Posted on 04/26/2002 9:35:29 AM PDT by SJackson
What I presented was one account of how the Palestinians see the situation. There are obviously many more perspectives. The point is that some understanding must be reached by both parties which allows a reasonable chance for peace. Nothing gets accomplished by war except to cause enough grief that the parties finally decide to seriously try to work out a solution for peace. If we get sucked into a war over this situation, it will be a net loss for us - no matter who "wins". That is my reflection on the matter.
Hmm... this sounds too close to "Can't we all just get along?"
As a member of the US Armed Forces, I expected more from you. Would that have been your reflection on Japan and Germany, circa 1945?
The sad truth of wars is that they end when one of the sides is beaten so bad that it abandons hope of winning. As an example, I give you Germany and Japan, countries that were devastated by war.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson that the Israelis cannot learn through time. If you think about it, ideas like "Thou shalt not kill" and "Love thy neighbor" (which are seen quite reasonable these days) were actually radical revolutionary ideas when they were introduced. As a devout Christian, you should know where those ideas come from.
The humanity of the Jews has imprisoned them. The command to "Be the light to the rest of the world" prevents them from the very cruelty they are being accused of. And their humanity to this point has prevented them from dealing the crushing defeat to their adversaries to get them to abandon hope of winning. Each time they were poised to finish the job, someone saved the Arab's butts. In 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973... even in 1982, either the USSR or the USA talk them into letting the "nice arabs" off the hook. And what do they get for it??? The snake heals, rearms and attacks again.
Well, my view is that there is no more room for any understanding. One side or the other must achieve a crushing victory in order to readjust the thinking on the other side. After nearly getting obliterated in 1973, Anwar Sadat "got it". And viola... instant peace with Israel, they even got their Sinai back.
I understand you're looking for "reasonable" Palestinian perspectives. However I'd simply suggest to you that at this point only one party is ready to seriously negotiate peace. Maybe if Arafat is replaced, thing would change, surely his people have experienced their share of grief. But I fear that nothing short of total defeat on the ground (which is politically impossible at this time) will bring the Palestinians to the peace table with any level of sincerity.
I understand you're looking for "reasonable" Palestinian perspectives. However I'd simply suggest to you that at this point only one party is ready to seriously negotiate peace. Maybe if Arafat is replaced, thing would change, surely his people have experienced their share of grief. But I fear that nothing short of total defeat on the ground (which is politically impossible at this time) will bring the Palestinians to the peace table with any level of sincerity.
As far as I oncerned it was totally wrong to make Powell meet with Arafat. Give me your poison.
Can I let you know it six months? I’m not sure Powell is on GWBs page, then again there’s nothing wrong with having a cautious voice around (so much for the “Powell Doctrine” of massive force). IMO, between GWB, Cheney, and Powell we’ve been seeing a diplomatic dance designed to give Israel time to complete their job in the territories. That “meeting” consumed days of back and forth yapping, giving Israel time and at least holding the European press back to some extent.
I just don’t think we know the answers yet.
It's not only our enemies who believe that terrorism works. During WWII, our own leaders apparently thought that terrorism worked too. Otherwise they wouldn't have firebombed Dresden and Tokyo or atom-bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Polls run about 65 to 73% of palestinians favoring terrorism. So it is true that there are many who do not support this form of warfare. For the sake of those, Israel has not done what many nations would do, which is to simply bomb their enemies or lob mortar shells on them, or blow them up in pizza parlors. Instead, they risk their own soldier's lives to try to surgically remove terrorists so that people could go about their daily life without getting blown up by mindnumbed kids. 23 soldiers paid for that practice, when they could have simply stood off and flattened the whole town.
It is the Arabs who declared war (jihad) , not the US and not Israel. It's not that people 'love' war so much as they are taught through propaganda that war will solve their probelems. They are told this because otherwise, they might associate their problems and their lack of jobs with their own leadership. There is no room for dissent, for views that conflict with the views of the leadership are not permitted. Anyone who speaks out against their leader's policies are branded as collaborators and murdered, so most keep silent. In an environment where the press is controlled by the leadership, and public speech in opposition is dangerous, and people accuse others of collaboration in order to see them murdered, what else can people do? They cannot strike out at their own leaders, in words or with force. Their own leaders keep telling them their problems are caused by Jews and Americans and provide them with all the fabricated evidence they need. And their schools preach hate and hide any information which might make people question their 'teachers.'
