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Originally Posted by nmap
More pointedly, why should Sam, in the case of the analogy, or the U.S. in real life, actually do this? This is not a rhetorical question.
Let's suppose that Israel is destroyed by massed Arab and Egyptian armies. Should I care? Why should I care?
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I've always thought that our support for Israel was due to (at least in large part) a sense of post-Holocaust duty.
We felt bad for what they went through, so we pledge to protect them going forward. Or maybe that's my 80s / 90s public schooling talking.
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Originally Posted by nmap
Conversely, let's suppose Israel vaporizes Cairo and Damascus. Given that they would probably be airbursts and that the prevailing winds won't dump much fallout on San Antonio, why should I care?
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We as a people do tend to care about human rights, and avoidable death. Things like the Rape of Nanking, the Holocaust, Prague 1968, Tiananmen Square, Rwanda and Darfur bother us. Whatever the government policy, there are a lot of people in Egypt and Syria who just want to go to work and raise their children.
Note: I do think that we were right in bombing Dresden, Berlin, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. And if Israel were attacked and annihilated their aggressor in response, I'd be hard pressed to fault them. But we do prefer to find a solution that doesn't involve massive civilian casualties.
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Originally Posted by nmap
The only thing I can see is that OPEC might use the oil weapon again, as they did in 1973. But oil is fungible, so if they sell to anyone, we will ultimately get some. And their own spending requirements suggest they cannot long withhold the flow.
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But it would hurt in the interim.
And we all know how much fortitude modern American has when it comes to inconvenience. Especially in re-election years.