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

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (25540)	4/16/2002 5:39:31 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Hawkmoon; Re: "Actually, that was not the case until around 1969 or so.. Prior to 1967, Israel was primarily supported by the Germans, French, and Brits (presumably because they preferred having Jews live elsewhere than in Europe)." The Egyptian peace was signed in 1979. That means that for 10 years the US supported Israel. I think that's consistent with what I wrote: "Well, maybe the US sends the money to Egypt for that reason, but the US was supporting Israel long before they signed a peace with Egypt." Re: "We can go over and spend $10 Billion on blowing up the Taliban and those who orchestrated 9/11, but the Israelis don't have the same right to go after Arafat's terrorist regime?" I have never made any statement as to what Israel's rights are. As far as I can tell, in international relations, might makes right. It's my observation that, over the long term looking into the future, Israel does not have enough might. But this topic of conversation avoids the real issue. There is no question that the Palestinians and the Israelis are going to continue fighting. Asking about who is the moral side is pointless, they will fight no matter what we decide. We have control only over what our own actions are. The question we must answer is whether or not we should intervene in the conflict. By "intervene" I mean give money or weapons to the participants, or even shout encouragement from the sidelines. Don't give me the BS that if one side is the more moral we have a moral duty to support it. Also don't give me the BS that if we don't save the more moral side we will have doomed ourselves, or even reduced our strength, in the "wider conflict". We have already violated the principle of supporting the "right" side continually throughout our history and so has every other state (but worse). As an example, when the Soviet Union crushed the emergent rebellions in -- fill in name of favorite East European country here -- we didn't send troops or money to the rebels. Why? The reason is obvious. It was a situation that was so unbalanced, in terms of might, that we could not reverse the balance. But when the Soviet Union got into Afghanistan, the situation was not so unbalanced, and we did provide guns and money to the side that was "right". Despite this pragmatism in our fight with the Soviet Union we still won. Similarly, our fight with Japan and Germany used pragmatism to decide which islands or states to invade or support. This country was not so stupid militarily that it destroyed its naval forces trying to keep the Japanese off of Wake Island. In wartime, there are priorities. Our first priority is our homeland. With regard to Islamofascism, our first priority is to avoid having the Moslem world unite. That is the most important principle. Anyone who has read history, or fought simulations of wars, soon discovers that pragmatism is what wins conflicts. Thinking too much about morality during a conflict contributes to fuzzy thinking that loses. The way that you kill an enemy army is to create a situation where it is hopeless for him to attack, but where he is tempted to continue to fight. The small unit equivalent is a kill zone. Israel is that lost cause for us. For the Germans in WW2 it was Stalingrad. For Athens it was Pyrrhus. -- Carl