Ariel Sharon - his successor

My own view is that, yes, Sharon was reasonably moderate. It seems to me that George W Bush exacted pressure on him to throw a carrot to the Arab World by withdrawing settlements. What Bush really wanted, however, was American bases in the Middle East and access to Iraqi oil so he needed Sharon to make concessions (and to be seen to be making concessions due to American intervention).
Israel may have been used to a degree.
However, the sight of Israelis being dragged from their homes and Palestinian gunmen interpreting this as weakness in the face of terrorism has really hurt Ariel Sharon (in my view).
This has really been his problem. I fear that a genuine attempt to create a Palestinian State has encouraged extremists to believe they accomplished all of this via terrorism and Israelis probably don't like that at all.
Probably the stress of being caught between Bush and the irate Jewish people has told on Sharon's health the same way as Bush wore out Blair (who has had heart scares).
However the case may be, I firmly believe war with Iran is just round the corner and may be out of control of the U.S. if Israel decides to strike first.
Now I'm sounding like a prophet of doom.

ptlwp said:

Since Mr. Sharon's health appears to be in very dire straights...there are going to be a lot of folks who are going to miss him....the least likely, too.....when Netanyahu, a hard liner, gets in, the Arabs will cry for the day they celebrated Mr. Sharon's demise.......quick or slow. His demise will be regretted.

Dance now....because I don't think Arab neighbors shall be dancing later.

Carrera said:

My own view is that, yes, Sharon was reasonably moderate. It seems to me that George W Bush exacted pressure on him to throw a carrot to the Arab World by withdrawing settlements. What Bush really wanted, however, was American bases in the Middle East and access to Iraqi oil so he needed Sharon to make concessions (and to be seen to be making concessions due to American intervention).
Israel may have been used to a degree.
However, the sight of Israelis being dragged from their homes and Palestinian gunmen interpreting this as weakness in the face of terrorism has really hurt Ariel Sharon (in my view).
This has really been his problem. I fear that a genuine attempt to create a Palestinian State has encouraged extremists to believe they accomplished all of this via terrorism and Israelis probably don't like that at all.
Probably the stress of being caught between Bush and the irate Jewish people has told on Sharon's health the same way as Bush wore out Blair (who has had heart scares).
However the case may be, I firmly believe war with Iran is just round the corner and may be out of control of the U.S. if Israel decides to strike first.
Now I'm sounding like a prophet of doom.

I don't think you are being a prophet of Doom, but just being rather circumspect. You will find many others, of every walk of life, thinking the same thing. Why does an oil rich country need so many nuclear reactors, prey tell? Ahhh.......for peaceful purposes, I forgot.

ptlwp said:

Why does an oil rich country need so many nuclear reactors, prey tell? Ahhh.......for peaceful purposes, I forgot.

Maybe you can find the answer to that in your beloved USA. Has lots of Oil (and the Iraqi oilfields too now), and the US has a massive number of Nuclear Reactors. 🙂

According to Tony Blair the *ONLY* viable long term energy source is Nuclear (CO2 emissions and fuel availability). Besides, Iran needs to generate a lot of revenue to bring it's infrastructure up to 1st world levels, so it needs to sell the oil rather than burn it. Furthermore current known reserves are good for another 15 years or so, and here in the UK (one of the earliest adoptors of Nuclear Power) it will take 10-15 years to build a single nuclear power plant.

Finland is building a bunch of Nuclear power plants too...

The other question is why Israel has a nuclear reactor that doesn't produce any power whatsoever. Oh, and why doesn't Israel sign up to the NPT, and open up it's nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection ? Iran has done both of those things and massively exceeded their NPT obligations in the process.

ptlwp said:

Since Mr. Sharon's health appears to be in very dire straights...there are going to be a lot of folks who are going to miss him....the least likely, too.....when Netanyahu, a hard liner, gets in, the Arabs will cry for the day they celebrated Mr. Sharon's demise.......quick or slow. His demise will be regretted.

Dance now....because I don't think Arab neighbors shall be dancing later.

In answer to your question, I think that the leadership issue is very important.

I hope the Israeli's realise that their presence in Palestine and their occupation of Palestine, is unethical and immoral, and that their occupation of Palestine will end, as it did in Lebannon.

I am heartened by the election of Mr Peretz as leader of Labour in Israel.
Peretz is on record as wanting to bring an ethical and moral solution to the Israeli/Palestine conflict.

