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Fifth Cable Cut To Middle East
You may have noticed a number of stories recently about undersea cables getting cut around the world. Apparently the total is now up to 5, but the scariest part of this is that Iran is now offline. You can also read Schneier's comments on this coincidence. Update: 02/06 17:42 GMT by Z : As a commenter notes, though the country of Iran is obviously experiencing some networking difficulties, it is not offline.
...Al Gore taking back the internet since he wasn't getting any credit for it anyway.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
You're on earth, there's no cure for that - S. Beckett
I was also a bit disturbed that war seems to be the only alternative to sanctions.
That's only the case when the alternative to action would be worse. In the case of Iran, our apathy has already cost the lives of thousands of people and if they get nuclear weapons we're talking both about a huge economic impact on the West as well as the lives of millions of people. I think those two huge issues warrant some action, as do other European and Middle-Eastern countries. Let's just say that Saudi Arabia, Egypt and others are not keen on their enemy Iran threatening them with nukes.
If the U.S. didn't routinely traipse into the Middle East and assert itself violently, would we have fomented as much hate as we receive now?
I think so. I think radicalization of Islam would occur regardless of US action. Consider the fact that the Dutch political cartoons are said to have fomented radicalization and there we're being given a choice between our Freedom of Speech and their terrorism. I'm sorry, but I don't believe their violence warrants us dropping Western values in order to join their medieval culture. We have a right to Freedom of Speech and if that pisses them off then too bad. If we were to apply their line of reasoning we would have bombed Hugo Chavez for insulting George Bush, but we did not. And trust you me, Hugo Chavez says a lot of inciteful things. But that's his right, and we shouldn't bomb him for that.
Israel, Desert Storm, the Iraq conflict... it's enough to make Arab states feel pretty threatened. They can't compete with the scale of the United States military, but a nuclear device sure gets our attention and would make us think twice. I'm not necessarily debating the utility of our past military offensives, but to say that outright war is the only alternative to sanctions strikes me as pretty simplistic!
Desert Storm was initiated with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent rape and killings they carried out there. I'm sorry, but diplomatic pressure was not going to help there. Conquering Kuwait provided Iraq with enough oil to offset any sort of economic pressure we could have applied and I believe that a military response was well-warranted (as did the rest of the world).
Israel: our primary crime is supporting the existence of non-Muslims in the middle-east. Trust me, this pisses people off a lot more than any actual financial or operational support the US has given Israel over the years. The "moderate" Palestinian Authority Israel is being forced to negotiate with is still advocating a Jew-free Palestinian state and their official map of Palestine in their charter still covers all of Israel. We should also be clear that we're talking about an Arab-Israeli conflict, not a Palestinian-Israeli one, because if other Arab countries had absorbed Palestinians into their countries like Israel absorbed Jews evicted from Arab countries this conflict would have not lasted this long. It is still illegal for Palestinians to hold a job in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and to a certain extent also in Jordan -- they do this by design.
Iraq: In my view, the primary justification for using the military option in Iraq was to topple a dictator. Any other reasons that were given might be valid but are besides the point for me. We've tried applying diplomatic pressure on them for years in the hopes that the opposition would gain power but that didn't help. The US also got criticized severely for pulling out during the first Gulf war and allowing Saddam to massacre his opposition. My personal opinion is that toppling dictatorships is a good thing, even by military means, but I also feel that in the specific case of Iraq the implementation was badly botched. Too much politics and not enough planning. I'm not saying we should use the military option to topple governments at a whim but I also think it is important to use all resources possible (diplomatic first of course) to topple dictatorships all over the world. Dictatorship
Ask Israel why they're spending billions of dollars building walls around their country, if they don't have problems with their neighbors -- oh wait! But they do! They settled in Muslim holy land "because the bible says so" (but never anyone dared to call Israel religious fanatics), they make friends with the largest powers, do some favors, some dirty jobs, and play the "we are the victims of the holocaust" card ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
...), and Israel just goes and kills their people. Yes, they do, they cross israel borders and DESTROY poor farmers' houses. They don't let even the children through their stupid walls, now these children can't go to school, people can't go to cities. Hamas breaks the walls and people run desperate into Israel because they live under dictators regimes, and they really don't care about Mohamed and the Talibans and all that crap. And Israel just closes their borders and kills everyone who dares cross them.
Meanwhile, crazy dictators rule the poor middle-east countries (Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan
Israel is the single, most racist country in the face of the earth, and people are afraid of mentioning it. When you see "suicide bomber kills 10 people in some-fucking-place-in-israel" is all over the news, with big bold letters. When Israel attacks their neighbors (AS IT HAS BEEN HAPPENING IN THE LAST MONTH IN CASE YOU DON'T NOTICE), news reports are quick flashes -- nothing valuable has been lost.
And it is true that the jews do own the media, and the banks, and the world. But you're too stupid to THINK about anything. You get the news processed and feed down your throath. Open your eyes and look at the atrocities the Israel STATE is commiting again CIVILIANS in neighbor countries. At least Hamas and those religious fanatics are not part of the state. But Israel is openly killing people as a foreign policy. The UN tries to sanction them and they don't give a fuck. Then they go crying into the UN's arms when Iran tries to play with the atom, and they manage to sanction Iran. Fuck israel.