Originally posted by Eagler
blounder, sorry to hear you side with murderers of women and children whose only crime is riding a bus, shopping or going to a movie
Eager, when you picked Israel and Russia you merely plumped for the sides with the best chances, not the moral high ground.
You asked us to pick sides. It's a facile ploy at best, but I couldn't resist.
You chose Israel (Remember the Irgun atrocities?). Like the Palestinians, they have an ex-terrorist as head of state. Unlike the Palestinians, they have not been compelled by force of arms to live in Refugee Camps for over 30 years.
You chose Russia. A regime that only terrorises other people when it has finished terrorising it's own. The Russian forces in Chechnya have used rape and torture as a weapon for over 50 years (on and off). And they have murdered over a hundred thousand civilians (who only crime was living in Grozny - not even getting on a bus or going to a movie, mind; simply living there was enough) in the last 7-8 years (conservative estimates)
So we both chose bloodthirsty killers of innocents. what does that tell you?
It clearly points to the fact that no nation is clean. To try and compare one to the other is futile, to take sides is to fuel the conflict.
Human history is dark with blood. Shouldn't we be striving for ways of resolving conflict, not escalating it? I'm not saying that people should capitulate to terrorists, quite the opposite; but to take measures calculated to outrage and enrage the enemy is not a good long term plan.
Generations of Israeli jews and arabs have been radicalised by each side being so eager to goad the other into another senseless act of violence.
What gives me the most hope is that this BBS really is such a self selecting slice through society that it really does not represent anything like the wider international view, for if it did I believe we'd all be screwed.