I think the logic I wish to express stems from the concept that \”All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares\”. In other words, if someone where to say, \”All middle easterners are terrorists\” I would say that would be a racist statement against those from the middle east. However, if someone said \”most terrorists come from the middle east\” that would be stating a substantiated fact and not racist.

What I believe Senator Burns was saying in the article, was that \”Terrorists can be taxi drivers\”, I don\’t think he was saying \”All taxi drivers (and by association any racial group) are terrorists\”.

If you find yourself not agreeing with my assessment in that you think it would be racist either way, stop and think about it. It would be like saying \”we can\’t talk about terrorists being pilots because caucasians are often pilots and that statement would be racist against them\”.

I hope I made myself more clear in what I am trying to say. I do feel this is exactly the sort of over political correctness that is stifling important, relevant dialogue in our country these days.

Now, to get a little off topic again and address some of Payshun\’s comments, I submit the following article because it addresses such questions as \”Are we less safe?\” and are we creating more terrorists. Just some food for thought.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/015210.php

\”There were virtually no terrorists in Iraq now Iraq is a birthing center for new groups, splinter groups.\”

I disagree. After all, Jordanian born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who has been linked to Al Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, is known to have been in Iraq prior to the continuation of the Iraq war that removed Saddam.

Many of the other terrorists have been shown to be Iranian and Syrian and they have been equipped with Iranian weapons. Fortunately that type have been dwindling in numbers lately. The others, those who are native Iraqis aren\’t attacking US troops so much as each other in long standing feuds that has been held in check in the past only by fear of the ruthless dictator, Saddam. There was a report recently by the defense department that basically said that there have never been so many complex factions currently in Iraq. Maybe I am an optimist, but this is actually a good sign. What this says to me, is there are no longer large groups of people fighting a common cause and aren\’t seeing us as the enemy so much as each other. While this is distressing in the short term, this does mean it will be much easier to divide and conquer these factions.

As to your argument that we are not winning people over to our side, I believe you are wrong. While we can both find people in Iraq who love us and those who hate us, that is unimportant ultimately to that goal. What we need are people who respect us, and only by being true to our word and fighting to remove bad guys that bring bloodshed and violence to their streets can we hope to do this. Leaving Iraq before we are confident that they can do this for themselves would be a HUGE mistake and only serve to support the argument of the terrorists that we don\’t really care about Iraqis.

Now I don\’t want to get too much more off topic, but it is good that you didn\’t allow that person to make you hate so much that you would throw your life of freedom away to seek revenge. Hate is ultimately a self defeating thing. By hating someone, you are giving them power over you to change who you are. We all have responsibility for how we feel and how we act, regardless of where we are from.

Now, just because you don\’t have to hate someone, doesn\’t mean you should let them hurt you either. Self defense is important and you can defend yourself from an enemy without hate. Aikido is a form of martial arts that teaches that the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend. Use whatever force is necessary to get them to stop hurting you or themselves as quickly as possible, but ideally work for them to see the futility of fighting further or hating.

p

No one can make you hate, this is simply true. But we can give them excuses. The idea that they hate us because we exist is wrong. They hate us because we bust into their houses, sometimes kill innocents, create policy that hurts their people and don\’t always show respect for what they believe or how they think. That coupled w/ the idea that we are using them for oil and other resources is not exactly helping our stock in that area. I doubt you believe any of the reasons I listed but they do exist and unfortunately they believe them. That\’s why they hate us, not because we exist. Why did you take premise so far? That\’s my real question.

Hope is very real, as one day this stupid policy will end, peace will come and sectarian violence and division will stop. That\’s where I have hope. I am not a slave to fear (nor am I implying that you are) but if I go by what this administration says I would be. I refuse.

But the idea that no one can make you want to kill is wrong. Have you ever been in a situation where someone does something so heinous and so wrong that you wanted the ultimate retribution? I have. You see a former friend raped another friend of mine and had the good sense to confess his crime. I literally wanted to kill him as the woman he raped is one of my closest friends.

