Winning hearts and minds, or: How not to....volume 2 [Archive]

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 01:54 PM

The other thread was locked but I saw something that jumped out that I felt I needed to respond to. the thread was about the U.S. actions in iraq and how they are now destroying the homes of terrorists....
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5599

Before I do, I want to stress again that I fully support the U.S. actions in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

<rant mode on>

I am a bit irritated with a few American members (thank god its only a few) who have this hypocritical stance where they attempt to take the moral high ground when trying to negate when Israel is fighting its war on terrorism which is actually much more vital to Israel’s security then the U.S., where they try to criticize its rightful actions but yet when the U.S. does the same thing they see no wrong in it and justify it to no end.

I mean its also true for some government officials. I can go back to U.S. official’s criticizing Israel for destroying houses of terrorists and now they are doing it. I can also go back and piont out how they were against targeted killings of terrorists and now they are doing it.

This is hypocritical and it is wrong.

I mean I can have more respect for the Europeans here who are at least consistent in their criticisms and not wobble back and forth when it suits their nations actions.

ok here is the qoute from WARPIG...........

The only thing out of place is the Israeli justification for their military actions. Legitimate targets vs targetting sympathizers .. two totally different things. Scare tactics against other combatants helps you win without having to kill all of them. Scare tactics against sympathizers is terrorism. that is a clear falsehood. Israel, does not go after terrorist sympathisers and destroys their homes.

No they only go after homicide bombers homes or homes that were used as cover for terrorist snipers.

It is obvious yet again that you are trying to make your case by simply putting down Israel as if both are different when they are not!!!!

I at first was going to let this go but as I said before because of my love and respect for the U.S. and its people, your (and he219) hypocrisy is simply the most irritating thing on this board for me to ignore.

Sorry I don’t mean to offend but this continence of your double standards is actually quite offensive to me.

<rant mode off>

ok calm now :D

Just btw Israels military actions are working and it is the only reason why Jewish man woman and children are not being blown up on a daily bases while sitting in some restaurant or on some bus. There hasn’t been a major homicide attack in a while and that is strictly due to Israel’s just war on terror. Yes we cant stop everyone and there will be more in the future, but Israel is doing the right thing and its military is preventing numerous attacks from being successful on a daily bases.

Shalom :D

duck

11-19-2003, 01:57 PM

How will the just war on terror come to reflect on Israeli society when the arabs become the ethnic majority?

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 02:00 PM

How will the just war on terror come to reflect on Israeli society when the arabs become the ethnic majority? good question!!

You mean the Israeli Arabs or the Palestinian Arabs who live in the west bank and Gaza??

Shalom :D

96B

11-19-2003, 02:02 PM

Hell I think we could use some advice from the Israelis on how to deal with these insurgents. With that said, it is critical that we maintain a balance with security and support of the people as well.

duck

11-19-2003, 02:02 PM

You know why I am not more specific. So the Fence will solve everything?

budanski

11-19-2003, 02:05 PM

You know why I am not more specific. So the Fence will solve everything?

I'd vote to put a fence up on our own borders.

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 02:06 PM

You know why I am not more specific. So the Fence will solve everything?hell no, it wont solve everything, but it will decrease the number of attacks and that is its goal.

The fence is not about any grand solution for that lies in the hearts of the Arab world and when they are ready to fully accept Israel (not merely a few who say some nice token things in English), but this fence is in the meantime to stop the infiltrations and to decrease the number of successful attacks.

proof of this working is by gaza where there has been a fence for years and not a single homicide bomber has come from that area!!!

shalom :D

Seiyuuki

11-19-2003, 02:13 PM

duck

11-19-2003, 02:21 PM

The religious and more right-wing parties are still insisting on annexing the West Bank? That's what I had in mind when just mentioning "arabs".

WARPIG

11-19-2003, 02:32 PM

idfm203..
I can see how you misinterpreted my post. I want to clear that up. The comparison with the sympathizers vs terrorist tagets was based on the article. I should have said that. I really don't have a very clear idea of the nature of conflict in Gaza. I wasn't being hypocritical. Biased maybe but I haven't created any double standard.
Narrow as my view may be, I still get pretty annoyed at the constant comparison of Iraq and Gaza. There is no reason for it and frankly it is liable. Israeli and US similarities are obvious.. even in the tactical sense. The situations are fundamentally different yet the comparisons continue. I can understand that the goal is the same (fight terror).. but the situations are not. Again... your viewpoint is just as biased as mine. Mine is limited because of my lack of exposure to it.. I can work on that with some research. I think your bias is due to the direct exposure you have to their military.
Bottom line, my comparison was based on that article alone. Small window of perspective on some limited facts. My take on the post was that the percieved strong arm tactics of punishing sympathizers was mirrored by the US. Even according to the article they were two different targets..and spier made an attempt to use it to make comparisons and spin anti US rhetoric. Heck, his post was actually right. Tuffer security and active offense is going to be hard on Iraq/US P.R.
Good to have opposition and scrutiny.. keeps me challanged. Thanks idfm203.

Royal

11-19-2003, 02:33 PM

IDFM203 - for once I agree with you :D

I also had some issues with some of things said in that thread - including the links that were posted.

As most of you will (hopefully) know I have no issues with a 'war on terror' whether conducted by Isreal, the US, the UK, NATO or whoever else. I do however have issues with some of the tactics (and I know that the UK armed forces are by no means whiter than white on this issue) - what I do not believe in is collective punishment.

For a start it is proscribed by the Geneva Conventions for the management of occupied territories (Iraq, the West Bank and Gaza are most certainly occupied. Northern Ireland is a moot point). But more importantly, if there is one thing that has been learned in nearly 50 years of low intensity operations (including in the Arab world) conducted by the British armed forces, it is that the only way to win is to get the indiginous population on your side.

Hearts and minds/CIMIC Ops are are part of this, as are surgical combat Ops. The recruitment of local forces is certainly part of this (look at the use of the firqat in Oman, or read Gangs and Counter Gangs by Gen Sir Frank Kitson). Bulldozing/bombing homes (whether they are used/owned by the families of 'terrorists' is not. 'Terrorists' (even radical muslim ones) can be 'turned' (firqat again).

I am fairly sure that I will be flamed for these comments by some of the US posters and their Hooah attitude, but I've spent too much time in the worlds ****holes not to try and enlighten at least some of you ;)

A final comment - in my experience of working with them the US Army's Special Forces were once the pime exponent of this type of operation - probably even more so than UK special forces. Has this changed, or are their voices being drowned out?

WARPIG

11-19-2003, 02:43 PM

Great point. I agree, most people seem to think that drowning Iraq in combat troops is going to make it more secure.. maybe. But it is going to kill the rebuild operation. Combat troops are destructive to the land.. even if they aren't shooting. Common knowledge. They are only trained in "ballistic"communication and well, that isn't really a good PR tool. Getting those out-of-work Iraqi soldiers something to do so the Baathist recruiters run out of recruits.. that is how we make it more secure. We are battling criminals and thugs right now. If we give them a better option, they will take it.

Trigger

11-19-2003, 02:48 PM

Good post Royal.

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 03:34 PM

to warpig,

Ok I am happy that we at least can engage in a constructive manner and not lead it to where other less mature posters would have taken this.

Oh and of course as per my style I am going to dissect your post a bit ;) Sorry I can’t help it :D

idfm203..
Narrow as my view may be, I still get pretty annoyed at the constant comparison of Iraq and Gaza. There is no reason for it and frankly it is liable. Israeli and US similarities are obvious.. even in the tactical sense. The situations are fundamentally different yet the comparisons continue. ok lets clear up some things.

The U.S. went into Iraq and into Afghanistan in a initial goal of a war on terror. That was the defined goal.. It first went about bombing it and going after the perspective terrorist regimes and infrastructure and destroying it or trying to do that. Now after that was accomplished the goal shifted to hearts and minds and rightfully so.

Israel never went on that type of Iraq and Afghanistan campaign, as it should have in the beginning. It has taken a much slower route and that was due to its attempts at restraint. They have not used those strong tactics and open warfare to root out the terrorists. Yes now there are some reoccupation but that was only of late for the most part Israel was on the defensive and not on the offensive as it should have done from the get go. I personally think they should and I think once after the terrorist infrastructure is destroyed or close to it then they can try to win hearts and minds or at least try again

Secondly it tried hearts and minds for during the Oslo years when it gave over every Palestinian city and town to where they had over 95 percent control over their own lives and they were about to get more land and over all the occupation was very limited, but all throughout that time, the killings by Palestinians never stopped, the incitement by the Palestinians never stopped, Arafat said one thing in English but said the opposite in Arabic, and then after barak offered much more instead of retuning to negotiate they started a war.

I want hearts and minds as well but my feeling is that no matter what Israel does, even if it pulls out of the west bank and Gaza, the hearts of a lot in the arab world is to rid the whole Israel of Jews and that is no matter what even after a pullout.

So yes there are different situations but the core is the same. Israel is fighting a war on terrorists, a war which is much more perilous to Israel’s vital security, and the U.S. was and is fighting a war on terror but due to its harsher tactics, they are ahead of Israel now to where they can attempt to work on hearts and minds. Israel is behind for contrary to worlds biased and negative medias, the idf has been very restrained (I know I was there during this war) and the fact is that unlike Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorist infrastructure in the west bank and gaza still exists.

I can understand that the goal is the same (fight terror).. but the situations are not. Again... your viewpoint is just as biased as mine. Mine is limited because of my lack of exposure to it.. I can work on that with some research. I think your bias is due to the direct exposure you have to their military. listen everyone has biases, there is no denying that but just like a lot of you give credence to say detrioum (sp?) and his bias because he has been to Iraq and has seen first hand, well the same courtesy should be given to mine for I have been where I have and I know what I am talking about.

Bottom line, my comparison was based on that article alone. Small window of perspective on some limited facts. My take on the post was that the percieved strong arm tactics of punishing sympathizers was mirrored by the US. ok so you now say perceived and I grant you that correction but still Israel does not target terrorist sympathisers for if it did, instead of the Palestinians casualty count in the past three years being under 3000 it would be over 500,000 for there is that or more that sympathise with them,
No, again Israel does not target sympathisers but only actual terrorists or their homes or ones that are used for cover for Palestinian snipers.

P.S. did you see my post in the thread…http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5501&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

oh and to Royal...good post!! (I especailly liked your s*ithole commant :D )although I disagree with some aspects. I think I covered in my response here I feel the situaiton is with us.

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-19-2003, 03:46 PM

budanski

11-19-2003, 03:50 PM

I thought this was interesting...

http://www.webmutants.com/strategypage/cute_palestinian_toys.jpg

source (http://www.strategypage.com/gallery/default.asp?target=cute_palestinian_toys.htm)
The items shown are for sale in Palestinian areas. The Palestinian leadership has, for decades, preached that all real, or imagined, wrongs done to Palestinians by the Israelis were done with the permission of the United States. The common belief among Palestinians is that Americans are the enemy becuause of this, and, as a result, the attacks on September 11, 2001, were seen as a victory for Palestinians. Oddly enough, Palestinian spokesmen deny this (in English). But Palestinian media (in Arabic) says otherwise. So do the toys sold to Palestinian children.

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 03:54 PM

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 03:58 PM

dammit.. I hate when you slice up my posts.. I gotta try and keep them shorter.
I took that whole post out of context. There was too much bull**** in there to focus on and I seemed to miss most of them.
I did get the idea that the whole sledgehammer tactic might be good for combat but bad for PR.
I still disagree with the comparisons idf203.. maybe it is because all the media is doing it .
For whatever reason, (media) the general perception of Israel in Gaza is negative right now. The US relationship with Israel is being used to "smear" our tactics and actions in Iraq. I think I am reacting to that and when I hear your comparisons it has the same feel.
I'll take your view and add some research of my own. Maybe I will have a better understandin soon.
dammit. post is too long.. he's gonna hack it up again.heheh, I am actually beginning to like you ;)

Ok no hack job. (Well this time only ;) )

Listen you say Israel is being perceived negatively and on that we agree a hundred percent, but the U.S. is also being perceived negatively around the world. Now I don’t think because the world media says something that you take it as truth. The same for Israel.

Listen if you want to believe the negative perception that the world media has then I cant help you but that doesn’t mean that you are at the truth or even close to it. I think this Iraq situation and the way the media has portrayed it, has thought you that.

Now yes the Arab world resents the U.S/Israel relationship and it is a fact that they resent Israel period, now just because they resent these things doesn’t mean that they are right!!!

shalom :D

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 04:03 PM

I agree with Royal that the destruction of private property is repulsive. And not only that but also counter-productive.

It might be good for morale, and in some cases it is saver for the individual soldiers to use enormous firepower. But in the end they might just come of much worse.

They US objective in Iraq is to provide a stable and democratic state that can handle its own affairs, contrary to the israelis. Fighting terrorist or insurgents that attack the temporary occupation forces are not the main objective.

The first thing is impossible without the hearts and mind of the Iraqi people. The second might be easier on the short term with a show of force, but it might well ruin the main objective.

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 04:06 PM

No, again Israel does not target sympathisers but only actual terrorists or their homes or ones that are used for cover for Palestinian snipers.

What is your definition of terrorists? The destruction of private property in both the westbank and Gaza is indiscriminate and without military justification. this whole indiscriminte charge is false in both the killings and the home destructions...

indiscriminate killing is 3 million Palestinians or tens of thousands of them being killed and not just 3000 or less that have been killed in the past three years of conflict.

No, Israel for the most part only targets terrorists, which are people that have actively or covertly or overtly engaged in the killings and targeting of Jewish man women and children.

Israel does not target civilians as the Palestinians do for the most part.

Again there are some tragic occurrences but it was not deliberate.

There is no moral equivalence to Israel responding to attacks on its civilians by targeting those or other murderers and killers and then accidentally killing a bystander.

Again Israel does not target civilians while the Palestinians for the most part do.

as for homes it does the same!! it only targets terroriats homes or homes that were used as cover for palastinins snipers

P.S. I think you need to read the bold in my sigline as to the real nature of this conflict!!

