Will we really stand for this???

ATSNN- Hezbollah Seizes Israeli Soldiers
Israel attacks Beirut Airport
Is America ready to aid Israel

For those of you who thought it was safe not to browse ATS or watch the news for a few hours, you might be a little surprised to be finding out that apparently certain parties in the middle east are actually serious about all this saber rattling going on in and around Israel lately. The escalations are beginning, and it may be too early to tell whether this is going to be a just another drop in the bucket or the first flareup of Mid-East violence worthy of being called a war since the Lebanese Civil War, but already the calls for Israel to clean house, possibly with US assistance, are being heard from some hawks.

Well excuse me if I break into song but I think Eminem put it best when he said "Let's end this $#!% now 'cause I won't stand for this, and Christopher Reeves won't sit for this neither."
There was a time, remembered now as a high point of instability and crisis, called the Cold War. I'm beginning to think it gets a bad rap (doubly so when I start quoting Eminem, hehe).

Say what you want about the Cold War, but the powers that be didn't just let any old jerk start a war every time they woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Back in the bad old days the Russians would be threatening to come in, America would go to DEFCON-3 just to make sure everyone was listening, and we'd tell these people to sit the hell down and shut the hell up.

I'm not saying we have to play world police- that's not exactly what I'm talking about. But consider the high emphasis on preserving the status quo during the cold war. The present escalation of things presents a mild but still disconcerting threat that Israel and Syria may go at it, and on the off chance that I'm wrong about the Iranians, they just might put their money where their mouth is and help the Syrians. And in that perhaps unlikely situation, what do we get? A good old fashioned oil crisis.

Need I remind you all that the last time there was a high-intensity war there we ended up getting slapped with an oil embargo somehow (I'm talking about the Yom Kippur War because I draw a subtle distinction between Beirut '82 and other M.E. crises)?

The last thing I want to see is a major regional war that results in Iran trying to hold the Persian Gulf hostage to get us to back down from our support of Israel. I consider the odds fairly slim since Iran doesn't want to invite an attack on its nuclear program, but I'm under no illusion that it's impossible either.

But you tell me. Am I way off base here? Should we be behind one side or the other? Because frankly I don't care who wins. The two sides deserve eachother. What I feel really strongly about over there, if anything, is that I don't think 2 Israeli soldiers are worth an international crisis that translates into hundreds if not thousands of deaths and a potential economic crisis as well.

Anyone else here under the impression that the US might ought to get on the phone and tell the Israelis that if they don't find a way out of this war they like, that will find a way out for them that WE like?

Vagabond, certainly this will create instability in that region thus spiking oil prices. The barrels of oil have already gone up like what...like 6 dollars?!

Bush is facing huge pressure right now. If Israel doesn't do something good for America, like take out Iran's nuclear facilities, Americans will be pissed. Rising oil prices will be seen a direct effect from Israel's actions. And you will then see all the branches of government starting to condemn Israel's harsh actions because they want re-election, and they will pressure Bush to condemn the acts by Israel and press for a "peaceful solution".

What can we do about it but vote these spineless fools out of office? I just got off the phone with my mother, and I told her gas went up 6 dollars a barrel and she is like, all because of stupid Israel. This will be the response world wide, especially in America. Like I said, Israel BETTER do something good for America, or we should withdraw everything, support, money. Americans are already seeing Israel as an antagonist and a waste of American support and money, and I am too. Like I said, they better bomb Iran's nuclear reactors

Typical.

Some people get mad when the US is the worlds police man, and some people get mad when hte US isn't the worlds police man.

Unless Syria or Iran attack Israel, which would trigger US legal treaty obligations, the US should stay out of it.

Originally posted by darksided

Typical.

Some people get mad when the US is the worlds police man, and some people get mad when hte US isn't the worlds police man.

Unless Syria or Iran attack Israel, which would trigger US legal treaty obligations, the US should stay out of it.

So we should break our treaty? Why, Israel is merely responding. Some say overreacting. But I say, if you show your enemy that you are willing to go all out for one of your soldiers or citizens, you cant imaging how far they will go to save their country.

