How big a party do you throw every Sept. 11?

When was that time that we were not in the Middle East, Dave?

Ooops. Fixed. - JHJ

You've just contradicted yourself, ken. Long memories mean they won't forget past grievances.

Is that all that it means to you? You are pretty shallow if so.

Having long memories means having a knowledge of history both the good as well as the bad, successes as well as failures, glories as well shames.

You think it only means revenge? You do not understand human nature in general nor the people of the middle east in particular.

In your need to have an enemy you are creating one. There are some people in the middle east just like that as well.

History has proven that the people in that region have long memories and will not easily, if ever at all, give up their ambitions for themselves.

You've just contradicted yourself, ken. Long memories mean they won't forget past grievances. Why then does what we do now matter? Whereever we go and whatever we do old scores will be raked up. The Islamists are complaining about the “tragedy of Andalusia”, for goodness sake. Where do we pull back to? The Pyrenees? The gates of Vienna?

But overthrowing democratically elected regimes and installing a Shah, like in Iran, does constitute interference. So does supporting Iraq in its use of WMD in its war with Iran. So does driving Iraq out of Kuwait. So does ten years of strafing and bombing Iraq. And of course the current Bush policy of invading and waging war on Iraq is interference on a colossal scale.

We had no trouble in the middle east until we started meddling in the middle east. History has proven that the people in that region have long memories and will not easily, if ever at all, give up their ambitions for themselves.

Whether their ambitions are to embrace modernity or to reject modernity, whether their ambitions are wise or foolish, socialist, communist, libertarian or tyrannical, as long as they do not directly affect us, they are not our direct business.

We do not have the ability to remake their culture or direct their development to our liking. And if we try we will change ourselves more to the bad than we change them to the good. This is proven out by everything that has happened in the middle east since we started our meddling there.

The idea that the ME is unchangeable is a myth. Live in Qatar or Kuwait for a while and someone without blinders on will see that change is possible. I heard of other countries in area that has made progress as well. Are they ideal to U.S. standards? No. However the U.S. as any county doesn’t live up to other country standards. There are good people in ME but some radicals as well.

Most successful counter-insurgency takes at least 10 years to go through the process. Iraq is greatly hamper with that process since the constant negative U.S. pro terrorist MSM coverage and outside country support of Iran feeds the terrorist efforts.

Ideally the effort would use almost exclusively SF forces and would be below the MSM radar. Iraq is one situation where this isn’t plausible. One of the objectives that an SF team tries in an insurgency or counter-insurgency operation is to bond with the locals. You don’t give up your identity but attempt to show interest in the local culture. With the MSM coverage, SF teams can’t even do something as simple as growing one’s beard without MSM and politicians crawling up their backside. McCain may know about being a pilot and a POW but doesn’t know jack about SF.

Yes we can’t solve the problem in the ME with force alone but we can’t do it by diplomatic means alone either. Force has been and will be needed to help solve the problem.

The typical U.S. citizen is whiney with little determination or willpower. If it can’t be done in thirty minutes, it’s a total failure.

We aren't “in” the Middle East for the fun of it or because we're imperialists or because we're bloodthirsty. We're there because when we weren't “in” the Middle East there was a rising level of chaos and destruction there.

We haven't been major supporters of the Israelis forever. Just since the 1967 war (previous to that the French were their main suppliers). Was the period between WWII and 1967 notably peaceful?

We haven't had military bases in the Middle East forever. While they are both a consequence and a cause of the disorder there I believe it's more the former than the latter.

It’s a vicious Catch-22 and there are no easy answers.

No. The answer is clear. Get out of the middle east and stop meddling in their internal affairs. Our only interest in the region is oil. We buy it. They sell it. If they don't sell it, we don't buy it.

Everything else is to be handled diplomatically. We do not like human right abuses so we tell them we do not lie human right abuses, and we demonstrate within our own borders what respect for human rights really means. For example, we believe torture is a crime against both international and domestic law and we believe in the rule of law so we demonstrate what this means by bringing those responsible for Americas torture policy to justice. If this means putting Bush and his war criminal cronies in jail then that is what we do.

That is how we deal with jihadist, whether they be foreign or domestic.