Shalom :D

Royal

11-19-2003, 04:14 PM

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 04:19 PM

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 04:29 PM

IDFM203 - What I'm getting at (Mr Nielson may also be) is that the actions are counter productive, certainly in Iraq, and maybe in other parts of the Middle East.

I don't think that anyone is saying that the IDF targets civilians per se (I'm certainly not). What I am saying is that the IDF's actions (and the US Army/USAF's recent ones) are collective punishment. I've already outlined why I believe that is both illegal and counter-productive.ok I hear what your saying but I think a lot of it is on a false premise.
A lot of people criticize Israel for indiscriminate things when that is completely false.

Now there are two types of homes that are destroyed.

The first is homes that are used as cover for Palestinian snipers to kill and murder

The second is the homes of homicide bombers.

Now on the first one, I don’t understand how you can question Israel targeting the house that was used as cover for snipers to kill and murder, which a lot of those houses that were destroyed were used for.... on that aspect I don’t think you have any valid questions or arguments

Now for the homes of homicide bombers. Well there are cases of where fathers have turned in their sons who were about to do an attack due to fear of losing his home or besides the reported cases there are a lot of unreported incidents like that

Also there is some evidence that some homicide bombers have chosen not to do that because of concern for their families well being

Listen I concede that this one aspect (this is the only one in my book) that it might be controversial but the fact is that Israel is not indiscriminate targeting homes but only the homes of homicide bombers and that has deterred a few from acting as they would have other wise.

As for counter productive. Well first of all this whole conflict is not going on because of this aspect. Now Whether you claim its counter productive or not, the point is that Israel needs to defend its citizens on a daily bases from these attacks and this is one of the methods amongst many that is actually preventing more loss of lives. That’s a fact.

As for hearts and minds or actual prospects for a solution, well I refer you to my other post where I addressed that.

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 04:33 PM

No, Israel for the most part only targets terrorists, which are people that have actively or covertly or overtly engaged in the killings and targeting of Jewish man women and children.

So you would consider a Palestinian man, without any past, killing an israeli soldier in Ramallah to be a terrorist? Actually I bet you will be surprised to hear me say no, for there in the case of a soldier I concede that they are not termed that but they are an enemy in that case.

But purposely targeting and killing a civilian man women and child is a terrorist action (remember purposely targeting them) and that is for the most part what the palastinians are doing and targeting.

Shalom :D

StarvingStudent47

11-19-2003, 04:38 PM

Getting back to the direct comparison thing...

I'm surprised that International Solidarity Movement and their ilk who refer to the use of bulldozers as "excessive force" haven't absolutely flipped their s--- about American use of AC-freakin-130s in Tikrit and Baghdad.

(for clarification, I support OIF 100%. I just think there's a double-standard here for what amount of force is permitted while fighting insurgents/terrorists who embed themselves in civilian populations)

Royal

11-19-2003, 04:38 PM

Argyll

11-19-2003, 04:48 PM

It looks good for morale,that is all,it's a release mechanism to unleash some firepower every now and then,counter productive .......almost a certainty.
Piss poor intellligence?,or deep harbouring grudges from neighbour to neighbour?

Here's my angle on what I'd do,being a fomer British Army NCO.
1.Assess the situation and the intelligence a)Is it credible/worth it?
b)Stone wall proof,ie traces of
useage by militia?
2.Survaillance a)Put in some CTR elements
b)Gather more credible info
3.Execution a)set up a "surprise" for the visitors

But systematicaly destroying buidings based on hearsay,is not the way to go,all that will do is alienate the local population,and make them more wary of your intentions,and thus making HUMINT so much harder.
Would bulldozing and razing houses of murderers,rapists and paedo's be the way to go in our society?Are they not as much of a threat to the community,as these militias are in Iraq?.What about the Gang warfare that kills innocents Stateside,should you bulldoze family homes just to punish offenders,who may or may not reside there?

EDIT I see Royal got the same points in whilst I was posting!

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 04:48 PM

The second is the homes of homicide bombers.

What is a homicide bomber? A suicide bomber?[/quote]

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 04:48 PM

Now there are two types of homes that are destroyed.

The first is homes that are used as cover for Palestinian snipers to kill and murder

The second is the homes of homicide bombers.

In the first case I have no issue with soldiers/police under fire in a civilian environment returning fire within their ROE (hell, I've done it myself). But, in a civilised society the rule of law is paramount, and soldiers and police must abide by that rule of law. The use of AFV's (in a direct fire role) does not come under appropriate use of firepower (IMHO). listen the use of AFV;s (which is off topic btw) was only used in proper situations and it was only brought in after two years of content shootings on soldiers and civilians

I don’t want to go round and round with you, but we have strict ROE’s as well and those AFV’s were used properly.

The second I cannot agree under any circumstances. That is tantamount to saying that Peter Sutcliffe's or Harold Shipman's (UK mass murderers) family's property's should be bulldozed, because of their actions. I come back to my point about collective punishment (and if you accept my analogy, it's plain lunacy anyway). no you are missing the point.

Those destroyed homes are not meant to punish but are meant to deter. Like I said before, those homes have made some others think twice and as a result have not carried it out as they would have.

Anyways regardless if it works or not (which is debatable although there is some evidence that a few attacks did not proceed due to the fear of losing their home) the intention is not of collective punishment but rather of deterrence to them and to others that might’s think twice about carrying out an attack against Jewish civilians

I fear that we will have to agree to disagree. :( no worries mate ;) ….I am however afraid we might have to in fact agree to disagree :| although I deplore you to make the effort to understand carefully what I am saying.

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 04:53 PM

The second is the homes of homicide bombers.

What is a homicide bomber? A suicide bomber?well they are two different ways of looking at the situation.

Saying suicide bomber is focusing primarily on the bomber and after he killed innocent civilians I don’t think he deserves that respect.
I mean you can argue about the cause all day but to make him the primary focus during an attack in my view is wrong

Homicide bomber correctly focuses on the terrible deed that he did and not on the bomber.

Shalom :D

Seoulstriker

11-19-2003, 04:59 PM

Royal

11-19-2003, 05:01 PM

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 05:02 PM

There seems to be quiet a mess of terms, suicide bombers, homicidee bombers, terrorist attacks left and right.

I think i would much rather prefer precise terms. I think that if the victims of a suicide bomb has been civilians not involved in the conflict it speaks for itself. If the target of the suicide bomber is legitimate then it speaks for itself.

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 05:13 PM

IDF - I do understand your points.

If I take myself back 10 or 15 years to when I was regularly in Northern Ireland, I suspect if someone suggested using AFV's and bulldozers I'd have agreed wholeheartedly.

I'm older and (a bit) wiser now, and I'm afraid that whether you describe it as deterence or punishment, I consider it to be collective punishment, illegal and counter productive.

Shalom. I hear you and now that I too am older and wiser I see it my way And obviously as you are older and wiser well you see it your way as well, and that’s fine ;)

I think what you have to understand is that your experiences or witnesses are not necessarily the same as mine and to what is going on in this conflict.

I mean Northern Ireland is not the west bank or gaza strip for that matter!! Not by any stretch of the imagination!! Yes I see similarities in the fighting of the enemies (IRA vs, hamas Islamic jiahd etc..) but there are also a lot of differences in the way the enemies fight, that draw me to my above statement.

I surmise to you that the idf has been one of the most restrained militaries in the world especially with what it has had to face, and I speak from personal experience (I cant even begin to tell you the amount of times that we did not return fire for various reasons or when we cancelled various Ops. etc… )

But hey you might not see it that way :|

Again I guess we will have to agree to disagree :|

Shalom :D

Royal

11-19-2003, 05:25 PM

I do not claim that they are or were similar environments (although at times it has felt pretty close ;) ). Terrorists of whatever ilk use similar tactics, (although suicide seems to be a particularly Aisan/Middle Eastern trait) they terrorise and murder civilians.

Thank you, both for expressing your thoughts and feelings, and for keeping the 'discusion' civilised.

Shalom.

duck

11-19-2003, 05:58 PM

idfm203:

As you clearly do not want to discuss the influence of the fundamentalist jewish parties and groups, a quote from the english-language edition of Haaretz.

"Background / Preaching the end of Palestine

By Bradley Burston, Haaretz Correspondent

As the first cracks appear in what was widely
viewed as the wall-to-wall rightism of the Sharon
government, settlers have mounted a
counter-offensive, seeking to persuade Israelis
that a single, Jewish state in Israel, the West
Bank and Gaza Strip is their most viable option.

In a series of striking
advertisements in
mass-circulation Israeli
newspapers, right-wing
academics have entered the
battle for the Israeli
mainstream, which opinion
surveys have shown is still -
three years into open warfare
- overwhelmingly in favor of

an eventual settlement with the Palestinians,
on the basis of trading West Bank and Gaza
Strip land for a peace agreement.

The most recent advertisement took direct aim at
the heart of the debate, the fears by Israeli
Jews that, barring dramatic changes, the
demographics of the Holy Land will soon make
them a minority.

Citing statistics indicating a decline in the
Arab birth rate and the growth of the Jewish
population since 1882, the advertisement notes
that as early as 1967 then prime minister Levi
Eshkol was pressured to give up the West Bank
and the Gaza Strip, having been informed that
there would be an Arab majority west of the
Jordan River by the year 1987.

Marshalling a long line of statistics to counter
the arguments of prominent demographers, the
text maintains that the Jewish majority in the
Holy Land will remain stable for the
foreseeable future - even if no moves are made
toward partition of the land or expulsion of
some of its Arab inhabitants.

The ad was sponsored by the unapologetically
maximalist Ariel Center for Policy Research,
whose logo includes a unpartitioned map of
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza forming an
integral part of a Star of David.

The ads preach the end of the concept of an
independent Palestine in the territories, in
favor of a resolute Israeli assertion of
sovereignty.

A recent policy paper of the center, based on
the principle of "peace without negotiation,"
concludes that, "It therefore is incumbent upon
Israel to refuse any political negotiations
with the Arab world generally and the
Palestinians specifically, thereby denying them
this tool for weakening Israel without truly
recognizing her national existence.

"This conclusion is not a prescription for war,
but rather a policy proposal to affirm Israel's
political savvy, national honor, while
preempting Arab manipulation of peace for the
long-term strategic purpose of bludgeoning
Israel into submission and collapse."

Rightists, among them cabinet ministers, have
also criticized the government for not
militarily dismantling to its core the
Palestinian Authority, the only vestige of a
Palestinian political structure - with the dark
exception of the guns-and-butter underground
para-government of the violence-fueled Hamas
movement.

"Far from proving a failure, the 'military
solution' has proven its efficacy over the past
year," wrote Jerusalem Post columnist Evelyn
Gordon last month, in an article tackling the
argument that military moves must be
accompanied by diplomatic initiatives.

"What is needed now is for the government to
finally make up its mind to finish the job."

The concept of a sovereign state of Israel from
the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, once
called by both proponents and critics the
vision of a Greater Israel, lay discarded and
dormant for most of the last decade.

At the time, the peace process spawned at Oslo
in 1993 made halting but evident progress
toward ceding West Bank and Gaza land to
Palestinian control, all in an effort aimed at
the establishment of an independent Palestine
alongside Israel.

With dramatic rapidity, however, the Israeli
hard right was fired with new hope by the
Palestinian uprising, which, by targeting
Israeli civilians in an avalanche of terror
attacks, ironically but effectively sapped
Israeli support for swift progress toward
Palestinian self-determination.

A certain self-satisfaction on the part of the
Israeli right, which emerged giddily triumphant
in landslide elections held earlier this year,
has given way to trepidation, as even the army
chief has publicly scored the government for
its refusal to display flexibility to the
Palestinian population at large.

In recent weeks, a number of extra-governmental
Mideast peace plans have surfaced, gaining the
sympathy of substantial numbers of Israelis and
- to the consternation of Sharon government
officials - even such key members of the Bush
administration as Secretary of State Colin
Powell and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz.

Adding fuel to the debate were public calls at
the weekend by four former chiefs of the
Israeli intelligence service, taking the
government to task for failing to push for a
diplomatic solution to an unwinnable war.

The secular Shinui party, in parliamentary
muscle the strongest single coalition ally of
Prime Minister Sharon's ruling Likud,
reshuffled the government's ideological deck
this month by announcing it was drafting a
peace plan of its own.

The Shinui plan would include at least two
radical departures from current government
policy, dismantling the bellwether Gaza Strip
settlement of Netzarim and halting
assassinations of Palestinian terror
commanders.

Another crack appeared in the government's
political defensive shield on Tuesday when the
surprising results of an opinion poll of
members of the Likud Central Committee showed
that nearly one in four believed that Netzarim
should be dismantled.

The Likud Central Committee has traditionally be
viewed as embodying stronger right-wing
positions than the party rank-and-file.

On another issue, 43.6 percent of the
respondents said they viewed the West Bank and
Gaza Strip, captured by Israel in the 1967 Six
Day War, as areas whose fate was subject to
"negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinians." Another 5.6 characterized them
as "occupied territories."

Yet more pressure for flexibility on the part of
the government has been quietly exerted by U.S.
officials, who strongly suspect that Israel has
observed only in the breach its own pledges to
take down unauthorized West Bank settlement
outposts.

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, turning aside
media reports of a brewing crisis with the Bush
administration over turning a blind eye to
settlement and outpost growth, met U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell for talks in
Brussels on Tuesday.

State-owned Israel Channel One television's
diplomatic reporter Monday quoted a senior U.S.
official as telling an Israeli counterpart of
continued settlement expansion, "You can fool
some of the people some of the time, but you
can't fool all of the people all of the time.
We know what's going on out there."

But Shalom said, "I don't think that there's a
crisis at all. I think that there are things on
which we and the Americans don't see
eye-to-eye, but these are things that have gone
on for decades.

"There has never been an administration which
supported or recognized settlements or
expanding them."

The apparent radical softening of past hawkish
positions was also highlighted by the poll of
the Likud's influential Central Committee
members which showed that while almost 25
percent were prepared to evacuate Netzarim,
another 14 percent had no opinion, the Maariv
daily reported Tuesday.

