Three children killed by A Crucial Vote 'Cut and Run' in Israeli air strike Iraq Debate gets run out of Senate Heats Up 'kills children' Leaving the Left
As Americans woke up this morning and learned of the tragic fates of two American servicemen in Iraq, they saw yet more evidence of the real war that continues there.
An Israeli army spokesman said the air strike had targeted militants wanted for attacks on Israel. The spokesman expressed regret over any civilian casualties but said responsibility lay with the Palestinians for failing to stop the rocket salvoes.
In the United States, the political war over which of the two major political parties will be able to use Iraq as an issue for its electoral advantage in the November midterm election continued to heat up today.
Those who died include a boy and a girl - both about five-years-old - and a 16-year-old girl, Palestinian medical sources say.
Khalil Roka, a cousin of one of the dead children, told the Associated Press news agency he saw a red flash as the car exploded amid a group of children playing.
In his call for a change in strategy, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., declared the Republican plan for Iraq "lie and die."
A spokeswoman for the Israeli army said the attack had targeted members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militant group associated with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party.
A candidate who advocates bringing the troops home within a year polls three percentage points better than one who says the US needs a "new direction," but stops short of calling for an exit date.
An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the strike
A "New Direction for America," you may recall, is the latest slogan unveiled by Democrats last week. But the public wants specifics, not slogans.
Israel says such strikes are necessary to deter militants from firing crude rockets from Gaza.
And as election time approaches, the war is by far the most important issue to the Democratic base.
People in the southern Israeli town of Sderot, frequently hit by Palestinian rockets, went on strike on Tuesday to protest that the government was not doing enough to protect them.
If anyone politicized this issue, John Kerry, with a lot of help from the Democratic caucuses in both houses. For those who find themselves annoyed because the cut-and-run poses from Kerry, Feingold, Kennedy, Boxer, Harkin, and Kennedy make the Republicans look good, they should direct their ire to Kerry and the Freak-Out Five. Congress exists for the debate and resolution of issues, and Kerry initiated the debate with his amendment. The GOP leadership simply gave Kerry what his action demanded - debate and a vote that put everyone in the Senate on record as to whether they would abandon the Iraqis before they could effectively defend themselves.
Witnesses said aircraft fired at least one missile at a car carrying al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades militants in Gaza City. The occupants managed to leap free but a 7-year-old girl and her 5-year-old brother nearby were killed, as was a 16-year-old.
Nine bystanders, most of them minors, were wounded.
After moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, I watched from the roof of my apartment building as the city burned after the Rodney King verdicts were handed down. I thought what those four cops did to King was shameful. But I didn't hear an uproar from my friends on the Left when rioters rampaged through the city's streets, stealing, looting, and destroying property in the name of "no justice, no peace."
The occupants of the car leapt out before the blast in a crowded street in the Jabaliya refugee camp, witnesses say. Fourteen people were wounded.
What made me leave the Left for good and embrace the Right were their respective reactions to 9/11. While The New York Times doubted that we could succeed in Afghanistan because the Soviets in the '80s hadn't, George W. Bush went directly after the Taliban and Al Qaeda and crushed them in short order. Although many on the Left claim to have backed the President's actions, the self-doubt leading up to it, crystallized my view of the Left as weak and terminally lacking in confidence.
The Israeli military confirmed it had attacked the vehicle.
Iraq is the "Normandy" of the War on Terror. The hope, once Iraq and Afghanistan are more stable, is that the nearly 70 million people in Iran will look at those countires (on it's left and right borders) and say: "Why do these people get to vote, send their women to school, and buy Nikes and we don't?"
