutral countries would agree that the U.S. is not even handed in this conflict and that the aid to Egypt was for making peace with Israel.

How did Lebanon get into this mess? Location, location, location. When Lebanon was formed she was an example how Muslims and Christians can get along. Lebanon was about 60% Muslim and 40% Christians and they were doing all right. Then the Palestinians poured in and the PLO established itself among the refugees. The Lebanese Muslims came to support the PLO and the Christians opposed it. This led to internal conflicts and brought Syria into the picture. It also brought in western troops including the U.S. forces. Unfortunately that led to a suicide bombing killing over 200 U.S. troops in the 1980's. This was the beginning of Hezbollah. Foreigners were taken hostages so often that a comedian said that if you go to Beirut, instead of stamping your passport, they stamp "hostage" on your forehead. Ariel Sharon took the Israel army into Lebanon to destroy the PLO. Some say Sharon was responsible for the massacre of Muslim civilians by Christians. Israel ended up occupying southern Lebanon for many years with heavy losses and finally pulled out few years ago. The pull out of the Israelis was seen in the Arab world as a victory for Hezbollah. With this momentum and their organized social services, Hezbollah was able to get some posts in the mainstream Lebanese government. Their hatred for Israel, however, is still the main reason for its existence.

The PLO under Arafat actually had became more moderate over the years and had signed a peace agreement with Rabin. Unfortunately Rabin was killed by an Israeli extremist. Arafat had opportunity to make a lasting peace during the Clinton administration with Barak. He ultimately chicken out believing he would be assassinated just as Rabin was. His so-called government was also very corrupt and did not serve the Palestinian people well, wasting international aid. This led to the rise of Hamas, a much more radical group bend on destroying Israel. Hamas became popular among the people with its organized social services. Arafat would not have gotten any international sympathy, except the Israelis were dumb enough to listen to extremists on their side and built settlements that were considered illegal in the eyes of the international community. The harsh treatment of the Palestinians led to intifadas and ultimately more and more suicide bombings.

So why do I go through this exercise of writing about what I feel as some of the important parts of Arab-Israel history? I figure I will be writing about this topics in the next few weeks and I will be referring to some of this history as I go. For example, I see pundits are calling for Israel to go into Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah once for all. As you can see from history, winning wars has not been a problem for Israel. They have won all the wars decisively and yet no security has been achieved. Israel maybe able to kill the leaders of Hezbollah and most of its foot soldiers in the coming weeks. But will that help her security? History says no. The bombing in Lebanon is making more future suicide bombers and terrorists everyday. Diplomatic solutions are hard because the bad guys are going to try their best to destroy any peace gesture. But diplomatic solutions are the only ones that can possibly bring lasting peace in this region. So has Bush make any diplomatic effort? Condi Rice hasn't even gone to the region yet and we are almost two weeks into the conflict. Apparantly Bush did not learn anything from history.

Newt Gringich was on t.v. today saying the Middle East conflict may lead to World War III. What irresponsible hyperbole! Even if we are to attack Iran and Syria the conflict will only be Middle East in nature. Is North Korea going to join in? Will Russia and China help Iran? Don't politicians have any understanding of the world?

Of course this does not mean the situation in the Middle East isn't dangerous. The Israel -Arab conflict should have been the first thing we addressed after invading Afghanistan. Our effort in this area is much more important than Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The so-called Axis of Evil have nothing to do with 9/11 but the Israel-Arab conflict has great impact. As our best ally in the area, Israel deserves our support. But not unconditional support. It is our unconditional support that makes it easy for the bad guys to recruit terrorists. There will always be evil people. But the most evil people who want to disrupt the world for their own gain do not want to sacrifice themselves. The Israel-Arab conflict, with the U.S. painted as anti-Arab, provides a perfect opportunity for the evil-doers to recruit for them.

Israel had made a meaningful step in moving out of Gaza. It is understandable for the Israelis to be frustrated by Hamas' attacks on Israel after the withdrawl. Most of us would want strong retaliation in response to the attacks. It is also no surprise, however, that Hamas and Hezbollah would attack. They don't want any peace plan to succeed. If the aftermath of withdrawl by Israel is peaceful then moderate Arab may proceed to peace agreement with Israel. So Hamas and Hezbollah have to act and then wait for Israel to react. The overwhelming reaction by Israel will sure upset more Arabs, particularly the young, and hope for peace will be destroyed. Terrorism against the west will increase.