The Panorama poll, which covered 411
respondents, more than 10 percent of the Likud
Central Committee's total membership, was
commissioned by a group of veteran Likud
figures headed by Zalman Shoval.

Netzarim, an isolated enclave deep within the
Strip, has been the focus of countless
Palestinian attacks, most recently an
infiltration in which a gunman shot dead an
unarmed Israeli soldier and killed two women
soldiers sleeping in their beds.

Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old whose violent
death at the outset of the Palestinian uprising
was filmed and broadcast throughout the world,
was killed at the nearby Netzarim junction,
where Palestinians and IDF soldiers have
clashed sporadically for decades.

No Likud cabinet ministers or legislators have
publicly come out in support of removing
Netzarim.

But former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon, co-sponsor
of a peace initiative with Palestinian moderate
Sari Nusseibeh, caused a stir last week by
declaring that only the Likud could push
forward a successful agreement with the
Palestinians.

Ayalon added that he had received much positive
response from Likud activists over recent
overtures he had made to them.

The poll's findings were especially surprising
to old-timers from the Likud, a derivative of
the Revisionist movement whose hymn "Both Banks
of the Jordan" pressed its original claims for
not only Greater Israel, but what is now the
state of Jordan as well.

So does the apparent shift in Likud attitudes
portend a return to peace talks and the
possibility of what Sharon has consistently and
without explication called painful compromises
for peace?

Refraining from a direct reply, Foreign Minister
Silvan Shalom noted Tuesday that it was the
Likud, not the "peace anthem-singers" of the
left, that made Israel's breakthrough peace
with Egypt.

He also refrained from recalling the price of
that peace - the return of every inch of
Egyptian territory captured in the 1967 war.

Veteran analyst Hanan Krystal was more
definitive.

"The fact that nearly half of the Likud Central
Committee members do not back Greater Israel is
clear, sociologically speaking." He said that
the concept is still sacred to the older
"princes" of the Likud, sons of the commanders
of right-wing pre-war underground organizations
like the Irgun, but not to younger
pragmatists.

According to Krystal, the key question is
whether the prime minister, Likud founder Ariel
Sharon, will decide to bring the Central
Committee with him toward a new peace policy,
and whether the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu
would go along.

"If the prime minister should decide today to
evacuate Netzarim as an example, as [Shinui
leader] Tommy Lapid would like him to, the
numbers would have been reversed - it would not
be a quarter of the Central Committee in favor,
but only a quarter opposed."

Sharon, once the chief proponent of the concept
that "Jordan is Palestine" and that there is no
room for an Arab state in the West Bank and
Gaza, has as prime minister repeatedly braved
rightist scorn to declare that a Palestinian
state in the territories is all but
inevitable.

If Netanyahu's support is essential in
persuading Likud officials to back a future
peace plan, the leverage may come from an
unlikely source. Having declared Tuesday an
unexpectedly early end to Israel's recession,
the finance minister may have to help spur
progress toward peace if he is to justify his
predictions of continued economic growth."

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 06:13 PM

Oops sorry there, that was not on purpose. I am only one person and as you can see I had a lot on my plate (besides I know it might look that way at times but I don’t live on the computer and I am away a lot of the times)

Ok so I skimmed the article (I did not read the whole thing), and while I resented some of the authors condensation and tone and disagreed with alot that was written there (from what I read), I do as well agree with a lot of what was written there.

Anyways I am not going to cut and snip point by point I will just ask you an honest question, being that we are talking about the heart of the matter.

Do you believe that if Israel pulled out of the west bank and gaza, there will then be a full and honest peace and the attacks will stop???

I ask this as this all pertains to how your view is to what is a fundamantalist jew!!

shalom :D

duck

11-19-2003, 06:36 PM

Well, none of my parents' jewish friends, none of my close jewish friends and certainly no one of my jewish business partners. They must be an isolated group. ;)

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 06:45 PM

Well, none of my parents' jewish friends, none of my close jewish friends and certainly no one of my jewish business partners. They must be an isolated group. ;) so they don’t believe that there will be peace even if Israel pulls out, right?!? is that what you are saying?!?

Is that your answer to my question??

Oh and again what about you??

as for isolated (or “right wing extremist” or even “left wing extremist” )groups and whether one is or not or whether their views are valid or not, well I can get into that a bit but I will await your response to the above first so I can have a better understanding of where you are coming from

Shalom :D

duck

11-19-2003, 06:51 PM

From the corner of Madeleine Albright, but that's all I will reveal. What do you think about the destiny of the West Bank?

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 06:53 PM

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 06:56 PM

From the corner of Madeleine Albright, but that's all I will reveal. What do you think about the destiny of the West Bank? well I might have considered going into it a bit but after your abrupt and evasive answer, well I will then just say that I am in the corner of………ahhh on second thought, I better not say ;)

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 06:57 PM

Do you believe that if Israel pulled out of the west bank and gaza, there will then be a full and honest peace and the attacks will stop???

A full and fair peace in accordance with international law and UN resolutions.

Yes.

so if Israel does all that, a lot of the Palestinians will stop fighting and will give up their goal of the whole Israel?!? Is that your belief?!? :roll: the attacks will stop?!? missles and rockets wont hit tel aviv or jerulsalem or Haifa then?!? etc.........?!? :roll: is that what you think will happen?!? :roll:

Shalom :D

duck

11-19-2003, 06:59 PM

Come forward, young Jedi.

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 07:04 PM

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 07:08 PM

so if Israel does all that, a lot of the Palestinians will stop fighting and will give up their goal of the whole Israel?!? Is that your belief?!? the attacks will stop?!? missles and rockets wont hit tel aviv or jerulsalem or Haifa then?!? etc.........?!? is that what you think will happne?!?

Yes ahhhhhh so now we have reached the crux of our disagreements about this conflict!!

I believe it is a firm No!!! and that a lot of them wont stop (not a mere few but a lot) no matter what!! :|

Now I can go on about it but I think for now it is better to agree to disagree........

Shalom :D

Mr. Nielsen

11-19-2003, 07:25 PM

Quote:
so if Israel does all that, a lot of the Palestinians will stop fighting and will give up their goal of the whole Israel?!? Is that your belief?!? the attacks will stop?!? missles and rockets wont hit tel aviv or jerulsalem or Haifa then?!? etc.........?!? is that what you think will happne?!?

Yes

There will of course still be fanatics on both sides.

But far fewer than now, and with less legimacy. Also in a truly democratic palestine (the rotten fundament of the PA would have to be replaced with a new one build from the ground) the police will not be perceived as doing the dirty work of israel.

It might be inconceivable in the present clima. But then in 1945 who would have believed the reconciliation between France and Germany today? Who would have believed the reconciliation of Germany and Poland after the slaughter of world war two?

, but then who would in 1945 have believed France, Germany, Britain and the US

IDFM203

11-19-2003, 07:57 PM

Yes you are right that it is inconceivable today and I believe for the distant future as well :|

I say that not as my wish, for I wish the opposite, but as a result of the realties on the ground :|

first, there are much more fanatics then you acknowledge in the first place and there will be a lot after!!

Secondly, a lot of the Palestinians are fighting for the whole Israel and that wont change even after a pullout to 1967 borders for they want a so called pullout (code for the end of israel as a place for jews) of the 1948 end war results.

Getting past who is right or wrong in the past (save that for the another thread, for here we are talking about the future and not about the past) a lot want to go back to the lands that they left in 1948 and they wont stop fighting for that even after a pullout of just the west bank and gaza for they consider the whole Israel to be occupied. (I believe more then half of the Palestinians believe and yearn for this…actually its probably much more then half :| )

Secondly you have a lot of religious fanatics that believe we are infidels trespassing on their holy land. They no matter what will never change and give up their fight.

So no, even after a pullout, a lot wont stop (defiantly more then a mere few) in their fight and goal to rid the whole Israel of all the jews :|

Lastly as for your ww2 comparisons to this situation, well that is wrong and invalid on so many levels and reasons but I guess in the spirit of what you said, yeah anything is possible (heck even martians can come down and kill us all ;) ) but most probably it is highly unlikely due to the simple fact that in a lot of their hearts they want to see the whole Israel free of any Jews (be it for religious reasons or reasons of previous dwellings there)

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 08:36 AM

Sorry I missed so much of the conversation here. Great post! Can we get back on track though?
From catching up.. I have to say that maybe my take on the original post wasn't all that far off. IDF does target homes of bombers (suicide, homicide or other) and the families around them are punished along with them. I have to say it is tactically sound but I have strong moral reservations about it. Punishing combatants is common place. But when you target homes of sympathizers and family.. that is totally wrong.
It seemed like you were saying that IDF targets the suspected terrorist, bomber, combatant and punished them by destroying their home. This is not the right way to do things. Winning hearts and minds is absolutely not the focus for a tactic like that. Hitting property because of strategic importance is necessary. Hitting property to punish suspected enemy is borderline terrorism.
I agree with royal on this. Maybe if I were closer to the situation I could feel less strongly about it.
Also the comparison to US actions in Iraq are way off. Well, wait.. I can see US forces hitting targets that might not be crucially strategic for the enemy.. just as a little insult to injury. I won't say it doesn't happen. Like helping the Iraqi crowd take down Saddams statue. But, targetting a suspected Baath operators home and family would be totally counter productive.

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 08:53 AM

The whole use of firepower issue is also a really relative thing too. Using the howitzer on an AC-130 Gunship to target ground troops is over kill. It is not an illegal practice and the reasons for doing it aren't as black and white as most people think. Is it to punish the enemy ? Instill fear? Shock and Awe? Or is it because less extreme firepower wasn't readily available? Was it because it was the only way to ensure that specific target was destroyed? I think the truth is a combination of them all.
Our basic tactic for battle has been to overwhelm. Whether it was through superior numbers or superior firepower, the reasons are sound. Survivability:if you out gun or out number the enemy, you are likely to suffer less causalty. Psychological effect: if the enemy knows they are overwhelmingly outmatched, they will surrender instead of fight. Probability: a surgical strike is risky, costly, and not garanteed to succeed.

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 11:07 AM

It seemed like you were saying that IDF targets the suspected terrorist, bomber, combatant and punished them by destroying their home. This is not the right way to do things. Winning hearts and minds is absolutely not the focus for a tactic like that. Hitting property because of strategic importance is necessary. Hitting property to punish suspected enemy is borderline terrorism.
. There is no point in me even dissecting the rest of your post for its obvious that you have A, not read carefully what I wrote and B, based everything else on this false premise,

Again royal or other’s mistakenly referred to it as punishment and I corrected him.

Again the whole tactic was never about punishment but rather about deterrence !!

I repeat what I responded to royal..........

“Now there are two types of homes that are destroyed

The first is homes that are used as cover for Palestinian snipers to kill and murder

The second is the homes of homicide bombers.

Now on the first one, I don’t understand how you can question Israel targeting the house that was used as cover for snipers to kill and murder, which a lot of those houses that were destroyed were used for.... on that aspect I don’t think you have any valid questions or arguments. Again that is not punishment but it is deterrence from the sniper continuing to use that place as cover!!

Now for the homes of homicide bombers. Well there are cases of where fathers have turned in their sons who were about to do an attack due to fear of losing his home or besides the reported cases there are a lot of unreported incidents like that. again deterrence

Also there is some evidence that some homicide bombers have chosen not to do that because of concern for their families well being. Again deterrence

Listen I concede that this one aspect (this is the only one in my book) that it might be controversial but the fact is that Israel is not indiscriminate targeting homes but only the homes of homicide bombers and that has deterred a few from acting as they would have other wise.”

Again if you had read what I wrote you would not have repeated this false charge!!! It is obvious that you haven’t and that you were again looking to read into something so as to try again to falsely distinguish what is in fact indistinguishable actions (the U.S. destroying houses and Israel doing it, they are the same thing and for the same reason!!)

Like you insiunate later, in the U.S. case “Hitting property because of strategic importance is necessary” well that’s exactly what Israel’s intentions were and are!!!

The fact is that now the U.S. is fighting a Low Intensity conflict(LIC) and it is using much stronger tactics then Israel has and it is using tactics that before it told Israel to not use but now in its war it is using them or worse.

As for compressions to the U.S. no they are not way off and while the U.S. is indeed trying to win hearts and minds now, it is nevertheless embroiled in a kind of LIC and those comparisons are indeed valid. Also, if you had read my whole thing before you would have seen that the whole hearts and minds is something that Israel tried before. And lastly the U.S. is attempting to do hearts and minds only after it first went in unrestrained (in Iraq and in Afghanistan ) and destroyed the terrorist infrastructure, whereas before that, it was not working on hearts and minds. Israel on the other hand has been much more restrained and it has cost it simply because of the fact that they have not gone after the terrorists infrastructure the way the U.S. has and as a result here still remains in tact the terrorist infrastructure in the west bank and gaza.

p.s. I found it funny that you say you agree with Royal on this for he doesn’t agree with the U.S. actions as well!!! (whereas you do) again the Euors’s here are at least consistent and across the board in their criticisms, your not!!! That is very hypocritical!!

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 11:33 AM

It is really unfortunate that you used all that font to completely miss my point. I think you are reading into what I said.
I agree that US "sledghammer" actions are hurting the Public Relations issues in Iraq. Just like Royal. I also agree with him that if I were closer to the situation (like he was with the IRA and you with Palestinians) I might feel ok with the deterrence of terrorist by destroying homes. He made the distinction pretty clear. Hitting strategic targets like your first example is warranted. It is not in question. Your second target example is what is in question. Deterrent or not, using the destruction of homes as a punishment for sympathizers is unwarranted. US policy says if you are harboring terrorists you are also under scrutiny. This doesn't mean you are a target too. If a terrorist lives in your home and you don't report them does that mean you deserve to lose that home? No.. it means you should expect that your home will likely be visited by some heavily armed unwanted guests. That fine line is crucial. Don't get all spun up because I disagree with you. I have said it before and I said it here. If I were closer to the situation then maybe I would be more comfortable with the "necessary evil" that you described in your second type of target.
We will never agree to the comparisons though. Similarities exists but the situations and tactics are not the same.
Looks like you are going to half to chalk up another agree to disagree.
By the way... thanks for the heated dialogue. It is truely helpful and whether we agree on any level or just continue to see things from different viewpoints.. debate and dialogue like this help expand and challenge my mind. If either of us simply become comfortable in our opinions then we have found comfort in ignorance.

God Bless

2Sheds_Jackson

11-20-2003, 11:42 AM

You know why I am not more specific. So the Fence will solve everything?

I'd vote to put a fence up on our own borders.

We can't, if we do, the Mexicans would probably sue us for inhumanely preventing the safe passage of illegal immigrants.

LOL - they already have!! They sued Arizona for failing to provide drinking water out in the desert for the illegals to use while they sneak across the border! Truth is stranger than fiction

Durandal

11-20-2003, 11:55 AM

I am pretty much with IDF on the issue at large and always have been. I have always found it hypocritcal for the United States to condemn Israel's actions when we went on our own crusade.

I like to think that would support ALL conflicts against terrorists, of which there are plenty of in the West Bank.

I do not believe the innocent should die and I belive that a Nation should take great pains to make sure they have the right people. Israel in hte past, has done this and I would assume that continue to do so.

I just wanted to make a brief comment...not all of us Americans condemn your country...probably more than you might think.

I would like to tackle this one however:

A full and fair peace in accordance with international law and UN resolutions.

Who polices the two nations? Who punishes those that have broken the peace accord, international law, and U.N. resolutions? Is it immediate or does it take years?

No, I think not. The U.N. has proven to be a great administrator, but crappy legal enforcer. I have sat in my nation, in safety, watching Israel suck up terrorist bombings without any response, both in an attempt to make things work (probably with an American arm on the shoulder holding them back a bit) or to change some sort of image among the the people of the world. It hasn't worked.

When action is need (and it will be needed) who does tha acting?

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 11:56 AM

It is really unfortunate that you used all that font to completely miss my point. I think you are reading into what I said. on the same token it is too bad that you wrote a whole paragraph when you again used a false charge and premise!! :|

Your second target example is what is in question. Deterrent or not, using the destruction of homes as a punishment for sympathizers is unwarranted. Again,it is not a punishment for any sympathisers!!! Again, “Now for the homes of homicide bombers. Well there are cases of where fathers have turned in their sons who were about to do an attack due to fear of losing his home or besides the reported cases there are a lot of unreported incidents like that. again deterrence

Also there is some evidence that some homicide bombers have chosen not to do that because of concern for their families well being. Again deterrence

Listen I concede that this one aspect (this is the only one in my book) that it might be controversial but the fact is that Israel is not indiscriminate targeting homes but only the homes of homicide bombers and that has deterred a few from acting as they would have other wise.”

So again, even if a homicide bomber kills 20 Israeli civilians and then Israel goes to that house and see’s that the family is not supportive of his son, hence not a terrorist sysmopothizer, still the house would be destroyed and while that is a terrible thing to that family, it is a “necessary evil” for it does serve as a deterrence to other would be homicide bombers, whereas they might not carry it out due to fear of losing their families home.

That is not about punishment but about deterrence!!!!

US policy says if you are harboring terrorists you are also under scrutiny. This doesn't mean you are a target too. If a terrorist lives in your home and you don't report them does that mean you deserve to lose that home? No.. it means you should expect that your home will likely be visited by some heavily armed unwanted guests. as for live terrorists, well yeah Israel does that also. At times that it can send in those “unwanted guests” it does. There are times where it uses other means depending on the situation on the ground. There are times with the U.S. as well where they have dropped bombs or used other methods when sending in unwanted guests was not an option.

When it is an workable option, Israel most defiantly does that.

I mean at times in Afghanistan, I saw the U.S. send in B2 bombers and drop bombs on suspected terrorists hideouts or homes. And at times they used those “unwanted guests”. Different methods are used for differing situations.

That fine line is crucial. Don't get all spun up because I disagree with you. I don’t get spun because you disagree with me, No I get spun because of your clear hypocrisy!!!! :|

I have said it before and I said it here. If I were closer to the situation then maybe I would be more comfortable with the "necessary evil" that you described in your second type of target. and that’s key!! Just like I am not in Iraq but I know that if I was there I would totally understand the U.S. actions there in using their AC gunships or them destroying homes, so too your not in Israel but I am sure if you were there, you would agree to what they have been doing!!!

We will never agree to the comparisons though. Similarities exists but the situations and tactics are not the same. I get that we will never agree for its obvious that you have a double standard in the way you judge your own nation and the way you judge Israel!!….oh well :|

By the way... thanks for the heated dialogue. It is truely helpful and whether we agree on any level or just continue to see things from different viewpoints.. debate and dialogue like this help expand and challenge my mind. If either of us simply become comfortable in our opinions then we have found comfort in ignorance.

God Bless Amen on all accounts here!!! :D

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 12:06 PM

I am pretty much with IDF on the issue at large and always have been. I have always found it hypocritcal for the United States to condemn Israel's actions when we went on our own crusade.

I like to think that would support ALL conflicts against terrorists, of which there are plenty of in the West Bank.

I do not believe the innocent should die and I belive that a Nation should take great pains to make sure they have the right people. Israel in hte past, has done this and I would assume that continue to do so.

I just wanted to make a brief comment...not all of us Americans condemn your country...probably more than you might think.

No, I know that. Like I said in the beginning. I fully support the U.S. period!! I also fully supported the U.S. actions in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I love and respect the American people!!

I also acknowledged in my first post that there are a few that are extremely hypocritical (as I pointed out) but I do recognise that it is only a few and not most.

So thanks for your words of support and for understanding and agreeing with what I have been saying.

We are obviously on the same page here on most issues and considering your great posts on other matters, that is a good thing!! :D

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 12:59 PM

I don't get it. The insult of my hypocricy is unwarranted.
Your biased view is closer to being hyppacritical than mine is. I openly admit that I am commenting from a narrow and sometimes obscurred view. You don't quote that in your dissections of my posts. I also don't condemn the IDF. Criticism of the tactics or actions maybe. But again, criticism from my limited viewpoint should be taken with a grain of salt.
Also, don't bother boldfacing words for deterrence for me.. my reading ability and IQ are sufficient enough to understand that you don't call bombing houses of known or suspected terrorist in order to scare them and their supporters into not taking terror action punishment. I don't really care what you call it. The premise is still wrong. I have to clarify this though. If terrist homes are destroyed in an attempt to target the terrorist, but in effect his family and sympathizers are "punished" as well.. it isn't the same context. Purposely destroying homes because suspected terrorist live there, knowing that family lives there too.. is blatantly wrong. I really doubt that is what IDF's purpose is.
idfm203 try not to take my criticism of this kind of tactic as my view of IDF policies.
This post was about the wrong way to "win hearts and minds" and your leading it into political debate.
I also need to stress similarities and being the same are very different. US an IDF militaries have many similarities. We are not the same however. Focusing on details that are similar is really naive. Policies between our counties may have similarities but are not the same. Situations as well.
I don't know if my dialogue is just easy to take out of context or if you just seem to focus on the details. I seem to think the latter as you regularly dissect posts and focus comments on the bits and pieces.

I ask this of you again. If I get my facts wrong or you need to correct some specific comments... disect away. DO NOT however generalize my posts while nitpicking little details. I think you would get a better view of the woods if you stop focusing on trees.

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 01:26 PM

I don't get it. The insult of my hypocricy is unwarranted. I think not!! Listen I think I have made my case for that pretty clear and some have seen it and some have not. I guess it’s each for his own to decide.

Your biased view is closer to being hyppacritical than mine is. listen we all have bias. I might be biased but I am not hypocritical. Again I support the U.S. actions as well as Israeli ones when a lot of the times they are the same, you don’t!! That is hypocritical.

I am across the board in support or criticisms and you are not!! again that is wrong and hypocritical

I openly admit that I am commenting from a narrow and sometimes obscurred view. so it’s then an insult to ones intelligence not to mention unfair to criticize if you don’t have a full picture or even close to it :| :roll: :| ….that worng!!

You don't quote that in your dissections of my posts. no, I have.

Listen I am not saying that you are against everything Israel. I am just accurately pointing out the hypocritical instances where you come off that way.

in order to scare them and their supporters into not taking terror action[/i] punishment. I don't really care what you call it. The premise is still wrong. you might not care what we call it but we sure as hell do for that is our intention. It is not one of punishment but of deterrence!!

Even if you think it doesn’t work, to falsely insinuate that punishment is our intention is wrong! Again deterrence is our intention!!

As for it working, it is debatable but there have been instances of where some have not carried out an attack due to this fear of losing their home.

I have to clarify this though. If terrist homes are destroyed in an attempt to target the terrorist, but in effect his family and sympathizers are "punished" as well.. it isn't the same context. Purposely destroying homes because suspected terrorist live there, knowing that family lives there too.. is blatantly wrong. that is not what happens!!!!!!!

In those cases usually those “unwanted guests” come knocking on the door so to speak. No, with the homicide bombers, which we are strictly talking about (my second instance, the first being the sniper cover reasons), They are only destroyed after a family member acted already in blowing himself up and killing scores of Israelis. The house is then destroyed in an attempt to deter other would be homicide bombers from acting and blowing themselves up.

that is detterence !!

I really doubt that is what IDF's purpose is. the idf purpose is about deterrence, plain and simple!!!

I also need to stress similarities and being the same are very different. US an IDF militaries have many similarities. We are not the same however. Focusing on details that are similar is really naive. no, for these posts I have focused on the details in which you are hypocritical

Yes there are similarities and there are differences and to talk about all that can take up pages, no here I am pointing the details in which you are hypocritical and wrong!!

Policies between our counties may have similarities but are not the same. Situations as well.
I don't know if my dialogue is just easy to take out of context or if you just seem to focus on the details. I seem to think the latter as you regularly dissect posts and focus comments on the bits and pieces. again focusing on your hypocrisy and that is all.

As for everything else, well that’s for other topics and posts (for which we probably agree on)

I ask this of you again. If I get my facts wrong or you need to correct some specific comments... disect away. DO NOT however generalize my posts while nitpicking little details. I think you would get a better view of the woods if you stop focusing on trees. no I see the forest, but I will point out the hypocritical “trees” when I see it.

P.S. again did you see or read my post in the thread…http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5501&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=20

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 02:00 PM

Just for clarity... you have completly missed the definition of hypocrisy=a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. As I believe my assesment is right I am going to assume that you misunderstood both the meaning of the word as well what my view of the situation is. I will also assume that you did not resort to insulting me out of sheer arrogance.
I don't assume to think that IDF seeks to punish but the result is punishment. (speaking of destroying terrorist homes) That is assuming that the house was not a strategic target.
Look.. I said before and you agreed. It is good to have opposing views. It gives us perspective. Truth is, your view is almost as limited as mine. You don't see the whole picture and many would agree here.
Let's not get off subject with this post. If you want to disagree with my asessment of you, we can do that PM.

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 02:42 PM

Just for clarity... you have completly missed the definition of hypocrisy=a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not. . listen I don’t want to play this Webster’s dictionary game with you :roll:

I feel that in a lot of cases (not just this destroying the homes of homicide bombers) Israel and the U.S. actions are very similar (not all the time but that is not what we are talking about) and that you defend and agree with the U.S. actions but criticize Israel for doing the same thing!!! I think that is hypocritical but if your dictionary describes what I said as something else then so be it but my point stands!!!

As I believe my assesment is right I am going to assume that you misunderstood both the meaning of the word as well what my view of the situation is. . I think your assesment it totally worng!!

Actually in truth I fully understand what your view is but I think you misunderstand what my view is.

Like I said before, on the whole forest we might agree on and I am clear in seeing that in both cases (Israel and the U.S. in Iraq and in Afghanistan) but there are some “hypocritical trees” amidst all that which you have that I will point out!! (and indeed I have)

I will also assume that you did not resort to insulting me out of sheer arrogance. . but unfortunately I cant assume that of you :| . For your continuance of your double standard and hypocritical reasoning is in fact an insult to me (as a former idf soldier). And I believe it is out of sheer ignorance (as you have even admitted to somewhat about my situation) that you continue to have your double and false reasoning.

I don't assume to think that IDF seeks to punish but the result is punishment. (speaking of destroying terrorist homes) That is assuming that the house was not a strategic target. . listen there are all sorts of “necessary evils” that militaries take. I mean for example when the U.S. bombs a terrorists target and in the process it is destroying other homes and lives, I wouldn’t define those other homes as punishment for living next to a terrorist, but it can be perceived as such.(as some have done)

The same here. When Israel destroys a house of a homicide bomber it is one out of deterrence and not one out of punishment whether you want to falsely perceive that or not.

Oh and there is no need to dissect both examples for of course they are not exact but the core intention and principles are indeed the same!!

Look.. I said before and you agreed. It is good to have opposing views. . I agree, opposing views are good and appreciative, but hypocritical and double standard ones are not!!! :|

It gives us perspective. Truth is, your view is almost as limited as mine. You don't see the whole picture and many would agree here. . I do see the whole picture but again we are not talking about that.

I mean I most defiantly see the whole picture with regards to Israel as I have posted about that to you as well as to others (more specifically Mr. Nielson)

Again I posted the initial post on this thread to respond to the hypocritical posts that you have made in another thread (which was locked) and to point them out. This is not about the whole picture for again that is besides the point and irrelevant to this particular discussion (with you).

Let's not get off subject with this post. If you want to disagree with my asessment of you, we can do that PM. then tell me about it in PM first!!, if you are going to do it in public then I have every right to respond and defend myself in public.

