[freefly]

"I don't care a flying fig what the insane terrorists think--"

You should. Ignoring how those people think directly resulted in 9/11.
Continuing to ignore it could well result in more of the same
(or do you think that bombing a bunch of Afghans and taking out bin Ladin is going to stop the threat?
Maybe you should go back and listen to Bush's speech).

"I was stating absolute facts."

No you are not. You are seeing only what you choose and ignoring the rest.

"WE DID NOT START THIS WAR. However, we just might finish it. (In a way they don't like.)"

Judging from the Patriot act, I doubt that we will like it much in the long run either.

"I'm starting to see the wisdom in the saying that you should never try to argue logic with an idiot."

True, but I keep trying. Once in awhile some of them open their eyes.

"I'm looking at facts,"

You are looking at some of them, but carefully ignoring the rest that conflict with your world view.

"you're looking at new-age crystal bunny touchy feely junk."

The consequences of clinton's excesses around the world are "new-age crystal bunny touchy feely junk."?
Not in my book. Not when they are used by religious nut cases to con their followers into flying airplanes
into buildings in an effort to strike back at supposed American excesses.
"touchy feely junk" is indulging in a "kill em all and let G*d sort them out" mentality.
Winning the battle that way feels good, but the long-term consequences suck.
Being smart and winning the war is far better in the long run.
Or do you just like the idea of genocide of any group that can possibly harbor potential terrorists?
(Careful what you say, In Phoenix, We're Terrorists!)

"There can never be a meeting of the minds if one of them isn't using theirs."

You got that right.
Try getting past your indignation about someone having the nerve to attack us
and start figuring out why they might want to and how to attack the ROOT cause.
That way you might just be able to prevent it from happening again.
(Clue: collateral damage results in more people who are willing to be missle guidance systems or "smart" bomb fuses.)
Of course, if you just like hating people and bombing civilians in revenge for the actions of their government, then drive right on.
It works for the Taliban.
(although not very well in the long run)

[freeforall]

Thier is no ROOT cause to terrorism it is irrational and psychopathic and therefore not open to reason.It would have done us no good to understand the root causes of Nazism.The sole purpose was to destroy it and reform that society so that they will never pose a future threat.

[SpinyNorman]

Try getting past your indignation about someone having the nerve to attack us and start figuring out why they might want to and how to attack the ROOT cause

I have to disagree. The "root causes" will never be addressed, since they lie a few thousand years in the past, and are ingrained in every generation of Muslim that has been indoctrinated with "hate the infidel" messages since birth. The rearing and education of Palestinian children is an excellent example. Look at the schoolbooks and teacher's guides for Palestinian children. This puts the kindling into the fire, then the madrassas fan the flames into an illogical, ignorant blaze of obsession that only ends in the death of a "martyr" and his victims.

As much as you or I might want it, there will never be true peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis, or the Western world and Islam, until this sort of cradle to grave brainwashing is nipped in the bud, and all the searches in the world for root causes won't solve a damn thing. Education might help, but the example above demostrates why this won't work in current Islamic societies.

Say what you will about the CIA etc., it is not the policy of the U.S. to target innocent civilians, and our current war in Afghanistan with the extraordinary measures taken to protect and feed the innocent Afganis clearly demostrates that. Terrorists on the other hand, make it their job to kill innocents. If the Muslim terrorists are pissed off about the Sudanese aspirin factory (as was I), then they should go after the parties responsible, not a building full of innocent people. And don't forget that the last five military actions that we have taken were to protect Muslims, albeit from other Muslims!

As distasteful as it may seem, the only logic the terrorist mind understands is brute force, just as we did in WWII, just as Reagan did to Ghaddhafi. Then we rebuild the nations into civilized, functional and prosperous societies, as we did Germany and Japan. I don't see many Japanese or Germans complaining about the way things turned out for them, considering the alternatives.

The bottom line is: exterminate the terrorists (mostly Arabs that are rejected even by their own countries), and show the generosity that America is famous for to the Afghan people.

This woman that wrote the letter that started this thread lives in some sort of blissful ignorance of the atrocities committed by other Muslims (no, not all Muslims). The pictures in the thread of the Indonesian protestors, mostly women that I see in few pictures, with the "kill the Jews" posters aren't full of love like the author of the letter says they are. I wonder how many of these Indonesian Muslim women would be protesting if they were accorded the same "rights" that women under the Taliban were? Oh, that's right, they had no rights whatsoever! That's right, Ms. Reni, no school, no independent movement, no television, no cars, and a view of the world through a mesh grid. And no choice not to be in that situation. But there would be no shortage of beatings though! I think we can all be sure that the Afghani women were not living in the allegedly enlightened and privileged world you appear to enjoy.

Mighty nice of those Indonesian women to defend the "rights" of the Afghan women to be treated as less than animals.