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July 26, 2006 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:30
July 26, 2006, Wednesday, Hour #1
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Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Oh, this is just too good.
This is just too good.
This is made to order for the EIB network.
Greetings, my friends, and welcome.
It's so great to have you with us for three hours of broadcast excellence here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
This, a program that meets and surpasses all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Special and hearty welcome to those of you watching the program today as members of Rush 24-7 at rushlimbaugh.com.
All right, we will get to this idiot, Kofi Annan, and his allegation that the Israelis hit his blue-flagged blue-helmeted peacekeepers.
What are peacekeepers doing in a war zone anyway?
There's no peace yet, so what are peacekeepers doing in a war zone?
At any rate, we'll get to all that in just a second.
First, at 11 o'clock this morning Eastern Time, the Prime Minister of Iraq addressed a joint session, joint meeting, it's called when it happens in the daytime, a joint meeting of Congress.
And it was a really optimistic speech.
It was full of thanks, must have thanked the United States 10 or 12 times, 10 or 12 different ways, and got a whole bunch of standing ovations.
You could just see, you could just see, though, that the Democrats were reluctant to stand.
They were dutifully polite with their applause, but they were afraid to stay, and they did at some point.
And then in the middle of it, some long-haired maggot-infested female anti-war protester from the gallery started shouting and brought his speech to a halt, and they dragged her out of there.
Now, this has happened before, and you know how people in the gallery get in the gallery.
They're invitations, and sometimes those invitations are extended by members of Congress.
Now, I don't have any information on it, but I wouldn't be surprised, ladies and gentlemen, if a Democrat member of Congress or the Senate invited that woman in and dragged her out of there.
Fox followed him all the way through the halls of the Capitol and out the front steps or the sidesteps, wherever they took her.
The funny thing is, Chuck Schumer didn't show up.
He boycotted, as did Barbar Boxer.
Now, on that first, one of the Democrats, starting in the 2004 presidential campaign, led by Senator Kerry, what did they all tell us?
I'm Senator Smarter and I can go to the UN and I can talk to our ally.
And we're better diplomats.
We are better diplomats.
We can talk to people that hate this country because they like us, and we're good at it.
So what do these people, who are better diplomats than anybody else in the world do, They boycott the prime minister of Iraq in their own body of Congress, their own Capitol building.
This is astounding to me.
Not only that, ladies and gentlemen, as we speak, Jack Reed and Dick Durbin, two senators, are delivering the Democrat response.
The Democratic response to an address by the Iraqi prime minister, as though the Iraqi prime minister is a political opponent.
Durbin went out there, said some mushmouth, and then turned it over to Reed.
And Reed said, well, it really sounded good, but you know something?
We didn't hear a plan.
We didn't hear anything but platitudes.
We didn't hear how he's going to beat these terrorists.
We heard him say that the terrorists and the militias there will not survive, but he didn't tell us how.
And I'm sitting here in stunned amazement.
These are the guys that are trying to undercut him.
These are the guys trying to pull our troops out.
These are the guys trying to get us home.
These are the guys trying to get us out of there so the job can't be finished.
And now, not only are they demanding a plan from Bush, they're demanding a plan from this guy.
This guy is risking his life being the prime minister of this country.
And they're also upset because he won't condemn the Hezbollahs in their battle against the Israelis.
But, folks, this is, I don't know, this is hubris.
This is nihilism.
But to do a Democratic response to a.
I know they're dumping on him relentlessly.
Durbin and Jack Reed are dumping all over the prime minister of Iraq in their response.
Now, it's not being carried by any of the networks right now.
It's only on C-SPAN.
But I'm sure that it will be reported.
Video will be cut up.
We are rolling our own tape on this, and we'll have soundbites for you as soon as we can put them together.
Now, I want you to keep this in sharp focus.
This from the party that embraced Yasser Arafat, who was the most frequent visitor to the Clinton White House, outside, of course, Monica Lewinsky and the people paying to sleep in the Lincoln bedroom.
