New "Israeli" spy caught!

[pocketfullofshells]

Again, as I posted earlier, Israel is often overlooked for doing the dirty work that we wont/cant do ourselves. I dont agree with plenty of things the Israeli government does. But they do serve thier purpose for us.
Plus, didnt you see Munich? Morale of that story...dont F*ck with Israeli olympians, it will come back to you.

Did you see the oil embargo of the 70's or Sept 11? Don't piss off Muslim Extremist as well.

 

[Bunz]

Did you see the oil embargo of the 70's or Sept 11? Don't piss off Muslim Extremist as well.

I was born in 81, so I more or less missed the oil embargo. Im a yungin
As for 9-11, well I missed it. Might have been one of the last people in the world to know about it. I was hunting that day without incoming contact to the news or anything. I had a buddy fly me and another guy out to this remote lake for a drop off 5 day trip. My buddy and I actually shot two bull moose on the 10th in the morning. We spent the rest of the day dealing with them. One moose is lots of work, two is tremendous.
Irregardless, we called on the sat phone for pickup the next day Tuesday the 11th. Well we didnt get picked up due to the grounding. We had used up the last of the battery the day before and had no idea our plane wasnt going to be showing up. So we spent a very worried, concerned and pissed off next days before the plane showed up. Then it was explained to us.

 

[The Scotsman]

We do not 'supply' Israel. Israel purchases arms from us. We don't fund them with taxes. In fact, we earn money off Israel. In fact we'd have to pay more tax if Israel wasn't there since the government wouldn't have that source of income.

Hi Andy - errrmm okay, not sure I agree with you on that.

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter and The New York Times Mideast bureau chief wrote an essay about the relationship and the historical contexts of that relationship, it included the following which is nicely condensed....

Israel has reaped tremendous rewards from this alliance. It has been given more than $140 billion in U.S. direct economic and military assistance. It receives about $3 billion in direct assistance annually, roughly one-fifth of the U.S. foreign aid budget. Although most American foreign aid packages stipulate that related military purchases have to be made in the United States, Israel is allowed to use about 25 percent of the money to subsidize its own growing and profitable defense industry. It is exempt, unlike other nations, from accounting for how it spends the aid money. And funds are routinely siphoned off to build new Jewish settlements, bolster the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and construct the security barrier, which costs an estimated $1 million a mile.

The U.S. has provided Israel with nearly $3 billion to develop weapons systems and given Israel access to some of the most sophisticated items in its own military arsenal, including Blackhawk attack helicopters and F-16 fighter jets. The United States also gives Israel access to intelligence it denies to its NATO allies. And when Israel refused to sign the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, the United States stood by without a word of protest as the Israelis built the region's first nuclear weapons program.

His conclusion is that Israel cannot exist without the US....sort of deals with that issue I guess?

We are not Israel's parent. They are a sovereign nation. They should deal with their issues as they see necessary to protect their citizens. Just as we should.

I totally agree with you they should......but cannot, so consider this......

The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.

America is in for a major wake-up call if they do not sort out their relationships with the Middle East and especially Israel. The major geo-political powers over the next 50 years or so are going to be China, India and Russia all of whom are really not interested in appeasing Isreal or American sensitivites over their relationships with Israel.

 

[Andy]

Guess what China makes a hell of a lot of stuff like that for us, they are not a ally. Israel can make them all they want, we can buy them...but we don't have to support them, send them tons of aid, Veto every UN sanction against them, and send them more and more arms to kill Palestinians with, so we can take the blame for it. Israel should learn to live on its own, not on the US tax payer, and have its Policy with other nations be one that is "we do what we want, because the the US will back us) Israel is the spoiled rich kid who no one likes, and only get anything because of daddy ( aka US)

I would rather have better allies with Oil...I can find microchips anyplace.
I would rather have allies who our support is not one of the main reasons we got attacked on Sept, and are hated in a large part of the world.Support for Israel has us , as we saw before, one step away from a oil embargo at any time in the middle east, as happend before with our support of them.

