Oppositions to Arabs

[gsmoove23]

I keep on thinking I'm out but you keep pulling me back in

Originally posted by Traelin
I understand what you're saying about wrongs being committed on both sides. I certainly agree with that. And I don't want to paint either side as "evil". BUT -- I have a hard time maintaining my objectivity when I see Palestinian parents giving their kindergarten aged children signs of Bin Laden, or -- worse yet -- sending them to militant groups to train and become suicide bombers. That's 1500s thinking, not 2002 thinking. It's barbaric, and there's no way to excuse it.

Well I agree, there are some pretty scary schools of thought within the palestinian world, but we disagree with the methods of combatting it. IMO Poverty, violence and hatred, a lack of hope, these things create and perpetuate extremist thought. IDF actions just exacerbate this.

Then again, Israel has its fundamentalists and extremists too. Fanatic settlers, Sharon(that was just for fun, no need to start another line of arguement). The man who shot Rabin and the man who walked into the Tomb of the Patriarchs and blew away 23 praying muslims. Look up Baruch Goldstein on the web and you'll find some very scary sites. Today its worse of course, more violence, more extremism on both sides.

Originally posted by Traelin
And I still have never heard anyone give me a viable reason why Israel receives all the finger-pointing, when the land they now occupy was won fair and square in a war not initiated by them. Plus, that land is strategically significant. They offered to give back 95% of it, and it still wasn't good enough for Arafat.

This one is fun just because their is no end to the debate we can have. The 1967 war started with a sneak air strike by Israeli forces, at no point did enemy soldiers reach Israeli land. It is commonly said that it was a preemptive strike. In reality, both sides had been goading each other for quite some time, and it is said by quite a few people that Israel wanted the war because it knew it could win. I'm willing to agree to disagree on this if you don't want a long argument.

The idea of winning the land fair and square brings civ to mind but its not a game. The land had about 3mil palestinians living in it who are to this day not happy about occupation and Israel is a member of the UN which does not allow its members to expand at the expense of its neighbours no matter what the reasons for war are, no matter how strategically significant.

The 95% of the land thing is a joke. Separated palestinian territories, no control of their own resources, nor their own borders. No right of return, right of return wasn't even discussed. I don't believe right of complete return is possible but a compromise has to be negotiated or violence will continue.

This is a link to a palestinian website. It is obviously coming from a different point of view but its interesting reading with some good links- www.electronicintifada.net

[Traelin]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
I keep on thinking I'm out but you keep pulling me back in

Well I agree, there are some pretty scary schools of thought within the palestinian world, but we disagree with the methods of combatting it. IMO Poverty, violence and hatred, a lack of hope, these things create and perpetuate extremist thought. IDF actions just exacerbate this.

Actually I agree with all of the above. I think you're 100% right. But I also know you'll agree with me that poverty is no excuse for bombing innocents.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
Then again, Israel has its fundamentalists and extremists too. Fanatic settlers, Sharon(that was just for fun, no need to start another line of arguement). The man who shot Rabin and the man who walked into the Tomb of the Patriarchs and blew away 23 praying muslims. Look up Baruch Goldstein on the web and you'll find some very scary sites. Today its worse of course, more violence, more extremism on both sides.

I'm not a big fan of Sharon, I think he's a little too ultra-conservative for me. But I wouldn't call him fanatic. However, I agree with your overall assessment.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
This one is fun just because their is no end to the debate we can have. The 1967 war started with a sneak air strike by Israeli forces, at no point did enemy soldiers reach Israeli land. It is commonly said that it was a preemptive strike. In reality, both sides had been goading each other for quite some time, and it is said by quite a few people that Israel wanted the war because it knew it could win. I'm willing to agree to disagree on this if you don't want a long argument.

Yeah, we can agree to disagree. There's no end to a debate on this.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
The idea of winning the land fair and square brings civ to mind but its not a game. The land had about 3mil palestinians living in it who are to this day not happy about occupation and Israel is a member of the UN which does not allow its members to expand at the expense of its neighbours no matter what the reasons for war are, no matter how strategically significant.

