BS: Back door to a new war

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: ollaimh
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 10:05 PM

I know America has adopted the hitler doctrine of preemptive war but it is still criminal.

they pre-empted saddam. for what?

American should be asking themselves why their government is attacking iran , again. remember americans over threw the elected government of mozedegh to impose the brutal dictatorship of the shah.

maybe bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb macain

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: beardedbruce
Date: 16 Apr 13 - 01:04 PM

Jack:

"
I had heard the stories about the Archbishop of Canterbury flying in jumbo jet loads of Amazonian tribesmen and baptizing them on the plane. but I didn't give it much thought until now.

Oh yeah and paying ultra-orthodox divinity students to make babies.
"


I do not recognize your first comment as something the Israeli government has done.

As for the second, are you saying that the CofE does NOT get tax breaks that support it's clergy and scholars?

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 01:15 PM

"The Jewish faith is in precisely the same legal relationship in Israel as the CofE"

I had heard the stories about the Archbishop of Canterbury flying in jumbo jet loads of Amazonian tribesmen and baptizing them on the plane. but I didn't give it much thought until now.

Oh yeah and paying ultra-orthodox divinity students to make babies.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 01:08 PM

Ta, MtheGM, and you just keep on with the anti-Muslim hysteria & hiding under the bed & do let us know how that works out for you. Especially since the world now barely survives under the crushing jack-booted heel of Marxism.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 11:17 AM

Oh, right ~~ see what you mean. That was, of course, an ironic 'sorry' at your imperceptiveness of an evident distinction. But I gladly cede you the debating point.

Enjoy, as you continue to fail to distinguish between recognising the realities of the worldwide political situation and 'hiding under the bed'.

And I hope it keeps fine for you...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 10:28 AM

From: MtheGM - PM
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 01:23 AM
I never said I was sorry for you

From: MtheGM - PM
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 01:50 AM
I am sorry for you.

Ooops!

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Apr 13 - 01:23 AM

Greg·the·F ~ What do you take to be 'the functional relationship'? It is purely a formal function. Some people are religious, most aren't particularly, just like here. I know a kibbutz [my nephew lived & worked there for a long time, was married there, I sang at his wedding] where they raise some pigs, & eat them. Nobody cares, or worries.

I never said I was sorry for you ~~ au contraire I admired your wonderful witty worldy-wise pronouncements, didn't you notice? All my fulsome words of praise wasted, alas&alack! But, then, you do exaggerate: who do you think is 'running shitless', idiot? Just happening to notice that they have announced their intention of going on doing 9/11s till they are the ones on top; apart from that I think not on 'em ~~ any more than I sought reds under the bed in the days when it was the Marxists who explicitly announced they would do whatever necessary for world dominance. But I know they are there, & you seem not to, you ignorant ass, and seem to regard such consciousness as "Muslim bashing". And then have the nerve to address me in sarcastic and patronising tones...

Boy, are you ever not right bright, in ♠♠!!!!

Best regards.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 06:31 PM

Hey, MGM, you're the one running scared shitless of the Muslim Bogeyman. And You feel sorry for ME?

The Jewish faith is in precisely the same legal relationship in Israel as the CofE [in the UK]

Oh, I believe ya- thousands wouldn't.

Same legal relationship, perhaps. But then there's the functional relationship.

TTFN

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 06:20 PM

Oh, the coruscating wit, Greg. My, what a privilege to be allowed to debate with an interlocutor with such a talent for scintillating repartee!

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 09:12 AM

the movement that has taken over from Marxism as the greatest threat to the entire world.

You'd best go hide under then bed then, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 02:56 AM

It is a debate that should be had.
I just wish that we could first demolish the assertion that Israel steals land from its neighbours, and that those neighbours fear Israel as Israel fears them.
Hate, but not fear.

( Jewish communities, such as in Hebron (where Jews lived until they were massacred in 1929), existed throughout the centuries.)

