935 false statements on Iraq (1 Viewer)

[blackadder]

Because Syria cannto be trusted... I wouldn't pick up the phone either. They still view Lebanon as "Lower Syria".

Again, the Arab league doesn't have legitimate control over terror groups... they can guarentee everything Israel is asking for, and Haamas, Hezbolla or insert your terror group here will continue to attack Israelis until they achieve their goals which may be independent of the leaders of Arab nations' goals and objectives.

When's the last time there was an individual terror attack in Israel by a Palestinian? It's been well over a year.

They have a separation wall that's working. They just needed to build it on the 1967 border and bar Palestinians from entering, instead of snaking the wall through the West Bank so as to effectively annex agricultural fields, water resources and settlements. Then we can move forward. The current wall is an obvious land grab.

They refuse to even discuss what Israel's final borders are because they are not finished "redeeming" the land yet. The process of redemption (i.e. driving off the Arabs) creates homeless and impoverished Arabs who provide a fertile pool for recruitment to terror.

You have only to look at the Israelis in the West Bank to see why an occupation is an ineffective response to terrorism. They've been there 40 years and they still can't control it completely even though they have a massive military advantage. Only building the wall and strictly controlling the movements of the Arabs has had any effect in protecting the civilian population of Israel.

If we were not picking up the tab this policy would have bankrupted Israel, or they might have actually been compelled to make a lasting political compromise instead of opting for permanent occupation and colonization.

 

['79 Saints]

Or Israel would have simply been wiped off the face of the map as the many of the people around it desire.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Or Israel would have simply been wiped off the face of the map as the many of the people around it desire.

Really? Have you looked at the comparative militaries? Have you read the specs on Israel's nuclear capabilities? Who's going to wipe them off the face of the map. Right now, we're funding a socialist experiment that also is expansionist in nature. Israel's economy is fine, they don't need welfare, so what they use it for is social welfare for their citizens and to entice russian emigres to live on Arab land...

 

[blackadder]

Or Israel would have simply been wiped off the face of the map as the many of the people around it desire.

No, it wouldn't have because Israel has always been vastly superior to any combination of surrounding Arab armies and they have had nuclear weapons since the late 1960s -- the ultimate guarantee of survival.

I can point you to declassified intelligence assessments going back to the 1940s that concluded, even in 1948, that it was no contest.

The image of the poor David against the Arab Goliath is carefully cultivated.

But it's not true. The Israelis have always had a distinct advantage.

Only by surprise were Egypt and Syia able to threaten Israel with a defeat in 1973 and that was with massive Soviet assistance. The Israelis had mostly recovered from the initial surprise and once re-supplied by US airlift quickly decimated both Syrian and Egyptian forces.

Now there is no Soviet arms supplier, Egypt and Jordan have formal peace treaties with Israel, Syria is begging for one, we are in the heart of the Middle East and the Arab League as whole has offered peace and normalization of relations.

Who is going to destroy Israel?

Only Israel is interested in keeping up the tension because they thrive on the tension. They need it so they can keep the occupation in place and continue the expansion into the West Bank with a long term goal of a state of Israel that strecthes from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, regardless of what the native Arabs want.

 

['79 Saints]

No, it wouldn't have because Israel has always been vastly superior to any combination of surrounding Arab armies and they have had nuclear weapons since the late 1960s -- the ultimate guarantee of survival.

I can point you to declassified intelligence assessments going back to the 1940s that concluded, even in 1948, that it was no contest.

The image of the poor David against the Arab Goliath is carefully cultivated.

But it's not true. The Israelis have always had a distinct advantage.

Only by surprise were Egypt and Syia able to threaten Israel with a defeat in 1973 and that was with massive Soviet assistance. The Israelis had mostly recovered from the initial surprise and once re-supplied by US airlift quickly decimated both Syrian and Egyptian forces.

Now there is no Soviet arms supplier, Egypt and Jordan have formal peace treaties with Israel, Syria is begging for one, we are in the heart of the Middle East and the Arab League as whole has offered peace and normalization of relations.

Who is going to destroy Israel?

Only Israel is interested in keeping up the tension because they thrive on the tension. They need it so they can keep the occupation in place and continue the expansion into the West Bank with a long term goal of a state of Israel that strecthes from the Jordan to the Mediterranean, regardless of what the native Arabs want.

