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US military aid to Israel in 2010: $2.8 billion US military aid to Saudi Arabia in 2010: $7000 Clearly comparable levels of support here. Not that I think Saudi Arabia (and indeed our politicians that get cozy with them) aren't worthy of criticism but acting like Israel is singled out for no reason is absurd. The Insect Court posted:Yes, that's definitely what matters. Israel, you insist you're a modern nation yet continue to occupy the Palestinian Territories, you monstrous Nazi-esque apartheid regime you. Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 08:51
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The total lack of self-awareness and reflection that people display on this forum when talking about Israel, and Jews in general, astounds me. I've had people say to me when they find out I'm Jewish, "Oh, as long as you don't support Israel though" or even "As long as you're not orthodox though" and it just boggles my mind. They would never say to a Muslim goon, "Well as long as you don't support the monarchalist system of Saudi Arabia by visiting Mecca!" or "As long as you don't wear the hijab, I'm okay with you" and I know that they're probably patting themselves on the back behind the keyboard for sticking it to the big bad Israel, when in fact they're sticking it to a left-leaning religious minority in Australia who's never been to Israel and doesn't support their current actions at all... but it's okay because I'm just part of the big faceless mass of Jews. I say "on this forum" because the rest of the internet doesn't even try to pretend that it doesn't hate Jewish people, but SA posters like to think they're more politically progressive than that. It would never even occur to them that automatically conflating my religion and identity with the murder of Palestinians because I'm a Jew, and Judaism is Israel and Israel is Bad, is exactly the sort of generalisation and bigotry that they denounce when it's pointed at other religions.
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Mar 5, 2015 08:53
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What I'm saying is there are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise Israel, but there are also a lot of people who only bother to do it because it gives them free rein to express, publically and without hope of retaliation, that deep down inside they really loving hate Jews. They're not allowed to just say that we're all greedy devious back-stabbing money-grubbing inhuman lizard people, but now look how Israel is behaving! It's proving the stereotypes! It's not racism if it's true!
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Mar 5, 2015 08:56
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The Unholy Ghost posted:Hi, I'm a dumbass who is new to all of this politics stuff. I haven't seen anyone stating that they prefer Iran to Israel, except for the kneejerk bandwagon idiots who continuously post about how Israel is the most evil nation that exists, has ever existed, and will ever exist, and don't let facts get in the way of their wild hyperbole (and frankly, those people annoy me almost as much as the shills do; spouting out poorly-researched opinionated hyperbolic crap doesn't become okay just because you're agreeing with the majority opinion). Plenty of reasonable people, however, have suggested that they prefer a friendly Iran policy to Netanyahu's aggressive Iran policy. Iran is a socially conservative country with ambitions of being a regional power and exerting strong influence on their neighbors, and their government and laws are heavily religiously-influenced. Those are all things that Iran is. All of these criticisms also apply to Israel to some extent, although Iran is worse on every count. They also apply to Saudi Arabia, which the US strongly supports despite the fact that it's worse than Iran on pretty much all of those counts. Those things are bad, yes. However, they're also largely irrelevant to the Israel thread, and if the best Israel can aspire to is being better than Iran and Saudi Arabia in the human rights department, then they're not exactly aiming for the stars. Incidentally, the human rights record of ISIS is also irrelevant here, for the same reasons. There's another thread for talking about that, and if you want to argue that Israel is better on human rights than loving ISIS is, sure, whatever, but you're placing that bar so low you might accidentally stub your toe on it. Things that Iran is not include: an unstoppable heartless evil hell-bent on the destruction of Israel, America, or all of Western civilization. Sure, Iran has a poor relationship with the West, but that's not just because of some irrational mindless hatred of civilization - for Iran (and much of the Middle East, in fact), the entire 20th century pretty much boiled down to constantly getting poo poo on by the West. Iran is well within their rights to develop nuclear technology, and despite the rhetoric, it's a very good bet that Iran isn't going to invade Israel, launch any genocides, or carry out any aggressive nuclear first-strikes.
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Mar 5, 2015 09:00
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I'd also argue that honest negotiations are more likely to prevent nuclear proliferation than macho posturing.
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Mar 5, 2015 09:01
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Let's be perfectly clear here - I really really hate Bibi.