I hear some people saying that "its only one soldier." Screw that, if someone only killed "one of my friends or family members" I would be out there to kill them. You can not appease Hizballah or Hamas. You cant appease a situation like this, ask Neville Chamberlin how that appeasement thing went for him?

1. It's not about appeasement. That's a very very tired old line that gets trotted out anytime someone wants to make the point that the only way to solve anything is violence, and it isn't in line with the historical context of Chamberlain's appeasement. Germany demanded territory it had no claim to and was given it in hopes it would be his last demand. That's appeasement.

The Palestinian claim, while hardly fool-proof as I have argued many times, has some standing given the weaknesses of certain Israeli claims. On that note, the Syrian claim to the Golan Heights is beyond question.

Violence, short of genocide, will not resolve this conflict. Even those who've chosen a side and like to complain about "appeasement" will normally voice their agreement with the common frustration that "those people have been killing eachother forever... (and probably will be forever)". So to continue yelling that there can be no appeasement implicitly says that one side or the other should just get it over with an pursue a genocide.


2. I don't think a Republican government will back down from Israel's side because their evangelical base beleives that the Jews are God's chosen people, and that Jesus won't come back until Israel has conquered everything from the Nile to Jordan and rebuilt Solomon's Temple. Trust me, I know these people. I used to believe the same things as these people. They wish Israel would conquer it's neighbors and destroy Islam. They're stuck in the crusades.


3. My point is not about being "world police". Police are there to "serve and protect" others. I'm not talking about serving others. I'm talking about serving OUR INTERESTS. Our interests are served by peace. It does just so happen that EVERYONE'S interests are served by peace and that's good, because that eliminates the moral conundrum usually associated with using pressure, threat, or force to protect a nation's interests.

America cannot tollerate the escalation of a political driven conflict which threatens to raise circumstances which will threaten the security of America, especially when the interests of an entire region, infact perhaps the entire world, are in the same boat.

The US collective head of the United States has entered its own lower digestive tract and proceeded upwards so far that we can inspect our own tonsils, thanks largely to the religious right. If that were not the case we'd go to the UN with a resolution to put separating forces into the region to deal with hostiles on both sides in an even-handed manner, without tormenting civilians. We'd do this in the interest of making sure this didn't turn into a major regional war that could interrupt oil supplies and perhaps draw outside powers into the region against one another.

As an added bonus, that'd be a very good way to show our reasonable side to the Iranians.


It's a fairly simple point- any pair of goobers out there who want to duke it out over whose God has bigger genitals had better find a way to do it without making the world a worse place for the rest of us to live, because when the war starts impacting people who didn't have any part in starting it, the US is gonna jump and when we land it's gonna hurt.

Originally posted by The Vagabond
It's a fairly simple point- any pair of goobers out there who want to duke it out over whose God has bigger genitals had better find a way to do it without making the world a worse place for the rest of us to live, because when the war starts impacting people who didn't have any part in starting it, the US is gonna jump and when we land it's gonna hurt.

I am confused with this Vagabond...What are you exactly saying?

I'm saying that if the Palestianians/Lebanese/Hizbollah/Syrians/Iranians and Israel want to go at it, or for that matter if any nations anywhere want to go at it, that doesn't automatically make it America's duty to go in and play global cop.

HOWEVER, if in the process of going at it, they are going to create the threat of a larger war, create a threat of America facing the sideeffects of that war, or otherwise let their war cause problems for people who don't want anything to do with it, then the people who didn't want anything to do with it (in this case America) are gonna put them on notice that they had better not escalate that war any further.

Simple analogy- I don't care if two guys want to have a food fight- it's not my job to stop them. But if I'm in the line of fire, I'm gonna tell them they better not have that food fight, and if they go ahead and do it anyway, and some gets on me, then I'm gonna come after both of them, and I'm gonna be throwing a hell of a lot more than food.

Right now, the Israelis and their enemies are getting ready to have a food fight, and since Iran may be involved, the world oil supply is in the line of fire. So we've got to tell both sides not to escalate that war any further, and if they don't listen, we can de-escalate the situation for them, and they won't like it.

