Re: Question from a Canadian.



Warren,

I have snipped out a lot of your last communique. You may assume
that I agree with the missing sections..

Same.


[ snip ]

If you and I met in a desert and you spoke only English and I
spoke only Chinese, our first task would be to establish a common
language if we wanted to communicate. In the chat rooms, the "common
language is the ability to write convincing arguments. I think I'm
going to try and help him learn HOW to write so he CAN communicate. I
wonder how many of his fellows are in similar situations. I wonder if
the answer could be that simple.



You've made some very good observations, and yes, the answer can be that
simple. It is getting harder and harder to find someone who is
perceived as
'one of them' and who is capable and willing to discuss the issues that
are
tearing us apart. Those who are incapable of sustaining a difficult
dialog
are far more likely to express their frustration. but, there's still a
fair
amount of hope for discussion.

For example, there is a group of Israelis and Palestinians who meet to
talk
about the vast gap that separates them. If people with that much
dividing
them can try to find a common ground in addressing the situation that
confronts them, then anyone can do it.

On the other hand, do not underestimate the basic differences in values
and
perceptions between people of different cultures. Personally, I find
the
differences fascinating, but other people may feel threatened by any
discussion which compels them to challenge or re-examine their own
attitudes
and values. It takes both flexibility and an unwavering ( almost
unconscious ) commitment to one's own point of view. It's delicate
balancing act. Sometimes it's best to drop the debate and think about
it
for a while. The act of 'thinking about it' may very well be the
greatest
benefit of discussions about basic values and perceptions.



I certainly agree with you on this. I have been spending a lot of time
recently trying to play Devil's advocate against some Christian
Westerners in an attempt to make them realize that their superior
attitude towards the Mideast isn't that justified. These aren't the
white supremacists - they're ordinary people who have a bad information
set about Islam and blind spots about the West's behaviour in the
Middle East. It's like trying to empty a lake with a sieve.

I know exactly what and who you mean.

I have to say that I honor you for trying to make people understand that so
much of what they think they know about other people is bad information.
It's a very difficult task. And, in fact, after all is said and done, my
own contribution is confined largely to these newsgroups. For all my
yakking, I'm not nearly as actively and positively engaged as you are.

The people who actively seek out others and try to engage them are what I
call "the adults of this world". They are the people who clean up the
messes that viscous kiddies make, like the people who volunteer to dig
through mass graves in Croatia to identify the victims or who spend their
lives running clinics in remote areas of the world. They are the real
people, the real Christians.

The rest of us are talkers, even if we are saying good things rather than
hateful things.




I have managed to force a few of them into a corner. I can tell,
because that;s the point at which they call be a "moral relitavist" or
"Moral subjectavist" (That's a new one - even wikipedia hasn't heard of
that yet), or, if they're American, they call me a Canadian, which I
take as a compliment.


Accusations of 'moral relativism' are the last refuge of cornered. When I
get them to define what they mean by that, they never have an answer. "It's
what other people do", is about as far as they can get.

How many times have I heard that George Bush is OK because he isn't as bad
as Saddam Hussein. I ask them, didn't your daddy ever say to you "I don't
care what the other kids are doing". My father certainly said to me, no
moral relativism around our household, no siree.



Or they start quoting Bible passages at me.
It's an indication that they've been forced up against the wall on a
subject and they need time to re-examine their beliefs on their own
(It's always easier to admit that you may have been wrong in private).

Another useful observation. I've never heard any of the hot-to-trot web
warriors in this newsgroup admit that they were wrong about invading Iraq in
the Spring of 2003, but they don't get on their patriotic high horses quite
as often as they used to.





A good example is my discussion with the poster who goes by the name of
"1MAN4ALL" on the subject of 'riba', that is the forbidding if interest
on
loans. I think that forbidding interest has been a major contributor to
the
impoverishment of many people in the Middle East. When discussing the
issue, I made my 'Western economic' arguments on the subject and
1MAN4ALL
made his 'Eastern social' arguments on the subject, always
well-expressed of
course ( in fact, you may want to approach "1MAN4ALL with some of your
ideas, he is an open and very receptive person, I always welcome hearing
his
views on any subject ).