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Mar 5, 2015 09:03
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The Insect Court posted:
At least AvShalom is a funny Australian troll. vvv No anti-seemoits 'ere, mate OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 09:16
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OwlBot 2000 posted:At least AvShalom is a funny Australian troll. 
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Mar 5, 2015 09:19
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My favourite part about SA is that I can make a post that's like "As a human being who is Jewish, it saddens and alienates me to see blatant anti-Semitism" and everybody's like "haha what a funny troll, jews don't have feelings"
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Mar 5, 2015 09:24
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ChairMaster posted:Iran's just the coolest muslim nation out of all of them, sure they suck compared to like Canada or something but compared to Saudi Arabia or the hosed-to-death-hole-in-the-ground-formerly-known-as-Syria/Iraq or Egypt, they look pretty great. Tunisia and Lebanon are both way cooler, even if the latter has a Hezbollah problem (not cool, Iran). Turkey has a kinda crazy Islamic-nationalist government at the moment and a history of being lovely to the Kurds, but it still compares very well to most the region in terms of democracy, secularism, and civil rights (beats Iran, certainly). Morrocco and Jordan are both monarchies and somewhat repressive, but no moreso than Iran or many of the other "republics" in the region. Getting outside of the Middle East/North Africa, Albania has come a long way since the end of the dictatorship. In Southeast Asia, Indonesia is still rather unstable and has a nasty fascist streak to its politics that's lingered since the end of its dictatorship, but Malaysia seems pretty nice. The Unholy Ghost posted:Hi, I'm a dumbass who is new to all of this politics stuff. Whether Iran is better or worse than Israel is almost irrelevant, but for the record I'd say both governments are both pretty terrible but in different ways (though there are some things -- like theocratic dickery, dehumanization of dissidents, and disregard for their Arab neighbors' sovereignty -- that they have in common). See, most of us sticking up for Iran don't really like the guys running the Islamic Republic (it's hard to have fondness for people who call you "Satan" and chant for your death), we just want all this pointless animosity over with. As long as the West is denouncing and sanctioning and endlessly rattling sabers at the Iranian regime (to say nothing of the US cyber attacks, Israeli assassinations of nuclear scientists, and various other hostile covert actions), it will continue to fuel their belligerence and give the regime an outward opponent to direct popular resentment at. US led "containment" efforts failed dismally when directed against Cuba, the USSR, North Korea and "Red China," if anything they seem to have legitimized those regimes, there's no reason to think they'll work any better against Iran. Going to war with a country twice the size of Iraq is an even less appealing prospect. So if we really don't want them getting nukes (we don't) and we really do want them to stop supporting Shia militias/terrorists (we do) that just leaves diplomacy. It's just like having a lovely coworker, you can try to get them fired or making them miserable enough to quit, but it rarely works and usually makes you look like the rear end in a top hat. You're better off just finding a way to work with them, even if they're jerks who leave their messes for other people to clean up and talk poo poo about you when the boss isn't looking.
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Mar 5, 2015 09:32
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The Insect Court posted:Yes, that's definitely what matters. Israel, you insist you're a modern nation yet continue to occupy the Palestinian Territories, you monstrous Nazi-esque apartheid regime you. Yes, I remember when we didn't bomb the poo poo out of ISIS and support the Iraqi military efforts against them too...
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Mar 5, 2015 10:15
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That is one of the worst straw men I have seen in a strong field of terrible straw men on SA.
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Mar 5, 2015 10:21
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The Insect Court posted:Yes, that's definitely what matters. Israel, you insist you're a modern nation yet continue to occupy the Palestinian Territories, you monstrous Nazi-esque apartheid regime you. ISIS is beyond awful. Israel is like normal levels of awful, say mid-19th century America or colonialist powers awful. One of those is vilified by literally everyone, and the other is held up as a shining example of liberal democracy by the nation which claims to be the world's leading liberal democracy. Being a conservative, I suppose the latter are beyond criticism for you?