So what do we do? Certainly by saying things like "all countries have the right to defend itself" is of no use. It actually give countries like North Korea an excuse to pursue missles and nuclear weapons to "defend itself". Israel must show restrain. Anger is understandable and in reality an eye for an eye is understandable also. But gouging the eyes of innocent civilians will not bring security to Israel. Instead of standing on the sideline, the U.S. must use diplomacy to bring about a cease fire. What good is it for Israel to keep bombing the infrastructures of Lebanon? And forget about sending troops into Lebanon, Israel just left there not long ago after a disastrous occupation. Stop the fighting now, send in UN peackeepers with humanitarian aid. Over the long haul if Israel and the U.S. can provide more social service to the Palestinians and Lebanese than Hamas and Hezbollah, then eventually the influence of these evil groups will diminish and peace will have a chance.

As you can see I offer no quick solutions. Nobody has quick solutions. Certainly military might will not do it otherwise Israel and we would have won a long time ago. Ariel Sharon's plan of withdrawl from the settlements is still the right decision. It is easy to predict that evildoers will try to derail the plan. It takes men of courage to continue a peace process despite obstacles and sometimes threats on their lives. Sadat and Rabin paid for peace with their lives. It will take courageous men in Palestine to challenge Hamas and courageous men in Israel to continue the plan started by Sharon. The U.S. must go between the two sides and encourage moderates from both sides to emerge. That should have been priority #1 after invading Afghanistan. It maybe an impossible task but if we were ever successful then Iran, Syria, al Qaeda and others will diminish drastically. But we continue stand on the sidelines on the Israel-Arab conflict then we will never defeat terrorism. If won't be World War III but we would not feel secure.

Soccer was my favorite sport when I was growing up. Of course for most of the world it is the only sport so people love it no matter what. Having just finished watching the World Cup, I feel that despite the popularity of the game world over, it needs some changes. The defense is so good that players with enormous dribbling and shooting skills can rarely get a shot off. Not only is the scoring too low but the acrobatic skills of the goalies are rarely on display. And a penalty shootout is not a way to determine the world champion. So I make the following suggestions. It is unlikely that significant changes will be made but I can hope. Several years ago I said to myself that they should get rid of passing back to the goalie to decrease offensive pressure, and lo and behold, they actually put that rule in. So maybe there is hope for other changes.

1. Change the no offside rule from mid-field to about the 35 yard area. This will lead to more fast breaks and help the fast players.
2. Shrink the penalty area by one-third. This will leave less area that the goalie can handle the ball. It will decrease the number of penalty kicks but that's o.k. because the penalty kick is deciding way too many games which means that the referee is deciding way too many games. If a foul is really close to the goal the pk is a reasonable penalty. But a foul 17 yards away generally do not deserve a pk. A free kick by someone like Beckham with a wall blocking him is much more interesting than a pk.
3. For the world championship no shootouts with sudden death goal wins. Have unlimited substitution in OT if you are worried about player exhaution. You have 23 players on the roster why are you using a maximum of 14? The team with the better depth should have a better chance to win.
4. Anyone who has received a yellow card, cannot stand in the defensive penalty area during a free kick or a corner kick.
5. Two referees, each monitoring half of the field. The game is too fast and often the referee, trailing the play cannot see fouls correctly and also cannot see what's happening behind him.

If you have other suggestions, write in. I have ideas for rule changes in other sports also if anyone is interested.

Horray for Bob and Mike Bryan of Camarillo for winning Wimbledon doubles championship and thus achieving a career grand slam!

I was watching CNN last night and one of the so called experts says that the launching of missiles by the North Koreans means there is more danger than when we were in the Cold War. This is ridiculous. The North Koreans were not even successful with the launch of their long range missile and even if they were successful, they are no threat to us. It will be years before they can fire these missles with any accuracy and put a nuclear warhead on them. And we can always blow up the missles before they are launched if we want to. Kim Jong Il also knows that if he ever use nuclear weapons he will be destroyed. Like any dictator, his first priority is staying in power and he cannot do that if his country is destroyed.

So why does Kim shoots his missiles? He does it to get attention. By creating a crisis, he hopes to improve his image at home and get concessions from the U.S. He was tired of Iran getting the attention when she does not even have nuclear weapons yet. Kim has gotten concessions before by causing a crisis and even if he does not get anything this time, he enjoys being in the limelight.

So how do we respond? We are paying way too much attention to Kim. As I said, this is no threat to us. We should just ignore him. Our government should not even mention this event and certainly should not say that this has grave consequences for North Korea. We are not going to attack him and diplomatically there is very little we can do. Just like treating a child, negative reinforcement seldom works. So we should ignore bad behavior and reward good behavior, if any ever occurs. Say nothing except perhaps give a computer generated scenario of what would happen to another country if we ever counterstrike against a nuclear attack. Just to give Kim a reminder!

