From: Steve Bob Giramma wrote: > > > The glory days of Islam were nearly a millennium ago. > I am not that old. I live in the 21st century. These days Middle East > Muslims are among the least civilized people on earth, especially when > measured by libertarian values. Without oil, the Middle East (except for > Israel) would likely be as poor and unimportant as Africa.
Israel would be no better or worse than the rest without the 10s of thousands of per capital foreign aid. And they all would be better (except Israel) without foreign interference in their internal affairs and the effort that went into artificially creating the national boundaries. BOB: You're kidding, right? The Arab regimes have oil and/or received aid from the US/EU now and the USSR before that. Israel received only US aid, and it all went to weapons for defense against the various attempts by Arabs at Jewish genocide. Do you know anything about Israel? I've worked for two companies with offices in Israel, and I have Jewish friends with connections there. They value education and hard work. They are deservedly the most free and prosperous people in the region -- with no oil. > BTW, I was recently in Turkey. The Islamists are contained by aggressive > government and military force. There are laws against too much religion. > So "Turkey is moving in the right direction" because their aggressively > secular military demands it. We all have our means to the end. The USA is a work in progress, note that woman didn't get the vote for almost 150 years and oppression of personal choice is still the norm. The interesting thing is the military in Turkey has set a precedent and tends to step in when needed and then withdrawal. Why they just don't take over is an interesting issue. BOB: The flaws in freedom you correctly associate with the US are problems in pretty much every nation and culture. By almost every measure of liberty, the US is ahead of all the rest. On Turkey, the people there worship Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. He wanted a Western style government for Turkey, and that means they cannot have military rule. Turkey will be fine as long as there's greater worship of Ataturk than of Allah. > I know numerous Iranian-Americans. None of them like the regime. They > tell me almost no one in Iran supports the regime. I suspect Iran could > be a peaceful, free, and productive country if they could rid themselves > of the totalitarian Islamist clerics. I agree completely. We shouldn't be doing things that piss off the people that are against the clerics. BOB: Do you have evidence that American opposition to the clerics is turning the freedom supporters in Iran against the US? > But those clerics cannot be > allowed to get nuclear weapons no matter what it takes. So, preventive nuclear strikes on Iran works for you? BOB: Where did I say that? I doubt that is necessary. While they various nuclear facilities are buried underground, the maps I've seen indicate they are not near civilian areas. I'm hoping that means relentless bombing and commando raids can take care of it. I'm assuming the Israelis will either be doing it themselves or supporting US actions to take care of the problem. I'm willing to bet money that Iran will not finish its nuclear weapon. While it's a political threat to the US, it's an existential threat to Israel. They always take care of such problems, which is why five million Jews have survived surrounded by more than 300 million angry Muslims. -- Steve - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Take World's Smallest Political Quiz at http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html "If a thousand old beliefs were ruined on our march to truth we must still march on." --Stopford Brooke [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
