LIB-ertarian Johnson has Lib Meltdown

[jrodefeld]

Oh wow, another Dump Israel troll. Yeah, sonny, evvvvvvvvvvry problem is the Jews, right? Right? Putz!

I never said any of that.  The United States should treat Israel like we treat any other country.  They are a very wealthy nation, they have a very strong military and Nuclear arsenal and they don't need our subsidization.

I am not critical of Jews or the Jewish religion.  I am critical of the Likud Party in Israel and the politics espoused by Benjamin Netanyahu.  There is a difference between the Likud Party and the Jewish people.  There are many Jews living in Israel who support a two-State solution and feel that their government has not treated the Palestinian people fairly.

Why not cut Israel loose and allow them to take care of themselves? 

[walkstall]

I never said any of that.  The United States should treat Israel like we treat any other country.  They are a very wealthy nation, they have a very strong military and Nuclear arsenal and they don't need our subsidization.

I am not critical of Jews or the Jewish religion.  I am critical of the Likud Party in Israel and the politics espoused by Benjamin Netanyahu.  There is a difference between the Likud Party and the Jewish people.  There are many Jews living in Israel who support a two-State solution and feel that their government has not treated the Palestinian people fairly.

Why not cut Israel loose and allow them to take care of themselves?

WHY not cut the Palestinian loose and allow them to take care of themselves?

Many more voted in the Likud Party.

[Ghoulardi]

WHY not cut the Palestinian loose and allow them to take care of themselves?

Many more voted in the Likud Party.

Which has always been a question of mine.

Charity is a pillar of Islam. The Palestinians have no place to live.  So why don't the Islamic countries give the Palestinians a place to live?

I think of it as being like post-Katrina. Many people were displaced. Did we go to Canada and say, You have to give our people someplace to live. No, we absorbed the diplaced into US cities.

[tac]

Too bad this thread was hijacked to become a ME thread. 

[Possum]

Just dump his ass. It is all a repeat of BS.

SHIT! I forgot to roll out the welcome mat, is it too late..

[tac]

Damn trolls! 

[quiller]

I never said any of that. 

And then you open your face and go on to say....

I am not critical of Jews or the Jewish religion.  ( . . . )

Why not cut Israel loose and allow them to take care of themselves?

You said it, sonny. You claimed you never said it but then you said it: dump Israel.

[tac]

Dump the troll. 

[Ghoulardi]

The irony of the whole anti-war movement is that they wouldn't exist if it weren't for the people they're complaining about.

If there wasn't some poor soul risking his life on a battlefield somewhere, there would be no freedom of speech, and hence no anti-war movement.

[jrodefeld]

And then you open your face and go on to say....

You said it, sonny. You claimed you never said it but then you said it: dump Israel.

You said:  Yeah, sonny, evvvvvvvvvvry problem is the Jews, right?

This is a cartoonish caricature of something I never said.

I absolutely oppose the so-called "special relationship" the United States government has with Israel.  Not because I have any personal animosity towards them, but because I favor non-intervention.  I don't think we should have this sort of relationship with any country.

We can be friends with Israelis and trade with them but we shouldn't be sending them a dime in foreign aid.  We should allow them to defend themselves without our involvement.  We shouldn't tolerate the pressure the Israel Lobby puts on our elected leaders in this country.  The way our Congressmen and Senators kowtow to Netanyahu is rather sickening.  No foreign leader should exert this much influence over our government.

Personally, I don't approve of the way Netanyahu's hard-line Likud party treats the Palestinian people.  In any other context, our government would be denouncing them for human rights violations.

Why not let Israel alone to handle their own problems without our aid or interference?  A happy side-effect of this would be that we'd become less likely to be targeted by Muslim terrorists.

Remember the Founders advice to "avoid entangling alliances?"

[jrodefeld]

The irony of the whole anti-war movement is that they wouldn't exist if it weren't for the people they're complaining about.

If there wasn't some poor soul risking his life on a battlefield somewhere, there would be no freedom of speech, and hence no anti-war movement.

No, my freedom of speech is not being protected by the soldiers who fought in the Iraq War.  Anti-war activists, at least the ones I associate with, are opposed to aggressive and avoidable war.  We are not opposed to legitimate defensive war.  We are not against the maintenance of a military that is sufficiently powerful to protect us from national security threats.  But this military should not be deployed around the globe, nor should it be intervening into other nations that haven't attacked us.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

[Ghoulardi]

No, my freedom of speech is not being protected by the soldiers who fought in the Iraq War.  Anti-war activists, at least the ones I associate with, are opposed to aggressive and avoidable war.  We are not opposed to legitimate defensive war.  We are not against the maintenance of a military that is sufficiently powerful to protect us from national security threats.  But this military should not be deployed around the globe, nor should it be intervening into other nations that haven't attacked us.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Perhaps its because your talking out both sides of your mouth.

The US is evil for acts of aggression against the Middle East, you say. Yet you refuse to mention the acts of aggression that caused the US' acts of aggression.

