OK, I’ve gone off the deep-end, here, a bit, I realize. I’m no academic. I don’t have this philosophy systematically worked out or connected with the proper labels to the wider world of thinking on such matters. I’m reaching for something in reaction to the craziness of the calls for war I see around me. Discussion boards such as this one – and topics as serious as this – are probably not the place to be quite so tentative and openly speculative. I’ll come back when I can stand and fight to the last.

And US Dept of State immediately rewards Iran: http://newsmax.com/newsfront/Envoy_iran_attack/2008/07/03/109714.html

How can you help a revolution in Iran when we are actively making all sorts of deals with all the remaining evil of axis countries?

You want depressing? Just wait, it may become suicidally so a bit later on.

An objective cold sober look at the hard facts leads to my conclusion. There is no retailiation, retribution, court of emotional opinion, none of these elements which you have single-handedly injected into this discussion. And when you say those, you repaint the entire discussion as such. And another thing–most here actually don’t support war with Iran, per se (pursuit of Iranian agents killing American Troops in Iraq and running back into Iran is legitimate self-defense so that’s different).

Dr. Ledeen has long been a proponent that you can still wage a war by means other than militarily (for example, one element is by TV by fixing VOA). And you yourself know all these things already, yet you still say what you say.

You may not agree with some of the viewpoints, but don’t belittle everyone’s analysis by painting them as a bunch of midget-minded emotional war-mongers with an axe to grind on Ahmadinejad’s or Khamenei’s skull because they looked cross at Israel. That is not at all what it is.

If anyone, you are the emotional party–just look at the basis for your claims of “millions dying” and “they are just as right as you are in the court of emotionalities” or whatever kangaroo court you made up.

To continue to talk in terms of genocide and world conspiracies serves no other purpose than to give justification to – better yet, cover to – the bloody power and revenge seeking interests on both sides of this conflict.

But, then, that depends. It’s actually fairly easy to see the wrong-headedness of going to war; you all could have shut me up long ago by simply asking “What then?”. I suppose I only ask my country to avoid the seductive jingoism of “justice on our side, battling against the evil on theirs” — it’s simply never true. War is always a vast tapestry of horror and injustice on all sides. War is never to be wished for or entered into with anything but the gravest sense of the tragedy of our condition that we could not find an alternative — nearly any alternative – to this. That ain’t what I’m hearing in everyone’s analysis, here. If you *want war* you are in a state that will lead to escalating violence and that you will come to regret. If you are the most powerful nation in the world and *want war* you are simply lazy, not honest in your intentions and allegiances, or take pleasure in the misery of others. That is, you aren’t someone I tend to agree with on most days.

ML:

Okay, you’re a moral relativist. I get it. But like so many moral relativists, you are forever condemning us for our jingoism, without noticing that the jihadis are trying to kill anyone that disagrees with them. Not what I would call great moral uplift, if you get my drift.

Hitler said the holocaust was defensive (retailiation because the Jews were “sucking the life from Germany” whatever that means). Were my sources not “neutral”?

An Iranian president and others have warrants outstanding for their arrests in connection with this massacre on their orders on foreign soil and the victims were targetted because of this obsession Iran’s mullahs have always had and continue to have for killing Jews. These are simply facts. They still warn us frequently that they will erase the “zionist entity” off the map, yet when they actually attack Jews we are surprised? Even some call it “defensive”?

Now, how are you too smart for your own good? You are better informed because you read “neutral” sources and we should do the same. I guess by “neutral” you mean that they also state “their side” (kind of like “they were sucking the blood out of Germany?”) The materials you read, written by the regime’s stealth cronies no doubt, have planted in your head things like why they did it, what is their psychology, it was defensive, what is the root cause, and now, the enlightened person that you are, you are actually talking about the subject on their terms–by mentioning those dumb counterpoints and not realizing it is a massacre.

Even after reading my response here, it probably won’t trigger an epiphany for you. You will probably want to defend your untenable position, and that’s a credit to how enlightened you are and how well you synthesized their propaganda. Now, are your sources so neutral, after they planted these seeds so firmly into your head?

Let’s not talk about this community center bombing on their terms like “defensive” any more, please. That’s insulting to the innocents who died and not really constructive. There are no buyers here for that snake oil–take it to CNN and Sy Hersh.

And B.Hussein Obama(BHO) will take charge of the rest of the surrender during his term. Does Israel know that its abandonement (satrted by Condi) will be complete under BHO? Iranian people know theirs will be.

You are right, the situation “is” depressing.