Middle East landscape rapidly changing

[Puckoon]

Groucho you should delete that post. It wouldnt do to post anything which won't advance the anti "UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL" ramblings of John.

US tanks...
US Apaches.... (I thought the cavalary all but wiped them out)
US F16s....

Don't worry about mentioning at all John that the Israeli incursion was in response to Palestinian ADMITTED mortar attacks.


Emperor - put a pair of monks on at least so the small boy can stop pointing at you.

[mylestheslasher]

Groucho you should delete that post. It wouldnt do to post anything which won't advance the anti "UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL" ramblings of John.

US tanks...
US Apaches.... (I thought the cavalary all but wiped them out)
US F16s....

Don't worry about mentioning at all John that the Israeli incursion was in response to Palestinian ADMITTED mortar attacks.


Emperor - put a pair of monks on at least so the small boy can stop pointing at you.

A few pages ago someone begged that the insults stopped here and they pretty much did. Now on you come and instead of debating the issue you attack a poster while having contributed absolutely zero to the debate.

[Puckoon]

Catch yourself on Myles. There's no debate to be had when posts full of naked agendas against one side are being thrown around as hard facts by the fella with no clothes on.

That's the US way Arthur. If anyone doesn't like the US, well then, sure just shoot or bomb them. No excuse needed.........

This morning, US tanks made incursions into the besieged strip, and shelled several area's. 1 young girl was murdered, and another 3 children were critically injured. Another 14 were also injured.

A couple of hours ago, US Apache helicopters fired several missiles injuring a further 15 people, and damaging more property.

In the past 30 minutes, US F16's have been firing missiles in Northern Gaza. It is too soon to report any injuries or damage.

No doubt they are trying to provoke Iran,


There is also no insulting going on on my part.

If you think John's posts above are the posts of someone without an agenda who wants to debate, then I despair. If a regular poster without prior admitted hate for the USA was to post something innaccurate - they might get away with it. When you're full of hate and spin its a little more sinister to be posting such angled and edited (at best) stuff.

[Main Street]

Of course there is little to compare between their infamies but I was reminded of Cowen's behaviour ranting and raving as his end was nigh when I saw Gadaffi fuming like a maniac on tv.

[mylestheslasher]

Catch yourself on Myles. There's no debate to be had when posts full of naked agendas against one side are being thrown around as hard facts by the fella with no clothes on.

That's the US way Arthur. If anyone doesn't like the US, well then, sure just shoot or bomb them. No excuse needed.........

This morning, US tanks made incursions into the besieged strip, and shelled several area's. 1 young girl was murdered, and another 3 children were critically injured. Another 14 were also injured.

A couple of hours ago, US Apache helicopters fired several missiles injuring a further 15 people, and damaging more property.

In the past 30 minutes, US F16's have been firing missiles in Northern Gaza. It is too soon to report any injuries or damage.

No doubt they are trying to provoke Iran,


There is also no insulting going on on my part.

If you think John's posts above are the posts of someone without an agenda who wants to debate, then I despair. If a regular poster without prior admitted hate for the USA was to post something innaccurate - they might get away with it. When you're full of hate and spin its a little more sinister to be posting such angled and edited (at best) stuff.

He has made some strong accusations against the US there for sure. If you don't agree why don't you counter that with your own opinion and maybe use some media to back it up instead of a rant accusing Dixie of all sorts. Personally I do agree that the US bombs and kills for its own selfish aims and wraps it up in bullshit arguments about freedom for all etc etc. That doesn't make me anti america, it makes me anti the people & corporations that run america. I have nothing against the people there at all and have been plenty of times.

[give her dixie]

Groucho you should delete that post. It wouldnt do to post anything which won't advance the anti "UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL" ramblings of John.

US tanks...
US Apaches.... (I thought the cavalary all but wiped them out)
US F16s....

Don't worry about mentioning at all John that the Israeli incursion was in response to Palestinian ADMITTED mortar attacks.


Emperor - put a pair of monks on at least so the small boy can stop pointing at you.

Neil, Israel invaded Gaza, and Palestinian resistance responded. What would you do Neil if someone broke into your house? Would you stand idly by?
Neil, as for the US tanks, US Apache helicopters, US F16's, and the missiles they fired, it is your tax dollars that have sent them there. Are you happy with how your dollars are at work Neil?

