it’s freedom and our way of life that’s at stake here.

Holy hell, what are you so scared of?

You sit in a nation with over six thousand nuclear weapons, the largest air force and navy in history, the most advanced weapons system the world has ever known...

...and you're scared that a few thousand religious nuts, armed with Kalishnakovs and IED's are going to invade- and WIN?

Do you buy this? Is America so fragile that terrorists can knock over some buildings, mail some anthrax to Daschle, and POOF- our entire society collapses on itself- three hundred million convert to Islam out of fear, cower before nations who can't even cross the Atlantic, and abandon all hope in fear of death?

How low your opinion of America is.

Did we surrender to Islamic overlords when they blew up the Cole? Did we all run to the nearest Mosque on 9-11?

We did not.

There is nothing- nothing- even the combined power of the entire Arab and Persian worlds could throw at us and win. Even if Iran produced a few atom bombs, even if every man from Egypt to Pakistan was drafted and given a rifle... we are the United fucking States.

What makes you so paranoid? Do you need an enemy so badly, that you will ascribe God-like powers to a bunch of terrorists? Did the vaucum left behind from the Soviet threat leave you still itching for Armageddon?

Is your oven leaking gas?

Come back to reality, Yabu. It's all rhetoric. Greedy men, lusting for power, using Islam as a vessel for their own personal gain. They are all bark, and no bite. 9-11? A nibble on the heel compared to our capabilities.

The End is not near. Put down the kool-aid, and take off the white Nikes. The struggle for civilization is over, and the USSR lost.

They are flies. You do not swat them with a Mossberg 12-gauge. You simply get out your fly swatter.

Raoul, the struggle for civilization is not over. Do you watch the news?

Did you read about the Chinese ABM test last weekend, where they intercepted and destroyed a satellite? Why do you think the Chinese want the ability to negate satellites?

Did you read about the North Koreans and Iranians cooperating on long-range ballistic missile technology? Why do you think the NKs and the Iranians want ICBMs?

Did you read about the assassination, by radiation poisoning, of a Russian dissident in England? About the nationalization of Shell and BP-owned and developed oilfields in Siberia? About the assassination of Russian journalists in Moscow who are reporting on the re-establishment of the totalitarian state there? Why do you think this is happening?

The problem with declaring that the struggle for civilization is over, is that if others don't believe you and decide to continue the struggle, then you need to be ready to continue as well.

The War on Terror is really a war against the barbarians, who have always been out there. The barbarians don't think they've lost. They think we're weak, and they think this because they kill us with relative impunity, with no consequences. They think this because we, or our pusillanimous allies, sell them the very rope (technology) with which they seek to hang us.

Re "all bark and no bite", tell that to the families of the 3,000 people who died on 9/11... and realize that the target wasn't 3,000 it was 50,000+ (the population of both WTC towers during the average workday). Plus taking out the leadership of the US (Congress, the Pentagon) as an opening stroke of their war against us. Don't even think about the $1 trillion that was lost as a result of the economic damage caused by 9/11. In real terms, 9/11 was an order of magnitude worse than Pearl Harbor, and it is only due to America's strength and resiliency that we survived it as well as we did.

So I ask you, Raouel, do we go back to a pre-9/11 world, relax our security, pull out of the Middle East, go on the defensive, and wait until the terrorists manage to sneak a nuclear weapon into an American city? Or, do you doubt that this will ever happen?

In other words, are you a defeatist or just stuck in denial?

The Chinese will rule the world one day.

They do not subscribe to Trotskyism, and are vehemently opposed to infringing on the sovereignty of other nations, so there will be no new Cold War. They do not seek to impose Communism on anyone else. Conflict between us and them will come only over Taiwan, and frankly, I could not care one bit if China takes Taiwan. It is not our place to step in, and our policy is unnecessarily dangerous.

As for this...

So I ask you, Raouel, do we go back to a pre-9/11 world, relax our security, pull out of the Middle East, go on the defensive, and wait until the terrorists manage to sneak a nuclear weapon into an American city? Or, do you doubt that this will ever happen?

Is that what I said? Should I be more clear? Here you go:

Yabu, like various other freepers, seems to believe that the Islamic terrorists have the ability to bring down the United States. That the struggle is so dire, that we must obliterate the entirety of the Muslim world, lest we perish.

Do you believe this? Even in the worst case scenario, where a nuclear weapon is detonated in the United States, do you think we will simply roll over, convert to Islam, and allow the Arabs and Persians to rule us from afar?

Where are the scars from 9-11, other than in the hearts of the families? Our economy is recovered, the buildings are being rebuilt, and- this is cold, but true- 3,000 people is not a great loss to a country of 300 million.

We survived, and quite well. If anything, we are stronger today than before the attack.

I do not- do not- hold that we should withdraw from Iraq (yet), allow Iran to get nuclear weapons, or lesson our security at home. Terrorism is a very real threat- but it can not and will never bring down the United States. It does not threaten our existence, way of life, or standing in the world.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, how long will it last? Two carrier groups, and several airbases in Saudi Arabia stand poised to blow the living hell out of the country. Do not forget, this is the nation who fought a war to a stalemate with an army we demolished in a week.

...but I digress. I am not a "defeatist", no matter how badly you want me to be. I am not in denial- especially about the enemy's capabilities versus our own, as Yabu seems to be. Ascribing the same threat level to a gaggle of sandy rebels as we did to the Soviet Union is nothing short of delusional.

We can, and are, dealing with the terrorist threat without conquering the entire Middle East. To call for the full use of our military, to claim that we should be involved in a culture war against the Arabs and Persians, to deride every Muslim as “our enemy”, that is nothing but bloodlust.

That is not America.

"Yabu, like various other freepers, seems to believe that the Islamic terrorists have the ability to bring down the United States. That the struggle is so dire, that we must obliterate the entirety of the Muslim world, lest we perish."

Nowhere is there a call to "obliterate the entirety of the Muslim world." What he is saying, and what I agree with, is that we need to obliterate those who attack us, and those who support those who attack us. We need to obliterate the terrorists and the terror-masters.

We need to kill any insurgents/terrorists in Iraq who do not lay down their weapons and get with the program. We need to show Iran and Syria that their meddling will not be allowed... most likely by blowing the sh!t out of an Iranian/Syrian base that we can track terrorist support back to. And, we cannot and must not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons. If that means we have to invade Iran to destroy their facilities, then we do so.

Are we reading the same blog?

I'm not about to go through seven months of Yabu's posts, but there are several instances where he advocates using nuclear weapons.

Couple that with the idea that "our way of life is at stake here", and you get a blogger who can't seem to distinguish between all Muslims and the terrorists. It is that phrase, and idea- that we would somehow crumble under terrorism- that set me off.

For what it's worth, I agree with everything you said in your last post- even if I think that invading Iran is a strategic impossibility. Do not pigeonhole me with all liberals.