Proportionate response my left cheek

From a video clip sent to me by my USAF daughter:

MidEast guy: You better remember, we blew up two of your buildings.

Carlos Mencia: Oooo, and we blew up two of your "countries". You wanna play this game, bitch?!?

I keep thinking of that clip whenever I read the news coming out of the Middle East, specifically Israel's response to Hezbollah (Hizbollah? Herbollah? Whatever!). Let's see if I can make my interpretation of what's going very, very clear.

Say you live in an apartment complex. Not a great one, but clean, with a roof, most of the comforts of home. Next door is a stellar set of condos. Very nice, very state of the art. Some of the basement tenants in your apartment building don't like the people living in the condos, so they start shooting bottle rockets at them. Every now and again, a kid gets hurt, and once in a while, someone in the condos is actually killed. (These are very serious bottle rockets.)

Naturally, this pisses off the condo dwellers. They get even more frustrated because all of the other neighboring apartment buildings actually root for the basement-based rocket launchers. The condo people turn to the police, who say that the condo people must have greater tolerance of those in that neighboring basement.

The people who live above the basement, or even in apartments next to the guys shooting the rockets, try and tell the guys to stop, but are ignored. They do nothing more than say, "Hey, stop", while watching the fireworks. Afterall, they don't like the condo dudes either.

So one day the condo lobs a few mortar rounds into the apartment to get at those bottle rocket guys. Now your nice apartment building is being turned into a mess, but instead and leaping down the throat of the provocatuers, (i.e., bottle rocket boys), you scream at the condo people, "Hey! Disproporationate response, bastard!"

Of course, I live across town, in my own house, and I say, "Go, condo dudes, go!"

Hez (Hiz? Her? Eh!) was launching rockets into Israel on a near-continuous basis. Then they snatch a couple of soldiers just -- apparently -- for decoration. And the world is shocked -- shocked, I say -- because Israel didn't sit there like a Frenchman and fume. Israel invaded Lebanon before, then unilaterally withdrew. Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. Result? Rocket and mortar fire from both areas into Israel, with "governments" in both areas throwing up their hands and going, "Oy, what can we do?"

Well, apparently Israel feels they can do better. "Disproportionate"? No, it's about time. The MidEast will be peaceful when one side of the other is defeated on the battlefield and opts for surrender rather than annihilation. A "peace process" or "road map to peace" will always bring us back to this simple fact. A "peace process" or "road map" is precisely what Hez/Hiz/Her, and their ilk, want, because it gives them a free hand.

So I'm pulling for those guys with the Star of David. And if this brings about a war to finally settle the matter, then so be it. Israel is a democracy surrounded by autocratic thugs. Why is there even a question as to which side we should support?

Oh, wait, I remember. Because they -- and we -- are capitalist oppressors of freedom loving socialist people around the world. Riiiiight. Must keep that in mind.