AndrewG909,
I’m glad to see that, what at first appeared to be fundamental differences of opinion can be broken down and discussed reasonably in a mutually beneficial process.
I don’t have much to add to your well-thought out post but a big thank you for giving me your perspective.
Cheers,
Lixy wrote the following in an earlier post:
“Israel has received trillions of US taxpayer dollars in cash and in military equipment. By many accounts, it has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. It also has the ultimate deterrent: Nukes.”
I am aware that the US gives financial aid to Israel (like it does to other middle eastern countries like Egypt). But “trillions”? That’s kind of a whopper no?
Just curious where you got your data on that… Please don’t use Wikapedia as your reference source. Thanks in advance.
[quote]lixy wrote:
orangecola wrote:
Martin Luther King was a jackass for saying that.
What does saying this make you?[/quote]
Dr. King is kind of like Lincoln — the court historians have trumped him up into some mythical figure at the feet of whom we’re supposed to worship.
King, we now know, cheated on his wife, plagarized his doctoral dissertation, and was actually named Michael. He MAY have also had affiliations with Communists (old pictures show this) and had a pretty violent temper, allegedly beating white prostitutes during sex.
Lincoln was a master politician, put into power by the railroads to get government money and land for the transcontinental railroad. Small wonder that Lincoln bought land in Council Bluffs, Iowa (for ex) and guess what town the railroad went through?
All men are human, not myths, so calling a great man a jackass is probably appropriate — most are (including myself sometimes).
[quote]Tokoya wrote:
Lixy wrote the following in an earlier post:
“Israel has received trillions of US taxpayer dollars in cash and in military equipment. By many accounts, it has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. It also has the ultimate deterrent: Nukes.”
I am aware that the US gives financial aid to Israel (like it does to other middle eastern countries like Egypt). But “trillions”? That’s kind of a whopper no?
Just curious where you got your data on that… Please don’t use Wikapedia as your reference source. Thanks in advance. [/quote]
Extrapolate.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Tokoya wrote:
Lixy wrote the following in an earlier post:
“Israel has received trillions of US taxpayer dollars in cash and in military equipment. By many accounts, it has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. It also has the ultimate deterrent: Nukes.”
I am aware that the US gives financial aid to Israel (like it does to other middle eastern countries like Egypt). But “trillions”? That’s kind of a whopper no?
Just curious where you got your data on that… Please don’t use Wikapedia as your reference source. Thanks in advance.
Extrapolate.
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm[/quote]
Lixy, the link you posted does not show anything close to the “trillions”. Alot of aid, yes. But your math is way off. We’re talking dollars here right?
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I personally redesigned the baffling and flow pattern through the aeration basins in one of the Baghdad waste water treatment plants.
Ummm…yeah I’m sure the stupid Iriqis couldn’t fix their own water problem. The problem isn’t the water.[/quote]
Thousands of people died of it before we freed them from the tyranny of Saddam Hussien who would rather spend his countries money on golden toilets in 100 palaces rather than provide clean drinking water.
[quote]Tokoya wrote:
Lixy wrote the following in an earlier post:
“Israel has received trillions of US taxpayer dollars in cash and in military equipment. By many accounts, it has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. It also has the ultimate deterrent: Nukes.”
I am aware that the US gives financial aid to Israel (like it does to other middle eastern countries like Egypt). But “trillions”? That’s kind of a whopper no?
Just curious where you got your data on that… Please don’t use Wikapedia as your reference source. Thanks in advance.
[/quote]
Egypt gets almost as much as Israel. Iraq gets more. We spend more money on Muslim countries than we do on Israel.
Lixy is a liar.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Tokoya wrote:
Lixy wrote the following in an earlier post:
“Israel has received trillions of US taxpayer dollars in cash and in military equipment. By many accounts, it has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world. It also has the ultimate deterrent: Nukes.”
I am aware that the US gives financial aid to Israel (like it does to other middle eastern countries like Egypt). But “trillions”? That’s kind of a whopper no?
Just curious where you got your data on that… Please don’t use Wikapedia as your reference source. Thanks in advance.
Egypt gets almost as much as Israel. Iraq gets more. We spend more money on Muslim countries than we do on Israel.
Lixy is a liar.[/quote]
Great post.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Egypt gets almost as much as Israel. [/quote]
Egypt gets a lot of aid from the US, and like Israel, most of it is military. You have to understand that Hosni Moubarak is a horrible dictator and that Egypt lives under a state of emergency for a quarter of a century, which grants Moubarak absolute power. Thousands of people are jailed every year for raising such issues and trying to establish a better government where the people actually have a say in the way their country is handled.
He’s changing the constitution to get his son rule after his death. Chavez was condemned for achieving the same but thru fair and transparent democratic processes (it’s too bad Chavez felt the need to change his country’s constitution but, at least, he did it in a referendum).
Bottomline, the last thing Egypt needs is that Moubarak gets even more power, which is exactly what happens when his military gets more weapons to repress the population.
Muslims: 1.5 Billion people
Israel : 7 Million people
No comment.
Can Zap get into an argument with me without namecalling?
[quote]lixy wrote:
…
Lixy is a liar.
Can Zap get into an argument with me without namecalling?[/quote]
You insult everyone on the site. I am not in an argument with you. You have no desire for honest discussion or argument. You come here to spread lies and propaganda and I don’t like it.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Egypt gets almost as much as Israel.
