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War In The Middle East
Omar067
Veteran
It really seems like the war on terror will never end. It isn't really clear to me when or how this war was started. The only thing I keep hearing is that there are crazy people across the sea who are Arab or Muslim. It really isn't clear to me if religion is playing a big part in the wars over there. I hear rumors that all this stuff started because the middle east didn't want Jews to live in Israel. So the middle east has united to drive Christians and Jews into the sea. This is what I've heard but I could be wrong. Many countries has killed many leaders, over there and has helped people get their say in the government, but violence is still going on and on. Just so I'm not offending anyone, my name is Omar, an Arabian name. It is also used by Muslims a lot. I know that every person who identifies themselves as the two groups are not like the others So my question is, how would the Buddha try to end this conflict? I also want to know Buddhist opinions about the problems over seas. I also want a clear answer to how these conflicts overseas started.
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Comments
Terrorism is essentially an international guerrilla war, and guerrilla wars are unwinnable. The US won independence from the Brits in part because they employed guerrilla tactics learned from the Eastern tribes. The Vietnamese war was a guerrilla war. The list goes on.
But sure, natural resources, not to mention: water! Water wars may be coming, eventually.
Israel is a liberal, decent democracy with equality for women, minorities, Arab-Israelis, gays, Christians. No single other country that borders little Israel can boast of similar political, religious, and economic freedom. Of course Israel must be aggressive; there have been 3 wars of annihilation waged against her since her founding in which Israel's neighbors attempted to drive the Jewish state into the sea.
In the case of the lunocracy in Iran, one can only hope that its own people will oust the regime before intervention. It is run by madmen bent on the apocalypse and the only leadership to my knowledge that openly calls for the holocaust of another nation. A liberal, democratic and secular Iran someday will not be a threat to the West, but a welcome ally.
... Remember Condoleezea Rice breathlessly saying that a pre-emptive attack on Iraq can't wait for a mushroom cloud over New York City?
....hopefully it won't be like that this time.... because this one might no be containable and could spiral into something no one wants.
...I've lost track of the strange bedfellows in this situation... the Shiite Iranians make the most noise about Israel, (which is said to a have at least 100 thermo-nukes and would erase Iran along with a couple of other countries for good measure. .. if they tried anything).. ...but the real target of their regional power bid.. (which has been enabled BTW by the U.S. taking-out the Sunni Iraqi strongman who was keeping them in check...then handing Iraq to the Shiites)... are the Sunni oil Sheikdoms and Emirates like Bahrain where there is also an American Military presence, and where the King just put-down a Shiite democratic uprising..... and like the Sunni Saudis, ....who have said they will go nuclear if Shiite Iran does, ....and is according to some reports quietly wanting Israel to take Iran down a peg...because ...the enemy of your enemy ....
Then there is the Arab Spring which the West supported (except in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia of course) thinking maybe they will all just be like us , but now we are having to come to terms with governments that might really represent the people of the region.... and might not be what we want them to be.... The Israelis are in a pickle because the peace deal they had with the strongman Mubarak will not remain in place if the democratic will of the Egyptian people prevails , hence the quiet continued support for the military regime by the West ... ...which is an embarrassing problem, because we say democracy is good .......except when results go against our interests....
.....and this just a super-simplified snapshot of that tangle mess....
The polar bears are skinny, and were wasting time with this crap.
the only effect may be the cost of petrol.
honestly, its really getting old, this neverending conflict.
USA is stuck bcos of the jewish lobby.
as long as Israel bullies the palestinians, the arabs will simmer.
so, good luck.
let me know when they make peace.
otherwise, i am not interested anymore.
make peace not war,
forgive n forget.
strive to end dukkha.
About that "Jewish lobby"--it turns out it's an Israeli lobby. According to essays over the years in Tikkun Magazine, American Jews on the whole do not at all agree with US support of an aggressive Israel. They aren't lobbying. It's Israel that's doing the lobbying.
Let's see Iran murders religious converts, executes gays, tortures women for sexual crimes. Israel doesn't even have a death penalty, and has political and social parity for gays and minorities. No difference?
On the other hand.... deflecting any inspection of a long brutal occupation by invoking the Holocaust,....and equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.... has only made things worse for Jewish people. We all mirror what we hate most... and when there are Jewish settlers who see Palestinians as subhumans who should be deported to Jordan.. or denied water rights in the only land they have ever known... what does that mirror?
It is a hard problem and there has to be some very uncomfortable questions asked. .. I'm non-Jewish enough to see them, and Jewish enough to ask them. which is an odd thing.
...regarding Condi Rice . That was a comment she made in the run-up to the Iraq war..
When the rest of the world was saying ..."hold on.. what does Iraq does have to do with 9/11? this is insane! , your just using 9/11 as a pretext ".... The Bush administration's response was to play Americans with color coded threat levels...and end debate with demagoguery.
....and just today Gingrich is saying .... we can't wait until the bomb is dropped.
Who is it he wants to drop it on? Pick a card, any card.
iraq or afghanistan?
..... The Shah who came to power in a western backed strategic coup, was a tyrant. The revolution that overthrew him was a secular student uprising, that was hijacked by the hard core religionists, who brought the Ayatollah back from exile in France. The middle eastern revolutionary movements up until the late seventies were anti-colonial and secular in flavor...then later became religious.... at about the same time the religious right, in perfect mirror fashion, began its rise in the west. Going by their pronouncements Santorum and company, and the Ayatollas, are cut from the same cloth.
and so, Knight, needless to say.... is your view..
...its all we got.. eh.