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sebster wrote:I think it would be a good idea for the US to stop building settlements in Mexico.

You mean like in Texas,Newmexico,Arizona,California, and Colorado?

Many Mexicans feel like those states are still part of Mexico, but the U.S. stole it from them.

GG

Frazzled wrote:bullsh t. It means you blew smoke out your ass and can't answer the question. When has a democracy sat by while thousands of rockets were shot into its territory. Please cite examples.

Yeah! It's really poor form when someone ignores a question because they can't answer it! Why on this very same thread I asked a fellow a question and he hasn't got back to me. The question was quite simple;

"Please explain how the threat to Israel is worsened if Israel stops expanding into territory it doesn't own."

Now, that fellow's name was, hang on, give me a second... Frazzled. I think you should join with me in demanding this Frazzled character steps up and answers the question. After your insistence that dogma answer your question it would only be consistent.

sebster wrote:

Frazzled wrote:bullsh t. It means you blew smoke out your ass and can't answer the question. When has a democracy sat by while thousands of rockets were shot into its territory. Please cite examples.

Yeah! It's really poor form when someone ignores a question because they can't answer it! Why on this very same thread I asked a fellow a question and he hasn't got back to me. The question was quite simple;

"Please explain how the threat to Israel is worsened if Israel stops expanding into territory it doesn't own."

Now, that fellow's name was, hang on, give me a second... Frazzled. I think you should join with me in demanding this Frazzled character steps up and answers the question. After your insistence that dogma answer your question it would only be consistent.

Sorry didn't see it. Dogma saw it.

My response.
Its not, unless the rule of the gun - aka history says they now own it. For example if they build a buffer zone that helps their security-enter this permitere and you're machine gunned cuts down on infiltrators.
Having said that, givng up territory has proven fruitless since the Egyptian agreement. They are still attacked out of Gaza after retreating years ago. They are still attacked out of Lebanon-you know a supposedly foreign country with no reason to attack them.

generalgrog wrote:

sebster wrote:I think it would be a good idea for the US to stop building settlements in Mexico.

You mean like in Texas,Newmexico,Arizona,California, and Colorado?

Many Mexicans feel like those states are still part of Mexico, but the U.S. stole it from them.

Sure, but how many settlements were built in Mexico by US citizens in the last ten years?

If you believe those areas were part of Mexico or Greater Aztlan, a whole freaking bunch.

As Chicanas and Chicanos of Aztlán, we are a nationalist movement of Indigenous Gente that lay claim to the land that is ours by birthright. As a nationalist movement we seek to free our people from the exploitation of an oppressive society that occupies our land. Thus, the principle of nationalism serves to preserve the cultural traditions of La Familia de La Raza and promotes our identity as a Chicana/Chicano Gente

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MEChA
http://www.nationalmecha.org/documents/nationalConstitution.pdf
I like this part

Preamble
Chicano and Chicana students of Aztlan must take upon themselves the responsibilities to
promote Chicanismo within the community, politicizing our Raza with an emphasis on
indigenous consciousness to continue the struggle for the self-determination of the
Chicano people for the purpose of liberating Aztlán.

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So I'll go back to anyone. please identify a democracy that has had thousands of rockets launched into its terriroty that did not respond militarily.

Please don't say India/Pakistan else I'll have to remind you of the two wars they had and the constant threat of war between them, stopped now because they both have nukes.

sebster wrote:Sure, but how many settlements were built in Mexico by US citizens in the last ten years?

I think you missed the point. To many Mexicans, those states I mentioned are still part of Mexico, and the gringos are occupiers. So in their eyes, any new subdivision, houses is settlement of their land.

GG

generalgrog wrote:

sebster wrote:Sure, but how many settlements were built in Mexico by US citizens in the last ten years?

I think you missed the point. To many Mexicans, those states I mentioned are still part of Mexico, and the gringos are occupiers. So in their eyes, any new subdivision, houses is settlement of their land.

GG

If they want it, come take it back. Go ahead I dare you. Rednecks with shotguns are more than capable of fending of a Mexican army. Look at the Alamo, we totally won that one.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:

Anshal wrote:This is quite sad really, but then again this is what I expect from that part of the world. And for part I have a long time ago given up any hope for peace in the middel east.
Why one migth ask? Well they have been figthing there since the dawn of time, let them wipe each other out I say

Never shoulda' stopped building the Neutron Bomb....

