There are going to be a lot of examples of "damned if you do, damned if you don't" in this war on terror, I'm afraid.

I'm not sure about the alcohol analogy...I stopped drinking any alcohol for 2 years and it was so boring that I gavei tup. Now it is much easier to only have one of two....Alcohol has ruined lots of lives and marriages and families. Drugs have done the same. Countries around thee world tht havelegalized hard drugs are not good examples of utopian society. Whether we can legislate morality is another story.

TK,

Yeah, I’m not surprised. I’m OK with agreeing to disagree with you on the entire Muslim and terrorism topics. We have different sources of information that we each perceive as most reliable for forming our respective opinions. I’ll try not to waste your time debating or trying to change your mind.

No I don’t support ELF or NA (whoever they are). When I attempt to explain why I believe a particular form of terrorism occurs does not mean I believe that terrorism is OK by me. I think understanding the cause of something is the first and best approach to dealing with it. Think medical or other scientific research, if you will. For a simple example, I don’t like cancer either, but I think learning that and how nicotine and tar in tobacco smoke cause cancer is a smart way to figure out how to deal with it. Same thing with terrorism.

Phreak,

It’s not an argument for or against alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. Rather, it’s an observation of how two-faced our society and government is toward these things. Truly, I do favor legalizing drugs. Not because I favor drug use, but because the drug war has been, and continues to be, a waste of scarce financial resources, and a loss of human resources in the form of prison inmates that contribute to the increased demand for prison space. I would put people who hurt people in jail. If they want to buy, sell, or use drugs, I don’t much care so long as they aren’t driving, etc.

Pot and hash are legal in the Netherlands, and the parade of horribles predicted by the “let’s legislate morality and behavior” crowd simply hasn’t come to pass. The people who want to use dope do so and pretty much stay out of the way of, and are mostly ignored by, the majority of the population that just isn’t interested. I’m favorably impressed by the pragmatic intelligence of their approach.

GP2,

I don’t recommend abandoning Israel. This is a topic that requires great precision in writing, speaking, reading, and listening. Opposing the state-sponsored terrorism of the Israeli government is not the same as being anti-semetic, anti-Jewish, etc. One of my very best friends is a Jew, for example, who absolutely is opposed to the actions of the Israeli government. She has gone to Gaza twice to work with Palestinians in large part because of her convictions on this issue. Many Israeli citizens are also opposed to their government’s actions against the Palestinians. Understanding the Israeli - Palestinian issue requires the knowledge that there are more moderates among both the Jews and Palestinians, but that the story to the world is made by the radicals and extremists on both sides.

You won’t find any statement by me recommending abandonment of Israel, nor hopefully any anti-Jewish statements. I do try to be very precise in my distinction. I simply recommend that we treat Palestinians and Israelis equally. What a concept, eh? Could, would, the U.S. dare treat world citizens equally? Too many people who are close to both Palestinians and Israeli Jews have repeated the theme that the U.S.’ one-sided support of the Israeli government, at the direct expense of the Palestinians, has done more than anything else to fan the flames of Arab hatred of the U.S.

Please tell me why it’s unwise to identify the root cause of terrorist acts against the U.S. and then trying to address that cause. As described in other posts in this thread, we seem very capable of attacking the symptoms of terror in the way we went after Al qaeda and the Taliban. Other threads have described that we might not be able to find and kill terrorists faster than new ones are produced and recruited. Would you agree that it might be desirable to create conditions that result in fewer terrorists being created and recruited in the first place, provided the cost is no skin off our nose, so to speak?

Shifting gears slightly, allowing the Afghans to grow opium poppies is totally consistent with our two-faced attitudes toward drugs. By allowing the poppy growing, we help keep the U.S. drug enforcement and prison industry well employed. We’ve allowed both government and entrepreneur empires to develop. Legalizing drugs (which would reduce wholesale demand due to lack of drug interdiction) would leave an economic void that would cause some influential people to displeased, probably causing them to take political action in this country. Our national behavior in this regard does conform to my contention, however, that nations don’t have friends; nations have interests. They act on behalf of those interests, going to war with Iraq against Iran one day, with Iran against Iraq the next if it suits us. Or flip-flopping on Afghan poppy growing. Face it, it’s not like we actually care about anybody.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Nothing wrong with this theory at all. I just wonder if the way we support Israel is not just a convenient scapegoat? The Palestinians that Israel is fighting and attacking are the radical ones who want to end the existence of Israel. That is not a theory. So we should support them? These people use the same tactics as other terrorists worldwide. Comparing Israel's hard line against these killers to terrorists is wrong in my opinion. I am still convinced, unfortunately, that one side is going to have to eliminate the other side or this war will never end. The sides are too entrenched in their hatred.

