Clinton shows his good side.

[BoredShirtless]

Can you see the difference between saying something false with intent, and without intent? The first is a lie, the second is incompetence. Because I don't know whether there was intent, I can't call Bush a liar.

However, the evidence he presented WAS a lie. Your government KNEW beforehand that the doc was a forgery, but passed it to the President anyway.

Once again, Bush war relaying the fact that the British lad learned Saddam sought uranium in Africa, which is true, the Britain had learned that, and they still stand by that, even though the Niger document was found to be a forgery, because it's not the only source of information they were relying on to make that claim.

So even absent the Niger document, Bush can still truthfully report the fact that the British are reporting Saddam to have sought uranium in Africa.

The Vice President's office was aware of the fraudulent nature of the evidence as early as February 2002 - nearly a year before the President gave his State of the Union address.

Now that you know this, do you conceed your government lied?

I worded that poorly. The point I was making is you can't defeat terrorism by force.

You can't defeat it by just talking with the terrorists either. And attempting to do so sets the unacceptably dangerous precedent that you can be coerced by anyone who has a grievance and is willing to be ruthless.

You don't have the resources to purge or pacify every terrorist and invade every country sponsoring these terrorists, so your country better learn how to talk as well.

So what is the goal of Al-Qaeda?

One of Osama bin Laden's stated goals is the destruction of Israel, though he's focused his network more at hitting us than them.

But his illustrates why we simply cannot negotiate with these people; their demands are simply not ones we can ever acceed to. Even if you do not support Israel over the Palestinians in the conflict, you simply cannot sanction the destruction of Israel. This is not a realistic or acceptable demand, but the really radical Islamic terrorists out there are not willing to back off from it. What too many people are not willing to face up to is that these people want to see the Jews made extinct as much as Hitler ever did.

Clearly the destruction of Israel is a laughable demand. But why would they call for it? Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel:

"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that
I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this
area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man,
because the Palestinian childs existence infers that generations will
go on, but the man causes limited danger."
Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.

Can you please give some examples?

The Romans pacified Gaul, have to put down more than one revolt, and eventually turned Gaul into one of the most productive and loyal parts of the Empire. Charlemagne conquered and pacified parts of his empire. They did the same thing in Britain. Later, in Britain again, the Normans pacified Saxon England by conquest, especially in the north of England where there was strong resistance to the Norman conquerors.

The Turks conquered Anatolia by force following the disastrous Byzantine defeat at Manzikert in 1071, and changed it from predominantly Christian to predominantly Muslim. The Spanish reconquered and pacified the Iberian peninsula, completing the job in 1492, turning Muslim Spain into Christian Spain. The Reconstruction South was conquered by force, and occupied for a time by Union armies.

These are just a few examples.

Hey thanks for being relevant. Examples with TERRORISTS in them?

I agree, and like to add that an elimination of a grievance doesn't have to be born from force. For example Israel pulling out of Lebanon.

Which hasn’t secured the Israelis any peace from that quarter, as it turns out. See below for details.

And whos fault was that?

There's no Taliban in Afghanistan sheltering Al Quaeda now, is there?

So? This shows the government doesn't shelter Al-Quaeda, not that Al-Quada is defeated.

You're confusing religion with cause. It isn't religion which makes them fanatics, it's the behaviour of your country.

BULLSHIT!

While I grant that there may be a number of legitimate grievances with the United States, if you really believe that a religious fanatic cannot be a true beliveing, dyed-in-the-wool, wild-eyed fanatic simply because of his faith in his religion you don't understand much of anything.

You cannot derive fanatical behaviour through religion alone, you need a "trigger".

The "legitimate grievances" you so quickly gloss over are the multiple "triggers". You better start looking at the CAUSE of your problems and figure out how to solve them without invading countries or destroying asprin factories, or you'll probably achieve shit in the long run.

These are people who want to impose the Sharia, Islamic law, on the rest of the world.

Which terrorist organisations want this?

You haven't paid much attention to what people like Osama bin Laden and his followers have been saying have you. There is a radical islamist movement calling for holy war - Jihad - against infidels worldwide. Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam,

Wrong. Guided by their "legitimate grievences" with your country. BTW, what are these grievences you keep mentioning as if a passing thought, but never discuss?

the Radical Islamists believe that they will rule the world because of their conviction in the superiority of their religion.

The leader of the Western world, a war mongering country who LIES to invade a country and supports the brutal suppression of the Palestinians, and they conclude this? I'm shocked.

Their propaganda mirrors such beliefs as in the Middle East, where they call for the takeover of secular governments in Muslim countries, the destruction of Israel, and the elimination of Christians in Lebanon and South Sudan. In Africa, they call for the conversion to Islam of Black Africa. In Russia, they call for the violent secession of Chechnya, and Dagestan. In Pakistan, they promote Jihad to sever the multi-ethnic province of Kashmir from India. In China, they call for the creation of an Islamic state in Xinjiang. In South East Asia, they support the elimination of East Timor, the destruction of Christian and Chinese minorities in Indonesia, the establishment of a Radical Islamist state in the South Philippines. In Europe, they encourage Radical Islamist separatism in Bosnia and Kosovo, and now in Macedonia. In America and Europe, they have taken over the leadership of the growing Muslim communities to radicalize them and pave the way for Radical Islamist political action in the service of a global Jihad. In every instance, their message is carefully tuned to promote the legitimization of Jihad movements by the international community. To accelerate that goal the Radical Islamists of today are planning, and implementing a Jihad to re-establish the universal Caliphate.

Fortunately, the Radical Islamists are a fringe group of fanatics, though the mainstream Muslim world hasn’t said or done nearly enough to disown them.

What's your source for all of this?

It's a holy war for them.

Funny. The perception from their POV is it's a holy war for you too.

I hope your not lapsing into a case of moral relativism "everybody's equally at fault" etc. etc.

Your years of military and political intervention in the Middle East is completely unacceptable. You know what a vicous circle is right? The more times you solve your problems or expand your national interests through FORCE, the more hate you generate and the more fanatics you turn out. So yeah, everyone is at fault here, but it ain't equal. You carry the burden of the fault, simply cause you're the one meddling in their countries, until 9/11 of course.

What demands are they making that you could possibly concede to?

• Stop taking sides in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. This is one grievance EVERY Muslim has. It's the backbone of every Muslim terrorists hatred. If you remove that by supervising the creation of a Palestinian state, you'll go a long way to eliminating the reason for them to be terrorists.

Seems to me like they were making a big step toward that at Oslo. Then Arafat decided to relaunch the terror campaign. Don't listen to what he says in English, listen to tranlation of his speeched in Arabic - he's still calling for the destruction of Israel.

Was that before or after Israel murdered the Accords? From:http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2 ... mrdrd.html

Who Murdered the Oslo Accords?
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
While Israeli tanks and bulldozers were rolling into, and Israeli planes were bombarding Palestinian towns and cities, including refugee camps, President George W. Bush proclaimed that the situation in which Palestinian Authority (P.A.) President Yasser Arafat found himself—imprisoned in a room of his Ramallah headquarters—was "largely of his own making." Bush claimed that Arafat had "broken every promise made at Oslo," and that that had led to the crisis.

The argument retailed by Israeli spokesmen elaborates on the theme: Arafat had a chance for peace, but he opted for terrorism instead. Such propagandists assert, Arafat was made the offer of a lifetime in July 2000, at Camp David, by President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, an offer for a sovereign Palestinian state, but he wanted more. After rejecting the peace plan, he returned to Ramallah and unleashed the Intifada, which escalated to the point that Israel had no choice but to reoccupy the Palestinian territories and "eliminate the terrorist infrastructure."

The point is often made that, in war, the first casualty is the truth. In this case, it has been the systematic suppression of the truth and distortion of facts, which has paved the way for the current war.

It is time the truth were reasserted.

The truth is, the Oslo peace accord of September 1993 failed, because powerful Israeli interests and their U.S.-based allies caused it to fail. In an interview that September, U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche forecast prophetically, that, unless immediate progress were made on the economic aspects of the peace agreements, "enemies of progress and enemies of the human race, such as Henry Kissinger and his friends, will be successful, through people like Ariel Sharon's buddies, in intervening to drown this agreement in chaos and blood."

That is, in short, what happened. By handing control over economic development programs appended to the Oslo treaty to the World Bank, Kissinger's friends ensured that no large-scale infrastructure would be built. Instead of enjoying a peace dividend in terms of better living conditions, the Palestinians would experience a deterioration of their already disastrous conditions. This would generate demoralization, and rage—the primary ingredients for radicalization—particularly among youth, rendering them vulnerable to recruitment into extremist organizations, such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which are opposed to peace.

The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995, by right-wing Israeli extremist networks, was the political inflection point, intersecting the economic crisis. Rabin's Foreign Minister, a terrified Shimon Peres then threw the 1996 elections to Likudnik Benjamin Netanyahu, who reversed whatever implementation of Oslo there had been, and embarked on a confrontation course, by expanding illegal Israeli settlements and launching provocations. His successor, Barak, continued to dismantle Oslo, which culminated in the "offer" at Camp David, that Israel should maintain sovereignty over Jerusalem, including the sites sacred to Islam—an offer that no Arab leader, no Muslim, could accept. Following the fruitless Camp David talks, the religious passions associated with Jerusalem were consciously ignited by Sharon on Sept. 28, 2000, who demonstratively took a stroll, escorted by 1,000 Israeli police, by the holiest Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, the al-Haram al-Sharif. That act, which showed just how sensitive the Jerusalem issue is (and should have clarified why Arafat could not have accepted the Camp David offer), triggered the Intifada. This act by Sharon, is omitted from any U.S. or Israeli chronologies. Sharon's provocation was also the opening salvo to his election campaign. Once elected prime minister, by an electorate panicked by the violence that his provocation had produced, Sharon proceeded post-haste to finish off what little remained of the peace process.

What Oslo Said
The Oslo Accord signed on Sept. 13, 1993, was a political and economic program for peace. It called for establishment of a Palestinian interim self-governing authority, for the West Bank and Gaza, for a five-year period, leading to a final settlement, based on UN Resolutions 242 and 338. These call for the "withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied" in the 1967 war, secure and recognized borders, and a "just settlement of the refugee problem" regarding those Palestinians driven off their land in the wars since 1948, estimated to add up to 5 million today. The final status talks, which were to begin "not later than the third year" of the interim period, would deal with "Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations, and cooperation among neighbors, etc." The P.A. was designated to establish a "strong police force," while Israel would guarantee security against external threats. The civil administration would be withdrawn, the Israeli troops would withdraw from Jericho and Gaza, while "redeploying" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, outside populated areas.

In 1995, the Israeli-Palestinian interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza, dubbed Oslo II, stipulated the second phase of self-rule, including provisions of elections of the Palestinian National Authority, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli military and handing over power to the Palestinians in the occupied territories, and the "prohibition of any change in the status of the West Bank and Gaza pending the outcome of final status negotiations." The West Bank was to be divided up into Areas A, B, and C, under P.A. control, joint control, and Israeli control, respectively.

The most important aspect of the Oslo Accords, dealt with economic policy. It was explicitly recognized that no peace could endure, unless there were cooperation among the former adversaries around economic development, for mutual benefit. Various Palestinian institutions were foreseen, to regulate water, energy, transportation, finances, etc. Two annexes to the accords were drawn up, protocols on joint cooperation for economic and regional development, which specifically identified a number of great projects: the Gaza Sea Port, the "Mediterranean-Dead Sea canal," "regional desalination and other water development projects," agriculture, energy, and industrial development.

How Oslo Was Wrecked
The most effective means by which the Oslo Accords were sabotaged, was through economic policy. No sooner had the ink dried, than the World Bank issued a report on "development," whose parameters were simple: High priority would go to labor-intensive projects, and the lowest priority for basic infrastructure, like the canals, ports, energy, and transportation mentioned in the annexes. The World Bank report was an operative doctrine, which governed the way in which funds from donor nations were allocated. Thus, a gambling casino was considered a good investment, as was "repair of existing infrastructure" in Gaza—a cruel joke, since no infrastructure existed. It was only through European Union efforts, that any major infrastructure projects were built: the Gaza airport and sea port, for example, as well as water treatment plants and the Palestinian radio and television center. All these major projects were defined as military targets and systematically destroyed by Sharon's rampage in 2002.

The World Bank's ban on great projects was complemented by the closure policy introduced by Netanyahu, whereby, following any episodes of Palestinian violence, entire cities would be blockaded. Palestinians who travelled daily into Israel for work, were prevented from doing so, and the economic consequences were devastating. In 1993 and 1994, due to closures, unemployment went up to 10% and 15%; by the end of 1995 and early 1996, it reached 20%, and in March and April during closures, it hit 50%. In 1999, only 600 Palestinians were allowed to enter and exit the West Bank and Gaza, while the remaining 2 million were confined. Following Sharon's provocation at al-Haram al-Sharif in September 2000, violence broke out, and the Israeli regime responded with further closures. According to a UN report, in the weeks thereafter, P.A. GDP was cut in half. The number of Palestinian workers allowed into Israel for their jobs, was reduced by 53%. The effects on living standards were catastrophic, as 1998 reports on poverty in the P.A.—the first of their kind—documented. Palestinians were living in crowded quarters, school facilities were lacking water, electricity, and toilets, and food supplies were inadequate. In the rapidly growing Palestinian population—2.89 million in 1997—47% were under the age of 15. In Jenin, the site of the most intransigent Palestinian resistance, the water shortage was rendered severe due to the Israeli siege.

Nor was the suffering only economic in nature. Parallel to the closure policy, the Israelis, beginning with the Netanyahu government in 1996, accelerated their violations of the political clauses of the Oslo Accords.

Most important were the Israeli settlements on Palestinian territory. It was explicitly stated in those accords, that they prohibit "any change in the status of the West Bank, etc." Instead, every Israeli government since Oslo has continued the policy of expanding settlements. Since Barak took office in July 1999, tenders for the construction of at least 3,499 settlement housing units were issued in the occupied territories, and construction began on 2,270 units. Twenty-seven new settlement outposts (habitations not contiguous with settlements) were built since the signing of the Wye Plantation agreements in 1996—11 after March 1999. Fifteen new settlement outposts were approved for construction following the inauguration of Sharon in March 2001.

The settlements are connected one to the other, and to Israel, by bypass roads, which have created a new phenomenon in transportation geography, whereby all Israeli settlements are linked up, but Palestinian villages and cities are isolated, like so many apartheid-era bantustans. The Palestinians are not allowed to use these roads. The road connections between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, promised in the Oslo Accords, have not been built. Crazy schemes for an elevated highway to connect the two, without touching "Israeli land," have been floated. All this is in blatant violation of the Oslo Accords, which promised links between the Palestinian West Bank and Gaza, considered an inseparable unit!

The Israeli military withdrawal and redeployment (even before Sharon's reoccupation began), has also been a farce. Area A, where the P.A. is supposed to have complete control over security and civil administration, accounts for 18% of the total area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Area B accounts for 24%, and Area C, where Israel has total control, is 59%. Israel controls all borders to the Palestinian territories, and therefore the passage of persons and goods. Israel controls all roads in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, except for those in Area A. Israel controls 80% of the water resources, and all of Gaza's territorial waters.

Thus, if one wants to talk about violation of the Oslo Accords, one has to recognize, they have been made on the Israeli side, under a succession of governments: economic cooperation denied, infrastructure development blocked, transport communications sabotaged, economic life stifled, and political autonomy denied.

The Anti-Terrorism Fraud
Especially since Sept. 11, Israeli authorities have justified their increasing aggressions against the P.A., as part of the "war against terrorism." Their mantra has been, that Arafat "violated" the Oslo Accords, in that he did not use his extraordinary powers to annihilate terrorist organizations. The entire argument championed by Bush, that Arafat has "not done enough" to rein in terrorism, etc., is also a fallacy of composition.

