ParanoiA

I appreciate the responses everyone' date=' but I feel you have misunderstood my initial proposal, or perhaps I did not make certain things clear enough.

 

First of all, the troops would not be drawn up from any existing army, but be volunteers recruited to join the agency or army, who would voluntarily denounce allegiances to any country.

 

Secondly the UN itself would not have direct command over the troops as resolutions concerning the deployment of peacekeepers(or police force if that would be more suitable) would still depend upon resolutions passed and agreed by member nations.

 

This would prevent a "one world order" while tackling the problem of raising troopsfrom individual countries that may be unwilling or unable to offer troops.

 

As for Sisyphus's objection about the US not tolerating recruiting grounds on its soil; I can only beg hippocrisy on the part of America, as the Bush is planning on setting up recruitment posts in various Engish speaking countries throughout the world; especially poor ones lke India.[/quote']

 

That's exactly a one world order scenario. Once the UN has it's own army, it can begin to grow and incrementally expand and invade through time. You're right, it is made up of member nations...member nations that can envy and gang up on the more successful nations.

 

I just think it's not smart to establish a neutral military under the jurisdiction of the UN. It should remain a cooperative arrangement for diplomacy only.

 

And I'm not sure you should call it hypocrisy as much as strategy, when you are competing for potential military personnel.

That sounds like the slippery slope to one world order. I like the idea of using various country's militaries to administer their resolutions. It's cool to have a cooperative body that represents the globe, but the power should always remain in the individual nations that support it. It my opinion, it should always remain a concept, not an object.

Besides, who said the standard is that Israel must be "amazingly" good at defending itself? No one guaranteed that the task will be easy when fighting an enemy that hides rockets amongst civilians

That should be their own standard. You should want to protect yourself amazingly well, I would think. But you're right, it's hard to fight them when they're hiding behind women and kids.

They need to perfect this type of warfare. America too. We need to be able to sweep through with very low civilian deaths, instead of bombing campaigns that don't discriminate. This is the standard we should be trying to achieve, while understanding it's a forward thinking expectation, with a long learning curve.

At some point we have to stop giving the terror cells recruitment excuses to brainwash impressionable common folk.

Does what I say not stick with you at all?

 

If Israel was so amazingly good at disarming Hezbollah then why is it that Hezbollah fired over 200 rockets/day into Israel every day during the war and staged its strongest attacks the night before the ceasefire?

Good point. But then, their military isn't designed for hide and seek among common folk. I think most of us design militaries to fight warriors, not cowards. So, it makes it a little difficult to adjust.

Well, I think the IDF did fail miserably at diminishing Hezbollah's attacks. They didn't seem to stop them at all, so that would be a failure. And they never seemed to be able to steamroll over Hezbollah - it was always a long ferocious fight, sometimes followed by a retreat dressed up as a business decision. They just didn't shine like we've come to expect from a first class modern military.

And it seems most of the world expects this kind of military to be able to limit the death blow to the warriors, while still being swift, efficient killers themselves - and I do too. People just aren't going to accept killing civilians in any conflict anymore. It doesn't matter which side has the legitimate complaint. This is a good thing.

I wish Israel would have gone in on the ground and made more of an effort to avoid civilian casualties. Perhaps persistant real-time video footage from various areas of fighting, so people can see Hezbollah in action. I have no doubt, we would see that ugly side of humanity, which would serve Israel's interest.

It really doesn't matter if Israel has a right to defend themselves in this manner or not. That's not going to stop the recruitment momentum in Lebanon started now by killing all of these innocent people. I believe if you're going to play war, you have to truly fight the war on all fronts, which includes global PR. This is the front that feeds the future of terrorism - the validation of their rhetoric.

You wouldn't suggest moving Florida because of all the natural disasters (hurricanes and the like) that occur there. Now I know this is natural disasters whereas in Israel it is terrorism, but the reality of wanting to move a whole country (or even just 1 state) is just totaly impractical, it could never be done.

Sure I would. If it became to the point that hundreds of innocent people die there year after year with no end in sight. It's actually very practical, which is my main reason for supporting it. I don't care about any messages sent or who claims victory in what, since it's all just stupid BS.

It makes sense, it's pragmatic...what else does it need to be?

The Isreali army can crush any, and for the most part all militia/armies in the region they inhabbit. They have shown this to be true in the past, and it is no less evident today. So I highly doubt that they gave into a cease fire due to lack of military strength.

Well, I'm not suggesting they don't have military strength. I'm suggesting a lack of military will, due to a decrease in expected strength.

