Hehe, and I was brazing myself, thinking I was going to draw a huge amount of fire for being the snarky European criticizing the US while himself could never to be counted on or being good for anything.

Originally Posted by Chas'88

I agree to some extent that what the US is fighting is mostly a phantom enemy based off of exaggerations of the remnant of the failed Islamicist movement that failed to take hold of Libya, Egypt, and the rest of the Middle East in the 1990s & 2000s. They're a dying movement who having failed in trying to change their homelands have turned to being "pirates" against the US. In otherwords what the US is fighting are rogue elements of society that are fringes and aren't really that much of a threat if you see them for what they are. However if you believe the fantasized myth that the Neoconservatives would have you believe... they threaten to destroy all we hold sacred.

Exactly. This BBC documentary explains it rather well, I think:
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares

Glad to see some European feedback.

Happy to provide. Hopefully, I will also find the time to continue my presence on this eminent board.

I think the Neoconservatives are more to "blame" in terms of the US but then again the Neoconservatives have in the past made friends & allies with Israel & the Religious Right...

~Chas'88

Oh, absolutely. The Neocons were actually what I had in mind when I wrote "dual citizenship goons". I'm aware it is a sensitive topic, but for those of us who are perfectly happy with the United States as a great power in the world, it does feel slightly uncomfortable when its foreign policy gets more or less hijacked by the perceived interests of a certain Mideast nation.
On the other hand, it is hardly surprising considering their grip on major media and their support from some of the less advanced elements of American society.

Try to envision what the Middle East would look like if first the Jews, then the Arabs, were to win a realistic 4T-total-war victory:

In the event of a Jewish, i.e., Israeli, victory, the Jordan River would simply become the Oder-Neisse of the Middle East (and the Suez Canal its Rio Grande if Egypt abrogates its peace with Israel in the event of a radical Islamist takeover of that country after Hosni Mubarak dies). True, the "Palestinian" population (how come we never heard that term used, say, 100 years ago?) would be removed from the West Bank and Gaza (and the Sinai, if Egypt does go jihadist and joins in the fighting), but the Arabs would nonetheless remain sovereign over an area larger than that of the entire United States, and the Muslim world (Arab and otherwise) would still be a realm on which the sun never sets.

By contrast, an Arab victory would mean not only the total destruction of the Jewish state, but also a second Holocaust - and with the Jews being left with no homeland at all, with, once again, only the charity of adherents of other religions standing between them and being wiped off the face of the earth (and we've all seen over the past 3,700 years how well that's worked for them).

For me at least, that makes what side to take here a complete and total no-brainer.

Both your scenarios I reckon might well turn out to be correct. I just don't see what it matters to the actual interests of the Euro-American world. If the Jews (well, some of them) so badly want to hold on to that piece of ill gotten 20th century land grab, well, let them fend for it themselves.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

True, the "Palestinian" population (how come we never heard that term used, say, 100 years ago?)

Oh, spare me. Why does this sample of third rate pro-Zionist propaganda always turn up in discussions about Israel? Palestinians are what we call those Arabs native to the region known as Palestine. It's a simplifying convention. And Palestine has been part of our vocabulary at least since the days of Emperor Hadrian.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Both your scenarios I reckon might well turn out to be correct. I just don't see what it matters to the actual interests of the Euro-American world. If the Jews (well, some of them) so badly want to hold on to that piece of ill gotten 20th century land grab, well, let them fend for it themselves.

The Arabs - at least the "Palestinians" anyway - should have thought about that when they threw in with the Axis during World War II (see the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) - in stark contrast to their co-religionists, the Turks, who remained neutral. In that context, why is the Jews' "land grab" any more "ill-gotten" than Poland's "land grab" of Pomerania and Silesia, Croatia's "land grab" of Capodistria and Fiume, or Russia's "land grab" of Karafuto?

Oh, spare me. Why does this sample of third rate pro-Zionist propaganda always turn up in discussions about Israel? Palestinians are what we call those Arabs native to the region known as Palestine. It's a simplifying convention. And Palestine has been part of our vocabulary at least since the days of Emperor Hadrian.

