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To: caltrop
My point on WMDs is that, if even a dippy cult in Japan can produce Sarin gas, we'd better accept the fact the stuff is out there.

I have to reject this point of view. Western (and that includes Japanese) law enforcement and military agencies should be doing everything they can to eliminate these weapons. Deciding that they are simply out of control and warrant a mere buildup of deterrence-style counterforce is insufficient. I think the horror of Aum Shinrikyo's subway attacks is plenty of evidence to that effect. They just happen to be virulently anti-semitic, as well.

I don't know if being completely indifferent to Israel's fate makes me an anti-Zionist. I guess if it does I must also be anti-Biafran, anti-Cambodian, etc

I think it makes you an isolationist. That's a choice we all need to make, but I don't see the world as being more stable or less threatening than it was in 1937 today. There were plenty of people making similar justifications for our isolation then. But I think many of us have learned that preemption is a better way. Nations in the Axis of Evil or international terror groups that talk about attacking us and show an ability to do so are little less of a threat than Hitler was in the 1930s. Don't you think it the least bit significant that they speak the same language, the hatred and vilification of the Jews?

The US taking sides in a religious war is, IMHO, anti-American.

As I've said, it's not a religious war. Muslim extremism is barbarism without a doubt. Judaism is just another religion that happens to be practiced in the west with no deep-seated animosities for you or me. If 9/11 didn't persuade you, if the continual stream of death threats to Americans that we've heard over the past 30 years hasn't persuaded you that the pan-Arab nationalism (either Islamic or Baathist) isn't about anti-westernism, anti-modernity, and nothing short of a war on human progress, then I don't know how to persuade you. Prestowitz's attack on Bush's Christianity is an affront to my own secularism. When President Bush speaks of our duty to defend freedom, I don't hear the religion first, I hear his call to recognize an American opportunity to improve the world from a humanist standpoint. Prestowitz is just grandstanding and playing to the anti-Christian sentiments in this leftist crowd.

If you think Iraq had a connection to 9/11 contact the government with your information.

I dont know anything that you don't about that, and I don't think it's necessary to justify our presence in Iraq.

I think this concludes my argument. I'll let it stand for itself. I think you've earned the right to advocate isolationism, and you've earned the right to say that you'd sit out our overseas "adventure." So please don't take any of my continued disagreements with your position as a lack of respect for your status as a citizen soldier.

24 posted on 08/19/2003 1:28:22 PM PDT by risk
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To: risk
hasn't persuaded you that the pan-Arab nationalism (either Islamic or Baathist) isn't about anti-westernism, anti-modernity, and nothing short of a war on human progress

Is, not isn't.

25 posted on 08/19/2003 1:33:11 PM PDT by risk
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