Cut Israel Off

[indianasmith]

I just want to congratulate you both on turning this from what it was into an interesting discussion, with show of mutual respect.

Thank you.

I'm goin' back to watching "Weasels Taze my Kosher Flesh" now.   

I agree!  This thread is going positive again, and Karma to all three of you!  Lester - I still disagree, but I understand your views better now.  Inyarear - EXCELLENT points well made.  Zapranoth - you said what I was going to before I did!

[Inyarear]

also, "cutting israel off" will

1.  allow them to defend themselves as they see fit

2. also mean the end of our bribing of egypt , saudi arabia, pakistan and other dictatorships in the name of preserving the peace there.

I mean, we're giving billions to wahabi muslims for crying out loud.

1. Not so much; that aid does help Israel buy the stuff it needs for defense. We could just ship them the weapons directly, though (maybe even bill them if they can afford to pay). I've often thought we could do something similar with Sudan. Every time I hear of another village raided and enslaved there, I think "What, did they have to sit there and take it? Don't they have any guns or anything?" If they don't, we've got plenty of military surplus they could use. In any case, Israel has generally used whatever we give it to the best advantage for its people; I can't say the same for very many other countries.

2. Well, unfortunately, that doesn't follow; the vast majority of people pushing to "cut off Israel" aren't calling for an end to foreign aid to any of these other nations. In fact, the very way you single Israel out in this thread is what bothers me; cutting off all foreign aid is something less than feasible (as I explain presently), but it certainly is more morally defensible than speaking only of cutting off Israel as if it were somehow more deserving of it than the others.

Concerning the others, there are places where foreign aid is doing more harm than good, (just about anywhere in Africa comes to mind), or serving no particularly vital function (i.e., most of Europe), but some of this international bribery is definitely serving our interests; cutting off our "good will gifts" to Saudi Arabia's crooked government might give us a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts for how principled we are, but it also might just drive the price of gasoline up to $20 a gallon. Costly as keeping our cantankerous trading partner happy might be, it may be an absolute bargain in comparison to the alternative.

In Pakistan, the case for paying off the strong man on top is even clearer: Pakistan has nukes. It also has lots of terrorists its strong man hasn't been able to eliminate so far who'd love to have a nuke to use on America. One stolen nuke planted in a major American city could easily cost millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in ruined infrastructure, not counting the indirect damage to the economy. Hence, it's in our interest to keep the strong man in power and those nukes locked down.

3. Actually, we're giving billions to the corrupt governments ruling over those Wahhabis; that's not quite the same thing. The alternative to propping these guys up in most cases would be dealing with the Wahhabis directly after they slaughter their crooked American-sponsored keepers and institute a thoroughly anti-American Islamic government in its place. Maybe cutting off the guys trying to keep the lid on these radicals would be worth it; I strongly doubt it, though. (See point about $20-a-gallon gasoline above.)

In every case, the point is the same: if you count the costs, you start to appreciate why Occam's Razor doesn't apply to politics.

[lester1/2jr]

1. Not so much; that aid does help Israel buy the stuff it needs for defense. We could just ship them the weapons directly, though (maybe even bill them if they can afford to pay). I've often thought we could do something similar with Sudan. Every time I hear of another village raided and enslaved there, I think "What, did they have to sit there and take it? Don't they have any guns or anything?" If they don't, we've got plenty of military surplus they could use. In any case, Israel has generally used whatever we give it to the best advantage for its people; I can't say the same for very many other countries.

I don't see how that matters to me personally as a taxpayer.  if israel can't survive without billions in aid every year it is doing something wrong.   entities need to be self sufficient in nature or anywhere else.  I'm not all that cognitive of the Sudan situation other than it is a muslim country with a lot of oil so I think we should not be involved.  We should give them visas and hope others follow suit.  the last thing we need is al queda spreading to Africa more than it already has.

Libertarians: we aren't really known for ethics!

2. Well, unfortunately, that doesn't follow; the vast majority of people pushing to "cut off Israel" aren't calling for an end to foreign aid to any of these other nations. In fact, the very way you single Israel out in this thread is what bothers me; cutting off all foreign aid is something less than feasible (as I explain presently), but it certainly is more morally defensible than speaking only of cutting off Israel as if it were somehow more deserving of it than the others.

I don't know what the vast majority think, but my point was we only give egypt and Jordan  the money we give them because of israel.    Camp David 1978 that was the deal.   So Israel not only costs us 3 billion it costs us the billions we give those other countries.  not to mention the countries we sanction and go to war with because they are hostile to israel.  they are a massive strategic liability. 

Concerning the others, there are places where foreign aid is doing more harm than good, (just about anywhere in Africa comes to mind), or serving no particularly vital function (i.e., most of Europe), but some of this international bribery is definitely serving our interests; cutting off our "good will gifts" to Saudi Arabia's crooked government might give us a warm and fuzzy feeling in our hearts for how principled we are, but it also might just drive the price of gasoline up to $20 a gallon. Costly as keeping our cantankerous trading partner happy might be, it may be an absolute bargain in comparison to the alternative.

I don't see how the price of oil would go higher if we stopped our socialism in the middle east.  It's already 100 dollars a barrel now.   whoever is in charge has to sell it to someone.  they can't eat it.  even bin laden said he would maintain business relations via the oil industry.  thugh I don't know why he'd bother, he is already a massive benficiary of our money via sympathetic saudis

In Pakistan, the case for paying off the strong man on top is even clearer: Pakistan has nukes. It also has lots of terrorists its strong man hasn't been able to eliminate so far who'd love to have a nuke to use on America. One stolen nuke planted in a major American city could easily cost millions of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in ruined infrastructure, not counting the indirect damage to the economy. Hence, it's in our interest to keep the strong man in power and those nukes locked down.

my guess is they already have nuclear material.  and you can do plenty of damage with other things.  9/11 was done with a plane.  most terrorism uses cheap stuff because it's easier to make and harder to trace.  I can't recall a single terrorist attack with nuclear material.  it's always a bunch of nails and some gun powder.  I don't live in the middle east, I'm not concerned who runs their countries.  all I'm concerned with is less terrorism and cheap oil.  the best way to secure those things is to leave them alone.  let them do whatever it is they would do if there was no such thing as the United States. 

3. Actually, we're giving billions to the corrupt governments ruling over those Wahhabis; that's not quite the same thing. The alternative to propping these guys up in most cases would be dealing with the Wahhabis directly after they slaughter their crooked American-sponsored keepers and institute a thoroughly anti-American Islamic government in its place. Maybe cutting off the guys trying to keep the lid on these radicals would be worth it; I strongly doubt it, though. (See point about $20-a-gallon gasoline above.)

the people are the people.  these regimes don't represent them.  people in the middle east are hostile to american designs on their countries regardless of what our well bribed "allies" say.  we should deal with reality.  I'm not afraid of reailty

[Inyarear]

I don't see how that matters to me personally as a taxpayer.  if israel can't survive without billions in aid every year it is doing something wrong.   entities need to be self sufficient in nature or anywhere else.  I'm not all that cognitive of the Sudan situation other than it is a muslim country with a lot of oil so I think we should not be involved.  We should give them visas and hope others follow suit.  the last thing we need is al queda spreading to Africa more than it already has.

In fact, Israel has succeeded at doing a lot on its own. It remains, though, that Israel is using the money well, that the vast majority of aid has been loans it ultimately repaid with interest (i.e. the country's a good credit risk), and that Israel remains strategically important as one of the few trustworthy allies standing between us and the Islamists.

"Give them visas and hope others follow suit" is a pretty good description of the policy by which those Jews ended up in Israel in the first place, and I don't see how it's going to yield any better results with them or anyone else this time; arming the oppressed against their oppressors works a whole lot better. As for Al Qaeda's indefinitely postponed expansion into Africa... well, there seems to be a lot less of Al Qaeda's presence everywhere lately for some strange reason.

Libertarians: we aren't really known for ethics!

That's why there aren't many Libertarians.

I don't know what the vast majority think, but my point was we only give egypt and Jordan  the money we give them because of israel.    Camp David 1978 that was the deal.   So Israel not only costs us 3 billion it costs us the billions we give those other countries.  not to mention the countries we sanction and go to war with because they are hostile to israel.  they are a massive strategic liability.

