Will there be another "9/11" ?

Probably the worst I could think of would be if a group took over a liquified natural gas tanker and vented the fuel, and then lit it, near a downtown area. It's not like there's any significant security force on board that a small terrorist group couldn't overcome. It would probably be the largest fuel-air explosion ever created by humans, and have the destructive force of a small nuclear warhead. Another possibility would be to vent hydrogen fluoride or a gasseous organophosphates from a chemical plant of some kind . Not as destructive, but perhaps more horrific of an aftermath when the cameras come in, and more crippling to the US economy (securing LNG ships would cost a fraction as much as securing every facility in the US that handles toxic chemicals).Of course, people's fears of terrorism are far, far disproportionate to the problem, and our reactions have been making it worse. Yes, you don't ignore it, but you don't wage massive full-scale overt warfare, especially in places that are only peripherally involved.Oh, and to the original poster: it is quite possible to effectively stop commercial jet hijackings. Only 1 El Al airplane has ever been hijacked; the security measures put in place as a response have effectively stopped hijacking. And that's not all that could be done, either. In fact, in a most extreme circumstance, you could have the cabin completely isolated from the rest of the craft (so you'd need metal cutters to get in), and have an emergency control override from the ground, run from a heavily secured facilities, with multiple control rooms in case one was compromised. The only question is A) how much you're willing to spend, and B) how much is really justified.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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The use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons

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Chemical and Biological weapons are rightfully termed "WMD"s, but the acronym should be different: "Weapons of Minimal Destruction". The reason they are feared is not that they are particularly destructive. In fact, when they were initially created, they were presented as a way to reduce the amount of people killed in warfare, because even the most deadly are far more likely to incapacitate people or to break up skirmishes than to take lives, in comparison to conventional weapons. In the Iran-Iraq war, poison gas killed about 5,000 people, compared to 600,000 Iranian dead (not including Kurdish combattants) - less than one percent. Even in WWI, poison gas caused less than 5% of the casualties, and it took about one *ton* of gas per enemy fatality.Page not found - spikedThe most common biological agent - anthrax - behaves far more like a chemical weapon. Even contageous biological agents, which are almost never used, are hard to get to spread properly, due to modern quarantine measures. Look at SARS, for example - even though China pretended that it didn't really exist while it was first spreading around the globe, it was still contained without some huge fiasco.Nuclear weapons are true WMDs. However, the process to produce nuclear weapons from scratch is really staggering, and the concept that a terrorist could produce one is simply insane. A terrorist could only feasably *acquire* one, and even in the former Soviet Union, that's no simple feat.

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Your opinion, not mine. Neither of us has enough facts to make such a claim

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Um, yes we do. We know how many people get killed by terrorism per year. If we were being proportionate, we'd be declaring a War on Cancer, a War on AIDS, a War on Heart Disease, a War on Car Accidents, and a War on Suicide.

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(a) The growing radical muslim movement worldwide

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No. The problem is asymmetrical warfare. If a people is incredibly technologically outgunned, the concept of hitting hard targets becomes suicide and completely unproductive. So, such a people has two options: Hit soft targets, or doing nothing. If such a society truly feels itself wronged, it is crazy to think that there won't be a small percentage of the population that will strike out in the only way that it can: hitting soft targets. This is called terrorism. It is brutal, and immoral, but if you expect people who feel themselves deeply, severely wronged (and in some cases, with good reason; in others, not so much) to sit around and do nothing, or to commit suicide by the thousands by attacks on hardened targets that they have no chance of taking - you are sorely mistaken.Why do you think it is that it's always groups that are completely outgunned that turn to terrorism? Why don't, when armies face off, they don't tend to focus on razing the enemy's territory to terrify them into quitting? Even Hitler and Stalin (in the majority of cases; there were some exceptions) didn't do that. It is because, to achieve an objective, standard military means are far easier. Only in the case where standard military means are unavailable, do parties who feel wronged enough to take up arms focus on terrorist acts instead of conventional military ones.I always feel something between dismay and humor whenever I hear US soldiers and commanders talking about how cowardly their enemy is, because they spend all their time hiding and never come out and face them. *Of Course* they don't come out and face you, because then you would slaughter them like dogs. They're goal isn't to die; it is to achieve a definable military objective. Why on earth would they fight the way *we* want them to fight, and get mowed down in the process? Until Americans address this most basic fact, we're going to keep getting dragged into warfare and not understanding why our enemy is behaving the way that they are.This message has been edited by Rei, 09-15-2004 12:46 PM