The Oslo Accords mandated the P.A. to build a police force to maintain law and order, which it did. The acts of violence that erupted, especially under the Netanyahu regime, were organized by the militant Palestinian organization Hamas and the Islamic Jihad. Both have been, since their founding, sworn enemies of Arafat's P.A. Hamas was in fact created and nurtured by Israeli intelligence networks—officially—as a counterweight to Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1980s (see Dean Andromidas, "Israeli Roots of Hamas Are Being Exposed," EIR, Jan. 18, 2002). Sharon personally was involved in promoting Hamas in its early activities.

When the recent crisis escalated, with suicide bombings claimed by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, Sharon's response was not to pursue these elements, but rather, to launch all-out warfare against the P.A., emphatically targetting the P.A.'s police force—that institution which had been shaped, according to Oslo, as the force to establish law and order, and root out terrorism. By killing large numbers of P.A. police and security, the Israelis have made it impossible for them to act effectively against terror. The entire offensive launched by Sharon recently has targetted the P.A., the P.A. police, P.A. security, and Arafat's personal security. It has not at all targetted Hamas or Islamic Jihad. As noted by Russian strategic analyst Pavel Felgengauer, it is as if Sharon and the Hamas are working together. In fact, although Sharon invaded every major Palestinian village and city in the West Bank, he strangely left Gaza, the stronghold of Hamas, untouched. He has been systematically killing P.A. police and security, but not the terrorists themselves.

Bush would surely brush all these facts aside, and repeat, "It's the terrorism—Arafat won't bring the suicide bombers and other terrorists under control. That's the problem." At this point, one should ask Bush to review the history as it unfolded: Who was, in fact, the first suicide bomber to ignite violence in the region? Was it some Hamas activist? Or was it not one Baruch Goldstein, a fanatical Israeli settler of the Kach movement, who opened fire on a group of praying Muslims, killing 50, in a Hebron mosque, on Feb. 25, 1994? Was not this what triggered the beginning of the Palestinian suicide bombings, two months later? And who was it, who assassinated Rabin, the Israeli military professional who had opted for peace? Was it a Palestinian terrorist, or was it a right-wing Israeli extremist, acting in complicity with elements of Israeli security?

[*]After supervising the establishment of a democratically elected government, pull out of Iraq. If what your government says is true and the people of Iraq are glad Saddam is gone, they will stop of their own volition any attempts by Saddam loyalists to reform the Baath Party.

We are not planning to keep a permanent presence in Iraq.

But you're not letting the Iraqi's run their own country. This will, if it hasn't already, become very unacceptable to terrorists over there.

[*]Completely pull out of the Middle East every single bit of military equipment and personnel. Your military has no business being in the Middle East, and vice-versa.[/list]

We have national interests to protect, and allies to support. This makes this demand an unrealistic one. Both the US and world economies depend to a great extent on Middle Eastern oil, and a lot of that oil was drilled after US money was invested and skilled American workers sent to the region to drill it out of the ground. If you expect the US to leave such a vital interest completely unsecured you are kidding yourself. That is not going to happen. This is not a demand to which the US could ever accede.

This is your self-inflicted nightmare.

That depends. Can you show how Israels concession to HAMAS [Israel's pullout from Lebanon] hurt Israel?

Sure can. On, 21 January, 2003, at approximately 3:00 pm (local time), Hezbollah terrorists fired anti-tank rockets and mortar shells at positions on the Israeli side of the Blue Line in the Mount Dov area. The unprovoked cross-border attack lasted about 30 minutes during which time approximately 25 missiles and shells were fired. Hezbollah interrupted programming on its satellite telvision station, Al Manar, to claim responsibility for the attack.

Oh, PLEASE tell me you're fucking kidding!!! UNPROVOKED???

This attack is merely the latest in a long series of cross-border attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah since Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, in full and confirmed compliance with Security Council resolution 425. That resolution further required the Government of Lebanon to establish its effective authority in the area and restore international peace and security. These obligations have been affirmed repeatedly in subsequent Security Council resolutions.

To date, Lebanon has not taken any significant measures to fulfill its obligations nor has it acted to bring its policies into accord with the global campaign against terrorism. Consequently, Lebanon stands in breach of international law and Security Council resolutions 425 (1978), 426 (1978), 1310 (2000), 1337 (2001), 1365 (2001), 1391 (2002) and 1428 (2002), which call for the restoration of international peace and security and the return of effective Lebanese authority in the area. The Government of Lebanon is also in violation of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and established principles of international law, which call upon all States to refrain from providing any support, whether active or passive, to all persons or entities involved in terrorist acts, and to ensure that their territory is not used as a base for cross-border attacks.Negotiation and compromise with terrorists doesn’t usually end with the peace you hope to attain. Many, if not most of these radical Islamic terrorists are simply not willing to negotiate in good faith.

Nice red herring, and I love the way you yeild the U.N. only when it suits your argument. You personally don't give a shit about the UN when it involves the US, but Lebanon is bad cause it's violating so and so. Fuckng priceless. Anyhoo, it's time for my own red herring. Since you've brought up U.N. resolutions, we will take a little trip through the archives at the U.N. to see what resoultions Israel violates:

UN Resolutions pertaining to Israel: (68)

UNSCR 42 (1948) of 5 March 1948 [Adopted at 263rd meeting (8-0-3) (3 abstentions were Argentina, Syria, United Kingdom)]

UNSCR 43 (1948) of 1 April 1948 [Adopted at 277th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 44 (1948) of 1 April 1948 [Adopted at 277th meeting (9-0-2) (2 abstentions were Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 46 (1948) of 17 April 1948 [Adopted at 283rd meeting (9-0-2) (2 abstentions were Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 48 (1948) of 23 April 1948 [Adopted at 287th meeting (8-0-3) (3 abstentions were Colombia, Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 49 (1948) of 22 May 1948 [Adopted at 302nd meeting (8-0-3) (3 abstentions were Syria, Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 50 (1948) of 29 May 1948 [Adopted at 310th meeting (Draft was voted on in parts, no vote taken on text as a whole.)]

UNSCR 53 (1948) of 7 July 1948 [Adopted at 331st meeting (8-0-3) (3 >abstentions were Syria, Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 54 (1948) of 15 July 1948 [Adopted at 338th meeting (7-1-3) (1 against was Syria, 3 abstentions were Argentina, Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 56 (1948) of 19 August 1948 [Adopted at 354th meeting (Draft was voted on in parts, no vote taken on the text as a whole.)]

UNSCR 57 (1948) of 18 September 1948 [Adopted at 358th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 59 (1948) of 19 October 1948 [Adopted at 367th meeting -unanimously]

UNSCR 60 (1948) of 29 October 1948 [Adopted at 375th meeting (without a vote)]

UNSCR 61 (1948) of 4 November 1948 [Adopted at 377th meeting (9-1-1) (1 against was Ukrainian S.S.R.; 1 abstention was U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 62 (1948) of 16 November 1948 [Adopted at 381st meeting (Draft was voted on in parts, no vote taken on the text as a whole.)]

UNSCR 66 (1948) of 29 December 1948 [Adopted at 396th meeting (8-0-3) (3 abstentions were Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R., U.S.)]

UNSCR 69 (1949) of 4 March 1949 [Adopted at 414th meeting (9-1-1) (1 against was Egypt, 1 abstention was U.K.)]

UNSCR 72 (1949) of 11 August 1949 [Adopted at 437th meeting (without vote)]

UNSCR 73 (1949) of 11 August 1949 [Adopted at 437th meeting (9-0-2) (2 abstentions were Ukrainian S.S.R., U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 101 (1953) of 24 November 1953 [Adopted at 642nd meeting (9-0-2) (2 abstentions were Lebanon, U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 89 (1950) of 17 November 1950 [Adopted at 524th meeting (10-0-2) (2 abstentions were Egypt, U.S.S.R.)]

UNSCR 119 (1956) of 31 October 1956 [Adopted at 751st meeting (7-2-2) (2 against were France, U.K., 2 abstentions were Australia, Belgium)]

UNSCR 127 (1958) of 22 January 1958 [Adopted at 810th meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 162 (1961) of 11 April 1961 [Adopted at 949th meeting (8-0-3) (3 abstentions were Ceylon, U.S.S.R., United Arab Republic)

UNSCR 228 (1966) of 25 November 1966 [Adopted at 1328th meeting (14-01) (1 abstention was New Zealand)]

UNSCR 233 (1967) of 6 June 1967 [Adopted at 1348th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 234 (1967) of 7 June 1967 [Adopted at 1350th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 237 (1967) of 14 June 1967 [Adopted at 1361st meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 [Adopted 1382nd meeting -unanimously]

UNSCR 248 (1968) of 24 March 1968 [Adopted at 1407th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 250 (1968) of 27 April 1968 [Adopted at 1417th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR No. 251 (1968) of 2 May 1968 [Adopted at 1420th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR No. 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968 [Adopted at 1426th meeting (13-0-2) (2 abstentions were Canada, U.S.)]

UNSCR 259 (1968) of 27 September 1968 [Adopted at 1454th meeting (12-0-3) (3 abstentions were Canada, Denmark, U.S.)]

UNSCR 267 (1969) of 3 July 1969 [Adopted at 1485th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 271 (1969) of 15 September 1969 [Adopted at 1512th meeting (11-0-4) (4 abstentions were Colombia, Finland, Paraguay, U.S.)]

UNSCR 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971 [Adopted at 1582nd meeting (14-0-1)(1 abstention was Syria)]

UNSCR 331 (1973) of 20 April 1973 [Adopted at 1710th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 338 (1973) of 22 October 1973 [Adopted at 1747th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 339 (1973) of 23 October 1973 [Adopted at 1748th meeting (14-0-0) (China did not vote)]

UNSCR 344 (1973) of 15 December 1973 [Adopted at 1760th meeting (10-0-4) (4 abstentions were France, U.S.S.R., U.K., U.S.)]

UNSCR 381 (1975) of 30 November 1975 [Adopted at 1856th meeting (13-0-0) (China and Iraq did not vote)]

UNSCR 425 (1978) of 19 March 1978 [Adopted at 2074th meeting (12-0-2) (2 abstentions were Czechoslovakia and U.S.S.R., China did not participate in the voting)]

UNSCR 446 (1979) of 22 March 1979 [Adopted at 2134th meeting (12-0-3) (3 abstentions were Norway, U.K., U.S.)]

UNSCR 452 (1979) of 20 July 1979 [Adopted at 2159th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980 [Adopted at 2203rd meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 468 (1980) of 8 May 1980 [Adopted at 2221st meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 469 (1980) of 20 May 1980 [Adopted at 2223rd meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 471 (1980) of 5 June 1980 [Adopted at 2226th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 476 (1980) of 30 June 1980 [Adopted at 2242nd meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980 [Adopted at 2245th meeting (14-0-1) (1 >abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 484 (1980) of 19 December 1980 [Adopted 2260th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 500 (1982) of 28 January 1982 [Adopted at 2330th meeting (13-0-2) (2 abstentions were U.K., U.S.)] UNSCR 508 (1982) of 5 June 1982 [Adopted at 2374th meeting –unanimously]

UNSCR 509 (1982) of 6 June 1982 [Adopted at 2375th meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 512 (1982) of 19 June 1982 [Adopted at 2380th meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 513 (1982) of 4 July 1982 [Adopted at 2382nd meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 515 (1982) of 29 July 1982 [Adopted at 2385th meeting (14-0-0) (U.S. did not vote)

UNSCR 516 (1982) of 1 August 1982 [Adopted at 2386th meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 517 (1982) of 4 August 1982 [Adopted at 2389th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 518 (1982) of 12 August 1982 [Adopted at 2392nd meeting – unanimously]

UNSCR 520 (1982) of 17 September 1982 [Adopted at 2395th meeting – >unanimously]

UNSCR 521 (1982) of 19 September 1982 [Adopted 2396th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 573 (1985) of 4 October 1985 [Adopted at 2615th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)

UNSCR 592 (1986) of 8 December 1986 [Adopted at 2727th meeting (14-0-1) (1 >abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 605 (1987) of 22 December 1987 [Adopted at 2777th meeting (14-0-1) >(1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 607 (1988) of 5 January 1988 [Adopted at 2780th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 608 (1988) of 14 January 1988 [Adopted at 2781st meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 611 (1988) of 25 April 1988 [Adopted at 2810th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 636 (1989) of 6 July 1989 [Adopted at 2870th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 641 (1989) of 30 August 1989 [Adopted at 2883rd meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 672 (1990) of 12 October 1990 [Adopted at 2948th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 673 (1990) of 24 October 1990 [Adopted at 2949th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 681 (1990) of 20 December 1990 [Adopted at 2970th meeting -unanimously]

UNSCR 694 (1991) of 24 May 1991 [Adopted at 2989th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 726 (1992) of 6 January 1992 [Adopted at 3026th meeting - unanimously]

UNSCR 799 (1992) of 18 December 1992 [Adopted at 3151st meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 904 (1994) of 18 March 1994 [Adopted at 3351st meeting – unanimously (Draft was voted on in parts, with the U.S. abstaining on two preambular paragraphs. No vote was taken on the text as a whole.)]

UNSCR 1073 (1996) of 28 September 1996 [Adopted at 3698th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 1322 (2000) of 7 October 2000 Adopted at 4205th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was U.S.)]

UNSCR 1397 (2002) of 12 March 2002 [Adopted at 4304th meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was the Syrian Arab Republic)]

UNSCR 1402 (2002) of 30 March 2002 [Adopted at 4503 rd meeting (14-0-1) (1 abstention was the Syrian Arab Republic)]

UNSCR 1403 (2002) of 4 April 2002 [Adopted at 4506 th meeting-unanimously]

UNSCR 1405 (2002) of 19 April 2002 [Adopted at 4516th meeting-unanimously]

Impressive. 68 resolutions. Naughty Israel.

Terrorists/freedom fighters have wants and needs just like you and me, they have families and friends. They don't want to die, but are willing. The terrorists/freedom fighters of the Middle East just want a fair go. If the United States stopped playing sides over Israel/Palestine, you'd not only make friends, but make your country safer.

You have a really firm grip on unreality. In the first place, you are in a state of denial regarding the terrorists and their motives. Not all of them are the rabid fanatics, but if you think that type is not prominent in these organizations you are simply kidding yourself. These are people who really, truly, deeply believe that dying a martyr’s death will send them straight to heaven. It will grant them everlasting happiness in paradise, and great glory among their friends, family and admirers that they leave behind here. For these true believers, there can be no great glory. They want this.

People who don’t want to die, but are willing, do not strap on semtex belts and spread their own guts all over the street in order to take a few Israelis with them. They don’t climb into planes and crash them into skyscrapers. These are people who want a martyr’s death. They want to become heroes for the cause – the most admired kind of hero; the kind who willingly makes the ultimate sacrifice for the cause. They want this. If you don’t see it, you are kidding yourself.

As I say, not every single one of the terrorists is this sort of fanatic, but terrorist organizations attract this kind of person because that’s the place where they can fulfill their sick dreams of martyrdom,

We could become as isolationist as we were in the 1930s and that would still not be enough. I grant you it would probably placate some in the Middle East, but the real diehard fanatics like the 9/11 hijackers would still hate us. They don’t just hate us because we support Israel and send soldiers to the Middle East. They also hate us because we are decadent, licentious, corrupt, godless, infidels, and we keep spreading our culture. They see the material prosperity of the West, they see McDonalds going up in Middle Eastern cities, and see their kids watching Hollywood movies, and listening to American music, and adopting decadent Western customs and they hate us for this. This is why they call us the Great Satan. And to Muslims, Satan is not the awesome and powerful Prince of Darkness of Christian theology, the Muslim Shaitan is the tempter, the deceiver, the one who leads the faithful astray. This is precidely how they see American culture today. These people see the influence Western culture in general and American culture in particular exert, and they hate and fear us because they feel their way of life is threatened by it.