How would you level the playing field? How would you have the US give equal treatment to the Palestinians?

So many of the terrorists are living in a different century than the rest of us. The 6th century perhaps. They live a religion of death and I find it hard to imagine reasoning with any of them. If we walkled away from Israel and swithched our aliance over to the Palestinians do you honestly believe that they would be our friends?

"These people"

"religion of death"

Again....you fail to distinguish between Muslims's and terrorists/Palestinians and terrorists...this is why I call you a racist.

.

GP2,

I used to suggest, slightly t.i.c. that we level the playing field by giving the Palestinians all the same kinds and quantity of military equipment and weaponry that we’ve given the Israelis over the last 50 years. As least we couldn’t be accused of playing favorites. I don’t make that suggestion in complete seriousness, but if there does become an independent and free Palestinian state, it will have to have its own military and police forces, so some military assistance probably does make sense.

You say that the Palestinians Israel attacks are the radical terrorists. Really? Perhaps that is the principle focus, but the Israeli government has a pretty high tolerance for collateral damage, given that more innocent women, children, and other non-combatants are killed than are member of Hamas and other extremist elements. I think knowingly executing military operations - as the Israeli government does - that will kill innocent people along with potential radical targets meets the definition of state sponsored terrorism. The rationalization is that only radicals are targeted (hard to believe with the wholesale destruction of houses last week; houses that are not inhabited by radicals), but the expected collateral damage is the deliberate infliction of fear in hopes of modifying population behavior. These are not Israeli actions of self defense. They know it, and they do not care.

Of course Palestinian radicals use terrorist tactics. What else is available to them? They cannot have, train, and employ an army to go head to head with the Israeli military. Israel has, with U.S. support, created a Palestinian population so oppressed, and so desperate, some of them are willing to try anything to improve conditions for their people. Unfortunately, they tend to be young and impressionable and wrongly conclude that they can achieve their aims by killing Israelis. They would be right only if they could kill enough of them fast enough. (Hmmm, sort of like our addressing the symptoms of terrorism. But we also can’t kill enough of them fast enough to prevent the production and creation of even more of them.) It is a stalemate. Israel cannot kill Arabs fast enough to secure its safety by force. They can’t nuke them all; too many live in close proximity to Israel and in Israel. The Arabs can’t eliminate Israel, as Israel is believed to be more than willing to take all near and adjacent Arab nations with it if Israel is going down. They really only have two choices: continued status quo of killing each other a few at a time, or, peaceful coexistence.

Palestinians can only achieve their aims via the support of other nations of the world, both active support and by condemning Israel’s actions against them. They also need people like you to know them. You believe they live in another century and live a religion of death. I’m sorry to judge you, but you’re exhibiting ignorance here. The few Muslims I’ve met attended high school and college; a couple have PhDs. I can tell you that they live in the same century as you and I. And they would contest your “religion of death” as being no more accurate than someone saying Christianity is the religion of death. Your willingness to classify them all as radicals and extremists might be convenient for you, but along with not being accurate, it doesn’t really serve your interests if your interests include peace in the parts of the world inhabited by Muslims. At one billion and increasing, it would probably serve all of our interests to better understand Arab people. You really need to get out and meet 100 or so Palestinians or Muslims and decide for yourself how many of them you might actually be able to reason with.

We don’t have to walk away from Israel to earn the respect of major Arab representatives. I think we need mainly treat Israel and Arabs equally, like we would be required to do if they were both states within the U.S. Equal. Without favoritism. The action would speak louder than any words of any U.S. President or Secretary of State. It would probably convey a lot of shock value, given that they’re so accustomed to U.S. opposition or at least neglect of Arab interests. The more Palestinians and Muslims I’ve met, the more I’m convinced our ideas of them are based in ignorance.

Thank you for having this discussion.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

sigh....Oh H2O...I swore I would refrain from name calling even though you are such an inviting victim......yeah....let it go...you can't help yourself.