Topic: LET ISRAEL FIGHT FOR PEACE
started by: CatKnight
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 17 2002,06:43
If the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result, Secretary of State Powell's mission to the Middle East is crazy. "However long the Israeli incursions continue," he said on Thursday, "the problem will still be there. We will still need to go to a negotiating process that will lead to peace." Even for Powell, with his long history of strategic misjudgments, this is insane.How can Powell still imagine that a "negotiating process" with Yasser Arafat can ever lead to peace? For Arafat and his Palestinian Authority, negotiations are a tool of war -- a mechanism for harvesting their gains from terror and violence. They don't seek negotiations in order to stop the killing, they kill in order to make their negotiations more fruitful. After eight years of a "peace process" that has slaughtered more Israelis than the 1967 war did, it should be clear even to Powell that negotiating with Arafat leads only to bloodshed.
And forcing Israel to back away from its current war will lead only to bloodshed, too. Last Tuesday, yielding to Bush administration pressure, Israel pulled its troops out of the West Bank cities of Tulkarm and Qalqilya. Forty-eight hours later, eight Israelis were murdered and 22 were wounded when a suicide bomber exploded a bus near Haifa. The terrorist had entered Israel by way of -- Tulkarm.
Powell is not alone, of course, in demanding an Israeli pullback. "The whole world is demanding that Israel withdraw," lectures Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general. "I don't think the whole world, including the friends of the Israeli people and government, can be wrong."
But the whole world can be wrong. It was wrong in 1981, when Israel bombed Saddam Hussein's nuclear-weapons reactor in Osirak. The death toll Israel prevented with that daring mission is incalculable, yet the unanimous reaction was one of outrage and scorn.
Well, this is another Osirak moment. Far from being an impediment to the war against international terrorism, the battle in the West Bank is a frontline in that war. Unless Israel demolishes Arafat's mass-murder machine, unless his hellish "martyrdom" cult is shut down, it will only be a matter of time before suicide bombers are detonating themselves in the markets and cafes of the West.
The United States did not spend eight years negotiating with Mullah Omar and the Taliban. President Bush gave them one chance to cooperate and hand over Osama bin Laden; when they refused, they were destroyed. Arafat and his lieutenants, by contrast, have been given chance after chance to prove their peaceful bona fides. What they have proven instead is that they are liars and conscienceless killers. If America after Sept. 11 had the right to obliterate the Taliban, Israel has the right to obliterate the Palestinian Authority.
The history of this conflict is long and complicated, but its moral dimensions now are clear-cut.
One side sends its soldiers to wipe out suicide bombers. The other side sends suicide bombers to wipe out diners at a Passover seder.
One side publishes maps showing how Israel and a Palestinian State can coexist. The other side publishes maps on which Israel doesn't exist.
One side apologizes when its explosives kill the wives and children of the terrorists it targeted. The other side targets wives and children.
One side was grief-stricken on Sept. 11 and declared a national day of mourning. The other side danced in the streets and distributed candies in celebration.
One side has never deployed a suicide bomber in its 54 years of existence. The other side has deployed more than 40 in the past 12 months alone.
One side developed a mandatory "peace curriculum" to prepare its children to live in peace next to a Palestinian State. The other side steeps its children in hate, extolling suicide bombers as "martyrs" they should emulate and operating summer camps to train them for jihad.
One side is an unshakable ally of the United States and fully backs our war against global terrorism. The other side is armed and financed by Iraq, Iran, and Syria, three of the world's most notorious terrorist states.
One side repeatedly gave up land for peace. The other side took the land and made war.
This is not the time for peace missions and negotiations. The way to end the war in the West Bank is not to make Israel retreat but to let it fight its way to a decisive victory. The "peace process" was the cause of this war; now it will take a war to bring peace. Israel should be encouraged to crush the Palestinians' terrorist network, destroy the Palestinian Authority, demilitarize the territories, and banish Arafat forever. Only then will the Palestinians be free. And only then will it be possible for them to detoxify their poisoned society, choose decent and responsible leaders, and join with Israel in crafting, at long last, a genuine and lasting peace.
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on Apr. 17 2002,08:57
::sigh::Does this really need an explanation?
The suicide bombings have got Israel so fired up and ready to go kill Palestinians that the rest of the civilized world thinks it's best if someone else handles the situation down there... someone a little more cool-headed. The Europeans, especially, are all too familiar with what happens when one ethnic group rages against another.
Don't kid yourself... Powell is not meeting with Arafat to negotiate a damn thing. He is there to give Arafat one last chance to stop the suicide bombings and accept a peace deal. It doesn't matter whether or not Arafat deserves it; what matters is that every single Arab nation knows that the entire world is waiting to see what Arafat's going to do. If the suicide bombings don't stop, the entire world is going to be aligned against the PLO; there will be unprecedented support for a US-led invasion of Palestinian territories.
