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Post by Melnorme on Aug 24, 2005 16:26:23 GMT -5
Israel, by being a state that only allows Jews to immigrate and become naturalized citizens, and more generally enshrines a particular 'national ethnic character', is inherently 'discriminatory'. By hyperbole, this becomes 'racism' and even 'apartheid'. However, it is nothing out of the ordinary - Germany is the prime example of a European nation with similar policies, though less strict. It's not nice to single out a small nation that most people wouldn't want to immigrate to anyway. Israel's real problem is that its conflict is just so very visible - a developed Western nation, with full and easy access to the international media, that regularly sends bulldozers and snipers into impoverished Arab slums for the purpose of slaying terrorist scumbags. It's really all highly unusual, and it's not surprising that many people just can't deal with the fact that, yes, that is what is required to survive in this region. But their leaders may be learning : www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/23/nterr23.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/08/23/ixportal.html"However, after the July 7 bombs that killed 56 people, including the four suicide bombers, Tony Blair said that the "rules of the game have changed" and action would be taken even if it fell foul of human rights restrictions."
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Post by k5125 on Aug 24, 2005 16:31:22 GMT -5
Israel, by being a state that only allows Jews to immigrate and become naturalized citizens, is inherently 'discriminatory'. By hyperbole, this becomes 'racism' and even 'apartheid'. I see your point. However, I always found it interesting that people who cite this as a reason for Israel being "racist" also always claim that Jews aren't even a race, or even an "ethnicity" to begin with.
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Post by Yankel on Aug 24, 2005 17:13:05 GMT -5
Be happy, you have learned something new. Nice. I see you know how to copy and paste. You could've just given me a link to the wikipedia article, you know. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_bomber#HistoryNotice the relative decline in articulacy between your last paragraph and this one. Quite a contrast. Obviously, the IDF is militarily superior. No one is disputing that. However, it's beyond ignorant to pretend the Arabs are so ill-equipped they're forced to "defend" themselves with stones and old ARs.
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Outis
New Member
Memento Audere Semper
Posts: 48
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Post by Outis on Aug 24, 2005 17:38:59 GMT -5
Nice. I see you know how to copy and paste. You could've just given me a link to the wikipedia article, you know. That is all that you have to say after the poor figure you made? English is not my mother tongue, so sometimes I try to get info from the web so to shorten my time in front of the computer. Nothing strange in it, I have done it more than once. But the sources of the informations contained in my previous answer do come mainly from some books that I checked from my personal library, this one particularly: Unlike what you have said, the informations that I provided were correct. And that's what is important.
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Post by Ilmatar on Aug 25, 2005 4:12:51 GMT -5
Outis, the Israeli state isn't the sole power in the area or the World taking advance of the Palestinians question. Palestinians have been used as a weapon in the World Politics since the creation of the creation of the Israeli state.So yes, I think that Palestinians are victims, but blaiming Israel or the US alone for what has happened to them is a political oversimplification.
As for the suicide bombings, one of the fathers of the Finnish nation - which has suffered its share of oppression, believe me - once said: "Only the uncivilized tribes fight to their very destruction". And franckly, I think giving the young people an idea that blowing themselves up is the best thing they can do for themselves, their country and their people, is destroying one's tribe.
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Post by nockwasright on Aug 25, 2005 5:00:51 GMT -5
Jews have no place living in europe anymore. Europe is not home to the Jews. It never really has been. And it probably never will be. I think you are wrong here. Europe as a whole is more anti Israel than pro, expecially the media. But apart for this the only threat to Jews in Europe are the Muslim immigrants (who are a threat and a nuisance for Europeans too, actually). Europe is now the tamest place on heart, so the only thing a Jew would have to fear here is that it would let the Muslim small minority harass him for its exceeding tameness. As for the suicide bombers my take is that in a very backward culture where human life has little value and women have 8 to 10 children each, to take some village idiots and force them into exploding themselves in Jews' proximity may look like a reasonable tactic. It looks very humiliating to me however, as to sneakily go near people pretending to be one of them and then explode yourslef seems the lamest and humblest way to fight ever. Plus sometimes they fail and you get to read "suicide bomb killer explodes himself, Israeli's car damaged".