Your question is like asking why people who belong to gangs rob convenience stores, steal copper pipe from housing projects, carjack cars or sell drugs, when they know they will end up getting arrested.
A streetgang member thinks it is OK to rob a convenience store because he has been taught that the store rips off its customers anyway. He thinks it is OK to kill the clerk because he has no respect for the working man. He has been not been taught to respect such people. Besides, they work for the store which rips off the neighborhood. Or they are Koreans and don't belong anyway. It is OK to steal the copper pipes because if he doesn't, someone else will. He doesn't think about how his theft will cost the taxpayer, or how miserable the tenants will be without their water. He knows the people he doesn't respect will pay to have the government he doesn't like replace the pipes and then he can steal them again. It is OK to carjack people because the people had a nicer car than he has. He thinks "if they didn't have such a nice car, then I would have a better car." So it is even OK to kill people who have nicer things than he does. It is OK to sell drugs because he needs money more than they do, and if someone doesn't sell them drugs, someone else will. If their parents don't want them doing drugs, then the parents are controlling and mean. Someone needs to give him a living, he thinks, and if OTHERS would give him a decent living, he wouldn't have to steal or kill people.
It is classic twisted class warfare 'logic' whether we are taling about gangs or terrorists. People engage in all kinds of stupid behavior when they are taught to blame their own incompetance on the other guy. (Just don't blame it on the rich guy called Arafat!)
There could be a strong case made that the U.S. is a "war-loving" nation (we usually win and just look at most of our war movies).
Just because someone is better at doing something than others, or is proud of his skills, does not mean he 'loves' doing it. That's just plain silly. I for one, really HATE having to paint houses. Nonetheless, I am very good at it and am proud of my work. I for one, really hate the idea of killing someone. But if I had someone threaten my life out of the blue, and I kill him in self-defense, it doesn't mean I like to kill because I have better reflexes. It doesn't mean I love killing if I am satisfied with my ability to remain steady when I shoot.
How do we prove that we don't love war in your world? Lose on purpose? that sort of logic reminds me of the days wehn they would pick out witches from regular women by throwing them into water over their heads. If they couldn't swim, they were not witches. If they could swim, they were witches and they could be burned.
Also, we have the most effective and massive war machine in the history of civilization
Yes, and THAT is WHY we can speak our minds in America without some jackass palestinian being able to lynch us. that is why the US still exists. But as I pointed out, the ability to do something with skill doesn't reflect a love for doing it.
We make sure we are the best soldiers so that our people won't ever have to find out what it is to be the worst. we are the best soldiers because we want to remain free, not because we want to kill.
- we are the war leader of mankind;
We are the nation who feeds mankind, who treats mankind for disease, who wraps their wounds, who tries to provide safe seas for all mankind to use, who provides a voice for those who may not speak in their own lands, who provides knowhow for power and technology for sanitation to mankind. We are the peacemakers of mankind. We are the defenders of free people. We have sacrificed for all mankind. We do not start war, but we will take the lead when others fail to do so in responding to war.
the world is trying to follow our example
If 'the world' (Arab world) was really trying to follow our example, their 'world' would have a first ammendment instead of state controlled press. They would have a second ammendment for all of their citizens, instead of just for their regime's followers. They wouldn't have lynchings of collaborators. They would have free elections. They would have an electoral system and checks and balances instead of royal families or little jackasses in military uniforms with police forces with the ethics of drug dealers and an army of ten-year-olds brainwashed to blow themselves up in fruitmarkets. Their constitutions (where they have one) wouldn't GIVE rights to people, but would recognize they already have God-given rights apart from government edicts. They would not have a state sanctioned religion or rule by religious clerics. They would have property rights over land to sell to whom they please, even to Jews or Christians or Buddhists or Hindus. The government wouldn't have a say over whether a person converted from Islam or not. They would have free market economies and a strong middle class to thwart the elite and the socialist urges of the poor and to provide growth and opportunity for people to advance themselves.
You hit on the answer there but still don't grasp that you did. Let me help clarify what you said by croppping off the flab:
"War causes enough grief so that the parties finally decide to seriously work out a solution for peace."
