[tw]

Originally posted by Undertoad
... this short piece by Eric S. Raymond[/url], people GET IT. If we compromise freedom as a response to terrorism, the terrorists get what they want.

If we reward in any way the Palestinians who are now celebrating this hideous crime in the streets of the West Bank, that wil have been a victory for terrorism.

I keep making the point about using emotion rather than logic. Above is another example of that emotion. Ask yourself why a people that once looked to America for their salvation would cheer the collapse of a building. Who did we protect and support? The extremist and genocidal masochist Ariel Sharon at the expense of the Palestinians and moderate Israelis.

Eric S Raymond has implied Palestinians are the enemy. Instead they are mostly the moderate flock that extermists recruit from. If we use emotion; if we support an extremist who engineered the massacre of Palestinian women and children in Lebanon; if we support a man who flaunts the rule of law to deny human right; then we convert intelligent Palestinians into terrorist extremists.

Had Rabin lived, it is less likely that a building would have collapsed in Lower Manhatten. However as long as Eric S Raymond posts such remarks without viewing the overall picture (in dry, unemotional context and with a long term perspective), then extremists have more instability to profit and recruit from.

bin Laden is not the Palestinians just as extremist right wing Jews are not the majority of Israel. But as long as an extremist, anti-humanity, minority has American support, then we can only expect Palestinians to cheer, then we can only expect the moderate Arafat to lose support, and then we can only expect more Arabs from all Arab nations to flock to bin Laden and others like him.

Define your stategic objective - how to view current events:

Extremists are driven by their emotions; not by logical thought. That defines a person of low intelligence. But an extremist movement becomes dangerous when it can recruit moderates - where most intelligent people reside. How does an extremist recruit moderates? Create instability.... to make a moderate's position untenable.

My friends come from all nations - including gays, blacks, orientals, hispanics, ... and Arabs. My perspective is international as are my news sources (which is why I point to Ch 6 Actions News as nothing more than gossip) - as Cellar dwellers for the past 10+ years will recognize. I stand upon those credentials when I repeat the above continued warning about being emotional. It is that dry, sometimes unpopular, long term viewpoint that will keep citing the emotional and the racist among us in a time of great instability.