Domain: 972mag.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to 972mag.com.
Comments · 8
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Re:Debating
Many of the crimes in the US are committed by illegal immigrants — an indisputable fact, even if we can not agree on the exact figures.
False.
Saying its indisputable doesn't make it so.
There are what, 10mil illegal immigrants?
Compared to 320mil legal residents?
And you expect us to believe they commit more crimes than legal residents?
Even as a percentage that just isnt supported...anywhere.http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1742...
Oh gee. Looks like they aren't connected after all.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/th...
Doh, not there either.
http://openborders.info/hispan...
Damn.
Still more numbers.so much for "indisputable".
That building a border-wall would greatly reduce their numbers — indisputably proven by Israel's border wall.
Really? Indisputably? Again?
Ok...here we go:
The wall has done very little to stop attacks or crossings.
Even Israel's own right wing factions acknowledge the wall has played little part and is ineffective.
That credit goes to waning support for violence, and the ability of the Israeli Intelligence to disrupt them.
The real reason for the wall is to further expand the territory they have, since possession is 9/10 the law.
http://972mag.com/wave-of-stab...The Second Intifada ended for a number of reasons, only one of which was the separation barrier. That becomes especially clear when you look at how little of the barrier had actually been constructed by the time the attacks stopped.
The violence of the Second Intifada wound down because Israeli intelligence managed to wear down armed Palestinian groups. Popular Palestinian support for the violent uprising slowly dwindled due to the painful consequences, namely Israeli military operations, sieges, closures and curfews, which affected more and more of Palestinian society with little to show for their suffering. And finally, momentum simply fell off; the First Intifada also lasted for roughly five years before slowly coming to a halt.
Even a 10% reduction in crime will pay for the wall within one year. Maybe, the 10% figure is exaggerated, but 1% is certainly reasonable. So the wall will pay off in 10 years instead — still a big win.
No, it's not reasonable.
And you've clearly ignored upkeep costs.The wall Trump wants would cost a minimum of 30 billion to build.
that's just in materials, and does not include labor or logistics. which would easily be 2/3 or more of the total project cost.
so to build out you're talking ~70-90 billion.
(All that....and defeating it as simple as spending ~30$ at Home Depot on a ladder.)The harsh desert sun and wind would quickly put it into poor shape, so regularly maintence is a must.
maintenance costs alone would exceed the initial build cost after only 7 years. so annualized that's ~10 billion a year (at 70b build cost).
plus, because walls are stupid-easy to defeat with ladders and tunnels, you're still going to have to man it, which means even more border agents, cameras, monitoring equipment than we currently have. so thats even more money.So, even going conservatively, 10 year cost total comes to 170billion.
Annually, crime costs ~15b in economic losses, and ~180b in government spending fighting it.
That's ~200b a year.So no, you're not paying it off after 10 years.
Or ever really.And thats again ignoring that the wall will not reduce crime anyway because your entire premise is that immigration is the source of the majority of crime, whic
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Give them ideas
Israel's bombing of an iraq nuclear reactor basically started the weaponized nuclear program in iraq: http://972mag.com/the-myth-of-...
Same goes for politicans demanding to ban encryption because terrorists could use it. The paris terrorists didn't use encryption. But ISIS now will make sure they will use encryption from now on.
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Re:NUKEM!! NUKEM NOW!!
You failed to prove that they use such tactics at all
Here you go. Maybe you didn't read it the first time:
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Re:NUKEM!! NUKEM NOW!!
Citations?
I was hoping you'd ask.
http://972mag.com/report-detai...
You can find more examples by Googling "double tap bombing".
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Obama just hates Israel
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Re:Heck, we probably already fund them
"Standing with Israel" will soon be understood to be no different than "riding with the KKK"
Can you explain why an Arab boy will get murdered if he walks down the street, holding hands with a Jewish girl?
Can you explain why dissident/tolerant Israelis are afraid to post facebook profiles, because black-shirted gangs will hunt down their street address and beat them into a pulp?
Can you explain why African refugees live in fear for their lives?
Why do Israeli snipers kill already wounded civilians and the RESCUE FIRST RESPONDERS?
Tweet (JLLLOW):
"The #IDF deploys snipers against first responders in Gaza: http://palsolidarity.org/2014/07/human-rights-defenders-under-live-fire-one-dead/ | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBakqLUBWP0 This is a war crime."