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Mar 5, 2015 10:32
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What was the consensus in this thread the last time I said "Assad is worse than Bibi", I mean right now you're all taking this one position but if I recall correctly there was a lot of nonsense about how it doesn't matter that Assad killed in 5 years more than 10 times as many people as Israel has killed since its inception, it's not about who you criticize or not, it's about whether you think that the only way to restore balance to the force is to destroy Israel and kill a lot of murderous
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Mar 5, 2015 10:52
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emanresu tnuocca posted:What was the consensus in this thread the last time I said "Assad is worse than Bibi", I mean right now you're all taking this one position but if I recall correctly there was a lot of nonsense about how it doesn't matter that Assad killed in 5 years more than 10 times as many people as Israel has killed since its inception, it's not about who you criticize or not, it's about whether you think that the only way to restore balance to the force is to destroy Israel and kill a lot of murderous
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Mar 5, 2015 10:58
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Avshalom posted:Selective memories. They could never have said anything anti-Semitic, they're not anti-Semites, they're just righteous humanitarians who are always ideologically pure and correct and they hate the rotten Jew Kingdom and all its inhabitants and supporters (who happen to be Jews). Whining about anti-semitism is basically how everyone tries to deflect any criticism of Israel. The only reason to say 'some people criticize israel because they can be anti-semites and every goyim is an anti-semite at heart' is deflection.
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Mar 5, 2015 11:40
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And when Bibi proclaims Israel the only spokesperson for the Jewish people he is somewhat inviting people to conflate Israel and Jewishness, not that that's an excuse.
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Mar 5, 2015 11:41
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let's not start this poo poo yet again.
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Mar 5, 2015 11:53
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Duckbag posted:let's not start this poo poo yet again. I/P: Let's Not Start This poo poo Yet Again
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Mar 5, 2015 11:54
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Maybe I'm just not picking up on it, but I see way more bitching about anti-Semitism on these forums than I do actual anti-Semitism.
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Mar 5, 2015 12:09
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Kill Juice!
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Mar 5, 2015 12:33
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Disinterested posted:And when Bibi proclaims Israel the only spokesperson for the Jewish people he is somewhat inviting people to conflate Israel and Jewishness, not that that's an excuse. "Death to Israel" is anti-semitic regardless of the wrongdoings of the Israeli regime and the ethnic cleansing of palestine. Despite some misguided liberals thinking that "Death to Israel" is actually codeword for "Liberate Palestine, instate equal rights for all ethnicities and religions within historical palestine" it is actually just "Death to Israelis", Bibi trying to conflate the issue is one (bad) thing, but the dude is a villain, this doesn't change the fact that people who spit on jews in the streets of paris, yell "Viva palestine" in their face cause they wear a yarmulke or go on a murder spree in a kosher-market are still anti-semites and they do not deserve you going "yeah well, but Bibi does make it confusing" in their defense. It is true that anti-semitism is often used as misdirection, this does not mean that anti-semitism doesn't exist or that it's impossible to be pro-Palestinian AND hate jews at the same time. There is also a case to be made about pro-Palestine sentiments used as misdirection in favor of promoting anti-semitic and anti-Israeli attitudes, there is no clear distinction and "courage" entails calling out the bullshit bandied about by partisans in both camps. If you want to say "freedom, security and equality for all people in historic palestine" say so, that's all.
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Mar 5, 2015 12:42
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I don't know how 'death to Israel' became your immediate touchstone in relation to my post. There is clearly a wide spectrum of feeling that is on the immediate borderline between being anti-Israel and anti-semtic (and also, as it happens, pro-Israel and anti-semitic) that is much more subtle than that. As an example of the latter you need look no further than the way some pro-Israelis talk about AIPAC as if it really was a front for a secret, rich, Jewish cabal controlling the world.