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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- Saddam had WMD that no one (Allies) knows what happened to them

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Page Not Found: 404 Not Found - "They over-interpreted," Blix said. "They were convinced that Saddam was going in this direction, and I think it's understandable against the background of the man that they did so, but you know, in the Middle Ages, when people were convinced there were witches, they certainly found them."Blix criticized coalition calls for the Survey Group to be given more time to assess whether Saddam was developing illegal arms. "Now even in the past summer they said we must have some patience for the U.S. and U.K. investigations," he told the BBC. "So the patience they are requiring for themselves now was not anything that they wanted to give to us."He accused the British government of falling prey to a "culture of spin, the culture of hyping . Advertisers will advertise a refrigerator in terms that we don't quite believe in, but we expect governments to be more serious and have more credibility."In an interview with Australian radio broadcast Wednesday, Blix said he believed that Iraq had destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago, but kept up the appearance that it had them to deter a military attack. "http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/iaea-blixbaradei-121902.htm(doesn't quote well, but it's not too long - read all of it).'Even if Iraq managed to hide these weapons, what they are now hiding is harmless goo' | Iraq | The GuardianI believe the primary problem at this point is one of accounting. Iraq has destroyed 90 to 95% of its weapons of mass destruction. Okay. We have to remember that this missing 5 to 10% doesn't necessarily constitute a threat. It doesn't even constitute a weapons programme. It constitutes bits and pieces of a weapons programme which, in its totality, doesn't amount to much, but which is still prohibited. Likewise, just because we can't account for it, doesn't mean Iraq retains it. There is no evidence that Iraq retains this material. That is the quandary we are in. We can't give Iraq a clean bill of health, therefore we can't close the book on its weapons of mass destruction. But simultaneously we can't reasonably talk about Iraqi non-compliance as representing a de facto retention of a prohibited capability worthy of war.http://www.casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdfAn interview with Rolf Ekeus and Hussein Kamel. If you're not familiar with Kamel, you better read upHmm, are there any more people who are experts on the subject that I could go into? I mean, I've covered Blix, El Baradei, Ritter, Ekeus... who still needs to be covered? All of this information was out there before the war.

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- Saddam had been given many UN resolutions (ultimatims) to cooperate with inspections and no-fly zones (where he frequently made attacks on our planes); he represented an example to all nations that they could thumb their noses at the UN and USA and get away with it (including supporting terrorists, not hunting them down)

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Heh, where to start. First off, there are, and never were, any "no fly zone" resolutions. They're a US and British construct with no international backing (and regular opposition from the other security council members). Consequently, Iraq had every right to shoot at planes in the no-fly zones.Iraq *did* cooperate with inspections, and was vindicated when we invaded and found out that they weren't lying.As for "UN Resolutions", how does the handful of resolutions against Iraq - which it *cooperated with* - compare to this (plus this?

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- UN didn't have the gonads to enforce the resolutions (we find out later the French, Russians, Germans, and Kofi enjoyed the riches of unethical Iraqi oil deals... yep, it's all about oil... to those guys)