The point I was making was that Israel's military might comes directly from the United States. If the United States were to cut off all aid, or take back much of the miltary support we had given to them over the decades, Israel would soon lose whatever advantage they had over Arab nations.

Egypt and Jordan no longer have conflicts with Israel because of said treaties and agreements. There are no longer Israeli troops stationed on the border looking for Egyptian forces mobilizing against Israel.

Israel does not thrive on the tension. Quite frankly, they are sick of it. When UN forces began to drive Saddam's armies out of Kuwaitt, who did Saddam shoot his scud missiles at? Israel. Not the forces amassed outside of Kuwait. Why? To draw the Israelis into the conflict and divide the Arab forces against Saddam.

I'm not saying that it would work, but that was Saddam's intentions.

I don't have a problem with Israel establishing its borders from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean if it provides them with the security and stability they need to survive.

The problem is, Hezbolla -which is the extention of Syria and Haamas do not want Israel in Palenstine. I thought there was real hope for Lebanon when the Lebanese people finally stood up to Hezbolla and demanded that Syria leave their country. However, that quickly faded away...

Israel has done what is necessary to withdraw from the occupied territories... and there is no law preventing Arabs from living in Israel (indeed, a comment has been that the population growth in Israel by Arabs may make Jews a minority in their own country -which is why they have been enticing Russian Jews to come to Israel.

However, there is a desire among the more fanatical to drive all Jews from the Muslim Holy City of Jerusalem (the other cities being Mecca and Medina), so that gets factored into discussions as to what should constitute the borders of Israel (some Israelites have suggested making Jerusalem their capital, as opposed to Tel Aviv, which only enflames this aspect of the debate).

Of course, a lot of the West's policies toward Israel stem from Western guilt over the Holocaust -so to expect a fundamental change probably won't happen.

I still disagree with your assertions over who was the aggressor in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, because as you stated, it is a mixed POV. If someone kept telling you things to the point that you take a swing at them -yes you threw the first punch, however if your opponent hadn't baited you into that swing, would you have done it in the first place?

If Syria (whom I don't trust in the least) and the Arab League guarentee Israel's stability and protection by going after their own citizens who engage in terrorist acts or fund terrorist groups, then I'd be shocked if Israel remained in any of the occupied territories.

But as I stated earlier, these leaders now have a monster they cannot control, so they feed it to preserve their own political survival. Bin Laden has stated that he wishes to depose the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and the extreme elements of Haamas continue to be a problem for the PLO in Palenstine. Add to the mix Iran's support of Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq, and one sees that there is much to be gained by multiple parties to keep tensions high in the Middle East.

Rightly or wrongly, I perceive these comments about Israel to be in the terms of "if we just got the hell out of there, we wouldn't have these problems"... which strikes me as isolationist.

I know you aren't advocating that position, but rather not being so one-sided on the Israel's behalf in dealing with problems in the Middle East.

 

[blackadder]

The point I was making was that Israel's military might comes directly from the United States. If the United States were to cut off all aid, or take back much of the miltary support we had given to them over the decades, Israel would soon lose whatever advantage they had over Arab nations.

Egypt and Jordan no longer have conflicts with Israel because of said treaties and agreements. There are no longer Israeli troops stationed on the border looking for Egyptian forces mobilizing against Israel.

Israel does not thrive on the tension. Quite frankly, they are sick of it. When UN forces began to drive Saddam's armies out of Kuwaitt, who did Saddam shoot his scud missiles at? Israel. Not the forces amassed outside of Kuwait. Why? To draw the Israelis into the conflict and divide the Arab forces against Saddam.

I'm not saying that it would work, but that was Saddam's intentions.

I don't have a problem with Israel establishing its borders from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean if it provides them with the security and stability they need to survive.

The problem is, Hezbolla -which is the extention of Syria and Haamas do not want Israel in Palenstine. I thought there was real hope for Lebanon when the Lebanese people finally stood up to Hezbolla and demanded that Syria leave their country. However, that quickly faded away...

Israel has done what is necessary to withdraw from the occupied territories... and there is no law preventing Arabs from living in Israel (indeed, a comment has been that the population growth in Israel by Arabs may make Jews a minority in their own country -which is why they have been enticing Russian Jews to come to Israel.

