@izzythepush,
izzythepush wrote:
You talk about giving money to Egypt as well as Israel, like they're polar opposites and cancel each other out. They don't, they strengthen each other. Up until very recently America wasn't giving money to the people of Egypt, they were giving money to a dictator. How much of that money do you think made it's way back to the USA by means of arms deals? If Egypt has signed a peace deal with Israel why do they need such a big army? I think recent events have shown us why.
Both were practically speaking necessary at the time to broker a deal that, I believe, was indeed a net benefit to all the people of the region - and to our security interests as well.
The Mubarack regime in Egypt, like that of Sadat before him was far from a perfect Democracy. But both were decidedly better than the average for the Islamic world. On what basis should we make such decisions? Mubarack's regime certainly ossified during the many years of his rule, but could we really have made their situation better? We must deal with the world as it is, and do good where we can- to the extent we can. What benefit did decades of rule and exploitation by the British Empire bring to the people across the region from Oman to Egypt? Were British interests or Western values the driving force there?
izzythepush wrote:
A dictator like Mubarak doesn't have the welfare of his own people at heart, let alone the welfare of the Palestinians. The full extent to how he brutalised his own people is only now becoming apparant. He brutalised the Palestinians as well, by enforcing the blockade on Gaza. This blockade of a war damaged strip of land is as arbitrary as it is cruel. Things that are allowed, and things that are banned change on an almost daily basis. Children will be allowed crayons, but no paper to write on. What foodstuffs are allowed changes as well, drinking chocolate and powdered milk are often subject to arbitrary bans. Whilst Mubarak continued to do what he was paid for and, also in his own interests, maintain the blockade on the Egyptian border, Israel could always claim the were not acting unilaterally on Gaza. Now the people are going to have a say in how things are run, the blockade is one of the first things that will be threatened.
Thousands of missiles used to kill Israeli civilians were also smuggled through that border. The Palestinians are not without their own responsibilities for the situation that faces them. I certainly don't know the details to which you attest, and I suspect (but can't prove) that your data isn't all that reliable either. We have already seen how European investigators have falsified key elements of UN sponsored investigations of the last Gaza conflict. There are faults and lies on both sides of this issue.
izzythepush wrote:
Basically what needs to be decided is, what is more important, Western values or Western Interests? In the case of Bahrain the West has kept shamefully quiet.
Nations act to support both their values and their interests - more often their interests. It is foolish to suppose otherwise. Britain's abandonment of Palestine in 1948 and Europe's rejection of it's surviving Jewish refugees in 1945-7 were acts in support of the interests of the nations involved, but hardly compatable with what we blithely assume are Western Values. The truth is we usually act to advance our interests when there is a conflict.
On what basis do you assert that "we have kept shamefully quiet" about events in Bahrain? Is that the worst example of injustice in a world that is filled with it? - or even in its immediate neighborhood? Are you equally concerned about the people in Iran? or Yemen? I don't recall a great willingness to act on the part of Europeans when the killing started in Bosnia (on the contrary there were several notable examples of European troops standing by "awaiting orders" while thousands were slaughtered almost before their eyes).
Even so it is often very hard to discriminate between oppressors and oppressed in such situations - as we have all learned following our interventions in Kosovo. It is by no means clear that the governments that spring up in the wake of the "Arab Spring" we are wittnessing will be materially better than what preceeded them.
That said, I am glad to see Europeans finally taking the initiative on something, as in Lybia (better, at least than the shameful payoffs you took to release the Lockerbee bomber). Too often the cry that "we in the West" should do something really means the US - with a very thin veneer of Eurpean support, and that usually with a long list of things you will not do and risks you will not take. I have a fair amount of experience with that aspect of things during a few decades of service as a Naval Aviator.
