I see that leftistgadfly is smitten by a certain someone's charms.

There's usually no shortage of people willing to defend Obama's statements and explain what he really means.

GG,

Is it OK for you to explain what he really means, then, when his actual words don't support your argument? I refer to your claim that "tainted" means "tainted by torture".

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/may-june01/0105018.html

Israeli Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Incites Followers to Commit Genocide Against Arabs

Quote: "The Lord shall return their deeds on their own heads, waste their seed and exterminate them, devastate them and vanish them from this world. It is forbidden to be merciful to them. You must send missiles to them and annihilate them. They are evil and damnable."

"What is particularly disconcerting in this instance is the fact that Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (who has previously referred to Arabs as “vipers”) does not represent a fringe element of the political spectrum in Israel. Indeed, as Israel’s former chief rabbi and founder and spiritual leader of the religious Shas party—Israel’s third largest political party—he is an influential figure in Israeli political circles. Yosef has a devoted following of hundreds of thousands of Jews, and his political party currently controls the interior and religious affairs ministries in the coalition government of hard-line Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

---

Note: I have been unable to find the original Haaretz article, but post a link to this anyway.

http://www.revisionisthistory.org/essay6.html

A dark reminder of the Dark Ages

"Kabbalistic works and the writings of those influenced by the kabbala contain even more essential distinctions between Jews and gentiles. In the 20th century Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote that "the difference between the Israelite soul... and the souls of all non-Jews, no matter what their level, is bigger and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul." "

Those intelligence reports are classified. Maybe you are right and that is the latest word, but I doubt that you actually know. (And if you did, you couldn't tell me.)

Chris,

If accusing me of having a hard-on for Obama is the best you can do, then you must not have much of an argument.

Those intelligence reports are classified. Maybe you are right and that is the latest word, but I doubt that you actually know. (And if you did, you couldn't tell me.)

-- leftistgadfly

But it's okay for Obama to tell the world? Or at least to tell the world what he is pretending to say that the latest "intelligence reports" that are "classified" are saying?

In the 20th century Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook wrote that "the difference between the Israelite soul... and the souls of all non-Jews, no matter what their level, is bigger and deeper than the difference between the human soul and the animal soul." -- Steele The First

Thank you for letting us know that some members of the Jewish faith are bigoted. We never would have known otherwise.

Now..... get a fucking life.

I am curious. If yesterday, Obama had said thing he said in 2007 instead of saying what he said, would you still be trashing the NIE?

My point in throwing out the Moguls and Persian cultural influence and military antagonisms east, was to address the distinct impression that you have special rules for the West and for everyone else; that Westerners occupy a special place in Adam's garden where free will exists.

*****************************************************************

You're astonished that I had the temerity to cite the breadth of the Mogul empire, and the significant influence of Persian culture on it, as historical allegory to Roman spreading of Greek culture, and think that pointing to the Aryan migration effectively rebuts this point. Check.

These two explanations don't seem very compatible, but I'll take your word for it (it could be that part of my confusion is that I don't understand your phrase about Adam's garden, or its relevance, maybe).

I have trouble reducing the crusades to a parenthetical remark about military expansionism, but so be it. They seemed more like a continuation of what you refer to as wars on the borders of empires (Catholic and Muslim empires mostly). The problem with seeing them merely as expansionism is that some were internal to the "West". Specifically, the Albigensian Crusade. Those against the heretics elsewhere weren't about expansion, either. And the splits they reinforced lie along the lines of your wars on the borders of empires.

The Persian culture had great influence on the Moguls, but the Moguls had less influence on cultures than Rome or Persia. Maybe you see this differently. The pre-Mogul influence of Persia on Central and South Asia doesn't seem like something that can be ignored, and it doesn't just consist of the Aryan migration (my language referents were not to Sanskrit, don't know why you interpreted them that way), which may have been more cultural than actual. The cultures were in constant contact for a very long time, I thought I had communicated that, but perhaps not. Or perhaps you disagree about this contact. Classical Persian was the lingua franca of the Silk Road. Many of the cultural influences attributed to the Moguls were extant in Rajastani culture before they invaded (in Marwari art, e.g.).

Suffice it to say, you do not see a historical enmity between the West and Persia, and I do. You see my interpretation of these cultures as juvenile and Western-oriented, but it is actually not Western-oriented. It comes from studies of mine on migration of religion and on the effects of the Little Ice Age in the region. You are entitled to your opinion on whether or not it's juvenile. But thanks for discussing it. My apologies for being the first to mention arrogance, but I had the impression I was being put down. Apparently, you felt the opposite. I'm sorry.

These are not "some members," these are influential Jewish leaders.

It explains the present slaughter going on in Gaza, and Israel's policies and actions past, and present.

Get a fucking clue.

We hear everyday about "Islamofascists" and the "hateful" Muslims, so now let's hear the truth about Judaism. It's about fucking time, isn't it? I mean, Americans only have targets on their backs because of their fucking war crimes.

My tax money and yours funds their atrocities. So yer gonna hear it, and yer gonna hear more, because this is what they believe, and this is what they are going to do - today, tomorrow, and next year. With our tax money.