[tk27]

Say we are at war with Islam. If AQ bombs the Sears Tower today, where do we bomb tomorrow?

We lump AQ, Iran, Iraq, the Israeli – Palestinian issue, Hezbollah, balance of power politics, and personal, tribal & sectarian violence altogether at our own peril. True, Islam is the thread that runs through the lot. But focusing only on that factor is just as naïve and detached from reality as isolationist-pacifism.

Originally Posted by Raymond S. Kraft, a California lawyer

Americans have a short attention span, now, conditioned I suppose by 60 minute TV shows and 2 hour movies in which everything comes out okay. The real world is not like that.* It is messy, uncertain, and sometimes bloody and ugly.* Always has been, and probably always will be.

At least I found one thing I agree with in his essay.
If he truly believes this why is his analysis so theologically apocalyptic?

Originally Posted by funnyman

They're idealists. Their idealism needs to be tempered by realism.

Please do not bastardize the term realism. Neo-conservatism is not realism. Current President Bush is of a completely different international relations school of thought from his father President George H.W. Bush, an actual realist.

Originally Posted by funnyman

When they say we shoudn't have gone into Iraq because it's not part of the GWOT, I ask them this: what would you do if your neighbor told you they wanted to kill you and your family. You saw that neighbor unloading AK-47s from a U-Haul truck...

Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, Richards J. Heuer, Jr. Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1999.
Chapter 11: Biases in Perception of Cause and Effect, subsection Overestimating Our Own Importance:
" In analyzing the reasons why others act the way they do, it is common to ask, "What goals are the person or government pursuing?" But goals are generally inferred from the effects of behavior, and the effects that are best known and often seem most important are the effects upon ourselves. Thus actions that hurt us are commonly interpreted as intentional expressions of hostility directed at ourselves. Of course, this will often be an accurate interpretation, but people sometimes fail to recognize that actions that seem directed at them are actually the unintended consequence of decisions made for other reasons. "

Originally Posted by funnyman

Part of the problem with the isolationist/pacifists here is that the US has become a society that's afraid to stand up for what's right....moral decline...

Hogwash.
I share a considerable amount of social conservatism with you, but to directly link a perceived moral decline in our society to problems with radical Islamists is bull. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson days after 9/11 said that civil liberties groups, feminists and pro-abortion groups bear partial responsibility b/c they turned God’s anger against America. This bull is just a lite version of what the oxygen-stealing Phelps family (the jackals that protest soldier’s funerals because gays are getting married) spew.

Our country and Western Civilization itself would shake hands with the Devil himself if he could meet our demand at a cost below $25 a barrel.

It would be easy to interpret my cynicism as a lack of will or resolve, it is not. IMHO our country neither knows itself or its enemy and I think our current public discourse proves that, and this needs to be overcome for our own survival.