The Arabs will not be able to blame Israel for that one. Hell, we kicked the Israelis out because we didn't want them wiping out innocent Palestinians. The Arabs sure as hell aren't going to try and fight the United States and several dozen of its allies... not if they want to keep their governments, anyway. They will simply issue statements expressing their hope that we can bring peace to the region, and then very wisely shut their mouths.
The Arab world has been very cautiously opening up to the global community for some time now. If you want peace in the Middle East, this process needs to continue. We are not going to let Israel ruin that for us.
Posted by BlackFlag on Apr. 17 2002,11:33
Powel's mission in the middle east is to take global political pressure off of the Dubbya administration, wich is seen as not doing enough to condemn israels attacks and/or talk Arafat into calling off 'his' goons. As such, his mission has met with only moderate sucsess.I also agree that the last thing the governments of the arab nations want is for WWIII to break out (it would be the perfect fucking excuse for a multinational force of America and her NATO buddies to carve up the middle east and its oil!!!
....... But what the arab peoples want, and what terrorist factions want is another thing entirely.Edit: and CK calls me an idiot......
Posted by Dysorderia on Apr. 17 2002,13:19
| Quote (CatKnight @ 17 April 2002,01:43) |
| <snip! see CK's post> |
can anyone else see that this is absurdly biased in favor of israel?
Posted by editor on Apr. 17 2002,16:03
Please don't let Detnet turn into a cut n paste party...
Posted by ic0n0 on Apr. 17 2002,16:12
| Quote (Dysorderia @ 16 April 2002,23:19) | ||
can anyone else see that this is absurdly biased in favor of israel? |
Yes but he is a Zionist, would you expect anything less?
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 17 2002,17:38
| Quote (Dysorderia @ 17 April 2002,00:19) | ||
can anyone else see that this is absurdly biased in favor of israel? |
as opposed to biased towards the terrorists?
Posted by Vigilante on Apr. 17 2002,17:44
It's pretty difficult to be "absurdly" biased in favor of Israel, given that Isreal is in the right.
Posted by vyachaslav on Apr. 17 2002,17:54
IMOthe only way that there is going to be peace in Israel is if one of the two sided completely destroys the other. They have been fighting for some 3000 years (give or take) and it is still not settled. I feel that we should pull out all foreign interest in the country and let them have at it and hope that it gets settled once and for all.
Vy
Posted by TheTaxMan on Apr. 17 2002,22:31
What is truely remarkable, is how the conflict in the middle east and the war on terrorism has kept Bush in office. A little BJ under the table is nothing compared the millions of dollars ebezeled(sic) by Enron which the Bush/Cheney administration was directly a part of! It's truely amazing how all of this has been so keenly swept under the mat.
Posted by kuru on Apr. 17 2002,22:55
Is there any actual proof that Bush did anything wrong in the Enron case?Because if there is, YOU are the only person who's ever seen it. So put up or shut up. Post the proof or stop making baseless accusations.
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 17 2002,23:13
yeah um taxman i hate to dissappoint you but it was actually clinton who gave enron several million dollars to start on. enron was also counting on clinton to sign the kyoto treaty, because that was their whole buisness. selling pollution credits. when the treaty died, so did enron. ironic how everyone critisizes bush for using the presidency to help his oil buddies, when in fact it was clinton who was being bought by big corporations. back on topic--thank you vigilante for being on of the few people here with some semblence of rational thought.
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 17 2002,23:15
oh wait my mistake, it was BILLIONS he contributed, not millions.sources:
< http://www.washtimes.com/business/20020221-74571848.htm >
< http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/2/28/12723.shtml >
Posted by TheTaxMan on Apr. 17 2002,23:26
Enron made huge contributions to 1/2 (or more..) of congress as well as the Bush/Cheney campaign. Cheney obviously was dealing with them the entire time and knew -full well- that Enron was inflating it's stock to horrible proportions. Interesting how they sold all that stock, got a ton of money, and allowed Joe Blow Behind the Computer's 401k to become worthless!Please, I didn't say anything about Clinton (who doesn't really make a difference since he's not holding an office) , stop making this about party lines when everyone in office now is so obviously involved. If this happened any other time, 1/2 the government would be on the chopping block.
Bush senior was negotiating oil nonesene with the Bin Laden construction compony, when? It wasn't just Clinton negotiating oil treaties.
Posted by TheTaxMan on Apr. 17 2002,23:35
What % of < this > money was emebzeled.Stop making every discussion about political parties instead of the issues. I still think if Enron had collapsed at any other time, whoever was in office would be booted hard and fast.
< http://www.opensecrets.org/alerts/v6/alertv6_31.asp >
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 18 2002,00:23
wait just a fuck-hole minute there taxman. first you claim that bush is embezzeling money without any sources. then when i show that it was clinton who was the corrupt one, you 1) post figures of legal contributions versus democrats and republicans, then 2) yell at me for talking about political parties? you're a fucking moron!furthermore, if we kicked out every president during which something bad happened, related or not, we'd have a new president every 6 months.
why don't you shut the fuck up taxman and stay out of these serious discussions.
