Posted on 06/14/2005 7:23:46 PM PDT by datura
Agreeed. Also agree about scraping all the rust and barnacles off the constitution and starting over. But then I'd like to jail the traitors and sentence some of them quite severely, so you know where my head is at. I'd also like to impeach Bush. I had to vote for him, now I'd like to impeach him and let Dad (Cheney) take over and finish the term. Bush has lost it.
I think Japan might fall into that "No better friend, no worse enemy" classification.
The news IS real: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050614/pl_afp/mideast_050614160846
But it has been going on for a long time already. Israel's Lavi project which was cancelled was based on F-16 technology in the late 1980's and early 1990s. The project was then transferred to China and became their current J-10 fighter.
Most people don't know the historical ties between the two countries. Let me explain:
In WWII, as Japanese took over Shanghai after a bitter battle, they rounded up the Jews and put them, essentially, in a slum not unlike what happened in Poland because of their ties to Nazi Germany. About 20,000 Jews were cordoned off. The local Chinese people there, even though they were starving themselves, assisted the Jews and they survived. You have to keep in mind the historical context: while the Chinese helped them, the Chinese died by the hundreds of thousands from war crimes committed by the Japanese troops in Nanjing and Shanghai. The Israelis have never forgotten it. That's where the bilateral ties come from. People in this country has a tendency to forget previous friends and foes very quickly but in other cultures, this is simply not the case. For Israel/Jews or China/Chinese, what happened 40 years ago is like yesterday.
Every Israeli official that visits China will pay a visit to Shanghai and its remaining synagoguge for precisely this reason.
Anyway, that's why they're helping China.
YEah, well you don't know how much of that technology the Izzies developed either. They aren't sitting on their @sses like the turd world hell hole their so called partners for pieces are, you know.
THe F'n Pals ARE some of the nastiest people in the world, and I defy you to show anything murderous about the people Hitler preyed on. Don't even start that crap around here.
Then they won't be missing out on much via the Pentagon now will they.
BUsh: The Mexicans take the jobs Americans won't do and the rest we outsource to China and India.
They'll miss out on a whole lot more if they're swimming in the ocean. I think they ought to start sticking a lot of fingers in our eye until they get our attention. They didn't used to be a lap poodle. Look at the freaking muzzies like Egypt and the Pals. They don't do what we want just because we give them money.
Egypt does, and the Pal's situation is FUBAR. We're not really sure who speaks for them or who's calling the shots from one day to the next.
<< .... it is just FREE TRADE! >>
It is, thank God, indeed, just FREE TRADE!
Which, as even the vaguest comprehension of the Law of Economic Advantage would enable you to understand, benefits the United States of America and [Except for a handful of standover and shakedown pension-fund-looting mobbed-up union thugocracies] every American -- you included -- way way more than it assists China or any other turd-wurld sh*t-hole.
And has absolutely NOTHING to do with the point of the article that heads up this thread!
China and India has a booming middle class and a thriving economy, while the US is losing it's edge and has a shrinking middle class that is further then ever in DEBT!
Duh is right. Communist China has historically been one of Israel's greatest enemies back in the bad old days of Mao (they supported the PLO before the Russians did). All their propaganda outlets and ideological offspring all over the world bashed Israel and Zionism non-stop.
I don't know if Red China is still Maoist or has its fingers in Maoist groups in other countries. I do know that they continue to support anti-Israel regimes in the Middle East (just as the Russians do). Unfortunately, even the Right Wing in Israel sees the right to sell to whomever without American dictates as important and legitimate (they made the same defense about selling to Apartheid South Africa). It's amazing to me that anyone in Israel would advocate selling Israeli systems to a country so untrustworthy and which is 100% certain to turn around and sell it to their enemies. The whole thing is suicidal as well as dangerous to America.
However, it does bother me that our own government only seems concerned with Red China when Israel is involved. It was the US, not Israel, that got Taiwan booted out of the UN (which the ROC had helped found) and replaced with the PRC. And our own government certainly doesn't seem to be too concerned about the Beijing regime (and goodness knows the Bush's are notorious in their friendly relations with that government). However, the "Israel is selling to China" line continues to provide fodder to people who insist that Mao's real name was Maostein.
Another forgotten factor is that the Republic of China in Taiwan was itself vehemently anti-Israel for decades (being basically a Saudi colony when it came to Mideast policy, and seeing as how the "World Anti-Communist League" had a large Arab World contingent and was often viruently anti-Semitic) and one time even refused to allow an Israeli sports team to deplane there. The Israelis noted that this was surprising considering the similarity of situations of the two nations.
Nothing changes the fact that right is right and wrong is wrong. Taiwan was stupid to be anti-Israel and Israel is being stupid to sell to Communist China (as well as committing a chillul HaShem by doing so). But then, this is a government that wants the moslems to hold the Temple Mount in perpetuity and is planning to evict large segments of the Jewish population (which no other country today could get away with) while considering the "indigenous" Arabs to be sacrosanct.
Mashiach now!
<< China and India has [sic] a booming middle class and a thriving economy, while the US is losing it's [sic] edge and has a shrinking middle class that is further then ever in DEBT! >>
1. Bullshit;
2. China and India have over a billion people apiece who make less than Thirty Dollars a month -- and every one of that two billion subsists in effectively medieval poverty and squalor.
Meanwhile -- and despite that there are as many as thirty million parasitical third-world criminal aliens in our midst -- America's economy is performing mightly and the individual wealth and standard of living of every American has never been greater or higher.
