What is your evidence for this? He may well have "meant" it, but it's obviously not what was reported. Naturally, I'm sure you and your buddies at Townhall, being practised mind-readers, know precisely what he meant. Afterall, the man's Muslim, he is political foe of Israel, what else could he have meant? That's not clear at all. What is clear is that you are being entirely irrational. (Take heart, though, for you are not alone.) And even if you're right -- though your reasoning remains irrational -- can't the same be said of your abiding love for Israel? OBL's popularity says nothing about why he is popular. Is he popular because he wants to establish a caliphate, or because he stands up to America for her support of the rank injustice of what Israel has been doing for the last fourty years? Furthermore, my contention wasn't that all extremely religious Muslims disagree with OBL's methods, only that some do and that therefore extreme Islamic religiousity doesn't automatically signify support of OBLism. The vast majority of western scholars of Islam are in agreement with me on this. I suggest you try reading some of them. Yes, most are lefties, but it's not all apologetics and soft-peddling as Robert Spencer and Co would have you believe. Well, it's not unreasonable hatred, is it? Why on earth would you insist that, given everything America has done and does, Iranians be fond of America? Isn't that irrational? And what would bombing or invading Iran achieve? That's a tricky call, but I think we can be confident that it would create a new wave of extremely pissed of Muslims. That wouldn't necessarily be so much of a problem if Americans had the foresight to prevent Muslims from immigrating to America, but far from it, the Weekly Standard boys are immigration enthusiasts. Interesting strategy, isn't it? Syria will be next, bomb them back a few decades, maybe Libya, just to relive the good old days, then, who's next, why not give the Saudis a few rounds, seeing as their oil's gonna dry up anyway. In the meantime, of course, make sure to keep the floodgates open so that millions of Muslims, most of them seething with hatred over America's policies, can make the US their happy home. By George, that's brilliant! Ah, I heard all that once before, hap. Remember 2002? No? How quickly some forget. As they say in Texas (or is it Tennessee?), Fool me once, shame on..shame on you, fool me..well you can't be fooled again. (And if I'm wrong, hey, is it my fault they cried wolf?)
Well, besides endless anti-US declarations since 1979, just consider the fact that they have an annual anti-US festival every November where among the more gentle chants aired by the massed thousands are "Death to the US." Apparently you interpret that to mean that they love us. What is your evidence, Spec, that they do not hate us? Whereas you, being a hater of Jews and Israel, see it this way: Ahmadinejad hates Israel and Jews as much as I do. So of course he's a reasonable person. Actually, it is very clear, and not just to me. Nevertheless, it is not that I have an abiding love for Israel. I most certainly respect them and what they have accomplished on a very narrow strip of land, something the Arabs have never and probably never will be able to come close to in their own countries. But it's not that I love them, it's that I fear the Islamist nutbags. Either way, it does not matter why OBL is popular. Bottom line is, he still wants to destroy and/or convert us. Oh joy. We can argue about the perceived injustices of the US forever. Bottom line is, they want to kill us and/or convert us, whether or not you think they are entitled to or not. You can argue all you want; me, I'm concerned about my family and country still existing come tomorrow. I agree that there ought to be serious immigration reform and oversight, no doubt about it. What would bombing Iran do? Prevent them from gaining nukes, ideally. And you'll keep hearing it, I'm sure.
Apparently you interpret that to mean that if they don't like you they want to nuke you. There are plenty of people you, and your fellow Americans, don't like, but do you want to nuke them? Clearly not. But, of course, Iranians are a pack of wild-eyed Islamikazis. (To be sure, many are, but are sufficient numbers of them in high places so? I have my doubts, but it would be nice if we were fed this sort of information, wouldn't it?) Not quite. Ahmadinejad seems to see the same injustice in Israel's actions as I do. Perhaps Israel/Palestine isn't his fight, but neither is it America's. At least he has the defence that he is standing up for the oppressed, while America is blindly supporting the oppressor. Well, I guess it's too much to ask people to think rationally about the holocaust. In Arab lands, where people don't immediately judge you mentally unsound for unflattering appraisals of Jewish history, most would agree that the west's fascist silencing of dissent on and mandatory affirmation of the historical truth of nazi gassings, in lands where, supposedly, freedom of speech is held in the highest esteem, is quite bizarre. It's also quite clear that either you're part of the cabal that insists everyone must affirm standard holocaust history, or else you are completely ignorant of that very history. Most westerners fit into the latter category, but some, surely, who have studied the questions raised, must know that the gassings claim rests on the shakiest and most unlikely of foundations, yet for whatever reason, not only remain silent, but encourage the silencing of those who do dissent. They certainly won't if they keep getting bombed back. Can't say that hurts Israel, though. Of course it matters. Your claim is that those who support him do so because they want to see you destroyed or converted. Clearly, that is not why they support him. In fact, most do not actually support him -- with funds, armaments, succor -- they just don't quite consider him the 'face of evil' the same way we do. (Of course, they have that luxury, since they're unlikely to have his fury unleashed on them. Might be different if OBL decided Rabat and Cairo weren't Islamic enough and gave them a bit of the treatment. For now, though, he's got bigger fish to fry.) Well, sure. But just understand that it was a fight you picked, and insist on continuing. War isn't the only alternative, as you imagine. You could try disentangling yourself from Middle East affairs -- ie end the futile attempts to 'bring freedom' to the ME (like teaching pigs to sing, it doesn't work and just annoys the pig) -- and end the support of Israel. (And perhaps, to make up for it, support the Palestinians instead?) Well, there's that pesky little ethical problem of preemptive warfare isn't there. But I guess concerns like that are easy to brush aside when -- gosh man, the humanity -- Israel is involved.
