Well, Carl, once again you're missing the point. You wrote:
If you want to make US citizens safe from Arab terrorism, simply quit supporting Israel militarily, and instead treat the Arab nations on an equal footing with Israel.
And I said,it ain't going to happen because Israel is a democracy and most Arab states are tyranical failures. Furthermore, I said even if the US does stop supporting Israel militarily it will still the object of Arab/Muslim terrorism because it's the world's largest exemplar of modernity and I have to say your response to that is absurd - I'll get to that later.
You went off on a tirade about WMDs and the US administration. This support of Isarel is a matter larger than the present US administration and has nothhing to do with WMDs and I'm sure you know this, so I don't appreciate your effort to deflect my point to one you choose which is not related to what I'm talking about.
The US is not going to sacrifice a democracy for the sake of the self regard of the tyrants running Syria, Saudi Arabia or that of the demi-tyrant running Egypt and for sure, not those of the monsters running Iran. Like I said, it ain't going to happen.
In response to this I get crap about Iraq, which, the last time I looked at a map, is not Israel. Finally you get to Israel.
Your comment:
Hey, want to see a tyrannical failure? Go look at how the Israelis treat their Arab minorities. Fair? How about this: It's illegal for Jews to marry non Jews in Israel.
I never said the place was perfect. It's just a damn sight better than those Arab countries. There is huge disagreement in Isarel about this stuff as you know, and I believe the majority of Israelis don't like the marriage laws which will be changed when the Parliament finally manages to agree on it. (It's basically there because of Israel's dumb proprotional representation system). It's a red herring you're running past me again.
As far as I can tell from the bit of polling I can find, which is mostly of Palestinians, Arab folk actually think Israel has better political arrangements than their own countries do. Israelis do treat their Palestinian minority a hell of a sight better than Hussein's regime treated its Asssyrians, Turkomans, Kurds, etc and much better than Saudis do their Shia minority and the Egyptians their Copts.
I think the Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the territory won in defense of Israel is very poor, and by their own admission 90% of them think they're definitely in an ethical morass in this regard and they're finding it damn difficult to work out a solution.
Re: Some "liberal democracy" you've chosen for us to be allies with. In Iraq, everyone is (was) free to marry whoever they want, but in Israel you have to follow Jewish religious traditions.
In Iraq they were not free to criticize the government. They got their tongues cut out for it, and they were tortured and murdered in bunches like bananas and buried like cattle. Get a grip Carl, the democratic Israeli government with all its many imperfections is vastly superior in every way to the evil Iraqi regime.
Re: "What you are suggesting is that US policy enable these countries ..."
The fallacy you're pursuing here is to imagine that it is (1) the US's duty to correct the evilness in other parts of the world
The evilness in the ME gave the US 9/11. And I think the US government has a duty to deal with it.
(2) possible for the US to correct it,
I think it possible for the US to attack those who support its enemies in their effort to murder its citizens and other people who are modern in outlook.
(3) and subject to the constraint that you are the holier than thou, sanctimonious, do-gooder, prig who's going to decide who is the doer of evil
Well I'm not a prig but I figured out who is responsible for 500,000 Iraqi dead, countless torture victims and 3 million exiles.
I figured out that Saddam and his Islamist mirror images aren't something the modern world can live with anymore. You think I've got it wrong but so far the US admin hasn't come close to the damage these evil people have caused.
Oh, and you will always decide that it's the Arabs who are evil, no matter what the facts are.
I've never said that about Arabs. I've been harshly critical of the "Arab mind" nonsense and the equally foolish "clash of civilization" stuff. There is an ideological war between the West which is modern in form and ME regimes and organizations which are archaic and basically want the usual utopia which is dystopia. Most Arab and Muslim folk want nothing to do with it but are forced to live in it.
Just like you decided that Saddam Hussein hadn't really destroyed his WMDs.
If you will remember, I'm one of the few people who said the WNDs were a very poor reason for invading Iraq. I said the nature of the regime was the good reason for attacking Iraq and the US should stick to this last. Furthermore, you should remember in the discussion we had back when Hussein agreed to the inspections you agreed with me that he would "chisle" (I think that's the word I used) and he did. And Blix said in confirmation of this prediction that Iraq's cooperation was "not substantive." So, he claimed he didn't have them, but behaved like he had something to hide - weird,eh? So I'm keeping an open mind on the subject.
And then you're going to stand back, the Holy Cross of Jesus hanging around your neck (it should be burning you), and you're going to wonder why it is that the Arabs don't think that they can get a fair shake from the United States. BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!! LOL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I'm an atheist. The rest is incoherent.
Re: "It's not US activity which has generated Arab terrorism but, rather, those of the failed Arab states."
This is a half truth. You're right, in that Arab terrorism was created by Israel, not the US.
The terrorist activity is the active expression of an ideology which was in the area before Israel.
But that the terrorism is directed at us, that was our creation
Insofar as the US supported regimes, such as Saudi Arabia and in the past, Iraq, which don't give anyone political headroom, it certainly has contributed to it but is not solely responsible. The antimodern ideologies predate US involvement in the ME.
Switzerland doesn't have any smoking holes in the ground. But you are too dense to figure this out.
Switzerland is tiny and has nothing to do with any of this except as a place all the players park money.
Instead of looking at the obvious things that we do that contribute to our being a target, you're going to blame the fact that someone is madder than hell at us on your Holy Sanctimony.
I know what the US did, see above. I've said it many times. But now the US no longer supporting the ME dictators, you've got your knickers in a twist.
That's right! The US is the target of the Arabs because we are so modern!
It's the target of terrorists, some of whom are Arabs, because it's modern. Yup. That's one of the reasons.
Uh, the Japanese are an f of a lot more modern than we are, but are not subject to any terrorist attacks from the Arabs
I don't think they are more modern than the US. They certainly have elements at home who are terrorists in response to the country's modernity. The Japanese supported the US invasion of Iraq.
So are the Icelanders, for that matter, but they have no problems
I've been to Iceland. Very modern. It's a tiny place in the middle of the Atlantic ocean that most terrorists have never heard of. The US is not tiny. When it breathes, most of the world breathes with it. The anti-modernists hate that.
In fact, we're so primitive that better than half of our population doesn't believe in evolution.
Nah, they're trying to have their cake and eat it. They believe in the primacy of democracy and science except for this one little thing. I knew a very prominent scientist who belonged to a pentacostal church. He had a lot of trouble with evolution. Can you spell cognitive dissonance?
And by the way, if the whole thing was about Saddam Hussein, then how come Saddam isn't down there with the innocent Iraqis?
They haven't manged to kill him, yet? Or he's been vapourized and they can't find the molecules?
Bush managed to slaughter the innocent, but he left the guilty unpunished. Some president.
You say. But he also managed to kill a lot of the guilty and probably will kill a lot more. |
