>>It was about oil and power and redrawing the map of the middle east, as
>noted
>>previously.
>
>I don't think anyone has doubted that. But my own question remains,
>Joe: Why is redrawing the map of the middle east a bad thing?

We have problems here at home, ranging from poverty, to crime, to drug abuse,
to such politica silliness as gerrymandering and political deadlock and weapon
exportation, we've armed half the world and set the other half of the world
against them, helped to create the Taliban and arm Bin Laden, there are
tremendous problems here at home....

So how would you feel if someone came in to redraw the map of the United States
to solve those problems for the good of the world?

We don't own that part of the world. Nor is it within our purview to use death
and destruction to mold people the way we want them to be.

We are meant to be a shining beacon on a hill, to show those who believe in the
possibility of democratic ideals that it *is* possible, and to support those
who make the attempt to change things, as we did in what was the Soviet Union,
in South Africa, in the Phillipines, and elsewhere.

Changing the middle east to a more peaceful form? Sure. Doing it uninvited,
at gunpoint and with the accompaniment of unprovoked bomb blasts when our
safety was never at risk? No.


jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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