Man, I thought my little speech 3 posts back had melted your hearts a little. I must ne losing my touch... But really, PFS and FirstRecon, I get your point. I mean, anything with an IQ above plant life can understand your point (I hope). It's just that I cannot adhere to it completely.
Is it because of my "left leaning beliefs" ? Probably... Utopia ? Maybe, but mostly everything great man as accomplished started as a utopia (the US included)... And even you must admit that however impotent seem diplomacy, understanding and all that lubby-dubby stuff you so easily condemn, it will have to fit in to the equation sooner or later (hopefully sooner than later). Perhaps not right now, but maybe even in our lifetimes, especially at the accelarating pace things are going. Who knows ? This war might be the catalyser of this peace we need so much.
________________________ "Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." --FZ
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex." --FZ too
I found this piece from the Asia Times to be incredibly enlightening. It's a few days old, so the figurs are dated, but it provides an excellent summary of the events that lead up to the conflict, the parties, groups, and individuals involved. Give it a read if you got a chance.
Posts: 410 | Location: San Juan, PR | Registered: April 08, 2003
I've seen pleeeeeeenty of Muslim outrage, and dozens of major Muslim leaders and scholars openly and clearly denounce terrorist actions, and exhort their followers to condemn such actions. You won't find these statements in most media outlets (funny, I thought the media was liberal), but they're out there. People just don't seem to care about hearing it.[/QUOTE]
? Where,when, I'm sorry but I've not seen any on the six o'clock or eleven o'clock news. Nothing in the Paper, or on the radio. Only thing on TV is a call,to "Kill the Jews",
What I dont understand is why the same folks that are condeming Israel are not condeming the terrorist.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: David Savona,
*********************** "He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." - Anonymous
Originally posted by flashman: Man, I thought my little speech 3 posts back had melted your hearts a little. I must ne losing my touch... But really, PFS and FirstRecon, I get your point. I mean, anything with an IQ above plant life can understand your point (I hope). It's just that I cannot adhere to it completely.
Is it because of my "left leaning beliefs" ? Probably... Utopia ? Maybe, but mostly everything great man as accomplished started as a utopia (the US included)... And even you must admit that however impotent seem diplomacy, understanding and all that lubby-dubby stuff you so easily condemn, it will have to fit in to the equation sooner or later (hopefully sooner than later). Perhaps not right now, but maybe even in our lifetimes, especially at the accelarating pace things are going. Who knows ? This war might be the catalyser of this peace we need so much.
QUOTE]Originally posted by flashman: Man, I thought my little speech 3 posts back had melted your hearts a little. I must ne losing my touch... But really, PFS and FirstRecon, I get your point. I mean, anything with an IQ above plant life can understand your point (I hope). It's just that I cannot adhere to it completely.
Is it because of my "left leaning beliefs" ? Probably... Utopia ? Maybe, but mostly everything great man as accomplished started as a utopia (the US included)... And even you must admit that however impotent seem diplomacy, understanding and all that lubby-dubby stuff you so easily condemn, it will have to fit in to the equation sooner or later (hopefully sooner than later). Perhaps not right now, but maybe even in our lifetimes, especially at the accelarating pace things are going. Who knows ? This war might be the catalyser of this peace we need so much.[/QUOTE]
Flashman, my Man,
Your post appears to agree, a wee bit, with myself and some of the other Hawks on this forum. Of course we Hawks believe in diplomacy! But, how many years have the UN been making resolutions regarding Israel, Lebanon, The Cameroon, actually all of West Africa, Bosnia, and on and on and on and on. Some of the time their diplomacy has born fruit. The other 95% (subjective % on my part)of the time it has failed miserably. Of course you must consider the corrupt source, the UN (Damn, I spoke those two letters again)
Yes, you are left leaning and Utopian in your thinking. The left leaning I will not comment on, you know my thoughts. The Utopian thinking means you are a person who still has compassion. I am very pleased that your "innocence" allows you that compassion. I don't want to talk war stories, but you lose your compassion when you have to cut a mans throat when you are only 3-inches from his face. Or, you have gone to West Africa, The Middle East, The Far East, Malaysia and Indonesia in particular in the Far East, the Eastern Block (sp?), and seen the misery mankind endures due to dictators, terrorists and hegonomists (sp?).
