I really do feel for the Lebanese and think that Isreal needs to stop, but the main culprit in this mess is Hezbollah. You can't expect Isreal to sit around and let an unauthorized militia which runs around autonomously on the border. Granted as a resistance group during the Isreali occupation they were legitimate, even by U.N. rules, but the Jews have been gone for 6 years. How comfortable would you be if your neighboring country had an unauthorized armed group at the border instead of its own army?

Did the Isrealis unlawfully occupy in the past? Yes. Do they have innocent people incarserated among the 10,000 Arabs detained? Probably. But why start all this mess again by invading a soverign country and kidnapping and killing soldiers? If they wanted to work on the release of prisoners, why didn't the Lebanese government iniate talks with Olmhert What happened to dialouge? Lebanon has made great strides in its rebuilding since the civil war and its all been destroyed because the government and its citizens allow Hezbollah to do what ever it wants. No one says anything because of Hezbollah's influence and are afraid. They just left well enough alone and look what happened. Its too easy to blame the Jews or the Americans for that matter.

My advice to the Lebanese (Christian or Muslim), please try to stay out of harms way while you are under siege and when the violence subsides, start taking your country's affairs in your hands.

Well I know that my ancestors were oppressed by the Turks for hundreds of years. Children were taken from their parents, forced to convert, and then trained to become Janisaries and would in turn become brainwashed and then kill their own people. For others, if they didn't convert, they were taxed heavily for it. In the 1920's, hundreds of thousands of Greeks were systematically killed or forced to leave eastern Turkey under Ataturk. In the 50's, Constantinople's ethnic Greek population sufferred tremendously when the Turks destroyed all their businesses and homes while the police and government just watched. In 1974, Cyprus was invaded by the Turks and still occupy the northern one third. 3,000 Cypriots still remain unaccounted for. Cemetaries were ransacked and the deads valuables taken. Only a few years back, a Turkish soldier shot and killed a young man named Solomos Solomou for trying to climb up a flag pole to remove the Turkish flag at the Green Line. Its safe to say that over the last 500 years, millions of Greeks alone were killed by the Turks. Do you see Greeks launching raids and kidnapping people? Do you see the Greek government seek to eliminate Turkey? Do you hear the Greeks preaching to their children that the Turks need to cease to exist? No. We have moved on and that's what the Arab's need to do as well. Israel and the Arab's need to set their difference aside to figure out how to co-exist. Why isn't this happenning? Because of pride. What's ironic is that both groups claim to be pious people but they let pride get in the way. Why the irony? Because pride is the original sin in Chrisitanity, Judiasm, and Islam dating back to Adam and Eve. If you can't step one right, you're going no where. Both sides need to swallow their pride and figure out how their grandchildren will prosper.

For the record, Katrina vicitims were failed by the local government (their mayor and governor) and not Bush.