But, after thinking about it, and contemplating some of the shadier
business
practices of our Western banks and credit card companies, I've come to
believe that 'riba' is simply a decision that Muslims have made about
the
kind of society they want to live in. If they are willing to live with
the
economic consequences of that decision ( assuming that I'm right about
the
consequences of 'riba' laws ), then who is to say that they have made
the
wrong choice ?

But I still wonder if Muslims fully appreciate the economic consequences
making money a specialized, almost hand-crafted product rather than the
commodity it is. In fact, I have some difficulty in understanding how
Muhammad, a very able and gifted merchant, could subscribe to the idea
of
'riba'. It goes against the 'time-value' of money, which is its
essential
character, money is more a measure of time than of concrete things. I
would
think that a prosperous merchant who lived in the midst of a complex
system
of fiduciary and banking relationships would understand money better
than
most people. But maybe he did understand it better than most, had seen
the
potential for abuse and that is why he subscribed to 'riba'. No doubt
the
debate will continue, as it should.


Being a businessman myself, I can appreciate Mohammed's point of view.
Banks are always saying that small businesses are under-capitalized.
"Riba" solves that situation by forcing people to invest in the
business rather than just loan it money. "riba" will mean that fewer
businesses get started but those that do will tend to succeed.


Interesting observation, and probably a significant factor in capital
movement and formation. My theories have difficulty explaining why capital
exists in Muslim countries at all, it should have fled long ago.

On the other hand, the Arabs have kept much of their hundreds of billions in
Japanese banks for the last 30 years, particular since Ford froze their U.S.
assets during the 1973 oil embargo, they haven't forgotten it but neither
have they created a workable system of national 'riba' banks.

The distribution system is also quite different, many small interlocking mom
and pop businesses, few truly multi-national or even national conglomerates,
other than in petroleum industries which are often owned by the governments.

Are Arab bankers reinvesting in industries in their own countries or are
they seeking higher returns abroad ? Could that be a factor in my
hypothetical flight of capital from the Middle East ?

My theories are alos plagued by the inconvenient fact that dire poverty
exists in countries where there are no riba laws, so what's the difference ?

It's a complex subject and my knowledge of it is not deep, I'll just keep
chipping away at it.






About people like "Islam Will Replace", et al. First of all, there is
an
anti-Islamic somebody running around canceling his messages and forging
other messages with his name, so that may be confusing. However, there
have
been a series of people posting virulently anti-American, anti-Western
messages under various names. You'll find a more complete collection of
"Islam Will Replace" postings in the newsgroup talk.politics.mideast.

In one case, I'm pretty sure that one of the posters was operating a PLO
newfeed. Some of the newer faces may be Hamas or other groups. Others
seem
to be free-lancers. Most don't respond to comments, although I seem to
be a
able to get a rise out of them from time to time. I find them to be
very
interesting, one of the few reasons I still haunt this group, what they
don't say is often more interesting than what they say.




Keep in mind that anybody in these groups can research any other
poster. If these people are researching you, they will find someone
who researches his facts and has the ability to posit logical
arguments. The extremists get their emotional payoff by declaring
their message AND by being confronted by people that confirm their
prejudices. We're tal;king about people that have very fragile egos
deep down, and they would regard losing public arguments as
humiliatin

You may be just too tough an opponent for them.


Actually, in the real world, I'm a very easy person to get along with. I'm
not even very argumentative in real life, although my af-fianced probably
wouldn't agree with that statement. :-)

You are right about the fragile egos, they used to gang up and hit me with
the "he'll never show his face around here again" routine, totally wasted on
me of course. I need to take sabbaticals though, the ugliness starts
getting to me eventually. I'm about due for one.

But I must say that the thing that drives me in these groups may be just
absolute blind outrage that the [ bad word ] who run this country have
sucked billions and billions of dollars out of tax-paying Americans to feed
Republican political cronies. It's going to have significant consequences
for the future of America that a massive, sophisticated and well-financed
lying machine exists to serve the interests of those who care about nothing
except power and money. They are utterly ruthless and don't give a "rat's
behind" about American traditions or political institutions. After power
and money, they have no third objective. I think that they are by far the
most dangerous threat not only to America, but to world peace and all the
people of the world.

