TreeDr,
I'm not saying that I'm "for" them, all I'm saying is I can't unequivocally say I'm "against" them. I don't know any more about them or what they claim to do or not do beyond what I'm told by my government and/or the mainstream press.
Whenever I consider both the information I've been fed, and equally (or more!) believable counterpoints, I feel it's better for me to err on the side of caution.
How many of our good people were needlessly lost while on what was essentially a vacation in the Sandwich Islands in December, 1942? [edit: oops! make that '41]
Do you honestly believe that Lee Harvey Oswald pulled off that feat with a $30 bolt action war surplus rifle firing magic bullets that defy the laws of physics?
How many of our good people were maimed or killed, not to mention the locals who suffered the same fate or at the least had their lives completely upended as a result of the Gulf of Tonkin non-incident?
Why didn't we finish the job during Desert Storm, instead of having to go back ten years later (if we really
had to go over there in the first place)?
Not to say that McVeigh wasn't a patsy who might have actually believed he'd done all that damage himself with an anfo bomb, but since when does such an inefficient device have the ability to form a crater and shear steel structural members while not having a proportionately similar effect on nearby structures? And why in that, and subsequent similar (though on a far grander scale) situations, is the evidence quickly destroyed before an impartial investigation can be performed?
Why does the IRS need to lose one of their best criminal investigators because they refuse to answer pointed questions about their misapplication of the law, and get their
asses kicked in court when they instead bring him up on criminal charges?
(Just a few major general points to consider in order to help see where I'm coming from on this.)
I don't intend to belittle the efforts to protect themselves of the individuals who find themselves in harms way for whatever reason (though I do disagree that they're over there fighting for
our freedom -- we've in indisputable fact lost a great deal of freedom concurrent with their deployment), and I previously stated unequivocally that I don't believe each and every government/press individual to be evil. (Not that I need to, but I know this to be in part true first-hand as I've got near kin who are or have been in law enforcement and/or government and/or armed services at various levels.)
I wholly believe that when a bully continually pushes a weakling, the bully should not be surprised if/when the weakling reacts in "non-conventional" ways. Sure, these "terrorists", whoever they may be, aren't "fighting fair". What do you expect? Did the British think we Americans were fighting fair when we wouldn't line up against them in the open field but instead used trees for cover? To them, we were approaching "terrorist" behavior while we were in the process of defending the formation of our own country/government.
I'm not defending or trying to justify the actions of
whomever is doing these bombings, make no mistake about that. But I do hope you'd be able to leave even the teensiest amount of room for trying to see things from their (again, whomever they may really be) point of view and their resultant desperation.
To my admittedly limited knowledge, this is the best place to live in the world, and I'm more than happy to have the good fortune of being born here. That doesn't mean I don't love it when I question things that go on here. In fact, I feel that not questioning them would indicate both complacency and my non-love of it! Would you, given the choice, prefer your children to love you because you're you in/for all your particular aspects, or rather have them love you "just because" and regardless? To me, the former means a bit more, and it both requires greater responsibility/accountability on your part and is a win/win situation.
Regarding the current event, would you or would you not agree that
this is a fair assessment?
Glen