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Mar 5, 2015 12:47
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The Unholy Ghost posted:Hi, I'm a dumbass who is new to all of this politics stuff. If the situation was reversed, with Iran having absolutely unconditional support from the USA while Israel was chocked by sanctions and constantly threatened by bellicose discourses from politicians using xenophobia as an electoral crutch, you'd get a lot more support for Israel in this thread, and a lot less support for Iran. Also, we can dislike the Islamic Republic of Iran and yet don't wish for Iranians to be bombed, even if it'd make Boehner feel good about himself. The Insect Court posted:ISIS, you guys don't say you're a liberal democracy, so you're ok by me I guess? Yes everyone here is cheering for Daesh, you got that right!  Avshalom posted:My favourite part about SA is that I can make a post that's like "As a human being who is Jewish, it saddens and alienates me to see blatant anti-Semitism" and everybody's like "haha what a funny troll, jews don't have feelings" I think you being called a funny troll has more to do with, you know, this kind of posting: Avshalom posted:I tear aside my ambiguously coloured dress to reveal an array of breasts. Small, large, round, square, bouncy, lumpen: they are united in their wondrous pinkness. They are crowned with rosebud nipples, standing proud on areolae the size of buttermilk pancakes. As I swivel my lush body, the nipples harden and extend into questing fingers of solid desirous flesh. Where do they point so accusingly? The locus of their attention is you. They seek to push your innermost button: to unleash the ultimate sexual satisfaction. Freeing myself from the lacy chains of my underpants, I begin to dance. My buttocks bounce; dewy peaches on the cusp of ripeness, leaking sweet ambrosia, the chasm between them darkly mysterious. My body is lithe and acrobatic as a tree frog's. My breasts are like sweet velvet. I sweat milk and honey. My frisky penis spins. It is time. Let us have sex. Avshalom posted:I love you, Ariel. It's been almost a year since you died and began to visit me. I look forward to sleeping now like I never did before; our friendship has become a powerful source of hope in my life. But what is the future going to hold for us? I'm twenty-four. I could live for a very long time. Am I going to spend the rest of my life married to a dead man who I can only see in my dreams? And also your own admission: Avshalom posted:I play it up to annoy and amuse people
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Mar 5, 2015 12:51
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Disinterested posted:I don't know how 'death to Israel' became your immediate touchstone in relation to my post. There is clearly a wide spectrum of feeling that is on the immediate borderline between being anti-Israel and anti-semtic (and also, as it happens, pro-Israel and anti-semitic) that is much more subtle than that. It's something that gets thrown around these parts, even had one poster here attempt to convince me that the only reason I hear "genocide Israelis" when people say "Death to Israel" is because of my hosed up genocidal Israeli upbringing. Being anti-Israeli is not a courageous stance, being against Israeli expansionism, apartheid policies and for equality for all peoples in historic palestine is. being anti-Israeli is a garbage stance that contributes nothing and belies the faulty notion that Israel is something that can be undone.
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Mar 5, 2015 12:54
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Being anti-Israeli is not a courageous stance, being against Israeli expansionism, apartheid policies and for equality for all peoples in historic palestine is. being anti-Israeli is a garbage stance that contributes nothing and belies the faulty notion that Israel is something that can be undone. I think you're just tilting at a linguistic windmill here, since when many people describe themselves as being 'anti-Israel' that's exactly what they're saying.
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Mar 5, 2015 12:56
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Disinterested posted:I think you're just tilting at a linguistic windmill here, since when many people describe themselves as being 'anti-Israel' that's exactly what they're saying. That might be what many of them think they're saying, or what certain western liberals hear, but it's definitely not the common sentiment in the middle east itself. Identifying as anti-Israel simply means you think Israel shouldn't exist, if you think that everyone around the world is intimately familiar with the history of the conflict to the point where the understand you implicitly mean "anti-certain-Israeli-policies, all for freedom and ethnic equality really" you better pay closer attention to the way most of the people who identify as 'anti-Israel' consider this topic. When you are 'anti-[Country]' the only natural interpretation of this statement is that you consider said country to be an enemy, what do you expect Israelis to 'hear' when people identify themselves this way?