However, there is a desire among the more fanatical to drive all Jews from the Muslim Holy City of Jerusalem (the other cities being Mecca and Medina), so that gets factored into discussions as to what should constitute the borders of Israel (some Israelites have suggested making Jerusalem their capital, as opposed to Tel Aviv, which only enflames this aspect of the debate).

Of course, a lot of the West's policies toward Israel stem from Western guilt over the Holocaust -so to expect a fundamental change probably won't happen.

I still disagree with your assertions over who was the aggressor in the Arab-Israeli conflicts, because as you stated, it is a mixed POV. If someone kept telling you things to the point that you take a swing at them -yes you threw the first punch, however if your opponent hadn't baited you into that swing, would you have done it in the first place?

If Syria (whom I don't trust in the least) and the Arab League guarentee Israel's stability and protection by going after their own citizens who engage in terrorist acts or fund terrorist groups, then I'd be shocked if Israel remained in any of the occupied territories.

But as I stated earlier, these leaders now have a monster they cannot control, so they feed it to preserve their own political survival. Bin Laden has stated that he wishes to depose the royal family of Saudi Arabia, and the extreme elements of Haamas continue to be a problem for the PLO in Palenstine. Add to the mix Iran's support of Shi'ite insurgents in Iraq, and one sees that there is much to be gained by multiple parties to keep tensions high in the Middle East.

Rightly or wrongly, I perceive these comments about Israel to be in the terms of "if we just got the hell out of there, we wouldn't have these problems"... which strikes me as isolationist.

I know you aren't advocating that position, but rather not being so one-sided on the Israel's behalf in dealing with problems in the Middle East.

All I need to know about the situation is contained in the following quotes:

From the Balfour declaration:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine..."

The unilateral declaration of independence of "Israel" of the Zionist authorities in conjunction with Plan Daleth pretty much, by definition, "prejudiced the civil and religious rights" of the majority Arab population. Nobody -- Arab, Jew, Englishman or Muslim or Hindu or Christian would roll over quietly for that.

With regards to the game Israel plays with the surrounding Arabs, from the impeccable source Moshe Dayan regarding 1967:

...many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] 'They didn't even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.

And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.'" The New York Times, May 11, 1997

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan

There's about a gazillion more such documented statements from major players that echo that...

When you are talking about the official and popular history of Israel as compared to reality, black is white and up is down.

As for the term "isolationist," it has been used incorrectly and pejoratively for over 60 years by the interventionist crowd. There is a huge difference between isolationism and non-interventionism.

The United States has never been isolationist. It's a myth. Isolationism implies economic autarky and essentially closed borders, maybe something closer to N. Korea or the old Soviet Union (minus the global political involvement). That has never been us.

We just used to pick our battles much better.

 

[BullDawg]

I haven't read anything but the last page here. And as is the EE norm, Iraq has somehow morphed into Israel. Hey...they're both in the same general neighborhood and both start with "I" so I guess it's kosher (ta-ta-ta-boom). But false statement...or at least false impression...936 - Iraq is a hot and dry place. Bull (not dawg). Right now it's cold and the whole damn place seems to be a slimy mud pit.

You wanna know what sucks? Maybe more than the daily mortar/rocket attacks that I'm pretty much already numb to 3 days on station? I couldn't use my BullDawg callsign I've used for the past 18 years.

Pardon me while I do the slip and slide and try to find a spot to eat at the D-FAC.

MSgt "Rat Fink" Preston out.

 

[blackadder]

I haven't read anything but the last page here. And as is the EE norm, Iraq has somehow morphed into Israel. Hey...they're both in the same general neighborhood and both start with "I" so I guess it's kosher (ta-ta-ta-boom). But false statement...or at least false impression...936 - Iraq is a hot and dry place. Bull (not dawg). Right now it's cold and the whole damn place seems to be a slimy mud pit.

You wanna know what sucks? Maybe more than the daily mortar/rocket attacks that I'm pretty much already numb to 3 days on station? I couldn't use my BullDawg callsign I've used for the past 18 years.

Pardon me while I do the slip and slide and try to find a spot to eat at the D-FAC.

MSgt "Rat Fink" Preston out.

Stay safe.