🚀 go-pugleaf

In ba.general Merlin Dorfman <dorfman@green.rahul.net> wrote:
> In ba.general Disgruntled Customer <nowhere@nowhow.com> wrote:
>> Merlin Dorfman <dorfman@green.rahul.net> enscribed:

>>>      The US and Israel (and the EU and Australia and Japan and etc.
>>> etc. etc.) are not trying to overthrow the Palestinian government,
>>> much less to "erase it from the map" in the words of Ahmedinijad,
>>> but merely to encourage it to change its policy, specifically its
>>> statement that Israel has no right to exist and the entire area
>>> should be under Palestinian control.
>>>      If you are asking whether I agree that the US should not have
>>> invaded Iraq and should not be conducting an embargo against Cuba
>>> with the objective of "regime change," yes, I agree with those
>>> statements.

>> Then do you think Europe, Australia, Japan, etc should stop loaning money to the U.S. (which like Palestine is not self-sufficient and depends on cash infusion from other countries to continue to function) until it changes its policies, regardless of what havoc that wreaks on your life?

>      I'm not aware that Europe and Australia are lending money to
> the US; it is mostly Japan and China.  Regardless, if any or all of
> those countries should decide to stop loaning money to the US, or
> stop trade with the US, or militarily embargo the US, well, first,
> I would be surprised, and second, on a practical basis, it would do
> more harm to those countries than to the US, because the US, despite
> your uninformed opinion otherwise, is much more self-sufficient than
> they are, e.g., the Chinese and Japanese economies would collapse
> without exports to the US, whereas the US would be inconvenienced
> without the billions of dollars of imports from China, it would not
> collapse.
>      I might also point out that there is a difference between
> loaning money to the US (not a charity but a business decision that
> it is the best use of surplus funds in terms of return, security,
> etc.) and giving money to the PA that will never be seen again but
> may help prevent (more) chaos in the Middle East.

     Oh, one more thing you conveniently overlooked--while the US 
is way out of line in the way it seeks "regime change" in Iraq and 
Cuba, it has not declared its intention to "wipe those countries off
the map" so they cease to exist.  Aid to the Palestinian Authority
was not cut off--indeed it was in the hundreds of millions of
dollars per year--when the PA was merely conducting (or failing
to prevent others from conducting) terrorism against Israel.  It
was only with the accession of a government sworn to the complete
destruction of Israel as a nation that aid was cut off.