Author Topic: A View from the Eye of the Storm  (Read 13796 times)

Offline Pongo

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« Reply #15 on: June 18, 2004, 03:51:22 PM »
First of all. In fairness the thread should be called "Through the crosshairs of the rifle"
This guy is talking about his enemies.
Second. his statement about Israel having nothing to do with it is very very dishonest. 90% of his  examples are not typical examples of arab behavior but examples of Palistinian behavior vs the Isreali occupation.

I have been to Isreal. It is an amazing place so out of phase with all arround it, Irrigated, educated, modern. All arround it is barren 14 century ruble it seems.  But Isreal is not some inocent victim of the situation in the middle east. They are very very much the victims of thier own actions. They chose to expand thier borders at the expense of the allready once deported palistinians. The palistinian uprising is not a protest agianst the existance of the state of isreal. It is a protest against its expansion to the detrement of the Palistinians and the police state that the Isrealis set up to perpetuate that expansion.

In leaving all that out this man is being very dishonest.  A simularly elequent palistinians talker could have refruted the whole thing.

His disertation on suicide bombing was interesting in that all countries soldiers are drawn from the poor that dont benifit from the wars they fight. Dous he think Arabs invented that?  Denied any kind of real weapons by total isreali police state boycot what does he think that Palistinians would do? Sorti in thier Hinds to take on the Isreali Apaches?  If someone would arm them like the Americans have armed the Isrealis I bet they would be happy to fight that way. But they cant. They have to fight with what they can carry in thier pockets.

I dont expect this guy to love them. Nor do I expect him to make a case for genocide of the whole arab race.

Offline Toad

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« Reply #16 on: June 18, 2004, 04:23:32 PM »
I think you're fixated on the Arab/Israeli aspect of this as written by a Jew.

What's your take on these situations then? How does Israel figure into each of them?

Quote
The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.

The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.
The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel.

Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered his own people because of Israel.

 Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of Israel.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

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« Reply #17 on: June 18, 2004, 04:41:18 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Pongo
First of all. In fairness the thread should be called "Through the crosshairs of the rifle"
This guy is talking about his enemies.
Second. his statement about Israel having nothing to do with it is very very dishonest. 90% of his  examples are not typical examples of arab behavior but examples of Palistinian behavior vs the Isreali occupation.

I have been to Isreal. It is an amazing place so out of phase with all arround it, Irrigated, educated, modern. All arround it is barren 14 century ruble it seems.  But Isreal is not some inocent victim of the situation in the middle east. They are very very much the victims of thier own actions. They chose to expand thier borders at the expense of the allready once deported palistinians. The palistinian uprising is not a protest agianst the existance of the state of isreal. It is a protest against its expansion to the detrement of the Palistinians and the police state that the Isrealis set up to perpetuate that expansion.

In leaving all that out this man is being very dishonest.  A simularly elequent palistinians talker could have refruted the whole thing.

His disertation on suicide bombing was interesting in that all countries soldiers are drawn from the poor that dont benifit from the wars they fight. Dous he think Arabs invented that?  Denied any kind of real weapons by total isreali police state boycot what does he think that Palistinians would do? Sorti in thier Hinds to take on the Isreali Apaches?  If someone would arm them like the Americans have armed the Isrealis I bet they would be happy to fight that way. But they cant. They have to fight with what they can carry in thier pockets.

I dont expect this guy to love them. Nor do I expect him to make a case for genocide of the whole arab race.



:rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl :rofl  you are amazing! are you a muslim?  The man is spot on.

Offline ravells

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« Reply #18 on: June 18, 2004, 04:56:14 PM »
Pongo, in fairness, I don't think he was making a case for the genocide of the Arabs.

I think the core points of his piece are that

(1) Arabs leaders (be they religious or political) who exhort their people to kill others, don't take those risks themselves. Well, OK, but which leaders do? (Isn't there a bit in the trailer of Fareinheit 9/11 in which Michael Moore asks Senators to get their kids to join up to go to Iraq?). I would really love to see the day when political leaders who saw fit to declare wars were actively involved in the fighting.

(2) Arab states have not made the most of their economic opportunities. It's a fact of life that large corporations in a capitalist system are going to screw states who don't have the educational wherewithall to defend themselves. But take a look at the far east. They came off the blocks from pretty much a standing start after WW2 and they are doing pretty well. Why can't Arab countries emulate them?

(3) Arabs actually spend a large amount of their time and energy fighting amongst themselves. Well....they do.  That sort of behaviour is not going to improve their economies any. I really wonder, whether they hate the west simply because they lack material wealth, which they are quite capable of obtaining if they set their minds to it.

