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israel is the key to most of americas motives ( and problems ) when it comes to the mid east , until their is an accurate presentation of the situation visa vie israel in america , troubles will grow
how come americans have such a radically different view ( unconditionally benign ) towards israel than nearly every other western nation ?
Well, I can't speak for "other western nations", but the main reason is that Israel is the only peaceful, modern democracy in that part of the world. One of the very few where religious nutjobs aren't busy slaughtering innocent people at every opportunity. I respect their tolerance and restraint in the face of decades of terrorism aimed at them from their neighbors.
You have succeeded in sounding very naive indeed. Oil may be a big deal in international affairs in a general sense, but we in the United States do not import most of our oil, and most of our imported oil does not come from the Middle East.
AIPAC, and its crazy Christian allies, are far more important factors in our ME policy than oil is.
I agree with most of what you wrote. But to think oil does not play a role in our strategic interests is naïve. It is not only the US interests that I was referring to, but "strategic interests" also refers to our allies in Europe and Asia as well as curtailing competing interests in the area that will come form Iran, Russia and China.
Seriously, what kind of a mental midget would ever think that we can invade a third world country, overthrow the government, and implement a flourishing democracy in a matter of a few years? It does not work!
We spent a DECADE over there in Iraq. Lots of lives lost, TONS of money down the toilet. And for what? The Iraqi army we trained so hard promptly crapped its pants and fled, and religious fanatics are overrunning the entire place. The stupidity of all this would be laughable if it wasn't so tragic.
You just can't force a bunch of savages to act like haute intellectuals. Ain't gonna happen. The people you are trying to "help" will resent you the longer you stay, and sooner or later you will have to leave or the cost will kill you. And when you leave, they will go right back to what they were doing before you arrived (killing each other and setting up ****ty religious dictatorships).
And now we're supposed to go back there and do it again?
By the way, the exact same thing is going to end up happening in Afghanistan.
The sins of this are shared by both the Bush and Obama administrations.
savages? Why, because they don't ascribe to the western democracy concept?
how come americans have such a radically different view ( unconditionally benign ) towards israel than nearly every other western nation ?
Good question. Started out as guilt I think, the US turned away Jews who were trying to escape Hitler, just as most nations did. (If I remember correctly, the US literally turned away at least one ship carrying Jews.)
Then we got so caught up in the Exodus hero story that we forgot there were already people living in the territory of the proposed new nation.
Then we realized we needed an ally in the ME, because the British were leaving.
Then we realized we were in a position, as the only industrialized country not hollowed out by WWII, to be the major player in controlling the world's oil supply.
And the rest is history.
Helped along by the religious fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim, who just love the idea of Armageddon, because hey, they wanna be heroes and martyrs for Jesus/Allah.
The issue is the hatred, complete lack of professionalism, and disregard for human life between different sects of tribes and Islam.
I agree with all you wrote. My post was based on the raison d'etre of the Iraqi War and, if the Bush administration was to be believed, our involvement in starting this conflagration was the spread of democracy. That was the issue I was addressing.
This Liberal believes we should leave the entire Middle East to go to hell on its own. If the rest of the world (Europe) cares they can spend their own money to tame the place.
x2
The only way we 'win" is o not play the game at all.
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