There is a reason why we get involved so much, it is for a stable global economy. If the ME goes into chaos then oil spikes and our economy faulters
ATS Economy Trouble
It is very important that things stay stable in a global economy, the system is to sensitive. If this war spreads into Syria and Iran we will be in a mess with all the major powers trying to calm things down... or escalate them. Any war with Iran is bad for China and Russia, yet not going to war with Iran is bad for us. East vs West. Also we have a long standing pact with Israel that we will not go back on, no matter how unpopular the war is. This for once is not policing, it is helping our friends. If the UK where under attack wouldnt you expect the United States to offer it's fully support, whether by supplies, material, resources, man power or even all out war?

Vagabond I see what your saying but you have to see too that Iran may WANT in this situation. You have to remember that they have already said they want Israel wiped off the map. How can we be so sure that Iran isn't backing hezollah from the start in this?

I think Iran knows this boils down to them and theyre jumping the food fight because there is another food fight going on right on their borders.

There is a food fight in Iraq and Afghan don't forget and the U.S. is winning those food fights and Iran isn't sure what to do at this point so maybe it goes after the U.S. ally by supporting the U.S. allies enemy (hezbollah). Does that make sence?

Originally posted by The Vagabond

Right now, the Israelis and their enemies are getting ready to have a food fight, and since Iran may be involved, the world oil supply is in the line of fire. So we've got to tell both sides not to escalate that war any further, and if they don't listen, we can de-escalate the situation for them, and they won't like it.

So you think this may happen?

You are quite on target techsnow, and yes retinoid, although I try not to indulge in the crisis fetish that I often accuse others of embracing, I do believe there is a slim but still ominous potential for this to end with an oil embargo, or worse yet, with Iran threatening to launch conventionally armed ballistic missiles at Saudi and Kuwaiti oil fields, thus cutting the global supply dramatically.

I do not propose that we should only be pressuring Israel though, and that is my answer to the fact that Iran may want into this situation. There are two ways to pull Iran out... our way, and Russia/China's way.

Again, back in the good old days of the cold war, the powers that be would have drawn their respective lines in the sand and nobody would have dared to cross them, and the sollution would be somewhere in the middle.

The way I see it, we tell Israel this aint happening... or else. Then we tell Russia and China that this aint happening from Iran's side... or else. The Russians and Chinese don't want Iran getting whacked, and they know full well that we'll jump on the opportunity to whack Iran if they don't do something about it, so they'll force Iran to cool its jets with economic threats.

Of course if the Russians and Chinese don't want to play ball, we can deter Iran in our own special way. Iran may want in on this when they're just backing proxies against Israel and facing an air/missile campaign, but if we tell the Iranians that getting involved in this war directly is going to put them on the recieving end of preemptive airstrikes to disable the naval and missle threat they pose to the region's oil, they're left with only two choices- try to invade Iraq when they're not ready to (thereby giving us carte blanche to invade them) or stand the heck down.


Also, before anyone pushes the point, I concede a certain level of hypocrisy in the fact that we can have our food fights in Iraq and Afghanistan but Iran can't have theirs. But on another level, there is no hypocrisy at all. The Iraq/Afghanistan thing is the US pushing people around to suit its purposes. The Iran thing is the same. Sounds pretty consistent to me, if not particularly nice. My view on that is that yes the United States is imperfect, and yes we need to fix our own attitude, but just because we're not perfect doesn't mean we're gonna tollerate people repeating our mistakes. I mean hey, if one murderer stops another murderer from hurting someone, hypocrisy or not, isn't that a good thing?

With in 10 - 15 years we will be having the same debates. The best thing to do in this case is pretty much nothing. UN peace keepers would be of limted value because they wouldnt have the teeth to take a grip on the situation. As for the US they have enough problems to deal with in the region , problems that they are partially responseable for.

World War Three isnt going to start just because a few people mistake PS2 games for reality.

[edit on 20-7-2006 by xpert11]

[edit on 20-7-2006 by xpert11]