That's based on two thoroughly unsound assumptions:

A) These other countries are only hostile to us because of Israel. In reality, they're hostile to us anyway. We're the "crusaders" from the "Great Satan" and the destruction of Israel, far from satisfying them, would only whet their appetite for Western blood all the more. Israel's continued success is a powerful strategic asset for us, as it keeps our most fanatical foes in despair of ever seeing their dream of world domination realized.

B) We would cut off aid to the others if we cut it off to Israel. Come on, you know that's not how bureaucrats behave! Even if the terrorists' buddies at CAIR had their way and all aid to Israel vanished tomorrow, you can bet the aid would continue to flow to Jordan and Egypt, just as it continues to flow to Europe and Africa and other places where those foreign aid programs have long since outlived any usefulness they might ever have had.

I don't see how the price of oil would go higher if we stopped our socialism in the middle east.  It's already 100 dollars a barrel now.   whoever is in charge has to sell it to someone.  they can't eat it.  even bin laden said he would maintain business relations via the oil industry.  thugh I don't know why he'd bother, he is already a massive benficiary of our money via sympathetic saudis

A) When Osama bin Laden starts repeating anti-war activists' talking points, it's a good idea to consider the strong possibility that he's lying.

B) With commie China and socialist Europe willing to take up the slack, jihadists will have no difficulty finding alternate buyers; the free market is a measuring stick, not a panacea.

C) Things are never so bad that they can't get worse. If you don't see how the price can go so much higher with our sworn enemies in charge, I'd suggest paying closer attention to the economic process of procuring oil, and to what happens to the price of anything when it has to be gotten on the international equivalent of the black market.

my guess is they already have nuclear material.  and you can do plenty of damage with other things.  9/11 was done with a plane.  most terrorism uses cheap stuff because it's easier to make and harder to trace.  I can't recall a single terrorist attack with nuclear material.  it's always a bunch of nails and some gun powder.  I don't live in the middle east, I'm not concerned who runs their countries.  all I'm concerned with is less terrorism and cheap oil.  the best way to secure those things is to leave them alone.  let them do whatever it is they would do if there was no such thing as the United States.

Ye gods, how myopic an argument! A pre-assembled Pakistani nuke acquired via an old-fashioned ten-fingered discount is even cheaper to use and has an even greater return on investment for terrorists than, say, a bunch of barrels of heating oil and fertilizer, and it's a whole lot more difficult to trace back to the one that used it. Up to 1945, no one could recall any attacks with nuclear material either; and as recently as 9/10/2001, no one could recall any terrorist attacks that involved ramming jets loaded with fuel into skyscrapers.

In short, there's a first time for everything. Moreover, if you plead ignorance of all the complexities of the region of the world from which we get the majority of both our terrorism and our oil, that rather undermines any case you may try to make for what we should or shouldn't be doing there. Speak from knowledge rather than from ignorance; if you're so concerned about oil and terrorism, you ought to have a better idea of where they come from at the very least.

the people are the people.  these regimes don't represent them.  people in the middle east are hostile to american designs on their countries regardless of what our well bribed "allies" say.  we should deal with reality.  I'm not afraid of reailty

The reality is that we're not paying them for pretty words, but for practical political favors in our economic self interest. The reality is also that people are inherently evil, and that representative government is no absolute safeguard against any evils they may do; in much of the Middle East, it is most likely no safeguard at all. If we should deal with reality, then be glad that our administration and our military are taking it so well. Others, such as MSM journalists and much of Congress, don't seem very capable of facing up to it.

If you're not afraid of reality, then presumably you're used to its paradoxes and uncertainties by now. Israel is quite the paradox; don't be so certain of everything you hear about Israel on Shiachat (of all places).

[lester1/2jr]

In fact, Israel has succeeded at doing a lot on its own. It remains, though, that Israel is using the money well, that the vast majority of aid has been loans it ultimately repaid with interest (i.e. the country's a good credit risk), and that Israel remains strategically important as one of the few trustworthy allies standing between us and the Islamists.

not true.  the loans we give them are very often grants not loans.  the loans are used for stuff we don't agree with like them building up settlements and what not.  It's very complicated but sufficet to say we GIVE a TON of money to Israel AND egypt AND the rest.   and again, i don't see how you can argue they are anything but a strategic LIABILITY of the first order.  and they are definately NOT trustworthy !!  jonathan Pollard, their nuclear program, etc.  muslims hate us because of our support for israel and israel isn't even part of the colation of the willing.  The only way they "help" is by backing up Bush's horrible phony intelligence to get us into iraq.  thanks but no thanks guys.  one economist estimated they have cost us about 1.6 trillion since 48.

"Give them visas and hope others follow suit" is a pretty good description of the policy by which those Jews ended up in Israel in the first place, and I don't see how it's going to yield any better results with them or anyone else this time; arming the oppressed against their oppressors works a whole lot better. As for Al Qaeda's indefinitely postponed expansion into Africa... well, there seems to be a lot less of Al Qaeda's presence everywhere lately for some strange reason.

no we didn't give the jews in israel visas.  we had a ridiculous immigration policy.   before we passed ridiculous immigration reforms jews were coming here freely and there was little to no interest in zionism among jews.  Most israelis would have came here instead if they could.  "oppressors"  where are jews oppressed?  they are among the wealthiest most powerful people wherever they exist.  Al queda  is, by our own governments estimation, as strong or more strong than they were pre 9/11. 

That's why there aren't many Libertarians.

there aren't many libertarians because people have come to accept big government, unfortunately.

That's based on two thoroughly unsound assumptions:

A) These other countries are only hostile to us because of Israel. In reality, they're hostile to us anyway. We're the "crusaders" from the "Great Satan" and the destruction of Israel, far from satisfying them, would only whet their appetite for Western blood all the more. Israel's continued success is a powerful strategic asset for us, as it keeps our most fanatical foes in despair of ever seeing their dream of world domination realized.

you are utterly paranoid.  muslims don't hate us millinos of them live here.  they want us out of their countries.  we are "crusaders" bnecause of our support for israel and presence in their countries!!


besides, if you are so cynical about muslims and see them as so one dimensionally hateful,  Israel is even more of an absurdity.  why would we be trying to help people who could live just about anywhere else in the world remain in a sea of poeple who will never change and always hate them?    the law of the jungle would say for them to get the hell out like they tried to do in germany pre holocaust. 

B) We would cut off aid to the others if we cut it off to Israel. Come on, you know that's not how bureaucrats behave! Even if the terrorists' buddies at CAIR had their way and all aid to Israel vanished tomorrow, you can bet the aid would continue to flow to Jordan and Egypt, just as it continues to flow to Europe and Africa and other places where those foreign aid programs have long since outlived any usefulness they might ever have had.

? that's not a logical statement.  I'm saying we should cut off aid to the whole region.  virtually all of our aid there is predicated on political stuff involving us and israel.  We wouldn't honor egypts aid in the camp david agreements if we didn't honor israels.  yuor argument is saying what if we gave aid to everyone BUT israel.  that's a very very remote possiblity.  israel still gets like a billion a year in donations from jews around the world.    I don't believe in socialism. sorry.  the state is no ones friend.  look at what are billions are doing in the middle east today. nothing but harm.

B) With commie China and socialist Europe willing to take up the slack, jihadists will have no difficulty finding alternate buyers; the free market is a measuring stick, not a panacea.

so what?  we''l all move to europe or china.  or buy more from venezuela.  as long as the oil is flowing we are golden.  and it won't stop because they can't eat the stuff or just sit on it, particularly when they have zero economy besides it.

C) Things are never so bad that they can't get worse. If you don't see how the price can go so much higher with our sworn enemies in charge, I'd suggest paying closer attention to the economic process of procuring oil, and to what happens to the price of anything when it has to be gotten on the international equivalent of the black market.

"our" sworn enemies?  I don't have any sworn enemies.  If we attack for instance iran, oil will definately go to 200 dollars a barrel.  chavez has already said he will cut us off in protest and iran os not going to care about world markets when they are being bombed.  terrorism will also explode.

so our only intersts in that regtion: cheap oil and no terrorism, will be completely destroyed by attacking Iran and it's a similar pattern for the rest of the scenrios involving other states. 

Ye gods, how myopic an argument! A pre-assembled Pakistani nuke acquired via an old-fashioned ten-fingered discount is even cheaper to use and has an even greater return on investment for terrorists than, say, a bunch of barrels of heating oil and fertilizer, and it's a whole lot more difficult to trace back to the one that used it. Up to 1945, no one could recall any attacks with nuclear material either; and as recently as 9/10/2001, no one could recall any terrorist attacks that involved ramming jets loaded with fuel into skyscrapers.

