Withdraw from Iraq and establish US bases in Israel.

[northerdar]

Since Americans are defending and supporting Israel to the tune of the largest foreign aid given to all other countries and a proposed 1.2 billion to be voted on to give to Israel I think that it would be proper and wise to have the United States occupy Israel and "help" them fight the Arabs. The US government can build their US enduring bases in Israel. Halliburton will still get their money for this build up. I am sure Israel will be happy to have the Americans occupy their land and protect it. No Israel citizen will be shooting up our troops. This is a win win for the Israelis and the Iraqis. Maybe this can save a few American troops lives.

[FULL_METAL_HAT]

1. Sound logic!

There's even a chance that it's actually the most honest approach!

Tell Murtha to get the troops moved to Isreal to keep 'em safe!

{B^>

[donsu]

2. kick

nt

[maxsolomon]

3. no oil

the military's function is to protect the interests of american corporations.

[northerdar]

5. No OIl...how about that pipeline from Iraq through Syria to Israel?

and isn't AIPAC sort of an American based corporation? They are so big they contribute millions to politicians like The oil corporations.

[dusmcj]

4. there should be no US troops in the Middle East

this would be disastrous:

- it would be overt confirmation of the Muslim claim that the US and Israel are two heads of the same Beast.

- it would be better for both Israel and the US if the two countries were clearly shown to be independent entities who cooperate, but are not part of a Crusader conspiracy, or a co-dependent relationship unassailable by even the best Freudian from Park Avenue. This of course is diametrically opposed to the PNAC strategy of unifying the two nations' foreign policies. (Which strategy I doubt has the universal support of the people or politicians of Israel, PNAC instead are shills and cohorts of particular political factions there. For example, I doubt that Mr. Sharon is particularly enamored of their nonresident bombast, it's easy to break wind and theorize when you're 5000 miles away from the action and don't need to worry when you head for the grocery store in your SUV.)

- cost in one place is no different than cost in another

- Israel is geostrategically problematic - hard to defend, already has security problems, long range from the current center of the action. You might as well put up a mile-wide bullseye with an arrow pointing to it and a big sign that says "bomb here now, double your fun". No gain for the US.

- Israel already has a near-crippling security situation. It should be free to address it without the added burden of worrying about big brother's force protection issues.

The unavoidable answer is that our long term strategy must be to address the reasons for our engagement in the middle east (our antiquated petroleum-based economy) and the resultant resentment of us by the residents of that region. We do not have the "right" to soil ourselves and the rest of the world because we cannot discipline our consumption habits and instead engage in flatulent delusions that productivity and concomitant resource use can increase infinitely. Being positive doesn't change physical reality. We need to disengage ourselves economically so that we can disengage ourselves militarily, in a deep long-term way, and then return to address the inequities wrought by 300 years of resource colonialism.

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

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[Loonman]

7. Return on the investment?

How many billions have we given those Israeli pukes over the years?