China has been a massive campaign to build up their military capability
since the invasion. While I can't applaud it, but I can readily understand
how it may serve to put a stopper on the apparently unlimited military
ambitions of American right-wingers and help sustain global peace and
prosperity for the next 20-30 years, especially in a time when American
global power declines, as it must. Quite simply, we're going broke. I
think even the Israelis are getting the message about this and are starting
to understand the consequences for themselves.

That period of decline of a great power is always especially dangerous. I
expect that the Democrats will not be able to reverse the effects of the
Bush Implosion and that the ensuing counter-reaction of American voters in
5-10 years is likely to be even more radically right-wing than the Bush Era,
perhaps even openly fascistic.

It been quite a journey for me to understand that my country is no longer a
contributor to world peace, but it's greatest enemy. America has had it ups
and downs in the past but the political trends we are seeing in this country
today may well be the start of something big and very nasty in ten years. I
hope I'm wrong.

The Swift Boat Vets disinformation operation against John Kerry still makes
my blood boil, every time I hear one of the false ranting dogs in this
newsgroup make patriotic noises about "our troops in the ground", it makes
me feel ill. The next election is going to be the worst yet, both in terms
of disinformation and outright election fraud. It's going to be good for no
one except the Bushista Billionaires Club who apparently are trying to seize
control of the country ...

Tough talk, I know, but realize this is coming from someone who was mostly
apolitical 5 years ago. There are millions of American like me who feel
much the same way, even ( believe it or not ) some Old Time
Non-neo-conservative Republicans are starting to talk like this. Again, you
won't hear this in the heavily-scripted 'discussions' aired on Fox News, but
it's happening nonetheless.











So the idea that there are two groups of Muslims, one 'moderate' and
the
other provocative terrorists is in part true, but in fact, there are
many
more than two groups.


For my purposes, there need only be 2 groups, one that throws bombs
and
one that does not. I have no problem with the second group.


It doesn't seem that simple to me.

In particular, the ill-fated invasion of Iraq has muddied the waters.
Why
are our guys all freedom fighters and their guys all terrorists ? We
can
find partial answers to that by distinctions like 'intentional targeting
of
civilians' etc., but the question abides. Abu Gharib and the emerging
details about the murderer of Iraqi civilians in Haditha only contribute
to
the fuzziness of the distinctions.

Perhaps the most difficult fight is with ones own pre-conceptions about
who
and what we are, it certainly is for a 'sane' American whose country has
killed 100,000 Iraqis. The issue of "terrorist or freedom fighter" may
be
the most difficult one to address.




That's one of the reasons I don't have a lot of use for labels. If you
can learn to abandon the labels, you implicitly learn to argue both
sides of the issue. You start putting yourself in the shoes of the
other side and understanding that they may indeed be right . You don't
tend to take as many rigid position on subjects which makes it easier
to acknowledge when you've been wrong.
Of course, this is the "moral relativism" that the Christians
complain about, but I believe that it is a psychologically healthier
way to argue.

On most subjects that is true - on others, I don't see how one can avoid
rigid positions.

For me, freedom of the press is absolutely essential and if someone prints a
nasty cartoon about Muhammad, then that's just the nature of the beast. I
don't have any flexibility to give on the issue.

Aside: if you think about it, who would drop what is clearly an aerial bomb
into the side of Muhammad's head ? Islamists don't drop aerial bombs,
Americans do. It's not even a very good political cartoon, when you think
about it.

On other issues, I'm fairly flexible. If Muslims in the U.S. want to use
sharia courts for domestic disputes, it's fine by me, so long as important
civil laws are not being flouted, like the murder of 'dishonored' women for
instance.

I think I remember that Canada has initiated something like this, you should
have heard them in this newsgroup, it's the end of the world, no doubt about
it. ;-)
















Big, grown-up adults are doing the killing, not children. Maybe
children
can be innocent of murder in their hearts, but what alibi of
child-like
innocence can suicide bombers offer their victims .