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Post by Drooperdoo on Aug 25, 2005 11:05:52 GMT -5
Melnorme, No one would have a problem if Israel just killed "terrorists" (and by "terrorists," you apparently mean "people who engage is armed resistance of Israeli occupation". Much has been said against Israel's attempt to blur the Palestinian struggle into what Al-Qaeda is. I hate Christopher Hitchens, but he had a point when he said, "If Sharon attempts to link the Palestinian struggle for national independence with America's war against Al-Qaeda, then he will confuse the one issue and end up losing the other." But, as an outsider, I'll reluctantly use your terminology for people who resist Israeli occupation. If Sharon merely targeted people who engage in armed resistance, the world wouldn't be so appalled. It's when Sharon bulldozes apartment buildings knowing there are no 'terrorists' inside. Sharon calls it his policy of "collective punishment". He thinks that by killing innocent Palestinians, they'll put pressure on their own people and rein in the militants. So Sharon has been very honest when he bulldozes apartment houses with women and children still inside. He doesn't pretend there are terrorists in there. That's why the international community is filled with revulsion. Because "killing innocents" in order to put pressure on other people is what terrorists do. And Israelis have not been going after wily terrorists and "accidentally" killing bystanders. That's a well-known myth. They target bystanders, purposely terrorizing innocents, in the hopes of having their community put pressure on the militants. Modern nations are not supposed to sink to the level of terrorists, and Israel--while generally showing amazing restraint--has occasionally crossed that line.
P.S.--Nietzsche famously said, "We must be careful that in fighting monsters we do not ourselves become monsters." In geopolitics, it might be re-stated: We must be careful that in fighting terrorists we don't sink to using the methods of terrorists. Israel is not the only state guilty of adopting measures that are not consonant with international law. In the past, there was the French in Algeria. And, more recently, the United States was--as you well know--caught red-handed torturing and raping people in its custody in the Abu Ghraib scandal [as well as in Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan]. It's telling that closet fascists deny it in one breath and then in the next say, "So what if some of the people were 'abused,' war is war." --It's telling because they're attempting to justify torture. So if no torture was going on--as is graphically documented in photos and on video--then why does the government propaganda machine send its minions to justify torture and mainstream breaches of the Geneva Convention. That reaction says it all. The public is being conditioned to unquestioningly accept atrocities, de-sensitized until they're as passive as the populace of Nazi Germany.
P.P.S.--The Pentagon has stalled on releasing a second series of photos and video tapes from Abu Ghraib. The courts have declared that the government must release the material, but the Pentagon has set itself in defiance of the courts. General Myers recently said that "If the pictures were shown there might be riots in the streets in protest". (People who have seen the material say that it shows US soldiers raping children, torturing little kids "to break the will of their parents," sodomizing people with broomsticks, etc.) I don't know how the rightwing propagandists can keep playing down the torture, by calling it "no more than college pranks" and "young soldiers letting off some steam". But I'm sure they will--their comments depedent on the ignorance of the general public.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Aug 25, 2005 12:09:29 GMT -5
Here's an article entitled "Turkish Intelligence: Al Qaeda A U.S. Covert Operation".
Kurt Nimmo | August 15 2005
Consider the following, published in Zaman, the fifth largest newspaper in Turkey: “Amid the smoke from the fortuitous fire [i.e., the capture of Louai Sakra, said to be the al-CIA-duh regional boss in Turkey] emerged the possibility that al-Qaeda may not be, strictly speaking, an organization but an element of an intelligence agency operation. Turkish intelligence specialists agree that there is no such organization as al-Qaeda. Rather, Al-Qaeda is the name of a secret service operation. The concept ‘fighting terror’ is the background of the ‘low-intensity-warfare’ conducted in the mono-polar world order. The subject of this strategy of tension is named as ‘al-Qaeda.’” Note the use of the phrase “strategy of tension,” an obvious reference to Gladio, the state-sponsored terrorist operation in Italy (basically a series of fascist false flag operations, or “low intensity warfare,” blamed on leftists). It is interesting that Turkish intelligence would admit that the neocon “war against terrorism” is an entirely artificial construct.
