Alternatives to US global policy (continuation of "lying idiots" thread)

[oxbow3]

Hey y'all. I didn't want to jump in and take that thread off tangent so I've started this one to continue what me and manu were discussing last night.

2. The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or by military agents: (a) violence to the life, health, or physical or mental well-being of persons, in particular: (i) murder; (ii) torture of all kinds, whether physical or mental; (iii) corporal punishment; and (iv) mutilation;

There are many things the US is authorized to do that would fall under this, though. Keeping someone under water until they pass out, in other words, making them think they're dying and risking brain damage, is torture in my book. Chaining someone in the fetal position with a hood over their heads, leading to total sensory deprivation and loss of movement for upwards of 48 hours, is torture. Sensory Deprivation studies in the 50's and 60's confirmed that after less than 14 hours extreme mental disturbance and temporary insanity could occur in even less stringent conditions.

A less than wholehearted approach to international standards on the part of the USA is not new.This is a country that has been slow to commit itself to human rights treaties and has attachedunprecedented conditions to some of those it has ratified.(6) Recently, however, this reluctance appears to have come closer to outright rejectionism. The USA's active opposition to the International Criminal Court is a case in point. Its worldwide campaign to have US nationalsexempted from the Court's jurisdiction coincided with the US administration's own plans to try selected foreign nationals by military commissions executive bodies, not independent andimpartial courts. Similarly, the USA's attempt to block the Optional Protocol to the UnitedNations Convention against Torture, which will establish a system of regular visits to places ofdetention, came at a time when the government was denying international human rightsorganizations access to hundreds of detainees held in its “war on terror”.(7)

http://www.fairgofordavid.org/pubdocs/AmnestyReport19August03.pdf

While I know its hard to read such words against one's own country, the charges are valid. In the days after 9/11, hundreds of citizens and legal US residents were held without being charged or even publicly detained by our own gov. This is much like the events that occurred less than 60 years ago, after Pearl Harbor, to Japanese-American citizens in internment camps. Documents like the above by Amnesty International do show that the government officials do play the human rights card as a political tool when it is in the administration's favor, but refuse to abide by it when their interests are not being met by the rules.

This is why US soldiers cannot be charged in international courts at present, as well as why torture occurs at places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Is it naive to expect us to play by the same rules we charge others with breaking?

Being idealistic is not the same thing as being naive. I think I have a fair amount of real world experience. I worked for my own car and insurance, I pay most of my tuition. I grew up in a warzone the first seven years of my life. I still remember sitting in bomb shelters while everyone looked at the ceiling and the ground shook and rumbled. I have travelled around both coasts of our country and to several other places in the world.

I am definitely not anti-American or anti-Bush. I am pro-truth though. Given repeated attempts at deception and half-truth by this administration on multiple fronts, I tend to be somewhat skeptical after a time. The boy can cry wolf only so many times.

I was so proud of my people for the generosity that governments corporations and private citizens alike showed the past few weeks after the tsunami. The President even personally wrote a check for $10,000, an admirable example by our leader. He is not an evil man, but he and his administration have a shameful record on all the important issues. I am proud to be an American, and proud to maintain the heritage of informed skepticism that is essential for a healthy democracy.

Who watches the watchmen? - Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet “Reason in Common Sense,” ch. 12 (1905-6).

I will try to post shortly on the discussion about hypothetical changes to US foreign policy.

 

[Annie]

Oxbow I'm not in complete agreement with you here, one reason:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/063369.php

 

[oxbow3]

we were talking yesterday about the best things that can be done to prevent terrorism. I mentioned unhypocritical foreign policy, including not treating countries according to different rules depending on our political and economic relationships. I believe that the greatest thing of all though is to stop meddling altogether in their politics and policy. We have a history of backing anti-democratic regimes, most notably in the mid-east and central America for economic beneift, as well as the fact that dictators are easier to deal with when we want something. This history includes the CIA backed coup against democratically elected President of Iran in 1953, bioweapons and intelligence given to Iraq, military and financial aid to Israel and most notably, support of the Saudi monarchy despite repeated human rights violations and terrorist support.

