🚀 go-pugleaf

In ba.general Disgruntled Customer <nowhere@nowhow.com> wrote:
> Merlin Dorfman <dorfman@green.rahul.net> enscribed:
>>      The truth about the Liberty attack has been available for many
>> years.  You conspiracy theorists can believe whatever you want, but
>> the rest of us know the truth and know that Israel is an ally.

> Of course Israel is an ally. That's the problem. Their imperialism is sucking us down to the tenth level of hell with them. Ordinary Americans have their lives endangered, privacy eroded, and freedom curtailed; a large part of that is because of America's unconditional support of Israeli genocide. It doesn't matter whether you and Bush agree that Palestine and Iraq (and our Mideast problems generally) are linked, what matters is what a billion or so people think about us when we want them to do us a favo
r.

     Yes, the Middle East is one of those places where no good deed
goes unpunished.  The US has a very bad image in the Arab/Muslim
world, partly for good reasons (Iraq) and partly for bad reasons.
(E.g., the billions of oil dollars that are spent on anti-US propaganda)
It's not at all uncommon that doing the right thing will make you
very unpopular.
     You could certainly propose that the US end its support of 
Israel and start sucking up (more) to the Arabs in order to gain
the support of those billion people.  A "realist" foreign policy
has something to recommend it.  But in this case I think you would
be very disappointed with the results.