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 18 2002,00:26
also, those so called joe-shmoes who were supposedly cheated out of there 401k's, were in on the whole scam too. they new the stocks were going to drop hard a YEAR in advance. their stocks were in the 70's in 2000, dropped to 15's in 2001, and then plummeted to 0 last fall. the employees also knew a year in advance that their stocks were going to be unavailable, a year in advance. they lost their money due to their own poor decisions. if you gamble in the stock market and loose, you can't sue the government or the executives or whatever for your own losses.
Posted by TheTaxMan on Apr. 18 2002,00:53
Quote where I picked a said and I'll give you a million dollars you fucknugget. Not once place did I say 'It's all Bush's fault!' or something. You ass. You think you know every fucking fact there is? That's so god damned stupid I don't know what to say. You go on posting bullshit ecnomics when finance majors repetedly tell the real story (which isn't yours funny enough), and you continue to post your nonesense rhetoric. Why don't -you- stay the fuck out of these "serious discusions" since you obviously post just as much bullshit as everyone else.
Posted by kuru on Apr. 18 2002,01:33
You did just publicly accuse someone of embezzling. Unless you have some kind of evidence, those are dangerous accusations to make.In reality, Enron did donate money to the Republican party. Enron also donated to the Democratic party. They donated a hell of a lot of money to a hell of a lot of politicians.
They wanted the Kyoto treaty. They didn't get it. They paid a lot of money for..........nothing. Now if they had gotten a quid pro quo for their money, THAT would be a scandal. They didn't though. So basically all they accomplished was wasting a lot of money on political donations.
As for the bankruptcy, the entire government kept their hands the hell off of Enron. Had they bailed out Enron, there would still be screaming about government misconduct.... only it would be from different media-hounds screaming about the government using tax dollars to prop up failed corporations on the backs of the working class.
I don't wanna hear anything else about Enron.
Posted by TheTaxMan on Apr. 18 2002,03:05
| Quote (kuru @ 17 April 2002,17:33) |
| Quote |
| You did just publicly accuse someone of embezzling. Unless you have some kind of evidence, those are dangerous accusations to make. |
Coperate officers don't get paid the way most people do. They got large portions of stock as the majority of their pay. Enron officials kept the stock high enough long enough, so they could sell their shares for $25 million dollars (or whatever) and then the stock fell through becasue it had nothing to stand on. I guess that's not stealing per se but it's still illegal. Basically, they created money from nothing. The compony was worthless, and yet the inflated stock price didn't show that (something that is also illegal to do, inflate stock prices).
| Quote |
| In reality, Enron did donate money to the Republican party. Enron also donated to the Democratic party. They donated a hell of a lot of money to a hell of a lot of politicians. |
This was already show in the above links.
| Quote |
| They wanted the Kyoto treaty. They didn't get it. They paid a lot of money for..........nothing. Now if they had gotten a quid pro quo for their money, THAT would be a scandal. They didn't though. So basically all they accomplished was wasting a lot of money on political donations. |
Giving campaign contributions isn't worthless. It probably managed to keep them afloat far longer than they should have.
| Quote |
| As for the bankruptcy, the entire government kept their hands the hell off of Enron. Had they bailed out Enron, there would still be screaming about government misconduct.... only it would be from different media-hounds screaming about the government using tax dollars to prop up failed corporations on the backs of the working class. |
It still remains that they falsified basically everything that they (Enron) were. Does the news even follow what is happening with this story any more? No, not really. That last time I heard anything about it was weeks ago.
I didn't blame parties for anything. I didn't say, "Republicans are evil and Democrates should be in the presidential office!" All I said was that if it weren't for the conflict in the middle east, I doubt that everyone would be getting off without much scrutiny for this.
Oh, and just becasue you say, I'm not going to let you sit back and trash everything I wrote or linked to just because you took it the wrong way.
Also, as an analogy, what happens when someone gives you stolen money, and the police find you with it even though they know it was just given to you?
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 18 2002,04:43
thats not the same thing as stealing. if i have to explain it to you im going to be pissed
Posted by damien_s_lucifer on Apr. 18 2002,10:05
| Quote (CatKnight @ 17 April 2002,20:43) |
::sigh:: do we really have to talk about Enron? This whole thing has become a witch hunt, just like the investigation of Clinton.
The Enron execs fucked up bad. For that they will pay. We don't need any more victims than that.
Posted by CatKnight on Apr. 18 2002,17:54
yeah well they already "commited suicicde" under "mysterious circumstances", in a similar manner to other shady people associated with clinton...*cough* whitewater *cough*
Posted by kuru on Apr. 18 2002,18:49
'Who killed Vince Foster?'I'd like to know.