@Setanta,
I'm going to give this one last shot because while you can, at times, be one of the most paranoid people I've come in contact with, your past experiences with me can justify a reluctance or refusal to assume positive intent on my part, and because, while you may not believe it, I did appreciate the time you took to originally respond to my question, and I appreciate that you made the effort to take it seriously.
I'm also going to make the effort because it's ironic that you reacted as you did to my response.
What you found to be “sneering” in using the term "historically documented" was anything but. I actually took pains to try and explain what I meant by the term because I didn't want to offend you, or have you think that I was “blowing off” your response. It's your choice to believe me or not, but I didn't, at all intend anything derisive.
In my defense, I did thank you for your response and indicated I found it very interesting. Perhaps that wasn’t clear enough, but you’ll have to forgive me if cordial conversation between the two of us is something of a foreign field.
Perhaps the problem was in my failure to clearly explain the distinction I was making between the “historically documented” wars and the events you covered in your response. Obviously I didn’t think you invented the Akkadian empire etc., but they were not examples of what I meant. In any case the question hardly matters at this point.
It may easily be the case that I am completely wrong but it seems to me that I am reading in your responses the same sense of “Jesus Christ, what do I have to do with this clown?” that I felt, and if that’s the case, it’s regrettable that our similar good intentions went awry.
I don’t expect us to consider each other “friends,” but there’s no reason for us to always be at each other’s throats. I’m perfectly willing to accept that this has been a misunderstanding and it was no one’s fault or both our faults.
