Should America continue to give economic, military and political support to Israel, Egypt or anybody else in the middle east?
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Yes because as the oil supply dwindles we need to make sure that we are still able to access the supply at fair market prices. The situation may in fact get more and more volatile in the years to come as supply is winding down. No doubt coflagrations will flare between industrialized nations. Meanwhile we should be concerned with alternate forms of energy but since that is a slow implementation to retool entire industries, we need to assure that we can still function. And the way to do that is with money and arms.
@SeventhSense
Here is why I would disagree. Our presence in the middle east does not insure our oil supply. We spend tens of billions of dollars in the middle east that could be better used for the creation of clean energy.
Every Arab sheikdom, every democracy, every theocracy, every dictatorship and kingship and everything has shown a willingness to sell us oil. We do not assure our oil supply by being there. They need to sell oil far more than we need to buy it. Even the embargo against Iran doesn’t work. Iran will just sell what we would have bought to China, and we’ll buy what China would have bought from Canada or Russia. You can’t effectively embargo a commodity.
The ONLY time that our oil supply from the middle east has been threatened is when we were jointly embargoed by Arab nations in retaliation for our support of Israel.
I can’t see how our support and military helps assure our oil supply…...it hurts it. We spend money and the result is more enemies and a greater threat to our oil supply IMHO
The oil is not yet in crisis. It is rapidly approaching that point though
@JamesL What are the ethics you speak of?
@SeventhSense The point I’m making is that the money we’re spending threatens our oil supply…...it doesn’t assure it. Are you suggesting we keep troops there, so that when the oil runs low, we just take it?
@TheIowaCynic But you haven’t really given a compelling reason as to why.
@JamesL I agree. This is a reason why our money and support actually make us enemies and threaten our status in the region as well as access to oil.
It’s a crappy trade-off. We give money, weapons and support to a government so that it can continue oppressing people and threaten our standing with nations that actually have something we need.
The US’ unilateral support of the state of Israel is the cause of a lot of anti-American animosity. When a Palestinian persons sees their friend’s home blown up by a bomb and later find shrapnel that is stamped with “Made in USA” it tends to make an impact.
As a Jew, I fear for what would happen if U.S. stopped aid to Israel. At the same time, though, the our support for the Jewish state is due to particularly powerful Jewish and Evangelical Christian lobbies… I don’t know how I feel about that.
Our support for certain countries in the Middle East is an attempt to have a strategic foothold in the region. Nearly every Middle Eastern country has a pretty outstanding record of human rights abuses. The question is whether this is something we’re willing to accept in exchange for global stability brought about by our own actions.
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