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To: Ilaine who wrote (56998)	7/30/2004 1:58:52 AM
From: ManyMoose	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

I don't think it's as simple as you suggest. Evil is as evil does, pure and simple. World view has nothing to do with it. I don't think it's necessary to think the enemy is evil. They are the enemy because our worldviews are mutually exclusive, and the struggle is existential in nature.

To: Ilaine who wrote (56998)	7/30/2004 2:05:40 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

re: don't think it's necessary to think the enemy is evil Look again. He didn't say it's necessary to identify the Islamists as unequivocally evil, he said it's necessary "to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil". The deed, not the people. If you can't bring yourself to say that deliberately blowing up innocents in the name of Allah is evil, what can you bring yourself to say?

To: Ilaine who wrote (56998)	7/30/2004 2:09:16 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

It's fancy footwork to assert that your beliefs are good and just, and those who oppose them are evil I see you have been reading a lot of Barnett. As you know, so have I. It was interesting, was it not, to find Barnett dealing in these kind of absolutes? The trouble with the word, "Evil" is, like most words used in dealing with moral actions, it is not defined. The Dictionary gives two closely related definitions: 1. Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or deprives a being of any good; anything which causes suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury; mischief; harm; -- opposed to good 2. The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness. I would use it with definition 1. The Militant Muslim would use it with definition 2.

To: Ilaine who wrote (56998)	7/30/2004 3:32:47 AM
From: bela_ghoulashi	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793912

The attack was not a gesture of heroic resistance nor the offshoot of some bright utopian resolve, but the very flower of a movement that delights in the potential for martyrdom expressed in the squalls of the newly born. It is a movement that is about death—that honors death, that loves death, that fetishizes death, that worships death, that seeks to accomplish death wherever it can, on a scale both intimate and global... THIS enemy IS evil. Unambiguously so. There is simply no question of it, nothing to be debated. Sorry.

To: Ilaine who wrote (56998)	7/30/2004 8:40:29 AM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793912

If we do not find it within ourselves to identify the terrorism inspired by radical Islam as an unequivocal evil—and to pronounce ourselves morally superior to it—then we have lost the ability to identify any evil at all, and our democracy is not only diminished, it dissolves into the meaninglessness of privilege. I believe the terrorism inspired by Muslim militant extremists is evil, bad, deadly, hazardous to human health, wicked, wrong, sinful, vile, noxious and damnable. I don't think the question is do we/them believe militant Muslim extremism is morally superior to us or vice versa. IMO the morality debate ended when the shooting initiated the fight for survival. The question in my mind is do we have the will to do what is necessary to defeat a heavily armed opponent who is willing to die to kill us? I believe this war can be won without imposing our morality on all Muslims. 90% of them are peace loving. 9% are militant oriented but are not prepared to sacrifice their own life. Unfortunately the 1% who are the problem number 15 million strong. Defeating 15 million makes for a large difficult war. Their distribution throughout the world makes it more difficult. Do we have the will to win it? Time will tell.