A Plan for Peace in Three Parts - Part III

[Billy_Saul]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

Playing the world policeman is............................ ............... .............................. .............................. ............ isn't even human. They care for nothing.

time to investigate the ignore feature

[theaustinescorts]

And while you're ignoring there are millions in the Arab world taking to the streets in events which will change your life for the worse.

While it's happening though you will be sitting at your stock ticker trying to make a buck through speculation.

[nuglet]

Well, at least HE is using his talent/education. You on the other hand... uh, what is it that you do? Oh yeah..

[Booth]

Originally Posted by theaustinescorts

And while you're ignoring there are millions in the Arab world taking to the streets in events which will change your life for the worse.

While it's happening though you will be sitting at your stock ticker trying to make a buck through speculation.

Ignoring what? I doubt if anyone reading this ridiculous thread is ignoring the events taking place in the Middle East and Egypt today. What people are ignoring are your insane suggestions.

[S O B]

FREE PALESTINE

[DRorchia]

Instead of dismantling the Jewish state, my vote goes toward dismantling the United Nations instead. You may think military force is obsolete however it worked just fine in the first Gulf war and the Invasion of Iraq. It's the "nation building" that we always try to accomplish afterwards that are our failures. So maybe we should not try to rebuild what needs destroying.

[theaustinescorts]

"Dismantling the Jewish state?" I don't think so. That's the opposite of what I said.

The only thing that needs to happen in Israel is for it's name to be changed and it's Constitution to include a clause separating church from state as the United States Constitution does. Are you now attacking this aspect of our Constitution?

Military force is NOT obsolete, and is the right tool under the right circumstances, but these are not the right circumstances.

When you're trying to control a country whose population is opposed to you conventional weapons won't help. The British Crown learned that in Boston in 1776. The United States learned that in Vietnam. The Russians learned that in Afghanistan, etc...

Without the nation-building part we couldn't stay there, and if we're not going to stay there's no reason to attack in the first place.

Occupations are always messy.

As for the UN, why would you favor disposing of it when it serves the US interests 99% of the time?

It was the UN Security Council who gave their approval to the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq on two occasions, etc. Why would you want to lose that? If anything I'm the one who wishes the UN would dissappear, but as long as it's going to be around we might as well use it.

There are very few situations where the UN does anything the US doesn't like, and those are meaningless antics on the General Assembly floor which have nothing to do with the Security Council.

[DRorchia]

I'm pretty sure we would have taken the war to Japan and Germany whether or not we planned on staying there afterwards. The fact is, both countries had an ideology that posed a direct threat to the United States. The war in Japan ended when they were forced to choose between their ideology and their survival as a people and as a nation. Two atomic bombs convinced them their survival meant more than holding on to their ideology. Germany was dealt with in much the same way minus the nukes. If you would have gotten to see most German cities after WW2, many were little more than rubble. We brought complete and other destruction to them.
Helping them rebuild afterwards was seen as beneficial to us in the long run.

[theaustinescorts]

Of course, but those two countries surrendered to us.

The governments we attacked in Iraq and Afghanistan never surrendered.

There lies the problem.

All we did was displace the governments in Afghanistan and Iraq with our alternatives, but those constituting the former governments kept on fighting.

In Iraq we had the chance to include their military and Baath party members into our new government but we refused to do that. That's what brought about the bloody occupation.

In Afghanistan we are only now seeking to bring the Taliban into the government, and only because we're under the gun to leave and have run out of time.

In terms of the effect of the atomic bombs on Japan they actually didn't surrender until we bombed Tokyo again AFTER the two atom bombs were used. They were in the process of surrender anyway and the use of the atom bombs didn't trigger it as most people here believe. After the two atom bombs were used the surrender didn't come, so the conventional bombing campaign was resumed, and THAT'S when the surrender finally came. To the Japanese what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was no worse than what had happened already from firebombing to 20 other cities. In fact they couldn't even figure out what had happened.

Here's another fact about that. There were survivors from Hiroshima that were evacuated to Nagasaki. They were nuked twice and some still survived. How's that for luck?

[DRorchia]

I actually just watched a program describing the survivors who had been nuked twice. Definitely not your week when you wind up in two separate cities that are nuked. We never brought the destruction to Iraq or Afghanistan that we visited on countries in WW2.

[DRorchia]

TAE,

Egypt's intelligence chief, now appointed as Egypt's vice president recently made these statements:
In an April 2009 meeting between Suleiman and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Suleiman, the cable says, "explained that his overarching regional goal was combating radicalism, especially in Gaza, Iran, and Sudan."
The cable reports that Suleiman said Egypt must "confront" Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to Gaza and quotes him saying "a Gaza in the hands of radicals will never be calm."

Given the recent bombing of a Christian church in Egypt, do you honestly believe that radicals in "Palestine" will ever renounce violence and attacks on other countries?

You've stated in the past that our support of Israel is one of the problems. So do we need to stop supporting Egypt as well? Should we let radical regimes and organizations dictate who our allies should be.

In my opinion, even if we gave the Palestinians their own country, it would do nothing to diminish outside influences. Iran has it's own agenda in the middle east. If Palestine was ruled by Palestinians, it would simply carry out Iran's bidding. Hamas is a perfect example of this. Assuming that Egypt somehow installs a government that is still friendly toward the U.S., it would become the next target for the Iranians and Palestinians. Iran will only accept neighbors that are as radical in their views as their current leadership is. They will continue to undermine the political stability of any country that doesn't go along.

[S O B]

DTorchia, Give Palestine their own country? We, thru the UN created Israeli state out of Palestine. Israels expansionist policies are genocidal. Watch "Life in occupied Palestine" www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com. The created out of thin air state of Israel is a thorn in arabs consious. Dismantel it now! Support Egypt to keep a presence in the Middle East. , if you must. No false state of Israel=no conflict over territory-religous views about purported "holy land" from either side.

[DRorchia]

Originally Posted by S O B

DTorchia, Give Palestine their own country? We, thru the UN created Israeli state out of Palestine. Israels expansionist policies are genocidal. Watch "Life in occupied Palestine" www.AnnaInTheMiddleEast.com. The created out of thin air state of Israel is a thorn in arabs consious. Dismantel it now! Support Egypt to keep a presence in the Middle East. , if you must. CJ Weapons

We've had this discussion before. "Palestine" was an area, it was never a recognized country. As I mentioned to you before, if you research hundreds of travelers accounts through the area, it was a vastness of nothing for a long, long time. Israel made something out of this barren land that the arabs for hundreds of years were too lazy to do anything with. Your suggestion to dismantle Israel (won't happen) does not address the issue of Islamic radicalism which the Iranian government, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt all support.
In other words, religion alone is not the issue. As I stated in a previous post, even if you dismantle Israel....who's next once a radical Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Syria combine to impose their will on other Middle East nations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait etc? At the end of the day, until we are free of our dependency on mid-east oil, we have a vital interest from letting the entire region fall under Islamic radical rule. You only have to read Ahmadinejad's views on Islam and it's place in the world to realize that he has no plans on stopping with the destruction of Israel. His goals are far further reaching than that. After spending the last 6 years in "the sandbox", speaking to Muslims on a daily basis, I have no delusions of how they view the West. Israel is only one small part of their hatred.
http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2011/01...-is-the-enemy/

[DRorchia]

....and since this is a "hobby" site.....maybe we should explore the extreme insecurities so many arab males seem to suffer from....just one of the reasons why they feel the need to cover their women from head to toe. The best thing that could possibly happen to the middle east is a 1960's USA style sexual awakening/revolution. Stand up middle eastern women for your sexual right of satisfaction!!! Peace would then be right around the corner!

[theaustinescorts]

I believe addressing the problem of how Israel came about will defuse the majority of our problems over there. Whether you agree with Israel's right to exist or not, this issue is the major thing our enemies use to sway opinion against us. Until Israel becomes a secular government like our own this will continue.

In terms of Iran, they are not the problem they once were [despite much hype to the contrary]. My first and only peer-reviewed publication [1983] was actually a polemic arguing that we should support Iraq against Iran because of their revolutionary threat to the region. There was a lot of that kind of propaganda [and I do admit it was propaganda] of that kind during the Iran-Iraq war.

But the truth about Iran is much more subtle and intelligent than the melodrama the public sees on the news. For one thing they have cooperated with Israel in major ways, even since the Iranian revolution in 1979. Scholar Tritit Parsi's book "Treacherous Alliance" is the best history of this. Iran supports Hezbollah as a tool to use against Israel when it suits them. It's their big stick to use when speaking softly fails to get Israel's attention. Iran's leaders are classic operators of "Realpolitik," and their interests always prevail over the ideological blather they spew out for public consumption.

Time will see who eventually controls Egypt. Like Tunisia, the establishment there will seek to install one of their own agreeable to themselves and outsiders, but the Arab street will revolt against that. If democratic elections were held in any of these countries I believe something sympathetic to al-Qaeda would win. I remember in 1989 when King Hussein in Jordan held "experimental" elections all the Islamists won and he had to cancel the whole thing. It's very much like our problem in Vietnam, which started after we had to cancel the 1956 election because our poles showed that 83% of the voters intended to vote for the communists.

I believe when public opinion in far away countries is solidly against us we should reconsider our interests and commitments. I think we should let other peoples' make their own mistakes. We should be a "well-wisher" to others like George Washington said, but we should not spill our blood or spend our treasure.

In places that are much closer though, like Mexico for example, maybe we should be more active. Influencing our own sphere has been our tradition, and maybe we should return to that.