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Mar 5, 2015 13:02
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I think it would be better to provide examples of posts in this thread you think are anti-semitic (or to directly call them out when made), general comments aren't helpful without them. Also the one person who said "death to Israel" outside of quotes in the past two iterations of this thread was probated for it, I think we understand it's not acceptable.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:08
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emanresu tnuocca posted:That might be what many of them think they're saying, or what certain western liberals hear, but it's definitely not the common sentiment in the middle east itself. Well, fine, but that isn't the experience of most of the people on this board who are mostly from America or a Western European country. emanresu tnuocca posted:Identifying as anti-Israel simply means you think Israel shouldn't exist, if you think that everyone around the world is intimately familiar with the history of the conflict to the point where the understand you implicitly mean "anti-certain-Israeli-policies, all for freedom and ethnic equality really" you better pay closer attention to the way most of the people who identify as 'anti-Israel' consider this topic. No, it doesn't. That isn't how this works. It might be preferable for clarity, but you're going to have to accept that as a matter of reality 'anti-Israel' is a self-description used by lefty teenagers who write amnesty international letters in their spare time as well as by Hamas, and that those usages are not intended in the same way. emanresu tnuocca posted:When you are 'anti-[Country]' the only natural interpretation of this statement is that you consider said country to be an enemy, what do you expect Israelis to 'hear' when people identify themselves this way? People don't interpret anti-Americanism to mean being in favour of the abolition of America or even violence against it. I think we are talking about something more particular to Israel here, because Israel's existence is under a much more immediate threat. But, again, I think the most constructive response can't be to rush to the accusation that critics of Israel are anti-Semitic or bigoted because that leads to absurd arguments like this: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/05/bbcs-jeremy-bowen-antisemitism-holocaust-card-twitter-benjamin-netanyahu
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Mar 5, 2015 13:08
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emanresu tnuocca posted:When you are 'anti-[Country]' the only natural interpretation of this statement is that you consider said country to be an enemy, what do you expect Israelis to 'hear' when people identify themselves this way? "Most people think my state is horrible and oppressive. Maybe I should avoid placing myself as the victim for once, and consider how we are treating our Arab terrorist neighbours and if that could have an impact on our reputation?"
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Mar 5, 2015 13:14
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emanresu tnuocca posted:That might be what many of them think they're saying, or what certain western liberals hear, but it's definitely not the common sentiment in the middle east itself. Most people here are American and especially in left leaning circles "anti-Israel" is far more synonymous with "end the apartheid state" than with "dismantle the state of Israel" emanresu tnuocca posted:When you are 'anti-[Country]' the only natural interpretation of this statement is that you consider said country to be an enemy, what do you expect Israelis to 'hear' when people identify themselves this way? When you point out the error in conflating the apartheid state with the nation of Israel you're not going to get much sympathy because no one is more responsible for making Israel synonymous with Apartheid State than Israel itself.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:19
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Disinterested posted:Well, fine, but that isn't the experience of most of the people on this board who are mostly from America or a Western European country. I don't, because many people are actually extremely ignorant even if they do know what the Nakba is, just look at the comments section on anything posted at the Electronic Intifada. Ali Abunimah himself might indeed by a courageous critic of Israel but people who just go around claiming Israel is the greatest human rights offender of the 21st century or that it is the cause of everything bad that happened in the middle east for the past 70 years are more likely than not simply anti-semitic. It's important to understand that for things to get better they need to de escalate and that there are many parties in the middle east with a vested interest in keeping things just as lovely as they currently are. Palestinians are being used as peons by regimes other than the Israeli one, this needs to stop and needs to be criticized even if it allegedly benefits the 'zionist enemy'. quote:People don't interpret anti-Americanism to mean being in favour of the abolition of America or even violence against it. I think we are talking about something more particular to Israel here, because Israel's existence is under a much more immediate threat. I think Bibi is an horrible idiot, I think I made that point clear many many times. I think you should note that you made a distinction between anti-America and anti-Americanism, perhaps unintentionally so but this should tell you something about the usage of this word, being 'anti-[ideology espoused by a country]' is very different. People like this do a lot of damage to the palestinian cause and give Bibi and his ilk unnecesary ammunition: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-rights-group-admits-employee-denied-holocaust/ this was a great source of embarrasment for Btselem btw. Irony Be My Shield posted:I think it would be better to provide examples of posts in this thread you think are anti-semitic (or to directly call them out when made), general comments aren't helpful without them. I did call out one particular anti-semite, he still posts in this thread and nobody seems to mind, I also called out a specific exchange that happened a few weeks ago (the assad thing) and the fact that a poster did try to insist that 'death to israel' doesn't mean anything bad, I can say who he is but I don't think it's necessary.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:27
