Europe and "Those People"

[Ned]

In case we forget, once upon a time Arab nation was killing Americans by capturing, killing and looting passing American ships. An American president, like Sharon, sent in the troops. The piracy stopped. That American president was none other than Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest statesmen of all time.

Ned

[notyoueither]

re Terror as a means of war and terrorists as soldiers.

My concern is for the level of acceptance terrorism has attained. It should not be tolerated at all, ever, when it is a sustained attack on civilians.

Do you want a world of no terrorism? When a nation or group sponsors terror directed at civilians, then the entire world should turn on that nation or that group, hunt them down and destroy the leaders of the country and all members of the group. You would have a pretty quick end to the practice of human bombs at bus stops or flying planes into buildings.

BTW. Just what is the war against terrorism supposed to accomplish? America's foreign policy? Or a world free from terrorism?

[VetLegion]

BTW. Just what is the war against terrorism supposed to accomplish? America's foreign policy? Or a world free from terrorism?

It is supposed to fund next generation of military hardware. The generation after that will be the one which will completely eliminate the need for soldiers in the field.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Is overwhelming power going to solve the situation?

Yes, yes, yes. And you saw this happening in the last month. From 7 suicide bombings every week we're down do 2 every 3 weeks.

Operation Defensive Shield had proven that when the IDF is inside the Pal cities, actively searching for weapons and terrorists the level of terror falls drastically and it takes weeks/months for them to reorganize again.

[axi]

Moreover, I dont see 90,000 palestinians leaving the W.Bank every month.

This is because that's exactly what Israel wants: to expel them once and for all from their country. Once a Palestinian leaves Palestine, they do not let him return.

Yes, yes, yes. And you saw this happening in the last month. From 7 suicide bombings every week we're down do 2 every 3 weeks.

Operation Defensive Shield had proven that when the IDF is inside the Pal cities, actively searching for weapons and terrorists the level of terror falls drastically and it takes weeks/months for them to reorganize again.

And for how long are you planning to keep them suppressed? They will come back and strike harder eventually.

What Israel is doing is a very bad historical precedent. It proves that it is possible for a whole nation to be oppressed and it's resistance vanquished militarily; and all that would be justified if it were in a struggle against "terrorism". This is a just as bad historical precedent as the war in Jugoslavia was. I am afraid that quite a few others will attempt to mimic the ways of the USA and Israel. F.e. do not forget that Russia, to support it's opression of Chechenia utilises terrorist acts of the Chechens (bombings in Moscow and other Russian cities, hijackings e.t.c.).

[Zevico]

Arafat has SUCEEDED in what he wanted to do at the outset of the intifada (if anyone has looked at his goals at the time, and what has happened). Arafat's goals in the very beginning was to HAVE an intifada to garner international support for the 'plight of the palestinian people' when Israel would go inside their towns and look for those who planned the attacks.

[Akka]

Seems that there is quite a different point of view on who proposed the peace and who refused it between Europe and USA. Americans see Iraël trying to make peace with Palestinians and being ignored.
In Europe, though, there is rather the opinion that the peace was on the good way to work, but since the assassination of Rabbin and the election of Nethanyaou (spelling ?), Israël's leaders have been oppressive, provocative and unsincere toward Palestinian, breaking promises, treaty, implanting new settlements, multiplicating humiliations. So in Europe, it's Israël which is seen as the destroyer of peace, hence a complete lack of sympathy toward it.


Ned, to answer your question : yes Le Pen is quite antisemitic. Sympathizer of his party has been involved in jews graves desecration, and he was the one that said that gaz chambers were "a detail".
Hearing that you see more antisemitism to the left is quite surprising for me, 'cause AFAIK, I only encountered racism from right-winged people. Though it was a right-only turn of mind.

[Kropotkin]

I read an article the other day in swedens biggest morning paper "dagens nyheter" where a journalist reported from the french commune of Orange, the only commune run by one of Le Pens buddies. There where quite a few distrubing points to draw from that article but the one thing that's important in this case is:

One of his so called dreams as a mayor was to be able to buy anti-semitic and revisionist litterature to the town library. He also wanted to get rid of a lot of other litterature (pretty much a book-burning kind of ****er, disgusting).

[Velociryx]

My question would be: "The assassination of Rabin by whom?" IIRC, didn't his death by the hand of Yigal Amir have something to do with the Pals? And yet, this is not seen as having anything to do with derailing the process?

If you and I have a peace treaty on the table, and while we're talking it up, you send some of your boys over to kill one of mine....I'd not be overly inclined to continue to negotiate with ya...figuring that your intentions were...pretty clearly demonstrated by the act of assassination.

-=Vel=-

[Kropotkin]

Vel, are you a conspiracy theorist?

[Velociryx]

Kropotkin: Nope. I do and have confessed to enjoying reading about conspiracy theories, and I think that a few of them raise interesting and valid questions (that are generally ignored anyway), but no...I cannot say that I'm a conspiracy theorist.

-=Vel=-

[Kropotkin]

your post earlier hinted that the pals would be behind the mured of Rabin, something I've heard nothing about so it kind of seems like a conspiracy...

[Velociryx]

Ahhh...gotcha....well, admittedly, it's been a while...what...'95? '96? But IIRC Amir (the professed assassin) had ties to organizations directly linked to/sympathetic toward the Pals....not an unlikely possibilty, I wouldn't think.

-=Vel=-

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Velociryx
not an unlikely possibilty

Yep sounds a lot like the info a quite a number of people here like to throw in the face of other labeled as facts

[Kropotkin]

Somewhat more seriously; Sounds a lot like the kind of stuff one hear about the Kennedy-assissination and Oswald, Like in the film JFK.

btw, The word comes from a people called the assassins, the inventors of terrorism. Those poor chaps even have a worse reputation than the Vandals...