Posted on 09/06/2001 7:20:16 AM PDT by Bob Evans
Tennant, the head of the CIA, was visiting the MidEast at the time of this protest
You can check here: CIA site
I had it right it my Reply #5
It is George J. Tenet, NOT TENENT OR TENNANT
I knew hamas was evil, but I didn't know they were American!
Doesn't he play center for the Clippers?
"We'll nuclear strike the Soviet Union unless you help us"
Precipitate WWIII. "If we can't have our nation, well then, we'll just devastate the world"
Now they have how many nuclear weapons?
Makes me feel real safe
People on this forum are constantly in fear of Middle Eastern psychos getting ahold of Nuclear weapons
I have news for them
Middle Eastern psychos already do
All the best
Qatar-6
You reflexively excuse Israel guy. Are you actually telling me that they would have been JUSTIFIED in attacking the Soviet Union in 1973?
And I'M the weakest link?
I think you need to reappraise your value system
Scenario #1: Israel loses conventional war. Result: Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.
Scenario #2: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.
Scenario #3: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel launches a nuclear strike against the USSR in retaliation for arming up the Syrians in the first place. Result: USSR launches a nuclear strike against Israel and the United States. US counterstrike destroys USSR. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, but it's also unacceptable to the United States and the USSR.
Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Result: Israel does so and is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel.
Scenario #4: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel launches a nuclear strike against Syrian forces. Result: USSR launches a "limited" nuclear strike against Israel to keep its treaty commitments to Syria. Israel is destroyed. Outcome unacceptable to Israel, outcome also unacceptable to Syria.
Scenario #6: Israel is losing a conventional war to Syria and faces imminent destruction (the apparent situation in October 1973). Israel asks US for help, gets told by an extremely intoxicated US President to just shut up and die quietly. Israel recalls Scenario #4, puts forces into place to implement it, calls a responsible adult at the White House, responsible adult gets drunken idiot to realize that, no foolin', the world is f***ed if this goes down, and US assistance stabilizes the situation in the Middle East. Outcome acceptable to Israel, Syria, USSR, and US--everyone's happy, no one's vaporized. In short, the Israeli threat, apparently irrational, actually is the most logical choice in that it prevents a nuclear exchange to begin with.
Please note that all YOUR proposed scenario accomplishes is getting Israel nuked by the USSR. That tends to raise the issue of "gee, why screw around with Ivan's shoeshine boy, why not just nuke Ivan himself, we still get the same result, and maybe the threat gets us some leverage?"
If the US faced a similarly grave situation--a large enemy force having overwhelmed US defenses and headed towards the national center of gravity, said forces supplied and backstopped by a hostile superpower, your in-the-box thinking would simply guarantee our national destruction.
They wouldn't risk the fight with the US, simply put, they'd have been called and folded
In the "great game" as you are wont to call it there is only one abiding principle, don't paint yourself into a corner.
Nothing of the Russians behavior in the 60's or 70's tells me that they actually would have pushed the button on Israel.
Too many intangible factors and too great a set of possible negative consequences for too little a possible gain
Of course the Russians, for all their evil, thought as a rational dictatorship would.
As far as Israel goes, you prove my point for me
Hostage taking is a time honored custom in the Middle East
Rather than continue to fight on the Golan (and no, they were never that close to being defeated - their two lead armored brigades got beat up really bad though. The syrians had about an hour or so window of opportunity to get through the Israeli defenses while both sides forces were prostrate like two boxers who had knocked each other out. However, more is made of this that is really called for. The Syrian force that found the hole was company sized and disorganized. Nor did it have follow up units readily available. Even if it had gone pell mell down the road it would have just run into the first reinforcing Israeli Brigade and died a little further inside Israel)
But that's by the by
So anyway instead of coming to the regrettable but necessary decision of giving battlefield nuclear release to insure national survival.....
Israel seizes a hostage (The US) and threatens the world with destruction unless we cough up some tanks real quick
No western nation would do this
But as I have said, Israel is not a western nation it is a Middle Eastern nation
Their women don't wear glad bags and they don't knock their heads five times a day but in matters of policy they are remarkably similar to their Arab neighbors
What I find more intriguing is your apparent approval of this whole episode
We denuded several armored divisions in europe of Tanks and TOW systems
If the Russians had hit us in early 74 we would have had to have gone nuclear almost immediately. The lynch pin of our national security strategy at that time - The defense of Western Europe - was flapping in the breeze. Half the conventional forces in Eurpope equipment had been sent to Israel
Our buddies
And you approve of this?
Now me personally, I don't much care for being strong armed
Nixon should have made the conversation public
They wouldn't risk the fight with the US, simply put, they'd have been called and folded
In the "great game" as you are wont to call it there is only one abiding principle, don't paint yourself into a corner.
