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" Originally Posted by Idaho View Post
Israel is an apartheid state founded on ethnic cleansing."

Israel is the only middle-east country currently considered a democracy in 2008 by the economist:
http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828...dex%202008.pdf

Meh, how can a country that banned prostitution and has huge taxes on beer end up with a full score in civil liberties?

Interesting .
So in the part of list dealing with "flawed democracies" Israel gets the lowest score for civil liberties .
Also interesting to note that the occupied territories fell from the list of "flawed democracies" due to where the losing party sponsored by Israel failed in its attempt at launching a coup to overturn the democratic vote .

Interesting indeed.

The only middle-eastern country to rank as a democracy, flawed or otherwise, and with a score not far off that of a full democracy.

And ranked 38th in the world, even well ahead of places such as turkey (87th), lebanon (89th), and many european countries.

Interesting indeed........................................

Israel may be a modern democracy in the sense that it garantues civil and political rights for its own citizens, yet for the past few decades it has excersised de facto control over territories that don't belong to it and stopped its inhabitants from forming their own state. Being a nominal democracy doesn't mean that everything the political leadership churns out is morally right.

So what kind of democracy restricts religious worship to those over 50s like Israel has done today for Muslims only? Or attempt to prevent demonstrations against their state terror by Palestinians?

In any case, being a democracy doesn't give you a blank check to beat down anyone else, especially since Palestinians democratically elected their government too.

heh, i'm just trying to bring a little reality into Idaho's overblown rhetoric. ;)

Yes a score that is very badly let down by its civil liberties .
Actually that score should be much lower than presented , the question of the judiciary in particular .
There should be a new category of response ....
"Does the judiciary frequently and consistantly deliver verdicts against the government which the government completely ignores because the laws of their own country mean absolutely nothing to them ?"

That should drop their civil liberties score to around that of Sudan .

But the Israelis are surrounded by nations that don't like them, and would be much happy if Israel was destroyed.

I,myself, am rooting for Israel. As much as I hate non-combatans dying in war, War is hell. Get over it people. Plus, These Moslem nations are always causing problems, so I frankly can't be concerned if my Jewish friends wipe them off the map. I be much pleased. Now I know there are some good Muslim people, not all are Radicals, but still. I call it like I see it.

I believe a non-biased, fact based history lesson is required for some of the posters here. Rather, than the flawed perspective that they have had forced upon them by their parents. It's also something both sides in the conflict could use, as having met young people from both Israel and places like Syria, Lebanon and Palestine they have all been force fed ethnic hate and garbage regarding the other side since pretty much the day they entered into the world.

Interesting that you think you can provide a better analysis than the Economist, interesting.........................

Well there is no point measuring the extent that a judiciary is able to give a verdict against the government when the government completely ignores its own laws .
Oh sorry it doesn't completely ignore its own laws , it only does it based on peoples religion .
Hey thats discrimination isn't it , the sort of nasty discrimination other countries have had ...like that apartheid discrimination in South Africa .
Oh dear perhaps you had better go back to trying to balance Idahos rhetoric as you have missed out a hell of a lot of reality with your attempt .

You should run for President of Iran.

That would be fantastic, but getting rid of all the bias would make the backroom a lot less interesting.

Pff, I even pointed out a flaw in their chart before him...

And they've noticeably stopped trying to do a damn thing about it since 1973. The only real exception is Syria (which still has a dispute going on over the Golan Heights), but even that has at most amounted to the occasional brief skirmish (in which the Syrians invariably came off worse) and causing trouble by proxy (reads mainly as Hezbollah).

So yeah.

"I'm no racist, but Goddamn if some ****** sits on the same bench with me," huh ?

Lo, the Well-Informed And Level-Headed Man has spoken.

A small minority of Muslims are radicals and even then radical Muslims are situated in certain country's and then most of the time they aren't a majority.

