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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (130103)	4/26/2004 10:06:44 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 281500

You are refreshingly honest. You do not have any better idea of how to handle things, but know (in your gut, of course) that there must be a better way than the one being pursued. You stand for many of the kibbitzers on this thread, who do not know much about what is going on, or how things might be done better, but are by damned sure there has to be something better than current reality. One reason I moved from Left to Right was because I began to perceive that, by and large, conservatives and moderates acknowledged that dilemmas existed, that messiness and mistakes are part of the process, and that hard tradeoffs might be required in pursuit of good policy. Liberals and radicals, on the other hand, had difficulty acknowledging dilemmas, looked for purity where it was not to be found, and acted as if there were no constraints against "having it all". They "knew in their guts" that there had to be something better than the solutions contemplated by those actually in authority. I decided that I wanted to be in the adult camp, politically speaking.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (130103)	4/26/2004 10:40:22 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Healthy young people, whether Arab or otherwise, will tend to be pretty much alike. I disagree with this completely, and think this may well be the fatal flaw in your argument. There are many, many different ways of being, even in the same culture. Take, for example, how people process information. Some learn best by listening, some by reading, some by reciting, and some by doing (kinesthetic learning). This is hardwired, you can't change it. Some people are motivated by the desire for physical comfort and pleasure, some by the drive for physical dominance of others, some want public recognition of their intellectual skills, some want to be left alone to think quietly, some want to be with their friends and fellows, some want drink and drugs. Some people think about the future. Some people think about the past. Some people think about the present. Some dream about things that never existed. Some are cautious, some trusting, some paranoid, some rigid and maladaptive, some sunny. Some sensitive, some let everything pass by like water rolling off a duck's back. The ancients knew that we are born this way, and they called it "humors," thinking it was literally mediated by fluids of the body, that lots of blood made us sanguine, cheerful and optimistic, that lots of bile made us choleric, bitter and angry. You know this. The sensitive, neurasthenic poetic type will never become the football-throwing, hale-fellow-well-met type. If I wanted a suicide bomber, I'd look for a young man or woman unhappy in love, unlucky in life, mal-adjusted, rejection-sensitive, the type who always stands off to one side when group photos are taken. Someone it would not be all that hard to persuade to commit suicide, given proper manipulation. But if I were looking among Arabs, I'd also be looking for someone who felt humiliated, who wanted to regain "face". If I were a terrorist, I'd probably not want to waste a fellow terrorist on a suicide mission, unless there was going to be plenty of "bang" for the "buck". Terrorist types are different. They believe that they are superior to everybody else, know better than everybody else what is right, they strive for purity and cleanliness of body and soul and ideology. They don't waste time feeling sorry for themselves because nobody loves them. Other human beings are inferior, who cares what they think? Some people are sheep, some German shepherds, some wolves. Terrorists are wolves. They aren't as pathological as true psychopaths, because they want things that ordinary human beings want, but their methods are pathological. I trust you understand that psychopaths are born, not made?