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 01:51 AM

It's going to depend of if enough can be made by the weapons merchants.
Simple as that.
Interesting that the push is now made by your 'so-called' liberal buddies! No problem with pushing legislation to disarm American citizens, but have no problem pushing for aggression against another country.
Must be one of two things: A financial interest, and/or another case of massive hypocrisy!

GfS

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 01:50 AM

One phrase to reply to that I forgot above, GregF ~~

I do not 'bash' Muslims. I fear the power and influence of Sharia-based Islamism ~~ the movement that has taken over from Marxism as the greatest threat to the entire world.

If you really can't see the difference, I am sorry for you.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 01:47 AM

bobad ~~ of course I know that the situation re the West Bank is far from black & white; and I think I have demonstrated many times that I am well conversant with the country's history. But it was those olive groves wantonly destroyed which first stuck in my craw, on which so many peaceful law-abiding respectable Arab citizens of Israel depended for their living. "How do you know it's true?" my Israeli-born nephew defensively asked me when I expressed this view at the time - see? it even put him on the defensive! "Because no-one has even bothered to deny it," I replied. He said no more.

And now they persist in establishing more and more unnecessary new settlements there [unnecessary because there is plenty of other land to build places for the increasing population to live], to the prejudice of the present inhabitants ~~ explicitly aggressively; just to show they can. Have you ever been there? These settlements are all in the neighbourhood of Hebron, an entirely Arab city apart from one small long-established Jewish religious community which is entirely enclosed: one of those with no outside relationships at all.

Israel IMO is losing more friends than gaining any advantage by such goings-on; it is not to her ultimate advantage, I am sure.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Apr 13 - 01:33 AM

Name a country in which the Lubivitchers are in control of the whole [are even any] of the governmental and legal system, GregF.

Go on: name just one......

And now look at bobad's helpful list of Sharia-governed states above.

The Jewish faith is in precisely the same legal relationship in Israel as the CofE here; i.e it is the "Establishment". A certain number of its clergy are in government [but in a less 'established' way there than here, in fact, because many bishops are ex officio members of the House Of Lords which retains many important legislative functions, whereas rabbis in Knesset have to be elected]; but otherwise it has no more direct legislative powers than any other body or interest group. Likewise the synagogue, viewed as a body, in Israel.

Nonsense right back 2U.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: bobad
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 10:27 PM

Countries using strict forms of Sharia Law include:

Death for Blasphemy:

1. Afghanistan
2. Bahrain
3. Iran
4. Mauritania
5. Oman
6. Pakistan
7. Yemen
8. Saudi Arabia
9. Gaza

Imprisonment for Blasphemy:

1. Algeria
2. Bangladesh
3. Egypt
4. Iraq
5. Kuwait
6. Libya
7. Malaysia
8. Maldives
9. Morocco
10. Somalia
11. Tunisia
12. United Arab Emirates


Nations that include some level of Sharia (leniant sentences for honour killings, ban on new churches, floggings, etc):


1. Indonesia (Flogging, Caning; Sharia applied strictly in Aceh province)
2. Turkey (Restrictions on alcohol)
3. Brunei (Caning, Alcohol is illegal)
4. Jordan (2 years or less for honour killings)
5. Eritrea (Girls as young as 8 can be married, spousal rape is not recognized)
6. Syria (1 year or less for honour killings)
7. Djibouti (Sharia law regarding divorce)
8. Chechnya (Modest dress enforced, Alcohol and gambling suppressed by local authorities)
9. Niger (girls can be married off before they reach puberty)
10. Nigeria (Sharia is enforced in the northern states)
11. Kenya (Ad Hoc Sharia enforced in the east near the border with Somalia)
12. Gambia (Sharia courts decide all family matters, including for non-Muslims)
13. Qatar (public consumption is illegal during Ramadan, Alcohol heavily restricted, blood money acceptable punishment for murder, "kafala" law which is also shared by all Gulf states but Bahrain is technically slavery)
14. Uganda (Kadhi Courts overseeing family and civil matters)

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: bobad
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 10:13 PM

Use of Sharia by country

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 08:28 PM

Nonsense, MtheGM.