This from the party that demands that Condoleezza Rice negotiate with the Syrian dictator, who does more than speak, but who arms the terrorists seeking to destroy Israel.
They are demanding that Condoleezza Rice go talk to Bashur Assad and try to broker a peace here.
They boycott and are now ripping to shreds an ally, the prime minister of Iraq.
This from the party that armed the North Korean communists in the Clinton administration.
And then they proceed to slaughter millions of their own people.
And they've shared nuclear information with the Iranians.
And yet the party that was responsible for that taking place is demanding that Condoleezza Rice go talk to Bashur Assad and maybe even bring Iran into this.
That's what Kofi Yannan wants to do.
And yet they boycott the prime minister of Iraq and send two Democrats, Durbin and Jack Reed, out in a response speech to obliterate this guy and plaster him up one wall and down the other.
Now, the Iraqi president ought to be quiet about this.
He's got his own problems.
But I'm going to tell you something, folks, the liberals have dirty hands here, and they're not going to get a pass on this.
This is almost indescribable.
The blatant politicization of what was an upbeat, gracious speech full of gratitude and full of lofty goals, plenty of high ideals.
There was nothing in this speech to disagree with unless you want to nitpick and say, well, we didn't hear a specific plan of how he's going to get rid of the terrorists.
Let me tell you, from whom we don't have a specific plan about anything regarding America's national defense, and that's Democrats, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Jack Reed, Jack Murthy, you name it.
We don't have a plan from them.
Even some of the Republicans that are starting to waver on that, we don't have a plan from them.
And yet the people that don't have a plan are out there continuing to demand a plan.
And this is unseemly.
But, my friends, it's timely because it has also served to illustrate who these people are.
Once again, I wish the networks were carrying this.
I wish more Americans could see it than will.
We'll take care of our share of this when we cut up these audio soundbites and have that for you later in the day.
Now, I want to go back to the audio tape.
We want to go back in time.
Yesterday on Capitol Hill, a montage of Senator Reed, Senator Durbin, Chuck Schumer, all talking about the Iraqi prime minister.
I want the prime minister to denounce what Hezbollah has done and what they're doing.
That's what I want.
We have done everything that the Iraqis could ever ask of us to give them their chance to be freed of a dictator and to govern themselves.
And now to ask them to join us in a chorus condemning terrorism is not too high a price.
His refusal to condemn Hezbollah is painful.
Where does he stand?
Which side is he on?
America, our country, has expended over 2,500 lives, 18,000 wounded, $300 billion to fight the war on terror.
Prime Minister Malachi owes his office to those American lives and those American dollars.
It's a very simple question we are asking the Prime Minister today.
Which side is he on when it comes to the war on terror?
All right.
Now, this is interesting, is it not?
There is genuine hatred in these people's hearts.
Genuine hatred.
They can't control themselves.
They can't even be civil.
You think they sound civil, but the whole message that's coming out of here is that this guy's disingenuous.
He's an ingrate.
We didn't think we should have been there in the first place, and we're sad we went there, and we want to get out of there, and this guy won't even support us.
But it wasn't that long ago, ladies and gentlemen, that his predecessor, the previous Iraqi leader whose name was Alawi, remember all the Democrats in the drive-by media calling him a puppet of George W. Bush?
Why, this guy's just a puppet.
Why, he doesn't have his own mind.
He can't say what he wants to say.
Bush is probably writing his speeches for him.
Now we get Malachi coming up here, and now they're upset that he's not a puppet.
Now they're upset that he won't follow what they demand.
Arrogant SOBs.
Here's an example.
November 23rd, 2004, PMSNBC.
Nora O'Donnell on interim Prime Minister Ayad Alawi's visit and remarks to Congress.
It was as if Alawi's comments had been written by President Bush's speechwriters, the two of them echoing that same very clear message that progress is being made on the ground.
And here's another one, the anchor Amy Roebuck.
This is this morning on MSNBC, talking with Nora O'Donnell.
