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Sheridan and the WTC

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hostile17:
Congratulations Jaguar! That is the biggest pile of horse s**t I heard in months!
Allow me to clue you in to a few facts you have obviously been ignorant (or ingoring) of:
------------------------------------
I could go on endlessly, as your post is filled with ignorance of basic facts, half-truths, and outright lies, drenched in what is obviously prejudice against Israel and Israelis, but what would be the point?
I only hope that my post will set a few facts straight among those of you out there reading it, and perhaps convince Jade to crack open a history book before making such doubvious statements next time.
Funny, I recently saw a B5 episode, "Acts of Sacrifice", I believe. One of the lines stays with me now: "In war, the first casualty is always the truth."
You've certainly illustrated THAT point quite eloquently, Jade.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I am warning you to control your attitude in the future since no one else has found it fit to do so yet.
I am pro-Israeli as well, but displaying such offensive and insulting behaviour is unfitting to this board and inacceptable regardless of the point or side that you're arguing.
Two conditions must be met:
1. You apologize for the large amount of insults you managed to fit in there.
2. You continue this discussion in a civilized manner.
That is all, if you don't cooperate I will be forced to inform the admins of this.

May Valen be with you.
 
Solaris, I did not intend to insult anyone. As a matter of fact, I actually took care to refrain from insutling anyone.
I believe this board has a free-speech policy. I think some of the views expressed here are nonsensical in the extreme, and had said so. That is it, that is all. At no time have I insulted anyone directly (i.e. saying someone was stupid because he thought this or that). I do not see how criticizing the opinions of someone (as opposed to criticizing the charachter of said someone, which is rude and irrelevant) as "uncivilised manner" as you say. If you're mad about the (censored) profanity thing, others, like G'Kars'Eye for example, have used it before me without comment. Still, if that's a faux pas around here, then I'll refrain from doing that as well, but I will not agree to censoring my views on some things that are said.
Having said that, let me assure you again that I truly do not mean to offend anyone. I just wrote what I thought. If you wish, you may report me to the admins now, because that's the closest thing to an apology you're going to get out of me.
Cheers.

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Profanity is considered undesirable, but it is okay as long as it isn't directed at another board member. Like for example if you said: "Aw fuck, that piece of microsoft crap screwed up and I lost my post." You wouldn't really be blamed or anything, but an insulting comment toward another user, regardless of it's profanity content or lack thereof is not something that is tolerated.

If Jade Jaguar wasn't offended by it, than it's totally okay with me, but if he was, you owe him an apology.


May Valen be with you.
 
A couple of quick points
First I did not mean to imply that all war is bad. The point of my post was to point out that often right is a metter of perspective and that our terms of good and evil are relative.

Second I agree that we must take action against terrorism, but we alos must reevaluate our policies. I see it as similar to someone who has had a heart attack. Certanly one must take action to stabilize them and repair the damage. But they also must eliminat the causal factors that led to the heart attack.

People don't attack for no reason and while the reasons do not justify the attacks they do explain them. Actions have consequeces and while crushing opposion is a good short term stratagy the only way t otrue peace is coperation and respect.

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Scott Gifford

Please pardon the spelling errors, grammer errors and various sarcastic overtures
 
That is crap.

Just because we were attacked we must be doing something wrong and we must change. Bull.

We were attacked because we represent the modern democratic world that these extremists need to destroy to implement their draconian brand of Islam on the world. Even if every Jew and Christian in Isreal left this would not end.

I hate to make this comparison because it is overused/abused to the point of losing its meaning but by your logic the Jews/Poles/Brits should have tried to figure out what they did to upset poor Mr. Hitler so badly.

Part of the reason the Taliban is even in power is America tried to show that it did not overly interfere in other countries workings.

We owe the poor terrorists nothing and running and hiding will only encourage more terrorist acts. Terrorism is about inflicting fear, hence the terror part, and making people too afraid to act. Giving in to the terrorists will only encourage more attacks in the future.

Responding with force and not backing off shows that the United states is not the paper tiger many believe us to be. This credibility will only help the US in the future.