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First off, what resolutions are you claiming that the UN didn't attempt to enforce? Secondly, the line about "enjoying the riches" is utter nonsense. From a most basic level, the UN agency in charge of approving contracts (the 661 committee) didn't have the authority to select who Iraq granted contracts to. Who had that authority? The UN Security Council. The council, however, rarely ever enforced it; the US and Britain blocked a small number of contracts, almost exclusively to Chinese companies.The "Kofi Tie" is laughable. The supposed tie is that his son Kojo works for Cotecna in Ghana. However, Kojo's work there was completely regional, and had nothing to do with Iraq inspections; furthermore, Cotecna was approved in an open bidding process (in fact, it was the only company that bid for the inspection contract, due to how short notice it was; Lloyd's Register, the previous inspection company, dropped their contract without advanced notice).The most laughable claims - that various individuals were given oil contracts - is just silly. First off, it was released by a newspaper headed run by INC members (al-Mada). The INC, headed by Chalabi, was busted for feeding false information into the OFF investigation (among other things). Secondly, if you read who it claims was dealing in oil contracts, it almost comes across as a joke. Supposedly the Russian Orthodox Church was involved in oil trading. So were friends of the pope.Another silly, but frequent allegation, is that France, Germany, Russia, and China were just protecting their own financial interests by opposing the war. Ignoring the fact that opposition to the war ranged from the upper sixies to the mid 80s-percent among their people (how *dare* they support what their people want!), Iraq trade with these countries was relatively trivial. The largest trading partner of these countries, by far, is the USA; risking a trade rift with the USA to back their comparatively tiny trade interests with Iraq would be more than counterproductive.

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- Bush, Kerry, Congress, etc. was ill-informed of WMD in Iraq

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Well, seing as Kerry and the rest of Congress were given their intelligence assessments from the Bush administration, that's no real shock there.

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- Saddam paid families of terrorists for their heroism (thereby encouraging it)

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Wow, one thing that's true! Congrats, that's the first one so far. Of course, so did Saudi Arabia. They later changed their policy when the US put pressure on them Furthermore, Saddam tried several times to stop the war, and his offers included doing what the US wanted concerning Israel and Palestine (see the references at the bottom for more details; the article is just a summary).

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- Bush did not want to take a chance on terrorists getting ahold of those missing WMD to use on US soil

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Ostensibly.

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- A free Iraq has the potential of creating similar demands in other Arab countries that have subversive dictatorships... this is a better option than invading all of them

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Yeah, the "Domino Theory" worked REALLY well, didn't it? Now the opinion of America is even lower in the single digits in the middle east. Congrats, way to go! Who would have guessed that getting to see new mangled bodies of innocent people every day might make them a touch angry?Now that the insurgency is getting larger and more violent, it's worse than you think, it makes you wonder: What if we had not gone into Iraq?Perhaps if you want to keep updated, you'll read some Iraqi Blogs

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- Diverts energy, resources and funds of Al Qaida to Arab battleground

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That's why the US report - which even when revised, still didn't include any attacks in Iraq as terrorism - showed a sharp rise in international terrorism? If you include the attacks in Iraq, the number is staggering. The flypaper theory is completely incorrect. It's also incredibly callous to our draftees serving over there, many of which, including a friend of mine, didn't even sign up for MOSes that would put them in such a situation to begin with.This message has been edited by Rei, 09-15-2004 07:56 PM

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Oh really? You'd be surprised to know that this has already been studied statistically; Baptists cause tornadoes and hurricanes.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Wrong. If they weren't destructive (to lives) then there would be no sense in developing them, and no international ban and outcry over their use. On the battlefield, soldiers can wear protective gear, but that hinders their effectiveness. On civilians, it can be very deadly.

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Wrong, wrong, wrong. I gave you numbers, and gave you an article. You ignored both. Please don't do that. Go back, look at the numbers, read the article, and try and argue, *from the numbers*, that they're more deadly than conventional weapons.They are more *feared* than conventional weapons; that is why states make them. They are not more deadly. They're actually more clumsy, awkward, and inefficient weapons.

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There are effective ways, even to get to people whose heads are surrounded by sand. Desperate, suicidal, Allah-glory seekers may be tempted to bring the great Satan to his knees.

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Hundreds of jetsetters dragged SARS around the globe. Oooh, look at what a tragedy that was. The worst infected places? The source's own people.

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Um, yes we do. We know how many people get killed by terrorism per year.

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Uniformitarianism? It is more like Punctuated Equilibrium. This is not wind erosion; this is a strategic long term enemy who has aspirations of big orchestrated hits that will have maximum impact, because they know they can't have a steady stream of suicidal missions on our soil. The WTC hit is an example of careful planning of a big impact.

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That was a complete dodge. We have numbers every year of how much terrorism occurs. You know this, too. Please explain how the numbers, which show *increasing* terrorism around the world since we launched the war in Iraq, even an increase outside of Iraq, are pointless.

