We Near the Edge of the Precipice

[Eagler]

Originally posted by Hangtime:
Oh, bite me eagler. I been smokin that stuff fer 40 years, it don't make you a diddlyin pacificst. It does make the Chili taste better tho.

 

[Ripsnort]

LOL Hang!

[mrfish]

yeah seriously it doesnt make anybody anything - they are that way to begin with, that's berekeley...there's a whole set of people whose entire identity rests on protests....if it wasn't this it'd be something else. people do strage things to find an identity.

but keeping it in perspective, even the mayor berkeley spoke out against it calling the language 'inflamatory'. a quick drive through berkeley shows a lot of patriotism there's just a loud few who need attention.

the bay area was never this behind the gulf war - there are flags all over the place. i suspect that will wane a bit as the body count starts though.

ps - you could choose to start the latest israeli incident at the point where the palestinians killed the tourism minister (as is acceptable and appropriate protocol)or you could start that bit at the point where with no evidence presented the israelis condemned and carbombed Iyad al Akhras and snipered Abed Rahman Hamad to death earlier in the week. why does the us have to justify its acts and israel can just call someone a terrorist and go on a rampage?

there was only a snippet about them in the news and yet predictably today a big sad story about the tourism minister. yassar arafat ordered the arrest of the suspected killers of the israeli minister and in recent weeks has ordered the palestinian police to fire on antiamerican protestors to show he means business - so what did the israelis do about the murdered palestinians? - no comment is all they have to say. peace will never happen with a one-sided effort.

there ya go flame away... or better yet i'll flame myself for you:

....our ally our friend, rights due to holocost...you terrible nazi....seinfeld is a great show...poor helpless victim blah blah blah dirty ragheads arabs dont deserve freedom anyway 711 slurpy ...kill the sumsqueakes..blah blah blah... my truck will kill them and my wrap around blueblockers and sleeveless rebel flag teeshirt will kill them...

yeah i know heard it all

[Dowding]

MrFish. I liked that last part, especially.  

[MrBill]

Ok all, Lets learn to pronounce Berserkly correctly.  

[Hangtime]

thats with a 'z' mrbill.  

[Wobble]

this thread makes me want to watch that movie PCU.

[Dinger]

<S> easymo, you can hate me for it, but I agree with you on this one -- these guys spent a hell of a lot of time trying to find the best hole to exploit, and they did it.  The Anthrax scare is so many orders of magnitude less that I doubt it's the same organization.
As for the folks from Berkeley, while I don't think it necessarily a bad thing to question US military policy (rather, the best military policy is one we question every step of the way), the fact is undeniable: the guys marching in the streets are less a representation of popular opinion than the media's creation of an opposition.  You guys gotta understand, every military action since Vietnam, the press is out on the college campuses (combination of idealism and free time = troube) looking for this generation's peaceniks.  Just as sure as you're seeing them on TV, their message is being marginalized (TV Intro "Just like in Vietnam, those wacky college kids...").  So in short, their message isn't dividing this nation, but quite the opposite: it's validating this as a military action worthy of protest by those wacky college kids.

At this point, I will hold hands with the left and right wing of the congregation and say, "it's one messed up world we're living in".  The military might have figured out how to get past training for the last war, but the media hasn't.

[mrfish]

berkeley is kind of a trash-pit these days except for the college which is full of chinese and yuppies, berkeley is more like oakland than ever.

i drove a friend over to telegraph ave to get a new bong and as we walked out of the store a gang of black kids was arguing with a street merchant who had chased em down for stealing - one of the kids literally ripped a young sapling tree out of the ground and threw the whole damned thing at the poor guy! it was surreal - i had never seen anyone use a tree as a weapon before so i walked back in the head shop for a few...

people's park used to be a place where hippies could hang out and camp - they put up a big stink when ucb tried to put volleyball courts there - today the whole town is littered with homeless junkies and gangsters.

i'll stay on this side of the bay thank you. our flags are flying high in san francisco - unfortunately some are rainbows  

[easymo]

"(rather, the best military policy is one we question every step of the way)"

  I doubt that.  Civilians haven't got a clue what warfare is about.  And they don't have the stomach for it, if they did have.  The military is a world unto itself.  It has its own laws. Its own traditions, totally aprat from the civilian world they protect. A sense of honor that is baffling to the average citizen. And what most civilians would consider a bizarre sense of right and wrong. For example. Any sergeant worth his salt.  Would wipe out a thousand enemy troops, from ambush, just to save ONE of his men.  The bleeding heart liberals turn purple just thinking about that.