------------------
"Yeah, we could start our own game where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing's the way it seems."-Homer
 
I am ethnically Jewish. My father served in the Israeli military in the early 70s, right between the two wars. Part of his service involved patroling Palestinian-Israeli borders. I was involved with Jewish Student Unions, the Israeli Day Parade in Manhattan, Chabad-Lubavitch, NCSY, and even dabbled briefly in the Jewish Defense League and Kochane Chai (I'm not proud of all this, by the way, I'm just getting to a point, eventually.
smile.gif
So, I think you can all guess in which I way I may be subjective on this topic.

That being said, Hostile17's "facts" are misguided, skewed, chock-loaded with rhetoric and, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, phoney-bolony. Like all good propoganda, there is some truth in it, but it is incomplete, one-sided, and surrounded by falsity.

I'm not going to get into all of it, but I'll just site one example that really stood out:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I assure you that 99% percent of all Israelis would like nothing better than to pull out of the Territories captured in the Six Day War and let the Palestinians do whatever they damn well please with their cities. But see, they have a little problem: 99% of all Palestininans would like nothing better than slitting the throats of all Israelis alive. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You have got to be out of your mind. It's nice that you "assure" us, but I've been to Israel, met, befriended, and worked with and for scores of Israelis and Jews. It's just absurd.

My father, who obviously sides with Israel in the conflict and is, sadly, a racist, says the most extremist, insane people he met were not any Palestinians, but Ultra-Orthodox Jews. I'm not saying he's right, but it's an interesting take on the whole thing.


I am now regretting posting anything on this subject. I should have figured it would lead to this sort of thing, and it's completely off-topic.

The topic was about whether we can draw an analogy between the B5 Shadow story arc and the events in the mid-east. I maintain that you cannot, since the Shadows are so different than humans in motivation, physical form, technology, and civilisation, among other reasons. It's like comparing a dog to a Venus fly trap.

Solaris, cool down. Hostile said some stupid things, but they weren't insulting. I have dished out and taken worse around here. I think you're just letting that new title of yours go to your head. Besides, the admins have been doing their job pretty well, they don't need you to tattle-tale on us for them. If they want to close a thread, they can damn well do so.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>If you're mad about the (censored) profanity thing, others, like G'Kars'Eye for example, have used it before me without comment. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, but when I do it, it's funny.
tongue.gif
laugh.gif


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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I assure you that 99% percent of all Israelis would like nothing better than to pull out of the Territories captured in the Six Day War and let the Palestinians do whatever they damn well please with their cities. But see, they have a little problem: 99% of all Palestininans would like nothing better than slitting the throats of all Israelis alive.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Let us use realistic figures. Let us assume that roughly 70% of both sides would prefer peace, while 30% would wish war. Under such circumstances (assuming that the cycle of mistakes has already started) how can the peaceful factions stop the warlike factions from dragging their whole society into conflict?

The answer is, they can not. Not without a major change in attitude, a lack of harmful interference, a lot of beneficial interference... and a damn large amount of good luck. The latter, may I remind you, is very rare on this planet.

When a terrorist act has been committed, more people on the side that suffered want retribution. Yet unselective retribution will only lead to counter-retribution. And so on. Forever. Conflicts have a natural tendency to escalate -- unless enough people realize how and why they escalate, understand the nature of their problems and find the right means for stopping it.

Any retribution for terrorist acts has to be selective - targeted at those responsible. Otherwise it will create new terrorists. While mentioning this, I am fully aware that in many situations, selective retribution is *extremely* difficult. Starting wars is so much easier.

Getting a terrorist *while* undermining his cause, *while* supporting the groups in his society who would prefer peace -- it is a task *most* difficult to fulfill. Especially if there are influential outside parties who wish to keep the violence going.

But no matter how diffucult, it is still preferable to an endless conflict - for this will only increase the number of extremists on both sides.

This is simply a description of the problem. Rest assured that if I knew a simple answer to how this can be stopped, I would tell. But there is no simple answer. There are so many conditions which must be fulfilled at the same time, including but not limited to:

- Enough people realizing how such conflicts continue.
- Unselective retribution being stopped.
- Outside sponsorship for terrorism being stopped.
- The right kind of outside support for the peace process.
- A damn large amount of good luck.

------------------
"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> What's your beef with Israel, then? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I don't have any particular beef with Israel.

My own view of the situation is that there is more than enough guilt to go around.
Both sides have committed atrocities and murders.
Both sides have their extremists who will not be satisfied until the sands are stained a nice Permanent shade of Blood Red.

It's more of a "Pox on both their houses" situation.

