Jeff said:
It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.
The American answer to Osama's proposal will be given on Election Day. One response is to agree that the United States of America will henceforth act like Sweden, which is on track to become majority Islamic sometime after the middle of this century. The electorate best knows which candidate will serve this end; which candidate most promises to be European-like in attitude and they can choose that path with both eyes open. The electorate can strike that bargain and Osama may keep his word. The other course is to reject Osama's terms utterly; to recognize the pleading in his outwardly belligerent manner and reply that his fugitive existence; the loss of his sanctuaries; the annihilation of his men are but the merest foretaste of what is yet to come: to say that to enemies such as he, the initials 'US' will always mean Unconditional Surrender.
Osama has stated his terms. He awaits America's answer.
The interpretation if things left unsaid in one message is mightly presumptive.
"
We want to restore freedom to our Nation and just as you lay waste to our Nation so shall we lay waste to yours. " does not sound like a peace offering, now does it?
It seems to me that you have your political agenda and you are making what OBL says fit it to your purposes. It's a lot easier to do that with what he doesn't say, isn't it? And he Swedish example? Why didn't he mention France instead? They have been sticking their finger in our eye far more than Sweden. They have the Muslim popuation and they stayed out of the coalition.
Unconditional Surrender? You have to win something to demand that. After doing OK in Afghanistan (with Clinton's military I might add), we have made an atrocious mess of Iraq that we can neither control nor abandon for years to come. Our armed forces are pinned down and our enemies are taking full advantage of that.
The Iranian Legislature was chanting "Death to America" just today. That's new- or wasn't heard there for decades before Dubya came along and demonized them. Big chunks of the population of the country were very pro-US until Bush painted them with "Axis of Evil" rhetoric. Now we've lost them for decades to come again. Or is the answer just to invade?
Bush and his cronies have gotten us into deep ****, and we will be lucky to maintain our status as world military leader before it's all over. We have already lost our status as world moral leader.
Unbridled arrogance is always self-destructive in the end. When an individual sees things too black and white- as all good or evil, they have what is known as
Borderline Personality Disorder. They're the ****-stirrers of the world, causing those around them to divide into factions, using chaos wherever they go. They do horribly self-destructive things, all the while screaming that no one can tell them what to do. Yep. That's just what's happining inside our country and out these days.
And the supposed Christians now in ascendancy who have seemed to have somewhere lost the docterine of looking at one's own sins before casting stones. I fear we risk becoming that which we have fought for two centuries.
I do mourn.
I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshiped by many who think themselves Christians.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price from Paris, January 8, 1789.