Frankly I expect better then to say something negative or misunderstand me in public and then ask me to respond in private :roll:

P.S. I was hoping for your ansewr to my other P.S.'s to you, I guess that's not going to happen :|

Shalom :D

WARPIG

11-20-2003, 03:09 PM

Look idfm203.. Your proving my point. Regardless of what we disagree on about our governments or military... you don't ever get the point. If I was in fact hypocritical, I would be telling you something I don't believe. I haven't.. get it straight. Correcting your use of a word is not a game it is a courtesy. If your intelligence is insulted then it wasn't all that formidable to begin with.
Continually dissecting posts and focusing on details again proves my assessment of you. I at least concede my limits and will accept that my criticism is based on limited knowledge. My assesment was based on your statements. I do know right from wrong.. that is the big picture here. Intent does not change that. Intending deterrence doesn't justify the action. Regardless of why houses are destroyed, the rights of those who have not commited terrorism have been violated. My view of that was not based on anything in the media but by statements that you made.
Lastly my attempt to take this hijacking of this post to PM was out of consideration of the subject matter and others. I didn't ask to get in a private pissing contest with you. The hypocritical tree here is you. By taking details of my post and twisting them to your taste is by definition hypocritcal. I understand your fondness of that word but use it correctly. If you think my view is wrong or that I am taking things out of context, fine.. I will re-evaluate my opinion. I at least have enough consideration and respect for you to do that. Calling it hypocritical or a double standard is ridiculous and inaccurate. I never tried to justify US actions and condemn IDF actions. I just disagree that they are the same.

IDF's fight on terror is just. I get that. Some tactics are controversial, you admitted that. Why? Because some people don't like it? No, because something is wrong with it. Whether it is justifiable or not is a matter of opinion. That is what we disagree on. That is the point that I have been trying to make. You still failed to see that.
I am in the process of reviewing your post. Jumping to conclusions is another activity born of ignorance.

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 04:30 PM

Look idfm203.. Your proving my point. Regardless of what we disagree on about our governments or military... you don't ever get the point. . no what’s clear here is that YOU don’t!!! But this circle is going to lead to nowhere so I will leave it as you see things your way and I see things my way.

Now for the rest……..

If I was in fact hypocritical, I would be telling you something I don't believe. I haven't.. get it straight. Correcting your use of a word is not a game it is a courtesy. . no actually I think my assessments about some of your statements fall under the various definitions of hypocritical.
Just note that I have also peppered my posts with double standards as well.

If your intelligence is insulted then it wasn't all that formidable to begin with. . ok, congratulations on this attempt of a personal flame war :roll: :| :roll: . For the sake of my maturity I am not going to respond in kind here, I will just let you get the last word on my integrity :roll: .

I mean if you cant understand how you hypocrisy and double standards offends me as a former idf soldier, then there is nothing I can do to help you out.

Continue to flame me personally if you want, I will just continue to dissect and prove false your hypocritical stances and double standards :|

Continually dissecting posts and focusing on details again proves my assessment of you. . and continuing to respond the way you do clearly proves that you are not getting the clear points that I have put forth!!! :|

I at least concede my limits and will accept that my criticism is based on limited knowledge. . and like I said in that case don’t criticize if you don’t know what you are talking about are have the full or clear picture about my situation as it is clear that you don’t!!!

My assesment was based on your statements. I do know right from wrong.. . Remember this all started in another thread with your false criticisms before I had said a thing to you.

again we can go in circles here but my posts are based on yours and I as well know from right and wrong and also what is a hypocritical and double standard view or not. Your’s in some cases are, period!!

Again, it isn’t only about this one case here that I have seen your hypocrisy and double standards.!!! :|

that is the big picture here. Intent does not change that. Intending deterrence doesn't justify the action. . the big picture in today’s reality (as I explained to you and in more detail to mr. Nielson) is that Israel has no choice but to try everything in order to stop this constant onslaught of homicide bombers.

Now as for details, this one aspect is not sure if it works but it is out of deterrence (although again there is some evidence of it working a bit).

I mean with your logic, then the U.S. should not have dropped bombs on Afghanistan that killed numerous innocents as well as terrorists and it also shouldn’t have dropped a huge bomb in a residential area that that went after saddam. Also the U.S. shouldn’t use AC gunship ands helicopter strikes.

And lastly, it shouldnt destroy terrorist homes as it is doing now in Iraq!!!!!! But of course you have your double standards and support the U.S. actions but yet criticize Israel's same or less actions!! :roll: :| :roll:

Lastly my attempt to take this hijacking of this post to PM was out of consideration of the subject matter and others. I didn't ask to get in a private pissing contest with you. . yeah but your postings are making it that :|

Again if you get personal (which you have done gain over here :| ) then do it in private from the get go…. Don’t do it in public and then expect me to respond only in private :roll:

I mean that’s even worse then hypocritical. (Again I will leave you to get the Webster’s dictionary on what this can be called)

The hypocritical tree here is you. By taking details of my post and twisting them to your taste is by definition hypocritcal. . no that’s not the correct definition but again I am not going to play this Webster’s dictionary with you.

With you, unlike with others, I am dealing solely with your hypocritical and double standard “trees” and not about the overall forest.

If you think my view is wrong or that I am taking things out of context, fine.. I will re-evaluate my opinion. . well that would be a start…I metaphorically await your revaluation or at least a better research on to the actual realties that we are facing.

I at least have enough consideration and respect for you to do that. . no doubt. Although I will do that when I see a mistake but as of now with regards my responses to you, I don’t see much!!

Calling it hypocritical or a double standard is ridiculous and inaccurate. I never tried to justify US actions and condemn IDF actions. . no it is clear now and in the past that you have.

But you don’t see it that way :roll: :roll: so I guess we will just have to agree to disagree……. :|

I just disagree that they are the same. . I just want to make something clear. I do now and in the past acknowledge that not everything is the same and that the situations are not exactly the same as well, but there are a lot of similarities and on those similarities you have had you hypocritical views and double standards....that is wrong!!!

IDF's fight on terror is just. I get that. Some tactics are controversial, you admitted that. Why? Because some people don't like it? No, because something is wrong with it. . wow that is hilarious ;) . I mean only you can now take controversial to mean something is automatically wrong with it. I always thought that controversial, is that one side takes it as right and the other takes it as wrong or questionable, but I never assumed that it automatically meant that it is wrong or that something is wrong with it. :roll:

On the same token, most everything that the U.S. has been doing has been controversial, especially a lot of the details of it, but I don’t think that you would say that it is wrong or would agree to everyone that called everything that it did controversial as wrong as well.

If something is wrong then fine point it out but just because something is controversial does not by any means make it wrong!!

Whether it is justifiable or not is a matter of opinion. . like I said above but it is not automatically something wrong to it.
.

That is what we disagree on. That is the point that I have been trying to make. You still failed to see that. . No, I got that you thought that what I said is wrong and I have made a case that it is not and I have also made a case that your disagreements at times are hypocritical and double standards when in fact you support the U.S. for doing the same thing.

I am in the process of reviewing your post. Jumping to conclusions is another activity born of ignorance. are you referring to my post about south Korea?!? Well if so you will see that I did not jump to any conclusion and in fact recognised that I am not fully aware as well as you are (being that you are half Korean)about that situation and as such I defer to you. I made that very clear in my post there.

Shalom :D

California Joe

11-20-2003, 05:00 PM

Is it just me or does the Israeli guy argue about **** even when the majority of people here are agreeing with him?

Scenario: I live in the West Bank. I'm going about my life when some assholes decide they like my nice flat roof of the the house I paid for and live in with my law abiding family. They either threaten to kill me or my family, invade my home and start taking pot shots at local Israeli patrols. I have no problem with the Israelis at all. Right up until they ignore my story about my children's lives being threatened and knock my goddamned house down with a dozer. Then I go find the assholes and say, give me a gun those Israelis just F'ed my house for no reason....

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 05:07 PM

duck

11-20-2003, 05:12 PM

idfm: Where do you see the future borders of IsraeL, let's say in five years?

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 05:17 PM

idfm: Where do you see the future borders of IsraeL, let's say in five years? well I am a bit hesitant to answer that being that you didn’t answer fully my first question to you.

Do you believe that if Israel pulled out of the west bank and Gaza, there will then be a full and honest peace and the attacks will stop???

That is very important in understanding where and why the borders will be in your question. Or as to what I believe and why they need to be as I feel.

Shalom :D

duck

11-20-2003, 05:22 PM

Well, I think Israel is playing a waiting game regarding Syria. Once Assad is gone, only Iran and Saudi Arabia remain. That's why Dr.Ledeen is so busy in Washington.

California Joe

11-20-2003, 05:22 PM

Trigger

11-20-2003, 05:29 PM

OK no more nitroglycerin for Joe. He's staying all 'straight faced' and using 5 dollar words all of a sudden.

Stupid heart attack. :D

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 05:32 PM

I honestly believe that the majority of Americans, especially the military believe Israel needs to strike terrorists wherever they find them. You are fighting for your very existance. I believe that quote you had about palestinians laying down their arms no more war, Israelis laying down arms, no more Israel. No I know this and in fact I probably recognise that WARPIG agrees (well hopefully :roll: ) with that now as well. Just some of his details are etc…………….. :roll:

What I meant with the scenario was, could that happen? And if it did it would create more terrorists. That's all. This is supposed to be about peace not vengeance but that is a human frailty that we cannot get past. The seeds are sown and it's hard to stop it. ok I don’t want to go round and round with you but I want to make something very clear.

This is not about vengeance or about punishment. Yeah sure we want revenge and will go after it, but it is more to do about deterrence in deterring more from striking.

Now as for this can create more terrorists. Well I don’t really buy that argument for my feeling is that for years already it been at the boiling point and that no matter what Israel does or doesn’t do, people on their side are going to have their entrenched and hatful views and attitudes of Israel and that regardless , these terrorists will exist in its large numbers.

I defer you to my responses to MR. Neilson as to why I think that and as to what I think of the overall situation

I think you should learn from the British mistakes in Northern Ireland. yes we should learn from everywhere!!

But make no mistake about it. Northern Ireland is not the west bank or Gaza....not by any stretch of the imagination!!!

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 05:33 PM

Well, I think Israel is playing a waiting game regarding Syria. Once Assad is gone, only Iran and Saudi Arabia remain. That's why Dr.Ledeen is so busy in Washington.ok please exaplin.......

also who is Dr.Ledeen ??

shalom :D

California Joe

11-20-2003, 05:41 PM

You might not think it's about punishment or vengeance, but it doesn't matter what YOU think. It's what the 12 year old Palestinian thinks.

Perception is reality.

As far as Northern Ireland not being Gaza.... I think you should read up on the history of that area of the world. They've been fighting since before the Battle of the Boyne. You got nothing on the kind of ingrained hate going on in some neighborhoods in Belfast.

You kind of dig the idea that everyday is like the Alamo where you live huh? Like it gives you street credentials to be a badass.

duck

11-20-2003, 05:44 PM

Dr.Ledeen is a leading neoconservative strategist, said to be the orginal initiator of "Iraqi Freedom" and supposed to have close contacts with the Mossad.

Here an article on him from the "American Conservative":

June 30, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

Flirting with Fascism

Neocon theorist Michael Ledeen draws more from Italian fascism than from the American Right.

By John Laughland

On the antiwar Right, it has been customary to attack the warmongering neoconservative clique for its Trotskyite origins. Certainly, the founding father of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, wrote in 1983 that he was “proud” to have been a member of the Fourth International in 1940. Other future leading lights of the neocon movement were also initially Trotskyites, like James Burnham and Max Kampelman—the latter a conscientious objector during the war against Hitler, a status that Evron Kirkpatrick, husband of Jeane, used his influence to obtain for him. But there is at least one neoconservative commentator whose personal political odyssey began with a fascination not with Trotskyism, but instead with another famous political movement that grew up in the early decades of the 20th century: fascism. I refer to Michael Ledeen, leading neocon theoretician, expert on Machiavelli, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, regular columnist for National Review—and the principal cheerleader today for an extension of the war on terror to include regime change in Iran.

Ledeen has gained notoriety in recent months for the following paragraph in his latest book, The War Against the Terror Masters. In what reads like a prophetic approval of the policy of chaos now being visited on Iraq, Ledeen wrote,

Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.

This is not the first time Ledeen has written eloquently on his love for “the democratic revolution” and “creative destruction.” In 1996, he gave an extended account of his theory of revolution in his book, Freedom Betrayed — the title, one assumes, is a deliberate reference to Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed. Ledeen explains that “America is a revolutionary force” because the American Revolution is the only revolution in history that has succeeded, the French and Russian revolutions having quickly collapsed into terror. Consequently, “[O]ur revolutionary values are part of our genetic make-up. … We drive the revolution because of what we represent: the most successful experiment in human freedom. … We are an ideological nation, and our most successful leaders are ideologues.” Denouncing Bill Clinton as a “counter-revolutionary” (!), Ledeen is especially eager to make one point: “Of all the myths that cloud our understanding, and therefore paralyze our will and action, the most pernicious is that only the Left has a legitimate claim to the revolutionary tradition.”

Ledeen’s conviction that the Right is as revolutionary as the Left derives from his youthful interest in Italian fascism. In 1975, Ledeen published an interview, in book form, with the Italian historian Renzo de Felice, a man he greatly admires. It caused a great controversy in Italy. Ledeen later made clear that he relished the ire of the left-wing establishment precisely because “De Felice was challenging the conventional wisdom of Italian Marxist historiography, which had always insisted that fascism was a reactionary movement.” What de Felice showed, by contrast, was that Italian fascism was both right-wing and revolutionary. Ledeen had himself argued this very point in his book, Universal Fascism, published in 1972. That work starts with the assertion that it is a mistake to explain the support of fascism by millions of Europeans “solely because they had been hypnotized by the rhetoric of gifted orators and manipulated by skilful propagandists.” “It seems more plausible,” Ledeen argued, “to attempt to explain their enthusiasm by treating them as believers in the rightness of the fascist cause, which had a coherent ideological appeal to a great many people.” For Ledeen, as for the lifelong fascist theoretician and practitioner, Giuseppe Bottai, that appeal lay in the fact that fascism was “the Revolution of the 20th century.”

