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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 5:10:03 PM   
slvemike4u


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Alumbrado

It is a popular belief that there is a moral relativism to tactics of war.

One time honored approach to war is to get a bigger army and better weapons and go take what you want.

When that was the predominant model, those with smaller armies or outmoded equipment no doubt complained about the unfairness and immorality of being conquered.

Another approach for those who don't have the bigger army or better weapons is to use guerrilla tactics to stop the first group. ala the Vietnamese War for Independence, and the American Revolution.

Again the loser may suggest that there was something 'wrong' about the tactics of the successful guerrilla fighters.

Nowadays, even the most regimented military force is standardized to operate both in, and against guerrilla mode...So what is left for those without that option?

The next rung in the tactical ladder...do something that will guarantee front page coverage all over the world, and then try to spin public opinion through propaganda and debate tactics.

That 'something' can be taking high profile hostages, using human shields on one's positions, or it can be strapping some explosives to a child sent into a marketplace.


Again, those who are the recipient of such tactics will characterize them as horrible...which is exactly why they get the talking points of the side that uses them all over the media.

Without the media's sensationalistic credo 'IIBIL', the tactic of terrorism would be chosen far less often.

In response to the OP question, yes Palestine has benefited greatly from the application of terrorist tactics...without them their version of the story would never have gained the credibility it enjoys today..and with credibility comes money, materials, and other support.... and ultimately leverage.

Anyone who want to argue that the choice of one tactic of war cover another is more moral than the next is welcome to do so.
Alumbrado I fully understand the reasons a people resort to terrorism,the inequities of one side with a large modern army the other side with rocks ,yet that is not the only option open to such an oppresed people.India being one of th foremost example's of an alternative path.Yes they have the world's attention but do they gain any real help when the word is repulsed by their methods

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 5:33:15 PM   
Alumbrado


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Status: offline 		This has nothing to do with desperation or oppression, good or evil... it has to do with the stated goals of war...winning by any means neccessary. And there is a tactical way to win by repulsing the world.

Palestine has gone from being a shadow from ancient history, to being a British colony, to being TransJordanian refugees, to being the 'indigenous peoples exploited by the evil Zionists'.... through efficient application of tactics available to them, when it became clear that other tactics were failing miserably.

If all you have is a crossbow,  then you have to choose to use it, or lose the war, Papal edict declaring it sinful or not.
Sitting around waiting for good to triumph has an historically low rate of return.

If all you have is the  media, then you use that or you become a footnote in history.

Speaking of India... leading one's followers into a guaranteed violent beating by British troops at the seashore is a prime example of manipulating the public's reaction through orchestration of the unthinkable. And it worked very well indeed.

I'm not advocating the tactics, merely categorizing them and their relative rate of success.  And if they are so unsuccessful, then why the rise in state sponsored terrorism?

< Message edited by Alumbrado -- 6/10/2008 5:54:11 PM >

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 6:13:31 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		Well as to why the rise in state sponsored terrorism...I think that one is easy enough increasingly transparent ploy to avoid having a U.S. carrier group off your coast,now of course that's just one of the many reasons some states have taken to wage war by use of proxy....and by the way I'm not so sure I can grant the linkage of terrorism to war.Now I will be jumped all over given chapter and verse as to all the different "guerrilla" resistance efforts over the years that have resulted in a people successfully resisting tyranny...but be aware I believe there is a big difference between blowing up military targets and taking Olympic athletes hostage(which was the prime example in my op)The tactics of the PLO in years passed and hamas today you say are successful because we are talking about them and they focus world attention believe they have been unsuccessful due to the fact there is still no Palestinian State...IMO

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 6:39:43 PM   
Alumbrado


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Status: offline 		There is as big a difference between blowing up military targets and taking Olympic athletes hostage, as there was between knights jousting for conquest and peasants putting a crossbow bolt in the back of said knights, or between the conventional warfare of D-Day, and the civilian deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 
Some looked more palatable than others, but they all got results.

Put them on a sliding moral scale if you wish, but in answer to the narrow question of effectivness, the choice of terrorism, or the crossbow, or the A-bomb as a tactic is measurably effective. Not fool proof, but certainly not without predictable effect.

Your conjecture that the Palestinians would have gained more by non-repulsive tactics is interesting, but short on concrete achievements.

Note again that the stated goal of tactical terrorism (as opposed to the Hollywood evil genius wave of terror) is not to force the enemy to immediately concede because the actions were so repulsive, nor is it to make people everywhere admire the perpetrators.

It is to get one's talking points in the worldwide media, as entre' for one's propaganda.

In this narrow goal, the Palestinians tactics have been measurably successful.

< Message edited by Alumbrado -- 6/10/2008 6:40:33 PM >

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 6:46:55 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		Measurably successful? How so the Palestinian people have not been served by any of these acts...Now as to whether or not the "cause" has been successful that would depend on your measure of success...is there a Palestinian State ...no ...are the Palestinian people still living under deplorable conditions...yes..are young Palestinians still strapping explosives to their body...yes....and oh yeah did Yasser Arafat die a rich man...YES....see none of this screams success...not in my book

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 7:00:53 PM   
Alumbrado


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Status: offline 		War serves the people? You are welcome to that opinion, I'll have to disagree.
War serves the war mongers in my book, and the Palestinian 'leaders' are in possession of more power than they had in say 1870... or 1970.