This is not the complete explanation. As I said, I realize Middle Easterners do have some grievances, and the US probably can do things to improve relations with them. But if you think what I have just described above is not a factor you are kidding yourself. Just because you don’t share this worldview, do not make the mistake of thinking nobody else does either.

You spread your culture through force. THATS why they hate you. You're in a vicious circle now. But maybe Bush's parallel approach of killing terrorists while starting up peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians will work. I hope so.

[BoredShirtless]

Puuuuush

[Perinquus]

The Vice President's office was aware of the fraudulent nature of the evidence as early as February 2002 - nearly a year before the President gave his State of the Union address.

And that document was not the only source the British are using to support that claim!

Now that you know this, do you conceed your government lied?

Since the government was relaying a British claim, that the British still stand by even after they learned that particular document was a forgery, no.

You don't have the resources to purge or pacify every terrorist and invade every country sponsoring these terrorists, so your country better learn how to talk as well.

And if you are smart, you don't negotiate with terrorists. That sets the precedent that people can extort things out of you.

destruction of Israel is a laughable demand. But why would they call for it? Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel:

"I don't know something called International Principles. I vow that
I'll burn every Palestinian child (that) will be born in this
area. The Palestinian woman and child is more dangerous than the man,
because the Palestinian childs existence infers that generations will
go on, but the man causes limited danger."
Ariel Sharon, In an interview with General Ouze Merham, 1956.

I am suspicious of this quote, since I am unable to find a single source for it that is not an Islamic propaganda site. If I see it in a more neutral source I will be less sceptical of its veracity.

Even if it is true, what does it prove? That it's the Israelis' fault? How does it prove that when I can find a shitload of anti-Israel Palestinian quotes that are every bit as venomous.

In fact, there's a whole website devoted to them here:

http://www.iris.org.il/quotes.htm

So what does that prove except that these people hate each other equally?

Hey thanks for being relevant. Examples with TERRORISTS in them?

Resistance does not always take the form of terrorism nimrod. But fine. The Roman pacification of Spain included the defeat of a guerrilla force led by Quintus Sertorius.

There was a mediaeval extremist sect in Islam called the Kharijites. The Kharijites were politically extremist, intolerant of others, living on the outside of civilisation, using terrorism against their enemies and regarded as heretics by the vast majority of Muslims. They were murderers on a large scale for political objectives, claiming Islam as their cause. The similarities with modern Al Qaeda are striking. The Kharijites had to be isolated and defeated by their fellow Muslims in order to allow mainstream Islam to survive.

The order of the Assassins, under Hassan Ibn-Al-Saabah, who came to be known as "The Old Man of the Mountain", was the group that gave us the very word "assassin", and their murders were carried out for political reasons. They almost completely destroyed by the Mongols, and the Mameluke Sultan Baybars finished them off in 1272.

More recently, the Yugoslavs (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) have enjoyed considerable success in rounding up Albanian terrorists, and putting a stop to murders of their officers and military personnel.

There's no Taliban in Afghanistan sheltering Al Quaeda now, is there?

So? This shows the government doesn't shelter Al-Quaeda, not that Al-Quada is defeated.

So? Do you honestly think that a nest of vipers like that, with cells in numerous countries worldwide, with assets in the billions, and supporters in many countries will be utterly destroyed overnight. Nobody ever said the war on terrorism would be a short one.

But right now, a large part of their support has been taken away, and a country where they once found a safe refuge no longer provides that for them. Next we root them out of other sherlters, and put pressure on those who support them to stop doing so. It won't be quick, and it won't be easy. But apparently, for you, if the results aren't instantaneous, we might as well not even bother.

You cannot derive fanatical behaviour through religion alone, you need a "trigger".

That is such complete and utter bullshit. There are numerous examples in history of fanatical behaviour that do not require someone else to provide some grievance to act as a "trigger" as you call it. If you really believe that a true believing religious follower cannot be fanatical in his faith without some cause to make him that way, you are not very familiar with either history, or with religious people.

Religious fanatacism takes many forms. Often it is directed at others in hatred, sometimes it takes the form of incredibly odd acts of "devotion" to one's faith - like those Byzantine saints who climbed atop pillars and stayed for decades on their perches, through wind and weather and eaten by lice and disease. St. Simeon Stylites (who was just one of these nuts) spent thirty-seven years on top of a series of pillars, praying and fasting, and never coming down, except to switch to a taller pillar. You don't think it takes a religious fanatic to do something like that? So you tell me, what was his trigger? What was his grievance? People can be so overwhelmed by their faith in their religion that that, all by itself, can make them fanatical. If you do not believe this, you are wrong. History abounds with examples. How they direct that fanaticism can take all kinds of forms, some of them exceptionally violent and hateful.

The "legitimate grievances" you so quickly gloss over are the multiple "triggers". You better start looking at the CAUSE of your problems and figure out how to solve them without invading countries or destroying asprin factories, or you'll probably achieve shit in the long run.

And on the other hand, if we can build a stable democracy in Iraq, and induce other nations to aid us combatting terrorism, and deal appropriately with nations which sponsor or harbor terrorists, we may just put them down in the end, though it will be a long and hard battle.

You haven't paid much attention to what people like Osama bin Laden and his followers have been saying have you. There is a radical islamist movement calling for holy war - Jihad - against infidels worldwide. Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam,

Wrong. Guided by their "legitimate grievences" with your country.

NO! Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam is what I said, and that is precisely what I meant. All Radical Islamists share the same long-term goals; they differ only over means. For example, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey is very different from the Taliban in its means, but not so different in its ends. If the party gained full control over Turkey, it could be as dangerous as the Taliban were in Afghanistan. This is a radical fringe group of Islam that promulgates a very restrictive and severe form of Islam, and when they get their hands on power, as they did in Afghanistan, they create mediaeval-style theocracies based on a strict interpretation of the Koran. This is not mainstream Islam. The Taliban didn't need grievances with the United States to create an oppressive and odious theocracy which reduced women to the status of livestock and punished the most trivial digressions from Islamic law with brutal severity. They did it because that was the kind of nation they wanted. They were a group of fanatics guided by their zealous adherence to their warped creed.

I am glad as hell that you are not leading the fight against terrorism. You clearly do not understand the enemy we are facing, and are apparently eager to do your best Neville Chamberlain imitation in dealing with them.

BTW, what are these grievences you keep mentioning as if a passing thought, but never discuss?

Things like the way we supported Saddam Hussein all those years because he was opposing our enemy the Ayatollah Khomeini. Things like our supporting a ruthless tyrant like the Shah before the Ayatollah took over. Things like encouraging the Kurds to revolt in the First Gulf War and then leaving them to the mercy of Saddam Hussein.

These are just a few, but this is really a subject for another topic.

The leader of the Western world, a war mongering country who LIES to invade a country and supports the brutal suppression of the Palestinians, and they conclude this? I'm shocked.

Oh would you fucking give the "LIES" thing a rest already? You are starting to sound positively shrill.

Their propaganda mirrors such beliefs as in the Middle East, where...

What's your source for all of this?

Here's one place you may find this information:

http://www.atranaya.org/Documents/EngDo ... lIslam.htm

Your years of military and political intervention in the Middle East is completely unacceptable. You know what a vicous circle is right? The more times you solve your problems or expand your national interests through FORCE, the more hate you generate and the more fanatics you turn out. So yeah, everyone is at fault here, but it ain't equal. You carry the burden of the fault, simply cause you're the one meddling in their countries, until 9/11 of course.

So by that reckoning, 9/11 is actually America's fault.

I do not accept that. I flatly refuse. Even if they have grievances, some methods are too foul to use. There is NO justification for terrorism.

And in any case, once again, you demonstrate appalling and inexcusable ignorance of history. Force has decided more things than any other factor in history. It was force that enabled democracy to survive in Greece when the Persians would have stamped it out. It was force that decided the Mediterranean basin, and later still, all of Western Europe would have a Roman and not a Carthaginian cultural base. It was force that finally put an end to the last vestiges of the Roman Empire in 1453 and cleared the way for Turkish expansion into Europe and the conversion of much of the Balkans to Islam. It was force that destroyed the native American empires in Central and South America and stamped a strongly Spanish or Portuguese character over the native cultures there. It was force that almost completely eradicated the Native American culture of North America and replaced it with a transplanted European one. This idea that force never settles anything is completely naive, absurd, and is utterly refuted by the historical record.

Whether you or I like it or not, force most certainly does settle things. Not often neatly or easily, but it certainly does settle them.

Was that before or after Israel murdered the Accords? From:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2 ... mrdrd.html

Who Murdered the Oslo Accords?
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach... [snip]

Jesus H. Christ, do you really expect me to take seriously anything that you got from Lyndon LaRouche and his crowd?!?!

The man is a NUT! His organization and its various front groups, while often described merely as conservative or extremist, are a fascist political movement with echoes of neonazi ideology. LaRouche himself is virulently anti-semitic.

And did I mention he's a complete nutjob? Here are a few choice quotes of his:

"Jazz was foisted on black Americans by the same oligarchy which had run the U.S. slave trade, with the help of the classically trained but immoral George Gershwin and the Paris-New York circuit of drug-taking avant-garde artists."

"Zionism is the state of collective psychosis through which London manipulates most of international Jewry."

"The Beatles had no genuine musical talent, but were a product shaped according to British Psychological Warfare Division (Tavistock) specifications, and promoted in Britain by agencies which are controlled by British intelligence."

"The first, and most important fact to be recognized concerning the Hitler regime, is that Adolf Hitler was put into power in Germany on orders from London. The documentation of this matter is abundant and conclusive."

You can find these quotes and more like them here:

http://memes.org/modules.php?op=modload ... e&sid=1340

Lyndon LaRouche is a nutcase conspiracy theorist (in addition to being an anti-semite and a fascist [and unlike a lot of people who are simply called that by their political opponents he really is one]), and so are the nutcases who follow him. This article you posted is more of their conspiracy theorist nonsense. Yitzhak Rabin was killed by a Jewish extremist, who may have been acting with a small cabal of similar extremists. There was no vast conspiracy of US and Israeli interests conspiring against him to thwart the peace process. Henry Kissinger is not some behind-the-scenes puppetmaster manipulating this conspiracy to his evil will.

Jesus Chriiiiiiiist!!!

Dude, if you really buy this kind of shit... whoa! You've got some serious problems there guy.

We are not planning to keep a permanent presence in Iraq.

But you're not letting the Iraqi's run their own country. This will, if it hasn't already, become very unacceptable to terrorists over there.

Goddamn! Are you now being deliberately stupid? We didn't let the Germans or the Japanese start running their countries a mere couple of months after the cessation of WWII either did we? You know, I have the feeling that even if we had instantly turned everything over to an Iraqi provisional government, you would now be faulting us for having wrecked the country and abandoned it to wallow in political chaos. You seem determined to blame the US for something.

[*]Completely pull out of the Middle East every single bit of military equipment and personnel. Your military has no business being in the Middle East, and vice-versa.[/list]

We have national interests to protect, and allies to support. This makes this demand an unrealistic one. Both the US and world economies depend to a great extent on Middle Eastern oil, and a lot of that oil was drilled after US money was invested and skilled American workers sent to the region to drill it out of the ground. If you expect the US to leave such a vital interest completely unsecured you are kidding yourself. That is not going to happen. This is not a demand to which the US could ever accede.
[/quote]

This is your self-inflicted nightmare.

Oh, PLEASE tell me you're fucking kidding!!! UNPROVOKED???

Yes, unprovoked. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolutions. Why don't you tell me what provocation there was to cause terrorists to attack from there, after they had gotten what they wanted - an Israeli withdrawal from the area?

I also note that you are dodging the issue. You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. They were attacked after conceeding.

Nice red herring,

Red herring my ass. I repeat: You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. I gave you a direct answer to your question by showing an example of precisely how Israel had been harmed.

and I love the way you yeild the U.N. only when it suits your argument. You personally don't give a shit about the UN when it involves the US, but Lebanon is bad cause it's violating so and so. Fuckng priceless.

Regardless of whether I approve of the UN or not, the fact remains, Lebanon agreed to undertake certain obligations under UN auspices, and it failed to honor those obligations. This is a simple fact easily verifiable by the record. And even if there had been no UN involvement whatsoever, it still remains an example of a country conceeding to a terrorist demand, and yet not getting any peace from that quarter - which rather weakens your assertion that if you just talk with terrorists you can reason with them and solve your problems that way.

And once again, this was given in direct answer to a question you asked. I showed you exactly how Israel had been harmed. And you can't even concede that the answer was obviously not the one you were expecting.

Anyhoo, it's time for my own red herring. Since you've brought up U.N. resolutions, we will take a little trip through the archives at the U.N. to see what resoultions Israel violates:

UN Resolutions pertaining to Israel: (68)... [/snip]

Unlike mine, this one really is a red herring, since I didn't ask about anything which would cover Israel's violations of UN resolutions, and furthermore, I've no way of even knowing what each of these resolutions concerns. They might every one of them be concerned with something other than the matter at hand, which in this instance is how Israel was harmed by acceding to a terrorist demand.

You spread your culture through force. THATS why they hate you.

Yes, there are American soldiers supervising the constructions of McDonald's and Starbuck's throughout the Middle East, and frogmarching people into them, where these unfortunates are forced at gunpoint to consume American-style food and beverages. Throughout the Muslim world, there are US soldiers shooting and bayoneting people if they don't watch American movies or listen to American music. Muslim haberdashers are threatened with execution if they sell tradional regional garments instead of Western-style business suits.

We do NOT force other people to adopt our culture you idiot! They adopt elements of it because they themselves have found aspects of it appealing. We would have to have full control of their eduational system, press, and other apparatus in order to force them to adopt our culture.

[Iceberg]

I would like to know how long it's going to take to develop a stable and free democracy in a region that has no tradition of free dissent, democratic thought and civic audit of the government. You can not impose these things - they must come from within, from the people. It's not a goal that will be reached in months, or possibly even years - and it won't be reached even in decades unless we fully engage the Iraqi people, which we don't seem to have been doing (I could be wrong, but I haven't heard much in that direction in the media). So in that way, President Bush's Iraq strategy is an utter failure.

[Perinquus]

I would like to know how long it's going to take to develop a stable and free democracy in a region that has no tradition of free dissent, democratic thought and civic audit of the government. You can not impose these things - they must come from within, from the people. It's not a goal that will be reached in months, or possibly even years - and it won't be reached even in decades unless we fully engage the Iraqi people, which we don't seem to have been doing (I could be wrong, but I haven't heard much in that direction in the media). So in that way, President Bush's Iraq strategy is an utter failure.

Germany and Japan had no history of it either, now both are functioning democracies. Unless you count to failed Weimar Republic, which didn't last very long. Japan didn't have even as much experiece of democracy as that.

Jesus Christ. How about waiting just a little longer than a couple of months before unequivocally declaring Bush's Iraq strategy to be an utter failure. These things are not accomplished overnight, but you hate the president, so basically that is what you demand in order to be satisfied.

[Iceberg]

I would like to know how long it's going to take to develop a stable and free democracy in a region that has no tradition of free dissent, democratic thought and civic audit of the government. You can not impose these things - they must come from within, from the people. It's not a goal that will be reached in months, or possibly even years - and it won't be reached even in decades unless we fully engage the Iraqi people, which we don't seem to have been doing (I could be wrong, but I haven't heard much in that direction in the media). So in that way, President Bush's Iraq strategy is an utter failure.

Germany and Japan had no history of it either, now both are functioning democracies. Unless you count to failed Weimar Republic, which didn't last very long. Japan didn't have even as much experiece of democracy as that.