Moreover, according to Turkish intelligence, “Sakra has been sought by the secret services since 2000. The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) interrogated him twice before. Following the interrogation CIA offered him employment. He also received a large sum of money by CIA. However the CIA eventually lost contact with him.” It is curious how alleged key people in the al-CIA-duh network end up working for the CIA and other intelligence agencies.
For instance, Abdurahman Khadr, who (according to ABC News Online) “lived side-by-side with Osama bin Laden,” was a “double agent, sent to spy on Al Qaeda fighters at Guantanamo Bay and in Bosnia.” Ali Mohamed, a former U.S. Army sergeant who trained Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards and helped plan the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, worked for the FBI (Mohamed, obviously with the grace of the feds, brought Ayman al-Zawahiri to San Francisco on a covert fund-raising mission), according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Hamid Reza Zakeri claimed (during the trial of Abdelghani Mzoudi, a Moroccan accused of helping the nine eleven hijackers) that “Iran’s secret service had contacts with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda network ahead of the September 11 attacks,” according to Reuters. It just so happens Zakeri claims the CIA owes him $1.2 for services rendered as a double agent. Mullah Krekar, the leader of Ansar al-Islam, told al-Hayat newspaper in 2003 he had “a meeting with a CIA representative and someone from the American army in the town of Sulaymaniya (Iraqi Kurdistan) at the end of 2000. They asked us to collaborate with them,” an offer Krekar said he refused. Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr, aka Abu Omar, “a dangerous terrorist who once plotted to kill the Egyptian foreign minister,” according to the Chicago Tribune, was such a valued CIA asset it was deemed necessary to kidnap him off the streets of Milan after he had second thoughts about his work. And then there was Muhammad Naeem Noor Khanm, the al-Qaeda “computer engineer” who “became part of a sting operation organized by the CIA,” according to the Washington Post.
Of course, all of this CIA funny business is coincidental. Remember, the CIA is ineffectual, even if it did create Islamic terrorism—the agency actually boasts about this, says the Afghan Mujahideen (aka “al-Qaeda”) was its most successful operation to date—and it was “intelligence failures” that caused nine eleven.
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Post by murphee on Aug 26, 2005 2:24:42 GMT -5
Sinister Forces
Millegan and company work to expose secret power bases.
BY LANCE SPARKS Eugene Weekly (Oregon) 8/25/05
After a frenetic youth and edgy career, Kris Millegan has found a calling, perhaps a mission, and it's nothing less than saving the United States: "My hope is a revival … a beautiful opportunity for a revitalization of our republic." His method involves exposure of the "sinister forces" — secret societies, covert cabals, deep cover fascists — that operate in the U.S. (and beyond) to control business, politics, culture, our very minds in their pursuit of power, wealth, and an oligarchic "New World Order." To counter their swords and steel, Millegan has taken up, not the pen, but the power of the desktop and the Internet. He started out just a few years ago on "$5,000 of borrowed money" and joined with partners to create TrineDay Books, based in bucolic Walterville, just a scoot up the McKenzie Highway outside Springfield.
Millegan, now 55, is slender with a graying ponytail and droopy 'stache, dressed country casual, Hawaiian shirt over reggae T-shirt. His upstairs office is crowded with bookshelves floor to ceiling, heavy with tomes bearing such titles as Official Secrets, The Seven Sisters, Secret Societies and Fraternities, Who Rules America? and the Encyclopedia of Freemasonry. Millegan must have one of the area's most complete collections of reference material on conspiracies and secret societies: "The way I'd work is I'd get somebody's book, read that one, read the bibliography, then read those."