And more people today believe their propaganda than I would say, even a few years ago. They certainly have more leverage and political currency than they did before Munich, et al.

Considering even TransJordan as a starting point, where would they have been more successful by either conventional or peaceful means to that extent? Treaties? Debates? Speeches? Books? Petitions?

Note that it took the peaceful indigenous peoples of Australia from the 1790s to 1992 to even be legally recognized as having any existence...terra nullius held up that long under peaceful persuasion, and even now they are still trying to get their homelands back in court.

Sometimes violence works, sometimes repulsive violence works, deplorable as that reality may be.

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 8:48:49 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		Corruption on a grand scale amongst the leadership has effectively wielded that new leverage and political currency  pretty damm ineffectively if you ask me.I mean if the intention to acquire these things is ultimately to advance the cause of Palestinian staehood and secure a more just and equitable future for the Palestinian people they have come up pretty damm short.

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 8:57:10 PM   
Alumbrado


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Status: offline 		Oh, I think if you wanted to have a very long thread that would ultimately get locked down,  I could tell you exactly why I don't think the Palestinian leadership is looking at statehood as their 'final' goal.

Instead I will put forth that we should be at the point where society rewards rational approaches to the extent that the media, and terrorism lose their effectiveness.  I just don't think we're there yet.

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 9:00:38 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		Fair enough Alumbrado and looking at how I butchered that last post it might be time for me to retire from this thread myself     

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 9:25:13 PM   
DomKen


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quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
In 1967, America sanctioned a premptive strike by Israel which started the '67 war

You're not actually claiming there wasn't going to be a war in '67 without the Israeli first strike? All those troops massed in the Sinai by Nasser were what? on vacation?

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 10:51:39 PM   
SailCapt


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Status: offline 		Your question about shouldn't the Palestinians choose more effective techniques and setting the start of the time with the Munich disaster is kind of arbitrary. To understand the situation you have to understand the context. Could the Palestinians get much more milage against the state of Israel by non violent confrontation. Yes, quite possibly.

Israel has a big problem, demographics. There are many many more Arabs then Jews in the area that is now Israel and the occupied territories. If the state of Israel annexes Gaza and the West Bank, they are going to be living in a state where the majority of citizens are Arab. Unless they don't give the Arab's citizenship which then means they are going to be an apartied state. Two classes of people, the superior citizens and the lesser non citizen residents. That is just going to crush Israel in a dilemma of morality.


If you want to understand the situation, you have to give some measure of validity to both sides. What we forget about because it's older than our typical horizon, is that many of the Zionists who worked for the creation of Israel where terrorists as well. Read about Menachem Begin's exploits as a member of Irgun.


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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 11:22:34 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		SailCapt i have no truck with anything you have said...Isreal's demographics given it's charter as a Jewish state is certainly going to present some problems if they can't figure out how to withdraw from occupied territories while still maintaining a measure of security.I set the start at Munich linking it with the death of Jim Mckay because that was when I was made aware of the problem as a 12 Y/o boy..I am fully cognitive that both sides have validity....simply asking if the tactics have been counter-productive

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 11:30:10 PM   
pinksugarsub


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quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

Two threads this weekend prompted this question.The first was an ackowledgement of the passing of Jim McKay the second posed the question why the west allws this to happen(the palestinian issue).now with out arguing the relative right or wrongs of that complex issue,the connection I made was this,I am of an age which saw my first introduction to the question at Munich during the 72 olympics.My question would be this had the palestinians chose different methods of persuing a palestinian state ,rather than the taking of hostages ,the blowing up of buses coffee shops and other very disturbing and shocking acts,would not a Palestinian State be a reality now .BTW i am not concedeing the west's responsibility or obligation to solve all the worlds problems especially if when one says the west  one means the U.S.A. but given the methods and the corruption of their own leadership what  is the west obligated morally to do


The Mideast has been a quagmire since time immeriorial, and certainly since 1948, when the modern day State of Israel was recognised.
 
The 'politics' of the region are so complex, few scholars have even mastered them --  and few have reached conclusions or a consensus about how to solve the region's problems.
 
Other regions of the world suffer similar roblems.  South Africa; Bosnia; the former Soviet Union; etc.
 