If only the foreign nationals here in Ireland were as patriotic as the foreign nationals in the US are to the war machine that is Uncle Sam,  then we might have a different result in the elections tomorrow.

[Puckoon]

John - were is the unbiased information that Israel opened fire first? The document posted by Groucho from the associated press is in direct conflict with what you are saying.

Personally I'm concerned - but its a selfish concern at how the tax dollars donated from me are spent. I'm living in a state with less than zero money, and in a city which just laid off another 100 police and fire personnel last week. I'd surely love some of both the defence budget and the aid to Israel to be re-directed into jobs/state and city services in poor areas of this country. However that's a Utopian dream for both you and me. More importantly my measley tax dollars probably wouldnt even cover the cost of one bullet - and that is my primary area of concern.

On a side note - you made your own real name known to all and sundry on this board - and while I've no problem with anyone on here knowing who I am - it's most certainly not your place to make that decision for me. If you'd have preferred to continue to go by the nom de plume on here you could have simply let me know.


Myles - highlighting the unabashed, shameless spin that gets thrown on here - isnt a rant of accusation of anything. We've been through this numerous times. I was, and continue to be impressed with the selfless work GHD has performed in bringing aid to the people of Gaza. I'd personally be more impressed with a balanced view of the whole situation - but that can't happen any time soon from the pro palestinian/anti everything USA and Israel side in this discussion. If I'd nothing to say - the bashing of the USA would continue on here (oftentimes well founded) - but there'd be very few in this particular thread who'd tell him to hold on a minute and stick to the posting of facts.

[give her dixie]

Puckoon, considering you and one other person continue to call me John, while others who know me personally refer to me by my GAA Board name, plus the fact that you took something I posted on facebook and distorted it for your own agenda, I felt that it was common courtesty to call you by your name. No offence intended.......

Puckoon, I have posted many many links, plus many thoughts of my own. However, you have resorted to personally attacking me, and following your leader, adding stupid smilies to back up your arguments.

Your 1st contribution to this thread was to attack me, and not a mention of the thousands of people who have died in the middle east in the past few weeks. You also tried to rewrite history and justify Israel's attack on Egypt in '67. You have added nothing to this thread except to attack me. Personally, I appreciate your support for what I have done for the Palestinians, however, if it wasn't for the US war machine, I wouldn't have to do what I do for them. The blame for what is happening to the Palestinians lies directly at the door mat of the White House. Last weeks vote in the UN proves that.

Instead of attacking me personally, attack the points I have made, add something constructive to the thread, and feel free to post anything that proves that the US are honest in their work in the middle east.

I am not on this thread to fight with you or anyone else. I am offering my opinion, the opinion of others who are on the ground, and the voice of those who are suffering oppression. Irish history has taught me to stand up for the oppressed, and to recognise those who helped us when we needed it. However, the greatest threat to world peace is the US, and in the middle east, Israel, and to a lesser extent, Iran. That is my view.

Having spent 7 years in the US, I have nothing but good to say about my time there, and the friends I continue to have there. However, I am totally against the foriegn policy of the US Government who are ruled by the Zionists, and the illegal wars they rage on innocent people. That doesn't make me anti US.

2 years ago to the day, I was travelling through Tunisia en route to Gaza. The Tunisian Government treated us like dirt, as did the Egyptians. However, when we reached Libya, we were welcomed like heroes. The Gadaffi Foundation doubled the size of our convoy, filled our vehicles with fuel, fed and housed us, and personally, I was delighted. However, what has gone on in Libya over the past few days has sickened me to the bottom of my stomach. How could they help Gaza and today murder their own. It isn't right.

If you can spare an hour, or anyone else who is reading this thread, please watch the following documentary. It is the story of our journey through Europe, Morroco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and into Gaza. Considering that the middle east is high on the news agenda at present, it is an incredible insight into how the different countries treated us, and why there is a revolution spreading like wildfire across the region at present. The documentary uses some of my own footage of the Egyptians taking our aid, our crossing into Gaza, and the destruction we witnessed. If anyone watches the documentary, there is a scence near the end when we cross into Gaza. A man with his daughter on his shoulders were the first to speak to us. His words were the 1st words I heard in Gaza, and they will forever live in my memory. It is his words that inspire me to speak out, and do what I do.

