Reply #202: Interesting reply

[calm_blue_ocean]

1. I think I like this Netenyahu fellow better than Ariel Sharon. Was Netenyahu assasinated by Palestinians or something (I honestly don't know)? If Netenyahu was assasinated by Palestinians, it sure would explain a lot about the way Israel behaves now.

2. My thoughts about continuing loans in #125 and #164 were formed before you had tentatively convinced me that Israel could continue to exist without US military help. I only propose to cut the loans as a way of extricating the US from the volatile situation in the Middle East. Besides, if the loans are not sweetheart loans, then Israel can get these loans (by definition of non-sweetheart loans)from other sources than the US in the future.

3. Re: your history lesson concerning the Lebanon attack. Another history lesson involves the attack on the warship USS Cole in the Middle East in 1999. After this attack on its military target, the US remained involved in the Middle East. Then later, two years ago today, there was then a big terrorist attack on US soil (I think by the same group). I believe that the US pulling out of the Middle East entirely would frighten the terrorists a lot more than Reagan's limited pull-out from Lebanon. The reason to believe this is that nations that are not involved in the Middle East seem to experience fewer politically-motivated terrorist attacks by Middle Eastern terrorists. This is a strong correlation. These isolationist countries have found a powerful way to keep the terrorists scared and shaking in their caves, far away from their borders.