Comparing the role of the Chrch of England in Britain and the role of Judaism in Israel is ludicrous.

Also, your Muslim-bashing is just that. The Sharia version of Islam is a small sect within the larger group of Muslims, just like the Lubavitchers are in Judaism- noone in their right mind would want to live under the rules & regs of the Lubavitchers..

You know this. Please don't pretend you don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: bobad
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 07:08 PM

I agree, MtheGM, that Israel's recalcitrance in regards the West Bank does much to anger it's enemies and even it's friends but the situation is far from black and white. As I am sure you are aware the West Bank and Gaza were part of the allotment given to the Jewish people when Palestine was divided by the British but were occupied and cleansed of Jews by Jordan and Egypt respectively as a result of the 1948 war. Israel reclaimed and reoccupied the territories post the war of 1967. I am sure that there are many in Israel (the majority?) who feel that that land is rightfully a part of Israel and also, on an almost daily basis, experience the goodwill and gratitude of the government of Gaza for having ceded it back to the Palestinian people. While I believe that much of the damage done to Israel's reputation for it's position regarding the West Bank is a result of anti Israel propaganda and the actions of some of the more fanatically religious settlers I think it would be better served to relinquish the territory in exchange for a guarantee of peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 05:44 PM

But why must they keep shifting peaceful settled Arabs off their W Bank land, destroying their crops & olives, and establish new settlements in territory around Arab cities like Hebron, when there are untold acres of Negev &c that they could settle? It is surely just to show that they can. This kind of triumphalist land-greed is not a sympathetic trait in the Israelis. Calling it Lebensraum, as bobad rightly says, invokes reference to the EUMC's much quoted declaration, with all its implications; but I don't really think we need to fall back so firmly on that plea in this instance as in some others.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: bobad
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 04:27 PM

I must point out again that the use of such loaded words as "lebensraum", when applied to Israel, say much about the intentions of the person using them.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 04:15 PM

LH
having taken over pieces of various of their neighbours' lands in their endless search for lebensraum...

How can you justify that statement?
Israel is as tiny now as it always was.

The West Bank was not taken for lebensraum.
Israel was invaded across that indefensible 100 mile long land border but managed to push the invaders back to the Jordan river.
Not wanting to be invaded again, they held that border instead.
Likewise the Golan.
That was half a century ago and they have taken not one inch since.

There is no comparison with Hitler's agressive, unprovoked seizure of lebensraum.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 04:37 AM


I can see that you are right that it remains in danger, if not properly armed & defended, of being overrun and destroyed by those neighbours who insist they are still in the state of war that they declared in 1948; but I fear that Israel's response has moved of late beyond the purely defensive into the defiantly truculent.

Not in the sense that neighbouring countries have any reason to fear Israel.
As you say, Israel has every reason to fear more attacks from its neighbours.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 03:30 AM

In the interests of justice & fairness, Keith, I must differ with you there. The reason I have withdrawn my lifelong support for Israel has been it aggressive destruction of innocent Arabs' means of livelihood [olive groves, on the pretence that terrorists might be hiding in them!], & deliberately establishing settlements in order to pre-empt what it knows to be disputed territory. I don't see how these can be viewed as other than aggressive, rather than defensive, acts. The ideals established early on by Ben Gurion & Meir were overturned with the election of the heirs of Jabotinski's Revisionists, personified in the likes of Netenyahu, who have reversed Israel's purely defensive policy, and degenerated it into something quite else.

I can see that you are right that it remains in danger, if not properly armed & defended, of being overrun and destroyed by those neighbours who insist they are still in the state of war that they declared in 1948; but I fear that Israel's response has moved of late beyond the purely defensive into the defiantly truculent.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 02:59 AM

I do not accept your comparison LH.
In all its history, Israel has only ever fought defensive wars.

