More in line responses to Linda Below: On 10/27/2010 07:08 PM, Linda Herd wrote: > Tom, > > I hope that our country is not trying to take over the world.
There may not be anyone in power in our nation that actually wants to conquer the world and call all of the globe a territory of the United States of Earth. However, there are plenty of people in power that believe the United States should hold a special position in the world. They believe that everything we do is righteous and just, and that none should stand against us. > I am aware of the many evil things that have been done by those who want to > promote > Christianity. It's usually a minority, and it's usually the combination of "Christianity" with State and Empire that causes the great tragedies in the name of Christ. > I still do not think it is a minority of fringe members. Minority of fringe members of what? Islam? There are over a billion people on the planet that claim to be Muslim. How can Terrorism be anything but a fringe position and action. If even 10% of the billion wanted the destruction of the west, by invasion, subterfuge, and terrorism, don't you think they'd be pooling their oil money now and marching through Europe with their 100 million man army? OK... How about 1%? 10 million Muslims working for the installation of Sharia law in the entire world. Who could stand against them? No.. Clearly it's not that. OK, imagine that all of the 421 terrorists had an army of 1,000 extremists that supported them and did their bidding. That's 421,000 Muslim Extremists. That's far less than 0.0421% of the Muslims in the world. If those were the odds (which I think are actually much higher than reality) then only 1 Muslim out of every 2,375 is dangerous. Would you infringe upon the freedoms of those 2,374 Muslims to defeat the one terrorist? Furthermore, would you assume that a Muslim that comes to America is one of the 0.0421% that wants to harm us, or part of the 99.9579% of the Muslim population that are peaceful? > I listened to a video in which a man in our higher > government that said this has been happening for years, since the last > world war. "This" I am assuming to be Terrorist attacks. Don't forget that terrorist attacks are made by people who are desperate to make a difference and otherwise feel powerless to take up normal means to defend themselves from what they perceive are wrongs. They cannot form an army to stand against the opposing military. They cannot form a peaceful coalition to convince their invaders to leave their lands. They turn to suicide terrorism because they believe their aims are more important than continuing to live. I'm not arguing to excuse or sympathize with Terrorists by any means. Isn't it worth trying to analyze what drives adult men to commit suicide and take the lives of innocent people? Conflict in Mesopotamia has happened for all of recorded history. Cain killed Abel right? There's no valid "they started it" that you can say here. You say that terrorism has been happening "since World War II", but what has also been happening in the Middle East for longer than that? Western occupation and control of the entire Middle East. Israel was re-created by the west rather arbitrarily and at odds with all of the surrounding nations at the end of World War II (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947_UN_Partition_Plan). The United States deposed the elected leader of Iran and replaced him with a dictator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat). As we've stated on this list before, World War I had a major influence on the Middle East as western nations fought over the oil that they saw as theirs for the taking (http://globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/185/40479.html). I'm not saying unequivocally that these are evil actions, but they MATTER. > What I have seen on video is that there is a clear and present danger. More violence by drones and subversive actions executed by the governments of the west will most certainly *NOT* end terrorism in the Middle East. More occupation and the attempt to subdue the Arab and Persian peoples will not end terrorism. Bombings and other military actions into Pakistan will NOT end terrorism in the Middle East. If the United States leadership isn't careful, we'll be at war with four or more nations within a year or two. (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan). This could easily spread to other nations in the region, such as Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and northern Africa. The terrorists will not stand and fight. They will just flee to neighboring lands and do what they can there to make us unpopular. When exactly can we judge whether these efforts have been successful? When can we call it a mistake and leave the region militarily? Are our actions making things better or worse for Israel? Are our actions truly making life better for Afghanis and Iraqis? Can we afford to repair the destruction we've caused? > This danger is getting more dangerous by day. We just need to know what > there is alive now that we could not handle. The danger of an economic collapse is far greater than that of our nation being infiltrated by Muslims and Sharia law being installed. One of the most significant factors in the weakness of our economy is our overseas expenditures. The interest on the debt is another massive burden on the American taxpayer, and on the Dollar. The unfunded liabilities that our government has promised (far greater than $50 Trillion to Medicare and Social Security) represents a nearly insurmountable problem that we MUST solve. Economic instability and extremely hard times are almost guaranteed to be in our near future. Why must we be fighting wars overseas and promising welfare that we can't afford domestically? If they only convince people that the Dollar is still awesome, it's a self fulfilling prophecy. What happens when that fantasy falls apart? What happens when people realize that dollars are just worthless pieces of paper? Jeremy D. Young -- This is a Free Speech forum. The owner of this list assumes no responsibility for the intellectual or emotional maturity of its members. If you do not like what is being said here, filter it to trash, ignore it or leave. If you leave, learn how to do this for yourself. If you do not, you will be here forever.