"Many rabbis and professionals have told me recently that they fear for their jobs should they even begin to articulate their doubts about Israeli policy--much less give explicit support to calls for an end to the occupation."
-- Rabbi Michael Lerner April 28, 2002 in the Los Angeles Times
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I don't see much value in your rants because you are not seeing or addressing the real GLOBAL terrorist. These are the churches of destruction.
Terrorism is threatening all lives by taking some.
The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political agenda and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets, they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not there goal, those are just tactics. The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us and the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.
Nobody wins at war unless you can raise the death, heal the suffering and anguish of the broken hearted, restore the lost limbs, the health and the blessings of the people who lost so much. Make them forget it ever happened.
There is volumes of history books on the subject of warlords, gang leaders and terrorist chiefs, the people that make most of the violence happen. It's not like they could just push a button and make their bad guys go away. In many cultures, the process moves a lot more slowly and involves lots of talking, coffee, promises, deceit and drama. Some felt an end to the vengeance killings was necessary. Making this happen is the next crucial battle in any war.
War is a horrible thing, should never happen and everyone agrees on this. However, there will ALWAYS be war. If you think that war will just go away if everyone turns into some sort of "Holy Roller" for the religion of there choice you are very misguided, naive and have another thing coming. The best way to avoid war is to be strong enough that you don't have to fight. Sadly, the world is full of blind idealists so people like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Stalin... (the list is too long to post here) can rise to power and wreak havoc on humanity while people like you politely ask them not to. There are evil people in the world. Pretending there isn't won't make them go away!
There is no question that we have made many mistakes in this campaign, some of them small, some of them major. Historically, I don't think there has been a single war we have participated in, either won or lost, which has not had its share of grievous errors.
If we withdraw and let them win there will be two very dangerous consequences the lesser being an emergence of terrorist attacks across the world and particularly on the US. The September 11 attacks were not provoked and there is no reason to believe that terrorists will not be eager to repeat this. The civilized world can not live with this and ultimately we will have to return and remove it. I doubt it will be easier the second time around.
The cold war, in a new version, would very likely return if we don't come out the winners in the end.
So the stakes are high but the enemy can be beaten. America was not made by people who fear risk or who are satisfied in defeat.
The fight against terrorism has been going on since the very beginning and is far from over yet. Take heart in knowing the fact that in every great battle the forces of equality and morality have won the day but it has never been easy.
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