Germany and Japan both had significant experience with parliamentary government - even if not full-fledged democracies - prior to the Second World War. Japan also had the Chrysanthemum Republic from 1919 to 1924, a fully-functioning representative democracy, which was unfortunately coopted in 1925 by the military force of the developing Tojo regime.

Jesus Christ. How about waiting just a little longer than a couple of months before unequivocally declaring Bush's Iraq strategy to be an utter failure. These things are not accomplished overnight, but you hate the president, so basically that is what you demand in order to be satisfied.

Calling it a "strategy" is actually giving it too much credit, as we haven't been made aware of anything more detailed than "we will eventually give power to the Iraqi people." Something like a basic timeline might be nice (of course, given the accuracy of the Bush Administration's projections to date...)

I hate being lied to. The Administration was at LEAST significantly less than truthful in the Iraq affair, and still hasn't squared fully with the American people, and I RESENT THAT. I resent the President pissing down America's back and telling us it's raining.

I hate the fact that the President is a lying, manipulative son of a bitch who markets himself as a plain and honest man. I hate the fact that he marketed himself as a moderate, and proceeded to install the most conservative government in the history of the United States of America before any in the loyal opposition knew enough to protest. I hate the fact that he markets reduced pollution controls as a "clear skies initiative." I hate the fact that he reduces federal education funding and calls it a "no child left behind" initiative. I hate the fact that he's taken the greatest groundswell of pro-American sympathy in world history and turned it into widespread hatred and resentment in under two years.

So yes, in that sense, I hate the President. I hate him because he's the diametric opposite of everything he said he was, and I resent that. And most of all, I hate the fact that for a year and some change, I fell for his bullshit.

[MKSheppard]

I hate the fact that the President is a lying, manipulative son of a bitch who markets himself as a plain and honest man.

Wow, Clinton was like that too.

I hate the fact that he marketed himself as a moderate, and proceeded to install the most conservative government in the history of the United States of America before any in the loyal opposition knew enough to protest.

Exactly what clinton did. Marketed himself as a moderate, then stuffed
the federal government full of liberal leftists.

[Iceberg]

I hate the fact that the President is a lying, manipulative son of a bitch who markets himself as a plain and honest man.

Wow, Clinton was like that too.

"Bob Dole said 'I'm a plain and honest man.' Bullshit. Bill Clinton - he came up in front of people and said, 'HI, FOLKS! I'M COMPLETELY FULL OF SHIT AND HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?' And people said, 'Well, at least he's honest.' At least he's honest about being completely full of shit." - George Carlin

Bush's major selling point was that he was and is - supposedly - a 'plain and honest man.' When you're selling yourself like that, you're going to need to be a lot cleaner than somebody who's not packaging himself as the candidate of "honor and integrity."

[Bob McDob]

Anyway, I think we all knew about Clinton's *ahem* "indiscretions" before we elected him, regardless of what jibba-jabba was coming out of his foo' mouth, bizotch.

[Perinquus]

Germany and Japan both had significant experience with parliamentary government - even if not full-fledged democracies - prior to the Second World War. Japan also had the Chrysanthemum Republic from 1919 to 1924, a fully-functioning representative democracy, which was unfortunately coopted in 1925 by the military force of the developing Tojo regime.

Germany had the Weimar republic, which was doomed to failure from the get go thanks to crippling war reparations, followed by a worldwide depression. If anything, the probably made it harder to implement democracy in Germany, since, although it did give Germans some experience of democracy, but it was an almost entirely negative experience, and so it made a lot of Germans very sceptical of democracy.

As for Japan, I hardly think a mere five-year period gives the Japanese people of 1945 significantly more experience with democracy than the Iraqis have today, especially when an entire generation of Japanese grew up between the time that Republic ceased to be and the occupation of Japan by American forces in 1945.

For that matter, even the Iraqis have experience of parliamentary government - they had a unicameral legislature called the Majlis al-Watani (250 seats; 30 appointed by the president to represent the three northern provinces of Dahuk, Arbil, and As Sulaymaniyah; 220 elected by popular vote; members serve four-year terms).
Elections were last held 27 March 2000.

Calling it a "strategy" is actually giving it too much credit, as we haven't been made aware of anything more detailed than "we will eventually give power to the Iraqi people." Something like a basic timeline might be nice (of course, given the accuracy of the Bush Administration's projections to date...)

I hate being lied to. The Administration was at LEAST significantly less than truthful in the Iraq affair, and still hasn't squared fully with the American people, and I RESENT THAT. I resent the President pissing down America's back and telling us it's raining.

The jury's still out. It is looking less likely, but we may yet find WMDs, and of we do, a lot of the people screaming "Bush is a liar" are going to have egg on their faces.

And by this logic, you must hate just about every president of modern times, and perhaps in US history, since there's probably not a one of them that didn't lie about things at various times while in office. Lyndon B. Johnson continually lied about the conduct of the Vietnam War; Nixon had Watergate; Reagan had Iran/Contra; Clinton had lies on various topics too numerous to mention. They're politicians for pete's sake!

I hate the fact that the President is a lying, manipulative son of a bitch who markets himself as a plain and honest man. I hate the fact that he marketed himself as a moderate, and proceeded to install the most conservative government in the history of the United States of America before any in the loyal opposition knew enough to protest.

Haven't you been paying attention. Bush's government is hardly "the most conservative government in the history of the United States of America". This is just a blatant mischaracterization. On trade, Bush speaks the right words, but has often failed to live up to them. His most notorious decision - to slap high tariffs on imported steel - has been rightly found illegal by the WTO. But Bush is appealing the judgment, thereby weakening the entire apparatus of free trade. On contentious domestic matters, Bush is also no hardline right-winger. In his term of office, there has been no attempt to restrict the number of abortions in America; and the Supreme Court has ratified affirmative action and constitutionalized gay privacy. Bush actually supported the Court's affirmative action ruling and has stayed mum on gay issues, for fear of alienating either the center or his religious right base. In both areas, his policies are very hard to distinguish from his predecessor's - who also supported modest affirmative action and only rhetorically backed gay equality. Bush has also supported amnesty for illegal aliens, failed to restrain government spending, allowed the creation of a massive new prescription drug entitlement, excess increases in the DoE budget, billions in African AIDS relief. These are not things on which Bush is endearing himself to diehard conservatives, and they hardly characterize "the most conservative government in the history of the United States of America".

I hate the fact that he markets reduced pollution controls as a "clear skies initiative." I hate the fact that he reduces federal education funding and calls it a "no child left behind" initiative. I hate the fact that he's taken the greatest groundswell of pro-American sympathy in world history and turned it into widespread hatred and resentment in under two years.

That reaction was inevitable once we actually started to back up our post 9/11 rhetoric and start going after rogue states. I knew as soon as we did, the rest of the world would be screaming at "America the Bully".

So yes, in that sense, I hate the President. I hate him because he's the diametric opposite of everything he said he was, and I resent that. And most of all, I hate the fact that for a year and some change, I fell for his bullshit.

Oh grow up. Politicians say what's politically expedient for them to say, and they do what's expedient for them to do. Welcome to the real world. Bush is no worse at this sort of thing than a great many other presidents have been, and better than some. This is how the game is played.

But I am exasperated that so many people are in a rush to claim presidential dishonesty in this case, when the jury is still out. As Charles Krauthammer recently said in his weekly column for The Washington Post:

With weapons of mass destruction yet unfound, the Niger blunder opens the way to the broad implication that the president is a liar or a dissimulator who took the country to war under false pretenses.

How exactly does this line of reasoning work? The charge is that the president was looking for excuses to go to war with Hussein and that the weapons-of-mass-destruction claims were just a pretense.

Aside from the fact that Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction was posited not only by Bush but also by just about every intelligence service on the planet (including those of countries that opposed war as the solution), one runs up against this logical conundrum: Why then did Bush want to go to war? For fun and recreation? Because of some cowboy compulsion?

Apart from everything else, war is a highly dangerous political enterprise. No one had any idea that Baghdad would fall in three weeks and with so few casualties. Just as no one had any idea how costly and bloody the post-victory occupation would be.

On the contrary, the war was a huge political gamble. There was no popular pressure to go to war. There was even less foreign pressure to go to war. Bush decided to stake his presidency on it nonetheless, knowing that if things went wrong -- and indeed they might still -- his political career was finished.

[BoredShirtless]

Now that you know this, do you conceed your government lied?

Since the government was relaying a British claim, that the British still stand by even after they learned that particular document was a forgery, no.

The British say they're hanging on to some mysterious information. Even though releasing that information would not only clear the USA, but Britian too, they refuse to release it. Are you really this naive?

Hey thanks for being relevant. Examples with TERRORISTS in them?

Resistance does not always take the form of terrorism nimrod. But fine. The Roman pacification of Spain included the defeat of a guerrilla force led by Quintus Sertorius.

Sertorius led men into battle against Roman Armies, not Roman civilians. Sertorius wasn't a terrorist, he was a rebel.

There was a mediaeval extremist sect in Islam called the Kharijites. The Kharijites were politically extremist, intolerant of others, living on the outside of civilisation, using terrorism against their enemies and regarded as heretics by the vast majority of Muslims. They were murderers on a large scale for political objectives, claiming Islam as their cause. The similarities with modern Al Qaeda are striking. The Kharijites had to be isolated and defeated by their fellow Muslims in order to allow mainstream Islam to survive.

The key to the Muslims victory over the Kharijites was the Muslims were able to isolate the Kharijites . I don't think you can do that with Al-Qaeda using your current strategy.

More recently, the Yugoslavs (or whatever they're calling themselves these days) have enjoyed considerable success in rounding up Albanian terrorists, and putting a stop to murders of their officers and military personnel.

The Yugoslavs TRIED to fight terrorism, but got bombed by you for doing so! Yugoslavia has enjoyed no success: they lost Kosovo to the Albanian terrorists.

There's no Taliban in Afghanistan sheltering Al Quaeda now, is there?

So? This shows the government doesn't shelter Al-Quaeda, not that Al-Quada is defeated.

So? Do you honestly think that a nest of vipers like that, with cells in numerous countries worldwide, with assets in the billions, and supporters in many countries will be utterly destroyed overnight. Nobody ever said the war on terrorism would be a short one.

But right now, a large part of their support has been taken away, and a country where they once found a safe refuge no longer provides that for them. Next we root them out of other sherlters, and put pressure on those who support them to stop doing so. It won't be quick, and it won't be easy. But apparently, for you, if the results aren't instantaneous, we might as well not even bother.

I'm arguing the solution is wrong, not that it's too slow or fast. Yesterday Paul Wolfowitz said "peace in Iraq now is the central battle in the war on terrorism". That's true Paul. But before Iraq, you were a hell of a lot closer to defeating terrorism then you are right now. One step forward [Afghanistan] five steps back [Iraq].

You cannot derive fanatical behaviour through religion alone, you need a "trigger".

That is such complete and utter bullshit. There are numerous examples in history of fanatical behaviour that do not require someone else to provide some grievance to act as a "trigger" as you call it.

You're strawmaning my argument, I said the legitimate grievences are the triggers, not that triggers are only ever grievances. A trigger is an event someone experiences which changes their life in some way. It can be reading the Quran, watching your house burn down, a blow to the head, whatever.

The "legitimate grievances" you so quickly gloss over are the multiple "triggers". You better start looking at the CAUSE of your problems and figure out how to solve them without invading countries or destroying asprin factories, or you'll probably achieve shit in the long run.

And on the other hand, if we can build a stable democracy in Iraq, and induce other nations to aid us combatting terrorism, and deal appropriately with nations which sponsor or harbor terrorists, we may just put them down in the end, though it will be a long and hard battle.

To win nations to your side, do not lie to them. Especially Muslim countries.

You haven't paid much attention to what people like Osama bin Laden and his followers have been saying have you. There is a radical islamist movement calling for holy war - Jihad - against infidels worldwide. Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam,

Wrong. Guided by their "legitimate grievences" with your country.

NO! Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam is what I said, and that is precisely what I meant.

I think if they had really deviated Islam, the Muslim world would not identify with their cause and thus say more against them.

All Radical Islamists share the same long-term goals; they differ only over means.

For example, the Justice and Development Party in Turkey is very different from the Taliban in its means, but not so different in its ends. If the party gained full control over Turkey, it could be as dangerous as the Taliban were in Afghanistan. This is a radical fringe group of Islam that promulgates a very restrictive and severe form of Islam, and when they get their hands on power, as they did in Afghanistan, they create mediaeval-style theocracies based on a strict interpretation of the Koran. This is not mainstream Islam. The Taliban didn't need grievances with the United States to create an oppressive and odious theocracy which reduced women to the status of livestock and punished the most trivial digressions from Islamic law with brutal severity. They did it because that was the kind of nation they wanted. They were a group of fanatics guided by their zealous adherence to their warped creed.

Sorry, but the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are very different. You're right, the Taliban had no grievences with the US. They had deviated Islam, and for that they were outcasts in the Islamic world. Al-Qaeda on the other hand have a cause which is legitimate to Muslims.

BTW, what are these grievences you keep mentioning as if a passing thought, but never discuss?

Things like the way we supported Saddam Hussein all those years because he was opposing our enemy the Ayatollah Khomeini. Things like our supporting a ruthless tyrant like the Shah before the Ayatollah took over. Things like encouraging the Kurds to revolt in the First Gulf War and then leaving them to the mercy of Saddam Hussein.

These are just a few, but this is really a subject for another topic.

A full blown discussion is for another topic, but acknowledging them and gauging there influence isn't. Do you not think that all these cases of intervention by the US has not given a legitimate cause for Muslims to finally rise against you?

The leader of the Western world, a war mongering country who LIES to invade a country and supports the brutal suppression of the Palestinians, and they conclude this? I'm shocked.

Oh would you fucking give the "LIES" thing a rest already? You are starting to sound positively shrill.

Your government HAS lied. Act like a little bitch and deny this fact till you're blue in the face, I couldn't care less.

Their propaganda mirrors such beliefs as in the Middle East, where...

What's your source for all of this?

Here's one place you may find this information:

http://www.atranaya.org/Documents/EngDo ... lIslam.htm

Like you, these Assyrian's completely disregard the triggers which set Al-Qaeda off. Any analysis of "Radical Islam" which doesn't analyse the impact of American influnece is complete garbage.

Your years of military and political intervention in the Middle East is completely unacceptable. You know what a vicous circle is right? The more times you solve your problems or expand your national interests through FORCE, the more hate you generate and the more fanatics you turn out. So yeah, everyone is at fault here, but it ain't equal. You carry the burden of the fault, simply cause you're the one meddling in their countries, until 9/11 of course.

So by that reckoning, 9/11 is actually America's fault.

I do not accept that. I flatly refuse. Even if they have grievances, some methods are too foul to use. There is NO justification for terrorism.

No justification for terrorism? Why, cause it's morally repugnant? What about the legitimate grievences, aren't they immoral too?

Acknowledge dammit that to them, the justification for terrorism IS the legitimate grievences. The Shah ruled with an iron fist for 26 odd years in close contact with the United States. You can't manipulate people and expect to get away with it. You can't sponsor their miserable lives, and expect "flowers and dancing on the streets". You can't keep interfering in the region, and not expect them to strike back. And to blame this all on a "deviated reading" of Islam is an incredibly incomplete conclusion.

And in any case, once again, you demonstrate appalling and inexcusable ignorance of history. Force has decided more things than any other factor in history.

It was force that enabled democracy to survive in Greece when the Persians would have stamped it out. It was force that decided the Mediterranean basin, and later still, all of Western Europe would have a Roman and not a Carthaginian cultural base. It was force that finally put an end to the last vestiges of the Roman Empire in 1453 and cleared the way for Turkish expansion into Europe and the conversion of much of the Balkans to Islam. It was force that destroyed the native American empires in Central and South America and stamped a strongly Spanish or Portuguese character over the native cultures there. It was force that almost completely eradicated the Native American culture of North America and replaced it with a transplanted European one. This idea that force never settles anything is completely naive, absurd, and is utterly refuted by the historical record.