Equal civil rights? Israel has NO WRITTEN CONSTITUTION.
Your "democracy" claim is Israeli whitewashing, a baldfaced lie that embraces rhetoric of inclusion, to mask discrimination, prejudice and exploitation. Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel's population, while less than 7 percent of the budget is allocated to Palestinian citizens. The 1.5 million Arab citizens of Israel are de facto second-class citizens while four million more are not citizens at all. A Jew from any country can move to Israel - and is granted near immediate citizenship upon entry - but a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot even visit. The laws for "right of return" and the "Jewish National Fund", which enshrines formal policy and subsidy for land ownership, are inherently anti-democratic.
In fact, there was another government and nation that behaved this way, socially, politically and militarily - but the world put a stop to that in 1945.
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Re:If you call the US embassy about this
I'm not sure what the deal is with those magical powers, but there's a reason Kane asked whether he was Jewish. If you're Jewish, you get automatic Israeli citizenship no matter where you're from, so entry is generally pretty painless. If you're Palestinian or Arab or Muslim or an activist, you're probably just shit out of luck.
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Re:The consensus is: they're not building a bomb.
Beg your pardon, nobody would go as far as stating there has been an irreversible decision to never a bomb.
I could have been clearer concerning what they're saying vs my judgement of what they're thinking,
but you need to be aware of the possibilities in order to be able to choose the best fit.
Iran wants the option to build a bomb, but they don't want to build one.
That is the military component of the civilian nuclear program(there is also the considerable nonmilitary component). It's a deterrence.
It can be a remote option, an emergency exit that is very difficult to use. It would mean pulling the plug on the NPT and throwing out all observers. Actually building a bomb would be a very undesirable outcome.
This is similar to Japan's position, although Japan really wants to be as close to a bomb as possible(the Japanese target is a build time of two months), which is different from Iran. Iran does not intend to try and get close.Now if you go over the relevant statements that have been made, and there have been many, there are two factors to take in account.
- stay on the safe side: you can never expand with certainty the statement that there is no decision to build a bomb, to the statement that there will never be such decision.
- there are political reasons to phrase things as threatening as possible: you have to keep the pressure on Iran, and if your point of view diverges too far, in too many respects, from common viewpoints it will not be taken seriously. You certainly have to remain acceptable to the pressure groups.So the preferred interpretation will tend towards Iran being poised to build one, and waiting for the right moment.
Or trying to build one but being temporarily held back by the US. Or still being in doubt.
So when the Haaretz article title says Iran is 'still mulling' they're really giving the most threatening interpretation. It's more threatening than the report actually.
In the case of Panetta he's actually talking gibberish on the face of it, unless you're aware of it that he's talking to different audiences simultaneously."Hedging their bets" means they would like to build a bomb but not at any cost. This doesn't fit well with the history of the conflict.
The real issue is whether Iran is allowed to be a regional player.
The claim that they're building a bomb is 30 years old, and has been hyped by Israel in the last 20 years. It's not easy to navigate between the propaganda in mainstream media and the conspiracy thinking in alternative media. Why are you saying "secret enrichment plant"? It is a fully monitored plant.
The reason the newer plants are well protected are both political and military. The reason is not "because they want a bomb". The reason is they want to be independent. If they hadn't been protected Israel would have destroyed them in order to assert their dominance. That's the reasoning behind bombing that syrian plant: assert your freedom to strike whenever you feel like it. The reason was not "we were worried about that plant". Not at all. Here's a very recent article about it by Larry Derfner: http://972mag.com/author/larryd/
The stories about secrecy are an interpretation. Iran's attitude has varied but since Ahmadinejahd they've been less flexible, more going by the book: if the NPT says you should announce a plant 6 months before you start moving nuclear material into it, then it will be six months. Iran just now gave the IAEA access to Parchin, a contentious concession on their part.
Sure enough there is already a story of an anonymous IAEA expert saying Iran just wanted to delay access so they had time to hide their illegal activities.That's the iranian position: you can have all the safeguards you want (usually that is additional protocol 3.1 to the NPT)
provided we get to be accepted. And that includes nuclear enrichment. This position is unacceptable to the US and Israel
because they want to keep Iran as small as possible and the nuclear en