Then there are stacks of TrineDay's own titles (Kris's office also serves as the shipping department):
Fleshing Out Skull and Bones: Investigations into America's Most Powerful Secret Society (2003), a collection of about 30 essays exploring the deep background of the Yale secret society and its membership, which includes both Bushes, John Kerry, and many of America's most important family names: Taft, Whitney, Harriman, Bundy, a rogue's gallery of the rich and influential in business, politics, and intelligence. Millegan's own essay, "Everything You Ever Wanted to Ask, but Were Afraid to Know," anchors the book and tracks the "Order's" connections to a German secret society, to the China opium trade of the 1830s, to Prescott Bush (G.H.W. Bush's father) and the funding of Adolf Hitler's rise to power and the later "war" on drugs. And, "This is just the tip of the iceberg. You also have eugenics and population control, suppressed history and technology … profitable partnerships with 'terrorists,' the involvement with the Knights of Malta, war-mongering and profiteering, mind-control, secret societies for teens, ritual magic and more." The other essays trace issues of 9/11, connections to right-wing think tanks, penetration into intelligence agencies, "and more." They're uneven in the quality of the writing, and many could benefit from editing and proofreading, but the contents are frequently eye-popping
Peter Levenda's Sinister Forces: A Grimoire of American Political Witchcraft (2005): A grimoire is a book of magical spells and this one conjures the deep mystical sources that have corrupted America from before its beginnings up to the present, It's dense with interwoven threads of cults and politics, scholarly in its research. Millegan is pleased with the book's success: "Sinister Forces is quite a blockbuster. The reviews of it on Amazon have been amazing. Norman Mailer just loves it."
Peter Hager's The Octopus Conspiracy, and other Vignettes of the Counterculture (2005) opens with a provocative essay exploring the assassination of JFK, sorting through the evidence of the conspiracy that many people firmly believe was responsible for his murder. The rest of the book is another collection of essays, looking at the influence of the Masons and Masonic lodges, the 1993 ATF fiasco that destroyed David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in Waco, and assorted other nastiness. But Hager was a past editor of High Times, and his most interesting writing recalls his years on the fringe, from the hash oil competitions in Holland to the rise of graffiti and hip hop.
John Buchanan's Fixing America: Breaking the Stranglehold of Corporate Rule, Big Media, and the Religious Right (2005) is less esoteric than TrineDay's other books, but it's also intelligent, well written, carefully edited, politically practical and thoroughly documented. Buchanan's passion for the dream of America and his understanding of American history could provide the grounding for a new and very patriotic critique of Bush-brand neo-fascism.
Expendable Elite: One Soldier's Journey into Covert Warfare (2003) was written by Lt. Col. Daniel "Dangerous Dan" Marvin, retired from Special Forces. The book is primarily a fairly typical warrior's memoir of the Vietnam War but focused on the conduct of "unconventional warfare," including violations of borders, assassination programs, illegal interrogations, the whole litany of irregular conduct fostered by Washington policy makers in the Defense Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies. Marvin's tale reveals brave and capable professional soldiers following orders that often compromised their safety and their integrity. This book, more than any other, has brought Millegan and TrineDay under pressure, particularly from a lawsuit mounted by the Special Forces Association. The suit will probably fail, but the defense against it is draining the publisher's resources.
Millegan and his associates have, in a very brief time, succeeded in producing an impressive array of titles, with more planned. In a sense, the wild popularity of such books as The DaVinci Code and related work paved the way. The Internet has also opened new avenues for people to explore usually hidden issues in American culture and politics. Intelligent readers are ready to consider seriously the premise that powerful elites will collude and conspire in secret to promote their political and economic dominance. After all, the behavior of the Bush/Cheney axis has made such stuff daily news: huge no-bid contracts awarded to friends and business associates, secret bases, secret prisons and programs of torture, secret meetings with industry insiders to alter laws and policies that promote their interests, huge contributions of funds channeled to special-interest groups, ad nauseam. After a while, even a public clinging desperately to its comfortable illusions and entrenched denial might (some of them) be moved to accept the evidence of their senses — and take action. What's surprising is the role played in this unfolding drama by Millegan himself.
