Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience [View all]Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I'm not responsible for what's happening in those places.
It's not clear that the story is over in any of those situations though. What alternative would YOU have proposed? Should the U.S. and Israel have been fighting to keep every Arab tyrant in power while also trying to overthrow the Iranian state from without? Outside intervention in the Arab/Muslim world has never led to that world being made more democratic-in case you haven't noticed it, the U.S.-imposed "governments" in both Iraq and Afghanistan are still considered a joke by everyone who lives in those countries.
It's not as if those places would be better if the Arab Spring wasn't happening, or if the Shah hadn't been overthrown(we both know the Shah's removal from power couldn't have been prevented anyway).
You're acting like somebody in the Johnson, Nixon or Reagan administrations...acting as if it were possible to freeze history until a "better" outcome could be imposed on it from outside. It's not possible to have prevented the Arab Spring or to have saved the Shah...and trying to do either would only have made the U.S. and Israel even more despised in the region. Why even bother with what would have to have been futile?
If you don't claim to be fighting for human rights or progressive values, why did you feel entitled to invoke them in the name of defending the Occupation...especially since you know the Occupation hasn't fothered either of those things?
In the end...and this saddens me...your position comes down to the assumption that Palestinians, other Arabs and Muslims are inherently morally inferior to you-and inherently incapable of EVER governing themselves in a civilized manner-and therefore, they MUST be kept in permanent subjugation to either Israel or the U.S. This is a racist position, it is also essentially a fascist position, and worst of all, it is a position that can't ever lead to Palestinians deciding not to see you as their enemy(a decision that is a necessary precondition to getting them to not shoot at you.)It doesn't matter what you actually say, it's the logic of your argument in defense of the Occupation.
(btw, you ARE a soldier in an army...so why is it any different for Palestinians to shoot at you than it is for you to shoot at them? You can't still believe that you, pelsar, are ALWAYS somehow the victim in this exchange-are personally the oppressed while the Palestinians are the oppressors. That's delusional. Your use of force cannot always be assumed to be morally privileged over their use of it. The use of force is the use of force, and killing is just killing. I don't want YOU getting shot at...but I don't want Palestinian civilians getting shot either. The lives on both sides are of value.)