Axis Kast wrote:It is widely true: the majority of colonies under European imperial dominion not possessed of sizable white populations fell into socialist modes of thought both during and after decolonization. Such trends are observable in the post-war histories of Egypt, India, and Vietnam, among others. Certainly, the U.S.S.R. represented for the Arab world a much more attractive partner ? considering its economic and political models ? than the Western world.
Obviously, it did not, despite your no-history claims- as evidenced by the countries that did not lean towards the Soviet Union in the Middle East.
It certainly represents the centralizing influence of Soviet thought and socialist policy; more evidence of stronger proclivities toward Moscow.
More assertion: prove Mossadeq was influenced by Soviet thought.
Until our intervention, Iran was much closer to the Soviet Union than the Western world.
It was nowhere near the Soviet Union, nor was it Allied with it, nor was there any reason to think it would save for the US/UK own folly in that regard.
The crux of this issue is whether the Arabs would have preferred the Soviet engagement in the first place, without the added influence of America?s ties to Israel. The answer is yes.
They didn't. It was rather split, as is obvious.
At best, we?re talking tens of millions of dollars in small arms and basic munitions. This is your damning argument?
Don't try and change what the issue was you dishonest dickhead. You asked for proof of gifted weapons, which I said occued in "some cases". Other examples of free equipment:
14 AH-1E Cobras
72 Air Defense Artillery Vehicles
20 F-100 engines
5,000 C508 105MM HEAT-T, M456A
5,000 C518 105MM HEP-T, M393A2
2 Hawk Battallion Command Posts
500 MIM-72E Chaparral Missiles
170,000 H708 35mm subcaliber light antitank weapon rockets
Radios and miscellaneous support equipment
Miscellaneous support equipment
HAWK ground support equipment
36 M48A3 Chaparral anti-aircraft missile launchers; 500 MIM-72 guided missiles
28 FMC M-577A2 command post armored personnel carriers
121 Martin Marietta Walleye missile tube vidicons
35 digital computers for McDonnell Douglas F-15 aircraft
We regularly reward allied nations with discounts on purchased equipment ? and in many cases, Israel still pays a portion of the costs out of the aid it recieves. Thus the costs are recouped.
Bullshit. Prove it or drop it.
And then returned.
Bullshit. Prove it or drop it.
I provided evidence of the Clinton-administration cooperation. This certainly has to do with the War on Terror. Nice try, though.
You have no evidence of any Israeli help. Hence, you lose.
And, as Degan was told, this is no reason to tolerate it on any level. I also remind you that the most recent of those killed were government officials.
As government officials, they were even more aware of the risks of going there than an average citizen. Israel's sordid little quagmire has nothing to do with the United States, your repeated attempts to conflate the two as one notwithstanding.
It?s a crossroads for international terrorism, whether or not the Palestinian liberation groups target Americans specifically.
Assertion. This is the part where you repeat yourself in a different way.
So Israeli contributions are somehow negated? I think not.
I think so. Israeli capture of Soviet war material had no effect on the outcome of the war.
It doesn?t mean that putting our hands on physical models wouldn?t have helped drive the search for new deterrents.
Or the Israelis providing the Soviets with the same information. Hence, net zero gain, try again.
Concession accepted. It isn?t about whether they please me. It?s about whether they are credible measurements in the first place. This brings down your whole argument, by the way.
You have not shown they are not credible assessments whatsoever. You have whined about some crap to do with charity, and simply scoffed in disbelief, with no math, at others.
I just did.
Funny, I don't see any proof there whatsoever ...
If you deny it, prove to me that Belgium and the Netherlands needed exactly the amounts of money we gave them to ensure a successful conclusion to the Cold War.
Not my argument, not my burden. Sorry.
Stauffer?s comments are broad and generalizing. The supposed evidence he provides is far from comprehensive. You cannot base a credible argument on what is clearly incomplete data.
Unsupported assertion. Claiming it is incomplete presupposes you have knowledge of 'complete' data. Of course, you do not.
I?ve lost the point, but you?re whining about it?
