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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (188458)	5/12/2004 5:13:40 PM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574976

mph, re: Since terrorist acts have been on-going for years prior to the invasion of Iraq, asserting that the Iraq situation is causative doesn't make sense. What is the explanation for the prior conduct? Why don't you ask about a specific terrorist act and maybe you will get an answer. Most prior terrorist acts have had different reasons. It's like asking why every prior murder was committed; lots of reasons. John

To: mph who wrote (188458)	5/12/2004 6:32:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1574976

My point is that "perception" is by definition subjective. A person's "perception" can be objectively irrational or it can be "irrational" from the POV of other persons. The latter, of course, could be subjective as well. Understanding that a "weed", as you put it, "has a certain faculty for surviving" doesn't mean that you have to psychoanalyze the weed to determine whether its "perceptions" are rational or irrational. Yes, but you best know the peculiar knack that weed has to survive or you will never eradicate it. With humans, its more complicated but the principle remains the same......if you don't figure out the terrorist's MO, you will never be able to get rid of him or his cohorts. That doesn't mean you have to psychoanalyze him to death. Frankly, I don't care all that much what makes the terrorist tick. I am more concerned with how he manages to survive and pull off his dirty deeds. If we understood that about OBL, we would have caught him by now. You can, however, evaluate the conduct, understand that it is hatred driven, for whatever reason, and deal with it. You need to do more than evaluate it........you have to understand it like understanding the route to a hidden cave or the pieces to a puzzle. You have to psyche out their way of dealing and then replicate it in order to catch them. Its why its a difficult task and we'd rather do shock and awe. Mossad.......Israeli Intel.....is very good at this task. Since terrorist acts have been on-going for years prior to the invasion of Iraq, asserting that the Iraq situation is causative doesn't make sense. What is the explanation for the prior conduct? The war in Iraq just gives the terrorists another reason to attack Americans. However, the original causes have to do with American foreign policy dating back to the late 70s, early 80s. We have had a long tradition of siding with the Israelis or the Lebanese Christians or a secular Saddam at the expense of the Muslims. What got OBL's attention was our support of Saddam in his war against Iran, an Islamic theocracy. When Saddam invaded Kuwait, its because he thought we would look the other way. After all, we were his friend of sorts. And then after the Gulf War, we established bases in Saudi Arabia. OBL considers SA mecca......the sacred land of Islam. To him our bases are an abomination. He views the Saudi princes as corrupted and infidels of sorts so our alliance with them just makes us look that more evil. Clearly, OBL is a butthole and a nutcase......but he's a clever one that has caused us a great deal of pain. He also is a strong proponent of a pure Islam and that the Muslim nations should be ruled by theocracies. That's why al Qaeda cells attack Turkey on a regular basis........because its secular and does not speak Arabic. And he is not alone in his beliefs. I think we're too quick to ascribe rational motivations to terrorists and to blame ourselves as a country first for anything that occurs. They are not rational to our way of thinking but who cares........OBL and his followers think they are rational......and that's all that matter. As for us, the American public is too quick to look all surprised when something bad happens. However, our gov't isn't all that surprised because they know the $ht they are pulling. The American public needs to pay more attention to what our gov't does if we want to prevent future WTC episodes. If we don't, I can assure you, we will have a lot more of those episodes in the coming years. In fact, Bush's policies all but assure that we will. But that's just me.* That's just you and a ton of other Americans. And so long as we continue to believe nonsense, we will be in deep$h*t.