Paul Fitzroy: I hear you. But practically we still are 10 to 15 years away from hydrogen powered cars…Where is energy for automobiles going to come from until then? Where do we get oil until another source of energy is produced at a cost we can all afford?
The “If I were President” suggestions I outlined above would probably be our best bet. A key thing is to avoid pointless aggravation of the problem with additional jingoism and violence.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying we play friendly with Osama and co - some people will never be convinced to join our side and perhaps violence in self-defence is the only option there, as much as it pains me to say it. However, the American government, and allied governments such as my own, are unnecessarily hurting and pissing off a whole lot of people who might otherwise be friends, or at least not actively working against us.
So I don’t suggest we avoid attacking terrorists, merely that we attack in the way with the least collateral damage, rather than levelling whole blocks with cruise missiles and B-52s. I don’t suggest Israel should sacrifice its security to appease Palestinian extremists, but merely that they shouldn’t be building settlements far beyond the 1967 borders. I don’t suggest George Bush should give up on patriotic rhetoric, but merely on unnecessary polarizations such as “If you’re not with us, you’re against us”. I don’t suggest that we should renounce all violence, but merely that we should not invade countries that don’t have anything to do with what we’re really struggling against. For God’s sake, it’s possible to do all that we need to do without all this bloodshed and hate!
I was interested to hear the former head of British forces in Bosnia speaking on BBC World Service Radio the other day. He made the point that US forces in Iraq should be conducting operations at street level (‘that’s what they’re paid to do’ was one of his arguments) rather than from the sky. His implicit message was: ‘More soldiers must be prepared to die’.
Why was Israel attacked by seven Arab armies bent on its destruction when Gaza and the West Bank were under Arab control? Why is it that Barak offered Arafat almost everything outside the '67 borders and he refused?
I don’t think it’s the settlements.
Barak offerred no such thing. To claim otherwise is out and out deceit.
It’s certainly not the settlements alone, but I never said that. I said that the settlements greatly exacerbate an unpleasant situation with no good return ie they do not make Israel more secure.
Not to hijack the thread, but your summation is not entirely accurate. While the Barak plan was the most positive for the Palestians in many years, it had significant problems. Barak did offer a high percentage of the West Bank, but the West Bank was broken into either two or three unconnected sections (a three-section plan was definitely offered, a two-section plan may have been offered later). Israel would also have had effective control over a large section of the West Bank along the Jordanian border. There were also unacceptable limitations on certain resources, such as water.
That’s not really true, exactly. The land offer was contiguous, included most of the Jordanian border, and gave back around 90% of the disputed territory. What it was, though, was phased. Israel would pull out of parts of the West Bank right away (leaving, like you said, the Palestinian state divided and without access to the Jordanian border), and then, after Palestine had fufilled other obligation, pull out of most of the rest of the West Bank, except for Jerusalem and parts of the western West Bank. Here’s the final status map.
http://www.fmep.org/maps/2001/jaasherc2palstate.jpg
I’m sorry…the final status map is here:
Just so you know, Sevastopol, I’m against Barak or anyone else giving the Arab terrorists anything at all. Israel is surrounded by a sea of Arab Muslim Nazi-like hatred, outnumbered by a gargantuan factor; to suggest that it cede anything at all to anyone is insane, let alone to Muslim terrorists who would transform it into a pit of squalor and desolation like every other scrap of land that an overly generous God has allowed them to inhabit. I’m just saying that Barak did do it.
Israel, in the endless naivete that her leaders have been cursed with, has made numerous offers of peace to the Arabs; no leader of the so-called “Palestinian” people has ever made any effort to follow through.
Well it is fortunate for you that the people who Israel is stealing from daily aren’t terrorists by and large. Myself I’d be content for the shining light of the Jewish people to renounce its thief-state policy, its institutionalised racial discrimination and join the world of civilised nations.
Most reasonable people are far less generous than I however and judge that the time for carpet bombing large tracts of that nation has well and truly come. Certainly I am told that Israel’s unilateral repudiation of the roadmap for peace, in order that it can steal, murder and promote racism, really is the last straw.