The so-called Axis of Evil are all paper tigers. We should have never invaded Iraq. Having seen Iraq destroyed despite not having WMDs just make Iran and North Korea more anxious to have nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Iran and North Korea are still not great threats yet. Nuclear bombs will not fly across the sky at us. If any nuclear weapon is to hit here, it would be most likely be carried across the ocean on cargo ships or delivered as a dirty bomb. None of these countries we are worried about has the technology or the willingness to help terrorist groups secure nuclear weapons. They don't want their own country obliterated for helping terrorists. The most likely source of help for the terrorists, in my opinion, will be former Soviet states. They have the weapons and the skilled scientists who are not paid well. These scientists can be bought off and help secure nuclear material. If say a scientist in Lithuania helps Al Qaeda, we can't bomb the whole country of Lithuania for revenge. So this is a much bigger potential threat. Instead of worrying about North Korea and Iran, we should spend more money and effort to safeguard the nuclear materials and scientists in the former Soviet Union.

So ignore North Korea's antics. South Korea is much more threatened than us by North Korea. If the South doesn't want sanctions against the North, we shouldn't demand international sanctions. Sanctions would not be effecitve anyways and China and Russia may veto it. China is not helpful to us because she likes to see North Korea being a headache to us. China enjoys getting the attention from us as the only with possible influence on Kim. China does not want to see North Korea collapses and milllions of refugees charge into China. The only situation where China will be putting pressure on Kim is if Japan starts building up her military in response to North Korea threats. This may happen soon and China will not be happy. Obviously we don't want big military build-ups in Asia but the threat of a build up in Japan would be the only strong reason for China to put great pressure on North Korea. So let South Korea and Japan take the intiative in dealing with North Korea, they have a lot more at stake than us.

The Supreme Court rejected the Bush administration's claim that the President can make the rules in an unconventional war. While this may not help any innocent prisoners get out earlier, it does at least slow down the ability of the administration to use 9/11 to increase the power of the executive branch. Guantanamo Bay, surveillance of phone calls and bank transactions may very well be necessary in the war against terrorism but the way the administration carried them out shows a disregard for laws and the separation of power between the branches of government.

The wiretaps could have been done legally by simply getting warrants. The warrants can be obtained retrospectively if the government had to act before there was time to reach a judge. By putting in new rules that allow the NSA to bypass the court at will doesn't help fight terrorism. It was just an act of arrogance. The same with the bank transactions. It would be easy to get approval from Congress and the courts to make everything legal. By not going through the legal channels, the administration is trying to make the executive branch much more powerful than the other two branches.

By not giving the prisoners at Guantanomo American justice or justice according to the Geneva convention, it will lead to more terrorism against us. It is a lot easier for the bad guys to recruit people when they can point to Muslims that America only believe in justice for their own people. There are bound to be many prisoners who were not guilty of terrorism who are still detained without trials after several years. The long length of their incarceration will be used as a recruiting tool against us. Even if they had some connection with Al Qaeda, their usefullness as an information source is nil by now. If this is "24" they would be released long time ago and followed to see if they go back to their organization. (I watch too much t.v.) I think the administration does not have enough evidence to convict most of these people and they don't want to lose in court so they want to just keep them in prison until the war on terrorism ends. Of course the war of terrorism has no ending. Eventually, I believe, most of these prisoners will be released and Guantanomo will be closed after a new president takes office. It will be a black eye in the history of America justice.

Yesterday, June 22nd, the LA Times had a article about different religious groups plotting the so-called exit strategy, hastening the end of the world. This means the arrival of the messiah for their particular religion. You have the Christian, Muslim and Jewish groups all believing the end of the world as we know it is near. Now I don't know who is right but I know they all can't be right. Obviously everybody can believe what he wants to believe, but some of the contradictory statements made by religious leaders strike me as being illogical.

The President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, hopes to welcome the messiah Mahdi to Tehran in 2 years. If he thinks the messiah is going to come so soon and convert everyone to Islam then why is he worrying about building nuclear weapons for the future? The Jews, meanwhile, are rebuilding the Holy Temple destroyed by the Romans, before the coming of their messiah. Gershon Solomon of the Jerusalem's Temple Institute remarked that when the temple is built "Islam is over." The Christians are helping Israel as they believe that they will be judged by how they treat the Jews. So the Christians are strong lobbyists for Israel. Of course they also believe that the Jews who do not convert to Christianity will be condemned to hell. This is a concept that shock the Jews. Gershon Solomon, when asked about the Christian belief, said "What kind of religion is it that expects another religion will be destroyed?" Of course that is exactly what he thought would happen to Islam. It is also what Muslims think will happen to Jews and Christians.