Ledeen supports de Felice’s distinction between “fascism-movement” and “fascism-regime.” Mussolini’s regime, he says, was “authoritarian and reactionary”; by contrast, within “fascism-movement,” there were many who were animated by “a desire to renew.” These people wanted “something more revolutionary: the old ruling class had to be swept away so that newer, more dynamic elements—capable of effecting fundamental changes—could come to power.” Like his claim that the common ground between Nazism and Italian fascism was “exceedingly minimal”—Ledeen writes, “The fact of the Axis Pact should not be permitted to become the overriding consideration in this analysis”—Ledeen’s careful distinction between fascist “regime” and “movement” makes him a clear apologist for the latter. “While ‘fascism-movement’ was overcome and eventually suppressed by ‘fascism-regime,’” he explains, “fascism nevertheless constituted a political revolution in Italy. For the first time, there was an attempt to mobilize the masses and to involve them in the political life of the country.” Indeed, Ledeen criticizes Mussolini precisely for not being revolutionary enough. “He never had enough confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in fascism.” Ledeen therefore concurs with the fascist intellectual, Camillo Pellizi, who argues—in a book Ledeen calls “a moving and fundamental work”—that Mussolini’s was “a failed revolution.” Pellizzi had hoped that “the new era was to be the era of youthful genius and creativity”: for him, Ledeen says, the fascist state was “a generator of energy and creativity.” The purest ideologues of fascism, in other words, wanted something very similar to that which Ledeen himself wants now, namely a “worldwide mass movement” enabling the peoples of the world, “liberated” by American militarism, to participate in the “greatest experiment in human freedom.” Ledeen wrote in 1996, “The people yearn for the real thing—revolution.”

Ledeen was especially interested in the role played by youth in Italian fascism. It was here that he detected the movement’s most exciting revolutionary potential. The young Ledeen wrote that those who exalted the position of youth in the fascist revolution—like those who argued in favor of his beloved “universal fascism”—were committed to exporting Italian fascism to the whole world, an idea in which Mussolini was initially uninterested. When he was later converted to it, Mussolini said that fascism drew on the universalist heritage of Rome, both ancient and Catholic. No doubt Ledeen thinks that the new Rome in Washington has the same universalist mission. He writes that people around Berto Ricci—the editor of the fascist newspaper L’Universale, and a man he calls “brilliant” and “an example of enthusiasm and independence”— “called for the formation of a new empire, an empire based not on military conquest but rather on Italy’s unique genius for civilization. … They intended to develop the traditions of their country and their civilization in such a manner as to make them the basic tenets of a new world order.” Ledeen adds, in a passage that anticipates his later love of creative destruction, “Clearly the act of destruction which would produce the flowering of the new fascist hegemony would sweep away the present generation of Italians, along with the rest.” And Giuseppe Bottai, to whom Ledeen attributes “considerable energy and autonomy,” was notable for his belief that “the infusion of the creative energies of a new generation was essential” for the fascist revolution. Bottai “implored the young … to found a new order arising from the spontaneous activity of their creation.”

One of the greatest exponents of such youthful vitalism was the high priest of fascism, the poet and adventurer Gabriele D’Annunzio, to whom Ledeen devoted an enthusiastic biography in 1977. Years ago, I visited D’Annunzio’s house on the shores of Lake Garda: there is a battleship in the garden and a Brenn gun in the sitting room. D’Annunzio was an eccentric and militaristic Italian Nietzschean who “eulogized rape and acts of savagery” committed by the people he called his spiritual ancestors. The poet was also an early prophet of military intervention and regime change: he invaded the Croatian city of Fiume (now Rijeka) in 1919 and held the city for a year, during which he put into practice his theories of “New Order.” In 1918, moreover, D’Annunzio had dropped propaganda leaflets over Vienna promising to liberate the Austrians from their own government, something Ledeen hails as “a glorious gesture.” D’Annunzio’s watchword was “the liberation of human personality.” “His heroism during the war made it possible,” Ledeen writes, “to bridge the chasm between intellectuals and the masses. … The revolt D’Annunzio led was directed against the old order of Western Europe, and was carried out in the name of youthful creativity and virility.”

As Ledeen shows, the Italian fascists expressed their desire “to tear down the old order” (his words from 2002) in terms that are curiously anticipatory of a famous statement in 2003 by the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. In 1932, Asvero Gravelli also divided Europe into “old” and “new” when he wrote, in Towards the Fascist International, “Either old Europe or young Europe. Fascism is the gravedigger of old Europe. Now the forces of the Fascist International are rising.” It all sounds rather prophetic. ____________________________________________________

John Laughland is a London-based writer and lecturer and a trustee of the British Helsinki Human Rights Group.

June 30, 2003 issue
Copyright © 2003 The American Conservative

StarvingStudent47

11-20-2003, 05:47 PM

I think you should learn from the British mistakes in Northern Ireland. I don't mean recent. I mean 100 years ago mistakes. Or 300 years for chrissakes.

What I don't get is, even when Israel "learns from Northern Ireland," the international community STILL criticizes their actions. Building giant walls between Catholic neighborhoods and Protestant neighborhoods saved countless lives in Northern Ireland, on both sides of the conflict. Yet Israel's security fence is univerally condemned by the British. How does that work?

One critical difference though is the temperment of the terrorists. The IRA may have been bloodthirsty and definitely wanted to conquer more land, but they weren't religious fanatics who believed that terroristic martyrdom was the path to the highest level of heaven. Hamas believes JUST THAT. That's why negotiating with Hamas goes nowhere, whereas negotiating with the IRA was eventually able to lead to peace. That's why some "lessons from Northern Ireland" are useless.

StarvingStudent47

11-20-2003, 05:51 PM

Dr.Ledeen is a leading neoconservative strategist, said to be the orginal initiator of "Iraqi Freedom" and supposed to have close contacts with the Mossad.

I find it interesting how opponents of Operation Iraqi Freedom try to blame the operation on everybody besides the people who obviously planned it: Bush and Rumsfeld. And those "other people" always happen to be Jewish. They'll say "oh, but Wolfowitz just told Bush and Rumseld what to do." And now we've got someone who isn't even in the government who allegedly planned the whole darned thing. And guess what? People are claiming he's with Mossad. :roll:

Whether you support OIF or whether you oppose it, at least admit that this was Bush and Rumsfeld's war. They're not sock puppets. They can, and do, make decisions for themselves.

California Joe

11-20-2003, 05:54 PM

Apparently you're not Catholic. Don't you know their the only ones going to Heaven? It's what my Grandfather firmly believed. He loved his Presbetyrian friends, it was too bad they were all going to Hell. Ask Royal or Argyll about how religion still plays a huge part in the hatred there. Christ they march in Ulster to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne in full orange regalia. There is no easy answer.

duck

11-20-2003, 05:55 PM

idfm: To answer your question, I think change in the arab world is needed, otherwise there will never be peace. Israel is a haven of democracy in the middle of a sea of despots and dictators and should remain that. But I don't trust Dr.Ledeen's ideas on change.

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 05:56 PM

You might not think it's about punishment or vengeance, but it doesn't matter what YOU think. It's what the 12 year old Palestinian thinks. well listen a lot of them think and perceive our existence to be wrong. I don’t. they do.

Yes they perceive things differently.

The point is for Israel is to stop these homicide attacks that was occurring on a daily bases (before Israel got a little tuff recently which has seen a stark decline)

what a 12 year old thinks after he has been indocternated in school and by his parants is not somehing that can be countered so easily.

Again I deplore you to read my responses to MR. Neilson as to what I think of the conflict in general.

Perception is reality. no perception is perception and reality is reality!!

Yes they perceive that and others perceive other things but that doesn’t make it true or the reality.

As far as Northern Ireland not being Gaza.... I think you should read up on the history of that area of the world. They've been fighting since before the Battle of the Boyne. You got nothing on the kind of ingrained hate going on in some neighborhoods in Belfast. listen I don’t want to get into this whole comparison thing.

As I made it clear before, the conflicts and intensity of it is different more on how both enemies have fought and why they have or more specifically, how the IRA has fought and the intensity it has used and why they fight VS. how Islamic jihad and hamas has fought and their intensity and why they fight…..there are big differences!! (as well as some simularties)

You kind of dig the idea that everyday is like the Alamo where you live huh? Like it gives you street credentials to be a badass. ok now your betraying a bit of your preconceived notions here about this conflict. Its as if you were going to blurt that out regarless of what I would have said or not :roll:

No, we are not acting badass and like I said before, I believe we are one of the most restrained militaries especially with what we have had to face. (Again we are defiantly more retrained then the U.S. for that manner)

Please don’t resort to these easy one-liners that are very prevalent amongst Israel’s harshest critics.

Oh and again, I depolore you to fully read everything I have said in this thread, especially in response to Mr Nielson as to what my views are for now it is obvious that you have some misunderstandings about them or about what israel does as well.

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 06:01 PM

California Joe

11-20-2003, 06:08 PM

Not Israel, YOU. You like being the lone defender. Come on, admit it. You like coming in here and making your points. But you argue 10 percent of a post when 90 percent agreed. It makes us feel like you don't care, that you aren't sensitive to us as posters........ ;)

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 06:11 PM

Dr.Ledeen is a leading neoconservative strategist, said to be the orginal initiator of "Iraqi Freedom" and supposed to have close contacts with the Mossad.
oh who said he has close contacts with the mossad?!? :roll: I mean how is that even verified?!? :roll: That seems like a charge pulled out of thin air.

About the article, I skimmed through it and being that it was more an attack on Mr. Leaden and not on anything in the middle east (heck no where I can tell from my brief skimming,was that even discussed in that article) I don’t think there is any need for me to even comment on it.

Secondly can you please refrain from posting long articles. Posting your opinions fine, but these long articles are more of a cumbersome distraction then relevant to anything that we are talking about.

idfm: To answer your question, I think change in the arab world is needed, otherwise there will never be peace. Israel is a haven of democracy in the middle of a sea of despots and dictators and should remain that. amen!! I agree with you woot

But I don't trust Dr.Ledeen's ideas on change. I still don’t have any idea what he is saying about this conflict.

Shalom :D

IDFM203

11-20-2003, 06:17 PM

StarvingStudent47

11-20-2003, 10:07 PM

Apparently you're not Catholic.

Excellent deduction, my dear Watson. What clued you in? My avatar? ;)

Don't you know their the only ones going to Heaven? It's what my Grandfather firmly believed. He loved his Presbetyrian friends, it was too bad they were all going to Hell. Ask Royal or Argyll about how religion still plays a huge part in the hatred there. Christ they march in Ulster to celebrate the Battle of the Boyne in full orange regalia. There is no easy answer.

The difference is, Irish Catholics don't believe that God has commanded them to kill Protestants. And Protestants don't believe that God has commanded them to kill Catholics. It's all eye-for-an-eye stuff about battles a couple hundred years ago.

Hamas, on the other hand, genuinely believes that God has commanded them to kill all non-Muslims in the Middle East. There is no equivalent of "jihad" in Northern Ireland. And that is a huge factor that dramatically affects any sort of peace negotiations in the Middle East.

StarvingStudent47

11-20-2003, 10:14 PM

Duck--Even if everything in your article is true (and I'd question any article that claimed conservatives are just a bunch of Communists in disguise, or that anyone could simultaneously be a fascist and a Communist)...do you have any proof whatsoever that this "Mr. Ledeen" is influencing US government policy? He is a private citizen. He writes columns, exercising his First Amendment right like 280 million other people in the United States do every day. I don't see him occuping a seat in Bush's cabinet. I don't see how you can claim that he is controlling US policy.

I mean, back in 1999 I said "let's go kick Slobodan's ass." And then lo and behold, Slobo's ass got thoroughly kicked. But I'm not going to claim that I influenced Bill Clinton's decision to send troops.

Royal

11-21-2003, 02:40 AM

Having made my peace with IDFM203 and agreed to differ, there are some other points to clear up. BTW I am not comaparing Northern Ireland and the occupied territories, never having even visited let alone served in the latter.

Building giant walls between Catholic neighborhoods and Protestant neighborhoods saved countless lives in Northern Ireland, on both sides of the conflict. Yet Israel's security fence is univerally condemned by the British. How does that work?

Building the 'green line' in one part of Belfast (one city in the province) probably saved lives in the security forces. For those that don't remember, it was roundly condemned by Amnesty, the UN, the US and pretty much anyone else who cared to comment. It has largely been demolished.

One critical difference though is the temperment of the terrorists. The IRA may have been bloodthirsty and definitely wanted to conquer more land, but they weren't religious fanatics who believed that terroristic martyrdom was the path to the highest level of heaven.

That I fully agree with. Catholicism and Protestantism have virtually nothing to do with the current conflict in Northern Ireland, other than a hook to hand hatred and prejudice on.

Hamas believes JUST THAT. That's why negotiating with Hamas goes nowhere, whereas negotiating with the IRA was eventually able to lead to peace. That's why some "lessons from Northern Ireland" are useless.

Hamas does not believe that. Hamas is not a sentient being. (Some) members of Hamas believe that. Those controlling the bombers are no more religious than Martin McGuiness, they simply use 'religion' as one of their recruiting tools. The Qu'ran does not promote hatred or violence any more than the New Testament does.

Anyone who is stupid enough to believe that a state of peace exists in Northen Ireland needs to pay a visit. Both sides contine to conduct punishment beatings (and killings), source new and improved weapons and munitions, maintain links to other terrorist organisations internationally and recce targets and make preparations for attacks.

Nawlins

11-21-2003, 02:45 AM

duck

11-21-2003, 05:35 AM

Hungry student:

Iran/Persia
Veteran neo-con advisor moves on Iran, AsiaTimes
By Jim Lobe
Jul 2, 2003, 09:33

Michael Ledeen, Bush international affairs analyst/consultant

Washington - When The Washington Post published a list of the people whom Karl Rove, President George W Bush's closest advisor, regularly consults for advice outside the administration, foreign policy veterans were shocked when Michael Ledeen (ED NOTE: AUTHOR OF "UNIVERSAL FASCISM") popped up as the only full-time international affairs analyst.