However, the scaremongering of the Zionists will probably make the election of Mr Peretz as PM of Israel a long shot.
The Zionists will scaremonger and lie, and will insist on Israel electing
another military person like General Sharon.

limerickman said:

In answer to your question, I think that the leadership issue is very important.

I hope the Israeli's realise that their presence in Palestine and their occupation of Palestine, is unethical and immoral, and that their occupation of Palestine will end, as it did in Lebannon.

I am heartened by the election of Mr Peretz as leader of Labour in Israel.
Peretz is on record as wanting to bring an ethical and moral solution to the Israeli/Palestine conflict.

However, the scaremongering of the Zionists will probably make the election of Mr Peretz as PM of Israel a long shot.
The Zionists will scaremonger and lie, and will insist on Israel electing
another military person like General Sharon.

Large populations, areas with a large amount of industrialization, areas that lack for other options to keep up with their growing needs for more ways of getting the power that they need are all factors in the "need for energy in different nations".

Israel will vote for whom they see as their best option for themselves, same as any ole other country......look at the half of the USA who voted for Georgie....could you ever have imagined? LOL

P.S. I hope that more nuclear power is built by the USA. I think it is lesser off all evils (lesser of evil is still evil, I know, already); and I think that the USA can and will make safer devices, hopefully in the near future. Anything that lesens needs for fossil fuel is a great leap for mankind, it seems to me.

Chernobyl aside, of couse, a facility built on the "cheap" and obviously not designed well, has made the nuclear possibilities rather unsavory, and for good reason but I do wish that a good nuclear program were put in place for the safety and better lives for all....

and I might add, Finland did not recently state that they would like to have a close neighbor, say Denmark, taken off the face of the earth, so let's get real about that analogy...

Here is Elena's website that was featured in the newspapers some months back. Be warned, it's macabre. What she does essentially is ride through Chernobyl on a motorbike. She calls it the land of wolves. Everything is frozen in time as it was when the reactor malfunctioned.
http://www.kiddofspeed.com/chernobyl-land-of-the-wolves/

ptlwp said:

Large populations, areas with a large amount of industrialization, areas that lack for other options to keep up with their growing needs for more ways of getting the power that they need are all factors in the "need for energy in different nations".

Israel will vote for whom they see as their best option for themselves, same as any ole other country......look at the half of the USA who voted for Georgie....could you ever have imagined? LOL

P.S. I hope that more nuclear power is built by the USA. I think it is lesser off all evils (lesser of evil is still evil, I know, already); and I think that the USA can and will make safer devices, hopefully in the near future. Anything that lesens needs for fossil fuel is a great leap for mankind, it seems to me.

Chernobyl aside, of couse, a facility built on the "cheap" and obviously not designed well, has made the nuclear possibilities rather unsavory, and for good reason but I do wish that a good nuclear program were put in place for the safety and better lives for all....

and I might add, Finland did not recently state that they would like to have a close neighbor, say Denmark, taken off the face of the earth, so let's get real about that analogy...

Carrera said:

Here is Elena's website that was featured in the newspapers some months back. Be warned, it's macabre. What she does essentially is ride through Chernobyl on a motorbike. She calls it the land of wolves. Everything is frozen in time as it was when the reactor malfunctioned.
kiddofspeed.comchernobyl land of the wolvesOpen ↗

Get back on topic idiot.

Very well. One other point is that George W Bush had advised Ariel Sharon to exercise more and I have to admit I agree. George W Bush rides a bike at least but Ariel Sharon appears to be a classic example of a guy who needs to keep in trim. He is way overweight but let's hope he makes a recovery.

FredC said:

Get back on topic idiot.

As my endocrinologist said: "If it was easy to stay slender, then everyone would be skinny"..(ahem) He is in very good shape for a man of his age.....60 plus or so.

I wish Mr. Sharon a safe recovery and I see how well the mentation of Iran is doing. Maybe George was right about the axis of evil, after all? I'd hate to admit that, believe me.

I have to lose weight, I have hypertension and take meds for it, without it, I can go as high as 190/98....that is real bad.

I have to take Diovan HCT 180/12.5.

I wonder if I will wind up with stroking out anyway. I need my bicycle riding badly but the weather is dreadful now.

ptlwp said:

As my endocrinologist said: "If it was easy to stay slender, then everyone would be skinny"..(ahem) He is in very good shape for a man of his age.....60 plus or so.