In short, there's a first time for everything. Moreover, if you plead ignorance of all the complexities of the region of the world from which we get the majority of both our terrorism and our oil, that rather undermines any case you may try to make for what we should or shouldn't be doing there.

I know ALOT about the region.  I'm saying my position is their internal affairs aren't our concern.  and I'm not discounting the possibility of a nucelar attack on us. I'm saying there are OTHER WAYS they could do tons and tons of damage.  what we shld be addressing is WHY they want to attack us.  if yuo think the fact that we are spending trillions killing muslims in iraq and afghanistan and putting them in guantanamo and trying to put the entire arab world under martial is unreleated to them wanting to attack us you are out of your mind.  are they attacking hong kong?  or sweden?  they want us out of their countries!

The reality is that we're not paying them for pretty words, but for practical political favors in our economic self interest. The reality is also that people are inherently evil, and that representative government is no absolute safeguard against any evils they may do; in much of the Middle East, it is most likely no safeguard at all. If we should deal with reality, then be glad that our administration and our military are taking it so well. Others, such as MSM journalists and much of Congress, don't seem very capable of facing up to it.

If you're not afraid of reality, then presumably you're used to its paradoxes and uncertainties by now. Israel is quite the paradox; don't be so certain of everything you hear about Israel on Shiachat (of all places).

what a strawman.  I know plenty about israel, I don't go to shiachat to learn the israeli viewpoint.  I go to hear the OTHER side.  people are inherently evil?  gee thanks. 

our support for the unelected tryannies in saudi arabia, pakistan, egypt and elsewhere make us LESS safe.  I'd rather have the support of 99% of the people in one of those countries and take my chances with that than continue giving billions to the hated tyrants in an attempt to suppress the actual nature of those countries.

let freedom ring!

[Inyarear]

not true.  the loans we give them are very often grants not loans.  the loans are used for stuff we don't agree with like them building up settlements and what not.  It's very complicated but sufficet to say we GIVE a TON of money to Israel AND egypt AND the rest.   and again, i don't see how you can argue they are anything but a strategic LIABILITY of the first order.  and they are definately NOT trustworthy !!  jonathan Pollard, their nuclear program, etc.  muslims hate us because of our support for israel and israel isn't even part of the colation of the willing.  The only way they "help" is by backing up Bush's horrible phony intelligence to get us into iraq.  thanks but no thanks guys.  one economist estimated they have cost us about 1.6 trillion since 48.

So now you're reduced to Bush-bashing, as usual. You should know I have nothing but contempt for Bush-bashers. Whoever this anonymous "economist" is, he's a liar. The majority of aid to Israel was the loans, and they were repaid with high interest. I find it interesting that you go bashing Israel (but--oddly enough--none of the other countries that provided Bush with "his" mistaken intelligence) for Iraq and then go bashing Israel for supposedly not being part of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. Let's get this straight: you hate Israel for getting into this war, and then you hate Israel for not getting into this war? I think you just hate Israel, and that's all.

Oh, and spare me the hypocrisy about Israel's nuclear program, too; if anything, I'm glad Israel is able to hold such a powerful threat up against all the genocidal Muslims that want to wipe it off the map. When the grown-up, civilized nations have the nukes and the bratty little barbarian states don't, that's a benefit for everyone.

no we didn't give the jews in israel visas.  we had a ridiculous immigration policy.   before we passed ridiculous immigration reforms jews were coming here freely and there was little to no interest in zionism among jews.  Most israelis would have came here instead if they could.  "oppressors"  where are jews oppressed?  they are among the wealthiest most powerful people wherever they exist.  Al queda  is, by our own governments estimation, as strong or more strong than they were pre 9/11.

Man! Once again, the entire argument betrays a lack of honesty and historical understanding. In case you're forgetting, the surviving Jews migrated to Palestine (the as-yet unpartitioned British territory) in droves after World War II, some with nothing but the rags on their backs. It's true that neither we nor any of the Europeans gave them many official visas; the fact is, though, that many a European border guard was only too happy to look the other way and let the Jews pass through his country unhindered since Europe was still full of flaming anti-semites and the vast majority of the population was glad to see them go.

It is true that many of them would have preferred to come here. The anti-semites and isolationists (mostly the very same people) who felt we shouldn't concern ourselves with these foreign Jews' problems indeed proceeded to pass that atrocious "immigration reform" that gave the Jews their de facto walking papers to Israel. It's a few decades too late to be admitting that we ought to have intervened to help them in their plight instead of sitting back and letting them be someone else's problem, Lester.

I would find it astonishing that you even ask when and where the Jews have been oppressed except that I've already seen how little you care to concern yourself with the historical facts. Actually, I was referring not only to the Jews, but to the victims of the Sudanese oppressors as well; in either case, arming the oppressed would spare us a lot of the trouble of going after the oppressors ourselves. Arming Israel has indeed yielded the death of many a Muslim terrorist at Israeli hands, thereby sparing us the trouble of hunting him down ourselves.

As for when and where the Jews have been oppressed, the real question is when and where they have NOT been oppressed. That crack about Jews always being the wealthiest and most powerful people smacks of old anti-semitic caricatures right out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and belies all your denials that you are an anti-semite, as does much else that you've written. Yes, the Jews do continue to rack up an impressive number of literary, financial, and scientific achievements; they do so in the face of horrendous persecution (Einstein, for just one example). As ever, the stereotypes of Jews reflect their enemies' envy of them and their hard-earned success.

Currently, the Jews in Israel prosper even in the face of Iranian Katyushas being fired at them from Hezbollah in Lebanon, suicide bombers from Hamas and Fatah, the UN's many evil and hypocritical rulings against them at the behest of the hate-mongering dictators and oppressors who control much of that illegitimate body, and the Hugo Chavezes, David Dukes and Cindy Sheehans of the world. Now I see you are pretending that if the Jews are prosperous and their enemies' countries are all hellholes, the Jews must be at fault for everything that happens to them. Who's the socialist now, Lester?

Al Qaeda stronger than ever? Methinks by "our own government" you mean Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and all the other liars in Congress; I sure am glad they're not MY government. (I live in one of the "red" states.) The only place Al Qaeda is getting stronger is in the wet dreams of tinfoil-hat-wearing anti-war fanatics. Meanwhile, back in the real world, Al Qaeda's "charities" and bank accounts are getting raided, a high percentage of its members are dead, the rest are on the run, and the allegedly still-breathing Osama bin Laden is in despair and desperately trying to persuade Europe to give up its missions in Afghanistan as well. I would provide the links to the current events sections of news sites telling all about this, but I notice you don't follow links (or current events), so I won't bother.

there aren't many libertarians because people have come to accept big government, unfortunately.

There aren't many Libertarians (big L) because most libertarians (little l) have made the necessary compromises and joined either Republicans (on the fiscal side) or Democrats (on the social side). What remains is a party that's essentially all talk and no action, which may or may not be a good thing.

you are utterly paranoid.  muslims don't hate us millinos of them live here.  they want us out of their countries.  we are "crusaders" bnecause of our support for israel and presence in their countries!!

Pot, meet kettle. I'm not the one who thinks AIPAC controls the USA, that Iraq is a huge Israeli conspiracy to destroy the USA, and that all Jews are rich and powerful political schemers. I'm also not the one who goes around blaming everything our enemies do on us. You can throw out all the red herrings you like about their motives; they lack my sympathy. Their motives are evil, they always have been, and nothing we have done justifies their terrorism and aggression against the USA. We are on the moral high ground in hunting them down and killing them for the murderous scum they are, just as when our ancestors hunted down and killed some of their predecessors, the Barbary Pirates.

besides, if you are so cynical about muslims and see them as so one dimensionally hateful,  Israel is even more of an absurdity.  why would we be trying to help people who could live just about anywhere else in the world remain in a sea of poeple who will never change and always hate them?    the law of the jungle would say for them to get the hell out like they tried to do in germany pre holocaust.

You know, maybe if I didn't see regularly see living caricatures like that mob of Muslims howling for the blood of that British teacher who dared to name a teddy bear after their false prophet, I might even be able to believe they aren't so one-dimensionally hateful. Too bad they keep giving themselves away, huh?