At least 8 of the Toronto 17 are under 25, an age at which their
judgement centres are supposed to be formed and an age at which I
consider them to be adult. Sorry, I should have made that clear
earlier. The fact is, in Canada, half of the Toronto 17 or more and
still intellectually children, led or misled by an adult. I am not
saying that this excuses their legal liability, I am trying to connect
the dots from the good kids they started out to be and what they ended
up as to see if there is a point at which the process can be
interrupted.


It probably sounded like I thought you were saying the contrary, but I
didn't. I was just underscoring the idea of personal freedom and
choice.
It's absolutely essential to do away with the God Alibi. War is war and
jihad is jihad, but bombings like those of New York, Madrid and London
are
simply savage and stupid. They accomplish nothing except making new
enemies
for Islam.


I agree with you about the "God alibi". We do have to keep in mind,
though, that our opponents cannot meet us on a regular battlefield -
they would get creamed by the massively superior American Army. By
having such an overwhelming advantage militarily, the West may have
limited the options of our opponents to the ones that we are seeing -
guerrilla warfare and surprise attacks on civilian targets. I'm not
putting a value judgement on this either way, just saying that, from a
military standpoint, a general uses the options he has, and the options
of our opponents are severely limited.

Absolutely. Again, this is something I've said many times in this
newsgroup. I even challenged the hard-chargers to admit that if the
situation were reversed and a militarily-superior Iraqi Army had invaded the
U.S., they would be doing the same things as the 'insurgents'. I got
silence for an answer, of course.







There was a sincere and hopeful posting recently about Hispanics
converting
to Islam in significant numbers. It is an idea of vanishing small
probability. I kept my mouth shut about it ( with great effort ), but
the
bombings and barbarities are making Islam new enemies in places most
Muslims
hardly know exist, especially in South America.







You may not have encountered the 'Muhammad was a pedophile" hate
propaganda
yet, but you will. I wouldn't go there.


Yeah, that sounds more like tabloid journalism than reality.


There's whole long story behind it, but the bottom line is that Muhammad
loved Ayesha very deeply and Ayesha loved Muhammad very deeply and
suggestions to the contrary are both insulting in the extreme and an
indication of how far from truth the anti-whatevers are willing to stray
in
order to make a case against Muslims, Hispanics, immigrants,
multi-culturalism, whoever and whatever.

I used to get my jollies by exposing the stories for the lies they are,
but
there are hundred and hundreds of them and I just got tired of fighting
the
flood of falsehood that the liars generate in these newsgroups.
Apparently,
there is an entire shadow world of people whose sole purpose in life is
to
invent new lies to tell about other people.



I actually ran into this pedophile nonsense yesterday, but I had
encountered the facts earlier. One thing most people fail to grasp is
that marraige at 12 was normal for many girls in England at least up
until Shakespearean times (Juliet was 12).


God, it's good to hear someone else saying all this for a change. I've been
beating the drum about it for the last 3 years with little to show for it.

And there was something special about Ayesha. She was the daughter of
Abu-Bakr, who was Muhammad's right hand and who was apparently a Lion of the
Desert, of the old 7th century Arabian school.

She was also her daddy's girl in other ways. When others among the Muslims
would complain to Muhammad about Ayesh beating them in some huge dispute (
and perhaps physically beating them too, she was no shirking violet ), his
answer was often "she's Abu-Bakr's daughter", as if that was explanation
enough. It probably was explanation enough.




In fact, the entire concept
of "children" wasn't invented until the 1600's; prior to that, they
were just considered small adults (it was routine for 10 year-olds to
be hung for being pickpockets). Mohammed, by waiting several years to
have sex with Ayesha was actually more than 1000 years ahead of his
time.

Alot of this is true.

Nonetheless, I'd be very careful about mentioning this sort of thing around
Muslims, they can be very senstive about the early conflicts after
Muhammad's death. To us it's old history, to them it's current history.

For instance, Ayesha was the centerpiece of the Battle of the Camel, where
her forces were defeated. Another area is the conflict with Hussein and Ali
and the whole Shia schiism that emerged from that. Muslims aren't supposed
to fight Muslims, and they don't like being reminded the deep divisions
between theory and practice. They would often decleare each other to be
un-Muslims before big battles to get around the religious restrictions.