Whether you or I like it or not, force most certainly does settle things. Not often neatly or easily, but it certainly does settle them.

I'd like ONE example of force ever destroying a terrorist movement which has cells in over 50 countries, with resources in the billions, and recruiting daily. Give me ONE.

Was that before or after Israel murdered the Accords? From:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2 ... mrdrd.html

Who Murdered the Oslo Accords?
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach... [snip]

Jesus H. Christ, do you really expect me to take seriously anything that you got from Lyndon LaRouche and his crowd?!?!

Never heard of this LaRouche character before now. But I noticed two things about your reply. One, you blast LaRouche, however the author of the article is Mirak-Weissbach. And two, you didn't actually refute anything, just launched an ad hominem. What parts of the article are wrong?

We are not planning to keep a permanent presence in Iraq.

But you're not letting the Iraqi's run their own country. This will, if it hasn't already, become very unacceptable to terrorists over there.

Goddamn! Are you now being deliberately stupid? We didn't let the Germans or the Japanese start running their countries a mere couple of months after the cessation of WWII either did we? You know, I have the feeling that even if we had instantly turned everything over to an Iraqi provisional government, you would now be faulting us for having wrecked the country and abandoned it to wallow in political chaos. You seem determined to blame the US for something.

I'm not saying anything here beyond the fact you aren't allowing the Iraqi's to run their country, which is, if it isn't already, unacceptable to the terrorists.

Oh, PLEASE tell me you're fucking kidding!!! UNPROVOKED???

Yes, unprovoked. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolutions. Why don't you tell me what provocation there was to cause terrorists to attack from there, after they had gotten what they wanted - an Israeli withdrawal from the area?

Why should an Israeli provocation be restricted to the Israel-Lebanon border?

I also note that you are dodging the issue. You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. They were attacked after conceeding.

I'm not dodging anything. I assumed you were claiming that in 3 years between the pullout and the rocket attack, Israel hasn't made one provocative move. It's only now that I reliese your definition of retaliation has to be wherever the provocation was geographically located

Nice red herring,

Red herring my ass. I repeat: You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. I gave you a direct answer to your question by showing an example of precisely how Israel had been harmed.

You showed me shit, because you haven't included Israels provocations into your argument.

and I love the way you yeild the U.N. only when it suits your argument. You personally don't give a shit about the UN when it involves the US, but Lebanon is bad cause it's violating so and so. Fuckng priceless.

Regardless of whether I approve of the UN or not, the fact remains, Lebanon agreed to undertake certain obligations under UN auspices, and it failed to honor those obligations. This is a simple fact easily verifiable by the record. And even if there had been no UN involvement whatsoever, it still remains an example of a country conceeding to a terrorist demand, and yet not getting any peace from that quarter - which rather weakens your assertion that if you just talk with terrorists you can reason with them and solve your problems that way.

Again, you tie provocation and retaliation to geography. Does Israel launch ITS retaliation to suicide bombers from Cafes? Do suicide bombers blow themselves up at the sites of bulldozed homes?

And once again, this was given in direct answer to a question you asked. I showed you exactly how Israel had been harmed. And you can't even concede that the answer was obviously not the one you were expecting.

Nope, I conceed that your answer wasn't what I was expecting.

Anyhoo, it's time for my own red herring. Since you've brought up U.N. resolutions, we will take a little trip through the archives at the U.N. to see what resoultions Israel violates:

UN Resolutions pertaining to Israel: (68)...

Unlike mine, this one really is a red herring, since I didn't ask about anything which would cover Israel's violations of UN resolutions, and furthermore, I've no way of even knowing what each of these resolutions concerns. They might every one of them be concerned with something other than the matter at hand, which in this instance is how Israel was harmed by acceding to a terrorist demand.

It can be argued that they harmed themselves. Would you like to play the blame game with me Perinquus? I'll clear my caledar for the next couple of years in eager anticipation.

You spread your culture through force. THATS why they hate you.

Yes, there are American soldiers supervising the constructions of McDonald's and Starbuck's throughout the Middle East, and frogmarching people into them, where these unfortunates are forced at gunpoint to consume American-style food and beverages. Throughout the Muslim world, there are US soldiers shooting and bayoneting people if they don't watch American movies or listen to American music. Muslim haberdashers are threatened with execution if they sell tradional regional garments instead of Western-style business suits.

We do NOT force other people to adopt our culture you idiot! They adopt elements of it because they themselves have found aspects of it appealing. We would have to have full control of their eduational system, press, and other apparatus in order to force them to adopt our culture.

I said you SPREAD your culture through force, not that you force it on them.

But that's not very accurate. Your culture is associated to "who you are". You've been bullying, violent and deceitful in the region, THAT'S why they hate you and anything associated to you: your culture for example.

[Worlds Spanner]

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

Result: more terrorists.

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

No more killings, no more holding people without trial, no more wars. Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

[Wicked Pilot]

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

You mean like in Afganistan, where we dropped smart bombs on the Taliban and food on the civilians?

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

Great. Next time Iraq invades Kuwait, or something similiar happens, we'll just sit by as the aggressor nation slaughters civilians and wrecks the global economy. What should we care, let the animals wipe themselves out.

No more killings,

Should we apply this policy to domestic criminals also?

no more holding people without trial,

You do have my vote on this one

no more wars.

War is a terrible thing, but it's not the worst of things.

Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

That is of course unless the terrorist already run the country. Do you seriousily think the Taliban would have turned over ObL if they could?

Don't get me wrong, I think pacifism is a noble idea. Noble, but not practical.

[Worlds Spanner]

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

You mean like in Afganistan, where we dropped smart bombs on the Taliban and food on the civilians?

The problem ins't limited to the actual victims in the invaded country. The war in Afghanistan probably wasn't used as terrorist propaganda in Afghanistan so much as in other Middle Eastern nations (understand that this is conjecture).

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

Great. Next time Iraq invades Kuwait, or something similiar happens, we'll just sit by as the aggressor nation slaughters civilians and wrecks the global economy. What should we care, let the animals wipe themselves out.

An agressor nation is an entirely different matter. Also, note the execution of the Gulf War. Iraqi troops were pushed out of Kuwait and the war ended out in the Iraqi desert. The war was never taken to the Iraqi people. (The sanctions are irrelevant either way since they weren't part of the war.) I don't see the situation as analagous.

No more killings,

Should we apply this policy to domestic criminals also?

Sure, if you want. Although that's irrelevant. When I say 'killings' I mean things like the attacks on jeeps in the desert. No killings without trials. Although the merits of letting those guys go on their merry ways and hoping they might show up in some place where they would be arrestable are dubious if not non-existant. My reasons are both moral and practical. Moral because we see in domestic cases where there are trials that often innocent people are mistakenly convicted, and we see in very current events that intelligence is often mistaken as well. Practical because these acts are outside of the "civilised discourse" and make the US look bad, which was my point.

no more holding people without trial,

You do have my vote on this one

Well, glad to see a little common ground.

no more wars.

War is a terrible thing, but it's not the worst of things.

This is just an assertion. I could say that war is the worst thing and start a massive pacifist flame-war, or I could agree with you but point that we agree that it is a "terrible thing." My contention is that it is also of sufficiently questionable effectiveness as to be an outright bad idea.

Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

That is of course unless the terrorist already run the country. Do you seriousily think the Taliban would have turned over ObL if they could?

Point.

Don't get me wrong, I think pacifism is a noble idea. Noble, but not practical.

I appreciate the sentiment.

[Wicked Pilot]

The problem ins't limited to the actual victims in the invaded country. The war in Afghanistan probably wasn't used as terrorist propaganda in Afghanistan so much as in other Middle Eastern nations (understand that this is conjecture).

Unfortunately we cannot whore ourselves out to world opinion every time we have to do take out the garbage. Frankly there are people who will shit themselves mad no matter what we do.

An agressor nation is an entirely different matter. Also, note the execution of the Gulf War. Iraqi troops were pushed out of Kuwait and the war ended out in the Iraqi desert. The war was never taken to the Iraqi people. (The sanctions are irrelevant either way since they weren't part of the war.) I don't see the situation as analagous.

Perhaps a misinterpertation on my part. I understood it that you meant isolationism as in 'who cares if nation A invades peaceful nation B, I don't want to get involved'.

When I say 'killings' I mean things like the attacks on jeeps in the desert. No killings without trials.

I was refering to a situation like a cop shooting someone in order to save someone else. If a terrorist can be taken alive, then good. If not, call in the Spectre.

My contention is that it is also of sufficiently questionable effectiveness as to be an outright bad idea.

Are you willing to submit that the losses of life and property as result of Desert Srorm were worse than the eventual fate of Kuwaitis and possibly the Saudis under Iraqi occupation?

[Worlds Spanner]

Unfortunately we cannot whore ourselves out to world opinion every time we have to do take out the garbage. Frankly there are people who will shit themselves mad no matter what we do.

Fair enough. But if taking out the garbage might make more garbage overall, should it be taken out?

Perhaps a misinterpertation on my part. I understood it that you meant isolationism as in 'who cares if nation A invades peaceful nation B, I don't want to get involved'.

Right, and I said I wasn't advocating it.

I was refering to a situation like a cop shooting someone in order to save someone else. If a terrorist can be taken alive, then good. If not, call in the Spectre.

Ah, a misunderstanding on my part. However, in the situation you describe the cop generally has stronger evidence than we do for our long distance attacks. Like say, a gun being pulled out of a pocket before his or her very eyes.

Are you willing to submit that the losses of life and property as result of Desert Srorm were worse than the eventual fate of Kuwaitis and possibly the Saudis under Iraqi occupation?

I'm sorry, the more I think about it it the more I think my initial post just wasn't clear enough. I'm talking about recent events rather than the Gulf War. I do NOT submit that Gulf Storm was worse than the alternative, I do submit that it is looking more and more likely that Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be worse places for the recent wars waged there, possibly even after you account for the nastiness of the Taliban and Saddam.

Only time will tell though.

[BoredShirtless]

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

Result: more terrorists.

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

No more killings, no more holding people without trial, no more wars. Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

I agree with your opinion. It would be even harder to execute then the "War on Terror": cooperating with foreign law enforcement, diplomacy, fighting WITHIN the law...it'll involve more thinking then outright invasions and bombing runs...but it would work, for the reasons you state.

[Perinquus]

The British say they're hanging on to some mysterious information. Even though releasing that information would not only clear the USA, but Britian too, they refuse to release it. Are you really this naive?

There can be all kinds of reasons for not releasing intelligence, but as long as the British are standing by their sources, I am not willing to declare that both they and the president must be a liar.

Sertorius led men into battle against Roman Armies, not Roman civilians. Sertorius wasn't a terrorist, he was a rebel.

Not terrorism, no, but it’s still asymmetrical warfare, wherein the poorly equipped underdog enjoys the support of the local population, so there are certain parallels

The key to the Muslims victory over the Kharijites was the Muslims were able to isolate the Kharijites . I don't think you can do that with Al-Qaeda using your current strategy.

What makes you think military action is the one and only component of this strategy. The State Dept. is no doubt bringing diplomatic pressure to bear. And now that Iraq had been liberated, we may be able to threaten Saudi Arabia with the possibility of flooding the market with Iraqi oil. If we did something like that, and drove the price of oil down $10 a barrel, it would take a huge chunk out of Saudi oil revenues. The threat of things like this are another weapon in our arsenal, to persuade countries that sponsor terrorists to withdraw their financial support.

Applying pressure in a variety of ways to various Islamic countries may help to isolate terrorist organizations, the way the Kharijites were isolated.

And I notice you passed over the example of the Assassins in silence. Curious, since this is the organization that most closely resembles modern terrorists – a subnational group of fanatical Muslims who used force, including murder to achieve their political goals, and who operated very widely over the then-known world. They carried out murders in virtually every land in the Islamic world, they carried them out in the Crusader kingdoms, the Byzantine Empire, Norman Sicily, you name it. And this organization was destroyed by military force.

The Yugoslavs TRIED to fight terrorism, but got bombed by you for doing so! Yugoslavia has enjoyed no success: they lost Kosovo to the Albanian terrorists.

Oops, I stand corrected; I should have used past tense there. I was opposed to the intervention in Kosovo, since unlike Iraq, the U.S. has no national interests at stake in that region. Charles Krauthammer made a very accurate observation when he noted that Republicans seem to favor intervention when we have national interests at stake, while Democrats seem to favor it only for use when we have no national interests at stake – which reduces our military interventions to self-righteous moral preening. For liberals, foreign policy is social work. National interest -- i.e., national selfishness -- is a taint. The only justified interventions, therefore, are those that are morally pristine, namely, those that are uncorrupted by any suggestion of national interest.

But I’m starting to go off on another tangent.

I'm arguing the solution is wrong, not that it's too slow or fast. Yesterday Paul Wolfowitz said "peace in Iraq now is the central battle in the war on terrorism". That's true Paul. But before Iraq, you were a hell of a lot closer to defeating terrorism then you are right now. One step forward [Afghanistan] five steps back [Iraq].

And the reason you’re arguing the solution is wrong is because you haven’t seen unabashedly positive results. Well no shit Sherlock! Whenever you attack anyone, no matter vile and despised an enemy, you are going to generate a backlash. Name one war, no matter how just, where this has not occurred. The terrorists have supporters and sympathizers; yeah, we knew that. And we knew they’d hate us for it. But you are choosing to hearken to exclusively negative reports. There are a number of people coming back from Iraq, who have seen the situation first hand, who are reporting that they are mystified at all the doom and gloom in the media reports, because what they saw with their own eyes over there does not resemble this hopeless picture of a Vietnam-like quagmire. Yes, our troops are still being attacked daily, but those are the diehard Baathist forces still loyal to Saddam, and are simply not representative of the Iraqi people as a whole. What’s more, if we can get Saddam, a lot of that movement is bound to collapse for lack of a leader around whom to rally.

This is going to take time. It is too soon to conclude that the strategy we are currently following is destined for failure. And I am reminded that most of the people who are now saying it is were also predicting the war itself would be a Vietnam-like quagmire, that we didn’t have enough troops, that Baghdad would be Stalingrad mark II, etc. etc. – all predictions of spectacular failure, and all spectacularly wrong! Give it time, we actually have a good chance of accomplishing something really positive here. But you are in a rush to declare it all a failure and throw away the opportunity before even trying, and way before we’ve even had time to accomplish anything.

You're strawmaning my argument, I said the legitimate grievences are the triggers, not that triggers are only ever grievances. A trigger is an event someone experiences which changes their life in some way. It can be reading the Quran, watching your house burn down, a blow to the head, whatever.

Then you do admit that fanatics can be fanatics without grievances to make them so. Thank you, that ‘s what I’ve been telling you. Concession accepted.

To win nations to your side, do not lie to them. Especially Muslim countries.

Ah, so we are currently lying to the Iraqis? In what way specifically?

NO! Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam is what I said, and that is precisely what I meant.

I think if they had really deviated Islam, the Muslim world would not identify with their cause and thus say more against them.

You think that most Muslims worldwide then considered the Taliban and their fundamentalist creed to be mainstream? I think most of the world’s Muslims would disagree with you there. As I said, “a deviated interpretation of Islam”. The fact that a lot of Muslims feel ambivalence or even outright antipathy toward the United States makes some mainstream Muslims sympathize with their struggle to an extent, does not mean that they like or approve of a group like the Taliban or Al Quaeda, it simply means they have certain common fears and suspicions. It is quite possible to regard a group with distaste, and yet still sympathize with a few of their ideas.

All Radical Islamists share the same long-term goals; they differ only over means.

Sorry, but the Taliban and Al-Qaeda are very different. You're right, the Taliban had no grievences with the US. They had deviated Islam, and for that they were outcasts in the Islamic world. Al-Qaeda on the other hand have a cause which is legitimate to Muslims.