Have no fear though, a trio of suitcase nukes will detonate in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv, long before that happens.
Because of the cruelties demonstrated by the Arab terrorists, we have watched Spain run for cover and the Phillipines do the same…Geopolitically the Arab terrorists have accomplished what few civil human beings have done.
IMO, these terrorists and all those who actively support must be destroyed. If any of you think that the “United Nations” will help by dealing with them, I would like to hear your opinions on that.
Our Cowardly French friends have their own self interests in mind…Iraqian oil…China would love it…so would Russia and so on.
Hmmm…that sounds like a fairly specific event to have foreknowledge of. Perhaps I should report you to the FBI?
Sevastopol, I don’t think you’re helping things. What are your idiotic screed about carpet-bombing Israel and nuking civilians supposed to do? Piss off everyone reading it? Well, congratulations.
Sam, what exactly is your point? Do you have a topic for debate? Do you have some kind of proposal about how to crush terrorism? Or do you just want to post crap about the cowardly French etc?
Oh, and your Arabs never promote racism, Sevastopol. Not like the Arab Muslims who are slaughtering Black Muslims in the Sudan (and I mean savagely slaughtering them with machetes for no reason at all, not bulldozing some houses and building a wall.)
Why aren’t you protesting the plethora of savage barbaric acts being perpetrated by Arab Muslims all over the world? Why are people so incenced at Israel in general when more Muslims are being killed by their fellow Muslims than by any Israeli actions?
I believe that the proposal you describe (and the map you link to) is actually the Taba peace proposal from January 2001. This is clearly marked on the map.
The Camp David proposals came earlier, in mid-2000, and offered slightly less, a non-contiguous state with indefinite Israeli occupation of certain strategic sections (more like my original description, slightly more generous than depicted in this map. The Camp David proposal was the one that was rejected by Palestinians as a “prison camp” rather than a state, as in Paul’s statement “Why is it that Barak offered Arafat almost everything outside the '67 borders and he refused?”
In contrast, the Palestinians accepted the Taba plan in early 2001 as the basis of further discussion, but by that time Barak had effectively lost most of his popularity and effective authority to negotiate (he may have been a lame duck).
Your last message is far off the topic at hand. If you want to see the gruesome beheading and can stomach it…its extremely graphic and I warn all of you who may have a weak stomach not to watch: go to www.ogrish.com…witness a beheading and then tell me we should pussyfoot with these bastardly terrorists.
My last post was slightly O/T, but I had to correct the statement of Captain Amazing, in the interests of fighting ignorance and all.
Please help us to stick on topic here by telling us what the topic is. So far, we’ve got Iraq, Israel, terrorism, whether or not Bush will send in hundreds of thousands of troops if he wins the election, the cowardly French, that we should attack the water systems of countries supporting terrorists, and now disgusting videos of beheadings.* So tell us: What is the topic of this debate?
- You’re not supposed to post direct links to such things, btw. Don’t want to click on it to find out if it’s a direct link or not.
MEBuckner, just noticed your editing, thanks for that.
The question at hand is: Terrorism has raised its ugly head in such uncivilized ways and is present world wide. Emphasis from talk shows, SDMB, the media in general is whether or not the USA should have invaded Iraq, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on that war and…should we bring the United Nations into our decision making.
The question is: What would YOU suggest to the president of the USA how to combat world-wide terrorism?
So many of the “Bush haters” are negatively critical…Lets here some positive, constructive suggestion which make sense.
Did you just get a TV set in the last couple of years or are you only 13?
The USA and many other countries have been trying to combat world-wide terrorism through the UN for many years now - IRA in N.Ireland/UK, ETA in Spain, US nutjobs in the USA, Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, PKK in Turkey, Red Army (RAF) in Italy, Germany and Greece, Algeti Wolves in Georgia, Chechyns in Russia, Kashmiris in India, … the list goes on.
The first thing Bush should have done was NOT invade Iraq and create more terrorism. Heck, I could easily do with hearing less about terrorism - now we have daily carbombs, beheadings or suicide bombs going off over there.
What they should have done is - get this - is work with the international community to track down and destroy terrorist groups.