"The two met after Bush's election," the Post reported cheerfully, quoting Ledeen about Rove's request that "any time you have a good idea, tell me". "More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric," noted the newspaper.

"When I saw that, I couldn't believe it," said one retired senior diplomat. "But then again, with this administration, it seemed frighteningly plausible."

Michael A Ledeen, resident scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works closely with the better-known former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has been a fixture of Washington's neo-conservative community for more than 20 years. But he is now out front, in a public campaign for the United States to confront Iran, warning that Tehran will cause Washington problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that "the mullahs are determined to obliterate Israel".

"We are now engaged in a regional struggle in the Middle East, and the Iranian tyrants are the keystone of the terror network," he wrote in Monday's Post. "Far more than the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, the defeat of the mullahcracy and the triumph of freedom in Tehran would be a truly historic event and an enormous blow to the terrorists."

Along with Morris Amitay, a former top lobbyist for the most powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Ledeen has already co-founded a new group, called the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), which is pressing Congress to approve a pending bill that would, among other things, provide some US$50 million in aid to both exile groups and opposition forces in Iran.

To Ledeen, whose own contacts with the mullahs in the Iran-Contra affair 15 years ago remain the source of some mystery, Iran is "the mother of modern terrorism". And terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence, which in turn enabled him to expose Billy Carter's dealings with the Muammar Gaddafi regime in Libya to the great satisfaction of Republicans, who were revving up their campaign against Billy's brother, then president Jimmy Carter.

Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P-2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s - have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as "anti-terrorism" advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig.

Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world's key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East.

He was a heavy promoter of the thesis that it was the KGB that was behind the 1981 attempted assassination by Turkish right-winger, Mehmet Ali Agca, of Pope John Paul II, a view he continues to expound today and which also helps explain his contempt for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), whose analysts never accepted the "Bulgarian Connection", as it was called.

In the mid-1980s, when Ledeen was working for the National Security Council, he tangled with the CIA again over his efforts with Israeli spy David Kimche to gain the release of US hostages in Beirut through an Iranian arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, in the opening stages of what would become the Iran-Contra affair.

But Ghorbanifar did not come through. Despite Ledeen's assessment of the middleman as "one of the most honest, educated, honorable men I have ever known", he flunked four lie detector tests administered by the CIA, which had long warned that the Iranian "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance".

Undaunted and untouched by the Iran-Contra investigation, Ledeen recorded his experience in Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair, one of more than 10 books he has written on US foreign policy, de Tocqueville, Machiavelli and terrorism, the latest of which is titled The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win.

Ledeen has been no less prolific in his organizational work, although, besides AEI - where he works with fellow foreign policy neo-cons Perle, former United Nations ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Joshua Muravchik and Reuel Marc Gerecht - his main institutional forum over the past 25 years has been the Jewish Institute of National Security Affairs (JINSA), an activist group that promotes a strategic alliance between the United States and Israel.

He has also served on the board of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon and has taken an organizing role in CDI. His co-founder there, Amitay, also works for JINSA.

He is also close to key figures in the administration, particularly Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, whose pro-Likud politics he largely shares; Vice President **** Cheney's powerful chief of staff, I Lewis Libby; and Elliott Abrams, the director for the Near East on the National Security Council. To that list can now apparently be added Rove, who is as close to Bush as it is possible to get.

Throughout his career, Ledeen has insisted that war and violence are integral parts of human nature and derided the notion that peace can be negotiated between two nations. He was a fierce opponent of the Oslo peace process. "I don't know of a case in history where peace has been accomplished in any way other than one side winning a war [and] imposing terms on the other side," he said two years ago.

He also has expressed little faith in traditional US allies, notably in "Old Europe", which he spent much of the 1980s attacking for being insufficiently anti-Soviet. As Washington moved toward war in Iraq, for example, he even questioned whether France and Germany were in league with al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

"The Franco-German strategy was based on using Arab and Islamic extremism and terrorism as the weapon of choice, and the United Nations as the straitjacket for blocking a decisive response from the United States," he wrote, suggesting three weeks later, as the US offensive stalled on its way to Baghdad, that France and Germany be treated as "strategic enemies".

For Ledeen, Iraq was only the beginning of the broader struggle against the "terror masters". "As soon as we land in Iraq, we're going to face the whole terrorist network," he told an interviewer in March. "Iran, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia are the big four, and then there's Libya." "You can't solve all problems I grant that," he told the BBC. "I mean, I wrote a book about Machiavelli, and I know the struggle against evil is going to go forever."

(Inter Press Service) http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html

WARPIG

11-21-2003, 08:10 AM

Not Israel, YOU. You like being the lone defender. actually I don’t and I am not alone.I have a few defenders as well.

But hey they are not all as articulate as I am, so they let me do it ;)

Come on, admit it. You like coming in here and making your points. But you argue 10 percent of a post when 90 percent agreed. It makes us feel like you don't care, that you aren't sensitive to us as posters........ ;) ok I will work on some sensitivaty training on how to treat others ;)

But seriously, I agree with a lot, heck you have read my pro U.S. postings on other threads(I hope you have) I just felt like I said in the beginning here, that being that I have a love and a respect for the American people, the few Americans that have this hypocritical and double standard views is irritating and offensive to me and I felt like I need to expose that and try to correct that, that is all!!

Shalom :D
We already spoke on your idea of hypocracy. I corrected your use of the word. I still stand by my view. Maybe it is critical of the IDF but it is the same as many people believe here (American and otherwise.) Keep in mind that criticising one aspect does not mean the one does not support the whole. Most people are pretty supportive of the Israeli struggle. As am I .
It is a great thing that you are able to articulate the IDF position and as most would agree it has been very informative. Your incessant protective dialogue against everything anti-IDF is counter productive. You damage your stance more than you help it during those times.

WARPIG

11-21-2003, 09:00 AM

Is it just me or does the Israeli guy argue about **** even when the majority of people here are agreeing with him? .... it is just you ;) …..but hey I sill like you anyways ;) :hug: ;)

Oh and everyone is agreeing with me?!? :roll: Well that’s great!! woot Damn if they only made themselves more clear about their agreements then we wouldn’t need all these postings ;) :roll: ;)

As for YOUR scenario…heck I am too drained (for obvious reasons) to even bother to get into that with you and how its not exactly prevalent to what we are talking about or to the actual situation.

Shalom :D
It is not just Joe. I think it too. Joe's scenario is prevlant but maybe not accurate.
I think a more accurate scenario is one the makes a family (even anti-Israeli) hesitant to stop a son, brother, cousin, etc. from commiting acts of terror out of fear of being labeled a traitor. Even if it is because they agree with the terrorist act... destroying their home is a wrongful act. It is morally controversial and a violation of their basic human rights. If a criminal, terrorist, etc. is proven guilty of commiting a crime, is his property or familys property liable? If it was used to perpetuate the crime.. yes. If it was not used or related.. it is not.
Again, I think we all are looking at a small window of the picture of IDF tactics. I completely disagree with what I have seen here but it is only a small part of the whole reality.
To try and put it in perspective. As an MP, one of my jobs is prisoner of war control. Scenario: a small group of prisoners are dropped at my holding area and I have to search, process and hold them for further transport. My area is a temporary holding pen and is not very secure. Positive control is paramount. I begin searching one prisoner (Bob) while covered by two rifleman. I empty all of Bob's belongings into a bag and some of them he is reluctant to give up. He voices his grudge and I respond by putting his face in the dirt. I take the items anyway and finish the search with my knee in his ear. As I move him to the holding pen I assist him further with my boot landing on his ass. The rest of the prisoners never make any sound or do anything to provoke any further "dirt searches." The rest of the searches continue without incident. A little bit more force than was necessary and by Military Police policy is unjustified. The prisoners' view is that Bob was punished. To avoid further punishment they decided to be very very cooperative. My intent was not to punish them but to deter them from any aggression or refusal of orders. Intent and perception is quite different here. It makes my actions no less wrong.
The reality of this is that it happens. I didn't actually do this but I won't say it doesn't happen. Problem is that most of us see this as justified. It is thought of as a "neccesary evil." It is a failure though. We fail to see the consequences of these kinds of rationalities. I may have deterred any conflict for the time being but I have planted the seed of fear and hatred in Bob and his buddies. Maybe he hated us to begin with and I just helped validate his reasons. Same as the destruction of terrorist homes. I could see myself rationalising it if I were in that situation. "Eye for an eye," sort of thing. Deterrent? Sure it is. Punishment? That too.
Decisions we make shape perception. We can rationalise them for our comfort but perception is reality.
Just to reitterate.. I make no apologies for my view of this kind of action. I do realize that criticising this small aspect of IDF tactics could be taken as criticism of the IDF. This is not my intent. I want to apologize for any misinterpretation and try and make clear that it is only a view of a small detail. Do not construe this as my take on the IDF as a whole.

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 11:38 AM

Ok a change of tactics for me now. I am not going to dissect your post for I think it is best that we get off this impending train wreck.

The thread is completely different from the end to the beginning. You’ll have to concede that the whole problem started with your first sweeping statement that was wrong and hypocritical for it did not do as it is doing now, where we are dissecting one minute detail, No you made a general and sweeping characterization in response to the U.S. destroying homes and that is what set off this whole back and forth which I am going to try to get off.

Here is your quote “

The only thing out of place is the Israeli justification for their military actions. Legitimate targets vs targetting sympathizers .. two totally different things. Scare tactics against other combatants helps you win without having to kill all of them. Scare tactics against sympathizers is terrorism.

And that was wrong for Israel has not gone after terrorist sympathizers nor in that quote did you make any distinction for when Israel goes after homes because of cover for snipers or other very strategic things (as the U.S. is doing now in Iraq) ONLY now after a back and forth you have scaled it down to one specific case and that is when Israel targets the homes of a homicide bombers. For there are many other cases when Israel does it and you should have made it clear that you recognise that but this one aspect and ONLY this one aspect you have a problem with.

On this one aspect that we are at now, I will withdraw my hypocrite insinuation for you were mature enough to finally come correct and par your criticisms down to that one and ONLY aspect.

Ok as for this one aspect.

Ok first a couple of things.

I think a lot of you are looking at this through the eyes of your own experiences or other preconceived notions and views (which is understandable) but I think a lot of you fail to forget is that before recently (till Israel got a little tougher so to speak) there were a homicide attack almost daily or weekly and in the absence of a sincere willingness for peace by a lot of the Palestinians (I am not talking about a few of them saying nice token things in English) Israel was forced to look for ways to curb the daily attacks. So out of a lot of justified things it also added this one controversial (as I admitted to it being) thing as another method amongst many that can try to limit the high number of attacks. There is no concrete evidence that it has worked but there is some however that it has. There have been reports of people turning in their relatives that were about to attack and there are unconfirmed (and hard to verify) of people thinking twice about doing such acts.

The point is it is about deterrence

This whole well it also punishes does not wash with me for that argument can be made for every military action that a military takes for anyone can take a look at it and call it also punishment. Heck I can even take the U.S. AC gunship attacks as punishment or the homes that the U.S. is destroying, I mean I can go on and on.

No, it is about deterrence against what was a huge onslaught of homicide attacks.

Now one other thing on that. If anyone believes that this aspect is causing this conflict to go on or has an effect to that, is overtly naive at least and maximum much worse. No this conflict is much deeper then that. This is about the fundamental issues of this debate and not about recent Israeli are even recent Palestinian actions. For better understanding of what I am saying I again refer you to my responses to MR. Nileson.

Lastly, like I said before, I do recognise that you are not against Israel and that I also recognise only now (for there are other cases in the past where you have made more blatant and questinable “hypocritical” statements…but I wont rehash that) that you do support most of what we are doing. I mean even home demolition you support as you do when the U.S. does it. So we are at one aspect, destruction of homicide bombers homes. And on that if after the above explanation does not satisfy, that I guess on this we will have to seal it with I will have to agree to disagree.

This has been indeed a very constructive debate and I appreciate all for that.

P.S. please tone down on the colours for it is too contrasting and it is a bit chi............. ;) ;)

Shalom :D

Durandal

11-21-2003, 12:06 PM

Ultimately though, I understand, to some degree, the problems that face Israel today are NOT of their making and a Nation can only take so much abuse. A government is responsible for the protection of its people and I believe, in all honesty that the Israeli government is doing it the best way they can. Leaders simply cannot stand by and watch the innocent of the their nation perish without a response. They have the right to protect their borders.

There is no unified leadership or nation fighting against Israel. There is no specific leader to hold responsible the actions of the bombers. Dealing with one will not guarantee peace with the others. Who can we hold responsible when some Palestinian breaks the peace? The family and friends, the people that trained the person, the people that shelter them, or the nation that ALLOWS them to be?

Then there are the Palestinians. The have a responsibilty as well. The need to look within their own nation select a leadership that will eliminate the threat to Israel. They need to action and control of their "nation". Till the do this, they will be a "little people". And yes, it will suck. People will die and Palestinians will be killing Palestinians. No Nation building has ever come cheap. A government sponsored BY THE PEOPLE who wish peace will likely receive threats and be assassinated. The loyal police will suffer casualties and brothers my fight brothers. Then again, the Palestinians could come to terms peacefully. Either way, there HAS to be a nation, a fairly responsible nation for Israel to deal with, not factions and impotent leaders.

Then there are the outside influences...Iran, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. These nations or people within their nations (since it may not be official policy) continue to undermine the process for their own rude purposes.

I shudder to think the massive amount of military might and/or political pressure needed to end the aid by foreign governments...

These people who think international law and peace are simple things that anyone will respect because of group consensus are living in a dream world. Peace is something attained by force (either through its use or threat of use) and Peace is kept not by everyone holding hands, but by holding a club over everyone's head. If you to do not have the ability to enforce laws and treaties, then chaos reigns.

I wish the world were different. Maybe someday it will be.

In the end, Israel is in a ****ty situation and doing the best, I think, any nation can. I shudder when I think what other nations would do in their situation...