[ snip ]


I would try to build up the personal relationship first and get down to
matters later.




Good Point. It will be delayed for a bit, however, because I received
notification that my email didn't go through. (Their inbox is full)



Maybe offer to help them with their computer. Also help set up a good
security system for them, I've had many attacks from various sources,
sometimes I suspect targeted attacks, although I can't prove it directly.




[ snip]


My defense of America's support for the creation of Israel was that the
Jews
had suffered terribly during WWII so they needed a homeland of their
own -
atonement I called it. Their reply was, why should the Arabs suffer to
atone for the crimes of the Europeans ? I had no answer, I still don't
and
I've never heard anyone else give a plausible response to that
statement.

The reality is that it's now the Jews home as well and I don't think
that's
going to change any time soon.



Nor should it. We have already made one mistake trading one set of
victims for another. It would be the height of folly to make the same
mistake again. I do think, however, that, in all fairness, the Allies
ought to admit that this was a grave error, because, by creating the
conditions where the Palestinians would be evicted to make room for the
State of Israel, we made the implicit declaration that an entire nation
(Palestine) and an entire sub-race of people (Palestinians) simply
didn't matter.
That was a simply HORRIBLE mentality. It was on a par with the
Nazi mindset that the Jews were some sort of bacteria to be eradicated.
It was a betrayal of every humane belief that we're supposed to hold
in the West.
I have no problem understanding how the Muslim world could be
enraged by this because, if the West could feel this way about one
group of Muslims, by extension, they must have felt this way about all
Muslims. The West just doesn't get this. I think a large part of the
problems in the Middle East is the fact that they are not getting the
respect they feel that they have earned and the respect that, at a
minimum, they are entitled to as human beings.


Absolutely. The big difference between me and the next guy may be that I
have known, liked and grown to respect several Muslims over the years. I
think of the meals and good conversations we have shared.

I even had the experience of going to the beach with a Pakistani woman in
her first ever bikini. Of course I had to stare at her lustfully and let my
tongue stick out between my teeth. She yelled "stop it !", which pleased
both me and her to no end. She was very funny. She worked in New York at
the U.N. and with various NGOs, a brilliant woman, if a bit intimidating at
times, she was no shrinking violet either.










We do know how badly the Christians can behave, after all...


Yes and no. There were definitely abuses of the official policy of
religous
toleration under the old regime, not that the situation was all that
bad,
but things certainly weren't as chummy as some Muslims claim.



The same intolerance was happening in the West at the same time. It
wasn't a fun time to be a Jew in North America, for example.

Oh no, not by any means. I remember in the 1960s when the first Jews were
allowed into our local country clubs, I was as pleasant and sociable as I
could be, but I'm always a perennial outsider too, so it wasn't much of a
welcome to them.

A few years ago, I heard ( through the grape vine ) about some exclusive
club in Atlanta that was now accepting applications from Jews and Blacks.
Things are better but it's been many years getting here ....









If you are serious about a ... ah .... shall we say 'crusade'
against
the
killers, MEMRI is one of the most valuable sites on the web.



This was a VERY interesting site. A couple of cautions:

The Saudi royal family are not nice people to cross. The report
mentions that one of the Princes of the royal family has taken a
personal interest in the program. The report writers, knowing that a
failure would reflect badly on the prince, could be sanitizing their
data. I am especially concerned that there are no followup studies to
see how many of these conversions hold.


Yes, very true. I was planning to mention caveats of this sort, but you
are
way ahead of me. We have to take these things for what they are worth.



The first part of the report dealing with the "jailhouse
conversions" is especially suspect. The report draws a straight line
to the fact that prisoners who converted were let out of jail. Saudi
jails are supposed to be some of the worst in the world. I would
imagine that prisoners would do or say almost anything to be set free.
That having been said, the fact is that the Saudis report similar
successes with their online program suggests that some of the
Jailhouse
conversions may, in fact, be legitimate. I found the second part most
interesting of all because it was entirely voluntary on the part of
the
"terrorists" and that good, solid psychology was used on them. I took
particular note of the caution that a frontal assault on the
"terrorists" does NOT work and, as a result, I am rethinking the
program that I previously suggested.