Now diplomacy: Lebanon has been under its self-induced civil war since the 1960's (no thanks to Syria, and Iran beginning in the late 1970's), Israel has battled all of its neighbors since the 1940's, the USA has been through so many global battles since WWI (thanks to Russia)that I can't state them here (my fingers would become tired of typing). My only irritation on that last sentence is this, the US is always blamed for all of these conflicts. Never is it spoken that we were in the majority of those conflicts keeping the Russians out of someones country.
Do I hope diplomacy will work? Yes! Do I believe, truly believe it will. Hell no! Sad to say, but diplomacy works the majority of the time if you have a knife at your opponents throat. I don't demean your innocence, I envy your innocence. I will leave you with one thought that gets me through every day of maddening anger:
"Because men are not angels, democracy is necessary, and because men are not devils democracy is possible" (16th century - author anonymous).
Don't give up on your feel good thoughts. Perhaps men of your like thinking will help this world not to destroy itself. Perhaps.
Bones Heal - Chicks Dig Scars - Pain Is Temporary
Posts: 79 | Location: Deep in the heart of Texas | Registered: July 13, 2006
FirtRecon, I truly appreciate your input. It helps me see things in a way I wouldn't have been able to otherwise. And love your quote...
However, though your criticism of the UN is somewhat valid, I believe you overestimate the effectivness of armed interventions on foreign soil. Let's take a look at what they have been fot the US between WWII and 9/11 :
China 1945-46 Korea 1950-53 China 1950-53 Guatemala 1954 Indonesia 1958 Cuba 1959-60 Guatemala 1960 Congo 1964 Peru 1965 Laos 1964-73 Vietnam 1961-73 Cambodia 1969-70 Guatemala 1967-69 Grenada 1983 Lebanon 1984 Libya 1986 El Salvador 1980s Nicaragua 1980s Panama 1989 Iraq 1991-99 Sudan 1998 Afghanistan 1998 Yugoslavia 1999
NONE of these interventions have led to a truly "democratic" government (in your sense)even though this was more often than not the reason given for the intervention.
This being said, I DO condemn the terrorists for their actions.
________________________ "Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." --FZ
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex." --FZ too
The Palestinians have the will to wipe out the Israelis, but not the ability. The Israelis, however, have the ability to wipe out the Palestinians, but not the will.
If the Palestinians ever get the ability, or the Israelis ever get the will, the Palestinian conflict will be over, although the larger Arab-Israeli conflict may remain. What I don't understand is why the Palestinian efforts always seem designed to harden the Israelis resolve. I guess for the Palestinians, killing random Israelis is both a means and an end. Now they've finally poked the tiger enough that it has woken up, and they are crying about excessive force? What did they think was going to happen?
Mike D
I hate violence! I hate it so much I am willing to kill anyone who tries to use it against me. -- Mike Waidelich
Your observation listed are erroneous in places, but valid in most. But we did keep the bastards off our backs. You also didn't mention that the US and many other countries (yours included) liberated Europe from two world wars. And, produced some very profitable losing countries, I hope you never receive an incoming missile in Quebec. You will be waiting a long time for the UN to come and help you. However, the US would help you in a heartbeat.
Back to The Middle East. Here are some stats for you:
The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population.
Physics: 1990 - Elias James Corey 1999 - Ahmed Zewail
Medicine: 1960 - Peter Brian Medawar 1998 - Ferid Mourad
The Global Jewish population is aproximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02% of the world population.