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emanresu tnuocca posted:I don't, because many people are actually extremely ignorant even if they do know what the Nakba is, just look at the comments section on anything posted at the Electronic Intifada. Ali Abunimah himself might indeed by a courageous critic of Israel but people who just go around claiming Israel is the greatest human rights offender of the 21st century or that it is the cause of everything bad that happened in the middle east for the past 70 years are more likely than not simply anti-semitic. The moment the comment section of a website is enlisted is the moment you have basically gone out of your way to find the worst sample of people available to use as an example. I agree that people who say, for example, that Israel is worse than Assad are obviously morons, possibly even sinister morons. emanresu tnuocca posted:It's important to understand that for things to get better they need to de escalate and that there are many parties in the middle east with a vested interest in keeping things just as lovely as they currently are. Palestinians are being used as peons by regimes other than the Israeli one, this needs to stop and needs to be criticized even if it allegedly benefits the 'zionist enemy'. I'm very hazy on what this has to do with what I was saying. emanresu tnuocca posted:I think you should note that you made a distinction between anti-America and anti-Americanism, perhaps unintentionally so but this should tell you something about the usage of this word, being 'anti-[ideology espoused by a country]' is very different. You are a moron. 'Anti-Americanism' means both (1) Being against 'Americanism'; but also, (2) The ideology of being against America. You have drawn a distinction without a difference. emanresu tnuocca posted:People like this do a lot of damage to the palestinian cause and give Bibi and his ilk unnecesary ammunition: http://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-rights-group-admits-employee-denied-holocaust/ this was a great source of embarrasment for Btselem btw. Bibi gives them a ton of ammunition right back. It's almost as if this is some sort of vicious circle, as I suggested in my earlier post  emanresu tnuocca posted:I did call out one particular anti-semite, he still posts in this thread and nobody seems to mind, I also called out a specific exchange that happened a few weeks ago (the assad thing) and the fact that a poster did try to insist that 'death to israel' doesn't mean anything bad, I can say who he is but I don't think it's necessary. Why? Just do it.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:32
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Avshalom posted:What I'm saying is there are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticise Israel, but there are also a lot of people who only bother to do it because it gives them free rein to express, publically and without hope of retaliation, that deep down inside they really loving hate Jews. They're not allowed to just say that we're all greedy devious back-stabbing money-grubbing inhuman lizard people, but now look how Israel is behaving! It's proving the stereotypes! It's not racism if it's true! It would be nice if you could actually quote these people and explain what makes you think that they're bigots instead of subtly implying, without demonstration, that criticism of Israeli state violence is just a sophistic cover for bigotry. Israel doesn't get "singled out" because people love lovely regimes like Iran's, it gets "singled out" because it's one of the few countries who managed to convince morons that its horrifying violence is actually legitimate and virtuous (America is another).
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Mar 5, 2015 13:33
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Heavy neutrino posted:because it's one of the few countries who managed to convince Western morons that its horrifying violence is actually legitimate and virtuous (America is another). FTFY.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:36
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Duckbag posted:and we really do want them to stop supporting Shia militias/terrorists (we do) that just leaves diplomacy. I really, really do, but I don't see how that is achievable, whether it be through diplomacy, or a continuation of sanctions and a cold war. The US has said Shia militias getting a hold of weapons meant for the Iraqi Army was a "necessary risk," and, while Hadi al-Amiri isn't someone you can trust, he claimed the US offered him air support, and the US didn't come out and call it bullshit loudly and publicly like they should have. I don't see anything positive coming from the de-escalate tensions route if this is how it's going to be done. The Obama administration was blind to the effects of Assad's tyranny on the radicalization of Syrian Sunni's, and did little to aid suffering or bring about an end to that tyranny, or to bolster forces and activists promoting democracy, not recognizing the consequences. The same happened in Iraq, where Maliki was left to deal with Sunni's his own way while the US turned a blind eye to the growing dissent against his government, which had predictably disastrous consequences when the pot boiled over. They also cut democracy assistance funding while simultaneously boosting security assistance in the middle east, which shows how they approach these issues ideologically. So in my opinion, while normalized relations with Iran and helping to overcome their isolation is a really dreamy concept, the reality is that diplomacy and short-sighted appeasement look really similar until the consequences show up. I think we're going to get a bunch of poo poo logic driving bad decisions. The largest of which is "Iran can help us fight ISIS." In reality, increased Iranian involvement in Iraq will lead to an increasingly sectarian ISF dominated by Shia militias, and an Iraqi government that is even more incapable of governing, which will in turn drive more towards ISIS and empower separatist terrorists like them in the long run, which was the exact effect increased Iranian involvement in Syria had on the composition of rebel forces there. But in a security-centric view of the middle east, that type of thing isn't taken into account when policy is dictated. And that's not even getting into the destabilizing effect on the region from a strengthened Hezbollah, and the effect of Iranian "projects" like Yemen and god knows what else in the future. I'd love for Iran to be a globally accepted nation, and for it to transition peacefully into a representative democracy, but I don't think that's what we're seeing happen right now. Our government is not capable of pulling this off, and in time, I imagine that will become clear. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 13:47
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Disinterested posted:You are a moron. 'Anti-Americanism' means both That's great, dickbag, only 99% of the time when someone describes himself as against americanism it's obvious that the mean american global influences where when they describe themselves as anti-America it's obvious that they're probably a supporter of al-qaeda.