I just wish there was some way to force the murderers to restrict their murders to each other. Find a nice unhospitable piece of real estate, build a 50 foot wall around it, dump anyone convicted of terrorist activities in and declare it a Free Kill Zone for anyone stupid enough to enter.

I suspect that many of them would Volunteer to Go just so they could get their "Revenge".



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The 3 most common elements in the Universe:
Hydrogen, Greed, Stupidity!
 
Hostile 17, let us examine exactly where the equine excrement lies. You say that 99% of Israelis would be glad to give back everything won in the six day war if it would assure their peace and safety. You say that the Palestinians were offered half your capitol city. You say they could not have the Arab Quarter. This is all incredibly contradictory. By your capitol city, I assume you mean Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv. Well, Israel took Jerusalem in the six day war, and you're not offering to give all of it back. You say half was offered, but not the Arab quarter, so what was offered, if not the Arab quarter, which is obviously the part the Palestinians want? You say this would endanger Israelis. I presume you mean the settlers who have deliberately moved into the Arab quarter, trying to make returning it impossible. I am sure that the Palestinians would rejoice if Israel actually offered to return everything won in 67, and would be so overjoyed that Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad would be out of business in a week. Arafat would be so popular that all but the hard core of the terrorists would be behind him enough that he could go after the hard core without fear of being thrown out by his own people. And Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad are not his own people, except in that they are Palestinians too. They have not renounced terrorism, and recognized the right of Israel to exist as Arafat has. And they have tried to assassinate him, more than once.

I have seen the news footage of Sharon's visit. Perhaps he only had four official body guards, but his retinue was much too numerous to count. The news reports said 1,000. That's a round figure, so it is probably not exact, but there were a lot of people with him. A very good friend of mine, of 26 years standing is a conservative Jew, and a strong supporter of Israel. He thinks that the Palestinians would have protested anyway, but he does not dispute the number. As Lennier has pointed out in his post, peace has many enemies on both sides. If Sharon had not so effectively sabotaged it, the Palestinian terrorists probably would have tried. I do not support Palestinian violence any more than I do Israeli violence, such as the assissination squads, the bulldozing of houses and orchards, and other collective punishment, which is illegal under international law.

I was not offended by having my post called a load of horse hockey. Honest people can disagree. I am offended by hatred and prejudice. And anyone who says that 99% of Palestinians would like to slit all Israelis' throats is clearly filled with hatred and prejudice. I support the right of Jewish people to live in safety and peace in Israel. I believe that if the Palestinians had tried the active non-violence approach of Gandhi when they began their struggle against the State of Israel, they would have obtained just goals long ago, not the unjust ones that many do hold, of eliminating Israel. This type of action only works if the majority of your opponents are humane people of conscience, which I'm sure that the majority of Israelis are. If anyone wants proof, just look back to the Israeli protests against the Sabra and Chatilla (sp?) massacres, when a million Israelis turned out, as many as in the largest of the US anti Viet Nam war protests, in a much smaller country. I know many Israelis share my views on the situation. But Israel does have legitimate fears for its security, and in the last election, they voted those fears. Because they are human, and humans often do that. But it takes brave people to make peace. I believe that both the Palestinians and the Israelis are brave enough to do it. I also believe that as the contributors of 3-4 billion dollars a year to Israel, the US must persuade the Israeli government to act within the rule of law, and stop treating the Palestinians as prisoners in their own lands. However, we certainly cannot be seen as yeilding to terrorism and making demands on Israel as a result of 9/11. After the loss of life we have suffered, that is my greatest sadness in this situation.

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Palindromes of the month: Lager, sir, is regal. Do geese see god?

[This message has been edited by Jade Jaguar (edited October 22, 2001).]
 
Congratulations Jaguar! That is the biggest pile of horse s**t I heard in months!
Allow me to clue you in to a few facts you have obviously been ignorant (or ingoring) of:

1. I assure you that 99% percent of all Israelis would like nothing better than to pull out of the Territories captured in the Six Day War and let the Palestinians do whatever they damn well please with their cities. But see, they have a little problem: 99% of all Palestininans would like nothing better than slitting the throats of all Israelis alive. They have been murdering Israelis wholesale for decades now, going back to before WWII, WAY before 1967. If the Palestinians truly desired peace, I daresay we wouldn't have witnessed so many terrorist bombings of buses, cafes, shopping malls, etc. before, after, and especially DURING the peace talks, which incidentally dragged on forever because Arafat would not accept any Israeli proposal, no matter how insanely generous. Israel was willing to trade away half its own capital city, for God's sake! Would the US be willing to trade part of Washington DC for that cause, I wonder?
The Palsetinians expect Israelis to give up any and all concerns for their personal security (whatever they left of it) and then have the gall to appear outraged when they can't have it. Of course Arafat can't have control of the Arab Quarter, it would put put all Jewish citizens at mortal danger in the hands of dangerous religious fanatics like the Hamas, Hizbullah and Islamic Jihad, the same people Arafat can't (supposedly)control. If he cannot control them, then assurances must be made, simple as that.

2. Sharon at Har Habait with 1000 armed followers? Arafat almost assassinated by his own people? I'd like to know where you get those intersting facts from. Sharon (who was there with, perhaps, four body guards) was only the excuse the PLO used to start the riot (and a pretty lame one at that; Israeli official, including Sharon, visited there many times in the past) which were planned by Arafat months before, as both Israeli and US intelligence found. And the only one to be assassinated recently by the Palestinians terrorist organizations was Israel's own minister of tourism.
I could go on endlessly, as your post is filled with ignorance of basic facts, half-truths, and outright lies, drenched in what is obviously prejudice against Israel and Israelis, but what would be the point?
I only hope that my post will set a few facts straight among those of you out there reading it, and perhaps convince Jade to crack open a history book before making such doubvious statements next time.
Funny, I recently saw a B5 episode, "Acts of Sacrifice", I believe. One of the lines stays with me now: "In war, the first casualty is always the truth."
You've certainly illustrated THAT point quite eloquently, Jade.

------------------
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> Just because we were attacked we must be doing something wrong and we must change. Bull.

We were attacked because we represent the modern democratic world that these extremists need to destroy to implement their draconian brand of Islam on the world. Even if every Jew and Christian in Isreal left this would not end.

I hate to make this comparison because it is overused/abused to the point of losing its meaning but by your logic the Jews/Poles/Brits should have tried to figure out what they did to upset poor Mr. Hitler so badly.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
My point was not that we should not upset people, but htat we should not help extremists come to power. To use your WWII analogy, most historians agree that the treaty of Versaili and the condition that it forced Germany into made it a ripe place for a Hitler to come to power. People in a country do not support a Hitler unless they are in a deplorable condition. Peopel were starving inflation was skyrocketing and they felt that the rest of the world was against them. We learned our lesson and after WWII the allies rebuilt Japan and Europe. There were other reasons for the MArshal plan, but one was to prevent another Hitler.
In Afganastan and many other countries the United States often support extremist rightwing faction that imposed dictatorships on the people of the countries. The aim was two fold. One was to stop extremist leftwing factions and the other was to make them amicable to US corporate intervention. The result was that in many countries very deplorable thigs happened. Also these militirist were no friends of the US and now are in a position to challenge the US. What I was suggesting was that we need to learn a lesson and try supporting people over provit to bowwer from a protest prase.
This by the way is were I agree with Lenier. THe Shadows were acting soly on there own and they could only be stoped with drastic means. The Terrorists can be trased back to the Russian invasion in afganistan and US support for the Majeeden

------------------
Scott Gifford

Please pardon the spelling errors, grammer errors and various sarcastic overtures
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GKarsEye:
Solaris, cool down. Hostile said some stupid things, but they weren't insulting. I have dished out and taken worse around here. I think you're just letting that new title of yours go to your head. Besides, the admins have been doing their job pretty well, they don't need you to tattle-tale on us for them. If they want to close a thread, they can damn well do so.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
That you've dished out and taken worse is irrelevant. I will not allow this board to degrade into one of those boards where members can't have a civilized argument without having someone flame their asses off. New title of mine? Let me just throw some quick facts, I've moderated boards since... well it was a long time ago, and I've run quite a few myself, so I know what I'm doing, I don't need anyone pointing it out for me.
Tattle tale? Far from it, it is my duty to inform the admins of any misconduct on this board, the fact that I chose to omit this shows good will on my part.
Yes, they can close this thread, but in a board as big as B5LR the admins can't be in ten places at once, that's why moderators exist.
You may think this is overly strict, but if you spent a day at another board where things like this are allowed you will see why I feel this way.
Again I repeat, if Jade Jaguar wasn't insulted, then fine, but if this was directed toward me, I would've been insulted so I acted on that basis.


