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

To: RetiredNow who wrote (236036)	6/6/2005 2:26:54 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1571808

How do I reconcile it? I'll say it again. We try to put violent people in jail and have a culture of taboos around violence. Middle Easterners have a culture of violence and honor suicide bombers. Those are VERY big cultural differences. Inner city gangs have a culture of violence and they honor drive bys. However, they are a minority in the US. A sizable number of Muslims honor suicide bombers but they definitely are a minority too. To hear you speak, every Muslim craves violence. That could not be farther from the truth. Its this kind of misinformation that is fueling the hatred that makes this war possible. And let me assure you, the Muslims are saying the very same thing about Americans on their websites. What you are doing is like comparing violent crime in Saddam's Iraq to violent crime in the U.S. I am certain you would be able to point to statistics that said their were fewer thefts, drive by shootings, etc during Saddam's reign. So then your conclusion is that Saddam is running a better country than we are. No, I am not saying that. Saddam's reign was bad.......there is no question of that but America's intervention in Iraq has made things no better. American intervention in Iraq has created a climate of hate and violence and war just as assuredly as giving fertilizer to a plant makes it grow. Your denial of this very basic fact is infuriating. You want me to pretend to believe that this war is for the best. It is not. Iraq is a mess. We are not making things better for the Iraqis. And let me tell you.......we are fueling a hate that will last for decades if not centuries. The Muslim world is a sleeping giant that the US is prodding awake. Its scares the bejezus out of me what this will mean for future American generations..........and that's because there is no way that Mr. Bush's excellent adventure which you support is going to work. But that's rubbish. Saddam ran an absolutely brutal dictatorship. People knew that if they got caught in the justice system of Saddam, they were likely to get killed. So crime was low. In a Democracy with massive amounts of freedom, as in our country, you can never wipe out crime, but you can keep it to levels that don't disrupt a functioning civil society and economy. You are talking about the US where there is a more equitable distribution of resources. In a country like Iraq, where resource distribution is skewed much more towards the wealthy, its extremely difficult to keep people from being violent. I mean......you do understand the psychology behind suicide bombers? In their minds, they figure that they have very little to lose....that's why they have less reservations about suiciding. In the meantime, the wealthy Iraqis have set up camp in Amman [Jordan] and are increasing their wealth from there while waiting for Iraq to calm down. Just like with the wealthy in this country, their progeny are not doing the fighting in Iraq. They are off to schools in Switzerland and Paris and the US. That is where you and I differ. You find surface level comparisons between Middle Easterners behavior and behavior of criminals in the U.S. and conclude that we are no better than they. But your conclusions are faulty in the extreme. You are missing the whole cause and effect linkage. I am saying to you that your claim that ME people are inherently violent is nonsense. They are human beings just like Americans and want the same things as the rest of us. However, their neighbhorhood is a much harder place in which to live and do business; consequently, it makes it harder for them to thrive as law abiding people. The same condition exists here in the US but only in microcosm.......primarily in the minority communities. The reason things are less violent here is because we have a better distribution of our assets and resources than they do in the ME. If whites in this country were in the same condition as American minorities, its very like that there would be rebellion 24/7.

To: RetiredNow who wrote (236036)	6/7/2005 12:05:31 AM
From: Mani1	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1571808

RE <<Middle Easterners have a culture of violence and honor suicide bombers>> You have no idea what you are talking about. You really don’t. You can not learn about “middle eastern culture” from talk radio or Fox news. On the surface you sound like an intelligent and reasonable person. But a truly intelligent person is aware of his environmental imposed biases. Always considers the sources of information and recognizes that quick judgments based on limited information often results in faulty conclusions. In my opinion, you have made a judgment based on limited and not representative information. And in my eye that makes you sound very stupid. Mani