But not all Muslims are willing to support groups like Al Quaeda. There are many mainstream Muslims who do not support or endorse Al Quaeda, or agree with their cause. There are even more who, while they may agree in principle with some of Al Quaeda’s statements regarding America and the West, do not approve of its methods. The point is that the Taliban, which even you admit seems to have had no particular reason to feel victimized by American foreign policy, was willing to shelter Al Quaeda, and provide them a base of operations from which to carry out their murderous attacks.

A full blown discussion is for another topic, but acknowledging them and gauging there influence isn't. Do you not think that all these cases of intervention by the US has not given a legitimate cause for Muslims to finally rise against you?

It may give them legitimate grievances, but I refuse to subscribe to the notion that anything justifies flying a plane full of terrified, innocent people into a skyscraper and kill thousands of other innocent people.

Your government HAS lied. Act like a little bitch and deny this fact till you're blue in the face, I couldn't care less.

And go ahead and scream lies till you’re blue in the face. I couldn’t care less, since you haven’t proven anything of the kind.

Like you, these Assyrian's completely disregard the triggers which set Al-Qaeda off. Any analysis of "Radical Islam" which doesn't analyse the impact of American influnece is complete garbage.

And any analysis that excuses the excesses of radical Islam as nothing but the by-product of American actions, without facing up to the failure of Muslim countries to modernize, to produce anything of value except the oil which is theirs only by accident of geography, to provide for their people as well as the nations of the West, or to do anything but embrace medieval-style fundamentalism (which only ensures the Islamic world will fall still further behind, and make it more vulnerable to outside influences and intervention like ours), is complete garbage.

So by that reckoning, 9/11 is actually America's fault.

I do not accept that. I flatly refuse. Even if they have grievances, some methods are too foul to use. There is NO justification for terrorism.

No justification for terrorism? Why, cause it's morally repugnant? What about the legitimate grievences, aren't they immoral too?

Acknowledge dammit that to them, the justification for terrorism IS the legitimate grievences. The Shah ruled with an iron fist for 26 odd years in close contact with the United States. You can't manipulate people and expect to get away with it. You can't sponsor their miserable lives, and expect "flowers and dancing on the streets". You can't keep interfering in the region, and not expect them to strike back. And to blame this all on a "deviated reading" of Islam is an incredibly incomplete conclusion.

And to blame it all on the US and its foreign policy is also an incredibly incomplete conclusion. Face it, the Muslim world is where it is today largely because of choices Muslims themselves made. At the beginning of the 20th century, you had figures like Kemal Atatürk (and he was by no means the only one of this intellectual stripe) who saw the growing technological and material gap yawning between his country and the West. He realized, correctly, that the only way to armor his country against so much Westernization that it might lose much of its own culture (and against being a pawn of Western countries in their power struggles) was to adopt some Western ways voluntarily. In short, to follow the example of Japan, which realized how backward it was, and sought to acquire industry and technology with which to compete with the West, and become powerful enough to treat with Western nations as an equal. Atatürk sought to modernize Turkey. That included technological and industrial modernization, but it also included social reforms, like replacing Arabic script with Roman letters, and a strict separation of church and state (mosque and state?) along Western lines. Atatürk was remarkably successful, and he did succeed in making his nation, if not as strong and as modern as America, or the nations of Western Europe, at least strong enough to resist becoming a client state.

Other nations in the Muslim world could have emulated this success. Instead, they chose to go the exact opposite way, and the results of this are that today Islamic countries are the most backward on the planet. As Coyote posted in another thread:

Modernization made slow inroads until the late 1940's, when a writer named Hasan al-Bana came to America to study. He was shocked att he 'immorality' of Western culture and the 'liscentious women' and and public displays of flesh and alcohol. He went back to his native Egypt and called for religious reform of the government to halt the spread of immoral Western influences. He wrote a book called 'Signposts' (or 'Milestones' in some translations) that called for grassroots civic action to overtake the secular governments of the Arab world.

Hasan al-Bana formed the nucleus of the "Muslim Brotherhood", an anti-Western group that wanted to cleanse the Arab world of corruptive, corrosive Western influences through civic action. Western entertainment was destroyed where it was found and technology viewed with suspicion: anything that might distract and pull away a proper Muslim from the will of Allah.

This movement was stunningly successful in garnering a large number of followers throughout the Muslim world. In other words, they turned their backs on the very things which would have made them better able to resist both a too great degree of Westernization, and manipulation by Western powers – modernization and liberalization. Modernization and liberalization would have made them technologically and economically stronger, and would have provided their people with a much higher standard of living and quality of life, and this would have made them far less susceptible to “corrupting” Western influence, since contented, materially prosperous people are less liable to be seduced away from traditional values and ideas by “insidious” foreign influences.

Instead, Muslims en masse chose to look to the past rather than the future and - quel surprise - when you attempt to return to the medieval past, you only grow more backward, and lag farther behind the modern world. Yes, Islam once led the world – but it was a backward, ignorant world. Now Muslim fundamentalists want to return to this golden age of faith, but the rest of the world has moved on.

The result of this is now a part of the world which is weaker than ever in comparison to the West, and thus, more subject than ever to its influence and interference. Arab nations are faced with their unenviable status as the most backward nations on earth. It may not be politically correct to say that, but it’s accurate. As Bernard Lewis, perhaps the West’s pre-eminent authority on the Middle East said:

The rise of Japan was an encouragement, but also a reproach. The later rise of the other new Asian economic powers brought only reproach. The proud heirs of ancient civilizations had got used to hiring Western firms to carry out tasks that their own contractors and technicians were apparently not capable of doing. Now they found themselves inviting contractors and technicians from Korea – only recently emerged from Japanese colonial rule – to perform these same tasks. Following is bad enough; limping along in the rear is far worse. By all the standards that matter in the modern world – economic development and job creation, literacy and educational and scientific achievement, political freedom and respect for human rights – what was once a mighty civilization has indeed fallen low.

The world of Islam, which once led the globe in science, the arts, and literature, now trails everybody. And as Lewis points out, they are not just asking “what happened?” They are also asking “who did this to us?” (A very human trait – the desire to assign blame.) And there is a growing feeling of bitterness among Muslims at the increasing backwardness of the Islamic world, and the failure of their various regimes to succeed in correcting this. But as I said, the Muslims themselves rejected the measures that would have gotten them out of that particular box. Instead of embracing rationalism and science, they embraced superstition and dogma, and in doing so, only ensured that they would become yet more backward over time, and thus less able to resist the encroachment of Western powers like the United States. Now they are (some of them) digging themselves deeper into fundamentalist dogma, and becoming angry at a problem that is at least partly of their own making.

This is a fact of the situation you do not seem willing to acknowledge.

I'd like ONE example of force ever destroying a terrorist movement which has cells in over 50 countries, with resources in the billions, and recruiting daily. Give me ONE.

As I said earlier, the Assassins were a pretty close parallel in a great many respects. But modern Islamic terrorism is a relatively new phenomenon, that depends for success on things that didn’t exist before – like a mass media to spread news of their deeds around the world instantaneously – so it is uniquely new in some respects.

So what does that mean? That just because we have never faced a threat precisely like this before, we decide before we’ve even really tried that all is lost, and we’d better negotiate a peace?

Hell no!

We use a combination of military, economic, diplomatic, and other means to fight them every way we possibly can. We face the prospect that it will be a long, hard fight, with many sacrifices. We also, I grant you, must face the fact that we have made some mistakes in the past as well, and will have to make certain changes to our own behavior if we are to succeed.

But we do not negotiate with terrorists!

Was that before or after Israel murdered the Accords? From:

Who Murdered the Oslo Accords?
by Muriel Mirak-Weissbach... [snip]

Jesus H. Christ, do you really expect me to take seriously anything that you got from Lyndon LaRouche and his crowd?!?!

Never heard of this LaRouche character before now. But I noticed two things about your reply. One, you blast LaRouche, however the author of the article is Mirak-Weissbach. And two, you didn't actually refute anything, just launched an ad hominem.

“Duh, daaaaaaahhh… I will love him and hug him and squeeze him and pet him, and I will call him George…”




EXCUSE ME! Did you completely fail to notice that this article came from LaRouche Puclications?

Here’s your own link back at you:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2 ... mrdrd.html

Are you getting it yet?

Just what kind of material do you suppose will get published on the website of a nutcase, conspiracy theorist, lunatic fringe political figure like Lyndon LaRouche?

Did you even read the article? Or did you just do a hasty web search, and when you found an article that proved to be critical of Israel after the first few lines, you decided to use it as evidence in your argument?

Sloppy as that is, I’d almost rather that that were the case, because the alternative is that you actually buy this horseshit.

What parts of the article are wrong?

Hmm… where to begin…

The truth is, the Oslo peace accord of September 1993 failed, because powerful Israeli interests and their U.S.-based allies caused it to fail. In an interview that September, U.S. Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche forecast prophetically, that, unless immediate progress were made on the economic aspects of the peace agreements, "enemies of progress and enemies of the human race, such as Henry Kissinger and his friends, will be successful, through people like Ariel Sharon's buddies, in intervening to drown this agreement in chaos and blood."

N.B. the author is a LaRouche supporter. That ought to tell you something right there. She goes on to describe the failure of the Oslo peace accord to a deliberate coampaign of sabotage by “Henry Kissinger and his friends”.

Oh please!

And I did address that point in my last post, remember?

And that’s not all the conspiracy theorist nonsense:

Hamas was in fact created and nurtured by Israeli intelligence networks—officially—as a counterweight to Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1980s…
-------------------------------------------------
Sharon personally was involved in promoting Hamas in its early activities.
-------------------------------------------------
Who was, in fact, the first suicide bomber to ignite violence in the region? Was it some Hamas activist? Or was it not one Baruch Goldstein, a fanatical Israeli settler of the Kach movement, who opened fire on a group of praying Muslims, killing 50, in a Hebron mosque, on Feb. 25, 1994? Was not this what triggered the beginning of the Palestinian suicide bombings, two months later? And who was it, who assassinated Rabin, the Israeli military professional who had opted for peace? Was it a Palestinian terrorist, or was it a right-wing Israeli extremist, acting in complicity with elements of Israeli security?

Yes, Hamas was created by Israeli intelligence.

Sharon promoted a terrorist group, operating on behalf of a group he supposedly despises.

Israeli intelligence deliberately instigated the suicide bombing campaign.

There’s a reason I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to refute this article guy. This kind of paranoid conspiracy theorist tripe virtually refutes itself.

I'm not saying anything here beyond the fact you aren't allowing the Iraqi's to run their country, which is, if it isn't already, unacceptable to the terrorists.

There is already an Iraqi council is there not? We are turning the reign of power over as fast as is prudent in order to maintain what order there is.

Yes, unprovoked. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolutions. Why don't you tell me what provocation there was to cause terrorists to attack from there, after they had gotten what they wanted - an Israeli withdrawal from the area?

Why should an Israeli provocation be restricted to the Israel-Lebanon border?

So what sort of provocation?

I also note that you are dodging the issue. You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. They were attacked after conceeding.

I'm not dodging anything. I assumed you were claiming that in 3 years between the pullout and the rocket attack, Israel hasn't made one provocative move. It's only now that I reliese your definition of retaliation has to be wherever the provocation was geographically located

Three years between the… ? Did you miss the little fact that these attacks have been a continuing phenomenon? It’s not three years of quiet, and then – BLAM – an attack. The Attacks were taking place virtually from the time of the pullout. In other words, the terrorists got the concession they wanted, and they still never stopped their terror campaign.

Yeah, negotiation with terrorists really works.

You showed me shit, because you haven't included Israels provocations into your argument.

What provocation? The terrorists didn’t resume attacking Israel in response to an Israeli provocation; they never stopped in the first place.

I repeat: You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. I gave you a direct answer to your question by showing an example of precisely how Israel had been harmed.

Again, you tie provocation and retaliation to geography. Does Israel launch ITS retaliation to suicide bombers from Cafes? Do suicide bombers blow themselves up at the sites of bulldozed homes?

Since there are no large numbers of civilian targets to be found in bulldozed homes, and their aim is to inflict as many casualties as possible…



“Duh, daaaaaaahhh… I will love him and hug him and squeeze him and pet him, and I will call him George…”

I said you SPREAD your culture through force, not that you force it on them.

And just how is that accomplished? I would love to hear an explanation for this.

But that's not very accurate. Your culture is associated to "who you are". You've been bullying, violent and deceitful in the region, THAT'S why they hate you and anything associated to you: your culture for example.

And they also hate us because they have allowed themselves to become a bunch of backward, economically and militarily weak states, and they have lapsed into fundamentalism and fanaticism rather than face up to the kinds of things they need to do to reduce their susceptibility to such outside interference. And they have resorted to methods that simply cannot be tolerated in carrying our their campaign against the US.

[BoredShirtless]

The British say they're hanging on to some mysterious information. Even though releasing that information would not only clear the USA, but Britian too, they refuse to release it. Are you really this naive?

There can be all kinds of reasons for not releasing intelligence, but as long as the British are standing by their sources, I am not willing to declare that both they and the president must be a liar.

Today’s British stance is after the fact. This is about the Speech, and whether your government slipped a lie in. A lie is a statement meant to deceive or give a wrong impression. Because the US knew the intelligence was a forgery nearly a year before the speech, it was deceitful to still use it to support its allegation, therefore your government lied.

The key to the Muslims victory over the Kharijites was the Muslims were able to isolate the Kharijites . I don't think you can do that with Al-Qaeda using your current strategy.

What makes you think military action is the one and only component of this strategy. The State Dept. is no doubt bringing diplomatic pressure to bear.

There's no point in listing "diplomatic pressure" as a tool, the Bush Administration clearly doesn't know how to use it. Look at the way his Administration handled Iraq. Did there diplomacy pressure the world to the US's side? No. It alienated basically the entire world, failed to commit and essentially destroyed the UN, poisoned your relationship with France, etc etc.

Applying pressure in a variety of ways to various Islamic countries may help to isolate terrorist organizations, the way the Kharijites were isolated.

And when you find them, detain, put to trial and convict them according to the Law. As Worlds Spanner said:

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

Result: more terrorists.

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

No more killings, no more holding people without trial, no more wars. Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

And I notice you passed over the example of the Assassins in silence. Curious, since this is the organization that most closely resembles modern terrorists – a subnational group of fanatical Muslims who used force, including murder to achieve their political goals, and who operated very widely over the then-known world. They carried out murders in virtually every land in the Islamic world, they carried them out in the Crusader kingdoms, the Byzantine Empire, Norman Sicily, you name it. And this organization was destroyed by military force.

I avoided this because it fails two very important comparisons with Al-Qaeda: size and distribution. The Assassins were based in a few Persian mountains, Al-Qaeda has cells in over 50 countries. Unlike the people who used military force to destroy the Assassins, you don't have the resources to do that to Al-Qaeda.

Hunting down and killing terrorists invites retribution and feeds an endless cycle of violence. The sooner your government realises this, the better. This will all end one day around a table. I have no idea who will be sitting around that table. But that's how it will end. Maybe the use of military force is a precursor to any relevant negotiations. Only time will tell.

I'm arguing the solution is wrong, not that it's too slow or fast. Yesterday Paul Wolfowitz said "peace in Iraq now is the central battle in the war on terrorism". That's true Paul. But before Iraq, you were a hell of a lot closer to defeating terrorism then you are right now. One step forward [Afghanistan] five steps back [Iraq].

And the reason you’re arguing the solution is wrong is because you haven’t seen unabashedly positive results. Well no shit Sherlock!

I told you already I'm not arguing about the results, it's the solution itself. It's counter productive. Invading Iraq set your "War on Terror" back numerous steps. There's no question it helped Al-Qaeda recruit more people. And it may have undone your results in Afghanistan. Who gives a shit if Iraq is liberated? We're talking about terrorism.