"3 Uncles Go To Gaza"  http://vimeo.com/20257246

Puckoon, as I have said before, I don't want to fight with you or anyone else on this thread, and for a 2nd time, if we can keep personalities out of this debate, and concentrate on the real issues at hand, then we can have a discussion that we can all be proud to contribute to. Remember, thousands of people are dying for the liberties we take for granted, and millions more are yearning for.

Peace Brother?

[Tyrones own]

Groucho you should delete that post. It wouldnt do to post anything which won't advance the anti "UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL" ramblings of John.

US tanks...
US Apaches.... (I thought the cavalary all but wiped them out)
US F16s....

Don't worry about mentioning at all John that the Israeli incursion was in response to Palestinian ADMITTED mortar attacks.


Emperor - put a pair of monks on at least so the small boy can stop pointing at you.

Neil, Israel invaded Gaza, and Palestinian resistance responded. What would you do Neil if someone broke into your house? Would you stand idly by?
Neil, as for the US tanks, US Apache helicopters, US F16's, and the missiles they fired, it is your tax dollars that have sent them there. Are you happy with how your dollars are at work Neil?

If only the foreign nationals here in Ireland were as patriotic as the foreign nationals in the US are to the war machine that is Uncle Sam,  then we might have a different result in the elections tomorrow.

Surely this breaks the rules of the board 
Could you possibly get any lower as an individual.. snakes belly comes to mind here!

[Arthur_Friend]

Go back with your highlighter there biglad

[Tyrones own]

Puckoon, I have posted many many links, plus many thoughts of my own. However, you have resorted to personally attacking me, and following your leader, adding stupid smilies to back up your arguments.

Speak out and you're automatically labeled... an old Alinsky tactic at play;

'Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.' 
- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.

Galloway and his minnions taught you well!

[Arthur_Friend]

Puckoon, I have posted many many links, plus many thoughts of my own. However, you have resorted to personally attacking me, and following your leader, adding stupid smilies to back up your arguments.

Speak out and you're automatically labeled... an old Alinsky tactic at play;

'Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.' 
- Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals.

Galloway and his minnions taught you well!

*Shakes head*

[give her dixie]

Behind the Arab revolt is a word we dare not speak

John Pilgner
24 February 2011

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003, I interviewed Ray McGovern, one of an elite group of CIA officers who prepared the President's daily intelligence brief. McGovern was at the apex of the "national security" monolith that is American power and had retired with presidential plaudits. On the eve of the invasion, he and 45 other senior officers of the CIA and other intelligence agencies wrote to President George W. Bush that the "drumbeat for war" was based not on intelligence, but lies.

"It was 95 per cent charade," McGovern told me.

"How did they get away with it?"

"The press allowed the crazies to get away with it."

"Who are the crazies?"

"The people running the [Bush] administration have a set of beliefs a lot like those expressed in Mein Kampf... these are the same people who were referred to in the circles in which I moved, at the top, as 'the crazies'."

I said, "Norman Mailer has written that that he believes America has entered a pre-fascist state. What's your view of that?"

"Well... I hope he's right, because there are others saying we are already in a fascist mode."

On 22 January, Ray McGovern emailed me to express his disgust at the Obama administration's barbaric treatment of the alleged whistleblower Bradley Manning and its pursuit of WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange. "Way back when George and Tony decided it might be fun to attack Iraq," he wrote, "I said something to the effect that fascism had already begun here. I have to admit I did not think it would get this bad this quickly."

On 16 February, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech at George Washington University in which she condemned governments that arrested protestors and crushed free expression. She lauded the liberating power of the internet while failing to mention that her government was planning to close down those parts of the internet that encouraged dissent and truth-telling.  It was a speech of spectacular hypocrisy, and Ray McGovern was in the audience. Outraged, he rose from his chair and silently turned his back on Clinton. He was immediately seized by police and a security goon and beaten to the floor, dragged out and thrown into jail, bleeding. He has sent me photographs of his injuries. He is 71. During the assault, which was clearly visible to Clinton, she did not pause in her remarks.