The morality and decency of civilization by its very definition is in defiance of the law of the jungle. The real absurdity here is that, as all anti-semites do, you blame the Jews for being where you put them. Medieval Europeans drove the Jews out of other occupations and made them moneylenders, bankers, and diamond cutters; then they bashed them for their supposed obsession with treasure and their over-representation in financial institutions. Now you do the very same thing with their modern descendants.

Anti-semites and isolationists stymied the Jews in their efforts to go to America and other countries, and drove the impoverished survivors of Russia's pograms and Nazi Germany's death camps into British Palestine. Then they gave the Jews and their Arab neighbors (whose children used to play together) one hell of a raw deal with that retarded partition plan of theirs, and the Jews miraculously survived the Muslims' repeated attempts to kill every last one of them, each time relenting from battle and giving back a lot of their winnings at the behest of the UN's meddling diplomats. Now that the Jews have managed to build a prosperous civilized nation on that cursed reeking chunk of land where we put them, you have the incredible effrontery to come swaggering out of your Muslim chat room and call for these people just to abandon everything and leave all the cities and farmland and holy sites to be trampled by the same murderous scum who've turned virtually every other country in the Middle East into a dusty wasteland and political hellhole.

Pray tell, do you have any idea how much it costs to move that many people? Might you really be planning on compensating them for all of this? Who do you think would pick up the tab? Have you actually assessed the value of all that land and architecture? What kind of compensation do you think would be sufficient for the desecration of those holy sites in particular? How much friendlier to immigrants is America these days, might I add? I don't see you or anyone else at Shiachat offering anything like a realistic answer to any of these questions. Clearly, you don't have a plan, you don't know what you're talking about, and you Israel-bashers are ill-qualified to go picking at the sawdust in Israeli eyes with the beams hanging out of your own.

? that's not a logical statement.  I'm saying we should cut off aid to the whole region.

Yes, and we all know how carefully politicians are listening to all the nuances and finer points of your plan. Surely it's your voice--and yours alone--that guides all their decisions, and they never notice all the other Israel-bashers hanging around you who want Israel cut off and Israel's oppressors kept on the dole. Even though the title of your thread focuses entirely on Israel and has nothing to say about these others, obviously we're all mind-readers and can understand that you really meant to say "Cut off all foreign aid to the Middle East."

That's one hell of a big ego you've got there.

virtually all of our aid there is predicated on political stuff involving us and israel.  We wouldn't honor egypts aid in the camp david agreements if we didn't honor israels.

And we know this is certainly how it would happen because politicians always keep their promises, right? They're nothing but a band of angels headed up by an arch-angel, right? That's why everyone likes politics so much, right? None of the Muslims in the Middle East have ever broken a promise to us before, right?

yuor argument is saying what if we gave aid to everyone BUT israel.

My argument is that this result is far more likely in view of human nature. The road to atrocity is littered with the best-laid plans of well-intentioned idealists.

that's a very very remote possiblity.  israel still gets like a billion a year in donations from jews around the world.

While you provide no source for these claims, I'll concede that various private Jewish foundations may well be sending Israel lots of money. This has no relevance to the point in contention, however: that the vast majority of people who talk of cutting off aid to Israel have no intention of cutting it off to these other countries as well, and that you have identified yourself far too strongly with these hate-mongers with all your smears against Israel.

I don't believe in socialism. sorry.  the state is no ones friend.  look at what are billions are doing in the middle east today. nothing but harm.

You know, you keep saying you're not a socialist, but you keep talking like an anti-capitalist when the subject of Israel's wealth comes up, to wit:

Besides,  we don't "support"  ANY of our other allies to the tune of several billion a year.  we give more to israel than we do to starving countries with no clean water.  meanwhile israel has a 200 billion dollar a year economy.   that's what I call some effective lobbying!

Hey, look: rich people! It must be all right to hate them because they're rich!

The greatest harm foreign aid does is in rewarding failure; you ought to be rejoicing that we're rewarding success for a change. If we're to be cutting off foreign aid, we should start with those crummy starving countries with no clean water, since our aid to them only helps ensure that they will continue to starve and die of typhoid in the midst of plenty of arable land and fresh water.

so what?  we''l all move to europe or china.  or buy more from venezuela.  as long as the oil is flowing we are golden.  and it won't stop because they can't eat the stuff or just sit on it, particularly when they have zero economy besides it.

...says the fellow who forgot what happens to the price every time a commodity has to pass through the hands of another middleman. (It seems you've also forgotten how high the taxes are in those other countries too.) If you want to move to Eurabia and submit to their dhimmification, be my guest--or, rather, be theirs. Commie China would probably be glad to have you as well, though I don't think you'd like that so much. I guess I'm just too loyal an American to want to abandon my country and move to those socialist slums myself. As for Venezuela, might I remind you of the America-hating commie oil-company-nationalizing strong man in charge there? This is what we're supposed to prefer to dealing with the crooked monarchy of Saudi Arabia? As usual, your argument lacks all coherence.

"our" sworn enemies?  I don't have any sworn enemies.  If we attack for instance iran, oil will definately go to 200 dollars a barrel.  chavez has already said he will cut us off in protest and iran os not going to care about world markets when they are being bombed.  terrorism will also explode.

You don't, huh? You know, maybe if you close your eyes and plug your ears, these oil prices will go away too. Don't think that the people who've sworn to destroy the West aren't your sworn enemies just because you didn't take any oaths! War is interested in you whether you're interested in it, you know. The only place there's been any explosion of terrorism so far in the last hundred years is in countries that backed down in the face of it. For a guy who doesn't like socialism, you sure seem awfully fond of repeating and cowering before the threats of commies like Hugo Chavez.

so our only intersts in that regtion: cheap oil and no terrorism, will be completely destroyed by attacking Iran and it's a similar pattern for the rest of the scenrios involving other states.

Those aren't our only interests there, and following your suggestions runs directly against them anyway. These enemies wouldn't sell us any oil at all, meaning we'd have to get it by proxy at a hefty markup. (I'm thinking more in the range of $1000 a barrel here.) They also increase their attacks against anyone who cuts and runs.

I know ALOT about the region.

You disprove that contention every time you start flapping your gums (or bothering a keyboard).

I'm saying my position is their internal affairs aren't our concern.  and I'm not discounting the possibility of a nucelar attack on us. I'm saying there are OTHER WAYS they could do tons and tons of damage.

I'm telling you that the last thing they need is another way. If you don't think the whereabouts of other countries' nukes ought to matter to us at all because it's one of their "internal affairs" you're off your rocker.

what we shld be addressing is WHY they want to attack us.

No, what we should be addressing is what to do about them. Your blame-America-first treatises are both wholly erroneous, and beside the point. All of your bleeding-heart pop-psychology crap serves only to encourage these psychos in their belief that America is a "weak horse" that can't stand up to its foes, and therefore ripe for the plucking.

We do not need to hear more of the terrorists' lies and lame excuses coming from you and those propagandists at Shiachat, any more than we need to hear all the whining of the serial killer in the dock about how his family was dysfunctional and he was abused growing up and society has let him down and we citizens are the real criminals for not letting him have his way and anyway, the dozen ladies he butchered were mean to him. The answer to both complaints is "Boo frickin' hoo! Hang him!" To hell with their reasons!

what a strawman.  I know plenty about israel, I don't go to shiachat to learn the israeli viewpoint.  I go to hear the OTHER side.  people are inherently evil?  gee thanks.

In other words, just as I thought, you don't know anything about Israel except the lies those anti-semitic hate-mongers at Shiachat tell you, and you don't want to know. You don't want to hear from Israel because you don't care what happens to those stinking Zionists. You've got your mind made up to hate them, and nothing can change it now. How dare I distract you with any contrary and inconvenient facts! At last all your lip service to Israel is revealed for the hypocrisy it is. Shame on you.

Yes, people are inherently evil; that's Middle Eastern Theology and Philosophy 101 there. Whereas the Greeks thought that people did evil just because they didn't know that doing the good was intrinsically good for them, the Hebrews and Sumerians and no small number of other ancient peoples in the Middle East knew that  we people do evil because we are evil, and it's not in our nature to care what's intrinsically good for us. At church, this is known as the doctrine of Original Sin.

