[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Jill

There weren't any repetitions of the 1993 WTC bombings for 9 years, and we weren't torturing anyone in the aftermath of that attack.

True, but where was our knowledge of the enemy at that time? Nowhere. There seems also this undercurrent of thinking that we for some reason ought simply to tolerate having our buildings knocked down, our people killed, our nation shocked by people of ideas so unpopular they must kill people to make them stick. Why?

I do not hold with that kind of fatuous thinking, and my opponents never seem to extricate themselves from it.

And yet we knew that Bin Laden was "Determined to Strike in the U.S.", and we even knew that the plans included hijacking airliners, and we knew all of this through traditional intelligence gathering techniques. Which President got this briefing? Which President ignored it, to all of our detriment and peril?

And you forgot that there wasn't anything in that report with a date or a place or anyone named, or even described, as the terrorists? There was nothing in there that could be used to target the men responsible.

It is not a sustainable idea to insist that Bush could only make errors, because, after all, he was trying to commit foreign policy while being Republican. That seems the core of your argument in the above quote.

No, you did not claim that it is the same regardless of time or place. That is why you believe you can accuse me of not outlining what the difference is. Let me show you our exchange again so you don't have to go back and look for it, highlighting the relevant portions. Battlefield /= Prison cell

Fighting against the forces of undemocracy and lessened liberty = fighting against the forces of undemocracy and lessened liberty, quite regardless of whether it's under the sky or in a room. I had thought I had made that clear to even the meanest understanding.

War /= Interrogations

By interrogations, you gain intelligence, and with intelligence, you fight better. So it's all the same thing, really. About the only point you really have here is that interrogations differ from overall war about the way infantry differs from close air support; each has its piece of the action.

I hope this "outline" is clear now. Huh? I have no idea what "details of date or language next to the essential question, etc." even means. This is just gobbledeegook.

I see nothing opaque in the sentence. I'd suggest this failure to get it is owing to a blank refusal to think.

What I think you're trying to say is that other members of this board are too stupid and fascist, whether consciously or unconsciously, to -- what, challenge your approach or vehemence? Again, Huh?

Here being an example of that blank noncomprehension: what I said was that I am vehemently disagreed with by people of fascist sympathies, not democratic ones. And it looks like you can correlate their vehemence with their lack of enthusiasm for propagating genuine democratic government abroad on the earth. They seem to think that leaving the fascists unmolested -- their villainies the better to perform -- is the best road, the embodiment of wisdom, and we'll all be good good friends. It's been said elsewhere that "It's an old idea, called 'peace at any price.'"

I say its wiser to make no friends of the undemocrats, the fascists, the communists, the other madmen and their tools. I say it is wiser and better to remove these obstacles to human liberty and progress, and to remove them without let or hindrance.

I am proud to be an apostle of liberty. My opponents, however, cannot have such pride, for they do not deserve to, and aren't trying for it in any case -- they're dead to it from the heart upwards.