"Iranians Storm And Set On Fire Saudi Arabia's Embassy ..." Topic

Legion 4:
The documents provided do not describe some hypothetical process which may unfold in the future. They are describing what is going on right now and for the last 25 years. These documents don't come from fringe sources, the come from Prinston University, the BBC, the US Navy, the CIA and indirectly from the US State Department. Did you read any of them at all?
Watch the Andrew Bacevich speech I posted above and read the links before you consign all of this to the looney bin. These changes and the possibility of a cascade event are real worries for people in positions of authority all over the world. You would do well to at least consider them rather than just pooh-poohing them as fringe ravings.
Rod Robertson.

Yes, I read them, and yes, they are from some reliable sources, etc. … But if this dark view of future of the US/the World does come about … there is little to nothing I can do. I'll probably be dead by then as I said. And the POTUS, who ever it will be when this US Apocalypto occurs, can just fiddle while the US "Empire" burns …

What do you want me to say ? Yes, all that is said there is possible, and something to be concerned about. But so is the planet being hit by an asteroid, global warming, etc. … The US political process will continue on it's course with or without my vote. The US's former world leadership position has been lost or at least put is stasis. If the events that you are so concerned about, come about, you or I will have little to do change anything.

The Israelis? All are either self-serving parasites which have lured the USA into a disadvantageous symbiosis
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Rod – in what way are the Israelis parasites – as a non Jewish person who has nonetheless been to Israel and worked on a kibbutz (is that like going to SA during apartheid to the Left?) I do have some concern at such biological language being used as it has certain unpleasant historical resonances.

Have to agree GNREP … they are really the USA's best ally in the region. And this may sound a bit "xenophobic", it's not meant to be. But for better or worse … the Israeli Hebrew seems more like "us" in the West. Than others in the region.

And it's just that part in our "lizard" brain, the primal, feral part of us that sees familiarity, safety, etc. … in someone who is like "us"…

And of course does not try to kill us because of religious beliefs … That makes the "lizard" part of our brain go into survival mode. And that is not always pleasant …

Israel is certainly a more pluralistic society – but some on the Left can't of course forgive that even the most liberal secular (Jewish) Israeli pulls on his olive green uniform once a year or whatever and goes and does his reserve service

GNREP8:
Do not confuse Israelis with Jews. Israel is a state and it's policies, good or bad, cannot be laid at the feet of Judaism. Just as the behaviour of Salafist extremists and brutal dictatorships cannot be laid at the feet of Islam, so the policies of militarism, ethnic cleansing and defacto-apartheid must be the responsibility of the State of Israel and not Jews. There are millions of Jews both inside and outside Israel who do not support the policies of the State of Israel not to mention 1.6 to 1.8 million Arab Israelis who mostly oppose these policies too.

The State of Israel is the largest end-line purchaser of blackmarket oil from ISIS. I include a link from an Israeli source here which describes the process but there are better and more candid links available from non-Israeli sources. Israel is funding ISIS as a result of these oil purchases.
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Israel has pre-positioned weapons and supplies in Saudi Arabia (Yes, I know that seems hard to believe) in order to attack Iran. Such a policy is diametrically opposed to stated American policy at this time. While Israel is free to make whatever arrangements it chooses to make with Saudi Arabia, it is clear that it is quite willing to sabotage US interests to further its own.
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Israel, as all states do if they can, is leveraging its advantages. It just so happens that it is doing this at the expense of American interests.

Other policies which don't align with US policy.
Supplying weapons to Yemen including cluster bombs which are used on civilian targets.
Producing and stockpiling nuclear weapons.
Using assassination teams in friendly (to the US) third party countries such as Dubai.
Arming and training the Iraqi and Syrian Kurds.
There are many more examples.
And yet the US government transfers between 3.8 and 10 billion taxpayer dollars to Israel annually. This is the root of the parasitism. The Us is paying money to a state which by its chosen actions is harming US interests.

