From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V10 #359 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Monday, September 17 2001 Volume 10 : Number 359 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: May and the march of time. ["Maximilian Lang" ] RE: Airport security ["Bachman, Michael" ] Re: My Back Digests ["victorian squid" ] Re: Israel [Capuchin ] RE: hey rube [Viv Lyon ] wtf is wrong with people? [Ken Weingold ] RE: hey rube [Capuchin ] Re: wtf is wrong with people? [Capuchin ] more on that pulled COUP cover [HAL ] RE: Israel ["Poole, R. Edward" ] RE: hey rube ["Poole, R. Edward" ] Re: wtf is wrong with people? ["victorian squid" ] re: hey rube and Israel (two for the price of one!) [Christopher Gross Subject: Re: May and the march of time. Hey, Charm monger what part of I'm not talking about politics and the like do you not understand? I should have said that the war with Japan would have continued for years and years with likely millions of more Japanese civilians dying in suicidal raids. Now shut up already as I am sooooooo sick of this shit. I will not address any more of the content of your email, you got me to respond this much and that is much more than I really should have. I'm sure you saw that I had said I would not continue to respond and decided to turn the screws a bit more, whatever. I have better things to occupy my time. I am on the verge of unsubscribing but maybe that wouldn't shut you up, I find your behavior totally inflamatory. Max >From: Capuchin >Reply-To: Capuchin >To: Nerdy Groovers >Subject: Re: May and the march of time. >Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:34:20 -0700 (PDT) > >On Sun, 16 Sep 2001, Maximilian Lang wrote: > > You think it is our policys that caused this, and that is wrong. It is > > a hatered of our culture and the theory that it is poisoning the > > globe. > >Well, it is pretty much undeniable that one of the goals of our policy has >been to spread corporate culture around the globe. I can see how someone >might call that "poisoning". So I think I'm on pretty solid ground here >and am not ascribing necessarily "western" thought to other people. > > > But I digress, you are looking at WWII through a liberal political > > correct looking glass. Talk to some veterens of the Pacific campaign > > and ask them if they think about it. In my humble opinion I would > > trust them before some book you may have read on the subject. > >You think the emotional reaction of someone who was inundated with >propaganda and then set into a situation where they had to fear for their >lives, kill or be killed, is going to give you a more comprehensive and >multi-faceted view than that which we can take from this future vantage? > >Your statement about the Japanese waging war to this day was absurd. The >simple fact is that the Japanese were starving. The war effort had >totally crippled the nation. > > > > > never ever said that it was right(and it you would bother to learn > > > > your history you would find that it was an agonizing decision for > > > > Truman) and I'm sorry that so many people lost their lives. > > > > > >You said it was the ONLY option... which is the pragmatist's "right". > > > > bullshit, here is what I said cut and pasted: . But, under the >circumstances > > it may have been the only option at the time. > > > > May - you "may" want to use your dictionary on that one. > >Alright, you said it "may have been the only option", which is STILL the >pragmatist's "right". > >J. >-- >_______________________________________________ > >Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:20:51 -0400 From: "Bachman, Michael" Subject: RE: Airport security - -----Original Message----- From: Capuchin [mailto:capuchin@bitmine.net] Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 4:33 PM To: Nerdy Groovers Subject: Re: Airport security >So, I'd say that, for the most part, our airport security is Quite Good. >How many hijackings have taken place on commercial flights originating in >the United States in the past thirty years? >Damned few. >J. The security might have been Quite Good in the past, but the game is now changed. Therefore, consulting the Israelies on how they conduct security is worthwhile. Our airport security must mirror the Israelies, as we are now just as much a target as they are and they have the experience in dealing with the terrorists. Ocean lines and train security also need to be beefed up. Profilling is needed as well, the more we catch the more lives are saved. Airplane cockpit changes are also being discussed and should be implemented within the next couple of weeks. The added sealed door and marshalls aboard with special guns with low velocity bullitts that can't penetrate the planes skin will do the trick. Pilots can also have these types of guns available. Michael Michael ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:25:43 -0400 From: "Poole, R. Edward" Subject: Re: My Back Digests Kay: >I found the article Ed posted by Tamim Ansary on our possible bombing >Afganastan extremely sane, sad and sobering. Thanks Ed. Actually, Drew posted the link, and I seconded it (I figured an endorsement from the "reasonable" camp could only help spread the word.) ;-) ________________ >PPS--Richard Thompson was, I believe, a Sufi , which is a mystical, esoteric >form of Islam. And just for the record, one I find fascinating. Apropos