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I did not make such a claim. However, a dirty bomb is possible to make and smuggle into our country. They know that the target must be big and the mission successful.

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Let me be blunt: A dirty bomb is trash. It's more than ineffective; it's near worthless. About half of the workers in Chernobyl - a nuclear meltdown which shot huge quantites of high level radioactive waste into the air, sicking people across several countries and contaiminating a large chunk of the Ukraine for the next several hundred years - survived (many of the cleanup workers weren't so lucky, but they actually stood in direct line of sight to the exposed glowing core for hours). A pint of radioactive medical waste splattered around by a bomb is going to be less deadly than strapping nails to the bomb. The only differene is that it scares people a lot more.

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What??? No peaceful negotiation option?

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Ok. So, how are the peaceful negotiations between the disenfranchised Saudi Youth going with the Saudi royal family? How have the negotiations between the religious scholars who see foreign troops in Prince Sultan AFB as sinful been going with the US? Since when has Russia entertained the idea of an independent Chechen state? Since when has Israel restored an 200 year old olive grove that they bulldozed or rebuilt an apartment complex that they demolished? (and they're still attempting negotiations over there...).Negotiations only work if both sides are willing to listen - just like in every conflict in all of history.

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That is the traditional approach. Much of your analysis is history-based, and not forward strategic looking. It is even more clear to non-superpowers that traditional military gear and tactics are no match to superpower weapons.

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That's the definition of asymmetrical warfare. Anything else that I've stated that you want to parrot?

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If such a society truly feels itself wronged,...

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This is not the Al Qaida motive. Al Qaida sees us as evil and want to spread their religion and destroy us infidels.

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The hell it isn't! Have you never read a single thing that OBL has written? Have you never watched a one of his speeches? He routinely lists grievances. It's much easier to pretend your enemy is simply evil or insane, isn't it? What's next - "he hates our freedoms"? The very reason people joined him has been because of the grievances that he preaches, which resonate with middle eastern masses. They share them. Many find his methods too brutal; but some feel the grievances outweigh the methods. Sadly, we sometimes follow that logic ourselves.He regularly preached about the sanctions on Iraq, and the suffering of Iraqi children. He preached about US troops on Saudi soil, propping up the repressive Saudi government and training their police and military. He preached about US support for Israel, and of the brutality of Israeli tactics on the Palestinians. And people joined him for it. These things are his grievances, and they are shared among many in the middle east. *You* can debate the grievances, but this is why they fight.If you keep thinking that they're "fighting because they like evil", you'll never understand why so many keep fighting the US. How al-Sadr got an army of tens of thousands in a matter of weeks. Why independent cells popped up all over Iraq. Why 1/3 of the iraqi national guard during the attack on Fallujah just joined the insurgents. Etc. They're doing it because *they want US out*. They have grievances, whether justified or not.

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You are completely wrong, and insulting our military leaders that DO understand their tactics & motives (even from the beginning), and are doing something about it. You paint a false picture of what is really understood by our military.

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Oh, my mistake. So, when they complain about the enemies not coming out to fight, the complaints are part of some brilliant secret strategy, as opposed to ignorance on the basic concepts of asymmetrical warfare and guerella combat? How dumb do you have to be to expect people who are completely outgunned to engage you on an open battlefield?

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

Do we have a "free Iraq"? Is it a "capitalist economy"? Wake up: The country is a living hell. If you don't believe this, the next post I make will contain pictures. If you still don't believe it, I can get you in touch with some Iraqis if you'd like. You can ask *them* what they think of the new Iraq. I'll have to warn you - one of them had her car stolen at gunpoint two weeks ago, and another had a cousin's husband kidnapped for ransom earlier this year. One just had his friend nearly shot up by US forces while covering an attack for The Guardian (everyone who took shelter with him - a reporter from Al-Arabiya, a man who was trying to drag his injured brother from the scene, etc - was killed). Etc.The country is a hell. Congratulations to all you pro-war people.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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WWII was practically defined by the extent of the waring parties to try and raze each other into submission