While Israel may be a democracy for Israeli citizens, it is most certainly not a pluralistic society for Palestinians who wish to cling to their traditional lands and remain within territories seized by Israel. They have no political rights and are blockaded, deprived, harassed and bombed when the show the affrontery to elect a government of their own which is hostile to Israel. If Israel annexed these lands and gave citizenship to the Palestinians living under Israel rule, then you could make a case for pluralism. But since such a move would create more Arab non-Jewish citizens (5.3 million) than Jewish ones (5.2 million), that is not a step the Israeli state is willing to take. So the pluralistic argument does not have much legs if you are a non-Israeli living in territory conquered and occupied by Israel.

This is not inflammatory rhetoric against Judaism. This is criticism of Israeli state foreign policy which regularly bites the hand which feeds it. Why the US puts up with this, I do not understand, but it does and thus it willingly plays host to Israeli parasitism. Israel is not the only state which does this but since your question above singled out Israel, I am focusing on it. Similar arguments could be made for Turkey, Saudi Arabia and many other states. Biological language is perfectly appropriate here as Israel and the USA are both 'corporations' of Human Beings – biological organisms. Their behaviours are comparable on the macro-state level to colonies of bacteria or fungi competing or cooperating to secure food and space. There is no intent to dehumanize here and I make no apology for using words like parasite or symbiosis. These are analogies. If you chose to see them as attacks on Judaism, well that is in your mind and not mine.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Legion 4:

And this may sound a bit "xenophobic", it's not meant to be. But for better or worse … the Israeli Hebrew seems more like "us" in the West. Than others in the region.

Your analysis is quite correct. The Arab world objects to Israel's existence because they first and foremost see it as an invader nation. To many Arab eyes Israel is a state created by a foreign invasion of Europeans into the Arab world. There is also vicious and pernicious anti-semitism at the root of this hostility but that does not change the fact that Arabs see Israel as foreign occupation of Arab land by Europeans, no different, except for the religion, from the crusader kingdoms of the 11th – 14th centuries CE. So the familiarity and kindred spirit which assures and soothes you is also the alien-ness and antagonism which alarms and radicalizes Arabs and divides Ashkenazi Jews from their Arab neighbours. It's all perspective, baby! One man's mead is another man's poison.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Yes, I understand that … It's like that saying, One man's freedom fighter is another's terrorist. Or during WWII when the US put some of it's Japanese citizens into internment camps.

And yes, about 20% of Israel's populous is not Jewish. And you even find Christian Arabs in the mix. As well as we know Lebanon has/had a large Christian population, etc., … And of course we all understand. Nationality and ethnicity and religious beliefs are all not the same.

Another example, the US's "recent" past history. With the famous Hatfield & McCoy feud. Both sides were neighbors and even intermarried. But to this day over a 100 years later, there still is distrust among some in the clans. And the only real difference between the two is the family name.

Would a Napoleonic zombie have a lizard brain or just want to eat some ???

Well from what I understand … zombies of any ilk … will eat any brains they can get their cold dead withered rotting hands on … Oh My !!!!

Do not confuse Israelis with Jews. Israel is a state and it's policies, good or bad, cannot be laid at the feet of Judaism. Just as the behaviour of Salafist extremists and brutal dictatorships cannot be laid at the feet of Islam, so the policies of militarism, ethnic cleansing and defacto-apartheid must be the responsibility of the State of Israel and not Jews. There are millions of Jews both inside and outside Israel who do not support the policies of the State of Israel
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sorry don't buy that – nations do not do actions by themselves – if you want to criticise the actions of the IDF, Mossad, Shin Beth and the brave boys and girls of the Israeli Police then who are you criticising – people who are (bar the Druze in the Border Police) all Jewish.
The Declaration of the State of Israel explicitly said "we hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

As to 'Millions of Jews inside and outside Israel oppose the policies of the State' -well maybe a lot of Labour voters don't agree with the current govt , but bar a very small minority I doubt that most refuse to do their military call up or reserve service.

