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CatKnight 
Jedi Republican
Group: Members
Posts: 3807
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,06:43 |
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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.
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[url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbl125/dfa.jpg]If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.[/url]
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damien_s_lucifer
Emperor of Detnet
Group: Members
Posts: 33
Joined: Jan. 1970
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,08:57 |
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::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.
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BlackFlag
Objections noted; Notes discarded.
Group: Members
Posts: 637
Joined: Jan. 2002
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,11:33 |
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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...... 
Edited by BlackFlag on Jan. 01 1970,01:00
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[img]http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze327zx/pissed.gif[/img]
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| Post Number: 4
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Dysorderia
Kryten 2X4B 523P
Group: Members
Posts: 1061
Joined: Jul. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,13:19 |
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| 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? 
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Sir? May I recommend I load myself into the reverse-thrust tubes and you use my body as decoy-fodder? This will, of course leave me splattered across deep space and unable to complete today's laundry, for which I apologise in advance.
[url=http://www.kr1cket.com]www.kr1cket.com[/url]
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| Post Number: 5
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editor
forum whore
Group: Members
Posts: 0
Joined: Jan. 2002
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,16:03 |
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Please don't let Detnet turn into a cut n paste party...
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| Post Number: 6
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ic0n0
I have become Death, Destroyer of Worlds
Group: Members
Posts: 1352
Joined: Sep. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,16:12 |
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| Quote (Dysorderia @ 16 April 2002,23:19) | | 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? |
Yes but he is a Zionist, would you expect anything less?
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"I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time." (Isaac Asimov)
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| Post Number: 7
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CatKnight
Jedi Republican
Group: Members
Posts: 3807
Joined: Dec. 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,17:38 |
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| Quote (Dysorderia @ 17 April 2002,00:19) | | 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? |
as opposed to biased towards the terrorists?
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[url=http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/d/b/dbl125/dfa.jpg]If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful that you can possibly imagine.[/url]
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| Post Number: 8
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Vigilante
Unrequited Lover
Group: Members
Posts: 719
Joined: May 2000
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,17:44 |
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It's pretty difficult to be "absurdly" biased in favor of Israel, given that Isreal is in the right.
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He says turn the other cheek, but that seems kind of weak
I just want to beat up, beat up the meek
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| Post Number: 9
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vyachaslav
FNG
Group: Members
Posts: 12
Joined: Apr. 2002
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,17:54 |
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IMO
the 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
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"In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it." -Erwin Rommel
It is always darkest just before it goes totally black.
I wouldn't recommend alcohol and drugs to anyone. But they have always worked for me. HST
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TheTaxMan
Controversial Thug
Group: Members
Posts: 874
Joined: Apr. 2001
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Posted on: Apr. 17 2002,22:31 |
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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.
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Four billion years of evolution and this is all we have to show for it?
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