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Civilian deaths (outside of the holocaust) in WWII were approximately equal to military deaths (most of them being not during intentional "kill the civilians runs", but during sieges - most notably in Germany's attacks on the USSR, in which 27 million soldiers were killed and wounded, and 19 million civilians. And yet, civilian deaths are far, far easier to cause.In general, when the German or Soviet armies rolled through a city, they didn't raze it and slaughter it's inhabitants. There were "terror bombings", as you aptly described. However, there's a big difference between making your strategy be the killing of as many soft targets as possible, and making your strategy be trying to destroy the enemy's army, while at the same time making the public fear by a comparatively small amount (but still devastating) of random attacks on soft targets as well.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Both are irrelevant to the point I was making and you missed.

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Lets start at the beginning. I stated that people's fears of terrorism are far disproportionate to the problem. You said that there's no way to know that. I pointed out that we have numbers of how many people die to terrorism each year, and they're miniscule compared to other types of death.Your rebuttal is....?

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Not everything is published. Those weapons, the means of delivering them even today can kill thousands

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No, they bloody well can't. Quit asserting and back up your claims. I documented the fact that chemical and biological weapons have *awful* success rates, *especially* when deployed by terrorist groups. You have not presented one piece of evidence to counter this. Do so, or quit asserting. I tire of people who debate without presenting facts.

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Has it ever occurred to you that terrorism would have increased anyway

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And the reason for a *dramatic* increase in global terrorism would be....?

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Your logic is baffling. The whole point is to scare people

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We're not talking about that - we're talking about how much of a threat terrorism poses to the American people. Concerning a dirty bomb, the level of threat is tiny. They're not very dangerous. Case closed. Yes, they scare people more, but we're not talking about that - we're talking about how deadly they are.

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I never said SARS was a threat. You did. This is your attempt to trivialize a real threat (if terrorist have or can get cholera and other deadly biological weapons). The flu seems fairly easy to spread around to many people, so the process of infection is a proven dispersal technique. The only question is how deadly a virus can be obtained and spread.

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SARS was a demonstration of how a highly contageous disease (you don't get much more contageous than flu variants; perhaps Lhassa fever or whatnot), given ample time to start spreading around the globe, *still* can be easily quarantined and stopped. It's already been demonstrated. Are you going to respond to this? I'm assuming "No", since you've dodged everything else.

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Duh!! Rei, you missed the point punctuated by humor. Liberals tend to want negotiation out the kazoo before conflict. Your reponse seems to eliminate negotiation (I am surprised), and you don't seem to favor troop commitment, and you avoided answering the "what would you do?" question.

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1. I *DO* want negotiation. I tried to demonstrate that the groups that are committing terrorism, noone is trying to negotiate with them (or only minimally attempting to do so), and in fact, noone tried to negotiate with them *before* they started committing terrorism. This is the *problem*. I thought I made this clear in my last post; apparently not.2. You are correct, in that I *generally* don't favor troop committment, excepting the case in which conventional forces are outgunned. The proper response, then, is covert special forces operations. In cases like Iraq in which there was no terrorist threat, attacking it with the justification of stopping terrorism is incredibly counterproductive. You might as well attack Canada because there are fears that terrorists are sneaking in through the Canadian border. I think this also answers the "What would you do" question (which I never saw posed, BTW)

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I give up. You still don't get it.

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1) I explain that the problem is not so much terrorism, persay, but assymmetrical warfare, of which terrorism is a symptom.
2) You state that I'm wrong, but then go on to pretty much define asymmetrical warfare.
3) I accuse you of parroting what I said. (perhaps I should have accused you of simply not knowing what asymmetrical warfare is?)
4) You give up.

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Apparently I've read more than you, since you are ignoring some things about America that he has stated. I guess I have to dig those up to convince you. Also, you have to put on your thinking cap to not take everything he says for its face value. Hmmm. Are you a fundamentalist Christian, per chance?

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Do it. Dig it up, and *leave it in context*. And even if, based on your pure speculation, he doesn't believe what he says (despite the fact that such grievances are widely shared), the people who follow him sure do.

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If you keep thinking that they're "fighting because they like evil", ...

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Why are putting that in quotes when I did not say that?
Where is the Admin when you need him?

