steissd, the fact is that the US and Israel created the monster they are now locked in mortal combat with. Our "enemies" have legitimate grievances that must be addressed, and this must be done before the situation gets ugly beyond belief.
These people use terrorism because it's the only effective means of waging war for people who are hopelessly outmatched on the military battlefield. It's horrible and I don't condone it, but I can understand how people can be forced into such a desperate situation. (Empathy is a wonderful tool - it's what makes me feel a tinge of regret for the way I treated you yesterday.)
Contrary to popular belief, terrorism isn't something that the Arabs invented. Humiliated, outmatched, angry people have been resorting to it for ages. Somehow we never seem to retain the lessons of history.
There are other ways to solve the problems that we "westerners" have with the rest of the world. Murder isn't the cure for murder. If you like, we can talk about the alternatives.
Ayn Rand wrote in The Virtue of Selfishness, "The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence."
George Bush is clearly an impotent man at the head of an impotent administration, driven by an impotent philosophy.
From Paul Krugman's essay on the 24th:
Quote:After all, suppose that a politician - or a journalist - admits to himself that Mr. Bush bamboozled the nation into war. Well, launching a war on false pretenses is, to say the least, a breach of trust. So if you admit to yourself that such a thing happened, you have a moral obligation to demand accountability - and to do so in the face not only of a powerful, ruthless political machine but in the face of a country not yet ready to believe that its leaders have exploited 9/11 for political gain. It's a scary prospect.
It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. I believe that Bush is more of a criminal than Nixon was. He's the smelliest pile of feces to ever inhabit the White House.... and I mean that in a good way