In hindsight: was the US' Iraq invasion a positive thing?

Israel is in a constant state of conflict with the arab world–which is at its core a religious debate.

we choose to support israel, with more funding than any other nation on the planet.

how can you say religion doesn’t factor in here? even if you want to say we only tacitly support israel’s religious agenda because it suits our own strategic or whatever-else agenda–we’re still supporting it. it’s still a big factor–it’s the single most important issue to Israel, and we are their single biggest supporter.

i, for the life of me, can’t see why you want to ignore that.

Yeah, again, you keep saying “I’m not saying it’s important!” and then saying stuff like this. If you think the religious element is very important, I continue to say that you’re wrong, and I’m not convinced by your appeals to authority. The fact that you continue to say “I’m just asking!” when you’re actually making assertions is kind of annoying.

Because I don’t think that religion (Jewish or Christian) is a major factor in the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. It’s not a complicated point. Issues like oil and regional stability are more important.

I don’t want to say that. I don’t think the U.S. is in it to support “Israel’s religious agenda.”

i am not mincing words: i think it’s well established it’s a not-insignificant factor.

i started out just asking, did a lot of research, provided a lot of cites, and i believe the truth is although intellectual americans want religion to be a non-factor in politics, it simply does factor in. directly and indirectly. when you consider the christian and jewish lobbying agenda and their influence, it becomes a considerable factor.

you want to say “it’s not THAT important” to which i say “determining HOW important is going to be difficult.”

which is why i wanted to end the debate long ago. you do not have a mathematical calculation for the factor to nth degree, nor do i. i have a lot of cites and literature indicating it’s a concerning large factor and a big point of contention.

the lobbyist factor alone gives religion an all-too large amount of credence in politics.

i dont like it–i think it’s wrong–and i certainly don’t want it to be that way–but i’m not finding any evidence to determine it is in any way a “non-factor” or a “negligibly small factor.”

everything i research indicates it’s a significant factor.

over and over, i’m saying we cannot determine a percentage, so what “significant” or “important” means is something we can debate forever.

even the most basic pages on wikipedia on zionism, us/israeli relations and foreign policy discuss the religious connotations. there’s numerous non-religious political publications on the motivations and influence of christians and jews alike–who have the same agenda when it comes to israel.

what i’m saying is that it’s not like i have to dredge ultra right-wing neo-con zealot propaganda to support the significance of the religious factor–i need only go to the most basic wikipeidia pages.

it IS a factor, it is a significant factor.

go back to my list. i believe it was 4th or 5th down. i think that’s about right. i think because of separatist policies we have as a nation regarding church and state, it has to remain rather “unofficial,” but that’s how lobbyist work anyway–disclosure isn’t transparent.

there’s no immediate dismissal of the religion factor in mainstream media. there’s an ideological aversion to this WHICH I AGREE WITH, but that doesn’t affect the reality of the situation.
Tons and tons of literature support the influence on policy and support for Israel from pressure by Christian Zionists and the Israeli lobby.
What’s left to say…?

but we do. we give them money to do with as they please–which they do things like build on the west bank against our wishes. we support them with military aid and allow them special status to bid on US defense contracts…it’s a two way street, but the military support we give them goes to aid their conflict with the arabs.

I think maybe you guys should have an argument instead of getting other people involved.

Nobody has ever proposed there is a percentage.

my first or second post after asking the initial question had a numbered list of all the factors. i said it was a factor, i didn’t assert how much of a factor.

the more i’ve researched, the more of a factor i think it is. it’s not insignificant.

def. worth mentioning, def. needs to be on a list.

def. not “a non-factor.”

no one proposed a percentage–but you did argue for pages and pages that it was so much of a non-factor it didnt’ even warrent mentioning. hell, you started out calling it “not a factor.”

we keep going around and around, and this is just a ludicrous waste of time.

i said it was a factor, it is. i said at first i wasn’t sure how MUCH of a factor, but at this point i’m convinced by the research it’s considerable.

the end.

this quote sums it up very nicely:
U.S. support for Israel began when President Harry S. Truman extended U.S. recognition to the Jewish state immediately after its 1948 declaration of independence. Continued U.S. support for Israel has varied in form and intensity over time, but this support has remained a pillar of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. U.S. support for Israel is based on several factors: a commitment to one of the few democratic states in the region, a need for stable allies, a sense of a shared Judeo-Christian religious tradition, and as a market for the products of the American defense industry.

just as i’ve maintained the whole time.

i’m going to go get a life now. i suggest you do the same. you’re a moderator after all, moderate yourself.