of nothing, I played in a (short-lived) college band called "Sufis Theosophy." We later changed our name, to emphasize our front man Adam Harris, to "Reductio Ad & the Absurd Infinitums." Thankfully, that band was also short-lived. For those of you in Chicago-land (and thereabouts), you probably haven't heard of Adam's latter-day band, Drag King, but they did put out a couple of CDs in the mid-1990s, on the Trixie label. Also, the singer in that band, Ben Evans, has the most radical politics of anyone I'd ever met, until I joined this list, at least. I'm sure Jeme would find much common cause with Ben, for example. ============================================================================This e-mail message and any attached files are confidential and are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) named above. This communication may contain material protected by attorney-client, work product, or other privileges. If you are not the intended recipient or person responsible for delivering this confidential communication to the intended recipient, you have received this communication in error, and any review, use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, copying, or other distribution of this e-mail message and any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this confidential communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail message and permanently delete the original message. To reply to our email administrator directly, send an email to postmaster@dsmo.com Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP http://www.legalinnovators.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:39:17 -0700 From: "victorian squid" Subject: Re: My Back Digests On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:25:43 Poole, R. Edward wrote: >also short-lived. For those of you in Chicago-land (and thereabouts), you >probably haven't heard of Adam's latter-day band, Drag King, Oh I have. Wow, memory lane. I went to several of their gigs. I sorta knew Adam. Say, do you know John Huss? Where is he? Is he still making music? "Lipchitz" is a dam good CD. >put out a couple of CDs in the mid-1990s, on the Trixie label. And I know the guy who founded Trixie (Rob Schrader) very well. Excellent human. >singer in that band, Ben Evans These guys all worked at WHPK, where I DJed for 8 years. I was friends/drinking buddies/cohorts with many from there and I didn't know Ben Evans -well-, but he was friends with my first real boyfriend and was the (disgruntled) ex-roommate of my second. Was also friendly with some of his friends. Wow, the world is small, Susan Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:53:24 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: Israel I'm just going to try to take the words the Ed tried to put in my mouth out. So, even if you're sick of this, if you read Ed's response, you should pick through this for the bits where I think Ed was trying to attribute ideas to me that I don't have. On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Poole, R. Edward wrote: > Scorekeepers out there, please make note: Jeme, who many of you feel > has been "unfairly" flamed for his expressed opinions during the past > 6 days, feels that the people of Israel "PROBABLY should not" be > DESTROYED. (emphasis mine) How nice of you. That is meant to mean that any given Israeli probably hasn't done anything wrong. I'm sure there are some Israeli people whose lives and lifestyles SHOULD be destroyed, just as there are some Americans who deserve the same. There are criminals and sociopaths everywhere... even Israel. And destroying a person doesn't necessarily mean ripping them to shreds or even killing them at all. > Leaving sarcasm (and Jeme's ambivalence towards a new holocaust > against Israel) to the side, let's talk history. You are not alone in > making the claim that "Palestinian" = "native" // "Israeli" = > "outsider," but it is a potent myth that undergirds too much of the > debate over the region. If I appeared to make such a claim I either misspoke (or the typing equivalent) or you misunderstood. My guess is the latter because you tend to read in what you want to read. I simply said that we make the EXCUSE that the jewish people DESERVE Israel as a nation-state because they were there a few thousand years ago, yet claim ownership and occupation of this land. I find it highly hypocritical. If anything, I was equating the jews to the natives and saying that we can't very well support them and not the natives of our own land. In truth, I have no problem with people wanting to live in whatever region they like. But I absolutely oppose the idea that we should support a religious state at all. And I believe that the residents of the land had the higher claim compared to those that would simply call it an ancestral homeland. [irrelevant historical bits snipped] > Second, there is no such thing as "the Palestinian people." When people say "Palestinian people" they mean the arabs leaving under jewish persecution in modern Israel. I don't know of anyone that thinks of them as a "race" or any other such nonsense. > Consider this history written by Joseph Katz, in the 2/15/01 issue of > "Time to Speak": Isn't this publication rightly called "Time to Speak (Ecclesiastes 3:7)"? > So, what does all this mean? It means that "Palestine" as an Arab > state is a pure fiction, created