I've been told that the TSA are not represented by a union and that they are expressly forbidden from wearing dosimeters. They are exactly what Stanley Milgram predicted.

I think that we will just have to agree to disagree. Your understanding and scholarship of the history of the region is better than mine. I come at it from a student-of-human-behaviour perspective. Unless Israel works out a viable solution that is acceptable to the Palestinians there will be strife perhaps up to and including human rights violations. Israel has shown that it is not beyond that--witness the Boycott Law foisted on her own people. With power comes responsibility; Israel has the power. I hope that she will choose wisely; Evidence says that she will not. I wish you well and I thank you for what I have learned from this discussion.

I've always felt that losing land by dint of conquest i.e. where a battle was fought, was valid. Not nice but valid. Losing land by stroke of a pen, invasion by civilians (a whole bunch of us are going to set up camp on your property...don't worry, nothing to see) or by sneakiness (here's some shiny beads...), to me is wrong.

The Holy Land has seen a lot of conflict but for the most part, Jews, Muslims and Christians were able to work it out because the area is sacred to them all. In my opinion, the problem stems from equating The Holy Land with Israel. Israel is a modern nation with everything that goes along with it; the Holy Land is something completely different and needs to be treated differently. Israel occupies the Holy Land. They do not equate; by way of example, the Mossad is not a holy institution but it is an organisation operating on behalf of the nation. Human beings seek to gain advantage in their dealings...that's why we have courts of law. Palestinians who sold their land made a deal and must live with it; Palestinians who lost their land because they were intimidated or frightened off need to be compensated and offered a dignified solution. Israel needs to understand that if nothing else, the native-born and descended Palestinians are people of that land and have a greater claim than someone who moved from Europe. I may be wrong but I also believe that they have an issue with Israel but not the Holy Land. The leaders of the different faiths can find concord.

Yeah... Going that far back is probably not wise. We'd have to address things like the Bering land bridge and David's genocidal actions in the Holy Land. As a species, we have lots to leave in the past. My point was made from a more recent position--post WWI.

I view the Palestinians as equivalent to our First Nations people. Especially the ones in the Canadian west where there were no wars. The same has happened/is happening to the Palestinians as happened to the Natives. And, ultimately, the Palestinians are doing what the Haida, the Squamish, the Nisga'a and all the others didn't--fighting back...largely ineffectively. The Palestinians cannot win by force of arms, just as the Natives could not--even the Haida who were fearsome warriors. But because they try they are condemned as were many of the First Nations people in the United States who resisted being forced off their ancestral land and into reservations.

Or mlap? (from Skylark)

Both Mr and Mrs...

Yeah...that's a distinction without a difference. I agree that shooting out of school windows etc. is fundamentally wrong. I also profoundly disagree with the Talibani agenda. This isn't about that. The issue I have is that so many of the US' moral positions depend on what their wealth can buy. The American military started as insurgents, using native fighting techniques against the British. They didn't wear uniforms and they didn't follow the same rules...I'll grant that there were no rules of engagement back then. What concerns me is that the same mindset as had the British that caused Americans to rise up is present in the modern American. This mindset coupled with an enemy who has access to far more powerful weapons and as strong a will as the first Americans will not lead to peace and it will not lead to an honorable victory. This is a battle that will go on and on...this is a battle that will benefit salesmen.

Well this is a problem... The people piloting the drones are "hiding among civilians". One cannot engage them without engaging civilians. Are they regular or irregular troops?

Yes, the difficulty arises that every person who is arrested is innocent in the eyes of the law...until proven guilty. Every person shot by the police is just as innocent. And then we have a bunch of salesmen (prosecutors, the state etc.) tasked with selling the concept of their guilt. The defence are no less salesmen and they are tasked with selling the concept of their innocence. It has been like this since the ancient Greeks. Yay rhetoric! Were the system truly fair, both sides would be engaged in solidifying innocence. That a successful prosecutor can make more money when they head up the food chain or leave for private practice pretty well guarantees an unfair result when there is a lack of funding for a really skilled defence.

Gerald Bull designed his "super gun" to put payloads into orbit. He approached the US government with the idea and they rejected it as a launch method but wanted a weapon. Disgusted and disillusioned (he was apparently treated very poorly) his response was to create a truly powerful weapon. Iraq hired him to build one for them. The Mossad killed him in Belgium, a country that exports arms all over the world. It's important to remember that the US military has done this with a number of inventions. The guy who invented the x-ray laser had wanted to use it for medical purposes; excising tumours etc. The US military classified it and now it's a weapon. Another Canadian invented polymorphic encryption for secure banking and corporate communications...US military classified his work and as far as I know he can't even talk about it with his peers.