Your pov in that aspect is similar to people who say that Tony Blair etc is responsible for this or that in Afghanistan done by the UK – as if he pulled the trigger or dropped the bomb or flew the drone (because few people except maybe on the far loony left want to be seen to criticising the troops themselves). Either that or its a nebulous 'blame the senior officers' – actually in terms of lawfulness etc the responsibility re refusing unlawful orders of course comes all the way down the command chain. So if these people were really honest in their views, they should be calling for mass war crime trials down to at least junior officer or NCO level (probably some of the ambulance chasing lawyers and their friends in some places are)

And btw actions of the State – I think you mean actions of the current govt – unless you see all Israeli govts as equally as bad (though at least you didn't write Isreal like some very silly folk in the UK do)

For the above reasons I reject your use of biological language – nations are not living entities of themselves just the sum of the actions of the human beings living in them. Otherwise to go by that logic, various anti-semites of the past were not using biological language to refer to Jewish people as individuals, but rather the political phenomenon of Zionism and its alleged supposed political and economic clout

And sorry, but your explanation of perspective being the difference between the Western and Arab view of Israel, could just as much be applied to the differing view that right wing Germans in the 1930s took of their fellow citizens and role in society compared to the view from the UK or US of the same – just a matter of perspective with neither one nor the other having more moral weight.

One of my first thoughts after 9/11 was "after this the West will always stand by Israel as we are both fighting the same enemy" and i still think that applies – i dont doubt that the UK and US get good Sigint and Humint (as it suits Israeli interests of course – what do you think we did on occasions in Ulster but act in our own interests) etc from the Israelis as they are probably the only player in the region who has native Arab speakers etc who can be trusted.

Rod, I can't help thinking we've met before. Chuckle, snicker.

Your story, "Is Israel arming in Saudi Arabia?" is discredited five-year-old claptrap from Fars News Agency. Can't you come up with fresher…stuff?

"There are millions of Jews both inside and outside Israel who do not support the policies of the State of Israel…"

You can't count, either.

GNREP8:
I am having a little difficulty following your reasoning here but as I am sick with the flu, that may be on me. Please bear with me if I have missed your point. In your first paragraph quoted below you say:

sorry don't buy that – nations do not do actions by themselves – if you want to criticise the actions of the IDF, Mossad, Shin Beth and the brave boys and girls of the Israeli Police then who are you criticising – people who are (bar the Druze in the Border Police) all Jewish.
The Declaration of the State of Israel explicitly said "we hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz-Israel, to be known as the State of Israel.

This would indicate to me that because so many people are involved in the actions of a state, a criticism of the state is a de facto criticism of the people.
But in your your third paragraph you seem to argue (you don't make any explicit statement but attribute these arguments to fringe groups) that just because civilian and/or military leaders order some action which may be deemed as illegal for whatever reason, they cannot be held accountable for that without putting their whole military or population on trial. This is because all levels of command had a hand in effecting those orders I presume?

Your pov in that aspect is similar to people who say that Tony Blair etc is responsible for this or that in Afghanistan done by the UK – as if he pulled the trigger or dropped the bomb or flew the drone (because few people except maybe on the far loony left want to be seen to criticising the troops themselves). Either that or its a nebulous 'blame the senior officers' – actually in terms of lawfulness etc the responsibility re refusing unlawful orders of course comes all the way down the command chain. So if these people were really honest in their views, they should be calling for mass war crime trials down to at least junior officer or NCO level (probably some of the ambulance chasing lawyers and their friends in some places are)

So if I follow you, and I probably am not, you are arguing that criticism of a state amounts to criticism of all in that state no matter how forcefully a citizen opposition to a state's policy rejects that policy. On the other hand you seem to be saying (and I hope I am not putting words into your mouth) that since so many people are putting the decisions of the civilian and military leadership into action it is not right to hold those two branches of the leadership accountable?
Until I can get clarification of what your saying I cannot comment further.
In the case of Israel (and I wish we did not have to limit this to just Israel), the responsibility for the actions of the Israeli military, police, judiciary, etc. must lie with the state and not with the population as a whole. To do otherwise is to hold people responsible for actions in which they did not participate and which they may have opposed. In law there is a principle called mens rea – the intention to do a crime or an act which is more widely accepted as illegal. Without proving mens rea there can be no guilt. The organs of the Israeli State conceived, crafted and executed the policies of conquest, occupation, dislodgment of Palestinians from their traditional lands and military strikes against their neighbours (except in the case of the 1973 Yom Kippur War).
It is mad to hold Jews living in New York responsible for these policies unless by their actions and words they contributed to these policies. It is unfair to condemn non-Jewish Arab Israelis living in Israel for the actions of their government unless they too used actions or words to publicly support such policies. Finally it is a big stretch to blame policies on Israeli Jews who actively and publicly oppose the policies in question for the very policies they oppose.
The measure of resistance to the policies of Israeli state should not be a refusal to do National Service. Many Israelis wish to defend Israel from foreign attack but at the same time do not support the policies of their state at home or in the Occupied Territories. One can be a patriot and a responsible critic at the same time.
Your point about differentiating between the policies of the various parties in Israel is a legitimate one but I would argue only goes to the drive and energy by which the policies are pursued and does not include the cancellation or reversal of such policies. Thus I am comfortable arguing that all Israeli governments from May 1948 to the present have had some responsibility for these policies and all share to varying degrees some culpability for what the State of Israel has done to the Palestinians.
You are of course entitled to reject and criticize my use of biological language but as we are dealing with millions of human beings' actions and their aggregate effects these terms seem appropriate to me. Perhaps it could inject some much needed humility for all sides if we could clearly see how our macro-behaviours mimic those of mindless bacteria and fungi and that might force us to use our brains to come up with better solutions than unicellular organisms locked in a forever-war over food and space.
My apologies for not understanding clearly your initial points but I am presently dealing with mindless bacteria attacking my interests in a bid for more space and food, and thus I am not fully up to speed this weekend.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Zippyfusenet:

Your story, "Is Israel arming in Saudi Arabia?" is discredited five-year-old claptrap from Fars News Agency. Can't you come up with fresher…stuff?

Who discredited it? I have seen no refutation of the report and many sources have reprinted it including Israeli and American sources.

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Fresher material for you zippyfusenet.
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And since you bring up past recent encounters – the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia.

Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

We *have* met before. Giggle, titter. You resume your odd tactic of posting links that are preposterously easy to refute. Is the whole point to provoke me into refuting them?

Your Fars NA stories that Israel will ally with Saudi to attack Iran date from 2010 and 2013. They are discredited by reality – it's been six years and nothing's happened. I will say one more time, for the benefit of those who are terrified that this war will break out, and for those who kind of wish it would – Iran is too far for the Israeli Air Force to reach, and the Israelis and Saudis mistrust each other too much to ally. If the Saudi Princes tried to ally with Israel, their army would mutiny. In the real world, the Saudis are trying to mobilize Pakistan as their muscular champion:

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The Saudis are using US cluster bombs in Yemen because the US manufactures them and exports them to our allies. The US has not signed treaties against cluster munitions.

As for the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, an embassy in a war zone getting hit by accident is an entirely different matter from raising a mob to storm the embassy and kidnap or murder the diplomats. The US apologized and paid compensation for accidentally bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. In the civilized world, embassies are sacred.

I agree zippy … but like with the PRC Embassy in Belgrade. The rumor in intel circles is that the embassy was providing intel to help to the Serbs, to shot down an F-117. To "data mine"/reverse engineer tech so to speak, from a crash.

Like the PRC did in A'stan. They'd buy/collect/steal, etc., the intel from crashes, etc., … They did that with US missiles/smart bombs, etc., in A'stan a number of times. And it appeared that they were trying to do the same in the former Yugoslavia. With the F-117 … And one was shot down …

If true and I tend to believe it certainly is possible, as it's their MO, yes ? Their embassy would be a "valid" target … Spying, covert ops, etc., are meant to be "classified" or it won't work …

The Jews have lived in the Middle East for as long, if not longer than Muslims, especially if you consider their religion's founding date not really occurring until the 7th Century.

Jews were being presecuted and tortured back to year zero, and I suspect far before that.

Yes, a difficult choice on who to back in the Middle East, for Americans:

1. people from a suicidal death cult, who revere people that target and kill innocent civilians on purpose, as a matter of policy, and that raise their children to want to do the same; or,

2. a country that is surrounded by people from group 1 above, and whose own people embrace life (group 2), and want to live in peace, and do their very best to keep the killing of innocent civilians to a minimum during conflicts.

Yea, which group to choose to back?

Hmmmm……….

Kyote
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and as I have said before thats so easy to say when you live across the Atlantic and not in Greece or Malta or Italy etc

You go ahead, kyote. The rest of us will, uh, catch up with you later.

