I am not being contentious. You are just not paying attention.
I say only that I will not sanction the US making the first strike and you continually turn this into a unilateral prohibition against the US ever making any strike.
I have no idea where you got this impression. MY point is that if we do not make the first strike then some of our people will die needlessly when the enemy attacks. And the enemy has promised (and demonstrated) that they will attack again and again until we no longer exist.
If it helps you to look at it this way, take 9-11, or the khobar towers (Saudi Arabia), or the USS Cole incident or any one of the other 1000s or so acts of moslem terrorism as the first strike. We have been fighting them piecemeal for decades and we are losing because we will not admit that it is a war between cultures and the only possible outcome is eradication of one of us. I'd much rather it be them. We kill far fewer innocents than islam does. Your posts hurl repeated calumnies at me which I have patiently borne and have now no interest in allowing you repeat.
I have not misrepresented anything that you have said. You have said that you refuse to make the first strike even if we know that the enemy will attack us. Essentially you are saying that you will sacrifice some of our people so that we don't have to make the first move.
If that bothers you perhaps you should think through the consequences of inaction in the face of certain attack
I got that impression because you have repeatedly said that my position is tantamount to unilateral surrender. In this last entry, you have seriously modified your position, moving more to mine, as it happens. I find no valiant death in battle to be 'needless'. There are those who volunteer to be on the front line. The front line will take the first and worst casualties. They know that and they volunteer anyway. That's what makes them valiant. Knowing that they will have to wait to be attacked and being willing to stand there and be the first target makes them heroes.
You don't like that there would have to be casualties on our side to begin with. I could wish it weren't so, but the alternative is to turn into a nation which engages in genocide. I thought we were opposed to that philosophically. I cannot see you opposing it, from what you have posted. That being so, I stand against you. I denounce any nation that would attack another, even if they threatened them. Rattling sabres is just provocation. It is not assault and certainly not battery. A Godless nation will not be able to stand being insulted and threatened. A Godly nation restrains itself from such childish reactionary behavior.
And I say all this knowing that Muslims have attacked and murdered Christians in the last few days. Sadly, those Christians were citizens of other nations, whose moral responsibility it is to punish the perpetrators. I do not think they will do so and those martyrs and confessors will have only our prayers for their valiant souls.
The case, I would hope, will be different if some American Christian is attacked or murdered. That's as far as I will go and this is the last postI will make in this fruitless exchange. If you must, you have the last word. I won't even read it.