Saudi Arabia Demonstrates Need for USN and USMC

[Runner]

I see our buddies over in Saudi Arabia are showing their true colors once again.

But you have to admit they are doing a great job proving that the US needs those big aircraft carriers and sea based forces in general.

On the other hand they also show once again we need to reduce our craving for oil...

[BKM]

I still think it is Saudi Arabia we should be preparing to attack-not Iraq. Look who is funding many (most) of the terrorist baddies in the world (after ourselves, of course ) . (Not that I am really a supporter of the Oil Patch Gang's war plans, mind you).

It may be politically incorrect, but I myself don't believe every culture in the world is "equally valid."

[Cardinal]

I think you have to be very careful when you say "look who is funding...." Remember that an individual giving money is far different than a government doing so. Even then, I am willing to believe that some of the money was given to what the donors thought was a legitimate charity. During my time in Saudi Arabia I had to opportunity meet and get to know many people who are no way different that us in their hopes for peace and a good future. If the fact that some give money to causes we do not like is enough to justify a war, then does that give the UK the right to attack us because some US citizens have sent money to the IRA? Do Palastinians have the right to attack us because other US citizens support radical Jewish groups?

[BKM]

I was being a little smart-alecky, of course.

BUT,

One difference is that Saudi Arabia is more of a monocultural society. There are not large minority ethnic groups doing their own political things in their original homelands.

In addition, Wahabiism IS the STATE ideology of Saudi Arabia. Many of the supporters of radical Islam are from the highest levels of Saudi society-including the ruling family itself. The ruling princes themselves are more politic, but many in the ruling class do support these doctrines (at least the ones who are not corrupted by western style vice available only to the elite in Saudi Arabia )

Despite the calming propaganda, Islam, like early Christianity, is not a religion of peace. It was spread by conquest, and Islam cannot really accept concepts like separation of church and state, the existence of other faiths (after conversion attempts have failed), etc. If you read the Bible and Church History, I'm not sure Christianity really can either, but our country is much more secular than Saudi Arabia.

If, using your example, radical militant Catholicism was the STATE religion in the United States, and George Bush's cousins were founding terrorism schools in the northern English Midlands, than Britain would have some grounds (under the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes) for an attack.

I may be liberal, but unlike most liberals, I don't buy the pure relativistic multiculturalism. I am not prejudiced against individual Muslims, and I recognize that there are many peaceful sects in Islam (just like in Chirstianity) but militant Islam frightens me-As does the Christian Reconstructionist branch of Christianity:
[link]http://www.religioustolerance.org/reconstr.htm[/link] ) The latter are even bombing things like abortion clinics.