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U.S. invasion of Iraq?
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So much as they might hate Israel, Arab countries have come to accept it's there to stay, and have actually made moves towards a lasting peace. That is the reality, and it's about time all Sharon apologists (like yourself, it seems) stop using the same old tired arguments.The plan
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Actions do indeed speak louder than words.
As for the military strength of Israel vs other Arab countries, it would seem that you are the one who is showing breathtaking ignorance. Perhaps you are not aware of your own country's continuous supply of state-of-the-art weaponry to Israel or the $1bn-a-year-military aid they receive from Uncle Sam. Israel have one of the most advanced missile tracking and delivery systems including laser-guided bombs and aerial surveillance. Not to mention scores of F15s and F16s fighters (the former boasting a 100% record against MIGs), a full array of tanks and other armoured weapons, surface to air and interceptor missiles and attack Apache helicopters. And if this wasn't enough Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear capability. Which makes it a pretty formidable adversary, don't you think? Now try to compare that arsenal with those of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Iran...
Well? :rolleyes:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28405
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,4769677%255E662,00.html
I am also aware of my country (and France) selling state of the art military equipment to Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The balance isn't as clear as you seem to think it is. Wake up. Israel may have the most effective military in the region (I think they do under the circumstances they are in) but a big part of their ability to survive is based on those "occupied" territories and the internal supply lines they have. "Amatuers study tactics, professionals study logistics." Take a look at the logistics. It isn't nearly as cut and dried as you would have us believe.
Funny that I don't see the PLO on the list in that article you chose to link to. I guess you consider them to be nobody?
The American government is now spreading the Pax Americana. Our culture permeates the world. McDonalds and the GAP are everywhere. Our Movies are the best. American English is the "lingua franca" of science and politics. Every pilot must speak English. Our military is unbeatable. Our economy runs the world.
Rome had its day, the Mongols had their day, and the English had theirs. It is now our turn. By the way our culture will conquer the world without the aid of our military. Have a Coke with those fries?
We do what we want when we want to because no one can stop us!:p
And always remember Marco......don't mess with Texas!;)
All kidding aside Marco if we don't take the lead as the world's only superpower then who will? The French?:rolleyes:
Murph:D
Look at what the Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and to a certain extent the British gave the world and then look at that list you have just given as an example of your culture...
They have withdrawn as a sign of good will on many occasions. Each time the Palestinians attack them anyway.
I have an idea, if you think the Israelis are unjustified in using tanks and jets, how about if they resort to the same tactics, but Western style. Sending in small squads of heavily armed men and sending them on killing sprees? It would even things up a bit don't you think.
here in Italia is something for baby...
when they become big they don't like.. i see with children of my brother..
American movie: i don't think they are the best... the most are only a not real show...;)
this is true...
hehehehe i have some doubt...
to have our culture(European) you must wait 2000 years...
if you think that I'm sorry for you...
the same error of big nation in the past...:(
EUROPA:cool: :cool: :cool:
Well I grant you that Italian food is the best on the planet bar none! It is the #1 favorite food here in the U.S..
You must admit however that American culture permeates everyone elses culture. The French especially go crazy over this fact. We gave the world Jazz, Blues, Rap, Dallas, Bay Watch, and of course Pamela Anderson.
In terms of military power the U.S. is truly unstoppable should it wish to achieve something. Remember who makes up the U.S. citizenry. People from Europe, Asia, Africa, etc.....We are the world in a sense.
Don't feel sad Marco for my feeling that way. The fact of the matter is the combined forces of all the militaries of the world could not defeat us. Our technology is that advanced. Note however that we are not a nation that is building empire. We are more likely to send aid and not troops. Whose money helped rebuild Europe after the war. Name one other nation that is so magnanimous to a defeated enemy. (Note that Italian-Americans were one of the largest ethnic groups in the American Army in the last great war.) We have our warts but it is the greatest place on the planet to live in my humble opinion.
Europa is a dream. There are too many centuries of bad feelings. Everyone knows that the Germans would eventually take the lead and try to run a combined Europe. It is always better to side with the CASH!
As for our nation being in error.....note that we have more power at our disposal than any other nation in the world's history.
We may not always use it wisely but we always have the best of intentions.
Marco, you should visit America and see just how wonderous a place it can be. Take a month and visit the cities and the country side. You may not want to go back afterwards. My folks didn't!
