A new take on things

Rico says his friend Bill Calloway, who's been emailing a lot of right-wing stuff of late, sends this along (and Rico is happy to see it):

This column by Ernest Emerson represents the kind of issues we should be looking at and correcting. Not whether Obama has a birth certificate, not if he had a US flag at a press conference, not if he used the wrong hand to salute the flag, not if Snopes is biased, not if the government used the money from Social Security increases to fund a computer system to administer health records for Congress. All this wasted effort on lies and bullshit is detracting from the credibility of the people circulating it. (I wish you would pass this on. Your choice whether or not to include these comments of mine.)

I Stand With Israel
by Ernest Emerson

Where is the rest of the world? Where is our administration? I am willing to bet Israel feels pretty alone right now. What the hell is wrong with this picture? We need to stand with our ally, the only democracy in the Middle East. Instead, our administration takes the non-committal stance of basically saying and doing nothing which only insinuates that we would rather stand with dictatorships and brutal theocracies instead. Doesn't this government get it?
You're damned right Israel has the right to search the ships carrying 'aid' into Gaza. Why is it never reported how many ships have been found to be carrying weapons and not powdered milk under this guise of 'humanitarian aid'?
Hamas is a terrorist organization that has never made any attempt to disguise or hide its ties and alliances with some of the most violent terrorist regimes and organizations in the world. Hamas has rained hundreds, if not thousands, of rocket attacks down on Israel over the last several years, killing dozens of innocent Israeli citizens. Hamas is currently re-arming, and is gathering weapons from any source it can, including Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey. It is very probable that Hamas is getting ready to start another war with Israel, once they feel they have enough firepower in hand. You're damned right Israel has the right to search those ships.
It seems ultra obvious to me how blatant a setup this incident was. Why was there an al-Jazeera television crew on board? Why was the early footage of the Israeli boarding not shown by al-Jazeera? The part where al-Jazeera claimed the fast ropers were coming down, with their rifles on full-auto, firing into the crowd. Perhaps it was because the Arab reporters were lying. This has been borne out as a lie by release of the Israeli footage showing the Israeli Commandos coming down on deck and being swarmed, beaten, and stabbed by a mob of 'peaceful pro-Palestinian relief workers'.
The key player in this deadly chess game is Turkey. For those of you who might not be aware, our 'ally', our NATO brother, Turkey, has become alarmingly anti-American over the past several years.
Turkey is now governed by a very pro-Islamist administration that is desperately trying to undo its "westernization" and regain a reputation as a mainstream Muslim country. Furthermore, Turkey has plans to become the dominant Muslim nation in the Middle East. What better way than to start than with direct provocation of Israel and a move to become the champion of the Palestinian cause. Make no mistake; Turkey knows its history, the history of being the dominant Islamic country in the Middle East since 1453 (the taking of Constantinople) until the early 1920's.
Turkey wants its previous Islamic glory and now they are making their move. This was a setup by the Turkish government. They knew Israel has no choice. They used their own citizens and they used the Palestinians as pawns in their play for status and positioning.
Now that the entire world has basically thrown Israel under the bus, it is time that the American people speak. Not the UN Ambassador. Not the Administration. Not the US President. None of them speak for us. In fact, I don't know who in the hell they speak for. Certainly not for any of the people I know.
True patriots, those who know right from wrong, those who know good from evil, those who will side with liberty and freedom, stand with Israel. I am one of them.

Rico says the problem is that Hamas, and the other terrorist groups, don't actually believe that there are any 'innocent Israeli civilians', and thus feels free to kill any of them it can...