And Roebuck says, I spoke with Rosa DeLauro, who is going to boycott this.
There are Democrats who are saying this morning that they will boycott this address.
Senator Chuck Schumer has said he thinks he may not attend.
The highest-ranking Democrat Nancy Pelosi is signaling that she will not attend.
What is at issue is that the Iraqi prime minister was given the opportunity yesterday to denounce Hezbollah, and he did not, and has made anti-Israeli comments in the past.
We see the wide gap between the president and Malachi, certainly on the issue of Israel.
Well, make up your minds.
What do you want?
You want a puppet or you want somebody who's independent?
No matter what happens, the Democrats are going to find fault with it and they're going to be unhappy with it no matter what they get.
I just, I find this amazing.
They're demanding fealty.
The very people, if one thing that Malachi has to know is the Democrats in that chamber are not on his side.
The Democrats in that chamber are not really behind all this.
The Democrats in that chamber have worked with others to sabotage genuine victory over this particular enemy, and he's standing in there and he knows it.
And now, after his speech and before his speech, they demand that he be their puppet.
They demand this.
They demand that.
The arrogance and condescension, classically liberal.
One more bite from Rosa DeLauro on MSNBC Live today.
She was boycotting, and anchored infobib said, with a democracy comes the freedom of the speech.
Obviously, he criticized Israel, but is that enough to stop him from speaking in front of Congress?
The Prime Minister and his cabinet in recent days have been engaged in hateful rhetoric, inflammatory rhetoric against Israel.
And yes, in fact, they have not condemned the actions of Hezbollah.
And we should not for one moment forget that it was Hezbollah that was responsible for the death of 241 American Marines in 1983.
What I don't believe is that we ought to honor that with an address before a joint session of the House.
I will not attend the joint session unless the Prime Minister explains his commentary and apologizes for his words.
How big of you, how utterly big of you, Ms. DeLaurel.
Let me tell you something.
This is just a random thought just occurred to me.
If this guy, because he disagrees with the United States and won't say what Democrats want him to say, is not entitled to speak in the House of Representatives, then half the damn Democratic Party is not allowed to speak in the damned House of Representatives or the Senate.
If there's anybody in here who's presenting greater problems to progress around the world, vis-a-vis this country, it's half the Democrats in this country as opposed to this poor man who is risking his life.
These people want to act courageous and they want to act brave and they want to act like they're behind all this.
And they're nothing but a bunch of political partisan hacks who are so aggrieved over their loss of power, they will do anything to get it back.
But if this man's not entitled to speak in the House, then half of the Democrats aren't either on the same basis that they sought to deny his speech today.
Back in just a second.
You got audio soundbites 12 through 15 ready to go up there?
All right, cool.
And by the way, I want to go on the record.
I love the Israelis.
I just love what they are doing.
I watched headlines last night.
I'm working last night preparing the program, and as stories cross, I just love these guys.
I just, I was, I was, brought me out of my little mild funk last night watching the news coming out of there.
I'm not talking about the UN peacekeeper thing.
I'm just, they continue to advance.
They're making all kinds of progress.
They're not.
I just love these guys.
I just love what they're doing.
And I love the fact their country is united behind what they're doing.
That must be sweet to be part of.
All right, a couple of sound bites here of the Maliki speech.
It's through a translator, first of two coming up now.
I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror.
Let me be very clear.
This is a battle between true Islam for which a person's liberty and rights constitute essential cornerstones and terrorism, which wraps itself in a fake Islamic cloak in reality wages a war on Islam and Muslims and values.
Are you able to hear that?
Are you able to hear the translator?
Basically, I know that some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror.
He's taking it right to the Democrats.
And he is exactly right.
Some of you here question whether Iraq is part of the war on terror.
He's aiming at right at the Democratic side of the aisle.
And he hits them in the eyes and ties Iraq to 9-11.
The truth is that terrorism has no religion.
Thousands of lives were tragically lost on September 11th when these imposters of Islam reared their ugly head.
Your loss on that day was the loss of all mankind.
And our loss today is the loss for all free people.
It is your duty and our duty to defeat this terror.
Iraq is the front line in this struggle, and history will prove that the sacrifices of Iraqis for freedom will not be in vain.
Iraqis are your allies in the war on terror.
And the Democrats weren't crazy about hearing that.
He just took it right to him.
Here's how it went with the female heckler up there in the gallery.
That's what's to spend for the moment.
The chair notes a disturbance in the gallery.
The sergeant-at-arms will secure order by removing those engaging in disruption.
Oh, shut up!
Don't you just love these parliamentary rules?
If our honored guest would suspend for the moment, I don't know if he speaks English.
If our honored guest would suspend for the moment, the chair notes a disturbance in the gallery.
What a great put-down.
If the sergeant-in-arms will secure order, removing those engaged in disruption, here's Durbin.
And we've got, this is from the Democratic response.
He and Jack Reed held a press conference.
And after they did their statement, an unidentified reporter said, would you describe for us the mood at that meeting?
Was it tense, relaxed, definitive, or ambiguous?
Did Malachi allay some of your concerns about the Hezbo's there?
I asked him directly if he believes that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, and he would not respond.
He said in the most general terms, as he said in his speech, that he was opposed to terrorism in all of its forms, both in Iraq and outside.
His foreign minister went a step further and said that at a meeting of Arab states, they had joined in the criticism of Hezbollah.
You know, it is, don't you find it ironic?
I do.
A bunch of guys who refuse to go along with stated American policy, foreign policy, are demanding that the prime minister of Iraq do what they will not do.
These guys don't get behind President Bush.
These guys have done everything they could to sabotage our foreign policy where it involves Iraq.
They've made no secret of that.
And yet here they come demanding that this man who just showed up to say thanks and to pledge his best efforts to continue the success that's taking place in Iraq gets seized upon by these blatant hypocrites and says, well, he didn't tell us what we wanted to hear, so screw him.
He didn't tell us a damn thing we wanted to hear.
Why, we want to hear that he opposes Hezbollah.
How many of the Democrats oppose Hezbollah if you get him a private headcount?
How many Democrats oppose Hezbollah?
How many Democrats, if you could get him in a private count in a private room with no cameras and no microphones, would tell you they don't like what's going on.
They think the Israelis ought to be driven back and there ought to be a ceasefire.
How many of these damn Democrats go along with what's happening in Israel and southern Lebanon right now?
I just find this stunning.
Demanding of this man, denying him his right to his own opinion as a duly elected prime minister of his country, denying him the same rights they exercise here each and every day by speaking out against their president and their country's policy as a matter of course.
Naha.
Well, if that's what you want, if you want the truth, then my friends, you're right where you need to be.
I am the harmless, lovable little fuzzball known as El Rushball, a highly trained broadcast specialist serving humanity simply by showing up.
Here is Jack Reed.
This is in the Democrat response to the speech by Prime Minister Malachi.
This is his review of the speeches before they started taking questions from the reporters.
Oh, you don't have it ready yet.
I was told that it was here.
I see it being handed to you now.
Let me know when it's ready.
I'm not moving forward.
All right, play it.
What I found in the speech was a description of the country that's a little more optimistic than I think the reality on the streets.
Stop the tape.
Is this not typical?
Your doom and gloom party, your party of despair, your party, the slogan, join us and be the worst you can be, because that's where we're going to take you.
We don't want to see any good news.
We don't want to hear about any good news.
And if we do hear good news, we're going to do our best to counter it.
Why?
Because we don't want you happy either.
We want you miserable so that you'll get rid of the people who are currently in power because we understand that when people are unhappy and miserable, they want change.
And that means we get your votes.
So I think I know what their strategy is here.
This was a good speech by Malachi today.
And it was full of thanks and it was full of optimism and purpose and resolve.
And what the Democrats want to do is sort of create a split-screen effect when the drive-by media reports on this.
Yeah, Malachi is saying this, but here's what the Democrats have to say.
And so the split-screen effect will be to cancel out and attempt to negate what was optimistic and positive about this.
And this is, skew this back up to the front of it.
This is Reed.
I found in his speech was a description of a country that's more optimistic than I think the reality on the street is, or of this is.
Is that ready from the top again?
Here we go, folks.
What I found in the speech was a description of the country that's a little more optimistic than I think the reality on the streets.
The economy is not performing well when you have a huge number of unemployed youth who are flocking to these militias.
I think also the prime minister tried to oversimplify the situation in Iraq by referring to terrorists and the front line in the battle against international terrorism.
I think what he failed to recognize is what our generals recognize.
Just last week, General Abbasade pointed to the sectarian violence, which I think is internal to Iraq rather than an external force.
Right.
And so what's happening now is that the Democrats are out there saying, again, that we're in a full-fledged civil war.
The drive-by media is reporting that.
So it's as though President Bush made the speech, essentially.
Bush may have been up there doing a speech to a joint meeting of Congress, and the Democrats are responding to him.
But I'm just, the hypocrisy of it is, well, it's amusing.
Demanding that he follow along exactly with what the United States policy is and say what we want him to say.
If he did that, they'd accuse him of being a puppet.
Then they say he's not really entitled to speak in the U.S. Capitol because he has a policy belief that doesn't echo ours.
On that basis, half of the Democrats in the U.S. Congress would be disqualified from speaking.
So I think we just got to keep hammering these people, folks, and not let them get away with this because their allies in the drive-by media are going to do their best to destroy whatever message Malachi's speech delivered.
And however strongly it gets out, they're going to do their best to ram it back to the point that it didn't happen or to portray this guy, even in fact, as maybe an enemy.
You know, if we set up a wrong guy in office or whatever, whatever.
This is proof of Bush's policy.
It's just BS.
Doesn't work.
Why?
We were told we're going to get an ally in that region.
We don't even have an ally.
This guy's supporting Hezbollah, blah, blah, blah.
Condemn Hezbollah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And they could be talking about themselves all the while.
They criticize Malachi for what he's saying.
Robert, Stockton, California, you're first today as we go to the phones.
Nice to have you with us.
You know, Rush, these Democrats are going to step in again.
But you know what?
What really bothers me?
These are the very same people who are willing to coddle terrorists, caught in the very act of terrorism, and at Club Gitmo.
They want to give all these terrorists rights, and yet they want to curtail the rights of this Maliki guy.
And he's willing to fight the very terrorists like Al-Qaeda.
They are not even available.
Excellent point out there, Bub.
Excellent point.
Got to give you a gold star on that one.
These are the people that are trying to write the Al-Qaeda Bill of Rights.
Well, I mean, here's a guy who, when are the Republicans going to hold their feet to the fire?
You know, there's so many traps already laid for them that all it takes is somebody who can just lead a charge against these Democrats and put their, just show them for who they are.
Don't ask me that.
I get that question so much.
There is nobody.
If there was somebody doing it, they'd been doing it the last four years, and there's nobody who's going to do it.
I'm doing it.
You're talking to the guy that's leading the charge on this.
Let's be honest about it.
Yeah.
Well, we need to deal with their definition of terrorism because they seem to not think that the Club Gitmo people are terrorists or something because of how they treat them.
Well, exactly.
I mean, the hypocrisy is written all over the Democrats' face.
It's laced throughout their words, and they just keep identifying themselves as who they are.
And the one thing that they continue to show folks, as far as I'm concerned, is they have not and are not ready to earn our trust in defending this nation's national security.
They look out over the landscape.
It's amazing the enemies that they see versus the real enemies that we have.
This Malachi is an enemy.
Bush is the enemy.
Any anti-terror policy on the part of the United States is bad because it just creates more terrorists.
Look at who their friends are, the French.
They want to bolt up to the United Nations at the first sign of a hangnail.
And they have, as you say, engaged and continue to engage in crafting policy and law that will make it almost impossible to deal with terrorism as prisoners.