Its neighbours have repeatedly tried to over run and destroy Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 13 Apr 13 - 02:11 AM

---Religion has been known historically to goad fanatics to do insane things.
Israel included? OF COURSE NOT! (Right Bruce?)---
.,,.

Well, actually, Greg, sarcasm aside ~ NO.

Israel has a state religion, Judaism, as we have the Church of England as our Establishment. But it is in no way a religiously Jewish state, where all citizens must declare themselves devotees to, and follow the laws of, the official state religion; in the way that Saudi & N Nigeria, say, are religious states, where it is required of citizens that they adhere to the laws of the Sharia form of Islam, under strict penalties if they fail to do so ~~stoning to death for adultery, execution for blasphemy or proselytism, corporal punishment for dress-code or minor sexual violations (think of the 100 strokes of the cane on the bare buttocks of that N Nigerian early-teenage girl who got pregnant after being raped a few months ago)....

You know this. Please don't pretend you don't.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 08:23 PM

Teddy Roosevelt has been credited with having said "Walk softly but carry a big stick" (actually he said "speak softly and carry a big stick") but this seems to be the "Obama Doctrine"...

I'd hope that he sticks (no pun intended) with that approach to Iran because it gives US (and our allies) the best chances of bringing Iran into line without fucking it up and owning yet another expensive money pit...

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 08:19 PM

denied the holocaust ever happened

Yeah, well that's a worldwide movenent with asshole members in most if not all countries.

No need to single Iran out.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 08:07 PM

"In connection with 999's comment about the Dutch East Indies...Roosevelt's embargo did deprive Japan of Dutch East Indies oil. That is why the Japanese attacked British, American and Dutch possessions in the Pacific when they went to war. They needed the Dutch East Indies oil, and they couldn't get it or protect it without fighting Great Britain, the colonial Dutch forces, and the USA."


LH: 999 hasn't posted to this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 07:08 PM

The civil war in Syria is a horrible thing. But it's not a clear struggle between tyranny and freedom. It seems pretty likely that a victory by the people fighting against Assad will mean a regime in power that is every bit as bad, especially for religious minority groups.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 06:27 PM

Keith, that is how all the Arab nations and Iran feel about Israel, based on past experience. To slightly rephrase your words:

"It is not idle speculation of academic interest only when Arabs and Iranians and Lebanese and Syrians and Palestinians consider what Israel might (next) do to them. It is just how you might feel if an unstable person in charge of an overwhelmingly superior arsenal of destructive weaponry was loading a gun outside your kids'school."

Both sides feel that way, Keith, and with justification...based on past violent history and past and present hostile rhetoric. Both sides fear their own destruction in an attack by the other side. The Israeli side, however, is far better armed and has the USA backing it up with the world's greatest military.

It's David and Goliath, allright....but Goliath this time is the power of the USA and Israel arrayed against most of Israel's Muslim neighbours.

I find it harder to sympathize with an American-Israeli Goliath, than with the various Davids whose lands their forces are standing on. The thing Iran most needs IS a deterrent force of modern nuclear warheads with modern delivery systems already in place. It's the only thing that could deter USA/Israel from eventually attacking them. Therefore I can readily understand why they'd want such weapons, since it's the only possible way they can protect themselves from being pre-emptively "taken out".............same as Saddam before them. He had no such weapons, therefore he had no effective form of defense, and the USA massacred his forces and took his country, and it's been utterly ruined in the process.

The Iranians fear the same thing happening to them...and with justification!!! The USA has been looking to cause regime change in Iran ever since the late 70s, and invests considerable money and covert activity and various other forms of pressure in trying to achieve it. Those are acts of war. The Iranians know they are at war with the Superpower and Israel, whether or not it's official, and they are reacting accordingly to protect themselves.

Ordinary people on both sides are endangered as a consequence.

