Letters to the Editor
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At any given time
there are far more Muslims in the western world where Christians are the majority than the other way around. The same _utt _oles that find this funny are usually the same ones that stand on their hind legs and shout discrimination.
Last time I looked there was not a whole lot of desire on the part of anyone in Europe or the Americas for more Muslums but they seem to keep coming anyway.
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You Gotta Be Kiddin Me
The lefty types believe that the solution is to use "neighborhood policing" tactics to root out al Qaeda and other jihadists like these guys are burglars and pimps. Al Qaeda wants to purchase nuclear weapons any way it can and use them on Israel and then NYC (probably in that order)and Kamiya says leave them alone and watch them disappear over 2 or 3 years. You really got to be kiddin me? No police force in the world is a match for these guys and the best intelligence in the world means nothing if there are no logistical support to carry out actions against these guys. The level of nievete on Kamiya's part is appalling and it demonstrates a poor understanding of the region.
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Time to grow up
First of all, Israel isn't our problem, it is not our job to keep them from being nuked. Second of all, none of the war's suppporters can give a good reason why nothing in this war has gone the way we were told it would. This isn't just "poor planning", this is a pathology of niave thinking. Seeing the world as "good" and "evil" does nothing to address the real reasons why people over there hate us. If anything, it makes the situation worse. Unless all those who wanted this war so badly have a plan to win that doesn't label everyone who disagrees with us "evil", and addresses their grievances, then there is no way to win.
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thank you
Finally, a voice of reason. My only quibble: I wish you had addressed the point that Josh Marshall made on the eve of the Iraq catastrophe: namely, that the Bush/Cheney administration's strategic goal all along has been to create chaos in the service of remaking the Middle East. In other words, the usual signs of failure don't apply to this up-is-down enterprise.
Also, I wonder if Edward Luttwak wasn't right in his May 2007 article in Prospect magazine, "The middle of nowhere." The Middle East just isn't very important:
"We devote far too much attention to the middle east, a mostly stagnant region where almost nothing is created in science or the arts—excluding Israel, per capita patent production of countries in the middle east is one fifth that of sub-Saharan Africa. The people of the middle east (only about five per cent of the world's population) are remarkably unproductive, with a high proportion not in the labour force at all. ...
"Unless compelled by immediate danger, we should therefore focus on the old and new lands of creation in Europe and America, in India and east Asia—places where hard-working populations are looking ahead instead of dreaming of the past."
Luttwak's article can be found here:
http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9302
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Bravo! Gary Kamiya For President!
Gary, you are doing a great job of stating the real case, and keeping it down to two pages. Future historinas will cite Gary Kamiya.
How can we get our mothers and brothers to pay attention to Gary Kamiya?
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Exactly
The last nearly 7 years of the Bush administration has moved the US in exactly the wrong direction and Kamiya correctly encapsulates the results of that disaster devised by naive men devoid of judgment and ignorant of the history of the region and even of the history of America in the 20th century. Which means that anything Bush and the neo-cons are in favor of, the exact opposite ought to be done. The Israeli-Palestinian problem is the more intractable one because of the fear of politicians, save Carter, to act with equanimity toward Israel. The US is because of Bush no longer viewed as an honest broker in that conflict to which the Iraqi war is really a sideshow. Torture, war, and arrogance are now the face of America, not a lady holding a beacon of freedom in a land where all men are created equal. Despite Bush's blatant failures, neither Iraq nor the region well immolate when we leave hysterical rantings of the neo-cons to the contrary. The US does need to quit the entire region, but that is not at all what the two leading Democratic candidates are espousing. Their view is different from the neo-cons only in degree since they both state a continued military presence is required, for what isnt made clear. And the lack of clarity is because neither of them really know why. But the saying of it makes them seem more shall we say strong and global in "protecting" our "interests". Our interests are in leaving and developing an energy policy that doesnt rely on the only asset that region has of any utility. Were it not for that, we would have no armies there and no navies navegating its waters. The policy Kamiya urges is one that should apply to the rest of American foreign policy, a country which has fought the bear so long it cant seem to live without an enemy. The world is tired of America. And we can not kill all the evil in it especially when we arent asked to do so. When the world needs us, and the cause is right, is another matter. The trick is to be sure of the first and have the wisdom to know the latter.
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Well, That Didn't Take Long
The baying of "the-Muslims-are-coming!! The-Muslims-are-coming" crowd. "Look, they've already taken over France!!" (news to the French, I'm sure). "We-gotta-fight-them-there-so-we-don't-have-to-fight-them-here!!" (Did anyone ask the poor b@stards over there if they wanted us staging a full-blown war in their nation??) The fear that browon-people are out to getcha (sure, landing crafts on our beaches filled with blood-thirsty suicide-bombers -- maybe Dubya can give us a "We shall fight them on the beaches . . . speech).
If you haven't figured out why these people are angry, and if you aren't prepared to sit down and try to defuse, perhaps reverse some of that anger, then you really haven't been paying attention. Shame on you . . . your masters have fooled you once, twice, any number of times, and you still don't get it. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps?