Once again, you are painfully wrong. Why don't you do a search for my posts before you claim to know my position on things. While I am agianst the war, I have clearly said on many occasions, that now that we are there we need to stay there until a stable and democratic Iraq can be established. I said it is imperative that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past, like supporting the Muhjahideen in Afghanistan and then leaving them in anarchy after they defeated the Soviets, thereby giving birth to the Taliban (remember them? They caused us some grief a while ago). Secondly, while not all the ills of the Arab world can or should be blamed on the US and Israel, there is a basis to rightfully blace blame for a fair number of them. Take for example the center of the Arab World, Saudi Arabia. You have not seen hard core fanaticism until you have been to Saudi. Don't forget that 2/3 of the 9/11 bombers came from Saudi, yet what action have we taken against the Saudi's? When did hear of them taking a pro-active role in preventing terrorism? Better yet, when did you hear any hard line rhetoric from the Bush admin against Saudi? Never, because we put them in power and we need them. We arm their oppressive regime and turn a blind eye when they crush and internal dissent. Same thing in Egypt. Hell we even helped arm Iran and Iraq at different times. Now forget all that and lets return to the argument at hand. Israel. Why does the US have a unilateral approach to dealing with the conflict? How does supporting Israel benefit the average Joe? What have they given us? NOTHING. It's all politics, they have strong lobbys in the US that shower friendly candidates with donations, we give them 3.5 billion a year in aid. When the Israeli's make incursions in to Palestinian territories and blow up buildings, cars and people using Apache helicopters and M1A1 tanks, who do you think the Arab population is going to blame in addition to the Israeli's? I'm not saying abandon Israel, I'm just saying that we need to be the "honest broker" we keep claiming we are. Open your mind and see the two sides to the story. Unless you know what the other side is thinking and feeling, you cannot understand why they do the things that they do, and in so, will not be able to find a solution to the problem. You cannot subdugate a people for ever.
Once again, you are painfully wrong. Why don't you do a search for my posts before you claim to know my position on things. While I am agianst the war, I have clearly said on many occasions, that now that we are there we need to stay there until a stable and democratic Iraq can be established. I said it is imperative that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past, like supporting the Muhjahideen in Afghanistan and then leaving them in anarchy after they defeated the Soviets, thereby giving birth to the Taliban (remember them? They caused us some grief a while ago). Secondly, while not all the ills of the Arab world can or should be blamed on the US and Israel, there is a basis to rightfully blace blame for a fair number of them. Take for example the center of the Arab World, Saudi Arabia. You have not seen hard core fanaticism until you have been to Saudi. Don't forget that 2/3 of the 9/11 bombers came from Saudi, yet what action have we taken against the Saudi's? When did hear of them taking a pro-active role in preventing terrorism? Better yet, when did you hear any hard line rhetoric from the Bush admin against Saudi? Never, because we put them in power and we need them. We arm their oppressive regime and turn a blind eye when they crush and internal dissent. Same thing in Egypt. Hell we even helped arm Iran and Iraq at different times. Now forget all that and lets return to the argument at hand. Israel. Why does the US have a unilateral approach to dealing with the conflict? How does supporting Israel benefit the average Joe? What have they given us? NOTHING. It's all politics, they have strong lobbys in the US that shower friendly candidates with donations, we give them 3.5 billion a year in aid. When the Israeli's make incursions in to Palestinian territories and blow up buildings, cars and people using Apache helicopters and M1A1 tanks, who do you think the Arab population is going to blame in addition to the Israeli's? I'm not saying abandon Israel, I'm just saying that we need to be the "honest broker" we keep claiming we are. Open your mind and see the two sides to the story. Unless you know what the other side is thinking and feeling, you cannot understand why they do the things that they do, and in so, will not be able to find a solution to the problem. You cannot subdugate a people for ever.
While Israel may be a political impossibility, they have one asset that's beyond the beyond: religion. That, my friend, is more valuable than anything most people can imagine.