This doctrine, often known as Christianity's empirical doctrine, is what gives the lie to the claim that we Americans are somehow to blame for this terrorism and that the terrorists will stop terrorizing us if we just do what they say. They do evil because they are evil; they will not stop terrorizing us if we make nice to them; self-flagellation and buying into the guilt trip they (and you) are trying to lay on us will only encourage them to do more evil, as they see that evil is rewarded. Only punishment and retaliation will deter them.

our support for the unelected tryannies in saudi arabia, pakistan, egypt and elsewhere make us LESS safe.  I'd rather have the support of 99% of the people in one of those countries and take my chances with that than continue giving billions to the hated tyrants in an attempt to suppress the actual nature of those countries.

The last thing we need is the tyranny of the hostile majority; given the chance to choose their leadership, these enslaved peoples will simply elect an even worse dictator to enslave them, as they did in Iran and as they have done in Gaza and the West Bank. Unless and until these murderous minions give up their desire to conquer and enslave the rest of the world to the Islamic Caliphate, it is in our interest to keep these America-haters conquered and enslaved and ruled with an iron hand.

Do not delude yourself: neither you nor any other American will ever have the support of any of these people. In fact, they will kill you if they can. The first thing the Iranian Islamists did to the commies who supported them in their coup against the Shah was to kill them all; to the Islamists you support by parroting the lies they tell you at Shiachat, you are exactly like those commies, and are to be treated the same way wherever and whenever Islamic conquest prevails.

let freedom ring!

Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it is the signal for your beheading. Or, to put it another way: don't say I didn't warn you.

[lester1/2jr]

The last thing we need is the tyranny of the hostile majority

that's what neoconservatives think of us hoi polloi ladies and gentlemen.  we're stupid and need their paranoid, militaristic guidance otherwise we will destroy ourselves with our own stupidity.

and yet it is there presxcritions that have gotten us into the mess we're in now.  it's no cincidence.  elitists are that way because of their own moral and intellectual deficencies.

The majority of aid to Israel was the loans, and they were repaid with high interest.

wanna go to court over that one?  it's aid.  and you are wrong. they haven't spent it succesfully, not that that would be a good reason to give someone something for free.  they have used it to turn themselves in to a socialist sparta reliant on handouts and perpetually at war with it's neighbors, which is exactly what they want us to be as well if you haven't noticed.

I'm glad Israel is able to hold such a powerful threat up against all the genocidal Muslims that want to wipe it off the map.

the balance of power has led to other states like pakistan wanting / feeling they need nukes.  iran will have them soon.  and their nukes are worthless apparently as they still hide behind the US and in fact want US to attack THEIR enemies.  so not much of a detterent after all.

arming the oppressed would spare us a lot of the trouble of going after the oppressors ourselves.

so why don't they "arm themselves"?  they have a 200 billion dollar a year economy! that's bigger than spain.  they have goverment health care and million dollar homes and they get aid!!  that's ridiculous on the face of it.

As for when and where the Jews have been oppressed, the real question is when and where they have NOT been oppressed.

as john mcain would say, here's some straight talk:  their own insularity and hatred of non jews was large factor in their persecution.  someting that scarcely exists in the US these days.  the US is the real "israel "  the country called israel is the cartoon version.  when my great grandparents were in poland the jews spoke yiddish and more or less shunned the outside.  That they would be rounded up with gypsies and so forth was no surprise.  integration for one reason or another was not happening.

You know, maybe if I didn't see regularly see living caricatures like that mob of Muslims howling for the blood of that British teacher who dared to name a teddy bear after their false prophet,

I agree 100%.  the middle east is a backward region and radical islam is a backward religion. that's why I want to go AWAY from it rather than TOWARDS it in the form of wars and getting involved in their internal affairs.  would a jewish person of their own volition move to the middle east?  i seriously doubt it.  so why set up a country there?  one that is doomed to perpetual war?  You'd have to be a masochist to be jewish or christian or buddhist and move to the middle east.

You know, you keep saying you're not a socialist, but you keep talking like an anti-capitalist when the subject of Israel's wealth comes up, to wit:

subsidizing people who don't need money isn't capitalism. subsidies perios aren't capitalism.

These enemies wouldn't sell us any oil at all,

that's not how the oil market works.    if people buy oil from sudan, they aren't buying it from venezuela or other places.  and the idea that muslim will be LESS likely to sell us oil if we stop supporting the dictators they hate and stop perpetuating the policiees they hate is ridiculous on the face of it.  we are in the place we are in now because of our actions. more government will equal more problems

"the government isn't the solution, the government is the problem" -ronald reagan


which part of that don't you understand?

We do not need to hear more of the terrorists' lies and lame excuses coming from you and those propagandists at Shiachat

the other side of the story isn't "propaganda".  the dumber guys at shiachat would call YOUR rheotric israeli propaganda. 

heres what i want you to understand:  it is not ONLY evil psychotic terrorists who hate our foreign policy.  it is possible for people to hate us AND al queda.  get it?

[Inyarear]

The last thing we need is the tyranny of the hostile majority

that's what neoconservatives think of us hoi polloi ladies and gentlemen.  we're stupid and need their paranoid, militaristic guidance otherwise we will destroy ourselves with our own stupidity.

No, it's what our "paranoid, militaristic" founding fathers thought of democracy, which is why they treated "democracy" as a dirty word and made our nation a representative republic instead. As the elections of Hamas and Hugo Chavez demonstrate, mob rule can be just as terrible a tyranny as military or monarchic rule. These also prove that some peoples, given the chance, will vote themselves right back into despotism. For so long as these benighted nations insist on tyranny, it is preferable to have "our" tyrants in charge instead of theirs.

and yet it is there presxcritions that have gotten us into the mess we're in now.  it's no cincidence.  elitists are that way because of their own moral and intellectual deficencies.

"The mess we're in now" is a rapidly approaching victory in Iraq, Al Qaeda largely dead and dispersed, Saddam hanged, Khadaffi kowtowing to America, and Iran on the brink of collapse. The only elitists I see around here are the ones among whom it's fashionable to hate Israel and America and blame them for all the world's problems, both real and imaginary. This whiny hypocrisy is indeed the product of their moral and intellectual deficiencies.

The majority of aid to Israel was the loans, and they were repaid with high interest.

wanna go to court over that one?  it's aid.  and you are wrong. they haven't spent it succesfully, not that that would be a good reason to give someone something for free.  they have used it to turn themselves in to a socialist sparta reliant on handouts and perpetually at war with it's neighbors, which is exactly what they want us to be as well if you haven't noticed.

Go to court with whom? You know full well the UN's courts are firmly in the pocket of the world's dictators and terrorists. The various money sent to Israel is "aid" in the same sense that a few scholarships and a hefty college loan is "aid" to a student.

You've already admitted that you don't know anything about Israel except what those liars at Shiachat tell you, so I don't think any further proof is necessary that your caricature of Israel is just a hypocritical projection of what all the Israel-hating Muslim states are actually like on to what has been, for the last half-century, the only peace-loving capitalist state in the entire Middle East.

I'm glad Israel is able to hold such a powerful threat up against all the genocidal Muslims that want to wipe it off the map.

the balance of power has led to other states like pakistan wanting / feeling they need nukes.  iran will have them soon.  and their nukes are worthless apparently as they still hide behind the US and in fact want US to attack THEIR enemies.  so not much of a detterent after all.

Once again, there's not a word of truth in it the entire statement. Pakistan felt it needed nukes because India was developing them. Israel is out in front of the USA taking the flack, and those nukes have been enough of a threat to keep Israel's attackers from trying another out-and-out invasion.

Was it Israel that invited us to go settle Saddam's hash when he invaded Kuwait? No, it was Saudi Arabia, wasn't it? I think it's pretty clear who's hiding in whose skirts here, and who's holding his own.

arming the oppressed would spare us a lot of the trouble of going after the oppressors ourselves.

so why don't they "arm themselves"?  they have a 200 billion dollar a year economy! that's bigger than spain.  they have goverment health care and million dollar homes and they get aid!!  that's ridiculous on the face of it.

Who says they haven't? Were you forgetting about those nukes? Let's not forget all the lovely jets and tanks and smart bombs we sold them too. What's ridiculous on the face of it is that you insist Israel is some kind of socialist state even in the face of its impressive wealth. Since socialism invariably brings economic ruin on any nation that practices it and our aid hasn't made any other nation rich, Israel must be getting fat and happy on something other than the relative pittance it's getting from us. Since capitalism is the only system that has ever been demonstrated to make nations wealthy, one can only conclude Israel must be very capitalist.

