Lee Barnes has once again proven his ignorance. The man is arrogant and think he's an expert on the Middle East and on the US political process, but this piece proves the opposite....

 

* Calling the EU and Japanese governments "mere puppets of whatever regimes supplied them with the oil they required to run their economies."? Come to think of it, Barnes isn't the only person who believes this: It was the plot of certain Hollywood movies back in the 70's. Apparently that's where Barnes likes to get his information, enamored as he is with America.

 

* Everyone with even a little knowledge of the region knows that Hamas is Sunni, not Shi'ite. And while India and Pakistan have Shi'ite minorities, the majority of the Muslims there are also Sunnis.

 

* "95 % of the muslims being killed in the world today are being killed by fellow muslims."... That this is a ridiculous assertion is too obvious to warrant my attention.

 

* "Those who say Israel lost the ' war ' against Hezbollah are fools. The Israeli people also needed to be psychologically prepared for the Iran War. They have had a superiority complex as regards their military capacity for so long, that this recent ' loss' against Hezbollah has created a new dynamic within Israeli society for the military to be re-equipped and for Iran and Hezbollah and Hammas to be dealt with in a future conflict."

 

....Not according to the information I have read, gleaned from those with better knowledge of the situation there than Barnes (such as Uri Avinery). The Israelis still have this superiority complex but they are angered at Olmert and the military leaders for this obvious defeat. Someone said that Hezbollah won by not losing; this much has become obvious.

 

Interesting that in the next paragraph, Barnes goes on to contradict himself: "Israel needed to taste a small prepared defeat, before it was ready to fight the long bitter struggle of the next world war."

 

* "We have seen how the world and British media, especially the BBC, in the recent conflict between Israel and Iran in the Lebanon became propagandists for Hezbollah. They used fake photographs, staged photo events and used facile emotionalism to undermine Israel and also to manipulate the perceptions of the British people."

 

....Good to see Barnes picking up the latest Israeli/Zionist propaganda claims.

 

* "Islam sees no such distinctions between civilians and soldiers, it sees only Muslims and Infidels. Therefore in the clarity of this vision, they have the tactical upper hand. Only by embracing tactics that punish all those that assist in terrorism, can terrorism and the terrorists be defeated."

 

....Aside from viewing Islam as some monolithic unit, it is Barnes who's guilty of this Manichaean worldview.

 

* "This next world war will be a war by Islam of total destruction based on theological absolutism. There will be only victory or death, victory or the extniction of Israel and all the Jews in Israel. The previous wars Israel fought with Arab nations had political aims, this next war will be a war with no political aims. Israel and the world must be prepared to fight this war to the fullest extent, otherwise it will lose. So must the West."

 

....Barnes can't even stick with his original thesis. Earlier, he made the ridiculous point that "Shi'ite Islam" is the threat and that Sunnis "we can do business with". Then, he talks about "this next world war" against Islam as a monolithic unit. Am I missing something here?

SJ from the USA

To read the original dreadul article click on this link Lee Barnes -Stand by Israel