So they all think they are smart enough to know their religion is the right one. I guess I am not so smart. Read back to my blog on 9-26-05 and you will see that I have no idea who is the true God. All I know is that the true God will be more forgiving than us, not less. For example, if Mother Teresa believed in the wrong God, would the true God condemn her to hell? If your religion teaches you that good people from different religions than yours are going to hell, I don't think you have found the true religion.

The Republican majority passed resolutions in the Senate and House which defeated the call for a timetable for withdrawl from Iraq. The resolutions were just political ploys because they included a call for support of the troops. So if one votes for a timetable then the Republicans can use it against him in November by saying that he voted against the troops. Dennis Hastert even called this a vote for freedom. This is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. There are reasonable arguments for not having a timetable but if you believe that this is a vote to support freedom and the troops then you are a moron, the exact type of people the Republicans are trying to convince.

These symbolic votes show how inept our political leaders are. All they are doing to trying to figure out how best to win the next election. The Republicans know that the war is going badly but figure that by keep yelling "stay the course" they can still beat the democrats in November. The Democrats blame the Republicans but have no alternative policies of their own. Now that most congressmen voted to support our troops, what strategy do they have to bring them home?

There seems to be very little celebration with the death of Zarqawi. Even President Bush cautions that a lot more fighting is ahead. There was none of the claims of victory as after Hussein was captured. This is because we have learned that the insurgency is very resilent and that the loss of one leader will not mean its end. There is question of whether Zarqawi is all that important or even competent as a leader. However, this is an opportunity to use his death to our advantage, although given Bush's reaction he does not seem to see the opportunity.

This is the time now to save face and get the hell out of Iraq. Bush keeps saying that we will stay course until the work is completed. But what is the end point? Does anyone believe that any government can stablize the country in less than 10 years? Certainly not any government that is supported by the U.S. Somewhere down the line the country will be either split into Shiite and Sunni and Kurdish regions via civil war or the Shiites become dominant with the help of Iran and overwhelm the others. I believe one of these scenarios will play out no matter how long we stay in Iraq. If there is any chance for it to turn out differently, it would require us to get out as soon as possible. It is easier for insurgents to recruit as long as there are Americans occupying the country. Sunnis can point to Americans as helping the Shiites to kill them. Shiites can say that if not for American interference, they would have put down the Sunnis already. There maybe a slim chance that without Americans to blame, some moderate leaders can unite the country. Well, at least after several moderate leaders are assassinated first.

What about the argument that we did not finish the job and that would look bad for us in the future. Well, we already lost lot of credibility by invading Iraq in the first place. But everybody still knows that we can kill them. We just can't occupy them. But who else do we want to occupy? Iran and North Korea know that we can't occupy them but so what? They know that we can destroy them. If we leave Iraq they will make fun of us for awhile, but so what? We can claim victory now by saying that the head of the insurgency is dead. The enemy is headless. The Sunni leadership of Hussein and now Zarqawi are gone. The Shiites can run the country with a democratically elected government. It is all up to the leaders of Iraq now. This is what we set out to do. Of course, everybody in the world know that is a lie. But so what? This is the way to save face on the international stage. At least no more soldiers will be killed for no reason and we can spend money on other things that will improve our lives and keep us safer. Bring the troops home now.

The Supreme Court ruling denying whistle-blower rights for government employees is a wrong decision. Generally I like laws that limit lawsuits because I believe there are way too many frivolous lawsuits in our country. But to say that if you work for the government you have no right to reveal official misconduct is absurd. This sounds more like the laws of China or Iran. If the Chinese government was to fire one of its official for exposing international violations in the government, wouldn't western countries cry foul?

Whistle-blower rights are even more important for government employees than private employees. If a company do something illegal or unethical, it is likely that eventually this will catch up to it. Whistle-blowers are important in cases like Enron but even if there was no whistle-blowers I think sooner or later the fraud would have been exposed and the company would have gone down. But with frauds in government this can go on much longer without a whistle-blower from the inside. For example, who on the outside can monitor a crooked police department? As it is with the so-called code of silence, it is difficult to get rid of bad cops. We cannot get rid of a police department by dumping its stocks as we can do to a bad company. Many more lives are at stake when a government agency can operate with impugnity. With this ruling by the Supreme Court, who will be brave enough to say "the emperor has no clothes"?