May Valen be with you.
 
Solaris, I really don't care. I only take exception to you telling people to apologize (like you tried to do to me once, if I remember correctly). An apology, like a promise, is worthless if forced. It must be honest to be a real apology, otherwise it is fake and the apology would be more insulting than whatever anyone said in the first place to force the apology.

Also, placing full stock in the "offended" party is not right. Just because someone is offended, that does not mean that they were told something offensive. Sometimes, people take things the wrong way.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by GKarsEye:
Also, placing full stock in the "offended" party is not right. Just because someone is offended, that does not mean that they were told something offensive. Sometimes, people take things the wrong way.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
In this I am using "you" as a hypothetical person, not you as in you - Gkarseye.
If you are saying something and you don't want to offend someone, you'll make sure you won't. If someone is offended then you have offended him regardless of what your take on the situation is. Laws are not in the favour of the offender, but in favour of the offendee, as it should be.
About the apologies, well it's all politics, and it's all about politics. I don't think anyone in today's world demands sincerity, since we all know we can't have it. It's just about resolving a situation in the most efficient and least troublesome way. An apology from the offender to the offnded party is usually the best choice.

May Valen be with you.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> I don't think anyone in today's world demands sincerity, since we all know we can't have it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Therein lies the problem. I guess different people have different priorities. I would never apologise if I didn't mean it or if I thought the person was being silly. Sure, I could be wrong, but making everyone feel all warm and nice isn't always the best solution. We have to be a bit more objective and honest when we deal with each other.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."
 
Well there is nothing wrong with being careful of others feelings. If more people were there would be a lot less pain everywhere.

May Valen be with you.
 
There are a lot of points being discussed here, so I'll try to take it one item at a time:

Israel: The territory that currently makes up Israel contains the historical home of the Hebrew tribes. If you're going to plunk them down somewhere and give them territory, that would be the obvious place to do it.

bin Laden's beef with the U.S.: This is actually not as personal as people seem to think. He believes in the Universal Caliphate. He feels it is his duty to bring all sentient beings under the nominal control of Islam. He doesn't care about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict or anything else other than the fact that we breed stability in the Middle East, making it more difficult to overthrow existing governments and replace them with Arab-traditionalist Muslims such as the Taliban.

U.S. foreign policy: There are mistakes such as using economic sanctions where military action and assassination are called for. Nonetheless, U.S. policy has been pretty good. The U.S. props up monarchies and military dictatorships, but there are often few alternatives. Look at Afghanistan for a good example. We haven't supported a democratic government that respects human rights because there isn't one available. Who do we support in Saudi Arabia? The Sauds or al'Qaeda? There's nothing wrong with choosing a bad thing if it's the least bad thing available to you.

Taliban vs. al'Qaeda: How much real distinction can you make when bin Laden's troops function as a part of the Taliban army, the Taliban names him their Defense Minister, and the chief Mullah of the Taliban is his father-in-law?

------------------
 
There was one last point I should've made but didn't: the only foreign policy changes we can consider now are those that will be perceived as undesireable to bin Laden, the Taliban, etc. Anything else would be perceived as capitulation to terrorism, which would lead to further terrorism from every group that has some complaint against the U.S. government. We must establish that terrorism simply doesn't *work*.

That's why the Bush Administration was quick to point out that the U.S. already supports a Palestinian state. It makes many in the Middle East happy and was already our stated policy prior to 9/11.

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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by giffy:
The point of my post was to point out that often right is a metter of perspective and that our terms of good and evil are relative.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nope.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>The meaning of good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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Joe Medina (neargrai@aol.com)

"...that which are, we are"
 
Sol, thanks for being offended on my behalf. As I said, I wasn't offended by his calling what I said Horse pies. Now if he had called ME a big pile of equine excrement, I would be. I took that part of his remarks as what G's Eye called "colorful" on another thread. From H17's comments, I would guess that he is young, and has been raised to have one rather prejudiced point of view. There are people like this all over the world. This discussion has largely been rational, rather than emotional, and that is good.

------------------
You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Palindromes of the month: Lager, sir, is regal. Do geese see god?
 
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