As much as I feel for the plight of the Palestinians, and as much as I feel that the Israelis could help them by letting them take an active part in their economy, I think this chap has some fairly sound arguments about the rest of the Arab world.

I think his point about trying to impose 'instant democracies' in countries which don't have the middle class to support it, is spot on.

Ravs

Offline Pongo

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« Reply #19 on: June 18, 2004, 05:09:20 PM »
I didnt say he didnt have good points. But he is not presenting the whole point. Of the document what % is really talking about the palistinian uprising?  I just read it quickly but I felt he started talking about one thing. Arabs and thier goverments(or lack of them) and he switched to another. Very particular to the situation in isreal.
In general he wants to say
None of this has anything to do with isreal. Now im going to talk in a veiled way about things that have only happend in isreal vs the palisitnians...and try to maintain the thread that it has nothing to do with isreal.
But most of the examples he gave were palistinian exampels and they have alot to do with isreal. So he was being very elequently dishonest.
Dont you see that Toad? He baited and switched. And then he tried to build a parallelism between Iraq and Palistine. Convientent to a US audience.

Offline ravells

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« Reply #20 on: June 18, 2004, 05:11:33 PM »
Oh jeez.

Now I've got to go and read the bloody thing over again.

Thanks Pongo

Ravs :)

Offline Lizking

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« Reply #21 on: June 18, 2004, 05:24:40 PM »
You need to read it slower, Pongo.

Offline Pongo

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« Reply #22 on: June 18, 2004, 05:28:22 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Toad
I think you're fixated on the Arab/Israeli aspect of this as written by a Jew.

What's your take on these situations then? How does Israel figure into each of them?


I didnt ask you what you thought of my opinion. I asked you what you thought of his.

"

The millions who died in the Iran-Iraq war had nothing to do with Israel.  
The mass murder happening right now in Sudan, where the Arab Moslem regime is massacring its black Christian citizens, has nothing to do with Israel.  No idea.

The frequent reports from Algeria about the murders of hundreds of civilian in one village or another by other Algerians have nothing to do with Israel. Saddam Hussein did not invade Kuwait, endangered Saudi Arabia and butchered his own people because of Israel.  No he did so cause his mutual ally with the Iraqis the US said he could.

Egypt did not use poison gas against Yemen in the 60's because of Israel.

"

So the guy lists all these horrible things that the arabs have done that didnt involve isreal. Great.
Then he talks about issue after issue that occured in palistine vs the Isrealies. As if those acts in Palistine do not have to do with Isreal. But they do. They are a result of aggressive Isreali expansion into Palistinian lands. Period. Anyone that doesnt know that is an idiot. The Isrealis know it.  This guys clever dissertation that avoids that issue does so at the risk of being dishonest.

Notice that he mentions the security issues the Turks have. Do you know that the Turks have commited near genocide vs thier Kurdish population? He doesnt mention that. Wonder why. Cause they are politically the closest muslim nation to Isreal maybe?


The Isralies should not cast stones about WMD. You know what I mean Toad? There is no reason to go to Iran or Iraq to find countries that have WMD in violation to proliferation aggreements. Right?

So now I come off sounding anti isreali. If your simple I guess I am. But in fact I just think they are better served by honesty then lies and evading thier responsiblity for why they are in the situation they are in. They could have chosen peace or war many times in the last 30 years. And they have chosen war.

He lists what the arabs have "done" without listing what has been "done" to them. And I am not talking in the stone age here. I am talking in the last century.  The first use of poison gas in the area was not by Iraq or Egypt. It was by the RAF vs Iraq independence movements. Egypt was calously invaded by France, England and Isreal in 56. The democratic movements in Iran was destroyed by the US goverment arround the same time.

So to paraphrase the ariticle. The idea that the major problem is that the arabs are "bad" which is in effect what he says. Is silly.

Offline Lizking

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« Reply #23 on: June 18, 2004, 05:29:53 PM »
He doesn't say they are bad, he says they are backwards, which they are.

Offline Toad

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« Reply #24 on: June 18, 2004, 05:31:45 PM »
I think you need to read it rather than skim it.

I read it all and I don't see where he talks predominantly about the Palestinians. Not at all. If you just visually grabbed "suicide bomber" and immediately translated it to "Palestinians" I can see where you might think that but in reality that's NOT what he said. He's talking about the method of fighting that is now applied world wide.