For some reason you are more emotionally moved by the thought of Israelis being in peril than by the thought of Arabs, Palestinians and Persians being in peril. I don't know why that is, but it seems to overlook the fact that Israel and the USA hold a vast military supremacy over that entire region, by virtue of their superior weaponry. Why would you sympathize with Goliath in a David and Goliath scenario? How can a Goliath EVER enlist anyone's sympathy????

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 02:40 PM

Iran has denied Israel's right to exist, denied the holocaust ever happened, armed, trained and equiped terrorist organisations to attack Israel, supplied missiles knowing they were to be used against ordinary Israeli people in their homes and schools-undeniably a war crime and a crime against humanity, armed and supported Assad in his war against his own people, supplied trained and equiped Hezbollah to join the fight against Syrians, almost certainly sent Iranians to assist Assad and Hamas,....

It is not idle speculation of acedemic interest only when Israelis consider what Iran might do to them.
It is just how you might feel if an unstable person was loading a gun outside your kids'school.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Bert
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 11:34 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 11:25 AM

>>>From: beardedbruce - PM
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 05:07 PM

"Why would they "hit Israel" when it would lead to their own sudden extinction?
"

Why would Japan attack the US in 1941?

Why would Germany attack Poland in 1939?

Why would Germany attack Belgium in 1914?


Why would S Carolina attack Ft Sumter in 1861?


Why would any of them? Because they thought they could get away with it with no consequences...<<<

I don't see the point of rehashing history to talk about the point Bruce is trying to make here. All you have to do is ask yourself "Is there any possible way that Iran could "hit" Israel and there be "no consequences?"

The answer is obvious. Eh? Lets say in 5 years Iran has what N. Korea has, a half dozen bombs the size of Ford Explorers. They by some miracle manage to get one to Tel Aviv for a first strike in a war and kill a hundred thousand people. What would be the outcome of that war? Israel has more than 100 nukes they can deploy with their fighter jets. The US has more than ten thousand they can deploy as easily and accurately as you can find a hotel with the GPS in your car. In fact that is what the GPS system was designed to do.

I'm not saying the balance of power is lopsided. I am saying there is no balance.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Greg F.
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 11:04 AM

Religion has been known historically to goad fanatics to do insane things.

Israel included? OF COURSE NOT! (Right Bruce?)

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Ed T
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 10:14 AM

Winona State University, Department of Political Science, P.S. 270 Politics and Society in the Middle East- THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR:CAUSES AND ORIGINS OF THE WAR

Iran-Iraq background

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Bert
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 09:45 AM

...while Iran has not attacked anyone in the last century...

Not quite true. When the Shah was in power, they started a little war with Iraq in order to get a toehold into the Dehloran oilfield.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Ed T
Date: 12 Apr 13 - 09:39 AM

treating people like imbeciles

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 Mar 13 - 01:42 PM

The US "had been planning for that war for a long time".    Of course.   That's why it was a surprise when it came.

I'm with Don.   Revisonist history may be fun.   But you can only get the result you want by ignoring lots of facts on the other side.   

The burden of proof is on the revisionists. And they have not met it.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Mar 13 - 01:30 PM

It's a possibility, string....that religious fervor might cause them to attack....but I don't think it's very likely. I've known a lot of Muslims over the years, and most of them seemed about as stable and sane and practical as most other people to me.

In any case, the Israelis are just as fanatical about the righteousness of their cause as anyone I've ever seen or heard of...they act like they were the Right Hand of God, and they DO have the power to carry out their threats of annihilation. I worry about people who DO have the power to carry out a threat, not those who don't.

Why the heck would a country with a couple of hundred nuclear weapons obsess over a country that doesn't even have ONE??? I'll tell you why. Because he who holds an absolute monopoly of something just can't bear the thought that his monopoly could be challenged...not even in the smallest fashion.

The Israelis are like a big American cattle rancher with 150 heavily armed cowboys and a gatling gun, and he's obessed over the fact that Pedro, the poor gunless Mexican farmer who lives over at the edge of his land, is rumoured to be possibly trying to assemble one old rifle! Pedro has only had a machete and a rake to fight the 150 cowboys with before, but what if he gets a rifle????

