Military spending, and stuff

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[AmPM]

No you dont need to keep anything!

That trail of thought AM is just what we are used to since the Cold War days, (That bugger has a big gun, so i need a bigger one JUST IN CASE he uses his) Dont you see that is a really really bad idea?

We dont NEED more fear and deterrents, we NEED reasons for Cooperation not Annihilation.

If anyone is stupid enough in this day and age to try and start a War, then they will have the enitre rest of the world on there ass, since its pretty IMPOSSIBLE in this day and age of the Globalized society, since we are all almost interdependent.

That line of thinking took us right into WW2. The only reason there is no real war is because its not militarily feasible. Economic sanctions are meaningless if you control all the resources.

[Heartmann]

That line of thinking took us right into WW2. The only reason there is no real war is because its not militarily feasible. Economic sanctions are meaningless if you control all the resources.

what line of thinking are we talking about yours or mine?

[AmPM]

Yours. If everyone plays by the rules it works. The comment someone says fuck you,  it doesn't.

[pqumsieh]

Just wanted to clarify a few points.

First, corporations are persons under the law. In fact, in many ways they have more capabilities then any of you. Unlike people, corporations do not typically 'die'. They are also very easy to form and layer which makes them amazing tools in tax management.

However, the most disturbing feature of the corporation is its ability to significantly reduce risk on investors. Since a corp is a person under the law, you typically must sue the corp and not any one person that makes up the corp. i.e. BP can be sued for the oil spills, but current case law would not support a successful law suit against most executives or directors.

Hence, if you are paying 40% in taxes "your doing it wrong". The more money you have, the much easier it is to make more money. For this reason, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

As for the discussion on the military; having a military is not simple about having a standing force. Although international operations take a significant amount of the budget, another similarly as large portion is placed into research and development. Many of the most significant technological inventions have come from military research. Research is best created through necessity. The threat of war, the treat to your people, the treat to your liberty, that is typically enough necessity to demand the research.

As for the Jew/Palestinian conflict; the argument of legality is very tricky. Who defines what is a legal action and what is not? It is very arrogant of people to believe that their perspectives are the only perspectives. Although the west may have claimed their actions were just; were they? Is it morally right to relocate one group of people for the sake of another? Who really had entitlement to the land? Even with regard to western land, one might argue the Arabs have the legal rights to remain on the land considering they have technically squatted it.

My parents lived through this conflict, like many others they were forced out of their homes...none left willingly. Peaceful you argue, resentment you say, its best for one to speak from their own knowledge rather than that of others I think.

PQ

[roflmao]

@pqumsieh:
If you really want to get technical you could argue that the land belongs to the Jews because they squatted the land 3,000 years ago! But, no, that would really be quite silly.

All my argument is about how the Jews arrived before the 1948 war which was launched by the Arabs. They arrived peacefully and legally. Long before anyone was forced out of their homes and before any large scale wars there was Arab resentment of Jews, so the argument you gave really doesn't apply. I mentioned the 1929 riots. There were also riots in 1920, 1921, 1936, 1939 and more I can't recall.

The 500-800 thousand palestinian refugees that resulted out of the war are extremely tragic indeed, but it's disingenuous to blame the Jews for Palestinian refugees out of the result of a war that was launched by the Arabs. This entire thing could have been completely avoided if Arabs had just accepted the Peel comission partition plan or the UN partition recommendation, but no! How dare the British suggest the creation of a Jewish state. That would be such an atrocious thing. So let's instead just go kill them all and get this done with!

Plus Israel willing to negotiate the return of many (not all, but many) of the refugees, but just the very idea of negotiating with a Jewish state disgusted all the leaders of the surrounding countries so much that they not only refused to negotiate, but they refused to even acknowledge the existence of the state of Israel.

[PonySlaystation]

Israel is one of the most holy places in Islam, they want it just as bad as the Jews.

[roflmao]

So, apparently, even some Arabs think that the refugees from 1948 was largely the fault of the Arabs.