Fascism is a difficult word, because it comes with an iconography that touches the Nazi nerve and is abused as propaganda against America's official enemies and to promote the West's foreign adventures with a moral vocabulary written in the struggle against Hitler. And yet fascism and imperialism are twins. In the aftermath of world war two, those in the imperial states who had made respectable the racial and cultural superiority of "western civilisation", found that Hitler and fascism had claimed the same, employing strikingly similar methods. Thereafter, the very notion of American imperialism was swept from the textbooks and popular culture of an imperial nation forged on the genocidal conquest of its native people. And a war on social justice and democracy became "US foreign policy".

As the Washington historian William Blum has documented, since 1945, the US has destroyed or subverted more than 50 governments, many of them democracies, and used mass murderers like Suharto, Mobutu and Pinochet to dominate by proxy.  In the Middle East, every dictatorship and pseudo-monarchy has been sustained by America. In "Operation Cyclone", the CIA and MI6 secretly fostered and bank-rolled Islamic extremism. The object was to smash or deter nationalism and democracy. The victims of this western state terrorism have been mostly Muslims. The courageous people gunned down last week in Bahrain and Libya, the latter a "priority UK market", according to Britain's official arms "procurers", join those children blown to bits in Gaza by the latest American F-16 aircraft.

The revolt in the Arab world is not merely against a resident dictator but a worldwide economic tyranny designed by the US Treasury and imposed by the US Agency for International Development, the IMF and World Bank, which have ensured that rich countries like Egypt are reduced to vast sweatshops, with half the population earning less than $2 a day. The people's triumph in Cairo was the first blow against what Benito Mussolini called corporatism, a word that appears in his definition of fascism.

How did such extremism take hold in the liberal West? "It is necessary to destroy hope, idealism, solidarity, and concern for the poor and oppressed," observed Noam Chomsky a generation ago, "[and] to replace these dangerous feelings with self-centred egoism, a pervasive cynicism that holds that [an order of] inequities and oppression is the best that can be achieved. In fact, a great international propaganda campaign is under way to convince people – particularly young people – that this not only is what they should feel but that it's what they do feel."

Like the European revolutions of 1848 and the uprising against Stalinism in 1989, the Arab revolt has rejected fear. An insurrection of suppressed ideas, hope and solidarity has begun. In the United States, where 45 per cent of young African-Americans have no jobs and the top hedge fund managers are paid, on average, a billion dollars a year, mass protests against cuts in services and jobs have spread to heartland states like Wisconsin. In Britain, the fastest-growing modern protest movement, UK Uncut, is about to take direct action against tax avoiders and rapacious banks. Something has changed that cannot be unchanged. The enemy has a name now.

[thejuice]

All the while the case against Iran is being built up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ47T58P5xg

A word of caution,  as there are graphic scenes of women being stoned and hung.

[Puckoon]

GHD,

I'm all for peace. I'd rather have it at all times, so I am good with letting any acrimony go.

I'm going to go and take a look at that video if I get time after work. I can see how it appears that I am in attack mode, but honestly that isnt the intention. Parity in the discussion is the intention, and I think for myself - without following any leader. I've never tried to attack you - nor have I tried to 'rewrite' history pertinent to the discussion. I've merely opened up the possibility that there is more to the middle eastern problem than one story. Neither you nor I were collecting history data at the time of the 1967 war - so it is fair to say that our information comes from sources. How do we discern who's source is correct? What I suggested regarding 1967 is documented history that I didn't pull out of thin air. How can we return to debate as agendaless as possible - when my alternative interpretation - (merely suggested) is turned into an accusation of rewriting history? I don't know the truth of 1967 - but if alternative explanations are out there - why not discuss them?

I have much to learn about the middle eastern problem, and the Jewish nation - and it is something I am trying to read as much as I can about when I find the time.

There is no denying that the US has been heavily influencial in the region - and that this influence not always altruistic. There is not just one reason for this - and in all nations self preservation is the key role of those in charge. Rightly or wrongly that is not going to change. What are viable alternatives to removing US interference?

Peace it is.