As far as Gulf War I goes, the US was requested to intervene by the Saudis and Egypt because Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait, a country that didn't attack him.

Gulf War Two was caused by Saddam being a threat to the word community by amassing weapons of mass destruction--specifically chemical weapons.

I know liberals deny there were any chemical weapons, but:

It was August 2008 near Taji, Iraq. They had just exploded a stack of old Iraqi artillery shells buried beside a murky lake. The blast, part of an effort to destroy munitions that could be used in makeshift bombs, uncovered more shells.

Two technicians assigned to dispose of munitions stepped into the hole. Lake water seeped in. One of them, Specialist Andrew T. Goldman, noticed a pungent odor, something, he said, he had never smelled before.

He lifted a shell. Oily paste oozed from a crack. "That doesn't look like pond water," said his team leader, Staff Sgt. Eric J. Duling.

The specialist swabbed the shell with chemical detection paper. It turned red — indicating sulfur mustard, the chemical warfare agent designed to burn a victim's airway, skin and eyes.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Soldiers have been exposed to aging chemical weapons. So tell me, how do you get exposed to something that isn't there?

So what would you have done with Saddam?

I can tell you've never been in the military. Neither have I (I drew a high lottery number back when there was a draft), yet even I know anytime we send troops to fight they're there to fight for our freedoms. Bill, you want to chime in here?

[Billy's bayonet]

Perhaps its because your talking out both sides of your mouth.

The US is evil for acts of aggression against the Middle East, you say. Yet you refuse to mention the acts of aggression that caused the US' acts of aggression.

As far as Gulf War I goes, the US was requested to intervene by the Saudis and Egypt because Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait, a country that didn't attack him.

Gulf War Two was caused by Saddam being a threat to the word community by amassing weapons of mass destruction--specifically chemical weapons.

I know liberals deny there were any chemical weapons, but:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Soldiers have been exposed to aging chemical weapons. So tell me, how do you get exposed to something that isn't there?

So what would you have done with Saddam?

I can tell you've never been in the military. Neither have I (I drew a high lottery number back when there was a draft), yet even I know anytime we send troops to fight they're there to fight for our freedoms. Bill, you want to chime in here?

I'm pretty much done with this guy, I'm not a big fan of sending our military into every shit pot country in the world to fight terrorism or intervene in their civil wars, so I can understand some of his scphiel. But the whole Gulf war thing just annoys the hell out of me. We could have dealt with Saddam differently to be sure, I think perhaps diplomatically considering that he saved our asses TWICE by selling us oil when the Arabs embargoed Us and Later when Iran did much the same. Perhaps taking his side and offering to represent him in the world court over the supposed reason for invading Kuwait....greater access to the gulf rather than the tiny sliver of land some British Cartographer allotted Iraq back in 1902 or whenever. Then again when he started his military buildup along the border taking the precaution of sending in a large Coalition force to ocuppy and protect Kuwait
BEFORE his tanks crossed the border.

Of course the leftist scream about Human rights over his gassing or the Kurds and his proclivity to develop chemical AND BIOLOGICAL weapons WHICH ARE WORSE THAN NUKES, such weapons falling into hands of terrorists to use against the US was and still is a concern. You have a two fold problem in all the Middle east Unstable Tin Pot Dictators who are rich because of oil and use that oil to develop or arm themselves WEAPONS OF WAR which are likely to be used against their neighbors or against the WEST, particularly against the USA because WE ARE THE STABILIZING FORCE IN THIS WORLD. Second is Fanatic Islamic terrorists who want to establish a Caliphate and bring the world to Islam as is their destiny....by the sword if necessary.

I've been in over 30 countries, including some in the middle east and the fact is a lot of those people plain don't like us, they resent USA and yet they realize the day we withdraw from the Gulf its fkg WW3, Iran, SYria YEMEN, ISIS, SUNII, SHIA, WAHABBI. Take your pick.

However the lesson I learned is that if we want to nullify the influence of these Gulf States AND IRAN, we have to do it by waging war with economics NOT MILITARY FORCE. The best thing we can do is develop our own oil AND REFINERIES, undercut OPEC prices thereby taking away their means to finance their weapons agenda and destroy their economy until they are back to living in tents in the desert like they should be.

This is never gonna happen, the leftist enviromental Nazi's will not let it happen because they know it is the REAL means to dominate the world economy and the best solution for our country peace-wise.

Last, the day we stop supporting Israel is the day these other ME Dictators and fanatics turn on it like a bunch of Jackals thereby unleashing WW3. It strikes me odd that every one of these people like Jaroady here is so against nuke's and so pro peace they don;t understand that is the only thing preventing all out war in the ME is Nuclear Armed Israel under the protection of a strong US Military with the commitment to defend that country.

[quiller]

You said:  Yeah, sonny, evvvvvvvvvvry problem is the Jews, right?

This is a cartoonish caricature of something I never said.

