Defining terrorism - MI?

I reject, completely, all forms of terrorism including the institutionalized state run terrorism that defines Israel's existance and has always defined it from the moment of its conception. If that is the bandwagon you want to jump on, then by all means do so, but it only makes you complicit in their crimes.

Then you say explicitly that you reject the actions of hezbalah, hamas, al queida, and all other 'terrorist organizations' whether state sponsored or not?

[scandium]

Originally Posted by waste gate

Then you say explicitly that you reject the actions of hezbalah, hamas, al queida, and all other 'terrorist organizations' whether state sponsored or not?

Of course. Violence begets violence, terror begets terror. Its the oldest story in the world.

If you beat your kids then there's a far higher than average probability that they will grow up to beat there kids as well.

In Israel this cyle has been playing out for over half a century. Both sides - the Israelis and the Palestinians - are brought up in a climate of fear, violence, oppression (it is one of the few remaining countries in the world, and perhaps the only "democracy", to still practice South African style Apartheid), and terror where each learns that the other is to be feared, to be hated, and that their's is the side that is right and is righteous. And then we see the results play out every day. Shootings, stabbings, bombings, houses bulldozed, people detained indefinitely and without charges. And on it goes.

I am generalizing somewhat, there are many exceptions on both sides, but unfortunately its the extremists on both sides who have been running the show for the last 50 years.

And what is even more frightening is that this cancer has seeped into U.S. policy to the point that you can no longer separate U.S. foreign policy from Israeli policy, even though, looked at objectively, the two countries have little in common and very different interests.

The War on Terror, the War in Iraq, both are products of an extremist neo-conservative ideology that is so sick as to believe that the policies that have been proven failures in Israel can be successful in Washington: thus the failed Israeli method of fighting terrorist cells with the armed forces has seen the US become as bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq as Israel has been in Lebanon (for 16 years and now they are again repeating the same failled mistakes under new leadership), in Gazza, and in the West Bank; Guantano Bay and Abu Ghraib, both abominations when contrasted with the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence, are carbon copies of the Israeli approach to captured POWs and detained Palestinians; the PATRIOT Act, another abomination, is another carbon copy of the measures adopted by Israeli internal security apparatus. The USA is being remade in the image of Israel as American politicians sellout their country and its sovereignty to a narrow special interest group that has, in its lobbying efforts and funding, and unprecedented grip over a country founded on very different principles that is many times its size, far older, and has battled and beaten many of its own demons (slavery, women's suffrage, the civil rights movement, the defeat in Vietnam, the Cold War).

And meanwhile, as it is eroded and sold out on that front, the Saudis, Japanese, and Chinese happily dine on the leavings as they buy up more and more US debt to finance US proxy wars on Israel's behalf. Is this really in the U.S.'s best interest? I'm not qualified to judge, being Canadian, but I'd encourage some of the American patriots on this board to ask themselves honestly who the winners and losers are and if they're situation now, and their standing in the world, compared to 20 years ago following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of Communism in the USSR, has improved in the way it should have following the defeat of America's arch enemy.

And now my own country too has fallen victim to this same theft of our sovereignty as our current PM increasingly brings what has always been a balanced foreign policy in line with that of the US and its Israeli handlers.

Apologies if this comes off as a tirade. However after a lifetime of having smoke blown up my @ss I've finally begun to see through the fog and certain things have begun to crystalize. And I do not like what I see, or what inevitably lies over the horizon.