CJ AEGIS, on Mar 18 2003, 03:06 AM, said:
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Christopher: And if Saddam even points a BB gun in Israel's direction, Sharon will gleefully retaliate and start a whole new Arab-Israeli War.
For all of Sharon’s reactionary attitudes I think the US will make it clear he is to sit on his hands. Unless Saddam gets off a successful WMD attack against Israel they’ll probably just play the way they did during the Gulf War. The newer Patriot Missiles are more capable of protecting Israel than the ones we had back then.
I second that, Israel will probably not retaliate unless attacked by WMD, I’m not so sure about “successful”, I think the point is the attack itself. Not responding to an unsuccessful WMD attack is inviting the next one. The new Patriots are much better than the old ones, and they serve only as back up to the new Khetz missiles, which where designed to that purpose, so all together things are looking pretty safe. Any protection will have problem with
very high number of simultaneous attacks, but we all know Iraq will not be able to launch massive attack while fighters are patrolling the sky.
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Zack said that Cook said:I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour's foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us.
I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.
Can I second that and still enjoy the outcome of the war?
I’m afraid we are going backwards, loosing sight of the importance of the international community. When the majority of people in your country vote for a government you don’t like, you can call them stupid but you will probably not ignore their decision, even if you could force your opinion. The reason is that democracy and human rights are much more important, in the long run, than the current crisis, no matter how big and important it is. This is a big mistake and I’m surprised that Blair is doing it, I really admire him.
Still “enjoy” it?
Yes, because as an Israeli I have two things to gain (IMPOV):
1. Saadam and his WMD are our problem, always have been. Now the big bullies will take care of them for us, and maybe of the Irani WMD later, and no one will scream at us as they did when Israel blew up the Iraqi nuclear factory during the 80’s.
2. Iraq is just the first stop, and the end of this process will be peaceful mead east. I truly believe that, I just hope the American diplomats will do better than they did during this crisis.
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Zack said that Cook said: I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet it is over 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.
That’s ______(<-fill in your favorite 4 letters word)
No one ever respects the UN resolutions, but Israel is always the sole example. Especially when a country with a growing population of Arabs is going on a war against an Arab country.
Last, and most important, Sharon.
This man is dangerous. He believes in violence, he believes that if you retaliate strong enough the attack will stop and he believes that this is what the people who voted for him expect him to do. Worse, he has (IMPOV) no respect for law and decision making processes in democracy. He has the nerves to force a decision on his government or simply find a way to justify making the decision without the government, even though he was not elected on personal elections.
Israeli television reviled about a week ago what really happened that day in last war, when several missiles hit and the government had to decide what to do. They did not have access to the protocols, so they talked with people who attended that meeting. They say different things, but they all said that Sharon was the speaker for hard retaliation.
Care to guess who I
didn’t vote for?
Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings.