Israel has a stable Democratic Government and the country is prosperous, but sections in the south are constantly bommed from Gaza. Weapons are smuggled into Gaza by underground tunnels. The bommings are about 8,000 each year which only gives 15 seconds to seek cover from indiscriminate rockets entering Israel. That averages about 24 each day which distresses everday life and terifies the children. My brother who travelled through Lebanon, Israel and Egypt recently, said that only Israel would appear as a first World country.

Belly,

Saudi Arabia is stable....(so are the Gulf States)

It's a "friend" of the West and is rich.

It's not a democracy.

It doesn't bestow its women autonomy.

And, most importantly.....

It wasn't invaded as retribution for its part in the funding of 9/11.

P'rot.

Perhaps some clues might be found in the below:

How many of its neighbours has Saudi invaded in recent years?

How many times has Saudi given WMD inspectors the runaround?

How many thousands did the King of Saudi shoot and bury in shallow graves in the desert?

And this is a dastardly, devious bit of a Poirotism:<<It wasn't invaded as retribution for its part in the funding of 9/11>>

What funding and involvement there was, was done by private citizens --NOT at govt level.

Hope that helps!

SPQR,

Got that - so Iraq was invaded in 2003 because it invaded Kuwait in 1991.

What's your point about WMD inspectors...you know, the one's who were ignored when they found diddly-squat in Iraq?

You are right about private Saudi investment in 9/11....most of the hijackers were Saudi too, weren't they?

As I've pointed out, why did the US turn a blind eye to Saddam's "crimes" when he was beating up the Iranians.

I'm not defending, Hussein, merely pointing out that invasions don't rest on altruism,....they rest on whether or not it's fundamentally in the economic interest of the US.

P'rot,

<<so Iraq was invaded in 2003 because it invaded Kuwait in 1991>>

That is a pretty good call. If he hadn't invaded Kuwait in all likelihood he would not have set in motion a chain of events that led to his ousting.Actually what Saddam did in invading Kuwait was a statesman like gamble. Had he pulled it off, with Kuwait's and Iraq's hydrocarbons resources combined the resultant greater Iraq would have been a ME superstate and Saddam with be the uber-big man in the ME --but alas, poor Yorrick, he lost the gamble.

<<You are right about private Saudi investment in 9/11....most of the hijackers were Saudi too, weren't they?>>

But if we are damning ALL Saudi's because of the infinitesimal involvement you allude to, shouldn't we also be condemning ALL Muslims because of their H-U-G-E involvement in other mischiefs --I'll hold off condemning Moslems/Islam till I get your call on that!

<<What's your point about WMD inspectors...you know, the one's who were ignored when they found diddly-squat in Iraq?>>

Yes, but we didn't know that at the time --I doubt that even your omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent self knew that at the time --oh maybe you did, but you didn't tell any of us.In hindsight everyone is wiser. If Saddam had not played funny buggers with the inspectors he might have gotten away with it.

But having said all that, it might have been better to have put the time, money and persons we pumped into Iraq and Afghanistan into other more rewarding things like exploring and terraforming Mars and Venus.

SPQRm

"...but we didn't know that at the time..."

Well, yes we did.

That's why we sent in inspectors.

They came to the "conclusion" that there were no WMD's in Iraq.

The US and the Coalition decided that they would ignore the "inspectors" "findings" and invade anyway.

In fact, the whole fragile fictitious premise for the invasion was that Iraq had WMD's.

I would acquiesce to your line of thinking if the inspectors had been wrong - but they weren't.

The whole "let's send in inspectors and watch Saddam set them on a merry dance" was staged to show what a recalcitrant blighter Saddam was.

Why send in inspectors if their conclusions are ignored?