for the political purposes that Jeme > swallows hook, line & sinker. When did I ever call for the "restoration of the State of Palestine" or any other such nonsense? I just believe there's a statute of limitations on land claims after, say, a thousand years and that a religious state cannot also claim to be democratic. > So, "Palestine" and "Palestinians" are just a politically-motivated > (though powerful) semantic argument, used by Arabs as a tool in their > war with Israel. The "Palestinians" cannot casually be referred to as > the "native people" in that land -- that is a POLITICAL claim, not an > historical one. Jewish Israelis, on the other hand, have an historical > claim to this land (Judea, before the Roman conquest), and are > responsible for reclaiming a barren and deserted wasteland through > settlements beginning in the 1840s. You know, there's no big reset button. We can't just go back and say "OK... who can show that they're the descendants of the person with the oldest historical claim on this land?" and give everything back. The ancient history is just nice fat for the fire. The real reason a jewish state was established in the first place was the huge amount of anti-semitism (and I use the term broadly, to include all Semitic people) at the time. Nobody would open their doors to all of those displaced jews. So we shipped them off to some place that both they wanted to be and was far, far away from us. And now we have an entire region of the world that is just one big religious persecution machine fuelled by the American war industry. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:56:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Viv Lyon Subject: RE: hey rube On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: > I think the STATE of Israel probably should be destroyed. I think the > PEOPLE of Israel probably should not. Oh Jumping Jesus. Jeme, I know you phrased it that way in attempt at semantic symmetry, but the obvious interpretation of those words paints you as markedly anti-jewish. As in "I don't care if they live or die." Or even, "It's possible that they should all die." I know you don't feel that way, but other people on this list are quite content to interpret everything you say in the worst way possible, so you might want to rephrase that. Vivien ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:53:57 -0400 From: Ken Weingold Subject: wtf is wrong with people? So I go over to get coffee around the corner from my office (Manhattan), and the tourist trap / electronics store / souvenir shop next door is selling t-shirts with the towers on them, saying "America Under Attack" on top and "I Can't Believe I Got Out!" on the bottom. How fucking offensive is that? - -Ken ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:04:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: hey rube On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Viv Lyon wrote: > On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: > > I think the STATE of Israel probably should be destroyed. I think the > > PEOPLE of Israel probably should not. > > Oh Jumping Jesus. Jeme, I know you phrased it that way in attempt at > semantic symmetry, but the obvious interpretation of those words > paints you as markedly anti-jewish. As in "I don't care if they live > or die." Or even, "It's possible that they should all die." I know > you don't feel that way, but other people on this list are quite > content to interpret everything you say in the worst way possible, so > you might want to rephrase that. I hope I DID rephrase that in a way people can understand without reading in too much of their personal bias when I responded to Ed. And you're dead right on the "semantic symmetry" call. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:06:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: wtf is wrong with people? On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Ken Weingold wrote: > So I go over to get coffee around the corner from my office > (Manhattan), and the tourist trap / electronics store / souvenir shop > next door is selling t-shirts with the towers on them, saying "America > Under Attack" on top and "I Can't Believe I Got Out!" on the bottom. > How fucking offensive is that? Offensive, insensitive, and ... who knows what else. I'm sure anyone actually caught WEARING one will need a new shirt that has a picture of a guy wearing the first shirt lying bleeding in a subway that says "Cretins Under Attack" on top and "I Can't Believe I'm Still Alive!" on the bottom. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 12:58:51 -0600 From: HAL Subject: more on that pulled COUP cover http://wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,46771,00.html ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:15:30 -0400 From: "Poole, R. Edward" Subject: RE: Israel JEME: >So, even if you're sick of this, if you read Ed's response, you should >pick through this for the bits where I think Ed was trying to attribute >ideas to me that I don't have. Ever occur to you that maybe we are consistently "misinterpreting" you, but rather there is something wrong about what you write / how you express it? On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Poole, R. Edward wrote: > Scorekeepers out there, please make note: Jeme, who many of you feel > has been "unfairly" flamed for his expressed opinions