I don't think any of you actually know what neutron bombs are.

Yes.

Preemptive: I've been to Israel. I've had friends killed in rocket attacks. Don't make this about experience.

Then I guess there's nothing more to be said on the matter. I can't see how you would devalue (in my eyes) the lives of your friends so far as to shrug it off, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You're an articulate debater, but I guess we will never see eye to eye on this.

If France started lobbing missiles over the channel and killing British citizens, I'd be the first person to advocate a military expedition to clear the launchers and make a buffer zone, but that's simply because I don't believe that civilians should have to risk active random death from afar daily. And don't bother using traffic examples, etc as a comparison, because it would be a terrible analogy.

I guess you can quote loss numbers, but does having lost more lives make it more of a tragedy for the Palestinians? No. The answer is, it's all a tragedy. You don't get greater or lesser degrees of them. Trying to say that having lost more lives=greater tragedy is a cold, unhuman way of lookign at things. If you do that, you're no better than a war general who at the end of the battle, subtracts the enemies casualties from his own, and if the result is a positive number, declares it a victory.

Then I guess there's nothing more to be said on the matter. I can't see how you would devalue (in my eyes) the lives of your friends so far as to shrug it off, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. You're an articulate debater, but I guess we will never see eye to eye on this.

I've known people killed in storms, that doesn't mean we should bomb the sky. There's a point at which you need to look at something objectively, and for isreal that should be now. They aren't stopping the rocket attacks with military action and strong emotion, they are fueling them. It does not serve the dead to perpetuate the cycle that caused them to lose their lives.

Frazzled wrote:
bullsh t. It means you blew smoke out your ass and can't answer the question. When has a democracy sat by while thousands of rockets were shot into its territory. Please cite examples.

No, it means the question is irrelevant. I'm asking for reason, not proof. Last time I checked "because other people do it too" is not a valid reason. If it were, then rape, murder, and genocide would all be acceptable actions.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I think endorsement and acceptance.

Fair enough. I maintain that acceptance involves a kind of tacit consent such that we can consider it comparable to endorsement.

Ketara wrote: Trying to say that having lost more lives=greater tragedy is a cold, unhuman way of lookign at things.

It is indeed, but that doesn't make it unnecessary. At some point you have to engage the matter from a rational angle if the problem is to be rectified. If accepting a few civilian deaths will prevent a war in which many more will be killed, then the deaths should be accepted.

dogma wrote:It is indeed, but that doesn't make it unnecessary. At some point you have to engage the matter from a rational angle if the problem is to be rectified. If accepting a few civilian deaths will prevent a war in which many more will be killed, then the deaths should be accepted.

So would you accept the Israelis killing off all the Palestinians in order to prevent war? That fits the rational of your argument...

Well, that would be war, so it isn't exactly preventing anything.

So Palestinians launching attacks isn't war? Is it really war if the Israelis kill all the defenseless civilians? And if they are all dead it prevents any future wars...

It is indeed, but that doesn't make it unnecessary. At some point you have to engage the matter from a rational angle if the problem is to be rectified. If accepting a few civilian deaths will prevent a war in which many more will be killed, then the deaths should be accepted.

Agreed. However, 700 deaths is not a light statistic, we haven't lost that many soldiers in the Middle East yet. And when things like missiles become commonplace, then certain measures must be taken to rectify the situation. One cannot sit still on top of a mound of 700 dead bodies. And as it's not just a single day of it, but a continuous state of affairs, just swallowing it is an impossible course of action.

You say that it would prevent the starting of a war, but to be perfectly honest, looking at the scale of casualities, it would not be unfeasible to say a state of war already exists between both sides. One that is, unfortuantely, self-perpetuating. Removing settlers would in no way guarantee a cessation of hostilties. It's gone on too long on both sides for that. As I said before, I believe that the hatred in the Middle East is too firmly ingrained to just be waved away, and will continue until one side is rendered unable to make war.

JEB_Stuart wrote:So Palestinians launching attacks isn't war?