Egypt gets a lot of aid from the US, and like Israel, most of it is military. You have to understand that Hosni Moubarak is a horrible dictator and that Egypt lives under a state of emergency for a quarter of a century, which grants Moubarak absolute power. Thousands of people are jailed every year for raising such issues and trying to establish a better government where the people actually have a say in the way their country is handled.
He’s changing the constitution to get his son rule after his death. Chavez was condemned for achieving the same but thru fair and transparent democratic processes (it’s too bad Chavez felt the need to change his country’s constitution but, at least, he did it in a referendum).
Bottomline, the last thing Egypt needs is that Moubarak gets even more power, which is exactly what happens when his military gets more weapons to repress the population.
We spend more money on Muslim countries than we do on Israel.
Muslims: 1.5 Billion people
Israel : 7 Million people
No comment.
Lixy is a liar.
Can Zap get into an argument with me without namecalling?[/quote]
I am curious to know if you support the concept of living under sharia law, which seems to be the vision of most islamists. You do seem to be such a strong supporter (apologist) for the segment of the muslim world pushing for this agenda.
You do a lot of posting on a web site that would not be allowed to exist in a society run by your hard core islamic heros.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
You insult everyone on the site. I am not in an argument with you. You have no desire for honest discussion or argument. You come here to spread lies and propaganda and I don’t like it.
[/quote]
For someone who “insult[s] everyone on the site”, I sure get a lot of back up from the people on this site.
Here’s what I meant; I don’t like the war-mongering propaganda and lies either but it doesn’t give me the right to insult people who disagree with me. I have to admit that you’re pretty moderate compared to some other posters around here (HH, hedo…), but surely one can discuss a point without resorting to name-calling, personal attacks and uncivilties. Calling someone a liar entails one has proof of the other’s lack of good faith.
[quote]Tokoya wrote:
I am curious to know if you support the concept of living under sharia law, which seems to be the vision of most islamists. [/quote]
I don’t.
[quote]Tokoya wrote:
You do seem to be such a strong supporter (apologist) for the segment of the muslim world pushing for this agenda. [/quote]
For the untrained eye, I might come out that way. I know, however, that the causes extremists use to rally people to their cause are genuine. One that is often raised is US interventionism.
That is a fact and people around the world are understandably fighting it. Europeans take the streets in protests denouncing their leaders’ close ties to Washington. Latin Americans use democratic processes to get anti-US governments into office.
Arabs have no such secular nationalists to elect (the movement was crushed in the 60s) and they are ruled by US-backed dictators who have total disregard for the will of the majority.
I’m not an apologetic for the Islamists. I point out that unless we strip them off their rallying cause, they’ll continue to draw ever more people into their ranks. That’s bad for you as well as for me.
[quote]lixy wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
You insult everyone on the site. I am not in an argument with you. You have no desire for honest discussion or argument. You come here to spread lies and propaganda and I don’t like it.
For someone who “insult[s] everyone on the site”, I sure get a lot of back up from the people on this site.
Here’s what I meant; I don’t like the war-mongering propaganda and lies either but it doesn’t give me the right to insult people who disagree with me. I have to admit that you’re pretty moderate compared to some other posters around here (HH, hedo…), but surely one can discuss a point without resorting to name-calling, personal attacks and uncivilties. Calling someone a liar entails one has proof of the other’s lack of good faith.
Tokoya wrote:
I am curious to know if you support the concept of living under sharia law, which seems to be the vision of most islamists.
I don’t.
Tokoya wrote:
You do seem to be such a strong supporter (apologist) for the segment of the muslim world pushing for this agenda.
For the untrained eye, I might come out that way. I know, however, that the causes extremists use to rally people to their cause are genuine. One that is often raised is US interventionism.
That is a fact and people around the world are understandably fighting it. Europeans take the streets in protests denouncing their leaders’ close ties to Washington. Latin Americans use democratic processes to get anti-US governments into office.
Arabs have no such secular nationalists to elect (the movement was crushed in the 60s) and they are ruled by US-backed dictators who have total disregard for the will of the majority.
I’m not an apologetic for the Islamists. I point out that unless we strip them off their rallying cause, they’ll continue to draw ever more people into their ranks. That’s bad for you as well as for me.[/quote]
In terms of stripping radical, violent islamists I’d say you have your work cut out for you. Let’s pick an area that the US is not intervening in. Look at the news in Thailand.
The government has gone out of it’s way to make nice with the islamists, and they are still on a murderous rampage. What threat do the Buddhist ice cream vendors pose to islam?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1892885.htm
You ask, why all the hate. I ask you - why is it so seemingly difficult for muslims to look inward - at their religion - for the source of the deep distrust that many hold about their culture, values, and intentions?
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
lixy wrote:
…
Lixy is a liar.
Can Zap get into an argument with me without namecalling?
You insult everyone on the site. I am not in an argument with you. You have no desire for honest discussion or argument. You come here to spread lies and propaganda and I don’t like it.[/quote]
Exactly right! And when he gets called on his BS with facts he will mysteriously just drop out of the conversation as if it never happened.
So all you need to do is post a link to the actual facts of the issue and Lixy will drop out of the conversation and move on to another topic until he is again schooled in the facts.