Originally posted by yellowstone: And that's why the Taliban had Stinger missiles and the Iranian Air Force still flies F-14's...
Tradeoffs : how would it be all around the world without the Foreign Military Financing program? The entire program has to be examined, from region to region and nation to nation; decade to decade and year to year. No small task, to comprehensively assess all of the impacts (and blowbacks) and produce a credible Costs vs Benefits analysis. Although I am not sure if that analysis exists or where it resides.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 07-03-2014).]
Hello and welcome to "Hour of the Profit" news magazine
First up: Expectations for a truce between Hamas and Israel
BBC News has reported that the Egyptian government is close to finalizing a truce between Hamas and Israel. Hamas leadership in Gaza will pledge to stop all firing of rockets from Gaza into Israel. In exchange, Israel is expected to announce an end to its current campaign of airstrikes against targets in Gaza. Some are hopeful that if this truce is announced in time, it could help ratchet down tensions in East Jerusalem before the burial of a Palestinian teenager later today, who was the victim of what may have been an act of blind, criminal revenge provoked by the recent abduction and murder of three young Jewish seminary students in the West Bank. Two were Israeli teenagers and one was an American.
Over 100 Muslim clerics across the U.K., both Shia and Sunni, have started an online campaign to dissuade any more British Muslims and Muslim sympathizers from traveling to Syria or Iraq to become participants in the sectarian fighting that has engulfed a broad swath of the Middle East.
British Muslim communities to continue the generous and tireless effort to support all of those affected by the crisis in Syria and unfolding events in Iraq, but to do so from the UK in a safe and responsible way.
The scale of the humanitarian disaster in Syria and the escalating violence in Iraq calls for an unprecedented response. As we near the end of the first week of Ramadan our message is simple, we have come together to urge British Muslim communities not to fall prey to any form of sectarian divisions or social discord.
Here in the UK we are Sunnis and Shias, brothers in Islam – and brothers in Britain too. The conflict in Syria and Iraq can never change that no matter how bitter the fighting. We urge members of the community to echo this sentiment by adding their signature to this letter, joining the many others that have done so already.
It is believed that about 500 "Brits" are now on the ground in Syria and Iraq, having enrolled themselves directly in various factions of the armed conflicts that have taken hold in that region.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is ready to smash a bottle of whisky against the hull of the U.K.'s new 65,000 ton aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. It's the first of two QE (Queen Elizabeth--but you probably already guessed that) class aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. The second will be HMS Prince of Wales. The plan is for these ships to be outfitted with U.S. designed F-35 multirole combat aircraft.
The Queen will perform the naming ceremony at Rosyth with a bottle of whisky rather than champagne.
The monarch will smash a bottle of Islay malt whisky, from Bowmore Distillery, against the ship.
Bowmore was the first distillery the Queen ever visited in an official capacity--which seems to beg the question "Which Queen?" Perhaps we'll have the answer for you when we return for our next broadcast.
And now we end our broadcast from our Canadian studio in our usual way
O Canada! Our home and native land! . . .
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 07-04-2014).]
How many truces have already been set up, and Hamas breaks.....There will never be an end to it till either all the Hamas/Palestinians or Israelis are dead. Im betting on the Israelis winning out.
Like Ive said, the ONLY reason Hamas does a truce is to resupply their weapons.
[This message has been edited by rogergarrison (edited 07-04-2014).]
IMO there's no way any side will win this and none of them are more right or wrong than the other. If both sides are not willing to let bygones be bygones (and I don't see that happening) then this will go on for a long, long time.
[This message has been edited by yellowstone (edited 07-04-2014).]
To that....Ill agree........except the part about Israel equally at fault. Again, they ONLY act in RESPONSE to being attacked, they DONT initiate them.
To that....Ill agree........except the part about Israel equally at fault. Again, they ONLY act in RESPONSE to being attacked, they DONT initiate them.
Depends on how far back you go in the conflict...
quote
In a visit made sometime before the attack, Bernard Montgomery had told the British army commander in Palestine, General Sir Evelyn Barker, to emphasise to the British servicemen that they were "facing a cruel, fanatical and cunning enemy, and there was no way of knowing who was friend and who foe."[28] Since there were female terrorists as well, according to Montgomery, all fraternising with the local population would have to cease.
The Arabs are probably of the opinion that the Jews have no business being there in the first place. Unless you go back even further in history. But does any of that make any sense?
[This message has been edited by yellowstone (edited 07-05-2014).]
Good for the Nation of Israel. More power to them. They know how to deal with terrorists. Unlike a "cool guy" on the other side of the World who thinks that just letting them go will make them think America is cool
I am sure that the "cool guy" did not take his cue from Israel when he released those three high ranking Taliban detainees from Gitmo, but here are some online references about Israel that appear to be very credible :
During the last (few) decades, Israel has released almost seven thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for 16 Israelis and the funerary remains of more (but not many more) than 10 other Israelis.
