Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: William B. Kohn who wrote (25299)	4/15/2002 10:19:14 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

i believe it and i believe it is not racist. I don't know what you are, Bill, but that type of attack just does not go here.

To: William B. Kohn who wrote (25299)	4/15/2002 12:34:03 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Well, I think your comments reflect a misplaced causality for the Arab on Arab violence.. It's not that they "like" to kill one another, but that they have a history of inter-tribal warfare that extends back hundreds of years, and in other forms, continues today. The Saudis beat out the Hashemites for control of Arabia, and the Baathists beat out the Hashemites in Iraq.... Basically all of these Arab leaders would like to "unify" the Arab world under their own leadership. So they fight one another, bickering and plotting the demise of the very same people they call "brother" in public... And when they find a common enemy, they will put off their disputes and fight against it, resuming the inter-tribal fued once the enemy is vanquished (or they get their teeth kicked in)... So right now, every Arab leader wants to play up the Anti-Israeli (and to an extent anti-US) rhetoric, as it advances their prestige in front of the entire Arab world... But one more aspect I think should merit some note, is that Arab tribes have seldom engaged in total war. They've never tasted it, IMO. They've never had their cities and infrastructure utterly destroyed, as have Japan and Germany (and France and Britain to a lesser degree). The Arab concept of war is like having a marital spat. They will fight, lose some men, but neither side will wish to fully engage to the point of totally destroying the other side. They just want to dominate them, not wipe them out. I think a taste of total war is probably on the horizon. The rhetoric coming from the Arab world certainly warrants hostile retaliation and sanctions. But we're too "understanding" and tolerant of their intolerance, treating them like a resentful step-child throwing a tantrum, figuring eventually they'll get it out of their systems and "settle down". But 9/11 was a wake up call, comparable to our hateful little step-child sneaking into our bedrooms one night and stabbing us in our sleep. Well, we're awake now... and we're considering which one of our step-children deserves to be merely reprimanded, spanked, or beaten to within an inch of their life. For all of their wealth, or self-proclaimed culture, the Arab world is relatively new to the complexities of modern economic and political life, having really only engaged in it since after WWII, and then as a subject colony of greater powers. They're "feeling their oats" and seeing what they can get away with, as well as facing awesome domestic demographic and economic pressures... So I don't accept a racist interpretation of what history records as a reality. The question is whether they, or whether the Arab people as a whole, are willing to carry it to the point of total war. Maybe only when faced with such a prospect and the potential of being "conquered" again, will they see some reason. But right now they have a blood fever... A fever that their reckless leaders are inciting, for fear of being overthrown themselves. Btw, you're quite right with regard to how King Hussein of Jordan "dealth with" the PLO during "black september". No different that Sabra and Shatila. And then their the "special touch" Assad applied when he utterly destroyed a town of 20,000 people and killed them all, merely to suppress an internal revolt. Hawk