One of the things I got out of the article ( perhaps I was looking for
it )
was that the issue of 'jihad', in the broader sense of political and
social
struggle, is not even on the table. The central issue is one of style,
how
to go about it, rather than ultimate objective, which is to drive out
what
they regard foreign, un-Islamic influences. This objective is true for
almost *all* Muslims, religious fundamentalists or not. Even the
much-despised Islamic socialists agree with the Islamic ideal of
reducing
American influence over their governments and in their culture and
societies. It's probably the one enduring legacy of European
imperialism
( or colonialism ) in the Middle East.


Well, given recent events, I could hardly blame Islamic societies for
wanting to reduce American influence in their societies. That, of
course is not limited to Muslim societies. In Canada, we are very
sensitive to the intrusion of America into our cultural and political
landscape. Like Pierre Trudeau said, "Living next to America is like
being in bed with an elephant". I would think that their reasoning is
similar to ours - we want to maintain the separate uniqueness of being
Canadian because we believe that Canadian values represent a benefit
for our people that American values do not. We like Americans, but we
don't want to BE Americans. Or, like Paul Martin so ably put it in the
last election, "America is out friend, but it is not our country."


I love it up there, especially in the French speaking provinces. It's a
very different place. I got the impression you are on the west coast, so
it's possible you haven't seen the area. If you haven't, you should, it's a
good and very different place.

I used to get sent to Montreal on business in the early 80s, during the
height of The Tension. I usually got relegated to the English speakers, but
I made an effort to build my relationships with the French speakers. The
discord between the two groups was quite apparent, some of the French
speakers felt that they had to be 5 times smarter than everyone else to be
taken seriously, but eventually I seemed to be able to work with them
normally, without having to take care in what I said to them or how I was
approaching an issue.

The plant manager was formerly the manager of a brewery, he had been one of
the 'tasters' there. He had to take me on long tours of the local
water-holes to sample the local produce. One thing I learned about life in
Montreal - pick your drinks carefully early in the evening because you are
probably going to be drinking a lot more of them than you usual do.

The music in particular is great, I've had some musical friends up there for
the last 10 years, strong classical background, tons of good free music,
then the clubs. The night life is lively, no deserted streets on Saturday
night at 9:30 for them, not like Boston. Well past midnight and they're
still going strong, even if I'm not. Maybe I could get used to it, although
I didn't manage to do so in my club-hopping heyday 30 years ago.

I've considered moving up there. I think it's wonderful how they've changed
Montreal into a hybrid French city, while retaining some of the bustle of a
Toronto, in the financial area especially. Even some of the remaining
English speakers say the city is cleaner, brighter and more fun than it used
to be.

The food is still good, but I'm not sure if it's any better, surprisingly.
Maybe that's because, after 500 long years of struggle, the English speaking
world has finally learn how to cook a decent meal, the food in Boston is
excellent so maybe I'm just getting spoiled.

On the other hand, Quebec has gotten kind of touristy. I liked Vieux-Quebec
better when it was shabbier 20 years ago. It's a little too Montmartrie for
my taste, though still beautiful and well worth the trip to see it. It's
the closest thing to the feeling of France this side of the Atlantic. I
like going to the little lunch places and seeing the same faces I see on TV
at the table next to me. It makes me feel very participatory, though their
politicians are no doubt as big a pack of crooks as ours.

If I moved there, my miserable French would get a good, long run and might
even aspire to inadequacy over time, with luck. :-)






Remember though, it's not just a matter of what they perceive to be
neo-imperialism of the American government and economic interests, but
also
the neo-imperialism of Western culture and values invading their radios
and
TV sets. Including Canadian culture and values, even productions of the
Canadian Film Board might as regarded as sinfully satanic in some
quarters.
:-)


Agreed. That's simply an extension of what I said above.




What it's like in *your* quarters, among Muslim communities who have
decided
to immigrate to Canada, might be a very different story.