during the past > 6 days, feels that the people of Israel "PROBABLY should not" be > DESTROYED. (emphasis mine) How nice of you. JEME: >That is meant to mean that any given Israeli probably hasn't done anything >wrong. I'm sure there are some Israeli people whose lives and lifestyles >SHOULD be destroyed, just as there are some Americans who deserve the >same. >There are criminals and sociopaths everywhere... even Israel. >And destroying a person doesn't necessarily mean ripping them to shreds or >even killing them at all. I challenge you to demonstrate how the casual -- or meticulous -- reader of your phrase "the PEOPLE of Israel probably should not [be destroyed]" could understand all this stuff about criminals and sociopaths. Plus, saying "destroyed" doesn't, necessarily, mean "killing" strikes me as Clintonian at best, Orwellian more likely. >> Leaving sarcasm (and Jeme's ambivalence towards a new holocaust >> against Israel) to the side, let's talk history. You are not alone in >> making the claim that "Palestinian" = "native" // "Israeli" = >> "outsider," but it is a potent myth that undergirds too much of the >> debate over the region. >If I appeared to make such a claim I either misspoke (or the typing >equivalent) or you misunderstood. My guess is the latter because you tend >to read in what you want to read. I think you need to read what you write before you hit "send." I'm not twisting your words here -- you are twisting what you said originally when you get called on it. You do it every time, and not just with me. >I simply said that we make the EXCUSE that the jewish people DESERVE >Israel as a nation-state because they were there a few thousand years ago, >yet claim ownership and occupation of this land. I find it highly >hypocritical. I think you can factor in thousands of years of persecution and the Holocaust into the "deserve" equation. >In truth, I have no problem with people wanting to live in whatever region >they like. But I absolutely oppose the idea that we should support a >religious state at all. And I believe that the residents of the land had >the higher claim compared to those that would simply call it an ancestral >homeland. I'm no fan of religious nation-states, but Israel is a special case, given historical persecution based on religion and the desire for a homeland for a "people" connected by religious, but not ethnic ties. >[irrelevant historical bits snipped] Gee, I thought the history was precisely the point. I guess if you can excise 4000 years of history, the "Palestinian Question" becomes much simpler. >> Second, there is no such thing as "the Palestinian people." >When people say "Palestinian people" they mean the arabs leaving under >jewish persecution in modern Israel. That's just stupid. You are defining a group that you claim has a better claim to this land, not by their intrinsic definition as a group, but only in relation to the dispute they have with Israel. My point was that "Palestinians" as a group entitled to THIS land as the "Palestinian" state is nonsensical because they never existed as such before 1948. You are just agreeing with me, though you feel the need to flavor the argument with your name calling. >> So, what does all this mean? It means that "Palestine" as an Arab >> state is a pure fiction, created for the political purposes that Jeme >> swallows hook, line & sinker. >When did I ever call for the "restoration of the State of Palestine" or >any other such nonsense? >I just believe there's a statute of limitations on land claims after, say, >a thousand years and that a religious state cannot also claim to be >democratic. I'm sorry; I misunderstood. I thought that you had a plan for AFTER the "destruction of the State of Israel" that would include the formation of a "Palestinian" sovereignty. I should not have made such an assumption. >> So, "Palestine" and "Palestinians" are just a politically-motivated >> (though powerful) semantic argument, used by Arabs as a tool in their >> war with Israel. The "Palestinians" cannot casually be referred to as >> the "native people" in that land -- that is a POLITICAL claim, not an >> historical one. Jewish Israelis, on the other hand, have an historical >> claim to this land (Judea, before the Roman conquest), and are >> responsible for reclaiming a barren and deserted wasteland through >> settlements beginning in the 1840s. >You know, there's no big reset button. We can't just go back and say >"OK... who can show that they're the descendants of the person with the >oldest historical claim on this land?" and give everything back. ...and I never said there was. I wish merely to put into some perspective the claim made by some (though perhaps not you, I cannot tell what your positions are anymore) that the Jewish Israelis are modern-day settlers of Arab land that illegally ejected the Arabs from "their" land because the West felt guilty about the Holocaust. Even if you don't share this view, it is common among people who, like you, feel the State of Israel should be "Destroyed." >The ancient history is just nice fat for the fire. Right. But to the Jews and Arabs, the Unionists and Republicans in Ireland, the Serbs and Croats and Bosnians, etc etc etc "ancient history" is very much alive in the present day. My wife likes to tell the story that growing up, she thought Oliver Cromwell had lived in the 20th Century because her