Posted: Dec 3rd 2003, 6:14 pm
No, I was refering to a "form" of religion. Which in this case is Islamic governments. Syria, Saudia Arabia, The Taliban, Iran, and to en extent Iraq in that Saddam played himself off as an Islamic Saviour, all are extremist islamic governments. All of them treat women as nothing more than property. It is simply perverting a religion to oppress others (I'm sure you'll all have something to say here about christianity and the US, start another thread and we can discuss this there.)Do you mean the muslim religion?...
Yes, the Quran, to my understanding, does not truely promote any of this. And I have no issue with Islam as a religion. But the fact remains that a large number of the "teachers of islam" teach nothing but hate of the US. I am not broadly stamping all islamic believers as evil. Just pointing out the fact that a large portion of the leaders are corrupted and using Islam as a way to gain personal power and control.
We have to go back a little bit of the way here to understand this. The reason that Osama hates america is because he had a plan to defend Saudia Arabia from Iraq in 90 - 91. The Saudi government rejected this and instead allowed the US to move in troops to protect them. This is not a good thing for islam. Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca and is therefor holy ground and not to be walked on by non-islamic believers. This in a nutshell is the reasoning that Osama uses for claiming that the US must be destroyed, because we desacrated islamic holy ground....how Iraq was threatening your way of life.
Ok, moving on. We did not finish the job in Iraq because many of the islamic nations that assisted us did not want the US occupying Iraq. So we backed off and allowed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to die in the ensuing uprising. This continued. As well as Saddam more or less thumbing his nose at the UN and their resolutions. More died from starvation due to lack of funds caused by Saddam's lack of cooperation with the UN and the ensuing sanctions. What money that did get in was used to rebuild Iraqs military. A military with one goal, to take over the middle east oil fields. To do this he would have to face the american military. How long do you think it would have taken for him to realize that after 9/11, small unit tactics used by terrorists could achive such results and that he to should be using them? So now we have a military power with sufficant funds looking to strike at the US and a group of willing soliders under Osama looking for funds and arms to execute such a strike. Do I have to draw you a picture????
Do you realize what would happen to the world economy, not just the US but the whole world, if the US faced such an oil shortage? And thats just the US facing a shortage. Saddam would more than likely restrict its flow to other countries as well quickening the decline.The only thing I can see that was potentially threatening the American way of life was a future oil shortage and those resources being in the hands of an uncooperative Saddam.
The most populated high tech nation in the world uses energy??? Heavens No!!! What are we going to do? I know we'll go back to living in huts and breaking our backs to survive. Of course this means no more grain exports (Hello world starvation). And since we'll be working just to make ends meet over here you can kiss the far east export economy good bye.Then you would have to cut back on your truly outrageous (as a nation) levels of energy consumption.
Oh and those steel tariffs... not to worry we won't need them. In fact we won't need to import any steel cause we'll have no plants to use it in.
I venture to say that the reason you do not understand is because what you have been taught is cause and effect and not the complexities and relationships inherent in large systems. Its like Conway's Game of Life, a few very simple rules can be combined to create highly complex systems that are quite difficult to understand.I don't see how raising questions helps the terrorists. Do you think that if suddenly everyone shut up disagreeing with the Bush administration, that Osama would suddenly go 'OK, well, that's that - there just isn't any point anymore boys. Let's give up.'
But heres a stab at an explination. By constantly screaming "down with bush!", "get out of Iraq!" and the rest you are allowing the enemy to rationalize that they are somehow winning or capable of winning. This allows them to go to others and impress apon them the same values and turn them against freedom and liberty. By providing a united front you make it much more likely that the new recuit will see the futility of his actions and thus not act at all.
Interesting question! So is it fair for Japan and the EU to demand a fair opening to our steel market while restricting say Boeing from selling airliners to EU countries. I do not agree with the steel tariffs either. If you can't compete in a free market deserve to go under. EU and Japan steel is cheaper. Can't blame the guy buyin steel for that. Nor should you force him to pay more. But once again we are only looking at half the problem. These same countries that demand openings into our market want to restrict the US in there markets. Is that fair?Take the steel tariffs. Is that fair? My government stood beside yours but now your government slaps on a steel tariff that is helping to cripple our economy.
This goes to the patriot act, and I've stated before that I'm against it. We can stand together at the gates of the white house and protest this.Citizens of my country have been held as prisoners in Guantanamo bay for 2 years and the USA is only just beginning to even discuss this as an issue. there is no discernable evidence against at least 2 of them.
Canada, Mexico, Jamaica, Haiti and Japan. Mexico Jamaica and Haiti were all missions trips with my church when I was a teenager helping to build churches and schools. I plan on making it to England someday as I am half scotish and have relatives there.I'd like you to name the countries you've visited outside the US.
I have to roll right now... I'll try to answer the rest later.