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

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (220005)	2/21/2007 2:37:44 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The most logical conclusion is to humor the lunatics with soothing words but just act in our own interests. You would be surprised to know that MEMRI has a very long video compilation of a few non-lunatic Muslims. It is worth watching because the speakers make some very good arguments, none of which even remotely deal with conventional reality as perceived by the lunatics. The locutors include the secular psychiatrist who lives in California who made mincemeat out of an outraged cleric and another cleric who lives in London, whom I found fascinating for his lucidity. He seems exiled. When you have an hour or so to spare, open the video entitled "#9999 - The Struggle for Liberalism and Democracy in the Arab World - Arab TV Channels 2004-2006" found here: memritv.org But, yes, it is unfortunate that the major players, the ones who have their hands on the levers of power or who practice terrorism, i.e., Ahamdinejad, the MadMullahs, Bashir Assad, bin Laden, al Zawahiri, Nasrallah, etc., are IMO foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics, suggesting that it is indeed possible for an entire culture to be delusional. The folks who appear in the video have "broken the circle", to use Price's terms, but they are clearly very few and very far between.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (220005)	2/21/2007 3:07:59 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Of course you can tell how they will react- or at least make a pretty good guess. They aren't illogical if you understand their premises. There is, however, a resistance among certain people in the US to understanding the premises of folks in other countries. Now you can run around the world that way if you want to, and I'd be the last person to tell you that labeling folks who don't see the world you do as lunatics" is "wrong" objectively speaking, but on the other hand, I don't see it as terribly successful. So yes, even lunatics can be treated and assisted (usually without violence), and the people in the ME are not (imo) lunatics, even if they do see things differently. Since I don't think they are lunatics, I don't really think we need to treat them as lunatics- but we should always be acting in the self interest of the US- that's my first priority, anyway. I'm not sure we (and when I say "we" I mean all of us), know when what WE think of as reality is not actually conforming to absolute reality, or is more in touch with reality than, say, the view of someone who we think of as a lunatic. I'm not picking on anyone specifically, or supporting any particular view of reality here, merely giving a general proposition of mine. Don't take it as support for the views of folks in the ME, for example.