No, difference of scale. If I kill a Jewish person I haven't gone to war with the Jews.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Is it really war if the Israelis kill all the defenseless civilians? And if they are all dead it prevents any future wars...

Yes. Though I doubt it would prevent all future wars. Simply all potential wars with the Palestinians.

dogma wrote:No, difference of scale. If I kill a Jewish person I haven't gone to war with the Jews.

Neither is the Israeli military killing a few Palestinians. Besides you yourself have already dismissed the idea of scale as a relevant factor. So, I am waiting on a valid argument...

dogma wrote:Yes. Though I doubt it would prevent all future wars. Simply all potential wars with the Palestinians.

And that is the issue at hand...

dogma wrote:

No, difference of scale. If I kill a Jewish person I haven't gone to war with the Jews.

In terms of scale here, I'd say 5700 dead people is a good place to start. If you want to get into technicalities, Hamas has declared that they want to kill all the Jews as an organization several times, and Israeli has always beena t war with terrorists. So yeah, I'd say that's a state of war....

dogma wrote:

Yes. Though I doubt it would prevent all future wars. Simply all potential wars with the Palestinians.

Interesting. So from the logical perspective here, Israel should simply kill all the Palestinians. After all, who would go to war over them? I don't see any of the Middle Eastern powers doing much other than denunciation(after all,they all belong to so many different factions, and genocide is a common thing out there).

Ketara wrote:
You say that it would prevent the starting of a war, but to be perfectly honest, looking at the scale of casualities, it would not be unfeasible to say a state of war already exists between both sides.

True, it may be better to claim that acceptance would put an end to a war.

Ketara wrote:
One that is, unfortuantely, self-perpetuating. Removing settlers would in no way guarantee a cessation of hostilties. It's gone on too long on both sides for that. As I said before, I believe that the hatred in the Middle East is too firmly ingrained to just be waved away, and will continue until one side is rendered unable to make war.

There are no guarantees in these matters; asking for them is simply unreasonable.

Keep in mind I'm not claiming that Israel should stop working to prevent rocket attacks, only that they should not be considered as acts of war.

Agreed. However, 700 deaths is not a light statistic, we haven't lost that many soldiers in the Middle East yet.

That happens when you basically leave it, save for a few dudes sitting in their bunkers in a city.

And when things like missiles become commonplace, then certain measures must be taken to rectify the situation.

And what happens when those measures not only fail to rectify the situation, but seem to exacerbate it, such as the Iranian offensive not long ago? Do you just keep going with your failing plan so that people can feel good about themselves?

ou say that it would prevent the starting of a war, but to be perfectly honest, looking at the scale of casualities, it would not be unfeasible to say a state of war already exists between both sides. One that is, unfortuantely, self-perpetuating. Removing settlers would in no way guarantee a cessation of hostilties. It's gone on too long on both sides for that.

True, it's not a cureall, but halting an illegal action which the entire world is against and which you have signed treaties stating you wouldn't would go a long way towards being a start.

As I said before, I believe that the hatred in the Middle East is too firmly ingrained to just be waved away, and will continue until one side is rendered unable to make war.

Hatred isn't generational. Once those who have experienced the reason to hate are dead then the hatred and hostilities cause disappears. An engrained social state can quickly end when its root causes are disrupted or removed.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Neither is the Israeli military killing a few Palestinians. Besides you yourself have already dismissed the idea of scale as a relevant factor. So, I am waiting on a valid argument...

My entire argument hinges on scale. I'm not sure where you think I dismissed it.

Taken from your arguments in other threads. Remember the whole religions as cause of deaths thing? You dismissed scale as a useful tool to measure right and wrong. Considering this is a thread on right and wrong, and now scale as well, I just applied your arguments from another thread. Besides, in a matter of scale, there are less Palestinians then Israelis, so it would be less inhumane to kill off the Palestinians simply for the sake of the region...

Ketara wrote:
In terms of scale here, I'd say 5700 dead people is a good place to start. If you want to get into technicalities, Hamas has declared that they want to kill all the Jews as an organization several times, and Israeli has always beena t war with terrorists. So yeah, I'd say that's a state of war....

Even if it is the conversation has hinged on the notion that we're out to put an end to hostility. Simply acknowledging that hostility exists is implicit within that notion.

