Brief recap:
1. America fights Israel's wars in the Mid East for them for several decades.
2. Israel's enemies take a swipe at the US (today) for obvious reasons.
The only question that remains to be asked, is, why have we been bombing Arab countries for the past two decades?
Do we really have an interest in the Mid East? If our interest is oil, shouldn't we ally ourselves with the coutries that have oil, rather than the country that does not even have water, much less oil?
I agree with the guy who said that today's bombing is simply the result of our US foreign policy. We have been shooting cruise missiles into Arab states for quite a while now, and finally they strike back (not that two wrongs make a right).
The question is, why have we been picking on the Arabs in the first place?
Traditionally, America stays out of foreign wars. We let the europeans war against themselves every century or so, we let the asians have their wars, we should let the Arabs have their wars, and stay out of it. Some say that Sadam was as willing to sell oil to the West as Kuwait was. Do we really have an interest?
Is it our moral imperative to defend countries like Saudi Arabia, where they arrest anyone who holds a religious gathering that is not Islamic?
All the arab countries are a little wacky, and even the most "Western" one, Saudi Arabia, is a horrible persecutor of religious freedom, which is a basic human right. Our foreign policy should be to maintain amiable relations with all of them, and let them have their own wars, and stay out of it.
American foreign policy has two possible routes:
- Leave the world alone, and the world will leave us alone, or
- Police the world effectively, and remove all the bad rulers and put the good guys in power.
Either of these routes would be ok. But we have been following a third path that is not ok:
- Harrass countries just enough so that they hate us, but not enough so that we effectively cast out the bad guys and put the good guys in power to stabilize the region.
Our Arab policy has been like the Vietnam War: fight just enough so that the victim country hates us, but not enough to effectively overthrow the baddies.
If you're going to police the world, then do it right. Otherwise leave everybody alone. None of this intermittent bombing every year or so. All that does is generate anti-american sentiment, and invites terrorist attacks in America.