At 06:32 PM 10/26/04 EDT, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>John asks:
>
>> I think the more accurate headline is that the Arab world excited us on
>>  9/11.  Who's side are you on, Wirt?
>
>If you have to ask the question, you haven't been reading either my posts or 
>the newspapers. The fact that many of you persist in obdurately believing in 
>nonsense defies explanation. 

I have to admit, I had to go to dictionary.com on "obdurately" :)  I'm not
heartless.  I agree with virtually everything Wirt says below.  But
governments over there are harboring terrorists.  And those terrorists have
declared war on the world and nobody's doing anything about it.  It's gone
on long enough.  It's time to drag them out, and if those governments over
there aren't going to help us, then we'll do it without their help or
approval.  What alternative do we have?  How many 9/11s does it take before
you stand up and fight?  There are factories over there that are producing
weapons of mass destruction, be they tnt, astro-physical, chemical, or
human.  And they get a kick out of doing it...they think blowing up
innocent civilians is fun.  We've been "negotiating" for years and years,
haven't we?  And it just keeps getting worse, doesn't it?

But we do need more and better diplomacy.

John Lee


>
>     o 9/11 was not an act of war. War is conducted between nation states. 
>Rather, it was an act of high criminality, an act of great cleverness, but
it 
>was and is not war, and the solution to the causes of 9/11 are not
amenable nor 
>curable via military conquest.
>
>     o While the Taliban in Afghanistan provided haven for al-Queda, primary 
>support for its operations came from Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, not as 
>official governmental policies, but from significant portions of their
populaces.
>
>     o The middle east is a region in transition, caught between medieval 
>ideals and modernism, and it will be so for at least the next half
century. Our 
>intervention will only serve to intensify the level of conflict, not mediate 
>it. We are not at war with Islam. We only must protect ourselves against a
very 
>small minority of extremists who are at war with their own peoples.
>
>     o Far more importantly, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Iraq was
not a 
>threat to either the United States, Israel, nor its neighbors.
>
>     o Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of invasion. This 
>was made perfectly clear by the United Nations weapons inspectors before our 
>unprovoked invasion of the country.
>
>     o It's said that democracies do not start wars. But this country did, 
>and it is a blight on the honor and reputation of the United States that
will 
>stain the remainder of its actions this century. Scott McConnell, executive 
>editor of "The American Conservative," wrote:
>
>"If the analogy seems extreme, what is an appropriate comparison when a 
>country manufactures falsehoods about a foreign government, disseminates
them 
>widely, and invades the country on the basis of those falsehoods? It is
not an 
>action that any American president has ever taken before. It is not
something that 
>“good” countries do. It is the main reason that people all over the
world 
>who used to consider the United States a reliable and necessary bulwark of
world 
>stability now see us as a menace to their own peace and security."
>
>As I have written before, in a more just and equitable world, Bush, Cheney, 
>Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Rice, Feith, Perle, and Kristol would be
brought 
>before a world court and charged as war criminals for their actions in Iraq. 
>
>We would have demanded no less if Hussein had invaded the United States on 
>similar trumpted-up nonsense.
>
>Wirt Atmar
>
>

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