Figleaf

Q. What kind of forum bans someone with no warning? A. A crappy one.

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This is the clearest statement of Bush's intentions in the Middle East that I have seen. The Saudis' days are numbered - as well as the other autocratic regimes. Claiming to be a "stable" force doesn't work anymore. Unfortunately, the passage you have quoted is rife with the disingenuity/self-deception that characterizes U.S. foreign policy. There are no 'years of pursuing stability'. There are years of shielding Isreal from reality, years of confronting the USSR, years of hegemonizing in South and Central American banana republics. What Bush means by 'stability' is tempering super-power-impulses with some sense of long-term interests. What he is proud to have discarded is the tempering element in favor of unfettered emotion. BUsh is also wrong to have criticized the practical progress the US had acheived despite the moral flaws in its foreign policy. At Bush's inauguration, the US had more peace and more hope for peace than at any time in its history. That peace failed and then appeared to die during Bush's own presidency, not through the policies of his predecessors. The claim to be advancing freedom and democracy is questionable too. Freedom and democracy are only possible when the rule of law and of equality before the law are strong. Yet Bush has determinedly undermined these things both internationally and domestically. The list of things this administration has done to undermine these fundamental features of democracy is long ... from illegal surveillance through detention without trial, and from illegal invasions to legitimization of torture. (Not to mention election-theft!) In fact, this quote is anything but 'clear'. It is a gordian knot of doublespeak and jingoism.

I find I am in substantial (though likely not total) agreement with Higgly. I would add: -International law as it stands today means that any attempt to 'remove' Israel would amount to crimes against humanity (e.g. violation of the Israeli's right to self-determination and presumably some sort of 'ethnic cleansing'). Accordingly, the idea of eradicating Israel espoused by extremists is completely not on. -The reparations payments can be divided into different categories as follows... --damages for the flawed installation of Israel and the failure to create the promised Palestinian state should be payable to the Palestinian people by the leading world states of 1948; --damages for harms inflicted on the Palestinian people (e.g. expulsion, occupation, etc.) after the state of Israel was founded should be paid by Israel; --SOME damages from military aggression against SOME of its neighbors payable by Israel and any culpable allies to the said neighbor states.

The one thing the Arabs have made clear is the Khartoum declaration: No peace; No negotiations; No recognition Any variation from that (other than possibly Egypt's and Jordan's actual recognition of Israel) is a "houdna" or temporary truce which, while seeming beautiful and promising, is a bid for time after being walloped. Egypt and Jordan and the extent of progress achieved in PA negotiations prove that despite rhetoric, peace is possible. If the "Fenian raids" were to resume, would Canada demand the US do something about it? If the PA can't control its territory, it is not a nation, and undeserving of treatment as such. You put the cart before the horse. The PA is not a nation because it has been prevented from becoming one under Israeli hegemony. There is no such entity as the "Palestinians". There's a good example of thwarting peace right there. Denying that an opponent exists, or has a self-conception equal to your own is a recipe for continuing conflict. "Palestine" as the name for the geographic region goes back to AD390 when the Romans called it that as a province of their empire. The modern term "Palestinians" is the name by which the Arab inhabitants of the territory of Cisjordan under the British Mandate are now called. The origins of these names does not matter. The existence of this distinct group of people is what gives rise to their right of self-determination. What other choice is there, for families that accept money for their children to become walking bombs? I don't have to offer another choice. The choice being employed is a crime against humanity. You don't have to have another choice to make it wrong to commit a crime against humanity. Anyway, other choices include making peace, stepping up security, ignoring the families. What would not be a "mock state"? A state overlaying all of Israel's existing boundaries? Or would you suffer them a landlocked village somewhere? A state unsupervised by its former antagonist; with control of its own borders, forces, and trade; on the entirety of the territory it justly claims. On the terms you're offering, I think not. Unless you're referring to the peace of the grave. Until just now, you had no idea of the terms I'd suggest (I'm in no position to 'offer'). So without knowing them, you'd apparently dismiss them. Again, another approach that would serve to thwart peace.

Indeed, their coups tend to be less violent than their elections.

Ah, the stuff and nonsense one hears. If Israel were truly preoccupied about surviving, it would not thwart the possibility of peace as persistently as it has and does. Thwart peace? Yes. Like placing irrational conditions on counterparts' actions for example: demanding the PA control fringe factions. Like building illegal settlements on lands that it must return to the Palestinians. Like persistent acts of collective punishment, e.g. house demolitions. And let us not even mention the unreasonable final Oslo conditions which would have made Palestine a mock-state under Israeli hegemony. People who truly fear for their survival would at least seek a just peace, don't you think?

-The Six Great Humanistic Essays of John Stuart Mill, A.W. Levi, Ed. -Courtship Rite, Donald Kingsbury -Most things by Robert Anton Wilson (e.g. Schroedinger's Cat trilogy, Prometheus Rising) -V for Vendetta, Moore and Lloyd -Give Me Liberty, Miller and Gibbons -The Way Things Work, David Macaulay -the Dr. Seuss books -reference books -Tao Teh Ching, Lao Tzu -Essays of George Orwell, esp. "Politics and the English Language" -Brave New World, Aldous Huxley -Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny -The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams -New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics ... to name but a few.

If you want to have a good forum, does it make sense to ban good posters for minor imagined infractions?

I thought you must be joking but appears you are serious. Are you saying there is nothing wrong with what the Americans did in Abu Ghraib because the current Iraqi gov't is worse? What the Americans did may have been mild by 'internationally accepted standards for torture' but it does not change the fact that the Americans should not have been torturing anyone. Even people who have no philosophical objection to torture should recognize that word of Americans torturing Iraqis would eventually get out and it would severely undermine the objectives of the mission in Iraq. What nonsense. I don't even accept what the Americans did as torture. And your flexible, self-defined concept of torture is revelent how, exactly?

Firstly, one of the reasons one enters negotiations is to find out what grounds for agreement exist. Presupposing that such grounds don't exist is an act of dogma, not pragmatism. Secondly, I hope this was a brief discussion between these two people, because I don't see any reason a 74 year old should have to put up with patronizing impudence like that. That is a rather repellent statement. The proposition that Jews have lost heart to fight for themselves because some of them would prefer to seek peace is absurd. Furthermore it is an insulting ploy to engage the bitterness some Jews feel about having been victimized so 'easily' by the Nazis. Beyond that, to suggest that a desire to seek peace is a betrayal of "Christians of good will" or the Punch and Judy act comprising Bush and Harper reveals a twistedness I can barely begin to fathom.

I thought he or she had a refreshing perspective and a lively way of expressing it. It's too bad s/he violated forum rules. I wonder ... was s/he given a warning prior to the banning?

k bye

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What utter crapola! Why on Earth might anyone have launched a nuclear weapon by now? Against who???

OH WELL, alright then! As long as it's only a FEW tens of thousands. That sounds almost relaxing ... killing a mere few tens of thousands -- like doing nine holes rather than a full eighteen. Delightful. I say, could you sponsor my application into your club? <shrug> A million people were killed in the last Iran-Iraq war. Many millions would die if Iran nuked Tel Aviv. By that standard a few tens of thousands looks pretty darned good. Billions will die, maybe trillions. But only three will be injured. See, I can spin meaningless numbers just as easily as you can.

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Dumb question. You click "Ford".

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