While this is usually my general train of thought, I am also smart enough to realize this would never work. Kinda like not helping out your brother if he was in a financial bind. We have joined the fight on some really useless battles in the past, but this one I think would have cause if some of the bigger guns (Iran, Syria) get involved. Until then, we will just watch it all happen on the news. What I worry about happening here is GWB will use this as an excuse to abandon his current failed mission of useless results, and the US will actually cause this to escalate into somthing bigger. How big is the question.
I hear you. Ultimately, wiping them out would be the best solution. I keep hearing people discuss the open dialouge we had with the PLO and these groups under Clinton is a much better option than what's happening now. I completely disagree. There was no peace.....never was and never will be. Holding discussions with some smoke and mirror government entity when all it is is a terrorist organization is a joke. It's a tough proposition here. If I had my way, I would go ahead, reinstitute the draft, and wipe out Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine and spend the next 50 years setting up democracies there. The 10 years of war and the 50 years of rebuilding them would be quicker and would cost us less in the way of American lives than the death and destruction we'll see waiting the next 50 years for the UN to fix this. Watching the news tonight, I see all of these diplomats, Albright characters stressing the need for negotiations. I keep yelling at the screen...."Negotiate with whom?" No one ever asks them that. "OK, you talking head do nothing.....who do we or anyone negotiate with here? Name them. There's no one to talk to. They are all terrorists!"
Religion is not the problem - hatred is the problem. Whether it is hatred by Muslims of Jews or hatred by athiests of religion, hatred is the cause of many of the problems we face. There is nothing wrong in being a Muslim, Jew or Christian. It is when they allow religion to become a dividing ground between them that we have problems. And there is no reason for it, as most religions are based on the concept of a universal brotherhood of man. Unfortunately Islam seems to be one of the rare exceptions. It is drawn into itself and sees non-Muslims as "infidels." The failure does not fall on religion, but on man's inability or unwillingness to live up to universal religious principles. In short, the failure lies within ourselves.
violence is the problem. in today's world, religion is the cause of that violence most of the time. when a person starts accepting lies as truth, that is a problem. if they happen to be lucky and are brainwashed with a strain of this mental virus that isnt that violent, that is lucky. but they should be better than to ever believe the lies of religion. they arent. most people are pathetic cowards who cannot deal with reality. to have faith means to accept whatever religion is. and if religion says you have to kill people, so be it. when you remove reason from the picture, that is the problem. religions are not about universal brotherhood. they are about nothing except whatever anyone wants to interpret them to be. there is no reality to base anything on. if you say religion is peaceful, you are no more right or wrong than the guy who claims religion is about killing infidels. both of you are basing your beliefs on faith, which is necessarily based on nothing. so you cannot claim to know what god wants, the whole idea that he exists or wants anything is completely made up, as are all the details of his requests and policies. only through reason can we advance past killing each other over ghost stories and fantasies. the first step is to stop respecting opinions based on anything other than reality and stop teaching future generations that is acceptable to base your view of the universe on lies.
The problem is that terrorist have found a way to use religion as a means of control, the way that the Vatican did so many many many many years ago. Religion is what each of us make it or dont make it. No 2 people have the same views about religion, everyone accepts or believes the parts that they want to believe or accept. Martin does not believe in religion, me and him have gone toe to toe in many discussions about the subject matter. He has his views as I have mine and no amount of talking on each of our parts is gonna sway the other. And my views on religion differ from yours and alot of people. Do I think my views are the right way, no i dont. But they are what work for me and what I feel in my heart. But when religion is used as a controling measure thats when things become dangerious.
this is what martin fails to understand. its not religion which is the problem as its the ones who use it as a tool for control via fascism or whatever. the people being brainwashed to terrorize are simply pawns in the game. if religion wasnt being used then it'd be something else but this is the tool used for ages most effectively and served best in third world countries via islam such as today. what ive tried to make clear is that regardless what method a group uses is irrelevant and if its not religion to prey on the weak it will simply be something else and it certainly doesn't indict and condemn all groups in the process. if i pray to allah and live my life as a hard working person with good morals, who i pray to, if anyone at all, is completely irrelevant. judge me by my actions and my actions only. if i want to believe martin will send me to hell in order to make me a good person all that matters is that I stay in the non-murdering/non-judging group. til then anyones generalizations of me are meaningless. oh and red, the former fbi chief and a few others were on CNN discussing the impact of hezbollah and said there was at least 12-15 cells within that many states across the US were known to be active. it was actually within a discussion group like it was commonly known amongst officials/feds while al qaeda wasn't even half that anymore (within our borders) since 9/11. they did say that much of hezbollah was pissed at al qaeda due to the attention 9/11 brought to them which knocked out some but was clearly the most effective terrorist group of the 2 currently by likely twice the amount. not sure if thats good or bad actually though it is interesting nonetheless. just goes to show how oblivious we are to things even on our mainland i suppose. does this mean there are tens or hundreds of others im oblivious to within our borders?
Hatred is the cause of the violence - not religion. In the Middle East the hatred tends to fall along religious lines, but that is antithetical to the underlying principles of most world religions. If people lived up to the teachings of their religion it would be a much better world. Actually, the violence currently going on in the Middle East, while it falls along religious lines, in actually more political in nature. It involves territory and the right of Israel to exist as a nation. Describing religion as lies is your opinion. You are entitled to it, but 95% of the world's population believes in a supreme being and belongs to some religion. Since only a small fraction of that population is involved in war that cuts along religious lines, that would strongly suggest that religion is not the cause of hatred and war. I certainly agree we have to use reason to solve our problems, but Right Reason, as St. Thomas Aquinas would put it. Religious faith is not based on either lies or fantasies; it is based on experience. Faith is fundamentally experiential in nature. It starts with membership in a faith communty which teaches its values and belief systems based on holy writings such as scripture which describes the faith experience of the community. In time the individual comes to recognize God's activity in his or her own life, and uses that experience to make decisions based on Right Reason. What is going on in the Middle East today has nothing to do with Right Reason. It is a rejection of all that religion teaches us.
Well, not to stray off topic. I think Israel should up the force against Hezbollah. Fight fire with fire. If Israel can finally eliminate these guy entirely, it will clean up a lot of the instabitilty in the Middle East. The US has to pay attention to this. I feel we will get involed one way or the other with this because once Hezbollah starts loosing it war fighting might, I wouldn't be surprised to see Iran and Syria step in. So Israel, forget the G8, bomb the hell out of Lebanon and Hezbollah.