immigrant relatives spoke of him in the present tense so often. "Ancient history" is very much the issue in the Middle East. >The real reason a jewish state was established in the first place was the >huge amount of anti-semitism (and I use the term broadly, to include all >Semitic people) at the time. Nobody would open their doors to all of >those displaced jews. So we shipped them off to some place that both they >wanted to be and was far, far away from us. Well, not exactly. Jewish settlement in Israel dates back to the 1800s, Zionism to the early 20th century, the British partition of Palestine for use as a Jewish Homeland to WWI. The political creation of Israel was enabled by the aftermath of WWII and the revelation of the full horrors of the Holocaust. >And now we have an entire region of the world that is just one big >religious persecution machine fuelled by the American war industry. And it's all our fault, right??? Our "war-machine" is more to blame than all that "ancient history" I presume. I'm sick of this, good night everyone. [cheers erupt from the back rows...] ============================================================================This e-mail message and any attached files are confidential and are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) named above. This communication may contain material protected by attorney-client, work product, or other privileges. If you are not the intended recipient or person responsible for delivering this confidential communication to the intended recipient, you have received this communication in error, and any review, use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, copying, or other distribution of this e-mail message and any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this confidential communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail message and permanently delete the original message. To reply to our email administrator directly, send an email to postmaster@dsmo.com Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP http://www.legalinnovators.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:18:27 -0400 From: "Poole, R. Edward" Subject: RE: hey rube On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: >> I think the STATE of Israel probably should be destroyed. I think the >> PEOPLE of Israel probably should not. Viv: >Oh Jumping Jesus. Jeme, I know you phrased it that way in attempt at >semantic symmetry, but the obvious interpretation of those words paints >you as markedly anti-jewish. As in "I don't care if they live or die." >Or even, "It's possible that they should all die." I know you don't feel >that way, but other people on this list are quite content to interpret >everything you say in the worst way possible, so you might want to >rephrase that. Nice of you to point that out -- I think Jeme does himself the greatest disservice by the language that he uses. But, I do not believe that most of the people arguing with him "are quite content to interpret everything you say in the worst way possible" -- I think far more of the responsibility falls to Jeme. What's more, much of the time, it's not a matter of "interpretation," but just differing viewpoints. ============================================================================This e-mail message and any attached files are confidential and are intended solely for the use of the addressee(s) named above. This communication may contain material protected by attorney-client, work product, or other privileges. If you are not the intended recipient or person responsible for delivering this confidential communication to the intended recipient, you have received this communication in error, and any review, use, dissemination, forwarding, printing, copying, or other distribution of this e-mail message and any attached files is strictly prohibited. If you have received this confidential communication in error, please notify the sender immediately by reply e-mail message and permanently delete the original message. To reply to our email administrator directly, send an email to postmaster@dsmo.com Dickstein Shapiro Morin & Oshinsky LLP http://www.legalinnovators.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:20:12 -0700 From: "victorian squid" Subject: Re: wtf is wrong with people? On Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:06:42 Capuchin wrote: >I'm sure anyone actually caught WEARING one will need a new shirt that has >a picture of a guy wearing the first shirt lying bleeding in a subway that >says "Cretins Under Attack" on top and "I Can't Believe I'm Still Alive!" >on the bottom. Did you guys hear about Ebay? They've been pulling all sales of stuff like rubble from the building and newspapers from the day. And not lackadaisically the way they often do. Aggressively. Before they got on it there were people running up HUGE bids on stuff with nicks like "you_will_not_profit_from_carnage" and "you_suck_you_profiteering_loser". Not that familiar with Ebay policy but apparently this was so the people who had this stuff listed would eventually have to pay out some percentage of that money. I hope they do have to and it gets donated to charity. Bastards. loveonya, susan Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:08:50 -0400 (EDT) From: Christopher Gross Subject: re: hey rube and Israel (two for the price of one!) On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Capuchin