  So i say leave the damn wars to the solders.  If we just stay out of their business.  They will risk anything to protect us. And the U.S. Armed Forces are the best there is.  All we have to do is meet them with open arms when they return.  Help them heal there broken bodies, and more importantly the scars that wars will inflict on there minds.  They did it for US.

[Dinger]

Sure, but we're the ones who send them to fight wars in the first place.  The military is a political tool, and one that can do this country great good. But it needs to be used correctly.  And unfortunately for some, decisions such as when to start a war, and when to end it are political ones.  You don't win a war by starting a bigger one.
As far as how we in the US should treat returning soldiers, as much as I often doubt it, this is a democratic republic with, in theory, the people running the country, and thus the military; and a poor workman blames his tools.

[ 10-19-2001: Message edited by: Dinger ]

[Eagler]

One week ... one thing about Israel, they don't bluff. And all they have to say is that they are just following our example:
“would be treated in the way in which the US treats the Taleban”.


FRIDAY OCTOBER 19 2001
 
Israel says Arafat era is over
 
FROM CHRISTOPHER WALKER IN JERUSALEM
 
PLO fears leader is target of assassination plot

Sharon warning of war within a week
 
 
THE Middle East moved closer to a new war yesterday as Ariel Sharon declared the Arafat era over and moved tanks into three West Bank towns.
Israel also killed a leading Palestinian militant, and the PLO claimed to have evidence that the Jewish state was plotting to assassinate its leader, Yassir Arafat.

The rapid collapse of the peace process followed the murder of Rehavam Zeevi, the Israeli Tourism Minister, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Wednesday. Mr Sharon said: “Arafat has seven days to impose absolute quiet in the (occupied) territories. If not, we will go to war against him. As far as I am concerned, the era of Arafat is over.”

The Palestinians suspect that Israel has decided on its response to the killing of Mr Zeevi. Nabil Abu Rdainah, an Arafat aide, said that the Palestinian Authority had evidence that Israel was planning to assassinate Mr Arafat.

Israel’s Security Cabinet is understood to have sent a blunt message to Mr Arafat that unless Israel’s conditions for the extradition of the killers and the outlawing of all Palestinian terror organisations were adhered to within one week he “would be treated in the way in which the US treats the Taleban”.

Although there was some confusion about the precise timing of the new Israeli deadline for the surrender of the PFLP killers — whose identity ministers claimed to know — officials said that it would run out at the end of the seven-day mourning period for Mr Zeevi.

In a reflection of the mood across much of Israel as Mr Zeevi, a former army general, was buried with full military honours in Jerusalem, his family and other mourners called for retaliation on a massive scale to avenge his murder.

The latest Israeli “targeted killing” near the West Bank town of Bethlehem was that of Ataf Abayat, a member of the Tanzim militia of Mr Arafat’s Fatah faction. He died instantly in a car bomb explosion. He was high on Israel’s wanted list and blamed for the recent death of a woman settler.

At least three other Palestinians were killed in clashes across the West Bank, as Israeli tanks entered the Palestinian towns of Jenin, Nablus and Ramallah. A 10-year-old schoolgirl was killed in Jenin and two Palestinian security men using automatic rifles to try to prevent tanks advancing into Ramallah also died. The Palestinians said that four other schoolgirls and three adults were wounded in Jenin.

The killing of Mr Abayat, and two other Palestinian militants who were with him, led to reprisals by Palestinian gunmen, who fired on the Jerusalem suburb of Gilo, which Palestinians regard as an illegal Jewish settlement. A mortar bomb was fired late in the evening but there were no reports of injuries.

In another incident an Israeli man was shot and killed and two of his companions were wounded in a drive-by shooting on the road between Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Jericho.

Israeli sources refused to comment on the killing of Mr Abayat, who had recently been picked up by the Palestinian police and released soon after. He was on a wanted list Israel had given to Mr Arafat.

The Palestinian Authority said that it had arrested 11 PFLP members, although it was not clear if they included the suspected assassins. Ziad Abu Zayad, a Palestinian Cabinet minister, said: “If indeed the people behind Zeevi’s murder are inside Palestinian Authority territory, Arafat needs to arrest them and bring them to trial, but not to extradite them to Israel.”

Sending tanks into the Palestinian towns, the Israeli Cabinet said that it reserved the right to enter Palestinian-ruled territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip whenever “there is an operational need to act against terror”.

Even moderate Israelis appeared ready for a new cycle of violence. Yossi Sarid, leader of the main left-wing Meretz party, said that the country was heading inexorably towards a repeat of the Lebanon invasion of 1982, which followed the attempted assassination of its London ambassador, except this time against the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In advance of the harsher action against Mr Arafat, Mr Sharon nominated four senior ministers to fly to the US to convince the Government and people there that the Palestinian leader was not cracking down on terrorism.