They have the muscle to fight off anybody over there. But there's been plenty of evidence to suggest Hezbollah was a tough fight. And with all of the outrage surrounding their tactics, I'm not so sure they weren't looking to get out of this.

In my opinion, Hezbollah won because they gained an exponential, but unknown number of terror wannabe's, and they achieved world support - they won the PR war. I didn't realize until later that the cease fire resolution didn't even require the kidnapped soldiers returned.

That's disgusting. I thought they were the object of the principal Israel was fighting for. That makes me wonder about the strength of Israel's ground military. Makes me wonder if they weren't quite desparate to come up with an excuse to stop fighting, despite the tough talk.

Thanks for the link. That was a fascinating piece.

Wasn't it though? He makes a good point about the Palestinians doing the time for Germany's crime. But I don't remember the reason why that area was picked, other than for biblical reasons.

I'm not sure I understand that' date=' but maybe I'm just being slow.

 

The unwritten premise of the "relocating Israel" idea in that blog entry is that Palestinians have some basis for a superior claim on the land. I don't accept that premise -- Palestinians have no more claim on that land than the Jews do. Nobody knows who was living there 10,000 years ago. And whomever it was, they're certainly not alive today, and I doubt anyone living there today can whip out a family tree and show lineage to imply ownership that old.

 

Even worse, the arguments about land ownership are [i']not[/i] something to be respected and empathized with and logically reasoned out. They're something to be ignored. These people, Jew and Palestinian alike, have behaved poorly, squandering that land and showing little capability for turning things around. And frankly the only reason they still have it is because the rest of the world hasn't gotten fed up enough with their nonsense to take that responsibility away from them yet.

 

So the premise is flawed, and therefore the argument collapses.

 

Besides, as someone pointed out in a recent thread, it wasn't the arrival of Jews in the region that caused unrest, it was the creation of the Jewish state. But the Jews didn't come there entirely because it's a Jewish state, they came their because it's a Jewish state in the "holy land".

 

Which makes relocating Jews (or Palestinians) to Mexico pointless. They don't want to live in Mexico, they want to live in the "holy land".

 

That blog entry is an example of how poorly the situation in the Middle East is understood by average westerners.

Actually, could it not be that this entry is an example of how complicated most of us try to make the situation in the middle east? We're trying to legitamize the morality of claiming land with religion and chronology, which is just the same thing we've been doing for decades now.

I disagree there is an unwritten premise that Palestinians have superior claim to that land with this moving concept. It's just a logical approach to solving the problem. What gives man any right to any land anyway? All of the land on this earth has been fought for at one point or another, some more than others. I don't blame Israel for claiming a homeland, and I equally don't blame the palestinians for fighting to get it back - no value judgment necessary.

So, whether or not Israel or Palestine have a right to be there, to me anyway, is irrelevant. And since we have the unique advantage of a relatively small population, with a practical neighborhood to put them in - viola.

Why relocate the Israelis, as opposed to, say, relocating the Palestinians?

Because it isn't about the Palestinians, in terms of the hatred from the majority of the Arab region. The Palestinians are just an easy victim that validates their prejudice. The fact that Israel stood up, drew some lines in the dirt and called it theirs is what it's really all about. The Jordanians have the other half of the palestinians' proposed land, I believe, and they don't seem to be getting bombed for it.

I'm just looking at this from a more practical perspective. Since there's such a small amount of people to be moved, relative to the millions surrounding them, who hate them and are guided by a religion that arguably promotes their destruction - it is really more like a hostage rescue operation.

Their religion is as destructive to them as Islam is to extremists if they can't see the sense in getting out of there.

Pleased to meet you' date=' Mr. Paranoia. Welcome to SFN!

I see the above is your first post here, and look forward to many more.[/quote']

 

Thanks. Same here. I like a good debate. Strangers have changed my mind about things far more often than radio talk show hosts or distinguished experts.

The interview done by Der Spiegel was more aggressive and no more comforting. I think this guy has tuned into the American psyche rather well, and if I was a religious man, I might call him the antichrist. He knows exactly how to sell himself to the pacifist side of humanity while the rest of us see this wolf for what he is.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,418660,00.html

I love it. I've been kicking the idea around for months. It's the pragmatic solution really. You can't put a value on the potential number of lives to be lost for however long this is to go on if they stay there. It's a bad real estate decision to stay in that neighborhood.

I would give them a 50 mile wide strip along the entire Mexican border. We could essentially have little or no border with Mexico. This would be considerably more land than what they have now. After dealing with those murdering pigs for decades, illegal immigration ought to be a snap for them.