In a way, the cult of secrecy was part of Millegan's patrimony. He was born Sept. 22, 1949, in Washington, D.C., the third of the four children of Lloyd and Eudora (Woodworth) Millegan. As he was growing up on a Fairfax, Va., farm, his father was advancing as a career official in the CIA, a career, Kris Millegan later learned, that began when his father had been an exchange student in Shanghai in 1936, and led to an appointment to Gen. McArthur's staff during WW II. That career also produced some sudden and frequent changes in Kris Millegan's life: "We were told as kids that [my dad] was an ad person for a local newspaper." What he was actually doing was "producing the daily briefing for the intelligence services." Kris Millegan's schooling was also tricky: "By the time I moved to Eugene in 1959, following my dad … I'd been in about 10 different schools."
While his older brother graduated from South Eugene High School, where their sister also attended, another family move took him to McMinnville where Lloyd and Eudora Millegan had roots. Lloyd Millegan by this time had left the Agency and was involved in a marquetry business. Kris Millegan graduated from McMinnville High in 1967. Around this time, Lloyd Millegan called his son aside and asked what he thought about the Vietnam War. The father had at one time been branch chief for all Southeast Asia so had some inside knowledge. Kris Millegan's response was typical: "I was raised on John Wayne and all my uncles were in World War II and this type of stuff and I was a teenager and so I said, 'Well, you got this sack of hand grenades and you got some rice paddies and you go throw the hand grenades and win for the good guys in the white hats'…. I gave him this flip little answer and he said we had to have this little talk."
Lloyd Millegan revealed to his son that the Vietnam War was about drugs — who controlled the opium trade, who was going to make the big profits — that all the rest — fighting communism, preserving freedom, protecting America — was just "the show." Kris Millegan "was not really listening. I thought this was 'the drug talk.'" It was years later, when he really began to read ("I like books; I read a lot.") that the penny really dropped and he began serious explorations into the secret societies and conspiracies that so often underlie the surface of American government behavior, "the show."
Millegan spent nearly two years at PSU, studying anthropology and drama, both of which prepared him for his next moves. But first he found his way into the music business. With a partner, he opened Longhair Music Faucet, Portland's first retail outlet for the great black blues of the period. The store was a success but Millegan sold out to start his own blues band, a dream that burned up in a house fire. He followed that with a move back to Eugene and into video rental, coming in on the ground floor, just as VCRs were entering the market. Millegan had some success in sales, but he kept coming back to music and for 10 years was part of a band. But he kept reading, beginning with probes into the "magic and mysticism" of Alistair Crowley and Edgar Casey, but more and more plucking at the threads his father had shown him.
His life raveled and unraveled — marriage, divorce, odd jobs to hold it together while writing songs and playing music. He remarried in 1986 to Johana, whose family were, in an odd coincidence, the Millicans of Walterville (Walter Millican the founder); they have a 15-year-old son, Blaze, now a student at Thurston. In 1991, Kris Millegan hooked up with a group of musicians to form Powertrain, played gigs here and there, especially down in Humboldt County. The band lasted until 1996-97, then Millegan went solo, still writing, playing harp, still germinating ideas. Meanwhile, technology — home computers, the Internet, desktop publishing — was preparing the ground for Kris's biggest change.
Friends Ed Bishop, Russ Becker and Millegan came together to form TrineDay Books, LLC, in 2002. Their first project was a re-print of Anthony Sutton's America's Secret Establishment, an intriguing investigation into the secret workings of Skull and Bones. Other titles quickly followed: to date, TrineDay has done about $400,000 in sales and sold more than 25,000 books.
Millegan is excited, and when he's excited, his hands fly around like a manic weaver's working a complex tapestry, and his discourse falshes from one connection to another, like a spider dancing across the strands of a web. He leaps from Masons to the Illuminati, the drug trade ("These guys stand on three legs: drugs, guns and oil."), mind control through television and school curricula ("They want us dumbed down."), the link between China and Wal-Mart, the Bush family/Saudi family nexus: "I could go on and on."
