Excellent reply. Thank you. I don't disagree with you, other than on the point that I know people can change. And they don't deserve to die because they have the mental disease of a religion, unless it has indeed made them rabid and untreatable. When you say kill all of them going to these terrible schools, you are saying the individual,the brain washed fundamentalists, cannot or won't change... This is perhaps true, but if so, then the society or culture must be altered to have an effect on the individual -- because individuals can be made to change.
A lot of the enemies we are creating at this point are being activated by what we are doing to their societies, every bit as much as the myths of heaven and very real money and family respect. Like the whole keeping christian armies away from Mecca thing; we may not respect this attitude, but we have to understand that there are certain levers which cause reactions in a populace... there are generals saying that what happened in Iraq was exactly what a lot of the cia predicted.
General Ridgway was the field commander over Korea. In this position, he saw a civil war being fought, and how ineffective an invading army can be against a popular movement. They asked him to take over Vietnam, and he told them they would just have another Korea, or worse... and was drummed out of the military.
I do not know, really... but I suspect the Generals in charge know their military history a hell of a lot better than Bush and Rumsfeld. There is a terrible diconnect when the president can merely take all the information of his party, strangle all dissent, and then use the positives that are left to craft a propoganda campaign to sway the newsmedia and thus the populace -- 'THE END IS MEANT TO JUSTIFY THE MEANS.'
On the other hand, I do not want the decision for whether to go to war or not in the hands of an isolationist thinking populace easily swayed by propoganda. I do not believe in Relativism, at all... some ideas and ways of being hold merit, some are harmless, and some are ticking timebombs.
The last thing your reply made me think about was 'bush bashing.' I am not sure why people who don't mind bashing others -- unto the point of saying kill them all for religious belief, then turn around and criticize someone for bashing bush (I have done the same thing many times in my work, and it is a way to get a point across, in a context, I know... I don't mean to criticize you for this... just wondering?). Bashing with words is a good way to get a message across, sometimes... however, after wondering why a few people had been saying this to me recently (and I have been writing about this for years, mostly comedy, with a character called W The Rockstar President, and have even been honored to have it in an anthology, on the arts page for CCLAP, laughed at heartily in person etc... my point is not that I am great -- I suck mostly, but that some kind of attitude shift is taking place among conservatives and liberals alike). Since there is no way to defend Bush on any topic whatsoever, the conservatives are trying to forget they are the party of Rush Limbaugh and trying to stop the discussion of bush by dismissing it out right, without even approaching the issues.
Not that I think you are doing this... you put forth a good arguement for a comment.
As far as why the liberals are sick of Bush Bashing, I know this one all too well -- they are just plain old sick of that show, and want their Arrested Development back.
