Posted on 07/10/2006 2:13:42 PM PDT by kronos77
International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.
The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.
While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.
(Excerpt) Read more at afji.com ...
You are the moron. The arabs are patient and will bide their time. They waited 8 years to take a second shot at the WTC. They aren't stupid enough to take a shot at Israel right now with our troops in the area.
Utterly untrue. It's a declaration of intent.
Saddam lobbed his scuds into Tel-Aviv in 1991, and that's not "ancient history".
We were not moving militarily against Japan at the time. Arab countries WERE mobilizing against Israel.
There is absolutely NO comparison.
The declaration of intent from a Dictator, PM or President is backed by that countries military.
"Death to Israel" = unacceptable terms.
"Death to America" = unacceptable terms.
"Death to Pakistan" = unacceptable terms.
"Death to Any country" = unacceptable terms because nations have borders and people in them that have the right to live.
You are correct. If they ever get the right force in the field at the right time, they will do to any small country *exactly* what Saddam did to Kuwait in 1990.
so exactly what were all those battleships and aircraft carriers doing at pearl anyway ?
It was called their base, last I checked. On US territory. Thousands of miles away from Japan.
I guess we're not allowed to have those in your eyes, lest they become a provocation to someone.
It is reassuring to see Ralph Peters support the idea of redrawing borders in Iraq (though I think it is overly ambitious and dangerous to comply with the rest of the map changes that he proposed). The Iraqi borders make no sense. Why do we pretend that Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs, and Kurds (one of these things is not like the other one), should be lumped together into one state? That doesn't make any sense. My favorite concern for why we do not favor federalism or autonomy: we fear that Iran might exert too much influence. WTF???? As if Iran doesn't already exert too much influence!
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