I'll stipulate that I don't see those actual words in the linked story. But honestly, at this point, I begin to wonder if there's any longer anything so stupid that he won't say it. I really do wonder if he isn't in fact getting senile.
That's another thread...
That's not a necessary assumption of Beeps argument. To continue Beeps' analogy, were Carter to take the $85 of groceries to Beeps' house himself (undoubtedly lusting after Mrs. Beeps in his heart in the process), and tells Mrs. Beeps that only she should decide who gets to eat what groceries, it still frees up the cash for Beeps to buy a gun. And in that situation, Beeps has no control over the aid he receives.
You're right. I did misunderstand you, mostly because I wasn't prepared for you to make the argument that we shouldn't provide humanitarian aid because some of it will go to bad guys. (Too bad they don't wear badges or sumpin'.) It is a given that whenever you try to do the right thing, some wrong things will also happen. I personally do not believe this is a good enough excuse to starve the rest of the Gaza strip residents. It is a deliberate obfuscation, I believe, to call such aid "supporting Hamas".
Argh! No it wouldn't!
If no food is sent, Hamas has to use some of its own money to buy food, for its thugs, for civilians, or for both. But whoever they buy food for, the money spent on buying that food is not available to buy guns any more because it's been used to buy food, which has been eaten.
If you give food to the civilians, even if you make sure that every grain of it goes into the bellies of starving Palestinian grandmothers, Hamas doesn't have to buy food to feed those grandmothers. So Hamas has extra money lying around that it didn't use for food. They can buy guns with it.
But this assumes that were the grandmothers not fed, Hamas would expend money being nice to little old ladies rather than, say, buying guns with it.
I don't think so. In the 80's, it was convenient that Iraq fight Iran, in the realpolitik sense, so we didn't have to, for all that Iran represented an ugly new development in Mid East geopolitics. Or maybe you think the Islamic Revolution was a beneficial political move?
But that wasn't the argument I was making. Even if the bad guys let all the food go to the civilians, that would free up money the bad guys already have, to enable them to buy guns. If we don't send food or money, then Hamas may dip into its cash and buy food for its civilian citizens, leaving them less money to buy guns with.
They carry guns - isn't that enough to identify them? They're probably not NRA members going to the local practice range.
But this is a case of trying to do something right - feeding innocents when their own government is too wrapped up waging war to bother - while enabling a wrong - making it easier for Hamas to get weapons.
Excuse me, but I am not starving anyone. If Hamas and Fatah were to make peace with Israel, they'd find their food problems would be dramatically reduced overnight. If you choose war for your people, don't blame others because your country has become a garrison state. And if your people voted you in knowing what you stood for (I don't believe Hamas has ever hidden the fact that its most important mission is to destroy Israel), they shouldn't complain when their elected leaders take them into a war.
Corplinx, you're way way off. It is indeed bloody obvious Israel, the USA and the EU want to "divide" the Palestinians -- that is, they want to support Fatah and to isolate Hamas. D'oh. The question of whether they are right to do so, which is what Carter was going on about, is a completely different question.