While I have little experience in Central/South American studies, a cursory search by google will bring up many sites like this: http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/CrbnCnSthAmrc.html
(I can't attest to its accuracy though, as I am ignorant as to the specifics of S American politics)

There are many reasons for this behavior by our country in the past. In the present conflict though, there is one group of policy makers that stands out as the architects behind our philosophy of foreign relations. The Project for a New American Century is a conservative lobbying group who's stated goal is to use our military dominance to provide a secure base for US power projection around the world. Past and current members of PNAC (founded in 1997) include Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Newt Gingrich as well as less well known people such as.

Paul Wolfowitz (US Deputy Defense Secretary)
Lewis Libby (Cheney's current chief of staff)
Bruce P. Jackson (Former VP of Lockheed Martin, largest defense corp. in the world)
Elliott Abrams (member of National Security Council, President of Ethics in Public policy center. He was convicted of 2 counts of lying to Congress in Iran Contra, but was pardoned by Bush, Sr.)

These people were responsible for the US policy of regime change in Iraq. They lobbied for Congress to approve the Iraqi Liberation Act, which made regime change official public policy in 1998. 9 days after 9/11, they sent an open letter to Pres. Bush, calling for the destruction of not only Al Qaeda, but also to extend war to Iraq, and to take measures against Iran, Syria Lebanon and the PLO because of 9/11. Remember, this was when we had no evidence for any of these others being connected to al Qaeda in any way.

In November 2002, the committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a spinoff of the PNAC sharing many of its same members, began working closely with White House officials. CLI reps made it clear that they wanted to overthrow Saddam no matter what weapons inspectors found in Iraq. Their website said at the time that "the problem in Iraq is not just Saddam Hussein's Weapons, it is Saddam Hussein's regime." While we know how cruel this regime was, everyone also knows now that they were no worse than many of our allies in both terrorist support and human rights violations.

CLI members met with Condi Rice in November to get approval for their goal and then began making media rounds to try and get the public to go along with the case for war. At the same time they began working with the state dept. to coach Iraqi dissidents on what to say to the media, as it was thought that they could better win public support than Americans for war. These people received training on what to say and how to say it, after which they were seen on various talk shows, news programs and newspaper opinion pieces, according to the LA times.

CLI, PNAC and half a dozen other think tanks with similiar goals all worked with Benadar Associates, a powerful media relations company that helped them get maximum exposure from the media. The strategies that they used to get these "experts" to look credible include giving them titles like "senior fellow" or "adjunct scholar" and other academic-sounding names. In contrast, real middle east experts at American Universities were given considerably less attention in the period leading up to war by the media. No doubt, this is because they don't have PR firms working full-time to get them multiple gigs on MSNBC, CNN, Fox News and other channels. This might explain why you hear the experts on the news programs today saying exactly the opposite of what they were saying 2 years ago.

In the next post, I will talk in more detail about one specific document written by members of PNAC in 2000, which gives a pretty good outline of their philosophy for using the US military to secure our economic and political interests throughout the world. This philosophy is the main reason I believe we have had such a rise in Anti-Americanism, in the last few years. After all, any other country that actively wanted to build military bases in other countries and employ troops around the world to "defend the homeland" would get flack, too! It is simply doublespeak at its most harmful.

The document in question: http://newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Read the wikipedia entry and make up your own mind on PNAC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century

This source is biased but the info accurate nevertheless: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html

 

[oxbow3]

Hi again Kathianne. I haven't read the UN reports you mentioned last time yet, but I will when time permits.

Your point seems to be that our enemies do things many times worse than us, no? I agree wholeheartedly. Their actions have no excuse.

However, our gov. says that it abides by international law in the cases I mentioned above. Our enemies don't. Furthermore, we use international law when it suits us, for instance against China for Human rights violations, in order to deny them economic benefits or to veto actions to their interest in the UN. However, we say nothing about much worse human rights violations in Saudi Arabia because they are an economic partner. They use torture and stuff too, but some of the everyday stuff they get away with is pretty bad as well. Did you know that women in Saudi Arabia cant even drive a car, much less work or vote?