I think it's clear to everyone that you're the whiner in regards to this article.
I?ve lost the point, but you can?t explain what it was that Saudi Arabia was going to purchase at the cost of $40 billion dollars?
I don't need to. Purchases, construction, and maintenance over a long period can easily equal $40 billion, and I see no reason to question the veracity of the figure- especially considering over the past decade Saudi Arabia's actual purchases have figured at almost exactly that amount.
Source that Saudi Arabia finances the entire American military mission in that country?
Don't try and move the goalposts, you liar, you said:
"Moreover, considering we subsidize the Saudis army, Id like you to defend how selling them mountains of arms wouldnt have been as costly as doing the same for Israel."
This is in regards to Israeli vs Saudi purchases of military equipment, not the American military mission in the country- whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. Saudi Arabia pays every damn cent. From the Arms Sales Monitoring Project:
Saudi Arabia is America's top customer. Since 1990, the U.S. government, through the Pentagon's arms export program, has arranged for the delivery of more than $39.6 billion in foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia, and an additional $394 million worth of arms were delivered to the Saudi regime through the State Department's direct commercial sales program during that same period. (Foreign Military and Construction Sales and Direct Commercial Sales are recorded and published by the Dept. of Defense in Foreign Military Sales, Foreign Military Construction Sales and Military Assistance Facts; the most current online edition includes information through FY 1999.)
Oil rich Saudi Arabia is a cash-paying customer. It receives no U.S. military assistance to finance these purchases, although it does demand that about 35 percent of all major contracts be "offset"-that is, economic benefits equaling 35 percent of the arms contract value must be steered back to the Saudi economy.
(Offsets are a standard feature of arms sales and are demanded by all purchasing countries to various degrees and are accepted as par for the course. Israel also receives offsets:
American dollars and technology also pours into the Israeli arms industry via offsets, incentives that American weapons manufacturers offer to convince Israel to sign deals, including co-production of weapons, transfers of technology, and non-military related investment.
Oh, btw- notice that since 1990 Saudi Arabia has gotten practically $40 billion worth of arms. So much for your no numbers scoffing.
Furthemore, Israel also sells sensitive military technology to China- I'm sure you'll view that as in US interests too in your next apologetic.
So much for your 'subsidize the Saudi military' nonsense.
More like: The Soviet response has rained fallout on tens of thousands of our people and killed countless members of our families. These are non-state actors, Vympel.
LOL. I'm sure there are lots of Central Asians who have relatives in Palestine. Not to mention "the soviets have destroyed our enemies and have given back our land".
Evidence that not everybody sees any given action in the same light. Americans will argue that it was for Saudi Arabias protection that their troops were sent to the Holy Land; Osama Bin Laden insists that it is for some other end.
The point of view of the fundies is the only relevant factor in this argument.
A pair of ICBMs. Technicians. Fuel. Trucks.
You idiot- just, don't fucking try, ok? Do you even know what ICBMs are? They are stored in silos. They are launched from silos. They are already fueled. The support infrastructure already exists. They are already on alert. The act of retaliating against Israel would invovle the simple expedient of retargeting one of the 1,064 ICBMs in service at the relevant point (1990)- which takes less than mere minutes. This does not require any additional effort of any strategically significant amount, and if the Israelis were ever judged to be a credible threat (which, again is purely your no-evidence fantasy and part of your habit of simply forming an opinion first and then concocting bullshit reasons to justify it), ICBMs would have been targeted for the purpose.
Planning committees. Expensive analysis.
Stop talking out of your arse, your ignorance of basic nuclear warfare is already fucking astounding- that you're trying to bluff your way through a topic you know fucking zero about is obvious to anyone with a modicum of general knowledge. "targeting Israel is sooooo expensive, it's a good thing we gave the Israelis hundreds of billions in aid for 30 years, we've got them Soviets on the ropes now! What we do without Israel's Jericho missiles? Thanks Israel!"
Just stop advertising your ignorance and desperation.
