The entire middle east has never fully accepted the displacement of land after World War 2, to make room for a Jewish Nation.

And existing conflict is fueled by the U.S’ support for Israel, and Iran and Syria’s support against.

I know it’s not as simple as that. But, it just shows you that this is why this conflict has been going on for so long… it’s a conflict of ideals, culture, economics, and even real estate.

You said “I sometimes wonder if American officials are really all that worried or upset about a civil war in Iraq. The U.S. government has become such a tool of Zionist interests that Israel is priority No. 1 at all costs, never mind if the rest of the world goes to hell.”

The US should really stop its undying support for Israel. It’s not worth it.

I got a blasted headache from reading the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement—all 153 pages of it in PDF format that I downloaded from a link provided in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Web log in an Oct. 25 article, “JPEPA to encourage trade in hazardous and toxic waste.”

Part of the problem stems from the fact that those 153 pages contained only the table of contents and Articles 1 to 60 of the agreement. The table of contents itself on pages one through nine says that there is a total of 165 articles. I would have thought that the link would yield the full text since the PCIJ article appeared to be a comprehensive analysis of the substance of the treaty…

…Anyway, I tried searching for other sources but it does appear that even at this point, privileged access is still necessary to read all the entire treaty. How long is it?

Japan’s MOFA has the agreement with all 165 articles

Philippines’ DTI has the agreement (both BASIC, containing the 165 articles mentioned in the table of contents, and IMPLEMENTING, containing only 60 articles) and all the 8 annexes

PCIJ’s uploaded JPEPA is the same as that of DTI’s.

…didn’t total the pages of the agreement and annexes. anyway, mofa uploaded a 121-paged agreement while dti and pcij uploaded a 153-paged jpepa (some articles without text – only titles)…pages 1-120 of which contain the BASIC agreement while pages 121-153 is the IMPLEMENTING agreement…

maybe, the sassy lawyer can add them all up and, as a journalist, be thorough and be reliable for a change.

I got a blasted headache from reading the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement—all 153 pages of it in PDF format that I downloaded from a link provided in the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism Web log in an Oct. 25 article, “JPEPA to encourage trade in hazardous and toxic waste.”

Part of the problem stems from the fact that those 153 pages contained only the table of contents and Articles 1 to 60 of the agreement. The table of contents itself on pages one through nine says that there is a total of 165 articles. I would have thought that the link would yield the full text since the PCIJ article appeared to be a comprehensive analysis of the substance of the treaty…

…Anyway, I tried searching for other sources but it does appear that even at this point, privileged access is still necessary to read all the entire treaty. How long is it?

Japan’s MOFA has the agreement with all 165 articles
(http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/philippine/epa0609/main.pdf)

Philippines’ DTI has the agreement (both BASIC, containing the 165 articles mentioned in the table of contents, and IMPLEMENTING, containing only 60 articles) and all the 8 annexes
(http://business.gov.ph/DTI_News.php?contentID=136)

PCIJ’s uploaded JPEPA is the same as that of DTI’s.

…didn’t total the pages of the agreement and annexes. anyway, mofa uploaded a 121-paged agreement while dti and pcij uploaded a 153-paged jpepa (some articles without text – only titles)…pages 1-120 of which contain the BASIC agreement while pages 121-153 is the IMPLEMENTING agreement…

maybe, the sassy lawyer can add them all up and, as a journalist, be thorough and be reliable for a change.

On what to do with Iraq, in addition to the ‘Go big’, ‘Go long’, ‘Go home’ and Belmont’s ‘Go Native’, one option the Americans need to consider in stopping the violence in Iraq is to surrender. They can admit defeat and offer to surrender to the Sunnis (minus AQ) and Shiites, sign a peace treaty and leave with the promise of assistance and future investments. The insurgents would have their ‘victory’, and would hopefully keep their house in order on promise of further assistance. No use postponing the inevitable so they might as well speed up the process.

Let’s not forget Jordan and Egypt’s part. Jordan has given up their claims to the West Bank and Egypt has given up their claims to Gaza for the Palestinian homeland.

But I do believe that American policy makers are overrated, i.e., in spite of the intelligence and great intellectual skills attributed by the world in general to American policy makers, time and time again, they’ve proven that they are not any more methodical or more intellectually gifted than the next tom dick and harry policy maker in third world countries. True enough, they can think and react quickly but this should be more in line with “improvise as we go along” sort of “method.”

Now that they are caught with their pants down, i.e., not knowing what to do, they are resorting to that improvisation tactic, almost puerile method: Bush and his cronies are now saying that it’s all the Iraqis’ fault that there’s an unrecognized civil war in Iraq. This is excacerbated by a leak to the press (which I have no doubt Hadley did himself), Hadley blaming US “hand-picked” Iraqi PM for the mess created by the US in Iraq.

The Iraqis are victims of US methods of war and Blair, serves him right, has become one of the big-time victims of Bush and his neo-con cronies. The Times banner today revealed that Blair’s US influence ‘a myth’.

The news item reports “A US State Department official claims the Bush administration ‘ignores’ Tony Blair’s attempts to influence policy.”

By simply being there? Sure if Israel were pushed to the sea, the Middle East would be a lot more peaceful. Is this what you would recommend for the sake of stability? The instability is caused by the denial of Israel and Palestine’s right to exist. Israel already has taken steps toward a Palestinian homeland. It’s up to the other side to reciprocate.

The Jordanian President echoes this sentiment in a recent ABC interview last Saturday morning.

But, certainly, without a doubt, Israel has total support from The U.S. and this is still one of the main reasons that Diplomacy with other Arab nations seem to always end with no real resolutions.