"That Pedro is out to kill me! He hates me. We can't allow him to get that rifle. Mexicans should NEVER have any guns, because they can't be trusted not to use them! They're all irrational maniacs, you know. Everybody knows that. They're lunatics. I say we send over the boys and take him out. He is a danger to the entire world and he MUST be eliminated! Besides...he's crazy. 100% nuts. Capable of anything. He's a religious fanatic, you know. He prays every day to the Virgin Mary and God for my death. I say we go get him right now. Saddle up, boys! And after he's dead, we can control all the oil on his land too, and use his surviving family as cheap labour. Bonus!"

That's about what Israel's position on Iran amounts to. Ditto for the USA's position on Iran. They're well-armed bullies who plot to commit a murder, and they justify it by saying that the guy the are targeting is insane and is a danger to the world....sounds to me like they are describing themselves, not the other guy. Maybe the devil they fear is really their own reflection seen in the mirror of life.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Stringsinger
Date: 19 Mar 13 - 11:56 AM

There is one reason Iran might feel that it's ok to attack Israel. Their religious beliefs.
Religion has been known historically to goad fanatics to do insane things.

However, the countries that really have WMD's such as U.S., Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea would cause more damage than Iran which have none.

Iran is like the black knight in Monty Python's Holy Grail before his dismemberment.

Nonetheless, Israel intends to destabilize world peace by their paranoid aggressive
behavior.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Mar 13 - 01:31 AM

Don Firth - I don't think you quite get the drift of my comments about FDR and WWII. I'm not being a rightwing revisionist, because I very much like FDR, I like his New Deal policies, and I think he had very good reasons for wanting to get into WWII, in regards to stopping both Japan AND Germany from pursuing their imperial conquests (and committing various atrocities).

(We've been through this before...)

In connection with 999's comment about the Dutch East Indies...Roosevelt's embargo did deprive Japan of Dutch East Indies oil. That is why the Japanese attacked British, American and Dutch possessions in the Pacific when they went to war. They needed the Dutch East Indies oil, and they couldn't get it or protect it without fighting Great Britain, the colonial Dutch forces, and the USA.

Do I think FDR's blockade of Japan was a good idea? Yeah. Was it inevitable that it would pressure the Japanese into going to war within about a year at the most? Hell, yes! You deprive any major military power in this world of its primary sources of oil, and that power WILL go to war against you! Would the USA go to war to protect their overseas oil sources if someone blocked them? You betcha! In a heartbeat. So would any other great power put in Japan's position by that embargo. And that's why FDR did it. He needed someone else to start the fighting, because the public and Congress were absolutely not interested in the idea of fighting a foreign war anywhere at that time. So Roosevelt needed an outside attack ON America first to get the Congress and public into a patriotic fury. Then he could get Congress to declare war.

Was he wise to do that? Yeah!!!!!!!! It was a good plan, given the dire situation in Europe. He needed the country to be at war, so he could defeat the Germans, whom he regarded as the main threat.

I don't believe that Japanese atrocities were the primary motivation behind American planning for war. Not for a moment. I don't believe the USA ever goes to war to stop atrocities...nor does any other great power...God knows, they commit atrocities enough of their own wherever they feel their interests are at stake. Millions of civilians have died as a result of American imperial policy in both hemispheres since the end of WWII.

But reporting the terrible Japanese atrocities in China was simply ideal for enraging the general public and making them want to clobber the Japanese. After all, look how it enraged you at the time. And not surprisingly. The behaviour of the Japanese was atrocious, and they deserved to be defeated.

I'm just saying that's not why the USA went to war with Japan. They did it for the usual very pragmatic reasons that all great powers are motivated by. They (America and Japan) had been planning for that naval war for a long time...since shortly after WWI ended, and it would have come eventually regardless of whether or not the Japanese raped Nanking, bayoneted civilians, etc. It was simply a question of competing spheres of influence in the Pacific region and of the balance of naval power which was the key to controlling those spheres of influence, and the Japanese had pushed too far when they invaded China and occupied French Indochina.