To look at it for another perspective, how many parents feel that their
kids
are watching and listening to degenerate pop-junk rather than devoting
their
time to culturally and personally improving works of art ? "Almost all"
would be the answer, I think.

So to some extent, Muslim parents are facing the same set of challenges
as
non-Muslim parents, kids who rebel and know better than their parents,
or
anyone else usually. I would particularly mention the struggles of
fundamentally-inclined Christians, whose basic 'family values' are
nearly
identical to those of many conservative Muslims.


Oh, I heard that :-). My sister is fundamentalist Baptist.

So was my ol' southern grand mammy, though instead of Satan, it was the
Carpetbaggers. :-)






[ snip ]


The Saudis produced a transcript of one of their terrorists talking on a
jihadist radio program about his 'victory' in the attacks on foreign
compounds in SA, he describes how he stalked around the compound cutting
throats and yelling "Allah Akbar". At first the radio announcer is
answering with his own "Allah Akbar", but then you can tell that he is
getting uncomfortable with the man's glee in describing his murders.
It's
rough stuff, the man is clearly a sociopath of some sort and obviously
the
Saudis wanted this to be known among the populace.



The Saudis sound like one very smart government. They're just letting
the terrorists have enough rope to hang themselves.


I not sure about that, I hope so. There's a general discussion in this
newsgroup on the subject of Saudi 'languor' from time to time, though they
haven't seemed languorous since 9-11.





But, "rationally", how does one connect the act of blowing up a market
or a
mosque or whatever with ridding their country or their lives of foreign
influences, wherever the acts may be committed ? To 'convert' them back
to
the fold is simply a matter disconnecting the dots between ends and
means -
in other words, terrorist means do not accomplish Islamic ends, nor do
Islamic ends justify terrorist means.




Rationally, setting off random bombings makes foreigners more afraid to
come to the Middle East. If you're trying to keep the foreigners home,
random bombing will certainly put a dent in the tourist trade. There
may be a method to their madness.


And to a limited extent, there is method to it, no doubt. Terrorism works
in a way, but what does it actually work to do ? Nothing. A hundred camel
ride guys are standing idle in front of the Pyramids even as we speak. Who
benefits from that ?






It would seem that the war against terror may have to be fought
one person at a time and that only Muslims will have the credibility
to
fight this war.


I have said so many times, though occasionally with a more militant
twist to
it. This is not a bullet and smart bomb war, it's a knife in the
alleyway
war.



I'm not convinced any longer that this should properly be called a "War
on Terror". It should be called a "War on Ignorance and
Mis-perceptions", but that wouldn't have the same legs in the press.
It's abvious that both sides in this conflict have to adjust their
views about what the other side is about and they need to empathize
more with the other side. Killing a terrorist doesn't do much good;
often it just means that we have recruited the entire family to the
cause of our opponent. Educating the other side about where their
misperceptions lie and being willing to change our own misperceptions
solves the problem once and for all.


Absolutely.

I would add that we are going to have to kill terrorists, for good or not.
We really don't have much choice other than to track them down like vermin
and kill them when necessary.

In my "Knife in the Alleyway War" scenario, I envisioned small, compact,
highly trained military units and assorted trenchcoats taking control of
entire towns or districts in ... wherever ... for several days at a time,
clearing out identified terrorist cells. Maybe a couple of thousand
soldiers with electronic battle field systems and huge firepower. A quick
in and out, as it were. I used the term "inspection in force", which is
what we should have done in Iraq if there were a serious question about
WMDs.

After all the Bushhead lies and fabrications have been parsed out of the
equation, it's important to remember that the original accusation about
Iraqi WMDs was not totally implausible. We may yet be doing an "inspection
in force" in North Korea.

So, unfortunately, we have to find the killers and bring them in, even if it
makes us more enemies. Certainly, it's a whole lot easier and cheaper to
talk about it now than hike half-way round the world to shoot each other
later.








And I think that the war will largely be won or lost by Muslims
themselves.
But it's not a question 'if' the war will be won, it's a question of
'when'
and how many people will die as a result of it.


I think the Muslims will win against their people. Who's going to do
it on our side?


