AND PLEASE WHEN RESPONDING, RESPOND TO THE WHOLE ARTICLE THAT I WROTE DOWN, DON"T TAKE SNIPPETS OF IT OR WHATEVER IS CONVENIENT FOR YOU TO RESPOND AT>>>>>>THANK YOU, AND PLEASE DON"T ANSWER QUESTIONS WITH OTHER QUESTIONS OF YOURS> AND THIS GOES TO NIKKI READ THE WHOLE THREAD NEXT TIME INSTEAD OF RESPONDING TO THE LASE POSTS AND USING OTHER USERS REMARKS I"M REFERING TO WHATEVER YOU REPEATED AFTER FAMINE USING HIS REMARKS
Why do you think it took me so long to respond? It takes time to read through a lot of pages, and that was an awful lot of words in the past few pages.
And, to echo Famine (despite what you may think, I don't always agree with the purple fellow), my name is spelt in my sig. That's CTRL-C, CTRL-V. Copy. Paste.
And to echo something you've said, look at the bigger picture.
Many countries are founded on the subjugation of previous peoples or natives of that region, if you look back far enough. And if you look back even further, those natives usually took the land from someone else.
http://mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm (the best I could find on short notice... at least it isn't inherently pro- or anti- Israeli)
The UN is actually at fault here, for creating and separating the Palestinian state without due consideration of the possibilty of strife between Jews and Arabs. It's not as if the Jews came in bearing arms and butchered the natives to claim the land...
...it was hard-won by the British and French from the Ottoman Empire, who had supported the Germans in the great war.
Actually, if we want to go into specifics, the Brits created the mess by promising Palestine to the Arabs for revolting against the Turks and then giving it to the Jews.
The problem with Israel is that a lot of power-brokers in the region have their eye on the land, for religious and ideological reasons. And a lot of wars were started over Israel, but
not necessarily all by the Israelis.
Poor Arabs... we take their oil and don't give them any money. Oh, the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Egyptians don't count. Rich Arabs are the exception to the rule.
. Poverty in the region is mainly a function of lack of resources and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a very select few. Many of the governments are carried over from monarchial rule and/or have been created by revolt or the usurpation of power by warlords. A lot of the fault for that is internal, but a lot, admittedly, has been due to external interference.
But simply, this.
Governments formed from armed revolt or strife tend to be dictatorial, unfair to their constituents, and unstable. There are a lot of them there. And the poverty and strife generated by armed conflict and power-mongering amongst the various states in the Middle East (including manipulation by the US and the USSR) has created a veritable breeding ground for terrorists. While the roots of Al-Quaeda may be founded in a small band of freedom fighters (trained by the CIA, no less), once the war with the Russian occupation forces was over, they had no one left to fight, and no cause to fight for. They turned to
extremism, looking outside of Afghanistan, pursuing a "holy crusade" against everyone else.
And
"Freedom Fighters" is such a misused term. Ever see one up close? I have. They're mostly armed bandits or guerilla groups, whose
sole aim is to
claim power from the current government. While some may actually be sincere in their want for change, a majority of these consist of aspiring warlords, who are often as bad or worse than the ones they overthrow. The "freedom fighting" rhetoric is their means of gaining eager young recruits to send out to kill people with. I've known some of these people, sadly, and it's a crying shame to see them throw their lives away over causes they don't completely understand.
Look at examples from history: the Latin states, Africa, the Middle East...
here, Southeast Asia, in
my country.
If you think that these people actually
care about the
people they're supposedly trying to "free", get a clue. Ever hear of "Revolutionary Taxes"? Ever see them slit the throat of a government "conspirator" or kill anyone who gets in their way? Their arrogance and swagger, the way they feel they can get away with anything. These people are petty warlords... no more, no less.
And Israel agreeing to the ceasefire because of humiliation? Don't you think that
both Israel and Lebanon agreed to the ceasefire to end the senseless killing and fighting? True, their is immense pressure on Israel to agree to the ceasefire, but at least they're actually listening. The Hez'bollah are the only ones who don't want peace, and they're the ones
who started the fighting in the first place.
Freedom fighters - the term applies (if it
ever applies) to people fighting foreign invaders on their land. Not to those who are in the business of lobbing rockets at civilians
on the other side of the fence.
As much as I hate the ultra-right hawks in power in Israel, there is absolutely no way I can agree with anything you've posted so far.
Except maybe that I've known a lot of decent Muslims. And terrorists don't qualify as decent.
