Stop the America-bashing!

[Keynes]

Yes the current exchange rate has to do something with the calculation of the GDP-per-capita, but not when you work with Purchasing Power Parity. Nevertheless, the difference between the PPP Value and the EX Value is mostly not very big. It *can* get quite large if the currency of a country is strongly over or understated

[~Vodka~]

Just to get us on a more important topic: Has Isreal gone f*cking crazy?! Has anyone been following whats going on in there now? They are doing a bit of "ethnic cleansing" to put it lightly and its not making the suicede bombers go away its making more of em! Sharone is an idiot!

On another note: Brits: my sympathe for the loss of the Queen Mother:frown:, I guess it isn't much coming from an "ignorant American" but I can't help where I was born and what enviernment I was born and raised in.

I think we can all agree that everyone is in the wrong sometime, the key it to point it out and flame them.

[Beren]

Yes, Israel is ****ing crazy.

Sharon's tactics:
If I hit them hard enough, they will eventually like me.
Of course hitting them harder and harder and harder would eventually result in the end of suicide attacks. That tactic is commonly known as genocide.

[Keynes]

This is what religion leads to....I think religion should be prohibited.

[Dauphin]

If Sharon was commiting genocide the Palestinian death toll would be a lot, lot higher. He could easily drop bombs on the Palestinians and kill them all, but he isn't - Of course a cynic would say this is because international opinion would be outraged and Israel would lose everything.

[Spiffor]

If the dynamics continues like this, a genocide in a near future (say 1 year) is very probable IMO. I'm not in Sharon's head, but I wouldn't be surprised if he provoked terrorism on purpose (by attacking Arafat rather than the Hamas) to progressively justify the idea that the Palestinians themselves are the problem... And to justify a massive expulsion / genocide in the future. It's not because a country is democratic that there cannot be madmen at its head. Ok, it's not the only possible scenario, but this one is not to forget.

[Herr David]

Sharon has deadlocked Israel because he prefers military logic over common sense.
In his eyes, Israel has to respond against the terror bombings in force because the terrorists and the terror-supporters in Arafat's regime don#t understand any other language. But they, too, think within this perverse logic and tanks can't stop men and women who are fanatic enough to strap bombs to their bodies and blow up schoolchildren. They're outside military logic. Sharon also refuses to back down because that would be regarded as a loss of face by people who think like him and the fanatics. Sharon and his cronies also (CORRECTLY!) assume than an Israeli retreat at this point would convince the fanatics and terror-supporters that suicide bombing is actually a viable method of forcing your will upon your enemy. (That would mean that suicide bombings will become weapon of choice in the future and IMHO the Europeans will eventually get a taste of that, too. America has already had its Sept. 11th.)
So as long as there is no sign of a peace initiative from the Palestinian side, the Sharon government won't back down. It's as simple as that.

The only way out of this dilemma is by outside pressure and negotiations. Israel and the Palestinian authority (sadly enough, there is no other representative for the Palestinian people) have to reopen negotiations ASAP, not only about an end to the violence but also about the important short-term issues in the region. Both sides have to back down from their maximalist demands. Arafat must put an end to the Hamas et al terror. And the Israelis must retreat from the Palestinian cities and end the blockades so the Palestinian people can finally return to some kind of civil life. Above all, the violence MUST end. Death has no justification, and there is no difference between a bullet fired to attack and one to defend. Both kill.

I just hope once this hell is over the Palestinians realize that they, too, need some sort of Democratic government, not Arafat's gunslingers. They need a state, but they also need a government that works for peace and prosperity.

[Keynes]

Well many of you won't like whats following and I have to admit that I too feel uneasy about it. But it's something Sun Tzu already realized over 2000 years ago and Machiavelli was pretty sure about it too: When you're dealing with war, you don't **** around. You either blow your enemy apart and achieve your goals in a short and effective way or you don't go to war all together. The way Sharon is using his military (invade, pull back, invade, pull back...) is not effective and leads to the sustained violence we have now. And if you cannot achieve your goal by a short and deceisive military action, well then you have to think about something else (for example economic pressures). The problem now is that if Sharon finally decides to step up the pressure big time on the Palestinians, this will be seen as a new increase in the spiral of violence. If the Israelis would have dealt with the problem correctly a couple years ago, this whole mess could've been avoided.

[Herr David]

Well, if they had not tried to colonize the west bank Lebensraum-style with their settlements and if Arafat wasn't an idiot... and if the Arabs in general wouldn't have this distorted affection for violence as an instrument of politics... we'd be living in a more peaceful world. Palestine could have been one of the few democratic and prosperous states in the region. Israelis and Palestineans could live in a symbiotic relationship, I suppose Palestine could be the Mid East's Canada, contributing to and sharing the economic wealth of Israel.

But as it is people prefer not to be friends and blow each other up. I don't think Sharon is using the military inappropriately. There is nothing else he can use at this point since the Palestinian authority is obviously incapable of stopping the suicide bombers, and Sharon is running out of means to force them into doing so. The thing is, Israel shouldn't have gotten into a situation where the Army is the only remaining measure. And the Palestinians shouldn't have gone so far that now their homes are being bulldozered and entire towns shot up. It's up to both sides to find a compromise. I can't see that happening, though...

But why do I care. I still belive that humans are intelligent beings and as such responsible for their acts and for the things they tolerate. They shouldn't be whining and crying for the rest of the world to solve problems they should have solved by themselves long ago.
(The obvious stupidity of the world kinda convinces me that humans are not all that intelligent, though)

Wasn't this some time ago a thread about America?

[sargon2]

Disagree.
Don`t confuse symtom and reason. Suicide-bombing is a new invention. But the conflict is mutch older. It is from more than 50 years ago when Jews went to Palestine and settled down when they got 0% of the land up to now when they got internationally accepted 78% of Palestine and more Settlements and militarycamps in the rest palestinian 22% to expand in the future.
The desperation of the Palestinians is that immens because of the condition they live in, as a defeated people they are over generations held as prisioners with no right of the persude of happiness.
The problem is that many countries want to show friendship to Israel for historical reasons, and support them with what they want, it is a human vice to use all means if no consequence is threatening.
The only way out is isolating Israel economically and politically, and after a complete withdrawl an internationally supported reconstruction of the palestinian lands. Palestinians are not hornij of making suicide. So main reasons for hopless suiciders are gone, and only then a palestinian government is motivated enough to fight own guys.
That would help the US too. Imo the reason of islamistic terror against them is mainly their supporting of Israel, the values are only the drop making the pot run over(sorry german idiom transl. 1:1). So you could safe money.


"They shouldn't be whining and crying for the rest of the world to solve problems they should have solved by themselves long ago. "

The damn saying "for a quarrel you always need two" is only suiting if there are two compareable parties. But this leaving alone of the Palestinians against one of the most modern armies in the world drove them to the mean of suicidebombing. And turning away only increased this.

[~Vodka~]

I think that Sharone doesn't realize that he is just breeding more terrorists by attacking his own arab population. The terrorists that are doing the bombings are often from other nations such as Saudi Arabia or Iran or Pakistan.

What can he do? Well, thats a tough question. He doesn't need to try and conqure more territory and anger the population but it will be hard, now that he has gone this far, to make a full withdrawl or anything like that. What he has done is done and the conaequences are unfortunatly being put in action as we speak, innocent children, civilians being killed in an explosion(no pun intended) of suicide bombers.

The ONLY and ONLY way I see for him to react without digging any further into the hole he has dug, is to withdrawl, ask for the cooperation of ALL the arab nations AND Arafat that proposed peace and look for other ways of ending the terrorism problem; they need to go to the U.S. and other more powerful nations for help. Not asking for more money for an already over-blown army but to use intelligence to find where the terrorists are coming from and pressure that country(s) to do somthing about it.

At the end of the day(not literally), I doubt any of this will happen. The mind-set of both Sharone, Arafat, and the Arabs of the area is just so bent to violence they can't seem to comprehend the possibility of peace, ot them a peace accord is just a lul until the next round. And so histoy will repeat itself until the people in positions of power make the right decisions. No progress will be made until one side is willing to do somthing first, give up somthing first.

The deadly cycle that has been Isreal/Palastine for thousands of years...

[Beren]

Originally posted by Sagacious Dolphin
If Sharon was commiting genocide the Palestinian death toll would be a lot, lot higher. He could easily drop bombs on the Palestinians and kill them all, but he isn't - Of course a cynic would say this is because international opinion would be outraged and Israel would lose everything.

I didn't mean to say that he did commit genocide, but I ment to say that the only way to make his tactic work is to stretch it as far as genocide.

[Drake Tungsten]

Damn, everything is turning into a ME thread these days. I tuned in to get a taste of good old America bashing and this is what I get.

[Keynes]

Yes lets get back to the topic and talk about the "Great Satan"

[Dauphin]

Typical Americans are stupid, ignorant teenagers who spend all day typing illiterately on forum websites about how crappy the rest of the world is (i.e Alaska and Hawaii, as there is nowhere else, is there?) and mumbling about Hitler and how they saved Yurop's ass.

Better?