As for when and where the Jews have been oppressed, the real question is when and where they have NOT been oppressed.

as john mcain would say, here's some straight talk:  their own insularity and hatred of non jews was large factor in their persecution.  someting that scarcely exists in the US these days.  the US is the real "israel "  the country called israel is the cartoon version.  when my great grandparents were in poland the jews spoke yiddish and more or less shunned the outside.  That they would be rounded up with gypsies and so forth was no surprise.  integration for one reason or another was not happening.

Can't win for losing, can they? First you contend the Jews haven't been oppressed, and now you admit they were oppressed but contend they must have done something to deserve it. If a girl gets raped, she must have been asking for it, huh? When a drunken lout breaks his wife's jaw and three of her ribs, it must be because she didn't talk to him enough. When Jews get loaded on to cattle cars and shipped off to death camps, it's all their fault for not making more friendly overtures to all their frigid racist neighbors who wanted them exterminated. This isn't anti-semitism? Who do you think you're fooling, Lester?

You know, maybe if I didn't see regularly see living caricatures like that mob of Muslims howling for the blood of that British teacher who dared to name a teddy bear after their false prophet,

I agree 100%.  the middle east is a backward region and radical islam is a backward religion. that's why I want to go AWAY from it rather than TOWARDS it in the form of wars and getting involved in their internal affairs.  would a jewish person of their own volition move to the middle east?  i seriously doubt it.  so why set up a country there?  one that is doomed to perpetual war?  You'd have to be a masochist to be jewish or christian or buddhist and move to the middle east.

Sure, let's just gloss over how all the other nations of the world kicked the Jews out and left so many millions of them nowhere else to go. Let's just pretend that other places in the world were more welcoming to them. Let's just make believe that one can magically turn back the clock and make the nation they've built vanish peacefully and inexpensively.

Flush goes the fantasy world! Welcome to real life: know-nothing isolationists like you kicked the Jews out of nearly every country in the world, British Palestine was more welcoming to them back then, and the Israelis are far too numerous and well-settled in their homeland to leave now. The delusional belief that the Jews were someone else's problem is to blame for the Middle East being our problem now, and all your sniveling complaints about it are not about to change that. Obviously you don't want to solve the problem; you just want to blame the Jews for it.

We heard you the first time, Lester: you want to tell us how much you hate Israel while pretending you're not telling us you hate Israel. There's no need to go on belaboring the obvious. Now p**s off. We don't cotton to anti-semites around here.

subsidizing people who don't need money isn't capitalism. subsidies perios aren't capitalism.

Israel-bashing isn't capitalism either. Bashing period isn't capitalism.

that's not how the oil market works.    if people buy oil from sudan, they aren't buying it from venezuela or other places.  and the idea that muslim will be LESS likely to sell us oil if we stop supporting the dictators they hate and stop perpetuating the policiees they hate is ridiculous on the face of it.  we are in the place we are in now because of our actions. more government will equal more problems

No, that is how the oil market works; if you let the lying, back-stabbing Muslim theocrats pick their own dictators, they pick West-hating terrorists and those terrorists refuse to sell us oil. What's absurd on the face of it is this BS mantra you keep spewing about how we've done something to deserve this, and how if we just appease these slime enough, they'll be nice to us and give us cheap oil. What they'll do is what they've always done: nationalize the oil companies, find something else to blame on us, and demand even more concessions. ("You American dogs don't make your women wear head scarves! No oil for you!") If you think they've got big government now, wait until you see how big their new, modern Iranian-style terrorist government will be.

Incidentally, in that Koran you admit you haven't read are numerous passages telling these Muslims to engage in just this kind of treachery. This is called taqqiyeh. Your blame-the-USA mentality is the very kind of idiocy that convinces them the Koran is right, that you're a fool, and that you therefore deserve to be exploited for one. You might want to think about that before you go back to those liars on Shianet and lap up every phony accusation they make against Israel.

"the government isn't the solution, the government is the problem" -ronald reagan

which part of that don't you understand?

I don't see anything in this that says "Islamofascism isn't the problem, we're the problem." I don't see how you derive it from this slogan. Are you getting some emanations for appeasement from this little slogan? Does it seem Ronald Reagan's got some kind of blame-America-first penumbra around him?

Heck, I'm still trying to figure out what makes a living document look different from a dead one.

We do not need to hear more of the terrorists' lies and lame excuses coming from you and those propagandists at Shiachat

the other side of the story isn't "propaganda".  the dumber guys at shiachat would call YOUR rheotric israeli propaganda.

I'm sure they would. I'm not so sure about that "dumber" part, though: if that particular lie works, they're clever liars for telling it. Moreover, you can hardly call that the "other" side of the story when you refuse to listen to Israel's side. To you, it's the ONLY side of the story.

heres what i want you to understand:  it is not ONLY evil psychotic terrorists who hate our foreign policy.  it is possible for people to hate us AND al queda.  get it?

Here's what I want you to understand: hatred is hatred regardless. Hating Al Qaeda as well will not let them off the hook for their hatred of--and terrorism against--Israel or America. Neither do we owe them any consideration if they persist in this hatred and terrorism. They persist in behaving like spoiled brats; we persist in refusing to spoil them further.

[lester1/2jr]

No, it's what our "paranoid, militaristic" founding fathers thought of democracy, which is why they treated "democracy" as a dirty word and made our nation a representative republic instead.

I agree.  but you aren't advocating a constitutional republic for , say, egypt or saudi arabia.  you are arguing for a US backed Tyranny.  elections are a part of a constitutional republic and they don't have them in saudi arabia, egypt, pakistan, jordan or any other of the regimes we support in the name of "democracy"!

Khadaffi

:lol: yeah I was really worried abuot khaddafi!!  what are you 500 hundred years old?  we are at war with AL QUEDA not Libya.   Libya is a distant memory.  and they are STILL A DICTATORSHIP by the way.  so much for freedom in the middle east.  just do what we say and you can be like saddam or worse if you want. 

This whiny hypocrisy is indeed the product of their moral and intellectual deficiencies.

you can do better than that bro

Go to court with whom?

I was kidding.  I fdon't know what the UN has to do with this. I'm an american and don't give them any credence.  If you are saying that the US doesn't give aid to israel you are being ridiculous.  If you can prove that, which you can't because it's false, obviously we wouldn't need to "cut them off" would we? 

I know plenty of israelis and none of them would claim tha tthe US does not provide aid.  it works out to about 500$ a person,  It'sd way way more than we give to more populous, worse off countries

You've already admitted that you don't know anything about Israel except what those liars at Shiachat tell you

no I didn't and they asren't liars.  because they are muslims they're liars?  and I'M the bigot?

Israel is out in front of the USA taking the flack, and those nukes have been enough of a threat to keep Israel's attackers from trying another out-and-out invasion.

so why are they bellyaching about Iran, even AFTER our own NIE saying Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program?  some deterrent.  But you are right I have no proof that pakistan started a nuclear program because of israel.  but I don't doubt that israel having nukes changed the dynamic in the region for the worse.

What's ridiculous on the face of it is that you insist Israel is some kind of socialist state even in the face of its impressive wealth.

there is a list called the "index of economic freedom".  israel is way below us and down there with places like france.  the government has a ton of control over the economy, probably because virtually all of it comes by way of the US.  actual free enterprise in Israel is very limited. 

Was it Israel that invited us to go settle Saddam's hash when he invaded Kuwait? No, it was Saudi Arabia, wasn't it

the PEOPLE of suadi arabia NEVER wanted us there, it was their unelected tyrants who did,  mainly because they couldn't trust their own military who, like the people, hated them.

Who do you think you're fooling, Lester?

hitler is gone.  it's not 1933.  anti semetism is not a big problem in the world as they success of jews all over it illustrate.  I live in massachusetts.   There are a million jews here and they are active part of their communities and often inhabit the wealthiest, safest neighborhoods.  If that's persecution I would like to be persecuted!!

so when I say jews problem with non jews are due to their hatred of non jews it does not include stuff lke the holocaust.

if you let the lying, back-stabbing Muslim theocrats pick their own dictators, they pick West-hating terrorists and those terrorists refuse to sell us oil.

so you're pro dictatorship :lol:   nice   if they don't want to sell us oil they don't have to but I don't see why they wouldn't our money is as good as anyones, well not lately.  are you saying the iraq war was for oil? 

