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

To: Bilow who wrote (54479)	10/24/2002 4:30:46 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

>>Hi John Cavanaugh; Re: "... such animus is largely the product of self-interested manipulation by various groups within Arab society ..." I agree with this statement. But the fact is that the reason that the animus is so easily manipulated is because of photographs on Al Jazeera TV that show US made weapons being used to keep Palestinians under Israeli boots. So how much evidence does "self-interested manipulation" need to feed on? A little goes a long way when you're making propaganda, and if you find yourself running short of evidence, you can always make some. In fact, the self-interested forces so badly needed the US to be their opponent -- only so great an enemy justifies their own failures -- that Nasser began claiming that the US had fought for Israel in 1967, before we even sold any arms to Israel. If the will to make the propaganda is there, removing evidence will not improve matters.

To: Bilow who wrote (54479)	10/24/2002 4:38:15 PM
From: aladin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Carl, Thats a stretch, the Israeli's also use French weaponry while the Egyptian, Saudi and Gulf State forces use American weapons. Whats not reported by these Arabs is that US aid to Arab states exceeds aid to Israel. The criticism in Egypt is the most hypocritical. Add that to European aid for Israel and for Arab and Palestinian causes and the Arabs have a decided aid advantage. John

To: Bilow who wrote (54479)	10/24/2002 4:39:45 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>> disengaging from the Middle East cannot eliminate the terror problem, but can only reduce it<< Maybe so but we can't disengage from the Middle East. No matter how much Buchanan and you piss and moan about it, the EU and Japan are just as dependent on oil as we are, and nobody is walking away from that. Since we can't disengage from the Middle East, we have to engage it well. Oil is a commodity. In an ideal world, buying oil would be a business transaction, like buying food. But the governments of the Middle East figured out they had some economic leverage and are using that to bootstrap political leverage. Lucky for us, no one country is the only game in town so we can play them against each other. But we can't walk away.