Yeah, the Emperor Hadrian - who destroyed Israel in A.D. 135!

@ '58 Flat

None of the land grabs were ever completely fair or "well-gotten". A land grab by very definition isn't "well-gotten" by anyone except by those who do the grabbing.

From what I understand, Palestinians are what we call the people who were originally called Canaanites & Philistines. They got the name/label of Palestinians in the 2nd Century AD when the Romans named the area "Palestina" & the Palestinians converted to Islam in the 900s when the Arabs invaded & intermixed with the local population.

It's sort of like the majority of British people living there today are descendent to people who have lived there for centuries prior to the Roman, Germanic, Norse, and French invasions. The royalty of Britain is the foreign part of the nation. Which is typically the case in most nations, America being an exception due to our supression & cultural genocide of Native Americans & our current hatred of "Hispanics" who are really just Spanish-washed Native Americans.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Uzi

I hope they rename it Königsberg, and drop the Commie appellation. As far as I know, Kalinin never even visited it.

As someone who is himself of German ancestry, I would half agree with the above. I would definitely favor dropping the Sovietized name, but would recommend translating the German 'Konigsberg' into said name's Slavic equivalent - something like the Polish 'Krolowgrod', or the Russian equivalent. This would hold true whether the area remains part of Russia, or ends up becoming part of Poland (which, BTW, would make a lot more geographical sense - and would have made a lot more geographical sense back in 1945, too).

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in Konigsberg and never traveled more than 100 miles from it in his whole life. This is the only factoid about Konigsberg I had ever heard before this thread. This fact was cited to me as part of questioning the necessity of travel to intellectual endeavor.

This knowledge never had much of an effect on me. I still love to travel.

James50

The issue is not the use of "Palestine" as a geographical descriptor - but rather the idea that the Arabs who live there are somehow markedly different from other Arabs, which is of very recent origin, as it was concocted by anti-Semites as a propaganda tool.

And LOL @ European types getting their noses out of joint about Zionism, when they aided and abetted the Zionist cause since they thought it would get the Jews out of Europe.

Then again, that's no worse than why the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem collaborated with the Nazis: He did so on the grounds that if they won the war, there would be no Jews to have to share Palestine with!

And not for nothing, but since they did side with the Axis, they weren't entitled to one square angstrom of the British mandate. Yet they got more than 5/6ths of it - and they still weren't happy!

News flash: There already is a Palestinian state. It's called Jordan.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The Arabs - at least the "Palestinians" anyway - should have thought about that when they threw in with the Axis during World War II (see the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem) - in stark contrast to their co-religionists, the Turks, who remained neutral. In that context, why is the Jews' "land grab" any more "ill-gotten" than Poland's "land grab" of Pomerania and Silesia, Croatia's "land grab" of Capodistria and Fiume, or Russia's "land grab" of Karafuto?

So because the Palestinians threw in their lot with Hitler, Hitler being sort of the Devil incarnate according to Jewish Holocaustery and The Concise Lexicon of Pop Culture, the Palestinians are to be punished for all eternity? Israel is going to order its big bumbling sugar daddy, the United States of America, to pay for and beat on the Arab suckers who did the wrong move and picked the wrong ally, forever and ever, and that is only right! Did I get that straight?
Only trying to decipher the fuzzy logic here…
So what if the Arabs allied with Hitler? Jews were infiltrating Palestine in throngs in the 20’s and 30’s, buying up land, making no secret their ultimate aim was a Jewish state all over Palestine, which incidentally meant the Christian and Muslim Arabs already living there had to be pushed out or submit to foreign Jewish rule. The influx of Jews was regularly protested by the Arab majority in the street but to no avail.
In other words, the Palestinians only did the right thing when they hooked up with Hitler, especially since they were abandoned by their most recent “protectors”, the British, anyway. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

In that context, why is the Jews' "land grab" any more "ill-gotten" than Poland's "land grab" of Pomerania and Silesia, Croatia's "land grab" of Capodistria and Fiume, or Russia's "land grab" of Karafuto?