I wish Mr. Sharon a safe recovery and I see how well the mentation of Iran is doing. Maybe George was right about the axis of evil, after all? I'd hate to admit that, believe me.

I have to lose weight, I have hypertension and take meds for it, without it, I can go as high as 190/98....that is real bad.

I have to take Diovan HCT 180/12.5.

I wonder if I will wind up with stroking out anyway. I need my bicycle riding badly but the weather is dreadful now.

Get real. Sharon's had it. They should give Shimon Peres a turn at the helm. I know he's 82, but if he's up for it, why not? that Netanyahu's nothing but trouble.
You BP's a mess, when the bottom number hits the 100 mark your heading for trouble. Must have been all those hippy recreation sweeties.

FredC said:

Get real. Sharon's had it. They should give Shimon Peres a turn at the helm. I know he's 82, but if he's up for it, why not? that Netanyahu's nothing but trouble.
You BP's a mess, when the bottom number hits the 100 mark your heading for trouble. Must have been all those hippy recreation sweeties.

Whoops. le plus ca change. Ehud Olmert the leader of the Sharon Kadima party while Sharon is dying has just made a new appointment to the cabinet as Foreign Secretary Ms Tzipi Livni(47), and guess what her father did? He was a Zionist Terrorist with Irgun. Says it all really doesn't it?

darkboong said:

Maybe you can find the answer to that in your beloved USA. Has lots of Oil (and the Iraqi oilfields too now), and the US has a massive number of Nuclear Reactors. 🙂

According to Tony Blair the *ONLY* viable long term energy source is Nuclear (CO2 emissions and fuel availability). Besides, Iran needs to generate a lot of revenue to bring it's infrastructure up to 1st world levels, so it needs to sell the oil rather than burn it. Furthermore current known reserves are good for another 15 years or so, and here in the UK (one of the earliest adoptors of Nuclear Power) it will take 10-15 years to build a single nuclear power plant.

Finland is building a bunch of Nuclear power plants too...

The other question is why Israel has a nuclear reactor that doesn't produce any power whatsoever. Oh, and why doesn't Israel sign up to the NPT, and open up it's nuclear facilities to IAEA inspection ? Iran has done both of those things and massively exceeded their NPT obligations in the process.

Given the huge lie about WMD in iraq,I suspect the real issue is about keeping nuclear power generation in the hands of those who possess it now.As oil supplies diminish,there will be huge profits to be made in the near future if the supply is restricted and as western economies are so dependant on third world countries for oil,this would also reverse the balance of power held by them.

stevebaby said:

Given the huge lie about WMD in iraq,I suspect the real issue is about keeping nuclear power generation in the hands of those who possess it now.As oil supplies diminish,there will be huge profits to be made in the near future if the supply is restricted and as western economies are so dependant on third world countries for oil,this would also reverse the balance of power held by them.

I think you might well be on to something there, Steve.
Very astutue

Oil is running out (production is believed to plateau in 2010 :all the while energy demand increases which means that effectively oil supply will fall from 2010).

In the meantime, energy is still required to power economies.
Restrict the access of countries wishing to develop an alternative (to oil) energy supply ie nuclear power.
There is a lot of merit to your point.

FredC said:

Whoops. le plus ca change. Ehud Olmert the leader of the Sharon Kadima party while Sharon is dying has just made a new appointment to the cabinet as Foreign Secretary Ms Tzipi Livni(47), and guess what her father did? He was a Zionist Terrorist with Irgun. Says it all really doesn't it?

Gee, do you think she will be as moderate as Ariel Sharon who was booted out of his position for his part in the thousands massacred at Sabra and Shatilla ?

Fat chance.

stevebaby said:

Given the huge lie about WMD in iraq,I suspect the real issue is about keeping nuclear power generation in the hands of those who possess it now.As oil supplies diminish,there will be huge profits to be made in the near future if the supply is restricted and as western economies are so dependant on third world countries for oil,this would also reverse the balance of power held by them.

That crossed my mind, but the question that raises is : Where does the majority of Uranium ore live exactly ?

darkboong said:

That crossed my mind, but the question that raises is : Where does the majority of Uranium ore live exactly ?

Australia,followed by that pillar of stable democracy,kazakhstan.