It's gotten to the point now where the option is to kill them on the battlefield.
Don't capture them and don't interrogate them and don't try to glean anything from them.
Because if you do that, the Democratic Party is going to come along with their trusted allies and try to make you the criminal.
And they're going to defend the terrorist as having his rights under the Constitution of the Geneva Convention denied.
So the best thing our military can do is when they spot these people on the battlefield, whack them.
And after a while, that's going to come under attack, too.
Democrats are going to be wondering about abuses on the battlefield.
This is an amazing sight to see.
Rusty in Roanoke, Virginia.
Hello, sir.
Glad you waited.
Welcome to the program.
Thank you, Rush.
I'm a Baptist pastor from Virginia, so they don't come very much more conservative than I am, but I think you are overstepping your bounds just a little bit.
I do not think that the Democrats are out of bounds by asking the Iraqi prime minister to come out against Hezbollah.
Well, they can ask him whatever they want.
I don't have any problem with that.
It's just they're being hypocrites.
How many of them are actually against Hezbollah?
How many of them have joined forces with the U.S. foreign policy as determined by votes of Congress and the president?
Well, don't you think that George Bush would like to have him come out against Hezbollah as well?
I mean, if he had his wishes, don't you think he would love for the Democrats are engaged in the same thing they're engaged in all the time, symbolism.
Doesn't matter what this guy says.
They're just trying to poke a finger in his eye and everybody else's eye, and they want this country royaled.
They want the country hating Iraq.
They want the country not liking this guy.
They want this guy to be thought of as an ingrate and a traitor.
We've installed him, and now he won't even agree with us.
What does self-determination mean?
We went over there and we set up a circumstance where the Iraqi people could elect whoever they wanted and run their country as they wish.
We did not impose anything on them.
Now they're doing it, and all of a sudden, that's bad.
All of a sudden, that stinks.
Here's the bottom line for this poor guy: he is besieged over there.
He is surrounded by Iran.
He has got Jordan over there.
He's got this region of the world is a boiling cauldron right now.
He has some practical realities that he has to deal with.
And one of them is if he comes out right now and makes himself look like a puppet of the United States of America, he's got all kinds of problems in his own country with his neighbors and perhaps some of his population.
It's also Israel.
It's also Jews.
Why isn't Saudi Arabia being told to come back and support the Israelis against Hezbollah?
Why is only Iran?
And the answer to that is, is because the Democrats are trying to paint this as a failed policy.
Bush spent all this capital and all of this treasure, all of this money, and all of these lives to create an ally in the Middle East of the United States.
And what do we get?
A thumb in the eye from the guy who runs the that's the scenario that they want to create in many people's minds.
And I, Rusty, you seem like you're falling for it, but there are practical realities this guy faces in saying things like this publicly.
He's got his own country he has to unite, and it's made up of three different coalitions, Shia, Sunni, and the Kurds.
And right now, it is irrelevant what his foreign policy is and what he thinks about what we're doing.
I don't know what he's telling Bush in private, by the way.
They said they had a frank discussion, but I think people understand what's going on here.
But the bottom line is it's irrelevant.
The Israelis can't win without this guy's support.
The United States can't do what it needs to do without this guy agreeing with every move from the people in the House of Representatives who hardly ever agree, the Democrats in the House and Senate who hardly ever agree with what the president's doing, demanding this guy do so.
It's absurd what's happening here.
I'm glad you called.
I'm glad you gave me another opportunity to vent on this.
Back in just a second.
Stay with us.
And back we are.
El Rushball, America's anchorman, America's real anchor man, as well as America's truth detector and doctor of democracy down to Boynton Beach in Florida.
This is Myron.
You're up, sir.
Nice to have you with us.
Hey, Mega Ditto's Rush from the Sunshine State, your second home.
Listen, I was watching the radio this morning, and I heard a liberal talk show host on Fox News discussing how she felt that Israel was to blame because of all their excess bombing, just going over the edge in their reaction against Hezbollah.
