The Duchess of Zeon wrote:Patrick Degan wrote:
Yes, they're what are defined as "libel". Political and religious statements are not criminal, however. Little thing called the First Amendment, you know.
Conspiracy, Patrick. It seems to me that many Islamist leaders have been soliciting for followers specifically to carry out felonies against individuals in the USA (
enmasse), which is a defined criminal offense.
It "seems" to you, eh. And the evidence for this surmise is...?
The "genuine communist subversive threat to America" represented the same level of danger as the Martian threat to America. That was a case of gross overreaction to paranoia as well.
There was a genuine communist subversive threat to America; it primarily focused around intelligence gathering. Due to the McCarthy overreaction, certain individuals were able to operate freely and gather intelligence for the USSR for long periods of time without being caught. That killed Americans and harmed American efforts in other areas in a considerable fashion, and was a definite result of our no longer taking communist subversion seriously.
So what you're saying is that nations spy on one another. Big fucking deal. They had moles in our government, and we had moles in theirs. By your logic, Israel represented a "genuine Zionist subversive threat to America" by virtue of Jonathan Pollard's activities. Subversion entails far more than mere spying, which is a matter of course between nations —particularly power-rivals.
At the moment, even the Islamic terrorists haven't the capacity to fly any more planes into any more buildings. And I'm constrained to point out that a non-Muslim terrorist managed to blow up a certain building in OK with a fertiliser bomb in a Ryder truck. Should we then commence mass arrests of all estranged white men spouting antigovernment rhetoric and become paranoid about the Skinhead Threat to America?
We don't know what their capacity is. It's an unknown quantity. We do know that they have considerable numbers of sympathizers and are capable of major regional attacks; which at least seriously harm the interests of an economic power now basically dependent on trade for survival. It is likely that their ability to strike the American mainland again would only be apparent during such a strike.
That, Duchy, says absolutely nothing beyond the hysterical rhetoric we've already been hearing from the Neocons on this subject.
Whereas non-Muslim terrorists can't whip up the same level of professional pride in their work...?
Muslim
jihadis definitely constitute a supermajority of suicide terrorist attackers, and in fact invented the tactic.
"Jihadis", eh? They invented terrorism? You'll pardon me for laughing, I hope. Terrorism existed long before Islam ever arrived on the scene, and suicide bombings aren't exclusively a Muslim phenomenon in history either.
In and of itself, no. Lots of people can conspire to do lots of things, but without any real capacity to carry out an action, conspiracy is nothing more than a pipe-dream.
Numerous federal conspiracy statutes have certainly been violated by Islamic groups, however, even if attacks have not been perpetrated.
That is a difference between carrying out activities designed to advance a particular object and just talking about some grand dream. Once again, conspiracy is not merely words. Furthermore, even conspiracy prosecutions require actual evidence and not mere suspicion.
In 25 years, militant Islam has seized three countries: Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan. We toppled the Taliban almost without losing a man. Sudan is a failed state. In Iran, a generation has grown up that knows nothing of Savak or the Great Satan but enough about the mullahs to have rejected them in back-to-back landslides. The Iranian Revolution has reached Thermidor. Wherever Islamism takes power, it fails. Like Marxism, it does not work.
The Iranian revolution was Shi'ite, and as we saw today, the modern Islamic fundamentalism has little to do with the Shia. There remains considerable danger in its fury, and the reality that even when it passes the mid-east shall be in a precarious place
The exact same thing was being said about the Shia 25 years ago.
and while it lasts, the interests of a nation increasingly entirely dependent on commerce are severely at stake.
And when has the United States ever
not been dependent upon trade for its commerical survival?
We cannot afford to sit idly by, but instead must make an effort to create in this countries the seeds of a prosperous and peaceful future.
You
really need to start heading back to ground level —or do I have to again point out the insanity in the proposition that we somehow are going to be able to subdue and democratise at gunpoint millions of Muslims?
