Randy, I have to ask, how should we have conducted ourselves so that Bin Laden and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad would not hate us and kill us? A moment's thought will conclude that it is our existence and beliefs, not our conduct, that they hate. To quote (approximately) the great pragmatic philosopher Lazarus Long, the only things to do with an enemy are make a friend of him or kill him. Leaving him alive and still an enemy is foolish. In the long run Islam will have to purge itself of its Crusaders, just as other religions largely have. The war is not against Islam but against a set of murderous fanatics, and it would be foolish indeed NOT to hate them. Barney Wolff On Fri, Sep 14, 2001 at 01:00:51PM -0400, Randy Bush wrote:
and the hardest part is doing so without being bullies ourselves. and we should be sensitive about this as we are not _perceived_ as having done well in this respect for the last half century. and this latter seems to be a factor in the mess we find ourselves today.