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Yeah..Still though, the United States went from being the most popular western nation among the Arabs to the most hated, and I don't believe that change in relationship is the Arab's fault. No way. They soured on us for a reason...actually, many reasons.
That day was when Iran took US hostages and did nothing but talk. From that day forward the US is seen as a Paper Tiger. And in the same year created the Egypt-Israel Treaty. How many Presidents since then are still on speaking tours other than Carter? This is what Carter created.
That day was when Iran took US hostages and did nothing but talk. From that day forward the US is seen as a Paper Tiger. And in the same year created the Egypt-Israel Treaty. How many Presidents since then are still on speaking tours other than Carter? This is what Carter created.
Talking is BETTER than shooting. The Iranians would've killed the hostages and what good would that have done? That we're big bad America that will attack a nation with total disregard for the lives of its own citizens? That's dumb...not to mention highly nihilistic.
The Iranians were angry, and for damn good reasons. What we did to Iran is inexcusable. I mean, what's supposed to be the response of a nation that has a 25 year reign of terror imposed on it by a foreign power and their main resource looted at gunpoint?
If we were supposed to respond with violence over hostages, how should they respond to imperialism, murder, theft, and repression?
Or is it that Persian lives don't matter as much as ours?
It has dawned on me that I really don't care about the Middle East. I don't care about Israel. I don't care about the Palestinians. I don't care if they blow themselves up to smithereens.
Pretty ignorant attitude and whats wrong with the world today!!
"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East." -- John Sheehan, S.J. (a Jesuit priest)
What a great quote, and so true.
Here's another one:
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson
The US keeps doing the opposite of ^^^^^Because of it, I don't care anymore.
After awhile, one gets tired of bitching about the same thing, being mad about the same things,
over and over again. Not just Israel/Palestine, but the whole region. We are in really bad
relationships and actually in the way. Time to break up
Do you realize how many human rights issues there are in the World today? You seem naive-The US' geopolitical machine only helps countries with their "human rights" when there is something in it for our Multi-National War/Oil Corporations or the internationally controlled US Dollar. It is why we go into Libya and not Darfur-Qaddafi no longer wanted to trade oil in US Dollars.
It actually seems myopic to support such a violent and oppresive regime like Israel. It will ensure a larger war eventually-The USA takes the blame for Israel's actions in the mind of a radical Muslim.
"Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can't help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East." -- John Sheehan, S.J. (a Jesuit priest)
Thing is, we can be friends with both the Arabs and the Israelis. People act as we have to pick one or the other.
But Europe, (specifically Germany and Italy) did not revisit Nazism and Fascism, because the Europeans at least comprehended that culturally, they could no longer accept the thinking that led to the emergence of both as dominating forces.
It would also be possible for the middle east to change - but it requires a cultural change, one that rejects the rule of Islam as a cultural, economic, and political dictator.
Sad to say, due to the loud liberal screaming in the US, we are now unwilling, politically, to point the finger at the fault lines of their society and "That's the problem!".
Fascism in its less malignant form did survive in Europe and in South America. For example the Franco Government in Spain which lasted to 1974 and restored the the Spanish crown to run a Constitutional monarchy after Franco died . Similar long lived Dictatorships of the right were found in Portugal until 1975 and Greece until the 1970s. The right-wing disctatorships in Brazil , Venezuela, Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru survived the war and in 1946 a new fascist movment called Peronism rose in Argentina (It's still with us today in the form of Christina de Kirchner) Later another fascist regime held on to Chile from 1973 to the 1990s run by General Pinochet.
In the Middle East one could make a strong case that Lebanon, was run by fascists called the Flange, the Baatist Arab Socialist Party is copied after Germany's Nazi Party and once had branches in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. It survives today only in Syria. The Shahs Iran and Pakistan do a good fascist imiation . Fascists were also found in Asia under the banners of Chaing-Kai Shek in China , Park Chun-He in Korea , Ferdinand Marcos, in the Phillipines The SLORC (State Law and Order Council) in Burma/Myanmar and Gen Suharto in Indonesia. We shouldn't leave out Africa with guys like Sani Abacha of Nigeria, Gen Megistu of Ethiopia, Bokassa I of CAR, Bongo of Gabon and Mobotu Sese-Seku in Zaire and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and his predicessor Ian Smith of Rhodesia. And lets not forget the Nationalist Party of the Union of South Africa from Jan Smuts to MrF. W. de Klerk . What is troubling is all these Mussolini wanabes and junior Hitlers were either /or are our friends and look to us for support and leadership.
It isn't that I don't care about the Middle East, it's just that I don't believe that we are capable of solving their problems. There has been a perpetual war going on in that area for pretty much all of recorded history, and it isn't going to stop due to sanctions or international opinion.
We're talking about an area that has been hotly contested for thousands of years, and which has seen a plethora of stupidity because of that contestation. We need to let them figure it out for themselves and concentrate on things that we can actually do something about, things that are closer to home. Our own country needs and deserves the attention that is being given to the Middle East.
JimRom you're exactly correct ! I don't think there is anything we can/could do that will in any substantive way improve the situation. In many ways, we're dealing with irrational people in the Middle East who don't think logically like is done (generally at least) in most of the Western world.
It's obvious their paradigms about life are 180 degrees different than ours in most ever way I can imagine. One of many key problems, many/most are devout religious adherents that follow and hold a very extreme, repressive form of their religion. When you're dealing with religious issues, you're dealing with emotions....not logical, hard fact and solution type thinking. It's almost like the only thing they know how to do successfully anymore is to hate everyone else. It doesn't matter if you're muslim of a different sect, christian, budist or anyone else....if you're not exactly a 100 percent carbon copy of their beliefs....you're their 100 percent sworn enemy.
They have been fighting among themselves (and more recenlty among the rest of the world) for thousands of years. I cannot imagine how any world leader can have much effect on this. They need to evolve (on several levels, social, religious, world view etc....) a quite a lot more before any outside help would be of any substantive help in curing their ills.
Up until fairly recently (20 or 30 years ago maybe ??), they have had been a more or less localized problem armed with clubs and stones (figuratively speaking), but now we have backward people without a logical thought process and with repressive religious fervor in possession of some very dangerous advanced weapons that could cause mass casualties over a very wide ranging area and many seem to be excited at the prospect to do so.....all in the name of allah of course !
It's a mess, and not one that has any immediate solution that I can see. Time and evolution are what is needed before a constructive solution will ever be found.
The world is a global village and the USA has commercial and economic ties with various countries in the Middle East. So the USA can't exactly completely ignore what happens there.
U.S.-Israeli relations had been surviving a spring and summer of exceptional strains pretty well.
Until now, that is. Suddenly, serious stress fractures are opening up as the Israeli operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip enters its third week—and they figure to get worse before they get better.
The clearest sign came Sunday, in the form of what might have seemed just another pro forma White House statement, describing a call between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those two leaders have a relationship filled with all the warmth and conviviality of relations between Sens. Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid, and the tension crackled through the seemingly dry language.
"The President…reiterated the United States' serious and growing concern about the rising number of Palestinian civilian deaths and the loss of Israeli lives, as well as the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza," said the statement.
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