For the flight and fall of the other villages, it is our leaders who are responsible, because of the dissemination of rumours exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs … they instilled fear and terror into the hearts of the Arabs of Palestine until they fled, leaving their homes and property to the enemy.

The Arab governments told us, ‘Get out so that we can get in.’ So we got out, but they did not get in.

The Arab states… encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.

The fact that there are those refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab states in opposing partition and the Jewish state. The Arab states agreed upon this policy unanimously…

Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave...We have brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees, by calling upon them and pleading with them to leave their land, their homes, their work and business...

… the fifth factor was the call by the Arab governments to the inhabitants of Palestine to evacuate it and leave for the bordering Arab countries … We brought destruction upon a million Arab refugees by calling on them and pleading with them to leave their land

The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.

The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce … They preferred to abandon their homes, belongings and everything they possessed.

My condolences to the unnecessary suffering your parents had to go through. I know that all my posts display a sort of unwillingness to accept a different opinion, but that is not the case. I'd be happy to hear about your perspective from your personal experience and the faults Israel committed that led to a just 1948 war.

[Heartmann]

@AmPm

My trail of thought has almost nothing to do with the second world war, the first world war Yea! But the Second one started because of the stupid results and decisions made after the first one, and the ineffective course of action from the LoN, Hitler was just a spark, just as The black hand was in Serbia, the oil that had accumulated that allowed the world to burn is an entirely different thing.

And the oil or should I say fuel that let the second world war start had to do with resentment towards a feeling of unjust sanctions and debt that came from the first world war, and that war, the first one, could have been prevented with my trail of thought. PLUS those days are entirely different in the ways we look on interdependency, colonial powers, political powers, class, who had a say in what.

[Demon767]

Can we safely assume that many problems, such as the second world war etc, would've been safely avoided if there were no jews? maybe Hitler had the right idea? just sayin

(i be trollin)

[Jodomar]

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[pqumsieh]

Its wise to know a little something about western law before you start making "technical" points. Squatting law clearly states that only those individuals who are CURRENTLY on the land at the time of claim and without previous contestment of the land can claim entitlement. (well that definition is a nut shell really)

Hence, your counter arguement fails on that "tehnical" point.

Its quite clear to me, and hopefully everyone else here, that you are "chewing the water" as an arab would say. As someone who has actually seen things for himself and understands what my people are like, i can tell you that your perspective is extremely narrow. Not necissarily wrong in all regards, but narrow nevertheless. To truly understand this conflict you must understand arab culture.

Need to finish my post later, wrotw this on iphone...

[Heartmann]

actually chewing water is found in Swedish as well as similarities go in cultures, the county had close ties to turkey during the time Sweden was a global power as a side note ^^

What you are stating thou is very wise and diplomatic to boot, seeing as you could have just said "you are being a bunch of ignorant sods!" ^^

 The problem is that this conflict is has blames on both sides, while both sides acknowlege that they have fault, they seem now trying tp figure out whom has the largest fault which is rather ... pointless?

And we are not helping the matter much either by putting al the blame on Israel or Palestine, since it would be having two big retarded cousins trying to save the day for there smaller cousins in the sand box, while they are still throwing sad at each other, the bigger cousins are standing arguing that the one of the children should stop while egging on there own side

[pqumsieh]

With regard to my previous posts, the conflict is more a result of an unwillingness to accept western doctrines/philosophies. At a fundamental level, many Arab nations oppose what the west does on a day to day basis. You argue that the relocation of many Palestinians was just because it was legal. As I mentioned before, who defines what is legal and what is not? Even within a western legal context I assure you there are arguments regarding whether the whole thing was in fact legal.

Ultimately, your argument fails on two fronts. 1) it is premised on the beliefs of the west as absolute; that the people who have lived on that land for centuries have no say. 2) that some of the facts you present as facts are not in fact facts. They are opinion. Or worse speculation/assumptions/misinformation. Just as easily as you can gather 20 statements supporting the settlement you will gather 20 more that oppose it. Some will say it was justified, others will not. Fact of the matter is, neither you or me are in a position to really argue this issue. I take what I hear from others with a grain of salt, all perspectives are biased, even those of my parents.