This is a little clearer. The term 'peace process' is just another phrase for 'perpetual war,' a war which, like an elephant in the dining room, isn't spoken of by its name but is instead called a 'disagreement.' Note that unlike an endless and inconclusive 'peace process' where people get continuously picked off by the side with the most hatred, while the other side is repeatedly forced to respond with pinpricks of 'meassured response,' to which the first side in turn responds claiming it is avenging the deaths of its martyrs- in open war, there is an END. Peace can be obtained with war, precisely because war knocks can sense into people, or can make one side moot.
It isn't pretty, but it WORKS.
It worked in Japan after World War 2 for example. It worked with Hitler's Germany. It worked between the US and Britain in our early years. The nonsense that war does not 'solve anything' is just that. Nonsense. It does solve some things.
It would be nice if people didn't have to resort to force to stay alive. It would be nice if a 'peaceful' solution was possible in every case.
But please tell me where Hitler would have compromised with Poland? tell me what room there was to compromise with his desire to kill EVERY Jew? The Jews and the Gypsies tried compromise. They permitted themselves to be shut up in ghettos. They permitted themselves to be loaded onto cattle cars to 'go to the country to work.' Their property became German property, their businesses became state owned. Some even tried to leave. But there was no compromise with that insatiable desire of evil men to kill and the unbelievable willingness of others to look the other way or even offer excuses for the murder- the Jews couldn't compromise enough to satisfy the Nazis.
The same thing goes for Stalin's victims, or for Red China's, or Pol Pot's. There was no compromise to be had.
So let's rephrase your statement for even more clarity:
"War causes enough grief so that the one or more sides decides that surrendering and living with the consequences is preferable to continuing the fight. "
If the palestinians succeed in getting everything they want, then there will be no Israel because it is Israel they want. Israel cannot compromise more than it already has compromised. They would be wise not to make that silly offer again.
But even if Israelis did, and willingly went off to exhile in America and left all of Israel in Arab hands, the palestinians' OTHER problems would become evident. The disappearance of Israel would not make Palestine into a wealthy or even functional free state. They would simply wage war on Christian arabs, or live in self imposed poverty. The war would solve what they thought was the problem, but the real problem would remain because they failed to deal with it.
But here is the rub... the palestinian leadership doesn't want a compromise anyway, of any kind. They aren't paid to compromise. They are paid to wage perpetual 'peace processes' with terrorism, to help outside nations distract their populations from the corruption they themselves live under. And now, the PA leadership is paid by Iraq to distract the United States from providing Saddam with eternal rest.
Saddam knows war can be very decisive. That's why he doesn't want to have to fight another with us. Arafat knows that REAL war can be decisive. That's why he always talks peace while waging war... to keep the 'peace process' going and the money coming in., and to save his own skin. So long as he is thought to be a 'part fo the process' he is remains in control and safe among his own population, and is untouchable by Israelis.
They intended to attack military targets; their purpose was not merely to kill or maim civilians. At least that was the official line. (Given the limitations of the weaponry of the day, they may have been fooling themselves.)
If you were to argue that the deliberate bombing of noncombants is immoral, I would agree. And I would point out that the PLO has repeatedly employed such methods against civilians, without even the pretence of attacking military targets. If that works against the Israelis, it will be used against us.
Dresden was no accident. It was calculated slaughter. The firebombing of Tokyo was the same.
Not that I am passing moral judgment. Wars are to win, come Hell or high water.
I agree it's immoral. But that it doesn't make it uncommon.
And I would point out that the PLO has repeatedly employed such methods against civilians, without even the pretence of attacking military targets. If that works against the Israelis, it will be used against us.
Here's what I don't understand. You say we have to stop terrorism in Israel or terrorism will be used against us here in the U.S. Well, terrorism had already been used against us here in the U.S. That was what 9/11 about. And the reason it was used was because terrorism was effective. It was effective when we used it in Dresden and it was effective in Nagasaki and Hiroshima too. The killing of civilians in wartime is probably more common than the sparing of them.
OR they could have been members of the PLA in Israel to learn some new technology the Israeli's have sold to the Chinese Army. Maybe even military technology GIVEN to Israel by the US.
Any positive effects they've had on our culture have been lost by the simple fact that not one of their leaders denounced what happened on 9/11.
That serves as an unarguably, amazing disgrace to the lot of them. They themselves have put themselves in their current position and they are solely responsibible for how they are perceived here.
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