That's a $64 billion question. In fact, it's more like a $640 billion
question. They have an awful lot of money and that's the major factor in
the new power realities in the U.S. of A.

The equation is: MEDIA + MONEY = POWER.

The media part is especially important because they use advanced market
research techniques to find the most effective message for their money,
through encounter groups and sophisticated opinion polling techniques.
Given the right money and the right message, they can achieve virtually any
given objective in opinion engineering. It's expensive, but if you have the
money, it's very effective. They *shape* opinion toward the decision they
want, and it usually works. They make the old Soviet propaganda machine
look like your local Board of Tourism.

Given that something like 30% of Americans are so hard-core as to be
permanently affixed to their opinions ( roughly the percentage of Americans
who still think George Bush is doing a "good job" ), you only need about a
third of the remaining 70% to get to the Big Five O. It's just a matter of
finding the right word or phrase, getting it to the right listeners and
repeating it over and over again.

I don't know exactly what the ROI is for all this effort, but including big
tax cuts, tax breaks, favorable executive branch decisions, favorable
legislation, etc., it's got to be well over 500% since the 2000 election.

Like terrorism, disinformation works for it perpetrators in ways. But I
think the Republicans have lost a lot of credibility with the American
public in the last few years, so maybe I'm overstating the case for the
future. Maybe there's no more spin in the spin machine.

I don't know if you hear much about the Minutemen up there in the limitless
muskeg. They are a group who, by the Grace of God and the Republican Right,
have appointed themselves the protectors of the American border with Mexico
( in fact, I remember something about getting Canada in on the Minutemen
act, you must feel honored ).

It started out as a Swift Boat Vets sort of thing, but they lost control of
it ( apparently ) and Neo-Nazi groups and Neo-Whatevers are now in the
Minuteman Business. Assuming they haven't marched the 'minute men' off to
detox already, the Republican have got to be worried about their association
with it. I don't know if the creation of the 'minute men' was the result of
opinion engineering, but it was not smart. They may think they can take
America back to some imaginary past, and maybe they will succeed in some
ways, but it will not be in *that* way, not to *that* past. Too late for
that stuff, not a smart move.

We'll see. Always the next election ....









Before the invasion of Iraq, I thought maybe 10 years, including the
possible impossibility of settling the Israeli and Palestinians down in
permanently peaceful states. But now what ... 20 years, 30 years ?

The Islamists have got a huge head of steam working for them, that's for
sure, although you won't hear it said on Fox News. And they own their
thanks largely to the stupidity and blindness our Georgie, and his many
minions and allies. So, has Amercian foreign policy shifted from oil
and
Israel to oil, Israel and democracy ? Maybe, but it still looks like
oil
and Israel to me.




That won't stop me from trying, of course, but it
seems like my efforts may have less effect than first hoped.

You never know. It doesn't keep me from trying. You should have seen
me
trying to single-handedly hold back the waves of tanks poised on the
border
of Iraq.

I was smooshed under the tank treads, of course, as traitors to their
country deserve to be smooshed under tank treads, that's what *many*
True
Patriotic Americans were saying about me and people like me in March
2003.
Is it any wonder that I and millions of other Americans regard the
Bushheads
as an infinitely greater threat to *our* country than Islamists, even
bombing Islamists ? The Islamists can only kill us, George Bush has
come
close to destroying us.

So, be thankful you don't have the conservative Republicans destroying
your
country from the inside out, literally like a cancer. If we can't get
them
out of power here, they may become your worst enemy too.



Yeah, that keeps me awake nights, too, especially since we now have a
Prime Minister that thinks Bush walsk on water. But, there's a bright
side. The States tried to invade us once before, and we kicked their
ass. Maybe its time to repeat the lesson :-).


When ? Bull ! I'm a distant kinsman of General James Wolfe, The Man Who
Lost Canada, and I can say that ... ahhh ... wait a minute ... you did win
that one didn't you ... or was that another battle ... never mind.

All I know is when I'm in Montreal and say I'm a distant descendent of
General Wolfe, The Man Who Lost Canada, I usually get a laugh and a free
drink. I guess he lost Canada for France, come to think of it. :-)

84' 40" or Fight.










Eric




.

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