[QUOTE=dontbesojumpy]
this quote sums it up very nicely:
U.S. support for Israel began when President Harry S. Truman extended U.S. recognition to the Jewish state immediately after its 1948 declaration of independence. Continued U.S. support for Israel has varied in form and intensity over time, but this support has remained a pillar of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. U.S. support for Israel is based on several factors: a commitment to one of the few democratic states in the region, a need for stable allies, a sense of a shared Judeo-Christian religious tradition, and as a market for the products of the American defense industry.
[/QUOTE]

And yet his actual, tangible support for Israel was pretty limp, as I said already. The US didn’t really start on your ‘special relationship’ with Israel until the mid-to-late 60’s, which, last time I checked was pretty far after Truman was President. And the ‘special relationship’ didn’t REALLY start to roll until the 70’s and 80’s. The quote you are using here is from the Wiki link earlier, but you are seriously torturing it to make it conform to your own seemingly limited understanding of history and this ‘special relationship’ you are on about. Since you like Wiki so much, how about this?

Further:

Note the timelines and how our policies shifted over time and mainly due to, yep, cold war realities and real-politic:

See the progression? Read the WHOLE article…and then understand that this is a freaking Wiki link, not a comprehensive analysis of the historical impacts. Like I said…read a couple of books on the subject before jumping into something like this, as it really is a complex mess.

-XT

it sure is.
a mess that religion absolutely factors into.

that’s a fact.
stop trolling now.

Do not accuse other posters of trolling.

oh i get it.

you know, for a mod, you’re not very objective…or unbias. or mature.

this is a forum designed to spread knowledge and have intellectual discourse. you have spent the last few pages basically trying to flex your opinion muscles, prove how you know more than me, to the point you descended into a needlessly long, pointless debate that ends with you agreeing with what i said from the very start.

you think you’re in a position to demand i answer every question you feel i should (which only ever served for you prove your points right or try to make me look stupid–in zero cases was it an attempt to move the conversation forward or try to progress the thread in an intellectual way. it was only about you trying to prove you’re right about something–anything).

now XTs adding nothing constructive, only demanding continuous bickering for no reason…on a ponit that from the start HE ALREADY AGREED WITH ME ON. now he has to keep on and on debating exactly to what degree he agrees?? lord. :rolleyes:
as a moderator, you allow people’s needless and pointless condescending down-talking so long as it suits you–condescention that does nothing but serve to make one person feel superior…? to what end?
over an issue that, holy shit–i was honestly seeking an intellectual answer (you provided, without cite, “no.” wow. so academic).

several hundred previous posts have been nothing but personal hubris…
as a mod, you shouldn’t participate in such trivial nonsense. as a mod, you shouldn’t allow one person to say needlessly insulting things like “psh, maybe next time read a book or something. WE don’t have to provide CITES. YOU need to go READ A BOOK tho.”

i provided no opinions. i provided nothing but cites and articles to support what i was saying and why i was saying it. nothing i said was my long-standing opinion or personal interest. it was simply what research i had found. you never argued the research. you only said “i” was wrong, and only because “you say so.”

you wanted to argue for the sake of it. when i proved one thing, you’d ignore it and move on to whatever else you could find to bicker. if you felt maybe you had a wedge to make me look stupid (like why “jews” was in quotes), you’d DEMAND me to acknowledge it, hoping you could make me look dumb, not attempting to promote the conversation in an intellectual way.

when i proved there’s a religious connection, you forced a conversation about the difference between lobbyist and tried to make me look stupid as if i was flip flopping on the subject. “jewish americans don’t matter at all,” you said. when i proved the link of lobbyist and our ally connection, you wanted to bicker about how the votes don’t matter. when i prove the votes matter the most, you want to bicker about partisan affiliations.
when i prove that never mattered to stat with, you want to demand i’ve renegged on my stance. when i proved i’ve basically settled into the same data i provided in my second post on the subject and point out YOU are the one who has renegged on YOUR stance, you resort to attack grammar and spelling errors.

now you’re allowing other people to fling insults, imply i’m ignorant, and when i point out they are just being a troll, you moderate ME.

you need to respectfully take as step back and look at how you’ve behaved and how desperate you’ve been to win at debate–ANY DEBATE–even if it means correcting typos.

you’re a MODERATOR, for christsake. act like one.

The rule is very straightforward: you cannot accuse other posters of trolling in any forum except the Pit. Period, end of story. There’s not much interpretation involved, so I don’t feel conflicted about reminding you about it. You’re allowed to be argumentative seeing as how this is a debate forum, and you’re allowed to continue posting after someone else says he has lost interest. Anyone is free to stop posting whenever they want. Our general rule is “Don’t be a jerk,” but being argumentative or verbose doesn’t qualify. As a matter of fact, you’re not allowed to insult other posters at all unless you’re in the Pit. I am doing my best to cut you a little slack here, but you’re using it up. Since I haven’t given you a formal warning, I recommend that you just take the note as intended: a reminder that you can’t call other people trolls in this forum, and you can’t insult them.

That went well.

To be fair, dontbesojumpy did ask Marley23 to act like a moderator. Et voila!

To answer the OP, …maybe. No one here is capable of predicting the future and how the unintended and intended consequences will play out.

Instant change isnt going to happen, at least not the way we went about it (that’s hindsight for ya).

touche. -.-