We also break the law ourselves by waging pre-emptive war and using torture on people, without proof that there are security reasons for doing so, and say that we aren't. Either we must be on the side of law or against it We cannot use the law as a carrot and a whip to scourge or reward those countries that do what we like. And we cannot use White House lawyers to redefine the meaning of torture in secret so we can get away with more of it without getting flack from others.

Our enemies commit torture, I know. They behead and kidnap and kill civilians without a second thought. They have marked their path on the side against the rule of law. We are the good guys. We must follow the law even when our enemies don't. It sucks, but I believe it ito be the moral position.

Two wrongs don't make a right, and it would be a logical fallacy to say that our actions are justified because theirs are similiar or in this case, many times worse.

http://www.du.edu/~mtursi/logicalfallacies.html

 

[Annie]

Actually Oxbow3, sorry I dropped the 3 before, I think the point is that the liberals are quick to point out US problems, even when the scope and depth aren't there. At least that was the point I thought the link was making.

 

[oxbow3]

That is a relevant point. I'm sorry, perhaps I was just disturbed by the imagery.

I agree, liberals don't often mention the abuses of the enemy first or sometimes ever. I guess its a case of picking the beam out of their own eye first. I don't know why this is. Perhaps they feel that the conservatives do it enough that they don't need to point it out. The news they watch is also different. Fox News often shows graphic footage of abuse by both present day terrorists and Saddam's regime that CNN and the other networks avoid, for instance. CNN for its part seems to focus less on positive news stories from Iraq than negative ones, as was pointed out in another thread. The end result is that the liberals get more liberal and the conservatives more conservative, as they hear what they want to in many ways from their media. (actually, I dont think CNN is all that liberal, just more striving for objectivity and PC-ness. These may be the very characterisitics of liberal media though, I don't know.)

 

[Annie]

Wow, I'm blown away. I thought I had you in a box and you surprise me with cogent thought! Wow again.

If all liberals recognized those problems, i.e. that the left tends to demonize the US, while ignoring the abuses of their 'favored ones' or at least US enemies that have their own problems, I might be converted.

Well probably not, but I would respect them a lot more.

 

[oxbow3]

Not to ruin it for you, but I don't even know if I consider myself a liberal per se. I like small gov., low taxes, and I'm against abortion in most cases, for instance. On the environment and foreign policy, my beliefs do tend to line up with the liberal more. The only gift that I can leave my children is a healthy environment and a stable, peaceful world to live in.

Maybe I'm an independent. I haven't honestly tried to peg myself into a category lately. That's not entirely a bad thing IMO, though.

 

[MissileMan]

we were talking yesterday about the best things that can be done to prevent terrorism. I mentioned unhypocritical foreign policy, including not treating countries according to different rules depending on our political and economic relationships. I believe that the greatest thing of all though is to stop meddling altogether in their politics and policy.

IMHO, the only way to have any chance at all of ending terrorism is to move those nations where it originates towards political and economic equality. If that can be accomplished, the whispers of hate from the radicals will fall on deaf ears. The establishment of democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq are the first steps in the right direction.

 

[Annie]

To Oxbow and others. Seems to me the best thing for the US is to decide where we think terrorism is aided and abbeted. Then make it clear it will not stand.

Second thing is to let our 'allies' know that they are being judged now, not in the past centuries!

 

[oxbow3]

Well, the reason Bin Laden attacked us was because of Palestine and because we had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. The former is a common grievance in the mid-east, and justified in my opinion. The latter is allowed by the Saudi royal family but hated by the entire mid-east. They feel kind of like we would having armed foreign troops in Washington DC, as Saudi Arabia is the homeland of Islam, and its most sacred site. I think just stopping military presence and aid to other countries would solve the problem nicely.

 

[Annie]

Well, the reason Bin Laden attacked us was because of Palestine and because we had troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. The former is a common grievance in the mid-east, and justified in my opinion. The latter is allowed by the Saudi royal family but hated by the entire mid-east. They feel kind of like we would having armed foreign troops in Washington DC, as Saudi Arabia is the homeland of Islam, and its most sacred site. I think just stopping military presence and aid to other countries would solve the problem nicely.

