Yes Sir I Am Fat / SoDamn Insane

[ChromeBoy 0]

Sorry...Yassir Arafat / Saddam Hussein. What do you all think the world needs to do to cool things down in the middle east. Let's keep the thread unlocked by not criticizing each other either.

[billvon 3,088]

>Yassir Arafat / Saddam Hussein. What do you all think the world needs to do
>to cool things down in the middle east.
Sharon said the magic words today - "We are at war with terrorism." The US has stated in no uncertain terms that we will go out of our way to kill terrorists, and the governments that support them. It will be difficult for us to claim that it's wrong to go after Arafat, given that Israel is being a lot more peaceful than we have been (i.e. they have not yet started an all-out bombing campaign to destroy the Palestinian government.)
Cool things down? We just gave them the best possible justification to heat things up. I find myself in the position of hoping the Israelis and Palestinians are better diplomats than we are.
-bill von

[AggieDave 6]

Remember, that region has had a serious amount of warfare for the past 3000 years or so with basically the same people. So I'm soooo sure that anything we do will stop it. When a group of some of the world's major religions meet in the same spot, you know things are going to stay "hot" for a long time. Even if the entire region was totally flattened and all the people in the area were killed, the area would still be disputed...
What to do? I have no good answer for you, since every course of action I can think of would have serious reactions and would solve nothing.
"Homer Simpson, smiling politely."

[skyhawk 2]

its been a long time coming my only worry is that it will escalate into other countrys and there aint nothen the US can do about it
Opinions are like a-holes everyone has one, the only one that does you any good is yours and all that comes out is shit

[quade 4]

Well, in the name of religion, but I doubt that religion had very little to do with any of the actual wars themselves. I'll admit that many of the leaders used the concepts of religion to control the masses and fight their wars for them, but religion itself . . . nahhh. It's almost always really about land grabs.
quade
http://futurecam.com

[AggieDave 6]

Half of that time, the land they are grabbing are "holy"lands for each of the religions.
"Homer Simpson, smiling politely."

[Iflyme 0]

Quote

the area would still be disputed...

I think you are right...
"There's nothing new under the sun"

[billvon 3,088]

>What to do? I have no good answer for you, since every course of action I can
> think of would have serious reactions and would solve nothing.
Me too. I think that's a good reason to avoid messing about in the area, since we always seem to just make things worse. Heck, even now we're sending tremendous amounts of money and weapons to Israel - think that helps the cause of peace?
-bill von

[AggieDave 6]

Actually, I think that there wouldn't be an Israel if it wasn't for the simple fact that the US made it so. That's way oversimplifying it, though, but that was our pittence for what happened to the Jews in WWII, once again way oversimplified.
The more you pull on the string to get to the end, the more you realize that the entire sweater is actually just that one string...that is whats so exciting about history, nothing really has a single cause, a series of sometimes seemingly unrelated events form another series of events causing a single important historical event. Example, what was the cause of WWI? An assasination, right? Well, yes and no, it was more of an excuse...and that would be another good thread, but not one for here. "Homer Simpson, smiling politely."