You are more incoherent here than usual, though considerably shorter, which is a mercy.


You wound me. Your words fall like silent daggers through my thin cloak of pride and find my heart of woeful insecurity.


For example:
To draw a parallel between sinking technically neutral merchant ships in international waters and shooting at military aircraft flying over a hostile (though technically neutralized) nation is also an over-reach.


Hmmm. Our ships were supplying Britain and were therefore aiding the allied side, despite our claims of neutrality. Our planes were enforcing a no-fly zone established by a cease-fire agreement signed by Saddam's government. In both instances our craft wore US markings and were engaged in legal activities. Shooting at ships or planes is about the same thing. In essence we could have resumed the war after the first such incident of demonstrated hostilities. When I hear the left deride the war as unjustified I simply wonder how folks can be so uninformed.


WMD: where?

Where now? Good question. Let me hide a few dozen steel drums full of chemicals here in AZ and see how quickly you or any group of people you care to bring along can find them. This ridiculous assumption that because there have been no immediate warehouses dripping with toxic WMD found, that somehow they do not then exist is a persistant illusion the left perpetuates. The reality is Saddam was a murdering butcher who executed the people who knew anything of importance. How many people in the US know where Jimmy Hoffa's body is? The earth holds many buried secrets. Burying jets, nuclear facilities, chemical vans - the Iraqis demonstrate a pattern of burying prohibited items. Turning over all the soil is impractical and so the intelligence method - trying to find out where they are through paper and people will take time. This is especially true when one realizes the very few folks who might have known there whereabouts have either fled or been killed.

This other assumption that there must somehow be a clear trail is also false. We gave Saddam time enough to bury the Queen Mary if he wanted to and time enough to wipe out the people who buried it. All the evidence and intelligence points to the fact that bombs, chemicals and equipment are out there and I am certain they will eventually be discovered - even if only by accident in 2015 when they build a new shopping mall east of Tikrit. Granted this seems like a copout until one reviews the UNSCOM data and findings, which no one on the left cares to focus on in there state of total denial.


So your family has a history of looking the other way when mass murderers are on the loose.


I'll thank you not to draw parallels between my family and yours.


You were the one who brought up your family - not me.


You may be interested in this short history of Father Coughlin. It gives an interesting insight into American populist politics at the time. American political life is capable of juggling numerous ideas all at once, unlike the simplistic, black-and-white model you have frequently espoused. Isolationism was Republican policy in the US in the 1930s.


Yes and in the thirties it was a wise policy. Only as things started unraveling in Europe did the US start to get serious about the war - and then only a majority agreed with war after Pearl Harbor.


It's interesting that you associate 1930s isolationism with Holocaust denial, especially when the two are separated historically. (Holocaust denial as a non-Nazi activity only began after the evidence was exposed to the world, after the conclusion of World War II.) Are you saying that the two phenomena are fueled by the same basic philosophy?


Just prior and during the early days of the war with Germany there were small vocal groups of opponents who paraded with Nazi banners and emblems and these groups were just as adamant after Hitler invaded Poland after he said he wasn't going to. Hitler's track record was established early on and there were still folks who believed in his right to attack the other nations and occupy them. Kristallnacht occurred in 1933. By 1938 all Jews required identification cards. All this was well known, just as Saddam's brutality is well known but brushed off by the left.

Holocaust denial is comparable to Saddam denial in that both take the stance of innocence whereas evidence and history proves undeniable guilt. Holocaust denial assumes there were no gas chambers or mass graves while Saddam denial assumes there were no WMD. The fact that there were thousands of WMD which were destroyed between 1995-98, and that UNSCOM assumed there were probably more where those came from is completely ignored by those demonstrating bad cases of Saddam denial. You read leftists write "Saddam clearly never had any WMD. They don't exist." I sit stunned and wonder how they can type with their straightjackets on.

They must be using their teeth and pencils.

You say I over-reach in my comparisons. I don't think it's over-reaching at all. Rather it is an uncomfortable position I put the left in as they realize what they are really doing and the company they now eagerly seem to share.

Humanity can't be switched on like a faucet. Compassion is not determined by the result of a coin toss. Either you have it - or you don't. Excusing Saddam's brutal regime to score political points against a President and a party is dehumanizing. Bottling one's compassion and reserving it for strategic usage when it gives a political advantage only hurts oneself.

Secretly rejoicing in the attacks on US troops to be able to say "I told you so" like a Chirac is part of that insecure, dehumanizing behavior which can only serve to lead to greater unhappiness and misfortune for yourself and those around you. There is comfort in numbers and the left take comfort in the fact that others, just like them and sharing their politics, are rejoicing too.

Like the folks at a good lynching - they all can justify their morbid fascination because their neighbor is there shouting and watching as well.

The left has sunken to an all time low because of their frustration with the recent elections and their loss of political power. It really saddens me - because I know and can foreshadow the sort of repercussions which their exploitation of suffering and terror will undoubtedly attract.

But I realize everyone is at varying levels in their development and some still have many lessons to learn. When their compassion is universal and not parsed, then will they be truly worthy of their humanity.

SDAI-Tech1

PS
This isn't dressed solely to you - nor are you even a real good example of the attitudes I am decrying here.