Civility between religions

[B_J 2,752]

Sofi My feelings are hurt. I think you have a chip on your shoulder.

Are you busting my chops because I failed to list the Jewish acts of terrorism?

I was condensing 2000 years into what would have been 4 or 5 paragraphs if I had finished highschool.

The only reason for going back 2000 years is to explain why the Jews felt they had some right to the land.

The WWII part of the story demonstrates why the Jews were desperate enough to take the land by force.

The Palistinians happened to be the people living there when the Jews took the land by the sword.

Im starting to feel persecuted here.

Well, if it helps, I thought you summed up a big span of history pretty well. Also thought you did a pretty impressive job of staying neutral.

[Dan and Judy 614]

OK, let's see if I have this. Without going into details, the modern day Israel was created. It would seem like a good thing to do because of the persecution that the Jewish people had been through. So, land was purchased and Israel was created.

BUT, the land was purchased from people who weren't actually planning on selling their land.

And the country was created in a place where every other countries in that area didn't want it to be.

Israel was created through war. fighting and killing. There had been skirmishing between the Jews and arabs for some time.

Onced the United Nations decided that there should be a jewish state. The arabs felt the only way to prevent it was with military force.

The british were in the process of pulling out. Armies from 4 or 5 arab states attacked the Jews. against the odds the Jews won.

Some places the Jews took over they encouraged the arabs to stay some places they encouraged them to leave.

I really have no knowledge of how things progressed but Im sure some arabs abandoned their homes and some were confiscated and some were bought.

To say that "land was purchased and Israel was created" I think gives the wrong impression

So, that's where we have the modern day problem in the middle east. And all of this goes back in history; so nobody is going to stop fighting soon.

You know something, and I'm definitely generalizing here, as an American I have trouble understanding this. We've been at war with Germany; but now we're ok. We've been at war with Japan; but now we're ok. We've been at war with ourselves; but now we're ok. One side wins the war and then helps the other side recover. But I guess this war is nothing like that.

Im afraid we didnt help Germany and Japan after WWII out of kindness. again big simplification, Before WWII was over the cold war against Russia(our WWII ally) had already begun. At that time their big crime in our eyes was being communist. Part of the communist doctrine was to spread communism to other countries. Our big crime in their eyes started with us sending a military expedition into russia to try to influence events in an anti communist way either during or shortly after the first world war. Im not checking these facts just running off of memory. Before WWII we probably felt about Russia the way we feel about Iran today. Hitler made the mistake of attacking russia so they became our defacto allies. because we hated hitler more than each other.

After world war II Europe was devasted. It would have been easy for the Russian army to walk in and take over. We didnt want that to happen so we started building up the Germany we had just destroyed as a bulwark against communism. The Marshall plan was us giving and loaning billions of dollars to the Europeans to get them back on their feet so they wouldnt turn to communism.

Then in 1949 the Communists took over China(another of our allies in WWII), suddenly half the world was communist. The effect this had on the US was probably similar to what we would feel if Pakistan and Indian announced tomorrow they were uniting with Iran and Iran would be in charge.

Japan is very close to China . We were Occupying Japan at the time and using japan for military bases. We still have military bases there.

I guess I really only have two thoughts/questions:

What do the people involved in the Israeli/Palestinian fight really want? Peace or victory.

The Israelies want peace because they already have victory. The Palestinians want victory which I believe would be defined as getting rid of Israel. Of course there are also Palestinians that want peace but the ones that are still attacking Israel want victory.

And what is the thought process of the Muslim terrorists? What is bin Laden thinking that makes him want to attack us? Is it simply because of our support of Israel?

B.

[B_J 2,752]

OK, I'm impressed. Some of that I knew but there's a lot I didn't. And I really can't tell where you stand politically, which I think is pretty impressive; since you're trying to give an objective history lesson.

So, now can you give me a prediction. Is the U.S. facing something like communism again? Are we up against another set of beliefs that is focused on, I guess you'd call it world domination?

I've really been hoping for somebody from a different culture to give me an "A-ha moment". Where I could get that little bit of info so I could say that we're not headed to anything like that at all. But so far that hasn't happened.

[Dan and Judy 614]

OK, I'm impressed. Some of that I knew but there's a lot I didn't. And I really can't tell where you stand politically, which I think is pretty impressive; since you're trying to give an objective history lesson.

So, now can you give me a prediction. Is the U.S. facing something like communism again? Are we up against another set of beliefs that is focused on, I guess you'd call it world domination?

In my humble opinion, right now we are our own worst enemy. We are spending ourselves into oblivion.

at the end of WWII we were the most powerful country in the world. We had an unnatural advantage in that we sat out most of WWII and let the other countries bleed themselves dry and destroy each other. Our economy was humming full speed ahead and we were able to employee the troops that came home from the war.

We've been deficit spending for years now and the republicans and democrates have an equal share in the blame I'll come back and write more later

I've really been hoping for somebody from a different culture to give me an "A-ha moment". Where I could get that little bit of info so I could say that we're not headed to anything like that at all. But so far that hasn't happened.

[Dan and Judy 614]

OK, I'm impressed. Some of that I knew but there's a lot I didn't. And I really can't tell where you stand politically, which I think is pretty impressive; since you're trying to give an objective history lesson.

So, now can you give me a prediction. Is the U.S. facing something like communism again? Are we up against another set of beliefs that is focused on, I guess you'd call it world domination?

Ronald Reagan excelerated our defense spending in the 80's and the Soviets tried to keep up and ran their economy into the ground.

That ended with the disolution of the Soviet Union. Im sure there were other factors but Im pretty sure their lopsided spending on "defense" is what drove them into the ground. Hooray we one the cold war!! The correct thing for us to do at that time would have been to dramatically reduce our Defense spending. We did reduce it some. I believe that money was called the peace dividend.

Toward the end of the 90's it looked like we were working our way in the right direction. Then 9/11 happened and we are off on another spending spree. In Geo political terms if you are going to spend the money to Occupy countries half way around the world, you should be busy sucking resources out of those countries, not pouring in billions and taking nothing out. of course that is bad for your image Wars and Occupations are too

expensive if you are not getting something back. Now on top of the wars, The recession/depression comes along and the solution is

trillions in stimulus spending. Im not saying the stimulus was the wrong thing to do, but it would have been better for the country if we weren't up to our necks in debt to start with. I do believe this is our biggest danger at the moment.

Instead of trying to check China's growing influence we need to learn to live with it.

I think Iran will have "the bomb" before long and short of taking them out, there is not much we can do about it.

I dont think this Armadijan guy kidding. so definate danger there

I dont believe Osama bin Laden and his buddies are an existential threat to the US at this time.

The problem is we are spending so much trying to control them

I've really been hoping for somebody from a different culture to give me an "A-ha moment". Where I could get that little bit of info so I could say that we're not headed to anything like that at all. But so far that hasn't happened.

[mawilson 2,133]

Your chart is out of date.

We have almost reached $14 trillion and 100 percent of GDP.

[Dan and Judy 614]

Your chart is out of date.

We have almost reached $14 trillion and 100 percent of GDP.

thanks, I just grabbed the first one that popped up. I also don't guaruntee the accuracy of any statements I might make

Also those charts wern't that big when I put them in there.

They seem to be growing just like our debt

Edited December 21, 2010 by Dan and Judy