Trump's Brokered A Ceasefire (Pretending Israel's Ever Respected A Ceasefire)

 

 All you have look at are Israel's broken ceasefires with Gaza and Lebanon - and then, who brokered them - to know this deal's pure unadulterated bullshit.

 

Smiles All Around: It's A Wonderful World

"The lawyer of a Lebanese TV psychic who was convicted in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft said Thursday her client could be beheaded this week and urged Lebanese and Saudi leaders to help spare his life.

Attorney May al-Khansa said she learned from a judicial source that Ali Sibat is to be beheaded on Friday. She added that she does not have any official confirmation of this. Saudi judicial officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

A Lebanese official said Beirut has received no word from its embassy in Riyadh about Sibat's possible execution. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Saudi justice system, which is based on Islamic law, does not clearly define the charge of witchcraft.

Sibat is one of scores of people reported arrested every year in the kingdom for practicing sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling. These practices are considered polytheism by the government in Saudi Arabia, a deeply religious Muslim country.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said last year that Sibat's death sentence should be overturned. It also called on the Saudi government to halt 'its increasing use of charges of "witchcraft," crimes that are vaguely defined and arbitrarily used.'

Last year, the rights group presented a series of cases in the kingdom, including that of Saudi woman Fawza Falih, who was sentenced to death by beheading in 2006 for the alleged crimes of 'witchcraft, recourse to jinn (supernatural beings)' and animal sacrifice.

On November 2, 2007, Mustafa Ibrahim, an Egyptian pharmacist, was executed for sorcery in the Saudi capital of Riyadh after he was found guilty of having tried 'through sorcery' to separate a married couple, Human Rights Watch said."

-- Bassem Mroue, reporting on some serious trouble - crazy Muslims, crazy NewAgers, "sorcery, witchcraft, black magic and fortunetelling" - that's all led to a horrible situation where apparently everybody seems to be losing their heads, according to The Associated Press.

The Clean-Up Woman

"We inherited a law enforcement mentality where you punished the crime after it happened, instead of trying to prevent the crime...

...We inherited,...the failed Camp David Accords, and as a result the Second Intifada. Yasser Arafat was in power, stealing people blind and working with terrorists,...

We inherited a Lebanon with Syrian forces there for 30 years. Now, Syrian forces are out. There is a democratic government in power -- yes, being challenged by Hezbollah -- but the prime minister has survived and they've elected a president. The Lebanese army is out in the country for the first time. And they are friendly to the United States.

...Saddam Hussein dragged the region into a war and lost over a million lives. It dragged the U.S. into war. He murdered his own people, terrorized his neighbors and sought weapons of mass destruction. Today? You have a multiethnic, multiconfessional democracy that isn't threatening its neighbors.

So, I just don't understand this argument that it is so much worse. I always say, 'as opposed to what?' Syrian forces in Lebanon and no democracy. Saddam Hussein in power, threatening his neighbors and us. The Taliban in Afghanistan. The Palestinians and Israelis in an open intifada. That was the better Middle East? And it wasn't as if politics wasn't going on -- it was just going on in radical mosques and the madrassas, whereas now it is going on in the open. And yes, once in a while the Hamases of the world will win, but frankly I'd rather have them out in electoral politics trying to explain how they will fix the sewer system than running the streets with their faces covered, being the glorious resistance.

Is it done? No. But we'd have never gotten on this different path without Iraq."

-- Condoleezza Rice, untying the rhetorical knots on real politiks that Democrats have used to bind American foreign policy - before she hands the mop and broom off to them, of course - in The Wall Street Journal.