Of course the American public applauded Roosevelt for initiating the embargo. Why not? The Japanese were behaving very badly in their China war. What the public usually doesn't exactly get, though, is this: an embargo IS basically an act of war. The shooting may not have started yet, but the intent behind the embargo is clear. Embargos, like sanctions, are an attempt to starve someone else into submission by depriving them of something they badly need. The moment Roosevelt did that, he guaranteed a war with Japan in the fairly near future...after they had made necessary preparations and summoned up the will to do it.

The only other possibility was that Japan would give up their war in China and meekly take all their troops home! (in which case FDR would have presumably had to lift the embargo, not having an overt reason for it any longer)

That was about as likely to happen as for the moon to turn blue and fly off to Jupiter. The Japanese are not a people who simply surrender and give up without a fight. They're too proud for that. (And so is the USA, so why be surprised?)

But what you don't get...every time I talk about this...is that I am NO rightwing FDR-hater. I have just as good an opinion of FDR as you do. Like I say, he had very good reasons for wanting to get involved in WWII. And he arranged it in the most practical and effective fashion. The only thing I think he totally miscalculated on was that he had no idea what tremendous damage the Japanese would do at Pearl Harbour. I doubt he thought they had the capability to mount such a long range operation.

Now, how many times have I told you this? 4 or 5? I keep experiencing deja vu every time it happens again.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 11:12 PM

When did Iran (or Persia when that called it that) last make war on any other country that wasn't actually invading it?

You've got to go back an awfully long time for that.

There is absolutely no valid reason to think that Iran is likely to attack Israel. On the other hand there are serious reasons to fear that Israel will attack Iran, and that other countries will be dragged into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:47 PM

I think that once Iran does have The Bomb then Israel will play much nicer with her neighbors. It probably is needed to stabilize the Middle East. Nothing else seems to help or keep Israel from being an obnoxious neighbor.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:21 PM

""Why would Japan attack the US in 1941?

Why would Germany attack Poland in 1939?

Why would Germany attack Belgium in 1914?""

Because they had the military power to expect to win. They would not have been so quick to attack if they had, as Iran has, seen the effects of nuclear weapons, and had known, as Iran does, that their enemy possesses those weapons in sufficient number to wipe out all their cities, and more.

Sometimes BB, I wonder if you are really as dim as you try to make out.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Don Firth
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 10:07 PM

The REASON Roosevelt put Japan under embargo was the atrocities the Japanese were committing in China (you've heard of such things as the "Rape of Nanking" wherein the brutality and sadism of the Japanese soldiers was enought to gag a maggot!). Japan was buying scrap metal from the United States, and using it to make weapons.

Roosevelt said, "Enough!" and initiated the embargo. And the rest of the American people--and the world at large--applauded him for the move.

Right Wing historical revisionists like to say that Roosevelt (the guts of whom they hated) goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor. And getting us into World War II.

Scurrilous slanders!

In the meantime, when we did get into the war, the British snarled a bit and said, "Well, better late than never!"

'Scuse me, but revisionist history tends to piss me off!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 09:11 PM

Well, not exactly, LH. Japan had the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies, among others. Steel could be had from China. The steel they were getting from the US, and which FDR embargoed, was scrap and there was plenty of scrap steel to had in occupied countries. Japan's real problems arose after the battles of the Coral Sea (call that a draw) and Midway because they lost much of their (experienced) navy. True, they won the Battle for Ironbottom Sound but that was a local incident. When the US submarines began sinking so much Japanese shipping the end was predictable to those who wanted to see it.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 08:39 PM