" I don't see how you derive it from this slogan. Are you getting some emanations for appeasement from this little slogan? Does it seem Ronald Reagan's got some kind of blame-America-first penumbra around him?

our governments actions in the middle east:  supporting israel,  supporting various dictators, occupying saudi soil fanned the falmes of islamic extremism resulting in the 9/11 attacks, which of course our incompetent (by definition, I'm sure I don;t have to explain to a conservative that the federal government is inneffecitve in all it does) governmetn was helpless to stop.  the solution isn't to have our government do more STUFF. it's to get out of the middle east completely.  if our government is the only thing that is standing between us and another 9/11,  we have no choice.

Incidentally, in that Koran you admit you haven't read are numerous passages telling these Muslims to engage in just this kind of treachery. This is called taqqiyeh

I'm sure hitler said the same thing about the jews to justify doing whatever he liked to them.

Neither do we owe them any consideration if they persist in this hatred and terrorism.

I don't care if they hate America. I don't care about al queda.  Our ancestors came to this country for freedom and prosperity not to be the worlds police.  let al queda try and set up a caliphate, it will fall just like the last one did. 

[Inyarear]

I agree.  but you aren't advocating a constitutional republic for , say, egypt or saudi arabia.  you are arguing for a US backed Tyranny.  elections are a part of a constitutional republic and they don't have them in saudi arabia, egypt, pakistan, jordan or any other of the regimes we support in the name of "democracy"!

The U.S.S.R. was a "constitutional republic" with a neatly written constitution; like democracy, constitutions can be just another instrument of tyranny. Of course I'm not advocating a "constitutional republic" for any of these states! Their constitutions would quite certainly be just as oppressive and tyrannical as any dictator they'd elect. You talk as if these people would choose liberty if given the chance, but every chance they've gotten so far, these crummy nations have proved this assertion false.

Yes, I am arguing for a USA-backed tyranny--as opposed to a rabidly anti-American totalitarian terrorist theocracy whose god openly demands world domination. I do not share your delusion that any libertarian alternative exists in a nation of people whose minds are so enslaved as the Muslims' are; their worldview/ideology/religion is absolutely devoid of any appreciation for liberty as we understand it here in America.

:lol: yeah I was really worried abuot khaddafi!!  what are you 500 hundred years old?

Is that a problem, little boy? I wouldn't go casting aspersions on age and experience if I were you, especially if you're going to go quoting the likes of Reagan to me.

we are at war with AL QUEDA not Libya.   Libya is a distant memory.

Distant to the young and foolish, perhaps. When I was a boy, Libya used to be one of our more dangerous foes. It was still a significant threat right up to the day Khaddafi decided he preferred to avoid Saddam's fate. In his disclosures afterwards, we discovered his country was a lot closer to obtaining certain WMDs than our intelligence agencies had ever surmised. We are indeed no longer at war with Libya--for the very same reason we are no longer at war with Iraq. Shock and awe has proved to be a most effective form of diplomacy.

and they are STILL A DICTATORSHIP by the way.  so much for freedom in the middle east.  just do what we say and you can be like saddam or worse if you want.

So what's the problem? You supposedly care only about keeping our oil imports cheap and avoiding terrorism, right? If Saddam had done a little more bowing and scraping the same way Khaddafi did, he could have gone on dictatoring away and plating his toilet bowl scrubbers with gold purchased with his oil-for-palace program until doomsday. This result would have been all right with you, wouldn't it?

I was kidding.  I fdon't know what the UN has to do with this.  I'm an american and don't give them any credence.

Specifically, the UN comes up whenever one starts discussing the legality of wars and other aspects of foreign policy. I am glad you acknowledge that the socialistic Israel-hating UN has no jurisdiction over these matters.

If you are saying that the US doesn't give aid to israel you are being ridiculous.  If you can prove that, which you can't because it's false, obviously we wouldn't need to "cut them off" would we?

As you know full well, I am contending no such thing. What is in question is whether the liabilities of your plan outweigh the benefits, whether your plan is feasible in the context of politics as they are currently practiced, and why you've singled out Israel.

I know plenty of israelis and none of them would claim tha tthe US does not provide aid.  it works out to about 500$ a person,  It'sd way way more than we give to more populous, worse off countries

And again, you're doing yourself no favors pretending Israel's wealth or those other nations' poverty has any bearing on whether Israel deserves the aid. Capitalists aren't supposed to whine about wealth gaps; that's what socialists do.

so why are they bellyaching about Iran, even AFTER our own NIE saying Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program?

Because the NIE is and has been something less than a reliable source? Because the findings were anything but conclusive? Because this report is quite a swift reversal from what the NIE said just a few months ago? Because Iran's resident loudmouth Ahmadinejad is literally laughing out loud at the NIE and saying it shows how little our intelligence agencies know about Iran? The Israelis aren't exactly the only ones giving this report the hairy eyeball.

Of course, if the tentative conclusion from this ambiguous report is true, it's one more explanation for why Bush hasn't done much of anything about Iran. Cheney apparently agrees with the report as well and marks it as a vindication for Bush, which has me wondering what he knows that we don't. Presumably, that information is classified. In view of these uncertainties, though, and of the NIE's admission that Iran's so-called "civilian" nuclear program is still quite active, Israel is quite right to insist that we remain vigilant. We do well to wait and see what happens, but with a strong emphasis on the "see" part.

some deterrent.  But you are right I have no proof that pakistan started a nuclear program because of israel.  but I don't doubt that israel having nukes changed the dynamic in the region for the worse.

While you're entitled to your opinion of the dynamic, you don't have any proof for that either. The dynamic as I see it looks something like this:

Also, what's "worse" for some is better for others; if Iran's arms race exacerbates its economic crisis enough, its subsequent political collapse can only be a further benefit to us.

there is a list called the "index of economic freedom".  israel is way below us and down there with places like france.  the government has a ton of control over the economy, probably because virtually all of it comes by way of the US.  actual free enterprise in Israel is very limited.

In view of Israel's riches, I can only be skeptical of that list; I'm not convinced that Israel could really be getting wealthy on our foreign aid, since no other country ever has.

the PEOPLE of suadi arabia NEVER wanted us there, it was their unelected tyrants who did,  mainly because they couldn't trust their own military who, like the people, hated them.

If so, that means they would rather be under Saddam's heel, along with half the world's oil; all the more reason to keep them under ours.

hitler is gone.  it's not 1933.  anti semetism is not a big problem in the world as they success of jews all over it illustrate.  I live in massachusetts.   There are a million jews here and they are active part of their communities and often inhabit the wealthiest, safest neighborhoods.  If that's persecution I would like to be persecuted!!

Nevertheless, you asked me when Jews had ever been oppressed, and when I gave examples, you gave me this story about the unflattering descriptions your great-grandparents in Poland (in Hitler's time, yes?) gave of the Jews, as if this somehow justified their oppression. Now that I call you on this, you try to change the subject again. Own up to your contentions, or else concede the point: the Jews have been oppressed, the oppression is not morally justifiable, and no further oppression of them (in Israel now or any other place and time) can be justified either.

so when I say jews problem with non jews are due to their hatred of non jews it does not include stuff lke the holocaust.

Yet it does, apparently, serve as some kind of justification for repeating every one of their enemies' phony and trumped-up accusations against Jews as if these were sound premises for anything, all the while ignoring their enemies' long history of atrocities and treachery and broken promises.

You may find this surprising, but Israelis just aren't that fond of people who've repeatedly tried to kill them all, and have killed a great many of them. This may surprise you too, but I'm not so fond of those people either--or of their apologists. I don't think any of Israel's haters have anyone to blame but themselves if the Israelis spit in their faces. They've been far nicer to you than you deserve as it is.

so you're pro dictatorship :lol:   nice

Got a problem with that? You're pro-dictatorship yourself.

if they don't want to sell us oil they don't have to but I don't see why they wouldn't our money is as good as anyones, well not lately.

Yeah, well, you don't see a lot of things very well through those delusions of yours.

are you saying the iraq war was for oil?

No, but I'll bet you'd like if better if it were, wouldn't you? This war's about killing terrorists and blowing their sanctuaries to bits.

our governments actions in the middle east:  supporting israel,  supporting various dictators, occupying saudi soil fanned the falmes of islamic extremism resulting in the 9/11 attacks, which of course our incompetent (by definition, I'm sure I don;t have to explain to a conservative that the federal government is inneffecitve in all it does) governmetn was helpless to stop.