They received the following Nobel Prizes:
Literature: 1910 - Paul Heyse 1927 - Henri Bergson 1958 - Boris Pasternak 1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon 1966 - Nelly Sachs 1976 - Saul Bellow 1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer 1981 - Elias Canetti 1987 - Joseph Brodsky 1991 - Nadine Gordimer
World Peace: 1911 - Alfred Fried 1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser 1968 - Rene Cassin 1973 - Henry Kissinger 1978 - Menachem Begin 1986 - Elie Wiesel 1994 - Shimon Peres 1994 - Yitzhak Rabin
Chemistry: 1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer 1906 - Henri Moissan 1910 - Otto Wallach 1915 - Richard Willstaetter 1918 - Fritz Haber 1943 - George Charles de Hevesy 1961 - Melvin Calvin 1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz 1972 - William Howard Stein 1977 - Ilya Prigogine 1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown 1980 - Paul Berg 1980 - Walter Gilbert 1981 - Roald Hoffmann 1982 - Aaron Klug 1985 - Albert A. Hauptman 1985 - Jerome Karle 1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach 1988 - Robert Huber 1989 - Sidney Altman 1992 - Rudolph Marcus 2000 - Alan J. Heeger
Economics: 1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson 1971 - Simon Kuznets 1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow 1975 - Leonid Kantorovich 1976 -! Milton Friedman 1978 - Herbert A. Simon 1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein 1985 - Franco Modigliani 1987 - Robert M. Solow 1990 - Harry Markowitz 1990 - Merton Miller 1992 - Gary Becker 1993 - Robert Fogel
Medicine: 1908 - Elie Metchnikoff 1908 - Paul Erlich 1914 - Robert Barany 1922 - Otto Meyerhof 1930 - Karl Landsteiner 1931 - Otto Warburg 1936 - Otto Loewi 1944 - Joseph Erlanger 1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser 1945 - Ernst Boris Chain 1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller 1950 - Tadeus Reichstein 1952 - Selman Abraham Waksman 1953 - Hans Krebs 1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann 1958 - Joshua Lederberg 1959 - Arthur Kornberg 1964 - Konrad Bloch 1965 - Francois Jacob 1965 - Andre Lwoff 1967 - George Wald 1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg 1969 - Salvador Luria 1970 - Julius Axelrod 1970 - Sir Bernard Katz 1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman 1975 - Howard Martin Temin 1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg 1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow 1978 - Daniel Nathans 1980 - Baruj Benacerraf 1984 - Cesar Milstein 1985 - Michael Stuart Brown 1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein 1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini] 1988 - Gertrude Elion 1989 - Harold Varmus 1991 - Erwin Neher 1991 - Bert Sakmann 1993 - Richard J. Roberts 1993 - Phillip Sharp 1994 - Alfred Gilman 1995 - Edward B. Lewis
Physics: 1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson 1908 - Gabriel Lippmann 1921 - Albert Einstein 1922 - Niels Bohr 1925 - James Franck 1925 - Gustav Hertz 1943 - Gustav Stern 1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi 1952 - Felix Bloch 1954 - Max Born 1958 - Igor Tamm 1959 - Emilio Segre 1960 - Donald A. Glaser 1961 - Robert Hofstadter 1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau 1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman 1965 - Julian Schwinger 1969 - Murray Gell-Mann 1971 - Dennis Gabor 1973 - Brian David Josephson 1975 - Benjamin Mottleson 1976 - Burton Richter 1978 - Arno Allan Penzias 1978 - Peter L Kapitza 1979 - Stephen Weinberg 1979 - Sheldon Glashow 1988 - Leon Lederman 1988 - Melvin Schwartz 1988 - Jack Steinberger 1990 - Jerome Friedman 1995 - Martin Perl
The Jews are not demonstrating with their dead on the streets, yelling and chanting and asking for revenge.
The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims. The Jews don't highjack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.
The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.
The Jews don't have the economical strength of the Petroleum, nor the possibilities to force the world's media to see "their side" of the question.
Perhaps if the world's Muslims could invest more in normal education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems, we could all live in a better world.
THINK ABOUT IT.
"It is not who is right, but what is right, that is important". Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) Biologist and educator
Bones Heal - Chicks Dig Scars - Pain Is Temporary
Posts: 79 | Location: Deep in the heart of Texas | Registered: July 13, 2006
*********************** "He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion." - Anonymous
Here's another point, maybe small, but I think very significant:
Israeli's don't strap on vests full of explosives and ball bearings and walk into public markets, restaurants, etc to target as many civilian lives as possible.
Posts: 818 | Location: Central New Jersey | Registered: March 15, 2005
I am a bit worried about where this is going. Are you suggesting Muslims are inferior to Jews or other people ? That would be plainly wrong. It is really of question of being a different civilization. A well known and respected Jewish person, Claude Levi-Strauss, extensively descibes this phenomenom - and the distorted perceptions it creates when one culture looks at another - in his book "Race & History".