Civilian Casualties:
No Apology Needed
By RALPH PETERS
Earlier this week, Israel succeeded in killing Salah Shehada, a savage Hamas mastermind, and one of his top aides. A dozen Palestinian civilians died in the attack, including members of Shehada's family. The civilian deaths may be lamentable, but they also were justifiable. A terrorist leader used his relatives and neighbors as shields, and they died with him. Their deaths were Shehada's fault, not Israel's.
Once again, much of the world has applied a double standard, accusing Israel of barbarity for inflicting civilian casualties as part of a legitimate military operation, while overlooking the hundreds of Israeli civilians killed intentionally by Shehada and his subordinates. For Europeans, especially, Jewish lives count no more today than they did in 1944.
Why are Palestinian terrorists allowed to target civilians without exciting an international outcry, while every accidental civilian death inflicted by Israel is a crime against humanity?
Europe's reflexive anti-Semitism doesn't really matter much, since today's Europeans lack the power, will and courage to act upon their bigotry. But the Bush administration needs to stop pandering to corrupt Arab regimes and to recognize that Israel is fighting for its life; that Israel is fighting with great restraint; and that Israel's pursuit of terrorists is every bit as legitimate as our own. Instead of criticizing Israeli policy, we should be studying it.
Recently, our own forces were demonized for causing civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Some Afghan factions, with their intricate agendas, claimed we had attacked an innocent wedding party. Of course, the global media were only too willing to deplore American evil (despite the fact that we overthrew a monstrous regime and conquered an "unconquerable" country while causing, at most, a few hundred civilian casualties). Though combat videos proved that our aircraft was fired upon first, we nonetheless stumbled through witless apologies and promised to impose greater safeguards in the future.
As with the Israelis, our military response was justified. It is the apologies that make no sense.
The war against terrorism must be prosecuted judiciously, but the terrorists themselves must be pursued without remorse.
When terrorists attempt to hide amid the civilian population, we must pursue them without hesitation. They cannot be allowed a single safe haven. If they use their neighbors as shields, it is the terrorists who are to blame should civilians die. If they attempt to use their families as cover, they will be responsible for the deaths of their own loved ones. The world must learn that, when civilians allow terrorists to use them, the civilians become legitimate military targets.
This is not about diplomatic table manners. It is a fight to exterminate human monsters.
Earlier this month, the Israelis were attacked for a plan to deport the families of terrorists from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. Of course, the Europeans and our own tattered left began comparing the plan to death trains bound for Auschwitz. While Europe's incurable nostalgia for the Wannsee Conference makes their hatred of Israel understandable on some level, the enthusiasm American leftists show for equating the Holocaust's survivors with the Holocaust's perpetrators is as dishonest as it is tasteless.
The fact is that the Israelis have begun to make a crucial link in dealing with terrorists: their families. In the Middle East, Arab armies fight ineptly because the soldiers feel no deep loyalty to their states. In the Arab world and in related cultures, earthly loyalties are, above all, to family. If left with no useful alternative, the Israelis -- and we Americans -- must be willing to pursue the terrorists through their relatives.
Of course, our outdated conventions make this proposition anathema to us. Thus, when dealing with a culture in which only faith and family matter to our enemies, we insist on making war on governments and negotiating with political organizations that are no more than mobs with diplomatic representation. We are punching thin air.
Meanwhile, few of Israel's critics complain when Palestinian mothers and fathers praise the gruesome suicides of their children or accept blood money from Riyadh and Baghdad. If you want a stark indicator of the power of family in the Middle East, consider that of the many suicide bombers to date, none has been a close relative of a Hamas leader or of the leadership of any other Palestinian faction. Suicide bombers employed to inflict mass murder on Israel are always drawn from marginal families. The terrorist leaders would no more send their own sons and daughters out as suicide bombers than they would go themselves.
If you cannot kill your enemy, threaten what he holds dear. Force him to come out and confront you in desperation. Today, we do not have the stomach for this. Tomorrow, we may find it a necessity.
In the meantime, as the U.S. slowly learns the real meaning of a war on terror, the Israelis continue to struggle against the Arab vision of Jewish annihilation. Israel will do what must be done, as humanely as possible. And Israel must accept that no matter what it does or fails to do, no matter how much success it achieves and how few civilian casualties it inflicts among its enemies, it will be hated by those who cheer on the enemies of mankind from the safety of Strasbourg, Stockholm or Harvard Yard.
