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Joined: May 2001
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Mrenaud,
Neither did I mean any personal offence, even though the tone of my last post was pretty angry. I still feel a white hot anger whenever I think about 9/11. It's a very good thing I was not president or who knows what we would be now, perhaps only a glowing cinder orbiting a third rate star.
I do not approve of a World Court, nor a United Nations for that matter, am not certain how a European Union will ever work. Sovereignty at the nation state level seems about as far as human beings have progressed so far. Having informal groupings of states is one thing, one global state is another. There is still within man something terrible which Nietzsche called "the will to power" that when carried to the level of some majestic planetary potentate would surely drive any man mad with power and spell ruin for the rest of mankind.
As for war crimes, this too is a subjective matter. Only the winners in any conflict get to punish the war crimes of the losers. Military people are specifically trained to kill people and break things. When one gets them involved in anything, even or especially in "peace keeping," one is running the risk that their police activities will become warlike, as they are not the same as a local police force whose members may know and are known by the local inhabitants they are supposed to be policing.
It is wrong to use military people for anything but warlike activities. The continual use of them by stupid politicians everywhere for peacekeeping is a case of wishful thinking or applying the law of unintended consequences. One thing that irritates me constantly is people's wishful thinking. They would like to think that good intentions are all that it takes to bring about a fundamental change in relations between one group and another. For example, there are only two solutions I see to the problems involving Israel and the Palestinian Arabs; either Israel gets all its ancient territory and any Arabs who remain must know that they are living as guests in a Jewish state, or the state of Israel and a good many Jews must be destroyed. Since the latter is not about to happen, we must inevitably come to the former as the inevitable solution whether it takes ten years or 100 years or 1,000 years.
In 1949, the war which established the state of Israel was artificially ended and the borders were artificially drawn, as they were by the European powers after World War I for the rest of the Middle East. Nobody was content with them, which resulted in many more wars. If a sovereign Palestinian state is declared by fiat as George W. Bush and others seem ready to do, then an attack on it becomes an immediate provocation for another war. All it will take is another suicide bomber to blow himself up inside Israel and Israel will react.
There is a growing cynicism, among the American people themselves, and it may reach all the way to the top of the current American government, that all we need do is declare a Palestinian Arab state, in similar fashion as we declared a new government in Afghanistan after routing the Taliban, and then back away and "let them sort it out." We believe that the terrorists are just a radical fringe, that most Palestinian Arabs are "moderates," that someone among them will be more reasonable. All this is wishful thinking at best and cold blooded malice at worst.
Since the basic issues of land and sovereignty have not been settled through the proper historical instrument of war, it will take another war to finally settle the occupation of Palestine.
Meanwhile as long as matters involving soldiers "war crimes" are being brought up, how about these questions:
How come it is a truism that the differences between rich and poor in the Arab world are, in a far more real sense, actual living conditions, far greater than in any developed country including the United States?
Why don't the wealthy emirs, etc. do something to materially better the lot of their poor brethren?
How is it that these same well to do people often sponsor terrorists rather than supporting a real welfare system for their citizens?
What idea or world view is to blame for this atrocious situation?
How is it that these Arab royals can see fit to so lavishly do everything that is not permitted by their own religion outside their own countries with the cynical explanation that "Allah does not see us here?"
How is it that the rest of the civilized world cannot reach the conclusion that, in some cases, where worldwide destruction is a potential, that colonial rule isn't such a bad idea for those who seem not to be able to govern themselves according to our standards?
And tell me why is there so much obnoxious and misplaced guilt about some countries and cultures not being able to tell all the world that they are in fact better than others, especially when those who are voting with their feet trying to get into Europe and America have no difficulty with these ideas?
The French have seemingly little guilt about theirs. Scratch an Englishman and he'll still tell you he thinks the English the best. Americans aren't sure of much except one thing; if the rest of the world makes too much trouble for us, most of us would like to go home and close our doors against the rest of the world. This wont happen of course. But what will happen?
Another great war in the Middle East possibly this time with an exchange of nuclear weapons. I look for Egypt or Syria, possibly both to be casualties. The rivers of blood that may flow are unimaginable. If it matters, which I doubt, what started it? It started in Europe with the inexcusable treatment of the Jews, not just by the Germans either, as all of Europe has an anti-Jewish streak running through it. After the holocaust, these people had nothing else to do but go back to their traditional homeland and make a last stand. And that's what they have done. And believe me as Menachem Began said, "never again" will they allow themselves to be beaten down and annihilated.
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,798
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Today, I watched the Palestinian woman revel in her son's martyrdom after blowing himself up along with many others. She said she was waiting for the pieces of her son to be brought back to her so she could look upon him one last time and rejoice in sending her son to Allah a martyr. Two thoughts came immediately to mind:
1) There is no possibility of reasoning with such people and
2) Are we going to have to kill every one of them?
Hard thoughts but where is the room for compromise in their position? Their hatred of Israel and us is not going to end no matter how much we try to salve their hatred. Anyone who believes that these people will be satisfied with anything short of our complete annihilation is engaging in wishful thinking.
Better to light one small candle than to curse the %&#$@#! darkness. :t:
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mrenaud, in reading your opinions I am struck by your premise that logic, rational thinking, reasonable exchange, compromise, etc. are all possible. This is what I perceive as a flaw in your hope to find a solution. You fail to realize that the Moslem fundamentalists are not like you, do not have the same values, background, education, perceptions, and that they have no reason to discuss anything with you (by "you" I am referring in effect, to the West). You would be totally right in many things you say, IF you were sitting around a table with the Moslem world, and they had the same or similar background as you, where everyone could agree on concepts such as "progress," "rights," "liberty," and. . . "religious freedom."
Fundamentalist radical Moslem ideology knows no limits or bounds to their belief. Therefor, there is NO DISCUSSION POSSIBLE. You are either a Moslem, or an infidel. No gray area, no middle area, no arguments. If you (the West, or anywhere else too I suppose) are not Moslem, that in itself is complete justification for extermination. Simple, but horrible, since it means dialogue is useless. That's the most scary part of it all -- we have an enemy that has no basis or need for any sort of compromise. They can't compromise, it is contrary to the essence of fundamentalist belief!
As angry and sad as the continuous terrorist bombings in Israel make me, I do have a solution, or at least something I'd try, though I have not convinced myself that this would really help:
When a young Moslem extremest blows himself/herself up in Israel, the Israelies should mandate that all relatives of the attacker should be either executed, or face something like life in jail. Perhaps then, the "grieving mother" of the terrorist might change her glorious praise of her son as a martyr, if she knew that because of his actions, the entire family would be rounded up and sent to prison. Maybe dear 'ol mom would think of intervening, and just to save her own skin (and her loved-ones), do anything to keep her martyr-to-be son from carrying out his actions. Might put a bit of a damper on their "kill all Americans" educational system as well, since the cost for being a martyr-hero would have consequences for the entire immediate family.
Just my 2.5 cents worth above, no flames, hardly any smoke. . .
:p
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 9,798
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9000 Post Club Member
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Better to light one small candle than to curse the %&#$@#! darkness. :t:
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Learning
by Stephen_James - 04/17/24 10:36 AM
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