One more thing, hap, it's quite clear that you love Israel far more than I 'hate' it. In fact, I don't hate it it all. I'm mostly indifferent to it. I don't lose sleep at night cursing Israel. But neither would I really bat much of an eyelid if Israel ceased to exist (anymore than I would if, say, Khirgiztan ceased to exist). And certainly I don't 'hate Jews'. I don't see much in common between me and some black-garbed Hasidic with 12" sideburns, but I could easily hang out with someone like Rearden and not have his ethnicity/religion be an issue (though he seems to have gone cold on me--I guess even his openmindedness has its limits). You really are sounding like the liberals you profess to disdain, hap, with these accusations of 'hate'; just like a lefty, you seem to be saying I can't just be wrong if I disagree with you, I must be evil and a 'hater', too. It's not fair when they do it, and, though I'm not losing sleep over it, it's not really fair when you do it, either.
Iran doesn't strike me as the sort of place I would like to live. In many ways it does seem barbaric and oppressive. This, however, is not reason enough to go to war with it. For what could such a war achieve? A transformation of Iranian culture? We've seen in Afghanistan and Iraq how unlikely that is. In discussing a future war, then, I think questions of Iranian culture need to be put aside; they are immaterial. I think "ambivalent" would be the best way to describe my feelings about Jews. The truth is I want to like Jews, but I cannot help but have reservations. I think there is a great deal to the thesis of Kevin McDonald about certain tactics that, at least, Jewish pressure organizations, if not Jews as a whole, have employed most notably in America but also in other countries in which they live that are to the detriment of the host nation. On the other hand, Jews are also an important part of western history, and have made significant contributions to western civilization and despite the irreconcilable religious differences, Jews and Christians, I believe, can and have demonstrated that they can bridge those differences -- certainly in a way that Christians and Muslims cannot. Yes, by all means, let the same standards apply; but which standards? Jews in the west happily promote multiculturalism (see Kevin McDonald) and immigration while at the same time seeking to preserve for Israel Jewish exclusivity. Applying the same standard means Israel must either become multicultural and allow the Arabs back, or the west must again become monocultural and undertake a historic "Great Separation", undoing the damage of decades of mass unassimilable immigration. (Your analogy with the Mexicans is flawed, however, since the Mexicans were never expelled, and at the time formerly Mexican territories fell into American possession Mexicans numbered only in the tens of thousands in those territories.) Look, from the point of view of the Arabs, and even from a neutral, uninvolved point of view, the establishment of Israel was immoral. This to me is so clear as to be undebatable. And I have said that American blind support for such a state is what causes America's problems with the Muslim world. That is also rather clear to me. What I have never demanded is that Jews themselves see matters in the same light. Why would they? Why should they? To a Jew, it is clear to me, the best prospects for the survival of Israel would be the "transfer" of the remaining Arabs out of Israel proper, and, since at that point they would be so far steeped in blood, they may as well keep going, and "transfer" the Arabs out of the West Bank, too. Perhaps Americans are also so far steeped in blood in support of Israel that at this point it would be pointless to abandon support. In that case, let Americans cheer on the "final solution" of the Palestinian problem -- the transfer of all Palestinians out of all Israeli held territory. (This was the real meaning of "final solution" with respect to Jews in ww2, btw; the term never meant "extermination".) Until the true goals of western society are established however, and means to such ends are envisioned, a pre-emptive attack on Iran would accomplish nothing.