Critics persist in claiming that attacks upon terrorists do not work, since results are not instantaneous. But the war against terror is a war of attrition and can only be won over decades. We may not know the real effects of Israel's current efforts for several years. But there is no course worse than cowardice and inaction.
The same critics will tell you that by killing civilians in their attacks, the Israelis -- or the Americans -- simply turn other civilians against them. This is nonsense. Civilians who shield the enemies of Israel or the U.S. are already anti-Israel or anti-American. But if our strikes against the masters of terror come to seem inevitable, those same civilians will turn against terrorists who try to use them as living shields -- as villagers in Afghanistan already have done.
Terrorists and their supporters must learn that they will be allowed no hiding places. Not in their homes, not in churches or mosques, and not in foreign countries to which they might flee. This is a war that must be fought without compromise. It is, above all, a contest of wills. Every apology is a surrender.
Why do you not simply come out and confess that you are a member of Hamas? :rolleyes: You make no attempt to hide your prejudice...
Written by someone who has been on the ground and knows the subject, unlike yourself.
Perhaps they only expose you to the negative reporting pieces we write on Israel. For the record, all terrorist actions have and are condemmend by everybody here. No one here has sympathy or support for suicide bombers. But the difference is that whilst we are prepared to critisise BOTH sides when abuses or killings have been commited, most people in the US choose to ignore, day in day out, the abuses perpetrated by Israel.
Let's make this clear: Israel has the technology, as it has proven dozens of times in the last 2 years, of assasinating targets while they are on the move, in cars, in 'bomb-factories'. However they decided to attack on Monday by launching a 1 tonne guided missile to the terrorist home at night. It was specifically required that a 1 tonne bomb was used to ensure total and absolute destruction of a whole block of apartments- and to hell with whoever lives there. Sharon cannot claim to be the innocent victim and completely blameless when he shows so little regard for human life. There have been worse cases like this (but perhaps you don't even hear about them, so maybe it's not your fault). The Jennin massacre was one of the worst attrocities commited in recent times. Whole buildings where bulldozed while families slept; soldiers couldn't be bothered to warn them in advance. In the same siege the army stopped ambulances *ambulances!!* from going through to assist the wounded. As a result dozens of men (terrorists, gunmen, I don't care) were left to bleed to death. Not to mention the scores of people who were found executed inside houses, shot dead at a range of 2 feet.
And you are actually surprised we critisise some of Israel's actions??
*starts laughing with Baldie*
A little behind on the news, aren't you?
LMAO
When in "the grips" of an anal/cranial inversion, it must take awhile for the "news" to penetrate...
Therefore even if the oil gets exported and the country seems to benefit, the rich always go overseas to spend their money. It ends up being a benefit for oil to be found in the Middle East for the West.
I can understand why Saddam doesnt want this to happen to his country.
(altho that disregards any human rights abuses the universally-trustworthy-TV has told me about).
I'm happy about...
I'm not totally agree with you...
I don't think that you give more than other nation, (perhaps in last 50 years it's true)
You gave Jim Morrison hehehehe
Personally I haven't nothing against US but it's ambiguos nation since it was born...
Bay Watch and Pamela Anderson?????? heehehhe i hope that you aren't serious hehehee Yes but it's not right to think to command world and to make what you want. if you think so, i think you are like Iraq or like Germany following another way but with same final...:(
yes but perhaps need to remember that US have recieved all back.. if US has not recieved money, it has recieve place where can put its ship, its airplanes and other....
US have never done something for nothing...
perhaps... it isn't simple situation...but... but...the relation is same... the Roman was enormously more organizes and strong than Barbarians... but to the end they lost all...
and i don't think that US "always have the best of intentions".
I have never tel that it's a bad place...
i would like to go to New York(Bronx), Arizona ant other...
perhaps one day....
but Napoli is always Napoli... ehheheheheh
ciao Murph ....
The Bronx is a good choice. THe Yankess, The Bronx Zoo, and the New York Botanical Gardens. The Italian restaurants on Arthur Avenue are amongst the best in the country.
Here it is called 'Da Bronx'! Arizona is best in the winter. The summers are extremely hot there.
