Double Standards Alive and Well in Renewed Violence

The calls for President Assad to step down and stop murdering his own people, for the U.S. to stop its drone-war on the Pakistani tribal lands, and for Iran to open up its nuclear weapons program to the IAEA are whispers compared to the short-sighted, sanctimonious, bigoted calls for Israel to refrain from bombing Hamas missile sites.  

No country on earth would tolerate what Israel tolerates, and what it is criticized for doing.  Certainly, Israel is not perfect.  Nor is any other nation on Earth.  Before Americans tell Israel to stop firing at missile launchers in its backyards and hidden in playgrounds, school-yards, and mosques, as shown here, it should clamor a little louder in support of tribal Pakistanis (despite the fact that Al-Qaida is most certainly regrouping in that very area).  We should also consider giving some land back to the Native Americans (as an aside, one can only imagine the U.S's response to rockets being fired from the Navajo reservation into Denver or Los Angeles).  

Arabs the world over should be as vociferous in their denouncement of al-Assad as they are of Israel.   Everyone but Hamas wants the violence to subside.  The Hamas terrorists do a greater disservice to the Palestinians than any other nation (including every other Middle Eastern nation that refuses to provide them with land or shelter).  Israel is not perfect, but it is certainly entitled to act as every on other nation on Earth would...and has.  

No Rest Even for Weary Presidents

No one expected Iran to give President Obama a break after a long, draining election.  While only Pentagonites know how often this happens, two Iranian fighter planes fired on an unarmed American drone.  This Washington Post article has the details.

Whether this is business as usual in the red-hot Persian Gulf (by the way, I can only imagine the U.S.'s reaction to an Iranian drone flying in international waters over the Gulf of Mexico or near Long Island Sound), or the opening of new tactics by Iran remains to be seen.  Another unanswerable question is whether these planes, which fired bullets and not missiles, missed their target on purpose, or whether they were terrible shots.  It is unlikely that this is the opening salvo in a new battlefront (the U.S. and Iran have been sniping at each other-mostly in the cyberworld-for years).  Suffice it to say, however, this is certainly not the morning wake-up call President Obama was hoping for.  That said, he's got four more years of phone calls starting: "Mr. President, the Iranians have...".