Did I ever say it was? No I didn’t. But there is another difference, it being that countries like these do not rely on billions of US dollar aid money to keep their occupation racket going – like I said, they fully expect themselves to fend for it – nor do they throw a tantrum about “antisemitism” every time they don't get what they want or anyone as much as mentions the parasitic relationship between the Jewish state and the United States. Another difference is that generally, these countries do not constantly aspire to claim a moral high ground for what may be land theft one way or another, but Israel does.

Yeah, the Emperor Hadrian - who destroyed Israel in A.D. 135!

Yes, and reinvented the city of Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina and built a temple to Jupiter on the Temple Mount. Come to think of it, rather than Hadrian, wasn't it actually the Achaemenids who started to refer to the area as their "Province of Palestine" while Israel was under the rule of Persia from 539-332 BC?

Originally Posted by Tussilago

So because the Palestinians threw in their lot with Hitler, Hitler being sort of the Devil incarnate according to Jewish Holocaustery and The Concise Lexicon of Pop Culture, the Palestinians are to be punished for all eternity? Israel is going to order its big bumbling sugar daddy, the United States of America, to pay for and beat on the Arab suckers who did the wrong move and picked the wrong ally, forever and ever, and that is only right! Did I get that straight?

But aren't the 19 million Germans who were forcibly extirpated from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, along with all their descendants, being "punished" "forever and ever"? Same goes for the estimated 450,000 Japanese expelled from southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands, and the Italians who were forcibly removed from the city of Fiume (now Rijeka), which had been an Italian city since the Middle Ages.

Only trying to decipher the fuzzy logic here…
So what if the Arabs allied with Hitler? Jews were infiltrating Palestine in throngs in the 20’s and 30’s, buying up land, making no secret their ultimate aim was a Jewish state all over Palestine, which incidentally meant the Christian and Muslim Arabs already living there had to be pushed out or submit to foreign Jewish rule. The influx of Jews was regularly protested by the Arab majority in the street but to no avail.
In other words, the Palestinians only did the right thing when they hooked up with Hitler, especially since they were abandoned by their most recent “protectors”, the British, anyway. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, right?

But all the Arabs had to do was remain neutral, and it could never have happened: The Peace of Munster-Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648 established the precedent in international law that in no case can a neutral nation ever be stripped of territory under the terms of a post-war peace treaty (not only has this precedent never since been violated, but neutral Denmark actually gained the northern half of Schleswig from Germany at Versailles after World War I).

In that case, "Israel" would have been carved out of either Bavaria or the Rhineland, which Truman wanted done anyway - but the self-righteous hypocrites of Europe saw a chance to get the Jews off of "their" continent.

Did I ever say it was? No I didn’t. But there is another difference, it being that countries like these do not rely on billions of US dollar aid money to keep their occupation racket going – like I said, they fully expect themselves to fend for it – nor do they throw a tantrum about “antisemitism” every time they don't get what they want or anyone as much as mentions the parasitic relationship between the Jewish state and the United States. Another difference is that generally, these countries do not aspire to claim a moral high ground for what may be land theft one way or another, but Israel does.

If the Arabs were allowed to get away with revanchism (and lost even more land in 1967 after a revanchist war they started, just as the Germans lost even more land after World War II, which they started in an effort to forcibly take back what they had lost at the end of World War I), what would have stopped anyone else from seeking the same redress? And there would have been no "statute of limitations" as to how far any such "irridentism" could have gone back in time: What would have prevented, for example, Mexico from re-asserting a claim on the U.S. Southwest, or for that matter, Greece re-claiming Istanbul from Turkey? (After all, that city was once called Constantinople).

It's better to simply not start sliding down that slippery slope. You can't become a junkie if you never take that first fix.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The issue is not the use of "Palestine" as a geographical descriptor - but rather the idea that the Arabs who live there are somehow markedly different from other Arabs, which is of very recent origin, as it was concocted by anti-Semites as a propaganda tool.