Seems no matter where you live, if you are an "infidel" … you are a target … As GNREP and other have alluded to …

zippyfusenet:

Your Fars NA stories that Israel will ally with Saudi to attack Iran date from 2010 and 2013. They are discredited by reality – it's been six years and nothing's happened. I will say one more time, for the benefit of those who are terrified that this war will break out, and for those who kind of wish it would – Iran is too far for the Israeli Air Force to reach, and the Israelis and Saudis mistrust each other too much to ally. If the Saudi Princes tried to ally with Israel, their army would mutiny. In the real world, the Saudis are trying to mobilize Pakistan as their muscular champion:

The fact that Saudi Arabia is fostering closer ties to Pakistan in no way discredits the notion that Israel and Saudi Arabia are cooperating and have a de facto alliance with respect to Iran's rising hegemony in the region.

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With respect to cluster bombs, the canisters of some of the cluster bombs found in Yemen have serial numbers which correspond to shipments made from the US to Israel. So, yes, while Saudi Arabia does buy cluster bombs from the USA, it or one of its coalition allies has also obtained some from Israel.

The bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was a CIA operation (the only CIA run operation in the NATO strike campaign). It involved the launching of five Mk-84's fitted with JDAM's by a B-2 bomber at the Chinese embassy, three of the bombs hit their mark and detonated, one missed and exploded and one hit its mark but failed to detonate. The action was an intentional attack against the embassy and was most definitely not an accident. The US government and the USAF claimed the Chinese embassy was an accidental bombing despite George Tenet (then the director of the CIA) admitting to an in camera Congressional inquiry that the mission was a CIA directed mission, that five guided bombs had been used and that they had hit their target. The US Government may have had good reasons to attack the Chinese embassy but the attack was intentional and not accidental.

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Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Legion 4:
If because embassies conduct espionage then they are valid military targets is a legitimate casus bellus, then all embassies are valid military targets. China was not at war with the US in 1999 in Belgrade and in Afghanistan more recently.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Finally, something from 2015. I was starting to think that you were hardly trying, Rod I, and you were losing my interest.

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Very interesting article, although from before the treaty with Iran.

"Eshki told me that no real cooperation would be possible until Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, accepted what's known as the Arab Peace Initiative to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." This is similar to Erdogan's insistance that Israel end the Gaza blockade before Turkey will normalize relations.

At this point, I'm going to say, "That won't happen.", because Israel's previous withdrawals from Gaza and south Lebanon failed to bring peace. In both cases, Israel took a chance for peace, but got instead rockets and infiltration. Israel is not likely to take the chance of re-opening Gaza, or the West Bank.

Of course pro-Arab partisans will argue that the withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon weren't complete enough, or weren't sincere enough, or weren't withdrawally enough, or something. Regardless, they could have been a first step toward peace if the other side had showed any interest.

Then again, Hamas and Hezbollah, the resistance organizations in Gaza and Lebanon, are both Iranian puppets, so much so that Sunni Islamist Hamas has refrained from joining the Sunni Islamist revolt against the Syrian Arab Republic (Assad's Baathist government). Iran has consistently armed and mobilized Hamas and Hezbollah for militant action against Israel, with not the smallest opening for peace.

If Turkey and/or Saudi Arabia could win influence over the Arab Resistance movements away from Iran, it might be possible to think that Hamas and Hezbollah, or their successor organizations, might cooperate in a general peace settlement with Israel.

Right now, that possibility seems far away. But I at least can imagine it.

How's the price of cigs & beer, kyote?

….but a hard to get too,target. There are hundreds of other things I worry about first…

I too agree … I don't see either place where we live as being a high priority terrorist target … Or even a low priority …

If because embassies conduct espionage then they are valid military targets is a legitimate casus bellus, then all embassies are valid military targets. China was not at war with the US in 1999 in Belgrade and in Afghanistan more recently.

Yes, we know that … so yes the PRC can complain to the UN. Ain't life a !

And yes, the last time we were at war with China was Korea '50-'53. We still are technically at war with North Korea for that matter. And yes in 1999 the US was not in A'stan but it is an example of China's MO … Stealing tech, reverse engineer it, etc. … We call that a "Pattern". And we all remember Sun Tzu, "Know your enemy" … He was Chinese by the way …