In 1985, Israel released Kozu Okamato, one of the Japanese Red Army gunmen who attacked a crowded passenger terminal at Israel's Tel Aviv airport in 1972, killing 26 "soft targets" and injuring nearly 80 more. Okamato was released as part of the "Jibril" exchange :
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As part of the agreement, Israel released 1,150 security prisoners held in Israeli prisons in exchange for three Israeli prisoners (Yosef Grof, Nissim Salem, Hezi Shai) captured during the First Lebanon War. This was one of several prisoner exchange agreements carried out between Israel and groups it classified as terrorist organizations around that time. Among the prisoners released by Israel were Kozo Okamoto - one of the perpetrators of the Lod Airport Massacre who had been sentenced to life imprisonment, and Ahmed Yasin—a Gazan Muslim Brotherhood leader (and later spiritual leader of Hamas)—who was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in 1983. . . . A large number of the Palestinian prisoners released in this agreement later went on to form the backbone of the leadership of the First Intifada, which broke out less than three years after the agreement.
[According to Wikipedia, "Jibril agreement".]
In 2008, Israel struck a deal with Hezbollah and released Samir Kuntar and four other prisoners in exchange for the remains of two Israeli soldiers. There were statements attributed to witnesses that Kuntar killed a 4-year old girl by smashing her head with a rock, and he was blamed indirectly for causing the death of another infant from the same family. There's no doubt that Kuntar was trying to take an Israeli father hostage, although some have attributed the immediate and physical cause of the young girl's death to gunfire from an Israeli rescue force.
Upon his release, Kuntar was received with considerable public ceremony in Lebanon, where he was hailed as a hero.
In October 2011, Israel freed 1027 Palestinian prisoners to secure the release of a single Israel soldier who had been held hostage for five years in Gaza.
quote
According to Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet, the West Bank has seen a dramatic rise in the number of kidnapping attempts of Israel Defense Forces since the Shalit deal. There were 24 attempts in 2012, and 33 in 2013.
IMO, the Middle East is a prime example of why religion brings out the worst in people and justifies pretty much any atrocity known to man (and, boy, aren't we creative in that department...).
IMO, the Middle East is a prime example of why SOME religions bring out the worst in people and justifies pretty much any atrocity known to man (and, boy, aren't THE MUSLIMS creative in that department...).
Ya know somethng, world..........find somebody who frackin cares, shut the frack up about holy lands and prophets and gods ...and if no other non-believer is willin to push the button simply to make them SHUT THE **** UP and go away, Then I am willing to push that button..... I dont care, I dont want to hear it and I dont want to be bothered by it, and I am tired of it.......I dont want to hear bout your imaginary friends in the sky from 5,000 years ago, I dont care about some pedophile camel-humpin prophet, I dont care about some rebelios jew dude from the bronze age no matter how many times his storey is told......
Ya know what I care about when it comes to religion......I care that ya shut the frack up and go the frack away---and if ya cant see yer way to do that on your own, then nuclear weapons can do it for you
<edit>
Yes, I am willing to end 5 THOUSAND years of war about beliefs......just gimme the launch codes.
[This message has been edited by MidEngineManiac (edited 07-06-2014).]
IMO, the Middle East is a prime example of why religion brings out the worst in people and justifies pretty much any atrocity known to man (and, boy, aren't we creative in that department...).
It isn't the "religion" that brings out the worst in people. It is other people using religion as their personal cattle prod to entice and coerce small-minded people into doing their bidding. IMO
It isn't the "religion" that brings out the worst in people. It is other people using religion as their personal cattle prod to entice and coerce small-minded people into doing their bidding. IMO
Israel's Prime Minister "B-Net" (Benjamin Netanyahu) has spoken by telephone with the father of the Palestinian teenager who was murdered with extraordinary brutality--or somewhat extraordinary, even for the conflict ravaged Middle East-- in East Jerusalem last week.
Israel is known to have arrested six persons described by CNN as "Jewish Israeli suspects", and some of them have been described in media reports as young enough to be considered "minors".
I don't know whether an Israeli court would have the latitude to prosecute minors as if they were adults.
"Hour of the Profit" news magazine pledges to keep you updated on all further developments.
O Canada! Our home and native land.
[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 07-07-2014).]
Having said that, there's no doubt in my mind that as a whole, the Israeli state today is much more "civilized" and a state of law than the Palestinians and their "state" are. But in a situation of asymmetrical warfare, in which Israel and the Palestinians are engaged, the militarily weaker opponent usually is the one to resort to guerrilla (or call them "terrorist") tactics. The Jews (since there were no Israelis yet) did it against the British and Ottomans/Arabs when they were the underdogs and the Palestinians are doing it against the Israelis now.
That's why I think that there are no "good guys" in this conflict and there will be no end to it in the nearer future.
Ill agree to keep disagreeing. Like you said, Israel, run by their government, is civilized. Hamas are barbarians. There only law is kill everyone but muslims.
