Posted on 04/27/2002 5:25:11 PM PDT by Pokey78
And who knows? You might even save a few lives in the bargain. You make it sound like it's too late; but you're much softer than your namesake, and know a great deal more now than he did then. Too bad these sadsacks are so far gone. I happen to know you've reached some.
Let's be truthful: there is nothing "illegal" about the settlements - and there are absolutely no terms in the Oslo agreements banning natural growth of the settlements.
It does behoove a nation to defend her allies--when her allies are in the right. But when an ally isn't in the right, it doesn't help the United States or the ally to give it blind support.
A complicated man, indeed, in a complicated time which our days come increasingly to resemble. The novels are excellent, and take history through the days of Caesar, including the time of your namesake father. They were recommended by Newt Gingrich, in the heady days of 1995.
Alliances are about mutual interests; if they can be tossed aside at a whim, they are meaningless.
Ahhh, yezz... behind it all, ve see ze JEWS, eh? (/sarcasm, with fake Nazi accent)
If you want to make the case for attacking Iraq, I'd be pleased to hear it. I'm not necessarily against attacking Iraq. I've often wondered in fact, why Bush doesn't go before congress, make his case and ask for a joint declaration of war.
One can hope. If one is to go into the abyss, it is better to do it in full knowledge of what is happenning, rather than having to have the horror of those who stepped out of the World Trade Center, without any real idea of what was killing them.
But not I think as great a disaster as defending them when they are wrong. When a country is right, we ought to defend it whether it is an ally or not. And when it is wrong, we shouldn't blindly defend it and make the matter worse for ourselves and the ally too.
Alliances are about mutual interests; if they can be tossed aside at a whim, they are meaningless.
Alliances are about mutual interests. And when alliences move in different directions they ought to be rethought.
Then they haven't gone far enough. If they are going to do what they should, they should take Mecca, destroy the black rock and shrine, and build a nice Jewish house of worship. Then they should take the House of Saud hostage, and shoot them in order of precedence, until they get one to convert to Judaism, whom they should put on the throne. Then they should round up the population, inform them that they are now Jewish, and that if they revert to Islam they will get the same punishment as now would be given a Moslem who converted to Judaism.
After that, they should get mean.
That's pretty funny, even though I think you probably mean it.
But in the end, we are her ally. This is not a time to abandon her. To do so would bring us shame and infamy for decades, and as a result it would do far more to harm our national interest than the policy we are pursuing today.
I should add that alliance does not mean unconditional support. Sometimes it means public defense but private dressing down. And if Israel were to do something truly outrageous--an attempt at a transfer, for instance--we would obviously not support it. Nor would we draw arms against her. Surely you see the reason in this?
A complicated man, indeed, in a complicated time which our days come increasingly to resemble. [emphasis added]Oh, we have endured civil war after civil war?
Now you've gone overboard. That's not pessimism, it's excessive melodrama.
I don't think even semper has gone quite that far in describing our current plight. (Well, the dictatorial rule, maybe.)
My profile page is a bit more explicit than yours as to what we have to worry about on the homefront.
The world situation is grave but not lost.
And we've got a loving God that Sulla didn't know he had. Despair is a major sin is it not?
If this is the case, then LCS is correct. Billions will die. One can only hope that the settlement on the other side of the conflict does not repeat the mistakes of Versailles...
Well, I do. And nobody's talking about drawing arms against Israel. I only wish I were as confident as you that Israel won't attempt a transfer and that, if she did, we wouldn't support it.
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