President Bush

[trillobyite]

Originally Posted by devonin

trillobyte, I find it interesting that one of your stronger examples of what is wrong with the middle east is the leadership practice of the saudis to wit: "The reason so many people there suffer is because oil money goes to make the Saudi family richer and fund terrorism through the back door."

And yet Saudi Arabia is one of the countries with the -best- relations with the west, one of the greatest desires to build infrastructure, both of which were requirements for you to want to see the US support them.

I'm just curious how you can reconcile the United States blatanly backing a country that you seem to feel is very indicative of all the problems facing the middle east.

The thing is, Saudi Arabia seems to back the West solely because of the oil money, not the other way around, so I wouldn't be so quick to call it a country with any sort of special relationship with the West. Also, for a country its size, SA's GDP is not particularly impressive. If you add this to the country's crappy human rights record, it doesn't make it worth all the money it receives, which is why I didn't include it in the list of nations that deserve funding.

Originally Posted by devonin

Please do some basic research on the creation of the nation of Israel in the aftermath of the second world war, and the way that Israel has been actively encouraged by the United States, who supported them directly with arms and training, to launch unprovoked attacks on other nations that had been supported, with arms and training, by the Soviet Union to serve as proxies for the cold war. There is -just as much- of an argument for the extent to which Israel is the "bad guy" in that particular conflict, which has a) nothing to do with anti-american terrorists b) nothing o do with Iraq and c) nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

Israel is definitely not perfect, and I can list dozens upon dozens of my personal criticisms of the country, but I just want to point out that, besides the Suez Crisis which is quite complicated, Israel NEVER launched an unprovoked attack on an enemy army funded by the USSR. In 1948, Israel was waging a war for independence and survival after surrounding armies rejected a UN mandate, using Napoleonic era smuggled Czech artillery and receiving no help from the US at all. In 1967, Israel launched a preemptive strike because every surrounding nation was massing troops on the border, making direct threats against Israel and alliances between each other, blasting radio propoganda in Hebrew laughing about how they will rape all the Israelis and burn them to ash, and closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping (if you watch a good documentary, I prefer "Six Days in June," you'll see how in 1967, Israel's attack was not unprovoked), almost all under direct orders from the USSR (so in fact, it was the opposite of what you said), and in 1973 Israel was invaded by surrounding countries again.

Originally Posted by hayatewillown

Since the terrorist groups resided in Iraq, who also belonged to the Palestinians, and since the Israelites are our friend, we are helping the Israelites. We are also eliminating the terrorists.

WHAT?
The Iraqis may sympathize strongly with the Palestinian cause, but the ones firing at US troops there are NOT Palestinian, have no relation with them at all, and certainly don't receive funding from them! They receive funding from Syria and Iran, Iran because it would prefer to see the region destabilized, and Syria is a very anti-US country. People from all surrounding nationalities, including Jordan and even as far as Somalia in Africa, join the attacks on US troops and ESPECIALLY Iraqi guards and police who literally have done nothing wrong. If you watch any interview with captured terrorists, they couldn't care less whether they killed an American or an Iraqi policeman. These people aren't "defending" anyone.

You're making the very, very flawed assumption that all Islamic terrorist groups have some connection to the PLO or Palestinian cause, when that is not the case. They may all support them, but their individual objectives tend to differ in numerous ways. The Thai terrorists who want a theocratic state, the rebels in Northwest China, the Chechen anti-Russian terrorists, the Somalian terrorists at war with Ethiopia, the ones operating in Iraq targetting both US troops and either Sunni or Shia, whichever they hate, and hell the PKK are all terrorists of the same ideology that have no connection to the Palestinians.

Also, if you read any statement by the Israeli government, they have determined that the situation in Iraq is in fact a detriment and not of any aid. There is now a haven for terrorists to operate, and modern gaza is becoming a microcosm of Iraq. Most of the people who believe the USA went to war for Israel also believe the Jews did 9/11. That stuff is bull****.