wrote: > So while someone stopping and saying "enough" might not end the violence, > at least it's possible. Possible? I'm not sure if you have just mean that in the negative sense of "if it hasn't been proven impossible then it's possible," or if you have some positive reason to think it's possible. Personally, I don't think the violence would stop if we refused to hit back; but of course we'll never know, since a US military response seems inevitable. > Second: What makes you think someone who hasn't put forth ANY demands > would "push harder"? One reason is that I think one of their goals is probably to show the world that America isn't as tough as it looks, to encourage more people to fight us. Continually striking at us without serious reprisal would be a good way to get that message across. Anyway, until now you've seemed pretty certain of what their goals are: basically, an end to the US presence in the Middle East, and especially US support for Israel. > And I'm opposed to any nation with a national religion right off the bat. > No nation can claim to be democratic and have a state sanctioned church. I understand your feeling here, and share it to a large extent; but it in many cases there is no way to separate nation and religion. I wouldn't expect a perfectly secular Israel any more than I would a perfectly secular Arabia or Tibet. At least Israel meets what I'd consider the minimum tolerable level of religious freedom: anyone there is free to practice their religion, and members of religious minorities are still citizens with the right to vote and hold office. As far as all of Israel being "occupied territory" -- Ed has already refuted at great length with the idea that the Arabs are the only natives and the Israelis are invaders. To put it simply, The Area Frequently Known As Palestine has had both Jewish and Arab inhabitants since farther back than matters. Because of this, it was not at all unreasonable to give the Jews PART of Palestine (and remember, they only got part) as a homeland, to which more Jews could voluntarily immigrate. Israel may have *some* territory that it shouldn't, but there's no reason to say that Israel should not exist at all. However, in fairness to the Arabs, I should point out to areas where I disagree with Ed. First, I think he's underestimating the number of Arabs who lived in Palestine before the 20th century. Secondly, Palestinian nationalism: until the creation of Israel, Palestinian nationalism as such did not exist (except among a handful of intellectuals), but it does exist NOW. So while Palestinian claims to all of Israel as their "homeland" are unfounded, you can't rebut them simply by saying "there's no such thing as a Palestinian nation." Literally taken, that statement is no longer true. > The UN has called for the entire area to be disarmed, and yet the US > continues to supply the region with weapons. > > It seems that the US wants to disarm the arabs, but not the jews. Aside from Iraq (and there it's weapons of mass destruction only), I'm not aware of any Arabs we're trying to disarm. > I think the STATE of Israel probably should be destroyed. I think the > PEOPLE of Israel probably should not. Jeme, I didn't think for a second that you'd be willing to see the people of Israel get massacred. However, I would submit that if some reader out there DOES think that, they might be simply *reading your sentence literally*, rather than thinking so out of bias against you. In your second Israel post: > The real reason a jewish state was established in the first place was > the huge amount of anti-semitism (and I use the term broadly, to > include all Semitic people) at the time. Nobody would open their > doors to all of those displaced jews. So we shipped them off to some > place that both they wanted to be and was far, far away from us. So the UN let them to have a state where, as you say, they wanted to be, instead of making them all go somewhere they didn't want to be. Doesn't sound so bad to me.... Back to the terrorists: > > it should be to knock out as much as possible of the material base > > terrorists need to function: financial backing, base camps, transit > > points, and yes, the terrorists themselves. > > This is EXACTLY what they were trying to do to us. And we will be exactly > as successful, i.e. not at all. Ah, so now we're back to knowing their goals.... Obviously the terrorists couldn't wipe out our entire military or financial system. (Their goal is probably instead to hurt our military and economy *enough* that we decide to do whatever they want.) However, I don't see why it will be impossible for us to cripple *their* fighting forces and financial backing. We aren't fighting the whole Muslim world here. Only a tiny number of them become terrorists or provide the financial backing for terrorists. It should be possible to capture or kill enough of them to, not "root out terrorism," but at least put a serious crimp in it. That may be very very difficult, but not impossible. Of course, this only applies if Bush is smart enough to avoid mass bombing of innocent Muslim civilians, which could wind up with us fighting the whole Muslim world. But avoiding that should require such a low level of smarts that even Bush can do it. (Knock on wood.) - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V10 #359 ********************************