Is the current PRC friendly to Israel? It's hard to come to this conclusion considering its continued support of anti-Israel regimes in the Middle East. I have no doubt that they are quite adept at persuading greedy businessmen who simply want big profits anyway. But it is still an extremely risky and foolish thing to do, and that doesn't even address the fact that selling to such a regime constitutes a terrible chillul HaShem.
Again, however, I would like to point out that our own government doesn't seem overly concerned with China when Israel isn't around to play the whipping boy, and our own president, who was re-elected primarily by Israel supporters, is getting ready to play footsie with Hamas. I don't suppose playing of the China Card has anything to do wtih this little act of betrayal . . . do you???
"China’s much more dependent on the US/Taiwan/Japan than visa-versa on a multitude levels."
Like what? Have you seen our trade deficit lately?
you're right about what happened under Mao and Israel-China ties didn't really warm up until after Deng took over in the 80's. But still, history lesson is just that - Israelis appreciated what Chinese did for them in WWII and that's where the fundamental ties come from.
And, you're wrong -- China when it was fighting the Japanese was both, communists and nationalists. BOth side blame each other for fighting not as hard, though :) Communists won the civil war afterwards because the Nationalists lost popular support (it was pretty corrupt at the time)
Furthermore, i don't think Israel trust the US that much given our own wavering support for them from time to time. Every time a new president is elected, foreign policy changes. How can we conduct diplomacy when we don't have a consistent message?
The problem is that the aid is not going to the Chinese who aided Jews during World War II but to the current PRC, CCP, and PLA. Can these entities be trusted, and is it even morally right for an Israeli government to have any dealings with them? Of course this is an issue of Halakhah and I am no poseq.
And, you're wrong -- China when it was fighting the Japanese was both, communists and nationalists. BOth side blame each other for fighting not as hard, though :) Communists won the civil war afterwards because the Nationalists lost popular support (it was pretty corrupt at the time)
True. Ironic, is it not, that the World Left, which so identifies with the forces that fought the Nazis (other than our own GI's apparently) seems to have completely forgiven the Japanese (except in those nations that suffered Japanese occupation) and the USSR remained on relatively friendly terms with the Japanese until 8/8/1945 when they suddenly declared war (abrogating the Molotov-Matsuoka Pact) and came sweeping through Manchuria. Soviet histories never even mentioned the Pacific part of World War II.
Furthermore, i don't think Israel trust the US that much given our own wavering support for them from time to time. Every time a new president is elected, foreign policy changes. How can we conduct diplomacy when we don't have a consistent message?
The point is not that Israel should trust the US (we've tied their hands behind their backs any number of times). The point is that Communist China is a Malkhut HaResha`im (kingdom of the wicked) that denies HaShem, the be-all and end-all of Jewish existence, and it may be a chillul HaShem (a desecration of G-d's Name) to support them. It certainly violates the principal of mar'it `ayin, giving the appearance of something evil.
As mad as I am at President Bush for his post-election reversal of everything he supposedly stood for during the previous four years, I really have no right to feel that way considering that I was never under any impression that he was a Hal Lindsay dispensationalist, as so many Fundamentalist Republicans assumed. Never trust a politician, especially a lame duck!
At any rate, Israel should put its trust in HaShem and not in any man, and its policies should reflect the Holiness of the Jewish nation. Of course the Israeli government's domestic positions (Temple Mount, expulsion of Jews) doesn't reflect this, so naturally their foreign policy isn't going to. But it is terribly short-sighted to sell military equipment to a "friendly" regime that is also friendly with a number of enemies. Not that he US has ever learned this lesson.
And I agree, Israeli support for Red China is no different than US support for Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Hamas, the PLO, Egypt, or any number of other nations that are deadly enemies of Israel.
It's too bad that China's old Nationalist government was so anti-Zionist. It became a natural outpost for Saudi-style anti-Israel propaganda and sentiment. The World Anti-Communist League (founded by Nationalist China and South Korea) might have been very different had the Kuomintang been friendly to the Zionists. As it was they were unremittingly hostile, opening up the WACL to the "anti-Communist" Arab world and to old European Nazis and "aryan" racialists as well (it got so bad at one time that the American section actually had to secede from the WACL).
If the problem is China, then the US should not be sanctioning Israel for selling weapons to India and Singapore. In fact, we should want both countries to have a clear edge over China. Our negotiations here have a lot more to do with preventing competition to the American arms trade. If India cannot purchase SU-30mki's and Mig 29mki's with Israeli modifications, or the Derby and Python missles, then the F-16 Sparrow and Sidewinder look better.
Finally, if we are going to grow up about strategic ambiguities, Perhsp the US should stop selling weapons to countries that are still legally at war with Israel and stop giving away weapons to countries that are one assasination awar from returning to this status.
Face it, the US is pressuring Israel to give up land, while we are cutting Israel's technological edge against enemies. Isn't it logical that Israel reach out a growing power? China will betray Israel in a second, but the US is pushing Israel to do this.
Remember that we keep calling China a "strategic partner" and keep an ambiguity about Taiwan. If we are going to confuse Israel about US concerns, and help Israel's enemies, then what is the benefit to Israel for not reaching out to the ChiComs?
The Us and Israel need to grow up about strategic threats. If we cannot discuss this in the open, we should do so quietly.
I still wonder if the administration's current about face re Hamas and Abbas was caused by this situation, or if it is merely being invoked as a cover.
PS: If Taiwan is no longer anti-Israel, why doesn't Israel sell to it? It is in a very similar position, as the Israelis themselves once pointed out. Of course its Mideast policy may still be dictated by Riyadh for all I know, but I doubt if technology shipped to Taiwan would wind up as quickly being used to kill Americans and Israelis in the Middle East.
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