The reason that bin Laden attacked us had to do with is perception of jihad. Nothing more, nothing less. We should be just as clear. Palestinian kerfuffle is a ruse.

 

[oxbow3]

But he (along with the mujahedin) was a strong ally in the war against the Soviets in the Afghan war of the '80's. He only turned against us after we installed troops and bases in Saudi Arabia following the first Gulf War.

I assure you Palestine is not fluff. It is a longstanding sore point in Mid-East-US relations. Jerusalme is the second holiest place in their minds, and it was taken away without justification or recompense. His support for Iraq may likely be fluff, but not Palestine

 

[Annie]

But he was a strong ally in the war against the Soviets in the Afghan war of the '80's. He only turned against us after we installed troops and bases in Saudi Arabia following the first Gulf War.

I assure you Palestine is not fluff. It is a longstanding sore point in Mid-East-US relations. Jerusalme is the second holiest place in their minds, and it was taken away without justification or recompense. His support for Iraq may likely be fluff, but not Palestine

It's not a fluff, but a kerfuffle.

Main Entry: ker·fuf·fle
Pronunciation: k&r-'f&-f&l
Function: noun
Etymology: alteration of carfuffle, from Scots car- (probably from Scottish Gaelic cearr wrong, awkward) + fuffle to become disheveled
chiefly British : DISTURBANCE, FUSS​

By no means insignificant, but not a salient point. There is no Palestine and will be none with the current tactics. Mind you, it could have been, but was rejected.

 

[oxbow3]

An excerpt from The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill:

On the afternoon of January 30, 2001, ten days after his inauguration as the 43rd president, George W Bush met withthe principals of his National Security Council for the first time.

The innermost circle filed into the situation rooms downstairs from the Oval Office at 3:34 pm sharp, some of the surprised to see the President already there, all but checking his watch. Presidents are notorious fro starting meetings like this a little late and letting them run longer than scheduled.

All assumed their seats around the table according to longstanding ritual: at the head, the President; to his left, the Vice President, the Powell, O'Neill, and Condoleezza Rice at the table's fare end; to the President's right, Rumsfeld, CIA director George Tenet, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton. And Card was there, and each principal had brought a top deputy, a backbencher; these assumed seats directly behind their bosses.

Bush offered a few introductory remarks about the "the structure of things in MY NSC.

"Condi will run these meetings. I'll be seeing all of you regularly, but I want you to debate things out here and then Condi will report to me. She's my national security advisor."
The designated topic was "Mideast Policy," but the agendas that had been sent around over the preceding days had offered only think details. O'Neill and the other principals had been briefed by their staffs about the only issue of recent consequence in the region, the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Through the fall and winter of 2000-2001, the Clinton administration had made a final desperate push fro a settlement. Clinton had called together Palestinian leader Yasar Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Earlier they had all but camped at Camp David. Clinton became deeply involved in the process, making it his personal mission. With Barek barely clinging to power and desperate for a settlement, and Clinton anxious, virtually all the Palestinian demands were met; including a separate state with UN defended borders and $32 billion in aid.

But along the way, the Clinton team had isolated Arafat, figuring they could induce cooperation by separating him from more radical factions in the Palestinian camp. That move left Arafat disempowered, unable to represent the fractions array of Palestinian interests. As the agreement was all but inked in December, Arafat pulled away from the table, murmuring about two-thousand-year-old claims to religious rites on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. In retrospect, it was clear to many of those involved that he had been left with insufficient authority to sign any pact.

I don't know if Clinton's team or the Palestinians can be blamed more for this. I'm sure Arafat couldn't get the various members of the PLO to sign off on this deal. Would they have accepted another agreement if it was offerred? We don't know and probably never will, as The Bush admin decided early on let them figure out their own problems, despite warnings by Powell and other experts. I will quote another few pages from this book, as they are relevant to the greater discussion in this thread.

President Bush echoed this view: "We're going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We're going to tilt it back toward Israel. And we're going to be consistent.