So you say, wiggling your strawman again. And to repeat myself, it's irrelevant cause no one I've ever heard of uses the term "Palestinians" to refer to anything but that run of the mill, in fact ethnically pretty mixed up, "Arab" population, who happened to inhabit the land of Palestine. Well of course, there is one exception to this, Zionists who design a strawman argument from it, since they believe they have the right to a strip of beach pebble cause the god of the Jews gave it to the Jews.
For some reason, the people who have spent more than a century yelling at everyone else (that is, at everyone of European and European derived stock) that there is no such thing as nationalities, ethnic loyalties or shared cultural heritage, only individuals abiding in multicultural harmony going Kumbaya together, now demand that a bundle of free and independent individuals from the same block (the Palestinians, oh, I mean Arabs) are not allowed to found a society and a state together, cause they "are no nation" and there is no such thing as a "Palestinian people". Strange that.

And LOL @ European types getting their noses out of joint about Zionism, when they aided and abetted the Zionist cause since they thought it would get the Jews out of Europe.

I suggest you bring this up with the SD (Security Service of the SS) on the one hand, and the Zionist Haganah on the other as most of us Europeans have nothing to do with it one way or the other. These two agencies however, cooperated in secret during the late 1930's in bringing as many Jews as possible from the Greater German Reich to Palestine, at the same time ridding Germany of its Jews and serving the Zionist cause, but bothering the Palestinians of course. This is what "The Final Solution of the Jewish Question" meant at the time and Adolf was obviously delighted with it.
On the other hand, one has to cut the Nazis some slack since they did try to send Jews to other countries as well but with less progress, enlightened countries such as Britain and the US for instance. This is how Goebbels commented on those attempts in his diary:

"It is remarkable that the states whose public opinion is in favour of the Jews all refuse to accept our Jews from us. They say they are magnificent pioneers of culture, and geniuses in economics, diplomacy, philosophy, and poetry, yet the moment we try to press one of these geniuses upon them, they clamp down their frontiers: ‘No, no! We don’t want them!’ I think it must be unique in the history of the world, people turning down geniuses."

- Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels

It is interesting that Kaliningrad/Konigsberg was part of the land the Germans lost in the aftermath of World War II - yet they're not harboring any revanchist fantasies about getting it back.

Also interesting is how the Russians insisted on receiving that district in the peace settlement because they needed a warm-weather port. But thanks to global warming/climate change, St. Petersburg now enjoys that status - and if the pattern holds, so will Murmansk, and even Ostrov Dikson, down the road.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

It is interesting that Kaliningrad/Konigsberg was part of the land the Germans lost in the aftermath of World War II - yet they're not harboring any revanchist fantasies about getting it back.

Also interesting is how the Russians insisted on receiving that district in the peace settlement because they needed a warm-weather port. But thanks to global warming/climate change, St. Petersburg now enjoys that status - and if the pattern holds, so will Murmansk, and even Ostrov Dikson, down the road.

Oh there are some exteremists out there which wish for an united Deutschland:



And there's a lot of Hungarian sentiment for a return to these borders, they felt they were the ones punished the most after WWI, even worse than the Germans--according to them. They were left with only 1/3 of their land from before:

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But aren't the 19 million Germans who were forcibly extirpated from Central and Eastern Europe after World War II, along with all their descendants, being "punished" "forever and ever"? Same goes for the estimated 450,000 Japanese expelled from southern Sakhalin (Karafuto) and the Kuril Islands, and the Italians who were forcibly removed from the city of Fiume (now Rijeka), which had been an Italian city since the Middle Ages.

This was not about bringing the Palestinians back their land. It was about buying into the moral justifications of the Jewish state in Palestine, most of which are fake. You said the Palestinians only got what they deserved since some of them made friends with Adolf Hitler. I argued such circumstance is irrelevant.

But all the Arabs had to do was remain neutral, and it could never have happened: The Peace of Munster-Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years' War in 1648 established the precedent in international law that in no case can a neutral nation ever be stripped of territory under the terms of a post-war peace treaty (not only has this precedent never since been violated, but neutral Denmark actually gained the northern half of Schleswig from Germany at Versailles after World War I).

