LeftExchange
Round Two - by Steve Hopkins
........ I’ve been watching and reading and listening to every thing I can about what’s going on and what’s been going on and what might happen with this whole Afghanistan/Islamic/Muslim thing. I certainly hope all of you have! I’m seeing all sorts of things coming up here at Synergy that are surprising. Why am I surprised? What’s wrong with the ideas being presented here? There is never really anything wrong with ideas or the concept of sharing those ideas and trying to make the world a better place with those ideas. When the information those ideas are based on is wrong or deceptive or naïve or seriously biased, then the ideas become nonsense. Yikes, did I say nonsense!!! Yes.
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........ With all the things I have gleaned from the information being tossed at us at the incredible rate that it is coming, I have been able to determine just a few things. There is a terrible hate of the “west” by a fairly large group of radicals in the mid-east. The most radical of these groups has launched an all out assault against our way of life, our government, our values, our religions. We are trying to fight back by stopping their ability to bring their war into our country because of past acts on their behalf by their warriors/soldiers. Now, I know as well as anyone that’s a simplification of the situation, but in a nutshell that’s it! The details don’t really matter to us right now.
........ I don’t put anyone down for their beliefs, religion, values, point of view, color, sex, etc, etc, etc. It is because I am an American that I was raised to feel this way, to perceive the world this way.
........ The people we’re fighting, (if anyone’s been watching) feel just the opposite. We’re hated because we’re not like them, because we’re different from them and because our values are not the same. It is because they are Islamic radicals that they were raised to feel this way!
........ They are the opposite of what we are!
........ An interview I watched the other night with a young soldier of some warring faction in Afghanistan was so unbelievable. Asked what he did, he said “I fight, everyday, I fight”) Why did he fight? “I am a soldier, it’s what I do” then he continued “ War is good, I fight everyday. What else would I do?”
........ Sheesh.
........ We are as much a product of our environment as we are of heredity. These people are what they are. Maybe some day we’ll be able to help them be something different. But right now like it or not, they are our very deadly enemy. If any one of us were dropped into their country in the midst of the Taliban we would be killed outright because we are not them!
........ Period!
........ What is it that you would say to any one of them that would change their warrior mindset. What peaceful suggestions could you make to help them see that they should kill us. If you are in anyway a realist ( not that you can’t also be an idealist) and in touch with reality you would realize that we must first defend the lives of our citizens and loved ones and friends before any changes can be made in that dark part of the world. No one is listening over there! No one. So you have no minds to change. You have no ears to plead to. You have no point to be made.