Ketara wrote:
Interesting. So from the logical perspective here, Israel should simply kill all the Palestinians. After all, who would go to war over them? I don't see any of the Middle Eastern powers doing much other than denunciation(after all,they all belong to so many different factions, and genocide is a common thing out there).

If killing all the Palestinians is practical, and capable of reducing the aggregated number of deaths, then yes.

JEB_Stuart wrote:Taken from your arguments in other threads. Remember the whole religions as cause of deaths thing? You dismissed scale as a useful tool to measure right and wrong. Considering this is a thread on right and wrong, and now scale as well, I just applied your arguments from another thread.

I'm not talking about right and wrong here. I'm talking about practicality and productivity.

JEB_Stuart wrote:
Besides, in a matter of scale, there are less Palestinians then Israelis, so it would be less inhumane to kill off the Palestinians simply for the sake of the region...

There are more Palestinians than Israelis: ~ 10 million.

dogma wrote:There are more Palestinians than Israelis: ~ 10 million.

Nope, there are more Israelis. 7.5 million Israelis, and around 4 million Palestinians

If we're speaking purely in terms of practicality then, the best thing to do would be to force all the Palestinians to leave, or kill them.

However, as that's impossible on humane grounds, the next logical step is to erect a bloody big wall between 'them' and 'us' and stop them coming over. Which they've duly done. In the case of missiles though, it only protracts the issue.

JEB_Stuart wrote:

dogma wrote:There are more Palestinians than Israelis: ~ 10 million.

Nope, there are more Israelis. 7.5 million Israelis, and around 4 million Palestinians

I'm counting Palestinians not residing in the OT. Link.


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Ketara wrote:If we're speaking purely in terms of practicality then, the best thing to do would be to force all the Palestinians to leave, or kill them.

However, as that's impossible on humane grounds, the next logical step is to erect a bloody big wall between 'them' and 'us' and stop them coming over. Which they've duly done. In the case of missiles though, it only protracts the issue.

That's the thing, I'm not convinced that the most practical option is to kill them all. Doing so requires quite a bit of time and money. Plus its unlikely to be 100% effective. The same applies to the wall.

That happens when you basically leave it, save for a few dudes sitting in their bunkers in a city.

Oof. Harsh. That isn't happening in Afghanistan, mate. Our forces just had their bloodiest month there. I think it has less to do with 'sitting in bunkers', and more to do with the actual British troop numbers, which aren't as high as US numbers obviously - but then we weren't attacked. Until after we followed the US into Afghanistan and Iraq, that is.
But leaving the Middle East? Well, we handed Basra over to the Iraqis and it seems to have improved - good for them! I'd rather see them die for their own country, than our lads dying for it. The Americans seem to have taken this approach with regard to Basra since the handover, by monitoring and assisting Iraqi troops instead of doing their fighting for them. Contrast this with Baghdad - still carbombs going off with almost monotonous regularity. More white faces on the street is not neccesarily a good thing - the British armed forces have more experience of police actions, so that probably explains the 'bunker' thing. Maintaining a low profile but controlling the flow of people and weapons by securing the borders worked during the Malaya Emergency - it seemed like our forces were trying do do a similar thing in Basra, but were hamstrung by Gordon fething Brown and his left-wing hatred for our military. They didn't have enough support - men or materiel - to do the job effectively.
As allies we Brits (plus Aussies, NZ's and Canadians) may not be perfect, but our military DOES come with a wealth of experience of fighting (and winning) in any terrain, under any conditions. Plus, who else you got on your side?

The French?

dogma wrote:
I'm counting Palestinians not residing in the OT. Link

So we are not counting the Jews that are outside of the Levant as well? Which incidentally still outnumber the Palestinians...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_People

JEB_Stuart wrote:So we are not counting the Jews that are outside of the Levant as well? Which incidentally still outnumber the Palestinians...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_People

A Jew is not necessarily an Israeli. Indeed, an Israeli is not necessarily a Jew. Palestinian is not distinct from itself.

Considering the Hebrews are a people, and by Israeli law are extended citizenship to Israel, I think there is a reasonable argument to be made for them. Besides, you can't assume that every Palestinian outside of Palestine has any legal tie to said nation. If you are going to generalize for one, you are gonna have to extend it to both...