I think he keeps it pretty general and it's a good overview.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

Offline muckmaw

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« Reply #25 on: June 18, 2004, 06:04:14 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Pongo
First of all. In fairness the thread should be called "Through the crosshairs of the rifle"
This guy is talking about his enemies.
Second. his statement about Israel having nothing to do with it is very very dishonest. 90% of his  examples are not typical examples of arab behavior but examples of Palistinian behavior vs the Isreali occupation.

I have been to Isreal. It is an amazing place so out of phase with all arround it, Irrigated, educated, modern. All arround it is barren 14 century ruble it seems.  But Isreal is not some inocent victim of the situation in the middle east. They are very very much the victims of thier own actions. They chose to expand thier borders at the expense of the allready once deported palistinians. The palistinian uprising is not a protest agianst the existance of the state of isreal. It is a protest against its expansion to the detrement of the Palistinians and the police state that the Isrealis set up to perpetuate that expansion.

In leaving all that out this man is being very dishonest.  A simularly elequent palistinians talker could have refruted the whole thing.

His disertation on suicide bombing was interesting in that all countries soldiers are drawn from the poor that dont benifit from the wars they fight. Dous he think Arabs invented that?  Denied any kind of real weapons by total isreali police state boycot what does he think that Palistinians would do? Sorti in thier Hinds to take on the Isreali Apaches?  If someone would arm them like the Americans have armed the Isrealis I bet they would be happy to fight that way. But they cant. They have to fight with what they can carry in thier pockets.

I dont expect this guy to love them. Nor do I expect him to make a case for genocide of the whole arab race.


Pongo-

You do realize that the "Expansion" of Israeli territories occurred when Israel captured these lands after being attacked by Arab states, don't you?

You do realize that 87% of the land once called Palestine is now part of Jordan. The other 13% is Israel.

You realize that by giving back some of the lands Israel now occupies, it would put major Israeli cities in range of Palestinian Atillery, right?

You do realize that if the Arab world was so worried about the Palestinian Refugee problem, they would not have blocked them from entering countries like Jordan, etc.

Please check into these facts and respond when able.

Offline muckmaw

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« Reply #26 on: June 18, 2004, 06:05:28 PM »
Toad-

Excellent post. Though along with Pongo, I can see the authors bias, it does not detract from the facts he put forth.

Offline Nashwan

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« Reply #27 on: June 18, 2004, 06:36:21 PM »
Quote
Birth rates in the region are very high, increasing the poverty, the social gaps and the cultural decline. And all of this is happening in a region, which only 30 years ago, was believed to be the next wealthy part of the world, and in a Moslem area, which developed, at some point in history, one of the most advanced cultures in the world.

It is fair to say that this creates an unprecedented breeding ground for cruel dictators, terror networks, fanaticism, incitement, suicide murders and general decline. It is also a fact that almost everybody in the region blames this situation on the United States, on Israel, on Western Civilization, on Judaism and Christianity, on anyone and anything, except themselves.


The Middle East hasn't developed like other regions of the world. The oil meant corrupt regimes were propped up by the west (principally America). Islam isn't the reason things are so badly wrong in the region, the Arabs see Islam as the alternative to what they have now.

Islam is to an Arab now what communism was to Russians in 1916.

It's an alternative to the corruption and oppresive rule of men who the man on the street thinks have sold out to the Americans.

Quote
Suicide murders are not a new invention but they have been made popular, if I may use this expression, only lately.


It depends how he's defining lately. Suicide murders were popularised by the (Hindu) Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, who carried out hundreds of such attacks since the 80s.

Quote
Finally, we find the third circle of so-called religious, educational and welfare organizations, which actually do some good, feed the hungry and provide some schooling, but brainwash a new generation with hatred, lies and ignorance. This circle operates mostly through mosques, madrasas and other religious establishments but also through inciting electronic and printed media. It is this circle that makes sure that women remain inferior, that democracy is unthinkable and that exposure to the outside world is minimal.


I think he's completely wrong there. Democracy is unthinkable to the Saudi Royal family, the various Emirs, Assad, Mubarak etc, not to the religious groups. Limited as it is, Iran has more democracy now than it did under the Shah.

Quote
It is also that circle that leads the way in blaming everybody outside the Moslem world, for the miseries of the region.


I don't think they do. They certainly blame their own governments too. It strikes me that most analysis of the Middle East ignores the fact that there is only one Islamic country, Iran, and an awful lot of corrupt dictatorships with Islamic opposition movements.

It's far more effective for an opposition movement to place blame on foreign forces. Hitler blamed the international Jewish conspiracy, the communists international capitalism.

