STRIKES ON SYRIA ?

[perezoso]

Abcyst: I suppose this post is naive, as well...

You made at least one fairly accurate statement.....

[knip]

gonna be brief, because i'm going to bed

Reading between the lines of all this I can see (correct me if I'm wrong) that you believe the war in Iraq is a necessary part of a very long struggle to eliminate terrorism and more importantly, the hatred and ignorance that inspired it.

not at all...i deliberately glossed over iraq because the positions are harder to defend and i wanted to address one issue at a time

Zakaria believes that terrorism is the direct outcropping of a youth explosion in the Middle East.

this is true, and is a part of the growing problem...check out middle east birth rates against western birth rates...check out what they expect the indonesian population to do over the next 50 years and what they expect the american population to do...

The folks living in the UAE aren't out to get Americans or any other Western group. They are, themselves, living in an American-style world with a somewhat American-style government.

this isn't why i believe they don't produce many terrorists...it is the relative lack of corruption in the government that stops action...but there is lots of money coming from wealthy families in these countries, supporting the warrior jihads

Instead, we seem to have only inflamed the fury of the jihadists and created more terrorism and hatred against us than there was before.

i don't believe this...i believe these types of terrorists already existed...the iraq attack mobilized them...i believe they would have mobilized elsewhere if not for iraq....not saying this justifies anything, nor am i saying the US planned it this way...

I realize that many of the terrorists in Iraq come from other nations, but at least an EQUAL number come from within her.

i don't believe this at all...i think you are confusing iraqi-bred terrorists with insurgents...admittedly, the definitional line between the two is blurred, however

What does Bush hope to accomplish in his neverending war on terror? How does he expect to bring enlightenment to the Middle East and destroy the concept of Jihad forever? If he keeps showing these people the sharp edge of our sword isn't he only going to inspire more rebellion and hatred?

i don't believe this is bush's neverending war on terror...that implies if he got out the problem would be gone...my entire previous post was meant to support this belief...the warrior jihad authority to act is not based on US actions...it is based on their perceived moral duty to act this way...the moral superiority of warrior jihad as opposed to cultural jihad




and now to bed...good night, cat

[mnaz]

You want to know what fuels terrorism? I'll give you an example. A corrupt American President unjustly bombs, invades, and occupies a Muslim nation, to the tune of 100,000 Muslim citizens slaughtered....a highly-imperialistic act of aggression..... unnecessary and falsely-sold with a carefully-constructed package of lies..... virtually indefensible as I see it. This is part of a continuing pattern of exploitation of the region..... just the most incredibly brazen example of it, to date. Could it be.... could it just be.... that this miiiiggghht have something to do with "terrorism"? "Terrorism" has become such a relative, fluid concept, hasn't it? Did the CIA refer to the jihadists that it armed and trained to fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan as "terrorists"? It seems I've been steadily losing track of just who the "terrorists" really are, over the last few decades, but I'm sure the winning corporate boardrooms in the election will be glad to fill me in, when it becomes expedient....