Basically I can't describe that as US military operation - but this isn't the whole truth, either:
In the USA, they bought a number of bombardiers and aeroplanes, which allowed for the transporting of arms purchased in Europe. Operation Balak was put in place to bring these arms and munitions to Israel by the end of March[100]. Some ships were also leased out from various European ports so that these goods could be transported by the 15 May. To finance all of this, Golda Meir managed, by the end of December, to collect twenty-five million dollars through a fundraising campaign set about in the USA to capitalise on American sympathisers to the Zionist cause. [101] Out of the 129 million US dollars raised between October 1947 and March 1949 for the Zionist cause, more than 78 million dollars, over 60%, were used to buy arms and munition[102].
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947-1948_Civil_War_in_Palestine
The decision was still contentious, however, with significant disagreement between Truman and the State Department about how to handle the situation. Truman was a supporter of the Zionist movement, while Secretary of State George Marshall feared U.S. backing of a Jewish state would harm relations with the Muslim world, limit access to Middle Eastern oil, and destabilize the region. On May 12, 1948, in the Oval Office, Marshall told Truman he would vote against him in the next election if the U.S. recognized Israel.1 In the end, Truman, recognized the state of Israel 11 minutes after it declared itself a nation. De jure recognition came on January 31, 1949.
Source
Of course, we can argue about the historical Backgrounds back and forth, but basically this was Americas first major partially Intervention that lead to today antipathy towards America and Israel as it is still present today.
Essentially you feel that because Israel bought some weapons from the US, and the US approved of the partition, that this can be defined as a US intervention?
From the very same Wikipedia article you quoted from:
U.S. aid to Israel was far less in the 1950s and 1960s than in later years. Although the United States provided moderate amounts of economic aid (mostly loans) to Israel, at the time, Israel's main patron was France, which supported Israel by providing it with advanced military equipment and technology.
I have to ask. Do you think the 1947 partition plan was just? The Jews got a country drawn around their previously existing settlements and the Palestinians got a country too. If you feel this was unjust, why?
Honestly, I don't know every detail of the conflict, but it's time that Palestinians get their own Country, too - because they have no rights at all as long this isn't the case. Will this result in the ultimate Peace? I doubt it - but it would give both sides of the story the same, fair, rights. Plus America would be forced to take a neutral position.
The United States has always supported a Two state solution. To that extent the US
is neutral. But is the US
completely neutral about Arab-Israeli conflict, no. Nor would I expect it. If I see a man beating up his wife I don't assume a neutral position, I
intervene. Remember that the Palestinians once had a state of their own but it wasn't enough for them. They weren't content with the Jews of Palestine living freely alongside them, they demanded their subjugation and/or extermination. The Palestinians
still demand this to this very day with only
46% being content with both states existing and that is the primary reason peace talks have been so non-productive to date.
That was my fault - my understanding of the Phrase was misinterpreting. I used the
LAPD because, and even if this image did change in the meantime, they represented the image I mentioned. The King incident is just the most famous one but I thought you would understand what I meant anyway.
I took offense because my step dad served alongside the LAPD for 15 years when he was a CHP officer serving there and he is adamant that he never encountered any "protect the rich while kicking the blacks" kind of attitude with them.
I agree that Business may also be considered as imperialistic. But I disagree that Politics and Commerce is mixed - especially if it does help the rich and punish the poor.
This in context to
this is the way it happens since decades and I simply consider this as being unfair and immoral. (Where is the Church when you need them?)
A capitalist government and corporations need each other to survive. This means that there is a finely woven relationship between the two. Is this inherently bad? I would argue that it isn't, but
could be if that relationship crosses a line and becomes injurious to society at large. Unfortunately the only way to get rid of such situations is to get rid of corporations altogether. But doing even that does
not guarantee the extermination of corruption as can be seen by the many Communist "utopias" that imploded, crashed and burned.
Well, if the USA would use it's influence and economic vantages to stop Aids, help poor countries to have basic supplies to survive, care for their own poor people, reverses Global Warming etc, I would shut my mouth.
So the USA
contributed $30 billion, over five years, to fight the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. A donation which is the
largest international health initiative ever initiated by one nation to address a single disease, the program hopes to provide antiretroviral treatment (ART) to 2.5 million HIV-infected people in resource-limited settings, to prevent 12 million new infections, and to support care for 12 million people.
As for helping the needy, remember that tsunami in 2004? The whole world donated about $10 billion to the stricken victims. Of that total $2.85 billion came right from the USA.
As for general charity, it should be noted that Americans are traditionally wary of government charity but accepting of private philanthropy. According to the 2006
Global Philanthropy Report the US donates $71 billion towards domestic charities and an additional $71 billion to international charities
every year.
Additionally the US Government, every year,
provides humanitarian and development aid to over 150 countries. For example $130 million to Kenya, $210 million to Liberia, $1.77 billion to Afghanistan and $1.87 billion to Egypt.
Quite frankly, I grew up with the picture of America as the worlds hero and never thought much about it until Iraq. I guess many here in Europe had this "Hold on, wait a second"-Moment and I after reviewing politics since 9/11, you would have a hard time to blame me for my criticism, won't you?
Considering I generally approve, with a few exceptions, of the actions taken by the US in the War on Terror I
will be critical of your criticism of said actions.
I know about that and I also know that there was no light in sight over night, but he had things under control and much less people died because of him as it is today - plus the instability since the invasion. Let's just say it wasn't a wise decision to take the risk of the destabilization as it was
foreseeable.