However, if you do choose to argue this further, I ask that you take the time to seriously think about my statements above. You first have to decide whether the west had the authority to dictate how things would go down. Following that, you have to justify solving one problem by creating another (displacing one group for another). Finally, you have to fully understand and appreciate the cultural and global context of the decision and the underlying corruption that took place in order for this to actually occur.

Overall, the reason I am posting is not to change your mind on this matter (as generally this is impossible) but to hopefully expose some serious questions for you. If that has happened then my job is done.

[roflmao]

I think you misunderstood my post.

Just to clarify I never argued that the relocation of hundreds of thousands of innocent Arab Palestinians was just. Never. The refugee camps are tragic. There's nothing just about them. All I said was that the relocation is not the fault of the Jews and instead was caused by the decision by Arabs to reject any form of partitioning and instead go to war. It's not right or just, but I believe the Arabs are largely to blame for the tragedy. It wasn't legal, there was nothing "legal" about it. War is war and the Palestinian refugees are a tragic result of the 1948 and subsequent wars.

What I said that was legal was paying for right to ownership. If I buy X piece of land for Y price from you, it is a trade and by the very definition of our trade that land becomes mine. That's not dictated western doctrines or philosophies but by the agreement between you and me. This was all in reference to actions taken prior to the 1948 war. There were no refugees at this time. There were no displaced people. There was no relocation of Palestinians at this time in history. The Jews bought most (if not all) of the land at high prices prior to the occupied territories. That's legal by anyones definition, even the King of Jordan acknowledged it (check the quote I gave).

There was no Jewish conquest of land before 1948.

My post was all about what happened prior to 1948, how the Jews came to Palestine, while you're referring primarily to actions taken during or after the 1948 war.

I'd like to hear a justification from an Arab perspective for the 1948 war, the pre-1948 riots, rejecting both the Peel commission plan and the UN recommendation and for getting the ball rolling.

[Smokaz]

What I said that was legal was land contracts. If I buy X piece of land for Y price from you, it is a trade and by the very definition of our trade that land becomes mine. That's not dictated western doctrines or philosophies but by the agreement between you and me. This was all in reference to actions taken prior to the 1948 war. The Jews bought most (if not all) of the land at high prices prior to the occupied territories. That's legal by anyones definition, even the King of Jordan acknowledged it (check the quote I gave).

Perhaps the buying of the land itself was legal. Kind of like you casually buy a condo, or a beach house.
The plan however was to make a sovereign territory. If I buy ground in the US, lets say I bought most of LA and the surroundings. I sincerely doubt I'd be able to apply for becoming a sovereign country.

[roflmao]

There's a pretty big difference between just rejecting the idea that a group of land should become a sovereign state and going to war trying to kill all the people inhabiting that said land.

So the Arabs rejected the partition plans, okay, maybe they've got good reasons. Fair enough, but how do you get to full-scale war from just that? The UN plan was just a recommendation, it had little-to-no actual coercive force. I just don't see why things could've been left as they were.

Following your analogy:
Let's say that I buy most of LA and at least try to become a sovereign state. Does my attempt at becoming a sovereign state translate into a justification for sending a nuclear missile into the land I bought?


@pqumish:
I debate because it's fun and incredibly educational. I think it's a healthy thing to be able to have disagreements on very important issues where people have strong opinions and to talk about it and just discuss! You're right about minds being hard to change, but I'd really like to hear some more concrete examples of what you're talking about because I love learning. Of course neither of us are in a position to make a particularly informed opinion on the matter, but as long as we're debating on a CoH website and not using our arguments in a national assembly or whatever I see no harm in discussing.

What are the facts that I presented that you think are disingenous? What are the arguments regarding the legality of the land the Jews bought? What government officials were corrupt leading to favoritism for Jews? I'm all ears.