I know it's in bad taste, but I couldn't help but ROFL when you said winning land is not a game. The reason being because all I could think about was my current war with France, but I'm not going to go down that path.

But anyways, I see your point about the Jewish settlements. I don't know how I feel about that. I honestly believe that Israel would be giving up serious strategic position if they gave that land back, but at the same time it just doesn't "feel" right to me that they keep building settlements in the West Bank and stuff. I wish they could do as we do and agree to disagree, but I don't think that's gonna happen. I see no end in sight.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
The 95% of the land thing is a joke. Separated palestinian territories, no control of their own resources, nor their own borders. No right of return, right of return wasn't even discussed. I don't believe right of complete return is possible but a compromise has to be negotiated or violence will continue.

Hey, it's a heck of a start. To get one side to offer such huge concessions was a big step. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worst when Rabin was assassinated.

Originally posted by gsmoove23
This is a link to a palestinian website. It is obviously coming from a different point of view but its interesting reading with some good links- www.electronicintifada.net

Thanks for the link, I'll check it out at home. In my line of work there's no way they'll let me check it here.

[Sonic]

gsmoove, sorry for the incident change of topic, I didn't ment that - in my original post I claimed that many countries did more influence than Israel and that Jews thinks Israel should be included only because most of them thinks they are better than other nations. To support my claim, I written about all the anti-semitic thing, etc. However now it seems my arguements got more backfire than my original claim.

Sabrewolf, you are very right. One of the posts on this thread posted before indicates that (that one insulting Lithuanians). It claims how bad Lithuanians are because a few of them killed Jews many years ago. I believe if I'd be using German flag instead of Lithuanian, I'd get even more such insults. This is simply unfair. Not to mention Jews themselves commits murders of innocent people periodically.

Yes, maybe giving childs to terrorists is barbaric. But it's the only option they have. If they wouldn't do terror acts, they'd never get independence. For example look now, Turks are killing Kurds, maybe in not such violent they as Jews does with Palestinians, but still, they kills them. However on news you ussually hear much less about Kurdistan than about palestine. And for the same reason Kurdistan gets much less supporters, many people just don't know it or do not care.

I believe most of you would do terror acts yourself if for example your country would be annexed and your nation would be being exterminated. Americans are very patriotic themselves, so I believe they should understand patriotism of other nations especially in such hard times as Palestine now lives.

[sabrewolf]

the reason kurds have less sympathy than e.g. the palestinians is, that they are unpopular in all the countries they live (iraq, iran, syria, turkey of course and some smaller caucasian countries).

the arabs on the other hand tend to stick together more. probably mainly because in this case the agressor is a common enemy (israel).

also, allthough turkey, iraq and others have committed mass genocide against the kurds, they also have been quite brutal. an estimated 30'000 turkish causualties in the last decades doesn't make turkey like them more.

if there should be a kurdistan one day, i'm not sure, the turkish minorities in those regions wouldn't be ethnicly cleansed. that's probably a reason why there's no international pressure for an independent state (btw: same for kosovo - the serbian minority would most likely get driven out if kosovo should recieve independence).

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Sonic
Yes, maybe giving childs to terrorists is barbaric. But it's the only option they have. If they wouldn't do terror acts, they'd never get independence. For example look now, Turks are killing Kurds, maybe in not such violent they as Jews does with Palestinians, but still, they kills them. However on news you ussually hear much less about Kurdistan than about palestine. And for the same reason Kurdistan gets much less supporters, many people just don't know it or do not care.

I believe most of you would do terror acts yourself if for example your country would be annexed and your nation would be being exterminated. Americans are very patriotic themselves, so I believe they should understand patriotism of other nations especially in such hard times as Palestine now lives.