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It's called paraphrase. I assume you know what that is.

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Has it ever occurred to you that whoever said that is trying to lure them out? Why do you assume our troops are do dumb? Of course they realize they have the advantage in weaponry.

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Yeah, complaining to CNN and The Guardian is going to draw non-English speaking people with no access to the internet or satellite TV living in a cave in Afghanistan out to fight. Sure. Any more brilliant pieces of insight you wish to offer?

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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I thought the bible belt voted for the democratic party, since the democratic party is responsible for the liberal federal judges that legalized sodomy, it is interesting it turned on the bible belt.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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... but I as hard as I trie, I couldn't buy Saddam Oil Company stock and share his profits

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Once again, you keep making stuff up on this thread. I tire of it, as I'm sure everyone else does. First off, there was no "Saddam Oil Company". There were (and still are) actually multiple state-run oil companies - among them, North Oil Company, South Oil Company, Iraq Drilling Co., and Oil ExplorationCo. Cooperatively, they are involved with the State Oil Marketting Organization (SOMO). There are also the North Gas Company and the South Gas Company. These all fell under the general umbrella of the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC), formed in 1964 (the country nationalized its assets betweenb 1972 and 1975); later, this was dissolved and merged with the Ministry of Oil.Prior to 1991, Iraq routinely allowed investment into its oil industry; it used this to help modernize its industry (note: corporate investments, not private investments. Nonetheless, if you invested in a company that was invested in Iraq, you were profitting from Iraqi oil sales).With the advent of the first Gulf War, UN sanctions placed on Iraq barred foreign investment into Iraq's oil industry. This was modified slightly in 1996, under the OFF, in which limited joint development contracts were allowed.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Like a Democrat, you are counting two votes on one ballot!

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Once again, false. Will you ever stop with these?The "overvote" controversy is well defined in Florida law. Florida law declares that any individual who votes for either A) multiple registered candidates, or B) a registered candidate and a valid write-in candidate are overvotes. The statue goes on to declare that someone who is a registered candidate is not a valid write-in candidate. So, if someone voted for "Al Gore" and wrote "Al Gore" on the ballot, the fact that Al Gore is a registered candidate makes him invalid as a write-in candidate, and consequently the voter is not voting for both a registered candidate and a valid write-in candidate. I can get you the sections of Florida statute if you'd like.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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Doesn't the absurdity of the name "Saddam Oil Company" give you a clue? It's called sarcasm.

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And I demonstrated that the main restrictions to a person profitting from Iraqi oil were the UN sanctions - it had nothing to do with Iraq itself.

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You can believe that all the cover of "proper" oil business in Iraq, but the numbers don't add up (until you discover the under the table deals he made).

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Actually, they do add up; you're clearly not familiar with how contractual kickbacks works (which doesn't only occur at Saddam's level, ore even just in Iraq). Here is how it works:1) A price is set for a given commodity that the government wants to acquire.
2) The seller "raises" the price for the sale from what it should cost.
3) The buyer pays the artificially high price, leaving the seller with extra money.
4) The seller gives all or part of that extra money back to the buyer as a "gift", or does a similar transaction in reverse.The numbers all add up, but it's still corruption.Iraq is not a prime example of corruption in the world, although there were clearly several billion dollars worth of it (not all to Saddam; corruption continues rampant in current Iraq without him). If you're looking for examples of states with the worst corruption, Nigeria is probably your best bet.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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There's a truckload of assumptions behind your argument. One, that the attacks are monotonically increasing. Most wars involve increased combat until one side is defeated.

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Actually, no they don't. Combat tends to remain at a steady-state or decrease as the war nears its end.

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Another, that an alternative strategy (which you haven't presented) would be more effective.

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Then let me: Covert police actions. It's what we were doing before. It worked. When we switched to "overt wars against tangential targets", the rate skyrocketted.

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In any case, yes, one must examine the motives of one's enemies.

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Thank you!Who is making that assumption? In the case of al-Qaeda, as I argued and you didn't address, they *repeatedly state what they feel has been things that we have done that have wronged them*. Among insurgents in Iraq, it is even more obvious (and certainly more justifiable, even if not strategically the best option)

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Yes the terrorists have reasons for attacking us. Their reasons, not ours.

