Technically "death to Israel" doesn't constitute a direct threat. If he'd said "I'm going to destroy Israel" then yeah. But lots of misguided people in this country say "death to Israel" (for context, take a trip over to the message boards at www.resistance.com) and have yet to be labeled terrorists or imprisoned for making threats. Besides, Israel isn't the U.S. I know it sounds callous, but let them fend for themselves. The only people our government has to protect is us. If we keep trying to stand up for people all over the world because we perceive them as allies we'll be at this forever. That...or our military will implode and we'll be 100 times more fucked than we are right now.

I thumbed through that site and while it's mostly whiny pussy bullshit, there is one good point. NONE of the countries in that part of the world even if nuclear equipped can harm us while we give free passes to those that could. We sure as shit didn't seem to have any problem pissing off the french when they stood against us. It's pretty arrogant of us to tell other countries to disarm while we bulk up.

Fuck it...I need to study for my Korean test.

Steve since the US is the only super power they have a responsibility to the world community to defend the rights adn freedoms of people who are unable to do it for themselves.

I gotta disagree with you Rob. The only responsibility of any given government is to ensure the happiness and safety of it's own people. Again, Poli Sci 101. Any consideratiom towards those who they perceive as allies is secondary. We have no responsibility to protect anyone else in the world, period. That aspect is doubly important when that protection comes at our own risk (which defending Israel certainly would). Besides, when was the last time Israel did anything for us? I'll tell you when. Never. We throw billions and billions of dollars at them in "loans" that we never expect to be repaid. We arm them with tanks and helicopter gunships so they can take out Palestinian kids who throw rocks at tanks. We owe them NOTHING but are willing to sacrifice ourselves for their security. Fuck that. If there were more muslims than jews in this country you can bet your ass we'd be standing up for Iran and saying "fuck Israel".

It's high time we learned that we can't protect everyone no matter how much we'd like to. We learned this in Vietnam, Korea, and the first gulf war. The first two were fought against the scourge of communism. Last I checked Korea and Vietnam had split and Red China was doing just fine with communism. Now we're fighting a war against islam (say we're not all you like...you're either lying to yourself or to others). The sad truth is that the things we fight against prevail long after we're gone. It's the way of the world. People get used to certain things and new ideas tend to scare people. Differences of opinions aside, I think we can all agree it's not the best idea to piss of the muslim world any more than we absolutely have to at this point. We need their support, not their contempt. If you thought they were crazy before, just see what a few years of unwanted occupation does to them.

you are forgetting that by protecting them we are protecting our interests. and is it the responsibility for our contry to protect our assests, wether its people, capitol, or whathaveyou. if a war breaks out in the mid east and wse're not there, its gonna escalade to unthinkable proportions, and since the only reason that stockpile of arms exsists is because we had an arms race with the USSR way back durring the cold war, we made them go bankrupt and they sold their war toys to the mid east, now we have to look out for A) those countries which we have an interest in wether its for oil, land, people, etc. and B) the threat of catostrophic events to take place there, which will effect our people in the long run C) balance the power that us and the USSR are responsible for creating. you dont let your dog crap in the park and walk away from it, you clean up his shit.

now thats just what we should do being a country in the world. being the only superpower, strongest and arguably the richest country in the world, for the betterment of mankind and world development we NEED.. let me stress that NEED to make sure things cant just run out of control and sit inside our borders and say "fuck them"

Gotta agree with Chris again- Israel is our main ally in that region and as such gives us greater leverage. If Israel falls and radical muslims overrun the area, their next target will be us... lest you forget that all Americans are "infidels."


Steve, you've yet to offer a better (or any) alternative to our current course of action. And don't start with hindsight, think up a plan starting today.

Thank you for laying it out for Steve.

Well I'm not saying we shouldn't ever help our "friends", but we really need to start looking at the risk/reward. If we commit to it all or nothing there's no way we'll be able to maintain any kind of significant military force. We might think that Israel is the only thing keeping that part of the world from exploding like a potato in a microwave, but really...who listens to them? They've had the same capabilities for years, but the can't even handle a small group of people like the Palenstinians. Let's face it, they're hugely outnumbered in that part of the world by people who aren't their biggest fans. Those people aren't listening to them anyway. Israel may be our friend, but I don't see risking our own safety for theirs as being a viable plan.

As for where to go from here...I guess there are a lot of options. I mean...we're there and there's not much to be done about that now. I'd say first of all we need some people in powerful places who can recognize when what we've done is (hopefully) starting to work so we can leave as soon as possible. No more landing on aircraft carriers shouting "mission accomlpished" when we're far from done and far from accomplished. We need to develop a REAL intelligence community so shit like this doesn't happen again. We have nearly unlimited resources and the best we could do was say "oops, we messed up". That's just plain unacceptable for the only superpower left. And really, that gives carte blanche to any other country who wants to ruin someone's shit. If all you've gotta do is deliver a half assed apology, why not? Perhaps most importantly we need to work on our image across the world. The reason we're knee deep in people hating us is largely because of the way we're perceived across the world. Whether they're right or wrong, we need to start understanding that people who aren't like us REALLY aren't like us. Some people won't ever stop hating us no matter what...not much we can do about that. But the last thing we should be doing is validating their reasons for hating us.

Shall i remind you about the 6 day war?

Shall I remind you that I was using that in the context of their influence in that part of the world?

Probably since it wasn't stated a such.

Well...not outright. I suppose I meant to imply it. But I'm too lazy to go fix it now...but you get the idea.