But on to the issue at hand: Seven months ago I said terrorism will get worse before it gets better. I also predicted another major terrorist attack within a year, though I was obviously wrong about the location. I figured it would be in the U.S. again.

I can’t quote this enough: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations — entangling alliances with none.” – Thomas Jefferson

Signed,
An illiterate Yank

For centuries their pirates shook down European nations for ransom and tribute money.

Apart from the French and their attempts at leaving colonial rule behind, no-one else has a problem with the Algerians. Everyone else seems to have made their peace, drawn the lines in the sand and stayed the right side.
Maybe that is because we are neighbour whereas the USA – being effectively an island – is separated by distance (which is logisticaly difficult to cross), has the sanitisation of news and the fact that it is the paid Armed Forces who are in their both dealing and recieving death.

If the USA (and it’s allies) go and makes trouble, then when that is revisited upon them it is the fault of their leaders.

Before 1980, where were all these terrorists ? They didn’t exist – at least not as they do now.

Huh? Americans have been getting slaughtered and terrorized by Islamic terrorists from the very birth of the nation.

One of the enduring lessons of the Barbary campaigns was to never give in to outlaws, whether you call them pirates or terrorists. In the late 1700s, America paid significant blackmail for peace — shelling out $990,000 to the Algerians alone at a time when national revenues totaled just $7 million.

“Too many concessions have been made to Algiers,” U.S. consul William Eaton wrote to the Secretary of State in 1799. “There is but one language which can be held to these people, and this is terror.”

Washington Post

OFJ – if it was about water, Haliburton wouldn’t be interested. It’s the better person / regime / country / people that calls a halt to the bloodletting – and the American right wingers are not up to that.

Personally, I wish we’d focus more on domestic affairs and keep our United Noses our of everyone else’s business. I don’t think we can tell anyone that our way is the best way when we have so many problems of our own.

And I’m tired of feeling obligated to apologize to everyone I know outside of the country for actions and policies I don’t support. Just like not all Muslims are fanatic militants, not all Americans are sheep.

The US has tried to get out of the faces of the radical Islamicists. If you want to talk root causes—as you say, before 1980—take a better look at the results of the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini. That was the beginning of it all. Some of the Arab nations before then were, to say the least, progressive. Who would think today that Beirut before was a resort city where Muslims and Infidels alike walked its beaches scantily clad?

I’m not one of the types who believe that this kind of animus has been breeding since the 7th century, man. Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, all of whom—in one way or the other—have tried to simply take the route of “well, it’s their culture, it’s their business, we shouldn’t interfere” and for all the retreat we have done the radicals—the Sunni and Shiite alike who think that Western Civ is a bane upon their own purity—have simply pushed us harder.

Sure, it sounds like I’m gobbling down the administration’s message on this hook, line, and stinker, but I’m not. I believe in hunting down the ones who are working in our nation, as well as helping the other Muslim Nations to grow past the totalitarianism that the Islamic Revolution wrought upon them. I can’t, for the life of me, take the route of the soft bigotry of low expectations and claim that a progressive, free Arab world is unreachable because of incompatibilities with their culture and philosophy. If only these little tyrants went about their way oppressing their own people with nary a peep of vehemence against the United States and other free countries, maybe, I could take the route of blissful ignorance.

Let me make it clear again: I am not, today, a mindless cheerleader for the current administration. To answer this question of yours: Why is it okay for the USA to steam right in and kill in revenge but not these other people ? Why ? Why can they not have the same right to an action that you want ? Why, they sure have tried, right? But again, why should I supine myself unto their privelege of exacting revenge upon us without putting up a fight?

If you want to talk tactics about Iraq. It isn’t about oil that there is going to be a persisting American presence in Iraq. It’s because of freshwater, majority of which is accessible in that country. But that’s just *my* understanding of the geographical tactics of it all.

Lastly, if you want to talk about the links you have sent, it’s all well and good. This country isn’t perfect, and there are things to be done. While I would like to address each of those links one by one here I think that I have written enough without overstaying my welcome. I could do a follow up, but would it even matter? Would it even be treated with any fairness and without being accused of being an apologist for the administration?

Assure me so, and I might just, dear friend.

OFJay

…the literacy rate is appalling low.

Were more easyer to control if were more dumber.

Mushrooms indeed.

And God said, “O, this is getting interesting.”

I am NOT one of the 51% of Americans who voted for Bush. And I can promise you, the 51% of Americans who did are still so blinded by his “Good Morals” that ironically they can’t see how unmoral he is. This doesn’t even anger me anymore. It makes me sad. :sad:

:love: