[What's with this "last visit" thingee at the top right hand side ? It says my last visit was today at 5:06 AM but what I did was just leave myself logged in when I left yesterday ...hmmm]
Subduing or destroying the infidel has not been a consistent preoccupation with Muslims ! It's true that there is that admonition found here and there in their ideology, but if you consider our Christian heritage, it too has had some of that [the "go out to all the world, baptising them in the Name..." has been the premise for quite a few conversions at swordpoint, as well].
We need also to remember that Islam is 700 years younger than Christianity. Look at our "religious campaigns" 700 years ago: we were burning people at the stake, gouging them through with spikes in the Iron Maiden, and so forth.
You know, actually the overarching cause of the Crusades was this: raids on continental Europe by the Vikings precipitated a whole lot of weapon making and orientation towards battle for a considerable brace of years.
After the Viking raids subsided, the "war" economy was in danger of collapse ...until the Pope decided it was time to go wrest the Holy Land back from "the Moors".
That move was probably more pragmatic on his part than we often think, although he was not necessarily aware of it on a conscious level.
Agreed.
The forays into the Middle East are not remotely illustrative of conservatism.
Unhappily, many well-intentioned people have been gulled by these people including me. I voted for Bush - twice !
But the reasons you and other well-intentioned people have for supporting this type of foreign policy are clearly NOT the reasons he has, whatever he might say at any given time. It's all about global dominance.
What first forced me to see that ...was their calling the Minutemen "vigilantes" in a disparaging way, together with the secretive conspiring in 2005 to draft the SPP (read North American Union).
Anyway, this seems like a decent closing point for the thread...
Thank you for a good discussion; although we may not agree, it doesn't harm us to understand one another's point of view.