Forgot about this thread.... Well, "Death to the US" is easy to understand. Nuke us or not, they still wish the end of our country. Consider: they want Americans dead, and they are gaining nuclear technology. Does that not strike you as cause for concern, if you are an American? Well, the massed thousands that shout "Death to the US" are suspect. As are their leaders Your opinion only. Who the oppressor is is very debatable. Please elaborate on these shaky and most unlikely of foundations. That paragraph has so many gaping leaps of fantasy I don't know where to start...but I suppose you're right: If we did just pull out of ME affairs, and abandon Iraq and Israel, stopped annoying the Islamists, then.....what would happen, Spec? They're very easy to brush aside when millions of lives, the economy of this nation, and the welfare of all our citizens are at risk, yes.
From an earlier post of mine: Say in the early 1900s Arabs began to settle in Granada, Spain. Small trickle at first. Spaniards didn't want them there, but that powers that were held that they must be allowed to come. In time, the trickle becomes a flood and in fifty years, Arabs form a third of Granada province. By then, Spaniards are well and truly fed up with the Arabs, but world opinion has swung the Arabs' way; afterall, it is said, Arabs had lived in Granada for well over 700 years. Spaniards will have none of it and the province runs rife with low-level interethnic violence. Citing the impossibility of co-existence, international bodies decide to recognize a Muslim state of Granada. Bla bla bla, you can fill in the rest. Anyway, typical of virtually every Jew I have ever encountered, you ignore every substantive point I raise and zero in on convincing non-Jews of the morality of the Jewish state. I'm not interested. (In any case, Jewish historians themselves have largely made the case for the immoral manner in which Israel came to be. If Jews want to put stamp an imprimatur on that history, that is their prerogative. The rest of us are perfectly capable of drawing our own conclusions.) How about you answer my points about applying the same standards to Israel as to the west? There's a fence there, which side do you sit on? You have to answer because the current status quo is untenable. By the modern, liberal standards Jews apply to Europeans, Israel is a rank failure. Choose then. Abandon libearalism or abandon Israel -- or, if you have no honor, remain a hypocrite.
Hap, have at it man. Bomb away. It won't make any real difference. The dangers the west faces are, at least for the moment, entirely unrelated to Iran, but what the hell, go for it. Of course, unless we reverse the flawed worldviews and assumptions about human nature that have shaped foreign and domestic policy for, oh, the last fifty years, whatever happens or doesn't happen with Iran will, in the long run, be of little significance.
Exactly. Step 1: Immigration Reform Act of 1965 Step 2: NAFTA Step 3: CAFTA Step 4: North American Union The ultimate and inevitable result is the dragging down of American living standards to that of Mexico through free flow of people and capital and elimination of the USA's borders. As well as the US financing Mexico's economy. Yet, people are worrying about Muslims in the Middle-East who hate us. We should be saving our own country, not getting involved in the Middle-East. The only reason the Muslims hate us is because of our unconditional support for Israel, which exists solely because "The Lobby" has free reign in Washington. Jewish extremists have used the American government to invade and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis for Israel. And they have killed and maimed us in the process. They have killed tens of thousands in Lebanon, tortured, imprisoned, wounded or murdered hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. The same Jewish media that is destroying the American family, pushing degenerate rap music on our children, promoting porn, drugs, and indiscriminate sex as mainstream, is the same driving force that through modern satellite and broadcasting is exporting this filth to the entire world. Excuse radical Islam? This entire "Clash of Civilizations" thing is completely controlled by the real enemy. People are being manipulated just as our forefathers got sucked in the the Second World War. Oh, even southern nationalists somehow rationalized their support of this, the most evil bloodletting of European blood in history, from the manipulation of the media. Hitler is against DEEEMOCRACY they pined, as they rushed off to burn their own kin and their babies in the real Holocaust of Dresden. They did the same damn thing in the cold war, we were so consumed with our foreign enemy we did not deal with the far worse enemy at home who was opening our borders, telling our 12 year little boys and girls that drugs, sex and rap are right on, and that we are evil bastards if we want our kids and grandkids to be moral.
Iran does not hate America or democracy or freedom. Why would you say something like that? Ignorance? Iran is a democracy. Michael Collins Piper, American journalist and writer, in New York with Iranian president Ahmadinejad. Also see: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/iran_s_president_speaks.html Obviously, Ahmadinejad does not hate America. If he did, why would he bother having a friendship with a well known American nationalist?