I was agreeing with everything you said up until this point. There is NEVER an excuse to target civilians, NEVER. Sure, there will be accidental casualties in a conventional war, but they're accidents. America was and is very patriotic, but our Founding Fathers followed the Rules of War in the Revolution. Just as the Brits did. Yes, there were some rare exceptions, but they were more a product of the person's lack of morals than they were an entire movement.

I would never kill a child to save my own life. I couldn't live with myself, and I can only imagine what God would think. But this is all even making the assumption that the Palestinians are in the same boat, which they're not. But let's drop that.

Most humans would never do what terrorists do. We are born with the ability to distinguish between good and evil. It is absolutely barbaric and incorrigible to target innocents.

[sabrewolf]

there's no excuse for terrorism, but there are reasons.

traelin, you say terrorism is barbaric. i agree 100%. but i don't agree that only a few fanatic nations are able to do that. with enough propaganda, lies and fright, many people are able to do very disgusting things.

for example i consider genocide, murdering civilians, raping women and children, burning down houses and cities, destroying religious, cultural and sanitary installations as just as bad as blowing yourself up in a populated area. and all of these things happen in virtually every conventional war. even your founding fathers surely didn't fight a completely clean war (if something like that actually exists), neither did the british, nor any other nation.

i basicly want to condemn terrorism, but also warn, that there are other things just as bad or worse than terrorism... mr. bush likes to forget that...

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by gsmoove23

Edit: I moved off the military topic cause everyone else seems to have, too bad.

... Of course, the topic was initially "Opposition to Arabs" and, after all the ink-bloodshed, I'm curious --

IRRESPECTIVE of the question of a Hebrew/Israeli/Jewish Civ, how many of us are opposed to OR in favor of an Arab Civ as "valid" in the game ...

... AND ...

How many are in favor of BOTH ...

... AND ...

How many are in favor of an H/I/J but NOT an Arab Civ.

-- Apologies, but I don't know if/how to insert a poll at this point in a thread ....? Perhaps one would be interesting.

Feeling sometimes like I'm wearing a blue helmet in the Sinai --

Oz

[Traelin]

Originally posted by sabrewolf
there's no excuse for terrorism, but there are reasons.

traelin, you say terrorism is barbaric. i agree 100%. but i don't agree that only a few fanatic nations are able to do that. with enough propaganda, lies and fright, many people are able to do very disgusting things.

No, what I meant was that 99.9% of the world is made up of people with good intentions. We're a diverse group of people, but the majority of us -- no matter our political, religious, or ideological beliefs -- are "good". As a Christian I have to believe that, because "we are all created in God's image and likeness", and God is by definition infinitely good. Infinitely just as well, but infinitely good.

Originally posted by sabrewolf
for example i consider genocide, murdering civilians, raping women and children, burning down houses and cities, destroying religious, cultural and sanitary installations as just as bad as blowing yourself up in a populated area. and all of these things happen in virtually every conventional war. even your founding fathers surely didn't fight a completely clean war (if something like that actually exists), neither did the british, nor any other nation.

Destroying religious, etc. installations is really evil and should be punished, but it's not on the same level as murdering innocents. If we believe that there's no greater gift than to sacrifice yourself for the good of others (read: good), then the most evil thing to do would be to take the lives of innocents. The BASIC tenets of good and evil are clear-cut. The grays are something entirely different. But I can't imagine anyone considering murdering innocents a gray area.

Originally posted by sabrewolf
i basicly want to condemn terrorism, but also warn, that there are other things just as bad or worse than terrorism... mr. bush likes to forget that...

Whether people agree or disagree with Bush is really irrelevant. However, Bush has proven to be one that is concerned with my well-being, and won't pussyfoot around with insane people. I came so close to abstaining from voting this election, but I reluctantly voted for him. I am so glad I did now, because (and I kid you not) he makes me proud to be an American, and safer than I would have with a conciliator. Sometimes the only way to peace is through war. I cannot stress to you how much more comfortable I feel with him dealing with this whole sniper issue as well. This whackjob is probably linked to terrorism, and it scares the crap out of me to know someone got sniped 5 blocks from my work.

