Juan Cole Sums up the Rantisi Matter Perfectly Read this section and many of his other trenchant thoughts here. "...it is obvious that Sharon is behaving like a Mafia don--Arik Soprano--not a head of state. But the commentary I saw on US cable television was all about who could fall over themselves more quickly to praise this 'decisive action against terrorism.' The state of public discourse in the US (and Israel) is deplorable when it is not even possible publicly to criticize extra-judicial killing in the mass media." The Bush Administration cannot just allow this extra-judicial wacking to proceed without impunity...but they've obvioulsy given Shamir the green light on such acts. Yet the right-wing circle-jerkers cannot seem to get it through their skulls that these acts have a direct correlation on anger in the Muslim World. Americans are going to die in Iraq BECAUSE of this action, and a stable Iraq gets that much more difficult to achieve.