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Thank you again.

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Personally, I have very little patience to listen to the "legitimate concerns" of people who lure 7 year old children out with chocolate bars to be shot in the back as they run away.

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Please, cite this incident. As a counter:"Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered - death squads gunned them down in el Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumble on the pavement in Sarajevo - but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport"

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Wrong on both counts, and your presupposition that acts of war necessarily involve state entities is also wrong.

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No nation did attack us. Is al-Qaeda a nation? Where's their UN seat?

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

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And Asghcroft and Bush just tag along the real mccoy.

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Ashcroft and Bush are treated as neocons just as much as Wolfowitz. In fact, probably the defining neocon organization is "The Project for the New American Century". Take a look at their signatories list - how many are Jewish?Neocon is a term used by the left; the right has only started using it in response to the left's use of it. What right do *you* have to change its meaning, in order to try and bend our words? That's almost as bad as if I defined Christian to mean "people who love bombing abortion clinics", and insisted that's what Christianity was about. It's not my term, so I don't have the right to redefine it.

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As a evangelical Christian we are always without any criticism said to be this or doing that in political/social agendas. The group motive is a real thing as saying Blacks vote Democratic for a Black agenda and Southerners for a Southern agenda. Only the charge should be scruntized not the concept of group think.

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Quite true - there are a number of Jewish groups (including the US's largest foreign affairs lobby - AIPAC) that advocate staunchly pro-Israel policies and often ally themselves with the neocons. That doesn't change the fact that neocon doesn't mean "jewish pro-Israel person". It means "person who advocates aggressively using America's military without any new provocation in an attempt to change the world more to our interests".Much of what you said about the power of the pro-Israel lobby in the US is true. AIPAC alone has over 60,000 employees - a staggering amount. The pro-Israel lobby is huge, quite skilled, and the US has funneled vast amounts of money and military equipment to Israel largely as a result. However, I think this was a bit over the top:

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Jewish control and influence has brought American workers money to thier other counrty's gain with malice all around to Americans and mankind. Follow the money.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

I just checked that out - thanks for the cite . It was from eyewitness Rosa Dudiyeva, describing how one terrorist offered chocolate bars to the children as bait to try to show that they didn't mean anything bad for them (the kids were running away from them).Of course, militaries do the same sort of thing.---------It is still. The camp waits, as if holding its breath. And then, out of the dry furnace air, a disembodied voice crackles over a loudspeaker."Come on, dogs," the voice booms in Arabic. "Where are all the dogs of Khan Younis? Come! Come!"I stand up. I walk outside the hut. The invective continues to spew: "Son of a bitch!" "Son of a whore!" "Your mother's cunt!"The boys dart in small packs up the sloping dunes to the electric fence that separates the camp from the Jewish settlement. They lob rocks toward two armored jeeps parked on top of the dune and mounted with loudspeakers. Three ambulances line the road below the dunes in anticipation of what is to come.A percussion grenade explodes. The boys, most no more than ten or eleven years old, scatter, running clumsily across the heavy sand. They descend out of sight behind a sandbank in front of me. There are no sounds of gunfire. The soldiers shoot with silencers. The bullets from the M-16 rifles tumble end over end through the children's slight bodies. Later, in the hospital, I will see the destruction: the stomachs ripped out, the gaping holes in limbs and torsos.Yesterday at this spot the Israelis shot eight young men, six of whom were under the age of eighteen. One was twelve. This afternoon they kill an eleven-year-old boy, Ali Murad, and seriously wound four more, three of whom are under eighteen. Children have been shot in other conflicts I have covered- death squads gunned them down in El Salvador and Guatemala, mothers with infants were lined up and massacred in Algeria, and Serb snipers put children in their sights and watched them crumple onto the pavement in Sarajevo - but I have never before watched soldiers entice children like mice into a trap and murder them for sport.---------Does that mean that the Israelis don't have valid grievances? Quite to the contrary, they indeed to have legitimate grievances, just as the Palestinians do. Some members of their forces adopting brutal, immoral tactics doesn't change the core issues behind the conflict.

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"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."