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Mar 5, 2015 13:52
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So I'm p. sure this whole discussion started just because Avshalom saw something(s) anti-semitic on the forums, at some point, and for whatever reason decided the time was right to hyperbolicaly vent his frustrations. That or he was just trolling. Either way, it's basically impossible to argue with something like that, because he didn't actually give you anything to argue with. You'll never disprove the assertion that some goons (which goons?) said some things (but what?) that were anti-semitic (or were they?). Saying "but... Israel" in that context is ridiculous. I guess it wouldn't be an i/p thread if people didn't swing for the fences though. e: Volkerball posted:I really, really do, but I don't see how that is achievable, whether it be through diplomacy, or a continuation of sanctions and a cold war. The US has said Shia militias getting a hold of weapons meant for the Iraqi Army was a "necessary risk," and, while Hadi al-Amiri isn't someone you can trust, he claimed the US offered him air support, and the US didn't come out and call it bullshit loudly and publicly like they should have. I don't see anything positive coming from the de-escalate tensions route if this is how it's going to be done. The Obama administration was blind to the effects of Assad's tyranny on the radicalization of Syrian Sunni's, and did little to aid suffering or bring about an end to that tyranny, or to bolster forces and activists promoting democracy, not recognizing the consequences. The same happened in Iraq, where Maliki was left to deal with Sunni's his own way while the US turned a blind eye to the growing dissent against his government, which had predictably disastrous consequences when the pot boiled over. They also cut democracy assistance funding while simultaneously boosting security assistance in the middle east, which shows how they approach these issues ideologically. So in my opinion, while normalized relations with Iran and helping to overcome their isolation is a really dreamy concept, the reality is that diplomacy and short-sighted appeasement look really similar until the consequences show up. I think we're going to get a bunch of poo poo logic driving bad decisions. The largest of which is "Iran can help us fight ISIS." In reality, increased Iranian involvement in Iraq will lead to an increasingly sectarian ISF dominated by Shia militias, and an Iraqi government that is even more incapable of governing, which will in turn drive more towards ISIS and empower separatist terrorists like them in the long run, which was the exact effect increased Iranian involvement in Syria had on the composition of rebel forces there. But in a security-centric view of the middle east, that type of thing isn't taken into account when policy is dictated. And that's not even getting into the destabilizing effect on the region from a strengthened Hezbollah, and the effect of Iranian "projects" like Yemen and god knows what else in the future. I'd love for Iran to be a globally accepted nation, and for it to transition peacefully into a representative democracy, but I don't think that's what we're seeing happen right now. Our government is not capable of pulling this off, and in time, I imagine that will become clear. Yeah, I don't know how willing Iran is to contain the militias, or if they even can in some cases, but a less antagonistic relationship could be a blessing in and of itself. If the US and Iran are at each others' throats, then it seems likely that their respective regional proxies will be as well and tear (what's left of) Iraq apart. On the other hand, if the US and Iran can find a plan for Iraq's future that they can both live with (come on, let me live the dream) and acted as a united front, it could do a lot to stabilize the country. It's a thought, anyway. Duckbox fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Mar 5, 2015 |
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Mar 5, 2015 14:06
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It's not really that obvious dude and there has been a good bit of discussion on whether the term "anti-Americanism" refers to a wide range of criticisms of the United States in multiple areas (say the way the French would use it) or a systematic opposition to America as a whole (the way say, Osama bin Laden might have)
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Mar 5, 2015 14:07
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An interview with Iran's foreign minister.quote:Curry repeated the question and asked Zarif to qualify the distinction between “the regime in Israel” and the Jews. Pretty funny to read this minutes after I watched a video of Shia forces parading around with some heads.
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Mar 5, 2015 14:17
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