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. The Grand Mufti's and a number of Palestinians' support for Nazi Germany naturally did not matter in the founding of the Jewish state against the will of the indigenous population. It was a done deal going back decades.
Also, if we are to drag such curiosities as the Peace of Westphalia into the discussion, how could the Palestinians be considered a neutral or belligerent party when there was no Palestinian state to lose or keep territory to begin with?

Originally Posted by Chas'88

And there's a lot of Hungarian sentiment for a return to these borders, they felt they were the ones punished the most after WWI, even worse than the Germans--according to them. They were left with only 1/3 of their land from before...

Nice maps. In fact, I know a Xer Hungarian who is like that. His dad fled to Austria during the 1956 rebellion, after which he came here. He can go on and on about the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, the ill treatment Hungary received by the Entente powers, and especially the loss of Transylvania to Romania, so it's generally better not to get him started.
It's funny though how the world, by instinct it may seem, choose to forget some things and remember others. Like in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for example, wherein Transylvania is being described as a part of Romania.

Originally Posted by Tussilago

Nice maps. In fact, I know a Xer Hungarian who is like that. His dad fled to Austria during the 1956 rebellion, after which he came here. He can go on and on about the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, the ill treatment Hungary received by the Entente powers, and especially the loss of Transylvania to Romania, so it's generally better not to get him started.
It's funny though how the world, by instinct it may seem, choose to forget some things and remember others. Like in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) for example, wherein Transylvania is being described as a part of Romania.

I had two Hungarian Professors (Silent & Boomer equivalents) mention it in their classes and lament over the fact when I was studying abroad in Wien. They even mentioned how Austria was the only Central Power to gain land, from Hungary: Burgenland.



From what I hear sentiment to recreate the old Hungary extends so far that they even mentioned that Hungarians have bumper stickers showing a map of the original borders of Hungary.

Slovakians & Croatians aren't too happy about that proposal and have responded with a bumper campaign sticker of their own showing the Hungarian map with a big red no symbol across the map. The Yugoslavians, Ukranians, Polish, and Romanians haven't weighed in yet from what I hear.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Tussilago

This was not about bringing the Palestinians back their land. It was about buying into the moral justifications of the Jewish state in Palestine, most of which are fake. You said the Palestinians only got what they deserved since some of them made friends with Adolf Hitler. I argued such circumstance is irrelevant.

I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. The Grand Mufti's and a number of Palestinians' support for Nazi Germany naturally did not matter in the founding of the Jewish state against the will of the indigenous population. It was a done deal going back decades.
Also, if we are to drag such curiosities as the Peace of Westphalia into the discussion, how could the Palestinians be considered a neutral or belligerent party when there was no Palestinian state to lose or keep territory to begin with?

What is this with you and the Jews?

Does "Tussilago" mean "fruitcake" in Swedish?

Intolerance. Pass it on.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

What is this with you and the Jews?

Well, you know how it is. Europeans = irredeemable Jew baiters forever. And for no reason at all.

Does "Tussilago" mean "fruitcake" in Swedish?

Actually, it's the name of beautiful, pretty little flower.

Intolerance. Pass it on.

Whatever.

Let's assume that Fox News etc. are able to whip up anti-Vladimir Putin hysteria to a crescendo, use it as a springboard to electoral success in 2014 and 2016 - and then, once in power, foment a 4T total war between the U.S. and Russia, and the U.S.-backed side wins.

Might the eponymous territory of this thread's title then revert to German control, with the name Konigsberg and all? And might Russia lose other territory as well - Karelia reverts to Finland, Karafuto (southern Sakhalin Island) to Japan, and so on?

Also, there might be another round of newly independent states, including Chechnya, Dagestan, Kalmykia, Buryatia, North Ossetia (with or without Georgian-controlled South Ossetia, just as today's independent Armenia does not include the part still controlled by Turkey), Kabardino-Balkaria, Tannu Tuva, etc. - and all of the ones I have listed here have (or in some cases would have, if all became independent) borders with countries other than Russia - hence no "Lesotho situation" making them inherently unviable.