On 24 Jun 2004 14:20:25 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

Let's think about the choices we have. You could be:

A. With us, in that you support the elimination of world-wide
terrorism by whatever means necessary.

B. Against us, which means that you feel that active terrorist groups
killing innocent civilians is acceptable behavior in a civilized
world.

C. Neutral. You want to hide your head in the sand and pretend the
problem will fix itself.

So which are you?

Dave

I'm stunned. Not one of the choices you offered.

According to what you just wrote:

If I am not in favor of carpet bombing the entire middle East with
thermo-nuclear devices (an example of "any means neccessary" to eliminate
terrorism), then my only other choice is to declare that
active terror groups killing innocent civilians........(as opposed to high tech
super powers with thermo nuclear bombs killing innocent civilians)......is
absolutely OK.

You forgot the "hide your head in the sand" choice...... But that
would make it "trinary" thinking.....


I would not want to carpet bomb innocents either. But when the
terrorists are so gutless as to hide behind them as human shields,
what choice would we have?


Doesn't work for me.

I'm in favor of capturing or killing the individual criminal *******s involved
in terrorist activities, by any reasonable means that won't result in our
creating far more innocent civilian casualties than the
terrorists have already.

Very good Chuck! That sounds like the perfect plan. Now all we need to
do is call the Starship Enterprise and have them scan the plant for
the DNA signatures of all the terrorists so that we can beam them all
into a detention cell on some outer world controlled by the Klingons.


Wake up! We haven't yet found OBL, his top henchmen, or the Iraqi
insurgents. The terrorists hide in countries that will not allow us in
to search for them (Pakistan). How do you resolve this? If there are
countries who support the terrorists either overtly or covertly, then
how do we apprehend them? Should there not be, as "Bush the almighty"
has suggested, a price to pay for those countries who aid and harbor
these terrorists? How do you fight an enemy who transcends borders?


I'm not in favor of invading our way through a check list of third world
countries under the guise of "fighting terrorism". (But I bet you already knew
that)

If those countries have been shown to "aid and abed" terrorists, then
do we not have a right to act? If not, then game over, since we'll
never get them. We might as well erect a wall around our country and
hide behind it, and close all of our borders.

Yes, I know that neocons are all about limiting choices.

Conservatives love choices. Guns, Schools, Medical coverage,
Privatized social security, Elections..........

But you guys have a
ways to go in this country before you can presume to tell me how I must think,
(choice A or choice B).

Chuck, it's not that we think there are only 2 choices, it's that
we've already rationalized all the other choices and have discarded
them due to their impracticality. We're not binary thinkers, we're
analytical thinkers.

Dave

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:26:29 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:27:18 -0400, "Bert Robbins"
wrote:


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Dave Hall wrote:
On 23 Jun 2004 15:22:13 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

It was even simpler than that. I just applied a chain of simple logic
based on the definitions previously provided. If "neo" is new, then if
someone is a "neo"conservative, that implies that they were
previously something else. The most common "other" ideology would be a
liberal. Therefore, a "new" conservative would most likely be an "old"
liberal.

Binary thinking at its finest. Only two possibilities to consider.


Sometimes that's all there is. Are you familiar with Occam's razor?


Dave



I am. Old William called for a minimum number of points *necessary*. For
issues as complex as a worldwide Islamist insurgency, black or white
ain't enough.

Sure it is. If you are an infidel you must convert to Islam or die by the
Islamic sword. Simple, black and white and binary.


That is the way our enemies think. Should we not respond in kind?

Dave

You mean, we should become what they are?

No, we should be better at it.

Dave

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:28:43 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:


Uh, when your policies are wrong, and you keep on promulgating them, and
they keep on delivering death and destruction, and you keep on
promulgating them, then perhaps it is time to come up with some new
policies.


Who are you to declare that these policies are "wrong" By what
objective criteria do you make this judgement call?

Dave

On 24 Jun 2004 14:22:18 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

So doing nothing is preferable to what we're doing now?

Binary.

Excludes the possibility of doing anyting "different" than what we're doing
now, and assumes that our present course is the only possible alternative to
"doing nothing."

I'm still waiting for you to outline a *practical* alternative to what
we're doing now.

Dave

Dave Hall wrote:

I would not want to carpet bomb innocents either. But when the
terrorists are so gutless as to hide behind them as human shields,
what choice would we have?


Some other choice, perhaps?

By oozing down to the level of the terrorists (killing innocent
civilians), we're no better than they are, and we certainly cannot claim
any higher moral ground.

