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: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97977)	5/12/2003 12:50:02 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Which sounds to me like approval of Israel's policy of "targetted assassination", applied to Arafat. If she really meant "waiting till Arafat dies of natural causes", perhaps she could clarify. That's not what it sounded like she was advocating. You're right Jacob. I wish for Arafat to die, soon, and if he dies violently at Israeli hands, my only concern will be for the political repurcussions. Every day that man survives, more innocents die. The bombing at Mike's Cafe last week was carried out by terrorists he's sheltering in Ramallah and at his order. I feel no more guilt at wishing for Arafat's death than I do in wishing for Saddam Hussein's. I still think it was a failure of Israeli nerve (though probably they had good reasons, meaning American ones, for not doing it) not to kill or exile Arafat before this. Because of the miserable Arab tendency to stick with even the most horrible leader who knows how to manipulate tribal power structures, everything is intractably stuck while Arafat remains alive.

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (97977)	5/12/2003 8:33:04 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Perhaps you could clarify: do you support "targetted assassinations", as a solution to political or military conflicts ? And if so, applied to who ? OK, I have never said I supported rocket attacks against a Palestinian terrorist in a getaway car mingled with the public, ever. I have stated several times that I oppose the death penalty in this country, and am satisfied that Charles Manson is out of circulation, nor could care less if he didn't get the death penalty; the same could have gone for McVeigh or any others of a long list. I wouldn't even care if OBL had been captured and put in a US jail cell for life, as long as the head is cut off that terrorist organization. Revenge won't being back our dead, but neutralization of the perpetrators will prevent further killing of innocent citizens. However - what was the Afghan invasion, but a "targeted killing" ? The US is "permitted" to bomb the Shiite out of Afghanistan in retaliation for the use of that country as a base of terrorist operations. When Israel has suffered similar percentage overall death tolls among their civilian population from terrorist attacks, everyone puffs their cheeks in indignation if they carry out military actions. The world's favorite whipping boy. All these dictatorships that have crumbled under their own weight, I have to ask just how many generations of Russians was that since the Bolchevek revolution that they had to wait for Communism in that country to crumble, and at what cost in civilian deaths in the goulags and other purges ? Last I hear, Stalin died peacefully in power. The government in South Africa was not nearly on the same plane as Iraq or North Korea, it's apples and oranges to cite that as a meaningful datapoint. In general dictators don't step down. Not only must Arafat go, but it will take an entire generation of deprogramming among Palestinians to get it out of their heads that their only option is to kill all Jews in the region. On this thread the problem multi generational long running social dysfunction poses to formation of any kind of democracy was raised. The problem is very bad in Iraq, but far worse for Palestinians because they have been manipulated now ever since the formation of Israel over 50 years ago as a proxy battle against Jews. That territorial dispute is in fact nobody else's business in the world but the constant outside meddling and news media reporting has simply made the problem orders of magnitude worse for those living in the region itself. Without all that, they would have most likely reached a peaceful settlement among themselves long ago. Does anyone have any data on how many Palestinians have been naturalized as American (or French, etc) citizens, versus how many have been even allowed into other Arab states ?