"trade and be prosperous"
Sweet.

Nice post, Harvey.
Well said.

Fuckin' lawyers....

We will continue to create this vicious cycle until we withdraw!

Dang, that's a hard one. I agree that promoting economic freedom and mobility a desirable U.S. policy, and one which is likely to bring countries into the civilized sphere, rather than turning to war or extremism. But I think that there is a very real danger here of becoming utopianistic. You post outlines a dialectic history, where human kind start at point A and eventually reaches point B. The communists dreamed that all of humanity was following an unstoppable course to communism. Instead of "to each according to his need", we give "to each according to his ability". Instead of the New Soviet Man, we have the Rational Economic Man. But both models fail to take into account human nature generally, and more specifically, the fact that people are rarely rational.

For example, why do people in a free economy like ours steal? It is a much better long term investment to just get a job--any job. Why is a non-trivial portion of Western liberals so committed against a system which gave them everything they have? Why did an essentially democratic Germany start WWII?

Preventing terrorists from having a home base is a *very* important part of the WOT. But Islamic terrorists can still plan, organize, and carry out attacks in Western countries even though we put tremendous effort into stopping them.

The conclusion that I am coming to, especially in the wake of the London bombings, is that winning the WOT has to start with patching us the weaknesses in our own Western, politically correct society which makes it so easy for them to exploit our own system against ourselves. Spreading our political/economic system around the world is very similar to the communist's view that spreading communism around the world was necessary to protect communism. In both their case and ours, it is true that if no other system exists to compare our system with, our weaknesses become symmetrical with the Islamic societies. Granted, I have no problem with us spreading our system, but it is hard to not recognize the tendency we often see of weak ideologies that have always required that the competition be removed, because they can not stand up on their own merits.

Our system is great in so many ways, but years of leftism have left weaknesses in our system which have to be fixed or we will be easy picking for any band of rag-tag Islamic extremists.

"The war stops when people reach for a lawyer instead of a gun to settle disputes with annoying neighbors."

Yes, grabbing a lawyer and smashing it repeatedly into your neighbor's front door when they're being too noisy works like a charm. Leaving dead lawyers in their yard as a warning
works pretty well too.

The war stops when (no joke) Glenn Reynolds is literally the most evil person on the face of the planet. When he is, then (assuming you don't own any puppies), the world will be at peace.

MG - You need to leave a link to a specific post, because I'm not sure what point you're making.

Grau - LOL! :-D

Okay scarey version...seal the borders Canada and Mexico, all International flights coming In to the country routed to a speacial check point where you basicly get a microscope shoved up your butt before your alowed Into the country we simply don't let them In!
All suspected terrorists get deported.
Or do What were doing now.
Of course with the top version I envision troops goose stepping down our streets at some point.

BB, even if we have to have troops going through the towns they won't be goose stepping. If you'll recall. We had troops all over the place in Sept. '01, last a couple -three months.
Lee Harris, over at Tech Central Station, says that he's uncomfortable with our war response as that seems unproductive to what the Islamonutters are doing. He says that THEY are engaging in a blood feud. They won't stop killing us because they aren't trying to influence future events but, instead, gaining revenge for past events.
I sincerely hope he's wrong because the only way to end a blood feud is to kill out one, or both, of the feuding clans. Trouble is, I'm not at all sure he IS wrong.

I'm going to have to figure out how to link that Harris essay and write some on it at my own Blog, probably this weekend.

Blogless brother -- is that a big microscope or a small microscope?

Ogre--I'm thinkin 2 millionx Electron, gotta make sure your DNA Is In order....I'm hopin they'll use alittle KY before they Insert.

Robert Page has written a book following a study of suicide bombers from 1994-2005. The book is titled Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism.

Here are some of the studies conclusions:

* The data show that there is far less of a connection between suicide terrorism and religious fundamentalism than most people think
* What nearly all suicide terrorist attacks actually have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland
* Three general patterns in the data support these conclusions
1. First, nearly all suicide terrorist attacks - 301 of the 315 in the period I studied - took place as part of organized political or military campaigns
2. Second, democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide terrorists; America, France, India, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey have been the targets of almost every suicide attack of the past two decades
3. Third, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed toward a strategic objective: from Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign - 18 organizations in all - are seeking to establish or maintain political self-determination
* Before Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, there was no Hezbollah suicide terrorist campaign against Israel; indeed, Hezbollah came into existence only after this event.
* Before the Sri Lankan military began moving into the Tamil homelands of the island in 1987, the Tamil Tigers did not use suicide attacks
* Before the huge increase in Jewish settlers on the West Bank in the 1980's, Palestinian groups did not use suicide terrorism
* There had never been a documented suicide attack in Iraq until after the American invasion in 2003.

Mountain Girl: There is a HUGE connection between suicide terrorism and relgious fundamentalism... ALL suicide terrorism is committed BY religious fundamentalists... maybe it's a response to the points you noted above, maybe that's just their excuse, maybe they're just crazy camel fucking fascist bastards... and after they get you out of 'their' territory, they will try to get you out of 'your' territory or convert you to Islam.

"There had never been a documented suicide attack in Iraq until after the American invasion in 2003."

Because there wasn't any viable targets in Iraq. You think Saddam would give a flying fuck
if civilians were being killed?

And do you think he'd hesitate to kill every person in a ten square mile area to eliminate one person he considered an enemy?

Suicide bombings are only effective against people who actually give a shit about human life.

It seems to me that Mountain Girl nor her professor have not read or are unfamiliar with Hezbollah's or Al Qaeda's manifesto. In these documents aside from their Islamic fundamentalism and political principles echoed from the Koran, we find extreme socialist principles that are contrary to our ways of life and their destruction are condoned in the Koran.

So, although the book she talks of is an interesting one, it lacks credibility due to subpar and skewed research.

Good post Harvey!

I think that was pretty well written, Harvey, and you did a good thoughtful job.

Cindy

Madfish Willie Lawyers are the shit so like humpy says "HUMP THIS BITCH!"