The Real Reason why France, Russia, and China opposed the war in Iraq!

[PyRo]

Isreal probably could substain itself in a war. All they have to do is take over one oil rich country and they have all the funds they need to buy weapons from other countries and take over the rest of the middle east. Then that's when everyone whines to the U.S. about it.

[logamus]

Israel has received our monetary and military equipment/training support since 1949.

what they got from us in the 50's and 60's is a far cry from what they get today. that was my point.

Uh, are you refering to the old Israel that was run into the sea?

no, i am refering to the 6 days war that didnt even last 6 days. this is the new and improved arab destroying israel.


keep in mind, it was only due to extreme pressure from the us that kept israel out of desert storm. should israel attack the nuclear sites in iran, all hell will break loose.

[Warewolf50]

Isreal would do just fine right now even if we didn't support them any further. They could handle matters without problems. The US is the only reason ISREAL hasn't started another war in the Middle East. Isreal has already threatened to take out Iranian nuclear facilities and DID take out Iraqi facilities. I don't doubt that if it were not for US restraint they would have struck against Iran.

If i remeber correctly Israel dosnt actually start the wars, it seemed like they would be attacked then they would kick the countries ***, good exaple is in the 6 days war. I might be wrong here thought.

[Thordic]

Israel has one of the most scarily effecient armies in the world. If they ever get into an all-ot war, IMO it'll be one for the lesson books on how to run a war.

Someone said they are "close to western standards" as far as training and such. I'd argue that they are at our level, and surpass it in some areas. Soldier-for-soldier, they are one of the best armies in the world.

[Destructo6]

If we abandoned Israel, an entire Arab coalition would probably mount up to destroy them if they knew they had nothing to fear from US reprisals or military aid.

The local "Arab" states have tried that several times. 1948 War of Independance, 1956 Suez invasion, 1967 June War (aka: "6 Day War"), and 1973 Yom Kippur War, to count just a few. While they all like the idea of a pan-Islamic state, they can't set aside their nationalism to cooperate enough to do it. Egypt's Nassar wanted to head pan-Islamic state, but so did Jordan, Syria, etc. These states were so brotherly with their fellow Muslims that they didn't allow Palestinian refugees to naturalize in their states: how cool is that?

If we abandoned Israel, an entire Arab coalition

But by the same token, if the suppliers who sell weapons to the Arab countries also abandoned them, the Israelis would still be in the better position.

[Jeffy-CanCon]

Without bothering to read 1DE's link, I'll say I'm not surprised. I was reading online sources about French, Russian and Chinese business links to saddam Hussein's regime back before the US invasion. Most Canadians don't know that our PM of the time, Jean Chretien, had a family tie to Iraq himself. His daughter is married to the French family that owns Elf Petroleum. May have influenced his opposition to the war, too.

You ever hear of world war 1, or how about WW2. France always surrrenders when attacked how do you expect that country to go pro war? The country motto is practically "WE SURRENDER".
...

It's fun to make fun of the French as surrender monkeys, and they do have a terrible military record. But to be fair they never surrendered in WW1. At least not on a national scale. French colonial troops broke and ran under the first German gas attack, and Paris was saved only by nearby Canadian and British troops.

the only reason Israel does NOT start another middle east war is because we ARE supporting them.

Umm... No. The reason the Israeli's don't start another war in the Mid-East is because it isno advantage to them. They can defend themselves, and defeat any Arab state on the battlefield but they don't have the manpower or the logistics to conquer them. They are outnumbered 100-to-1, and full military mobilization is crippling to their economy. They can only sustain it for about ten days at a time.

All of the military technology we supply them is for their defense, not offense. Israel knows that without our support, they would be screwed up a creek. If we abandoned Israel, an entire Arab coalition would probably mount up to destroy them if they knew they had nothing to fear from US reprisals or military aid. Thats why Israel is carefull to maintain our support, not so they can start a war against they're neighbors, but so they won't be destroyed in one.

Of course, should the day come when Israel does find itself alone and under attack from all it's neighbors, it will be a dark day for all involved. Israel is the only army in the middle east trained and supplied anywhere near western standards so they would take more than they're share of enemies before they fell. I'm shure they would rack up quite a kill ratio.

(A) The Israeli Defense Forces is trained and equipped at a level comparable to NATO troops, but the trouble in the West Bank has been very bad for their cohesion and morale. Also, demographic changes within Israel mean that they are likely to have trouble maintaining their strength in future generations.

(B) The Israeli's probably have nukes. They have hinted at that, with statements to the effect that "we have no nukes, but if you attack us today we will nuke you tomorrow". Also, when the South Africans announced the dismantling of their nuclear program, they said that the Israelis had helped with the research in exchange for materials.

If i remeber correctly Israel dosnt actually start the wars, it seemed like they would be attacked then they would kick the countries ***, good exaple is in the 6 days war. I might be wrong here thought.

The 1948 War of Independence is a toss-up. Who started it depends on who you ask.

The 1956 Suez Invasion was Israel invading Egypt. Their motivation was to remove the Arab guerrilla bases in the region, and they were backed by the French and British who used the invasion as a pretext to attempt to seize back the recently nationalised Suez canal.

The Six-Day War of 1967 was Israel pre-empting a planned attack by Egypt and Syria. On learning of the Arab plans, IDF general staff urged the government to attack first. A defensive battle fought on Israeli territory would have been devastating. Also, the West Bank was seized from Jordan in order to provide strategic depth. Previously, Israel was so narrow in the middle that she risked being cut in two by Jordanian artillery.

The Yom Kippur War of 1973 was started by the Arabs. Israel came very close to losing that one, and may have been saved by an emergency delivery of US anti-tank weapons.

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon to kick out the PLO, who had been using the chaos of the Lebanese Civil War to stage attacks against northern Israel. They pulled back from Beirut after acheiving their goals, but kept roops in Southern Lebanon for about a decade (Syrian troops are still in North-eastern Lebanon, 20 years later).

That's it, so far...