Hey Hey,

So I still haven't seen a straight answer... the Israeli soldiers were on Lebanese soil.. now they were on Israeli soil... no one seems to really know...

So what do we know... the Israeli's started killing innocent people by bombing the **** out of their cities... over what... a couple of PoWs?? That seems excessive... but that's life... so what are you going to do about it.... so then I'm reading the paper today (Toronto Star... seems a lot of Torontonians don't like it... but it's a decent read)...

So first thing I read... it's about the FBI Directors visit to Canada.... apparently we have 10 FBI agents working in Canada... two of them here in Toronto (prolly just to watch me )... Anyways... he said our terrorism laws were too lax... that we should be more like the American terror laws which "require a lower threshold of proof"... Maybe it's just me but my law classes and times spent in front of the Ontario Supreme Court lead me to believe in a couple of terms like "burden of proof" and "beyond a reasonable doubt". The biggest being... innocent until proven guilty... So now I've gotta wonder... what does proven guilty mean... Well here it means beyond a reasonable doubt... but apparently our threadhold of proof is a little too high... So what exactly does "innocent until proven guilty" mean to the America... I'm guessing it's beyond an unreasonable doubt... or perhaps.. "you were arrested, you must be guilty"... perhaps Canada has it wrong and it's "guilty until proven innocent"... Any Americans want to speak up on this? I promise not to turn it into a war of insults... I'm really curious... I always considered proof to be a fairly concrete, static, constant of sorts... apparently I've been wrong...

The next thing I read is about the UN security counsil and their debates on what to do in the middle east... It amazed me that while "numerous" countries are calling for a ceasefire... the United States is against that... saying these attacks should continue until the two soldiers are released.... So let me get this straight? The US cares more about two Israeli shoulders that were captured (it's called capture during War, not kidnapping) when they may or may not have been on enemy soil... than they do about 25000 of their own?? Again... I'd love to have an American (or many Americans) speak up on this..

Lastly... I decide to find more information on just whose soil these soldiers were on and I come across some interesting things on the US Embassy website... It seems that initially the Embassy had informed their citizens that they would have to pay the government back for their evacuation (this was on the 15th) on the 19th they proclaimed that citizens would no longer have to reimburse them... however it took a public outcry for this to happen... I have to wonder about this... does the US Government really have that little respect for its own citizens that it would force them to pay to be evacuated from war-torn nations... I haven't heard of a single other country even considering this... I find it really funny that the US Government was so concerned about money considering that they give $3 Billion annually to Isreal... www.adc.org/IB85066.pdf%2BCRS%2BIssue%2BBrief%2BIB85066,%2BIsrael;%2BU.%2BS.%2BForeign%2BAssistance.&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1]notes here[/url]

Anyways yeah.... it's late... I have lots of work to do.. but those things really blew my mind and I had to comment and get some feedback.

Peace,
HT