Slippery Slope
This is an age old term that basically says “be careful which way you go”. Today’s times warrant using that expression a lot.
If you cast your lot with one person or one idea, you must be aware if that person or idea turns out to be not what you expected or that idea turns out to be an utter failure.
I don’t think there is any question as to the United States’ position on Israel. During the Obama administration you could pretty much see it for what it was, anti-Israel and the Trump administration made no bones about being behind Israel. The Biden administration has been pretty much in the Israeli camp as well, accept maybe for freeing up six billion dollars of Iranian assets a couple of weeks before the Hamas attack.
Hmmm, coincidence. I think not.
Just because that money is not being used directly to fund Hamas, you can be damn sure that some Iranian money has been funneled into the tunnels. Makes no sense, one of the poorest places on earth has enough firepower to level cities and kill thousands. Where did all that come from?
Anyway, the administration from the very start of this conflict has backed Israel. I am not sure they had much choice in the matter. You have terrorists attacking an ally, you stand behind your ally.
The first thing that becomes a “Slippery Slope” is how the US responds and how the other nations in the Middle East respond as well. If you show too much force and become materially involved, does that cause a wider conflagration? If you just show force, does that leave an opening for Iran to become more engaged? Does one thing set this whole mess spiraling to a place you only read about in worst case defense scenarios?
The United States has to tread lightly for the time being and they are doing just that. The US is sending Israel arms and equipment to defend itself and I don’t think there is any question about that. We have sent 100 billion plus to Ukraine, which, by the way, is almost as corrupt as some of those countries in Latin America. We should be sending arms to Israel.
The slipperiest slope imaginable is sending President Biden to Israel to show support for Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel. All sorts of things could go wrong with this visit. Putting Joe Biden is front of Netanyahu will expose Joe Biden for the blathering idiot that he has become. I watched his conversation and he clearly is only about 50% there and that is scary on so many levels.
Having any sitting President go to a country at war is a huge risk even if the President involved is totally in control of all his faculties. The President’s safety has to also be taken into account. Granted the Israelis know security (or do they?) and I have the utmost faith in them in regards to keeping our beloved President safe but it still is a huge risk.
There is also a risk further down the line for the Democrats and they know it.
The attack on that hospital in Gaza has caused over 500 deaths and no one seems to know who’s rocket hit that building. I think there will be a full scale investigation by multilateral parties and the truth will come out.
If it was some spinoff faction of the terrorist group Hamas there could be some implication that maybe this was done to make it look like the Israelis are coincidence civilian targets. I would not put it past the Death Merchants of Hamas to kill their own people to make it look like the Israelis did it. If the Israelis are responsible that lends itself to a much bigger problem in Israel, the Middle East and in the US as well.
Biden and Netanyahu holdings hands will not be a good look if this turns out to be an Israeli disaster. If the Palestinians in Gaza suffer more horrific, needless losses and the poison that is Hamas is not eradicated this may be the end of Joe Biden as President.
The longer this war goes on, the more innocent people will suffer and that is not something anyone wants on their resumé.
Let’s be totally honest here. I really don’t see that the administration had much choice but to respond the way they have. As President, you have to make hard, unpopular choices and he has in regards to these crisis’. Or at least his puppet masters have.
Am I a fan of sending billions of dollars to Ukraine? No. To further the discussion, when that war is over, how much money will the US be sending to rebuild the country? I will say it will be an equal amount. Remember, war is always great for business.
The next thing that runs as slippery a slope as you can get is what’s happening on US college campuses. Apparently we have raised a generation of Palestinian loving undergraduates and graduates. My guess is it more about the oppression the Palestinians have had to deal with over the last thousand years or so. More recently establishing the State of Israel pushed the Palestinians to a couple of narrow stretches of land in the newly founded nation. This was British-American in it’s development and over time has proven to be a failure.
With that being said and knowing that the Palestinians have occupied the land that is now Israel you would think that this was wrong on many levels but remember the Jews have lived in this area for as long as anyone else and creating the State of Israel, a place of home for the Jews throughout the Middle East and after what had happened in World War II solved a lot of issues throughout Europe.
I totally believe that there are solid righteous arguments for both viewpoints but we are not talking about supporting an oppressed, impoverished people here, we are talking about supporting a terrorist organization that has made it their life long mission to eradicate Jews off of this planet. Blaming Israel for the terrorist attack is ludicrous. The Israeli’s did not fire the first shot. Hamas did. Without believing or denying the atrocities that Hamas has performed it is pretty clear that over a thousand innocent Israelis died last Saturday. Believe all you want about the Palestinian oppression ( most of it self created) nothing gives any nation or group the right to kill innocent people with zero provocation.
Because a vast majority of large donors to major US college are Jewish or just support the Israeli state, we are now seeing another slippery slope. Colleges have to appease the biggest donors because that is what they do. Get a check, name a building, kiss an ass. It has been going on for years and years. Now the student bodies are rallying for something they believe in and all of a sudden the donors are writing letters and threatening to pull funding. Where were they when colleges were ditching conservative speakers because the liberal student base didn’t want to hear what they had to say? Where were they when free speech was being trampled on? Now all of a sudden, these students are protesting for what they believe in and funding is disappearing.
Look, I think students have a right to protest whatever they want. They disagree with American policies? Let them protest. I may not agree with them and think maybe they are not looking at the full picture but I definitely believe they have the right to express their opinions.
One of the scariest parts of this is that some of these billionaires want to in effect blacklist some of these students from working at their companies. This is another slippery slope as well.
A business owner has every right to hire who he wants when he wants. He is obligated by law to not take race or sex into account but nowhere does it say anything about political or social viewpoints.
That is one side of the coin, the other side is that it sounds like we are moving back to ‘50’s and the Communist witch hunts by Senator McCarthy. Are we now going to start blacklisting qualified candidates because they led a protest concerning something that the owner didn’t like?
The problem with all of this is that there really is no clear side other than the United States must back one of it’s most important allies. Doing anything less will certainly lead to a much bigger problem for Israel and potentially other parts of the World.
There is a reason the United States has the most powerful fighting force in the World, “With strength comes peace”