Wide Rift Within the Democratic Party on Foreign Policy

[minionofmidas]

You, unsurprisingly, missed the point of my comment which was: do you on the left have any plan or strategy (beyond pontificating endlessly on Iraq, Afghanistan, and President Bush) on how to battle terrorism for the next generation?  If so, what is it?  This question assumes, of course, that you leftists have the willingness and desire to do whatever it takes to defend this country from those who seek to do it harm........   

Just goes to show how big that rift really is .... as the entire concept that stands behind this question is fatally misguided.

"How to battle terrorism for the next generation"? What's that supposed to mean? What's "terrorism for the next generation"?
As to "battling terrorism", do you mean "battling anybody with a strategy of violence aimed at striking terror in people's hearts"? Or "battling any non-governmental group with such a strategy, fighting against the United States"? Or are you further reducing the scope to Wahhabite Fundamentalist non-governmental terrorists? Or even just to those terrorists currently active?
Obviously the answers would be wholly different ones. The last aim might even conceivably be achieved by ways of military action and the creation of a concentration camp in Cuba, the others obviously not.

"To do whatever it takes" ... of course not. That's a euphemism for murder, deceit, and the abolution or undermining of democracy. Think about it - "whatever it takes", without any regards to whether what you're throwing out of the window might be more important, or whether what you're doing might be evil.
Which sort of renders the whole "those who seek to do it harm" point moot... but I'll try and address that anyways. First lesson in politics: Try to understand your enemy. Any effort made without that first step is pretty much doomed anyways. (And I'm currently not, myself, doing nearly enough of that as re your position.) Why the hell would anyone want to do Americans harm?

[minionofmidas]

You, unsurprisingly, missed the point of my comment which was: do you on the left have any plan or strategy (beyond pontificating endlessly on Iraq, Afghanistan, and President Bush) on how to battle terrorism for the next generation?  If so, what is it?  This question assumes, of course, that you leftists have the willingness and desire to do whatever it takes to defend this country from those who seek to do it harm........   

Just goes to show how big that rift really is .... as the entire concept that stands behind this question is fatally misguided.

From the standpoint of a European who refuses to recognize the potential threat that alienated Muslim immigrants pose in his native country, it is unsurprising that you would fail to fully recognize the threat that terrorism poses.  I am sure though that when terrorists make strikes on either Berlin or Frankfurt as they did in London and Madrid, you will come to your senses. 

Yes - I will continue to refuse to blame a sixth of the world's population for the crimes of a handful - and I will be extremely wary of those in this part of the world homicidal enough to do so. Especially seeing as I got Muslim friends and all that.

It certainly does have a psychological impact though when something terrible happens in a place you know well, that you got fond memories of; on your hometurf as it were - I noticed that during the recent (quite harmless by comparison) attack on the Jami Masjid in Delhi, one of my favorite buildings in the world. But it's not one you should give in to.

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We are referring primarily to those terrorist groups that advocate using violence on the United States and its allies to advance their cause of recreating an Islamic caliphate throughout the Islamic world under the guidance of Wahhabite fundamentalism.  [/quote] So terror is not actually one of your concerns.
Thanks, that's all I wanted to hear when I wrote that part.

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Well in a literal sense that's actually true - you personally are immensely more likely to be harmed by the Bush administration than Al Qaeda (I'm not sure who the "we" in your post is, unless your account is used by two people who composed this post together ).
In the normal sense of the words though, that suggestion is indeed ridiculous. Notice that I didn't make it.

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I am not going to go through this civil liberties vs. national security debate again.  I will say only this though -we had best do what we can now to prevent a terrorist attack on American soil at all costs, for what civil liberties we have left will most definitely be gone if we relax our vigilance, and this debate will then be merely academic.  That includes implementing all the recommendations by the 9/11 commission.   [/quote]How is one other terrorist attack - bad as it would be - going to possibly affect "what civil liberties we have left" - let alone "most definitely"?
Al Qaeda has no intention of subjugating the US as far as I'm aware, and even if they did it'd just show how delusional they are (not that I'd need any further proof of that.) but merely ("merely"? lol actually) of ending US hegemony over Islamic territory - or what they consider Islamic territory (cough Israel. cough Western Europe, actually, if you ask a Western European Islamic cleric, though not usually an Arabic one. Of course Islamic territory in the theological sense just means there's a well established Islamic community there.)

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Because we are the number one superpower, and no matter what we do someone will always hate us and seek to hurt us.  It is a fact of life that every pre-eminent power from Athens and Rome to the present has dealt with. 
[/quote]Ah, Rome. The vilest motherfucker in earth history. Rome well deserved all the hate it got and something extra, you know that? Believe you me, you don't want to take Rome as your role model, because if you do, that'd really be the end to whatever civil liberties you got left.



Haven't addressed the chief difference yet, btw. The chief difference is that you really seem only to care about what's done to "the United States and their allies". The rest of the world's populace seems to have been created for GI target practice. Now that's just plain sick. Maybe it's a wrong impression though, I sure hope it is...

[minionofmidas]

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We are referring primarily to those terrorist groups that advocate using violence on the United States and its allies to advance their cause of recreating an Islamic caliphate throughout the Islamic world under the guidance of Wahhabite fundamentalism. 

So terror is not actually one of your concerns.
Thanks, that's all I wanted to hear when I wrote that part.

I'm glad you outed yourself as a dishonest SOB, arbitrarily putting words into my mouth that you know very well I did not mean to say. 

No, it's exaclty what you meant to say - and of course what everybody knows anyways, it just makes sense to spell it out from time to time because people forget. It's not the existence of terrorism (ie tactics aimed at creating terror) you want to end, but a certain group's ability to threaten you personally.   A totally different thing (of course, that's an understandable pursuit)

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WTF?  Who said they did? [/quote]Well, if you don't think that either, you have some 'splaining to do re:

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It's not as if you had anything to do with that.

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While you quote me so grotesquely out of context (twice) that (insulting line deleted, since I don't actually want to insult you).