On Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 10:06 AM, Mark Wonsil wrote:

> Fred wrote:
>> Also, like Iraq, France and England, after WWI and out of fear,
>> imposed their own version of "sanctions" on Germany whose economy was
>> so stifled for over a decade that their people were suffering with
>> terrible inflation (stamps cost a million or more marks, ask any
>> collector) and, in desperation turned to Hitler as their saviour.
>>
>> Unknowingly, France and England had brought this on themselves. So
>> much so that, in the late '30s, many Americans took an isolationist
>> stance in regards to pulling the French & English chestnuts out of
>> the fire.
>
> This is true, but I think if they had stuck to the military
> sanctions...
>
>>
>> "The way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend."
>>   - Abraham Lincoln
>
> "Friends don't let friends drive planes (into buildings)."

A cute, but too simplistic answer. The terrorists are extremists within
a larger community (the majority of which are not extremists) many of
whom see the US as treating them unfairly relative to our treatment of
others. They see us do nothing to Israel after their invasion of
Lebanon. They see us invoke severe sanctions against Iraq after their
invasion of Kuwait.

This prompts their antipathy. It is also exacerbated when they see us
(for decades) supply Israel with money and weapons and do (almost?)
nothing for Palestine. They also see our media and government call
Palestinian attacks, "terrorism" and don't give similar opinions of
Israeli attacks.

The fact that the Palestinians resort to unconventional means to
battle, is not attributed to the fact that, unlike the Israelis, they
do not have support of the most powerful nation on Earth. Instead, we
just write them off as "terrorists" who "get what they deserve".

If you recall our own revolution, the British red coats marched along
in military formation while we resorted to ungentlemanly (terrorist)
tactics such as ambush. We didn't  possess a trained military with
comparable weaponry so were forced to adopt a strategy which seemed to
have the best chance of success. That's what today's terrorists have
been forced to do.

What Abe meant (above) is that we should find ways to make them our
friends. This can't happen unless and until we find out WHY they are
our enemies and remove those reasons.

Killing them won't cut it. Unless you want to kill them all, like
Hitler tried with the Jews.

FW

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