Yes, that kind of thing happens all the time in other countries. But understand that we are generally a nation of peace. We just want to live and let live, and it's just way weird to deal with an entire region of the world that hates us for no good reason.

[Traelin]

Originally posted by Ozymandias


... Of course, the topic was initially "Opposition to Arabs" and, after all the ink-bloodshed, I'm curious --

IRRESPECTIVE of the question of a Hebrew/Israeli/Jewish Civ, how many of us are opposed to OR in favor of an Arab Civ as "valid" in the game ...

... AND ...

How many are in favor of BOTH ...

... AND ...

How many are in favor of an H/I/J but NOT an Arab Civ.

-- Apologies, but I don't know if/how to insert a poll at this point in a thread ....? Perhaps one would be interesting.

Feeling sometimes like I'm wearing a blue helmet in the Sinai --

Oz

Hrm, I just have a problem with the Arabs being under the leadership of Abu Bakr. It's obviously a theocratic Civ, and it's not really historically accurate to lump the entire Muslim community under him when he's probably the biggest dividing point between Shiites and Sunnis. If they had perhaps chosen a different leader, I'd feel more comfortable with it.

As you know, I support Israel being in Civ3. It would also have its theocratic roots, but it would be nice to see them in the game.

[gsmoove23]

Good post Ozymandias, you just stopped me from writing another rambling response. Maybe the trick would be to kill this thread and create 2 new ones. "The Arabs or the Hebrews, Choose" and "Terrorism, Evil or Necessity". Sure the last one would be off forum topic but you could make it about the decision to remove the terrorist options from the game in PTW.

I'm all for the Arabs, they should have been added earlier.

I'm not for the Hebrews unless there were a lot more civ slots to let in more deserving civs. Definately in a mod or xp.

... and fighter in the American Rev generally followed the rules of war against their British counterparts, except in the deep south where I believe things got particularly nasty. Also, the same rules didn't apply for native americans who fought the Americans allied to the British. But this was always the case and then as now the military defended its actions by claiming the indians were savages. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

[Sonic]

Traelin, well, imagine such a situation...

Arabs unites and conquer USA. They are from now on everywhere. They've already Arabised the eastern coast and in western side of former USA there is still American majority. However Arabs have full control there also. Arab army is marching on streets, "colonisers" are coming from Arabia and building their villages. Americans can't buy land. Everything is in Arabic - from road signs to CNN. American constitution is abolished, Shariat law applies everywhere. Americans are being killed for being at wrong place at wrong time. Many of your relatives and friends were also killed in that way. Recently your home was bulldozed. You have nowhere to live. And then some former friend comes and offers you to join his partisan organisation, which wants to remove the Arab government out of power and which also turns out to be a terrorist organisation. They offers you to do a terror act (it doesn't matters suicide or no) - to bomb one of major government targets in Arab king visit. King would be killed and obviously more countries would look to American problem. However, many innocent people, mostly Arabs, also would get killed - probably childs also.

So the question is, would you accept such an offer?

[Sonic]

BTW, Traelin, Israel is also murdering innocents.

[sabrewolf]

Originally posted by Traelin
No, what I meant was that 99.9% of the world is made up of people with good intentions. We're a diverse group of people, but the majority of us -- no matter our political, religious, or ideological beliefs -- are "good". As a Christian I have to believe that, because "we are all created in God's image and likeness", and God is by definition infinitely good. Infinitely just as well, but infinitely good.

the problem is the definition of "good". who decides that? why is monogamy considered as bad? who gives us the right to say, what's good or bad?
if you say 99.9%, you're seeing bad in very narrow terms. but if you take the christian values (no theft, no murder, no children without marriage, no betraying, no lying, etc., etc., etc.), far more than the 0.1% are bad...

i believe at least one of your terms are wrong. either we are created in god's exact image and likeness OR god is good... i think the latter is more likely

Destroying religious, etc. installations is really evil and should be punished, but it's not on the same level as murdering innocents. If we believe that there's no greater gift than to sacrifice yourself for the good of others (read: good), then the most evil thing to do would be to take the lives of innocents. The BASIC tenets of good and evil are clear-cut. The grays are something entirely different. But I can't imagine anyone considering murdering innocents a gray area.

i agree, murder of innocents is one of the worst thing. but not as bad as MASS murder of innocents. do you get my point?
and to be honest: i consider soldiers as innocent. most of them don't want to be soldiers or at least don't want to kill and die. it's the fright of being executed and the greed for revenge that turnes them into killing machines...

Whether people agree or disagree with Bush is really irrelevant. However, Bush has proven to be one that is concerned with my well-being, and won't pussyfoot around with insane people. I came so close to abstaining from voting this election, but I reluctantly voted for him. I am so glad I did now, because (and I kid you not) he makes me proud to be an American, and safer than I would have with a conciliator. Sometimes the only way to peace is through war.

it's true, sometimes peace has to be enforced. sometimes it needs sacrifice of a few for the better of the other. but then again it's a choice to make: what sacrifice? and what would happen if the sacrifice wouldn't be made.

and here's where another problem lies: who has the right to decide? that's where i disagree with the bush administration. only because he's the current leader of the most powerful nation, does NOT give him the right to decide on his own what measures and sanctions are needed.

specially you as a religious person should no, that only god has the right to judge such things.

I cannot stress to you how much more comfortable I feel with him dealing with this whole sniper issue as well. This whackjob is probably linked to terrorism, and it scares the crap out of me to know someone got sniped 5 blocks from my work.

wait a second... you can't say bush's reaction is better than someone elses would be - because the others didn't have the chance.

Yes, that kind of thing happens all the time in other countries. But understand that we are generally a nation of peace. We just want to live and let live, and it's just way weird to deal with an entire region of the world that hates us for no good reason.

there's no good reason to hate the US, but there are reason to be discontent... by that's even more off-topic..

[Ozymandias]

Originally posted by gsmoove23 Also, the same rules didn't apply for native americans who fought the Americans allied to the British. But this was always the case and then as now the military defended its actions by claiming the indians were savages.

Good and interesting and actually OT point. It's almost axiomatic among anthropologists that EVERY "primitive" ethnic group refers to themselves as "The People" essentially implying that everyone else is eligible to be used as luncheon meat. And of course labelling an entire population "savages" or "terrorists" is merely a linguistic twist to make somebody feel better about somebody else's children burning to death in their cribs.

IMHO, ideology -- the steadfast unwillingness to examine (and thereby risk challenging) a belief -- is, and has always been, the greatest threat and evil we, as a species, face. It is the enemy of both thought and compassion! -- And it is always the ideologue's agenda to cast everyone as With Them or Against Them.

People, we are still fighting tribal wars after six millennia of "civilization"! -- BTW, IMHO, this alone is enough to warrant gratitude for such as Cultural Victory in Civ3.

Chairman Mao once famously wrote that "power grows out of the barrel of a gun". But, last I checked, Mao is dead, and so is Maoism.

Abraxas,

Oz

[Traelin]

Originally posted by gsmoove23
... and fighter in the American Rev generally followed the rules of war against their British counterparts, except in the deep south where I believe things got particularly nasty. Also, the same rules didn't apply for native americans who fought the Americans allied to the British. But this was always the case and then as now the military defended its actions by claiming the indians were savages. Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Well it got nasty around Charleston, where my relative Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox) started using guerilla warfare to keep Cornwallis from advancing to the North too quickly. He deliberately targetted officers, and because of that the Brits wanted to string him up. However, what the Brits didn't realize is that he was retaliating for the murders of innocents on plantations. He didn't target innocents, he targetted officers in the military.

BTW yet another OT comment, but the movie the Patriot has its roots in non-fiction. Benjamin Martin represented Francis Marion, but the NAACP wanted the producers to change the name of the leade character because he had slaves.