The West cannot address or solve all such problems.  It's not humanly possble.
 
pinksugarsub
 
 

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/10/2008 11:42:05 PM   
slvemike4u


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Status: offline 		I guess i made a real clusterfuck out of my original question,I in no way meant to suggest this all became a problem in '72 nor did I suggest the "west" had or ought to have the solution ...Rather what I was trying to ask was did people think the methods chosen to persue their goals have been counter-productive.The reason I stated '72 has been explained in previous post's ,the reason I included the "west in my question was due to an earlier thread that asked why the west "allowed"the opression of the Palestinian's ...His question not mine ..,.hope i have finally made myself clear

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/11/2008 12:42:21 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

I am of an age which saw my first introduction to the question at Munich during the 72 olympics.My question would be this had the palestinians chose different methods of persuing a palestinian state ,rather than the taking of hostages ,the blowing up of buses coffee shops and other very disturbing and shocking acts,would not a Palestinian State be a reality now


No, there wouldn't be a Palestinian state and what is more, we wouldn't even be discussing the possibilty of a Palestinian state. The Palestinians took to terrorism because terrorism worked for the Israelis. Yes, the Israelis were the first to use terrorism in that conflict. At the birth of Israel, mass murder was used as a tool to ethnically cleanse the christian and muslim arabs from what is now Israel. You don't have to take my word for it, there are enough testimonies by contemporary Israeli fighters confirming this.

?
The first major anti jewish violence by arabs in what is now Israel predates the 1948 war by at least 28 years.

BTW the arabs were not cleansed from Israel. There arabs living in Israel after the 1948 war ended and arabs still live, fully integrated, in Israel today. All available evidence shows that most of the arabs who fled left of their volition based primarily on fears caused by propoganda spread by their own leaders.


If you read my post, I said the British started the conflict by siding with the zionists and allowing alien Jewish (as opposed to resident Jewish) immigration into the region under the then British foreign minister, Balfour.

You make a typical American point of implying the first act of violence was by the Arabs (no doubt muslim ones). The cause of the conflict was mass immigration of an alien people and an alien culture. East European Jews. Before that there was no conflict between the Arabs, be they christian or muslim and the local Jewish population. In fact there is enough testimony by both Jews and Arabs of that time that both peoples spoke each others language, residential areas were completely mixed and children from all backgrounds played together and went to school together.

The Arabs living in Israel aren't fully integrated today. Israel runs an apartheid regime. Look at who does the menial work and who is the boss. Try and buy land if you are an Arab, you can't without special permission. If you are Arab, there are several statuses you could be but one thing for sure, if you aren't Jewish, the state won't treat you like a full citizen.

Its not lost on most Israeli Arabs that the only soldier prosecuted for killing a civilian, is an Arab. To say that the Israeli military kills about 2,000 civilians a year, that says something.

_____________________________

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/11/2008 12:47:15 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: DomKen

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver
In 1967, America sanctioned a premptive strike by Israel which started the '67 war

You're not actually claiming there wasn't going to be a war in '67 without the Israeli first strike? All those troops massed in the Sinai by Nasser were what? on vacation?


Yes. There is enough documentation showing that to be the case. In fact Nasser thought the US wouldn't allow an attack on Egypt after the US made Israel, France and Britain retreat in '56. Which incidently was another Israeli/British/French manufactured war. In fact, Nasser's deputy claimed the US said they wouldn't allow an Israeli attack. The Arabs knew damn well they didn't have the fire power to attack Israel. All documented and verified by independent sources. The fact that most people in the west (apart from independent historians) believe the Arabs actually started the conflict is because of forty years pro-Israeli propaganda.

What hold Israel has over the USA, god alone knows. They attacked the USS Liberty killing 34 Americans and the US still bows to Israel, as does the whole US media.

It was "one of the classic all-American cover-ups," said retired Admiral Thomas Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who spent a year investigating the attack as part of an independent panel he formed with other former military officials. The panel also included a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia, James Akins.
 


< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 6/11/2008 1:08:31 AM >

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There are fascists who consider themselves humanitarians, like cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.

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RE: why the west has ALLOWED this to happen - 6/11/2008 12:51:22 AM   
meatcleaver


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quote:

ORIGINAL: slvemike4u

I guess i made a real clusterfuck out of my original question,I in no way meant to suggest this all became a problem in '72 nor did I suggest the "west" had or ought to have the solution ...Rather what I was trying to ask was did people think the methods chosen to persue their goals have been counter-productive.The reason I stated '72 has been explained in previous post's ,the reason I included the "west in my question was due to an earlier thread that asked why the west "allowed"the opression of the Palestinian's ...His question not mine ..,.hope i have finally made myself clear


I answered your question. Terrorism has proved costly to both sides but without Arab terrorism we there wouldn't be any discussion of a Palestinian state, the west would allow Israel to land grab and create a greater Israel which has been the zionist plan from the beginning. But Arab terrorism has mainly been a reaction to Israeli state terrorism. If Israel was an Arab state, the US would have bombed them by now, instead of humiliating itself and being an Israeli vassal state.


Yes, Israel has the right to exist under international law but what is international law when Israel and the US both break it at will. The real problem of this conflict, right from the inception of Israel has been Jewish fascism. ie. Zionism. To quote Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister....

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”

< Message edited by meatcleaver -- 6/11/2008 12:57:36 AM >

_____________________________

There are fascists who consider themselves humanitarians, like cannibals on a health kick, eating only vegetarians.

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