If that's what we're left with, and if in terms of practicality, we kill
lots of innocent civilians, too, we're not demonstrating much difference
between us and those we go after.

It's so unfortunate we don't seem to have reliable intel or even
reliable Iraqis on the ground in their country, eh?

Dave Hall wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:26:29 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Dave Hall wrote:

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 22:27:18 -0400, "Bert Robbins"
wrote:


"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
Dave Hall wrote:
On 23 Jun 2004 15:22:13 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

It was even simpler than that. I just applied a chain of simple logic
based on the definitions previously provided. If "neo" is new, then if
someone is a "neo"conservative, that implies that they were
previously something else. The most common "other" ideology would be a
liberal. Therefore, a "new" conservative would most likely be an "old"
liberal.

Binary thinking at its finest. Only two possibilities to consider.


Sometimes that's all there is. Are you familiar with Occam's razor?


Dave



I am. Old William called for a minimum number of points *necessary*. For
issues as complex as a worldwide Islamist insurgency, black or white
ain't enough.

Sure it is. If you are an infidel you must convert to Islam or die by the
Islamic sword. Simple, black and white and binary.


That is the way our enemies think. Should we not respond in kind?

Dave

You mean, we should become what they are?

No, we should be better at it.

Dave



Yeah, well, when you are trying to win the hearts and minds, as Bush
keeps saying, that is NOT how you do it.

Dave Hall wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 07:28:43 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:


Uh, when your policies are wrong, and you keep on promulgating them, and
they keep on delivering death and destruction, and you keep on
promulgating them, then perhaps it is time to come up with some new
policies.


Who are you to declare that these policies are "wrong" By what
objective criteria do you make this judgement call?

Dave


You've been living in a cave the last year?

On 24 Jun 2004 14:09:35 GMT, (Gould 0738) wrote:

Actually, there are very few shaded of gray. They want to kill us, we
don't want them too. One side will win. Who do you want it to be?
That's as necessary as we need to be.

If you think that some sort of civilized, rational means of "talking"
this out will work, I've got some serious ocean front property in
Arizona that I'd like to show you......

Dave


Excellent example of binary thinking, Dave. The only two options are 1) trying
to talk to them or 2) abandoning all principles when conducting the war.

You have yet to offer up alternatives that are workable, practical,
and effective. So yes, the choices are limited, but you can't seem to
see that.

Let's explore historical methods of dealing with "hostile" nations
(Bearing in mind that these were whole countries which were easy to
identify), shall we.....

We have in the past:

Negotiated in good faith until the object of contention was resolved.

Objected to a particular course of action and advised that the action
would not be tolerated. After a little chest thumping and veiled
threats, nations of weaker resolve have backed down (Cuban Missile
Crisis).

Imposed economic sanctions until the hostile country capitulated.

Convinced several other countries of the "evils" of a particular
action and used collective intimidation to back the hostile country
down.

Used covert actions to infiltrate and influence government action in
those hostile countries.

Used military force.

Now, which of these actions would be the most effective against an
enemy who transcends borders?

Feel free to add any that I might have missed off the top of my
head...

Dave

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:41:56 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Am I a neocon because I looked in a M-W dictionary?


John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!


No, you are a neocon because you are a rigid, mindless fool who accepts
virtually every line of bull**** the neocons feed you.


As opposed to you, a rigid mindless fool who accepts virtually every
line of bull**** the liberals and emotionally driven writer hacks feed
you?

Harry, the real joke is that you are nothing more than the flip side
of the same coin. If there is such a thing as a "neo-conservative"
(other than the webster definition), then you are a shining example of
a "neo-liberal".

Dave

Dave Hall wrote:

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 11:41:56 -0400, Harry Krause
wrote:

Am I a neocon because I looked in a M-W dictionary?


John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!


No, you are a neocon because you are a rigid, mindless fool who accepts
virtually every line of bull**** the neocons feed you.


As opposed to you, a rigid mindless fool who accepts virtually every
line of bull**** the liberals and emotionally driven writer hacks feed
you?


That's simply not true, Dave. I have different opinions on a number of
significant issues with the presumed Democratic standard=bearer and with
the true liberals in my party. As for the emotionally driven "writer
hacks," I suspect you are just jealous, as your writing skills are
rudimentary.




Harry, the real joke is that you are nothing more than the flip side
of the same coin. If there is such a thing as a "neo-conservative"
(other than the webster definition), then you are a shining example of
a "neo-liberal".

I'm more of a Clinton Democrat on fiscal issues, but very liberal on
social issues. I suspect my truly liberal friends would make you quake
in your boots.