What would President Bush do if we started to have suicide bombers like Israel is having now?

Martial law? Suspension of carry permits? Increase of carry permits? Rounding up of all middle easterns of a certain age? Pat downs every time you enter an establishment?

Do you think we would lose a lot more personal freedoms?

How would it change the way you live your life if resturants were being blown up everyday in this country?

I think it would be very isolated and wouldn't really affect the country as a whole. Remember this country is a LOT bigger geographically than is Israel.

Well, I do know one thing - we wouldn't be accepting anyone else's advice that we needed to settle down first and come to some sort of agreement of our misunderstandings with the other party.

Restraint, Hell! We'd want to kill someone!

Did we ever offer a sit-down with Bin Laden?

Eric The(HellNo!)Hun[>]:)]

The only difference between here and Israel is there is no idea of an "occupied territory."  Bush doesn't want to be seen as a president that sent us into unnecessary conflict.  Remember, his father took an approval ratings beating during the gulf war.  Bush has to walk a fine line between appearing to actively fight terrorism while still encouraging peace.  Such is the filthy game of politics and pig wrestling.  I too have wondered why we insist on keeping Israel on a leash, yet the answer is as clear as the headline on drudgereport.com today.

[B]"Islamic states warn of 'all-out war'..."

How many people here don't understand that aggression of any kind in the middle east could easily touch off WWIII?  No one wants a major conflict in that area outside of the current operations in Afghanistan.  Firstly, the US would have to eventually get involved, and secondly, this would take our focus off operations in Afghanistan and possible future actions against Iraq/Iran.

[:D]

In what alternate reality did THAT happen?  In OUR timeline, Bush's approval ratings were throught the roof during the war and only plunged when the economy went to crap.

There are about 6 million people living in Israel, compared to 278 million in this country.  Proportionately, if America suffered a bombing like this Sunday's which killed 15 Israelis, the equivalent would be [b]869 Americans dead.[/b]

What would we do if this was happening [i]day after day[/i]??  We'd be killing people, lots and lots of people...


[url]http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/is.html[/url]

In the past fifty years, there have been six wars in the Middle East.  None of them turned into WWIII.

Why would a war now be any different?

because at present there is more anger and more of a feeling of being united among arab states/groups. although i don't it would be WW3, there is a potential for a major shitstorm and a HUUUUGE bill, which we'll end up footing because we always do.

You'll have to excuse me if I'm wrong, as it would be the product of the public school I was attending at the time.  But if I recall correctly, after a short period into Desert Shield/Storm, the popular opinion among the citizenry was that we needed to get out of there and be done with the region.  I believe this may have been coupled with the economic downturn, but as I was an 15 year old poor kid at the time the economic downturn didn't mean much to me.  Was there another reason why we left the region without killin Saddam?  What I remember of that time was that popular opinion was to get the hell out of there, which Bush did not want to do.

What happened was, Bush and the war were incredibly popular.  But Bush had bought into the multinational alliance to prosecute the war and their stated goal had always been the repulsion of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, not the overthrow of the Iraqi government.
Bush was still very popular after the war, but a few months later the economy went in the toilet and he wound up losing the election.

Should I break out the charts?

Let's see...

There's currently a unified muslim front, with even Iraq playing nice with the rest of the Muslim countries.  This should be troubling enough, as Saddam is the proverbial snake in the grass.

But even more worrisome is the fact that several of the Muslim nations in the area have WMD.  Three countries in the area have confirmed nuclear weapons (India, Pakistan, and Israel), with several peripheral states (Russia, China, and North Korea) nuclear capable as well.  Tensions are still high between India and Pakistan too.  All it would take would be one wrong move by anyone in the region and things could escalate quickly.  The region isn't exactly known for it's stability.

And don't forget the couple dozen suitcase-sized high-yield nuclear bombs that are still unaccounted for that could have found themselves on the black market.  It may be unlikely, but not impossible that they have fallen into the wrong hands.

But I guess, other than that, things are exactly the same as they were 50 years ago.

I don't think the Arabs are any more united now than they were in, say, 1967, when they had Nasser leading them and the Soviets backing them.  

By the way, if you want to talk about a HUGE bill, how about the proposal to send American troops to act as a "stabilizing force" between the Israelis and Palestinians?  Doesn't anyone remember what happened in Lebanon?

Really?  Who's its leader?  And which countries belong to it?  Have the governments of Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iraq been overthrown and replaced with Islamic theocracies?

Osama bin Laden and friends would [b]like[/b] to create a "unified muslim front" but it hasn't happened yet.


Look at a map.

India and Pakistan are not part of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  They have their own problems.

Russia and China have both had H-bombs since 1967.  Neither country has gotten any closer to the Middle East since then. [;)]

North Korea isn't even close to the region.  It's way, way over on the other side of Asia.  

If a new Arab-Israeli war did go nuclear, it would likely be a regional exchange, not a global one.  Why would any of the belligerents waste a nuke on an outside power?  Or why would any outside power get involved?