Ghostface, I agree with a lot of what you said. I realize that “evil” is in the eye of the beholder, but my point was that, if you look at the values held by all of the major religions, as well as the laws of the land in the great majority of countries (both secular countries and those with religious-inspired laws), they pretty much all FORBID the murder of innocent people. Sept. 11th happened to be the murdering of a LOT of innocent people. Hence, I feel enormously comfortable defining those acts, and those who committed them, as EVIL (not merely “misunderstood,” but EVIL). The rules of almost every nation in the world and the rules of every major religion in the world agree with that premise. As for your feeling that effective foreign policy (or terrorist policy) can’t be run by someone who is adhering strictly to the rules of any major religion, I guess I agree with that. However, I would not AT ALL make the mistake of claiming that America’s (or G.W. Bush’s) foreign policy is said to be guided by the rules of Christianity, or any other religion. I know Bush says that he’s a Christian, and I’m not going to argue about whether he’s a good Christian or a bad Christian, but clearly any waging of war and killing people (as far as I understand the Bible, anyway) probably wouldn’t jive with the strict teachings of Christianity (although I could be wrong about that – I’m not an expert on interpreting the Bible). And by the way, singing (or praying) “God Bless America” is not invoking anything; it’s just a prayer, to whatever god you may believe in, asking him/her to bless America. (If I were to hanker a GUESS, though – and it’s just a guess – I would THINK that the God of Christianity would be much more forgiving of those who are fighting AGAINST global terrorism and against those who INTENTIONALLY slaughter civilians than those who are fighting FOR it. Just a hunch, but not what drives my personal philosophy on this issue by any means).
Lion, I wanted to try to avoid getting into the whole damn Arab/Israeli conflict if it all possible, but I guess that’s not really possible. I firmly restate my argument that if the Palestinians hadn’t resorted to terrorism in the first place, there’s a REAL good chance they would have had their state by now. (Not the WHOLE plot of land, meaning the destruction of Israel, but a state side-by-side with Israel). If they had not resorted to terrorism but had stuck to one or two other basic strategies instead, they would have made it pretty impossible for the world to ignore the fact that their land was fucking TAKEN from them and magically GRANTED to someone else. (1.) An MLK/Ghandi-type strategy of peaceful resistance (it worked pretty darned well for American blacks, once the world saw what was being done to them); OR, (2.) Although they don’t have smart bombs and such, they COULD use their suicide bombings more STRATEGICALLY (which, on RARE occasions, they do), i.e. attack Israeli troops, tanks, government buildings and leaders, etc. THESE are legitimate military targets. Once in a great while one of these suicide bombers will walk up to a checkpoint or something where Israeli troops are standing and blow himself up, and when I see that I say, “OK, fair. The whole damn thing is ugly and unfortunate, of course, but that’s a fair target.” NOT true of walking into a fucking CAFE full of CIVILIANS and blowing it up! I agree that the Israelis have also killed plenty of civilians over time, but they don’t INTENTIONALLY TARGET them, and this is a WORLD OF DIFFERENCE – IT IS NOT TO BE DISMISSED!!! If I were fighting for my land, my country, my religion, etc., no matter how much it SUCKED, I would not resort to the INTENTIONAL killing of women, children and non-combatants. It’s called the difference between being civilized and being a selfish, barbaric fucking animal. The REASON the Sharon government (and believe me, I’m no fan of his) has been taking the stance of saying, “First stop the terrorism, THEN we’ll sit down and talk,” is that if they were to say, “OK, OK, enough bombing! We’ll negotiate, we’ll talk!” THAT would LEGIMATIZE the use of terrorism, and make it clear to the Palestinians and the REST of the world, that terrorism was a LEGITIMATE, EFFECTIVE form of resistance, and that’s (admirably) NOT something the Israelis are willing to let happen. It’s a lot more complicated (hee hee) than just being about ego and power and “not wanting to blink first.” That’s a pretty darn GOOD REASON for not wanting to blink first.
THEN, however, you did what you tend to do every once in a while – you said something that made me almost fall out of my frigging chair with a combination of laughter and astonishment. Ahem, “Many of the Saudi citizens would have rather fought Iraq by themselves.” Well ain’t THAT some 20/20 hindsight on their part (IF it’s even true)?! Yeah, after Kuwait just got LITERALLY raped, pillaged and plundered, and with a military that was absolutely nowhere NEAR a match for Iraq’s, you mean to tell me they would’ve RATHER NOT had us save their asses??! 'Fraid I don’t buy that one for a DAMN second. I doubt, for one thing, that you (or anyone) has actually done a legitimate poll of the Saudi citizens to gauge their opinions on this matter, but even if you were correct about that, I refer to my earlier comment: Ain’t THAT some 20/20 hindsight! “That’s right, we didn’t even NEED you, you damn INFIDELS! JIHAD!!!” Whatever. And yes, the blowing up of that “factory,” or whatever it was, in Sudan didn’t go over too well, and obviously it angered the people there, but that’s more a problem of bad intel than anything else. If it HAD been a chemical weapons plant than we would’ve had every right on earth to destroy it – and no, that wouldn’t require getting the permission of the Sudanese government.
NOW, with regard to the whole bar scenario. WE (the U.S. of A.) NEVER “punched anyone’s wife/girlfriend in the teeth.” We may have occasionally “gotten into a fistfight here and there with another dude at the bar with whom we weren’t getting along,” but we never turned and punched his GIRLFRIEND’S TEETH OUT! Do you see what I’m getting at here? It’s a question of crossing a certain not-so-thin red line of civilization versus barbarism. And once someone steps to the wrong side of that line, I, and most Americans, really stop giving a shit HOW just there underlying cause may have been to begin with.