WARPIG

11-21-2003, 01:11 PM

My statements from beginning to end have changed with the added knowledge. Yours however, have remained staunchly one sided. I concede misinterpretations as I make them and adjust my thinking. I also am never satisfied with my opinion and look to improve the sight in which I make them.
My analogy was right on. I can't figure out how to describe it more plainly but I do agree that my attempts and your rebuttals should be nearing their end.
I should have just stuck to just disagreeing with you and leaving it at that.
Once again your absolute refusal to accept a little criticism has lead me to surrender. I totally give up the attempt and leave you to your comfortable ignorance. (This refers to your approach not your knowledge or personal opinions.)

God Bless

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 01:22 PM

wow did you not read my last post???? :roll: (It seems liked you haven’t :| )

I made it vary clear. I said I withdrew my hypocritical insinuation at you in that case. And that I recognised that you stood corrected in general and that we are now in disagreement on one aspect.

I made that very clear in my last post.

On that ONE and ONLY aspect, I heard what you said and I responded and I said if that response doesn’t satisfy, then we will just have to agree to disagree but I made it clear that the tone has shifted to a friendly and more constructive confine.

This whole “comfortable ignorance” (which can be levelled from both sides here) is childish and plain stupid. You generally seem like a composed poster so I expect better.

I say again, this has been a constructive debate and after the paring down of generalizations we have come to ONE disagreement on ONE-minute detail. I think that was progress and on that I am glad. Oh and on that one aspect I have acknowledged that it was controversial and I have made my case for it and you have made yours and I accept that.

Lets not make anything more out of this....

Shalom to you :D

WARPIG

11-21-2003, 01:33 PM

Ahhhh... I surrendered! Please stop.. uh.. deterring me! IT BURNS!! IT BURNS!

Sorry, I coudn't resist. Ignorant was a bit much. Your just stubborn as all hell. I did read your post friend. I do still disagree. I still give up. We said all we could on this subject but we will still bump heads on other posts.. look forward to it.

Thank God it's Friday!

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 01:39 PM

Ahhhh on per your surrender........."put your weapon down and come foward with your hands in the air" ;) rofl ;)

Oh I give up too!! :| Your as stubborn as you accuse me of being :|

I can honestly see us getting along very well if we ever met ;) :D ;)

Oh and I look forward to bumping heads with you in the future.

Actually right now though I am agreeing with you on the other thread woot

Hey we dont disagree on everything, we do have some common ground (as you know).

Shalom :D

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 06:04 PM

Hamas does not believe that. Hamas is not a sentient being. (Some) members of Hamas believe that. Those controlling the bombers are no more religious than Martin McGuiness, they simply use 'religion' as one of their recruiting tools. The Qu'ran does not promote hatred or violence any more than the New Testament does.

First off, I didn't say anything about the Qur'an. I realize that Hamas isn't following "true Islam," just like the Spanish Inquisitors weren't following "true Christianity." But that doesn't make Hamas or the Inquisitors any less zealous or "motivated by religion."

Second, don't say some members of Hamas. All do. It's a fundamental belief of the organization, just like the superiority of the Aryan race was a fundamental belief of the Nazi Party. Here are two quotes from Hamas's official charter:

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
If you want to read the full charter and see just what sort of bigoted religious extremism Hamas represents, here you go (http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm).

And just for the record, I believe that Sheik Yassin (the head of Hamas) genuinely believes what he preaches. Yassir Arafat may not be religious, but Sheik Yassin, like Osama Bin Laden, actually is.

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 06:08 PM

As far as Northern Ireland not being Gaza.... I think you should read up on the history of that area of the world. They've been fighting since before the Battle of the Boyne. You got nothing on the kind of ingrained hate going on in some neighborhoods in Belfast.

Wha??? Sorry Joe, usually I agree with you, but I think this is a little off. Maybe the current conflict didn't start that long ago, but Israel has had problems with its non-Jewish (and earlier, Hebrew) neighbors for a long long time.

Nawlins, Joe is correct. Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East is new. Post-WWI only. And I'm not sure what you mean by Israel having conflicts with its "Hebrew neighbors." Israel has never HAD Hebrew neighbors. And just for the record, conflicts between Israel and its neighbors only go back to 1948, because before 1948, there was no Israel and thus no Israelis ;)

Until the fall of the Ottoman Empire (end of WWI) there was very little Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East. It was under the British, who took over in 1918, that Arab nationalism flourished and conflict broke out between Arabs and Jews (and Arabs and Kurds for that matter).

In the 19th century the Jews of the Middle East actually faced much LESS violence than the Jews of Europe.

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 06:17 PM

duck--

Even if we take your articles at face value (and I don't believe that any article that claims someone is simulatenously fascist and communist should be taken at face value), he's not saying anything that dozens of other people in Washington aren't saying.

His wild, allegedly unique ideas include:
Kicking Iran's butt
Introducing democracy to the Muslim world
the War on Terror is about more than just Afghanistan

Come on. Alan Jackson and Toby Kieth could have come up with that.

Like I said, nothing unique about this guy, even if he is as important as you claim. I personally still believe that the "mastermind" behind Bush's War on Terror is good ol' George Dubya himself. But that wouldn't be enough of an "insidious neocon plot," would it?

duck

11-21-2003, 06:26 PM

Hungry student: Do you share idfm:s view of the American war on terrorism and Israel's struggle against the arabs/palestinians being one single entity?

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 06:32 PM

Hungry Student: Do you share idfm:s view of the American war on terrorism and Israel's struggle against the arabs/palestinians being one single entity? I belive the core priciples and fundamantels are indeed the same and they share that.

but yes there are differences!!!!!!

This whole thread was about a few aspects of it and not about the things or conflicts in general.

"quack"( ;) ) do you belive that the whole struggle and conflict is just about the 1967 borders?!?

P.S. sorry for answering it, I will let STARVINGstudent47 answer your question as well ;)

shalom :D

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 06:50 PM

Hungry student: Do you share idfm:s view of the American war on terrorism and Israel's struggle against the arabs/palestinians being one single entity?

I believe they're related but not identical. Just like how the Indian Kashmir conflict is related but not identical, or how the confict against Muslim extremist terrorists in the Philippines is related but not identical.

What's your point? What are you driving at with all this?

duck

11-21-2003, 07:02 PM

;) Just testing if you were Michael Ledeen.

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 07:49 PM

;) Just testing if you were Michael Ledeen.

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean. Are you saying I'm a Trotskyist fascist currently working for the President as part of a vast "neocon" conspiracy that runs the United States? Dang. And I thought I was just a student.

If this "Michael Ledeen" guy is so darned important to American foreign policy in the Middle East, then why hasn't CNN ever heard of him? In all their archives of news stories, they mention him ONCE. And it's about trade with China.

"Nobody is smart enough to know whether the People's Republic of China will be friend or foe 10 or 20 years from now, which makes the transfer of technology more difficult," said commissioner Michael Ledeen, a former policy adviser to the Reagan administration. (source) (http://edition.cnn.com/2002/US/01/17/china.tech/index.html)

That is the ONLY time he is EVER mentioned in a CNN story. If this guy is pulling the strings of the Oval Office like you suggest, how do you explain that?

duck

11-21-2003, 08:01 PM

Hungry student: Who or what, according to your opinion, influences the foreign policies of France, Germany and Russia towards Israel?

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 08:03 PM

I am pretty well informed about the Middle East conflict but even I never heard of him

Its always these non descript people that no one ever heard of that are "behind the scenes" that supposedly have the most say with the president and they always have that close contact with the mossad and the CIA (its always both of those no matter what the topic is) and that only a few and very “in” people know about.

I mean when asked to verify or how did you know this…they respond to some weird alleged quote or to some wired website or editorial or to some wired etc……

Gee duck are you another chumsky follower?!? :roll: :|

Shalom :D

duck

11-21-2003, 08:11 PM

The Washington Post is a non-reliable source? Hmmm, Chomsky, Moore and the rest of the left-wing stooges are of no interest to me. More of a former libertarian becoming more conservative with each year that passes.

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 08:14 PM

Chomsky, Moore and the rest of the left-wing stooges are of no interest to me. More of a former libertarian becoming more conservative with each year that passes. thier becoming more conservative???

not meant as a flame or anything but can you please explian better what your saying here

really I am intrested!!!

thanks..........

shalom :D

duck

11-21-2003, 08:16 PM

I believe less and less in "creative chaos". ;) And case closed for me.

IDFM203

11-21-2003, 08:38 PM

StarvingStudent47

11-21-2003, 09:16 PM

I believe less and less in "creative chaos". ;) And case closed for me.hey "buddy" if your going to ask the questions and expect detailed answers your going to have to give some yourself instead of these short evasive ones or you posting some article.

Again please explain your answer in more detail.........

Shalom :D

Seriously. Duck, you ask me to give a dissertation on the foreign policy of three separate European countries, yet you dodge the simple questions "if Ledeen is so important, why doesn't CNN ever mention him?" and most importantly "what are you driving at here?" When you do post, it's some vague, meaningless phrase like "I belive less and less in 'creative chaos.' "

If you want a debate, I'll debate you on just about any topic. But I don't appreciate someone playing games and acting all superior to everyone else. If you want honest answers to your questions, maybe you should extend the same courtesy to the rest of us.

I'll say it again, Duck: What are you driving at here? What point are you trying to make?

duck

11-21-2003, 09:34 PM

Nawlins

11-22-2003, 12:53 AM

Nawlins, Joe is correct. Arab-Jewish conflict in the Middle East is new. Post-WWI only. And I'm not sure what you mean by Israel having conflicts with its "Hebrew neighbors."

Mistype. That was supposed to be non-Hebrew neighbors. Like the Samaratins... in the Bible. That was a loooooong time ago, and they wouldn't even speak to each other. I don't know... it just doesn't seem to me like it's all that new. But I'll concede if I'm wrong.

StarvingStudent47

11-22-2003, 12:57 AM

Hungry student: Just keeping up the debate.The reason why I am asking about your point of view on the reluctant allies in the war on terror has to do with your answer on lobbyists like Dr.Ledeen. Do you think Chirac, Putin and Schröder have put together their strategies on the war in Iraq by themselves or been influenced by lobby groups and polls?

So now Ledeen is a "lobbyist"? Funny, he was an "advisor" last time we talked.

I do not believe that Shroeder, Putin, or Chirac were motivated by people sneaking up to them and wispering hypnotic messages in their sleep, like how you seem to be suggesting that "neocons" manipulate Bush and Rumsfeld.

For France and Russia, I feel the main motivation was a combination of national interests and traditional regional loyalties. As for national interests, both countries had signed very lucrative oil agreements with Iraq in 2002--contracts that would be nullified by a regime change. This is public-knowledge stuff. As for traditional regional loyalties, the Russians had backed the Arab states during the Cold War, and France built Iraq a nuclear reactor in 1981 (and in general had courted Arab states after 1967).

For Germany I think it's completely different. There's no evidence of economic ties between Germany and Iraq, and there's not a history of good relations between the two countries. With Germany, I believe the main motivation was a general abhorrence of war that's been a part of German political culture since 1945. I think Kosovo and Afghanistan are the only two times Germany has fought outside its borders since WWII. Because of this extreme abhorrence for military action, they have a more extreme standard of "imminent threat" than the United States does. Afghanistan met both our standards, but Iraq fell above the US standard but below the German standard.

For all three of those countries, I believe that the President/Prime Minister was the main driving force behind the decision-making. I do not believe that any of those three are puppets for a certain lobby within their country. And I fail to see what any of this has to do with this Mr. Ledeen you are so focused on. Care to enlighten me, o great one?

And now, Duck, I'm going to play the psychoanalysis game with you. I would like a straight-up answer for each of these questions:
1) What do YOU think was the main reason the United States went into Iraq? Oil? A "neocon" conspiracy? Zionist lobbying? Something else?
2) Do you believe that "neocons" control the current administration?
3) In five sentences or less, define the term "neocon."
4) Who are the most prominent people in politics now who you would classify as "neocons"?

StarvingStudent47

11-22-2003, 01:14 AM

Mistype. That was supposed to be non-Hebrew neighbors. Like the Samaratins... in the Bible. That was a loooooong time ago, and they wouldn't even speak to each other. I don't know... it just doesn't seem to me like it's all that new. But I'll concede if I'm wrong.

First off, I don't think we can use anything from 2000 years ago to explain modern politics. Let's remember that back then, Italians were known as Romans, and they controlled Britain ;-) It'd take 1000 more years before the Danish would become righteously badass Vikings, and 2000 more years before the Danish would become the mild-mannered nice-guys of Europe who are best known for LegoLand.

Bringing us up to the Middle Ages--with only a couple exceptions, Muslim-Jewish relations were actually quite good. When the Frankish armies rolled into the Middle East during the Crusades, they massacred Muslim and Jew alike (every Jew in Jerusalem was slaughtered by the Frankish armies in the First Crusade--most were burned alive in their synagogues). The Jews fled to the Muslims--especially Salah-al-Din's forces (aka Saladin)--for protection. In Muslim Spain, Muslim and Jew (and Christian) lived side-by-side in peace, and the Jewish philosopher Maimonides was courted by the Muslim royalty and published many of his works in Arabic. Things only fell apart with the last dynasty in Muslim Spain, which was kind of a radical Muslim-only deal. And under the rule of the Ottoman Turks (the Ottoman Empire controlled the Arabian peninsula from the 1500s to WWI), there was extremely little inter-religious or inter-ethnic fighting.

The real change came with British imperial rule. The British used a divide-and-conquer theory--they played one ethnic group off another to prevent any one group from seizing control, so that Britain could maintain its holdings. Most importantly, they promised Palestine--all of it!--to the Jews as a Jewish state. It would be part of a "two-state solution" with Trans-Jordan (now just called Jordan) being the Arab state. Of course, they told something entirely different to the Arabs :roll: Unforunately, this divide-and-conquer strategy has had negative repercussions long after the British pulled out of the region. That's certainly not the only cause for Arab-Jewish conflict, but it is one of the major ones, and it's a cause that is frequently overlooked.

Just for reference, in college I majored in Medieval European History and minored in comparative religion, so this useless trivia from 1000 years was my main reason for being for four years ;)