He plans to go on: more books, an Internet project called Deep Goat, video. Millegan sees this work as long-term, but he's amazingly confident of his purpose: "These people [secret cabalists] can be exposed and can be driven from their virtual power — all they have is virtual control — by pots and pans in the streets. All it will take is a massing of people."
It's happened before, could happen again. But many Americans would prefer their myths to truth, especially if the truth asks them to change and to act. And these folks tell themselves fables as shields against prophets who come to warn or chastise: Is Kris Millegan Chicken Little? Is he the boy who cries wolf? Is he just another Quixote, tilting at windmills? Or is his the voice of Cassandra, cursed to know and tell the truth and never to be believed?
Millegan is neither worried nor daunted: "What's coming about is an understanding." And it's no secret that he plans to play his part.
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Post by Curious6 on Aug 26, 2005 5:25:47 GMT -5
If Sharon merely targeted people who engage in armed resistance, the world wouldn't be so appalled. It's when Sharon bulldozes apartment buildings knowing there are no 'terrorists' inside. Sharon calls it his policy of "collective punishment". He thinks that by killing innocent Palestinians, they'll put pressure on their own people and rein in the militants. So Sharon has been very honest when he bulldozes apartment houses with women and children still inside.. That's false and unfounded. Pleae stop misinterpreting news and factual information. Sharon's bulldozing policy started out in order to destroy the places from where terrorists were continuously aiming at innocent civilians and soldiers. These same terrorists hid inside the houses of Palestinian civilians to mask them. Now, the bulldozing policy had been carefully designed with this intent, and not with the savageness of killing 'women and children' purposefully as you purport it to be. Please, stay objective, and stop trying to vilify those policies, which after all are fully instigated by Arab atrocities. [/i] why the international community is filled with revulsion. ..[/quote] Again, if the international community were not 'filled with revulsion' prior to the bulldozing policy this hypothesis might have some credibility. However, since the international community at large has long been condemning the country at any opportunity they get, your theory falls to water. Modern nations are not supposed to sink to the level of terrorists, and Israel--while generally showing amazing restraint--has occasionally crossed that line... If it has ever crossed that line it has been after continuous provocation and outrageous acts of violence.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Aug 26, 2005 9:38:53 GMT -5
Curious6, Firstly, Ariel Sharon is famous the world over for his advocacy of the policy of "collective punishment". So for you to deny it, or try to minimize it, flies in the face of facts. Secondly, you said that atrococities against non-terrorist, non-militant Palestinian civilians does not exist. Or if it exists, it's just accidental--just an example of collateral damage in fighting rebels. Well, let's hear what a Jewish writer says who is quoting actual Israeli soldiers: "In their declaration, the Israeli resisters said: 'The price of occupation is the loss of the Israeli Defense Forces' semblance of humanity and the corruption of all of Israeli society.' They reported firing at Palestinians who hadn't endangered them, stopping ambulances at checkpoints [to endanger the sick people within], and stripping areas clean of groves and trees necessary to people's livelihoods. Some fear their treatment of Palestinian civilians constitutes war crimes. Attacks on a civilian population as a form of collective punishment violate Article 50 of the Hague Regulations and Articles 33 and 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
Marjorie Cohn
So, you'll have to excuse so many of us who are in the outside world, because the words of Israeli soldiers carry the force of conviction. These are not Arab ideologues, or Israel-haters, or antisemites, or any such nonsense. These are real Israelis, real human beings, who have testified time and again to the evil system of "collective punishment". So, despite propaganda efforts to paint the cruelties to civilians as "collateral damage" in fighting terrorists starts to fall apart when the IDF soldiers themselves admit firing on civilians who posed no threat. There were no terrorists. And, in that eventuality, the soldiers who signed up to defend Israel from foreign armies have very real concerns, because they do not want to see the IDF mutate into a terrorist organization itself--one bent on terrorizing the Palestinians into leaving: Destroying their infrastructure, devastating their environment, randomly shooting at their civilians in part of the ongoing program of ethnic cleansing so that "Israel can maintain its 'Jewish character'." Let's hope that the misgivings of these brave soldiers are addressed honestly--and not glossed over with slick propaganda.
