[techweenie]

Sorry if I was inappropriately dismissive of your previous post. I appreciate your response.

I think we as a nation were well aware of the power wielded by OBL at the time of his '98 fatwah -- that it wasn't just another 'missing child' flyer in our mailbox.

I still think it's dangerous to simply dismiss OBL's statements as 'ravings.' If only because they are significant to perhaps 800 million to a billion of the planet's inhabitants.

I do not think there is 'moral equivalence' between the killing of 100,000+ and the killing of 3,000.

As for OBL's "appropriate target" well, everything the UN does is at the behest of the Security Council of which the US is one of five permanent members. The US was seen as the driving force behind the initial invasion of Iraq, and as the prime mover in Oil for Food.

I'm not justifying OBL's actions. I'm simply saying that it makes no sense to keep repeating "madman" as if it was the whole answer.

As for your own 'moral equivalence' counterargument -- the one that says the middle easterners are harder on each other than we (the West) have been to them, well, don't you think generations of internecine tribal war have pretty much proven that the punishment is being shared?

As for the vaccine argument, well, that's a good one. Maybe if those 100,000 or so children hadn't starved to death in Iraq, they could have been saved later.

Western influence is a two-edged sword. It comes with medicine and with technology and with pop culture. To some extent, it's the reaction against Western pop culture that is reinvigorating Islamic fundamentalism. So that now, even Iran, a country that [under the Shah] was 'progressive' in the context of its neighbors has elected a leader that tilts back toward the Ayatolla Khomeini regime in terms of fundamentalist totalitarianism.

The world of the middle east is one where we have little chance of doing good. And even our actions with the best intent have unintended consequences (i.e., our support/abandoment of the Mujahadeen creates al Quaeda).

In my opinion, the only appropriate stance to take with the middle east is containment. But it's too late for that. We're in for years. fighting against people we cannot discern from civilians -- because they are civilians. Fighting against people who want to kill us, but who only reveal their intent whan they take action. Can you say "Vietnam?"

BTW, Hillary will not be President.