I know the rage of seeing an injustice and having it blind you. I chose not to do it but believe me I get it. It\’s a lot more intense there w/ many different opinions about why we should or should not be there. Many are really level headed but then you have the brainwashed folks which take everything we do wrong in the world as reason to want to destroy us. Please don\’t use blind rhetoric to keep you from seeing the very real reasons they hate us. That would be the same mistake this president is making.

There were virtually no terrorists in Iraq now Iraq is a birthing center for new groups, splinter groups… Anywho I got to go.

p

I think we will have to agree to disagree that by our actions we are creating more terrorists. There where terrorists before the war in Iraq (9-11 is a good example), and it would seem that because our status as infidels is what they claim drives them to become terrorists, then by our very act of living, we are creating the terrorists by that argument.

What ever happened to people taking responsibility for their own actions? No one can make you want to kill, or hate. You have to allow them to. Others can\’t make me angry, but I can allow someone to anger me. See the difference?

No I understand what you are saying. I just find it to be ridiculous. Your original premise was that one it was protecting us. Which it is not, regardless of what you are saying. The terrorists are here, like it or not. Not only that but it is disingenuous to claim that they are an invasion force when it is apparent to everyone that the biggest threats in Iraq center on sectarian violence not the fringe groups. Two it is not keeping them on the defensive as much as you claim. If they were on the defensive they would not be adding to their numbers and the violence would diminish. THe opposite is happening.

Why do you keep ignoring that?

Also this issue is far more complex than your policy is allowing a correction for. It\’s like you are blind to the fact that we are loosing Afghanistan and have already lost it, Iraq\’s sectarian violence is horrible and the few fringe terrorist groups in Iraq have to contend w/ interreligious and ethnic strife. They do that and exploit it hoping to turn it into a civil war. By creating that they can hide in the shadows shoring up support or slowly wiping out their enemies (the new government…) Which terrorist groups are we talking about?

Again let me make this crystal clear. They lack the power and resources to launch an invasion into the United States but they do have the power to create sleeper cells that slowly erode our sense of security and undermine our basic freedoms. because we are such a weak culture we turn over in fear and let our goverment act foolishly. They do this by making irresponsible statements that are simply not true ie claiming we are safer for fighting them over there when we are clearly not, claiming we are ending their threat when in reality it is growing and igniting strife in a region where we clearly don\’t need any.

Iraq should have never happened but since it did we are stuck cleaning it up. The problem w/ your premise is the idea that you can trust this administration to do the task. Currently I have very little reason to. You see it differently. I can respect that but please don\’t make claims about our safety when it is very clear that domestic terrorism is a real threat.

They are here and your policy can\’t contain them or stop more from coming to join their ranks. If anything it is giving many youths a reason to fight. That\’s internationally and domestically.

p

I just want to throw in a comment about asserting whether the policy of “taking the fight to our enemies” is working. I’m fairly certain that statistically, the fact that there has been no successful attack by muslims on US territory since 2001 proves close to nothing about the efficacy of this policy, since historically the rate of attacks on US soil by muslim extremists has been very low (2001; 1993 - World Trade Center; are there any others, actually?).

\”Would it make you comfortable if, instead of “Arabs,” I used “Middle Eastern Muslim males”? It’s six one way, half dozen the other to the people who support a policy of racial profiling.\”

Middle Eastern muslim males is not a race. What race would that be? Arab? Nope, there are many people who populate the middle east who would be offended by being called an Arab and who also don\’t fit any of the racial phenotypes. The two are not interchangeable expressions as you suggest.

Also, there are terrorists from africa, and Indonesia who are muslim but are not remotely Middle Eastern. In fact last I checked, Indonesia is still the largest Muslim nation in the world! It is also the largest population to live under Sharia law. Again, not Middle Eastern.

Now with all that said, according to the report on incidents of Terrorism, 2005 by the National Counter-Terrorism Center does report that a vast majority of terrorists are in fact of Middle eastern descent. Take that for what you think it\’s worth.

http://wits.nctc.gov/reports/crot2005nctcannexfinal.pdf#search=%22National%20Counterterrorism%20Center’s%20“Report%20on%20Incidents%20of%20Terrorism%22

(Link is a larg-ish PDF)