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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 3:44 am Post subject: |
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| stevemcgarrett wrote: |
Bobster:
You see, ontheotherhand and gopher were engaged in what we like to term a reasonable exchange of views, something you are evidently adverse to.
So check in again when EFLT or some other flamer posts. That's more your speed.
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Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee
Joined: 25 May 2003
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| Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 7:06 am Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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| Every responsible and sensible commentator criticized Arafat for his refusal to sign the deal and for launching the second intifada. |
Well, since we're making appeals to authority here...
Slate Magazine, current home of Christopher Hitchens and about as mainstream as you can get, published a piece arguing that Arafat was right to reject the deal.
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The Camp David offer also had features that kept it from amounting to statehood in the full sense of the term. The new Palestine couldn't have had a military and wouldn't have had sovereignty over its air space�Israeli jets would roam at will. Nor would the Palestinians' freedom of movement on the ground have been guaranteed. At least one east-west Israeli-controlled road would slice all the way across the West Bank, and Israel would be entitled to declare emergencies during which Palestinians couldn't cross the road. Imagine if a mortal enemy of America's�say the Soviet Union during the Cold War�was legally entitled to stop the north-south flow of Americans and American commerce. Don't you think the average American might ask: Wait a minute�who negotiated this deal?
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Rather convincing argument, in my view. I mean, who the hell would agree to no army, no air sovereignty, and enemy control of their own roads?
http://www.slate.com/id/2064500/ |
That is Camp David. in July of 2000
How about Bill Clintons offer of December 2000?
What is your take there. Was Arafat right to reject that too?
Camp David was in many ways an opening offer but I wish everyone would talk the entire negotions not just Camp David.
Your own article admits to Arafat rejecting 94% + ( notice even your article admits it was even more than 94%) of the West Bank. Arguably it was as much as 97%. And for the record Arafat would not even make a counter offer. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:52 am Post subject: |
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Isolating Hamas is right in principle. But when has isolation ever actually worked? The US has tried it with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Palestine under Arafat and Hamas and Iraq and it hasn't worked one time.
I was just reading the other day in the "articles from the past" section of the Herald Tribune about how in 1957 some Western experts on China were estimating that Mao's regime had murdered (or at least enabled the murder of) over a million people. So we at least had a good idea of the scale of Mao's atrocities when Nixon agreed to open up trade with China. That openness was wrong in principle but it's probably done more for the Chinese and the US then isolation would have.
The problem with engagement with Hamas is that they (at least outwardly) don't seem interested in enriching their people, at least not if it means opening up their economy to Western influence. The ideal solution would be to somehow arrange it to allow decent Palestinians to migrate to more prosperous countries while at the same time not allowing any of the terrorists in. That's probably, at the very least, extremely difficult but it would give Palestinians who have given up hope for their own country an incentive to be law-abiding citizens. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:03 pm Post subject: |
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mack wrote:
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| The problem with engagement with Hamas is that they (at least outwardly) don't seem interested in enriching their people, at least not if it means opening up their economy to Western influence |
That's the understatement of the day. They're thugs at best; terrorists at worst. They care about power and they ain't that bright to boot. Moreover, they're ultra-nationalists who refuse to let Israel remain.
Zhou Enlai was a forward-thinking, educated diplomat who the U.S. could work with. Few in the West knew what was happening in the 1950s in China, especially in the countryside. But Mao's policies didn't become tantamount to genocide until a few years later during the Great Leap Forward. We were doing it for geopolitical reasons: China had recently broken with the Soviets and we wanted to widen the wedge, so to speak.
Mao was on the brink of death in 1971 and the US wanted to court the transitional leadership. It was also a way to bolster our negotiating hand with the North Vietnamese at the time.
We have nothing to gain by courting Hamas except the enmity of Fatah and more moderate forces. And Hamas will not disavow its anti-Semitic campaign. The one chance to do that came in the coaltion PLO government and we now see what happened there. |
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:45 am Post subject: |
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Yea I never really understood the argument for continuing Western aid to Palestine after they elected Hamas. A lot of people said the West was being hypocritical because we are supposed to support democracy but if people elect terrorists how can we give them money?
At the same time, it might be a mistake to give any money to Fatah either. Here's where the Palestinian people's real grievance should lie: the West refused to fund a government that was genuinely elected but didn't object nearly as much to funding a government that used Western aid as a personal bank account and bribery fund (and whose appalling corruption did a lot to drive Palestinians to elect Hamas). Let Fatah prove to us that they've truly broken away from Arafat's criminal misuse of public funds before we write them any more checks. |
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stevemcgarrett
Joined: 24 Mar 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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mack wrote:
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| Let Fatah prove to us that they've truly broken away from Arafat's criminal misuse of public funds before we write them any more checks. |
Agreed; this practice must come to an end. Choosing the lesser of the two evils doesn't make it right but we've got to start somewhere and hope for internal reform later. |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:29 pm Post subject: |
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But, you know, WHEN are you guys gonna talk about Jimmy Carter again?
Last edited by The Bobster on Sat Jun 30, 2007 1:07 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:44 pm Post subject: |
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But, you know, WHEN are you guts gonna talk about Jimmy Carter again?
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His sister was pretty freaking weird. Anyone see People Vs. Larry Flynt? |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 1:09 pm Post subject: |
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| On the other hand wrote: |
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But, you know, WHEN are you guts gonna talk about Jimmy Carter again?
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His sister was pretty freaking weird. |
Well. Okay. Talking about his sister is at least STARTING to get close ...
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 1:21 pm Post subject: |
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How about Billy Carter and Billy Beer, then? Close enough, Bobster?
Remember when Revell was selling this model truck, by the way...?
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mack4289
Joined: 06 Dec 2006
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah what this current presidential campaign is missing is embarrassing family members. One of these people has to have a coke addict brother or skank sister, right? |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 12:51 am Post subject: |
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Gopher, if I wanted, I could post pics of GWBush's daughters at various parties, and then it would be easy to find quotes of dad saying stuff like, "Well, when I was young, I was a little wild, too."
Well, at least you got back to talkng about Jimmy Carter. Even if it's just the cheapest of cheap shots ...
(As an aside, my two brothers cannot figure out for the life of them why I'd rather be in Korea than California - from their point of view, I guess, I am Billy Carter.  Hand a beer out of the fridge, willya?) |
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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 1:07 am Post subject: |
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| Back when he was being investigated over his ties to Libya, I recall Billy Carter expressing views on the middle east that were in the same general ballpark as what his more-renowned brother has been saying lately. |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 2:41 am Post subject: |
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Bobster: you have succeeded in interrupting the conversation and passed judgment at least twice. What is it that you want to talk about regards Jimmy Carter?
Oh, yeah. And this...
| The Bobster wrote: |
| ...if I wanted, I could post pics of GWBush's daughters at various parties, and then it would be easy to find quotes of dad saying stuff like, "Well, when I was young, I was a little wild, too." |
You seem to believe that I am a W. Bush partisan. Why? |
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The Bobster
Joined: 15 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 9:43 am Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| You seem to believe that I am a W. Bush partisan. Why? |
Oh, I get it. You're just here to talk about stuff only faintly connected to Jimmy Carter, or to post pictures that are as irrelevant to the man and his presidency as, well, anything I could mention.
Nixon was president during the illegal bombing of Cambodia and Laos. He was also president during the first time Americans walked on the moon, probably the most momentous things any human beings ever did. Nixon was all over both of those things.
Nixon was STILL the worst president in American history. How did Nixon spend his retirement? How has Carter spent his?
Get what I'm saying? Cuz, that's what I BEEN saying. |
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