Actually they do not. China does not make microprocessors. They put CPUs others have made into boards others have made, and in cases others have made, and sell them. Israel makes the difficult stuff. China just puts the difficult to build stuff in a product and sell it.

But that's beside the point.
Israel is an ally. Do you get that idea? An ally?
We vote UN sanctions because they are wrong.
We do not send them tons of aid, they buy supplies from us. There is a difference. Afghanistan is getting aid. They are not paying for it, the US citizens are.
The Palestinians are killing Israelis. If Mexicans were killing Americans, would you accept Israel telling us to do nothing? Or complain if someone gave support to us? (not that we'd need it)
Israel would like to live on their own too, if we'd stop telling them to do nothing when terrorists attack them.
You can't have it both ways. Expect us to have no dealings with them on one hand, but expect them to listen to us telling them what to do on the other.

The oil embargo threat is by our own making. If we got our own oil, the threat of an oil embargo would be minimal. You can't shoot off you own foot and blame someone else for not bringing crutches.

 

[Andy]

America is in for a major wake-up call if they do not sort out their relationships with the Middle East and especially Israel. The major geo-political powers over the next 50 years or so are going to be China, India and Russia all of whom are really not interested in appeasing Isreal or American sensitivites over their relationships with Israel.

I'll lookup the Israel thing here shortly.

This is interesting. China, sure. India and Russia? Russia still has some influence... but India? Curious, on what basis do you see those 2 as being a geo-political powers?

 

[The Scotsman]

This is interesting. China, sure. India and Russia? Russia still has some influence... but India? Curious, on what basis do you see those 2 as being a geo-political powers?

Hi Andy - in purely economic terms their economy is steaming ahead at a rate of knots! Whilst most of the population is still employed in the Agricultural sector (peasant labour) they have an extremely good education system and their hi-tech sector is doing well - you can easily find the data on the internet so I won't bore you with it but here's a chart that encompasses their projected economic performance...

Goldman Sachs has predicted that India will become 3rd largest economy of the world by 2035 based on predicted growth rate of 5.3 to 6.1%. Currently It is cruising at 9.4% growth rate.

Economy aside for a second - don't forget that India is a nuclear power. Under Indira Ghandi authorisation was given to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to develope a nuclear program thus the Indians conducted operation "Smiling Buddha" (can you believe that!!). Anyway the world was almost treated to major a nuclear exchange a few years back with the Kashmir crisis between Pakistan and India. Tension between these two and to some extent China have been simmering for years; they have their good years and bad.

The Indian Army has the second largest standing army after China and is a volunteer force. Numbers alone does not make an army they have traditionally been under equipped and poorly trained - that is changing. With the benefit of year on year Defence Budget increases the whole basis of the Indian Military has been revamped, their training, equipment and logistics are undergoing major reforms and improvements on the extent that lately India has taken a much more active role in peacekeeping operations around the world. Navy and Air Force and undergoing the same improvements.

 

[Andy]

Hi Andy - in purely economic terms their economy is steaming ahead at a rate of knots! Whilst most of the population is still employed in the Agricultural sector (peasant labour) they have an extremely good education system and their hi-tech sector is doing well - you can easily find the data on the internet so I won't bore you with it but here's a chart that encompasses their projected economic performance...

Economy aside for a second - don't forget that India is a nuclear power. Under Indira Ghandi authorisation was given to the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre to develope a nuclear program thus the Indians conducted operation "Smiling Buddha" (can you believe that!!). Anyway the world was almost treated to major a nuclear exchange a few years back with the Kashmir crisis between Pakistan and India. Tension between these two and to some extent China have been simmering for years; they have their good years and bad.

The Indian Army has the second largest standing army after China and is a volunteer force. Numbers alone does not make an army they have traditionally been under equipped and poorly trained - that is changing. With the benefit of year on year Defence Budget increases the whole basis of the Indian Military has been revamped, their training, equipment and logistics are undergoing major reforms and improvements on the extent that lately India has taken a much more active role in peacekeeping operations around the world. Navy and Air Force and undergoing the same improvements.

Good post. I guess I had completely written off India for too long. This is good info. I will have to check out more about India just to satisfy my own curiosity later.