Friday, June 14, 2002

posted 6/14/2002 03:45:00 PM by Daniel   0 comments

I thought the following thread about terrorism and Israel was rather revealing. Carol Moore is the leader of a minority "peace" faction within the Libertarian Party which invariably prefers to blame the United States government (and the Israeli government) for provoking terrorist attacks. She always sees Palestinians and Arab-Muslims as the downtrodden victims of aggression who have simply been driven to take desperate measures. When confronted by reasoned discourse that she can't refute, her reaction is to throw a temper tantrum and flee the field (as demonstrated below).

[NOTE: Postings are in reverse chronological order, with the most recent at the top. Bold has been added to improve readability. Also, "Daniel Weiner" is someone else on this email list whose name is coincidentally almost identical to mine -- his last name contains "ei" whereas mine is spelled with an "ie".]

From: Daniel Wiener
To: LP business - miscellaneous discussion
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 9:29 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Saudi government gets in a snit over, gasp, phonecams

Well, now we know how Carol Moore handles inconvenient facts and unanswerable arguments that threaten her worldview:

She yells insults at other people, then closes her eyes and covers her ears while chanting to her computer that they don't exist.

Good plan.

From: Carol Moore
To: LP business - miscellaneous discussion
Sent: Thursday, June 13, 2002 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: Saudi government gets in a snit over, gasp, phonecams

Daniel Wiener wrote:

Carol, your response to Dan Weiner (below) was totally non-responsive. He made the point that a non-interventionist U.S. foreign policy, whatever its merits, is NOT likely to result in Arabs embarking on a path of peace in the Middle East.

I know that you are part of the propaganda machine trying to push the neo-conservative/christian fundamentalist/israel supporter line that all Arabs and Muslims are evil psychotics who have no interest in democracy or freedom and just want to force the most fundamentalist views on the rest of the world (sounds like george bush and his friends). NO ANSWER WILL SATISFY YOU.

I think most libertarians reject this extreme partisan propaganda as a time waster. It's time I did too and have put you are in my kill file with about 10 other people (for this or other reasons).

From: Daniel Wiener
To: LP business - miscellaneous discussion
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 11:23 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Saudi government gets in a snit over, gasp, phonecams

Carol, your response to Dan Weiner (below) was totally non-responsive. He made the point that a non-interventionist U.S. foreign policy, whatever its merits, is NOT likely to result in Arabs embarking on a path of peace in the Middle East. The Zogby poll that you approvingly cite as "a good counter to this bogus propaganda" describes Arab and non-Arab Muslim attitudes toward AMERICA: a majority like our freedom and democracy but disapprove of our policies in the region.

That does NOT prove that changing American Middle East foreign policy to be less interventionist would necessarily reduce the terrorist threat to America, merely because it MIGHT shift Arab public opinion some unknown number of percentage points in our favor. But regardless, Dan Weiner was referring to the prospects of peace in the Middle East, not the terrorist threat to America.

Since you think it is appropriate to cite public opinion polls, a much more relevant survey was reported yesterday by Reuters, titled "Poll: Majority Palestinians See Israel's Elimination As Goal". Among its findings: Fifty-one percent of people surveyed said the end result of the uprising should be "liberating all of historic Palestine." And "68 percent said they approved of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians".

So with 2/3 of Palestinians supporting these monstrously-evil terrorist attacks which have as their (majority) goal the complete elimination of Israel, Dan Weiner's point remains unrefuted. Ending our interventionist foreign policy is not going to Magically lead the Arabs onto a peaceful path. They will keep trying to destroy Israel by killing any and all Israelis they are able to.

There is only one good thing you can say about a suicide bomber: He or she usually ends up dead. That's a very small consolation to the bomber's victims, but at least it's better than if the bomber survived. Sometimes we get lucky, and the suicide bomber fails to kill anyone else besides himself. Sometimes we get very lucky, and some terrorists blow themselves up while they're still in the process of constructing their bombs. And sometimes Israeli defense forces are able to capture or kill the terrorists before they can successfully carry out a bomb attack; that's more skill than luck, but it works for me.

The quicker we can turn terrorists into dead terrorists, the better.

Daniel Wiener

From: Carol Moore
To: LP business - miscellaneous discussion
Sent: Wednesday, June 12, 2002 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Saudi government gets in a snit over, gasp, phonecams

This sort of thing doesn't belong on MISC by the way but Platform Foreign Policy where I have placed the whole article...

Dan Weiner wrote:

We have many good reasons to end our interventionist policies in the middle east and elsewhere. The possibility that Arabs will then be able to bring freedom to their area is not likely to happen, and certainly doesn't constitute a valid reason.

A good counter to this bogus propaganda...

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3444864.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 11 Jun 2002
HOW TO REDUCE TERRORISM: BRING AMERICAN TROOPS HOME
Author: Thomas Gale Moore

.. According to a Zogby International Poll released on April 11, a majority of people in the five Arab countries and three non-Arab Muslim states view our freedom and our democracy with favor.

But overwhelmingly, they disapprove of our policies toward Arab nations and the Palestinians. Kuwait, for example, which we rescued from Iraq, liked our freedom and democracy by 58 percent to 39 percent, but only 6 percent viewed our policies favorably and a huge 88 percent disapproved of our policies in the Middle East.