"Clinton overreached, and it all fell apart. That's why we're in trouble," Bush said. "If the two sides don't want peace, there's no way we can force them."

Then the President halted. "Anybody here every met [Ariel] Sharon?"

After a moment, Powell sort of raised his hand. Yes, he had.

"I'm not going to go by past reputations when it comes to Sharon," Bush said. "I'm going to take him at face value. We'll work on a relationship based on how things go."

He'd met Sharon briefly, Bush said, when they had flown over Israel in a helicopter on a visit in December 1998. "Just saw him that one time. We flew over the Palestinian camps," Bush said sourly. "Looked real bad down there. I don't see much we can do over there at this point. I think it's time to pull out of that situation."

And that was it, according to O''Neill and several other people in the room. The Arab-Israili conflict was a mess, and the United States would disengage. The combatants would have to work it out on their own.

Powell said such a move might be hasty. He remarked on the violence on the West Bank and Gaza and on its roots. He stressed that a pullback by the United States would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army. "The consequences of that could be dire," he said, "especially for the Palestinians."

Bush shrugged. "Maybe that's the best way to get things back in balance."

Powell seemed startled.

"Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things," Bush said.

He turned to Rice. "So, Condi, what are we going to talk about today? What's on the agenda?
"How Iraq is destabilizing the region, My President," Rice said, in what several observers understood was a scripted exchange. She noted that Iraq might be the key to reshaping the entire region.

Rice said that CIA director Tenet would offer a briefing on the latest intelligence on Iraq. Tenet pulled out a long scroll, the size of an architectural blueprint, and flattened it on the table.

It was a grainy photograph of a factory. Tenet said that surveillance planes had just taken this photo. The CIA believed the building might be "a plant that produces either chemical or biological materials for weapons manufacture."

Soon, everyone was leaning over the photo. Tenet had a pointer. "Here are the railroad tracks coming in..... here are the trucks lined up over here..... They’re bringing it in here and bringing it out there.... This is the water cooler."

Cheney motioned to the deputies, the backbenchers, lining the wall. "Come on up," he said with uncharacteristic excitement, waving his arm. "You have to take a look at this."

And the crowded around as well. Now, well over a dozen people, including the President, gazed intently at the tablecloth-size photograph.

After a moment, O'Neill interjected, "I've seen a lot of factories around the world that look a lot like this one. What makes us suspect that this one is producing chemical or biological agents for weapons?"

Tenet mentioned a few items of circumstantial evidence -- such as the round-the clock rhythm of shipments in and out of the plant--but said there was "no confirming intelligence" as to the materials being produced.

Then the CIA Director rolled out more scrolls. One was an airstrip with an Iraqi plane that US jets had destroyed. Another detailed the routes of US surveillance planes. A third showed the dense antiaircraft fortifications Saddam Hussein had set up around Baghdad that stretched in a kin of funnel toward the south, where a no-fly zone was being enforced.

There had been a recent incident in which a US surveillance plane was nearly shot down, and General Shelton said that US reliance on aerial intelligence presented an acute risk that one of our planes might be hit and a pilot killed or captured.

O'Neill inquired about our ability to blast their antiaircraft batteries -- "for every missile they fire we respond by destroying ten of their batteries" -- and the talk turned technical. Rumsfeld chimed in about missile guidance systems. Tenet interjected that intelligence remained so poor that, in terms of targeting military installations or weapons factories, "we'd be going in there blind."

The President said little. He just nodded, with the same flat, unquestioning demeanor that O'Neill was familiar with. But a new direction having been set from the top, this policy change now guided the proceedings. The opening premise, that Saddam's regime was destabilizing the region, and the vivid possibility that he owned weapons of mass destruction -- a grainy picture, perhaps misleading, but visceral -- pushed analysis toward logistics: the need for better intelligence, for ways to tighten the net around the regime, for use of the US military to support Iraqi insurgents in a coup.

A major shift in US policy was under way. After more than thirty years of intense engagement -- from Kissinger and Nixon to Clinton's last stand -- America was washing its hands of the conflict in Israel. Now, we'd focus on Iraq.

