<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>waleed might better be able to answer why saudi arabia was attacked, but i think it's largely because the ruling family of the house of saud has been an ally of the US in the war on terror<p><hr></blockquote><p><br>Waleed could certainly answer better, but I believe Saudi Arabia is also not the type of ruling state the extremists want?<br><br>

i alluded to that in the next sentence, i believe.<br><br>--<br>Straw-man rhetorical techniques are the practice of refuting weaker arguments than one's opponents offer. 2 "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is 2 create a position easily refuted, then attribute that position to your opponent.

Not that I agree at all with this rant, but it's a powerful statement for sure.<br><br>I read your post with a sense of deja vu, because about a month ago there were portions the exact same text in a "letter to the editor" in my local paper. That person signed their name to it. Just a few weeks ago, another signed letter to the editor also lifted some of this exact text.<br><br>Credit where credit is due (thank you google):<br>"Ask me if I care about 'mishandling' of Koran"<br>By Doug Patton <br>Published: Jun 6 by GOPUSA<br><br>I think I'll drop my newspaper a line and let them know. Because when I read it all here again, those signed letters now start sounding like a propaganda effort.<br><br><br><br><br><br>

When someone else, Soviets, with a different set of principles from ours, set out to establish their system in the world, we objected. Why should others not object when we--and by we I mean the freedom loving peoples of the world--try to do the same thing?<br><br>I'm not making biblically-derived democratic individualism equivalent to marxism, but I am wondering why we should be surprised that there's resistance to our system, based as it is on three or so thousand years worth of very specific cultural evolution, from people who have a very different tradition and a very different sense of the relationship between self and the state and the cosmos. AFAIK, Islam translates as "submission," not "freedom." "Freedom" sounds terrific to my ears. I don't have a hard time imagining that it sounds terrifying to other ears. Hell, I don't have to imagine an Islamic response, just what my very fundamentalist Christian next door neighbors would, indeed do say regularly about freedom.<br><br>I'll be very very interested to see how our (again, not just the US) governments respond when the new Iraqi constitution makes the nation an Islamic state, with Islamic law as the fundamental underpinning of its polity.<br><br>None of this is an excuse for terrorism, by the way, although I'm sure it'll be understood that way by some readers. A sense of world history also does not constitute an excuse for terrorism, although it's usually reduced to that stereotype too. Still, I find it fascinating that when Pres. Bush spoke of the wars we're fighting as "crusades," the reaction in the Islamic world issued from an understanding of history that we seem either to lack or to forget or to repress. The same thing happens in the Islamic world. Last night on the Lehrer news hour there was a fascinating discussion among four Islamic scholars and religious types, one of whom made the astonishing claim that Islam spread peacefully throughout Asia. By that same set of criteria, European-American power also spread peacefully. Right.<br><br>Another point, again not an excuse for terrorism, but surely misrepresentable that way. The boundaries of a country like Iraq are obviously the product of the post-WW II collapse of European empires. All of those middle eastern countries, along with African countries, are still struggling with borders that make no sense at all, and that were established in lots of cases specifically to benefit the European "parent." Kuwait, for instance.<br><br>One last point. Islam began to spread in the 7th century. Think of what Christianity was like in the 14th century.<br><br>

<blockquote><font size=1>In reply to:</font><hr><p>I am wondering why we should be surprised that there's resistance to our system, based as it is on three or so thousand years worth of very specific cultural evolution, from people who have a very different tradition and a very different sense of the relationship between self and the state and the cosmos.<p><hr></blockquote><p>Though there are still sharp cultural differences in the world, McCluhan's "Global Village" has evolved yet again, softening the edges between many cultures. Islam and Christianity may still be very different animals, but the exposure of each to the other by the media explosion of the past several decades has presented a much greater opportunity for mutual understanding, and subsequently, less culture shock. That holds at least for the mainstreams of each culture, IMHO. But for the extremists, the rift is still immense. Not because they can't understand other cultures, but because they refuse to do so.<br><br>So it's not surprising that resistance to western culture and religion -- aka non-Islamic -- is present. But not because of ignorance or lack of awareness.<br><br>

First let me say that I come here to read what people think. Not what people copy and paste and plagiarize from other sources.<br><br> bullshheet revisited multiple times on the net as GaryW pointed out.<br><br>Why do you sit here and debate powerful (to some) statements from skuldugary that are not statements from skuldugaray? Why do you not "out" him as a someone posing as someone else? Someone with half a brain? Because to steal someone else's words he has less then half a brain to plagiarize someone else's work is the lowest of the low.<br><br>Plagiarists pisss me off. Especially when their message is so stupid.<br><br>And Skul, don't give me any bullshiit about how you did not mean your post to be taken as verbatim "skul". You have been doing it all along it just seems that sometimes you get smart for a minute or two.<br><br>

Oopsie! <br><br>

&[censored] who should not be listened to ever again", my salutatations to your "oopsie".<br><br><br>pps: calling skul a piece of shiit is breaking the first rule of chatboardomatics but plagiarism just pissses me off so much I never want to here from them again. Mike Barnicle of the Boston Globe is finally off the airwaves around here in Beantown. It took a while.<br><br>

I'm disappointed in skul. But I'll leave it at that. You can interpret my "oopsie" anyway that pleases or displeases you.<br><br>

Well I was hoping for you to kiss and make up with me after you came to skuls defense a few months ago when I ripped him a new one. <br><br>Blowing a kiss from 1000X will do. Do you know there is a Smith an Wolensky in Boston now? Friggin sacrilege. As if you could do it up here.<br><br><br><br><br>