The Arab minority in Israel has never been recognized by the State of Israel as a national minority. The national, ethnic, and linguistic character of the Arab community has been consistently ignored and has often resulted in discrimination by the Israeli Government. They are often considered to be a Trojan Horse in Israel.

What you say is true UG, however the fact remains that it's not the US's decision as to how oil in the middle east should be distributed. Or should I say, it shouldn't be.

The last two statements you've made to me have demonstrated nothing short of bully boy tactics in order to arrange things in such a way that it benefits the US and of course their allies.

HM, it seems to me you mistake their fault -- their eighteen-year effort to start a war with us, dating from Marine Barracks Beirut 1983 through 9/11 -- for our fault. I don't.

"...of course their allies" -- in a word, you, Ali.

Keep in mind our self-made, self-declared enemies are busy trying to bully us. We see no practical difference between this and the assaults against us that put us into World War Two. Still gonna mean fightin', and we understand that.

Fighting of this nature mostly quits once everybody is too fucking tired of it. But you have to wear everybody out first.

Who are you talking about here?

That line is total bullshit. I remember 2003. The international investigators led by Hans Blix were not fooled at all. The American people were not fooled by the Iraqi nuclear program, they were fooled by Colin Powell and the Bush administration.


On the other hand, you have an incredibly historicist take on democracy. It reminds me of the way that Marxists claimed that Communism was inevitable. They were so convinced that Communism was inevitable that they tried to accelerate the progression to communism by setting up dictatorships in Central Asia. Those dictatorships are now opposed only by radical Islam.

Democracy is great, but it doesn't seem like a historical inevitability any more than Communism was, and it doesn't seem like a cure-all either.

It Has Unraveled So Quickly

Hurray for bludgeoning!

Hmmm... so you're saying our problems with the Arab world began in '83 in Beirut? Do you think those Marines were there on vacation?

Happy Monkey, your reply shows doublethink, or maybe unthink, if you cannot follow my argument. Who, indeed. Doubleplusungood.

Griff, no, I'm not saying that; I'm saying the current phase of the problem, the going after us, really got going about then. Were they or were they not trying to either start a war with us, or win it then?

Aliantha, I remember it ended when the Communists won in 1975 -- and then kept the place buggered up, and the refugees streaming and rafting out of there, for the next ten years. One reason I'm ardently pro-human and anticommunist, remember?

Really, people: I'm far more sensible than you want me to be; deal with it better than you have, okay?

Your view on how and why the Vietnam 'occupation' ended is as warped as some of your other views UG.

I rather think it was because public pressure led to the government of the day deciding they'd bitten off more than they could chew and couldn't solve the problems of another nation any better than those of their own.

That we were getting our ass kicked due to our policies toward how we fought that "conflict" had nothing to do with it? Yeah, right.

those tricksy jungle folk did make life hard didn't they?

Maybe Bush thinks it'll be different this time cause there's no trees to hide behind?

Or maybe because there is no way to stop the Iraqi civil war.