There is no single-minded obsession with respect to Israel. The only obsession I've seen which has caused the U.S. to impart its sons and daughters in a full-scale war was to defend the Arab Islamic regimes of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Now the U.S. maintains a $50 billion investment in keeping the area safe from Hussein.
They “some” and “potentially” have increased exponentially since 1948. Before then, jihad was a concept from history books and a suicide bomber, unthinkable except perhaps the story of Sampson.
The Jihad has been a consistent and intrinsic Islamic notion ever since Mohammed and perfected under the Ottoman Empire.
Your discussion on the Open Door is misplaced. You are not in the correct historical time period nor are you dealing with the issue I have stated. Why is that? Why is it a fact that you have miscontrued the historical issue and presumed that what you have been referring to is the issue? It is not. The only thing I can do is to encourage you to go to the library and find out about the Open Door Notes and the discussion and direction of American foreign policy at the END of the 19th century. Until then you are not dealing with the issue as I've stated it.
What the hell are you advocating? So jihadists are wrong to try to impose their religion, but industrialized and well-armed countries can impose their markets? Rubbish.
Why is it so hard to understand that countries must defend and advance the free flow of goods and services to keep the international economic wheels turning? To interfere with this process is an invitation to attack. You might consider the U.S.' acquisition of the Philippine Islands and the Treaty of Paris of no account but I see that process as the beginning of the extention of U.S. power internationally and the concurrent economic benefits accrued from these Pacific interests increasing the economic power domestically as well. That the U.S.' commitment in the far Pacific would also bring it into conflict later with the Japanese only indicates to me that if it wasn't the U.S. then the imperialist Japanese would have been our masters in their economic expansionism. I'm glad the U.S. won.
The only obsession is the West's oil supply, or as you so delicately put it "the free flow of goods and services to keep the international economic wheels turning." The only regime which gets US aid gratis is the Israeli one, which is not lost on the hundreds of millions of non-Jews of the region and the world.
The Jihad has been a consistent and intrinsic Islamic notion ever since Mohammed and perfected under the Ottoman Empire
I'm sure that's why the Ottomans invited the persecuted Jews who sruvived the Inquisition from Spain. Thanks for explaining that bringing Jews back to Palestine falls under "jihad."
Your discussion on the Open Door is misplaced. You are not in the correct historical time period nor are you dealing with the issue I have stated.
You have categorically stated an "Open Door Policy" was the vehicle of American expansionism. This is untrue. In fact "Open Door Policy" is generally acknowledged to (A)Pertain to free immigration, and/or (B) Pertain to free trade with China only. I have not seen any reference at all to "Open Door" pertaining to the Philippines and Cuba. And if you think it through, because Philippines and Cuba became American protectorates, there was no need for an "Open Door" because the US owned them lock, stock, and barrel and could and did exclude all other countries.
It is helpful in any discussion to use words in their commonly accepted contexts.
Why is it so hard to understand that countries must defend and advance the free flow of goods and services to keep the international economic wheels turning?
According to that pesky Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted among men "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." "The governed" clearly does not include foreign powers wishing to help themselves to a region's resources. And "everybody does it" is not an excuse.
America only belongs in countries where we have the strong support of the local population, and can make life better for them as they perceive "better," not as we do.
Again, what this is leading up to is you're hinting that it's perfectly OK for industrialized countries to help themselves to the resources and the lands occupied by Islamics. This in turn presupposes a need for some kind of Islamic bogeyman to justify continuous pre-emptive occupations and attacks in these strategic and resource-rich areas. Which means it's not even about Islam, ultimately, it's about neo-colonialism of the Western world.