"Buy Pigskin" or "Three Cheers to Putin"

Great little bit of patriotism (IF ONLY the American media WERE as Bush-streamlined as the Brainfree-Brigade here claim they are...) from the Illinois The Peoria Journal Star Online Edition:

Israel returns bodies of Hezbollah fighters
But guerrilla leader says group will continue to try to kidnap Israeli soldiers
Saturday, November 26, 2005
By ZEINA KARAM of The Associated Press

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Israel returned to Lebanon on Friday the corpses of three Hezbollah guerrillas killed this week in fierce fighting in a disputed border area - an unusually quick return intended to restore calm. Hezbollah's leader told supporters the group would nonetheless continue to try to kidnap Israeli soldiers.

"It is our natural right to capture Israel soldiers," Sheik Hassan Nasrallah told a rally in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut. "Indeed, it is our duty to do that."

Hezbollah's show of force - attacks on the Lebanese-Israeli border and Friday's mass rally - aimed to affirm the group's significance as a main player in Lebanese politics and as a key to stability with Israel.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora had demanded Wednesday that Israel return the bodies, saying it was necessary to restore calm after the heaviest clashes in years on Monday.

Israel handed the bodies to the International Red Cross, which drove them through the Naqoura crossing on the Lebanese-Israeli border on Friday.

Israel has previously kept the bodies of Hezbollah fighters for long periods - sometimes years at a time - eventually returning them in negotiated swaps for the remains of Israeli soldiers or prisoners. Its quick delivery this week indicates a desire to defuse tension on the border and to deny Hezbollah a pretext to launch further attacks.

Further, Israel knows that an escalation in border fighting would turn Lebanon's attention away from the country's main preoccupation - the U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and relations with Syria. The investigation has implicated top officials in Syria.

Sheik Nasrallah was on hand to welcome the guerrillas' coffins when they arrived in Lebanese ambulances at a complex south of Beirut. Families of the guerrillas were among several hundred mourners.

"We are used to martyrdom. I have five more (sons) and I am ready to offer them," Ibrahim Mousawi, the father of slain guerrilla Mohammed Mousawi, told Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.

Yes, you are reading this right. An American newspaper printed that. Uncommented, obviously approving! But that is not the point here.

My point is that Israel is governed by a bunch of criminal idiots. (And no, my "anti-Zionist" friends, no ovations necessary!) Here is what any sane statesman should do when faced with an insane threat: According to the Moskovski Komsomol newspaper, Russian security forces decided to bury the terrorists from October 2002's hostage siege wrapped in pigskin.

There is an, as far as I know apocryphal, story of "Black Jack" Pershing doing just that in the Phillipines in the early 20th century. But even if it's not true, it's nicely thought out.

However, when will those bleeding heart do-gooder idiots who are governing Israel FINALLY come to see that their past and current action won't take them anywhere. How many brave IDF soldiers have to die unnecessarily and how many defenceless women and children at pizza- and icecream parlours will have to be blown into bloody pulps until those criminal idiots will take measures to protect them? Do they think the Pals will actually thank them for their "fairness"?

I have forgotten who the British politician was who said during the Mandate that the only language an Arab understands would be a fixed bayonet at the business end of a gun. Or words to that effect.

Never forget: pigskin is cheaper than bayonets.