And then I turned just moments later to listen to Laurie DiOreo talk about how she was upset that Malik was not pinning the blame on Hezbollah.
So here you have two people in the same party blaming the opposite sides in the war.
And they're going to be just like the UN.
They're not going to be able to come to a solution because they're pinning both sides against the middle.
And they always do this until they get a focus poll to tell them which way they should go.
Well, they may not be waiting for a focus poll on this one, but I know what you mean about their standard procedure.
Look at these are liberals.
You're listening to liberals.
It doesn't matter whether they're in the UN.
It doesn't matter whether they're in France.
It doesn't matter whether they're in the United States of America.
Liberals are liberals.
And it's just silly.
It's actually listening to a bunch of some of the most uninformed yet arrogant elitists that you can possibly imagine.
These people are truly, truly ignorant.
They may be well-educated, but by whom?
They may be well-read, but what are they reading?
They may be well-fed, but what are they eating?
I mean, to talk about a proportionate response, I've got all kinds of soundbites.
Let me see if I can find the one that I was, um, I'm not going to be able to find it before I want to.
These people talking about a proportional response dealt with that earlier in this week and late last week.
And I'll keep dealing with it.
I mean, whatever it takes to get the truth out there.
But that's not how you win war.
Oh, I know what I'm thinking about.
This clown, David Ignatius, in the Washington Post, where did I?
I have to find this.
I have to find this.
The last, I don't know where I'm going to be able to get it quickly enough because I can't remember what stack I put it in.
But he basically talks about the, ah-ha!
Here it is.
Let me just give you the last paragraph of this.
It's amazing.
Here's what he writes.
Wars end when both sides decide they can gain more from a negotiated settlement than from continued fighting.
No, they don't end that way.
And this is one of the most respected liberal columnists throughout the Northeastern Corridor and specifically inside the Beltway.
In fact, this whole column is interesting because I think the guy has to have been leaked some information by the Hezbo's or the Lebanese in order to even write this column.
It's an advice piece to Condoleezza Rice.
To stop the war in Lebanon, begins Mr. Ignatius, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will need to start with some basics.
The best strategy for containing a militia such as the Hezbollahs is to build a strong Lebanese state.
Any lasting solution for this conflict will be political, not just military.
Continued Israeli bombardment of Lebanon to destroy terrorists might backfire by creating another failed state from which terrorists can operate more freely.
Not if there aren't any more terrorists.
Terrorists cannot operate freely if they don't exist.
The outlines of a settlement.
Listen to this where I think the guy got a leak from somebody in Lebanon.
The outlines of a settlement that recognizes these basics were floated Monday in Beirut.
The Lebanese urged Rice to consider a compromise package of the sort that Beirutis describe in a French phrase meaning neither victor nor vanquished.
That kind of negotiated truce would not please those on either side who would like to see their adversaries eradicated, but it might be the best chance of achieving Rice's goal of replacing the dangerous pre-war status quo in Lebanon with something more secure and stable for everyone.
Containment of terrorists.
Yep.
That's just, let's just contain the terrorists.
In fact, Lebanese sources outline for me the compromise package, they say, was discussed Monday when Rice met with the Lebanese prime minister and the parliament speaker and the leader of the Shiite media.
The cornerstone of the package, according to my sources, is that Hezbollah would agree to withdraw its armed fighters from South Lebanon and accept an international force there that would accompany the Lebanese army.
Israel, for its part, would agree to halt its attacks and lift its air and sea blockade.
The U.S. would call for negotiations over the return of a disputed territory known as the Shabaf Farms, claimed by Lebanon, even though the United Nations ruled in 2000 that it was Syrian.
So this guy's being talked to by the Lebanese.
And the policy that they advocated against Rice is now leaked in the Washington Post.
We have any chocolate donuts back there.
I'm a little hoarse.
Can you tell I'm hoarse today?
A little bit.
I am a little bit.
Chocolate donuts are the cure.
Saddam wants to be shot, by the way.
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