Yeah, but we are a secular state and cannot and should not base our foreign policy on a religion that most of us do not beleive in.
we may be a secular state, but religion is at the core of our fundamental beliefs. It is in the fabric of our laws. To deny that is to deny reality. And you don't have to be christian, muslim, or jewish to accept our basic laws as just. Furthermore, christianity and islam are derivatives of Judaism.
Actually our founding fathers were mostly athiest or deist and had no intention of making America a religious country. But going with what you said, Islam and Christianity are deriviatives of Judaism, so you cannot deny that Jerusalem is as holy to Muslims as it is to Christians. It is holy land for all three major monotheistic religions, so what right does anyone have to deny one group or the other? The roadmap calls for a settlement on Jerusalem, with the historically Arab East Jerusalem going to the Palestinians, but the Christian right in the US is going crazy. I was just watching the 700 Club, and Pat Robertson was preaching the end of the world if the US keeps supporting the roadmap as it would interfere with "God's plan". Come on now. Religion cannot drive foreign policy.
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
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i'm not christian, but christianity is not a law based religion like islam. it allows for separation between church and state, and easier progression into modernity. Emperors might have been christian, but many times they were not the final authority in the church. earthly rule was separated from higher notions of natural law. islam has shari'a, its holy law, that favors punitive theocracies where there is no difference between sin and crime, where women are automatically oppressed. jesus tells his followers to render unto caesar only that which is caesar's and unto god what is god''s.
<-agnostic.
<-agnostic.
religion is not driving our foreign policy. Pat Robertson is not part of the administration. And George Bush isn't using the Bible as reference to nation-building in the territories or Iraq.
I beg to differ. I never said Pat Rob. is part of the admin, or that Bush is using the Bible for nation building in Iraq, but to deny that neo-conservative support for Israel is not based on religion is ludicrous. Support for Israel was historically a Democratic thing, with the vast majority of Jews voting for said party. This has changed in recent times with Bush and his born again Christian crew staunchly supporting Israel, sometimes even more so than the Jews. Why? Cause their pastor tells them too. Why else would there be such a strong support for Israel in this country? Israel has nothing to offer us in terms of resources etc. You said so yourself:
"While Israel may be a political impossibility, they have one asset that's beyond the beyond: religion. That, my friend, is more valuable than anything most people can imagine. "
So if it is not because of a political stanglehold on our gov. by pro-Israel lobbys, why the support? Religion is driving our foreign policy and that is wrong IMO.
- Mar 20, 2000
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i think quite a bit of it has to do the holocaust and general mistreatment of jews over the centuries. don't forget that the people that vote most regularly are in the age group that went over to europe and saw what was done first hand.
I doubt most Israel will go to heaven after they died, that said, you're right they do have one asset and are using it to their maximum advantage in the political arena, ie influencing the religious right wing in US and lobbying the Congress and the president, hijacking US foregin policy in middle east.
As true as it's, what will the Jewish religous party in Israel and its people prepare do as the core followers of Judaism, to show every Muslims and Christians that as the oldest religions of the three, that they are prepare to lead the way to peace, even giving up the settlements as ultimate concession?
If they'll do that then they have indeed gain the morality upper hand
otherwise all this punishment from God (ie from the biblical time until today presumably) is probably appropriate since no lesson will ever sink in to their thick skull...
that is not actually true, earlier in christian history, the popes was not only the leader of the church but also the state, he appointed Kings, but he also run the sate affair or mingled in the state affair, ie crusade, ex-communicate Kings throughout history for not running the state based on tight church's law.
also Islam notion of govt/theocracy are very much like the way Jewish people was governed in the Moses period and up till the era of the Kings...
can you see the parallel here?
Moses = religous leader & run the state affair
Mohammad = religious leader & run the state affair
Jesus was the only one that chooses to be pure religous leader
yet after Christianity outgrowth its earlier tradition, many of the religious leaders also become the de facto head of state, ie pope, King/Queen of England, etc
its hard to separate state and church because it has to do with controling the masses and the temptation is just too great...
