To: cosmicforce who wrote (2146 ) 9/13/2001 12:18:31 AM From: briskit Respond to By your logic Hitler would not have perpetrated the holocaust, etc. etc. Not compelling. The innocent Kurds in Iraq who are dying are not dying at our hands, unless we are guilty for lack of compelling force in the matter. Using that force to prevent their deaths would not bother me, as I do not see any right to exterminate Kurds. But, it is political suicide to do so. You appear to me to be leveling the charge against us being a force anywhere, which precludes us from defending Kurds also. I lived in Germany during the time the Red Army Faction was terrorizing Germany and Europe. They shot up the Rome airport, among other mayhem. They were "right" in their own eyes, fighting for some ideals of some kind. But their means were and still are despicable. I find it quite possible and very useful to distinguish between deaths. It has nothing to do with living here. I have lived and traveled abroad. Deaths are not all the same. I worked with terminally ill students in a boarding school in Germany. I saw them die. The continuous retaliation in the middle east, trading death for death among themselves is another kind of death. Bombing buildings occupied by uninvolved people in a another country is quite a different death. Going after the persons behind that bombing would be yet another death. I am not asking you to wave any flag. I could care less. Rather it was the sense and basis in fact and reason that I disagreed with. Whatever argument we make in our own behalf must be equally applicable to and by anyone else. And the same goes for anyone else's argument about behavior toward us. Poverty grants no license to murder, striking a visible profile in another country cannot be justified because of the "point it will make." In any case, I think this discussion is off topic here and of little value in general. TTYL