Whenever you attack anyone, no matter vile and despised an enemy, you are going to generate a backlash. Name one war, no matter how just, where this has not occurred. The terrorists have supporters and sympathizers; yeah, we knew that. And we knew they’d hate us for it. But you are choosing to hearken to exclusively negative reports. There are a number of people coming back from Iraq, who have seen the situation first hand, who are reporting that they are mystified at all the doom and gloom in the media reports, because what they saw with their own eyes over there does not resemble this hopeless picture of a Vietnam-like quagmire. Yes, our troops are still being attacked daily, but those are the diehard Baathist forces still loyal to Saddam, and are simply not representative of the Iraqi people as a whole. What’s more, if we can get Saddam, a lot of that movement is bound to collapse for lack of a leader around whom to rally.

You're confusing the issue. There was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. The only thing you could claim here is that you gained control of Iraq to enhance your presence in the Middle East, making it easier to swat terrorists. However, enhancing your presence by taking over a country has STREGNTHENED the terrorists. This is something you apparently don't see.

This is going to take time. It is too soon to conclude that the strategy we are currently following is destined for failure. And I am reminded that most of the people who are now saying it is were also predicting the war itself would be a Vietnam-like quagmire, that we didn’t have enough troops, that Baghdad would be Stalingrad mark II, etc. etc. – all predictions of spectacular failure, and all spectacularly wrong! Give it time, we actually have a good chance of accomplishing something really positive here. But you are in a rush to declare it all a failure and throw away the opportunity before even trying, and way before we’ve even had time to accomplish anything.

I'm not in a rush. My opinion that you're going about this in a bad way isn't based on your results or lack thereof in Iraq.

You're strawmaning my argument, I said the legitimate grievences are the triggers, not that triggers are only ever grievances. A trigger is an event someone experiences which changes their life in some way. It can be reading the Quran, watching your house burn down, a blow to the head, whatever.

Then you do admit that fanatics can be fanatics without grievances to make them so.

Without grievances? Sure. I never said anything to the contrary.

Thank you, that ‘s what I’ve been telling you. Concession accepted.

Don't be a smart arse. You created a straw man, implying I said fanaticism must come from grievances. I never said that. I said it must come from TRIGGERS, but triggers don't have to be grievances.

To win nations to your side, do not lie to them. Especially Muslim countries.

Ah, so we are currently lying to the Iraqis? In what way specifically?

You lied to the WORLD, not just Iraq. How much constructive support would you expect from a country like Indonesia, when you eventually knock on their door? They know you lied to them, so they'd have thrown out the lies and guessed what the real reasons behind the invasion were. And I can guarantee they won’t be thinking you did it to get rid of WMD or to liberate the people.

The Indonesian government used a lot of rhetoric to describe the way you handled Iraq. Indonesia used the conjecture and lies spread by your government, to tell the largest population of Muslims in the world that you're evil. Sure, Indonesia would have used rhetoric even if you had invaded with blessings from the UN. But it wouldn't have been so powerful, it wouldn't have created so much hate.

NO! Guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam is what I said, and that is precisely what I meant.

I think if they had really deviated Islam, the Muslim world would not identify with their cause and thus say more against them.

You think that most Muslims worldwide then considered the Taliban and their fundamentalist creed to be mainstream? I think most of the world’s Muslims would disagree with you there.

Stay with me Perinquus. The context here was Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.

As I said, “a deviated interpretation of Islam”. The fact that a lot of Muslims feel ambivalence or even outright antipathy toward the United States makes some mainstream Muslims sympathize with their struggle to an extent, does not mean that they like or approve of a group like the Taliban or Al Quaeda, it simply means they have certain common fears and suspicions. It is quite possible to regard a group with distaste, and yet still sympathize with a few of their ideas.

You're using Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the same context without any talk of how different they are. Muslims did not sympathise with or approve of the Taliban. They may have got a little sympathy while you were destroying them. However during their reign, the Taliban were absolutely despised by nearly every Muslim country bar Pakistan. Heck, even Pakistan turned on them [before 9/11].

But not all Muslims are willing to support groups like Al Quaeda. There are many mainstream Muslims who do not support or endorse Al Quaeda, or agree with their cause. There are even more who, while they may agree in principle with some of Al Quaeda’s statements regarding America and the West, do not approve of its methods. The point is that the Taliban, which even you admit seems to have had no particular reason to feel victimized by American foreign policy, was willing to shelter Al Quaeda, and provide them a base of operations from which to carry out their murderous attacks.

I never argued the Taliban didn't shelter Al-Qaeda, or didn't deserve to be put out of power. I don't see the relevance of this point.

A full blown discussion is for another topic, but acknowledging them and gauging there influence isn't. Do you not think that all these cases of intervention by the US has not given a legitimate cause for Muslims to finally rise against you?

It may give them legitimate grievances, but I refuse to subscribe to the notion that anything justifies flying a plane full of terrified, innocent people into a skyscraper and kill thousands of other innocent people.

9/11 was such a horrible thing. But your country must bear some of the responsibility. You gave them legitimate grievances. If you hadn't, they wouldn't have done it.

Your government HAS lied. Act like a little bitch and deny this fact till you're blue in the face, I couldn't care less.

And go ahead and scream lies till you’re blue in the face. I couldn’t care less, since you haven’t proven anything of the kind.

See the very top of this post. And as Hamel recently said:

8/26/02 Cheney: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. (Remarks to VFW, 8/26/03).

9/02 Rumsfeld: Rumsfeld told Congress that Saddam’s ‘regime has amassed large, clandestine stockpiles of chemical weapons, including VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard gas…” (U.S. News 6/03).

9/19/2002 Rumsfeld: There are a number of terrorist states pursuing weapons of mass destruction -- Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, just to name but a few. But no terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security of our people than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. (Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing Transcript, 9/19/2002)

10/06/02 Bush: Saddam Hussein could strike without notice and inflict "massive and sudden horror" on America. (AP, 10/6/02)

1/28/03 Bush: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” (The State of the Union Address, 1/28/03)

2/05/03 Powell: “Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets.” (Remarks, UN, 2/05/03)

2/08/03 Bush: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." (Radio Address, 2/08/03)

3/16/03 Cheney: “We believe [Saddam] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.” (Washington Post, 5/20/03)

3/17/03 Bush: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." (Address, DC, 3/17/03)

3/30/03 Rumsfeld: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." (Remarks, ABC, 3/30/03)


NOW

Spring 2003 Bush official: “The Iraqis may have poured it into the ground someplace.” (Washington Post, 4/10/03; Newsday, 3/16/03)

5/04/03 Rumsfeld: "We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." (Interview, Fox News, 5/04/03)

5/12/03 Rice: U.S. never expected that “we were going to open garages and find” WMDs.” (Reuters, 5/12/03)

5/27/03 Rumsfeld: "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."
(Remarks, Council on Foreign Relations, 5/27/03)

6/03/03 Lt. Gen. James Conway: “We were simply wrong…It was a surprise to me then, it remains a surprise to me now, that we have not uncovered [nuclear, chemical or biological] weapons [in Iraq.] …believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwait border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.” LA Times 6/03/03.

Bush 6/16/03: “And we acted in Iraq, as well. We made it clear to the dictator of Iraq that he must disarm. We asked other nations to join us in seeing to it that he would disarm, and he chose not to do so, so we disarmed him. And I know there's a lot of revisionist history now going on, but one thing is certain. He is no longer a threat to the free world, and the people of Iraq are free.” (Remarks, 6/16/03)

7/06/03 Former Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV: “The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government. The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership.” (Op-Ed, NY Times, 7/06/03)

7/09/03: Sen. Pryor: When did you know that the reports about uranium coming out of Africa were bogus? Rumsfeld: Well, within recent days, since the information started becoming available.

7/09/03 Bush: Q Yes, Mr. President. Do you regret that your State of the Union accusation that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa is now fueling charges that you and Prime Minister Blair misled the public?

“[T]here's no doubt in my mind, when it's all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth. There's absolutely no doubt in my mind. And so there's going to be a lot of attempts to try to rewrite history, and I can understand that. But I am absolutely confident in the decision I made.… One thing is for certain, he's not trying to buy anything right now.” (Remarks, 7/09/03)

7/12/2003 George Tenet and Unnamed US Officials: CIA Director George Tenet said Friday that he was responsible for President Bush’s false allegation in his State of the Union address that Baghdad was trying to buy uranium in Africa, a key part of Bush’s argument for military action in Iraq…

But U.S. officials told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that Tenet himself advised Rice’s top deputy, Steven Hadley, to remove a reference to the uranium report from a speech Bush delivered Oct. 7 in Cincinnati, establishing that the nation’s top intelligence officials suspected that the allegation was false more than three months before they approved Bush’s repeating it in his nationally televised address on Jan. 28… (MSNBC.com, 7/12/2003)

Only a fanatic would refuse to admit the Bush Administration didn't lie.

Like you, these Assyrian's completely disregard the triggers which set Al-Qaeda off. Any analysis of "Radical Islam" which doesn't analyse the impact of American influnece is complete garbage.

And any analysis that excuses the excesses of radical Islam as nothing but the by-product of American actions, without facing up to the failure of Muslim countries to modernize,

I'd call Internet Cafe's in Baghdad modern. Same goes with Tehran. These people aren't as backwards as you're making them out to be.

to produce anything of value except the oil which is theirs only by accident of geography,

What do you mean? What does "value" mean exactly?

to provide for their people as well as the nations of the West,

What? Back this ridicules claim up.

or to do anything but embrace medieval-style fundamentalism (which only ensures the Islamic world will fall still further behind, and make it more vulnerable to outside influences and intervention like ours), is complete garbage.

You're referring to countries like Iran, right? Because not all Islamic countries are as you described. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Iran went fundamentalist, if you know the facts. She went fundamentalist after the revolution in 79. When Iran was open, you corrupted her. So she crossed her legs. Iran in a nutshell:

• Attempts to follow in the footsteps of the West.
• The US corrupts leadership. Majority of Iranians are miserable under the policies of the corrupted government.
• Enter revolution.
• The revolting government closes its doors to prevent the corruption that befell its predecessor.

In conclusion: stop interfering, and through their own progress the region will reach a stage were they could resist outside intervention. And from there, become less fundamentalist. And more open to the West.

And to blame it all on the US and its foreign policy is also an incredibly incomplete conclusion. Face it, the Muslim world is where it is today largely because of choices Muslims themselves made. At the beginning of the 20th century, you had figures like Kemal Atatürk (and he was by no means the only one of this intellectual stripe) who saw the growing technological and material gap yawning between his country and the West. He realized, correctly, that the only way to armor his country against so much Westernization that it might lose much of its own culture (and against being a pawn of Western countries in their power struggles) was to adopt some Western ways voluntarily. In short, to follow the example of Japan, which realized how backward it was, and sought to acquire industry and technology with which to compete with the West, and become powerful enough to treat with Western nations as an equal. Atatürk sought to modernize Turkey. That included technological and industrial modernization, but it also included social reforms, like replacing Arabic script with Roman letters, and a strict separation of church and state (mosque and state?) along Western lines. Atatürk was remarkably successful, and he did succeed in making his nation, if not as strong and as modern as America, or the nations of Western Europe, at least strong enough to resist becoming a client state.

Other nations in the Muslim world could have emulated this success. Instead, they chose to go the exact opposite way, and the results of this are that today Islamic countries are the most backward on the planet.

Your POV boils down to this: we will attempt to corrupt you. If you are strong like us, we will not succeed. If you are weak, you will become a client state.

That's immoral.

And before you tell me I'm naive and that's the way the world works: I know. That IS the way the world works.

But. At the end of the day, you're dealing with people. People do have a sense of what is moral. If you act immoral, people may rise against you on a wave of injustice induced by your immoral behaviour. In other words, the immoral methods you use to expand or protect national interest through the manipulation of client states, sows the seeds of terrorism for the future to reap.

The world of Islam, which once led the globe in science, the arts, and literature, now trails everybody. And as Lewis points out, they are not just asking “what happened?” They are also asking “who did this to us?” (A very human trait – the desire to assign blame.) And there is a growing feeling of bitterness among Muslims at the increasing backwardness of the Islamic world, and the failure of their various regimes to succeed in correcting this. But as I said, the Muslims themselves rejected the measures that would have gotten them out of that particular box. Instead of embracing rationalism and science, they embraced superstition and dogma, and in doing so, only ensured that they would become yet more backward over time, and thus less able to resist the encroachment of Western powers like the United States. Now they are (some of them) digging themselves deeper into fundamentalist dogma, and becoming angry at a problem that is at least partly of their own making.

This is a fact of the situation you do not seem willing to acknowledge.

I mostly agree with everything you just said, and the preceding related stuff I snipped. However what you said doesn't blame terrorism on purely a "deviated reading of Islam". As you say, this is a problem which is PARTLY of their own making. Partly. You must also share responsibility for their current lot in life, which includes responsibility for creating the legitimate grievances the terrorists operate under.

I'd like ONE example of force ever destroying a terrorist movement which has cells in over 50 countries, with resources in the billions, and recruiting daily. Give me ONE.

As I said earlier, the Assassins were a pretty close parallel in a great many respects. But modern Islamic terrorism is a relatively new phenomenon, that depends for success on things that didn’t exist before – like a mass media to spread news of their deeds around the world instantaneously – so it is uniquely new in some respects.

So what does that mean? That just because we have never faced a threat precisely like this before, we decide before we’ve even really tried that all is lost, and we’d better negotiate a peace?

Hell no!

We use a combination of military, economic, diplomatic, and other means to fight them every way we possibly can. We face the prospect that it will be a long, hard fight, with many sacrifices. We also, I grant you, must face the fact that we have made some mistakes in the past as well, and will have to make certain changes to our own behavior if we are to succeed.

But we do not negotiate with terrorists!

Well I hope you don't end up over your head.

EXCUSE ME! Did you completely fail to notice that this article came from LaRouche Puclications?

Here’s your own link back at you:

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2002/2 ... mrdrd.html

Are you getting it yet?

Can you prove the author wrote to fit LaRouche's POV, and not the authors POV matches LaRouche's in some parts?

Just what kind of material do you suppose will get published on the website of a nutcase, conspiracy theorist, lunatic fringe political figure like Lyndon LaRouche?

Did you even read the article? Or did you just do a hasty web search, and when you found an article that proved to be critical of Israel after the first few lines, you decided to use it as evidence in your argument?

Yep that's pretty much what I did. I got to ask you something: why do you blame the Palestinians for breaking the Oslo Accords?

Yes, unprovoked. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolutions. Why don't you tell me what provocation there was to cause terrorists to attack from there, after they had gotten what they wanted - an Israeli withdrawal from the area?

Why should an Israeli provocation be restricted to the Israel-Lebanon border?

So what sort of provocation?

Why does it matter? The second uprising had been running for more then 2 years already, there'd be a huge list of Israeli provocations in that time. You could pick any one of them, I have no way of knowing which one (or more?) instigated the rocket attack.

I also note that you are dodging the issue. You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceeding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. They were attacked after conceeding.

I'm not dodging anything. I assumed you were claiming that in 3 years between the pullout and the rocket attack, Israel hasn't made one provocative move. It's only now that I reliese your definition of retaliation has to be wherever the provocation was geographically located

Three years between the… ? Did you miss the little fact that these attacks have been a continuing phenomenon? It’s not three years of quiet, and then – BLAM – an attack. The Attacks were taking place virtually from the time of the pullout. In other words, the terrorists got the concession they wanted, and they still never stopped their terror campaign.

You're trying to directly tie the rocket attack to the pullout, ignoring 3 years of violence and provocation from both sides. And you're also ignoring who started the second uprising, which essentially destroyed the half hearted concession Israel had made.