US is indeed unique in its history of enforcement of separation of state and religion, yet we are witnessing pushes to abandon that step-by-step, again that' because the temptation is just too great...
maybe earlier after WWII, but today most of the support actually come from the very influential jewish community... many of the holocaust survival that migrate to US went on and have successful life here and with that money and influence/power in the government (ie Andy Groove), and they use that influence to make US support Israel and the jewish community has as much unquestionable fanatism in this belief as the Islamists jihad (I'm referring to the fanatism not the act)...
not that early
, I was talking about during the Christian Roman emperrors who used the religion as the means to control their empire (at that time many Romans were becoming Christian converts), yet at the declining period of the empire, the popes (the head of the Christian church) become more influential than the Emperror because he had/obtained the authority to apoint the emperror (no longer hereditary at that time), and the pope become the de facto ruler of the empireNotice how Dixie Chicks are #2, and #1 and #3 are both guys trying to cash in on the patriotism. One is singing that tune "Remember how it felt that day" and the other is singing "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue"
http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/country.jsp
http://www.billboard.com/bb/charts/country.jsp
- Mar 20, 2000
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right, but theres enough jews in only a handful of states to actually influence anything via an election. jews in general get tons of sympathy from the average joe in the US. a professor of mine was a specialist on gypsies, did a big survey with something like 20 ethnicities asking to rank sympathy order. jews were tops iirc. (gypsies were dead last, behind a made up ethnicity)
too bad they (US citizens jewish) use (or misuse) their influence and the symphaty they received to hijack US foreign policy to become Israel foreign policy...
I'm for one have no symphaty for the so call old school fanatic jews and their party who support even demand the settlement being accelerated and refuse to back off,
their fanatism is just as bad as the islamist fanatism... them both deserve to go to hell :|
0roo0roo
No Lifer
- Sep 21, 2002
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right... the jews control the us government conspiracy theory again.
sure you can say theres general sympathy for the jews because of the suffering of the holocaust, theres sympathy for their survival against 300 million arabs who more or less want them all dead, but it is inane oversimplification of situations to say the jews control the us government. it ignores the fact that the ussr supported the arab countries during the cold war which the us was sorta involved in. just because things aren't the way you want them to be doesn't require the existence of a giant conspiracy.
if we did nothing and allowed the soviet backed arabs to shred the israelis through endless genocidal war, would you say the arabs controlled the us government?
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
right... the jews control the us government conspiracy theory again.
sure you can say theres general sympathy for the jews because of the suffering of the holocaust, theres sympathy for their survival against 300 million arabs who more or less want them all dead, but it is inane oversimplification of situations to say the jews control the us government. it ignores the fact that the ussr supported the arab countries during the cold war which the us was sorta involved in. just because things aren't the way you want them to be doesn't require the existence of a giant conspiracy.
if we did nothing and allowed the soviet backed arabs to shred the israelis through endless genocidal war, would you say the arabs controlled the us government?
I am well aware of the history of Israel and Arab conflict before, during the Cold war, and present. I understand the fact that US backed Israel as part of their attempt to stave off USSR back then, but now with the USSR gone and their influence, our policy on ME has not change at all to reflect the current reality, even though we have many allies in the ME, the Egyptian, Saudi, Gulf states, and now Iraq, yet our policy is still heavily tilt toward Israel, even when their actions fly against world condemnation, ie assasination of palestinian political leaders, frequent incursion into Palestinian control area, civilian killings (ie victim of military operation), and settlement program against the UN resolution and Israel own Oslo pact with the Palestinian... that caused US negative public opinion among Arab and the world and dragged us unnecessarily into their own conflict...
also we still subsidize their military heavily even though it doesn't seem necessary anymore, if that isnot influence I don't know what is.
I'm not alleging that US govt is full of jewish conspirator, but their influence in shaping US foreign policy especially in ME is undenieable, for example their influence among the current influential neo-con group.
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