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Post by Curious6 on Aug 26, 2005 11:04:36 GMT -5
Yes, you have made a point. Thank you for posting that testimony. I didn't intend to assert that no cruelties were done, and I deeply condemn any act of atrocity.
However,what I don't appreciate is how you often (not just in this thread) take a biased point of view on the contentious issue of the Middle East conflict. You are swift in turning normal discussions into heated debates by expressing very partisan and decidedly provocative comments. I respect your posts, and you seem to be well-informed, but it is irritating that you only tend to look at one side. It is just this I wanted to point out. Anyways, you are free to believe what you want, but as a man who has obviously read a lot, your frequent lack of objectivity surprises me.
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Post by Drooperdoo on Aug 26, 2005 11:16:49 GMT -5
Curious6, Just yesterday I enraged a poster on here [who, coincidentally, happens toe be Jewish] by lashing out against pan-Arabism. I ridiculed it on the basis of its dubious origins and on genetic studies which show how heterogenous the so-called Arab world is. So I attack Arab ideologues, too. You're right, though. I'm too reactionary. I tend to look at the unbalanced media coverage, and then I react to that . . . so I seem to be attacking Israel disproportionately. I do because so many Islamic counties are attacked disproprtionately in our media. The media was a crucial partner in creating a phony panic about Saddam's alleged weapons . . . how there would be "mushroom clouds," and "attacks witrhin 45 minutes," etc. And now those same forces are gearing up for an attack on Iran. So, if I seem to be disproprtionately critical of Israel or the United States, it's only because my own country has been disproportionately propagandistic against its future military targets in the Islamic world. So I apologize if I go too far sometimes. I concede to the truth of your post.
P.S.--I do not, however, concede to your contention that I'm well-read. My opinions are oftentimes half-baked, reactionary and simplistic. Don't ever stop calling me and people like me on our nonsense when you see it.
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Post by Springa on Aug 26, 2005 13:47:04 GMT -5
I agree. But it goes both ways. Many israelis accept (and a few engage on) the killing and maiming of innocents as well. Does it make Israel illegitimate? Some americans accept the killing of innocent Iraqis (and that's just recently). Some British (in the government, specially) accept the killing of at least one innocent Brazilian. Some Arabs from other countries accept the killing of innocent Americans. Some Irish accept the killing of innocent Brits (and vice versa)... And some people from all over the world accept the killing of innocents from their own country. And so on... It does not mean these countries, people or even politics are illegitimate per se. It means the methods of the people who actually participate on such acts are. Sorry, but I can't see anyone who accepts the killing schoolkids going to school or housewives shopping for any reason as a good-hearted person. And this is what the "legitimate inhabitants" of Palestine fighting "for their independence" are doing.
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Post by anodyne on Oct 5, 2005 21:22:32 GMT -5
I would agree with those Arabs that believe Israel should never have come to existance but this is 2005 and nothing can be done (well, except driving the Jews into the sea -- not an option I'm keen on). The Israeli government is willing to make concessions but Hamas and other groups of a similar bent are not interested in concessions. They want Israel wiped off the map. They've made this clear a million times. Israel in its attempt to protect it's citizens has crossed the line more than a few times but what war (and it is a war) doesn't have its atrocities? and of course, these atrocities should be pointed out and condemened and the culprits tossed in prison. But I see too many people point the finger towards Israel and excusing atrocities by Arab terrorist groups. To be honest, if I was an Palistinean Arab I'd prefer living in Israel than in any other Arab nation. From what I read Palistineans are treated like scum in the Arab world. They have more rights in Israel than they do in other Arab nations. Although that doesn't mean Israel is paradise on earth for Arab Israelis. Arab nations use Israel as an escape goat. It's an excellent distraction for the masses. If Israel didn't exist I wonder how the Arab elite would eb able to maintain their power.
Oh, and I don't see how Zionists and Masons are connected.
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