The media likes to show it otherwise though and so does the US government. The war on terror is nothing more than a sham to extract resources and try and get a sphere of influence in a region which the US has non. If any one tells you otherwise they are wrong. Waging a war on an ideology never works..

The WoT is not a sham (whatever you think of its efficacy) and the USA's primary goal is not to "extract resources." We're simply not that machiavellian nor are we interested enough in "empire." Think us naive and/or stupid for it if you wish, but "making the world a better, safer place" really is the objective.

There are those in the USA who think we should be more aggressive in our own interests, who think that we should simply glaze over the most troublesome spots in the ME and take what we want/need for our own interests, but they are very few and the rest of us treat them as you would your increasingly senile grandfather.


Also, waging a war on an ideology can be very much successful, though I would concur with your implied point that military weapons and violence are not the most successful tools for it. Witness Western Europe's ongoing ideological campaigns to marginalize and discard religion and nationalism -- both showing a goodly degree of success (though the timeframe for this shift has been very long).

The WoT is a sham, its primary purpose is to secure oil for the US & Co. Democracy and the fight against terrorists are in the back seats, one need only look at the current state of Afghanistan and the US's true reasons for invading.

Iraq we all know was a sham.

The supposed "defence" of Israel is also a sham, Israel has created a humanitarian crisis in Gaza of massive proportions, I am pleased to see that the US is isolated in its full fledged support of this absurd nation.
As I have said before, Israel must get smart now or suffer far greater hardships in the future.

Oh and the bumbling giant self-portrait so many Americans like to use is also bollocks, one need only look at the dirty deals you guys had in central Asia to figure that one out, just becuase you are often incompetent at it does not equal bumbling.

Is there even a decent oil supply in Afghanistan?

How do you define radical?
Is genital mutilation radical to you?
Is teaching children to hate the West and America radical? (Evidently not, since we already practically teach our children to here, come to think of it)
Is the oppression of women radical to you?
Is the murder of apostates radical to you?
Is the publicly condoned murder of homosexuals radical to you?
Is violence towards critics of Islam radical to you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then perhaps you may want to change the part about a "small" minority. Yes, I'm sure it is still a minority.

I personally couldn't care less what someone's religion is or isn't. To quote Marvin the Robot, I ask only for information.

*cough* Pipelines. Wasn't some American firm having talks regarding one with the Taliban once before the latter called it quits ?

Er - you do know it's a local folk tradition in certain parts of Africa that has zilch to do with the practicioners' confessional affiliations, right ? The local Christians and whatnots there practice it too AFAIK...

I think talking about the USA is a bit off topic...

This isnt about the WoT...

List of Hamas suicide attacks.

Another reason to not support Hamas.

Click on the link at the bottom of your link and see America and Israels favourite "moderates" list of suicide attacks .
Funny isn't it , Hamas who cannot be supported because they are crazy stopped the suicide attacks in 2005 while Fatah who lost an election but tried to sieze power can be supported and armed even though in 2008 they still did the suicide thing .

EDIT: Removed hotlinked picture. Please note, forum rules forbid the posting of pictures of dead bodies. BG

Need I say more?

How on earth do you want to justify the murder of a child?

Let me get this straight:

Airstrikes OK
Artillery OK
Rockets TERRORIST!
Suicide bombs - eeeeevil!!!



It's as though if you want to indiscriminately kill people there are things one just doesn't do... unsurprisingly the "allowed" methods are high tech and are not available to Hamas. Perhaps if we gave them some howitzers and shells suddenly it'd be a proper fight.

Why is killing a child worse than killing an adult? Most adults just want to live a relatively quiet life, raise kids etc etc. Killing a mother or father will shatter just as many lives.

It seems to me that if you don't want your own women and kids killed then stop firing rockets at Israeli schools and day care centres. Simple really.

But it's not your own is it? It's people nearby, who if they didn't see you fire the rockets won't be ready for the artillery shells coming back.

The people responsible for the strikes on both sides are mostly shielded from the responses.

I agree with that. And the rest of the post but I accidentally deleted that.

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