Fact. An oil-burning power station is far easier to operate, supply, and finance than a nuclear facility.
And yet the Soviets didn't rely on oil burning plants. Hence= assertion.
Iraq.
What?
But thats your argument: because we gave him biological and chemical precursors, we are somehow responsible for his nuclear program as well.
No, that's your argument. I don't believe that as all, but for your position, it must be true- you're the one who has conflated all three (NBC) in an attempt to disprove direct evidence from a credible witness. In which case you have failed, as you will see below when you got yourself into quite a neat little trap.
Cut the act. A nuclear reactor is the basic foundation of a nuclear weaponization program.
And useless without the appropriate kind of reactor to get fuel at an acceptable rate, or an enrichment facility to weaponize it. That's why weaponized material is the centre of non-proliferation efforts. A light water reactor is totally not suitable to a nuclear weapons program.
Khadduri could say the sky was falling, too. Does that mean youd believe it?
The testimony of a nuclear scientist (western educated) who participated in the program is far better than your ignorant shit, thank you very much. And considering you trumpeted his "evidence of intent", you are now trying to have it both ways. You lose either way. How efficient!
Its a teleological argument, end of story. Nobody can raise any conclusive proof that Iraq would have remained content to abstain from weaponization even if the Israelis hadnt struck.
That's what the man said. You want to prove him a liar, do so, but your simple, no evidence, no reasoning scoffing at inconvenient evidence proves nothing but your inability to concede a point.
What was the status of this second reactor?
Operational until it was destroyed in by the Coalition on Day 6 of Desert Storm.
Evidence of intent. We call that sinking your own battleship. Concession accepted.
Khadduri attests to a clear delineation between dabbling in research of an entirely rudimentary nature and a fast track bull rush towards nuclear weapons that started precisely after, and explicitly BECAUSE of, the bombing of Osirak. As such, the Israelis were responsible for the Iraqis rush to nuclear weapons, and their bombing of Osirak was both pointless and counterproductinve. And by trumpeting it as evidence of intent, you just conceded the point that you find this entirely credible man's (who has been proven right in all his statements about Iraq's nuclear program, specifically in regards to debunking the laughable claims of the 'saddam's bombmaker' fraud- who also had no credibility with UNSCOM/UNMOVIC) evidence persuasive. You are thus trapped, and have totally conceded. We call that leading your opponent up the garden path. And accepting his concession. Concession Accepted.
What does this have to do with the status of Iraqs program.
Merely showing what the US intentions were.
It has socialistic leanings.
And yet was a staunch US ally. We call that sinking your own battleship. Concession Accepted.
Spread of Communist ideas.
Nothing to do with Domino Theory.
If some countries adopt socialist systems with seeming success, so others will be encouraged to do so.
Not what happened, and not what the primary defintion of Domino Theory was in relation to Vietnam.
And yet the region leans more heavily toward centralized economics and strict market controls than capitalism and free trade.
Which has nothing to do with Domino Theory in any way, shape or form. The Domino Theory predicts the fall of regimes like Dominos to communism as the result of the fall of one. This did not occur. Your bullfuck redefinition of the theory to suit your utterly collapsed argument notwithstanding.
Evidence of socialist influence which grew especially after Vietnam (see, formerly British Malaya).
Post hoc fallacy. This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that one event causes another simply because the proposed cause occurred before the proposed effect. More formally, the fallacy involves concluding that A causes or caused B because A occurs before B and there is not sufficient evidence to actually warrant such a claim.
As I pointed out in the series of points which you completely failed to respond to, you must show a CAUSAL connection for such assertions (British Malaya was nowhere fucking near communism at the time of the fall of South Vietnam, nor did it become communist, but anyway) to be remotely useful.
PS. Notice the trend? If I ask you to prove an assertion, you simply repeat yourself as if it's fact. If you ask me to prove an assertion- I fucking do so. That's why you make such a fool of yourself. Instead of looking at the facts and then forming an opinion, you form an opinion first and *then* twist/invent evidence to support it. You've got it fucking assbackwards.