Also, modern Islamic terrorist movements are in fact inspired from 20th century european radical organisation (right wing and left wing).
An article I found from the Wall Street Journal adresses precisely those issues. It starts like this : "What is going on in the Muslim world? Why does it produce suicide hijackers on the one hand and, on the other, lethargic and haphazardly capitalist societies that have delivered neither economic development nor democracy? " Quite a teaser, non ? Here it is :
IMHO, it is not to be taken entirely at face value, but it does bring up interesting points and sheds a different light on the situation. And I know it is a bit long, but it is very interesting.
An also interesting tidbit that I might add is that the Jews also resorted to terrorism (against the British and Arabs) in the 40s with the Irgun, among other movements. (Although I am lucid enough to see the difference with today's Middle-Eastern terrorists). Like I said, just a tidbit.
________________________ "Tobacco is my favorite vegetable." --FZ
"Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex." --FZ too
Originally posted by flashman: I am a bit worried about where this is going. Are you suggesting Muslims are inferior to Jews or other people ? That would be plainly wrong. It is really of question of being a different civilization.
Flashman,
As usual, you are again missing my point and are returning to bleeding heart liberal on me instead of just liberal (I do have liberal friends whom I love to spar); there is a difference. I am just calling a spade a spade. I am speaking in the present chronology of events. Not what happened a zillion years ago. That was then, this is now.
If the Jews were not of superior intellect, they could not have survived for almost 60-years surrounded by Arabic Muslim enemies. That makes them a superior intellect, yes! Hell, the Arab's can not exist between themselves, they always are in-fighting. Remember, I worked and lived in ALL of the Arab countries for 14-years, so I am passing this FirstRecon opinion on as empirical information.
Additionally, we are discussing three separate issues here. Jews, Arabs and Muslims. The Muslim hatred of the Jews is not contained in the Middle East alone. Arabs are Muslims, Iranians are Muslims(who are not Arab's, but are Persians and don't even like Arab's), the Malaysians are Muslims, the Indonesians are Muslims, etc., the world over. So, my point here is that, ALL Muslims, not just Arabs, hate Jews and ALL infidels (that includes me in Texas and you in Mt-St-Hilaire, Quebec).
As far as pre-1940's Israel and Palestine claims on the land now in question, that is for another issue and for another thread. Which, I think, you or I should create on this forum; to look, study and post on this forum, the history of a past millenium's ago.
Yes, Arabs gave us astronomy, mathmatics, some philosopy (The Rubbyat (sp?) fo Omar Kyam and probably some items I am not aware of. Then it stopped when Islam began and stumped the Arabs ability to think for themselves. Islam and the Sharia law control the very people that you so want to be lifted above all this quagmire they have gotten themselves into. Islam does not tolerate self-thought! So, how can you be superior if you are not allowed self-thought? You can not!
Some more spewing now, on my part. Everyone feels so sad for the poor Palestinians and Lebanese because they are without wealth. Yep, the Jews provide an opportunity for Palestinians to make money for their families back in the "strip" by allowing them to work in Israel. Why don't the Arab oil-rich countries send money to the Palestinian PEOPLE? Because they only finance the terrorists. If there is no poor Palestine to fight about, then there is nothing to fight about. Palestine is the proxy country the Arabs/Muslims use as a focal point for something to hate the infidels about.
Palestine is a country. Yes, they have been recognized by Israel, the US, the EU, the UN (yuk, those two letters) as a country - even gave back some land taken from the stubborn dumb-ass Arab states who attacked them so they could have some land of their own. What have the oil-rich Arab states given the average Palestinian on the street. Not a damned thing, but more hate.
C'mon, Flashman, stop your bleeding-heart liberal ideology and come back to being just liberal. Yu are fighting a Utopian battle that just cannot be won. Muslims hate every thing and everyone, who is not Muslim. I REFUSE to be politically correct and pretend the Muslims and their terrorist funded front-men are not trying to take over the free-world and turn it into an Islamic world. Pray they don't reach your doorstep. Do you refuse to believe that they hate you, Flashman and his family, too.
