Posted on 09/06/2001 7:20:16 AM PDT by Bob Evans
The Warsaw Pact would have instantly risen up with all those Soviet divisions among them. I mean, they were so successful in 1956 and 1968 weren't they?
And the Cubans would certainly have given the Soviets the old "heave ho" they had so many other states to turn too
Like I said Poo, your strategic appraisel needs work. It's colored by a preference and that keeps you from thinking clearly
As per being religious
It doesn't make you a hick, I'm a good Roman Catholic myself
But basing your NATIONAL POLICY on a religious tract (not your laws or your civil ethic but your NATIONAL POLICY) makes you a Middle Eastern thinker
Again, thanks for proving my point for me.
But when nations Pooh, NATIONS, make policy based upon their religion, be it Catholicism, Islam or Judeism. Then those policies throughout history tend to be bigoted and bloody
Israel's justification for settlements in Jerusulam is in the Old testement, as you quoted to me.
No modern western nation would base national policy off such a claim or justification
But a Middle Eastern one would. Middle Eastern ones do.
Koran and Old Testement are the opposite sides of the same intolerant coin when you use them to make national policy, to justify wars and occupations and to cloak your cause in the mantle of god's approval
And in this the Israelis are absolutely the same as their arab opponents
You can sing "Gimme that old time religion" all you want to Pooh. But if you'd ever seen the intolerance in the Middle East up close and personal you'd pray to god thanking him that the United States founding fathers had the wisdom to separate church and state
In 1973 they threatened the world with armageddon if we did not help them
A nice biblical prophecy, the fall of the Temple etc...
As absolutely fanatical and immune to reason or compromise as any Hizbollah bomber
And they've got a lot of nukes
Nice stable bunch of fellas
They get their national policy marching orders from the Old Testement, in the 21st century
A Middle Eastern nation to the core
Not to the core. Only in the way they practice the art of war.
In most other respects other than war, Israel is closer to a European nation. Their GNP is on a par with Portugal's (despite having about 1/2 the population) and their per capita spending power is almost as high as Italy's, or seven times larger than Syria or Iraq, six times larger than Jordan's and Egypt's, and 4-5 times greater than Lebanon and Iran. They have excellent transportation, water, power and sewage infrastructures, top of the line telecommunications equipment, and a literacy rate on par with European standards despite the enormous burden of having to educate immigrants in the new language.
Your view is incorrect by any objective analysis.
I want to know if the Iranian "leaders" are building NBC-proof shelters for themselves and their own families. It seems that "leaders" are always unwilling martyrs, even with the "promise" of fornicating with 6 dozen girls. (I doubt they're preachin' change-of-life spinsters.)
What a pathological dogma.
Who have much higher per capita incomes and very modern infrastructure
Of course, we both know this is not an accurate analysis
It goes back to what I said before. Zebras look like horses, but they're not horses
What makes all three of these nations Middle Eastern is not so much their location but the way they look at the world
The way they let the specific written text of their religious tracts dictate international policy (IE Poobah's quoting of Deuteronomy)
The way they look at conquest
When was the last time a WESTERN nation took another piece of a WESTERN nation and held on to it?
It's in living memory, but only just. And I think even you'd be forced to agree with me that today among western nations that would be pretty unusual behavior
It's pretty commonplace among Middle Eastern nations
Midle Eastern Nations are insular and exclusive
Much is made by Israeli supporters on this form of how there are Israeli Arabs
I've lost count of the number of posts I've read in the past few months about how they are not trustworthy, probably sypathize with the Palestinians, and need to be expelled
They were good window dressing and useful to do the scut work but when it comes to rock-and-a-hard-place time they're obviously the first ones to go over the side
Not atypical thinking at all for that part of the world
Just not something I would call western it outlook towards the civil liberties of citizens
So yes Monkeyshine, you're right. They do look a lot like us
But they're really not much like us at all
It's not how they look or what they consume but how they think and act that makes them a Middle Eastern nation
Iran is not the only country, but most countries acrosss the lower Mediterranean from Morocco to Iraq are seething with religious movements to overthrow the present government and set-up an Islamic government like that Kadaffi's.
And the strangest thing is that the West, thinking it is helping countries to obtain so-called "self-determination", is advancing the Islamic cause. This is what happened in Kosovo; this is what is happening today in the Albanian portion of Macedonia.
The big question is: Will Israel blow up the Iranian nuclear installations for the benefit of the Western World while this same Western World screams its bloody head off -- but in the back rooms thanks Israel again and again.
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