>Z, if everything you are saying is true, then the U.S. has no reason to delay. Go into Palestine, eradicate Arafat and the P.A., and scatter the terrorist groups. Then create a new independent Palestinian state on the terms that such a state should never support terrorism within its borders ever again. What are we waiting for?
I'm not quite sure! I think that it's a combination of two factors. One, of course, is oil. Two, we've sort of played into the hands of the Arab world. There was a conscious effort in the 70s by the Arab states to begin using the issue of Palestinian refugees as pawns to convince the media that Israelis are monsters, abusing the Palestinians. It's worked pretty well. I could actually produce some quotes on this, but they'd be from a book, not from the Web.
>I don't pretend to know the whole story, but I'd be careful before jumping to conclusions one way or the other.
I've done my research. Really. It took me a heckuva long time to come to the conclusions I've come to.
>If the problem is as simple as being centered around one man, then the solution should be as simple as dropping a daisy cutter. That's likely the case with Saddam Insane, but with Palestine, I think the problem extends well beyond Arafat.
Arafat is not the center of the problem. I never said he was. However, Arafat is the person with the most power to be the solution, and he chooses not only not to be the solution, but to further the problem.
The way I see it, there are two ways to solve the problem in the long term. One is to convince Arafat to give up his dream of driving the Jews in Israel into the sea. That seems highly unlikely, yet it would fix a lot relatively quickly. The second would be very arduous, but it would begin by the U.S. and anyone willing to support it threatening any countries supporting terrorism and giving them a deadline to stop doing so, and perhaps specific orders on how to do so. Now, many of these countries feel that they can defeat America with Allah on their side, so the U.S. will have to destroy their regimes. Of course, in some countries, the new regimes will turn out to be nasty ones, so we'll have to take them out too. It'll have to continue until they're convinced of the power of the West.
It all sounds so awful, and it really is, but it's seeming more and more like it's us or them, and I'd much rather we not end up the losers.
-Z |
