Our "meddling" in the middle east has enabled the flow of cheap oil that
has enabled the flow of sometimes cheap emails that dribble through our
oil-enabled computers.  This lovely paradox is similar to the one which
recognizes that most of the technological advances that have improved our
quality of life--in health, communication, etc.--are the outgrowth of war.
==DP

At 03:28 PM 02/13/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>In a message dated 02/13/2003 1:04:43 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>[log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
> > What then, should America have done in response to the horrors of Sept. 11?
> > Should the Taliban still rule Afghanistan? Should Osama bin Laden be free
> > to
> > build bigger and better bombs with which to kill non-muslims? Is not Saddam
> > Hussein himself a warmonger of the worst ilk? What is the pacifist response
> > to men willing to use unlimited aggression to maintain their ironfisted
> > rules?
> >
>
>It's really something to read this jingoistic blither on a list devoted to
>Pound.  Like most Americans, Mr. Lukas thinks that September 11 sprung from
>the head of Osama bin Laden fully blown, with no history to predate it.
>Arabs hate America because they're a bunch of religious fanatics who slobber
>at the thought of killing infidels, wherever they may be found.  No mention
>in Mr. Lukas' nationalistic reading of events to include American and Western
>meddling in the Middle-East, the propping up of harsh, repressive regimes,
>the heavy tilt toward Israel as a client state, the continued destruction of
>Iraqi children with the fanatic embargo  -- none of this makes even the
>slightest dent in the ahistorical construct of Mr. Lukas.   It's astonishing.
>but Mr. Lukas makes one nostalgic for En Lin Wei -- whoever he was/is.  No
>sir, all Mr. Lukas can do is throw up his hands and whine --"What is America
>to do?"
>
>
>
>They hang the man and flog the woman
>That steal the goose from off the common,
>But let the greater villain loose
>That steals the common from the goose.
>
>Constant apprehension of war has the same tendency
>to render the head too large for the body.  A standing military
>force with an overgrown executive will not long be safe.
>companions to liberty.  -- Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>"America is a quarter of a billion people totally misinformed and disinformed
>by their government. This is tragic but our media is -- I wouldn't even say
>corrupt -- it's just beyond telling us anything that the government doesn't
>want us to know."
>
>Gore Vidal

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