The Islamists were already determined to do this kind of thing before a single American troop set foot in Saudi Arabia. All this crap about fanning the flames is just a lie they told to gullible dupes like you so that you'd be aid their cause. In this war, as in any other modern conflict, propaganda is a powerful weapon. That you were already under the anarchist delusion that our federal government is to blame for everything bad that happens to America made you that much easier to dupe.

As a conservative, I understand that the fundamental reason we have government is to exercise rational violence against people who do evil to us, i.e. to shoot people like Osama bin Laden and all the other terrorists whose bald-faced lies you keep repeating. As a loyal American, I hold people like you in contempt for your gullibility. You should be ashamed of yourself for being such an easy mark.

the solution isn't to have our government do more STUFF. it's to get out of the middle east completely.  if our government is the only thing that is standing between us and another 9/11,  we have no choice.

No, the solution is to shoot the people who are planning another 9/11, another 7/7, an American Hiroshima. The guns of our military are what stands between you and those terrorists, not your pathetic rationalizations for their atrocities. The only rational response to your complaints is to shun you.

Incidentally, in that Koran you admit you haven't read are numerous passages telling these Muslims to engage in just this kind of treachery. This is called taqqiyeh

I'm sure hitler said the same thing about the jews to justify doing whatever he liked to them.

Hitler said no such thing; there is no taqqiyeh in the Torah. Since you have finally sunk to employing the ad hitlerum fallacy, this argument is over and you have lost.

I don't care if they hate America. I don't care about al queda.  Our ancestors came to this country for freedom and prosperity not to be the worlds police.  let al queda try and set up a caliphate, it will fall just like the last one did.

It will fall, no thanks to you, because we Americans have undertaken to beat it back and undermine it, just as our "interventionist" ancestors in Europe did. If you do not care about Al Qaeda or any of the real threats to our nations from overseas, then those of us who do have every right and reason to shun you for your ingratitude to your protectors and freeloading on the blood and treasure others spent to keep you safe.

Goodbye, Lester. As your ad hitlerum means you have forfeited any right to my attention, I will not read any further posts from you in this thread. If you send me any private messages, I will likewise delete them unread.

[lester1/2jr]

   dude chill it's just a messageboard on the stupid internet.  Anyway for my own self edification

Of course I'm not advocating a "constitutional republic" for any of these states! Their constitutions would quite certainly be just as oppressive and tyrannical as any dictator they'd elect. You talk as if these people would choose liberty if given the chance, but every chance they've gotten so far, these crummy nations have proved this assertion false.

I see, so arab people are by their very NATURE "crummy".  Somehow over the history of the world we have managed to come this far living besides arabs, with a few conflagrations, but now that'schanged and the wolrd isn't big enuogh for both of us.  The arabs I see at MIT, hundreds of them math is emphasied heavily in iranand other places,  are in fact too stupid and evil to do anything but warehouse under martial law.  Which we shuold all pay for out of our tax edollars and which will make us more likely to be victims of another 9/11 style attack.


So in short,  we should perpetually threaten arab people even though it will make us less safe, we can't afford it, and we have no right to do it.  Because they are "crummy".

When I was a boy, Libya used to be one of our more dangerous foes.

when i was boy disco was popular.  now it's not.  getting khadafi to tow the american line is not a great feat.  he had been totally silent since the 80's.  No one cared about khadaffi and he had nothing to do with 9/11 or al queda.

Specifically, the UN comes up whenever one starts discussing the legality of wars and other aspects of foreign policy

i didn't bring it up, nor do i care what the UN thinks about israel theUs or anything.  I don't believe in "legality" .  theo nly legality is the law of the jungle.  legally, we should probably give this country back to the Indians.   In reality, if they want it they have to fight us for it. 

and why you've singled out Israel.

because supporting them is counter to our own interests.  and in supporting t5hem we are forced to support unsavory regimes and essentially foment socialism in an unproductive  region that we should be ignoring.

And again, you're doing yourself no favors pretending Israel's wealth or those other nations' poverty has any bearing on whether Israel deserves the aid

of course it has a bearing!!  why would a rich country need aid??  aid is FOR poverty. 

ecause the NIE is and has been something less than a reliable source

So it's BAD news that it's our best guess that iran DOESN"T have nukes?   We are dafer than we thought we were a week ago.  this is like the liberals who can't accept that the surge is working.

The dynamic as I see it looks something like this:

a cartoon?

riches, I can only be skeptical of that list

it's put out by the heritage foundation.  economists look at it every year and the criteria is fully explained.  yuo can havewealth with little economic freedom.  economic freedom refers to taxes and regulations, which israel has in abundence.

f so, that means they would rather be under Saddam's heel, along with half the world's oil; all the more reason to keep them under ours.

they disagree and it comes back to us in the form of terrorism.

and no further oppression of them (in Israel now or any other place and time) can be justified either.

slavery was wrong.  imprisoning a black person for ro0bbing a bank isn't slavery.  that is all I'm saying.

No, but I'll bet you'd like if better if it were, wouldn't you? This war's about killing terrorists and blowing their sanctuaries to bits.

a l queda wasn't in iraq before the war.  theydon't need a sanctuary,all they need is a bunch of nails and some gunpowder.  you can't fight terrorism the way you are describing.  terrorists are people who want to drive us out of the middle east.  if we aren't there we won't have terrorism.  at all. 

Yes, I am arguing for a USA-backed tyranny--as opposed to a rabidly anti-American totalitarian terrorist theocracy whose god openly demands world domination. I do not share your delusion that any libertarian alternative exists in a nation of people whose minds are so enslaved as the Muslims' are; their worldview/ideology/religion is absolutely devoid of any appreciation for liberty as we understand it here in America.

you know all of them?

As a conservative, I understand that the fundamental reason we have government is to exercise rational violence against people who do evil to us

that's not conservatism that's trotsky-ite communism or jacobinism.  conservatism is the belief is small government and traditional values. 

No, the solution is to shoot the people who are planning another 9/11, another 7/7, an American Hiroshima.

there aren't a finite number of terrorists.  it's a political phenomonon.  anyone could make the choice to become one and any one who is onecan choose not to be the next day.  you can't possibly kill every terrorist as a solution to terrorism.  I now see that alqueda is recruiting caucasian suicide bombers.  are we going to round up all the caucasians now? 

I don't think any of Israel's haters have anyone to blame but themselves if the Israelis spit in their faces.

I'm an american not an israeli.  if you want to help israel go move there.  I don't support them and don't want my tax dollars supporting them. 

Hitler said no such thing; there is no taqqiyeh in the Torah. Since you have finally sunk to employing the ad hitlerum fallacy, this argument is over and you have lost.

sure he did.  you say something like "muslims lie as a second nature.  they have a goal to take over the world and they will do whatever it takes to do this"  and hitler would have said

"jews lying is second nature to them, they have a goal to take over the world and "  on and on.  he demonized and entire religious group unfairly and so are you.

then those of us who do have every right and reason to shun you for your ingratitude to your protectors and freeloading on the blood and treasure others spent to keep you safe.

you need to read the constitution sometime, son.

[Ash]

Hey Lester...
Check out: http://www.marksilverberg.com/

His opinions should rattle your cage a bit.   

He is a Jew...and although I don't agree with everything he writes because he tends to take a hardline stance,...
I do agree with 90% of it.

Take a serious look through what he's written.

What do you think?

[lester1/2jr]

ash- I read plenty of jewish sites, I have no aversion to jewish opinion right or left so no need for the caveat.  philip weiss andPaul Gotfried (liberal and conservative respectively) are more my style but it's all good.  I'm reading "the Nazarene" by Shalom Asch, a book about Christ by a jewish author.  I'm not on any team here.


   mr Silverberg is obviously very versed in his ideology but it's still neo conservatism, a style of thought that has seen decreasing influence since the Iraq war went off the rails. 

   and I'm curious as to his antogonism towards the iran NIE.  if he is an opponent of terrorism, isn't the knowledge that iran doesn't have a nuclear program GOOD news?  Why is he so SURE  it's wrong?

It's almost like he WANTS us to live in fear and paranoid militarism instead of relative peace.

So, i think he has an agenda you could say.