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Now somebody explain to me...
Now I know I'm the one with the politics degree in here :P (oh, viges has one too) but I don't really get what's happening in the Middle East at the moment.
How come Israel bombs the airport in Beirut and nobody really seems to care? Lebanon was on the way up again, yes they aren't completely kosher and curruption reigns but they were bouncing back with Syrian troops withdrawing earlier this year. Beirut was almost restored to its former glory (and having seen some pictures of it pre 1982, it was absolutely breathtaking). Then, all of a sudden they get their main airport blown to pieces out of nowhere just because some idiots captured two (!!) soldiers in their southern hinterland, way off the influence of the capital. What's the point of such actions? And why is it reported so matter-of-factly?
Yes, Faraya-Mzaar was on my list of places to visit.
Comments
Lebanon and Syria both back Hezbolah and Hamas financially and to a lesser extent diplomatically and are sworn to destroy Israel.
Thats why.
And, yeah, Canada is more reasonable than Israel, but people can actually reason with the U.S. to begin with, and the Middle Eastern countries aren't like that. Israel can't go talk to Lebanon or Syria or any of the other Middle Eastern countries because they all hate Israel, their only way to protect themselves is militarily.
[Edited on 13-7-06 by Rekart]
This just could be the foot in door the Iranian "Dinnerjacket" (as emmet calls him) leader needs to start something with Syria against Israel.
Then all hell will break loose.
The population is fairly evenly disributed across religious lines christian/muslim, is highly educated, business savvy, and basically does not generall follow the Arab cliche'.
It was only - as I understand it - after the Palestinians started to have too much sway that things got nasty, leading to civil war and virtual annexation by Isreal.
Things did not improve with the arrival of the Syrians with governments operating with a rather uncomfortable Syrian military hand up their backs until they left.
It was beginning to seem as though, with these influences gone, that things were starting to return to normal with the society trying to re-establish itself on sectarian lines and to recreate Beirut as the 'Paris of the East'.
Clearly, the Jews believe that Hamas has some strong influence in, at the very least southern Lebannon, or as seems to be suggested by their targets, the Lebannese government itself. I think that their stated reason for crapping the airport was to prevent the captors from taking the soldiers from the country. If the statutory authorities are not complicit, this would probably not be possible. If they are, then clearly the government is and so everything goes back to where it was. Bad guys on all borders as far as the Israelis are concerned.
Really, we could do without the Middle East.................couldn't we?
Mark my words!
And while all this is going on, North Korea gets forgotten for awhile.
plus places like japan, china and australia (and i'd say most of europe) don't really care about the region. and that's what would need to join in for a "world war"
Granted, World War may be a little overboard, but it's almost as if the media wants one. No bigger story than a World War.
[Edited on 14-7-06 by Rekart]
They're big enough and ugly enough to take on any of those Arab nations, possibly with the exception of Iran, and give them all a bloody nose.
I'm frankly happy if they bomb the shit out of each other, maybe we can finally declare someone the winner.
when bush was elected for the first term, there was a singularly strong resolution to occupy the whole of the middle east with war thrown in (to have additional side business for the american arms and building contractors) to control the oil. then 911 came at an opportuned time and in they went without un approval...
except that the 2 soldiers made israel go into this phase a little bit too early as the "conquer" of iraq took a little too long and america is too occupied with too much in their hands.
worse still is that north korea thingy whom bush-cheney thought they caould bring to their knees with that carrot thingy which they successfullu used on libya...it didn't bite and now america is in a BIG quandry of whether to turn back with tail in between their balls or proceed with their plan comes high water or hell...note the american thug bolton insists on un approval before acting on korea now...hehehe
looks darn interesting, if you were to ask me.
or all of a sudden car makers will be able to build 200 miles to the gallon cars :D
So, my point in all this is that the Israeli lobby in AIPAC is very very strong and who knows what geopolitical cards are being played (who's scratchign who's back") it seems that the short term effect, combined with high oil prices has lead the the US stock market to drop below 11,000 in the past three days.
In the US, or for that matter, any governing body, operating an economy in a "war footing" enables the ruling party to have more room to oeprate and fulfill it's agenda because it gets carte balnche approval on a number of issues.
Frankly, I'm surprised that there hasn't been more public outcry about the attacks on a sovereign nation.
For the first time yesterday, I was in a discussion with a business associate and I finally came around to Emmet's point fo view, Nuke them all. Mind you it was brief and fleeting. But these petty politics are no different thanwhat we see int he leadership in F1. The people in th elead are so far removed and have such blinders on that they don't even have an understanding of what the general populance pervcieves outside of the polling data that tends to support the spin it gets.
sorry if I have been all over the board on this issue but i believe that there is much much more to the story and many more pieces in play on the international chess board than we can see. We're watching what we think is a standard game of chess when in fact the game at play is Three Dimensional Eight Level Chess.
You gotta love that because it brings together all the elements of both static and dynamic game theory. Who's up for some Brownian motion study?
[Edited on 15-7-06 by bernie]
[Edited on 15-7-06 by bernie]
But yes, now Israel decided to start their war when their biggest supporter - the U.S. - is already too occupied to help them. Sure, they were provoked, but this isn't the first time Israel has had attacks against it, and they've always handled it differently in the past. This doesn't fit in with your entire conspiracy.
North Korea is yet another problem. I'm not sure how to handle this one. They need to be stopped before they have nuclear technology, but the rest of the world is occupied by pussies who won't do anything. And that's the main problem. There aren't any leaders in the world government anymore. Bush is the only one who will do anything, and I don't necessarily agree with him, or like him, or think he makes the right move, but other countries need LEADERS. They're all too afraid to do anything until something bad happens, when it's plainly obvious that if no on does anything, something bad IS going to happen, either from Iran or North Korea. The U.N. does no good and just gets in the way. It's just an easy place for countries to lie to all the others.
And I'll be clear, I don't like Bush. But I do like that he's not a pussy.
No way he's going to risk a confrontation with Iran and/or North Korea.
...and anyone who knew anything about the history and culture of either place knew it was going to be at least a 10 year slog in Iraq and probably 2/3 as long as that in Afghanistan....barring any unforeseen, stupid mistakes.
"No way he's going to risk a confrontation with Iran and/or North Korea."
MinardiP1... I wish I could agree with you on that but I don't think the chicago school plan is yet complete.
As for Afghanistan, I haven't heard anyone talk about it in awhile. I must admit, I have no idea what's going on there.
Imagine that the northern part of Mexico - T town and the like - was occupied and run by Al Queada. The Mexican government has given up trying to control the area much along the same lines as they do now.
Al Q and his buddies start lobbing missles into the US from there. We ask the Mexican gov't to do something about it but they do nothing. They do cross border raids into the US etc etc.
What do youthink we would do? Should do?
Funny thing is that this situation IS happening now. It is not Al Q and his buddies but human trafficking/drug smuggling gangs. To the point of recorded incidents where people dressed in Mexican Army gear and using military vehicles have crossed our border (to include one helicopter landing!) and the use of 50 caliber macchine guns on our Border Patrol!
And we do nothing.
So we have to, and we will, eventually.
Remember, one of the top 5 (if not three) of Mexico's money makers is the money sent home from the illegals here in the US.