You gotta love someone who asks for more, don't you?
Lets dig in while it is hot!
Order not with standing...
insufferable (but lovable) flyke
The problem I have with 'the American people' - and by this I mean what I'm getting by talking to the Americans I know, I'm well aware that not everybody thinks the same - is that they tend to think they're always right.
Gosh, by that description, one would believe that you were talking about yourself more than others. You have as much of an inflammatory signature as Tormente's, yet you decide to start something about it in a thread that has nothing to do with the topic. And you frame your
apology as yet another bigoted stab at Americans (lets hope you are not representative of your country, or the world is in real trouble).
and yet more
That someone must do something about the really *big* problem that terrorism is to all of us human beings (not just the 'freedom countries' Bush is talking about) is exactly what I think. But the 'who' is important here. And even more important - to me - is the 'how'.
The
who and
how is the sad part of your misguided notion. I would
love to see Europe and/or the UN pull their own weight for once. It would have been nice to see it during the Balkans when that flared up (before it got terribly out of control), but it looked like your governments didn't want to get their collectives hands dirty (though they had no problem constantly asking the US to intervene). The reality of the matter is that the UN is
your collective second try with training wheels (the first being the League of Nations which we left you guys to work out, or not work out as the case maybe). I truly hope that
someday (soon) the UN is going to actually become a real force for good (I was hoping that it would be by now with the end of the Cold War).
and yet again
Terrorism is a symptom of a disease.
Yes, you are right there, but something tells me you have no real clue about what that disease actually is. It
is (in my opinion) the use of hate to deal with hopelessness. There is, and could be, nothing that the UN, US, or any other western nation could have done to fix the problems of the countries of the world that let religion govern and let (corrupt) leaders rule. Living on the same planet we socialize, but we can not (and should not) interfere until we or our allies are put in harms way. That hatred that they feel is not going away by us turning the other cheek. They believe what they want (much like you) because it is what works to feed the hunger of that hatred. The power of false accusations (and yes it works for both sides in this, as in the case of the pilot in the UK) is that once made they require little or no proof by irrational people (again much like yourself, bigotry is an irrational response to others).
Lets look at one statement that has been made and is to date unfounded: "The Jews are torturing Palestinians." That has become a rallying cry for many, but from the time the peace process broke down, there was no evidence that anything other that
bombing-then-counter attack has happen there (as if anything else would really be needed). Another example: "There were no Saudis among the terrorist of September 11th." That has been shown to be a false statement, but people still repeat it today because it adds support for their position.
I would put it that your
disease is actually a symptom of the very real human condition of hatred as a way of dealing with a poor quality of live (it does provide quite allot of energy), and it always needs a focus (and the focus need not have done anything other than having better conditions).
Let me top this off with an illustration of the mentality of hatred.
A poor man is approached by a Genie who offers the man one wish. He can have anything that he wants on one condition, his neighbor gets twice what ever he wishes for. The man thinks about it for a moment and then makes his wish... he wishes to have one of his eyes put out.
Hatred is irrational, and should not be taken as something that can be fix with only the spirit of giving.