Nothing of the Russians behavior in the 60's or 70's tells me that they actually would have pushed the button on Israel.
Too many intangible factors and too great a set of possible negative consequences for too little a possible gain
Of course the Russians, for all their evil, thought as a rational dictatorship would.
As far as Israel goes, you prove my point for me
Hostage taking is a time honored custom in the Middle East
Rather than continue to fight on the Golan (and no, they were never that close to being defeated - their two lead armored brigades got beat up really bad though. The syrians had about an hour or so window of opportunity to get through the Israeli defenses while both sides forces were prostrate like two boxers who had knocked each other out. However, more is made of this that is really called for. The Syrian force that found the hole was company sized and disorganized. Nor did it have follow up units readily available. Even if it had gone pell mell down the road it would have just run into the first reinforcing Israeli Brigade and died a little further inside Israel)
But that's by the by
So anyway instead of coming to the regrettable but necessary decision of giving battlefield nuclear release to insure national survival.....
Israel seizes a hostage (The US) and threatens the world with destruction unless we cough up some tanks real quick
No western nation would do this
But as I have said, Israel is not a western nation it is a Middle Eastern nation
Their women don't wear glad bags and they don't knock their heads five times a day but in matters of policy they are remarkably similar to their Arab neighbors
What I find more intriguing is your apparent approval of this whole episode
We denuded several armored divisions in europe of Tanks and TOW systems
If the Russians had hit us in early 74 we would have had to have gone nuclear almost immediately. The lynch pin of our national security strategy at that time - The defense of Western Europe - was flapping in the breeze. Half the conventional forces in Eurpope equipment had been sent to Israel
Our buddies
And you approve of this?
Now me personally, I don't much care for being strong armed
Nixon should have made the conversation public
Re: the Golan battle--you falsely assume Israel KNEW the good news at the time. They didn't.
Re: the USSR nuking Israel--the choice would be to either nuke Israel and dare the US to do something about it (which, because of Vietnam's corrosive impact, we couldn't), or to be permanently humiliated on the world stage. One way is low-risk and pays big, the other way makes the USSR look like wusses. Which one would Chuckles Brezhnev have gone for?
Nixon didn't want to make the conversation public, because I sanitized it--do you REALLY think that a drunken, obscene tirade filled with anti-Semitic slurs would have made Tricky Dick look like a leader?
Re: being strongarmed. Guess what? If anyone has been doing ANY strongarming in the US-Israel relationship, it's the US. Israel might decisively win a war and not be nearly as dependent on Uncle Sugar for their security needs? Well, the US suddenly slams on the brakes. Make peace with deranged gun-waving lunatics? Well, the US sends over mercenary political consultants to knock off Netanyahu's party--if China did that to us, we'd be screaming here on FR about that being an act of frickin' war!
Keep making excuses
What would have happened if Kissinger had told them to go to hell?
How could they be sure he wouldn't
How could the Russians be sure of the outcome of a use on Nukes on the part of their Arab clients? They'd lose a lot more by Nuking Israel than by taking the cause of the Arabs against a rabid nuke crazy Israel.
The subsequent opproborium suffered by Israel for the first use of Nukes would have isolated her like nothing else in her history
THAT would be the sure thing the Soviets would have went for
Nuking Israel had too many uncontrollable factors to ever be a viable option
Except in retaliation
Frankly Poo Americans like yourself make me wonder
Israel CAN DO NO WRONG in your eyes
No matter what crime they committ you somehow always bring it back to "it's the US fault"
Israel could have precipitated a third world war in 1973 and it's OK by you just as long as it turned out all right for Israel
Your thought processes are not sound, at least not for an American citizen.
Like I said, the only difference between Israel and their neighbors is Israeli women don't wear glad bags
Your string of insults about my lack of "Americanism" doesn't serve to cover your lack of valid arguments.
Kissinger was known throughout DC as the only sane guy in the White House by 10/73...and he understood (correctly) that the Soviets would do whatever it took to maintain their status as a "Great Power." Since the only thing that MADE them a Great Power was their nuclear arsenal, they would HAVE to use it in any situation where a client state got nuked.
Tennant, the head of the CIA, was visiting the MidEast at the time of this protest
It's possible Good Ole Georgie Tenet was there, if only those cretens could learn how to spell, maybe people could read what they're trying to say...not that we want to of course.
How'd you like to have these guys as your next door neighbors, what a blast, aye!
Well, the only truth in that statement is that we have plenty of terrorists over here who fund those Hamas and Terrorist cells from all over....They get loads of money from the US, and somehow it's all legal especially that collected on the internet...go figure...All that money should be cut off and tightened like a noose around their disgusting and dirty necks...
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