The invasion did
not necessarily need to lead to destabilization. Obviously the removal of the government would lead to a momentary state of lawlessness, but if the invasion had been followed by a surge in troops to maintain order, secure armaments and prevent sectarian violence by patrolling and protecting individual neighborhoods, then the insurgency
may not have happened in the first place. That this did not happen is just one of many mistakes the Bush administration made in their management of the war and it's aftermath. It was not the war that precipitated these events, it was the
mismanagement of the war that led down the road to the mess that we now have.
That's true - the Oil for Food Program was supposed to eliminate or at least drastically reduce the impact of the
sanctions against Iraq that were a result of the
Iraq-Kuwait conflict in the first place. Saddam was no Angel, that's for sure - but I refuse to say that any other Party involved are Angels, too. The question is: How to response in a fair way? Militarily (biased) or Diplomatic (neutral)?
Well, we agree the Oil for Food Program was badly bungled. But I disagree that a military solution is inherently biased and a diplomatic solution is inherently neutral.
Guess who helped to bring the
Baathists into Power in the
first place? There is no excuse for anyone who helped them in the first place to complain about them afterwards. Don't you agree?
I absolutely
disagree. It's possible to help someone gain power only to then realize they are bad. If that is the situation is not the one that helped bring them to power responsible to help take them out of power? That seems fair to me. You're asserting that if the US supports someones rise to power then they are committed to forever support them
no matter what they do. That is not the way things work.
And do you agree that the MEdia coverage in the US, declaring Baath as the "Evil" and America as the "Good ones" as, well, as being straightway dishonest and misleading?
Nope, because the media did not characterize the situation as such but even if they had it wouldn't have been misleading. The Baathists
were evil (in a non-theological sense), and the US was,
comparatively, good.
That's the same way in Europe. They also are either dependent on economical interests and also to serve their "Target Groups". The difference that is obvious to me but hard to explain or to understand, is:
People in Europe want to know the Truth, no matter if it hurts.
People in the US are "Okay" to listen to lies as long they support their POV.
Here you get things quite wrong. I won't comment on how things are in Europe because, unlike you, I won't presume that I know of the way
other people ingest the news. I know that
I remember the media in the US breaking down like this in terms of support of the war:
Network News--neutral
Cable News--opposed with Foxnews excepted
Newspapers--some actively opposed, some mildly supported with most neutral
Periodicals--most were actively opposed
As for Americans rejecting media reports that do not conform to their POV, did not most Americans stop supporting the war after the
media reported on the lack of WMDs? If we Americans always reject media reports that do not conform to our POV then our opinions wouldn't change based on media reports, but they quite obviously do.
Care to retract that statement, Oliver?
Do you think Al Qaida would exist and there would be such a hate towards the US that helped AQ to gain Power if the US never would have interfered in the Middle-East, including the Support for Israel?
I feel the US would have been a target eventually due to the perception that the US is the center of Western Culture. Al Qaeda is opposed to Western Culture and would naturally seek to strike that center as part of their aim to exterminate it. America's supposed interference into the Middle East and America's legal and ethically correct support of Israel are just convenient excuses to justify such a strike.
If I sum up all information so far: It was the
Neo-Cons clever infiltration of critical positions to push their policies that can be reviewed
here. And I still have no Idea how they
managed to get to this point without the help of third parties. And no, I'm not a conspiracy theorist - I didn't spend much time to study this Issue yet.
Well, after you do get time to study it you'll notice that the war in Iraq is the opposite of what PNAC would have wanted. PNAC wanted a lean technological military that fought wars from afar. A slug-it-out infantry battle in the dusty sands of run down Iraqi cities is everything PNAC abhorred. Iraq is not the culmination of neocon policy it is a perversion of it.
I should note that I'm not a supporter of neocon policy either.
From what I see, any interference in foreign countries results in a backlash. So it might be a good Idea to rethink these kind of policies, especially since 9/11 - not the other way around: An even more aggressive politics.
There are consequences of not interfering as well. A nation with a vested interest in a foreign country has an obligation, within ethical parameters, to protect those interests. Failure to do so can lead to the compromise of that interest which may not be to the benefit of
either country. I'm not excusing all interferences, I'm only stating that this is part of the game of global economic politics. The US interferes with foreign countries and foreign countries, in turn, interfere with the US. The only way to stop this is to shut down global commerce.
Basically it's not about you - it's about a broad understanding concerning the world outside the US. I have no Idea how the Government manages to propagate their own view of the World into the Media, ignoring both sides and without broad resistance of people who know both sides.
Maybe,
just maybe, the reality is that the Government is not propagating their views through the media and the people are
actually getting and understanding
both sides of the issues and are simply choosing to support one of them.
Your problem, Oliver, is that you seem to be of the opinion that nobody who is knowledgeable of such events could possibly disagree with you. Their disagreement, therefore, is, from your perspective, the result of their ignorance. "Surely," you feel, "if they researched the issue they would automatically agree with me."
Well, I met Bush some days ago in a
Press Conference in which he said exactly this. I mean who is he anyway - just some kind of President no one listens to anyway, wrong?
Possibly. I'm not a Bush supporter, heck I'm not even a Republican, nor is anyone I know. He does have record low approval ratings you know.
By the way, you met him? In what capacity? Where at?
) 
A bunch of savages who run around raping children on the street? 
