They just make the mistake of assuming that they've joined an organization that has something to do with protecting America.

Last time I checked the whole point of the military was to "serve" the country. That usually includes protecting it. Luckily for us our Military is strong enough that it doesn't have to spend a lot of time protecting us.

True. Reminds me of Bush and Iraq.

Oh, you mean the operation where by the request of the Saudi government, the major Islamic country that contains the two major Islamic sites, we turned back a non-Islamic-oriented dictator bent on threatening and/or taking over the middle east and 44% of the world's oil? I guess you're taking bin Laden's word on this one, but damn.

Yes, at the request of another unrepresentative mid-East government, whose rule is also threatened by radical Islam, we station mostly Christian soldiers in the heart of Islam. True, we did turn back a secular thug who we previously used against radical muslims from Iran. See how complicated things get when you expand the militaries role to protecting American "interests" rather than America. Yes, I understand we've done that since Jefferson but it doesn't make it right.

What Bin Laden claims, happens to be the outlook of the radical Islamists we have chosen to engage.

It's damn near impossible to tell the difference between defending the US and defending the US' interests without benefit of hindsight.

As far as coddling militant Islam goes, ha! ha! Yes, just being near them to defend their land is something they find unacceptable. It turns out that just breathing and living freely under something other than Sharia law is an offense punishable by jihadic death. If we hadn't pissed them off by defending their land, I'm sure they would have found something else to hate about us, just as they have with just about everyone, all around the world.

In comparison to the millions of military servicemen of the US *and* of the rest of the international coalition who returned home peacefully, satisfied with a job well done and with no beef towards their own countries. Ah, but those guys don't prove your point, do they?

No, they don't prove my point. Most soldiers can and do come home and are productive citizens. There will always be a few, however, that can't handle the stresses involved and will come back as trained killers with serious mental problems. I need to be careful here because I still think he's responsible for these murders but I want to point out that this event could be another unanticipated outcome of intervensionism.

You seem to be finally coming around to understanding that many nations that don't subscribe to democracy and capitalism are mired in an endemic cultural and social problem that'll react very aggressively to interference.

You used the shame/guilt culture approach, which is all fine, but more importantly, many countries where religion plays an important role in public life are so strictly dogmatic in their cultural beliefs that any enemy is automatically demonized. Since the US has been at the forefront of - in their eyes - sometimes-questionable foreign initiatives (and this isn't the place to debate their worth), the US will be the enemy for a long time to come.

Everybody allied with the US and aiding them, i.e. pretty much everybody in the West who isn't categorically opposed to American support of Israel, the US invasion of Afghanistan, and US aggresion in Iraq - as well as US interests in the middle east - becomes associated with the enemy, and a target.

The only way to solve this is either by stepping back and not getting involved politically and financially in the Mid-East or Asia, or throwing the full force of the US military, hopefully backed by the UN, against every single militant dictatorship out there, taking them down one by one, and enforcing democracy on them.

Anything short of that will leave a worrying number of militant activists, who will - possibly with state-support - continue to create situations of terror and death. Even enforcing democracy will still leave considerable numbers of terrorists, but it's likely that extended periods of self-determination will reduce that factor. Supporting a dictatorship friendly to the US will lead to terrorism and prolonged anti-Americanism. (see also S-Arabia, Iran)

It's all or nothing. And since 'all' is essentially politically impossible in the US (and the UN, for that matter), it willl be a little war here, a little war there, a US general appointed as governor of Iraq, more agitation here, and increased militant muslim aggression over all of it. One day, when a terrorist group actually does get its hands on a nuclear device, we will reap the consequences of this approach.

Once more - the 9/11 terrorists were mostly Saudi-Arabian. Even the US stauchest allies (and I'd like to use 'our staunchest allies' at this point) have a large anti-American group of people who are breeding terrorists even as we speak. When acting, it must either be a complete victory, or a complete retreat.

X.

I agree with all of that. Maybe "nothing" would have been better, but at the same time, maybe inevitably impossible too.

A culture, a school of thought, is unproductive and winds up controlling only areas of the world that are seen as unneeded. The school of thought survives, however, because of its extremely insular and tribal nature. It protects its own at all costs because that is the only way to survive in the desert, or in the mountains, where so little else survives.

Other cultures or schools of thought become more productive, overtake desireable areas of the world, learn how to be even more productive. They struggle with how to divvy up the stuff they produce, and the power that comes with the new powers of production.

All of a sudden all that productivity learns to take advantage of the stored energy of oil, and almost by accident, the worst of that insular, unproductive, tribal culture gets the gift of half the world's most important resource. What had only been sand, the world's least important...

Perhaps Allah saw His guys falling behind and wanted to gift them back into being players? Nope. It was merely an accident. But now, they *have* to deal with the rest of the world, because it is too important to the rest of the world. What happens now?

How did Kissinger put it? "The oil fields are too important to be left to the Arabs." paraphrase, can't find the quote.

Has anyone seen this documentary? Was it any good?

Not the quote you were thinking of ... but an interesting one, nonetheless:

(from the documentary web site) "Instead, the documentary exposes the White House and US State Department's hidden agenda in the Gulf as well as the Pentagon's use of radioactive ammunitions made of uranium 238."

It's not a secret that they use ammunitions made of U238, otherwise known as "depleted uranium". It's basically what's left over after the more useful U235 is taken out. It's a very heavy metal, twice as dense as lead and is used in munitions meant to pierce armor.

It's also used in civilian aircraft, and it's used to transport radioactive materials because it absorbs gamma radiation better than lead.

It is lightly radioactive, but almost all the radiation it produces is alpha or beta particles. It is dangerous if you find it IN your body; alpha particles are stopped by skin, and beta stopped by clothing. But if you find munitions inside your body, chances are you have a much worse health risk at hand.

It also produces a light amount of gamma radiation, but no more than you find in the background. DU is "60% as radioactive" as U235 but the 40% it's missing is the highly dangerous gamma particles.

It's not surprising that folks have pounced on emotionally-laden terms like "radiation" and "uranium" to produce scare pieces. Some will say that it's dangerous because if exploded it can be airborne and breathed in. That is the worst danger, I think, that is a legit concern. But you also get a dose of inhaled alpha particles if you smoke cigarettes, and the battlefield is not exactly a no-smoking area. It's dangerous by design.

Call me paranoid but i wouldn't want people living in areas full of depleted uranium shells and i certainly wouldn't want to wear a jacket made of the stuff, would you? Alpha and beta particles are like wrecking balls for your DNA, it's a risk i'd rather not take personally.

Gee...not in mine, I hope.

I suppose it's used for ballast and counterweights. I know there's a "bobweight" on the stabilator on "my" Cardinal (ownership shared with nine other pilots). I think that's made of lead or steel, though.

Sam Donaldson on cnn/wolf just said that if Muhammad is "convicted" he'll be kicked out of the Nation of Islam.

Now, that's a fate worse than death.