Now I must discontinue this tirade as it is making me tired and angry. I'm just saying wake up to the present. The past is just that. The past. Let's deal with this present day Muslim threat against humanity. Muslims be damned, if they try to push their belief on me and mine. Muslims leave me the f@ck alone!
Nuff said and I still Luv Ya'.
Bones Heal - Chicks Dig Scars - Pain Is Temporary
Posts: 79 | Location: Deep in the heart of Texas | Registered: July 13, 2006
Originally posted by flashman: An also interesting tidbit that I might add is that the Jews also resorted to terrorism (against the British and Arabs) in the 40s with the Irgun, among other movements. (Although I am lucid enough to see the difference with today's Middle-Eastern terrorists). Like I said, just a tidbit.
Tidbit endearingly taken. If your countrymen had been fortunate enough to live through German concentration camps, which were, I believe, ignored by most of the European Continent, you would be a terrorist, too. Anything to get/take your own land and say "this will never again happen to my people"!
Bones Heal - Chicks Dig Scars - Pain Is Temporary
Posts: 79 | Location: Deep in the heart of Texas | Registered: July 13, 2006
In fact, terrorism was used by radical Zionists to achieve their ends. And shame on them for it. Also, when two peoples claim that a particular piece of land was given to them by G-d, you're going to run into trouble.
However, let's leave the sad and nutty history behind for a moment and look at what exists today. Israel is a free and prosperous country where Muslims are not only at liberty to practice their religion but may vote and serve in the Knesset. They do not, however, enjoy all the priveleges if the Israeli Jew: Muslims are not forced to serve in the Israeli army and are entirely exempt from service.
In the Palestinian Authority? Glad you asked. There, the irrigation pipes of Gaza were torn up and used to make rockets. Also, a woman known as the "mother of martyrs" was elected to the PA parliament because she sent not one, but two, of her sons off to be suicide bombers. She is vocal in her hope that her third son will do the same.
As Winston Churchill once said, "I will not be neutral between the fire and the firemen."
_______________________
"Live every week like it's Shark Week."
Posts: 1485 | Location: New York/Denver | Registered: August 05, 2005
also, the Palestinians just want to form their own state as well............ so where exatcly is the difference between the terrorisme by jews against the british and the current set of terrorisme by Palestinians ?
and dont get me wrong, I do not support terrorisme ever, in any case it is completely unacceptabel to kill innocent civilians,but where do we draw the line ?
FirstRecon, it still seems to me (and it is not a question of my heart bleeding) that you fail to recognize important nuances between Muslims and Islamists.
Here is a definition of "Islamism" by the respected Center for Strategic and International Studies. It states, among other things, that 10% of Muslims are Islamists.
"Islamism is an ideology that demands man's complete adherence to the sacred law of Islam and rejects as much as possible outside influence, with some exceptions (such as access to military and medical technology). It is imbued with a deep antagonism towards non-Muslims and has a particular hostility towards the West. It amounts to an effort to turn Islam, a religion and civilization, into an ideology.
The word "Islamism" is highly appropriate, for this is an "-ism" like other "-isms" such as fascism and nationalism. Islamism turns the bits and pieces within Islam that deal with politics, economics, and military affairs into a sustained and systematic program. As the leader of the Muslim Brethren put it some years ago, "the Muslims are not socialist nor capitalist; they are Muslims." I find it very telling that he compares Muslims to socialists and capitalists and not to Christians or Jews. He is saying, we are not this "-ism," we are that "-ism." Islamism offers a way of approaching and controlling state power. It openly relies on state power for coercive purposes.
Islamism is, in other words, yet another twentieth-century radical utopian scheme. Like Marxism-Leninism or fascism, it offers a way to control the state, run society, and remake the human being. It is an Islamic-flavored version of totalitarianism. The details, of course, are very different from the preceding versions, but the ultimate purpose is very similar.
Islamism is also a total transformation of traditional Islam; it serves as a vehicle of modernization. The ideology deals with the problems of urban living, of working women and others at the cutting edge, and not the traditional concerns of farmers. As Olivier Roy, the French scholar, puts it, "Rather than a reaction against the modernization of Muslim societies, Islamism is a product of it." Islamism is not a medieval prog
Flashman,
Raven,