glynch, I'm not someone who "fits"... "Some of my readers have suggested to me that it doesn't matter what Americans do, since Muslims hate them anyway."... and I think this is crazy. I don't get how you can honestly believe we should be compared to those governments and their actions. I think the Bush policy to make war on and occupy Iraq was a colossal and unnecessary mistake, for which we are paying now, and for which the Iraqi people are paying a heavy price, but you are now way, way over the top here. And that's a vast understatement. That's just nuts.
Letting the Kurds have their own country would be an ABSOLUTE disaster. There is no way that Turkey tolerates the Kurds having an independent country. Mark my words...if the Kurds have an independent country today, Turkey will invade that country tomorrow.
Deckard, maybe you don't like my analogies of other instances in which you had tanks going up against lightly armed or unarmed resistance. However, on what basis do we kill these Sadr followers. Democracy? They are a threat to us? I am puzzled why you protested Vietnam, which I did also, apparently see no similarities and don't see the evil of killing these folks who are not a threat to us and are defending their country. Please explain.
Deckard, not to mention that this stupid action which alienates a billion Muslims is a threat to our country. The longer we keep this crap up, the more danger we put ourselves in.
Sorry to do this so piece meal. but returning to the Vietnam question. There we claimed to be fighting an extremist ideology of communism, and we attemtped to do this by fighting to prop up a puppet regime,. In Iraq (leaving aside oil and Israel) I guess we claim to now be fighting against fundamentalist Shiite beliefs. We have taken Allawi , a CIA asset, installed him in a allegedly temporary regime despite his miniscule popularity in comparison to say, Sadr. We are fighting to prop Allawi up. Sadr gains in popularity daily as he reflects the will of the iraqi people in least in terms of demanding that we the foreign invaders leave. For the record let me say that not being particualry religious I I disllike both fundamentalist Christianity and the fundamentalist Muslim beliefs of Sadr.
