To reassure those who have reservations about the discussion being focused on the Middle East with some racist overtones to posts -- this certainly is not the range of things dealt with here. It is a front and center topic now with the tensions between groups in that region being generated by the Bush administration's aggressions combined with a slightly opened door for peace-making between Israel and Palestine. Such are making people respond with gut impulses that are entirely understandable in the context of the pain that groups have been feeling there with the breakdown of the European colonial domination of the region post WW2. What we are seeing, if you will forgive the horror of the image today, are the aftershocks. Join in and be helpful would be my suggestion rather than running for more peaceful territory.
I happen to be a social/political/legal philosopher with background in some of these areas. As a teen I was actually offered a job with one of the oil companies with the prospect of becoming very rich in the profit-making to be had by economic domination of the emergent regimes there by slightly more subtle means than military occupation, i.e. supporting rulers such as the Shah in Iran rather than the incipient democracy being instituted by Mossadeq which was up ended by our CIA as its first venture in regime change -- Mossadeq had threatened to take back control from our (British and American) oil interests so we jointly did a number on him (as we are doing now in Iraq once again):
http://www.iranonline.com/newsroom/Archive/Mossadeq/
-- "A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy) -- Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
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