Proxies and Their Involvement In The Middle east

Ok sit back, take a deep breathe and exhale. Try to step back and understand where I am coming from.


Notice how everyone here in the USA is screaming and hollering in regards to Hamas and Hizbollah? Notice how everyone is screaming and hollering about the people who finance and arm these people? OK fine

Hamas may accept money and weapons from whomever their benefactors are but it doesn't necessarily mean that they always act on their benefactors orders. They are first and foremost looking out for their own.


Hezbollah is very much the same, although maybe Syria may finance and weaponize them, they still may be doing things that Syria may not know about or support. Their concern is the Lebanese border and protecting the Shiites within Lebanon

Al-queda is apparently getting money from all sorts of muslims and a few muslim countries. Their gripe is about Palestinian treatment in Israel and now Muslims in Iraq.

Now for our part:
Israel is supported and weaponized by us and also acts as OUR proxy in the Middle East. They do not always act under our direct orders and also mainly are concerned with their own people and security.

The Solution:
The same way these proxies for the Other guys are upsetting us and driving us to the point of destroying some of their countries, our proxy is doing some pretty damn attrocious things without our knowledge or blessing and the other guys are pissed off about that. The answer is to have all of us end our support of proxies. Disarm our proxies or divest from our proxies until they can no longer be armed. We should sit down with all of these countries and tell them we are not out to get them, we are not out to hate them, and we are not out to see any of their people killed, we would rather invest our money into making the quality of life better for our citizens and to try to make the quality of life better for other countries as well.


Some may try to say that our proxy is innocent of any wrong doings, but they are well documented and many of you who never saw before can see clearly now with the events happening recently. We should not allow religious zealots to stray us away from a peaceful resolution and allow another 9-11 to occur on our soil ever again. Proxies begin things and then step back and involve the benefactors who were only trying to help out, forcing them and their people to be the ones shedding the blood.

Those of you who want to keep saying that the side you support is innocent will just prolong this. If you are an American you cannot claim ignorance to the situation. You have seen civilians die, using our money, our technology, our equipment and our weapons, all contrary to how we have said we want it used.


Pie

With all due respect, I disagree. Until the rules of politics can be re-written at the most fundamental level, there will always be a need for proxy States. Any nation that gets foriegn aid is being helped, and by extension, is a proxy. Even in a world full of good intentions, you're always going to be giving help to some country that you think is in the right for whatever reason.

Like it or not, proxies occur when larger nations open their wallets for smaller nations. Nobody gives aid with no strings attached. Even if a major power wanted to avoid using its infuence, the citizens of that major power would demand action if the affected smaller power were in trouble. They're hungry, so give them food. They are threatened, so give them guns.

As a practical matter, it is often cheaper in the long run for a major power to sponsor a smaller nation. This process does build in a certain amount of "safety" for the major powers, which will find it harder to accidentally go to war with each other. Is this wrong? Fundamentally, you'll say "yes." Politics is not moral, and its not ethical. History documents the ultimate fate of most small nations. They are to be proxies, or...they are to be pariahs.

I've kept this generic to avoid another argument about Israel, which is clearly the central target of your thesis. I would point out that if none of those proxy States were getting help from outside interests...they'd still be trying to kill each other.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
I've kept this generic to avoid another argument about Israel, which is clearly the central target of your thesis. I would point out that if none of those proxy States were getting help from outside interests...they'd still be trying to kill each other.

Justin

Yes they would still be trying to kill each other which is fine. Would they still be trying to kill Americans though? Would it still be with using American weapons? Iranian weapons? Syrian Weapons? Its not just Israel that is the target. I wish to see America taken out of the equation and not have to see events like 9-11 take place any more. Their proxies are bringing grief to their nations and our proxy is doing likewise. Pretty soon we will be mirroring citizens of Israel in how we will live day to day if this doesn't end.

Pie

With all due respect, I don't think old school isolationism would serve us well as a foreign policy. Your idealism is commendable, but misplaced. If we stopped all foriegn aid shipments, nobody else would. Proxies that bought their guns from us would just buy them from somebody else. The hungry people that we used to feed would be fed by somebody else. The gratitude that the folks in smaller nations felt for those things would be directed to some other country that wasn't us.

What you're seeing right now is a failure of leadership. Career politicians here in the United States are risk-averse. They know what they've got to do, but they are afraid to do it in the current circumstances. I'm not talking about unilateral actiion, I'm talking about the long term big picture end result, which most agree is actual war. Boots on the ground blood in your mouth war.

Why do I say this? Becasue that's the eventual fate of our proxies. If we fail to back them, we will turn world opinion even further away from us. That's the kind of poker that's being played here. In big picture terms, its not what it is...but...what it looks like. Japan and Israel are nervous just now, because they don't want to be slapped around by Iran and North Korea...but...they also don't want to jump in to the fire with both feet without knowing fer sure fer sure that we are with them.

If we did remove ourselves from the picture, as you suggest, we give those proxies a free hand. They decide if it's okay to use nukes. They decide it its okay to use a little nerve gas. They decide if a little teensy bit of Biblical genocide is okay in their corner of the world. When they're done, they'll get back to us about our lack of faith in their cause...

Okay, then. I think we're done here. This was fun.

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
Okay, then. I think we're done here. This was fun.

Well its not done exactly but its unfolding.I guess time will tell. Lets just hope we are all around to discuss the results.

Pie