Yeah, negotiation with terrorists really works.

Wasn't the pullout negotiated with the PLO?

You showed me shit, because you haven't included Israels provocations into your argument.

What provocation? The terrorists didn’t resume attacking Israel in response to an Israeli provocation; they never stopped in the first place.

Wrong. From http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=860:

It is in this context that Ariel Sharon's visit to al-Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sanctuary, must be seen. The visit sent a two-fold message to Palestinians. First it was a humiliating show of force and disrespect to our national and religious aspirations, because we consider Sharon to be a war criminal responsible for killing hundreds of innocent Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps in 1982. (That conviction is shared by millions around the world, including hundreds of thousands of Israelis.) Second, it was a political message to Palestinians: Do not dream about Jerusalem.

Even so, it was not Sharon's provocation that started all this violence. It was the brutal reaction of Israeli police to the Palestinians who protested it. This response delivered another message to Palestinians: We can do whatever we want; you cannot even protest.

I repeat: You asked if I could show how Israel had been harmed by conceding to a demand and pulling out Lebanon. I showed you how. I gave you a direct answer to your question by showing an example of precisely how Israel had been harmed.

No. You didn't show me how Israel's concession in 2000 harmed her 3 years later, because you didn't prove that Israel didn't PROVOKE the rocket attack. And as I showed above, Israel clearly did provoke the rocket attack. Israel provoked the Second Intifada, and thus anything after the fall of 2000 was in the context of that cycle of violence they're currently in.

But that's not very accurate. Your culture is associated to "who you are". You've been bullying, violent and deceitful in the region, THAT'S why they hate you and anything associated to you: your culture for example.

And they also hate us because they have allowed themselves to become a bunch of backward, economically and militarily weak states, and they have lapsed into fundamentalism and fanaticism rather than face up to the kinds of things they need to do to reduce their susceptibility to such outside interference. And they have resorted to methods that simply cannot be tolerated in carrying our their campaign against the US.

Your self-inflicted nightmare.

[Perinquus]

Today’s British stance is after the fact. This is about the Speech, and whether your government slipped a lie in. A lie is a statement meant to deceive or give a wrong impression. Because the US knew the intelligence was a forgery nearly a year before the speech, it was deceitful to still use it to support its allegation, therefore your government lied.

Okay, try to understand this. Even then, the British were not relying on that single document. So when it turned out to be a forgery, they were still willing to stand by the assertion that Saddam attempted to obtain uranium from Africa.

There's no point in listing "diplomatic pressure" as a tool, the Bush Administration clearly doesn't know how to use it. Look at the way his Administration handled Iraq. Did there diplomacy pressure the world to the US's side? No. It alienated basically the entire world, failed to commit and essentially destroyed the UN, poisoned your relationship with France, etc etc.

Come off it. France has been taking anti-US positions ever since Charles DeGaulle pulled France out of NATO and tried his damnedest to undermine the strength of the US dollar. US diplomacy did manage to get a number of other nations to join us against Iraq - a fact people like you seem entirely too willing to forget in your rush to declare George W. Bush and the US "unilateralist". And if the UN is willing to do things such as appointing a one-party police state like Libya to chair a human rights commission for pete's sake, then maybe it deserves to be destroyed (though we haven't done that by any stretch of the imagination - thanks for the strawman).

And when you find them, detain, put to trial and convict them according to the Law. As Worlds Spanner said:

When that can be sone without too mush risk to the US forces going after them, sure. But since they are mostly willing to die rather than be captured, it makes this rather difficult. And I, for one, have no problem with killing them in such a case.

No matter WHY the terrorists themselves hate the US, when the US destroyes entire countries to get at the terrorists, is makes the common people of those countries think that maybe the terrorists are right.

Result: more terrorists.

The best thing would be follow a policy of MINIMUM interference (I'm not advocating isolationism here) and work with other governemnts, both in the Middle East and in the West, to apprehend terrorists based on the rule of law.

No more killings, no more holding people without trial, no more wars. Then the terrorists will gradually be rounded up and in the meanwhile no one who is not already a raving fanatic will have any cause to take them seriously.

All this is well and good when the other nations are willing to cooperate. But do you really think Afghanistan under the Taliban would have been willing to give them up for trial? Do you think Syria waould have been willing before it saw that "holy shit! the Americans aren't bluffing this time; they really mean it!"

Sometimes, you really do have no other alternative but military force.

I avoided this because it fails two very important comparisons with Al-Qaeda: size and distribution. The Assassins were based in a few Persian mountains, Al-Qaeda has cells in over 50 countries. Unlike the people who used military force to destroy the Assassins, you don't have the resources to do that to Al-Qaeda.

Just you watch us.

Hunting down and killing terrorists invites retribution and feeds an endless cycle of violence. The sooner your government realises this, the better. This will all end one day around a table. I have no idea who will be sitting around that table. But that's how it will end. Maybe the use of military force is a precursor to any relevant negotiations. Only time will tell.

And negotiating with terrorist feeds an endless cycle of extortion. If George W. Bush ever sits down at the negotiating table with representatives of Al Quaeda, or with nations that shelter groups like Al Quaeda, I'll never trust him after.

I told you already I'm not arguing about the results, it's the solution itself. It's counter productive. Invading Iraq set your "War on Terror" back numerous steps. There's no question it helped Al-Qaeda recruit more people. And it may have undone your results in Afghanistan. Who gives a shit if Iraq is liberated? We're talking about terrorism.

Because a liberated Iraq, turned into a democracy, and running itself may be a strong positive influence on other Middle Eastern nations. That too may take a large chunk out of the terrorists; support. And while Iraq may have helped Al Quaeda recruit more people, it also apparently helped make nations like Syria a little less willing to openly support terrorists and provide them with shelter, funding, and training - without which they cannot operate nearly as effectively.

Ther's no question there is a growing perception in the Middle East that the US is serious this time. There won't be just rhetoric backing up US demands that countries end their sponsorship of terrorism.

You're confusing the issue. There was no connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. The only thing you could claim here is that you gained control of Iraq to enhance your presence in the Middle East, making it easier to swat terrorists. However, enhancing your presence by taking over a country has STREGNTHENED the terrorists. This is something you apparently don't see.

And you apparently don't see the other side of that coin. The terrorists need not just recruits; they need money; they need shelter in nations friendly to them; they need training; and they need intel. People like Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, see the US will really and no shit invade if it regards you as a serious threat, and if you are suspected of sponsoring terrorism, and they have to be more circumspect about supporting terrorists, because they have no particular wish to be toppled from power like Saddam Hussein was. Since September 2000 Syria had stepped up its financial, military and political support for groups such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah. Since the US destroyed Saddam's regime in Iraq, however, there is considerable evidence that al-Assad has been less willing to support these groups, and that he has been reluctant to shelter fleeing Iraqi Baath party officials.

I'm not in a rush. My opinion that you're going about this in a bad way isn't based on your results or lack thereof in Iraq.

Then just what kind of evidence is it based on? Or is it just your opinion?

Don't be a smart arse. You created a straw man, implying I said fanaticism must come from grievances. I never said that. I said it must come from TRIGGERS, but triggers don't have to be grievances.

So then what is your point, since you concede that fanatics can be fanatics without the US specifically making them into those?

To win nations to your side, do not lie to them. Especially Muslim countries.

You lied to the WORLD, not just Iraq. How much constructive support would you expect from a country like Indonesia, when you eventually knock on their door? They know you lied to them, so they'd have thrown out the lies and guessed what the real reasons behind the invasion were. And I can guarantee they won’t be thinking you did it to get rid of WMD or to liberate the people.

The Indonesian government used a lot of rhetoric to describe the way you handled Iraq. Indonesia used the conjecture and lies spread by your government, to tell the largest population of Muslims in the world that you're evil. Sure, Indonesia would have used rhetoric even if you had invaded with blessings from the UN. But it wouldn't have been so powerful, it wouldn't have created so much hate.

So you concede that Indonesia would have stirred its people up against us regardless, but still insist that we followed the wrong course.

Even without something that they could represent to their people as American duplicity, they would have taken something and distorted or misprepresented it to create a grievance they could show to their people. That's how propaganda works. I can't honestly see why we should craft American foreign policy around placating nations like Indonesia, which you even concede would still hate us and stir up their people against us anyway.

You think that most Muslims worldwide then considered the Taliban and their fundamentalist creed to be mainstream? I think most of the world’s Muslims would disagree with you there.

Stay with me Perinquus. The context here was Al-Qaeda, not the Taliban.

Yeeeesss, and the context included the fact that the Taliban - who were unreasonable fanatics guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam - were willing to shelter and support Al Quaeda - who are unreasonable fanatics guided by a deviated interpretation of Islam - even though the Taliban, as even you admit, had no particular grievances with the US itself. They were apparently just birds of a feather.

Jesus Christ! What do I need to do to get this across? Use hand puppets?

See the very top of this post. And as Hamel recently said:

8/26/02 Cheney: Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. (Remarks to VFW, 8/26/03).

...snip
Only a fanatic would refuse to admit the Bush Administration didn't lie.

Bullshit. We are still looking for WMDs, and a radio report I head just yesterday indicates that more Iraqi scientists have come forth and started cooperating. I am not jumping for joy at this, since we have had some false alarms already, but we are still looking, and apparently still expecting to find some. So how is it necessarily a lie then that Bush was claiming we were sure the Iraqis had WMDs?

As for claims like "2/08/03 Bush: 'We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.' (Radio Address, 2/08/03)", how is that necessarily a lie? It appears, at worst to be an intel blunder, which is a common thing in war. Hitler thought the Allies would land at Calais; Stalin thought Hitler wouldn't attack in 1940; American military planners thought the Japanese lacked the ability to drop torpedoes in Pearl Harbor because it was believed to be too shallow; British and American troops carried gas masks because the Germans were believed to have nerve gas ready for battlefield use. These sorts of things are intelligence blunders that happen all the time in war. Only people with an axe to grind conclude they must be lies.

I'd call Internet Cafe's in Baghdad modern. Same goes with Tehran. These people aren't as backwards as you're making them out to be.

And how many homes in Iraq, particularly the countryside lack electrical power, indoor pumbing, things like that? How many people have access to modern medical care? They're third world countries!

to produce anything of value except the oil which is theirs only by accident of geography,

What do you mean? What does "value" mean exactly?

Commodities that are in demand by the rest of the world. Name one other thing that the rest of the world wants from the Middle East.

to provide for their people as well as the nations of the West,

What? Back this ridicules claim up.

Ridiculous claim

My ASS it's a ridiculous claim. How have the kleptocrat regimes of the Middle East provided for their people as well as the nations of the West? Tell me. I dare you.

Do Middle Eastern countries provide the same level of medical care? That would be no. Do people in Middle Eastern countries enjoy life spans as long as those in the West? Again, no. Is the rate of literacy in Middle Eastern countries as high? Once again, no. Do Middle Eastern countries afford their citizens the same degree of human rights? Once again, no.

In fact, why don't you name me one way in which the people of the Middle East are materially as well off as Americans, Europeans, Japanese, etc. Go ahead. I dare you.

You're referring to countries like Iran, right? Because not all Islamic countries are as you described. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why Iran went fundamentalist, if you know the facts. She went fundamentalist after the revolution in 79. When Iran was open, you corrupted her. So she crossed her legs. Iran in a nutshell:

• Attempts to follow in the footsteps of the West.
• The US corrupts leadership. Majority of Iranians are miserable under the policies of the corrupted government.
• Enter revolution.
• The revolting government closes its doors to prevent the corruption that befell its predecessor.

In conclusion: stop interfering, and through their own progress the region will reach a stage were they could resist outside intervention. And from there, become less fundamentalist. And more open to the West.

So how does this explain Afghanistan? How does this explain the strong fundamentalist movements in Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, and numerous other countries? How does this explain that example I cited ealier? Remember, Hasan al-Bana came to the US in the 1940s, and went home to Egypt to start a very successful fundamentalist movement. This was well before the US was seen as the world big bully in the Middle East. So how does US foreign policy become responsible for this?

Your POV boils down to this: we will attempt to corrupt you. If you are strong like us, we will not succeed. If you are weak, you will become a client state.

That's immoral.

Historically, every single time a less advanced people has come into contact with a more advanced one, the less advanced culture is doomed. It will either be changed by the more advanced culture, or it will be destroyed by it. I am not aware of a single exception to this rule. This is a fact. There can be nothing immoral about a fact.

Yep that's pretty much what I did. I got to ask you something: why do you blame the Palestinians for breaking the Oslo Accords?

Because during the years following the Oslo accords Yasser Arafat had complete control of all the organs of Palestinian education and propaganda. He used that means to spread hatred and incite violence. He never attemtpted to encourage some sort of reconciliation or a modus vivendi. When U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross stepped down in 2001, he acknowledged, to his credit, that a major error of diplomacy in the Clinton years was turning a diplomatic blind eye to the poisonous incitement in Palestinian media. This indoctrination goes far beyond expunging Israel, literally, from Palestinian maps. It goes far beyond denying, indeed ridiculing, the Holocaust as a Jewish fantasy. It consists of the rawest incitement to murder, as in this sermon by Arafat-appointed and Arafat-funded Ahmad Abu Halabiya broadcast live on official Palestinian Authority television early in the Intifada. The subject is "the Jews." (Note: not the Israelis, but the Jews.) "They must be butchered and killed, as Allah the Almighty said: 'Fight them: Allah will torture them at your hands.' . . . Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them."

A precondition for peace is to prepare your people for peace. Egypt's Anwar Sadat did that after signing his peace treaty with Israel. The Israelis did that after signing Oslo. They changed their textbooks and altered their civic culture to recognize and accept the Palestinians. On the 50th anniversary of Israel's independence, for example, Israel Television aired an epic multipart historical documentary that offered a view of the Palestinians that was deeply sympathetic and understanding.

While Israeli leaders, both political and intellectual, were preparing their people for peace, Arafat was preparing his people for war -- the war he unleashed two months after rejecting Israel's Camp David peace offer of July 2000 -- with an unrelenting campaign of anti-Semitic vilification carried out by every organ of his media.

Yes, unprovoked. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon, in accordance with UN resolutions. Why don't you tell me what provocation there was to cause terrorists to attack from there, after they had gotten what they wanted - an Israeli withdrawal from the area?

So what sort of provocation?

Why does it matter? The second uprising had been running for more then 2 years already, there'd be a huge list of Israeli provocations in that time. You could pick any one of them, I have no way of knowing which one (or more?) instigated the rocket attack.

Uh huh. I see. When you ask a straight question, I give you a straight answer. When I ask a related one back at you, I get brushed off with "why does it matter?"

Concession accepted.

I'm not dodging anything. I assumed you were claiming that in 3 years between the pullout and the rocket attack, Israel hasn't made one provocative move. It's only now that I reliese your definition of retaliation has to be wherever the provocation was geographically located

Like hell you're not dodging. I want an explanation why this concession, which is supposed to prove that you can negotiate with terrorists, got the Israelis nothing. Why did the terrorists never stop attacking from Lebanon, even when the Israelis pulled out in accordance with terrorist demands?

If negotiation is to work, there has to be some sort of quid pro quo.

What provocation? The terrorists didn’t resume attacking Israel in response to an Israeli provocation; they never stopped in the first place.

Wrong. From http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=860:

snip

No. You didn't show me how Israel's concession in 2000 harmed her 3 years later,

Are you fucking listening? Once AGAIN, I draw your attention to the words of the original post. This time I will italicize the words you are so studiouly ignoring.

This attack is merely the latest in a long series of cross-border attacks perpetrated by Hezbollah since Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000

Over, and over, and over you keep referring to a provocation for this attack "three years later".

Yeah, it was three years later - three years in which there were many other attacks going on all the while. The only reason I cited this one was to shpw how long this had been going on.