The cartoonist left-wing view of the Holy Lands can only be explained by the general lack of familiarity or respect for the same God worshipped by Jews and Christians alike. You want the Jews undefended. You want us gone and their enemies to win. To suggest ANYTHING else is anti-Semitic and shameful  to our long American religious traditions.

You're a joke, boy. 

I absolutely oppose the so-called "special relationship" the United States government has with Israel.  Not because I have any personal animosity towards them, but because I favor non-intervention.  I don't think we should have this sort of relationship with any country.

Pull your head from yojur sphincter and consider living in a country where religious enemies BOMB YOU just because, and where paleo-simians send children strapped with bombs. You're in a country where that sort of islamic violence is burgeoning...all because the gutless Democrat in power refused to betray his boyhood religion. That's what non-intervention gets you: an emboldened enemy.

Now go soak your head, troll.

[jrodefeld]

Perhaps its because your talking out both sides of your mouth.

The US is evil for acts of aggression against the Middle East, you say. Yet you refuse to mention the acts of aggression that caused the US' acts of aggression.

As far as Gulf War I goes, the US was requested to intervene by the Saudis and Egypt because Saddam invaded and occupied Kuwait, a country that didn't attack him.

Gulf War Two was caused by Saddam being a threat to the word community by amassing weapons of mass destruction--specifically chemical weapons.

I know liberals deny there were any chemical weapons, but:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/us-casualties-of-iraq-chemical-weapons.html

Soldiers have been exposed to aging chemical weapons. So tell me, how do you get exposed to something that isn't there?

So what would you have done with Saddam?

I can tell you've never been in the military. Neither have I (I drew a high lottery number back when there was a draft), yet even I know anytime we send troops to fight they're there to fight for our freedoms. Bill, you want to chime in here?

I've never been in the military.  I made a conscious choice not to join the military because I strongly object to US foreign policy and I would not voluntarily participate in committing evil acts on behalf of the United States government.  I would have had to fight in Iraq or Afghanistan and I couldn't in good conscience support such unnecessarily war efforts.

As far as the Iraq War was concerned, I find it hard to believe that you are still finding ways to justify it.  Nobody ever denied that Saddam had chemical weapons of some sort at one time.  When the United States government supported Saddam and Iraq in their fight against the Iranians in the 1980s, our military knew full well that Saddam had employed chemical weapons in the fight.

From Foreign Policy:

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein's military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn't disclose.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2013/08/26/us-supported-iraqs-use-of-chemical-weapons-even-as-it-inches-to-war-with-syria-on-lesser-allegations/


The United States government has no consistent standard against the use of chemical weapons.  In fact, the United States has used chemical weapons in it's own wars.  What about the use of White Phosphorus in the battle of Fallujah? 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/nov/15/usa.iraq


The arguments put forward in the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 involved insinuations that Iraq had something to do with Al Qaeda and the attacks of 9/11.  Sure, they never explicitly said this, but they were very happy to allow people to believe it.  Even years later, some 50% of Americans continued to believe there was a link between Saddam and 9/11.

The arguments made against Iraq were that they posed an existential threat to the National Security of the United States, Israel and the rest of the world.  Iraq was not actively engaged in war at the time. 

I can hardly believe you said "even I know anytime we send troops to fight they're there to fight for our freedoms".

This is so shockingly naive I don't even know where to begin.  In the first place, Americans have traditionally been deprived of their freedoms during wartime.  There is a lot of corporate profits to be made by engaging in war, and military contractors make a killing during wartime.  They lobby for more conflict, even when our national security is not threatened.

Finally, I want to respond to your statement:  The US is evil for acts of aggression against the Middle East, you say. Yet you refuse to mention the acts of aggression that caused the US' acts of aggression.

I'm against aggression in any form.  But according to our best estimates, our military has killed vastly more middle eastern Muslims than they have killed Americans.  I think the ratio is between 30:1 and 100:1

So the total amount of aggression on either side is not equal.  Any time there is a conflict that has lasted decades, either side is able to point out a particular attack that the other side perpetrated to justify their continuing aggression.  Our military will continually remind us of 9/11 and various isolated mass-shootings to justify their continued intervention into the middle east.  Islamic terrorists will continue to point to Muslim deaths in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan due to US military attacks and drone strikes to justify their violence against us.

We can and should respond to terrorist attacks committed against us.  But we need to narrowly target those directly responsible for the attacks.  We should be bringing those people to justice while leaving the rest of the Muslim world alone.

We got Osama bin Laden.  We've imprisoned or killed pretty much every home-grown terrorist in the past decade.

What I don't want our military to do is to initiate drone strikes against middle eastern nations.  I don't want us occupying middle eastern nations, or subsidizing puppet governments.  I don't want us interfering in the elections of other countries.

We can adopt a non-interventionist foreign policy and still respond to individual terrorist attacks.  Bringing to justice those who committed violence is not aggression, it is defense.  Terrorist attacks are simply criminal actions and should be treated as such.