Powell said the sanctions needed to shift "from a list of what is allowed to a list of what if prohibited," to become, instead on a broad sanctions regime, an arms control regime. "We need to strictly control the import of materials that might be used for weapons construction and allow the import of goods that are not, now, getting through," the Secretary of State said. Saddam was manipulating the current situation. Needed medicines and other essentials were not reaching the Iraqi people, even though Saddam Hussein had nearly $3 billion in his oil-for-food accounts at the United Nations that he'd left unspent. Powell pointed out that the sanctions weren't shrewdly targeted, creating mishaps like a power plant failing because in couldn't get repair parts and Iraqis dying at a hospital that lost electricity. "This is not endearing us to the Iraqi people, whose support we're hoping to elicit -- if I understand our position correctly -- to help overthrow his regime."

"That's a problem. The people need to be with us," Bush said.

Tenet mentioned that the CIA had received intelligence assessments that Saddam was paying rewards to the families of some suicide bombers on the West Bank and Gaza. He was also selling under priced oil to Jordan and Syria, creating a web of interdependency and support among neighboring countries.

"We need to know more about this," Bush said, "and also his destructive weapons."

Over the next minutes, speculative, nonspecific talk volleyed across the table about how to remedy inadequate intelligence, discover the nature of Saddam's weapons program, and bob selected Iraq targets.

Those present who had attended NSC meetings of the previous administration -- and there were several -- noticed a material shift. "In the Clinton administration, there was an enormous reluctance to use American forces on the ground; it was almost a prohibition," one of them recalled. "That prohibition was clearly gone, and that opened options, options that hadn't been opened before."

The hour almost up, Bush had assignments for everyone. Powell and his team would look to draw up a new sanctions regime. Rumsfeld and Shelton, he said, "should examine our military options." That included rebuilding the military coalition from the 1991 Gulf War, examining "how it might look" to use US ground forces in the north and the south of Iraq and how the armed forces could support groups inside the country who could help challenge Saddam Hussein. Tenet would report on improving our current intelligence. O'Neill would investigate how to financially squeeze the regime.

Meeting adjourned. Ten days in, and it was about Iraq

Ibid., pages 70-75



This book is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's account of the inner workings of the George W. Bush administration. It's based on multiple interviews with Paul O'Neill, Bush's Treasury Secretary from 2001-2003, and the only member of his inner circle to speak openly about how business is done by the administration behind closed doors. He worked in the Nixon administration with Cheney and Rumsfeld and is close friends with Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in short a long-time public servant with a well-earned reputation for impartiality.

It is also interesting that neither Cheney nor Rumsfeld said hardly anything during this whole meeting, as they were the most vocal supporters of regime change in Iraq. It is clear in retrospect that they and the PNAC (I spoke about them 2 posts above) were the real architects behind the invasion, and had it planned well before 9/11 and the fight against terror were even possibilites in anyone's mind.

 

[freeandfun1]

Jerusalme is the second holiest place in their minds, and it was taken away without justification or recompense. His support for Iraq may likely be fluff, but not Palestine

It is the 3RD in Islam and the only ONE in Judaism.....

 

[oxbow3]

What's the second?

This point was actually secondary (no pun intended) to my argument: that the land was taken by force and without recompense from the people of Palestine, and used to form the nation of Israel after WWII. Palestinians are not ones to go gently into the night after this. They are tribal and very rooted to their ancestral homeland. They will continue fighting no matter what the odds to correct what they see as a major grievance. The rest of the Arab world will support them because of ancient prejudices.

IMO, if the admin truly wanted to stabilize the region, they would have resumed discussions with these parties rather than invade Iraq. This is a much more pressing concern to all sides. The formation of a Palestinian state would have done much to quell both anti-semitism and anti-americanism in the area, because of the intimate part the US has played in negotiations.

For my comments on why the Clinton admin.'s deal was rejected by Arafat in 2000, see the previous post.

 

[freeandfun1]

What's the second?

This point was actually secondary (no pun intended) to my argument: that the land was taken by force and without recompense from the people of Palestine, and used to form the nation of Israel after WWII. Palestinians are not ones to go gently into the night after this. They are tribal and very rooted to their ancestral homeland. They will continue fighting no matter what the odds to correct what they see as a major grievance.

IMO, if the admin truly wanted to stabilize the region, they would have resumed discussions with these parties rather than invade Iraq. This is a much more pressing concern to all sides.

For my comments on why the Clinton admin.'s deal was rejected by Arafat in 2000, see the previous post.

There were as many jews living in Palestine as their were arabs at the end of wwII. Palestine never was a state, it was just an area. Most of today's "Palestinians" lived in the area that today is called Jordan and Syria. You cannot actually believe that the "palestinians" were in the areas before the jews....

 

[oxbow3]

There were as many jews living in Palestine as their were arabs at the end of wwII. Palestine never was a state, it was just an area.

I think the correct term is occupied territory, just like many other modern nations were at the time.

Israel is almost unique among modern nation-states not only in its Jewish religious/cultural character but in the fact that it was brought into being through a combination of United Nations action and British acquiescence. On May 14, 1948, the British Mandate in Palestine, under which the territory had been ruled since the end of World War I, came to an end. In accordance with a special report from the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine, approved by the General Assembly Nov. 29, 1947, the area was partitioned into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab.

Eleven minutes after the British Mandate officially ended, President Truman announced that the United States recognized the new State of Israel. The Soviet Union quickly followed.

All the Arab states that were then U.N. members had voted against the resolution (along with Cuba, Greece, India and Pakistan). While Jews in Palestine had rejoiced when the U.N. resolution passed, Palestinian Arabs took up arms. The last six months of British rule were precarious and violent, marked by attacks and counter-attacks in which dozens of Jews and Arabs were killed. Jews were also attacked in other Muslim countries, notably in Aden, Tripolitania, Syria and Egypt, with the total death toll in the hundreds. On Dec. 30, 1947, Arabs attacked an oil refinery at Haifa, killing 41 Jewish workers.

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b061402.html

Most of today's "Palestinians" lived in the area that today is called Jordan and Syria. You cannot actually believe that the "palestinians" were in the areas before the jews....

Perhaps before, certainly at the same time.

During and immediately after the war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled the battlefield or were encouraged by Israel – sometimes forcibly and brutally – to leave their homes. Several thousand Arab homes in Jerusalem were taken over by Jews, some of whom had just fled Muslim lands.

About a half-million Arab refugees were placed in camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. These refugees, never fully assimilated into the Arab x countries surrounding Israel but kept in wretched refugee camps for years, became the foundation of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the later movement for a separate Palestinian state. Some 160,000 Arabs remained inside Israel or returned shortly after the war ended. They became Israeli citizens and multiplied; Arabs now constitute about 20 percent of the Israeli population.

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b061402.html

The fighters see the forcible ejection from their homes as grounds for resistance. They were left to wander in the deserts or live in camps as stateless refugees. Would you accept this fate were you in their situation?

 

[Hobbit]

I think the correct term is occupied territory, just like many other modern nations were at the time.

No, the last time "Palestine" was a nation, it was called Philistia, was limited to the Gaza strip, and was conquored before even the Romans came through. Before modern Israel and after the fall of Rome, what people want to call "Palestine" belonged to Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. The only other time that area was a seperate nation was when it was Canaan, and that was about 4 millenia ago. Plus, the Canaanites are extinct and therefore can't claim the land.

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b061402.html

If it's called "antiwar.com," chances are it's more than a little biased. Find a more credible source and I might listen.

Perhaps before, certainly at the same time.

Wrong again. Jews were the majority in that region from the fall of Canaan until the Muslim invasions that spurned the Crusades and still remained a large portion of the population until the formation of Israel.

http://www.antiwar.com/bock/b061402.html

See above.

The fighters see the forcible ejection from their homes as grounds for resistance. They were left to wander in the deserts or live in camps as stateless refugees. Would you accept this fate were you in their situation?

They were not forced from their homes. Arabs are free to live in Israel, and though they are not treated as well as Jews, they are still being treated better than Arabs living in Arab countries. At least they were until they started blowing up Jewish school busses.