Glenn, when you wrote:

It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings.

Were you using this part of the official conspiracy theory as a metaphor or as fact?

In 2009, for a serious thinker and journalist like you to still be regurgitating what has been called into question by some of America's and the world's more eminent scientists, engineers, scholars, and intelligence professionals, almost 50% of Americans and over 60% of people worldwide, just has to be some sort of shorthand on your part.

I am asking you in as a straightforward manner as possible: Do you accept the major elements of the official conspiracy theory? That the 9/11 attacks were carried out by 19 Muslim hijackers directed by Osama bin Laden? That jet impact, jet fuel and office fires cause the Twin Towers to implode? That office fires cause WTC7 to collapse symmetrically at nearly freefall speeds?

Is this what you believe?

And if you do, would you please pay a brief visit to Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com/ or click sig) where you will find:

150+ Senior Military, Intelligence Service, Law Enforcement, and Government Officials

640+ Engineers and Architects

160+ Pilots and Aviation Professionals

230+ 9/11 Survivors and Family Members

190+ Artists, Entertainers, and Media Professionals

who do not share your level of certainty.

You can keep it in the lead if you haven’t voted yet and the Obama team will have to answer it. (see sig)

"Will you appoint a Special Prosecutor - ideally Patrick Fitzgerald - to independently investigate the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping?"

Bob Fertik, New York City

http://change.gov/page/content/openforquestions20081229/

Uh, Maureen, the Mesopotamians, who lived in what is now Iraq, and who were "among the first in the world to far, write and domesticate animals," were NOT Arabs.

"profound ignorance"

"dumkopfs"

"pig-ignorance"

That's YOU Maureen.

Glenn claims he has a consistent yardstick, unblemished by Glenn's own personal biases, that he applies to all countries, Israel included. Glenn's premise is that many (but not Glenn) are blinded by personal loyalties, backgrounds, emotional status, etc. that leads them (but not Glenn) to reach conclusions that are illogical.

But not Glenn.

It would take 5 minutes to drum up a basic armchair "analysis" that Glenn's frustration at being a dual "other" within larger normative society, both queer and Jewish, leads Glenn to want to purge one of his Otherness attributes to normalize the second. Glenn's attempt to purge his own Jewishness by offering society proof that he is not like the "other Jews" (those swayed by personal bias) is Glenn's desperate attempt to normalize and inscribe his queerness into the larger normativity. If Glenn can only prove he is not one of "those Jews," then his queerness will finally be accepted.

Is this a crap analysis? Of course. I don't care about Glenn's background. I care that his expert logical approach to facts on the Constitution, our media and the failures of our institutions turn into a blazing mess when the issue turns to Israel, an issue where's Glenn's biases are as inscribed and obvious as anyone else on the issue.

I'm not claiming to be "above" personal bias. If anything, I believe my Jewishness gives me sensitivity to the misuse of historical narratives that had led to so much violence and persecution in the past, just as an African-American can see the warning signs coming down the track when the issue turns to race relations.

Glenn, however, claims he is above his own biases here. Once again, an expert lawyer, but a lousy, and fairly obviously false, argument. Glenn's arguments are dripping with personal assumptions, inferences, snap judgment psychoanalysis and assumptions of motivation. The very "biases" he claims "get in the way" of the arguments of those who disagree with him. It's nonsensical logic.

But your pathetic, unsourced, and unsupported claim that this "won't work" is belied by the exact opposite of the past 20 years. While this may not be the path to peace, it certainly is the path to less Israelis getting killed by Palestinians. And, last time I checked, that's a valid motivation for a nation's military to take action. To prevent the death of their own citizens.

-- WinSmith

Doesn't the fact that this struggle has continued pretty much unabated for those same 20 years convince you that using the heavy handed approach to the problem actually has proven not to work mean anything to you?

Have Israeli deaths fallen due to Israeli tactics or have they risen?

Should Israel ban the automobile? After all, in 2007, there were 43 Israelis killed by automobiles for every single Israeli killed by a terrorist.

Just one example: Israeli public schools are segregated, rarely will an Arab student be allowed to attend a public Jewish high-school. A gifted Arab boy, after an exhaustive struggle, managed to gain entrance to an excellent high school in the Haifa area because his father had actually served in the IDF. No Jewish student would sit next to him. During recess, no one would talk to him. He was routinly bullied at the schoolyard, he would frequently get beaten up because he was "looking at Jewish girls". Unlike the Arabs in the occupied territories, he was an Israeli citizen. Israeli propaganda and the idiotic and subservient US MSM depict Israel as a democratic bastion and a victim of terrorism. In reality, Israel is an apartheid state that has treated it's Arab minority like the S. African apartheid regime treated it's black majority. The Palestinians in the occupied territories are treated much worse, and the word genocide isn't a hyperbole.

"I am only here to respond to those who excuse anything and everything the Palestinians might do, and condemn anything and everything Israelis do, because of their belief that Zionists are Nazis, period. I personally feel that such a viewpoint can only stem from basic anti-semitism."

We don't hate the people, we hate the deed of war.

Stop bombing innocent civilians and stop acting and speaking like Nazis and your "basic anti-semitism" will fade away to levels extant before this current war crime.

Do you still hate the Germans for the holocaust?

People are easily conned and tricked into doing horrible things and think that they are doing the good, right and just thing when they are just being monsters so hating the stupid domesticated apes that do this is not really reasonable or fair. Hate the deed, not the stupid man ape.

This is why I don't believe in evolution. We haven't earned or evolved any at all except in the technological advances in making killing and maiming each other so much more efficient and easy to do and America and Israel are at the forefront of that contribution to humanity.

It isn't anti-semitism. It is anti-warism. Why do you insist on defending war and pretending that it is your race, culture and religion and not bombs, bullets and missiles. Why do you confuse these two separate things? Why do you insist that they are one and the same?.