[PornoDoggy]

Now wait a minute. My comments regarding the murdered sailors of the USS Liberty, and the espionage committed against my country were offered only as an explanation as to why I view Israel with the exact same skepticism as I do any other Middle Eastern nation. BTW, I can certainly understand why you wouldn't care to address those issues. I agree with you completely that they have nothing to do with the war in Iraq, and they were never intended as comments that relate directly to the current situation.

However, I'm impressed with your ability to take that and use it to compare me to a spokesman for Arafat. You would do quite well in American conservative politics. Do you speak evangelical?

(Out of respect for your skills, I will resist the temptation to suggest that you may be right in arguing that nothing good could come of allowing a terrorist group to form a government. I could suggest that historical precedent exists, even if they only killed mad dogs and Englishmen. Please - don't take that one seriously, okay?).

Now, I had assumed that the patronizing tone of your first several posts was due to a language thing - but it's pretty obvious that it's not, so I will make this crystal clear. I am not some provincial bumpkin who is unaware of the nasty, dangerous nature of the world. I was aware of the nature of Islamic fundamentalism BEFORE the U.S. puppet fled Iran and the Mullahs took over. The problem is not new at all - it's merely another variation of response to what has been called neocolonialism, and it's been going on for decades in one form or another.

I am far more worried about North Korea and an Asian arms race, about the India/Pakistan dispute, about the chaos that is Indonesia, and the unrest in the Philippines than I am about Lebanon, or Syria, or Iran. The threat presented to the United States by those countries has in fact diminished drastically since Gulf War I - some Americans would do well to consider that when they evaluate the legacy of George I. The threat those nations present to other countries have a myriad of causes, not all of them having anything to do with the evil intent of those regimes.

I am not the sort of fool who believes we can negotiate with terrorists or "understand their point of view," but I am also most definitely not interested in recruiting for them and continuing the conflict indefinitely by military incursions that will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. The people who love to point out that "this is not Vietnam" probably don't have a clue what I mean when I say that it wasn't a Vietnam scenario - until now that the fighting stops. We won't know that for sure for years.

Which brings me to alQaida - the single greatest threat to the United States, even if only a minor annoyance to some other countries (regardless of their rhetoric). I had to laugh when you said "You are basically admitting that the war in Iraq has nothing to do directly with alQaida. The connection is not as direct as you today think." Golly gee, you mean there isn’t a connection? Fuck, I've been screaming that for months at every bobble-headed Bushite who repeats whatever Ari Fleischer spouts (Mon & Thu - terrorism; Tue & Fri - WMD; Wed & Sat - "eeeee-villl dick-tater"; Sunday - run 'em all up the flagpole and see what they salute).

BTW ... if you stick around the board for a while you will find that I am far from being uncritical of my own country. Why, there are well-educated folks around here who can't decide if I'm a traitor, a defeatist, or just an all around menace to society.

In short, I understand fully well what you are saying - I just don't believe it. It's not a question of me not having a series of facts that you possess - it’s that I view the same facts as you do from a very different perspective and reject your conclusions.



Last edited by PornoDoggy at Apr 11 2003, 10:23 PM