By the way, the Japanese sure as hell didn't think they could attack Pearl Harbour without consequences! They expected to take considerably heavier losses than they did that day, and they knew it would plunge them into a war they were quite likely to lose in the long run. They simply didn't think they had any other choice than to fight the USA after the trade embargo was in place, so they came up with the best initial attack plan they could. War had become inevitable for the USA and Japan, just as Roosevelt knew it would be. He needed that war, not because of Japan, but because he felt he HAD to confront Germany before they conquered all of Europe, and the only way to get the USA public and Congress onside FOR a war in 1941 was to get someone else to start it by attacking and killing Americans. That someone was the Japanese. He pushed them into the corner, and they did the inevitable. And that got him his war with Germany...even quicker than he'd hoped...because Hitler declared war on the USA within a day or so of Pearl Harbour. That solved Roosevelt's problem with Congress perfectly...and it had to be Hitler's second dumbest move, after invading Russia.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 08:28 PM

"Why would Japan attack the US in 1941?"

Because FDR had put them under a trade embargo, had cut off their sources of oil and steel, and they were already committed to a major war in China, and couldn't continue it without those supplies, that's why. They had a choice of surrendering to the USA without a fight, or taking a long chance of possible victory by launching a devastating first strike. It was a big risk, but it seemed preferable to just lying down and giving up. Put in the same position at any time in history by a larger power, the USA would have done exactly the same thing. FDR wanted his war, and he got it, by pushing them into a corner.

Why would Germany attack Poland in 1939?

Because Hitler wanted to regain a large piece of land that was carved out of Germany at the end of WWI (when Poland didn't even exist as a sovereign state), and because he expected that the western allies would stand aside and LET him do it without interference. The British and French declaration of war took him absolutely by surprise. He thought they were bluffing when they said they'd fight over Poland. Poland looked like an easy and cheap victory from his point of view, and it would regain Germany the land they had lost in 1918. Given those assumptions, why wouldn't he have done it, being who he was?

Why would Germany attack Belgium in 1914?

For an excellent tactical reason! The ground there is mostly flat and open and provides the best route for an army advancing into France. This is why a whole series of wars have been fought over that same ground.

Why would S Carolina attack Ft Sumter in 1861?

For the same reason that Massachussets would have attacked a fort in Boston Harbour in 1861 if Confederate forces were occupying it and being re-supplied by CSA ships and refusing to leave. Think about it, for God's sake! Such things are provocations. They are intended to start wars. Lincoln made sure that Fort Sumter was not vacated and was kept supplied, and he inevitably got the war he needed to restore the Union.

I very much doubt the South thought they could assault Fort Sumter without consequences. I think they knew darned well it would start a general war with the North, but they simply couldn't tolerate the Union presence there any more than Boston could have tolerated a similar Confederate presence in their harbout.

Now, your point appears to have been that the attacker thinks he can "get away with it, without consequences".

There is simply no WAY that any Muslim nation in the Middle East would feel that way about attacking Israel! The Israelis have a couple hundred nuclear weapons, and everyone knows it. They hold that sword of terror over the whole region.

Rather it is the Israelis and the USA who always seem to think they can attack someone else without serious consequence. They are accustomed to imagining themselves as holding absolute military supremacy over the weaker nations they confront...and in a nuclear conflict, that is correct. They both possess the ability to utterly devastate Iran in a single day with nuclear attacks, and apparently with little material consequence to themselves.

And that is precisely what is so dangerous about the situation: the fact that the USA and Israel imagine they can wipe out Iran without suffering serious losses in return. Because of that assumption, they may very well launch an attack. If so, it wouldn't stop there. It would probably result in a Third World War...though not necessarily a short one...more likely one that spread in growing stages that brought in the Russians, Chinese and many other nations, and lasting a few years.

After which, we'd all basically be "fucked". Or dead. As a madman's gamble, it's not one that makes any sense to me, but I think that the USA and Israel are the only 2 nations arrogant enough to do it, and for this reason I fear that they may do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Back door to a new war
From: Stringsinger
Date: 18 Mar 13 - 07:24 PM

Israeli Aggression