You are of course correct. Napoli is always Napoli!:D
Jenin
But since this has been brought up (as I was sure someone would) I see that the rest of my post reminds conveniently ignored. What I'm getting up, Greenhat, is that I am yet to read one single word of disapproval about Israel by certain posters in here. What would it take for you and others to voice your concern or disapproval of some of Sharon's actions? How many people need to be killed for some people to say 'that was wrong'? I get the feeling that it would be easier to talk Bin Laden into converting to Judaism than hear a single word of disapproval about Israel from the Sharon apologists. We the evil Nazi Europeans have been voicing our concerns about atrocities committed on both sides. More, it would seem, than it can be said for you lot.
Here's the thing, Aladdin. Sharon is the elected leader of a sovereign nation. If there are problems with his actions, those are the concern of the people of Israel. But of course, you seem to think you deserve a vote. Want one? Move to Israel and become a citizen.
Maybe because we don't disagree with Sharon's actions. Unlike the optimists in the left, those of us with half a brain cell realise that Sharon has no other choice. He has given the terrorists many different oppotunities to stop their violence, he has withdrawn his troops as a sign of goodwill repeatedly, only to have it thrown back in his face.
All he can do now is invade Palestine, hunt out the terrorists and destroy them. And at the rate his own citizens are dying I doubt he gives a shit if he takes some Palestinian civlians on the way.
some times Sharon have use violence also when terrorists don't continue to attack...
nobody have the right in this situation... for me Israeli and Palestine have same responsability.the difference is that Israeli fight with airplane, tank and missiles.. palestines with desperation..
I think if their is a chance that saddam can be overthrown it should be taken, it will cost lives but if he says in power he could attack britain with the ease bid laden did the U.S.
all these stupid lefties in britain won't hear a word against anyone who's an arab or a muslim but the fact is that as well as many good people their are plenty of arabs and Islamic terrorists and leaders that want destruction of America and it's Allies and it's up to the British goverenment to protect itself as best it can.
By the same reasoning the US had no business whatsoever in the former Yugoslavia, and good old Milosevic should have been left alone. The same could be said of a number of nations harassed by the US in the last half century.
Those hard-right Republicans who have aired their total and unconditional support to Sharon, and in some instances encouraged him to retake Palestine permanently. And some of our American posters on this site, who as I said before have yet to condemn or even mildly criticise a single action perpetrated by Sharon’s army.
Er... the army checkpoints and blockades have multiplied during Sharon’s reign, the building of illegal settlements has flourished, every single Palestinian government office has been attacked (with the objective, of course, to undermine the Palestinian Authority to the point where it’s not existent so Sharon can move in and parachute a puppet), abuses by the army have increased, and the man has ruled out an independent Palestinian State. This, of course, has triggered more terrorist attacks than at any other time in Israel’s history, but the man’s response is to castigate the entire Palestinian population even further with more curfews, the blocking of tax money, isolation, etc etc. Needless to say, this will lead to even more terrorist atrocities, ad nauseum. And all because the man will not do what is right and lawful: the complete withdraw of occupied Palestine, the removal of all illegal settlements and the recognition of a Palestinian nation. But then Sharon had never intended to do such things. His visit to the Temple Mount was a calculated move to provoke the Palestinians’ fury. The resulting riots helped to derail the Labour government and win Sharon the Prime Minister’s seat. And it was clear from day 1 of his premiership that his only goal wasn’t the complete return of Palestine, but to take as much additional land as possible. The words ‘Sharon’ and ‘peace’ don’t go exactly hand in hand.
Sharon's Army?
It's Israel's Army. Here's your problem. You want to blame one man for the actions of a democratic nation, actions which you can't even manage to keep track of the facts on (making your own credibility zero). I suggest you read a bit of John Locke. Might give you a different viewpoint on responsibility.
LMAO
Coming from the person who's contributed just about zero facts to the argument that's rather rich.
May I inform you that as a Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon is the Supreme Commander of Israel's Armed Forces. All the bulldozing, blockades, sieges, curfews, land occupation, F16 bombardments of residential areas and night tank raids perpetrated by the Army have been ordered by Sharon and his cronies. And by the way, his approval rating amongst the Israelis is now well below 50%. So I feel very much vindicated to use the phrase 'Sharon's Army', much in the same way as I would talk of the Holocaust being carried out by the Nazis, not the people of Germany.
Anyway, I see that you are picking on two words from a previous post and trying to make a case of it, rather than replying to the actual posts. I assume you have no actual comments to make on the UN report on Jenin, or any other alleged abuses committed by Israel?