Quote
The fourth element of the current world conflict is the total breaking of all laws. The civilized world believes in democracy, the rule of law, including international law, human rights, free speech and free press, among other liberties. There are naïve old-fashioned habits such as respecting religious sites and symbols, not using ambulances and hospitals for acts of war, avoiding the mutilation of dead bodies and not using children as human shields or human bombs. Never in history, not even in the Nazi period, was there such total disregard of all of the above as we observe now.


I think he's being silly claiming the Nazis respected laws and norms more than the Islamic world.

Quote
Do you raid a mosque, which serves as a terrorist ammunition storage? Do you return fire, if you are attacked from a hospital? Do you storm a church taken over by terrorists who took the priests hostages? Do you search every ambulance after a few suicide murderers use ambulances to reach their targets? Do you strip every woman because one pretended to be pregnant and carried a suicide bomb on her belly? Do you shoot back at someone trying to kill you, standing deliberately behind a group of children? Do you raid terrorist headquarters, hidden in a mental hospital? Do you shoot an arch-murderer who deliberately moves from one location to another, always surrounded by children? All of these happen daily in Iraq and in the Palestinian areas. What do you do? Well, you do not want to face the dilemma. But it cannot be avoided.


Do you condemn your opponents use of ambulances, whilst using them to transport your own soldiers on offensive missions against those opponents?

Do you drop a 2000lb bomb on an inhabited apartment block because it contains a man you want to kill? Do you fire a tank shell at a crowd in a market who are breaking curfew? Do you settle 300 of your citizens in amongst people you deny citizenship to, and set up a free fire zone around the settlement? Do you shoot children dead from a kilometre away when they cross an undefined line 200 yards from the settlement? Do you keep on establishing new settlements, knowing it will deprive the people you deny citizenship to of their freedom of movement, their livelihood, an adequate water supply, and will inevitably lead to the odd "accidental" death?

To focus on Palestinian crimes whilst not even mentioning some of the issues behind them is disengenuous.

Quote
Now that Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya are out, two and a half terrorist states remain: Iran, Syria and Lebanon, the latter being a Syrian colony


I think this betrays the Israeli agenda in this more than anything. Clearly, Saudi Arabia is the most dangerous terrorist state to the west. Not through the direct actions of their government, but through the situation that government has created. It was Saudis who were behind 911, not Iranian, Syrian or Lebanese. Iran, Syria and Lebanon are Israel's bugbears.

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Is the solution a democratic Arab world? If by democracy we mean free elections but also free press, free speech, a functioning judicial system, civil liberties, equality to women, free international travel, exposure to international media and ideas, laws against racial incitement and against defamation, and avoidance of lawless behavior regarding hospitals, places of worship and children, then yes, democracy is the solution.


That I agree with.

Quote
On the other hand, a certain transition democracy, as in Jordan, may be a better temporary solution, paving the way for the real thing, perhaps in the same way that an immediate sudden democracy did not work in Russia and would not have worked in China.


Agree again. The West should have pushed for more openness amongst Arab regiemes decades ago. Instead we allowed them to behave as they liked as long as they didn't turn communist or fundamentalist and kept the oil flowing. (not that that was an unreasonable course to take, but it's led to the current situation)

Quote
What's your take on these situations then? How does Israel figure into each of them?


It doesn't. But there are literally dozens of wars going on in the world that have nothing to do with Islam either. Africa is full of them. Backward regions tend to have lots of wars.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2004, 06:42:06 PM by Nashwan »

Offline muckmaw

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« Reply #28 on: June 18, 2004, 06:54:48 PM »
The Middle East hasn't developed like other regions of the world. The oil meant corrupt regimes were propped up by the west (principally America). Islam isn't the reason things are so badly wrong in the region, the Arabs see Islam as the alternative to what they have now.

Islam is to an Arab now what communism was to Russians in 1916.

It's an alternative to the corruption and oppresive rule of men who the man on the street thinks have sold out to the America"
-----Nashwan


So why don't they suicide bomb these oppressive rulers?

Offline GRUNHERZ

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« Reply #29 on: June 18, 2004, 07:08:36 PM »
Pongo

Isreael is used as an excuse for all the problems in the mide east by people who dont want to face their own deeper problems.

In many ways its no different than poor whites in the south blaming blacks and jews for their poverty instead of their own backwardness.

Although israel is a part of the problem there are far bigger real issues. Israel is just a convenient excuse.

According to the 911 Congressional panel investigation Al Qaedas major operations were carried out and September 11 was devised and planned in the mid and late 1990s, the period of the highest peace and optimism in the palestenian and israeli problem...

Its  a FAR bigger problem than israel.