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<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
So we can assume that either you're being sarcastic, or you approve of the US genocide against the Indians in the 1800s. The trouble with the net is that it's so hard to tell the difference.
There was never a "final solution" applied to American Indians,
although the effect of the demands of the settlers was genocidal on
the "Indians." (And since I am descended from the Nez Perce I know a
bit about it.) But what we're talking about here is something
completely different.
The point was that the phrase deliberately recalled the attitude of many settlers of the time (and probably the attitude of several presidents, Andrew Jackson for one, Tippecanoe for another).
We can afford not to practice genocide on a
clearly genocidally inspired enemy, because we don't have to. We can
defend ourselves without reaching that level, and the same goes for
the Israelis.
It's not obvious that most of the 'enemy' is genocidal, especially given Geneva. It's also not obvious that the intent is not to reach that level, given actions over the past few years (for the Israelis, that is). It seems a carefully calculated ratcheting up of levels of violence that lead to predictable results, which eventually can justify "We had to either move them out or kill them, because they would destroy us otherwise." Maybe I overestimate Sharon; but given his history, I doubt it.
If the contest were more evenly matched, however, all bets are off. When confronted with an enemy with not only the intention of genocide, but the credible ability to carry it out (or in development) your only real option may be to wipe them out before they do it to you. That "choice" is precisely what the current policy is trying to avoid.
It's a nice theory. Again, what I see is provocative actions designed to produce responses, which lead to more provocative actions. It's easy to set up treaties that the other side has to reject, after all.
Look at it this way, the Arab world was sewn with a totalitarian
cancer in the 1930s and the disease didn't become visible to us until
recently, although it was slowly developing.
Um, there were problems set up before then, and people have been worrying about them for decades. I suggest you check out some more history books.
If it really threatens
to sweep the Middle East then what opportunities exist to kill the
cancer and save the patient may evaporate. And calling that cancer
something else not only doesn't help, it makes the unthinkable more
likely.
Even using the word "cancer" is misleading, and suggests that you've bought into some simplistic propaganda.
We simply didn't have the option of not taking it on directly. Fortunately the cancer was stupid enough to attack us directly before it was really ready, which got our attention. Totalitarianism, like crime, makes yah stupid. What can I say?
I can ask why you think that Egypt bought into Carter's Camp David accords, and why you think that fundamentalism turned into more of a problem over the next couple of decades? Who exactly was stirring things up, and what were the reasons that people started taking it more seriously?
Bush means it when he says there's nothing about Islam that makes it
incompatible with Democracy or liberal society.
It's a bit tougher to
tame than Judaism or Christianity, but not anywhere close to
impossible.
Look at the history of Spain under Islam, and compare it to the Christianity that followed.
But any fundamentalist religion (or conception of race superiority of socialism) when mixed with the counter-enlightenment philosophies and their absence of a coherent center, seems to create an implacable totalitarian movement wherever it occurs. The problem, in other words, isn't Islam. It's Islam's bastard child.
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